spectability of what he loves, is hurt beyond measure to see the prevalence of so contemptible a vice as drunkenness among players. At first, some little excuse is made for the man, in the recollection that his original habits may have been low, and that some stimulus may be required to excite in the really distressed their melancholy mirth. The next is that of Cassio himself; that they have "poor and unhappy brains for drinking;" so indeed it should seem, if by six o'clock in the day they are unable to conduct themselves discreetly. They should remember that their profession is now considered liberal; and not condemned to "wakes and fairs and market-towns," as formerly, the horn of the player should not be dry at all hours. The inspiration even of madeira may bestow rather mummery than character, and I can never think that an actor becomes more amusing as he becomes less articulate. A degree of impudence, too, is associated with this habit; the man will attempt the business of a character, who has lost the language of it, and the author is supposed deficient in point, or vulgar in diction, because the point is too troublesome to the buffoon, and he had rather run on with his own illiterate gabble.

The love of music was now growing fast upon us, and Mrs. Billington, in my judgment the most accomplished of all English singers, divided her favours equally between the two patent theatres. For this devotion of herself, from October to the April following, she drew from each treasury £2,000, that is, including £500 for a benefit, and she commenced at Covent Garden on the 3d of October, in Mandane, which she repeated on the 8th at Drury Lane. While this enchanting warbler and beautiful woman was "amazing the faculties of eyes and ears" at Kemble's Theatre, his nephew, Henry Siddons, made his début at the other house. He chose to do so in a character called Herman, an industrious humane son, whose mother and sister are entirely dependent upon him. The play was called "Integrity," and might be written by himself, for the character of Herman in the essential points resembled his own. Nothing but youth could excuse the sanguine weakness of such a commencement, the play was good for little, and he might have acted Hamlet at first, for it immediately followed. I found him a hoarse Kemble, without his grace. He was a scholar, and extremely fond of acting, but he had a defect which crippled all his action, — he could not walk.

Whether he had contracted his narrow circle of motion from a small theatre, or there was, which I rather incline to think, some defect, though not apparent, in his frame, I cannot decide; but it took away much of the earnestness of his action, and kept him always from attaining the heroic. If he remained in London he was in opposition to his own family, and could only be of importance by equalling them in power. He used to think himself persecuted by Mr. Kemble, but was on cordial terms with his Uncle Charles, who was one year only younger than himself. At Covent Garden Theatre he found an accomplished wife in Miss Murray, whom he espoused in June, 1802. He acted in town at Drury Lane Theatre, when his uncle had left it, and settled himself afterward in the management of the Edinburgh Theatre. It may be worth remembering that in 1782 he acted the child to his mother's Isabella, on the classical plan of mingling the personal with the assumed affections.

I have noticed the commencement of Mrs. Billington's extraordinary undertaking; on the 21st of October she had sung through two acts of "Artaxerxes," when she was suddenly taken ill, and a succession of fits of the most distressing

kind prevented her from finishing Mandane. The cause was discovered by Mr. Heaviside, who extracted an entire needle from the arm below the right shoulder, and the place from which it was taken assuming a black appearance, the terror of apprehended mortification quite overset her nerves. She took till the 4th of November to recruit herself, and then gave the "Duenna" at both houses. Till then, that opera had never been acted at Sheridan's own theatre; and, on this occasion, Quick, the original Isaac Mendoza, played to a most astonishing house. As to the music of "Clara," one might have supposed "Adieu, Thou Dreary Pile," difficult enough for the admirers of vocal celerity; but Mrs. Billington introduced an exotic by Nasolini, which rendered her hearers quite breathless with astonishment.

At Drury Lane, Mr. Kemble got up his Zanga in more than usual perfection, and to commemorate the strange peace just made, revived "King Henry the Fifth, or the Conquest of France," supporting the martial Harry with a spirit that was now all his own.

Reynolds had been shooting "Folly as It Flies" for thirty nights together at Covent Garden; but, with the first comic actress in the world, Drury

Lane had no novelty till, in March, 1802, Cumberland ventured "Lovers' Resolutions" without her.

At length, poaching at Twickenham among Lord Orford's papers, a comedy was found, written it is possible by General Conway, and called "Fashionable Friends." This piece had been licensed already by the private acting of the gentry commemorated though more complete scoundrels never dishonoured any rank of human creatures. The two leading men of fashion, one married, and the other about to be, were boys at the same school youths at the same college - inhabitants of the same town. Nature, accordingly, would seem to ensure them the common effects of old habits, a sincere regard, and desire to promote each other's interest and happiness. The interpreters of fashion about Strawberry Hill thus translate the friendship, which they do not profess, but actually show to each other. The bachelor labours to seduce the husband's wife, and the husband, in revenge, tries to frustrate the bachelor's expected union. Both men of infinite sentiment. Mrs. Jordan, this time, is not the seduced; she is only the disappointed; but lively enough to bear the name of Racket, a word which closely describes