"Father, for Heaven's sake, do what she bids] you." "Dress the scene," continued she- "farther off, Susan- this is tragedy, don't huddle together as they do in farce. "But I am in such trouble, Anne." "Of course you are-you are Tibulla-you are jealous. You spy all our looks, catch all our words. Now, mind your business. The stage is mine. I speak to my Tiberius." She kicked her train adroitly out of the way, and flowed like a wave on a calm day towards Tiberius, who stood entranced, almost staggering under the weight of his own words, as they rolled over him: "Obey the mandate of unfeeling Rome; Fly vain delights, fight for a glorious name, (In this last line she began to falter a little.) "Alas! I whom lost kingdoms could not move, Alone upon the earth, some bitter day, Old man! regret, remorse, will come too late; "But, my good sir, you don't bear me out by your dumb play, you are to be the unrelenting sire "Now, how ca-ca-ca-can I, when you make me blubber?" gulped out he "whose dry eye," etc. "And me! whined Susan. "Aha!" cried Alexander, with a hilarious shout, "I've made them cry with my verses!" A smile, an arch smile wreathed the Tragic Queen's countenance. Alexander caught it, and not being yet come to his full conceit, pulled himself up short: "No," cried he, "no! it was you who conquered them with my weak weapon; you, whose face is spirit, and whose voice is music. Enchantress," Now, Alexander, who was gracefully inclining towards the charmer, received a sudden push from the excited Nathan, and fell plump on his knees. "Speak again," cried he, " for you are my queen. I love you. What is to be my fate?" Alexander," said Anne, fluttering as she had never fluttered before: " you have so many titles Oh! no, that won't do. See, sir, to my esteem. "Live, for I love you; She did not merely speak, she acted these My life is his who saved that life from harm; And she returned him his pocket-book. 66 "We are in the wrong," began Nathan sooth'His pocket-book!" said Nathan, his eyes ingly, for the Queen had slighly indicated him glazed with wonder. Why, how did his traas one of "the barbarous tribe. -"A lady like you.- The Romans are fools-asses-dolts-and gedy come in his pocket-book; I mean, his beasts," cried Nathan, running the four sub-part, and which is the lie? Oh! dear, the dog pocket-book in his tragedy; which is the true stantives into one. "Hush! father!" cried the author reproachfully "And you, young maid, kill not my wounded heart; Ah! bid me not from my Tiberius part." Hold your tongue, Susan, you put me out. "Now it is too melting, "whined Nathan, "leave off-there, do ye leave off, it is too melting." "Isn't it?" said Alexander, rayonnant, "Go on! go on! You whose dry eye,you whose dry eye, Mrs. Oldfield." I don't like to leave off somehow." He was then silent, but Alexander saw him the next minute making signals to him to put more fire and determination into his amorous proposals. Before he could execute these instructions, a clock on the chimneypiece struck three. The actress started, and literally bundled father and son out of the house, for in those days plays began at five o'clock. Mrs. Oldfield, however, invited them to sup with her, conditionally; if she was not defeated Mrs. Oldfield turned full on Nathan, and sink-in "The Rival Queens." "If I am," said she, ing her voice into a deeper key, she drove the following lines, slowly and surely, through and through his poor, unresisting, buttery heart:"You whose dry eye looks down on all our tears, Pity yourself,-ah! for yourself have fears. "it will be your interest to keep out of my way; for, of course, I shall attribute it to the interruptions and distractions of this morning." She said this with an arch, and, at the same time, rather wicked look, and Alexander's face burned in a moment. "Oh," cried he, 'I should be miserable for | Mrs. B., all wreathed in smiles; the applause belife." "Should you?" said Anne. "You know I must. "" "Well then," (and a single gleam of lightning shot from her eyes) "I must not be defeated." At five o'clock, the theatre was packed to the ceiling, and the curtain rose upon "The Rival Queens," about which play much nonsense has been talked. It is true, there is bombast in it, and one or two speeches that smack of Bedlam; but there is not more bombast than in other plays of the epoch, and there is ten times as much fire. The play has also some excellent turns of language and some great strokes of nature, in particular the representation of two different natures agitated to the utmost by the same passion, jealousy. is full of genius. "The Rival Queens" is a play for the stage, not the closet. Its author was a great reader, and the actors who had the benefit of his reading charmed the public in all the parts, but in process of time actors arose who had not that advantage, and "Alexander the Great" became too much for them. They could not carry off his smoke, or burn with his fire. The female characters, however, retained their popularity for many years after the death of the author, and of Betterton, the first "Alexander. They are the two most equal female characters that exist in tragedy. Slight preference is commonly given by actors to the part of "Roxana," but when Mrs. Bracegirdle selected that part, Mrs. Oldfield took "Statira," with perfect compla "Give me a knife, a draught of poison, flames! Swell, heart! break, break, thou stubborn thing!" Her predecessors had always been violent in this scene. Mrs. Oldfield made distress its prominent sentiment. The critics thought her too quiet, but she stole upon the hearts of the audience, and enlisted their sympathy on her side before the close