was followed by thunders of applause; so that, amidst her stunned nervous agitation, she was not without fear of the galleries coming down.

Mrs. Siddons's father (Roger Kemble) had always forbidden her to marry an actor, and of course she chose a member of the old gentleman's company, whom she secretly wedded. When Roger Kemble heard of it, he was furious. "Have I not," he exclaimed, "dared you to marry a player?" The lady replied, with downcast eyes, that she had not disobeyed. "What, madam! have you not allied yourself to about the worst performer in my company?" "Exactly so," murmured the timid bride; "nobody can call him an actor."

AN UNINVITED GUEST.

Reynolds, in his Life and Times, tells of a free-and-easy actor, who passed three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness of without any invitation, convinced (as proved to be the case) that, my lord and my lady not being on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had asked him.

A LONG EEL.

When Mathews, the elder, was a boy, and lived with his father, a bookseller, in the Strand, a short muscular fellow daily cried eels with a guttural voice,-" Threepence a pound e-e-e-e-e-e-els," elongating the word from Craven-street to Hungerford-street, till people used to say, "What a long eel!" Mathews having imitated him to the great satisfaction of many auditors, one day looked out for the original, and saluted him with the imitation; but he had no taste for such ingenuity, and placing his eel-basket deliberately on the ground, he hunted the boy into his father's shop, and felled him with a heavy blow. "Next time," said the eel-vendor, as you twist your little wry mouth about, and cuts your mugs at a respectable tradesman, I'll skin you like an e-e—,' and snatching up his basket, finished the monosyllable about nine doors off!

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UMBRELLA ESTEEM.

Mathews was always well dressed, and carried a handsome umbrella. Munden was miserly, generally meanly dressed, and carried an old cotton parapluie. After Munden had left the stage, Mathews met him one day in Covent Garden. “Ah, Munden," said Mathews, "I beg you'll let me have something of yours as a remembrancer." Certainly, my boy," replied Munden; "we'll exchange umbrellas." Mathews was so taken aback that Munden walked off with a new umbrella.

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DECLINE OF THE DRAMA.

Miss Kelly, the inimitable actress of the pathetic drama, was one day induced to halt in the street to enjoy the vagaries ́of Punch with the rest of the crowd, when the showman came up to her, and solicited a contribution. She was not very prompt in replying to the demand, when the fellow, taking care to make Miss Kelly understand that he knew who she was, exclaimed, "Ah! it's all over with the drama if we don't encourage one another."

RULE OF PROPORTIONS.

Suett, the actor, was very fond of gin, and he had once a landlady with a similar penchant. He would order her servant to procure supplies after this fashion: "Betty, go and get a quartern loaf and half a quartern of gin." Off went Betty: she was speedily recalled. "Betty, make it half a quartern loaf and a quartern of gin." But Betty had not got fairly across the threshold ere the voice was again heard : Betty, on second thoughts, you may as well make it all gin!"

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KILLING TIME.

In the after-piece, Richard Cœur de Lion, John Kemble, while rehearsing a song he had to sing as the hero, put Shield, its composer, out of all patience. The conductor waved his baton in vain; he could not keep the instruments and the voice together, and at last he cried out, in an agony

of

vexation, "Mr. Kemble, you are murdering the time." great tragedian stopped in the midst of a false note, stalked gravely towards the orchestra, and looking down with his usual solemnity, said, "Sir, it is better to kill it outright, than to be, like yourself, continually beating it."

WILKIE'S "BLIND FIDDLER."

Old Mrs. Wilkie loved to be asked questions about her son Davie. A friend inquired one day whether he had early displayed much talent in drawing.

"Aweel," said she, "I mind that he was ae scrawling, and scratching, I did na ken what, and he had an idle fashion o' making likenesses and caricatoores like of all the folk as came. And there was an auld blind mon, Willie, the fiddler, just an idle sort of a beggar-mon, that used to come wi' his noise, and set all the women servants a jigging wi' his scratching and scraping; and Davie was ae taking o' this puir bodie into the hoose, and gieing him a drap o' toddy: and I used to cry shame on the lad for encouraging such lazy vagabonds about the hoose. Weel," pursued the old lady, "but ye maun ken he was an ill-favoured, daft sort of a creatur, that puir blind bodie, weel eno' in his way, but not the sort o' folk to be along wi' Davie; yet the lad was always a saying to me, 'Mither, gie's a bawbie for puir blind Willie.' This, sir," she added with a sigh, was when we lived at the Manse."

