THE DUKE OF KENT. *

ENGLAND'S present Queen has secured to all who are more immediately connected with her a far greater measure of public attention and respect than they could ever have had without her. So estimable and excellent as she is, in all the relations of life, as queen and woman, as wife and mother, there is nothing that especially concerns her that her people do not take a concern in; there is no one for whom she has affection and esteem that is not esteemed by her subjects for her sake. Preeminently an English lady-English in all her thoughts and habits-in her taste and domestic virtues, she has most especially and singularly endeared herself to the English people, who think more highly of her, and feel a far greater interest in her than circumstances ever call upon them to express by words, or to prove by deeds. She reigns in our hearts-we glory in her-we rejoice over her, and delight to think of her as not less distinguished for her talents than her station-as eminent for her clear good sense as for her virtues, for her strength of mind and firmness of principle, equally as for her compassion to the needy, and her attachments to the good.

The father of such a woman must of very necessity have a large share of the public attention brought directly upon him. The excellences of the daughter's character will lead to more than usual inquiries of the character of her parent. His premature and almost accidental death suddenly left the succession to the throne open to her; his passionate fondness for her, his endearments to her, caused him in a fatal hour to neglect himself,-otherwise Edward the Seventh would have followed upon William the Fourth. One patriotic king would have succeeded to the inheritance of another, and the reign of the seventh Edward was not likely to be less distinguished than that of his illustrious daughter for those alterations and improvements in the foundation and machinery of the Constitution which have made it dearer than ever to the people, have given them a greater interest in it, have greatly increased their attachment to it, and have furnished them with the strongest motives for upholding and defending it.

It has been the object of Mr. Neale to make the character of the Duke of Kent somewhat better known to the millions of this land than it hitherto has been. That the Duke was an ill-used man has been long known; but none seemed willing to say from whom the ill-usage sprang. It is but thirty years since the Duke died, and in the publication of letters and correspondence of so late a period, the names of general this, and colonel that, must of necessity be left blank, or their families would be injured and pained by the exposure of their fathers' meanness and wickedness. But it is impossible to speak the truth of the Duke of Kent, without speaking very disagreeable truths of others—if a defendant will act the part of a knave, it is his own fault that he compels a plaintiff to bring him into court, and to make his delinquencies known; and what the Duke did not in this public way do for himself, Mr. Neale has in some little measure done for him, and amply sufficient

The Life of Field-Marshal His Royal Highness Edward Duke of Kent. By the Rev. Erskine Neale. Bentley: London, 1850.

grounds had Mr. Neale for doing it, and very thankful are we that he has done it.

A more truly interesting volume we could not name-our sympathies go with the writer, and with every page our esteem increases for his subject. Certainly the Duke had hard measure dealt to him by his father in the first instance, and by his brothers afterwards. We cannot now cite instances, but there the facts are, facts incontestible, though all but incredible; and yet the Duke of Kent was the only one of all the sons of George III. who received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for actual services in the field. We are well aware that it will scarcely be believed by many, as possible, that the fourth son of George III. should at the age of twenty-two be without any other means at his command than the allowance made to him by his father of one guinea and a half per week; but the volume is filled with similar instances of neglect and ill-will. But the Duke suffered much from illfortune, as well as from ill-will-for a scarcely parallel instance could be found in which, within ten years, a general officer lost by shipwreck and privateers the whole of his seven successively expensive equipments. To a man with always straitened means these repeated losses brought with them great troubles and great sorrows.

What volumes does the simple story of Macdonald give of the Duke's good sense and kind feelings, and what testimonies to his praise are contained in the letter and its contents from that gallant soldier Lieut.-Governor Sir John Harvey. Well might the envious be jealous of such a man; well might those who fattened upon plunder and unmerited pensions and malversations dislike such a man to rule over them: indeed, a faithful history of the Duke's life could not but lay open to the light many strange scenes-much malignancy and profligacy and meanness in characters that seemed very fair in their day, and that were exceedingly well reported of at the Horse Guards.

But the volume abounds with humorous and most entertaining anecdotes. That of the Duke and the officer who buried his queue exceeds in humour anything ever reported by Judge Haliburton himself; and the conversation of the Duke with Sir Harry Fearnought, as he is here prudently called, is far too good and characteristic of the man to be otherwise than strictly and literally true both in manner and expression.

