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 Cornell University Library 
 PN 2594.M37 1890 
 
 Our recent actors 
 
 3 1924 026 122 592 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026122592 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS 
 
 BEING 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CRITICAL, AND, IN MANY CASES, PERSONAL, 
 
 OF LATE DISTINGUISHED PEEFOEMEES 
 OF BOTH SEXES. 
 
 V/ITH SOME INGIBENTAL NOTIGES OF 
 LIVING A0T0E8. 
 
 BY 
 
 ToWt^ WE STL AND MAESTON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEABLE & EIVINGTON, 
 
 LIMITJED, 
 
 &t IBunstan's House, 
 
 Fettee Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 
 
 1890. 
 
 lAU rights reserved.^ 
 
RECENT DRAMATIC WORKS. 
 
 ON THE STAGE : Studies of Theatrical History 
 and the Aolor's Art. By Dutton Cook, author of 
 " The Book of the Play," etc. 2 vols. 24s. 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL DRAMATIC WORKS OF 
 THOMAS WILLIAM ROBERTSON. With 
 Memoir by his Son. Illustrated with Six Photo- 
 gravure Portraits of J. Hare, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, 
 F. A. Sothern, H, J. Montague, and George Honey. 
 2 vols. Crown 8vo, cloth, One Guinea. 
 "They are invaluable to the student of the stage; inestimable 
 
 documents in theatrical history." — World, 
 
 MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS. By Lestek 
 Wallace. Large Paper Edition of Fifty Copies, 
 printed on extia plate paper, small 4to boards, 
 cloth back, autograph in gilt letters, £3 3s. net. 
 Ordinary Edition, crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 "Very pleasant reading do they constitute, and the volume, over- 
 flowing with portraits and other illustrations, is an agreeable posses- 
 sion, , . . Besides being agreeable reading, is a welcome contribution 
 to stage history." — Saturday Review. 
 
 Sampson Low & Co., Ltd., St. Dunstan's HonSE, 
 Fettek Lane, London. 
 
 PRrNTEB BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFOfiD STEEET AND CHARING CEOSS. 
 
JOSEPH KNIGHT, ESQ., 
 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARBISTBE-AT-LAW. 
 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 It may probably have occurred to you, as it has done 
 to myself, to glance in leisure moments at the dedications 
 which were published a century or two ago. I confess to 
 having read them with considerable amusement, and, 
 perhaps, with a slight feeling of contempt; for the poet's 
 praise of the patron was usually in such superlatives, that 
 he often evinced more imagination in his dedication than in 
 his poem. Were the patron a warrior, he was, at least, an 
 Achilles ; were he a poet, one would think that Homer and 
 Shakspere ought to hold up his train ; were he a legislator, 
 Solon or Lycurgus would be eclipsed ; while, in the event 
 of the book being inscribed to a lady, the three Goddesses 
 who contended for the golden apple were at once super- 
 seded in their respective attributes by the modern divinity. 
 ■One naturally reproaches such clients, to use the old phrase, 
 with insincerity and servihty. 
 
 And yet I have at length learned, from experience, some 
 toleration for them, for you have taught me that seeming 
 hyperbole may well consist with truth. Of the man whose 
 imaginative sympathy and refinement have not only endeared 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 him to some of our best poets, but made him a poet himself; 
 of the critic whose rare discernment has been in nothing 
 more conspicuous than in his quick detection of merit ; of 
 the friend who has rejoiced in the successes of cithers as if 
 they had been his own, while their misfortunes have called 
 forth his untiring devotion — " Victrix causa diis placuit, 
 sed victa Catoni ; " — of such a man, I draw a portrait which, 
 though absolutely faithful, may be regarded by those who 
 do not know him as purely ideal. 
 
 Accept from me these EecoUections touching an art in 
 which we are both deeply interested, and 
 Believe, dear Knight, 
 
 In the profound and grateful affection of 
 Tours always, 
 
 Wbstland Maeston. 
 
PEBFACE. 
 
 It has often been asserted that the mere glamour 
 of youth induces playgoers to prefer their early 
 favourites to the actors who succeed them, 
 though the latter may be of equal or even of 
 superior merit. "Were such a statement abso- 
 lutely true, the writer of these pages might have 
 an additional reason for distrusting his fallible 
 judgment, especially in the cases of those bygone 
 performers with whom he was acquainted. It 
 may, nevertheless, well be that the assertion in 
 question, if true at all, is chiefly true with 
 respect to that part of the public which has laid 
 aside theatrical interests with youth, and which, 
 on occasionally repairing to the theatre in later 
 days, brings with it a mind which has lost its 
 old ardour not only by time and disuse, but by 
 the grave pursuits and anxieties of mature years. 
 With those, however, whose sympathy with 
 dramatic art has not been interrupted, the case, it 
 may be hoped, is different. Long experience may 
 possibly, in their instances, have more than 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 counteracted early bias and even personal regard, 
 while a yet warmer interest than that of youth 
 in theatrical representations may have been 
 developed by habit and opportunities of com- 
 parison. In the list of these the author trusts 
 that he may be included. As a matter of fact, 
 it has happened to him, as to many old play- 
 goers, to find, in numerous cases, the same enjoy- 
 ment from the present race of actors as that 
 derived from their predecessors. In some few 
 cases the enjoyment has even been superior. 
 With the class of playgoers described, whatever 
 the correctness of their judgment, there is at least 
 a desire to judge impartially, and to estimate 
 each performer, in each part, according to his 
 individual merits. "With these critics the unfor- 
 gotten power of Macready, in the play-scene in 
 " Hamlet," has not blinded them to the excellence 
 of Mr. Irving in the same scene ; thej^ who most 
 admired the former actor can admit that Salvini 
 surpassed him in Othello. The remembrance of 
 the great Eachel has not prevented them from 
 seeing in Eistori, Sarah Bernhardt, and Madame 
 Modjeska, a tenderness in which she was often 
 deficient. Helen Faucit, Ellen Tree, Charles 
 Kemble, have not left us insensible to the claims 
 of Mr. Hare, of the Bancrofts and the Kendals, 
 of Miss Terry, Mrs. Bernard Beere, Miss Ada 
 Cavendish, or ]\Iiss Amy Eoselle. EeeoUections 
 of Listen, Harley, Keeley, or Wrench, have not 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 deprived the humours of Mr. Toole, Mr. John 
 S. Clarke, or Mr. Thomas Thorne of their mirth- 
 moving power ; nor have the gallantry and ardour 
 of Mr. James Anderson rendered us indifferent to 
 the same fine qualities in Mr. Henry Neville. 
 
 The " EecoUections," whether critical or per- 
 sonal, have chiefly reference to past actors. Some- 
 times, however, living performers have been 
 commented on either when comparison between 
 themselves and their predecessors seemed desir- 
 able, or when they have so long retired from 
 the stage that their career is become part of its 
 history, or where they have been particularly 
 associated with some remarkable event — such, 
 for instance, as Phelps's management of Sadler's 
 Wells. Many names of contemporary actors are, 
 however, omitted, which would- have high claims 
 to notice had the writer's main object been to 
 treat of the existing Stage. 
 
 In some rare cases, when the press and general 
 report have pronounced a performance strikingly 
 representative of the actor, the writer has given a 
 sketch of it in his own words, though he may not 
 have seen it. Notices of tliis kind have been 
 derived partly from consultation of journals 
 of authority, partly from statements of friends 
 — some of whom were critics of celebrity, 
 and minute in their information. The sketches 
 referred to are those of Mr. Charles Kemble 
 in Mark Antony (" Julius Csesar ") ; of Mr. 
 
VlU PREFACE. 
 
 W. Farren in Michael Perrin (" Secret Service "), 
 and in Old Parr ; of Mr. Phelps in Sir Pertinax 
 MacSycophant ; of Mr. Alfred Wigan in "Still 
 Waters Eun Deep ; " of Mr. Charles Mathews as 
 Sir Charles Coldstream in " Used Up ; " and the 
 brief reference to Mr. Weljster as Piichard Pride. 
 
OUR BEGENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LONDON THEATEES— 
 DENVIL, VANDENHOEF, AND OTHEK AOTOES. 
 
 Coming to London — First visits to theatres — Sadler's "Wells — ■ 
 Miss Macarthy— Mr. G. Almar— Mr. Cobliain— Mr. T. P, 
 Cooke — Mr. T. Archer — Anecdote of him and Maoready — 
 Covent Garden — Manfred — ^Miss Ellen Tree — Mr. Denvil 
 — Mr. Vandenhoif — His chief performances — Anecdote of 
 him — Miss Vandenhoff. 
 
 This book is, so far as it goes, an autobiography. 
 It is a narrative touching iDersons and things 
 seen by the writer, with the exception, in gome 
 few cases, of matters which became known to 
 him on trustworthy authority. He has tried to 
 say as little about himself as consists with the 
 due setting of his various portraits. He has 
 not forgotten, however, how much in autobio- 
 graphy (witness the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn) 
 a touch of surrounding detail gives life to the 
 chief matter described. Thus in the notice of 
 Mr. Charles Kemble he has recalled the bright 
 summer weather, the brilliant whirl of London 
 in the height of the season; and the gay and 
 
 B 
 
2 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 crowded thoroughfares of the West End through 
 which he made his way to the Haymarket. Such 
 details, moderately used, give reality to the 
 pictures they frame, and bring them down from 
 the abstract by relating them to particular times 
 and circumstances. 
 
 To speak in the first person, which, spite of 
 its necessary egotism, is the most convenient 
 form of narrative, I came from the Lincolnshire 
 seaport and market-town of Great Grimsby to 
 London in the year 1834, having at that time 
 attained my fifteenth year. It had been arranged 
 that I should be articled to my uncle, a solicitor, 
 who, with his partner, had of&ces near Gray's 
 Inn. The partner's house was my first abode, 
 and here I found — or perhaps I should say, 
 took — more liberty of action during my evenings 
 than was quite suitable in the case of so -mere 
 a boy. 
 
 Two years previously, on my first visit to 
 London, I had been arrested by the playbUls 
 of the great patent theatres and by the magical 
 name^then still a sound of lingering greatness — 
 of Edmund Kean. " Drury Lane ! " " Covent 
 Garden ! " " Mr. Kean ! " Strange how these 
 words of romance had some way penetrated to 
 me through the seclusion of a "serious" home 
 in tte country, where my excellent parents never 
 mentioned the stage, except to warn me, or 
 others, of its dangers and seductions.* JTow 
 that at a too early age I was, in many 
 respects, my own master, and could indulge, if 
 I chose, my longing to visit a theatre, I began 
 to ask myself what there was in dramatic per- 
 
 * My father, -who had seceded from the Church, was a 
 dissenting minister. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 3 
 
 formances that should make them necessarily 
 ■objectionable. I recalled my own annual dis- 
 plays when, as a lad of eleven or twelve, I had 
 appeared with my schoolmates at the Theatre 
 Eoyal, Great Grimsby, in various dramatic cha- 
 racters, at one time sustaining on " breaking-up 
 ■day" the part of Juba in "Cato," and another 
 that of Electra in the tragedy of " Sophocles," 
 and afterwards that of Miriam (the Christian 
 convert) in Milman's "Jerusalem Delivered." I 
 iremembered, too, how much my father, a zealous 
 lover of Sophocles, though a foe to the stage, 
 had praised my rendering of Electra. "Was it 
 possible, I argued, that a mode of composition 
 -allowable and, indeed, admirable in Greek, should 
 be censurable in English, or that dialogue which 
 was innocent when read should become injurious 
 when spoken in public, with dresses and scenery 
 ■to assist the impression ? If the theatre might 
 have its bad side, so also had literature, art 
 =and even trade. If no judicious parent would 
 put "Tom Jones" into a boy's hands, was that 
 -a reason for withholding the novels of Scott ? 
 Must "Don Quixote" be forbidden because the 
 word "fiction" applied also to "Gil Bias"? 
 With this kind of logic I extorted a reluctant 
 permission from my conscience for an act which, 
 if allowable in itself, was still one of grave 
 'disobedience towards affectionate parents. I can 
 ■still recall the boyish sophistry which prompted 
 me to choose Sadler's Wells Theatre for my first 
 visit. It was a small theatre, and it was situated 
 in a suburb — facts which, as they were likely 
 to diminish my pleasure, seemed in the same 
 degree to make my transgression a slight one. 
 I might have gone to Covent Garden, I reasoned, 
 
4 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 and, at tliat renowned theatre, have revelled in 
 the best acting of the day, whereas I self- 
 denyingly contented myself with Sadler's Wells. 
 On the night when I entered that (to me) 
 enchanted palace, I found there a new opiate 
 for my restless conscience. The title of the 
 piece represented I quite forget, but its main 
 situation is as fresh as ever in my memory. 
 A girl, deeply attached to her betrothed, learns 
 his life is at the mercy of a viUain (of course, 
 an aristocrat), whom she has inspired with a 
 lawless passion. She implores his pity for her 
 lover, only to find that the sacrifice of her 
 honour is the price of his ransom. I remember 
 how my heart came into my throat and the 
 tears into my eyes when the noble-minded girl, 
 striking an attitude of overwhelming dignity, 
 before which the wretch naturally abased himself, 
 spurned his offer, and committed her cause to- 
 that Providence which, in the good, honest melo- 
 drama of that day, never delayed to vindicate 
 the trust reposed in it. What most comforted 
 me during the evening was the conviction that 
 my father, could he have seen the piece, would 
 heartily have applauded it and recanted at once 
 his unqualified enmity to the theatre. I fancied 
 how cordially, had he been behind the scenes, 
 he would have shaken hands with Miss Macarthy 
 (afterwards Mrs. E. Honner), who had no in- 
 considerable skill in painting the struggles of 
 virtuous heroines. I might certaialy, however, 
 have trembled for the consequences had he 
 encountered a certain Mr. G-. Almar, who, if my 
 memory serves me, personated the miscreant of 
 the drama. 
 
 I was curious enough, even on the first night 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES 5 
 
 of attending a theatre, to ask myself why Mr. 
 Almar made such incessant use of his arms. 
 Now they were antithetically extended, the one 
 skyward, the other earthward, like the sails of 
 a windmill ; now they were folded sternly across 
 his bosom; now raised in denunciation; now 
 clasped in entreaty, and considerately maintained 
 in their positions long enough to impress the 
 entire audience at leisure with the effect intended. 
 I was critical enough to ask myself whether the 
 more heroic attitudes of this gentleman would 
 not have been heightened by the contrast of 
 occasional repose, and whether there were, in his 
 opinion, any fatal incompatibility between easy 
 and natural gestures and effective acting. On 
 quitting the theatre, my inquiring mind received 
 some light upon these points, for in the window 
 of a confectioner, who was also a theatrical 
 printseller, my attention was' arrested by coloured 
 portraits of local, or other stage favourites, in 
 their principal characters. Here figured "Mr. 
 Cobham, as Eichard the Third," with a frown to 
 spread panic through the ranks of "Shallow 
 Kichmond." Here was Mr. T. P. Cooke,* as 
 William in " Black-eyed Susan," in that renowned 
 hornpipe which illustrates Wilham's happier 
 days, ere Susan and he had dreams of a court- 
 ■ martial. And here figured my friend of "The 
 Wells," Mr. G-. Almar, in various characters, in 
 all of which the use of his arms was so remark- 
 able, that it might easily be inferred he acted 
 less for the sake of his general audience than 
 
 * I met one morning this famous nautical actor, during a call 
 on Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean. Mr. T. P. Cooke's thorough 
 heartiness, "go," and physical activity, were the grounds of 
 his success. In private, his manners were frank and engaging. 
 He was greatly respected by the members of his profession. 
 
6 OUR RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 for that of the artist who depicted him, and who 
 probably would have thought little of an actor 
 who did not supply him with attitudes. I was 
 glad, moreover, to find from one of the prints 
 that Mr. Almar's arms were not always employed 
 to illustrate sinister characters, but that on occa- 
 sions they could be virtuously engaged. In this 
 particular instance they represented the action of 
 the noble EoUa in " Pizarro," as he bears Cora's 
 rescued child triumphantly over the cataract. 
 
 On my second visit to Sadler's Wells, a 
 drama taken from Scott's novel, " Eob Eoy," was 
 the leading piece. The part of the romantic 
 cattle-lifter was performed by a Mr. Archer, 
 whose demeanour in the part was singularly 
 haughty. The erect carriage of his head, set 
 upon a slender neck, his scornful look and folded 
 arms, as he exclaimed to his captors, "Villains 
 and slaves ! you have not yet subdued Eob 
 Eoy ! " were, to my young experience, in the 
 last degree imposing. This gentleman, then 
 fulfilling a star engagement at " The "Wells," was, 
 I believe, a well-known actor at the West End 
 theatres. A droll anecdote, of which he was the 
 hero, was told to me by the late Mr. Bayle 
 Bernard. I give it pretty nearly in his own words, 
 the humour of which seized on my memory. 
 
 On one of the performances of " Virginius," 
 Archer had to sustain the part of the wicked 
 Appius Claudius, to Macready's Virginius. In 
 the last act, where Virginius, exclaiming — 
 
 "And have I not a weapon to requite tliee ? 
 Ah, here are ten ! " 
 
 springs upon Appius and chokes him, Macready 
 was so carried away^^by his own intensity, that 
 
OUR EECBNT ACTORS. 7 
 
 his tight and prolonged grasp of Archer's throat 
 had well-nigh converted the fictitious catastrophe 
 into a real one. The half-suffocated repre- 
 sentative of Appius bore his trial in meek 
 sUence on the night in question. Archer, how- 
 ever, who delighted in solemn fun, and who could 
 humorously assume the grandiose language of 
 the stage in private, had a lesson to read the 
 tragedian. When Virginius was next, performed, 
 Macready, on entering the Green Eoom in the 
 interval between the fourth and fifth acts, 
 discovered that the throat of Archer was encased 
 in a dark velvet collar, which, with its shining 
 points, was a strange innovation on the costume 
 of a Eoman Decemvir. The Virginius of the 
 night contemplated Appius awhile in gloomy 
 silence, then slowly approached him. The 
 shining points just mentioned were now seen 
 to be small steel spikes, which protruded from 
 the collar, and would infallibly give a rude 
 reception to any hands which might grasp the 
 neck it encased. As it was set down in Mac- 
 ready's part that he should perform this very 
 operation, it is not surprising that he viewed 
 the new feature of Mr. Archer's attire with 
 decided disapproval. Breaking at length the 
 absorbed silence which he usually maintained 
 during his rare and brief visits to the Green 
 Eoom, he addressed the object of his sus- 
 picion. 
 
 Maceeady. " Are you — are you — aware, Mr. — 
 Mr. Archer, that that — that peculiar ornament 
 round your neck is — is quite inappropriate to 
 your character ? " 
 
 Archer. " I admit it, sir ; but the last time I 
 had the honour of appearing with you in this 
 
8 OUR EECBNT ACTOES. 
 
 rather unsympathetic part, you seized and held 
 me with such violence that I hardly expected 
 to act it again ! Acting, after all, in my humble 
 opinion, is but feigning. I am not a gladiator 
 or a wrestler, sir, and I set some value upon my 
 windpipe." 
 
 Macready, said my informant, for a moment 
 put on an expression of lofty indignation, but, 
 whether from policy or from a sense of humour 
 (in wliich he was by no means deficient), he 
 quickly exchanged it for a look of amusement, 
 and, laying his hand familiarly on his brother 
 actor's shoulder — a rare condescension indeed, — 
 exclaimed — ■ 
 
 "Archer, if my feelings carried me away 
 the other night, I apologize. I give you my 
 honour I will deal gently with you in future, 
 and that you will have no need of — of that 
 singular appendage by — by way of armour." 
 
 So the obnoxious collar was removed before a 
 summons came from the call-boy. Mr. Bernard 
 assured me that, in all essentials, this anecdote is 
 authentic. 
 
 Shortly after my second visit to Sadler's Wells, 
 I found myself a unit in a struggling crowd 
 at the pit entrance of Covent Garden. The 
 thought that I was soon to be ■within the walls 
 of so renowned a theatre had kept me in .a 
 happy fever of wakefulness during the previous 
 night, and in the morning had possibly made 
 my perusal of " Chitty on Pleading," or the 
 last volume of " Eeports on Equity," the most 
 barren of studies. 
 
 Covent Garden was at this time imder the 
 management of Mr. Alfred Bunn. He had 
 recently produced there Lord Byron's drama 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 9 
 
 of " Manfred," the dramatic picture in this case 
 having been put upon the stage less for its own 
 sake than for that of its gorgeous spectacular 
 frame. Some histrionic ability had, however, 
 been enlisted for the piece. Miss Ellen Tree 
 (whom I then saw for the first time) declaimed 
 the lines allotted to the Witch of the Alps — 
 lines which are not only few, but almost devoid 
 of dramatic force, serving only to draw out 
 Manfred's long and gloomy retrospect. ISTever- 
 theless, in her appearance, as she stood within 
 the arch of a rainbow — in her garments, which 
 seemed woven of aerial colours touched by the 
 sun — and in her voice, the tones of which, though 
 sweet, were remote and passionless — ^she realized 
 all the weird charm of a genius of lake and 
 mountain. There was something glacial in her 
 unsubstantial loveliness, something that belonged 
 to the forms of sleep rather than those of 
 common day. Well, therefore, did Byron's sister 
 write of this performance soon after the pro- 
 duction of Manfred, "Miss Ellen Tree's Witch 
 of the Alps I shall dream of." 
 
 The haughty and mysterious hero of the drama 
 was represented by Mr. Denvil, who had per- 
 formed with fair success the characters of Shylock 
 and of Eichard the Third. The new tragedian, 
 though he subsequently failed in " Othello," had 
 some measure of poetic feeling, and considerable 
 power of facial expression. General praise was 
 accorded to his Manfred. Boy though I was 
 when I saw him in this part, I still remember 
 his pale, almost spectral face, thrown out by his 
 dark garb, and a haughty isolation and melan- 
 choly in tone, look, and gesture that weU con- 
 veyed the mingled pride and remorse of one 
 
10 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 who, though racked by the sense of a hidden 
 crime, has won commerce with supernatural 
 beings. Very impressive was his delivery ot 
 the passage in which he recalls Astarte and 
 her fate, nor less so the look of self-recoil which 
 accompanied its close — 
 
 " She was like me in lineaments— her eyes, 
 Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone 
 Even of her voice, they said were like to mine ; 
 Bnt soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty : 
 She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, 
 The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind 
 To comprehend the universe : nor these 
 Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine. 
 Pity, and smiles, and tears— which I had not ; 
 And tenderness — but that I had for her ; 
 Humility — and that I never had. 
 Her faults were mine — her virtues were her own — 
 I loved her and destroy'd her ! 
 
 Witch. With thy hand? 
 
 Man, Not with my hand, but heart — which broke 
 her heart ; — 
 It gazed on mine, and wither'd." 
 
 The words in italics were given with an 
 intensity of horror and remorse that no actor 
 could well have surpassed. The judgment of a 
 lad of fifteen on this point may not be worth 
 much; but I find that the effect produced by 
 Denvil on myself was shared even by some 
 of those critics whose condemnation of his 
 subsequent performance of Othello was most 
 unsparing. Why an actor should be fairly 
 successful in Eichard the Third and Shy lock, 
 really fine in Manfred, and yet fail totally in 
 Othello, is not at once obvious. From the 
 attacks of his critics, however, upon this last 
 personation, the actor never recovered. A few 
 years afterwards I saw him at one of the minor 
 theatres as the hero of a melodrama. Possibly 
 
OUE EEOENT AOTOES. 11 
 
 from a belief that the want of physical force 
 was the cause of his previous defeat, Denvil had 
 now so exclusively cultivated this quality that 
 his acting had degenerated into the worst style 
 of provincial rant. Of the ease, refinement, and 
 poetic appreciation and quick insight into 
 character and motive which he had at times 
 exhibited, there was not a trace. Distorted 
 features, violence of gesture, and strain of lung 
 were all the resources left to him. Ere long he 
 seems to have been quite forgotten by the public. 
 It is said that he ultimately became check- 
 taker at one of the minor theatres, and died in 
 obscurity, in 1866. This story of self-realized 
 oblivion on the part of an aspirant, who at the 
 outset displayed some 'fine qualities of his art 
 and gained some distinction, is, surely, deeply 
 pathetic. 
 
 My visits to the theatre now became frequent. 
 I have a dim but pleasing recollection at this 
 time of " Man — Fred " (a capital burlesque of 
 " Manfred "), at the Strand Theatre, in which a 
 comedian named Mitchell performed the principal 
 character. He had a feeling of genuine humour, 
 which restrained him from undue exaggeration 
 in the part, while he showed a droll likeness to 
 the moods of his tragic original. When the 
 curtain rose, and Mitchell— I think, as a working 
 bricklayer — inspected with gloomy dejection an 
 empty quart measure, there was in his first 
 utterance — 
 
 " The jug must be replenished ; but even then 
 It will not hold so much as I could drink ; " 
 
 a deep, fixed, self-absorbed despondency, which 
 recalled, with delightful absurdity, Denial's tones 
 as Lord Byron's hero — 
 
12 OUR EECBNT ACTORS. 
 
 " The lamp raiist be replenished : but even then 
 It will not bum so long as I must watch." 
 
 I saw and relished Mitchell in one or two 
 other comic characters, but soon lost sight of 
 him. It is on record that he achieved a marked 
 success at the St. James's Theatre, in 1836, in 
 a serious character, as the hero of a piece called 
 "The Medicant." I have an impression it was 
 shortly after this performance that he went to 
 America, where he died, at the age of fifty-seven, 
 in 1856. 
 
 About this time, too, I have recollections of 
 Mrs. Waylett as Apollo in "Midas." She had 
 a charming voice, an arch, bright expression, and 
 was not only a good vocalist, but fairly effective 
 in comedietta and farce. In these happy days 
 of youth I paid my first visit to the Olympic 
 Theatre, of which an account will be given in the 
 chapter on Madame Vestris. Ere long I found 
 myself within the walls of the Adelphi. There 
 I remember seeing Mrs, Honey in some farcical 
 piece, and Mr. John Eeeve as Cupid. The lady's 
 one qualification for the part seemed to be a 
 pretty but already worn face, and a coquettish 
 simper ; while the obesity of j\Ir. Eeeve was the 
 chief point of humour in his assumption of Cupid. 
 I had previously seen him at the Queen's Theatre, 
 in Tottenham Street, in " Catching an Heiress," 
 as an ostler who absurdly counterfeits a Crerman 
 baron. This performance, again, gave me no 
 particular idea of Eeeve's humour. The part 
 would have been droll in any hands if the 
 audience, as at " The Queen's," could once have 
 tolerated its extravagance. I record, however, 
 impressions wliich may have been ill-founded. 
 My judgment was necessarily immature, and it 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. 13 
 
 is not to be denied that both Reeve and Mrs. 
 Honey — the former especially — had a large circle 
 of admirers. At the Adelphi, also, I first saw 
 Mr. O. Smith, celebrated for his delineations in 
 melodrama, both of villains and of supernatural 
 agents. That he could be very thorough in such 
 personations, suggesting at times by his voice, 
 expression, and make-up unfathomable wicked- 
 ness ; and again, that he could freeze the spectator 
 with his weird appearance and action in appari- 
 tions from another world, I can still recall. He 
 was, in a word, the nightmare of the stage. I saw 
 him seldom, however, and retain no clear remem- 
 brance of any of his particular characters. A far 
 higher impression, thoiigh less distinct than I 
 could wish, is that of Mrs. Yates, wife of one of 
 the lessees. There flits before me the figure of 
 a slender, elegant woman, with a low, expressive 
 voice, capable of very subtle inflections. This 
 actress struck me as being eminently gifted with 
 quiet strength. Her power of this kind in sarcasm, 
 bitterness, or intense grief, was truly remarkable. 
 In the expression of these emotions she did not 
 seem to be acting ; she spoke as a lady might 
 have spoken in a drawing-room, and moved you 
 without a trace of effort. A scene at a masked 
 ball, to which she tracked her faithless husband 
 and his mistress, stands out still in my recollec- 
 tion, though I have forgotten the details of that 
 particular scene ; and, young though I was, I felt 
 how widely Mrs. Yates's suggestive acting, in 
 which feeUng and intellect happily blended, 
 separated her from the many actresses who 
 mistake restlessness for animation, and violence 
 for power. 
 
 On the revival of " Othello " at Covent Garden, 
 
14 OUK EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 for Denvil, the part of lago was performed by the 
 elder Vandenhoff. It was in this character that 
 I first saw him ; and, both from the testimony 
 of criticism at the time, and from my own impres- 
 sions, I could scarcely have seen him to better 
 advantage. He assumed a mask of impulsive 
 light-heartedness and bonhomie, a good-natured 
 phancy which made him everywhere bon camarade. 
 There was at times even a sort of detestable gaiety 
 in his soliloquies and asides, as if the cleverness 
 of his wickedness and the foUies of mankind 
 diverted him, and made it half a pastime to work 
 out his malignity. I am by no means asserting 
 that this is the highest conception of lago that 
 could have been formed, but it was original and 
 dashing; there was Italian subtlety in it, and 
 it gave great scope for the execution of lago's 
 vUlainous designs. The impulsiveness he so well 
 feigned in this part -was a contrast to his usual 
 style of acting, which was elaborate and somewhat 
 heavy. He had, however, great dignity, a powerful 
 and melodious voice, and his means of expression 
 had often been so happily thought out that, in 
 such characters as Coriolanus, Creon, in the 
 memorable English reproduction of Antigone, and 
 Adrastus in Talfourd's "Ion," his acting was finished 
 and impressive. Pathos could by no means be 
 called his strong point ; yet sometimes his pathetic 
 bursts (as in the case of Adrastus) were very 
 ■* telling, partly from their contrast with the general 
 self-repression and dignity of his manner. He 
 ; may be said to be the last prominent tragedian of 
 i the Kemble school, having a good deal of the 
 stately carriage and bold outhne of his prede- 
 cessors, without, I suspect, quite the same tenacity 
 of feeling and minuteness of suggestion which 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 15 
 
 distinguished them. In his last days his acting 
 became over-deliberate and tedious. In his prime, 
 however, he was always more than respectable. 
 Neither his Macbeth nor his Othello (which latter 
 I saw him perform to Macready's lago) were 
 to be greatly praised for intensity of passion or 
 for the light shed upon internal conflicts ; yet his 
 power of facial expression, his excellent elocution, 
 largeness of style, and fine bearing, carried him 
 successfully through. 
 
 I met Mr. Vandenhoff several times in society. 
 He was agreeable, well-bred, and more addicted 
 to humour than could have been inferred from 
 any of his stage characters except lago. An 
 amusing peculiarity of his may here be noted. 
 He had so great an antipathy to the " harmless, 
 necessary cat " that the presence of that animal 
 in the room was a trial beyond his endurance. 
 A friend of mine, whenever Mr. Vandenhoff was 
 expected, was accustomed to take the strictest 
 precautions that pussy might neither be found 
 coiled in comfort before a fire, nor flitting along 
 hall or staircase when her visitor ascended. On 
 ■one occasion, when he chanced to be her guest, 
 the ingenious animal contrived to defeat all the 
 means used for its exclusion, and entered the 
 •drawing-room with the usual complacent cry of 
 a feline pet. A shriek at once gave vent to the 
 panic of the dismayed tragedian, who could 
 .scarcely have been more appalled by the appa- 
 rition of Banqiio's ghost than by that of this 
 domestic favourite. 
 
 Miss Vandenhoff, the actor's daughter, though 
 her appearances on the stage were not frequent, 
 was an actress of considerable merit. She was 
 the original Parthenia in "Ingomar," and the 
 
16 OUK REGENT ACTOES. 
 
 original Margaret Aylmer in " Love's Sacrifice. 
 Her performance of Antigone — the character in 
 which Lady Martin (Miss Helen Fancit) won 
 so much celebrity — was deservedly praised for 
 its classic simplicity, its grace, and pathos. She 
 had, too, an agreeable voice, and many passages 
 of the tragedy were charmingly intoned. Miss 
 Vandenhoff was herself the author of a drama, 
 the heroine of which she performed at the Hay- 
 market Theatre. It contained some poetic and 
 telling lines. I recall one from the lips of a 
 blind girl, when suffering from some cruel in- 
 justice — 
 
 " Only by tears I know that I have eyes." 
 
 Miss Vandenhoff died in 1860, at the age of 
 forty-two ; her father at that of seveniy-one, in 
 the following year. 
 
 These preliminary recollections bring me 
 almost to the time when I first saw Macready. 
 
OUE KEOENT ACTORS. 17 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 MACREADT, AND OTHEES OF HIS CONTEMPORAEIES. 
 
 Juvenile disappointments with regard to certain actors — Causes 
 of this — Mr. Samuel Butler and Mrs. Lovell — Surrey 
 Theatre under Davidge — Butler's extreme tallness a dis- 
 advantage — Author first sees Macready in " Macbeth " at 
 Drury Lane — Effect of his perfoimanoe — His Hamlet — 
 His fracas with Bunn — His reference to it in conversation 
 eight years afterwards, and advice to the author — Macready 
 in Lord Lytton's " Duchess de la Vallifeie," at Covent 
 Garden — Helen Faucit — Macready as Melantius in "The 
 Bridal" — Adaptation by Knowles of "The Maid's Tragedy" 
 —Detailed criticism of Maoready's acting in this play — 
 Criticism of his Virginius — His lesseeship of Covent 
 Garden — Success of " Henry the Fifth " and " The 
 Tempest" — His Richelieu — Account of the first night's 
 performance — Note — Macready somewhat dissatisfied — 
 Mr. Edwin Booth's Richelieu — The author's first play — 
 Maoready's acceptance of it for Diury Lane, of which he 
 was become lessee — Visit to him at that theatre — First 
 impression of going behind the scenes — First interview 
 with Macready — His genial welcome — His personal ap- 
 pearance and manner of speaking — Talk as to my play 
 and as to Miss Helen Faucit — As to his own part in the 
 piece, and his fear of being too old to look it— His objec- 
 tion combated — Reference to the " Lady of Lyons " — Its 
 early want of attraction and subsequent success — Charm of 
 Maoready's manner. 
 
 A boy's ideal in art is not always easy to satisfy 
 — partly, perhaps, because he has a sharp appe- 
 tite for the wonderful ; partly because he is, to 
 a great extent, unacquainted with the subtler and 
 profounder emotions, and the symbols which 
 
18 OUR EEGENT ACTORS. 
 
 represent them. Much that is really significant 
 may have no meaning for him ; reticence may be 
 mistaken for tameness, and noisy excitement for 
 feeling. However this may be, I had vaguely 
 figured to myself more intensity and grandeur 
 in tragic passion than I met with in the first year 
 of my theatrical experience, except in the per- 
 formances of Mr. Samuel Butler and Mrs. Lovell, 
 formerly Miss Lacy, of Covent Garden. These 
 performers occasionally played as " stars " at the 
 Surrey Theatre, then under tlie management of that 
 seasoned comedian of the old school, Mr. Davidge. 
 Both of them were thoroughly in earnest, well 
 trained in their art, and of commanding presence. 
 The extreme height of Mr. Butler, indeed, was 
 a disadvantage to him in a small theatre. In the 
 capacious " Surrey," however, his uncommon 
 stature was less perceptible. Like his fair asso- 
 ciate, he was a good elocutionist, and, like her, he 
 had the excellent quality of abandoniag himself, 
 to passion without self-criticism. He never 
 . seemed to ask himself, as I have known actors 
 ' of great intelligence do, " Shall I seem stagy if 
 I adopt this movement ? If I give passion full 
 play here, shall I be accused of rant ? " but, 
 being already a proficient in the technical 
 resources of his art, he trusted himself in good 
 faith to the leading impulses of the character. I 
 do not think he was given to rant. He occasion- 
 ally exploded in sudden, vehement bursts, but 
 they had the effect of being spontaneous — the 
 outcome of passion accumulated and repressed. 
 In the crises of feeling you saw, in him, that 
 passion, though sometimes intensely hushed in 
 white heat, darts forth at others in fiery tongues 
 and roars — I do not care to use a weaker phrase 
 
OUE EEOENT ACTORS. 19 
 
 — in its ascent. He was gifted, moreover, with 
 a powerful voice, and had no need to hide the 
 defects of a feeble physique by feigning that 
 mysterious self-control which has siace been 
 called "repressed force." I saw little of Butler 
 after the time I now write of, but enough to 
 confirm my first impressions of him. In Shyloek 
 I was more carried away by him, so genuine was 
 his passion, than by any other actor I have seen 
 in the part. I will not undertake to say that his 
 interpretations were as profound as they were 
 undoubtedly vivid. I do know, however, that he 
 was "terribly in earnest," and that he had the 
 power of rousing masses to enthusiasm. His 
 excessive height, as has been said, was a great 
 disadvantage, and stood in the way of his being 
 fully appreciated. Finally, like most tragic actors 
 of his time, he was overshadowed by Macready ; 
 but whether I owe the taste to Butler or to 
 nature, not, I hope, being insensible to higher 
 merits, I have never lost my liking for a good 
 physique, and, in many characters, for a good 
 display of it— in Othello, for instance, where 
 passion or intellect tell all the more if the actor 
 have also lungs. Mr. Butler died in 1845, at the 
 age of forty-eight ; Mrs. Lovell, at that of seventy- 
 three, in 1877. 
 
 It was in 1835 that I first saw William 
 Charles Macready. The play was " Macbeth," the 
 theatre Drury Lane. This actor, always promi- 
 nent from his first appearance in London, had, 
 since the death of Edmund Kean, gradually 
 won his way to the tragic throne. 
 
 The expectations which I had indulged as to 
 the first actor of his day must have been un- 
 reasonably high. I remember comparing him 
 
20 OUE EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 with my 'favourite, Butler, much to the advantage 
 of the latter. What, however, as a boy, in the 
 pit of Drury Lane, I missed in his Macbeth, 
 I stiU to some extent missed when, many years 
 later, I saw him take his final leave of the 
 public in the S9me character and at the same 
 house. Of his Macbeth, however, as of his other 
 characters, I shall speak afterwards in detail. 
 On my first acquaintance with it, spite of its 
 many excellences, I was disappointed in every 
 act except the last, in which the immense energy 
 and striking contrasts of his acting roused my 
 fervent admiration. The only other displays 
 by which the actor had greatly impressed his 
 precocious critic were his lost abstraction after 
 the temptation of the witches in the first act, 
 and his harrowing remorse after Duncan's murder, 
 when dragged from the stage by Lady Macbeth, 
 in the second act. 
 
 Hamlet was the next of his representations 
 at which I "assisted." In this part his 
 passionate and powerful acting absorbed and 
 delighted me. It had the free impulse and 
 the sense of the supernatural which I missed 
 in much of his Macbeth. 
 
 It was soon after this performance that 
 Macready, under considerable provocation, com- 
 mitted an assault upon Bunn, the Drury Lane 
 manager. He was immediately engaged for 
 Covent Garden, where, on his first appearance, 
 the curious spectacle was exhibited of the 
 public applauding an actor for conduct which 
 he felt and confessed to be most blameworthy. 
 British audiences are for the most part disposed 
 to fairness as well as generosity. However, at 
 times they allow themselves to become blind 
 
OUE EECENT AOTOES. 21 
 
 partizans, and to espouse (as they did in this 
 case) a side enthusiastically for the sake of a 
 favourite, rather than for that of justice. It is 
 possibly a luxury to constitute themselves a 
 jury, while dispensing with the judge's charge. 
 Bunn's conduct in calling upon Macready to 
 perform maimed characters was, no doubt, annoy- . 
 ing, but he was legally within his rights, which 
 the tragedian could scarcely say of his retaliation. 
 I allude to this well-known quarrel chiefly for 
 the sake of reporting Macready's own words 
 to me upon the subject. Conversing with him 
 in 1843, I happened to express some juvenile 
 resentment at an attack made upon my first play 
 by one who had previously been lavish in praise 
 of it. Though I had possibly expressed myself 
 warmly, to proceed against my assailant, " 'par 
 voie de fait " had certainly not entered my mind. 
 I was therefore not a little surprised to find 
 myself suspected by my collocutor of pugilistic 
 intentions. " Pass ^ it over, pass it over, for 
 Heaven's sake ! " he exclaimed, " Contempt — • 
 quiet contempt — that's the proper answer. I 
 have never forgotten," he continued, deepening 
 his tone, "how frightfully I let myself be 
 carried away in the case of that pitiful man, 
 Bunn. Though his behaviour to me was 
 atrocious, in what I did I lost so far the right 
 to self-respect. I have never forgiven myself 
 for my violence. Always govern your temper, 
 my young friend," he concluded, passing, with one 
 of those transitions which use had made second 
 nature to him, from a tone of agitation and excite- 
 ment to one of calmness and paternal benignity. 
 
 I did not see the representation of Lord 
 Lytton's play, "The Duchess de la Valliere," 
 
22 OTJfi EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 which was performed, under Mr. Osbaldiston's 
 management, at Covent Garden. Though the 
 piece was a failure on the stage, the general 
 testimony was that Macready and Helen Faucit 
 had seldom played with more splendid effect 
 than in Bragelone and the Duchess. 
 
 Amongst the greatest impersonations of the 
 former, out of Shakspere, was his Melantius in 
 " The Bridal," an adaptation by Sheridan Knowles 
 of "The Maid's Tragedy" of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. This work was produced, under Mac- 
 ready's auspices, at the Haymarket, which had 
 recently passed under the control of Mr. Webster. 
 "The Bridal" was a great success. It in- 
 creased my sense of Macready's genius, par- 
 ticularly of the finely harmonious variety of his 
 method, which relieved and threw out the different 
 aspects of his characters. His Virginius was 
 scarcely finer than his Melantius, while in 
 Evadne Mrs. Warner reached the summit of 
 her power. The brave, loyal soldier, free and 
 martial in his bearing, sincere almost to bluntness, 
 seized the audience at once. Friendship, which 
 Elizabeth's writers almost deify, glowed in 
 Macready's bearing towards Amintor, with a 
 generous and tender ardour which love itself 
 could scarcely have surpassed. In our more 
 worldly days, when the relations between men 
 so seldom ripen beyond liking and good fellow- 
 ship, the sympathizing devotion which set life 
 \ and honour at a friend's disposal seems often 
 -' mere extravagance. The old knightly sentiment, 
 however, kindled into a blaze at Macready's 
 contagious fire when he exclaimed — 
 
 " The name of friend is more than family 
 Or all the world beside ! " 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 23 
 
 In the grand scene — one of the most passionate 
 in English drama — in the fourth act, where 
 Melantius forces Evadne to confession, it is hard 
 to conceive that even Betterton, so famous in 
 the part, could have been greater than the 
 modern actor. There was at first a grim, sardonic 
 air about him, suggesting a terrible mirth, in 
 the way that lightning mocks daylight, that 
 was terribly ominous of the coming outbreak; 
 there was a suppressed passion, a boding calm, 
 that held the listener in awe and apprehension, 
 till at last the pent-up rage crashed out with 
 such vehemence, it seemed as if nothing in its 
 path could live. 
 
 In the adaptation of "The Maid's Tragedy" 
 by Knowles, is a passage which, after careful 
 search, I have not found in the original. It 
 served to bring out with admirable effect one 
 of Macready's colloquial and natural touches. 
 The loyal Melantius, who has been secretly 
 traduced to the King by one of his creatures, 
 demands the name of his accuser. This is- still 
 withheld, when a dispute arises on some point 
 of fact as to which one of the King's train 
 persistently contradicts Melantius. This man's 
 zeal betrays him as the author of the slander. 
 
 " Oh, then, it came from him ! " 
 
 exclaims Melantius. Macready's quiet manner 
 of delivering these words to the King, without 
 turning to confront his accuser, whom he indi- 
 cated behind him by a slight movement of the , 
 finger, expressed such superb contempt that the 
 house rang with applause. 
 
 No feature of this actor was more specially 
 his own than the sudden, yet natural, infusion 
 
24 OUB KECENT ACTOES. 
 
 into his more heroic vein of some homely touch 
 of truth which gave reality to the scene— an 
 achievement in his own art to which great poets 
 have furnished abundant parallels in theirs, from 
 Homer to Tennyson and Browning. Take a 
 few examples from Macready's performance m 
 Knowles's "Virginius;" first, the father's affec- 
 tionate raillery of Virginia in the opening act, 
 when he discovers that, in painting Achilles, she 
 has unwittingly given him the features of her 
 lover — 
 
 " I've seen this face ; tut, tut, I know it 
 As well as I do my own ; but can't bethink me 
 Whose face it is." 
 
 Or, again, his impatient indulgence when Virginia 
 clings round the neck of her betrothed, who is 
 about to start with Virginius for the camp — 
 
 " I swear a battle might be lost and won 
 In half the time ; nuw, once for all, farewell! " 
 
 Here is an instance of a graver kind. The 
 free birth of Virginia has been impeached, and 
 she is likely to be seized as a slave by the 
 pander to Appius. In the midst of his rage at 
 the infamous accusation, Virginius is struck by 
 an expression on the face of his daughter — 
 
 " I never saw you look so like your mother, 
 In all my life." 
 
 Here Macready's transition from overmastering 
 wrath to tenderness was made with such nature 
 and force of contrast, that many of the audience 
 wept. Knowles gave his exponent numerous 
 chances for such colloquial touches. With this 
 dramatist, indeed, they not only relieved a loftier 
 style, but were often substituted for it. 
 
 One or two of the tragedian's revivals at 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 25 
 
 Covent Garden I unfortunately missed. By all 
 reports, not to see him in " Henry the Fifth " 
 was to miss a quite distinct phase of his power. 
 This privation I had somehow incurred, both 
 with relation to the play last mentioned and to 
 "The Tempest," the mere pictorial and stage 
 arrangements of which seem to have been so 
 beautiful and suggestive, as to set one of Shak- 
 spere's most spiritually poetic dramas in a 
 frame of material poetry. Of one Covent Garden 
 production, however, ever afterwards closely con- 
 nected with his reputation, I have still most 
 vivid remembrance. 
 
 In March, 1839, I fought my way with another 
 young enthusiast to the pit door of old Covent 
 Garden, on the first night of Bulwer's "Eichelieu." 
 What a human sea it was, and how lit up by 
 expectation, that surged and roared for two hours 
 against that grim, all-ignoring barrier! But its 
 stubb9rn resistance, and the dense pressure which, 
 at last, almost wedged out the breath of every 
 unit in the crowd, gave an almost stern delight, 
 a zest of contest for a prize, of which the lounger 
 into a reserved box or seat has no conception. 
 The interest connected with a new play was 
 increased by the fact that Bulwer was the 
 author, for with us young critics his epigrams, 
 his rhetorical flashes, and, let it be said, a vein 
 of aspiration and generous feeling, rarely absent 
 from his later works, had made him a favourite. 
 We had an impression, moreover, that he was 
 hardly dealt with by a portion of the press, on 
 account of his politics. The future Lord Lytton 
 of Lord Derby's Government was at that time 
 a Liberal. 
 
 To return to " Eichelieu," in which Macready 
 
26 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 was perfection. I think I shall probably best 
 help my readers, not only to form an estimate 
 of hia excellence in that play, but to gain a 
 general insight into his mind and method, if I 
 try to live over with them my old impressions 
 on the eventful first night of " Eichelieu," from 
 the rise to the fall of the curtain. This method 
 of criticism is far too elaborate to be generally 
 employed, but for once I will have recourse to 
 it, and fancy that I am still fresh from the scene, 
 while describing to the listener an event nearly 
 fifty years old. 
 
 Suppose, then, the thronged house hushed, the 
 curtain raised, the gay scene of the conspirators 
 and gamesters going forward beneath the roof of 
 Marion de L'Orme. Even amidst the interest 
 of this opening scene, the thought of the house 
 escapes to Macready. Will he be discovered 
 with all the insignia of his rank and power? 
 Will he be closeted with Louis, or giving audience 
 to a spy ? Will his manner have the pride of 
 the churchman, or the smoothness of the diplo- 
 matist? The first scene is over, and we have 
 our answer. 
 
 Macready, as the Cardinal, enters, followed by 
 the Capuchin Joseph, and the coming revelation 
 — signal, and in some respects new — of the actor's 
 powers, is at once foreshadowed by his appear- 
 ance. How full of individuality are the whitening 
 hair, the face sharpened to the utmost expression 
 of subtlety and keenness, the gait somewhat loose 
 with age, but now quick and impulsive, now 
 slow or suddenly arrested, which seems to give 
 a rhythm to the workings of bis brain — to his 
 swift, contemptuous penetration of the schemes 
 against him, on the one hand, or, on the other. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 27 
 
 to his suspense, his caution, or his rapid deci- 
 sion. Soon followed one of those "ultra-collo- 
 quialisms " which, when first reading the play, 
 he had thought incompatible with Eichelieu's 
 dignity, but which, with the dry, caustic humour 
 he gave them, were not only very telling, but 
 seemed natural reliefs to the strained mind of 
 the statesman. "Orleans heads the traitors," 
 says Father Joseph; "A very wooden head, then!" 
 exclaims Richelieu ; and, though the sarcasm was 
 threadbare, it had all the force . of novelty and 
 wit. Examples of the actor's unrivalled power 
 in familiar touches abounded through the per- 
 formance. His manner of exposing the strategy 
 of Baradas to De Mauprat blended with con- 
 tempt an easy penetration, an amused superiority, 
 which was quite irresistible — 
 
 " Where was thy wit, man ? Why, these schemes are glass ; 
 The very sun shines througli them ! " 
 
 Early in the play were encountered some of 
 those dazzling, but rather forced metaphors, which ■ 
 the author's better judgment afterwards cancelled. . 
 Amongst these, however, was one which, as 
 Macready gave it, drew great applause — ^ 
 
 " From rank showers of blood 
 And the red light of blazing roofs you build 
 The rainbow, Glory, and to shuddering Conscience 
 Cry — Lo the Bridge to Heaven ! " 
 
 Soon after this example of poetic pyrotechnics, ■ 
 Eichelieu charges l)e Mauprat with fraud. The 
 indignant young man advances upon his accuser 
 with an air and tone of menace when, it will be 
 remembered, Huguet, one of Eichelieu's guard, 
 who waits armed behind a screen to intercept 
 any possible violence to the Cardinal, raises his 
 
28 OUE EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 carbine to fire. Eichelieu, with a wave of his 
 hand, exclaims — 
 
 " Not so quick, friend Huguet ; 
 The Sieur de Mauprat is a patient man. 
 And lie can wait." 
 
 The dry, parenthetical utterance of these words, 
 with the careless accompanying gesture, had in 
 them the secret of a terrible humour and the 
 proud assurance of a "charmed life" that no 
 succeeding impersonator of Eichelieu has dis- 
 covered. The whole of this first act is rich in 
 those contrasts of feeling and character in which 
 Macready delighted. The fervour with which, 
 after finding De Mauprat worthy of his confidence, 
 he asserts the justice of his rule, had in it all the 
 passionate earnestness and dignity of a man who, 
 long scornfully silent u^nder misconception and 
 calumny, at last relieves his heart and vindicates 
 himself to an honourable judge. Soon follow the 
 lines in which, under pretence of dismissing De 
 Mauprat to death, he causes him to be conducted 
 to the presence of the woman for whose sake 
 he has braved it, this act, of course, implying 
 Pdchelieu's consent to their union. "Huguet," 
 says he, 
 
 " To tbe tapestry chamber 
 Conduct your prisoner. (To De Mauprat) You will there 
 
 behold 
 Your e.xecutioner. Your doom be private, 
 And Heaven have mercy on you." 
 
 The rapidity and sternness with which these 
 lines were pronounced, as if only by hurry and 
 a forced overdoing of severity he could prevent 
 - himself from giving way to the benevolent enjoy- 
 ment of his device, showed one of the actor's 
 characteristic merits — his just perception of the 
 
OUK EECENT ACTORS. 29 
 
 right note of feeling even to a semi-tone. The 
 look of sly and eager anticipation with which he 
 followed De Mauprat, as he retired, had in it 
 all the honhomie which Bulwer,* rather than 
 history, ascribes to the Cardinal, and the zest 
 with which the sceptical mind of a diplomatist 
 may for once taste pure pleasure in bestowing it. 
 
 In the second act, the contrast between 
 Eichelieu's usual scornful levity in dismissing the 
 schemes of his enemies, and the composed but 
 grave attention which denotes real peril, was 
 strikingly marked. With rapid step and hands 
 carelessly knotted behind him, he had paced to 
 and fro, listening to Father Joseph's rumours of 
 plots, fiither with incredulity or with smiling 
 confidence in his power to baffle them. But 
 when Marion de L'Orme entered with news of 
 the conspiracy headed by Orleans, every trace of 
 caustic mirth or easy, exulting contempt at once 
 disappeared. Of course, all actors would at this 
 point have made a transition of manner ; few, 
 indeed, would have made it with Macready's 
 arresting effect. He questioned Marion in tones 
 the lowness of which expressed the intensity of 
 his interest. His trust in his own resources was 
 still unshaken, but he felt that they might now 
 be taxed to the utmost. The breathless audience 
 listened to the words, " Now there is danger," as 
 if each man had his personal stake in the crisis. 
 
 * Having instinctively written the name by which the late 
 Lord Lytton was best known to his contemporaries, I let it 
 stand for the sake of remarking that, long after the eelebiated 
 author had assumed the surname of Lytton, many of his 
 literary friends persisted in addressing him by that of Bulwer. . 
 Their "reluctance to forego the appellation under which he 
 had won so much distinction was a delicate tribute which 
 he doubtless appreciated. 
 
30 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 It was felt that if Richelieu could apprehend 
 danger, there must be danger indeed. The tone 
 of gay flattery to Marion de L'Orme at that 
 moment of peril — 
 
 " What an eye you have. 
 And what a smile, child, . . . 'tis well I'm old," 
 
 and the ringing exhortation to the page Franpois, 
 when sent on his critical mission — "Never say 
 fail again ; that's my young hero ! " — were 
 brilliant examples of the actor's variety and 
 quick self-adaptation to his instruments. The 
 fascination which illustrious old age has for the 
 young and aspiring could never have been better 
 justified than by Macready's cheery laugh and 
 the look, full of kind encouragement, with which 
 he uttered these words to the page. I have 
 before me a copy of " Eichelieu," marked from 
 the tragedian's acting copy of 1843 (four years 
 after the production of the play), in which the 
 compliment to Marion de L'Orme is cut out — 
 ,^ a mistake, I think, for his delivery of it was 
 certainly one of the brilliant facets which his 
 
 ' genius -exhibited in this manifold character. 
 
 '' So full of fine variety was his delineation at 
 'the close of this second act, as almost to atone 
 
 ^for its want of incident. His momentary distrust 
 of Huguet, as he noted " he bowed too low " 
 (some Eichelieus have so over-emphasized this 
 trait of minute observation, that they should, to 
 be consistent, have discharged the guardsman on 
 the spot) ; his brief lapse into melancholy, as he 
 reflects on the snares that beset his bed and board, 
 and his friendlessness at the height of power- 
 his proud rally from these thoughts to faith in 
 the indomitable heart of Armand Eichelieu, and 
 the quaint bonhomie, strangely compounded of 
 
OTJE EECENT ACTORS. 31 
 
 archness, good-feeling, and dissimulation, with 
 which he addresses Joseph, — all received their 
 just proportion. Each trait harmonized with, 
 and flowed into its fellow. There was no hard 
 , line to divide, or even to distinguish, diplomacy 
 from sentiment or sentiment from humour, but 
 a living man in whom all these qualities naturally 
 blended. 
 
 The third act gave scope for the excellences 
 already noted, and with yet higher development. 
 The Richelieu who awaited, with breathless 
 eagerness, from Franpois the proofs that should 
 convict Baradas; the Eichelieu who, minutely 
 observant, even in his excitement, could pause to 
 note the small number of the conspirators — who, 
 learning that t,he despatch which would have 
 secured his triumph had been wrested from 
 Franpois, one moment sternly warned him to see 
 his face no more till he had regained it, and 
 the next, relented into smiling encouragement — 
 " Away ! Nay, cheer thee ; thou hast not failed 
 yet; there's no such word as fail!" — was, in 
 these various aspects, not only the same man, 
 but so happy in expressing them that each new 
 trait seemed to complete and enhance the others. 
 
 This third act contains the scene in which De 
 Mauprat, duped into the belief that Eichelieu, 
 in causing him to marry, has made him a mere 
 pander to the King, seeks the Cardinal's life 
 in revenge. When Macready, personating the 
 old and feeble man, encountered, without 
 recognizing him, the armed figure whose very 
 vizor was closed, and learned his deadly purpose, 
 nothing could be more intense and life-like, 
 nothing freer from inflation, than the glorious 
 arrogance with which he exclaimed — 
 
82 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 " Earth has no such fiend — 
 No — as one parricide of his fatherland. 
 Who dares in Richelieu murder France ! " 
 
 It should be noticed here that Macready care- 
 fully avoided the error into which some of his 
 successors have fallen — that of over-idealizing 
 Eichelieu, by delivering his patriotic speeches 
 in such tones of exalted devotion as might have 
 befitted Brutus. Macready's apostrophes to 
 France, on the contrary, were given with a self- 
 reference, sometimes fierce in its expression, that 
 showed her triumphs to be part of his own. Her 
 glory was the object of his ambition, for it made 
 him great, while the thought that he laboured 
 for her consciously ennobled his ambition. Thus 
 his haughty boast in the foregoing lines was no 
 expression of abstract and ideal patriotism (of 
 which the Cardinal was incapable), but of 
 passionate and practical sympathy. How fine, 
 again, when De Mauprat, still unrecognized, 
 betrays that the dishonour put upon him has 
 made him an avenger, were the sudden gleam in 
 the eye, and the hushed tones of relief which 
 showed the statesman's sleepless vigilance at 
 that crisis — 
 
 " I breathe — ^he is no hireling ! " 
 
 When, in this scene, De Mauprat reveals himself, 
 and Eichelieu arrests his dagger by showing the 
 arts that have deluded him, the actor produced 
 one of those massive effects which make the 
 fortune of a drama. His commanding air, as he 
 motioned the dupe to his knees ; his rapid energy, 
 blent with a look of lofty pity, as he proclaimed 
 that, instead of planning dishonour for De 
 Mauprat's wife, he had saved her from it ; his 
 indignant look as, with tottering but imperial 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 33 
 
 step, he hurried to the door, and, summoning 
 Julie, confronted De Mauprat with the living 
 proof of his truth, — all this caused an excitement 
 which I have rarely seen equalled. It was 
 surpassed, however, by that supreme moment, in 
 the fourth act, when the might of Eome seemed 
 to pass into the sick man's frame, as he sprang up, 
 dominant and terrible, to shield Julie from the 
 King with the segis of the Church. At this point 
 the vast pit seemed to rock with enthusiasm, as 
 it volleyed its admiration in rounds of thunder. 
 In the iinal scene of the fifth act, where the 
 Cardinal, apparently on the verge of death, 
 attends the King to resign, and to " render up the 
 ledgers of a realm," words can but faintly hint 
 the excellence of the performance. How touching 
 was the proud humility of the weak old man as 
 he relinquished, seemingly for ever, the splendid 
 cares of State ; how arresting the sight of him 
 as, supported in his chair, his face now grew 
 vacant, as if through the feebleness of nature, 
 now resumed a gleam of intelligence, which at 
 times contracted into pain, as he gathered the 
 policy of his rivals — a policy fatal to France ! 
 One noted the uneasy movements of the head, 
 the restless play of the wan fingers, though the 
 lips were silent, till at last the mind fairly 
 struggled awhUe through its eclipse, as, in a loud 
 whisper, he warned the King his succours would 
 be wasted upon England. Then came the 
 moment when, recovering the despatch which 
 convicted his foes of treason, he caused it to be 
 handed to the King, and sank supine with the 
 effort. Slowly and intermittently consciousness 
 returned, as Louis thrice implored him to resume 
 his sway over France. So naturally marked 
 
34 OUR EECENT' ACTORS. 
 
 were the fluctuations between life and death, 
 so subtly graduated (though comprised within 
 a few moments) were the signs of his recovery, 
 that the house utterly forgot its almost incredible 
 quickness when, in answer to the King's appre- 
 hensive cry as to the traitors — ■ 
 
 " "Where will they be next week ? " 
 
 Eichelieu springs up resuscitated, and exclaims — 
 
 " There, at my feet ! " 
 
 But it was not alone by acting, however fine, in 
 this particular situation, that his triumph over 
 probability was obtained. He had from the 
 beginning of the play so seized every opportunity 
 of identifying his fortunes and life with the great- 
 ness of his country, that when the King besought 
 him to live for France, it seemed quite in the order 
 of nature such an adjuration should have magical 
 force. Who can forget the electrical rapidity and 
 decision with which Macready, as the revivified 
 minister, cut the Gordian knots of policy ? The 
 waiting envoys shall now have their answer. 
 Chavigny, halting not for sleep or food, shall 
 " arrest the Duo de Bouillon at the head of his 
 armies." Baradas, who has " lost the stake," 
 shall pay it and go out under guard. The barque 
 of the State, but now tossing and plunging, a waif 
 on the bosom of chance, has once, more a helms- 
 man, knows a course, and, through the sheer 
 waters, bears on. And interests, dear though 
 minor, confess the sudden change. Poor Julie, 
 lately trembling for her husband's life, sees in 
 his death writ but "parchment for battledores." 
 The epicure and traitor, De Berrighen, scents 
 danger to his dear health in the air of Paris. On 
 
OUE KECENT ACTOES. 35 
 
 Franpois, the page who regained the despatch, 
 again falls the smile that cheered and now 
 rewards him. " He will never say fail again ! " 
 Ah, Joseph, trusty Joseph, bishop to be ! The 
 minister's policy — prompt action, daring, and 
 retribution — the old man's fondness, the cynic's 
 raillery, the patron's indulgence and humour, — 
 this brilliant resume of Eichelieu throughout the 
 play was so given, ilash after flash, that its various 
 effects seemed simultaneous rather than successive. 
 Thus it .was an audience dazzled, almost bewildered 
 by the brilliancy of the achievement, that, on the 
 instant fall of the curtain, burst into a roar of 
 admiration that, wild, craving, unappeasable, pur- 
 sued, like a sea, the retreating actor, and swept 
 him back to the front.* 
 
 * In his diary Macready speaks -with, some dissatisfaction of 
 his first night's performance of " Eichelieu." But he was in the 
 habit, -when anxious or dispirited, of underrating his work. 
 Thus -when, after a lapse of time, he triumphantly resumed 
 his London representations of lago (his early appearances in 
 the character had not been greatly successful), he was over- 
 whelmed with such a sense of failure, that his surprise next 
 morning to find his performance regarded as a masterpiece 
 must have been as great as his delight. The rapturous recep- 
 tion given to his first performance of " Richelieu," and the tone 
 of the press on the occasion, are vividly remembered by the 
 ■writer. It may be added that in the foregoing description 
 of " Eichelieu," he has relied not only on his first youthful 
 impressions, but upon confirmatory ones drawn from many 
 later representations. 
 
 I may perhaps here be pennitted to observe, for the benefit 
 of younger playgoers, that one of the best " Eichelieus " since 
 Macready's, and the one that most recalls him, is that of Mr. 
 Edwin Booth. He gives the character a more modern air — 
 a greater air of everyday realism — than did Macready, though 
 realism of a certain kind was one of the latter's strongest 
 features. That Mr. Booth, however, is not deficient in the 
 more heroic aspects of the character, all who remember his 
 splendid acting at the end of the fourth act can abundantly 
 testify. 
 
36 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Pressing occupations and frequent absences from 
 town now for a time diverted my attention from 
 the theatres. "V\Tien once more able to enjoy my 
 favourite recreation, I was, though but just of 
 ' age, a married man ; I had published my first 
 tragedy, and was anticipating an interview with 
 Macready, to whom it ' had been dedicated. Re- 
 ports had reached me from his friends that he 
 contemplated the production of my play at Drury 
 Lane, of which he was recently become lessee, 
 while his letters to me, though they did not dis- 
 tinctly state such an intention, were pleasantly 
 consistent with it. To end suspense, I wrote to 
 him as to these reports, and immediately received 
 an answer, stating that they were well founded, 
 and inviting me to call upon him at the theatre. 
 
 These lines were written in October, 1885, 
 forty-four years after presenting myself for the 
 first time at Drury Lane Theatre. All the circum- 
 stances of my call are, however, as freshly present 
 to me as if it had been made yesterday — the 
 taciturn janitor who had probably been apprized 
 of my coming, and who, I fancied, regarded the 
 stripling visitor with civil astonishment ; the boy 
 who was at once sent in with my card, and the 
 grave official who soon afterwards appeared from 
 the inner door of the theatre, and, saying in low 
 tones that Mr. Macready would be glad to see 
 the gentleman, requested me to follow him. The 
 vast stage — quite deserted at the time we crossed 
 it — lay in a mid-day twilight, through wliich, 
 nevertheless, one slanting ray of the outer sun- 
 shine clove sharply, striking with Eembrandt-like 
 effect upon the dim and shrouded auditorium. 
 More than once my guide warned me of scarcely 
 visible obstructions, or indicated steps over which 
 
OUK EECENT AOTOES. 37 
 
 I should else have stumbled, speaking all the while 
 in a tone of melancholy, mysterious dignity, as 
 befitted one — for ever separated from the common 
 herd — who, as connected with Drury Lane Theatre 
 and its august manager, had prematurely gained 
 the secret of life, and found that nothing was left 
 to explore. Doubtless my imagination had re- 
 flected on the worthy man its own romance ; for 
 to me this passage in life was nothing less than 
 romance. I was about to see not only Melantius, 
 Virginius, and Eichelieu, but Hamlet and Macbeth. 
 It was like having an interview with Shakspere 
 by proxy. With such feelings I paused at the 
 manager's room ; the do'or opened, and I was in 
 Macready's presence. He sprang up from the 
 table at which he was writing, and gave me a 
 cordial welcome.- Of the coldness and the assump- 
 tion of dignity which I had heard ascribed to him 
 there was not a trace. Proud, no doubt, he was. 
 I had opportunities, later, of seeing him when some 
 unworthy taunt on his management or his acting 
 stung him more poignantly than might have been 
 expected,- but his pride on these occasions took 
 the form of impetuous anger rather than of 
 haughtiness or contempt. But to proceed with j 
 my impressions. His tall, imposing figure, his 
 expressive eye, his broad, massive brow (too 
 massive for beauty), might well have satisfied any 
 reasonable anticipation. If I felt' a moment's dis- 
 appointment, it must have been from some subtle 
 influence of association which made me seek to 
 identify him with his characters. I could hardly 
 have expected in private to see him in armour 
 or in a toga ; yet, absurd though the feeling was, 
 it seemed strange to me to find him in a frock 
 coat. I was immediately struck by the difference 
 
38 OUB EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 between his voice in conversation and his clear 
 and musical articulation on the stage. He now 
 spoke in a kind of half-smothered bass, which, 
 like his frequent pauses and self-corrections in 
 talk, was too full of individuality to be unpleasing. 
 Our talk, of course, turned upon the play of 
 mine which had been the means of introducing 
 us. He was good enough to speak of it in very 
 cordial terms, and to compliment me by remark- 
 ing that my heroine would give some scope to 
 the powers of Miss Helen Faucit, my warm admi- 
 ration of whom he fully endorsed. After some 
 discussion of the part intended for himself, he 
 observed, "But, after all, your hero is young, 
 and I doubt whether I should have the air of 
 youth, especially in the dress of to-day.* ISTow, 
 M^ould you not prefer Mr. Anderson to play the 
 character?" ' I should have been a very bad diplo- 
 matist had I assented to this suggestion ; but, 
 fortunately, I had no need of diplomacy, for my 
 feelings ran in the same direction as my policy. 
 I strongly expressed my disrelish of the proposal, 
 adding that my chief pleasure in the production 
 of the piece would be gone if Mr. Macready 
 himself did not appear as my hero. " The very 
 thing to have said," observed an intimate friend 
 of his when I related this little passage. " How 
 much you would have dropped in his estimation 
 had you taken him at liis word ! " 
 
 "Whether your piece will run," continued 
 Macready, " is more than I can predict. It ends 
 tragically; but audiences like a happy ending. 
 Still, as I hope yau know, this theatre is not 
 conducted purely on principles of gain, but with 
 
 * ." T''" Patrician's Daughter," the play referred to, was 
 one of then contemporary life. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 39 
 
 some desire to encourage dramatic literature." On 
 my assent to this, he resumed — " Of the fate of 
 a play no amount of experience enables a man to 
 judge. It is not always that even happy endings 
 and capital construction insure success. Now, I 
 may tell you," he said, in a confidential tone 
 which inspired his young listener with all the 
 complacent self-importance of one trusted with 
 a State secret — "I may tell you that I played 
 ' The Lady of Lyons ' for a fortnight or three 
 weeks to a serious loss, and that nothing but my 
 sense of obligation to Bulwer, who had presented 
 the play to me in aid of the cause this theatre 
 supports, would have induced me to keep it in 
 the bills. Yet you see what a success it even- 
 tually became." 
 
 These remarks were probably intended to 
 moderate any over-sanguine views which I might 
 have formed respecting my own piece. The con- 
 versation then turned upon one or two of our 
 friends, and charmed with the tragedian in his 
 private character, and convinced that it must be 
 an unjust world in which such a man could find 
 detractors, I left the theatre. 
 
40 OUE EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MACREADY — CONCLUSION. 
 
 Maoready's friends and acquaintance — At dinner witli him — 
 His guests — His first wife and his sister — Table-talk — 
 Browning's "Blot on the Scutcheon" — Opera of "Acis 
 and Galatea " — Its admirable cast — Unprecedented beauty 
 of its reproduction — Scenery by Stanfield — Invention of 
 a stage-sea with motion and sound — Compliment paid to 
 Macready by a lady on the production of the opera — 
 Pictures and picture-dealers — Psestum and the Romans — 
 The poet Pope — Humorous reminiscences — Anecdote of 
 Person — Macready a Liberal in politics — His objection to 
 the phrase, " lower classes " — An evening reception at his 
 house— Singing of Herr Staudigl in " Acis and Galatea " 
 — Assembly of celebrated authors, artists, etc. — Macready's 
 irritability at rehearsals, etc. — Author's impression that 
 this was to a, great extent assumed — His King Lear — 
 This, in the writer's judgment, his greatest Shaksperian 
 performance — Detailed account of it — Maoready's motto, 
 " Patience is genius," examined — Unjust to his own spon- 
 taneity — Walter Scott and Sheridan Knowles — Macready's 
 disparagement of Garriek — His theory that goodness was 
 essential to genius — His Macbeth — Regarded by his friends 
 as his chef-d'ceuvre — Examination of his performance at 
 length — Also of his Hamlet — His Othello, lago, Evelyn in 
 "Money" — His Benedick in "Much Ado"— His great 
 performance of Werner — Full account of it — Summary of 
 his various characters — His psychological insight and 
 artistic power of expressing emotion — His King John — His 
 Shylock — Anecdote in note as to his revival of "King 
 John" at Drury Lane — His Gisippus — His Spinola in 
 "NinaSforza" — His religious sentiment — The characters 
 peculiarly suited to him — His defects and peculiarities — 
 Comparison of him with contemporary actors — His in- 
 tensity — In certain parts approaching Edmund Kean's — 
 General estimate of his genius — His death. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 41 
 
 The guests at Macready's table were, in many- 
 cases, representative men and women, whose very 
 presence was a testimony to the intellect and 
 cultivation of their host. Besides being the 
 friend, amongst writers, of Wordsworth, Thackeray, 
 Dickens, Carlyle, Bulwer (the first Lord Lytton), 
 Browning, Tennyson, John Forster, Mrs. Gore, 
 Mrs. Norton, Lady Morgan ; amongst painters, of 
 Stanfield, Maclise, Etty, and David Eoberts, it may 
 be said that few had obtained any marked repu- 
 tation in literature or art without making his 
 acquaintance. On the first day that my wife and 
 myself dined with him, in 1842, we met, amongst 
 others, Messrs. David Eoberts, E.A., Boxall, Zouch, 
 Troughton, author of " Nina Sforza ;" also, though 
 his name is omitted in Macready's diary for the 
 day, John EUiotson, M.D., an able physician who 
 dared to think for ^ himself, and whose treatment 
 was often as' brilliantly successful as original, 
 though his advocacy of mesmerism roused much 
 opposition and controversy, and was looked upon 
 at the time as heterodox by his professional 
 brethren. 
 
 Here a word of pleasant recollection may be 
 given to the wife and sister of the tragedian. 
 The first Mrs. Macready, the " Kitty Atkins " of 
 his father's company, possessed that union of 
 gentleness with cordiality which is always most 
 winning. There was a sweetness in her counte- 
 nance and a delicate grace in her manner 
 peculiarly feminine. I had the pleasure of taking 
 in Miss Macready, who showed no little observa- 
 tion and genial humour. She had much of her 
 brother's quick perception, with a playfulness 
 of expression very rare with him, though very 
 charming when displayed. 
 
42 OUR EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 The conversation turned very little upon the 
 drama or the theatre, though, in the course of 
 the evening, Macready adverted with emphatic 
 admiration to an unpublished play by Eobert 
 Browning. It was, I believe, " The Blot on the 
 Scutcheon," subsequently performed at Drury 
 Lane — a work which, in point of passion and that 
 / noble utterance in which reality and imagination 
 blend, yields to none in the series of great plays 
 
 • with which the most profound and poetical 
 ■' dramatist since Shakspere has enriched our 
 ''literature. A passing reference was also made 
 
 to the late reproduction of "Acis and Galatea" 
 at Drury Lane. The presentation of this opera 
 was one of the great triumphs of Macready's 
 management, first, on account of its splendid 
 cast, which included the famous Herr Staudigl, 
 Allen, Miss E. Horton, and Miss Eomer. As 
 a frame for this opera, too, Stanfield had out- 
 done himself in the exquisite scenery which he 
 painted, in token of his admiration and friendship 
 for the lessee of Drury Lane. Amongst other 
 ^ remarkable features was the invention of a stage- 
 \J sea, which admirably imitated a natural one, both 
 in sound and motion, and which, when the curtain 
 rose on its solitude at the opening, was ecstatically 
 /applauded by the audience, as though it had been 
 a distinguished actor. Macready remarked that 
 he had never been more delighted than by a 
 compliment paid him by a lady in reference to 
 
 • this production. " ISTow," said she, " I have seen 
 J a poem." The talk turned, however, for the most 
 
 part upon subjects interesting to the scholar or 
 the virtuoso — upon the various signs by which 
 copies of the old masters, pretending to be 
 originals, might be detected, upon ancient Eeestum 
 
OUR KECENT ACTORS. 43 
 
 and its attractions as a Eoman resort, upon 
 Pope, the poet, and his merits. These somewhat 
 grave topics found occasional and still dignified 
 relief in anecdotes of picture-huyers, who had 
 either been imposed upon by fraudulent vendors, 
 or who had baffled them more than once, in a 
 humorous reminiscence of travel, and in an 
 anecdote of Person, the particulars of which I 
 caught indistinctly ; but I believe they referred 
 to the singularity of a man of his pursuits and 
 tastes having written a farce. 
 
 During dinner a lady happened to speak of the 
 "lower classes"- — a phrase to which Macready 
 excepted. " Will you let me," he said, " correct 
 that expression ? I always like to think of our 
 less fortunate fellow- creatures as the poorer classes, 
 rather than as the lower classes." Perhaps a con- 
 ventional phrase uttered by a lady at dinner 
 hardly needed so grave a comment, but there is 
 no doubt that Macready was thoroughly sincere 
 in making it. Those who knew him more inti- 
 mately than I did have often testified to his 
 earnest sympathy with the people — a sympathy 
 which seems at first sight a little inconsistent with 
 his overbearing manner, at times, to his sub- 
 ordinates in the theatre. About two months later 
 we had the pleasure of hearing Herr Staudigl in 
 several of the morceaux of Polyphemus, in " Acis 
 and Galatea." A company of celebrities was 
 present, amongst others, Carlyle, Browning, Procter 
 (Barry Cornwall), John Forster, Sir M. A. Shee, 
 President of the Eoyal Academy, Sir Edwin 
 Landseer, , E.A., Sir Charles and Lady Morgan, 
 Lady Stepney, etc. 
 
 I chanced to be present at Drury Lane on 
 an occasion when Macready was conducting a 
 
44 OUE EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 rehearsal of " King John." The groupings of that' 
 play, and the stage business in general, were 
 elaborate enough to account for, and almost excuse 
 the manager's impatience. Very striking, however, 
 was his sudden change from angry excitement, 
 when addressing his "supers," to his unruffled 
 courtesy of tone and look when he turned to 
 myself or others of his acquaintance on the stage. 
 It was, of course, not the fact of the change, but 
 its instantaneousness, that was remarkable. Prom 
 that day I conceived an impression, which still 
 remains, that his bursts of temper were far more 
 under his control than perhaps he himself sup- 
 posed, and that he was sometimes inclined to 
 exaggerate them that they might contrast with 
 his after-smoothness — that he was exhibiting, in 
 short, his beloved stage transitions in real life. 
 I do not in the least mean to deny his excitable 
 temper, which a Drury Lane rehearsal was of all 
 things likely to call forth; but to suggest that 
 its manifestations were less serious than they 
 appeared, and that he perhaps showed off its 
 starts and sallies to excess, that his skill in 
 reining it in might be the more obvious. 
 
