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men?"

"No, let her remain; the breeze is faint already: we During this time, the pirate had been questioning the su shall have a calm in half an hour. Have we lost many percargo as to the contents of the vessel and her stowage, when he was suddenly interrupted by one of the pirates, who “Only seven, that I can reckon; but we have lost Wal- in a hurried voice, stated that the ship had received severa, lace" (the second mate.) shot between wind and water, and was sinking fast. Cain,

"A little promotion will do no harm," replied Cain; who was standing on the slide of the carronade with his "take a dozen of our best men and search the ship, there sword in his hand, raised his arm and struck the pirate a are others alive yet. By the by, send a watch on board of blow on his head with the hilt, which, whether intended or the schooner; she is left to the mercy of the Kroumen, not, fractured his skull, and the man fell upon the deck. and "Take that, babbler! for your diligence; if these

One who is better out of her," replied Hawkhurst.-men are obstinate, we may have worked for nothing." "And those we find below continued the mate.

Alive!**

True; we may else be puzzled where to find that portion of her cargo which suits us," said Hawkhurst, going down the hatchway to eclect the men who were plundering on the main dees and in the captain's cabin.

The crew, who felt the truth of their captain's remark, did not appear to object to the punishment inflicted, and the body of the man was dragged away.

"What mercy can we expect from those who shew no mercy to each other?" observed the bishop, lifting up his eyes to heaven.

Here, you Mutese! up, there! and look well round if "Silence!" cried Cain; who now interrogated the suthere is anything in sight," said the captain, walking aft. percargo as to the contents of the hold-the poor man anBefore How'shurst had collected the men and ordered swered as well as he could-"the plate! the money for the trem on heard the schooner, as usual in those latitudes, it troops-where are they?" Jaú len a ærect eum.

"The money for the troops is in the spirit room, but Where was Francisco during this scene of blood? He of the plate I know nothing; it is in some of the cases had remained in the cabin of the schooner. Cain had belonging to my lord the bishop." more than once gone down to him, to persuade him to "Hawkhurst? down at once into the spirit-room and ovate on dees and assist at the boarding of the Portuguese, see to the money; in the mean time I will ask a few quesbut a van-as scie reply to the threats and solicitations tions of this reverend father."

w the pate was

The poor man fell down on his knees in thankfulness

"And the supercargo-do you want him any more?" “Do web me as you please-I have made up my mind "No; he may go." you know I do not ear death-so long as I remain on board of t`i s vessel I will take no part in your atrocities. at what he considered his escape: he was dragged away 1 you do respect my mother's memory, suffer her son to seek a conest and honourable livelihood."

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by the pirates, and, it is scarcely necessary to add, that in a minute his body was torn to pieces by the sharks, who, scenting their prey from a distance, were now playing in shoals around the two vessels.

Diese words of Francisco were ringing in the ears of Cana as he walked up and down on the quarterdeck of the Popuguese vessel, and, debased as he was, he could not The party on the quarter-deck were now unperceived re vath was equal in animal, and his by the captain) joined by Francisco, who, hearing from oan, ge—he was arguing in his own the Krouman, Pompey, that there were prisoners still on codes le should pursue with respect to board, and amongst them two females, had come over to Panic goy when Norsued made his appearance on deck, plead the cause of mercy. "Most reverend father," observed Cain, after a short #pace by bạc thy wie dagged up six mividuals who had owwwpoxi de There were the bisher; his pause; "you have many articles of value in this vessel ?" move, a Progdow got, het altuunt, the sercargo of "None," replied the bishop, "except this poor girl; she sw» 、 ¢v{ 4 series, and a server of the prelomasties indeed, beyond price, and will, I trust, be soon an angel We were 9 tỷ ang the ûbed and shaped in a row be in heaven." "Yet is this world, if what you preach be true, a purFor the captaing Whu vưd he pros txm them in severe Fio No hope and be meçe locked round, the one gatory which must be passed through previous to arriv Pere Cos, 4though he tell that his ing there, and that girl may think death a blessing comthe ulici, care ully avoiding his gaze, and pared to what she may expect if you refuse to tell me Check verkam when there were any other what I would know. You have good store of gold at hok hekoublood was amongst them; and silver ornaments for your churches-where coral wad what the sought it was met they?"

