"Mr. Cooke's orthoëpy was ge. nerally correct, yet he had fallen in with a vile custom of turning the pronoun thy, into the article the. This is said to be Mr.Kemble's custom likewise, and he has occasionally been lashed for it, as well as for his other singularities or affectations. Some of our newspaper critics pointed out this impropriety to Mr. Cooke, but he had no notion that he, who had come from the metropolis of England, should be schooled in his native tongue by yankee scribblers, and he stuck to the the, though Shakspeare suffered for it--but Shakspeare had little to forgive Cooke! "Mr. Cooke, at one period of his life, undoubtedly studied his profession with great attention, and took more than ordinary pains, to render himself perfect, not only in the words and general manner, but in every minute movement of body, and inflection of voice, in those parts, from the just representation of which celebrity was to be gained. I have before me his part, written with his own hand, of Sir Archy M'Sarcasm, in which he has carefully scored the emphatic words, with one, and sometimes two or three lines, according to their respective value and importance. "The part of Octavian, which he frequently performed before his coming to London, I also find in his own hand-writing, with notes on the opposite pages, pointing out the proper gestures, and marking the tone with which each passage is to be pronounced. I will present the reader with an extract from it. It is to be observed, that the lines are wrote into one another, probably with a view, by removing one characteristic of verse, to avoid as much as possible, the danger of falling into he common sing-song of persons reciting poetry. OCTAVIAN. A. 2d. Enter from the Cave.* 'I cannot sleep! the leaves are newly pulled! and as my burning body presses them, their freshness mocks my misery; † that frets me! and then I could outwatch the Lynx! -'tis dawn!thou hot and rolling sun, I rise before thee! for I have twice thy scorching flames within me, and am more restless!-Now to seek my willow; that droops his mournful head across the brook; he is my calendar-I'll score his trunk with one more long, long day of solitude! I shall lose count else in my wretchedness; and that were pity-§Oh, Octavian! where are the times thy ardent nature painted? when fortune smil'd upon thy lusty youth, and all was sunshine? when the look'd-for years! were gaily deck'd with fancy's ima « A platform runs from 2d entrance L. H. to the middle of the stage.-At the termination, (the platform slopes to the stage,) a stump of a tree, with a board stretching to the R. He rushes down, though faintly, to it; falls upon it, the right arm extended over the branch, the full front to the audience--after a proper recovery, begins, I cannot sleep,' &c. +"Comes from platform. "Quickly, to L. H.-afterwards as fancy directs, aiways remembering to keep the character in v.cw. §"A pause-recollection strikes forcibly, and the tender passions are aroused. gery, gery, while the high blood run frolic through thy veins, and boyhood made thee sanguine?* let 'em vanish! Prosperity's a cheat! Despair is honest, and will stick by me steadily;-I'll hug it !-will glut on't.- Why, the greybeard tore her from me, even in my soul's fond dotage!-Oh! 'tis pastime now to see men tug at each other's hearts! -I fear not-for my strings are crack'd already !-§ I will go prowl - but look, I meet no fathers¶ now willow-**Oh, Floranthe! Exit. 1st. E. R. H. "Before I take leave of my subject and my reader, let me record three unconnected, but characteristic anecdotes, During one of his provincial engagements, Mr. Cooke had offended the public, by disappointing or disgusting them, and on a follow ing night the audience was thin, and the gentlemen in the boxes near the stage, by concert, turned their backs on the scene when Cooke came on. He was dressed for Falstaff, and immediately noticing this unusual appearance, and comprehending the intent, instead of beginning the part, he said in a voice sufficiently audible for those who were reproving him, 'Call you this backing your friends?-a plague of such backing, I say.' "When he was the object of the universal curiosity, soon after his coming out in London, a certain nobleman, filled with that insolence which rank and riches, when not "The anger of grief. accompanied by worth, generate in little minds, seeing Mr. Cooke, who had stopped to gaze at the pictures in the window of a print shop, sent his servant to desire him to turn round that his lordship might view him. Astonishment first, and then indignation, filled the mind of Cooke. Tell his lordship,' says he, that if he will step this way, I'll show him what he never saw when he looked in his mirror-the face of a man.' "On occasion of some offence which he conceived against the people of Liverpool, he uttered