She was of foreign extraction, though to take a continental tour together. They born in England: and the second letter first visited Paris-the revolution had not (t) had been added to her name, in order banished from the Parisians their taste for to deprive it of its original sound, which music-they were delighted with "les Anthe vulgar English tongue, while reading glaise, musicales," as they were then denothe play-bill, was apt to render very "un- minated: and their intended three weeks' pleasing to ears polite." She was the visit was prolonged to eight months. They daughter of a well-known musician, and then proceeded to Italy, with letters of prosister to the celebrated composer Storace. tection, as well as introduction, from the Sacchini was her finishing maestro; with revolutionary leaders in Paris. This was him she went to Italy when a very young essential to their safety in those troublewoman, appeared at Florence, was after- some times. wards engaged at Vienna-where she 'Twas at Florence that Braham first soon enthralled, and married a very musi-made his bow to an Italian audiencecal English gentleman, a Doctor Fisher. and he met with the warmest reception Soon after this marriage the young can- that even vanity could have anticipated. tatrice was supposed to have thrown "the leer of invitation " to the amorous, as well as musical potentate-the Emperor Joseph.

As the aforesaid "leer of invitation" was generally understood to be answered by the silly monarch, the lady thought it politic to quarrel with her unfortunate husband, and claim a divorce, on the ground of some trivial informality in the ceremony. The divorce was granted at the emperor's nod-the poor husband had his passport sent him, with the ecclesiastical fiat. The last obliged him to quit his wife, and the first to fly from the Austrian dominions, sur le champ. The cantatrice after some time left Vienna and fickle royalty. She returned to England, and notwithstanding her well-known infamy, yet having now the foreign stamp, she was well received, and highly rewarded. This woman's after conduct to her husband was perhaps the most heartless, if not the most reprehensible, action of her life.

He made the tour of Italy, and by his vocal abilities, excited admiration in every city he visited. He was singing at Genoa to crowded audiences during the memorable siege of that ancient town. At Leghorn he met the gallant Nelson, and was invited to dine with him on board of his noble ship, the Foudroyant-and at Naples the honour was repeated-and there he had the pleasure of hob and nob· bing with the somewhat notorious queen of Naples, who had visited the English admiral afloat.

On his return to London in one thousand eight hundred and one, he came out in an opera which failed; this induced him to try composition himself, when his industrious, if not talented friend, poor Tom Dibdin, furnished Covent Garden with what he called a comic opera, and which he named "The Cabinet." Braham had so humble an opinion of his own histrionic abilities at that time, that he actually requested Dibdin to give him as little to say, and as much to sing, as possible. Poor Doctor Fisher at her request had In "The Cabinet," Braham composed all been regularly passported out of Vienna- the music destined to be sung by himself he went to Ireland to endeavour to sup--the rest was divided between the various port himself by his acknowledged talent, composers of the time, Reeve, Morehead, but illness soon incapacitated him. He and others; but Braham's "Beautiful was advised to try his native air-he | Maid," and "No more by sorrow chased,” therefore came to England-sickness and established the run of this opera for many poverty soon wore him to the bone: in this seasons, and even now it is a stock dish condition he was met by a friend, who in every provincial theatre in the United had been a witness to his unfortunate mar- Kingdom. He, at this period, and in variage; he was horror-stricken at the change, rious succeeding years, composed a part and knowing that the ci-devant wife was, of many operas, and the whole of some at that time, earning the immense sum of few-with innumerable single songs; and one hundred pounds per week, he pre- it is a notorious fact, that he has frequently vailed on poor Fisher to suffer his pride received more money for adapting a song, to yield to his necessity-he accordingly than many talented composers have for a wrote to the depraved woman, describing whole opera. We will give as an instance, his dreadful situation, and soliciting a tri- the old Irish air "Aileen aroon:"-he obfling loan, (twenty pounds only.) for food tained English words, and made a slight and raiment. She refused him even a alteration in some of the notes, and brought single guinea. The degradation of hav-it out as "Robin Adair," and such was its ing made the request, and horror at the monster's refusal, went to his heart. The verdict of a coroner's inquest was, "FOUND DEAD!"

popularity, that it was sung in every theatre, and ground on every barrel organ in every alley, lane, street, and square, within the bills of mortality. And the publisher To this woman was Braham for many sold, (for Braham's profit,) in one year, years bound-we presume by interest- for home consumption and exportation, we are sure it could not be by affection. upwards of two hundred thousand copies When she first enthralled him, they agreed-such was its harmonious excitement.

