During a few nights of another year or two, he acted under the exacting conditions of a nature that had been violated. He gained a little strength from his island home in Bute, and even acted in Glasgow, Cork, and Dublin with his son, in whose success he took a father's part. Thrice he essayed fresh study, and once he nearly conquered; his Virginius, in Knowles's play, was superbly affecting, in fragmentary passages, but he tried it at too late a period, not of his natural life, but of his professional career. Richard II. was magnificently got up for him, but as the curtain was about to rise, it was discovered that he was not in the house--and days passed before he emerged into the world and decency. His last essay in a new part was in "Henry V.;" but he broke down, addressed the audience deprecatorily, muttered something about being the representative of Shakspeare's heroes, and lamented, at little more than forty, what Macklin did not plead till he was past ninety--his decaying memory. Now and then the town saw him, but his hold on it was nearly gone. He was now at the Haymarket; and then, uncertainly, at Drury Lane; and again at the Haymarket in 1832, where I saw him for the last of many times, in Richard. The sight was pitiable. Genius was not traceable in that bloated face; intellect was all but quenched in those once matchless eyes; and the power seemed gone, despite the will that would recall it. I noted in a diary, that night, the above facts, and, in addition, that by bursts he was as grand as he had ever been,--that though he looked well as long as he was still, he moved only with difficulty, using his sword as a stick. I find, and perfectly remember, that there was a murmur of approbation at the pause and action of his extended arm, as he said--"In the deep bosom of the ocean,--BURIED!"--as if he consigned all lowering clouds to the sea. At--"The dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;" the action was so expressive as to elicit a round of applause; and in the last of the lines-- "Why what a peevish fool was he of Crete, Who taught his son the office of a fowl, And yet for all his wings, the fool was drowned," the playful yet fiendish sarcasm was delivered with marvellous effect. His words, after "Die, prophet, in thy speech,"--"For this among the rest was I _ordained_," seemed like a devilish joke after a burst of fury. In-- "Villains, set down the corse, or by St. Paul, I'll make a corse of him that disobeys,"-- his voice was scarcely distinguishable; but his old attitude of leaning at the side scene, as he contemplated Lady Anne, was as full of grace as ever,--save that the contemplator had now a swollen and unkingly face. Then-- "Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, That I may see my shadow as I pass,"--