ult, "finds that he makes but
little progress in the course of each year, it is because he is as near
perfection as an actor can be." Many of Mr. Hervey's criticisms are
excellent; none more so than the following:--"Bouffe's gaiety is frank
and communicative, his pathos simple, yet inexpressibly touching; the
foundation of his character is sensibility; he _feels_ all he says. He
never employs any superfluity of action for the purpose of producing
effect, nor does he seek, by first raising his voice almost to a shriek,
and then lowering it to a whisper, to _startle_ his audience into a fit
of enthusiasm; on the contrary, a studied sobriety, both of speech and
gesture, is one of the peculiar features of his acting." When Bouffe
visits England, we recommend some of our actors, who at present "imitate
humanity so abominably," to attend his performances, and strive to
profit by his example.

We have lingered at the Varietes, and must move onwards, rather against
our will, and although much remains to be said concerning that amusing
theatre and its actors. Hyacinthe's nose, alone, would furnish materials
for a chapter, and of alarming longitude, if in proportion with the
feature. The two Lepeintres would fill an article. They are brothers and
rival punsters. The jokes of Lepeintre, Jenue have been printed and sold
at the theatre door. His senior, who is no way inferior to him, either
as a wit or an actor, said, with reference to himself, that he carried
abundance, wherever he went, "_puisqu'on y voyoit le pain trainer_
(Lepeintre aine.)"

On the site of an old cemetery stands the theatre known as the Gymnase
Dramatique. A suggestive fact for the moralist. Death replaced by Momus;
the mourner's tears succeeded by the quips and cranks of an Achard, by
the wreathed smiles of a Rose Cheri. Where the funeral once took its
slow and solemn way, rouged processions pass, tinsel heroes strut, and
vapour. Thousand-tinted garlands supplant the pale _immortelles_ that
decked the graves; the sable cloak is doffed, and motley's the only
wear. Surely actors must be bold men to tread a stage covering so many
mouldering relics of mortality. Not for Potosi, and the Real del Monte
to boot, would we do it, lest, at the witching hour, some ghastly
skeleton array should rise and drive us from the Golgotha, or drag us to
the charnel-house beneath. But we forget that the good old days are gone
when such things were, or were believed in, and that sup