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were then trifling away their time about the more general, though less interesting affairs of Europe, and could not guess what was the meaning of all this talk of coffee, and all the dark 1 and mysterious charges of wickedness and crime connected with the drinking of it.

"Such little things are great to little men."

But I will not press this matter any farther. Before concluding, however, I beg leave to say, that your behavi our towards Mr Coleridge has been very far from being either candid or manly. Undoubtedly you were not under the necessity of praising his poetry unless you admired it; but after the free and friendly intercourse you had with him; and after the many flattering, and probably sincere encomiums you paid his genius to his face, you were, I think, bound in honour, either to let his poetical productions pass unnoticed, or to review them yourself. It is a poor and unworthy get off, to say that CHRISTABEL was reviewed by another person. You should have boldly advanced your own opinions-for you are, with all your prejudices, an excellent judge of poetry, and could not but have seen beauty of some kind or other in a poem enthusiastically admired by Scott and Byron. Instead of this, you committed the task to a savage and truculent jacobin, the very twitching of whose countenance is enough to frighten the boldest muse into hysterics. That person was not ashamed to confess in his critique that he despised Mr Coleridge's poetry, because he hated his politics; as if no man could be admitted into the court of Apollo who did not vilify his Majesty's government. And this restless demagogue you let loose upon the friend with whom 66 you walked in the fields about Keswick," ""whose whole conversation was poetry," who stood smilingly by, while "coffee was handed to you," and whom, as he liked to receive compliments," " you were led to gratify with that kind of fare." There seems some little inconsistency of behaviour in first buttering a man all over with flattery, and then getting a raw-boned prize-fighter to belabour him with a hedge stake.

My dear fellow-God bless yougood bye-Pray do let me hear from you. You seem to have given up letter-writing entirely. What immense sheets I used to have from you long

ago! I wish to goodness I had kept them; but I had no idea when I, then an old stager, first heard you clipping the King's English in the Outer House, that you were to become so great a man, and I to remain only your affectionate friend,

TIMOTHY TICKLER.

NOTICES OF THE ACTED DRAMA IN
LONDON.
No IV.
MR KEAN.

Concluded from our last Number. Ir is a great and a very general mistake to suppose that Mr Kean's acting is deficient in dignity. So far from this being the case, dignity is perhaps the one quality it exhibits, and is distinguished by, oftener and more successfully than by any other. Not the dignity resulting from a certain given arrangement of the arms and legs on a certain given occasion, according to a set of theatrical bye laws "in that case made and provided;" but that real and sustained mental dignity which springs from lofty and intense feeling, and is allied to, and expressed by, spontaneous and highly picturesque, yet perfectly temperate, graceful, and appropriate bodily action. They must have strange notions of dignity, even in the most common-place sense of the term, who do not find it in Mr Kean's manner in dismissing Cassio from his command: "I love thee Cassio,-but never more be officer of mine;" or in his apostrophy to his name, in Richard II. "Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes

At thy great glory, &c.

or in his rebuke to Northumberland in the same play :

"No lord of thine, thou haught, insulting man," &c.

or throughout the whole performance of Richard III.

It is a vulgar error to call Mr Kean's acting undignified. It is exactly like calling the Beggar's Opera vulgar. The persons who do this are those who quarrel with the ankles of the Apollo Belvidere, because, forsooth, the turn of them does not conform to what they have chosen to consider as the standard of gentility. With them Dr Johnson is a more dignified prosewriter than Milton, because the latter could say "How d'ye do," in three words, while the former put a mask

upon nothing, and induced us to mistake it, at first sight, for something else. With them, a person who writes English is not fit to be read by Englishmen, and they scorn to understand any one who makes himself intelligible. They cannot conceive a wise man without a large wig, and think it a very undignified proceeding in a king to put a night-cap on when he goes to bed:

"A clout upon that head Where late a diadem stood !" Mr Kean must be content to do without the patronage of these kind of people, till he grows as tall as Mr Conway. In the mean time he is quite dignified enough for nature and Shakspeare, which is all that can be reasonably demanded of him.

the floor of his tent, in Richard III.; and his noble death-scene in the same play.

