clothing the noblest doctrines of morality, and finest delicacies of sentiment, in diction the most just and beautiful, and of illustrating them by the most delightful and appropriate images which a poetical mind could suggest. She has skilfully investigated the operations of the human mind, and unfolded with successful accuracy the nicest involutions of intellectual combination. She has explored the hidden sources of pleasure and of pain, and analysed with philosophical truth the passions of the human heart; their fleeting hues, their various and versatile appearances, their wild and intricate mazes, the subtle changes by which they elude our vigilance, and the stubborn complications by which they resist our power. All this she has done; but done it with the uniform and indivi dual powers of Miss Baillie, in the composition of what must rather be called fine dramatic poems, than dramas, where characters should exist as in real life, and form the mirror of the world we live in.

The Family Legend was thus cast: Duart, Mr Thompson; Earl of Argyle, Mr Terry; John of Lorne, Mr Siddons; De Grey, Mr Putnam; Benlora, Mr Archer; Helen, Mrs Siddons. The prologue was written by Mr Walter Scott, with a romantic nationality of allusion to the subject of the tragedy, a loveliness of imagery, and a glow of feeling strongly characteristic of the bard of chivalry. The epilogue, familiar, elegant, and witty, was the production of Mr Henry Mackenzie. The former was spoken by Mr Terry, and the latter by Mrs Siddons.

Shortly after the Family Legend, a new comedy was brought forward, entitled, "The Friend of the Family; or, Warnings to Ladies." This

is one of those plays which the present age produces, without much expence of intellect, labour of composi tion, or originality of character; and of which the highest praise is tolerable ingenuity in the construction of a tale, where a sufficiency of incidents, situation, and effect may be produced through five acts. For the origin of this class of plays, we are indebted to the fertile inventions of such authors as Reynolds, Morton, &c., &c. They owe their success entirely to the genius of the actors, who, by their exertions, contrive frequently to bear them into favour, notwithstanding their utter want of pretension to real wit or genuine humour. The old men and young gentlemen, old women and young ladies, servants, maids, &c. in this play are all our old acquaintances of the last 20 years standing, without any alteration in their language, or improvement in their understandings: it, however, succeeded quite as well, and was quite as well entitled to succeed as most similar compositions addressed to the present popular taste. General report ascribed it to the manager. It was played several nights with good success to respectable houses.

We shall conclude our account of the season, by briefly noticing the auxiliaries with whom the manager successively strengthened his powers of attraction; and first upon the list is the matchless name of Mrs Siddons. Of every exhibition of talents rare, and perfect, and sublime, it is a duty, as well as a pleasure, to preserve a record in some place likely to be lasting. The public cannot expect for many years longer to witness the exertions of those boundless powers which have so long excited their admiration and reverence; and we yield,

We have thus individually chronicled her performances, with the same exactness as we would preserve a catalogue of valuable pictures which are no longer in our possession, in order that remembrance may be assisted as it dwells upon the time when their existence formed the brightest period in the history of the art.

Vain as it is to regret inevitable necessity, it is still impossible to prevent the recurrence of that regret whenever we reflect upon the perishability of the actor's efforts; we deplore that the productions of an art, which can only be exhibited in the person of the artist, must necessarily perish with him; but the perfection of theatrical genius, whose performances combine and illustrate the powers of all the arts, all should contribute to perpetuate, by their respective exertions to raise an altar to departed genius, at which succeeding genius may pay its worship, and catch The flame of inpiration.

PIZARRO.

DE MONTFORT.
DOUGLAS.

GAMESTER.
CORIOLANUS
ISABELLA.
GAMESTER.
PIZARRO.
CORIOLANUS.

JEALOUS WIFE
KING JOHN.

VENICE PRESERVED,

When the painter and the sculptor have done their utmost to give to future years the personal identity of Mrs Siddons, in all the various glories of her form and face, language can only attest their fidelity: the warmest fervour of the imagination cannot in this instance aggravate eulogy or exalt enthusiasm beyond the bounds of truth; and in endeavouring to convey the idea of her mental qualifications, we must describe a mind gifted, in the most extraordinary manner, with every one requisite necessary to constitute faultless excellence. Siddons is in tragedy what Milton is in poetry, and to her may be adapted with peculiar felicity the eloquent praise of Johnson in his passage upon the genius of the poet." The characteristic quality of her acting is sublimity ;-she sometimes descends to the elegant, but her element is the great;-she can occasionally invest herself with grace, but her natural port is gigantic loftiness ;-she can

please when pleasure is required, but it is her peculiar power to astonish." "Nature has bestowed upon her more bountifully than upon others the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful."

