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Such was the impression made by this phenomenon, even before she left the country for London, that the presses teemed with tributes to her extraordinary merit, in verse and prose. Learning poured forth it praise in deep and erudite criticism – Poetry lavished its sparkling encomium in sonnets, songs, odes, and congratulatory addresses, while the light retainers to literature filled the magazines and daily prints with anecdotes, paragraphs, bon-mots, and epigrams. In a word, there was for sometime no reading a newspaper, or opening a periodical publication without seeing some production or other addressed to Miss Brunton. From the number which appeared the following is deservedly selected, for the elegance of its Latin and the beauty of its thoughts:

AD BRUNTONAM

e granta exituram

 
Nostri præsidium et decus thartri;
O tu, Melpomene severioris
Certe filia! quam decere formæ
Donavit Cytherea; quam Minerva
Duxit per dubiæ vias juventæ,
Per plausus populi periculosus; —
Nec lapsam – precor, O nec in futuram
Lapsuram. Satis at Camœna dignis
Quæ te commemoret modis? Acerbos
Seu præferre Monimiæ dolores,
Frater cum vetitos (nefas!) ruebat
In fratris thalamos, parumque casto
Vexabat pede; sive Julietæ
Luctantes odio paterno amores
Maris: te sequuntur Horror,
Arrectusque comas Pavor. Vicissim
In fletum populus jubetur ire,
Et suspiria personant theatrum.
 
 
Mox divinior enitescis, altrix
Altoris vigil et parens parentis.
At non Græcia sola vindicavit
Paternæ columen decusque vitæ
Natam; restat item patri Britanno
Et par Euphrasiæ puella, quamque
Ad scenam pietas tulit paternam.
 
 
O Bruntona, cito exitura virgo,
Et visu cito subtrahenda nostro,
Breves deliciæ, dolorque longus!
Gressum siste parumper oro; teque
Virtutesque tuas lyra sonandas
Tradit Granta suis vicissim almunis.
 

The following very elegant poem, published as a version of this ode, is rather a paraphrase than a translation. What Gibbon said of Pope’s Homer may with some truth be applied to it: “It has every merit but that of resemblance to the original.” Might not a version equally elegant, but adhering more closely to the original, and preserving more of its peculiar genius be found in America. We wish some of our readers who feel the inspiration of a happy Muse would make the experiment.

 
Maid of unboastful charms, whom white-rob’d Truth,
Right onward guiding through the maze of youth,
Forbade the Circe, Praise, to witch thy soul,
And dash’d to earth th’ intoxicating bowl;
Thee, meek-eyed Pity, eloquently fair,
Clasp’d to her bosom, with a mother’s care;
And, as she lov’d thy kindred form to trace,
The slow smile wander’d o’er her pallid face,
For never yet did mortal voice impart
Tones more congenial to the sadden’d heart;
Whether to rouse the sympathetic glow,
Thou pourest lone Monimia’s tale of wo;
Or happy clothest, with funereal vest,
The bridal loves that wept in Juliet’s breast.
O’er our chill limbs the thrilling terrors creep,
Th’ entranc’d passions still their vigils keep;
Whilst the deep sighs, responsive to the song,
Sound through the silence of the trembling throng.
But purer raptures lighten’d from thy face,
And spread o’er all thy form a holier grace;
When from the daughter’s breast the father drew
The life he gave, and mix’d the big tear’s dew.
Nor was it thine th’ heroic strain to roll,
With mimic feelings, foreign from the soul;
Bright in thy parent’s eye we mark’d the tear;
Methought he said, “Thou art no actress here!
A semblance of thyself, the Grecian dame,
And Brunton and Euphrasia still the same!”
O! soon to seek the city’s busier scene,
Pause thee awhile, thou chaste-eyed maid serene,
Till Granta’s sons, from all her sacred bow’rs,
With grateful hand shall weave Pierian flow’rs,
To twine a fragrant chaplet round thy brow,
Enchanting ministress of virtuous wo!
 

