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have married as people marry, and they are happy as people are happy.

"How long a letter is this again! But I can write no short ones to you. Compliments from my husband," &c., &c. There are several of these letters, and all distinguished by the same tenderness and charming simplicity; and the sad fate and early death of the writer of them are brought home to us very touchingly.

We have shown enough to justify our opinion, that every reader, whatever his peculiar taste may be, will find something to interest him in these volumes; and if, we repeat, he feels the least degree of disappointment, it will only be because he compares them with that imaginary work which he believes Miss Mitford might have written.

STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE.

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

I SAW nothing of Catsbach for a whole week, but continued my study of Hamlet, in perfect reliance that the so long wished-for opportunity was at hand. Miss Claribel also was very constant at our rehearsals. My mother's delight and admiration of us both knew no bounds; but though she still wept at Ophelia, it was evident that the philosophic Dane was her favourite. In gratitude for my exertions to revenge my father's death, she forgave any little demonstration of rudeness I made towards the Queen; and indeed was always greatly rejoiced when I shook the cushion out of the arm-chair in the energy of my expostulation with that ancient piece of furniture, which generally did duty for the wicked Gertrude. In fact, nothing could go off better than the whole play; and boxes, pit, and gallery, all represented by one enraptured spectator, were unanimous in their applause. There was one of the performers, however, who did not seem to share in the enthusiasm. Miss Claribel appeared discontented with the effects of her finest points, and began to hint her doubts as to our ultimate success. "The words are perfect in both of us," she said, "the actions appropriate, and all Hamlet's own instructions to the players scrupulously obeyed"

Well," I interrupted, "what is there to fear? You see how our audience here is affected."

"It is that very thing that gives me uneasiness. Nature on the stage

is quite different from nature off it. Whether it ought to be so or not, I don't know; but it is so, and that is enough. We give the passion of these characters as they affect ourselves, but a real actor must give them as they affect others. We ought to study the perspective of grief or rage, and give it so as to be seen in the true light, not where Mrs de Bohun is sitting on that sofa, but where crowds are seated at the farther end of a theatre; and therefore the great and almost insurmountable difficulty of a tragedian is to keep such a proportion in his performance as not to appear absurdly exaggerated to people close at hand, or ridiculously tame to the more distant spectators."

"You would, then, act by an inspiration from without, and not from the divine fire within?" I answered, with a tone of indignation.

"No, no," she said; "keep all the fire you can; only let it be seen and felt by all the audience. But if you trust on each representation to the fiery impulse of the moment, you will sometimes find it glow too much, and sometimes it will probably be hidden in smoke. The genius feels the passion and grandeur of a great Shaksperian creation, perhaps as entirely as Shakspeare himself, but it is only the artist who can place it before others. A poet could see the Venus of Canova in a block of marble, but it was the hammer and chisel of the sculptor which gave it its immortal form. I feel with regard

to this very Ophelia that I know every phase of her character; that I can identify myself with her disappointments and sorrows; but the chances are, after the identity is established, that I end by making Ophelia into Miss Claribel, and not Miss Claribel into Ophelia."

"No, for you speak Shakspeare's language in Ophelia's situation, and with Ophelia's feelings."

"But with Miss Claribel's lips, and shakings of the voice, and tears in the eyes, which arise from the depths of Miss Claribel's nature; and, in fact, I now feel convinced that, in order to succeed on the stage, a flexibility of character that enables one to enter into the minutest sentiments of the personage of the drama, is by no means required, but only such a general conception of the character as preserves the Shaksperian heroine from the individualities of her representative; and gives to an intelligent pit, the spectacle not of a real, living, breathing woman, born of father and mother, but of a being of a more etherial nature-human, yet not substantial-divine, yet full of weakness-the creation of a splendid imagination, and not the growth of mortal years, or supported by human nature's daily food.""

