Read by the way. In the street she sent the footman back, for a particular cap in which she was to be painted; a few moments after she was out of sight, a couple of chairmen were carrying her to Covent Garden Church, where Mr. O'Brien was waiting for her, and, the wedding ceremony being performed, the happy and audacious pair posted down to the bridegroom's villa at Dunstable. Only the night before he had played Squire Richard, in the "Provoked Husband."

This ended O'Brien's brief theatrical career of about eight years; and therewith departed from the stage the most powerful rival Woodward ever encountered upon it; the original actor of Young Clackit, in the "Guardian," Lovel, in "High Life below Stairs," Lord Trinkett, in the "Jealous Wife," Beverley, in "All in the Wrong," Colonel Tamper, in the "Deuce is in Him," &c.

In one character O'Brien must have exhibited extraordinary humor, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. He was playing it on the 19th of October, 1763, a period when it was the custom to have two sentinels posted on either side of the stage, and one of these fellows was so overcome by Sir Andrew's comicality, that he laughed till he fell, to the infinite amusement of all who witnessed the circumstance.

O'Brien's marriage caused a sensation in the Fashionable World, and brought sorrow to some parties. On April the 9th, 1764, Walpole writes to Mann :-"A melancholy affair has happened to Lord Ilchester; his eldest daughter, Lady Susan (Strangways), a very pleasing girl, though not handsome, married herself, two days ago, at Covent Garden Church, to O'Brien, a handsome young actor. Lord Ilchester doated on her, and was the most indulgent of fathers. 'Tis a cruel blow!" Three days after, Walpole writes to Lord Hereford, "Poor Lady Susan O'Brien is in the most deplorable situation, for her Adonis is a Roman Catholic, and cannot be provided for out of his calling." Sir Francis Delaval, one of the rich amateur actors of his time, touched by her calamity, "made her a present of-what do you think!" asks Horace," of a rich gold stuff! The delightful charity! O'Brien comforts himself, and says it will make a shining passage in his little history!"

As O'Brien had not the means whereby to live without acting,

his wife's noble family thought it would be no disgrace, to hide the disgrace which had fallen upon it, by providing for the young couple at the public expense. Accordingly, a grant of lands in America was procured for them, and thither they went. On Christmas Day, 1764, Charles Fox writes of his cousin, to Sir George Macartney:-"We have heard from Lady Susan since her arrival at New York. I do not think they will make much of their lands, and I fear it will be impossible to get O'Brien a place.” When Charles Fox wrote this, he was about fifteen, and looked as handsome as he does in the famous picture at Holland House, which contains also the portraits of Lady Susan, who married the actor, and Lady Sarah Lennox (Bunbury), who did not marry the king.

The Board of Ordnance ultimately provided for O'Brien, and the player and his aristocratic wife were away between seven and eight heavy years, beyond the Atlantic. Weary of their banishment, they returned to England, without leave asked of the Board. O'Brien was not the only officer in England without leave. In the Last Journals of Horace Walpole, which I edited in 1858, the Journalist says::-"General Conway was laboring to reform that department (the Board of Ordnance), and had ordered all the officers under it to repair to their posts, those in America particularly, who had abandoned their duty. O'Brien received orders among the rest, to return, but he refused. Conway declared they would dismiss him. Lord and Lady Holland interposed; but Conway was firm, and he turned out O'Brien."

Lord Ilchester, albeit ashamed of his son-in-law, was not ashamed to write to Lord North, soliciting a place for O'Brien ; but Lord North did not even reply to the letter. It is just possible that the player was a proximate cause of Fox's withdrawal from the administration, and his becoming in permanent opposition to the Court. Fox had spoken against Lord North, and the latter endeavored to conciliate him. "He weakly and timidly called him aside, and asked him if he had seen Maclean, who had got the post which had been asked for O'Brien, and who would make O'Brien his deputy; but this Fox received with contempt."

Let me remark here, that in "blood" young O'Brien was the equal of Lady Susan. In the days of Charles I., Stephen Fox, her

ancestor, was bailiff to Sir Edward Nicolas, the King's secretary, at Winterbourne, Wilts; where Stephen (not yet Sir Stephen), occasionally officiated as clerk of the parish. At that time the direct ancestor of our lucky actor was a member of that ancient family of those O'Briens, who generally contrived to take opposite sides in every quarrel. William O'Brien's grandfather was faithful to the cause of James II., and on the capitulation of Limerick, made his way to France, where he served in the Irish brigade, under O'Brien, Viscount Clare. That brigade, many of whose members "took to the road" in France, in order to support themselves, turned out first-rate fencing masters, who lived by teaching. Such was the father of our O'Brien, and such was the family history of the actor; and surely the descendant of King Brien of the Tributes, was of as good blood as the daughter of a house, the first worthy, that is to say fortunate member, of which was parish clerk in a Wiltshire village.

