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“Close to the palace as her chair draws near,
The very tassels seem to quake with fear"

The general, working for Mrs. Jordan, fell greatly below what he had occasionally written for Miss Farren. The piece succeeded amply; but a degree of indolence came over its author, and he could not conquer it. He was a senator,

and did not speak; a man of letters, and did not write; a proprietor of a theatre, who slept over its interests; he lived a few years the life of Sheridan, and as early as his 47th year, from the effects of a ruptured blood vessel, at an inn near Bagshot, he died and made no sign." Few men entered life with more brilliant hopes than Richardson; he distinguished himself greatly at Cambridge; he did not follow his profession at the bar, but he contributed to the classical pleasantries then in vogue; his learning preserved his taste. That great discerner of merit, the late Duke of Northumberland, testified a sincere regard for him, and had, in return, Mr. Richardson's decided veneration. Mr. Richardson was convivial without much effort, was generally beloved, and long regretted.

On the 28th of April, Mrs. Siddons acted Mrs. Oakley. Mr. Kemble performed Oakley, and Palmer the Major. The passion of jealousy tending strongly to tragedy, I thought it, in comedy, strong enough for Mrs. Siddons. Mrs. Oakley has excited more laughter in other hands, but not, I think, more attention. The performance was full of spirit and nature. Another novelty from this great actress I have to mention. After her Katharine, in Henry VIII. she recited Collins's Ode on the Passions, and assumed them in her look and gesture. Perhaps they never played round features equally expressive; and as an ardent admirer of the genius of Collins, I could not but wish, that his melancholy had been soothed by so bright a vision ; but his end was dark and cheerless.

I have sported above with the conversion of the Drury Lane company to operatical uses. I am now to show the the full extent, to which the tendency was carried. Mr. Prince Hoare was employed upon the Didone Abondonnata of Metastasio; and fitted its music, I fear, not with suitable, but English words, distributed into recitative and air; and Dido, with immense splendour of scenery, dresses, and decorations, was brought out on the 23d of May. Madame Mara was your Dido, Kelly Iarbas, and the pious Eneas Mrs. Crouch herself! There was, for garnish, a masque, in which Bannister was the Neptune, Miss Collins Venus, and the

three Graces, Misses Decamp, Jacobs, and Heard. And yet, all this, with the aid of Sedgewick, and Dignum, and Master Welsh, with supernumeraries out of number, lived only three or four nights, and then vanished like a dream. But the lovely power of Metastasio must not suffer from the harshness of another language, and the taste of a people requiring bolder situations in the drama, and a crowd of incidents arranged with little artifice, and ambitious only of striking effects. I have no means of consulting Mr. Hoare's version, but I willingly leave, upon this and every occasion, my sincere, though friendly attestation to his talent.

On the 1st of June, Covent Garden closed its brilliant season, that the theatre might be rebuilt; and on the 15th, the Haymarket also shut up, and left the little manager opposite to make his hay without further encroachment.

For he still considered any period beyond the middle of May as encroachment, and pleasantly told the great patentees this, among other truths, in a prelude, entitled Poor Old Haymarket, or Two Sides of the Gutter. He laughed then, and has always done so, at the rage for splendid theatres; and might easily, like others, have embarked a set of subscribers in a building scheme, had he thought that any thing more was essential to the purposes of playing, than neat accommodation, pieces carefully written-brilliantly, if possible; and ably, if not powerfuly, acted.

On the 15th of June, Mrs. Whitelock, a sister of Mrs. Siddons, made her first appearance at the summer theatre, in the heroic Margaret of the Battle of Hexham. She certainly was Siddonian in figure and countenance, and though suited to a theatre of more stately dimensions, approved herself to be a mistress of her profession. She most resembled the look of Mrs. Siddons in comedy. In tragedy, that wonderful woman assumed sublimity as a birthright, and had it in unapproachable possession.

On the 28th of June, Mr. Sheridan lost his wife, a lady of great personal loveliness, and possessing talent as a singer, which her husband, in his greatest need, would not consent should be exhibited for hire. She was, perhaps, the purest and sweetest vocalist of the English school. But the name of Linley is of great celebrity in musical science. Her portrait, by Sir Joseph Reynolds, is elegant, and yet simple; singing and accompanying herself. He has caught her expression so happily, that I have no doubt he heard as well as saw, his most accomplished sitter.