 It is now time to revert to his performances. 
 His King Lear, as I saw it in his later days, 
 when it had acquired a broader and more 
 masculine outline than before, was, I think, 
 his finest achievement in Shaksperian tragedy. 
 With that poetic power of symbolism which 
 was one of his especial gifts, there was, on his 
 first entrance, in his accents, sovereignly impe- 
 rious, and in liis free, large movements (though 
 the gait at times gave just a hint of age), the 
 outward and visible sign, not only of Lear's 
 strong and absolute wiR, but of the primitive. 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 45 
 
 half-savage royalty that we associate with remote 
 and legendary periods. He was still a hale and 
 zealous hunter, not unwilling, indeed, to forego 
 the toils of State, but bribed to do so, before 
 the full need came, by prodigal love for his 
 children. If he became, afterwards, " a very feeble, 
 fond old man," it was ingratitude, not the weight 
 of years, that had thus undone hiiO There were 
 many fine touches of nature iifuie first act. 
 One of these was especially subtle. Lear has 
 repudiated his once idolized Cordelia; he would 
 fain forget her, and speak of his future plans. 
 But, in striving to do this, his voice suddenly 
 for a moment broke, then to the end of 
 the sentence hardened into inflexibility. Very 
 striking, too, was the King's demeanour just 
 afterwards, when Kent remonstrates. His anger 
 first showed itself in an ominous tone of warning 
 which arrested and awed — 
 
 " The bow is bent and drawn ; make from the shaft ; " 
 
 then, as the faithful adherent persisted, it swelled 
 into a mingling of amazement, scorn, and con- 
 vulsive rage, that would have befitted a Ceesar, 
 flattered into the belief of his divinity, and swift 
 to punish opposition as impious. The curse 
 which ends the act struck terror by its still 
 intensity, and the change from wrath to agony 
 
 at the words — 
 
 " That she may feel 
 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child," 
 
 almost excused the malediction. To specify all 
 the striking details of this great performance , 
 would need an entire essay. It may be said, 
 in brief, that as the boundless arrogance of Lear 
 
46 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 was the sin by which he fell, so a revelation to 
 the old man's heart — even through his disordered 
 wits — of the common ties of our humanity was, 
 with Macready, the great lesson of the play. 
 Thus he threw into even unusual relief those 
 lioble passages in which the poet contrasts the 
 lots of rich and poor, of oppressor and thrall, 
 or in which he shows the nothingness of mortal 
 man at his best, when he encounters the forces 
 of Nature or Circumstance. In the storm-scene, 
 where Lear's madness is yet incipient, and in 
 the still more terrible disclosure of the fourth 
 act, Macready was on ground (that of psychology), 
 where, if we except a few inspii'ed characters of 
 Edmund Kean, he seemed unapproachable. His' 
 dawning insanity gleamed out in his alm.ost 
 parental tenderness to the fool, as if he felt 
 instinctively the bond between them. The 
 recurrence to a fixed idea, in his obstinate and, 
 at last, passionate asseveration that Edgar's 
 " unkind daughters " were the cause of his 
 affliction, might, for its air of penetration and 
 good faith, have been set down in the diagnosis 
 of a physician. When complete aberration set 
 in, the signs of it were astonishingly true and 
 various. The keen, over-eager attention, the 
 sudden diversion to new excitements, the light 
 garrulousness, the unmeaning smile, or the 
 abstracted silence, denoted by turns so many 
 shifting moods of fantasy through which one 
 torturing recollection, hke a knell, heard in brief 
 lulls of winds and waters, broke ever and anon. 
 His gradual recognition of Cordelia, as the mists 
 of delusion gradually lifted and dissolved, was 
 a worthy climax to such a performance. Her 
 well-known voice, her tender words, at first fixed 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 47 
 
 him as with a sweet but vague and bewildering 
 consciousness : — 
 
 " You do me wrong to take me out of the grave. 
 Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound 
 Upon a wheel of fire. 
 
 You are a spirit, I know ; when did you die? " 
 
 Then, how fine was the struggle towards memory 
 and definite perception! 'VV^at effort, what 
 despondency in the failure ! 
 
 " I should e'en die with pity 
 To see another thus." 
 
 And, finally, how true, how overpowering, the 
 expression of yearning hope which he almost 
 feared to test, as he sank trembling into her 
 embrace ! — 
 
 " Do not laugh at me, 
 For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 To be my child, Cordelia." 
 
 It is' in such a delineation as this that the 
 actor (precluded from any great originality in 
 the conception of the character laid down for 
 him) becomes in his turn almost creative, by 
 translating the poet's ideas into an appropriate 
 language of looks, tones, and gestures, which 
 make that living and incarnate which was com- 
 paratively but abstract and intellectual. For 
 such a rendering, patient observation is no less 
 needed than sympathetic impulse. I have more 
 than once heard Macready say, "Patience is 
 genius" — a sentiment which, I think, originally 
 belongs to Montaigne. Yet patience, though a 
 proof of the interest and fortitude which genius 
 begets, can hardly be genius itseK. The tra- 
 gedian, I sometimes thought, did some injustice 
 to his own spontaneity in insisting almost 
 
48 OUR RECENT AOTOES. 
 
 exclusively upon the value of hard work. The 
 truth is, he found in mental activity not only 
 a duty but a delight. His love of painting, 
 his wide acquaintance with literature, the charm 
 which psychology had for him, as evinced not 
 only in his acting, where motive and character 
 were so iinely laid bare, but in the fascination 
 of Browning's poetry, showed a warmth and 
 extent of sympathy without which patience 
 would have lacked its best incentive and yielded 
 but frigid results. He was more of an enthusiast 
 than he himself believed. One night the dis- 
 cussion turned upon Sir Walter Scott, and his 
 inability as a dramatist, and why, with all his 
 powers of characterization and situation in narra- 
 tive, he had never written a play likely to move 
 an audience. " I suppose he did not choose," said 
 one of the party. " Choose ! " broke in Macready, 
 warmly ; " it's no matter of choice. If he had 
 had the true dramatic fire, he couldn't have 
 suppressed it. So says Knowles, and I echo 
 him," thus showing that in his deepest con- 
 victions, his favourite patience, though sometimes 
 a sign of genius, was no substitute for it. 
 
 On the night in question, the after-dinner 
 talk turned upon celebrated past actors, especially 
 upon Garrick, of whom I thought Macready spoke 
 with undue severity. In doing so, he broached 
 a theory which will, I fancy, be generally dis- 
 j puted. " I will not believe," said he, " that a 
 ■' man so avaricious and self-seeking* could have 
 been a great actor." It was contended, on the 
 other -side, that there were abundant instances 
 in which the moral defects of men had not 
 
 * Surely this is a harsher verdict upon Garrick than is 
 warranted by the facts known of him, viewed as a whole. 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 49 
 
 prevented their greatness as artists. "Meanness 
 and selfishness," he rejoined, "must affect their 
 sincerity. They cannot express with full power 
 by mere intellect the nobler emotions with which 
 they have no real sympathy." Here I asked 
 whether, if this doctrine were true, it would 
 not lead also to the' conclusion that a good, 
 man must fail in the portraiture of evil, and 
 that the actor must be morally bad who could 
 paint bad characters — lago, for instance, or 
 Kichard the Third. " ISTo ; that will not hold," 
 he said. "Whoever has fine qualities can paint 
 the base;" meaning, I suppose, that he could 
 paint them as opposites. It was, at all events,- 
 pleasant to find Macready attaching so much 
 value to moral character in relation to art. • 
 Though it is difficult to accept his view in its - 
 full extent, there may be a measure of truth ' 
 in it. A selfish man may be very sincere in 
 declaiming a fine burst of feeling, or even in 
 portraying a fine nature generally; yet it is at 
 least possible that habitual loyalty to right may 
 give a force of conviction to the expression of 
 it quite beyond the reach of merely sentimental 
 approval. 
 
 The leading tragedies of Shakspere were then 
 discussed. " Macbeth," in addition to its grandeur 
 of imagination, was voted his most perfect 
 play for the stage. Various allusions to our 
 host's embodiment of the guilty Thane led 
 to the inference that it was regarded as his 
 chef-d'oeuvre. I could not altogether subscribe 
 to that opinion, my reasons for which will appear 
 in the account I shall now give of his perform- 
 ance. 
 
 Of all Macready's representations, that of 
 
50 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 Macbeth probably most satisfied himself. He 
 had performed no Shaksperian character more 
 frequently; it was that, moreover, in which he 
 took his leave of the stage. Though it never 
 realized my ideal, I learned, as I grew in years, 
 to appreciate its many excellences. After the 
 departure of the witches, in the first act, the air 
 of brooding reverie in the soliloquy, with a 
 strange sense conveyed in the fixed and fateful 
 gaze of impending evil, the insidious encroach- 
 ment of evil, spite of brief but terrible recoil, 
 and afterwards the overdone warmth with which 
 he excuses his abstraction to Eosse and Angus, 
 were rendered with consummate skill and effect. 
 In the scenes where Lady Macbeth prompts him 
 to the murder, his resistance seemed somewhat 
 too feeble for the remorse he has afterwards to 
 display. " One of John Kemble's most effective 
 passages," said that fine critic, "W. J. Fox, "was 
 the one beginning — 
 
 " 'We will proceed DO further in this business,' 
 
 which he uttered with such a sigh of relief and 
 thankfulness, it seemed to bear away with it a 
 crushing load and to leave liim renewed and 
 hopeful." The apostrophe to the "air-drawn 
 dagger," as given by Macready, was a triumph 
 of discrimination and emphasis. The transitions 
 from amazement and awe to reviving reason — 
 once more staggered by the growiag force of his 
 terrors, and again reasserting itself to dispel them 
 — could not have been more judiciously marked. 
 And yet — to me, at least — there seemed a want. 
 Eeasoning carried it over intuition ; all had been 
 too obviously reasoned out. The thoughts did 
 not sufficiently hurry upon and partly confuse 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 51 
 
 «acli other, as they do in real tumults of the soul. 
 The crouching form and stealthy, felon-like step 
 of the self-abased murderer,- as he quitted the 
 •scene, made, however, a picture not to be for- 
 gotten. In contrast with the erect, martial figure 
 /that entered in the first act, this change was the 
 moral of the play made visible. The acting of 
 Macready, after the murder, has been so generally 
 extolled, that I rather state as a personal feeling 
 (than as a critical opinion that here again various 
 mental states seemed too sharply defined and sepa- 
 rated. The emotions of shame, terror, remorse, 
 momentary despair, and selfish fear, might, I 
 fancied, have more often flowed into each other, 
 as when, in real life, some fatal act almost at the 
 same moment excites and yet paralyzes appre- 
 hension by the sense that it is irretrievable. I 
 thought of Hazlitt's description of Edmund Kean 
 at this point. " The hesitation, the bewildered 
 look, the coming to himself when he sees his 
 hands bloody; the manner in which his voice 
 vclung to his throat and choked his utterance; 
 hiis agony and tears, the force of nature overcome 
 by passion — beggared description." Something 
 of this I missed in Macready, though his entire 
 performance was probably finer and more sugges- 
 itive than that of Kean. But Macready's final 
 waking to the full conviction of the gulf between 
 the past and the present was one of his grandest 
 moments. I still vividly recall the terrible agony 
 ■of his cry — 
 " Wake Duncan with thy knocking ; I would thou oouldst ! " 
 
 as, with his face averted from his wife, and his 
 arms outstretched, as it were, to the irrecoverable 
 past, she dragged him from the stage. 
 
52 OUR EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 The entrance of Banquo's ghost in the tliirJ 
 act gives an opportunity to a tragic actor of 
 which Macready fully availed himself. His 
 great merit, however, in this act, was the force 
 with which he previously brought out the gnaw- 
 ings of conscience and the insecurity of iU-gotten 
 power. In his haggard aspect, in his restless 
 movements, it seemed as if the curse, " Macbeth 
 shall sleep no more," had taken visible effect.. 
 What misery pierced through his hollow mirth 
 when he exclaimed — 
 
 " But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer. 
 Ere we will eat our meal in fear," 
 
 feigning so quickly followed by his tones of 
 hopeless yearning in the words — 
 
 " Duncan is in his grave. 
 After life's fitful fever lie sleeps well." 
 
 When his wife questioned him as to Banquo, 
 the furtive look with which he turned from the 
 very partner of his crime bore terrible witness 
 to the isolation of guilt. The sinister, ill-sup- 
 pressed laugh which accompanied his answer — 
 
 " Be innocent of knowledge, dearest chuck, 
 Till thou applaud the deed ! " 
 
 marked, I thought, a new and dreadful stage in 
 the usurper's experience. What a revelation in 
 the words, " dearest chitcJc " ! She whose spirit 
 had so dominated his in the early scenes was 
 now his mere half-trusted accomplice. His 
 misery had cast off awe ; he was become 
 grimly familiar with her. His much applauded 
 transition in the last act, from the impetuous 
 command to Seyton, " Give me mine armour," 
 to the ultra-colloquial, " How does your patient. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 53 
 
 'iloctor ? " never appeared to me a beauty. It was 
 a telling stage-contrast, but so extreme as to be 
 factitious. His closing scenes could not have 
 been surpassed. His physical energy was terrific, 
 ■and took grandeur from the desperate mind. He 
 turned upon Fate and stood at bay. 
 
 Comparing h is Macbeth with his Hamlet, I 
 ret&,in to the~Tast a preference Tor the latter, 
 though even at the time I first saw it he scarcely 
 looked the character. His tall figure, with its 
 large and bold outlines, his brow, almost ample 
 enough to be ponderous, hardly suggested the 
 refined, pensive prince who was yet "the glass 
 of fashion and the mould of form." And, indeed, 
 Hamlet, as interpreted by this tragedian, was less 
 the melancholy, musing Dane than he is generally 
 represented. There was more of passion than of 
 sentiment in the rendering. With Macready, the 
 credulous faith, so bitterly dispelled, of the young 
 optimist, was turned to gall. Thus, to the end of 
 the third act, a tone of glowing excitement or of 
 keen irony were the features of the embodiment. 
 Except for a touch of melancholy tenderness for 
 a lost ideal in Ophelia, or of the courtesy which 
 his princely nature prescribed to his inferiors, 
 Hamlet was, with him, a misanthrope. It was 
 •only when he had long writhed under the sense 
 of human wrong and "the yoke of inauspicious 
 ■stars " that his mind, driven back upon its early 
 instinct of faith, grew patient and trustful, in 
 spite of experience. "We defy augury. There 
 is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. 
 . . . The readiness is all." Conversing with a 
 friend, he once observed, " In the early acts of 
 ' Hamlet ' I seek to express, among other things, 
 the impetuous rebellion of a generous nature 
 
54 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 when its trust has been cruelly deceived ; in the- 
 last act, the resignation of a generous nature when 
 the storm has spent itself;— in presenting thfr 
 striking contrasts of this conception — its passion, 
 its imagination, its irony, its colloquial realism." 
 L_On the appearance of the Ghost, his voice and 
 manner so expressed a soul spellbound and set 
 apart from men by a supernatural visitation as. 
 to hold the house breathless with awe J In the' 
 celebrated scene with Ophelia, true to liiB theory 
 of the optimist turned pessimist, he was far more 
 bitter than Charles Kemble or Charles Kean, yet 
 the agony of his love pierced ■ through the bitter- 
 ness. In the closet-scene, though gentle at the- 
 close, he was sterner to his mother than were his 
 stage contemporaries. His indictment of her was 
 delivered with an arresting concentration that 
 had nothing in it of violence or tumult, and with 
 a mien lofty and unrelenting, as if he had been 
 the commissioned angel of retribution^ His- 
 acting in the play scene was superb._J His answers 
 to the King's suspicious questions, as the play 
 before the Court proceeds, were keen, glittering, 
 and venomous, like the thrusts of a poisoned 
 dagger. With body prone, and head erect, and 
 eyes riveted on Claudius, he dragged himself 
 " nearer and nearer to him, till the moment of Gon- 
 zago's murder, then sprang up to meet the con- 
 victed King, with a burst of mocking exultation.. 
 His performance abounded, moreover, with delicate- 
 and poetic suggestions. One of these was his way 
 of quitting the stage at the end of the first act, 
 after his interview with the Ghost. About ta 
 depart, he turned to Horatio and Marcellus, and 
 saying, in a tone tender and hushed, " Nay, come, 
 let's go together," led them off the stage. Being 
 
OUK KEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 at tlie same hotel with him in Manchester, I went 
 into his room one night after returning from his 
 performance of Hamlet. I remarked that this act 
 of fellowship on the part of Hamlet had greatly 
 struck me, as indicating the sense of brother- 
 hood between man and man which the awe of a 
 supernatural visitation would call forth. This 
 comment pleased him. " It is one of those 
 minute touches," he replied, "that an actor 
 throws in only after long familiarity with a part. 
 r As to Hamlet, I believe no man ever played it 
 with any approach to completeness until he was 
 too old to look it.'27 
 
 His Othello, though some of the details were 
 masterly, could not, I think, be considered a great 
 success. His indignant passion was at tiines 
 most powerful, but it was a passion into which 
 the agony of deceived love too little entered. It 
 was rather the cry of betrayed honour than of 
 a tortured heart. Among his fine points was 
 the thrusting of his dark, despairing face through 
 the curtains of the bed when Emilia calls to 
 him after Desdemona's murder. The discovery 
 of the face alone — "the index to a tragic 
 volume"— was thrilling in its effect, besides 
 forming incidentally, in contrast with the drapery, 
 a marvellous piece of colour. Macready may 
 have had no misgivings as to the claims of 
 his Othello, but I think he understood its 
 comparative unpopularity. One morning, after 
 the tragedy had been some days announced, he 
 said to me in the theatre, with his smile of 
 austere humour, "1 am about to punish an 
 undiscerning public. They will not see my 
 Othello next week." A poor "let" had doubt- 
 less induced him to postpone it. 
 
56 OUE BEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 His lago, on the other hand, was" one of his most 
 famous delineations. With absorbing self-love 
 and the vindictiveness it engenders for its chief 
 motives, was combined delight in evil activity 
 of intellect. It was the knave's pastime with 
 Macready to become, in appearance, " all things to 
 all men " — -bluntly faithful and disinterested with 
 Othello, genial comrade with Cassio, loose gallant 
 with Eoderigo, amusing cynic with Desdemona. 
 In some of these phases, though assumed only 
 to further a dark purpose, an admirable vein 
 of comedy was evinced. 
 
 His incidental touches of comedy in serious 
 characters were, indeed, very characteristic and 
 happy. Amongst these may be ranked, besides 
 the hypocritical phases of lago, his playful raillery 
 of the love-struck Virginia, his downright soldierly 
 frankness in Melantius, his easy gaiety with the 
 players, his courtly but incisive irony towards the 
 spies in Hamlet. In all characters that combined 
 the keen perception of human meanness and 
 inconsistency with social courtesy in expressing 
 it, he was thoroughly at home. Thus his repre- 
 sentation of Evelyn, with his clever cynicism, 
 in Lord Lytton's "Money," was an incontestable 
 success. He somewhat underrated, I think, the 
 great opportunities which the part afforded him. 
 " I should never have performed Evelyn," he said, 
 " had it not been written by Bulwer." 
 
 In one celebrated character in Shaksperian 
 comedy he gained a triumph which, in its way, 
 might fairly rank with any that he achieved in 
 tragedy. The character was that of Benedick, 
 which he played for his benefit. In this part his 
 spontaneous humour, especially in the scene 
 where he resolves to marry, roused the house to 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 57 
 
 sucli shouts of mirth, one might have thought 
 Keeley, not Macready, was on the stage. His 
 Benedick differed widely from that of other 
 well-known actors. Whether it was the truest 
 rendering of the part may be doubted, but I 
 have seen none more effective. In the various 
 conflicts with Beatrice there was not that eager- 
 ness of repartee, that animated enjoyment of the 
 wit combat, nor quite that polished address 
 (though Macready was both the soldier and the 
 gentleman) ascribed to Charles Kemble. Mac- 
 ready had rather a provokingly indulgent and 
 half-careless air towards his fair enemy. He 
 wore a somewhat Uas4 manner to her, as of one 
 versed in the serious business of life, and a little 
 cynical through experience, who, nevertheless, 
 good-naturedly consented to trifle and iadiner 
 with a lady for her amusement, who sometimes 
 forgets his light role in serious tliought, and then, 
 rousing himself, returns apologetically to his recre- 
 ation. In the celebrated soliloquy in the second 
 act, after he has overheard in the arbour that 
 Beatrice loves him, the^ complex expression of 
 his face as he advanced drew roars from the 
 house before he uttered a word. One might read 
 there the sense of amazement, of gratification, 
 and of perplexity as to the way of reconciling 
 his newly-revealed passion for Beatrice with his 
 late raillery at her and all women. His amaze- 
 ment was less, even, that Beatrice loved him, than 
 that (his suspicion deepening to conviction as 
 the soliloquy went on) he responded to her love. 
 He e\'idently remembered his own recent vaunt, 
 "I do much wonder that one man, seeing how 
 much another is a fool when he dedicates his 
 behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at 
 
58 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 such shallow follies in others, become the argu- 
 ment of his own scorn by falling in love.' 
 Accordingly, Macready, with great humour, made 
 Benedick, in his first wish to be consistent, put 
 his response to Beatrice rather upon the ground 
 of pity and courtesy than of his own strong 
 inclining : " Love me ! why it must be requited. 
 I hear howl am censured" — a shallow sophism to. 
 disguise his passion, which again called forth th& 
 heartiest mirth. His next step in reasoning, 
 where he makes a moral aphorism the pretext 
 for yielding to his inclinations, " Happy are- 
 they that hear their detractions, and can put 
 them to mending," was not a whit less effective. 
 In fact, the humour of the position, from his first 
 surprise and timid regard for his consistency to 
 the defiant scorn of ridicule at the close, was 
 splendidly brought out. The most specious argu- 
 ment acquired with him the force of reason, or, 
 if not, his will dispensed with it. It was an 
 unopposed march, in which the victor gains 
 audacity as he takes outwork upon outwork, until 
 he hoists his flag from the citadel. 
 
 The success of the tragedian in this brilliant 
 comedy was complete ; yet he had so much 
 doubted of it beforehand, he said, that he had 
 proposed resigning Benedick to Mr. Anderson 
 after the first night. He had had, as we have 
 seen, similar misgivings with respect to lago, and, 
 previously to resuming the part in London, had 
 been wretched with the apprehension of failure. 
 The acclamations of the audience and the verdict 
 of the best critics on Benedick, which proved to 
 be one of his finest impersonations, came upon 
 him as a shock of pleasure. 
 
 Among Macready's triumphs his Werner holds 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 59 
 
 SO high a place as to require some minuteness of 
 detail. Of all his characters out of Shakspere 
 (and I do not forget Virginius or Melantius), 
 Werner and Eichelieu are those which most often 
 recur to me. Amiable censors have not been 
 wanting to allege that his success in Werner was 
 chiefly due to the resemblance between the hero 
 of the drama and himself in point of morbid 
 pride and sensitiveness. This theory, however, 
 by no means accounts for the impressive melan- 
 choly which he wore when Werner's honours 
 were restored, or, above all, for that display of 
 a father's love and agony in the fifth act, which 
 must be ranked amongst his supreme effects. 
 But to whatever cause his exliibition of pride 
 and bitter, querulous impatience, in the first act, 
 were due, it is hard to conceive of their being 
 more intense and incisive. The rising of the 
 curtain discovered the fugitive nobleman, indig- 
 nant at his cruel fate, stalking to and fro like 
 some captured wild animal in his cage. The 
 gaunt look of recent sickness was in his face, the 
 fretful irritability which it causes repeatedly 
 broke forth, spite of his affection for his wife, in 
 his tones and gestures ; while, through the veil 
 of poverty, disease, and mental suffering, gleamed 
 a forlorn haughtiness of bearing which bespoke 
 ■his ineradicable pride of birth. The quick appre- 
 hensions and suspicions which spring from nerves 
 wasted alike with disease and grief were admir- 
 ably conveyed, first, by his alarm when he hears 
 the knocking of the Intendant, and again, by the 
 air of feline wariness and distrust with which he 
 scanned G-abor on his entrance and subsequently. 
 At length Stralenheim enters, who seeks to usurp 
 Werner's domain, and,, for that evil end, to secure 
 
60 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 his person. Werner at once recognizes him, and 
 the former has at length a dim suspicion that the 
 man before him is his intended victim. When 
 at length Stralenheim turns to him, after con- 
 versing with the Intendant and Gabor, the furtive 
 and apprehensive gaze with which Macready had 
 watched his oppressor, gave way to irrepressible 
 hatred. Nothing could be more curtly repellant 
 than hi.s tones, in answer to Stralenheim's ques- 
 tions — 
 
 " Slral. Have you been here long ? 
 Wer. (with abrupt surprise). Long ? 
 
 Siral. I sought 
 
 An answer, not an echo. 
 
 Wer. (rapidly and moroselt/). You may seek 
 
 Both from the walls ; I am not used to answer 
 
 Those whom I know not." 
 
 A little later, when Stralenheim observes, 
 ■" Your language is above your station," Werner's 
 answer, " Is it ? " contained a transition from 
 ironical humility to scorn and loathing, which 
 it was surprising so brief a phrase could express. 
 Not less striking, when he feared his passion 
 might, betray him, was the sudden change, in 
 the words that follow, to rude and caustic 
 indifference — 
 
 " 'Tis well that it is not beneath it, 
 As sometimes happens to tlie better clad." 
 
 In the second act, it will be remembered that 
 Werner, made desperate by the plain suspicions 
 of Stralenheim, who has power to arrest and 
 imprison him, commits a robbery on his foe, in 
 the dead of night, to gain the means of escape. 
 Subsequently, Werner and his wife are discovered 
 by their long-lost son, Ulric. The joy of the 
 parents has scarcely found utterance when Ulric 
 tells them that he had, on the previous day, 
 
OUK IlECENT AOTOKS. 61 
 
 saved the life of Stralenheim, and that he is now 
 in quest of the villain who had robbed him. To 
 give any conception of Macready's acting at this 
 point, I must quote the dialogue — 
 
 " Wer. (agitatedly). Who 
 
 Taught you to mouth that name of ' villain ? ' 
 
 TTlr. -What 
 
 More noble name belongs to common thieves? 
 
 Wer. Who taught you thus to brand an unknown being 
 ■yVith an infernal stigma ? 
 
 Ulr. My own feelings 
 
 Taught me to name a ruffian from liis deeds. 
 
 Wer. Who taught you, long-sought and ill-found boy ! that 
 It would be safe for my own son to insult me ? 
 
 Ulr. I named a villain. What is there in common 
 With such a being and my father ? 
 
 Wer. Everything! 
 
 That ruffian is thy father. 
 
 Jos. Oh, my son ! 
 
 Believe him not — and yet ! — • — (her voice falters). 
 
 Ulr, (starts, looks earnestly at Weknek, and then says slowly). 
 And you avow it ? 
 
 Wer. Ulric ! Before you dare despise your father, 
 Learn to divine and judge his actions. Young, 
 Kash, new to life, and reared in luxury's lap, 
 la it for you to measure passion's force, 
 Or misery's temptation ? Wait — (not long. 
 It Cometh like the night, and quickly) — Wait ! — 
 Wait till, like me, your hopes are blighted — till 
 SoiTow and shame are handmaids of your cabin ; 
 !Famine and poverty your guests at table ; 
 Despair your bed-fellow — then rise, but not 
 From sleep, and judge ! Should that day e'er arrive — 
 Should you see then the serpent who hath coiled 
 Himself around all that is dear and noble 
 Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path, 
 With but Ms folds between your steps and happiness, 
 When he, who lives but to tear from you name, 
 Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with 
 Chance your conductor ; midnight for your mantle 
 The bare knife in your hand, and earth asleep, 
 Even to your deadliest foe ; and he, as 'twere, 
 Inviting death, by looking like it, while 
 His death alone can save you : — Thank your God ! 
 If then, like me, content with petty plunder, 
 You turn aside — I did so ! " 
 
62 OUK EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 From the cry of remonstrance with which the 
 above passage opens, even to its close, what a 
 complexity of emotions struggling and, at the 
 same time, blending with each other, did Mac- 
 ready portray ! The strife between wrathful 
 pride and agony, at having to confess and 
 extenuate his guilt to his idolized and just- 
 regained son ; the increasing and, at last, breath- 
 less rapidity with which he piled up the circum- 
 stances of his desperate temptation and venial 
 sin; till, finally, pride, self-abasement, and self- 
 vindication were swallowed up and swept away 
 by a master-touch of paternal love and anguish, 
 as, shaken, convulsed, with extended arms and 
 bowed head, he appealed to Ulric with the words, 
 "/ did so;"' — all these, with their harrowing 
 pathos and subduing power, live in my memory 
 as if they were of yesterday. More than forty 
 years have not weakened their effect. 
 
 The bald tale, in the third act, of Stralenheim's 
 murder by an unknown hand, of "Werner's dread 
 lest he should be suspected of the crime, and of 
 his escape from the spot, supply little that is of 
 dramatic interest. The fourth act, also, which 
 shows Werner restored to his estates and to his 
 title of Count Siegendorf, moves slowly and 
 eventlessly, though the sense of heartsick grief 
 for unrequited affection could not have found 
 more faithful expression than in the scene where 
 the restored Count bewails the coldness of the 
 son in whom his every hope was centred. His 
 grief here had low and level tones, as if it had 
 gradually sapped and well-nigh exhausted the 
 active force of emotion. There was a forlornness, 
 a vain, wasting craving in his look, a restlessness 
 which his brave robes as Count seemed to in- 
 
OUE KECENT ACTOES. 63 
 
 tensify by contrast. The fifth act, however, 
 brings the great situation of the tragedy. In 
 his disguise as Werner, before flying, after Stra- 
 lenheim's deatli, Count Siegendorf had, it will be 
 xemembered, met Gabor, a Hungarian. He has 
 deeply suspected this man of being Stralenheim's 
 murderer. At the celebration of a national 
 festival in Prague, he has seen liim in the 
 crowd. Soon afterwards the supposed criminal, 
 instead of avoiding detection, repairs to the 
 Count's mansion and demands to see him. He 
 is admitted, and answers Siegendorf s charge of 
 murder by accusing Ulric of it, who is present. 
 The Count, drawing, rushes on Gabor with fierce 
 indignation, then turns from him with incredulous 
 disdain. The latter, however, proceeds with his 
 .story. What Macready achieved here in the way 
 of facial expression and symbolic gesture (for his 
 share in the dialogue was small), has never, I 
 think, under the given condition, been exceeded. 
 At first, with one arm thrown fondly round his 
 son's shoulder, he listened with light scorn to 
 his accuser. As the proofs thickened, the eyes, 
 before careless, became fixed on Gabor. This 
 man related particular after particular, the fearful 
 significance of which against his son the Count 
 at length recognized, while the relaxed arm which 
 lay on Ulric's shoulder fell heavily. As Gabor 
 l)roceeded, and with increasing stress of proof, 
 the Count turned and looked at his son. Shocked 
 by his expression, he faltered a step from him. 
 The tale continued, and again the stricken father 
 unconsciously fell back. His changes of look and 
 rattitude had silently told all the effects of the 
 story upon the sympathizing spectators. 
 
 As I have said, the words allotted here to Mac- 
 
64 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 ready were few and far between ; but there wai3 
 little need of words. The changes in the father's 
 heart were uttered in a tongue of which every 
 movement was a syllable, every look an accent. 
 
 At length Gabor retires, and Count Siegendorf 
 is left alone with Ulric, who not only confesses the 
 murder, but urges the "silencing of Gabor." 
 While the father lies horror-struck in his chair, 
 Ulric proceeds to explain and defend his crime 
 in slaying Stralenheim. When the Count answers 
 him with expressions of grief and abhorrence, 
 Ulric retorts thus — 
 
 " If you condemn me, yet 
 Eemember wlio hath taught me, ouce too often. 
 To listen to him I WIio proclaimed to me 
 That there were crimes made venial hy the occasion?" 
 
 The greatness of Macready's acting here reached 
 its climax. As Ulric cited the fatal doctrine of 
 expediency, by which Siegendorf had extenuated 
 his robbery in the second act, the feeling that his 
 own maxims and example had betrayed his son 
 into crime was fearfully expressed by the con- 
 vulsions of the face, hj the hands, that first 
 sought to close the ears, and then to beat back 
 the fatal sounds that ^yould enter. When at 
 length Ulric, in plain terms, charges his disgrace 
 upon his father's precepts, Macready produced 
 one of those rare effects which become traditions 
 of the theatre. With a shrill cry of agony, as if 
 pierced mortally by a dart, he bounded from his 
 seat, and then, as if all strength had failed him, 
 wavered and fluttered forward, so to speak, till he 
 sank on one knee in front of the stage.* 
 
 * Mr. Macready was succeeded in his great performance of 
 Werner by Mr. Phelps, who played the character with con- 
 siderable effect during his management of Sadler's 'Wells. 
 Since then, Werner remained unrepresented by any adequate 
 
OtJR RECENT ACTORS. 65 
 
 How various are the characters, some of them 
 especially identified with him, which the name of 
 this great artist recalls ; — in Shakspere, Lear, 
 Hamlet, Macbeth, King John, Henry the Fourth, 
 lago, lachimo, Prospero, Benedick, the Fifth 
 Harry, with his impetuous chivalry, Brutus, with 
 his placid self-devotion, his long forbearance 
 with Cassius, his noble and tender fortitude in 
 Portia's loss, and his indulgent care for his 
 drowsy attendant; in the general drama, Me- 
 lantius, in "The Bridal," the soul of honour, 
 Virginius, the father-priest, Eichelieu, wily, im- 
 perious, patriotic. Ion, the antique type of youth 
 in its beauty and self-sacrifice, Claude Melnotte, 
 the modern type of youth in its bright credulity 
 and passionate impulse. If, as has been said, he 
 was in this last character here and there a little too 
 weighty and tragic, the wonder yet was that at his 
 years, and with his serious bias, his performance 
 was on the whole so elastic, flexible, and spirited. 
 
 Of the qualities to which Macready owed his - 
 eminence, the highest and most remarkable were 
 his psychological insight and his artistic power «-^ 
 of translating his emotions into strikingly ^ 
 appropriate — often absolutely symbolic — forms 
 of expression. If it be granted that one or two 
 tragedians have, in some parts, excelled him in the 
 sudden revelations of passion, it is yet probable " 
 that he has never been excelled, if equalled, ' 
 
 actor, until it was revived by Mr. Henry Irving, on June 1, 
 1887 for the benefit of the present -writer, with a sympathetie 
 generosity that has scarcely a parallel in theatrical annals. 
 The pathetic watchfulness of the father absorbed m bis son, 
 and the overpowering climax of paternal agony when Ulric s 
 nnworthiness is at length discovered, have been recorded with 
 due appreciation and delight by other pens than that of the 
 
 writer. 
 
 F 
 
66 OUK EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 ^ in the complete and harmonious development 
 of character. In all his great impersonations 
 was shown the same faculty of grasping the 
 central idea of his part, and of making all the 
 lights thrown upon details correspond with that 
 idea. What has already been said of his Lear, 
 Hamlet, and Macbeth, will suggest how finely 
 the faculty just referred to was evinced in these 
 impersonations. His King John furnishes another 
 marked example. Before practising for Arthur's 
 death, the Usurper was stiU a Plantagenet, 
 haughty and martial in bearing, swift and bold 
 in decision. After the abasement of instigating 
 murder, the whole bearing of the man changed; 
 the former knight had caught something of the 
 dogged, covert look, the bowed form, the stealthy 
 gait of the assassin. When, in the fifth act, 
 Faulconbridge attempts to rekindle the spirit of 
 the soldier in John, his answer, in feeble, 
 disheartened tones, "Have thou the ordering of 
 this present time," was "a whole history." 
 Dignity and will had forsaken him. Except in 
 remorse, he was a Plantagenet no more.* 
 
 * In the TeTival of "King John," in 1841, Macready intro- 
 duced a new effect. After the fight in the third act, which 
 results in an English victory, a part of the English force 
 crossed the stage, preceded by trumpeters, who sounded notes 
 of melancholy and wailing. One night, at Macready's house, 
 Mr. W. J. Fox objected that sounds of this kind could not with 
 propriety have proceeded from the triumphant English, the 
 retreat alluded to in the stage directions being clearly that of 
 the French. Macready answered that the purpose of these 
 notes was to prepare the house for King John's sinister inter- 
 view with Hubert, which immediately followed. On being 
 asked for my opinion — that of a very young man — by two who 
 •were greatly my seniors, I was diplomatic enough to observe 
 that the question seemed to be how far a dramatic effect, 
 finely suggestive, might be purchased at the expense of 
 probability. 
 
OUK EEOBNT ACTORS. 67 
 
 An instance of his subtle blendiag of the chief 
 motives of a part with its national features, was 
 to be found in his Shylock, where the Jew's 
 traditional reverence for law, and belief in its 
 inviolability, were emphasized in his delineation : 
 " I stand for judgment ; answer, shall I have it ? " 
 " If you deny me, fie upon your law." " I crave 
 the law." "I charge you by the law." "You 
 know the law; your exposition hath been most 
 sound." " Is that the law ? " 
 
 The power of expressing states of feeling by 
 gesture and attitude is, of course, necessary to 
 every actor. With Macready it rose into a 
 special endowment. Take two more examples 
 of this, the first from Gerald Grif&n's almost 
 forgotten play of " Gisippus," produced at Drury 
 Lane. On discovering that his betrothed, whom 
 he passionately loves, is really attached to his 
 friend, Gisippus, after a struggle, resigns her to 
 him. The marriage day comes, and Gisippus, 
 suppressing his emotion, mingles with the guests. 
 At length the affianced pair move on to the 
 bridal. At this point Macready lingered behind, 
 sank upon a bench, and, as the music grew 
 fainter, took off his chaplet, gazed on it wistfully, 
 mournfully; then, with bowed head, let it fall, 
 with a sigh. The wreath seemed to drop on the 
 grave of his illusions. 
 
 My next recollection is of an opposite kind; 
 it is that of his towering, scornful attitude, as 
 Spinola, in " Nina Sforza," when, in the fifth act, 
 with foot and sword, he turned over the limbs 
 of the prostrate rival — his house's foe — whose 
 despair and ruin he had accomplished. The 
 intense malignity of the action last named 
 excited the opposition of the pit, but it was true 
 
68 OUB EECENT AOTOKS. 
 
 to the hereditary hatred of the character, which, 
 with its duplicity, had been superbly rendered 
 throughout. 
 
 Amongst the sources of this artist's inspiration, 
 was that reverential and religious sentiment to 
 which so many pages of his diary bear witness — 
 a sentiment which, in poetical natures, begets a 
 deep sense of the supernatural. Macready had 
 evidently felt deeply the strange contrasts of 
 human life — its mournful transiency, and its 
 persistent love ; its seal of mortality, and its 
 far-extending dreams ; the darkness, without reve- 
 lation, that engirds it, and the yearning, dim, but 
 ennobling, that points to a lot higher than its 
 apparent one. Thus, the "Out, out, brief candle ! " 
 of Macbeth ; Hamlet's fascinated awe before the 
 form that, "in complete steel, revisited the 
 glimpses of the moon," and his baffled conjecture 
 as to the " undiscovered country ; " the solemn 
 farewell of Brutus to Cassius — 
 
 " If we do meet again, why, we shall smile ; 
 If not, why then this parting was well made; " 
 
 - — all these took from Macready's lips and look a 
 pathetic awe that penetrated and subdued the 
 hearer. Again, the closing lines of Eichelieu, 
 now regrettably omitted — 
 
 " No ; let us own that there is One, above, 
 Who sways the harmonious mysteries of the world 
 Far better than prime ministers. So ends it," 
 
 were delivered by him, on the first night, with 
 a submissive reverence in striking contrast -nith 
 his recent bearing as the proud and victorious 
 minister. 
 
 In general, he may be said to have excelled in 
 "^ characters and situations where intellect and 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 69 
 
 ' passion set off each other, as in Lear, rather than 
 ' in those in which passion largely predominated 
 1 — in the satire which springs from embittered 
 J feeling and in emotional thought, especially when 
 it touches upon mystery and speculation. Hence 
 much of the excellence of his Hamlet. He was 
 at home in finesse and strategy, and in all that 
 involved intellectual gladiatorship, as in lago and 
 Eichelieu. Combativeness in any aspect had a 
 charm for him. Thus his finest act in " Macbeth " 
 was the last, in which the usurper is at bay. 
 He was seldom more effective than in characters 
 of forlorn pride, where the dignity or haughti- 
 ness of the man has to pierce through his mean 
 fortunes, as in Werner. In portraying the j 
 domestic affections, he shone more as the father » 
 than as the lover or the husband. He was not, / 
 to my thinking, at his best in characters chiefly - 
 contemplative, like Jacques. On rare occasions , 
 he was liable, as in parts of " Macbeth," _ to „ 
 suppress impulse by over-elaboration of design. ■_ 
 His transitional contrasts of voice, though at 
 times very telling, were often artificial. His 
 delivery, though most clear and expressive in 
 passages of emotion, was occasionally dragging 
 and spasmodic— a defect probably owing to his 
 advancing asthma; while, to miss none of his 
 peculiarities, he had, in moments of repose, a 
 monotonous proneness to standing in the same 
 posture— one knee, a little bent, before the other. 
 Among those contemporaries in tragedy with 
 whom I had a chance of comparing him— I was 
 too young to see Edmund Kean or John Kemble 
 —he was facile, princeps. Neither Charles Kemble 
 nor Charles Kean approached him in imagination 
 or— until the latter left ideal for photographic art 
 
70 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 — in breadth of execution.* In both respects 
 Vandenhoff was no less his inferior, Where his 
 way was clear, this last performer had decisive- 
 ness of outline and force of style ; but he lacked 
 Macready's subtlety and refinement. In these 
 respects, Butler, who had, undoubtedly, passion 
 and physical power, was far behind him. Phelps, 
 after his debut in London, had, to a great extent, 
 founded himself upon Macready, and in his tragic 
 impersonations, with a few exceptions — Hamlet 
 and Othello, for instance — followed him closely 
 and often impressively, though wanting something 
 of his vigour. As to Edmund Kean, though 
 unable to speak of him from personal knowledge, 
 I cannot doubt from general testimony, that, in 
 the exhibition of passion, he was a more inspired 
 actor than Macready. That wild agony of Othello, 
 that ever flies from, and still encounters love ; 
 Eichard's fiendish cunning and heartlessness, and 
 his desperate energy of will in the fight where he 
 " enacted more wonders than a man ; " Shylock's 
 alternations of grief and revenge, as the thought 
 of his daughter's flight and the hope of Antonio's 
 ruin seize him by turns, — these, by all accounts, 
 received from Kean that sudden and terrible 
 illumination which made Coleridge liken its 
 effect to " reading Shakspere by flashes of light- 
 ning." I should not, therefore, hesitate to 
 acknowledge Edmund Kean's superiority to any 
 male performer of his time, since so absolutely 
 to identify himself — if only in certain scenes — 
 with the passions of a human being as to 
 reproduce their most vital manifestations, is, so 
 far, not only to represent, but to he, the man. 
 
 * In the latter respect Charles Keaii'a Hamlet was an ex- 
 ception. 
 
OUR EBCENT ACTORS. 71 
 
 Yet a sharp line of division between such men 
 as the elder Kean and Macready should be 
 avoided. In harmony of design, and in purely 
 intellectual qualifications generally, the latter had 
 evidently the advantage ; while in characters that 
 touched some secret of his own personality, such 
 as Eichelieu or Werner, Macready must have 
 approached the spontaneous and life-like intensity 
 of Kean. Eegarding, in addition to his wide 
 command of emotion, the depth of his con- 
 ceptions, the clearness of his outlines, his width 
 of range, his suggestive imagination, and his 
 power of giving to feelings and ideas striking 
 expression in outward form, Macready, whether 
 compared with his contemporaries or his prede- 
 cessors, may probably be ranked as the most 
 intellectual of British actors. His death took 
 place in April, 1873, at the age of eighty. 
 
72 OUE EECENT ACTORS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ME. CHAELES KEMBLE. 
 
 A summer evenirig at the West End, in the season of 1835 — 
 Charles Kemble's Hamlet, at the Haymarket — Cast of the 
 tragedy — Charles Kemble's appearance and manner — 
 Description of his Hamlet — His return to the stage in 1840, 
 by command of Her Majesty — Account of his Mercutio 
 in " Eomeo and Juliet "• — His readings at Willis's Rooms, 
 in 1844 — Account of his Faulconhridge in " King John," 
 and his reading of i,hat play generally — Presence of the 
 Queen Dowager — Personal acquaintance with Charles 
 Kemble — Various fireside readings — Shylock — Richard 
 the Third — His tragic recitations generally — Resolution 
 not to attempt John Kemble's parts, with the exception 
 of Hamlet, till his brother retired — Contrast of Charles 
 Kemble's style with that of Maoready, and (by report) of 
 the elder Kean — His private readings or recitations in 
 comedy — A gentleman of the old school in private — Dignity 
 of his manner and appearance — His conversation generally 
 serious, with occasional passages of humour — Anecdote 
 ^ of his brother John — Dispute as to the intelligence of a 
 popular actor — A test-prologue written for his recitation — 
 The prologue in question — Mr. Kemble's deafness and 
 habit of making his confidences aloud— Anecdotes illus- 
 trative of this — His Epicurean tastes — Talk on the drama 
 — Suggestion of plots — A domestic story — The reign of 
 Henry the Second— Mr. David Roberts, E.A. — Mexico and 
 Montezuma — General estimate of C. Kemble as an actor — 
 Leigh Hunt's testimony on his retirement — His minuteness 
 of treatment often unfavourable to passion — Sirs. Siddons 
 on his JaflSer — General admiration of his Mark Antony — 
 John Oxenford on the consistency of his characterization, 
 instanced in Charles Surface — Charles Kemble's death, at 
 the age of seventy-nine. 
 
 An evening in the summer of 1835 still lives 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 73 
 
 distinctly in my memory. It was the height of 
 the season, and when, between five and six o'clock, 
 I found myself in Piccadilly, opposite the Green 
 Park (having probably made my way to this 
 point from the grand old trees of Kensington 
 Gardens), the road was still crowded with lines 
 of carriages and equestrians bound to or returning 
 from Hyde Park. To a lad's eye the scene 
 was, of course, enchanting. How delightful the 
 fresh green of the trees, the brightness of the 
 evening, the effects of sunlight on harness or 
 emblazoned panel, or the glimpse of grace and 
 beauty as some fair Amazon dashed by. Then, 
 on nearing E,egent Street, how brilliant the shops 
 with their glittering windows, where more than 
 the treasures of an Eastern bazaar were displayed. 
 These, with the shops of Eegent Street itself, had 
 probably offered me many temptations to linger, 
 to say nothing of an episodic seduction in the 
 shape of the Burlington Arcade, with its cool, 
 mysterious shade, its treasures of French nick- 
 nacks, its fascinations in haberdashery, its imita- 
 tion jewellery, and its autographed likenesses 
 of reigning celebrities in opera and ballet. At 
 any rate, it was more than half-past six when 
 I sauntered down the Haymarket. The carriages 
 at the box entrance of the theatre were dis- 
 charging their occupants, the crowd at the pit 
 had ' already entered. Charles Kemble was to 
 play Hamlet. 
 
 I had, doubtless, previously been aware of this, 
 but, most likely because the actor's fame had been 
 chiefly associated with elegant comedy, the an- 
 nouncement of his Hamlet had inspired me with 
 no especial interest. At the door of the theatre, 
 however, the thought seized me that he was the 
 
74 OUK RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 brother of Siddons, and of that John Kemble 
 whose portrait in Hamlet, by Lawrence, had 
 filled me with many regrets that I had never 
 seen the original. To see Charles Kemble in 
 Hamlet, would be to see, in tragedy, the last 
 of the old Kemble trio, who, though falling short 
 in public estimation of his brother and still more 
 renowned sister, was now their sole male heir and 
 representative — of one blood with them, so to 
 speak, in art as well as in life.* 
 
 These considerations determined me to witness 
 the performance. So I passed, by the familiar 
 door that had often tempted me, into the pit. 
 Soon the overture ceased, and the curtain rose. 
 Mrs. Glover was the Queen, Mr. Strickland, 
 Polonius, Mr. Cooper, the Ghost, and Miss Taylor 
 (afterwards Mrs. Walter Lacy), Ophelia. 
 
 When at length the King, Queen, Hamlet, 
 and the Court had entered, I felt at once, even 
 before a sound had issued from the lips of the 
 melancholy Prince, that ia some essential points 
 my best expectations would be realized. Though 
 surrounded by good and accomplished actors, 
 there was in Charles Kemble's look, attitude, 
 and movement, a charm which, if sad, was 
 so noble and full of repose as to distinguish 
 him from his associates. He was then sixty, 
 and of too massive a presence for his character ; 
 but he well counterfeited the suavity and dignity, 
 if not the form and features, of princely youth. 
 His step was stately without being pompous ; it 
 had the stateliness of one " to the manner born." 
 When at length he spoke, the perfect modulation 
 
 * Years later, on her return to tlie stage, I ■witnessed the 
 representations of his daughter (then Mrs. Butler), who so 
 ■well maintained the honours of her line. 
 
OUK RECENT ACTOKS. 75 
 
 of his tones, except occasionally when reaching 
 to a high note (in passion he more than once 
 " piped "), was enchanting. Study, of course, there 
 was in all this, perhaps over-study, though the 
 art of concealing art had, in a great measure, 
 been mastered. I was, however, then too young 
 to_ be minutely critical,* and surrendered myself 
 with delight to the harmony of the representation. 
 I had never imagined there could be so much 
 charm in words as mere sounds. Next, I was 
 caught by a graceful, pensive idling with those 
 quibbles of the brain in which Hamlet first 
 indulges, that made them seem tricks of fence to 
 ward off approach to his deeper nature. Though 
 they had their touch of causticity, they were 
 thrown off with an air of courtly ease and 
 respect widely different from the intense and 
 scornful significance employed by some actors, 
 who have thus disclosed, at the very outset of the 
 play, Hamlet's loathing for the King. Charles 
 Kemble's fine instinct taught him the unseem- 
 liness of launching bitter sarcasms at Claudius 
 before his courtiers. The subdued and delicate 
 irony of his manner might be understood by 
 those whose guilt gave the key to it. To the 
 rest it was the mere humour of the moment, or 
 play upon words. When the Court breaks up and 
 Hamlet is left alone, the soliloquy beginning — 
 "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!" 
 
 I have since more than once heard rendered 
 with greater bitterness, with more passionate 
 denunciation of the Queen's inconstancy, with 
 
 * Of course, with respect to Mr. Charles Kemble, and every 
 other performer treated of in my series, I record my early judg- 
 ments only so far as they have been coniirmed and matured 
 by experience. 
 
76 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 a fiercer recoil from the King, but never, I think, 
 with so much pathetic beauty. There was, of 
 course, indignation, but the predominant note 
 was that of melancholy. You heard a wail 
 over human instability, conveyed by a music of 
 delivery which, skilfully varied in its tones, 
 insinuated, rather than forced its way, and made 
 sorrow lovely : — 
 
 " Why, she would hang on him, 
 As if increase of appetite had grown 
 By what it fed on ! And yet, within a month, — 
 Let me not think on't ; — Frailty, thy name is woman! " 
 
 These last words seemed to float away in a 
 very melody of sadness. The fitful and wilder 
 grief that preceded them had sunk into a sigh. 
 While unable at that time to recognize the art 
 which produced this effect, I was deeply conscious 
 of the effect itself. Beauty of treatment, indeed 
 (as contrasted with what is commonly known 
 as power of treatment, though beauty has, of 
 course, its own power), was the feature of the 
 performance. In Hamlet's apostrophe to the 
 Ghost, what beauty of attitude, of tones, which, 
 though subdued and awe-struck, yet found scope 
 for variety. When Horatio and Marcellus would 
 fain restrain him from following the spectre, 
 what grace mingled with the energy of his 
 struggles, how picturesque was his figure, how 
 fraught with filial trust and reverence ! There 
 was about him an air of elevation and trust in 
 his spiritual visitant when he broke from his 
 companions, which seemed to speak him of a 
 different and higher nature — as one who had 
 kinship with supernatural life which they might 
 not comprehend. The house sat breathless to 
 see him glide off after his father's spirit, which 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 77 
 
 magnetically and irresistibly drew him. To 
 criticise fully a representation almost embarrass- 
 ingly rich in delicate and subtle detail, would 
 be impossible within the limits of this notice. 
 Passing, then, to his scene with Ophelia, of which 
 I yet recall the charm — the melancholy, tender 
 portrayal of a noble soul's distrust, striving with 
 its love, overcome by it, then reasserting itself 
 to the close in despair that yet idolized, in 
 irresistible but mournful upbraidings, blended 
 and harmonized with fond though vain yearnings 
 — at the risk of being charged with fine writing, ^ 
 which every writer nowadays incurs, who ^ 
 introduces an image from nature into criticism, ». 
 I will venture to say that this scene vividly 
 suggested to me a shore at ebb-tide, now bare, 
 now for a moment revisited, even flooded, by the 
 returning wave, which, as it once more recedes, 
 chimes its own plaintive, lingering farewell. 
 
 I had not seen "Hamlet" performed before, so 
 that I could not then contrast Charles Kemble's 
 rendering with any other. But, from larger ex- 
 perience, I am bound to say that the play-scene 
 was not given with all the breadth and fire of 
 which it is capable. The under-meanings, how- 
 ever, in the answers to the King and Queen could 
 scarcely have been better conveyed ; they were 
 polished, but keen as arrows ; while for those 
 fierce and ringing tones of exultation which I 
 heard later from Macready, when the King and 
 Queen hurry from the stage, was substituted a 
 conflict of indignation with grief, which, aided by 
 the actor's grace of delivery and princely bearing, 
 captivated rather than excited the house. His 
 manner subsequently of rebuking the spies was 
 unsurpassed by any I have witnessed. His sar- 
 
78 OUR EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 casms, though given incisively, were so free from 
 violence, and his disdain had such lofty quietude 
 and such a suggestion of melancholy at the world- 
 liness and insincerity of men, as to reconcile the 
 displeasure of the Prince with elevation both of 
 manner and feeling. 
 
 In the closet-scene with his mother, grief and 
 filial tenderness prevailed, perhaps unduly, over 
 the sternness which, however restrained, should 
 still, I think, be in the ascendant ; but the noble 
 passages with which the scene abounds gave rare 
 opportunities for the display of an elocution so 
 finished that its art seemed nature. In the scene 
 at Ophelia's grave — though it lacked the over- 
 mastering impulse of Macready — the same excel- 
 lence of elocution was exhibited with great effect ; 
 but what I liked still better in later years (when 
 I heard Charles Kemble read " Hamlet ") was the 
 tender beauty of the churchyard scene, and his 
 vein of wandering reverie when he followed the 
 quaint, half-humorous speculations of the part 
 with such nice perception as never to disturb 
 the prevailing gravity which they relieved. He 
 was, indeed, a proficient in the display of graceful 
 melancholy, and in the art of enhancing its effect 
 by momentary reliefs of fancy. In the fifth act, 
 his manner of rallying from weighty cares to 
 accommodate himself to the fantastic levities of 
 Osric, his perfect, most musical delivery of the 
 meditative passages to Horatio ; subsequently, his 
 "gentle" bearing in the fencing scene with Laertes 
 — the smUing, subdued grace of one only con- 
 scious of " the yoke of inauspicious stars," and the 
 tender beauty of liis dying, — fitly and softly led 
 to the sleep which " rounded " his princely life. 
 
 He may be said to have realized those aspects 
 
OUK EECENT ACTORS. 79 
 
 of the character — its pervading grace, with its 
 contrasts of impetuosity and inaction, of pensive- 
 ness and passion, of amiability and irony, all 
 harmonized and made lifelike — which, a few 
 years since, were described by an accomplished 
 critic,* when noticing Mr. Edwin Booth, in 
 language worthy of Hazlitt. 
 
 In depth of conception, and in power of render- 
 ing, Charles Kemble's Hamlet was inferior to 
 Macready's, which, on the other hand, it excelled 
 in the qualities that endear and charm. As I left 
 the theatre and walked thoughtfully home, it 
 seemed to me as if Hamlet's death had something 
 in common with the night into which the sweet 
 day had merged — a lingering twilight, witli the 
 soft mournfulness and tender repose that enchant 
 more than brightness. Hamlet, indeed, was the 
 one Shaksperian character in tragedy in which 
 the excellence of the actor was unanimously 
 admitted. I fancy, however, that he conceived 
 himself to be, above all things, a tragedian ; though 
 accident had led him to seek distinction chiefly in 
 comedy. One night, many years after the per- 
 formance I have just chronicled, he had been 
 reading at my house some scenes from " Eichard 
 the Third." Laying aside the book, he observed, 
 in answer to our thanks, " The fame of my brother 
 John in tragedy caused me for long to avoid tres- 
 passing upon his ground. To give up Hamlet, 
 however, would have been a sacrifice beyond me." 
 "When, after his retirement, he returned to the 
 
 * Mr. Cbarles Dunphie, who, in his original poems, his 
 felicitous renderings of English into Latin verse, and in several 
 volumes of original essays, has shown not only rare refinement, 
 humour, and keen perception, but a sympathy, under the veil 
 of irony, with right and goodness, which are no less calculated 
 to delight than to attach his readers. 
 
80 OUR RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 Stage for a few nights, in 1840, by command of 
 Her Majesty, I had the pleasure of witnessing 
 his Mercutio. Anderson was the Eomeo, Miss 
 Emmeline Montague, the Juliet, Mrs. C. Jones — 
 a good actress of the Mrs. Glover type, though 
 much her inferior in subtlety of characterization — 
 the Nurse. 
 
 The spontaneousness of Charles Kemble's 
 Mercutio struck his audience at once. The art 
 that conceals art had done its work to perfection. 
 Besides that ease and distinction which set him 
 apart, even from actors conventionally' graceful 
 and spirited, there was in Kemble that fresh- 
 ness which arises when an actor seems to speak 
 from the impulse of the moment, aad when 
 his utterances are apparently as fresh to liim- 
 self as to the listener. Thus in the delivery 
 of the speech describing Queen Mab, the first 
 line — 
 
 " Oh, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you," 
 
 was uttered without a touch of formal rhetoric 
 or 'pose, — by no means as a prelude to a set descrip- 
 tion, but as a simple, whimsical thought springing 
 from mere buoyancy of heart. The thought 
 uttered, you saw that it gave birth to another 
 equally unpremeditated— 
 
 " She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 
 In shape no bigger than an agate stone ; " 
 
 until, pursuing the image, he had described her 
 journey — 
 
 "Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep." 
 
 Then came another sudden burst of fancy, born 
 of the first, gaining fresh strength and impetus 
 in its course, till the speaker abandoned himself 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 81 
 
 to the brilliant and thronging illustrations which, 
 amidst all their rapidity and fire, never lost the 
 simple and spontaneous grace of nature in which 
 they took rise. Mercutio's overflow of life, with 
 its keen, restless enjoyment, was embodied with 
 infectious spirit. There was no gall. If he was 
 betrayed into a duel of words with Tybalt, it 
 was even more by the love of excitement than 
 by enmity; if he was betrayed into the indul- 
 gence of ridicule, it was the spirit of mirthful 
 humour that overcame him. I have seen Mer- 
 cutios derisively cruel in their banter of the 
 Nurse. With Charles Kemble it was the spoit 
 of the encounter that drew him on. He assumed 
 a grave, though somewhat exaggerated, courtesy 
 towards the " ancient lady," as if to mask his 
 ridicule from her, while enhancing it towards 
 his comrades. It was only as the jest wore to 
 its close that his enjoyment overmastered him, 
 and showed him as a " saucy merchant " to the 
 offended domestic. It was less malice than the 
 same keen love of excitement that prompted 
 him to quarrel. Even in his last encounter 
 with Tybalt, the crowning provocation was the 
 imagined wound that his friend's honour had 
 received by his " dishonourable submission." It 
 was, again, this full-blooded impulse that angered 
 him with the elaborate and tutored fencing and 
 affected airs of Tybalt — " a villain that fights by 
 the book of arithmetic." 
 
 No description can well convey the force and 
 the varied significance which the comedian gave 
 to the scene in which Mercutio is slain. How 
 startling was the former's change of tone after 
 he deemed Borneo disgraced by his forbearance 
 with Tybalt! No more the reckless light-hearted 
 
 G 
 
82 OUR EECBNT ACTOBS. 
 
 aptness for the stimulant of quarrel, but the 
 stern, swift scorn, the lightning-like retaliation of 
 one whose heart has been pierced, whose person 
 and cause have been humiliated in his friend. 
 Scarcely has Tybalt parried the furious thrust, 
 when Eomeo's intervention gives him his chance, 
 and Mercutio has his mortal wound. " I am 
 hurt," he exclaims, at first scarcely realizing 
 his disaster ; then, feeling its deadly effect, " A 
 plague o' both the houses ! — I am sped : " — with 
 a sudden self-upbraiding, as if he asked why he 
 had let senseless feuds come between him and 
 the exulting joy of life. And yet, soon after 
 this, with a quaint, comic touch of expression, 
 that said, the jade. Fate, will play men such 
 tricks, " Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch ; marry, 
 'tis enough ! " How fine was it, next, to note 
 the ionJwmie, the old love of jest struggliag 
 with, and for a moment subduing, the pains of 
 death, in the answer to Eomeo's encouragement 
 — " No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide 
 as a church door ; but it is enough. . . Ask 
 for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave 
 man." 
 
 Here, having achieved this quip, there was a 
 bright, though quickly fading smile. He was 
 still the Mercutio of old — the gay, rash, loyal, 
 boon-companion. It was a smile to call up tears, 
 it conjured up so much of youth and the merry 
 past, while it was well-contrasted and kept 
 within reality by^ the brief techiness, still not 
 unmixed with humour, that succeeded — " ^Vhat ! 
 a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to 
 death ! " — and by the reproof to Eomeo for his 
 fatal coming between — a reproof nobly and pathe- 
 tically redeemed by the loving courtesy with 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. 83 
 
 which he held out his hand to him, a moment 
 after, in token of full forgiveness — a point which 
 was, I believe, original with Charles Kemble, and 
 which has since become an acting tradition of 
 the character. Then there came a deep, wistful 
 expression into his face, reminding you of Eomeo's 
 strange avowal to the Nurse — ;T am not sure 
 that it is spoken on the stage — that he was " one 
 whom God had made himself to mar " — and that 
 there were higher possibilities in the Mercutio 
 of this brief, bright, tragic story, than had ever 
 come to light ; but it is too late, said the look ; 
 let us wind up with a jest, though it be a grim 
 one — " A plague o' both your houses ! " 
 
 Such was the impression I have retained of 
 this noble performance, though, as in the case 
 of Hamlet, it is not easy to say how far the 
 subsequent effects of private or public readings 
 and of conversation may have entered into and 
 matured my iirst acquaintance with it. My 
 general estimate of it, however, was the same 
 from the beginning. 
 
 Hamlet and Mercutio were the only characters 
 in which I saw Mr. Charles Kemble on the stage. 
 I afterwards heard him read, at Willis's Eooms, 
 part of a series of plays, which included several 
 of his chief Shaksperian impersonations. These 
 were " Hamlet," " King John," " As You Like 
 It," "King Henry IV.," Part I., "Juhus Cajsar," 
 " The Merchant of Venice," " Macbeth," " Eomeo 
 and Juliet," and " King Eichard III." 
 
 In this list, though it included my favourite, 
 "Hamlet," no play had more attraction for me 
 than "King John," which contained Faulconbridge 
 — one of Kemble's most celebrated characters. 
 He had evidently modelled his conception of the 
 
84 OUR EECBNT ACTORS. 
 
 part upon the fact that Faulconbridge was the 
 son of Eichard the " Lion-hearted." As this actor 
 portrayed him, he might have well stood for 
 Eichard himself, with the addition, perhaps, of a 
 dashing carelessness and license springing from 
 the consciousness that his illegitimacy had at 
 once given him an illustrious father, and yet left 
 him free from all bonds of kindred, save those he 
 imposed upon himself. The intrepidity, the love 
 of danger and froKe, the occasional penetration 
 and sagacity of Eichard, and his martial bearing 
 (with, besides, the untaught grace and freedom 
 of a barbarian chief), were all embodied in this 
 Faulconbridge, who had an air of unbounded 
 enjoyment of life, which reflected King Eichard's 
 love of adventure even in excess. 
 
 It is hard to convey an impression, to those 
 who have not seen him, of his delivery of the 
 dialogue — hard to express the wide difference 
 between his Faulconbridge and the renderings 
 of other actors, who have delivered the text 
 with spirit and just appreciation, and yet fallen 
 so far short of Charles Kemble as to put com- 
 parison out of the question. The secret of his 
 superiority lay, perhaps, in the fulness of life 
 which seemed to radiate from him — to make 
 war a gay pastime, diplomacy a play of wit, 
 and to clothe worldliness itself with a glow of 
 bright, genial satire. Thus the celebrated speech 
 on "commodity," the raillery of Austria, and 
 the sagacious counsel to England and France to 
 unite against the defiant city of Anglers, were 
 given with zest and ardour that were resistlessly 
 contagious. This impersonation, in a word, 
 seemed to blend the spirit of Mercutio with 
 those of the warrior and the statesman. His 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 85 
 
 Constance had the great merit of harmonizing 
 the invectives of the afflicted mother with the 
 dignity of her high station. Except in the 
 hands of a fine artist, Constance is apt to 
 become either too sentimental or too shrewish. 
 His King John abounded in minute and skilful 
 touches, the great scene with Hubert exhibiting 
 the advances of the tempter with the nicest 
 gradations; but he did not bring home to me, 
 as Macready did, the descent of the Plantagenet 
 into the assassin. This, like most of his readings, 
 was distinguished by a stateliness of expression 
 peculiar to the Kembles, which I have also 
 seen exhibited in the powerful and intellectual 
 performances of his daughter, Mrs. Fanny Kemble. 
 The series of readings attracted audiences which 
 included much that was most refined and intel- 
 lectual in the London of that day. On the 
 night of " King John," the simultaneous rising 
 of the company greeted the entrance of a per- 
 sonage equally loved and revered, Adelaide, the 
 Queen Dowager. 
 
 In 1848, many years after witnessing Charles 
 Kemble's Hamlet at the Haymarket, I had 
 the pleasure of knowing him personally. He 
 would occasionally gratify me and my family, 
 and perhaps a chosen friend or two, by reading 
 scenes from his principal characters at my own 
 fireside. His selections were sometimes grave 
 or tragic. He read, or rather, recited, various 
 scenes°of " Shylock " and of " Pdchard the Third," 
 not only with the nice and finished detail and 
 varied delivery of which he was always master, 
 but with abundance of fire, the lack of which 
 had at times been urged against the male 
 Kembles. The first solUoquy of Eichard, when 
 
86 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Duke of Gloucester, toucliing the defects of Ms 
 person, he declaimed with a bitterness of irony 
 which brought them into the strongest relief as 
 motives of character. In this opening soliloquy, 
 he urged, Shakspere meant to give the key-note 
 of Eichard's nature, and to make his deformity, 
 acting upon a sensitive spirit, the source of his 
 misanthropy and remorselessness. He showed, 
 too, remarkable physical energy, though it must, 
 of course, be granted that a degree of power 
 very telling in a drawing-room might be far 
 less so on the stage. 
 
 This remark is called for because it has 
 been alleged that his voice was unequal to the 
 demand of passion. As to the possession of 
 mental qualifications for tragedy, these social 
 readings or recitals furnished ample proof. They 
 were the more startling because, with the 
 exception of his Hamlet, Charles Kemble's 
 fame rested upon his successes in legitimate 
 comedy. 
 
 In his tragic recitations the dignity of the 
 Kembles fully asserted itself His style in 
 passion was uniformly lofty. There was variety, 
 indeed — a nice discrimination of emotional changes 
 relieving each other ; but it was a variety con- 
 fined within the limits of what may be called 
 heroic delivery, seldom or never a marked transi- 
 ■> tion from it to colloquial realism. The manner, 
 maintained at the height of the feeling, made no 
 '•' such appeals to the many as did Macready and, 
 „ according to report, Edmund Kean, by those 
 V familiar touches which, at times, set before an 
 audience the individual rather than the typical 
 man. I am not praising Charles Kemble for this 
 habitual loftiness in tragedy. There are times 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 87 
 
 when abrupt changes, failing, confused utterance — 
 touches of realistic infirmity, in a word — convey 
 passion even by their partial inadequacy to 
 express it. It may, however, be said that the 
 heroic school somewhat atones for what it misses 
 by its charm of elevation, while its disciples are 
 generally free from those extravagant contrasts "^ 
 between the ideal and the familiar wMch is the ^ 
 besetting weakness of realists. To " raise a "^ 
 mortal to the skies " has never, in modern times, -^ 
 been so popular an attempt in art as to " draw -^ 
 an angel down ; " but the poet has justly implied 
 that almost equal praise is due to each kind of 
 effort. 
 
 As to comedy, his rendering of such scenes as 
 those between Orlando and Eosalind, and Bene- 
 dick and Beatrice, mingled so happily refinement 
 and delicacy with mirth and spirit, that the 
 mental palate delighted in the selectness of the 
 treat. It was the grani vin of comedy, while in 
 sally and repartee there was the nicest precision 
 and point, which yet seemed spontaneous, and 
 a vein of light but ceremonious courtesy in the 
 strife which suggested the grace of accomplished 
 fencers as well as the glitter of the foils. 
 
 In society Mr. Charles Kemble was a model 
 of the gentleman of the old school. His bow, 
 though it might now be called formal, was stately 
 and impressive. His dignity of manner and his 
 tall figure, somewhat massive in his later years, 
 gave him eminently that quality which is called 
 " presence," and wlaich we somehow connect more 
 closely with a bygone period than with our own. 
 It seemed a wrong to Mr. Charles Kemble's person 
 that he did not, off the stage, wear knee-breeches, 
 silk stockings, and diamond buckles, and that he 
 
88 OUK RECENT AOTOES. 
 
 had survived the time of powdered hair. His 
 conversation -was generally grave, but he delighted 
 to hear or relate a good anecdote or story, and, 
 on such occasions, displayed the hearty enjoyment 
 of humour which had done so much for him as 
 a comedian. As an instance, I give the follow- 
 ing anecdote which he related one day after 
 dinner, touching his brother John. 
 
 John Kemble, he said, was generally supposed 
 to be a grave and rather austere man, but he 
 had, in fact, real appreciation of fun. A favourite 
 brother-actor had one day been dining with him, 
 and talk of old times had wrought John to 
 such a pitch of hospitality that he was moved 
 to produce a bottle of rare port, which he had 
 so much valued that he could seldom bear to 
 diminish his stock by drinking it. He did this 
 port — which had, of course, a particular seal — the 
 honour of going in quest of it himself In due 
 time he emerged from the cellar into the dining- 
 room, with a bottle of the precious liquid, bearing, 
 apparently, the identifying seal. The wine did 
 not, of course, undergo the profanation of decant- 
 ing, but the two glasses were solemnly filled 
 from the black bottle. The contents being sipped, 
 there was, of course, that brief, decorous silence 
 which the criticism of a noble vintage demanded. 
 The guest at length observed that it was truly 
 a remarkable wine, and had a flavour all its own. 
 The host assented, but fancied, at the same time, 
 it didn't quite tally with the port in question, 
 and, though by the seal it must have been the 
 same, had not the smoothness he expected. The 
 guest civilly answered that it had a great deal of 
 life and fine colour, and, holding his glass to the 
 light, speculated as to whether its peculiar sweet- 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 89 
 
 ness' came from its extreme age. This conjecture 
 John Kemble, whose palate, perhaps, lacked its 
 usual fineness of discrimination, did not feel called 
 upon to discuss ; but he owned the " sweetness " 
 was surprising, and that he greatly missed the 
 " smoothness." Then a suspicion — fast deexjen- 
 ing — dawned on him that there might have been 
 a mistake. He at length admitted that he could 
 hardly have brought up the port he went in 
 search of His guest, however, who was rapidly 
 improving his acquaintance with it, maintained 
 that it was capital stuff. The cautious tragedian, 
 jealous for the honour of his port, confessed that 
 the drink before them was not bad, but declared 
 that it was not the wine he had promised ; then 
 more boldly asserted that, in his opinion, it was 
 not wine at all. A portion of dark pulp, perhaps, 
 floating with the beverage into his glass, had 
 helped him to recollect that his cellar had 
 lately received the addition of some few bottles 
 of a liqueur. "Why, it's Cheery Brandy!" he 
 exclaimed. This point Charles Kemble made 
 with all the force of a climax in comedy. It 
 was afterwards discovered that the seals of the 
 port and those of the liqueur were identical in 
 colour — a circumstance which had led to the 
 mistake. 
 
 John Kemble's companion, on this occasion, 
 was an actor who had held an important position 
 in the theatres both of Drury Lane and Covent 
 Garden. At the former theatre, indeed, he had 
 more than once been the substitute for Edmund 
 Kean, when that actor was unable or unwilling 
 to appear; and he had, in particular, so satis- 
 factorily acquitted himself in the part of Othello, 
 that those in power (Drury Lane was then, I 
 
90 OUK EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 think, under control of the Committee) deter- 
 mined to give him prominence, and thus convey 
 a hint to Kean that they were less dependent 
 upon his genius than he supposed. 
 
 The belief entertained of the substitute's 
 adequacy was, however, warmly combated by 
 two friends of the authorities, who contended 
 that the actor's success as Othello was purely 
 exceptional, and due to his close study of Kean's 
 effects. They eventually offered, by way of 
 testing the actor's mental capacity, to write a 
 prologue for him to study, which, though a mere 
 tissue of nonsense, should impose upon him by 
 mere grandiosity of style. The challenge was 
 accepted, the prologue written and confided to 
 the actor, who was delighted with it and eager 
 to deliver it. I do not give the name of this 
 performer, because I have formed a much higher 
 estimate of him than that of his two satirists. 
 The anecdote was told me, as absolutely true, by 
 Mr. W. J. Fox, who also furnished me with a 
 copy of the prologue in question. It runs 
 thus : — 
 
 " When Grecian splendour, unadorned by art, 
 Confirmed tlie Theban Oracle — in part ; 
 When Genius ■walked digestive o'er the scene, 
 In meagre mystery of unletter'd mien ; 
 When man first saw, with an inverted eye, 
 Tlie tearful breath of purple panoply, — 
 'Twas then tlie Muse, with adamantine grace, 
 Eeplied, prophetic, from her Pythian base, 
 And Roscius bent his Macedonian knee 
 Before the squadrons of Melpomene. 
 
 " But mighty Shakspere, whose salacious fire 
 Waved tiigh his banner o'er the marble choir, 
 Spurned the base trammels of despotic Jove, 
 And taaght the stern Persepolis to love. 
 In fancy cradled, like some Northern light, 
 That westward gilds an oriental night, 
 
OUR KECENT ACTORS. 91 
 
 Tearing with ruthless hands the saored root 
 Of " man's first disobedience and the fruit " — 
 So waked our bard that histrionic lore 
 Which Siddons suckled, but which Garrick bore. 
 
 " ' Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind ' 
 Through freedom's mists beholds — what's left behind, 
 Whose ebon limbs those gory bonds entwine — 
 The heavy, hempen, equinoctial line — 
 Mutely exclaims and, supplicating, bends ; — 
 ' The lovely young Lavinia once had friends.' 
 So let our autlior, wliose enamelled hopes. 
 Exfoliate to-night such classic tropes, 
 Through this, his tragedy, those laurels share 
 Which Diake and Wiekliff both were proud to wear, 
 And take his cliaplet loud from British hands, 
 As Cato died and Trajan's column stands." 
 
 " I have been assured," said Mr. Fox, " tliat 
 the actor in question was delighted with the 
 prologue, and much resented its being withdrawn 
 before the production of a new play." 
 
 At the period of my acquaintanceship with 
 Mr. Charles Kemble, the deafness from which 
 he had for some time suffered was become con- 
 siderable. It had the effect — very frequent in 
 such cases — of deceiving him occasionally into 
 the belief that he was speaking in a confidential 
 whisper, when he was really speaking at the top 
 of his voice. This misconception of its range 
 led at times to results which would have been 
 amusing but for the fear that the knowledge of 
 them might have pained him. One night, when 
 he "was reading to us, Mrs. Crowe, authoress of 
 "The Night-side of Nature," and of various 
 poems and dramas, chanced to be one of our 
 guests. She showed great delight in his readings, 
 and made herself in every way amiable to him, 
 exerting herself also to meet his infirmity, by 
 speaking in a loud tone on whatever subjects 
 
92 OUE EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 interested him. In the course of the evening he 
 withdrew me to a little distance from the circle, 
 and imparted in stentorian tones an impression 
 which he meant to convey in the most private 
 manner. "What an agreeable and highly in- 
 telligent woman," he shouted, " Mrs. Crowe 
 is ! " It is almost needless to say that the 
 recipient of this unaddressed tribute was delighted 
 with it, and that, in common with the rest of us, 
 she showed her sense of it only by a smile, 
 quickly suppressed, and unobserved by the 
 eulogist. 
 
 The following is an instance, on a wider scale, 
 of the amusing perplexities which sometimes 
 arose from Mr. Kemble's deafness, and his in- 
 accurate perception of the tones he made use of. 
 He had been much impressed by the abilities 
 of a young actress, who afterwards rose to the 
 highest rank in her profession. On being intro- 
 duced to her his interest increased, and the 
 Nestor of dramatic art gave to the neophyte all 
 the advantages which his brilliant talents- and 
 long experience could supply. One of the leaders 
 of society was, through the influence of a friend, 
 won over to the cause of the young performer. 
 
 With a view of promoting her interests. Lady 
 
 gave a soiren dramatique to guests who were, in 
 most cases, representatives of what was then most 
 celebrated or select in the life of the metropolis. 
 The entertainment of the evening was the reading 
 of " Hamlet " by the actress in question. Charles 
 Kemble was present, and it chanced that I sat 
 by his side. His protegee — she might almost 
 have been called his pupil — had on the previous 
 evening been reading in public at one of the chief 
 provincial towns. She had, consequently, arrived 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 93 
 
 a good deal fatigued in London only a few hours 
 
 before the time fixed for Lady 's soiree. Not 
 
 unnaturally, at the opening of the reading, her 
 voice was rather feeble, and her manner and 
 expression lacked something of their habitual 
 animation. Charles Kemble was quick to per- 
 ceive that the lady was wanting in her usual 
 force, and to express his regret and dissatisfaction 
 in accents which were heard by all present, 
 though he fully believed that he was speaking 
 either in unnoticed asides, or imparting his 
 concern to me in the most guarded undertones. 
 " Can you hear her ? " was his first high-pitched 
 inquiry ; " I caln hardly catch a word ! " As the 
 reading proceeded, his mortification and the 
 utterance of it became still more emphatic. 
 " Oh, she's so inanimate ; she's not doing herself 
 justice ! She's injuring herseK. I can't tell you 
 how sorry I am ; they won't have the faintest 
 idea of her ! " It was in vain that I strove to 
 arrest him, first by silence, then by glances and 
 gestures. These latter, intended for warnings, 
 he took simply as signs of acquiescence in his 
 complaints, and as provocations to their repeti- 
 tion. At length, an intimate friend of our 
 entertainer was dispatched to me, with an urgent 
 request that I would apprise Mr. Kemble of the 
 effect he was producing. To do this, without 
 exciting general attention, was, on account of 
 his deafness, a difficult task. To induce him to 
 leave the room, and then to explain matters to 
 him as delicately as the case would permit, 
 seemed the only practicable course. In order 
 to effect this, I made signs of being overcome 
 by heat, even to faintness, which soon attracted 
 his attention. The ktud old gentleman soon 
 
94 OVR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 proposed that we should leave the room, and 
 offered his arm to support me. Having quitted 
 the drawing-room, I threw myself on a chair 
 in the refreshment-room which adjoined, and 
 counterfeited a gradual recovery from brief in- 
 disposition. Tlris point being gained, it seemed 
 well to turn the conversation upon the reading 
 of the night, and to observe, in answer to my 
 companion's renewed lamentations upon that 
 subject, that the reader, besides suffering from 
 fatigue, might perhaps have felt a little dis- 
 couraged by the expression of his disappointment. 
 " But how could she guess that ? " he asked. I 
 pointed out that her ear was accustomed to his 
 voice, and ihat it was just possible some of his 
 unfavourable comments might have reached her. 
 " What ! " he exclaimed in consternation ; " you 
 don't mean that what I said could have been 
 heard by any one but you ? " I permitted myself 
 to remark that his interest in the matter had led 
 him now and then to raise his voice, and I 
 repeated the conjecture that his brief criticisms 
 might once or twice have reached the subject of 
 them. " Oh, I trust not, I trust not ! " he cried 
 earnestly. " I will take care to make no further 
 observation.'' I now did my best to lessen his 
 apprehensions, and he returned to the drawing- 
 room, I fully hope, with the impression that his 
 kind concern for me had been his only motive 
 for leaving it. The heroine of the night was by 
 this time in full possession of her genius, and, 
 at the close of "Hamlet," deserved and received 
 the warm plaudits and congratulations of the 
 veteran actor, as well as those of the general 
 company. 
 
