acts, but it cannot bind its successors. Now, do me the favour to finish the pot of porter which, in my mind's eye, I see you dandling on your crossed knee, while your left hand, with easy elegance, is supporting the bowl of your pipe--and see how these observations apply to Shakspeare. He has ruined the stage; he has fixed its taste for ever, by establishing one unvarying standard for plot, language, and character--and that is his own. There can be no progress--not merely meaning, by progress, improvement, but, positively, no change. He blocks up every access to the dramatic Parnassus--he has acquired an entire monopoly of the heroines in Collins' Ode--and woe to the intruder into the sacred precincts of his zenana. Well, he _was_ a tremendous Turk, that old swan of Avon--there is no denying the fact; but what I complain of is, that no other Leda should be looked at for a moment but only his. No man can look at the Swan for an instant, and doubt that the king of gods and men has disguised himself in that avatar of web-feet and feathers. Jupiter is only enveloped, not concealed; but, at the same time, is it possible to be blind to the fact, that he has degraded himself to the habits of the flat-billed bird--that he waddles most unmercifully when by chance he leaves the lake?--that he hisses and croaks most unmusical, most melancholy?--and that he gathers all unclean garbage for his food--newts, and frogs, and crawling worms? In short, that though, in his pride, and grandeur, and passionate energy, he is the Tyrant of Olympus, he is, in many other respects, an animal not greatly to be admired--by no means comparable as a dish at Christmas to a well-fed goose, or even a couple of ducks. For reading aloud to ladies after tea, I prefer _Ion_ to _Othello_. And now, my excellent friend, I will tell you the reason--not why I prefer _Ion_, which, though I have introduced it in this flippant manner, I consider a very beautiful and poetical drama--but why no play of Shakspeare is fit to be read to a party of ladies after tea. It is this--that ladies, in one sense of the word, were as unknown in Shakspeare's days as tea. There were certain human beings that wore petticoats, and, in due course of time, fulfilled the original command, and died; but, shades of Hannah More and Anne Seward! to call them ladies would be as absurd as to call Dulcinea del Tobosa a princess of the blood. A friend of mine--a well-known non-commissioned officer in the Devil's Own--told me this story, which I mention to you, my dear Smith, in strict confidence, in case the heroine of the anecdote should find that her confession is made known. An old lady--properly so called, both as respects the adjective and the noun, for she was past eighty, and was refined and pure--astonished my friend, by asking him one day to try and get a volume or two for her of the works of Assa Behn. He did so--no little wondering at such a choice of