No longer, however, after this, will the Duke of Kent remain in the comparative obscurity he has hitherto done. Mr. Neale has broken ground, and has opened a field of inquiry that he will be found labouring earnestly in through years to come, for there is much truth yet to be told, and much that may be told, without compromising families or exposing individuals. The paltry, abject, sordid wretches whose sole thought and wish was to do the dirtiest work of the foulest Sybarite court, may be passed by altogether despised and unnoticed; if alive. they are utterly insensible to all shame, and if dead they have had their reward; but in the forthcoming lives of the Prime Ministers of England we may expect some curious revelations; and if the truth is told, and it agrees with Mr. Neale's statements, Lord Sidmouth will appear as much wanting in humanity as in veracity.

But the matter cannot rest here; the inquiry is opened, and in England we rarely cease to inquire concerning persons or subjects in which we take an interest, until our questions are answered, and the mysteries

are removed. The time was when to speak well of the Duke of Kent was certain exclusion from the Court, and a certain bar to promotion in the service; but that time has passed away, and the Horse Guards and the Palace will never again be closed against those who thought and spoke favourably of the fourth son of George III.

That the Duke of Kent will rise greatly in the estimation of his countrymen from this publication there can be no question; nor will a doubt remain that he was a grievously abused man-that he was deeply injured by those, who of all men then living ought the most earnestly and faithfully to have protected and befriended him ; the causes are obscure the motives can only be conjectured; but certain it is, that great injustice was done to him, and high time it now is that justice should be done to the memory of a man to whom we are indebted for the very best sovereign that ever sat on the throne of England; and particularly well-timed we consider this most successful attempt to be to do justice to his memory before the generation contemporary with the Duke had wholly passed away. Mr. Neale had advisers of a widely different opinion, but fortunately he acted from the promptings of his own better judgment, and has thus arrested the many pens that would soon have been employed in writing out the old slanders, and misrepresentations in the form of history. "Although documents exist," says one of Mr. Neale's correspondents, "on which the Duke's military life can be impartially treated, and to his honour and credit; yet must it be years upon years before many details could be laid before the public that it is due to the Duke's memory should be known."

The more reason, therefore, that this very fact here stated should be at once known, and that the Duke's character should, from such facts and evidences as we have, be even now perfectly understood; leaving it to other documents years hence to confirm the opinion which many persons, many years since formed of him, that he was a princely minded man, with singular kindness of heart, and boundless consideration for the unfortunate."

"He passed away from power," says Mr. Neale, " with a temper not soured from injuries, with a heart not hardened from unkindness, with simple tastes, with frank manners, with a capacity for friendship and with no stain of treachery, of ingratitude, or of cruelty resting upon his memory."

Nor can we resist quoting his concluding observations so apposite are they so correct in their application, so perfectly in agreement with the facts of which our own eyes are the witness. "Does the influence

of good men terminate with their own earthly existence? Do trials submissively borne, and injuries thoroughly forgiven-does untiring benevolence and a ceaseless struggle to do good-do plans which have for their object the instruction of the ignorant, the prevention of crime, and the circulation of the Scriptures leave no permanent impression of the Almighty's favour with their survivors? Does it call down no blessing UPON THEIR CHILDREN."

FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON

ACTOR.

BY A. V. CAMPBELL.

I WILL preface the subjoined collection of professional anecdotes by a few words about myself.