About twenty-five years ago the ill-assort-ever I have done elsewhere, I must shorted "arrangement" with Signora Storace ly answer for to the laws of my country; was ended as suddenly as it began-the and I appeal to your generosity, to leave brusque and brutal manner of the then the affair to the decision of that tribunal." prima donna, roused the blood of the hitherto passive little vocalist, and "The poisoned chalice was returned to her own lips."

As she had treated her husband, even so did Braham treat her-with this exception, that she had secured to herself an ample fortune. As she did not, however, follow the example of her husband, poor Doctor Fisher, we have no coroner's inquest to record. She lived, and enjoyed (if such a woman could enjoy,) the good things of this world; and when she died, at a good old age, there was a tablet erected, (by those who inherited her wealth,) to record her virtues.

This speech was not lost upon the majority of those to whom it was addressed -silence was demanded-his silly assailants threatened with expulsion-common sense soon resumed her sway, and the oratorio proceeded without further interruption.

Braham paid the thousand pounds and costs, and the only observation he was ever known to make on the untoward affair, was, "That it was very dear at the price."

With respect to the morality of the histrionic professors, and their little faux pas, the public seem lately to have reversed the general order of censure, visited on the heads of the frail ones of any other walk in life. They now condemn the men for the very profligacy for which they support, applaud, and patronise the women. Those lines which our harmonious dramatic poet has allotted to the lachrymose strumpet of the royal Edward, are pointless now.

"That man, the lawless libertine, may rove,

It was during Storace's lifetime that our little hero added to his notoriety, though not to his moral character, by being announced as the defendant in a crim. con. action (Wright versus Braham made a great noise in the world.) He was convicted in a penalty of one thousand pounds, though, from all we could ever learn, we verily believe the poor little vocalist was more sinned against than sinning. His dulcet voice had entered through the ear, and taken possession of the heart of the weak and pretty Mrs. Wright, and Braham became her victim. His friends shrugged their shoulders, and said, "he ought to have known better;" but Pliny has very justly observed, that a man cannot be wise at all times-"Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit." The lady flattered the vanity of the little warbler, and he was silly enough to yield; she caught This might have been all very true in him in one of those fatal hours, when he Rowe's time; but (with respect to theatrihad all the veritable Mark Antony weak-cal ladies) we may exclaim with Molière's ness about him. doctor

"What lost the world, and made a hero fly? The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye."

Free and unquestion'd through the wilds of love;
While woman-sense and nature's easy fool-
If poor weak woman swerve from virtue's rule,
If, strongly charm'd, she quit the thorny way,
And in the softer paths of pleasure stray;
Ruin ensues, reproach, and endless shame ;
And one false step entirely damns her fame :
In vain, with tears, the loss she may deplore,
She sets-like stars that fall-to rise no more."

"Nous avons chang toute cela."

For the stars that formerly "fell to rise no Before the case came to a jury, rumour more," now never set, but acquire greater with its hundred tongues had spoken of brilliancy in public estimation in moral the poor seduced little Braham, as the England, by their well-known and acmost abandoned Giovanni that cold Eng-knowledged profligacy; while virtuous and land had ever produced; and, on his appearance as principal tenor at an oratorio, some over-virtuous lack-wits took upon themselves the ungracious office of hissing and hooting him. As the unfortunate affair was pending in a court of law, the little Mark Antony of the musical world was nettled at this unjust attempt at a prejudgment, and made a very spirited address to the audience, which we give verbatim et literatim.

"LADIES AND Gentlemen:

"I should indeed be unworthy of the favour which I have constantly experienced, if I pretended to be ignorant of the cause of your displeasure. I am here, in the discharge of my public duties. What

respectable actresses, such as Miss Phillips, Miss Tree, Miss Jarman, Miss Huddart, Miss Taylor, &c. &c. (whatever their talent may be,) are driven into exile, or remain as unattractive and unnoticed as "le mouton qui rêve;" proving that, with the drama's patrons, respectability is at a discount, and impurity at a high premium; in proof of which we will quote two or three instances from the well-known many who brave shame.

