tensions from the established heroine, turned himself after some young and beautiful promise in the art, which might strengthen Holman in the heroes of tragedy, and found the object he sought in the person of Miss Brunton. That young lady, at the age of sixteen, for she was born in the year 1769, had astonished and delighted the audiences of Bath by her Grecian Daughter-her Horatia in the Roman Father, and the character of Palmira in the translation of Voltaire's Mahomet. Mr. Harris saw her at Bath, and felt such confidence in her powers, that he resolved to entrust the female interest of tragedy to the early excellence of Miss Brunton.

CHAP. XII.

Season of 1785-6.-Drury Lane opens with Othello and Desdemona, by Kemble and Siddons.-Miss Brunton in the Roman Father.-Henderson's great effect.-His study.Mr. Kemble's.-Mrs. Jordan at Drury Lane.-Sketch of her.--How received.-Miss Brunton in Juliet.-Mrs. Siddons in the Jubilee.-Mrs. Jordan Imogen.-Henderson's death. His Falstaff-That of some others.-Leonidas Glover.-Frederick Reynolds.-His Tragedy of Werter.Mrs. Siddons acts Mrs. Lovemore.-Mrs. Clive dies.--Garrick.-Walpole.-Burke's opinion of Garrick.-Cobb's Strangers at Home.-Mrs. Wells.-Topham.-Andrews. -Omai.-Drury Lane.--Sheridan.-Death of Reddish.Mrs. Jordan in the Trip to Scarborough.-Burgoyne's Heiress.—Mrs. Brown a rival to the Jordan.-Mrs. Abington in Scrub.--Mrs. Ballington's Debut.-Benefit for Henderson's widow.--Murphy's Prologue.--The Distrest Mother. -Racine.-Mr. Fox.--The Captives.--Mrs. Siddons acts Portia on her brother's night, and Elwina in Percy.--Mrs. Jordan in Hippolita.--Miss Kemble married to Mr. Twiss. -Retires from the stage.-Mrs. Siddons in Ophelia, and the Lady in Comus.

THE season of 1785-6 was commenced strongly by both theatres. Mr. Harris had made some brilliant alterations during the recess, which added to the comfort of the audience. Drury Lane showed the sound policy of displaying its greatest talent on the very first night. Othello and Desdemona were finely acted by Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Although in point of business on the stage, the part of Desdemona did not occupy the large space assigned to the heroines of Otway, and Southerne, and Rowe, yet being written so truly from the heart, the impression made by this accomplished actress was powerful in the extreme. Mr. Kemble was thought to have taken stronger hold than ever in the Moor, and terror was very highly wrought indeed in the awful rumination of the chamber scene. The house seemed unanimously to recognise now, that they had two great tragedians upon the same stage. Without looking away from the page

of Shakspeare, to enquire what might be the native properties of the African, Mr. Kemble's Othello was a high poetical impersonation, and from his first entrance to his last, he wrapped that great and ardent being in a mantle of mysterious solemnity, awfully predictive of his fate.

At Covent Garden, on the 17th October, Miss Brunton made her first appearance in the character of Horatia in Whitehead's Roman Father. Murphy had the kindness to introduce her by a prologue, of which it may be truly said, that not even a hemistic was original, yet it showed the refinement of an experienced writer, and paid a very elegant compliment to Mrs. Siddons.

"Old Drury's scene the gooddess bade her choose,
The actress heard and spake-herself a MUSE.”

But in turning to his young heroine, he trifles egregiously with the common place simile of the "unfledged bird," and the bird sends him to the passion of the groves for a line of Thomson's, of which only a single word is changed

"And shivers every feather with surprise" (for desire.)

Miss Brunton had a voice of much sweetness, and eyes of great expression. I remember her self-possession in the character, and thought it, though a rather unusual trial part, yet, her powers considered, a judicious selection. But this play opened to Mr. Henderson, in Horatius, one of the most transcendent efforts of genius that the stage has ever given. It is in the second scene of the third act, and the passage is that where Valeria relates the flight of Publius before the three champions of Alba:

"Valeria. What could he do, my lord, when THREE oppos'd him? Horatius. He might have died! O villain! villain! villain!"

