“The house was crowded with hundreds more than it could hold, with thousands of admiring spectators that went away without a sight.  This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun of the firmament of the Muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen arch-princess of tears! this Donnellan of the poisoned bowl! this empress of the pistol and dagger! this child of Shakspeare! this world of weeping clouds! this Juno of commanding aspects! this Terpsichore of the curtains and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and earthquake! this Katterfelto of wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief, and soared above all the natural powers of description!  She was nature itself! she was the most exquisite work of art!  She was the very daisy, primrose, tuberose, sweet-brier, furze-blossom, gilliflower, wallflower, cauliflower, aurica and rosemary!  In short, she was the bouquet of Parnassus!  Where expectation was raised so high, it was thought she would be injured by her appearance; but it was the audience who were injured; several fainted before the curtain drew up! but when she came to the scene of parting with her wedding-ring, all! what a sight was there!  The fiddlers in the orchestra, ’albeit unused to the melting mood!’ blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears ran from the bassoon player’s eyes in such plentiful showers, that they choked the finger-stops, and, making a spout of the instrument, poured in such torrents on the first fiddler’s book, that, not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in one flat.  But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience, and the noise of corks drawn from the smelling-bottles, prevented the mistakes between the flats and sharps being discovered.  One hundred and nine ladies fainted! forty-six went into fits! and ninety-five had strong hysterics!  The world will hardly credit the truth, when they are told that fourteen children, five women, one hundred tailors, and six common-council men, were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that flowed from the galleries, the slips and the boxes, to increase the briny pond in the pit; the water was three feet deep, and the people that were obliged to stand upon the benches were in that position up to their ancles in tears.”

There is nothing in the present style of criticism that can exceed the above.  The author actually reached the climax, and all attempts to overtop him would be useless.

Of advertisements there have been many worthy of preservation:  some on account of the ingenuity displayed in their composition; some in their wit; some for their domesticativeness,—­matrimonial offers, for example,—­and others for the conceitedness exposed in them, the ignorance of the writers, or the whimsicality of the matter advertised.  In 1804 there was advertised in an English paper, as for sale, “The walk of a deceased blind beggar (in a charitable neighborhood), with his dog and staff.”