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- Kemble, Fanny, Record of a Girlhood, 1, 1879, pp. 230-265. (she was the cousin of Combe's wife) 


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London life succeeded the calm, equable, and all but imperceptible control of my dear friend, whose influence over her children, the result of her wisdom in dealing with them, no less than of their own amiable dispositions, was absolute. In considering Mrs. Henry Siddons's character, when years had modified its first impression upon my own, my estimate of it underwent, of course, some inevitable alteration; but when I stayed with her in Edinburgh I was at the idolatrous period of life, and never, certainly, had an enthusiastic young girl worshipper a worthier or better idol.

She was not regularly handsome, but of a sweet and most engaging countenance; her figure was very pretty, her voice exquisite, and her whole manner, air, and deportment graceful, attractive, and charming. Men, women, and children not only loved her, but inevitably fell in love with her, and the fascination which she exercised over every one that came in contact with her invariably deepened into profound esteem and confidence, in those who had the good fortune to share her intimacy. Her manner, which was the most gentle and winning imaginable, had in it a touch of demure playfulness that was very charming, at the same time that it habitually conveyed the idea of extreme self-control, and a great reserve of moral force and determination underneath this quiet surface.

Mrs. Harry's manner was artificial, and my mother told me she thought it the result of an early determination, to curb the demonstrations of an impetuous temper and passionate feelings. It had become her second nature when I knew her, however, and contributed not a little to the immense ascendency she soon

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acquired over my vehement .and stormy character. She charmed me into absolute submission to her will and wishes, and I all but worshipped her.

She was a Miss Murray, and came of good Scottish blood, her great-grandfather having at one time been private secretary to the Young Pretender. She married Mrs. Siddons's youngest son, Harry, the only one of my aunt's children who adopted her own profession, and who, himself an indifferent actor, undertook the management of the Edinburgh theatre, fell into ill-health, and died, leaving his lovely young widow with four children to the care of her brother, William Murray, who succeeded him in the government of the theatre, of which his sister and himself became joint proprietors.

Edinburgh at that time was still the small but important capital of Scotland, instead of what railroads and modern progress have reduced it to, merely the largest town. Those were the days of the giants, Scott, Wilson, Hogg, Jeffrey, Brougham, Sidney Smith, the Horners, Lord Murray, Allison, and all the formidable intellectual phalanx that held mental dominion over the English-speaking world, under the blue and yellow standard of the Edinburgh Review.

The ancient city had still its regular winter season of fashionable gaiety, during which sedan chairs were to be seen carrying through its streets, to its evening assemblies, the more elderly members of the beau monde. The nobility and gentry of Scotland came up from their distant country residences to their town houses in " Auld Reekie," as they now come up to London.


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Edinburgh was a brilliant and peculiarly intellectual centre of society with a strongly marked national character, and the theatre held a distinguished place among its recreations; the many eminent literary and professional men who then made the Scotch capital illustrious being zealous patrons of the drama and frequenters of the play-house, and proud, with reason, of their excellent theatrical company, at the head of which was William Murray, one of the most perfect actors I have ever known on any stage, and among whom Terry and Mackay, admirable actors and cultivated, highly intelligent men, were conspicuous for their ability.

Mrs. Henry Siddons held a peculiar position in Edinburgh, her widowed condition and personal attractions combining to win the, sympathy and admiration of its best society, while her. high character and blameless conduct secured the respect and esteem of her theatrical subjects and the general public, with whom she was an object of almost affectionate personal regard, and in whose favour, as long as she exercised her profession, she continued to hold the first place, in spite of their temporary enthusiasm for the great London stars who visited them at stated seasons. " Our Mrs. Siddons," I have repeatedly heard her called in Edinburgh, not at all with the slightest idea of comparing her with her celebrated mother-in-law, but rather as expressing the kindly personal goodwill and the admiring approbation with which she was regarded by her own townsfolk, who were equally proud and fond of her. She was not a great actress, nor even what in my opinion could be called a good

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actress, for she had no natural versatility or power of assumption whatever, and what was opposed to her own nature and character was altogether out of the range of her powers.

On the other hand, when (as frequently happened) she had to embody heroines whose characteristics coincided with her own, her grace and beauty and innate sympathy with everything good, true, pure, and upright made her an admirable representative of all such characters. She wanted physical power and weight for the great tragic drama of Shakespeare, and passion for the heroine of his love tragedy; but Viola, Rosalind, Isabel, Imogen,, could have no better representative. In the first part Sir Walter Scott has celebrated (in the novel of " Waverley ") the striking effect produced by her resemblance to her brother, William Murray, in the last scene of " Twelfth Night;" and in many pieces founded upon the fate and fortune of Mary Stuart she gave an unrivalled impersonation of the " enchanting queen " of modern history.

My admiration and affection for her were, as I have said, unbounded; and some of the various methods I took to exhibit them were, I dare say, intolerably absurd, though she was graciously good-natured in tolerating them.

Every day, summer and winter, I made it my business to provide her with a sprig of myrtle for her sash at dinner-time ; this, when she had worn it all the evening, I received again on bidding her good night, and stored in a treasure drawer, which, becoming in time choked with fragrant myrtle leaves, was emptied with due solemnity into the fire, that destruc




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tion in the most classic form might avert from them all desecration. I ought by rights to have eaten their ashes, or drunk a decoction of them, or at least treasured them in a golden urn, but contented myself with watching them shrivel and crackle with much sentimental satisfaction. I remember a most beautiful myrtle tree, which, by favour of a peculiarly sunny and sheltered exposure, had reached a very unusual size in the open air in Edinburgh, and in the flowering season might have borne comparison with the finest shrubs of the warm terraces of the under cliff of the Isle of Wight. From this I procured my daily offering to my divinity.

