treatment; but I am not aware that as yet it has been poetically treated."

During her life, rendered celebrated by her genius, Mrs. Jameson has been the associate and friend of many famous in literature, in art, and upon the stage. Amongst the most pleasing portions of her book are those recording her opi nions of actors and actresses, and their opinions on subjects connected with their profession. The following passages are interesting, and contain matter worthy of consideration:

Talking once with Adelaide Kemble, after she had been singing in the Figaro,' she compared the music to the bosom of a full-blown rose in its voluptuous, intoxicating richness. I said that some of Mozart's melodies seemed to me not so much composed, but foundfound on some sunshiny day in Arcadia, among nymphs and flowers, Yes,' she replied, with ready and felicitous expression, not inven tions but existences.'

Old George the Third, in his blindness and madness, once insisted on making the selection of pieces for the concert of ancient music (May, 1811), it was soon after the death of the Princess Amelia. The programme included some of the finest passages in Handel's Samson,' descriptive of blindness; the Lamentation of Jephthah,' for his daughter; Purcel's Mad Tom,' and closed with God save the King,' to make sure the application of all that went before.

Every one who remembers what Madlle Rachel was seven or eight years ago, and who sees her now (1853), will allow that she has made no progress in any of the essential excellences of her art, A certain proof that she is not a great artist in the true sense of the word. She is a finished actress, but she is nothing more, and nothing better; not enough the artist ever to forget or conceal her art, consequently there is a want somewhere, which a mind highly toned and of quick perceptions feels from beginning to end. The parts in which she once excelled the Phêdre and the Hermione, for instance-have become formalised and hard,like studies cast in bronze; and when she plays a new part it has no freshness. I always go to see her whenever I can. I admire her as what she is the Parisian actress, practised in every trick of her métier. I admire what she does, I think how well it is all done, and am inclined to clap and applaud her drapery, perfect and ostentatiously studied in every fold, just with the same feeling that I applaud herself.

As to the last scene of Adrienne Lecouvreur, (which those who are avides de sensation, athirst for painful emotion, go to see as they would drink a dram, and critics laud as a miracle of art; it is alto gether a mistake and a failure,) it is beyond the just limits of terror and pity-beyond the legitimate sphere of art. It reminds us of the

In the Fifth Book of Pollok's "Course of Time," there is a very fine subject for sculpture-the maiden praying for her lover's return. Why does not somebody paint the scene in Tennyson's The Talking Oak, from the 32nd to the 37th stanzas.

story of Gentil Bellini and the Sultan. The Sultan much admired his picture of the decollation of John the Baptist, but informed him that it was inaccurate-surgically-for the tendons and muscles ought to shrink where divided; and then calling for one of his slaves, he drew his scimitar, and striking off the head of the wretch, gave the horror-struck artist a lesson in practical anatomy. So we might possibly learn from Rachel's imitative representation, (studied in an hospital as they say,) how poison acts on the frame, and how the limbs and features writhe into death; but if she were a great moral artist she would feel that what is allowed to be true in painting, is true in art generally, that mere imitation, such as the vulgar delight in, and hold up their hands to see, is the vulgarest and easiest aim of the imitative arts, and that between the true interpretation of poetry in art and such base mechanical means to the lowest ends, there lies an immeasurable distance.

I am disposed to think that Rachel has not genius but talent, and that her talent, from what I see year after year, has a downward tendency, there is not sufficient moral seasoning to save it from corruption. I remember that when I first saw her in Hermione she reminded me of a serpent, and the same impression continues. The long meagre form with its graceful undulating movements, the long narrow face and features, the contracted jaw, the high brow, the brilliant supernatural eyes which seem to glance every way at once the sinister smile; the painted red lips, which look as though they had lapped, or could lap, blood; all these bring before me, the idea of a Lamia, the serpent nature in the woman's form. In Lydia, and in Athalie, she touches the extremes of vice and wickedness with such a masterly lightness and precision, that I am full of wondering admiration for the actress. There is not a turn of her figure, not an expression in her face, not a fold in her gorgeous drapery, that is not a study; but withal such a consciousness of her art, and such an ostentation of the means she employs, that the power remains always extraneous, as it were, and exciting only to the senses and the intellect.

