Part 13

'I HAD no personal knowledge of STEPHEN KEMBLE, but I cannot refrain from mentioning a circumstance which happened when he was manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. The exiled family of the Bourbons were residing at the Palace of Holyrood, and great respect and attention were shown by the nobility in the neighborhood to the unfortunate descendants of a long line of kings. Mr. KEMBLE thought the patronage of the Comte D'ARTOIS, afterward CHARLES the Tenth, would be a source of great attraction. Application was made at the palace, and with success. His Royal Highness left the selection of the play to the manager, who fixed upon 'Henry the Fourth,' for the purpose of exhibiting himself in his own popular character of Sir JOHN FALSTAFF. One can scarcely conceive a duller play for a Frenchman, almost ignorant of the English language, and wholly unable to enter into the subtilties of such a being as the Fat Knight. The great desideratum, however, was obtained. The house was crowded, and the manager was satisfied. His Royal Highness bore the infliction in a most exemplary manner, and retired amidst the respectful greetings of the audience. A week had hardly elapsed, when KEMBLE (probably not from any selfish motive, but with the laudable view of affording some amusement to the illustrious exile,) again presented himself at Holyrood, and suggested another visit to his theatre. The Comte D'ARTOIS received him most graciously; indeed, it was not in his nature to do otherwise, for he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen in Europe. He declined the invitation, however, in nearly the following words: 'I am vara mosh oblige, Monsieur KEMBLE; it was vara nice, indeed; I laugh mosh; _bot von sosh fun, it ees enoff_!'

This dubious compliment of the Count is not unlike the praise awarded by a polite French officer to a battalion of rather inferior provincial volunteers in England. He was pressed for his opinion, which he gave as follows: 'Gentlemens, I 'av seen de Garde-Royal and de Garde-NAPOLEON; I 'av seen de Russ and de Pruss; _but by Gar! I 'av nevare see such troops as dese!--no, nevare!_' With the two passages annexed, the one describing an annoyance to which popular actors are not unfrequently exposed, and the other the tricks of which they are sometimes made the subjects, we take our leave of Mr. ABBOTT'S 'experiences' at Edinburgh:

'IN passing through the gallery at Holyrood, where the miserable daubs of the Scottish kings are exhibited, I was accosted by a legitimate cockney, whom I discovered to be a traveller for some furniture-maker's establishment. He had not been long enough in his vocation to acquire the shrewdness for which that class of persons are celebrated, but made up in unsophisticated simplicity what they possess in assurance. He recognized me immediately, having, as he said, 'frequently seen me at Covent-Garden Theatre;' and without any extra ceremony he fastened himself upon me. When he came to the portrait of MACBETH, he turned quickly round upon our cicerone, and said: 'LORD bless you! that's not a bit like him; for I saw JOHN KEMBLE _do it_, and it isn't so much like him as the moon is like a Cheshire cheese.' But the climax of his sage remarks occurred when the old woman came to the spot where DAVID RIZZIO was murdered, and pointed out the stain of his blood, which still remains, and which neither time nor soap, she said, would ever efface. Our cockney rubbed his hands with delight, and said: 'Why, my good woman, _I'll give you some stuff that will take it out in half an hour_!' * * * One morning I lounged into the box-office, which was crowded with persons taking places; and on looking at the playbill of the night's performance, I saw the tragedy of Isabella announced, 'Carlos by Mr. ABBOTT, _with his celebrated hornpipe in fetters_, as performed by him at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden!' This was one of the practical jokes of my friend MURRAY, (who married a sister of THOMAS MOORE.) He had given the printer directions to strike off some half a dozen bills of _this_ stamp, for the purpose of raising a laugh against me!'

