s, public or domestic.

Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below, leaving to his
two brethren the heavy calendars--honest Rhadamanth, always partial
to players, weighing their parti-coloured existence here upon
earth,--making account of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy
_real life_ as we call it, (though, substantially, scarcely less a
vapour than thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury,) as but of
so many echoes, natural repercussions, and results to be expected from
the assumed extravagancies of thy _secondary_ or _mock life_, nightly
upon a stage--after a lenient castigation, with rods lighter than
of those Medusean ringlets, but just enough to "whip the offending
Adam out of thee"--shall courteously dismiss thee at the right
hand gate--the O.P. side of Hades--that conducts to masques, and
merry-makings, in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine.

PLAUDITO, ET VALETO

ELLISTONIANA

My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we all deplore,
was but slight.

My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into an
acquaintance a little on this side of intimacy, was over a counter
of the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered upon by a branch
of his family. E., whom nothing misbecame--to auspicate, I suppose,
the filial concern, and set it a going with a lustre--was serving in
person two damsels fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to
inquire for some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of
the illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an air did
he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his opinion upon the
worth of the work in question, and launching out into a dissertation
on its comparative merits with those of certain publications of a
similar stamp, its rivals! his enchanted customers fairly hanging on
his lips, subdued to their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a
gentleman in comedy _acting_ the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves
in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he contrived to
carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from the occupation he had
so generously submitted to; and from that hour I judged him, with no
after repentance, to be a person, with whom it would be a felicity to
be more acquainted.

To descant upon his merits as a Comedian would be superfluous. With
his blended private and professional habits alone I have to do;
that harmonious fusion of the manners of the player into those of