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"Answer quickly; no more subterfuge, good sir. Where is it to be found?"

"I will not tell, thou blood-stained man; at least, in this Sungated Hawkhoai maig, instance, there shall be disappointment, and the sea shall swallow up those earthly treasures to obtain which thou vast so deeply imbrued thy hands. Pirate! I repeat it, I

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From the Retrospective Review. the theatre,-that magic circle whose majesties do not

An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, perish with the chances of the world, and whose glories

and late Patentee of the Theatre Royal, with an Historical View of the Stage in his own Time, written by Himself. The Second Edition. London, 1740.

never grow dim. In reading his life, we become possessed of his own feathery lightness, and seem to follow the course of the gayest and the emptiest of all the bubbles, that, in his age of happy trifling, floated along the shallow but glittering stream of existence.

THERE are, perhaps, few individuals, of intense personal feeling, whose lives, written by themselves, would be des- The Life of Cibber is peculiarly a favorite with us, not titute of interest or of value. Works of this description only by reason of the superlative coxcombry which it exenlarge the number of our intimacies without inconve-hibits, but of the due veneration which it yields to an art nience, awaken, with a peculiar vividness, pleasant recol- too frequently under-rated, even among those to whose lections of our own past career, and excite that fond and gratification it ministers. If the degree of enjoyment and gentle sympathy with the little sorrows, cares, hopes, and of benefit produced by an art be any test of its excellence, enjoyment of others, which infuses new tenderness into all there are few indeed, which will yield to that of the actor. the pulses of individual joy. The qualification which is His exertions do not, indeed, often excite emotions so deep most indispensable to the writer of such auto-biographies, or so pure as those which the noblest poetry inspires, but is vanity. If he does not dwell with gusto on his own their general influence are far more widely extended. theme, he will communicate no gratification to his reader. The tenderest beauties of the most gifted of bards, find in He must not, indeed, fancy himself too outrageously what the bosoms of a very small number an answering sympahe is not, but should have the highest sense of what he is, thy: Even of those who talk familiarly Spenser and Milthe happiest relish for his own peculiarities, and the most ton, there are few who have fairly read, and still fewer blissful assurance that they are matters of great interest to who truly feel their divine effusions. It is only in the the world. He who feels thus, will not chill us by cold theatre, that any image of the real grandeur of humanity generalities, but trace with an exquisite minuteness all the -any picture of generous heroism and noble self-sacrifelicities of his life, all the well remembered moments of fice-is poured on the imaginations, and sent warm to the gratified vanity, from the first beatings of hope and first hearts of the vast body of the people. There are eyes, taste of delight, to the time when age is gladdened by the familiar through months and years only with mechanic reflected tints of young enterprize and victory. Thus it toil, suffused with natural tears, engendered by sacred pity. was with Colley Cibber; and, therefore, his Apology for There are the deep fountains of hearts, long encrusted by his own life is one of the most amusing books that have narrow cares, burst open, and a holy light is sent in on ever been written. He was not, indeed a very wise or the long sunken forms of the imagination, which shone lofty character-nor did he affect great virtue or wisdom fair and goodly in boyhood by their own light, but have --but openly derided gravity, bade defiance to the serious since been sealed and forgotten in their "sunless treasupursuits of life, and honestly preferred his own lightness ries." There, do the lowliest and most ignorant catch of heart and of head, to knowledge the most extensive or their only glimpse of that poetic radiance which is the thought the most profound. He was vain even of his va- finest glory of our being. While they gaze on the wonnity. At the very commencement of his work, he avows drous spectacle, they forget the petty concerns of their own his determination not to repress it, because it is part of individual lot, and recognize and rejoice in their kindred himself, and therefore will only increase the resemblance with a nature capable of high emprise, of meekest sufferof the picture. Rousseau did not more clearly lay open to ing, and of defiance to the mortal powers of agony and the the world the depths and inmost recesses of his soul, than grave. They are elevated and softened into men. They Cibber of his foibles and minikin weaknesses. The philo- are carried beyond the ignorant present time; feel the sopher dwelt not more intensely on the lone enthusiasm of past and the future on the instant, and kindle as they gaze his spirit, on the alleviations of his throbbing soul, on the on the massive realities of human virtue, or on those fairy long draughts of rapture which he eagerly drank in from visions which are the gleaming fore-shadows of golden the loveliness of the universe, than the player on his early years, which hereafter shall bless the world. Their horiaspiring for scenic applause, and all the petty triumphs and zon is suddenly extended from the narrow circle of low mortifications of his passion for the favour of the town. anxieties and selfish joys, to the farthest and most sacred How real and speaking is the description which he gives hills which bound our moral horizon; and they perceive, of his fond desires for the bright course of an actor-of in clear vision, the eternal rocks of defence for their nahis light-hearted pleasure, when, in the little part of the ture, which the noblest spirits of their fellow men have Chaplain in The Orphan, he received his first applause-been privileged to raise. While they feel that "which and of his higher transport, when the next day Goodman, gives an awe of things above them," their souls are exa retired actor of note, clapped him on the shoulder at a panded in the heartiest sympathy with the vast body of rehearsal, exclaimed, with an oath, that he must make a their fellows. A thousand hearts are swayed at once by good actor, which almost took away his breath, and fairly the same emotion, as the high grass of the meadow yields, drew tears into his eyes! The spirit of gladness which as a single blade, to the breeze which sweeps over it. Disgave such exquisite keenness to his youthful appetite for tinctions of fortune, rank, talent, age, all give way to the praise, sustained him through all the changes of his for- warm tide of emotion, and every class feel only as partaktune, enabling him to make a jest of penury, assisting him ers in one primal sympathy, "made of one blood," and to gather fresh courage from every slight, adding zest to equal in the mysterious sanctities of their being. Surely every success, until he arrived at the high dignity of " Pa-the art that produces an effect like this-which separates, tentee of the Theatre Royal." When "he no revenue as by a divine alchemy, the artificial from the real in huhad but his good spirits to feed and clothe him," these were manity-which supplies to the artisan in the capital, the ample. His vanity was to him a kingdom. The airiest place of those woods and free airs and mountain streams, of town butterflies, he sipped of the sweets of pleasure which insensibly harmonize the peasant's character-which wherever its stray gifts were found; sometimes in the gives the poorest to feel the old grandeur of tragedy, sweep. tavern among the wits, but chiefly in the golden sphere of ing by with sceptered pall-which makes the heart of the VOL. XXVIII. MARCH, 1836.-25.