Soon after the retirement of JOHN KEMBLE from the London stage, a great event, and well described by Mr. ABBOTT, that great tragedian gave a memorable dinner to some eighteen or twenty of the most distinguished members of the _corps-dramatique_ of Covent-Garden Theatre. Among the guests, also, was TALMA, of whom we have this graphic account:

'ON this occasion we had a fine trait of the tragic powers of TALMA; not a bombastic display of French acting, but a grand and simple narrative of facts, connected with that frightful epoch, the French Revolution. He himself was suspected, watched; and his profession alone saved him from the blood-hounds who were on his track. During the most terrific period, he did not dare to sleep at his hotel, but lived in the outskirts of the metropolis; and when called in town by his professional avocations, he would steal like a culprit to the gate of his residence, and in an under tone inquire of the old Swiss porter the bloody news of the day. On one occasion he was told that some thirty or forty of his most intimate friends had that very morning perished by the guillotine. Feeling that the crisis of his own fate had arrived, he went tremblingly to the theatre; and during the performance the overwhelming anguish of his soul was relieved only by the tears coursing down his cheeks; and the very expression of which feeling every moment endangered his life. There was a cold, creeping chilliness about the hearts of all present as he spoke, which was perfectly thrilling; and not a sound was heard till he had ceased.'

Here is a brace of anecdotes of an absent-minded brother-actor, which will perhaps 'agitate the risible organs' of some of our readers:

'HENRY,' in 'Speed the Plough,' was a character in which he had gained some reputation. At the closing scene of the play, he rushes into a wing of the castle, which is in flames, in quest of papers likely to disclose the secret of his birth. He returns in fearful agitation, with his right hand concealed in his bosom, and which in fact should contain the bloody _dénouement_ of the plot, a towel dipped in blood, _alias_ rose-pink, and a knife, also properly stained for the occasion. The climax of his speech ran thus: 'In vain the angry flames flashed their vengeance around me! Among many other evidences of blood and guilt, I found _these_!'--producing his fingers and hand! He had entirely forgotten the essential accompaniments * * * His first appearance was before Mr. DIMOND had quitted the stage, and who enacted the part of 'Belcour' in 'The West Indian.' In the scene with his sister the debutant should say: 'Are you assured that Mr. BELCOUR gave you no diamonds?' The question however was rendered thus: 'Are you assured that Mr. DIMOND gave you no BELCOURS?'

Such errors, we believe, are not infrequent upon the stage. The reader will perhaps remember the blunder of the Ghost in Hamlet, on one occasion; who, instead of saying that the 'knotted and combinéd locks' of the young prince would 'stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine,' reversed the terms in this ludicrous manner: 'Your twisted and combinéd locks shall stand up straight, like forks upon the _fretful quillcopine_!' A single passage more must close our extracts from this delightful autobiography. It is a short story, touching 'the immortal TOWNSEND, the first of Bow-street officers, the favorite of Royalty, and the dread of all coachmen and flambeau'd footmen:'

'I THINK I see him now, with his flaxen wig, his low-crowned hat, long gaiters, and half-Quaker suit,' discoursing most eloquent music.' It was a source of great amusement to the young sprigs of nobility to extract from him in conversation some of his most characteristic slang expressions; nor did Royalty itself disdain to be amused at his expense. About the period of the connection between the Duke of Clarence and Mrs. JORDAN, public opinion was rife on the subject. His Royal Highness was at the opera, surrounded by the world of fashion; and when he encountered TOWNSEND, who was on duty there, he said, in his brusque, off-hand manner: 'Ah! Townsend, Townsend, how d' ye do, Townsend?' 'Why, your Royal Highness, pretty bobbish, I thank you,' replied the functionary. 'Well, Townsend, what news, what news?' 'Why, nothink, your Royal Highness, of any consequence.' 'Oh, nonsense! nonsense! The people must have something to talk about.' 'Why then, if your Royal Highness pleases, the talk is principally about you and Mrs. JORDAN.' The sailor-prince was here a little thrown 'aback.' 'Never mind, never mind; let them talk; I don't care.' Observe the simplicity of the answer: 'Your Royal Highness is a d--d fool if you do!'

The foregoing is the result of a merely casual dipping, here and there, into the teeming pages of Mr. ABBOTT'S manuscript volume. Whoever the fortunate publisher of the work may be, he may calculate with certainty upon its acquiring instant popularity.

