What a pleasing acquaintance the Mayor of Carlisle must be
! What a charm it must lend to life in that dull town to have at its head a man in whose presence gravity is impossible ! The Mayor, Mr. Caleb Hodgson, has been asked, it appears, to assist in some way towards the tercentenary celebration in honour of Shake- speare, and has refused, alleging that " Shakespeare was a clever man, but might have turned his talents to better advantage," written tracts, for example. The Mayor, however, has done an
unconscious service to the Shakespearian cause, for he has enabled all hjs townsmen to understand Justice Shallow. We should have thought there was not such another mind in the three kingdoms off the staff of the Record, but Carlisle is fertile of fools ; and another "citizen" has issued a manifesto ending, " Let us support our worthy mayor, and all who are conscientiously concerned, against theatrical entertainments, as seductive and dangerous, and take no part in the celebration of the birthday of a mere literary stage actor." Charles Lamb foresaw Hodgson, bdt the " citizen " was beyond even his conception of the ludicrous. We wonder if it ever occurred to him to remember that St. Paul quoted, and had therefore studied, Menander, and that two lyrical dramas are among the canonical books. Or does he, perchance, think the author of the Book of Job "dangerous" because he compressed wisdom into the form of a poetic dialogue?
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