1815. "It was on a previous day, during the same visit, that Richard had an interview with Dr Parr, who immediately plunged into the darkest recesses of ancient learning. The refinements of the Greek language, and the works of the critics who had illustrated it were entered into, and gradually the conversation changed to the Hebrew, its peculiar construction, and its analogous tongues. Here Richard had evidently the advantage; and, after an attempted inroad into the Chaldee, the doctor rather precipitately retreated, leaving a token of his liberality in the hands of the poor scholar. Richard being afterwards asked what he thought of the learned person with whom he had been conversing, replied, 'He is less ignorant than most men.''

During the spring and summer of 1823 Mr Roscoe was engaged in preparing a new edition of the works of Pope. In the same year he was chosen president of a society which some gentlemen of Liverpool had formed for promoting the abolition of slavery, and drew up for them a declaration of the objects of the society, which was printed. In September, 1824, he lost his wife, with whom he had lived "upwards of forty years in uninterrupted confidence and harmony," and the shock was so great that for a space of time his studies were laid aside.

In 1825 the edition of Pope's works with a new life appeared; and the editor had the manliness and the high principle to omit some indelicate pieces which had been included in former editions. His views on this subject are thus stated: "In performing the difficult task which has devolved upon the present editor, of determining what pieces ought to be admitted into this edition, as constituting The Works of Pope,' he has endeavoured to keep in view what he conceives to be the chief duty of an editor, viz., to execute an office which the author can no longer perform for himself, in the same manner as he would have performed it if living; admitting nothing that he would himself have rejected,' and rejecting nothing that he would have admitted; not, however, disregarding the additional considerations suggested by the change which has taken place, so greatly for the better, in the sentiments and manners of the present times, and by which it is probable that the author himself would have been equally influenced. On the whole, he has reason to believe that the differences which would have arisen between the author and himself on this head, would have been trivial, if any; and that the great variation in this respect will appear between the two last editions of Dr Wharton and Mr Bowles, and the present." About a year afterwards Mr Roscoe published new editions of Lorenzo' and 'Leo X.,' in which he availed himself of the valuable notes which had been appended to those works by foreign translators. And now he felt that his life must be drawing near to its close, and resolved, like a wise man, to engage in nothing new, but to complete those undertakings which were yet unfinished. These were, a manuscript catalogue of Mr Coke's library at Holkam,-his correspondence with Americans on the subject of penitentiaries,—and a work on the Monandrian plants, which was issued in numbers, and which had already gained for him a high botanical reputation. His labours were interrupted, toward the close of the year 1827, by an attack of paralysis,

'Our

"Pope himself acted upon this principle with regard to his friend Gay. poor friend's papers are in my hands; and for as much as is so, I will take care to suppress things unworthy of him.'"-Life of Pope, p. 368.

a tendency to which had existed for a long time before. From this he gradually recovered, however, and lived to enjoy a few years more of domestic happiness, and to see his wishes as an author all fulfilled. The fifteenth and last number of the splendid work on Monandrian plants was printed in 1830, and the volume, being the closing labours of its author's powers, and treating of perhaps the most charming department of natural history, was fitly inscribed, not to any earthly friend, but to his and nature's God.

"God of the changeful year!—amidst the glow

Of strength and beauty, and transcendent grace,
Which, on the mountain heights, or deep below,
In sheltered vales, and each sequestered place
Thy forms of vegetable life assume,-

Whether thy pines, with giant arms display'd,
Brave the cold north, or wrapt in eastern gloom,
The trackless forests sweep, a world of shade;
Or whether, scenting ocean's heaving breast,
Thy odoriferous isles innumerous rise;

Or under various lighter forms imprest,

Of fruits and flowers, thy works delight our eyes;
God of all life! whate'er those forms may be,

O, may they all unite in praising Thee!"

There is nothing in the above lines to remind us, that nearly eighty years had passed over the writer's head, and that he had suffered from a disorder, which, above all others, is wont to impair the intellectual capacity.

