! Your clubs certainly nourish sociality
greatly; those little tables, with one sulky man before one sulky
chop--those hurried nods between acquaintances--that, monopoly of
newspapers and easy chairs--all exhibit to perfection the cementing
faculties of a club. Then, too, it certainly does an actor inestimable
benefit to mix with lords and squires. Nothing more fits a man for his
profession, than living with people who know nothing about it. Only think
what a poor actor Kean is; you would have made him quite a different thing,
if you had tied him to a tame gentlemen in the 'Garrick Club'. He would
have played 'Richard' in a much higher vein, I doubt not."

"Well," said I, "the stage is your affair at present, and doubtless you do
right to reject any innovation."

"Why, yes," quoth the Devil, looking round; "we have a very good female
supply in this quarter. But pray how comes it that the English are so
candid in sin? Among all nations there is immorality enough, Heaven knows;
but you are so delightfully shameless: if a crime is committed here, you
can't let it 'waste its sweetness;' you thrust it into your papers
forthwith; you stick it up on your walls; you produce it at your theatres;
you chat about it as an agreeable subject of conversation; and then you
cry out with a blush against the open profligacy abroad! This is one of
those amiable contradictions in human nature that charms me excessively.
You fill your theatres with ladies of pleasure--you fill your newspapers
with naughty accounts--a robbery is better to you than a feast--and a good
fraud in the city will make you happy for a week; and all this while you
say: '_We_ are the people who send vice to Coventry, and teach the world
how to despise immorality.' Nay, if one man commits a murder, your
newspapers kindly instruct his associates how to murder in future, by a
far safer method. A wretch kills a boy for the surgeons, by holding his
head under water; 'Silly dog!' cries the Morning Herald, 'why did not he
clap a sponge dipped in prussic acid to the boy's mouth?'"

Here we were interrupted by a slight noise in the next box, which a
gentleman had just entered. He was a tall man, with a handsome face and
very prepossessing manner.

"That is an Author of considerable reputation," said my Devil, "quiet,
though a man of wit, and with a heart, though a man of the world. Talking
of the drama, he once brought out a farce, which had the good fortune to
be damned. As