Henderson saw, that if he spoke Whitehead's line as it stood, the patriot passion itself died for want of expressive diction; with the finest tact, therefore, he dropt the heavy translation of Corneille's "Qu'il mourut!" and burst out with the monosyllable "die!" uttered with terrific energy. The effect was to transfix the hearer, till a few seconds enabled him to thunder down an applause of the genuine kind, such as is at once felt to be the estimate and the reward of genius. The friends of this great actor, as it will be readily imagined, did not let so favourable an incident escape them. They gave their opinion its full weight with Mr. Harris, who had occasionally, they thought, discovered symptoms of alienation

from this the greatest actor of his theatre. But alas! all their efforts were rendered abortive by an event entirely unlooked for, -the almost sudden death of Mr. Henderson on the 25th of the following month, November. To myself the shock was great indeed; I had expected many advantages from his friendship. There was an authority about his understanding, that determined a younger mind in its course. Prudence was a very marked feature in his own character, and a virtue which he strongly inculcated. Even in his books (and he loved his books), he was by no means solicitous about their condition. The Shandy from which he read in public would have somewhat annoyed those whom Mr. Steevens termed "the admirers of bibliothecal purity;" yet he passed a great portion of his day in his library, was a most diligent reader, and an acute and sagacious critic. Among his amusements entered the frequent transcription of old plays, and the perfecting of many mutilated copies of the original folio Shakspeare. To this labour of love he was in truth much devoted, and he thus found even his relaxation strictly allied to his business. But it was not to carry pedantry into his art, that he was occupied with our early writers. In fact his memory was amazingly tenacious, and he had early made up his mind as to the characters he acted. I believe he varied less from himself than any great actor of his time. Mr. Kemble, on the contrary, seemed to me always to consider the work as still to do: he never dismissed a part from his study, as having given to it all the consideration he was capable of. To the last of him, Hamlet and Macbeth had still, as he conceived, calls upon him for improvement; and his studies, in the line of the poet of the Macedonian hero, appeared—

"Never ending, still beginning."

Late in his carcer, I one morning found Mrs. Kemble going over Zanga with him as carefully as if it had been a new part he did not rely even upon his recollection, and in the preparation of his effects left nothing whatever to

chance.

But I turn from the last triumph of Henderson at the one house, to announce on the following night the first appearance of Mrs. Jordan at Drury Lane Theatre. Her engagement is believed to have resulted from the favourable report of Mr. Smith, who had frequently seen her act with the York Company in the race weeks, which he always attended. Under Tate Wilkinson's management this fascinating woman placed herself in the month of July, 1782. She arrived from

Dublin with her mother, brother and sister, and solicited with great humility an engagement at a moderate salary. The charm of her speaking voice, the languor and dejection of her person, excited the attention of the manager, and she spoke for him a few lines of Calista, the Fair Penitent, which let him know something of the highly-gifted woman before. him. Her first performance of this character took place on the 11th of the month; the audience received her with astonishment and delight, and to exhibit herself with the full charm of contrast, after dying as Calista, in a few minutes she frolicked on again in a frock and little mob cap, to sing the song of the "Greenwood Laddie," and poured out that liquid melody, that through her life, no ear could ever resist, which rendered accompaniment useless, and science unprofitable, and seemed to furnish a proof, that to some beings the bounty of nature dispenses with the usual steps to excellence, and instinctively supplies what the most painful study can rarely reach and never surpass.

In the York Company she met the usual fate of intrusive merit; her rivals scandalized her in their morning gossip, and annoyed her during the evening's performance. They occupied the wings and the stage doors, and by persevering malignity, laboured to defeat and destroy her. But she was fortunate in a manager whose justice would stretch even a little beyond his interest, and Wilkinson struggled to secure her fair play but the heroine was sometimes indolent and sometimes refractory, sometimes capricious, and often imprudent; she had arrived at her fourth season, strengthened in her powers, and a favourite of the manager. The permanent and unrivalled distinction of Mrs. Jordan was not at that time her prime characteristic-the Romp, indeed, had been cut down into a farce expressly for her in Ireland, and Priscilla Tomboy she often acted with great effect, but she yet lingered in the train of tragedy, and in the sickly society. of sentimental comedy. The Country Girl had not even attracted her attention till she saw the part acted by Mrs. Brown of the same company; she then studied it closely, saw all the opportunities it afforded for the display of her lovely wildness, her laughing vivacity, her rich and abundant humour, and made it her own, beyond all competition. It was from the circumstances just mentioned, that when she had begun to take root in the metropolis, she was reminded of Mrs. Brown, as having shown her the secret of the character, and the rival manager thought it worth while to try whether the reputed mistress could not laugh down the pupil. But there seemed no ground to detract from the general ori