of the act. Mrs. Bracegirdle, who stood at the wing during the scene, turned round to her toady, and said, shrugging her sholders, "Oh, if that is all the lady can do!" In the third act Mrs. Bracegirdle made her entrée with great spirit, speaking, as she came on, the line "O, you have ruined me! I shall be mad!" She was received with great applause, on which she instantly dropped Roxana, and became ing ended, she returned to Roxana as quickly as it is possible to do after such a deviation. She played the scene with immense spirit and fire, and the applause was much greater than Statira had obtained in the first act. Applause is the actor's test of success. The two queens now came into collision, and their dialogue is so dramatic that I hope I may be excused for quoting it, with all its faults. Roxana. Madam, I hope you will a queen forgive: Roxana weeps to see Statira gridve; How much your eyes all beauties else excel: warm, Roxana. I hope your majesty will give me leave To wait you to the grove, where you would grieve; Statira. No, proud triumpher o'er my falling state, Thou shalt not stay to fill me with my fate; Roxana. No, sickly virtue, no, Statira. How frail, how cowardly is woman's mind! We shriek at thunder, dread the rustling wind, And glitt'ring swords, the brightest eyes will blind; Yet when strong jealousy inflames the soul, Rozana. When you retire to your romantic cell, Thou shalt not rest by day, nor sleep by night, Through the drawn curtains that great man and me, Wearied with laughing joys shot to the soul, While thou shalt grinning stand, and gnash thy teeth, and howl! Statira. O barb'rous rage! my tears I cannot keep, But my full eyes in spite of me will weep. Clasping each other, shaded o'er with lawn, Will come and hasten on thy ling'ring fates, Statira. 'Tis well, I thank thee; thou hast wak- Whose boiling now no temper can assuage; My warring thoughts the bloodiest tracts pursue; Roxana. Sure the disdain'd Statira does not dience, so in the concluding passage of the play she melted them to tears-the piteous anguish of her regret at being separated by death from her lover. "What, must I lose my life, my lord, for ever? And then her pitying tenderness for his sorrow; and then her prayer to him to live; and last, that exquisite touch of woman's love, more angelic than man's "Spare Roxana's life; "'Twas love of you that caused her give me death; " and her death with no thought but love, love, love upon her lips; all this was rendered so tenderly and so divinely, that no heart was untouched, and few eyes were dry now in the crowded theatre. Statira died; the other figures remain. ed upon the stage, but to the spectators the play was over; and when the curtain fell there was but one cry, "Oldfield!" "Oldfield!" In those days people conceived opinions of their own in matters dramatic, and expressed them then and there. Roma locuta est, and Nance Statira. Yes, tow'ring proud Roxana, but I Oldfield walked into her dressing room the queen dare. Roxana. I tow'r indeed o'er thee; I'll see the king in spite of all I swore, of the English stage." Two figures in the pit had watched this singular battle with thrilling interest. Alexander sympathized alternately with the actress as well as the queen. Nathan, to tell the truth, after hanging his head most sheepishly for the first five minutes, yielded wholly to the illusion of the stage, and was "transported out of this ignorant present" altogether; to him Roxana and Statira were bond fide queens, women, and rivals. The Oldworthys were seated in Critic's Row; and after a while Nathan's enthusiasm and excite Tho' curs'd, that thou may'st never see him more. ment disturbed old gentlemen who came to judge two actresses, not to drink poetry all alive O. In this female duel Statira appeared to great advantage. She exhibited the more feminine character of the two. The marked variety of sentiment she threw into each speech, contrasted favorably with the other's somewhat vixenish monotony; and every now and then she gave out volcanic flashes of great power, all the more effective for the artful reserve she had hitherto made of her physical resources. The effect was electrical when she, the tender woman, suddenly wheeled upon her opponent with the words "Rival, take heed," etc. And now came the climax; now it was that Mrs. Bracegirdle paid for her temporary success. She had gone to the endings went down to Coventry. of her tether long ago, but her antagonist had been working on the great principle of Art Climax. She now put forth the strength she had economized; at each speech she rose and swelled higher, and higher, and higher. Her frame dilated, her voice thundered, her eyes lightened, and she swept the audience with her in the hurricane of her passion. There was a moment's dead silence, and then the whole theatre burst into acclamations which were renewed again and again ere the play was suffered to proceed. At the close of the scene Statira had overwhelmed Roxana; and, as here she had electrified the au His neighbors proposed to eject Nathan; the said Nathan on this gave them a catalogue of actions, any one of which, he said, would reëstablish his constitutional rights and give him his remedy in the shape of damages; he wound up with letting them know he was an attorney-atlaw. On this they abandoned the idea of meddling with him as hastily as boys drop the baked half-pence in a scramble provided by their philanthropical seniors. So now Mrs. Oldfield was queen of the stage, and Alexander had access to her as her admirer, and Nathan had a long private talk with her, and then with some misgiv A story ought to end with a marriage: ought