"Nay, cruel'st racks and torments are preparing

To force confession from their dying pangs."

Feeling then she had wrought him up to distraction and madness, she exclaims,

"Oh! do not look so terribly upon me!

How your lips shake, and all your face disordered!"

The opening of the last act is an highly pathetic scene betwixt Priuli and his daughter, in which Miss O'Neill displays all that filial tenderness, and highly softened demeanour, both in look and expression, which constitutes one of her chief excellencies. Her reply to her father,

"A wretch, who, from the very top of happiness,
Am fallen into the lowest depths of misery,

And want your pitying hand to raise me up again,"

Is delivered with that gentleness and thrill of soft anguish in the tone that goes to the very soul, and far excels the strong shrill cadence of Mrs. Siddons, in the same part. The one literally plays round the head-we admire it, and it is lost; the other goes to the heart, and is rivetted. The expression,

Ꭰ

"Yes! your daughter,"

is given with great felicity; and,

"Howe'er he deal with me,"

is preceded by a strong and emphatic pause, and then uttered so as to possess all the influence intended by it on the father's mind.

The conclusion of the scene is also very fine, when she says,

"Go, and remember,

"Tis Belvidera's life her father pleads for !"

The parting of Jaffier and Belvidera next offers a highly wrought and interesting scene. The softened and calm demeanour of Jaffier is here contrasted by the poignant grief and despondence of Belvidera. His blessings she receives with tears, and the sorrowing feelings of an agitated mind; but when he comes to express the words,

"Comfort her at parting !"

for which she was not prepared, it is an electric shock which shews Miss O'Neill's powers in a su

perior manner.

When heard to vent the strong

burst of surprise,

"How? parting! parting!"

it interests and wounds every feeling. The expression, "for ever!" in the end, is given no less admirably.

On the whole, this tragedy is certainly well calculated for the display of Miss O'Neill's talents. Tenderness and softness are the predominant features of the Heroine, and therefore she has here the advantage of Mrs. Siddons in her superior expression of these qualities.

ISABELLA.

The choice of character next exhibited by Miss O'Neill is one of the most interesting on the British stage, the Isabella of Southerne, in his tragedy so termed, or the Fatal Marriage. It is a character of the most difficult representation, of the most harrowing effect on the audience, and from its length, requiring much exertion in the performer to execute it with undiminished talent.

Though the story is a hacknied one, yet it is a play full of extraordinary incidents, and so much lies on the Heroine, that all the rest form but secondary characters. This piece has always been considered as the first of Mrs. Siddons's representations, and so much of the sublime and terrible occurs in it, that it is well suited to shew to advantage her great powers. The character of the Heroine of this tragedy is one highly estimable as drawn by the poet, full of conjugal fidelity, and unshaken affection-of the nicest delicacy of feeling, and of the most virtuous principles-she yields to gratitude what she refuses to every other consideration. The portrait of her character is unfolded in the first scene with Villeroy,

"You have been

More than a brother to me, my friend;

And, at a time when friends are found no more,

A friend to my misfortunes."

She then adds,

"Would I could be

yours;

But the unfortunate cannot be friends :”

Her recurrence to the memory of her deceased husband, and her appeal to the child in the same scene, are uncommonly fine, and given by Miss O'Neill with all the pathos and tender exclamation for which she is so remarkable,

That friendship will allow be still my friend;
That's all I can receive, or have to give."

The interview of Isabella with her father-in-law, is a grand appeal to the heart. Submissive, yet dignified and firm, Miss O'Neill gives effect to the choice incidents of the poet, with a tenderness and soothing tone of expression, that occasions an overwhelming sympathy in all that hear her. The beautiful reply to his stern question,

"What could you expect from me?"

Is most delicately palliative to avoid offence,