Dejected widows with unheeded tears, Another step, and we approach the last act of the tragedy. Nay, turn not aside, but look on, and learn to be pitiful. It is a lesson we need to have often repeated: "How would you bear to draw your latest breath We will now turn to another picture of humble sorrow; mournful, indeed, but less dark with utter wretchedness. It is the burial of a village matron. With what simple, yet touching, details has the poet described the bereavement ! "Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill, Here the presence of affection relieves the impression of sadness, and beautifies the tomb. Now, let us see how exquisitely the poet could feel and depict the grace which love can impart to the hours of sickness and death. In the following passage all is sweetness and repose. It is the close of a tale of constancy and love; the sailor has returned to die in the arms of his betrothed: "One day he lighter seemed, and they forgot He named his friend, but then his hand she prest, Assuredly, he who could thus describe the tender ministry of woman's love, "And paint its presence beautifying death," had no lack of the gentler sympathies of the poet's nature, no feeble perception of the spirit which makes suffering forget to sorrow, and life, with all its trials, wear a smile of hope. It has indeed been said, and we believe it, that it is the lively sense of happiness alone which can teach the poet thoroughly to conceive the severity of its privation. The genius which inspired the passage above quoted is equally present in this strongly-contrasted description of the last hours in a conscience-stricken existence: "In each lone place, dejected and dismayed, Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid; But our poet's observation was not restricted to this department alone. It pursued, with equal vigilance, the actions of mankind into other walks of life, and has recorded them with similar accuracy and skill. Nor has he solely dwelt on their more serious occupations; the follies, and caprices, and singularities of human character he has happily seized, and described with consummate felicity, at times playfully, at others, in a tone of satire, forcible, yet free from cynicism. We would fain do justice to our author by citing more largely than is possible, within our present limits, from the abundant instances of quaint and genial delineation which could be selected from his writings. He was himself somewhat of a humorist, and is never more successful than in the portraiture of such characters, or where he pleasantly reveals the minor absurdities of habit or caprice. In the following cordial passage, we fancy we can recognise some traits of dear old Gilbert White of Selborne, that most amiable of all naturalists: "He had no system, and forebore to read The learned labours of the immortal Swede; But smiled to hear the creatures he had known The quiet humour of this passage is delightful. In a similar, yet richer vein, is the description of the pedant husband's disappointments with a pretty wife, whom he would fain (out upon him!) have moulded into a philosopher. Is not her prattle exquisite ? "He showed the flowers, the stamina, the style, And all the plant produces, branch and root; We do not think that Crabbe has ever been surpassed in the delineation of these minor peculiarities of habit, action, and propensity, which are in ordinary life the chief indications of character, yet which it requires a fine perception to distinguish and define, so slightly are they raised upon the general surface. The subjoined passage has been justly celebrated; although well known, it cannot be too often praised: "Six years had past, and forty ere the six, When time began to play his usual tricks; The locks once comely in a virgin's sight, Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching white; The blood, once fervid, now to cool began, And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man. I rode or walked as I was wont before, And new dislike to forms and fashions new. I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose; " We We can only spare room for one other specimen of a class, in which our author shows himself so eminently skilled. We learn from his biography, that the following picture of a singu. lar and whimsical ostentation was drawn from an express original. However this may be, we feel at once that it is true to human nature. And how dexterously is the portrait completed by a few touches! "Sir Denys Brand! and on so poor a steed!' A noble hunter, bought at dearest rate? I ride him not,-it is a foolish pride Men have in cattle,-but my people ride; I think a tenant,-Is your father one?'" His pa In what may be termed the historical analysis of character, Crabbe has few rivals. tience, minuteness, and care are inimitable. He traces the operation of passions, of original tendencies, of external accidents, as they combine to influence action and feeling in different ages and natures, with a fidelity almost approaching intuition. He employs no glaring contrasts, no abrupt transitions. Every step is noticed and prepared; we observe the progress of habit and will, as they advance towards virtue or vice, until we are placed in sight of the inevitable consequence. Nor is this power of our author employed on graver subjects alone. He takes an equal delight in pursuing throughout a long career, the