from its pursuits; and whilst in those pursuits it can find interest and occupation, it wants no outward aids to cheer it. My mother, who had a fellow-feeling with me in these sensations, used occasionally to visit me in this hiding hole, and animated me with her remarks upon the progress of my work my father was rather inclined to apologise for the meanness of my accommodation, and I believe rather wondered at my choice. In the mean time I had none of those incessant avocations, which for ever crossed me in the writing of The Brothers. I was master of my time, my mind was free, and I was happy in the society of the dearest friends I had on earth. In parents, sister, wife, and children, greater blessings no man could enjoy. The calls of office, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the jibings of newspaper critics could not reach me on the banks of the Shannon, where all within doors was love and affection, all without was gratitude and kindness devolved on me through the merits of my father. In no other period of my life have the same happy circumstances combined to cheer me in any of my literary labours.

When I returned to England, I entered into an engagement with Mr. Garrick to bring out the West Indian at his theatre. I had received fair and honourable treatment from Mr. Harris, and had not the slightest cause of complaint against him, his brother patentees, or his actors. I had, however, no engagement with him, nor had he signified to me his wish or expectation of any such in future. If, notwithstanding, the obligation was honourably such as I was not free to depart from, in which light I am pretty sure he regarded it, my conduct was no otherwise defensible than as it was not intentionally unfair. My acquaintance with Mr. Garrick had become intimacy between the acting of The Brothers and the acceptance of the West Indian. I resorted to him again and again with the manuscript of my

comedy; I availed myself of his advice, of his remarks, and I was neither conscious of doing what was wrong in me to do, nor did any remonstrance ever reach me to apprize me of my error.

I was not indeed quite a novice to the theatre, but I was clearly innocent of knowing or believing myself bound by any rules or usage that prevented me from offering my production to the one or the other at my own free option. I went to Mr. Garrick; I found in him what my inexperience stood in need of, an admirable judge of stage effect: at his suggestion I added the preparatory scene in the house of Stockwell, before the arrival of Belcour, where his baggage is brought in, and the domestics of the merchant are setting things in readiness for his coming. This insertion I made by his advice, and I punctually remember the very instant when he said to me, in his chariot, on our way to Hampton, "I want something more to be announced of your West Indian before you bring him on the stage, to give eclat to his entrance, and rouse the curiosity of the audience, that they may say, Ay, here he comes, with all his colours flying." When I asked how this was to be done, and who was to do it, he considered awhile, and then replied, "Why that is your look out, my friend, not mine; but if neither your merchant nor his clerk can do it, why, why send in the servants, and let them talk about him. Never let me see a hero step upon the stage without his trumpeters of some sort or other." Upon this conversation it was that I engrafted the scene abovementioned, and this was in truth the only alteration of any consequence that the manuscript underwent in its passage to the stage.

After we came to Hampton, where that inimitable man was to be seen in his highest state of animation, we began to debate on the cast of the play. Barry was extremely desirous to play the part of the Irish major, and Garrick was very doubtful how to decide, for Moody was then an

actor little known, and at a low salary. I took no part in the question, for I was entitled to no opinion; but I remember Garrick, after long de liberation, gave his decree for Moody with considerable repugnance, qualifying his preference of the latter with reasons that in no respect reflected on the merits of Mr. Barry; but he did not quite see him in the whole part of O'Flaherty; there were certain points of humour, where he thought it likely he might fail, and in that case his failure, like his name, would be more conspicuous than Moody's. In short, Moody would take pains, it might make him, it might mar the other; so Moody had it, and succeeded to our utmost wishes. Mr. King, ever justly a favourite of the public, took the part of Belcour, and Mrs. Abingdon, with some few salvos on the score of condescension, played Charlotte Rusport, and though she would not allow it to be any thing but a sketch, yet she made a character of it by her inimitable acting.

The production of a new play was in those days an event of much greater attraction than, from its frequency, it is now become, so that the house was taken to the back rows of the front boxes, for several nights in succession before that of its representation; yet in this interval I offered to give its produce to Garrick for a picture that hung over his chimney-piece in Southamptonstreet, and was only a copy from a Holy Family of Andrea del Sarto: he would have closed with me upon the bargain, but that the picture had been a present to him from lord Baltimore. My expectations did not run very high when I made this offer.

A rumour had gone about, that the character which gave its title to the comedy was satirical; of course, the gentlemen who came under that description went down to the theatre in great strength, very naturally disposed to chastise the author for his malignity, and their phalanx was not a little formidable. Mrs. Cumberland and I sate with Mr.

VOL. VI. NO. XXXIV.

and Mrs. Garrick in their private box. When the prologue speaker had gone the length of the four first lines the tumult was excessive, and the interruption held so long, that it seemed doubtful, if the prologue would be suffered to proceed. Garrick was much agitated; he observ ed to me, that the appearance of the house, particularly in the pit, was more hostile than he had ever seen it. It so happened that I did not at that moment feel the danger, which he seemed to apprehend, and remarked to him, that the very first word which discovered Belcour's character to be friendly would turn the clamour for us, and so far I regarded the impetuosity of the audi ence as a symptom in our favour. Whilst this was passing between us, order was loudly issued for the prologue to begin again, and in the delivery of a few lines more than they had already heard, they seemed reconciled to wait the developement of a character, from which they were told to expect

"Some emanations of a noble mind."