The myrtle is the least voluptuous of flowers; the legend of Juno's myrtle-sheltered bath seems not unnaturally suggested by the vigorous, fresh, and healthy beauty of the plant, and the purity of its snowy blossoms. The exquisite quality, too, which myrtle possesses, of preserving uncorrupted the water in which it is placed, with other flowers, is a sort of moral attribute, which, combined with the peculiar character of its fragrance, seems to me to distinguish this lovely shrub from every other flower of the field or garden.

To return to my worship of Mrs. Harry Siddons. On one occasion, the sash of her dress came unfastened and fell to the ground, and, having secured possession of it, I retained my prize and persisted in wearing it, baldric fashion, over every dress I put on. It was a silk scarf, of a sober dark-grey colour, and occasionally produced a most fantastical and absurd contrast with what I was wearing.

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These were childish expressions of a feeling the soberer portion of which remains with me even now, and makes the memory of that excellent woman, and kind, judicious friend, still very dear to my grateful affection. Not only was the change of discipline under which I now lived advantageous, but the great freedom I enjoyed, and which would have been quite impossible in London, was delightful to me; while the wonderful, picturesque beauty of Edinburgh, contrasted with the repulsive dinginess and ugliness of my native city, was a constant source of the liveliest pleasure to me.

The indescribable mixture of historic and romantic interest with all this present, visible beauty, the powerful charm of the Scotch ballad poetry, which now began to seize upon my imagination, and the inexhaustible enchantment of the associations thrown by the great modern magician over every spot made memorable by his mention, combined to affect my mind and feelings at this most susceptible period of my life, and made Edinburgh dear and delightful to me above all other places I ever saw, as it still re. mains,-with the one exception of Rome, whose combined claim to veneration and admiration no earthly city can indeed dispute.

Beautiful Edinburgh! dear to me for all its beauty and all the happiness that I have never failed to find there, for the keen delight of my year of youthful life spent among its enchanting influences, and for the kind friends and kindred whose affectionate hospitality has made each return thither as happy as sadder and older years allowed,-my blessing on every stone of its streets !



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I had the utmost liberty allowed me in my walks about the city, and at early morning have often run up and round and round the Calton Hill, delighting, from every point where I stopped to breathe, in the noble panorama on every side. Not unfrequently I walked down to the sands at Porto Bello and got a sea bath, and returned before breakfast; while on the other side of the town my rambles extended to New Haven and the rocks and sands of Cramond Beach.

While Edinburgh had then more the social importance of a capital, it had a much smaller extent; great portions of the present new town did not then exist. Warriston and the Bridge of Dean were still out of town; there was no Scott's monument in Princess Street, no railroad terminus with its smoke and scream and steam scaring the echoes of the North Bridge; no splendid Queen's Drive encircled Arthur's Seat. Windsor Street, in which Mrs. Harry Siddons lived, was one of the most recently finished, and broke off abruptly above gardens and bits of meadow land, and small irregular inclosures, and mean scattered houses, stretching down towards Warriston Crescent; while from the balcony of the drawing-room the eye, passing over all this untidy suburban district, reached, without any intervening buildings, the blue waters of the Forth and Inchkeith with its revolving light.

Standing on that balcony late one cold, clear night, watching the rising and setting of that sea star that kept me fascinated out in the chill air, I saw for the first time the sky illuminated with the aurora borealis. It was a magnificent display of the phenomenon, and I feel certain that my attention was first attracted to

4

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it by the crackling sound which appeared to accompany the motion of the pale flames as they streamed across the sky; indeed, crackling is not the word that properly describes the sound I heard, which was precisely that made by the flickering of blazing fire; and as I have often since read and heard discussions upon the question whether the motion of the aurora is or is not accompanied by an audible sound, I can only say that on this occasion it was the sound that first induced me to observe the sheets of white light that were leaping up the sky. At this time I knew nothing of these phenomena, or the debates among scientific men to which they had given rise, and can therefore trust the impression made on my senses.

I have since then witnessed repeated appearances of these beautiful meteoric lights, but have never again detected any sound accompanying their motion. The finest aurora I ever saw was at Lenox, Massachusetts; a splendid rose-coloured pavilion appeared to be spread all over the sky, through which, in several parts, the shining of the stars was distinctly visible, while at the zenith the luminous drapery seemed gathered into folds, the colour of which deepened almost to crimson. It was wonderfully beautiful. At Lenox, too, one night during the season of the appearance of the great comet of 1858, the splendid flaming plume hovered over one side of the sky, while all round the other horizon streams of white fire appeared to rise from altars of white light. It was awfully glorious, and beyond all description beautiful. The sky of that part of the United States, particularly in the late autumn and winter, was more frequently

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visited by magnificent meteors than any other with which I have been acquainted.
The extraordinary purity, dryness, and elasticity of the atmosphere in that region was, I suppose, one cause of these heavenly shows; the clear transparency of the sky by day often giving one the feeling that one was looking straight into heaven without any intermediate window of atmospheric air, while at night (especially in winter) the world of stars, larger, brighter; more numerous than they ever seemed to me elsewhere, and yet apparently infinitely higher and farther off, were set in a depth of dark whose blackness appeared transparent rather than opaque.
Midnight after midnight I have stood, when the thermometer was twenty and more degrees below freezing, looking over the silent, snow-smothered hills round the small mountain village of Lenox, fast asleep in their embrace, and from thence to the solemn sky rising above them like a huge iron vault hung with thousands of glittering steel weapons, from which, every now and then, a shining scimitar fell flashing earthwards; it was a cruel-looking sky, in its relentless radiance.
My solitary walks round Edinburgh have left two especial recollections in my mind; the one pleasant, the, other very sad. I will speak of the latter first ; it was like a leaf out of the middle of a tragedy, of which I never knew either the beginning or the end.

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CHAPTER IX.