 Charles Kemble had nice and delicate taste in 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 95 
 
 matters of the palate as well as of the intellect. 
 The little dinners at which I assisted, though 
 composed of few dishes, generally included 
 something recherche. I once caused him severe 
 mortification by eating a morsel of preserved 
 ginger at the beginning of dessert. " I told you," 
 he said in a grieved and reproachful tone, " that 
 I was about to give you one of the finest 
 clarets, in my opinion, ever tasted, and now 
 you have utterly disqualified yourself for appre- 
 ciating it." 
 
 On one of these pleasant evenings he over- 
 flowed with dramatic suggestions, and gave me 
 the outline of an effective plot, laid in former days, 
 in wliich a young Swiss should marry a girl of 
 foreign extraction, and then, quitting his own 
 country for hers, enter the army of his new home 
 (probably Austria), in which his services should 
 be engaged against his native Switzerland, and 
 thus — an actual, but at first unintentional, traitor 
 — fall into the hands of his father, who should be 
 commandant of a military post on the part of the 
 Swiss. The complications and struggles which 
 this position' involved smacked of the " high 
 Eoman fashion" of Cato and Lucius Junius 
 Brutus, and of that toga-heroism which the 
 comedian had probably admired in his stately 
 brother. Charles Kemble himself, I believe, in a 
 play, original or adapted, called " The Point of 
 Honour," had delineated a dramatic conflict on 
 lines similar to, though not identical with, those 
 of the plot just described. He also dwelt with 
 great fervour upon the opportunities which the 
 reign of our second Henry offered to a dramatist, 
 with its combination of striking figures— the 
 sagacious Henry himself: his insubordinate sons. 
 
96 OUB EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 Henry, Eichard, and Geoffrey; Jolin, who dis- 
 graced his descent ; the scheming and bold 
 Queen Eleanor, and the hapless Eosamond. 
 On no poetic jBeld, however — except, perhaps, 
 that of the forsaken epic — could such thronging 
 personages and such great events have been 
 adequately displayed. The late Mr. David 
 Eoberts, E.A., who was one of our small group 
 on the night referred to, zealousy recommended 
 the story of Montezuma for tragic treatment. 
 It was pleasant to note the glow in the actor's 
 eyes as Mr. Eoberts referred to the stirring inci- 
 dents connected with Montezuma's life, and to 
 the grand scenic effects which a tale of ancient 
 _ Mexico would yield. These had, no doubt, 
 appealed strongly to the architectural painter 
 as a noble frame for dramatic action. 
 
 One of my latest glimpses of Charles Kemble 
 was due to meeting him one summer day in Great 
 Portland Street, with an open volume, which he 
 had been perusing, in his hand. On my arresting 
 him, he showed me the volume with a gentle 
 smile, and with some remark on its suitability to 
 his years. It was a well-known devotional work 
 — I think, the " Imitation of Christ." 
 
 Charles Kemble's retirement happened so soon 
 after I became a playgoer, that, as already stated, 
 I have had to found my impressions of him on 
 two performances on the stage — those of Hamlet 
 and Mercutio — on a few public and private 
 readings, and on conversations. It is not, how- 
 ever, too much to affirm that, in his later day, he 
 stood alone as a legitimate comedian. " ^^liere 
 now," writes Leigh Hunt, on Kemble's retirement, 
 " shall we seek the high Eoman fashion of look 
 and gesture and attitude ? Where shall old 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. , 97 
 
 chivalry retain her living image, and high 
 thoughts, 'seated in a heart of courtesy,' have 
 adequate expression ? "Where shall the indignant 
 honesty of a young patriot spirit 'show fiery 
 off' ? Whither shall we look for gentlemanly 
 mirth, for gallant ease, for delicate raillery, 
 and gay, glittering enterprise ? " In a notice 
 written long before, Hunt praises him as being, 
 perhaps, in his " complaining softness," the best 
 of theatrical lovers, were it not for his occasional 
 languor. As to this latter defect, though I saw 
 no trace of it in his Hamlet or Mercutio, it has 
 so often been attributed to him that it probably 
 existed. 
 
 That he was relatively unsuccessful in the v 
 display of broad and intense passion, is to be . 
 accounted for not only by want of physique, but - 
 by the minuteness of his style. I have heard him 
 give so many reasons for particular renderings of 
 certain passages in Shakspere, that his notes on the 
 text, if printed, would probably have surpassed it 
 in bulk. Tragedy, as a rule, requires the strong ^ 
 and swift impulse of leading ideas, and the almost ^ 
 unconscious absorption of all minor suggestions . 
 into a massive whole. Yet this minuteness was - 
 scarcely out of plaice in the meditative Hamlet, 
 his presentment of whom, though far from being 
 the most po^^^erful, was the most touching and 
 picturesque that I have seen. He had great 
 sensibility, if not overwhelming passion. In one 
 of her letters Mrs. Siddons * avowed her pre- 
 ference for his Jaffier to that of John Kemble, 
 speaking of the latter as being too " cold and 
 formal" in this part, and "without sensibilities 
 sufficient acute for a lover," though admitting his 
 
 * Jolin Payne Collier's " An Old Man's Diary." 
 
 H 
 
98 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 STiperiority in characters of a sterner kind. From 
 > private as well as public report, it would seem 
 ^ that Charles Kemble's Mark Antony was one of 
 ' his very finest parts, and that his address to 
 the citizens over Csesar's body, from its first dis- 
 claimer of complaint against Brutus, his following 
 insinuation of Caesar's virtues, and his apparent 
 reluctance to read the will which made the 
 Eomans his heirs, down to the grand final effect 
 — when public indignation had been aroused — 
 of unveiling Csesar's body, and appealing to the 
 crowd for retribution, was an absolute triumph 
 of skilful, varied, and passionate elocution. As 
 •f an instance of the actor's sense of consistency, 
 i that fine critic, John Oxenford, observed that 
 ' when the house came to the redeeming points of 
 '• Charles Surface, it had been fully prepared for 
 them by previous indications of the spendthrift's 
 ' better nature. This sense of consistency was, 
 ' doubtless, habitual with Kemble. An actor of 
 rare and varied accomplishment is, perhaps, the 
 phrase which best sums up his claim to admira- 
 tion — the accomplishment which springs from 
 quick and sympathetic intelligence, and from a 
 natural sense of grace and harmony applied and 
 developed by unremitting labour. This celebrated 
 comedian had reached lus seventy-ninth year at 
 the time of his death, which took place in 
 November, 1854. 
 
OUE RECENT AOTOES. 99 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ME. WILLIAM FAREEN, THE ELDEE. 
 
 DifiBculty of replacing him in various characters — His son heir 
 to some of his traditions — Lord Of?leby and Sir Peter 
 Teazle belong to a relatively new era in comedy — The 
 man of fashion from the reign of Charles the Second to 
 that of George the Third — Account of barren's Sir Peter 
 Teazle — A vein of indulgent cynicism characteristic both 
 of his Sir Peter and his Lord Ogleby — Account of the 
 latter — His Malvolio— His Sir Anthony Absolute— "Want 
 of robustness and heartiness — A painter of well-bred people, 
 •with their vanities, and other foibles, and redeeming 
 qualities — Excellent in the pathos attaching to mental 
 or bodily infirmities — His best known characters but few 
 — His Bertrand in " The Minister and the Mercer " — His 
 Michael Perrin in "Secret Service," in 1834— The latter 
 piece revived at Covent Garden in 1840— His Michael 
 Perrin described -His performance at the Olympic, under 
 Madame Vestris, in 1837 and 1838 — His acting in "Sons 
 and Systems," and in "The Court of Old Fritz"- His Old 
 Parr at the Haymarket, in 1843 — His chief excellence in 
 characters of mental or bodily infirmity — A touch of the 
 morbid necessary to his pathos — His persuasion that he 
 could act tragedy — His attempt at Shylock — His fine dis- 
 crimination as to expression in acting — Instance of this — 
 His personal appearance — His death. 
 
 Amongst the great actors of the century who 
 are gone from us, there is, perhaps, none whom 
 it would be so difficult to replace as the late 
 William Farren. We have, indeed, in the son 
 who bears his name, a sterling actor, who inherits 
 some of his traditions and accomplishments ; but 
 
100 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 the individualities of the two men are distinct, 
 and the plain, frank manners of our own day 
 have, very naturally, had their effect on the style 
 of the present artist. In the mean time, tragic 
 actors, melodramatic actors, eccentric comedians, 
 have disappeared, and found successors apparently 
 to the public content ; but the old beau, of George 
 the Third's reign, with the formal characters in 
 some points akin to him of previous times, took, in 
 many respects, a long leave of the stage when the 
 Lord Ogleby, the Sir Peter Teazle, and the Malvolio 
 of the elder Farren last retired at the wing. 
 
 The two former characters belonged to a new 
 era in comedy. Each differs widely from the 
 previous type, which had its original in the man 
 of fashion under Charles the Second. If, on the 
 whole, a mere libertine, that personage brought to 
 his love of pleasure a dashing spirit of gallantry 
 and adventure, for which he was, in some measure, 
 indebted to the changes of his fortunes. With 
 one who had known, while yet young, defeat, 
 exile, and sudden restoration to a splendid court, 
 life vfas at fever heat, and the stage showed it. 
 In a generation or two the romance connected 
 with the Eestoration had greatly subsided. In- 
 trigue, become deliberate, had lost its impulsive- 
 ness. The beau, young or old, of that period 
 was still a wit, but no longer a knight-errant. 
 After the death of Queen Anne ensued a period 
 of utter grossness in morals. Vice in high 
 places, shorn even of wit, looked ugly enough 
 to produce a reaction towards high-breeding 
 and decorum. At the accession of good King 
 George the Third this reaction had abeady set 
 in, and, in spite of some excesses in this reign, 
 was strengthened by the influence of the Court. 
 
OUU EEOENT AOTOES. 101 
 
 The fine gentleman of the time was known by the 
 disciplined restraint of his emotions and passions, 
 the plausibility of his language, his formal cour- 
 tesy, and his minute observance of the punctilios 
 of etiquette. Gallantry, politeness, and good taste 
 revived, though they had lost their old spon- 
 taneity. They were, however, de rigueur, as much 
 the external attributes of a gentleman as his 
 lace ruffles or his chapeau-bras. The code of 
 honour still existed in all its stringency ; but, on 
 the whole, owing to the suppression of natural 
 impulse, existence itself was become a sort of 
 carefully acted comedy. Love stopped short at 
 sentiment and taste, displeasure showed itself by 
 chilling politeness, or, now and then, perhaps, 
 with the old, by a pardonable lapse into testiness. 
 Such was the generation of which two elderly 
 specimens (one furnished by the senior Colman 
 and Garrick, the other by Sheridan) will always 
 be associated with the late William Farren, no 
 less than with his distinguished predecessor, 
 Thomas King. Graphic as is the Sir Peter 
 Teazle of the dramatist, but half of his indivi- 
 duality can be gathered from the written page. 
 In Farren, the unmistakable air of refinement, the 
 dry, quiet enunciation, which added more force to 
 epigram than the most studied declamation could 
 have given ; in the scenes with Lady Teazle, the 
 sense of provocation, generally tempered by the 
 courtesy of a well-bred man to a woman, even 
 though his wife ; the uxorious admiration, oddly 
 mingled with annoyance, which her brilliant 
 sallies called forth,— these were felicities of ex- 
 pression which, though suggested by the dramatist, 
 implied on the actor's part a power of translating 
 mental ideas into the forms of actual life that was 
 
102 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 scarcely short of invention. Among other subtle- 
 ties of Farren's performance was the excitement 
 which now and then contrasted with his habitual 
 efforts at self-restraint — a display produced neither 
 by Lady Teazle's recklessness nor by her seeming 
 heartlessness, but by the raillery which sometimes, 
 made him look absurd. Thus, his anger was far 
 less provoked by her suggestion that it would be 
 obliging in him to make her an early widow, than 
 by her quotation from that " forward, impertinent 
 gipsy," Cousin Sophy, who had described him as 
 "a stiff, peevish old bachelor." A man of Sir 
 Peter's type can forgive wrong far more easily 
 than ridicule. Farren's touches of extreme irri- 
 tability when exposed to the latter, set this trait 
 in admirable relief 
 
 N'o qualified comedian fails in so capital a 
 situation as that of the "screen scene." For 
 Farren it was, of course, a triumph. One special 
 felicity of his acting deserves, however, to be 
 singled out. I refer to his manner when Joseph 
 Surface, to shield himself from a still graver 
 discovery, pretends to Sir Peter that he has an 
 intrigue with "a little milliner," who is then 
 behind the screen. I have seen Sir Peters — " and 
 heard others praise them" — who greeted this 
 confession with such explosions of boisterous 
 laughter, that it was clear they had seen nothing 
 in it but drollery. Farren, while fully bringing 
 out what was ludicrous in the position, never 
 forgot the trust Sir Peter had so long placed in 
 the man of moral sentiments. The comedian's 
 air of bewilderment and incredulity, his tickled 
 laugh, at first half smothered out of respect to 
 Joseph, and, breaking out in aside indulgences, 
 were as true to the character as they were takino- 
 
OUK KECENT AOTOKS. 103 
 
 in effect. Wlien Joseph quits the room, and Sir 
 Peter disclosed the secret to Charles, the actor's 
 mirth was naturally undisguised. Yet it was 
 never coarse ; it never lost refinement or finesse ; 
 it was the mirth of a somewhat worn man of 
 society, who finds one of his few piquant 
 diversions in contrasting the set proprieties of 
 outward decorum with the frailties which they 
 affect to disguise. A vein of tolerant cynicism, 
 indeed, is the natural product of an age in which 
 the extreme emphasis thrown upon forms will 
 suggest the discrepancy between them and the 
 qualities they should express. Such cynics, 
 however, have their moods of generosity, since, 
 unless they had an ideal standard of good to 
 which they sometimes conformed, they would less 
 perceive the contrast between forms and realities. 
 Thus, both Sir Peter and Lord Ogleby are at the 
 same time satirical and good-natured. Parren's 
 excellence in the latter character has been 
 attested by Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt, no less 
 than by more recent critics. And what a test 
 character it is for a comedian ! What a mixture 
 of shrewdness and infatuated self-complacency, 
 of causticity and courtesy, of puerile affectation 
 and manly judgment, of selfishness and chivalry ! 
 To say that Parren realized and harmonized all 
 those aspects, is in effect to say that he was one 
 of the greatest of comedians. He possessed to 
 perfection the nuances of expression, apprehended 
 with the finest delicacy the effect of semitones. 
 To indicate to the audience his delight at his 
 valet's flattery, while he laughs at it, or rebukes 
 it with an air of sincerity; to tolerate the 
 tediousness and bad taste of the vulgar Sterling 
 with a genuine urbanity, which, nevertheless, a 
 
104 OTJE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 lad in tlie gallery knew to be the disguise of 
 a martyr ; to touch the acme of senile absurdity 
 in his wooing of Fanny, and yet to afford through 
 it a glimpse of the knightly feeling which, in his 
 bitter disappointment, afterwards makes him her 
 friend and protector, — these were the achieve- 
 ments of Farren in one of the most elaborate 
 characters in modern comedy. His very appear- 
 ance in the part was a dramatic effect. In the 
 studied and cautious walk, even in the listless 
 fingers, there was a gleam of the decayed beau, 
 as there was in the character itself a gleam of 
 decayed chivalry. 
 
 Not only in showing the marks of social 
 position did .this actor excel. He could repre- 
 sent admirably the dispositions and manners of 
 those who covet and ape it; he could assume 
 equally the graceful nonchalance of my lord, and 
 the importance and minute ceremoniousness of 
 the major-domo. In personations of the latter 
 kind, as in Malvolio, he would exhibit a de- 
 lightfully humorous imitation of some rare and 
 subtle quality in true breeding. In many 
 Malvolios the leading feature is contemptuous 
 superiority; in Mr. Farren's it was lofty con- 
 descension. He despised the coarse world around 
 him, but he was for the most part affably tolerant 
 to it, as a man who knew the graces, and " prac- 
 tised behaviour to his own shadow in the sun," 
 could afford to be. In characters like Sir 
 Anthony Absolute, in the downright, choleric, 
 but good-hearted stage-fathers of the old school, 
 he was excellent in their impatience, fault- 
 finding, and petulance, but wanted heartiness in 
 their better qualities. There was not a touch 
 of " John BuUism " ■ in his nature. To paint 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 105 
 
 with subtle insight, and with just, delicate, sure"' 
 touches, the vanity, the self-love, the inconsis-' 
 tency, and now and then the redeeming good- '■ 
 feeling of worldly, well-bred people, and occa- • 
 sionally the credulous faith of simple, guileless • 
 people, were his special functions. Yet the - 
 cynicism from which this capacity springs has i^ 
 its pathetic side also, and Farren could move one i 
 to tears in such characters as the deceived "^ 
 Michael Perrin in " Secret Service," or a Grand- <. 
 father Whitehead, where life itself is touched -* 
 with the irony of fate, and second childishness " 
 counterfeits the first in the thoughtless glee, 
 the doting fondness, and the hysterical passion 
 of age. 
 
 The most widely-known characters of this 
 comedian are, considering the length of his 
 career, comparatively few. The cause of this 
 was probably their frequent repetition. But 
 the parts in which he deserved to be remembered 
 would make a long catalogue. In 1834 he made 
 a great impression at Drury Lane, in a piece 
 from Scribe, entitled "The Minister and the 
 Mercer," in which he personated Bertrand, a 
 scheming diplomatist. He was still more suc- 
 cessful in Michael Perrin, in "Secret Service," 
 a piece also adapted from the French, and 
 produced in the same year. Michael Perria 
 became one of his stock parts. It was revived 
 at Covent Garden, under the management of 
 Madame Vestris, in 1840. The simple, guileless 
 bearing of Farren, as the ci-devant cure (who is 
 betrayed, through his affections, to promote un- 
 consciously a political intrigue), his grief when 
 he learns that his beloved niece has concealed 
 her poverty and sold one of her trinkets for his 
 
106 OUK EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 support, his artless joy when he finds himself 
 able to earn money, and his indignant protest^ 
 all the more powerful because contrasted with the 
 cure's sweetness of nature — when he learns that 
 he has been used as a spy, were admirable features 
 in a performance as consistent as it was im- 
 pressive. In 1837-8, at the Olympic, where he 
 succeeded Liston, Farren's acting in " The Country 
 Squire " and " Naval Engagements " is spoken of 
 with special praise. To his forcible but delicate 
 power in dramatic portraiture in " Sons and 
 Systems" and "The Court of Old Fritz," both 
 produced at the same time, in 1838, I can 
 personally testify. In the former piece he played 
 the part of a father whose theory of training is 
 that of stern and unrelaxing discipline. To this 
 character is opposed that of his sister, whose rule 
 is one of unbounded indulgence. The sister, a 
 widow, was, by the way, capitally represented 
 by Mrs. Orger. The systems of both brother and 
 sister prove equal failures, the sons making their 
 escape, and marrying in defiance of their parents. 
 Upon these latter the effects of filial rebellion 
 are different. The severe doctrinaire father 
 becomes benevolent and forgiving, the indulgent 
 mother irascible, and for a time relentless. As 
 the sharp disciplinarian, with unlimited faith in 
 his system, Farren's vigour and self-complacency 
 were admirably assumed, yet with such a touch 
 of exaggeration, and such an endeavour to justify 
 his system, that one felt it to be rather the result 
 of a mistaken theory than of a harsh disposition. 
 Accordingly, when, after the frustration of his 
 scheme, he changes under the wiles of his 
 daughter-in-law, disguised as a lad, into a for- 
 giving old man, and inhales with ill-concealed 
 
OUR EEOENT AOTOES. 107 
 
 delight the incense offered by the adroit youngster, 
 the transformation seemed as natural as possible, 
 while the phase of pleased senility was as life-like 
 as had been that of the paternal martinet. One 
 capital effect was Farren's amusement at the 
 change in his sister, while decrying her new 
 severity with a self-satisfaction that drolly 
 condemned his former self Mrs. Nisbett, it 
 may be observed, acted the part of the disguised 
 bride, who wins over the old man. All was 
 prettily and cleverly done, but the part was 
 scarcely one of importance. In the " Court of 
 Old Fritz," Frederick the Great and Voltaire are 
 the chief personages. Both were represented by 
 Farren, who in these delineations gave one more 
 proof that he was an actor who could play not 
 only a range of parts suited to his own person- 
 ality, but that he could throw himself with 
 success into widely different individualities. No 
 characters could have been more unlike than 
 that of the brusque soldier-king and that of the 
 easy and imperturbable wit and cynic; but in 
 which of these he was the more life-like, the 
 objective actor left as a moot-point to the public. 
 His Old Parr, too, produced at the Haymarket in 
 1843, well deserves a word, if only for the felicity 
 with which two phases of old age seem to have 
 been discriminated. Already a centenarian when 
 he first appears. Parr still retains activity and 
 cheerfulness. He is a little garrulous — the only 
 mental sign of his very advanced age. When the 
 curtain again rises, nearly thirty years have been 
 added to his existence. He has yielded to the 
 infirmities which a term of life prolonged beyond 
 all modern precedent has entailed. His frame is 
 bent, his gait tottering, his memory ruined, the 
 
108 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 aims of life all but gone, but with them the 
 cares also. His second childhood, with its inno- 
 cent diversions, its wandering chat with a lad in 
 his service, its momentary anxious inspection 
 of flowers and attempts to name them, its begin- 
 ning once more to spell out life by the alphabet 
 — no personation could have been more subtle 
 or more directly pathetic by the very absence 
 of pain. 
 ' I It is curious that Farren's excellence seems 
 to have been confined to parts in which infirmity, 
 i-' mental or bodily, was a special trait. In the 
 elderly and uxorious husbalid, the dilapidated 
 gallant ; in the unruffled nonchalance of a sceptic 
 like Voltaire, or the irritable authoritativeness 
 ^ of Frederick the Great ; in parts where old age 
 /lapsed into the extreme sensibility or the 
 V oblivious placidity of second childhood, as in 
 /Grandfather Whitehead or Old Parr, or in the 
 ^credulous unworldliaess of Michael Perrin — he 
 was truly admirable ; but it is indicative of his 
 mental bias that he could not play, or, at all 
 /events, did not choose to play, the hearty, genial 
 ^/Enghshman, full of spirit and feeling, and free 
 yfrom peculiarities. He could be pathetic — most 
 pathetic; but there mingled a touch of the 
 morbid in the pathos that suited him. As 
 already hinted, he seemed to the writer a 
 ^theatrical cynic, who, in portraying the wander- 
 ^ings of men from a mental ideal and a just 
 (Equipoise of character, sometimes infused into 
 ^his characters moving or redeeming touches of 
 , the ideal itself which had been violated, or of 
 . the healthy judgment which had been impaired. 
 Farren's belief that he could act legitimate 
 tragedy, his appearance and failure in Shylock, 
 
OUK RECENT ACTORS. 109 
 
 for instance, is well known. In poetical passion '-" 
 he could scarcely have succeeded, for the sceptical'' 
 penetration of the satirist is at war with the^ 
 enthusiasm that tragedy requires. Yet he could 
 be deeply moved by the enthusiasm of other 
 actors. I recall, once at rehearsal, an instance 
 of his fine perception of the shades of expression. 
 An actress, justly celebrated, had thrown great 
 intensity into the utterance of wounded and 
 indignant love. "What would you say," asked 
 Farren, " to taking that speech just a key lower ? " 
 He then recited the passage after his own con- 
 ception, and all present felt that it had gained 
 in dignity and pathos by the repressed emotion 
 of his delivery. 
 
 With his taU form, his full lip, and quiet, 
 unspeculative eye, there was little in Mr. Farren's 
 appearance off the stage to denote his genius 
 as a comedian, except in those rare moments 
 when, interested in talk, it was suggested by his 
 then mobile and placed face. His death took 1/ 
 place in September, 1861, at the age of seventy-^ 
 five. 
 
110 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. CHARLES KEAN. 
 
 The latter part of Charles Kean's career the most notable, 
 though his reappearaiioe in Hamlet, at Drury Lane, in 
 1838, a great success — Account of this performance — 
 Charles Kean less successful in other Shaksperian cha- 
 racters — liuitatiuua of his i^tuer adopted in Iad8 — After- 
 wards abandoned — Effect of this change — His Macbeth 
 in 1849— His Romeo— His Richard the Third— Tliis 
 character ranked next to his Hamlet in Shaksperian 
 plays — Reasons for his superiority in Hamlet — Per- 
 sonal acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean — 
 Favourable first impressions of tliem — Their generous 
 appreciation of dramatic work — They appear, in 1849, at 
 the Haymarket, in the author's tragedy entitled " Strath- 
 more " — Mr. Kean's performance in this play — Some 
 difference of view between him and the author — Mr. and 
 Mrs. Charles Kean at rehearsal — Her solicitude for him 
 — Their appearance in " The Wife's Secret " — Mr. George 
 Lovell — Journey of the writer and a friend with Charles 
 Kean to Brighton — A delicate discussion on the way with 
 respect to Phelps and Sadler's Wells — Peace secured — 
 An amicable dinner — Change in Kean's style of acting 
 soon after entering with Keeley on management of the 
 Princess's Theatre, in 1850 — Blore original hitherto in 
 comedy than tragedy — His Master Ford — His Benedick — 
 His Mephistopheles in "Faust and Marguerite" — The 
 change in his acting foreshadowed in his comedy — First 
 exemplified in serious drama in " The Templar," by Mr. 
 Selous — His acting in " Anne Blake " — He appears in 
 " Louis tlie Eleventh," in the " Corsican Brothers," and 
 in "Pauline" — He reads to the author various scenes 
 from " Louis the Eleventh," some time before its pro- 
 duction — Great impression produced — A triumph con- 
 fidently predicted— Account of his performance— Rises to 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. Ill 
 
 genius in this and other character parts— Account of his 
 Louis the Eleventh— This his greatest achievement — Mr. 
 Henry Irving in the same part— Charles Kean's visit to 
 Plessy-les-Tours— His Wolsey— His Richard the Second- 
 Spectacular and arcliseological revivals— Danger of excess 
 in these directions — Charles Kean in private — His for- 
 givable egoism— His bonhomie, humour, love of fun, and 
 winning avowal of his weaknesses—His sly raillery of Mrs. 
 Kean on her susceptibility — Decline of taste for legitimacy 
 — A melancholy pledge— Quarrel with a dramatic author— 
 The alleged price of listening to a story — Ex parte state- 
 ment as to the way commissions were obtained from him — 
 Mrs. Kean's sympathy with him— Hereditary genius— His 
 father's fame, in his opinion, detrimental to him — His 
 strong desire to find his opinions adopted and his side in 
 a quarrel espoused— This illustrated by bis difference with 
 Douglas Jerrold— Causes of this — Censure of Mrs. Kean's 
 acting by a critic — Charles Kean's strange method of 
 resenting this, and annoyance with the author for dis- 
 approving of his retaliation— His avowed objection to 
 impartial criticism. The model of a theatrical notice — 
 Hears a detailed eulogy of his wife's acting in a particular 
 play— Demands the speaker's opinion at equal length on 
 his own acting — Resents the notion that a man ought not 
 to be praised to his face — His expedient for meeting this 
 objection — A last interview with him — A glimpse of him, 
 during illness, at Scarborough — His death — Brief summary 
 of his claims, professional and private. 
 
 Much that is most noticeable in the career of 
 Mr. Charles Kean is exclusively connected with 
 its later period. Had he died or retired before 
 his lesseeship of the Princess's Theatre, in 1850, 
 what was most individual in his acting, and 
 what most distinguished him from the number 
 of fairly intelligent and well-trained tragedians 
 who have their day, and then glide out of 
 recollection, would have hardly been surmised. 
 However, his reappearance in " Hamlet," in 
 January, 1838, at Drury Lane, (after a long 
 course of preparation in the provinces, was, it 
 must be owned, a great success — the first he 
 obtained in London. I well remember the excite- 
 
112 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 ment with which I read the eulogies of the 
 
 Press generally upon this performance, and the 
 
 fervour with which my youthful judgment 
 
 endorsed them, when, one night shortly after 
 
 his reappearance, I struggled into the pit. ISTor 
 
 was this impression deadened when,, after a 
 
 lapse of years, I saw the same actor in the 
 
 same part. He had at that time enriched it 
 
 with many new details. It is true that his 
 
 I' Hamlet was not remarkable for subtlety, nor 
 
 /even definiteness of conception. Whether he 
 
 . inclined to Goethe's view of the character, or 
 
 to any other in particular, could not very easily 
 
 ■ have been determined. Psychology in poetic 
 -characters was not yet, at all events, one of 
 
 Mr. Kean's strong points. But the grace and 
 
 earnestness of his style, the care bestowed upon 
 
 , the delivery of favourite passages, and the skill, 
 
 not always free from artifice, with which certain 
 
 ■ effects had been prepared, delighted many who. 
 At they could secure a varied and brUliant 
 -display of emotion and stage effect, were not 
 
 nicely critical as to depth of conception and 
 harmonies of characterization. Charles Kean's 
 acting in his first interview with the Ghost 
 was greatly admired. Awe and filial devotion 
 could hardly have been more effectively mani- 
 fested. In addressing the Ghost his tones were 
 generally hushed and tremulous. It seemed as 
 if he had felt that mortal sounds were too 
 gross in so dread and sacred a presence. Yet 
 there were moments when the majesty of the 
 apparition seemed to raise and inspire him. 
 Nothing could have been finer than his tone 
 of growing confidence and exaltation when he 
 rejoined to the expostulations of his companions — 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 113 
 
 " Why, what should be the fear? 
 I do not set my life at a pin's fee ; 
 And for my soul — what should it do to that, 
 Being a thing immortal as itself 1 " 
 
 Performers of Hamlet are always applauded ^ 
 when they break away from Horatio and Mar- - 
 cellus to follow the Ghost. There is, of course, 
 great opportunity for a telling struggle, and for '' 
 a striking contrast between the tones Hamlet -^ 
 employs to his companions and those addressed -^ 
 to the Ghost. Charles Kean seldom missed a 
 point where stage effect and true feeling are thus - 
 capable of being united. I have never seen an, 
 actor who more fully conveyed the feeling that- 
 his fate " cried out " to him with tragic vehe- 
 mence to obey his father's summons ; I have 
 never seen a Hamlet whose grief for his father 
 was so pervading, so inwardly gnawing. It 
 surpassed that of either Macready or Charles 
 Kemble, imparting a more sombre character than 
 theirs to the Prince's irony, and a darker colour 
 of present suffering to his indignation. It is not 
 at all meant ' that his indignation was 'softened 
 by his grief — on the contrary, his self-reproach, 
 and his invective against the King in the 
 soliloquy beginning, " Oh, what a rogue and 
 peasant slave am I ! " were amongst his most 
 passionate and successful explosions — but that, 
 whereas, with the two other performers named, 
 grief seemed at this point to have been almost 
 absorbed in the desire for revenge, in Charles 
 Kean's case anguish for his father's "taking off" 
 was as vividly portrayed as if the event had 
 been of yesterday. He was very successful in 
 the scene with Ophelia, the poignancy of his 
 invective being accompanied by an expression 
 of such forlorn hopelessness, that his love revealed 
 
114 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 itself, not only in spite of, but by means of his 
 bitterness. His burst after the play-scene, as 
 he threw himself on Horatio's neck, "Why, let 
 the stricken deer go weep ! " etc., had a rare 
 mingling of wild energy and hysterical grief. 
 In the closet-scene, his denunciation of the King 
 and of his mother's perfidy was less forcible than 
 Macready's, probably because, in his expostu- 
 lations with the Queen, the sense that he was 
 still her son was, under the circumstances, almost 
 unduly apparent. His most effective, but some- 
 ,'what tricky point, after killing Polonius, of 
 ^ sliding up to the Queen, while, with eyes riveted 
 '■ on her, and a hissing voice, he exclaimed, " Is 
 lit the King?" roused frantic applause. These 
 were the salient points of his representation, of 
 which the general characteristics were fervour, 
 grace of bearing, and a pervadiag melancholy 
 which approached the sentimental. 
 
 Apart from his Hamlet, many effects of which 
 had, from an executive point of view, been most 
 thoroughly studied, I was seldom greatly im- 
 pressed by this actor's performances in Shak- 
 sperian tragedy. On the occasion of his reappear- 
 ance at Drury Lane, he had introduced various 
 imitations of his father, on dismissing which his 
 acting, spite of occasional bursts of vigour, for 
 which he reserved himself, grew comparatively 
 . tame. His Macbeth, when I saw it — in 1849, 
 and subsequently — was painstaking, but, on the 
 • whole, feeble and colourless. He had freed him- 
 self in a great degree from the point-makings 
 > which at one time beset him ; but, in rejecting 
 theatricality, he had not, except in Hamlet, and 
 perhaps in Eichard the Third, attained tragic 
 power. It may be that in " Macbeth " he had hus- 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 115 
 
 banded his resources for the great demands of the 
 last act, where he showed much physical energy, 
 carrying the audience away, if I may say so, by 
 the " pluck " of his acting. It was exciting ; but, 
 for want of skill to distinguish nicely the rela- 
 tion of Macbeth's conflicting qualities with each 
 other, his rage, his defiance, his recklessness, and 
 his disgust with life were so many changing 
 phases to which you had no sufficient key. You 
 had less the thought of a combat with Fate than 
 of a bull-fight, and of the brave and frantic 
 efforts of the tortured animal in the arena. It 
 should be said, however, that he gave with much 
 pathos and taste the soliloquy — 
 
 " I have lived long enough : my way of life 
 Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; " 
 
 and that after the Queen's death, with its melan- 
 choly iteration — 
 
 " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day." 
 
 His Othello, after he discarded the ultra-vehe- • 
 mence of his early style, was on the same level > 
 as his Macbeth, its painstaking inadequacy being 
 somewhat redeemed by the actor's great know- 
 ledge of stage business and effect, though it 
 presented no sustained display of energy and 
 abandon, as did his final act in the latter tragedy. 
 I once saw him act Eomeo. He had not the 
 romance or the chivalrous tenderness of the - 
 lover, but he showed great energy in the scene 
 of passionate grief with the friar, and in the 
 scene where Eomeo kills Tybalt. His Shylock 
 was conventional, but fairly effective. In Eichard > 
 the Third he was more than conventionally good. . 
 The sardonic, crafty, unscrupulous, and deter- ^ 
 
116 OUE KECENT ACTORS. 
 
 mined Eichard lay well within the range of his 
 .conception, while his rendering of it — animated, 
 and full of variety and contrast— did not greatly 
 betray his old sin of staginess. If his Eichard, 
 more than any of his Shaksperian performances, 
 was founded on his father's, it was yet so earnest 
 and living, one could not but feel that its adopted 
 points had been thoroughly assimilated. His 
 Eichard the Third stood next to his Hamlet as 
 a success in tragedy. His superiority to the 
 end, in the latter, may be accounted for partly 
 by the romance of the character itself, with its 
 sensitiveness to impression, its contrasts of aspi- 
 ration and despondency, tenderness and satire; 
 by those quick transitions of the eventful story 
 which perpetually stimulate the actor ; and, 
 lastly, by the fact that his first great success in 
 London had been won in the part, and that he 
 associated with its poetry something of the glow 
 and ardour which attached to liis comparatively 
 early and gratifying triumph. 
 
 I made the acquaintance of himself and his 
 wife in 1849. Mr. Webster had placed in their 
 hands a tragic play wliich I had written for the 
 Haymarket Tlieatre. I called upon them soon 
 afterward, and can remember few first interviews 
 whicli gave me greater pleasure. Their simple 
 cordiality and a certain playfulness of allusion 
 on the husband's part to matters in which we 
 were both interested, while the smiling counte- 
 nance of his wife spoke her enjoyment of his 
 humour, made me at home witli them at once. 
 Nor could anything be more frank and generous 
 than their estimate of the play, in which they 
 were soon to appear. I may here say that, at 
 a later period, when Charles Kean became lessee 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 117 
 
 of a theatre, he and his -wife never failed to 
 express the same open and lively pleasure with 
 dramatic work that engaged their sympathies ; 
 they never resorted to the poor stratagem of 
 depreciating what they intended to buy. 
 
 In the summer of 1849 Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 Kean appeared in my tragedy of " Strathmore," 
 which, it may be well to say, has no likeness of 
 character or plot to a novel which has since been 
 widely known under the same title. Mrs. Charles 
 Kean's performance in this play shall be treated 
 of later. Having studied every detail carefully, 
 in conjunction with his wife, Mr. Kean won the 
 warm approval of the press and the public, no 
 less than that of the author. He threw into 
 the chief situations an intensity of feeling which 
 riveted the house. The writer of the piece 
 differed with him, however, in one point, and 
 that an important one. The phantoms of old 
 memories which beset the excited imagination of 
 Strathmore — after, in pursuance of duty, he has 
 doomed the father of his betrothed to death — were 
 meant in the end to be dispelled by his sense of 
 right and moral necessity. Charles Kean, on the 
 contrary, abandoned himself to unresisted anguish, 
 which culminated at the fall of the curtain. He 
 suggested Orestes pursued by the Furies. " Don't 
 you think that fine?" said Mrs. Kean, apart, 
 to the writer, when her husband went through 
 the scene in question at rehearsal. " Very 
 
 intense and effective," was the answer ; " but " 
 
 " Oh, do tell him so ! " she interrupted ; " it will 
 give him new spirit." "'But it's not what I 
 meant," was the reply ; upon which the author's 
 view was explained to her, and subsequently to 
 the actor. "I will try to express your view," 
 
118 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 said he ; " but I am disappointed that you do not 
 like mine. What should I make of the situation 
 if I acted it thus ? " He then gave the writer's 
 conception, but with such tameness and want 
 of sympathy that the audience would, without 
 question, have been far less moved by it than by 
 the previous rendering. The author held to his 
 conviction that, if his notion had been sympa- 
 thetically carried out, still higher effectiveness 
 would have been secured, as well as truth of idea. 
 " Oh," cried Mrs. Kean, in an earnest whisper, 
 " don't thwart him ! I like his way better than 
 yours ; but, if it were wrong, his heart is in it, 
 and he will make far more of it than of your way, 
 which does not seize him." So far as the effect of 
 his acting in this particular scene was concerned, 
 there was truth in this reasoning. A sort of 
 compromise between the two views was effected 
 in theory ; but, in practice, Mr. Kean was always 
 mastered by his original bias, which is hardly to 
 be wondered at, as he gained great applause by 
 following it. I give this little relation as an 
 instance of the watchful care to gratify her 
 husband which Mrs. Kean never failed to evince. 
 
 Amongst other plays produced by the Keans 
 at the Haymarket was the popular and effectively 
 constructed " Wife's Secret," by the late Mr. 
 George Lovell, who united to his dramatic gift 
 such a faculty for business that the Phoenix Life 
 Assurance Company, of which he was secretary, 
 testified their sense of his great services by pre- 
 senting him with his portrait. Mr. Lovell was 
 the author of " The Provost of Bruges," a tragedy 
 which Macready persuaded Bunn to produce at 
 Drury Lane. Though the piece was abruptly 
 withdrawn, it was greatly and deservedly ap- 
 
OUR RECENT ACTOKS. 119 
 
 plauded, its situations being finely conceived, its 
 dialogue showing tliroughout vigour and fancy, 
 and rising towards the close to great power. 
 This play was reproduced by Phelps at Sadler's 
 "Wells. It is one that, with a reviving taste for 
 the poetic drama, will probably reassert its claims. 
 "The Wife's Secret," without being a play of 
 so high a class, afforded niiany and great oppor- 
 tunities to the performers who represented its 
 hero and heroine. Of these Mr. and Mrs. Kean 
 availed themselves with such marked effect, that 
 the piece remained for years amongst the most 
 attractive in their repertoire. During what may 
 be called the period of Charles Kean's first 
 manner, there were few dramas in which he 
 displayed more fervour or achieved greater 
 success. 
 
 Shortly before he became co-lessee of the 
 Princess's Theatre with the late Mr. Eobert 
 Keeley, I and Mr. A., a friend of mine, met him 
 by chance at London Bridge Station. We were 
 all going to Brighton, and it was at once arranged 
 that we should travel in the same carriage. That 
 which we entered was occupied only by our- 
 selves, and our privacy was uninvaded during 
 the journey. This circumstance, which seemed 
 conducive, by freedom from restraint, to social 
 enjoyment, proved in the result a little unfortu- 
 nate. My friend A. was almost as impulsive and 
 open-hearted as Kean himself, and, in his willing- 
 ness to communicate, did not sufficiently weigh 
 the possible effect of his communications. When 
 I had introduced him to Kean, who already knew 
 him by repute, the talk naturally turned upon 
 theatrical matters, and, in particular, upon the 
 prospects of the legitimate drama, which Kean's 
 
120 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 near enterprise at the Princess's was intended to 
 promote. Then ensued the following dialogue, 
 which, though reported after many years, is sub- 
 stantially accurate throughout : — 
 
 " There are, and always have been, difficulties 
 in the way of highest art," observed Kean. 
 
 " Yes ; the fit audience is too often the few," 
 answered A. ; " and the difficulty is still greater 
 where the few are divided." 
 
 Kean. "Excuse me, I don't quite understand. 
 How divided ? " 
 
 A. " I mean this ; whenever the legitimate 
 drama has prospered, there has always been one 
 actor whose supremacy was undoubted, as in 
 your father's case, and, in a less degree, in 
 Macready's." 
 
 I began to think we were on delicate ground. 
 Macready's supremacy was hardly a point to be 
 insisted on to a contemporary tragedian. A.'s 
 simple-mindedness and interest in his subject 
 had evidently hid this truth from him. 
 
 A. (continuing). " However, Macready's engage- 
 ments in London are likely now to be compara- 
 tively short ; but you must prepare yourself, 
 Mr. Kean, for a hard battle with the supporters 
 of Phelps." 
 
 Kean (after a pause). "But Mr. Phelps is 
 the manager of a suburban theatre ; our interests 
 are not likely to clash." 
 
 A. " Oh, pardon me, he draws to Sadler's 
 Wells intellectual playgoers from all quarters — 
 the West End, the Clubs, and the Inns of Court 
 — and they swear by him." 
 
 Myself (trying to effect a diversion). " You told 
 me, Kean, that you play to-morrow at Brighton. 
 I suppose Mrs. Kean is there ? " 
 
OUE EEOENT ACTORS. 121 
 
 Kean. " Not yet ; she will follow me." 
 
 A. {charged with interest and information). 
 "And I am sorry to say, Mr. Kean, that the 
 admirers of Phelps, at Sadler's Wells, are not 
 always generous partisans. Sometimes they 
 assail you openly in the theatre, by shouting out 
 comparisons when Phelps makes a point." 
 
 Kean (* little restlessly). " Of course I can't 
 expect to he a favourite with Mr. Phelps's 
 audience." 
 
 A. " Perhaps not ; but, still, partisanship should 
 have limits." 
 
 Myself (interrupting). " Favourite actors, of 
 course, have partisans." 
 
 A. (addressing Kean). " Why, in the last panto- 
 mime at the Wells (I am sure without Phelps's 
 authority), made up for a complete carica- 
 ture of you, and did all in his power to make you 
 ridiculous. Of course, the many roared ; but I 
 condemned the whole exhibition. I tell you this 
 only to show that Phelps has a powerful following 
 in the public, as well as in the press, and that you 
 will doubtless have something of a battle to fight 
 with him." 
 
 A faint laugh from Kean, a muttered aside, and 
 at last this dangerous subject was dismissed. It 
 spoke well for his amiability that, on our arrival 
 at Brighton, he insisted on our dining with 
 him. He probably discerned the truth that 
 A.'s disclosure had flowed from an open and 
 guileless nature, quite incapable of giving 
 intentional offence. Fortunately, the dinner 
 passed away in cheerful talk and anecdote, with 
 no recurrence to the disquieting topic of the 
 morning. 
 
 From the time that Charles Kean entered, in 
 
122 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 1850, upon the management of the Princess's 
 Theatre with Mr. Eobert Keeley (who soon after 
 retired), the signs of a broad change in his acting, 
 even in serious pieces, became apparent. In 
 comedy, though he played it comparatively 
 seldom, he showed from the first more original 
 insight than in high tragedy. There was much 
 individuality in both his Master Ford and his 
 Benedick. The former, indeed, was an excellent 
 personation. It abounded in those quaint and 
 realistic touches which he afterwards threw into 
 his serious acting, of which it was to some extent 
 an adumbration ; for his second manner in serious 
 drama may be described as a quaint blending of 
 the minute and homely traits and humours with 
 a tragic force, which they kept within the limits 
 of a somewhat grim reality. The mingled agita- 
 tion, perplexity, and humour of the seen 3 where 
 Master Ford, for his own ends, eggs on Falstaif 
 to tempt his wife, and of subsequent scenes ; the 
 restless aside glances and gestures by which the 
 actor revealed his jealous pangs ; his raje at the 
 intending seducer, and his shame at himself for 
 practising a mean stratagem — were so expressed 
 as to prove at once the reality of his passion, 
 and provoke irrepressible mirth at the oddity of 
 its manifestations. 
 
 The same minuteness and force of silent ex- 
 pression proved very telling in his Benedick, 
 which showed a frank, genial enjoyment of jest 
 and repartee that at once commended it to his 
 audience. No part did he invest with so much 
 eccentric humour, or with so many complex 
 effects, as his Mephistopheles in " Faust and Mar- 
 guerite " — a piece taken from a French version of 
 Goethe's great poem, which ingeniously contrived 
 
OUK RECENT ACTORS. 123 
 
 to eliminate the poetry. Kean produced " Faust 
 and Marguerite" at the Princess's, in 1854. The 
 tawdry nature of the piece in general was redeemed 
 by his acting of Mephistopheles. The contempt 
 of this personage for human failings and incon- 
 sistencies was blended with a sense of so much 
 amusement at them, and the satirical comments 
 were uttered with so much dry indulgence, that 
 the sinister Mephistopheles became far more 
 diverting than many characters in set comedy. 
 Now and then, however, there was a revelation of 
 something terrible in the grotesque individuality 
 — like the gleam which suddenly come#into the 
 eye of a playful cat at the sight of a bird — which 
 made the entire effect unique. 
 
 It has already been said that his peculiar 
 qualities in comedy foreshadowed much of the 
 coming change in his serious acting. Perhaps 
 the first example of it was his acting in a 
 piece entitled " The Templar," written by Mr. 
 Selous, and produced early under the Kean 
 and Keeley management of the, Princess's. In 
 this piece Kean had to personate a wronged 
 man yearning for revenge, but compelled for 
 awhile to hide his purpose. The "reserved 
 strength " — to use a later phrase — which he 
 displayed, the occasional dry colloquialism, and 
 the tendency to express passion rather by 
 significant low tones than by exertions of the 
 voice, were remarked upon by several as a 
 contrast to his former high, declamatory style 
 in tragedy. The delivery of one line — 
 
 " The tiger crouches ere he takes his leap," 
 
 produced a great effect by its quiet, ominous con- 
 centration. At the end of the play, a keen, if 
 
124 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 somewhat fastidious critic — the late Mr. G. H. 
 Lewes, no warm admirer of the actor — observed 
 to me, " Charles Kean is changing his style into 
 a natural one. He will convert me yet." 
 
 A still more conclusive proof of his new predi- 
 lection in art was supplied by his acting in the 
 present writer's play of " Anne Blake," produced 
 at the Princess's, in 1852. Though a drama of 
 contemporary life, the incidents and characters 
 were such as demanded the exhibition of strong 
 emotion; and Mr. Kean admirably reconciled 
 this necessity with the tone and habits of modern 
 society. "^Once or twice, indeed, he seemed to 
 sacrifice the abandon, of which he was capable, to 
 a desire to conform to the usages of the drawing- 
 room; though, as the events were more exciting 
 and romantic than those which generally trans- 
 pire in drawing-rooms, more demonstrative feeling 
 than is generally found there would have been 
 allowable, even granting the doctrine — which may 
 undoubtedly be pushed too far — that the habite 
 of a period have a despotic right to govern its 
 emotions. Still, it must be said that the per- 
 formance in question was one of great excellence, 
 of admirable keeping, and of a manly, if, at times, 
 repressed force, which made its way to the heart, 
 through all tlie impediments of everyday customs 
 and attire. 
 
 But it was not until the production of Mr. 
 Boucicault's version of "Louis the Eleventh" 
 at the Princess's, in 1855, that Charles Kean 
 set the seal upon what I have called his second 
 manner in tragedy. This manner, as has been 
 said, combined the quaintest realism of detail, 
 sometimes embracing the minutest peculiarities 
 of a character, with all the heat of passion. 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 125 
 
 Other indications of this might have been 
 found in the deadly coolness of his revenge 
 and hatred in " The Corsican Brothers," and 
 in the hero of the drama called " Pauline." 
 In the former it would have been difficult to 
 surpass the quiet and menacing intensity of 
 his acting, or, in the latter, the effect of passion 
 at white heat, strangely enhanced somehow by 
 the realism of modern costume and the non- 
 chalance of modern manners. In the duel- 
 scene of this piece he held the house breathless. 
 By the conditions of the duel, the result must 
 be fatal to one of the combatants. Thus the 
 silent, concentrated quietude with which Charles 
 Kean prepared for the encounter ; the way in 
 which he combined the merciless determination 
 of fixed hatred with the refined ease and placidity 
 of the man of society ; the air of calm acquies- 
 cence in his fate when he removed from his lips 
 the blood-stained handkerchief which betrayed his 
 mortal wound, — all these details, if less ambitious 
 than those of his acting in tragedy proper, far 
 surpassed them generally in dramatic suggestive- 
 ness, incisive power, and freedom from' artifice. 
 
 Some time before the production of " Louis the 
 Eleventh," Charles Kean had recited to me, at his 
 house in Torrington Square, several of its most 
 telling scenes, including that memorable passage 
 in which Louis, while arranging a murder with two 
 of his creatures, on hearing the Angelus, devoutly 
 takes off his cap, garnished with leaden images 
 of saints, reverently mutters a prayer, and then 
 returns to the project of the murder in the iden- 
 tical tone of voice he had used when interrupting 
 himself. I well remember my delight at an 
 effort which, in my opinion, promised to eclipse 
 
126 OUR REGENT ACTORS. 
 
 all his previous successes, and I was so far carried 
 away by my admiration as to say this, when, 
 troubled for a moment, he exclaimed, " Yes ; but 
 what of Shakspere ? " Shaksperian characters, 
 it was agreed, did not fall within the range of 
 comparison, after which he showed the heartiest 
 pleasure at my prediction of a signal triumph 
 — a prediction which it is needless to say was 
 thoroughly fulfilled when the tragedy was at 
 length brought out. 
 
 Charles Kean's success in Louis the Eleventh 
 served to prove conclusively that, if he was an 
 average actor in heroic parts, he was an original 
 genius in certain character parts — that is, parts 
 which exhibit various human passions, with a 
 modification of their expression peculiar to the 
 person represented. His appearance, as he first 
 came upon the stage — the askant and furtive 
 look, the figure bent slightly forward, the slow 
 and wary step, the hands closely locked — 
 conveyed at once suspicion and keenness to detect, 
 and foreshadowed a singularly individual repre- 
 sentation. Selfish cunning, unscrupulous and 
 remorseless meanness — meanness even to abject 
 fear — were the leading features of the personation ; 
 yet through these penetrated often the habit of 
 authority, and even, at moments, something that 
 revealed the royal strain of the house of Valois. 
 In the first act, the desperate love of life which 
 prompts Louis to moderate his rage, after the 
 warning of his physician, his brief relapse, and 
 his attempt to bring impetuous passion within 
 such limits of cool malignity as might be safely 
 indulged, were given with such truth to nature, 
 and with so admirable an ease of transition, that 
 deep interest and eager expectation were aroused 
 
QUE EECENT ACTORS. 127 
 
 before the actor had been many minutes on the 
 stage. The scene where the King insinuates to 
 Tristan the murder of Nemours has already been 
 alluded to. , It is enough to add that when, at 
 the ringing of the Angelus, Louis interrupted 
 himself, and, hat in hand, muttered his prayers 
 in a hypocritical parenthesis, and, on the bell 
 ceasing, resumed the suggestion of the murder 
 in the very tones and words with which he had 
 broken off, the wonderful picture of wickedness 
 and dissimulation converted expectation into 
 fulfilment, and convinced the playgoer that his 
 gallery of dramatic characters was about to be 
 enriched by an arresting portrait. So truly was 
 every following scene realized, that it would be 
 mere monotony of praise to dwell upon the sick 
 King's delight with Marthe when she rallied him 
 upon looking so young and hale ; upon his almost 
 paternal kindness, not over-emphatic or over- 
 sweet, to Marie, when he strove to worm from her 
 the name of her lover to destroy him, while his 
 face, when averted from her, revealed his craft 
 and relentlessness ; upon his feigned humility to 
 the Burgundian envoy, till, hearing of his master's 
 defeat and death, he gives, with fierce exultation, 
 the order for his arrest. . The scene, however, in 
 which Nemours threatens Louis with instant 
 death, introduced effects so new to the stage in 
 a tragic actor, that it must have special record. 
 First, there was the effort to meet the terrible 
 emergency with submission, conciliation, denial 
 of guilt, and prayers for mercy. Then, as resource 
 after resource failed the threatened man, there 
 rose from him, with frightful iteration, a cry like 
 that of some hunted creature in its extremity — 
 not a natural, pleading cry, however abject, but 
 
128 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 the scream that speaks of a horrihle, purely 
 animal recoil from death. The effect was appal- 
 ling. In a poetic or heroic character, however 
 criminal, such horror would have been out of 
 place; but in the base nature of Louis, only 
 idealized later by the actual presence of death, 
 it was in keeping with the Dutch literalness, or 
 rather, the grim Hogarthian significance of the 
 entire study. Eepulsive, but never to be for- 
 gotten, its sudden and terrible fasciuation for 
 the audience was something like that felt by a 
 wayfarer of old, when lamp or torch on the road 
 abruptly disclosed to him the erect gibbet and 
 its hideous burden. In the last scene, the 
 character of Louis, with its fearful realism, was 
 almost redeemed by Charles Kean into poetry, 
 so vividly did he present the solemnity of death. 
 As the King tottered on to the stage — a crowned 
 spectre, swathed in royal robes— his look caught 
 something of awful dignity from his consciousness 
 of doom ; his face bore the seal of mortality. The 
 vain effort to cheat himself into a belief in return- 
 ing vigour, the spasmodic attempts at action, the 
 greedy clutch at the crown that is passing from 
 him, his terror at the announcement of death 
 struggling with his desire for vengeance on 
 Nemours, the final terror which makes- bim forego 
 that vengeance, the sense of vanity in all earthly 
 things, and the piteous cry changing into desperate 
 command for the prayers of those around — all 
 these in their detail had no less of imagination 
 than reality. Few more impressive moments of 
 the stage can be recalled than that in which 
 Louis, believed already dead, rises and thrusts 
 his ghastly face between the Dauphin and Marie, 
 as if to revoke the pardon to Nemours. The 
 
OUK RECENT ACTORS. 129 
 
 frantic yearning for life and power was, indeed, 
 so depicted, that the King's death was a relief 
 from painful but absorbing tension. Awe and 
 pity pervaded the hushed house. After -such 
 agony, even a wretch like Louis could be pitied. 
 The play of " Louis the Eleventh," though strong 
 only in its one central character, gives great 
 scope to a fine actor. Louis at once became 
 the great feature of Charles Kean's repertoire. 
 Those who have seen Mr. Irving in the part may 
 congratulate themselves that it has by no means 
 passed away with the actor who introduced it 
 to England, but retains, spite of some points of 
 difference, its old power and individuality in the 
 hands of its later representative. I may here 
 observe that, some time after his appearance in 
 " Louis the Eleventh," Charles Kean paid a visit 
 to Plessy-les-Tours, marked by its associations 
 with that execrable monarch. In one of the 
 tragedian's letters, I had an interesting account 
 of the visit in question. 
 
 After the performance of Louis, Charles Kean 
 never went back entirely to his old style, even 
 when representing poetic characters. His Wolsey, 
 in " Henry the Eighth," became as individual a 
 churchman in Ms way as is a modern ritualist, 
 while his Eichard the Second abounded in those 
 realistic peculiarities which distinguish men of 
 kindred nature from each other, rather than in 
 those ideal qualities which express the general 
 likeness of men of the same type. But his 
 portraiture had now acquired more than con- 
 ventional accuracy ; it had something of that 
 poetic truth which is the inmost reality. There 
 is no great need, however, to dwell on his 
 spectacular revivals, such as " Sardanapalus," 
 
130 OUK BECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Henry the 
 Eighth," and " Ei chard the Second," in all of 
 which pageantry was not only introduced but 
 obtruded, while in the last work a display 
 of too minute correctness in armorial bearings, 
 weapons, and household vessels, made the Stage 
 an auxiliary to the Museum, and forced it to 
 combine lessons on archaeology with the display 
 of character and passion. Of course, correctness 
 and suggestive beauty of illustration are in them- 
 selves commendable ; but it can surely never be 
 right that accessories should overpower our 
 interest in the actor, who, if he have genius, will 
 often rivet us heart and eye upon himself, so 
 that we forget the accessories. It would be 
 difficult to name the exact point at which 
 spectacle ceases to minister to dramatic effect 
 and begins to impair it. The decision as to this 
 will not be the same with every playgoer, but 
 it will probably be the same with all intelligent 
 audiences, and thus justify or condemn the 
 particular spectacle exhibited. 
 
 No subsequent impersonation of Charles Kean 
 showed power so striking and original as that 
 revealed in his Louis the Eleventh. With the 
 remarks on his great acting in this character, my 
 criticism on the actor, therefore, almost ceases. 
 
 As a man, notwithstanding the pardonable 
 egoism which he took no pains to disguise, 
 Charles Kean had many qualities that ensured 
 not only esteem but attachment. He was irre- 
 proachable in his domestic life, free and open in 
 his manners, and faithful to his engagements. 
 When free from the nervous anxiety and sensi- 
 tiveness which at times troubled him, he showed 
 a honJwmie which was quite charming — quaint 
 
OUE EEOENT ACTOES. 131 
 
 humour, childlike enjoyment of fun, and a 
 guileless frankness in proclaiming his own weak- 
 nesses which utterly disarmed censure. His 
 generally grave expression, and his guttural and 
 rather monotonous voice, were obvious dis- 
 advantages ; but now and then they lent a 
 peculiarly dry effect to his passages of humour, 
 in the course of, or at the end of which a very 
 winning smile would perhaps light up the 
 gravity of his aspect, and reveal his sly enjoy- 
 ment beneath it. This kind of serious humour 
 he indulged habitually in private. Mrs. Kean's 
 quickness of emotion when rehearsing her parts 
 gave frequent openings for his grave sallies. He 
 used to rally the writer by complaining that his 
 wife was more affected by the study of his cha- 
 racters than was good for her spirits. " Marston," 
 he exclaimed at a family dinner one day, when 
 Mrs. Kean was carving, "1 fancy you are for 
 a second slice of mutton. Please address your- 
 self to me, and I will communicate with my wife. 
 A request for mutton from you would probably 
 throw her into tears, and force her to leave the 
 table." This was said with a stolidity of manner 
 that made it doubly waggish, while the gleam in 
 his eye told how much he relished the pleasantry. 
 
 His profits from " The Corsican Brothers " were 
 far greater than those from any other work he 
 had produced. " Ah," said he, with a melancholy 
 which the monetary success of this piece a good 
 deal tempered, " the old legitimate drama is fast 
 dying before these new sensations. Fill your 
 glass, and let two old-fashioned actors drink 
 sympathetically with an old-fashioned dramatist 
 Perhaps we shall be the last of our race." 
 
 On the same occasion — for trifles had some- 
 
132 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 times importance to him — he related with some 
 glee how he had out-manceuvred a certain dra- 
 matic author, who evidently designed to cut him 
 in the street. " No, no/' said he ; " Charles Kean 
 is not a man to be cut; so I bore down upon 
 him, said ' How do you do ? ' and forced a gruff 
 response, without offering my hand." On my 
 asking what offence he could have given this 
 gentleman, he answered, "The offence of telling 
 him, when he entered my dressing-room some 
 nights ago, that I was glad to see him, but that 
 I could not afford to let him tell me a story." 
 "And you were both on the best terms a short 
 time since ! " said Mrs. Kean, regretfully. This 
 phrase, " Tell me a story," seemed to need further 
 ■explanation; so a full statement followed as 
 to the disagreement between Kean and his 
 author. According to this possibly biassed 
 version of the actor-manager (Kean was then 
 lessee of the Princess's), he had been surprised 
 by a demand, on the part of his former friend, 
 for the price of a drama which had recently 
 been rejected. The author maintained that the 
 piece had been written under contract, but this 
 Kean emphatically denied. "Had any terms 
 been discussed ? " I asked. " None whatever," 
 was the reply ; " but it was doubtless understood 
 that if I liked the piece I should give the terms 
 I had previously paid him." " On what, then, 
 does he ground his claim for a contract ? " " Ah ! 
 there it is," exclaimed the sympathetic wife. 
 " Like one or two others, he asked Charles to 
 listen to an anecdote." "Just so," resumed the 
 manager, with a pathetic sense of his hardships. 
 " He walked into my room, and, after the usual 
 greetings, said, ' Kean, shall I tell you a story ? ' 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 133 
 
 I, of course, knew that ' story ' was another 
 term for 'plot of a play.' I answered that my 
 arrangements were made for some time, but, 
 with that explanation, I was always glad to 
 hear any notions of established authors. He 
 told the story. I thought it very taking — you 
 
 know how weU X tells a story. 'You like 
 
 it, then ? ' said he. ' Do you like it well enough 
 to let me set to work upon it ? ' I referred to 
 the difficulty mentioned — the pieces I must bring 
 out previously — but said I should certainly like 
 to see his drama when completed. It was com- 
 pleted — clearly in a hurry. The strong points of 
 the tale had been so weakened by diffuse talk 
 and by a poor underplot, that I could scarcely 
 have believed a dramatic story could have been 
 so spoiled by a practised writer. I declined the 
 piece as politely as I could, and was then met 
 with the demand to pay for it under my contract. 
 
 Of course, by saying I should like X to set 
 
 to work, I simply meant that the idea of the 
 piece was worth pursuing. I had no concep- 
 tion that I was committing myself to take it, 
 
 however it might turn out. X has, at all 
 
 events, taught me this lesson — that it is a very 
 risky thing for a manager to let an author sit 
 opposite to him in his dressing-room and regale 
 him with ' a story.' " I laughed, saying I should 
 take his warning, and henceforth send my stories 
 to him on paper for his acceptance. My impres- 
 sion is that a compromise was afterwards arranged 
 between Kean and the dramatist, and a good 
 understanding in some measure restored. 
 
 The conversation turned one day upon here- 
 ditary genius. "A man may be very proud of 
 his father's fame," he said; "but in some cases 
 
134 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 it's about as damaging a legacy as can be left 
 to him. If it had not been for my father's fame, 
 I should have made my way with the public 
 twice as easily. When I took his view of a 
 character, it was the fashion with shallow people 
 to call me an imitator. On the other hand, 
 when I took a line specially my own, the cry 
 was, 'What a difference between Charles Kean 
 and his father ! ' " " Quite true ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Kean, with her unfailing wifely devotion. At 
 that time, when Charles Kean had not shown 
 the marked originality he afterwards evinced, 
 it did not appear to me that his father's renown 
 had been a serious disadvantage to him. It 
 would have been uncourteous to state this view, 
 so I made some general remark, which I fancied 
 my host received a little dubiously. 'So man 
 more liked an emphatic assent to his opinions. 
 He would even take it a little amiss if you did 
 not espouse his cause vigorously when he chanced 
 to have a quarrel. On the occasion of his 
 difference with Douglas Jerrold, he signified his 
 intention of sending me his version of the case 
 so soon as it should be printed. Perhaps this 
 announcement drew forth no particularly warm 
 response from a man who, having already heard 
 the opposite version, knew that something was 
 to be said on both sides. Subsequently, Mr. 
 Kean stated his grievance — or what he believed 
 to be such — with so much energy, that his com- 
 panion was obliged to remind him that he was 
 on friendly terms with Douglas Jerrold, whom 
 he frequently met, and for whom he had much 
 esteem. This remark was followed by a gloomy 
 silence and a speedy close of the interview, in 
 which " Good mornings " were exchanged some- 
 
OUB RECENT ACTOES. 135 
 
 what briefly. A staunch adherent himself, 
 Charles Kean did not greatly relish impartiality 
 in his friends where his own interests were 
 concerned. 
 
 The coolness between him and Jerrold was 
 owing to some difference respecting the comedy 
 by the latter, entitled " St. Cupid." At an earlier 
 period, however, than that just referred to, Kean 
 had been a good deal mortified by some expres- 
 sion of Jerrold's. A piece of his had been chosen 
 for the royal theatricals at Windsor. Of these 
 Kean was the manager. Jerrold, who desired 
 to be present at the acting of his piece, had 
 asked Kean whether this wish could not be grati- 
 fied. Kean did not see his way to it, as no 
 person could be present at these entertainments 
 without a special invitation or command. " How- 
 ever, Jerrold," said he, " I might possibly take 
 you under my wing, and you might witness the 
 piece from the side of the stage." " Take me 
 under your wing ! " ejaculated Jerrold, who per- 
 haps suspected an assumption of patronage. " I 
 can dispense with seeing the piece; but I can't 
 reconcile myself to seeing it ' under your wing.' " 
 " And why should he not have gone under my 
 wing ? " demanded Kean, in bitter resentment at 
 the implied slight. 
 
 Charles Kean fully appreciated the devoted 
 attachment of his wife, and was almost as sensi- 
 tive as he would have been in his own case to 
 any censure of her acting. On one occasion his 
 displeasure at such censure showed itself in a 
 curious and, probably, unique manner. A certain 
 dramatic critic, who had often written warmly 
 of both Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, in one par- 
 ticular character so far disapproved of the lady 
 
136 OUR EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 that he spoke of her acting as "vulgar." Vul- 
 garity was certainly not a fault with which Mrs. 
 Kean could fairly be taxed in general, and the 
 imputation of it to her, perhaps not unnaturally, 
 called forth her husband's indignation. Calling 
 on him one morning, he related to me the offence, 
 and the somewhat droll retaliation to which he 
 
 had resorted. " I wrote to the critic of the ," 
 
 he said, "and requested the favour of an early 
 interview. He came the morning after I wrote. 
 I asked him if he had written the notice in 
 question, which he at once admitted. I then 
 charged him with having insulted Mrs. Kean by 
 calling her vulgar. After a little demur he said 
 he had a perfect right to call her acting vulgar 
 if he thought it so. ' Wo, no ! ' I cried " — here 
 Kean turned to me with the vehement desire that 
 he sometimes showed to have his opinion endorsed 
 — " no man has a right to call my wife vulgar, 
 either on or off the stage." After a moment he 
 asked my judgment on the matter. To his 
 obvious annoyance, my answer was, that though 
 I by no means agreed with the writer of the 
 notice, yet I thought if he honestly, however mis- 
 takenly, believed that an actress was vulgar, he 
 had a right to say so. He had a right to say 
 that a poet or painter was vulgar ; why not say 
 so of an actress ? " It was false, and it was 
 intended for an insult ! " cried Kean ; " so I simply 
 said to our critic, 'I shall give you a lesson 
 against insulting my wife in future.' I got up, 
 left the room, locked the door from the outside, 
 apprised the servants, directed them not to go 
 near the apartment. After some hours I returned, 
 and gave order for the prisoner's release." I 
 could not resist a laugh in saying that his conduct 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 137 
 
 had been quite illegal, and that he had made 
 himself liable to an action for assault and deten- 
 tion. " Oh, it was capital fun ! " said Kean, 
 giving way to more impulsive laughter than he 
 often indulged in. " Depend upon it, the position 
 was too absurd for him to make it public." The 
 critic, in his turn, told me the story of his 
 " durance." " Oh yes, I took it quietly," he said, 
 with a philosophic smile. " One does not provoke 
 a madman, but amuses one's self with his antics." 
 It has already been said, in eifect, that, with 
 the love of distinction which belongs to artists 
 of all classes, there was mingled in Charles 
 Kean's case a boy-like openness and lonlwmie 
 in admitting, or rather, proclaiming his foibles, 
 which, far from offending, attracted the listener ; 
 he could not but feel won by a nature which had 
 no reserves and desired none. On his expressing 
 dissatisfaction one night with a criticism which 
 was, on the whole, very favourable, it was sug- 
 gested to him that a touch of fault-finding, as 
 showing impartiality, gave added value to a 
 laudatory notice. " Oh, I hate impartiality ! " 
 exclaimed the frank actor ; " I like the admiration 
 that carries a man away, and won't let him stop 
 to think of a few slight and accidental defects." 
 Not long after this, on a chance-meeting in the 
 street, he drew from his pocket a daily paper, 
 which, with a solemn and impressive look, he 
 put into my hand. The paper contained a well- 
 written notice of Charles Kean by a friend who 
 had attained a high position both in law and in 
 literature. The well-written notice proved to be 
 a long and elaborate panegyric which, so far 
 as I can remember, was nowhere spoiled for the 
 actor's palate by the hint of a single blemish or 
 
138 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 defect. "Do read it carefully," said Kean, with 
 earnestness. " That's what / call criticism ! " 
 
 Of the unusual candour of his avowals, an 
 amusing instance occurred one night in his 
 dressing-room. When 1 entered, the curtain had 
 fallen for some little time upon a play in which 
 Mrs. Kean and himself had been acting. Mr. 
 George Lovell, the dramatist, was about to quit 
 the room as I passed in. " Eemember, Lovell — 
 remember," cried Kean, laying more than his 
 accustomed stress upon his " E-'s," " that Mrs. 
 Kean is in the manager's room. Go to her at 
 once ! " Mr. Lovell smUed, exchanged greetings 
 with me, and went out. " I have something good 
 to tell you of our friend Lovell," began Kean, in 
 considerable excitement. I composed myself to 
 listen, and he continued — " Lovell was greatly 
 dehghted with my wife in our new piece. In that 
 he resembles all who have seen it ; no one knows 
 better than I how well she deserves his praise. 
 And it was good, downright praise. He went 
 into the performance, act by act, almost point by 
 point. After a time I said to myself, 'JSTothing 
 can be more true. I wonder whether what he 
 has to say of Charles Kean will be as nice ? ' On 
 he went — capital praise — praise that showed how 
 well he understood her. Still no mention of 
 Charles Kean. ' Oh,' thought I, at length, ' I see ; 
 he will first finish with her, then begin with me.' 
 He did finish with her. 'Lovell,' I said, 'your 
 opinion of Mrs. Kean delights me.' ' It is quite 
 sincere,' he answered ; and then — what do you 
 think he did ? He held out his hand and said, 
 ' Good night, Kean ! ' ' Good night ! ' I echoed, 
 astonished; 'good night? And you have not 
 uttered a word as to what you think of Charles 
 
OUE KECENT ACTORS. 139 
 
 Kea'n in his new part ! ' 'I think very highly of 
 him,' he replied. ' Very glad to hear it,' said I. 
 ' Then just be good enough to stay a few minutes 
 and go a little into the matter.' What do you 
 
 think he said to that ? He pleaded the d d 
 
 rubbish that he couldn't praise a man to his face. 
 ' Lovell,' I said, ' have no scruples with me. I 
 act for the very purpose of being praised ; I like 
 to be praised. Above all things, I like to be 
 praised to my face.' However, he begged to be 
 excused, since, though he had great admiration 
 for my acting, he really couldn't express it at 
 length to me. ' Well, Lovell,' I answered, ' Mrs. 
 Kean is now in the manager's room. Go to her ; 
 give her your opinion of Charles Kean, act by act, 
 with the same minuteness with which you have 
 given him your opiaion of her. She will convey 
 to me what you are too delicate to express.' 
 Then you came in. Stuff — stuff! Not praise 
 a man to his face !" I have heard him more than 
 once repeat this anecdote to his acquaintances, 
 with his usual dry enjoyment in relating any 
 humorous passage in which he had taken part. 
 
 After he resigned the management of the 
 Princess's, I had but few opportunities of meeting 
 with him. The last, I think, was at breakfast, 
 at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, when 
 I had the pleasure, after a slight difference, of 
 renewing cordial relations with him, and of 
 extending his term in a little drama, which, after 
 all, he was unable to produce, and which was 
 eventually produced at the Haymarket, under 
 the title of " The Wife's Portrait." 
 
 In the autumn of 1866 I chanced to be at 
 Scarborough. The evening before leaving, when 
 passing by one of the hotels — I think the Prince 
 
140 OUR EECENT ACTORS, 
 
 of Wales's — there appeared, framed in one of 
 the windows, a worn, pallid face, with a look of 
 deep, melancholy abstraction. " Charles Kean ! " 
 I exclaimed to myself, and prepared to retrace 
 my way and call. But, having heard already 
 that he had been seriously unwell whUe playing 
 a round of provincial engagements, I thought it 
 better not to disturb him or to bring home to 
 him a grave impression as to his health, even by 
 a card of inquiry. In little more than a year 
 after this his death took place. It occurred ia 
 January, 1868, when he had reached his fifty- 
 seventh year. 
 
 Eeverting to him as an actor, it may be 
 predicted that his Hamlet, with its varied and 
 finished execution, will dwell in the memory of 
 all survivors who have seen it. Many of these 
 will also recall his claims in some other well- 
 known characters already mentioned, to which 
 may be added that of Sir Edmund Mortimer in 
 " The Iron Chest " — a part, it is said, into which 
 he threw mu,ch of his father's harrowing intensity 
 in scenes of remorse. But he will undoubtedly 
 be best remembered by his Louis the Eleventh, 
 which, in its fusion with passion of the extreme 
 realism previously almost confined to comedy, 
 formed a new type of acting on the English 
 stage. His friends who are still amono;st us 
 will cherish the recollection of a high-principled 
 gentleman, warm in his attachments, generous 
 in extending to others the appreciation he coveted 
 for himself, and gifted with a charm of simple 
 candour that made even his weaknesses endearing. 
 
OUE EECENT AOTOES. 141 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 MRS. CHARLES KEAN. 
 
 Mrs. Charles Kean (then Ellen Tree) in " The Red Mask," at 
 Drury Lane, in 1834 — Her acting in " The Jewess," etc., 
 in 1835 — Tlie original Clemanthe in Talfourd's " Ion," at 
 Oovent Garden — She subsequently appears as Ion at the 
 Haymarket — Notice of her performance — Appears, in 
 1839, at Covent Garden, under the management of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Charles Mathews, as the Countess in Sheridan 
 Knowles's " Love " — The run, then extraordinary, of that 
 piece — ^Maoready's statement as to the then average attrac- 
 tion of legitimate plays, and as to " The Lady of Lyons " — 
 Miss Ellen Tree's acting as the Countess — As Ginevra, in 
 Leigh Hunt's play, " The Legend of Florence," at Covent 
 Garden, 1840 — Leigh Hunt's tribute to , her — Appears, 
 same year, in Knowles's "John of Prooida," at Covent 
 Garden — In 1842 (then Mrs. Charles Kean) appears at the 
 Haymarket in Knowles's " Eose of Arragon "—Her acting 
 in the two plays last named — Indifferent as Juliet and 
 Lady Macbeth — Description of her acting in the latter 
 — Her Gertrude in "H-amlet," Marthe in "Louis the 
 Eleventh," Katherine in " Strathmore," and Anne Blake in 
 the play so called — Brief summary — Personal appearance — 
 Her death. 
 
 Much that relates to Mrs. Charles Kean, pro- 
 fessionally and privately, has already been told 
 in connection with her husband. Some further 
 particulars respecting her may, however, be stated. 
 I first saw her in 1834, at Drury Lane, in an 
 opera called " The Eed Mask ; or, The Council of 
 Three," founded upon Cooper's novel of "The 
 Bravo." Several good English singers were 
 
142 OTJE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 included in the cast, but the character assigned 
 to Miss Ellen Tree (subsequently Mrs. Charles 
 Kean) was one simply for acting. The plot of 
 "The Eed Mask" was more dramatic than that 
 of operas in general. Miss Ellen Tree had no 
 great opportunity until late in the piece, but she 
 then availed herself of it with so much pathos 
 and force as to win from her audience the most 
 sympathetic admiration. In Gelsomina — such 
 was the name of her character — she is said to 
 have made a decided advance in public favour. 
 For myself, then a boy in a jacket, the incidents 
 of the opera, and even those of the novel, with 
 which I made acquaintance later, have faded from 
 my mind. 1 cannot recall the situations which 
 Miss Ellen Tree made so powerful and so 
 touching; but I remember walking home with 
 dim eyes, with her exquisitely feminine and 
 expressive voice still in my ears, and as roman- 
 ticalJy in love with her as an impressible lad 
 could well be. 
 
 A great success is recorded of her in the follow- 
 ing year, when she performed, at Drury Lane, 
 the heroine of " The Jewess," a drama adopted 
 by Planche from the original of Scribe. In this 
 drama, it may be mentioned, Mr. Vandenhoff 
 also distinguished himself as the Jew, Eleazar. 
 After " The Eed Mask," I saw Ellen Tree as the 
 Witch of the Alps, in Lord Byron's tragedy of 
 " Manfred," which has been noticed in my first 
 chapter. 
 
 Miss Ellen Tree was the original Clemanthe in 
 the late Mr. Justice (he was then Serjeant) 
 Talfourd's tragedy of "Ion," when produced at 
 Covent Garden. She performed that character, 
 according to Talfourd himself, with " elegance and 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTOES. 143 
 
 pathos." It did not give scope for any great 
 tragic power. On account of an engagement at 
 the Haymarket, Miss Tree was obliged to resign 
 the part, which Miss Helen Faucit consented at 
 a short notice to study, thus leaving the poet 
 fortunate in each of his interpreters. In the 
 course of her Haymarket engagement, the run 
 of '' Ion " having expired at Covent Garden, Miss 
 Ellen Tree reappeared in the tragedy, this tioae 
 as its hero. After the signal triumph of Macready 
 in the character, her attempt was a bold one. 
 Miss Tree, however, if she had not, in like degree, 
 Macready's power of relieving a part, and his 
 saliency in presenting details, brought very special 
 gifts to her intei'pretation. Face, form, voice, 
 and simple grace of manner combined to make 
 her externally the ideal of her character, while 
 its purity, nobility, and self-sacrifice, found such 
 sympathetic rendering, that, if I may judge by 
 the experience of my friends and myself, the 
 effect was ennobling no less than touching, while, 
 at the close, the spectator withdrew reverently as 
 after a religious observance. 
 
