OUR SCHOOL.

Blinkins, Mr. Latin-master; a colorless, doubled-up, near-sighted man, with a crutch, who is always cold, and always putting onions into his ears for deafness, and always disclosing ends of flannel under all his garments, and almost always applying a ball of pocket-handkerchief to some part of his face with a screwing action round and round.

He was a very good scholar, and took great pains where he saw intelligence and a desire to learn; otherwise, perhaps not. Our memory presents him (unless teased into a passion) with as little energy as color; as having been worried and tormented into monotonous feebleness; as having had the best part of his life ground out of him in a mill of boys.

Dumbledon, Master.

A parlor-boarder; an idiotic, goggledeyed boy, with a big head, and half-crowns without end; rumored to have come by sea from some mysterious part of the earth, where his parents rolled in gold; and said to feed in the parlor on steaks and gravy, likewise to drink currant-wine.

Frost, Miss. A school-girl.

Mawls, Master. A school-boy, with manners susceptible of much improvement.

Maxby, Master. A day-pupil, favored by the usher, who is sweet upon one of his sisters.

Phil. A serving-man, with a sovereign contempt for learning.

OUR VESTRY.

(A satire on the proceedings of parliament.)

Chib, Mr. (of Tucket's Terrace). A hale old gentleman of eightytwo, who is the father of the vestry.

Banger, Captain (of Wilderness Walk). A vestry-man, and an opponent of Mr. Tiddypot, with whom he has a Pickwickian altercation.

Dogginson, Mr. A vestry-man who is regarded as "a regula John Bull."

Magg, Mr. (of Little Winkling Street). One of the "first orators" of "Our Vestry."

Tiddypot, Mr. (of Gumtion House). A vestry-man. See BANGER, CAPTAIN.

Wigsby, Mr. (of Chumbledon Square). A vestry-man, who is a debater of great eminence.

Some Uncollected Pieces.

THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN.

THIS is a comic burletta, in two acts. It was first performed at the St. James's Theatre, on Thursday, the 29th of September, 1836; was well received; and ran until December, when it was withdrawn for "The Village Coquettes," a comic opera by the same author. The Strange Gentleman was acted by J. P. Harley; and Dickens himself, on one occasion, took a part. In 1837, the piece was pub lished, under the pseudonym of "Boz," by Chapman and Hall, in a small octavo pamphlet of forty-six pages, illustrated with an etched frontispiece by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne).

The play is a dramatized version of the story of "The Great Winglebury Duel," in "The Sketches by Boz," with some few changes in the plot, and some alterations of the names of places and persons. Thus "Great Winglebury" becomes a small anonymous town on the road to Gretna; the "Winglebury Arms " is turned into "The St. James's Arms;" "Stiffun's Acre" (the scene of the proposed duel) is renamed "Corpse Common;" instead of Mr. Horace Hunter and Mrs. Williamson, we have Mr. Horatio Tinkles and Mrs. Noakes; Miss Julia Manners turns her surname into Dobbs; and Mr. Joseph Overton, his Christian name into Owen; while Mr. Alexander Trott figures as the Strange Gentleman, and is at ast discovered to be Mr. Walker Trott. See pages 13, 14.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Brown, Miss Emily. A young lady beloved by both Mr. Trott (the Strange Gentleman) and Mr. Tinkles, but married to the lat

ter.

Dobbs, Miss Julia. A wealthy woman, formerly engaged to be married to a Mr. Woolley, who died, leaving her his property, free

from all incumbrances; the incumbrance of himself as a husband not being among the least. Being desperately in want of a young husband, she falls in love with a certain wild and not very strongminded nobleman, Lord Peter, who engages to run away with her to Gretna, and be married. He fails to keep the appointment, however; and she gives her hand to Mr. Trott (the Strange Gentleman) instead.

John. A waiter at the St. James's Arms.

Johnson, John. A hare-brained mad-cap enamoured of Mis Mary Wilson, with whom he starts for Gretna Green, but is temporarily detained at the St. James's Arms by his thoughtless liberality to the post-boys, which leaves him absolutely penniless. A timely loan, however, enables him to continue his journey. Noakes, Mrs. Landlady of the St. James's Arms.

Overton, Mr. Owen. An attorney, who is mayor of the small town in which is the St. James's Arms.

Peter, Lord. A sprig of nobility, very wild, but not very sagacious or strong-minded, who is in love with Miss Julia Dobbs - or her handsome fortune.

Sparks, Tom. "Boots" at the St. James's Arms.

Strange Gentleman, The. See TROTT, Mr. Walker. Tomkins, Charles. A young gentleman in love with Miss Fanny Wilson. He has arranged to run away with her to Gretna Green, and meets her for this purpose at the St. James's Arms. As he has agreed not to disclose his name, she imagines that the Strange Gentleman, staying at that house, and rumored to be insane, but whom she has not seen, is her lover. When she meets Mr. Tomkins, therefore, she acts upon the presumption that he is actually out of his head; and her conduct seems to him so strange, that he suspects her of playing him false, and works himself up into a tempest of jealousy, which only serves to confirm her belief in his lunacy. They are both, however, disabused at last, and set off, without delay, for their original destination.

