circumstances in which I had previously set eyes on it. He appeared to be the leader of the revels, and kept his companions in fits of laughter at his sallies. I beat my brains to remember him, but all in vain. All that I could arrive at was a sense of incongruity, an impression of the unexpected in the spectacle I had witnessed.

In the evening I went to the "Frivolity," to see the latest rays of the lamp of burlesque. That scene, at any rate, was familiar. There, in all their spotless panoply of expressionless face, and irreproachable shirt-front, sat the golden lads of the Metropolis in their rows, images of bored stupidity, stiffly cased in black and white. There too, were to be seen the snowy shoulders and the sparkling jewels of the ladies both of the smart and of the higher half world, with here and there an extensive dowager to add weight and decorum to the throng. The curtain drew up on one of the usual scenes of rejoicing. Shapely ladies, in tights, chorused their delight at the approaching nuptials of a great lord's daughter. Then the contented peasantry of the surrounding district stepped forward to swell the joyful strains, and to be regaled with draughts of sparkling emptiness from the inexhaustible beaker wielded by the landlord of the neighbouring inn. And there, under the broad hat of one of these rejoicing peasants, I recognised the bull-frog face that had puzzled me that day at Epsom. In a flash I remembered him and all the scenes in which he had played a humble part. Far back from the dimness of some of my earliest theatrical experiences, up to the present moment, I followed him on his career, simulating joint merriment, bearing one of many banners, carrying a pike or a halberd in an army similarly armed, conspiring in a mantle, draining a brimming goblet, but never—at least within my recollection—taking a part of any individuality, or one that gave him a chance of singing or speaking a single line by himself. He had been one of the ruck when I had first seen him, and now, after at least twenty years, the ruck still claimed him for its own. I remember I had woven a sort of romance about him. There, I had thought to myself, is a man who, no doubt, began his stage career with high aspirations, and noble ambitions. It cannot have been his aim to figure for ever merely as one of a crowd. And I had pictured him gradually losing hope, and wearing his heart out in the bitterness of deferred ambition as he walked gloomily through life, with the stamp of failure on his brow. The picture was a pathetic one, you must admit, worthy to take its place on the line with the well-known fancy sketch of the Clown who, after making the masses split their sides, goes home to a private life of penury and despair.

Well, that day I had seen a piece of my friend's private life at Epsom. Nothing could have been farther removed from misery. A light-hearted gaiety reigned in his face and ruled his every gesture. His companions seemed to bow to him, as to their leading humorist and mirth-maker. I was stimulated by the collapse of my elaborate illusion to make inquiries about him. I found that he had been born almost on the stage, and had taken part in stage-life from his earliest years. He never had any ambition: so long as he could be on the stage, and take part in its life, his desires were satisfied. He lived an absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting. Anybody who wishes can see him on any night, helping to troll forth the chorus of a song of Mexican warriors in the great spectacular drama of Montezuma. There is no more perfectly-satisfied being in existence. On that I am prepared to stake my life. Let this tale then be a warning to those who are over-hasty to construct romances of pathetic contrast on an insufficient foundation. One hugs such stories to one's heart, and it is something of a wrench to have to give them up in the light of a fuller knowledge.

And here I am, having all but reached the limits of my appointed space, without apparently having gone one step nearer to the fulfilment of the task on which I set out. I can only ask you to take the will for the deed in the meantime. And after all, if this unambitious actor had only been what I imagined him to be, I could not have produced an apter example. But he had the impertinence to live his life in his own way, and that did not happen to accord with the theories I had been led to form about it. Shall I never be able to come to the point? I have not yet given up all hope?

Yours as usual,

D. R.

THE UNIVERSAL VENT.

(For Vacuity, Vanity, Verbosity, Virulence, and Venom.)

"I AM in a state of suspense," said a Clergyman. "I am sorry to hear it," replied his friend. "Why are you suspended?"

PROPER PRIDE.

He. "Wasn't that the Countess of Mohair that just went by? I thought you told me she was a friend of yours!"

She. "Oh, we meet occasionally, and all that,—but I've really been obliged to drop Lady Mohair, I'm sorry to say!"

He. "Dear me,—really! What for?"

She. "Oh, well,—she always deliberately turns her Back on me when I try to speak to her, and looks another way when I bow, or else coolly stares me in the Face and takes no notice whatever,—so now I make a point of Cutting her Dead!"

A PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

(Fragments of a Discourse, delivered under the similitude of a Dream, but of symbolic and purely secular significance.)

Now, at the end of this Valley of Obstruction was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Disunion; and the Pilgrim must needs go through it, because the way to the Plain of Progress and the Pinnacle of Passage lay through the midst of it.

Now this Valley is a very perilous place,—a place where none care to dwell, and which few attain to pass through. And here the Pilgrim was worse put to it than in his previous encounter with the Apollyon of Obstruction.

I saw then in my dream that when the Pilgrim was got to the borders of the Shadow of Disunion, there met him certain men, aforetime his fellow-travellers, making haste to go back; to whom the Pilgrim spake as follows:—-

Pilgrim. Whither are you going?

Men. Back again! And we would have you do so too, if either life, peace, or honour is prized by you.

Pilgrim.