It was on the 17th of October, 1785, that Miss Brunton made her first appearance at Covent Garden theatre in the character of Horatia. The public had anxiously looked for her, and the house was crowded to receive her. The venerable Arthur Murphy wrote a prologue for the occasion, in which he displayed his accustomed delicacy and judgment. It was as follows, and was well spoken by Mr. Holman:

 
The tragic Muse long saw the British stage
Melt with her tears, and kindle with her rage,
She saw her scenes with varied passions glow,
The tyrant’s downfall and the lover’s wo;
’Twas then her Garrick – at that well-known name
Remembrance wakes, and gives him all his fame;
To him great Nature open’d Shakspeare’s store,
“Here learn,” she said, “here learn the sacred lore;”
This fancy realiz’d, the bard shall see,
And his best commentator breathe in thee.
She spoke: her magic powers the actor tried;
Then Hamlet moraliz’d and Richard died;
The dagger gleam’d before the murderer’s eye,
And for old Lear each bosom heav’d sigh;
Then Romeo drew the sympathetic tear,
With him and Cibber Love lay bleeding here.
Enchanting Cibber! from that warbling throat
No more pale Sorrow pours the liquid note.
Her voice suppress’d, and Garrick’s genius fled,
Melpomene declined her drooping head;
She mourn’d their loss, then fled to western skies,
And saw at Bath another genius rise.
Old Drury’s scene the goddess bade her choose,
The actress heard, and spake, “herself a muse.”
From the same nursery, this night appears
Another warbler, yet of tender years;
As a young bird, as yet unus’d to fly
On wings, expanded, through the azure sky,
With doubt and fear its first excursion tries
And shivers ev’ry feather with surprise;
So comes our chorister – the summer’s ray,
Around her nest, call’d forth a short essay;
Now trembling on the brink, with fear she sees
This unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze.
But here, no unfledg’d wing was ever crush’d;
Be each rude blast within its cavern hush’d.
Soft swelling gales may waft her on her way,
Till, eagle-like, she eyes the fount of day:
She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voice
May please each ear and bid the grove rejoice.
 

It would be superfluous, and indeed only going over the same ground already beat at Bath, to describe Miss Brunton’s reception on her first appearance in London. Suffice it to say that plaudits and even exclamations of delight were, if possible, more rapturous and more incessant at Covent Garden than at Bath. Of the reputation thus quickly acquired, she never, to the day of her death, lost an atom; but continued to perform, in different parts of England, with accumulating fame, till her marriage deprived the people of England of her talents.

Mr. Robert Merry, a gentleman well known in the literary world, and rendered conspicuous by some pretty poetry published under the name of Della Crusca, had the honour of rendering himself so agreeable to Miss Brunton that she suffered him to lead her to the altar. He was of a gentleman’s family, and received his education under that mass of learning, doctor Parr, was a man of brilliant genius, amiable disposition, elegant manners, with a fine face and person. Being a bon vivant and a little addicted to play, as well as to other fashionable and wasteful frivolities of high life, his affairs were in a very unpleasant state, but for this there was an abundant remedy in his wife’s talents; and perhaps (with her aid) a little in his own too. Family pride, however, forbid it. He was much swayed by his relatives, particularly by two old maiden aunts, who were, or affected to be wounded at his marrying an actress. Nothing but his withdrawing his wife from the stage could assuage their wrath or heal the wound, and Mrs. Merry, in a spirit of obedience to her husband, and of amiable feeling for his situation, which will ever do honour to her memory, complied; and as soon as her engagement at Covent Garden expired (in 1792) left the stage, to the great regret, and a little to the indignant contempt for the old ladies, of the whole British nation.

Mr. and Mrs. Merry soon after paid a visit to the continent, where they lived for a little more than a year, when they returned to England, and settled in retired life in the country and there remained till the year 1796, when they removed to America. Mr. Brunton, the father of Mrs. Merry, was, no less than the old ladies alluded to, and on much more substantial grounds, averse to her marriage with Mr. Merry, and still more to her coming to America. In obedience to a higher duty, however, she followed the fortunes of her husband, and with the most poignant regret left her native country and her father, to sojourn in a strange land. On the 19th of September, 1796, they sailed from the Downs, and on the 19th of October following landed at New-York.

