the part of an active courtier, who only came on in the opening of the piece, in order that I might lead in a walk-round, which we had taken considerable pains to bring to perfection. I was soon gratified by finding that the puns-good, bad, and indifferent-in most instances hit their mark; whilst the audience were fairly thawed by the walk-round, which was vociferously redemanded. Of course we repeated it; and at its conclusion I made my final exit. But, as ill-luck would have it, in the bustle and excitement I went off at the wrong side of the stage. It would not have signified particularly, had not the scene extended to the very back of the room, and consequently there were no possible means of getting to the opposite side, except by crossing in sight of the audience. This would never do, as it would interfere with the action of the piece. I might have waited till the next scene was down, when I could have passed behind it; but the scene then proceeding was a long one, and I was anxious to get to the dressing-room on the other side, to exchange my present costume for the conventional evening suit, so as to appear in proper trim if the author should be called before the curtain to respond to the compliment. As this was the honour of all others that I coveted, my anxiety not to lose it by any accident can be understood. Ι again and again, receiving the punishment on all sides of my unfortunate skull. The monotony of this frequently recurring proceeding was varied by my coming into collision with and overturning a large pot of paint, which had been left by one of the workmen. Sprawling over it, I got well besmeared with the creamy compound, and must have presented very much the appearance of a considerably over-painted African chief in a Tudor suit. The atmosphere was hot and stifling in the extreme-the_room itself being crowded and ill-ventilated, and the footlights close adjacent to me; and with excitement and my recent exertions combined, I was in a perfect vapour bath. Nevertheless, I persevered, supported by the, to me, great issues at stake, and had reached what I judged to be the centre of the stage, when I heard a sharp click, a sudden pain shot through me, and, to my indescribable horror, my right hand, which I had rested on I knew not what, was seized as if in a vice. I attempted in vain to drag it away from the iron grasp detaining it, and at last summoned courage to feel with my other hand to ascertain if possible the nature of the dreadful creature in whose power I was. I soon discovered I was caught in a gigantic rat-trap, which, with feelings better imagined than described, I found was securely fastened to one of the supports. The pain was intense, whilst all my efforts to free myself with my disengaged hand were useless. All this time my burlesque was proceeding overhead, every word of it being distinctly audible to me. It was going gloriously; and here was the author of it lying ignominiously caught in a rat-trap! The situation would have been ludicrous enough. had it not been intensely painful. I heard every note of Timpkins's solo,—and uncommonly well he sang it!-and yet how earnestly did I pray that it wouldn't be encored A happy thought-at least it appeared so -flashed across me. As I could not go over the stage, why shouldn't I go under it? I knew to my cost, as I had nearly dislocated my ankle through it, that there was a space at one corner left between the wall of the room and the boards forming the temporary stage. By squeezing myself through it, I might grope my way across and come up at the other side, where I hoped to find a similar opening, or, failing that, I could but return. After some difficulty, I managed to let myself down-though not without bruis--my ing my ribs, tearing my doublet and trunks, and losing my wig-and commenced my wanderings below, amidst a forest of timbers, &c. I was forced to feel my way on my hands and knees, and had not made much progress on my journey before my forehead came into violent contact with one of the supports. As, with the exception of an occasional gleam of gaslight visible between the interstices of the planks, all was darkness, I repeated this bumping performance torture being thereby prolonged; though but a short time ago I would have shouted until I was hoarse to that end. But it was, and Timpkins-what maledictions I called down upon him!-went right through it again from the beginning. How every step of Brownlow's hornpipe thudded, as it were, on my excited brain. I knew B.'s Terpsichorean abilities too well to hope for an instant that the audience would be denied a repetition of it; and though I could distinctly hear him puffing, and blowing, and gasping for breath, the love of kudos sustained him, and once more did his nimble footsteps tread the rapid measure. Then how long-how very long did they prolong the broadsword combat to melodramatic fiddling in the third scene! Would Timpkins never run him through, I thought. Oh, if I only dared shout "Help!"