For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. And a light wind blew fresh from sea to May match the Athenian's master-work of PRINCE of painters, come, I pray, Paint my love, for, though away, King of craftsmen, you can well Paint what I to thee can tell. First, her hair you must indite Dark, but soft as summer night; Hast thou no contrivance whence To make it breathe its frankincense? Rising from her rounded cheek Let thy pencil duly speak, How below that purpling night Glows her forehead ivory-white. Mind you neither part nor join Those sweet eyebrows' easy line; They must merge, you know, to be In separated unity. Painter, draw, as lover bids, Now the dark line of the lids; Painter, now 'tis my desire, Make her glance from very fire, Make it as Athene's blue, Like Cythera's liquid too; Now to give her cheeks and nose, Milk must mingle with the rose; Her lips be like persuasion's made, To call for kisses they persuade; And for her delicious chin, O'er and under and within, And round her soft neck's Parian wall, Bid fly the graces, one and all. | might; Beauty supreme, and Glory infinite, Smile undismayed in Pallas' peerless shrine; Fair Fane, that loftiest memories entwine, Though Time hath o'er thee swept with scathing flight, And War's rude touch hath marred thy marble white, Unconquered Thought's Eternity is thine! Yes! Thou hast seen Athene yield to Christ, The Moslem's merciless sway-till Freedom, won At Navarino, chased away the mist That blackening brooded o'er thee, and outshone The dawn of Greece re-risen-and Hope, that kissed To life-from death-like sleep - the Parthenon. Blackwood's Magazine. SOUVENIR. EVEN as a garden full of branch and blooth Seen in a looking-glass and so more fair With boughs suspended in a magic air More spacious and more radiant than the truth; So I remember thee, my happy Youth, And smile to look upon the days that were, As they had never told of doubt or care, As I had never wept for grief or ruth. So, were our spirits destined to endure, And not the mocking mirage of our dearth! Through all eternity might heaven appear MRS. JAMES DARMESTETER. From Temple Bar. GODWIN, condescending for once to epigram, described Mrs. Inchbald as a piquante mixture between a lady and a milkmaid." Sheridan declared that she was the only authoress whose society pleased him; and the passing glimpses we obtain of her in the memoirs and letters of contemporaries excite the wish that they were fuller and more frequent. the assistance of such of her children as remained single. Four of her daughters married early, and went to live in London, which thenceforward became the promised laud to Elizabeth, who, at thirteen, declared that she "had rather die than not see the world." In early youth, though her charming manner and gay disposition eminently fitted her to be popular in society, she shrank from it nervously, because of a stammer which Few things in the annals of biography in later years was considered only an are more to be regretted than the evil addition to her many attractions. Yet, fate which, making a never-to-be- oddly enough, her great ambition was forgiven Dr. Poynter its instrument, to become an actress. With this end robbed the reading world of Mrs. Inch-in view she persistently endeavored to bald's "Memoirs written by Herself," improve her enunciation, writing the and substituted the materials collected words which she found most difficult, for those memoirs, manipulated afresh and carrying them about with her, so by the prosy and pompous James that she might lose no opportunity of Boaden.# practising them. The publishers of that day knew that Mrs. Inchbald was compiling her recollections, and competed eagerly for them, offering a thousand pounds without seeing the manuscript, and in one case even proposing to settle an annuity on her. But she demurred and held back; and only a memorandum found amongst her papers rather mysteriously indicates the fate of the precious work. Query. What I should wish done at the point of death. Dr. P.-Do it now. The bright anecdotes and sketches of famous contemporaries that must have flowed from the pen of the author of "The Simple Story," when relating her own chequered career, are lost beyond recall. But it is still possible to disentangle the facts of her life from the wearisome platitudes and yet more intolerable puns of her historian. Elizabeth, the fairest of several fair daughters of John Simpson, a Roman Catholic farmer living at Standingfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, was born in 1753, only eight years before her father's death. Her mother, who seems to have been a sensible and energetic woman, brought up her large family well, and long carried on the farm with Elizabeth's taste for the drama was shared by all her family; one of their favorite amusements was to read plays aloud, each taking a part. When the theatre at Bury St. Edmunds was open the Simpsons were regular attendants; they made friends among members of the companies performing there, and in 1770 Elizabeth applied to Richard Griffith, manager of the Norwich Theatre, for an engagement. Nothing came of the application then, but a friendly correspondence and an amusing entry in her pocket-book: “R-i-c-h-' a-r-d G-r-i-f-f-i-t-h. Each dear letter of thy name is harmony!" In the same year her brother George exchanged the farm for the stage. His frequent letters, which no doubt dwelt rather on the lights than the shadows of theatrical life, increased Elizabeth's desire to follow the same course. Visiting Mrs. Hunt, one of her married sisters, in 1771, Elizabeth became acquainted with Mr. Inchbald, an actor of respectability, who promptly fell in love with