it not? Well, this one does not, because there are reasons that compel the author to tell the truth. The poet did not marry the actress and beget tragedies, and comedies. Love does not always end in marriage, even behind the scenes of a theatre. But it led to a result, the value of which my old readers know, and my young ones will learn it led to a very tender and lifelong friendship. And, oh! how few out of the great aggregate of love affairs lead to so high, or so good, or so affectionate a permanency as is a tender friendship. One afternoon Mrs. Oldfield wrote rather a long letter thus addressed in the fashion of the day To Mr. Nathan Oldworthy, Attorney-at-Law, In the Town of Coventry, At his house there in the Market street. This, with all despatch. Nathan read it, and said "God forgive me for thinking ill of any people, because of their business," and his eyes filled. The letter described to Nathan an interview There, brother, I have done what I can for the actress had with Alexander. That interview your sweetheart, and I have reprinted your Epi(several months after our tale), was a long, and taph, after one hundred years. But neither you nor I, nor all our pens can at some moments, a distressing one especially to fight against the laws that rule the Arts. Each poor Alexander; but it had been long meditated, of the great Arts fails in some thing, is unand was firmly carried out; in that interview approachably great in others (of that anon). this generous woman conferred one of the great- The great Artists of the Scene are paid in cash; est benefactions on Alexander one human being they cannot draw bills at fifty years' date. can hope to confer on another. She persuaded a Dramatic Author to turn Attorney. He was very reluctant then; and very grateful afterwards. These two were never to one another as though all had never been. They were friends as long as they were on earth together. This was not so very long. Alexander lived to eighty-six; but the great Oldfield died at forty; seven. Whilst she lived she always consulted her Alexander in all difficulties. One day she sent for him; and he came sadly to her bed-side; it was to make her will. He was sadder than she was. She died. She lay in state like a Royal Queen; and noblemen and gentlemen vied to hold her pall as they took her to the home she had earned in Westminster Abbey. Alexander, faithful to the last, carried out all her last requests and he tried, poor soul, to rescue her Fame from the cruel fate that awaits the great artists of the scene, -oblivion. He wrote her epitaph. It is first-rate of its kind; and prime Latin for once in a way : Hic juxta requiescit Tot inter Poetarum laudata nomina They are meteors that blaze in the world's eye - and vanish. around four yards square, for hours and hours. We are farthing candles that cast a gleam all Alexander lived a life of business, honest, hon orable, and graceful too; for the true poetic feeling is ineradicable; it colors a man's life-is not colored by it. And when he had reached a great old age, it befel that Alexander's sight city, and his memory grew weak, and he forgot grew dim, and his spirit was weary of the great parchments, and dates, and reports, and he began to remember as though it was yesterdaythe pleasant fields, where he had played among the lambs and the buttercups in the morning of his days. And the old man said calmly, " Vixi!" Therefore now I will go down, and see once more those pleasant fields; and I will sit in the sun a little while; and then I will lie beside my father in the old Church-yard. And he did so. It is near a hundred years ago now. So Anne Oldfield sleeps in Westminster Abbey, near the poets whose thoughts took treble glory from her, while she adorned the world. And Alexander Oldworthy lies humbly beneath the shadow of the great old lofty spire in the town of Coventry. Requiescant in pace! "And all Christian souls, I pray Heaven." From The Spectator, 81 Dec. glance, or to conjecture what the close of 1854 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. may have brought to pass. Even on what has been done by our own Government we have at present but very inadequate means for pronouncing judgment. But we may conclude from Lord Palmerston's return to office, that on this Eastern question, as on those more immediately concerning home politics, the counsels of the Coalition Ministry are harmonious. One indiscretion must certainly be debited to the Govern ment, and that is their assent to the first Vienna note. What led them into such an evident error it is yet impossible to know, and idle to anticipate knowledge by conjecture. But whatever judgment may hereafter be passed upon their ability and firmness in conducting negotiations WERE it possible to bound our view of the past year by the sea that separates us from the rest of Europe and the world, our political retrospect would supply but little cause for regret, and we could look forward to the opening year with unclouded cheerfulness and hope. Such a limitation is at all times impossible for England, and is especially so now, that the dispute between Russia and Turkey threatens the peace of Europe with the most formidable rupture it has experienced since the battle of Waterloo. But into the prospect opened by this collision between two semi-barbarous powers we have not now to WINDOW-GARDENING.