powerful and versatile actor. He acted the Stranger and subsequently was seen in the other leading characters opposite to her own. Miss Cushman's repertory then included Lady Macbeth, Queen Katharine, Meg Merrilies, Beatrice, Rosalind, Bianca, Julia, Mariana, Katharine, the Countess, Pauline, Juliana, Lady Gay Spanker, and Mrs. Simpson. Her principal male characters then, or later, were Romeo, Wolsey, Hamlet, and Claude Melnotte. In 1852 she announced her intention of retiring from the stage, and from that time till the end of her days she wavered between retirement and professional occupation. The explanation of this is readily divined, in her condition. There never was a time, during all those years, when she was not haunted by dread of the disease that ultimately destroyed her life. From 1852 to 1857 she lived in England, and in the course of that period she acted many times, in different cities. December 1854, when dining with the Duke of Devonshire, at Brighton, she read Henry VIII. to the Duke and his guests, and in that way began her experience as a reader. In the autumn of 1857 she acted at Burton's theatre, New York, and was seen as Cardinal Wolsey, and in the early summer of

In

1858 she gave a series of "farewell" performances at Niblo's Garden - after which she again crossed the Atlantic and established her residence in Rome. In June 1860 the great actress came home again and passed a year in America. Oliver Twist was given at the Winter Garden in the spring of 1861, when Miss Cushman acted Nancy, and J. W. Wallack, Jr., J. B. Studley, William Davidge, and Owen Marlowe were in the company. In 1863, having come from Rome for that purpose, Miss Cushman acted in four cities, for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission, and earned for it $8267. The seven ensuing years were passed by her in Europe, but in October 1870 she returned home for the last time, and the brief remainder of her life was devoted to public readings, occasional dramatic performances, and the society of friends. She built a villa at Newport, which still bears her name. She gave final farewell performances, in the season of 1874-1875, in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Her final public appearance was made on June 2, 1875, at Easton, Pennsylvania, where she gave a reading. Her death occurred at the Parker House, in Boston, February 18, 1876, and she was buried from King's chapel.

There is a mournful pleasure in recalling the details of Miss Cushman's life and meditating upon her energetic, resolute, patient, creative nature. She was faithful, throughout her career, to high principles of art and a high standard of duty. Nature gave her great powers but fettered her also with great impediments. She conquered by the spell of a strange, weird genius and by hard, persistent labour. In this latter particular she is an example to every member of the dramatic profession, present or future. In what she was as a woman she could not be imitated for her colossal individuality dwelt apart, in its loneliness, as well of suffering that no one could share as of an imaginative life that no one could fathom. Without the stage she would still have been a great woman, although perhaps she might have lacked an entirely suitable vehicle for the display of her powers. With the stage she gave a body to the soul of some of Shakespeare's greatest conceptions, and she gave soul and body both to many works of inferior origin. There is no likelihood that we shall ever see again such a creation as her Meg Merrilies. Her genius could embody the sublime, the beautiful, the terrible, and

with all this the humorous; and it was saturated with goodness. If the love of beauty was intensified by the influence of her art, virtue was also strengthened by the force of her example and the inherent dignity of her nature.

XIV.

ON THE DEATH OF LAWRENCE BARRETT.

THE

[Obiit March 20, 1891.]

HE death of Lawrence Barrett was the disappearance of one of the noblest figures of the modern stage. During the whole of his career, in a public life of thirty-five years, he was steadily and continuously impelled by a pure and fine ambition and the objects that he sought to accomplish were always the worthiest and the best. His devotion to the dramatic art was a passionate devotion, and in an equal degree he was devoted to a high ideal of personal conduct. Doctrines of expediency never influenced him and indeed were

He

never considered by him. He had early fixed his eyes on the dramatic sceptre. knew that it never could be gained except by the greatest and brightest of artistic achievements, and to them accordingly he consecrated his life. Whenever and wherever he appeared the community