next Rosalind whom the town accepted. The town knew nothing of Miss Street, the Bath apothecary's daughter, or of her early struggle for life and a position on the stage. She first appeared as Mrs. Dancer; and when she assumed Rosalind, in 1767, the critics of Old Drury pronounced her emphatically good. In one respect, they thought her superior to Pritchard or Woffington, having, as they said, "a more characteristic person;" and the phrase is significant, if not happy. She played the part to the Orlando of that plausible Palmer, who once persuaded a bailiff who had him in custody, to lend him a guinea. When, eight years later, she played the part to the airy Orlando of restless Lewis, the Jaques was Spranger Barry, the second of the three husbands of Charles Lamb's "Barbara S." Her last left her to the stage as Mrs. Crawford, whose Lady Randolph was so magnificent a piece of acting that young Mrs. Siddons wished her elder sister in art-comfortably in Paradise.

Till Mrs. Siddons herself played Rosalind, in 1785, at Drury Lane, no other had much attracted the town. Mrs. Bulkeley had resplendent beauty and unparalleled audaciousness; but Rosalind requires a lady in mind, taste, and bearing to ensure success; and Mrs. Bulkeley's Rosalind, in the last century, was, probably, like Mrs. Nesbitt's in this, too glowing by half. Such Rosalinds are to Shakspeare's as Voltaire's Pucelle is to the genuine Maid of Orleans. Miss Younge, when she first played the character, in 1779, or ten years later, as Mrs. Pope, did not offend in this way. She rather offended in an opposite way, and was, through fear of being too loving, altogether too cold. Miss Younge, however, who was Garrick's last and favourite pupil, was not without ardour. In her mature years, she took young Mr. Pope and married him. Many a joke was fired at them, and Mrs. Siddons would have hers-to the effect that the bridegroom would be the only boy that would come of that marriage.

In 1785, Mrs. Siddons herself tried Rosalind. Melpomene, it is said, looked ill in the guise of Thalia. She was so scrupulously modest as to wear male attire in the forest, such as no male or female had ever donned. It belonged to neither sex, and her Rosalind, in like manner, belonged to neither comedy nor tragedy. It needs archness, and of that, Charles Young declared it had not a particle, though it" wanted neither playfulness nor feminine softness." The execution fell short of the conception. Colman, indeed, said rudely of Mrs. Siddons' attempts out of tragedy, that she looked, on such occasions, "like Gog in petticoats;" and, no doubt, when Mrs. Jordan appeared in 1787 at Drury Lane, as Rosalind to the Orlando of John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons felt that her own attempt in 1785 was a mistake.

Mrs. Jordan, however, came as near it in Rosalind as could well be. There was none other like her down to the end of the last century, and none who have thoroughly possessed themselves of the character in this, except perhaps Ellen Tree, but certainly Miss Helen Faucit and the young Mrs. Scott Siddons. The interpretations of the latter two ladies

are wide apart, thoroughly original. They preserve throughout, the woman, -the lady, if you will-in all their illustrations.

Mrs. Jordan brought laughter, vivacity, and abounding spirit to the task; but because she was inimitable as Nell or incomparable as the Romp, it is not necessary to conclude that she brought in addition the manners of either of those lively personages. Mrs. Jordan had heart and tact, impulses and judgment to control them. Doubtless, her Rosalind was as different from that of Miss Helen Faucit or Mrs. Scott Siddons as the Rosalind of either of these ladies is unlike that of the other. Nothing can manifest more study, more excellent method, more delicate conception, more artistic execution than the Rosalind of both ladies, and yet they are altogether different. Miss Faucit's is a Rosalind that takes the serious side of the character: the doubts and fears predominate. She has anxious rather than tender aspirations. Her hopes are timidly rather than boldly conceived, and there is no assurance in her that all will end well. There is some dread, amid much playfulness, that all may come to an ill end. Mrs. Scott Siddons's Rosalind is of a different complexion altogether. She has, in the first place, that which her great-grandmother lacked,— archness; and yet her face has much of the feature and expression of her tragic ancestress, with whom archness was the last trait of character she could assume. The new Rosalind is a Rosalind full of courage. She has not only hope but confidence; love and a resolve to be loved. From the very first, with the chain she gives Orlando, you see that she binds him to her, herself to him, for good and aye! Clouds may come and she will sit in their shade, but she knows that there is a silver lining behind them. Death may threaten, and she may tremble a little, but "odds her little life," there is to be, after trial, much enjoyment before that debt is paid; meanwhile, her heart defies all obstacles that may stand between her and the triumph of her love. The study to produce what appeared so unstudied, so natural and so artless, must have been great, but the young actress is repaid by her success.