Few country theatres in Great Britain have been able to boast of so good a company as that which assembled at Philadelphia on the season which succeeded Mrs. Merry’s arrival. The theatre opened on the fifth of December, with Romeo and Juliet, and the Waterman. The elegant and interesting Morton played Romeo – Mrs. Merry Juliet; all the characters had excellent representatives, and Mrs. Merry appeared to the audience a being of a superior kind. That winter she played all her best parts, but though supported by such a company it often happened that the receipts were insufficient to pay the charges of the house, and the season was, on the whole, extremely unsuccessful; a circumstance which at first view will excite surprise, but at the time might reasonably have been expected. This will be understood when the general financial condition of the city is called to recollection. Every one who has known the country but for a few years back must remember the almost general bankruptcy occasioned by the failure of land speculating men of opulence and high credit. During that time commerce in all its classes sensibly felt the shock, and business languished in all its branches. No wonder that the theatre, which can only be fed by the superflux of all other departments of society, should droop, neglected and unsupported. The prices then too were higher than now – the boxes a dollar and a quarter – the pit a dollar. And here we cannot help expressing a wish, founded we believe on justice and common sense, that admittance to the pit were raised: – first, because it is, at least, equal if not preferable to the boxes; and next because it would in some degree tend to exclude many who, though fit to sit only in the upper gallery, make their way into the pit to the great annoyance of those decent well behaved people who go to enjoy and understand the play, and not to blackguard and speak aloud.

When the theatre was closed, according to civil regulation, the company, went to New-York. At that time Hallam and Hodgkinson had possession of both the theatres of that city – the old one in John-street, and the new one at the Park. The Philadelphia company, still bleeding from the wounds of the unsuccessful season, and urged by necessity for future support, applied to Hallam and Hodgkinson to rent them the theatre in John-street. Guided by a policy, rational enough and perhaps justifiable on principles of self-defence, though certain not very liberal, and in the end greatly injurious to themselves, the York proprietors peremptorily refused. The circus of Ricketts, the equestrian, in Greenwich-street then presented itself, and the Philadelphia company opened in full force. In order to oppose them, Hallam and Hodgkinson invited Mr. Sollee with his company to John-street. The Philadelphia company, however, made a very successful campaign of it. Sollee also had his visitors, and the consequence to H. and H. was that when they came to open the new house they played to thin or rather empty boxes; the town being saturated with theatrical exhibitions, and a little exhausted too of the cash disposable for such recreations.

In New-York as well as Philadelphia, and indeed in every place where Mrs. M. went, she was no sooner seen than admired; and the impression she never failed to make at first sight remained, not only uneffaced but more deeply augmented in proportion as she was seen, even to the end of her life. She afterwards visited Baltimore and other places, and wherever she went, was the polar star to which the attention of all was directed.

While she was proceeding in this career of success her felicity met with the most cruel interruption by the sudden death of her husband, which happened at Baltimore in the latter end of the year 1798. Mr. Merry had not laboured under any specific physical complaint from which his death could in the smallest degree be apprehended. On the day before christmas he was apparently well, had walked out into the garden, and was soon after followed by some friends who found him lying senseless on the ground. Medical aid was immediately called in – several attempts were made to draw blood from him but without the least success; the physicians pronounced it an apoplectic case, and from every circumstance the conclusion was that his death was instantaneous and without pain. Mr. Merry was large and of a plethoric habit; and to that his death may, in some sort, and was then entirely ascribed. But circumstances appeared after his death which led to a conclusion that concealed sorrow, might have had some share in it. From refined motives of tenderness for a beloved wife’s feelings, and that loftiness of spirit which clings to the perfect gentleman, he concealed the state of his affairs in England, which had for some time been in a rapid decline, and of the complete ruin of which he had a short time before been fully informed. His patrimonial estate had been foreclosed and sold under a mortgage, and he remained debtor for a considerable sum after the sale. To this effect a letter was found after his death. As soon as this was discovered, every one who knew his exquisite sensibility, reflected with astonishment upon the delicacy which dictated and the fortitude with which he managed his concealment, and felt deep and sympathetic sorrow for the anguish he must have been privately enduring while he endeavoured to dress his face with tranquillity and to converse with his accustomed cheerfulness and ease. Smothered grief is one of the most deadly inmates; and it is reasonable to believe that a paroxysm of violent emotion in a moment when solitude gave an opportunity for giving a loose to reflection, operating upon a plethoric habit, occasioned his sudden dissolution.

