stances both to yourself and Miss Hyson, should have been occasioned by the unaccountable impudence of my valet."

"Your valet!" simultaneously ejaculated all. Old Hyson, albeit not a very kindly-hearted man, was yet a father, and turning quickly round to his daughter, "Ellen, I have been very much in the wrong; my poor child, you have been cursedly ill used-come and kiss your old father, and forgive him." But the poor girl, quite overcome by the succession of agitating events, was already sobbing on his bosom with hysterical violence. There was another awkward pause.

D'Aubigny, amazed and mystified, stood (to use an agricultural simile) "staring like a stuck pig." Again Captain Hilhouse broke the silence, but with some embarrassment in his manner.

"I believe-a-a-we have not yet 'quite-a-a-completed this morning's work-a-a-" he paused, and glanced at Fred and then at Hyson. The latter appeared, for a moment, to be vainly endeavouring to swallow a cricket-ball, and then advancing frankly to D'Aubigny, the latter contrived somehow to discover that he had got hold, not of the old man's leg-of-mutton fist, but of a small white hand, which he grasped with considerable fervency, as somebody's voice said, "Take her, my dear fellow, I know you to be worthy of her;" and then-but, O mercy! don't inflict a love scene on us. No, I won't, but just before we part, let us run down to the Albion, and peep through a key-hole. What see you? What hear you?

"Ah! Tomteet, 'tees mosh bettare to seet on de soft romble tomble of de capitaine's carosse, as Monsieur le Valet, dan to be vipped in dees maniêre horrible, as Monsieur le Comte. Ah! ah! and before de ladies too."

"You may well thay that-and if ever I'm theduthed by a nathty French chap again, I'll, I'll cut my profethion, and buy a commithion in the guardsth. Blow me, if I don't!"

LES HIRONDELLES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF BERANGER.

CAPTIF au rivage du Maure,

Un guerrier, courbé sous ses fers,
Disait, Je vous revois encore,
Oiseaux ennemis des hivers,
Hirondelles, que l'espérance

Suit jusqu'en ces brulans climats :
Sans doute vous quittez la France,
De mon pays ne me parlez-vous pas ?

Depuis trois ans, je vous conjure
De m'apporter un souvenir
Du vallon, ou ma vie obscure
Se berçait d'un doux avenir,

GROGGINI.

Au detour d'une eau que chemine,
A flots purs, sous de frais lilas:
Vous avez vu notre chaumine,

De ce vallen ne me parlez vous pas ?

THE SWALLOWS.

THUS spoke a captive on the Moorish shore,

A warrior, too, though doomed to bear a chain,
"Ye wandering birds, that greet my sight once more,
Welcome, thrice welcome to these shores again!
Ye enemies to winter, hope, perchance,

Attends ye as to milder climes you roam,
Beyond a doubt, you leave my own lov'd France,
And surely bring intelligence from home.

For three long years I've told my sorrowing tale,
And oft conjured you, even with my tears,
For some memento from my native vale,

Where hope first smiled upon my infant years--
Where a pure rivulet winds its way serene,
Amid the perfume of a thousand flowers;

There stands our cot, which surely you have seen-
Have ye no tidings of my native bowers?

Even in the very cot where I was born,

The roof, perchance, has cradled some of you;
There lived my mother, hapless and forlorn;
You must have seen her, and have pitied too:
For my return an anxious watch she keeps,

And fondly thinks of him thus doomed to rove;
She listens, but in vain, and then she weeps,-
Have ye no tidings of this mother's love?

My sister, too, come tell me, is she wed?-
Say, have you seen the group of village swains

By friendship to the humble nuptials led,

Give the poor tribute of their rustic strains?
And my companions, who with ardour burned
To follow me, and share a soldier's lot;
Say, have my gallant comrades yet returned,
Or is their glory and their fate forgot?

Alas! perchance these gallant men are slain,
And, trampling on their carcases, the foe
Rules as a tyrant o'er my native plain,
Whilst my fond sister drinks the cup of woe:
Ah, yes! I have a mother's prayers no more;
Increasing griefs her exiled son await;
Then give, ye wanderers, from my native shore,
Oh! give some tidings of my country's fate.

JOHN WARING.

OUR ACTORS !

AND THEIR ORIGINALLY INTENDED TRADES, CRAFTS, AND CALLINGS⚫

SHAKSPEARE, speaking of the actors, says,

"After your death, you were better to have

A bad epitaph, than their ill report

While you live."

If this be true of the actors, they must have degenerated sadly in spirit since the days in which the great actor-bard wrote; for look at them now-what are they as "a body?" Why the weakest, the most timid and pusillanimous, perhaps, of any in our metropolis. Any creature, however base himself, may bespatter them with abuse, and they tamely shrug their shoulders, and in a piteous tone cry-"What a shame it is!" or "What can we do to soften our abuser?" Yes, they would deprecate when they should boldly attack their defamers; and that they possess the means no one can doubt; for it is well known that the stage can boast of many with fluent tongues, and some with able pens; and the public ear, as well as the public press (that mighty instrument of good or ill) are as open to the actor as to his defamer; then whence arises their pusillanimity of spirit, that will rather meekly crouch than boldly stand forward and repel? It cannot arise from modesty! No, no; their greatest enemies will acquit them of that. We are afraid it is to be traced to individual envy-a personal and professional jealousy of each other-which prevents their combination for general defence against unprincipled speculators in theatres, (whose barefaced acts have lately called forth severe censure from the judgment-seat,) and those money-sucking leeches, who, dipping their pens in gall, will abuse Mr. Jenkins, and praise Mr. Wilkins, if the said Mr. Wilkins, Mr. Jenkins's professional rival, will pay handsomely for the said abuse, or vice versa.

