alert, as though one and all scented a customer. A red-armed damsel, brandishing a frying-pan, peeped forth from the kitchen; a stunted ostler, with bandy legs and one eye, received the reins from the Squire with a kind of silent reverence that showed his veneration for the office of a master of hounds, and patted the pony as if it were an old acquaintance; while the proprietor himself emerging from a loose box, with a straw in his mouth, and a bustling air of giving many directions at once, peculiar to horse-dealers, masters of hotels, and other functionaries whose time hangs heavy on their hands, lifted his hat in rapid succession to his visitors, marking by the tone of his different greetings, "Good-morning, Squire!" and "Your servant, sir!" the different estimation in which he held a chance customer, and an old patron.

"Will you walk round the stables this morning, gentlemen?" says Mr. Maggs, in an off-hand sort of manner, as if we had not come for that especial purpose. "Naylus!" (a west-country abbreviation for Cornelius) "open that box! Horses look ill at this time of year; but it is beautiful weather, certainly, for the country. Have you had much sport with the gun, Squire ?" And thus Mr. Maggs runs on, as if it were imperative on him to find conversation for his customers, as well as hunters; and with the further view of putting off as much as possible the transaction of actual business till after luncheon. The Squire is a good judge of a horse, as Maggs well knows; and accordingly, although he cannot resist the usual practice of showing us every brute in the stable before we arrive at "the plums," the enforced inspection is gone through in half the time it would have taken had I been there alone; and after passing in review one or two weedy, long-tailed five-year-olds, an overgrown bay horse with curbs, and a broken-down steeple-chaser, none of which are worth the trouble of having out, we are introduced to a grey of very promising appearance, and contemplate him for some minutes in mute admiration. After you have ascertained that a horse s quiet in the stable, felt his crest, passed your hand down his legs, nd picked up his foot, into which you glance as you might look at our watch, and from which you derive about as much information— here is always an awkward pause, during which the customer is at a Iss what he ought to say or do next. Now is the time for the dealer; ad now Mr. Maggs begins

"You don't see many shoulders like those, Squire!" (observe, the gey is a good-shaped horse, but his shoulder is the worst point about hh)" they can't help riding pleasant when they're made like him! fel his legs, Mr. Nogo-famous legs and feet, and some rare hocks an thighs those, Squire, to help him through the dirt! But I never take notice of make and shape. Give me performances, says I let mesee a horse perform, Mr. Nogo, and I estimate his value by what he loes in the field. Now I sent that horse last week with Naylus,' to meet Mr. Wildrake's hounds cub-hunting; and I says to 'Naylus' says-you keep with the hounds. Well, they ran from Torwood Vale to Vild-Overton-and the Squire knows what that is-and Naylus' he neve left them. There was only three of them would have the Tiverley Broc-no, I beg pardon, Mr. Nogo, I'm telling you a lie-there was five harged it, but only three got over, and Naylus' he led the field uponhe grey: Mr. Wildrake's huntsman followed him, and wanted his maste to buy the horse; but I kept him for the Squire here to see.

I think there's few like him in any country, but I may be deceived. Will you see him out, Squire ?" and "Naylus" is forthwith summoned to saddle the grey, whilst we pass on to the next box, containing a strong useful brown horse, short in his legs, and with all the appearance of a hunter. Here we have nearly the same "recitative," varied with the different exploits performed by this sober-looking animal in timberjumping, which appears to be his forte, and in the indulgence of which taste the heroic "Naylus" is related to have ridden him over a compli cated double post-and-rail, no later than the end of last season, which had previously been the terror of all the neighbouring hunts. The brown horse, after an observation of mine, derogatory to his beauty (for he has a large plain head), and which Mr. Maggs passes over in silent contempt, is likewise ordered to be saddled; and in the mean time the dealer courteously entreats us to "step in and take a little refreshment;" without which no transaction in the way of business is ever supposed to be able to proceed.

A comfortable parlour, hung round with sporting prints, a slice of pork pie washed down by a glass of sparkling home-brewed ale, the newest of bread, the freshest of butter, and the raciest of cheese-the whole put to rights by a small glass of undeniable white brandy, prepare one to look upon all sublunary matters-quadrupeds or otherwise -with an indulgent and favourable eye; nor when you have offered your hospitable host a capital cigar, and lit another yourself, do you find that its wreathing fumes at all discompose or decrease this charitable frame of mind. Both the Squire and myself liked the grey horse a good deal better when we saw him out; and as the short-legged "Naylus" trotted, cantered, and galloped him here and there, he really looked, under his pigmy burden, a fine powerful animal,

