DISAPPOINTED WITH THE STAGE. 141 



described brought to my view not the painted scenes of 

 the stage but the real face of nature, in the same manner 

 that a beautiful portrait gives us the idea of a real person, 

 not of a mask. But when I saw men who neither in 

 appearance nor reality came up to the idea I had formed 

 of the characters they represented, I rated them in the 

 bitterness of my soul as mere pretenders, who could not 

 act their part upon the stage so well as common men do 

 the parts assigned them in the great drama of life/ 



He appears to have grown ashamed in a few years of 

 the boyish delight with which he gazed upon the pano- 

 rama. In the letter to Baird he passes over his visit with 

 the single remark, ' I was more pleased with the panorama 

 than with the theatre.' His account of his theatrical 

 experiences contains indications of the extent of his 

 dramatic reading. ' I several times attended the theatre, 

 but I did not derive from theatrical representation half 

 the pleasure I had anticipated. I had read a great many 

 plays of the different English authors -from the days of 

 Shakespeare down to those of Cumberland and Sheridan. 

 I had perused, too, translations of Terence and Moliere. 

 My acquaintance with this department of literature was 

 perhaps premature ; for I perused most of these works at 

 too early an age to appreciate their merits as compositions, 

 or to draw comparisons between their dramatis personce 

 and the people of the world. The impression, however, 

 which the more striking scenes and characters had left on 

 my imagination was ineffaceably vivid. Most of the 

 scenes were identified in my mind with the beautiful 

 scenes of the hill of Cromarty. The cliff of Dover, even 

 in Shakespeare, could not surpass in grandeur of feature 

 the rock of the Apple-yardie, a rugged, hoary, perpendi- 

 cular precipice, nearly three hundred feet in height, 

 crested by a dark wood skirted by a foaming sea 