But we begin to find that we have got upon a topic almost too fertile for the limits in which we are compelled to treat of it. We must have done. Besides, we ought to have a little consideration for those look-warm, yet good-sort of people who think Mr Kean is " a very clever young man," but who are loath to admit that any one can be possessed of genius who has not been dead a century or two. But they should recollect that actors, unlike other votaries of the fine arts, cannot reckon upon immortality, even if they deserve it. It is but common justice, therefore, to place the laurel upon their living brows. It slips off the moment they die, and will not be persuaded to flourish upon their graves.

We shall mention some of Mr Kean's faults and deficiencies, and conclude with some general observations on a few of his principal characters.

A critic in an Edinburgh paper has, as far as we know, been the only one to remark, that Mr Kean's voice is merely defective not bad. We think this is true. His voice is greatly deficient in power and compass, and is therefore totally unfit for lofty declamation; but it has a pathos that makes up for every thing. Though its tones do not strike upon the ear like the tinkling of a rill passing over a bed of pebbles*, they sink into the heart like the sighing of the breeze among the strings of an Æolian harp. And its occasional harshness is admirably adapted to express the broken and tempestuous sounds that burst from a soul torn asunder by conflicting passions. With all its defects, it would be difficult to exchange Mr Kean's voice for one better fitted for its uses. It might be improved by additions-from that of Macready' for instance-but we would not part with one of its own notes.

It is another remarkable feature of Mr Kean's acting, that, even when he is performing Shakspeare, he affects you not so much by what he says, and by his manner of saying it, as by the effect which you see that what he says produces upon himself. From this it results, that the attention is exclusively fixed on what he is employed in at the moment you are looking at him. Or if it ever wanders from what he is doing, it is always to what he has done in the last scene or act-never to what he will do in the next. He never excites that idlest of all our mental propensities, mere curiosity, because he always fills and satisfies the mind, and leaves it no time or inclination to gaze about it. We never wish to see him in a new character; on the contrary, he always delights us most in those plays we are best acquainted with. For though he never plays a character exactly as any one predicts before hand that he will play it, yet he always best satisfies those who are best entitled to anticipate how it should be played. In fact he recreates all his characters, and adds to them all—but never in a wrong spirit. We say this without any cautious qualification whatever. And it is even more true of Shakspeare's characters than of any others. Mr Kean "gilds refined gold ;" he "paints the lily;" he "throws a perfume on the violet; and yet one is never disposed to exclaim against his additions as "wastefull and ridiculous excess." We might name a hundred examples of this. Take among others his returning to kiss the hand of Ophelia, after -Whose voice is like a rill that slips his apparently harsh treatment of her; Over the sunny peebles breathingly. his drawing figures with his sword on

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It is singular that Mr Kean, who has nearly banished the mock-heroic from our stage, should be the very person who at times exhibits the most of it. In fact, this is his grand fault. He frequently gives what is called the level-speaking of a part, in a style that would not disgrace an amateur theatre

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or school-room. count for this. The practice itself is, no doubt, to be attributed to early habits; but how it happens that he has not yet reformed it, we are at a loss to guess. Give him something to do, and he does it better than any one else could; but give him nothing, and he makes worse than nothing of it. There are parts of almost every one of his characters that he mouths even worse than " many of our players do."

Another of Mr Kean's faults (if it can be called such) is, that there is great variation in his style of acting at different times. He makes his greatest efforts, and reserves his finest powers, for the first few nights of performing a character. Afterwards he is apt to grow careless, and sink into an apparent listlessness, that gives a drawling monotony to his performance; so that persons who go to see him, for the first time, in a character that he has played frequently, are sure to come away totally disappointed and dissatisfied. But this is perhaps a defect inherent in the art itself: it is not in human nature to keep up to the height that he sometimes attains.

When we have noticed that Mr Kean has an occasional fondness for mere stage-effect, which never appears, however, except in the secondary parts of his performances, we have mentioned all the faults that occur to us. For any thing we know, he may have a great many more; but the truth is, that seeking for the defects of genius is a task to us; we do not sit down to it con amore, and therefore there is no chance of our doing it well. And it is but a sorry distinction, after all, to excel in finding fault; we are not ambitious of it. If we can discover and help to make known the good and the beautiful in what is around us, let who will search for the bad; and much good may it do them when they have found it!

