SEPTEMBER 21, 1861.] IF T IT. 9


 PAN AT THE PLAY. GREECE,-ITS HUMOUROUS HISTORY.
 1BY M'ASSA 11OYLE.
 URRAH! The Surrey is 0
 returning to first principles. Illustrated with Sketches taken on the Spot.
 __ __PAN rejoices to find that CHAPTER THE FIRST.
 there is still a theatre where R EECE was (and is) a country at
 -P- an interesting damsel in the south-eastern extremity of
 white muslin walks about Europe, so that it always was
 through three acts, armed (and always is) in extremes. It
 with nothing but her native was divided into two parts,-
 modesty and a horse-pistol; Greece Proper and Peloponnesus
 where the heavy ruffian -which, we presume, was im-
 does not attempt by an Pp proper. Peloponnesus was a
 assumed calmness of de- 1- ; I/fi peninsula, and is now known as
 meanour, to cheat you into the Morea, and its devoted in-
 the belief that he is not a habitants are only too happy
 heavy raffian, but goes in s| mourir pour 1t pat.rie,--not that
 boldly for right-hand cor- they ever do it. The character
 ners, back falls, and black of the country is of a more
 S eyebrows; where the comic favourable nature th th hat of
 4 I man and the pert chamber- 8 the inhabitants, who may be
 maid trip on as naturally described as much lolft,ior tih
 as possible in the front i their most elevated Imountains,
 scene after the duel, and and considerably deo)or that
 make love inamedleyduet, their most indonltod valleys.
 swearing never topart, and Thessaly (don't consider this a
 going off immediately after- lie, because it's plerlfoctly truo)
 wards at opposite sides; and Boootia were the most
 where, in short, for two --- fruifill portions of the country,
 hours and a half, a closely- and as Attica was notorious for its barrenness and sterility, obstinately
 packed and full-flavoured refusing to produce fruit or flowers, it is evident that evon for a second
 British audience is kept in Flora didn't back Attic-a.
 astateoftheliveliest excite- The ancient Greeks appear to have lived like great beasts, and to
ment, only to be allayed by the highly elaborate death of the villain, have wandered about the face of the country without cultivate ing any
the rapturous embrace of the hero and the heroine, the unselfish of its natural features, and to have existed,-as their successors all
shouts of delight of the clean-looking tenantry (who are all to have over the world have done,-upon the very simplest pllants. Their
fifty per cent. taken off their rents by the rightful heir), the soothing dwelling-places were never permanent, and as they used to hook it
smell of the gunpowder, the timely descent of the green curtain, from one place to another, it is evident that their bills wore never
and the opportune arrival of the lady with the ginger beer. settled. They were of aquarrelsome and brutal toeiperamnot,linislina
 PAN, although by no means a PAN of blue-fire propensities, delights their differences with blows on the head, so that what commenced
 exceedingly in a Surrey drama, and he begs to tender his grateful with harmless banter, frequently ended with bloodshed and rappin'.
 acknowledgments to Messrs. Creswick and Shepherd for affording Their continual migrations were so unexpected a tt the fomlues
 him a real treat by producing The Idiot of the Mountain, a good frequently exclaimed My gracious!" when ordered to prepare for a
 bustling melodrama from the French. Don't you be persuaded to go march by their lords and masters, who dropped dismally sig-
 out of the good old beaten track, my friends; the Surrey drama gestive jokes about the "hides of March," which had the ell ct, of
 is a drama peculiar to the theatre over which you rule ; blank verse reminding those wretched squaws that as their posess considered
 and Roman togas are out of place on your boards; stick to the them treasures, they stood an unpleasant chance of a hiding. To
 thrilling, it is quite a mistake to look upon a piece as rubbish because give an instance of the uncultivated and wretched taste of thoso
 it may be highly wrought and over-intense; at the west end we are benighted barbarians, we are informed that they oven ascribed divine
 drifting terribly into the namby-pamby, the milk-and-water, the honours to Polasgus, who appears to have put them up to a glorious
 washed-out school of writing, and are too much in the habit of calling wrinkle by teaching them to oat acorns. They wero a foolish race,
 pieces neat, when it is impossible to admit their point or originality, and actually swallowed the 'oaks. This may account for their being
 It would be a poor compliment to Mr. Creswick to say that the such a corn-sequential people.
 part of the Idiot was peculiarly adapted to him; but he played it Greece, in a very early stage of existence, appears, like many other
 remarkably well, and recovered his intellect at the conclusion of the infants, to have been subject to strong convulsions. DocrlTo SCumrrz
 piece in the most natural and satisfactory manner imaginable. The observes that "the country lies in a volcanic zone," and it has always
 new and admirable scenery by two young but very rising artists,- had a considerable amount of trouble in looking after its owil, for
 the Messrs. Brew, -is alone worth a visit. though no historian has been sulliciently rash as to ascribe its many
 At this season most managers go out of town to recruit themselves; spots of interest to volcanic agency, still we may safely set them down
 while some have gone to Baden and the Isle of Wight, the manager as such when we know that the country has always been notorious
 of the Strand Theatre has gone to Cheltnam, not the watering- for its insufferably close and sultry summers, and equally remarkable
 place, but the adapter of the neat little drama of IMore Precious than for its hot springs. Before the days of the Greeks or lHellenes,
 Gold. The result of the visit has been a one-act piece entitled A Lucky the Pelasgians wore the most important of the dwellers in the
 Escape, which succeeds in satisfying the somewhat easily tickled land. Their name and origin have been the subjects of much
 palate of the Strand audience, and as the slice of something tasty speculation, which, like a good many other speculations we could
 between the huge lumps of comic bread, The Postboy and Aladdin, mention, has yielded no definite results. Nobody seems to know
 assists in make a dramatic sandwich which "goes down exceedingly exactly whQre they came from, but it is admitted very generally that
 well. Miss Marie Wilton, in a white wig and a couple of coquettish they were not Autochthones,-that is to say, they did'nt spring from
 court-plaster patches, is alone worth all the money, and Mossrs. the soil like the humbler classes in an Adelphi draua, frogs, and
 Belford and Parselle work their hardest with good effect. pantomime imps. However, it is very evident that some one put them
 The Soft Sex, which MR. CAInRLEs MATlHEWS (I presumeinthe con- up to the arts of husbandry, and some kind creature taught them
 fusion of the moment) announced on the first night as written by how to make their bread. With an intuitive intelligence, at once
 himself, is a good rattling comedy, full of life and fun. Woman remarkable and satisfactory, they did not require to le told what to
 proved at first too much inclined to talk (not so unusual, surely), do with it, but ate it as if they had been perfectly used to it all their
 but MR. FALCONER has expunged a good deal of very good writing lives. The speedy manner, too, in which each Polasgian took to till-
 in a self-sacrificing but very sensible spirit, and the comedy and the ing the soil, proved him anything but a Tilly Slowboy, and in those
 audiences are all the better for it. It is an excellent specimen of glorious days for agricultural labourers, the man-tiller was never
 a conversational play, and immensely superior to Extremes. known to be a cloak for idleness. As some of the Pelasgians ven-
 On Monday next The Colleen Bawn returns from the seaside to her tured out to sea, and took to piracy as naturally as possible, we learn
 old quarters, and MR. DIox BOUCICAULT comes back from the favourite the interesting fact that they were not only farm-labourers, but occa-
 watering-place at which he has been staying for his "headcr"-vacation. sionally navigators.