My mother went on with her knitting in a most hurried and persevering manner- a habit she indulged in whenever she was puzzled. I might have followed her example if I had had the knitting needles in my hand, for I did not see the drift of these perplexing observations. Miss Claribel saw our bewilderment, and translated her dark passages into ordinary prose by saying that her oration had been a lecture against mannerism, or the display of the individualities of an actor instead of a clear development of the character represented. It was also a theory," she added with a smile, "that mannerism often arises from a too close appropriation of a character, which makes a performer assimilate it with his own."

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"From all which I conclude," I said, with a mortified air, "that in spite of black bugles and silk stockings, I shall still be Mr Charles de Bohun, and not Hamlet, prince of Denmark."

"The hands are not the hands of Esau,'" she replied, "but the voice is the voice of Jacob.' Still there is no reason to despair, nor even perhaps to augur a disappointment, for nobody can form an opinion either as to success or failure till the experiment has been fairly tried, and I trust we shall now not have much longer to wait."

"But with these misgivings—to call them by the gentlest name-I wonder, Miss Claribel, you still insist on trying your fortune on the boards."

"I made a vow, under very peculiar circumstances," she replied, "that I would support myself by my dramatic powers; and though a fortune of millions were to fall at my feet to-morrow, I would show those who derided my ambition that it was justified by my talents. I will be an actress, and the first on the stage!'

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When I saw the play of her features, and heard the calm, subdued energy of her voice, I felt little doubt that her prophecy would be accomplished. I, however, began to feel some very lively doubts as to Hamlet, and it required several criticisms from my mother, and a great deal of stamping and grimacing before the mirror, to restore me to the enjoyment of the sunshine of self-respect. At last Catsbach returned. He sent to announce his arrival, and to say he would join me that evening, and bring with him a literary friend, who might be very useful to me in my dramatic career. They came. "Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr Wormwood, the orator and poet," said Catsbach, shaking me by the hand very warmly himself. "You will be the best friends in the world; and Wormwood has been very anxious for a long time to make your acquaintance." The stranger bowed low, and so did I; not without a strong tickling of my vanity at the wideness of my reputation. We sat down, and I could contemplate my visitor at full leisure. He was a little man, of whom the prevailing feature was a nose of astonishing prominence, that overshadowed not only the remaining features of his face, but the whole of his person. It formed the central point of his whole organisation, and was, in fact, Mr Wormwood, without the help

either of face or figure. His brow retreated in apparent alarm, pulling the eyebrows with it nearly to the top of the skull; his chin also had retired into his neck, and there was nothing visible but the one prevailing feature a pyramid in a waste of sand. The sudden retrocession of his brow was only seen in profile; and as he was bald, and treated all the exposed skin of his head as forehead up to the very crown, he presented a very intellectual appearance in the eyes of those with whom high brows are considered "the dome of thought, the temple of the soul." His side hair was carefully combed off, so as to expose as great an expanse as possible; and it was evident that great pains were bestowed on the picturesqueness and poetry of the appearance small thin man, rather shabbily drest, and with manners duly compounded of civility and pomp.

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"I am delighted to know you, Mr De Bohun. I form a very high estimate, indeed, of your genius and accomplishments; though I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing any of your works."

"I am indebted to the good opinion-too much indebted, I fear-of our friend, Mr Catsbach," I replied.

"By no means. You have had a play ignominiously rejected by a brutal and unjudging world. Sir, I honour you on the triumph, and congratulate you on the success.'

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The man seemed quite serious as he spoke; so I looked for some explanation to his friend.

"Wormwood has achieved the same victory on several occasions," said Catsbach; "and on carefully going over his plays, according to the severest principles of art, he finds that they were ludicrously and inhumanly laughed at, or still more inhumanly refused a place on the stage, in exact proportion as their merits lifted them above the intellectual level of an audience, or the narrow understanding of a manager.'

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"Exactly so," said Wormwood; "and you will find it uniformly the case. Success in literature is almost the surest sign of an author's imbecility; and, à fortiori, public neglect a sign of his genius and erudition. I have already heard that your tragedy

is refused; I hope to congratulate you on your Hamlet being hissed off the stage."

