ART. VII.-A Year of Consolation. By MRS. BUTLER, late Fanny Kemble. In two volumes. New-York: Wiley & Putman. 1847.

It was, if we remember rightly, in the autumn of 1832, that we first saw Fanny Kemble. It was the first night of her appearance on the boards of the theatre after her arrival in this country. Public anxiety had heralded her ap proach by a thousand grateful anticipations. The daughter of a Kemble, the niece of a Siddons, she was asserted to unite in her own person, the masculine dignity of the one, with all the passionate force and power of the other. Nor were these her only possessions. She had been embraced at her birth by the muse of poetry as well as of tragedy, and the renown of the actor was half obscured by the endowments of the impovisatrice. The rare union of so many resources, all intellectual or spiritual, might well inspire curiosity with a glory of its own, and bring myriads of eyes, in eager expectation, to the always gorgeous altars of Melpomene. Nor was she admitted to be deficient in those charms of face and person which so frequently supply, in the sight of the admirer, the want of other and more admirable possessions. Her eye and forehead had a rare power of control and expression; and there were those who found in her lips a force and a sweetnsss, which were vastly superior, in their effect, to any attractions of mere loveliness. Bright rather than beautiful-impressive rather than attractive,those who had beheld her, and had least to say in behalf of her simply feminine attractions, were yet unwilling or unable to deny their existence. It was admitted that, if they failed to satisfy taste, they were yet endowed with certain flashing and powerful characteristics, which enabled their owner to divert or to baffle the eye of criticism.

Such, and so large, were the anticipations of the American people at the first appearance of Miss Kemble among them. The play was Fazio; and, in the simple and demure habit of Bianca, with her back to the audience, and her eyes and hands given to the duties of her humble household,-the public mind was scarcely prepared to realize the imposing idea which had previously possessed it, of the person and the powers of the gifted stranger. The form upon which all eyes were fastened, did not carry with it any as

pect of command. The action was neither startling nor impressive; -on the contrary exceedingly quiet and subdued. There was nothing to indicate the possession, or even the consciousness, of a large or commanding ability. There was no pretension-none of that ordinary, and perhaps natural display, with which the actor is wont to compel consideration, and to assert those claims which are supposed, but too frequently, to need audacity quite as much as ability, to enforce and establish. But, to the eye that looks below the surface, the very disdain of the usual method of approach, on the part of the debutante, was significant of character. The simplicity of person and of costume, necessary to the part thus chosen at the outset, was indicative of equal good taste and self-reliance; and the unwonted exhibition of a back to the audience, instead of a face wreathed in smiles and beaming with equal gratitude and good humor, declared a mental independence, which might be supposed to compensate, in large degree, for what was held at the time, by the exquisitely fastidious pit, to have been a sad violation of all theatrical propriety. The progress of the scene cleared away all doubts and clouds, if its opening had occasioned any. The rôle of the passionate Italian wife, was in admirable sympathy with the intense nature of the actress. Her peculiar impulse and great energies, kept harmonious pace with the requisitions of the dark and fiery tragedy of which she constitutes the soul and centre. That eager and impetuous nature,- that quickly roused and imperious spirit,-that keen and vigilant will, and those deep passions which characterize the nature of Miss Kemble herself, were the grand requisites in the delineation of Bianca. Her Juliet followed, and in this, and perhaps in most of the persons whom she presented, her triumphs were equally decided. Power was her secret. Intensity was the vital spring of her personations. She did not beguile. She had few arts of persuasion. Mere grace was not one of her qualities. In the scenes of repose,those which bring out the nervous and sensitive nature best, she seemed awkward and unhappy. She appeared anxious to hurry through them. Her tastes were not equal to her genius. She was too impatient of control to submit to their subduing restraints. Her first scenes in Juliet, were surpassed by other women who had not the tithe of her ability, but who could better submit to the necessary

training. She had too much blood, too much will, too much real power for the scenes of simple grace and delicacy. That nice attention to the smaller details of social bearing, which we seldom find associated with any strong or impressive development of character, was not necessary to, or consistent with, her genius. This was distinguished by its courage, rather than by its diligence. It shrunk from the duty of painfully elaborating a character. Its cenception was bold, and shown by rapid action, by strong lines, by rich contrast and imposing forms. The provocation to her performances must be such as try the soul. In the scene of conflict between Bianca, and the "bold bad woman," Aldabella; and in the wild struggle of her imagination, when as Juliet, she conjures up the blood image of Tybalt in his shroud;-she is all at home-a thing of life and power,-resolved wholly into the being whom she personates,-instinct with all her griefs and terrors,-the Pythia possessed by the sacred fury of the God, and writhing and shrieking under the influence of the divine agony which she is perforce commanded to interpret.