-and I must certainly have done so had I not been perfectly sure that it would have produced a panic, with probably all its fearful results, among the audience, who would at once have jumped at the conclusion that the place was on fire. My play, too, was at stake the work of weeks would have been ruined. And then what a state I was in, to be hauled out and gazed at by everybody, bedaubed with paint, begrimed with dust, with a bruise nearly as big as an egg on my forehead, in a motley garb soiled and torn, dishevelled as to my locks, and with my hand in a rat-trap. A pretty spectacle for beholders, truly! No, the piece was drawing to a conclusion, and I would bear it a little longer. My senses seemed preternaturally acute. Faint as I was with pain, I heard, and, in my mind's eye, saw, everything transpiring on the stage. There was Johnson, stuck at the very point I told him at the dress rehearsal he would be--he never could get that line into his head. How I longed to give him the cue; but Dingle came to the rescue and filled up the pause, whilst Johnson got the word from the prompter. The performance seemed to last for an age; but at last they came to the tag, and then the finale, consisting of a chorus and dance by the whole strength of the company. I wondered whether the property-man would remember to light the red fire, which I had been so particular to have placed in readiness-no pun intended-at the wing before I went on. Yes; its fumes, assailing my nostrils, soon convinced me he had not forgotten it. Now, the orchestra was playing with might and main, and all the company were hard at it, dancing away as if for dear life. Every board seemed to rise and fall and creak under their united tread, thumping at my head as if ten thousand demons were holding a Terpsichorean orgie above me. Cheers, clapping of hands, and shouts of "Encore, encore!" filled the air as the curtain descended. A perfect Babel of voices, and up went the curtain again, and once more those horrible demons performed their infernal can-can. Oh, mercy, when would they cease! And then my head began to swim as shouts of "Author, author!" resounded in my ears, and I heard footsteps run from side to side, and Timpkins calling, "Where is he?" I heard no more-exhausted nature could hold out no longer, and, giving one long pent-up cry of agony, I fainted. When I came to myself, I was lying on the stage, surrounded by the whole of the company, my head supported by Timpkins, who was bathing my forehead and trying to pour brandy down my throat at the same time; my neck bared, and the hideous instrument of torture which had caused me so much suffering lying at my side. suffering lying at my side. A medical man, one of the audience, was bending over me, and after I had taken a pull at the flask, pronounced that I should soon be all right. My hand, which was bleeding and cut to the bone, was next attended to and scientifically bound up; but the marks of some of those terrible iron teeth are visible at this very moment. It appeared that my compatriots were too much absorbed in the performance to miss me until I was called for, when, as every one was hunting to congratulate me and push me before the curtain, my cry gave them information as to my whereabouts. Immediately all hands were at work pulling up the centre of the stage, and I was discovered. Dobson, the prompter, remembered seeing me disappear under the boards; but somebody requiring a prompt at the moment, my unaccountable movement went out of his head, and he only thought of it again when I was wanting. The trap had been placed where I had unfortunately lighted upon it, by one of the carpenters, who thirsted for vengeance on a rat that, in his absence, had eaten a portion of his dinner a few days before. But "all's well that ends well," and "Good Queen Bess" was considered so successful that a second performance of it was given shortly after, when the audience, to make amends for my previous disappointment, bestowed upon me the honour I so longed for, and summoned me before the curtain, "to receive," in journalistic phraseology, "an ovation." The Darborough Thespians have ceased to exist-at least as a society. Timpkins has taken unto himself a wife, and rejoices in a son and heir, to whom I have often confided my fragment of theatrical experience. The remainder of the members are scattered about in various parts of the habitable globe; and if any one of them should chance to read this, I will be bound he has not forgotten the incident related, and will bear testimony to the truth of it in all its essential particulars. For my own part, I can safely avow that, though I may live to the age of Methuselah, I shall never cease to remember the eventful night that witnessed the production of my first burlesque. SIR will succeed in "engineering" his bill through the House. 