dence, seem fully to account for all spare time she could have had in her profession. But she added a very cautious and meditated perusal of Johnson's Lives of the Poets' to all these; and they seem to have turned her mind to acute criticism, and shown her how to avoid the cant of that gratifying task, which is undertaken by minds of description.

every

CHAPTER IX.

Kemble takes her lodgings-The spot described Recently surveyed - The Whitfields and she quarrel-Twiss, the mutual friend, tries to reconcile them-A lodging taken in Hart Street— At length has a farce accepted by Colman-Was induced to act in it-Was at the reading, not known to be the writer-The 'Mogul Tale' brings her 100 guineas-Stammers on the first night of it-Letters from Twiss and Kemble-Lovers attracted by the honey of success-Reminds Colman that he has a comedy also in his hands-Now then he reads it, admires it, christens it 'I'll tell you what'-Writes both Prologue and Epilogue-Its original cast-Letters from Mr. Twiss of great importance— Draft for £300-Buys into the Funds-" Appearance is against them"-Royal command-Liberal as she was covetous.

MRS. INCHBALD lodged at this time in a place sufficiently retired, at the house of a Mrs. Smith, No. 2, Leicester Court, Castle Street, Leicester Fields. The entrance we well remember was a wooden gate, which closed in a paved court-yard, that seemed hardly to need so idle a defence; but it was cheap and silent, and when she left town, Kemble, that his studies might be uninterrupted, (as there they must be,) wrote to her that "her late apartment now called him lord and

master." Like Bobadil at poor Cobb's, "he found the cabin was convenient;" and the first letter we had from him was dated from this chosen spot. From his gate, we are sure the master of the premises must have been a carpenter. The house, too, had a front of planks, laid over one another to bear off rain, and was painted of a neat-enough stone colour. It may be thought entitled to this notice; for assuredly, two such tenants as the writer of the Simple Story,' and the performer of Coriolanus, have but rarely inhabited the same dwelling.

We have been this day (1832) to look again at a tenement, which nothing for near fifty years has called upon us to notice. It remains as it was in 1784, notwithstanding the encroaching improvements that seem to be dressing London up in universal elegance, as if it contained no abodes for any but the wealthy and the prosperous. The two houses remain as they were in our youth. The carpenter's wooden palisades alone, with the wicket, have given way to an iron swing-gate and latch, about three feet high; so that, at night, it has less the appearance of an elephant's cage. The owner of the spot seemed somewhat surprised that we should survey his wooden walls thus curiously; so we told him the house, half a century ago, had harboured a fair friend of ours. He smiled, and we parted.

But not to anticipate upon the course of this

narrative, we replace her in her humble lodging at the commencement of the year, and have to remark upon the rigorous self-denial she thought herself obliged to practise. She refused all visitors, probably for their sakes, and even complimentary calls for her own. The Whitfields absolutely kept her in existence; but this sorry dependence at last provoked its infallible follower, contempt. Her friend used her so ill, that Mrs. Inchbald would not even go in her company to the theatre, and was compelled to take her meal of discomfort at home.

Mr. Twiss, however, the last day of March had her to dine with him, to meet Mrs. Whitfield; and in April this foolish business ended. She needed a respectable address, to allow of visits from persons of any figure in the world, and wrote to Mrs. Whitfield for the use of her house when she quitted town for Birmingham: a favorable answer was returned. This was of great consequence to her at that time. Mr. Colman had accepted her farce of 'The Mogul Tale,' and, during the alterations which he recommended, he occasionally called upon her at Whitfield's; for it does not appear that he was ever apprised of her wooden tenement in the court. It had been first submitted to him as the production of a Mrs. Woodley, and he then thought there was merit in it, though he remarked that "he never met with

so cramp a hand in his life, nor was ever so much. puzzled to make out a piece."

Having thus secured for the summer a place to see her manager, she was so far appeased towards her friend; who, however, sustained a few refusals as to dining with her, accompanying her to the Opera, and so forth but at last, on the 4th of June, she says "I packed up every thing, dined with my friends, who left town for Birmingham, went home to tea, and then returned with all my things, the locum tenens of a decent habitation." She would not take her sister Dolly into the house to pass some time with her, without express permission; she accordingly wrote to ask it, and received the sanction of the owners. Dolly accordingly lived with her at Mrs. Whitfield's, from the 6th of July till the 9th of August, when she returned to Standingfield, greatly missed by her sister. To get the chapter of habitation to a close, we here add, that against the return of her friends to town, Mrs. Inchbald took a lodging for herself in Hart Street, at the house of a Mr. Morell, to which she removed on the 15th of September, leaving, a clear stage to her dramatic friends on the following day, when they arrived for the winter campaign.

Having thus respectably housed the Muse herself, we must attend to the production of her first offspring. On the 4th of March she sent The