sive and pleasing, and Wilkinson says that in her youth "she sported the best leg ever seen on the stage." The season of 1782-1783, was marked, at Drury lane, by the reappearance of Mrs. Siddons, in the fill meridian of her talents, after several years' probation in Bath. On the 12th of October, 1782, she presented herself as Isabella, in the "Fatal Marriage," and from that ngat, until her retirement as Lady Macbeth, on the 29th of June, 1812, a long reign of thirty years, occupied the tragic throne without a rival. She was unquestionably, in her walk, the greatest actress that ever trod the stage in any age or country. Such personal and mental qualities were never co nbined in another. But she lacked versatility, and should never have trespassed on the realms of Thalia. During this, her first season, tragedy stod high in the ascendant, and the comic forces of the theatre were comparatively neutralized. The "Fatal Marriage" was acted twenty-four t mes; the "Grecian Daughter" cleven; “Jane Shore" thirteen; the "Far Penitent" fourteen; and the “Morning Bride" twice. Mrs. Siddons son'y original character was Mrs. Mont que, in a duil tragedy, in prose, by Thomas Hall, called the "Fatal Interview," which expired quietly after the third night. By acting an indifferent part in a poor prece, she began to lose goound with the pubI, and it was said that Sheridan, t...e manager, damned the play to save the 4 tis. Pleasant for the author, and one of the thousand-andone casualties which dramatic flesh is hit to.

Thomas Hull, during a life of eightyone years, inflated on the pubic egitea da'l tragedies, comedies, operas, and farces, and one oratorio; also five nove ́s and a legendary taie, All these literary ars, long buried and forgotten, were fully redeemed by the establishment of the Covent Garden Fund for decayed actors and actresses, of which he was the founder. For this act of philanthropy, may his shadow never be less! He was a respectable actor, too, in the heavy line, and during a service at Covent Garden of nearly fifty years, never was absent from duty but once, when confined to his bid by a fever, For many mas is he was toge ma

nager, and valued himself on his tact and address in making apologies for accidental disappointments. Th from long practice, became part of his nature. During the no popery riots, in 1780, the mob attacked his house, without knowing or caring who lived there. To appease their fury, he sent out a barrel of table beer untapped. They forthwith drew the bung, expecting to find double stout, and began to throw volleys of stones when they discovered the thin potation." Huil, trembling for his windows and his skin, threw up the sash of an upper room, and appeared in his velvet night cap. After three profound obeisances, lie addressed the children of plunder thus: "Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you, upon my honour the right hand to his breast), the small beer was a mistake. I have sent to Gfard's brew-house for a cask of porter; it will soon be here, and in the meantime I most humbly solicit your usual kind indulgence,"

A few weeks after the failure of Hull's tragedy, a comedy by Pratt, the "Gleaner," called the "School for Vanity," in which Miss Farren acted Ophelia Wyndham, a sentimental heroiue, met with a similar fate. "death" exclaimed the author, in indignation; "I'll print it, and shame the fools." He did so, and proved the justice of the sentence. A second comedy by Waldron, entitled “Imitation, or the Female Fortune Hunters," Charlotte, by Miss Farren, also died, and made no sign. Eat dramatists have a cat-like teneity to life. Twelve years later, Waldron tried his bantling again at the Haymarket, as “Heighho for a Husband," with a different cast, and rather better luck. This comedy is, in fact, the "Beaux Stratagem," inverted. Charlotte and Maria, twofast young ladies, in search of fortune by inatrimony, are Archer and domeit in petticoats, and placed in pretty much the same circumstances. There is a male Cherry, with a female Boniface and Scrub,... Such coarse indecency, without wit or humour, ought never to have passed muster.

Miss Farren had not been many seas ns on the London stare wien, by the propriety of hea private conduet and her profesional stocess, she obta ned introduction to diet a

guished parties in fashionable life. At the particular request of several of the nobility, she took part in and conducted the stage arrangements of some private plays at the Duke of Richmond's town residence in Privy Gardens, in which the Earl of Derby, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and the Honorable Mrs. Damer sustained leading characters. Here she formed her first acquaintance with the noble Earl, which in course of time ripened into mutual regard. Before this attachment sprung up, the frequent visits of the celebrated orator and statesman, Charles James Fox, to the green-room, and his pointed attentions to Miss Farren, became a matter of notoriety. She seemed to encourage him with the modest confidence which implied a conviction that his intentions were honorable, and also not unwelcome. But when explicit declaration became necessary, it appeared that the great Whig orator's notions were liberal and anti-matrimonial. Peremptory dismissal followed; and not long after Lord Derby became the fair vestal's avowed patron and admirer. He was a married man, separated, but not divorced, from his first wife, the only daughter of the sixth Duke of Hamilton. Whether their estrangement arose from incompatibility of temper, from the Countess's illhealth, or from what other cause, it were needless and meddling to conjecture. The marriage took place in June, 1774, and, by this lady, the Earl had a son who succeeded him, and two daughters. His lordship was born in 1752, and consequently was seven years older than Miss Farren, but outlived her rather more than five years, dying in 1834. As time passed on, it became whispered about that they were conditionally engaged to each other, the union to take place when circumstances allowed. In the meantime not a whisper of scandal was breathed upon the intimacy. Their caution and reciprocal restraint were undeviating. They were never seen together except in the presence of a third person, generally the lady's mother.

