surpassed Mrs. Yates. In short, she was as decidedly formed and fashioned by the hand of Nature to be an actress, as Mr. Kemble is to be an actor. She had an independent style unmethodized by art; a spirit that disdained prescription, and a towering genius, that dreaded nothing but mediocrity.

This great heroine is now no more; but the stage has still possession of an actress, whom all have admired, and many idolized. Were I only called upon to speak of Mrs. Siddons as she has been, I should say that in her first display of character she was as pure, as perfect and as near to Nature as Nature's fairest representative could be. I apprehend she has too cautiously restrained and circumscribed her powers, and being sensible that repetition needs relief, has not sufficiently considered that absolute perfection does not admit of variation; why else she should resort so often to her under-tones 1 cannot tell, for they are positively inaudible, and the people, who call upon her to speak louder, should convince her that she is still too fine a speaker to be allowed to deprive them of their right without a remonstrance.

1

As an actor, who in the decline of our national taste stands firm in the support of the legitimate drama, and may be truly styled the gravis Æsopus of his time, Mr. Kemble has my most sincere respect, and when I bear this unprejudiced testimony to his merit, I am moved to it by no other consideration, but as I think it due from me, being the conductor of a work, devoted to the interests of fair criticism and contemporary genius. If he is evidently cautious how he lends himself to great variety of character, he very probably acts wisely for his fame, and prudently for his health; but I am far from sure, that we have seen him in the whole capacity of his powers, nor does it follow, because he has never stepped beyond the boundaries of his genius, that he has absolutely stepped up to them. I rather think, that if he chose to sally from his entrenchments, he might take new ground, and post himself very strongly on it. I have watched him in his Leon, and will venture to say that his fatuity in that character is more highly coloured than that of Garrick's was. I dare say my readers can recollect certain parts, in which his unimpassioned recitation, that would hang so heavy in the hands of others, has a charm that never wearies us in his. I am satisfied he might considerably enlarge his compass, if he would. Nevertheless we must confess the stamp of Nature is upon him as the tragic hero; and when we add to that the habits he has acquired by the study of his art, and probably by the disposition also of his mind, he has a right, if he sees fit, to be seen in none but the gravest and most dignified situations. Nay although it were allowed on all hands, and he himself were conscious, that such were the true compass and determined limitation of his histrionic 'powers, yet Mr. Kemble would have no right to arraign the liberality of Nature, because she did not give him features as flexible, and frame as plastic as she gave to Garrick: what is great and solemn and sublime she has qualified him to express, and though her gifts, as such alone, had not been very various, they surely may be called extremely valuable : But I adhere to my conjecture.

Mr. Hunt says of Mr. Kemble, as Racine did of his own Athaliah

Non in se crimen amoris habet.

Mr. Hunt is a nice observer, and very apt to be right: Mrs. Inchbald differs from him, and upon a question of that nature little likely to be wrong; how can we decide?

C

The ingenious writer of these Essays under my review expresses some disapprobation of a certain stiff and studied manner, which he remarks in Mr. Kemble, and observes that he is an actor even in the operation of taking out his handkerchief, when he is upon the stage. I can believe the fact to be as Mr. Hunt has stated it, but I do not quite agree with him in the comment, that he grounds upon it. I conceive it must depend upon the character, which Mr. Kemble represents, and the

4

situation he is in, whilst an action of this sort is introduced, whether his manner of performing it is, or is not, pedantic and improperly artificial. Heroes and kings may take out their handkerchiefs on the stage, but certainly not for that familiar purpose, which meaner characters would apply them to, whose noses had occasion for them. Mr. Kemble, as the representative of dignity, will of necessity dignify every move ment, that fills up the action, and what is termed the bye-play of his part: He naturally will not allow himself to perform such common offices, as are above alluded to, like common men, but specifically and precisely as the individual would, whose image is in his mind, and whose minutest habits he would wish to make his own, so long as it may be his duty to reflect them. If he does no more than this, he does right, and I have not observed him apt to offend against character. No performer ever fashioned himself more studiously on reflection, and where I think him open to criticism is, when he suffers that reflection to be seen in representation, which only should precede it.

