CHAPTER XVI.

EDMUND KEAN--CONTINUED.

Between the last-named period, and the time when Edmund Kean played

Virginius, there is but one character in which he produced any

extraordinary effect, namely King Lear. This sustained, but I do

not think it increased, his glory. His other characters only seem

to glide past, and disappear. Such are Richard, Duke of York, in a

compilation from several of Shakspeare's plays; Barabas, in Marlowe's

"Jew of Malta," the heaviness of which he relieved by a song, sweetly

warbled; Selim, in Dimond's melodramatic "Bride of Abydos;" Young

Norval, in which he was graceful and affecting; King John, which

did not disturb the repose of Kemble; and Alexander the Great,

which could as little stir the dead sleep of Verbruggen. Something

more effective was his Brutus, in Payne's compilation. The scene of

his simulated folly was skilfully played; that with the son whom

he condemns to death, full of tenderness and gravity. He could not

sustain Miss Porter's "Switzerland," and he would not support Mr.

Bucke's "Italians." Soane literally measured him for Malvesi, in the

"Dwarf of Naples," and misfitted him grievously. Mr. Twiss had no

better success with the "Carib Chief," in which Kean played Omreah;

and my recollections of his Rolla are not so agreeable as those which

I have of Young, and even Wallack. Well do I remember his Coriolanus,

for which he was physically unfitted; but only a great actor could

have played the scene of the candidateship, and that of the death, as

Kean did--who, however, gave more pleasure to the followers of the

Kemble school by this performance, than he did to his own. He made up

for all, by the grandeur, the touchingness, and the sublimity of his

King Lear. It was throughout thoroughly original in conception and in

execution, and by it he maintained his pre-eminency, and sustained,

as I have said, without increasing his old glory. He did not quite

realise his own assertion: "I will make the audience as mad as I

shall be."

His laurels were menaced. Frederick Yates came from the camp, and

flashed a promise in tragedy which moved the hearts of playgoers,

who saw his later devotion to comedy with early regret, but an

ultimate delight. Mr. Macready was steadily rising from melodrama

to the highest walks of tragedy, and his golden opportunity came

in Virginius. Hitherto, Kean had been shaking the secondary actors

of the old Kemble type into fits of jealousy, fear, disgust, and

admiration. Expressly for him did Knowles write the "Virginius,"

which gave a lasting celebrity to Mr. Macready. Already, however, had

a play on the subject, by Soane, been accepted at Drury Lane, and

in the Roman father Kean was for the first time designedly opposed

to the younger actor, He utterly failed; while Mr. Macready, in the

part written expressly, and by an able hand, for Kean, won a noble

victory. Kean might have said as the captured French Marshal said to

Marlborough:--"Change sides with me, and I'll fight it out again, to

a very different issue."

A range through his principal parts, and a running salute of

thundering puffs on the part of Elliston, heralded his visit to

America in 1820. He played at Liverpool before embarking, and like

George Frederick Cooke, had a hit at the audience before he left

them. They were the coldest people, he said, in whose presence he

had ever acted. That was true: but though Liverpool was chary of

approbation, it had applauded ungrateful Edmund more cordially than

any other actor.

From his first trip to America he brought back much solid gold,

a detestation of the Boston people, who would not patronise the

theatre at an unfashionable season of the year, and one of the

toe-bones of Cooke, over whose translated and mutilated remains he

raised the monument of which I have already spoken.

Some ill-health he brought back with him too; but he rallied, drank,

relapsed, and struggled into strength again. It was wasted on Miss

Baillie's "De Montfort;" though parts of this were played in his

grandest style. He seemed conscious that something was expected of

him by the public, and he flung himself, as it were, at everything.

He played Hastings to the Jane Shore of a Miss Edmiston--whose

success was predicted by aristocratic poets, and who is now, I

believe, painfully "strolling." With Sir Pertinax he did not move

the dead Macklin as his Shylock may have done; though it was better

played, save in the accent, than any living actor could have played

it. His Osmond gave some dignity to the "Castle Spectre," and his

Wolsey but little to "Henry VIII."

For Miss Tidswell's farewell benefit, after forty years of useful

subalternship, he attempted Don Felix. He would have done more for

her had he been asked; for in his breadless, boyish days, she had

beaten, taught, fed, and clothed him--till Nance Carey claimed him

for her own, and stole _all_ his earnings. Edmund's good impulses

made him fail in affection to this parent. Thinking of Miss Tidswell,

he used to say--"If she wasn't my mother, why was she kind to me?"

For his own benefit, in this season of 1821-22, he played the Roman

actor, Octavian, and Tom Tug--the songs in which last part he sang

with great feeling. The whole proceeds of this benefit he gave to the

fund for the starving Irish. It was not exactly like Mrs. Haller's

charity, who gives her master's wine to the sick poor; but, that

virtue, which is said to begin at home, might have sent the amount in

a different direction.[118]

In November 1822 he played out the first of his two great struggles

with Young at Drury Lane. Since Quin and Garrick, or Garrick and

Barry, no conjunction of great names moved the theatrical world like

this. Both men put out all their powers, and the public profited

by the magnificent display. Kean and Young acted together Othello

and Iago, Lothair and Guiscard, Jaffier and Pierre, Alexander and

Clytus, Posthumus and Iachimo, eliciting enthusiasm by all, but by

none so much as by Othello and Iago. The two great wrestlers won

equal honour; but that was not enough for one of them. "How long,

sir," said Kean to Elliston, the manager, "how long am I to play with

that--_Jesuit_, Young?"

Certainly, if he feared competition with experienced actors, Kean

was very encouraging to beginners. "You are the best Iago I ever

played to," he once remarked to an earnest, youthful gentleman

at Edinburgh. The latter smiled; and Kean asked him _wherefore_?

"Because, sir," was the answer, "I know of seven poor Iagos, to whom

you have kindly said the same thing!"

In a revival of _Shakspeare's_ "King Lear," Kean showed good

taste, sublime acting, and an appreciation of opportunity for

self-distinction. He was not always equally in the vein, but on some

nights he excelled all he had done before. Genest says, that "his

personal appearance was better than Kemble's or Young's, and his

manner more natural. In the mad scenes he seemed to copy Murphy's

account of Garrick." The only drawback I have heard of to this

noble, and last of his noble and complete performances was, that he

was neither tall enough nor strong enough to carry off the body of

Cordelia (Mrs. W. West).

He might have begun a fresh career, however, from this new

starting-point, had he been so minded. But this success did not brace

him to new effort, except a quietly ineffectual one to make the world

forget the Stranger of John Kemble. His failing strength was probably

the chief cause of his avoiding or refusing to appear in the same

piece with Mr. Macready, of whom he rather rudely remarked--"He is no

actor, sir; he is a player!"

But the satirist himself was fast ceasing to be either. He had never

recovered from the madness which he prophesied would follow his

success in London. Gradually he lost all self-control, plunged into

terrible excesses, courted rather than fell into evil company, took

tribute, indeed, most willingly of the noble and intellectual who

heaped rich gifts upon him, but he scorned or feared their society.

He affected to feel that they invited him simply to stare at him, and

that they would have despised him as a poor actor. He had not common

sense enough to see that when the noble and intellectual opened their

doors to him they rendered graceful homage to his genius,--and I

have heard that where he _did_ accept such homage, and was himself

subdued to the refinements of the society where it was liberally, yet

delicately rendered, his easy bearing was that of a man who had not

lost his self-respect, and his manners and conversation emphatically

"charming."

But this was under restraint, and to be thus "charming" was irksome

to Edmund Kean; by this time it had become almost impossible, and he

could charm only those on whom the magic was not worth expending.

He had not broken his word to his wife--that she should ride in her

carriage, nor to his son--that he should go to Eton,--but he had not

made the first happier, nor the second the more attached to him. His

home, indeed, was broken up, and in the season of 1824-25, after

failing in the poor melodramatic part of Masaniello, came out the

great scandal--that he loved his neighbour's wife better than his

own. All its necessary consequences followed,--a fierce, an almost

ruffianly hostility on the part of his audiences, damage to his

fortune, and irretrievable ruin to his reputation.[119] Reckless

and defiant as he was, he was glad to endure exile, for such was his

voyage to, and sojourn in, America during this and the following year.

Let me notice that he bore himself in presence of a cruel audience,

with an almost ferocious courage. His pride was greater than his

humiliation. As at Drury, he applied every strong epithet in his

part to the howling pit, so, when running his erratic course through

the minor theatres, he could treat audiences that were ignorant, as

well as insolent, with strong terms and lofty contempt. He had one

night played Othello to a "Coburg" public. Iago was acted by Cobham,

the performer who had once vainly attempted to dethrone him, by

acting Richard at Covent Garden, to a house, however, which would

not listen to him to the end. The New-Cut costermongers adopted him;

they applauded him, on this particular night, more than they did the

great Kean, who received £50 for condescending to exhibit himself in

Othello. Nevertheless, at the fall of the curtain, there was such

an uproar in front, apparently a call for Kean, that he came slowly

forward, and bluntly asked, "What do you want?" A thousand voices

answered, "You! you!" Well, said Kean, after a slight peroration, "I

have played in every civilised country where English is the language

of the people; but I never acted to an audience of such unmitigated

brutes as you are!" He walked slowly off as Cobham, to a shout for

him from the sweet voices of his Lambeth-marsh patrons, rushed on

the stage, proud and radiant, to tell Edmund's "unmitigated brutes"

that they were the most enlightened and liberal audience that had

ever sat as judges of acting, and that the happiest night of his

life was that on which he had the opportunity of telling his friends

and admirers that incontrovertible truth. A cry that might have been

heard across St. George's Fields proclaimed him to be "a trump!"--and

Cobham won the honours of the night!

Kean, as before recorded, betook himself again to America. Since

his previous visit to the Northern States he was greatly changed;

but that the seeds of insanity were in him at the earlier period, a

passage from Dr. Francis's _Old New York_ will mournfully show. Some

hospitable friends exerted themselves to render his earlier stay

agreeable, and this is an incident of the time--one out of many:--

"A few days after, we made the desired visit at Bloomingdale. Kean,

with an additional friend and myself, occupied the carriage for a

sort of philosophical exploration of the city on our way there.

On the excursion he remarked, he should like to see our Vauxhall;

we stopped, he entered the gate, asked the doorkeeper if he might

survey the place, gave a double somerset through the air, and in

the twinkling of an eye stood at the remote part of the garden. The

wonder of the superintendent can be better imagined than described.

Arriving at the Asylum, with suitable gravity he was introduced to

the officials, invited to an inspection of the afflicted inmates,

and then told if he would ascend to the roof of the building a

delightful prospect would be presented to his contemplation; many

counties, and an area of sea, rivers, and lands, mountains, and

valleys, embracing a circuit of forty miles in circumference. His

admiration was expressed in delirious accents:--'I'll walk the ridge

of the roof of the Asylum,' he exclaimed, 'and take a leap! it's

the best end I can make to my life;' and forthwith started for the

western gable end of the building. My associate and myself as he

hurried forward seized him by the arms, and he submissively returned.

I have ever been at a loss to account for this sudden freak in his

feelings; he was buoyant at the onset of the journey; he astonished

the Vauxhall doorkeeper by his harlequin trick, and took an interest

in the various forms of insanity which came before him. He might have

become too sublimated in his feelings, or had his senses unsettled

(for he was an electrical apparatus) in contemplating the mysterious

influences acting on the minds of the deranged, for there is an

attractive principle, as well as an adhesive principle, in madness;

or a crowd of thoughts might have oppressed him, arising from the

disaster which had occurred to him a few days before with the Boston

audience, and the irreparable loss he had sustained in the plunder of

his trunk and valuable papers, while journeying hither and thither on

his return to New York. We rejoiced together, however, when we found

him again safely at home at his old lodgings at the City Hotel."

