length, sometimes of twenty or thirty years, tion of what we esteem the best, he can truly or more, by the force of that vigour they say, that the French, who have eaten his recovered with that remove. "Whether peaches and grapes at Shene in no very ill such an effect (Temple beautifully adds) year, have generally concluded that the last might grow from the air, or the fruits of are as good as any they have eaten in France that climate, or by approaching nearer the on this side Fontainebleau; and the first as sun, which is the fountain of light and heat, good as any they have eat in Gascony. when their natural heat was so far decayed: Italians have agreed his white figs to be as or whether the piecing out of an old man's good as any of that sort in Italy, which is life were worth the pains; I cannot tell the earlier kind of white fig there; for in perhaps the play is not worth the candle." the later kind and the blue, we cannot come Monsieur Pompone, "French Ambassador near the warm climates, no more than in the in his (Sir William's) time at the Hague," Frontignac or Muscat grape. His orangecertifies him, that in his life he had never trees, too, are as large as any he saw when heard of any man in France that arrived at he was young in France, except those of a hundred years of age; a limitation of life Fontainebleau; or what he has seen since in which the old gentleman imputes to the ex- the Low Countries, except some very old cellence of their climate, giving them such a ones of the Prince of Orange's. Of grapes liveliness of temper and humour, as disposes he had the honour of bringing over four them to more pleasures of all kinds than in sorts into England, which he enumerates, other countries; and moralises upon the and supposes that they are all by this time matter very sensibly. The late Robert pretty common among some gardeners in Earl of Leicester" furnishes him with a his neighbourhood, as well as several perstory of a Countess of Desmond, married sons of quality; for he ever thought all out of England in Edward the Fourth's things of this kind "the commoner they are time, and who lived far in King James's made the better." The garden pedantry reign. The "same noble person" gives him with which he asserts that 'tis to little puran account, how such a year, in the same pose to plant any of the best fruits, as reign, there went about the country a set of peaches or grapes, hardly, he doubts, beyond morrice-dancers, composed of ten men who Northamptonshire at the furthest northdanced, a Maid Marian, and a tabor and wards; and praises the "Bishop of Munpipe; and how these twelve, one with ano- ster at Cosevelt," for attempting nothing ther, made up twelve hundred years. "It beyond cherries in that cold climate; is was not so much (says Temple) that so many equally pleasant and in character. "I may in one small county (Hertfordshire) should perhaps " (he thus ends his sweet Garden live to that age, as that they should be in Essay with a passage worthy of Cowley) "be vigour and in humour to travel and to dance.” allowed to know something of this trade, Monsieur Zulichem, one of his "colleagues since I have so long allowed myself to be at the Hague," informs him of a cure for good for nothing else, which few men will the gout; which is confirmed by another do, or enjoy their gardens, without often Envoy," Monsieur Serinchamps, in that looking abroad to see how other matters town, who had tried it.-Old Prince Mau- play, what motions in the state, and what rice of Nassau recommends to him the use invitations they may hope for into other of hammocks in that complaint; having scenes. For my own part, as the country been allured to sleep, while suffering under it life, and this part of it more particularly, himself, by the "constant motion or swing- were the inclination of my youth itself, so ing of those airy beds." Count Egmont, and they are the pleasure of my age; and I can the Rhinegrave who was killed last sum- truly say that, among many great employmer before Maestricht," impart to him their ments that have fallen to my share, I have experiences. never asked or sought for any of them, but have often endeavoured to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own way and his own pace, in the common paths and circles But the rank of the writer is never more innocently disclosed, than where he takes for granted the compliments paid by foreigners to his fruit-trees. For the taste and perfec "Me, when the cold Digentian stream revives, - of life. The measure of choosing well is him little leisure to look into modern prowhether a man likes what he has chosen, ductions, while his retirement gave him which, I thank God, has befallen me; and occasion to look back upon the classic studies though among the follies of my life, building of his youth-decided in favour of the latter. and planting have not been the least, and" Certain it is," he says, " that, whether the have cost me more than I have the confi- fierceness of the Gothic humours, or noise of dence to own; yet they have been fully re- their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or compensed by the sweetness and satisfaction that the unequal mixture of the modern of this retreat, where, since my resolution languages would not bear it - the great taken of never entering again into any public heights and excellency both of poetry and employments, I have passed five years with- music fell with the Roman learning and out ever once going to town, though I am empire, and have never since recovered almost in sight of it, and have a house there the admiration and applauses that before always ready to receive me. Nor has this attended them. Yet, such as they are been any sort of affectation, as some have amongst us, they must be confessed to be the thought it, but a mere want of desire or softest and the sweetest, the most general and humour to make so small a remove; for most innocent amusements of common time when I am in this corner, I can truly say and life. They