I wAs coming home one day from a tramp towards Cramond Beach, and was just on the brow of a wooded height looking towards Edinburgh and not two miles from it, when a heavy thunder-cloud darkened the sky above my head and pelted me with large drops of ominous warning. On one side of the road the iron gate and lodge of some gentleman's park suggested shelter; and, the half-open door of the latter showing a tidy, pleasant-looking woman busy at an ironing table, I ventured to ask her to let me come in till the sponge overhead should have emptied itself. She very good-humouredly consented, and I sat down while the rain rang merrily on the gravel walk before the door, and smoked in its vehement descent on the carriage-road beyond.
The woman pursued her work silently, and I presently became aware of a little child, as silent as herself, sitting beyond her, in a small wicker chair; on the baby's table which fastened her into it were some remnants of shabby, broken toys, among which her tiny, wax-white fingers played with listless unconsciousness, while her eyes were fixed on me. The child looked wan and wasted, and had in its eyes,

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which it never turned from me, the weary, wistful, unutterable look of " far away arid long ago " longing that comes into the miserably melancholy eyes of monkeys.
" Is the baby ill 2 " said I.
"Ou na, mew; it's no to say that ill, only just always peaking and pining like,"-and she stopped ironing a moment to look at the little creature.
" Is it your own baby?" said I, struck with the absence of motherly tenderness in spite of the woman's compassionate tone and expression.
" Ou na, mew, it's no my sin ; I hae vane o' my sin."
" How old is it ? " I went on.
" Nigh upon five year old," was the answer, with which the ironing was steadily resumed with apparently no desire to encourage more questions.
" Five years old! " I exclaimed, in horrified amazement: its size was that of a rickety baby under three, while its wizened face was that of a spell-struck creature of no assignable age, or the wax image of some dwindling life wasting away before the witchkindled fire of a diabolical hatred. The tiny hands and arms were pitiably thin, and showed under the yellow skin sharp little bones no larger than a chicken's; and at her wrists and temples the blue tracery of her veins looked like a delicate map of the blood, that seemed as if it could hardly be pulsing through her feeble frame; while below the eyes a livid shadow darkened the faded face that had no other colour in it.
The tears welled up into my eyes, and the woman,

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seeing them, suddenly stopped ironing and exclaimed eagerly, " Ou, mem, ye ken the family; or maybe yell hae been a friend of the puir thing's wither ! " I was obliged to say that I neither knew them nor anything about them, but that the child's piteous aspect had made me cry.
In answer to the questions with which I then plied her, the woman, who seemed herself affected by the impression I had received from the poor little creature's appearance, told me that the child was that of the only daughter of the people who owned the place; that there was " something wrong " about it all, she did not know what,-a marriage ill-pleasing to the grandparents perhaps, perhaps even worse than that; but the mother was dead, the family had been abroad for upwards of three years, and the child had been left under her charge. This was all she told me, and probably all she knew; and as she ended she wiped the tears from her own eyes, adding, " I'm thinking the puir bairn will no live long itsel'."
The rain was over, and the sun shone, and I got up to go; as I went, the child's dreary eyes followed me out at the door, and I cried all the way home. Was it possible that my appearance suggested to that tiny soul the image of its young lost mother?
The other incident in my rambles that I wish to record was of a far pleasanter sort. I had gone down to the pier at Newhaven, one blowy, blustering day (the fine Granton Pier Hotel and landing-place did not yet exist), and stood watching the waves taking their mad run and leap over the end of the pier, in a glorious, foaming frenzy that kept me fascinated with the 16

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fine uproar, till it suddenly occurred to me that it would be delightful to be out among them (I certainly could have had no recollections of sea-sickness), and I determined to try and get a boat and go out on the frith.
I stopped at a cottage on the outskirts of the fishing town (it was not much more than a village then) of Newhaven, and knocked: Invited to come in, I did so, and there sat a woman, one of the very handsomest I ever saw, in solitary state, leisurely combing a magnificent curtain of fair hair, that fell over her ample shoulders and bosom and almost swept the ground. She was seated on a low stool, but looked tall as well as large, and her foam-fresh complexion and grey-green eyes might have become Venus Anadyomene herself, turned into a Scotch fish-wife of five and thirty, or "thereawa." " Can you tell me of any one who will take me out in a boat for a little while 2 " quoth I. She looked steadily at me for a minute, and then answered laconically, " Ay, my man and boy shall gang wi' ye." A few lusty screams brought her husband and son forth, and at her bidding they got a boat ready, and, with me well covered with sail-cloths, tarpaulins, and rough dreadnaughts of one sort and another, rowed out from the shore into the turmoil of the sea. A very little of the dancing I got now was delight enough for me, and, deadly sick, I besought to be taken home again, when the matronly Brinhilda at the cottage received me with open-throated peals of laughter, and then made me sit down till I had conquered my qualms and was able to walk back to Edinburgh. Before I went, she showed me a heap of her children, too many, it seemed

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to me, to be counted; but as they lay in an inextricable mass on the floor in an inner room, there may have seemed more arms and legs forming the radii, of which a clump of curly heads was the centre, than there really were.
The husband was a comparatively small man, with dark eyes, hair, and complexion; but her " boy," the eldest, who had come with him to take care of me, was a fair-haired, fresh-faced young giant, of his mother's strain, and, like her, looked as if he had come of the Northern Vikings, or some of the Niebelungen Lied heroes.
When I went away, ' my fish-wife bade me come again in smooth weather, and if her husband and son were at home they should take me out; and I gave her my address, and begged her, when she came up to town with her fish, to call at the house.
She was a splendid specimen of her tribe, climbing the steep Edinburgh streets with bare white feet, the heavy fish-basket at her back hardly stooping her broad shoulders, her florid face sheltered and softened in spite of its massiveness into something like delicacy by the transparent shadow of the white handkerchief tied hoodwise over her fair hair, and her shrill sweet voice calling " Caller haddie ! " all the way she went, in the melancholy monotone that resounds through the thoroughfares of Edinburgh,-the only melodious street cry (except the warning of the Venetian gondoliers) that I ever heard.
I often went back to visit my middle-aged Christie Johnstone, and more than once saw her and her fellow fish-women haul up the boats on their return

