Doyne had no personal advantages; his rank in the army was inconsiderable; and his private fortune slender, which, translated from the idiom of the sister island, is, perhaps, little or nothing. How far she had entangled herself with Daly, and by what ill-considered engagements he might pretend to detain her, are now of little moment, though at the time decisive of her fate. She directed her course to England.-But before we shew our fair wanderer upon her new stage, it may be proper to inquire what facilities the kingdom she quitted afforded for the attainment of histrionic excellence.

Ireland, as a school for a young actress, had been long rendered of first-rate importance by the brilliant career of Mrs. Abington, who acted at both the Dublin theatres, and unquestionably possessed very peculiar and hitherto unapproached talent. She, I think, took more entire possession of the stage, than any actress I have seen; there was, however, no assumption in her dignity; she was a lawful and graceful sovereign, who exerted her full power, and enjoyed her established prerogatives. The ladies of her day wore the hoop and its con

comitant train. The Spectator's exercise of the fan was really no play of fancy. Shall I say that I have never seen it in a hand so dexterous as that of Mrs. Abington? She was a woman of great application; to speak as she did, required more thought than usually attends female study. Far the greater part of the sex rely upon an intuition which seldom misleads them; such discernment as it gives, becomes habitual and is commonly sufficient, or sufficient for common purposes. But common-place was not the station of Abington. She was always beyond the surface; untwisted all the chains which bind ideas together; and seized upon the exact cadence and emphasis by which the point of the dialogue is enforced. Her voice was of a high pitch, and not very powerful. Her management of it alone made it an organ; yet this was so perfect that we sometimes converted the mere effect into a cause, and supposed it was the sharpness of the tone that had conveyed the sting. Yet, her figure considered, her voice rather sounded inadequate; its articulation, however, gave both strength and smartness to it, though it could not give sweetness. You heard her well, and without difficulty; and it is the first

duty of a public speaker to be audible and intelligible. Her deportment is not so easily described; more womanly than Farren; fuller, yet not heavy, like Younge, and far beyond even the conception of modern fine ladies, Mrs. Abington remains in memory as a thing for chance to restore to us, rather than design; and revive our polite comedy at the same time.

Miss Francis, with her natural good sense could not fail to discover that she had undertaken no slight enterprise. The speaking voice, it is true, soon makes its way, and the possessor of nature's music perceives the spell that it has breathed around. To be listened to without a sign of weariness-to dress by a few words of slight importance every countenance in smiles-to see even habitual cunning desert the worldly, and gravity the thoughtful-such are the tributes uniformly paid to a melodious utterance. The young actress would be aware also of the perfect symmetry of her form, and though below the majestic and above the common, might consider herself seated as it were about the centre of humanity, and reaching far indeed into the rival realms of feeling and humour.

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Miss Francis never effused herself much in talk, she had no ambition after the voluble and the witty. I know not that she would have been much distinguished, had chance diverted her from the stage; yet I think I know that she could not have been happy, without the exercise of her theatric talent; and that she was seeking the only medium that could display the unbounded humour, the whim, the sportiveness of her own nature on the one hand, or the persuasive reason and unaffected sensibility that gave a sterling value to the lighter parts of her composition on the other.

She never gave herself the credit of much study, and the truth was that, except as to mere words, her studies lay little in books; with her eye and ear she would become insensibly learned:-all the peculiarities of action and the whole gamut of tone were speedily acquired; the general notion of a character once settled, she called upon nature, within her own bosom, to fill up the outline, and the mighty parent stored it with richer materials than ever fancy could devise; except it was the fancy that embodied Falstaff, a part so made out, that every speech is a lesson as to the mode of its de

livery, and to understand whose language thoroughly, is to be himself.

I have named these two great women together, though they had not the slightest resemblance, even when viewed in the same characters. When Mrs. Abington changed her higher range of characters for the cast of Mrs. Jordan in comedy, she always reminded you of the sphere she dropped from; there was no little high life below stairs. Mrs. Jordan was the genuine thing itself—and that she imitated at all, never obtruded itself for a moment upon her audience. There was a heartiness in her enjoyment, a sincerity in her laugh, that sunk the actress in the woman; she seemed only to exhibit herself, and her own wild fancies, and utter the impromptus of the moment.

The reader will perhaps ask here, whether this was at all borne out by the fact; and whether Mrs. Jordan's natural character any way resembled this stage impression of her? The answer, as far as I had means to estimate her, is-NOT IN THE She needed to touch the boards of the theatre, to draw from her what delighted equally all ranks and ages of either sex-about whose pre

LEAST.