always be effective in it, especially in the earlier scenes. Miss Neilson personated Constance with some force and simulated feeling, though with much obvious effort. She had, however, bestowed so little care on the study of the text that when, in the distracted mother's culminating frenzy (Act IV., sc. 3), where continuous action is essential, she spoke the words "My grief walks up and down with me," she stood still near the centre of the stage. A prominent feature of Tree's later revival of "King John" was the baleful assumption of Queen Elinor by Miss Bateman.

THE LADY CONSTANCE.

The successors, on the British Stage, to Mrs. Cibber as Constance included Mrs. Giffard, 1747; Margaret Woffington, 1754; George Anne Bellamy, 1758; Mrs. Yates, 1760; Mrs. Barry, 1774; Mrs. Crawford (then Mrs. Dancer), 1783; Sarah Siddons, 1792; Mrs. Powell, 1800; Mrs. Litchfield, 1803; Mrs. Macauley, 1818; Harriet Faucit, 1823; Mrs. Bunn, 1824; Ada Clifton, 1834; Helena Faucit, 1836; Mrs. Charles Kean, 1852; Mrs. Charles Young, 1859 (and as Mrs. Herman Vezin, 1866), Laura Atkinson, 1865; Miss Clive, 1873; Amy Roselle, 1889; and Julia Neilson, 1899. Several of those performers, in this part,

have already been described; Mrs. Siddons and Miss Faucit were, in most respects, the best.

Mrs. Siddons, according to several expert contemporary authorities on the subject, was supreme in such parts as Mrs. Haller, in "The Stranger"; Elivira, in "Pizarro"; Belvidera, in "Venice Preserved"; Isabella, in "The Fatal Marriage"; Queen Katharine, in "King Henry VIII.," and Constance, in "King John." John Ballantyne, Scott's trusted friend, writing about her farewell night in Edinburgh, declares that "No sculptor or painter, in the sublimest flights of his fancy, ever embodied; no poet, in the most luxuriant indulgence of his imagination, ever described, a creature so formed, so gifted, to agitate, to awe and astonish mankind by her professional powers as her whose matchless form, face, voice, and eye are now finally withdrawn!" Her biographer Campbell commemorates her Constance in these instructive words:

"I see her in my mind's eye the embodied image of maternal love and intrepidity; of wronged and righteous feeling; of proud grief and majestic desolation. With what unutterable tenderness was her brow bent over her pretty Arthur at one moment, and in the next how nobly drawn back, in a look at her enemies that dignified her

vituperation. When she patted Lewis [the Dauphin] on the breast, with the words, "Thine honor! Oh, thine honor!" there was a sublimity in the laugh of her sarcasm. I could point out the passages of hurried and of deliberate gesture which would have made you imagine that her very body seemed to think. Her elocution varied its tones from the height of vehemence to the lowest despondency, with an eagle-like power of stooping and soaring, and with the rapidity of thought."

The views expressed by Mrs. Siddons illuminatively indicate how she played Constance:

"In the performance of Constance great difficulties, both mental and physical, present themselves; and perhaps the greatest of the former class is that of holding the mind reined-in to the immediate perception of those calamitous circumstances which take place during the course of her sadly eventful history. The necessity for this severe abstraction will sufficiently appear when we remember that all those calamitous events occur while she herself is absent from the stage, so that this power is indispensable for that reason alone, were there no other to be assigned for it: because if the representative of Constance shall ever forget, behind the scenes, those disastrous events which impel her to break forth into the overwhelming effusions of wounded friendship, disappointed ambition, and maternal tenderness, upon the first moment of her appearance in the Third Act, if the mind of the actress for one moment wanders from those distressing events, she must inevitably fall short of that high and glorious coloring which is indispensable to the painting of this magnificent portrait. The quality of abstraction has always appeared to me necessary in the

art of acting. Whenever I was called upon to perform the character of Constance I never, from the beginning of the play to the end of my part in it, once suffered my dressing room door to be closed, in order that my attention might be constantly fixed on those distressing events which, by this means, I could plainly hear going on upon the stage, the terrible effects of which progress were to be represented by me. Moreover, I never omitted to

place myself, with Arthur in my hand, to hear the march, when, upon the reconciliation of England and France, they enter the gates of Angiers to ratify the contract of marriage between the Dauphin and the Lady Blanche; because the sickening sounds of that march would usually cause the bitter tears of rage, disappointment, betrayed confidence, baffled ambition, and, above all, the agonizing feelings of maternal affection to gush into my eyes. In short, the spirit of the whole drama took possession of my mind and frame, by my attention being incessantly riveted to the passing scenes."

This quality of "severe abstraction" did not, however, at any time prevent the great actress from maintaining perfect control over her feelings and the machinery of her art. Charles Young related that early in his career he acted with her, at Edinburgh, in "The Gamester," playing Beverley, and that in one passage (Act V., sc. 4) her apparent emotion was so intense and she uttered it in an exclamation of such piercing grief that his throat swelled, his utterance was choked, he was unable to speak,-as he ought to have done immediately,—and could not do so until

she, putting the tips of her fingers on his shoulder, said, in a low tone, "Mr. Young, recollect yourself." Another instructive anecdote relates that, while playing Constance, she could so "rain a shower of enforced tears" as to wet the collar of Prince Arthur-and, a few moments later, having left the scene, walk composedly to her room, taking snuff (of which she was fond) and admonishing a young actor who had been giving way to "real feeling" on the stage, saying: "Kelly, you feel too much: if you feel so much you will never make an actor."-As Constance Mrs. Siddons wore a body-dress of black satin, with a train of the same material and color, and a white petticoat, arranged according to the taste and fashion of her own period. Also, she "dishevelled even her hair with graceful wildness."

HELENA FAUCIT.

Helena Faucit first acted Constance, October 6, 1836, at Covent Garden, when Macready there presented "King John"; she again played the part with him, October 24, 1842, when he revived the tragedy at Drury Lane, but after his retirement from management (June 13, 1843) she practically relinquished it. Mention is made of her having acted it, later, during one engagement at Dublin and one at Glas