That the fit had not decreased by lapse of time, another extract from

the same volume will amply demonstrate. Kean was not so satisfied

with the success he achieved professionally, as he was of a visit to

an Indian tribe who had enrolled him among their chiefs. It was a

freak which he took seriously, as will be seen by what follows:--

"Towards the close of his second visit to America, Kean made a tour

through the northern part of the State, and visited Canada; he fell

in with the Indians, with whom he became delighted, and was chosen

a chief of a tribe. Some time after, not aware of his return to

the city, I received at a late hour of the evening a call to wait

upon an Indian chief, by the name of Alantenaida, as the highly

finished card left at my house had it. Kean's ordinary card was

_Edmund Kean_, engraved; he generally wrote beneath, '_Integer vitæ

scelerisque purus._' I repaired to the hotel, and was conducted

upstairs to the folding-doors of the hall, where the servant left

me. I entered, aided by the feeble light of the room; but at the

remote end I soon perceived something like a forest of evergreens,

lighted up by many rays from floor-lamps, and surrounded by a stage

or throne; and seated in great state was the chief. I advanced, and

a more terrific warrior I never surveyed. Red Jacket or Black Hawk

was an unadorned simple personage in comparison. Full dressed, with

skins tagged loosely about his person, a broad collar of bear-skin

over his shoulders, his leggings with many stripes, garnished with

porcupine quills; his moccasins decorated with beads, his head

decked with the war-eagle's plumes, behind which flowed massive black

locks of dishevelled horse-hair, golden-coloured rings pendant from

the nose and ears, streaks of yellow paint over the face, massive

red daubings about the eyes, with various lines in streaks about the

forehead, not very artistically drawn. A broad belt surrounded his

waist, with tomahawk; his arms with shining bracelets, stretched out

with bow and arrow, as if ready for a mark. He descended his throne,

and rapidly approached me. His eye was meteoric and fearful, like

the furnace of the Cyclops. He vociferously exclaimed, ALANTENAIDA,

the vowels strong enough. I was relieved, he betrayed something of

his raucous voice in imprecation. It was Kean. An explanation took

place. He wished to know the merits of the representation. The Hurons

had honoured him by admission into their tribe, and he could not now

determine whether to seek his final earthly abode with them, for

real happiness, or return to London and add renown to his name by

performing the Son of the Forest. I never heard that he ever after

attempted in his own country the character. He was wrought up to the

highest pitch of enthusiasm at the Indian honour he had received,

and declared that even old Drury had never conferred so proud a

distinction on him as he had received from the Hurons."

I shall not soon forget that January night of 1827, on which he

reappeared at Drury Lane, in Shylock. A rush so fearful, an audience

so packed, a reconciliation so complete, acting so faultless, and

a dramatic enjoyment so exquisite, I never experienced. Nothing was

heeded,--indeed, the scenes were passed over, till Shylock was to

appear; and I have heard no such shout since, as that which greeted

him. Fire, strength, beauty;--every quality of the actor seemed to

have acquired fresh life. It was all deceptive, however. The actor

was all but extinguished, after this convulsive, but seemingly

natural effort. He lay in bed at the Hummums' hotel, all day, amusing

himself melancholily with his Indian gewgaws, and striving to find a

healthy tonic in "cognac." While immolating himself, he still clung

to a hope of rescue; and he strove to create one more new character,

Ben Nazir, in Mr. Colley Grattan's tragedy of that name. His power of

memory was gone; but he had a fatuitous idea that he had mastered his

part, and this is how he figured in it, as told by the author of that

hapless drama, himself. The picture has been often exhibited; but it

must needs be looked upon once more:--

"He did at length appear. The intention of the author, and the

keeping of the character, required him to rush rapidly on the

stage, giving utterance to a burst of joyous soliloquy. What was

my astonishment, to see him, as the scene opened, standing in the

centre of the stage, his arms crossed, and his whole attitude one

of thoughtful solemnity. His dress was splendid; and thunders of

applause greeted him from all parts of the house. To display the one,

and give time for the other, were the objects for which he stood

fixed for several minutes, and sacrificed the sense of the situation.

He spoke; but what a speech! The one I wrote, consisted of eight or

nine lines; _his_, was of two or three _sentences_,--but not six

consecutive words of the text. His look, his manner, his tone, were

to _me_ quite appalling; to any other observer, they must have been

incomprehensible. He stood fixed; drawled out his incoherent words,

and gave the notion of a man that had been half hanged and then

dragged through a horse pond. My heart, I confess it, sank deep in

my breast. I was utterly shocked. And as the business of the play

went on, and as _he_ stood by, with moveless muscle and glazed eye,

throughout the scene which should have been one of violent, perhaps

too violent exertion,--a cold shower of perspiration poured from

my forehead, and I endured a revulsion of feeling which I cannot

describe, and which I would not for worlds one eye had witnessed. I

had all along felt that this scene would be the touchstone of the

play. Kean went through it like a man in the last stage of exhaustion

and decay. The act closed; a dead silence followed the fall of the

curtain; and I felt, though I could not hear, the voiceless verdict

of 'damnation.' ... When the curtain fell, Mr. Wallack, the stage

manager, came forward, and made an apology for Kean's imperfection

in his part, and an appeal in behalf of the play. Neither excited

much sympathy; the audience was quite disgusted. I now, for the

first time during the night, went behind the scenes. On crossing

the stage towards the green-room, I met Kean, supported by his

servant and another person, going in the direction of his dressing

room. When he saw me, he hung down his head, and waved his hand, and

uttered some expressions of deep sorrow, and even remorse. 'I have

ruined a fine play, and myself; I cannot look you in the face,' were

the first words I caught. I said something in return, as cheering

and consolatory as I could. I may say, that all sense of my own

disappointment was forgotten, in the compassion I felt for him."

The descent now was rapid, but it was not made at one leap.

Penniless, though he might have been lord of "thousands," he caught

at an offer to provide for his son by a cadetship; but the son

refused to accept the offer--as such acceptation would have exposed

his mother to worse than the destitution of her earlier days--before

hope of a bright, though closing future, had died away. To lose her

son was to lose the best friend she had; for she had none now in

her faithless and suicidal husband. Edmund Kean heard of his son's

determination to go on the stage, in order to support his mother,

with grim dissatisfaction, and, I should hope, some sense of reproach

and abasement. They parted in anger, it is said, as far as the father

was concerned; the more angry, perhaps, that in his temporary wrath

he cast off the son whom he, in his heart, must have respected.

Consequently, the season of 1827-28, at Drury Lane and Covent Garden,

had a singular incident to mark them;--the struggle of the son to

rise, at the former; the struggle of the father not to fall, at the

latter. Mr. Charles Kean opened the season, in Norval. Mr. Cole, in

his biography of the son, quotes a letter, written by a friend of the

father, to the latter, in which the writer, who watched the attempt,

remarks:--"The speech, 'My name is Norval,' he hurried, and spoke as

though he had a cold, or was pressing a finger against his nose."

The attempt, in short, was unsuccessful; so had that of many an

aspirant been who subsequently reaped triumphs at his will; and Mr.

Charles Kean might find consolation. The attempt, at all events,

enabled him to fix his foot on the first step of the giddy ascent;

and, let it be said, he owed the possibility of doing so entirely to

his father's name. So young a man, without a great name, would have

found no access to Drury open to him; and I like to think, that if he

missed the fortune which his half mad, yet kindly impulsive father

had promised him, he owed to that father the foundations on which he

raised another. He inherited a great name and a great warning.

While the son was anxiously and painfully laying those foundations,

the sire was absolutely electrifying audiences at Covent Garden by

old flashes of his might, or disappointing them by his incapacity,

or his capricious absence. He reminded me of Don Juan, who, though

he went with open eyes recklessly to destruction, flung off the

fiends who at last grasped him, with a fearful, but vainly expended

energy. On one night, when he played Othello to Young's Iago, the

Cassio of Charles Kemble, the Roderigo of Farley, and the Desdemona

of Miss Jarman, I saw strong men clamber from the pit, over the lower

boxes, to escape suffocation, and weak men, in a fainting condition,

passed by friendly hands towards the air, in the same way. I remember

Charles Kemble, in his lofty, bland way, trying to persuade a

too-closely packed audience to fancy themselves comfortable, and to

be silent, which they would not be till _he_ appeared, who, on that,

and some after nights, could subdue them to silence or stir them into

ecstasy, at his will.

To those who saw him from the front, there was not a trace of

weakening of any power in him. But, oh ye few who stood between the

wings where a chair was placed for him, do you not remember the

saddening spectacle of that wrecked genius--a man in his very prime,

with not merely the attributes of age about him, but with some of the

infirmities of it, which are wont to try the heart of love itself.

Have you forgotten that helpless, speechless, fainting mass bent up

in that chair; or the very unsavoury odour of that very brown, very

hot, and very strong brandy-and-water, which alone kept alive the

once noble Moor? Aye, and _still_ noble Moor; for when his time came,

he looked about as from a dream, and sighed, and painfully got to his

feet, swayed like a column in an earthquake, and in not more time

than is required for the telling of it, was before the audience, as

strong and as intellectually beautiful as of old;--but only happy in

the applause which gave him a little breathing space, and saved him

from falling dead upon the stage.

During a few nights of another year or two, he acted under the

exacting conditions of a nature that had been violated. He gained

a little strength from his island home in Bute, and even acted in

Glasgow, Cork, and Dublin with his son, in whose success he took a

father's part. Thrice he essayed fresh study, and once he nearly

conquered; his Virginius, in Knowles's play, was superbly affecting,

in fragmentary passages, but he tried it at too late a period, not

of his natural life, but of his professional career. Richard II. was

magnificently got up for him, but as the curtain was about to rise,

it was discovered that he was not in the house--and days passed

before he emerged into the world and decency. His last essay in a new

part was in "Henry V.;" but he broke down, addressed the audience

deprecatorily, muttered something about being the representative of

Shakspeare's heroes, and lamented, at little more than forty, what

Macklin did not plead till he was past ninety--his decaying memory.

Now and then the town saw him, but his hold on it was nearly gone.

