Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

lii

THIS

Original Actors in Shakspeare's Dramas.

LAURENCE FLETCHER.

who appeared at the head of the personage, King's Servants, in the royal license of 1603, has escaped the notice of the historian of our stage; and, in truth, we know scarcely anything of him. Fletcher was, probably, of St. Saviour's, Southwark, where several families of that name resided, as may be learnt from the parish register. He was placed before Shakspeare and Richard Burbadge in king James's license, as much, perhaps, by accident as design. Augustine Phillips, when he made his will, in May, 1605, bequeathed to his fellow, Laurence Fletcher, twenty shillings. And this fellow of Phillips and of Shakspeare was buried in St. Saviour's church, on the 12th of September, 1608. What plays of our author's he performed in is uncertain, nor does it appear whether he excelled in tragedy or comedy.

EDMOND SHAKSPEARE,

THE brother of the poet, was a performer at the Globe, lived in St. Saviour's, and was buried in the church of that parish. The entry in the register runs thus: "1607, December 31, [was buried] Edmond Shakspeare, a player, in the church." Nothing more is known of him; stimulated, most probably, by his brother's success, he came to the metropolis and attached himself to the theatre; but he died young, and seems to have made little progress in his pro

fession.

RICHARD BURBADGE,

himself again, until the play was done. He had all
the parts of an excellent orator, animating his words
with speaking, and speech with action; his auditors
being never more delighted than when he spake,
nor more sorry than when he held his peace; yet,
even then, he was an excellent actor still; never
failing in his part when he had done speaking, but
with his looks and gesture maintaining it still to the
height." The testimony of sir Richard Baker is
to the same purpose; he pronounces him to have
been "such an actor as no age must ever look to
see the like." In Philpot's Additions to Camden's
Remains we find an epitaph on this tragedian more
concise than even that on Ben Jonson, being only
"Exit Burbadge." The following also appears in a
manuscript in the British Museum:

"Epitaph on Mr. Richard Burbage, the Player.
"This life's a play, scean'd out by natures arte,
Where every man hath his allotted parte.
This man hathe now (as many more can tell)
Ended his part, and he hath acted well.
The play now ended, think his grave to be
The detiring howse of his sad tragedie;
Where to give his fame this, be not afraid,
Here lies the best tragedian ever plaid."

JOHN HEMINGES

Is said by Roberts, the player, to have been a tragedian, and, in conjunction with Condell, to have followed the business of printing, but his authority is doubtful. As early as November, 1597, he appears to have been the manager of the Lord-cham berlain's Company. This station, for which bis prudence qualified him, he held, probably, during forty years. There is reason to believe that he was THE most celebrated tragedian of our author's originally a Warwickshire lad, a shire which bas time, was the son of James Burbadge, who was produced so many players and poets; the Buralso an actor, and, perhaps, a countryman of Shak-badges, the Shakspeares, the Greens, and the speare's. He lived in Holy well-street, in the parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch; from which it may be supposed that he originally played at the Curtain Theatre, which was in that neighbourhood. It is singular that he should have resided, from the year 1600 to his death, in a place so distant from the Blackfriars playhouse, and still further from the Globe, in which theatres he acted during the whole of that time. By his wife, Winifred, he had four daughters, two of whom were baptized by the name of Juliet. His fondness for the name of Juliet, perhaps, arose from his having been the original Romeo in our author's play. Burbadge died about the 13th of March, 1619, and was buried in the church of St. Leonard, Shoreditch. His will is still extant in the Prerogative Office, but it contains nothing remarkable. Richard Burbadge is introduced in person in an old play called The Returne from Parnassus, and instructs a Cambridge scholar how to play the part of King Richard the Third, in which character Burbadge was greatly admired. That be represented this part is proved by bishop Corbet, who, in his Iter Boreale, speaking of his host at Leicester, tells us,

"When he would have said, king Richard died,
And call'd a horse, a horse, he Burbage cry'd.""

