ABSTRACT
It is somewhere observed by our oldest philosophers that necessity is the mother of invention; and, truly, may I plead for and offer this exordium as an explanation of the purpose and nature of this entertainment.1 A Dibdin, an Incledon and a Mathews have become celebrated from these necessities and reaped a golden harvest by their labours-the one from anecdote of human nature, the other from an unequalled splendid voice, and the last not least, the 3d, from a most wonderful and powerful art of mimicry.2