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after being out at sea. They all stood on the beach clamouring like a flock of sea-gulls, and, as a boat's keel rasped the shingles, rushed forward and seized it; and while the men in their sea clothes, all dripping like huge Newfoundland dogs, jumped out in their heavy boots and took each the way to their several houses, their stalwart partners, hauling all together at the rope fastened to the boat, drew it up beyond watermark, and seized and sorted its freight of fish, and stalked off each with her own basket full, with which she trudged up to trade and chaffer with the " gude wives " of the town, and bring back to the men the value of their work. It always seemed to me that these women, had about as equal a share of the labour of life as the most zealous champion of the rights of their sex could desire.
I did. not indulge in any more boating expeditions, but admired the sea from the pier, and became familiar with all the spokes of the fish-wife's family wheel; at any rate, enough to distinguish Jamie from Sandie, and Willie from Johnnie, and Maggie from Jeanie, and Ailaie from Lizzie, and was great friends with them all.
When I returned to Edinburgh, a theatrical star of the first magnitude, I took a morning's holiday to drive down to Newhaven, in search of my old ally, Mistress Sandie Flockhart. She no longer inhabited the little detached cottage, and divers and sundry were the Flockhart "wives" that I " speired at" through the unsavoury street of Newhaven, before I found the right one at last, on the third flat of a filthy house, where noise and stench combined almost to knock me

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down, and where I could hardly knock loud enough to make myself heard above the din within and without. She opened the door of a room that looked as if it was running over with live children, and confronted me with the unaltered aspect of her comely, smiling face. But I had driven down from Edinburgh in all the starlike splendour of a lilac silk dress and French crape bonnet, and my dear fish-wife stared at me silently, with her mouth and grey eyes wide open; only for a moment, however, for in the next she joyfully exclaimed, " Ech, sirs ! but it's yer ain sel' come back again at last! " Then, seizing my hand, she added breathlessly, " I'se gotten anither ane, and ye maun come in and see him; " so she dragged me bodily through and over her -surging progeny, to a cradle where, soothed by the strident lullabies of its Vociferating predecessors, her last-born and eleventh baby lay peaceably slumbering, an infant Hercules.
Among Mrs. Harry Siddons's intimate friends and associates were the remarkable brothers, George and Andrew Combe; the former a lawyer by profession, but known to the literary and scientific world of Europe and America as the Apostle of Phrenology, and the author of a work entitled " The Constitution of Man," and other writings, whose considerable merit and value appear to me more or less impaired by the craniological theory which he made the foundation of all his works, and which to my mind diminished the general utility of his publications for those readers who are not prepared to accept it as the solution of all the mysteries of human existence.
His writings are all upon subjects of the greatest

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importance and universal interest, and full of the soundest moral philosophy and the most enlightened humanity ; and their only drawback, to me, is the phrenological element which enters so largely into his treatment of every question. Indeed, his life was devoted to the dissemination of this new philosophy of human nature (new, at any rate, in the precise details which Gall, Spurzheim, and he elaborated from it), which, Combe believed, if once generally accepted, would prove the clew to every difficulty, and the panacea for every evil existing in modern civilization. Political and social, religious and civil, mental and moral government, according to him, hinged upon the. study and knowledge of the different organs of the human brain, and he laboured incessantly to elucidate and illustrate this subject, upon which he thought the salvation of the world depended. For a number of years I enjoyed the privilege of his friendship, and I have had innumerable opportunities of hearing his system explained by himself; but as I was never able to get beyond a certain point of belief in it, it was agreed on all hands that my brain was deficient in the organ of causality, i.e. in the capacity of logical reasoning, and that therefore it was ,not in my power to perceive the force of his arguments or the truth of his system, even when illustrated by his repeated demonstrations.
I am bound to say that my cousin Cecilia Combe had quite as much trouble with her household, her lady's-maids were quite as inefficient, her housemaids quite as careless, and her cooks quite as fierytempered and unsober, as those of " ordinary Chris-

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bans," in spite of Mr. Combe's observation and manipulation of their lumps previous to engaging them.
I remember once, when I was sitting to Lawrence Macdonald for my bust, which was one of the first he ever executed, before he left Edinburgh to achieve fame and fortune as the most successful marble portrait-maker in Rome, an absurd instance of Mr. Combe's insight into character occurred at my expense.
Macdonald was an intimate friend of the Combes, and I used to see him at their house very frequently, and Mr. Combe often came to the studio when I was sitting. One day while he was standing by, grimly observing Macdonald's absorbed manipulation of his clay, while I, the original clay, occupied the "bad eminence " of an artist's studio throne, my aunt came in with a small paper bag containing raspberry tarts in her hand. This was a dainty so peculiarly agreeable to me that, even at that advanced stage of my existence, those who loved me, or wished to be loved by me, were apt to approach me with those charming three-cornered puff paste propitiations.
As soon as I espied the confectioner's light paper bag, I guessed its contents, and, springing from my dignified station, seized on the tarts as if I had been the notorious knave of the nursery rhyme. "There now, Macdonald, I told you so! " quoth Mr. Combe, and they both began to laugh; and so did I, with my mouth full of raspberry puff, for it was quite evident to me that my phrenological friend had impressed upon my artistic friend the special development of my

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organ of alimentiveness, as he politely called it, which I translated into the vulgate as " bump of greediness." In spite of my reluctance to sit to him, from the conviction that the thick outline of my features would turn the edge of the finest chisel that " ever yet cut breath," and perhaps by dint- of phrenology, Macdonald succeeding in making a very good bust of me; and some time after, to my great amusement, having 'seen me act in the " Grecian Daughter," he said to me, " Oh, but what I want to do now is a statute of you."
" Yes," said I, " and I will tell you exactly wherein the last scene, where I cover my face."

