spectably situated among the married members of her family, and nearer to her establishment in life than she could possibly have conceived. In the afternoon of the 22nd she saw Mr. Inchbald at her sister Slender's. From this time, an almost daily intercourse is kept up with all her sisters in town. The following week she received a small packet from Standingfield; and on the 10th of May she wrote for the first time to her excellent mother, and the correspondence was from that period regularly maintained between them. She had now a perfect crowd of her Standingfield acquaintances about her. The packet from Standingfield seems to have filled her with joy; for then, for the first time, she consented to be taken to the play. She visited the theatre afterwards usually twice a week, and sought in every way instruction as an actress, and any engagement that should appear respectable.

From the 7th May, visits are kept up with Dodd, who expresses a willingness to engage her; and on the 16th she settles with him. He had made her some presents, and, it should seem, was fully disposed to try how far a manager's pretensions might carry him with a beautiful young creature in her non-age, who depended upon his favour for the establishment of her independence. This, I am sorry to add, has been the practice in nearly all theatres, though not under all managers.

One instance is on record of a

libertine, himself a husband, whose system, as to the ladies he engaged, was to involve them artfully in pecuniary difficulties, chiefly that they might make the handsomer appearance upon his stage, and then propose the alternative-their dishonour or a prison. I am happy to have known one manager, who would not receive a lady of even doubtful character into his company. hope he was not singular in this pure taste.

I

She thus notices Dodd's behaviour. On the 18th of May she called upon him, and was "rather frighted:" before tea, however, he called upon her, and she willingly supposed herself mistaken. On the 22nd she had occasion to see him twice; once after dinner: she was then "terrified and vexed beyond measure at his behaviour.' She does not herself mention the circumstance, but it is pretty well understood that, at one of these interviews, she was so provoked as to snatch up a bason of hot water and dash it in his face; nor, in despite of the usual phrase, "to throw cold water upon the flame," could she be made to conceive that his insolence merited any milder chastisement. They who remember the Foppington of the actor, and his general manners, will laugh at the astonishment which she must have excited in the disconcerted manager. However, she was unwilling to destroy her prospects, where she thought a proper declaration of her principles and purposes might lead any thing but a savage to

desist from annoying her with this view she wrote some notes, to which an answer was returned she called upon him in person, but did not see him, though she was four times at his door. As the engagement was given only to ensnare, it was broken without much shame, and their connexion seems here to have terminated.

She does not appear, however, to have quite despaired of an engagement at the Norwich Theatre; and has two or three interviews, in consequence, with the harmonious, but not unprincipled, Griffith. In the mean time, however, she sees Mr. Inchbald (a man of great merit) two or three times a week, to the 26th of May, from which time he passed a great part of each day in her company, and seriously meditated in her a future wife. She had the advantage of his experience and advice in the framing any engagement with Griffith, of which she continued desirous; and he both counselled and consoled her in the disagreeable predicament as to Dodd. Her sister Slender had quitted London to pass a few days at Standingfield in her absence Mr. Inchbald was extremelv assiduous, and on the 2nd of June declared his hopes of their speedy union. Mrs. Slender returned home on the 9th, probably hastened expressly on account of that event; and in the evening Mr. Rice, a Catholic priest, called and married her to Mr. Inchbald. On the 10th, Mr. Inchbald breakfasted with them, and they all

went to church, where they were again married according to the Protestant rites. They had company at dinner on that important day, but the happy pair were not in the usual style whisked immediately through the dust into the country. Sister Slender and she went quietly to the play in the evening, in defiance of all omens, to see Mr. Inchbald act Mr. Oakley in The Jealous Wife !

The public in general little conceive the incessant occupation of an actor's time; the daily discipline of memory; the study of new characters; the morning rehearsals at the play-house, and the evening labours of performance, and that for hours in succession; his very toil the mere relaxation of others; what to the spectator is sport, but to the actor a scene of inquietude and exhaustion, irritated by rivalry, annoyed by prejudice, too frequently by wantonness and brutality; cheered only by applause, not always liberally bestowed, and sometimes lavish where least deserved,—the idol or the puppet of the million. With such a profession Mrs. Inchbald was now connected, and hoped to be identified; and her husband might consider that her rising talent and most lovely person would, by steady perseverance, secure to them so many lucrative engagements, that, even in a worldly view, his marriage might be deemed the most fortunate occurrence of his life. He was himself in his thirty-seventh year, and his wife in

her nineteenth. They were both of them Roman Catholics, who professed the religion of their fathers, without much examination, or very scrupulous adherence to the discipline of their church.

Mr. Inchbald being engaged to act at Bristol, for that city he and his lovely wife set off on the evening of the 11th of June, 1772. The next day they met Mr. Dodd at Marlborough, who marked his petulance, perhaps his malice, by not wishing them joy upon their marriage. They were easily consoled. On their arrival at Bristol, they took lodgings near College Green, and found in the town many of the players with whom Mrs. Inchbald became acquainted at Bury. A calling acquaintance was kept up with such as they preferred, and there was no want of amusement; for, in addition to their walks in that delightful situation, Mrs. Inchbald frequently went to the rehearsals in the morning, and twice or thrice in the week enjoyed the play from the body' of the house. To a week of the honey-moon she thought herself fully entitled, and therefore did not mix business with her pleasures; but on the 19th she absolutely began to write out the part of Cordelia. Whatever be the charms of a young débutante, it is a sign of modesty if she even borrows the virtues to heighten her beauty. Cordelia has become the appellative of filial piety. She is beloved for what she does, rather than what she says. Tate, in utter violation of her pure and