Dramatic Effect.—­It is related in the annals of the stage, as a remarkable instance of the force of imagination, that when Banks’s play of the Earl of Essex was performed, a soldier, who stood sentinel on the stage, entered so deeply into the distress of the scene, that in the delusion of his imagination, upon the Countess of Nottingham’s denying the receipt of the ring which Essex had sent by her to the queen to claim a promise of favour, he exclaimed, “’Tis false! she has it in her bosom;” and immediately seized the mock countess to make her deliver it up.

Charles Hulet, a comedian of some celebrity in the early part of the last century, was an apprentice to a bookseller.  After reading plays in his master’s shop, he used to repeat the speeches in the kitchen, in the evening, to the destruction of many a chair, which he substituted in the room of the real persons in the drama.  One night, as he was repeating the part of Alexander, with his wooden representative of Clitus, (an elbow chair), and coming to the speech where the old general is to be killed, this young mock Alexander snatched a poker, instead of a javelin, and threw it with such strength, against poor Clitus, that the chair was killed upon the spot, and lay mangled on the floor.  The death of Clitus made a monstrous noise, which disturbed the master in the parlour, who called out to know the reason; and was answered by the cook below, “Nothing, sir, but that Alexander has killed Clitus.”

Goldsmith’s Marlow.—­Mr. Lewis Grummit, an eminent grazier of Lincolnshire, met late one night a commercial traveller who had mistaken his road, and inquired the way to the nearest inn or public house.  Mr. G. replied, that as he was a stranger, he would show him the way to a quiet respectable house of public entertainment for man and horse; and took him to his own residence.  The traveller, by the perfect ease and confidence of his manner, shewed the success of his host’s stratagem; and every thing that he called for, was instantly provided for himself and his horse.  In the morning he called, in an authoritative tone, for his bill, and the hospitable landlord had all the recompense he desired in the surprise and altered manners of his guest.  It was from this incident that Dr. Goldsmith took the hint of Marlow mistaking the house of Mr. Hardcastle for an inn, in the comedy of “She Stoops to Conquer.”

Mr. Quick, while performing the part of Romeo, was seized with an involuntary fit of laughter, which subjected him to the severe rebuke of his auditors.  It happened in the scene of Romeo and the apothecary, who, going for the phial of poison, found it broken; not to detain the scene, he snatched, in a hurry, a pot of soft pomatum.  Quick was no sooner presented with it, than he fell into a convulsive fit of laughter.  But, being soon recalled to a sense of his duty by the reproofs of the audience, he came forward and made the following whimsical apology:—­“Ladies and gentlemen, I could not resist the idea that struck me when the pot of pomatum, instead of the phial of poison, was presented.  Had he at the same time given me a tea-spoon, it would not have been so improper; for the poison might have been made up as a lenitive electuary.  But, if you please, ladies and gentlemen, we will begin the scene again without laughing.”