'THE DIAL' for the October quarter is a very excellent and lifeful number of that greatly-improved journal. Among the articles which most attracted our attention and admiration, are the 'Youth of the Poet and Painter,' 'A Winter Walk,' an essay on 'The Comic,' and the 'Letter' of the Editor to his correspondents. The first of these papers is characterized by several thrusts of a trenchant satire. We should rather infer, from the recorded 'experiences' of the writer, that when he first entered college, his bump of reverence for collegiate institutions and men of learning could hardly have been developed. Hear him, how he saith:

'I SAW that in reciting our lessons to the conceited tutors, who think College is the Universe, and the President Jupiter, they had the impudence to give us marks for what we did, as if we, paying them for so much aid in our lessons, were therefore to be rewarded by them with a couple of pencil scratches. I found we were treated, not only as machines, but to be set up or down, at the discretion of these tutors, who had merely to scratch down a mark, and thus decide our fates. This foolery I felt I could not agree to.' 'I found here no scholars whatever. Some young men deficient in grace, were wearing out the elbows of their coats, in getting by heart some set lessons of some little text-books, and striving which should commit them the most perfectly to memory. This perfection lay in the point of a tutor's pencil, and was at last decided on by the votes of a band of professors, who loved wine and puddings better than literature or art, and whose chief merit lay in keeping their feet dry.'

Perhaps 'these be truths.' Certain it is, that the annexed passage partakes of the veritable. It is a 'picture in little' of the morning routine of a briefless lawyer; and the sitter has many a counterpart in this metropolis of Gotham:

'IN the morning, you enter your office at half-past eight, read the paper till nine, and then, if you feel able, walk as far as the court-house. There you are provided with a seat by the sheriff, and cold water by the deputy-sheriff. You next stare at the Court, consisting of one or more judges, twelve jurymen, a criminal or civil case, four baize tables, and a lot of attorneys. You next begin to make motions, which consists in getting a case put off, or put on, as you happen to feel, and run your eye over the docket, which is kept at the clerk's table, in a ledger, for the accommodation of the county, and the clerk's family. If it is your case which comes on, you open your eyes wide, talk a great deal about nothing, and dine with the bar. Occasionally you will feel sleepy after dinner, but awake yourself by smoking a cigar, or driving into the country.'

Here is an extract which will be appreciated for its graceful diction, the love and observation of nature which it displays, and the pensive train of thought which its tone engenders:

'TO-DAY has been pure golden sun-shine since morning; and how the day-god played with the trunks of the trees, as if the forest were one great harp! In the morning, as I sat among golden-rods, under the shade of a pine, where on every side these sunny flowers grew, it seemed as if the sunlight had become so thickly knotted and intertwined with the roots and stems of the plants and grasses, that it could not escape, but must remain and shine forever; yet the pine tree's shadow, at sunset and before, fell long across the place, and the gay light had fled, like the few bright days of life, which fly so rapid by. The old tell us we are young, and can know nothing of life; to me it seems I have lived centuries, out of which I can reckon on my fingers the days of pleasure, when my heart beat high. I fancy there is a race of men born to know only the loss of life by its joys; to live by single days, and to pass their time for the most part in shadowy vistas, where there is neither darkness nor light, but perpetual mist. I am one of these; and though I love nature; the river, the forest, the clouds, she is only a phantom, like myself, and passes slowly, an unexplained mystery, like my own consciousness, which shows through a want of perfect knowledge. I see myself, only as what I do not know, and others, as some reflection of this ignorance, an iceberg among other icebergs, slowly drifting from the frozen pole of birth to the frozen pole of death, through a sunny sea.'

Well pleased should we have been to accompany our observant and thoughtful essayist, when he fetched his 'Winter Walk.' Mark his delicate appreciation of the little accessories of the season. We thank him for awakening vivid glimpses of the past, that go strait to the fresh scenes of boyhood:

'THERE is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in January or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around every tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools, is as dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the wall-sides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our back as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place. This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast, for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveller cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.' * * * 'In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and merry, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skilful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us.'

We commend the following to those who seem to think that a thorough love of the comic or the burlesque argues an ill-regulated mind or a perverted taste. That there _are_ such persons, the reader who has done us the honor to peruse our late confabulations with correspondents, will not need to be informed:

'A PERCEPTION of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character. Wherever the intellect is constructive, it will be found. We feel the absence of it as a defect in the noblest and most oracular soul. It insulates the man, cuts down all bridges between him and other men. The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, is a pledge of sanity, and is a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities into which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A man alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.'

