PLATO doubtless thought that he had imagined a magnificent theory, when he averred that every man had within him a spark of the divine flame. But, silly PLATO! he never considered how easily this spark might be blown out. At this moment, how many Englishmen are walking about the land utterly extinguished! Had men been made on the principle of the safety-lamp, they might have defied the foul breath of the world's opinion--but, alas! what a tender, thin-skinned, shivering thing is man! His covering--the livery of original sin, bought with the pilfered apples--is worn into a hole, and Opinion, that sour-breathed hag, claps her blue lips to the broken web, gives a puff, and--out goes man's immortal spark! From this moment the creature is but a carcase: he can eat and drink (when lucky enough to be able to try the experiment), talk, walk, and no more; yes, we forgot--he can work; he still keeps precedence of the ape in the scale of creation--for he can work for those who, thickly clothed, and buttoned to the throat, have no rent in their purple, no stitch dropped in their superfine, to expose their precious souls to an annihilating gust, and who therefore keep their immortal sparks like tapers in burglars' dark-lanthorns, whereby to rob and spoil with greater certainty! Gentle reader, think you this a fantastic chapter on holes? If so, then of a surety you do not read those instructive annals of your country penned by many a TACITUS of the daily press--by many a profound historian who unites to the lighter graces of stenography the enduring loveliness of philosophy. Some days since a meeting was held in the parish of Saint Pancras of the "Young Men's Anti-Monopoly Association." The place of gathering, says the reporter, was "a ruined _penny_ theatre!" It is evident in the brain of the writer that the small price at which the theatre was ruined made its infamy: to be blighted for a penny was the shame. Drury Lane and Covent Garden have been ruined over and over again--but then their ruin, like PHRYNE'S, has ever been at a large price of admission; hence, like court harlots, their ruin has been dignified by high remuneration. What, however, could be expected from a theatre that, with inconceivable wickedness, suffered itself to be undone for a penny? Let the reporter answer:-- "---- FORSTER, Esq., advanced, and, assuming _a teapot position_ on the stage, moved the first resolution, to the effect 'That the bread-tax was the cause of all distress, and that they should use their strenuous efforts to remove it.' 'Ladies (there was one old woman _in a shocking bad black and white straw bonnet present_) and gentlemen (said he), this is a public meeting to all intents and purposes.'"