play"--that wonderful volume, "which is not bound like
any other book in the world, but is rouged and tawdry like the hero or
heroine who holds it; and who holds it as people never do hold books:
and points with his finger to a passage, and wags his head ominously
at the audience, and then lifts up eyes and finger to the ceiling,
professing to derive some intense consolation from the work between
which and heaven there is a strong affinity. Any one," proceeds the
author of "Pendennis," "who has ever seen one of our great light
comedians X., in a chintz dressing-gown, such as nobody ever wore, and
representing himself as a young nobleman in his apartments, and
whiling away the time with light literature, until his friend Sir
Harry shall arrive, or his father shall come down to breakfast--anybody,
I say, who has seen the great X. over a sham book, has indeed had
a great pleasure, and an abiding matter for thought."

The Stranger reads from morning to night, as his servant Francis
reports of him. When he bestows a purse upon the aged Tobias, that he
may be enabled to purchase his only son's discharge from the army, he
first sends away Francis with the stage-book, that there may be no
witness of the benevolent deed. "Here, take this book, and lay it on
my desk," says the Stranger; and the stage direction runs: "Francis
goes into the lodge with the book." Bingley, it is stated, marked the
page carefully, so that he might continue the perusal of the volume
off the stage if he liked. Two acts later, and the Stranger is again
to be beheld, "on a seat, reading." But after that he has to put from
him his precious book, for the incidents of the drama demand his very
serious attention.

Dismissed from the Stranger, however, the stage-book probably
reappears in the afterpiece. In how many dramatic works figures this
useful property--the "book of the play"? Shakespeare has by no means
disdained its use. Imogen is discovered reading in her bed in the
second act of "Cymbeline." She inquires the hour of the lady in
attendance:

Almost midnight, madam.

IMOGEN. I have read three hours, then; mine eyes are weak.
Fold down the leaf where I have left! To bed!

By-and-by, when Iachimo steals from his trunk to "note the chamber,"
he observes the book, examines it, and proclaims its nature:

She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus! here's the leaf turned down
Where P