priateness to period and locality never before attempted. Yet the first time he played Othello in London it was in the full uniform of a British General; and he continued to appear in Macbeth with a hearse-like plume in his bonnet until Walter Scott plucked it out and substituted a single eagle's feather. His new position was a bed of thorns; tradespeople refused to credit unless he himself became answerable, and sometimes Sheridan neglected to honor the debt, and once Kemble was arrested; the actors were unpaid and rebellious, and frequently refused to go on the stage until they received their night's salary; more than once even Kemble and his sister were driven to such degrading means to obtain money. One night, patience and temper now ut terly exhausted, at a supper at Mrs. Crouch's, the great singer's, John Philip gave in his resignation; the words in which it was couched are highly characteristic. After much preliminary growling he burst forth: "I am an eagle, whose wings have been bound down by frosts and snows; but now I shake my pinions and cleave into the genial air unto which I am born!" But Sheridan, whose power over men was something marvellous, succeeded in again cajoling him. Not until 1802 did he finally sever his conection with Drury Lane, then recently rebuilt. In that year he bought Lewis's share in Covent Garden for £23,000, borrowing half the sum on in

terest.

Ere he appeared there he paid a visit to Paris. He was now in the very zenith of his fame; from the time he had assumed the direction of Drury Lane he took the position of principal actor, and performed one after another that series of parts with which his name became identified, Macbeth, King John, Wolsey, the Stranger, Rolla, Brutus, Cato, and greatest of all, Coriolanus. He had mounted Garrick's throne, and there was none to dispute the sceptre with him. During his absence his wife was the guest of the Marquis of Aber corn. In Paris he was received in the best society, dined daily with Lords. Holland and Egremont, and received the homage of the great Talma.

Within six years after his becoming part manager of Covent Garden, the theatre was burned to the ground.

Kemble lost all; but generous friends came to his assistance. The Duke of Northumberland pressed upon him a loan of £10,000, and, on the day the foundation-stone of the new house was laid, destroyed the bond. In eight months the building was completed. But new troubles now beset him. I have no space to give any account of the “O. P." (Old Prices) riots which arose upon his raising the prices of admission to the pit and boxes, and making the addition of a tier of private boxes, till then unknown. After bravely resisting the unparalleled tumult for a week, he was compelled to give way to popular clamor.

the

The Kemble management certainly did not tend to the elevation of stage; the vast size of the new theatres, so different to the old, which were quite small, induced him to create that spectacular drama which has since swollen to such enormous dimensions. Splendid processions, real water, real horses, elephants, dogs, too frequently possessed the stage, to the exclusion of artistic talent. Even in these degenerate days we would not tolerate much that drew eager crowds to the patent houses, where the Kembles and a host of talent beside graced the boards. The importance given to the quadruped actors was particularly degrading, and was severely commented on by the press. Upon the revival of the famous old spectacle, 'Blue Beard,' in 1811, the following burlesque copy of theatrical rules was published: Every mare or horse who refuses a part shall forfeit one peck of oats. Should any mare, horse, or gelding come to rehearsal in dirty shoes, or lie down in the green-room, or snort during rehearsal, the forfeiture shall be one peck of oats.'

During these years, I have been compelled to so rapidly skim over, Mrs. Siddons was still advancing in fame and fortune. She had commenced at £5 a week, by 1804 she had advanced to £20 a night, and in 1811 to 50 guineas. She had purchased a house in Gower Street, the back of which she describes as being

most effectually in the country and most delightfully pleasant." What a change in that neighborhood since those days! The limit of her ambition had once been £10,000; she had long since realised that sum more than twice over,

but doubtless she would have still gone on accumulating more, had there not come warnings that her days of greatness. were waning. She had grown very stout and unwieldy, and although her age did not warrant it, so infirm, that after kneeling in a part she had to be assisted to rise. Her acting was becoming heavy, monotonous and stagey; the tenderness, the passion of her younger days had passed away with her youth and beauty, and the Isabella and Belvidera that once wrung every heart, over which Hazlitt confesses he had wept outright during a whole performance, had no affinity with that fat sombre woman, of whose awful demeanor, even in private life, so many stories have been told.

