bigger, as it advances down the platform--more ghastly, more horrible,
enormous! It is as tall as the whole stage. It seems to be advancing
on the stalls and pit, and the whole house screams with terror, as the
GHOST OF THE LATE HAMLET comes in, and begins to speak. Several people
faint, and the light-fingered gentry pick pockets furiously in the
darkness.

In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes about,
the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the wind-instruments
bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest spectator must have felt
frightened. But hark! what is that silver shimmer of the fiddles! Is
it--can it be--the gray dawn peeping in the stormy east? The ghost's
eyes look blankly towards it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker
ply the violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow the orient
clouds. Cockadoodledoo! crows that great cock which has just come out
on the roof of the palace. And now the round sun himself pops up from
behind the waves of night. Where is the ghost? He is gone! Purple
shadows of morn "slant o'er the snowy sward," the city wakes up in
life and sunshine, and we confess we are very much relieved at
the disappearance of the ghost. We don't like those dark scenes in
pantomimes.

After the usual business, that Ophelia should be turned into Columbine
was to be expected; but I confess I was a little shocked when Hamlet's
mother became Pantaloon, and was instantly knocked down by Clown
Claudius. Grimaldi is getting a little old now, but for real humor there
are few clowns like him. Mr. Shuter, as the grave-digger, was chaste and
comic, as he always is, and the scene-painters surpassed themselves.

"Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings," at the other house, is
very pleasant too. The irascible William is acted with great vigor by
Snoxall, and the battle of Hastings is a good piece of burlesque. Some
trifling liberties are taken with history, but what liberties will not
the merry genius of pantomime permit himself? At the battle of Hastings,
William is on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volunteers, very
elegantly led by the always pretty Miss Waddy (as Haco Sharpshooter),
when a shot from the Normans kills Harold. The fairy Edith hereupon
comes forward, and finds his body, which straightway leaps up a live
harlequin, whilst the Conqueror makes an excellent clown, and the
Archbishop of Bayeux a diverting pantaloon, &c. &c. &c.

Perhaps these