We shall say a few words on the general character of four of Mr Kean's principal parts-Sir Giles Overreach, Richard II., Richard III., and Othello. SIR GILES OVERREACH, if not the greatest, is certainly the most perfect of all Mr Kean's performances. It is quite faultless. The character of Sir Giles Overreach is drawn with great force and originality. It seems to have begun in avarice-blind and

In

reckless avarice; which, at the period of the play, is become merged and lost in intense personal vanity. He has glutted himself with wealth till his very wishes can compass no more; and then, by dint of gazing at himself as the creator of his boundless stores, avarice changes into self-admiration; and he thenceforth lavishes as eagerly to feed the new passion, as he had amassed to gratify the old one. delineating this latter part of the character, the author has, by an admirable subtlety of invention, and a deep knowledge of human nature, made Sir Giles build up an idol in the person of his child, in which, by a self-deceit common to vulgar minds (for his mind is a vulgar one notwithstanding its strength), he worships his only god-himself. He is pleased to see her shining in gold and jewels, because she is his child;-he hires decayed gentry to do the menial offices of her house, because she is his child;-nay, he even anticipates with delight the moment when he shall have raised her to such a rank, that even he will be compelled to bow down before her; for, by an inconsistency which is not uncommon in real life, while he regards titles in others as empty names, in her they will appear to be substantial realities, because she is his child.

Mr Kean plays the first part of this character with a mixture of gloom and vulgarity that is admirably original and characteristic. And though we did not intend to have mentioned any particular parts of the performance, we cannot help noticing the manner in which he pronounces the titles of the person whom he wishes his daughter to marry. It is always in a tone of derision and contempt, which is but half-concealed even when he speaks to "the lord." At first sight it might appear inconsistent that Sir Giles should feel contempt for rank and titles, and yet make them confessedly the end and object of all his toils. 66 My ends-my ends are compassed! I am all over joy !" he exclaims, when he thinks he has finally arranged his daughter's marriage with "the lord." But, on reflection, it will be found to be one of the most refined parts of the performance. We have before said, that part of Sir Giles's character is a propensity to worship that in himself which in others he cannot help des

pising; and this half-contemptuous ed to Stanley, "What do they in the tone, when speaking of that which is the object of all his wishes, springs from the natural part of his character predominating over the artificial.

The last act of Mr Kean's performance of Sir Giles Overreach is, without doubt, the most terrific exhibition of human passion that has been witnessed on the modern stage. When his plans are frustrated and his plots laid open, all the restraints of society are thrown aside at once, and a torrent of hatred and revenge bursts from his breaking heart, like water from a cleft rock, or like a raging and devouring fire that, while it consumes the body and soul on which it feeds, darts forth its tongues of flame in all directions, threatening destruction to every thing within its reach. The whole of the last act exhibits a vehemence and rapidity, both of conception and execution, that perhaps cannot be surpassed.

Richard II. is a performance of a very different kind. It has always appeared to us to be a splendid misrepresentation, both of Shakspeare and of history; a misrepresentation which nothing but the transcendant talent with which it is executed could excuse, and fortunately one which nothing else could commit. It is full of the most varied and brilliant declamation, the most pure and simple pathos,-the most lofty and temperate dignity. Whatever Shakspeare and nature intended Richard II. to be, Mr Kean makes him " every inch a king." It is a very noble performance, and second only to one.

Mr Kean's Richard III., though apparently the most familiar and intelligible of all his performances, is yet the most intellectual and abstracted. The one which exhibits the loftiest and most poetical thoughts, the grandest and most original conceptions, and the most admirable and curiously felicitous embodying of those thoughts and conceptions.-There is more intellectual power required for the production of it, and it calls forth more in the witnessing of it. When Richard III. exclaims, "A thousand hearts are swelling in my bosom!" he appears to be endowed with the soul and the strength of a thousand men ;-there is more variety, and depth, and intensity of expression thrown into the words address

north?" than was ever brought together in the same space;-rage, hatred, sarcasm, suspicion, and contempt, are all audibly and intelligibly expressed in the single word north; and the battle and death are worthy to conclude the whole; they form a piece of poetry nobly conceived, and magnificently executed.

The last of Mr Kean's performances on which we shall offer any remark is that of Othello. We happened to be present when he played that character, on the night Mr Booth came out in Iago; and it is of his performance on this particular night that we shall speak; for it discovered the remarkable secret, that he could play better than he had ever done before. In fact, this performance was almost as superior to all his others, as those had been to the performances of all other actors in the same parts. This singular circumstance should be borne in mind, for it may be worth remarking on at some future time.