Another luminary, young, beautiful and sympathetic, Miss O'Neill, was rising to thrust her from her throne as she had thrust others. And so it became necessary to abdicate and lay down the laurel crown she had worn so long, ere it was rudely plucked from her head. "I feel as if I were mounting the first step of a ladder conducting me to the other world," she said sadly. Her farewell benefit took place on the 29th of June 1812. Lady Macbeth was fitly chosen for her exit, and at the end of the sleepwalking scene, a nobly artistic audience insisted that the curtain should there fall, so that the last grand impression should not be disturbed. Yet her retirement did not make the sensation that might have been expected. As it has been before said, her powers were failing, and, privately, the public disliked her. A volume might be filled with enthusiastic descriptions of her acting by contemporary writers.

None were more warm

than that fine critic, Hazlitt, who wrote so much upon this favorite subject:

"The homage she has received is greater than that which is paid to queens," he said, at her farewell. "The enthusiasm she excited had something idolatrous about it; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. She raised tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of elder time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow; pasNEW SERIES.-VOL. XXVI., No. 4

sion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind. She was not only the idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultuous shouts of the pit in breathless expectation, and quenched the blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, through long years of solitude, her face has shone as if an angel had appeared from heaven; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs. Siddons was an event in every one's life; and does she think we have forgot her?"

To see the bewildered melancholy of Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep," writes Leigh Hunt," or the widow's mute stare of perfected misery by the corpse of the gamester Beverley, two of the sublimest pieces of acting on the English stage, would argue this point (the greatness of her powers) better than a thousand critics. Mrs. Siddons has the air scious that there is a motley crowd called the of never being an actress; she seems unconpit waiting to applaud her, or that a dozen fiddlers are waiting for her exit."

It must have been a terrible renunciation to have retired from those dazzling triumphs into the monotony of private life. As she sat at home in the long. evenings, she would say, "Now I used to be going to dress-now the curtain is about to rise." Her body was there, but her soul was still before the footlights. She played several times after her formal retirement for her brother Charles's benefit, and gave some performances at Edinburgh for her son's children. Her last appearance was in 1819 as Lady Randolph to Macready's Glenalvon. "It was not a performance," he writes in his diary, "but a mere repetition of the poet's text—no flash, no sign, of her pristine all-subduing genius." the homage of the great to the last, and when she lodged in town, files of carriages were nearly all day drawn up before the door of her lodgings. She survived until the year 1831, still continuing to delight select circles, even royal ones, with her fine private readings from Shakspeare and Milton.

She received

In 1817, warned by increasing infirmities, Kemble gave a round of his great parts-in which he continually drew £600 houses-and made his last appearance on June 23rd of that year. To again quote Hazlitt:

"Mr. Kemble took his leave of the stage on Monday night in the character of Coriolanus.

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On his first coming forward to pronounce his farewell address, he was received with a shout like thunder; on his retiring after it the applause was long before it subsided entirely away. There is something in these partings with old public favorites exceedingly affecting. They teach us the shortness of human life, and the vanity of human pleasures. Our associations of admiration and delight with theatrical performers are among our earliest recollections, among our last regrets. They are links that connect the beginning and the end of life together; their bright and giddy career of popularity measures the arch that spans our brief existence. He played the part as well as he ever did-with as much freshness and vigor. There was no abatement of spirit and energy-none of grace and dignity; his look, his action, his expression of the character, were the same as they ever were, they could not be finer."

I continue the description of the scene from Mr. Fitzgerald's biography of The Kembles':

"Kemble seemed to put his whole soul into the part, and, it was noticed, seemed to cast away all unfavorable checks and reserves, as though there was no further need for husbanding his strength. As he approached the last act a gloom seemed to settle down on the audience; and when at the end he came forward slowly to make his address, he was greeted with a shout like thunder of 'No farewell!' it was long before he could obtain silence, or could control his feelings sufficiently to speak. At last he faltered out, I have now appeared before you for the last time this night closes my professional life.' At this a tremendous tumult broke out, with

cries of 'No, no!' and after an interval he went on with the remainder of his speech. ... At the end he seemed to hurry over what he had to say, to be eager to finish, and

withdrew with a long and lingering gaze, just

as Garrick had done. Some one handed a wreath of laurel to Talma, to which was attached an inscription, bearing a request that Mr. Kemble would not retire, but would act at least a few times in the year, so long as his strength would allow him. Kemble, however, had withdrawn, but the manager (Fawcett) coming out, assured them that it should be his

pride to present it to Mr. Kemble. But in the green-room he received an unexpected shape of homage, for all his brother artists begged from him the various articles of his theatrical dress as memorials. Mathews obtained his sandals, Miss Bristow his pockethandkerchief, and, when he at last withdrew from the theatre, he found the entrances lined with all the assistants and supernumeraries, waiting to give him a last greeting."