Their acquiescence, however, was not set off with much applause; it was a suspicious truce, a sullen kind of civility, that did not promise more favour than we could earn: but when the prologue came to touch upon the major, and told his countrymen in the galleries that

." his heart can never trip,"

they, honest souls, who had hitherto been treated with little else than stage kicks and cuffs for their entertainment, sent up such a hearty crack, as plainly told us we had not, indeed, little cherubs, but lusty champions, who sate up aloft.

Of the subsequent success of this lucky comedy there is no occasion for me to speak; eight and twenty successive nights it went without the buttress of an afterpiece, which was not then the practice of attaching to a new play. Such was the good fortune of an author, who happened

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to strike upon a popular and taking plan, for certainly the moral of the West Indian is not quite unexceptionable, neither is the dialogue above the level of others of the same author, which have been much less favoured. The snarlers snapped at it, but they never set their teeth into the right place; I don't think I am very vain when I say that I could have taught them better. Garrick was extremely kind, and threw his shield before me more than once, as the St. James's evening paper could have witnessed. My property in the piece was reserved for me with the greatest exactness; the charge of the house upon the author's nights was then only sixty pounds, and when Mr. Evans, the treasurer, came to my house in Queen-Ann-street, in a hackney coach, with a huge bag of money, he spread it all in gold upon my table, and seemed to contemplate it with a kind of ecstasy that was extremely droll; and when I tendered him his customary fee, he peremptorily refused it, saying he had never paid an author so much before, I had fairly earnt it, and he would not lessen it a single shilling, not even his coach-hire; and in that humour he departed. He had no sooner left the room than one entered it, who was not quite so scrupulous, but quite as welcome; my beloved wife took twenty guineas from the heap, and instantly bestowed them on the faithful servant who had attended on our children; a tribute justly due her unwearied diligence and exemplary conduct.

I sold the copy-right to Griffin in Catherine-street, for 1501., and, if he told the truth when he boasted of having vended 12,000 copies, he did not make a bad bargain; and if he made a good one, which it is pretty clear he did, it is not quite so clear that he deserved it: he was a sorry fellow.

I paid respectful attention to all the floating criticisms that came within my reach, but I found no opportunities of profiting by their remarks, and very little cause to com

plain of their personalities; in short, I had more praise than I merited, and less cavilling than I expected. One morning, when I called on Mr. Garrick, I found him with the St. James's evening paper in his hand, which he began to read with a voice and action of surprise, most admirably counterfeited, as if he had discovered a mine under my feet, and a train to blow me up to destruction. "Here, here," he cried, "if your skin is less thick than a rhinoceros's hide, egad, here is that will cut you to the bone. This is a terrible fellow; I wonder who it can be." He began to sing out his libel in a high declamatory tone, with a most comic countenance, and, pausing at the end of the first sentence, which seemed to favour his contrivance for a little ingenious tormenting, when he found he had hooked me, he laid down the paper, and began to comment upon the cruelty of newspapers, and moan over me with a great deal of malicious fun and good humour. "Confound these fellows, they spare nobody. I dare say this is Bickerstaff again; but you don't mind him; no, no, I see you don't mind him; a little galled, but not much hurt; you may stop his mouth with a golden gag: but we'll see how he goes on.” He then resumed his reading, cheering me all the way as it began to soften, till, winding up in the most profest panegyric, of which he was himself the writer, I found my friend had had his joke, and I had enjoyed his praise, seasoned and set off in his inimitable manner, which to be comprehended must have been seen.

It was the remark of lord Lyttleton upon this comedy, when speaking of it to me one evening at Mrs. Montague's, that had it not been for the incident of O'Flaherty's hiding himself behind the screen, when he overhears the lawyer's soliloquy, he should have pronounced it a faultless composition. This flattery his lordship surely added against the conviction of his better judgment, merely as a sweetener to qualify his criticism, and by so doing convinced

me that he suspected me of being less amenable to fair correction than I really am and ever have been. But be this as it may, a criticism from lord Lyttleton must always be worth recording, and this especially, as it not only applies to my comedy in particular, but is general to all.

"I consider listening," said he, "as a resource never to be allowed in any pure drama, nor ought any good author to make use of it." This position being laid down by authority so high, and audibly delivered, drew the attention of the company assembled for conversation, and all were silent. "It is, in fact," he added, "a violation of those rules, which original authorities have established for the constitution of the comic drama." After all due acknowledgments for the favour of his remark, I replied, that if I had trespassed against any rule laid down by classical authority in the case alluded to, I had done it inadvertently, for I really did not know where any such rule was to be found.

