mak nae head gain the water comin' doon gay strang, and he was swoopit aff his feet, and ta'en out mair like a bundle o' claes than a man. "Time and the hour run through the roughest day!" SHEPHERD. And a' things yerthly hae an end. Sae had the streck. To mak a lang story short-the Forest stood it oot-the tailors gied in-and the Tredd's Union fell to pieces. But no before the Season o' Tailors was lang owre, and pairt o' the simmer too-for they didna return to their wark till the Langest Day. It was years afore the rebels recovered frae the want o' wage and the waste o' pose; but atween 1804 and 8, a' three married, and a’ three, as you ken, Mr North-for I hae been direckin' myself to Mr Tickler and Mr Buller-hae been ever sin' syne weel-behaved and weel-to-do-and I never see ony o' them without their tellin' me to gie you their compliments, mair especially the tailor o' Yarrow Ford-for Watty o' the Penhim, Mr Buller, that used to be ca'd the Flyin' Tailor o' Ettrick-sometimes fears that Christopher North hasna got owre yet the beatin' he gied him in the ninety-odd-the year Louis the 16th was guillotined-at hap-stapand-lowp. He never beat me, Mr Buller. NORTH. BULLER. From what I have heard of you in your youth, sir, indeed I can hardly credit it. Pardon my scepticism, Mr Hogg. SHEPHERD. You may be as great a sceptic as you choose--but Watty bate Kitty a' till sticks. NORTH. You have most unkindly persisted, Hogg, during all these forty years, in refusing to take into account my corns SHEPHERD. Corns or nae corns, Watty bate you a' till sticks. NORTH. Then I had been fishing all day up to the middle in the water, with a creel forty pound weight on my back SHEPHERD. Creel or nae creel, Watty bate you a' till sticks. NORTH. And I had a hole in my heel you might have put your hand into SHEPHERD. Sound heels or sair heels, Watty bate you a' till sticks. NORTH. And I sprained one of my ankles at the first rise. SHEPHERD. Though you had sprained baith, Watty wou'd hae bate you a' till sticks. Dinna curse the corduroys-for in breeks or oot o' breeks, Watty bate ye a' till sticks. You shanna be alloo'd to mak sic a fule o' yoursell. You were ance the best lowper I ever saw-accepp ane-and that ane was wee Watty o' the Pen-the Flyin' Tailor o' Ettrick-and he bate ye a' till sticks. NORTH. Well-I have done, sir. All people are mad on some one point or other -and your insan ty SHEPHERD. Mad or no mad, Watty bate you a' till sticks. NORTH. Peter, let off the gas. (Rising with marked displeasure.) SHEPHERD. O man! but that's puir spite! Biddin' Peter let aff the gas, merely 'cause I tauld Mr Buller what a' the Forest kens to be true, that him the bairns noo ca' the AULD HIRPLIN' HURCHEON, half-a-century sin', at hap-stap-andlowp, bate Christopher North a' till sticks! NORTH (with great vehemence.) Let off the gas, you stone! SHEPHERD. That's pitifu'! Ca'in' a man a stane! a man that has been sae lang too in his service and that has gien him nae provocation-for it wasna Peter but me that was obleeged to keep threepin' that Watty o' the Pen-by folk o' my time o' life never ca'd ony thing less than the Flying Tailor o' Ettrick, though by bairns never ca'd ony thing mair but the Auld Hirplin' Hurcheon, at hap-stap-and-lowp-on fair level mossy grun'-bate him a' till sticks. NORTH (in a voice of thunder.) You son of a sea-gun, let off the gas. SHEPHERD. Passion's aften figurative, and aye forgetfu'. But, I fear, he'll be breakin' a bluid-veshel-sae I'll remind him o' the siller bell. Peter has orders never to shaw his neb but at soun' o' the siller bell.-Sir, you've forgotten the siller bell. Play tingle-tingle-tingle-ting. NORTH (ringing the silver bell.) Too bad, James! Peter, let off the gas. SHEPHERD. [Peter lets off the gas. Ha! the bleeze o' Morn! Amazin'! 'Twas shortly after sunset when the gas was let on-and noo that the gas is let aff, lo! shortly after sunrise! BULLER. With us there has been no night. SHEPHERD. Yesterday was the Twunty First o' June-the Langest Day. We cou'd hae dune without artificial licht-for the few hours of midnicht were but a gloamin'-and we cou'd hae seen to read prent. A deep dew. BULLER. NORTH. As may be seen by the dry lairs in the wet grass of those cows up and at pasture. SHEPHERD. Naebody else stirria'. Luik there's a hare washin' her face like a cat wi' her paw. Eh man! luik at her three leverets, like as mony wee bit bears. BULLER. I had no idea there were so many singing birds so near the suburbs of a great city. SHEPHERD. Had na ye? In Scotland we ca' that the skriech o' day. What has become of the sea? NORTH. SHEPHERD. The sea! somebody has opened the