He was now at the Haymarket; and then, uncertainly, at Drury Lane;

and again at the Haymarket in 1832, where I saw him for the last

of many times, in Richard. The sight was pitiable. Genius was not

traceable in that bloated face; intellect was all but quenched in

those once matchless eyes; and the power seemed gone, despite the

will that would recall it. I noted in a diary, that night, the above

facts, and, in addition, that by bursts he was as grand as he had

ever been,--that though he looked well as long as he was still, he

moved only with difficulty, using his sword as a stick. I find, and

perfectly remember, that there was a murmur of approbation at the

pause and action of his extended arm, as he said--"In the deep bosom

of the ocean,--BURIED!"--as if he consigned all lowering clouds to

the sea. At--"The dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;" the action was

so expressive as to elicit a round of applause; and in the last of

the lines--

"Why what a peevish fool was he of Crete,

Who taught his son the office of a fowl,

And yet for all his wings, the fool was drowned,"

the playful yet fiendish sarcasm was delivered with marvellous

effect. His words, after "Die, prophet, in thy speech,"--"For this

among the rest was I _ordained_," seemed like a devilish joke after a

burst of fury. In--

"Villains, set down the corse, or by St. Paul,

I'll make a corse of him that disobeys,"--

his voice was scarcely distinguishable; but his old attitude of

leaning at the side scene, as he contemplated Lady Anne, was as full

of grace as ever,--save that the contemplator had now a swollen and

unkingly face. Then--

"Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,

That I may see my shadow as I pass,"--

was sportive in accent as in the very action of saluting; and there

was a world of argument and resolution in the delivery of the simple

words--"The tower?--_Aye_; the TOWER!" The chuckle at "So much for

_Buck_ingham!" I always considered wanting in dignity, but it brought

a roar of applause. In the scene with the Mayor and Buckingham, he

displayed talent unsurpassable;--the scarcely-subdued triumph that

lurked in his eyes, as he refused the crown; his tone in "Call him

again;" his acceptance of the throne, and his burst of joy, when he

had dismissed the petitioners, were perfect in their several ways;

but he was exhausted before the fifth act, and when, after a short

fight, Richmond (Cooper) gave him his death-wound in Bosworth Field,

as he seemed to deal the blow, he grasped Kean by the hand, and let

him gently down, lest he should be injured by a fall.

The end was at hand. He could no longer even venture, after the play,

to Offley's symposium, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, that

lively singing-room, with a window looking into the mouldiest of

churchyards,--where, however, slept some noble actors. To and from

Richmond he occasionally travelled,--a feeble bundle of humanity,

that seemed to lie unconsciously in one corner of his carriage. But,

I think, conscience was there, too, and rage, and remorse,--that

a life had been so wasted, and mighty powers, almost as divine as

the poet's, so irretrievably abused. He aroused himself to make his

last appearance, as it proved, on the stage, in conjunction with his

son, in Othello, Mr. Charles Kean playing Iago. The night was the

25th of March 1833. Edmund Kean was so shattered in frame, that he

had scarcely strength to pass over him the dress of the Moor; so

shattered in nerve, that he dreaded some disaster. Brandy gave some

little heart to the greatly fallen actor, but he anxiously enjoined

his son to be ever near him, in case of some mischance, and he went

through the part, dying as he went, till after giving the sweet

utterance, as of old, to the celebrated "Farewell," ending with

"Othello's occupation's gone!" he attempted to utter the next speech,

and in the attempt fell on his son's shoulder, with a whispered moan,

"I am dying,--speak to them for me!" The curtain here descended on

him for ever, and the rest was only slow death, with intervals of

hope. He, the faithless, and now helpless, husband sent a note,

which sounds as a cry of anguish, to that good Mary Chambers of old,

who had had the ill-luck to listen to his wooing. But, having so

listened, she would not now be deaf to the wail of the man who said

that he had gone wrong in judgment, not in feeling; in head, not in

heart, and who cried, "Come home; forget and forgive!" She went, and

forgave; an angel could not, however, have forgotten all; but she

acted as if she had, and the true-hearted young partner of his early

miseries was the gentle alleviator of his last sufferings. She stood

by him till, on the 15th of May, death came upon the unconscious

man after some old tag of Octavian had passed his restless lips, of

"_Farewell, Flo--, Floranthe!_"

_Come home!_ was the dying actor's cry to his wife. Dead; there was

no home for the widow; for creditors took possession of it, and its

contents. To such end had come the humble and hapless wedding of

Mary Chambers and Edmund Kean at Gloucester, the brief glory after

long suffering,--sorrow and want at the end as at the beginning;

with him, an added shame; with her, uncomplainingness. Yes, and

consolation. The happiness she lacked with her husband was vouchsafed

to her through her son, and the union of the two strolling players at

Gloucester was thus not altogether barren of good and happy fruits.

And over the grave of one of the greatest of actors something may

be said in extenuation of his faults. Such curse as there can be in

a mother's indifference hung about him before his birth. A young

Huron, of whose tribe he subsequently became a member, could not

have lived a more savage,--but certainly enjoyed a more comfortable

and better-tended boyhood. Edmund Kean, from that very time of

boyhood, had genius, industry, and ambition,--but, with companionship

enough to extinguish the first, lack of reward sufficient to dull

the second, and repeated visitations of disappointment that might

have warranted the exchange of high hopes for brutal despair,--he

nourished his genius, maintained his industry, and kept an undying

ambition under circumstances when to do so was a part of heroism.

Compare his young and hard and blackguard life with the disciplined

boyhood of Betterton, the early associations of Booth, the school

career of Quin, the decent but modest childhood of Macklin, the

gentlemanly home of the youth Garrick, the bringing up of Cooke, and

the Douay College life of the Kembles. Kean was trained upon blows,

and curses, and starvation, and the charity of strangers. It was

enough to make all his temper convert to fury, and any idea of such

a young, unnurtured savage ever becoming an inheritor of the mantle

worn by the actors I have named, would have seemed a madness even to

that mother who soon followed him in death, Nance Carey. But Edmund

Kean cherished the idea, warm in his bosom, never ceased to qualify

himself for the attempt, studied for it while he starved,--and when

about to make it, felt and said that success would drive him mad. I

believe it did; but whether or not, I can part from _the_ great actor

of my young days only with a tender respect. I do not forget the many

hours of bright intellectual enjoyment for which I, in common with

thousands, was indebted to him, and, in the contemplation of this

actor's incomparable genius, I desire to forget the errors of the man.

Over his remains, in Richmond churchyard, a plain tablet arrests the

eye. I never look at it without a crowd of memories of the old and

brilliant scene he for awhile adorned, nor without thinking of the

words of Lesingham, in the Elizabethan drama:--

"Oh! what our wills will do,

With over-rash and headlong peevishness,

To bring our calm discretion to repentance!"

EPILOGUE.

I leave the history of the great players who rivalled or succeeded

Edmund Kean, to other chroniclers. They belong--the _great_

players--to a vocation which is next in dignity to that of the

poet. In the far off Ionian Islands, Demodocus first inspired his

countrymen with that taste for dramatic representation which has

overrun the world. Five centuries later, Thespis invented tragedy;

and after seven centuries more had elapsed, and there was a new

dispensation upon earth, and heathenism was fiercely fighting out

its last struggle with Christianity, the stage yielded two of the

noblest martyrs to the faith, in the persons of the then renowned

actors,--Genesius of Rome, and Gelasinus of Heliopolis.

Looking, recently, at the old patent granted by Charles II. to

Killigrew and Davenant (now in Drury Lane Theatre), I could not help

remarking, that the parchment for which so many hundreds of thousands

of pounds had been given, was now virtually worthless, save for the

superb portrait of Charles, within the gigantic initial letter of his

name. When that patent for two theatres was granted, London was less

populous than Manchester is now; and as the population increased,

theatres (beginning with that in Goodman's Fields) sprung up in spite

of the patent or Lord Chamberlain. The latter granted licenses to a

few, with great restrictions. At the Lyceum, for instance, not even

a tragedy could be produced unless there were at least five songs

or concerted pieces in each act; and the tragedy even then must be

called a _burletta_. The licenser's powers did not extend to St.

George's Fields, where political plays forbidden on the Middlesex

side of the river were attractive merely because they were forbidden.

Subsequently, at the minor theatres, plays, which could only be

legally acted at the patent houses, were performed, without being

converted into burlettas. The proprietors of the patents prosecuted

the offenders; but the levying of penalties (£50 nightly) against

Englishmen, for producing or acting in Shakspeare's plays, seemed

so absurd, that after some toying with the question, in 1842,

the government brought forward the bill of 1843, which passed

both houses, after Lord Campbell had deprived it of some tyrannic

authority it conferred upon the Lord Chamberlain. A "free trade"

principle was thereby introduced. The patent houses lost all their

privileges, save that of being exempt from a yearly renewal of

license to act; and the legitimate drama could be performed in any

licensed theatre. At Sadler's Wells, for instance, it was long and

worthily upheld by Mr. Phelps, without fear of every actor therein

incurring a penalty of £300 weekly, as when he played every night,

contrary to law.

Since 1843, then, the term of "Their," or "Her Majesty's Servants,"

is a mere formality, as there is no especial company now privileged

to serve or solace royalty. Mr. Webster, who occupies Garrick's

chair, in the management of the Theatrical Fund, tells me, that

Baddeley was the last actor who wore the uniform of scarlet and gold,

prescribed for the "gentlemen of the household," who were patented

actors; and that he used to appear in it at rehearsal. He was proud

of being one of their "Majesties' servants;"--a title once coveted

by all nobly-aspiring actors. They were sometimes nearest to the

desired end when they seemed farthest off. "Have you ever heard,"

asks Garrick, in an unpublished letter to Moody, then at Liverpool,

"of a Mrs. Siddons, who is strolling about somewhere near you?" Four

months later, Garrick brought her out at Drury Lane. That space of

time intervened, between the periods when Edmund Kean was starving

and triumphing. And now, in the green-room of Drury Lane Theatre,

the busts of Mrs. Siddons and Kean face each other; while that of

Shakspeare, opposite Garrick, seems to smile on all three,--_his_

great interpreters, as well as THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS.

[Illustration: Mr. Foote as Sir Thomas Lofty.]

FOOTNOTES:

[118] Buckstone told me that, when young, he starved with a company

at Hastings, and that Kean relieved them by leaving his yacht and

playing for them two nights, gratis. Mr. York, of Penzance, told

us that Kean came with his yacht into Mount's Bay, and that he

acted superbly Richard, Othello, and Sir Giles, at the Penzance

Theatre,--which is now a carpenter's shop. 1871.--_Doran MS._

[119] Alderman Cox was as much to blame as Kean. Kean, in 1824,

writing to Mr. Vizell (?) says: "I imagine Mrs. Cox's age to be about

forty-five. When she first flapped her ferret eyes and affections on

me, I was about twenty-seven."--_Doran MS._

INDEX.

Abington, Mrs., 102;

account of her career, 102-108;

her _début_, 103;

her marriage, 104;

her qualities as an actress, 104;

Reynolds's comic muse, 105;

and Walpole, 105;

as Lady Teazle, 105;

as Widow Belmour, 107;

her original characters, 107;

her death, 108; her manner and mannerisms, 258;

the "Abington" cap, 258.

Accidents at the theatre, 32, 40.

Actors' loyalty, 38.

Aikin, F., 128.

Aikin, James, 128;

his duel with J. P. Kemble, 197.

Amateurs, noble, 45, 52;

at Drury Lane, 30, 31.

Arnold, S. J., 372.

Audience on the stage, 44.

Audiences of the last half of the 18th century, 30.

Authorship at a low ebb, 348.

Baddeley, Robert, 85;

fights a duel with George Garrick, 85;

his original characters, 136;

bequeaths a cottage to the Drury Lane Fund, 136;

his twelfth cake, 137;

and Foote, 137;

the last actor who wore the uniform of "Their Majesties' Servants,"

419.

Baddeley, Mrs., 85;

her death, 86.

Baillie, Joanna, 10.

Bannister, Charles, 309.

Bannister, John, 37, 310;

an admirable actor in every line, 310;

his career, 310-312;

his great part of Walter in "The Children in the Wood," 311;

his original characters, 312;

portraits of him, 312;

as first grave-digger, 382.

Barry, Mrs., accidentally stabs Palmer, 140.

Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 294.

Barry, Spranger, 260.

Barsanti, Miss (Mrs. Daly), 82.

Barton, Fanny (See Mrs. Abington), 102.