Precisely so! " cried my enthusiastic friend, and then burst out laughing, on seeing the trap I had laid for him; but he was a very honest man, and stood by his word.

The attitude he wished to represent in a statute was that when, having stabbed Dionysius, I raised the dagger towards heaven with one hand, and drew my drapery over my face with the other. For my notion of heroic women has always been, I am afraid, rather base,-a sort of "They do not mind death, but they cannot bear pinching; " and though Eupbrasia might, could, would, and should stab the man who was about to murder her father, I have no idea that she would like to look at the man she had stabbed. " 0 Jupiter, no blood! " is apt to be the instinct, I suspect, even in very villainous feminine natures, and those who are and those who are not cowards alike shrink from sights of horror.

When I made Macdonald's acquaintance I was a

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girl of about seventeen, and he at the very beginning of his artistic career; but he had an expression of power and vivid intelligence which foretold his future achievements in the exquisite art to which he devoted himself.

When next I met Macdonald, it was after a long lapse of time, in 1846, in Rome. Thither he had gone to study his divine art, and there he had remained for a number of years in the exercise of it. He was now the Signor Lorenzo of the Palazzo Barberini, the most successful and celebrated maker of busts, probably, in Rome, having achieved fame, fortune, the favour of the great, and the smiles of the fair, of the most fastidious portion of the English society that makes its winter season in Italy. He 'dined several times at our house (I was living with my sister and her husband); under his guidance we went to see the statues of the Vatican by torchlight; and he came out once or twice in the summer of that year to visit us at our villa at Frascati.

I returned to Rome in 1852, and saw Macdonald frequently, in his studio, in our own house, and in general society; and shortly before leaving Rome I met him at dinner at Mrs. Archer Clive's (the authoress of " Paul Ferrol"). I had a nosegay of snowdrops in the bosom of my dress, and Macdonald, who sat next me, observed that they reminded him of Scotland, that he had never seen one in all the years he had passed in Italy, and did not even know that they grew there.

The next day, I went to the gardener of the Villa Medici, an old friend of mine, and begged him to



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procure a pot of snowdrops for me, which I carried to Macdonald's studio, thinking an occasional reminiscence of his own northern land, which he had not visited for years, not a bad element to infuse into his Roman life and surroundings. Macdonald's portraits are generally good likenesses, sufficiently idealized to be also good works of art. In statuary he never accomplished anything of extraordinary excellence. I think the "Ulysses recognized by his Dog" his best performance in sculpture. His studio was an extremely interesting place of resort, from the portraits of his many remarkable sitters with which it was filled.

I met dear old Macdonald in the winter of 1873, creeping in the sun slowly up the Pincio as I waddled heavily down it (Eheu ! );, his snow-white hair and moustache making his little-altered and strongly marked features only more striking. I visited his studio and found there, ardently and successfully creating immortal gods, a handsome, pleasing youth, his son, inheriting his father's genius and, strange to say, his broadest of Scotch accents, though he had himself never been out of Rome, where he was born.

On one occasion Mr. Combe was consulted by Prince Albert with regard to the royal children, and was desired to examine their heads. He did not, of course, repeat any of the opinions he had given upon the young princes"' developments," but said they were very nice children and likely to be capitally educated, for, he added (though shaking his head over cousinly intermarriages among royal personages), Prince Albert was well acquainted with the writings of Gall and Spurzheim, and his own work on the constitution of

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man. Prince Albert seems to have known something of everything that was worthy of a wise man's' knowledge.

In spite of my inability to accept his science of human nature, Mr. Combe was always a most kind and condescending friend to me. He was a man of singular integrity, uprightness, and purity of mind and character, and of great justice and impartiality of judgment; he was extremely benevolent and humane, and one of the most reasonable human beings I have ever known. From first to last my intercourse with him was always delightful and profitable to me. Of the brothers, however, the younger, Dr. Andrew Combe, was by far the most generally popular, and deservedly so. He was one of the most excellent and amiable of men; his countenance, voice, and manner were expressive of the kindliest benevolence; he had none of the angular rigidity of person and harshness of feature of his brother : both were worthy and distinguished men, but Andrew Combe was charming, which George Combe was not-at least, to those who did not know him. Although Dr. Combe completely indorsed his brother's system, he was far less fanatical and importunate in his advocacy of it. Indeed, his works upon physiology, hygiene, and the physical education of children are of such universal value and importance that no parent or trainer of youth should be unfamiliar with them. Moreover, to them and their excellent author society is indebted for an amount of knowledge on these subjects which has now passed into general use and experience, and become so completely incorporated in the practice of the present day, that it is

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hardly remembered to whom the first and most powerful impression of the importance of the " natural laws," and their observance in our own lives and the training of our children, is due. I knew a school of young girls in Massachusetts, where taking regular exercise, the use of cold baths, the influence of fresh air, and all the process of careful physical education to which they were submitted, went by the general name of Combeing, in honour of Dr. Combe.

