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his risible faculties; but to add to his torture, Cooke began to question him, after each "horrible face," as to the meaning of it, or the passion expressed: Matthews, totally in the dark as to Cooke's meaning, made every possible mistake; and when set right by Cooke, excused himself by charging his stupidity on the whiskey.

"There-what's that?" Very fine, sir."

"But what is it?"

“O anger—anger, to be sure.”

"To be sure you're a blockhead-Fear! fear, sir."

But when the actor, after making a hideous face, compounded of satanic malignity, and the brutal leering of a drunken satyr, told his pupil that that was love, poor Matthews cauld resist no longer, but roared with convulsive laugh

ter.

Cooke was surprised and enraged at this rudeness in his young guest, but Matthews had address enough to pacify him.

Mistress Burns, in the mean time, had protested against making any more whiskey punch, and had brought up the last jug, upon Cooke's solemn promise that he would ask for no more. The jug is finished; and Matthews, heartily tired, thinks he shall escape from his tormentor, and makes a move to go.

"Not yet, my dear boy, one jug more."

"It's very late, sir."

"Mistress Burns will not let us have it."

"Only one more."

"Won't she? I'll show you that presently."

Cooke thunders with his foot, and vociferates, repeatedly,

"Mistress

Burns!" At length honest Mrs. Burns, who had got to bed, in hopes of rest,

in the chamber immediately under them, answers,

"What is it you want, Mister Cooke?"

"Another jug of whiskey punch, Mistress Burns."

"Indeed, but you can have no more, Mister Cooke."

"Indeed but I will, Mistress Burns"

"Remember your promise, Mister Cooke."

"Another jug of punch, Mistress Burns."

"Indeed, and I will not get out of my own bed any more at all, Mister Cooke, and so there's an end of it!"

"We'll see that, Mistress Burns."

When, to Matthews's further astonishment, he seized the jug and smashed it on the floor over the head of Mistress Burns, exclaiming, " Do you hear that, Mistress Burns?"

"Yes I do, Mister Cooke."

He then proceeded to break the chairs, one by one, after each, exclaiming, "Do you hear that Mistress Burns?" and receiving in reply,

"Yes I do, Mister Cooke, and you'll be very sorry for it tomorrow, se you will."

He then opened the window, and very deliberately proceeded to throw the looking-glasses into the street, and the fragments of broken tables and chairs. Matthews had made several attempts to go, and had been detained by Cooke, he now ventured something like an expostulation; on which bis Mentor ordered him out of his apartment, and threw the candle and candlestick after him. Matthews having departed, the wretched madman sallied out, and was brought home the next day, beaten and deformed with bruises.

In his solitary moments, when reason had resumed her empire, can the reader be disposed to envy a man the possession of such noble qualities, when the sum of all their use amounts to reflections like these? The following is an extract from his journal:

"It will very little assist me in defending myself to say that I have frequently wasted my time in a much worse manner. When a man reconciles himself to himself, by making degrees of sin, he is in the utmost danger of advancing to, instead of receding from, the most abominable depravity. It is a doubt with me, whether a gamester (here I take the word in its utmost latitude) or drunkard, be the most vicious character, or the most dangerous to society. The former, without deranging his faculties, exerts them all for the avowed purpose of plundering every one he plays with; his dearest friends not excepted (if such a wretch can have a friend) and when, by superior villainy, or some unforeseen chance, he is in his turn beggared, he is ready fitted for the most atrocious crimes, robbery, murder, or suicide. Drunkenness, in addition to the high degree of wickedness attached to it, has the melancholy and woful effect of degrading the human beneath the brute creation. What confidence can be placed in those persons who are in the habit of rendering themselves incapable of rational exertion? A crime committed in this state is aggravated by the state itself, and in this light both moral and religious law must view it. There have been many excellent arguments used against this beastly vice, and many exposures of its dreadful tendency, but none more strong, pointed, and convincing, than the following short story, I believe an oriental one. A young man was decreed by fate to commit one heinous crime. He was to have the choice of three; but inevitably must ehoose. It was left to him to make his election, of parricide, incest, or drunkenness. He chose the last, got drunk, and committed the former two."

We have now, in detail, as attested by authentic facts and circumstances, the private character of George Frederick Cooke.

These various and opposite qualities were often inflamed to a degree of madness, by his intemperance; and it depended on the incident that crossed him, in those unhappy moments, which of all these should gain the ascendant. Had he, instead of falling into the company of that unhappy woman, whose miseries he so nobly relieved, at that time encountered the opposition of some of his convivial associates, in all probability Bridewell would have been his reward, instead of the tears of gratitude paid to a benefactor. What Cicero somewhere so beautifully calls the light of life, was luminous and lovely for a moment, then plunging into surrounding shades, and as suddenly emerging, when we deemed all the radiance extinct. We do not propose to say another word on the professional character of Cooke. The mingled congratulations and regrets of two hemispheres, in a case where success is so dubious, in the exercise of the brightest talents-where censure has a prescriptive right to no other boundary to her walks but her will, and on a subject presenting such alternations of character, afford an evidence of his genius as idle to illustrate as to doubt.