"Mr Roscoe," says his biographer, "might now almost be said to be ultimus suorum. He had survived not only the companions of his youth, but most of the friends of his maturer years.' Holden and Rigby, Currie and Clarke, had long since been gone. Rathbone, Parr, Aikin, Fuseli, and more lately Sir J. E. Smith, had followed them. He himself did not sit waiting long after the departure of the last-named friend. "Towards the conclusion of the month of June, 1831, he suffered from a severe attack of the prevailing influenza, from which he appeared to have partially recovered, when, on the evening of Monday the 27th of June, while listening to a letter which one of his sons was reading to him, containing an account of the progress of the Reform bill, he was suddenly seized with a violent fit of shivering, accompanied by an almost total prostration of strength. He was with difficulty conveyed to his bed, from which he never again rose. At this trying hour, that confidence in the goodness of God, and that submission to his will, which had supported him in every vicissitude of his life, did not desert him, and he resigned himself, without one murmur, to the change which he well-knew was near at hand. While yet able with difficulty to make himself understood, he said to Dr Traill,- Some people suffer much in dying; I do not suffer.' On the morning of Wednesday he indistinctly inquired from his highly valuable medical attendant, Mr Bickersteth, his opinion with regard to his situation; and on receiving his reply, he took leave of him with affectionate composure, by extending to him his hand. Soon afterwards he became unable from weakness to articulate, though he retained his senses till within an hour of his death, which took place at eleven o'clock on Thursday morning, the 30th of June. The immediate cause of his death was an effusion of water into the chest.'

Sarah Siddons.

BORN A. D. 1755.-DIED A. D. 1831.

66

THIS unrivalled tragic actress was born at Brecon, on the 5th of July, 1755. She was the sister of that great master of the histrionic art, John Kemble. "I remember," says Mr Campbell, having seen the parents of the great actress in their old age. They were both of them tall and comely personages. The mother had a somewhat austere stateliness of manner, but it seems to have been from her that the family inherited their genius and force of character. Her voice had much of the emphasis of her daughter's; and her portrait, which long graced Mrs Siddons's drawing-room, had an intellectual expression of the strongest power; she gave you the idea of a Roman matron. The father had all the suavity of the old school of gentlemen. Persons who cannot for a moment disjoin the idea of human dignity from that of station, will perhaps be surprised that I should speak of the dignified manners of a pair who lived by the humble vocation which I have mentioned. It is nevertheless true, that the presence and demeanour of this couple might have graced a court; and though their relationship to Mrs Siddons and John Kemble of course enhanced the interest which their venerable appearance commanded, yet I have been assured by those who knew them long before their children became illustrious, that in their humblest circumstances they always sustained an entire respectability. There are some individuals whom no circumstances can render vulgar, and Mr and Mrs Kemble were of this description. Besides, in spite of all our prejudices against the players' vocation, irreproachable personal character will always find its level in the general esteem." Mr Roger Kemble being, like his ancestors, a catholic, whilst his wife was a protestant, it was arranged that their sons should be bred in the catholic faith, and the daughters in that of their mother. They had twelve children, of whom four died young; but three sons and five daughters arrived at adult years,—and they almost all chose the profession of their parents, though Mr Campbell says, "I have no doubt that Mr and Mrs Roger Kemble were anxious to prevent their children from becoming actors, and that they sought out other means of providing for them; but they made this attempt too late, that is, after their offspring had been accustomed to theatrical joyousness. For parents who are players themselves, it is hardly possible to keep their children from following the same life. The conversations,—the readings,—the books of the family, the learning of the parts,-the rehearsals at home, the gaiety diffused by the getting up of comic characters before they are acted, and the imposing dignity of tragic characters,-the company, every thing, indeed, which the children of play-acting parents hear and see, has a tendency to make them more prone to the stage than to any other such plodding and drudging occupations as the most of them would be otherwise destined to pursue."

Like her brother, Sarah Kemble was led upon the boards at a very tender age; so young indeed was she, that the rustic audience, offended

'Life of Mrs Siddons. By Thomas Campbell.' London: 1834.

