100 Notes of the 'Month on [JAN. 



the consternation that will be created ten miles round the metropolis, at 

 the sight of a multitudinous wardrobe, a collection of at least a fifty 

 masquerade-power, hurled a few miles into the air a supernatural 

 assemblage of coats and continuations, supposed of course to be inhabited, 

 cutting capers among the clouds, as if they were so many studies for 

 Cruikshank. Or it might so fall out, that somebody walking in Pall 

 Mall may have his hat removed by the shock, at the very instant that 

 another drops upon his head the same perhaps that he had given to 

 a poor relation or a servant a twelvemonth before. These are trifles 

 compared with the important advantages that will result from the 

 ignition, which is at all events fixed to take place in the course of the 

 year between the first of April and the fifth of November. But this 

 cannot be done without money. Anybody passing through the Strand 

 may perceive that the inhabitants at the east end of Holywell-street are 

 decorating their houses of course to increase their terms with the parish. 

 Subscriptions however will be received by the churchwardens, and as 

 the " Times" chooses to be sulky, at the office of this journal. 



ACTORS AND AUDIENCES. Straws indicate the course of the times. 

 At the theatres, formerly, every despicable clap-trap was caught up ; 

 every sentiment that expressed the most rooted hatred to every thing 

 foreign, and as bigoted and narrow-minded an idolatry of every thing 

 English, awakened a spirit that made even the boxes applaud in the 

 " still small voice" of court-refinement and politeness. It is curious to 

 see with what a different spirit these same sentiments are received now ; 

 and with what an opposite feeling to that which existed in the days of 

 devoted attachment to despotism, " God save the King," is called for. 

 The performers too, Mrs. Wood and Braham may be mentioned as 

 instances, catching up the impulse of the audience, sing it with an 

 enthusiasm that rises far above mere professional habit, and gives truth 

 to every tone. In the days of illumination and loyalty, when nautical 

 dramas were as popular as King William himself has made them, any 

 symptom of a mutiny among the ship's crew would have thrown every 

 apprentice in the pit into a phrenzy of patriotic indignation. But a 

 very different spectacle took place the other evening at the Surrey, on 

 the performance of Mr. Jerrold's drama, called " The Mutiny at the 

 Nore." The ship's company are ranged on the stage, and the mover of 

 the mutiny invites his fellows to cross over to his side ; the consequence 

 of course is, that the officers are left by themselves with the exception 

 of one solitary servant of his " king and country,'' who only crosses 

 half way and hesitates as to what he shall do. At this the mutineers 

 hiss and execrate ; and to the utter confusion of the actor, who had thus 

 to balance between his country and his comrades, the audience hissed 

 too with a vociferation that rendered the stage hisses inaudible. This 

 disapprobation touched upon a tender key, and for a moment seemed to 

 turn his assumed hesitation into reality : but there was no alternative he 

 was obliged to make his decision in favour of " his king and country/' 

 and he retreated to the aristocratic side of the dock amidst a ten-fold 

 shower of hisses a martyr to his anti-mutinous principles. 



Mr. Jerrold has been fortunate in exciting the sympathies of the 

 audience in favour of his nautical heroes j it is not long ago that, as Mr. 

 T. P. Cooke was undergoing the customary ceremony of condemnation 

 in Black Eyed Susan, at Plymouth, some half dozen tars clambered from 



