pronounced judgment. That act is the test of a tragedian. If he cannot produce a great effect there, he need never seek elsewhere for an opportunity; the greatest will find in it occasion for all his powers, and the worst will hardly miss some effects. To think of what Edmund Kean was in this act ! When shall we see again that lionlike power and lion-like grace-that dreadful culmination of wrath, alternating with bursts of agony-that Oriental and yet most natural gesture, which even in its naturalness preserved a grand ideal propriety (for example, when his joined uplifted hands, the palms being upwards, were lowered upon his head, as if to keep his poor brain from bursting) that exquisitely touching pathos, and that lurid flame of vengeance flashing from his eye? When shall we hear again those tones: "not a jot, not a jot"-" blood, Iago, blood"-" but oh, the pity of it, Iago! the pity of it"? Certainly no one ever expected that Fechter, with his sympathetic temperament and soft voice, could approach the tragic grandeur of the elder Kean; but neither could any one who had heard that his Othello was talk of the town" have supposed that this third act would fail even to move the applause of an audience very ready to applaud. In saying that he failed to arouse the audience, I am saying simply what I observed and felt. The causes of that failure may be open to discussion: the fact is irresistible; and the causes seem to me clear enough. He is incapable of representing the groundswell of passion, which by him is broken up into numerous petty waves we see the glancing foam, breaking along many lines, instead of one omnipotent and roaring surf. He is loud-and weak; irritable, not passionate. The wrath escapes in spirts, instead of flowing in one mighty tide; and after each spirt he is calm, not shaken by the tremulous subsidence of passion. This lapse from the wildness of rage to the calmness of logical "the consideration or argumentative expostulation, this absence of gradation and after-glow of passion, is the error always committed by Charles Kean and other bad tragedians, and arises from their not identifying themselves with the feeling of the part. I expected something better from Fechter. To give what Bacon calls an "ostensive instance," let me refer to the opening of the fourth act. Othello, worked upon by Iago's horrible suggestions, is so shaken by wrath and grief that he falls down in a fit. Fechter, probably because he felt that he could not render the passion so as to make this natural, omits the scene, and opens the act with Iago soliloquising over his senseless victim. In spite of the awkward attitude in which Fechter is lying, those of the audience who are not familiar with the play imagine that Othello is sleeping; and when he rises from the couch and begins to speak, he is indeed as calm and unaffected by the fit as if he had only been asleep. Another source of weakness is the redundancy of gesture and the desire to make a number of points, instead of concentrating attention on the general effect. Thus, when he is roused to catch Iago by the throat, instead of an accumulation of threats, he jerks out a succession of various threats, looking away from Iago every now and then, and varying his gestures, so as to destroy all sense of climax. If it is a fact-and I appeal to the audience as witnesses-that we do not feel deep pity for the noble Moor, and do not sympathise with his irrational yet natural wrath, when Fechter plays the part, surely the reason can only be that the part is not represented naturally? Now much of this, I repeat, is the necessary consequence of his personality. He could not represent it naturally even if he conceived the part truly; and, as already intimated, the conception is not true. Certain points of the conception have been touched on; I will now specify two others. The unideal (consequently unnatu ral) representation may be illustrated by the manner in which he proposes, instead of ordering, Cassio's death. Shakespeare's language is peremptory : "Within these three days let me hear thee say That Cassio's not alive." The idea in his mind is simply that He Cassio has deserved death. does not trouble himself about the means; and surely never thinks of murder. A general who orders a soldier to be hung, or shot, without trial, is not a murderer. Yet Fechter proposes a murder, and proposes it with a sort of subdued hesitation, as if conscious of the crime. He thus completely bears out Rymer's sarcasm: "He sets Iago to the fighting part, to kill Cassio; and chuses himself to murder the silly woman, his wife, that was like to make no resistance.' The second illustration which may be noticed, is the perverse departure from the obvious meaning of the text, which, in his desire for originality and naturalness in the business, makes him destroy the whole art of Shakespeare's preparation, and makes the jealousy of Othello