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models of her time, the Barrys, the Bellamys, the Yeates, and the
Siddonses; that under a father so well qualified to instruct her, her
talents were brought forth in the very bud, by constant exercise, and
that while yet a child she had learned to personate the heroine. What
then will the reader's surprise be, when he is informed that she had
seen very few plays; perhaps fewer than the general run of citizens'
daughters--and that the stage was never even for an instant contemplated
as a profession for her till a very short time before her actual
appearance in public. The fact is, that Mr. Brunton's conduct through
life was distinguished no less by prudence and discretion, than by a
lofty regard to the honourable estimation of his family. While he
himself drudged upon the stage and faced the public eye, his family,
more dear to him, lived in the repose of retired life, and instead of
fluttering round the scenes of gayety and dissipation, or haunting the
theatre before or behind the curtain, Mrs. Brunton trained her children
to domestic habits, and contented herself with qualifying her daughters
to be like herself, good wives and mothers. Not in the city but in the
country near Bath did Mr. Brunton live in an elegant cottage, where his
little world inhaled the pure air of heaven, and grew up in
innocence--Mrs. Brunton herself being their preceptress. Nothing was
farther from his thoughts than that any of his daughters possessed
requisites for the stage; they were all very young, even the eldest, our
heroine, had but turned past fifteen, and, exclusive of her youth, had
a lowness of stature and an exility of person, than which nothing could
be farther from suggesting ideas of the heroine, or of tragic
importance, when one day, by desire of her mother, she recited some
select passages in her father's presence. He listened with mixed
emotions of astonishment and delight--a new train of thought shot across
his mind; he put her over and over again to the trial, and at every
repetition had additional motives to admire and to rejoice. Then, for
the first time, was he aware of the mine which lay concealed in his
family under modesty and reserve, and then, for the first time, he
resolved that she should try her fate upon the stage, his fond heart
prognosticating that _his_ darling would, ere long, be the darling of
the people. That she should possess such an affluence of endowment,
without letting it earlier burst upon her fath