as others on the authority of the chief manufacturer in this country of stage dresses, for home use and for exportation—that there are about six pounds of spangles on a Harlequin's dress, though the weight has been sometimes said to be twice or thrice as much. How many thousands of spangles have to be sewn on, with four stitches to each spangle, can of course be calculated by any person who will weigh out an ounce, count them, and then multiply them by 96. They will amount probably to 70,000 or 80,000; and these are, every one of them, sewn on with the best white silk-twist that can be bought or made. The sewing-machine has not yet been adapted to this tedious work; nor can it very well be, until a most ingenious modification may occur to some inventor. The tight-fitting suit which the spangles are made to cover, like the scales of a salmon, is fashioned of a particularly strong web-cloth, manufactured expressly for the purpose at Nottingham. The triangular, or, more properly speaking, half-diamond shaped patches, are stoutly sewn on with the same strong silk-twist used in affixing the spangles. The patches are of Leicester and Bradford cloth, so fine that it has frequently to be woven for the special purpose. Their colours should properly be four--red, blue, yellow, and green-typifying, after a roughly scientific fashion, what used to be called the four elements, to wit, earth, air, fire, and water. The average cost of a Harlequin's dress is 10l.

III. The Masks.

Should the faithful historian be bidden to discourse of pantomime masks, he must needs expand with his subject till he include the fine arts, painting and sculpture. The first cost of a great ugly head which gets knocked about night after night during the run of the favourite Christmas entertainment is not easily calculated. When it has been modelled and cast, the mere pasteboard manufacture may not be very expensive, unless there is some extraordinary mechanical action to be combined with the stolid goggle-eyed expression of the face. But the first design is costly, as may be soon supposed when we state, by way of example, that the masks for a pantomime played at Covent Garden were modelled by one of the most celebrated sculptors of the age, Signor Raffaelle Monti, whose

Eve, Veiled Vestal, and other statues-the beauty of which generally inclines to what is termed the morbidezza of artistic grace-are about as different from the huge caricatures of human physiognomy introduced into a pantomime as Clown himself is different from the Apollo Belvidere. A strangely interesting collection might be made from sketches in the possession of the property-man and the wardrobe-keeper. Artists whose names are among the most honoured of our time have not thought it derogatory to their genius to design masks, fanciful costumes for the pantomime. Hid away on dusty shelves in 'Old Drury' are folios full of odd nightmare notions traceable to men who woke to the noblest achievements of imaginative art. Sometimes, indeed, the designers of pantomime figures and faces devote a lifetime to this kind of work, unmixed with higher matter; and the annals of lunacy record the dismal case of a monomaniac who was haunted during the last years of his existence by goblin-shapes that he had conjured into being.

IV. The Transformation Scene.

Transformation scenes are now the points d'appui of the spectacular drama, burlesque or pantomimic; and many of these gorgeous exhibitions are distinguished by an originality so striking, that thousands of people are drawn to each theatre by curiosity to see the one grand scene of which they have heard so much. It is difficult to give the palm where the merit seems so equal; and perhaps it ought to be cut into quarters and divided among Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Her Majesty's, and the Princess's. The stage of the old Opera-house is so deficient in depth that the production of anything like a distant effect demands all the illusory powers of scenic perspective. Covent Garden, on the other hand, boasts a stage of immense capacity for spectacle, as opera-goers know full well, when the airs from the 'Prophète' and the 'Huguenots' remind them of scenes unsurpassed in picturesque grandeur. There is ample scope and verge enough for a pantomime on the stage that has admitted the grand expanse of mountain and valley echoing the name and deeds of William Tell. The working of a transformation scene is principally from the mezzanine floor below

the stage, which space is at such a time a wilderness of ropes mostly running in a vertical position up and down. The seemingly slight supports of the fairies, poising them in mid-air, are iron truss-girders, such as would be sufficiently strong to be used in a suspension-bridge. All the scenery at Covent Garden is either raised from underneath the stage or is lowered from above. The size of the 'cloths,' as the flat-scenes are called, is 74 feet in length, by 44 in height. On one of them in the great transformation scene of a pantomime a clock-dial is painted, and the numerals of the hours being removed give way to dazzling fairy forms. This immense dial, of course, appears to be many times larger than the face of any real clock; but it is in fact the precise circumference to half an inch of the illuminated dial on the clock-tower of Westminster Palace. A good opportunity is therefore afforded the public of realising the stupendous size of that horologe. The transformation scene in the Drury Lane pantomime also enlists the aid of powerful machinery, the rising and sinking of resplendently draped figures being contrived by huge wheels, which as they lift one young lady lower another. The ironwork is ingeniously hidden by wings at the back of each form, as well as by cloud scenery. All the complex arrangements of the transformation scene are regulated in practice by a code of signals as complete as that of a railway; and it is in obedience to the motion of a little flag that stars open and disclose visions of dazzling delight, which bring down the house in a storm of admiring plaudits.

