ready to aid in filling up the vacancy, when his contribution fell short of the expected quantity.

It was perfectly easy to proceed in such a business with the poet when his peculiarities were understood. To put him out of his way even slightly was an effectual obstacle to the fulfilment of the required duty. His appointments were generally kept with punctuality, which might seem anomalous with his habits in literary labour, to which he would only adhere fitfully and by starts, sometimes he could not be got to attend to the simplest work, and would evade it by all sorts of devices; but he was not the less exemplary in intention where he chanced to fail. He reflected that he put another person to inconvenience by any lapse of the kind, and no man was more considerate about annoying others. Whenever he chanced to cause inconvenience to any one it arose out of that habit of abstraction or of forgetfulness, which has already been alluded to. The conduct of the editorship of the magazine was not at all calculated to spur Campbell to literary exertion. He had acquired as much fame as he could well expect to obtain; he had a conviction that he should not be able to excel his former efforts, and that the chance of any accession of reputation was very problematical; his pecuniary cravings were satisfied by the emolument, for he was not at all inclined to look at literature as a means of amassing wealth, well knowing that in this country intellect has no chance of gaining more than a daily competency, it being also esteemed a secondary thing. He was satisfied with an income sufficient for his moderate wants, and preferred as much of the indolence of a literary life as he could contrive to maintain. Age did not change this feeling for a better, unfortunately.

Sir Walter Scott wondered that Campbell, who was possessed of so much genius of the highest character, did not do more. It was hardly possible for one of a temperament so entirely different to account for the conduct of the poet in this respect. Scott was a man of exceedingly strong constitutional endurance. He felt none of the shrinking delicacy which accompanies a bodily frame attuned to the most exquisite vibrations -sensitive beyond belief, and exceedingly regardful of a literary reputation, already secured, as he was well aware, upon a permanent basis. This is no imaginary conclusion. It was not, as Scott supposed, that the poet was afraid of the "shadow his own fame cast before him." Such a circumstance would not account for the degree of negligence he showed in his specimens of the poets, nor for lapses of a similar character that occurred in other articles from his pen. He was by nature a poet, whose muse was propitious only at her own pleasure, on some casual impulse, some unforeseen attraction from an enamoured object, singing in so elevated a manner, and from this very cause singing with so much more power and energy than she would have done had her voice been continually on the stretch. Man is not formed according to the ideal images of his kind, nor are the peculiarities of his disposition or his mental bias to be discriminated and fixed upon every imaginary hypothesis that is framed for him in the mind of another.

There was a species of caprice, rather, perhaps, irresolution in the conduct of the poet at times, not at all inconsistent with the character sometimes ascribed to genius. He would start of a sudden into the country for the sake of a temporary solitude. He wrote me one day,

"I want to be alone for a short time, there is no being by oneself in London. I am going off to Sydenham in the first instance, there I shall

be until Thursday" (this was Monday). "I wish my address to be kept a profound secret-you shall hear when I go to plant myself in other quarters."

He set out accordingly, altered his mind on the way, and went somewhere into Kent, writing to Mrs. Campbell, to her surprise, from a place near Canterbury, and came back to town, his letter not preceding him more than twenty-four hours. He would sometimes set out on a visit from which he had anticipated much pleasure, get tired in a couple of days, and want an excuse to return, when he never failed to write to me and request I would give him an excuse on the score of the magazine and business. The ruse of the magazine was thus frequently played off. He once went on a visit to Sir Thomas Dyer. He was certain he should stay some days, and as Mrs. Campbell went with him, he ordered all letters to be sent to me to keep, open, and do with as I deemed necessary. Of his whims in this respect the following extract of a letter affords a specimen :

"I believe I must leave you to correct this dull essay on the London College, yet if I could have a re-proof it would be desirable. I have left you my address at General Dyer's. If any paper or letter comes to you for me, with a coronet seal and a card enclosed, have the goodness to send it for me to office, Whitehall. Any other forward to Sir Thomas Dyer's, or retain at your pleasure. Only send for me back imperatively by the first of the month, for I wish myself back already."

M. DE KERATRY, peer of France, in one of those picturesque orations which the French are in the habit of delivering over the grave of departed genius, most feelingly and appropriately remarks, that now that religion has poured forth its holy prayers over the coffin of the illustrious dead, and that it has prayed to the Almighty to pardon its creature the faults and imperfections which are inseparable from human weakness; it is permitted to literature to express its regrets at the loss of the inimitable actress, who constituted for so many years the glory and the fortune of French comedy.