"Really, sir," I said, somewhat nettled, "I scarcely understand whether you are in jest or earnest; and I sincerely hope to escape your congratulations on my Hamlet, as I am not aware of any right I have acquired to them on the fate of the play."

"Was it not returned on your hands, sir? Catsbach certainly gave me to understand that you had attained that mark of eminence; but if you are still in danger of being accepted, and performed, I must withhold the expression of my praise till I see whether an audience will be more propitious than the manager, and overwhelm your tragedy with derision and contempt, as I have no doubt it deserves." After accompanying this with a smile, which he evidently meant to be propitiatory and complimentary, he seemed to retire for shelter behind his nose, and employed himself in throwing on each side any of the straggling locks that intruded on the sacred domain of his expansive brow.

"What sort of fool is this you have brought?" I said to Catsbach, availing myself of the temporary seclusion of our visitor behind the promontory I have described.

"A tremendous author, I assure you. A poem in forty books, called

The Brides of Solomon,' which nearly ruined him, for it never sold, not even to the cheesemongers; a ‘History of the World previous to its Creation, an Epic in Seven Days,” which it would take seven years to read, was his next; then a dozen plays on the Roman Emperors — a play to each-which were never acted; so now he is a prodigious critic in the Hog in Armour, and talks German mysticism, and gives dissertations on the Philosophy of Historic Research in a review of Tom Thumb. I thought it as well to secure his help; for, if you succeed, we can do without him; and if we fail, he will find out a pleasant reason, and enlist you in the corps."

"That would be an honour I don't aspire to, and the use of such assistance I cannot see."

"Pooh! Never mind the fool. Give

him some brandy; let him talk; he may be useful, and the day of trial is near at hand."

"You've got a theatre ?" I inquired. "Theatre, orchestra, company, and all," said Catsbach; "so let us light our cigars, and hear some critical drivel."

Mr Wormwood, as if he had heard our conversation, emerged from his

shady situation, and turning his full face towards us, commenced a dissertation on his principles of art, which, being founded on, and exemplified by, his own writings, was a most comfortable doctrine for candidates for fame, and made a pelting with oranges and apples little less agreeable than a crowning with garlands and a shower of bouquets.

CHAPTER XI.

"This will be a busy week, big with the fate of more than Cato or of Rome," said Catsbach next day. "I have secured, for a very moderate sum, the use of a theatre down the river; and dresses, advertisements, and decorations are promised us on the most splendid scale. All the secondrates I have already retained, being, in fact, the regular company of the establishment; and I assure you they are all in the highest state of excitement about the new Hamlet and your friend Miss What's-her-name's Ophelia."

"Her name is Miss Claribel," I replied; " and I can't imagine how you take so little interest in a person whom I consider so wonderful, as to have forgotten it."

"Pardon, my dear fellow, I meant no offence either to her powers or your discernment; but I probably forgot what you called her, from a very strong idea I entertain that her name is fictitious. Don't you remember the Montalbans and De la Roses of the Stepney Star? Her name is Jones."

"How? Have you made any inquiry?" I exclaimed, rather astonished myself at the interest I took in the personal history of the beautiful

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rity. They are very often captains in the army, those Poloniuses of modern life; and are a little more strict in exacting an adhesion to promise than the courtier of Elsinore. I therefore advise all Hamlets to be very cautious how they put pen to paper, or request a lady to be an astronomical heretic as to the sun and stars, but never to doubt their love; for, when Polonius is too old or too ill for work, there is generally a Laertes or two who are masters of fence, and very careful of their sisters' settlements."

"You try to put suspicions into my head. I will not yield to them. I feel sure you would not harbour the slightest doubt of her perfect openness and sincerity, if you only saw her for half an hour."

"Possibly enough, if I only saw her for half an hour: what a few days might do, is a different question. In the mean time, I will bet your bill to Montalban that she turns out a deceiver, worming her way into your mother's favour by false representations, and into her son's, by arts which it does not need many months of the Stepney Star to bring to perfection."

