:

by her contracted and narrow survey and knowledge of human life. A female painter, of any remarkable eminence, has never hitherto appeared to adorn and extend that pleasing study; and the reason is found in the restricted means of the female sex to acquire the necessary knowledge for general and universal art.

Mrs. Siddons, therefore, is to be considered, and criticised only, as a tragic actress. In the early part of her professional life, she did, indeed, attempt comedy; but tragedy soon claimed exclusively, and has hitherto possessed her wholly.

The three leading passions of tragedy with which the actress is particularly conversant, are terror, pity, and love. The first passion is best exemplified in the lofty and heroic dramas, in which are painted characters such as lady Macbeth, Alicia, &c. The second passion is shown, either in the circumstances of regal or domestic distress; in characters such as queen Catherine, Constance, Isabella, Belvidera, Jane Shore, Euphrasia, and lady Randolph. The third is confined to a Juliet, a Calista, a Monimia, and heroines of the like description.

To obtain excellence in the two former branches of the art is much more difficult, and of infinitely rarer occurrence, than in the latter. Mrs. Siddons has surpassed every female performer of the stage unquestionably, and without competition, in the two first and grandest divisions of the tragic drama.-Her lady Macbeth, which was the character chosen for her farewell, is a shining example of this excellence-And she performed it, on this occasion, in her best manner.*

In this character, which has so long been the just pride of the British stage, we behold a picture of firm and determined courage, in which humanity, loyalty, hospitality, and female sensibility, are made to bend to a stern and invincible ambition. But we do not see in the portraiture of Mrs. Siddons the pride and ambition of a vulgar mind. The passion ascends to its object, and measures the altitude of the crime to which it aspires.

* Lady Macbeth was the character in which Mrs. PRITCHARD took leave of the stage at Drury-lane, on Monday, April 25, 1768.

"The curtain dropt, my mimic life is past:
That scene of sleep and terror was my last.
Could I in such a scene," &c.

GARRICK.

It is the ambition of a queen: the bloody and remorseless enterprise of a woman, as much elevated above her sex by the daring character of her crime, as by the object on which her ambition fixes. Who, that has once seen this exhibition, will ever forget Mrs. Siddons in the banqueting-scene? The lofty courtesy with which she receives her guests, and the haughty, hurried, and apprehensive manner in which she dismisses them. When ahe addresses her husband, and commands him to recollect himself;-bids him summon up the courage of his manhood, and be no longer misled by the visions and coinage of the brain, and the "air-drawn dagger" of his imagination,-she throws into the character such an irony and sarcasm, such a proud and disdain, ful raillery, that Macbeth seems himself even to doubt his senses. In the chamber-scene, in which she walks in her sleep, Mrs. Siddons's conception of the propriety and demeanor of the cha racter of lady Macbeth marks the superior and unrivalled quali úies of her genius. The body sleeps, but the imagination wakes, and conjures up all those dreadful phantoms which prey upon her disordered frame. This punishment, which conscience, unassisted, is made to inflict upon the murderer, is shown to produce more bodily and mental suffering than the most ingenious torture which refined cruelty ever invented.-Mrs. Siddons's performance of this part becomes, therefore, a fine moral lesson: and the guilty stings of conscience are shown to be severer accusers than human laws, than the iron crown of Luke, and the steel bed of Damiens.

In the last scene of the play in which lady Macbeth appeared, that is to say, in the last scene in which she walks in her sleep, the audience became boisterous in their applause: they would hear and see no more-They stopped the progress of the play, thus paying a compliment of the proudest kind to their distinguished favourite.-Shakspeare, at this moment had no charms for a British audience.

The curtain dropped---an attempt was made to solicit the pleasure of the house to permit the play to proceed-but noand after a long suspension the curtain rose: and Mrs. Siddons, in the dress of the sleep scene, came forward, and delivered

the following Address (written by Horace Twiss, Esq. nephew to Mrs. Siddons) with great feeling and effect:

Who has not felt, how growing use endears

The fond remembrance of our former years?
Who has not sigh'd, when doom'd to leave at last
The hopes of youth, the habits of the past,
The thousand ties and interests, that impart
A second nature to the human heart,

And. wreathing round it close, like tendrils, climb,
Blooming in age, and sanctified by time?

Yes! at this moment crowd upon my mind
Scenes of bright days forever left behind,
Bewildering visions of enraptur'd youth
When hope and fancy wore the hues of truth,
And long-forgotten years, that almost seem
The faded traces of a morning dream!

