The next scene is the robing-room of the York Court-house; and the curtains at the back are afterwards drawn aside to disclose a large cupboard, meant to represent an assize-court.  On one shelf of it is seated a supposititious Judge, surrounded by some half-dozen pseudo female spectators; the bottom shelf being occupied by counsel, attorney, crier of the court, and plaintiff.  The special jury are severally called in to occupy the right-hand shelf; and when the cupboard is quite full, all the forms of returning a verdict are gone through.  This is for the plaintiff!  Mr. Aubrey is ruined; and Mr. Titmouse jumps about, at the imminent risk of breaking the cupboard to pieces, having already knocked down a counsel or two, and rolled over his own attorney.

This idea of dramatising proceedings at nisi prius only shows the state of destitution into which the promoters of stage excitement have fallen.  The Baileys, Old and New, have, from constant use, lost their charms; the police officers were completely worn out by Tom and Jerry, Oliver Twist, &c.; so that now, all the courts left to be “done” for the drama are the Exchequer and Ecclesiastical, Secondaries and Summonsing, Petty Sessions and Prerogative.  But what is to happen when these are exhausted?  The answer is obvious:—­Mr. Yates will turn his attention to the Church!  Depend upon it, we shall soon have the potent Paul Bedford, or the grave and reverend Mr. John Saunders, in solemn sables, converting the stage into a Baptist meeting, and repentant supernumeraries with the real water!

Hoping to be forgiven for this, perhaps misplaced, levity, we proceed to Act III., in which we find that, fortune having shuffled the cards, and the judge and jury cut them, Mr. Titmouse turns up possessor of Yatton and ten thousand a-year; while Aubrey, quite at the bottom of the pack, is in a state of destitution.  To show the depth of distress into which he has fallen, a happy expedient is hit upon:  he is described as turning his attention and attainments to literature; and that the unfathomable straits he is put to may be fully understood, he is made a reviewer!  Thus the highest degree of sympathy is excited towards him; for everybody knows that no person would willingly resort to criticism (literary or dramatic) as a means of livelihood, if he could command a broom and a crossing to earn a penny by, or while there exists a Mendicity Society to get soup from.

We have yet to mention one character; and considering that he is the main-spring of the whole matter, we cannot put it off any longer. Mr. Gammon is a lawyer—­that is quite enough; we need not say more.  You all know that stage solicitors are more outrageous villains than even their originals. Mr. Gammon is, of course, a “fine speciment of the specious,” as Mr. Hood’s Mr. Higgings says.  It is he who, finding out a flaw in Aubrey’s title, angled per advertisement for the heir, and caught