d exhibitions of Parisot and
Bigottini, in the great tragic ballets in which dancing was a
subordinate element to the highest dramatic effects of passion and
emotion expressed by pantomime. After her marriage, my mother remained
but a few years on the stage, to which she bequeathed, as specimens of
her ability as a dramatic writer, the charming English version of "La
jeune Femme colere," called "The Day after the Wedding;" the little
burlesque of "Personation," of which her own exquisitely humorous
performance, aided by her admirably pure French accent, has never been
equaled; and a play in five acts called "Smiles and Tears," taken from
Mrs. Opie's tale of "Father and Daughter."

She had a fine and powerful voice and a rarely accurate musical ear; she
moved so gracefully that I have known persons who went to certain
provincial promenades frequented by her, only to see her walk; she was a
capital horsewoman; her figure was beautiful, and her face very handsome
and strikingly expressive; and she talked better, with more originality
and vivacity, than any English woman I have ever known: to all which
good gifts she added that of being a first-rate _cook_. And oh, how
often and how bitterly, in my transatlantic household tribulations, have
I deplored that her apron had not fallen on my shoulders or round my
waist! Whether she derived this taste and talent from her French blood,
I know not, but it amounted to genius, and might have made her a
pre-eminent _cordon bleu_, if she had not been the wife, and _cheffe_,
of a poor professional gentleman, whose moderate means were so
skillfully turned to account, in her provision for his modest table,
that he was accused by ill-natured people of indulging in the expensive
luxury of a French cook. Well do I remember the endless supplies of
potted gravies, sauces, meat jellies, game jellies, fish jellies, the
white ranges of which filled the shelves of her store-room--which she
laughingly called her boudoir--almost to the exclusion of the usual
currant jellies and raspberry jams of such receptacles: for she had the
real _bon vivant's_ preference of the savory to the sweet, and left all
the latter branch of the art to her subordinates, confining the exercise
of her own talents, or immediate superintendence, to the production of
the above-named "elegant extracts." She never, I am sorry to say,
encouraged either my sister or myself in the same useful occupation,
alleging that we had what