The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-16


totype in Martin Chuzzlewit." In addition
to her perplexity about the missing infant,
she is further embarrassed as to the exact
surname of ''Mr. Nightingale, whose name
she remembers to be that of bird, but can
not always refer to the correct species of that
order. A quotation we make from memory
will leave no doubt as to the fertile and sim
gular fancy from whose mint it came:-
mo, sir, will not leave the house! will
not leave the establishment without my child,
my boy. My boy, sir, which he were his
mothers hope and his fathers pride, and no
one as am aweer on's Joy. Vich the name as
was Civ to this blessedest of infants and
worked in best Vitechapel, mixed upon pin
cushin, and Save the mother likewise, were
Abjolom, after his own PARENTAL father,
Mr. Nightingale, who no other ways
than by being guv to liquor, lost days
work at the veel-right business, vich
it was but limited, Mr.. Skylark, being
veels of donkey-chaises and goats; and vun
vas even drawn by geese for wager, and
came up the aisle o. the parish church one
Sunday afternoon by reason of the perwerse-
ness of the animals, as could be testified by
Mr.. Wix, the beadle, afore he died of draw
ing on Wellington boots to which he was not
accustomed, after an earty meal of roast
beef and picked walnut to which he we're
too partial! Yes, Mr.. Robin Redbreast, in
the marble fontin of that theer church was
u0 DhpIlAeu hDJdlOu, VlcQ never can %
unmade or undone, l am proud to say, not
to please nor give offense to no one, nohows
and noveres, sir. Ah! 'affiiction
sore long time Maria Nightingale bore; ply
sicians aodS in vain'-not that am aweer she
had any one in particular, sir, excepting Oh6
vich she tore his hair by handfuls out in con-
sequence of disagreements relative to her
complaint; and dead she is, and will be, as
the hosts of the Egyptian fairies; and this
oh al MIN tha
dence of my brother the sexton, whom l
shall here produce, to your confusion, young
person, in the twinkling of star or humin
eye!"
Scarcely had tho old lady quilted the
stage when Mr.. Dickens reappeared as "my
brother the sexton, very old gentleman
indeed, with quavery voice and self-satis-
fed smile pleasantly suggesting how mimi
table must have been the same actors man.
ner as ''Justice Shallow'), and afflicted with
hardness of hearing" which almost bafled
the efforts of his interrogators to obtain
from him the desired inf ormation as to the
certificate of Mrs. Nightingale decease. ''It's
no use your whispering to me, sir was
the gentle remonstrance which the first
loud shout in his ear elicited and on the
question being put whether she had ever
buried'-he at once interrupted to reply that
he had 6reaoed;: and that he and his old woman
-"my old woman was Kentish woman,
gentlemen: one year, sir, we brewed some of
the strongest ale that you ever drank, sir;
they used to call it down in our part of the
country Gin allusion, you understand, to its
great strength, gentlemen), Samson with
his hair on, AT which point the thread of
his narrative was cut short by the reiteration,
in louder key still, of the intended question
in complete form. A third character in
the farce, sustained by Dickens, was that
OF a mdtdde snaG9inaSre, for the time
being under treatment by new specific,
mustard and milk, " the merits of which he
could not highly enough extol, but which
nevertheless was not so soothing in it's
effects but that the patient gave every minute
loud shrek - explaining apologetically
That's the mustard" followed Immediately
by still louder one, "That's the milk" We
are afraid to say in how many other DISCUSSES
our manager appeared, but there was Cor
tainly one other, footman or waiter, in
which character the actor gave us a most
amusing caricature of the manner of one
of his own servants; and we remember
with what glee, one night at supper
after rehearsal, Dickens learned that the
man in question had been heard initiating his
master in the part for the amusement of his
fellow-servants, in utter ignorance that he
himself had sat in the first instance for the
portrait. The same amazing fertility aud
rapidity of invention, in which Dickens
served him in excellent stead, in the sudden
substitution of extempore remarks known to
the professional actor as ''gag." On one oc-
casion in farce (we forget its name) played
after ''The Frozen Deep, one of the charac-
ters having occasion to disguise himself for
the moment in the chintz-cover of the sofa,
Mr.. Dickens suddenly observed, to the aston
ishment of his fellow actors, 'He has a
! general appearance of going to have his hair
CUT" comparison so ingeniously perfect as
to convulse everybody on and off the stage
with laughter. In this rapid discovery of re-
semblances-for example, Mrs. Lirripers des-
cription of the poor gentleman, when the fire
broke out in her lodgings, carried out in
chair, 'similar to Guy Fawkes, or the des-
cription of Captain Bunsby's eyes, Zone mov-
able and one stationary, on the principle of
some lighthouses" our great novelist has
never been approached. ''rhus, it has been
! truly said, she makes human nature and its
surroundings speak to us; and thus the rich
ness of life is multiplied to us infinitely, so
long as we are enabled to view it with his
| eyes"
1t was perhaps partly owing to Mr. Dickens
sense that his mission in life was to be an
entertainer" that from the outset of his
literary career he exhibited SO strong fellow
feeling with entertainers of all kinds; and
these few rough notes of his own theatrical
relaxations may be of interest if only as illus
trating one undoubted characteristic of his
genius. His love of the stage, and his fami-
liarity with every aspect of it, are apparent in
almost everything he has written, from the
Sketches by Boz, in which he described
an evening at Astley's (Which, by the
way, may be compared, by those who
like to trace the growing power
and the perfecting touch of a great artist,
with 81 deScrintion Of fba aaua Soana in fba