In the subjoined, which we take from the 'Letter' of the Editor, already alluded to, may be seen one beneficial result of the 'hard times,' which, driving men out of cities and trade, forced them to take off their coats and go to work on the land, which has rewarded them not only with wheat, but with habits of labor:

'SPECULATION is no succedaneum for life. What we would know, we must do. As if any taste or imagination could take the place of fidelity! The old Duty is the old God. And we may come to this by the rudest teaching. A friend of ours went five years ago to Illinois to buy a farm for his son. Though there were crowds of emigrants in the roads, the country was open on both sides, and long intervals between hamlets and houses. Now after five years he has just been to visit the young farmer and see how he prospered, and reports that a miracle has been wrought. From Massachusetts to Illinois, the land is fenced in and builded over, almost like New-England itself, and the proofs of thrifty cultivation every where abound.'

There is much less of the new style of verbal affectations in the present than in preceding numbers of 'The Dial,' and it is just in this proportion the more readable and attractive. We see something indeed of 'externality.' 'reäction inward,' 'unitive ideas;' and certain compound terms, which are meant to be forcible, but are only foolish; such as 'flesh-meat' for meat, 'foot-tread' for tread, and other the like words; but they are scarcely worth mentioning; the infrequency of their occurrence being a sufficient proof of the decadence into which they are already falling.

* * * * *

'MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND.'--We have in three handsome volumes, from the press of Messrs. LEA AND BLANCHARD, Philadelphia, an accurate memoir of the Court of England, from the Revolution in 1668 to the death of GEORGE the Second. The work proceeds from the pen of JOHN HENEASE JESSE, author of 'Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the STUARTS.' There are numerous and fruitful themes of instruction and warning in these volumes; lessons which have not been lost upon the world, and which are of especial interest to the citizens of a republic; aside from which, the details of the private history of some score of eminent persons, who left their impress on the eras in which they flourished, must needs have attraction for the general reader, who may only peruse them with an eye to lively entertainment. We observe, by the journals of the day, that the work is heartily welcomed and duly appreciated by the public.

THE DRAMA.

PARK THEATRE.--We congratulate the friends of the drama upon the bright auspices under which this establishment has commenced the present season. Those who have long predicted the downfall of things theatrical, and the utter extinction of the legitimate drama, find but little in the present aspect of affairs at this house to flatter their spirit of prophecy. So long as we continue upon the civilized side of barbarism, so long will a true taste for the drama remain with us. It is the natural food of an intellectual society, and as such will be cherished wherever that society exists; the vagaries of fashion on the one hand, and the railings of fanaticism on the other, to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. WALLACK.--The engagement fulfilled by this gentleman, after an absence of some years, proved to his admirers that the vigor and vivacity of his acting have lost none of their former charms. In those personations which he has long since made his own, he displayed the same excellence which ever characterized his performance. To say that Mr. WALLACK stands at the head of melo-dramatic actors, is not awarding him full praise. He is immeasurably beyond all rivalry in this branch of the art. Melo-dramatic performances by _other_ artists bear about the same relation to the chaste acting of tragedy that the art of scene-painting in water-colors does to that other art which embraces alike the power of tracing upon canvass the most delicate as well as the most magnificent works of nature, in the bold and imperishable figures of a MICHAEL ANGELO or a CLAUDE LORRAINE. The outlines, the sketchy prominences, of the landscape are what the best of the melo-dramatic actors have delineated; but WALLACK has gone a distance beyond them, and added a grace and a finish to the picture, of which his subjects were before thought incapable of receiving. And yet Mr. WALLACK is no tragedian. With the high regard which we entertain for his talents, we have never seen them exerted in tragedy, without lamenting their sad misdirection. In the enviable station which he occupies as the first melo-dramatic actor of the age, fearless of rivalry, he should be satisfied, and consider the dignity of third-rate tragedian as entirely beneath his ambition.

Mr. MACREADY.--Sixteen years ago the American public were first gratified by the performance of this great tragedian--great even then; and those who remember the peculiar character of his style at that time, have recognized it again with all its beauties improved by long study and practice, and not entirely devoid of blemishes. Mr. MACREADY'S acting presents the effect of great study; it shows the result of sound judgment, and bears witness to the absence of all feeling. Great as was EDMUND KEAN, and great as is the subject of this notice, in the same department of the drama, never were two artists, on or off the stage, more completely the antipodes of each other. KEAN, all soul; reckless of art, and apparently despising even the most common and long-received rules and usages of the stage; rushed before his audience, embodying as he advanced the very soul of the character which he had put on with his dress; warming with it, _feeling_ the sensations which he expressed; with