Some

half-distracted composer dunned the bard in vain. hope was afforded by a summons at 10 o'clock one evening, when Sheridan carried him off from a choice party just at the sweetest hour of the night, but it was only to show him the Temple of the Sun, through the vapours of a large bowl of negus which the bard had planted in the critics' row of the empty pit. At length they got to work, and a curious process it was. "Here," said Sheridan, "I design a procession of the virgins of the sun, with a solemn hymn." Kelly sung a bar or two suitable for the occasion.

"He (Sheridan) then made a sort of rumbling noise with his voice (for he had not the slightest idea of turning a tune), resembling a deep, gruff, bow, wow, wow; but though there was not the slightest resemblance of an air in the noise he made, yet so clear were his ideas of effect, that I perfectly understood his meaning, though conveyed through the medium of a bow, wow, wow.' KELLY, vol. ii, pp. 145, 146.

Cora's song Sheridan did supply; and Kelly got some song-wright to do the rest after the ideas which he had collected from these "bow, wow, wows.' By the way, the choral hymn of these same virgins, vol. ii, p. 193, the same which in Peeping Tom is set to the words of Pretty Maud, is erroneously termed by Mr. Kelly a Scotch air. It is an English ballad of the reign of George I, on the catastrophe of the celebrated pirate, beginning

"My name is Captain Kidd,

When I sail'd, when I sail'd," &c.

At last, while Pizarro was in the act of being performed, "all that was written of the play was actually rehearsing, and incredible as it may appear, until the end of the fourth act neither Mrs. Siddons, nor Charles Kemble, nor Barrymore, had all their speeches for the fifth! Mr. Sheridan was up stairs in the prompter's room, where he was writing the last part of the play, while the earlier parts were acting; and every ten minutes he brought down as much of the dialogue as he had done, piece-meal, into the green-room, abusing himself and his negligence, and making a thousand winning and soothing apologies, for having kept the performers so long in such painful suspense."-KELLY, vol. ii, pp. 146, 147.

Talk after this of being hunted with printers' devils, with "more copy, sir-the press stands;" pshaw.

There are good anecdotes of many literary characters in this amusing miscellany. Some mistakes there must be: such, for example, is the statement that Mr. Lewis, author

of the Monk, was poisoned by two favourite negroes, to whom he had bequeathed their liberty, and who became impatient for their legacy. That amiable, though odd man, died of sea-sickness as he returned from visiting his estate in the West Indies, where it is most certain he had exerted himself to improve the condition of his slaves. The disease was aggravated by his persisting in a fatal opinion of his own, that taking emetics would remove the nausea.

There is a very diverting account of a party at Mr. Cumberland's, near Tunbridge, with Jack Bannister; how the veteran read the Men of Mirth, a new play, instead of opening a fresh bottle; how Kelly fell asleep during the reading; and what effect his snoring produced on the sensitive nerves of the poet; with much more to the same purpose.

Mr. Kelly's style of story-telling is smart and lively, a little protracted now and then, as will happen to a professed narrator. In point of propriety we have only one stricture to make: the author ought to have spared us his sentimental lamentation over poor Mrs. Crouch; it is too much in the line of Kotzebue morality. We never wish to press ourselves into the private intrigues and arrangements of public performers, but the joys, or sorrows which attend such connections must not be blazoned as matters of public sympathy. There is bad taste in doing so. Mr. Kelly has told us many good stories, we beg to requite him with one of northern growth. A young man in the midland counties of Scotland, boorishly educated and homebred, succeeded in due time to his father's estate, and, as the lairdship was considerable, began to be looked on as desirable company in the houses of those prudent matrons who have under their charge one, or more than one,

"Penniless lass, wi' a lang pedigree."

One of this class, a lady of considerable rank, was in the intervals of a formal entertainment, endeavouring to make the wealthy young cub a little more at ease by the ordinary jokes on his celibacy, and exhortations to take a wife with all speed. The interest which her ladyship seemed to take in the matter induced the sapient youth to explain his ideas of domestic convenience in these emphatic words, drawled out in the broad Angus dialect, without the least sense of impropriety, "Na, my leddy; wives is fashious bargains

but I keep a missie." We leave the application to the Signior Kelly.

