severity, "Why, suppose we go to the seventysecond representation of this d-d bad play." THE PRINTER TURNED DRAMATIST. A PRINTER at Paris wrote a Tragedy called "Joshua," which he printed in the most splendid style, and sent a copy to the celebrated Bodoni, a brother printer at Parma. Some time afterward, he went into Italy, and paid Bodoni a visit. "Well," said he, “what do you think of my Tragedy?"-"Full of beauties," exclaimed his friend. "Then you think," rejoined the author, “I shall acquire some fame by it?"- "It will immortalize you," was the reply. "And the characters, what do you say of them?"" The characters," said Bodoni, “are exquisite-perfect-especially the capitals." FRENCHMAN, TEARS, AND UMBRELLA. A FRENCHMAN, on being taken to see Mrs. Siddons play Isabella, in the "Fatal Marriage," allowed her performance to be very fine, but said, that the pathetic effect was by no means equal to what he had witnessed in Paris, at the performance of a petit piece, called "Misanthropy and Repentance." "I was obliged," said he, " to hold my parasol over my head, to prevent my clothes from being drenched with the showers of tears, which fell from the boxes over my head !" THE FORTUNE THEATRE. THE remains of this ancient Theatre are still standing, and are now divided into two paltry tenements, forming Nos. 61 and 62 in Golden Lane. They are decorated with the royal arms, but these Emblems present a miserable contrast with the "base uses" to which the premises are now applied. The ground on which the Theatre stood, was occupied as a royal nursery for the children of Henry the Eighth ; Golden Lane being, at that period, (not, as at present, one of the most crowded and filthy situations in London,) but an airy lane, in the outskirts of the town. It was purchased, in the year 1600, by the celebrated Edward Alleyn, who rebuilt the greater part of it, at the expense of £520, a very considerable sum in those days, and converted the Nursery into a Theatre. This building took its name from a painting or statue of Fortune placed in front of it, which is thus noticed in Heywood's English Travellers. "Old Lio.-Sirrah! come! come down! Reig. Not till my pardon's seal'd: I'll rather stand here, Like a statue, in the full front of your house, For ever; like the picture of Dame Fortune It took fire on 29th December, 1621, at twelve o'clock at night, and the whole of the interior of the building was consumed in less than two hours. Shortly after, it was again fitted up, on a large scale, and the company continued to perform in it, until the suppression of the Theatres, in 1648; when it was closed, in obedience to the proclamation, and was never afterwards re-opened as a play-house. ANN CATLEY. THIS celebrated vocalist, so popular in her day, was a striking example of what merit can do, unaided by birth or interest. She was born in 1745, in an alley, near Tower Hill,-" of parentage obscure," her father being a hackney coachman, (afterwards the keeper of a public house near Norwood,) and her mother a washerwoman. Her extraordinary vocal abilities soon discovered themselves; for, at the early age of ten years, she sang at public houses, in her father's neighbourhood, and for the officers on duty in the Tower. Her musical talents soon spread their own fame; and one Bates, a musician, who lived at |