 In 1839 we once more find Ellen Tree appear- 
 ing at Covent Garden, then under the manage- 
 ment of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews (Madame 
 Vestris), in Sheridan Knowles's new play, "Love." 
 To the amazement of London, the play ran fifty 
 nights — then an extraordinary number for a 
 legitimate piece, although it had been much 
 exceeded in melodrama, as in the case of " Black- 
 eyed Susan." For a new work of higher pre- 
 tension, especially if written in blank verse, 
 twenty nights in the course of the first season 
 was thought quite satisfactory. 
 
 I remember Macready observing that, in the 
 
144 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 days referred to, twelve or fourteen paying houses 
 to a successful legitimate piece were as many as 
 could be reckoned on. Of course, at rare intervals, 
 there were brilHant exceptions. One of these 
 was " The Lady of Lyons," which, to the best of 
 my remembrance, ran about thirty nights in its 
 first season; but, en revanche, I heard from the 
 manager's own lips that he played it for the first 
 fortniglit to half a pit, and that it would then 
 have been withdrawn had it not been for the 
 author's generosity, which called for unusual 
 exertions on the part of the lessee. These, with 
 the intrinsic attraction of the piece and the dis- 
 closure of Bulwer's name, at length raised the 
 daram into popularity. 
 
 To return to Knowles's play and Miss EUen 
 Tree. The long run of "Love" may be chiefly 
 attributed to her acting. Although "Love" has 
 some strong scenes, the interest is anticipated, 
 and declines greatly after the third act. Mr. 
 Anderson, again, though an actor of gallant bear- 
 ing and some emotional power, had nbt then 
 gained such distinction as to make him the hero 
 of a theatre like Covent Garden ; while Madame 
 Vestris, though she assumed masculine dress, had 
 no very telling part. The emotional interest of 
 the story centres in the Countess (Miss Tree's 
 character), and in Huon the Serf The former 
 character, moreover, contains much delicate psy- 
 chology, and gives fine opportunities for contrast. 
 These contrasts, indeed, would be too extreme, 
 did not the dramatist intend to imply the growing 
 love of the Countess for the serf by the excess 
 of her scorn in resisting it. The conflict indi- 
 cated was shown, not too sharply, but with a 
 harmony of treatment that reconciled and blended 
 
OUR EEOBNT ACTORS. 145 
 
 the most opposite effects, both in the opening 
 scene, where Huon reads to the Countess the 
 story of a peasant who loved a lady of high 
 degree, and in the hawking scene of the second 
 act, where she stands rooted with terror to see 
 the serf leaning against a tree, while the light- 
 ning plays around him, and yet struck dumb, 
 lest she should betray her too great stake in his 
 safety. Nothing could be truer to the strife in 
 her nature than her arrested movement and 
 riveted gaze before the serf is struck, her 
 agonized cry and bound towards him when the 
 event occurs, and the overdone indifference and 
 hysterical levity of her feigned gaiety when she 
 hears that he has only been stunned. In the 
 third act her power of facial expression was put 
 to a severe test. Huon has rejected the contract 
 by which the Duke, her father, seeks to bind 
 him in wedlock to another, and death or the 
 galleys is threatened at the end of an hour, 
 should he still refuse compliance. The Countess, 
 immediately after the departure of the Duke, 
 wrests from Huon the truth of the matter, and, 
 while holding in her hand the contract which, 
 for her sake, he has renounced, has to express 
 silently the last combat between her pride and 
 her love, and the triumph of the latter. The 
 strife, with all its alternations, could not have 
 been told so vividly by any language. The 
 audience hung suspended on the mute battle- 
 field of her face, following every turn of the 
 struggle, and breaking into passionate applause 
 at the close, though not a word was spoken till 
 she exclaimed, over -mastered, "Huon, I die!" 
 Her deep sweetness of manner verged upon 
 humility when at last she owned her love; yet 
 
146 OUE EECEXT ACTOES. 
 
 there was a dignity and a power of self-govern- 
 ment about her which revealed the influence of 
 race. She was the Countess of the iirst act, 
 exalted over her pride. 
 
 I missed her personation of Ginevra in Leigh 
 Hunt's " Legend of Florence," produced at Covent 
 Garden, in 1840. The sweetness of her long 
 forbearance under the taunts of a jealous and 
 malignant husband, and her pathetic force when 
 she is at last goaded to resistance, were univer- 
 sally admired. Her delivery of the following 
 was specially extolled : — 
 
 " Gin. I, scorned you not, and knew not what scorn was, 
 Being scarcely past a child, and knowing nothing 
 But trusting thoughts and innocent daily habits. 
 Oh, could you trust yourself \ — But why repeat 
 What still is thus repeated, day by day, 
 StiU ending with the question, 'Why repeat?' 
 
 [Ttuing and moving about. 
 You make the blood at last mount to -my brain, 
 And tax me past endurance. What have I done. 
 Good God ! What have I done, that I am thus 
 At the mercy of a mystery of tyranny, 
 Which from its victim demands every virtue, 
 And brings it none ? " 
 
 I have heard Leigh Hunt speak enthusiasti- 
 cally of her acting in his play. He betrayed 
 somethmg akin to her own sensibility when he 
 spoke of her bright eyes glistening through tears 
 as she delivered various lines that touched her 
 at rehearsal. 
 
 Ellen Tree appeared at Covent Garden the 
 same year, as the heroine of Sheridan Knowles's 
 " John of Procida." At the Haymarket, in 1842, 
 she (then Mrs. Charles Kean) was again enlisted 
 for a play by Knowles, " The Eose of Arragon." 
 " John of Procida " supplied her with no great 
 situation. She had some chances, however, of 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 147 
 
 showing her devotion to her lover and her father, 
 and these she improved with the sympathetic 
 truth that was her . special gift. " John of 
 Procida " can hardly be ranked amongst its 
 author's successes; yet its second act is a 
 remarkable achievement. It consists of a duo- 
 logue in which no external event takes place, 
 its breathless interest lying in the revelation of 
 himself by a patriot-father to a son who lives 
 in ignorant friendship with the enemies of his 
 country. In "The Eose of Arragon" — at least, in 
 its earlier scenes — Mrs. Charles Kean had some- 
 what better opportunities as Olivia, the peasant 
 girl who has secretly married the despotic King 
 of Arragon's son, and warns him of danger, 
 though, on the discovery of her marriage, he 
 has caused it to be annulled and banished her 
 from the Court. The ingenuous earnestness of 
 her manner when risking her own life to save 
 that of her stern father-in-law, was one of the 
 chief effects of the piece. Another was her 
 resistance to a sensual villain who has her appa- 
 rently in his power. The situation is certainly 
 old enough ; but the nobility of her bearing, and 
 the splendid energy of her defiance and detes- 
 tation, revivified towards its close a story which 
 was gradually become feeble. 
 
 Amongst those results which baffle anticipation, 
 and for which it is hard to assign a cause, was 
 the qualified success of Mrs. Charles Kean in 
 Juliet. With her excellence in characters of 
 sweetness and devotion, and her power of 
 passionate expression, one would have said in 
 advance that this was, above all, a part in which 
 she would have triumphed. It proved otherwise. 
 Of course, experience, taste, and, in a degree. 
 
148 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 sympathetic feeling, veiled her want of vital 
 individuality in the character. The spectator, 
 nevertheless, went away disappointed. Perhaps 
 because Juliet is not, after all, eminently a 
 character of self-sacrifice; perhaps because the 
 performer had concentrated her mind upon the 
 acting difficulties of the character, and striven 
 to master them as isolated effects, rather than 
 by entering into Juliet's nature — she did not 
 carry the audience with her, as she had done in 
 many parts offering meaner opportunities. 
 
 It might have been predicted that Mrs. Charles 
 Kean would scarcely make a striking Lady Mac- 
 beth. With her fine intensity of feeliag, fervour 
 of exposition, and power to translate herself into 
 various types of life, she could hardly be said to 
 combine imagination in its strictly poetic sense. 
 She loved to seize those traits which bring a 
 character within the range of actual life — no 
 doubt an excellent method generally, though its 
 sole use hardly suits those types which, while 
 essentially true, are too remote and awful for 
 familiar treatment. The intuitive feeling which 
 divines at a glance from a mere external fragment 
 the spuit of the whole, and which rather descends 
 from the spirit to the form, than attains to the 
 spirit through the form — the method of Siddons 
 and Eachel — was probably beyond this fine artist, 
 — at least, in conceptions of mystery or guilt, to 
 which she could not bring the immense aid of her 
 personal sympathy. Hence there was a sort of 
 artificial moderation in her rendering of Lady 
 Macbeth's terrible adjurations. It seemed as 
 though she had doubted that an actual woman 
 could have uttered them, and had therefore 
 striven to give them reality by softening their 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 149 
 
 extravagance. From the hints of one or two 
 mighty phrases, on the other hand, an imagina- 
 tion like that of Mrs. Siddons would, one may 
 conceive, seize the soul of the woman, take that 
 as the reality, and care little whether the prob- 
 abilities of actual expression were overpassed 
 or otherwise. 
 
 Again, in the great scenes of the first and 
 second acts, an attempt was made to present 
 Lady Macbeth under the two aspects of deter- 
 mined will and wifely fascination ; but these 
 phases of the character were alternated rather 
 than fused. Mrs. Kean did not seem to perceive 
 that, to a mind like Macbeth's, vacillating be- 
 tween two principles, resolute will was itself part 
 of the fascination, and that, until his crime was 
 committed, she was glorious to him through the 
 very scorn with which, for his sake, she had 
 denounced his weakness. 
 
 She was good, however, in her watchfulness 
 over Macbeth in the banquet-scene, and if her 
 feverishly hurried manner of dismissing the 
 guests and repairing to her husband took some- 
 thing from the evil woman's self-control, it was 
 eloquent of conjugal solicitude. In the melan- 
 choly and remorse which set in after the murder, 
 she was also more at home than. in certain of the 
 previous scenes. Her grief, however, was too 
 simply tender ; her sleep-walking scene had not 
 the abrupt flashes of recollection that reveal the 
 hauntings of conscience ; her remorse was like 
 the repentance of a nature which had originally 
 been good. 
 
 In her later years she often played Gertrude 
 in "Hamlet." It was one of her most perfect 
 representations. Her air of apprehensive melan- 
 
150 OUK EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 eholy, born of secret guilt; Ker looks of wistful 
 yearning,' at times suddenly repressed, towards 
 her son ; tlie obvious compulsion she put upon 
 herself, in the closet-scene, so much being at 
 stake, to " lay home " to him his offences ; the 
 divining, shown by a quick, averted look, of his 
 terrible impeachment ere it had well begun ; the 
 mechanical way in which her one or two phrases 
 of resistance were urged, and her complete 
 breaking down before the consciousness of her 
 guilt and the eye of her son — scarcely left a detail 
 wanting in' the impressive conception. Fine as 
 is the character of Gertrude, it is, of course, so 
 dominated by that of Hamlet, that Mrs. Kean 
 probably performed it so often simply for her 
 husband's sake. Another and much stronger 
 instance of the immolation of her professional 
 interests to his own, was her performance of 
 Marthe in "Louis the Eleventh." Yet her life- 
 like rusticity, the blended bashfulness, appre- 
 hension, and shrewd resource with wliich she 
 clothed her French peasant, raised the little 
 sketch into such prominence that it became the 
 second feature of the play. In two plays of 
 tlae writer's — " Strathmore " and " Anne Blake " 
 — she displayed pathos so subduing, and traits 
 of character so just and arresting, that he cannot 
 dwell upon them without seeming partly to 
 appropriate the praise that was her due. In 
 fairness to her, however, it should be recorded 
 that her enunciation of the words, "No; die!" 
 when, in "Strathmore," she confirmed her lover 
 in his resolve to accept death rather than false- 
 hood, not only overpowered the house, but won 
 from the .press some of the rarest tributes ever 
 paid to an actress. 
 
OUB EECENT ACTOES. 151 
 
 In sympathetic emotion, as distinguished from 
 stern and turbulent passions, no feminine artist 
 of her time surpassed her; in suggestiveness of 
 detail, no artist but one. Her range was un- 
 usually large. Mirth and humour came as 
 naturally to her as self-devotion and tenderness. 
 Her sense of enjoyment was contagious, and free 
 from the slightest touch of coarseness. Her 
 performance of Marthe, just referred to, showed 
 what she could do in characters of eccentric 
 humour. I have heard her at rehearsal, in 
 offering suggestions — which she did with especial 
 tact — assume the language and the looks of the 
 various characters so admirably, that she seemed 
 equally at home in each. The beauty of her fair 
 oval face, with the expressive eyes, and the nose 
 slightly aquiline, accompanied with the eharm 
 of her refined and emotional voice, were most 
 captivating in her youth, and much of their attrac- 
 tion lasted to the end of her career. Amongst 
 the women of the English stage who have 
 recently passed from us, there is no figure to 
 which I turn with more general admiration or 
 with profounder esteem. She died in the summer 
 of 1880, at the age of seventy-five. 
 
152 OUK RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 MK. BENJAMIN WEBSTER. 
 
 First acquaintance with Mr. Webster — " Borough Politics " — 
 His quarrel with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews — His 
 habit of confiding differences to others — Called a " good 
 hater" — Certainly a staunch friend — Of a sensitive dis- 
 position — His feeling of comradeship — His resentments not 
 lasting — His reported challenge to Maoready — His fidelity, 
 as manager, to the interests of his company — Interview 
 with him — His personal appearance and manner — An 
 agreement concluded — His badinage — His frankness and 
 promptness in negotiations — His acting in a little comedy 
 by the writer — Width of his range — His desire to extend 
 it — I read to him some scenes of a poetic drama of which 
 I desired him to play the hero — His pleasure at the pro- 
 posal and his misgiving — Reasons for it — Variety of his 
 acting in dramas of real life — Account of his acting in 
 " The Roused Lion " — Allusion to the excellence of Mrs. 
 Keeley in the same drama — His acting as Squire Verdon 
 in " Mind Your Own Business " — His nice balance of 
 various features of character — Tliis exemplified — His 
 Richard Pride — His Graves in " Money," Triplet in 
 " Masks and Faces," Reuben Gwynne in " The Round of 
 Wrong" — His Tartuffe— Objections to that comedy — His 
 Jesuit Priest in " Two Loves and a Life " — His Robert 
 Landry in " The Dead Heart "—Mr. David Fisher in that 
 drama— Mr. Webster as Penn Holder in " One Touch of 
 Nature" — His faults — His Petrucchio — His Wildrake in 
 "The Love Chase" — Dragging delivery in his later years 
 — His services as a manager — "The Heart and The 
 World" — Supper after a failure — Dinner to Webster at 
 Freemasons' Tavern — The Shakspere Committee — Web- 
 ster's Institutions for actors — His reception in Paris by 
 Napoleon HI. — Mr. Robert Bell — Welcome to Keeley — 
 Webster's death — His reputation as an actor and in private. 
 
OTJK EECENT ACTOES. 153 
 
 My personal knowledge of the late Mr. Webster 
 dates from an early period of 1845, at which 
 time he was lessee of the Haymarket Theatre. 
 I had sent him a comic drama, "Borough Politics," 
 which will be more fully alluded to when I 
 have to speak of Mrs. Glover. 
 
 In two or three weeks' time I received from 
 Mr. Webster an obliging letter, in which he 
 ascribed his delay to the embarrassment into 
 which Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews had 
 thrown him by abruptly leaving the theatre. 
 He dwelt emphatically upon what he considered 
 the unjustifiable nature of their conduct, in a tone 
 that seemed to demand sympathy for himself. 
 This tendency to repose confidence in one almost 
 a stranger was, I found afterwards, characteristic 
 of him, at least, in the vigour of his days. If he 
 liked you — and he took strong likings — you and 
 your friends were his friends, and he doubtless 
 expected reciprocity. I have heard him called 
 a good hater and a staunch friend. It was 
 my good fortune to know him only in the latter 
 character. He had now and then a way of 
 beginning a sentence in a tone of great cordiality, 
 and of ending it in a tone of reserve, which 
 seemed, I thought, to belong to a nature at once 
 warm and proud, which was jealous of having 
 its regard surprised. It is probable that, with 
 his sense of good comradeship and his eager 
 disposition to prove himself a true ally, he was 
 exacting as to reciprocity, and retentive of what 
 he conceived to be a slight or a wrong. But 
 his resentments were less enduring than they 
 were said to be. A bitter coldness took place 
 between him and the Keans when they arranged 
 to become co-lessees of the Princess's with Mr. 
 
154 OUR EECENT AOTOKS. 
 
 and Mrs. Keeley. To quit his theatre for the 
 purpose of conducting a rival house, very likely 
 appeared to Webster, with his strong cleaving 
 to old fellowship, something like a breach of 
 the decalogue. But if his convictions as to 
 mutual duties were somewhat strained, it is 
 just to say that he obeyed them implicitly, and 
 that, for the sake of past associations, performers 
 were wont to be retained in his theatre long 
 after their salaries exceeded their attractions. 
 With liis sensitive character, there is reason to 
 put faith in the report that he once sent a 
 challenge to Macready, who replied that he would 
 be willing to accept it when his correspondent 
 had taken rank as a tragedian by a successful 
 performance of Hamlet. However, it was under 
 Webster's management that Macready's farewell 
 performance took place, the relations between 
 lessee and manager being then most cordial. The 
 former, however, after the sums which he had paid 
 to the tragedian, somewhat resented his speaking 
 at a public dinner of Sadler's WeUs, instead of 
 the Haymarket, as the future home of legitimacy. 
 With respect to other little feuds, I believe both 
 those with Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, the Keans, 
 and the Keeleys — if, indeed, the last were ever 
 regarded as participes criminis — were eventually 
 composed. Indeed, at the dinner given to 
 Webster about 1865, Keeley was one of the 
 most interesting figures. 
 
 As to myself, an interview followed quickly 
 upon Mr. Webster's letter. I had not before 
 seen him off the stage. He was rather tall, with 
 eyes of a bluish grey, a fresh complexion, a 
 figure slightly tending to corpulence, and an 
 engaging frankness of manner. He at once 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 155 
 
 accepted my terms, and the little piece was 
 produced with a result which, I trust, was not 
 ungratifying to him. A few days later, on 
 being with him in his room, he said, in his 
 rather high-pitched voice, with a sly laugh, "Well, 
 we talked about terms ; but I suppose you 
 poets write for fame, and would despise anything 
 so vulgar as a cheque." "And you actors 
 and managers," was my reply, "you, too, doubt- 
 less work for fame; but would you be content 
 without salaries or profits 1 " Seriously, no 
 manager could have been more pleasant to deal 
 with. In my own four or five contracts with 
 him, I never knew him attempt to beat down the 
 price of a piece by depreciation — by remarking, 
 for instance, that it was risky, or that times 
 were hard. If he really wished to produce your 
 work, his brief formula was, " Just draw up a 
 memorandum while I write the cheque." 
 
 In the little comedy above mentioned, he 
 played the character of a good-hearted, well-to-do 
 farmer, who is with difficulty roused into a con- 
 flict with two of his neighbours by their affronts 
 to his wife. In embodying this part, he displayed 
 his remarkable power of individualization, his 
 genuine feeling, and his happy and varied truth- 
 fulness of illustration. 
 
 Few actors, indeed, have had a wider range. 
 The heroes of poetic tragedy, or those of high 
 comedy, he scarcely attempted, his Tartuffe being 
 an exception. Probably, however, he was not 
 without' ambition to make the trial. On one 
 occasion I read to him a scene or two from 
 an uncompleted serious play in blank verse, of 
 which his estimate was only too generous. "But 
 who," asked he, " is to play the chief character ? " 
 
156 OUE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 "Mr. Benjamin "Webster," was the answer, "if 
 he will." He was more touched than the occasion 
 accounted for. " What ! " said he, with a warm 
 grasp of the hand ; " do you really think I would 
 sustain the chief part, almost tragic, in a poetic 
 drama ? " Having expressed my wish that he 
 should make the experiment, he replied, — "I 
 
 should Like it — I should like it, but " 
 
 Perhaps there was reason in that "but." His 
 true feeling and his happiness in presenting 
 individual traits in prose drama might not 
 have stood him in such good stead in imagina- 
 tive work, where the characteristic is rather of 
 that large kind which paints human nature in 
 general, than of that minute kind which paints 
 the peculiarities as well as the passions of 
 individual men. It happened, however, that 
 the drama referred to remained , unfinished ; 
 thus the test which the actor proposed to 
 himself never was applied. But, even in the 
 sphere of what is called " real life," what variety, 
 and what distinctness of conception, were at 
 Webster's command ! To show this it is only 
 necessary to glance at him in a few of his 
 leading embodiments. In 1847 he appeared 
 in " The Eoused Lion," taken from a clever 
 French original, " Le Eeveil du Lion." Stanislas 
 de Fonblanche, the part which he represented, 
 was that of a man rather advanced in life, and, 
 at the beginning of the piece, somewhat of an 
 invalid. A letter has been received by his 
 godson, in which one of his young and thought- 
 less acquaintances speaks in contemptuous terms 
 of the elderly gentleman, of the consulate, and 
 the empire, and suggests that, with his obsolete 
 fashions and grave years, he would be a mere 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOTJS. 157 
 
 kill-joy at a party of pleasure in the days of the 
 Citizen - King. Stanislas Fonblanche, though 
 elderly, is by no means superannuated, and is 
 roused by this reflection upon the manners and 
 accomplishments of a former generation. Accord- 
 ingly, he contrives to attend a dinner at which his 
 detractor and his godson are to be present. The 
 nature of the entertainment is a little fete, and 
 thus admits of sundry exhibitions of talents, 
 such as singing, dancing, and fencing, in the 
 presence of ladies, which are seldom displayed 
 at a dinner-table. The object of Stanislas 
 Fonblanche is to punish Hector de Mauleon, 
 by engaging with him in a strife of wits, and 
 proving his own superiority. This he does 
 most effectually. If Hector ventures upon a 
 sarcasm disguised as a compliment, or upon an 
 affected and overdone politeness, his elderly 
 rival meets him with a repartee as polite as 
 it is crushing, and an easy, high-bred courtesy of 
 the old school, beside which Hector's modern 
 airs look very much like Hi-breeding. In sing- 
 ing, 'dancing, at cards, with the foils, and in 
 other ways, he thoroughly conquers and humiliates 
 him, and becomes, especially to the fairer portion 
 of the company, the central and captivating 
 figure. From the easy languor of the invalid 
 at the beginning, to the high-toned and temperate 
 triumph at the end, Webster was admirable, not 
 only in each phase of the character, in each 
 detail of action, but in the ease and nature which 
 gave unity and consistency to all his transitions. 
 I remember the critic of an influential paper, who 
 was otherwise loud in the comedian's praise, 
 charging him with a certain want of refinement. 
 What seemed surprising to me, on the other hand. 
 
158 OUE KEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 was tlie presence of this quality in an actor who 
 had shone hitherto chiefly in rough and strong 
 parts. We are all, perhaps, too much disposed 
 to see in an actor the absence or the lack of 
 qualities which we are accustomed to expect 
 from him. It would be ungrateful to omit from 
 this notice of the " Eoused Lion " an allusion to 
 Mrs. Keeley's wonderful rendering of Mademoiselle 
 Suzanne Grasset de Villedieu, formerly a danseuse, 
 who is anxious to hide her old vocation from 
 Stanislas, while, in moments of emotion, every look 
 and tone, every gesture of head, feet, and arms, 
 unconsciously betray it. 
 
 In May, 1852, Mr. Webster appeared at the 
 Haymarket in a play by Mr. Mark Lemon, 
 entitled, " Mind your Own Business." Though 
 not nominally the hero of the piece, he was, such 
 effectually. As a country squire, one Verdon, 
 who has set his affections where they cannot 
 be returned, and who passes from a state of 
 over-sanguine anticipation to one of utter reck- 
 lessness and self-abandonment, he was equally 
 striking, natural, and truthful in each of these 
 contrasting moods. There was now and then a 
 dash of constraint and misgiving ia the midst of 
 his hopefulness, which showed the sensitiveness 
 of his disposition and the depth of suffering which 
 the rejection of his love would entail; while in 
 flying to town, in the attempt to drown his 
 misery by gambling and drink, the gleams of 
 a better nature at times broke forth with a pathos 
 all the more affecting because, instead of being 
 sharply contrasted with the darker shades of his 
 character, it was so blended with them as to 
 indicate the same individuality. The yearning 
 of a besotted mind towards a higher life seemed 
 
OTJE RECENT ACTOES. 159 
 
 as natural as the right physical movement of 
 the drunkard when, however unsteadily, he 
 staggers towards home. Notwithstanding all 
 the difficulties of the task, he eminently suc- 
 ceeded in making the position of the drunkard 
 thoroughly pathetic, and in so expressing "the 
 soul of goodness in things evQ " that they became 
 touching instead of repulsive. But for the 
 strange improbability in the story, which, after 
 all that Verdon had suffered for love of the one 
 sister, would persuade us that his affections had 
 been all the time unconsciously given to the 
 other, the piece, owing to Webster's acting, 
 would have been a lasting success. 
 
 In his rendering of Verdon, as in other parts, 
 the two signal merits of the comedian's acting 
 were comprehensiveness of conception and nice 
 gradation in the expression of feeling. He knew 
 that, with rare exceptions, one leading trait seldom 
 gains such ascendency in a man as not to be 
 modified by others. I have seen him, for in- 
 stance, take part in a quarrel-scene, in which a 
 number of qualities had to be expressed and 
 harmonised. At the beginning, when sarcasm 
 and taunts were levelled at him, he responded 
 by a smUe of quiet humour, a shrug of the 
 shoulders, and a deprecatory movement of the 
 hands ; as the provocation continued, his annoy- 
 ance was evident, but no less evident the strong 
 common sense by» which he chose to master it. 
 His look next became fixed and stern, like that 
 of one who feels a fight inevitable ; and when at 
 length his wife was attacked by cruel sneers, and 
 he suddenly blazed up in indignation, you felt how 
 much his anger had gained in effect from his 
 previous self-control — that the very restraints 
 
160 OUR EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 that had at first checked the flame were now its 
 fuel. 
 
 It was, perhaps, his success in " Mind Your Own 
 Business" that led him, in 1855, at the Adelphi, 
 to undertake the tragical representation of another 
 drunkard, Pdchard Pride, in Mr. Boucicault's 
 drama of "Janet Pride." So powerful in this 
 part was his rendering of the vitiating effects of 
 excess, and of the remorse which struggles with 
 them, that Pdchard Pride took rank with his most 
 striking impersonations. 
 
 As another instance of Webster's versatility, 
 ought to be cited his performance of Graves, in 
 Lord Lytton's comedy of "Money." The con- 
 viction that he was born to an unhappy lot, and 
 that the finger of adverse fate went out against 
 him in the smallest trifle, was for a time deep and 
 pervading ; and when at last the seductions of 
 Lady Pranklin took effect upon him, his change 
 to a sanguine mood was gradual and distrustful ; 
 so that in the dance with Lady Franklin, to 
 which he at last abandons himself, there was 
 the quaintest expression in his face of dawning 
 mirth, mingled with habitual melancholy in his 
 movements — fantastic and astonished pleasure 
 so characterized by solemnity, that the novel 
 humour of the representation was irresistible. I 
 have seen in other comedians, notably in the 
 very effective Thomas Thorne, broader contrasts 
 in the part of Graves, which perhaps elicited 
 louder laughter ; but the Graves of Webster 
 still remains uppermost in my mind, as a 
 being who, though somewhat exaggerated by the 
 author, one might have met in the flesh. 
 
 In 1852, in the new piece of "Masks and 
 Paces," he played one of his finest characters — 
 
OUR EECENT AOTOES. 161 
 
 that of Triplet, the needy dramatist and portrait 
 painter, whom, with his family, Peg Woffington 
 saves from starvation. The study of Triplet in 
 the actor's hands might be taken as a type of 
 the penurious author of the time. The distraction 
 amidst the sordid cares of life; the nervous 
 impatience, soon atoned for by contrition; the 
 moods of gloomy reverie, at times half pierced 
 by the hope of a nature originally sanguine, but 
 which time and suffering had tamed and daunted ; 
 the desperation with which, when unable to 
 please himself with Peg's likeness, he plunged 
 his knife through the canvas, together with an 
 artlessness of look and voice which spoke an 
 unworldly mind, — all these degrees of the better 
 mental worker were so truly indicated, that a 
 glance, a change of tone, however delicate, a stoop, 
 a step backward or forward, or a fluttering 
 movement of the hand, were more significant 
 even than the excellent dialogue in which he 
 took part. And withal this Triplet was a 
 gentleman ; no poverty' of garb or surroundings 
 could hide that ; while the perfect unconsciousness 
 with which this inner refinement showed itself, 
 was a touch of art so true and unpretending, that 
 it was seen only in its effects. 
 
 The Peg Woffington of Mrs. Stirling, it may 
 be added, was one of the best, probably the best, 
 of her original characters. 
 
 Towards the end of 1846 Webster was the hero 
 of "The Bound of Wrong," a drama by Bayle 
 Bernard, which, though weU-written and con- 
 taining some good situations, was elaborate to 
 heaviness, and thus, narrowly missed popularity. 
 The acting of the principal character was, how- 
 ever, so fine as to deserve record. In Eeuben 
 
 M 
 
162 OUE EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 Gwynne, engaged to marry a girl who afterwards 
 sadly rejects him at the instigation of her father, 
 no changes of character could be more complete, 
 and at the same time more consistent, than those 
 which the actor depicted. The honest cheerful- 
 ness, the good-natured liberality of the happy 
 lover who would spread the joy he feels, were 
 shown to the life, as were also the bitterness, 
 the avarice, and the vindictiveness of the man 
 whose hopes and whose faith had been trodden 
 down. Yet, in both aspects, Eeuben Gwynne 
 was seen to be the same man. His misanthropy 
 was the reaction against his loving credulity. 
 His longing for vengeance was the wild outcome 
 of his suffering — the mad desire to give torture 
 vent which makes the wounded creature turn 
 upon the hunter. When at length the tables 
 were turned, and his enemy, the father of his 
 old love, lay at his mercy, nothing could be truer 
 than the manner — most gradual in its rise, but 
 sudden in its end — in which the cherished pur- 
 pose of revenge gradually yielded before the 
 prayers and influence of his restored darling. 
 The spring of his life had returned ; the ice 
 which had concealed it for a while broke, and 
 there was the living current. 
 
 Another celebrated character of this actor 
 was that of Tartuffe, in a version by Mr. 
 Oxenford, originally produced at the Haymarket. 
 He had here to pass from the embodiment of 
 strong or fierce passions, emotions of hearty 
 good-nature and honest anger, of grief and 
 remorse, or of tender emotions, threaded by 
 quaint and simple humours, to that of dissimu- 
 lation, which is, at all events, meant to be as 
 profound as it is unscrupulous. It may be 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 163 
 
 heresy in the writer to take a strong exception 
 to what some regard as Moliere's chef-d'oeuvre, 
 but he has striven in vain to think that 
 the hypocrisy of Tartuffe is, on the whole, 
 subtle and plausible. It has always seemed to 
 him, on the contrary, to be so overdone as to 
 advertise unmistakably its own imposture. It 
 was one of Mr. Webster's great merits in the 
 part, that he moderated its excesses as far as 
 he could, and brought it as near to a human 
 possibility as his actions would enable him. The 
 assumption was entirely successful, and Tartuffe 
 became one of Webster's stock parts ; thus 
 furnishing one more proof of his power to trans- 
 late himself with equal effect into the raost 
 opposite characters. That of a Jesuit priest, 
 which he played at the Adelphi, in Mr. Charles 
 Eeade's "Two Loves and a Life," was a striking, 
 though far less elaborate picture of a higher kind 
 of cleric, in whom the restraint of a strong will 
 upon strong passions was admirably exemplified. 
 
 As an expression of power, however, nothing 
 short of tragic must be cited his rendering of 
 Eobert Landry, in the first act of the Adelphi 
 drama, " The Dead Heart." Landry, a young 
 sculptor, by the machinations of a certain Count 
 de St. Valerie and a godless priest, is immured 
 on false pretexts in the Bastille. The object of 
 St. Valerie in the vile proceeding is to bring 
 within his snare a lovely and innocent girl 
 betrothed to Landry. Nearly twenty years after 
 this shameful deed comes the taking of the 
 Bastille by the infuriated masses, the murder of 
 the defenders, and the release of the prisoners. 
 Of these last Landry is one. But the long- 
 immured man, crushed by despair, solitude, and 
 
164 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 the rigour of his treatment, seems to have lost 
 
 alike consciousness and sensation. The ghastly 
 
 face, the long and matted hair, the rigid limhs, 
 
 seem at first to speak of mere inert matter. It 
 
 is, however, matter faintly stirred with breath 
 
 that is brought back to day. All means of 
 
 restoration are employed, but vainly, till the 
 
 urgent repetition of a name — that of his betrothed 
 
 — draws forth a tremulous response, after which 
 
 the gradual resuscitation of bodily and mental 
 
 life sets in. But the conduct of the process was 
 
 a masterpiece of art. At first Landry lay like 
 
 a fossil. It was as if different forces of nature 
 
 passed one into another — mineral existence 
 
 thawing into the mobility of animal life, animal 
 
 life groping its way into human consciousness, and 
 
 irritating it from its apathy, till at last one saw 
 
 the recovered man in the forlorn dignity of his 
 
 memory and his wrongs. No scene capable of 
 
 such great treatment by the actor occurs in the 
 
 remainder of the drama. This one scene, however, 
 
 can hardly be forgotten by those who saw it. 
 
 Mr. Webster, however, was fine throughout the 
 
 piece. Let me record here how admirable I 
 
 thought Mr. David Fisher's representation in 
 
 this play of the unscrupulous and disdainful 
 
 abbe, whose hateful and malignant nature is 
 
 rendered just bearable by his scorn of danger. 
 
 Having seen Mr. Fisher in several parts which 
 
 he filled like a true artist, I have often wondered 
 
 that he was not more frequently before the town 
 
 in important characters. 
 
 It was not my good fortune to see ]\Ir. "Webster 
 in a small piece, in which he was, by general 
 consent, allowed to be at his best. As the poor 
 dramatic copyist, Penn Holder, in " One Touch 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 165 
 
 of Nature," he had a part which gave scope to 
 all his yearning tenderness as a father, and to 
 restraints scarcely less touching, by which he, 
 for a time, was forced to check it. He had to 
 make himself known to a daughter who had no 
 recollection of him, at so early an age had she 
 been carried off by the guilty mother who 
 deserted her husband. The daughter, under the 
 name of Constance Belmour, was then an actress. 
 A private rehearsal takes place in the house of 
 a dramatic author, who is dissatisfied with 
 Constance, in the stage-fi-ction, for her coldness 
 when she has to recognize a father who holds a 
 position precisely analogous to that of Holder to 
 Constance. Fearful that his daughter should lose 
 the chance of acting the part. Holder proposes in 
 this rehearsal to take the character of the supposed 
 father, and, in doing so, relates a number of real 
 details which gradually bring back to the girl's 
 dormant memory her first home and the indistinct 
 vision of a loving father. In brief, Constance 
 throws herself into the old man's arms, and 
 learns from her new experience of filial love 
 how to sustain her part of daughter in the drama. 
 It should be added, that while Holder has been 
 striving to reawaken her memory as a stage- 
 father, he has been trembling lest he should 
 reveal his true character too soon, and that, in 
 portraying these alternations of fond impulsive- 
 ness and needful self-suppression, Webster gained 
 a triumph that he had scarcely surpassed. From 
 the slight sketch given of Penn Holder's cha- 
 racter, I can well believe his excellence in it. 
 
 This sterling actor had few faults; perhaps 
 among the chief of them was a certain heaviness 
 and sombreness in playing the young heroes of 
 
166 OUK KECENT ACTOES. 
 
 comedy. Thus his Petrucchio seemed really 
 violent and angry, and showed little enjoyment 
 of the part in which he was masquerading. His 
 Wildrake, too, in " The Love-Chase," was over- 
 sullen and moody. These parts wanted the 
 geniality and the touches of humour with which 
 he so often relieved his older characters, and even 
 his young ones, when they were au fond rather 
 grave than gay. In his later years, too, whether 
 from carelessness or too much occupation, he 
 was seldom perfect in the text when he appeared 
 in a new part. A " fishing for words " and 
 dragging delivery took away from his effects, 
 till he warmed into his part, recovered his 
 memory, or supplied the loss of it impromptu. 
 He took leave of the stage in 1874. From the 
 farewell benefit accorded to him at Drury Lane 
 the same year, few indeed of his more distin- 
 guished brothers and sisters in art were absent. 
 He had truly deserved well of his profession. 
 His services as a manager rivalled those he had 
 rendered as an actor. He had assembled a 
 company of actors so numerous, as well as 
 brilliant, that the accidental absence of one star 
 could at once be substituted by another. He 
 had sought to bring to light new dramatic ability 
 by offers which, if they now seem moderate, 
 were then liberality itself, and in the course of 
 his sixteen years' management, it is said, had 
 paid thirty thousand pounds to his authors. It 
 was rumoured that in later years, at the Adelphi, 
 his outlay was less generous. If true that he had 
 learnt, from hard experience, to be thrifty, it is 
 scarcely to be wondered at. 
 
 Amongst other plays of the writer, he pro- 
 duced, at the Haymarket, in 1847, a comedy 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 167 
 
 entitled " The Heart and the World." It was a 
 piece of so purely a psychological nature as to 
 neglect incident, which, instead of being pre- 
 sented with fulness and strength, was only so 
 far outlined as to give a key to mental con- 
 ditions. This unsuccessful piece is mentioned 
 only to show how lightly at that time the 
 manager bore pecuniary failure. He had built 
 great hopes on the piece, the reception of which 
 on the first night was cold, though not hostile. 
 That its " run " was doubtful was an impression 
 which its author had at once formed, and which 
 he took no especial pains to hide from the 
 cordial manager, who accompanied him home to 
 a little social gathering, and did his best to cheer 
 him on the way. " We shall make a stand," he 
 said. "In a night or two all will have warmed 
 to their work, and the piece will go twice as 
 briskly." When, however, the notices of the new 
 play had appeared, and even the kindest of them 
 did not predict its attraction, it was felt that 
 the general opinion could not be resisted. 
 Without a murmur at his own loss or disap- 
 pointment, Mr. Webster did all he could to put 
 the baffled dramatist in heart, spoke of his 
 unshaken faith in him, of successes that were 
 soon to sponge out the present failure, and 
 showed himself indeed the staunch friend that 
 he has already been described. 
 
 Not very long before the memorable Shakspere 
 Tercentenary, 1863, a dinner was given to 
 Webster at the Freemasons' Tavern. The unfor- 
 tunate Shakspere Committee was at that time 
 seeking to raise funds for, a memorial of the 
 poet. It was curious to hear the guest of the 
 evening demand, almost in terms of menace, that. 
 
168 OUK EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 in honour of Shakspere, a large part of the sums 
 raised should be awarded to the two establish- 
 ments of which he was founder — the Dramatic 
 and Equestrian Institution, and the Home for 
 Decayed Actors at Woking. There was good 
 reason that these undertakings should be sup- 
 ported by contemporary generosity, but very 
 little that they should divert from its course 
 the money raised for a personal tribute, the best 
 form of which would obviously have been a 
 statue. Webster's interest, however, in institu- 
 tions which he had founded, magnified to him 
 their claims, and led him to urge them even 
 with excessive warmth. Yery agreeable, how- 
 ever, are the recollections of that night at the 
 Freemasons'. Webster was full of reminiscences 
 of old times and of brother-actors. He spoke, 
 too, with much satisfaction of the cordial recep- 
 tion given him in Paris by Napoleon the 
 Third, whom he had formerly known in London. 
 Eobert Bell, our genial and eloquent chairman, 
 proposed the guest's health in a speech full 
 of criticism and felicitous expression. The 
 formalities of the evening then gave way to 
 pleasant gossip, jest, and repartee: At a rather 
 late hour came in Mr. Eobert Keeley, who had 
 some time before retired from the stage, and 
 whose entrance was the signal for a burst of 
 welcome, and for one more toast, tumultuously 
 received. Webster was now at the height of 
 his reputation. A few years later his appear- 
 ance became gradually rarer and rarer. He 
 survived his farewell of the stage more than 
 eight years. He died in the summer of 1882, 
 at the age of eighty-four, leaving as a realistic 
 actor a reputation hardly surpassed for force, 
 
OUR EEOENT AOTOES. 169 
 
 pathos, and humour, conveyed by incisive and 
 subtle detail ; leaving, as a man, the memory of 
 an influential and honourable career of liberality 
 in his engagements, and of loyalty in his 
 friendships. 
 
170 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 MES. GLOTEE. 
 
 Mrs. Glover in early days had often appeared in tragedy — Had 
 performed Hamlet — First saw her as Gertrude, to Charles 
 Kemble's Hamlet — Her eminence as an actress of comedy — 
 Her truth to nature — Her keen perception of characteristics, 
 moderation, and air of unconsciousness — These merits 
 exemplified in her Mrs. Malaprop — Her performance of 
 the character compared with Mrs. Stirling's — Mrs. Glover's 
 Mrs. Candour — Her Nurse in "Eomeo and Juliet" — Her 
 AVidow Green in " The Love Chase " — The original Lady 
 Franklin in "Money" — Her Miss Tucker in "Time 
 "Works Wonders " — She appears in a comedy called " The 
 Maiden Aunt," by E. B. Knowles — Acts in the writer's 
 comedy, " Borough Politics" — Account of her performance 
 — Meeting with her at rehearsal — An argument with the 
 author — Minuteness and fulness of her observation — 
 Her sympathy with authors — Thackeray's tribute to her 
 acting — Eeported connection of her family with the famous 
 Betterton — Her death. 
 
 In early life Mrs. Glover had often performed 
 tragic parts, Hamlet amongst the rest. The 
 character in which I first saw her was Gertrude 
 in " Hamlet." I was too much absorbed in Charles 
 Kemble's acting to give her the attention that 
 was her due, but I well recall her aspect of settled 
 melancholy and the sad, deep tones of her voice. 
 Tragedy, however, was become with her, in 
 general, a thing of the past. She had then given 
 up youthful characters, but, as an actress of 
 
OUR .EECBNT ACTORS. 171 
 
 comedy in her own line, as the Nurse in " Eomeo 
 and Juliet," as Mrs. Heidelberg, Mrs. Malaprop, 
 Mrs. Candour, and as Widow Green in "The 
 Love Chase," she was without an equal. 
 
 In reviewing a number of performers whose 
 merits are often alike in everything but degree, 
 it becomes difficult to apply epithets which have 
 not lost something of their force by repetition. 
 To say simply that Mrs. Glover's main excellence 
 was her truth to nature, though no doubt literally 
 correct, would hardly tell anything. Edmund 
 Kean, for instance, Macready, the Kembles, were, 
 of course, generally true to the passions and 
 characters they represented. But this truthful- 
 ness can onl}'- be general in tragedy which re- 
 presents the essential feelings men have in 
 common, and rejects everything that savours 
 of mere peculiarity. In comedy, however, which 
 represents the idiosyncrasies of persons, and the 
 modes in which men differ, the expression of 
 vivid personality is often one of the highest 
 merits. This Mrs. Glover eminently possessed. 
 She had an instinct for seizing traits and 
 humours, a moderation in displaying them as 
 just as her perception of them was lively, a wide 
 range of appreciation, and an apparent uncon- 
 sciousness which gave wonderful reality to her 
 delineations. Thus, in the eccentricities of her 
 parts of speech as Mrs. Malaprop, and in her dis- 
 plays of vanity and credulity, there was a solemn 
 self-complacency, an absence of misgiving, an 
 obtuseness to ridicule, a vis inertia of comedy, 
 so to speak, which, in its power to produce the 
 ludicrous, could not have been surpassed by the 
 most active exertions. Those who, having seen 
 Mrs. Glover in Mrs. Malaprop, have also seen 
 
172 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Mrs. Stirling's admirably telling delineation, full 
 of intrigue, life, and movement, of the same part, 
 have had an opportunity of seeing the utmost 
 that two differing methods can produce, and of 
 comparing their effects. In the hands of each, 
 the general outlines of a character so broadly 
 defined as Mrs. Malaprop were, of course, 
 identical. The difference — and it was consider- 
 able — lay in shades of expression. In uttering 
 the grandiloquent phraseology of the part, Mrs. 
 Glover's self-satisfaction was more restrained, but 
 not less profound, than Mrs. Stirling's. The 
 former seemed to hug the secret of her supe- 
 riority, the latter to revel in its presumed effect 
 upon her listeners. The compliments of Captain 
 Absolute were received by Mrs. Glover with 
 evident pleasure, indeed, but with a consciousness 
 that they were absolutely her due ; by Mrs. 
 Stirling with a flutter of delighted vanity. In 
 hearing herself described as " an old weather- 
 beaten she-dragon," resentment predominates with 
 Mrs. Stirling, whilst with Mrs. Glover an appeal- 
 ing astonishment against the profanity of the 
 impeachment was the leading sentiment. There 
 are now few who have had a chance of con- 
 trasting the claims of these two admirable 
 actresses in the part in question ; but even those 
 who have the liveliest recollection of Mrs. Glover 
 will recognize in Mrs. Stirling's Mrs. Malaprop 
 the finest example of old comedy acting left to 
 the contemporary stage. 
 
 In Mrs. Candour, again, Mrs. Glover, when 
 uttering her charitable calumnies, wore an air 
 of almost deep and stolid conviction, which 
 showed that the hypocrite, imposing even upon 
 herself, believed that she was defending her 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTOKS. 173 
 
 victims while she enjoyed the pleasure of traducing 
 them. 
 
 Her ISTurse in " Eomeo and Juliet " had all 
 the reality of Dutch art applied to character. 
 Her attachment to her youthful charge was 
 strong even to audacity. Her remonstrance with 
 old Capulet, when he threatens and abuses Juliet 
 for refusing the proposed marriage with Paris, 
 had a sullen, half-checked fierceness in it, like 
 the growl of an angry but wary dog when one 
 attacks his mistress. Her attachment to Juliet 
 was, indeed, a sort of animal instinct. It exerted 
 no general influence; it helped to humour, but 
 not to understand or fathom, the young girl's 
 love. She wore a look of puzzled indulgence 
 when listening to Juliet's grief for Eomeo's 
 banishment. For a while this, with the Nurse, 
 was a whim to be humoured, by no means to 
 be persisted in at the risk of loss or danger. 
 In all this, of course, the actress only followed 
 Shakspere ; but her manner of doing so was 
 perfect. If self-interest had been an article of 
 the Decalogue, she could not have obeyed it with 
 more implicit faith, with more utter unconscious- 
 ness of its meanness. There was a sort of frank 
 rationality in her mien and manner when she 
 urged Juliet to desert her lover, as of one who 
 spake from her deepest convictions. Her very 
 conscience seemed to be dishonest. 
 
 Of her performance of such characters as we 
 have already named, including Mrs. Heidelberg 
 in the " Clandestine Marriage," criticism has 
 taken more ample note than of her acting in 
 more modern plays — of her "Widow Green," for 
 instance, in Sheridan Knowles's "Love Chase." 
 This, however, was one of her best characters. 
 
174 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 What a complacent confidence was there in her 
 mature charms, when she questions her maid as 
 to the signs of young Master Walter's disap- 
 pointment at her absence ; what enjoyment of 
 her supposed lover's mortification, what eager- 
 ness in her desire to repair it; what indignant 
 disdain for Lydia's pure and disinterested con- 
 ception of love ; what elation at the power of 
 her own attractions, where Master Walter's letter, 
 with the offer of marriage to her maid, falls by 
 mistake into her hands; what truth to nature 
 when it strikes the buxom widow that she looks 
 too saucily happy for the timid bride she fain 
 would personate — 
 
 " Amelia, give this feather more a slope 
 That it sit droopingly. 
 
 « * * * * 
 
 Hang this cheek 
 
 Of mine ! it is too saucy. What a pity 
 To have a colour of one's own ! " 
 
 And then, how fine and natural were the grada- 
 tions from rage at her self-deeeJDtion touching 
 Master Walter to the politic conclusion that, being 
 dressed for the altar, she would do well to escape 
 ridicule by marrying the elderly Sir William 
 Fondlove. Selfish, vain, cunning, worldly, but, 
 on the whole, good-humoured, and with a pleasure 
 in herself that made her pleasant to others, the 
 actress presented a character, the traits of which 
 might easily have been spoiled by exaggeration, 
 with a force which was increased by her modera- 
 tion — a moderation, be it understood, in which 
 there was nothing tame — and with a harmonious 
 variety which, after a night's acquaintance, made 
 one feel as if one had known Widow Green all 
 one's life. 
 
 In 1840, during Mr. Webster's management 
 
OUR RECENT AOTORS. 175 
 
 of the Haymarket, Mrs. Glover was the original 
 Lady Franldin in Lord Lytton's comedy of 
 "Money." Here, for once, it was possible to 
 take exception to her. She wanted the due 
 enjoyment of her intrigue and the vivacity 
 needed to captivate a nature like that of Graves. 
 She was also, in 1840, the Miss Tucker of 
 Douglas Jerrold's comedy of "Time Works 
 Wonders." As the punctilious schoolmistress, she 
 gave lively and amusing expression to the pecu- 
 liarities of the part ; but the comedy was so 
 crowded with figures that she had relatively 
 little opportunity to do so. At the Haymarket 
 also, while with Mr. Webster, she played the part 
 of the Maiden Aunt in the comedy of that 
 name by Mr. E. B. Knowles, son of the celebrated 
 dramatist. Her delightful geniality and spirit 
 in this character was the mainstay of the piece, 
 which, though slight in plot, had for a coup d'essai 
 considerable merit. I am not aware, however, 
 that Mr. E. B. Knowles made any second dra- 
 matic attempt. 
 
 In 1846 I had the pleasure of securing Mrs. 
 Glover's services for a two-act comedy of my 
 own, entitled " Borough Politics." I had thus 
 an opportunity of observing, at rehearsal, how 
 thoroughly she had entered into her part, 
 omitting no opportunity of watching her rela- 
 tions to the other characters in the piece, or 
 their modifying influence upon herself, the good- 
 hearted but uneducated woman married to a 
 worthy farmer, with a daughter betrothed to the 
 son of supercilious neighbours. The chief trial 
 of Mrs. Thompson (Mrs. Glover's part), at the 
 opening of the piece, is the contempt with 
 which Dr. and Mrs. ISTeviUe regard her efforts 
 
176 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 to rise in the social scale. The ostentatious re- 
 furnishing of Mrs. Thompson's house has given 
 Mrs. ISTeviUe an opportunity for exhausting her 
 powers of sarcasm on the former, who, incensed 
 by a long series of affronts, invokes her husband's 
 protection. Upon this Nathan Thompson, the 
 husband, resolves to dispute in his own person 
 Dr. Neville's election to the mayoralty — a reso- 
 lution which has the unhappy effect of separating 
 the two lovers of the piece, each of wlrom now 
 belongs to a rival house. It will be assumed 
 that this sterling actress brought out with 
 admirable effect the delight of the worthy 
 matron in self-display, in the overdone splendour 
 of her residence, her sullen attempts to conceal 
 her mortification under the civil contempt of 
 Mrs. Neville, and the overflow of genuine passion 
 with which she at last retorted upon her, exulting 
 in the success of every well-delivered blow. 
 Nor was her maternal grief less effective, when, 
 her anger fading, she felt that she had brought 
 about a separation between her daughter and her 
 daughter's suitor, and converted her apparently 
 easy-going husband into a man stern and 
 vindictive and a great stickler for ceremonies. 
 All this may be affirmed, and yet it will not 
 show the special point in which Mrs. Glover 
 differed from many capable actresses — that 
 absorption in her part which no mere clever- 
 ness of delivery, however appropriate, can sub- 
 stitute or imitate. Take one illustration. When 
 her husband, as probable mayor, is spoken of as 
 "his worship," the title sinks deeply into the 
 mind of his wife. Though she had nothing 
 immediately to say, her expression showed that 
 she was rolling it over like a sweet morsel. 
 
OUR EECENT AOTOES. 177 
 
 Knowing that in some cases the rank of the 
 husband gives a new appellation to the wife — 
 that the spouse of a lord or baronet, for instance, 
 becomes "lady" — poor Mrs. Thompson is anxious 
 to know how she will be styled as the wife of 
 "his worship." Over this question Mrs. Glover 
 fondly brooded, till she sadly discovered that the 
 honorary phrase of " worship " given to a mayor 
 still left his wife a simple "Mrs." The con- 
 versation then turned on other points. She now 
 and then gave a languid attention to it, and 
 then relapsed into her reverie, illustrated by her 
 dejected looks and restless movements. When 
 she at length rose, with the exclamation, "It's 
 hard, though, there aren't no female ' worship ! ' " 
 she produced a burst of laughter, by disclosing 
 to the audience in words the trouble which, 
 with so much quiet nature, she had expressed 
 in pantomime. 
 
 At rehearsal, during the feigned anger of the 
 farmer-squire at his daughter's melancholy, Mrs. 
 Glover made an expressive gesture indicating 
 that all was right between the two. I thought 
 this rather premature, and observed that the 
 father had said nothing to justify it. She pointed 
 out to me, however, that, according to the stage 
 direction, the mention of his daughter had already 
 cost him a display of emotion. " Oh," said she, 
 "don't you think that if such a father is once 
 moved by the thought of his child, she's sure 
 to carry the day? It was because I saw him 
 struggling with his feelings that I put on that 
 look of pleasure. I felt convinced, at least for 
 the moment, that he would forgive her." The 
 author deferred to an argument which showed 
 that the actress had more closely studied one 
 
178 OUK EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 of his characters than he had done. He would 
 apologize for dwelling on this little drama, 
 were it not that his presence at rehearsal gave 
 him an opportunity of noticing the minuteness 
 and fulness of Mrs. Glover's observation more 
 closely than he could have done from her acting. 
 The effects of these qualities might have been 
 equally felt " at night," but the intellectual 
 subtlety of motive that led to them would have 
 been partly missed. On the day after the pro- 
 duction of the little piece, it happened that 
 one journal spoke less favourably of it than 
 the general press. I remarked to Mrs. Glover 
 that the criticism in question nevertheless paid 
 the warmest possible tribute to herself. " Oh, 
 that may be," said the actress, with all the 
 warmth and sincerity which look and tone can 
 convey ; " but I never feel happy unless the 
 author has his full share of praise with us." 
 After the piece had been performed a few 
 nights, I had the pleasure of meeting Thackeraj^ 
 who expressed the warmest admiration of Mrs. 
 Glover's acting in it. 
 
 It has been asserted that Mrs. Glover, whose 
 maiden name was Betterton, inherited the blood 
 of the famous actor who flourished in the reign 
 of Charles the Second, and his successors. If the 
 assertion be true, the right to such honourable 
 descent was well maintained by this excellent 
 actress. She died in 1850, at the age of sixty- 
 eight. 
 
OUE EECENT ACT0E8. 179 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MRS. WABNBE. 
 
 Mrs. Warner's rank as an actress — Performs both the gentler 
 and sterner characters in tragedy — At Covent Garden 
 and Drury Lane with Macready — Had appeared, in 1836, 
 as the heroine of Knowles's " Daughter " — Her Joan of 
 Arc, Lady Macbeth, and Hermione — Her power in invec- 
 tive and in irony — Her fine impersonations of Emilia in 
 " Othello," and of Bvadne in " The Maid's Tragedy " — 
 Account of her acting in these characters — Evadne her 
 chief triumph — Enthusiastic praise of it by Dickens — 
 After separating from Phelps, Mrs. Warner attempts, in 
 1847, to make the Marylebone Theatre a Western Sadler's 
 Wells — Eventual failure of the scheme — During her 
 management of the Marylebone, Mrs. Warner appears 
 as Hermione, Julia, Lady Teazle, Mrs. Beverley, Mrs. 
 Oakley, and Lady Townley — Her want of flexibility in 
 comedy — Great merit, nevertheless, of her Mrs. Oakley — 
 The event of her first season at the Marylebone the 
 magnificent and correct reproduction of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's " Scornful Lady " — Bemarks on this Comedy — 
 The character of the heroine remarkably suited to her — 
 Mrs. Warner in private — First meeting with her at 
 rehearsal at Drury Lane, in 1842 — Her acute and 
 humorous remarks on Macready's realistic getting up 
 of " The Patrician's Daughter " — Anecdote tolii by her of 
 impracticable stage-efi'ects — Her easy and genial manners 
 in private, for the exhibition of which her stage characters 
 gave few opportunities — Her last illness and death. 
 
 Mrs. Warnbe was a remarkable actress, even at 
 the time when Miss Helen Faucit and Mrs, 
 
180 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Charles Kean were at the height of their popu- 
 larity. In serious characters she was second only 
 to them in public estimation, playing, moreover, 
 a range of sterner characters than they generally 
 appeared in. At the time of her engagements 
 with Macready, both at Covent Garden and at 
 Drury Lane, Miss Huddart, who, in the course of 
 them, became Mrs. Warner, was the recognized 
 Lady Macbeth, Emilia, Gertrude, and Volumnia 
 of those theatres. In 1836 she had made a 
 considerable impression in a part of a strong, 
 but more amiable description — the heroine of 
 Knowles's " Daughter," a play which, though 
 gloomy, might for pure dramatic force compete 
 with any of his productions. I did not see Mrs. 
 Warner (then Miss Huddart) in the character 
 mentioned ; but it is due to her to record the 
 warm approval which she received from press 
 and public in a more winning part than those 
 she usually represented. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that, in 1837, at 
 Covent Garden, she personated the heroine of a 
 melodrama called " Joan of Arc," the critics 
 generally deposing to her energy and intensity, 
 though one or two accused her, not quite unjustly, 
 of occasional ranting. 
 
 Lady Macbeth, though probably the character 
 which Mrs. Warner most frequently impersonated, 
 was not, in my opinion, her most successful one. 
 It had a tolerably well counterfeited air of the 
 true personage, but it would not stand the tests 
 of long acquaintanceship or examination. In 
 the early acts, it was stern, set, decisive, and 
 when need was, impetuous and scornful ; but 
 there was all the difference between it and a 
 genuine conception that exists between a 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 181 
 
 character arrived at and expressed by the under- 
 standing, and a character seized by the will 
 and inspired with its energy. There was not 
 that variety of tone or manner which belongs 
 to a woman desperately bent upon an end, and 
 eager to try every resource in turn to secure it. 
 There was a declamatory attempt in the first 
 scene to realize the supernatural, but no real 
 awe, no real trust in "fate" and "metaphysical 
 aid." In the later scenes, Mrs. Warner was 
 dignified and remorseful, and the solemnities 
 of the sleep-walking scene were punctiliously 
 observed, and rendered with all the time- 
 honoured traditions. What, then, did she lack ? 
 Depth, incisiveness, the interchange of the 
 shifting moods of emotion, the different shades 
 even of the same emotion which mark life. Yet 
 there was, so to speak, such a consistent physique 
 of Lady Macbeth in Mrs. Warner's delineation, 
 and such a propriety in her somewhat surface- 
 exhibition of the character, that she was held 
 for years to be its most satisfactory representative. 
 
 Among the few gentler types of womanhood 
 that she occasionally embodied, was Hermione 
 in the "Winter's Tale." She gave with great 
 dignity and queenly patience that wonderful 
 defence of the slandered queen, in which the 
 story of her wrong gains emphasis and force from 
 its moderation. Nothing could be more royal 
 than her appearance in the statue-scene, more 
 finely graduated than the return to life and 
 motion, or more nobly affecting than her final 
 embrace of the repentant Leontes. 
 
 She had great power in direct invective, as 
 well as in irony. In the latter she sometimes 
 employed a sinister gentleness, which implied 
 
182 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 far more scorn than open bitterness could 
 compass. Her Emilia in " Othello " was finely- 
 conceived and executed. She showed a bold 
 freedom of manner, which went far to justify 
 lago's suspicions of her. With this was com- 
 bined that sort of half blase ease which comes 
 from knowledge of life, however gained, and of 
 the chief figures of the time, while the whole 
 was lit up and half redeemed by the sudden 
 flashes of that more generous spirit by which 
 Shakspere has hinted what the wife of lago 
 might have been under better conditions. Her 
 usual cliaracteristic was breadth rather than 
 subtlety, except in pride, of which she had all 
 the nuances. It might be going too far to 
 ascribe her devotion to Desdemona to some re- 
 morseful tenderness for one who was the image 
 of her past and purer life. ISTevertheless, her 
 acting perfectly tallied with such a conception. 
 Sire was a different, and, on the whole, a higher 
 being with Desdemona than with others. After 
 the murder of Desdemona, her defiance to Othello 
 when she rates him, " I care not for thy sword," 
 had the passionate recklessness of life which 
 indignation creates, and her entire actmg in the 
 passages where she discloses the villainy of her 
 husband was fraught with a fierce anguish of 
 bereavement for her mistress, as well as scorn for 
 her husband and his dupe. For better, for worse, 
 she was that marvellous embodiment of a nature 
 grown unscrupulous through its fall, and -yet 
 morally clear-sighted, and capable of generosity 
 and attachment, that Shakspere has painted 
 with a success equal to his daring. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that Mrs. 
 Warner won her chief triumph as Evadne in 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 183 
 
 " The Bridal " — Sheridan Knowles's adaptation of 
 "The Maid's Tragedy," first played at the Hay- 
 market, in 1837. Scorn never took a more regal 
 mien, guilt never borrowed a more redeeming 
 touch of majesty from resolution, self-possession, 
 and contempt of look and tone — all the more 
 withering because they were kept within the 
 bounds of calm restraint, as if Evadne would not 
 allow herself to be much nloved by so slight a 
 cause as this new convenience, this despised 
 husband. Her first careless disregard of his ex- 
 postulation, followed by the cold gaze of her 
 lustrous eyes on him, when he forced her to be 
 explicit, made an admirable contrast. There is 
 a passage in which she asks him what look of 
 hers suits him best. Amintor replies — 
 
 " Why do you ask 1 
 JEvad. That I may show you one less pleasing to you. 
 Armn. How's that? 
 Evad. That I may show you one less pleasing to you." 
 
 In the repetition of this answer, her tones 
 were so clear and slow that each syllable took 
 its fullest meaning, and carried home to Amintor 
 the conviction of her recoil from him. When, 
 subsequently, she warns him that it is no 
 maiden coyness that bids her shrink from his 
 arms; that "hot and rising blood" makes her 
 apt indeed for love, but that her beauty pledged 
 to the king shall not stoop to any second wooer, 
 there was an exaltation in the avowal of her 
 guilty passion for her paramour which made 
 her seem an embodiment of sensual beauty, 
 inspired by passion and ignorant of conscience. 
 If I mistake not, it was in this scene that she 
 wore a large necklace of pearls, which threw 
 the haughty, and, if I may use such an epithet, 
 
184 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 the sultry splendour of her face into grand 
 relief. 
 
 This scene with Amintor was, indeed, a brilliant 
 passage. Nowise inferior to it was her interview 
 with Melantius, when, having discovered her 
 dishonour, he extorts from her a confession as to 
 her betrayer. Her levity and prompt resource 
 of equivocation wliile she yet doubts her brother's 
 meaning, her haughty and imperious defiance 
 when she at length apprehends it, disclosing a 
 strain of resolution akin to his own, her sub- 
 mission only at the last extremity, when he has 
 wrought upon her shame as well as her terror, 
 were painted to the height, while the praise of 
 a fine artist was due for her skill in softening 
 Evadne's abrupt change from defiance to repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Not long after the revival of "The Bridal," 
 I met Charles Dickens at dinner at the Clarendon 
 Hotel.* In the course of the evening we spoke 
 together of the acting of Macready and Mrs. 
 Warner in this play. " What a defiant, splendid 
 Sin that woman is ! " exclaimed Dickens, vsdth 
 entliusiasm. " How superbly, too, she looks the 
 part ! " In short, the great novelist did not speak 
 with more delight of his friend Macready in 
 Melantius (one of his signal triumphs), than of 
 Mrs. Warner in Evadne. 
 
 After separating from Mr. Phelps, Sirs. Warner 
 opened, in 1847, the Marylebone Theatre, probably 
 
 * This dinner was given in honour of the benevolent Dr. 
 Soutliwood Smith, the late Lord Lansdowne occupying the 
 chair. In a book of tlieatrioal recollections, it may not be out 
 of place to record that the genial Lord Carlisle, better remem- 
 bered, perhaps, as Lord Morpeth, was one of the company, whom 
 he highly amused by humorously avowing his remarkable 
 likeness to Liston, the comedian. 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 185 
 
 hoping to gain a western suburb the same reputa- 
 tion for legitimacy which had followed the 
 experiment at Sadler's Wells. In this expecta- 
 tion, however, after a brave struggle, she was 
 disappointed. The company by which she was 
 supported, though respectable, was not equal to 
 that collected by Phelps at the Islington Theatre. 
 At the Marylebone, being her own mistress, 
 Mrs. Warner naturally gave her ambition rather 
 a wide scope. She opened with her admirable 
 Hermione in the "Winter's Tale," then played 
 Julia in " The Hunchback," Lady Teazle in " The 
 School for Scandal," Mrs. Beverley in "The 
 Gamester," Mrs. Oakley in " The Jealous Wife," 
 Lady Townley in "The Provoked Husband," 
 securing for all the characters least suited for 
 her that measure of acceptance which a practised 
 and intelligent performer can always command. 
 
 She was generally somewhat deficient in the 
 flexibility necessary for the heroines of comedy, 
 and, indeed, for those heroines whose graver 
 qualities are relieved by vivacity and humour. 
 In Mrs. Oakley, however, she displayed remark- 
 able spirit, and that character was probably the 
 best of her assumptions in purely prose comedy. 
 But the great event of her first season at the 
 Marylebone was undoubtedly the revival of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's " Scornful Lady," 
 through an adaptation furnished by Mr. J. D. 
 Serle, an actor and dramatist who at that time 
 had some reputation in both capacities. The 
 comedy was put upon the stage with a sumptuous 
 taste and correctness which Macready himself 
 as a manager could not have exceeded. An 
 imposing hall and grand staircase, a noble 
 gallery, running the length of the stage, with 
 
186 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 the various apartments from it, and an apart- 
 ment in the " Lady's house," with its lofty marble 
 mantelpiece, its various decorations and elegant 
 trifles all in keeping with the time, were amongst 
 the chief triumphs of the scenery, while every 
 costume had been made a careful study. Nothing 
 could have been more stately than this frame 
 for Beaumont and Fletcher's picture. It is 
 doubtful whether the comedy itself quite de- 
 served all the praises for wit and spirit which 
 were ascribed to it. In other works of these 
 authors, both these qualities, it seems to the 
 writer, have been more fully exhibited — a cir- 
 cumstance which is perhaps accounted for by 
 the small share which Fletcher is supposed to 
 have taken in the play. Nevertheless, there is 
 enough of invention, of decisive handling of 
 character and breadth of contrast in the 
 characters to leave it effective, even when purged 
 from some of its grossness. The delineation of 
 the Scornful Lady was one of Mrs. Warner's 
 greatest successes. Her haughty severity, kept 
 within the limits of refined courtesy, weU became 
 her, and had a sort of provoking attractiveness 
 both for the public and the ill-used lover. 
 
 Though it was Mrs. AVarner's lot to appear 
 generally in characters of severity, pride, decision, 
 or, in rarer cases, of stately sorrow, she was, in 
 private, full of honhomie, animation, and quick 
 perception. I first met her at rehearsal, in 1842, 
 on the stage of Drury Lane Theatre. The play 
 in preparation, though in blank xerse, was one 
 of contemporary life. Macready was anxious — 
 perhaps more anxious than the author — to invest 
 the action with every detail of the most modern 
 realism. For this purpose, the season represented 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 187 
 
 being summer, during one of the acts he wished 
 the actresses engaged to use parasols. "Blank 
 verse and parasols," said Mrs. Warner, apart, to 
 me one morning. " Is not that quite a new- 
 combination ? " " Yes," was the answer ; " the 
 wish is to show that the present time has its 
 poetical aspect." "And you demonstrate that," 
 slie asked archly, "by carrying parasols, and 
 insisting upon other little realisms of the time ? " 
 To this, rejoinder was made that the attempt was 
 to show the poetry of the age, in spite of its 
 realistic details, and, therefore, they had to be 
 encountered ; and that, inasmuch as it was quite 
 possible for a woman to feel a poetical sentiment 
 — love or admiration, for instance — while using 
 a parasol, it was quite right to allow her to 
 express the sentiment with such an appendage ; 
 that the seeming incongruity she referred to 
 spra.ng from mere novelty of association, and 
 that it would disappear as the association became 
 famUiar. " But how far will you insist on this 
 view ? " she asked. " If you concede to realism 
 the uttering of poetical sentiment under parasols, 
 realism will soon demand more, and exact from 
 you that the parasols shall cast their shadows 
 on the ground, and just in accordance with the 
 position of the sun." This, doubtless, seemed to 
 her (for the stage resources of limeliglat were 
 then little known) a difficulty that could scarcely 
 be overcome. However, the quickness of her 
 observation and her power of deduction were 
 amply shown by her objections, no less than 
 was her vein of pleasant humour in the mode of 
 expressing tliem. 
 
 Shortly after undertaking the management of 
 the Marylebone Theatre, she called on us one 
 
188 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 morning, and amused us all greatly by anecdotes 
 of the impracticable stage-effects which had been 
 sent to her for representation. One of the dramas 
 she mentioned was founded on a Grecian subject, 
 and required that the defeated hero of the piece, 
 after having been pierced by a javelin, taking 
 advantage probably of the courtesy of his 
 enemies, should ascend the slope of a mountain, 
 and compose himself to die in such an attitude 
 that the rays of the declining sun would just 
 rest upon his brow.* I give this little anecdote 
 to the best of my memory in Mrs. Warner's own 
 words, though I cannot reproduce the pleasant 
 and easy humour of her expression — all the more 
 noticeable, because she had so few opportunities 
 of exhibiting this quality on the stage. After 
 much suffering, during which the gracious sym- 
 pathy of Her Majesty was habitually shown to 
 her, Mrs. Warner died at the age of fifty, in 
 1854. 
 
 * This difficulty, wliich seemed at the time insurmountable, 
 might now easily be conquered by the employment of lime- 
 light. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 189 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 ME. SAMUEL PHELPS. 
 
 First appearance of Mr. Phelps in London — His recention— He 
 joins Maoready's company at Covent Garden — He appears 
 as Leonatus Posthumus, as Adrastus in " Ion," as Cassius, 
 and as Macduff — His acting in tliese cliaracters— His 
 striking success as Macduff — His acting in that part 
 described — He appears as Cassius for a, benefit at the 
 Victoria Theatre — His acting as Cassius — Excitable and 
 impetuous characters suitable to him — The writer meets 
 him in private — Warde the actor — Theatrical jealousies — 
 Phelps's moods of reverie and abstraction — His absence of 
 mind — An instance of it — Phelps in lago and Othello — 
 Hazlitt — Fortitude necessary to the tragic actor — Phelps 
 somewhat deficient in this quality — How far an actor 
 ought to identify himself "with his characters — Phelps's 
 evidence on this question — The " Synoretics " — Phelps, 
 Mrs. Warner, and others engaged by them to play in Mr. 
 George Stephens's tragedy of " Martinuzzi " — The Syn- 
 cretic dramatists, Mr. George Stephens in particular — Pro- 
 duction of " Martinuzzi " — Acting of Mr. Phelps and Mrs. 
 Warner — Phelps at Drury Lane with Macready — His 
 Hubert in " King John " — His fine performance of Lord 
 Tresham in Browning's " Blot on the Scutcheon " — His 
 management of Sadler's Wells — His Macbeth — His Lear 
 — His Hamlet — His Timon, Coriolanus, Mark Antony, 
 Brutus, and Henry the Fourth — His Richelieu, Werner, 
 Bertuooio in " The Fool's Revenge," and Mordaunt in 
 " The Patrician's Daughter" — His occasional triumphs in 
 tragedies where terror and passion predominate — His chief 
 serious successes in characters of pathos and tenderness or 
 morbid bitterness — His crowning excellence, however, in 
 comedy, often eccentric comedy — His Sir Pertinax Mao- 
 Sycophant, Malvolio, Sir Peter Teazle, Falstaff, Bottom, 
 Justice Shallow — Remark on Falstaff — Phelps as manager 
 of Sadler's Wells, and his services to the drama — General 
 
190 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 apathy as to things dramatic whea lie entered upon this 
 management — Members of his company — Sadler's Wells at 
 length attracts lovers of the drama from all parts of town — ■ 
 Enthusiasm there eyinoed for legitimacy, and for Phelps as 
 its representative — Instances of this — Mr. Phelps in private 
 — Author reads a play to him — His willingness to produce 
 it — An actor's love of pre-eminence — Macready — Phelps 
 and writer differ as to terms — The play eventually pro- 
 duced at the Olvmpic — Miss Helen Faucit — A second 
 negotiation with Phelps for a play, with the same result — 
 He produces nearly all Shakspere's plays — Takes leave of 
 Sadler's Wells after more than eigliteen years of manage- 
 ment — Remarkable revival there of " Antony and Cleo- 
 patra " — Miss Glyn — Her introduction to Phelps some time 
 before — List of original plays produced by him — His 
 various revivals — His career after leaving Sadler's Wells — 
 He plants the Shakspere oak on Primrose Hill — No due 
 public recognition of his claims — Summary of his merits 
 as an actor — His personal appearance, voice, mode of 
 delivery, etc. — His private amiability — His illness and 
 death. 
 
 Me. Phelps first appeared at the Haymarket 
 Theatre, in the character of Shylock, on August 
 28, 1837. His reception by the press and the 
 public was favourable, though not enthusiastic. 
 After playing various characters at the Hay- 
 market, we next find him a prominent member of 
 Macready's company at Covent Garden, which, as 
 it then also included Mr. Vandenhoff, and, subse- 
 quently, Mr. Anderson, was capable of rendering 
 the standard works of our drama with a complete- 
 ness of effect which, except in the case of one or 
 two seasons of Mr. Webster's Haymarlcet manage- 
 ment, has rarely been approached. 
 
 At Covent Garden, Phelps appeared as Leo- 
 natus Posthumus in "Cymbeline," as Adrastus 
 in " Ion," as Cassius, and as Macduff. The 
 representation of the former three characters was, 
 however, infrequent. Phelps acquitted himself 
 effectively in all, though in Adrastus, whicli he 
 repeated at Sadler's Wells, he lacked the stateli- 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 191 
 
 ness of manner which VandenhofF had given to it. 
 But in the important character of Macduff his 
 success was signal. In the fourth act, his gradual 
 foreboding of the dismal news to come upon him, 
 the effort, when it came, to maintain fortitude, 
 the burst of overpowering agony, and the sudden 
 appeal to Heaven for an opportunity for ven- 
 geance, were rendered with such life and nature 
 as to distance any Macduff I had seen. The con- 
 vulsed tones of struggUng rage and anguish in — 
 
 " I shall do so ; 
 But I must also feel it like a man : " 
 
 made every soul present a sharer in his grief and 
 his wrongs. The house shook with sympathetic 
 applause. Phelps had found the first opening for 
 the display of those domestic emotions in which 
 he was always at his best. 
 
 In 1839, during the recess of the Covent 
 Garden company in Passion Week, lie undertook 
 to appear for a benefit at the Victoria Theatre. 
 I happened to be acquainted with Mr. John 
 Heraud,* who, from tlie first, had warmly es- 
 poused the cause of the new tragedian, with 
 whom he had formed a close friendship. On the 
 evening of the benefit I was invited by Mr. 
 
 * The author of two poems — " The Judgment of the Flood," 
 and " The Descent into Hell " — which, though their subjects 
 were " caviare to the general," and the poet careless to a fault 
 of consulting popular taste, contain many noble passages. 
 These poems procured him the friendship of Wordsworth, 
 Southey, and Lookhart. His tragedy of" Videna," which was 
 performed, under the management — honourably emulative of 
 that at Sadler's Wells— of Mr. W. J. Wallack, at the Maryle- 
 bone Theatre, was too severe and classical a tragedy, if not for 
 the public in general, at least for the public of Mr. Wallack'a 
 theatre. The high claims of " Videna " were, however, to a 
 great extent recognized by the accomplished critic of the 
 Times, the late Mr. John Oxenford. Mr. Heraud died in the 
 spring of 1887. 
 
192 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Heraud to accompany him to the Victoria. The 
 play was " Julius Csesar;" Warde was the Brutus 
 of the night, Phelps the Cassius, Elton the Mark 
 Antony. In my young judgment, Phelps easUy 
 bore off the palm. In the expression of discon- 
 tent and injury as Cassius, there was mingled 
 with his caustic, fretful tone an impetuosity which 
 indicated " that rash humour which his mother 
 gave him " — made one see that his faults were 
 largely those of impulse, and prepared one for his 
 repentance. Irritable and sensitive characters 
 suited Phelps; but it is just to say thus early 
 that he was often stiU. more successful in express- 
 ing tenderness and rugged pathos. On this par- 
 ticular night his Cassius seemed to me the very 
 man; and when I heard that Phelps was to 
 accompany us back to supper, I felt all the elation 
 of a romantic lad of eighteen, who delighted in 
 the theatre, and was brought for the first time 
 into the society of a leading actor. During the 
 drive from the theatre, Mr. Phelps was singularly 
 meditative and abstracted. He seemed for the 
 most part lost in reverie, though he would at 
 times wake out of it to interpose some pithy or 
 pertinent remark. " Why did you not come before 
 the curtain when called for ? " asked our host. 
 " Oh, I preferred leaving the honours of the night 
 to Warde," said Phelps, somewhat curtly. Warde 
 was an actor of fair intelligence and vigour, with 
 a thorough knowledge of stage business, and a 
 deep, sonorous voice, of which he made the most. 
 In intellect and feeling he was far below Phelps. 
 The rather contemptuous mention of liim by the 
 latter was, perhaps, unduly disappointing to a 
 listener who had not reflected upon the angers 
 that sometimes prevail in exalted minds. The 
 
OUE EEOENT AOTOES. 193 
 
 audience, however, had been singularly noisy, 
 unruly, and boisterous in its applause, the some- 
 what indiscriminating quality of ■which had pos- 
 sibly annoyed our tragedian. Eventually he 
 threw off his abstraction, and commented with 
 great intelligence on matters connected with his 
 art, though always maintaining the gravity of his 
 bearing, and displaying, even in the midst of social 
 talk, a tendency to relapse into self-communion. 
 These moods of abstraction and forgetfulness 
 apparently retained their hold on him in later 
 life. During his lesseeship of Sadler's Wells, I 
 sent him, at his earnest request, a packet of 
 MSS., with which he was already acquainted. 
 Assuming from my handwriting that he knew the 
 contents of the packet, he neglected to open it 
 at once, laid it aside, and soon forgot it entirely. 
 It happened, however, that a letter had been 
 enclosed which required a prompt answer. As 
 none arrived, after some days a call at his house 
 for explanation followed. It appeared that he 
 had left town on an angling expedition. A month 
 or two passed before I learned that he had 
 hitherto failed to answer my letter for the simple 
 reason that he had only just opened the parcel 
 that contained it. 
 
