An awful event took place during the performance of this play a short time after its production. John Palmer, an eminent comedian, while acting the principal character, at Liverpool, on the 2nd of August, 1798, expired on the stage. He had recently suffered severe domestic bereavements, which are supposed to have given a painful application to some passages in the third act in which he had to utter the words: “There is another and a better world”. In the first scene of the fourth act, his agitation increased; he fell into the arms of the performer of the part of Baron Steinfort, and died without a groan. A narrative of this shocking event, published immediately afterwards, by the same performer, disposes of the generally-received but more emotional tradition that Palmer’s earthly career was terminated while pronouncing the above words. He was in his fifty-seventh year. This is not the only instance of so impressive an end, for a similar death-stroke overtook Joseph Peterson, an excellent actor, in October, 1758, while representing _The Duke_ in _Measure for Measure_. In act 3, sc. 1, in reciting the words— “—Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art—” he dropped into the arms of Moody, who personated _Claudio_, and never spoke more!—ED.] [“One other noted character we visited—the one who, according to William Taylor of Norwich, was the greatest of all. This was AUGUST VON KOTZEBUE, the very popular dramatist, whose singular fate it was to live at variance with the great poets of his country, while he was the idol of the mob. He was at one time (about this time (1801) and a little later) a favourite in all Europe. One of his plays, _The Stranger_, I have seen acted in German, English, Spanish, French, and, I believe, also Italian. He was the pensioner of Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The odium produced by this circumstance, and the imputation of being a spy, are assigned as the cause of his assassination by [C. L. Sand] a student of Jena, a few years after our visit [March 3, 1819]. He was living, like Goethe, in a large house and in style. I drank tea with him, and found him a lively little man, with small black eyes. He had the manners of a _petit-maître_.”—_Crabb Robinson’s Diary_ (1801), i. 115.—ED.] [Illustration] No. XXII. April 9, 1798. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.