propriated to himself during the time of her being articled to him.

It is said that Miss Stephens received many offers of marriage during her engagement at Drury Lane. A droll anecdote has been told by Mrs. C. B. Wilson, we know not how true it may be, of the fate experienced by one of her admirers. "During her early pupilage, a musical professor fell in love with her, proposed, and was accepted by her relations, but was received with coldness by the lady herself, as though she could not exactly make up her mind; (so goes the tale, which we give as we receive it.) However, the day was fixed, and the wedding guests invited. On arriving at the church porch the bride hesitated, looked archly, though timidly, in the visage of the would-be bridegroom, then suddenly bursting into a laugh, she sprang from his side, took to her heels, and did not stop till she arrived, almost breathless, at her father's house." Certes, this tale may be true, but it is not very probable as it is here set down.

After a long career of success, Miss Stephens finally quitted the profession when she had attained the ripe age of forty, and then became, by marriage, Countess of Essex, doing as much honour to her new rank as she had previously done to the stage. The last on our list, and with whom

"Ends this strange, eventful history,"

is Louisa Cranstoun Nisbett. She was of a good Irish family, and distantly related to the celebrated Captain Macnamara, who shot Colonel Montgomery in consequence of a dispute arising out of a fight between their dogs. Her father having dissipated his fortune, took to the stage when he assumed the name of Mordaunt, and would probably have succeeded, could he have confined his living within proper bounds. Of his gay, thoughtless disposition, the following anecdote may be taken as a fair specimen. A tradesman to whom he was indebted, addressed him thus:

"SIR,-Your bill having been standing a very long time, I beg to have it settled forthwith. "Yours, &c., J. THWAITES.

"Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury."

To this the comedian replied:

"SIR,-When your bill is tired of standing,

it is welcome to sit down.

"Yours, &c.,

T. H. M."

Miss Mordaunt, as we must now call her, evinced much precocious talent, and may be fairly written down amongst the child-wonders, the "infant phenomena," as Dickens's manager, Crummles, styled his daughter. When only ten years old, she played Jane Shore at the Lyceum, with

much applause. At sixteen, she appeared at Drury Lane Theatre, then under the management of an American lawyer, by name Stephen Price, when she made her first appearance as the Widow Cheerly in the "Soldier's Daughter," a forgotten comedy by Cherry.

After a successful season under the American management, Miss Mordaunt was engaged at the Haymarket, and soon afterwards she became the wife of John Alexander Nisbett, Esq., of the 1st Life Guards, and of Bretenham Hall, in the county of Suffolk. The marriage took place in January, 1831, when the bride retired from the stage. But her husband was soon afterwards killed by a vicious horse, and the estate being thrown into Chancery by some relatives, who contested the rights of inheritance, she returned to the stage, and again appeared at Drury Lane, 1832.

It would be tedious to follow the brilliant widow through the rest of her theatrical career, from Drury Lane to the little Queen's Theatre, from the little Queen's to the less Strand Theatre, from the Strand to the Haymarket, and from the Haymarket to Covent Garden. Eventually she married Sir William Boothby, Bart., but upon his death she, for a short time, resumed her professional avocations under her former name of Nisbett.

65

GENERAL DALZELL'S DINNER AT DUD

DINGSTON.

LORD DUNDEE has found many admirers, but no voice has ever yet been raised in favour of another noted persecutor of the Covenanters, General Thomas Dalzell. Yet, in this stern executor of the behests of his sovereign, there were gleams of kindly and amiable feeling, with which the exercise of his authority was occasionally tempered.

Thomas Dalzell was the son of the Laird of Binns, an estate which had not been long in his family. It was more anciently possessed by the House of Meldrum, and belonged to the "Esquire Meldrum," who is the hero of one of the poems of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, of which there is an interesting account in Lord Lindsay's

charming family biography. The father of Thomas Dalzell must have been a country gentleman of good fortune, to judge from the mansion-house of Binns, which was built, or at least re-modelled, by him. In the old drawing-room, a chamber of spacious dimensions, there is a beautiful ornamented plaster ceiling, with heraldic devices, in which the arms of the father and mother of the General are often repeated. The former are those of Dalzell, Earl of Carnwath, without any difference; so that it is probable that the family of Binns were cadets of that house; while the latter being those of Bruce of Kinloss, show that the reddest blood in Scotland flowed in the veins of the General. Thomas Dalzell was early imbued with the most devoted sentiments of loyalty to the King, and all his influence as a country gentleman, was exerted in behalf of Charles the First. After the murder of that monarch, he allowed his beard to grow, in token of mourning; and until the close of his life, he never suffered it to be shaved or trimmed, but used a large comb, which is still preserved as a relic in the family. Disgusted with the Commonwealth, Dalzell sought military service abroad. He entered into the Russian army, and soon obtained high rank. He was Lieutenant-General to the Czar Ivan, and distinguished himself in the