the characters of a play as children of the same father, by the just representation of the meanest of which just fame was to be acquired; and that, for example, he who could personate well the friend of Hamlet was the fittest to stand in the shoes of Hamlet. So thought Mrs. Siddons, at least; who, we have heard, on her leave-taking visit to Edinburgh, selected Terry to support her in her brother's parts, as the best substitute for John Kemble. Thus, with all intelligent lovers of the stage, did Terry set himself practically, and at his own cost, against a system which has planted the stage with sticks, that it might be left vacant for some little great actor to play tricks on before high heaven, which make the spirits of Garrick and Kemble to grieve.

"It arose from this temper of a truly great mind, that Terry was one of the most VERSATILE actors that ever trod the stage; not meaning by versatile, that he was in the habit of filling merely the widest range of parts, but that he sustained more characters with more success than any performer of whom the present age can speak. As an instance of this, it may be observed, that he whom Sir Walter Scott has pronounced to have followed the first Lord Ogleby (King) with not unequal steps a part in which he has himself been worthily succeeded by Farren-has been found, on the same night in which he gave to view the veritable battered old beau of Colman and Garrick, animating in the afterpiece the shaggy carcass of Orson. But when we reflect on Terry's natural endowments - his voice deeper than human — his great energies deep passion,—all indications of the rougher and stronger order of mortals, the wonder is, not that he could suitably personate man

but that he could tame himself down into the senile affectations and imbecility of a sexagenarian gallant. The marvel will not be diminished in the eyes of those who may bethink them of his Luke the Labourer,' so well described in the

Atlas' of a former day; or his Gambler, represented by him in his last season at the Adelphi, in a way which made the same paper designate him as a Crabbe' among the actors. Indeed, with deference to the able critics of the North, it was in the homelier and more rugged characters of the irregular drama, where he could enjoy scope and room enough, that Terry - who has oftener than once created a character whilst he acted it was pre-eminent; and as the umquhile critic of the Atlas' truly observed, the native tragedy of Terry was the tragedy of the rough, downright, vigorous, and appalling writer of Eustace Gray,' and of a hundred tales of rustic villany and passion. Of the same rank, but in a different vein, was his Job Thornberry, a part weakly conceived by the author, but amazingly powerful in the representation of Terry; who, as has been hinted, often acted a part with more humour than it was written, and ingrafted on inferior stocks the fertility of his own stronger feelings and richer humour.

"One property in Terry's acting deserves to be particularised, not as the most eminent, but as being one in which, strange as it may appear, he stood alone, he was the only actor of his time who could tell a long story well, and from whose mouth a long speech followed naturally and agreeably. Of this power of riveting the attention of the audience to that of which it is at all times, and for the most part justly, impatient, many remarkable examples might be given. Suffice it here to name the Abbé de l'Epée, in the piece called 'Deaf and Dumb.' The good Abbé began his long story-which, like an Euripidean prologue, prefaces the business of the play

in the deliberate prosy manner of an old doctor, who in his patient is secure of a patient audience; but it was strange to see how he warmed as he went, and how interest, feeling, energy, accumulated, till the Abbé was wrought up into an excitement equalled only by that of the universal house, which had waxed and warmed equally with the narrator.

→ 1826.

Along with the strong feelings and quick sympathy that elevated him to an adequate conception of the more impassioned spirits of the drama, Terry possessed a fund of drollery and humour, rarely found combined with so much tragic excellence, which never failed to overflow in congenial characters, and often infused itself into those which character had little or none. His well-bred gentlemanly Devil, Mephistophiles, cannot be out of the recollection of the London audience, though five or six years have rolled over the memory thereof; and it would carry a lover of the stage yet further back to recal his curiously-quaint personation of Malvolio the only Malvolio of our times. A faint shadow of this inimitable performance yet lingers in an actor of merit on the Edinburgh boards, Mr. Jones *, who occasionally favours the Athenian audience with Terry in Malvolio; just as Farren and never did the latter perform in a style more worthy of himself than when he thus went out of himself enacted, at the Haymarket, Terry in L'Homme Gris, or Green, according to his English dress.

