Various

“ Their leave-taking of the public, their "retirement," as biographers call it, is one death; since a playgoer then considers an actor dead "to all intents and purposes"—a very non est. Public regrets are showered about your great actor, and by some he is forgotten with the last trump of his praise. He "retires:" that is, he looks out for a cottage in the country, far removed from his former sphere of action, (as plain John Fawcett did the other day,) or he diverges to a snug box in the suburbs of London, still lingering about the great stage, as did honest Joseph Munden about seven years since. ”

“ I began to consider what the King might think of it, and whether he would not desire to have his active servants about him. At Morden the light was so strong, that it was difficult to persuade one's-self the fire was not much nearer; and at Tooting you would have sworn it was at the next village. The night was, nevertheless, a very fine one, with a brilliant moon. 10 Not a soul seemed in bed in the villages, though it was ten o'clock. ”

“ But, is this fitting for the obituary of a comic actor? Yes, we reply, and as both are but occasions of appeal to the passions, we may think the death of a tragedian less striking than the former, since all tragedies end with death, and death in itself is but a scene of tragedy. ”

“ Nor were these feelings diminished by the gloomy solitude and silence of the scenery around, interrupted only by the howling wind and the roaring of the waves, which beat against the precipitous rocks surrounding the cove, and sustaining the massive walls of the castle.
A plain white-washed building, with few and small windows, apparently created out of a barn or granary and an old farm-house, was encircled by a high wall enclosing also a muddy courtyard, and a garden destined to supply the fraternity merely with the necessary herbs and seeds on which the meagre-fed brethren were nourished. ”

“ Happiness.—No man can judge of the happiness of another. As the moon plays upon the waves, and seems to our eyes to favour with a peculiar beam one long track amidst the waters, leaving the rest in comparative obscurity ”

“ People in the boxes or pit look out for his successor in the bills of the play—then say "we ne'er shall look upon his like again," (the greatest, though perhaps the most equivocal, tribute ever paid to genius,) but a few months reconcile them to the loss; they approve the successor, though they deplore the change, "and though the present they regret, they are grateful for the past." Then comes your actor's second farewell—his final exit—and "last of all comes death." A line or two in a newspaper tells you that Munden died on Monday last. ”

“ The artist flattered him perhaps in the general air, as far as it implied ordinary good breeding, and an habitual urbanity of carriage; and yet the momentary look may not have been flattered even in that respect; for as the greater includes the less, so the princely serenity which Cromwell could assume as well as any man, or rather which was natural to him in his princely moments, involved of necessity whatever is of the like quality in the self-possession of an ordinary gentleman. You have heard what Cromwell said, when Lely was about to paint this picture? ”

“ The work, as our readers may imagine, is from first to last, an ever shifting round of adventure. It has its dark shades as well as its lively tints. The Great Plague and Fire furnish ample materials for the former, as do the court beauties and intriguantes for the latter. An episodal narrative of the Plague is one of the most touching pieces in the whole work. ”

“ Many streets consisted of nothing but avenues between heaps of roaring ruins; the sound of the fire being nothing less than that of hundreds of furnaces, mixed up with splittings, rattlings, and thunderous falls ”

“ The loss of property by the fire was of course far greater than that by the plague, and yet assuredly it was not felt a thousandth part so much, even in the city; for money, even with the lovers of it, is not so great a thing, after all, as their old habits and affections. The wits at court never chose to say much about the plague ”

“ The fine discrimination evinced by Munden in the grief and joy of the exclamations "Who would be a father," and "Who would not be a father," will not soon be forgotten. We think we see and hear [pg 107] his stout figure, in black, with florid face, and powdered hair, his raised and clasped hands,—rushing out of the lockup-house scene in all the fervid extasy of a father rejoicing at the escape of his son from destruction. In Crack, Dozey, Nipperkin, and other drunken characters, his drollery was irresistible. ”

“ As we advance in age, it is singular what a revolution takes place in our feelings. When we arrive at maturity an unkind word is more cutting and distresses us more than any bodily suffering; in our youth it was the reverse. ”

