defect of this tragedy is in the arrangement of its scenes in colloquies of two speakers, perpetually interchanged, and reversing the effect previously produced. Here this defect was inherent in the subject itself, and I know no artifice by which it could have been palliated. The mention of Racine reminds me, that my friend Kemble greatly preferred Corneille to the Euripides of France; a preference in which I most certainly never could concur. Upon the publication of Mr. Fox's historical work, I was delighted to find my fondness for Racine sanctioned by the taste of that great and amiable man he even meditated an edition of that poet, which would in course have been accompanied by illustrations of his genius, the more valuable, as the commentator, in his own character, seemed to belong to a bolder and more original school. Modern tragedy was again destined to disgrace on the 14th of March. Dr. Delap's Captives was endured for three nights, and then, like the spirit of Ossian, which pervaded it, was gathered to its fathers. The only thing noticeable in the tragedy was, that Kemble appeared in the genuine Scottish dress, but had no other actor on the stage to keep him in countenance. These solitary flashes of propriety denoted the zeal of the great actor for the truth of exhibition; a time was soon to arrive, when he could carry his wishes beyond himself, and produce a tragedy on the stage, through the whole of whose characters, illustrious, or mean, one correct presiding mind should be clearly discerned. At present his power in the treatre was rather inconsiderable, for when on the 6th of April, he put up the Merchant of Venice for his benefit, his sister Mrs. Siddons acted Portia : Shylock was performed (funerals, too, are performed) by the manager, Tom King, and Kemble himself walked in the gentlemanly habiliments of Bassanio. But it was compensation rich, and rich enough, to be on the stage, and hear from the lips of Mrs. Siddons the triumphant delirium of joy when Bassanio has chosen the right casket. “Por. How all the other passions fleet to air, O love, be moderate, allay thy extacy, I have stept forward to connect two performances of Mr. Kemble together, and therefore return to announce the removal of Werter to town for the spring season, Mr. Holman and Miss Brunton acting the hero and heroine with great success. The manager, who was to be so closely and lastingly connected with the author, then gave him nothing for his tragedy; but when he subsequently added Eloisa (not Abelard's Eloisa, but la nouvelle Heloise) to the list of tragic dramas, then thought himself bound to allow him one night for his benefit-it produced my old friend the striking sum of EIGHT GUINEAS. It should not be omitted that Mrs. Siddons, in the anxiety after new characters, had stooped to Elwina, in Percy, and something, no doubt, was the result of such accomplishments in the part; but who can get rid of first impressions? The title of this play invariably revives before my eyes the sparkling gaiety of Lewis, his flowing hair in powder, tied by a blue set of streamers; his light summer costume, of no age in the history of man, and all the inimitable flights of tragic passion, which forty years cannot entirely wear down in the memory. For Mrs. Jordan the search after novelty proved more favourable; She would and She would not, offered Hippolita to her talents, and it long continued a very powerful attraction. The other characters in this comedy were admirably cast. King was the Trappanti; Parsons the Don Manuel; and Miss Pope the Rosara. On the 1st of May, Miss Kemble was married to Mr. Twiss, a highly respected friend of her brother's, and retired from the stage. She had struggled with many discouragements in the profession; but all the admiration, all the zeal, and critical talent of George Steevens failed to impress the public with his own opinion of her powers. At one time it had been expected that his attentions to this accomplished and excellent lady might terminate in their union; but the commentator was doomed to a life of cheerless celibacy. The social character of that critic would no doubt have been vastly benefitted by such an union. Shakspeare might have lost some of that illustration, which Steevens seemed to live only to supply. Mrs. Pope enacted Zenobia, for her husband's benefit; and Mr. Harris, who never seriously could think of being without such an actress, engaged her the following season. On the 15th May, Mrs. Siddons took her second benefit, and acted the character of Ophelia, in Hamlet; followed by that of the lady in Comus. I remember my anxiety led me early to the