I have now no recollection of having, when a child, seen the king with any of the appendages of royalty, except when he went to town, once a week, to hold a levee; and then ten dragoons rode before, and ten after his carriage, and the tradesmen in the streets through which he passed duly stood at their doors, to make the most profound reverences, as in duty bound, when their monarch looked "every inch a king." But the bows were less profound, and the wonderment none at all, when twice a week, as was his wont during the summer months, his majesty, with all his family, and a considerable bevy of ancient maids of honour and half-pay generals, walked through the town, or rode at a slow pace in an open carriage, to the Windsor theatre, which was then in the High-street. Reader, it is impossible that you can form an idea of the smallness of that theatre; unless you have by chance lived in a country town, when the assembly-room of the head inn has been fitted up with the aid of brown paper and ochre, for the exhibition of some heroes of the sock and buskin, vulgarly called strollers. At the old Windsor Theatre, her majesty's apothecary in the lower boxes might have almost felt her pulse across the pit. My knowledge of the drama commenced at the early age of seven years, amidst this royal fellowship in fun; and most loyally did I laugh when his majesty, leaning back in his capacious arm-chair in the stage-box, shook the house with his genuine peals of hearty merriment. Well do I remember the whole course of these royal play-goings. The theatre was of an inconvenient form, with very sharp angles at the junctions of the centre with the sides. The stage-box, and the whole of the left or O.P. side of the lower tier, were appropriated to royalty. The house would fill at about half-past six. At seven, precisely, Mr. Thornton, the manager, made his entrance backwards, through a little door, into the stage-box, with a plated candlestick in each hand, bowing with all the grace that his gout would permit. The six fiddles struck up God save the King; the audience rose; the king nodded round and took his seat next the stage; the queen curtsied, and took her arm-chair also. The satin bills of their majesties and the princesses were then duly displayed--and the dingy green curtain drew up. The performances were invariably either a comedy and farce, or more frequently three farces, with a plentiful interlarding of comic songs. Quick, Suett, and Mrs. Mattocks were the reigning favourites; and, about 1800, Elliston and Fawcett became occasional stars. But Quick and Suett were the king's especial delight. When Lovegold, in the "Miser," drawled out "a pin a day's a groat a year," the laugh of the royal circle was somewhat loud; but when Dicky Gossip exhibited in his vocation, and accompanied the burden of his song, "Dicky Gossip, Dicky Gossip is the man," with the blasts of his powder-puff, the cachinnation was loud and long, and the gods prolonged