It occurred to one of Boissy's friends, that it was very extraordinary he should never find him at home. At first, he thought the family were removed; but, on being assured to the contrary, he became more uneasy; he called several times in one day; always-nobody at home! At last, he burst open the door. He saw his friend, with his wife and son, on a bed, pale and emaciated, scarcely able to speak. The boy lay in the middle, and the parents lay by his side, with their arms thrown over him. The child stretched out his hands towards his deliverer, and his first word was-bread. It was now the third day, and not a morsel of food had entered his lips. The parents lay still in a perfect stupor; they had never heard the bursting open of the door, and felt not the embraces of their agitated friend. Their hollow eyes were directed towards the boy, and the tenderest expressions of pity were in the looks with which they beheld him, and still saw him, dying. Their friend hastened to take measures for their deliverThey thought they had already done with -all the troubles of the world, and were suddenly terrified at being forced into them again. Void of either sense or reflection, they submitted to the ef ance. forts that were made to restore them to animation. At length, their friend hit upon the most efficacious means; he took the child from their arms, and thus called up all the latent feelings of parental tenderness: he gave the child to eat, who, with one hand, held his bread, and, with the other, alternately shook the hand of his father and mother; when his piteous moans at length roused them from their death-like slumber. Their friend procured them broths, which he cautiously put to their lips, and did not leave them till every symptom of restored health was fully visible. Thus was their deliverance consummated. This transaction made much noise in Paris, and, at length, reached the ears of the Marchioness de Pompadour. Boissy's deplorable situation moved her. She immediately sent him a hundred louis d'ors, and soon after procured him the profitable place of Controlleur du Mercure de France, with a pension for his wife and child, if they outlived him. THEATRICAL DRESSES. IN the representation of masques and regular dramas at Court, at the latter end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, the dresses worn by the performers were remarkable for their elegance and splendour. Gold, silver, silk, satin, velvet, and feathers, in every variety of colour and combination, were exhausted in adorning the actors, who were mostly persons of rank. Nor was splendour the only consideration; considerable pains were bestowed, and expense incurred, in the provision of dresses, attributes, and ornaments, appropriate to the characters represented. It appears, from the accounts of the Master of the Revels, that these performances frequently put the Court to an enormous expense. However cramped by poverty, in the use of scenery, &c. various causes combined to enable the Theatres to emulate, in dress at least, the costumes of the royal stage. The customary habits of the noble and wealthy were extremely splendid; and their rejected wardrobes found a ready sale at the Theatres, where a slight diminution of their lustre was not very material, and casual soils were well compensated by the cheapness of the purchase. As plays or masques were not generally acted more than once at Court, little necessity existed for the preservation of the dresses which were used in them; and they, of course, readily found their way into the possession of the only persons to whom they could be valuable. That particular pains were sometimes taken to prevent the dresses, &c., from falling into the hands of the players, appears from a passage in Archbishop Laud's history of his Chancellorship, in which he gives an account of a play acted before the King and Queen, at St. John's College, and which was so well liked by the Queen, that she desired the apparel to be sent to Hampton Court, that she might see her own players act it over again. With this request Laud complied, "humbly desiring of the King and Queen, that neither the play, nor clothes, nor stage, might come into the hands of the common players abroad, which was graciously granted." The dresses of the different Theatres, of course, varied, in quality and variety, according to the opulence or poverty of their treasuries; but it is certain, that, at most of the principal playhouses, the apparel was various, appropriate, and elegant. The inventory of the properties of the Lord Admiral's Company, in 1598, affords sufficient proof of the fact. Kings figured in crowns, imperial, plain, or surmounted by a sun; and globes and sceptres graced their hands; Neptune had his garland and his trident, and Mercury his wings. Armour was in common use on the stage. A great quantity of the theatrical wardrobe was of satin, velvet, taffety, and cloth of gold; ornamented with gold and silver lace, or embroidery, probably producing an effect little inferior to what is now witnessed. Greene introduces a player, in his "Groat's worth of wit," boasting that his share in the stage-apparel could not be sold for two hundred pounds; a very considerable sum, indeed, in those days; and as the number of shares varied from twelve to forty, the whole amount, according to the most moderate computation, must have been very great. IMPROMPTU. On an Apple being thrown at Mr. Cooke, whilst playing Sir Pertinax Mac Sycophant. SOME envious Scot, you say, the apple threw, It can't be so, for all must know " right weel," |