was the loving and helping child of her mother; the loving and helping mother of her child, for both of whom she labored ungrudgingly, to the last. Hannah More, herself, would not harshly construe the conduct of her pupil. "I make the greatest allowance for inexperience and novel passions," was the cominent of Horace Walpole. "Poor Perdita!" said Mrs. Siddons, "I pity her from my very heart!"

She fell into bad hands,-beginning with those of her father. In her husband's, she was still less cared for, though she spent nearly a year with him in a sponging-house, to leave which she was importuned by worthless peers and equally worthless commoners, from ancient dukes down to young city merchants. There was a public admiration for her which scarcely any other actress so practically experienced. Thus, on the night in 1776, when the "Trip to Scarborough" was undergoing temporary but loud condemnation, Mrs. Yates, yielding to the storm, suddenly withdrew, and left Mrs. Robinson, as Amanda, standing alone on the stage, where she was so bewildered by the continued hissing, that the Duke of Cumberland stood up in his box, requested her not to be alarmed, and cheered her by calling out, "It is not you, but the piece, they are hissing."

She gave rather the promise than the actuality of a fine actress; she had good taste, and manifested it in an attention to costume, when propriety therein was not much cared for. She describes the outward presentment of her Statira (" Alexander the Great”), by saying: "My dress was white and blue, made after the Persian costume; and, though it was then singular on the stage, I wore neither a hoop nor powder. My feet were bound with sandals, richly ornamented; and the whole dress was picturesque and characteristic."

Between this period and the time when she lay stricken by paralysis, the interval was not long; and then the forsaken creature, if vanity abided with her, was obliged to content herself with reminiscences of the past,-when she was the Laura Maria of Della Crusca, and when Merry declared that future poets and ages would join, "to pour in Laura's praise, their melodies divine." During that same time, Peter Pindar called her "The nymph of my heart;" Burgoyne pronounced her "perfect as woman and

artist;" Tickle proclaimed her, "the British Sappho ;" John Tayor hailed her, "Pensive songstress ;" Boaden recorded her, " mentally perfect;" the Hon. John St. John asserted that "Nature had formed her, queen of song;" Kerr Porter saluted her in thundering heroics; and two theatrical parsons, Will Tasker and Panl Columbine, flung heaps of flowers at her feet, with the zeal of heathen priests before an incarnation of Flora.

And so passes by this vision of fair last-century women, to make way for a group of actors of the Garrick school,-standing a little apart from whom is John Henderson,-whom the town was willing to take for David's successor.

CHAPTER XVI.

A GROUP OF GENTLEMEN.

THE players of the Garrick period and the years immediately succeeding it, followed in due time their great master. Of these, Samuel Reddish was a player of that great epoch, who, for some especial parts, stood in the foremost rank. We first hear of him in the season of 1761-2, strengthening Mossop's company in Smock Alley, Dublin, by his performance of Etan, in the “Orphan of China." Of his origin, no one knows more than what he published of himself in the Irish papers,-that he was "a gentleman of easy fortune." This description was turned against him by his old enemy, Macklin, on one occasion, when Reddish, in a part he was acting, threw away an elegantly bound book, which he was supposed to have been reading. Macklin's comment was, that, however unnatural in the character he was representing, it was quite consistent in Mr. Reddish himself, who, "you know, has advertised himself as a gentleman of easy fortune."

In September, 1767, Reddish first appeared in London, at Drury Lane, as Lord Townly, to Mrs. Abington's "My Lady." A few nights after, he played Posthumus to the Imogen of Mrs. Baddeley. It was in this last character that he took his melancholy leave of the stage at Covent Garden, shaken in mind and memory, -on the 3d of May, 1779; Mrs. Bulkley was then the Imogen. His career in London was but of twelve years, and it might have been longer and more brilliant but for that fast life which consumed him, and for one illustration of which, when he was rendered incapable of acting, he made humble apology on the succeeding evening.

