that he determined to know all about it in the morning. "I was pretty sure at the first sight, said he, that thee wert Jack Meadowcroft; but still I was not quite certain till I heard thee chattering with the folks at breakfast: so being ostler, I called thee out to the stable to speak to thee in private: for I'll tell thee what Jack, I will not betray thee." Hodgkinson then told him that though he loved music and acting, and should be glad to be a good player (at which the fellow shook his head) he had not yet mixed with any strollers, nor did he believe any strollers would let him mix with them; as he was too young and had not a figure or person fit for their purpose; but his object was to go to sea to escape from tyranny, hard fare, and oppression.

How often are the intentions of the best heart frustrated by the blunders of an uninformed head. Who can, without respect and admiration, contemplate the sturdy integrity, and simple zeal with which this rustic moralist enforced his laudable though mistaken notions? who can help reflecting with some surprise upon the fact, that before he ceased to apothegmatise and advise his young friend against having anything to do with the actors he was actually the first who put him seriously in the notion of going directly upon the stage as a public actor? It was a curious process, and we will endeavour to relate it as nearly as possible in the way Hodgkinson related it to us:

"A plague upon going to sea," said the honest fellow, "I can't abide it, thoff it be a hard, honest way of getting one's bread, and for that reason ought to wear well—but some how or other I never seed a sailor having anything to the fore; but always poor and dirty, except now and then for a spurt. There's my two brothers went to sea, and it makes my hair stand on end to hear what they go through; I would not lead such a life—no, not for fifty pound a year; evermore some danger or some trouble. One time a storm, expecting to be drowned—another a battle with cannon, expecting to be murdered—one time pressed—another time chased like a hare, that I wonder how they live. No, Jack, doan't thee go to sea; but stay at home and die on dry land. Why see how happy I am! and I'll be hong'd if measter within would'nt take thee with all love, to tend customers and draw the beer: ay, and 'twould be worth his while too, for thy song would bring custom, let me tell thee. As to being a play-actor, confound it, I hate the very word; you need not think anything about your size. Thou'rt very tall and hast a better face to look at than any on 'un I see; and though thou be'est knock-kneed a bit, its the way with all growing boys. Lord love thee, Jack, if wert to see some of them fellows, for all they look so on the stage with paint and tinsel and silk, when they stop to take a pint of beer, I think they be the ugliest, conceitedest, foolishest talken fellows I ever ze'ed. Why there's one feller was here for three days all time quite drunk—went yesterday to Bath to get place there among them. He's a player, and as ugly as an old mangy carthorse. But he's an Irishman to be sure, and they say he won't do at Bath because he wants an eye."

"You have players here at times then," said H. interrogatively.

"Yes! sometimes they comes for their baggage, that is, their trunks and boxes and women and children. Sometimes the poor souls on 'un come in the wagon themselves. Sometimes when it's a holliday we 'un, they walk out to Stapleton and other parts to kill time, being very idle people; then they stop to take beer here, and they talk such nonsense that I can't abide the tuoads. Lauk! thee why Jack, thee know'st I would not flatter thee now—thee art a king to some on 'un that talks ten times as big as king George could for the life o' him."

This intelligence given by the honest simpleton, in all likelihood for the purpose of disgusting our adventurer with the stage, communicated to him the first proud presentiment he felt of what afterwards occurred. The thought instantly struck him, "If performers, so very despicable as this man describes, are endured upon a public stage, thought he, why may not I?—cannot I be as useful as them? besides I can—but these men sing, I suppose—do not they sing John, much better than me?" "Noa, I tell thee they doan't: sing better than thee! they can't sing at all. A tinker's jackass is as good at it as any of them I see here. When they are on the stage (I went three or four times with our Sall to the play) od rot 'un—they make a noise by way of a song, and the musicianers sing for them on their fiddles." The man to whom honest John alluded, arrived from Bath that very day, execrating the injustice of the Bath and Bristol managers, who though they could not but be convinced of his talents, refused to give him even a trial. Our adventurer surveyed him from head to foot, and from the information of the man's face, voice, deportment, language, and person, concluded with himself that he had little to fear; "If, said he, this man has ever been received as an actor by any audience in this world, I'll offer myself to the first company I meet." He was precisely such as the ostler had described him—he wanted an eye, and was frightfully seamed by the small-pox, which not only had deprived him of that organ, but given him a snuffling stoppage of the nose. Such as this, was the whole man in every point, who actually boasted that he was allowed by all judges to play Jaffier better than any man that ever lived, but Barry, and who, disgusted with the British managers for their want of taste, took shipping that very evening for Cork.[A]

Without imparting a hint of his intention to the ostler who vowed, "as he hoped to be saved" that he would never betray him (a vow which he religiously fulfilled) Hodgkinson resolved to introduce himself in some shape or other, to the company of the theatre as soon as they should return from Bath to Bristol; an event which was to take place according to the course of their custom, in two days. Meantime he walked frequently to the theatre, in order to indulge himself with looking at the outside of it; and he made the fine square before it, his promenade, where he gave a loose to his imagination, and anticipating his future success, built castles in the air from morning till night.

He was at this work when the players returned from Bath. He saw the gates laid open, and having taken his post at the passage to the stage-door, resolved first to reconnoitre those who entered, and collect from circumstances as they might occur, some clue to guide him in his projected enterprise. As this was one of the eras in his life on which he loved to ruminate and converse, he was more than commonly circumstantial in his account of it. "There is a long passage," said he, "that goes up to the stage-door at Bristol. For the first two days I stood at the outside, but becoming more impatient, and impatience making me bold, I took my station in the passage, with my hat under my left arm stood up with my back to the wall, and as the actors and people of the theatre passed by to rehearsal, I made a bow of my head to those whose countenances and manners seemed most promising. For several days not one of them took the least notice of me. There was one of them who looked so unpromising that I should hardly have given him the honour of my bow, if it were not for his superior age and venerable aspect; and I believe when I did give it to him, it was but a mutilated affair. There was a starched pompous man, too, whose aspect was, to my mind, so forbidding and repulsive that I never condescended to take much notice of him. From a loquacious, good-natured and communicative old Irish woman