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And mingle with our feelings, even so

Will the heart's widest pulses sink to rest,

How have I loved, when the red evening fill'd
Our temple with its glory, first, to gaze
On the strange contrast of the crimson air,
Lighted as if with passion, and flung back,
From silver vase and tripod rich with gems,
To the pale statues round, where human life
Was not, but beauty was, which seemed to have
Apart existence from humanity:

Then, to go forth where the tall waving pines
Seem'd as behind them roll'd a golden sea,
Immortal and eternal; and the boughs,
That darkly swept between me and its light,
Were fitting emblems of the worldly cares
That are the boundary between us and heaven;
Meanwhile, the wind, a wilful messenger
Lingering amid the flowers on his way,
At intervals swept past in melody,
The lutes and voices of the choral hymn
Contending with the rose-breath on his wing!
Perhaps it is these pleasures' chiefest charm,
They are so indefinable, so vague.

From earliest childhood all too well aware
Of the uncertain nature of our joys,

It is delicious to enjoy, yet know

No after consequence will be to weep.

Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have
Delight in things that are but of the mind;
But half humility when we partake
Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines
And struggles in its fetters, and disdains
The low base clay to which it is allied.
But here our rapture raises us: we feel
What glorious power is given to man, and find
Our nature's nobleness and attributes,
Whose heaven is intellect; and we are proud
To think how we can love those things of earth
Which are least earthly; and the soul grows pure
In this high communing, and more divine.

This time of dreaming happiness pass'd by,
Another spirit was within my heart;

I drank the maddening cup of praise, which grew
Henceforth the fountain of my life; I lived
Only in others' breath; a word, a look,
Were of all influence on my destiny:

If praise they spoke, 'twas sunlight to my soul;
Or censure, it was like the scorpion's sting."

Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, interspersed with Anecdotes of Authors and Actors. By James Bouden, Esq. London: Colburn.

If we were to look at this work merely in a literary point of view, we should say that a more contemptible production in point of style, description, reasoning or judgment, never issued from the press. The author's defects are glaring in themselves, and are rendered more offensive by the self-conceit which pervades the whole. His mode of stringing sentences together, seem to be formed on the model of the " Biographical Memoir of the late Ackerstone Bownscourt "Pip," inserted in one of the recent numbers of the New Monthly Magazine. Take the following as an example :

"Davies's countenance was Garrick's, with all its fire quenched. His countenance " was placid and genteel, and in my youth, I used to call in upon him, and enjoy his kind " and "communicative spirit, in the small parlour behind his shop in Russell Street, Covent "Garden."

His description of the actors whom he criticizes, are equally involved, and considerably more obscure, so as almost to deprive this, the best portion of the work, of its little merit.

The book, however, will be read for the sake of the individual whose memoirs it purposes to contain; and low as our opinion is of the abilities of the compiler, we are ready to admit, that it is not unamusing from the glimpses it affords us of the manners, and persons, and merits, of the by-gone heroes and heroines of the Drama, and from the notice of plays long since gone" to the tomb of all "the Capulets." If any one expects to find in it an account of Mrs. Siddons's life, with any private anecdotes not generally known, or even a sound and critical examination of her merits, he will be mistaken. Mr. Boaden forgets his heroine in himself; and the work, from the manner in which it is conducted, should have been entitled, "James Boaden's Recollections of the Drama, and Dramatic Authors "and Performers, interspersed with allusions to Mrs. Siddons." We really must quit the attempt to review his work, for we find, that the influence of his style communicates itself to us, and makes us dull and bewildered. We shall leave the reader to judge from a few extracts of the merits and demerits.

"My friend John Bannister gave me the following accurate detail of his own reception by Garrick; and even in the narrative veneration of the actor, the reader may indulge a smile at the vanity of the manager.

I was,' says the admirable comedian, a Student of Painting in the Royal Academy, when I was introduced to Mr. Garrick---under whose superior genius the British Stage then flourished beyond all former example.

"One morning I was shewn into his dressing-room, when he was before the glass preparing to shave---a white night-cap covered his forehead---his chin and cheeks were enveloped in soap-suds---a razor-cloth was placed upon his left shoulder, and he turned and smoothed the shining blade with so much dexterity, that I longed for a beard, to imitate his incomparable method of handling the razor.

"Eh! well---what, young man---so---eh! You are still for the stage? Well, now, what character do you, should you like to---eh ?'

I should like to attempt Hamlet, Sir.'

Eh! what, Hamlet the Dane? Zounds! that's a bold--a---Have you studied

the part?' 'I have, Sir.' 'Well, don't mind my shaving. Speak your speech, the speech to the Ghost---I can hear you. Come, let's have a roll and a tumble.' (A phrase of his often used to express a probationary specimen.)

