against modern playgoers of insensibility to the charms of good acting, it is pleasant to cite the amount of public favor accorded in London to the most celebrated of Mr. J. S. Clarke's impersonations. The number of consecutive nights that he has played Ollapod, Bob Acres, and Dr. Pangloss, were sixty in the first case, one hundred and twenty-seven in the second, and two hundred and fifty in the third. In fact "The Heir at Law," and "The Poor Gentleman," with Mr. J. S. Clarke in the principal comic characters, were the first of the great runs of revived old comedies upon the London stage.

I

THE ART OF WALKING.

RECEIVED a letter the other day from a gentleman whose name I had never before heard, politely requesting me to "oblige the world," as he prettily phrased it, with an Essay on "Walking." On referring to Johnson's Dictionary-as is my habit in all emergencies for the meaning of the verb to "walk," I found it thus defined-"To move by leisurely steps, so that one foot is set down before the other is taken up.' Said I to myself, and myself said the very same thing to me, "Of a verity this unknown friend of mine must be poking his fun at me in imposing this task upon me, for what man is there on earth of imagination so brilliant, or fancy so affluent, as to be able to pen a treatise upon any such subject as this?" So saying, I incontinently resolved to think no more of the matter, but rather to go to bed, for I had caught a cold, and longed

for sleep. But second thoughts are proverbially best; and when I came to read my correspondent's letter over again, and observed in what terms of eulogy he alluded to my writings, and how high was his estimate of my talents and accomplishments, "Odsbodikins!" said I to myself, and myself said the self-same thing to me, "this fellow is no such fool after all. On the contrary, he is a man of taste and discernment; so I will take the topic in hand, and seriously consider what is to be done with it." Moreover, I have invariably made it a point to do whatever I am told, and to turn my back upon no duty whatsoever, that any fellow-creature may choose to assign to me. In this blessed frame of mind I folded my arms, closed my eyes, and, lolling back in my arm-chair, began to extract from the storehouse of my memory ancient reminiscences of all that I had ever seen, heard, or read on the subject of walking; and, strange to say, the theme grew upon me in magnitude and glory the more thought I bestowed upon it, till at last I arrived at the conviction that, whether regarded from a poetic or a purely pedestrian point of view, there is no other question of greater importance or more profound interest.

When we pause to think that walking is the most obvious and natural mode of progression for a human being, we cannot choose but wonder how few people there are who know how to do it. One might have supposed that walking would have come as easy to a man as swimming to a fish or flying to a bird; but it is not so. In early babyhood we are not able to stand, much less to walk. To "toddle" is our first achievement in the art of locomotion; and there are individuals who, though they may cease to toddle, can hardly be said to

or

ever arrive at a more dignified or more graceful use of their legs. They "shuffle," or "shamble," or "bounce," or "trot," or "amble," or move along in a mincing gait, "loaf about," or 66 waddle; " but they cannot walk in any fashion worthy of the name. There is a vast deal of character in the way a man walks, and his temper has more to do with the "havior " of his limbs than is commonly credited. "By that shambling in his walk it should be my rich banker, Gomez, whom I knew at Barcelona;" says Dryden, in the Spanish Friar; and the remark "smacks of observation," for rich men have often, sure enough, a shamble in their walk, and drag their legs along in a slow, ungainly manner, as though they would pull the ground after them in the hope of wringing money out of it. Have you ever observed what a peculiar walk good people have; how carefully they pick their steps, and how sanctimoniously they look down their noses? The Puritanical gait still traditionally assigned to Quakers (upon the stage), has been adopted in real life by Christian Workers, and those inestimable Moody-and-Sankeyites who, with sheafs of tracts in their hands, sally forth upon their house-tohouse visitation, and sing the praises of the "Evangelists" wherever they go. They are precious pots of ointment and blessed vessels of election, these same Christian Workers; only one could wish that they would walk more briskly, talk more pleasantly, and not look as though they had swallowed live eels, and found them difficult of digestion. Some people there are of whom we may say in Shakespearean phrase, that theirs is "the forced gait of a shuffling nag." They are vain enough to believe that everybody is looking at them, so they become artificial in their movements, and cannot for the

lives of them be natural. The "bouncers," to whom Albert Smith has, if I am not mistaken, devoted an amusing essay, are, generally speaking, ladies of a certain

age. They come towards you with a springy, elastic step, as much as to say, "See how young I am!" They remind you of the wild gazelle on Judah's hill, who “exulting yet may bound," though ruin and desolation meet the gaze on every side. The number of women of whatever age who can walk well is very small, though, of course, much larger than that of men similarly accomplished. Indeed, you may take it for granted that for one man who can do anything well, be it what it may, there are at the very least fifty women who can do it better. And this holds good in walking, as in all things else. It is a saying of Pope's that "they move easiest who have learned to dance ;" and as more women than men learn to dance, that may be one reason out of many, why women as a sex walk so much better. The main cause is, of course, to be found in their superior integrity of purpose, and that inner rectitude which gives to the movement of the body a correspondent grace and propriety. Nevertheless, it now and then happens that we meet with ladies very much embonpoint, who, eschewing all attempts at walking, properly so called, prefer to waddle. Of this type was the famous Mrs. Gill, who, whenever she felt "poorly," longed to be off to Paris :

"Mrs. Gill is very ill,

And nothing will improve her,

Except to see the Tuileries,

And waddle through the Louvre."

Bless her heart! How well I remember the day I first met her there with her guide-book and Bradshaw's,

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her gingham, her fan, and her shawls, and all her othe. belongings, waddling through the picture-galleries like a dear old goose as she was, and shedding her cockney H's" all over the glossy floor. Gill told me on the sly that she preferred a pigeon-pie to the finest picture ever painted by Paul Veronese or Claude Lorraine ; but I dare say he was a slanderer. Husbands are such to a man. I know a lady the very reverse of Mrs. Gill ; and, oh! what a lady she is―

"She walks in beauty like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes."

Spenser, the poet, tells us of a lady whose tongue kept pace with her feet, and who was well skilled in the wifely duty of upbraiding her lord

"As she went her tongue did walk

In foul reproach and terms of vile despight,
Provoking him by her outrageous talk."

We occasionally find that people have two kinds of walks,-one for the streets, another for indoors. I have seen fellows move along gracefully enough in the Park, who hardly knew what to do with their legs in the gilded saloons of fashion. In the days of our fathers, ere the foot-pavements were as cleanly and secure as they now are, there was a mighty ado among walkers every now and then about the right to the wall, and many a duel was fought on the point. "I never give the wall to fools," said a drunken young spark one night in Pall Mall to a sedate old gentleman, who was going home inoffensively. "I always do," was the gentle