of gaiety, with the scornful spirit of his Comic Muse, which always laboured-invita Minerva-against the grain. Cato was another of those parts for which Mr. Kemble was peculiarly fitted by his physical advantages. There was nothing for him to do in this character, but to appear in it. It had all the dignity of still-life. It was a studied piece of classical costume-a conscious exhibition of elegantly disposed drapery, that was all: yet, as a mere display of personal and artificial grace, it was inimitable. It has been suggested that Mr. Kemble chiefly excelled in his Roman characters, and among others in Brutus. If it be meant, that he excelled in those which imply a certain stoicism of feeling and energy of will, this we have already granted; but Brutus is not a character of this kind, and Mr. Kemble failed in it for that reason. Brutus is not a stoic, but a humane enthusiast. There is a tenderness of nature under the garb of assumed severity; an inward current of generous feelings, which burst out, in spite of circumstances, with bleeding freshness; a secret struggle of mind, and disagreement between his situation and his intentions; a lofty inflexibility of purpose, mingled with an effeminate abstractedness of thought, which Mr. Kemble did not give. In short, we think the distinguishing excellence of his acting may be summed up in one word-intensity; in the seizing upon some one feeling or idea, in insisting upon it, in never letting it go, and in working it up, with a certain graceful consistency, and conscious grandeur of conception, to a very high degree of pathos or sublimity. If he had not the unexpected bursts of nature and genius, he had all the regularity of art; if he did not display the tumult and conflict of opposite passions in the soul, he gave the deepest and most permanent interest to the uninterrupted progress of individual feeling; and in embodying a high idea of certain characters, which belong rather to sentiment than passion, to energy of will, than to loftiness or to originality of imagination, he was the most excellent actor of his time. This praise of him is not exaggerated: the blame we have mixed with it is not invidious. We have only to add to both, the expression of our grateful remembrances and best wishes-Hail, and farewell! End of A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE These essays, contributed to The London Magazine in 1820, have never been republished in their original form. A great part of them was included in the so-called 'second edition' of A View of the English Stage (see the bibliographical note to that work, ante, p. 170), but the essays were cut up and re-arranged, and many passages were left out altogether. In the present edition, all the essays are printed verbatim from The London Magazine, except that a part of Essay No. VI. and the whole of Essay No. X., being plainly the work of another hand, have been omitted. ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM THE LONDON MAGAZINE, 1820 No. I [January, 1820. In commencing our account of the drama for the year 1820, and turning our eye back, as far as our personal recollection reaches, towards the conclusion of the last century, we do not think we should be justified, by the customary topics of comparison, or privileges of criticism, in making a general complaint of the degeneracy of the stage. Within our remembrance, at least, it has not fallen off to any alarming degree, either in the written or the acted performances. It has changed its style considerably in both these respects, but it does not follow that it has altogether deteriorated: it has shifted its ground, but has found its level. With respect to the pieces brought out, we have got striking melo-drames for dull tragedies; and short farces are better than long ones of five acts. The semper varium et mutabile of the poet, may be transferred to the stage, the inconstant stage,' without losing the original felicity of the application:-it has its necessary ebbs and flows, from its subjection to the influence of popular feeling, and the frailty of the materials of which it is composed, its own fleeting and shadowy essence and cannot be expected to remain for any great length of time stationary at the same point, either of perfection or debasement. Acting, in particular, which is the chief organ by which it addresses itself to the mind;-the eye, tongue, hand by which it dazzles, charms, and seizes on the public attention-is an art that seems to contain in itself the seeds of perpetual renovation and decay, following in this respect the order of nature rather than the analogy of the productions of human intellect,-for whereas in the other arts of painting and poetry, the standard works of genius being permanent and accumulating, for awhile provoke emulation, but, in the end, overlay future efforts, and transmit only their defects to those that |