man; as the only angel standing between the Creator and the creature, through whose means you may approach nearer to Him, and He to you."

BIOGRAPHY.

The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. By a Member of the Houses of Shirley and Hastings. Vol. I. London: William Edward Painter, 342, Strand.

1839.

OUR friend, the Laureate Southey, has perhaps theorised too scientifically in some parts of his life of Wesley. Such works as the one before us take up the subject at a contrary extreme, and fear to reason on the facts of religious progress. They admire where they should analyse. The subject of pious emotion is now well understood, and the extraordinary force of novel truth on the mind appreciated at its true worth. There is no need, in fact, to suppose Mr. Berridge to have been a buffoon or a fanatic, in the exclusive sense of the latter phrase, in order to account for the singular effects that he produced. The dark state of the public mind at the time his services were needed is sufficient to explain the strange phenomena that accompanied his preaching. Hysterical convulsions are the exponents of wonder excited by sudden impressions :· when there are convictions of guilt and feelings of repentance, they may readily be believed to be of exceeding violence. Remember that the strongest interests of the soul are excited-her eternal welfare-the highest hopes, the deepest fears-mighty must be the sufferings, loud the cries, keen the agony. The nature of the moral passions must be well considered by him who would speculate on such a topic; nay, he must have had experience in the same kind himself, before he is thoroughly qualified to guage their intensity and weigh their value.

The present life of the Countess of Huntingdon is chiefly valuable for the large quantity of materials that are wound up in its composition, and the thoroughly religious spirit with which it is pervaded. No one can rise from its perusal without being convinced that Methodism had a divine purpose, and that the Lady Selina was not "mad" but " inspired," to give it assist. ance and direction. The introduction to the work, by the Rev. J. K. Foster, is well written, and a valuable commentary on the scope and design of the entire production. When we receive the second volume, we shall probably enter into the argument at large. Nothing is so valuable as memoirs of this kind. Every fresh one is, as it were, a New Evangile.

The Ecclesiastical Biographer should be the last person to forget the patriarchial precept uttered by Joseph: "It was not you that sent me hither but God." It was against her will that, in the founding of Methodism, the Countess of Huntingdon was compelled to violate ecclesiastical order, and shelter herself and her companions in zeal under the act of toleration. In like manner was Wesley forced to introduce a lay ministry. Wherefore? That the apostolic succession, which of all things is the most spiritual, should not be treated as a mere historical occurrence. The nominally self-taught are the really God-taught: and both Church and State must provide for the occupation of such—or, if they do not, God will! Such is the sum of the matter.

Life of Mrs. Siddons. By Thomas Campbell. London: Edward Moxon, Dover-street. 1839.

In every shape will we repudiate the unworthy calumny, that we have any other feeling towards Mr. Thomas Campbell, but the most reverential respect. We hold our philosophical, religious and political sentiments as sacred things, of which we sometimes speak with an emotion that may make us disregard personal considerations. But we are utterly incapable of uttering an opinion with a personal object. We dare speak in praise of Campbell's Life of Mrs.

N. S.-VOL. II.

3 A

Siddons, though it was on its first appearance condemned in the Quarterly. We look upon it as a dignified and accomplished piece of work, with a style of its own, exceedingly appropriate to the subject, to the author and the moral tone of his thinking. He is solicitous to treat of Mrs. Siddons, not only as the great actress, but as the excellent woman, and portrays her as she appeared to himself in her private relations.

Mr. Campbell, too, is deserving on another account. A large book is a large evil-he has been contented with a small one. Doubtless, with the stores at his command he might have made three volumes-partly compilation, partly original, of documents that should never appear in print. He has resisted the lust of lucre that has burned so infernally in some others, and deserves for this glorious abstinence our warmest approbation.

An analysis of this very excellent book at this time of day would be a ridiculous affair. We therefore content ourselves with the summary of Mrs. Siddons' character. Who but Campbell could have written it?

"Mrs. Siddons was a great, simple being, who was not shrewd in ber knowledge of the world, and was not herself well understood, in some particulars, by the iniquity of the world. The universal feeling towards her was respectful, but she was thought austere. Now, with all her apparent haughtiness, there was no person more humble when humility morally became her. I have known her call up a servant whom she found she has undeservedly blamed, and beg his pardon before her family. She had a motherly affectionate heart. Hundreds of her letters have been submitted to me; and though her correspondence has disappointed me, in being less available than I could have wished for quotation, yet, in one respect, it delighted me, by the proofs which it gave of her endearing domestic character. In not one of her notes, though some of them were written on subjects of petty vexation, is there a single trace of angry feeling.