"A-weel, sir, they told me-it was mony years after the puir blind bodie was gane hame, sir-that Davie had painted a grand pictur; and he wrote me to go to Edinburgh to see it; and I went, and sure eno' there was puir old Willie, the very like o' him, his fiddle and a'. I was wud wi surprise; and there was Davie standing a laughing at me, and saying, 'Mither, mony's the time that ye ha heard that fiddle to the toon o'the Campbells are coming."

PORTRAIT-PAINTING.

Isabey had been commissioned to paint the Congress of Vienna, in which were to figure united, at the end of a conference, all the personages who formed part of it. "Monsieur," said Lord Wellington, with genuine British pride, to the

artist, "I consent to figure in your picture only on condition that I occupy the first place; it is mine, and I hold to it." "Mon cher ami," said Prince Talleyrand, "authorised as I am to represent France, as regards both you and me, I ought to occupy the first place in your picture, or not to appear in it at all." How were these pretensions to be reconciled? It was indispensable that they should be; and the plan hit upon by the artist, after mature reflection, was this:-Lord Wellington was entering the hall of conference, and all eyes were fixed upon him, so that he could believe himself the king of the scene; whilst Talleyrand, seated in an arm-chair in the centre, had, in reality, the pictorial place of honour. Then Isabey persuaded the noble lord that he was far handsomer seen in profile, because he thus resembled Henry IV. ; which so flattered Lord Wellington, that he insisted on purchasing the sketch of this picture, which is now in England, and ranks in his family as one of the most glorious memorials of his career.

Mendez, the Jew poet, sat to Hayman, the painter, for his picture, but requested he would not put it in his show-room, as he wished to keep the matter a secret. However, as Hayman had but little business in portraits, he could not afford to let his new work remain in obscurity, so out it went with the few others that he had to display. A new picture being a rarity in Hayman's room, the first friend that came in took notice of it and asked whose portrait it was? "Mendez'.""Good heavens," said the friend, "you are wonderfully out of luck here. It has not a trait of his countenance."-"Why, to tell you the truth," said the painter, "he desired it might not be known."

There is a portrait of Richardson at Rokeby, with this odd story belonging to it, which Mr. Morritt told Southey when he pointed it out. It had been painted for one of his female admirers, and when long Sir Thomas Robinson took possession of the house, and of this portrait, he wondered what business a Mr. Richardson could have there, in company with persons of high degree; so the canvas was turned over to the nearest painter, with orders to put on a blue ribbon and a star, and thereby convert it into a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole Mr. Morritt, however, restored the picture to its right name.

When Queen Caroline paid a visit to the pictures of the

Sovereigns of England, painted by Richardson, observing the portrait of a plain-looking individual between Charles I. and Charles II., her Majesty asked the painter if he called that personage a King. "No, Madam," answered Richardson, "he is no king; but it is good for kings to have him among them as a memento."

Francis Nicholson the landscape-painter, one of the founders of the Water-Colour Society, originally practised as a portraitpainter, but the simplicity and uprightness of his heart did not permit him to tolerate or pander to the vanities of man (and woman) kind. To flatter was with him an utter impossibility; and, as he could not invariably consider the "human face divine," he was incapable of assuming the courtly manners so essential in that branch of the profession. He never, indeed, quite forgave himself for an approach to duplicity committed at this time upon an unfortunate gentleman, who sat to him for his portrait, and who squinted so desperately, that in order to gain a likeness it was necessary to copy moderately the defect. The poor man, it seemed, perfectly unconscious of the same, on being invited to inspect the performance, looked in silence upon it a few moments, and with rather a disappointed air, said,

"I don't know-it seems to me-does it squint?"

"Squint!" replied Nicholson, "no more than you do."

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Really! well, you know best of course; but I declare I fancied there was a queer look about it!"

REYNOLDS AND GAINSBOROUGH.

Soon after Gainsborough settled in London, Sir J. Reynolds thought himself bound in civility to pay him a visit. Gainsborough took not the least notice of him for several years, but at length called and solicited him to sit for his picture. Sir Joshua sat once; but being soon afterwards affected by a slight paralytic stroke, he was obliged to go to Bath. On his return to town perfectly restored to health, he sent Gainsborough word that he was returned; to which Gainsborough only replied, that he was glad to hear he was well; and never after desired him to sit, or called upon him, or had any other intercourse with him till he was dying, when he sent and thanked him for the very handsome manner in which he had always spoken of him; a circumstance which