ward woman (for the young ladies were too restrained in that matter), but of the inner girl of all the lasses in Italy,-the tender fluttering heart,-the turtle dove (colombina), ready to take flight with the first lover and pay off old scores with the gout and the jealousy, that had hitherto kept her in durance. The reader has only to transfer the characters to those of his own countrymen, to have a lively sense of the effect which these national pictures must have had in Italy. Imagine Harlequin, a gallant adventurer from some particular part of the land, full of life and fancy, sticking at no obstacles, leaping gates and windows, hitting off a satire at every turn, and converting the very scrapes he gets in, to matters of jest and triumph. The old gentleman that pursues him, is a miser from some manufacturing town, whose ward he has run away with. The Clown is a London cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and muffins, a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "everything that was good;" and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe for running away with, and making a dance of it all the way from Chelsea to Gretna Green. Pantomime is the only upholder of comedy, when there is nothing else to show for it. It is the satirist, or caricaturist of the times, ridiculing the rise and fall of hats and funds, the growth of aldermen or of bonnets, the pretences of quackery; and watching innovations of all sorts, lest change be too hasty. But this view of it is for the older boys. For us, who, upon the strength of our sympathy, boast of being among the young ones, its life, its motion, its animal spirits are the thing. We sit among the shining faces on all sides of us, and fancy ourselves at this moment enjoying it. What whim! what fancy! what eternal movement! The performers are like the blood in one's veins, never still; and the music runs with equal vivacity through the whole spectacle, like the pattern of a watered ribbon. In comes Harlequin, demi-masked, party-colored, nimble-toed, lithe, agile; bending himself now this way, now that; bridling up like a pigeon; tipping out his toe like a dancer; then taking a fantastic skip; then standing ready at all points, and at right angles with his omnipotent lath-sword, the emblem of the converting power of fancy and light-heartedness. Giddy as we think him, he is resolved to show us that his head can bear more giddiness than we fancy; and lo! beginning with it by degrees, he whirls it round into a very spin, with no more remorse than if it were a button. Then he draws his sword, slaps his enemy, who has just come upon him, into a settee; and springing upon him, dashes through the window like a swallow. Let us hope that Columbine and the high road are on the other side, and that he is already a mile on the road to Gretna: for Here comes Pantaloon, with his stupid servant; not the Clown, but a proper grave blockhead, to keep him in heart with himself. What a hobbling old rascal it is! How void of any handsome infirmity! His very gout is owing to his having lived upon twopence farthing. Not finding Harlequin and Columbine, he sends his servant to look in the further part of the house, while he hobbles back to see what has become of that lazy fellow the Clown. He, the cunning rogue, who has been watching mid-way, and now sees the coast clear, enters in front,-round-faced, goggle. eyed, knock-kneed, but agile to a degree of the dislocated, with a great smear for his mouth, and a cap on his head, half fool's and half cook's. Commend him to the dinner that he sees on table, and that was laid for Harlequin and his mistress. Merry be their hearts: there is a time for all things; and while they dance through a dozen inns to their hearts' content, he will eat a Sussex dumpling or so. Down he sits, contriving a luxurious seat, and inviting himself with as many ceremonies as if he had the whole day before him: but when he once begins, he seems as if he had not a moment to lose. The dumpling vanishes at a cram:-the sausages are abolished :-down go a dozen yards of macaroni :—and he is in the act of paying his duties to a gallon of rum, when in come Pantaloon and his servant at opposite doors, both in search of the glutton, both furious, and both resolved to pounce on the rascal headlong. They rush forward accordingly; he slips from between them with a "Hallo, I say; " and the two poor devils dash their heads against one another, like rams. They rebound fainting asunder to the stagedoors while the Clown, laughing with all his shoulders, nods a health to each, and finishes his draught. He then holds a great : cask of a snuff-box to each of their noses, to bring them to; and while they are sneezing and tearing their souls out, jogs off at his leisure. Ah-here he is again on his road, Harlequin with his lass, fifty miles advanced in an hour, and caring nothing for his pursuers, though