That Mr. Merry was a gentleman of great private worth we believe the evidence of all those to whom familiar intercourse had revealed his disposition; that he was learned and accomplished in a very eminent degree no one has ever denied; and that he was a man of genius, his “Della Crusca,” and the many witty and satirical epigrams he wrote for the public prints under the signature of “Tom Thorne,” abundantly prove. But the pen of state vengeance was raised against him, and his poetical fame was immolated as an expiation for his political offences. Attached to French revolutionary, or, as they were then called, jacobin principles, to a degree which even Foxites censured, he was viewed with abhorrence by one party, and with no great regard by the other; so that when the witty author of the Pursuits of Literature drew his sword, and the sarcastic author of the Baviad and Mæviad lifted his axe against him there was no one to ward off the blows. There is a fact respecting Mr. M. which, though it does not properly belong to this biographical sketch, yet as it is curious enough to apologize for its introduction, we take the liberty to relate. The celebrated Mrs. Cowley, under the name of “Anna Matilda,” and Mr. M. under that of “Della Crusca,” corresponded with and admired each other, without being known or even suspected by one another, or, for some time, by the public. These productions formed a new era or rather a new school of poetry, which excited such attention and curiosity that every art was resorted to in order to discover the authors. It was at length whispered abroad, and then what most surprised the world was, that the two persons were totally strangers to each other.

Mrs. Merry remained a widow for more than four years: she then, on the first of January 1803, married Mr. Wignell, the manager of the Philadelphia theatre, who died in seven weeks after their marriage. For three years and a half she retained the name of Wignell, when the present manager solicited her hand so successfully that she consented, and took the name of Warren, on the 15th of August, 1806. By this marriage the property and management of the Philadelphia theatre devolved upon Mr. Warren; than whom, exclusive of the personal attachment that subsisted between them, she could not have pitched upon any one person more competent to the care of her property or the direction of the theatre; or one more worthy of the sacred trust of being a parent and a guardian to her infant daughter. For near two years they lived together in a state of ease and felicity which bid fair to last for years, when he being obliged to attend his company to their customary summer stations, Mrs. Warren, then in a far advanced state of pregnancy, desired to go along with him. Aware of the fatigue, the inconveniences, and the privations to which she would, in all likelihood, be exposed, during her journey southward, and still more in her accouchement, which must necessarily take place before his return, he endeavoured to prevail upon her to stay behind. But “Fate came into the list,” and she would go. Arrived at Alexandria, he took a large commodious house, and put it in a condition sufficiently comfortable; Mrs. Warren was in lusty health, and as the time approached all was fair and promising. By one of those turns, however, which it pleases Providence for his own wise purposes frequently to ordain, to mock our best hopes and baffle our most sanguine expectations, this admirable woman was, contrary to every antecedent prognostic, visited in her travail with epileptic fits, in which she expired, “leaving,” (as the sublime Burke no less truly than pathetically said on the death of doctor Johnson,) “not only nothing to fill her place, but nothing that has a tendency to fill it.”

Here, we let the curtain drop. Neither her private nor her public character can derive additional lustre from any pen.

PORTRAIT OF THE CELEBRATED BETTERTON

Mr. Thomas Betterton, dramatist and actor, was born in Tothill-street, Westminster; and after having left school, is said to have been put apprentice to a bookseller. It is supposed he made his first appearance on the stage about the year 1657, at the opera house, which was then under the direction of sir William Davenant. He went over to Paris to take a view of the French scenery, and on his return, made such improvements, as added greatly to the lustre of the English stage.

The professional merits of this great man were of a kind so perfectly unequivocal and unalloyed that there never was heard one dissenting voice upon the subject of his superiority to all other actors. He stood so far above the highest of his profession that competition being hopeless there was no motive for envy.

Of the few who lived to see him and Garrick, the far greater number gave him the palm, with the exception of Garrick’s excellence in low comedy. Indeed he seems to have combined in himself the various powers of the three greatest modern actors, of Garrick, except as before excepted, of Barry, and of Mossop; add to which, he played Falstaff as well as Quin. The present writer got this from old Macklin, who was stored with anecdotes of his predecessors.

