speech could have produced the desired result, under such a combination of circumstances; nor indeed did it, for the poor ghost-though it is the part of ghosts generally to frighten mortals—was so dreadfully intimidated by the menacing attitude, and the alarming words of his son in the flesh, that he fell on his knees before the enraged Hamlet, stretched out his arms, and gasped out,-" Spare me."

We know not what might have not happened, nor of what strange things the spectators might not have been made witnesses, if Peregrine Pultuney, who had been watching from behind a side scene, the whole incident with an intense interest, had not suddenly let the curtain down by the run, and shut out the stage from their view.

And then in a few minutes that young gentleman stepped forward in the capacity of stage-manager, and informed the "ladies and gentlemen," that Mr. Doleton having been suddenly seized with illness, had found himself unable to continue the part that had been assigned to him; but that by their leave, the other performers would proceed with the tragedy, omitting the ghost scenes in toto, an omission for which, if they were not satisfied, he (the manager) would endeavour to compensate to the best of his ability, by singing a comic song or dancing a pas seul in the character of a sylph.

This announcement, as may be expected, drew down a round of applause, and one or two adventurous spectators, in the front row of the hencoop

accommodations, shouted out, "Bravo, Pultuney," upon which that young gentleman bowed gracefully, and glided out by the stage door.

So the curtain was drawn up again, and the second act of the tragedy commenced. And then there was a great deal of very excellent acting from Julian Jenks and Master Millikin, and a vast quantity of very execrable ditto from the long cornet in the character of Hamlet. As for Peregrine, he was supposed to have gone abroad, so nothing was seen of him during the best part of the three next acts, a period of time which our hero managed to beguile by smoking half-a-dozen Havannah cigars, and applying himself very assiduously to a bowl of cold punch, which was placed on the greenroom table for the benefit of the histrionic community, and which was done ample justice to by every one of the actors, with the exception of poor Doleton, who had retired to his cabin, to forget, if possible, his sorrows in sleep.

And so the play proceeded without further contre temps; the scenes with the players had been omitted as heavy, and the closet scene was acted without the ghost, for the long cornet could not forego the pleasure of bullying his mother and pinking Polonius through the arras. Then came the scene, in which Ophelia goes mad; and Master Millikin, who, if any thing could have persuaded him to keep serious for half-an-hour at a time, would have been an invaluable possession to the corps drama

tique, personated the distraught maiden so touchingly, that the horny eyes of two or three old tars began to blink a little, at which they severally invoked a malediction on the visional organs aforesaid, in the event of Master Millikin's performance not being what they confidently stated it to be, "as true to natur as a boswin with a marlin-spike," and so it was, until the young gentleman, who had a small spice of the tender devil in his composition, came to the little ballad about the gay Lothario, who opened his chamber-door upon an occasion; and not being of opinion with our modern actresses that this part of the text is better omitted in the performance, he brought it all out with a due emphasis and expression, looking so archly all the time at the Miss Gowanspecs that, unused to blushing as they were, they turned down incontinently a pair of red faces and pretended to be looking at their shoes.

And then, soon after, Laertes made his appearance from abroad, and was received with universal acclamation, by the audience, who seemed particularly glad to see him again; and Peregrine to testify his gratitude, played with an extraordinary degree of vigour and animation both in this and the succeeding scene, and when he came to that part, where he says to the king, after detailing his wrongs and eulogizing his sister, "But my revenge will come," there was something so fearfully natural in the manner, with which he laid his hand on his

sword and spoke through his clenched teeth, that several of those present, declared afterwards that they were sure he meant it in earnest, and said it from the bottom of his heart.

And then came the church-yard scene, and Julian Jenks was in his element as the first grave-digger, shovelling up a quantity of sand, which he had got from Jemmy Ducks, who had defrauded the poultry for the purpose. Skulls were shovelled up too, but as human skulls were not easily to be got at, on board the Hastings, they had broken the noses off pig's skull or two, presuming that the audience were not much versed in comparative anatomy, and they looked just as well from a distance. Roars of laughter greeted every sentence that issued from Jenks's mouth, and every shovel-full that issued from his spade, until two or three of the sailors having been brought well nigh into convulsions, Julian thought it was good time to give over, and let the cornet moralize a little. And then came the funeral procession, and the grappling business in Ophelia's grave, where Peregrine Pultuney excited most unqualified approbation in the bosoms of every body present, by the energetic and natural style in which he took the long cornet by the throat, and invoked the devil to take his soul. Nothing could have been more truth-like than this representation, nor more in earnest than the manner, in which the cornet cried out

"I pray thee, take thy fingers from my throat,"

which was uttered in such a choaking voice, that the audience quite thought he wished what he said, and applauded him vehemently in consequence of the "hit." Indeed it is a remarkable fact, and one that speaks volumes in praise of the cornet's acting, that he contrived, as he delivered this sentence, to look so black in the face that it might have been really supposed that he was choaking, if the spectators had not known it was a part of the play.

And then came the last scene of all, in which there is so much sticking and poisoning, and all the dramatis personæ are killed out of hand. Julian Jenks had undertaken to play Osric, for he had no objection to plenty of work as long as it was all in the comic line; and as the cornet prided himself on being an excellent fencer, and Peregrine Pultuney had learnt in a "fence-school too," it was expected that this part of the entertainment would have gone off with very great effect; and so it did, up to a certain point, when things took an unexpected turn, and the performance was ended in a manner very different from that which the poet had designed.

In this part of the play, it may be remembered by some few of our learned readers, that Hamlet makes an apology to Laertes, and requests that gentleman to set down his rudeness to the score of a temporary insanity. Now, Laertes affects to accept this apology; and Peregrine played the part so much to the life, that one could see, that he did not accept it with much good-will, for there was a sneer