well delivered, as you may suppose, but rather in the conversational than
the oratorical style. He said it was his object to exhibit the
intelligence of that Universal Friend of Man, the Dog, in some manner
appropriate, not only to its sagacious instincts, but to its affectionate
nature, and to convey thereby the moral that talents, however great,
learning, however deep, were of no avail, unless rendered serviceable to
Man. (Applause.) He must be pardoned then, if, in order to effect this
object, he was compelled to borrow some harmless effects from the stage.
In a word, his dog could represent to them the plot of a little drama.
And he, though he could not say that he was altogether unaccustomed to
public speaking (here a smile, modest, but august as that of some famous
parliamentary orator who makes his first appearance at a vestry), still
wholly new to its practice in the special part he had undertaken, would
rely on their indulgence to efforts aspiring to no other merit than that
of aiding the Hero of the Piece in a familiar illustration of those
qualities in which dogs might give a lesson to humanity. Again he bowed,
and retired behind the curtain. A pause of three minutes! the curtain
drew up. Could that be the same Mr. Chapman whom the spectators beheld
before them? Could three minutes suffice to change the sleek,
respectable, prosperous-looking gentleman who had just addressed them
into that image of threadbare poverty and hunger-pinched dejection?
Little aid from theatrical costume: the clothes seemed the same, only to
have grown wondrous aged and rusty. The face, the figure, the man,--
these had undergone a transmutation beyond the art of the mere stage
wardrobe, be it ever so amply stored, to effect. But for the patch over
the eye, you could not have recognized Mr. Chapman. There was, indeed,
about him, still, an air of dignity; but it was the dignity of woe,--
a dignity, too, not of an affable civilian, but of some veteran soldier.
You could not mistake. Though not in uniform, the melancholy man must
have been a warrior! The way the coat was buttoned across the chest, the