a few days it will be forgotten—­meanwhile I will take a walk in the Park.’  Scarce had the gentleman got into the street, before, lo! at a butcher’s shop blazed the ‘very head and front of his offending.’  ’Second night of its appearance, the admired Farce of ——­, by ——­, Esq.’  Away posts the Author to the Manager.—­’Good Heavens!  Sir, my farce again! was it not thoroughly damned last night?’—­’Thoroughly damned!’ quoth the Manager, drily; ’we reproduce it, Sir—­we reproduce it (with a knowing wink,) that the world, enraged at our audacity, may come here to damn it again.’  So it is, you see! the love of money is the contempt of man:  there’s an aphorism for you!  Let us turn to the stage.  What actresses you have!—­certainly you English are a gallant nation; you are wonderfully polite to come and see such horrible female performers!  By the by, you observed when that young lady came on the stage, how timidly she advanced, how frightened she seemed.  ‘What modesty!’ cry the audience; ‘we must encourage her!’ they clap, they shout, they pity the poor thing, they cheer her into spirits.  Would you believe that the hardest thing the Manager had to do with her was to teach her that modesty.  She wanted to walk on the stage like a grenadier, and it required fifteen lessons to make her be ashamed of herself.  It is in these things that the stage mimics the world, rather behind the scenes than before!”

“Bless me, how Braham is improved!” cried a man with spectacles, behind me; “he acts now better than he sings!”

“Is it not strange,” said Asmodeus, “how long the germ of a quality may remain latent in the human mind, and how completely you mortals are the creatures of culture?  It was not till his old age that Braham took lessons in acting; some three times a week has he of late wended his way down, to the comedian of Chapel-street, to learn energy and counterfeit warmth; and the best of it is, that the spectators will have it that an actor feels all he acts; as if human nature, wicked as it is, could feel Richard the Third every other night.  I remember, Mrs. Siddons had a majestic manner of extending her arm as she left the stage.  ‘What grace!’ said the world, with tears in its eyes, ’what dignity! what a wonderful way of extending an arm! you see her whole soul is in the part!’ The arm was in reality stretched impatiently out for a pinch from the snuff-box that was always in readiness behind the scenes.”

It is my misfortune, Reader, to be rapidly bored.  I cannot sit out a sermon, much less a play; amusement is the most tedious of human pursuits.

“You are tired of this, surely,” said I to the Devil; “let us go!”

“Whither?” said Asmodeus.

“Why, ’tis a starlit night, let us ride over to Paris, and sup, as you promised, at the Rocher de Cancale.”

“Volontiers.”

Away—­away—­away—­into the broad still Heavens, the stars dancing merrily above us, and the mighty heart of the City beating beneath the dusky garment of Night below.