Of Betterton, Colley Cibber speaks thus, in his apology for his own life:

“Betterton was an actor, as Shakspeare was an author, both without competitors! formed for the mutual assistance, and illustration of each other’s genius! how Shakspeare wrote, all men who have a taste for nature may read, and know – but with what higher rapture would he still be read, could they conceive how Betterton played him! Then might they know, the one was born alone to speak what the other only knew to write! pity it is, that the momentary beauties flowing from a harmonious elocution, cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record! that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them; or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory, or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators. Could how Betterton spoke be as easily known as what he spoke, then might you see the Muse of Shakspeare in her triumph, with all her beauties in their best array, rising into real life, and charming her beholders. But alas! since all this is so far out of the reach of description, how shall I show you Betterton? Should I therefore tell you, that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, Mackbeths, and Brutuses, whom you may have seen since his time, have fallen far short of him; this still would give you no idea of his particular excellence. Let us see then what a particular comparison may do! whether that may yet draw him nearer to you?

“You have seen a Hamlet perhaps, who, on the first appearance of his father’s spirit, has thrown himself into all the straining vociferation requisite to express rage and fury, and the house has thundered with applause; though the misguided actor was all the while (as Shakspeare terms it) tearing a passion into rags – I am the more bold to offer you this particular instance, because the late Mr. Addison, while I sate by him, to see this scene acted, made the same observation, asking me with some surprize, if I thought Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the ghost, which though it might have astonished, it had not provoked him? for you may observe that in this beautiful speech, the passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonishment, or an impatience, limited by filial reverence, to inquire into the suspected wrongs that may have raised him from his peaceful tomb! and a desire to know what a spirit so seemingly distressed, might wish or enjoin a sorrowful son to execute towards his future quiet in the grave! this was the light into which Betterton threw this scene; which he opened with a pause of mute amazement! then rising slowly, to a solemn, trembling voice, he made the ghost equally terrible to the spectator, as to himself! and in the descriptive part of the natural emotions which the ghastly vision gave him, the boldness of his expostulation was still governed by decency, manly, but not braving; his voice never rising into that seeming outrage, or wild defiance of what he naturally revered. But alas! to preserve this medium, between mouthing, and meaning too little, to keep the attention more pleasingly awake, by a tempered spirit, than by mere vehemence of voice, is of all the master-strokes of an actor the most difficult to reach. In this none yet have equalled Betterton. But I am unwilling to show his superiority only by recounting the errors of those, who now cannot answer to them, let their farther failings therefore be forgotten! or rather, shall I in some measure excuse them! For I am not yet sure, that they might not be as much owing to the false judgment of the spectator, as the actor. While the million are so apt to be transported, when the drum of their ear is so roundly rattled; while they take the life of elocution to lie in the strength of the lungs, it is no wonder the actor, whose end is applause, should be also tempted, at this easy rate, to excite it. Shall I go a little farther? and allow that this extreme is more pardonable than its opposite error? I mean that dangerous affectation of the monotone, or solemn sameness of pronunciation, which to my ear is insupportable; for of all faults that so frequently pass upon the vulgar, that of flatness will have the fewest admirers. That this is an error of ancient standing seems evident by what Hamlet says, in his instructions to the players, viz.

 
Be not too tame, neither, &c.
 

The actor, doubtless, is as strongly tied down to the rules of Horace as the writer:

 
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi —
 

He that feels not himself the passion he would raise, will talk to a sleeping audience: but this never was the fault of Betterton; and it has often amazed me to see those who soon came after him, throw out in some parts of a character, a just and graceful spirit, which Betterton himself could not but have applauded. And yet in the equally shining passages of the same character, have heavily dragged the sentiment along like a dead weight; with a long-toned voice, and absent eye, as if they had fairly forgot what they were about. If you have never made this observation, I am contented you should not know where to apply it.

