is a sketch of English gloom, in the person of a Mr. Megrim, meditating suicide. from absolute weariness of existence. He is relieved from his doldrum by opportunities presented to him of making others happy. This reminds me of a more interesting fable worked up with great skill, which that enchanting creature Le Texier read once to us at Lisle street inmanuscript : The master of a poor inn is burdened with the presence of a yet poore poet, and would put an end to his daily supplies, but for the oppositionofr his wife, whose vanity is gratified occasionally by the poet's numbers. Matters, however, are proceeding fast towards his ejectment, when a stranger guest, of a most portentous exterior, whom they discriminate only as P'homme noir, attracts our poet's attention. The strange inveighs against the miseries of existence, and touches in a masterly way those of the scribbler before him. The poet dines with the man in black, and despatches the contents of the dishes with that extravagant voracity which lays in for appetites to come. The last cover being removed, a brace of pistols display themselves, and the English miserable invites the French to close life's feast, agreeably to the November ritual, by the bullet. But self-destruction is by no means the passion of the French poet. However, he does not venture to dispute its propriety-he only wishes to delay the consummation until he hears the fate of a dramatic sketch that he has presented to the theatre. The man in black considers this to be but reasonable, and en attendant requests to be indulged with a hearing of the drama. The poet promises to read the piece to him, and they separate. At the appointed time the bard comes fully prepared, takes his seat before his sable friend, and commences the reading with a catalogue raisonne of the persons and their business in the drama. The scene, I need not say, is that of their own auberge-he describes the host, the hostess, himself, and then the English hypochondriac by his name, JOHNSON. An involuntary astonishment bursts from the lips of the hearer, who is then informed of the circumstances under which he left his family, and they are all described, the wife, the daughter, nay, the fille de chambre is not forgotten; they arrive, it is said, at the inn, in search of their unhappy friend. The door of the room in which they are sitting here suddenly opens, and the persons who enter are of course no creatures of the poet's brain, but the actual family of our melancholy countryman, whom the poet had seen on their arrival, and whose business his usual address had elicited. His happy invention suggests to him this dramatic introduction of the travellers; but all anticipation by the audience is carefully avoided. Le Texier read this, as he did every thing, inimitably. Whether he himself was the author, I did not ask at the time, and since have inquired in vain. Mrs. Piozzi, when on her travels, met with, I suppose, Patrat's sketch, and said Andrews should have it. Le Texier's she has not alluded to, and probably never saw. The Castle Spectre had given an agreeable picture to the lovers of the marvellous, and I had turned my attention to a rival shade, taking care to supply an adequate cause for supernatural interposition. I had also, in the bold resistance of Llewellyn to our Edward, an opportunity of meeting the menaces of foreign invasion, in the year 1798, with patriot sentiment, and I had, in the Bards of Cambria, the means of showing the bard of Gray in action, with all the aids of appropriate scenery, dress, and music. I drew the real habiliments of the bards, by his permission, from Mr. Fuseli's sketch-book; and Johnston, the machinist, came from Drury Lane Theatre to superintend all our equipments. By the parallel, I carried up my shade through the grand window of the cathedral, and some very admirably painted clouds devolved about the figure contrived by Marinari.-We prospered, and upon a hasty revisal of my play, I am tempted to say that it contains some passages which I am not even now displeased to have written. But Mr. Kemble, I remember, wrote to inform me, that they had been commended to him by his friend Jackson of Exeter, an elegant critic, and a composer, superior to any praise of mine. While we were in rehearsal, Mr. Palmer one morning came upon the stage, and took me aside. "He said that he could not quit London without in a particular manner thanking me for the part of Schedoni. He expressed his concern that he could not aid me on the present occasion; and with very singular emotion, wished that I might always meet with men as sensible to kindness as he himself should ever be." He even wrung me by the hand, and took his leave in haste and in tears. I should perhaps have thought of this but as "a trick of custom," and so it might really be but I know nothing of the secret anticipations of the mind. Palmer quitted London to return to it NO MORE, for on the second of August he expired suddenly on the stage at Liverpool, while acting the character of the Stranger. On the 29th of July, he dined with some friends belonging to the company, and appeared to be low spirited; but on Wednesday the 1st of August, he gave the Lyar, with all the vivacity of earlier days. On the 2d, to a very genteel audience, he acted the character of the Stranger with powerful effect, till he came in the third act to the remarkable passage "There is another and a better world." He had no sooner uttered the words, than he fell backwards, heaved a convulsive sigh, and immediately expired. He was carried off the stage, and surgical aid speedily procured, but the veins yielded not a drop of blood. Aickin endeavoured to make the audience acquainted with his death, but was unable to articulate a single word. They were informed of their great loss by Incledon. On the 6th of August, 1798, he was buried at Warton, a village near Liverpool, and all the coaches that could be obtained followed his hearse. Mr. Palmer was the most general