 In the autumn of 1839, Phelps alternated with 
 Macready the characters of Othello and lago at 
 the Haymarket. The lago of Phelps, though a 
 painstaking and creditable performance — the 
 exposition of an intellectual and practised actor 
 — could still scarcely be called remarkable. His 
 Othello was an unusally pathetic, even tearful, 
 interpretation of the part. His tenderness and 
 sensibility were very genuine and moving, but, 
 though they interested, they did not greatly 
 
194 OUE EECBNT ACTOES. 
 
 excite, for the simple reason that the perform- 
 ance, though showing deep emotions, showed no 
 corresponding strength of will to resist them. 
 Eiforts to do this were made, but with so little 
 energy that the very struggle implied defeat. 
 It should be said, in reservation, however, that 
 the writer saw only Phelps's earlier performances 
 of Othello — those up to 1844, inclusive — and 
 that, to so indefatigable a student, any degree of 
 improvement was possible as time advanced. 
 Phelps's Othello, however, from the first won 
 more upon the sympathies than did Macready's. 
 
 The remark of Hazlitt, that "fortitude is the 
 gxeat essential of a tragic writer," is equally 
 applicable to the tragic actor. "VVe may truly 
 pity the sufferings of feeble or commonplace 
 characters ; but it is the proud energy of loftier 
 souls, that combats and restrains their tortures, 
 which compels our admiration. In old days, the 
 unarmed captive, thrown to the lions, would 
 excite, save in the very brutal, mere horror ; 
 but the gladiator who had long and gallantly 
 coped with his foe, fell, even when he succumbed, 
 amid shouts. These remarks involve the differ- 
 ence between tragic and domestic pathos. In 
 the opinion of the writer, Mr. Phelps, in spite 
 of his high and various merits, wanted one 
 quality of a great tragic actor, inasmuch as, 
 although he could depict mental suffering with 
 much intensity, he was less successful in depict- 
 ing the resolution that makes suffering heroic. 
 He had too much judgment and resource to fail 
 signally in any character. Yet it must be con- 
 fessed that in some of his tragic parts — Lear 
 especially — there was a want of masculine strength 
 which his pathetic earnestness hardly redeemed. 
 
OUK RECENT AOTOES. 195 
 
 That Phelps was even tremulously alive to 
 the emotions he had to represent, is a matter to 
 which the writer had his own testimony. Dis- 
 cussing with him one day the much-agitated point, 
 whether an actor ought to realize the passions 
 and positions of his characters as if they were 
 his own, he exclaimed, " Good Heaven, if I were 
 to do that, I should never be able to act at 
 all ! I should simply lose command of my voice 
 and movements altogether. The very thing that 
 I have to fight against is the over-identification 
 of myself with the part." Such a statement by 
 one of the most sensitive of actors would go 
 far to prove, if proof were needful, the truth 
 of Diderot's assertion that the inspiration of the 
 actor does not require — or, indeed, allow — him to 
 feel the emotions of his characters as if they 
 were his own. But, really, this proposition was 
 from the first indisputable. To feel events 
 through imaginative sympathy as if they might 
 happen to us, is widely different from feeling 
 them in experience when they do happen to 
 us. There is high pleasure in the imaginative 
 realization, because the sympathy which connects 
 us even with the sorrows of others is in itself 
 ennobling and expansive, whereas in the actual 
 realization of calamity, pain in the wealc and 
 pride in the strong often stifie expression. 
 
 We may here record the connection of Mr. 
 Phelps with the movements of a society called 
 "The Syncretics." The professed objects of this 
 body were to recognize the common truths that 
 underlie — or are said to underlie — all creeds 
 and systems, and to found upon such truths a 
 social brotherhood. The practical object which 
 the society had in view was of a narrower kind. 
 
196 OUE EECBNT ACTOES. 
 
 A great number of its members being _ unacted 
 dramatic poets, this object was to insist upon 
 the merit of their plays, and to press their 
 claims upon theatrical managers. The Syncretics 
 included more than one acted dramatist, of 
 whom Mr. Bayle Bernard was the best known. 
 Amongst those whose works had not at that 
 time been represented, were Mr. E. H. Home, 
 Mr. J. A. Heraud, Mr. P. G-. Tomlins, and Mr. 
 George Stephens, the author of " Martinuzzi." 
 After a while, jfinding no response to their 
 demands from managers, the Syncretics thought 
 it desirable to take upon themselves the respon- 
 sibility of a theatrical campaign. Mr. George 
 Stephens was at that time a man of some 
 fortune (afterwards unhappily lost in various 
 speculations), and it was he, I believe, who 
 furnished, in 1841, the means for taking the 
 Lyceum Theatre (then the English Opera House), 
 at which his tragedy of "Martinuzzi" was to 
 be the first production of the society. It proved 
 to be the only one. Mr. Phelps, Mr. Elton, 
 Mrs. Warner, and a Miss Maywood, were engaged 
 for the chief parts of the new play, which, to 
 use a phrase then current, was to demonstrate 
 the superiority of the modern unacted drama to 
 the modern acted drama. "Martinuzzi," and the 
 works of one or two other poets of the Syncretic 
 body might, in some respects, have vindicated 
 this contention, for, with the gravest faults of 
 inexperience, and at times of ambitiously obscure 
 diction, they had, at least, loftiness of design, and 
 often imaginative vigour of expression. Their 
 great fault, in addition to the want of technical 
 skill, was that, both in manner and idea, they 
 reflected the style of the Elizabethan dramatists. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 197 
 
 and showed little trace of the changes which 
 had since occurred in feeling, opinion, and taste. 
 It is no detraction from even Shakspere's genius 
 to say that, had he lived in this century, his 
 moral standards and his views of poetic justice 
 would, to some extent, have been modified by 
 new developments of religious thought and social 
 life. To no such influences were the plays 
 of the Syncretics amenable. The plays of Mr. 
 Stephens himself — his " Martinuzzi," and his 
 "Gertrude and Beatrice" — have all, as a critic 
 at the time of their publication declared, "a 
 bold and muscular character about them," but 
 are conceptions based on those of the Elizabethan 
 stage, "stiffened and starched in ruffs and fur- 
 belows." When Mr. Stephens ventured, as he 
 subsequently did, into comedy and the drama 
 of modern life, his power had evaporated. This 
 rather long digression may be forgiven concerning 
 a movement which not only caused much interest 
 at the time, but perhaps helped gradually to 
 restore the taste for poetic drama which exists 
 amongst us to-day. 
 
 To return to " Martinuzzi." The story is that 
 of a cardinal-minister, who, by imposing a 
 daughter of his own for that of the sovereign, 
 averts a national calamity, yet lives in dread 
 lest his secret should transpire, and the deception 
 which he thought due to his patriotism should 
 be branded as the mere fraud -of an ambitious 
 schemer, while during his long inner struggle 
 he is compelled to suppress his yearning love 
 for the child he dares not avow. Owing to 
 the state of the law at the time (when legitimate 
 tragedy and comedy were not allowed to be 
 performed, except at the patejit theatres), songs 
 
198 ODE RECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 were introduced, to give the piece the pretext 
 of being a musical entertainment with serious 
 dialogue. And the story had sufficient interest 
 to move a considerable section of the public by 
 the passion and imagination — here aiid there a 
 little extravagant, perhaps — which it displayed 
 through entire scenes. It would, of course, have 
 been a heresy in a play so sternly legitimate to 
 provide aught of humorous relief. , It will be 
 seen that this representative work of the Syn- 
 cretics was produced under some disadvantages. 
 Nevertheless, the two chief characters (that of 
 Mr. Elton was ineffective and quite unsuitable 
 to him) were so weU sustained as to command 
 a fair amount of applause, and to excite much 
 attention amongst those interested in the poetic 
 drama. In the last act, Martinuzzi's soliloquy — - 
 partly borrowed from " Titus Andronicus " — 
 
 " I must not leave my honours 
 Curtained and leasening in space and time 
 When I within the far diviner gloom 
 Am wrapt, where lurks no falseness — ^no distrust, 
 Where storm, ambition, wakeful weariness, 
 Wrath, envy, travail not ; with whose blind depths 
 Only God's eye is level, and where nothing 
 Keigns save what is not, save, on every side, 
 Darkness and silence and eternal sleep," 
 
 was given by Mr. Phelps with a solemnity that 
 
 riveted the house ; while his appeal to his 
 
 daughter — ■ 
 
 " Oh, child ! 
 Stab not with parricidal hands the being 
 Whose pangs are locked — or should bo locked — in blood 
 Which flows within thy veins. Indeed, thou know'st not 
 How much he merits at thy filial hands — 
 His love, his providence, those thoughts which night 
 Doth shut down in her casket, and God opens. 
 His ceaseless orisons, forestalling thine, 
 His anxious guidance, his undying cares," 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 199 
 
 might have been delivered with more majesty, 
 but scarcely with more tenderness or with accents 
 more touching in their faltering emotion. Mrs. 
 Warner, too, was excellent as the mother of the 
 Prince whose rights had been usurped. It is 
 quite possible that the interest which this forcible, 
 though crude production aroused, together with 
 the association in the experiment of Phelps and 
 Mrs. Warner, may have had its share in bringing 
 about that noble management of a small Islington 
 theatre in which the best memories and hopes 
 of the British stage were alike maintained, when 
 all but a " fit few '' seemed to have forgotten 
 their existence. 
 
 In 1841 Macready began his Drury Lane 
 campaign, and Phelps once more enlisted under 
 his banner. At Drury Lane he performed the 
 same class of parts as at Covent Garden. He 
 acted with great effect the part of Hubert in 
 "King John." The scene with Prince Arthur 
 was a great success. Hubert's burst of repentant 
 grief — 
 
 '' Well, see to live ; I will not touch thine eyes 
 For all the treasure that thine uncle owes : " 
 
 moved many to tears. 
 
 On one occasion, at Drury Lane, Phelps took, 
 through some difference between the dramatist 
 and Macready, the part intended for the latter. 
 The play was Browning's tragedy, "A Blot on 
 the Scutcheon." Stimulated by this opportunity, 
 Phelps went beyond himself. In the recoil of 
 the rash brother from the dishonour of his house, 
 he seemed as one possessed by passion. Pride 
 raged in him like a demon; his features were 
 convulsed, his gestures wild, his voice charged 
 with sardonic hatred and scorn ; while his despair. 
 
200 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 after slaying the betrayer of Ms sister, was 
 strangely moving by its heart-broken quietude. 
 In this character I have been told by admirers 
 of the elder Kean that he vividly recalled that 
 inspired tragedian. Here, and subsequently in 
 Melantius in " The Bridal," and in Arbaces in 
 " King , and Ko King " — aU three plays being 
 revived at Sadler's WeUs — he rose into tragic 
 passion and exaltation, as distinct from pathos 
 and excited feeling. 
 
 While acting with Macready, however, the 
 chance of appearing in a leading part could be 
 only occasional. It is necessary to follow him 
 to Sadler's Wells, before we can fairly judge of 
 his powers and the extent of them. This theatre 
 he opened with "Macbeth," on May 27, 1844. 
 His Macbeth was a very careful performance, 
 somewhat over-laboured, wanting in the sense of 
 the supernatural, and showing more excitability 
 than masculine vigour. It was, however, 
 thoroughly thought out and suggestive, while the 
 actor's unmistakable earnestness, fine declamation, 
 and experience of the stage, commended it amply 
 to. his public. 
 
 In Lear he was very successful on the pathetic 
 side of the character. His indignant and con- 
 vulsive grief was harrowing ; it came from and 
 went to the heart. In his irony extremes met, 
 and misery laughed and jested. But, with much 
 of the outraged father, there was little of the 
 king. With Phelps, Lear's sufferings and 
 madness excited compassion, but not awe. His 
 bearing lacked something of what Kent ascribes 
 to it — " authority " — as his distracted rage lacked 
 the contrast of restraint when it gathered, and of 
 volume when it broke. The " mind o'erthrown " 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 201 
 
 found its likeness in some tottering edifice, 
 which arrests one by its antiquity and decay, 
 but bears nowhere the half-effaced escutcheon 
 which gives dignity to ruin. As Hamlet — a 
 personage whom he did not look — Phelps gave 
 with great force the direct invectives of the part 
 — the soliloquy, for instance, beginning — 
 
 " Oh, what a rogue and peasant-slave am I ! " 
 
 but much of the assumed levity, which really 
 argues the deepest melancholy, he delivered as 
 if it were mere comedy. He quizzed Polonius, 
 for instance, and in the early scenes bandied 
 repartees with the spies as if for amusement, 
 and to beguile the time. I never saw a Hamlet 
 so quaintly droll, or who commanded such bursts 
 of laughter. ' Of course, in so thoughtful an 
 actor, there was design in ■ all this. It seemed 
 as if he had adopted the theory of Hamlet's 
 madness, and had intended in this state to present 
 the vagaries of insanity. 
 
 Another of his fine parts was Timon. The 
 recoil to misanthropy of a generous nature, whose 
 trust has been betrayed, gave opportunities which 
 he turned to the best account. He was, in short, 
 fine in those over-sensitive characters which are 
 inordinate alike in their affection and in the 
 bitterness of affection deceived. When actuated 
 by the latter feeling, his invective was full of 
 nature and variety. It had now the fierceness, 
 now the mocking raillery, now the bitter calm 
 so often found in life, when morbid sensibility 
 of temperament mingles with passion. Much 
 cannot be said for his Coriolanus. He was too 
 impetuous and excitable for the man who stood 
 in lofty disdain of his kind — 
 
202 OUE KECENT AOTOES. 
 
 " As if a man were author of himBelf, 
 And knew no other kin." 
 
 His Mark Antony, in " Antony and Cleopatra," 
 wanted grace and the romantic ardour of passion. 
 His Brutus in "Julius Ceesar" was excellent — 
 nobly calm, firm, and tender. One would have 
 said, beforehand, it was hardly a character for 
 Phelps, who succeeded so admirably in the irri- 
 table and restless Cassius. It may have been 
 that his fine personation of Brutus was due 
 to his having contrasted him at every point with 
 his fellow-conspirator. His Henry the Fourth, 
 in the second part of the play bearing that title, 
 had a careful and telling, though by no means 
 a servile, resemblance to Macready iu the same 
 character. 
 
 In modern parts, his Eichelieu and Werner 
 were, again, good, but somewhat pale reflections 
 of the tragedian just named. It is just to say, 
 however, that both these studies were so highly 
 finished, and their effective points so skilfully 
 brought out, that they were only surpassed by 
 those of the original master. As Melantius, 
 there was an electricity in his passion, and a 
 breadth in his style, which he seldom exhibited 
 in the same degree. Virginius, again, was one 
 of his best serious parts. Though following the 
 lines of Macready, he had evidently made the 
 part his own by sympathy with the fond and 
 agonized father. His impersonation of Bertuccio, 
 in "The Fool's Eevenge" — the late Mr. Tom 
 Taylor's version of " Le, Roi s'amuse " — was also 
 one of his most signal achievements. Bertucci&- 
 suited him at every point — in the bitter sense 
 of wrong, in the poisoned sarcasms darted, as 
 if in sport, by the hand of the jester, in the 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. 203 
 
 passionate strength of paternal love, and in the 
 revulsion of horror at finding his daughter en- 
 snared in the trap meant for another. Here 
 dignity and masculine self-control were not 
 needed. The cunning, the hate, and the affection 
 of the over-sensitive Bertuccio, have something 
 of feminine swiftness and poignancy, as dis- 
 tinguished usually from the same qualities in 
 man. The acting of Phelps satisfied every 
 demand of the character. 
 
 I may here record my own debt to him. 
 Neither in respect of appearance nor of age was 
 he well suited to the part of Mordaunt in " The 
 Patrician's Daughter." Nevertheless, he threw 
 such reality into the pride, indignation, and 
 repentance of the intentionally morbid hero, that 
 my juvenile work became a stock-piece at his 
 theatre. 
 
 Phelps was an actor of such trained intellect 
 and varied means, that even in absolute tragedy 
 — that which excites terror and strong passion, 
 as well as pity — his acting was always impressive 
 and suggestive. It is true that, in tragedy of 
 this kind, he did not always rise to the height 
 of his opportunity. He did so, as has been said, 
 in Browning's Lord Tresham, in Melantius, and 
 in the passion of Arbaces — a soul-fever which 
 preyed upon him and wasted him ; but he was 
 excellent in domestic tragedy — in parts that give 
 scope for the' display of warm attachment or 
 pathos ; in those, too, that exhibit the morbid 
 bitterness of wounded feeling. It may be 
 doubted, however, whether what was most cha- 
 racteristic of the actor — what most distinguished 
 him from other performers — was to be found 
 chiefly in his graver impersonations. To my 
 
204 OUR KEOEN'T ACTORS. 
 
 thinking, it was in comedy — often eccentric 
 comedy — that he most freq^uently shone. He 
 was at his very best in the keen analysis of 
 human weakness — in happy and credulous vanity, 
 in the dry raillery that satirizes human failings 
 and inconsistencies, in the crabbed regrets and 
 fretting apprehensions of age, and in the obse- 
 quiousness which sees through and despises those 
 whom it flatters. 
 
 Of the latter characteristics, his Sir Pertinax 
 MacSycophant appears to have been his most 
 highly-coloured embodiment. In this part the 
 cupidity that shrank from no meanness rose 
 almost to the intensity of tragedy, while an 
 expression of scrutinizing, yet stealthy vigilance 
 on the actor's face was the outward symbol of 
 his crafty rapacity and eagerness to seize his 
 opportunities. 
 
 As Malvolio, his conceit, exaltation, and pro- 
 found contempt of others were admirably true. 
 His set and abstracted look seemed to ignore the 
 existence of those whom he despised. The 
 picture of fatuous vanity was thoroughly incisive, 
 and yet free from exaggeration. He moved and 
 looked with an air of satisfied isolation amongst 
 his fellow-men, as if he had been in some sort a 
 Coriolanus of comedy. He was only inferior to 
 Farren in this part because he stopped short at 
 superciliousness ; whereas the latter comedian 
 rose at times to a height of self-complacency, full 
 of pitying tolerance for his inevitable inferiors- 
 tolerance too serene to be disturbed by stooping 
 to contempt. 
 
 In like manner, the Sir Peter Teazle of Phelps, 
 though it did not attain the distinction, or show 
 the delicately significant touches and finish of 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. 205 
 
 Farren's, was, after his, the most forcible and 
 graphic on the recent stage. The differing phases 
 of the character were filled in with the nicest 
 judgment, and with extraordinary variety of 
 manner. Sir Peter's mirth on discovering Joseph 
 Surface's fallibility, was an admirable instance 
 of the additional effect which genuine feeling 
 gains by restraint. 
 
 This actor's Falstaff hardly conformed to the 
 general ideal. In the first place, he lacked 
 unction. Capons had not mollified him into 
 lazy enjoyment, and, to judge from his humour, 
 his sack must have been extra dry. On the 
 other hand, there was a pith, a touch of Yankee 
 'cuteness in the delivery of the fat knight's 
 dialogue, that in time began to tell. If much 
 of Palstaff's seK-enjoyment was missing, it was 
 atoned for by so much phlegm, by such an air 
 of caustic shrewdness in his comments, and of 
 ease and conviction in his mendacity, that, by 
 the time the Prince and Poins tear to pieces 
 his bragging lies, and expose his cowardice, 
 Phelps's dry, self-possessed effrontery convulsed 
 his hearers as much as if it had been the over- 
 flow of animal spirits and humour. His answer 
 to the Prince's charge of running away from the 
 attack — "By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he 
 that made ye," given with a cool, matter-of-fact 
 expectation that the monstrous lie would at once 
 be swallowed, was as mirth-provoking as the 
 air of triumph in ready resources which other 
 Falstaffs have displayed in this emergency. In 
 the last act, the dissertation on the worthlessness 
 of honour, and the conclusion that "discretion 
 is the better part of valour," though wanting in 
 self-complacency, seemed to emanate from a roind 
 
206 OUR EBOENT AGTOES. 
 
 SO penetrated by their truth, that the gravity 
 of their delivery was probably more mirth-pro- 
 voking than obvious humour would have been. 
 Jovial, luxurious, lazily delighting in jest and 
 in creature comforts, or exulting in braggadocio 
 and quick expedients, the Falstaff of Phelps 
 was not, or, at least, not more than the language 
 of Shakspere forced him to be; but, as a 
 shrewd soul who has mastered what he deems 
 the truth — that self-interest is everything — • 
 who has an unbounded invention in extolling or 
 excusing himself, a fairly sociable turn, with not 
 an atom of ill-nature, the same amount of con- 
 science, and a large proportion of Dutch phlegm 
 in his system, this i^ aistatf was as etiective as it 
 was unique. Nevertheless, it is probable that 
 the admirers of an "unctuous Falstaff" would 
 greatly exceed those of Phelps's dry and some- 
 what sarcastic exposition. 
 
 To some other characters, however, his dryness 
 of treatment was admirably suited. The calm 
 self-conceit of, his Bottom, who finds so many 
 things witliin his range, because his ignorance 
 conceals their difficulties, was far more humorous 
 than if his vanity had been made broader and 
 more boisterous. His absolute insensibility to 
 the ridiculous was more mirth-moving than the 
 most grotesque means by which inferior actors 
 would have italicised the absurd conceit of the 
 character. His quiet, matter-of-course belief that 
 the parts of Thisbe and the Lion are equally 
 within his grasp, and that, as to the latter, he 
 could roar, with equal success, either "terribly," 
 or " as gently as any sucking dove," was more 
 telling than would have been a violent and 
 highly-coloured expression of his self-complacency. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 207 
 
 The same may be said of his air of contented 
 superiority in contriving means to protect the 
 ladies from fears of the drawn sword and of the 
 lion in the play, of his ready assumption of 
 the ass's head, of his light fingering of it, as if it 
 had been the most natural of head-gears, and his 
 satisfaction with his own wit in fathoming and 
 bafSing the designs of Puck, who had imposed it. 
 In all this, the sense of acquiescence in the absurd 
 was far more ludicrous than extreme wonder or 
 excitement would have been. As a picture of 
 intense self-conceit, expressed generally rather 
 by signs of inward relish of his acuteness than 
 by more open display — of ridiculous fastidiousness 
 and equally ridiculous devices to satisfy it — as 
 a parody of sense and ingenuity by a shallow 
 brain, — Bottom must be ranked as one of this 
 actor's most original conceptions. 
 
 Short, comparatively, as is the part of Justice 
 Shallow (which Phelps was wont to double with 
 that of Henry IV., in the second part of the play 
 so named), his rendering of it was strikingly 
 individual and impressive. Bottom, though very 
 human in his foibles, is in some degxee a fantastic 
 creation. He is the sport of the fairies, and 
 belongs to the comic side of a preternatural 
 drama. But Justice Shallow is not only a man 
 but a most typical man, representing that vast 
 class of the old, whose joys lie all in memory, 
 who try hard to ignore the near future which 
 scarcely veils death, and has dismay for all whose 
 days are not " bound to each other by natural 
 piety." What a lean, hungry, restless look had 
 this Justice as his time-chilled life strove to 
 warm itself by recollections of youth, and to 
 protract youth itself by stUl affecting its impulses 
 
208 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 and its pranks. " You were called lusty Shallow, 
 then," says Silence to the lean Justice — lusty in 
 muscle and vigour, he must have meant, not in 
 bulk — who had spent so many "mad days," and 
 so many of whose old acquaintances were dead. 
 But, for all that, Shallow will vaunt that he was 
 a " swinge-buckler " in the Inns of Court ; he 
 will put off the thought of death by talk of "a 
 good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair," and 
 when he hears that old Double is dead, he will 
 aifect good spirits, recall him as a fine shot, and 
 ask the price of a score of ewes. And yet how 
 fully, through this feigned indifference, Phelps 
 made one feel that the dismal thought of old 
 Double ran like a persistent knell on a road 
 alive with traffic. " And is old Double dead ? " 
 repeats Shallow, with a feeling that the ugly 
 thought must be got rid of. So he will try 
 blithely to welcome Bardolph, who heralds Falstaff; 
 for he knew Falstaff of old, and the knight 
 thrives and is really lusty, which is good cheer ; 
 so he will merrily quibble with Bardolph on the 
 word "accommodated," delightedly welcome the 
 knight himself, and press his hospitality upon 
 him ; for who would lose such a specific against 
 low spirits, for which, indeed, there may be good 
 enough cause ? Ah, how the actor jested ! How 
 he revelled in Falstaff's puns, while the men on 
 the roll were pricked for service! With what 
 feverish mirth he renewed with the old knight 
 the mad escapades of youth. There shaR be no 
 thought of old age or what it portends. Give 
 way, dismal spectre ! Such are my recollections 
 of Phelps's Justice Shallow, and of the moral 
 impression which it left ; while the various phases 
 of the man — his dreary libertine vaunts, his 
 
OTJE RECENT ACTORS. 209 
 
 clinging to life and yearning for distraction 
 against ugly thoughts, and the overdone merri- 
 ment which could not cloak his apprehensions 
 — were delivered with that ease and precision 
 of expression — ^just to the finest nuance — which 
 he had so happily cultivated in comedy; the 
 garrulity of age, accompanied by what may be 
 called an air of rustic courtliness, giving fresh 
 individuality to the part. 
 
 In Falstaff's soliloquy in Act III., is a curious 
 remark about the addiction of old men to lying — 
 a failing of which the knight admits himself to 
 be an example. He judges Shallow's lies, how- 
 ever, less leniently than his own, regarding them 
 as mere brag for self-glorification. They are, 
 perhaps, half unconscious, and meant to feed that 
 warmth of memory from which, in life's winter. 
 Shallow seeks comfort. Falstaff, lilcely enough, 
 scorns lying of this sort, which is purely egoistic 
 and in the interest of the liar — very different, 
 therefore from his more genial mendacity, which, 
 if resorted to at first for excuse or defence, soon 
 became a glow of sympathetic invention, so that 
 he piled up his fables as much for his own 
 delight as to baffle his accusers — the delight of 
 making such good running, and doubling so 
 adroitly before his keen pursuers. 
 
 In the majority of characters that have been 
 noticed, Phelps did not appear — at least, in 
 London — until he entered on the management 
 of Sadler's Wells Theatre, in 1844. Both Mrs. 
 Warner and Mr. Greenwood were associated 
 with him in this enterprise ; but, in all intel- 
 lectual respects, his control was supreme. After 
 a few years he became nominally, as well as 
 virtually, sole manager. 
 
 p 
 
210 OCR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 It is difficult now to realize the almost hopeless 
 condition to which our legitimate drama had 
 been reduced when he took command of the 
 Islington Theatre. Bunn had some years before 
 proclaimed (and facts certainly corroborated him) 
 that the production of a new play meant empty 
 houses. So well-constructed a play as Mr. 
 Lovell's " Provost of Bruges," for instance, with 
 Macready in the chief character, was played to 
 the scantiest of audiences. With the exception 
 of the brief excitement produced by Charles 
 Kean's reappearance at Drury Lane, in 1837 
 (in all essentials his dehit), Shakspere, fairly 
 cast, had been a pecuniary failure, though melo- 
 drama and opera, assisted by ballet and spec- 
 tacle, had fairly held their ground. Subsequently, 
 Macready's noble efforts at Coyent Garden and 
 " The Lane " had procured for him simply the 
 admiration of a public too- small to return 
 the heavy expenses of his management. On its 
 cessation, three of his lieutenants, Phelps, 
 Vandenhoff, and Anderson, appeared at Covent 
 Garden, under the management of Mr. H. 
 Wallack, but with the most disheartening re- 
 sults. When the gTeatest tragedian of his 
 time, surrounded by the best "company that 
 could be collected, had been obliged to retire 
 from central London, for any other actor to 
 unfurl the banner of legitimacy in a mere 
 suburb might have seemed an attempt to 
 the last degree desperate. The unsophisticated 
 people of Islington, however, found in legitimate 
 drama, with Mr. Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 
 leading parts, and supported by an adequate 
 company, charms which the hlase loungers from 
 the clubs and good society in general were 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 211 
 
 wont at the time to regard with superciKous 
 apathy. 
 
 Sadler's Wells opened, under the management 
 of Mr. Phelps and Mrs. Warner, on May 27, 
 1844, with the tragedy of "Macbeth." Phelps, 
 of course, appeared as the guilty Thane, and 
 Mrs. Warner as Lady Macbeth. Mr. H. Marston 
 was the Macduff, Mr. T. H. Lacy the Ban quo; 
 while for so small a part as that of " The Gentle- 
 woman attending Lady Macbeth," the services 
 of that sterling actress, Mrs. H. Marston, were 
 secured. A week later " Othello " was performed, 
 with Phelps as the Moor, Mr. H. Marston as 
 lago. Miss Cooper (Mrs. T. H. Lacy) as Desde- 
 mona, and Mrs. Warner as Emilia. In course 
 of time the strength of the Sadler's Wells staff 
 was importantly increased; but, even at the 
 outset, it presented a combination of ability to 
 which the Islingtonians had, up to that period, 
 been strangers. A coinpany by which standard 
 plays could be satisfactorily performed, a mise 
 en scene emulating that of Macready at the large 
 houses — picturesque and suggestive, but never 
 obtrusively asserting itself over the acting — soon 
 riveted the attention of the Northern suburb 
 and gradually that of entire London. The 
 Islington paterfamilias perceived that he had at 
 his door a source of healthy and intellectual 
 pleasure which the West End could not rival — 
 nay, which at that date it could scarcely be said 
 to present. As one great legitimate work followed 
 another, the attractions of the little theatre 
 spread, until it became a sort of pilgrim's shrine 
 to the literary men of London, to the younger 
 members of the Inns of Court, and to those 
 denizens of the West in whom poetic taste still 
 
212 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 lingered. In the audience itself there seemed 
 a parallel, in those dark days of the drama, 
 between the adherents of the poetic school and 
 the adherents of a proscribed faith in religion. 
 A respectful, almost solemn hush pervaded the 
 house during the less exciting scenes of a play, 
 while the applause when a telling situation 
 occurred conveyed something far beyond the 
 usual tribute to an actor's skill. There was a 
 fervour of demonstration to the chief performers 
 (especially in the ease of Phelps) which meant 
 the recognition of great services. I have heard 
 the execution of some passage in a tragedy 
 hailed with something of the excitement which 
 might have followed a political manifesto. The 
 tenants of the pit would spring up from their 
 seats, gaze at each other in delight, and ges- 
 ticulate their admiration. It was felt that there 
 was a Cause, scarcely less than sacred, to support, 
 and that Phelps was its apostle. At times, 
 though rarely, the enthusiasm of the gallery or 
 the pit found vent in apostrophes, such as, 
 " Splendid, Phelps — splendid ! " or, in later times, 
 when a rival tragedian had assumed rule at the 
 Princess's, " Ah ! where's Charlie Kean now ? " 
 
 My opportunities of meeting Mr. Phelps in 
 private were not frequent. On these occasions 
 he remained the same grave, musing companion 
 which I had found him on the night when we 
 were introduced. In the course of one evening 
 which he spent with me, I read to him a play 
 of my own. To this he listened with an atten- 
 tion and sympathy which, from one usually so 
 abstracted, could not but be gratifying. "I am 
 quite willing to produce this piece," he said at the 
 close; "but, let me say, you would never have 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 213 
 
 sot Macready to produce it." " Why ? " I asked. 
 '" Because the woman has the pull." I could 
 not help smiling, for I had already sounded 
 Macready as to the piece in question, telling him 
 frankly that its interest and effect were fairly 
 divided between the hero and heroine. "Ah," 
 said he, " I have many a time divided the 
 chief interests of a piece with others" — he 
 referred especially- to the plays of Shiel and 
 Barry Cornwall — "but at this stage of my career 
 I must be the central figure. All the greatest 
 plays, from ' CEdipus ' to ' Lear ' and ' Hamlet ' 
 evolve only one main idea through one main 
 character." Many other great plays, from the 
 " Agamemnon " to " Macbeth," might have been 
 cited against this dictum; but it was easy to 
 understand that a great actor, towards the close 
 of his career, might well desire to be always 
 the focus of attraction. With regard to my 
 own play, "Philip of France and Marie de 
 Meranie," Mr. Phelps and I failed to come to 
 terms. Some time afterwards the piece was 
 produced at the Olympic, then under the manage- 
 ment of the late Mr. William Farren, where 
 my heroine received from Miss Helen Faucit an 
 interpretation of so much womanly tenderness 
 and imaginative beauty as to console me for my 
 regretted failure with the lessee of " The Wells." 
 
 A year or two later, at the instance of Mr. 
 Phelps, I undertook a new play for him. The 
 piece was absolutely a commission, on terms that 
 I did not think very advantageous to myself. 
 A difficulty, nevertheless, occurred on its com- 
 pletion, from an impression on his part that a 
 secondary character was more important than 
 his own. The performance was consequently 
 
214 OUR EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 delayed until Lis retirement from the theatre, 
 when, as a compromise, the piece — " Pure Gold " 
 — was by our mutual consent transferred to his 
 -successors, Mr. Henry Marston appearing in the 
 part meant for Mr. Phelps, Mr. Edmund Phelps 
 personating the secondary character, and Miss 
 Marriott the heroine. 
 
 It would have been pleasant, however, to me 
 to know that I had, in any degree, been associated 
 with a management second only to that of Mac- 
 ready in its services to the higher form of drama, 
 and, in respect to the difficulties overcome, more 
 remarkable even than his. 
 
 Of Shakspere's plays, Mr. Phelps produced not 
 only all that are best known, but some which, 
 so far as the stage is concerned, had long been 
 laid aside. Amongst these were " All's "Well that 
 Ends Well," '• The Second Part of King Henry 
 the Fourth," "Pericles," "Comedy of Errors," 
 and " Love's Labour's Lost." " Eichard the Third," 
 and, ultimately, "Macbeth," he gave with the 
 restoration of Shakspere's text, going so far, in 
 the latter tragedy, as to make his exit as Macbeth 
 " fighting," while the bringing in of the head of 
 the usurper, and Macduff's greeting of Malcolm 
 as king concluded the tragedy. To relinquish 
 tire usual close, in which the death of Macbeth 
 in his desperate fight with Macduff concentrates 
 attention on the former, was a piece of self- 
 sacrifice, from an actor's point of view, that cannot 
 well be overrated. 
 
 Of Shakspere's plays, with the exceptions of 
 " Eichard the Second,"" " Titus Andronicus," 
 "Troilus and Cressida," and the three parts of 
 " King Henry the Sixth," all were acted on the 
 Sadler's Wells stage within the brief space of 
 
OXJB RECENT ACTOES. 215 
 
 eighteen years and a half. No other theatre 
 can boast such a record. His farewell benefit 
 took place November 6, 1862, when he played 
 Brutus in " Julius Ojesar." 
 
 Amongst the most remarkable of the Shaks- 
 perian revivals was " Antony and Cleopatra," not 
 only for beauty of production and general 
 adequacy of cast, but for the striking impersona- 
 tion of the Egyptian Queen by Miss G-lyn, who 
 portrayed the changing moods of Cleopatra — 
 her caprice and jealousy, her pride, luxury, and 
 prodigal fancy — with delightful spontaneousness, 
 while she abandoned herself to the death which 
 is to reunite her to Antony with a smiling and 
 eager majesty that converted it into a triumph. 
 The harmony which Miss Glyn effected between 
 so many lighter moods and the imperial dignity 
 of her more tragic passages, especially that of 
 her death, was surprisingly fine. In coquetry, 
 in anger, in cunning, in subjugation, and in her 
 royal end, she was still the same Cleopatra. 
 The play had a long run — the longest of any 
 that Phelps produced at "The Wells." During 
 Miss Glyn's triumph in Cleopatra, I recalled 
 the morning when I and another friend had 
 accompanied her to the stage of Sadler's Wells, 
 where she was to go through a few recita- 
 tions, on the effect of which depended her 
 engagement. They were chiefly, if memory 
 serves me, from Constance in " King John." 
 Phelps's reticence — almost taciturnity on this 
 occasion — was somewhat mortifying to the lady's 
 friends. But the manager was as wise as he was 
 wary, and Miss Glyn's appearance at the theatre 
 soon followed the trial of her capacity. 
 
 Of original dramas produced by Mr. Phelps at 
 
216 
 
 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Sadler's Wells, I am able, through the friendly 
 pains of Mr. W. E. Church, to furnish the follow- 
 ing list, believed to be complete : — 
 
 Title. 
 
 Date of Production. 
 
 Authors. 
 
 Priest's Daughter. 
 
 Jan. 30, 1845. 
 
 Serle. 
 
 *King's Friend. 
 
 May 21, 1845. 
 
 Sullivan. 
 
 Florentines. 
 
 June 2, 1845. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 Judge Jeffreys. 
 
 April 15, 184G. 
 
 Spicer. 
 
 Feudal Times. 
 
 Feb. 18, 1847. 
 
 Wliitct 
 
 John yaville of Haystead. 
 
 Nov. 3, 1847. 
 
 White. 
 
 Calaynos. 
 
 May 10, 1849. 
 
 Boker.J 
 
 Garcia. 
 
 Deo. 12, 1869. 
 
 F.G.Tomlin3.§ 
 
 Retribution. 
 
 Feb. 4, 1850. 
 
 G. Bennett. 
 
 James VI. ; or, Gowrie Plot. 
 
 March 10, 1852. 
 
 White. 
 
 Might and Right. 
 
 Dec. 8, 1852. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 Hamilton of Bothwell. 
 
 Feb. 24, 1855. 
 
 Selous. 
 
 Fool's Revenge. 
 
 Oct. 15, 1859. 
 
 TomTaylor.il 
 
 Exclusive of Shaksperian plays, those re'vived 
 at Sadler's Wells by Mr. Phelps included "The 
 Bridal " (Sheridan Knowles's version of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's " Evadne "), the " King and No 
 King" of the same authors, Massinger's "Fatal 
 Dowry," Webster's "Duchess of Malfi," adapted 
 by Mr. E. H. Home, author of "Cosmo de 
 Medicis," "An Honest Man's Fortune," also 
 
 * A play with excellent comic situations. It would well 
 bear revival. The author, Mr. Sullivan, also wrote "The 
 Beggar on Horseback," produced at the Haymarket. 
 
 t The Rev. Mr. Wliite, who also wrote " The King of the 
 Commons," in which Macready appeared at the Princess's. 
 
 i An American dramatist. 
 
 § This play has not only strong situations, but the true 
 spirit of tragedy. To save the life of a mother, Garcia takes 
 that of a base, ungrateful, and proscribed villain, who has 
 repayed her for preserving him by denouncing her. Ultimately 
 the mother is saved, irrespective of Garcia's unnecessary crime 
 remorse for which is his terrible punishment. Mr. Toirlins' 
 the writer, was one of the most witty and genial companions of 
 his time, and widely popular. 
 
 II This play, being an adaptation from Victor Hugo, can 
 hardly be called original. It contains, however, original matter 
 by the adapter. 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 217 
 
 adapted by Mr. Home, "The Castle Spectre," 
 "The Man of the World," " The Clandestine Mar- 
 riage ; " and, of more modern pieces, Leigh Hunt's 
 "Legend of Florence," Browning's "Blot on the 
 Scutcheon," and Marston's " Patrician's Daughter." 
 
 During this memorable management of Sadler's 
 Wells, there appeared, in addition to Phelps him- 
 self, the following well-known performers — Mrs. 
 Warner, Miss Cooper, Miss Laura Addison, Miss 
 Glyn, Miss Atkinson, Mrs. Charles Young (now 
 Mrs. Hermann Vezin), Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Mrs. 
 Henry Marston, Mr. Creswick, Mr. Henry 
 Marston, Mr. George Bennett, Mr. Eay, Mr. Lewis 
 Ball, etc. 
 
 After resigning the direction of Sadler's Wells, 
 Mr. Phelps entered upon various engagements 
 at Drury Lane, the Gaiety, the Queen's Theatre, 
 in Long Acre, the Imperial, etc. On one occasion, 
 in 1869, he returned to Sadler's Wells to fulfil 
 a brief engagement. He continued, indeed, to 
 perform until 1878, the year of his death. 
 
 A management which, at a small suburban 
 theatre, could produce so brilliant a succession of 
 standard English plays, and enlist for their repre- 
 sentation talent so great and varied, and this at a 
 period when the public was, for the most part, 
 apathetic as to the drama, must be held to have 
 rendered services which should never be forgotten. 
 It is to be regretted that those of Mr. Phelps, 
 though warmly recognized by intellectual play- 
 goers, scarcely obtained the formal tribute to 
 which they were entitled. On the Shakspere 
 Tercentenary, in 1863, he was invited to plant 
 an oak in the poet's honour on Primrose Hill.* 
 
 * I believe the authorities at this time sanctioned a change 
 of name, and that Primrose Hill was thenceforth intended to 
 
218 OUR EBCBNT AOTOKS. 
 
 Accompanying him with others on that occasion, 
 I had the pleasure of witnessing his enthusiastic 
 welcome on the way, and the pleasure it afforded 
 him. He was beloved of the people ; but not for 
 him, so far as I know, were public dinners, pre- 
 sentations of plate, and receptions presided over 
 by the illustrious or noble. G-eography has a 
 limiting effect upon distinctions of this kind, and 
 devotion to a great cause, if shown at Islington, 
 finds Willis's Eooms guarded by surly janitors. 
 Spite of this, the obligations of the Stage to 
 Samuel Phelps as a manager will become a lasting 
 portion of its history. What those obligations 
 were may be gathered from what has already 
 been stated. As an actor it is doubtful whether 
 the width of his tange has ever been exceeded. 
 Once more, if he did not always reach the 
 heights of passion — there were times when he did 
 so — his exposition of great tragic parts was still 
 invariably impressive, thoroughly studied, and 
 intellectual. If in some serious characters, as in 
 Macbeth, his effect was obtained gradually, rather 
 than by brilliant surprises ; yet ■ in certain parts 
 already named — Lord Tresham in " The Blot 
 on the Scutcheon," Melantius, and Arbaces — his 
 reality and intensity rose into genius. All three 
 characters, it may be observed, had suffered from 
 wrong or, at least, from opposition, and these 
 seemed in some degree requisite to rouse Phelps 
 to his utmost fervour. To excite his full 
 passion, he needed the kindling power of indig- 
 nation. 
 
 The above remarks, of course, refer to characters 
 of spirit and excitement — not to those of pathos, 
 
 be called Sliakspere's Hill. But the great mass of Londoners 
 refused to adopt the privilege of this new nomenclature. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 219 
 
 in which he always excelled. He was a master 
 of pathos, as in some scenes of Lear, in Brutus, 
 in Macduff, and in Virginius. He could express 
 antipathy no less effectively than the sympathy 
 of which it is often the recoU, as in Timon. 
 He was admirable in excitable, irritable im- 
 petuous moods, like those of Cassius. How 
 keen an eye he had for the detection of human 
 meannesses his Sir Pertiaax will attest. In some 
 chief characters of comedy, Phelps, dry though he 
 was, was inferior to no contemporary actor but 
 the elder Farren. In certain parts of Shaksperian 
 humour, such as Bottom and Justice Shallow — in 
 his power to blend fantastic conceit with shrewd- 
 ness, and to dash the vaunt of the withered liber- 
 tine with the grim sense of all mortal fate — he 
 was alone. 
 
 In person, Phelps was somewhat tall and spare, 
 with an ample forehead. He managed to throw 
 much expression into his face, in spite of the 
 closeness of his eyes to each other and their want 
 of marked colour. His voice, though deep and 
 powerful, wanted at times variety in serious 
 delivery.* The defect was less frequent and less 
 noticeable in comedy. 
 
 In private Mr. Phelps seems to have shown all 
 the domestic virtues — to have been a model 
 husband and father, and, though dry and reserved 
 in his manner, to have had the power of inspiring 
 
 * In Mb later days lie fell occasionally into a somewhat 
 conventional delivery of blank verse — into the measured and 
 monotonous tone of one who has studied his matter so often 
 that, though he pronounces it with judgment, it fails to revive 
 its first vital impression upon himself. It was heretofore a 
 charm in Phelps, as in Macready to the last, that one often saw 
 look and gesture express thought and emotion before they were 
 uttered. 
 
220 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 warm attachments. On these points, as well as 
 upon his public career, much light is thrown by 
 Mr. John Coleman's interesting and graphic life 
 of him, and that also of Messrs. May Phelps and 
 John Forbes Eobertson. 
 
 Worn out by his long and honourable labours, 
 consciousness forsook this valued actor wMle he 
 was uttering Wolsey's farewell to his greatness, 
 during an engagement at the Imperial Theatre. 
 He never returned to the stage. Strength gradu- 
 ally ebbed away, and he breathed his last on 
 November 6, 1872, in his seventy-fifth year. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SADLER'S WELLS COMPANY IN GENERAL. 
 
 Mr. Creswick, subsequently an emissary of Shakspere to the 
 South-East, as Phelps was to North London — Mr. Henry 
 Marston — His dihut at Drury Lane, in 1839 — His per- 
 formances at Sadler's Wells under Phelps— His Clarence 
 in " Richard the Third " — His Gabor in " Werner," Ghost 
 in " Hamlet," Benedick in " Much Ado about Nothing," 
 and Apemantns in " Tinion of Athens " — Mr. Marston in 
 a play by author, originally desigiied for Phelps — Marston's 
 private oharaoter, taste, etc. — His idolatry of Shakspere — 
 His eloquence — He occasionally condescends to a jest — 
 Instance of this^His long illness and death — Mrs. Henry 
 Marston — Douglas Jerrolii's admiration of her Nurse in 
 "Romeo and Juliet"— Mr. G. K. Dickinson— Mr. F. 
 Robinson — Mr. Hoskins — Mr. Edmund Phelps — Miss Laura 
 Addison — She first appears at Sadler's Wells as Mabel 
 in " The Patrician's Daughter " — Appears afterwards in 
 Pauline, Juliet, Mrs. Haller, Isabella ("Fatal Marriage"), 
 Mrs. Beverley, Isabella ("Measure for Measure ")— Her 
 qualifications" as an actress—" Feudal Times," by Rev. 
 James White — Miss Addison goes to the Haymarket_ in 
 
 1848 Impressions of her in private — Her death in America, 
 
 in 1852— Miss Fitzpatriek — Slie appears at Sadler's Wells, 
 in 1849, as Letitia Hardy in " The Belle's Stratagem," 
 Constance in " The Love Chase," and Miss Hardcastle in 
 " Slie Stoops to Conquer " — Her elegance and spirit— She 
 quits Sadler's Wells and appears at Drury Lane— Mr. 
 George Bennett — His capacities and personal appearance 
 — Characters most suited to him— His Bessus in '■ A King 
 or No King " — His Bosola in " The Duchess of Malfi " — 
 His Caliban— His death— Miss Cooper— As Lydia in " The 
 Love Chase," Aspatia in " The Bridal," Helena in ■' A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream " — Her acting delicate, but 
 too sentimental— She dies, aged fifty-three, in 1872— Miss 
 Atkinson— Mr. Ray— Mr. Lewis Ball. 
 
222 OUR REGENT ACTOES. 
 
 Apaet from Phelps and Mrs. "Warner, a few- 
 names of those who supported the former in the 
 course of his long suburban management claim 
 special record. According to the plan of this 
 work, no mention, except incidental, will be 
 made of well-known actors or actresses yet 
 living. Thus, Mr. Creswick, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hermann Vezin, and Miss Glyn will have no 
 special mention here, though they were amongst 
 the most important members of the Sadler's 
 Wells company, and gained yet higher distinction 
 after seceding from it, Mr. Creswick becoming 
 to transpontine London an apostle of Shakspere, 
 as Phelps was to North London. 
 
 Amongst the names to which we are restricted, 
 that of the late Mr. Henry Marston was con- 
 spicuous. This actor made his first appearance 
 as Benedick at Drury Lane, in 1839, the theatre 
 being then under the management of Mr. W. J. 
 Hammond. Graceful, cultivated, and intelligent, 
 Mr. Marston made an impression which would 
 have been still more favourable but for a huski- 
 ness of voice, which was a great drawback in the 
 characters of gallants and lovers. He performed 
 few characters under Macready, whom he joined 
 at Drury Lane, but at Sadler's Wells his 
 name was constantly in the bills. On the 
 revival of " Eichard the Third " at Sadler's 
 Wells, under Phelps, from the original text, 
 Mr. Marston distinguished himself in the part 
 of Clarence, and gave the dream with the skilled 
 elocution of a follower of the Kembles, if with 
 a trifle too much of the attitudinizing which was 
 now become old-fashioned. For a long time at 
 Sadler's Wells he sustained the range of cha- 
 racter next in importance to the first. He was 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 223 
 
 the lago, the Macduff, the Faulconbridge, the 
 Mark Antony, the Jaffier of the theatre. I saw 
 him on one occasion play Gabor in the tragedy 
 of " Werner," and thought it one of his best cha- 
 racters. In the scene where he denounces Ulric 
 as the murderer of Stralenheim, his manner of 
 gradually sounding Werner before accosting his 
 son — the blending, in a word, of caution with 
 resolution, and the frank, passionless, yet incisive 
 relation of the facts that bring home Werner's 
 guilt, was a masterly exposition of the bold but 
 wary adventurer, who, though he will not himself 
 stoop to crime, is willing at need to profit by its 
 concealment. From the first there was an air of 
 observation about him, and a quiet reserve in his 
 manner, which impressed one with the notion 
 of a man who probably knew more than he 
 chose to convey. Marston's- Ghost in " Hamlet " 
 was also an excellent performance. Without 
 forfeiting the supernatural character of the 
 apparition, he infused into the retrospect of his 
 earthly life a melancholy sweetness which was 
 as affecting as it was unusual. His Benedick 
 was very spirited and graceful, though it suf- 
 fered unavoidably from the vocal defect already 
 noticed. As Apemantus in "Timon of Athens," 
 he gave the biting retorts of the misanthropic 
 philosopher with unforced point and excellent 
 effect. 
 
 I had accepted a commission from Mr. Phelps 
 to write a new play for Sadler's Wells. Before 
 the piece, entitled "Pure Gold," could be 
 produced, the fortunes of the theatre had begun 
 to ebb. Phelps retired from the management; 
 his rights in the new play were transferred to 
 his successors. The character intended for him — 
 
224 OUB EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 that of a father, ■whom an undeserved stigma 
 separates from his daughter — was, under these 
 circumstances, allotted to Mr. H. Marston, who 
 performed it, if not with all those quick touches 
 of simple pathos with which Phelps could 
 surprise the heart, yet with great feeling, taste, 
 and dignity. 
 
 During the rehearsal of the piece in question 
 the writer's previous knowledge of Mr. Marston 
 deepened into closer acquaintanceship. The 
 amiable and high-toned nature of this actor, 
 and his union of courtesy with sincerity, were 
 eminently winning, while conversation revealed 
 his cultivated taste, his intimate knowledge of 
 the Elizabethan dramatists, and an affectionate 
 reverence for Shakspere that was little short of 
 worship. More than once, on a twenty-third of 
 April, I have heard him descant upon the genius 
 of the great dramatist in language the just insight 
 of which was equal to its enthusiasm. Mr. 
 Marston was, indeed, an accomplished orator. 
 He knew at once how to instruct and to move 
 while his finished elocution gave a last charm 
 to his discourse. He seldom adopted the 
 humorous familiarities to which speakers of our 
 day so often resort. With him all was stately, 
 earnest, and impassioned. He could appreciate 
 a jest, however, and was capable of uttering one. 
 At a dramatic gathering one night, Mr. Edgar, 
 the then lessee of Sadler's Wells, was expatiating, 
 not without warrant, upon the claims of his wife, 
 known to the public as Miss Marriot. " But I 
 am forgetting myself," said the worthy husband, 
 with an unconscious disparagement of his spouse 
 that he would have been the first to regret. 
 "Every man, I suppose, thinks his own goose 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 225 
 
 a swan." "Very right that you should hold 
 your wife a swan/' said Marston, alluding to the 
 well-known firm of drapers. " It's a capital union, 
 that of Swan and Edgar." In his late years 
 Mr. Marston suffered so severely from rheuma- 
 tism, that he was a prisoner to his house. He 
 bore the pain and tedium of his malady with 
 sweet fortitude, and at length passed away amid 
 such regrets as only the few inspire. 
 
 An allusion may be permitted here to his 
 widow, Mrs. Henry Marston, who, some years 
 since, quitted the stage, and died in 1887. She 
 was an excellent actress in Mrs. Glover's line 
 of parts. On one occasion in which we were 
 interested in the Juliet of a debutante, I saw her, 
 in company with Jerrold, play the Nurse. " How 
 admirable was Mrs. Marston ! " cried he ; " nearly 
 as fine a Nurse as Mrs. Glover. Certainly the 
 best after her." 
 
 As to the juvenile heroes of tragedy and 
 comedy, the most prominent for some time were 
 G. K. Dickinson, Mr. F. Eobinson, and Mr. 
 Hoskins, the two former graceful actors wanting 
 in force, of which the last possessed a reasonable 
 share, though he lacked refinement. All three 
 were inferior to Mr. Edmund Phelps, son of the 
 lessee, who appeared as Ulric to his father's 
 Werner, in the autumn of 1860. Without any 
 claim to originality, young Phelps had consider- 
 able advantages of person and voice, and so much 
 energy and intelligence as soon enabled him to 
 fill satisfactorily the parts usually assigned to a 
 jewne premier. His death took place in 1870, 
 at the early age of thirty-two. 
 
 Miss Laura Addison, who, after the retirement 
 of Mrs. Warner, became leading actress of Sadler's 
 
 Q 
 
226 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Wells, made her first appearance there, being 
 then, it is said, still in her teens, as Lady Mabel 
 Lynterne in the tragedy of "The Patrician's 
 Daughter," in August, 1846. In the course of 
 the season she performed Pauline, Juliet, Mrs. 
 Haller, Isabella (in "The Patal Marriage"), 
 Mrs. Beverley, Isabella (in "Measure for 
 Measure "), Portia, and Belvidera. Miss Addison, 
 with no great advantages of figure, had a fair 
 complexion, a prepossessing face, with great force 
 of expression, especially in grief and tenderness. 
 She was gifted, moreover, with a sweet and 
 pathetic voice, admirably suited to utterance of 
 these sentiments. Unsophisticated and sincere, 
 she carried the listener away by her genuineness 
 rather than by her art. In this, particularly 
 in finish and in smoothness, she was sometimes 
 deficient. Nevertheless, were there a poetic 
 sentiment to inspire her, she could realize a 
 situation with great effect. This was particu- 
 larly the case in the late Mr. White's play 
 entitled "Feudal Times," produced at Sadler's 
 Wells in 1847. In October, 1848, she migrated to 
 the Haymarket, appearing with Mr. Creswick in 
 " Eomeo and Juliet," " The Patrician's Daughter," 
 and other parts in which she had established 
 her reputation. 
 
 On one or two occasions, not long after her 
 debut, I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Laura 
 Addison in private. I have seldom met any 
 one more free from the desire of personal display. 
 Her pleasure seemed to be to listen, rather than 
 to speak. The conversation naturally turned a 
 good deal on the drama and acting. Sometimes 
 a view was stated that won her sympathy, and 
 it was pleasant to find from the few words she 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 227 
 
 would say, in a low, intense voice, how hearty 
 that sympathy was, or how a quotation from 
 Shakspere or some other favourite poet would 
 kindle that look of quiet enthusiasm which we 
 had remarked in her acting. She seemed to us 
 a person delightfully sincere, charming even in 
 her reticence. 
 
 On meeting her at the Haymarket a year or 
 two later, I was sorry to find her in impaired 
 health. Her face showed traces of suffering, 
 and her acting, still retaining much of its former 
 pathos and poetry, was become, at times, spas- 
 modic and fitful. She eventually left England 
 for America, where she died in 1852, in her 
 twenty-sixth year, during a voyage from Albany 
 to New York. 
 
 In the autumn of 1849 appeared at this theatre 
 Miss Fitzpatrick, in whose acting humour and 
 lively characterization were combined with rare 
 good taste and refinement. She placed with 
 great success as Letitia Hardy in "The Belle's 
 Stratagem," as Constance in " The Love Chase," 
 as Miss Hardcastle in Goldsmith's comedy. Her 
 union of spirit with elegance was delightful, and 
 seemed to qualify her for a West End theatre. 
 To the best of my recollection she remained 
 no very long time at Sadler's WeUs, where her 
 retirement occasioned a serious loss. On quitting 
 that house, she appeared for a season at Drury 
 Lane. No further particulars of her career are 
 known to the writer, who has often felt surprise 
 that such an actress should not have been more 
 widely known. 
 
 A very important member of Mr. Phelps's 
 company was Mr. George Bennett. Some years 
 before joining it he had appeared at Covent 
 
228 OUE EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 Garden in one or two leading tragic characters, 
 but had at length subsided into secondary parts, 
 such as Banquo or Macduff. He was, however, 
 a valuable actor, always earnest and intelligent, 
 also a good elocutionist, gifted with a full, 
 deep voice. His complexion was dark, his eyes 
 brilliant, atid capable of expressing suppressed 
 passion in a way truly ominous, as in the 
 revengeful Venetian in "Gisippus." He was, 
 on the whole, most at home in characters 'swayed 
 by glowing excitement or deep disappointment. 
 These were peculiarly fitted to the expressive 
 melancholy, even to gloom, which was so habitual 
 with him, that he could hardly exchange it in 
 his livelier assumptions. I never saw him play 
 Zanga in " The Eevenge," but fancy it would 
 have suited him admirably. He was sometimes 
 capital in those individualities which are pecu- 
 liarly styled "character" parts — the hectoring 
 Bessus in "A King or ISTo King," for instance. 
 In this part he has been accused of extrava- 
 gance. Bessus himself, however, is a true con- 
 ception pushed to extravagance. To play either 
 Bessus or BobadU with tame correctness, would 
 be to deprive them of their raison d'etre. George 
 Bennett's Bosola in "The Duchess of Malfi," 
 was one of his most impressive characters. In 
 the appalling scene with the Duchess, where, as 
 an old man, he prepares her for her approach- 
 ing murder, there was something in his servile 
 appearance, in his deep, sepulchral tones, slow 
 movements, and watchful, deliberate revelation 
 of the coming horror, that seemed as if he him- 
 self had had such near commerce with Death 
 as to be the fit representative of his terrors to 
 the living. His Caliban was surprisingly fine. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 229 
 
 A nature akin to the brute's by its deformity, 
 with tlie spite engendered by a witch-mother, 
 rose at times into a sort of dim human per- 
 ception, and then relapsed into the mere life of 
 animal instinct, of animal fear, desire, and 
 hatred. These alternating states were shown 
 with admirable force and consistency. Caliban 
 was George Bennett's highest achievement, one 
 which would have done credit to Phelps himself. 
 Mr. Bennett's death took place at the age of 
 seventy-nine, in the year 1879. 
 
 Miss Fanny Cooper, the wife of Mr. Thomas 
 Hailes Lacy, comedian, and, later, theatrical 
 bookseller in the Strand, must have mention in 
 speaking of Sadler's Wells. She had previously 
 appeared at the Haymarket under Webster, and 
 at Covent Garden under the Mathewses. At these 
 theatres, Lydia in the " Love Chase," Aspatia in 
 " The Bridal " (adapted from " The Maid's Tra- 
 gedy"), and Helena in "A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream," were her best personations. At Sadler's 
 Wells she performed those parts of which Desde- 
 mona is the type. She was an actress of mut;h 
 feeling and of skilled elocution. Her fault was 
 that her simplicity had a tendency to the lacka- 
 daisical, and her sweetness to be cloying. In 
 pathos, she was sometimes over-piteous, while 
 her delivery was so interrupted that she seemed 
 to bleat. Aspatia, just referred to, was her best 
 character. The position of the grave, faithful, 
 and deserted maiden gave some justification for 
 ultra-sentimental treatment, and allowed Miss 
 Cooper to display the good taste and gentleness 
 which she brought to most of her assumptions. 
 She died at the age of fifty-three, in 1872. 
 
 The last important name on our list in con- 
 
230 OUR EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 nection with Mr. Phelps's company must be that 
 of Miss Eichardson, an actress of the sterner 
 tragic heroines, who represented them with 
 stereotyped force and propriety. Mr. Eay, how- 
 ever, should be mentioned as one of those few 
 actors gifted with quaint humour, who yet avoid 
 extravagance ; also of Mr. Lewis Ball, the good 
 results of whose early training have lately been 
 evinced by his performance of Sir Peter Teazle 
 at the Strand Theatre. Other actors, both comic 
 and tragic, at "The Wells" occur to the writer, 
 but their performances, while meritorious, and 
 entitling them to respect, hardly require exami- 
 nation in detail. 
 
OUK RECENT AOTOES. 231 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 MISS CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 
 
 MisB Cushman may almost be regarded as an English actress— 
 Her dibut in "Fazio" at the Princess's — Her personal 
 appearance — Her acting in Bianca — The writer makes 
 her acquaintance and visits her — Mrs. Cushman — Charlotte 
 Cushman at home — Eecommended by Forrest, the American 
 tragedian, to try her fortune in London — Her archness, 
 frankness, and cordiality^Her acting in Lady Macbeth 
 — Her conscientiousness and good feeling — Illustrative 
 anecdote — Her Eosalind, Beatrice, and Viola — Her Eomeo 
 — She requests the author to write a play for her — Desires 
 to act a female Eichelieu — Her Meg Merrilies — Discon- 
 tented with her great success in this part -She plays 
 Julia in " The Hunchback," Duchess Eleanour in Mr. H. 
 F. Chorley'e play of that name, and the heroine of " The 
 Actress of Padua," a version of Victor Hugo's " Angelo " 
 — Her Queen Katharine — Miss Cushman and the late 
 Lord Lytton — A message from him — Eumoured adaptation 
 for the stage of his novel of " Luoretia " — Her entertain- 
 ing qualities in private — I meet her for the last time at 
 Hastings — Her admiration of Salvini — Her minute and 
 accurate description of his acting in " Othello " — Her 
 painful illness and fortitude under it — Summary — A 
 disciple of Swedenborg — Her death. 
 
 In addition to the fact that we and the Americans 
 have a common language, so large and eventful 
 a portion of Charlotte Cushman's career was 
 passed in England, that I cannot but think her 
 fully entitled to a place in my recollections of 
 English performers. It was here that her repu- 
 tation culminated, if, indeed, it was not made 
 
232 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 here. Her initial success in Bianca at the 
 Princess's Theatre, and the sensation caused by 
 her later performances of Eomeo, Meg Merrilies, 
 and other characters at the Haymarket, formed 
 the hall-mark of her reputation. She came from 
 America an actress of promise ; she returned 
 there one of the leading actresses of her time. 
 Those who, like the writer, were at the Princess's 
 Theatre on the night when she made her debut 
 in the tragedy of " Fazio," probably felt at first 
 that an actress of a somewhat round and capa- 
 cious face, of a somewhat masculine figure, and 
 of a grave voice, had not, spite of brilHant and 
 expressive eyes, been liberally endowed for the 
 stage. She had scarcely opened her lips, how- 
 ever, than one high mental qualification — inten- 
 sity — became obvious. Entirely absorbed in her 
 part, to all seeming utterly unconscious of the 
 audience, there was something in her concen- 
 tration and self-absorption which suggested a 
 strange religious parallel, and made one think of 
 her as the devote of the stage. The outburst when 
 her jealousy of Fazio had at length been aroused, 
 was the electric explosion of wliich the deep 
 and ominous quiet before it had given warning. 
 As a display of the passion of jealousy writhing 
 under the torture of betrayal, breaking down the 
 reserve of pride, and hurrying madly to revenge, 
 Charlotte Cushman's Bianca, at the moment when 
 she quitted the stage in the second act, will never 
 fade from my memory. From this point to that 
 when the doom of the husband she has adored 
 and betrayed arrests and petrifies her, tUl horror 
 subsides in death, her performance carried away 
 the spectators by a torrent of emotion. The part 
 of Bianca offers few chances of relief; but of 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 233 
 
 these, and the nuarwes and contrasts which a more 
 experienced artist might have introduced, Miss 
 Cushman neglected to avail herself. Her triumph 
 was Inerely the exhibition of passion so intense 
 and impetuous that one forgot its monotony. 
 
 Shortly after her appearance at the Princess's 
 I became personally acquainted with her. I 
 remember soon afterwards that my wife and 
 myself made our way to a small house at 
 Paddington, occupied by her mother and herself, 
 of which I now forget the address. The house was 
 situated in fields partly built upon, and is since 
 become, likely enough, a unit in a populous 
 street. Mrs. Cushman, who was a homely, genial 
 example of the American woman, at once coniided 
 to us her plans and perplexities with respect to 
 household affairs, complaining, amongst other 
 things, that she could not bring her weekly 
 fexpenses to less than two (or three) pounds and 
 a half. I have since heard her curious application 
 to money of a phrase generally used respecting 
 weight repeated by others, but it was at that 
 time so fresh and so often on Mrs. Cushman's 
 lips that it gave a special character to her talk. 
 Both she and Miss Cushman welcomed us with 
 frank cordiality. The daughter, smiling, said, 
 early in our talk, that I had been indirectly the 
 means of bringing her to England. It appears 
 that, young as she was, her grave and powerful 
 style had led to her being cast for the part of 
 the subtle and unscrupulous Lady Lydia in 
 "The Patrician's Daughter," and that Forrest, 
 after seeing her performance, assured her that if 
 she could get a hearing in London, her success 
 would be decisive. These words, she said, never 
 suffered her to rest until she could prove the 
 
234 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 truth of the prediction ; so to London she came. 
 Having said how glad I was to be connected, even 
 remotely, with a visit which had given so much 
 pleasure to my fellow-countrymen, she laiighed 
 with arch gaiety at what she called this pre- 
 liminary exchange of compliments. Her candour 
 and heartiness were not to be resisted. The 
 brief half-hour we spent with her had converted 
 — at least, on our parts — acquaintanceship into 
 attachment. 
 
 Amongst the important characters in which 
 I next saw her, at the Princess's, in 1845, was 
 Lady Macbeth, which she rendered with her 
 characteristic keenness of insight and sympa- 
 thetic earnestness. Her performance, it must be 
 admitted, was powerful and greatly applauded. 
 But inasmuch as in the guilty Queen we need 
 the gradual and varied development of character 
 and passion. Miss Cushman's unrelieved, level 
 earnestness of manner (which, in. the repeated 
 crises of Bianca, she had exchanged for sudden, 
 vehement emotion) gave her Lady Macbeth a 
 sameness of gloom which fatigued admiration. 
 She wanted those " quick, careless strokes," of 
 which Gibber speaks with such delight. Her 
 acting had the effect of one of those scenes in 
 which land and water lie beneath a dense sky. 
 You hear the hoarse breaking of the tide, but are 
 not roused from the pervading gloom by the 
 sudden flash and peal of the storm. There was 
 little of the startling intensity which she had 
 shown in the jealous love and in the remorse of 
 Bianca. But I did not see Charlotte Cushman's 
 Lady Macbeth at a late period of her career, and 
 it is quite possible that so intellectual an actress 
 had before then seen the necessity of introducing 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 235 
 
 that relief of which tragic character admits, even 
 when strong contrasts are impossible. 
 
 Shortly after making her acquaintance, my 
 wife and myself had the pleasure of receiving 
 Miss Cushman at our house. So engaging were 
 the candour and kindly humour of her disposition, 
 that by this time we were come to look upon 
 her as an intimate friend. On the evening in 
 question she gave us a striking proof of her 
 sincerity and goodness of heart. Amongst our 
 guests was a man of great erudition and worth, 
 who had written one or two creditable dramas 
 in verse, whom we all liked and respected, in 
 spite of a delusion on his part that nature had 
 intended him for a great actor and declaimer. 
 This infatuation was the more to be deplored, 
 because his voice had neither flexibility nor 
 compass, and, when strained, emitted a shrill 
 dissonance which taxed the listener's commaiid 
 of his features to the utmost. It might have 
 been hoped that, in the presence of an actress 
 who had recently carried away the town, our 
 friend's propensity to elocutionary displays would 
 have been for the time controlled ; but so far 
 was this from being the case, that he at length 
 suggested to Miss Cushman the performance of 
 a Shaksperian scene. I really believe it was 
 one of the scenes between Macbeth and his Lady. 
 For Miss Cushman's civil, but decided refusal 
 of this proposal, he offered to compensate our 
 guests by a recitation of the great scene in the 
 third act of Othello, between the Moor and lago. 
 Having met him previously. Miss Cushman was 
 become aware of his hobby, and of the ridicule to 
 which his indulgence of it exposed him. She 
 appealed to me in earnest whispers : " You're a 
 
236 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 friend of poor B -'s; we all like and respect 
 
 him ; don't allow him to make himself absurd." 
 She then addressed the same entreaty to my 
 wife. But what was to be done 1 Some of the 
 company, from politeness, others, possibly, for 
 the fun. of seeing Shakspere burlesqued, were 
 encouraging B— — to fulfil his threat, and seating 
 themselves to witness the exhibition. To save 
 
 B from being laughed at by a remonstrance 
 
 which would hurt his feelings in advance, was a 
 sacrifice to friendship of which neither host nor 
 hostess was capable. Charlotte Cushman was 
 
 equal to the emergency. " Mr. B ," she said, 
 
 walking up to him, " you may think me uncivil 
 for interfering, but please remember that acting 
 is the work of my life, and that I seek the society 
 of my friends for a little change. Please don't 
 set the example of recitations." Some one then 
 proposed that the intended recitation should be 
 the only one of the night — -a. compromise to which 
 
 B listened favourably. " Oh, it's a shame ! " 
 
 cried Charlotte Ctishman excitedly, as slie looked 
 round, and saw on certain faces the scarcely 
 
 suppressed smile of anticipation. " Mr. B , 
 
 I tell you the truth. You can appreciate dramatic 
 poetry, and you can even write it, but you cannot 
 declaim it. Nature has not fitted you for it. 
 Do sit down, then ; don't give your friends, who 
 so much admire you, the pain of seeing you 
 attempt what you cannot perform." Tlie popular 
 actress, as it happened, knew the majority of those 
 present ; otherwise, even she might scarcely have 
 ventured on this honest remonstrance. B — - — 
 now retired with good grace from an embarrassing 
 position, expressing himself good-humouredly to 
 the effect that Miss Oushman's success had 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 237 
 
 produced an actual mania, that he had been one 
 of its victims, and that now the cause of his 
 infatuation had cured it. His " mania," however, 
 whatever he may have thought, existed before she 
 came to England. 
 
 Soon after her appearance in Lady Macbeth, 
 Miss Cushman essayed the part of Eosalind. 
 Her hearty enjoyment of the frolicsome and 
 adventurous scenes, the downrightness of her 
 manner in some of the humorous repartees, 
 and the true tenderness which she revealed in 
 a few passages, gained for her, in spite of too 
 masculine a style, fair success. For an ideal 
 Eosalind, however, she wanted not only personal 
 qualifications, but that harmony and elevation 
 of conception which Helen Faucit exhibited in 
 this heroine, and which made her sportiveness 
 seem the natural overflow of her kindly vitality. 
 In Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing," 
 and in Viola in " Twelfth Night," Miss Cushman 
 showed the same qualifications for the heroines 
 of comedy and the same defects as in her 
 Eosalind. There was something not unpleas- 
 antly saucy in her fun, but the effect it produced 
 was gained a little at the expense of distinction 
 in parts where distinction was an essential. 
 
 On her engagement at the Haymarket Theatre, 
 in 1846, London playgoers were startled by the 
 announcement that she was about to play Eomeo 
 to the Juliet of her sister, Susan Cushman. Of 
 the latter lady, I may take the opportunity of 
 saying that her manners in private were amiable 
 and engaging, that her chief stage-recommenda- 
 tions were her incontestable beauty, a fair 
 amount of intelligence, and a composed and 
 evenly-balanced delivery which, though it carried 
 
238 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 her over many difficulties, was hardly appropriate 
 to Juliet. Doubtless she would never have been 
 chosen to play the character but for the interest 
 of her sister, to the earnestness and energy of 
 whose acting her own seemed a direct contrast. 
 Of Charlotte Cushman's Eomeo, it may at once 
 be said that it was a signal triumph. It gave 
 full scope to her impetuosity in emotion and to 
 the virile force of her style. As a lover, the 
 ardour of her devotion exceeded that of any male 
 actor I have ever seen in the part. The sudden 
 coruscation of her wrath in the fatal encounter 
 with Tybalt equalled that of Charles Kean in 
 a passage which had always been ranked amongst 
 the most telling of his Shaksperian displays. 
 In the scene with the Friar, after Eomeo's doom 
 of banishment. Miss Cushman surpassed both 
 Charles Kean and every performer I have 
 witnessed. So high ran her frenzy of grief, so 
 real was the air of a "mind distraught" with 
 which she repelled the Friar's counsel and 
 reasoning, that when, with unexampled des- 
 peration, she dashed herself upon the earth — 
 
 " Taking tlie measure of an unmade grave," 
 
 all that is extravagant and unreasonable in 
 Eomeo's behaviour was forgotten in the ardour 
 of his love, and the house was roused to the 
 wildest excitement, as if by some tragic event in 
 actual life. There was a pause before the recol- 
 lection that Eomeo's misery was but feigned, 
 enabled it to thank the impassioned performer 
 in volley after volley of applause. 
 
 During Miss Cushman's engagement at the 
 Haymarket, in 1846, I happened to superintend 
 the preparation of a drama of my own. She 
 
OUB EEOENT ACTORS. 239 
 
 came to me on the stage at the close of rehearsal, 
 and said as soon as we were alone together, "I 
 should like a word with you on business. I 
 want you to write me a drama, and I can tell 
 you at once the sort of character I should like 
 — in fine, I long to play a woman of strong 
 ambition, who is at the same time very wily 
 and diplomatic, and who has an opportunity 
 of a great outburst when her plans are successful 
 — in short, a female EicheUeu." The account to 
 which she would turn the outburst was obvious ; 
 the chances of success in manoeuvring and ' 
 finesse of manner were not so clear. " Captain 
 Charlotte," I answered, addressing her by a 
 designation which her enterprise and straight- 
 forwardness had caused some of us to give her 
 in intimate talk, "are not your qualities rather 
 those of passion than of diplomacy? You can 
 fight, perhaps, better than you can manoeuvre." 
 "A great soldier," she replied, "must be a 
 diplomatist too. I feel I could act the dis- 
 sembler splendidly." "It would indeed be a 
 triumph of art," was the rejoinder, " for one of 
 the sincerest women aUve to show herself a 
 successful hypocrite." "You know what I 
 want," she said. " Think of it." 
 
 Miss Cushman, like other fine artistes, may 
 have had good grounds for feeling that she could 
 succeed in a character with which she had no 
 personal sympathy. However, from causes which 
 I cannot recollect, the proposal made to me was 
 not carried into effect. 
 
 Amongst the most popular of her embodiments 
 was Meg Merrilies. She had, of course, derived 
 her conception from a study of the great 
 novelist himself, and had thus, so far as she 
 
240 OUE RECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 could, expanded and raised a sketch of the 
 dramatic version to something like the fulness 
 of Scott's creation in " Guy Mannering." With 
 her commanding figure, clad in the fluttering 
 and picturesque garb of the Scottish gipsy, with 
 the coils of her hair escaping, if I remember, .from 
 the folds of her kerchief twisted turban-wise, 
 she presented to the eye one of those figures 
 which suggest the wild and the supernatural. 
 Like Scott himself, she had made out of the 
 forlorn woman — with her fealty to the house of 
 EUangowan, her passionate, almost maternal love 
 for its heir, her fixed resolution to restore him, 
 her weird insight into the future, including her 
 own fate — a union of the terrible, the pathetic, 
 and the mysterious which was truly tragic. Very 
 affecting was the melancholy tenderness with 
 which she recalled to Harry Bertram the days 
 of his childhood, while the prediction that in 
 her old haunts, to which she had been won back 
 by love of her charge, she would be seen long 
 after her "crazed banes were under the mould," 
 was delivered with an air of conviction that 
 made the listener credit its fulfilment. Probably 
 because the incidents of " Guy Mannering," as 
 compressed and hurried together for the purpose 
 of the stage, took a form purely melodramatic, 
 she habitually undervalued her performance of 
 Meg. "Yes," she said one day, a little bitterly, 
 "with an outlandish dress and a trick or two, 
 I can bring much more money to the theatre 
 than when I give the public my heart's blood in 
 my finest characters." I saw her ia many parts, 
 but it was in those already named that she 
 chiefly impressed the English public. Her Julia 
 in " The Hunchback " displayed intense feeling, 
 
OUB RECENT ACTORS. 241 
 
 but the emotion wanted relief. She appeared 
 also at the Haymarket, without much success, as 
 Duchess Eleanour, in a play of that name by the 
 late Mr. A. F. Chorley. She was seen also at 
 the Haymarket to much better effect in " The 
 Actress of Padua " (a version of Victor Hugo's 
 "Angelo"). Into the heroine of this play 
 she threw much of the impetuosity and fire of 
 her Bianca ; but except when, as in the latter 
 character, the crises of passion gave her a chance 
 of sweeping her hearers along with her through- 
 out, her want of variety told against her. 
 Moreover, her plain face was a grave disad- 
 vantage to her in the young heroines of the 
 stage. A word or two must be given to her 
 Queen Katharine — a performance remarkable for 
 its elaborate finish, and for the emphatic, if too 
 uniform delivery of the dialogue. But towards 
 the close the actress insisted too much upon 
 the signs of bodily illness, and thus sacrificed 
 to a great extent the higher exhibition of the 
 Queen's mental state. 
 
 A report once prevailed that she was to appear 
 in a drama founded on Lord Lytton's novel of 
 " Lucretia." The idea tempted her, but for some 
 time she remained undecided. I have said that 
 she longed to play a diplomatist; but she was 
 hardly sufficiently diplomatic, I think, to respond 
 as eagerly as she might have done to the 
 advances of the popular novelist and dramatist. 
 The proposal touching " Lucretia " was, I believe, 
 still pending when Lord Lytton (then Sir E. B. 
 Lytton) chanced to hear that I was expecting 
 her at my house. He asked me, in a tone of 
 playful reproach which probably veiled real 
 surprise, to remind her that she had failed to 
 
242 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 answer one of the warmest letters of admiration 
 he had ever written to an actress. By the advice 
 of some of her friends, she gave up her design of 
 adding the female poisoner to her list of characters. 
 
