bued with the very soul of the Athenian drama, in her attitudes and gestures. She has been inspired by the exquisite taste of the Greek statuary; or rather her native grace has again presented to the world the breathing model from which their immortal conceptions were taken. The dress, the air, the walk, the ornaments, all are faultless: they have evidently been formed on the only true basis-a minute study of the remains of antiquity which have come down to our times. Her conception of the character perfectly conveys the idea of Sophocles. It is not the heroine braving death from the physical contempt of danger which she exhibits like Zenobia, or Joan of Arc, it is a gentle but affectionate sister discharging a sacred domestic duty under a full sense of its danger, but a resolute determination to incur it. It is the resignation of the Christian martyr rather than the spirit of the heathen Amazon which she depicts. Nothing can be more touching than the representation she gives of the heart-rending horror which overpowers Antigone, when, deserted in the extremity of her distress by all the world, she hears the dreadful fate which awaits her of being entombed alive in the rock. In many of her most beautiful attitudes, particularly when, in utter despair, she throws herself on her knees, with her head almost sunk to the ground, and her dark hair covering her prostrate countenance, we behold the realization of one of the most admired statues of antiquity. And if many such models were often presented to them, our artists would be lifeless indeed if they did not rival their great predecessors.

But although the genius of this accomplished actress has thus, after the lapse of two thousand three hundred years, responded to that of Sophocles; yet that is not the native bent of her mind, nor, perhaps, the line in which she is destined to attain the highest eminence. She is a child of the soil; she is essentially national in her ideas. Her mind was born at Stratford-onAvon; it was bred in the Forest of Arden; it emerged to the world beside the tomb of all the Capulets. Heart and soul she is Shakspearian. Her first ambition appears to have been to personate only the tragic heroines of that great dramatist, and she made her earliest appearances in them ac

cordingly on the London stage. Subsequently, however, her ardent admiration for her favourite bard appears to have led her to attempt the personation of Shakspeare's lighter and more playful characters; and in them she is unrivalled. The power thus acquired of combining the graces of elegant, or rather bewitching comedy, with the passions of tragedy, is what now constitutes her great and peculiar excellence. It is what makes her Juliet or Pauline so attractive. They exhibit, alternately, the charm of fascinating character, and the pathos of tragic event. She thus adds another to the numerous instances which biography affords of the truth, that Nature brings the highest genius only by degrees to maturity; that all the events and changes of life concur in its development; and that often what are at the time deemed its hardships and difficulties, are the means by which, under an unseen Hand, its powers are invigorated, its aim elevated; and it is prepared for its final and most exalted destiny.

If Miss Helen Faucit need fear no competitor on the English, she has a contest worthy of herself to maintain on the French stage. The talents of MADEMOISELLE RACHEL are so great, and yet so peculiar, that they seem to stand forth in the brightest relief beside the attractive graces of her fascinating rival. They are as opposite as "ebon and ivory." Thorwaldson's beautiful cameos of Day and Night might pass for emblems of their mental characters. Miss Faucit can be at times as deep as midnight; but the sun rises so soon that it does not form her prevailing character. The dark and the terrible constitute Mademoiselle Rachel's general turn of mind. Their step, air, and walk on the stage are as dissimilar as their countenances, powers, and turn of mind. Mademoiselle Rachel has none of the versatility of Miss Faucit. She could not alternately captivate in Rosalind, melt in Belvidera, and thrill with horror in the last scenes of Juliet. She is more stately and mournful. Her mind, cast in a sterner mould, fraught with more vehement feelings, is susceptible chiefly of the stronger passions. In them she is supremely great. Though endowed by nature with the power of attracting admiration, she is not powerful in the delinea.

tion of the tender affections. But in the vehement and impassioned the peculiar character of her mind is apparent. She feels she is qualified to awaken love; and satisfied of that, she has little patience for its lighter moods. She dis

dains its levities, its inconstancy, its caprice. She passes at once over its earlier stages. She seizes it, not when it treads on flowers, but when it is falling into the abyss. If it be true, as Byron says, that love is___

"A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears,"

she has no patience for the folly-she makes straight to the tears. No one ever excelled, few have equalled her in the representation of the dreadful agony of the mind, when one overpowering passion has concentrated all its energies, and the last beams of hope have sunk in the hopelessness of despair. The inimitable power with which she delineated that state of mind, in the character of Phedre and Hermione, at St. James's Theatre, last summer, can never be forgotten by those who witnessed them, and have secured for this great actress a durable place in the Pantheon of English as well as continental Fame.