actor that ever lived. He was, after Henderson, the best Falstaff and Comus; he was the only Sir Toby Belch, Stukely, Surface, Sneer, Villeroy. In the long list of tyrants in tragedy, and fine gentlemen in comedy, he was better, oh, how much better, than all other men! and in the Brushes and Duke's Servants, the Lyar, and a myriad of others, beyond even the hope of an author. I should put his age at near 57. Palmer, before the unfortunate business of the Royal Theatre, had indulged himself in rather expensive habits, and at his house in Kentish Town, seemed to affect the splendid hospitalities of Barry. His noble figure and graceful manners threw him into a variety of temptations, difficult to be resisted, and sworn foes to professional diligence and severe study. But, such as he was, during the whole of his course as an actor, he was fairly entitled to the greatest salary in the theatre, as he combined the most general utility with talent often surprising, frequently excellent, and always respectable. The Liverpool Theatre, on the 13th, gave a free benefit to the children of Mr. Palmer, and Holman spoke an address upon the occasion written by Mr. Roscoe-there is too much of it-it is exceedingly metaphysical-but has some nervous lines. This proper example was followed in town by the summer company, who went over to the Opera-house on the 18th of August, and there acted the Heir at Law and the Children in the Wood, for the benefit of the four youngest orphans; and Drury Lane Theatre on its first night, the 15th of September, with melancholy propriety, performed the Stranger itself, with Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, for the same object. In the farce Mrs. Jordan and Bannister both gave their aid, and the Citizen detained a very crowded audience to the "last scene of all." CHAP. XII. Winter Season of 1798-9.-Mr. Kemble opens with the Stranger.-Emery comes from York.-Kotzebue.-Lovers' Vows. -Ramah Droog.-Novelties.-Reynolds returns to Covent Garden.-Laugh when You Can.-Aurelio and Miranda.The Author's account of it.-Kemble most kind as well as excellent. Holman, Votary of Wealth.-Feudal Times.Mr. Morris.-- Kotzebue's Birth Day.--Mr. Kemble in Montval.-Pizarro, done by Sheridan himself.-The strange Prologue.Sheridan's feelings during its performance.Kemble in Rolla.-Mrs. Jordan.Mrs. Siddons.-Elvira considered.-Success of the play.-Political Feelings.—Mr. Pitt.-Play printed.--Colman's.--Novelties there.--Fete at Frogmore. Reflections. I HAVE already informed the reader that the winter season of 1798-9 opened with the Stranger. The common notion was, that the last words uttered by poor Palmer were parts of a passage commencing with an apostrophe to the Deity, and that the agony attending their delivery had destroyed the actor. The house was therefore in considerable alarm till the real Stranger had got over words that had proved so fatal. And some degree of surprise buzzed along the seats when Mr. Kemble, in the proper tone of resignation, uttered the calm address to Francis, in the first scene of the third act: Stranger. "Have you forgotten what the old man said this morning? From the Bath or the York companies, most of our great actors have proceeded. There is little mystery in this: the demand for excellence usually finds it or creates it. We had Mrs. Siddons from Bath; Mr. Kemble from York. By this I mean to say, that Bath and York were the scenes of their greatest popularity-their theatric homes. From York we had received an excellent actor in Fawcett, and were to owe another, more limited, but equally perfect, in Emery. He had found in the rustics of Morton, matter remarkably suited to his talents; and in truth he was destined to exhibit the entire range of his ability in that author's comedies-from Frank Oatlands to his Bobby Tike, exhausts nearly the whole soul of the countryman, and the art of Emery. His Caliban was a brute, it is true, and, what he should not have been, a Yorkshire one; but there was no poetry in his conception of the character. It has been always roared down the throats of the vulgar; but Caliban is not a vulgar creation. It is of "imagination all compact." We had now begun the long line of Kotzebue's dramas,' and the passion always found about them ensured their success, if even respectably acted. Mrs. Inchbald brought out Lovers' Vows, at Covent Garden, on the 11th of October. Frederick was supported by Pope, and the Agatha and Amelia by the Mrs. Johnson from America, and Mrs. Johnstone, the wife of Henry Johnstone, a lady of very considerable talent in melo dramas. With any other merits or demerits the world has sufficiently amused itself, to be tired, I hope, by this time of the subject. My old friend Taylor, who has written more prologues in less time than any bard that ever did live, on the occasion of Lovers' Vows supplied one of his best. The allusion to all our Spectres is very happy and pointed— "The monstrous charms of terrible delight." Mr. Palmer, of the Temple, sent on Munden, the rhyming Butler of the play, with an epilogue of about seventy rambling, but sufficiently ludicrous verses. The glorious victory of the Nile was in course to be dramatised, and T. Dibdin launched a pantomimic entertainment of song, dance, and dialogue, at Covent Garden on the 25th of October. Cumberland, catching at something between Cowley and Dryden, supplied a prologue, spoken with great animation by H. Johnstone. At the same theatre, on the 12th of November, Cobb, with some of his India knowledge, brought us entertainment from the Malabar coast; and his comic opera of Ramah Droog flourished like an adventure of Bandannoes and Pullicat Romals. The females of this piece are all of them unknown to fame, but their names look astonishing in. stage history. Mrs. Mills and Mrs. Chapman, with the six Misses Mitchell, Waters, Sims, Gray, Wheatley, and Walcup, and I hope, in the language of that great stage manager, Peter Quince, "here is an opera fitted." It had one charm |