V. The Miseries of the Performers.

There are different aspects, some of them sad, some ridiculous, and some perchance both, in which we may choose to regard a pantomime and those who act in it. We may think of Harlequin with a headache, or of Columbine, poor girl, with a cough; we may suppose that Pantaloon has unquiet thoughts about his landlord, and that Clown would like to know what medicine will cure the sick wife or child at home. A poor banner-carrier was once heard to wheeze out with his remnant of a lung, that he feared this would be about the last procession he should ever have to take part in, till he himself should be carried in one. But perhaps the most grotesquely

lugubrious tale ever told of a pantomime company was of a troop that, having left New Orleans on a rambling tour, was stricken with the plague, when the only survivor, Harlequin, fled in his motley suit, which he wore for many weeks during his sojourn with Indians. Did he cut the spangles off? Their weight adds six or seven pounds to that of a Harlequin's dress, which is something like a suit of chain-armour to handle. It was in no vain carking mood that we ventured for a time to depoetise the holiday dreams of bright and graceful childhood. To lay bare the skeleton of sheer tomfoolery is to demonstrate its kinship with serious flesh and blood. If any of the matter-of-fact gossip here set down shall induce a single reader to regard more tolerantly, more considerately, and more charitably, the numerous class engaged in the hard work of making fun, we shall have done no harm in letting daylight behind the scenes of the theatre-into almost the only spot upon earth which the blessed sun does not gladden, but renders cheerless, cold, and desolate.

41. THE SIEGE OF ARCOT.

During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty days the young captain (Clive) maintained the defence with a firmness, vigilance, and ability which would have done honour to the oldest marshal in Europe. The breach, however, increased day by day. The garrison began to feel the pressure of hunger. Under such circumstances any troops scantily provided with officers might have been expected to show signs of insubordination; and the danger was peculiarly great in a force composed of men differing widely from each other in extraction, colour, language, manners, and religion. But the devotion of the little band to its chief surpassed anything that is related of the Tenth Legion of Cæsar, or of the Old Guard of Napoleon. The Sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind. An attempt made by the government of

Madras to relieve the place had failed. But there was hope from another quarter. Morari Row declared that he had never before believed that Englishmen could fight, but that he would willingly help them since he saw that they had spirit to help themselves.-Macaulay.

42. ASSASSINATION OF GENERAL KLEBER.

After the battle of Heliopolis the French army seemed to be surrounded with the most brilliant circumstances. Kleber formed the Greeks and Copts into battalions, whom he trained to the use of arms and clothed in the uniform of his country. But just as the superior abilities of this Alsatian commander begun to unfold themselves, he was stabbed whilst walking on his terrace in Cairo, and his blood still marks the palings against which he staggered. The assassination of an officer so generally beloved, so much respected and esteemed by all parties, enemies as well as friends, appears a mystery which time has not yet unravelled. His body was conveyed to France with the skeleton of the assassin. This wretched slave, Solyman el Aleppi, was empaled alive, and lived in that state for three days. Neither when his hand was cut off, nor during the dreadful operation which humanity revolts at, did he betray the least fear; his only cry was for water, and from time to time he uttered a bitter curse against those who had persuaded him to make a confession, under the promise of a pardon.—Denon.

43. NAPOLEON'S SYSTEM OF WARFARE.

The art of war, it was maintained, had undergone a wonderful change since the advent of Napoleon. Until the appearance of that great master, whose practical lessons had overturned all former theories, the art, his parasites said, had never been perfectly understood. But, in point of fact, there was nothing new in the system of Napoleon; he acted on the sound principles adopted by Marlborough, by Frederick, and indeed by all the great generals of antiquity, but from which his adversaries had invariably departed. His whole system consisted in concentrating his forces on important points, instead of disseminating them in long lines of posts; in concealing his inten