were at supper, a crash, like the stroke of a battering-ram, was heard at the gardengate. The Indian had burst it open by throwing a large stone against it, and her picturesque admirer was seen by moonlight deliberately walking up the avenue towards the house. Mr. Whitelock immediately took down a sabre and fire-arms, but he had no occasion to use them; for an athletic young Englishman, who lived in the house, rushed out, and repaid the intruder for his crash at the door by a stroke upon his jaw that was almost equally audible. The savage took his punishment very quietly, and, after one flooring, got up and walked back to Philadelphia. A Brect To return to the immediate subject of these memoirs--our great actress's birth-place was Brecon, or Brecknon, in South Wales. friend has obligingly written to me as follows respecting the house in which Mrs. Siddons was born: "It is a public-house in the high street of this town, which still retains its appellation, 'The Shoulder of Mutton,' though now entirely altered from its pristine appearance. I send you a drawing of the house, not as it is at present, but as I perfectly well remember seeing it stand, with its gable front, projecting upper floors, and a rich wellfed shoulder of mutton painted over the door, offering an irresistible temptation to the sharpened appetites of the Welsh farmers, who frequented the adjoining market-place; especially as within doors the same, or some similar object in a more substantial shape, was always, at the accustomed hour, seen roasting at the kitchen fire, on a spit turned by a dog in a wheel, the invariable mode in all Breconian kitchens. In addition to which noontide entertainment for country guests, there was abundance of Welsh ale of the rarest quality; and, as the Shoulder of Mutton' was situated in the centre of Brecon, it was much resorted to by the neighbouring inhabitants of the borough. If I am rightly informed, old Kemble was neither an unwilling nor an unwelcome member of their jolly associations. Those who remember him tell me that he was a man of respectable family, and of some small hereditary property in Herefordshire; and that having married the daughter of a provincial manager, he received a company of strolling players for her dowry, and set up as a manager himself." Brecnoc, as far as I can learn, could never boast in modern times of having produced any other distinguished individuals than Mrs. Siddons and Charles Kemble; yet the place is not without its interesting historical, and even dramatic associations. It was the first ground in Wales on which the Anglo-Norman banner intruded; and the grey mossgrown cairns upon its mountains are still the acknowledged resting-places of British warriors, whose memory is preserved in the songs of the ancient language of Britain. The last prince of Brecnoc, Bleddyn, who died fighting pro aris et focis against the Anglo-Normans, was the descendant of Sir Caradoch Bris Bras, one of the heroes of old French romance. In the fifteenth century, the lordship of Brecon fell into the possession of the Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham, one of whom acts a conspicuous part in Shakespeare's "Richard the Third." Buckingham. "And is it thus repays he my deep service Act IV. Sc. 2. It was in the castle of Brecnoc that Buckingham, in concert with Moreton, Bishop of Ely, plotted the rebellion in favour of Richmond. Catesby. "Bad news, my lord: Moreton is fled to Richmond, And Buckingham, backed by the hardy Welshmen, Is in the field; and still his power increaseth." Act IV. Sc. 3. It appears, however, that Buckingham was no great favourite with the Breconians and other Welshmen; for, after having followed him to the banks of the Severn, they left him to be taken by the adherents of Richard, who beheaded him without ceremony. The |