Latterly she has become a hard mannerist. Her face, once so flexible, has lost the power of expressing the nicer shades and softer gradations of feeling; so much so, that they write dramas for her with supernaturally wicked and depraved heroines to suit her especial powers. I conceive that an artist could not sink lower in degradation. Yet, to satisfy the taste of a Parisian audience and the ambition of a Parisian actress this was not enough, and wickedness required the piquancy of immediate approximation with innocence. In the Valeria she played two characters, and appeared on the stage alternately as a miracle of vice and a miracle of virtue: an abandoned prostitute and a chaste matron. There was something in this contrasted impersonation, considered simply in relation to the aims and objects of art, so revolting, that I sat in silent and deep disgust, which was partly deserved by the audience which could endure the exhibition.

It is the entire absence of the high poetic element which distinguishes Rachel as an actress, and places her at such an immeasurable

distance from Mrs. Siddons, that it shocks me to hear them named together.

It is no reproach to a capital actress to play effectively a very wicked character. Mrs. Siddons played the abandoned Millwood as carefully, as completely as she played Hermione and Constance; but if it had required a perpetual succession of Calistas and Mill, woods to call forth her highest powers, what should we think of the woman and the artist!?

A celebrated German actress (who has quitted the stage for many years) speaking of Rachel, said that the reason she must always stop short of the highest place in art, is because she is nothing but an actress-that only; and has no aims in life, has no duties, feelings, employments, sympathies, but those which centre in herself in the interests of her art which thus ceases to be art and becomes a métier.

This reminded me of what Pauline Viardot once said to me:D'abord je suis femme, avec les devoirs, les affections, les sentiments d'une femme; et puis je suis artiste.'”

I once asked Mrs. Siddons, which of her great characters she preferred to play? She replied after a moment's consideration, and in her rich deliberative emphatic tones :- Lady Macbeth is the character I have most studied.' She afterwards said that she had played the character during thirty years, and scarcely acted it once, without carefully reading over the part and generally the whole play in the morning; and that she never read over the play without find ing something new in it; something,' she said, which had not struck me so much as it ought to have struck me.'

Of Mrs. Pritchard, who preceded Mrs. Siddons in the part of Lady Macbeth, it was well known that she had never read the play, she merely studied her own part as written out by the stage-copyist of the other parts she knew nothing but the cues.

When I asked Mrs. Henry Siddons, which of her characters she preferred playing? she said at once, Imogen, in Cymbeline, was the character I played with most ease to myself, and most success as regarded the public; it cost no effort.'

Madame Schroeder Devrient told me that she sung with most pleasure to herself in the Fidelio;' and in this part I have never seen her equalled.

Fanny Kemble told me the part she had played with most pleasure to herself, was Camiola, in Massinger's Maid of Honour." It was an exquisite impersonation, but the play itself ineffective and not successful, because of the weak and worthless character of the hero. Mrs. Charles Kean told me that she had played with great ease and pleasure to herself, the part of Ginevra, in Leigh Hunt's Legend of Florence.' She made the part (as it is technically termed), and it was a very complete and beautiful impersonation.

These answers appear to me psychologically, as well as artistically, interesting, and worth preserving.

Mrs. Siddons, when looking over the statues in Lord Lansdowne's gallery, told him that one mode of expressing intensity of. feeling was suggested to her by the position of some of the Egyptian statues

This

with the arms close down at the sides and the hands clenched, is curious, for the attitude in the Egyptian gods is intended to express repose. As the expression of intense passion self-controlled, it might be appropriate to some characters and not to others. Rachel, as I recollect, uses it in the Phêdre-Madame Rettich uses it in the Medea. It would not be characteristic in Constance.

On a certain occasion when Fanny Kemble was reading Cymbeline, a lady next to me remarked that Imogen ought not to utter the words Senseless linen!-happier therein than I!' aloud, and to Pisanio, that it detracted from the strength of the feeling, and that they should have been uttered aside, and in a low, intense whisper. Jachimo,' she added, might easily have won a woman who could lay her heart so bare to a mere attendant!'

