Opposite

most of the establishment. the windows, above a square sofa, was an oval mirror in a frame which had once been gilt, from the top of which waved three peacocks' feathers. On the chimney-piece stood a shepherd and shepherdess, in painted china, and over them hung sundry little black profiles, in black frames, purporting to be likenesses of several members of the family. A sampler, framed and glazed, the work of Mr. O'Sherkin's mother, representing another shepherd and shepherdess, with sheep, a tree, two big flowers, and a cottage, along with the alphabet and Lord's prayer, was suspended on the wall opposite the chimney-piece. The fire-place, with its blue-and-white Dutch tiles and bright fire-irons, and screen of clipped and coloured paper, looked gay, settled for its summer holiday. On one side of it stood Mr. O'Sherkin's arm-chair, and on the other a rather antique harpsichord, with a music-book open on the desk, containing the compositions of Corelli, Scarlatti, and other fashionable composers. On a little table in a corner was deposited the family library, consisting (besides a large Bible and prayer-book) of the whole Whole Duty of Man, Peregrine Pickle, an odd volume of Swift's Letters, Tom Jones, and a book of Cookery. From the windows you looked through a pretty vista of jessamine and woodbine into a little flower-garden, in an angle of which stood a gazabo built by Mr. O'Sherkin's grandfather, for the purpose, as he said, of "a little tay-house to drink punch in," but which the good taste of the ladies had rescued from such uses, and applied to objects more congenial to their own ideas. They would sit there in summer time at their work, or perhaps one of them would read aloud from one of a few volumes which had been lent to them by their friend, Brooke Aylmer (of whom more anon), and which formed no part of the family library aforesaid, but were treasured by the sisters in a sacred repository of their own up-stairs. They kept the key of it; 'twas generally in the work-bag of one or the other.

As Mr. O'Sherkin opened the door of the drawing-room, Corney was saying, "With all my heart; here comes my father, ask him."

"Oh, sir," cried Bessy, the younger of the two sisters, who held a letter open in her hand, "we are to have a

"What is it?" asked the squire. "It's a musical instrument, sir," said Fanny.

"I have had a letter, sir, from Brooke Aylmer," said Corney, "and he wonders he has not heard from you; and he's going to come with us to London; and we are to bring Fanny a what's the name of it?. you read it?"

-Bessy, will

The following paragraph from Brooke Aylmer's letter to Master Corney was accordingly read by Bessy:

"By-the-bye, would you tell Fanny that when I was lately at Mr. Muggins's place, Kilcona, to which he has given the name of Newtown-MountMuggins, I heard one of those newlyinvented instruments, the piano-forte. Its effect is far superior to that of either the spinet or the harpsichord. I have no doubt that in process of time it will supersede them. I heard, also, some lovely music by one Haydn, a new composer. The style is rather wild and extravagant, but full of fire and genius. I have been thinking that, on our return from London, you could bring Fanny a piano-forte.'

"Oh, indeed, we must have one," said Mrs. O'Sherkin, "and Mr. Aylmer will bring it here himself."

"And what the divil will be the good of it?" said Mr. O'Sherkin.

"Ah, sir, won't you let me have a piano-forte?" said Fanny.

"And what do you want of any of them new invintions?" roared the squire. "Can't ye be contint wid yer grandmother's ould harpsichord? What was good enough for her is good enough for you, you consated young pinkeen!"

"Don't you remember, sir," said Corney, winking at his sisters, "what Brooke was telling us of the march of intellect?"

"March of your granny!!" said the squire. "It shan't march into my house, at any rate!!!"

"I am so tired of that old harpsichord," said Fanny, pouting her sweet lips.

"Oh it's horrid," said Bessy.

It is odd none of them thought so the day before.

"Now Mr. O'Sherkin," said the mamma, "listen to reason. It must be, and there's an end of it. We must

have one of those new instruments; I forget its name."

"A piano-forte," said Bessy, consulting the letter.

"Ay; a panofty; we must have a panofty."

"Piano-forte, ma'am," said Fanny. "Just what I say, my love; a panofty. As for the old harpsichord I shall certainly have it thrown into Roaring Water bay, nasty old thing that it is.'