“ And yet they are not vulgar eyes, in Lely's picture. The forehead, and the open flow of hair on either side, as if he was looking out upon the realm he governed, and the air of it was breathing upon him, are wonderfully like; and so is the determined yet unaffected look of the mouth. The nose, which in every face is, perhaps, the seat of refinement or coarseness, (at least I have never found the symptom fail) is hardly coarse enough; and in a similar proportion, it is wanting in power. Cromwell's nose looked almost like a knob of oak. ”

“ Such are the casualties of life, that the presentiment of fear is far wiser than that of hope; and it would seem at all times more prudent to be providing against accident, than laying out schemes of future happiness. ”

“ There is nothing to be said in favour of fashion, and yet how many are contented implicitly to obey its commands: its rules are not even dictated by the standard of taste, for it is constantly running into extremes and condemns one day what it approves the next. ”

“ From the attorney's office, he "fell off," as Hamlet's Ghost would say, to a law-stationer's shop, and became "a hackney writer:" the technicality needs not explanation: to hack at anything is neither the road to fame nor a good meal. He was apprenticed in Chancery Lane: his master died and was succeeded by an older man, of the square-toed fraternity, who taxed Munden with being a Macaroni more than a tradesman. Munden, in consequence, parted from his master, and once more returned to the office of a solicitor. ”

“ Each page teems with life, and everywhere to use an expression of the writer, his "soul rises with springy freshness." The portraits, and to use a familiar term of artists, the bits of painting, have the touches of a master-hand, and they are interwoven with genius which enlivens art and embellishes nature.
THE GATHERER AN ODD STORY.
About 150 years since, there was in France one Captain Coney, a gallant gentleman of ancient extraction, and Governor of Coney Castle. He fell in love with a young gentlewoman and courted her for his wife. ”

“ Munden was the son of a poulterer in Brooke's Market, Holborn, where he was born in the year 1758. His father died soon afterwards, leaving his widow with slender means, and Munden was thrust upon the world to seek his fortune at twelve years of age. ”

“ We have fewer enemies than we imagine: many are too indolent to care at all about us, and if the stream of censure is running against us, the world is too careless to oppose it. If we could hear what is said of us in our absence we should torment ourselves without real cause, for we should seldom hear the real sentiments of the speaker ”

“ A mere paragraph rounds the little life of your actor, his entrances and exits, and he who "appeared" on one stage in 1790, as Sir Francis Gripe and Jemmy Jumps, disappeared from that greater stage, or all the world, as Joseph Munden. We have often thought these farewells of actors must be with them dismal affairs, especially in old age. They must remind them of a last farewell, and we know
The sense of death is most in apprehension. ”

“ Experience.—'Tis a pity that the more one sees, the more suspicious one grows. One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated—one must be made a fool very often in order not to be fooled at last! ”

“ There are some people, who though very amiable in the main, and obliging in their offices to others, have yet that most unhappy propensity of being gloomy over every thing.
It is one of the wisest provisions of Fortune that the same vices which ruin our estates, take away also the means of enjoying them by depriving us of health. ”

“ An old man, in a meeting of cross-roads, was haranguing the people in the style of former years, telling them of God's judgments, and asserting that this was the pouring out of that other vial of wrath, which had been typified by the Fiery Sword,—a spectacle supposed to have been seen in the sky at the close of the year sixty-four. The plague was thought to have been announced by a comet. ”

“ The character of any particular people may be looked for with best success in their national works of talent.
There is no absurdity in approving as well as condemning the same individual; for as few people are always in the right, so on the other hand it is improbable they should be always in the wrong. ”

“ The reason why there are so few instances of heroism in modern times is the total decay of political virtue: we are broken up into small parties and associate only with our families, thus forgetting the public, in our regard for private interest: the ancients were taught rather to live for the benefit of the whole community. ”

“ Saviour is built in the form of a cathedral, with a nave, side aisles, transepts, a choir, with its side aisles; and the chapel of St. John, which now forms the vestry, and the chapel of the Virgin Mary, or Our Lady. To the east end of the latter there has since been added a small chapel, called the Bishop's Chapel. Another chapel, (of St. Mary Magdalen,) was also connected with the south aisle of the church. The parishioners seem to have hitherto neglected the Lady Chapel, and to have shown their cupidity in ages long past. ”

