What was the use of Sir Hugh Middleton bringing the New River to a “head,” or of King Jamie buying shares in the speculation on purpose to supply Sadler’s Wells with real water, if it is to be drained off from under the stage to make way for horses?  Shade of Dibdin! ghost of Grimaldi! what would you have said in your day?  To be sure ye were guilty of pony races:  they took place outside the theatre, but within the walls, in the very cella of the aquatic temple, till now, never!  We wonder ye do not rise up and “pluck bright Honner from the vasty deep” of his own tank.

Sawdust at Sadler’s Wells!  What next, Mr. Merriman?

[Illustration:  A JUDGE GOING THE CIRCUIT.]

If Macready had been engaged for Clown, and set down to sing “hot codlins;” were Palmerston “secured” for Pierrot, or Lord Monteagle for Jim Crow, who would have wondered?  But to saddle “The Wells” with horses—­profanity unparalleled!

Spitefully predicting failure from this terrible declension of the drama, we went, in a mood intensely ill-natured, to witness how the “Horse of the Pyrenees” would behave himself at Sadler’s Wells.  From the piece so called we anticipated no amusement; we thought the regular company would make but sorry equestrians, and, like the King of Westphalia’s hussars, would prove totally inefficient, from not being habituated to mount on horseback.  Happily we were mistaken; nothing could possibly go better than both the animals and the piece.  The actors acquitted themselves manfully, even including the horses.  The mysterious Arab threw no damp over the performances, for he was personated by Mr. Dry.  The little Saracen was performed so well by le petit Ducrow, that we longed to see more of him.  The desperate battle fought by about sixteen supernumeraries at the pass of Castle Moura, was quite as sanguinary as ever:  the combats were perfection—­the glory of the red fire was nowise dimmed!  It was magic, yes, it was magic!  Mr. Widdicomb was there!!

Thinking of magic and Mr. Widdicomb (of whom dark hints of identification with the wandering Jew have been dropped—­who, we know, taught Prince George of Denmark horsemanship—­who is mentioned by Addison in the “Spectator,” by Dr. Johnson in the “Rambler,” and helped to put out each of the three fires that have happened at Astley’s during the last two centuries), brought by these considerations to a train of mind highly susceptible of supernatural agency, we visited—­

THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH,

the illustrious professor of Phoenixsistography, and other branches of the black art, the names of which are as mysterious as their performance.