sarcastic expression of this passage is quite inconsistent with the essential character of Constance, and most inappropriate to the occasion upon which it is delivered. Here we must again insist upon the strict consequentiality and the sterling policy of the heroine's behaviour throughout this agitated scene. Her ex pressions of indignation and her appeals to heaven, are not only natural in themselves, but the inspiring instinct of maternal solicitude teaches her, that friendless and powerless as she is otherwise left, they are the only instruments, the only weapons, remaining to her. Her one sole chance of redress now lies in the effect which her indignant logic may yet work upon the sensibility to shame and guilt that lingers in the breasts of some at least of her selfish allies, and which, it is barely possible, may move them to recede from their last disgraceful compact. Her invocation, in itself so sublimely fervent and impressive Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings! Let not the hours of this ungodly day Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset, takes the awful character of prophecy from the almost immediate appearance of the legate, in whose mission there comes to her aid an accidental indeed, and indifferent, but a most powerful ally. She is now encouraged to strain every nerve of her intellect and her eloquence in enforcing the cardinal's denunciation against her principal oppressor, and his menace to the most potent of her treacherous friends. The dauphin, whose sense of honour, throughout the piece, is represented as more susceptible than his father's, is the first to shew signs of retracting their late political engagements. Upon this relenting emotion she eagerly lays hold; and in opposition to the entreaty of his bride, the Lady Blanch, who kneels to beg that he will not turn his arms against her uncle, makes the fervent religious adjuration D Oh, upon my knee, Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, And to Blanch's last appeal Now shall I see thy love. What motive may Be stronger with thee than the name of wife? she rejoins by urging triumphantly the noble moral sentiment That which upholdeth him that thee upholds, His honour: oh, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour! And on Philip's consenting to break the treaty, she concludes with the grateful exclamation Oh, fair return of banish'd majesty ! Where, we would ask, is the tone of sarcasm in all this? The slightest touch of it might have defeated the very object, dearest to her on earth, for which she was pleading, by checking and offending those "compunctious visitings" the first symptoms of which she was alert to observe and to nourish in the breasts of her unfaithful friends. Sarcasm from her lips, at such a moment! No, indeed-Constance, and Shakespeare, know too well what they are about. 2. ACTING OF THE LADY CONSTANCE, QUEEN ELINOR, THE LADY BLANCH, AND LADY FAULCONBRIDGE; BY MISS HELEN FAUCIT, MISS ELLIS, MISS FAIRBROTHER, AND MRS. SELBY. [February 18th, 1843.] MORE interesting even than Mrs. Siddons's estimate of the character of Constance, are her observations on the difficulties which its personation presents to the actress, and the means which she herself so earnestly studied and applied, to overcome them. These observations, and these efforts, while they well deserve the attention and zealous emulation of every aspirant to the representation of this arduous part, no less demand the serious consideration of every one who shall venture to criticise the performance. Let the personation of Constance be attempted by whomsoever it may, the critic should ever bear in mind these memorable words from the pen of her deceased representative:—" Her gorgeous affliction, if such an expression is allowable, is of so sublime and so intense a character, that the personation of its grandeur, with the utterance of its rapid and astonishing eloquence, almost overwhelms the mind that meditates its realization, and utterly exhausts the frame which endeavours to express its agitations." It is, then, under a deep impression of the arduousness of this character, even to the most gifted and experienced performer, and of the indulgence especially due to every young actress to whose lot it falls to assume a part so lofty, so interesting, and so difficult, that we shall offer a few remarks on the acting of the lady who now fills it on the boards of Drury-Lane, and who may fairly be regarded at present as the sole representative of Shakespeare's Lady Constance on the metropolitan stage. What strikes us first of all in Miss Helen Faucit's personation, is, her clear and perfect conception that feeling, not pride, is the mainspring of the character; that the dignity of bearing natural to and inseparable from it, and which the advantage of a tall, graceful figure enables this actress to maintain with little effort, is at the same time an easy, unconscious dignity, quite different from that air of self-importance, that acting of majesty, which has been mistakenly ascribed to it by those who have attributed to the heroine an ambitious nature. She makes us feel throughout, not only the depth, the tenderness, and the poetry of the maternal affection, dwelling in a vivid fancy and a glowing heart; but is ever true to that " constant, loving, noble nature," which is not more sensitive to insult from her foes and falsehood from her friends, than it is ever ready to welcome with fresh gratitude and confidence the return of better feelings in any who have injured her. That intimate association, in short, of gracefulness with force, and of tenderness with dignity, which this lady has so happily displayed in other leading characters of Shakespeare, is her especial qualification for this arduous part-the most arduous, we believe, of all the Shakespearian female characters-for this plain reason, that while it is one of those exhibiting the highest order of powers, the range of emotions included in it is the widest, and the alternations, the fluctuations, between the height of virtuous indignation and contempt, and the softest depth of tenderness, are the most sudden and the most extreme. The principle of contrast, in fact-that great element of the romantic drama, as of all romantic art-which Shakespeare delighted to employ, not only in opposing one character to another, but in developing each character individually, is carried to the highest pitch by the trials to which the course of the dramatic incident subjects the sensitive, passionate, and poetic-the noble and vigorous nature of Constance. . Here, again, we turn, for an illustration, to Mrs. Siddons's performance of the part. It seems well established, by the concurring testimony of all who preserve distinct recollections of her acting, that on a general estimate of her tragic powers, it was in gracefully commanding force that she so wonderfully excelled, and in the expression of tenderness that she was often felt to be deficient,-a defect which must have been especially apparent in her personation of those Shakespearian characters wherein exquisite feeling is combined with extraordinary vigour. It has not surprised us, therefore, in conversing with persons on whose judgment and candour we can rely, and who have repeatedly witnessed the great actress's representation of The Lady Constance, to find that in the passages of melting tenderness which abound in the part, a want of adequate expression was very sensibly felt. Majestic and terrible, then, as her performance of the indignant scenes undoubtedly was, yet it must have failed, for want of sufficient contrast, to derive all that startling boldness of relief which the dramatist himself has given to those electric passages. Labouring, too, under the misconception already pointed out, as to the essential qualities of the character, it would be but natural that, in the scenes where Constance and her son stand alone, deserted and betrayed, amid their treacherous friends and their triumphant enemies, Mrs. Siddons, properly making the impulse of resentful scorn the immediate spring of her vituperation, should have failed to clear its expression wholly from her brow in those passages wherein the action requires her to turn it upon her child. We think it one of the most notable merits in the representation of the part by the lady who now personates it, that so far from letting the indignant excitement cast for one moment the slightest shade upon her brow or harshness into her tone when turning to the boy, she follows undeviatingly the poet's indication; and, in like manner as he has made the first effusion poured out by Constance on hearing her abandonment, one of maternal grief and tenderness only, so amidst her subsequent bursts of indignant reproach and fiery denunciation, in every look and word which the present actress addresses to Arthur, the afflicted mother seems to find relief from those effusions of bitterness, as repugnant to her nature as they are withering in their power, by melting into double tenderness over the beauties and misfortunes of her child. This, we repeat, seems to us to be one of the very happiest features in Miss Faucit's personation of The Lady Constance. Thus it is, for example, that in the first scene with Elinc he renders with such perfect truth and beauty the uisitely characteristic pas sage: |