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Italian singer until I heard Madame Malibran. My object in saying this is to prove my ignorance and want of taste, and I doubt not I shall be readily credited on that score. I was not quite so low as the manager of a provincial company, who threatened the horns in his orchestra that he would discharge them because they did not sound as long as the fiddlers.

Nothing can be further from simplicity than the combinations of Handel; and yet the delight, the thrilling pleasure, experienced on hearing the complicated mass of voice and instrument at Westminster Abbey was such as is never to be forgotten. I doubt whether the scientific European ear was more enraptured by the sublime "Hallelujah" of the Messiah than my uninstructed Yankee organ; and yet I ought not to doubt it, for knowledge has in all things the advantage over ignorance.

My knowledge of music gave me no advantages as the manager of a theatre; neither had I sufficient skill or science as a painter to be of much service in directing the scenic department. I end as I began, with the avowal that I was not fitted for the task I had undertaken.

CHAPTER XXII.

Salaries and Expenses - Miss Westray and Miss E. Westray-Holcroft Mr. and Mrs. Barrett - Yellow Fever of 1798-The Theatre of New-York not opened until the 3d of December, 1798 -Saved by bringing out The Stranger - Biographical Notice of Kotzebue.

THE theatre of New-York had now but one director or manager-a circumstance which had not occurred in the United States before. An estimate of the expenses of the theatre at this time, 1798-9, will perhaps be acceptable to the general reader, and useful to those concerned in similar establishments. The salaries to actors and actresses, as follows, amount to 480 dollars weekly, viz. Mr. and Mrs. Hallam, 50; Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, 45-the first 20, the second, 25; Mrs. Oldmixon, 37; Mr. Cooper, 25; Mrs. Melmoth, 20; Mr. Tyler, 20; Mr. Jefferson, 23; Mr. Martin, 18 (and for superintending the stage and making properties, 7 more); Mr. Hallam, jun., 16; Mrs. Hogg, 14; Mr. Hogg, 13; Miss Westray, 13; Miss E. Westray, 12; Mr. Lee, 12 as performer and property-man; two message-carriers (each 8), 16; Mrs. Seymour, 16; Mr. Seymour, 9; Mr. Miller, 12; Miss Hogg, 4;

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estimate for three others, 54; Mrs. Collins, 12; with supernumeraries, 32. To this was added a wretched prompter of the name of Hughes, at 10, and an intelligent box-office keeper, Mr. Joseph Falconer, at 14. Dressers, 20; orchestra, 140 (consisting of Mr. James Hewett, as leader; Messrs. Everdel, Nicolai, Samo, Henri, Ulshoeffer, Librecheki, Pellesier, Dupuy, Gilfert, Nicolai, jun., Adet, Hoffman, and Dangle). Other expenses were estimated thus:-Lights, 109; Labourers, 24; Doors and Constables, 50; Cleaning, 5; printing, 68; properties, 6; wardrobe, 15; fires, 15; Mr. Ciceri and his department (the scenery and painting, not including materials), 60; rent, 145; amounting to 1161 dollars, without including any remuneration for the personal services of the manager.

As Mr. Hodgkinson had repeatedly said that if he staid in New-York, it would be as an actor only, the manager offered him by letter, the 2d of June, 1798, a salary of 50 dollars for himself, and the same amount for his wife; and the salary of 14 as heretofore given to Mrs. Brett. This would have made the amount of expenses 1271 dollars; and in the same offer it was stated that the expenses of the benefits of Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkinson were to be estimated at 385 dollars, which, as the theatre opened only three times a week, would have been 33 dollars 75 cents under the actual expense of the night-probably much more, as never estimate yet came up to the real cost in such cases. The offer was treated as an insult.

Miss Westray and Miss E. Westray, with a younger sister, afterwards a distinguished actress as Mrs. Twaits (as the two first were and are as Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Darley) were at this time under the protection of their mother and their father-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, who were added to the company.

The first display of the histrionic talents of Miss Westray and Miss E. Westray, that we recollect, was on the 14th of June, 1798, when Holcroft's comedy of The Deserted Daughter, then very popular, was played for their mutual benefit, the elder sister representing the character of Sarsnet, and the younger Joanna. The receipts

were 559 dollars.

Holcroft, the author of this and many other successful comedies and novels, is well known to the reading public. He was one of those energetic characters who rise in despite of, and superior to, circumstances. By birth thrown in the lowest class of European society, a beggar and a stableboy, he escaped the vices and burst the bonds of ignorance by mental effort. He educated himself, and, although a sturdy oppositionist to every abuse, social or political, no power, not even that of the mighty aristocracy of Britain, could put him down. As a politician and reformer, he was accused of treason. He surrendered himself and was acquitted. As a dramatist, he combated abuses manfully; but the managers of the Royal theatres at length dared not bring forward his plays as

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such. As a novelist, he gained the attention of the public and served the cause of truth. He attacked the vices of players in one of his novels (he had himself been one of the fraternity); the characters were acknowledged, and the cap made to fit by several performers, in consequence of which the actors of Covent Garden had a meeting, and agreed to show their displeasure to the author by withholding their society from him-ordaining that he among them who should be guilty of speaking to the author of the offensive novel (the author of The Road to Ruin, and other comedies by which they subsisted-for what is the actor without the author?) should be "sent to Coventry;" but the sturdy reformer pursued his way undaunted, triumphing over the combination of cabinet ministers and green-room dignitaries.

While the heart sickens at the contemplation of the perverted talents of men who are born to fortune, and receive every aid from education-while we turn with disgust from the cant and hypocrisy of the thousands who, though blessed with every good springing from the social system, devote every effort to the advancement of self-we are relieved and refreshed by studying the lives of such men as have seen the beauty of virtue while apparently doomed to crime, and, from the regions of poverty and darkness, have by their unassisted efforts soared to that light and power, which have enabled them to overthrow the giants of the earth, and relieve their fellow-men from ignorance and