at her infantile appearance, began to hoot and hiss her off, when her mother led her to the front of the stage, and made her repeat the fable of the Boys and the Frogs, which she did in such a manner as appeased the critics, and insured a favourable reception for her ever after. In her eighteenth year she married Mr Siddons, an actor in her father's company; and the young couple soon after took an engagement to act at Cheltenham. "At that time," says Mr Campbell, "the honourable Miss Boyle, the only daughter of Lord Dungarvon, a most accomplished woman, and authoress of several pleasing poems, one of which, An Ode to the Poppy,' was published by Charlotte Smith, happened to be at Cheltenham. She had come, accompanied by her mother, and her mother's second husband, the earl of Aylesbury. One morning that she and some other fashionables went to the box-keeper's office, they were told that the tragedy to be performed that evening was Venice Preserved. They all laughed heartily, and promised, themselves a treat of the ludicrous, in the misrepresentation of the piece. Some one who overheard their mirth kindly reported it to Mrs Siddons. She had the part of Belvidera allotted to her, and prepared for the performance of it with no very enviable feelings. It may be doubted, indeed, whether Otway had imagined in Belvidera a personage more to be pitied than her representative now thought herself. The rabble, in Venice Preserved,' showed compassion for the heroine, and, when they saw her feather-bed put up to auction, 'governed their roaring throats, and grumbled pity.' But our actress anticipated refined scorners, more pitiless than the rabble; and the prospect was certainly calculated to prepare her more for the madness than the dignity of her part. In spite of much agitation, however, she got through it. About the middle of the piece she heard some unusual and apparently suppressed noises, and therefore concluded that the fashionables were in the full enjoyment of their anticipated amusement, tittering and laughing, as she thought, with unmerciful derision. She went home after the play, grievously mortified. Next day, however, Mr Siddons met in the street with Lord Aylesbury, who inquired after Mrs Siddons's health, and expressed not only his own admiration of her last night's exquisite acting, but related its effects on the ladies of his party. They had wept, he said, so excessively, that they were unpresentable in the morning, and were confined to their rooms with headachs. Mr Siddons hastened home to gladden his fair spouse with this intelligence. Miss Boyle soon afterwards visited Mrs Siddons at her lodgings, took the deepest interest in her fortunes, and continued her ardent friend till her death. She married Lord O'Neil, of Shane's castle, in Ireland. It is no wonder that Mrs Siddons dwells with tenderness in her Memoranda on the name of this earliest encourager of her genius. Miss Boyle was a beauty of the first order, and gifted with a similar mind, as her poetry, and her patronage of the hitherto unnoticed actress, evince; though patronage is too cold a word for the friendship which she bestowed on so interesting an object. Though the powers of the latter were by her own confession still crude, yet her noble young friend consoled and cheered her; and, with the prophetic eye of taste, foresaw her glory. Miss Boyle took upon her the direction of her wardrobe, enriched it from her own, and made many of her dresses with her own hands."

A rumour of the newly discovered genius having reached Garrick,

Mrs Siddons was soon honoured with an invitation to London, though still "upon very low terms." Her feelings on this occasion, and the situation in which she found herself after her arrival in London, are affectingly described in her Autograph Recollections': "Happy," she says, "to be placed where I presumptuously augured that I should do all that I have since achieved, if I could but once gain the opportunity, I instantly paid my respects to the great man. I was, at that time, good-looking; and certainly, all things considered, an actress well worth my poor five pounds a-week. His praises were most liberally conferred upon me; but his attentions, great and unremitting as they were, ended in worse than nothing.-How was all this admiration to be accounted for, consistently with his subsequent conduct? Why, thus, I believe-He was retiring from the management of Drury-lane, and, I suppose, at that time, wished to wash his hands of all its concerns and details. I, moreover, had served what I believe was his chief object in the exaltation of poor me,-and that was, the mortification and irritation of Mrs Yates and Miss Younge, whose consequence and troublesome airs, were, it must be confessed, enough to try his patience. As he had now almost withdrawn from it, the interests of the theatre, grew, I suppose, rather indifferent to him. However that may have been, he always objected to my appearance in any very prominent character; telling me that the forenamed ladies would poison me, if I did. I, of course, thought him, not only an oracle, but my friend; and in consequence of his advice, Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, was fixed for my débût; a character in which it was not likely that I should excite any great sensation. I was, therefore, merely tolerated.' The fulsome adulation that courted Garrick, in the theatre, cannot be imagined; and whosoever was the luckless wight who should be honoured by his distinguished and envied smile, of course became an object of spite and malevolence. Little did I imagine that I myself was now that wretched victim. He would sometimes hand me from my own seat, in the green room, to place me next to his own. He also selected me to personate Venus, at the revival of The Jubilee. This gained me the malicious appellation of Garrick's Venus; and the ladies, who so kindly bestowed it on me, rushed before me in the last scene, so that if he (Mr Garrick) had not brought us forward with him with his own hands, my little Cupid and myself, whose appointed situations were in the very front of the stage, might as well have been in the island of Paphos at that moment. Mr Garrick would also flatter me, by sending me into one of his own boxes, when he acted any of his great characIn short, his attentions were enough to turn an older and wiser

ters.

The following is the critique of some scribbler of that day on Mrs Siddons's Portia :"On before us tottered rather than walked, a very pretty, delicate, fragile-looking creature, dressed in a most unbecoming manner, in a faded salmon-coloured sack and coat, and uncertain whereabouts to fix either her eyes or her feet. She spoke in a broken tremulous tone; and at the close of a sentence her words generally lapsed into a horrid whisper that was absolutely inaudible! After her first exit, the buzzing comment went round the pit generally. 'She certainly is very pretty; but, then, how awkward! and what a shocking dresser! Towards the famous trial scene she became more collected, and delivered the great speech to Shylock with the most critical propriety, but still with a faintness of utterance which seemed the result rather of internal physical weakness than of a deficiency of spirit or feeling. Altogether the impression made upon the audience by this first effort was of the most negative nature.”