still find room in the courts with Horace, Me quoties reficit, &c. of princes, and the cottages of shepherds. They serve to revive and animate the dead calm of poor and idle lives, and to allay or divert the violent passions and perturbations of the greatest and the busiest men. And both these effects are of equal use to human life; for the mind of man is like the sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder The writings of Temple are, in general, nor the voyager, in a calm or in a storm, but after this easy copy. On one occasion, is so to both when a little agitated by gentle indeed, his wit, which was mostly subordi- gales; and so the mind, when moved by soft nate to nature and tenderness, has seduced and easy passions or affections. I know very him into a string of felicitous antitheses; well that many who pretend to be wise by which, it is obvious to remark, have been the forms of being grave, are apt to despise a model to Addison and succeeding essay- both poetry and music, as toys and trifles too ists. "Who would not be covetous, and light for the use or entertainment of serious with reason," he says, "if health could be men. But whoever find themselves wholly purchased with gold? who not ambitious, if insensible to their charms, would, I think, it were at the command of power, or restored | do well to keep their own counsel, for fear by honour? but, alas! a white staff will not help gouty feet to walk better than a common cane; nor a blue riband bind up a wound so well as a fillet. The glitter of gold, or of diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of curing them; and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a crown than a common nightcap." In a far better style, and more accordant with his own humour of plainness, are the concluding sentences of his "Discourse upon Poetry." Temple took a part in the controversy about the ancient and the modern learning; and, with that partiality so natural and so graceful in an old man, whose state engagements had left of reproaching their own temper, and bringing the goodness of their natures, if not of their understandings, into question. While this world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and request of these two entertainments will do so too; and happy those that content themselves with these, or any other so easy and so innocent, and do not trouble the world or other men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, though nobody hurts them." "When all is done (he concludes), human life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that must be played with, and humoured a little, to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the care is over." BARBARA S—. On the noon of the 14th of November, | all; and in the zenith of her after reputation 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, just as the it was a delightful sight to behold them clock had struck one, Barbara S- with bound up in costliest morocco, each singleher accustomed punctuality, ascended the each small part making a book—with fine long rambling staircase, with awkward inter-clasps, gilt-splashed, &c. She had conscienposed landing-places, which led to the office, tiously kept them as they had been delivered or rather a sort of box with a desk in it, to her; not a blot had been effaced or whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much that Barbara had to claim. This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had given an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You would have taken her to have been at least five years older. Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder child in Morton's pathetic afterpiece to the life; but as yet the "Children in the Wood" was not. Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies of the establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, as for a child's use, she kept them tampered with. They were precious to her for their affecting remembrancings. They were her principia, her rudiments; the elementary atoms; the little steps by which she pressed forward to perfection. “What,” she would say, "could India-rubber, or a pumice-stone, have done for these darlings ?" I am in no hurry to begin my storyindeed I have little or none to tell-so I will just mention an observation of hers connected with that interesting time. Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her on the quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic performer experiences during acting. I ventured to think, that though in the first instance such players must have possessed the feelings which they so powerfully called up in others, yet by frequent repetition those feelings must become deadened in great measure, and the performer trust to the memory of past emotion, rather than express a present one. She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly great tragedian the operation, by which such effects were produced upon an audience, could ever degrade itself into what was purely mechanical. much delicacy, avoiding to instance in her self-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when she used to play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, ( I think it was,) when that impressive actress has been bending over her in some heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly scalded her back. With I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter; but it was some great actress of that day. The name is indifferent; but the fact of the scalding tears I most distinctly remember. I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to have been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at serious whist with Mr. Liston. I have chattered with ever good-humoured Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her accomplished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference with Macready; and with a sight of the Playerpicture gallery, at Mr. Mathews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the