 In private, her obliging and genial nature 
 made her the life of the company. She would 
 sometimes sing one of the songs in vogue at 
 the time, into the humour of which she entered 
 with an abandon which, in a grande tragedienne, 
 was perplexing to thoSe who did not under- 
 stand how closely humour and pathos are allied 
 in sympathetic minds. My last meeting with 
 her was at Hastings, whither she came to spend 
 the afternoon from some not distant village of 
 the coast where she was then staying. She 
 was thoroughly herself that afternoon in her 
 charming alternations of gaiety and enthusiasm. 
 I remember her speaking in glowing terms of 
 Salvini, whom she had seen in Italy, and who 
 was then known in England by repute only. 
 She described his acting in Othello with a 
 minuteness and a fervour of appreciation which 
 made me feel some years afterwards, when I 
 saw that great actor in the same part, that I was 
 realizing, scene after scene, details of his power 
 of which I had already had a foretaste. So 
 generous, so infectious was her love of what 
 is beautiful and great in art, and so felicitous 
 her expression, that I wished she had been a 
 public critic as well as an actress. 
 
 I remember our party walking with her to the 
 railway station, and then watching the receding 
 train, with no foreboding that it bore her for 
 ever from our view. With what brave resolution 
 she combated, and for a time overcame the 
 cruel disease which at last proved fatal to her 
 
OUR BECENT ACTORS. 243 
 
 is generally known by tliose interested in the 
 stage. 
 
 With her the expression of passion was spon- 
 taneous and overmastering. She could present 
 those startling revelations which have their 
 birth in the ardour of sympathy, and to which 
 mere skill and study never attain. Her Bianca, 
 her Meg Merrilies, her Eomeo, will not be for- 
 gotten in the life-times of her auditors. In early 
 life she embraced the tenets of Emanuel Sweden- 
 borg, her single-minded and sympathetic nature 
 responding to a theology which made religion 
 consist in belief in and love of the Supreme, 
 and in worship of Him by love to one's 
 neighbour and practical goodness. To this 
 creed I believe she adhered until the end. 
 Many in England still mourn her both for her 
 genius and her worth. By her death, which 
 took place in Boston, U.S., at the age of sixty, 
 in 1876, America lost her greatest actress. 
 
244 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 ME. JOHN B. BUCKSTONE, MR. ROBERT KEELEY, AND 
 ME. HENEY COMPTON. 
 
 Boyish recollections of Buckstone and Keeley — Buckstone's 
 trombone-playing symbolical of his acting — First impres- 
 sions of Keeley — His humour a complete contrast to Buck- 
 stone's — The latter's drollery eilective but extravagant — 
 His Sir Andrew Ague-cheek — His Sir Benjamin Backbite 
 — Buckstone in every part — The public wislied no better 
 — His facial expression, voice, and manner described — His 
 Bob Acres, Tony Lumpldn, etc. — Appears in various plays 
 of the writer — Accused of questionable taste — His manage- 
 ment of the Haymarket, in 1853 — Number of dramatic 
 autliors engaged during his management — His own dramas 
 and farces — Tempted to alter and interpolate matter in 
 the plays of others — Example of this in Mrs. Crowe's 
 "Cruel Kindness," produced at the Haymarket — The 
 authoress highly offended — Her loud displeasm-e overheard 
 by Buckstone, who was probably about to enter her box, 
 but altered his mind — His views as to a dramatist's re- 
 muneration — His own experience as a dramatist in that 
 respect — His speeches at Theatrical Fund dinners on the 
 occasions of his annual benefit — Much of their success 
 owing to his delivery — Genial and sympathetic off the 
 stage — Illustrations of this — His Dramatic Club at the Hay- 
 market — Writer's visit thereto — A reception at the theatre 
 — He personates a baker's man — His contributions to social 
 mirth at the writer's house — Gradual increase of his in- 
 firmities — His death — No present actor quite fills his place. 
 Keelet — His humour the vis inertisi of comedy — His 
 acting described — His Peter Spyk at the Olympic — His 
 Verges — His Peter in "Eomeo and Juliet" — His Diego 
 in "The Spanish Curate"— His Dolly Spanker— To a 
 great extent always Keeley — His expression and personal 
 appearance — Variety of his theatrical predicaments — His 
 
OUE EBOENT ACTOES. 245 
 
 acting in "The Prisoner of War," in "A Thumping 
 Legacy," in " Mind Your Own Business," and in " Two 
 Loves and a Life "—In 1844 enters with Mrs. Keeley upon 
 management of the Lyceum— In 1847 the Keeleys join 
 Webster at the Haymarket — Keeley has a novel character 
 in " Dearest Elizabeth " — " Keeley Worried by Buckstone" 
 — Contrast between the two comedians — Enters with 
 Kean upon the management of the Princess's — Plays a 
 jilted suitor with admirable moderation — This quality not 
 always serviceable— Sir Hugh Evans— A run with him 
 across the Channel — His manner in private — Hearty recep- 
 tion given to him after his retirement at a public dinner to 
 Webster — His death. Compton — Not an actor of great 
 variety of manner, though he could at times throw pathos 
 and refinement into his humour — His humour dry, and 
 sometimes » little forced; but his conception just and 
 suggestive, and his effects well designed— Characters in 
 which he excelled — His stolidity resembled Listen's — 
 Different shades of this quality in Listen, Keeley, and 
 Compton — Compton's Shaksperian characters — Touchstone, 
 Dogberry, Verges, Cloten, First Gravedigger in " Hamlet," 
 William in " As You Like It"— Compton as Dr. Pangloss, 
 Dominie Sampson, etc. — His acting in foregoing characters 
 described — Contrast between Ms Dr. Pangloss and that 
 of Mr. John S. Clarke— His Modus in "The Hunchback" 
 — His De Vaudray in " A Hero of Romance " — Objects to 
 proposed alterations in his part — Summary of his qualities 
 as an actor — Personal traits of him — His appearance — 
 General esteem for him — His death. 
 
 I HAVE a boyish recollection, vague, yet tena- 
 cious, of the first times that I saw Mr. Buck- 
 stone and Mr. Keeley. I forget the names 
 of the pieces in which they severally appeared, 
 and keep but the faintest impression of their 
 plots. Mr. Buckstone I saw at the Adelphi, 
 blowing a trombone with inflated cheeks, evi- 
 dently to his own delight, and much to the 
 annoyance of his companions on the stage. That 
 night stands out to me as a night of hearty 
 enjoyment chiefly due to Buckstone, though his 
 comical air as the too-persistent trombone-player 
 is the only distinct feature that remains to me 
 
246 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 of his performance. Keeley first gave me a 
 taste of his humour at the Olympic, then under 
 Madame Vestris. She herself played in the 
 burletta— I think, " Beulah Spa"— in which he 
 performed the character of a young man, whose 
 mother (probably Mrs. Macnamara or Mrs. Orger), 
 from a desire to prevent the natural inferences 
 as to her own age, insisted on dressing him and 
 treating him as a boy. Most humorous was 
 Keeley's quiet toleration of this absurdity, till, 
 raising his hand in its jacket-sleeve to his chin, 
 he drew attention to a stubby growth that seemed 
 imperatively to demand the razor. This was 
 done in a way so matter-of-fact, so free from aU 
 consciousness of the ridiculous, that extremes 
 met, and the restraint of effort produced as much 
 mirth as effort itself could have done. 
 
 In these two reminiscences there seems to be a 
 type of the distinction between the actors. Buck- 
 stone, in all his characters, was metaphorically the 
 trombone-player, calling attention to his humour 
 by salient and very effective appeals to his 
 audience, demonstrative, various, gesticulatory. 
 Keeley, on the contrary, was usually phlegmatic, 
 impassive, and pathetically acquiescent in the 
 droll inflictions which fate had in store for him. 
 To carry drollery to its furthest point seemed 
 the height of Buckstone's ambition. It would 
 be untrue to say he cared little for the exhi- 
 bition of character. His genial people were 
 ultra-genial, his cowards thorough poltroons, his 
 mischief-makers revelled in their sport; but it 
 is quite true to say that characterization with 
 him was quite subordinate to mirth. The 
 brainless, conceited, cowardly Sir Andrew Ague- 
 cheek, with his efforts at wit and his repugnance 
 
OUE BECENT ACTORS. 247 
 
 to cold steel, is, even when acted with moderation, 
 a very laughable person ; but with Buckstone's 
 smirking self-complacency, with his variety of 
 grimace and contortion, a height of absurdity 
 was reached which delighted the public, if not 
 always the critic. To see him, again, in Sir 
 Benjamin Backbite, in the " School for Scandal," 
 was a rare treat for those who were not nice as 
 to the boundary-line between comedy and farce. 
 How absurd was his affectation of modesty ; with 
 what zest did he convey his insinuations against 
 character, and then play aside the part of 
 hilarious chorus to the effect he had produced ! 
 It is true that, in almost every part, he was 
 Buckstone; it is equally so that the public did 
 not wish him to be any one else. There were 
 good reasons for this. Never was there a face 
 more fitted to excite mirth — there being an 
 expression of astuteness and self-restraint in the 
 upper part of the face, while the lips, and the 
 lines from the somewhat expansive nose down- 
 wards, seemed on the alert for a grin, giving 
 a union of shrewdness and drollery, with their 
 interaction upon each other, that was irresistibly 
 comic. Add to these a voice that now doled 
 out in tones (at times nasal) of humorous languor, 
 as if enjoying by anticipation the fun it was 
 about to produce, and then surprised you by a 
 loud, triumphant burst as the point was made. 
 He knew he was the pet of his audience, and 
 never lost his chance of taking it into his con- 
 fidence by a sort of advertising look, which 
 seemed to say, " Attention ! Something droll is 
 about to happen." 
 
 Amongst Buckstone's foremost parts were 
 Scrub in " The Beaux' Stratagem," Bob Acres, 
 
248 OUE RECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 and Tony Lumpkin, Out of numerous examples 
 of Ms mirth-compelling power in modern pieces, 
 may be cited his acting of Dove in "Married 
 Life," of the Lawyer's ■ Clerk in " Nicholas Plam," 
 of Golightly in "Lend Me Five Shillings," of 
 Bob Picket in " An Alarming Sacrifice " — all the 
 pieces just named having proceeded from his own 
 pen — and of his Box in the famous " Box and 
 Cox" of Mr. Morton, and of Asa Trenchard 
 in Mr. Tom Taylor's "American Cousin." He 
 was the efficient Shadowly Softhead of the late 
 Lord Lytton's " 'Not so Bad as He Seems." The 
 writer of these remarks was indebted to his acting 
 on three several occasions for the relief of a 
 serious interest. On the last of these he played 
 Tom Sutherland in " The Favourite of Fortune." 
 
 From what has already been said, it will be 
 inferred that the chief drawback from this 
 favourite actor's striking merit was his love of 
 exaggeration. He was accused by some critics 
 of violating taste in certain characters by the 
 breadth of his illustrations. This occasional 
 fault was the result of the same animal spirits 
 and enjoyment of frolic to which he was indebted 
 for much of his success. When at the height 
 of his power, there was probably no such mirth- 
 moving name as that of Buckstone in his own 
 day. The humour of Listen and that of Keeley, 
 for instance, though more subtle, was hardly so 
 generally taking. Just as the audiences of a 
 former age refused to tolerate Sandford, the 
 renowned actor of villains, in a virtuous part, 
 so those of his own time refused to accept Buck- 
 stone in a serious part. The uproar of merriment 
 which arose from his appearance as one of the 
 witches in Macbeth is too well known to need 
 more than an allusion. 
 
OUE EEOENT ACTOES. 249 
 
 His management of the Haymarket, which 
 began in March, 1853, and continued until 
 within a year or two of his death, was remark- 
 able for the variety of works supplied by contem- 
 porary authors. These included Mrs. Catherine 
 Crowe, Mrs. Lovell, Messrs. Planche, Burnand, 
 Tom Taylor, Byron, W. S. Gilbert, Westland 
 Marston, and Tom Eobertson. 
 
 Of the numerous pieces written by Buckstone, 
 many attained great success. Amongst his 
 dramas, "Ellen Wareham," "Yictorine," "The 
 Wreck Ashore," " Flowers of the Forest," and the 
 famous "Green Bushes," are perhaps the best 
 remembered; amongst his farces or comediettas, 
 " Uncle John," " The Eough Diamond," and 
 " Nicholas Flam," the principal character in 
 which, originally performed by Farren, gained 
 the liking of Phelps, and was occasionally 
 performed by him on beneiit nights, in addition 
 to the piece de resistance. 
 
 As a dramatist, in the imaginative expression 
 of feeling, Buckstone's humour, like his pathos 
 is well-directed and very telling. The Hay- 
 market manager was sometimes tempted to 
 interpolate and otherwise alter the plays in 
 which he appeared. He did so in the case of 
 ,a play called "The Cruel Kindness," by Mrs. 
 Catherine Crowe, which I introduced to him. 
 The piece was well received, and at the fall of 
 the curtain I went to Mrs. Crowe's box to offer 
 my congratulations. I found, however, that it 
 was rather my sympathetic indignation that the 
 authoress expected. Buckstone had so greatly 
 changed and broadened a comic part which he 
 played himself, that, in her opinion, the congruity 
 of the piece, which was in the main serious, was 
 
250 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 spoiled. It was undoubtedly true that the absurdly 
 eccentric being whom the actor had substituted 
 for the original sketch was somewhat out of 
 keeping with the grave character of the piece. 
 Humour might have been a fit relief in such 
 a piece. Here the relief was that of farce. 
 "Did you give Mr. Buckstone no permission?" 
 I asked. " Oh, I may have consented to his 
 putting in a phrase now and then; but what 
 notion could I have that he was going to rewrite 
 his part ? " Full of her wrongs, the lady pro- 
 tracted the talk until the curtain had risen for 
 the after-piece. At length she rose to go, and 
 stood with the box-door open, still venting her 
 grievances to the friends around her. " And it's 
 a great liberty," she said, with some heat, " for any 
 one to rewrite my characters, and to make me 
 responsible for his dialogue. My night has been 
 spoiled, and I am thoroughly indignant." As she 
 was speaking, a little plump, well-known figure 
 paused near the box-door, then passed on. The 
 lessee had probably come, with much satisfaction, 
 to present himself on the success of the piece. 
 It is not unnatural that the words which he 
 caught — deafness had not then gained upon him 
 — should have deterred him, and that he should 
 have felt hurt at his interpolations (which, to 
 say the truth, had been heartily laughed at) 
 being resented as intrusive. I met him shortly 
 after the production of the piece, but neither of 
 us adverted to the incident just related. 
 
 Uniting in himself the often conflicting 
 interests of manager and dramatic author, it was 
 amusing to see his bias towards himself in the 
 former capacity. I think it was when discussing 
 terms about this very play of Mrs. Crowe's that 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 251 
 
 he reverted pathetically to his days as a young 
 dramatist. " Ah, ah ! times are much changed ! " 
 he said. " When I began to write for the stage, 
 I never thought of asking what I was to get for 
 a piece till I knew what I had done for the 
 manager." I reminded him how much the value 
 of dramatic work had since risen, and that he 
 himself had contributed a good deal to that 
 result. 
 
 The favourite comedian could scarcely be called 
 eloquent ; but a speech by him at a Theatrical 
 Fund dinner, on the occasion of his annual 
 benefit, was looked forward to as one of the 
 chief events of the evening. His orations, though 
 often quaint, and not deficient in humour, would 
 on merely reading them scarcely suggest the 
 volleys of mirth which they produced when 
 they had the advantage of his look and intona- 
 tions. Figures of arithmetic and dry statistics 
 seemed comical when they flowed from his lips, 
 and the announcement of a successful season, or 
 a good balance in hand, was as exhilarating as 
 the climax of a comedy. 
 
 Stage humorists are not seldom very grave 
 persons in private. Buckstone had, of course, his 
 serious moods, but he was as a rule genial and 
 sympathetic. He enjoyed the joke of rallying 
 an author in the event of a success, and of 
 demanding what he meant by not leaving him 
 a seat to give away to his friends. He would 
 talk slyly of Sothern's passion for seeing the 
 house crowded, and remark that the actor in 
 question would like to keep a night's receipts 
 out of the hotise by " paper," to persuade people 
 there was money in it. Buckstone was in his 
 element as chairman of the Theatrical Club which 
 
252 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 he had founded at his own theatre. By great 
 favour, the writer was introduced to the solemni- 
 ties of the circle, which held its meetings in an 
 apartment at the top of the Haymarket staircase. 
 The lessee, still in the dress he had worn on the 
 stage, was in the chair, and proposed the health 
 of the new-comer with a comical assumption of 
 dignity, and in words that implied the great 
 favour shown to any one admitted into the circle 
 of the august brotherhood, which could boast 
 more than masonic mysteries and_ privileges. 
 This brief address he accompanied by looks of 
 droll appeal to the members of the club, chiefly, 
 if not wholly composed of the actors of the 
 theatre, who, as he was popular with them, fell 
 into his humour, and echoed his sentiments 
 with the most deferential loyalty. The languid 
 pomposity of an Eastern despot in Buckstone's 
 manner, and the obsequious homage of his 
 courtiers, was in itself a very enjoyable bit of 
 comedy. It is needless to say that the stranger 
 who was for once tolerated by that august body 
 showed himself fully sensible of the honour. 
 
 One instance of Buckstone's love of fun occurred 
 at a reception given at the theatre in the week 
 preceding Easter. The evening was far advanced, 
 and talk and merriment were at their height, 
 when a shrill cry was heard, and the figure of a 
 baker, in a somewhat battered hat, and wearing 
 the, usual white apron, was seen advancing with 
 a huge basket on his arm. "Buns — buns — ^hot- 
 cross buns ! " was his cry, as the basket was offered 
 to the company. The baker was, of course, the 
 comedian, who, a few minutes before, had been 
 circulating in evening dress amongst his guests. 
 I remember one evening at my own house, when 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 253 
 
 he was the life of the entire company, and carriecl 
 the hearts of the younger fair by storm. Amongst 
 other dances we had Sir Eoger de Coverley. I 
 am not quite certain whether he absolutely took 
 part in it, but at all events he played chorus to 
 it with such stimulating phases, and such sympa- 
 thetic animation of look and gesture, that the 
 good old performance reached the very climax of 
 mirth. Alas ! the years glide away and bring 
 their results. Increasing deafness and other 
 infirmities gradually withdrew Mr. Buckstone 
 from the stage. He quitted it two or three 
 seasons before his death, which took place at the 
 age of seventy-eight, October 31, 1879. No 
 living comedian quite fills the place which he 
 vacated. 
 
 It has already been said that Eeeley and 
 Buckstone were striking contrasts, the latter 
 being the soul of action in humour, enhancing 
 its effects by all that could be done, the former 
 being passivity itself — the vis inertise of comedy, 
 the suffering, and often resigned victim of a 
 persecuting fate. In the display of a mind 
 staggered by responsibilities and dangers to 
 which it was ludicrously unequal; or, on rare 
 occasions, evincing desperate temerity like that 
 of a stag at bay ; or possessed by a stupid, 
 satisfied immobility, when instant action was 
 needed ; or by the infirmities of age, vacant 
 and yielding, but with enough perception to give 
 a fatuous gleam of intelligence, — in all these 
 Keeley was unrivalled in his day. In these 
 recollections, I have before mentioned my first 
 impression of him at the Olympic, in a not very 
 important character. At the Olympic I also 
 saw him as Peter Spyk in "The Loan of a 
 
254 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 Lover," a part in which he excited unbounded 
 mirth by his slowly dawning consciousness of 
 a love which afterwards grew to inordinate 
 jealousy. He was capable, however, of much 
 higher things than these. In no part, perhaps, 
 did he shine more than in Verges in " Much 
 Ado," which he performed both at Drury Lane 
 and Covent Garden. With the dotage of senility, 
 this admirable Verges showed, too, the cunning 
 of a harmless vanity, so that although his 
 reverence for Dogberry was plain enough on the 
 whole, it was not until he had disguised his 
 dulness by affecting to ponder that he gave his 
 assent to his partner's observations. Delicious, 
 too, was his look of self-appro ^'al and importance 
 when he elucidated a dictum of Dogberry's by 
 a comment, or supplemented his directions by an 
 incongruous addition. At certain moments he 
 seemed to have forgotten his collocutor, while 
 his thin, far-away voice quavered as if it were 
 wandering in search of old saws and precedents. 
 How delightful, again, was the doggedness of his 
 Peter in "Eomeo and Juliet!" With what an 
 air of importance and condescension did he ply 
 the Nurse's fan, as one who moodily filled the 
 station in life which fate had accorded him, with 
 a strong impression, however, that he had not 
 been used according to his merits. His air of 
 half-suppressed mutiny when she reproaches him, 
 and, indeed, his whole bearing towards her, was 
 a silent comment upon her whims and vanities, 
 and an appeal from the lot wliich had placed his 
 superior intellect at her command. 
 
 I did not see his hungry sexton, Diego, on 
 the revival of Beaumont and Fletcher's " Spanish 
 Curate " at Covent Garden — a performance in 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 255 
 
 which, according to high critical authorities, he 
 divided the attraction with Farren. The next 
 year his personation of Dolly Spanker, on the 
 production of '' London Assurance," was one of 
 the most diverting features of that comedy. His 
 resourceless feebleness and meek pliability in 
 the hands of his spirited, though at times in- 
 dulgent wife, was an absurd picture of an in- 
 fantile mind in the body of an adult. Will 
 seemed an omitted element in his nature ; it 
 seemed as if even his bodily motions should have 
 been impelled by others, and that he should have 
 been pushed along in a go-cart. It is true that, 
 to a great extent, he was always Keeley — Keeley 
 with his quiet, effortless art, generally with an 
 expression compounded of obtuseness, perplexity, 
 and long-suffering ; Keeley with his small 
 stature, and that pronounced Eoman nose which 
 would have given a look of decision, if it had 
 not been ludicrously neutralized by the immo- 
 bility of his other features and the inert re- 
 signation of his expression. Notwithstanding, 
 however, the sameness of this comedian's manner, 
 it was not only droll in itself, but the circum- 
 stances in which it was shown were capable of 
 being greatly varied. Whether we recall him 
 as Peter Pall MaU in "The Prisoner of War," 
 with his patriotic, lazy gasconading over the 
 French, to whom he asserts the superiority of 
 London Bordeaux to Lafitte ; or as the pacific 
 citizen in "A Thumping Legacy," who has in- 
 herited an unwelcome bequest of hereditary 
 Corsican vengeance, and whose face reveals a 
 dismal and stupefying terror, caused by this 
 unlooked-for responsibility ; or as the ci-devant 
 footman, with his much-enduring physiognomy, 
 
256 OUE RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 in " Mind Your Own Business," who comes into 
 a fortune, and marries a vulgar woman with 
 aristocratic airs, who tortures and intimidates 
 him for his illiteracy, till, in final revolt, he re- 
 appears before his disdainful wife and her uncle 
 in his former menial livery; or as the unhappy 
 victim in " Two Loves and a Life," who, under 
 threat of instant death if he betrays his terror, 
 is commanded to walk so many paces before 
 his possible executioners ; — in all these positions 
 we were amused at recognizing the same indi- 
 viduality with sufficient difference of circum- 
 stance to give novelty to its presentment. 
 
 Among the pieces just mentioned, " The Pri- 
 soner of War " and " A Thumping Legacy " 
 were produced during Keeley's engagement at 
 Drury Lane, under Macready, in 1841-42. 
 
 In 1844 Mr. and Mrs. Keeley entered upon the 
 management of the Lyceum Theatre, where their 
 rule was chiefly signalized by the dramatic versions 
 of Dickens's Christmas stories, and by gorgeous 
 burlesques, of which " The Porty Tlaieves " is 
 a still-remembered example. 
 
 In 1847 the Keeleys joined Mr. "Webster at the 
 Haymarket. One piece, "Dearest Elizabeth," 
 produced there the following year, though ob- 
 jectionably lax in its tone, must have special 
 notice, because it provided Keeley with a novel 
 character. It was that of a rather dissipated 
 husband, one of whose love letters falls into the 
 hands of a domestic (admirably played by Mrs. 
 Keeley), whom her master is forced to conciliate 
 by pretending the letter was meant for herself 
 Betsy encourages his overtures, though she is 
 secretly married to the male servant, a confidant 
 of the erring husband, who confides to him the 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 257 
 
 secret of his intrigue. Other complications 
 arising, the whole piece enabled Keeley to exhibit 
 a coolness and astuteness indescribably diverting. 
 At this theatre he played, in " Mind Your Own 
 Business," the part of the hen-pecked husband, 
 formerly a footman, of whom mention has been 
 made. "Keeley Worried by Buckstone," also 
 produced at this house, in which the former re- 
 solves to quit the theatre because thoroughly 
 worn out by the pranks of the latter, gave 
 Keeley a capital opportunity of contrasting the 
 sedate humour of his own style with the ebullient 
 jocularity of his fellow-comedian. 
 
 In 1850 Mr. Keeley joined Charles Kean, for 
 what proved a brief term, in the management 
 of the Princess's Theatre. Here his most im- 
 portant original part was probably that of a 
 suitor who has been formerly jilted by a certain 
 imposing widow, who has now designs of bring- 
 ing her discarded suitor back to his allegiance. 
 Though she is finally successful, not unnaturally 
 some misgivings arise in his mind to delay the 
 happy result. In interpreting these the actor 
 increased the drollery of his position by the 
 quietude of his manner, and increased the 
 humour of his part by the absence of exaggera- 
 tion. His extreme moderation, however, was 
 not always serviceable. In Keeley's hands. Sir 
 Hugh Evans, for instance, in " The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor," became tame for want of a fuller 
 display of his humours. It is, perhaps, chiefly 
 in parts where disasters or perplexities gather 
 comically over the actor's head that a style so 
 quiet as that of Keeley's tells. In such a case 
 the rapid action of events throws out with the 
 best effect the passive helplessness of the victim. 
 
 s 
 
258 OtJR EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 The list of Mr. Keeley's characters is a long 
 one, but his place as a comedian is probably 
 sufficiently marked by those which have been 
 instanced. It is probable that no other caused 
 so much mirth with so slight an effort, with 
 scarcely any deviation, in fact, from his manner 
 off the stage. I once crossed with him from 
 Folkestone to Boulogne, and, in the course of 
 a long talk, was amusingly struck by the identity 
 of Keeley the actor with Keeley in private. Easy, 
 conversational, and grave, there was yet so 
 humorous a contrast between the dignity and, 
 if I may use the word, the innocence of his ex- 
 pression, that it was at once conceivable how 
 droll an effect the comedian of small stature 
 might spontaneously produce in many of the 
 positions already described. The circumstances 
 of his appearance, after his retirement, at the 
 banquet given to Mr. Webster at the Free- 
 masons' Tavern, and of the enthusiasm of his 
 welcome (which I remember drew from him irre- 
 pressible weeping), have already been related. He 
 died at the age of seventy-five, in February, 1869. 
 
 Somewhat less popular than Buckstone and 
 Keeley, but still amongst the first eccentric 
 comedians of his time, was their contemporary, 
 Henry Compton. His manner of acting, like 
 that of the two actors just named, was pretty 
 much the same in all characters, though now 
 and then he could give to it a touch of pathos 
 or refinement to which his brother-humorists 
 scarcely attained. Of the three actors named, he 
 was decidedly the most objective. His humour 
 was not, like theirs, unctuous or spontaneous, 
 but dry, and at times a little forced. His 
 conception, however, was, for the most part. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 259 
 
 just and suggestive, and his effects were so well 
 plafined that they did not much suffer from 
 occasional hardness of execution. He excelled 
 in characters of pragmatical conceit, of uncon- 
 scious eccentricity, sometimes combined with 
 pathos, and of self-satisfied stolidity. This 
 stolidity somewhat resembled Liston's, but it 
 was dryer, and a little more pugnacious and 
 opinionative. Liston's contentment with himself 
 was so thorough, that he seemed to have a mild 
 and genial indulgence for men in general. The 
 stolidity of Compton, again, did not resemble the 
 resigned helplessness of Keeley. With the come- 
 dian now spoken of it was constant and fixed. 
 Words were slow, as if they would have been 
 wasted on inferior minds, and the manner of 
 delivering them was oracular and final. 
 
 Amongst the characters in which I best recall 
 him, were a few from Shakspere-.— Touchstone, 
 Dogberry, also Verges, Cloten in "Cymbeline," 
 and the First Gravedigger in " Hamlet." I remem- 
 ber, too, in 1842, his acting of the very brief part 
 of William in "As You Like It," which, by his 
 air of peasant wonder and panic, he raised into 
 a feature of the play. In other plays, his Dr. 
 Pangloss in "The Heir-at-Law," his Dominie 
 Sampson in "Meg Merrilies," and a few per- 
 formances in farce and burlesque, as in "Fish 
 Out of Water," and the Haymarket burlesque 
 of " Electra," are the first to occur to me. 
 
 His First Gravedigger in " Hamlet," short 
 though the part is, was one of his most remark- 
 able performances. He played it on what was 
 virtually Charles Kean's debut as a tragedian, in 
 1838. He played it to the Hamlet of Mr. Irving 
 for more than one season at the Lyceum. The 
 
260 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 part specially suited him. ISTot easily to be 
 forgotten was his authoritative precision in laying 
 down " crowner's-quest law " to his fellow, his 
 grim mirth when he propormded the riddle, 
 " Who is he that builds stronger than either the 
 mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter ? " and 
 his air of superior indulgence in " Cudgel thy 
 brains no more about it ; for your dull ass will not 
 mend his pace with beating: and when you are 
 asked this question next, say a grave-maker." His 
 jests and humour, again, over Yorick's skull were 
 truly those of a fellow to whom custom had 
 made them "a property of easiness." Like am- 
 phibious creatures, who thrive in two elements, 
 he could draw a relish alike from the goods of 
 life, and send for his " stoup of liquor," or regale 
 his listeners with churchyard bones and the 
 savour of mortality. The comedian's " dryness " 
 was of the greatest value in this part. Nothing 
 that is called " unction " would have been nearly 
 so telling or so true. 
 
 His Dogberry, dressed in a little brief authority, 
 was quaintly dogmatic and self-satisfied ; but it 
 had a touch of superciKousness that was foreign 
 to the part, and it lacked that benevolence which 
 save where his vanity was wounded, made the 
 worthy official so tender to Verges, and so willing, 
 under one pretext or another, to let off the worst 
 delinquents. Verges suited the actor better. He 
 might have been more genial with advantage, but 
 his affectation of senile sagacity, especially in 
 endorsing the wisdom of Dogberry, was admirable. 
 You saw it was chiefly habit — the mechanics of 
 the brain at work after the mental impulse had 
 ceased. The ray of intellect now and then strug- 
 gling through the old man's clouded intellect was 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 261 
 
 depicted with great reality. In characters with a 
 flavour of dictatorial impertinence, of condescen- 
 sion to duller wits, in laying down the law, or 
 solving a problem, he was always happy. His 
 Touchstone, therefore, ranks deservedly high. In 
 the quaint aphorisms and expositions with which 
 his part abounds, he was deliciously conceited aid 
 oracular ; while his toleration of Audrey gained 
 zest from the sense that she was the best of foils 
 to his own wit. 
 
 His performance of Cloten, when Macready 
 produced " Cymbeline " at Drury Lane, deserves 
 special mention. The character is one of the 
 most offensive which Shakspere ever drew. He 
 was well aware of the courtesies which gentle 
 blood entails, and in this very play of " Cymbe- 
 line " has exemplified them by the consideration 
 which the Eoman general and Cymbeline evince 
 for each other, notwithstanding their mutual 
 defiance. In Cloten, however, the poet has shown 
 that vulgarity of nature may be associated with 
 high position, and thus we have a princely snob 
 in a man of high descent. All the arrogance, the 
 senseless self-will, and the unscrupulousness of 
 the part were admirably caught by the actor ; 
 while the tone of the braggart, too obtuse to note 
 the ridicule he excites, made the personation 
 infinitely diverting. Compton was accused by 
 one critic at the time of overmuch " swagger " in 
 the part. "With less, however, I doubt whether 
 the part would have been true ; it would certainly 
 have been less humorous and less effective. 
 
 Dr. Pangloss, in " The Heir-at-Law," was one 
 of his most successful assumptions. His stolid 
 self-complacency; the satisfied chuckle with which 
 he gave out his classical quotations with an 
 
262 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 increased sense of importance ; his keen eye to his 
 own interest; his persuasion that absurdities in 
 pursuit of it were dignified by his commission of 
 them, and that no reward could equal his deserts 
 —composed a solemn and pedantic figure, which, 
 with a facial expression not only appropriate, but 
 varied, caused not only genuine mirth, but plea- 
 sure arising from legitimate art. 
 
 I have since seen another performance of 
 Dr. Pangloss — that of Mr. John S. Clarke — pre- 
 senting a widely different personage from that 
 of Compton, which, nevertheless, deserves high 
 praise. Whereas Compton was dryly self-suffi- 
 cient and measured in the part, and there was 
 a touch of grimness in the sense of his superiority, 
 Clarke was dexterous, seductive, and now and 
 then wary and rapid. Sometimes he stood with 
 an arm arrested and a knee half-advanced, as if 
 in momentary doubt whether to go or to remain. 
 There was often the cautious indecision, with the 
 keen observation of a cat in his look and attitude. 
 He had also the feline qualities of agility contrast- 
 ing with occasional deliberation, and of a tartness 
 which, though rarely displayed, showed that he 
 could scratch. Like Compton' s, his Dr. Pangloss 
 was a fine example of legitimate comedy ; while 
 the comparison between the two is interesting, 
 because it shows how excellent may be two ver- 
 sions of a character widely distinct in point of 
 temperament, and yet at one in fundamental 
 egotism. Those who have only seen Mr. Clarke 
 in De Boots, and other eccentric parts in which 
 this master of drolleries convulses an audience, 
 must witness his Dr. Pangloss to form a just idea 
 of his capacity as an artist. 
 
 Dominie Sampson, in the piece founded on 
 
OUB RECENT ACTORS. 263 
 
 " Guy Mannering," was one of the few pieces 
 which gave Compton a chance of exhibiting 
 pathos. As in the novel, so in Compton's per- 
 formance, the awkwardness of the Dominie's 
 person and bearing, his absent-mindedness, his 
 eccentricities of speech, increased rather than 
 detracted from the touching effect of his devotion 
 to Harry Bertram. The perplexed abstractions 
 and amazement which the actor could so well 
 assume were of signal use in this character. The 
 temptations which it offered to extravagance were 
 admirably resisted, and though the eccentricities 
 of the faithful dependant were vividly conveyed, 
 they sprang from his individualities, and in no 
 case belonged to the antics of the farceur. The 
 Dominie was a real being, and the revelation of 
 his love for his pupil had the agreeable surprise 
 which the disclosure of fine feelings beneath an 
 uncouth exterior always produces. " There is a 
 soul of goodness in things evd." Compton showed 
 in this performance that there is a soul of pathos 
 in things absurd. 
 
 I once saw him in Modus in "The Hunch- 
 back." He filled in this exaggerated sketch ex- 
 cellently. He wanted youth for it, not only in 
 appearance, but in the style of his acting, which 
 was generally unimpulsive and methodical. Here 
 again, however, his quietude and freedom from 
 extravagance gave his personation all the reality 
 of which it admitted, while his expression and 
 manner revealed in countless ways the shy and 
 abstracted student. Not only in relation to the 
 provoking Cousin Helen, but to the characters in 
 general, he wore a timid and retiring manner, 
 which seemed to confess that his presence in a 
 world of action was an intrusion to be apologized 
 
264 OUR EECBNT ACTORS. 
 
 for. His air of stupefaction when Helen first 
 hints at love, his dim conception afterwards that 
 it might be felt even for him, and his quick retreat 
 from this too daring notion, were given with 
 delightful finesse ; while the air of mingled enjoy- 
 ment and shy trepidation with which he allowed 
 the forward girl to adjust the ruff round his neck 
 was as humorous a display of opposing feehngs as 
 could well be imagined. When Helen feared that 
 he should think her bold in " trusting her face so 
 near to his," his depressing modesty took her 
 words literally, and the look full of disappoint- 
 ment and quickly stifled hope with which he 
 answered, "I know not what you mean," could 
 not have been bettered. ISTor did this fine artist 
 .fall into the excess of contrast to which some 
 actors of Modus are prone. The shy lover 
 when he is wooed retained much of his shy- 
 ness when he grew bold enough to woo, so that 
 it was rather with nervous misgiving thau 
 with the air of pleased assurance we have 
 sometimes witnessed that he began the scene 
 in the fourth act, gradually gaining courage 
 until his tormentor gave way. In my expe- 
 rience, Modus was never acted with so much 
 moderation, and at the same time with so much 
 effect. 
 
 As De Vaudray in "A Hero of Eomance," he 
 made almost a new departure. He performed the 
 part of a modern dandy not only with superior 
 and good-humoured nonchalance, but with' a 
 pleased utteraiace of commonplaces, as if they 
 were golden aphorisms, which caused unbounded 
 mirth. Thus, his remark in speaking of an 
 intractable horse, " If you once succeed in getting 
 across his back, and if you are then fortunate 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 265 
 
 enough to maintain your position there — why, of 
 course, it's a great point in your favour," awoke 
 some of the 'heartiest laughter ever heard in the 
 Haymarket. 
 
 It must be owned that this valuable comedian 
 was sometimes unfortunate in being cast for new 
 parts that gave no great scope to his ability. To 
 this cause, perhaps, was due his disappointed and 
 restless look at the reading of plays — that is, if I 
 may infer this to have been his ordinary manner 
 from my few meetings with him on these occa- 
 sions. Buckstone could not persuade him to 
 play the part of Fox Bromley in " The Favourite 
 of Fortune," which Mr. Chippendale ultimately 
 played with much success, and which, during 
 the trial trip of the piece, Mr. Henry Irving, then 
 comparatively unknown to fame, raised into a 
 feature at Liverpool. With the effect of De 
 Vaudray, doubtless largely due to his peculiar 
 humour, Compton, however, seemed agreeably 
 surprised. For the sake of introducing new 
 scenes into this piece after its production, it was 
 thought desirable to strike out some of the 
 existing dialogue. Sothern and Buckstone had 
 concurred in this arrangement, at the cost of 
 losing a few points. Amongst the passages in 
 which Compton took part was one which, not 
 being very closely connected with the plot, 
 appeared suitable for omission. But it chanced 
 that he attached particular value to his place 
 in the dialogue. On hearing the suggestion of a 
 cut he assumed one of those looks of wondering 
 incredulity which were so effective on the stage. 
 " You can't be seriously thinking of taking away 
 my laugh at that point," he said. "I couldn't 
 possibly afford it." The same night, in the 
 
2(i6 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 front of the house, I once more heard the 
 effect which he produced, and felt that it would 
 be unjust to the artist to urge the matter 
 further. 
 
 What has before been casually stated or im- 
 plied may here be repeated. Mr. Compton was 
 not eminently an impulsive actor. He was very 
 rarely sparkling, or carried away ; he did not, like 
 Buckstone, heighten the effect of his humour 
 by his own enjoyment of it, but, as extremes 
 meet, by dry unconsciousness. His method was 
 calculated and deliberate, but with so just an 
 aim that it ensured its mark ; while it was aided 
 by an intonation so quaint, and by facial expres- 
 sion so varied and subtle, that made it no less 
 entertaining than just. If in all his characters 
 certain peculiarities of voice and manner asserted 
 themselves, the characters themselves were yet 
 well discriminated. A partial tendency to same- 
 ness of execution, in a word, did not with him 
 prevent variety of conception. His freedom from 
 extravagance was noteworthy, his effects of look 
 and gesture taking rise, like leaves from a root, 
 from the individuality of his part, not being 
 imposed upon it from without, like gaudy and 
 needless flowers already gathered. Though the 
 parts in which he mostly appeared were of a broad 
 type, he showed human nature beneath them, and 
 proved himself a legitimate artist in eccentric 
 comedy. He was a conscientious, intellectual, 
 and sterling actor, who has yet to find a fit 
 successor. 
 
 My private knowledge of Mr. Compton was 
 derived only from a few pleasant chats at 
 rehearsal, or during a "wait" now and then at a 
 night's performance. Genial, full of character 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 267 
 
 and shrewdness, he was an agreeable and interest- 
 ing companion. His zeal for the dignity of his 
 profession was remarkable. One night, while 
 discussing the appearance in an important part 
 of a new actress, whose claims to that distinc- 
 tion could scarcely be traced to her talent, he 
 expressed his indignation with satirical warmth ; 
 while, on the other hand, I found his estimate 
 very generous of those who, by conduct and 
 ability, had done honour to their profession. 
 Comely in person, with an ample and well- 
 moulded brow, a Eoman nose, an expressive eye, 
 and a plastic mouth, thickly clustering hair, 
 and a somewhat tall and slender figure, Mr. 
 Oompton possessed many external advantages. 
 Much regretted, and after receiving many tokens 
 of public and private esteem, he died at the age 
 of seventy -two, in September, 1877. 
 
268 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 ME. SHERIDAN KNOWLES. 
 
 His acting — His ;popiilarity with audiences, spite of grave 
 faults — Hia lectures and recitations — " The Burial of Sir 
 John Moore " — Knowles as a dramatist — His adaptation 
 from Beaumont and Fletcher, called " The Bridal " — 
 Knowles's Virginius — After-dinner talk on his plays — " The 
 Hunchback" — "The Love Chase" — "The Daughter" — 
 " William Tell " — Serious tone in Knowles's dramas — His 
 religious impressions — Joins the denomination of Baptists 
 — His preaching — Selects from the Bible for reading before 
 sermon passages capable of dramatic effect — His letters to 
 the author on the subject of religion — The Calvinism 
 which he had imbiloed foreign to his genial nature — 
 Occasional outbreaks of the latter — His social disposition 
 and heartiness — An illustrative anecdote — Knowles and 
 the enthusiastic tailor — His taste in poetry — Discussion 
 with him on Mrs. Browning's poetry — His death, in 1862. 
 
 I HAVE seen my old friend Sheridan Knowles on 
 the stage only on one or two occasions. There 
 was much fervour and sincerity in his acting, 
 which, however, did not greatly impress me. His 
 emotion seemed to be always at boiling-point. 
 Through a want of relief and transition, his 
 style soon became tedious. Excitement at times 
 interfered with the clearness of his utterance, 
 which did not gain in charm by the addition of 
 a strong Irish brogue. His unmistakable earnest- 
 ness, however, recommended him to audiences 
 with whom, moreover, he was highly popular 
 
OUE EECENT AOTOES. 269 
 
 on account of his success as a dramatist. They 
 evidently felt, both in his plays and in his 
 acting, that "his heart was in the right place." 
 Occasionally he gave lectures on elocution, with 
 illustrative recitations. I liked him better on 
 the platform than on the stage. On the latter 
 he was comparatively calm, and there his delivery 
 had more discrimination and variety. One of 
 his favourite selections was " The Burial of Sir 
 John Moore," which he declaimed with great 
 solemnity and dramatic point, making a great 
 effect of the shocked feeling and the patriotic 
 consolation in the lines — 
 
 " We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, 
 And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 
 That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, 
 And we far away on the billow I 
 
 " Oh, lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone. 
 And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; 
 But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 
 In the grave where A Briton has laid him," 
 
 The last line, delivered in the way I have tried 
 to indicate by italics and capitals, still roused 
 a national feeling thirty or forty years back. 
 There was, perhaps, some cant in the enthusiasm ; 
 but cynicism, likewise, has a cant of its own. 
 Perhaps, on the whole, traditional, outworn ideals 
 are better than none. 
 
 As a dramatist, Knowles, in my poor opinion 
 (and until very lately that opinion has not been 
 challenged), has very high claims. In point of 
 the imagination which springs from the sense 
 of beauty, he was not equal to some of the 
 Elizabethan men who, in respect of style, had 
 so much influenced him. He could not have 
 written the ominous and terror-striking scenes 
 
270 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 of Webster in " The Duchess of Malfi," and his 
 hearty and vigorous scenes in " The Bridal " 
 (an adaptation from Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 "Maid's Tragedy") show how inferior he was 
 to his masters in expression at once passionate 
 and poetical. But imagination is more often 
 born of feeling than is generally believed, and 
 faculty of this kind must not be denied to the 
 poet who wrote, when Virginius calls his dead 
 child, and fancies she answers — 
 
 " Virginia ! 
 Is it a voice or nothing answers me ? 
 I hear a sound so fine, there's nothing Uvea 
 'Twixt It and silence." 
 
 And in the same tragedy, when Lucius comes to 
 tell Virginius at the camp of Virginia's seizure, 
 and hesitates to speak — 
 
 " Luc. stay, 
 
 Virginius, hear me then with patience. 
 
 Virg. Well, 
 
 I am patient. 
 
 Luc. Your Virginia 
 
 Virg. Stop, my Lucius. 
 
 I'm cold in every member of my frame. 
 If 'tis prophetic, Lucius, of thy news. 
 Give me such tokens as her tomb could ; Lucius, 
 I'd bear it better. Silence. 
 
 Luc. You are still 
 
 Virg. I thank thee, Jupiter, I am still a father." 
 
 The dramatic climax reached in this passage is 
 as fuU of the heart's imagination as are the 
 words full of figurative and touching beauty 
 which precede it. Whoever has heard Macready's 
 interruption of convulsive joy in the last line, 
 will hardly look for any more supreme example 
 of manly pathos. The last act of " Vii'ginius " 
 is far from being strong. Yet in its melancholy 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTOES. 271 
 
 calm, though lit up suddenly by the wild justice 
 of vengeance, there is a satisfying iitness. The 
 fury of the storm subsides, and, but for one fatal 
 return, dies away in plaintive sweetness. The 
 burst of insane passion, at the end of which 
 Virginius strangles Appius, is admirably depicted. 
 The lapse of the bereaved father's wrath for a 
 moment, and his submissive acceptance of the 
 story of Appius, with the sudden renewal of his 
 rage as he imagines the wan, faded form of 
 Virginia pointing to the guilty wretch, has in 
 it all the fitfulness of insanity, and its way of 
 holding on to an instinct of truth, spite of 
 bewildered reason. The whole passage, in its 
 truth and intensity, is the work of a poet, though 
 of one who, in his effort to gasp out his feeling, 
 often neglects the law of rhythm with an 
 unconcern that is almost artless. 
 
 Our after-dinner talk turned one day on the 
 subject of his plays. " The Hunchback " was 
 evidently his favourite. He thought it went 
 home to the audience more than anything he had 
 done. He did not believe that he had entered 
 into the nature of any of his heroines with so 
 much delight and thoroughness as into that of 
 Julia. " Not only," said the veteran, happily 
 recalling his triumph — " not only was the house 
 in tears, but Fanny Kemble and Mrs. Charles 
 Kean wept both during rehearsal and per- 
 formance." Julia, it is true, is the one figure 
 of the play ; but with her impulsive contrasts, 
 the warmth of her affections contrasted with her 
 love of admiration, her imperiousness under the 
 rebuke of her prosperous lover, and her repent- 
 ant yearning for him in her downfall, she atones 
 to us for all the unlikelihood and mystery of 
 
272 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 the piece. She was, when created — and in her 
 best qualities let us believe she still is — the type 
 of many true women, though countless copies 
 of her have by this time impaired her freshness, 
 and thus turned her very success to her dis- 
 advantage. Vulnerable as " The Hunchback " 
 is in several respects, that it has commanded 
 the stage for more than half a century proves 
 a hold on pubhc sympathy that cannot be shaken 
 by pointing out its imperfections. Here, as in 
 " Virginius," and as in the comedy of " The Love 
 Chase " overflowing with mirth and spirit, hearty 
 feeling and truth to human nature carry all 
 before them. 
 
 That the plays mentioned are the most 
 popular of the writer's cannot be doubted ; yet 
 as noble work of which stage success is not 
 always the test, they are, to my thinking, sur- 
 passed by the neglected play entitled "The 
 Daughter," produced at Drury Lane in 1836. 
 The play, indeed, is, on the whole, gloomy, though 
 most powerful. It begins slowly, and its long 
 introductory narrative would not be borne in 
 our day, when vivid sensations must be forced 
 at once into the ground-plot of the play, whether 
 they have roots or not. Unfortunately, a real 
 human interest has an awkward habit of 
 requiring to grow. There was a time, however, 
 when the durability of success was some set-off 
 for its tardy attainment. Now, however, when 
 life travels by express, there is no time for 
 retrospect or compensation. To be once passed 
 over is generally to be forgotten, though the 
 " survival " is not always " to the fittest." With 
 a public that had leisure for appeals and real 
 interest in high dramatic work, " The Daughter " 
 
OUR EECBNT ACTOES. 273 
 
 might, however, reinstate itself. Seldom has a 
 condition of mind been more vividly realized 
 than that of the wrecker's daughter, who has 
 in vain tried to dissuade her father from his 
 inhuman calling, and who, on this night, with 
 a mind excited by terror, fears lest he may be 
 tempted to worse guUt than that of plunder. She 
 follows him into the night of storm : — 
 
 " I cannot light on him, and not a soul 
 I passed but I did question I Where is he ? 
 My brain will burst ! A horrible oppression 
 Hangs on me, and my senses do discharge 
 More than their proper parts. I see — I hear 
 Things that I should not ! Forma are flitting by me. 
 Voices are in mine ears as if of things 
 That are^and yet I know are not 1 Bach step 
 I fear to tumble o'er the body of 
 Some drowned man I There's one ! — A heap of weeds ! 
 Oh, what wild work do fear and fancy make I 
 Bid some one cry ? Well ? What ? — ^ Where are you ? 
 No 1 'Tis nobody I What is it still keeps up 
 This moaning in my ears, as if of words 
 Uttered in agony ? " 
 
 Kough verse at times, doubtless; but how true 
 to reality the state of feeling which it reveals ! 
 Only a poet's sympathy can so pierce and light 
 up the being of another. And here is a light- 
 ning glimpse, with the horror of a wretch at the 
 gallows — 
 
 " Bow he did freeie 
 At the heat of the mn with the thought of the grave ! 
 How life did stare at him from everything around himl— 
 Fields, horses, walls, stones, yea, the grisly frame 
 He stood on, his last footing-place in the world, 
 And he alone a spectacle of Death ! " 
 
 The italics in the quotations are mine. How 
 powerful are the scenes between father and 
 daughter, after the latter, heart-broken, has 
 been compelled to bear witness against the 
 former; how terrible the irony of the father, 
 
274 OUK EECBNT ACTORS. 
 
 changing to denunciation, as he reminds her of 
 his jealous love and vigilance — 
 
 " Till words grew sobs, 
 And love, overfraught, put what it loved away." 
 
 WeU conceived and graphic is the picture of 
 Black Norris, a ruf&an with stings of remorse 
 which he cannot quite master, and, at times, 
 with flashes of honesty in the midst of his guilt, 
 as where he turns from the undeserved thanks of 
 his victim — 
 
 " I do not like 
 That any see me weep. I had aa lief 
 Be hanged aa thanked ; " 
 
 the shrinking nature of "Wolf, Norris's creature, 
 too weak either to comhat sin or the torments of 
 conscience; — all this must he commended in 
 detail to the reader's attention, and, it may be 
 hoped, to his admiration. Knowles's "WiUiam 
 Tell," though clever and striking, has scarcely 
 the same high claims as " The Daughter." 
 William Tell, however, was for years one of 
 Macready's most successful impersonations. 
 
 That there was a pious and reverent tone in 
 Knowles's mind may be seen in nearly all his 
 serious dramas. In the latter part of his career, 
 general religious impressions took form in a 
 practical creed. He Joined the denomination 
 of Baptists, frequently preached in London, and 
 had, I believe, the charge of a Baptist Church 
 in Scotland. On two occasions I heard him 
 preach, each time at a chapel in the suburbs. 
 Besides the characteristic zeal and solemnity 
 which he threw into his remarks, there was 
 little to distinguish his sermons from those of 
 ft preacher in general — little imagination and 
 fancy, little speculation or originality of view. 
 
OUR EECENT AOTOES. 275 
 
 It seemed a little remarkable that, on both 
 occasions of hearing him, he read the same 
 chapters in the course of the service; the first 
 contained the visit of Nathan to David after 
 the murder of Uriah; the second was the 
 seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. On 
 mentioning this circumstance to a common 
 friend, he informed me that it was Knowles's 
 habit to read these two chapters, which (espe- 
 cially the first-named) gave considerable scope 
 for his power of elocution. His reading certainly- 
 produced hushed attention on the part of his 
 hearers. 
 
 The earnestness of Knowles's convictions 
 made him benevolently desirous of impressing 
 them upon others, and I had letters from 
 him on religious topics, in which his theology 
 seemed a shade too Calvinistic. There was 
 much, however, that commanded a willing assent. 
 At times these letters appealed to me to devote 
 whatever faculty I had to the service of the 
 Almighty while I was yet young. I answered 
 Knowles that I humbly trusted to comply with 
 his wish by continuing my dramatic work, and 
 that I was persuaded, though less directly, he 
 had not less earnestly employed himself in 
 religious work in writing plays than now in 
 preaching sermons. This view was probably 
 consolatory to him, for his old yearning for the 
 theatre was not extinct, and he was debating 
 the question of producing one or two more of his 
 plays then - in MS., with a touching wish to hear 
 from others that there was nothing in his doing 
 so inconsistent with his strict Christian profession. 
 
 While simple piety, with the rest and the 
 trust which it begets, naturally tends always 
 
276 OUR RECENT ACTOES. , 
 
 to cheerfulness, there is an ascetic tinge even 
 in moderate Calvinism quite at variance with 
 a genial nature like that of Knowles. I had 
 heard that before I knew him he was the 
 soul of mirth and good-fellowship. At times 
 his gay and social nature would, even at a later 
 period, kindle in the relation of an anecdote 
 or in the utterance or enjoyment of some 
 innocent jest; but there was, on the whole, a 
 pensive gravity inconsistent with the stories of 
 him that had once been current — anecdotes of 
 the man whose overflow of life and hearty good- 
 will magnetized every new acquaintance; who 
 gave and accepted impromptu invitations to 
 dinner with a grasp of the hand and real 
 heartiness, yet forgot them ere he had turned 
 the street corner, and, accosted by some forgotten 
 face, would reply to its owner with cheery 
 fervour, make an excuse for quickly passing on, 
 and then ask the name of his late interlocutor 
 from a chance companion. If some of these 
 traits produced a little inconvenience, they were, 
 at all events, tokens of overflowing life in the 
 possessor, and of his kind feeling towards others. 
 
 No more hearty or mercurial spirit in the best 
 sense, perhaps, can be imagined than Knowles ' 
 was in the vigour of his days. Mr. Bayle 
 Bernard, who has already furnished me with 
 more than one recollection of past days, gave me 
 the following account of an incident wliich, as he 
 told it, was a moral photograph of the dramatist. 
 
 Knowles, at the time referred to, had warm 
 admirers in aU parts of London. The heartiness 
 of his nature, as evinced in his life, made even 
 strangers his friends. One or two men in 
 Camden Town, who knew him intimately, formed 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 277 
 
 the design of inviting him to a semi-public 
 dinner at a tavern in the neighbourhood. The 
 plan speedily found supporters, and the pro- 
 moters of the dinner were besieged by applicants. 
 Amongst them was a local tailor, whose en- 
 thusiasm for Knowles was nothing less than 
 hero-worship. A ticket was accorded to him, 
 and, after some deliberation, his earnest request 
 that, on the poet's health being proposed, he 
 might say a few words in support of the toast 
 was complied with. Knowles was privately 
 informed of the devotion of his sartorial admirer, 
 and prepared for the possible display of eccen- 
 tricity on his part. When the eventful moment 
 of supporting the toast arrived, the tailor did 
 credit to his cloth. "A tailor was, according to 
 repute," he said, " only the ninth part of a man ; 
 but if so small a fraction of humanity as he 
 could feel his heart overflow and his mind 
 expand under the influence of Mr. Knowles's 
 noble and stirring dramas, what would not be 
 the effect of such works upon those happier 
 individuals who could boast of being men in 
 totality?" "My friend," said Knowles, in reply — 
 "for though it has never been my good fortune 
 to meet him before, I know that he is a friend — 
 a friend to be prized, — my friend has observed, 
 in allusion to a playful flction, that he, as a 
 tailor, is regarded only as the ninth part of a 
 man; but I say, if you were to search for nine 
 average men, it is more than doubtful whether 
 the whole nine would, in worth and intellect, 
 make up the ninth part of this tailor. Long life 
 to him, gentlemen ! I heartily propose his 
 health!" As the tailor's "intellect" had been 
 chiefly known by his praise of Knowles, this 
 
278 OUR EECENT ACTOES, 
 
 compliment by the latter apparently savoured 
 of egotism; but it sprang from the warmth of 
 his heart, and had no such motive. "It was 
 quite pathetic," said my informer, "to see how 
 the dramatist's genial extravagance overwhelmed 
 the poor fellow on whom it was lavished, who 
 was only able to stammer out a few broken 
 phrases by way of thanks." 
 
 Though when his feelings were engaged 
 Knowles often showed a lively imagination, he 
 was rather impatient of all descriptions which 
 had a touch of hyperbole. In expressing to 
 him my warm admiration of Mrs. Browning, 
 I put one of her volumes into his hand. He 
 opened it at "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." 
 " What is tliis ? " he cried — " ' resonant steam- 
 eagles V" Here are the lines in which these 
 
 O 
 
 words occur — 
 
 " She has halls and she has castles, and the resonant steam- 
 eagles 
 Follow far, on the directing of her floating dove-like hand." * 
 
 While admitting that "resonant steam-eagles" 
 was a rather forced phrase for railway engines, 
 I still contended that the entire passage was 
 picturesque and full of stately grace. He was 
 not to be convinced, however. "'Down the 
 purple of this chamber tears should run at 
 will ' ! " he quoted again, in a tone of hasty 
 disapproval. "How can tears run down the 
 purple of a chamber? Perhaps she means that 
 the walls are damp." There was only one 
 answer — that the literal test on which he insisted 
 would be fatal to some of the most celebrated 
 
 * In later editions these lines have been so altered that 
 ICnowles's objection is no longer applicable. 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 279 
 
 passages in poetry. I have a dim remembrance 
 of persuading him to read " Bertha in the Lane," 
 and of his being half converted by that noble and 
 touching poem; but I have put the same poem 
 into so many hands that my recollection of it in 
 connection with Knowles may be erroneous. 
 
 During the latter part of his life he was much 
 afflicted with rheumatism. I had occasional 
 letters from my old friend, but saw nothing of 
 him personally for some time before his death, 
 at the age of seventy. It occurred at Torquay, 
 November 30, 1862. 
 
280 OUE EECBNT ACTOES. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVI. 
 
 MADAME VESTEIS (MES. C. J. MATHEWS). 
 
 Portraits of her — ^Her personal appearance and grace of manner 
 — Her popularity as a ballad-singer — Her earlier successes 
 in Don Giovanni in "Giovanni in London," as Captain 
 Macheath, as Apollo in " Midas," as Lydia Languish, as 
 Letitia Hardy — Her performances, when lessee of the 
 Olympic, in "One Hour; or, The Carnival Ball," in "The 
 Loan of a Lover," " Beulah Spa," " The Black Domino," 
 " You Can't Marry Your Grandmother," " Naval Engage- 
 ments," etc. — Leigh Hunt's opinion of her as singer 
 and actress — Her popularity accounted for — Her love 
 of dress, even to inconsistency — Cultivated a personal 
 understanding with her audience — Her resemblance in 
 this respect and in face to the late Miss Neilson — 
 Occasionally offended with her patrons — Her visit with 
 her husband to America — Invidiously treated by the 
 press there — Enthusiastic reception on her return 
 to the Olympic — Enters with Mr. Mathews on the 
 management of Oovent Garden — Her Lady Teazle — Her 
 Catherine in Sheridan Knowles's " Love " — Her Oberon 
 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" — Her Grace Hark- 
 away in " London Assurance " — Professional generosity 
 to her rival, Mrs. Nisbett — Appears in Ejiowles's " Old 
 Maids" — Goes with Mr. Mathews to the Haymarket — 
 Plays very successfully in " The Eencontre," " The Little 
 Devil," and "Who's Your Friend ? "—Want of pathos— 
 Eeport that she once played with Talma in "Les 
 Horaces " — Traits of her in private — Leigh Hunt's tribute 
 to her geniality and courtesy — Her long Ulness and death. 
 
 The night on whicli I first saw Madame Vestris 
 — I believe in 1836 — has been already referred 
 to in these EecoUections. Her portraits in the 
 print-shops had already made familiar to me a 
 
OUR EEOENT AOTOES. 281 
 
 face which, if not regularly beautiful, possessed 
 lustrous eyes, a flexible mouth, somewhat open, 
 -and a forehead arched by abundant dark hair 
 that fell in thick tresses upon her well-formed 
 neck and sloping shoulders, while the general 
 grace of her person and bearing was worthy the 
 possessor of such a countenance. In her rich 
 contralto voice she had sung " Cherry Eipe " and 
 other ballads so ravishingly as to make them 
 town talk. In Don Giovanni in "Giovanni 
 in London," in Captain Macheath, in Apollo in 
 " Midas," as well as in Lydia Languish, Letitia 
 Hardy, and, later, in various burlettas at the 
 Olympic, such as "One Hour; or. The Carnival 
 Ball " — an insipid piece, which owed everything 
 to her manner and the mercurial spirit of Mr. 
 C. Mathews — " The Loan of a Lover " (in which, 
 with admirable archness and espieglerie, she pro- 
 voked the duU and dilatory advances of a lover 
 capitally played by Keeley), " Beulah Spa," " The 
 Black Domino," " You Can't Marry Your Grand- 
 mother," "Naval Engagements," etc., she was 
 confessedly irresistible; and her charm was not 
 the less that it is rather difficult to define it. 
 Spite of her natural gifts, she had, as a singer, 
 never gained a very high position ; as an actress, 
 criticism had never largely credited her with 
 the power of painting character with depth or 
 subtlety, though Leigh Hunt, on her appearance 
 at Drury Lane in 1820, had spoken with delight 
 of her possession of these qualities, and had 
 even ascribed to her real tenderness and a 
 delicate sense of relief and variety of emotion 
 of which I am not fortunate enough to remember 
 examples. That she had no title, however, to 
 claim an eminent position either as vocalis.t or 
 
282 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 actress, seems to have been the general impres- 
 sion. She had, however, with playgoers, such 
 great popularity, that to seek for the grounds 
 of it may not be uninteresting. 
 
 In the first place, though she could not boast 
 the highest qualifications for her profession, she 
 had some that stand the owner in even better 
 stead. Her voice in a baUad had great expres- 
 sion, and, to use Leigh Hunt's words, " all the 
 ripeness of the South in it." She was charmingly 
 arch and vivacious, with a happy carelessness 
 which helped effect, with an occasional air of 
 playful mutinerie that increased public favour 
 by her evident consciousness of it. Let it be 
 added that she never failed to give her personal 
 attraction the advantage of rich and tasteful 
 costume, and that she was such a votary of 
 elegance in dress, that she would display it 
 even in rustic or hiimble characters. That a 
 silk skirt, a lace-edged petticoat, a silk stocking, 
 a shoe of satin or patent leather, would never 
 have been worn by some of the characters she 
 personated, was of no more concern to her on 
 the ground of consistency than were their rich 
 attires to Marie Antoinette and the ladies of her 
 court, when they masqueraded as shepherdesses 
 and milkmaids in the grounds of the Petit 
 Trianon. Like Miss ISTeilson, in later days she 
 cultivated a personal understanding with her 
 audience. Indeed, there was so much likeness 
 of face and, at times, of expression between 
 her and the young tragedienne, that a portrait 
 now before me of the former actress might easily 
 be supposed that of the latter. It was, I fancy, 
 her practice of taking the house into her con- 
 fidence, combined with her coquetry and personal 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 283 
 
 attractions, that rendered Vestris so bewitching to 
 the public. When she sang, she looked with 
 a questioning archness at her audience, as if to 
 ask, " Do you enjoy that as I do ? Did I give 
 it with tolerable effect?" And though in the 
 delivery of dialogue she could hardly be called 
 keen or brilliant, she knew what mischief and 
 retort meant. When she had given a sting to 
 the latter, she would glance round, as to ask 
 for approval, with a smile that seemed to say, 
 " I was a little severe there. He felt that, I 
 suppose?" She had on the stage, either real 
 or assumed, the abstraction of a spoiled favourite. 
 Thus, on the night of my iirst seeing her — 
 as Psyche, I think, in " Olympic Eevels " — she 
 would at times seem absorbed in contemplating 
 her dress, in adjusting a sleeve or a fold of 
 the skirt, or she would drop her eye in reverie 
 upon the point of her pink satin hottine. Of 
 a sudden she would affect to wake to conscious- 
 ness, and cast a trustful and appealing glance 
 on the house, then become demure and staid, 
 as one who felt that she had taxed indulgence. 
 She had skill enough not to carry these little 
 pantomimic contrasts too far, and to enhance 
 them by fits of reserve. She was capable, how- 
 ever, of taking serious umbrage and of openly 
 expressing it. During her management of Covent 
 Garden, I entered late one night, and found 
 that some accidental circumstance had elicited 
 the disapprobation of the house. "Vestris is in 
 a temper," said my informant, "and shows it." 
 This I found to be quite true. She pouted 
 through her comic scenes with a sullen brow, 
 and with a haste and a negligence so marked 
 that, unless she had been the enfant gate of the 
 
284 OUR EECEKT ACTOES. 
 
 house, her almost contemptuous indifference 
 might well have brought on her an emphatic 
 rebuke. Before quitting the Olympic, however, 
 she paid a visit with her husband to America, 
 where the press treated them somewhat invidi- 
 ously. On returning to her little theatre in 
 Wych Street, she was hailed with absolute trans- 
 port, with that excitement of delight which only 
 few favourites in any age are privileged to arouse. 
 Bewitching as Vestris was in the sparkling 
 trifles of the Olympic, pieces of a higher stamp 
 showed the limits of her resources. Soon after 
 entering with Mr. Mathews on the management 
 of Covent Garden, she played Lady Teazle. In 
 the humours of the part, in the wheedling of 
 Sir Peter, her quizzical speeches at Lady Sneer- 
 well, and in a general air of restless animation 
 she was very happy ; but to show traces of the 
 ci-devant country girl in the town lady, or 
 to hint at times the deeper nature which made 
 repentance likely, were problems which the 
 actress did not even attempt to solve. Her 
 Lydia Languish I never saw, but I have heard 
 it much commended, and probably justly, since 
 it was far more within her range than Lady 
 Teazle. In the Catherine of Knowles's "Love," 
 produced in 1839 at Covent Garden, Madame 
 Vestris was quite in her element. She had to 
 stimulate, often in male disguise, a sincere but 
 slow and taciturn lover; to send him on her 
 errands, and jest at his delay or non-appre- 
 hension; to reflect on his courage, challenge him 
 to fight, and then cleverly evade the meeting. In 
 her disguise of young gaUant, to affect to him 
 that she (Catherine) had broken her ankle and 
 limped, that her waist went "zig-zag," that her 
 
OtIE EECENT ACTOES, 285 
 
 complexion was ruined, that she had squandered 
 her wealth; to exult, with a roguish smile, that 
 his honest heart was still faithful to her, then 
 once more to quarrel and order him to his knees, 
 and, when the incensed knight at last rebelled, 
 to throw off her page-ship's cloak, and reveal 
 his tormenting but loving Catherine, — this was 
 comedy, not very brilliant, and, at last, rather 
 tiresome, but quite suited to Madame Vestris — 
 comedy in which she delighted. 
 
 In the character just sketched, she was 
 tolerably successful, and gave sufficient relief to 
 the serious interest of the play. In 1840, when 
 "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was revived 
 at Covent Garden, she represented Oberon with 
 much elegance, if not with all the appreciation 
 of the text that might have been desired. As 
 Grace Harkaway in "London Assurance," also 
 produced at Covent Garden, Madame Vestris 
 gave effective help, though there is in this 
 character a touch of sentiment which was hardly 
 within her reach. Her acceptance, however, of 
 a part quite subordinate to the Lady Gay Spanker 
 of Mrs. Nisbett, deserves to be mentioned as 
 one of several examples of her professional 
 liberality to a rival. 
 
 In 1841 she appeared at Covent Garden, as 
 one of the heroines of Sheridan Knowles's " Old 
 Maids." Her part was that of a fashionable 
 coquette with a giddy nature and good heart. 
 Her Lady Blanche was diverting and cap- 
 tivating, but the comedy lacked strength of story, 
 and even force and originality of character. 
 
 Soon after resigning the lesseeship of Covent 
 Garden, Madame Vestris and Mr. Charles 
 Mathews accepted an engagement at the Hay- 
 
286 OUE RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 market. There the favourite actress still proved 
 attractive in pieces somewhat like those which 
 she produced at the Olympic — in "The Een- 
 contre/' in which she played to the life a 
 lively and intriguing domestic ; in the witcheries 
 of " The Little Devil," a version of Scribe's " La 
 Part du Diable;" and in that charming drama 
 of court life in masquerade, " Who's Your 
 Friend ? " where her appropriate and telling 
 part was that of an amateurish dairywoman, 
 with page and footman to hold her parasol and 
 to carry her milk-pail. In this piece, throughout, 
 as in her own particular character, there was 
 a union of elegance and mirth in which she 
 never failed to excel. Her excellence, indeed, 
 lay in charming genre drama, and in mythological 
 and other extravaganzas, rather than in pure 
 comedy, though examples have been named of 
 her success in the latter, when her part involved 
 humours rather than deeper characteristics. A 
 touch of passion or pathos, such as sometimes 
 blends with humour, I never caught from her, 
 and one cannot read the statement that she 
 once played Camille in "Les Horaces," to 
 Talma, at the Theatre Franpais, without a smile. 
 
 I must dwell no longer, however, upon an 
 actress who was probably more fascinating than 
 any of her time. She was reported to be extra- 
 vagant, fond of luxury, jewels, dress, and domestic 
 pets. She had a passion for spaniels, of which 
 she possessed some rare specimens. On the 
 testimony of those who knew her well, she was 
 at times whimsical and arrogant with her equals ; 
 but, with errors which I am not called upon to 
 notice further, she was generous, liberal, humane, 
 and capable of inspiring warm attachment, espe- 
 
OUE EBOENT ACTORS. 287 
 
 cially in those whom she met behind the scenes 
 at the theatre. 
 
 Meeting Leigh Hunt at dinner shortly after 
 the production of "The Legend of Florence," 
 I was pleased with his warm mention of her. 
 Her frank goodwill and courtesy as manageress 
 during rehearsal had fairly carried away one 
 whose appreciation of manner was delicate even to 
 fastidiousness. His enthusiasm for her was only 
 second to that which he showed for Ellen Tree, 
 the heroine of his play. 
 
 After a long and painful illness, Lucy Eliza- 
 beth Vestris (Mrs. Charles Mathews) passed on 
 August 8, 1856, from a scene in which she 
 had once shone with as much brilliancy as any 
 of her rivals, whom, indeed, she excelled in 
 personal captivation. At the time of her death 
 she had reached her fifty-ninth year. 
 
288 OUE EBCENT AOTOES. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 MES. NISBETT (LADY BOOTHBY). 
 
 Her beauty — Her personal appearance described — Comparison 
 between her and Vestris — Her laugh — In 1835 manages 
 the little Queen's Theatre in Tottenham Street, afterwards 
 the Prince of Wales's — Plays there a sentimental part, 
 that of H. gipsy girl — Carries the piece by her beauty, 
 without rt, touch of pathoa^Appears there also in " The 
 Married Bake," and in " Catching an Heiress " — Her 
 acting in these pieces — Her enjoyment of fun — Substitutes 
 Madame Vestris at the Olympic, in 1838 — Distinguishes 
 herself in "The Idol's Birthday" — The piece and her 
 acting in it described — Her Beatrice — Its excess of mirth 
 -^Her Rosalind brilliant, but deficient in tenderness — 
 Compared with Helen Faucit's — Her Lady Teazle — Ex- 
 cellent as Helen in " The Hunchback " — Her triumph as 
 Constance in " The Love Chase " — Achieves a kindred 
 success as Lady Gay Spanker in " London Assurance " 
 — Her death. 
 
 Mrs. Nisbett, who was almost as much the 
 rage as Vestris herself, in the opinion of many 
 surpassed her in beauty. Her forehead, though 
 rather low, was wide, her eyes brilliant and 
 expressive; the oval of her clear face was re- 
 lieved and thrown out by a waving wreath of 
 dark hair. Her neck was long and stately, her 
 form lithe and elastic, and her stature tall. She 
 had even more animation than Vestris, but not 
 the insinuating languor with which the latter 
 sometimes contrasted it. She was an immense 
 favourite, but it was less her wont than that of 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 289 
 
 Vestris to indulge in those little arts of panto- 
 mime by which an actress appeals personally to 
 her admirers. Mrs. Nisbett had a laugh which 
 swept away and charmed one by its freshness 
 and fulness, by its music, and by its union of 
 refinement with abandon. She was, on the 
 whole, a finer actress than her rival; she had 
 keener perceptions of character and consistency. 
 If the latter beat her in seductive charm of look 
 and manner, and in the art of sending out tele- 
 graphic glances, she had not that delight in 
 mirth and those boundless animal spirits which, 
 with Mrs. Nisbett, created an infection of en- 
 joyment. Her charm was less subtle, and even 
 less deep, than that of Vestris, but it was freer 
 and less artificial. Both actresses were accom- 
 plished in fascination and captivation, but Vestris 
 excelled in the former, Msbett in the latter. 
 
 My earliest recollections, now but faint, of 
 Louisa Cranstoun Msbett, date from about 1835, 
 when, for a brief space, she managed the little 
 Queen's Theatre, since so well-known as the 
 Prince of Wales's. At this house, to the best of 
 my knowledge, she made her only effort in 
 serious drama. She played the part of a gipsy 
 girl, and looked so pensively lovely with her 
 olive complexion set off by a red kerchief, that 
 I, like the rest of the audience, forgave or forgot 
 the utter absence of one touch of genuine pathos. 
 It was at this little theatre, too, that she per- 
 formed Mrs. Trictrac in " The Married Eake," 
 and Caroline Gayton in " Catching an Heiress." 
 She delighted one in these parts by her winning 
 archness, and especially by the spirit with which 
 she bore herself in her male disguises, and by 
 her enjoyment of the fun. 
 
 V 
 
290 OUE RECENT ACTOES, 
 
 The dictum of Horace, that he who would move 
 tears should also shed them, finds, as a general 
 rule, its corollary in the truth that the performer 
 most likely to call forth mirth is one who him- 
 self revels in it. Those cases are, of course, to 
 be excepted in which the stoUdity of the actor 
 is part of the humour, or in which his cue is 
 for a while to mask his enjoyment by a grave 
 reticence. 
 
 In 1838 Mrs. Msbett was the substituted 
 attraction at the Olympic for Madame Vestris, 
 during the absence of the latter in America. 
 In no piece at this theatre was Mrs. Msbett 
 seen to greater advantage than m " The Idol's 
 Birthday," produced in 1838. The little comedy 
 itself is a piece with a central idea very 
 takingly illustrated. The time is the reign of 
 Queen Anne. The scene is a stately, old- 
 fashioned garden, with its hedges fantastically 
 cut into quaint devices, with here or there an 
 urn or statue by way of relief The " idol " 
 character, personated by Mrs. Msbett, is a young 
 heiress and reigning beauty. It is her birthday. 
 A negro page, quaintly and richly attired, goes 
 before her, her women in attendance follow, and 
 she is surrounded by a court of gallants, each of 
 whom competes for her smiles and aspires to 
 her hand. Seldom has there been a prettier 
 stage picture than this formal but pleasant 
 garden thronged by figures richly attired in the 
 set but courtly fasliion of the day, and offer- 
 ing their homage to the " idol," whose costume 
 was a triumph of fancy and elegance. Either 
 this piece gave the actress more scope than 
 usual for characterization, or she chose to throw 
 into it more. Always skilful in seizing the 
 
OITK RECENT ACTOES. 291 
 
 marked features of a part, it was seldom that 
 she showed so much subtlety and depth as in 
 the one referred to. With what an air of con- 
 descension and weariness, just masked by good 
 breeding, did she receive the homage of her 
 admirers, which she seemed to permit rather 
 for their pleasure than her own ! This indiffer- 
 ence, however, was but feigned. At heart the 
 spoUed heiress exulted in her sway, and longed 
 to extend it. How great, then, was the shock when 
 rumoured loss of her wealth and position turned 
 her flatterers into cynical satirists, who jested at 
 her pretensions, and even decried her beauty ! 
 
 Mrs. Nisbett's acting, when she found herself 
 dethroned and forsaken, was really perfect. 
 Surprise, mortification, grief, and anger, were so 
 naturally represented, that the house was at 
 once amused and touched. In the end, the 
 spoiled favourite, cured of her vain ambition, 
 marries one who can admonish as well as love. 
 Mrs. Nisbett, it has been said, was not a 
 pathetic actress; but she exhibited as much 
 grace and pensiveness as this little Watteau 
 picture required. She rattled with overflowing 
 gaiety through Beatrice in " Much Ado About 
 Nothing," though the transitions of mood were 
 not sufficiently marked, and at times she in- 
 dulged in mirth when her very seriousness 
 should have created it in the audience. 
 
 Her Eosalind was much like her Beatrice. 
 Gay, mischievous, it carried one away by its 
 exhilarating animal spirits, which never sank 
 into coarseness ; but of that higher and tenderer 
 side which Helen Faucit so charmingly revealed, 
 and which made the very buoyancy of the 
 character spring from its purity of feeling, she 
 
292 OUE EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 had scarcely a glimpse. She was a whimsical, 
 brilliant, tantalizing, charming Lady Teazle, 
 without much depth in her repentance, and she 
 was the best Helen in "The Hunchback" I 
 ever saw. The forwardness of this young lady 
 has been pushed by some actresses so far, and 
 with so much deliberation, as to be somewhat 
 distasteful. The reader, now and then, may 
 have seen a Helen whom any bachelor of taste 
 would have tolerated as a romp, and avoided as 
 a wife. With Mrs. Nisbett, however, there was 
 so much impulse in the raillery of her Cousin 
 Modus, such a love of teasing mingled with 
 her Hking for him, so dancing a light in the 
 eye, such a just perception of the point to which 
 she might go, and still be womanly, that nothing 
 was too set in intention, or greatly too bold in 
 manner. 
 
 The character, however, in which Mrs. Msbett 
 won her chief triumph, was undoubtedly that of 
 Constance, in Sheridan Knowles's " Love Chase." 
 In her sprightly jests on the overwhelmed 
 Wildrake, what delightful mischief; in the 
 picture of the chase with which she enchanted 
 him, what humour, animation, and enjoyment! 
 So free and wild were her spirits, that animal 
 life, by its transports, soared into poetry, and 
 the joys of sense rose into emotion. Things 
 not to be forgotten were her light, rollicking 
 laugh in this part, her face half convulsed with 
 the mirth she affects to restraiu, when, reminding 
 Wildrake of a past misfortune in the hunting- 
 field, she cries, " And, prythee, mind thy horse ; 
 don't balk his leap." As for the description of 
 the chase just mentioned, it became on her lips 
 the model for all after-exceUence of the same kind. 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 293 
 
 Lady Gay Spanker in " London Assurance," 
 is, to a great extent, a prose, "Neighbour Con- 
 stance." In Lady Gay, however, Mrs. Nisbett 
 had a chance of varying her bolder outlines by 
 the drollery of her indulgence to her husband, 
 " little Dolly." 
 
