THIS view on Lake Champlain is taken about two miles from S. Keensborough (or, as it is sometimes called, Whitehall) at the bottom of the lake where the steamboat starts for St. Johns. At this end of the lake it becomes very narrow and reduced nearly to the size of a creek: the scenery on either side is rocky, and in many places rises almost perpendicular, which, with the abrupt turnings of this narrow termination of the lake, often presents beautiful subjects for the pencil.

CRITICISM.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

CUM TABULIS ANIMUM CENSORIS SUMET HONESTI.-Hor.

Memoirs of the life of George Frederick Cooke, esquire, late of the Theatre Covent Garden, by William Dunlap. 2 vols. Newyork, published by D. Longworth. pp. 803.

AN important change is now taking place in the minds of our countrymen on the subject of departed men. "De mortuis

nil nisi bonum," was, formerly, a maxim held in profound veneration; and which, in fact, amounted to this, that it was clearly justifiable to tell a falshood when no one could be benefited by the declaration. We rejoice to find that good sense has at last prevailed and established the opinion, that the dead as well as the living, must both be tried by their merits. The author of the present work has, with an honest hardihood, stood forth the champion of this principle, and has illustrated, by appropriate facts and circumstances, the changing and versatile character of Mr. Cooke.

George Frederick Cooke, notwithstanding he was so confidently pronounced to be an Irishman, was born at Westminster. After the death of his father, the family removed to the town of Berwick upon Tweed. He became first enamoured with the stage, from the perusal of Otway's tragedy of Venice Preserved. This gave him an early bias, and frequent visits to the little provincial theatres of his neighbourhood only tended to deepen such impressions. Unsatisfied with becoming a spectator merely, he now burned to take an active part in such employment. His mother, alarmed by such repeated indications of his growing propensities, bound him an apprentice to a respectable printer in Berwick. That town was shortly afterwards visited by a party of strolling players, and Cooke embarked his fortune with them, and proceeded, in their company, to London. He had now the happiness of beholding those characters to whom the whole theatrical world has done reverence. The following is an extract from his journal:

"The characters," says Cooke, "I had the happiness of seeing that grand master of the stage, Garrick, illustrate, were Lear; Hamlet (twice;) Leon (twice;) Benedick (twice;) Don Felix (twice;) and Kitely. Alas! no more Lear was the last. He took his leave after Don Felix, in a farewell address, on the 10th of June, 1776."

Mr. Cooke was at length regularly engaged at the Manchester theatre, where he acted several characters-Tancred, Major O'Flaherty, Joseph Surface, Moody, Rover-and, probably for the first time, Lear, for his own benefit. At this time, and when he had arrived at the age of thirty-five years, says his biographer, "Those habits which continued with Mr. Cooke to the end of his life, had taken pretty firm hold of him, but the worst of them had not yet grown to

that enormous magnitude, as to weaken his faculties, and injure his health. His habit of desultory reading was fixed; he read much more, than from his other habits might be expected, but it was any thing that chance threw in his way. His judgment on the authors who thus fell in his hands, was decisive and just, and his remarks always honourable to his acuteness and taste. But if the book was ever so bad, he read it through. He at this time, as through the remainder of his life, passed many hours in solitude, and indulged him. self in long and solitary walks, frequently with a book, and sometimes with the part he was studying for representation."

The following is the opinion of Cooke on the subject of our revolutionary contest, as extracted from his journal:

"Within the last twenty years, the thirteen States of America, an amazing tract of country, threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, and declared themselves independent. This revolution was conducted with firmness and wisdom; we heard of no murders, no assassinations, no multiplied and terrifying executions, no private gangs of execrable villains, marking their steps by blood and rapine. The rules of war were on both sides strictly adhered to, nor did they ever lose sight of humanity. Washington, whose name will grace the page of history to the end of time, tempered his success with prudence and moderation. Just as he was in the field, he appears in the senate. Above all mean, unworthy considerations, he is actuated by real patriotism; and the rising federal government, while they pursue his plans, will increase their own importance, among the nations of the earth, without injury to any state whatever."

Until Mr. Cooke had attained the age of thirty-eight years, though he had often acted with applause at the provincial theatres in England, he was still a stranger to Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He, however, took possession of the Dublin stage, where he reigned without a competitor; but the disgrace attending a drunken brawl, in which he had been engaged, drove him from the stage, and in a fit of intoxication and despair, he enlisted as a private in a regiment destined for the West Indies. From this he was relieved by a friend, who interposed his kind offices, and enabled him to return to the Dublin theatre, where he was greeted with loud acclamations. During the second summer of his engagement, he, for the first time, encounters Kemble. Mr. Cooke here played the Ghost to Kemble's Hamlet, during which the following prophetic conversation ensued:

While Mr. Cooke was waiting at the side-scene for his cue to go on, Kemble came up and reproached him thus:

"Mr. Cooke, you distressed me exceedingly in my last scene-I could scarcely get on-you did not give me the cue more than once-you were very imperfect."