Saint and Sinner.

Aш, reverend sir, she has departed

To a realm more holy and single-hearted!
Draw the shroud from her face and gaze on her:
She looks alive with the red sun's rays on her.

Her hands are clasped on her bosom saintly,
Her cold red lips seem fluttering faintly;
So silent, with never a stain of sin on her,
That the light seems awed as it creepeth in on her.

Why do you shudder, reverend sir, so?

Your prayers and counsels, hallowing her so,

The sins of the flesh took, night and day, from herCover her up and come away from her.

Nay, sit a little and talk below here,

The breath can come, the blood can flow here.

Ah, sainted sir, your conversation

In a time so sore is a consolation.

Was she not fashion'd in holy mould, sir,
A shining light in your blessed fold, sir?

Took she not comfort and peace and grace with her,
And-shall I not meet in a better place with her?

If, after death, in the time of waking,

When the Trump is sounding, the new dawn breaking, We met, do you think my saint would rush away, Avoid me, fear me, fly with a blush away ?

Must the gentle souls that have loved and plighted
And married below be above united ?

Is there a meeting and never a parting there?

Are old wrongs burning and old wounds smarting there?

Ah, reverend sir, you perceive so clearly
What racks poor sinners like me severely-

Pardon the silly fears which vex me so,

Expound the points which in life perplex me so.

For every Sunday that softly passes,
The scented, silken middle classes

Flutter their flounces and, good lack! are in
Joy at your feet, good Mr. Saccharine.

Cambric handkerchiefs scatter scent about,
Pomaded heads are devoutly bent about;
Silks are rustling, lips are muttering,
In the pastor's emotional pausing and fluttering.

What wonder that she who is far from here now,
Singing your tunes in another sphere now,
Became so saintly that earth grew vague to her,
Her sinning husband a clog and a plague to her?

And yearning for Love and the faith and the trust of it,
Hating the flesh (she had wed) and the lust of it,
Stole to the sheepfold, blushing and throbbing there,
Then fell on the breast of the shepherd, sobbing there!

Yet how can I thank you as you merit

For the light you shed on her blessed spirit

For the consolations and balmy blisses, too,

She found on your lips, and their cold chaste kisses too?

You covered her eyes with white hands blessing;
You hid her blush with your pure caressing,
And shut out earth and the fears that wait on it,-
The Sinner's face and the white-heat hate on it.

And I, the Sinner, to my degradation,
Dared to begrudge you her conversation:
Envied her love for the heaven you offer'd her,
Hated your face and the peace it proffer'd her!

Alas the folly, alas the blindness!

I did not bless you for your kindness!
But only cried with a heart the sternest then-
Best she should go to heaven in earnest then!

For at night she lay with soft lips fluttering,,
Dreaming of angels and faintly muttering,

And once or twice stirr'd in sleep, and alone to me,
Mentioned the name of an angel well known to me.

That angel stands high in the estimation.

Of your silken and scented congregation;

And she murmured his name with her heart throbbing faint in her,

With a little more than the warmth of a saint in her!

And, sinner and slave that I am, I hated

A passion so holy and elevated:

And knowing her longing from carth to upspring away,
I poison'd the flesh-that the sweet soul might wing away.

And because, sir, I knew of your longing to fly, too,
My first thought was darkly, that you, sir, should die, too;
But I envied you death and the peace that doth dwell in it,
And kept you for earth and the hate and the hell in it.

I kept you for slower, intenser dying,

Than the sleep in whose bosom that lamb is lying;
Kept body and soul and the terrors that run in them,
To complete the perdition so aptly begun in them.

And, sainted sir, will you call, I wonder,
The hangman to come and tear us asunder?
I do not think you will dare to stir in it,

For the sake of your sweet pure name and the slur in it.

How the scented silken congregation

Would stare at the fearful insinuation

That the saintly shepherd who saved so many there

Was a sheep himself, and as rotten as any there!

But if you would prove me wholly in error,
Touch the bell and proclaim the terror . . .
Whether the terror be hidden or told of you,
I and the Devil have got fast hold of you!