Dr. Combe was Mrs. Harry Siddons's medical adviser, most trusted friend, and general counsellor. The young people of her family, myself included, all loved and honoured him; and the gleam of genial pleasant humour (a quality of which his worthy brother had hardly a spark) which frequently brightened the gentle gravity of his countenance and demeanour made his intercourse delightful to us ; and great was the joy when he proposed to take one or other of us in his gig for a drive to some patient's house, in the lovely neighbourhood of Edinburgh. I remember my poor dear mother's dismay when, on my return home, I told her of these same drives. She was always in a fever of apprehension about people's falling in love with each other, and begged to know how old a man this delightful doctor, with whom Mrs. Harry allowed her own daughters and my mother's daughters to go gigging, might be. "Ah," replied I, inexpressibly amused at the idea of Dr. Combe in the character of a gay gallant, " ever so old ! " I had the real school-girl's estimate of age, and honestly thought that dear Dr. Combe was quite an old man. I believe he was considerably under forty. But if he had been much

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		253

younger, the fatal disease which had set its seal upon him, and of which he died,-after defending his life for an almost incredible space of time from its ultimate victory (which all his wisdom and virtue could but postpone),-was so clearly written upon his thin, sallow face, deep-sunk eyes, and emaciated figure, and gave so serious and almost sad an expression to his countenance and manner, that one would as soon have thought of one's grandfather as an unsafe companion for young girls. I still possess a document, duly drawn up and engrossed in the form of a deed by his brother, embodying a promise which he made to me jestingly one day, that when he was dead he would not fail to let me know if ever ghosts were permitted to revisit the earth, by appearing to me, binding himself by this contract that the vision should be unaccompanied by the smallest smell of sulphur or flash of blue flame, and that instead of the indecorous undress of a slovenly winding-sheet, he would wear his usual garments, and the familiar brown great-coat with which, to use his own expression, he "buttoned his bones together " in his life., I remembered that laughing promise when, years after it was given, the news of his death reached me, and I thought how little dismay I should feel if it could indeed have been possible for me to see again, " in his image as he lived," that kind and excellent friend. On one of the occasions when Dr. Combe took me to visit one of his patients, we went to a quaint old house in the near neighbourhood of Edinburgh. If the Laird of Dumbiedikes's mansion had been still standing, it might have been that very house. The person we went to

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visit was an old Mr. M-, to whom he introduced me, and with whom he withdrew, I suppose for a professional consultation, leaving me in a strange, curious, old-fashioned apartment, full of old furniture, old books, and faded, tattered,. old nondescript articles, whose purpose it was not easy to guess, but which must have been of some value, as they were all protected from the air and dust by glass covers. When the gentlemen returned, Mr. M-- gratified my curiosity by showing every one of them to me in detail, and informing me that they had all belonged to, or were in some way relics of, Charles Edward Stuart. "And this," said the old gentleman, "was his sword." It was a light dress rapier, with a very highly cut and ornamented steel hilt. I half drew the blade, thinking how it had flashed from its scabbard, startling England and dazzling Scotland at its first unsheathing, and in what inglorious gloom of prostrate fortunes it had rusted away at last, the scorn of those who had opposed, and the despair of those who had embraced, its cause. "And so that was the Pretender's sword ! " said I, hardly aware that I had spoken until the little withered, snuff-coloured gentleman snatched rather than took it from me, exclaiming, " Wha' did ye say, madam 2 it was the prince's sword ! " and laid it tenderly back in the receptacle from which he had taken it.
As we drove away, Dr. Combe told me, what indeed I had perceived, that this old man, who looked like a shrivelled, russet-coloured leaf for age and feebleness, was a passionate partisan of Charles Edward, by whom my mention of him as the Pretender, if coming

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		235

from a man, would have been held a personal insult.
It was evident that I, though a mere chit of the irre
sponsible sex, had both hurt and offended him by it:
His sole remaining interest in life was hunting out
and collecting the smallest records or memorials of
this shadow of a hero; surely the merest " royal ap
parition" that ever assumed kingship. " What a set
those Stuarts must have been ! " exclaimed an Ameri
can friend of mine once, after listening to "Bonnie
Prince Charlie," " to have had all those glorious Ja
cobite songs made and sung for them, and not to have
been more of men than they were ! " And so I think,
and thought even then, for though I had a passion for
the Jacobite ballads, I had very little enthusiasm for
their thoroughly inefficient hero, who, for the claimant
of a throne, was undoubtedly un tres pauvre sire.
Talking over this with me, as we drove from Mr.
M -'s, Dr. Combe said he was persuaded that at
that time there were men to be found in Scotland
ready to fight a duel about the good fame of Mary
Stuart.
Sir Walter Scott told me that when the Scottish regalia was discovered, in its obscure place of security, in Edinburgh Castle, pending the decision of government as to its ultimate destination, a committee of gentlemen were appointed its guardians, among whom he was one; and that he received a most urgent entreaty from an old lady of the Maxwell family to be permitted to see it. She was nearly ninety years old, and feared she might not live till the crown jewels of Scotland were permitted to become objects of public exhibition, and pressed Sir Walter

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with importunate prayers to allow her to see them before she died.. Sir Walter's good sense and good nature alike induced him to take upon himself to grant the poor old lady's petition, and he himself conducted her into the presence of these relics of her country's independent sovereignty; when, he, said, tottering hastily forward from his support, she fell on her knees before the crown, and, clasping and wringing her wrinkled .hands, wailed over it as a mother over her dead child. His description of the scene was infinitely pathetic, and it must have appealed to all his' own poetical and imaginative sympathy with the former glories of his native land.
My mother's anxiety about Dr. Combe's age reminds me that my intimacy with my cousin, Harry Siddons, who was now visiting his mother previous to his departure for India to begin his military career, had been a subject of considerable perplexity to her while I was still at home and he used to come from Addiscombe to see us. Nothing could be more diametrically opposite than his mother's and my mother's system (if either could be called so) of dealing with the difficulty, though I have my doubts whether Mrs. Harry perceived any in the case; and whereas I think my mother's apprehensions and precautions would have very probably been finally justified by some childish engagement between Harry and myself, resulting in all sorts of difficulties and complications as time went on and absence and distance produced their salutary effect on a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, Mrs. Harry remained passive, and apparently unconscious of any danger; and we walked and talked and danced