After this a grand dinner was given in his honor at the Freemason's Tavern, Lord Holland in the chair; the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Bedford, and others of the highest nobility, together with the most eminent men in literature and art, were present. Not even Garrick had been so greatly honored. His savings had been but moderate, and soon afterwards he went abroad, first to Toulouse, then to Lausanne, where he died in 1823. Once he returned to London for a short time, and from Hazlitt we obtain a last glimpse of the great actor in his decay :

"His face was as fine and as noble as ever, but he sat in a large arınchair, bent down, dispirited, and lethargic. He spoke no word, but he sighed heavily, and after drowsing thus for a time went away."

It is doubtful whether, could John Kemble be revivified and brought back to the stage, he would be successful in the present day. We have not yet arrived at the end of the extraordinary revolution Kean's impulsive style of acting created in the dramatic art. It swept cial school of the Kembles, and brought away at one blow the studied and artifius back to a more natural and impassioned style; which, however, in this eighth decade of the nineteenth century has degenerated into a bald realism, wholly devoid of poetry, passion and artistic grace.-Temple Bar.

A LITTLE girl asked her father who was starting for Egypt if he should see Joseph at Cairo. The question was not so absurd as it may have seemed. Nothing astonishes the modern tourist more than to find the scenes described by Moses, and represented by the paintings in ancient tombs, still faithful pictures of the manners and customs of to-day. But Joseph, the "discreet and wise"

ruler, is nowhere to be discovered. There are prisons and executioners, coats of many colors, and Mrs. Potiphars in abundance. There are lean kine and fat sheaves, corn as the sand of the sea, honey, spices, myrrh, nuts, and almonds. There are cruel taskmasters and forced public works. The first-born is mourned in many a house, for the conscription has taken him and he re

turns no more. On all sides may be heard a great and bitter cry, not on account of bad harvests or unseasonable weather, not because of earthquakes or the low price of wool, but for unjust, grinding taxation, and hard, ill-paid toil. "We work all day," said a Fellah lately, for a morsel of bread, and the Khedive takes it out of our mouths." It is extremely difficult to obtain correct information with regard to the real position of the peasant farmers in Egypt. It is impossible to believe even the oath of a native; but, by sifting contradictory statements, by contrasting the replies given by different dragomans to the same question, by riding along the inland roads, seeing the daily life and occupations of the people in their villages, shopping in the bazaars, and becoming acquainted with the small artisans, but above all by talking with the sailors who come from the various little towns round about, an intelligent person may, with a very moderate smattering of Arabic, obtain a fairly true notion of the state of that interesting and misgoverned country.

The announcement made lately that additional exactions are to be laid on the already overburdened people cannot fail to raise a feeling of indignation in the mind of any one who has become acquainted with the Fellah at home. We talk much in England about slavery in Egypt, and are greatly shocked that such a thing should exist anywhere. Benevolent people ask questions about it in Parliament, and old ladies become hysterical on the subject. The fact is that the position of a slave in an ordinary household is luxurious idleness and wellfed comfort compared to that of the peasant proprietor or agricultural laborer. There are strict and humane laws made for the slave. He can have justice for every wrong except that which made him a slave. But the Fellah is practically helpless. No one can interfere because the taxes are increased in the Said, or because the land is in some places relapsing into desert, since the people can no longer buy seed, having nothing left after the collector's visit but their naked, hungry children and the bare mud. The money raised by taxation goes to enrich the collector, the governor, the pasha, the Khedive, everybody except the native

