As a Clown, Mr. Grimaldi is perfectly unrivalled.  Other performers of the part may be droll in their generation; but, which of them can for a moment compete with the Covent Garden hero in acute observation upon the foibles and absurdities of society, and his happy talent of holding them up to ridicule.  He is the finest practical satyrist that ever existed.  He does not, like many Clowns, content himself with raising a horse-laugh by contortions and grimaces, but tickles the fancy, and excites the risibility of an audience by devices as varied as they are ingenious.  “He uses his folly as a stalking-horse, under cover of which he shoots his wit;” and fully deserves the encomium bestowed upon him by Kemble, who, it is said, pronounced him to be “the best low comedian upon the stage.”

There are few things, we think, more delightful than a Pantomime—­that is, a good Pantomime, such as is usually produced at Covent Garden.  We know there are a set of solemn pompous mortals about town, who express much dignified horror at the absurdities of these things, and declaim very fluently, in good set terms, upon the necessity of their abolition.  Such fellows as these are ever your dullest of blockheads.  Conscious of their lack of ideas, they think to earn the reputation of men of sterling sense, by inveighing continually against what they deem to be frivolity; while they only expose more clearly to all observers the sad vacuum which exists in their pericraniums.  Far, far from us be such dullards, and such opinions; and let us continue to laugh heartily at our Pantomimes, undisturbed by their tedious harangues; “Do they think, because they are wise, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” The man who refuses to smile at the humours of Grimaldi is made of bad materials—­hic niger est—­let no such man be trusted!

Can there possibly be a more captivating sight than that which the theatre presents nightly, of hundreds of beautiful children all happy and laughing, “as if a master-spring constrained them all;” and filled with delight, unalloyed and unbounded, at the performance of one man?  And shall that man go without his due meed of praise?  Never be it said!  No, Joey!  When we forget thee, may our right hand forget its cunning!  We owe thee much for the delight thou hast already afforded us; and rely upon thee, with confident expectation, for many a future hour of gay forgetfulness.  Well do we remember, in our boyish dreams of bliss, how prominent a feature thou didst stand amongst the anticipated enjoyments of Christmas; how the thoughts of home, of kindred, and release from school, were rendered ten-fold more delightful by the idea of thy motley garb and mirth-inspiring voice, which ever formed the greatest enjoyment our holidays afforded.  Heaven be praised, we still are children in some respects, for we still feel gladdened by thy gambols, as heartily as we did years ago, when we made our periodical escape from the terrors of our old pedagogue’s frown, and went with Aunt Bridget ("Happier than ourselves the while”) to banquet upon the Pantomimic treat provided for us.  “All wisdom is folly,” says the philosopher; but we often incline to think the converse of the proposition correct, when we see thee put thy antic disposition on, and set the audience in a roar by the magic of thy powers.