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		257

and were sentimental together after the most approved cousinly fashion, and Harry went off to India with my name engraved upon his sword,-a circumstance which was only made known to me years after, by his widow (his and my cousin, Harriet Siddons), whom he met and loved and married in India, and who made me laugh, telling me how hard he and she had worked, scratched, and scrubbed together to try and efface my name from the good sword; which, however, being true steel, and not inconstant heart of man, refused to give up its dedication. I should have much objected to any such inscription, had I been consulted.
My cousin Harry's wife was the second daughter of George Siddons, Mrs. Siddons's eldest son, who through her interest was appointed, while still quite a young man, to the influential and lucrative post of collector of the port at Calcutta, which position he retained for nearly forty years. He married a lady in whose veins ran the blood of the kings of Delhi, and in whose descendants, in one or two instances, even in the fourth generation, this ancestry reveals itself by a type of beauty of strikingly Oriental character. Among these is the beautiful Mrs. ScottSiddons, whose exquisite features present the most perfect living miniature of her great-grandmother's majestic beauty. In two curiously minute, highly finished miniatures of the royal Hindoo personages, her ancestors, which Mrs. George Siddons gave Miss Twiss (and the latter gave me), it is wonderful how strong a likeness may be traced to several of their remote descendants born in England of English parents.

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To return to Edinburgh: another intimate acquaintance, or rather friend, of Mr. Combe's whom I frequently met at his house was Duncan McLaren, father of the present member of Parliament, the able editor of the Scotsman. Between him and the Combes all matters of public interest and importance were discussed from the most liberal and enlightened point of view, and it was undoubtedly a great advantage to an intelligent girl of my age to hear such vigorous, manly, clear expositions of the broadest aspects of all the great political and governmental questions of the day. Admirable sound sense was the characteristic that predominated in that intellectual circle, and was brought to bear upon every subject; and I remember with the greatest pleasure the evenings I passed at Mr. Combe's residence in Northumberland Street, with these three grave men. Among the younger associates to whom these elders and betters extended their kindly hospitality was William Gregory, son of the eminent professor of chemistry, who himself has since pursued the same scientific course with equal success and distinction, adding a new lustre to the honourable name he inherited.
Mr. William Murray, my dear Mrs. Harry's brother, was another member of our society, to whom I have alluded, in speaking of the Edinburgh Theatre, as an accomplished actor; and sometimes I used to think that was all he was, for it was impossible to determine whether the romance, the sentiment, the pathos, the quaint humour, or any of the curiously capricious varying moods in which these were all blended, dis-

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		259

played real elements of his character or only shifting exhibitions of the peculiar versatility of a nature at once so complex and so superficial that it really was impossible for others, and I think would have been difficult for himself, to determine what was genuine thought and feeling in him, and what the mere appearance or demonstration or imitation of thought and feeling. Perhaps this peculiarity was what made him such a perfect actor. He was a very melancholy man, with a tendency to moody morbidness of mind which made him a subject of constant anxiety to his sister. His countenance, which was very expressive without being at all handsome, habitually wore an air of depression, and yet it was capable of brilliant vivacity and humorous play of feature. His conversation, when he was in good spirits, was a delightful mixture of sentiment, wit, poetry, fun, fancy, and imagination. He had married the sister of Mrs. Thomas Moore fthe Bessie so tenderly invited to " fly from the world " with the poet), and I used to think that he was like an embodiment of Moore's lyrical genius: there was so much pathos and wit and humour and grace and spirit and tenderness, and such a quantity of factitious flummery besides in him, that he always reminded me of those pretty and provoking songs in which some affected attitudinizing conceit mingles with almost every expression of genuine feeling, like an artificial rose in a handful of wild flowers.
I do not think William Murray's diamonds were of the finest water, but his paste was; and it was difficult enough to tell the one from the other. He had a

260	RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.

charming voice, and sang exquisitely, after a fashion which I have no doubt he copied (as, however, only original genius can copy) from Moore; but his natural musical facility was such that, although no musician, and singing everything only by ear, he executed the music of the Figaro in Mozart's " Nozze " admirably. He had a good deal of his sister's winning charm of manner, and was (but not, I think, of malice prepense) that pleasantly pernicious creature, a male flirt. It was quite out of his power to address any woman (sister or niece or cookmaid) without an air and expression of sentimental courtesy and tender chivalrous devotion, that must have been puzzling and perplexing in the extreme to the uninitiated; and I am persuaded that until some familiarity bred-if not contempt, at least comprehension-every woman of his acquaintance (his cook included) must have felt convinced that he was struggling against a respectful and hopeless passion for her.
Of another acquaintance of ours in Edinburgh, a Mrs. A--, I wish to say a word. She was a very singular woman; not, perhaps, in being tolerably ignorant and silly, with an unmeaning face and a foolish, commonplace manner, an average specimen of vacuity of mind and vapidity of conversation, but undoubtedly singular in that she combined with these not unfrequent human conditions a most rare gift of musical and poetical interpretation,-a gift so peculiar that when she sang she literally seemed inspired, taken possession of, by some other soul, that entered into her as she opened her mouth and departed from her as she shut it. She had a dull, brick-coloured,

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		261

long, thin face, and dull, pale-green eyes, like boiled gooseberries; but when in a clear, high, sweet, passionless soprano, like the voice of a spirit, and without any accompaniment, she sang the old Scotch ballads which she had learnt in early girlhood from her nurse, she produced one of the most powerful impressions that music and poetry combined can produce. From her I heard and learnt by ear " The Douglas Tragedy," " Fine Flowers in the Valley," " Edinbro'," and many others, and became completely enamoured of the wild beauty of the Scotch ballads, the terror and pity of their stories, and the strange, sweet, mournful music to which they were told. I knew every collection of them, that I could get hold of, by heart, from Scott's " Border Minstrelsy " to Smith's six volumes of " National Scottish Songs with their Musical Settings," and I said and sang them over in my lonely walks perpetually; and they still are to me among the deepest and freshest sources of poetical thought and feeling that I know. It is impossible, I think, to find a truer expression of passion, anguish, tenderness, and supernatural terror, than those poems contain. The dew of heaven on the mountain fern is not more limpid than the simplicity of their diction, nor the heart's blood of a lover more fervid than the throbbing intensity of their passion. Misery, love, longing, and despair have found no finer poetical utterance out of Shakespeare ; and the deepest chords of woe and tenderness have been touched by these qften unknown archaic song-writers, with a power and a pathos inferior only to his. The older ballads, with the exquisite monotony of their burthens soothing and relieving the tragic tenor of

