"Our Union in its broken state
Is discord to the soul:
And therefore are we digging here
To make the Union hole."
The digging proceeds until the spirit of Napoleon is sunk deep into the earth, when the Southern Confederacy deliberately steps over the hole and captures Washington, at the same time ordering Columbia to black his boots. Columbia would be utterly bereft of hope at this turn in affairs but for the cheerful conduct of the Conservative Chorus, who bid her rejoice that the good old times have come again. Columbia then remembers that she did indeed black the boots of the Confederacy in the good old times, and it suddenly flashes upon her that the Union is, in truth, restored—AS IT WAS. A brilliant blue light is thrown upon the scene, and as the curtain falls the Conservative Chorus are seen in the act of taking all the credit to themselves and indignantly refusing to pay their war taxes.
This affecting drama of real life was played entirely by gifted Mackerels, my boy, the one who acted Columbia being possessed of a voice as musical as that which sometimes comes from between the teeth of a new saw.
When the last round of applause had subsided, and I was leaving the theatre, I came upon the dramatist, Captain Villiam Brown, who appeared to be waiting to hear what I had to say about his work. Says I to him:
"Well, my versatile Euripides, your play resembles the better dramas of Æschylus, inasmuch as it is all Greek to me."
"Ah!" says Villiam, hastily assuming the attitude in which Shakspere generally appears in his pictures. "Did I remind you forcibly of the bard of Avon?"
"Yes," says I, kindly; "you might easily be taken for Shakspere—after dark."
As I turned to leave him, my boy, I could not help thinking how often the world will call a man a "Second" So-and-so, long before he has anything like commenced to be first, even.