Connected originally with low company, by his poverty and his evil habits, he was at length led, by his guardian genius, to the higher walks of life; he was able to temper and restrain, but never to wipe off the early stain; and, in moments of what he properly denominates "his madness," he too often associated the manners of the well bred gentleman with those of the brute.

The general character of these volumes is certainly honourable to Mr. Dunlap. He deserves the thanks of his countrymen, for making so bold and intrepid a stand in favour of legitimate biography. His page is a cool candid luminous record of the virtues and vices of his hero, and he has exercised the lawful functions of his office, under the strong and paramount obligations of truth. Cooke appears to us in all the different phases of his character, exciting alternate compassion, admiration and disgust. We behold the ruins of a noble genius formed for better things, and destined by nature for dignity and honour. We behold likewise, one on whom Nature had been so prodigal in the dispensation of her bounties, counteracting by his vicious

haibits the great purposes of his birth and high destiny, and renouncing the munificence of Heaven. Mr. Dunlap sometimes neglects the broad features of the character he presents, and descends to a nicety of painting, of which the following is a beautiful instance. Cooke thus expresses himself:

"This pain troubles me a little, though-I must begin the water-system. Nine days were we on water alone, during our passage, and I never was better in my life-this is in favour of the water-system. Ah! I noticed at Amboy, when your mother gave me my dish of tea, her hand was perfectly steady, but mine was not so in taking it. I ought to be ashamed-in truth, I was ashamed."

These memoirs are likewise accompanied with compendious sketches of the lives of eminent actors, and criticisms on the characters of the most popular theatrical productions. We wish this route of biography was more generally followed. The life of an eminent actor is beyond that of any other man, calculated to adorn biography. His study, his profession is the human character in all its changeful diversities; it therefore associates with fact a species of romance that raises and rounds the character to our view, and compositions of this cast hold a sort of intermediate station between truth and fiction, embracing to a certain extent the advantages of both. An actor, for instance, subsists upon romance, and this species of nature is made the standard of judgment, when the merits of a novel or of a poem are decided. Thus, for example, we say, when characters of this cast are supposed to be overdrawn, not how would they appear in private life, for there we do not expect to meet with such associates, but how would they appear upon the stage. We acknowledge by this concession, a nature beyond our own, which is thus made the legitimate province of all works, thus combining fancy and fact. Mr. Dunlap's opinions we nevertheless esteem in some instances heterodox particularly on the character of the German drama. He informs us that as his favourable opinion of the merits of the German drama, was not formed in the first instance by the approbation of the English writers, so likewise it is not shaken by their censure. In the same way we declare that our dislike to the German muse was not founded on the

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unfavourable testimony of the English writers, whom our author here suspects of mercenary motives, and further, that this opinion is not shaken but rather confirmed by all his observations in their defence.

The most censurable part of the present volumes we conceive to be the indelicacy of bringing to the public view the names of honourable characters now living, to embellish disgraceful anecdotes. If it become necessary to relate an anecdote in which living parties are concerned, which relation must necessarily wound surviving sensibility, the common charities of life, we should apprehend, would induce us to veil the circumstance so that the individual might not be known. The anecdote, whatever it may be, may still preserve all its raciness while the name of the party is suppressed. What then shall be said of a man who accepts the hospitality of an invitation to a gentleman's table, becomes one of the guests, and violates that confidence by publishing to the world anecdotes of persons present, which tend to their dishonour, accompanied with the names of the parties displayed at full length. No apology can be admitted for such license, for even these circumstances, sacred as they are commonly deemed, may still be made known without offence, and they derive no sort of authenticity or importance by such a needless disclosure of individual names.

There is another point in which we differ in opinion with the biographer of Mr. Cooke, that is "the better part of valour denominated by Falstaff discretion" which he imputes to his hero. His hero certainly did put himself in the way of mortal arbitrament, and rather courted than shunned an occasion to exercise his courage. The challenge which Mr. Cooper bore is an evidence of this fact. Mr. D. however sets in opposition to this, his declining a personal combat with an opponent of sturdier bone and muscle. Even in this point his evidence fails him, for Cooke did on sundry occasions embroil himself in such encounters. But the fact is too plain to require comment that a man may decline a pugillistic combat, with one his superior in bodily strength, if he is ready to adopt a more dreadful alternative, and such seems to have been the character of Cooke.

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