It is admitted that no man can be a great actor who has not the faculty of divesting himself of his personal identity, and persuading himself that he really is, for the time, that which he represents himself to be; his doing which will go far to persuade others into the same belief. Now as her Majesty has pronounced upon the excellence of Mr. Henry Helmes's acting, and if we are therefore to suppose that that gentleman had contrived to mystify both himself and her, she would naturally be not a little vain of so splendid a vassal. But seriously, it is not a little amusing to notice the good faith with which these gentlemen appear to have put on and worn their burlesque dignities, and the real homage which they not only expected, but actually received. If the tricks which they played during their "brief authority," were not of that mischievous kind which "make the angels weep," they were certainly fantastic enough to make those who are "a little lower than the angels" smile. A Lord Mayor in his gilt coach seems to be a trifle compared with a Lord of Misrule entering the city of London in former days; and the following passage from Warton's "History of English Poetry," exhibits amusingly enough the sovereign functions seriously exercised by this important personage, and the homage, both ludicrous and substantial, which he sometimes received:-- "At a Christmas celebrated in the hall of the Middle Temple, in the year 1635, the jurisdiction privileges and parade of this mock monarch are thus circumstantially described. He was attended by his Lord Keeper, Lord Treasurer with eight white staves, a Captain of his Band of Pensioners and of his guard, _and with two Chaplains who were so seriously impressed with an idea of his regal dignity that, when they preached before him on the preceding Sunday in the Temple Church, on ascending the pulpit they saluted him with three low bows_. He dined both in the Hall and in his Privy Chamber under a cloth of Estate. The pole-axes for his Gentlemen Pensioners were borrowed of Lord Salisbury. Lord Holland, his temporary justice in Eyre, supplies him with venison on demand; and the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London with wine. On Twelfth-day, at going to Church, he received many petitions which he gave to his Master of Requests; and like other kings he had a favourite, whom--with others, gentlemen of high quality--he knighted at returning from Church."