Terry was eminent in the irascible, peevish, but in the main good-hearted old gentleman; and it is in that shape that this Proteus of the stage will rise most readily to the minds of those to whom it has been given only to see him in the close of his career; which, if it was not as refulgent as that of the greatest theatrical worthies, was so, not because as bright a sun shone not overhead, but because, in the degraded last days of our Babylonian theatres, mists and fogs had arisen — an atmosphere of ignorance, vulgarity, and vice — which interposed to dim the lustre of genuine dramatic genius. But though unbeheld in deep of night,' that light shone not in vain,' nor wanted spectators,' though the million wanted a due sense of it. The memory of Terry is, and, whilst this generation endures, will be cherished by the intelligent, as one of the first in merit, as truly as he was almost the last in existence, of the long line of great English actors." * This gentleman has since appeared in London.

No. XIII.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GENERAL SIR DAVID BAIRD, G.C.B. & K.C.

A PRIVY COUNSELLOR FOR IRELAND, GOVERNOR OF FORT GEORGE, AND COLONEL OF THE 24TH REGIMENT.

THIS distinguished and experienced officer was descended from a junior branch of the Bairds, of Auchmedden, in Banffshire. He was the fifth (but second surviving) son of William Baird, Esq. (heir, by settlement, of his second cousin Sir John Baird, of Newbyth, Bart.) by Alicia, fourth daughter of Johnstone, Esq. of Hilltown, co. Berwick.

He entered the army as an Ensign in the 2d foot, the 16th of December, 1772; joined the regiment at Gibraltar in April, 1773, and returned to England in 1776. In 1778 he obtained his Lieutenancy; and on the 24th of September, 1778, the grenadier company of a regiment then raised by Lord Macleod, named the 73d: this corps he joined at Elgin, from whence he marched to Fort George, and embarked for Guernsey. In 1779, he embarked for the East Indies, and arrived at Madras in January, 1780.

Thus, scarcely was the 73d regiment raised, and its commissions filled up, when it was ordered by the Government to enter upon a scene and on a service which at once crowned it with glory, and annihilated every thing belonging to it but its never-dying name; so effectually, indeed, annihilated it, that it is reported, one serjeant is the only individual surviving、 of the original 73d.

A cursory view of the state of affairs in India at that period may not be irrelevant.

Of all the powers then in India the principal was that of the Mysore, as governed by Hyder Ally; a man who, from a soldier of fortune, had become a sovereign prince; and a barbarian who, to a ferocious ignorance and contempt of all that in Europe is called public law, united a military skill, an active ambition, and a refined policy, which have been possessed by few European princes. The neighbourhood, as well as the talents of this prince, rendered him at the same time equally formidable to the English establishments and to the other native powers. In such a state of things, it certainly seemed to be the most reasonable policy in the English factories, either to conciliate the friendship of a prince so powerful; or, on the basis of a common interest, to form such defensive alliances with the other powers of India, as might restrain and control his restless ambition. The English, however, instead of this evident prudence, contrived at the same time to provoke Hyder and all the other powers against them. In the year 1768, they rashly commenced a war, which Hyder most successfully terminated by dictating a treaty at the very gates of Madras. This treaty was altogether as moderate as the circumstances under which it was concluded were absolute and decisive. The fact was, that Hyder Ally, being justly fearful of the Mahrattas, was desirous of the English assistance, and hoped to conciliate the English Government by his moderation. The treaty, therefore, under circumstances in which it might have commanded every thing, took nothing; containing, instead of concessions, a stipulation, that the contracting parties should mutually assist each other against any enemy that might attack either. The treaty was scarcely concluded, before Hyder, with that sagacity which distinguished his character, resolved to ascertain the value of the faith and friendship of his new ally. Accordingly, on the commencement of the war with the Mahrattas, which immediately after broke out, he wrote a letter to the Governor of Madras, requesting him, as a token of his friendship and regard, and for mere form's sake, to send an officer and 500 Sepoys to his assistance. The Government