literally taken all that had any promise in the market. Just as the dog-days were over, on the 15th of August, Miss Decamp undertook Macheath, and the courtship of two such enormous jilts as old Bannister and Johnstone in Polly and Lucy. She acquitted herself with great spirit, and evidently surprised the audience with the extent of her musical powers. After sustaining the heroines of English opera for 14 years, Mrs. Bannister, now seriously engaged with the cares of her young family, determined to retire, and on the 5th September, took her leave of the public on the same spot where, in the year 1778, she first received their applause. Any thing like their censure, she had never for a moment experienced. There was an appearance of timidity constantly about her efforts; but her voice had great compass and sweetness, and her shake was pure and liquid.

Bannister returned thanks at the end of the season, and in the name of the proprietor invited the public next year to the present cottage, after they had enjoyed the splendid palaces prepared for the winter. He also thanked them for Lingo, a part to which he had succeeded on the death of Edwin.

CHAPTER VI.

Holland's new Covent Garden Theatre.-Riot at the new prices.--The Pirates.-Morton's play of Columbus.--Morton and Reynolds compared together.-Kemble highly dissatisfied with Sheridan.-Power of that great man.--Murder of the French monarch.-Kemble and his sister at Colman's.-Every One has his Fault.-Mrs. Jordan.-Anna-Forced on Mr. Kemble.-The author's own debut.-The Prize.-Murphy's sisters.--Particularly examined out of respect to him. -Murphy's figure.—Mr. Kemble's prologue for his Play.False Clours.-Armourer.-How to grow Rich.-Mrs. Jor dan's Lady Restless.--Mrs. Gibbs.--London Hermit.-Mr. Kemble's Octavian.-Its picturesque power.--Great effects in it.---Settlement with the manager.

MR. Harris thought that the rise of prices, which had become absolutely necessary, would be at all events better justified by an obvious and recent expense. He therefore determined to make his innovation in his new building; and Mr. Holland had constructed, in the recess, a theatre in the lyral form, rather solid than light in its appearance, and of which the fronts of the boxes bulged something in the curve of a ship's side. The effect was grand and imposing, as to the tiers and number of the boxes; but the gallery called the first, or two shilling gallery, had been hoisted up to the mansions of the gods; and those turbulent deities were indiscreetly banished the house altogether. The solitary shilling, however splendid, was disdained in the new establishment. This plan insulted two classes of frequenters. The gout de comparaison leads people to be tolerably content with their own But when the perposition, while they see another worse.

sons who used to inhabit the first gallery, coming down as it did upon the roof of the lower boxes, saw themselves hoisted over three tiers, and scarcely able to see the actors, or what alone was of much moment, their faces; when they saw, too, no misery beyond their own; they could not but feel, that their modest quota had subjected them to contempt and that they were to be worse treated than they had been, simply because their pockets had been spared. Thus the very humble man was denied his amusement altogether; and the next

Pp

class was put into a worse situation, where every thing but his own condition seemed improved. As I cannot report the confusion of Babel, I shall say little as to the riot on the first night-the cat-call, the legitimate pipe of displeasure, that gives

"Order to sounds confused,"

was triumphant in the strife, and the actors played unheard. Lewis was singularly qualified for the situation in which, as stage-manager, he now found himself: there was a frankness about him that testified to the honest truth that came from him. He was firm, as a gentleman always is; and with much tact seized upon a point, about which nobody in the house cared a rush, and assured the audience, that a shilling gallery should be erected as speedily as possible. By the third night all opposition slept in peace, and it was established that for the future, the gentle tenants of the boxes should pay their six shillings for admission, and the frequenters of the pit three shillings and sixpence each person. After a slight arithmetical difficulty, as to the amount of specie that would be required to be provided at the pit-door, in which it was luckily ascertained, that three persons came to just half a guinea, and required no change; and that a shilling, added to half a crown, certainly produced three and sixpence; the new rate was found rather a convenience than otherwise. As the prelude with which the new theatre opened was withdrawn on the third night along with the disturbance, what it was about has never transpired. The influence of association is powerful over most minds; was it therefore his courage or his fears that made Mr. Harris open his expensive theatre with the Road to Ruin? Twenty-five thousand pounds were said to be expended upon this new erection; and yet when fifteen years after, it was destroyed by fire, it was said that it could not have stood many years longer. But the mysteries of architecture are like those of its moral mimic, free-masonry, and are totally dark to the uninitiated. Mr. Pope had returned this season to Covent Garden, and the high favour of the manager. But upon his assuming Evander in the Grecian Daughter, the feelings of F. Aicken were hurt, and he threw up his engagement. A very pleasing loyal farce, called Hartford Bridge, by Mr. Pierce, was acted on the 3d of November, and was very frequently repeated.