this eloquent burst of invective. It is a place accursed of heaven, and abhorrent to nature-their wealth is the price of human misery; and there is not a brick in their houses that is not cemented with human blood.' "To conclude. All those high and rare natural endowments, which we have seen united in Mr. Cooke, were obscured and marred by unfortunate circumstances in the early portion of his life, and by long continued habits of indulging those debasing propensities, which those unfortunate circunstances had generated. Though his talents as an actor were obscured and lowered by these causes, he still retained enough of the form impressed by the 'boantiful goddess nature,' to stamp him in men's minds the legitimate successor of Garrick: but these causes had made of him, as a man, a mass of contradictions, not merely oppo "The rage of despair, under, and at the conclusion of the present note, falls in front of the stage-a despairing satisfaction, with a proper pause. "Recollection of his loss, and increased despair, grief and rage mingled. "Sullen determination. "A despairing threatening accent. "The satisfaction of grief. ""The remembrance of all his former happiness." MEMOIRS OF GUSTAVUS IV. OF SWEDEN, AND OF THE SWEDISH "B [From Dr. Thomson's Travels in Sweden.] EFORE I went to Sweden I was strongly impressed with a high opinion of the late King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus IV. as it had been drawn with so much zeal and apparent truth in the British newspapers. I disapproved of the Swedish revolution, and was eager to learn the opinion entertained of it by well informed people in Sweden. I had many opportunities of conversing on the subject with people of all ranks, both Swedes and foreigners, who had the means of accurate information on the subject, and no motive whatever to disguise their real sentiments. I found every person concur in the same opinion, while the picture drawn of the conduct of Gustavus Adolphus was so different from what I had conceived from the statements in the English newspapers, that I was unwilling to admit it, and I yielded only to the evidence of well authenticated facts. Before I enter upon an account of the revolution itself, it will be proper to give a short account of the late king, and of his conduct during the whole of his reign, which at last brought the country into such a situa tion, that nothing but the revolution could have saved Sweden from being divided between the Russians and the Danes. "Gustavus IV. possessed certain qualities which gave him a resemblance to Charles XII. the prince whose conduct he considered as a model for his imitation. Like Charles, he had an obstinacy of character so great, that it was impossible to induce him to alter any resolution, however absurd or ridicu lous, which he had once formed, even though it were demonstrated to him by the clearest evidence that persisting in it could lead only to disaster and ruin. Another quality in which he resembled Charles XII. was in his capacity of enduring cold, which was uncommonly great. He used to travel in the winter with only a slight covering, when his courtiers were trembling with cold under the load of two or three great great coats and surtouts. But in all the eminent qualities which distinguished Charles XII. there was a sad falling off in Gustavus IV. Instead of that impetuous bravery, bordering on foolhardiness, which characterized Charles XII. and to which at last he fell a sacrifice, Gustavus IV. was an absolute coward, and, though exceedingly fond of military glory, too timid to venture to appear at the head of his troops. Instead of that comprehensiveness of plan, and that celerity and steadiness of execution, which distinguished Charles XII. and to which he owed in a great measure bis success, Gustavus IV. never attempted to form any plan whatever; and by frittering down his army into small detachments, and leaving them totally unsupported by each other, and to contend with forces more than double their own numbers, he always rendered success impossible. Instead of defending his own frontiers, he left them defenceless to the invading enemy, while the whole of his attention was turned to romantic schemes, altogether beyond the power of his resources to realize. He had early become the submissive votary of religion, or more accurately speaking, of superstition, and during his travels in Germany he got hold of a commentary on the Revelation, by a man of the name of Jung, which, though originally written in German, had been translated into Swedish. This book became the subject of his assiduous study; the opinions which it contained were implicitly adopted, and regulated all his conduct. The second beast described in the 13th chapter of the Revelation, whose power was to be but of short duration, was considered by him as Buonaparte; because