"Only in—a mad-house!' he said, and slammed the door-the bolts were turned, and I was left in misery and solitude.

"Six weeks passed. My recovery was slow; indeed, at one time, doubtful; but though the wound was severe, the extensive hemorrhage prevented fever, and ultimately saved my life. The dietary was also favourable. Bread and water, and that in quantity not superabundant, effected a perfect cure.

"When I remonstrated against the restraint imposed upon me, and demanded to know on what grounds I was placed au secret, I received, according to my keeper's mood, a savage answer or a sneer.

66.6

666

6

Why should I be here?' I demanded; I am not mad.' Patience,' replied my comforter, one year more, and you shall have no cause to make that complaint, my friend.'

"In ten days I was able to quit my pallet and sit beside the grated window. It was but a dreary prospect on which it looked—a dull, deserted garden, with high walls, grass-grown walks, unclipped hedges, and every appearance that indicated former elegance and later neglect. Closely imprisoned, a brutal wretch my gaoler, my spirits sank, my mind became morbid, and no doubt I should have sunk into gloomy madness, had I endured the miserable probation the keeper hinted at. We are the mere creatures of circumstances, and accident preserved reason, and probably continued life.

"Whatever might have been the general arrangements of the establishment, it would seem that the desolate garden my window overlooked, was forbidden ground to the inmates of the prison-house. During three long and dreary evenings while I gazed from the grating of my cell, no living thing appeared to disturb my melancholy musings. The singular story of my life was recalled to memory-its leading incidents passed in shadowy review,' and the last fatal scene rose to the mind's eye, while wild ambition and wilder love were sadly contrasted with present sufferings, embittered by the conviction that death alone should end them. Hours passed the last visit of the keeper had been made—and still I gazed in listless misery from the window. I sighed-it was answered. Was it fancy? The night was bright and starry, and I pressed my face against the iron bars to gain a more extended view of the deserted garden. A minute passed-alas! it was a delusion-and the sigh an echo of my own. No living thing was near. Hush! 'tis a movement underneath a foot treads softly on the gravel-a human figure issues into the stream of starlight which is flung across the parterre below. By Heaven!—a woman! Ah! shall I ever forget that night I saw thee first, poor Mary!"

"Stop!" I exclaimed to the outcast. "Allow me to imitate your example, and drown some delicate reminiscences connected with that name in brandy. Go on, my friend-I am better prepared for mischief now; and faith! it's generally at hand when a lady with that appellative figures in."

The wanderer gave a melancholy smile, and thus proceeded.

REMINISCENCES OF TALMA.

BY ONE OF HIS FRIENDS.

THOUGH he was not a sovereign among men, he had worn a crown worthily his renown will be more durable than that of many sitters upon real thrones. What though he was but an actor-the name of Talma cannot be forgotten. True it is, the era of histrionic art seems to have passed. Tragedy no longer sweeps majestically before our eyes in "gorgeous pall"-the players, "unguided men," walk up and down the world to find their weariness. The fashion of the higher drama has gone out of favour with the multitude, and they who in their day were subjects of general observation and plaudit, are consigned to the forgetfulness of the many. The selfish world, that can no more profit itself by them, scarcely thinks of their names, immortal though they be: Kemble, Siddons, Kean-even Talma! Beardless upstarts now intrude their opinions that these great actors were nothing in merit to the stars twinkling in the vamped up pieces that take the ears of the groundlings in the minor houses. It is even so. The Infiniment Petits tread the empire of the Cæsars.

This reminiscence of the Richard III. of France comes out of the past a giant shadow. Talma was the name with which the sun of tragedy set in France, as with the Kembles, brother and sister, it had done in England; Kean's career was but the brightening up of a moment to render the twilight more obscure. I remember the hero of the French stage with pleasing regret. There was about him as a man so much of easy politeness-he was so full of the inclination to do good-he possessed a taste so refined he was so marked by moderation and considerateness towards those who differed from him in opinion, that the actor and the man ran a race of coequal merit. His faults, and he had many, were forgotten in the reflection that he left no heir to his excellencies, professionally or individually. He was charged with inconstancy in his friendship. We must speak of men as we find them; I never discovered a shadow of ground for the accusation. Perhaps my knowledge of Talma was too brief for any experience of a failing of which, as far as I can judge, he was wrongly accused, and yet Ducis, an unquestionable authority, is said to have been among his accusers. I left him as I found him, a better man at the close than at the commencement of our intimacy, for all I experienced of him.

