again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in
a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time.
The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play was
Artaxerxes!

I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of
it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight
of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for
I understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was
in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous
vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not
players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol
of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was
awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more
than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such
pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin's Invasion
followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates
into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice,
and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the
legend of St. Denys.

The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of
which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left
in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost--a
satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my
apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of
antiquity as Lud--the father, of a line of Harlequins--transmitting
his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw
the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of
white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins