flower-looked lovingly on the lonely spot, and kept and guarded it awhile from desecrating Man. He discovered it, and all its virgin charms were violated. But if human errors and passions, and the sorrows their consequences, had not stained and desecrated a spot of earth still sacred to unashamed Nature-still unviolated and unpolluted by man, her only unfilial offspring-neither had human virtues made it acceptable to Heaven; (for notwithstanding all that there is of bad, and the great amount of it, there is still a greater amount of good among mankind.) The dear domestic virtues and "the mild charities of life" had not inhabited there, and drawn the angels down to watch over and mingle unawares among men; to "bless their doors from nightly harm;" to walk with them unseen, but not unfelt; to talk with them in whispers, and whispers not unheard. Abundant-bosomed Charity, with her ever-giving heart and hand, had not repaired there. Love-sexual, paternal, and maternal, filial, sisterly, and brotherly love-all springing from one sacred affection-had not harboured there. Friendship, truth, honour, philanthropy, patriotism, justice, religion, and piety had not made it holy and dear to the hearts of men. The mighty Heart of a mighty Nation did not then beat there as the great centre of life of all its gigantic limbs. The Holy Name had never been uttered there with trembling solemnity. There no reverent knees had bent in humble worship; there no stricken heart had poured its penitential sorrows. The winds only wailed upon the naked hill, where now, Through long-drawn aisles and fretted vaults, And yet the lifeless waste had a voice and a worship even in its silence and desolation. The ebbing and flowing waters praised Him who poured them from the hollow of His hand. The valley, where they glided at their own sweet will," laughed when He smiled down upon it, and it was praise. The forest, that "shagged its shores with horrid shades," untended and unpruned by any hand but His, sounded, with sea-like roar, deeply solemn symphonies in His praise. The reverend oaks bowed before Him who could have uprooted them with the least motion of His hand. The green leaves prattled like infant tongues in His praise. The lofty pines stooped their black heads in humble worship of Him. The lowly grasses and grovelling herbage of the ground bent as His warming breath swept over them, and, rustling, sighed His praise. The cheerful light and melancholy shadows--the unsinning darkness and the unblushing day, praised Him. The wild birds sang of Him who fed them, and would not unpermitted let them fall. The unadmired, beautiful flowers breathed back the incense lent from heaven. All things that lived there every hour acknowledged, in their lives and deaths, that all existence is the breath of God, and praised Him. Such was once the spot where London is now. A single day broke in upon its sacred seclusion and beautiful desolation: Man planted his foot there, and cried, "This land is mine!" and took possession, and has kept it undisputed. (To be concluded in our next.) THE HUMORIST. SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF GRIMALDI. THE retirement of a favourite actor lessens the shock we receive at hearing he is no more: the termination of his public, is a proper precursor to the close of his actual life. Painful as it was to witness the tenacity with which Bannister clung, as it were, to the lamps after the last syllable of his adieu was spoken; agonizing as that instant was to actor and auditor, it was compensated by beholding that fine old man, year after year, contesting with Time and Gout. Quick, whom we knew for twenty years after he had ceased to make the metropolis merry, was a comedy to us still; but Emery, torn from the stage in the heyday of life, and but a few days after we had been wrought up to that agony that we delight in by his Giles, his death came as a heart blow, which stunned, rather than saddened us. Since the death of Kemble (1823) "star after star" has "decayed," Johnstone, Munden, Emery, Knight, Mathews (a theatre in himself), Blanchard, Fawcett, Powell (poor old Powell, that unpretending piece of kindly humanity), Pope, Bannister, Elliston, Kean, Wewitzer, Incledon; the queen of tragedy, all, all in the narrow house, whilst Young, C. Kemble, and Jones, have retired, and Liston threatens to do so. Death has gathered in his harvest, and the last stroke of his sickle struck down the Clown-the laughter-loving, inimitable Grimaldi. About nine years since he bade farewell to his patrons : for some years his health had been such that the public felt his retirement as a boon, for who could make merry, whilst the actor writhed? During his latter performances he had frequently suffered intense agony his farewell was therefore divested of the pain of parting; and his death, after he had for nine years ceased to act, was to the many an event naturally looked for, sighed over a moment, and dismissed. Not so, we apprehend, however, with your genuine playgoer; and there are such even yet. Kemble had his idolaters, Kean his partizans; but neither of them had been the first loves of their admirers. Grimaldi had taken possession of all our hearts in the days of hoops and holland pinafores; we had shared in all his frolics ere we had entered three syllables, or knew the name of tragedy. Grimaldi was a household word; it was the short for fun, whim, trick, and atrocity, that is to say, clown-atrocity, crimes that delight us. Kemble we looked upon as one of the