That which perhaps may be first noticed as the quality which places Mrs Siddons above all living rivalry, is the strong and sustained preservation of individual character; a power not confined to the classical propriety of a speech, nor the isolated beauty of a particular scene, but exhibited in the steady preservation and individualizing of each character from all others similar or approaching to similitude. She enters upon any part which she assumes with such extraordinary identification, as if from her birth she had been the individual whom she represents, and had never thought but with her thoughts, nor felt but with her feelings. With the most commanding beauty of form and varied grace of action; with the most noble combination of features and extensive capability of expression in each of them; with an unequalled genius for the art, the utmost patience as well as activity of mind, and the strongest ardour of feeling, there is not a passion which she cannot delineate, not a shade or modification of passion which she does not exhibit with philosophical accuracy; not a height of grandeur to which she does not soar, nor a darkness of misery to which she cannot descend. In what may be termed the eloquence of the art, the most critical sagacity could not suggest a delicacy of emphasis by which the meaning of the author might be more distinctly conveyed, or a shade of intonation by which the sentiment might be more fully or

faithfully inspired; and this is done without the slightest appearance of laboured and studious research, but comes to the ear with the ease of immediate and natural suggestion. By the force of her talent, every description becomes impregnated with life, and starts before the mind with all the vividness of reality; by the touch of her genius, speeches, which in ordinary hands would be tame and languid, are warmed into emotion or exalted into energy; for it is one of the truest characteristics which distinguish genius in acting from inferior talent, that, while the latter condenses the warmest glow of passion into frigid declamation, the former raises declamation into passion, and animates it with all the variety of genuine feeling. While other performers, of the present or of former days, have made nearer or more distant approaches to excellence, Mrs Siddons has reached it; and in her splendid and solitary example, our age has witnessed that wonderful combination of mental powers, and personal gifts, which, in the tragic department of her art, has realized the idea of perfection.

After Mrs Siddons, the next auxiliary was Mr John Johnstone, who for the first time made his appearance before an Edinburgh audience; and perhaps no performer ever made a stronger and more immediate impression upon us than this gentleman. The high finish of his acting, the quietude but unparallelled richness and poignancy of his humour, the polish of his manners, the handsome gay goodnature of his countenance, and manliness of his figure and deportment, gave to his Major O'Flaherty irresistible charms; and cautious and severe as our audience is generally supposed to be, they at once were surprised into rapturous delight, and

yielded without resistance to the fascination of his comic talent. He went through the range of his characters during his stay, every effort confirm ing us in our high estimation of his abilities.

To Mr Johnstone succeeded Mr Emery, who also made his first appearance before us, in his celebrated character of Tyke. The fame which he has acquired in London was here warmly acknowledged. Before the conclusion of his engagement, Mr Johnstone returned from Glasgow, where he had been performing, and we experienced the high gratification of seeing these two eminent artists perform together their original parts of Looney M Twolter and John Lump, in the Wags of Windsor; a treat which London has been deprived of for some years, and which perhaps it may be long before either it or Edinburgh again enjoys. With Mr Emery the season closed. The theatre reopened for a short afterseason in about a week, which was rendered extremely productive by the well known powers of the British Thalia, Mrs Jordan.

Before we close the present article, we feel it a duty to notice the degraded state of a department which, in a theatre like that of Edinburgh, should certainly be supported with the best abilities that are to be attained, and conducted with the greatest possible attention,-we mean the orchestra. No blame, however, is justly imputable to Mr Siddons on this account. He has engaged a sufficiently numerous band, amongst whom we notice several performers of merit. What we complain of is, not their ignorance, but their idleness; their utter contempt of the audience, exhibited by a tedious repetition of the same dull music, night after night, without rest, respite, or relief. In place of aiming, in their department, at that variety which the manager exhibits in his, half-a-dozen antiquated Italian pieces, with some eight or ten reels and strathspeys, limit the utmost exertions of the orchestra of the metropolis of Scotland! We shall not take it upon us to say where the error lies. It is, however, a very glaring and gross one, and calls loudly for reform.

WE E trust we shall be considered as performing no unacceptable service to our readers, and especially to the Scottish public, in laying before them the following short account of the system of education pursued in the University of Oxford during the year to which this volume relates. And, first of all, let it be observed, that if our statements shall be widely different from those of some celebrated writers, we mean not to impeach their accuracy, or place our pretensions to public notice in competition with their fame. The author of the Wealth of Nations, and the historian of the Roman Empire, were certainly not exempt from prejudice; but we believe their accounts of Oxford to have been, upon the whole, just and accurate, and, if not altogether free from bias, guiltless, at least, of misrepresentation. We conceive it necessary, however, to explain distinctly, that we have nothing to do with the proceedings of the universi

ty in those days when the early exertions of Adam Smith were chilled and impaired by a formal attendance on the frigid and perfunctory lectures of a Balliol Tutor, or when the monks of Maudlin, immersed in port and prejudice, left the genius of Gibbon secretly to waste its powers in the dangerous mazes of theological controversy. It may gratify private pique or national jealousy to confound the past with the present; but it is our duty to put upon record, for the information of those who shall come after us, a true and simple statement of what was done at Oxford in the year 1809. Whatever errors we may commit, our pages, we trust, shall long remain unsullied by the low buffoonery and distorted statements of facts, which the fashion of the day may tolerate, but cannot approve, in the adversaries of whatever is venerable for antiquity, or hereditary and external greatness, and uninfected with the solemn abuse which