latter being in no degree adapted to the profession which circumstances
have induced him to adopt. In proof of this fact, comic actors are quite
as often dull and solemn people, as droll ones, in private life. The
most remarkable instance of a face being a fortune, in this respect, is
our own Liston. If he had not possessed a comic countenance, nothing
could have prevented him from being a tragic actor, or have made him a
comic one; for it is well understood that all his inclinations led him
in that direction. The truth is, that Liston's style of acting is too
chaste and natural to have been so universally popular as it is, but for
the irresistible drollery of his features--which are the finest farce
that ever was written. Now in this respect, as in all others, Potier
differs from his contemporaries.

His voice, his face, and his person altogether, are in themselves
antidotes to mirth, and might almost be supposed to set it at defiance.
He might play the _Apothecary_, in _Romeo and Juliet_, or the _Anatomie
Vivante_, without painting for them--as Stephen Kemble used to play
their antithesis, _Falstaff_, without stuffing. And yet, instead of this
seeming contradiction counteracting the essentially comic turn of his
mind, the latter is so completely paramount, that it changes every thing
within its reach to its own complexion.--_New Monthly Magazine._

* * * * *

FRAGMENT OF THE NARRATIVE OF A STUDENT AT LAW.

This is a portion of what the writer calls "a series of the most
singular and mysterious events," commenced January 29,1791. It is
perhaps a romance of _real life_, although there is something in it
beyond probability--but nothing impossible. Our _student_ is at first