ry of man, has lately come forth at Covent Garden, in
the arduous character of Lady Macbeth, in which, if we are to trust the
London critics, she at once started to a level with Mrs. Siddons. Her
name is Smith. She has, like Mrs. Siddons, been on the stage from
childhood, without being noticed by any but the happy few, some of whom
augured highly of her from the first, and she has fully accomplished
their prognostications. The first impressive trace we find of her in
theatrical annals is in an Edinburgh criticism. "As I think most highly
of this juvenile performer," says that writer, "and entertain most
sanguine hopes of seeing her soon at the head of her profession, I will
not insult her by indiscriminate panegyric or mawkish praise. Her comedy
is by no means satisfactory to me. The disadvantage of a _petite_ figure
is not, in this department compensated by any high excellencies. Her
comedy is generally speaking, rather meagre and unadorned, and in a
degree pointless and ineffective.--But her tragedy merits every praise.
In richness and variety of tone; in propriety and justness of action and
gesture; in picturesque and impressive attitude, in a nervous mellowed
modulation; in appropriate deportment--above all in the discriminating
delicacy of taste, by which she distinguishes and expresses the feelings
and workings of the heart, she is above praise."

Miss Smith next meets us in London in 1808, playing lady Macbeth at
Covent Garden, and is spoken of as follows:

"Macbeth by Mr. Kemble so frequently the subject of remark, and often of
well-earned eulogy, affords little occasion for notice at this time; but
concerning "his NEW partner of greatness", as there was much to be
admired, it is fit that something should be said. A just personification
of lady Macbeth is perhaps the most difficult and dangerous undertaking
an actress can enter upon: that silent but efficient aid, derived from
the contagion of the gentler affections, from pity, sorrow, love; or
even from the turbulent emotions of the mind, from anger, jealousy,
revenge, "she must not look to have" in the sympathetic bosoms of
hearers or spectators; her only operant power is terror, a frigid and
unsocial passion, and hence perhaps it is that no actress, at least in
modern times, has been found fully adequate to the task; the according
testimony indeed of the best living or recent opinions may warrant a
belief that Mrs. Pritchard displayed successfully the portrai