AN ACTRESS'S READY WIT.

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of Mddle. Chaumont's petticoat produced an amusing unrehearsed effect. "In the first case, the great French actor was performing the Earl of Essex, and his garter slipped from below his knee, in the scene where only he and the traitor Cecil were on the stage. Such a person Essex might treat with indifference or contempt; and accordingly he replaced the dropped band round his leg, while he continued to address Cecil in a disdainful tone. The effect was so successful that succeeding actors adopted the incident of affecting to tighten the garter as a good 'bit of business,' and the tradition continued to be observed as long as 'Le Comte d' Essex' continued to be acted. Mdlle. Chaumont's slip was of another character. It taxed her readiness in an emergency, and did not find her wanting. She was playing soubrette in 'Nos Gens,' and was engaged running to and fro to collect and burn the presents of various old lovers. In the very middle of her action she was impeded by her petticoat suddenly falling about her feet. Of course it was a very pretty article of its sort, and she got out of it, and out of the embarrassment which had come with it, by describing it as a tribute of admiration from one of her old admirers, which must be sacrificed like all the rest; and she thrust it into the stage fire accordingly, with a merry laugh, and amid the general hilarity of the house."

There is a pleasant story which relates how Queen Elizabeth, when Shakespeare was once acting in her presence, endeavored to put him at pleasant perplexity between his sense of stage discipline and that of his royal gallantry. After many a vain attempt, we are told that Elizabeth, crossing the stage whereon the poet-actor was enacting the counterfeit presentment of a king, and engaged in royal work, dropped her glove. Shakespeare, without departing from the character he was illustrating, interpolated the original text with words to

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DETERMINED TO BLunder.

suit the action of his homage. He paused in a processional movement of which he made a part, exclaiming

“And though now bent on this high embassy,

Yet stoop we to pick up our cousin's glove”—

and rendering it to her with a profound bow, proudly strode off the stage.

Old Pepys makes record of having gone to see “All's Lost by Lust," in which the musical effects had been so ill rehearsed that singers and orchestra were all at odds, and universal discord reigned. One vocal lad was so out of tune and memory that his "master"—which may imply either the stage manager or the leader of the band-"fell about his ears, and beat him so that it put the whole house into an uproar."

It is related of Moody, the Irish actor, that he was the original Lord Burghley, in "The Critic," and that when Sheridan selected him for the part, the manager declared that Moody would be sure to commit some ridiculous error, and ruin the effect. The author protested that such a result was impossible, and, according to the fashion of the times, a wager was laid, and Sheridan hurried to the performer of the part to give him such instructions as should render any mistake beyond possibility. Lord Burghley has nothing to say, merely to sit awhile, and then, as the stage directions informed him, and Sheridan impressed it upon his mind, "Lord Burghley comes forward, pauses near Dangle, shakes his head, and exit." The actor thoroughly understood the direction, he said, and could not err.

At night he came forward, did pause near Dangle, shook his (Dangle's) head, and went solemnly off!

A humorous story of a stage ghost is told in Raymond's "Life of Elliston," aided by an illustration from the etching needle of George Cruickshank, executed in quite his

A FUNNY OLD STORY.

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happiest manner. Dowton, the actor, playing a ghost part to judge from the illustration, it must have been the ghost in "Hamlet," but the teller of the story does. not say formally that such was the fact-had, of course, to be lowered in the old-fashioned way through a trapdoor in the stage, his face being turned to the audience. Elliston and De Camp, concealed beneath the stage, had provided themselves with small rattan canes, and as their brother actor slowly and solemnly descended, they applied their sticks sharply and rapidly to the calves of his legs, unprotected by the plate armor that graced his shins. Poor Dowton with difficulty preserved his gravity of countenance, or refrained from the utterance of a yell of agony while in the presence of the audience. His lower limbs, beneath the surface of the stage, frisked and curvetted about "like a horse in Ducrow's arena." His passage below was maliciously made as deliberate as possible. At length, wholly let down, and completely out of sight of the audience, he looked around the obscure regions. beneath the stage, to discover the base perpetrators of the outrage. He was speechless with rage, and burning for revenge. Elliston and his companion had of course vanished. Unfortunately at that moment Charles Holland, another member of the company, splendidly dressed, appeared in sight. The enraged Dowton, mistaking his man, and believing that Holland's imperturbability of manner was assumed, and an evidence of his guilt, seized a mop at that moment at hand, immersed in very dirty water, and thrusting it in his face, utterly ruined wig, ruffles, point lace, and every particular of his elaborate attire. In vain Holland protested his innocence, and implored for mercy; his cries only stimulated the avenger's exertions, and again and again the saturated mop did desperate execution over the unhappy victim's finery.

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FAINTING ON THE STAGE.

It is not often that players give evidence of sickness on the stage, but it sometimes happens; and I remember a case where a lady fainted so opportunely that some of the audience thought it a part of the play.

It was at the New York theatre, in the play of “Cendrillon." Mrs. Marie Wilkins was playing Madam de Houspignolle, the wife of Pinchonniere. In the fourth act, where Pinchonniere (Lewis Baker) subdues his wife, he had seized her by the wrist, to force her to her knees; "you hurt me," she says, according to the text, and was soon in a kneeling position. Suddenly she commenced to groan, then fell prostrate in a swoon; two or three of the performers rushed to Mr. Baker's relief, who was endeavoring to raise her, and she was carried back a little way, and the curtain was closed. Mr. Baker subsequently appeared, and stated that she had left a sick bed to play her part, but the effort was too much for her, and she was obliged to succumb. For a time, the event created quite an excitement in the audience, although some of those who had not before witnessed the play supposed it was a part of the business of the character, and commended her for the natural manner in which she did it.

A curious panic once took place among the audience at Barnum's Museum, during the performance of the "Christian Martyrs." The wild animals, soldiers, and auxiliaries had just left the stage, when a dull, heavy sound was beard, followed by a crash. The audience, believing that one of the wild animals had broken loose, made a rush for the doors, jumping over seats, benches, and railings. Several persons were bruised more or less. Quiet was not restored until the actors returned upon the stage. The noise was occasioned by the breaking of a rope, to which was attached a heavy piece of wood. None of the animals escaped from their cages, and the excitement was wholly causeless.