The part of Hamlet has generally been selected as the test of genius; I rather look upon it as the touch-stone of versatility. It is not always the best actor, who will play Hamlet best, but he who is most variously endowed; for that applauded drama is in fact a most irregular and parti-coloured composition. In parts and passages of that non-descript performance various actors have succeeded; several in many; Kemble in most; Garrick alone in all.

Mr. Hunt says, (and I quote it as a passage in his best manner)

"That it must be the praise of a man, who shall possess a genius "capable of more than the art of acting, to personate Hamlet, the "gallant, the philosophical, the melancholy Hamlet, that amiable "Inconsistent, who talked when he should have acted, and acted "when he should not even haye talked; who with a bosom wrung " with sensibility was unfeeling, and in his very passion for justice "unjust; who in his misery had leisure for ridicule and in his re

"renge for benevolence; who in the most melancholy abstraction "never lost the graces of mind or the elegancies of manner; natural "in the midst of artifice, and estimable in the midst of error."

Upon this arduous part Mr. Kemble enters with attributes in some respects happier and more auspicious than those, with which Mr. Garrick was by nature armed. The dignity of the prince is in his form; the moody silence, meditative look, repulsive coldness and taunting ridicule cast on the creatures of the court, who besiege him, are peculiarly his own: in the judicious management of soliloquy, so little understood by some, he is not to be surpassed by any: in his interviews with the apparition of his father no actor can be more impressive ; but in the graciousness of his manner with Horatio, Laertes and others; in his familiar condescension to the players, and especially in those delicate observances, which are not to be totally laid aside even in his sarcastic scene with Ophelia, and that more sharp and accusatory one with his mother, which were so finely and so curiously managed by Mr. Garrick, 1 must confess I have not received that perfect satisfaction from Mr. Kemble, which in other parts he has given me. When Hamlet in his interview with Ophelia, repeatedly vociferates To a nunnery! to a nunnery! and quits the stage, Mr. Garrick tempered the unmanly insult in a manner that I cannot define, but by the effect it was evident that the sensibility of the actor operated as a softener to the asperity and coarseness of the poet. I have thought that in the stateliness of his deportment, and above all in the measured march and highpitched tone of his declamation, Mr. Kemble did not sufficiently yield and accord himself to the fluctuations of that changeful character, which is throughout the drama alter et idem. But these are merely superficial opinions, that have floated in my mind, whilst 1 have been watching his performance, and they may very possibly be coloured by the prejudice of first impressions, and I feel how perfectly unfair it is to

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bring actors now contending with the disadvantages of very different theatres and different audiences to comparisons with actors past. It is nugatory and frivolous, if done to flatter the living; unjust and cruel, if intended to disparage them. The present stage, whilst possessed of Mr. Kemble, has to boast of a performer, more deeply scientific, more learned and more laborious in his profession than is probably to be found in the annals of the British theatre. Although Garrick and Barry, Quin and Henderson, Woodward and O'Brien have passed off; although Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Abington and Miss Farren will be seen no more, the few old fellows like myself, who have lived through the whole list, and admired every one of them in their turns, would be the most illiberal of bigots, if we did not acknowledge the merit of those, who have succeeded to delight us, and support the undiminished credit of the stage.

1 cannot quite take leave of Mr. Kemble without noticing Mr. Hunt's remarks upon orthoëpy, as applied to that elaborate performer: I confess I wish him not to be too precise in, his pronunciation, but to content himself with speaking what is commonly called court-language, without too marked an aspiration of certain vowels. In some instances, that are urged against him, I think him right, yet I would recommend it to him to restrain his zeal for reforming customs, so long as they are sanctioned by the best societies, and are not inelegant. That he pronounces aiches, as those who employed the word, meant it to be spoken, I am well convinced: the metre puts it out of doubt; but it is not worth his while to be in a minority for a word-Let him say to himself-

:

-Scio meliora, proboque;

Deteriora sequor.-

Mr. Elliston, the Gracioso of Drury-Lane, always enterprising, and as various as a hero of a country company, has spirit to undertake and address to execute a great diversity of