Take the actors individually, in society they are usually spirited and witty-ever prone to resent the slightest attempt at personal offence. Yet, en masse, they are the most pusillanimous body under the sun, not even excepting the too-often quizzed tailors, who, though not supposed to be very valiant as "items," yet, in a sum total," are most heroic, as the public's old and deserving favourite, the now expatriated Dowton, can verify; who, some years since, offended their dignity as a body, by playing, on his benefit night, Foote's burlesque of "The Tailors, or a Tragedy for Warm Weather;" when the knights of the thimble would have salved their wounded honour by pulling down the Haymarket theatre, had not a strong civil force, with the military in perspective, prevented it. Now, we would not be understood to express a wish that the spiritless actors should follow the example of the pugnacious tailors, and attempt to pull down the House of

Commons, because, in 1833, a very gentlemanly M. P. (a Bobadil, and turned-out Quarter Sessions' Chairman,) used his "privilege of safety," and in the open British Senate stigmatised the actors as "outcasts of society!" The Actors! a body of men patronised by our gracious monarch, protected by the parliament, and applauded and supported by the people! By-the-bye, it is but charitable to suppose that the Bobadil M.P. had on that unfortunate evening taken more than quantùm suff. of Bellamy's particular Madeira; but whether mad or drunk, Bobadil undoubtedly injured himself much more than those he stigmatised. But while labouring under such gratuitous abuse, where were the "heroes of the buskin?"-the Kembles-the Macreadys-the Wallacks-the Wards-cum multis aliis ?-gentlemen, who, to the very life, express the feelings of "wounded honour" on the stage. Do they sit down quietly, and think themselves complimented by being noticed in the open senate of their country as outcasts of society? Query-had such unmerited and gross abuse been vented at any other" body of professionals," would they have tamely submitted to it?-we may venture to answer "No." The reason for that want of esprit du corps which distinguishes the actors from all other professional bodies may perhaps be traced to the circumstance of their not having been originally intended and trained to the pursuit ; which some after-whim, stern necessity, or an inordinate longing after fancied fame, induced them to adopt. It is curious to trace (and which we have an opportunity of doing correctly) the originally-intended craft, trade, or calling, of most of our popular histriones, as well as that of many of their less fortunate brethren.

We will commence with

GARRICK.-"Little Davy" (as Dr. Johnson familiarly designated him) was a wine-merchant in the city; but he saw nothing in

"The wine and lees to brag of;"

therefore he selected the theatre as the port, in which he wisely anchored for life; preferring

Shakspeare to Sherry,
Macbeth to Madeira,

and

Hamlet to Hock.

SIDDONS. The great Mrs. Siddons (so states her biographer) in early life was to have been-nay, actually for a short time operated, con amore, as body-fitting abigail to a lady of fortune, who patronised her talented but then (to the world) unknown family. That eye which, in after-years, electrified the multitude as Lady Macbeth, then calmly followed the useful needle; and the arm, the mere waving of which, as Queen Katharine, has since so often commanded silence, then moved busily in adjusting the flounces and furbelows of her honoured patroness. What can control the force of genius and prudence combined?

JOHN KEMBLE.

"His was the spell o'er hearts,

Which only acting lends;
The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends.
August 1836.—VOL. XVI.—NO. LXIV.

FF

For ill can poetry express,

Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And sculpture, mute and motionless,
Steals but one glance from time.

But by this mighty actor's art,
Their wedded triumphs come;
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And sculpture to be dumb."

What a loss would it have been to the English drama, if John Kemble had been ordained (as was intended, and for which he had been educated at Douay)-a "Catholic priest."

Spite of his asthma, he "fluttered your Volscians" in a style that has convinced his surviving admirers that his " Alone I did it," was a mere truism. We will not say we ne'er" but only-" When shall we look upon his like again?"

CHARLES KEMBLE-the last of the fraternal knot! All gone but Charles-yet they had long leases of their frail tenements-first Stephen went then John-then Sarah Siddons! (the Siddons !) she soon was followed by poor Jane Mason-and only some few months since Mrs. Whitelock ended a long and well-spent lifeCharles is "the last remaining male"-and

How would Thalia have been defrauded if Charles Kemble had continued " a man of letters" in the General Post Office, where the interest of the elder branches of his family (then rising rapidly into public esteem) had placed their boy-brother!

It is somewhat curious to consider thus-had he continued in his monotonous office, "up at six A. M. to break the seals of the incoming bags," and "ready at eight P.M. to seal the outgoing," perchance Miss De Camp might never have induced him to play Benedict off the stage, or we have seen him play Benedict on it. Nor would Fanny Kemble then have delighted the English public with her splendid talent, or have enraged the American public with her ill-advised

abuse.

CHARLES YOUNG-the ever-green Young! we met him the other day, as healthy and as tanned as a French garde de chasse; he has evidently been wheedling Dame Nature-caught her in one of her best humours, and obtained a renewal of his lease of life. Young was to have been -and for a short time assisted his honoured father as a cut-and-slash surgeon-but the master passion (histrionic) was too strong to be subdued by what "Old Dad" called prudence, and young Charles called prejudice. He became an actor; and as such, he has delighted the public, enriched himself, and done honour to his profession. We wish we had more imitators. Young wisely quitted the stage before he became old: he began to find study a serious labour, from the decay of that sort of mechanical memory necessary to catch and retain other people's ideas-the mere professional memory that may forget an author, but not a friend.