to fancy himself again a child—is worthy of no mean place among the arts which refine our manners by exalting our conceptions! It has sometimes been objected to the theatrical artist, that he merely repeats the language and embodies the conceptions of the poet. But the allegation, though specious, is unfounded. It has been completely established, by a great and genial critic of our own time, that the deeper beauties of poetry cannot be shaped forth by the actor,* and it is equally true, that the poet has little share in the highest triumphs of the performer. It may, at first, appear a paradox, but is nevertheless proved by experience, that the fanciful cast of the language has very little to do with the effect of an acted tragedy. Mrs. Siddons would not have been less than she is, though Shakespear had never written. She displayed genius as exalted in the characters drawn by Moore, Southern, Otway, and Rowe, as in those of the first of human bards. Certain great situations are all the performer needs, and the grandest emotions of the soul all that he can embody. He can derive little aid from the noblest imaginations or the richest fantasies of the author. He may, indeed, by his own genius,-like the matchless artist to whom we have just alluded-consecrate sorrow, dignify emotion, and kindle the imagination as well as awaken the sympathies. But this will be accomplished, not by the texture of the words spoken, but by the liying magic of the eye, of the tone, of the action; by all those means which belong exclusively to the actor. When Mrs. Siddons cast that unforgotten gaze of blank 'horror on the corpse of Beverley, was she indebted to the play-wright for the conception? When, as Arpasia in Tamerlane, she gave that look of inexpressible anguish, in which the breaking of the heart might be seen, and the cold and rapid advances of death traced -and fell without a word, as if struck by the sudden blow of destiny-in that moment of unearthly power, when she astonished and terrified even her oldest admirers, and after which, she lay herself really senseless from the intensity of her own emotion where was the marvellous stage-direction, the pregnant hint in the frigid declamatory text, from which she wrought this amazing picture, too perilous to be often repeated? Do the words "I'm satisfied," in Cato, convey the slightest image of that high struggle-that contest between nature long repressed and stoic pride-which Mr. Kemble in an instant embodied to the senses, and impressed on the soul for ever? Or, to descend * See Mr. Lamb's Essay on the Tragedies of Shakespear, as adapted to representation on the stage-a piece, which combines more of profound thought with more of deep feeling and exquisite beauty, than any criticism with which we are acquainted. into the present time and the lowlier drama, does the perusal of The School of Reform convey any vestige of that rough sublimity which breathes in the Tyke of Emery? Are Mr. Liston's looks out of book, gotten by heart, invented for him by writers of farces? Is there any fancy of invention in its happiest mood -any tracings of mortal hand in books-like to the marvellous creations which Munden multiplies at will? These are not to be "constrained by mastery" of the pen, and defy not only the power of an author to conceive, but to describe them. The best actors indeed, in their happiest efforts, are little more indebted to the poet, than he is to the graces of nature which he seizes, than the sculptor to living forms, or the grandest painters to history. Still less weight is there in the objection, that part of the qualities of an actor, as his form and voice, are gifts of nature which imply no merit in their possessor. They are no more independent of will, than the sensibility and imagination of the bard. Our admiration is not determined by merit, but by beauty; we contemplate angelic beauty of soul with as tender a love as virtue, which has been reared with intense labour among clouds and storms, and follow with as delighted a wonder the quick glances of intuition as the longest and most difficult researches. The actor exhibits as high a perception of natural grace, as fine an acquaintance with the picturesque in attitude, as the sculptor. If the forms of his imagination do not stand for* ages in marble, they live and breathe before us while they last-change with all the variations of passion-and "discourse most eloquent music." They sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Kemble's Roman characters, supply the noblest illustrations of history. The story of Coriolanus is to us no dead letter; the nobleness of Cato is an abstract idea no longer. We seem to behold even now the calm approaches of the mighty stoic to his end-to look on him, maintaining the forms of Roman liberty to the last, as though he would grasp its trembling relics in his dying hands-and to listen to those solemn tones, now the expiring accents of liberty passing away, and anon the tremulous breathings of uncertain hope for the future. The reality with which these things have been presented to our youthful eyes is a possession for ever-quickening our sympathy with the most august instances of human virtue, and enriching our souls with palpable images of the majesty of old. It may be said, that if a great actor carries us into times that are past, he rears up no monument which will last in those which are to come. But there are many circumstances to counterbalance and alleviate the shortness of his fame. anxiety for posthumous renown, though there is something noble in it as abstracted from mere personal desires, is scarcely The the loftiest of human emotions. The Homeric poets, who breathed forth their strains to untutored ears and left no visible traces of their genius, could scarcely anticipate the duration of their works. Shakespear seems to have thought little in his life-time of those honors which through all ages will accumulate on his memory. The best benefactors of their race have left the world nothing but their names, and their remembrances in grateful souls. The true poet, perhaps, feels most holily when he thinks only of sharing in the immortality of nature, and "owes no allegiance but the elements." Some feeling, not unallied to this, may solace the actor for the short-lived remembrance of his exertions. The images which he vivifies are not traced in paper, nor diffused through the press, nor extant in marble; but are engraven on the fleshly tables of the heart, and last till "life's idle business" ceases. To thousands of the young has he given their "first mild touch of sympathy and thought," their first sense of communion with their kind. As time advances, and the ranks of his living admirers grow thin, the old tell of his feats with a tenderer rapture, and give such vivid hints of his excellence as enable their hearers richly to fancy forth some image of grandeur or delight, which, in their minds at least, is like him. The sweet lustre of his memory thus grows more sacred as it approaches its close, and tenderly vanishes. His name lives still-ever pronounced