"Take him over those rails, Naylus," said Mr. Maggs in ar off-hand manner; and Naylus," nothing daunted, turned him at‣ fair-sized timber fence, bounding the soft level meadow in which he was careering. Like most horse-dealers' men, "Naylus" possessed bette nerves than hands; but the grey, though held in a grasp like a vic, and urged upon the off-side by a single spur, jumped his fence clevery and landed in the field beyond in undeniable form. Back cones "Naylus" over the hedge, and again the horse does what is required of him tractably and well. He "reins up" where we are standing, arcles his neck, snorts as though he liked the fun, and I begin to covet hin. The Squire lays his leg over him, and gallops round the field, an I like him better and better. Mr. Maggs does not interfere with the favourable impression by any ill-timed remarks, but merely sys, "Would you like to feel his action, Mr. Nogo?" and much as I iate an unknown" mount," I too have a taste of the grey. With stirups the wrong length, and a confused mass of hard, thick reins in my hands, I cannot make him go unpleasantly; and as I return to where Mggs and his man are standing, and hear the former remark, as if b did not know I was within hearing, "Evidently a workman, Naylu' I should say a gent, from Leicestershire!" I decide upon buying the grey "coute qui coute." Elevated by the luncheon, the brandy and the gallop, I proceed forthwith to mount the brown horse, who now brought out to sustain his character, and as he is very fresh, ad the saddle not yet warm to his back, narrowly escape getting kickedoff for

my rashness. However, a sharp canter round the field makes us acquainted, and with a lively faith in Mr. Maggs's representations of his jumping powers, and a lurking ambition to show these west-country sportsmen the capabilities of a "gent. from Leicestershire," I turn the brown horse's great fiddle-head, not without trepidation, at the rails. He faces them boldly enough; but at the last moment stops dead-short, and refuses with, as I suspect, a touch of temper. The Squire laughs, and I feel in honour bound to ride him at them again, with an inward anticipation of a fall, and a confirmed disgust for "larking." I give him another chance again he stops short, but thinking better of it at the last moment wriggles his fore-hand over, and clears the remaining portion of his frame with a lash of his powerful hind-quarters that sends me clean over his head, to alight on the broad of my back in the splashing water-meadow. I get up rueful, crest-fallen, and irritated, but not the least hurt; whilst the brown horse careers round the field with streaming rein and tail on high, in undisguised exultation at his liberty. There is nothing for it but to buy him as well as the other, to show that I can ride him; and after a good deal of desultory conversation, a glass of hot brandy-and-water, much haggling as to price, many compliments from Mr. Maggs, and a curious arrangement entered into by which a certain sum is specified as the price of a certain article, and a certain per-centage on that sum returned for luck! I re-enter the Squire's pony-carriage a richer man in the amount of my personalities by one grey and one brown gelding, warranted sound in wind and limb; and a poorer one in my funded property by the sum of one hundred and seventyfive pounds-the price of the quadrupeds aforesaid; besides one golden sovereign bestowed as a free gift on the one-eyed Cornelius, and requested by that enterprising functionary wholly and entirely for luck! (To be continued.)

ERNEST ATHERLEY;

OR, SCENES AT HOME AND ABROAD.

George Frederick Cooke-The Merchant of Venice-Musical interpolation-A sharp blade-The eminent tragedian's dressing-room,

Our last chapter brought my tutor and myself to the Willows; after the first greetings were over, the conversation turned upon the play, and nothing could exceed the delight of Ellen Ramsay at the prospect of seeing her first play. The young girl was in her sixteenth year, and

although not strictly pretty, had a merry good-humoured laughing countenance, long waving ringlets, and rosy cheeks. Ellen was no heroine of romance, but a warm-hearted, simple-minded, unsophisticated, girl; sentiment and coquetry she especially avoided, and her greatest pleasure in life was to show kindness to her parents and to their numerous circle of friends.

During the whole of dinner I could think of nothing but the play. I began to fear that the glass coach that was to convey us to the theatre would be late; I raised up phantoms that the crowd would be so great that we should be unable to make our way through it. At length the conveyance was announced, and we entered it. The assemblage round the doors was numerous, but after a little pushing, aided by the civic authorities, which consisted of a superannuated beadle and a patriarchal constable, we reached the box entrance; when the first object that met my eyes was the man of authority I had seen in the morning, and who was now dressed in a court suit, with two of the "fours" in a pair of stage candlesticks, waiting to show the mayor and other distinguished personages to their seats. As I had an honourable affixed to my name, I was included amongst the privileged few, and I followed the manager, who walked backwards, after the fashion of every court chamberlain from the days of Polonius to the present time. Three front and two second row, No. 7-the Earl of Atherley's party," was announced in a stentorian voice, to the box-keeper, who lost no time in offering us a bill of the play, which I readily accepted, not being aware that by so doing I was taxing my host's pocket.

