as a mere chimæra,-and there is an end to the objection.

At present, the civil and military servants are the artificers of their own dramatic amusement, and I question whether much would be gained by having it sent out ready-made. What a delightful bustle, what a stir of preparation, in getting up an amateur play! What shifts and contrivances to supply defects! what laughable disputes for the chief characters! what perplexities in casting the female parts and drilling them to feminine postures, and what exquisite farce to hear them, in their half-caste accent, mimicking the affected minced lisp of a lady of fashion! The green-room anecdotes of the Madras theatre would make an entertaining volume. It was, perhaps, the happiest model of a summertheatre that was ever constructed, and from the universality of its uses, probably (for I could never discover a more rational etymology),-being at one time an assembly-room, at another, a place for holding masonic lodges, and at others, for a general meeting for the settlement,-received the name of Pantheon. However, it was a handsome building, and capable of holding, pit, boxes, and gallery, nearly seven hundred persons. When there was a ball, a temporary flooring was thrown over the pit, and it served the purpose of a spacious ball-room.

The amusing periods of its history, like the amusing periods of every thing else in India, are now departed. The reductions of salary in both services, conjoined with other causes, have thrown a gloom over the innocent and cheerful diversions that, in my time, enlivened the place, and gave a life and spirit to those humble theatrical experiments, which will long live in my memory. Mark Rowarth, the arbiter elegantiarum of the settlement, was the manager, with a liberal stipend, of the Madras theatre.

His company was recruited by young military men, by even a few civilians; and for female characters, he had a regular school of young Portuguese or European half-castes, whom he contrived to rouge and whiten into something of female semblance.

But Colonel Elisha Trapaud! Oh that, for one moment, I held the pen of Scarron, to paint the Roman Comique of which poor Trapaud,—usually termed in unkind derision Colonel Crapaud,-was the Ragotin. He had all the theatrical irritabilities of that entertaining personage, and, by coaxing his vanity, might be prevailed upon to undertake any part, however unsuited to his figure and person, which were almost caricatures of humanity. Reader, if you had that exquisite work of the most delightful of French authors on your table, I might

be spared the trouble of sketching this most exact counterpart of him. But imagine a figure, somewhat diminutive, yet protruding into all sorts of ungraceful angles, the whole outline being a kind of rhomboid:-imagine this figure, at the advanced age of fifty or fifty-five, surmounted with a youthful wig luxuriant with curls, and haunted with the happy consciousness of his personal perfections, and no very limited notions of his intellectual ones, for he was the Admirable Crichton of his own fancy. But, with all his conceit, he was a useful actor, and though it was the fashion to laugh at him the moment he appeared on the stage, he set it down as the effect of some comic hit, that pleased the audience, without dreaming that he himself was the subject of it. Upon one occasion, a wag, willing to amuse himself at his expense, actually persuaded him to write a comedy, and, unluckily, he set about it in good earnest. Being an efficient member of Mark Rowarth's dramatic corps, Mark could not refuse to act it, when it was completed. Such a farrago of dulness and absurdity was never exhibited before, but he was proud of it, and took great pains in getting it up. The performers, to do them justice, did all they could for it; for Trapaud's vanities and irritabilities were harmless and amusing, and there was no wish to give him offence. But,

as for persuading him that the piece would not do, it was out of the question. He would have seized by the throat any body, whoever he might be, that ventured to throw out the slightest criticism upon its faults.

To this comedy, which he called the Merchant of Smyrna, he wrote a prologue, and insisted upon Mark Rowarth's speaking it. The critic of the Madras Gazette, the next morning, observed of it, that "it abounded in undisputed truths and incontrovertible propositions:" a criticism (such is the omnivorous nature of vanity) which gave the colonel great satisfaction, for he was as proof against the shafts of ridicule or irony, as an alligator to a musket-ball. A line or two of it, I shall never forget. It began thus-and the house was in a roar, whilst Rowarth, with as much seriousness as he could force into his countenance, delivered or rather attempted to deliver it:

To-night, my gentle friends, we act a play-
Approve it or condemn it, as you may.

In Thespis' days, a waggon was the stage-
But larger theatres adorn our age.
In Drury's pile assembled hundreds sit,
Judges of taste and arbiters of wit.

But we

I forget how it went on, but it was a most egregious specimen of nonsense-and excited, of course,

thunders of mock applause. By dint, however, of cutting and slashing, this performer forgetting his part, and another substituting some equivalent nonsense of his own, it arrived at its termination; the poor author, all the while, swearing and stamping with rage at their spoiling his piece. But when it was over, there arose, by a preconcerted understanding amongst persons in different parts of the theatre, a call of "Author! author!" and a crown wreathed with flowers was thrown on the stage. Old Trapaud, in reality delighted, was with illaffected reluctance led on to be crowned between two of the performers. The crown, however, was too small to fit his head without taking off his wig, which his two supporters dashed unceremoniously on the floor. The joke, however, was too practical a one; for the crown had been made of leaves from a prickly hedge, and the thorny part scratched the bald part of his head, so that it streamed with blood, and he ran off the stage, swearing destruction to the contrivers of the insult.

Never shall I forget,-for these are not unpleasing reminiscences,-the getting up of Macbeth, and to say the truth, it was got up most respectably, and Matthew Locke's music was admirably performed, under the superintendence of Topping, who was an excellent musician. Lady Macbeth