Of all the racking and distracting passions of the mind in woman, jealousy is the one which Mademoiselle Rachel represents with the greatest power. In its delineation she is decidedly superior to either Mrs. Siddons, Miss O'Neil, or Miss Faucit. We hope it is not the case-we are sure one so gifted has less reason than most of her sex to fear rivalry-but we should almost be tempted to believe, from the inimitable power and fearful truthfulness of her delineation of that dreadful passion, in the Sultana, in the noble tragedy of Bajazet, that she was drawing from the lifethat she expressed what she had herself felt. The fiery torrent seems to have penetrated every vein and fibre of her frame. All her limbs quiver; every muscle trembles, as if the burning iron had convulsed the body, and was entering into the soul. Genius, and that of the very highest kind, was here at once apparent. Its effects was manifest in the thunders of applause which it at once drew forth, even from the courtly dames and reserved daughters of England's nobi

lity. You could not say that she was inspired by the poet; she rather seemed to have inspired him. On the grand conceptions and stately Alexandrines of the immortal dramatist, she had superadded a world of her own creation, so vehement, so entrancing, yet so true to nature, that the audience were burried along, as by an impetuous torrent, and forgot the verses and even the play, in the intense interest excited by the performer.

:

Mademoiselle Rachel has not received any remarkable physical advantages from nature. Her figure, though finely formed, is neither tall nor commanding her hair and complexion are dark, but not peculiarly fine; her countenance, though in the highest degree expressive, can hardly be said to be beautiful. But never in a human being was the triumph of mind over matter more signally evinced. She is tragedy personified; as fitly nearly as Mrs. Siddons, she might sit with the dagger and the bowl by her side. Her dark eyebrows and sable locks, the sad and melancholy expression of her visage, the stern and relentless glance of her eyes-all bespeak the concentration of the mourn. ful feelings of the vehement and ravaging passions. She acts from the intensity of her emotions. She is a great performer, because, in similar circumstances in real life, she would have been a dauntless heroine. The glance of indignation, the thrill of horror, the wail of despair, the pangs of jealousy, the delight of revenge, are represented by her with such inimitable truth, that they seem not to be assumed, but to emanate from a being fraught with these passions. They flow from her as from their natural fountain; they gush forth like pent-up waters on the bursting forth of a lake in the mountains.

Phedre is perhaps the most touching of Mademoiselle Rachel's representations. The wonderful delicacy with which Racine has softened whatever might be repugnant to modern feelings in that pathetic drama; the dreadful agony of love contending with modesty, passion with duty; the despair consequent on the rejection of an absorbing passion, by the man to whom existence had been devoted; were given by her with the utmost possible effect. In Hermione, there is more room for va

riety of performance. The tragic emo. tions are only called forth in their full violence, in the two last acts; but there they were given with the whole and terrible powers of the actress. In Chimene, too, in Corneille's noble tragedy of The Cid, she appears with equal force, and in a different character. If Phedre represents the passions which distracted woman in antiquity, Chimone pourtrays her noblest attitude amid the chivalrous manners and elevated feelings of modern times. The contest of love with duty, of tenderness with pride, of the passion for glory with the impulse of the heart, which Corneille has there so admirably represented, met with a responsive echo in her bosom, and penetrated the breasts of all who witnessed it. In "Les Horaces" she was equally admirable. Tho contest between Roman patriotism and maidenly affection-between the agonies of love and the dictates of duty, which Livy so touchingly pourtrayed, and the poet has so admirably expanded, presented a worthy field for her dignified powers.

