eyes upon Kemble, and pronounced aloud the following lines from the great painter of man:

"O'tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young Ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the topmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend."

-Julius Cæsar, 1623, p. 114.

Such a quotation operated like an extinguisher upon poor human vanity, and the subject was dropped. The monitor, I believe, soon after called for brandy, surely without necessity, and school broke up without further mischief. Such was his mood occasionally while on this side excess; on the other he became so utterly and mischievously ungovernable as even to threaten his audiences, and, patting his sword with his right hand, "wish himself among them."

In a work that looks to the passing ornaments of the drama, I must not omit to notice the death of Mrs. Montagu, which occurred on the 25th of August, 1800, at her house in Portman Square, nor forget the expressive look of Kemble soon after at the hatchment in front of the beautiful

building, nor his happy application of Antony's exclamation when he learns the death of Fulvia:

"There's a great spirit gone!"

Who can forget her "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare?" or the smart reproof to Voltaire? or the general ignorance of that poet and his works that distinguished his countrymen? A ludicrous instance occurs to me. Guernier had been employed to make designs for Pope's small edition in twelves; now, to do this some reading of his works seems to be necessary. Accordingly this artist condescended to read our barbarian, and he selected in "Macbeth" the following stage direction for the subject of his illustration.

"Eight Kings appear and pass over in order the last with a glass in his hand.”

And accordingly he read, or might have read, in the play, at eight lines distance from the stage direction:

And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,
Which shows me many more."

The eighth phantom in Guernier's design abso

lutely holds a common wine-glass in his hand. Nor are some of Voltaire's own blunders much less risible.

The great woman above apostrophised was some years since at Spa, with her friend Mrs. Carter, and the late Earl of Bath, after making the tour of Germany. At Liege, the whole college of Jesuits came out to meet our two learned countrywomen; and, after an interview, confessed that fame had not exaggerated their mental powers, for they had more learning than their whole college. At Louvain, the vice-chancellor addressed Mrs. Carter in a prepared Greek oration, and she, without the slightest hesitation, replied to him in the same language. Here were two Elizabeths to add to the great queen. To talk of the equality of human conditions indeed! Mrs. Montagu had been educated by Conyers Middleton, and was almost worshipped by the good Lord Lyttelton. She had been happily married to the grandson of an earl, who left her, at his decease, in most affluent circumstances; and, when she died herself, she could devise estates to her nephew valued at £10,000 per annum. And in addition to all this, her memory will be revered alike for her genius and her benevolence. With Gibbon, she

might gratefully say, "she had drawn a rich prize in the lottery of life."

To return within the walls of the theatre. The genius of Drury Lane being fast asleep while awaiting a change in the property, we must look at its restless rival, which had got out another five-act comedy, by Reynolds, called "Life," attended with his usual success; that is, about twenty £500 houses. The Marchmont interest is certainly improbable: the man does not know his own wife when he sees her, and she is employed as a governess to teach her own daughter. The Lackbrains excite hearty laughter, and Sir Harry Torpid perfect astonishment, being represented by William Lewis.

Tom Dibdin, another clever and stirring spirit, worked up "Il Bondocani" out of the new Arabian Tales, and diverted the town with the immortal Haroun Alraschid.

The month of August, 1800, saw Mr. Holcroft united to the very amiable daughter of M. Mercier, the author of a periodical called Tableau de Paris. And this union undoubtedly facilitated his access to the novelties of the French stage. This enabled him to be beforehand with others in the preparation of M. Bouilly's "Abbé de l' Epée," called by the

translator "Deaf and Dumb;" which, although not produced on the stage till the 24th of February, 1801, had been long in the manager's possession, who had been teasing Peake for many months to let him have fifty pounds for the author, whose slight go-cart could not wait for the wheels of the ponderous wagon of Drury. At the end of November Kemble had not been able to get it for him, though faithfully promised a fortnight before.

On the 18th of January Mrs. Jordan was delivered of a daughter, at Bushy, and her confinement seems to have quickened the deaf and dumb of the cabinet council, and the play was therefore produced to the public with vast applause on the day already named.

benevolent Abbé.

Kemble himself acted the

Horne Tooke calls abbreviations in language the wings of Mercury, by which an effort at least is made to keep up with the demands of thought. Kemble seemed to telegraph his interesting scholar Miss Decamp, who acted the part of Julio; the set of signs between them were something in the taste of Prospero's wand, and she was at least as observant, as obedient, and quite as spiritual as Ariel himself. I think my accomplished friend and