doors of the theatre that evening, and her effect in the sweet Ophelia is very distinctly impressed upon me now. There is something in the composition of great genius, A a which is never suited to common organs. The language of Shakspeare must be felt to be spoken. It is not here true, that "Give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music." Nothing but absolute strong sense and passion in the performer, with the accompanying person and grace, can hope to do him justice in any thing. Ophelia had usually been consigned to the mere vocalist, who could, in addition to the snatches of old tunes, whine out the coherent and incoherent ravings of her lunacy, and not utterly in her manners discredit the declared partiality of the Prince of Denmark. But we had not been accustomed to see such a part sustained, even on a benefit night, by the great actress of the time. For a difference between the Siddons and other actresses of Ophelia, take, first, the affectionate intelligence with which she listened to the counsel of Laertes, touching "Prince Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour." No countenance but her own could have conveyed all that was expressed in the narrative to her father of Hamlet's sudden appearance in her closet; or of the exquisitely simple reply afterwards, when he disclaimed all love for her "I was the more deceiv'd." But it was in the scene of Ophelia's distraction, that this great woman threw out one of those transient flashes of design so observable among the insane, conveyed with a look of the utmost subtlety, suddenly assumed, and immediately lost. The passage was this "Oph.-I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think, they should lay him i' the cold ground. 66 MY BROTHER shall know of it—” And then she wandered into thanks for counsel, orders for her coach, and her leave of the sweet ladies, to whom she fancied herself a visitor. The line which I have printed by itself, as delivered by Mrs. Siddons, was never to be forgotten. The lady in Comus, perhaps for the first time, spoke the magnificent phrases of Milton as verses of such amazing power demanded to be given: but the piece is essentially undramatic, and Mrs. Siddons, though an admirable declaimer, required passion for the display of her genius. Yet the grandeur of innocence, and the energy of virtuous indignation, became absolutely terrific in the famous address to Comus, v. 792-9: "Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinc'd; Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits To such a flame of sacred vehemence, That dumb things would be mov'd to sympathize, Were shatter'd into heaps o'er thy false head." Although I cannot think Comus fitted to a public stage, and that noisy unreflecting thing a mixed audience; yet among the decorous retinue of a great baron, acted by the juvenile talent of his family, on some occasional festivity, I can conceive no display so graceful or instructive; and to the present hour, the Masque of Comus has more ennobled the ruins of Ludlow Castle, than the recorded honours of all the lords presidents of Wales, who there held for ages their solemn and splendid courts of the marches. CHAP. XIII. Haymarket.--Mr. Colman attacked in the newspaper-His Prologue.-Mrs. Baddely dies.-Female Macheath and Falstaff-Mrs. Brboks.—Disbanded Officer.-Mrs. Jordan at Edinburgh. Her verses.-Winter season of 1786-7.Rival Richard Coeur de Lion.-Ryder at Covent Garden.Death of princess Amelia shuts the Theatres.-Presentiments of Death.-West Digges dies.--Dodsley's Cleone.Lady of Fashion.-Anecdote.--Mrs. Cowley.-Pilon.Miss Prue.-Reynolds's Eloisa.-Mrs. Siddons in Imogen. --Mr. Kemble's Posthumus.-Its excellence.-R. P. Knight. ---Such things are.-Roxalana.-Death of BreretonCount of Narbonne.-Seduction.-Lady Restless.-Jephson's Julia.--Mr. Kelly.--His Powers.--Mrs. Crouch.Society at her house.-Mrs. Yates dies.-Mrs. Siddons in Alicia. Poor Hewerdine.-Professor Porson.-His memory.-Original Anecdote. THE Haymarket Theatre opened on the 9th of June, with a prologue, written by Mr. Colman, delivered by Mr. Bensley. It seemed to have no other object than to repel a malignant insinuation in the Public Advertiser, that his mind and body had been smitten together. He therefore announced that he was alive in very spite of his physician." There was an unfortunate reference in it to Le-sage's Archbishop, in the following tuneless couplet: "Till apoplex'd at last, his congregation His allusion to Foote, however, though labouring in its expression, faintly vindicated his claim as a writer of pointed verse. "Fam'd Pasquin, his applauded predecessor, |