gentlemen in Tooke's Pantheon, and thought he talked like Milton (which we heard many years before we could possibly comprehend a word of it.) Had he entered in the flesh the house of our father, we should have stood all the while he was in the room, and never have dared to speak; had we seen his cloak hanging in the hall, it would have awed us; but Grimaldi the big boy (for he was no more) was of us-our familiar; his sports were ours; how well he played at hoop! We had no more respect for his talents, or him, than we had for Bob Boochey in the lower form: but we loved him, yearned for him, wanted to share in his doings; felt a little volcano raging within us whilst he was perpetrating his atrocities. "He'll be found out!" and we clasped our tiny hands till the nails cut into the palms: no, he's safe, and away goes the monstrous booty into that leviathan pocket of his, that receptacle of all sorts of edibles, and occasionally of kettles full of boiling water, and even lighted candles. Reader, have the cares of this railroad-making world obliterated from thy mind what the boys in our time called "doing DAGS?" The etymology of the phrase is unknown, but it inferred the doing something that no other boy would dare attempt. Now, Grimaldi, we thought, could do anybody's "DAGS," ay, even Bonaparte's, whom we heard was a clever fellow, too, but a great scoundrel. We would have lent all our toys, shared all our cakes with Joey; and if He had tricked us, could scarcely have been angry with him; he was better than the Boy's Own Book; he was the boy's own actor. Comedy made easy to the meanest capacity, portable pleasantry; he had things in common with us from the frill round his neck even to the subligaculi without braces, but buttoned on to the jacket like our own. We never believed that Grimaldi was a man: he was associated in our mind with plum-pudding; for at Christmas we ate the one, and saw the other; and we retained our relish for the sweets of both to the last. He has gone who had his "ain green nook " in every one's early dramatic recollections, who was mixed up with every man's remembrancers of boyhood; he has had the best of all of us; he has skimmed the cream from the (now) mere milk of our adorations. Joseph Grimaldi (for he had a Christian and surname, and, moreover, godfathers and godmothers) was born, after the ancient fashion, on the 18th December, 1779 (the year that robbed the world of Garrick); he was the son of Signor Grimaldi, whom a few, very few, old Londoners affect to remember. He originally came to England in the suite of Queen Charlotte, as a dentist; and as he had been in earlier years a member of a saltatory troop, it is not very extraordinary to find him in 1764 practising as a dancer instead of a dentist. He was a low humorist; and, in those days of practical joking, thought a very clever fellow; but his inability to make himself clearly understood by the million enabled Follet, Delpini, &c. &c., to get a hold upon public favour, and he ceased to attract. In 1787 three great theatrical events occurred: Braham made his debût as a singer; Kean his, as an inhabitant of this breathing world; and Signor Grimaldi died: little Joey, the son, was already an established member of the Thespian profession, having made his first appearance as the infant, in the serious pantomime of "Robinson Crusoe," on the 26th December 1781, being then exactly two years and eight days old. Of his infantine efforts we need not speak he had the merit of silence, which, as his father said, “vas great doings in a mere baby ting." The year his father died we find him, as Master Grimaldi, cutting rather an important figure in the ballet entitled "Le Champs de Mars." From this time he progressed, dancing in ballets, going on in groups, doing little parts, &c. &c., until 1800, when Dubois (we think) quarrelled, and left Drury; and Grimaldi got the character of the Ursa-fed young gentleman in that delicious nursery story, Valentine and Orson. In this character he displayed mind; it was not a mere development of muscular power, but an evolvement of an intellect subdued, but not destroyed, by ignorance. Grimaldi was now considered somebody: he had, two years before, taken unto himself a wife, Miss Hughes, sister to one of the proprietors of Vauxhall, and he was making his way to a very respectable station in the profession, when the sudden death of his wife brought on a nervous affliction, a mental despondency, that perfectly paralysed his powers: this malady was hereditary; his father was a wanderer amid churchyards, and entertained a horror of death truly awful. The attentions of Grimaldi's sister did much to dispel his gloom, and in 1802 he again married. Miss Bristow, his second choice, was an amiable woman, and, happy with her, he really went to work to make his way to fame. Follett, Delpini, Laurent, &c. &c. filled up the list of comic pantomimists, and Grimaldi's inclination was to matter of more serious method; in addition to which he was no tumbler, and could not contend for a moment with various members of Astley's corps in contortions and leaping. Johannot and Decastro made it perilous for him to attempt comic singing. Lalouette and Morcerot could, to quote the phraseology of the day, "dance his head off:" he therefore was content to play second fiddle, and now-and-then in the provinces do a little in the comic way. Years rolled on. Laurent saved money, took the Lyceum, and lost it; Delpini got old and cramped; Johannot drank harder, and sang worse than heretofore; young Astley began to find grey mingling in his ringlets; Follett had a fatal fall, and a clown was wanting. Seizing the mollia tempora fandi, he obtained the appointment of Fool to the metropolis. We pass over much intermediate matter*, and come to 1809, when "Mother Goose" put the town in good humour, and Mr. Harris in ecstasies. From that moment he did what he liked with the town. Like Bannister, it was long ere he could be persuaded to venture a song; but when he did, he created a style that had no precursor, and can have no imitator. "Tippitywitchet" was originally given by him in "Bang up, or Harlequin Prime," we think, in 1810-" What will Mrs. Grundy say?"