66 THERE IS ANOTHER QUESTION quite as dear to us, though, as the fencing round of Abury, Stonehenge, and Maeshowe with a Parliamentary hedge. The monuments of London-stone, bronze, and compo-surely are in some sense national," are worthy of a little attention, and are particularly in need of it. Leicester-square being now enclosed with the hoarding of an advertisement contractor, and plastered over with bills, is in a more sightly condition than it has been in for some years. Whether the celebrated equestrian statue is still there or not we are unable to say, as, if it is on its old pedestal, it is hidden from view. The spectacle of a horse with three legs only, and minus the kingly figure that for many years sat in silent majesty on its back, is taken from us. And yet history repeats itself. The statue of Stocksmarket is repeated in the statue of Leicester-square. Sir Robert Viner, Lord Mayor, being a loyal subject, erected a statue to King Charles II. in Stocksmarket, at his own expense. Formed of white marble, it stood on a neat conduit in 1675; but when, in 1735, the City council fixed on Stocksmarket for the site of a house of residence for the Lord Mayors of London, the statue was removed to make way for the Mansion House. There is a curious incident with regard to this equestrian statue. It was made for John Sobieski, King of Poland, but left on the workman's hands. To save expense and time, Sobieski of Poland was cut down into Charles of England; and, to complete the matter, a Turk, underneath the monarch's horse, was chiselled into Oliver Cromwell, as a pretty compliment to the third Stuart. They left the turban on the fellow's head, though; and so the truth was discovered. In 1779, Robert Viner, a descendant of the loyal chief magistrate, applied to the Court of Common Council to have the statue erected by his ancestor delivered to him for his private use, which was at once done. The account ends by saying, "Where the statue is now (1819) we do not know." Half a century has passed; now we hardly care to know, but wish Mr. Robert Viner's example was extensively followed, as there are many statues and monumental devices in London much more suitable for "private use" than for public orna IR JOHN LUBBOCK is not alone in desiring to preserve the stone monuments of England from the hands of the spoilers. But a difficulty will arise out of Sir John's act if ever it becomes law. This will be to settle in every specific instance what is or is not a stone monument. Agriculturists will resist the cutting of pathways across their fields in order that visitors may gaze on the records of the Past: their cattle will not take kindly to the conversion by Act of Parliament of what, through many bovine generations, has been used as a rubbing post into a protected national monument. Clause of the act says:"A monument shall include any tumulus, barrow, cromlech, dolmen, meulin, dyke, fosse, &c." Suppose this clause infringed, and a case tried at the county assizes what jury will be able to give a satisfactory opinion on the distinction subsisting between tumuli and barrows, or to tell what is the nature of dolmens and meulins? It seems a little doubtful whether Sir John Lubbock | ment. and other wild animals are daily expected. All the wild animals taken to New Orleans before the fire have been ordered north to join the show. The exhibition of trained elephants, ostriches, camels, and goats is said to be marvellously interesting. Telegraphic communications have been sent to the mechanicians of Paris and Geneva, and the most wonderful automata have been specially constructed. "Colossal as was the Great Travelling World's Fair of 1872, that of 1873," says Mr. Barnum, "will far surpass it." All his life, Mr. Barnum has been engaged in eclipsing his own doings of the day before. MR. HAYWOOD, Q.C., in his "Biogra- three nylghaus, five ostriches, living tigers, phical and Critical Essays," new series-a critical book that is almost above criticism, and of which it would be difficult to speak too highly-gives a charming picture of the London salon of a generation back, and speaks with a tone of regret of the great extension of the world of fashion since those halcyon days. The time when the fashionable district of London was "bounded on the south by Pall Mall, on the north by Oxfordstreet, on the east by Regent-street, and on the west by Park-lane," has long since passed. Nor, if the Berrys lived in Curzon-street, Mayfair, now, would the lighting of the lamp over their hospitable door be a sufficiently public notice to their friends of their willingness to receive them that evening. "Sometimes a note, sometimes a word, and more often the lamp being lighted over the door, was taken as a notice to attend." But this could only have been enough when all the world lived close by. Now a new world lives north, south, and west of Hyde Park, who very likely hardly drive down Curzon-street once a fortnight. If people who were intimate at these houses have cause to regret the change that has come over London society, those who were less fortunate may rejoice at the ever-widening circle that has included them. WHO DOES NOT FEEL some sort of interest in the Yankee autobiographer and showman, Barnum? The