The Gentleman's Magazine

A LOVER OF JUSTICE asserts that the memoir of the late Francis Douce, esq., inserted in our Magazine for August, " contains some details of that gentleman's family and connexions, so much at variance with the truth, that it becomes an imperative duty upon one who knows their falsehood, to expose them. Mr. Douce's father never settled at Town Malling, never built a house there, never enjoyed one acre of land there. The writer states, that the conduct of his elder brother UPON THAT OCCASION (his father's death), estranged him from part of his family; that he, Mr. Francis Douce, suspected it was owing to his brother's influence with his father, that his own portion was so small; and that when he was asked whether the desire of founding a family might not have influenced his father, he said, No, I owed it to the misrepresentations of my brother, who used to say it was of no use to leave me money, for I should waste it in books.' Here, see the miserable apology for placing about 50,0007. in the pockets of the Rev. Mr. Goddard and Mr. Singer, (because, as the writer of your article modestly asserts, he was 'warmly attached to the first from his youth,' and had lived in habits of intimate friendship' with the last, 'for upwards of twenty years') while, from the vast accumulation of wealth he was enabled to leave behind, there is an apportionment, among the eight surviving children of his two brothers, of the munificent sum of 4000l. The brother thus traduced (who lived esteemed by all who knew him for his amiable manners, and the remembrance of whom is still warmly cherished by those who survive him) was the eldest son of his father; he formed a connexion with one of the two daughters and coheiresses of Benjamin Hubble, esq., of Town Malling, a gentleman possessing a considerable landed estate there; which, in consideration of a corresponding settlement made by Mr. Douce's father, became vested in Mr. Thomas Douce, and the issue of that marriage. Is this of unusual occurrence? is it very unnatural in a father to assist in promoting the interest of an eldest son by a competent settlement in exchange for the larger accession of fortune which Mr. Hubble bestowed upon his daughter? was this arrangement kept a profound secret from Mr. Francis Douce, during the whole period of his lengthened life? was it inconsistent, was it unjust? How dare, then, this writer to assert

that Mr. Francis Douce discovered, to his great surprise, that his elder brother had contrived to monopolize two-thirds of the paternal estate? how dare he insinuate that owing to the misrepresentations' of this elder brother, he was deprived of a participation in the paternal fortune? how stands the case?-Mr. Francis Douce was a younger brother, and his father had several other children to provide for beside his eldest son. Mr. Francis Douce received from his father, in money 3000l., the ground-rents in Grafton-street and elsewhere, worth from 1500l. to 20007. more, and he resigned to him his situation in the Six Clerks' Office, from the emoluments of which the elder Mr. Douce had been enabled principally to amass the fortune he possessed; in addition to which, by the death of a sister, he acquired to his own share 30007. more. Was this so contemptible a portion for a younger son? These are facts incontrovertible, and will provė, I trust, sufficient to destroy the gross delusion under which the readers of the article in your August number would otherwise remain."

P. 215. We are requested by the widow of the late Mr. J. T. Smith, to contradict the statement in the memoir of Mr. Douce, that Smith lived to express his contrition for his conduct.' The fact was, it was not Mr. Smith who had done any thing to be ashamed of. It is true that, a few days before he died, Mr. Smith said on his death-bed, that forgave Mr. Douce for the injury he had done him and his family;' but no further intercourse took place between Mr. Douce and Mr. Smith.

J. G. N. is desirous to be referred to a Pedigree of the Norman or Breton family of de Vitri; of whom one, named Andrew, married a grand-daughter of Roger Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel; another, Alianor, was the wife of William Earl of Salisbury; and a third, another Andrew, was slain with William Longespé II. at Massoura, and appears to be the same person who married a daughter of Constance Duchess of Britany, and a half-sister to the unfortunate Prince Arthur.

The extraordinary correspondence between Father la Chaise and Jacob Spon, shall appear in our next number.

A Correspondent begs the favour of any of our readers conversant with the fact, to inform us where a file of the Public Ledger newspaper for 1761 may be seen.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS.