Beard, John, 11.

Behn, Aphra, 280.

Belfille, Mrs., 94.

Bellamy, George Anne, and the King of Denmark, 36;

account of her career, 88-94;

her birth, 88;

her early career, 90;

her appearance as Monimia, 90;

carried off by Lord Byron, 90;

and Mr. Metham, 91;

her lovers, 91, 92;

her powers as an actress, 92;

her varying fortunes, 93;

her farewell to the stage, 93.

Benefits, 294.

Bensley, William, 256;

as Eustace de St. Pierre, 129;

his excellences, 130;

his retirement, 130.

Bentley, Richard, dramatist, 3;

his "Wishes," 42.

Beresford, Mrs., 95.

Betterton, his dress as Hamlet, 248.

Betty, Master William Henry West, 239;

account of his career, 239-247;

his birth, 239;

appears at Belfast when only eleven years of age, 240;

his popularity in Ireland, 240;

his popularity in Scotland, 240;

praised by Home for his Norval, 241;

in the provinces, 241;

his first appearance in London, 242;

the frantic excitement caused, 242;

as Selim, 243;

presented with Garrick's seal, 244;

flattery from the House of Commons, 244;

the mania declines, 245;

retirement from the stage, 245;

return to the stage, 245;

his comparative failure, 245;

his final retirement, 246;

critical account of him, 246.

Bickerstaffe, 296.

Blanchard, William, 323.

Bland, Dorothy (see Jordan, Mrs.)

Boaden, James, 4;

and Mrs. Powell, 4.

Booth, Barton, his dress as Cato, 249.

Booth, Junius Brutus, 392;

his rivalry with Kean, 392.

Brand, Hannah, 9, 95.

Brent, Miss, singer, 11.

Brereton, William, 129;

and Mrs. Siddons, 174;

his madness, 175;

his death, 175.

Brereton, Mrs. (afterwards wife of John Kemble), 175, 194.

Brooke, Frances, dramatist, 8.

Brown, Anthony, dramatist, 19.

Browne, Dr., 276.

Brunton, Miss, 95.

Brunton, Louisa (Countess of Craven), 221, 325.

Bulkley, Mrs., 135;

her self-assertion, 135;

her career, 136.

Bullock, 297.

Bunn, Mrs., 392.

Burgoyne, General, dramatist, 5.

Byron, Lord, his present to Kean, 394.

Canning, George, 118.

Canning, Mrs., wife of S. Reddish, 118.

Carey, George Saville, 359.

Carey, Henry, 359.

Carey, Nance, 360.

Cargill, Mrs., as Macheath, 11.

Carlisle, Lord, his tragedy, 28.

Catalani, Madame, and the "O. P." riots, 340.

Catley, Anne, 86.

Cautherley, 118.

Centlivre, Mrs., 14.

Chambers, Mary (wife of Edmund Kean), 366.

Chapman, 299.

Charlotte, Queen, at the theatre, 39.

Cherry, 263.

Cibber, Colley, 15, 260.

Cibber, Mrs., 47.

Cibber, Theophilus, and his benefit, 296.

Clarence, Duke of, 39.

Cobham, Mr., 393, 402.

Colman, George, the younger, 5;

his furious attack on Kemble in the preface to the "Iron Chest," 209;

his "John Bull," 229;

his ruffianly conduct at Carlton House, 346.

Congreve, 286.

Conway, W. A., 385.

Cooke, George Frederick, 223;

account of his career, 223-238;

theatricals at school, 224;

early struggles, 225;

quarrel with John Kemble, 225;

his first appearance in London, 226;

rivalry with Kemble, 226, 229;

as Richard III., 226;

his irregularities, 227, 228, 230;

his failure in Hamlet, 228;

his success in Sir Pertinax, 228;

his apologies to audiences, 231;

his visit to America, 231;

his eccentricities there, 231, 233;

his success, 231;

his second marriage, 232;

his mental intoxication, 234;

his last appearance, 235;

his death, 235;

his excellence as an actor, 235;

compared with Kemble, 236;

removal of his body, 236;

his skull, 237;

his monument, 238.

Cooke, Thomas, a dishonest dramatist, 290-294.

Cooper, the last of the Kemble school, 210.

Cork theatre, the, 50-51.

Costume, dramatic, 248.

Covent Garden Theatre burnt, 205, 329;

rebuilt, 337;

the "O. P." riots, 337-345.

Cowley, Mrs., 7.

Craven, Lady, authoress, 53, 54.

Crawford, Mrs., 162, 165;

her costume as Lady Randolph, 254, 255.

Crouch, Mrs., 254.

Cumberland, Richard, 3, 27;

his "Jew," 7;

and Sheridan, 27, 28.

Curtis, Mrs. (sister of Mrs. Siddons), 163, 176.

Daly, Richard, Dublin manager, 83.

Daly, Mrs., 82, 83.

Darby, Miss (Robinson, Mrs.), 108.

Davison, Mrs., 325.

De Camp, Miss, 10, 216;

her youthful experience as a dancer, 216;

her appearance at Drury Lane, 216;

plays Macheath, 217;

her marriage with Charles Kemble, 217;

her retirement from the stage, 217;

returns to the stage for one night, 218;

her characteristics, 218;

as an authoress, 219.

Deighton, actor, 264.

Delpla, 335.

Denmark, King of, at the play, 35.

Dennis, John, 14.

Derby, Lord, and Miss Farren, 100.

Dexter, 59; his carelessness, 60.

Dibdin, Tom, 262, 348.

Dickons, Mrs., 340.

Digges, West, Edinburgh manager, 124;

his death, 129.

Dodd, James, 134;

his great powers as an actor, 134;

as Abel Drugger, 134;

as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, 134;

his death, 135.

Dowton, 323;

as Dr. Cantwell, 323;

as Sir Anthony Absolute, 323;

as Shylock, 389.

Drama denounced by the _Eclectic_, 331.

Drury, Dr., 371.

Drury Lane, opening of new theatre, 213;

burned down, 329;

rebuilt, 330.

Dryden's prologues, epilogues, and dedications, 280-283.

Ducis, French author, 24.

Duncan, Miss (Mrs. Davison), 325;

as Juliana in the "Honeymoon," 325.

_Eclectic Review_ on the stage, 332.

Edinburgh theatre, the, 123.

Edmiston, Miss, as Jane Shore, 398.

Edwin, John, his popularity, 128;

O'Keeffe's obligations to Edwin's acting, 128;

his original characters, 128;

his death, 128.

Elliston, Robert William, 317;

account of his career, 317-321;

his birth, 317;

with Tate Wilkinson at York, 318;

his success in London, 318;

as Sir Edward Mortimer, 318;

his large experience of management, 318;

his Hamlet, 318-319;

his versatility, 319;

his abilities, 319;

as Duke Aranza, 319;

his loftiness, 320.

Epilogues, 273.

Esten, Mrs., 95, 211, 252.

Etherege, 285.

Farren, Miss Elizabeth (Lady Derby), account of her career, 96-101;

her origin, 96;

her first appearance, 97;

as Lady Hardcastle, 97;

as Lady Townly, 97;

her qualities as an actress, 98;

her original characters, 98;

her farewell to the stage, 100;

her marriage to Lord Derby, 100;

her children, 101.

Fawcett, John, 323, 348;

as Job Thornberry, 323;

as Caleb Quotem, 323.

Fielding, Henry, 16, 289;

his nonchalance, 17.

Fitzgerald, Percy, his "Lives of the Kembles," 176 _n._

Fitzhenry, Mrs., 264.

Flecnoe and his critics, 12.

Foote, Samuel, 137;

in Edinburgh, 124;

and Henderson, 147.

Francis, Dr., 232, 403.

Francis, Miss (see Mrs. Jordan).

Freemasons at the play, 298.

French audiences, 55, 56, 60.

Garrick, David, 275;

and Sheridan, 5;

and "The Chinese Festival," 33;

his costume in various parts, 250;

his tomb, 333.

Garrick, Mrs., and Edmund Kean, 382.

Garrick, George, 85.

Gay, John, 14.

George III. at the theatre, 38, 41, 345;

fired at by Hatfield, 40.

George IV. and actors, 346.

Glover, Mrs., 326;

a good actress and a good woman, 326.

Godwin, 351.

Goldsmith and his "Good-natured Man," 21.

Goodfellow, actor, 300.

Grattan, Colley, on Edmund Kean, 407.

Greatheed's "Regent," 27.

Green, Mrs., 84.

Griffiths, Mrs., 8.

Grimaldi, Joseph, 245.

Hale as Charles I., 253.

Hallam killed by Macklin, 67.

Hamilton, Lady, 58.

Hamilton, Mrs., actress, 264.

Harcourt, Lord, on Mrs. Siddons, 172, 173.

Hardy, French dramatist, 26.

Harlequin, a speaking, 44.

Hartley, Mrs., actress, 85.

Hayley, 4, 351.

Haymarket, loss of life at, 39, 40.

Henderson, John, 251, 256;

account of his career, 144-151;

his first appearance at Bath, 144;

his descent, 145;

his first appearance in London, 146;

his success, 146;

as Shylock, 146;

waiting on Foote, 147;

his high aims, 148;

creates a great sensation as Hamlet, 148, 149;

his public readings, 149;

as Falstaff, 150, 152;

as Æsop, 150;

his carefulness, 150;

his death, 151.

Hill, Aaron, 13, 289.

Hippisley, 299.

Holcroft, Thomas, dramatist, 5, 349.

Holland, Charles, 47;

and Miss Pope, 306.

Hollingsworth, a provincial actor, 59.

Holman, 322.

Home, John, 3, 276.

Hoole, as a dramatist, 25.

Huddart, 373.

Hull, Thomas, 321;

establishes the Covent Garden Fund, 321.

Hunt, Leigh, 320, 348.

Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth, 8.

Ireland's forged play of "Vortigern," 201.

Jephson, R., his plays, 3;

and Horace Walpole, 3.

Jerrold, Douglas, and Elliston, 320.

Johnstone, John, 133.

Jones, Richard, 324, 325.

Jordan, Mrs., 177, 312;

account of her career, 312-17;

her birth, 312;

her early experiences, 313;

her versatility, 313;

her appearance in London, 313;

her parts, 314;

as Lady Contest, 314;

her connection with the Duke of Clarence, 314;

her excellence as a comedian, 315;

reputed marriage with Ford, 315;

her retirement, 316;

her sad death, 316;

her children ennobled, 317.

Kean, Charles, 409;

becomes an actor, 409, 410;

plays with his father on the last appearance of the latter, 414;

his goodness to his mother, 416.