If we were solicitous to pass, among wise and lukewarm people, for staid and sober critics, we should perhaps suppress or disguise something of our opinions respecting Mr Kean's performance of Othello on that night. But we disdain that creeping hesitation-that cold and calculating deliberation, which dares not express all it feels, lest its impressions should not be kept in countenance by those of other people. We shall therefore say at once, that we think that performance (and we speak chiefly of the third act -though the rest was all in keeping with it) was, without comparison, the noblest exhibition of human genius we ever witnessed. It evinced a kind and degree of talent more rare and more valuable than any, or than all that is to be found in his other performances, -a talent only, and not much inferior to that which was required to write the character.* Never did we witness such vehement and sustained passion, such pure and touching beauty, such deep, and quiet, and simple pathos. The performance was worthy to have taken place in Shakspeare's own age, with he himself-he and Fletcher,

*Note. The reader will, of course, not suspect us of meaning to compare his genius with that of Shakspeare generally, but only with reference to this particular play,

Ford, and Spencer, and Sydney, for an audience. We cannot help fancying how they would have acted at the close of it. They would have gone into the green-room perhaps,-Shakspeare we are sure would, and with a smiling, yet serious and earnest delight upon their faces, have held out their hands and thanked him. Think of a shake of the hand from Shakspeare and of deserving it too!

We now conclude our imperfect notice of this great actor by observing, that if Shakspeare owes something to Kean, Kean owes almost every thing to Shakspeare. He is a gallant vessel sailing on the ocean of Shakspeare's genius. Its proud waves bear him along in triumph to the sound of their own music. He is seen, now floating silently in the moon-light that sleeps along its waves—now scudding before the breeze in all the glory of sunshine -and now tost hither and thither amid storms and darkness: but he still keeps safe above the waters-not presumptuously scorning the danger, but boldly and magnanimously subduing it.-May his voyage be prosperous and happy! is the wish of one, who, though a stranger to him, offers the foregoing sincere but feeble tribute, less with hope of pleasing and informing others, than with the desire of making some slight return for hours of mingled delight and instruction.

Covent-Garden Theatre.

ROB ROY. At length we have found a new piece, of which we can speak well with a good conscience.

On the 12th of March, an opera was produced, called ROB ROY MACGREGOR, or AULD LANGSYNE. It was completely successful.

Though we have hitherto had little to do but find fault, we hope our readers have not yet set us down as ill-natured people. If they have, they have been very unjust to us.

We are as delighted when we can find something to praise, as when an unexpected gleam of sunshine comes out upon us this gloomy weather. And if the time should ever arrive, when our office will be to give nothing but praise, we shall hail it with as sincere pleasure as we shall the promised period in which we are to have nothing but sunshine. We are sadly afraid, however (notwithstanding the prognostications of the VOL. III.

Quarterly), that the one is about as far off as the other. But still, even if our fears should prove well-grounded, we must needs confess that a false prophecy of good is better than a true one of evil.

This opera is founded on the novel of Rob Roy; and we are indebted to the great UNKNOWN for having effected what we should have thought even his genius inadequate to. He has "created a soul under the ribs of death." He has infused something of his spirit into a professor of the art of making melo-dramas; and has actually impelled him to produce an opera that is highly interesting. The story of the novel is, in fact, dramatised with considerable taste and judgment ;-a kind of judgment, too, that is not very common among our modern dramatists. The author-(so, no doubt, he chooses to be called-and as he has put us in good-humour he shall have his way)-The author has had the sense to discover that, whenever he wished the language to be impressive or humorous, he could not possibly improve upon that of the novel; and accordingly he has adopted it all through. In the songs, too, he has been modest enough tacitly to confess that Burns and Wordsworth have written better than he could. It is singular, that this wise and appropriate diffidence seems to have prevailed throughout the whole getting up of the piece for the music is selected from old Scottish melodies, instead of being composed for the occasion by Mr Bishop.

But are not the happy few, who are in the secret, smiling at our simplicity all this while, in attributing that to want of confidence, which, in reality, proceeded merely from want of time? We should not at all wonder. But however this may be, we are too much gainers by the act, to be very fastidious about the motive.

The opera is full of interest-and interest of the right kind. Not proceeding from melo-dramatic horrors, but from truth and nature. The scenes in the prison and the inn at Aberfoil are extremely well managed; and that in the Highlands, when Rob Roy appears just after the lament for his capture, is admirable. There was something very impressive in the dumb despair of his people for his loss, and their noisy and enthusiastic delight at

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