He, probably, also enacted the characters of King John, Richard II. Henry V. Timon, Brutus, CorioJanus, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello. He was one of the principal sharers or proprietors of the Globe and Blackfriars theatres; and was of such eminence, that in a letter, preserved in the British Museum, written in the year 1613, the actors at the Globe are called Burbadge's Company. Flecknoe writes thus of him in his Short Discourse of the English Stage, 1664: He was a delightful Proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his parts, and putting off himself with his cloaths, as he never (not so much as in the tyring-house) assumed

Harts. Of Heminges' cast of characters little is known; there is only a tradition that he was the first representative of Falstaff. He was adopted by king James, on his accession, as one of his theatrical servants; and was ranked the fifth in the royal license of 1603. He had the honour to be remembered in Shakspeare's will, and was the first editor of Shakspeare's works. He died at the age of seventy-five, in the parish of St. Mary, Aldermanbury; and was buried, according to the register, on the 12th of October, 1630. His will, still preserved, devises considerable property, and provides various kind tokens of remembrance for his relations and fellows.

AUGUSTINE PHILLIPS

WAS placed next to Burbadge in the royal license of 1603. He was an author as well as an actor, and left behind him some ludicrous rhymes, which were entered in the Stationers' books in 1593, and were entitled The Jigg of the Slippers. He is supposed to have performed characters in low life. Whatever he might have been in the theatre, he was certainly a respectable man in the world. He amassed considerable property. He died at Mortlake, in Surrey, in May, 1605, and was buried, at his dying request, in the chancel of the church of that parish, leaving his wife, Anne, executrix of his will; with this proviso, however, that if she married again, John Heminges, Richard Burbadge, William Sly, and Timothie Whithorne, should be his executors. His widow did marry again, and John Heminges immediately proved the will, on the 16th of May, 1607, and assumed the trust which Phillips had reposed in him.

WILLIAM KEMPE

WAS the successor of Tarleton. "Here I must needs remember Tarleton," says Heywood in his

Nothing: he, probably, acted such parts as required dry humour rather than splendid declamation. He was recognised as a fellow by Augustine Phillips, in 1605, and distinguished as a friend by a legacy of twenty shillings. He lived among the other players, and among the fashionable persons of that period, in Holywell-street. The exact date of his death is unknown, but he was buried, says the register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, on the 13th of March, 1618, three days before the great Burbadge was laid in the same cemetery.

JOHN LOWIN

Apology for Actors, "in his time gracious with the queen his soveraigne, and in the people's general applause; to whom succeeded William Kempe, as well in the favour of her majestie, as in the opinion and good thoughts of the general audience." From the 4to. editions of some of our author's plays, we learn that he was the original performer of Dogberry, in Much Ado about Nothing, and of Peter, in Romeo and Juliet. From an old comedy, called The Return from Parnassus, we may collect that he was the original Justice Shallow; and the contemporary writers inform us that he usually acted the part of a clown, in which, like Tarleton, he was celebrated for his extemporal wit. Launcelot, in the Merchant of Venice; Touchstone, in As You Like It ; Launce, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona; and the Grave-digger, in Hamlet; were, probably, also performed by this comedian. He was an author as well as an actor. So early as the year 1589, Kempe's comic talents seem to have been highly estimated; for an old pamphlet called An Almond for a Parrot, written by Thomas Nashe, is dedicated "to that most comicall and conceited cavaleire monsieur du Kempe, jestmonger, and vice-gerent generall to the ghost of Dick Tarle-knight, and that several years afterwards the part

ton." From a passage in one of Decker's tracts, it may be presumed that this comedian was dead in the year 1609. In Braithwaite's Remains, 1618, he

is thus commemorated:

Upon Kempe and his Morice, with his Epitaph. "Welcome from Norwich, Kempe: all joy to see Thy safe return moriscoed lustily.

But out, alas: how soone's thy morice done,
When pipe and tabor, all thy friends be gone;
And leave thee now to dance the second part

With feeble nature, not with nimble art!

Then all thy triumphs fraught with strains of mirth,
Shall be cag'd up within a chest of earth:

Shall be? they are; thou hast danc'd thee out of breath;
And now must make thy parting dance with death."

THOMAS POPE.