262	RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.

their stories, like the sighing of wind or the murmuring of water; the clarion-hearted Jacobite songs, with the fragrance of purple heather and white roses breathing through their strains of loyal love and death-defying devotion; and the lovely, pathetic, and bewitchingly humorous songs of Burns, with their enchanting melodies, were all familiar to me, and, during the year that I spent in Edinburgh, were my constant study and delight.
On one occasion I sat by Robert Chambers, and heard him relate some portion of the difficulties and distresses of his own and his brother's early boyhood (the interesting story has lately become generally known by the publication of their memoirs) ; and I then found it very difficult to swallow my dinner, and my tears, while listening to him, so deeply was I affected by his simple and touching account of the cruel struggle the two brave lads-destined to become such admirable and eminent men-had to make against the hardships of their position. I remember his describing the terrible longing occasioned by the smell of newly baked bread in a baker's shop near which they lived, to their poor, half-starved, craving appetites, while they were saving every farthing they could scrape together for books and that intellectual sustenance of which, in after years, they became such bountiful dispensers to all English-reading folk. Theirs is a very noble story of virtue conquering fortune and dedicating it to the highest purposes. I used to meet the Messrs. Chambers at Mr. Combe's house; they were intimate and valued friends of the phrenologist, and I remember when the book entitled

RECORD OF A GIRLHOOD.		263

"Vestiges of Creation" came out, and excited so great a sensation in the public mind, that Mr. Combe attributed the authorship of it, which was then a secret, to Robert Chambers.
Another Edinburgh friend of ours was Baron Hume, a Scottish law dignitary: a charming old gentleman, of the very old school, who always wore powder and a pigtail, knee-breeches, gold buckles, and black silk stockings; and who sent a thrill of delight through my girlish breast when he addressed me, as he invariably did, by the dignified title of " madam; " though I must sorrowfully add that my triumph on this score was considerably abated when, on the occasion of my second visit to Edinburgh, after I had come out on the stage, I went to see my kind old friend, who was too aged and infirm to go to the theatre, and who said to me as I sat on a low stool by his sofa, " Why, madam, they tell me you are become a great tragic actress! But," added he, putting his hand under my chin and raising my face towards him, " how am I to believe that of this laughing face, madam ? " No doubt he saw in his memory's eye the majestic nose of my aunt, and my " visnomy " under the effect of such a contrast must have looked comical enough, by way of a tragic mask. By-theby, it is on record that while Gainsborough was painting that exquisite portrait of Mrs. Siddons which is now in the South Kensington Gallery, and which for many fortunate years adorned my father's house,
after working in absorbed silence for some time he
suddenly exclaimed, " Damn it, madam, there is no
end to your nose ! " The restoration of that beautiful

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painting has destroyed the delicate charm of its colouring, which was perfectly harmonious, and has as far as possible made it coarse and vulgar: before it had been spoiled, not even Sir Joshua's "Tragic Muse" seemed to me so noble and beautiful a representation of my aunt's beauty as that divine picture of Gainsborough's.
Two circumstances occurred during my stay in Edinburgh which made a great impression upon me: the one was the bringing of the famous old gun, Mons Meg, up to the, castle; and the other was the last public appearance of Madame Catalani. I do not know where the famous old cannon had been kept till it was resolved to place it in Edinburgh Castle, but the event was made quite a public festival, and by favour of some of the military authorities who presided over the ceremony we were admirably placed in a small angle or turret that commanded the beautiful land and sea and town, and immediately overlooked the hollow road up which, with its gallant military escort of Highland troops, and the resounding accompaniment of their warlike music, the great old lumbering piece of ordnance came slowly, dragged by a magnificent team of horses, into the fortress. Nothing could be more striking than the contrast presented by this huge, clumsy, misshapen; obsolete engine of war, and the spruce, trim, shining, comparatively little cannon (mere pocket pistols for Bellona) which furnished the battery just below our stand, and which, as soon as the unwieldy old warrioress had occupied the post of honour reserved for her in their midst, sent forth a martial acclaim of

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welcome that made the earth tremble under our feet, and resounded through the air, shivering, with the strong concussion, more than one pane of glass in the windows of Princes Street, far below.
Of Madame Catalani, all I can say is that I think she sang only "God save the King" and "Rule Britannia " on the occasion on which I heard her, which was that of her last public appearance in Edinburgh. I remember only these, and think had she sung anything else I could not have forgotten it. She was quite an old woman, but still splendidly handsome. Her magnificent dark hair and eyes, and beautiful arms, and her blue velvet dress with a girdle flashing with diamonds, impressed me almost as much as her singing; which, indeed, was rather a declamatory and dramatic than a musical performance. The tones of her voice were still fine and full, and the majestic action of her arms as she uttered the words, " When Britain first arose from the waves," wonderfully graceful and descriptive ; still, I remember better that I saw, than that I heard, Madame Catalani. She is the first of the queens of song that I have seen ascend the throne of popular favour, in the course of sixty years, and pretty little Adelina Patti the last; I have heard all that have reigned between the two, and above them all, Pasta appears to me pre-eminent for musical and dramatic genius,.-alone and unapproached, the muse of tragic song.



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