“A farther excellence in Betterton, was, that he could vary his spirit to the different characters he acted. Those wild impatient starts, that fierce and flashing fire, which he threw into Hotspur, never came from the unruffled temper of his Brutus (for I have more than once, seen a Brutus as warm as Hotspur) when the Betterton Brutus was provoked, in his dispute with Cassius, his spirit flew only to his eye; his steady look alone supplyed that terror, which he disdained an intemperance in his voice should rise to. Thus, with a settled dignity of contempt, like an unheeding rock, he repelled upon himself the foam of Cassius. Perhaps the very works of Shakspeare will better let you into my meaning:

 
Must I give way, and room, to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?
 

And a little after,

 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your looks! &c.
 

Not but in some part of this scene, where he reproaches Cassius, his temper is not under this suppression, but opens into that warmth which becomes a man of virtue; yet this is that hasty spark of anger, which Brutus himself endeavours to excuse.

“But with whatever strength of nature we see the poet show, at once, the philosopher and the hero, yet the image of the actor’s excellence will be still imperfect to you, unless language could put colours in our words to paint the voice with.

“Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum, is enjoining an impossibility. The most that a Vandyke can arrive at, is to make his portraits of great persons seem to think; a Shakspeare goes farther yet, and tells you what his pictures thought; a Betterton steps beyond them both, and calls them from the grave, to breathe, and be themselves again, in feature, speech, and motion. When the skilful actor shows you all these powers at once united, and gratifies at once your eye, your ear, your understanding. To conceive the pleasure rising from such harmony, you must have been present at it! ’tis not to be told you!

“There cannot be a stronger proof of the charms of harmonious elocution, than the many, even unnatural scenes and flights of the false sublime it has lifted into applause. In what raptures have I seen an audience, at the furious fustian and turgid rants in Nat. Lee’s Alexander the Great! for though I can allow this play a few great beauties, yet it is not without its extravagant blemishes. Every play of the same author has more or less of them. Let me give you a sample from this. Alexander, in a full crowd of courtiers, without being occasionally called or provoked to it, falls into this rhapsody of vainglory:

 
Can none remember? Yes, I know all must!
 

And therefore they shall know it again.

 
When Glory, like a dazzling eagle, stood
Perched on my beaver, in the Granic flood,
When Fortune’s self, my standard trembling bore,
And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore,
When the immortals on the billows rode,
And I myself appeared the leading god.
 

When these flowing numbers come from the mouth of a Betterton, the multitude no more desired sense to them, than our musical connoisseurs think it essential in the celebrated airs of an Italian opera. Does not this prove, that there is very near as much enchantment in the well-governed voice of an actor, as in the sweet pipe of a eunuch? If I tell you, there was no one tragedy, for many years, more in favour with the town than Alexander, to what must we impute this its command of public admiration? not to its intrinsic merit, surely, if it swarms with passages like this I have shown you! If this passage has merit, let us see what figure it would make upon canvas, what sort of picture would rise from it. If Le Brun, who was famous for painting the battles of this hero, had seen this lofty description, what one image could he have possibly taken from it? In what colours would he have shown us Glory perched upon a beaver? how would he have drawn Fortune trembling? or, indeed, what use could he have made of pale Fates, or immortals riding upon billows, with this blustering god of his own making at the head of them! where, then, must have lain the charm, that once made the public so partial to this tragedy? why plainly, in the grace and harmony of the actor’s utterance. For the actor himself is not accountable for the false poetry of his author; that, the hearer is to judge of; if it passes upon him, the actor can have no quarrel to it; who, if the periods given him are round, smooth, spirited, and high-sounding, even in a false passion, must throw out the same fire and grace, as may be required in one justly rising from nature; where those his excellencies will then be only more pleasing in proportion to the taste of his hearer. And I am of opinion, that to the extraordinary success of this very play, we may impute the corruption of so many actors, and tragic writers, as were immediately mislead by it. The unskilful actor, who imagined all the merit of delivering those blazing rants, lay only in the strength, and strained exertion of the voice, began to tear his lungs, upon every false, or slight occasion, to arrive at the same applause. And it is hence I date our having seen the same reason prevalent, for above fifty years. Thus equally misguided too, many a barren-brained author has streamed into a frothy flowing style, pompously rolling into sounding periods, signifying – roundly nothing; of which number, in some of my former labours, I am something more than suspicious, that I may myself have made one, but to keep a little closer to Betterton.