THIS actor likewise played the part of a clown. He died before the year 1600. He is mentioned in an old book, called Humour's Ordinarie, where a Man may be verie merie and exceeding well used for Sixpence.

...... What meanes Singer then,
And Pope, the clowne, to speak so borish, when
They counterfaite the clownes upon the stage?"
GEORGE BRYAN.

NOTHING is known of this performer, except that in the exhibition of the Seven Deadly Sins he represented the Earl of Warwick. He was certainly on the stage previously to the year 1588. HENRY CONDELL,

Is said by Roberts, the player, to have been a comedian; but he does not mention any authority for this assertion but stage tradition. In Webster's Duchess of Malfy, he originally acted the part of the Cardinal; and, as when that play was printed in 1623, another performer had taken the character, it is probable that he had retired from the stage before that time. He still, however, continued to bave an interest in the theatre, being mentioned with the other players to whom a license was granted by Charles I. in 1625. He had, probably, a considerable portion of the shares or property in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. This actor, as well as Heminges, lived in Aldermanbury. He is bonourably noticed in Shakspeare's will, and was one of the editors of his dramas.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

If the date on his picture in the Ashmolean MuWAS a principal performer in Shakspeare's plays. Wright mentions in his Historia Histrionica, that seum at Oxford, is accurate, he was born in 1576. before the wars, he used to act the part of Falstaff with mighty applause;" but, without doubt, he means during the reign of king Charles I. from 1625 to 1641. When our poet's King Henry IV. was first exhibited, Lowin was but twenty-one years old; it is, therefore, probable that Heminges, or some other actor, originally represented the fat

was given to Lowin. Roberts, the player, informs
Hamlet; but with respect to the latter, his account
us, that he also performed King Henry VIII. and
is certainly erroneous, since it appears from more
ancient writers, that Joseph Taylor was the first
representative of that character. Lowin is intro-
duced in the Induction to Marston's Malecontent,
and he and Taylor are noticed in a copy of verses,
written in the year 1632, soon after the appearance
of Jonson's Magnetic Lady, as the two most
esteemed actors of that time:

"Let Lowin cease, and Taylor scorn to touch
The loathed stage, for thou hast made it such,"

Though Heminges and Condell had an interest
in the theatre to the time of their death, yet they
ceased to act about the year 1623; and, in the next
year, Lowin and Taylor took the management.
After the theatres were suppressed, Lowin be-
came miserably poor; and, in his later years, he
kept an inn, the Three Pigeons at Brentford. He
died in London, aged eighty-three, and was buried
in the ground belonging to the parish of St. Mar-
tin's in the Fields, March 18, 1658.

SAMUEL CROSS.

THIS actor was, probably, dead before the year 1600; for Heywood, who had himself written for the stage before that time, says he had never seen him.

ALEXANDER COOKE.

IT appears that this actor was the heroine of the stage, even before the year 1588. He acted as a it is thence reasonably supposed, that he reprewoman in Jonson's Sejanus, and in The Fox; and Alexander Cooke was recollected as a fellow by sented the lighter females of Shakspeare's dramas. Augustine Phillips, and distinguished as an intimate by a legacy.

SAMUEL GILBURNE, unknown.
ROBERT ARMIN

PERFORMED in The Alchymist, in 1610, and was alive in 1611, some verses having been addressed to him in that year by John Davies of Hereford, from which he appears to have occasionally performed the part of the clown or fool:

"To honest, gamesome, Robert Armine,

Who tickles the spleene like a harmless vermin."
"Armine, what shall I say of thee, but this,
Thou art a fool and knave; both ?---fie, I miss,
And wrong thee much; sith thou indeed art neither,
Although in shew thou playest both together."
He was the author of a comedy called The Two
Maids of More-clack, 1609; also of a book called
A Nest of Ninnies, simply of themselves without
Compound, 1608; and, at Stationers' Hall, was
entered, in the same year, a book called Phantasm,

the Italian Taylor, and his Boy, made by Mr. Armin, servant to his majesty. He was certainly one of the Lord-chamberlain's Players at the accession of king James, and was received, with greater actors, into the royal company. As a fellow, Armin was kindly remembered by Phillips, who left him a legacy of twenty shillings.

