in which she appeared to great advantage, when Lorenzo says, "This is the voice, or I am much deceived, of Portia ;" Portia replies, " He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, by the bad voice." The audience often laughed, and she, knowing her infirmity, with great good humour joined with them in their demonstrations of risibility.

DOGGETT'S COAT AND BADGE.

In the year after George the First came to the throne, Thomas Doggett, a comedian, who was zealously attached to the House of Hanover, gave a waterman's coat and badge, to be rowed for by six watermen, on the anniversary of that King's accession to the throne; and at his death, bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated annually, for ever, to the purchase of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for in honour of that day. Doggett, as an author, has left behind him a comedy, called "The Country Wake," 1696, 4to. which has since been altered into a ballad farce, under the title of "Flora, or Hob in the Well."-He died in 1712.

HUGH KELLY'S "WORD TO THE WISE." THIS comedy was condemned unheard. From the moment the curtain drew up, not a syllable of the piece could be distinguished, its opponents disdaining the decency of disguising malignity under the mask of critical indignation. "It is Kelly's, and shall not be performed," was echoed by a thousand voices.-With such adversaries, reasoning was crime; the curtain dropped, or the house would have been demolished, and the author soothed his disappointment, by publishing his piece with a numerous and profitable list of subscribers. A few years after, when the play was reproduced for the benefit of the author's widow, Dr. Johnson assisted her with the following short, but impressive, Prologue.

This night presents a play which public rage,
Or right or wrong, once hooted from the stage.
From zeal or malice, now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead.
A generous foe regards, with pitying eye,
The man whom fate has laid where all must lie.
Let no renew'd hostilities invade

Th' oblivious grave's inviolable shade.
If want of skill or want of care appear,
Forbear to hiss the man that cannot hear.

And then shall calm reflection bless the night,
When lib'ral pity dignify'd delight;

When Pleasure fir'd her torch at Virtue's flame,
And Mirth was Bounty, with an humbler name.

THE SPECTATOR, TATLER, AND GUARDIAN. THE first time that Henderson rehearsed a part at Drury Lane, George Garrick entered the boxes, saying, at the same time, "I come only as a Spectator." Shortly after, he made some objection to Henderson's performance, and Henderson retorted-" Sir, I thought you were to be only a Spectator; you are turning Tatler."-" Never mind him," said David, his brother, "never mind him; let him be what he will, I will be the Guardian."

ACTRESSES.

"I perfectly remember Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard, young as I was, when I saw them in all their capital characters, the last season of their performing. I have the most discriminating recollection of their different excellencies. Mrs. Cibber had very pathetic powers; her features, though not beautiful, were delicate, and very expressive; but she uniformly pitched her silver voice, so sweetly plaintive, in too high a key to