eccentricities of a whimsical or humorous character, and dwells upon their changes with a most captivating gusto. Of his severer tone of remark, it should be observed, that it is never heard, but in the censure of arrogance, folly, or baseness, when the force of his sarcasm commands our entire approbation. is ever present to the thoroughly gifted teacher, amidst the deepest gloom of life's afflictions. He never learned, perhaps was not endowed with the perception of the highest function of his art. In his pictures of affection, and endurance, and self-sacrifice, we see poetry unconsciously vindicating her office; but the effect is casual and interrupted. And in estimating Crabbe's poetical merits, we are bound to award him praise as a faithful recorder of all that he knew, and an observer, diligent, but partial. Of that greater praise which attends the full comprehension of our history, we can afford him no share. In general, Crabbe's style is vigorous and correct, plain, and free from redundant epithets; But we must now touch upon our author's chief defect, as the poet of human life. Of that higher philosophy which not only perceives, but can reconcile the contending elements of suffering and action, we find no appearance in his writings. He is purely descriptive and historical. He lays the materials of existence before us in all their fulness; but there is no attempt on his part to arrange or explain them. He is, like ourselves, a mere spectator; more clear--at times it sinks to the level of the commonest sighted, and wise, and compassionate than the rest, yet still a spectator alone. He sees life but in fragments, nor does he appear to have any conception of a harmony, of a whole. He does not even aid us in unravelling the tangled web that has just passed through his hands: gently or firmly, as the texture of the various threads may require, he seizes upon them; and as he found them, so does he lay them down. He is no expounder of mysteries. The charge of kindling, amidst the darkest perplexities of life, the beacons of hope and belief, and universal love, is the highest function of poetry. We have no reason to believe that Crabbe was conscious of this attribute of his art; he wrote as though it had no existence. Let us not be misunderstood. Crabbe was a wise, and pious, and benevolent man. It is not of the rigour of his darkest pictures that we complain; but that we find in them no glimmering of that light which | vigorous, and manly writing. A prose, and perhaps never quite reaches the sustained elevation which his subject occasionally requires. The structure of his verse is not in general remarkable for melody; though passages might be found in his writings of easy and flowing versification, worthy of Pope himself. fondness for verbal points and appositions, approaching at times the nature of quibbles, is observable in his earlier efforts; in his last published work, the "Tales of the Hall," such instances rarely occur. Their effect, however, is not, on the whole, unpleasing; their occasional introduction gives pungency to his descriptive passages, and affords considerable gratification to the ear. We must now take leave of this excellent and amiable writer; whose poems we should wish to see in the hands of all those who have preserved, amidst the present deluge of languid prettinesses, some taste for sincere, SARAH SIDDONS. [1755-1831.] SARAH KEMBLE, afterwards Siddons, was the eldest of her family, and was born at the little town of Brecon in 1755. Her father, Roger Kemble, was manager of a company of actors sojourning chiefly in the midland and western towns of England. Mr Campbell, who had seen both parents in their elder years, says they were tall and comely personages; that the father had the suavity of a gentleman of the old school, while the mother possessed much of austere stateliness. In fact, as Mrs Jameson tells us, "Mrs Siddons, with all her graces of form and feature, her magnificence of deportment, her deeptoned measured voice and impressive enunciation, was in reality a softened reflection of her more stately, stern, majestic mother, whose genuine loftiness of spirit and of bearing, whose rare beauty and imperious despotism of character, have often been described as absolutely awful. Even her children trembled in her presence." The little Sarah Kemble was a beautiful child. Her movements full of ease and grace; her voice most melodious, and by dint of cultivation so clear, that she could make even her whisper audible to very distant listeners. Very little could be done for her education. Her brothers were sent by Roger Kemble, as a Roman Catholic, to a school established for children whose parents were of that persuasion, while Sarah was kept at home. One does not see how the children of parents living wholly by the profession, in the rank of Roger Kemble and his wife, could help being actors and actresses. Their parents might have preferred a different life for them, and in the higher theatrical world the business of the stage can be kept apart from the home; but in a shifting and poor company like this, the children were almost necessary to the performance, and of course would acquire the tastes and habits of stage life very early. Probably Mrs Siddons was made use of at as immature a period as any child could be. It is painful to think of her being forced to strive after intrepid and assured self-confidence