WILLIAM OSTLER

HAD been one of the Children of the Chapel, having acted in Jonson's Poetaster, together with Field and Underwood, in 1601, and is said to have performed women's parts. In 1610, both he and Underwood acted as men in Jonson's Alchymist. In Davies's Scourge of Folly, there are some verses addressed to him with this title: " To the Roscius of these times, William Ostler." He acted Antonio, in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, in 1623; but the period of his death is uncertain.

[blocks in formation]

certain perquisites annexed to this office, and a salary of sixpence a day. When he was in attendance upon the king, he had a salary of £3: 6s: 8d. per month. Taylor died in the year 1653, and was buried at Richmond. He must have been nearly seventy years of age at his death. He is said by some to have painted the portrait of Shakspeare, now in the possession of the duke of Chandos; but, if genuine, it is much more likely that Barbadge was the artist, for there is a picture in Dulwich College, which he is known to have painted.

[blocks in formation]

The merriest supper of it there, one night
The gentleman's landlady invited him

To a gossip's feast: now he, sir, brought Dick Robinson
Drest like a lawyer's wife."

In The Second Maiden's Tragedie he performed the Lady of Govianus. In The Deserving Favourite, 1629, he played Orsinio; and in The Wild Goose Chase, Le Castre. Hart, the celebrated actor, was originally his boy or apprentice. In the civil wars he served in the king's army, and was killed in an engagement by Harrison, who was afterwards hanged at Charing-cross. Harrison refused him quarter after he had laid down his arms, and shot him in the head, saying at the same time, “ Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently."

WAS one of the unnamed associates of Shakspeare, Burbadge, and Heminges, at the Globe, and was one of the original actors in our bard's dramas. He, too, represented women, as early as 1589, and acted Rodope, in Tarleton's Platt of the Seven Deadlie Sinns. He performed in the Alchymist, in the year 1610. Tooley, from some expressions in his will, seems to have been the servant or apprentice of Burbadge, to whose last testament he was a witness. Tooley made his own will on the 3d of June, 1623; he died soon after, in the house of Cuthbert Burbadge, in Holywell-street; to whose wife, Elizabeth, the testator left a legacy of ten pounds, "as a remembrance of his love, in respect of her motherly care of him." Tooley was a most benevolent man, while he bustled in the world he did many kind acts; and when he could no longer perform, he gave considerable legacies to the poor of St. Leonard's Shoreditch, and St. Giles's Crip-in 1623. plegate, which administer to the comfort of the needy even to the present day.

WILLIAM ECCLESTONE.

ALL we know of this actor is from Ben Jonson's Alchymist, in which his name occurs, in the year 1610. It is highly probable, however, that he performed in our author's plays.

JOSEPH TAYLOR.

ACCORDING to Downes, the prompter, he was instructed by Shakspeare to play Hamlet; and Wright, in his Historia Histrionica, says, "He performed that part incomparably well." From the remembrance of his performance of Hamlet, sir William Davenant is said to have conveyed his instructions to Mr. Betterton. He likewise played Iago, and is highly commended by various contemporary authors. In the year 1614, Taylor was at the head of a distinct company of players, called The Lady Elizabeth's Servants, but he soon returned to his old friends; and after the death of Burbadge, Heminges, and Condell, became manager of the King's Company, in conjunction with Lowin and Swanston. In September, 1639, he was appointed Yeoman of the Revels in Ordinary to his Majesty, in the room of Mr. William Hunt; there were

JOHN SHANCKE

WAS but in a low class; having performed the Curate, in Fletcher's Scornful Lady; and Hillario, well as an actor, having written a play called Shanke's Ordinary, which was acted at Blackfriars,

in The Wild Goose Chase. He was an author as

JOHN RICE.

NOTHING is known of this player, except that he performed the Marquis of Pescara, an inconsiderable part in The Duchess of Malfy. He was, perhaps, the brother of Stephen Rice, clerk, who is mentioned in the will of John Heminges.

