Dark; no signs of fireworks yet; pyrotechnic exhibition not likely to commence for some time. Crowd impatient. (I here missed Damphool, and found him an hour afterwards, paying his devotions to an eighteen-penny oyster stew and a mug of ale.) Stayed an hour longer, when the crowd began to disperse, with their ascension robes so sadly draggled, that if they HAD received a second summons to go, it would have taken an extra quantity of soap-suds to make them presentable among decent angels. Appointed myself a committee of five to inquire into the matter; offered the following resolution, which I unanimously adopted:-- _Resolved_, That putting on a clean shirt to go to heaven in, don't always result in getting there, even though the tails be of extra length, and that the creed which teaches such a mode of procedure is a farcical theology, fully worthy to be ranked among the many other excellent "sells" of that veteran joker of world-wide celebrity--_Jo Miller_. XVIII. The Great "American Tragedian." The only dramatic performances known in the wild region where I passed some of my early years, are given by companies of strolling players who usually give their classic entertainments in a barn, have a piece of carpet for a drop curtain, four tallow candles for footlights, and who generally go out of town in the night without paying their Tavern bills. Almost every Drama performed by them, requires more people to represent it than are contained in the entire troupe; the services of a crowd of aspiring country boys are secured for soldiers, citizens, robbers, and other personages who don't have to say anything; but there is still a large gap which can only be filled by the "doubling" of several parts by one performer. Hence it is by no means unusual in the "tragedy of Richard III." to see King Henry, after being deliberately despatched by Gloster in the first act, reappear in the second as the Duke of Buckingham, and then, after his supposed decapitation in obedience to the ferocious order of Richard, "Off with his head," come back in the final scenes, equipped in a full suit of mail, as the Earl of Richmond, and avenging his double murder by killing the "crook-backed tyrant" with a broadsword after a prolonged struggle. [Illustration: The Great "American Tragedian."] And in Macbeth, King Duncan, after being carved up by his treacherous kinsman with two white handled butcher-knives, returns as Hecate in the witch scenes, and afterwards as court physician to Lady M., besides which he generally blows the flourishes on the trumpet for the entrances of the King, beats the bass drum, and attends to the sheet-iron thunder.