Egyptian and Egypt. New streets and palaces, gardens and harems, harbors and lighthouses, are being made; but nothing comes back to the earners of the money which pays for these costly undertakings. Great sugar factories are built in which the machinery is constantly changed as English or French overseers are appointed. The old works are left to rust on the banks, though their price has been wrung from the life-blood of the people. When things were supposed to be at their worst last year, the Viceroy gave a sumptuous breakfast and presented each guest with a costly ring. His sons are growing up and require establishments. English horses, diamonds, eunuchs, and pretty Circassians are expensive necessities which must be provided. Daughters require dowries suitable to their exalted rank. Still more expensive are standing armies and fruitless expcditions to Abyssinia and Turkey. Immense sums go to entertain foreign visitors of distinction and to provide steamers and trains for them. English people are apt to forget that the Khedive, with all his virtues, is still a Turk. He impresses strangers who have the privilege of an interview with him by his ability, industry, intelligence, and good impulses. But he has had no early practical training, and has all his experience to acquire through making mistakes. Were he William Pitt himself, he could not succeed in filling the positions simultaneously of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Minister, Minister of War, Board of Works, and general autocrat.

Two crops of

great deal of money in putting up large pumping engines; but they have turned out useless, partly because of the nonexistence of fuel, partly because the smaller parts wear out, and cannot be replaced by native workmen. There is some talk of cutting a canal and floating wood down from the upper Nile. M. Lesseps has lately been over the ground, but bondholders must surely by this time be becoming somewhat chary of their help. Meanwhile the old labor-wasting methods must be retained. New canals might be multiplied indefinitely, always with splendid results, but, under the present system of forced labor, they can only be cut at the cost of the lives of many bread-winners. The Fellah, drafted away from his home, hard worked, illfed, harshly treated, dies of the slightest illness. It is said that, when a new canal is begun, the Khedive secures the land nearest to it, his officers take what comes next, and the Fellah who makes it gets little or no benefit. He is obliged still to stand at his bucket, and, with only a rag round his loins, work the water up to his little tenement, while the intense sun blazes down on his bare back and shaven head. It is unlikely that any private enterprise can spring up amongst the people to improve the cultivation. of their farms. They are too poor, and have not time to learn about new inventions. The fine climate prevents them from being braced to exertion and rebellion, as would be the case in a more northerly country. But they do feel very sore to see the land slipping into the hands of large proprietors who take all the finest ground for sugar-canes. When the present Viceroy succeeded, he had no estates. Now he owns a very large acreage. This change in his circumstances was not brought about by means which would be approved here. A case in point is that of a sugar estate not far from Farshoot, but on the east bank. The land was bought at the Gov ernment valuation from the present proprietors, who were never paid, it being arranged that the price should be taken out in exemption from labor at the factory and in sugar. After a time it turned out that the land did not suit sugar, and the factory was abandoned. It stands empty and useless, though it cost many thousands of pounds and much forced

labor. But what became of the land? It was sold back to the original proprietors again at the Government valuation, which had been revised-that is to say, raised-but ready money was exacted for every acre. It need hardly be added that the whole district is reduced to absolute beggary, that the Government is not exactly popular, and that a man whose camel was "requisitioned" to carry cane killed it rather than let it go.

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At sugar factories forced labor is the rule under a thin disguise. The laborers are paid in sugar, which is valued at the Cairo price. If a man wishes it he can sell his sugar to the authorities at the factory, but it is at the local price. As the sugar is useless to him, he is thus robbed of a third or a fifth of his earnings. The land itself is made the means of similar extortions. It is revalued for taxation every six years, and if it is situated by the river, where the banks are altered by every inundation, the unfortunate farmer has often to pay for several years after his land has disappeared. Land left dry becomes the property of the village or commune," and last year a sheykh was murdered by his own villagers for appropriating some common land to his own use. For this the village was burnt by the Khedive, who seized the land of the whole commune himself; and nothing can more plainly show the state of political degradation to which Turkish rule has reduced the country than that the punishment was looked upon as just, and acquiesced in without a murmur. The people do not care to grow sugar for the Khedive's benefit, but much prefer corn crops, of which both barley and wheat are everywhere common. The Fellah rarely eats his own wheat. It is a luxury far beyond him; but sailors in the Nile boats live on the brown bread made from it. The corn is left standing till it is perfectly hard, as there is no rain or wind to hurt it. It is in ear in February, and is reaped with the sickle; but in Nubia it is pulled up by the roots; and the farmer often, if he has a good crop, goes with it himself by boat to Cairo. It is classed according to the color, which varies very much, and the straw is chopped fine as food for camels or fuel for steam-engines. The ordinary bread-stuff is "doura," which is much like Indian corn, This is sown