ed
in Edinburgh, not at all with the slightest idea of comparing her with
her celebrated mother-in-law, but rather as expressing the kindly
personal good-will and the admiring approbation with which she was
regarded by her own townsfolk, who were equally proud and fond of her.
She was not a great actress, nor even what in my opinion could be called
a good actress, for she had no natural versatility or power of
assumption whatever, and what was opposed to her own nature and
character was altogether out of the range of her powers.

On the other hand, when (as frequently happened) she had to embody
heroines whose characteristics coincided with her own, her grace and
beauty and innate sympathy with every thing good, true, pure, and
upright made her an admirable representative of all such characters. She
wanted physical power and weight for the great tragic drama of
Shakespeare, and passion for the heroine of his love tragedy; but Viola,
Rosalind, Isabel, Imogen, could have no better representative. In the
first part Sir Walter Scott has celebrated (in the novel of "Waverley")
the striking effect produced by her resemblance to her brother, William
Murray, in the last scene of "Twelfth Night;" and in many pieces founded
upon the fate and fortune of Mary Stuart she gave an unrivaled
impersonation of the "enchanting queen" of modern history.

My admiration and affection for her were, as I have said, unbounded; and
some of the various methods I took to exhibit them were, I dare say,
intolerably absurd, though she was graciously good-natured in tolerating
them.

Every day, summer and winter, I made it my business to provide her with
a sprig of myrtle for her sash at dinner-time; this, when she had worn
it all the evening, I received again on bidding her good night, and
stored in a _treasure_ drawer, which, becoming in time choked with
fragrant myrtle leaves, was emptied with due solemnity into the fire,
that destruction in the most classic form might avert from them all
desecration. I ought by rights to have eaten their ashes, or drunk a
decoction of them, or at least treasured them in a golden urn, but
contented myself with watching them shrivel and crackle with much
sentimental satisfaction. I remember a most beautiful myrtle tree,
which, by favor of a peculiarly sunny and sheltered exposure, had
reached a very unusual size in the open air in Edinburgh, and in the
flowering season might have borne comparison with the finest