-There are a few golden rules to be observed during winter, of which may be enumerated the following:- Water all plants that require it in the morning; leave no water in the saucer of any plant after the whole has become saturated through; never water by dribs, but give the whole a good soaking, or the consequence often is, that the top of the mould is wetted, while the lower, containing the roots, is dust; sponge over the foliage as often as it becomes dusty; take a pointed stick, and, once in a while, stir the surface of the soil, but not deep enough to disturb the roots; this acts the same part as hoeing in summer, and tends vastly to the health of the plants. Give each plant space enough for air to circulate around it, if possible; let it have the benefit of a little pure fresh air, at times.- Country Gentleman. through more than eight months, we may at what Mohammedanism was four centuries sinceleast congratulate ourselves that these negotia- the godless infidel power, the power recognizing tions have been directed by the ablest statesmen neither right nor wrong, incarnate brute force, England possesses, and that if after eight-and- terrible but hateful. Whoever will help us to thirty years a terrible war is again to break out, resist this, whether it be Mazzini or Louis Napoat least our Government has used its utmost ef- leon, shall be welcome to our side. We shall so forts to prevent so great a disaster, so that the far, at all events, be fighting together for truth responsibility of all that may follow rests not upon and freedom and civilization-for all that makes our heads, but upon the one man whose arrogance, life desirable and man godlike, against all that insincerity, and ambition, are opposing themselves makes life a desert and a prison, and man savage, to the public law and public opinion of the civil- degraded, and miserable. This seems to be the ized world. And we may further consider that contest that 1854 will see begun: what year will nothing short of the patience exhibited by the see it ended? Governments of France and England would have sufficed to display in its true light the dangerous and perfidious policy of the Emperor Nicholas, or to call forth in both countries that strong feeling of indignation and resentment, which, if war is to take place, insure to the Governments of both countries hearty support and sympathy. It yet remains to be seen whether that patience has not been carried even beyond the limits of national honor and interest. But we are fully alive to the responsibility of a Government, and its laudable dread of being urged by popular feeling into a war, the burdens of which will tend to arrest improvement, and the issues of which are on many accounts uncertain. One thing this otherwise untoward event has brought about, which would compensate for much evil and anxiety-that the French and English nations are acting together with a cordiality which will do more than a century's harangues to blot out the remembrance of ancient enmity. How it reproves rash judgments, to find the man whose accession to the Imperial throne of France was looked upon as fraught with menace to our shores, united to us within a twelvemonth, by WILLIAM VON HUMBOLDT.-Statesmen and ties apparently firmer and more sincere than have Judges, if they give their graver hours to the ever bound to us those miserable Bourbons, cares of State and quibbles of law, exhibit a whose gratitude it seems as impossible to awaken growing disposition to reward themselves for the as it is to bind their honor or shame them of sacrifice by a secret devotion to the Muses. An their selfishness! Louis Napoleon, criminal as announcement from Berlin informs us that Wilwe think certain acts of his life to have been, is liam von Humboldt has left behind him a collecneither fool nor coward, however the necessities tion of Sonnets-352 in number,—dictated by of his situation may urge him into courses that the deceased philosopher and minister at Tejel. must swell a heavy account, to be one day settled. They are just out of the press. How Fox yearned If principle forbade us to be silent on his crimes to give up politics and devote his last years to -if principle and prudence combine to warn us literature is well known. Lord Holland sought against placing an unvigilant reliance upon the the shady walks of letters. Mr. Macaulay tells man who, for his personal ambition, fomented us in a book just published, his "Collected and the civil discords of a great country, and whose Revised Speeches."-that his "History" is hencehand, red with the slaughter of unresisting citi-forth" the pleasure and the business of his life." zens in the streets of their capital, has strained Lord Brougham is said to be giving up the last its iron nerves in repressing that freedom of years of a most active life to writings of various speech and movement of intellect we prize as kinds; and we are given to understand that one the richest inheritance of modern life at least of the most eminent of living Judges has comhe is as well entitled to the courtesy and good- posed a number of Sonnets, which, after the will of the English Sovereign and the English example of William von Humboldt, he designs nation, as those other royal personages of Europe to have published after events have put it out of whose lives have been passed in crimes worse the power of the literary critic to beard the than his, because without his excuse: for had he Judge in his ermine. Of these last-named works, succeeded to an hereditary throne, he has too we may add that literary rumor speaks in highest much capacity, too much tact, too much govern- praise. ing faculty, to have found crimes necessary to maintain his position -too much grandeur of imagination to have sunk into a despot when he might have been the leader of a free and gallant people. In our eyes, Russia is to Europe now A nephew of Robert Burns is a Free Church minister at Dunedin, in New Zealand. |