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 in the "Recollections" is as unforgettable as the account of Byron's funeral in Moore's diffuse and rambling "Memoirs." It is in such narratives that the eye-witness eclipses, and must forever eclipse, the most acute and penetrating investigator. Biographers cannot stand as Broughton stood at the door of Seaham, when the ill-mated couple drove away to certain misery: "I felt as if I had buried a friend." Historians cannot stand as John Evelyn stood on the Strand, when the second Charles entered London: "I beheld him and blessed God!" Or at Gravesend, seven years later, when the Dutch fleet lay at the mouth of the Thames: "A dreadful spectacle as ever Englishmen saw, and a dishonour never to be wiped off!"

Ever since that most readable book, "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian," was given to the English world, actors and playwrights have been indefatigable autobiogra-