melodramas which deal with long lapses of years, and relate the adventures of more than one generation, and in which the hero or heroine of the earlier scenes reappears at a later stage of the performance as his or her own child. Here, however, frequent change of dress is not required; the character first personated, when once laid aside, is not resumed, but is supposed to have been effectually removed from the scene by death, generally of a violent description. It is to be added that the applause often won by the actor who doubles a part on account of his rapid changes of attire, are in truth due much less to him than to the activity of his dresser--a functionary, however, who is never seen by the public. Still, calls before the curtain have now become such common compliments, that even the dressers of the theatre may yet obtain this form of recognition of their deserts. The services of a mute double to assist the illusion of the scene, or to spare a leading performer needless fatigue, have often been required upon the stage. Such a play as "The Corsican Brothers" could scarcely be presented without the aid of a mute player to take the place, now of Louis, now of Fabian dei Franchi, to personate now the spectre of this twin, now of that. In former days, when the deepest tragedy was the most highly esteemed of theatrical entertainments, funeral processions, or biers bearing the corpses of departed heroes, were among the most usual of scenic exhibitions. Plays closed with a surprising list of killed and wounded. But four of the characters in Rowe's "Fair Penitent" are left alive at the fall of the curtain, and among those survivors are included such subordinate persons as Rossano, the friend of Lothario, and Lucilla, the confidante of Calista, whom certainly it was worth no one's while to put to death. The haughty gallant, gay Lothario, is slain at the close of the fourth act, but his corpse figures prominently in the concluding scenes. The stage direction runs at the opening of the fifth act: "A room hung with black; on one side Lothario's body on a bier; on the other a table with a skull and other bones, a book and a lamp on it. Calista is discovered on a couch, in black; her hair hanging loose and disordered. Soft music plays." In this, as in similar cases, it was clearly unnecessary that the personator of the live Lothario of the first four acts should remain upon the stage to represent his dead body in the fifth. It was usual, therefore, to allow the actor's dresser to perform this doleful duty, and the dressers of the time seem to have claimed occupation of this nature as a kind of privilege, probably obtaining in such wise some title to increase of salary. The original Lothario--the tragedy being first represented in 1703--was George Powell, an esteemed actor who won applause from Addison and Steele, but who appears to have been somewhat of a toper, and was generally reputed to obscure his faculties by incessant indulgence in