d all
tearful character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics of the
impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a
heavenly angel, but how were we supernaturally surprised into almost
awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess! The house was crowded with
hundreds more than it could hold, with thousands of admiring spectators
who went away without a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic
excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun of
the firmament of the Muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen and
princess of tears! this Donellan of the poisoned dagger! this empress of
pistol and dagger! this chaos of Shakespeare! this world of weeping
clouds! this Juno commanding aspects! this Terpsichore of the curtains
and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and excitement! this Katterfelto of
wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief and soared above all
the natural powers of description! She was nature itself! She was the
most exquisite work of art! She was the very daisy, primrose, tuberose,
sweet brier, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall flower, cauliflower,
auricula, and rosemary! In short, she was the bouquet of Parnassus! When
expectations were so high, it was thought she would be injured by her
appearance, but it was the audience who were injured: several fainted
before the curtain drew up! When she came to the scene of parting with
her wedding ring, ah! what a sight was there! the very fiddlers in the
orchestra, albeit unused to melting mood, blubbered like hungry children
crying for their bread and butter! and when the bell rang for music
between the acts the tears ran from the bassoon players' eyes in such
plentiful showers that they choked the finger stops, and making a spout
of the instrument poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book
that not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band
played it in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience
and the noise of corks drawn from smelling bottles prevented the
mistakes between sharps and flats being heard. One hundred and nine
ladies fainted! forty-six went into fits! and ninety-five had strong
hysterics. The world will scarcely credit the truth when they are told
that fourteen children, five old men, one hundred tailors, and six
common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that
flowed from the galleries, the slips, and the boxes, to increase the
briny