A variety of persons are mentioned in Kelly's Memoirs, whose public exhibitions have given an hour of pleasure to conclude the human day of care, and who, in their private capacity, have enlightened the social circle, and afforded gravity itself a good excuse for being out of bed at midnight. Of these some are still labouring in their old walk; Liston, for example, whose face is a comedy, and whose mere utterance makes a jest out of dulness itself; and Charles Matthews, driven from the public stage to make way for puppets and pageants, and compelled to exert his talents, so extraordinary for versatility and inexhaustible resource, in making his own fortune instead of enriching the patentees.* Others enjoy a well-won independence in the quiet shade of retirement. There is Jack Bannister, honest Jack, who in private character, as upon the stage, formed so excellent a representation of the national character of Old England-Jack Bannister, whom even foot-pads could not find it in their heart to injure.† There he is, with his noble locks, now as remarkable when covered with snow as when their dark honours curled around his manly face, singing to his grand-children the ditties which used to call down the rapture of crowded theatres in thunders of applause. There is the other Jack, too, who discriminated every class and character of his countrymen, with all the shades which distinguish them, from the high-bred Major O'Flaherty down to Loony MacTwolter-he, too, enjoys otium cum dignitate. The recollection of past mirth has in it something sorrowful; the friends with whom we have shared it are gone; and those who promoted the social glee must feel their powers of enlivening decrease as we feel ours become less susceptible of excitement. Others there are mentioned in these pages whom "our dim eyes seek in vain;" their part has been played; the awful curtain has dropped on them for ever.

* [Mr. Matthews died in July, 1835.]

+ This distinguished performer and best of good fellows was actually stopped one evening by two foot-pads, who recognising in his person the general favourite of the English audience, begged his pardon and wished him good-night. Horace's wolf was a joke to this.

DAVY'S SALMONIA.*

[Quarterly Review, October, 1828.]

WHEN great men condescend to trifle, they desire that those who witness their frolics should have some kindred sympathy with the subject which these regard. The speech of Henry IV to the Spanish ambassador, when he discovered the king riding round the room on a stick, with his son, is well known. "You are a father, Seignor Ambassador, and so we will finish our ride." No doubt, there was to be remarked something graceful in the manner with which the hero of Navarre bestrode even a cane-something so kind in his expression, while employed in the most childish of pastimes, as failed not to remind the spectator that the indulgent father of his playmate was the no less indulgent father of his people. In taking up this elegant little volume, for which we are indebted to the most illustrious and successful investigator of inductive philosophy which this age has produced, we are led to expect to discover the sage even in his lightest amusements.

We are informed, in the preface, that many months of severe and dangerous illness have been partially occupied and amused by the present treatise, when the author was incapable of attending to more useful studies or more serious pursuits. While we regret that the current of scientific investigation, which has led to such brilliant results, should be, for a moment, interrupted, we have here an example, and a pleasing one, that the lightest pursuits of such a man as our angler-nay, the productions of those languid hours, in which lassitude succeeds to pain, are more interesting and instructive than the exertion of the talents of others

* " Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fishing,” a small volume by SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, Bart., P. R. S.

whose mind and body are in the fullest vigour,-illustrating the scriptural expression, that the gleanings of the grapes of Ephraim are better than the vintage of Abiezer.

For ourselves, though we have wetted a line in our time, we are far from boasting of more than a very superficial knowledge of the art, and possess no part whatever of the scientific information which is necessary to constitute the philosophical angler. Yet we have read our Walton, as well as others; and, like the honest keeper in the New Forest, when we endeavour to form an idea of paradise, we always suppose a trout-stream going through it. The art itself is peculiarly seductive, requires much ingenuity, and yet is easily reconciled to a course of quiet reflections, as step by step we ascend a devious brook, opening new prospects as we advance, which remind us of a good and unambitious man's journey through this world, wherein changing scenes glide past him with each its own interest, until evening falls, and life is ended. We have, indeed, often thought that angling alone offers to man the degree of half-business, half-idleness, which the fair sex find in their needle-work or knitting, which, employing the hands, leaves the mind at liberty, and occupying the attention so far as is necessary to remove the painful sense of a vacuity, yet yields room for contemplation, whether upon things heavenly or earthly, cheerful or melancholy.

Of the humanity of the pastime we have but little to say. Our author has entered into its defence against Lord Bryon, who called it a "solitary vice," and condemned its advocate and apologist, Izaak Walton, as "a quaint old cruel coxcomb," who

"in his gullet

Should have a hook, and a small trout to it."

We will not inquire whether the noble poet has, in the present case, been one of those, who

"Compound for sins they are inclined to,

By damning those they have no mind to."

And we can easily conceive that scarce anything could have been less suited to Bryon's eager and active temper, and restless and rapid imagination, than a pastime in which proficiency is only to be acquired by long and solitary practice. But in this species of argument, whether used in