And we will commence with a most disgustingly heartless one.

A well-known theatrical lady, who has been long denominated the "fat, fair, and forty-five," though the mother of six fine children, quitted an honourable, kind, and honest husband, for the arms of a more

wealthy married professor of the histrionic art, who (to the surprise of all who knew him) was seized with a sort of phrenological madness, occasioned, as he himself sillily observed, by the bump of philoprogenitiveness unexpectedly rising on his cranium, when on the shady side of forty; (for this is the profligate excuse actually offered by the gentleman for having quitted his amiable, but childless wife, for the arms of the fat lady who abandoned her husband and her children;) we paraphrase the exclamation of Sheridan's Lady Sneerwell

"Sir Peter, may your wife live these fifty years."

Yet this precious couple-thus doubly violating the holy vow-revel in every luxury, are splendidly vehicular, and are patronized, applauded, and enriched by the very public, who, in the cause of morality, hissed Braham, hooted Kean from the stage, drove him into exile, and to the extra indulgence in those bachanalian vices which brought him to his grave in the very prime of manhood.

*

*

*

Our case, number two, shall be "the She may, perhaps, be allowed to plead "injury and retaliation" in mitigation of public censure, when accused of" vetitum nefas:" for when, in her early teens, she was persuaded to sacrifice herself at the altar, she swore to love, honour, and obey a cold-blooded scoundrel, who soon quitted her and England with a little thick-limbed danseuse, (De gustibus, &c.,) and from that moment the deserted wife swore eternal vengeance on all mankind! We remember her before her heart was blighted by the perfidy of the husband, who has been long since called to the "great account."

"She was a lovely child,

A thing of joy and light, 'Twas sunshine when she smil'd, And when she frown'd-'twas night.

She wedded when a girl,

And he, her young heart's choice, Had magic in his step,

And music in his voice.

But he soon grew cold to her,

And his eye sought other eyes;
And the charms that all desir'd,
He only could not prize.

He left her; and she tore
His image from her heart:
With her last lonely tear

She cried, Let him depart.'
The world was now before her,
In its light and gaudy glare,
And her mother gladly bore her,
In those sunny scenes to share.

There the smile was on her lip,
(Pride the features may control;)
All was sunshine in her eye,

All was darkness in her soul.

We will draw a veil over the latter part of her career, or at least condense it to a few lines of prose.

After her husband's flight, she soon put in force her vow to revenge herself upon the whole sex, for the wrongs inflicted by one who had sworn at the altar of his God many are the beaux garçons that she has to love, to cherish, and protect her; and beggared, (her peculiar system of revenge,) turning each empty-pursed inamorato to the right about in double-quick time, to make room for the golden calf elected to succeed him; and her only reply to the bitter reproaches, vented by despised love, is contained in the following lines:

Yet Braham was hissed, and Kean murdered, for immorality. O Bible and missionary distributing England!

Some

We will conclude our instances with the very decided case, number three. years since there was a very young girl on the boards of one of our national theatres as a subordinate actress; she was unnoted for any brilliancy of histrionic talent, though admired as the possessor of a pretty face and figure-she was in the receipt of a respectable salary, sufficient for all the comforts, and many of the luxuries, of life; but not content with the honest earnings of her somewhat arduous profession, she became to the then gay Cheltenham colonel, (the Lothario as well as the Nimrod of Gloucestershire, since created a peer, at the instigation of Diana, we presume.) After being some years under his protection, as it is called, and

the mother of a family-a wealthy but uninitiated noodle, who, though twenty-one, had not arrived at years of discretion, offered the now dashing actress-diamonds and marriage! She accepted both, and prepared to approach the altar of her God, (though within a brief space of giving her paramour colonel a third title to paternity.)

