Are tricks of custom: but in a man that's just, Now, if there is anything of superficial gaiety or heedlessness in this, "it is not written in the bond : the breaks and stops, the pursing and knitting of the brow together, the deep internal working of hypocrisy under the mask of love and honesty, escaped us on the stage. The same observation applies to what he says afterwards of himself: Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess, As I confess it is my nature's plague To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are not. The candour of this confession would hardly be extorted from him, if it did not correspond with the moody dissatisfaction, and suspicious, creeping, cat-like watchfulness of his general appearance. The anxious suspense, the deep artifice, the collected earnestness, and, if we may so say, the passion of hypocrisy, are decidedly marked in every line of the whole scene, and are worked up to a sort of paroxysm afterwards, in that inimitably characteristic apostrophe : O Grace! O Heaven forgive me! Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense? God be wi' you: take mine office. O wretched fool, That lov'st to make thine honesty a vice! O monstrous world! take note, take note, O world! To be direct and honest, is not safe. I thank you for this profit, and, from hence, I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence. This burst of hypocritical indignation might well have called forth all Mr. Kean's powers, but it did not. We might multiply passages of the same kind, if we had time. The philosophy of the character is strikingly unfolded in the part where Iago gets the handkerchief : -This may do something. The Moor already changes with my poisons, But with a little act upon the blood, Burn like the mines of sulphur. We here find him watching the success of his experiment, with the sanguine anticipation of an alchemist at the moment of projection. -I did say so: Look where he comes [Enter OTHELLO]. Not poppy nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday. Again he says: -Work on, My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught; All guiltless meet reproach. So that, after all, he would persuade us that his object is only to give an instructive example of the injustice that prevails in the world. If he is bad enough when he has business on his hands, The Moor already changes with my poison :- he is still worse when his purposes are suspended, and he has only to reflect on the misery he has occasioned. His indifference when Othello falls in a trance, is perfectly diabolical, but perfectly in character : Iago. How is it, General? Have you not hurt your head? Iago. I mock you! no, by heaven, &c. The callous levity which Mr. Kean seems to consider as belonging to the character in general, is proper here, because Iago has no feelings connected with humanity; but he has other feelings and other passions of his own, which are not to be trifled with. We do not, however, approve of Mr. Kean's pointing to the dead bodies after the catastrophe. It is not in the character of the part, which consists in the love of mischief, not as an end, but as a means, and when that end is attained, though he may feel no remorse, he would feel no triumph. Besides, it is not the text of Shakespeare. Iago does not point to the bed, but Ludovico bids him look at it: "Look on the tragic loading of this bed," &c. We have already noticed that Edmund the Bastard is like an episode of the same character, placed in less difficult circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it. MR. KEAN'S RICHARD II. Examiner, March 19, 1815. WE are not in the number of those who are anxious in recommending the getting-up of Shakespeare's plays in • In Young's tragedy, The Revenge. general, as a duty which our stage-managers owe equally to the author and the reader of those wonderful com positions. The representing the very finest of them on the stage, even by the best actors, is, we apprehend, an abuse of the genius of the poet, and even in those of a secondrate class, the quantity of sentiment and imagery greatly outweighs the immediate impression of the situation and story. Not only are the more refined poetical' beauties and minuter strokes of character lost to the audience, but the most striking and impressive passages, those which having once read we can never forget, fail comparatively of their effect, except in one or two rare instances indeed. It is only the pantomime part of tragedy, the exhibition of immediate and physical distress, that which gives the greatest opportunity for "inexpressible dumb-show and noise," which is sure to tell, and tell completely, on the stage. All the rest, all that appeals to our profounder feelings, to reflection and imagination, all that affects us most deeply in our closets, and in fact constitutes the glory of Shakespeare, is little else than an interruption and a drag on the business of the stage. Segnius per aures demissa, &c. Those parts of the play on which the reader dwells the longest, and with the highest relish in the perusal, are hurried through in the performance, while the most trifling and exceptionable are obtruded on his notice, and occupy as much time as the most important. We do not mean to say that • Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ Ipse sibi tradit spectator.—HORACE, Ars Poetica. A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen. CONINGTON. there is less knowledge or display of mere stage-effect in Shakespeare than in other writers, but that there is a much greater knowledge and display of other things, which divide the attention with it, and to which it is not possible to give an equal force in the representation. Hence it is, that the reader of the plays of Shakespeare' is almost always disappointed in seeing them acted; and, for our own parts, we should never go to see them acted, if we could help it. Shakespeare has embodied his characters so very distinctly, that he stands in no need of the actor's assistance to make them more distinct; and the representation of the character on the stage almost uniformly interferes with our conception of the character itself. The only exceptions we can recollect to this observation, are Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kean-the former of whom in one or two characters, and the latter, not certainly in any one. character, but in very many passages, have raised our imagination of the part they acted. It may be asked, then, why all great actors choose characters from Shakespeare to come out in; and again, why these become their favourite parts? First, it is not that they are able to exhibit their author, but that he enables them to show themselves off. The only way in which Shakespeare appears to greater advantage on the stage than common writers is, that he stimulates the faculties of the actor more. If he is a sensible man, he perceives how much he has to do, the inequalities he has to contend with, and he exerts himself accordingly; he puts himself at full speed, and lays all his resources under contribution; he attempts more, and makes a greater number of brilliant failures; he plays off all the tricks of his art to mimic the poet; he does all he can, and bad is often the best. We |