Kean, Edmund, 315;

his monument to G. F. Cooke, 237;

his carelessness in costume as Orestes, 256;

his origin, 358;

claimed to be the son of the Duke of Norfolk, 360 _n._;

his birth, 361;

as a Cupid at three years old, 361;

as an imp in "Macbeth," 361;

his early struggles, 362;

plays before the king, 364;

plays with Mrs. Siddons, 364;

his marriage, 366;

his privations, 366, 367, 370;

programme of his benefit at Waterford, 369;

his success at Exeter, 371;

engaged at Drury Lane, 372;

his first appearance, 373;

plays Shylock, 373;

account of his triumph, 374-377;

as Richard III., 379, 412;

the critics on his Richard, 379;

description of his Richard, 379-382;

characteristics of his Hamlet, 382, 383;

his Othello, perhaps his greatest part, 384;

his Iago, 384;

his enormous drawings, 385;

saves Drury Lane from bankruptcy, 385;

characters played in his second season, 386;

as Zanga, 386;

his Sir Giles Overreach, 390;

as Bertram, 392;

his contest with J. B. Booth, 393;

as Timon, 393;

as King Lear, 395, 400;

as Brutus in "Brutus," 396;

as Coriolanus, 396;

plays at Liverpool, 397;

his visit to America in 1820, 397;

his struggle with Young, 399;

his dissipation, 400, 401;

the scandal of the Cox case, 401;

hooted by his audiences, 401, 402;

again visits America, 402;

Dr. Francis's account of his eccentricities there, 403;

admitted a member of the tribe of the Hurons, 405;

Alantenaida, 406;

his return to England, 406;

his breakdown, 407;

his hopeless failure in Ben Nazir, 407;

his last attempt at a new character, 412;

his last appearance, 414, 415;

his death, 415;

extenuating circumstances, 416, 417.

Kean, Mrs., and Moore, 378.

Kemble, Anne, 163, 176.

Kemble, Charles, 210, 211, 212, 263, 411;

first appearance in London, as Malcolm, 213;

as Laertes, 213;

as Cassio, 213;

as Faulconbridge, 213;

in Macduff, 213;

as Edgar, 213;

as Jaffier, 214;

as Hamlet, 214;

compared with Young, 214, 215;

a bad Falstaff, 215;

a perfect Mercutio, 215;

as Young Mirabel, 215;

his Benedick, 216;

his wife, 216;

his departure from the stage, 218;

he returns for a few nights, 218;

as a reader, 219;

an author, 219;

his deafness, 219.

Kemble, Mrs. C., 10, 216;

her youthful experience as a dancer, 216;

her appearance at Drury Lane, 216;

plays Macheath, 217;

her marriage with Charles Kemble, 217;

her retirement from the stage, 217;

returns to the stage for one night, 218;

her characteristics, 218;

as an authoress, 219.

Kemble, Elizabeth, 157, 176, 192.

Kemble, Fanny, 218.

Kemble, Frances, 157, 176, 192.

Kemble, Henry, 212.

Kemble, John M., 219.

Kemble, John Philip, 57, 220-222, 260;

his defence of Miss Phillips, 50;

account of his career, 189-210;

his birth and early life, 189;

as an author, 190;

first appearance in London, as Hamlet, 191;

as Macbeth, 193;

as Lear, 193;

married to Mrs. Brereton, 194;

becomes manager of Drury Lane, 196;

as Henry V., 197;

duel with James Aikin, 197;

becomes part proprietor of Covent Garden, 198;

his assiduity, 199;

in the "Castle Spectre," 199;

as Rolla, 199;

Pitt's opinion of him, 199, 200;

his best characters, 200, 203;

his Roman parts, 200, 209;

and the Irelands' forged play of "Vortigern," 201;

his Charles Surface, 204;

the princely conduct of the Duke of Northumberland when Covent

Garden Theatre was burned, 205;

as Othello, 206;

as Hamlet, 206;

his successful parts, 208;

his failure in Colman's "Iron Chest," 209;

his farewell to the stage, 210, 392;

his death, 210;

his costume in various parts, 251, 255;

specially attacked by the "O. P." rioters, 337-345.

Kemble, Roger, father of John Philip Kemble, 154;

plays in London, 154.

Kemble, Mrs. Roger, 154.

Kemble, Sarah (see Mrs. Siddons).

Kemble, Stephen, 191, 210, 211, 373;

manager at Edinburgh, 211;

as Othello, 211;

as Falstaff, 211;

his death, 212.

Kemble family specially attacked by the "O. P." rioters, 338.

King, Thomas, 54;

as a speaker of prologues, 279;

his original characters, 301, 302;

his retirement, 302;

his love of play, 302.

Knowles, Sheridan, 352, 357, 367;

his training, 368;

an actor, 368;

an author, 368.

Lamb, Charles, 320, 334, 351.

Lee, Sophia, 9.

Lessingham, Mrs., actress, 62.

Lewes, Lee, 129.

Lewis, "Monk," 11.

Lewis, William, 251, 263, 348;

his dress as Earl Percy, 256;

his original characters, 303, 304;

as the Copper Captain, 303, 304;

his death, 303;

his excellence in Morton and Reynolds's comedies, 304.

Licences, 418.

Liston, John, 324;

the peculiarity of his comic acting, 324;

his desire to play tragedy, 324.

Litchfield, Mrs., 309.

Liverpool audience, 59.

Macklin, Charles, 4;

his "Man of the World," 6;

account of his career, 63;

his parentage, 63, 65;

his great age, 64;

as Monimia at the age of nine, 65;

his first appearance, 66;

as Snip, 67;

kills Hallam, 67;

his marriage, 68;

his Shylock, 68-70, 75;

his "Henry VII.," 70;

Pope's opinion of him, 70;

in Dublin, 71;

as Mercutio, 71;

his opinion of Garrick and Barry as Romeo, 71;

his retirement from the stage to keep a tavern, 72;

his "British Inquisition," 72;

his reappearance on the stage, 73;

as Sir Archie Macsarcasm, 73;

as Macbeth, 73;

his daughter, 72, 81, 82;

as Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, 73;

failure of his memory, 74;

his death, 76;

his characteristics, 76;

his objection to Garrick, 77;

antagonism with Quin, 77;

his character, 80;

his original and principal characters, 80;

his costume in various parts, 250.

Macklin, Mrs., 68.

Macklin, Miss, 72, 81;

her death, 82.

Macready, W. C., 392, 400;

his Virginius, 396, 397.

Mason, William, 3.

Masterton, dramatist, 350.

Mathews, Charles, 323;

his extraordinary ability as a mimic, 323;

his M. Malet, 323.

Mattocks, Mrs., 308;

her career, 308, 309;

her characters, 309.

Maturin, 354-357.

Melmoth, Mrs., actress, 265.

Miller, James, dramatist, 19.

Milman, 357.

Mistakes on the stage, 263.

Mitchell and his "Highland Fair," 25.

Montagu, Mrs., actress, 61.

Moody, John, 130;

as Major O'Flaherty, 131, 132;

the best Irish actor of his time, 131;

Churchill on Moody, 132;

a market gardener, 132;

his original characters, 133.

Moore and Mrs. Kean, 378.

More, Hannah, 7.

Mossop, Henry, 259;

and the Major, 48.

Motteux, P. A., 288.

Munden, Joseph S., 322, 348;

his wonderful powers of grimace, 322;

the breadth of his acting, 322;

his parsimony, 323.

Murphy, Arthur, 4, 289.

Murray, Charles, actor, 267.

O'Neill, Miss, 221, 387;

her first opportunity, 388.

"O. P." riots, 337-345.

Opera, progress of, 10.

Otway, 283.

Owen, John, actor, 267.

Owenson, 130.

Palmer, John, 139;

account of his career, 139-143;

accidentally stabbed by Mrs. Barry, 148;

his endeavours to open the Royalty Theatre, 140;

his original characters, 140;

his coolness, 140;

his death on the stage, 141, 142;

the original Joseph Surface, 142.

Parsons, William, 137;

his impudent "gagging," 37;

a great comedian, 138;

as Foresight, 138;

as Skirmish, 138;

as Corbaccio, 138;

his last character, 138;

his death, 139;

story about his wife, 139.

Patents, 418.

Phelps, Samuel, his worthy support of the legitimate drama, 419.

Phillips, Miss (Mrs. Crouch), 50.

Plays, list of, from 1800 to 1813, 327-330.

Pope, Alexander, 14;

on Macklin's Shylock, 70.

Pope, Mrs. (Miss Younge), 102.

Pope, Miss, 74, 304;

account of her career, 304-308;

her retirement, 304;

her original parts, 305;

Churchill's opinion of her, 305, 306;

her love affair with Holland, 306;

her last illness and death, 308.

Powell, George, and the _Spectator_, 294.

Powell, Mrs., actress, 58.

Powell, Thomas, a nervous author, 20.

Pritchard, Mrs., 172.

Proctor, B. W. (Barry Cornwall), 352, 357.

Prologues, 273.

Purvor, Grace (Mrs. Macklin), 67.

Pye, poet laureate, 2.

Quin, James, 47, 259, 263;

and "Fatal Retirement," 19;

antagonism with Macklin, 77;

his carelessness in costume, 253.

Rae, 372, 374.

Raymond, 373.

Reddish, Samuel, 115;

account of his career, 115-122;

his first appearance, 116;

his characters, 116;

as Edgar in "King Lear," 117;

as Posthumus, 117;

accidentally stabs Smith, 117;

his marriage, 118;

his loss of memory, 118;

his sad mental condition, 119;

his last appearance, 119;

in a lunatic asylum, 121;

his death, 122.

Reddish, Mrs., 118.

Reynolds, Frederic, 348.

Riot at Drury Lane, 33.

Riots, 51.

Robinson, Mrs. ("Perdita"), 108;

account of her career, 108-114;

her marriage, 108;

as Juliet, 109;

her excellences, 109;

as Perdita, 109;

her amour with the Prince of Wales (George IV.), 110, 111;

her death, 111;

her character, 111;

her taste in dressing, 112.

Romantic drama, 11.

Ross, David, 122;

his indolence, 122;

the first patentee in Edinburgh, 123;

as Barnwell, 124;

his death, 125.

Rowe, Nicholas, and his "Biter," 12.

Sainville, Monsieur and Madame, 101.

Satchell, Miss, as Desdemona, 211.

Saurin, French dramatist, 18, 23.

"School for Scandal," 5.

Settle, Elkanah, 14.

Shadwell, 287.

Sheil, Lalor, 352, 354.

Shenstone, 276.

Sheridan, R. B., 5, 27, 277;

and "The Castle Spectre," 12;

end of his connection with Drury Lane, 330.

Shuter, Edward, 61.

Siddons, Mrs., 152, 220-222, 262;

account of her career, 153-188;

her birth, 153;

her parentage, 154;

on the stage as a child, 155;

her strolling experiences, 155, 156;

her marriage, 157;

engaged by Garrick, 158;

her failure in London, 159;

a great favourite in Bath, 160;

her second appearance in London, 160;

her triumphant success, 160, 161;

as Jane Shore, 161;

as Calista, 161;

as Belvidera, 162;

as Zara, 162;

and Mrs. Crawford, 162;

her enemies, 163, 170, 175;

in Ireland, 163, 166;

as Isabella in "Measure for Measure," 164;

as Constance, 164;

as Lady Randolph, 165;

appointed preceptress to princesses, 165;

her portrait by Reynolds, 166;

in Scotland, 166;

her enthusiastic reception, 167;

as Margaret of Anjou, 171;

as Lady Macbeth, 171;

her great triumph, 171;

as Desdemona, 176;

not successful as Rosalind, 177;

as Hermione, 178;

as Ophelia, 178;

as a comedian, 179;

her opinion of Greatheed's "Regent," 180;

as Queen Katherine, 181;

as Volumnia, 182;

in "Edwy and Elgiva," 182;

in "Edward and Eleanora," 182;

faints while playing Arpasia, 183;

her robe takes fire, 184;

her retirement, 185;

her last appearance, 186;

her high character, 187;

her death, 188;

her costume, 251, 252;

specially attacked by the "O. P." rioters, 337-345

Siddons Henry, 228.

Siddons fever, the, 167.

Smith, Miss (Mrs. Bartley), 382;

a rival to Mrs. Siddons, 221.