"After a few hums and haws, and a disposing of my hair, so that it might stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretful porcupine,' I supposed my father's ghost before me, arm'd cap à piè,' and off I started.'

'Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd!

Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell!
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet!
King, Father, Royal Dane !---O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance.'

I concluded with the usual

(He wiped the razor.

(He strapped it. (He shaved on.

(He lathered again.

'Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?'

but still continued in my attitude, expecting the praise due to an exhibition, which I was booby enough to fancy was only to be equalled by himself. But, to my eternal mortification, he turned quick upon me, brandished the razor in his hand, and thrusting his half-shaved face close up to mine, he made such horrible mouths at me, that I thought he was seized with insanity, and I shewed more natural symptoms of being frightened at him, than at my father's Ghost. 'Angels and ministers! yaw! whaw! maw!' However, I soon perceived my vanity by his ridicule. He finished shaving, put on his wig, and, with a smile of good-nature, he took me by the hand. 'Come,' said he, young gentleman,---eh, let us see now what we can do.' HE spoke the speech---how he spoke it, those, who have heard him never can forget. There,' said he,' young gentleman; and when you try that speech again, give it more passion, and less mouth.'

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"Bannister's reverence for his great master might not lead him to inquire how often this scene had been played in the same place before? But he could hardly fail to perceive that the tutor on the present occasion was at least as fond of exhibition as the pupil.”

The following is a favorable specimen of his criticism, in which we entirely coincide, and which we wish managers and actors would attend to:

"We are so fond of this fancied Academus of ours, the play-house, that we have begun to invest the player himself with a sort of philosophic dignity; from one extreme we have passed to another, and as Johnson deemed a player too low to be honourable even with gratitude for the good he had done, so we seem to think him morally too high to be endured in the common disorders of his species. In the case of an actor, whose habits of life were long known to us---when his profligacy could surprise no one, and the other parties were none of the purest, a critic of the new school turns round upon the luckless peripatetic (stroller), and demands in a voice of thunder, how he dares to be a culprit, with the moral sentiments of Shakspeare nightly flowing from his lips? But if the reader will attentively peruse the CLIId sonnet of Shakspeare, and refer its subject to the feelings of some persons alive when he wrote it, he will see that he might turn in this way upon the great moral teacher himself, and ask how he dared to display unblemished purity to the admiration and study of the world?

He who like Shakspeare embraced the sum of life, and wrote in a manner little artificial and systematic, supplies not the formal but the just demands of every occasion; he cannot therefore but abound in beauties both moral and descriptive; some of these, dragged from their proper places, become the favourites of the superficial, and pass as a common coin in conversation. They give an appearance of reading to idleness, and of taste to coarse complexions.' Their recitation is usually attended by a seeming rush of sensibility, and forms one of the grateful triumphs of affectation over the laborious and unlettered.

"Even on the stage these beauties sometimes produce a ludicrous effect---ludicrous I mean from the disproportion as to the cause. That part of the audience which has had

*He justified Savage, because he thought him forsooth a nobleman, for not recording his obligations to Mrs. Oldfield's bounty.

its taste formed by one of the popular selections, in the performance of a play, is most attentive to what it best knows, the fine things extracted. A slight whisper is heard in the house just before the admired passage is delivered, followed by immense applause when it is concluded. The actor, always disposed to refer this to himself, learns to humour this tendency in the audience by an awful preparation and more sonorous declamation. Let the reader remember the baseless fabric of Prospero,---the seven ages of Jacques,---the quality of mercy of Portia,---the patience on a monument of Viola; and consider how false a delivery of them on the stage has resulted from the particular expectation thus excited. "But Heraclitus himself would laugh at the instance I am going to commemorate in Othello. There is in this play a very civil, modest, silent gentlewoman, who is the wife of Othello's Ensign, and who has the honour to attend upon the great Captain's Captain, the virtuous Desdemona. The christian name of this lady, (for by the baptismal name only either she or her husband is known through the play,) is Emilia. Now, after this lady is once introduced to us in the acted play, she says nothing of the slightest moment, and does but one thing of any consequence, namely, to steal the handkerchief upon which her lady set so great a value. We look at the actress who personates this character, and soon find that she entertains a very different notion of its importance. Kept unwillingly in the back ground, longing to break forth, and shew the wonders of her voice and the energy of her action, she contrives by out-dressing her lady, and the aid of a rich plume of feathers, to do almost nothing through four tedious acts, but waves her promise to the spectators, that, at last, their patience shall be repaid. The happy moment arrives; Othello throws off all reserve, abuses his wife in the grossest language, and leaves her as much amazed as grieved.---Iago enters to comfort her. Then comes Emilia's turn, and forth she rushes to pronounce the following favourite morceau.