sluice, and let aff the water. Nathere it's-fasten your een upon yon great green shadow-for that's Inchkeith-and you'll sune come to discern the sea waverin' round it, as if the air grew glass, and the glass water, while the water widens oot intil the Firth, and the Firth awa" intil the Main. Is yon North Berwick Law or the Bass-or baith-or neither-or a cape o' cloodlaun, or a thocht? NORTH. "Under the opening eyelids of the morn." SHEPHERD. See! Specks-like black water-flees. The boats o' the Newhaven fishTheir wives are snorin' yet wi' their heads in mutches-but wull ermen. [July, sune be risin' to fill their creels. Mr Buller, was you ever in our Embro Fish Market? No. Where is it, sir? BULLER. you daft? Aneath the North Brigg. BULLER. You said just now it was in the Parliament House. SHEPHERD. Either you or me has been dreamin'. But, Mr North, I'm desperate hungry-are ye no intendin' to gi'e us ony breakfast? Lo and behold! NORTH (ringing the silver bell.) [Enter Peter, Ambrose, King Pepin, Sir David Gam, and Tappietourie, with trays. SHEPHERD. Rows het frae the oven! Wheat scones! Barley scones! Wat and dry tost! Cookies! Baps! Muffins! Loaves and fishes! Rizzars! Finnans! Kipper! Speldrins! Herring! Marmlet! Jeely! Jam! Ham! Lamb! Tongue! Beef hung! Chickens! Fry! Pigeon pie! Crust and broon aside the Roon-but sit ye doon-no-freens, let's staun-haud up your haun -bless your face-North, gie's a grace--(North says grace.) Noo let's fa' too-but hooly-hooly-hooly-what vision this! What vision this! An Apparition or a Christian Leddy! I ken, I ken her by her curtshy-did that face no tell her name and her nature.-O deign, Mem, to sit doon aside the Shepherd.-Pardon me-tak the head o' the table, ma honour'd Mem-and let the Shepherd sit down aside You-and may I mak sae bauld as to introduce Mr Buller to you, Mem? Mr Buller, clear your een-for on the Leads o' the Lodge, in face o' heaven, and the risin' sun, I noo introduce you till MRS GENTLE. Ha! She's gane! NORTH (starting and looking wildly round). SHEPHERD. NORTH (recovering some of his composure). Too bad, James. SHEPHERD. A cretur o' the element! Like a' the ither loveliest sichts that veesit the een o' us mortals-but the dream o' a dream! But, thank heaven, a's no unsubstantial in this warld o' shadows. Were ony o' us to say sae, this breakfast wou'd gie him the lee! Noo, Gurney, mind hoo ye exten' short haun. your BULLER. "O Gurney! shall I call thee bird, or but a wandering voice!" Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Edinburgh. MRS SIDDONS was the daughter of Roger Kemble, the manager of a theatrical company that performed chiefly in the midland and the western towns of England, and of Sarah Ward, whose father was also a strolling manager. "I remember," says Mr Campbell," having seen the parents of the great actress in their old age. They were both of them tall and comely personages. The mother had a somewhat austere stateliness of manner, but it seems to have been from her that the family inherited their genius and force of character. Her voice had much of the emphasis of her daughter's; and her portrait, which long graced Mrs Siddons's drawingroom, had an intellectual expression of the strongest power; she gave you the idea of a Roman matron. The father had all the suavity of the old school of gentlemen. Persons who cannot for a moment disjoin the idea of human dignity from that of station, will perhaps be surprised that I should speak of the dignified manners of a pair who lived by the humble vocation which I have mentioned. It is nevertheless true, that the presence and demeanour of this couple might have graced a court; and though their relationship to Mrs Siddons and John Kemble of course enhan ced the interest which their venerable appearance commanded, yet I have been assured by those who knew them long before their children became illustrious, that in their humblest circumstances they always sustained an entire respectability. There are some individuals whom no circumstances can render vulgar, and Mr and Mrs Kemble were of this description. Besides, in spite of all our prejudices against the players' vocation, irreproachable personal character will always find its level in the general esteem." Mr Roger Kemble being, like his ancestors, a Catholic, whilst his wife was a Protestant, it was arranged that their sons should be bred in the Catholic faith, and the daughters in that of their mother. They had twelve children, of whom four died young; but three sons and five daughters arrived at adult yearsand they almost all chose the profession of their parents, though Mr Campbell says, "I have no doubt that