broken up all the moral elements of the nation, set them in array against each other, and inflamed them to madness by the excitements of a protracted civil-war. It presented also no unapt illustration of Cromwell's government, who, throughout the whole extent of three kingdoms, kept in awe these furious factions, each inimical to the other, and all hostile to himself; holding them together in subjection with as much security and peace as his deputy Mr. Giles Lockhart preserved within the narrow limits of the Gate-house prison.

Two of his gaol-birds (as he termed them), who stood apart from the others, were the first to notice Jocelyn, and of course excited his more particular attention. They had been actors in London, and upon the suppression of the theatres betook themselves to an itinerant life, furtively exercising their now illicit calling, as occasion offered; sometimes feasted and rewarded, sometimes whipped or imprisoned as common vagabonds, according to the caprice of

local authority, or the prevalence of political feeling. As the cavalier party, however, had little but empty plaudits to bestow, while the Puritans had the dispensation of stripes and imprisonments, they had attempted to mend their sinking fortunes, or, at least, to wreak their revenge, by the composition of a joint satire. In conformity to the existing taste for quaint alliteration it was entitled,-" Thalia's Threat and Melpomene's Menace against the Stranglers of the Stage ;" and in reward of this splenetic exertion of their muse, the authors were incontinently sent to quaff the classic air of the Gate-house. One of them whose name was Pickering, and who exhibited that air of janty slovenliness, or shabby-genteel look, which still characterizes the poorer itinerants of the profession, was buoyant, gay, and strutting in his deportment, while his semi-tragic language seemed to be an olio of all the bombastic blankverse, he had picked up in the exercise of his calling, or gleaned from the taffety phrases of

Sir Euphues. His companion, whom he addressed by the name of Rookwood, appeared to be overcome by his misfortunes, and to have sunk into a squalid sloth and sottishness, comforting himself with his pipe for his inability to procure double-bub ale, and gazing silently upon its smoke with a fixed and drunken eye.

"O Huntingdonian brewer base!" exclaimed the former, as he stalked up to Jocelyn with a theatrical air,-" O truculent and most Herodian knave! O thrice Nerotic Caligulian spawn! -or rather, as may best befit thy lineaments obscene,—O red-nosed Noll! is 't not enough that men of full-grown pith, and mighty mind sublime, thy spleenful wrath endure, but must these babes and sucklings yield their blood, and feel the fury of thy festering fang?-Prithee, thou jocund bowman of the woods, youthful concomitant of Dian's train, for such thy garb and looks may well beseem, why art thou here with musty rogues forlorn, in durance vile and carceration close? Speak, that mine ear may drink intelligence."

Although Jocelyn understood very little of this rhapsodical fustian, except the familiar sobriquet applied to the Protector, he gathered enough of its general purport to reply, as he had done to the gaoler's wife, that he was imprisoned for being the son of a Royalist. "Ha! say'st thou so, my juvenilian bold, of Carolinian block the loyal chip, then are we links of the same rueful chain, concatenate in one Cromwellian doom, participants in Protectorial hate." So saying, the player held out his hand, received Jocelyn's in its palm, shook it with prodigious energy, and again putting himself in an heroic attitude, spouted to his companion— "Rookwood! once peerless on the buskined board, of voice altisonant and stately stalk, be not so tristful, saturnine, and sad. Cheer up, my Pythias! Look on the lineaments of this fair youth, for female character most apt. Will he not serve to perfect our dram: pers: and help us act ?"

Rookwood looked in Jocelyn's face at this obscure intimation, that he might enable them

to execute their long-cherished object of getting up a play in the prison, by taking the heroine's part, then commonly performed by youths; and as he observed how expressly he seemed formed to supply this desideratum, he gave an approving nod, and puffed out the smoke with a complacent whiff." Said I not sooth, Rookwoodian Roscius ?" continued the spouter

Play will we have, though gaolers frown like fate, and locks, bolts, bars, and chains, our limbs immure.-Ay, and ere long, when Noll is nullified, Blackfriars and the Globe again shall ope their doors theatric to admiring crowds."-Rookwood shook his head despondingly" Miscreant! they shall," resumed the pompous Pickering. "Curtains shall rise, and prompters' bells shall ring: shouts shall be heard as we advance amid an amphitheatre of eager eyes. Then shall my Rookwood be himself again, with casque and plume and harness on his back, grasping his sword as Macbeth, while I, as Macduff, shall exclaim