The date of this great actress's birth may now be revealed. So long as Mademoiselle Mars was alive, it would have been ungallant to dwell upon such details, for that eminent lady took infinite pains to forget the fatal date. Only seven years ago, as Mademoiselle de Belle Isle, she appeared on the long-relinquished boards as a young girl, with a small foot, a plump hand and arm, a charming smile, and an enchanting voice. Only seven or eight years ago Mademoiselle Mars, being summoned as a witness before a court of justice, answered, upon the president asking her

*Suggestions respecting a plan for the London University † Underlined to show how I was to understand it.

her age, "Forty-five years." The old frequenters of the Théâtre Français were somewhat surprised at this answer, but still more pleased. They found themselves suddenly younger by nearly a quarter of a century than they themselves had imagined.

66

"Mon Dieu !" exclaimed the fair actress, upon meeting unexpectedly M. Lemoine, the father of the present director of La Gaîté, "I cannot take a step without stumbling upon some living calendar to remind me of some epoch or other of my youth."

In consequence of this lady-like antipathy, Mademoiselle Mars, while she would willingly take a part in a conversation that related to events, never mentioned dates.

"I was never familiar with chronology," she would say, as she threw back her veil, or drew up her shawl in her peculiarly graceful manner, "and I certainly am not going to study it now."

Mademoiselle Mars was sixty-eight years of age at her decease. It is certain that she was born the 5th of February, 1779. Her father, Monvel-Boutet, an actor of some repute in his day, used to say,

"They fired the guns on my daughter's birthday." This was in allusion to the birth of a prince that occurred on the same day. It is more apocryphal that her mother said, upon the same occasion,

66

Ah, the queen and I are in the same predicament to-day." Madame Aclocque, an intimate friend of Mademoiselle Mars, and who has communicated to the world a few anecdotic reminiscences of the celebrated actress,* ventured to ask once whence came this name of "Mars ?" "Ah! ah! you little jacasse" (a favourite Anglo-Frenchism of the actress, when the barometer was at fair), “must I tell you that? The name of Mars comes from my mother. My mother was a native of Carcassonne, of a good family, but who ran away with an actor and joined the profession, when the name of Mars was given to her. The name was almost lost, when having gone one evening, in company with Talma, to a fortune-teller, immense success and a great number of conquests were predicted to me. This was noised abroad; the name was restored to me as my inheritance, and Mars became ever afterwards my permanent nom de guerre."

Mademoiselle Mars was, however, christened by the name of Hippolyte Boutet. The assumed name, and the one under which she acquired celebrity, was, as may be easily imagined, a constant theme for puns good, bad, and indifferent.

Thus it is related that in a moment of exasperation against the Garde Royale at the time of the Restoration, Mademoiselle Mars said,

"There is nothing in common between the royal guard and Mars." It has been intimated+ that Scribe supplied the actress with this retort, which attained great celebrity at the time, but it is certain that Mademoiselle Mars did not dislike punning upon her name. The association

of her name with that of the month called Mars by the French, was of itself sufficient to ensure a smile; but again, on the other hand, Mademoiselle Mars openly professed her partiality for Scribe, whom she said her her "mots.'

gave

At one of those soirées, which were so celebrated for their taste and splendour, and in the palmy days of the great actress, a parody was per

* Souvenirs Anecdotiques sur Mademoiselle Mars, par Mademoiselle Eliza Aclocque.

+ Mademoiselle Mars; Notice Biographique, &c. J. Hetzel.

formed called the “Gods of Olympus," in which the representative of

Mars sang

Mars and Venus, the gods among,

Made two, it is said by some.
But I may say with every one,

Mars and Venus are but one.

Notwithstanding this predilection for a name, Mademoiselle Mars could scarcely ever be persuaded to contribute an autograph to an album. She used to return such without regard for the noble arms that were emblazoned upon the binding. Yielding once to the urgent entreaties of a noble duke, who was the bearer of his own enormous folio, she wrote in a corner of a pageDominus vobiscum

Dieu vous preserve des album.

II. HER THEATRICAL CAREER.

IT was evident that Mademoiselle Mars would be an actress. Both father and mother were on the stage during the whole period of her youth. At thirteen years of age she came out in a child's part in the "Desespoir de Jocrisse." This was at the Théâtre Montansier, which was a good school. Monvel-Boutet was not long in discovering the capabilities of little Hippolyte, and he cultivated them assiduously.