These prospective arrangements between enamoured ladies and gentlemen, depending on the life or death of an existing impediment or incumbrance, are by no means uncommon;

neither do the parties involved lose caste or estimation in the eyes of the world by being prepared for a possible contingency, should it present itself. But is this precision quite in accordance with high and pure principles of morality and religion? A husband may not live with his wife, or a wife with her husband, by mu tual consent, without moral delinquency; still they are legally and religiously joined until death or the divorce court divides them. True, they may agree to live apart, on terms; but be the motive of separation what it may, or the blame, if any, on one side or divided, it requires keen casuistry to determine that therefore A. and C. may lawfully arrange a future marriage, on the speculation that the intervening B. will, some fine day, think proper to make a vacancy. This, viewed as a pure case of conscience, would form an interesting topic for the wisdom of the law lords, or the consistorial court, should either be able to find leisure for an abstract question. We presume not, in our limited power of judgment, to hint at a decision.

Lord Derby, during their probationary courtship, addressed many poetical tributes to the virtues and amiable qualities of Miss Farren. The following specimen marks the high tone of his admiration :

"TO MISS FARREN, ON HER BEING ONE DAY ABSENT FROM CHURCH.

"While wond'ring angels, as they look'd from high,

Observ'd thy absence with a holy sigh;
To them a bright, etherial seraph said-
Blame not the conduct of th' exalted
maid;

Where'er she goes, her steps can never
stray;

Religion walks, companion of her way; She goes with ev'ry virtuous thought impress'd;

Heaven on her face, and heaven within her breast."

In 1783, John Kemble was added to the Drury-lane company, and soon raised himself to a position second only to that of his sister. On the 14th of February, 1784, Miles Peter Andrews produced a comedy called "Reparation." The heroine, Julia Hardy, a sentimental young lady, who had been deluded under the colour of a mock marriage, was intended for Mrs. Siddons, but lost

the indented crescent of wood-covered mountains, to which, from their forming a barrier against the hot wind of the Desert, was in part attributable the delicious climate of the Cyrenaica, which, thus sheltered from its firebreathing blasts, reclined like some beauteous goddess dowered with fruits and flowers, bathed in the affluent sunlight, and wooed by the gentle breezes of the laughing waters, which, half-dreaming at her feet, murmured of perpetual summer.

Westward from the undulating plain rose several green mounds crowned by small temples-on the highest, that of Esculapins, beside which a long arched aqueduct extends cityward-on another, surrounded by vineyards, that of Bacchus; while here and there a village was seen islanded in the deep sea of Egyptian wheat, whose golden expausion rippled away to the foot of the remote mountain ridge, at the end of whose sea stretching promontory the walls of Ptolemais glimmered, faintly white. Eastward, walling up against the sky, rose the high hills, at whose opposite side the town of Duma stood; and along whose precipices, like a white thread, wound the long roadway which reached coastward to Alexandria. The firmament, without a cloud, doming azurely over city and cultivated plain, seemed to rest lovingly on the leafy sloping summits of the erescent hills and sleepy level of the tranquil sea; and a faint wind, freighted with the sweets of cornland, orchard, and grove, breathed over the paradisial space of the frustful springted region.

Hark to the distant blare of trumpets; to the brassy clangour of the horn and mingled music, which heralds the procession winding city ward through the valey; to the tramp of Gaulie horsemen, which surrounds the chariot and cavalcade of Avarius. Cheers ring along the northern walls from the multitudes around the gateways- from the house roofs, as the procession advances up the great street of Hattus, where the civic authorities and priests of the various temples awut his arrival. What a motley multitude are ass mbled to witness the event, conserated by a sacrifice prepared at the star befre the great fountain in the Forum! The.e, in the shadow of tile winte

pillared structures, civil and religious, which rise around three sides of the square, are seen the dark Egyptian priests in linen vestments; those of Bacchus in purple robes, their he's and shoulders covered and draped in rose wreaths, as are also those of their youthful attendants. Roman soldiers and officials, fierce and grave; lively Greeks, white-robed, jesting, or eloquently conversing, are seen :— turbaned merchants of Asia; Greek, Phoenician, Gaulish, and Iberian traders in metal and corn, also, in particoloured plaited tunics ari bracch;-even fur-clad traders from Taurica.

Sacrifices having been offered by the priests of Jupiter and Nero in the temples, the procon-ul, Avarins, having reviewed the Roman garisen, subsequently made an address to the authorities and populace assemble-i in the Forum, in which, having congratulated the Cyrenese on the pros perity of their piovince since it hid become an intégral part of the R»man empire, proceeded to notice tre effect of such an incorporation in various parts of the world, cast ar-1 west. While all such nations had their liberty guaranteed and assured, all became the august participaters in the power of the empire; wmle the bar arians received the advan tages of Romon law and civilization, and the Greeks found in the capital and the other cities of the empire, a common market for their manu a tures and arts, all were admitted to t. e equality of Roman citizenship. In a word, Rome's army conquered to evilize and equalize the nations of the earth.

The address of the proconsul was received with great applause, desp to a deep wi isper respecting the exorin tant power of the tax gatherers, and numerousje suffered by the lang Greckson th`s and other su' jects cop. nected with Roman ruže. A coraiderable time having been occupied in the detail of ma 129 aŭ n. Avarius was invited at the ninth hour to a suppor by the care wuthor ties of Cyrere, among whom there had been much debate as to the place whether the temple of Battis or Junter, up' a a Greck fun-tier ary suggested tom e taón, as the stmctere test suited to the indivastik, fold cocine II.