OLD FRIENDS AND COUNSEL.
Our old friend Maddison Morton's Box and Cox runs Shakspeare's works generally very near in the matter of daily application. But fancy its being quoted as an authority by Sir Horace Davey, in his masterly reply to t'other side in the Bishop of Lincoln's case. Yet so it was. "Bishop Cosin," said Sir Horace, "had erroneously assumed that a letter had been written by Calvin to Knox, whereas it had been really written to an Englishman named Cox." So it was a mistake of the postman, after all, and it only wants the introduction of the name of Box to make the whole thing perfect and satisfactory. "It will be within the recollection of the Court," Sir Horace might have continued, "that Cox was prevented from becoming the husband of Penelope Anne, relict of William Wiggins, Proprietor of Bathing Machines at Margate and Ramsgate, by the sudden and totally unforeseen union of the lady in question with one Knox, whose residence, as the Musical Revised Version has it, was usually 'in the Docks'; and with this marriage of Penelope Anne Wiggins with Mr. Knox of the Docks, Messrs. Box and Cox professed themselves entirely and completely satisfied, as it is my earnest hope that Your Grace, and My Lords the Bishops, will also be. And should this be the result, then I assure Your Grace that there will not be a happier party sit down this night to supper than 'Read and others,' of which fact you may take your Davey."
On the Learned Counsel resuming his seat, there would have been considerable applause, which, of course, would have been instantly suppressed.
Notes "in Globo."—Dorothy was long ago taken off the stage of the Prince of Wales's to make room for Paul Jones. But another Dorothy has recently reappeared at the Globe Theatre in the pretty Shakspearian fairy-play entitled, A Midsummer Night's Dream, wherein Dorothy Dene enacts the part of Hippolyta. By the way, the lady who used to speak of that immortal work, Dixon's Johnsonary, the other day referred to Shakspeare as being "contemporaneous with that great wit—dear me—what was his name?—who wrote Every Man in his own Humour—oh, I remember—John Benson." Eminently satisfactory.