his costume in Shylock as too shabby.-Foote said of him, that he would not do ;' and Garrick's contempt of him amounted to personal enmity.-All this," says Mr. Galt, "serves to confirm the idea that he was not so extraordinary a man as his friends represented." With a little explanation, however, all this leads to no such conclusion. Colman's objection to his dress in Shylock was never confirmed by public opinion. On the contrary, according to tradition, Henderson was the happiest of all the actors of that part. Boaden observes, with great felicity of expression, that "the power of Henderson, as an actor, was analytic. He was not contented with the mere light of common meaning. He showed it you through a prism, and reflected all the delicate and mingling hues that enter into the composition of any ray of human character. Besides, he had a voice so flexible, that his tones conveyed all that his meaning would insinuate." This is the testimony of an ear and eye-witness, and it surely outweighs the assertion of Mr. Galt, who never saw him, that "Henderson was a mere mimic." That he had great powers of mimicry is certain; but what great comic actor was ever without them? Garrick himself delighted in imitating the gobbling of a turkey-cock.

Foote said of Henderson, that "he would not do." Yes; but it was before he had seen him on the stage. When he had seen him, he spoke of him as an actor of genius.

As to

Garrick's contempt of Henderson, according to Galt, approached to personal enmity. But, in the first place, contempt and enmity cannot very well exist together; and, in the next place, Garrick could have no contempt for Henderson, or else he would never have invited him from Bath to London. Garrick's enmity, it arose from Henderson's refusing his invitation to Drury Lane, and complying with the little manager's request to take him off before his face. Garrick had chuckled at Henderson's mimicry of all the other eminent players, and at last entreated to be taken off himself; but he sulked at the imitation, and never forgave it.

Professor Dugald Stewart, who knew Henderson, told me that his power of memory was the most astonishing he had ever met with. In the philosopher's presence he took up a newspaper, and, after reading it once, repeated such a portion of it as, to Mr. Stewart, seemed utterly marvellous. When he expressed his surprise, Henderson modestly replied, "If you had been obliged, like me, to depend, during many years, for your daily bread, on getting words by heart, you would not be so much astonished at habit having produced this facility."

"In the summer of 1782," Mrs. Siddons thus continues her Memoranda, "I received an invitation to revisit Drury Lane. After my former dismissal from thence, it may be imagined that this was to me a triumphant moment. My good reception in London I cannot but partly attribute to the enthusiastic accounts of me which the amiable Duchess of Devonshire had brought thither, and spread before my arrival. I had the honour of her acquaintance during her visit at Bath, and her unqualified approbation of my performances.'

Mrs. Siddons says she was truly touched at the thought of parting from her kind friends at Bath. She took leave of them

in the following lines of her own composition.

MRS. SIDDONS'S ADDRESS ON QUITTING THE BATH
THEATRE.

HAVE I not raised some expectation here ?—
Wrote by herself?-What! authoress and player ?—
True, we have heard her,-thus I guess'd you'd say,-
With decency recite another's lay;

But never heard, nor ever could we dream
Herself had sipp'd the Heliconian stream.
Perhaps you farther said,-excuse me, pray,
For thus supposing all that you might say,--
What will she treat of in this same address?
Is it to show her learning ?-Can you guess?
Here let me answer-No: far different views
Possess'd my soul, and fired my virgin Muse;
'Twas honest gratitude, at whose request
Shamed be the heart that will not do its best.
The time draws nigh when I must bid adieu
To this delightful spot-nay, ev'n to you-
To you, whose fost ring kindness rear'd my name,
O'erlooked my faults, but magnified my fame.
How shall I bear the parting? Well I know
Anticipation here is daily wo.

Oh! could kind Fortune, where I next am thrown,
Bestow but half the candour you have shown.
Envy, o'ercome, will hurl her pointless dart,
And critic gall be shed without its smart;
The numerous doubts and fears I entertain,
Be idle all-as all possess'd in vain.-
But to my promise. If I thus am bless'd,
In friendship link'd, beyond my worth caress'd,—
Why don't here, you'll say, content remain,
Nor seek uncertainties for certain gain?
What can compensate for the risks you run,
And what your reasons ?-Surely you have none.
To argue here would but your time abuse :

I keep my word-my reason I produce

[Here three children were discovered: they were HENRY, SALLY, and MARIA SIDDONS.]

1

These are the moles that bear me from your side,
Where I was rooted-where I could have died.
Stand forth, ye elves, and plead your mother's cause:
Ye little magnets, whose soft influence draws

Me from a point where every gentle breeze
Wafted my bark to happiness and ease-
Sends me adventurous on a larger main,
In hopes that you may profit by my gain.
Have I been hasty ?-am I then to blame?
Answer, all ye who own a parent's name.
Thus have I tired you with an untaught Muse,
Who for your favour still most humbly sues,
That you, for classic learning, will receive
My soul's best wishes, which I freely give-
For polished periods round, and touched with art,-
The fervent offering of my grateful heart.

Mrs. Siddons returned to Drury Lane theatre in 1782, and may be said to have mounted with but a few steps to unrivalled possession of the tragic throne. The oldest praisers of the bygone time scarcely pretended to have beheld or heard of her superior in acting, though they had seen the best actresses of the century, and had heard their fathers describe those of the age before.