guileless old fellow is spreading his nets again, after the fire that burnt him out; and it is reassuring to hear from America that no holocaust, however devastating and resistless, can blot Barnum's Museum from the amusement world. The veteran showman is in the field again, and will reopen his museum, menagerie, and hippodrome, at the American Institute Rink, Third Avenue, on Monday, March 31. Since the third destruction of his museum by fire, Mr. Barnum has procured a larger collection of wild animals and curiosities than ever before; and, in addition to these attractions, three first-class circus companies will give simultaneous performances in three district rings, and in such a manner that they can all be seen at the same moment. All kinds of rare novelties have been brought from abroad, and the arrival of a pair of giraffes, a young gorilla, a rhinoceros, a horned horse, two Polar bears, a number of elands, several yaks, CERTAIN ENGLISH CELEBRITIES having come back from America with pockets full of money, there has been a mighty stampede of lecturers, actors, and others to the States. No wonder, when we have American authority for the following state of the poll in dollars among the "stars" there: — " "It is certain that in America 'star' actors and actresses are richer than in any other part of the world. Edwin Forrest is rated at a million and a half dollars, say £300,000; Charlotte Cushman, £70,000; John Owens, £80,000; Barney Williams, £50,000'; and Joseph Jefferson, £60,000; and, with the exception of Mr. Forrest's, all these fortunes have been gained in the last twenty-five years." As a warning to British gentlemen about to follow in the race for the Yankee dollars, though, we quote from our authority for the above these words of wholesome caution"The Americans are lavish in their payments for first-class talent, and no country in the world has rewarded great artists so liberally as they have such cele- ! brities as Jenny Lind, Fanny Ellsler, Sontag, Grisi, and Nilsson; but second-rate artists are silently but certainly suffered to sink." From a less public source we learn that several third-rate Englishmen - novelists, actors, elocutionists-have found out too late the truth of this, and very much wish they had stopped at home. They are on their way back to us, sadder but wiser men. Communications to the Editor should be addressed to the Office, 19, Tavistock-street, Covent-garden, W.C. The authors of the articles in ONCE A WEEK reserve to themselves the right of translation. Terms of Subscription for ONCE A WEEK, free by post:-Weekly Numbers for Six Months, 5s. 5d.; ¦ Monthly Parts, 5s. 8d. ENN, two days afterwards, brought his ward back again to the old chambers. Mary hugged and kissed her; but when Laura promised to call and see her soon, she only shook her head and said it was better not, and began to cry. And then she went back to her room again, and found it cheerless and dreary indeed. Hartley helped Laura upstairs, and installed her in her old place, the old chair by the fire. For a while neither spoke. "It looks like what it used to be, Lollie," he said; "but it is not. It never can be again." "Ah, no! It never can be again. My fault, my fault." "Never again, never again. The waters Price 2d. are troubled, dear, and we shall be long in getting them clear. But think no more of the past. You are always my little girl, remember; and if you were dear to me before, Lollie, when you were but a child, you are doubly dear now, when you come back to me in your sorrow and trouble. There are to be no more lessons, and talks, and walks. I must not see you very often, and never here, because people might talk. But never doubt, my child, that I love you." He kissed her forehead and caressed her face in his old calm way, while the tears were standing in his eyes. She dropped her face in her hands, and wept unrestrainedly. Miss Venn appeared at this juncture. She had walked to Gray's Inn, making up her mind to be kind, but yet severe; for elopement should always be visited by coldness of manner, at least. Besides, meditation of forty-eight hours had revealed to her the cunning manner in which her brother had entrapped her into a generosity of which she half repented. But at sight of her brother's sorrow, and the weak, wasted figure in the chair, her resolution gave way; and almost before she had got the girl well in her fat, motherly arms, she was crying over her, and kissing her, with a vehemence which did infinite credit to the family. Hartley left them, and presently returned with the kidneys, cooked in his bed-room. Nobody could do kidneys so well as Hartley, or brew such splendid coffee. And sympathy brings its own reward in the shape of appetite. After this, she took Lollie away with her, laid her on the sofa, and with Anne, made much of her. I have only to add that the public appearance of Laura, and the way in which she was carried off by Miss Venn, entirely re-established her in the eyes of the Gray's Inn functionaries, and effectually drowned |