Smith, "Gentleman," 125;

stabbed by Reddish, 117;

his career, 125;

his original characters, 125;

his remarkable marriages, 126;

his retirement, 126.

Somerville, Miss (Mrs. Bunn), 392.

Southerne, 15, 284.

Sowerby, 382.

Spiller's benefit for himself and his creditors, 295.

Stage costume, 248-258.

Stage tricks, 258.

Strollers, 267, 268.

Strolling managers, 268.

Styles, Rev. Dr., 335.

Suett, Richard, 245;

and his collection of wigs, 254;

his great powers as a comedian, 302;

his love of drink, 303.

Talma, 24.

Terry, Daniel, 385.

Theobald, Lewis, 14.

Tidswell, Miss, 362, 398.

Tokely, 373.

Tracy, dramatist, 16.

Tricks, stage, 258.

Twiss's _Verbal Index to Shakespeare_, 331.

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 15.

Walker, Thomas, 10.

Wallace, Lady, 9.

Wallack, 396.

Walpole, Horace, as a dramatist, 22;

on theatrical genius, 1, 2;

on Miss Younge's acting, 3;

on the "School for Scandal," 5;

on the "Man of the World," 6;

on the Delavals' amateur performances, 31;

on the "Wishes," 42;

on the "Miniature Picture," 53;

on Mrs. Abington, 105;

on Mrs. Siddons, 169, 174, 206;

on Kemble, 206; on John Bannister, 311;

on Mrs. Jordan, 314.

Walpole, Sir Robert, 37.

Walstein, Miss, 387;

strikes for higher salary, 388.

Webb, Mrs., 96.

Wells, Mrs. (Mrs. Sumbell), 95, 265.

Whalley. Dr., 26.

Whitelock, Mrs. (sister of Mrs. Siddons), 94.

Wignell, actor, 266, 274.

Wilkinson, Tate, 126;

his extraordinary power as a mimic, 127;

patentee at York, 127.

Wilson, Mrs., 94.

Woodward, Henry, 299;

his dress as Mercutio, 249.

Wycherley, 285.

Yates, Frederick, 396.

Yates, Richard, 299;

his characteristics as an actor, 125;

his parsimony, 125.

Yates, Mrs., her career, 86-88;

as Medea, 87;

in strong-minded heroines, 87;

her Violante, 87;

her death, 88.

Young, Charles Mayne, 260, 324;

his costume in various parts, 257;

of the Kemble school, 325;

his great contest with Kean, 399.

Young, Dr. E., 276, 287.

Younge, Miss, 3, 177;

her withdrawal from the stage, 102.

THE END.

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EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

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of action and passion. Suffering, enjoying, enduring, working with

restless activity; hating, loving, hovering from place to place as

impulse moves him; the man presents himself dramatically by his deeds

and spoken words, never by his pondering or meditative broodings. It

is this healthy externality which gives its great charm to Cellini's

self-portrayal, and renders it an imperishable document for the

student of human nature.

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ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH STAGE

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A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT

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ENGLISH THEATRICAL LITERATURE

FROM

_THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY_.

By ROBERT W. LOWE.

NOTE.--There is as yet no Bibliography of the general literature

of the stage. Plays have been catalogued many times, and some

of our greatest bibliographers have directed their attention to

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even the baldest catalogue of the large and curious mass of books

relating to the History of the Stage, the Biography of Actors and

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numerous curious Theatrical Trials, and the many scandalous attacks

on the personal character of celebrated performers. In the last two

classes especially there are many curious pamphlets dealing with

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The present work is intended to supply in some measure the want

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Stage, especially in those details of which regular histories take

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Saturday Review.

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THE _NEW EDITED_ AND _COMPLETE_ EDITIONS

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_The Elizabethan Dramatists_.

This is the first instalment towards a collective edition of the

Dramatists who lived about the time of Shakespeare. The type will be

distributed after each work is printed.

One of the chief features of this New Edition of the Elizabethan

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ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

(IN THE _NINETEENTH CENTURY_, JANUARY 1886)

ON THE

Elizabethan Dramatists.

"If it be true, as we are told on high authority, that the greatest

glory of England is her literature, and the greatest glory of English

literature is its poetry, it is not less true that the greatest glory

of English poetry lies rather in its dramatic than its epic or its

lyric triumphs. The name of Shakespeare is above the names even of

Milton and Coleridge and Shelley; and the names of his comrades in

art and their immediate successors are above all but the highest

names in any other province of our song. There is such an overflowing

life, such a superb exuberance of abounding and exulting strength,

in the dramatic poetry of the half century extending from 1590 to

1640, that all other epochs of English literature seem as it were

but half awake and half alive by comparison with this generation

of giants and of gods. There is more sap in this than in any other

branch of the national bay-tree; it has an energy in fertility which

reminds us rather of the forest than the garden or the park. It is

true that the weeds and briars of the underwood are but too likely to

embarrass and offend the feet of the rangers and the gardeners who

trim the level flower-plots or preserve the domestic game of enclosed

and ordered lowlands in the tamer demesnes of literature. The sun is

strong and the wind sharp in the climate which reared the fellows and

the followers of Shakespeare. The extreme inequality and roughness

of the ground must also be taken into account when we are disposed,

as I for one have often been disposed, to wonder beyond measure

at the apathetic ignorance of average students in regard of the

abundant treasure to be gathered from this widest and most fruitful

province in the poetic empire of England. And yet, since Charles Lamb

threw open its gates to all comers in the ninth year of the present

century, it cannot but seem strange that comparatively so few should

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important, none worthier of thanks and praise, can be undertaken by

any English scholar."

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=THE WORKS OF JOHN MARSTON.= Three Volumes.

=THE WORKS OF THOMAS MIDDLETON.= Eight Volumes.

=THE WORKS OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.= Three Volumes.

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of the series will be a boon to bibliographers and scholars alike."

=Saturday Review.=--"Mr. Bullen has discharged his task as editor

in all important points satisfactorily, his introduction is well

informed and well written, and his notes are well chosen and

sufficient.... We hope it may be his good fortune to give and ours

to receive every Dramatist, from Peele to Shirley, in this handsome,

convenient, and well-edited form."

=The Spectator.=--"Probably one of the boldest literary undertakings

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careful hands; considering the comprehensiveness of the subject, and

the variety of knowledge it demands, the courage of the editor is

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=Notes and Queries.=--" ... Appropriately, then, the series Mr.

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=The Academy.=--"Mr. Bullen is known to all those interested in such

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We are not surprised, therefore, to find these volumes well edited

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=Scotsman.=--"Never in the history of the world has a period been

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competent editor in every respect."

=The Standard.=--"Throughout Mr. Bullen has done his difficult work

remarkably well, and the publisher has produced it in a form which

will make the edition of early Dramatists of which it is a part an

almost indispensable addition to a well-stocked library."

=Pall Mall Gazette.=--" ... If the series is continued as it is

begun, by one of the most careful editors, this set of the English

Dramatists will be a coveted literary possession."

=Daily Telegraph.=--"The introduction to this new edition of Marston

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which Mr. Bullen is steadfastly pursuing the object set before him in

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_Standard Historical Works._

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_THE WORKS OF_

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WITH ENGRAVED PORTRAIT FROM THE PAINTING

By Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

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the light of the present age, how great is our admiration of that

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public labours present a continuous struggle against the stupidity,

the obstinacy, and the venality of the politicians of his day.

So long as virtue shall be beloved, wisdom revered, or genius

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CONTENTS.

Vindication of Natural Society.

The Sublime and Beautiful.

Observations on a Late Publication on "The Present State of the

Nation."

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.

Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Thoughts on French Affairs.

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.

Hints for an Essay on the Drama.

An Essay towards an Abridgment of the English History.

Papers on India.

Articles of Charge against Warren Hastings.

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Letters.

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DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,

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EDITED BY C. H. FIRTH, M.A.

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Medium 8vo, fine paper, with Ten Etched Portraits, &c., cloth, Two

Volumes, 42s. _net_.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF COLONEL HUTCHINSON.

By his Widow, LUCY.

REVISED AND EDITED BY CHARLES H. FIRTH, M.A.

Athenæum.

"Is an excellent edition of a famous book. Mr. Firth presents

the 'Memoirs' with a modernised orthography and a revised scheme

of punctuation. He retains the notes of Julius Hutchinson, and

supplements them by annotations--corrective and explanatory--of his

own. Since their publication in 1805, the 'Memoirs' have been a kind

of classic. To say that this is the best and fullest edition of them

in existence is to say everything."

Medium 8vo, fine paper, Roxburghe binding, gilt top, and Two

Etchings, price 15s.

A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare.

PLAYER, POET, AND PLAYMAKER.

By F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

From Professor A. W. Ward's Preface to the Second Edition of

Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus."

"Mr. Fleay's new Life of Shakespeare will, in my opinion, before long

be acknowledged as one of the most important works on the history of

the Elizabethan drama which this age has produced."

Extract from a Letter to the Author from Dr. H. H. Furness.

"The man himself was always unreal to me, and I never could bring

myself to believe that he ever really existed. But your book has left

upon me the impression, as deep as it is strange, that such a man did

really live, and that he belonged to the noble army of workers.

"I had confidence in you and followed holding your hand, at times

lost in wonder and admiration over the miraculous memory and

indefatigable research of my guide."

Copyright Edition, with Ten Etched Portraits. In Ten Vols., demy 8vo,

cloth, £5, 5s. _net_.

Lingard's History of England.

FROM THE FIRST INVASION BY THE ROMANS TO THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM AND

MARY IN 1688.

By JOHN LINGARD, D.D.

This New Copyright Library Edition of "Lingard's History of England,"

besides containing all the latest notes and emendations of the

Author, with Memoir, is enriched with Ten Portraits, newly etched by

Damman, of the following personages, viz.:--Dr. Lingard, Edward I.,

Edward III., Cardinal Wolsey, Cardinal Pole, Elizabeth, James I.,

Cromwell, Charles II., James II.

The Times.

"No greater service can be rendered to literature than the

republication, in a handsome and attractive form, of works which time

and the continued approbation of the world have made classical....

The accuracy of Lingard's statements on many points of controversy,

as well as the genial sobriety of his view, is now recognised."

The Tablet.

"It is with the greatest satisfaction that we welcome this new

edition of Dr. Lingard's 'History of England.' It has long been a

desideratum.... No general history of England has appeared which

can at all supply the place of Lingard, whose painstaking industry

and careful research have dispelled many a popular delusion, whose

candour always carries his reader with him, and whose clear and even

style is never fatiguing."

The Spectator.

"We are glad to See that the demand for Dr. Lingard's _England_

still continues. Few histories give the reader the same impression

of exhaustive study. This new edition is excellently printed, and

illustrated with ten portraits of the greatest personages in our

history."

Dublin Review.

"It is pleasant to notice that the demand for Lingard continues to be

such that publishers venture on a well-got-up library edition like

the one before us. More than sixty years have gone since the first

volume of the first edition was published; many equally pretentious

histories have appeared during that space, and have more or less

disappeared since, yet Lingard lives--is still a recognised and

respected authority."

The Scotsman.

"There is no need, at this time of day, to say anything in

vindication of the importance, as a standard work, of Dr. Lingard's

'History of England.' ... Its intrinsic merits are very great. The

style is lucid, pointed, and puts no strain upon the reader; and

the printer and publisher have neglected nothing that could make

this-what it is likely long to remain--the standard edition of a work

of great historical and literary value."

Daily Telegraph.