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child leap with strange joy, and enables the old man to fancy the qualities of an actor, as his form and voice, are gifts himself again a child-is worthy of no mean place among of nature which imply no merit in their possessor. They the arts which refine our manners by exalting our con- are no more independent of will, than the sensibility and ceptions! imagination of the bard. Our admiration is not deter. It has sometimes been objected to the theatrical artist, mined by merit, but by beauty; we contemplate angelic that he merely repeats the language and embodies the con- beauty of soul with as tender a love as virtue, which has ceptions of the poet. But the allegation, though specious, been reared with intense labour among clouds and storins, is unfounded. It has been completely established, by a and follow with as delighted a wonder the quick glances great and genial critic of our own time, that the deeper of intuition as the longest and most difficult researches. beauties of poetry cannot be shaped forth by the actor,* The actor exhibits as high a perception of natural grace, and it is equally true, that the poet has little share in the as fine an acquaintance with the picturesque in attitude, highest triumphs of the performer. It may, at first, ap- as the sculptor. If the forms of his imagination do not pear a paradox, but is nevertheless proved by experience, stand for ages in marble, they live and breathe before us that the fanciful cast of the language has very little to do while they last-change with all the variations of passion with the effect of an acted tragedy. Mrs Siddons would —and “discourse most eloquent music." They somenot have been less than she is, though Shakespear had times, as in the case of Mr. Kemble's Roman characters, never written. She displayed genius as exalted in the supply the noblest illustrations of history. The story of characters drawn by Moore, Southern, Otway, and Rowe, Coriolanus is to us no dead letter; the nobleness of Cato as in those of the first of human bards. Certain great is an abstract idea no longer. We seem to behold even situations are all the performer needs, and the grandest now the calm approaches of the mighty stoic to the endemotions of the soul all that he can embody. He can to look on him, maintaining the forms of Roman liberty derive little aid from the noblest imaginations or the richest to the last, as though he would grasp its trembling relics fantasies of the author. He may, indeed, by his own ge- in his dying hands-and to listen to those solemn tones, nius,-like the matchless artist to whom we have just al- now the expiring accents of liberty passing away, and luded consecrate sorrow, dignify emotion, and kindle the anon the tremulous breathings of uncertain hope for the imagination as well as awaken the sympathics. But this future. The reality with which these things have been will be accomplished, not by the texture of the words presented to our youthful eyes is a possession for everspoken, but by the living magic of the eye, of the tone, quickening our sympathy with the most august instances of the action; by all those means which belong exclusively of human virtue, and enriching our souls with palpable to the actor. When Mrs. Siddons cast that unforgotten images of the majesty of old.