Cobb and Storace had been again at work on an opera for Drury Lane in the Haymarket, and the 21st of November it came out under the title of the Pirates. The music was much

applauded; as to the interest, it may be sufficient in the hurly," as Shakspeare writes, to say, that Kelly, Suett, Sedgwick, Bannister, Dignum, Wewitzer, acted the parts they had been playing all their acting lives, and that Mrs. Crouch, Mrs. Bland, Signora Storace and Miss Decamp, were equally fortunate. Such pieces, with us, are indeed "pegs to hang notes upon," a little changing the application of an ingenious pleasantry. Mr. Cobb, though a man of business, kept his dramatic carnival with great regularity, and contributed very essentially to the public amusement. In private life Mr. Cobb was particularly decorous and amiable. By the directors of the East India Company, he was always highly respected; and they were liberal enough to think that a man might be an excellent secretary for India affairs, though he was an open and diligent cultivator of the drama. I suppose, before the Board, he must, after his operas, have pre sented himself like the prologue in Henry the Eighth.

"I come no more to make you laugh; things now,

That bear a weighty and a serious brow,

We shall present."

I am next to notice the first dramatic offering of not merely a speaking acquaintance, but an old and intimate friend. On the 1st December 1792, appeared the play of Columbus, written by Thomas Morton, and brought out at Covent Garden Theatre with such aids of scenery and decoration as a brilliant and foreign subject required, and the confidence of the manager in his author led him to supply. His old schoolfellow Holman is said to have taken some part of the dialogue upon him, and exerted himself in the performance with that ardour which in truth it was not possible for him to want. It is unnecessary to detail the plot of a play so well known as this; but the combination of Alonzo and Cora, with the grand incident of Columbus, it should be recollected, was not caught by Morton from Kotzebue, but evinced his own early knowledge of dramatic effect. To employ the talent of Lewis was a temptation that suggested the excrescence of Harry Herbert, an Englishman following the fortunes of Columbus. Some of his comic business seemed exotic, and transplanted from the British Isles; though a lawyer and a physician commonly find their way into every variety of climate; but I fear seldom attended with the pleasantries of Munden and Quick.

Although this piece is by no means upon a level with the maturer efforts of Morton, yet it was a highly creditable commencement, and announced a mind of which the bent was

decidedly dramatic, fertile in combinations, and locking strongly to character. Authors are commonly supposed to be an irritable and usually a selfish race. It is to the credit of Morton, and Reynolds, and Holman, that their rivalry never disturbed their friendship; they commonly consulted together in their difficulties, and promoted each other's success as fervently as if they had divided receipts.

Morton never had the industry of Reynolds, and like him had avoided the engagement of a regular profession. He had, however, a secure reliance in the liberal affection of his uncle, Mr. Maddison, and his expectations at that gentleman's death might have been realised into positive independence, had not the benevolence of that excellent man extended itself in all directions, and but little been recovered of what was lent on slight or no security. Morton, however, could wait better than his friend the temptings of a good dramatic subject, and write at leisure, when he did find himself in the vein. Reynolds had no sooner ascertained the profits of one play, than he turned in with invincible perseverance to the composition of another, which was "no less material to him" than the former. And, in fact, in the space of twenty-four years, he produced six-and-twenty dramatic offerings, of which only four were indifferently received. Morton, in the same period of time, had written only a third part of the number. But he had more of the artist about him than his gay friend, and with better plots laid his interest deeper in the passions. He never would admit himself to be excited by any thing but the hope of gain, and always pleasantly ridiculed the ambition that looked to fame as its pre-eminent reward. It was no uncommon thing for Morton to receive a thousand pounds for a comedy and looking at the transaction as one merely commercial, it was worth a manager's while, even at such a rate, to secure his powerful assistance. The dramatic writers of the present day, repressed by the more prominent claims of the equestrian order, are narrowed to a badly paid 300l.; or, as the spirit of some lawyer arranged it, 33/. 6s. 8d. for nine nights: there was a tradition, that a one-and-twentieth night once ensured a further benevolence,

"But WHEN,

Extends beyond their catalogue."

Mr. Kemble, as it has been stated, found himself greatly annoyed in his management; and he attributed his impediments to the indolence, often-oftener, I think, to the yielding good humour, of Sheridan. He was, with the greatest