her, accompanied her on sight-seeing expeditions, and after her return wrote to her mother and herself what was evidently an offer of his hand. Her answer was more candid than encouraging : sioned if fewer persons were guilty of this indiscretion-an indiscretion that shocks In spite of your eloquent pen [she con- | back to the farm if any of her family cludes] matrimony still appears to me with knew where she was to be found, Elizless charms than terrors . to enter into abeth did not join her sisters when she marriage with the least reluctance, as fear-arrived in London "in the Norwich ing you are going to sacrifice part of your Fly," but went in search of some life, must be greatly imprudent. Fewer friends who had been living at Charing unhappy marriages, I think, would be occaCross, only to find that they had quitted London for Wales. She appears then, if one may judge from an account of her proceedings which Boaden pronounces founded on fact (on the ground that it was published in her lifetime and not contradicted by her), to have become distraught with nervous excitement, to have run away from houses where she would have been kindly received, to have wandered aimlessly about the neighborhood of Holborn, and finally to have obtained a room at the White Swan, under the pretext that she had been disappointed of a me, and which I hope Heaven will ever preserve me from; as must be your wish, if the regard that you have professed for me be really mine, of which I am not wholly undeserving; for, as much as the strongest friendship can allow, I am yours-E. Simpson.1 It seems, from some brief but significant entries in her journal, that at this time she was wavering between Mr. Inchibald, who loved her, and Mr. Griffith, whom she fancied she loved : January 22nd. — Saw Mr. Griffith's pic ture. 28th. Stole it. 29th. seat in the York coach. But her hosts must have regarded her with some sus Rather disappointed at not receiv-picion, for they locked her into her ing a letter from Mr. Inchbald. room at night ! She remained there, however, living on "a roll or two and a draught of water," until her failure to obtain an immediate theatrical engagement, and her rapidly dwindling funds, frightened her into communicating with her sisters. She then received her mother's forgiveness and help, and met Mr. Inchbald again at the house of her brother-in-law, Mr. Slender. Some incidents during her negotiations with managers, peculiarly revolting to a girl of her high spirit and natural refinement, no doubt sharpened her appreciation of Mr. Inchbald's unwearied devotion. She had evidently begun to realize acutely the difficulty of making her way in London alone and unprotected. Two months after her arrival in town they were married by a Catholic priest and afterwards by a Protestant clergyman, and in the evening the 3 The fragments of her diary which escaped destruction contain excellent descriptive touches. She says of her brother-in-law: "Mr. Slender was in reality good natured, but his good nature consisted in frightening you to death to have the pleasure of recovering you; in holding an axe over your head for the purpose of pronouncing a re 2 Memoirs and Correspondence of Mrs. Inchbald. prieve." Val. i., p. 25. 4 Yet Boaden declares they were "both Roman 1 bride accompanied Mrs. Slender to the A letter from Digges, manager of the only twenty, and her beauty and grace no doubt compensated for the absence of histrionic genius, to which she appears never to have risen.2 Her journal shows that both she and her husband possessed tastes and aspiraOn the following day they started for tions beyond the limits of their profesBristol, where Mr. Inchbald had an sion. While she was studying French engagement, and there, in the Septem- and busying herself with translations, ber of the same year, Mrs. Inchbald he was painting her portrait and giving made her first appearance on any stage | her drawing-lessons. as Cordelia to her husband's Lear. She must have looked the character Dumfries Theatre at this period, sugenchantingly, but did not, it would gests an occasional conflict between the seem, declaim it equally well, for she feelings of the artist and the woman. relates many painstaking lessons be- After asking her to take the part of stowed on her by her husband, both Zaphira, as he "cannot depend on any indoors and out, wandering over the other person's attention or punctuality hills or sitting by the fireside, with a with safety to the welfare of the theaview to curing the mechanical and mo- tre," he adds: notonous utterance she adopted as a I should wish you'd be so good as to dress precaution against her stammer. She it in a matron-like manner; much depends was industrious, and certainly not fas- on that. And if you would suffer your face tidious as to the parts in which she to be a little marked, as I have seen Mrs. appeared, for we read of her as Anne Woffington's in "Veturia," it must greatly Boleyn, one of the witches in "Mac-serve you. beth," Jane Shore, a Bacchante in No doubt she complied; at all events, The seven years of Mrs. Inchbald's and pair of earrings. Perhaps as conmarried life were chiefly spent in trav-solation for her temporary disfigureelling from theatre to theatre in the ment! United Kingdom, sharing her hus- In June, 1776, we are told, while in the Edinburgh Theatre, In Paris, Mrs. Inchbald's grace and intelligence made her popular at once, and the fact that she and her husband were Roman Catholics opened many 2 One charm she seems to have possessed in common with Mrs. Jordan -a spontaneous, infectious, musical laugh. She says that in playing comedy she could not resist laughing much more often than had been set down for her. |