gaze of blank horror on the corpse of Beverley, was she It may be said, that if a great actor carries us into indebted to the play-wright for the conception? When, times that are past, he rears up no monument which will as Arpasia in Tamerlane, she gave that look of inexpressi- last in those which are to come. But there are many cirble anguish, in which the breaking of the heart might be cumstances to counterbalance and alleviate the shortness seen, and the cold and rapid advances of death traced-of his fame. The anxiety for posthumous renown, though and fell without a word, as if struck by the sudden blow there is something noble in it as abstracted from mere perof destiny-in that moment of unearthly power, when sonal desires, is scarcely the loftiest of human emotions. she astonished and terrified even her oldest admirers, and The Homeric poets, who breathed forth their strains to unafter which, she lay herself really senseless from the in- tutored ears and left no visible traces of their genius, could tensity of her own emotion-where was the marvellous scarcely anticipate the duration of their works. Sheakstage-direction, the pregnant hint in the frigid declamaspear seems to have thought little in his life-time of those tory text, from which she wrought this amazing picture, honours which through all ages will accumulate on his too perilous to be often repeated? Do the words "I'm memory. The best benefactors of their race have left satisfied," in Cato, convey the slightest image of that high the world nothing but their names, and their remembrances struggle that contest between nature long repressed and in grateful souls. The true poet, perhaps, feels most holily stoic pride-which Mr. Kemble in an instant embodied when he thinks only of sharing in the immortality of nature, to the senses, and impressed on the soul forever? Or, to and "owes no allegiance but the elements." Some feeldescend into the present time and the lower drama, does ing, not unallied to this, may solace the actor for the shortthe perusal of The School of Reform convey any vestige of lived remembrance of his exertions. The images which that rough sublimity which breathes in the Tyke of he vivifies are not traced in paper, nor diffused through the Emery? Are Mr. Liston's looks out of book, gotten by press, nor extant in marble; but are engraven on the fleshheart, invented for him by writers of farces? Is there any ly tables of the heart, and last till "life's idle business” fancy of invention in their happiest moods-any tracings ccases. To thousands of the young has been given their of mortal hands in books-like to the marvellous creations « first mild touch of sympathy and thought," their first which Munden multiplies at will? These are not to be sense of communion with their kind. As time advances, "constrained by mastery" of the pen, and defy not only and the rank of his living admirers grow thin, the old tell the power of an author to conceive, but to describe them. of his feats with a tenderer rapture, and give such vivid The best actors indeed, in their happiest efforts, are little hints of his excellence as enable their hearers richly to more indebted to the poet, than he is to the graces of na- fancy forth some image of grandeur or delight, which, in ture which he seizes, than the sculptor to living forms, or their minds at least, is like him. The sweet lustre of his the grandest painters to history. memory thus grows more sacred as it approaches its close, Still less weight is there in the objection, that part of and tenderly vanishes. His name lives still-ever pronounced with happiest feelings and in the happiest hoursb's Essay on the Tragedies of Shake- and excites us to stretch our thoughts backward into the to representation on the stage, a piece, gladnesses of another age. The grave-maker's work, acnore of profound thought with more cording to the Clown in Hamlet, outlasts all others even d exquisite beauty, than any criticism" till domesday," and the actor's fades away before most acquainted. others, because it is the very reverse of his gloomy and

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