Sweet are those mournful thoughts: for they renew

The pleasing sense of all I owe to you,

For each inspiring smile, and soothing tear--
For those full honours of my long career,

That cheer'd my earliest hope, and chas'd my latest fear!
And though for me those tears shall flow no more,
And the warm sunshine of your smile is o'er,—
Though the bright beams are fading fast away,
That shone unclouded through my summer day,-
Yet grateful Memory shall reflect their light,
O'er the dim shadows of the coming night,
And lend to later life a softer tone,

A moonlight tint, a lustre of her own.

Judges and friends! to whom the tragic strain
Of Nature's feeling never spoke in vain,
Perhaps your hearts, when years have glided by,
And past emotions wake a fleeting sigh;

May think on her, whose lips have pour'd so long
The charmed sorrows of your SHAKSPEARE'S
On her, who, parting to return no more,

Is now the mourner she but seem'd before,—

Herself subdued, resigns the melting spell,

song:

And breathes, with swelling heart, her long, her last farewell!

She made her reverences with great emotion, and Mr. Kemble stepped on the stage to assist in leading her off. The house took leave of their favourite with reiterated acclamations.

Mr. Kemble then came on, and, in a short address, requested to know the pleasure of the house, whether they would hear the remainder of the play; all the fifth act, except the first scene, remaining unperformed; but the universal'cry of the house was, that they could hear no more; and with this unexampled compliment to the great tragic actress of the age, the scene closed. It had an unutterable effect on the feelings of the company, who immediately began to retire.

Mrs. Siddons first appeared in the Theatre Royal, Drurylane, an 1775, under an engagement made with Mr. Siddons, at Cheltenham, that summer, by the Rev. Dr. Bate Dudley, for his friend Mr. Garrick. Her salary was 67. per week, and that of Mr. Siddons 40s. Her first appearance was in Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, a character not best suited to her powers; and afterwards she made a more unfortunate attempt in comedy, in Mrs. Cowley's Runaway: soon after which her admirers had the mortification to see her descend, at the close of the season, to personate the walking Venus in the revived pageant of the Jubilee. She returned to the Bath Theatre in 1776; and, as is well known, returned a few years afterwards to re-illumine the London theatre, with a splendor of talents that continued with undiminished lustre to the present year.

NEWHAVEN BLUE-LAWS.

MB. OLDSCHOOL,

I gave often heard of the Blue-laws of Newengland, but never had an opportunity of understanding precisely the meaning of the phrase, until the other day, in turning over the pages of Kendal's Travels through America, in 1807 and 1808, I found the following chapter. These strange prohibitions are long since obsolete, I understand, in the northern states, but as curious specimens of our early legislation, they may be acceptable to your readers.

S.

THROUGH the kindness of a gentleman in Newhaven, an opportunity was afforded me of inspecting the manuscript records. of the colony, including its ancient laws. My time, however, was

short, and the manuscripts were long; so that I made little use of the advantage, and I am now indebted to a modern historian for the extracts that are subjoined. But this author gives us the sense, and not the words, a mode of transcription very little satisfactory-a mode in the adoption of which a writer should rarely trust himself, and in which he is rarely to be trusted.

As to the substance of the specimen subjoined, a part will discover the little subordination to the mother country, acknowledged from the first, by the dominion of Newhaven; a part is distinguished by unnecessary rigour; a part by ignorance and injustice; a part is common to all the codes, ancient and modern, in Newengland; a part is unexceptionable; and only a small remainder is strictly characteristic of the particular persons from whom it came.

"No quaker or dissenter from the established worship of this dominion, shall be allowed to give a vote for the election of magistrates, or any officer.

"No food or lodging shall be afforded to a quaker, adamite, or other heretic.

"If any person turns quaker, he shall be banished, and not suffered to return, but upon pain of death.

"No priest shall abide in the dominion: he shall be banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized by any one without a warrant.

"No one to cross a river, but with an authorized ferryman. "No one shall run on the sabbath-day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.

"No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave, on the sabbath-day.

"No woman shall kiss her child on the sabbath or fasting-day. "The sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday.

"To pick an ear of corn growing in a neighbour's garden, shall be deemed theft.

"A person accused of trespass in the night shall be judged guilty, unless he clear himself by his oath.

"When it appears that an accused has confederates, and he refuses to discover them, he may be racked.