"True learning, untiring research, a philosophic temper, and the

possession of a graphic, pleasing style were the qualities which the

author brought to his task, and they are displayed in every chapter

of his history."

Two Volumes, 8vo, Sixty-four Portraits, Roxburghe binding, gilt top,

price 30s. _net_.

MEMOIRS OF COUNT GRAMMONT.

By ANTHONY HAMILTON.

A NEW EDITION, EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

With Sixty-four Portraits Engraved by EDWARD SCRIVEN.

Hallam.

"The 'Memoirs of Grammont,' by Anthony Hamilton, scarcely challenge

a place as historical; but we are now looking more at the style than

the intrinsic importance of books. Every one is aware of the peculiar

felicity and fascinating gaiety which they display."

T. B. Macaulay.

"The artist to whom we owe the most highly finished and vividly

coloured picture of the English Court in the days when the English

Court was gayest."

Medium 8vo, fine paper, Eighty-eight Illustrations, cloth, gilt top,

price 21s. _net_.

OLD TIMES:

A PICTURE OF SOCIAL LIFE AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

COLLECTED AND ILLUSTRATED FROM THE SATIRICAL AND OTHER SKETCHES OF

THE DAY.

By JOHN ASHTON.

_Author of "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."_

With Eighty-eight Illustrations.

Daily Telegraph.

"That is the best and truest history of the past which comes nearest

to the life of the bulk of the people. It is in this spirit that Mr.

John Ashton has composed 'Old Times,' intended to be a picture of

social life at the end of the eighteenth century. The illustrations

form a very valuable, and at the same time quaint and amusing,

feature of the volume."

Saturday Review.

"'Old Times,' however, is not only valuable as a book to be taken

up for a few minutes at a time; a rather careful reading will repay

those who wish to brush up their recollections of the period. To

some extent it may serve as a book of reference, and even historians

may find in it some useful matter concerning the times of which it

treats. The book is in every respect suited for a hall or library

table in a country house."

THE MONKS OF THE WEST,

FROM ST. BENEDICT TO ST. BERNARD.

By the COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT,

_Member of the French Academy_.

Authorised Translation. Seven Volumes 8vo, cloth, £4, 4s. _net_.

(_Published by_ Messrs. W. BLACKWOOD & SONS, _Edinburgh_.)

CONTENTS OF THE WORK.

Introduction.

The Roman Empire after the Peace of the Church.

Monastic Precursors in the East.

Monastic Precursors in the West.

St. Benedict.

St. Gregory the Great--Monastic Italy and Spain in the Sixth and

Seventh Centuries.

The Monks under the First Merovingians.

St. Columbanus--The Irish in Gaul and the Colonies of Luxeuil.

Christian Origin of the British Isles.

St. Columba, the Apostle of Caledonia, 521-597.

St. Augustin of Canterbury and the Roman Missionaries in England,

597-633.

The Celtic Monks and the Anglo-Saxons.

St. Wilfrid establishes Roman Unity and the Benedictine Order,

634-709.

Contemporaries and Successors of St. Wilfrid, 650-735.

Social and Political Influence of the Monks among the Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxon Nuns.

The Church and the Feudal System--The Monastic Orders and Society.

St. Gregory, Monk and Pope.

The Predecessors of Calixtus II.

Times.

"Whatever the Count touches he of necessity adorns. He has produced

a great and most interesting work, full of curious facts, and lit up

with most noble eloquence."

Freeman's Journal.

"Of the translation, we must say it is in every respect worthy the

original. The nervous style of the author is admirably preserved. It

is at the same time spirited and faithful."

Standard.

"No library of English history will be complete without these glowing

pictures of the 'Monks of the West.'"

NOTE.--Very few sets of this important and well-known work are now

left for sale.

The Lives of the Queens of Scotland,

AND ENGLISH PRINCESSES CONNECTED WITH THE REGAL SUCCESSION OF GREAT

BRITAIN.

By AGNES STRICKLAND.

With Portraits and Historical Vignettes.

Eight Volumes, post 8vo, cloth, £4, 4s. _net_. Also in full calf and

half calf bindings.

(_Published by_ Messrs. W. BLACKWOOD & SONS, _Edinburgh_.)

CONTENTS OF THE WORK.

Life of Margaret Tudor, Queen of James IV.

Life of Magdalene of France, First Queen of James V.

Life of Mary of Lorraine, Second Queen of James V.

Life of the Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox.

Life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland.

Life of Elizabeth Stuart, First Princess Royal of Great Britain.

Life of Sophia, Electress of Hanover.

English Review.

"Miss Strickland has not only been fortunate in the selection of her

subject, but she has sustained to the full her high reputation for

research."

The Standard.

"In 'The Queens of Scotland' Miss Strickland prosecutes her original

task with as careful research as in her first work, and with

undiminished spirit and unaltered delicacy."

The Guardian.

"We discern freedom and ease of manner, a judicious selection of

materials, an evenly balanced judgment, and the sobriety and decision

which are the fruits of wide historical knowledge."

Blackwood's Magazine.

"Every step in Scotland is historical; the shades of the dead arise

on every side; the very rocks breathe. Miss Strickland's talents as

a writer, and turn of mind as an individual, in a peculiar manner

fit her for painting a historical gallery of the most illustrious or

dignified female characters in that land of chivalry and song."

NOTE.--Very few sets of this delightful work are now left for sale.

OCTAVE UZANNE'S ILLUSTRATED WORKS.

Royal 8vo, cloth, gilt top, Illustrations engraved in colours, price

42s. _net_.

The Frenchwoman of the Century.

FASHIONS--MANNERS--USAGES.

By OCTAVE UZANNE.

Illustrations in Water Colours by ALBERT LYNCH. Engraved in Colours

by EUGÈNE GAUJEAN.

=Morning Post.=--"Graceful and light as is this book by M. Octave

Uzanne, the clever author of 'The Fan' and 'The Sunshade, Muff, and

Glove,' and other works marked by a rare originality, it affords a

more complete insight into the ideas of the women of France of this

century and of the influence exercised by them than is apparent on

the surface. An idea can be formed of the prodigality and luxury

that prevailed at the Court of the First Empire by 'a serio-comic

document' circulated in 1807 as 'an account of the annual expense

of a female fop of Paris.' Its different items amount to the sum

of 190,000fr., or £7600 sterling. The women of fashion of a later

period are not less well photographed. There are some sparkling pages

on those of 1830, at the time when Balzac discovered and sang 'La

Femme de Trente Ans,' 'whose beauty shines with all the brightness

of a perfumed summer.' Speaking the truth always, but with native

gallantry seeking to conceal its harshness, M. Uzanne tells his

countrywomen of to-day that 'the woman of this end of the century

reigns despotically still in our hearts, but has no longer the

same happy influence on our spirits, our manners, our society.' To

account for this, as indeed in writing of the moral aspect of all

the different social phases that come within his scope, the author

reasons of cause and effect with an able lucidity that skilfully

avoids dulness. The illustrations are, without exception, artistic

and _spirituelle_, and contribute to make of this elegantly bound

work, a veritable 'volume de luxe,' which worthily continues the

series of productions from M. Uzanne's brilliant and facile pen."

Royal 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 31s. 6d. _net_.

THE FAN. By OCTAVE UZANNE.

Illustrations by PAUL AVRIL.

=Standard.=--"It gives a complete history of fans of all ages and

places; the illustrations are dainty in the extreme. Those who wish

to make a pretty and appropriate present to a young lady cannot do

better than purchase 'The Fan.'"

=Athenæum.=--"The letterpress comprises much amusing 'chit-chat,'

and is more solid than it pretends to be. This _brochure_ is worth

reading; nay, it is worth keeping."

Royal 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 31s. 6d. _net_.

The Sunshade, Muff, and Glove.

By OCTAVE UZANNE.

Illustrations by PAUL AVRIL.

=Art Journal.=--"At first sight it would seem that material could

never be found to fill even a volume; but the author, in dealing

with his first subject alone, 'The Sunshade,' says he could easily

have filled a dozen volumes of this emblem of sovereignty. The

work is delightfully illustrated in a novel manner by Paul Avril,

the pictures which meander about the work being printed in various

colours."

_Charming Editions, Illustrated with Etchings, of Standard Works,

suitable for presentation. Crown 8vo, handsomely bound, either in

cloth or parchment bindings, price 7s. 6d. per volume._

=1. THE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.= With Biographical

Essay by JOHN H. INGRAM; and Fourteen Original Etchings, Three

Photogravures, and a Portrait newly etched from a lifelike

Daguerrotype of the Author. In Four Volumes.

=2. WEIRD TALES.= By E. T. W. HOFFMAN. A New Translation from the

German. With Biographical Memoir by J. T. BEALBY, formerly Scholar

of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. With Portrait and Ten Original

Etchings by AD. LALAUZE. In Two Volumes.

=3. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY,= GENTLEMAN. By LAURENCE

STERNE. In Two Vols. With Eight Etchings by DAMMAN from Original

Drawings by HARRY FURNISS.

=4. THE OLD ENGLISH BARON:= A GOTHIC STORY. By CLARA REEVE. THE

CASTLE OF OTRANTO: A GOTHIC STORY. By HORACE WALPOLE. In One Vol.

With Two Portraits and Four Original Drawings by A. H. TOURRIER,

Etched by DAMMAN.

=5. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS.= In Four Vols. Carefully

Revised and Corrected from the Arabic by JONATHAN SCOTT, LL.D.,

Oxford. With Nineteen Original Etchings by AD. LALAUZE.

=6. THE HISTORY OF THE CALIPH VATHEK.= By WM. BECKFORD. With Notes,

Critical, and Explanatory. RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. By SAMUEL

JOHNSON. In One Vol. With Portrait of BECKFORD, and Four Original

Etchings, designed by A. H. TOURRIER, and Etched by DAMMAN.

=7. ROBINSON CRUSOE.= By DANIEL DEFOE. In Two Vols. With Biographical

Memoir, Illustrative Notes, and Eight Etchings by M. MOUILLERON, and

Portrait by L. FLAMENG.

=8. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.= By JONATHAN SWIFT. With Five Etchings and

Portrait by AD. LALAUZE.

=9. A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.= By LAURENCE STERNE. =A TALE OF A TUB.= By

JONATHAN SWIFT. In One Vol. With Five Etchings and Portrait by ED.

HEDOUIN.

=10. THE HISTORY OF DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA.= Translated from the

Spanish of MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA by MOTTEUX. With copious

Notes (including the Spanish Ballads), and an Essay on the Life and

Writings of CERVANTES by JOHN G. LOCKHART. Preceded by a Short Notice

of the Life and Works of PETER ANTHONY MOTTEUX by HENRI VAN LAUN.

Illustrated with Sixteen Original Etchings by R. DE LOS RIOS. Four

Volumes.

=11. LAZARILLO DE TORMES.= By Don DIEGO MENDOZA. Translated by THOMAS

ROSCOE. And =GUZMAN D'ALFARACHE.= By MATEO ALEMAN. Translated by

BRADY. Illustrated with Eight Original Etchings by R. DE LOS RIOS.

Two Volumes.

=12. ASMODEUS.= By LE SAGE. Translated from the French. Illustrated

with Four Original Etchings by R. DE LOS RIOS.

=13. THE BACHELOR OF SALAMANCA.= By LE SAGE. Translated from the

French by JAMES TOWNSEND. Illustrated with Four Original Etchings by

R. DE LOS RIOS.

=14. VANILLO GONZALES;= or, The Merry Bachelor. By LE SAGE.