"I'll tell you what, I'll not have your faults fathered upon me! And damn me, black Jack, if I don't make you tremble in your pumps one of these days yet!"

His evil habits kept pace with the march of his abilities still, as is evident from the following awful and admonitory extracts from his journal:

"A day, or a night, or both, consumed in conviviality, (to speak softly) is often the occasion of many succeeding days and nights being spent in the same manner. Few, when the mind is dissipated, thoughts confused, nerves unstrung, and the whole frame weakened and agitated, can put a sudden stop to the growing evil. "Tomorrow I will return to my duty."-Tomorrow comes, and the ability to do well is lessened—and then tomorrow, and tomorrow, until some fortunate or unfortunate event closes the period. I will not, I cannot, at this time, touch upon the many instances, when a FATAL conclusion, by this rash, unthinking conduct, is put to fortune, reputation, and life.”

"To use a strange expression," says he, in another day's journalizing, “I am sometimes in a kind of mental intoxication. Some, I believe, would call it insanity. I believe it is allied to it. I then can imagine myself in strange situations, and in strange places. This humour, or whatever it is, comes uninvited, but is, nevertheless, easily dispelled; at least, generally so. When it cannot be dispelled it must, of course, become madness."

At length, in the month of June, 1800, Mr. Cooke concluded an engagement with the managers of Covent Garden. This was an important era in the life of this actor. Mr. Cooke was then in the forty-fifth year of his age. A contest with Kemble was inevitable.

A German writer, says his biographer, of the name of Goede, has described and compared the personal appearance and physical powers of Messrs. Cooke and Kemble, so nearly to my satisfaction, that I will transcribe the passage for my readers, with such alteration as shall make it conform to my ideas:

Of the two, Kemble's countenance is the most noble and refined; but the muscles are not so flexible and subject to command as Cooke's. Cooke is a great comedian, as well as tragedian; but Kemble has no favour with the comic muse. Both are excellent in those gradual changes of the countenance

which sometimes precede, sometimes accompany, the words they utter, or which are addressed to them. It is this play of the features, which depicts the inward emotion of the soul, and identifies the player with the character he represents. Kemble has a very graceful manly figure, is perfectly well made, and his naturally commanding stature, adds great dignity to those picturesque attitudes, which he delights to study and exhibit. His face is the noblest I ever saw on any stage, being a fine oval, with a handsome aquiline nose, well formed, with fiery and romantic eyes, shadowed by strongly marked eye-brows; his forehead open; his chin prominent and rather pointed; and all his features so softly interwoven or blended, that no deeply marked line is perceptible. His physiognomy indeed commands at first sight, since it denotes in the most expressive manner, a man of superior mind and judgment; his voice is feeble, but of great depth. This is his greatest natural deficiency.

Cooke does not possess the elegant figure of Kemble, but his countenance beams with greater expression. The most prominent features in the physiognomy of Cooke, are a long and somewhat hooked nose of uncommon breadth between the eyes, which are fiery, dark, and at times terribly expressive, with prominent lids and flexible brows; a lofty and broad forehead; and the muscles around the mouth pointedly marked. His countenance is certainly not so dignified as Kemble's, but its expression of passion, particularly the worst passions of our nature, is stronger. His voice, though sharp, is powerful and of great compass, a preeminence which he possesses by nature over Kemble, and of which he skilfully avails himself. His attitudes are far less picturesque than those of Kemble, but they are just, appropriate, and natural.

The reader will perceive that Mr. Kemble's fine face and figure, must in some characters have given him a superiority; and added to his better education and continued study as an actor, a gentleman, and a scholar, must place him eminently above competition, in such parts as Hamlet, Coriolanus, and some others; but, for Richard the Third, Mr. Cooke's figure was as good as Mr. Kemble's, his face better, his voice better, his habitual manner better, as being more quick, abrupt, and impetuous, and his attitudes better, as having less the appearance of study. Therefore it is not to be wondered at, that the stranger should overthrow the monarch of the stage, on this field, although intrenched strong, and sheltered by ramparts of public opinion, which he had been twenty years erecting. Mr. Cooke played Richard this season twentythree times.

The third character which Mr. Cooke played in London, was Sir Archy M'Sarcasm, in Macklin's farce of Love-a-la-Mode. He played it for the first time in London on Thursday, November the 13th, after having performed Shylock the same evening. To personate these two characters on the same evening, was customary with the veteran player, who was the author of the farce, and Cooke continued the custom as long as he lived. I presume the cha