seem preposterous. One defect in the play which has been felt by all critics, is the rapidity with which Othello is made to believe in his wife's guilt. Now, allowing for the rapidity which the compression necessary to dramatic art renders almost inevitable, I think Shakespeare has so exhibited the growth of the jealousy, that it is only on reflection that the audience becomes aware of the slight grounds on which the Moor is convinced. It is the actor's part to make the audience feel this growth -to make them go along with Othello, sympathising with him, Fechter and believing with him. deliberately disregards all the plain meaning of the text, and makes the conviction sudden and preposterous. It is one of his new arrangements that Othello, when the tempter begins his diabolical insinuation, shall be seated at a table, reading and signing papers. When first I heard of this bit of "business," it struck me as admirable; and indeed I think so still; although the manner in which Fechter executes it is one of those lamentable examples in which the dramatic art is subordinated to serve theatrical effect. That Othello should be seated over his papers, and should reply to Iago's questions while continuing his examination, and affixing his signature, is natural; but it is not natural-that is, not true to the nature of Othello and the situation for him to be dead to the dreadful import of Iago's artful suggestions. Let us hear Shakespeare. Othello and Iago enter as Cassio takes leave of Desdemona; whereupon Iago says, meaning to be heard, "Ha! I like not that!" Othello. What dost thou say? lago. Nothing, my lord: or if I know not what. Othello. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife? Iago. Cassio, my lord? no sure, I can- That he would steal away, so guilty like Othello. I do believe 'twas he. I have been talking with a suitor here, * RYMER: A Short View of Tragedy, its original excellency and corruption. 1693. P. 93. This most amusing attack on Othello reads very often like sound criticism, when one has just witnessed the performances at the Princess's Theatre. 1861.] Fechter in Hamlet and Othello. These short evasive sentences are subtly expressive of the state of Othello's mind; but Fechter misrepresents them by making Othello free from all misgiving. He "toys with her curls," and treats her as a father might treat a child who was asking some favour which could not be granted, yet which called for no explicit refusal. If the scene stood alone, I should read it differently; but standing as it does between the two attempts of Iago to fill Othello's mind with suspicion, the meaning is plain enough. He has been made uneasy by Iago's remarks; very naturally, his bearing towards his A wife reveals that uneasiness. vague feeling, which he dares not shape into a suspicion, disturbs him. She conquers him at last by her winning ways; and he vows that he will deny her nothing. If this be the state of mind in which the great scene begins, it is obviously a serious mistake in Fechter to sit down to his papers, perfectly calm, free from all idea whatever of what Iago has suggested; and answering Iago's insidious questions as if he did not divine their import. So clearly does Othello divine their import, that it is he, and not Iago, who expresses in words their meaning. It is one of the artifices of Iago to make his victim draw every conclusion from premises which are put before him, so that, in the event of detection, he can say, "I said nothing, I made no accusation." All he does is to lead the thoughts of Othello to the conclusion desired. The scene thus begins: Jago. My noble lord Othello. What dost thou say, Iago? Now Iago perfectly well knew this, Othello. He did from first to last: Why dost thou ask? Iago. But for the satisfaction of my Properly, Iago's answer should end 753 at the word thought; that is the Is Iago. I did not think he had been ac- Othello. Oh yes; and went between us Iago. Indeed? Othello. Indeed? Ay, Indeed: Dis- he not honest? Iago. Honest, my lord? It is difficult to comprehend how Othello. Think, my lord? By heaven he echoes me! As if there were some monster in his thought Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something; I heard thee say but now, thou lik'dst not that When Cassio left my wife: what didst And when I told thee he was of my counsel Indeed? And didst contract and purse thy brow As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain Fechter will perhaps reply that this "I know thou'rt full of love and honesty, The worst of words," it is impossible to suppose that his mind has not already shaped the worst suspicions, which he wishes Iago to confirm. Here, I affirm, the plain sense of Shakespeare is not only too clearly indicated to admit of the most ingenious reading in another sense, but any other reading would destroy the dramatic art with which the scene is conducted, because it would