So far as I know these lines not only end the controversy but also mark the end of both Davis and George's writing for the Gazette. Apparently Alienus accomplished his purpose and ridiculed both men into silence.

Can we identify "Alienus"? Not with certainty. Evidently he was a teacher of unusually large physique who had come to Charleston from "Northern States," and was conducting a "private school" when Davis wrote in September. Probably during the previous year he was teaching in the College of Charleston, along with Davis and George. Two men partly answer this description. One is Nathaniel Bowen, afterwards Bishop of South Carolina in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Bowen was born in Boston in 1779, came to South Carolina at the age of eight years, and lost his father the same year. He was then taken into the home of Bishop Robert Smith, who had just become president of Charleston College, was graduated from that institution in 1794, when he became a tutor, and continued teaching there until 1798 or 1799.19

The second guess is more probable. William Mason took the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College with the Class of 1787. He then went to Charleston, taught for five years in the English department of Charleston College, but opened an "English School" in Charleston on June 3, 1799, duly advertising the facts just given in the Gazette.20 This

19The first date is implied by Norton, J. N., Life of Bishop Bowen (New York, 1859), p. 24. The second date is that given in the biographical sketch of Bowen in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography, XII,318. But a letter to Bishop Smith, Norton, p. 27, is dated from Boston, September, 1799, and implies that he has been separated from his patron several months. He could, therefore, hardly have been in St. Stephens when "Alieaus" wrote from that place.

20Of May 14, ff. He states that he has been in Charleston for twelve years, and the Quinquennial Catalogue of Harvard University confirms this statement, in that he took his degree just twelve years before. Jervey in Robert Y. Hayne and His Times (New York, 1909), p. 16, mentions Mason as Hayne's teacher but cannot identify him.

school was later attended by Robert Y. Hayne, opponent of Webster in the United States Senate. Mason, then, came to Charleston from the North, was teaching in Charleston College with Davis and George in the autumn of 1799, and was conductor of a private school in the summer of 1799 and thereafter. Himself a Harvard graduate of 1787, he was probably acquainted with the circumstances of Dennie's chequered career in that school, as Alienus" seems to have been. I do not know that he was in St. Stephens on the upper Santee in 1799, but he might have gone there for his vacation, just as Davis went to Sullivan's Island. The guess is offered for what it is worth.

Here ends the story of the "Bard of Coosawhatchie." As a lyrist he would not rank high at any time or place, for his technique is too crude and his lines often feeble. Moreover, he is at all times an Englishman in birth, training, and point of view, never an American by adoption or assimilation. But the facts of his life in this one year and his comments on what he observed have seemed worth weaving together merely for the sidelight they throw on early American literature and on Charleston habits at the end of the eighteenth century.

THE PUMP ROOM

In the Pump-room, so admirably adapted for secret discourse and unlimited confidence.

NORTHANGER ABBEY.

THE BREATH OF LIFE IN VAUDEVILLE

The theatrical profession makes demands upon its members in proportion to their prominence. And if they are prominent they receive much publicity. Everyone knows them by sight. They are always attended by a crowd of admirers. Have you ever thought that they are living on a bubble that may burst at any moment and send them tumbling down to be forgotten? Sometimes they seem to have forgotten it. But rarely is this true. They know; they can feel the pulse of their public, and know almost at once when their popularity is on the wane. Then there is much gnashing of teeth, followed by a deep sorrow and sense of loss. It is only a matter of time when they say, as many before them have said: "I remember when I reigned in the hearts of the people who now sneer at my passing."

Not only is this true of the great actor but also of the neargreat and the many below in the just-an-act class. He feels; he, too, has had his moments of triumph, when the world seemed to be at his feet. A nasty curve in the roadway of fate changed his course, however, and in the language of the stage he was left "flat." He has continued although the going has been hard, and rewards few and far between, but his faith and hope have never waned. "Some day," he says, "I will arrive." "Some day, they will see that my work is of the better class." Each act marks a step toward the goal of their ambition; steady work and a modicum of responsiveness from their public. They have not asked for much.

They are the children of the public; a hard parent, indeed, who asks much and often gives little in return. It is fickle and fond, cold and warm, all in turn. There can be no prognostications of its mood. Even after it is well defined, there is no certainty of continuation. The smallest detail may spoil an effect that in its whole may be pleasing. The punishment meted out by this public-parent is harsh. Banishment and disgrace may accompany its judgment. As the word of an absolute monarch, so is the decision of the theatregoing public.

disdain by the public. I Particularly is it true of

Vaudeville people are held in regret to say this, but it is true. the so-called small-time performers. They remind one sometimes of ancient gladiators who came to make sport of their lives for a drunken Roman public. Their audiences are cold. In vaudeville the entertainer is viewed as a clown-and a poor one. He may break his neck, but it is thumbs down for sorrow; let joy be unconfined and hail the next victim.

Applause is the breath of life to the actor. After his "showing" at an official try-out house he looks to two things: Work for his "act" and favorable press comment. Sometimes he gets a little of the former and none of the latter most of the time. Instead the press gives him a "roast, and the "agent" delivers profound criticism that, in its entirety, can be summed up in the term most used in theatrical offices, "Rotten." The milk of human kindness, as the vaudeville performer looks at it, is only another way of saying applause. If the press is kind and his agent not too critical, i. e., the gentleman may have said, "Fair," for "Good" is a term unknown in his vocabulary, then does the showman look for work.

But work comes in driblets; a little here and a little there. Mostly there, and while he is working in this place far removed from Broadway the thought uppermost in his mind is "Where do I go from here?" Believe me, he may be singing of golden paradise, but his mind more often than

not is in the other place. Work is hard under these conditions. Imagine yourself in his place. Your family needs your support. You have a position, but you know that it is temporary, say for a week's duration. At home, awaiting good news, your family prays for your success. How would you feel? Just like entertaining two or three thousand people, I suppose. People who you feel are waiting to condemn, and even if they approve fail to show it in a fitting manner -the hands clapping out "GOOD-GOOD."

Applause says more than just "good;" it is consolation to a worried, faithful entertainer. He is never late, always in the theatre ahead of you, waiting to appear before you and give of his best for your pleasure. But, by George, he doesn't get much work. You are not always to blame for that. But perhaps if you evinced your approval in a more enthusiastic manner, it would help the booking office and the act's agent to see the light of day and play the Good Samaritan. You wonder why acts that give a clean performance and please you with their skill in one or another talent sometimes do not return to entertain you. There may be one of many reasons for this. cannot give a positive answer. Who can tell? The actor must puzzle and think. His final decision is to change the act you like and substitute something different, thus starting the old, old round again.

Even the oldest showman Certainly not you and I.

Ah, well. Life is just one thing after another, or so it has been said. The most fascinating game in life is that behind the scenes. Like the victim of an awful drug the player sometimes tries to get away. But in more cases than not he dies with his shoes on, i. e., in the old show game. Grease paint and powder! the music of the overture! There is ecstasy in the final moment before appearance on the stage! All these things combined weave a web of enchantment that never releases the captured one. Have you felt, in your dim, distant boyhood, the call of the circus arena? Have you dreamed. glorious dreams of ascent upon a success that would take