what appeared to be the soldier's bier. "Heavens! what dream is this?" exclaimed the officer who had been so assiduous in his attention to the unfortunate man; "my sister here!—let me intreat, let me beg—" "No, Albert Fitzalleyn—no, brother, no," uttered Mrs. St. Clair, "remove me not—I am calm, resigned, very, very calm—I expected this—if I cannot live I can die with him. St. Clair, awake—your wife, your Charlotte calls—what not one smile?—look here," she cried, pulling the frightened, trembling, weeping child towards the body, "your child, your boy, your dearest Edward calls for you too. O, agony! he does not move. Dead! no, no, it cannot be—my life, my love, my husband." And there was something, it did seem, in that sweet voice which reached the dying warrior's heart, for he opened those eyes already partly glazed with the film of death, and if in them expression remained, it beamed on his afflicted wife. Reason and strength too returned, but their dominion was momentary, for with one hand feebly grasping that of his wife, his other resting on the head of his dear boy, and his sunken eyes directed from the one to the other, the brave, the respected, the beloved St. Clair died! He sank on the rough, uncouth couch, and with him the senseless form of his fond wife. The stillness of the corpse scarcely surpassed that which for a time was reigning over the group assembled there; at length the brother gently raised the wretched widow from her sad resting-place; but the fair sufferer was released from all earthly pain; with her husband she could not live, but she indeed with him had died! Their son, Edward St. Clair, is in existence, living with, and beloved by, his uncle, Albert Fitzalleyn,

THE PAINTER.

SPIRIT OF THE
PUBLIC JOURNALS.

ROMEO COATES.

What was Kemble, Cooke, Kean, or Young, to the celebrated Diamond Coates, who, about twenty years since, shared with little Betty the admiration of the town? Never shall I forget his representation of Lothario at the Haymarket Theatre, for his own pleasure, as he accurately termed it; and certainly the then rising fame of Liston was greatly endangered by his Barbadoes rival. Never had Garrick or Kemble, in their best times, so largely excited the public attention and curiosity. The very remotest nooks of the galleries were filled by fashion, while in a stage-box sat the performer's notorious friend, the Baron Ferdinand Geramb.

Coates's lean Quixotic form, being duly clothed in velvets and in silks, and his bonnet richly fraught with diamonds, (whence his appellation,) his entrance on the stage was greeted by such a general crowing, (in allusion to the large cocks, which as his crest adorned his harness,) that the angry and affronted Lothario drew his sword upon the audience, and actually challenged the rude and boisterous inhabitants of the galleries, seriatim, or en masse, to combat on the stage. Solemn silence, as the consequence of mock fear, immediately succeeded. The great actor, after the overture had ceased, amused himself for some time with the baron, ere he condescended to indulge the wishes of an anxiously expectant audience. At length he commenced; his appeals to his heart were made by an application of the left hand so disproportionably lower than the "seat of life" has been supposed to be placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word "breach," and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of "the gallant and the gay;" but who shall describe the prolonged agonies of the dark seducer! his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people for medical aid to accomplish his eternal exit. Then, when in his last throes his bonnet fell, it was miraculous to see the defunct arise, and after he had spread a nice handkerchief on the stage, and there deposited his head-dress, free from impurity, philosophically resume his dead condition; but it was not yet over, for the exigent audience, not content "that when the man were dead, why there an end," insisted on a repetition of the awful scene, which the highly flattered corpse executed three several times to the gratification of the cruel and torment-loving assembly.

Coates, too, was destined to participate somewhat in the celebrated fête in honour of the Bourbons in 1811. Having no opportunity of learning in the West Indies the propriety of being presented at court, ere he could be upon a more intimate footing with the prince, he was less astonished than delighted at the reception of an invitation on that occasion to Carlton house. What was the fame acquired by his cockleshell curricle, (by the way, the very neatest thing seen in London before or since;) his scenic reputation; all the applause attending the perfection of histrionic art; the flatteries of Billy Finch, (a sort of kidnapper of juvenile actors and actresses, of the O. P. and P. S. in Russell-court;) the sanction of a Petersham; the intimacy of a Barrymore; even the polite endurance of a Skeffington to this! To be classed with the proud, the noble, and the great. It seemed a natural query, whether the Bourbon's name were not a pretext for his own introduction to royalty, under circumstances of unprecedented splendour and magnificence. It must have been so. What cogitations respecting dress, and air, and port, and bearing! What torturing of the confounded lanky locks, to make them but revolve ever so little! then the rich cut velvet—the diamond buttons—ay, every one was composed of brilliants! The night arrived: ushered by well-rigged watchmen to clear the way, the honoured sedan bore its precious burthen to the palace, and the glittering load was deposited in the royal vestibule itself. Alas! what confusion, horror, and dismay were there, when the ticket was pronounced a forgery! All that the considerate politeness of a Bloomfield or a Turner might effect was done to alleviate the fatal disappointment. The case was even reported instanter to the prince himself; but etiquette was amongst the other "restrictions" imposed upon his royal highness; and, however tempered by compliment and excuse, "the diamonds blaze" reached not farther than the hall, and were destined to waste their splendour, for the remainder of the night, in the limited apartments of Craven-street.

New Monthly Magazine.

THE VOICE OF NATURE.