At this moment, a knot of desperate gamblers, who thought that the hymeneally inclined noodle's fortune would be better in their hands than in the possession of the aforesaid actress, opened the poor sighing swain's eyes on the subject, and on the intended wedding-day noodle was non est inventus. The levanting bridegroom was prosecuted for his "breach of promise" to marry the theatrical maiden and her ready-made family. After a long trial, with most disgustingly immoral evidence, noodle was convicted by a moral English jury, to the astonishment of the plain matter-of-fact judge, and the many thousand spectators in and about the court. The damages and costs were excessively heavy, which poor noodle has not yet been silly enough to pay.

No sooner had her propensities been thus publicly proclaimed in a court of justice, (Justice! heaven save the mark!) than this actress, who before had been, professionally, nobody, suddenly became the admired of all admirers." Theatres were crowded to behold her--newspapers teemed with her praises-critics now saw splendid talents, which for years before had escaped their all-penetrating eyesand such was her glorious notoriety from the legal exposé, that, though in the wane of her beauty, "one of the proud pillars of the state," a ci-devant Jeune homme, more celebrated for the cut of his coat than the strength of his intellect, offered her (credat Judæus) marriage, which offer she of course immediately accepted, and she is now the Right Honourable the &c. &c.

&c.

So much for that English love of morality which hissed Braham, and indirectly murdered poor Kean, for having

"In the softer path of a forbidden pleasure stray'd."

The extreme severity of public censure against male immorality, while such unbounded latitude is allowed to the frail ladies of the theatrical profession, has drawn us from our strict biographical duties. We will now return to the evergreen Braham.

After his thousand pound conviction, the exposé in open court of his laison with pretty Mrs. Wright, and his absolute estrangement from the antique prima donna, Storace, he thought that

"Without the home which plighted love endears,

Without the smile from partial beauty won,
O! what were man? a world without a sun."
VOL. III.
12

He looked about the world for a being who could give him comfort and respectability-money he cared not for in this instance; for he was rich, and resolved to enjoy his hard-earned wealth. He looked, and looked, and at last saw "the winning smile on beauty's cheek;" the cheek belonged to the lovely daughter of a highly respectable man at Manchester. Braham immediately proposed, and notwithstanding the disparity in their years (eighteen and forty-five) he was accepted.

"With his sweet notes through her ear, he seized upon her heart."

And they are now surrounded by a numerous family of boys and girls, healthy as their father, and handsome as their mother.

Braham has always stood well with the great capitalists and loan contractors, the Rothschilds, the Goldsmid, &c. &c. who have had a pleasure in nursing his musical earnings for the last half century, until (and it is believed in the city) he is now worth more than two hundred thousand pounds! Yet such is the activity of his mind, that his health would suffer, if he had not the excitements of some business pursuits; therefore he solicited and obtained a license for a new theatre in the aristocratic He had it built and opened in an incredibly neighbourhood of Saint James's palace. short time, and by it he is now netting a very handsome yearly income, intended as a dower for his youngest daughter. He has also purchased the Colosseum, in the Regent's Park, for less than one-fifth of its original cost-which his business friends denominate a good spec.! as with the march of intellect, and decrease of silly monopoly, it will ultimately be a place of public evening amusement for that increasing and wealthy suburb, combining within its extensive area a dramatic thea tre and a Vauxhall. It is supposed that by the Colosseum speculation, the little vocalist will ultimately net twenty per cent. for money sunk.

Though far on the shady side of sixty, Braham still retains his surprising voice, which, regulated by his consummate skill, baffles all attempts at competition on the English stage. The general plaudits nightly bestowed on his exertions at the Saint James's Theatre, must be highly gratifying to his professional vanity. It may perhaps be asked why, after having realized so splendid a fortune, he still undergoes the toil of public singing? We answer, that he considers his voice as the Duke of Bedford does his "estate;" and that while it remains capable of producing a good crop of notes, (both bank and harmonic,) he would deem it a wilful waste not to "let it to the best bidder."

We shall conclude by stating, that such has been the activity of Braham's pursuits

through life, that had he studied Seneca, (which we are sure he did not,) he could not have more justly adhered to the celebrated maxim

"Malo mihi male quam molliter esse."

MEMORANDUM.

