CHORUS OF FAMILY PORTRAITS.

Painted emblems of a race,
All accurst in days of yore,
Each from his accustomed place
Steps into the world once more.

(The Pictures step from their frames and march round the stage.)

Baronet of Ruddigore,
Last of our accursed line,
Down upon the oaken floor--
Down upon those knees of thine.

Coward, poltroon, shaker, squeamer,
Blockhead, sluggard, dullard, dreamer,
Shirker, shuffler, crawler, creeper,
Sniffler, snuffler, wailer, weeper,
Earthworm, maggot, tadpole, weevil!
Set upon thy course of evil,
Lest the King of Spectre-land
Set on thee his grisly hand!

(The Spectre of Sir Roderic descends from his frame.)

SIR ROD. Beware! beware! beware!
ROB. Gaunt vision, who art thou
That thus, with icy glare
And stern relentless brow,
Appearest, who knows how?

SIR ROD. I am the spectre of the late
Sir Roderic Murgatroyd,
Who comes to warn thee that thy fate
Thou canst not now avoid.

ROB. Alas, poor ghost!

SIR ROD. The pity you
Express for nothing goes:
We spectres are a jollier crew
Than you, perhaps, suppose!

CHORUS. We spectres are a jollier crew
Than you, perhaps, suppose!

SONG--SIR RODERIC.

When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in
the moonlight flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight
skies--
When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs
bay at the moon,
Then is the spectres' holiday--then is the ghosts' high-noon!

CHORUS. Ha! ha!
Then is the ghosts' high-noon!

As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees, and the mists lie
low on the fen,
From grey tomb-stones are gathered the bones that once were women
and men,
And away they go, with a mo