“ The London Bridge Committee recommended the parishioners of St. Saviour to cause the Chapel to be pulled down, and their selfish suggestion would have been complied with, had not some enlightened and public-spirited individuals stepped forth to frustrate the levellers. The parishioners now became two parties. One contended for the restoration of the Chapel, as "one of the most chaste and elegant specimens of early pointed architecture of the thirteenth century of which this country can boast." ”

“ About this time Munden appears to have first imbibed a taste for the stage, and with it an admiration of the genius of Garrick; indeed, he had seen more of Garrick's acting than had any of his contemporaries in 1820, Quick and Bannister excepted. What a fine president would Munden have been of the Garrick Club, the members of which probably know as much about Garrick as they care about Thespis. Acquaintance with an actor fed Munden's penchant for the stage, but did not fill his pocket. Both started for Liverpool, the actor upon an engagement, but Munden in hope of one ”

“ The man who feels he is in the right is seldom dogmatical, for truth is always calm and requires not violence to enforce her arguments: we should desist from the contest the moment we feel anxious about victory, because that anxiety must make us less particular about the truth. ”

“ Study of Mankind.—There seems something intuitive in the science which teaches us the knowledge of our race. Some men emerge from their seclusion, and find, all at once, a power to dart into the minds and drag forth the motives of those they see ”

“ Knowledge of the world must be combined with study, for this, as well as better reasons: the possession of learning is always invidious, and it requires considerable tact to inform without a display of superiority, and to ensure esteem, as well as call forth admiration. ”

“ The pillars have in a great degree lost their perpendicular position: the mouldings and mullions of the windows are distorted in the most shameful manner; the walls are rapidly hastening to their final decay ”

“ Love.—There is a mysterious influence in nature, which renders us, in her loveliest scenes, the most susceptible to love. * * In all times, how dangerous the connexion, when of different sexes, between the scholar and the teacher! ”

“ A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Had ta'en with equal thanks.
As he ripened, he became tinged with the old gentlemanly vice. He almost made penury his hobby. Oxberry's widow asked him, after his retirement, to play for her benefit: he said he could not, but that, if ever he performed again, he would present her with 100l. It is related of him too, that a friend asking him for a keepsake, he exchanged his old cotton umbrella for his friend's silk one. Elliston and Munden were on good terms, though men of very opposite habits. Munden had played twelve nights for Elliston at Leamington. ”

“ We understand Mr. Pennie's design, in this volume, to be the chronological arrangement of certain incidents of each king's reign in a series of National Tragedies. There are four such tragedies in the present portion, commencing with Arixina in which figure Julius Caesar, Cassfelyn, and Cymbaline, and extending to Edwin and Elgiva: the titles of the intervening pieces are the Imperial Pirate and the Dragon King. There is much wild and beautiful romance in the diction, but we take the most attractive portion to be the lyrical portion, as the Chants, Dirges, and Choruses. ”

“ An over-refined philosophy begets sensitiveness, and is as little to be coveted as a moderate share of it is beneficial.
It seems to be the business of life to lay by fresh cause for anxiety and discontent by increasing our estate ”

“ The most elegant flattery is at second hand; viz., to repeat over again the praises bestowed by others.
Ignorance, simple, helpless ignorance, is not to be imputed as a fault; but very often men are wilfully ignorant. ”

“ Here he remained until May 31, 1824, when he took his farewell of the stage, in the characters of Sir Robert Bramble, (Poor Gentleman, 8 ) and Old Dozy, (in Past Ten o'clock.) He read his farewell address, thus rendering it strikingly ineffective, since his spectacles became obscured with tears. The leave-taking had, however, a touch of real tragedy, which few could withstand. He now retired with a respectable fortune, and lived in genteel style in Bernard-street, Russell Square, till his 74th year.
Munden's style of acting was exuberant with humour. ”