Few pleasures are greater than to witness some favourite character, which hitherto has been but vaguely bodied forth by our sluggish imaginations, invested with all the graces of living man or woman. A distinguished man of letters, who years ago was wisely selfish enough to rob the stage of a jewel and set it in his own crown, has addressed to his wife some radiant lines which are often on my lips: 'Beloved, whose life is with mine own entwined, In whom, whilst yet thou wert my dream, I viewed, Warm with the life of breathing womanhood, What Shakespeare's visionary eye divined-- Pure Imogen; high-hearted Rosalind, Kindling with sunshine the dusk greenwood; Or changing with the poet's changing mood, Juliet, or Constance of the queenly mind.' But a truce to these compliments. 'I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.' It is idle to shirk disagreeable questions, and the one I have to ask is this, 'Has the world been wrong in regarding with disfavour and lack of esteem the great profession of the stage?' That the world, ancient and modern, has despised the actor's profession cannot be denied. An affecting story I read many years ago--in that elegant and entertaining work, Lemprière's 'Classical Dictionary'--well illustrates the feeling of the Roman world. Julius Decimus Laberius was a Roman knight and dramatic author, famous for his mimes, who had the misfortune to irritate a greater Julius, the author of the 'Commentaries,' when the latter was at the height of his power. Caesar, casting about how best he might humble his adversary, could think of nothing better than to condemn him to take a leading part in one of his own plays. Laberius entreated in vain. Caesar was obdurate, and had his way. Laberius played his part--how, Lemprière sayeth not; but he also took his revenge, after the most effectual of all fashions, the literary. He composed and delivered a prologue of considerable power, in which he records the act of spiteful tyranny, and which, oddly enough, is the only specimen of his dramatic art that has come down to us. It contains lines which, though they do not seem to have made Caesar, who sat smirking in the stalls, blush for himself, make us, 1,900 years afterwards, blush for Caesar. The only lines, however, now relevant are, being interpreted, as follow: 'After having lived sixty years with honour, I left my home this morning a Roman knight, but I shall return to it this evening an infamous stage-player. Alas! I have lived a day too long.'