with happiest feelings and in the happiest hours and excites us to stretch our thoughts backward into the gladnesses of another age. The grave-maker's work, according to the Clown in Hamlet, outlasts all others even "till domesday," and the actor's fades away before most others, because it is the very reverse of his gloomy and durable creations. The theatrical picture does not endure because it is the warmest, the most living of the works of art; it is short as human life, because it is as genial. Those are the intensest enjoyments which soonest wither. The fairest graces of nature— those touches of the ethereal scattered over the universe-pass away while they ravish us. Could we succeed in giving permanence to the rainbow, to the delicate shadow, or to the moon-beam on the waters, their light and unearthly charm would be lost for ever. The tender hues of youth would ill exchange their evanescent bloom for an enamel which ages would not destroy. And if "these our actors" must "melt into air, thin air," leaving but soft tracings in the hearts of living admirers-if their images of beauty must fade into the atmosphere of town gaiety, until they only lend some delicate graces to those airy clouds which gleam in its distance, and which are not recognized as theirs, they can scarcely complain of a transitoriness which is necessarily connected with the living grace which belongs to no other order of artists. The work before us, however, may afford better consolation than we can render to actors; for it redeems not the names, but the vivid images of some of the greatest artists of a century ago, from oblivion. Here they are not embalmed, but kept aliveand breathe in all the glory of their meridian powers before us. Here, Betterton's tones seem yet to melt on the entranced hearerNokes yet convulses the full house with laughter on his first арpearance and Mrs. Monfort sinks with her dainty, diving body to the ground, beneath the conscious load of her own attractions. The theatrical portraits in this work are drawn with the highest gusto, and set forth with the richest coloring. The author has not sought, like some admirable critics of this age of criticism, to say as many witty or eloquent things on each artist as possible, but simply to form the most exact likeness, and to give to the drapery the most vivid and appropriate hues. We seem to listen to the prompter's bell-to see the curtain rise-and behold on the scene the goodly shapes of the actors and actresses of another age, in their antique costume, and with all the stately airs and high graces which the town knows no longer. Betterton is the chief object of our author's admiration; but the account of his various excellencies is too long to extract entire, and perhaps, on account of the spirit of boundless eulogy in which it is written, has less of that nicety of touch, which gives so complete an individuality to his pictures of other performers. The following are, perhaps, the most interesting parts of the description: "You have seen a Hamlet perhaps, who, on the first appearance of his father's spirit, has thrown himself into all the straining vociferation requisite to express rage and fury, and the house has thundered with applause; tho' the mis-guided actor was all the while (as Shakespear terms it) tearing a passion into rags.—I am the more bold to offer you this particular instance, because the late Mr. Addison, while I sate by him, to see this scene acted, made the same observation, asking with some surprize, if I thought Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the Ghost, which, tho' it might have astonished, had not provoked him? for you may observe that in this beautiful speech, the passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonishment, or an impatience, limited by filial reverence, to enquire into the suspected wrongs that may have raised him from his peaceful tomb! and a desire to know what a spirit so seemingly distrest, might wish or enjoin a sorrowful son to execute towards his future quiet in the grave? This was the light into which Betterton threw this scene; which he opened with a pause of mute amazement! then rising slowly, to solemn, trembling voice, he made the Ghost equally terrible to the spectator, as to himself! and in the descriptive part of the natural emotions which the ghastly vision gave him, the boldness of his expostulation was still governed by decency, manly, but not braving; his voice never rising into that seeming outrage, or wild defiance of what he naturally revered. But alas! to preserve this medium, between mouthing, and meaning too little, to keep the attention more pleasingly awake, by a tempered spirit, than by mere vehemence of voice, is of all the master-strokes of an actor the most difficult to reach. In this none have yet equalled Betterton. "A farther excellence in Betterton, was, that he could vary his spirit to the different characters he acted. Those wild impatient starts, that fierce and flashing fire, which he threw into Hotspur, never came from the unruffled temper of his Brutus; (for I have, more than once, seen a Brutus as warm as Hotspur) when the Betterton Brutus was provoked, in his dispute with Cassius, his spirit flew only to his eye; his steady look alone supplied that terror, which he disdained an intemperance in his voice should rise to. Thus, with a settled dignity of contempt, like an unheeding rock, he repelled upon himself the foam of Cassius. Perhaps the very words of Shakespear will better let you into my meaning: Must I give way, And a little after; There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats! &c. Not but in some part of this scene, where he reproaches Cassius, his temper is not under this suppression, but opens into that warmth which becomes a man of virtue; yet this is that hasty spark of anger, which Brutus himself endeavours to excuse.' The account of Kynaston, who, in his youth, before the performance of women on the stage, used to appear in female characters, is very amusing. He was particularly successful in Evadne, in The Maid's Tragedy, and always retained "something of a formal gravity in his mien, which was attributed to the stately step he had been so early confined to" in his female attire: the ladies of quality, we are told, used to pride themselves in taking him with them in their coaches to Hyde Park, in his theatrical habit, after the play, which then used to begin at the early hour of four. There was nothing, however, effeminate in his usual style of acting. We are told, that "He had a piercing eye, and in characters of heroick life, a quick imperious vivacity in his tone of voice, that painted the tyrant truly terrible. There were two plays of Dryden in which he shone, with uncommon lustre; in Aurenge-Zebe he played Morat, and in Don Sebastian, Muley Moloch; in both these parts, he had a fierce lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave the spectator a kind of trembling admiration.” The following account of this actor's performance in the now neglected character of Henry the Fourth, gives us the most |