A

Trott, Mr. Walker, called THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN. young man desirous of marrying Miss Emily Brown, but deterred by the hostile attitude of Mr. Horatio Tinkles, who challenges him to mortal combat (on Corpse Common) for daring to think of such a thing. He accepts the challenge in a bloodthirsty note, but im mediately sends another, and an anonymous one, to the mayor urging that a Strange Gentleman at the St. James's Arms, be forth

with arrested, as he is bent upon committing a rash and sanguinary act. By a ludicrous blunder, he is mistaken for Lord Peter, who is expected at the same house for the purpose of meeting Miss Julia Dobbs, his intended; and who is to be seized and carried off as an insane person, in order that his relatives may not discover him. As he is being forced into the carriage, however, the lady discovers that he is unknown to her; and she refuses to accompany him. At the same moment, a letter from his rival is put into his hands, saying that the challenge was a ruse, and that the writer is far on his way to Gretna to be married to Miss Emily Brown. Determined not to be thus balked of a wife, Mr. Trott offers himself to Miss Dobbs on the spot, is accepted, and starts instanter for the same place in a post-chaise and four.

Wilson, Fanny. A young lady affianced to Mr. Charles Tomkins. Wilson, Mary. The innamorata of Mr. John Johnson.

THE VILLAGE COQUETTES.

THIS "comic opera in two acts," for which Mr. John Hullah composed the music, was written in 1835, and was brought out at the St. James's Theatre, in London, on Tuesday evening, December 6, 1836. "The quaint humor, unaffected pathos, and graceful lyrics of this production, found prompt recognition; and the piece enjoyed a prosperous run." The libretto of the opera was published by Bentley, in 1836, in a pamphlet of seventy-one pages, the dedication, to James Pritt Harley, being dated December 15. The scene is laid in an English village, and the time is supposed to be the autumn of 1729.

Benson, Lucy. A beautiful village-girl betrothed to George Edmunds, a humble but worthy man. Squire Norton, a man much her superior in social station, tries to lead her astray, and for a time she coquettes with him; but before it is too late, she sees her error, rejects the elopement he urges, and returns to her discarded lover. Benson, Old. Her father; a small farmer.

Benson, Young. His son; Lucy's brother.

Edmunds, George. A young man in love with Lucy Benson. Flam, The Honorable Sparkins. Friend to Squire Norton; fascinated by Rose, a village beauty, whom he ineffectually endeavors to lead from the path of virtue; though she is at first flattered by his attentions.

Maddox, John. A voung mar attached to Rose.

Norton, Squire. A country-gentleman, who attempts, but un. successfully, to seduce the fair Lucy Benson.

Rose. Cousin to Lucy Benson; a lovely village maiden, whom the Honorable Sparkins Flam vainly seeks to ruin.

Stokes, Mr. Martin. A very small farmer with a very large circle of particular friends.

IS SHE HIS WIFE?

OR, SOMETHING SINGULAR.

An inedited comic burletta, in one act, played at the St. James's Theatre, on Monday. March 6, 1837. The part of the principal character, Mr. Felix Tapkins, was taken by James Pritt Harley.

John. Servant to Mr. Lovetown.

Limbury, Mr. Peter. A friend of Mr. Felix Tapkins's; made furiously jealous by the attentions his wife receives from Mr. Love

town.

Limbury, Mrs. A vain, conceited woman, who carries on a flirtation with Mr. Lovetown, for the double purpose of assisting him in curing his wife of her self-tormenting suspicions, and of teaching her husband the misery of the jealous fears he has been accustomed to harbor.

Lovetown, Mr. Alfred. A newly-married man, perpetually yawning, and complaining of ennui. His wife, chagrined by his seeming indifference, determines to remove it, if she can, by wounding his vanity, and arousing his jealousy. She accordingly carries on a flirtation with a gay young bachelor (Mr. Tapkins), which perfectly effects her object. Lovetown, stung to the quick, affects a passion for Mrs. Limbury, which he does not feel, and to which she never really responds, with the double motive of obtaining opportunities of watching his wife, and of awaking any dormant feelings of affection for himself that may be slumbering in her bosom. In the carrying-on of these intrigues, many amusing misunderstandings occur; but in the end mutual explanations remove all suspicions, and re-establish the confidence and affection which have temporarily been driven away.

Lovetown, Mrs. His wife.

Tapkins, Mr. Felix. A gay, good-hearted bachelor, who has a sufficient share of vanity, and who plumes himself on his gallantry He resides at Rustic Lodge (near Reading), a remarkable cottage, with cardboard chimneys, Grecian balconies, Gothic parapets, and a thatched roof. Such a model of compactness is this house, tha'