in the earliest dawn of youth; but she never did wholly achieve such a degree of assurance, and those who best knew her agree that even to the last she had fits of timidity and nervousness. Very few records remain of that childish period. She always maintained that in early days she loved Milton better even than Shakespeare, and at ten years old used to pore over "Paradise Lost" for hours together. In later life it was said of her that she knew no books well save her Bible, Milton, and Shakespeare. This was not quite literally true, but certainly these had ever the daily preference. Nothing very material from this time is recorded of her till her sixteenth year. It is only noticed by her daughter, Mrs Combe, that when the period of childhood had passed away she became exceedingly thin and spare, and that this remained her characteristic for several years afterwards, giving occasion to an observation of one of her father's friends, that he thought Sarah Kemble would be a fine-looking woman one of these days, provided she could but add flesh to her bones, and provided her eyes were as small again. This, in fact, is what did occur. Her increasing embonpoint brought all into harmony, the eyes looked less prominent, and at the age of about twenty-four or twenty-five she was perhaps at the very height of her marvellous beauty. Every one knows that Mrs Siddons' affections were early engaged by her future husband, an actor in her father's company. From the age I have mentioned (sixteen), it is probable she underwent much anxiety, for the attachment was not approved by her parents, and she was sent from home to be out of her lover's way. He was not very dignified about the matter. He took the public into his confidence, singing on the stage an absurd ballad, in which he recorded his wrongs, to the extreme wrath of Mrs Kemble. Excepting in the matter of this ill-judged ebullition, nothing amiss is recorded of him; and the parents, finding the mutual attachment unconquerable, consented at length to the union, a short time after Sarah had entered her nineteenth year, in November 1773. A small anecdote, related to her biographer, Mr Campbell, by herself, belongs doubtless to a very juvenile period. Her mother, she said, had promised one day to take her out into the country on an expedition of pleasure, provided the weather was propitious; and she was to wear a new pink frock, which she thought became her well. On going to bed that night, the child's reigning desire was of course for a beautiful morrow, and it occurred to her that the use of the Church prayer for fair weather would be appropriate. So she went to bed and to sleep, with the book open at the page folded in her little arms. At daybreak she woke, and alas! found the rain pelting against the windows. She had, however, recourse to the book again, and it appears, convinced herself that she had erred before by taking the prayer for rain instead of the one she intended. So she remedied the mistake, turned to the right place, went to sleep again; and behold, the morning came clearing than her own, and next of profiting by their and bright, the party was successful, and the pink dress was all that her heart could desire! There is no criticising simple anecdotes like this, and I should be sorry for any one who did not recognise in it the germ of a piety, moving, if not quite spontaneously, yet in what was thought the right and true way. Certain it is, that throughout her whole career Mrs Siddons had the greatest possible sympathy with little children. Let them be as illogical and careless as possible, still she loved them dearly; and of course they dearly loved her. She had the talent for observing them closely without oppressing them, and nothing delighted her more than that they should act and speak at ease before her. Respecting this trait in her character, I must say more by-and-by; but when speaking of her own simple-hearted childhood, one is led to feel how much it had to do with her affection for the young in after-life. The vocation of Mrs Siddons was now, of course, absolutely decided. Hitherto, though she had taken the parts assigned her under her father's orders, she had had little time at her own disposal, and had no friends but those of her parents.* Now, however, she almost at once exhibited her remarkable power of first exciting interest in the minds of people of higher stand advice and help. She never seems to have formed a real friendship with any one by whose character and conduct she could not be a gainer. Of course, the advantages offered to her in different places varied much. At Cheltenham, where first we hear of the young married pair acting together, she was immediately noticed. Cheltenham, then a town consisting of little more than one street, across which ran a clear stream crossed by stepping-stones, was not without its aristocratic theatrical critics. The Ayles * Perhaps I should have excepted the Greatheed family, residing at Guy's Cliff, Warwick. To them she Siddons, and though it is probable that she went was sent when it was desired to separate her from Mr merely in the capacity of a humble attendant, she must have gained something in the course of her readings to Mrs Greatheed; and she retained the friendship of the family through life. bury family, and particularly Miss Boyle, their connection (who afterwards married Lord O'Neil of Shane's Castle, Ireland), called