When I entered on the Life of Mrs. Siddons, I felt curious to ascertain the traditional characters of those women who may be called her predecessors as the queens of our tragic stage; and, when any subject engages our own interest, we naturally imagine that it will not be wholly unattractive to the curiosity of others. I even felt as if there would be something like abruptness in commencing the history of her professional supremacy without some prefatory remarks on the previous state of female acting in England. This was, perhaps, taking an exaggerated view of the subject. But, at all events, as my retrospect of our greatest tragic actresses, anterior to Mrs. Siddons, will be brief, I hope the reader will not repudiate it as a wholly uninteresting digression.

It is true, that all the information to be gleaned respecting those elder actresses is very scanty; and it is the misfortune of histrionic genius that the most vivid portraits of it convey but vague conceptions of its excellence. And yet, amid all this vagueness, the mind can make out some general and trustworthy conclusions. I find, for instance, no queen of our stage so unequivocally extolled for majesty and beauty of person as Mrs. Siddons; nor any one whose sway over her audiences can be imagined to have been stronger. My inference is, if I may parody Milton's phrase, that she was the

fairest of her predecessors-and that if Time could rebuild his ruins, and react the lost scenes of existence, he would present no female to match her on the tragic stage.

CHAPTER III.

First Introduction of Females on the English Stage--Names and Characters of Mrs. Siddons's greatest Predecessors-Mrs. Betterton-Mrs. Anne Marshall-Mrs. Boutell-Mrs. Barry-Mrs. Bracegirdle-Mrs. Oldfield-Mrs. Porter-Mrs. Cibber-Mrs. Pritchard-Mrs. YatesMrs. Crawford.

UNTIL the time of Charles the Second, there were no women actors in our theatres. Female characters were performed by boys, or young men. Even after the Restoration, this custom was not all at once discontinued; and we hear of Kynaston, the last beautiful youth who figured in petticoats on the stage, having been carried about in his theatrical dress by ladies of fashion in their carriages. This was an unseemly spectacle, and we can forgive the Puritans for objecting to see men in women's clothing." But against this impropriety, the Puritans ought to have appealed to common sense and decency, instead of quoting a text from the Book of Deuteronomy, which forbids the appearance of men in female attire: for, though it is true that the Jewish law has interdicted the assumption of women's dress by men, yet it should be remembered that the Levitical law is not binding upon Christians.

66

The restorers of our theatres, without troubling themselves about the Puritans, followed the custom of the Continent, in bringing women upon the stage, putting a stop to the impersonation of queens and heroines by he-creatures, who had sometimes to be shaved before they acted. Yet this admission of women among the players, though a great natural improvement, occurred in times and circumstances that made it appear at first rather an unfavourable change for the moral character of the stage. Since the death of Shakspeare, and during the latter part of James's reign, the drama had grown more and more licentious. The speeches which stage-heroines had to hear and utter were so gross, that the Puritans pronounced it impossible for any woman who was not a courtesan to tread the boards; and Charles the Second, who had re-opened the theatres, and

was effectively the manager of one of them, seemed as if he strove for a wager to make good the words of the Puritans. Considering the profligacy of the age, it is more wonderful that a few actresses, and these the best, were unexceptionable private characters, than that the stage gave its contingent to Charles's seraglio.*

Though, even in those times, the lives of Mrs. Betterton and other actresses belied the puritanic assertion that no modest woman could tread the boards, still modern civilization has robbed the Puritans of the strongest objection which they could allege against the theatre, namely, the grossness of its language; so that the most delicate female need not now At present, after shrink from the profession on that account.

*Among Charles's mistresses, his "Loves of the Theatre" were the least expensive and unpopular. Nell Gwynne, it is true, had 1500l. a year; but the Duchess of Cleveland had 47001.: the Duchess of Portsmouth had still more. The latter were hated by the whole nation; while Nelly, who was called the "Poor Man's Friend," was literally a general favourite, and not undeservedly; for, bred as she had been, as an orange-girl, amid the haunts of dissipation, vice was more her destiny than her blame. She was really a good-hearted woman, and, in the days of her prosperity, showed herself grateful to her old friends; among whom she had the honour of ranking Otway and Dryden. She was faithful to the king, never pestered him about politics, and was never the creature of ministers. Once, when Charles had ordered an extravagant service of plate, as a present to the Duchess of Portsmouth, from a jeweller in Cheapside, an immense crowd collected about the shop, cursing the duchess, and wishing that the plate were melted and poured should not be bedown her throat. But they added, "What a pity stowed on Madam Ellen!"

Nell was often successful in throwing ridicule on her rival the Duchess of Portsmouth, originally Mlle. Querouaille. She pretended to be related to the best families of France; and, whenever one of their members died, she put herself into mourning. It happened that news of the Cham of Tartary's death had lately reached England. A prince of France was also recently dead, and the Duchess of Portsmouth was, of Nell came to court in the same attire, and, standing course, in sables. close by her grace, was asked by one of her friends why she was in "Oh!" said Nell, "have you not heard of my loss, in the mourning? death of the Cham of Tartary ?"-" And what the deuse," replied her friend, "was the Cham of Tartary to you?"-"Oh," answered Nell, was to Mlle. Querou"exactly the same relation that the Prince of

aille."

The mistaken tradition of Ellen Gwynne having founded Chelsea Hospital probably arose from her character for benevolence, as well as from her frequently visiting Chelsea, where her mother lived many years, and where the old woman died, in consequence of falling one day into the Thames, when looking out of her window. What had made her top-heavy

is not recorded.