The novelties of the summer season were of no moment; the manager himself was not ready, and Covent Garden had

literally taken all that had any promise in the market. Just as the dog-days were over, on the 15th of August, Miss Decamp undertook Macheath, and the courtship of two such enormous jilts as old Bannister and Johnstone in Polly and Lucy. She acquitted herself with great spirit, and evidently surprised the audience with the extent of her musical powers. After sustaining the heroines of English opera for 14 years. Mrs. Bannister, now seriously engaged with the cares of her young family, determined to retire, and on the 5th September, took her leave of the public on the same spot where, in the year 1778, she first received their applause. Any thing like their censure, she had never for a moment experienced. There was an appearance of timidity constantly about her efforts; but her voice had great compass and sweetness, and her shake was pure and liquid.

Bannister returned thanks at the end of the season, and in the name of the proprietor invited the public next year to the present cottage, after they had enjoyed the splendid palaces prepared for the winter. He also thanked them for Lingo, a part to which he had succeeded on the death of Edwin.

CHAPTER VI.

Holland's new Covent Garden Theatre.-Riot at the new prices.-- The Pirates.-Morton's play of Columbus.--Morton and Reynolds compared together.-Kemble highly dissatisfied with Sheridan.-Power of that great man.--Murder of the French monarch.-Kemble and his sister at Colman's.-Ev ery One has his Fault.-Mrs. Jordan.-Anna-Forced on Mr. Kemble. The author's own debut.—The Prize.-Murphy's sisters.-Particularly examined out of respect to him. — Murphy's figure.—Mr. Kemble's prologue for his Play.False Colours-Armourer.-How to grow Rich.-Mrs. Jor dan's Lady Restless.--Mrs. Gibbs.--London Hermit.-Mr. Kemble's Octavian.-Its picturesque power.--Great effects in it.---Settlement with the manager.

MR. Harris thought that the rise of prices, which had become absolutely necessary, would be at all events better justified by an obvious and recent expense. He therefore determined to make his innovation in his new building; and Mr. Holland had constructed, in the recess, a theatre in the lyral form, rather solid than light in its appearance, and of which the fronts of the boxes bulged something in the curve of a ship's side. The effect was grand and imposing, as to the tiers and number of the boxes; but the gallery called the first, or two shilling gallery, had been hoisted up to the mansions of the gods; and those turbulent deities were indiscreetly banished the house altogether. The solitary shilling, however splendid, was disdained in the new establishment. This plan insulted two classes of frequenters. The gout de comparaison leads people to be tolerably content with their own position, while they see another worse. But when the per

sons who used to inhabit the first gallery, coming down as it did upon the roof of the lower boxes, saw themselves hoisted over three tiers, and scarcely able to see the actors, or what alone was of much moment, their faces; when they saw, too, no misery beyond their own; they could not but feel, that their modest quota had subjected them to contempt; and that they were to be worse treated than they had been, simply because their pockets had been spared. Thus the very humble man was denied his amusement altogether; and the next

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class was put into a worse situation, where every thing but his own condition seemed improved. As I cannot report the confusion of Babel, I shall say little as to the riot on the first night-the cat-call, the legitimate pipe of displeasure, that gives

"Order to sounds confused,"

was triumphant in the strife, and the actors played unheard. Lewis was singularly qualified for the situation in which, as stage-manager, he now found himself: there was a frankness about him that testified to the honest truth that came from him. He was firm, as a gentleman always is; and with much tact seized upon a point, about which nobody in the house cared a rush, and assured the audience, that a shilling gallery should be erected as speedily as possible. By the third night all opposition slept in peace, and it was established that for the future, the gentle tenants of the boxes should pay their six shillings for admission, and the frequenters of the pit three shillings and sixpence each person. After a slight arithme. tical difficulty, as to the amount of specie that would be required to be provided at the pit-door, in which it was luckily ascertained, that three persons came to just half a guinea, and required no change; and that a shilling, added to half a crown, certainly produced three and sixpence; the new rate was found rather a convenience than otherwise. As the prelude with which the new theatre opened was withdrawn on the third night along with the disturbance, what it was about has never transpired. The influence of association is powerful over most minds; was it therefore his courage or his fears that made Mr. Harris open his expensive theatre with the Road to Ruin? Twenty-five thousand pounds were said to be expended upon this new erection; and yet when fifteen years after, it was destroyed by fire, it was said that it could not have stood many years longer. But the mysteries of architecture are like those of its moral mimic, free-masonry, and are totally dark to the uninitiated. Mr. Pope had returned this season to Covent Garden, and the high favour of the manager. But upon his assuming Evander in the Gre cian Daughter, the feelings of F. Aicken were hurt, and he threw up his engagement. A very pleasing loyal farce, called Hartford Bridge, by Mr. Pierce, was acted on the 3d of November, and was very frequently repeated.

Cobb and Storace had been again at work on an opera for Drury Lane in the Haymarket, and the 21st of November it came out under the title of the Pirates. The music was much

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