"From intense devotion to her profession, she derived a peculiarity of manner, of which I have the fullest belief she was not in the least conscious, unless reminded of it; I mean the habit of attaching dramatic tones and emphases to common-place colloquial subjects. She went, for instance, one day, into a shop at Bath, and, after bargaining for some calico, and hearing the mercer pour forth a hundred commendations of the cloth, she put the question to him, "But will it wash?" in a manner so electrifying as to make the poor shopman start back from his counter. I once told her this anecdote about herself, and she laughed at it heartily, saying, “ Witness truth, I never meant to be tragical." This singularity made her manner susceptible of caricature. I know not what others felt, but I own that I loved her all the better for this unconscious solemnity of manner; for, independently of its being blended with habitual kindness to her friends, and giving, odd as it may seem, a zest to the humour of her familiar conversation, it always struck me as a token of her simplicity. In point of fact, a manner, in itself artificial, sprung out of the naiveté of her character.

"In the course of a long life, how few individuals have diffused so much delight and moral sympathy! When a foreigner came to London, during her reign on the stage, and demanded to see all that England could boast of, could you have done justice to your country, without showing him the Siddons, as one of the ornaments of our empire? And she was more than a woman of genius; for the additional benevolence of her heart made her an honour to her sex and to human nature."

We have only one emendation to propose of this passage-and it relates to the last clause of the last sentence. We should have ascribed that very benevolence of her heart to the fulness of her genius.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Mr. Wm. Knight has nearly ready for publication in a portable volume, "Oriental Outlines or a Rambler's Recollections of a Tour in Turkey, Greece, and Tuscany," chiefly intended as a guide for travellers visiting Napoli di Romania, the Grecian Islands, Ephesus, Smyrna, the Dardanelles, and Constantinople.

Mr. Leopold J. Bernays has in the Press in one volume 8vo. a Translation of the 2d Book of Göthe's Faust-and other Poems-partly in the metres of the original and partly in Prose.—it will be ready for publication in October.

The British and Foreign Review, or European Quarterly Journal-No. XVII. WE hasten to acknowledge the receipt of this Number. It is, indeed, of very great excellence. We have read the articles on The State of the Nationon Works of Art and Artists in England-and on Lamartine's La Chûte d'un Ange-the merit of which is very great. Take it for all in all-this is the best of the Reviews. We say this deliberately, conscientiously, decidedly.

Cookery Made Easy.
Munday.

By a Lady; London: Published by Dean and

THIS Book contains the most plain and practical directions for properly cooking and serving up of all sorts of provisions, and is excellently well adapted for the purpose designed. We recommend it to every respectable family.

THE GREEN ROOM.

HAYMARKET THEATRE.

THESE boards having been signalised by the re-appearance of Mr. Macready, and that tragedian not having yet assumed a new character in the drama, has induced us to a consideration of his claims to the high eminence he has attained.

On his first appearance on the London stage-the great John Kemble was on his wane-and Edmund Kean was in the full vigour of his powers, Mr. Macready therefore may be said to have been opposed on the one hand by all the grandeur and dignity of an elevated and classical school, and on the other by the unwearied energy of original genius aided by youth, and triumphant with well-meritel success.

To have made any stand at all against two such powerful opponents, would be a meed of no small praise to have allotted to a débutant; but Mr. Macready achieved infinitely more than this. His debut in "Orestes" in "The Distressed Mother," allowing for all the disadvantages inseparable from a first performance, evinced a promise of great future excellence. The novelty of his style was at once its most remarkable feature, it being equally removed, and indeed at variance with the styles of his two great tragic contemporaries-not possessing the artificial and stilted mannerism of "the last of all the Romans," whose very appearance and gestures threw a halo of sublimity around what was cold, stiff, and formal, and being devoid of the interminable rapidity of action, endless impetuosity, and variety of comic and tragic capabilities which succeeded each other by fits and starts, in Mr. Kean's great but unequal performances.

"Like the waves of the summer, as one died away,
Another as bright and as shining came on."

Mr. Macready's style was impassioned but chaste, his intonation clear and distinct, lapsing at times, it must be confessed, into the colloquial and the familiar, and at times so hurried, that in many cases the sense of the passage he was delivering became absolutely obscure to the audience. These defects, observation and practice have enabled him to overcome; and it is not saying too much of our tragedian to assert, that not only in purity of pronunciation, but distinctness of utterance, Mr. Macready is without a rival. In point of voice, Nature has been most bountiful, having gifted him with one of great barmony, and vast capabilities. His attitudes for the most part are not deficient in grace, and are in general well suited to the line of character he performs.

In this brief sketch it is not intended to trace him professionally step by step from his début, to the present moment when he has attained the envied rank of being considered the only first-rate tragedian on the British stage: our object is merely to describe and do justice to his genius and peculiar style. To reach the eminent station at which we now behold him he has toiled hard, and contended with vast difficulties, which he has overcome solely by the painful progression of unremitting study.