"What did Aristotle say? Were there no rules laid down by him for comedy?" None that I knew; Aristotle referred to the Margites and Ilias Minor as models, but that was no rule, and the models being lost, we had neither precept nor example to instruct us. "Were there any precedents in the Greek or Roman drama, which could justify the measure?" To this I replied, that no precedent could justify the measure, in my opinion, which his lordship's better judgment had condemned; being possessed of that I should offend no more: but as my error was committed when I had no such advice to guide me, I did recollect that Aristophanes did not scruple to resort to listening, and drawing conclusions from what was overheard, when a man rambled and talked broken sentences in his bed asleep and dreaming; and as for the Roman stage, if any thing could apologize for the major's screen, I conceived there were screens in plenty

upon that, which formed separate streets and entrances, which concealed the actors from each other, and gave occasion to a great deal of listening and overhearing in their comedy.

"But this occurs," said lord Lyttleton, "from the construction of the scene, not from the contrivance and intent of the character, as in your case; and when such an expedient is resorted to by an officer like your major, it is discreditable and unbecoming of him as a man of honour." This was decisive, and I made no longer any struggle. What my predecessors in the drama, who had been dealers in screens, closets, and key-holes for a century past, would have said to this doctrine of the noble critic, I don't prétend to guess : it would have made sad havoc with many of them, and cut deep into their property; as for me, I had so weak a cause, and so strong a majority against me, for every lady in the room denounced listeners, that all I could do was to insert, without loss of time, a few words of palliation into the major's part, by making him say, upon resorting to his hiding-place: I'll step behind this screen and listen; a good soldier must sometimes fight in ambush as well as in the open field.

Before I quite bid farewell to the West Indian, I must mention a criticism which I picked up in Rotten-Row from Nugent lord Clare, not ex cathedrâ, but from the saddle on an easy trot. His lordship was contented with the play in general, but he could not relish the five wives of O'Flaherty; they were four too many for an honest man, and the over-abundance of them hurt his lordship's feelings. I thought I could not have a better criterion for the feelings of other people, and desired Moody to manage the matter as well as he could; he put in the qualifier of en mili taire, and his five wives brought him into no farther trouble; all but one were left-handed, and he had German practice for his plea. Upon the whole, I must take the

world's word for the merit of the West Indian, and thankfully suppose that what they best liked was, in fact, best to be liked.

A little straw will serve to light a great fire, and, after the acting of the West Indian, I would say, if the comparison was not too presumptu ous, I was almost the master Betty of the time; but as I dare say that young gentleman is even now too old and too wise to be spoilt by popularity, so was I then not quite boy enough to be tickled by it, and not quite fool enough to confide in it. In short I took the same course then which he is taking now; as he keeps on acting part after part, so did I persist in writing play after play; and this, if I am not mistaken, is the surest course we either of us could take of running through our period of popularity, and of finding our true level at the conclusion of it.

I recollect the fate of a young artist in Northamptonshire, who was famous for his adroitness in pointing and repairing the spires of churchsteeples; he formed his scaffolds with consummate ingenuity, and mounted his ladders with incredible success. The spire of the church of Raunds was of prodigious height; it over-peered all its neighbours, as Shakespeare does all his rivals; the young adventurer was employed to fix the weather-cock; he mounted to the topmost stone, in which the spindle was bedded; universal plaudits hailed him in his ascent; he found himself at the very acme of his fame; but glorious ambition tempted him to quit his ladder, and occupy the place of the weather-cock, standing upon one leg, while he sung a song to amaze the rustic multitude below: what the song was, and how many stanzas he lived to get through, I do not know; he sung it in too large a theatre, and was somewhat out of hearing; but it is in my memory to know that he came to his cadence before his song did, and, falling from his height, left the world to draw its moral from his melancholy fate,

Irish Portraits.

Lord Eyre, of Eyre Court, though pretty far advanced in years, was so correctly indigenous, as never to have been out of Ireland in his life, and not often so far from Eyre Court as in this tour to Mr. Talbot's. Proprietor of a vast extent of soil, not very productive, and inhabiting a spacious mansion, not in the best repair, he lived, according to the style of the country, with more hospitality than elegance: whilst his table groaned with abundance, the order and good taste of its arrangement were little thought of; the slaughtered ox was hung up whole, and the hungry servitor supplied himself with his dole of flesh, sliced from off the carcase. His lordship's day was so apportioned as to give the afternoon by much the largest share of it, during which, from an early dinner to the hour of rest, he never left his chair, nor did the claret ever quit the table. This did not produce inebriety, for it was sipping rather than drinking that filled up the time, and this mechanical process of gradually moistening the human clay was carried on with very little aid from conversation, for his lordship's companions were not very communicative, and fortunately he was not very curious, He lived in an enviable independence as to reading, and of course he had no books. Not one of the windows of his castle was made to open, but luckily he had no liking for fresh air, and the consequence may be better conceived than described.

He had a large and handsome pleasure boat on the Shannon, and men to row it. I was of two or three parties with him on that noble water as far as to Pertumna, the then deserted castle of the lord Clanrickarde. Upon one of these excursions we were hailed by a person from the bank, who somewhat rudely called us to take him over to the other side. The company in the boat making no reply, I inadvertently called out, “ Ay, ay, sir!

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