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O'Brien failing to obtain a post, or to enjoy the laborious luxury of a sinecure, turned his attention to writing for the stage, and on the night of December 8, 1772, he produced two pieces—at Drury Lane, his comedy of "The Duel;" at Covent Garden his comedietta, "Cross Purposes." The first is an adaptation of the Philosophe sans le savoir," in which Barry did not more affect his audience than I have seen Baptiste ainé do, on the French stage. "The Duel," however, failed, through the mawkish, sentimental scenes which the adapter worked in, at the suggestion of some of his noble relatives, who spoiled his play, but made him pecuniary compensation for its ill-fortune.

"Cross purposes," also an adaptation-from "Les trois frères rivaux," was more lucky. It was levelled at the follies of the day, and every one was amused by the light satire. In the first piece, Barry was sublime in his affectation of cheerfulness, on his daughter's wedding-day, while his son is engaged in a duel fought under paternal sanction. In the second, Shuter as Grub, and Quick as Consol, made the house as hilarious, as Barry, in the scenes in which he was engaged, made his audience sympathetic.

Mrs. Cibber, addressing Mrs. Woffington, in the "Dialogue in the Shades," speaks of O'Brien and Powell as the only actors of eminence who had appeared since Margaret's time. O'Brien was VOL. II.-3

entirely in Woodward's line, from Mercutio to Harlepuin. I collect from Genest, that after his aristocratic connections made a "If we placeman of him, O'Brien grew ashamed of his vocation. may judge from . . . . what I was told in 1803, when I resided in his neighborhood, O'Brien had, since he left the stage, wished to sink the player, and to bury in oblivion those years of his life which are the most worth being remembered—ashamed, perhaps, of a profession which is no disgrace to any one who conducts himself respectably in it, and in which to succeed, is, generally speaking, a proof of good natural abilities, and a diligent application of them -Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius. It is not everybody that can make even a moderate actor."

O'Brien left the stage after playing Squire Richard, and subsequently he became "William O'Brien, of Swinsford, County of Dorset, Esq." His wife died on the 9th of August, 1827, on which night the Haymarket company acted the "Poor Gentleman !"

Before Barry reappeared in London, the stage suffered more serious losses than these. At one, Garrick uttered a cry—as of anguish, at the falling away of the brightest jewel of the stage.

CHAPTER V.

SUSANNA MARIA CIBBER.

"MRS. CIBBER dead!" said Garrick, "then tragedy has died with her!" When he uttered this, on the 31st of Janury, 1766, he little knew that a young girl, named Sarah Kemble, then in her twelfth year, was a strolling actress, playing juvenile tragedy, and light opera, was reciting or singing between the acts, and was preparing herself for greatness.

Let us look back to the early time and the room over the upholsterer's shop, in King Street, Covent Garden, where Tom Arne and his sister, Susanna Maria, are engaged in musical exercises. Tom ought to have been engrossing deeds, and that fair and graceful, and pure-looking girl, to be thinking of any thing but coming out in Lampe's opera, "Amelia," the words by Carey. The old Roman Catholic upholsterer had been sorely tried by the heterodox inclinations of his children. They lived within sound of the musical echoes of the theatres, and thereof came Dr. Arne, the composer, and his sister, the great singer, the greater and ever youthful actress.

In 1732, Susanna Maria Arne appeared successfully in Lampe's serious opera," Amelia," which was "set in the Italian manner," and brought out at what was called the "French Theatre," in the Haymarket. Miss Arne was then about twenty years of age, with a symmetry of figure and a sweetness of expression which she did not lose during the four-and-thirty years she continued on the stage. In the Venus of her early days, she was as beautiful as the Venus Popularia, whose mother was Dione, and her Psychc was as timid, touching, and inquiring, as she who charmed the gods from the threshold of Olympus.

It is not pleasant to think that on a young creature so fair, bright, pure, and accomplished, an honest man's honest daughter,

‚—an