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

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.

"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;

Yet should I try, the uncontrolled worth

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,

And the brute earth would lend her nerves, and shake,

Till all thy magic structures rear'd so high,

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. Brooks.—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 Brereton.Count 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
Smelt apoplexy in each dull oration."

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,
'Gainst wit and humour, never a transgressor,
Still cheer'd your vacant hour with jest and whim;
When hapless Chance depriv'd him of a limb;
But you, who long enjoy'd the tree's full shade,
Cherish'd the pollard, and were well repaid."

The reader will, perhaps, recollect the amateur perfor mance of Dr. Stratford's Lord Russel, at Drury Lane, in 1784. The actors seem to have been deeply inoculated, and the disorder kept coming out occasionally in different places. But I did not attend the performance of Mr. Lawrence in Philaster, with Mrs. Jordan; and I shall pass over Mr. Horne this summer, in Hastings, at the little theatre. Shore was followed by a new farce from the pen of the ingenious Mrs. Inchbald, called the Widow's Vow.

On the 1st of July, that beautiful, but unthinking woman, Mrs. Baddeley, died at Edinburgh. Her errors were too gross for even the stage to palliate; and they led her through profusion to embarrassment, and it was believed to hasten her death at last, by taking laudanum. Some general notion of her countenance and figure may be derived from Zoffani's picture of King and others in the Clandestine Marriage. The adorable Fanny is Mrs. Baddeley; the Canton, at a proper distance, is her husband. For the chance of doing a little good, I press the fate of this "inspired idiot" upon the reflection of one lady on the modern stage; and satisfy myself with leaving the caution thus enigmatical. The little manager allowed his theatre to be disgraced this season, by two of those vile and beastly transformations, which indelicacy seldom parallels. A lady (Mrs. Edwards) absolutely made her first appearance on any stage, in the dissolute highwayman, Macheath; and Mrs. Webb exhibited herself in the dress of Falstaff, and sustained the character, word for word, through the first part of Henry IV.

After a record of such grossness, it is pleasing to notice the appearance of Mrs. Brooks, in Lady Townley. Her countenance was beautiful, and its expression refined; her But person elegant, and distinguished for its graceful ease. the voice was thin and weak; could that have been strengthened much by art and practice, the stage had then almost acquired a representative of Miss Farren.

The 24th of July presented an importation from the German theatre, to which we have since been so alarmingly accustomed. A Mr. James Johnstone gave it an English dress from the German original of Lessing. Something could not but be effected by the talent of Miss Farren, Mrs. Bulkeley, and Mrs. Inchbald, of the one sex; and such performers as Palmer, John Bannister, Parsons, Wewitzer, and Baddeley, of the other. The Disbanded Officer lived for nine nights.

I

As London did not offer much attraction this summer, shall be excused for noticing the benefit of Mrs. Jordan at Edinburgh, on the 6th of August. After acting Letitia Hardy

in the Belle's Stratagem, she spoke an address, written, as it seems, by herself, and pleasant enough to do her credit.

"Tis true, such planets sparkled here,
As made me tremble to appear;

A twinkling star, just come in sight,

Which tow'rds the pole might give no light."

But as she proceeded, I think there appeared some mark of personal displeasure toward the queen of tragedy. The reader of the following lines may gather, and surmise.

"Melpomene had made such work,
Reigning despotic like the Turk,
I fear'd Thalia had no chance,
Her laughing standard to advance;
But yet her youngest ensign, I,
Took courage, was resolved to try,
And stand the hazard of the die."

As I think I am quite certain of the tone in which she delivered this allusion, so I can have no doubt of the effect of it. An irruption had been made into the very capital of the solemn empire, and the monarchy, which had been absolute, was now limited, if not divided. The Jordan rather too evidently enjoyed her triumph.

The winter season of 1786-7 opened on the 16th and 18th of September, and nothing remarkable occurred, at either house, until both theatres produced their rival versions of M. Sedaine's Richard Coeur de Lion, which had been set by M. Gretry, in a manner so beautiful, expressive, and impassioned, as to beget a question, whether, after all the disparagement of French opera, our neighbours had not come nearer than their rivals, in rendering music, as an imitative art, a faithful interpreter of nature.

It had excited a perfect delirium of loyalty in Paris, when brought out in 1784. An observer of the surface only, would have pronounced the revolution of 1789, an impossibility. Richard, like Henri Quatre, is one of those dramas, in which the affection of the people for a virtuous prince, finds ailment in every scene. Mac Nally's at Covent Garden, produced no effect at all. General Burgoyne's taste and skill rendered the after-piece at Drury Lane a permanent property for the theatre. By throwing the interest of Blondel into the character of Matilda, the translator made a provision for the gratification of the ladies, which the original author had neglected; or imagined too strong a deviation from Millot's narrative of Richard's captivity. Though no singer, Mr.