We have thus enumerated all those performers who appear, with any certainty, to have distinguished themselves in the original productions of Shakspeare's dramas. Of their real merits it is impossible to speak; yet some of them, doubtless, particularly Burbadge, Taylor, and Lowin, were very excellent actors; and though the mechanical part of stage representations was, in their time, extremely imperfect, we may be certain that they were able to furnish the public of that age with an entertainment highly acceptable. The drama, indeed, was much more a national pastime then than at present, for it furnished a source of delight to all ranks, and was highly patronised. In our own more enlightened age, dicing, boxing, and horseracing have superseded, among the higher classes, the antiquated attractions of that stage, which Shakspeare, Jonson, and Massinger, illustrated by their transcendent genius.

BETTERTON.

"BETTERTON (says Colley Cibber in his Apology) was an actor, as Shakspeare was an author, both without competitors; formed for the mutual assistance and illustration of each other's genius. How Shakspeare wrote, all men who have a taste for nature may read, and know; but with higher rapture would he still be read, could they conceive how Betterton played him. Then might they know the one was born alone to speak what the other only knew to write. Could how Betterton spoke, be as easily known as what he spoke, then might you see the muse of Shakspeare in her triumph, with all her beanties in their best array, rising into real life and charming her beholders. But, alas! since all this is so far out of the reach of description, how shall I shew you Betterton? Should I, therefore, tell you, that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, Macbeths, and Brutus's, whom you may have seen since his time, have fallen far short of him? this still should give you no idea of bis particular excellence. Let us see, then, what a particular comparison may do; whether that may yet draw him nearer to you. You have seen a Hamlet, perhaps, who, on the first appearance of his father's spirit, has thrown himself into all the straining vociferations requisite to express rage and fury, and the house has thundered with applause, though the misguided actor was all the while (as Shakspeare terms it) tearing a passion into rags. I am the more bold to offer you this particular instance, because the late Mr. Addison, while I sat by him, to see the scene acted, made the same observation; asking me, with some surprise, if I thought Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the Ghost, which, though it might have astonished, it had not provoked him? for you may observe in this beautiful speech, the passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonishment, or an impatience, limited by filial reverence, to inquire into the suspected wrongs that may have raised him from the peaceful tomb, and a desire to know, what a spirit so seemingly distressed, might wish or enjoin a sorrowful son to execute towards his fatare quiet in the grave. 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; and, in the descriptive part of the natural emotions which the ghastly vision gave him, the boldness of his expostulation was still governed by decency,―manly, but not braving; his voice never rising into that seeming outrage, or wild defance of what he naturally revered. But, alas! to preserve this medium between mouthing and meaning too little, to keep the attention more pleasingly awake, by a tempered spirit, than by mere vehemence of voice, is, of all the masterstrokes of an actor, the most difficult to reach. In this none yet have equalled Betterton.

pression, but opens into that warmth which becomes a man of virtue; yet this is the hasty spark of anger which Brutus endeavours to excuse.

From

"Betterton had so just a sense of what was true or false applause, that I have heard him say, that he never thought any kind of it equal to an attentive silence: that there were many ways of deceiving an audience into a loud one; but to keep them hushed and quiet, was an applause which only truth and merit could arrive at, of which art there never was an equal master to himself. these various excellencies, he had so full a possession of the esteem and regard of his auditors, that upon his entrance into every scene, he seemed to seize upon the eyes and ears of the giddy and inadvertent. To have talked or looked another way, would then have been thought insensibility or ignorance. In all his soliloquies of moment, the strong intelligence of his attitude and aspect, drew you into such an impatient gaze, and eager expectation, that you almost imbibed the sentiment with your eyes, before the ear could reach it. I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton, wherein my judgment, my ear, and my imagination were not fully satisfied; which, since his time I cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever That genius, which nature only gives, only can complete an actor: this genius, then, was so strong in Betterton, that it shone out in every speech and motion of him. (Yet voice and person are such necessary supports to it, that, by the multitude, they have been preferred to genius itself; or, at least, often mistaken for it.) Betterton had a voice of that kind, which gave more spirit to terror, than to the softer passions; of more strength than melody. The rage and jealousy of Othello became him better than the sighs and tenderness of Castalio: for though in Castalio he only excelled others, in Othello he excelled himself; which you will easily believe, when you consider, that in spite of his complexion, Othello has more natural beauties than the best actor can find in all the magazines of poetry, to animate his power, and delight his judgment with.