old actors (whom he loves so much), went over it with me, supplying to his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give them-voice; and their living motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd, and Parsons, and Baddeley, have lived again for me at his bidding. Only Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with ; but I am growing a coxcomb. As I was about to say-at the desk of the then treasurer of the old Bath theatre— not Diamond's-presented herself the little Barbara S. The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his practice, from causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that way to arraign—or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies some people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible to lay at the door of imprudence —was now reduced to nothing. They were in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew and respected them in better days, took the little Barbara into his company. One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in her theatrical character she was to sup off a roast fowl (O joy to Barbara!) some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this dainty-in the misguided humour of his part, threw over the dish such a quantity of salt (0 grief and pain of heart to Barbara!) that when she crammed a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged sputteringly to reject it; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, and pain of real appetite at missing such a dainty, her little heart sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which the wellfed spectators were totally unable to comprehend, mercifully relieved her. This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people besides herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so deficient, blest himself that it was no worse. Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea. By mistake he popped into her hand-a whole one. She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught her nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard At the period I commenced with, her honesty commended, but never dreamed of slender earnings were the sole support of its application to herself. She thought of it the family, including two younger sisters. as something which concerned grown-up I must throw a veil over some mortifying people, men and women. She had never circumstances. Enough to say, that her known temptation, or thought of preparing Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a resistance against it. Sunday's (generally their only) meal of meat. Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain to him his blunder. her own agency, as it seemed (for she never He was already so confused with age, besides felt her feet to move), she found herself a natural want of punctuality, that she transported back to the individual desk she would have had some difficulty in making had just quitted, and her hand in the old him understand it. She saw that in an hand of Ravenscroft, who in silence took instant. And then it was such a bit of back the refunded treasure, and who had money! and then the image of a larger been sitting (good man) insensible to the allowance of butcher's-meat on their table lapse of minutes, which to her were anxious next day came across her, till her little eyes ages, and from that moment a deep peace glistened, and her mouth moistened. But fell upon her heart, and she knew the quality then Mr. Ravenscroft had always been so of honesty. good-natured, had stood her friend behind A year or two's unrepining application to the scenes, and even recommended her pro- her profession brightened up the feet, and the motion to some of her little parts. But prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole again the old man was reputed to be worth family upon their legs again, and released a world of money. He was supposed to have her from the difficulty of discussing moral fifty pounds a-year clear of the theatre. And dogmas upon a landing-place. then came staring upon her the figures of her little stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat white cotton stockings, which her situation at the theatre had made it indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining and pinching from the family stock, and thought how glad she should be to cover their poor feet with the same-and how then they could accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hitherto been precluded from doing, by reason of their unfashionable attire,—in these thoughts she reached the second landing-place-the second, I mean, from the top-for there was still another left to traverse. Now virtue support Barbara! And that never-failing friend did step in -for at that moment a strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her-a reason above reasoning-and without I have heard her say that it was a surprise, not much short of mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes. This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of the late Mrs. Crawford,* then sixty-seven years of age (she died soon after); and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have sometimes ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending the heart in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. THOUGH in some points of doctrine, and mortification when, after attending the perhaps of discipline, I am diffident of choral anthems of last Wednesday at Westlending a perfect assent to that church which you have so worthily historified, yet may the ill time never come to me, when with a chilled heart or a portion of irreverent sentiment, I shall enter her beautiful and time-hallowed Edifices. Judge, then, of my minster, and being desirous of renewing my acquaintance, after lapsed years, with the tombs and antiquities there, I found myself excluded; turned out, like a dog, or some profane person, into the common street, with feelings not very congenial to the place, or |