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL. 2 vols. 1834.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Boaden's Life of Mrs. Siddons had amply gratified any reasonable curiosity, with regard to the public life of that illustrious lady, yet we still think that an opening might have been found for a volume by Mr. Campbell, which would not have been ungratefully received. This volume should have been intended to afford us a nearer personal approach to one whom we had been only accustomed to see surrounded with adventitious dignity, assuming a fictitious character, and separated from us by all the pomp and circumstance of dramatic exhibition. Mr. Campbell was for many years the intimate friend of the great and accomplished actress ; he was one of the few admitted to the privacy of her domestic life; a large body of her familiar letters and memorials was bequeathed to him ; he was acquainted with her family, and many other valued friends; and we conceive that there would have been little difficulty, out of these materials, assisted by the communications of their common acquaintance, to have formed a very interesting and graceful volume of biography. If this had been occasionally interspersed with observations and criticisms on Mrs. Siddons's theatrical characters; and if it had all been connected and harmonized with the elegance, and adorned with the refined and beautiful thoughts which Mr. Campbell's readers have so much admired in his Lives of the Poets and other publications, we venture to have insured the perfect success of the work. We have had the pleasure of perusing most of the letters which were deposited in the Poet's hands; we admired them as affording the most decisive and delightful characteristics of Mrs. Siddons's pure and well-regulated mind; we read with surprise and gladness the proofs of the perfect domestic simplicity of her manners; her fondness for tranquillity and rural retirement; her warm attachment to her friends; her devoted love of her children and family, and her unobtrusive and unfeigned piety. Knowing as we did of the existence of these letters, estimating their value, and being persuaded that when entrusted to Mr. Campbell by their author, the legacy was intended to be at his free and full disposal-knowing too the charm of style and language which the Biographer can bring to the subjects of his choice-we formed an idea in our minds of a volume which should be

ὁλῆς ἐξ πιδάκος ὀλίγηλίβας,

where the poetic nature of the subject would have called forth the kindred powers of the author of Gertrude; where the remembrance of friendship, and the reverence of talent, would have excited all his faculties; and where the fugitive impressions of Siddons's majestic genius would have been fixed and transmitted to posterity through the graces of Mr. Campbell's pen, while the virtues and gentle affections of her mind would have been known as they confidentially and spontaneously flowed through her own

unaffected language. That our disappointment has been deep we confess; though we are still in hopes that Mr. Campbell will be induced not to withhold from us, under a prudent selection, if necessary, the considerable correspondence of the lamented Actress, which he possesses. We know that they will add nothing to the lustre of her talents; but to those who have only seen Lady Macbeth, or Constance, or Isabella; who have heard no language from those eloquent lips, but that of poetic inspiration; and who have never seen her but in the conflict of terrific passions, and in a translated dignity of garb and mien, who have gazed on the majesty of her natural beauty, and the elevation of her ideal grandeur, it would be like a delicious enchantment to behold ONLY MRS. ŠIDDONS HERSELF; to see her in the quiet luxury of her Westborne Cottage; to watch her prattling to her babes, tending her vernal flowers, interesting herself deeply in the welfare of her friends, and performing gracefully and willingly all the common offices and duties of domestic life. Mr. Campbell, however, has taken a different road; and has given us her portrait in her public character, and theatrical dress, much in the manner which Mr. Boaden had previously executed. We have not the slightest wish to pursue the path of that minute and scrutinizing criticism, by which a contemporary journal has detected so many extraordinary errors and omissions in this unfortunate volume of Biography; nor should we think it gratifying to our readers to give a dry detail of the successive events of Mrs. Siddons's Life from these pages ;-ours shall be a task always more pleasing to us, that of bringing forward, out of the mass of mistakes of fact, looseness of remark, and what we should not have expected, a verbose tumour of diction, and singular slovenliness and carelessness of style, which are too evident to escape even a common notice, some passages of brighter hue, in which the justness of criticism, the soundness of observation, and elegance of expression, are entitled to our approbation. And we also select a few of the anecdotes and circumstances connected with Mrs. Siddons's public life, which were not previously known to us. The Life of Mrs. Siddons and of her scarcely less illustrious brother, will always form a most important part of the history of the modern Stage; and if in the present day HE may have found in some, and some only of his characters, a successor not unworthy of him, we may assert without any fear of contradiction, that all the august and splendid personages of dramatic creation who found in her their noble and perfect representatives, are at this time mutely waiting in expectation of a successor that has not yet appeared, to re-animate their faded forms, and kindle with the fire of eloquence the breath that has so long been silent. We may as well expect a Reynolds soon to reappear in painting, or a Coleridge (alas! that we must now say so) in philosophy, as a Siddons in the realm of Tragedy. They are too great productions of nature, and too richly composed, to be often repeated. Mr. Campbell says, she was Melpomene personified. If our readers can form a clearer notion of her eminence from this allusion, they are welcome to it. Certainly she appears to us never to have had a rival, in the whole history of the Stage, who could challenge a successful competition. The extract we shall now make is from a contemporary critique on her first appearance at Drury-lane:

"The great obstacle (Mr. Campbell says) to the early developement of her powers, I have heard Mrs. Siddons declare, was timidity. In describing her

appearance, the journal of that day says,

On before us tottered, rather than walked, a very pretty, delicate, fragile looking young creature, dressed in a most

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