t the Museum, and tinted neatly, a
figure of Sir Walter Raleigh in a frill and beard; and (my dear Theo
giving some of her mother's best lace for the ruff) we dressed Hagan
accurately after this drawing, and no man could look better. Miss
Pritchard as Pocahontas, I dressed too as a Red Indian, having seen
enough of that costume in my own experience at home. Will it be believed
the house tittered when she first appeared? They got used to her,
however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner's
arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit
bawls out, "Bedad! here's the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen's Head;"
on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking
out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance.
As the wag in Mr. Sheridan's amusing Critic admirably says about the
morning guns, the playwrights were not content with one of them, but
must fire two or three; so with this wretched pothouse joke of the Belle
Savage (the ignorant people not knowing that Pocahontas herself was the
very Belle Sauvage from whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of
the pit repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as each
new character appeared, saluted him by the name of some tavern--for
instance, the English governor (with a long beard) he called the Goat
and Boots; his lieutenant (Barker), whose face certainly was broad, the
Bull and Mouth, and so on! And the curtain descended amidst a shrill
storm of whistles and hisses, which especially assailed poor Hagan every
time he opened his lips. Sampson saw Master Will in the green boxes,
with some pretty acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the
treacherous scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy. "I
would have flung him over into the pit," the faithful fellow said (and
Sampson was man enough to execute his threat), "but I saw a couple of
Mr. Nadab's followers prowling about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer
off." And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market were broken,
and our poor hopes lay shattered before us!

I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain was lifted,
and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking Mr. Johnson in the
front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having his friend Mr. Reynolds by his
side; the latter could not hear, and the former could not see, and so
they came good-naturedly A deux to form an opinion of my poor tragedy.
I