54 Mrs. Jordan and her Biographer. QJAN. 



which they had no share, which they could not help, and for which, 

 however painful to themselves, they can have no blame. They have an 

 undoubted right to complain of the rashness or cupidity which has 

 forced their history thus rudely before the world; and in the as-ertion of 

 that right they will be accompanied by the feelings of every man of 

 delicacy and honour in the empire. 



It is only justice to the Fitzclarence family to acknowledge that none 

 have kept themselves clearer from public offence ; and that they have 

 not been implicated in any of the excesses for which high connections 

 and courts offer such ready temptation. But the chief fault which we 

 have to find with the writer is his injury to the cause of British author- 

 ship, by setting an example of that literary menace, which, however it 

 may have failed in the present instance, will find imitators among 

 classes destitute of even his portion of reserve, turn biography into a 

 public shame, and inflict, of all others, the most fatal blow on the 

 national literature. 



Having given our decided reprobation to the principles of such works 

 in general, we shall now glance over the general features of the volumes. 

 Mrs. Jordan was born in Ireland, about 1762, near Waterford; the 

 daughter of Mrs. Bland, an actress. Her first engagement was under 

 the name of Francis, at Daly's theatre in Dublin, in her sixteenth year; 

 Henderson, the actor, saw her play in the Romp, at Cork, where she was 

 engaged at twenty shillings a week ; and spoke so highly of her talents, 

 that on her return to Dublin, her salary was raised to three guineas a 

 week. Daly the manager of the theatre was a character " He was born 

 in Galway, and educated in Trinity College. As a preparation for the 

 course he intended to run through in life, he had fought sixteen duels in 

 two years, three with the small sword, and thirteen with pistols, and he, 

 I suppose, imagined like Macbeth, that he bore a charmed life, for he 

 had gone through the sixteen trials of his nerve without a single wound 

 or scratch of consequence. He therefore used to provoke such meet- 

 ings upon any grounds, and entered the field in pea-green, embroidered, 

 ruffled, and curled, as if for a very different ball, and gallantly presented 

 his full front, conspicuous, finished with an elegant brooch, quite re- 

 gardless how soon the labours of the toilet might soil their honours in 

 the dust. In person he was remarkably handsome, and his features 

 would have been agreeable, but for an inveterate and most distressing 

 squint, the consciousness of which might keep his courage on the look- 

 out for provocation. Like Wilkes, he must have been a very unwelcome 

 adversary to meet with the sword, because the eye told the opposite party 

 nothing of his intentions." 



We have then a sketch of Mrs. Abington, which has some value, as 

 from the personal observation of one familiar with the stage : " Mrs. 

 Abington unquestionably possessed very peculiar and hitherto unap- 

 proached talent. She took more entire possession of the stage than any 

 actress I have seen. The ladies of her day wore the hoop and its con- 

 comitant train. Her fan exercise was really no play of fancy; 

 shall I say that I have never seen it in a hand so dexterous as that of 

 Mrs. Abington. She was a woman of great application; to speak as she 

 did, required more thought than usually attends female study. Common 

 place was not the station of Abington. She was always beyond the sur- 

 face ; and seized upon the exact cadence and emphasis by which the 

 point of the dialogue is enforced. Her voice was of a high pitch and 

 not very powerful ; her management of it alone made it an organ. Her 

 deportment is not so easily described ; more womanly than Farren, fuller 