The

In 1795, Hippolyte being then sixteen years of age, was received into the company of the Théâtre Feydeau, where she attracted the notice of the most celebrated actress of the day, Mademoiselle Contat. latter took great pains with Hippolyte, and used even to scold her well to make her do as she wished. The characters of young lovers were now consigned to the juvenile proficient, and in 1795 she had obtained a monopoly of those parts; Mademoiselles Lange and Mezeray having retired from the company.

The Théâtre Feydeau and the Théâtre de la Republique united in 1799, to form the Théâtre Français. Here Hippolyte, at the early age of seventeen, was associated with such names as Preville, whom Garrick called the inimitable; Molé, who has never found his successor; and with Talma, at the outset of his career.

Mademoiselle Mars was on congenial ground, and she soon revealed herself to the public in all her capacity. Highly gifted by nature, and richly endowed by study, which had given flexibility to her talent and expression to her charms, she was at once ingenuous, touching, graceful, and true. The most enchanting sounds that the human voice had ever accomplished are said to have emanated from the future celebrity. Every thing was conquered by tact, grace, and talent; nothing was won by servile imitation. Elegant without fastidiousness, familiar without frivolity, witty without the slightest sacrifice of delicacy, and of exquisitely easy and distinguished manners, the aurora of her fame merged almost at once into the full day of her successes.

These peculiar and graceful attributes first made themselves seen to advantage in the character of the dumb girl in "L'Abbé de l'Epée." The feeling and sensibility which she exhibited in that character produced a prodigious sensation. This was in 1803.

Mademoiselle Contat having retired from the stage in 1809, Mademoiselle Mars succeeded with Mademoiselle Leverd to the first characters. But it was impossible to struggle long against the grace, the

delicacy, and the refinement of wit and manners possessed by Mademoiselle Mars. By the year 1812, she had established a reputation without a rival. The characters of Henriette in the "Femmes Savantes," of Lucile in the "Dehors trompeurs," of Charlotte in the " Deux Frères," and of Victorine in the "Philosophe sans le Savoir," were acquired to her by right of conquest. But still in the opinion of the arch-critics of the day, Mademoiselle Mars was always greater in the ingenuous than in the more complicated characters. She never attained so much perfection in the true and the beautiful, in the Elmire of " Tartuffe," or the Célimène of the "Misanthrope," as in the "Fausse Agnès," and the "Jeu de l'Amour et du Hazard."

Talma had wished to play comedy, and had succeeded. Mademoiselle Mars also experienced a desire to perform tragedy, but she was not so successful. She played with Talma in Pierre Lebrun's "Cid d'Andalousie." Notwithstanding the influence of two such names, the piece had no success.

Besides the ancient repertory which the young actress had soon ransacked, Mademoiselle Mars had established several new characters. None among these were so successful at the time as that of Hortense in Casimir Delavigne's" Ecole des Vieillards." In 1828 an unknown youth, then a clerk in the office of the Duke of Orleans, with an income of some seventy pounds a year, had prepared himself for a struggle with the old school, and backed with princely protection, had got a romantic drama received at the Theatre Français. Mademoiselle Mars played the chief part, in which vehement passions were made to take the place of the cold frigidities of the French classic drama; and the successes of the Duchesse de Guise ensured that of Alexandre Dumas's "Henri III." M. Dumas was the first writer of the romantic school, to whose success Mademoiselle Mars contributed her talent, as he was also the last. Mademoiselle de Belle Isle was the last new character assumed by Mademoiselle Mars.

It reflected great credit on the artist to be ready thus to cast off the shackles of the school in which she had been educated, and to throw her classical talent into the scale in favour of the young school. She established the character of Dona Sol da Silva in Victor Hugo's " Hernani," a play which more than any other contributed to the triumph of the romantic school.

But Mademoiselle Mars did not adopt all the creations of the new school without some criticism. In the scene in "Henri III.," where the duchess's lover is with her husband at the door, she insisted upon Dumas cutting short a monologue that Saint-Mégrin was to address to her, for she felt that she could not possibly be listening to a long discourse, however flattering, at the time that an outraged husband was ordering her to open the door. In the character of Mademoiselle de Belle Isle she always had a grudge against Dumas, whom she had caused to erase the words " mon enfant" twenty times, and who always found means to reintroduce them as often. But still Dumas was one of the actress's greatest favourites. To quote her own words, "One could say every thing to Dumas. What a comprehension of the scene, what tact, what a pen! I am indebted to him for my best characters, and he is indebted to me for his most brilliant success.'

Dumas was one of that coterie of favourites who partook of the "petit soupers" given at No. 10 in the Rue de Rivoli, by the side of a good fire, and at two o'clock in the morning, after the performances of the night were