home
with such companions,--Shakspeare, of course, with his placid forehead;
Ben Jonson, with his heavy scowl; Burns and Byron cheek by jowl. But
the strangest of all these heterogeneous specimens of graphic art was
a full-length print of William Pitt!--William Pitt, the austere and
imperious. What the deuce did he do there amongst prize-fighters and
actors and poets? It seemed an insult to his grand memory. Nevertheless
there he was, very erect, and with a look of ineffable disgust in his
upturned nostrils. The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the
crambo in the minds of ordinary men,--very like the motley pictures
of the FAMOUS hung up in your parlour, O my Public! Actors and
prize-fighters, poets and statesmen, all without congruity and fitness,
all whom you have been to see or to hear for a moment, and whose names
have stared out in your newspapers, O my public!

And the company? Indescribable! Comedians, from small theatres, out of
employ; pale, haggard-looking boys, probably the sons of worthy traders,
trying their best to break their fathers' hearts; here and there the
marked features of a Jew. Now and then you might see the curious puzzled
face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a Cantab; and men of grave
age, and grayhaired, were there, and amongst them a wondrous proportion
of carbuncled faces and bottle-noses. And when John Burley entered,
there was a shout that made William Pitt shake in his frame. Such
stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for "Burley John." And the
gentleman who had filled the great high leathern chair in his absence
gave it up to John Burley; and Leonard, with his grave, observant eye,
and lip half sad and half scornful, placed himself by the side of his
introducer. There was a nameless, expectant stir through the assembly,
as there is in the pit of the opera when some great singer advances to
the lamps, and begins, "Di tanti palpiti." Time flies. Look at the Dutch
clock over the door. Half-an-hour. John Burley begins to warm. A yet
quicker light begins to break from his Eye; his voice has a mellow
luscious roll in it.

"He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man, who looked like a
tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard. Time flies,--an hour. Look
again at the Dutch clock. John Burley is grand, he is in his zenith, at
his culminating point. What magnificent drollery! what luxuriant humour!
How the Rabelais shakes in his easy-chair! Under the rush and the r