The said harpsichord was, in truth, a most deplorable old rattle-trap; but it was associated in the memory of Mr. O'Sherkin, with reminiscences of his childhood, when his mother would amuse him by playing jigs or country dances on its keys; and even now, in later life, its creaking tones would often recall the by-gone times, and speak to his best affections.

"For the same sound was in his ears,
As in those days he heard."

And he regarded all modern improvements in the mechanism of spinets and harpsichords, with as much contempt and aversion as a loyal British subject of the present day would regard the movements of chartists, and radicals, and repealers; or the importation of the last (the very last) constitution from Paris.

Not such, however, were the sentiments of Mrs. O'Sherkin and her daughters, concerning the march of musical science. Poor Mr. O'Sherkin found himself in a minority of one, in voting on the question of piano-fortes: and amid a whirlwind of opposition, so loud and long as to set the pointers barking, was obliged to give in, and consent to bring a piano-forte to Castle Sherkin; stipulating, nevertheless, that the ancient harpsichord should continue to occupy its wonted place: to which stipulation the ladies consented, as they would to thousands of stipulations, provided they carried their point.

Now why all this ado, this excitement, this whirlwind, this intense earnestness about a piano? Were the ladies fanatics in music?

Solve the question as you please, reader. It sometimes happens that in a scene of bustle, and sound, and fury, the spectator discerns not the real motive.

There is a story extant of two Frenchmen, ignorant of English, who went to Covent-garden to witness the performance of the tragedy of Othello. They tried to comprehend the story, but in vain. Scene after scene passed before them of tremendous rage, resentment, and intense excitement, but they were unable to trace these appearances to their real causes. At last, during one of Othello's most appalling outbursts of passion, one of the Frenchmen, in a sly tone of satisfaction at having, as he conjectured, unfathomed the mystery, exclaimed-"Ah! mais je comprend! Monsieur a pardu son mouchoir de poche !"

Perhaps Miss Fanny-avait pardu son mouchoir de poche !

Finally it was agreed that Mr. Aylmer should bring the newly invented musical instrument, in his personal custody, to Castle Sherkin, and that he should stop a while at that ancient place. "For it would be a charity," as Mrs. O'Sherkin compasionately remarked, "to that poor young man, to bring him out of his solitude and give him a little society." Which compassionate remark of the worthy lady may, perhaps, furnish a clue to her earnest exertions in this affair.

Bless the women! 'Tis they are the clever creatures, when letter-writing, or match-making are in the wind. That very hour did Mrs. O'Sherkin sit down and write to Mr. Aylmer. And she had a horse saddled the next day, before dawn, and Con Gollahoo sent off with the letter to Bandon.

AN eminent name has lately been struck from off the roll of living authors. Within the last few weeks, the papers record the death of this distinguished dramatist, and most amiable lady, at the unusually protracted period of eighty-nine. The literary

world of the present day, and the public in general, had so completely lost sight of her for many years, from the total retirement in which her long and tranquil old age exhausted itself, that we thought, in common with many, she had disappeared from her terrestrial pilgrimage long since. We num

bered her with remembrances of the past, and considered her as much the property of history as sundry obsolete members of the House of Commons, whose mortal substance, much attenuated, we are assured still flickers uneasily round their accustomed benches, opposing everything and everybody. The announcement of her very recent demise was, at first, a little startling; it seemed as if a departed spirit had obtained leave to return, after a temporary sojourn in Elysium, to declare its own final translation. We are reminded of Lord Chesterfield's saying of himself and Lord Tyrawley, when both were very old and infirm, and looked as if they had been exhumed

Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known."