Of the great actors I have known, now departed, none were comparable to Talma off the stage. In the social circle he exhibited the manners and the tone of the highest society, in a mode by no means in unison with the vulgar conception of these qualities. He had continually moved among the ranks of talent and station, the first in eminence that the age could boast. Yet Talma exhibited none of the arrogance of bearing that would in consequence have inflated a common mind. On the contrary, he was remarkable for an affable and elegant simplicity of conduct towards all who came in contact with him.

Wherefore this prologue? Opening a portfolio I had not for a long while examined, containing memoranda relating to individuals I had

known at home or abroad, I met with some scraps relating to the great tragedian. Some of my notes appeared remote enough to excite the attention of the author of "Coningsby." It was in 1816-7 that I first knew any thing of Talma--I had heard of him-for who had not? I never was one who credited the merit of a book or an actor because either may be lauded by the great, knowing how much fashion dictates in such cases, and that there is no royal road to just criticism any more than to mathematics. I did not form my opinion of Talma's tragic abilities because the ferocious Archduke Constantine paid him the highest compliment after his performance of Nero in "Britannicus," that was ever paid by royalty to an actor.

"I thank you, M. Talma, for the pleasure you have afforded me, by enabling me to enjoy the company of three emperors together,"-Napoleon and Alexander being present at the time-a compliment that would have added three cubits to the stature of ordinary actors. I judged of the supremacy of Talma from the united suffrages of the most competent judges; from the length of time he had sustained his reputation, and from the knowledge that, as he had advanced in his career-this was the case up to his decease-his excellence as a performer continued to augment. I distrusted altogether my own impression of his abilities from what I witnessed of his performances.

We met in private society, where Talma was called upon to arbitrate in a dispute between two friends-a dispute wholly unconnected with professional matters. He said he was happy to render a service to a native of England.

"I am half English," he observed, "and what am I not indebted to Shakspeare." He spoke the language so well he might easily have been taken for a native, having spent his youth in London.

"England is indebted to you, M. Talma, for making her great dramatic poet familiar to the people of France-though you must admit not exactly in his native dress."

"That may come at some future day-hardly in ours. Long established feelings in the mass of the French people cannot be altered quickly-Shakspeare must be content to wear our habit de cérémonie for a little time. I adopt the spirit of the author in my performance as much as I can, where the French version will hardly bear me out. I studied his works in England in my youth-he was the poet of nature -he wrote out of buckram-I have tried to act after nature as he wrote."

He

No foreigner could have comprehended Shakspeare as Talma did, who had not the advantage of living long in the country of the poet. He was a perfect master of those nice points in the great bard which a native of England must study closely to acquire. As far as any one can be deemed in possession of the scope and depth of the creations of that mighty dramatic writer, there can be no doubt Talma was the man. was capable of close application. His countenance, touched with a melancholy expression, sometimes to deep sadness, was a peculiarly thought fulone. I was told that the fondness for his professional pursuits, and the mastership it had over him in all times and circumstances, was alone capable of rousing him from some of his fits of mental depres

sion.

Dec.-VOL. LXXII. NO. CCLXXXVIII.

2 N

He did not like to be an umpire in the dispute already mentioned, and strove to evade the task.

"You are both in the wrong," he said; "if I decide I shall make one you my enemy. I desire to have no enemies. Make concessions on both sides."

"We have endeavoured to arrange this affair in vain between ourselves, M. Talma. You are particularly adapted for an umpire, blending in your character both Frenchman and Englishman. There is no one in

Paris so capable of judging in the matter as you are."

"I am very sorry for it, gentlemen, or that you think so I am not at all disposed to admit my superior ability."

“But if we are satisfied.”

"It does not matter whether your umpire be English or Frenchjustice is neither of one country nor the other. Delay the final arrangement a little. Reconsider the point in dispute."

"It will be vain, M. Talma."

