best characters in comedy, and Lear his chef-d'œuvre in tragedy. The anecdotes of Garrick convince us of his genius more forcibly than do even the traditions of his acting. At friends' tables he would sometimes do what he called his "rounds," striking every chord of passion, touching every note from despair to ecstacy. His two favorite imitations were extraordinary the one was that of a man who, playing with his child at a window, lets it accidentally fall; Garrick used to give the grief and final madness of the man, a moment before so happy, till there was not a dry eye in the room. The second imitation was that of a pastrycook's boy, who accidentally drops his tray of tarts in the gutter. His face in this expressed an extraordinary transition from stupid surprise to terror and hopeless grief. He challenged Preville, the French actor, to see which could imitate best a drunken man on horseback. Preville was eventually pronounced not to be drunk enough in the legs. The stories of Garrick are innumerable. He is said to have frightened a footman who had murdered his master, by assuming the face of the murdered man. Garrick is reported to have sat to Hogarth for a portrait of Fielding, whose features he imitated from memory. The last season of Garrick's stage career he had Drury Lane refronted by the brothers Adam, who built the Adelphi. The façade was fitted with pilasters, pediments, balcony, and colonnade. Great improvements were made in the approaches to the boxes, and part of the Rose Tavern in Brydgesstreet was removed to give more room. Sheridan, in 1776, began a treaty for Drury Lane, then valued at £70,000; Sheridan miraculously found £15,000, and Linley and Ford, his partners, £10,000 each. In 1778 the reckless Sheridan bought Lacy's moiety for £45,000; of this money the other partners found £10,000, and took Sheridan's original share as an equivalent. He afterward purchased Dr. Ford's share for £17,000. Garrick lived to see the beginning of Sheridan's ruin. The management was already relying on pantomime and Grimaldi's drollery. The great actor died in 1779, and was buried in the Abbey. "The gayety of Nature was eclipsed, and Death had impoverished the stock of harmless. pleasure." PEG WOFFINGTON. No article on Drury Lane is complete without mentioning three of those distinguished actresses whose caprices and petulancies were the torment of Garrick's managerial life. Foremost among the actresses of that day smiled saucily Peg Woffington the brilliant and bewitching. She was the daughter of a small huckster in Dublin, and had been at first a pupil to a rope-dancer. Sir Harry Wildair was her great character; but she could play Lady Townley and Lady Betty Modish with happy ease and gayety. She lived for some time with Garrick, but they eventually quarreled, and Woffington then betook herself to Covent Garden. Her demure face could brighten up into the utmost archness and vivacity. She quarreled with Kitty Clive and Mrs. Cibber, and still more bitterly with that reckless creature, George Anne Bellamy, the daughter of a Quakeress, whom Lord Tyrawly had carried off from a boarding-school. The Bellamy was thought only inferior to the Cibber in expressing the passion of love. She was the original Volumina of Thomson, the Erixene of Dr. Young, and the Cleone of Dodsley. MRS. ABINGTON AND KITTY CLIVE, Mrs. Abington-Garrick's special horror and the best affected fine-lady of her time, who was always squabbling about her benefit and sending lawyer's letters to the manager-was the daughter of a common soldier. As a girl she had sold flowers in St. James's Park. Kitty Clive completes the trio. "Pivy," as Garrick called her, was the most vivacious and versatile of actresses, either as chambermaid, virago, hoyden, romp, fine lady, or old woman. Walpole often mentions her as a pleasant neighbor, and her letters to him and Garrick are delightfully naïve. She died suddenly, without a groan, in 1785. And here we may add a line in postscript to include Mrs. Pritchard, the "inspired idiot," Dr. Johnson called her, who spoke vulgarly when off the stage. She was a forcible and dignified Lady Macbeth, but inclined to rant when she could, and never very graceful. She was a good comedian in playful and witty parts, but afterward she grew coarse and stout. Here the silver-toned Mrs. Billington appeared in the opera of Rosetta. Haydn, the composer, who admired this lady greatly, observed of Sir Joshua Reynolds' celebrated picture of her-where she is represented as "St. Cecilia " listening to the heavenly choir-"It is a very fine likeness, but there is a strange mistake in the picture. You have painted her listening to the angels; you ought to have represented the angels listening to her." MRS. SIDDONS. The advent of Mrs. Siddons is an epoch in the annals of Drury. She appeared there first in 1775 as Portia ; but her first real triumph was in 1780 as Isabella in Southerne's tragedy. She was the daughter of poor actor, and the wife of a poorer. Nobody at first cared for her; but after her triumph the management awarded her Garrick's dressing-room, and some legal admirers presented her with a purse of one hundred guineas. Her career after that knew no check, though she failed as Rosalind, and in comedy was only what Colman called "a frisking grig." Every spectator who has left record of the impressions she produced on him testifies to her grace, noble carriage, dignity, fine elocution, sol She was accused by some of her envious contemporaries of parsimony, and of having allowed an abandoned sister almost to perish of starvation. But there is no proof that she was ever more than justly prudent. She closed her career in 1812 with her great character, Lady Macbeth, and died in 1831. JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. But the chosen niche in this chapter, the