etcetera before the arrival of the officers of justice. The Countess Lamotte, her husband, and Count Cagliostro, were also arrested; and the result of a scandalous process, extending over two years, was the acquittal of the Prince-Cardinal and conviction of the Lamottes and Cagliostro. The Sieur Lamotte and Cagliostro were condemned to imprisonment only, but the Countess was sentenced to be flogged, branded with the letter V (voleuse), and imprisoned for life. She was however liberated, after about twenty months' confinement, when she betook herself to London, where, on the morning of the 23rd of August, 1791, her battered corpse was found upon the pavement, she having flung herself, or been flung, out of a three-pair-of-stairs window during a bacchanal debauch and riot.

That Marie-Antoinette was guiltless as an unborn babe of complicity with the infamous Lamotte, no sane, calmlyjudging man could have doubted, even previous to the ampler investigation which has placed that perfect innocence beyond cavil or question; but the opportunity of dragging the Queen's name through the mire, of connecting it, in the common ear, and for a time inextricably, with those of forgers, courtesans, and thieves, was eagerly seized by the Orleanist faction, and the money of his Royal Highness, the father of Louis-Philippe, was freely dispensed to scribblers and spouters of all shades and degrees of eloquence and infamy, in furtherance of that vile purpose. The Duke too well succeeded in mutually irritating and disgusting Marie-Antoinette and the people of Paris with each other; in rendering her indignantly disdainful of a people who could credit such vile fictions, solely because they dishonoured a queen, and the people furious against a sovereign who, whilst revelling in the lap of luxury,

stooped, as they were made to believe, to the basest arts, conspired with the most infamous wretches, for the gratification of a boundless selfishness and vanity! That mutual hatred and contempt bore bitter and abundant fruit during the stormy years that followed; prompted the rabid insults that pierced the heart of the woman; inflamed the maledictions that pursued the Queen to the scaffold; and, on her part, inspired the calm disdain of the hooting rabble, which shone upon her brow, never more royal than at that supreme moment, and glanced from her proud eyes, when, turning from the temple-towers wherein her children were confined, Marie-Antoinette yielded her neck to the executioner-her soul to Him who gave it!

174

IN

MRS. SIDDONS.

N "The Chronicle of the Kings of England, from the time of the Romans' Government unto the Death of King James," written by Sir Richard Baker, Knight, there occurs, at the end of each monarch's reign, a list of "Men of Note in his (or her) time," which list of Elizabethan worthies is a lengthened one; and after reciting such eminent names as "Sir Thomas Smith, born at Saffron Walden, Essex, sometime Secretary to King Edward 6th, the first man that set afoot the law for serving the Colledges with Provisions"-" John Whitaker, Master of St. John's Colledge, in Cambridge, who learnedly answered all the Books of Bellarmine," the historian breaks off to remark, that "after such men it might be thought ridiculous to speak of Stage-players; yet that, seeing the meanest thing deserves remembering, and Roscious the Comedian is recorded in History with such commendation, it may be allowed us to do the like with some of our nation.” This apologetic preface concluded, Sir Richard proceeds to include with his men of note, "William Shakspere and Benjamin Johnson, Stage-players, and Makers of Playes;" and with heartier commendation, "Richard Bainbridge and Edward Allen, two such actors as no age must ever look to see the like; and to make their comedies complete, Richard Tarleton, who, for the part called the Clown's Part, never had his match, never will have." Thus emboldened, by classic authority, and the example of a knightly historian, who, upon reflection, did not deem it derogatory to Sir Thomas Smith, however ridiculous it might at first sight

appear, to couple with his name, as a man of note, that of William Shakspere; and who thought Benjamin Johnson might, without too great offence, be mentioned in the same column with John Whitaker, I venture to introduce Mrs. Siddons amongst the Boleyns, Christinas, Montagues, and other crowned and courtly personages, without fear of incurring the penalties attaching to "Scandalum magnatum,” unless, indeed, the representatives of the "stage-player" should prosecute under the statute! But that could hardly succeed without a new legal definition of magnatum, which will hardly take place in our time.

The first glimpse we obtain of the Siddons is, from a courtcalendar point of view, far from a satisfactory one. There is, I fear, no denying the plebeian fact, that Mrs. Kemble, wife of Roger Kemble, and both members of a company of strolling players, gave birth to her first born child, Sarah Kemble, on the fifth of July, 1755, at the Shoulder of Mutton public house, Brecon, South Wales; no question, unhappily, that the first breath of life drawn by the mightest tragedian of this or any other age, was impregnated with the vulgar odours of tobacco and Welsh ale. But genius, if it cannot pass by and overlook an objectionable fact, can, by a comparatively slight exertion of the faculty which enables it to clothe the palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn, so gild and glorify the objectionable fact, that it will be scarcely recognisable. Thus, Thomas Campbell, in his life of Mrs. Siddons, confesses, perforce, to Brecon and the Shoulder of Mutton public-house; but then Brecon, you will please to understand, is a distinguished locality, "being the first place in Wales where the AngloNorman banner rested;" the Rev. Hugh Evans, the prototype of the Merry Wives' Hugh Evans, was curate of

Brecon,- his friend, and Shakspere's friend, Sir John Price, lived in the neighbourhood of Brecon; and the scenery in the "Midsummer Night's Dream" is copied from that in the neighbourhood of Brecon! And who shall say that Sir John Price, the Rev. Hugh Evans, and Shakspere did not frequently hob-nob together over Welsh ale at the Shoulder of Mutton, the most ancient hostelry there; or that this combination of circumstances does not invest the place of Sarah Kemble's birth with a dignity which the palatial residence of a monarch cannot boast of?

Be it so and it is certainly indisputable that noble, heroic blood flowed in the veins of Roger Kemble, the father of the child, a good man, and bad actor, blessed with unequal placidity of temper, who loved his pipe and quiet ways generally, and had more the appearance of a clerical dignitary than a profane player-characteristics which he inherited, with his religion, from his great grand-uncle, the Rev. Roger Kemble, a Roman Catholic priest, who was hanged, in his eightieth year, in a field adjoining his native city of Hereford, under pretence of complicity in Titus Oates' "plaat." He was the last man, or last but one, who suffered capitally in England for conscience sake; and so resignedly, calmly did he suffer, that he smoked his pipe on the way to execution, only putting it from his lips at the last moment, to say that he knew nothing about the plotdid not believe there was a plot; and that he was really hanged for belonging to the old religion of the country. His nephew, Captain Kemble, who had fought gallantly for King Charles II., obtained, in reward of his loyalty, one of his relative's hands-the remainder of his body being burnt to ashes, which is still preserved as a sacred relic in the Catholic Chapel at Worcester. "Kemble's pipe" was long a