"They who in a dispute think themselves equally in the right, are persecuted like religious fanatics, who burn each other to prove the truth of opposite doctrines. Reason a little, gentlemen. If each of you will forget his own part in the matter, and judge as for another, the dispute will not last a minute longer."

"We cannot approximate-we differ too widely."

"No matter how wide the gap-it is only because you will not reason impartially that it is not closed."

"But, M. Talma—”

"Suffer me I am always ready to afford my aid to the persecuted, but you persecute each other when you suffer passion, not reason, to rule. Pray reconsider the whole matter, each for the other, not for himself. You will then arrange without doing injustice to each other's friendship. Concede mutually."

"It is impossible."

"Nothing that depends upon the will is impossible-delay, reconsider. I cannot afford to be out of favour with either of you."

"That will not be, M. Talma, decide how you may."

"I know something of the heart, therefore I do not know that. Make a small concession each of you. In a dispute about money, men of sense cannot be at variance. No sacrifice is required but of the vulgarest feeling; it is a mere shopkeeping subject of dispute. Gold is dross, compared to friendship, with reasonable people. I will see you on the subject to-morrow, when you have tried an arrangement once more between yourselves. Adieu !"

On the following day we met according to appointment. After the customary compliments on seeing the tragedian, given and returned, he asked if we had been able to settle our difference. The reply was, that having taken his advice, we had reconsidered the affair, and divided the sum in dispute.

"That is wise. When you quarrel, let it be about something worthy your conflicting humour. A point of honour, an affront, might be differ ent, but a little vile money! I will tell you another difficulty on my part-another objection, complicating the difficulties of my position in allowing myself to be your umpire. If one of you had been pleased

with my decision, the other would have felt offence-you may say no, but I should feel it was so. I cannot answer either how I might have decided. One of you seemed ready to follow my advice from the commencement; perhaps I might have flung his merit into the adverse scale -it might not have been just to do so. I am a tragedian, not a judge; I might have mentally leaned to the side I ought not-to his who was so ready to follow my advice. I might have been influenced that way, thinking,

ce cœur qui veut bien m'obeir,

N'est pas entre les mains qui puissent trahir.

"We should have thought nothing of the kind, M. Talma.”

"Then you do not know how small a matter will bias the human mind in all positions-it is incredible with the best of us-you see what a hazard you ran.'

"We are only the more certain from the statement you make, and from the knowledge you have of the human mind, that you would have been, on the very ground of your alleged disqualification, the safest umpire between us.'

He smiled, and replied by the exclamation, "Bah! you turn advocates."

We spent the evening that day at the house of Madame D—, in the ci-devant Rue Bonaparte. There was small opportunity for enjoying the great tragedian's company, he being literally besieged by the attentions of the ladies, with whom he was a marked favourite. All kinds of subjects were started, some of them frivolous enough. To women of refinement, his conversation and manners were peculiarly welcome. He exhibited a polite attention to their minutest wishes, his manners being such as they always prefer, easy, elegant, and grave, while full of deference. He evidently took a pleasure in pleasing them, and was therefore certain to succeed in producing favourable impressions. No commendations from better judges of his art afforded him the satisfaction he derived from the plaudits of the beau sexe. There is no doubt but his steadiness of popularity, so long and evenly maintained, was owing to the universality of female suffrage in his behalf. There was in his acting a number of those nice and delicate traits-those touches of a master's hand, which are particularly apparent to female sensibility. These operated in his favour in the salon, having become himself co-essential with the sentiment he had delivered in his histrionic personifications. I never saw him in comedy, though, as was the case with Garrick, it was perfectly at his command. His tragedy was the most effective I ever beheld. He reminded me more of Cooke in "Richard III." than any other actor I ever saw. In both there was a good deal of ferocious cunning-tiger-like wary savageness. The energy of Kean was of a different character, less connected with the idea of overwhelming physical force. Kemble, notwithstanding his massy frame, never exhibited the precise kind of effect to which I allude.

"I have been trained amid tragedy from my youth upwards," he once observed, "I have lived through the excesses of a sanguinary revolution. I have seen the joys and horrors, the defeats and triumphs, of men of all parties. There are no poetic tragedies deeper in pathos or blood