We prefer her in the tragedies of Corneille to any other parts. She is not tender enough for Racine, discursive enough for Voltaire; but the noble sentiments and stately verses of Corneille, interspersed with his vehement occasional bursts of passion, are peculiarly adapted for her magnificent powers. When we behold his pieces thus sustained, and recollect that it is the expiring genius of the French stage amidst the deluge of romantic barbarism, which is there embodied in so noble a form, we are impressed with the most melancholy feelings, and are tempted to exclaim, with the poet, on seeing the representation of ancient greatness by Kemble

"Thou, last of all the Romans, fare thee well!"

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formed of Miss Helen Faucit and Mademoiselle Rachel's powers by the amount of present celebrity which they enjoy in ordinary society. You constantly hear in the world that the age of great performers is past; that there are now no Garricks or Siddons's in existence

that the degradation of the stage is

owing to the owing to the want of genius in the performers. There never was a greater mistake. The fault is not in them, but in ourselves. The testimony of one who is old enough to have beheld both, and saw Siddons and Kemble early in life, when excellence, especially in woman, produces the strongest impression, may be relied on for the assertion, that the performances of these two actresses were never outdone in the olden time. Why, then, are they not, as their great predecessors were, overloaded by a nation's gratitude? Because the nation has become unworthy, of them; because the multitude who now fill the theatres cannot appreciate their excellence. Admiration of them is confined to the really educated and refined; and how many are they in so.b ciety? Not one in fifty! It is Free Trade in Theatres" which has ruined the stage. A class has come to form the majority in every theatre, which is incapable of appreciating anything which is not addressed to the senses. In those days, a majority rules every thing. Thence the decline of the drama. In the days of Kemble and Siddons, ten minor theatres were not catering in London for the desires of an ignorant and sensual multitude; they had not to contend with the "Crusaders," or " Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures ;" the "Pas des Deeses" did not attract crowds by the prodigal display of matchless female charms. In every country, and in every art, there is a period of purity in the national taste, and a period of corruption. We have fallen into the sere leaf.

THE life of Robert Emmet should have been written by Thomas Moore; they were cotemporaries and fellowcollegians; and both, during the early period of their lives, enthusiasts in what was deemed the cause of liberty. The poet would have given a brilliant colouring to the day-dreams of his unfortunate compatriot; and painted the visions in which he loved to indulge with a force and a feeling which would enable even the coldest to realize them.

Robert Southey, also, knew him well; and would, we are persuaded, bad the materials been placed in his hands, have done generous justice to the memory of his early friend.

We

have heard the late poet laureate speak of the ill-starred youth, whose promise was so bright, and whose end was so disastrous, with a touching tenderness; and express his confident belief that had he but outlived the hallucinations by which his ardent imagination had been captivated, his intellectual power would have secured him lofty eminence, and his career would have been one of usefulness and honour. Hapless young man! He was the victim of a Mokanna infatuation ! Treason was "the veiled prophet," by whom his early affections had been gained, and towards whom all his aspirations were directed; and he worshipped the object of his idolatry with a devotion as intense, as that object, when seen in its true colours, was hideous and revolting!

But "fools," we are told, "rush in where angels fear to tread." And

what Moore and Southey have omitted to attempt, Dr. Madden has undertaken to perform. Hard measure this to the insurgent leader! It was bad enough to be compelled to mount the scaffold; but it was no part of his sentence to be gibbeted after his death. "Save me from my friends" has passed into a proverb, as an exclamation expressive of the injury which is some

time inflicted by over-zealous advocates, or injudicious admirers. And if the spirits of the departed are ever cognizant of the things of earth, and the scene of their early trials and suffer. ings is ever present to them, we know not how they could be made to feel a sharper pang, than when an officious intermeddler, like our author, disturbs the repose in which they had remained, and would fain emblazon their errors and their crimes as their most creditable memorial: errors which the sanguine temperament of youth had generated, and which maturer age would assuredly have corrected; and crimes which would never have been perpetrated, had they had the benefit of a more enlarged experience. Doubly would they grieve could they perceive that their lives were made use of for the purpose of luring others upon the rocks and quicksands where they themselves had perished; and that the very delusions which proved their bane, should acquire an additional fascination from their example. That such is the tendency of Dr. Madden's work, whatever may be his intentions, (of these we do not presume to judge) must be manifest to every candid and intelligent reader. He has spared no pains to possess himself of all the authentic information within his reach, respecting the youth whom he regards as a martyr to the cause of Irish independence, and of whose principles he is an enthusiastic admirer; but any antidote to the poison contained in his pages, his readers must find for themselves.

