was no fit company for gentlemen such as we; it would be better that he should not stay, it was not his place, and so forth. It was not so much to my powers of persuasion as to the irresistible attractions of a cup of coffee, and a pipe of the best Knaster, which I had in my pocket, that I could attribute his remaining. He spoke with vividness and _esprit_ of the old theatrical days. He had seen Eckhoff, and acted with Schroeder. It came out that the untuned state in which he was now so marred proceeded from the circumstance that those by-gone days had been, for him, the world wherein he had breathed freely, and moved unconstrainedly, and that, now that he was thrown forth out of that period, he had no firm standing-point that he could get hold of. But how marvellously did this man astonish us when, having become thoroughly at his ease, and free from constraint with us, he spoke the speech of the Ghost in Hamlet, as given in Schroeder's version (Schlegel's translation he knew nothing about), with a power of expression which touched our hearts; and we were all moved to admiration at the manner in which he delivered several passages from the part of Oldenhelm (for he would have nothing to say to the name 'Polonius'), rendering them in such a way that we distinctly saw before our eyes the courtier, in his second childhood now, but who had clearly not lacked worldly wisdom in former times, and still showed distinct traces of it. This he brought before us in a manner very seldom seen on the boards. All this, however, was but the prelude to a scene which I never saw the parallel of, and which I can never forget. It is here that I really, for the first time, come to what, during this conversation of ours, brought to my remembrance the old actor in question, and my worthy Serapion Brethren must pardon me if I have made my introduction to this somewhat too long. This man was compelled to undertake those wretched subordinate parts which we were talking of, and thus it chanced that, some days after the occasion I have been speaking of, he had to play the part of the 'Manager' in the piece 'The Rehearsal,' which the _Impresario_ had altered to suit himself, thinking he particularly excelled in it. Whether it was that the conversation with us has stirred up his inner, better self, or that, perhaps (as it was rumoured afterwards), on that day he had reinforced his natural power with wine--contrary as that was to his usual custom-- he had no sooner come upon the stage than he appeared to be a totally different man from what he had been at other times. His eyes sparkled, and the hollow wavering voice of the worn-out hypochondriac was transformed into a clear, resonant bass, such as is employed by jovial characters of the old style; for instance, the rich uncles who, in the exercise of poetical justice, punish folly and reward virtue. The beginning of the piece gave no indication of what was to come; but how