 This brilliant actress, later known as Lady 
 Boothby, had been some time absent from the 
 stage when she died, at the age of forty-six, in 
 January, 1858. 
 
294 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ME. CHARLES MATHEWS. 
 
 Dehut of Charles Mathews at the Olympic, December, 1835— 
 Appears with Liston (a friend of his father's) in " The 
 Old and Young Stager " — Description of the piece, and 
 the acting of Mathews and Liston — Mathews in " One 
 Hour; or. The Carnival Ball," "He Would be an Actor," 
 and " Patter versus Clatter " — Enters with his wife upon 
 the management of Covent Garden — Tries a higher range 
 of characters — His Charles Surface, Puffin "The Critic," 
 Dazzle in "London Assurance," Captain Smite in Jerrold's 
 " Bubbles of the Day " — Eemarks on the last-named comedy 
 and its cast — Mathews as Sir Charles Coldstream in "Used 
 Up," and as Sir Affable Hawk in " A Game of Speculation " 
 — His acting in these two great successes described — • 
 Summary of him as an actor — Appears as a countryman in 
 " Who's Your Eriend ? " and as Chorus in the extravaganza 
 of "The Golden Fleece" — Marries, in 1857, Mrs. Davenport, 
 an American actress — Appears with her at the Haymarket 
 — A final glimpse of him in private — The author of 
 various successful pieces — His death. 
 
 It seems only like yesterday that, in December, 
 1835, I saw the debut, at the Olympic, of this 
 distinguished son of a distinguished father. In 
 " The Old and Young Stager," written by W. 
 Iceman Eede, also appeared Liston (friend of 
 the elder Mathews), as a staid old coachman, to 
 induct his son into the mysteries of the whip and 
 the road. In the persons of the two Stagers, the 
 talk was, of course, made to turn upon the stage 
 theatrical, so that the piece abounded in allusions 
 
OUE EBCENT ACTORS. 295 
 
 to the Mathews {^h'e et fils) and to Liston. The 
 elder comedian, with his elongated face, his 
 solemn self-complacency of look and manner, 
 and his oracular voice, was the model of a stage 
 dignitary, while still youthful in appearance, with 
 well-defined features, florid complexion, and light, 
 wavy hair. Charles Mathews, in his arch, easy 
 gaiety — toned down by respect to Liston — was to 
 some extent, as the stage novice, a sort of aristo- 
 cratic prototype of Sam Weller. " One Hour ; 
 or. The Carnival Ball," soon followed, which 
 owed all its attraction to the fascinating manner 
 of Vestris and the ease and spirit of Mathews. 
 Then " He Would be an Actor " (from a French 
 source) and " Patter versus Clatter " gave him 
 scope for showing nearly as much variety as 
 consisted with his light loquacious or mercurial 
 style. In the former piece he played several 
 characters, amongst them those of a French- 
 woman and a gardener, and sang his Welsh ballad 
 of "Jenny Jones," which for a time was the 
 rage. In " Patter versus Clatter " his mere volu- 
 bility was surprising. To vent such a torrent of 
 well-articulated talk, delivered with such an 
 overflow of animal spirits, was in itself a feat. 
 In the pieces above-named — typical of those 
 which he generally played at the Olympic — he 
 won his chief successes at that house. 
 
 When, in 1839, he entered with his wife 
 (formerly Madame Vestris) upon the management 
 of Covent Garden, parts and characters of greater 
 importance engaged his attention. He now 
 played Charles Surface with lightness and effect, 
 though not quite, it was said, with Charles 
 Kemble's delicate touches and fine transition of 
 character. 
 
296 OUR EECENT ACT0E8. 
 
 In 1840 he appeared as Puff in " Tlie Critic." 
 His rattling spirits in the first act, where he 
 describes his system of gulling the public ; his 
 full satisfaction, in the second act, with the 
 rehearsal of his piece ; his significant changes of 
 voice as he alternately instructs the actor, or 
 explains his plot to Dangle and Sneer, or, with 
 smiling coolness, sets aside all their common- 
 sense objections, resulted in so good a success 
 that Puff became one of his stock parts. 
 
 In 1841, on the production of " London 
 Assurance," he was the original Dazzle. Imper- 
 turbable, full of resource, and prepared for aU 
 contingencies, he was the very ideal of the part. 
 Some years later he doubled the character of Puff 
 with that of Sir Fretful Plagiary. Generally 
 Mr. Mathews imported a good deal of his own 
 personality into his various assumptions. In 
 portraying, however, the vain, irritable, and 
 thin-skinned Sir Fretful, he managed to contrast 
 him effectively with Puff. 
 
 Early in 1842 he appeared at Covent Garden, 
 as Captain Smike, in Douglas Jerrold's comedy, 
 "Bubbles of the Day." A very HfeUke bit of 
 acting was that of the comedian in this comedy, 
 the coolness and insolent mendacity of an unscru- 
 pulous adventurer being hit off in a manner as 
 natural as it was telhng, and his share of the 
 dialogue given with that happy carelessness 
 which brings out the wit and humour of a part, 
 without obvious intention. "Bubbles of the Day" 
 is, perhaps, the most brilliant of all Jerrold's 
 comedies. It was supported by an admirable 
 cast, which included Farren, Charles Mathews, 
 Harley, Lacy, F. Mathews, Meadows, Wigan, 
 Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. "W. West (once a leading and 
 
OXJE EBCENT ACTOES. 297 
 
 popular actress, witli considerable pathos), Mrs. 
 Orger (an excellent impersonator of eccentric 
 parts, and at times, as in this case, of soubrettes), 
 and Mrs. Walter Lacy (spite of a little self- 
 consciousness, equally skilled in the grave and 
 the gay), the accomplished wife of an accom- 
 plished actor. The wit of the dialogue and the 
 merits of the performers failed to recommend a 
 work which had nothing delightful in the way 
 of character or striking in that of story. 
 
 Amongst those characters of which he was 
 the English original. Sir Charles Coldstream in 
 "Used Up," played at the Haymarket, in 1844, 
 and Mr. Affable Hawk in "A Game of Specu- 
 lation " (from De Balzac's " Mercadet "), played at 
 the Lyceum, in 1851, stand pre-eminent. To 
 his excellence in the former drama, universal 
 testimony was borne. The idea of " Used Up " 
 {L'homme hlase) is very happy ; and though 
 the last act wants unity and breadth of incident. 
 Sir Charles Coldstream, first as the victim of 
 ennui, and then as the man who recovers the 
 zest of life, presents a very diverting contrast, 
 enriched with various touches so suited to 
 Mathews, that the part might have been written 
 for him. The sense of boredom was capitally 
 expressed by the actor — not too strongly in- 
 sisted on, for that would have betrayed interest, 
 but with a careless lassitude that showed its 
 genuineness. The man who, from Dan to 
 Beersheba, had found all barren, was no longer 
 surprised, and his despondency had in it a sort 
 of listless resignation. Very droll, it seems, was 
 the manner between hope and fear in which he 
 sees in the notion of marriage a possible excite- 
 ment, and yet distrusts it, like a disheartened 
 
298 OUK KECENT ACTOES. 
 
 patient who has tried many remedies in vain. 
 His prompt attempt to carry out the notion by 
 proposing to Lady Clatterbuck, who solicits him 
 for a charity, then his forgetfulness that he had 
 meant to propose to her, and his way of calling her 
 back and offering her his hand, as 'if presenting 
 her with a forgotten glove, were full of effortless 
 humour in which he excelled. Excellent, too, was 
 the air of dispassionate politeness in which he 
 ran through the statistics of his property, and 
 placed liimself at her disposal. Matrimony 
 might arouse him to interest, and he courteously 
 hid his doubts. The first act gave scope to his 
 languor and nonchalance, the second to his 
 vivacity and enjoyment of the absurd. A sus- 
 peci^ed murderer, disguised as a ploughboy, 
 because he has accidentally fallen with his 
 adversary into the river — restoration of Sir 
 Charles to hearty interest in hfe by this too 
 stimulating position was capitally handled. His • 
 forgetfulness of his disguise before the master 
 who had hired him, and his sudden correction 
 of himself; the delighted voracity with which 
 he gulped down his soup; liis aside comments 
 on his ungrateful legatees, who, believing him 
 also drowned, abused their benefactor ; his horror 
 at seeing the man he was supposed to have 
 murdered half emerge from a trap ; his frantic 
 efforts to keep him down, and his final exul- 
 tation at finding the suspected ghost still flesh 
 and blood, gave countless chances for displaying 
 his colloquial ease, quiet irony, his sense of 
 farcical terror and boundless spirit. Sir Charles 
 Coldstream, perhaps, more than any other cha- 
 racter, showed liis powers in combination. 
 
 The merits of Mr. Charles Mathews in tliis 
 
OUK RECENT AOTOES. 299 
 
 character are, however, almost equalled by those 
 of his Mr. Affable Hawk. Never was a part 
 in comedy presented with more moderation than 
 that of the distressed and schemiag speculator, 
 never a like part with more effect. Indeed, here, 
 as in the various other characters of this actor, 
 moderation was a large element in success. 
 Mathews's, indeed, was not that so-called 
 moderation which is a weak compromise between 
 extravagance and tameness ; it was the desire to 
 keep close to truth, to adhere strictly to the 
 sentiments and habits of a typical man of the day. 
 In the careless air with which he extracts money 
 from a domestic; in the bland superiority with 
 which he defends this meanness to his wife, by 
 showing her that fortune at times turns upon 
 the most trifling pivot ; in the look of conviction 
 with which he hoodwinks the rapacious Hardacre ; 
 in the assumed hauteur with which he daunts 
 the coarse but cunning Grossmark — there was not 
 a tone, look, or gesture which might not have 
 been employed by a City man of the time. The 
 curt, business-like manner, contrasting with his 
 usual placidity, in which he dispels the last 
 suspicions of a creditor by threatening to pay 
 him — that is, to close accounts — was a triumph 
 of unscrupulous ingenuity. The veriest admirer 
 of Charles Mathews could scarcely have credited 
 him with the gift of pathos ; but, in this par- 
 ticular part, his reluctance to use the money of 
 the humble clerk who loves his daughter was 
 almost affecting, and so humanizing was his 
 touch of unselfishness, that it made one too 
 indulgent to the swindler. On the other hand, 
 hypocrisy has seldom indeed been so skilfully 
 masked. The colloquial ease and absence of 
 
300 OUK EECENT AOTOES. 
 
 strain in the various stratagems made them to 
 the last degree plausible, while his changes of 
 expression, and certain familiar, everyday actions, 
 gave life and point to the dialogue. A finger 
 inserted in a waistcoat-pocket, the deprecatory 
 movement of an arm, or the flourish of a hand- 
 kerchief, gave with him as much emphasis in 
 comedy as the heroic gesture of serious actors 
 have given in tragedy. He painted nature, 
 indeed, in his own way, as truly as did the most 
 poetical actors ; but it was the artificial nature 
 of society. In comedies written for a whole 
 company, rather than for a star, such as " Old 
 Heads and Young Hearts," and " Time Works 
 Wonders," his ease, coolness, and incisive cha- 
 racterization rendered excellent service. He was 
 the English original of Giles, the Somersetshire 
 Yeoman, in " Who's Your Friend ? " and, except 
 that his rusticity might have been a trifle broader, 
 he entered delightfully into the humours of that 
 quaint creation. 
 
 In 1845, at the Haymarket, he played the 
 part of Chorus in "The Golden Fleece," an 
 extravaganza burlesquing " The Medea of Euripi- 
 des." The Chorus was comprised in the single 
 person of the actor, whose airs of importance, 
 droll comments on the action of the piece, and 
 sympathetic identification of himself with its 
 various humours, rendered him highly attractive 
 in a somewhat novel conception. 
 
 Mr. Mathews's powers, though brilliant, were 
 limited to light comedy. He had not even so 
 much faculty for blending sentiment with humour 
 as the elder Mr. Sothern (who resembled him 
 in several points) at times exhibited. But for 
 ease and gentlemanly bearing, for coolness in 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 301 
 
 the face of a difficulty, for happy self-abandon- 
 ment to a humorous impulse, at times for 
 elegant languor or mischievous love of frolic — all 
 shown with the art that hides art, he had, perhaps, 
 no equal in his generation. 
 
 In 1857, after the death of his first celebrated 
 wife, he married Mrs. Davenport, an actress of no 
 inconsiderable talent, with whom he appeared in 
 various pieces at the Haymarket. The last time 
 that I saw him was at a theatrical supper, given 
 by the late Mr. Bateman, in Albemarle Street. 
 The gay comedian, the cause of so much gaiety 
 to others, though smiling and agreeable, seemed 
 silent and thoughtful. For myself, I recalled 
 pensively the dim resemblance between the sharp 
 and time-worn outline of the face before me, and 
 that flushed with spirits and success which I had 
 seen on the night of his debut. 
 
 Mr. Mathews was the author of various suc- 
 cessful pieces, chiefly adaptations. A version of 
 Poote's, " Liar," and a comedy called " My Awful 
 Dad," were amongst the last in which he per- 
 formed. His death took place at the a.ge of 
 seventy-four, in June, 1878, 
 
302 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 ME. G. V. BEOOKE. 
 
 Mr. Brooke makes his first appearance in London at the 
 Olympic Theatre, in 1848 — Great expectations formed 
 of him — His Othello greeted with enthusiasm — His per- 
 sonal advantages — His acting in "Othello" described — ■ 
 Favourable verdict of the Press generally — John Forster 
 aud other disseutiecits — Biooke's Uthello compared with 
 Salvini's — Brooke falls off in this part after the night of 
 his d^hut — His Hamlet, Sir Giles Overreach, etc. — Per- 
 sonal acquaintance with him — He appears in author's 
 tragedy of " Philip of France," in 1850 — His slow concep- 
 tion a contrast to his force of execution — His acting in 
 "Philip of France"— That of Miss Helen Faucit— Mr. 
 Brooke in private — His death in the catastrophe of the 
 London, 1866. 
 
 Me. G. y. Beooke made his first appearance in 
 London at the Olympic Theatre, then under 
 the management of Mr. Henry Spicer, in 1848. 
 The fame of the provincial tragedian had pre- 
 ceded him to London, so that his first audience 
 included many of the celebrities of the day. The 
 play was "Othello," and the reception of Mr. 
 Brooke in this character was not merely noisy 
 and vehement, but truly enthusiastic. He had 
 moved the passions and sympathies of the house 
 — not only that sort of admiration which is called 
 forth by a fine person, accomplished declamation, 
 and executive skill in general. All these latter 
 advantages, however, he possessed — tall, well- 
 
OUR RECENT ACTOES. 303 
 
 proportioned, with a musical voice of great com- 
 pass, and a countenance which, although singularly 
 mUd in private, could reflect on the stage the 
 most varied passions. On the first night of his 
 Othello, however, one had to look deeper than to 
 external accomplishments for the secret of his 
 success. At the end of the third act the house 
 was in a fever of delight. The acclamations 
 which recalled the actor subsided only into 
 a restless murmur of applause. Knots of im- 
 promptu critics gathered together in boxes and 
 lobby. In the pit, looks and gestures and a hum 
 of delight expressed the general verdict ; and 
 outside the theatre a crowd, attracted by the 
 rumour of the effect produced, recalled the account 
 given of the scene outside Drury Lane on Edmund 
 Kean's first appearance. So far, indeed, Brooke's 
 triumph had been deserved. His address to the 
 senate had been full of simple dignity, and of 
 fervent, though restrained, feeling. He showed 
 like dignity in the second act, in his rebuke to 
 Cassio ; while his growing wrath — of which one 
 caught a gleam in the words — 
 
 " If I once stir, 
 Or do bnt lift this arm, tie best of you 
 Shall sink in my rebuke," 
 
 gave a terrible hint of what its explosion might 
 be. The passage in the third act, beginning — 
 
 " Why, -why is this ? " 
 
 was admirably given. The actor's manner was 
 open, clear, warm, and yet temperate ; and one 
 saw with what loyalty to Desdemona he fought 
 against his rising doubts. In the concluding lines 
 of the speech, the tone of expostulation with lago 
 was exchanged for one abrupt and peremptory. 
 
304 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 and the last line with a sudden and passionate 
 energy that carried all before it ; while afterwards 
 the great burst — 
 
 " If thou dost slander her and torture me," 
 expressed to the height the frenzy of the Moor's 
 mind — his mingled rage and agony. The enthu- 
 siasm aroused was immense. With the exception 
 of Salvini, I have seen no actor so powerful at 
 this crisis. It may be briefly said that, to the end 
 of the tragedy, Mr. Brooke maintained the ascend- 
 ency he had won. The line in the fifth act — 
 
 " o, fool ! fool 1 fool 1 " 
 recalled what I had read of its utterance by 
 the elder Kean. With Brooke, however, it was 
 so natural and so just, that imitation could hardly 
 have been suspected. The word " fool " was pro- 
 nounced in the first instance with blended amaze- 
 ment and remorse, in the second with a musing, 
 lingering sense of his own fatuity as lago's dupe, 
 and in the third with the quiet hopelessness of 
 one who feels the past irrevocable. The press 
 generally welcomed the new tragedian scarcely 
 less warmly than did the public. There were 
 one or two critics, however, who, like John 
 Forster, were such partisans of Macready, that 
 they could not admit, nor, perhaps, even see, 
 tragic excellence out of that great actor. 
 
 Salvini's Othello has been already glanced at. 
 li can hardly be said that Brooke's Othello, even 
 at its best, was equal to Salvini's. The former, 
 for instance, could never have given us that grand 
 piece of psychology which occurs in the tliird act, 
 where Salvini, having trampled on lago, stands 
 awhile mute and vacant, then, with a distressed 
 and courteous air, raises the fallen man, and leads 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 305 
 
 him to his seat. What finer illustration could be 
 given of the mental chaos that follows the Moor's 
 fury ? For the moment Othello has forgotten his 
 misery and his rage, and wonders at the sight 
 of the prostrate tempter. 
 
 There was, nevertheless, one feature in Brooke's 
 passion which made me prefer it to Salvini's. It 
 had more of the irregularity and the sudden con- 
 trasts which denote extreme tension of feeling. 
 If excitement ran ever so high, it would at times 
 be driven back, as advancing waves are some- 
 times by meeting a gale. There would be fre- 
 quently a momentary lull, a false calm of irony, 
 ere the tide again gathered and leaped on. With 
 all its grandeur and force, Salvini's passion lacked 
 I thought, at times the contrast and the variety 
 I have indicated. It was somewhat too measured 
 and uniform — a sea that rolled on majestically 
 and irresistibly, but that had no convulsion ; it 
 did not turn and eddy with the wind. 
 
 I saw Brooke's Othello on several subsequent 
 occasions, but I never knew it to attain the force 
 shown on the night of his dehit. The reason for 
 this is not obvious, except we adopt the suppo- 
 sition that the actor's power had declined after 
 the stimulant of a first night. Be this as it may, 
 the performance, while retaining .its mechanical 
 outline and its elocutionary grace, had lost much 
 of that reality which the spectator feels when 
 passion dictates expression. 
 
 On Brooke's return to London after a long 
 absence, he made an approach in Othello to his 
 first excellence. This might be due to the excite- 
 ment of a reappearance. But his acting, like his 
 person, was become coarser, and his voice some- 
 what husky. I saw him at various times in 
 
 X 
 
306 OTJE EECBNT ACTOKS. 
 
 Hamlet, in Sir Giles Overreach, and several other 
 characters. In all these v^ere particular scenes in 
 which he made an effect ; but it was a good deal 
 due to physical energy. He showed Uttle subtlety 
 of apprehension or emotion, nothing that recalled 
 the first night of his OtheUo. 
 
 I became acquainted with Brooke in 1856, 
 when my tragedy of " Marie de Meranie " was 
 produced by the late Mr. Farren at the Olympic. 
 The tragedian had been chosen to play Philip 
 Augustus to the Marie of Miss Helen Faucit. 
 Not having been present at the reading, he asked 
 me to go over his part with him. I was amazed 
 to find a man who was, at all events, an accom- 
 plished executant, so slow in forming his concep- 
 tion. Often where the meaning of the text 
 seemed to me too obvious for doubt, he would 
 inquire anxiously and repeatedly as to the manner 
 in which it should be delivered. He was at that 
 time an established favourite, and it was curious 
 to hear him asking questions that almost any 
 tyro in his art could have solved. He had not 
 a tinge of conceit ; he threw lumself frankly and 
 unhesitatingly upon his author's guidance, which 
 he implicitly followed, but showed at rehearsal a 
 lassitude in going through his part which scarcely 
 promised briUiant results. This possibly arose 
 from the state of his throat. The powers of his 
 voice were so much impaired, that when he put 
 a strain on them the effect seemed as distressing 
 to the listener as to himself However, on the 
 night of production, by skilful management, an 
 imposing bearing, and a dashing outline of the 
 character, he accomplished far more than had 
 been expected. His performance seemed to me 
 wanting in subtle touches and in innerness (if the 
 
OUR BECBNT AOTOES. 307 
 
 phrase may be used) of emotion. But this opinion 
 may have been somewhat unfair. The acting of 
 Miss Helen Faucit in Marie, who had fathomed 
 every motive of a character which she expounded 
 not only with supreme truth and passion in its 
 crises, but with a power to touch, with the most 
 delicate precision, the right tones of feeling, tended 
 to make an author unduly exacting as to the per- 
 former associated with her. I must not risk the 
 suspicion of magnifying a work of my own by 
 dwelling on the genius of one of its representa- 
 tives ; but I may be allowed to say that the 
 Marie of Mis^ Faucit gave, so far as her part 
 allowed, one of those ideal pictures of womanhood, 
 of boundless devotion, and exalted purity which 
 often impressed the spectator with something of 
 a religious sanctity, and made reverence blend 
 with admiration. 
 
 In the course of an evening which Mr. Brooke 
 spent with me, I found him a very agreeable 
 companion. He did not affect great interest in 
 matters unconnected with the stage, but in dis- 
 cussing these was by no means an egotist. He 
 talked little of hiniself — chiefly of things thea- 
 trical in Dublin, of those who had been special 
 favourites there, and of the wild enthusiasm of 
 Irish audiences, compared with which the ap- 
 proval of an English public, he said, seemed 
 generally tame and dispiriting. His manners 
 were quiet, unaffected, and courteous. In private, 
 there was nothing of the great tragedian about 
 him. The sad circumstances of his death on 
 board the London, in 1866, are well known. 
 
308 OUE KECENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 ME. CHARLES DILLON. 
 
 An actor of emotional, rather than of intellectual gifts — His 
 acting in " Belphegor," " Hamlet," " Othello," " Macbeth " 
 — New and undesigned effect produced in the banquet- 
 scene — His Louis the Eleventh — His acting in " A Hard 
 Struggle " — Warm commendation of Charles Dickens — 
 Dillon's acting in comedy — In " The King's Musketeers " 
 and " Love's Amazements ' — Leigh Hunt — Dillon's per- 
 sonal appearance — His power of facial expression — \"isits 
 the United States and Australia — Deterioration in his 
 appearance and in his acting on his return — Plays 
 Manfred at the Princess's — Appears at Drury Lane — 
 Over-convivial habits — Aristocratic friends — Apparent dis- 
 relish of their society — Odriities of expressiou respecting 
 them — His alterations in Leigh Hunt's comedy of " Love's 
 Amazements " — Too indulgent as a manager — Want of 
 discipline in the theatre — Jealous vanity of one of his 
 actors — Subsides again into a provincial player, with 
 corresponding habits — His death in the provinces. 
 
 Mk. Chaeles Dillon was an actor of great 
 emotional gifts, but very deficient in intellectual 
 ones. So long as he was under the impulse of 
 feeling, gay or grave, he could act with great 
 power, force, and delicacy. In the mountebank 
 Belphegor, a deserted husband, his grief, from 
 the first moment of bewildered, half-stupefying 
 apprehension of his loss to the full agony of 
 proof, was rendered not only with marvellous 
 power, but with the most minute and subtle 
 touches. A stifled cry as he entered the 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 309 
 
 abandoned room, a sudden transformation as he 
 turned from it, bowed in frame and feeble of 
 limb, mute despair on his face, but no violence, 
 showed fine restraint, no less than emotional 
 intensity. But it was the good taste begotten 
 of feeling, which instinctively springs from it, 
 and which does not proceed from those dictates 
 of judgment and reflection, without obeying which, 
 in complex characters, the most passionate actor 
 must be at sea. Charles Dillon often reached 
 psychological truth by an impulse ; he had, 
 however, no psychological discernment. 
 
 In Hamlet, he gave the great scene with 
 Ophelia with considerable effect, beginning the 
 interview with bitterness and distrust, and 
 gradually subsiding into a sad recollection of 
 past faith and love's tender enchantment, then 
 hurrying away as if he could not bear the retro- 
 spect. Hamlet's situation in the play-scene was 
 rendered, if somewhat superficially, with great 
 stage-skill. It produced much excitement. But 
 for any clear conception of the chief character, or 
 for any exhibition of his mental development, 
 the auditor waited in vain. Mr. Dillon seemed 
 to hurry over the meditative passages as if they 
 arrested the action, and the " To be, or not to be," 
 was given with a carelessness which betrayed 
 the actor's ignorance of a crisis in Hamlet's 
 mental history. Mr. DUlon was also unfor- 
 tunately wanting in dignity of bearing. He 
 could rufiie it tolerably in a gaily-slashed 
 doublet; but in Hamlet's mourning weeds he 
 was almost as wanting in " presence " as in the 
 dress of a gentleman of his own time. 
 
 In Othello, Mr. Dillon, finding that he could 
 not rise to the Moor, adapted the Moor to the 
 
310 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 capacities of Mr. Dillon. Without majesty, 
 without restraint, with the chafe and fret of 
 passion, but without its volume and under- swell, 
 he painted the character with doting tenderness, 
 and deplored the supposed betrayal of his love 
 with such moderate resentment that it was sur- 
 prising he should have avenged it. Nevertheless, 
 his tenderness was very genuine, and gradually 
 penetrated the audience. 
 
 With Lear, again, which I saw at Sadler's Wells, 
 and, it may be added, with Sheridan Knowles's 
 Virginius, he dealt as with Othello, eliminating 
 in a great measure the heroic elements, often 
 missing the intellectual links, and devoting him- 
 self to the pathetic side of the character. 
 
 In his Macbeth there was no subtlety, no 
 deep and cunning revelation of the inner struggle. 
 On the other hand, his remorse was displayed 
 with riveting power. The horror with which he 
 repelled Lady Macbeth's injunction to return to 
 the scene of the murder, and the agony of his 
 exit — "Wake Duncan with thy knocking," etc., 
 were not surpassed in mere intensity by any 
 actor I have seen, though there was a sense in 
 the spectator that the agitation of the passions, 
 however real, wanted the charm of dignity for 
 its completeness. In the third act, the reality of 
 the actor's agony when apostrophizing the ghost 
 of Banquo, was novel and startling. He clutched 
 his collar in a frenzy of terror, and tore it aside 
 piecemeal, till the scattered links strewed the 
 ground ; while the cry, " Hence ! hence ! horrible 
 shadow, unreal mockery, hence ! " was rather 
 yelled than spoken. The truthful intensity of 
 his horror atoned in a great degree for some 
 violence in its expression. At the conclusion 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 311 
 
 of the play I congratulated Mr. Dillon upon 
 the effect he had produced in this scene, and 
 then learnt, to my surprise, that the tearing 
 asunder of the gorget had been done uncon- 
 sciously in the excitement of the scene. '' How- 
 ever," said Dillon, "1 shall now make it part 
 of my regular business." He did so, but, in- 
 asmuch as he aimed at the effect consciously, it 
 lost its spontaneousness and much of its power. 
 
 In Louis the Eleventh, this performer made 
 some impression, though he failed to give his 
 embodiment the striking individuality of Charles 
 Kean. In his death-scene, however, he showed 
 more dignity than in many of his characters, 
 probably because the influence of death is in 
 itself idealizing. 
 
 The present writer is bound to record Mr. 
 Dillon's great success in the little drama entitled 
 " A Hard Struggle ; " but the' impersonation of 
 the generous yeoman, who surrenders his betrothed 
 to a happier rival, having gained the emphatic 
 praise of Dickens, now published in his Letters, 
 may well dispense with any other comment. 
 
 In characters of manly pathos that did not 
 call for refinement, Dillon had few superiors. In 
 comedy he showed great animal spirits and a keen 
 sense of fun — as in his performance of the hero 
 of " The King's Musketeers," as Eover in " Wild 
 Oats," and as Captain Delarousse in Leigh 
 Hunt's spirited piece of intrigue called "Love's 
 Amazements." It was a pleasant sight, on the 
 night when the little comedy was produced, to see 
 the venerable essayist and poet led across the 
 stage, amidst the cheers of the audience, and to hear 
 from him afterwards, in the manager's room, how 
 deep was the interest he had felt from his early 
 
312 OTJE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 days, when he was theatrical critic of the weekly- 
 journal called the News, in all that . concerned 
 the theatre. This success, achieved in his old 
 days, gave artless and unconcealed delight to 
 one who had as keen a zest in receiving the 
 praise of others as he had, when desert per- 
 mitted, in bestowing his own. 
 
 In person, at this time, Dillon was neatly made, 
 but of rather low stature. Though his featTires 
 were of a common type, his face was capable 
 of great mobility. I have seen it so convulsed 
 by silent grief that, when he at last articulated, 
 I felt the same kind of relief that I might have 
 experienced in real life, when observing speech 
 slowly return to one whom some great shock had 
 deprived of it. 
 
 At the close of his management Charles Dillon 
 visited America and Australia. On his return 
 to England his figure had lost much of its grace, 
 and his neck had acquired a thickness which was 
 almost unsightly. He had also greatly declined 
 as an actor. He performed Manfred at the 
 Princess's, but with a want of presence and of 
 poetical appreciation that served to heighten my 
 recollection of the unfortunate Denvil, whom I 
 had seen when a lad. 
 
 At a later period I saw Mr. Dillon at Drury 
 Lane, once more as Macbeth. He still retained 
 some physical energy, but his occasional inspira- 
 tion had deserted him, while his delivery was 
 become stilted and conventional — in brief, of the 
 worst traditional kind. Something, indeed, of the 
 provincial actor, now seldom found in London, 
 clung to him even in his best days. His happiest 
 efforts were at times marred by his want of 
 bearing, and by the grandiosity which was his 
 
OUK RECENT ACTORS. 313 
 
 substitution for it. Nor did success, which often 
 educates plastic natures into the refinement they 
 first lack, do much to improve him, either on the 
 stage or in private. I do not think that he can 
 be justly charged with intemperance; but he 
 found a kind of diversion in frequenting bars and 
 tavern parlours, where he would delight to gossip 
 with some trusty officer of his theatre, or some 
 less noted actor of his establishment (for he had 
 sociable and kindly impulses), over sherry and 
 bitters, provided at his own cost. "Simpson's" 
 and the " Albion " knew him, and I think also the 
 " Cock," immortalized by Tennyson. 
 
 His merits as an actor engaged the attention 
 of some influential people, but he never appeared . 
 to cultivate their acquaintance, which probably he 
 would not have greatly relished. All the same, it 
 pleased him to refer to them as authorities. On 
 one occasion he said, somewhat oddly, for he had 
 no aptitude in catching the ordinary phrases of 
 society, "I am beginning to be a little proud 
 of my Macbeth. Some lords who were talking 
 to me yesterday, spoke very warmly of it.'' 
 
 His evident pleasure in airing his acquaintance 
 with men of position is not so rare a cha- 
 racteristic of English life that we need be severe 
 upon him for it, or impute to him any undue 
 servility. On the contrary, I have seen him 
 behave with praiseworthy eage under trying 
 circumstances. I had occasion to call upon him 
 one morning when he had been a late riser. 
 The street-door of his house being open, and the 
 servant at once ushering me into the breakfast- 
 room, I found him on his knees before the fire, 
 toasting a bloater. " You see what I am doing," 
 he said. " I don't know anything that needs more 
 
314 OTJR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 careful cooking than a bloater. I'm first-rate at 
 it, and as soon as I've got this fellow off my 
 fork I'll do another for you." 
 
 Without any intentional discourtesy, he some- 
 times trespassed, through want of perception, 
 upon the feelings of others ; but, on this being 
 brought home to him, was frankly ready to 
 make atonement. He had altered, and, indeed, 
 mutilated Leigh Hunt's blank verse play, 
 " Love's Amazements," without the consent or 
 even the knowledge of the author. Those por- 
 tions of the comedy which were in blank verse 
 had especially suffered. When these uncere- 
 monious changes came to the aged poet's know- 
 ledge, he protested against them. " He has little 
 knowledge of stage necessities," said Dillon, " and 
 he ought to be obliged to me. As he won't 
 take my advice, I don't think I shall produce 
 the piece." It was pointed out to Dillon that, if 
 he had simply tendered his advice, the dramatist 
 might to some extent have availed himself of 
 it, but that the offence lay in wholesale changes 
 having been made without consulting him. " Oh, 
 then, I see it's a matter of punctilio ! " said Dillon, 
 recovering his good temper, and with the air of 
 a man who has suddenly discovered his error and 
 wishes to make reparation. The piece was duly 
 produced. I heard of no further difference 
 between the manager and the poet. I infer that 
 amenities were duly restored. 
 
 To the members of his company, Dillon was 
 even a too-indulgent manager. Under no 
 theatrical rule have I seen so much unpunc- 
 tuality and so many absences at rehearsal, or 
 penalties so light and rare for the transgressions 
 in question. Dillon was good-tempered and 
 
OUE EJICENT ACTORS. 315 
 
 forbearing in cases where some of his profession 
 might have felt reasonably annoyed. One actor 
 in his company, whose ambitious longings had 
 been somewhat harshly blighted, took little pains 
 to conceal his sense of his superiority to his 
 manager. Sometimes his manner was curt and 
 haughty, sometimes ironically pqlite. In one 
 scene, at the end of an act, Dillon and the per- 
 former referred to were together on the stage. 
 If our generally unappreciated friend had been 
 applauded warmly in the scene, he swept by 
 Dillon to his dressing-room in silence, and with 
 an imperious air, as if to say, " At times the 
 public knows who is the better man." When, 
 on the other hand, he met with faint applause, 
 or none, he would stop before leaving the stage, 
 and greet his manager affably. " Poor dear boy ! " 
 said Dillon, when relating this ; " disappointments 
 like his might embitter any man ; and, except 
 for his little crotchet, he's a right good fellow ! " 
 which was, I believe, quite true. 
 
 There are, of course, many instances of actors 
 who have obtained provincial success establishing 
 themselves permanently as London favourites. 
 Charles Dillon is a rare example of an actor 
 who, having made a decided impression in 
 London, and presided over an important London 
 theatre, relapsed into a provincial celebrity, and 
 was seen in town only at very long intervals. 
 Perhaps this circumstance was due in some 
 measure to his tastes. He probably liked the 
 free-and-easy life, and unceremonious good- 
 comradeship of the roving player. It is said 
 that, in his later days, he would hand over the 
 receipts of a week's performance, to a few actors 
 whom he had engaged, with a primitiveness of 
 
316 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 manner and a publicity of circumstance some- 
 what annoying to them. He would bring, for 
 instance, the money to be shared in a pocket- 
 handkerchief or a newspaper, and appoint the 
 bar of a tavern or the platform of a railway- 
 station for the distribution. 
 
 I have no doubt that, after quitting th^ 
 Lyceum, he sank rapidly into mere staginess. 
 But he merits a record, if for no other reason, 
 because he showed in his best days how far 
 quickness and truth of emotion can carry an 
 actor with little cultivation and a niggardly 
 supply of intellectual gifts. After many inquiries 
 I have been unable to find the precise date of Mr. 
 Dillon's death, but it occurred in the provinces 
 some seven or eight years since, when he was 
 about sixty. 
 
OUK EECENT ACTORS. 317 
 
 CHAPTEK XXL 
 
 ME. CHARLES FECHTEE. 
 
 His Hamlet, with remarks on a familiar and realistic style in 
 tragic acting — His Othello — His lago — " Macready his 
 banner" — Tliis assertion to be received with limitations — 
 Pechter's admitted excellence in reiined melodrama — His 
 death in America. 
 
 I HAD but a slight acquaintance with Mr. Fechter, 
 and my knowledge of him as an actor was very 
 limited. 1 saw, however, his Hamlet, his Othello, 
 and his lago, and differ only from his critics in 
 general in less admiring him in the first of the 
 characters, and more in the last. There was, 
 indeed, a great deal to interest and please in his 
 novel treatment of Hamlet. His aim here was 
 to be realistic ; and as the mood of the Danish 
 prince is so often colloquial, Fechter's familiar 
 treatment was often appropriate, especially as he 
 had enough good taste and delicate fancy not to 
 carry it too far. On the other hand, he was 
 deficient in passion and in the imaginativeness 
 which it kindles. He had sentiment, intelligence, 
 picturesqueness, and that conformity to the 
 manner of actual life which many call nature, 
 but which generally ceases to be nature when 
 great passions have to be exhibited, because, even 
 if ordinary men had the power to express them, 
 the restraint of modern habits tends to their 
 
318 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 repression, rather than to their representation. 
 We cannot, perhaps, too often remember that the 
 actor of passions has to display the very soul of 
 the character ; whereas, the actor of sentiment 
 and comedy has but to display the fit conjunction 
 of feelings with the manners of the time. Thus, 
 there is no real CEdipus or Clytemnestra, no real 
 Lear, Othello, and, in many passages, no real 
 Hamlet, in the sense of individualities upon 
 whom the habits of any particular time can be 
 fitly imposed. To a certain extent, these creations 
 represent men with particular dispositions, no 
 doubt ; but still more do they represent general 
 humanity in its essentials. Of these, poetry is 
 the natural language, because it is, and always 
 has been, that of the highest grandeur and 
 emotion. Indeed, unless this were so, poetry, 
 in any high sense, would have no reason for 
 being, and would be only a capricious fasliion. 
 Do we not come to imagination for the expression 
 of our deepest feelings, simply because we must — 
 because we are driven to seek for fresh and vivid 
 symbols for what is so vital within us ? In short, 
 Mr. Fechter, spite of the novelty of his appearance 
 — he wore flaxen hair — his ease and moderation, 
 in a word, his modernness, did not satisfy me. 
 These qualities should have accompanied others 
 yet higher. There were several fine, and even 
 poetical touches in his performance, as when, in 
 the closet-scene, he mutely repelled the embraces 
 of the guilty queen by simply holding up his 
 father's portrait. On the whole, I was greatly 
 pleased, but not carried away. It was, perhaps, 
 sometliing to see a Hamlet who might have 
 trodden Pall Mall or the Boulevards in our own 
 day. Yet it was to lose much that this impres- 
 
OUB EECENT ACTORS. 319 
 
 sion should have been more vivid than that of the 
 Hamlet who encounters the ghost at midnight, 
 or who throws himself, with half-delirious triumph, 
 into Horatio's arms, when the King's "occulted 
 guilt " betrays itself in the play-scene. 
 
 As to his Othello, little can be said. It was 
 virtually pronounced a failure by the best critics, 
 and there seems to be no reason for questioning 
 their verdict. It was thin, excitable, sensitive, 
 and impatient, without having the strength or 
 glow of true passion. Moreover, Mr. Fechter 
 made the mistake of playing some of the greatest 
 scenes of the tragedy in the open air. Even had 
 the representation been really powerful, the 
 audience would have been diverted from it by 
 a view embracing the incidents of the Cyprian 
 sea-port. The representations of great tragic 
 scenes appear to demand a simple interior for 
 their due effect. The eye, as well as the thought, 
 should be concentrated upon the actor ; there 
 should be no world beyond the four walls which 
 enclose him into which the attention of the 
 spectator can wander and lose itself One passage 
 in the last act was fine and thrilling. It is where, 
 after lago's villainy has been exposed, Othello 
 turns in remorse to the body of his wife — 
 
 " Oh, Desdemona 1 Desdemona ! dead I " 
 
 In uttering the second exclamation, there was 
 a mingling of wild remonstrance with Othello's 
 agony, as if he had not believed her dead, but 
 expected her to answer. 
 
 If Fechter disappointed in Othello, he sur- 
 passed expectation in lago. While duly in- 
 dicating his malignity towards the Moor, he 
 seldom looked the villain; and, besides the 
 
320 OUR EECBNT ACTORS. 
 
 motive of revenge, he had that of intellectual 
 enjoyment in his work; he was pleased and 
 amused by the sense of his superiority to his 
 puppets, and the ease with which he played on 
 them. His lago was, on the whole, gay, agree- 
 able, and ingratiating. In specious good-com- 
 radeship, it almost equalled Vandenhoff's, which 
 has been already mentioned. In adapting itself 
 to the various characters of the play, it ap- 
 proached Macready's. 
 
 Calling upon Mr. Fechter one morning, at the 
 theatre, he talked much of the distinguished 
 actor just named. "Macready," he repeatedly 
 exclaimed — " Macready is my banner ! " — a pro- 
 fession of faith which was, no doubt, very grateful 
 to Dickens, John Foster, and other friends of 
 the retired tragedian. And there was truth in 
 the assertion. He had the familiar, the colloquial 
 side of Macready ; but this, with sentiment 
 and refinement, formed his stock-in-trade. He 
 wanted Macready's exaltation in passion, and 
 thus his power of contrasting it with familiar 
 touches which added to its reality without lessen- 
 ing its dignity. There was something, in a word, 
 Homeric in Macready's realism ; it gave the 
 force of truthful, simple detail to passion, but 
 was not the substitute for it, nor its principal 
 feature. Fechter was, however, a remarkable 
 actor in what may be called refined melodrama. 
 He greatly distinguished himself in " Euy Bias," 
 in "The Corsican Brothers," "The Duke's 
 Motto," and as Obenrezer in the " Xo Thorough- 
 fare " of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, 
 He died in America, in 1879, aged fifty-seven. 
 
OUR EECENT AOTOES. 321 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 ME. EDWARD ASKEW SOTHERN. 
 
 His humour special to himself — In comedy resembles Charles 
 Mathews— Difference between them — Sothern's limited, 
 but real power in sentiment and sarcasm — One secret of 
 his humour, his sense of the ridiculous in the unexpected 
 — Illustrations of this in his Lord Dundreary, and to 
 some extent in his David Gariick — His acting in that 
 character — His desire to perform in tragedy — Difficulties 
 in liis way — Also in that of Kobson — Sothern excelled 
 in characters of spirit, rather than of sentiment — His 
 acting in "A Hero of Romance" — Fails in characters 
 chiefly pathetic, as in the hero of Mr. Tom Taylor's 
 "Lesson for Life" — Successful, however, in touches of 
 abrupt pathos, where it contrasts other qualities — Author's 
 obligations to him in the comedy of "A Favourite of 
 Fortune " — Description of his acting in this piece — His 
 emotional susceptibility — Peculiarity of his mind in re- 
 lation to the romantic — His passion for external reality — 
 The chaise a deux — Tempted to overdo his efforts — 
 Examples from his later performances of Dundreary — His 
 desire to appear in a play which should combine oppor- 
 tunities for power and pathos with openings for his 
 peculiar humour — Author accedes to his request — His 
 generous estimate of the play written, and his subsequent 
 hesitations respecting it — Desires a part which should 
 prepare, by gradual transitions, for his appearance in 
 tragedy — Difficulties in the way — Vacillation of his mind 
 — Desires a modern version of " David Garrick " to alter- 
 nate with that piece — Charm of his manner — Personal 
 appearance — The fortiter in re — Sothern in society — His 
 power of retort when offended — An example — His love of 
 hunting and horses — His animal vitality — His delight in 
 practical jokes — Instances of this — His lingering illness 
 and death — Mr. Lytton Sothern. 
 
 Y 
 
322 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 In broad or eccentric characters, Mr. Sothern's 
 humour was peculiar to himself. In refined 
 comedy, his manner, albeit less airy than that 
 of the younger Mathews, was not dissimilar. 
 Moreover, in his power in the direction of senti- 
 ment, though special and very limited, he differed 
 from his brother-comedian, in whom it scarcely 
 existed. Sothern, though somewhat heavy in 
 serious delivery, could be earnest and telling in 
 sarcasm, and I have known him, on one or two 
 occasions, surprise the house by a touch of 
 pathos, all the more telling from contrast with 
 his reckless levity. But in his peculiarity as 
 an eccentric humorist he had no rival in his 
 own day — no successful competitor. Whether 
 by design or by instinct, he was complete 
 master of all that is most irresistible in the 
 unexpected. If, as in Lord Dundreary, the 
 character he assumed was half-idiotic, he would 
 deliver its absurdities with an air of profound 
 sagacity, and now and then relieve them by a 
 sharp thrust of shrewd common sense. If his 
 mistakes were ridiculous and farcical, as when 
 he stumbled into the lap of an old dowager, the 
 confusion which the mistake occasioned him, and 
 his air of well-bred contrition, half-redeemed him 
 in one's opinion. 
 
 In Lord Dundreary, the elaborateness of his 
 calculation, compared with the absurdity of his 
 conclusions ; his irrelevant answer, again, " Yes, 
 it is foggy ! " to the sentimental Georgiana, who 
 has pursued a love-dialogue until she is on 
 tip-toe for a proposal; the deliberation with 
 which he lays siege to the problem of the brothers 
 who were changed at nurse, and the dense per- 
 plexity with which he becomes involved as the 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 323 
 
 question envelops him with its bewildering diffi- 
 culties, — these instances may exemplify that 
 odd juxtaposition of what was comical in spirit 
 and serious in manner, in which he excelled. 
 His Lord Dundreary and Brother Sam, and 
 his acting in " Dundreary Married and Settled," 
 gave him frequent opportunities for the kind of 
 effect I have described. To some extent there 
 were similar opportunities in his David Gar- 
 rick ; but in this case there was necessarily, too, 
 a touch of the extravagant and the mock-heroic, 
 the reverse and burlesque side of the tragic 
 tapestry. " Farce " — is it Coleridge who says so ? 
 — " is far more closely related to tragedy than 
 comedy is." It deals, in fact, with terror and 
 suffering — with predicaments, in a word, which 
 are not the less intense because they have their 
 origin in the absurd. 
 
 In his early performances in David Garrick 
 — especially the scenes in which he attempts 
 to disenchant the citizen's daughter by assuming 
 the excesses of a drunkard — Mr. Sothern was 
 droll and effective, without being overstrained, 
 and there was real feeling in his sense of the 
 humiliation he inflicts upon himself to save the 
 girl who loves him from a misplaced passion. 
 His declamation of some tragic lines, though 
 a little heightened for the special occasion, 
 was so fervent, that it might have been 
 effective if his acting had been in earnest. 
 More than once, when he expressed his be- 
 setting desire to play tragedy, and his fear 
 that, after Lord Dundreary, the public would 
 not accept him, "Deliver tragedy," I said, "as 
 you do in David Garrick, only omit the touch 
 of burlesque, and you may succeed." " Ah ! but 
 
S'li OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 it is just because in David Garrick it is bur- 
 lesque," he replied, " that I dare let myself go." 
 This reply seemed to me to light up the entire 
 position. 
 
 Sothern, and, in a far greater degree, Eobson, 
 could each, in farce and prose drama, give one the 
 impression that he might succeed as a poetical 
 tragedian ; but, in poetic tragedy, the sense each 
 actor had of something absurd in flights of imagi- 
 nation and passion would have been so strong as 
 to disqualify him, while in burlesque they both 
 felt, that they could give the rein to their 
 impulses, and that the laughter it provoked 
 would indicate their success. To conceive and 
 express passion, in short, the actor must be able 
 to trust and to express the depths of feeling in 
 his own heart, and to rely upon it as an abiding 
 truth ; while the mere manners of the time, to 
 which passion seems often opposed, are only 
 superficial. Nevertheless, in parts where spirit 
 rather than depth of passion was required, and 
 the former quality sprang rather from the situa- 
 tion than from the individuality of character, 
 Sothern was seen to considerable advantage. 
 
 In " The Hero of Eomance," adapted from " Le 
 Eoman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre," his ease and 
 gentlemanly bearing made him acceptable in a 
 part which, though relieved by touches of humour, 
 was mainly serious. In the critical situation 
 where, to rebut the heroine's charge of having 
 intentionally compromised her, he leaped from 
 the tower at the imminent risk of life, the excite- 
 ment of the situation stirred him, and there was 
 a union of vigour and passion in his acting 
 which carried away the house. 
 
 In characters where the situations were chiefly 
 
OUB EECENT ACTOES. 325 
 
 pathetic, he scarcely succeeded so well. Thus, in 
 Mr. Tom Taylor's play, entitled " A Lesson for 
 Life,"' he was, on the whole, heavy and unim- 
 pressive, and in delivery he doled out his 
 syllables with a slowness of intonation which 
 failed to convey genuine feeling. On the other 
 hand, where the pathos to be expressed was 
 abrupt and relieved by contrast with other 
 qualities, such as anger or sarcasm, I have known 
 him admirably effective. I had the good fortune 
 to profit by his acting in a position of this kind. 
 In the third act of "The Favourite of Fortune," 
 the hero is under the belief that the girl who had 
 accepted him, and whom he warmly loved, is at 
 length forsaking him on account of a sudden bad 
 turn in his fortunes. Suppressing his first bitter 
 disappointment, the actor at length assumed a 
 vein of gaiety, in which he complimented her upon 
 her prudence, upon her " love with its eyes open " 
 — all this with a gay and easy, though rather 
 heightened and rapid utterance, till at last, feeling 
 the strain to rule his feelings too much for him, 
 he suddenly took leave of the lady. Interrupting 
 himself, " Good morning ! " he cried, beginning 
 with a tone of light, airy indifference, and ending 
 with a faltering attempt to cholf;e his emotion, 
 while the rigid lines of his face relaxed into grief 
 as he hurried from the stage, and the hushed 
 audience broke into a storm of applause. " How 
 did you manage that effect, Sothern ? " I asked. 
 "It managed itself," answered the actor, whom 
 many looked upon as a mere exponent of the 
 fantastic and absurd. "By the time I came to 
 ' Good morning ! ' tears almost blinded me. A 
 spasm in my throat nearly choked my voice," 
 he continued — translating, probably not con- 
 
326 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 sciously, " Vox faucibus hsesit " — " and I had to 
 struggle for a light, unconcerned articulation, just 
 as a proud, suffering man might have to do ia 
 real life." 
 
 In the following act, where he treats the 
 explanation of the girl he loved, first with irony, 
 then with an explosion of indignation at her 
 seeming worldliness, he was no less excellent. 
 He could delineate both pathos and passion, when 
 they were 'sufficiently relieved by the sang-froid 
 and the polished bitterness of the man of society. 
 The elements of scepticism and of truth to 
 modern manners probably seemed to justify to 
 his mind (which, strangely, at once delighted in 
 the romantic, and yet felt shy of it, as unreal) 
 the presence of passion. Passion, however true, 
 if not interwoven with the outward actualities 
 of existing life, he might have found extravagant 
 and absurd, simply because infrequent. He 
 loved a touch of reality, however superficial, 
 from the bottom of his heart. In the comedy 
 I have referred to, he hears that he has had a 
 dangerous rival, a rich fellow called Gresham. 
 " Gresham ! " the actor had to exclaim, in 
 soliloquy ; " I should like to know Gresham." 
 Very simple words ; but the uneasy laugh, latent 
 jealousy, and suppressed menace with which they 
 were given, called forth a hearty response. 
 
 Sothern's passion for what I may call external 
 reality was carried so far that he caused a chaise 
 a deux — then quite a novelty — to be introduced 
 for the most pathetic scene in the play. His wish 
 was that he and the lady of his affection should 
 occupy the two seats of this lounge; that here 
 her_ apparent treachery to liim and "his struggles 
 against the heavy blow should be represented. 
 
OUR EECENT ACTORS. 327 
 
 From this proposal I was obliged strongly to 
 dissent. The notion of a love-distress taking 
 place while the two interlocutors were seated 
 uncomfortably close to each other, like Darby 
 and Joan, on a pillion, would have seemed to 
 me itself ridiculous, even if the peculiar con- 
 struction of the seats had not heightened the 
 comical effect by setting the lovers almost back 
 to back to each other. Besides this, there was 
 the novelty of the piece of furniture, which 
 would have had the effect of all such trifling 
 novelties — of diverting the attention from the 
 reality of human feeling to a mere accidental 
 reality of the scene. A debate ensued on the 
 part in question, in which I was glad, both for 
 the piece and for my chief actor, to iind him at 
 length a convert to my opinion. 
 
 Sothern did not sufficiently guard against the 
 temptation of overdoing the points in which he had 
 been successful. Accordingly, in his later per- 
 formances, passages in his Dundreary and David 
 Garrick, which at first had ease and freshness 
 of humour, became forced and somewhat tedious, 
 while what is called the " business " of the part 
 underwent similar exaggeration. The business, 
 for instance, which he at last introduced, of 
 arranging half a dozen candles on a dressing- 
 table, blowing some of them out, and puzzling 
 himself as to the number of candles — I think 
 that was the riddle, but I am not quite sure of 
 my memory — was inadmissible even in farce, and 
 was probably only tolerated on account of better 
 things in the performance and the actor's 
 established popularity. 
 
 Mr. Sothern' s desire to venture on tragic cha- 
 racters, which haunted him for the greater part 
 
328 OTJE RECENT ACTOEP. 
 
 of his career, has already been mentioned. I 
 had many applications from him to write a play 
 which should give him the chance of combining 
 power and pathos with the humours and gaieties 
 of a social favourite. As to one drama in which 
 I consulted his wishes in this respect, he 
 expressed himself with generous enthusiasm ; and 
 one would have supposed that the piece would 
 have been at once put into rehearsal at the Hay- 
 market, where, at the time, he was practically 
 lord paramount. But his "hue of resolution," 
 like Hamlet's, "was sicklied o'er with the pale 
 cast of thought.'' At last we arranged an inter- 
 view upon the subject of the new piece. "I 
 have been thinking of my part," he began, " and 
 you know how much I like it ; but I shall 
 probably break my neck if I take a leap from 
 a character of the Lord Dundreary type to one 
 so tragic as this." "You don't mean," I asked, 
 " that you have given up the idea of performing 
 it ? " " Not in the least ; but before doing so, I 
 must appear in a kind of half-way character, to 
 reconcile the audience to the change." We then 
 discussed the possibilities of providing such a 
 part as he required. Various subjects were pro- 
 posed, but all presented a formidable difficulty. 
 If the play were of serious interest, the leading 
 character, in affording scope for Mr. Sothern's 
 eccentric powers, would risk his hold on the 
 audience; while, on the other hand, in the 
 development of a humorous or eccentric cha- 
 racter, tragic sentiment and position would be 
 still more dangerous. The nearest approximation 
 placed on the actual stage to the character 
 desired was "The Hero of Romance," already 
 adverted to, in which the principal character 
 
OUE RECENT ACTORS. 329 
 
 was one of sentimental comedy. Later, he took 
 a fancy to an original piece of mine which he 
 thought solved the old difficulty, and would be 
 a fit introduction to the yet more passionate 
 character which he had in reserve, and in which 
 he still longed to appear. In neither of these 
 pieces, however, did he ever perform, probably 
 because, as year by year passed by with Lord 
 Dundreary still his leading card, he began to 
 regard his acceptance by the public in a tragic 
 part as hopeless, or because long absence from 
 England and declining health had weakened his 
 desire for new enterprise. 
 
 The difliculty of finding him constant to any par- 
 ticular design was, I believe, an experience which 
 I shared with many other dramatists. My one 
 consolation was, that as it was not my practice 
 to- part absolutely with the acting right of my 
 pieces, they all in due time, with one exception, 
 reverted to me. The exception was a play which, 
 after some demur, I rather unwisely consented 
 to write on a subject akin to that of " David 
 Garrick," placing the action in our own day. 
 The fancy of appearing one night as thB real 
 David Garrick, and in the dress of that actor's 
 time, and the next night as a comedian of to-day, 
 with the latest nonchalant and nil admirari 
 style of a club habitue, had a singular attraction 
 for him. " I shall play the two pieces so often," 
 he said, with the sanguine gaiety which, at times, 
 contrasted with his morbid caution, " that your 
 piece will be an annuity to you." Though it was 
 at once easy to understand that little reputation 
 could be gained by a work, even if successful, 
 which was to be for the most part a duplicate 
 of another, such was his earnestness, and such 
 
330 OUB RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 generally the persuasive charm of his manner, 
 that I yielded to the request. On the completion 
 of the piece he expressed himself with his usual 
 generous appreciation; but, from one cause or 
 another, it was never produced. 
 
 In private, as has just been hinted, the 
 manners of the popular comedian were pleasing 
 to the point of captivation. Eather tall and of 
 a shapely, well-knit figure, he possessed also a 
 handsome face. Though the features were not 
 very mobile, the eyes were expressive, and the 
 smile was winning. He had the ease of a man 
 conversant with the best society, and often an 
 engaging frankness of manner which seemed to 
 imply that he took his interlocutor into his 
 special confidence. N"otwithstanding this amia- 
 bility, it was understood that few possessed a 
 fuller share of the fortiter in re than Sothern. 
 I have heard him say to an employe of the Hay- 
 market, where he was then practically dictator, 
 
 "Go at once to Miss . Be sure to see her 
 
 either to-night or early in the morning. Tell her 
 when we have made an offer, we do not recon- 
 sider our terms, and that the case does not admit 
 of delay, and that if to-morrow she hesitates 
 to accept our proposals, we shall consider them 
 withdrawn." 
 
 In society, too, he could, on a real or seeming 
 provocation, show the sharp claw through the 
 velvet paw. On one occasion, when introduced 
 to a man who was believed, like Congreve, to 
 value himself upon his social position, as much 
 as upon literary celebrity, precautions had been 
 talcen, it appeared, to find that the introduction 
 would be acceptable. The surprise and disap- 
 pointment of the introducer were therefore great 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 331 
 
 when he found that Sothern's pleasant advances 
 were received with an air of chilling reserve. 
 There is reason to believe that the demeanour 
 was due rather to habit than to intention. Un- 
 fortunately, it did not seem so to the comedian, 
 who was on the most familiar terms with what 
 is accepted as the best society. To cover the 
 awkwardness, the host remarked, " We must 
 
 persuade Mr. A^ to give us a drama for the 
 
 stage." " Exactly ! " cried Sothern, seizing his 
 opportunity, and continuing to this effect : " If 
 it should be my lot to play in it, I should like 
 him to show that I do not greatly care for having 
 the sympathy of the audience ; I should greatly 
 like to play one of those disagreeable pretenders 
 who are not the less ill-bred because they have 
 some little position, which they think entitles 
 them to be uncourteous and arrogant. He wouldn't 
 be a pleasant personage, of course; but there's 
 a great deal in having a character true to life." 
 After this, relief of his indignation, he passed 
 on, and no further allusion was made to the 
 incident. 
 
 Horses and hunting seemed to share Sothern's 
 affections with grotesque humour in his art and 
 practical fun out of it. In his dressing-room, 
 the discussion of important theatrical business 
 would be often interrupted by overtures for the 
 purchase or sale of some equine fancy, or by 
 speculation on the chances of a favourite. Full 
 of animal vitality when I first knew him, his 
 very recreations were arduous. I well remember 
 a protracted game at battledore and shuttlecock 
 on his lawn one broiling summer day, which, 
 while it left those engaged in it half dead 
 with fatigue, seemed to produce in him only 
 
332 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 freshness and exhilaration. I suspect part of his 
 enjoyment lay in the fun of exhibiting his 
 panting and exhausted associates to the onlooking 
 guests, who had wisely declined to be enlisted in 
 this boisterous game. 
 
 His delight in practical jokes was for a season 
 or two a London topic. Rumours of the mishaps 
 that had befallen friends who had slept under 
 his roof, of mysterious and ghostly noises and 
 appearances, of summonses to wake at untimely 
 hours, and sudden discharges of concealed shower- 
 baths on the heads of reluctant risers — these, with 
 stories of surprised victims, whose identity he 
 affected to mistake, and who tried to extricate 
 themselves from the responsibilities of other men, 
 furnished mirth for a large circle. Even if at 
 times exaggerated and untrue, at least, these 
 relations pointed to a truth, and had their source 
 in reality. One of the best anecdotes of him 
 is that which tells of a visit to a furnishing 
 undertaker, from whom he ordered, on a most 
 elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a 
 funeral. Before the preparations could have 
 gone far he reappeared, with great solicitude, to 
 ask how they were progressing. Again, at a 
 brief interval, he presented himself, with an 
 anxious face, to inquire when he could count upon 
 possession of the body — a question which natu- 
 rally amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss 
 to discover his meaning. "Of course you pro- 
 vide the body," said Sothern, coming to his 
 enlightenment. " The body ! " stammered the 
 bewildered respondent. " Why, do you not say," 
 exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a card of the 
 shop, " ' all things necessary for funerals amply 
 supplied ' ? Is not a body the very first neces- 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 833 
 
 sity ? " I do not vouch from personal knowledge 
 for the truth of this grim joke, though I have 
 heard it repeatedly, and have no reason to doubt 
 its accuracy. It bears, at all events, the trace of 
 Sothern's peculiar humour, which loved to bring 
 the grave and grotesque into startling juxta- 
 position. That he had great and various merits 
 as an actor has already been indicated. The 
 kind of humour just adverted to was however 
 his most special feature. 
 
 A lingering illness at length dimmed the glow 
 of this" mercurial spirit. For some time before 
 his death, which took place early in 1881, Mr. 
 Sothern had practically withdrawn from the 
 stage. 
 
 In representing his father's characters, the late 
 Mr. Lytton Sothern, who died in 1887, gave some 
 impression of his manner, though the essentials 
 of a man's individuality are more subtle than 
 his mechanical forms, and more liable to escape. 
 However, Mr. Lytton Sothern had some inde- 
 pendent claims on public attention. 
 
334 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 MISS LILIAN ADELAIDE NEILSON. 
 
 Her recitations at St. George's Hall — Previous appearance 
 in " The Huguenot Captain " at the Princess's, and at the 
 Royalty — Gives littie promise at the Princess's of her 
 future celebrity — Her personal appearance — Her way of 
 taking the audience into her confidence — Her recitations 
 at St. George's Hall described — "The May Queen"— Her 
 power in the mysterious and supernatural — "Lady Clare" 
 — A letter expressing the author's gratification sent by 
 a friend to Mit.s Neilson — She writes to the author from 
 Stoke Brueme Rectory, requesting permission to call on 
 him — Interview with Miss Neilson (Mrs. Philip Lee) and 
 her husband — Her winning manners — Her extreme in- 
 terest in trifles, yet keen insight into theatrical and 
 dramatic art — Her performance of Juliet at the Princess's 
 — She and her husb^ind visit Etret&t in Normandy, where 
 the writer and family were staying— Her recitations in 
 private — Hood's " Haunted House " — Her recitations 
 hitherto more striking than her acting — Reasons for this 
 • — A remedy suggested in a new mode of study — She 
 appears at the Casino at Etretat, for the benefit of the 
 poor, and recites a lyric by Sydney Uobell — Her absorption 
 in her studies contrasted with her madcap frolics — 
 Examples of the latter — Her wonderful vitality one cause 
 of her success as an actress — Appears at the Gaiety Theatre 
 — Her readings from British and foreign dramatists at St. 
 James's Hall — Her excellence in recitations from " Phedre," 
 and in the character of Miss Prue— T)ie framework 
 of these readings from the pen of Mr. Joseph Knight — 
 She appears as the heroine of the writer's play, " Life 
 for Life," at the Lyceum Theatre — Her acting in this 
 play — Gradual development of her powers — Her lingering 
 faults — They are eventually overcome — Mr. Heiiiiann Vezin 
 in " Life for Life " — Miss Neilsou's Amy Eobsart at 
 
OXJE EEOBNT ACTORS. 335 
 
 Drury Lane — Her growing popularity — She appears as 
 Juliet for her benefit — Striking advance upon her early 
 performances of the character — Her Juliet minutely de- 
 scribed — Her Rosalind, Viola, Lady Teazle, Julia in 
 " The Hunchback " — The lust character modernized, as if 
 for the drawing-room — The manifestations of imaginative 
 passion are similar in all periods — No successful com- 
 promise possible between imagination and superficial 
 realism — Miss Neilson'e great performance of Isabella in 
 " Measure for Measure " — ^A visit to Stoke Biuerne — Miss 
 Neilson at home — The life of her circle — Her parentage 
 alleged to have been obscure, but her manners already 
 those of society — She reads the "May Queen" to a 
 clerical audience — Their emotion at certain lines — Her 
 splendid reading in private of " The Charge of the Light 
 Brigade " — The writer gradually loses bight of her — Her 
 sudden death in Paris. 
 
 Amongst the times which stand out vividly in 
 my past is the evening — I think in 1866 — when 
 Miss Lilian Neilson gave scenes and recitations 
 in St. George's Hall. I had previously seen 
 her play a character of no great importance 
 in "The Huguenot Captain," a drama produced 
 at the Princess's Theatre. She had before this 
 performed at the Eoyalty, but it was at the 
 Princess's that she first appeared in a large 
 theatre — at all events, in London. In spite of 
 her attractive and expressive face, she made 
 no particular effect in her small part. Her 
 acting, probably owing to nervousness, was con- 
 strained and even awkward, while her voice 
 was indistinct and monotonous. It was there- 
 fore with little expectation of pleasure that, at 
 the earnest request of a friend, I presented 
 myself at St. George's Hall on the occasion 
 aforesaid. Having a stall near the platform, 
 I had a good opportunity of estimating her 
 qualifications as an actress. She had a face 
 lit up by brilliant eyes, the dark pupils of 
 
336 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 which shone out in effective contrast with the 
 clear white in which they were set. Her features 
 were scarcely regular ; she had a too promiaent 
 chin, nor was her nose particularly well formed, 
 but her complexion was clear and mate. One 
 of the earliest points to impress the spectator 
 was her winning manner towards the audience. 
 Her method of taking them into her sympathy 
 by a mute appeal, or a smile, or a gesture, was 
 retained to the end of her career and became 
 at last a little too obvious for that true art 
 which demands that an exponent of character 
 shall be lost in the part assumed. At this time, 
 however, especially ia recitation, the confidence 
 with the audience rather enhanced the effect. 
 "When reading " The May Queen," for instance, 
 as she glanced brightly round the house after the 
 refrain — 
 
 "I'm to be Queen of the May, mother, I'm to be Queen of the 
 May ! " 
 
 there was a tacit invitation to the listener to 
 share the young girl's delight and pride; and 
 when, in the sequel, the gloom of lingering illness 
 deepens into that of the " valley of the shadow," 
 there were moments when the reciter turned to 
 us with a look of sympathetic commentary, as 
 much as to say, " Oh, now hope is fading away 
 from the young girl ; now she takes leave of 
 those she loves ; now she grows calm and pacified 
 for the end ! " And when, towards the close, 
 the bright eyes of the speaker filled with tears 
 which she scarcely ' tried to repress, her personal 
 sensibility to the pathos of the story was almost 
 as touching as the story itself. Of course, many 
 performers besides Miss NeUson have taken their 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 337 
 
 listeners into their confidence, bu t I have rarely- 
 seen one who so successfully as she disengaged 
 herself for the moment from the situation she 
 was representing, to play or to speak chorus 
 to her own exposition, and to increase the 
 sympathy of 'the audience by showing its effects 
 upon herself. As to the general merits of the 
 recitation, they included great archness and spirit 
 in the first part, great tenderness in the second, 
 and, above all, signal power in bringing out the 
 imaginative beauties of the poem. 
 
 The passage in which the dying girl fancies 
 that the angels call her was given with a display 
 of bodily feebleness, joined to great exaltation 
 of feeling, that suggested well how one on the 
 frontier of another life might see signs and 
 revelations hidden from the unpurged sight 
 of those for whom the world is yet a dwelling- 
 place. Her capacity to impress you with the 
 mysterious and the supernatural — a rare accom- 
 plishment — was with her spontaneous. Her 
 voice, on the whole, was adapted equally to 
 utterances of mirth or sadness. At times, 
 however, not often, in love passages, it had a 
 little forced sweetness ; it was saccharine and 
 cloying. Again, in grave dialogue it had a 
 passing trick of becoming unnecessarily hollow 
 and sepulchral. Both these faults of intonation, 
 however, were exceptional. 
 
 I forget the general programme of the readings 
 at which I assisted. It included, however, 
 Tennyson's " Lady Clare," which she gave with 
 great spirit and variety. 'No recitation, however, 
 so surprised and moved me as " The May Queen." 
 A few lines of gratification addressed to the 
 friend who had requested my presence were, it 
 
338 OUE EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 appears, sent by him to Miss ISTeilson. A few- 
 days later a letter, dated " Stoke Bruerne Eectory, 
 ISTorthamptonshire," was received by the present 
 narrator, stating the wish of Miss ISTeilson and 
 her husband to call on their next visit to 
 town. A meeting took place. The manners 
 of the actress, which were distinguished by child- 
 like frankness and impulsiveness, were peculiarly 
 winning, while her keen appreciation and intelli- 
 gence, when any question of dramatic art was 
 touched upon, contrasted curiously with the 
 interest she evinced in the merest trifles of 
 gossip.* 
 
 Soon after our first interview I saw Miss 
 ISTeilson in the character of Juliet, which she 
 performed for a few nights at the Princess's 
 Theatre. It was a respectable performance. It 
 had conventional adequacy, and the usual effects 
 of the part were so far realized as to satisfy 
 the audience. But I missed the fresh impulse, 
 the unstrained pathos wliich had been shown in 
 her recitations. 
 
 In the summer of the same year in which 
 we met Miss ISTeilson in London, she and 
 her husband visited Etretat, on the coast of 
 Normandy, where the writer and his family 
 were staying. Sometimes, at sunset, the actress 
 Would give up the mild distractions of the 
 Etablissement, and join us at a little cottage 
 which we had hired for the season. There, 
 with a croquet-box for her pedestal, and two 
 candles on either hand, she would indulge us 
 with her favourite recitations. Amongst these 
 
 * She had been married shortly before this time to the son 
 of the Eev. Philip Lee, Eeotor of Stoke Bruerne, Northampton- 
 shire. 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOES. 339 
 
 was Hood's powerful poem, " The Haunted House," 
 in which her power in the weird and mysterious 
 was signally exhibited. After a little cross- 
 examination, she managed to elicit my preference 
 for her recitations to her acting on the stage. 
 She had been carefully and ably instructed for 
 the latter, but her anxious attention to rules, 
 together with the importance of such a part 
 as Juliet, had cramped her efforts. " I take 
 much more pains for the stage than for short 
 recitals," she said, with a look of disappointment. 
 I ventured to suggest that the pains she took 
 prevented full success ; that in her readings she 
 abandoned herself freely to her own impulses, and 
 forgot rules, which, valuable if once sufficiently 
 mastered, are only impediments when one is too 
 conscious of them.- She seemed to think there 
 was some truth in the remark, and when I 
 begged her — discarding for the time all she had 
 learned — to re-read Juliet or Eosalind, as if for 
 • the first time, and let each character speak to 
 her for itself, she heartily approved this counsel, 
 and lost no time in following it. Some days 
 later she would fly into our little salon, charged 
 with passages for recitation. I advised her to 
 put the sense of some of the most poetic passages 
 into prose, and to imagine analogous situations 
 to those of the poet in modern life, that so she 
 might get freshly at the essential meaning of 
 both words and positions, assuring her that all 
 the charm of poetic rhythm would come back 
 to her when she reverted to the original text. 
 She complimented me by saying that these sug- 
 gestions were of use to her. She had, however, 
 a power of assimilating and expanding any hint 
 which was far more valuable than the hint itself. 
 
340 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 During this visit Miss ISTeilson took part in 
 an entertainment at the Casino for the benefit 
 of the poor. She recited, amongst other things, 
 with great effect, the lyric by that poets' poet, 
 my late friend, Sydney Dobell — 
 
 " Oh, a gallant sans peur 
 Is the merry chasseur." 
 
 The English contingent on the occasion was 
 small, but her eloquence of look and gesture 
 delighted even those who could not follow her 
 words. In the meantime she exhibited, in seem- 
 ing contrast with occasional absorption in her 
 art, a vein of wild frolic which gave to common 
 pastimes almost serious excitement. "Were a game 
 of croquet going on in the Passee, you would 
 hear a sound like the lowing of a cow ; she 
 would suddenly appear on the bank of the 
 adjoining field, part the screening shrubs, with 
 a shout of laughter, and leap down impetuously 
 to seize a mallet. Or, having secured a private 
 billiard-table at the hotel, she would insist upon 
 enlisting you to witness her exploits, even if you 
 did not engage in the game, at which she was 
 tolerably expert. A stroke at once difficult and 
 successful would cause her as much delight as 
 the plaudits of the theatre. A fine stroke that 
 narrowly missed success would draw from her 
 a lamentation so tragic, that the accompaniment 
 of tears would not have surprised you. She 
 would brood over fortunes, as revealed by cards, 
 with a look of intensity, as if instant life and 
 death had been at stake. Again, on a wild 
 impulse, she would follow the Uanchisseuse to 
 the hotel-landing, seize the towels which she 
 had just laid there, and pelt them after her to 
 
OUR EECENT AOTOES. ,,541 
 
 the woman's amazement and her own delight. 
 One of her amusements was to purchase the 
 entire stock-in-trade of the man on the beach 
 who sold " gauffres," or " plaisirs," as they are 
 termed in France, and scatter them, while her 
 eyes swam in tears of laughter, amongst a crowd 
 of excited, scrambling children. " In seeming 
 contrast to her absorption in her art," has been 
 written of these freaks; yet to that overflowing 
 vitality from which they sprang were most 
 likely due some of her triumphs on the stage. 
 Passionate sympathy with emotion was the key 
 to them. With an intellect yet deeper, and, 
 above all, calmer, she would have been an actress 
 of the highest imagination, for she would have 
 been able to realize her conceptions habitually 
 in those forms in which, in living sculpture, 
 they stand symbolized to the eye. Even as it 
 was, she now and then reached this excellence. 
 At other times she trusted, and not vainly, for 
 her impressiveness to her intensity of feeling and 
 delivery. 
 
 On her return to England she fulfilled a not 
 very important engagement at the Gaiety. Her 
 readings at St. James's Hall, however, proved a 
 great success with her audience, and with critics 
 who could speak with authority. Those readings 
 embraced translations from some of the most 
 admired dramatists of Europe. Amongst other 
 works drawn upon, were " The .Two Piccolomini " 
 of Schiller, and the " Phedre " of Eacine. The 
 extract from the latter included the memorable 
 soliloquy in the fourth act, in which Phedre, 
 stricken with her guilty love, apostrophizes the 
 shade of her father, Minos. I had witnessed 
 the acting of Eachel in the same scene, and was 
 
342 OTJE EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 disposed, on the whole, to rank it as the highest 
 piece of acting in classical tragedy I could recall. 
 I could see Miss Neilson's rendering, how- 
 ever, not only without disappointment, but with 
 lively admiration. She could not, indeed, equal 
 Eachel's wonderful combination of sculpturesque 
 dignity with intense emotion, but she recalled 
 Eachel herself, whom, of course, she was too 
 young to have seen, in depicting the awful recoil 
 of Minos when Phedre shall appear at his bar, 
 and in expressing the exhausting torture of the 
 struggle between conscience and love. 
 
 She won a success no less original in a weeded 
 version of Congreve's "Miss Prue." Her own 
 delight in frolic, even to mischief, here found its 
 vent. For the time being. Miss Neilson was 
 Miss Prue. The framework of these readings, 
 it should be said, was admirable alike for its 
 wise choice of examples and for its clear and 
 eloquent expositions. It was due to the pen of 
 Mr. Joseph Knight, since so well known in 
 theatrical criticism and general literature, and 
 received warm tributes from the press in general, 
 including the Times and the Athenseum. 
 
 During her visit to Etretat, Miss Neilson 
 repeatedly asked me to write a play for her. 
 Having given her the outline of one which had 
 occupied my thoughts for some time, an arrange- 
 ment was concluded ; the play was written in 
 the autumn, and produced the following spring 
 at the Lyceum Theatre, under the title of " Life 
 for Life." Her acting in the piece, though excepted 
 to by some critics, gained warm approval from 
 others, while the general fervour of her delivery, 
 her awe-struck rendering of certain incidents of 
 a ghostly Scottish legend, the ardour of her 
 
OUK RECENT AOTOES. 343 
 
 love, and her passionate defiance of threatened 
 death when xirged to renounce it, never failed 
 to move her audience. At times a want of 
 variety in her expression of passion showed 
 that she had something to acquire. The terrible 
 calm irony in which passion at times seeks relief 
 from invective she had yet to master. In rage 
 she employed at this time only invective. Ex- 
 perience ere long gave a wider range of power ; 
 but, even at the time now spoken of, the genuine- 
 ness of her feeling atoned with the public for 
 every drawback. A serious one has yet to be 
 mentioned. She could be excellent both in 
 tragedy and comedy, but she had not yet learned 
 the power of fusing the gay and grave aspects 
 of a character into the same individuality. In 
 her changes of mood she seemed suddenly to 
 drop one character and to assume another. Of 
 course, long before the end of her career, she , 
 acquired the requisite flexibility of style and 
 the power of blending opposite qualities. While 
 touching briefly on her performance of " Life for 
 Life," I may mention that Mr. Herbert Vezin 
 • supported one of the most important characters. 
 AllowiQg for the limits within which the writer 
 had confined him, this fine actor was never 
 seen, perhaps, to greater advantage, except 
 in his admirable impersonation of "The Man o' 
 Airlie." 
 
 At the end of Miss Neilson's engagement at 
 the Lyceum, "Life for Life" was transferred to 
 the Adelphi Theatre. In the course of a few 
 months she accepted an engagement at Drury 
 Lane, ia which she appeared as Amy Kobsart in 
 the late Mr. Halliday's adaptation of Sir Walter 
 Scott's " Kenilworth." The character, as abridged 
 
344 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 in the drama, was a little beneath her powers, 
 but her devotion to Leicester and her childlike 
 admiration of him, no less than her scorn of 
 Varney, were very telling. The piece was well 
 got up, and, having a denouement in which 
 Varney, not Amy, becomes the victim of his 
 villainous scheme, was very successful, and estab- 
 lished the growing popularity of the actress. A 
 far more important event, however, was her 
 appearance in Juliet — I think, for her benefit. 
 A very different performance was it from that 
 at the Princess's, a year or two before. Miss 
 NeUson no longer played the part according to 
 mere rules, however good, but from her own 
 quick perception and sympathy. The sudden 
 overclouding of her love, even in the first act, 
 was fuU of sinister omen. At the lines — 
 
 "My only love sprung from my only hate I 
 Too early seen unknown, and known too late 1 " 
 
 her bending eagerness in inquiring as to Eomeo's 
 identity was suddenly exchanged for an erect 
 and arrested attitude, while her look seemed to 
 realize the tragic "future in the instant." The 
 same dark presentiment was powerfully expressed 
 in the balcony-scene. The injunction — 
 
 " Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon ! " 
 
 was no mere raillery, as it is with some actresses, 
 but a superstitious misgiving ; and the lines — - 
 
 " I have no joy of this contract to-night ; 
 It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden ; 
 Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be. 
 Ere one can say — It lightens ! " 
 
 were given with all the conviction and settled 
 melancholy of a prophecy. You saw it was for 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 345 
 
 her lover's sake, rather than her own, that Juliet 
 rallied herself in saying — 
 
 " Sweet, good night I 
 This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, 
 May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet." 
 