Within those dozen years, Sam Reddish played an infinite variety of characters, from tragedy to farce. Among those he originated were Darnley (“" Hypocrite"), Young Fashion (“Trip to Scarborough"), and Philotas ("Grecian Daughter"). As an actor VOL. IL-10

his voice and figure were highly esteemed in Dublin, but the latter was not considered so striking, in London. I gather from his critics, that Reddish was easy and spirited; that he spoke well in mere declamatory parts, but for want of feeling and variety in the play of his features, failed in parts of passion. His most attractive character was Edgar, in "King Lear;" Posthumus stood next; he thought Romeo was one of his happiest impersonations, but the public preferred his Macduff and Shylock. As Alonzo ("Revenge"), he made a favorable impression; his Castalio, Lothario, and Orlando, were indifferent, and his Alexander bad. Reddish was, however, an impulsive actor, often feeling more than the immobility of his features would permit him to show; and he endeavored to make up for it by violence and impetuosity of action. He was once acting Castalio, when the part of his brother Polydore was played by Smith. In the last act of the

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"Orphan," Polydore gives his brother the lie, calls him "coward!" adds "villain" and at length so exasperates Castalio that the latter, drawing his sword, exclaims, "This to thy heart, then, though my mother bore thee!" and before Smith was well ready for the fight, Reddish thrust his sword into him and stretched him bleeding on the stage. The next words Castalio should have uttered were, "What have I done? My sword is in thy breast!" but the poor fellow could only exclaim, "My sword. was in thy breast!" and the play came to an end. Smith, however, did not die (as in the play) with a "How my head swims! 'tis very dark! good night!" He recovered of his wounds, and lived to die again.

When Churchill said, "With transient gleam of grace Hart sweeps along," he was praising the lady whom Reddish married soon after he came to London, and who lost the "transient gleam" in ungracefully growing fat. His second wife was a woman of very different quality,-a respectable, but impoverished, widow in Mary-le-bone, named Canning, whose first husband had, in 1767, published a translation of the first book of Cardinal Polignac's Anti-Lucretius. The widow Canning's son, George, subsequently became prime minister of England, "for giving birth to whom," says Genest, "she was in due time rewarded with a handsome pension," which she enjoyed as Mrs. Hunn, down to 1827. Red

dish, I suppose, met with her on the stage at Drury Lane, where the lady made her first public appearance (6th of November, 1773) in "Jane Shore," Reddish playing her husband; while Garrick acted Hastings, at the request of several ladies of rank who patronized Mrs. Canning. She repeated Jane Shore, and subsequently played Perdita to the Florizel of "gentle" Cautherley, who was said to be a natural son, certainly a well-trained pupil, of Garrick. Her next part was Mrs. Beverley to Garrick's Beverley; her fourth Octavia (in "All for Love") to the Antony of Reddish, whose wife she became, or at least is said to have become, at an unlucky season. As early as the year 1773, Reddish exhibited one symptom of the malady which compelled him, ultimately, to retire, namely the want of memory, which indicates weakness of the brain. In March of that year, he played Alonzo, in Home's tragedy so called; he was the original representative of the part. Although Alonzo is the hero, he does not appear till the play is half over, and when the piece came to nearly that point on the particular night, Reddish was missing; a riot ensued, and his part was read by one of the Aikens. Just before the curtain fell, the truant appeared, declaring that he had only just remembered that it was not an oratorio night. His comrades believed him, and for fear the public should be less credulous, he ran from the theatre to Bow Street Office, and there, in presence of Sir Sampson Wright, made oath to the same effect. The affidavit was published the next day, and he thereto adds, "that this unhappy mistake may not be misconstrued into a wilful neglect of his duty, he most humbly begs pardon of the public for the disappointment." The public forgave him, and received him kindly on his next appearance. His wife, who was a favorite in the provinces, was ultimately hissed from the stage of Old Drury. Gradually, his memory grew more disturbed, till it could no longer be at all relied on. During the season 1777-8, he was incapable of acting, and was supported by the fund. In the following season, he essayed Hamlet, but it was almost as painful as the Ophelia of poor, mad, Susan Mountfort. Later in the season, in May, 1779, the managers gave him a benefit, when "Cymbeline" was acted, and Reddish was announced for Posthumus. An hour or two before the play began, he called at a friend's house, vacant,