some commentator had shown that the letters in the name of Napoleon Buonaparte make out the number 666, which is the mark of the beast. "In consequence of this discovery, he ordered the name of the French emperor in all the Swedish newspapers to be always printed N. Buonaparte, and as the real reason of this whimsical charge was concealed by his ministers, it excited considerable curiosity in the country, and nobody was able to explain it in a satisfactory manner. He easily persuaded himself that he was the person destined by heaven to overturn the dominion of the beast, and that the verse in the 6th chapter of the Revelation, which is as follows, applied to himself: "And I saw and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering and to conquer.' "Gustavus IV. possessed some skill as a practical painter. At Gripsholm he drew a picture of himself seated upon a white horse, and trampling the beast under his feet. So firmly was he convinced of the truth of all these predictions, that he thought nothing more was necessary than to refuse to treat with Buonaparte. No preparations on his part would be requisite to enable him to fulfil the intention of heaven. When besieged in Stralsund by a French army, he expected the visible interposition of an angel in his behalf. But when this angel, who was to be four German miles in height, did not appear, and the French batteries were nearly completed, he thought it requisite to attend to his own safety, and retreat to the Island of Rugen. "One of the greatest faults of Gustavus IV. was a total disregard 3 to the sufferings and feelings of his subjects. All oppressions, and all toils and hardships he conceived them as bound to endure without murmuring, and seemed to consider them as created for no other purpose than to fulfil his sovereign will and pleasure. His own notion of military tactics, like that of some other princes, was that it consisted in nothing else than regulating the military uniforms: this was with him a point of such importance, that when the supplementary troops were raised, he spent the greatest part of a year in devising the shape of their coats, while, in the inean time, the poor recruits were left so entirely without every means of comfort that many actually died of cold and hunger. "Let us now take a short view of the way in which he conducted the war against France, and afterwards against Russia and Denmark. This will lay open his conduct as far as the welfare of his country was concerned, and shew clearly the necessity of a revolution, in order to preserve any remnant of their country. "After the murder of the Duke d'Enghein, and the coronation of Buonaparte as Emperor of France, the King of Sweden returned the insignia of the order of the black Eagle with which he had been decorated by the King of Prussia, because that monarch had acknowledged the title of Napoleon, and had eyen bestowed upon him the order of the black eagle. This step produced a coolness between these two kings, afterwards productive of the most disastrous effects during the subsequent war in Germany, Meanwhile he had recalled his ambassador from Paris, had prohibited the introduction of French news papers, and had threatened to declare war against that powerful kingdom. Notwithstanding this disposition, he. very nearly quarrelled at the same time with the Emperor of Russia, because the person sent with the badge of the order of the Seraphim which had been worn by the emperor Paul, was not of a rank sufficiently elevated; and because Gustavus insisted upon painting with the Swedish arms that half of the bridge of Aborrfors which was on the Russian side. But this last quarrel was fortunately got over, and Gustavus entered keenly into the first coalition against France after the breaking out of the present war between France and Great Britain. The King of Sweden at the head of 25,000 Swedes, and 15,000 Russians, was to attack Holland. But after a sum of money had been given him by the British ministry, Gustavus very nearly broke off from the coalition, because they would not declare that the object of the war was the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France; but his eagerness for war induced him, at last, to wave this scruple, and to proceed without any specific declaration. "A subsidiary treaty was concluded with Great Britain, and the King of Sweden with about 25,000 troops, Swedes and foreigners, encamped in Pomerania, and issued a pompous proclamation. The King of Prussia being still irresolute, Gustavus sent a preremptory letter to him by Count Lövenhjelm, desiring to know his intentions, and informing him, that a Russian and Swedish army was going to take possession of Hanover. It is said that the Emperor of Russia, who was then at Berlin, had just induced the King of Prussia to enter into his views. The British |