The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Arnold Samuel James

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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

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