r Coleraine, I
fancy, but cannot pretend to accuracy; but I know it was on the borders
of 'Darry.'

"How, or what, had ever induced a pair of as common-place,
matter-of-fact folk, as ever lived, to take to the Thespian art, heaven
can tell. Had Mr. Mac been a bailiff, and madam a green-groceress,
nature would seem to have dealt fairly with them; he, being a stout,
red-faced, black-bearded tyke, with a thatch of straight black hair,
cut in semicircles over his ears, so as to permit character wigs
without inconvenience, heavy in step, and plodding in gait. She, a tall,
raw-boned woman, of some five-and-forty, with piercing grey eyes, and a
shrill harsh voice, that would have shamed the veriest whistle that
ever piped through a key-hole. Such were the Macbeth and the Lady
Macbeth--the Romeo and Juliet--the Hamlet and Ophelia of the company;
but their appearance was a trifle to the manner and deportment of their
style. Imagine Juliet with a tattered Leghorn bonnet, a Scotch shawl,
and a pair of brown boots, declaiming somewhat in this guise--

"' Come, _gantle_ night, come loving black-browed night,
_Gie_ me my _Romo!_ and when he shall _dee_,
_Tak_ him, and cut him into _leetle_ stars,
And he will _mak'_ the face of heaven _sae_ fine,
That _a'_ the _warld_ will be in _lo'e_ with him.'

"With these people I was not destined long to continue. The splendid
delusion of success was soon dispelled; and the golden harvest I was
to reap, settled down into something like four shillings a week, out of
which came stoppages of so many kinds and shapes, that my salary might
have been refused at any moment, under the plea, that there was no coin
of the realm, in which to pay it.

"One by one, every article of my wardrobe went to supply the wants of my
stomach; and I remember well my great coat, preserved with the tenacity
with which a shipwrecked-mariner hoards up his last biscuit, was
converted into mutton, to regale Messrs. Iago, Mercutio, and Cassius,
with Mesdames Ophelia, Jessica, Desdemona, and Co. It would make the
fortune of an artist, could he only have witnessed the preparations for
our entertainment.

"The festival was in honour, of what, the manager was pleased by
a singular figure of speech to call, my 'benefit;' the only profit
accruing to me from the aforesaid benefit, being, any satisfaction I
might feel in seeing my name in capitals, and the pleasure of waiting on
the enlightened inhabita