"The person of this excellent actor was suitable to his voice, more manly than sweet, not exceeding the middle stature, inclining to the corpulent; of a serious and penetrating aspect; his limbs nearer the athletic than the delicate proportion; yet, however formed, there arose, from the har mony of the whole, a commanding view of majesty, which the fairer faced, or (as Shakspeare calls them,) the curled darlings of his time, ever wanted something to be equal masters of," Betterton died in April, 1710.

BOOTH.

BOOTH, with a very classical and highly improved judgment, possessed all the natural powers of an actor in a very eminent degree. "He was (says Victor) of a middle stature, five feet eight; "A farther excellence in Betterton was, that he his form rather inclining to the athletic, though would vary his spirit to the different characters he nothing clumsy or heavy; his air and deportment acted. Those wild impatient starts, that fierce naturally graceful, with a marking eye, and a and flashing fire, which he threw into Hotspur, manly sweetness in his countenance. His voice Bever came from the unruffled temper of his Bru- was completely harmonious, from the softness of tus (for I have more than once seen a Brutus as the flute, to the extent of the trumpet: his attiWarm as a Hotspur). When the Betterton Brutus tudes were all picturesque; he was noble in his was provoked in his dispute with Cassius, his designs, and happy in his execution.” His prinspirit flew only to his eye, his steady look alone cipal parts in Shakspeare's plays were, Othello, applied that terror, which he disdained an intem- Lear, Brutus, and the Ghost in Hamlet. Cibber, perance in his voice should raise to. Thus, with a though sparing in his praise of Booth, highly comsettled dignity of contempt, like an unheeding mends his Othello:-The master-piece of Booth rock, he repelled upon himself the foam of Cassius. (says he,) was his Othello; there he was most in Not bat in some part of this scene, where he re- character, and seemed not more to animate hims proaches Cassius, his temper is not under this sup-self in it than bis spectators."

Other contemporaries are more lavish in their praises of him in this part, and particularly in the following passage:

"This fellow's of exceeding honesty,

And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
Of human dealings."

This he spoke with his eye fixed upon Iago's exit,
after a long pause, as if weighing the general cha-
racter of the man in his own mind; and in a low
tone of voice. Then starting into anger-

"........ If I do find her haggard,

Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune."

Then a pause, as if to ruminate.

64 ........ Haply, for I am black,

And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have."

Then a look of amazement at seeing Desdemona,
the voice and countenance softened into love:

"If she be false, O, then heav'n mocks itself!
I'll not believe it."

"In this, and all the distressful passages of heart-breaking anguish and jealousy, (says Victor) I have frequently seen all the men, susceptible of the tender passions, in tears."

Booth's excellence in Brutus, was the effect of a fine study of the part, which he acquired by his taste and intimate knowledge of the classics. In the tent scene, when Cassius reiterates,

"What, durst not tempt him?"

and Brutus in reply says,

"For your life, you durst not;" Quin spoke the last line with a look of anger and a tone of voice approaching to rage; but Booth, on the contrary, looking stedfastly at Cassius, pronounced these words not much raised above a whisper, yet with such a firmness of tone, as always produced the most powerful effect. Again, when Brutus says,

"When I spoke this, I was ill-temper'd too,"

he prepared the audience so for the cause of his ill temper, by shewing that he had some private griefs at heart, as to call up the utmost attention; but when he afterwards acquaints them with the

cause,

"No man bears sorrow better-Portia's dead,"

the expressive pause before he spoke the last words, and his heart-piercing manner in speaking them, forced every auditor to be a participator of

his sorrows.