place of vantage, we must give to that "noblest Roman of them all," JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE, who first appeared at Drury Lane in 1783, in the character of Hamlet. In 1788-9 he succeeded King as manager of the theater, and continued its director till 1801, when he went to Covent Garden. He first delighted Sheridan by the heroic way in which he delivered the rant of Rolla. Boaden says, "The noble portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Kemble bearing off the child expresses most accurately the vigor and picturesque beauty of his action. The herculean effort of his strength, his passing the bridge, his preservation of the infant though himself mortally wounded, excited a sensation of alarm and agony beyond anything perhaps that the stage has exhibited. But in truth, from his entrance to his death, the character was sustained with a power of elocution, a firmness of deportment, and an intensity of expression, that he alone could combine together." Pizarro ran thirty-one nights. Addison's Cato at the first was acted only eighteen times. In Coriolanus and Cato, Kemble was pre-eminent; in all statuesque characters he excelled; but that in the violent passion of Richard and Sir Giles, Cooke and Kean surpassed him, there can be no doubt. Kemble had dry humor, and made occasional essays in JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. emn earnestness, and pathos. She had more feeling than her brother; her voice was less sepulchral, her manner more spontaneous. She had more repose than Garrick, and was more natural than Mrs. Pritchard. She even made old George III. shed tears, and ladies fainted at the agonies of her Jane Shore. Genius paid her homage; Erskine studied her cadences; Dr. Johnson kissed her hand and bowed his learned head to her; Reynolds painted her as the Tragic Muse. Even in private life she moved a queen, and spoke blank verse. comedy. George Colman, who spared nobody, said previous month she had wedded Mr. Coutts, the banker. In 1827, Mrs. Coutts, having been then five years a widow, married the Duke of St. Albans, at that time in his twenty-seventh year. Old Drury witnessed the farewell performance of Miss Farren (Countess of Derby) in 1797, just before she exchanged the buskin for a coronet; witnessed, too, the first appearance of Harriet Mellon, in 1795, and her last, in February, 1815-for in the "POOR PERDITA." MISS DARBY was not sixteen when she married Mr. Robinson-a young man of good fortune, apprenticed to the law. The happy couple ran through their fortune in splendid haste; and Mrs. Robinson spent more than a year with him in prison. Misery drove her to Garrick, who, though now withdrawn from the stage, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet; and sat in the orchestra on the night of the 10th of December, 1776, when she played the latter part to the Romeo of Brereton. She was then only eighteen; and her success was all that could be expected from her talent and beauty, and a voice which reminded Garrick of his darling, Mrs. Cibber. Thus commenced the brief stage career which ended in May, 1780, with the Winter's Tale, and her own farce, the Miniature Picture, on which occasion she played Perdita and Eliza Camply. In the interval, she had played the tender or proudly loving ladies in tragedy, and the refined and sprightly nymphs in comedy; and she was the original Amanda, in the Trip to Scarborough. Since Mrs. Woffington and the first blush of Mrs. Bellamy, such peculiar grace and charms had not been seen on the stage. The critics extolled both, the fine gentlemen besieged her with billets doux, and the artists protested that they had never beheld better taste than hers in costume. On the 3d of December, 1779, their Majesties' servants played, by command, at Drury Lane, the Winter's Tale, for the sixth time. Gentleman Smith was Leontes; Bensley, Polixenes; Brereton, Florizel; Miss Farren, Hermione; and Mrs. Robinson, Perdita. The King, Queen, and royal family were in their box, when Perdita entered the green-room, dressed more exquisitely and looking more bewitching than ever. "You will make a conquest of the Prince, to-night," said Smith, laughingly; "I never saw you look so handsome as you do now!" He was a true prophet. The Prince was subdued by her beauty, and subsequently wrote letters to her, which were signed "Florizel," and were carried by no less noble a go-between than William Anne Capel, Earl of Essex. Deathless was to be the young Prince's love, and his munificence was to be equal to his truth. In proof of the latter, he gave her a bond for £20,000, to be paid to her on his coming of age. In a few months he attained his majority, refused to pay the money, and made no secret to the lady of his deathless love having altogether died out. He passed her in the park, affecting not to know her; and the spirited young woman, who had given up a lucrative profession for his sake, flung a remark at him, in her indignation, that ought to have made him blush, had he been to the manner born. However, she was not altogether abandoned. The patriotic Whig statesman, Charles Fox, obtained for the Prince's cast-off favorite an annuity of £300. Perdita would fain have returned to the stage, but her friends dissuaded her. But Perdita was not idle; she wrote poems and novels: the former, tender in sentiment and expression; the latter, not without power and good sense. She had undertaken to supply the Morning Post with poetry, when she died, after cruel suffering, in the last year of the last century (1800); and she herself the last of the pupils of David Garrick. MRS. JORDAN. addressing her as Miss Francis, was interrupted by her," My name," she said, "is Mrs. Jordan,"-her Irish manager had called her flight over the Channel, "crossing Jordan," and she took the name with