with infinite force and spirit, by Opie.-Here is Foote, by Sir Joshua; and John Palmer, by Arrowsmith; and Mills the elder-the only known portrait of him; and Shuter; and Woodward-two or threeone of which, in the dress of Petruchio, is capital; and Booth by Vanderbank; and Ross, by Zoffanij, and a most capital and characteristic head of old Leveridge, by Vandermyn; and lastly, here is Nat. Lee,a very striking and forcible head-looking as mad as Alexander and Octavian in one.-Then among the ladies of the last age, here are two or three portraits of Nel Gwyn-one by Lely-(I allow her diminutive to pass, since the style of her charms does not hit my fancy); here are two of Mrs. Hartley, who died a few weeks ago; and Mrs. Yates, and Mrs. Oldfield, and others that I must escape from at once, and come nearer home.—In fact, I must despatch the rest of this multitudinous company in sets, or I shall not have space to introduce the half of them. Here is, for instance, a set of very clever, sketchy, and spirited portraits of those actors and actresses who have just now passed away, or are passing-viz. Pope, Holman, Quick, Middleton, Mrs. Martyr, Mrs. Pope, Mrs. Mattocks, &c. These were taken expressly for the late Mr. Harris, by Gainsboro' du Pont. Then here is the whole Garrick Club, of twelve members-small water-colour drawings; and a long and most valuable series of drawings, by De Wilde, representing small whole-length portraits of all the distinguished actors of the present day, in one of their most favourite characters. Finally, here is a most excellent and perfect series of all the above, in their individual characters. These need not of course be named generally, but a few of them deserve particular mention, on account of their great merit as works of art. Among these Harlowe's stand conspicuous. Here is, by this admirable young artist, a delightful portrait of the present manager of Drury Lane, in his favourite part of-Mr. Elliston; Young, to the very life; and the very best portrait of Mrs. Siddons that I have ever seen-a small whole-length. Then there is Johnstone, by Shee; and Macready, by Jackson; and Henry Johnston, by Singleton; and, in short, a host of others that I must absolutely take leave of at once, with a vale, et valete," or the rest of the pleasant prose of this our incomparable miscellany "must halt for it :"-which would not be exactly fair, either to writers or readers. I should, however, leave the latter with a very imperfect notion of Mr. Mathews's Theatrical Gallery, if I did not inform them that I have, in the present paper, treated of one department of it alone; and that, besides the pictures (of which I have described but an inconsiderable portion in point of number) it includes every thing valuable in the way of Art, which indefatigable attention and almost unlimited expense could collect, illustrative of the peculiar subject to which it confines itself. This secondary department I propose to give the theatrical reader a brief glance at, in another paper; when I shall have to tell him, among other things, of Shakspeare and Garrick relics, that it will do his play-loving heart good even to hear of; of enormous portfolios containing every scratch that ever came from graver relative to the last-named of these theatrical worthies; and above all, of a MS. folio, in the hand-writing of the proprietor of all these treasures, including biographical notices of all the English performers, male and female, that are known to have flourished in London since the rise of the drama in this country; illustrated by nearly all the known engravings of them that are extant.

ROME IN THE FIRST AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.

OPENING that volume of Pinelli's etchings which contains his illustrations of the Roman history, I was somewhat struck with the frontispiece, or introductory picture, representing the worthy artist himself, as like as needs be, with his sailor-like neck-handkerchief and little cork-screw curls over his temples. By his side sat those eternal companions of his, and no useless escort, believe me, to one who goes sketching in the Campagna di Roma,-two surly mastiffs, with their heads stuck together classically, like Cerberus of old. The artist seems in the act of listening, not very submissively, to a lady with a wolf at her feet; from which sign, joined with a helm and long rectilinear nose, I guessed her to represent no less a being than the Genius of Rome itself. Now, thinks I, if Mistress Rome be so condescending as to dictate a series of etchings to Signor Pinelli; why not, &c. ?— the inference is plain. But the deuce of it is, that when one of these artists gets an outlandish idea in his head, he puts it upon canvass at once, without proem or prologue, referring the ignorant spectator to his noddle or his catalogue. With us penmen the law says otherwise. We can take no such leap into the marvellous; we are first of all to explain the why and the wherefore, and have no right to depict visions without first relating how we came to see them. And really so many authors have begun now-a-days by setting themselves asleep, that to commence dreaming in any original way has become a matter of much difficulty. To walk and fall asleep, to get drunk and fall asleep, to ride, to meditate, &c. &c. are all preoccupied; to dream without plagiarism is impossible. Your modern visionary is as perplexed and rotatory as a dog looking for his pillow.