In the performances which required powers such as these, Miss Kemble never was surpassed. The character which her own demanded, was one of terrible trials, and a strong passionate nature, such as could feel and respond to them with energy and will. The girl Juliet, was not her forte. The scenes of simple and artless affection, in that model of all the love plays ever written, were not adequate to the provocation of her strength. It was not in love's raptures, but in its ruptures, that she found her genius. It was in the delineation of Italian intensity-its fervor, rather than its fancy, that she caught the inspiration. It was in the denial of her passions that she found their exercise. Those terrible and sudden bursts of eloquence which mere talent can no more imitate than conceive, were the natural utterrances of her soul, whenever the events of the scene furnished the necessary impulse. These are not to be described. They were sufficiently felt. Her audiences followed her with nightly increasing pleasure Their admiration was not only without stint or limit, but it was such as they could honestly justify by argument. It was with pride that they could admit that she has no beauty,--that she sometimes failed in grace,-that she had many faults of air, of carriage and expression. It was in spite of these that VOL. XII.-No. 23.

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she triumphed, triumphed through the sheer force of her genius, which had nothing in common with the tame routine delineations of actresses, who might possess all the proprieties and exult in all the beauties, of the staid and com. mon-place. She was original-always fresh and new-forever exhibiting a novel aspect, and compelling the eyes of admiration by some new surprise.

It was in the midst of these triumphs,-while they were all fresh,—with the prospect before her, of increasing and uninterrupted successes,-that she suddenly tore the wreath from her brow and retired from the stage ;-retired from the customary field of her performances, to which she had been habituated, for which she had been trained,-its honors easy to her attainment,-grateful to her pride, and of a sort to become, in time, absolutely essential to the ambition of an ardent and imaginative temperament. She left the public world in which she had luxuriated rather than lived, for the narrow province of an ordinary fireside; and, for the affections of a single being, surrendered the adulation and the smiles-shall we not call them affections also? of longing and lingering thousands.

The instincts of the multitude were prompt in judging of this event. They were not far wrong when they said, "it cannot and it will not come to good." Domestic life implies a bondage and comparative subjection of one nature to another--such a sympathy, at all events, between the two as shall enable them without any feeling of loss, to shut out the world, and know, in this privation, no diminu tion of that moving sentiment, by which they were brought together, and knit tenderly in one. Ordinarily, this sort of sympathy, implying such surrender of the outer world, is not easy to be established. Profound deference on the part of the feebler nature,—a benignant sweetness of mood and a calm gentle presiding judgment on the part of the superior, are the elements absolutely necessary to happiness in the marriage state. These conditions require a temper more solicitous of love than of admiration-a nature, which duly appreciating its own wants, and the resources of its companion, feels sure that the balance is in its favor, and that the sacrifice of the crowd, implies the loss of no possessions so valuable as those which it has won. The ordinary nature finds it difficult to make this sacrifice completely. If he, therefore, or she, to whom the world has brought

no trophies and no triumphs; who is not in its eye; and, not only not the object of its admiration, but not even of its notices-if such as these are reluctant at this proof of self-denial;-if they so frequently find the privations of this condition painful, and prove untrue to their sacred pledges; what hope of resignation, on the part of the individual who renounces a world of triumphs-the adoring eyes of thousands-the adulation of the eager multitude, and the tribute of admiration to genius and to intellect, the purest and proudest sort of fame to which the mind of imortal man has ever become alive?

These were the sacrifices which Miss Kemble was required to make when she left the stage. She retired, not only from the scene of her triumphs, but from the proper field for the exercise of her genius. She was nothing half so much as an actress. We are of the opinion that every individual has his commission-his born allotment, and that the great object of study and education, is simply to determine what we are good for, and to prepare us for its performance. Nobody questions the peculiar histrionic endowments of our subject. She was the mistress of the scene. Her wand gave her power over human passions. She embodied vividly the best conceptions of the great masters in tragic fiction, and the world acknowledged her excellence. With a popular recognition of her various resources of literature, no one ever conceived the possibility of her achieving the same triumphs, or attaining the same rank, in authordom, as that which she had acquired on the stage. Nobody who knew her, fancied, that in retiring from the theatre, her ambition was wholly satiated-her love of distinction pacified-her thirst for popular applause at rest. Her talent various, her temperament active and elastic, her approbativeness large, it was evident that she was one of those destined by original endowment and constitution to a life-long ambitious struggle for the world's esteem. The stage had its annoyances no doubt. She has put on record her disquiet and repining when subjected to some of them, which even her pride could not venture to resent, and no human ingenuity could enable her to escape. But, such are the accompaniments of all conditions. To submit, where we should vainly struggle, is the conviction of the highest wisdom. Never wilfully to seek what might humble, and never to embrace the practice which might