the matronly prefix. Wilkinson looked at her, and saw no reason why she should not. Three years after, she was acting some solemn part, at York, when Gentleman Smith saw her, and forthwith recommended her to the managers of Drury, as a good second to Mrs. Siddons; and in that character she was engaged. But Dorothy Jordan MRS. JORDAN. MRS. JORDAN, says Doran, at an early age made her way to Dublin, and under the name of Miss Francis, played every thing, from sprightly girls to tragedy queens. As she produced little or no effect, she crossed the Channel to Tate Wilkinson, who inquired what she played,-tragedy, comedy, high or low, opera or farce? "I play them all!" said the young lady, and accordingly she came out as Calista, in the Fair Penitent; and Lucy, in the Virgin Unmasked. Previously to this, Wilkinson, was not going to play second to anybody; she resolved to be first in comedy, and came out in 1785, as the heroine of the Country Girl. Her success raised her from four to eight, and then twelve pounds a week. Her next character was among her best; namely, Viola; in which the buoyant spirit oppressed by love and grief was finely rendered. Equal to it was her Hypolita. Rosalind, also one of her great achievements, she did not play till the next season; and Lady Contest (Wedding Day), which was born with, and which die with her, she did not create till the season of 1795-6. "Her beauty," writes Mr. S. S. Conant, in Harper's Magazine, "and her talent were a curse to her. She attracted the eye of the royal Duke of Clarence, afterward King of England, who, in defiance of public opinion, established her at Bushey, treating her as an honored wife, and exacting respect toward her from all who visited him. Twenty years they lived together, and her conduct was unexceptionable. But public opinion revenged itself upon her for this breach of moral decorum. She was hissed by audiences, maligned in the newspapers, and insulted in the streets. After living with the prince for twenty years, and bearing him a large family of children, he suddenly awakened to the knowledge that his conduct was not moral, and to make it more so, he wrote to the poor woman, when she was away from London, on a starring engagement, to meet him at Maidenhead, there to take a farewell for life." When she said that "laughing agreed with her better than crying," and gave up tragedy, she both said and did well. John Bannister declared that 66 no woman ever uttered comedy like her;" and added, that "she was perfectly good-tempered, and possessed the best of hearts." She partook of the fascination of Mrs. Woffington, having a better voice, with less beauty. She surpassed Mrs. Clive and Miss Farren, in some parts, but fell short of the former in termagants, and of the latter in fine, wellbred ladies. Her voice was sweet and distinct, and she played rakes with airiest grace and the handsomest figure that had been seen on the stage for a long time. Simple, arch, buoyant girls-with sensibility in them; or spirited, buxom, lovable women -in these she excelled. She liked to act handsome hoidens, but not vulgar hussies. In later days she grew fat, but still dressed as when she was young. The hints of critics were unheeded by her, as were those of her friends, that "she should assume an older line." Mr. Charlton, the Bath manager, once proposed to her to play the Old Maid. "No," she answered: "I played it in a frolic, for my benefit, but do not mean to play such parts in a common way." After a London career of little less than thirty years-long after her home with the Duke had been broken up, she suddenly left London, without any leave-taking. Her finances, once so flourishing, had become embarrassed-and the old actress with whom "laughing used to agree," withdrew without friend or child or ample means, to St. Cloud, in France, where she assumed her third pseudonym, Mrs. James. She was neglected, but she was not destitute; for at the time of her death, in 1815, she had a balance of £100 at her banker's. She was ters. EDMUND KEAN. At Drury Lane nothing had for a long time succeeded till, on the 20th of January, 1814, a little shabby man with fine eyes-a new recruit from Exeter-appeared as Shylock. He was a poor slighted actor, one EDMUND KEAN, who, only a few weeks before, had entered Dorchester foot-sore and hungry, carrying on his back his eldest child, who was dying of whooping-cough. He had been playing melodramic parts, and harlequins and savages, through Devonshire and Dorsetshire, and at Dorchester had been lucky enough to catch the eye of Mr. Arnold, the Drury-Lane manager, who had engaged "the great little man with the fine Italian face," for a term of three years, at a salary rising to ten pounds a week. "My God," he said, burning with ambition and brandy, for he already drank hard, "if I should succeed now, I think it will drive me mad." A few nights after his child died; he drenched himself with brandy, then, throwing himself on the corpse, covered it with kisses, and swore he would wake it from the dead. This child (Howard) had acted with him at Teignmouth in Pizarro and Chiron and Achilles. At the time of his Drury-Lane engagement, Kean was all but starving in his lodgings at No. 21 Cecil street, Strand. He had come up to town with borrowed money, and he had not paid his rent for two whole months; but the good old maid, his landlady, was merciful to the eccentric debtor, and, contrary to Mrs. Siddons, who had said, "There is too little of him to do anything," prophesied his success to his believing wife: "There is something about Mr. Kean, ma'am," she said, "which tells me he will be a great man." Richard the Third was to have been the opening play, but Kean was afraid of his stunted stature being unfavorably contrasted with the heroic figure of John Kemble; and he had therefore said, "Shy |