So, to make a long story short, I fell asleep. When ?-Evening. Where-The Coliseum; around the galleries and corridors of which I had been wandering and stumbling for a couple of hours, popping my head out of its arches, like the fox in Ossian, and marvelling how it came to pass that the columns which from below seemed about three or four feet high, had nearly that measure in thickness when I came to stand by their side. I had been also strangely pestered by two English dandies, the sound of whose creaking boots and clanking spurs broke every now and then the thread of my cogitations. Nor was the sight of them more agreeable: they were handsome, good figures, no doubt, with fine English oval faces, nowise inferior to the proudest Roman bust, and habited in the fashionable taste of Europe; yet for all this I wished them at the Land's-end; and turning from them and the internal ruins of the amphitheatre, which they were surveying, I sat me down in one of the arches. The carriages from the Lateran and the gate of St. John rolled beneath, small as mice, numerous, but unregarded by me. My gaze was on the Esquiline, the distant Aqueducts, and the more distant Alban hills, their blue mass interspersed with a thousand gay spots, that marked the villages and villas on their sides. The

vesper bell of the Franciscan convent in the Palatine began to chime, and I to nod-till, as I said before, gentle reader, I was fairly asleep.

What a speedy architect is the imagination! I had not been five minutes in slumber ere the whole amphitheatre was restored to its original perfection, its ruins half rebuilt, its arches, steps, its galleries and vomitories, all complete. An hundred thousand Romans, in their "eternal shirts," occupied their seats of marble. Great was the acclamation, the rising and rustling of togas, as the Emperor entered, and an hundred thousand of the masters of the world turned with looks of awe and submission towards the seat of the Cæsar. All was hushed as the gladiators entered. They began the combat bold and determined; but the too earnest countenance, and the quiver of the naked muscle, spoke, through all their fortitude, a nervousness that communicated itself to me in such a degree as to become absolute pain. I turned from the scene, methought, and abruptly retiring to the deserted corridor, in my vision seated myself on the very seat which I actually occupied, closing my ears against the shouts that welcomed the victor and smothered the groan of the dying.

The Emperor of the day, methought, was Domitian, the "calvus Nero" of Juvenal; and in my dreamy identification with his age, my thoughts were occupied with the scandalous and witty pictures of the satirist; above all, the enormous turbot, and his summoning of the council thereon; and by one of those digressions, which dreams make nothing of, I was for a moment brought to think of Billingsgate and the Common Council. But this merely par parenthèse; for behold, methought two Romans, in tunic and toga, paced round the corridor of the Amphitheatre, and stopped even at the window where I was sitting. As they looked to the left with mournful aspects down upon the Esquiline, I turned towards the spot that seemed the object of their regards, and observed the palace of Titus erect in all its splendour, of which modern antiquaries have but the foundation and the baths, and in so many centuries of research have not yet more than half cleared them out.

"Alas!" said one of the toga'd figures, "to what purpose have served the fates, the conquests, and glories of Rome, except to leave the happiness of the world dependent on the temper, the good or evil whim of one being: yesterday a Titus, to-day a Domitian."

The other Roman had not time to reply, ere, methought, the two aforesaid English dandies came and took their station at the self-same window; and for the coincidence I cannot account, save that from it extends the most delightful of all prospects over the Esquiline and the Campagna, to Præneste, the Alban hills, and Mount Algidus far in the

distance.

My toga'd and my breeched companions seemed either not to see or not to acknowledge each other, as eighteen centuries difference in people's ages generally breeds a coldness between them, not to be overcome upon a first meeting. They talked, however, apart, Roman to Roman, Briton to Briton; and strange confusion certainly they made to me, who heard, as well as two ears could take in, all four.