they have taken the steam-coach. Now the lovers dine indeed; and having had no motion to signify, join in a dance. Here Columbine shines as she ought to do. The little slender, but plump rogue! How she winds it hither and thither with her trim waist, and her waxen arms! now with a hand against her side, tripping it with no immodest insolence in a hornpipe; now undulating it in a waltz; or "caracoling" it, as Sir Thomas Urquhart would say, in the saltatory style of the opera; but always Columbine; always the little dove who is to be protected; something less than the opera-dancer, and greater; more unconscious, yet not so; and ready to stretch her gauze wings for a flight, the moment Riches would tear her from Love. But these introductions, to the characters by themselves do not give a sufficient idea of the great pervading spirit of the pantomime, which is motion; motion for ever, and motion all at once. Mr. Jacob Bryant, who saw everything in anything, and needed nothing but the taking a word to pieces to prove that his boots and the constellation Boötes were the same thing, would have recognized in the word Pantomime the Anglo-antediluvian compound, a Pant-o'-mimes! that is to say, a set of Mimes or Mimics, all panting together. Or he would have detected the obvious Anglo-Greek meaning of a set of Mimes, expressing Pan, or Everything, by means of the Toe,-Pan-Toe-Mime. Be this as it may, Pantomime is certainly a representation of the vital principle of all things, from the dance of the planets down to that of Damon and Phillis. Everything in it keeps moving; there is no more cessation than there is in nature; and though we may endeavor to fix our attention upon one mover or set of movers at a time, we are conscious that all are going on. The Clown, though we do not see him, is jogging somewhere;Pantaloon and his servant, like Saturn and his ring, are still careering it behind their Mercury and Venus; and when Har lequin and Columbine come in, do we fancy they have been resting behind the scenes? The notion! Look at them they are evidently in full career: they have been, as well as are, dancing; and the music, which never ceases whether they are visible or not, tells us as much. Let readers, of a solemn turn of mistake, disagree with us if they please, provided they are ill-humored. The erroneous, of a better nature, we are interested in; having known what it is to err like them. These are apt to be mistaken out of modesty (sometimes out of a pardonable vanity in wishing to be esteemed); and in the case before us, they will sin against the natural candor of their hearts by condemning an entertainment which they enjoy, because they think it a mark of sense to do so. Let them know themselves to be wiser than those who are really of that opinion. There is nothing wiser than a cheerful pulse, and all innocent things which tend to keep it so. The crabbedest philosopher that ever lived (if he was a philosopher, and crabbed against his will) would have given thousands to feel as they do; and he would have known, that it redounded to his honor and not to his disgrace, to own it. CHAPTER XI. Cruelty to Children. READERS of newspapers are constantly being shocked with the unnatural conduct of parents towards their children. Some are detected in locking them up and half-starving them; others tax them beyond their strength, and scourge them dreadfully for not bearing it; others take horrible dislikes to their children, and vex and torture them in every way they can think of, short of subjecting themselves to the gallows. In most cases the tyranny is of long duration before it is exposed. A whole neighborhood are saddened by the cries of the poor victim, till they are obliged to rise up in self-defence and bring the criminal to justice. By this we may judge how many miseries are taking place of which people have no suspicion; how many wretches have crimes of this sort, to account for the evil in their looks; and how many others, more criminal because more lying, go about in decent repute, while some oppressed and feeble relative, awfully patient, is awaiting in solitude the horror of the returning knock at the door. It is alleged by offenders of this description, that the children are vicious and provoking; that their conduct is very "aggravating," as the phrase is; and that "nothing can mend them but blows," which never do. But whence come the faults of children? and how were they suffered to grow to such a height? Really, setting aside these monsters of unpaternity,-parents are apt to demand a great many virtues in their children, which they do not themselves possess. The child, on the mere strength of their will, and without any of their experience, is expected to have good sense, good temper, and Heaven knows how many other good qualities; while the parents perhaps, notwithstanding all the lessons they have received from time and trouble, have |