and in other years, we believe the cost has been considerably more; and yet this enormous expenditure left no impression on the popular memory, mere stage-trick being far below the exhibition of a juggler. True it is, that clever artists have been for many years employed to design and paint the scenery of the pantomimes, and consequently admirable pictures have been exhibited, especially at the national theatres, where this feature, indeed, constitutes the main attraction of the evening's performance. The stupid tragedy of "George Barnwell," produced for the sake of the city apprentices, was formerly the usual prelude to the Christmas pantomime on the night of St. Stephen's Day. Hone, in his "Every-Day Book," has chronicled that "the representation of this tragedy was omitted in the Christmas holidays of 1819, at both theatres, for the first time." To be sure, this dull affair answered the purpose as well as any other, it being an established rule with the tenants of the theatrical Olympus that nothing shall be heard save their own thunders, previously to the pantomime on St. Stephen's night. The most famous pantomime which has been played in our times is unquestionably Mother Goose. When it was produced, or to whom the authorship is ascribed, we know not; but in 1808 it was revived and played at the Haymarket, with an additional scene representing the burning of Covent Garden Theatre. The pantomimes of the last thirty years have failed to effect a total eclipse of the brilliancy of "Harlequin and Mother Goose, or the Golden Egg;" which found its way into the list of provincial stock-pieces. Connected with this golden age of English pantomime, the recollection of Grimaldi, Joey Grimaldi, as the gallery folk delighted to call him, is an obvious association. His acting like that of Liston must have been seen to be understood or appreciated; for no description can convey an adequate idea of the power of expression and gesture. They who have not seen Joey may never hope to look upon his like; and they who have seen him must never expect to see his like again. On the English stage never was clown like Grimaldi! He was far more than a clown, he was a great comic actor. But his constitution soon gave way under the trials to which it was exposed. In the depth of winter, after performing at Sadler's Wells, he was brought down night after night wrapped in blankets to Covent Garden; and there had, for the second time in the course of the same evening, to go through the allotted series of grimaces, leaps, and tumbles. Poor Grimaldi, sunk by these exertions into a premature old age, was finally obliged to retire from the stage on the 27th of June, 1828; and the Literary Gazette thus pleasantly, but feelingly, announced his intention:--