ear,

ful liberality that signalized his life throughout long years, and which became known only when infirmity and failing memory obliged him to lean on others as his almoners. By the side of his sick-bed stood a little mahogany table, with an ever-opening drawer, into which the large, white hand would be thrust as oft as any tale of sorrow or application for help reached his 'What will ye have?' was the only question asked, and out came the gold and silver without stint; and 'Mind ye let me know when ye want more for the poor creatures!' was sure to be his parting injunction. . . . I have often wished that Gainsborough or Sir Joshua could have drawn him as he sat in his richly-brocaded dressing-gown and black-velvet cap, with the dark eyes gleaming from beneath the great eyebrows; the snowy hair, and grave, serene mouth firmly closed, until some sally of nonsense from one of his grandsons, or some stray joke from an odd nook in his own memory, would light up the old face with the rippling sunshine of mirth, and show how light a heart he carried beneath the burden of fourscore years. To those who did, and who count it a joy forever to have loved and been loved by him, I commend his dear memory. He wore the grand old name of gentleman unsullied to the end, and died in the fullness of his years, beloved, honored, and lamented."

...

Many anecdotes are related of his love of fun, and of that practical joking which was one of the favorite amusements of the time. He was always abusing Meadows, who resided at Barnsbury, for living so far from the theatre, and every time they met it was: "Well, Meadows, where do you live now?" One day he was riding toward Regent Street, when he saw the comedian in front of him. Raising his voice (and it was a most powerful organ), he shouted out "Meadows, where do you live?" "At No. Belgrave Square," cried out the actor, and quick as lightning disappeared up Jermyn Street, "be

we are

fore," says Planché, to whose "Recollections indebted for this anecdote, "an emphatic impeachment of his veracity rolled like thunder over the heads of the amazed, but amused, pedestrians from Waterloo Place to Piccadilly." "The last time he called upon me [Planché], he left his card, upon which was inscribed, ''Tis I, my lord, the early village cock!'"

He was received as a guest at the houses of the highest aristocracy. Once, while hunting (his favorite exercise) with the Earl of Derby, he was thrown from his horse and picked up insensible. That night he was to play King John, at Covent Garden. The play had to be changed. But nevertheless there appeared in the Morning Chronicle next day an elaborate critique, which pronounced an unqualified condemnation upon the performance. We have heard of similar cases, even in this enlightened era. He was an especial favorite with Lord Essex. They were so much together, and on such intimate terms, that Poole, being asked what Englishmen he had seen in Paris, replied: "Only Lord Young and Mr. Essex."

As an actor he belonged to the classic school of Kemble, but his style was more natural than that of his master.

"I cannot help thinking," says the Vicomte de Soligny, "what a sensation Young would have created had he belonged to the French instead of to the English stage. With a voice almost as rich, powerful, and sonorous as that of Talma; action more free, flowing, and various; a more expressive face, and a better person, he would hardly have been second in favor and attractions to that greatest of living actors."

When he and Kean acted together, the contrast must have been remarkably striking: the chiseled face, fine

figure, and musical voice of Young, against the gypsyfeatures, diminutive form, and hoarse tones of his rival. But one flash of Edmund's marvelous eyes could thrill the audience more than all the stately, finished elocution of the other. Mr. Fitzgerald has well defined Young's position in his profession, when he says ("Life of the Kembles") he "does not light up an era." His name is not associated in our minds with a new starting-point in theatrical annals, as that of Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and even Macready. But for all that he must have been an admirable actor, even when placed among so many brilliant stars as adorned the stage in his time.

CHAPTER X.

MRS. DORA JORDAN.

One of the Most Brilliant of Modern Comédiennes.-A Touching and Romantic Story. The Modern Mrs. Bellamy and her Splendid Successes on the London Stage.-Connection with the Duke of Clarence.-The Mystery of her End.

NEVER was a stage career more brilliant, and yet few have ended more sadly, than that of the gifted woman whose story we shall next relate. Moralists have taken it as a text whereupon to build sermons denunciatory of theatrical life, to point out its dangers, vices, and miseries. Bigoted asceticism revels in those gloomy pictures in which the shadows are unnaturally deepened, and the lights are wholly omitted; but gentler moralists might draw from that same source the brightest illustrations of noble self-devotion, undaunted perseverance, a high sense of duty, and divine charity. Even the Magdalens have

!

been devoted daughters, self-sacrificing, and full of generous pity for all who suffer.

Mrs. Jordan was born in Waterford, in the year 1762. Her mother, Miss Grace Philips, was the daughter of a poor Welsh clergyman, and, together with two sisters, took to the stage. Of the father, Bland, little is known; his family objected to the marriage, and obtained its nullification on the grounds of his being a minor. But he did not desert his wife, at least for a time, for we hear of him occupying the menial office of scene-shifter in the same theatre with her; but he early disappears out of the history, and is heard of no more. Dorothy-so was the child called, although she afterward changed it to Dora -made her first appearance upon the Dublin stage, under the name of Miss Francis, as Phoebe in "As You Like It," when little more than a child. The slight glimpses we obtain of her early years are sadly suggestive. "From my first starting in life at the age of fourteen, I have always had a large family to support. My mother was a duty. But on brothers and sisters I have lavished more than can be supposed." Poor child! Provincial salaries were then but miserable stipends, and we can imagine the struggles and privations she must have undergone. The mother was evidently a listless, lymphatic personage with little moral strength, weakly dependent upon her child for support, loving her doubtless in that maudlin maternal fashion which is but a variety of selfishness, and regarding her interests only through the medium of the parental ones: weakly yielding to circumstances, however evil or dishonorable might be their results, with no other resistance than whimpers and sighs over her hard fate, rather than risk the wretched pittance that stood between her and absolute privation. Such are too

frequently actresses' mothers, mere harridans, who fatten on their children's industry-and disgrace.

At sixteen she had already made a hit in one of her future great parts, Priscilla Tomboy, in "The Romp." A poor lieutenant in a marching regiment fell desperately in love with her, and offered to make her his wife. But the mother, foreseeing the future harvest of her talents, stepped between, and, fearing to have the goose with the golden eggs snatched from her, carried it off to England.

Tate Wilkinson, the manager of the York circuit, was an old friend of Mrs. Bland's, and to Leeds, where the company was then performing, she and her family wended their way. Faint and weary, their appearance denoting the penury of their circumstances, they arrived at the manager's house. The mother expatiated with all the eagerness of their desperate condition upon her daughter's talents. "What is her line-tragedy, comedy, or opera?" he inquired. "ALL!" The reply was startling, and far from reassuring in its apparent exaggeration. Wilkinson describes the scene in his “Wandering Patentee: "

"Upon my suddenly seeing the family I withdrew for half an hour to reflect on what I should do, fearing a scrape from such a loaded connection, and not the least trait of comic power in the features or manners of the young lady, indeed, quite the reverse-dejected, melancholy, tears in her eyes, and a languor that, without the help of words, pleaded wonderfully for assistance."

He asked her to recite a speech, but she was too tired and worn to comply. Upon which the old manager brought out a bottle of Madeira and began to talk over old times with her mother.