I saw Joanna Baillie, for the first time, in Edinburgh, in 1820. I had long admired the writer, and looked on the woman with mingled interest and curiosity. She was then verging on fifty-eight, with an appearance of health, which, though in a slight frame, indicated longevity. I saw a small, prim, and Quaker-like looking person, in plain attire, with gentle, unobtrusive manners, and devoid of affectation; rather silent, and more inclined to listen than to talk. There was no tinge of the blue-stocking in her style of conversation, no assumption of conscious importance in her demeanour, and less of literary display than in any author or authoress I had ever been

in company with. It was difficult to persuade yourself that the little, insignificant, and rather commonplace-looking individual before you, could have conceived and embodied with such potent energy, the deadly hatred of De Montfort, or the fiery love of Basil. Living in the seclusion of a quiet, narrow, domestic circle, without practical experience of the world's doings, "she kept the noiseless tenor of her way," unchequered by stirring incidents to disturb or excite a tranquil, uniform course of life. With no knowledge but what was supplied by reading and reflection, her high imaginative genius enabled her to grapple in description with the absorbing passions which give their colour to the more active scenes of existence, and to depict them with as much truth and identity, as if she had felt and participated in all that she delineates."

An anecdote related to me at the time, by a party present, illustrates pleasingly the natural simplicity of her character. Being on a visit with Sir Walter Scott, she was taken to see the ruins of Melrose Abbey, we conclude, as a matter of course, "by the pale moonlight," as the poet recommends. The wonders of the eastern window were especially pointed out to her, with the complicated and delicate tracery of the arches, in some portions as clearly defined as when they first received outline and form from the chisel of the cutter. All stood silently round, and turned towards the great poetic lioness, expecting some burst of highflown admiration, or fervid eulogium. Note-books were beginning to peep out, ears were erect, and expectation on the tip-toe. After gazing intently for some moments, she said quietly, and almost to herself, "It is really very fine-what a beautiful pattern it would make!" The loftiest genius dwells not always on Olympus, but sometimes treads on level ground, and descends to the thoughts and feelings of everyday humanity.

Very few of Miss Baillie's plays have been acted, and none with permanent

success.

Her first series of the "Plays on the Passions," was an experiment in a new walk, not intended for the stage, and in truth, much more adapted to the study. These plays deal too exclusively in the evolvement of one particular thought, the consequences of one particular agency. They are metaphysical ideas rather than practical events, and require to be paused on and reflected over, before you can thoroughly comprehend and enter into the object of the writer. They are distinctly dramatic poems, rather than acting dramas.

The public, when "De Montfort' was announced for representation at Drury-lane, in 1800, roused up from the periodical apathy which ever and anon comes over them; the critics announced the approach of a new era in dramatic literature, and the talents of the great actors, then in their zenith, left no doubt that the conceptions of the author would be fully realized. The excitement was great, and the disappointment commensurate.

The audience yawned in spite of themselves, in spite of the exquisite poetry, the vigorous passion, and the transcendant acting of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. There was a total absence of underplot, or skilfully interwoven subordinate characters-no variety, no relief; it was all De Montfort, with his deadly hatred, his unsatisfactory reasons for it, his gloomy meditations, and their inevitable catastrophe; there was a heavy, unredeemed monotony, which wrapped all round like a sepulchral shroud, and reduced to suffering what should have been enjoyment. It was a positive reprieve when the curtain dropped; and though all felt convinced they had been dealing with a very superior production, many doubted if they understood it; few shed tears (the most genuine test of tragedy), and still fewer cared to undergo the operation a second time. The play was put on the shelf after a short run of eleven nights.

More than twenty years after, "De Montfort was revived at Drury-lane, for Edmund Kean, in 1821, with various alterations, and a last act entirely re-written by the authoress. Much expectation was again raised; Kean himself expected to do wonders with the part, and we have heard from some who saw it, that the performance was one of his greatest efforts; he acted