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Emil.---I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,

Some cogging cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devis'd this slander; I'll be hang'd else.
Iago.---Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
Des.--- If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
'Emil.---A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!

:

Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
What time? what place? what form? what likelihood?
The Moor's abus'd by some outrageous knave,

Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow :
Oh, heaven, that such companions thou'dst unfold;
And put in every honest hand a whip

To lash the rascal naked through the world!'

Here taking her ground upon the virtuous indignation of the audience, the actress becomes a perfect fury and as if she waved the brand of Tisiphone, or rather the whip of the beadle, parades herself to the lamps in a semi-circle, and speaks thunder to the Gods themselves. Those generous deities, scorning to be outdone in noise, send down a roar to tear hell's concave.' The actress in consequence has to boast through life How she used to get six rounds of applause in the part: and How she beat the gentle Desdemona (perhaps Mrs. Siddons) to a dead stand still, by this over-strained and vulgar violence*.

"Of late years it has been even worse; for measuring, I suppose, the efficacy of the chastisement by the vigour of the arm, if they have fortunately, in the company of either theatre, a lady of the heroic frame, and more than common tall,' SHE is always the representative of Emilia: and should any timid daughter of Melpomeme make her debut in the part of Desdemona, the amazon, like another Glumdalclitch, immediately assumes the care of her, struts by her side, or overshadows her in the rear, until the proper moment arrives of stifling all her puny exertions as above, and the Moor succeeds to smother her altogether."

That Shakspeare himself repressed, with all his might, the tendency to such display, is obvious, by the few words which close the speech--

"Even from the east to the west."

But the corrective on the stage is judiciously omitted.

The description of Miss Satchell in the following extract is interesting :

"Among the memorables of the season, were a performance of Lady Randolph, by Mrs. Crawford. A farce called Fire and Water, by Andrews, remembered only for the younger Colman's jest--- it made a hiss.' Mrs. Cargill's appearance there as Euphrosyne, in Comus, and Miss Satchell's first appearance in Polly. It was the apotheosis of Polly, but her own martyrdom. The stage never in my time exhibited so pure, so interesting a candidate as Miss Satchell---her modest timidity---her innocence---the tenderness of her tones, and the unaffected alarm that sat upon her countenance---altogether won for her at once a high place in the public regard, which she cultivated long and extended under the appellation---Mrs. Stephen Kemble. This young lady carried into a family abounding in talent, powers of so peculiar a kind, so perfect, so unapproachable, that, if they were inferior as to their class, they shared a kindred pre-eminence. No one ever like her presented the charm of unsuspecting fondness, or that rustic simplicity, which removed immeasurably from vulgarity, betrays nothing of the world's refinement, and is superior to its cunning. Double entendre in her presence had nothing beyond the single sense that might meet the ear of modesty. I have often listened to the miserable counterfeit of what she was, and would preserve, if language could but do it, her lovely impersonation of artless truth. But it may be gathered critically in its abstract, by the negative assistance of many of its modish imitations. The FANCY may restore her, or be contented at least with its own creation. That of Steele, in one of its softest inspirations, first saw her about the year 1674, on the continent of America, fondly bending over a young European, whom she had preserved from her barbarous countrymen; she was banquetting him with delicious fruits, and playing with his hair. He called the vision. Yarico Chateaubriand, a century after, beheld it with additional charms, and named it Atala.*

We should be glad to be able to give some readable extract relative to Mrs. Siddons herself, but the author's notices of her are so mixed up with digressive twaddle of his own upon the plays which she performed in, that a selection is difficult. The following is an account of her performance in 1782, when she had returned to London after her temporary failure, and with this we must close our extracts from the first volume:

"Let us, however, avoid decision upon this question, and examine what she displayed in 1782, as the representative of Southern's enchanting Isabella. Time had bestowed the tender dignity of the mother upon her beauty. As she came upon the stage with her son followed by Villeroy, though desirous to avoid his suit, her step was considerate, and her head declined slightly, her eye resting upon her son. The first impression having been deeply made by her exterior, the audience was soon struck by the melancholy sweetness with which the following exquisite passage came upon the ear---referring to Biron--

"O, I have heard all this;

But must no more: the charmer is no more.
My buried husband rises in the face

Of my dear boy, and chides me for my stay.
Can'st thou forgive me, child?"

and her fair admirers were in tears as she questioned her son.
the perfect cadence of the next allusion to him:

"Sorrow will overtake thy steps TOO SOON ;

I should not hasten it.'

No art ever surpassed

"On remarquoit sur son visage je ne sais quoi de vertueux et de passionné, dont l'attrait etoit irresistible. Elle joignoit à cela des grâces plus tendres: une extrême sensibilité unie à une mélancolie profonde, respiroit dans ses regards: son sourire etoit celeste."

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