He has, on the other hand, possessed the great advantage of having several fine parts written solely for the display of his varied histrionic powers, when, on such occasions, he has shone forth with redoubled splendour, displaying those high resources of his art, so essential to the embodying the creations of genius, and exciting a thrilling interest by the high-wrought illusion of the

scene.

"Virginius"-" William Tell"-" Ion"-" Claude Melnotte"-and "Richelieu," may be adduced as triumphant specimens of Mr. Macready's skill in representing the heroes of our modern, and most distinguished tragic writers. But the engagement of Mr. Macready is remarkable, as producing Mr. Phelps again in a character worthy of his acceptance. We should have thought him of too pathetic a nature for the personation of Iago; but, how. ever, he got through his task admirably well. His is not a gloomy, grimalkin sort of villain, such as Young and Vandenhoff have delighted to present-but a bold gay soldier-a man of strong intellect, but of a capricious and jealous temperament. All this was reflected by the actor. Among the new readings that Mr. Phelps ventured, was one that deserves notice. In delivering, “I bleed, Sir-but not killed"-he points to the slain Desdemona. Was this, or not, in Shakspere's mind? It gives a bitterness to the remark which has hitherto been overlooked. At any rate, the actor claims credit for his ingenuity.

ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.

THIS Commonwealth of Theatrical Management has brought forward two adaptations of Foreign Operas. The "Elixir d'Amore" of Donizetti-and the The "Scarramuccia" of Ricci. Although the former was no novelty in an English dress, it having been played at the Surrey, some months ago, and the latter is by no means a firstrate musical composition, both have been as successful as could have been anticipated.

The latter revival unfortunately afforded Mr. Balfe, the manager, an opportunity of revealing publicly the indiscretions of a brother vocalist, the recurrence of which do so much towards bringing the profession into such universal contempt. It certainly is to be regretted that Mr. Balfe should, as manager, have been placed in so painful a situation; and if there were many people in the theatre who paid for their admission, they had no right to be treated thus cavalierly but without at all meaning to paliate Mr. Leffler's inebriety, we do think, that, out of respect to his profession, if not from motives of common humanity towards one whose very existence depends on the good opinion of

:

the public, Mr. Balfe might have concealed the errors of his friend, and still sent his audience away well satisfied.

The other novelties that have been well received at this establishment have been "The Hall Porter," a very clever Farce by Mr. Samuel Lover, and a Melo-drama called "Snap-apple Night," combining the usual ingredients of terror and absurdity, which so eminently characterise this heterogeneous class of Dramatic composition. It presented some effective Tableaux; and notwithstanding its incongruities, it was favourably received.

SURREY THEATRE.

MR. T. P. COOKE has recommenced an engagement here, and personated "Ben the Boatswain," in a nautical drama of that name, from the pen of Mr. Wilks. He is also announced to appear as the hero of another naval play from the untiring pen of Mr. Haynes. We never see that splendid representative of English seamen, Mr. T. P. Cooke, without feeling a regret that he did not flourish in the days of Dibdin and Incledon-when our Gazettes teemed with naval victories--when the song-writer was rewarded with a pension for his patriotism, and the vocalist was crowned with reiterated bursts of heart-felt applause, as sincere as triumphant.

"We are fallen upon gloomy days"

in regard to nautical achievements. This, we suppose, induces our dramatists to make their sailors nice, quiet, domestic, young gentlemen, with a very strong sense of the proprieties, accompanied by a wish to "get spliced," and to sit down quietly, and enjoy existence, as people with a respectable turn of mind ought to do. "William," in "Black-eyed Susan," is a superlative specimen of a youth of this description, and gives utterance to sweet and tender sentiments sufficient to stock all the love-sick sailors, from Blackwall to Port Jackson.

To behold the English sailor on the stage as he is in reality, either on board his ship or on shore, we must wait till the breaking out of a war. Then, instead of the above feeble portraiture, our nautical play-wrights will be compelled to exhibit him as the ardent, brave, and reckless being, exulting in his strength and loyalty, abounding in heartiness and roughness of manner, with a great taste for practical jokes, and broad fun; and, at the same time, imbued with many of the kindest and finest feelings that adorn and elevate humanity.

THE DEATH-RATTLE OF PARTY.

THE law of progress, indefinitely accelerated in its operations, is effectually subversive of human institutions; and so the even balance of parties by deciding the beam, is preclusive of the motion that is necessary to life. What is needed is neither a stagnant pool nor a headlong cataract, but a gentle river full, yet not overflowing, down which we may safely voyage in calm weather with the common exertion of sail and oar, and in rough with ordinary foresight and skill. Let it be granted that society awaits regeneration, still the "vaulting ambition" that would spring at once from the present position of the social state to some future pos