CHAPTER XXI.

Autobiography-Scenes before the American Revolution-Scenes during the War of the Revolution-First visit to a Theatre— London and its Theatres-Pedestrian Tour to Oxford with Dr. S. L. Mitchill-Old Soldier of the 47th.

THAT the reader may decide how far the person who in 1798 assumed the direction of that powerful and complicated engine, the theatre of a great metropolis, was fitted for the delicate task and great responsibility, it is necessary that a brief retrospect of his life should be taken. The opinion of the writer is (an opinion perhaps founded upon the result of the experiment) that he was not fitted for the arduous task. Had it been his lot to direct a theatre patronized by an enlightened government, having no care but that of selecting dramas and such performers as would best promote the great end of human happiness, he might perhaps have been entitled to the grateful remembrance of his fellow-men; but he was now, after a trial of management in conjunction with another person, forced by previous circumstances to burthen himself with a hazardous speculation, which, as far as it had been proved, was unsuccessful; and the power he once possessed of meeting

temporary losses and providing the means of success had been lamentably diminished. Instead of having an unembarrassed mind, whose entire powers could be directed to that which should be object of such an institution, he was tempted to seek resources for the supply of the treasury and the fulfilment of his pecuniary engagements. Instead of studying to gain the approbation of the wise, pressing necessities turned his thoughts to the common methods of attracting the vulgar.

The subject of the present chapter was born in the city of Perth Amboy, on the 19th of February, 1766. The writer has endeavoured to avoid the much-dreaded pronoun "I" in the previous part of the work, but in what must be known as autobiography it would appear affectation; besides, a change of style even thus unimportant may be agreeable to the reader, and to leave the theatre for a time may render a return to it perhaps pleasant, certainly less tiresome.

My father was Samuel Dunlap, from the town of Londonderry, in the north of Ireland. My mother's maiden name was Sargeant, and her mother's Stone, both natives of New-Jersey, and of English descent, as were all the original families in that part of New-Jersey which lies adjacent to its then capital. The names of Sargeant, Stone, Barron, Bell, Bloodgood, Freeman, Parker, Heriot, and others, testify this as fully as those of Van Rensselaer, Knickerbocker, Schermerhorne, Ten Broek, and others, show the origin of the New-York or

New-Netherland settlement in that great metropolis and its adjacent villages and islands of Bergen, Harlæm, Nassau, and Staaten.

My father" had been a soldier in his youth, and fought in famous battles;" and the name, originally Dunlop, is now well known in the world of literature by distinguished authors bearing it, and more generally as connected with Scott's Jenny Deans and the Dunlop cheeses.

Among my earliest recollections are those connected with sickness, and the relief derived from being carried in the arms of my father. I was an only child. When old enough, I listened to the story of his early life with intense interest. He told of crossing the deep with the army that came to wrest Canada from the French, for he was an officer in the forty-seventh, and carried the colours of Wolfe's own. He told of the difficulties they encountered in the great river St. Lawrence; of the attempts upon the fleet by the French fireships, and the gallant cheerings of the English tars, as they towed off from their destination and rendered harmless the blazing engines of destruction; of the landing and scaling the banks to gain the plains of Abraham; of his being wounded and carried off the field, and when suspended in his sash and borne to the ships, the pioneers throwing down their tools, supposing they saw their young commander disabled and leaving them, for Wolfe and his regiment wore that day one and the same plain uniform of scarlet without facings. In short, be

fore I knew the meaning of the tale, I had heard all the circumstances of that important day, which fixed the destiny of this great continent of North America-which decided that, from Hudson's Bay to Mexico, the descendants of Englishmen, or those deriving from them their civil and religious principles, should spread the language of Shakspeare and Milton, and plant the independent spirit of Hampden and Pym throughout a moiety of the globe.

Another portion of my early education was not so favourable. Slavery had been introduced into the colonies and fostered by the commercial spirit of the mother country. Every family was served by negro slaves, and every kitchen swarmed with them. To be petted, indulged, spoiled, and have their example before his eyes, was the lot of the only child of the master of the family.

But, on the other and brighter side again, it was my happiness to be the favourite of a being of a very different kind, and to become attached, in early childhood, to an aged man who lived almost the life of a hermit, having neither wife nor child, in the midst of fruits and flowers without doors, and within surrounded by books. Thomas Bartow was a small thin old man, with straight gray hair, pale face, plain dark-coloured clothes, and stockings to suit-his well-polished, square-toed shoes were ornamented with little silver buckles, and his white cambric stock, neatly plaited, was fastened behind with a silver clasp. When he walked, a cane with an ivory head aided his steps, which halted

through age and rheumatism. His house stood at a corner of the market square-none other near it -and the green before it. It was surrounded on three sides by a garden with the best fruits our climate affords. His person, his house, his garden, were equally neat. I, and I alone, had the full command of the two last, and very nearly of the first.

By some arrangement with my indulgent parents, I was permitted to go every Sunday to this still more indulgent old gentleman. Invariably I found the venerable man alone, seated by a small table, his Bible or other book before him, and his spectacles on his nose-gladly lifted to welcome one who was yet untainted by the world which he seemed to shun. The boy was his companion at home, and his only companion when he rode or walked abroad. In winter, he gambolled about the room while the old man read: or was sent into the garret to bring down dried grapes, which hung on frames, carefully preserved after ripening on the vines in his garden; or took the key of his library and selected books, to place on the table before him, that he might explain the pictures, or tell the stories. In summer, the favoured boy had the range of the garden and the choice of the fruit, with the same course of instruction from his books and his lips. Thus, before I could read, Pope's Iliad, Dryden's Virgil, and Milton's Paradise Lost, were familiar to me, as to the fable and incident, and every plate was patiently explained,