re conveyed in a
glass coach, and found the young men in waiting to receive them at
the theatre door. Hence they elbowed their way through a crowd of
torch-boys, and a whole regiment of footmen. Little Hetty fell to
Harry's arm in this expedition, and the blushing Miss Theo was handed
to the box by Mr. George. Gumbo had kept the places until his masters
arrived, when he retired, with many bows, to take his own seat in the
footman's gallery. They had good places in a front box, and there was
luckily a pillar behind which mamma could weep in comfort. And opposite
them they had the honour to see the august hope of the empire, his Royal
Highness George Prince of Wales, with the Princess Dowager his mother,
whom the people greeted with loyal, but not very enthusiastic, plaudits.
That handsome man standing behind his Royal Highness was my Lord
Bute, the Prince's Groom of the Stole, the patron of the poet whose
performance they had come to see, and over whose work the Royal party
had already wept more than once.

How can we help it, if during the course of the performance, Mr. Lambert
would make his jokes and mar the solemnity of the scene? At first, as
the reader of the tragedy well knows, the characters are occupied in
making a number of explanations. Lady Randolph explains how it is that
she is so melancholy. Married to Lord Randolph somewhat late in life,
she owns, and his lordship perceives, that a dead lover yet occupies
all her heart; and her husband is fain to put up with this dismal,
second-hand regard, which is all that my lady can bestow. Hence, an
invasion of Scotland by the Danes is rather a cause of excitement
than disgust to my lord, who rushes to meet the foe, and forgets the
dreariness of his domestic circumstances. Welcome, Vikings and Norsemen!
Blow, northern blasts, the invaders' keels to Scotland's shore! Randolph
and other heroes will be on the beach to give the foemen a welcome! His
lordship has no sooner disappeared behind the trees of the forest, but
Lady Randolph begins to explain to her confidante the circumstances of
her early life. The fact was, she had made a private marriage, and what
would the confidante say, if, in early youth, she, Lady Randolph, had
lost a husband? In the cold bosom of the earth was lodged the husband of
her youth, and in some cavern of the ocean lies her child and his!

Up to this the General behaved with as great gravity as any of his young
companions to the play; but when