Robert Emmet was the youngest son of Doctor Emmet, a medical practitioner of eminence in his day, and who enjoyed the rank and the emoluments of state physician to the Viceregal household. Few men had better reason to entertain high hopes of distinction for his offspring, as they were all remarkably gifted with talent, and possessed, beside, those attractive man

VOL. XXVIII.-No. 168.

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ners which made them universally engaging. His eldest son, Temple Em met, who had been called to the bar, was just beginning to acquire that professional celebrity which would soon have realized all his father's fondest expectations, when he was smitten with a fatal malady, which hurried him to an early grave. His second son, Thomas Addis Emmet, became deeply compromised in the treason of the United Irishmen, and narrowly escaped the forfeiture of his life, by entering, with other state prisoners, into a compact with government, by which, in virtue of certain disclosures which they made respecting the nature and the extent of the conspiracy, they were permitted to banish themselves out of Ireland. His youngest son, Robert, to whose brief and tragical history we are about more particularly to advert, was not destined to prove an exception to the general fatality which seems to have attended this unhappy family, and was only fortunate in the circumstance that his death was anticipated by that of his parents, upon whom the series of their domestic calamities pressed so heavily as to bring down their " grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."

Doctor Emmet lived at a period when revolutionary politics were all the rage; and we have little reason to wonder that he was one of those who were captivated by the novel theories of liberty and equality which had attained so much acceptance with the most distinguished of the senators and the patriots of Ireland. The principles to which Charlemont and Grattan, Flood, and Hussey Burgh, had given in their adhesion, came powerfully recommended to the friend and the admirer of these gifted men; and we are not to be surprised that the household words to which his family were most accustomed were such as conveyed his indignant impression of the tyranny of England too long endured, the rights of Ireland too long withheld, and the duty of her patriot sons to seize upon the first opportunity of vindicating the national independence. The respecta bility of his character, the general estimation in which he was held, his social and domestic virtues, all conspired to add force to the impression which his sentiments and his example were calculated to make upon ardent

and susceptible minds which regarded 10 him with more than filial reverence;97 and it would, indeed, be surprising ifod the children of such a parent, sod brought up, and at a time when so many events, both foreign and domes-or tic, were occurring, of a nature to insi flame the passions and stimulate the expectations of all the restless and discontented, had not deeply implanted in them those seeds of republican equality which afterwards germinated into revolutionary violence, and finally became prolific of treason.

But ninety-eight, which saw the l outbreak, saw the prostration of thes hopes of the United Irishmen. Thes promptitude of government in seizing upon the revolutionary leaders, paralyzed the energies of the disaffected d and the rebellion was put down withi as little of severity as could possibly attend the suppression of a conspiracy in which so large a number of the peo-I ple were engaged, and which was s fraught with so much formidable dan t ger. Addis Emmet, with other prin's cipals, had been arrested, and kept in close confinement; and it was while s the family were involved in the o gloom and sadness which his misfor tunes occasioned, and were yet uncer tain of his fate, that Robert became baptized into the number of the con spirators, and initiated in the mysteries of treason. He had early learned the catechism of the disaffected. The spurious philosophy, and the rampant notions of liberty, which constituted the stock in trade of the patriots, par excellence, of that day, found a soil but too congenial in the ardent and imaginative temperament of a youth who had been all his life breathing an atmosphere of sedition, and whose very virtues only rendered him more liable to be influenced by the example of those he loved. And the very sorrows which would serve to wean a less sincere or enthusiastic votary from the cause which had proved so disastrous to his dearest relatives, would only, in his case, exert a consecrating influence, giving a wild sublimity to his dis interestedness, and doubly riveting the chains of his fancied obligations. As our Goldsmith beautifully said of the Swiss peasant

"The storms that round him roar, But bind him to his native mountains more,"

so, it is our belief, the very troubles