Mr and Mrs Roger Kemble were anxious to prevent their children from becoming actors, and that they sought out other means of providing for them; but they made this attempt too late, that is, after their offspring had been accustomed to theatrical joyousness. For parents Life of Mrs Siddons, by Thomas Campbell. Effingham Wilson. London: 1834. VOL. XXXVI. NO. CCXXV. L Mrs Siddons, Part I. who are players themselves, it is hardly possible to keep their children from following the same life. The conversations the readings— the books of the family-the learning of the parts-the rehearsals at home -the gaiety diffused by the getting up of comic characters before they are acted-and the imposing dignity of tragic characters-the companyevery thing, indeed, which the children of play-acting parents hear and see, has a tendency to make them more prone to the stage than to any other such plodding and drudging occupations as the most of them would be otherwise destined to pursue." (Aug. ment Sarah disagreed with her faband was an unparalleled Falstaff." ther-for she alleged " that her hus the first time on the stage when a Sarah Kemble shewed herself for mere child-and was about to retire in a fright, on account of the uproar offended at her infantile appearance among a fastidious barn-audience —when her mother led her to the front of the stage, and made her repeat the fable of the "Boys and the Frogs," which not only appeased the pit, but produced thunders of applause, so that she was a successful débutante. At thirteen she was ras, and sang tolerably-at that pethe heroine in several English operiod occasionally warbling between in the Tempest-and must have been theacts. She used then, too, to be Ariel a beautiful creature of the element. Mr Siddons, an actor in her father's When she was about seventeen, company, wooed and won her, much to the dissatisfaction of her father, who played over again the part of to business in Birbingham, but being old Ward. The lover had been bred handsome and active, and not without versatile talents for the stage, as his range of characters extended from Hamlet to Harlequin, he had gained provincial popularity before Sarah Kemble's heart. Sarah was born at Brecon, July 5th, 1755, in a public-house called the Shoulder of Mutton-and a friend of Mr Campbell has given us a drawing and description of it, as he remembers seeing it stand of old, with its gable front, projecting upper floors, and a rich well-fed shoulder of mutton temptingly paint ed over the door. The Shoulder of Mutton being situated in the centre of Brecon, was much resorted to by the neighbouring inhabitants of the borough; and Mr Kemble, we are told, was neither an unwilling nor an unwelcome member of their jolly associations. He was, says Mr Campbell's correspondent, "a man of respectable family, and of some small hereditary property in Here- that her parents were not giving the The people of Brecon, suspecting fordshire, and having married the lovers fair play, took a warm interest daughter of a provincial manager, he in their attachment-and Mr Sidreceived a company of strolling dons, being jealous of a certain opuplayers for her dowry, and set up as a manager himself." It is not usually as it appeared, for his supposed lent squire named Evans, causelessto lie-in at public-houses, and from the somewhat ambiguous language here employed, one might think that Mr Roger Kemble had been the landlord of the Shoulder of Mutton. Yet that could hardly be the case, as he was an actor before his marriage, and married Miss Ward against her father's will. Manager Ward disapproved of his daughter marrying an actor, and when he found that her union with Kemble was inevitable, he was with difficulty persuaded to speak to her. He then forgave her, with all the bitterness of his heart, crying, "Sarah, you have not disobeyed me; I told you never to marry an actor, and you have married a man who neither is nor ever can be an actor." Even in this judg. rival "died an insolvent bachelor," made an appeal to the people of Brecon on the hardship of his case, at his benefit, which was a bumper. He had, in consequence of some ble, received his dismissal from the "impetuous language" to Mr Kemcompany-but having been injudiciously allowed a parting benefit, at in which we are not told whether the conclusion of the entertainments, he performed Hamlet or Harlequin probably both-he sung a song of his own composition, describing the pangs of his own attachment, the coldness of Miss Kemble, and the perfidy of her parents-in strains which, Mr Campbell observes, “ do delicacy or poetical genius." no remarkable credit either to his |