"Done!" I said; " with all my

heart! I would stake all I have on her perfect truth. See her, and judge for yourself."

"I shall see her at the theatre in plenty of time to prevent any mischief; but, in the meanwhile, I rely on your assistance to-night at a ball in Grosvenor Square, where I positively require you to complete the band."

Our agreement was so binding that it was useless to offer any opposition. I began to look on my flute as a frightful instrument of degradation, and

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thought what a different position I ought to have filled on my first introduction to the society of Grosvenor Square. The position of the temporary orchestra, at the window of the middle drawing-room, gave me a view of the whole company, both in the front room, which was very large and lofty, and the more commodious and luxuriously fitted up third apartment, at the left of where I sat. A city Croesus was the giver of the feast,a short thin man, very pale and very silent, who stood at the centre door, and bowed coldly and formally to his visitors as they were announced. His lady-wife, on the other hand, was as gorgeous as feathers and silk could make her; an immense expanse of humanity, covered with at least an equal expanse of pride, for she sailed through the apartments as if the weight of empires, or at least the price of kingdoms, lay on her shoulders; and round her gathered, at respectful distance, the lesser plumb-holders of the commercial world, like a set of yachts and merchantmen round a first-rate at Spithead. Mrs Willox was quite aware of the position she held, and made no secret that a cousin of hers had married an Irish baronet, and that her aunt was the widow of a city knight. Connected to this extent with the aristocracy, she felt she had a right to look down on Mr Willox, who had begun his career as purser in an Indiaman, and accordingly she looked down upon him from morn to night. At my left hand stood two gentlemen, pilloried so immovably in white neckcloths that they could not turn their heads without an effort that made them red in the face. Two young patricians they were from the India Docks, whose conversation was very loud about their shootings in Scotland, and hunting-boxes at Melton. This enlivening conversation, though apparently addressed to each other, was in reality intended for me. So fond of admiration are some of our weaker brothers, that they will angle for it even from a professional player on the flute. They soon saw that I attended to what they were saying, and they launched out into various subjects, evidently for my improvement and edification. "Sir Peter, and Lady Potts, and Miss Emmeline

Potts," were announced in stentorian sounds, and Mr Willox made his customary bow.

"That Emmeline Potts," said one of my instructors, "is no go. She has been trying it on with Harry Buglefield of the Guards; but the father won't fork out the coin, and Harry fights shy. He told me so himself when I was selling him my brown filly last season in Leicestershire."

"He ought to give her a hundred thousand down," said the other, "and the rest when he's run to earth; but he's a jaded old screw, and can't last long. I would advise Harry to wait."

"He says he's very willing to wait if his creditors could be persuaded to wait too. A fine generous fellow as ever lived; and a very intimate friend of mine. He has never paid me a farthing for the brown filly, though he sold her to his uncle, Lord Silliveer, at a profit of a hundred and fifty."

"Mr Hoddie, and the two Miss Hoddie's!" bawled the footman at the drawing-room door, and the individuals announced sailed into the room. Dancing was now in full force, so that I missed the first appearance of the party, but I heard the criticism of the two arbiters of fashion on my left.

"That Malvina Hoddie is the vainest little fool in England," said the senior Petronius, whose name was Baggles, to Mr Hooker-both in the West India trade-as expectant heirs and successors of their respective fathers. "She believes every word that a fellow says to her, and tells her father all the soft speeches from her partner, as if they were proposals of marriage. Hoddie is therefore for ever sending letters to ascertain what men's intentions are, as, after the very warm manner in which his little darling was informed that the hope of meeting her was the only thing that kept Mr So-and-so from committing suicide, if not murder, it is impossible to doubt that Mr So-andso cannot intend to leave matters as they are."

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"What an old fool," replied Mr Hooker. Why didn't you tell me this before? for I met her last night in Harley Street, at the Molasses'; and

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