On my repeating this criticism to Fanny Kemble, she replied just as I had anticipated: Such criticism is the mere expression of the natural emotions or character of the critic. She would have spoken the words in a whisper, I should have made the exclamation aloud. If there had been a thousand people by, I should not have cared for them I should not have been conscious of their presence. I should have exclaimed before them all, Senseless linen!-happier therein than I!'

And thus the artist fell into the same mistake of which she accused her critic she made Imogen utter the words aloud, because she would have done so herself, This sort of subjective criticism in both was quite feminine; but the question was not how either A. B. or F. K. would have spoken the words, but what would have been most natural in such a woman as Imogen?

And most undoubtedly the first criticism was as exquisitely true and just as it was delicate. Such a woman as Imogen would not have uttered those words aloud. She would have uttered them in a whisper, and turning her face from her attendant. With such a woman, the more intense the passion, the more conscious and the more veiled the expression.” ·

It must not be supposed that this Commonplace Book is but a record of opinions, and fancies on such subjects as these last quoted; we know few books more grave, in the sections where gravity is in place, and where thoughtfulness is appropriate, than this before us. A pure spirit of faith in God; a kindly, christian love of all who bear his image, are patent in those portions relating to religion.

In the división in which the authoress notes her judgment of books, many admirable, and many wise opinions are before the reader, and from her criticisms few will be found to dissent. The notice of Stanley's Life of Arnold is particularly worthy of careful perusal, and the same recommendation may be given to the notes on Niebuhr, and to that on Comte's Philosophy. The "Theological Fragments" too, are well selected, but we think the reader will feel more interest in the "Notes from Various Sermons." Some

of these notes disprove an assertion made by a very celebrated critic, who wrote that the characteristic of modern English Sermons was "decent debility."

If one were required to make a selection of the beautiful thoughts which, in this book, "all over the surface shine, he would find it a most difficult task, and would say to the requirent-read the entire book. We have selected a few miscellaneous passages, regardless of order or arrangement, and we assure the reader that, much as these thoughts and opinions may please him by their beauty, or truth, or novelty, others, many others, more true, more beautiful, and more novel can be found in every section of this Commonplace Book

"There are few things more striking, more interesting to a thoughtful mind, than to trace through all the poetry, literature, and art of the Middle Ages that broad ever present distinction between the practical and the contemplative life. This was, no doubt, suggested and kept in view by the one grand division of the whole social community into those who were devoted to the religious profession (an immense proportion of both sexes) and those who were not. All through Dante, all through the productions of medieval art, we find this pervading idea; and we must understand it well and keep it in mind, or we shall never be able to apprehend the entire beauty and meaning of certain religious groups in sculpture and painting, and the significance of the characters introduced, Thus, in subjects from the Old Testament, Leah always represents the practical, Rachel, the contemplative life. In the New Testament, Martha and Mary figure in the same allegorical sense; and among the saints we always find St. Catherine and St. Clara patronising the religious and contemplative life, while St. Barbara and St. Ursula preside over the military or secular existence. It was a part, and a very important part, of that beautiful and expressive symbolism through which art in all its forms spoke to the popular mind.

For myself, I have the strongest admiration for the practical, but the strongest sympathy with the contemplative life. I bow to Leah and to Martha, but my love is for Rachel and for Mary."

"Joanna Baillie had a great admiration of Macaulay's Roman Ballads. 'But,' said some one, do you really account them as poetry?' She replied, They are poetry if the sounds of the trum pet be music!'

"A death-bed repentance has become proverbial for its fruitlessness, and a death-bed forgiveness is equally so. They who wait till their own death-bed to make reparation, or till their adversary's. death-bed to grant absolution, seem to me much upon a par in regard to the moral, as well as the religious, failure."

"Avarice is to the intellect what sensuality is to the morals, It is an intellectual form of sensuality, inasmuch as it is the passion for the acquisition, the enjoyment in the possession, of a palpable, tangi.