destroy those indications of the growth of the feeling, which feeling, being really founded on Iago's suggestions and the smallest possible external evidence, becomes preposterous when the evidence alone is appealed to. Now, Fechter so little understands this play, after his twenty years' study, as not only to miss such broadly marked indications, but commits the absurdity of making Othello suddenly convinced, and by what? by the argument of Iago, that Desdemona deceived her father, and may therefore deceive her husband! But that argument (setting aside the notion of a character like Othello being moved by merely intellectual considerations) had already been forcibly presented to his mind by her father: "Look to her, Moor, have a quick eye to see: She did deceive her father, and may thee." Whereupon he replies, "My life upon her faith." And so he would reply to Iago, had not his mind already been filled with distrust. Fechter makes him careless, confident, unsuspicious, until Iago suggests her deception of her father, and then at once credulous and overcome. This may be the art of the Porte St Martin, or the Variétés; it is not the art of Shakespeare. It is unnecessary to pursue this subject, or to adduce other illustrations of misconception, for I have already declared my conviction that with the most perfect conception Fechter could not adequately represent the character of Othello; and for his own sake, no less than for ours, it is to be hoped that he will take warning in time, and not attempt tragic parts again. So accomplished an actor, with so charming a physique, will be a great gain to our stage, if a misguided ambition, similar to that which makes all baritones try to be tenors, does not lead him into such mistakes as this of Othello. Let him be assured of one thing, that the success of his Othello is due entirely to the reputation created by his Hamlet, and to the scenery, dresses, and novelty of the 'business," which excite a temIf he suffer porary curiosity. panegyrists and flatterers to delude him into the idea that his acting of Othello moved the audience, or satisfied the judgment of those whose judgment finally determines an actor's reputation, he will rapidly lose the high position he has won. This is the language of a sincere admirer. A MONTH WITH ABOUT the middle of last September we found ourselves at New York, with a few weeks' holiday in hand. To stay there was impossible. We had "done" the Hudson, visited the theatres (at all of which, by the by, the English character was vulgarised and held up to ridicule), society was "out of town," Broadway given up to the tender mercies of irregulars," dressed in every variety of costume, suggestive rather of the army in a transpontine melodrama, than of one enlisted to serve under the banner that "makes tyranny tremble." The New York Herald, a paper which all Americans read, most abuse, and none believe, daily recounted, in glowing terms, exciting details of great battles fought, where generally one man was reported to have been killed, and two slightly wounded, on the side of the Federalists; while large bodies of the Confederates were daily made to bite the dust. Another newspaper depicted the miseries which the Southern army was encountering from pestilence, famine, and rags. A third assured its readers that a strong Union feeling was growing up in the South. A fourth was authorised to state, upon the authority of a "reliable gentleman," that the "arch traitor," Jeff. Davis, had "really been dead" some weeks; while a friend of ours informed us one morning after breakfast, that he had gone to the trouble of counting the number of the enemy killed since the commencement of the war, and found it to be, according to a leading journal, 1,200,000. On the other hand, we learnt that Lexington had fallen; that the Rebel army was nearer to the capital than it was two months previously; that Kentucky was almost lost; that Missouri had passed an ordinance of secession; and that President Davis was in excellent We therefore returned the documents whence they came. How we passed the Federal outposts, it is unnecessary to mention; suffice to say, that the first indication we had of our approach to the Secessionist army was finding a bridge, by which we had hoped to cross the Green River in Kentucky, burnt down to the water's edge, and the débris still smouldering on the banks. The country-people informed us that a detachment of Southern troops had been encamped here for some days, and had "done the job at the bridge yesterday." From the way in which these good folks spoke of the soldiers, assuring us that they did no harm, but paid for what they wanted in gold and silver, it was quite plain that the allegiance of our informants was not given to Mr Lincoln's Government, and that we had fairly entered the forbidden "insurrectionary States." Moreover, we were reminded by a slight incident that |