-" The Man ran away with the Monument "-" London now is out of Town "-" Sir Gooseberry Gimcrack "-" Mr. Fog and his Daughter"-" Bazaars "-" Hot Codlings "Will Putty," few among the many. Reeve, for many years, and after him Whitaker, are a * In 1792, a pantomime (mostly serious) entitled "The Savages," was produced -The Dwarf, Master Grimaldi. Same year, in a burletta entitled "Master's Holiday," we find the character of Jacky Suds, Master Grimaldi. 1793. Ballet of action, "The Sans Culottes "-Le Sans Culotte, Master Grimaldi. 1794. "The Mandarin," a pantomime-Lacquey, Master Grimaldi. 1796. "The Spirit of the Grotto "-Slang, Master Grimaldi. Grand pantomime," Venus' Girdle "-Old Woman (with part of a glee), Master Grimaldi. "The Talisman," another pantomime-The Hag Morad, Master Grimaldi. 1797. "The Mountain of Misery," pantomime-Old Man in Love, MR. Gri maldi. In 1790, Master Grimaldi played at the Dog and Duck, in St. George's Fields, then a sort of minor theatre à la Sadler's Wells. It stood upon the site of New Bedlam, and was ultimately suppressed through the management of the proprietors of Vauxhall. July.-VOL. L. NO. CXCIX. 2 c furnished the music for these effusions. They were unique. Those who never heard him cannot be made to understand how words so utterly destitute of humour and music, so entirely guiltless of merit, could have been rendered effective. So, however, it was; for Grimaldi's song was always the choicest morsel of the night. After the year 1820 infirmities began to do their work upon the once Herculean frame of the clown. He introduced his son (J. S. Grimaldi) to the public; and year after year he gave up the heavy work to his descendant. In 1825 he evidently became too stiff for a night's performance, and though he struggled against nature a while, all proved vain, and in 1828 he took his farewell. It was the 17th of March-a day devoted by the Irish portion of the metropolis to frolics at which prudence does not preside; but Saffron Hill abjured its devotions to its patron saint, and emptied itself into Sadler's Wells' yard. At one o'clock in the day more people were assembled than the house could hold, and when the doors were opened the place was choked up at one rush. The performances were, a melodram by T. Dibdin, entitled "The Sixes, or the Fiend," in which Grimaldi sustained his original character of Hock, a drunken soldier: he was unequal to the exertion necessary to the performance of clown, and wisely avoided the attempt. In this drama he sang a duet with his son, which was honoured with a double encore. "Humphrey Clinker" followed, and the entertainments concluded with a grand masquerade, in which all the pantomime performers of the day appeared. Previously to the close of the latter, Grimaldi came forward in full dress, and delivered his farewell in the following words : "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, "I appear before you this evening for the last time. Doubtless there are many persons present who are of opinion that I am a very aged man. I have now an opportunity of convincing them of the contrary. I was born on the 18th of December, 1779, consequently on the 18th of last December I was 48 at the early age of three years I was introduced by my father at this theatre. [Loud applause.] Ever since that period I have held a situation in this establishment: yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been concerned at this theatre five and forty years. [Cheers.] By strict attention, perseverance, and exertion, did I arrive at the top of my profession; and proud am I to acknowledge oft times have been honoured by your smiles, approbation, and support: it is now three years since I have taken a regular engagement, owing to extreme and dangerous indisposition: with patience have I waited, hoping that my health might be re-established, and that I might again meet your smile, but I am sorry to say there is little or no alteration, therefore it would be folly in me to hope ever more to return to my professional duties. Judge then, Ladies and Gentlemen, could I leave this theatre without returning my patrons and the public grateful thanks for all the favours I have received? Impossible. [Loudly reiterated plaudits.] Therefore at this moment I beg they will accept them. I have now (ere I depart) but one, one dreadful word to utter-FAREWELL. God bless you all! may you and yours ever enjoy the greatest earthly blessing, is the sincerest wish of [here he became much affected, and the conclusion of the sentence was lost in sympathy and applause.] 66 One word more," he continued; "the proprietors have handsomely begged my acceptance of the theatre for this evening gratuitously. [Bravo!] The performers, the gentlemen of the band,-in fact the whole establishment have in like manner contributed their services. I cannot leave without ex |