 In the entire scene, the love of Juliet flowed 
 forth with unusual impulsiveness, but remained 
 virginal and fresh through the guilelessness of 
 the utterance. Miss Neilson's subsequent coaxing 
 of the Nurse for her news had many admirers, 
 but it seemed to me that the cajolery was over- 
 done, and savoured rather of the arts of a 
 practised intriguer than those of an innocent 
 and affectionate girl. When the tragedy com- 
 mences, and Juliet hears that Eomeo has slain her 
 kinsman, the actress found one of those great 
 openings for passion which she seldom failed 
 to seize. Her rebuke called forth by the Nurse's 
 malediction on Eomeo was like a sudden blaze 
 of lightning. Admirable was her mode of 
 struggling through her perplexity to the comfort 
 that, though Tybalt was dead, her husband still 
 lived, and that, however, some half apprehended 
 terror still remained — 
 
 " Some word there was, woreer than Tybalt's death, 
 That murdered me : . . . 
 Tybalt is dead, and Borneo — banished ; 
 That hanisTied, that one word — banished. 
 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts ! " 
 
 The frantic despair, the fierce recklessness of 
 fate, as if it had no power to do worse, spoke 
 alike in look, tone, and gesture, as she swept 
 across the stage. In the parting of the lovers. 
 Miss Neilson was, to my thinking, less admirable. 
 The intensity of grief seemed a little artificial, 
 the love over-elaborate and wanting in the 
 
346 OUE EEOENT AOTOES. 
 
 directness of true passion. Either on this 
 occasion, however, or later, she gave a telling 
 close to the scene. As Eomeo disappeared, her 
 extended arms followed him awhile, with a 
 desperate effort, as if her soul still pursued him ; 
 then the arms relaxed and hung supine, she 
 turned mechanically, and lay unconscious; life 
 had fled with him. Few joints in the character 
 were more striking than Miss Neilson's " Amen " 
 to the heartless advice of her nurse, that she 
 should forget her lover and make herself happy 
 with Paris. There was a depth of irony in 
 her tone, a sense of utter estrangement in her 
 averted looks, as of one who has aspired and 
 believed in vain, and who has no further com- 
 merce with the world. Her resolution, when 
 with the Friar, to take the trance-bringing 
 potion was admirable in its quiet intensity. 
 There was a momentary shudder, indeed, as she 
 listened to his ghastly description of the counter- 
 feit death which should follow ; but, on the whole, 
 her bearing was hushed and stern. Extremes 
 meet, and the fixed absorption of Juliet in one 
 idea had in its still settled purpose something 
 that resembled apathy. One thing was to be 
 done, one end, if possible, to be accomplished ; 
 violence of emotion or manner would have seemed 
 shallow compared with her inflexible calm. It 
 was, however, in the chamber-scene that the 
 crowning triumph was reached. Things not to 
 be forgotten were her deep, lingering farewell 
 as Lady Capulet retired, contrasted with the forced 
 lightness which had been assumed in her presence, 
 the passing thought to call back her mother 
 and the Nurse, with the bitter comment as she 
 stifled it, " What should she do here ? " the hushed 
 
OUB BECENT AOTOES. 3i7 
 
 and growing terror as the possible effects of the 
 potion begin to crowd upon her mind, till she 
 pictures herself waking in the charnel-house — • 
 
 " Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
 Lies festering in his shroud." 
 
 E"o mere report can convey the freezing horror 
 with which she swung round, as on a pivot, with 
 hands screening her eyes, as if recoiling from 
 the sight, which yet fascinated her, of Tybalt's 
 imagined shape behind her. But perhaps the 
 noblest feature of this powerful scene was her 
 exaltation when, at last rallying herself, she raised 
 the phial to her lips, as if pledging her lover with 
 the apostrophe — 
 " Borneo, Borneo, Borneo 1 Here's drink — I drink to thee ! " 
 
 It was the triumph of love over all the dread 
 environments of imagination — the poetry of 
 devotion realized to the eye. 
 
 In later years the actress discarded this fine 
 close of her soliloquy in favour of a more stagey 
 ending. Her passion, too, in the balcony-scene 
 had lost something of its guilelessness ; it was a 
 somewhat forced and full-blown flower. To the 
 last, however, her Juliet was a striking perform- 
 ance. She was the Juliet of her day. 
 
 The fame of Miss Neilson now rapidly extended, 
 and at various theatres she appeared in the usual 
 roles of a leading actress. Amongst these, in 
 comedy, the most successful was Eosalind. It over- 
 flowed with life and archness, and was almost 
 wanton in its love of frohc and mischief. After 
 Rosalind's first scene, which was not remarkably 
 effective, the mirth and applause which she called 
 forth was unbounded. To my thinking, she failed, 
 especially in later representations, in the poetry of 
 
348 OUE EECENT ACTOKS. 
 
 the character. The high spirits were almost those 
 of a hoyden, too little those of a princess who had 
 dared to reproach the tyrant duke with his usur- 
 pation, and defend her banished father with pious 
 affection ; whose joy in her adventure was, in a 
 measure, the delight of escape from a suspicious 
 court, and the indulgence of a wide, genial nature, 
 which, even in its humour, was full of sympathy. 
 However, on the broadly comic side, this Eosalind 
 was very telling, and drew the public far more than 
 do Eosalinds in general. Miss Neilson's defect 
 in this character seemed also that of her Viola. 
 It was arch and cleVer ; but no one could fancy 
 that such a mercurial Viola could have found 
 difficulty in telling her love, or have ever resigned 
 herself to the sad repose of " Patience on a monu- 
 ment." 
 
 Lady Teazle, singularly, was one of the actress's 
 least lively embodiments. The repentance of her 
 ladyship in the fourth act was seriously prepared 
 for from the beginning, and the result was an 
 unusually grave version of the part. At the time 
 when it was essayed, however. Miss Neilson had 
 gained such favour with playgoers, that any cha- 
 racter in which she appeared proved successful. 
 She was remarkably so in that of Julia in 
 "The Hunchback," a performance which com- 
 mended itself less to the writer than to the 
 public. It had, when given at the Haymarket, 
 many merits, earnestness amongst the rest. Miss 
 Neilson had also now acquired great knowledge 
 of stage effect and of elocutionary relief; but I 
 had liked her better in Julia when I first saw 
 her, two or three years earlier. She had since 
 then conceived a notion of modernizing Julia — ■ 
 that is, of taming down the grief and self-reproach 
 
OUE EEOENT ACTOES, 349 
 
 of her love, and the desperation of her recoil from 
 a detested bridegroom, to such expressions of these 
 feelings as might be adopted by an excitable 
 young lady of to-day. But truth to the facts of 
 modern life when we are trained to conceal emo- 
 tion, can never be true to the direct expression 
 of emotion. Imaginative passion, far deeper than 
 transient phases of manner, has the same general 
 language and form in every period. To modernize 
 it — that is, to bound it by the conventional man- 
 ners of any particular time — is as inevitable a 
 failure as is, in sculpture, the representation of 
 a tinted Venus with coloured eyes. Passionate 
 imagination which deals with the deep realities 
 of the heart and soul, sublimely ignores the petty 
 differences that savour of mere times and man- 
 ners. Even in the higher comedy we find out 
 of place extreme attention to the requirements 
 of a particular time, and an attempt to present 
 those minute features of human nature which are 
 rather idiosyncrasies than general characteristics ; 
 though these have their proper place at times in 
 prose-comedy, and in domestic drama. To return. 
 Though Miss Neilson did not push her " moderni- 
 zation" of Julia to an extreme, she carried it 
 sufficiently far to lose unity of method and 
 abandonment of passion. Now and then an im- 
 pulse of enthusiasm would seize her, and find 
 itself speedily repressed, that the acting might 
 accord with the manner of a lady in a modern 
 drawing-room. In the great tirade of the last 
 act, where Julia commands,, rather than entreats. 
 Master Walter to save her from her approaching 
 marriage, there was, of course, earnestness and 
 energy ; but the desperation, the recklessness, the 
 defiance of aU consequences to gain her end, were 
 
350 OUE RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 but tamely suggested. In the celebrated injunc- 
 tion to Master Walter — 
 
 "Bo it; 
 Nor leave the task to me," 
 
 there was by no means the electric power with 
 which Fanny Kemble or Helen Faucit carried 
 away the house. 
 
 The advice to Pheeton to choose the middle 
 course is often to be followed in art when the 
 road taken is the right one. But the road must 
 be consistently pursued to the end. To alternate 
 imagination with realism of habits and manners 
 is a compromise fatal to both kinds of art. Yet 
 it must not be thougiit, from what has been said, 
 that there was nothing to charm, even to move, 
 in Miss Neilson's Julia. Moreover, at the time 
 of which I write, she had gained unquestionable 
 sway over the public, and the many-sided Julia 
 was one of her most popular representations. 
 
 Passing from the character just noticed, we 
 reach one in which her triumph was as deserved 
 as it was signal. This was Isabella in "Pleasure 
 for Measure." She first essayed the character, 
 with great success, in America ; then, on her 
 return to England, at the Haymarket. \ATien it 
 is remembered that Isabella, by the stern eleva- 
 vation of her character, commands rather the 
 admiring esteem than the sympathy wliich springs 
 to love or suffering, Miss Xeilson's success in the 
 part was indeed remarkable. From her first 
 scene, the purity of Isabella was grasped. A 
 sweet reserve of voice, manner, movement, a mild 
 gravity at the mere hint of folly, seemed to set 
 her apart from the young of her sex. In the 
 second act, when pleading for her brother's life, 
 
OUR RECENT ACTOES. 351 
 
 it was plain that while her heart yearned to save 
 him, her own purity somewhat magnified his sin, 
 and, for a while, took from her power to contest 
 Angelo's refusal. But when at length she pleaded 
 mercy no less than justice, it would be hard to 
 imagine an outpouring more fervent, more humble, 
 and yet more dignified. Subsequently she pro- 
 duced a telling effect by her intuitive fear of 
 Angelo's evil soundings of her, while, at the same 
 time, her faith in the man himself was as yet 
 unshaken. When, at length, she apprehended his 
 vile proposal that she should buy her brother's 
 life by her shame, the vent of her wrath was like 
 a volley of thunder through a hushed and stirless 
 atmosphere — 
 
 " I will proclaim thee, Angelo ; look for 't. 
 Sign me a present pardon for my brother, 
 Or, with an outstretched throat, I'll tell the world 
 Aloud, what man thou art ." 
 
 Most memorable of all was the scene in which 
 she relates to her brother Angelo's refusal of 
 mercy, save on base terms. When, in the begin- 
 ning, a manly spirit asserts itself in Claudio, and 
 he exclaims — ■ 
 
 " If I must die 
 I will encounter darkness as a bride. 
 And hug it in my arms," 
 
 Miss NeUson's reply, as Isabella, could not well 
 have been excelled in its elevation, its solemnity, 
 and its transport of affection — 
 
 " There spake my brother ; there my father's grave 
 Did utter forth a voice 1 " 
 
 How poor for the moment seemed mortal life, 
 with its brief interests, beside nobility of nature ! 
 And when at last Claudio's dread of death makes 
 him seek life at the price of his sister's shame. 
 
352 OUE EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 Miss Neilson rose to the full height of the posi- 
 tion. The scorn of her look, the invectives that 
 rained from her lips, were overwhelming. Passion 
 seemed to give her bodily height and majesty; 
 she towered in her denunciation. Earely has 
 an audience in the midst of a play been so taken 
 by storm. She was thrice recalled amidst an 
 agitation of delight rarely indeed paralleled. 
 
 Long before Miss Neilson's later triumphs, I 
 had accepted an invitation from her father and 
 mother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Lee, of Stoke Bruerne, 
 to meet the favourite actress under their roof 
 Mr. Lee being a country rector, many of his 
 guests were clergymen, and it was a new and 
 interesting experience to see how the London 
 star would comport herself in their society. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Lee seem to have accepted their son's 
 marriage with a then unnoted actress in a very 
 liberal spirit. They were both devoted to her — 
 glad of the gaiety with which she enlivened their 
 home, proud of the histrionic talents with which 
 she entertained their friends. Very touching, too, 
 was their tender solicitude that she might be 
 protected from the dangers which often beset a 
 brilliant career. 
 
 As for the object of this lavish affection, she 
 carried herself in the true spirit of an enfant gate. 
 Earely did she make her appearance at morning 
 prayers, though observance of that duty was 
 generally held imperative ; but her pleas of 
 morning headaches and sleeplessness, or of over- 
 exertion the night before in reciting to the guests, 
 were received with confiding sympathy. She was 
 the life of the circle, and repaid the profuse com- 
 pliments offered her with easy grace, or, at times, 
 with arch repartee. 
 
OUR BECENT ACTOES. 353 
 
 Statements since her death go to show that her 
 
 parentage was obscure ; but it is just to say that 
 
 she was as simple and charming and, save for an 
 
 impulsive escapade now and then, as composed 
 
 as if she had been trained to society. It was 
 
 amusing to see how the grave clerics at her 
 
 father-in-law's dinner-table brightened up as she 
 
 amused them with accounts of her inexpertness 
 
 and ill-success in fishing, or related the terror 
 
 into which she had thrown two or three of her 
 
 companions by driving them at mad speed on 
 
 rough forest paths knotted with boulders and 
 
 tree-roots. At night she would, perhaps, have 
 
 the same auditors in a different mood. She would 
 
 read, or rather recite, " The May Queen ; " and 
 
 when she came to the death-bed resignation of 
 
 the young sufferer, she would have her priestly 
 
 listeners in tears at a line which came home to 
 
 them all — 
 
 " And that good man, the clergyman, has taught me words of 
 peace." 
 
 Her private recitals were, indeed, at times, even 
 more impassioned than those with which she 
 delighted the public. One evening, being asked 
 at the house of a friend to give "The Charge 
 of the Light Brigade," she seemed absolutely 
 inspired by her theme. She declaimed — 
 
 " Plunged in the battery-smoke 
 Eight through the line they broke" 
 
 with such an impetuous ardour and scorn of death 
 that one could have fancied her in front of the 
 charge. At — 
 
 " Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them 
 Volleyed and thundered," 
 
 2 A 
 
354 OUE EEOENT AOTOES. 
 
 she seemed carried away by exaltation for the 
 brave who dared the storm of fire ; and she had a 
 noble effect towards the end, when the passionate 
 enthusiasm with which she had kindled suddenly 
 fell, and there was a wail like that which follows 
 a soldier's bier in the words — ■ 
 
 " Then they rode back, but not — 
 Not the six hundred." 
 
 I have heard her recite the same poem in a 
 crowded theatre, and with brilliant success, but 
 never with the overpowering eifect of the private 
 recital just mentioned. 
 
 As Miss Neilson's fame ciilminated, I gradually 
 lost sight of her, save for a rare visit at the 
 theatre. Eventually America — where her success 
 surpassed even that gained here— absorbed many 
 months of her later years. 
 
 My personal recollections of her were fading 
 into the dimness of the past, when one morning at 
 the sea- coast they were painfully revived by the 
 startling announcement of her sudden death. It 
 took place in Paris, in 1880, when she was only 
 thirty. Alas, for the career that had been so 
 brilliant and, comparatively, so brief ! 
 
OTJE EEOENT ACTOES. 355 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 ME. ALFEED WIGAN AND ME. F. EOBSON. 
 
 Alfred Wigan's qualifications as an actor — Peculiarly success- 
 ful in French characters — His acting in " To Parents and 
 Guardians," " Monsieur Jacques," " The First Night," " The 
 Corsican Brothers," " The Isle of St. Tropez," " The Roused 
 Lion," " On the Cards " etc. — ^Want of robustness supplied 
 by nervous force and minuteness — His special excellence in 
 Monsieur Jacques — Anecdote touching his performance of 
 this part at Dover — Appears as Orlando, in 1851, at the 
 Princess's — Also as Prince Henry in " The First Part of 
 King Henry IV."—" Still Waters Kun Deep "—Early 
 recognition of his talents by Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 Mathews, under whose management he appeared at Govent 
 Garden, in Sheridan Knowles's play of " Love " — Replaces 
 Harley as Mark Meddle in " London Assurance " — Draws 
 attention to his performances of French characters — Joins 
 the Keeleys at the Lyceum, then goes to the Haymarket — 
 His various characters — His appearance in a comedy by 
 the present writer — His subsequent appearances at the 
 Olympic and the Princess's — He becomes manager of 
 the Olympic — His De Neuville in " Plot and Passion " — 
 Goes to the Adelphi — Assumes management of the St. 
 James's — Appears at the Gaiety — His Adolphe Chavillard 
 in " On the Cards " — Summary of his claims as an actor — 
 His Death. Frederick Robson — Excitement created by 
 his performances in extravaganza and burlesque — His 
 admirers maintain that he would have succeeded in tragedy 
 proper — General impression of his Shylook and Medea in 
 burlesque — Madame Ristori — His acting in farce and 
 domestic drama — In " A Blighted Being " — In " Daddy 
 Hardaore " — Difference between the qualifications for 
 playing domestic drama in prose and playing tragedy — 
 Eobson's Sampson Burr in "The Porter's Knot" — His 
 pathetic humour in acting akin to that of Dickens in fiction 
 
356 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 — Eobson in " The Chimney Corner," and in " Camilla's 
 Husband " — as Deamarets in " Plot and Passion " — Sum- 
 mary — His death. 
 
 Extreme refinement, delicate perception, and 
 truth to nature, combined wit£ deep, though 
 quiet feeling, were the chief characteristics of 
 Mr. Alfred Wigan. These qualities peculiarly 
 fitted him for the representation of various types 
 of Frenchmen. Amongst these were Tourbillon 
 in " To Parents and Guardians," Monsieur Jacques 
 in the pathetic drama of that name, Achille 
 Talma Dufard in " The First Night," De Chateau 
 Eenaud in " The Corsican Brothers," the hero of 
 " The Isle of St. Tropez," Hector Mauleon in " The 
 Eoused Lion," Adolphe ChavOlard in "On the 
 Cards," and several besides. AH these pieces 
 were of French origin. 
 
 The French Usher at the Clapham school, in 
 " To Parents and Guardians," was one of the 
 first assumptions that showed his qualifications 
 for playing French characters. The unfortunate 
 emigre Tourbillon, who, though noble, has to 
 earn his bread by tuition, and who suffers 
 keenly from the pranks of audacious schoolboys, 
 is one of those figures in which sentiment and 
 humour, dignity and eccentricity, have so quick 
 interchange as to offer wide scope to an artist 
 who had equal command of pathos and humour, 
 though he was, perhaps, something wanting in 
 breadth of passion and in robustness. He was 
 so much an artist, however, that he could often 
 fairly supply these qualities by intensity and by 
 decision of outline. Thus his gallant bearing as 
 De Chateau Eenaud in "The Corsican Brothers" 
 atoned for a certain over-delicacy of style, and 
 the ease and martial excitability of his Faulcon- 
 
OtJE RECENT ACTORS. 357 
 
 bridge almost made the spectator forget that 
 full-blooded strength was a vital trait of the 
 illegitimate Plantagenet. In characters that thus 
 taxed his physique, Wigan managed to present 
 much to admire, though not without suggesting 
 that he was substituting what was wanting in 
 more athletic qualities of the mind, so to speak, 
 by trading on nerve power. 
 
 In Monsieur Jacques, divided between a pardon- 
 able yearning for success in his art and fidelity 
 to the memory of an early love, he played with 
 so true a perception of contrasting features, that 
 the harmless vanities of the part enhanced its 
 pathos, and the spectator was often never nearer 
 tears than when the smile hovered on his lips. 
 The complete finish of the personation, combined 
 with its perfect ease, the quaintness of the broken 
 English, and the actor's peculiar skill in display- 
 ing the quick transitions of feeling in French 
 nature, made up a performance in which it would 
 have been hard to suggest an improvement. 
 
 I happened to be at Dover on one occasion 
 when Mr. Wigan played Monsieur Jacques in 
 that town. The box in which I was placed 
 projected considerably over the pit, and was, 
 moreover, so shallow that it was difficult to 
 retreat from observation. As the piece went on. 
 I found myself so much moved by the pathos 
 of the representation, that it was Avith great 
 difficulty I repressed my tears. The temptation 
 to the luxury of woe was, however, violently 
 resisted, as it could not have been yielded to 
 without the knowledge of the entire audience. 
 The strong effort at repression, however, produced 
 so distracting a headache, that, meeting Mr. 
 Wigan next day on the marine walk, I laugh- 
 
358 OUE RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 ingly reproached him with all that I had suffered. 
 He answered, with pleasant readiness, that he 
 could hardly be expected to regret as he ought 
 a malady which was both a new and emphatic 
 compliment to his acting. 
 
 His AchiUe Dufard in "The First Night/' in 
 point of the happy blending of sentiment with 
 humour, and in that highest reality which springs 
 from clear insight into human characteristics, 
 and in truthfulness that rejects aU excess in 
 portraying them, fully deserves to be ranked 
 with his Monsieur Jacques. 
 
 In " The Isle of St. Tropez " he had to play 
 the part of a man who suffers long from a 
 mysterious disease, and at length finds, by the 
 aid of a mirror which reflects another, that he is 
 being slowly poisoned by one who possesses his 
 affection and confidence. His look of horror and 
 his hushed, mechanical bearing, as of one whose 
 feelings had been petrified by horror, can scarcely 
 be forgotten by any spectator. 
 
 In 1851 he performed, at the Princess's, the 
 character of Orlando in " As You Like It." The 
 performance, though delicate, was animated, and 
 showed a keen ];elish for the adventures with 
 which the piece abounds, which gave his 
 rendering a fit air of romance. In the same 
 year he represented Prince Henry in " The First 
 Part of King Henry IV." with more dignity than 
 is usually' assumed, and with great impressiveness 
 in the serious passages. His impersonation was, 
 on the whole, less mercurial, and therefore less 
 popular, than might have been expected. He 
 evidently sought to indicate in the lighter and 
 more familiar moods of the Prince the probability 
 of his future reform and elevation. 
 
OUR EBCBNT ACTOES. 359 
 
 To the highest class of his personations belonged 
 his John Mildmay ia " Still Waters Eun Deep." 
 The powerful effect which he produced with the 
 utmost simplicity of means was a theme of 
 general comment and admiration. The interest 
 of the character consists in the gradual develop- 
 ment of acuteness, and mental capacity in general, 
 on the part of one whose reserved demeanour 
 has caused him to be rated as inapprehensive 
 and stupid. The quiet judgment with which 
 the man's real nature was revealed, touch 
 after touch, till it stood out distinctly, recalled 
 the imperceptible growth of some child, whom 
 we have seen day by day, till, in the course of 
 years, we recognize the man. This piece was 
 produced during his management of the Olympic 
 Theatre, to the success of which the talents and 
 counsels of his wife are said to have largely 
 contributed. Her performance of Mrs. Hector 
 Sternhold, in this very piece of " Still Waters," 
 was, perhaps, as fine an instance as can be cited 
 of her mode of producing a strong impression 
 without obvious effort. 
 
 The great promise of Mr. Alfred ■ Wigan was 
 early recognized by Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 Mathews (Madame Vestris), under whose 
 management at Covent Garden, in 1839, he 
 performed the character of " Sir Conrad " in 
 Sheridan Knowles's play of " Love " — a part by 
 no means important, but which requires a gallant 
 carriage and good delivery. Small as the actor's 
 opportunity was, he so improved it as to gain 
 considerable notice, and to recommend himself to 
 , his managers and the public. At Covent Garden 
 he also replaced Harley as Mark Meddle in 
 "London Assurance," and began to attrac 
 
360 OUE EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 attention to his finished performance of French 
 characters. After quitting Covent Garden, he 
 became a member of the Lyceum Company, then 
 under the management of the Keeleys. In 1847 
 he joined Mr. Webster at the Haymarket, where, 
 as Sir Benjamin Backbite, and as Hector Mauleon 
 in " The Eoused Lion," the delicate truthfulness 
 of his acting, and the subtle traits of his 
 characterization became increasingly appreciated. 
 In this year also I was indebted to him for an 
 assumption marked by his habitual ease, polish, 
 and unstrained effect— that of Osborn in "The 
 Heart and the World." It has already been 
 said that this venture was unsuccessful. Mr. 
 Wigan's acting was worthy of a piece better 
 constructed, and of more solid claims. He 
 subsequently appeared at the Olympic and at 
 the Princess's Theatres, the latter being then 
 under the management of Mr. Charles Kean. 
 In 1853 he entered on the management of the 
 Olympic, where his principal characters were 
 his delicate, yet passionate rendering of the 
 lover in "Plot and Passion," and his John 
 Mildmay in "Still Waters Run Deep," which 
 has already been noticed. We find him after- 
 wards at the Adelphi, at the St. James's (as 
 manager), and at the Gaiety, where he performed 
 Adolphe Chavillard in " On the Cards." Adolphe 
 is a travelling conjuroi:, who discovers that he is 
 the real father of a young girl of whom he has 
 previously only assumed the parentage, and who, 
 by his arts of legerdemain, manages to defeat 
 the designs of a trickster on his daughter. The 
 plot of this piece is to the last degree improbable ; 
 but Mr. Wigan admirably availed himself of the 
 opportunity it gave of exhibiting the emotions 
 
OUE EECENT AOTOES. 361 
 
 of the father and the eccentricities of the con- 
 juror. 
 
 In closing these remarks, it may be said that 
 the character of Mr. Wigan's acting was almost 
 unique in his time. Though abounding in the 
 delicate sensibility which often confines actors 
 to the portrayal of a few parts suited to their 
 own individualities, he had sufficient width and 
 keenness of perception to delight in many 
 varieties of human nature. He was, therefore, 
 a versatile actor, large in his range of character, 
 though minute in his treatment of it. Fine as 
 were his touches, he made a strong impression 
 by their judiciousness and their repetition. Like 
 some of the best painters in water-colour, he 
 sometimes produced effects that were almost 
 massive, quoad the medium through which they 
 were produced, though they were still not those 
 of oils. He could not claim, as has been said, 
 breadth or robustness of style. As regards finish, 
 quietude, finesse, and a power to seize the subtler 
 traits of sentiment or humour, he was admirable. 
 In his day he was probably the most French of 
 English actors. His death took place, at the age 
 of sixty-one, on November 29, 1878. 
 
 Of Mr. Frederick Eobson, again, striking and 
 origiaal actor as he was, my recollections are fewer 
 than I could wish. I witnessed none of those 
 burlesques and extravaganzas in which he dis- 
 played so much passionate intensity, that some 
 admirers believed he would prove a second 
 Edmund Kean in poetic tragedy. A doubt of 
 this conviction has been already expressed in a 
 notice of Mr. Sothern, where it is suggested that 
 the very opportunity of exaggeration afforded by 
 burlesque elicits the display of a quasi-tragic 
 
362 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 power which would cease if the condition of 
 exaggeration were withdrawn. 
 
 Amongst his triumphs in burlesque, according 
 to report, none were greater than those of his 
 Shylock and Medea. In the latter it is recorded 
 that the foundation of the acting was generally 
 tragic, and that the sentiment only became that 
 of burlesque by being carried to exaggeration. 
 Indeed, it is said, at the point where a blessing 
 is besought for Creusa, the real feeling of the 
 actor refused to be disguised, and the scene 
 became one of absolute pathos. Madame Eistori, 
 whose Medea was one of her greatest successes, 
 was at the Olympic on the production of the 
 burlesque, and a bust of her was exhibited on 
 the stage. 
 
 Burlesque apart, however, I saw Mr. Eobson 
 in some of his best characters. In the farce of 
 " A Blighted Being," his Job Wort, a neglected 
 and disappointed genius, could have been repre- 
 sented by no actor but Eobson, with the double 
 and even simultaneous effect of convulsiug the 
 house with the absurdities of the character, and 
 inspiring it with a sense of relief when he escapes 
 the fancied danger that haunts him. In the 
 bitterness of his mortification. Job applies to 
 a friend, a druggist, for some drug that shall 
 end his life gradually and painlessly. His 
 friend affects at last to comply with his request. 
 Job, believing that he has swallowed the 
 insidious poison, and that death is stealthily 
 advancing upon him, at length regrets his rash- 
 ness, and falls a prey to his terror, which is 
 heightened by the fact that he has fallen in love, 
 with no hope of surviving long enough to marry. 
 At length the disclosure that the drug he had 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 363 
 
 taken is really harmless enables him to rally, 
 and his union with the object of his affections 
 atones to him for his defeated ambition. As the 
 blighted genius, Eobson's melancholy but haughty 
 intonation, his fitful gesture, his look of dejection, 
 alternating with that of pity and contempt for 
 a world unworthy of him, at times a colloquial 
 turn in the midst of highly-wrought excitement, 
 formed a wonderful caricature of the unappreciated 
 man in real life ; while his horror of death, though 
 ludicrous under the circumstances, had a ghastly 
 seriousness in it, which, though it only proved 
 the actor's power, was surely somewhat misplaced 
 in burlesque. It was perhaps, however, his union 
 of the terrible with the droll which most recom- 
 mended him to general favour. 
 
 " Daddy Hardacre," drawn from " La Fille 
 d'Avare," gave him a character in which, through 
 its eccentricities, he displayed even tragic in- 
 tensity. The miser's one redeeming feeling — 
 love for his daughter, and his insane idolatry of 
 his gold, afforded an opening for blending and 
 contrasting what is most sordid and pitiful in 
 self-love with what is most touching in love for 
 another. The sordid aspect of the half peasant, 
 half farmer, with his strange pronunciation, was, 
 indeed, so thoroughly and minutely represented 
 as to be generally comic, but without in the least 
 degree detracting from its reality or from the 
 emotional interest. Setting aside Mr. Eobson's 
 tragic effects, nothing from his entrance could be 
 more microscopic than his observation of charac- 
 teristics, nothing more easy and natural than his 
 expression of them. What a true and laughable 
 touch was that of venting his rage on a minor 
 character, who has, unbidden, helped himself to 
 
364 OUB EKCENT ACTOES. 
 
 roll and butter, by a scowl and an aside, which 
 seem to relieve his exasperation — " How ugly yon 
 chap looks wi' his mouth full ! " His chuckle, 
 not overdone, at his own astuteness in holding 
 back from a purchase till want forced the owner 
 to sell at a fearful loss ; the controlled impatience 
 with which he hears a plea for humanity, as a 
 ceremonial that must be borne with and meant 
 nothing ; his intervals of delay in handing out 
 the lawyer's charge for expenses in fractions, thus 
 mitigating the torture of payment by taking it 
 in instalments ; his look, as of a good Mussulman 
 to an infidel, when the lawyer tells him that 
 " gold's just the same as notes," and the Miser, 
 gloating over his shiners, answers scornfuUy, " It 
 is not the same to me, though," — these are a few 
 of the minor traits of character which, after the 
 lapse of nearly thirty years, are yet vivid to the 
 writer — traits conveyed by a naturalness of ex- 
 pression often most quiet when most intense. 
 
 In the second act, how true to nature was his 
 disappointment because Esther, his daughter, 
 received so calmly the guinea he offered her. 
 "Thank you, father." Was that aU she had 
 to say for a gift dear to him " as a drop of his 
 heart's blood " ? " Hey, hey, lass ! " he cries, 
 withdrawing the coin for a time ; " does it rejoice 
 thee no more than that to look on a guinea — 
 to know it is thine own, all alone — to hear it 
 chink, chink ? " What depths of rapture did his 
 tones convey — tones crooning and gloating, but 
 half hushed, as if it had been profane to utter 
 his transports aloud ! How admirable, too, when 
 it has escaped him that she will have a fortune, 
 the conflict between his delight in what he can 
 give her and his dread lest the secret of his wealth 
 
OTJE EECENT ACTOES. 365 
 
 should transpire! How admirably did lie thus 
 prepare for the great scene, in which he discovers 
 that his idolized gold has been stolen by his 
 idolized daughter. Her uncle had been suddenly 
 ruined by some commercial panic, and had 
 threatened to escape by suicide from want and 
 disgrace. In vain Esther had. pleaded with her 
 father to help him. He was immovable ; and, to 
 save the father of the man she loved, she had 
 secretly robbed her own parent. The scene in 
 which these facts burst upon him was appalling. 
 A visit to his hoard had shown him the plunder 
 of it. His changed, almost choked voice, startled 
 you with the sense of a catastrophe before he 
 entered. " Whose voice," you asked — " surely 
 not Eobson's?" At length he tottered in, gasping 
 " Mary — Mary ! " to the servant. His face drawn 
 and convulsed, his reeling gait, his stifled tones 
 gave the notion of one who had been struck and 
 shrivelled by lightning. " Are you ill ? " asks 
 Mary. He can but gasp her name for answer. 
 " What ails you ? " asks the lawyer, in wonder. 
 The wild, suspicious misery that can find no 
 vent in words prompts him to seize the lawyer's 
 arm in a fierce clutch. "What are you doing 
 here ? " At last he recognizes him and lets him 
 go. Ah, the thief may have been Mary ! 
 " Mary, look me in the face ! Where is it ? Air 
 — air ! " 'No, it can't be Mary ; no, the nephew 
 who has been his guest — the son of the ruined 
 man. So — he has left the house ! Clear as day. 
 Pursue him ! " Kun to the justice ! " " Summon 
 the constables ! Why does the lawyer delay ? " 
 With a new burst of fury, which exhausts him — 
 " He's an accomplice ; I'll go myself ! Ah, I'm 
 dying!" His limbs faU, and he staggers to his 
 
366 OUE RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 chair. Eeviving a little, he bids them bring the 
 thief. He will search him himself, and then 
 he'll have him " hanged — hanged — hanged ! " — 
 this in a voice which, by its very exhaustion — 
 a last effort of speech — showed a depth of hatred 
 from which the listeners recoiled. Then a new 
 phase of the crisis arrives. Shocked by the old 
 man's fury against his nephew, Esther confesses 
 the robbery and the motive of it. What ! — she, 
 his own child, the thief ! No, it's a lie — a lie ! 
 But she persists. He raises a chair, as if to strike 
 her. No, no ; she had an accomplice, for whose 
 sake she acted — she is merely trying to mask 
 a worse culprit. And then the amazement and 
 the fury gave way, and, with a strange blending 
 of cajolery and real tenderness, he tries to worm 
 from her to whom the money had been given. 
 But she has nothing to say. Then she shall be 
 locked up ; she shall starve — rot — die ! Esther 
 escapes almost in despair. After a while the 
 father's love, with many ebbs and flows, reasserts 
 itself. " Where is she ? " asks Hardacre. He is 
 told that she is in the next room, weeping before 
 her mother's picture. He looks in, softened, and 
 finds that it is so. The lawyer begs him. to 
 forgive. At this the old man hardens Iximself. 
 " Never, never ! Shut the door directly. Mary ! 
 I'll never forgive her ! " he exclaims, with a 
 violence that shakes him, and shows the fierce- 
 ness of the strife. The door is that of the next 
 room, in which his chUd is weeping. " You don't 
 loant to sJiut it close to, ye old fule ! " he con- 
 tinues — a fine touch in the play, but how fine it 
 needed Robson's genius to show — the tones of a 
 voice that had tears in its asperity, and yearning 
 in its impatience. 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 367 
 
 In all the transitions that we have pointed 
 out, it was the excellence i of Eobson that the 
 force and variety of his acjfcing had no touch of 
 strain. His fury was as natural and spontaneous 
 as his dryness or his fondling. He was colloquial 
 even in passion ; his voice had the rise and fall 
 of all the natural changes which, in real life 
 and in real men, denote mental impulses in their 
 varying excitement or calm. Could he not, 
 then, have played heroic tragedy ? His intensity 
 and his truth would have gone far in this 
 direction. But the reality in which he showed 
 at his best needed eccentricity or sharp prosaic 
 traits. It was by this background that his emo- 
 tions were relieved and coloured and contrasted. 
 The feelings that are common to man gained 
 a sharp, almost stinging individuality, stace they 
 displayed themselves amongst the peculiarities 
 that belonged to few men^ — a result quite opposed 
 to that of ideal art, which discards external 
 peculiarities, lest they should lower or obscure 
 more essential features. 
 
 Eeverting to Daddy Hardacre, it may be as 
 weU to state that the money which Esther, had 
 taken was her own fortune, that Hardacre for- 
 gives her, and consents to her marriage with her 
 cousin, the more readily that he is willing to take 
 her without her lost dovsrry. 
 
 However much the belief of some that Mr. 
 Eobson would have succeeded in poetic tragedy 
 may be dissented from, it is incontestable that, 
 in certain phases of domestic drama, he could 
 excite both tragic pity and terror in the events 
 of actual Hfe. His Daddy Hardacre proves his 
 power above all in the latter; his Sampson 
 Burr in "The Porter's Knot" ("Les Crochets 
 
368 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 du Pere Martin ") above all in the former. Very 
 touching and sweet is this idyllic drama. 
 Sampson Burr, as a porter, amasses, after many 
 years, a little competence, by the help of which 
 he gains his dearest wish — tha.t of seeing his 
 son a doctor. He then undergoes the fearful 
 shock of learning that this idolized son has 
 involved himself in debt to the extent of £2000, 
 takes the burden upon himself, privately affects 
 to have lost the sum, that he may shield his 
 wife, the fondest of mothers, from the knowledge 
 of her boy's disgrace, contrives to send him 
 abroad, and then, a ruined man, resumes in his 
 old age the arduous toil of a porter. The son 
 acquits himself well, and is able in the end to 
 requite his father for the heavy sacrifice made. 
 This little tale abounds in opportunities of pathos, 
 relieved and often deepened by humour. The 
 character would have been successful in many 
 hands, but hardly such a success as in Eobson's. 
 If his special merit in work of this kind be 
 asked, the one answer is that he had an 
 uncommon degree of that truth to nature which 
 every actor worth the name must have in some 
 degree, and a power, moreover, of displaying 
 this truth under a variety of aspects. How 
 delightful was his overflow of pride and happiness, 
 with a veil of drollery, half real, half forced, to 
 hide his emotion, when he enters with the son 
 who can now write himself doctor. After he 
 learns that the latter's extravagance has ruined 
 him, how admirable his assumption of high 
 spirits (just a little strained by conscious effort), 
 partly that he may seem a cheery host to his 
 chum. Captain Oakum, who looks in for a fare- 
 well dinner, partly to hide the truth from his 
 
OUR EEOENT AOTOKS. 369 
 
 wife. The purpose of keeping the dear old 
 mother ignorant of the lad's disgrace ran with 
 Eobson throughout the piece, not only in the 
 dialogue, but in looks of tender vigilance and 
 a habit of caution and self-suppression. 
 
 ISTo performer lived more in the details of 
 his part, or made them more contrast with 
 each other. Who can forget the scene in the 
 second act, after he returns to his work as a 
 porter? He sits on his truck near the hotel, 
 and gossips with his wife, who brings him his 
 dinner, over old times — old love still fresh for 
 each other, pride in their son, and their hopes 
 for him. The old man has had losses by 
 speculation since then — not a whit does the wife 
 guess that the prodigal son has ruined him, 
 and she feels it hard that, in his old age, he 
 has had to go back to his hard work again. 
 As for him, he affects to like it. " He was happy 
 enough in his arm-chair ; but, hang it, when 
 he sits on his truck he feels young again ! " 
 The truck means the days when Milly was 
 a young wife, when love made labour sweet, 
 and their boy was their future. The cheerful 
 fortitude, with its spark of humour, with which 
 the old man, weary at heart, weary in frame, 
 imposed upon the trusting wife, half suspecting 
 the kind deception, was admirable in its truth, 
 and in that restraint which is the conscience 
 of the artist. The heroism of the sufferer did 
 not parade itseH by a touch of overemphasis. 
 He did not merely feign to disguise his grief, 
 and call attention to it by by-play. His forced 
 spirits were not too much forced to seem 
 unnatural to the wife, though they, of course, 
 hid nothing from the audience, who were in 
 
 2 B 
 
370 OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 
 
 his confidence. The pathetic humour of Dickens 
 seemed to have passed into Eobson, making the 
 heroic concealment of grief ten times more 
 touching than its direct utterance. This resem- 
 blance to Dickens in various characters planned 
 to suit the actor was often evident. In " The > 
 Chimney Corner," for instance, what a flavour 
 of the best kind of cockney was there in his 
 Peter Probity, the oilman! His genial self- 
 importance, his delight in his own shrewdness, 
 his occasional mispronunciation of some ambitious 
 passage, uttered with glib enjoyment, were the 
 rather grotesque frame to a high-minded and 
 loving nature. 
 
 It was a feature of Eobson's acting that, with 
 his keen sense of humour, and his dislike, save 
 in burlesque, of extravagance, he could rise, with- 
 out effort, to as high a stress of passion as we 
 ever find displayed in the man of actual life. 
 In this very drama of "The Chimney Comer," 
 when Peter Probity believes that his son has 
 cruelly robbed him, there is an opportunity 
 for indignation and stern despair, melting into 
 an agony of outraged love, of which the actor 
 so availed himself that the emotion of the house 
 almost choked its applause, so genuine was the 
 feeling displayed, so free from a forced, or even 
 a strained note. 
 
 In comedy, the value of Eobson's temperate 
 method was remarkably shown in a piece 
 entitled " Camilla's Husband," which, though 
 not effective, was the work of a writer who 
 had done better things. Eobson's character, in 
 particular, was so factitious, also so far-fetched, 
 and yet commonplace in point of expression, 
 that from the mere perusal of the part one 
 
OUE EECENT ACTOES. 371 
 
 would expect nothing but failure. Dogbriar is 
 a wandering tinker, with a keen sense of his 
 own acuteness, and much unscrupulousness in 
 the use of it. His histrionic stock-in-trade is 
 largely made up of such phrases as "natur," 
 " feelosophy," and " mo-rality," " needcessity " for 
 " necessity," " inflammation " for " information," 
 "twilight" for "toilette," "flirtation of the heart," 
 possibly in some way akin to " palpitation," 
 though it is difficult to trace the relationship. 
 There were a few better jokes in the dialogue, 
 but too many of the kind specified, while the 
 moralizing of the tinker was as dull and forced 
 as his phrases. Yet there was an air of con- 
 viction, a tone of sincerity and consistency in 
 Robson's acting that seemed to make the tinker 
 a philosopher in his way, and gave to his 
 trite sayings the force of axioms. That the 
 piece succeeded was chiefly due to Eobson's skill 
 in creating a character from the slightest hints, 
 and to the vigour and romance which Mr. 
 Henry Neville threw into thb part of the hero. 
 
 The character of Desmarets in "Plot and 
 Passion" gave Mr. Eobson his first and signal 
 chance of proving his power in serious drama. 
 Desmarets is all nerve and excitement, so that 
 the part formed a link between the wild intensity 
 of the actor's burlesque creations and those which 
 he portrayed in actual life. A spy and a tool, 
 absorbed in self, unscrupidous and relentless in 
 aU that relates to his interest, servile to Pouche, 
 the master whom he envies, detests, and cir- 
 cumvents, capable at once of deep calculation 
 and fierce energy, fired, moreover, with a wild 
 passion for a woman who had stooped awhile 
 to be Fouche's instrument and decoy — the part 
 
'372 OUR RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 furnished a variety of contrasting aspects, which 
 ■were presented with graphic power and with 
 surprising rapidity of change. In keen observ- 
 ance of his chance to insinuate or to betray, 
 to seize an advantage, or to parry a disaster, 
 Eobson, in his various resources, suggested a 
 spider which glides along the lines of its web 
 to repair its mesh, or to dart upon its prey. 
 The greed and venom of the spider had also 
 their symbol in his fierce love for Madame de 
 Fontanges, and his subsequent hatred of her. 
 Brilliant, too, were his contrasts of expression. 
 The bitterest irony or the deadliest menace at 
 times lurked in the softest tones ; again, explo- 
 sions of passion would rend him — passion con- 
 vulsing face and limb. In a healthier tempera- 
 ment, display might have seemed excessive or 
 ■distasteful. Here it was true to the character. 
 There were, of course, many parts for which 
 Mr. Eobson was unfitted, both mentally and 
 physically. Small, though not iU-formed, he 
 was quite wanting in what is called " a presence." 
 Dignity, romance, composed, gentle tenderness 
 (he had abundant tenderness mixed with humour), 
 the lighter graces of comedy, were not for him. 
 But for such conceptions as lay within his range, 
 he had the gift of gifts — self-identification. The 
 "si vis me flere" may be extended to every 
 emotion. Eobson made the listener feel, because 
 he felt himself This original actor died, at the 
 .age of forty-three, in August, 1864. 
 
OUB EECBNT ACTOES. 373 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE EACHEL.* 
 
 Eaokel's benefit at Her Majesty's Theatre; in June, 1841 — She' 
 appears in a French, version of Schiller's " Marie Stuart " 
 — Is supported by an array of celebrated artistes — Her 
 
 personal appearance, voice, etc Her acting in " Marie 
 
 Stuart " — Macready's exception to her — Her great per- 
 formance in " Phedre " described at length — Her acting a 
 combination of classic and romantic art — Her synapathy 
 ■with the indigent of her own profession. 
 
 It was a night to remember, the night when I 
 first saw Eachel — Eachel, who had resuscitated 
 in France the dead glories of the classic drama, 
 whose fame rang through Europe, who was 
 hailed everywhere,, except by the rivals whom 
 she had supplanted, as a genius — one of those 
 rare beings in whom " life is at blood-heat," and 
 whose keen perceptions and sympathies seemed 
 intuitions. 
 
 I went to " Her Majesty's " that 14th of June, 
 1841, in a state of almost feverish excitement. 
 It was the night of her benefit. Besides her 
 own attraction in Lebrun's tragedy of "Marie 
 Stuart," t a reduction into one act of Moliere's 
 
 • Though the great French actress hardly falls within the 
 scope of this work, it is thought these few recollections of her 
 will not be unwelcome. 
 
 t Founded on, though not absolutely adapted from, Schiller's 
 tragedy. 
 
374 OUK RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 " Bourgeois Gentilhomme " was to be given in 
 the concert-scene, of which Mesdames Grisi, 
 Persiani, Loewe, and Viardot, Signori Eubini, 
 Mario, Lablache, Tamburini, Mademoiselles Cerito, 
 Guy Stephan, Keppler, Pierson, and M. Albert 
 were to appear. This supplementary entertain- 
 ment, introducing the most eminent singers and 
 danseuses of a time when ballet was still a fine 
 art, and equally attractive with opera, was a 
 rare homage on the part of those offering it to 
 the genius of Eachel, who, indeed, had been 
 the idol of London society, from the Court down- 
 wards. 
 
 The keen interest of speculative curiosity was 
 now to give way to that of knowledge. Eachel 
 at length appeared. Tall, slender, almost to 
 fragility, with mobile face, but pale as that of a 
 statue, and lit up with what Edwin Forrest so 
 aptly called her "flaming eyes," she riveted the 
 gaze at once. In those eyes, in that marble 
 face (which could yet at will become so flexible), 
 life seemed to have invaded the domain of death 
 — death not repulsive, but composed and queenly. 
 To follow her declamation, again, when she 
 began to speak, was an absolute delight. A voice 
 deep, resonant, and vibrating with the feeling to 
 be uttered — capable of becoming harsh and 
 piercing, or of subsiding - into the softest and 
 most significant of whispers — she had at her 
 command the demi-semitones of expression, each 
 being given with such just precision, that sound 
 seemed as definite as colour. These merits 
 never failed her in any of her characters, and 
 they exerted their charm in "Marie Stuart," 
 though not one of her best. In the great 
 scene with Elizabeth, her passion, though intense, 
 
OUR BEOENT AOTOKS. 375 
 
 was vixenish and unqueenly. It is, perhaps, 
 hard to invest the dialogue of the Queen- 
 Scold with dignity. Eistori surmounted this 
 difficulty better than Eachel; but she owed 
 to the latter that resistance of the proud, stub- 
 born knee which wavered and stiffened again 
 and again before Marie sank crushed at Eliza- 
 beth's feet. Before this, however, Eachel made 
 one of her" finest points in the look of exultation 
 when she sees how deeply her taunts have 
 pierced her rival. Eachel's outburst of hatred 
 in this scene doubtless descended to the spiteful, 
 and it helps to illustrate the view of Macready — ■ 
 who, nevertheless, greatly admired her — that 
 " her anger was sometimes too petty and wanting 
 in loftiness." In any case, however, her anger 
 was real, intense, consuming ; and this, with the 
 wonderful charm of a delivery which could paint 
 every shade of feeKng, was enough to make her 
 greatness felt even in her least perfect characters. 
 In "Phedre," which I saw, some years later, 
 at the St. James's, her genius was by general 
 consent at its summit. The actress had scarcely 
 entered upon the scene before she possessed you. 
 Who was this so fragile, so .prostrate, that, as 
 she clung to her nurse for support, united and 
 harmonized the opposite extremes of bodily decay 
 and emotional life? In the eye so aflame 
 with mental anguish, one saw it was the 
 very strength of the passions that preyed upon 
 the frame ; it was the anger of offended Yenus 
 that consumed her with an unlawful love. She 
 was no common sufferer. The victim of a 
 goddess, she shared the supernatural dignity of 
 her persecutor. Hesitating with shame, yet 
 yearning for the relief of avowal, to QEnone, her 
 
376 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 nurse and confidante, she at length gasped forth 
 her secrets — the hatred of Yenus and the unholy 
 passion inspired for her son-in-law. With what 
 yearning sympathy of despair fell from Rachel's 
 lips the words that recalled the former ven- 
 geance of the goddess on one of her race — 
 
 " Ariane, ma soeur, de quel amour blessee 
 Voug mourutes aux bords oil vous futes laissee I " 
 
 Or who that heard and saw them can forget 
 those broken tones, those shifting looks, that 
 final abasement of the head, in which passion, 
 shame, and yet feverish joy revealed themselves 
 with equal intensity, when CEnone uttered the 
 name of Hippolyte, and the great actress ex- 
 claimed — 
 
 " C'est Toi qui I'as nomme ! " 
 
 To dwell upon Eachel's excellence in the various 
 aspects of Phedre, would be to quote the 
 tragedy almost entire. In her vain struggles 
 against the curse of Venus which inspires her 
 incestuous passion ; in the scene in which, after 
 the rumoured death of Theseus, she seeks Hip- 
 polytus, ostensibly in his own interests, but 
 reaUy through the irresistible impulse of her 
 love, and betrays her guilty passion to its object ; 
 in the scene where, having learned that Theseus 
 still survives, she stands rooted and horror-struck 
 with the fear that Hippolytus will betray her 
 secret to her husband — comment can only be 
 reiterated admiration, so powerfully was every 
 feeling shown in its general scope, yet with 
 such just precision in detail. The lines which 
 she utters in dread expectation of meeting her 
 husband and her son, may, perhaps, be singled 
 
OTJE RECENT ACTORS. 377 
 
 out as an unsurpassed example of mixed and 
 conflicting grief, shame, and infatuated love — 
 
 " Mon ^poux va paraltre et son flls avec lui, 
 Jo verrai le temoln de ma flamme adultere, 
 Observer de quel front j'ose aborder son p6re ; 
 Le coeur gros de soupira qp.'il n'a point gcoutes, 
 L'oeil bumide de pleurs par I'ingrat rebutes." 
 
 The reluctant consent of Phedre that Hippo- 
 lytus shall be charged with having tempted her 
 to infidelity is an unworthiness which Eacine's 
 ingenuity has been unable to excuse. Eachel 
 did whatever was possible in this position, by 
 letting her consent be wrung from her under the 
 stress of a tortured and distracted mind — above 
 all, under the panic into which she falls at 
 the approach of her husband and her son. This 
 mood of terror and prostration Eachel contrasted 
 in the next act, when she has learned the love 
 of Hippolytus for Aricie, with a burst of passion 
 which well deserved the hackneyed epithet, 
 " electric." Her agony at the thought of a suc- 
 cessful rival seemed to overflow in rage at destiny 
 which had ordained this terrible trial — in hatred 
 and suspicion even of her confidante, CEnone, as 
 of one less wretched than herself As she brooded 
 on the future joys of the lover, there was a 
 gleam of insane envy in her eyes, accompanied 
 by a cry of despair and fury which might have 
 expressed the torture of some savage animal 
 struck with its death-wound. And when the 
 paroxysm was somewhat spent, and CEnone 
 endeavoured to soothe her by pointing out that 
 the lovers would be separated and see each other 
 no more, the yearning but hopeless tenderness 
 of Eachel's tones, as she answered — 
 
 " lis s'aimeront tonjours," 
 
378 DUE EEOENT ACTOES. 
 
 was a transition from one emotion to another 
 in which she, with her sudden force and vividness 
 of contrast, was always felicitous. 
 
 After such admiration as has already been 
 given to Eachel in this character, the reader's 
 credulity may be taxed by the assertion that all 
 she had achieved before was surpassed by her 
 great soliloquy in the fourth act, with which the 
 words just quoted commence. In the terrible 
 review of her own guilt there was no violence. 
 The passage was delivered in a chair, with little 
 but most significant gesture, and with an awful 
 calmness, as if she had already been arraigned 
 before Minos, and were hushed in a dread self- 
 listening, whUe her lips repeated her own in- 
 dictment. But, in all this calmness, there was 
 a thrilling force, so deep, and, in a sense, so 
 delicate, that it seemed as if guilty emotion, 
 speaking to itself, dared only whisper: Long 
 after hearing them, I was haunted by those 
 accents, which seemed to die away under their 
 load of terror, when she imagined Minos in 
 hell, recognizing the guilty one as his offspring — 
 
 •' Ah, combien fremira son ombre epouvantee, 
 Lorsqu'il verra sa fille 'k ses yeux presentee." 
 
 This trance of suppressed misery was at length 
 broken by its own intensity, and when the 
 actress, with a cry of piercing supplication, 
 cried, " Pardonne ! " there was not a soul 
 amongst the audience that did not seem to plead 
 with her. The terrible malediction on QEnone, 
 delivered as if by one whose wretchedness gave 
 authority to her curse, fitly closed an act in 
 which the spectator, for a time, forgot admiration 
 in identification with the sufferer. In the last 
 
OUE RECENT ACTOKS, 379 
 
 act, Phedre has only to exonerate Hippolytus, to 
 confess her own guilt to Theseus, and to die by 
 the poison which she had taken. All this was 
 accomplished by Kachel with a despairing grief 
 and penitence that foresaw new terrors beyond 
 the grave, and robbed death of its consolation. 
 
 It may be true, as said Theophile Gautier, 
 that on the whole, in expressing the gentler 
 and more tender emotions of womanhood, 
 " Eachel fut froide comme I'antiquite ;" but she 
 could express the tortures of unhappy love and 
 of remorse, and the transports of indignation 
 with the fervour, the minuteness, and variety 
 of the romantic school, and also with the noble 
 and imposing outlines of classic art. In her, 
 beauty and grandeur of utterance and attitude 
 entered into the expression of the strongest 
 passion. There was grace in her fury, majesty 
 in her despair. She left vacant in France a 
 throne of genius which none of her successors 
 (many of them highly endowed) can hope to 
 fiU. Her death took place in January. 1858. 
 
 Though sprung from obscure parentage, she 
 gained, as it were intuitively, after her success, 
 the bearing of a social queen. Accused, and 
 perhaps not unjustly, of avarice, she had yet a 
 tender sympathy for the needy of her own pro- 
 fession. My late friend, Dr. Doran, who met 
 her repeatedly in Paris, often testified to the 
 ease and dignity of her manner in society, and 
 to the playful charm with which she would 
 wind up an evening of which she had been the 
 life, by making a quete on behalf of her less 
 fortunate brothers and sisters. 
 
380 OUR EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 GENERAL EECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Mr. Liston — Some features of his acting — Leigi. Hunt's praise 
 of him — His sensibility to pathos — An instance — His 
 death. Mb. Tykone Poweb — CharacteriBtics of his style — ■ 
 " The Irish Lion," " The Irish Attorney," " His Last 
 Legs," etc. Mb. JohnPeitt Haeley — Eatheran amusing 
 than a fine comedian — His Sir Benjamin Backbite, Acres, 
 and Sir Phenix. Clearcalse in Jerrold's " Bubbles of a Day " 
 — Wanted individuality in Shaksperian parts — The original 
 Mark Meddle in " London Assurance " — The original John 
 Blount in Knowles's " Old Maids " — The original Cox in 
 " Box and Cox " — His various qualifications as an eccentric 
 comedian— Casual meetings with him — His death. Mb. 
 Egbert Steickland— His characteristics as a comedian — 
 His Polonius — His Sir William Fondlove in " The LoYe 
 Chase" — The original Sir John Vesey in "Money" — His 
 acting in "Tom Noddy's Secret." Mr. Dayid Eees — The 
 original Stout in " Money " — His brief career — His death. 
 Mk. Benjamin Wrench — The original Dudley Smooth 
 in " Money " — His acting described — His Dudley Smooth 
 recalled at this day by Mr. Frank Archer — The wider 
 range of the latter actor. Me. James Wallace — Accepted 
 alike in high comedy and in melodrama — Also in certain 
 parts in tragedy — His Alessandro Massaroni in " The 
 Brigand " — His Don Caesar de Bazan — His Ulric in 
 " Werner" — Mr. James Anderson in the same character — 
 Wallaok as Macduff — As Martin Heywood in " The Eent 
 Day," and Raphael Doria in "Kiria Sforza" — Had some 
 resemblance to Charles Kemble's manner — His death. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bartley — Jlr. Bartley's Falstaff — His Colonel 
 Damas — His death — Mrs. Bartley, the once celebrated 
 Miss Smith, who chiefly personated the characters of Mrs. 
 Siddons — Her death. Mr. Edward William Elton — His 
 Amintor in "The Bridal" — In "The Lady of Lyons" — 
 His Eichard the Third — The Syncretic Society — Mr. Elton 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTORS. 381 
 
 attends one of its early meetings — Speaks on the difficulties 
 of advancement in the actor's profession — Lost in the 
 wreck of the Pegasus— ^Tributes to his memory — Hood's 
 address at the benefit for his family given at the Hay- 
 market. Mr. Leigh Mukkay — His position as a jeune 
 premier — His grace, fine elocution, and prepossessing 
 appearance — His Raphael Duohatlet in "The Marble 
 Heart " — Various characters — Summary of his merits — 
 Stage manager to Mr. Farren at the Olympic — Mrs. Leigh 
 Murray in Marie de Me'ranie — Leigh Murray's death — 
 His appearance in his younger days. Mrs. Chippendale. 
 
 In this chapter will be included recollections 
 of such performers as the writer saw too seldom 
 to comment upon at length. Some of these, 
 like John Listen, were actors of great celebrity. 
 His personation of " the old stager " has already 
 been noticed in the paper on the younger Charles 
 Mathews. I saw Listen in two or three other 
 parts at the Olympic Theatre, when under Vestris, 
 but the slight plots in which he figured, all 
 except that of " The Old and Young Stager," have 
 faded from my mind. Curiously, with tlae for- 
 getfulness of the pieces in which he performed, 
 I retain a lively impression of his style. He 
 was capable, in some measure, of adapting himself 
 to various parts. He could be a rustic, cockney, 
 or a gentleman; but in almost every character 
 he evinced quiet, intense self-satisfaction, and 
 ludicrous gravity in absurd sayings and doings. 
 His humour was often to seem insensible to the 
 ludicrous, and a look of utter unconsciousness 
 on his serene and elongated face would accompany 
 the utterance of some absurdity or sly jest, and 
 rouse shouts of laughter, while he stood monu- 
 mentally calm. His greatest success was in 
 "Paul Pry," produced at too early a period for 
 my recollection. Leigh Hunt, however, praises 
 him highly in a number of characters, especially 
 
382 OUR EECENT ACTORS. 
 
 in rustics. Mr. Listen had a kind and sympa- 
 thetic nature, and the cause of so much mirth 
 in others Avas easily affected at the theatre by 
 a pathetic speech or situation. I once saw him, 
 at the Haymarket Theatre, weeping copiously at 
 a touching passage in a play, I think by Miss 
 Vandenhoff. He sat in front of the dress- 
 circle, and the tears, which he made no effort to 
 conceal, streamed down his face. He died in his 
 seventieth year, in March, 1846. 
 
 Another public favourite of whom I saw but 
 little, as he played chiefly in after-pieces, was 
 the famous actor of Irish character, Mr. Tyrone 
 Power, who perished on his homeward voyage 
 from America, in the wreck of the Pegasvs, early 
 in 1841. Of his archness, his sly, wheedling 
 honJiomie, his audacity, tempered and carried 
 off by animal spirits, and his delightful enjoy- 
 ment—rather deep than boisterous — of fun, I 
 retain from my youthful days a lively impression. 
 I saw him in such pieces as " The Irish Lion," 
 " The Irish Attorney," " His Last Legs," etc., but 
 at this date I have a better recollection of liimself 
 than of the pieces in which he appeared. 
 
 Mr. John Pritt Harley always suggested to 
 me the figure of an old court jester with his cap 
 and bells. He had too little depth, too little 
 discrimination of character, to merit the name 
 of a fine comedian, but he was, beyond doubt, a 
 very amusing one. In his own airy, chattering, 
 mercurial way he overflowed with fun and self- 
 enjoyment, and if one never expected Harley to 
 lose himself in his part, one was tolerably content 
 that the part should be lost in Harley. In a 
 conception, however, that fell in with his own 
 individuality, such as Sir Phenix Clearcake ia 
 
OUK RECENT ACTORS. 383 
 
 Douglas Jerrold's "Bubbles of the Day," or in 
 Sir Benjamin Backbite in "The School for 
 Scandal,"' of whom he gave a light, rattling 
 version, instinct with the thoughtless enjoyment 
 of a satirical hit, he was capital. Amongst his 
 best displays was his performance of Acres, 
 which is in itself so farcical that no one felt his 
 extravagant comicality in it to be greatly mis- 
 placed. As to Sir Phenix Clearcake, the ci- 
 devanf auctioneer, in whom Jerrold has scarcely 
 travestied the bombastic announcements of 
 George Eobins, Harley was more at home than 
 in any other part that I recollect. He revelled, 
 when naming any house or locality, in recalling 
 those features of it which he would have empha- 
 sized in a placard, or in a verbal eulogy from 
 the auctioneer's pulpit. So much seemed use 
 and natural bias to have hidden from him his 
 own absurdities, that his fervour was delightfully 
 unconscious of excess when, in extolling the 
 charms of Elysium House, he singled out " the 
 ruins of the distant castle in a most perfect 
 state of repair, the cataracts with their terrific 
 thunder softened to the nerves of the most timid 
 lady, and the golden moon which, in that favoured 
 region, is always at the fuU." 
 
 In Shakspere, Harley was wanting in individu- 
 ality. His Touchstone in " As You Like It," his 
 Clown in "Twelfth Night," and his Bottom in 
 " A Midsummer's Night's Dream," were all droll 
 enough, and excited the laughter of the many, 
 but were wanting in all differencing traits, except 
 those which the language of the dramatist had 
 necessarily imposed upon them. He was the 
 original Mark Meddle in "London Assurance," 
 at Covent Garden, in 1841 — a character which. 
 
384 OUE EECENT ACTOES. 
 
 though fairly amusing, is only subordinate. The 
 success which Harley gained in it was chiefly 
 due to his overdone effects of facial expression. 
 In the same year, at the same theatre, he appeared 
 as John Blount, the jeweller's son, in Knowles's 
 " Old Maids." The shallow, conceited, but not 
 ill-natured personage, though of no real import- 
 ance, was tolerably suited to the performer, and 
 proved, perhaps, as diverting as any other 
 character in that not very diverting comedy. 
 He was the original Cox to Mr. Buckstone's Box 
 in the farce that, through the humours of these 
 two actors, gained so great a celebrity. If Harley 
 had little insight into character, he had such 
 gaiety, whim, vivacity, ionhomie, and such re- 
 sources (often overtaxed) of look and gesture, 
 that he was a general favourite. I had sometimes 
 a pleasant chat with this amusiag actor and 
 genial man during his engagement at the Princess's 
 Theatre under Mrs. Charles Kean. I had hoped 
 to avail myself of his hospitable invitations 
 to know him more intimately, but opportunity 
 failed — for a short time, indeed, but till too late. 
 Mr. Harley died at the age of seventy -two, in 
 the summer of 1858. 
 
 Of comedians not absolutely in the .first rank, 
 few should be spoken of with more respect than 
 Mr. Eobert Strickland, who died so long ago as 
 1845, aged forty-seven. Though not an actor 
 of subtlety, he threw great vigour and breadth 
 into all characters that lay within his range, 
 and he essayed few that were beyond it. His 
 Polonius to Charles Ivemble's Hamlet, at the 
 Haymarket, in 1835, seemed to me a sound and 
 telling, though somewhat conventional, perform- 
 ance. He was the Sir "William Fondlove in 
 
OUR RECENT ACTORS. 385 
 
 Sheridan Knowles's "Love Chase." The reju- 
 venescence of the elderly baronet under the 
 charnis of Widow Green, and his rapture in 
 extolling them, evinced by many a chuckle and 
 many a hearty slap of his thigh, smacked of 
 a well-known type of the hearty old Englishman. 
 He identified himself with it, however, with so 
 much warmth and vigour as to contribute largely 
 to the success of the comedy. Mr. Strickland 
 was also the original Sir John Vesey in the 
 comedy of " Money," whose cant and worldliness 
 he very ably brought out. One of his best 
 parts was that of the old schoolmaster in " Tom 
 ISToddy's Secret," produced in 1838. A child, 
 a foundling, apparently of the masculine sex, 
 who had been left in his charge turns out to 
 be a girl, and the schoolmaster with a failing 
 memory is thus involved in many absurd per- 
 plexities. "Tom Noddy's Secret," chiefly on 
 account of Strickland's acting, became very 
 popular. 
 
 Having just spoken of "Money," I may here 
 give a line to Mr. David Eees, who performed Stout 
 in that comedy. His fussy, panting, impetuous 
 manner, with evident relish of his vocation, made 
 a feature of the democratic politician. The career 
 of Mr. Eees was, unfortunately, short. He died 
 at Dublin, in 1848. 
 
 The name of Mr. Benjamin "Wrench, who died 
 at the age of sixty-seven, in 1843, deserves 
 mention, if only for his admirable performance 
 of Dudley Smooth in "Money." The cool 
 adventurer, with a measure of good taste and 
 savoir-faire, could have had no better representa- 
 tive. There was a slight, very slight nonchalance 
 in his manner towards the men of fashion with 
 whom he associated, which gave them to under- 
 
 2 
 
386 OUR RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 stand that he knew his value. Thus he had 
 now and then brief silences when addressed, and 
 stood as if lost in solving some problem, with a 
 ruminating movement of the mouth, as if chewing 
 the cud of his thoughts. Then, seeming to 
 remember, he would answer his interlocutor with 
 a quiet, affable smile, and faintly apologetic. He 
 had just those qualities of coolness and calculation 
 which are essential to the chevalier d'industrie, 
 with the air of quiet, careless, amiable ease which 
 implies equality with companions of a higher 
 grade and yet conciliates their liking. At the 
 present date, Mr. Frank Archer, who was probably 
 not born at the time of Wrench's death, singularly 
 recalls some of the best features of the original 
 Dudley Smooth. "Wrench, however, had a far 
 narrower range than Mr. Frank Archer, whose 
 acting, for instance, as the Eev. Julian Gray in 
 " The New Magdalen," and as the Editor in the 
 recent drama of "Christine," combines the sin- 
 cerity and force of English characterization with 
 the ease and finish of French art. 
 
 A conspicuous actor in his time was Mr. James 
 Wallaek, who had gained acceptance not only in 
 some celebrated parts in plays and comedy, such as 
 Faulconbridge, Doricourt, Don Felix, Harry Dorn- 
 ton, but also in domestic drama and melodrama. 
 He appeared also with effect in several important 
 parts in tragedy, such as Macduff, and Ulric in 
 " Werner." One of his famous characters was 
 Alessandro Massaroni in "The Brigand," for 
 which his gallant appearance and dashing style 
 won general favour. There was, perhaps, a touch 
 of theatricality in his manner, and some excess 
 in attitudinizing, which in his day were easily 
 overlooked in melodrama, but which in our day, 
 when even tameness is preferred to exaggeration, 
 
OUE EECENT ACTORS. 387 
 
 might have been more hardly dealt with. Perhaps 
 his crowning effort in melodrama, because giving 
 him the widest scope, was Don Caisar de Bazan. 
 It was a part for which his grace of person and 
 carriage, the impulsiveness of his style both in 
 comic and serious passages, signally qualified 
 him. He was, in a word, good in all characters 
 that asked for bearing and dash. He was a 
 picturesque Ulric in " Werner," assigning to that 
 astute, unscrupulous personage a prompt decision 
 and haughty grace of manner which almost 
 commanded respect. In Ulric, Wallack and 
 Mr. James Anderson were so nearly equal that 
 it would be difficult to give either the preference. 
 Wallack was, moreover, a spirited Macduff, though 
 he could not approach the rough pathos of Phelps 
 in the scene where the Thane hears of the 
 slaughter of his wife and children. Spontaneous 
 pathos, indeed, ,was hardly one of this actor's 
 gifts, though in certain characters, such as Martin 
 Heywood in " The Eent Day," he could be very 
 affecting. But one was touched chiefly by the 
 manliness and fortitude of the actor, which gave 
 even to a somewhat forced expression of feeling 
 a value perhaps cliiefly due to contrast. In 1841 
 he played, at the Haymarket, Eaphael Doria in 
 " Nina Sforza " to the Spinola of Macready and 
 the Mna of Miss Helen Faucit. His picture 
 of the ardent but faithless lover was marked 
 by the refined impulsiveness which was one 
 of his special merits, while his remorse had all 
 the eifects by which skill and practice try to 
 substitute genius. Longo intervallo, Mr. James 
 Wallack had points of likeness to Charles Kemble. 
 He was an efficient actor in many parts, excellent 
 in a few. He died in New York, in his seventy- 
 fourth year, 1864. 
 
388 OUE RECENT ACTOES. 
 
 Though I could never fully understand the 
 merits of Mr. George Bartley, his prominence as 
 a comedian entitles him to mention. The cha- 
 racter in which he gained most applause was 
 that of Falstaff. To me, his main qualification 
 for " the fat knight " seemed to be his fatness. 
 He was, to my thinking, dull and mechanical 
 in the part. One missed the sharp twinkle 
 of the eye, the vivacity, the self-enjoyment 
 that should extend even to Falstaff s unblushing 
 inventions. Mr. Bartley was probably correct 
 enough in design, but he carved out methodi- 
 cally, and fell short of impulse. He was a 
 serviceable actor in characters that did not ask 
 too much from him. That in which I liked him 
 best was General Damas in "The Lady of Lyons." 
 The shrewdness of the man, his bluff good- 
 heartedness, and his spice of temper were capi- 
 tally blended. They were the very qualities to 
 find favour with a British audience. His death 
 occurred in 1858, when he was in his sixty-fifth 
 year. The wife of Mr. Bartley was the once- 
 celebrated Miss Smith, who was considered im- 
 pressive in Lady Macbeth and other characters of 
 Mrs. Siddons. She died in 1850, at the age of 
 sixty-five. 
 
 Amongst actors of the second class, Edward 
 William Elton claims a brief record. The cha- 
 racter in wliich he most pleased me was Am in tor 
 in " The Bridal," adapted by Knowles from " The 
 Maid's Tragedy." His love for the bride who 
 had married to disgrace him had a tenderness of 
 worship which, though it approached timidity, was 
 finely carried out and chivalrous in its reverence. 
 When, on their bridal night, Evadne repulsed 
 Amintor from her chamber, the amazement of 
 the young husband was quickly blended with 
 
OUR EEOENT ACTOES. 889 
 
 even more grief for her than for himself. The 
 loss of reason in Evadne seemed to him more 
 likely than the loss of nobleness and virtue. It 
 was only before the irresistible evidence of her 
 consistent and shameless guilt, of his being made 
 an unconscious pander to the king, that his faith 
 in her gave way. Excellent, too, was the manner 
 in which, with his friend and brother-in-law, 
 Melantius, he strove by reserve and forced levity 
 to hide Evadne's disgrace. When pressed home 
 he could no longer keep it secret. He seemed 
 to enter into the feelings of the brother as if they 
 had been his own, while, with the utterance of the 
 fatal truth, the collajDse of hope and energy on the 
 very threshold of life was strikingly shown in 
 look and gesture. Under the management of 
 Macready at Drury Lane, Mr, Elton was the 
 original Beauseant of " The Lady of Lyons." His 
 firm outline of that character, plausible and heart- 
 less, though with a vein of sardonic humour, 
 formed the model from which none of his suc- 
 cessors diverged. At Drury Lane also " The 
 Patrician's Daughter" had the advantage of 
 Mr. Elton's co-operation. Considering his great 
 ability, it was much to be regretted that his 
 part was brief, and presented but few oppor- 
 tunities. The writer, when a lad, had seen him 
 as Eichard the Third in the old Queen's Theatre, 
 in Tottenham Street. So far as the young critic's 
 judgment went, it was a judicious and varied 
 performance, by no means wanting either in the 
 ironical humour and plausibility of the part or 
 in vigour. It seemed, however, to fall short of 
 Butler's version of Eichard in quick decision and 
 fire, and in the broad contrast of these qualities 
 with sinister levity and deceit. 
 
 Under Macready, both at Covent Garden and 
 
390 OUR KECENT ACTORS. 
 
 Drury Lane, Mr. Elton, though contributing 
 greatly to the completeness of the pieces pro- 
 duced, had little scope for the worthy display of 
 his aiiilities. Shortly before Macready became 
 lessee of Drury Lane, a body, previously described, 
 called " The Syncretic Association," was founded. 
 The early meetings of this body were held 
 at the house of a friend of the writer. At 
 one of these meetings Mr. Elton was present, 
 and, while speaking most modestly of his own 
 claims, set forth strikingly the hardships of the 
 performer who can only exhibit his powers by 
 the will of his manager, and who, in the con- 
 fined arena of the theatre, is often doomed to 
 obscurity because he has never had the chance 
 to succeed. The quiet and graceful earnestness 
 of Mr. Elton's manner was very winning. A 
 little talk with him before he left seemed to pre- 
 pare me for all that I afterwards heard of his 
 worth and of his mental refinement. His loss 
 in the lamentable wreck of the Pegasus, bound 
 from Edinburgh to London, in July, 1843, called 
 forth deep and wide-spread regret. Members of 
 his own profession joined with comparative 
 strangers in prompt and liberal help to Ms 
 family. The address written by Thomas Hood, 
 and spoken by Mrs. Warner, for their benefit, 
 at the Haymarket, may be noticed as one of 
 the most moving appeals ever made to public 
 sympathy. 
 
 In the interval between Mr. James Anderson — 
 who, in his early days, was perhaps the best type 
 of the romantic jeune premier — and the far more 
 realistic jeunes premiers who may be said to 
 have come in with the Eobertsonian comedy, the 
 late Mr. Leigh Murray may be said to hold a 
 mediate position, with a decided leaning to the 
 
OUR EECENT ACTOES. 391 
 
 young men of the earlier school. He made his 
 first London appearance at the Princess's, April, 
 1845, in " The Hunchback," as Sir Thomas Clif- 
 ford, to the Julia of Miss Charlotte Cusliman. On 
 this occasion, though rather under-acting his part, 
 his intelligence, feeling, grace of manner, the 
 charm of an elocution correct, though unobtrusive, 
 and his prepossessing appearance at once secured 
 him public favour, and gave promise of the time 
 when practice should further develop his powers. 
 Probably his crowning success in serious drama 
 was his performance at the Adelphi, in 1854, of 
 Eaphael Duchatlet, in the drama from the French, 
 entitled " The Marble Heart." The part played 
 by Leigh Murray was that of a young sculptor. 
 He played it with all the trusting susceptibility 
 of youthful genius to the charm and seduction of 
 mere beauty, with an infatuated abandonment to 
 his passion, an utter collapse at the worthless- 
 ness of his idol, and a desperation when, for a 
 moment, he stood at bay, that made the concep- 
 tion thoroughly intellectual and tragic. There 
 was a feminine touch in his sensibility which 
 was quite in place here. Amongst his original 
 characters may be named Sir Gervase Eokewood 
 in "Two Loves and a Life," at the Adelphi; 
 Stephen Plum in " All that Glitters is not Gold," 
 at the Olympic ; Matthew Bates in " Time Tries 
 All," at the same house; and Harry Damon in 
 "A Novel Expedient," at the Haymarket. His 
 comic acting was marked by refined vivacity, as 
 his serious acting was by refined feeling. In 
 comedy, besides being true to the human nature of 
 his part, he now and then showed a touch of 
 realism borrowed from the habits of the day ; but 
 there was always significance in it — always sug- 
 gestion of character ; it was never mere ludicrous 
 
392 OUH RECENT ACTORS. 
 
 trick or grimacing. Mr. Leigh Murray only wanted 
 more robustness of physique and of execution to 
 have been a successful actor in tragedy. -He was 
 delightful both as a comedian and, within limits 
 which he seldom or never sought to surpass, as 
 an emotional actor. 
 
 In 1850 Mr. Farren was lessee of the Olympic, 
 and Mr. Leigh Murray his stage-manager. 
 During the rehearsal of " Marie de Meranie " I 
 was much struck by the poetic subtlety and 
 practical valtie of his suggestions, by which the 
 piece much profited. And I may, perhaps, be 
 permitted to record, in connection with it, my debt 
 to Mrs. Leigh Murray for a piece of acting of 
 genuine delicacy and feeling, in which she gave 
 valuable support to Miss Helen Faucit. 
 
 Mr. Leigh Murray, who died at the age of forty- 
 nine in 1870, had, in his younger days, a slight 
 but elegant figure. His features were correct and 
 delicate, the brow being finely moulded, and 
 thrown into relief by dark and rippling hair. 
 His dark eyes, too, were large and brilliant, and 
 gave force to a face which might otherwise have 
 presented an almost feminine softness. 
 
 By the death of Mrs. Chippendale, towards the 
 end of May, 1888, we have lost one of our best 
 actresses in the class of parts assigned to Mrs. 
 Glover and Mrs. Stirling. Without being in- 
 tellectually their equal, Mrs. Chippendale was an 
 effective actress, and well versed in the traditions 
 of her characters. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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