The announcement of the daring and offensive fact in the September number of the "Metropolitan,” arrived in New York at the mal-apropos moment, when "Mister Tyrone Power's book of blarney on America," had so overjoyed the anti-Trollope, and flattery-loving republicans, that had the author of it chosen, like the mad Macedonian, to have announced great Ammon for his father, instead of an honest mortal (Welsh or Irish) he might have demanded and received implicit belief from credulous and grateful Jonathan. Probably the public are not aware that Therefore be it known to the four quarters "Our Actors" are the most difficult to of the world, that we unintentionally ofplease, and expect more fulsome flattery fended the dignity of the gentleman calling from the pen of a public writer, than any himself Tyrone Power, by having, merely other description of bipeds under the sun. to fill up a vacuum, committed to paper We may freely biographise-from their the horrible truth, "that the now celebrated cradles to their graves-monarchs, states- actor of stage Irishmen was in his boymen, orators, poets, and warriors; but it hood apprenticed to a Welsh printer:" is high treason to personal vanity, to write the fact is, that in so writing, we thought of the "birth, parentage, and professional we were complimenting his talent, and not career, of those retailers of other people's offending his pride. We are fully aware ideas, 'yclept "Our Actors." Our sketches, that the great Benjamin Franklin and the under that title, have drawn forth some eccentric George Frederick Cooke, (each, ludicrous vituperation from those who in our opinion, Mr. Power's equal,) felt a have been for years "pushing the duke," gratification in announcing that their talent "my cousin, Sir John," or "my aunt, had raised them from the drudgery of a Lady Poodle," after dropping their verita- printing-office, to fame and comparative ble sponsorial and patronymics of David affluence. Why Mr. Power should be Dobs or John Buggins, for the more aris- ashamed of Wales and his early breadtocratic "Vivian Montmorency" or "Gran- winning employment, we shall not take by Cavendish." the trouble to inquire, but the correctness of our statement can be verified by his master's widow, (long since re-married,) who, kind old lady, always cut his early bread and butter, and is now living at 147 in the Strand; or by her neighbour, (once manager, now printseller,) Adamson, Bedford street, Covent Garden, on whom little Power, as in duty bound, daily attended with the proof play-bills for correction, when monarch of the company of comedians, who annually visited Cardiff.

A Napoleon, a Wellington, a Sheridan, a Canning-these are mere nobodies when compared with "Our Actors." To state the facts, that Napoleon was one of a numerous family of indigent Corsican parents, and educated at the public expense -that Wellington was once a poor sub.that under the influence of bodily fatigue and an Indian sun, he, who has since been the conquering hero of a hundred battles, was found fast asleep in a shady tent, when he should have been cutting throats in the open field-that the prince of orators and soul of wit, Sheridan, was a spendthrift and a drunkard-that Canning was the son of an unsuccessful actress, and received the rudiments of his education at the four-penny school of a spectacled old woman-these truths of the above-quoted nobodies, may be divulged to the public; but for a writer to tell the great world (that which is already well-known to the theatrical world) the all-important fact, that Tyrone Power, the personator of stage Irishmen, was, when a boy, actually "apprenticed to old Bird, the printer, of Cardiff, consequently supposed to be a Welshman"-to tell such a daring truth as this, is to merit the guillotine. At least, so it would appear by certain articles in an American paper, evidently written by the aforesaid personator of stage Irishmenin which article he renounces the maternity of Wales, and is horror-stricken at the bare idea of ever having pulled the press, or handled the type.

To those protectors and patrons of his early years we leave the settlement of the (by him) disputed claim of Wales and Ireland, remembering

"That seven cities claimed great Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

Though Mr. Power has written a book, he is not yet a Homer, but he is far more fortunate (in life) than the father bard, for kind nature, instead of the gift of "poesy divine," has bestowed on Mr. P— a consummate knowledge of Cocker and the world; an absolute freedom from mauvaise honte, and though last, not least available, a tongue, (it was worth a voyage from Glamorgan to the county of Cork to obtain it,) so delightfully touched with the blarney stone, that he will amass wealth where poor old Homer would have starved.

Mr. P—, when he breasted the Atlantic, bore a talisman safely locked in his portmanteau; Aladdin's lamp was nothing to it.