The Kembles and their contemporariesBrander Matthews, Laurence Hutton 1885 - Actors |
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acting actor actress admiration appearance applause audience beauty Boaden chap character Charles Kemble CHARLES LAMB Charles Mathews charm comedian comedy comic Cooke Cooke's Cooper countenance Covent Garden daughter dignity drama Drury Lane Dublin effect Elliston engagement excellence eyes face Falstaff farce farewell father feeling friends Garrick gave genius gentleman George George Frederick Cooke grace Hamlet Haymarket heart humor Iago John Kemble John Philip Kemble Jordan Kean Kean's Kemble's King laugh LAURENCE HUTTON LEIGH HUNT Liston London look Lord manager manner Mathews ment Miss Farren Miss O'Neill Munden nature never night Norval Othello passion perfect performance person play players Reminiscences Richard Richard III Robert William Elliston Romeo Roscius scene season seemed seen Shakspere's Siddons spirit stage success Tate Wilkinson theatre theatrical tion told took tragedy tragic voice W. C. MACREADY William wonderful words York
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Page 24 - Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell ; Or of those hags who at the witching time Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell ; Cold horror drinks its blood ! Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, Murder'd by cruel uncle's mandate fell : Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, Ev'n so, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart.
Page 58 - Mrs. Siddons promised she would do herself the honour of acting his favourite part for him; but many circumstances happened to prevent the representation of King Henry the Eighth during the Doctor's life.
Page 88 - For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And, with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing.
Page 24 - As when a child, on some long winter's night, Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees, With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees, Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell; Or of those hags who at the witching time Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell; Cold horror drinks its blood!
Page 57 - Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays ; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the characters of Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare.
Page 40 - I am very glad she is thus patronised, since Mrs. Abington, and so many frail fair ones, have been thus noticed by the great. She behaved with great propriety ; very calm, modest, quiet, and unaffected. She has a very fine countenance, and her eyes look both intelligent and soft. She has, however, a steadiness in her manner and deportment by no means engaging. Mrs. Thrale, who was there, said, — " Why, this is a leaden goddess we are all worshipping! however, we shall soon gild it.
Page 45 - Yet I was filial to my humble parents. But did my sire surpass the rest of men As thou excellest all of womankind?
Page 176 - This was the light into which Betterton threw this scene, which he opened with a pause of mute amazement ; then rising slowly to a solemn, trembling voice, he made the ghost equally terrible to the spectator as to himself...
Page 66 - Save for the gallantry of man, In lovelier woman's cause. Fair as some classic dome, Robust and richly graced, Your Kemble's spirit was the home Of genius and of taste. Taste, like the silent dial's power, That when supernal light is given, 28 THE POETICAL ALBUM. Can measure inspiration's hour, And tell its height in heaven.
Page 153 - Her joyous parts — in which her memory now chiefly lives — in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line, to make up the music — yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather rend, not without its grace and beauty — but, when she had declared her sister's history to be a " blank,"...