The house was crowded to the roof, and the discordant sounds that were being carried on in the gallery perfectly astounded me. The good old green curtain (deemed plebeian in our refined days) was down, and a man in a carpenter's dress was lighting the six tallow candles that were stuck into wet clay, and partly screened by dirty tin shades. The front of the boxes, the ceiling, and the proscenium, were unquestionably rather tarnished; and the figures of Thalia and Melpomene, with their attendant train, were a little worn and out of proportion. Mr. Hatton and his brother performer were perched up in a small division in the centre of the orchestra-" a regular band box," as a wit in the gallery called it -the rest of the musicians' seats having been thrown into the pit. The stage doors had been removed, and two small private boxes erected in their stead; these were reserved for the officers quartered at the barracks. The pit was full almost to suffocation, and there was not much room to spare in the boxes.

A somewhat boisterous appeal from the gallery for music, accompanied with a term which I could not at the moment understand, but which applied to the organ of the olfactory senses, produced an immediate response; and the orchestra, consisting of a squeaking fiddle and a spasmodic clarionet, performed two of Haydn's symphonies, and an overture, in an almost incredible small space of time.

At last, after a great deal of yelling, shouting, halloing, catcalling, during which, according to Collier, the roaring of lions, warbling of cats and scritch owls, with a mixture of the howling of dogs, was judiciously imitated, the curtain rose, and disclosed a scene in Venice, as unlike the views of that fairy city," of wealth the mart," which I had been accustomed to see at Atherley Manor, from the pencil of Can

naletti, as the Adriatic Bucentaur is to a Thames sand-barge. Three personages now appeared, looking more like the bravoes of Venice than the honest merchant and his two friends, and I became thoroughly engrossed with the plot of the play; it is true that my interest was not a little marred by the imperfect manner in which the trio delivered themselves of their respective speeches, and which fully justified the rather inelegant, although not less true remark, that I had previously overheard, that the performers were" shy of the syll-ables."

This scene was followed by one between Portia and Nerissa. In the former I recognized the censorious tragic lady of the morning, now flaunting about in bright cherry-coloured cotton velvet, and in the latter the fair-haired girl of curl-paper notoriety, who appeared in a very faded satin dress, such as no English Abigail would condescend to wear; unquestionably the costumes of both mistress and maid gave the spectator a poor opinion of the wealth and taste of the Belmont heiress. No sooner had these two ladies left the stage, than a breathless silence ensued, which was almost instantaneously followed by shouts that rent the air.

"Tartaream intendit vocem, quâ protinus omnis
Contremuit domus-

"Three

Shylock appeared-the applause increased, nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the audience. After a time he commenced. thousand ducats-well. For three months-well. Antonio shall be bound-well." These words were uttered in such a tone, and given with such expression, that my whole feeling was with the actor-my attention was rivetted to the scene-I could think of nothing else. I listened, I gazed; I watched every movement, every muscle. Not a word, not a look escaped me; and although perhaps the opinion of so youthful a critic may be deemed presumptuous, and some allowances must be made for the excitement attending a first play, I have never had any reason for changing the impression thus early formed, that Cooke in Shylock stood unrivalled.

I have since seen the "supernatural" John Kemble, in Coriolanus; the chivalrous Charles, in Faulconbridge; the majestic Siddons, in Con. stance; the classical Young, in Brutus; the impassioned Kean, in Richard the Third; the plaintive O'Neil, in Juliet; the dignified Somerville, in Hermione; the accomplished Macready, in Macbeth; the talented Charles Kean, in Hamlet; the pathetic Ellen Tree, in Desdemona; and one and all, in their respective characters have evinced the finest conceptions, the most admirable portraiture of the noblest creations of the bard of Avon; still they have not erased from my mind the effect produced by George Frederick Cooke, in the delineation "of the Jew, that Shakspeare drew."

During the time that Shylock was off the stage, I was all impatient for his return; the drolleries of Launcelot Gobbo, his practical joke with his "sand," or rather "high-gravel blind father were lost upon me. Nor could the melodious strains of the "pretty Jessica," represented by a dark-eyed "maid of Judah," captivate my senses. This young syren, who was the prima donna of the company, seemed to set all dramatic unities at defiance; her dress, if such a term can be applied to the very scanty apparel that unadorned her person, consisted of a