upon her, and paid her much attention. This was not founded on her theatrical repute merely. They deemed her worthy of a lasting friendship, and encouraged to the extent of their power her taste and talent. In another way this patronage was of more questionable advantage, if it be true, as is affirmed, that their representations led to Mr Garrick's sending down one of his agents to see her act in the "Fair Penitent," and soon afterwards giving her an invitation to Drury Lane: an unfortunate move, which put to hazard all her rising excellences, and which must be considered, when we take into account the few advantages she had then enjoyed, as premature. However, the invitation was at once accepted. She did not go to London till January 1776, and by that time she was the mother of two children. not till long afterwards that she insisted on working out thoroughly her own conceptions of a character. She was willing for some time to listen to every remark; but when she had made herself sure at last of her ground, no one, however gifted, could shake her conscientious adherence to her own views. It would seem that she was at Birmingham during the whole summer of 1776. There it was that she met Henderson, an excellent judge, who acted with her, and was so impressed by her powers, that he pronounced that she would be eventually an unsurpassed actress. He wrote to Palmer, the manager at Bath, and Palmer appears to have negotiated with her. But she did not go to Bath till late in the year 1777, playing first successfully at York. At Bath she took up her abode for three and a half years; and her improvement there was great. It was not merely that she studied carefully, but she caught a higher tone altogether from the excellent society into which she was thrown. Bath was then, more than at any time perhaps, the resort of intelligent, excellent judges. They took her by the hand, did honour to her char life. Yet the enjoyment and improvement of such a position alternated with very hard work. Her appearance at Drury Lane was followed by many mortifications. The contemporary papers gave her very moderate praise; and in Mr Garrick's behaviour to her there was a mix-acter, and remained her steady friends through ture of harshness and flattery which one can only understand by supposing that he found her very unequal in the display of what power she possessed. Also, that being on the point of leaving the stage himself, he cared more for standing well with his old stage coadjutors, than for a débutante who was said to be "ill dressed, often inaudible, and frightened," while she was allowed to be pretty, delicate, and fragile-looking. To us, who know what this disdained débutante afterwards became, who can read even in that early time the indications of a character in which lay the elements of the highest kinds of success, the public judgment may well seem hasty and unfair. It was certain that Mrs Siddons' mortification was not soothed by any amenities of manner in those from whom she received her dismissal from London; and she had deep susceptibility, and felt on the occasion so keenly, that she had a serious illness. To the last of her life she could not forbear speaking with bitterness of this part of her lot: made more painful doubtless, by her own habitual sincerity, and what she at least considered as a want of truthfulness on the part of others; for she always maintained that Garrick's compliments were in sad contrast to his conduct towards her. It was not in Mrs Siddons' nature, however, to yield to dejection. On recovering from her illness, she rallied her forces, threw her whole mind into her work, and acted both at Birming. ham and York with vigour and success. Every effort told, because all were overruled by consummate good sense, and by a reasonable deferential attention to the best counsels: for it was In her private memoranda she complains of having had to act in many subordinate, perhaps disagreeable characters; "but to this," she says, "I was obliged to submit, or to forfeit part of my salary-£3 a week. Tragedies were now becoming more and more fashionable. This was favourable to my cast of powers; and while I laboured hard, I began to earn a distinct and flattering reputation. Hard labour indeed it was; for after the rehearsal at Bath on a Monday morning, I had to act at Bristol" (not in railway days) "on the evening of the same day; and returning twelve miles to Bath, had to represent some fatiguing part on the Tuesday evening. . . When I recollect all this labour of mind and body, I wonder I had strength and courage to support it, interrupted as I was by the cares of a mother" (she had then three children) "and by the childish sports of my little ones, who were almost unwillingly hushed to silence for interrupting their mother's studies." But laborious as was her position at Bath, Mrs Siddons did not hastily accept a new proposal to quit it; not even though that proposal came from Drury Lane, and she could not be unconscious that her prospects of success were now far greater than before. She was now in her twenty-seventh year. She had been but twentyone when she tried her skill under Garrick's auspices. What a contrast it was to be! What a rich reward was the persevering, industrious, conscientious artist to reap! For now one night, one short hour, was to establish her on that basis of well-earned fame, from whence it was D |