with all his tremendous energy, and at that time his powers were undiminished. But the same result ensued, from the original cause; the play was still found to be a ponderous monodrama, and its resurrection was even more transient than its first existence. All this is very discouraging, and rather extraordinary, where there is such undoubted excellence in the author, and that excellence has been so ably illustrated by the best performers of modern times. Look at "the Stranger," which keeps the stage, and never fails to please the audience, although modern critics have of late entered into a crusade against this and other dramas of the same class. Why it scarcely possesses a tithe of the merit or pretensions of "De Montfort," yet is it a far more effective play, and the same great actors, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, immortalized this German impropriety, while they failed in giving permanent life to the purer and more legitimate English tragedy. It must be (as we think), that the one, with all its faults and inferiority, is more natural than the other-more intelligible to the mass of the spectators, and more likely to happen to-day or to-morrow. The one is simple, the other strained. It is the rule opposed to the exception: we sympathize more readily with what is likely, than what is barely possible. Many are inclined to think the authoress of "De Montfort" had gone beyond nature, in colouring hatred so strongly, when arising from an insignificant cause, and cherished pertinaciously after so long an interval. For one case of romantic or high-wrought incident, whether of crime or virtue, and which only happens to peculiar natures, under peculiar circumstances, there occur twenty common ones in the ordinary occurrences of every-day life, which, as everybody can understand, they take a greater interest in. If this reasoning is correct, it applies as a general rule, although introduced to bear on a particular instance, and proves that a mere skilful playwright may carry away the public voice, which is sometimes refused to higher genius and far more profound conceptions.

Miss Baillie having written her double series of "Plays on the Passions," which were generally pronounced more adapted to the closet than the stage, published in 1804 an additional volume of three "Miscel

laneous Plays," intended more expressly for representation, and all of which, at different times, had been offered to and rejected by the London managers. She was evidently anxious that her dramas should be acted, and says in her preface:

"It has been, and still is, my strongest desire to add a few pieces to the stock of what may be called our national or permanently acting plays, how unequal soever my abilities may be to the object of my ambition."

And again

"I have wished to leave behind me in the world a few plays, some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvas theatres and barns, and of preserving to my name some remembrance of that species of amusement which I have, above every other, enjoyed."

She says, very justly too, that the failure of her attempts to add to the acted drama is the more to be regretted, as having no opportunity of seeing any of her productions on the stage, many faults, respecting effect, arising from want of practical experience, would remain undiscovered, and thus render improvement in her subsequent productions almost impossible. This preface was published after the first production of De Montfort, although written probably at an antecedent date. That she had, even without experience, some idea of what are called stage effects, or coups de theatre, may be evidenced by several instances from her dramas. The arrangements for the execution of Ethwald; the sawing asunder of the planks supporting the scaffold, by Ohio the negro, in Rayner; and the contrivance of Othoric to escape death with torture in Constantine Paleologus.

In 1810 the Family Legend was produced in the Edinburgh Theatre, through the interference and active exertions of Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, who took great interest in its success, and assembled a host of the literati of the modern Athens to witness the first representation. He supplied the pro

logue, and the epilogue was contributed by Henry Mackenzie, author of the Man of Feeling. The authoress says she obtained the story in 1805 from the Hon. Mrs. Damer, who gave it to her as a legend long preserved in the family of her maternal ancestors. It had been previously brought on the stage by Holcroft, as a melodrama, under the title of the Lady of the Rock, and acted at Drury-lane in 1805.† But of this fact Miss Baillie appears to have been entirely ignorant. Great pains were taken with the production of her play. The Edinburgh public were pleased and flattered by a national story, given to them by a countrywoman; it was received with warm applause for fourteen consecutive nights, frequently repeated afterwards, and remained long on the stock list of the theatre. The heroine, Helen of Argyll, was represented by Mrs. Henry Syddons, one of the most accomplished actresses of her day, and who ranks in the very foremost list of those whose private virtues have enhanced the lustre of their professional excellence. I have, on several occasions, performed in this play with her the character of the brother, John of Lorne, during the seasons comprised between 1822 and 1824; but of the original actors, not more than one is now alive.

Mr. Lockhart, in his life of Sir Walter Scott, mentions that, in 1815, the Family Legend was performed in one of the London theatres, on which occasion the authoress (with Lord Byron and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Scott), was present at the representation. We have no record accessible by which to ascertain at what theatre the representation took place, or the degree of success it was attended with. More than once I have thought of producing the Family Legend on the Dublin boards, and we have had several eminent actresses who could have rendered full justice to the leading female character, in which the interest principally centres. Either Mrs. Kean or Miss Helen Faucit could have embodied it beautifully. There is in this play action, vigour, and poetical dialogue; interest in the story, and ample field