Booth, as King Lear, made a very powerful impression. In the scene where the old monarch is discovered asleep in Cordelia's lap, and where he breaks out,

"Old Lear shall be a king again,"

he was inimitably expressive, from the full tones of his voice, and the admirable manner of harmonizing

bat they wrote to those who had seen his perform-
ances, and are, for the most part, content with
general encomiums, from which little or nothing
can be gleaned, as to his distinctive excellencies.
We shall proceed to make such selections from
contemporary writers as will best serve to illus-
trate his felicitous conception, and wonderful per-
formance of Shakspeare's characters. Richard III.
was his first triumph. "The moment he appeared,
(says Murphy) the character he assumed was visible
in his countenance; the power of his imagination
was such, that he transformed himself into the very
man; the passions rose in rapid succession, and, be-
fore he uttered a word, were legible in every fea-
ture of that expressive face. His look, his voice,
rage and rapidity with which he enunciated
his attitude, changed with every sentiment. The

'The north-what do they in the north,

When they should serve their sovereign in the west?" in the tent scene, seemed to discover his very soul. made a most astonishing impression. His soliloquy Every thing he described was almost reality; the spectator thought he heard the hum of either army When he started from his dream, he was a spectafrom camp to camp, and steed threatening steed. cle of horror. He called out in a manly tone, 'Give me another horse.' He paused, and, with a countenance of distress, advanced, exclaiming in a tone of distress, Bind up my wounds;' and then falling on his knees, said, in the most piteous accent, Have mercy, heaven!' In all this, and indeed through the whole representation, we saw an exact imitation of nature.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

King Lear was Garrick's most perfect effort; in this part he has confessedly remained without equal or rival. He was transformed into a feeble old man, still, however, retaining an air of royalty. He had no sudden starts, no violent gesticulations; his movements were slow and languid; misery was depicted in every feature of his face; he moved his head in the most deliberate manner; his eyes he made a pause, and fixed his look on the person were fixed, or if they turned to any one near him, after much delay; his features at the same time expressing what he was going to say before he uttered a word. During the whole performance, he preation of mind from every idea, but that of his ansented an aspect of extreme grief, and a total alienkind daughters. How awful was his preparation for the imprecation on Goneril! he stood for a moment like one struck dumb, at the sudden and unexpected feel of his child's ingratitude; then throwing away his crutch, kneeling on one knee, clasping his hands together, and lifting up his eyes towards heaven, rendered the whole of the curse so terribly affecting to the audience, that, during the utterance of it, they seemed to shrink as from a blast of lightning. Indeed, the picture he presented, inpart. He acted it with the perfect approbation of dependent of the language, was worthy the pencil Betterton, who was his Hamlet for many years; of Raphael in the divinest moments of his imaginand this performance was highly praised by Mackation." He used to tell how he gained a just conlin, who said he was never imitated with success. ception of this difficult part. He had an acquaintHis tones and manner, throughout his conference ance in Leman-street, Goodman's-fields, who had with Hamlet, were grave and pathetic; his tread an only daughter about two years old; as he stood solemn and awful; and, in the recital of his murat his dining-room window, fondling the child, he der by a brother's hand, and the conduct of his dropped the infant into a paved area, and it was most seeming virtuous queen, the audience killed on the spot. He remained at the window, ed to be under the impression of seeing and hear-screaming in agonies of grief; the neighbours took ing a real ghost. He was, besides, always parti- up the child, and delivered it dead to the unhappy cularly well dressed for the character, even to the father, who wept bitterly. From that moment he soles of his shoes, which, from being covered with lost his reason, which he never recovered. Being felt, made no noise in walking on the stage, which rich, he continued in his house under the care of he crossed as if he slid over it, and which strongly keepers, appointed by Dr. Monro. Garrick often corresponded with the ideas we have of an incorvisited his distracted friend, who passed the whole poreal being.-Booth died in May, 1733. of his time in-going to the window, and there playing in fancy with his child. After some dalliance He would then sit down in a pensive mood, his he dropt it, and burst into a terrible agony of grief. eyes fixed on one object, at tinies looking slowly

his words.

The Ghost in Hamlet was Booth's favourite

GARRICK.

appear

ALL the authors of Garrick's day agree in prais ing his various and astonishing powers as an actor;

« AnteriorContinuar »