Translated from the French. Illustrated with Four Original Etchings

by R. DE LOS RIOS.

=15. THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE.= Translated from the

French of LE SAGE by TOBIAS SMOLLETT. With Biographical and Critical

Notice of LE SAGE by GEORGE SAINTSBURY. New Edition, carefully

revised. Illustrated with Twelve Original Etchings by R. DE LOS RIOS.

Three Volumes.

The Times.

"Among the numerous handsome reprints which the publishers of the

day vie with each other in producing, we have seen nothing of

greater merit than this series of volumes. Those who have read these

masterpieces of the last century in the homely garb of the old

editions may be gratified with the opportunity of perusing them with

the advantages of large clear print and illustrations of a quality

which is rarely bestowed on such reissues. The series deserves every

commendation."

Royal 8vo, cloth extra, printed in colours and gilt top, price 12s.

6d.

_An elegant and choicely Illustrated Edition of_

GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

With Prefatory Memoir by GEORGE SAINTSBURY,

And One Hundred and Fourteen Coloured Illustrations by V. A. POIRSON

(Illustrator of "Gulliver's Travels").

Saturday Review.

"Goldsmith's immortal tale is here delightfully illustrated in

colour, and there is a prefatory memoir by Mr. George Saintsbury,

full of delicate criticism and careful research. The illustrations

are sketchy, fresh, merry, and in colours perfectly harmonious. Such

a book is a boon to the cultivated reader of every age."

The Guardian.

"A new edition of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' naturally appears with

every fresh variety of the arts of priming or illustration. M.

Poirson showed so keen an appreciation of the peculiar humour of

'Gulliver's Travels,' that it was only to be expected that he should

try his hand at an even more popular book. Mr. Saintsbury has

prefixed an excellent critical memoir, and altogether, if Goldsmith

could have chosen the garb in which he would best like his Vicar

to appear, his ideas would probably have jumped with those of the

present publisher."

The Graphic.

"They are indeed some of the most excellent specimens of artistic

colour-printing now to be seen; and the book is a wonder of

cheapness, seeing it is sold at the low sum of 12s. 6d."

A New and Beautiful Edition of the Imitation of Christ.

In demy 8vo, with Fifteen Etchings, bound in full white parchment,

gilt top, price 21s. _net_.

The Imitation of Christ.

FOUR BOOKS.

Translated from the Latin by Rev. W. BENHAM, B.D., _Rector of St.

Edmund, King and Martyr, Lombard Street, London._

The text and quaint borders printed in brown ink on fine vellum

paper, and illustrated with Fifteen Etchings by L. FLAMENG and CH.

WALTNER, from designs by J. P. LAURENS and HENRY LEVY, printed on

Japanese paper, make this, for presentation purposes, one of the most

beautiful editions at present to be had.

Scotsman.

"We have not seen a more beautiful edition of 'The Imitation of

Christ' than this one for many a day."

Magazine of Art.

"This new edition of the 'Imitation' may fairly be regarded as a work

of art. It is well and clearly printed; the paper is excellent; each

page has its peculiar border, and it is illustrated with fifteen

etchings. Further than that the translation is Mr. Benham's we need

say nothing more."

Second Edition, post 8vo, cloth elegant, gilt top, price 5s.

Carols and Poems.

FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME.

Edited by A. H. BULLEN, B.A.

NOTE.--120 copies printed on fine medium 8vo paper, with Seven

Illustrations on Japanese paper. Each copy numbered.

Saturday Review.

"Since the publication of Mr. Sandys's collection there have been

many books issued on carols, but the most complete by far that we

have met with is Mr. Bullen's new volume, 'Carols and Poems from

the Fifteenth Century to the Present Time.' The preface contains an

interesting account of Christmas festivities and the use of carols.

Mr. Bullen has exercised great care in verifying and correcting

the collections of his predecessors, and he has joined to them two

modern poems by Hawker, two by Mr. William Morris, and others by Mr.

Swinburne, Mr. Symonds, and Miss Rossetti. Altogether this is one of

the most welcome books of the season."

Two Very Funny and Humorously Illustrated Books by

A. B. FROST.

Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, with One Hundred Illustrations, price 5s.

RUDDER GRANGE. By FRANK R. STOCKTON.

=The Times.=--"Many of the smaller drawings are wonderfully spirited;

there are sketchy suggestions of scenery, which recall the pregnant

touches of Bewick; and the figures of animals and of human types

are capital, from the row of roosting fowls at the beginning of the

chapter to the dilapidated tramp standing hat in hand."

=Court and Society Review.=--"After looking at the pictures we

found ourselves reading the book again, and enjoying Pomona and

her reading, and her adventure with the lightning rodder, and her

dog-fight as much as ever. And to read it twice over is the greatest

compliment you can pay to a book of American humour."

=Art Journal.=--"Mr. Stockton, the author, and Mr. Frost, the artist,

have here gone hand in hand to produce the most humorous of stories

with the best results."

=Morning Post.=--"It will be welcomed in its new dress by many who

have already made the acquaintance of Euphemia and Pomona, as well as

by many who will now meet those excellent types of feminine character

for the first time."

=Saturday Review.=--"The new edition of 'Rudder Grange' has a hundred

illustrations by Mr. A. B. Frost; they are extremely good, and worthy

of Mr. Stockton's amusing book."

Small 4to, One Hundred and Twenty Illustrations, price 6s.

STUFF AND NONSENSE. By A. B. FROST.

CONTENTS.

_The Fatal Mistake--A Tale of a Cat._

_Ye Æsthete, ye Boy, and ye Bullfrog._

_The Balloonists._

_The Powers of the Human Eye._

_The Crab-Boy and His Elephant._

_The Old Man of Moriches._

_The Bald-headed Man._

_The Mule and the Crackers._

_The Influence of Kindness._

_Bobby and the Little Green Apples._

_The Awful Comet._

_The Tug of War._

_The Ironical Flamingo._

_&c. &c. &c._

=Standard.=--"This is a book which will please equally people of

all ages. The illustrations are not only extremely funny, but they

are drawn with wonderful artistic ability, and are full of life and

action.

"It is far and away the best book of 'Stuff and Nonsense' which has

appeared for a long time."

=Press.=--"The most facetious bit of wit that has been penned for

many a day, both in design and text, is Mr. A. B. Frost's 'Stuff and

Nonsense.' 'A Tale of a Cat' is funny, 'The Balloonists' is perhaps

rather extravagant, but nothing can outdo the wit of 'The Powers of

the Human Eye,' whilst 'Ye Æsthete, ye Boy, and ye Bullfrog' may

be described as a 'roarer.' Mr. Frost's pen and pencil know how to

chronicle fun, and their outcomes should not be overlooked."

=Graphic.=--"Grotesque in the extreme. His jokes will rouse many a

laugh."

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.

By WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

In Five Vols. crown 8vo, cloth, 30s.

FIRST SERIES--CLASSICAL DIALOGUES, GREEK AND ROMAN.

SECOND SERIES--DIALOGUES OF SOVEREIGNS AND STATESMEN.

THIRD SERIES--DIALOGUES OF LITERARY MEN.

FOURTH SERIES--DIALOGUES OF FAMOUS WOMEN.

FIFTH SERIES--MISCELLANEOUS DIALOGUES.

NOTE.--_This New Edition is printed from the last Edition of his

Works, revised and edited by John Forster, and is published by

arrangement with the Proprietors of the Copyright of Walter Savage

Landor's Works._

The Times.

"The abiding character of the interest excited by the writings

of Walter Savage Landor, and the existence of a numerous band of

votaries at the shrine of his refined genius, have been lately

evidenced by the appearance of the most remarkable of Landor's

productions, his 'Imaginary Conversations,' taken from the last

edition of his works. To have them in a separate publication will be

convenient to a great number of readers."

The Athenæum.

"The appearance of this tasteful reprint would seem to indicate

that the present generation is at last waking up to the fact that

it has neglected a great writer, and if so, it is well to begin

with Landor's most adequate work. It is difficult to overpraise

the 'Imaginary Conversations.' The eulogiums bestowed on the

'Conversations' by Emerson will, it is to be hoped, lead many to buy

this book."

Scotsman.

"An excellent service has been done to the reading public by

presenting to it, in five compact volumes, these 'Conversations.'

Admirably printed on good paper, the volumes are handy in shape,

and indeed the edition is all that could be desired. When this has

been said, it will be understood what a boon has been conferred on

the reading public; and it should enable many comparatively poor men

to enrich their libraries with a work that will have an enduring

interest."

BOOK-CORNER PROTECTORS.

Metal Tips carefully prepared for placing on the Corners of Books to

preserve them from injury while passing through the Post Office or

being sent by Carrier.

Extract from "The Times," April 18th.

"That the publishers and booksellers second the efforts of the Post

Office authorities in endeavouring to convey books without damage

happening to them is evident from the tips which they use to protect

the corners from injury during transit."

1s. 6d. per Gross, _net_.

The American Patent Portable Book-Case.

[Illustration]

For Students, Barristers, Home Libraries, &c.

THIS Book-case will be found to be made of very solid and durable

material, and of a neat and elegant design. The shelves may be

adjusted for books of any size, and will hold from 150 to 300

volumes. As it requires neither nails, screws, or glue, it may be

taken to pieces in a few minutes, and reset up in another room or

house, where it would be inconvenient to carry a large frame.

_Full Height, 5 ft. 11-1/2 in.; Width, 3 ft. 8 inch; Depth of Shelf,

10-1/2 in._

Black Walnut, price £6, 6s. net.

"The accompanying sketch illustrates a handy portable book-case of

American manufacture, which Mr. NIMMO provided. It is quite different

from an ordinary article of furniture, such as upholsterers inflict

upon the public, as it is designed expressly for holding the largest

possible number of books in the smallest possible amount of space.

One of the chief advantages which these book-cases possess is the

ease with which they may be taken apart and put together again. No

nails or metal screws are employed, nothing but the hand is required

to dismantle or reconstruct the case. The parts fit together with

mathematical precision; and, from a package of boards of very

moderate dimensions, a firm and substantial book-case can be erected

in the space of a few minutes. Appearances have by no means been

overlooked; the panelled sides, bevelled edges, and other simple

ornaments, give to the cases a very neat and tasteful look. For

students, or others whose occupation may involve frequent change of

residence, these book-cases will be found most handy and desirable,

while, at the same time, they are so substantial, well-made, and

convenient, that they will be found equally suitable for the library

at home."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

The oe ligature has been replaced by 'oe' or 'OE'.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been

corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within

the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, misspelling by the author,

and inconsistent or archaic usage, has been retained. For example,

gravediggers, grave-diggers; head-dress, headdress; riband, ribbon;

ill luck, ill-luck; tragic, tragical; somerset; essay.

See the Note at the front of the book: This etext is derived from

#216 of the 300 copies printed. The duplicates of the portraits have

been removed.

p. vii 'Counttess' replaced by 'Countess'.

p. 21 'eat nor' replaced by 'ate nor'.

p. 60 'Oroonoko' replaced by '"Oroonoko"'.

p. 62 'to so many' replaced by 'to so many eras.'.

p. 93 'Westminister' replaced by 'Westminster'.

p. 163 'ex-hairdesser' replaced by 'ex-hairdresser'.

p. 197 'Sedaine' replaced by '"Sedaine"'.

p. 229 'dénoûment' replaced by 'dénouement'.

p. 336 'dénoûments' replaced by 'dénouements'.