"En Henleium! en Stanleium! Hic eminens prosator: Ille, filius pulchro patre, hercle pulchrior orator; Demosthenes in herbâ, _sed in ore retinens illos_ _Quos, antequam peroravit, Græcus respuit lapillos._" Ebenezer Grubb, in his description of the opposition in 1814, thus notices Mr. F. Douglas: "He is a forward and frequent speaker; remarkable for a graceful inclination of the upper part of his body in advance of the lower, and speaketh, I suspect _(after the manner of an ancient), with pebbles in his mouth_."--_New Whig Guide_, 1819, p. 47. In Foote's _Patron_, Sir Roger Dowlas, an East India proprietor, who has sought instruction in oratory from Sir Thomas Lofty, is introduced to the _conversazione_:-- "_Sir Thomas._ Sir Roger, be seated. This gentleman has, in common with the greatest orator the world ever saw, a small natural infirmity; he stutters a little: but I have prescribed the same remedy that Demosthenes used, and don't despair of a radical cure. Well, sir, have you digested those general rules? _Sir Roger._ Pr-ett-y well, I am obli-g'd to you, Sir Th-omas. _Sir Thomas._ Did you open at the last general court? _Sir Roger._ I att-empt-ed fo-ur or five times. _Sir Thomas._ What hindered your progress? _Sir Roger._ _The pe-b-bles._ {147} _Sir Thomas._ _Oh, the pebbles in his mouth_: but they are only put in to practise in private: _you should take them out when you are addressing the public_." I cannot trace the joke farther, but as Foote, though so rich in wit, was a great borrower, it might not be new in 1764. H. B. C. Garrick Club. * * * * * AN INTERPOLATION OF THE PLAYERS: TOBACCO. I have witnessed the representation of the _Twelfth Night_ as often, during the last five-and-forty years, as I have had an opportunity; and, in every instance, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown, in their rollicking orgies, _smoke tobacco_. Now, this must be an "interpolation of the players;" for not only was tobacco unknown in Illyria, at the period of the story, but _Shakspeare does not once name tobacco in his works, and, therefore_, was not likely to give a stage-direction for the use of it. The great poet is freely blamed for anachronisms; it is but fair he should have due credit when he avoids them. The stories of his plays are all antecedent to his own time, therefore he never mentions either the _drinking of tobacco_, or the tumultuous scenes of the _ordinary_ which belonged to it, and which are so constantly met with in his cotemporary dramatists. I see there is a note in my commonplace-book, after some remarks upon Green's _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, "that this play, though written by a pedant, and a Master of Arts, contains more anachronisms than any one play of Shakspeare's." Can any of your correspondents learned in stage traditions say when this "smoking interpolation" was first made?