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.

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 placeman of him, O'Brien grew ashamed of his vocation. "If we 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 Psyche 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,

such a sorry rascal as Ancient Pistol,-Theophilus Cibber, in fact, should have boldly cast that one of his two squinting eyes, which he could bring to bear with most effect upon a lady. When, as a newly-married couple, they stood before Colley Cibber, they must have looked like Beauty and the Beast!

Beauty soon overcame the elder Cibber's antipathy. Colley could not withstand the new magic to which he was subjected; and when it was first proposed that the brilliant vocalist should become a regular actress, Colley, however much he may have shaken his head, at first, favored the design, and gave all necessary instructions to his winning, beautiful, and docile daughter-in-law. Can you not see the pair in that first floor in Russell Street? Half the morning, she has been repeating Zara, never wearied by Cibber's frequent interruptions. Perseverance was ever one of her great characteristics; and she carries herself, and sweeps by with her train, and speaks meltingly or sternly, in grief or in anger, her voice silvery and, with its modulation, under command,—a voice in the very sound of which there were smiles or tears, sunshine or storm:-all this she does, or exercises, at Colley's sole suggestions, you suppose. Not a bit of it! Susanna Cibber has a little will of her own: and she is quite right, for she has as much intellect as will, and docile as she is when she sees the value of Colley's teaching, she supports her own views when she is satisfied that these are superior to the ideas of the elderly gentleman, who, standing in an attitude for imitation, to which she opposes one of her own, lets the frown on his brow pass off into a smile, as he protests, "foregad!" that the saucy thing could impart instruction to himself.

On the 12th of January, 1736, the great attempt was made, and Mrs. Cibber came out as Zara, to the Lusignan of Milward, the Nerestan of her husband, and the Selima of Mrs. Pritchard, who had not yet reached the position which this young actress occupied at a bound, but beyond which Mrs. Pritchard was destined yet to go.

For fourteen consecutive nights, Susanna drowned houses in tears, and stirred the very depth of men's hearts, even her husband's, who was so affected that he claimed, and obtained, the doubling of the salary first agreed on for his wife. Theophilus,

of course, did not keep the money; he spent it all, to his great, temporary, satisfaction. His wife's next appearance was in come dy,-Indiana (" Conscious Lovers"), where the neat simplicity of her manners, and the charm which she seemed to shed on even common-place expressions, formed a strong contrast to the more solemn but stilted dignity of her tragedy queens, the glory of which faded before the perfection of her Ophelia. For this character, her voice, musical qualities, her figure, and her inexpressibly sweet features, all especially suited her. Wilkinson states that no eloquence could paint her distressed and distracted look, when she said: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be!" Charming in all she undertook, all her critics pronounced her unapproachable in Ophelia, and through all the traditions of the stage, there is not one more abiding than that which says that Mrs. Cibber was identified with the distraught maiden. Her Juliet, Constance, Belvidera, exhibited rare merits, while as Alicia, in the mad scene, "the expression of her countenance, and the irresistible magic of her voice, thrilled to the very soul of her whole audience," says Murphy. Wilkinson was powerless when attempting to mimic the voice and expression of Mrs. Cibber. The tone, manner, and method of Garrick, Quin, Mrs. Bellamy, Mrs. Crawford (Barry), nay, even the very face of Mrs. Woffington, he could reproduce with wonderful approach to exactness. But Mrs. Cibber's excellence baffled him. He remembered her and it, but he could not do more than remember. "It is all in my mind's eye," he would say, with a sigh at his incapacity.

In fine ladies and in sprightly comedy,-save in the playful delivery of epilogues,-Mrs. Cibber comparatively failed. Among her original characters were the Lady, in "Comus," Sigismunda, Aspasia, in Johnson's "Irene," Zaphira, in "Barbarossa," and Colia, in Whitehead's comedy, the "School for Lovers." In these, as in all she played, I collect from various sources, that Mrs. Cibber was distinguished for unadorned simplicity, artless sensibility, harmony of voice, now sweetly plaintive, now grandly powerful, and eyes that in tender grief seemed to swim in tears; in rage, to flash with fire; in despair, to become as dead. Her beauty did not so much consist in regularity of feature as in variety and power of expression; with this, she had symmetry of