I was born in the year 1789; my father, who was a profound scholar, wished to educate me for the Church; but his means not enabling him to send me to Cambridge or Oxford, he determined that I should finish my studies at the College of Geneva. On the breaking out of the war in 1803, I quitted Switzerland, and at fifteen years of age was again under my father's roof. My passage from Calais to Dover had given me an inkling for the sea; and in compliance with my wish, I was sent on trial with a friend of my father, who commanded a dashing frigate, then on a cruise. This kind of life, exciting as it was, was too monotonous for me. I therefore returned home, where I remained until the year 1806; when circumstances, as honourable to my father, as to the noble patron to whom they allude, procured for me an appointment in an office under Government. There I might probably have remained until this day, but for an act of folly which I have never ceased bitterly to repent: I resigned my situation. In the year 1809, a friend of mine in the army lured me from the desk by his glowing description of a military life, and having succeeded in obtaining for me a commission, he easily persuaded me to take the rash step which led to a future life of trouble, anxiety, and sorrow! I was the more readily induced to make the change through the following occurrence. During the winter of 1808, having become acquainted with Mr. Scott, then proprietor of the Sans Pareil, now the Adelphi, Theatre, he persuaded me to exhibit in public, that which had already gained me much applause in private society, my "Imitations of the London Performers." I was considered an adept at this by my admiring friends, and having the entrée of the theatres, through the kindness of my friend the late Sir T. B. Mash, of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, I had abundant opportunities of studying the voice and manner of the leading actors of the day. I yielded to his pressing solicitation, made my appearance in public, and for this I was called before the Board! The chairman, in the course of his lecture, declared it infra dig. for one of their clerks to "vagabondize at the Sans Pareil." A severe reprimand followed my escapade, accompanied with a strong hint not to repeat it. The "Imitations by a Gentleman" ceased, and their compulsory abandonment rendering my occupation still more distasteful, I was too ready to enter upon the new, and as I then hoped to find it, brilliant career that fortune threw in my way.

In 1809, I joined my regiment, and served until the commencement of 1814. But I found that a military life was by no means suitable to the state of my finances, and I had soon reason to repent, on many accounts, the ill-considered step I had been tempted to take. During my service in the army I made many fruitless appeals,

backed by the recommendations of my commanding officer, to the nobleman who had given me the appointment, to replace me in my old situation.

At length I quitted the army, and having to cast about for a new career, resolved upon making the stage my future profession, I made a successful application to the late C. Dibdin, then manager and part proprietor of Sadler's Wells; and on Easter Monday 1814, I made my first appearance on the boards of that theatre. Unvaried success crowned my efforts, and during the long period of four-andtwenty years I continued to be a favourite with the frequenters of that popular place of amusement. I deluded myself in the fancied security that I had become a fixture-that I was to go "with the lease." Vain hope! A change in the proprietorship of Sadler's Wells took place in 1838, and the new lessee "cleared the stage;" and I was "whistled down the wind," uncared for and unnoticed. Money I had none: savings, with a numerous family, of which no less than seventeen are now living, were out of the question. A long illness followed my ejectment, and other misfortunes came thick upon me.

During my long connection with this pleasant and prosperous little summer theatre, I held various engagements in the winter season, principally at the Sans Pareil, afterwards the Adelphi, as well as at the Olympic and City of London Theatres, and on two occasions, during the summer period, at Astley's.

My connection with these establishments necessarily introduced me to the acquaintance of many distinguished members of the profession,-managers and performers, and my constant intercourse with them has led me to preserve the following anecdotes and personal traits which, I flatter myself, are not only new to the public, but may be considered as worthy of record.

With respect to my own professional career from the cessation of my engagement at Sadler's Wells in 1838, it only remains for me to add, that soon after my recovery from the severe illness which followed that event, I was appointed by Mr. Rouse, proprietor of the Grecian Saloon, City Road, manager of that establishment.

THE OLD SANS PAREIL.

SCOTT THE PROPRIETOR AND MANAGER.-One of the most industrious, enterprising, and successful of men, was Mr. Scott, the originator of the "Sans Pareil." He was the inventor of the wellknown liquid blue, formerly so much in request for dyeing, and from which he obtained the name of "Old True Blue." Scott's account of his discovery of the material of which he formed the "blue," is singular enough. "I was travelling in Russia," said he, “when a storm drove me to seek the shelter of a rude hut. A brisk wood fire burned in the wide chimney. While reading a letter, as I was seated in the wide space of the chimney corner, a portion of soot fell upon it. I rubbed it off, and found that it dyed my fingers blue. I then collected some of the soot, and discovered the same result on each trial. I carried a bagfull with me to England, tried a number of experiments-felt perfectly satisfied as to the result-freighted a vessel with soot-produced a pure liquid blue-and ultimately realized a profit of 20,000l. by it." Scott was a most eccentric being, a