rate that great event wherein he was a leader, by which the title of colored men as citizen soldiers was fixed beyond recall." Time is wanting to detail the labors, anxieties, and disappointments, the weary delays encountered, the antipathy and incredulity of the army and the public at the employment of colored men as soldiers even after the bloody assault on Fort Wagner; and the final triumph of the governor only after a long legal struggle, and after he and his colored soldiers had passed through great anxiety and misery. "I was opposed on nearly every side when I first favored the raising of colored regiments," said President Lincoln to General Grant; and no one can appreciate the heroism of Colonel Shaw and his officers and soldiers without adding to the savage threats of the enemy the disapprobation of friends, the antipathy of the army, the sneers of the multitude here, without reckoning the fire in the rear as well as the fire in front. One must have the highest form of courage not to shrink from such dismaying solitude. As to the fallen hero who "had put on the crown of martyrdom," the governor had selected him, after deliberation, from a family consecrated to patriotism; had admired his heroism and was heartsick at his loss. To express the universal grief at that loss and the appreciation of the great event in which he was a leader, this monument has been erected. The State, through Governor Long, generously offered to the committee an admirable site for the monument, but upon examination this was declined lest the State House grounds should be disfigured. In this emergency the city came to our rescue, and not only furnished the ground, but made a liberal contribution of the terrace and framework of the monument. We therefore must turn to you, Mr. Mayor, and transfer to your Honor this precious memorial. A generation has passed since this great work was contemplated. It is over twenty years since it was entrusted to the committee which I represent, and twelve years since it was confided to the sculptor, Mr. St. Gaudens. Two years was the time allotted for its completion. These two years have lengthened into twelve, a period of great anxiety for the committee lest they should not survive to accomplish their task, or, what was more important, lest the sculptor should be taken away, with his work unfinished. Those twelve years have been improved by the artist, whose inexorable conscience compelled him to prolong his labors at all hazards until his ideal should be realized. Your Honor has witnessed the unveiling of the monument, and will, I am sure, congratulate us that, thanks to the sculptor, we have builded better than we knew. No sweeter praise could be craved by any artist than the eulogy pronounced upon his work by the mother of the hero : "You have immortalized my native city, you have immortalized my dear son, you have immortalized yourself." FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE BORN IN LONDON, NOVEMBER 27, 1809; DIED IN [Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of the " Atlantic Monthly "] MRS. KEMBLE, whose death in London has been lately announced, had many friends of long standing in Boston, one of whom offers this memorial. Ever since Fanny Kemble burst upon the world, at the age of twenty, she has been an object of interest to the English race in both hemispheres. After a childhood of varied freedom and discipline, tending rather to develop than to regulate her capacities, this young girl was suddenly summoned to the stage, to rescue her father from impending ruin. It was a hazardous venture. The success was immediate and marvelous. A succès d'estime naturally awaited the advent of another Kemble; but the public, drawn to Covent Garden by mingled motives of curiosity to see a fresh débutante, of regard for the family, and of sympathy for their shipwrecked fortunes, were taken by storm, and continued to crowd the theatre for one hundred and twenty nights to weep over the woes of Juliet. Mrs. Kemble lacked the stature and perfect symmetry of Mrs. Siddons, but she had the noble head, the effulgent eyes, the sensitive mouth and flexible nostrils, the musical voice, the dignified and graceful gestures, which distinguished her aunt; and, in addition, the sense of humor, the mobile temperament quick as flame, the poetic sensibility, which characterized her mother. Three weeks was the ostensible term of preparation, the interval between her summons and her appearance; as to the rest, the poetry to feel and the dramatic faculty to represent, she had imbibed or inherited. So endowed, she soared at once to heights reached by others only after years of toil, substituting feeling for simulation, spontaneous action for studied gesture and movements, the intuition of poetic and dramatic genius for the training of talent; and this abandonment of herself to inspiration, "letting her heart go, while she kept her head," gave a vividness and pathos to her personations never equaled on the English stage in our day. Mrs. Kemble, in her Records, dwells much upon her ignorance of the details of her profession, and quotes with glee Mr. Macready's remark that she did not know the elements of it; but the readers of the life of that irritable actor will remember that he praises no contemporary, and her own criticisms must be taken with allowance for her extreme frankness and her exalted standard. That she fully comprehended the requirements of her calling, and devoted herself to it industriously, her letters manifest. That she might have arrived at greater perfection and uniformity, that she would have become more independent of her passing moods, of her fondness or aversion for her part, had she liked and pursued her profession, no one familiar with the art of acting as perfected on the French stage can doubt. But, as a critic truly says, "the greatest artist is she who is greatest in the highest reaches of her art, even although she may lack the qualities necessary for the adequate execution of some minor details; and no one who witnessed Mrs. Kemble's personations of Mrs. Beverley, Belvidera, Bianca, Julia, Portia, Katharine, Ophelia, Juliet, has ever had her image effaced from his mind's eye, or has ever enjoyed a glimpse of her successor. That she exercised this fascination, that she electrified audiences in the Old and New World by her acting, rests not upon the assertion of any one admirer; it is recorded in the annals of the time. That she numbered among her admirers not only the thoughtless many, but the judicious few, -Sir Walter Scott, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Rogers, Campbell, Sterling, Christopher North, Barry Cornwall, and their kindred on this side of the Atlantic; that she achieved two fortunes, winning independence for herself and for those she loved, are historical facts. Sterling, who saw her when she first appeared, says: "She was never taught to act at all; and though there are many faults in her performance of Juliet, there is more power than in any female playing I ever saw, cept Pasta's Medea." Sir Walter Scott said that she had great energy mingled with and chastened by correct taste, and that, for his part, he had seen nothing so good since Mrs. Siddons. Charles Greville, skeptical at first, is converted. "The Hunchback,' very good and a great success. Miss Fanny Kemble acted really well; for the first time, in my opinion, great acting. I have never seen anything since Mrs. Siddons (and perhaps Miss O'Neill) so good." Christopher North is most enthusiastic: "Her attitudes, her whole personal demeanor, are ex |