Riot, an Irish Chairman, exhibited all his usual grace and dignity.

His Highness the Duke of Glocester, as a Milkmaid, was simple and natural, and distributed her curds and whey with great affability.

We observed none of the Foreign Ministers, except the Ambassadors from Saxony, King Murat, and the Spanish Insurgents: their Excellencies assumed no character, but continued masked the whole evening. Mr. Pig-blank,* late Professor of Hebrew in the University of Salamanca, and Envoy from the Cortes of Spain to the Whig Club, was also present, and his Excellency speaking no language but Spanish and Hebrew, Mr. Whitbread accompanied him for a part of the evening as interpreter; but as Mr. Whitbread speaks no language but English, the conversation was somewhat constrained, and we lost a good

• There was at this time in England a Spanish exile of the name of Puigblanch, who received some countenance from Mr. Whitbread, who mentioned his case in parliament.-E.

deal of Mr. Pig-blank's pleasantry.-The remainder of the night Mr. W., as Bully Bottom,* kept the room in a roar; he wore his ass's ears with great impudence and effect, and on the whole was the best representative we have seen of the pert, ignorant, vulgar, swaggering, and sneaking bully of our immortal bard.

Lord Grenville and Earl Grey, as the Coachman and Guard of an Opposition diligence just overturned, by coming in contact with a waggon laden with corn,† were much followed-The sulky growl of Coachee was well contrasted with the lively rage of the Guard; and their mutual complaints of the improper disposition of the passengers, and their luggage, the rate of driving, the blindness of one of the leaders, and the lameness of the other, were carried on with a great deal of truth and fury.

* See page 2.

An allusion probably to the Corn Bill.-E.

Mr. Tierney, as Harlequin, was certainly deficient in corporeal activity; but he made ample amends for that defect by the variety of his shifts, and the rapidity of his transformations; the best of which, we think, was a scene in which Harlequin dis guised himself as a Quaker, and put on an air of plausibility, bluntness, and honesty, which might have deceived a sharper eye than that of the Clown, who was represented, with great fidelity and lumpishness, by Sir W. Geary.*

The Marquis Wellesley, as a Mountebank, and Mr. Commissioner Sydenham,† as his man, were perhaps the most natural characters in the roomthe finical gravity and empty pretensions with which

M.P. for Kent.

† B. Sydenham, Esq. a Commissioner of Excise, was supposed to have written a series of letters under the signature of Vetus, remarkable for their inflated panegyrics upon the Marquis Wellesley. It was afterwards said that Mr. S. was not the writer, but the procurer of this flattery, and the Editor has heard from other authority that he was neither. It is now of little consequence, the whole affair is forgotten.-E.

F

the quack puffed off his own nostrum as the only specific for all disorders, and the smirking and officious asseverations of the parasite, that "the Master was the greatest Man of the *Times," excited much merriment. They distributed a hand-bill to the following effect:

"Porro unum est necessarium !"'+

"DR. BRAGADOCIO BEHAUDER LIMBERHAM, from Seville, Calcutta, and Balruddery, renowned through three quarters of the globe, the kingdom of Ireland, and the town of Ramsgate, for his acquirements in all polite learning, and his endowments with all natural qualities--He possesses all languages,he professes all arts, and flatters himself that he is a miracle of eloquence, genius, science, and several other particulars, which modesty and space forbid him to name. He is the sole inventor and proprietor of the wonderful pill which cures all disorders, and averts old age and infirmity; of which miraculous power the Doctor is himself a living example, having preserved to a great old age the perpetual spring of youth,as he is ready to exhibit to all ladies and gentlemen who may visit him. Hours of business from five in the evening till three-quarters before six.-N. B. A back door to the Park." * Vetus's Letters appeared in the Times newspaper.

The family motto of the Wellesleys. But it seems here quoted in allusion to the cry of Lord Wellesley's partizans, that his return to power was the unum necessarium to the national welfare.

Mr. Ponsonby was inimitable in Old Dogberry: the conceited emptiness of the old Constable, his affected pauses, ridiculous mistakes, and emphatical truisms, were copied to the life. The manner in which he assured his auditors that " if he were as tedious as a King, he could find it in his heart to bestow all his tediousness on their Worships :" and that "he thanked God he was as honest as any man living, that was an old man, and no honester than he," was truly

comic.

Lord Lauderdale, as the devil with his tail chopped off, was prodigiously entertaining, though his Lordship supported the character without the assistance of a mask.

Mr. Lambton, as Fauconbridge, railed at the Duke of Austria in a very spirited style; and vindicated his preference of his own birth and blood over those of Sir Robert, with characteristic vivacity.

* An allusion to an attack (see p. 44.) on Lord Castlereagh, K. G. Sir Robert Stewart is his Lordship's legal style.