from the farther expense of my_education? [too self-willed, must it have been to find My expectations did not go beyond this result. The extravagant views of my counsellor looked to another young Roscius furore (I being not yet sixteen years of age), and speculated on a rapid fortune. himself in a position where he could lay down the law on all subjects within a little kingdom of his own! The entire management devolved on him at Newcastle, where he remained for two months, When he spoke to his father it was to "not deriving much advantage, though tell him his mind was made up to go on some experience, from the society of the stage. His father, who by this time some of the players, and falling desperwas well aware of the obstinacy of his ately in love with one of the actresses son's temper, seems to have dealt quite no improbable consequence of the unfairly with him. "It had been the wish guarded situation of a boy of sixteen." of his life," he said, "to see me at the Availing himself of the invitation of his bar, but if it was my real wish to go upon father's friend, Fawcett, one of the best the stage, it would be useless for him to comedians of the day, he came to Lonoppose it." To the Zanga of Rugby don in the end of 1809, to see the best School the stage was probably not with- actors, and to learn fencing from the best out allurements. In any case, he went masters. During this time Macready rethere of his own choice, swayed, perhaps, ports that he had the satisfaction of seeby the thought that he was doing some-ing Cooke, Young, C. Kemble, Munden, thing noble in sacrificing his dreams of Fawcett, Emery, Liston, and other firstforensic distinction to filial duty. If he rate performers. It was his business to really had within him the qualities to see as much good acting as he could, make a great lawyer, all the odds are and he did so. Among other things, he against his having given up his first-am-saw the fine powers of Elliston, who had bition. Men have fought their way to the first rank at the bar under heavier disadvantages. At once he set about preparing himself for his future vocation, taking lessons in fencing, and getting by heart the words of the youthful characters then in vogue. Meanwhile his classics were not forgotten, and this, with the assistance which he gave his father in the business of his theatre, kept him fully employed. Of his father as an instructor for his future work he speaks slightingly. He had no originality himself. Macklin and Henderson, the heroes of his youth, John Kemble, and even Pope and Holman, were his ideals. Consequently he referred always to what he had seen, and cited the manner in which past celebrities would deliver particular passages. A worse monitor for a young man, who was not strong enough to think for himself, and find his own modes of expression, could not well be conceived. Every period has its style; so has every genuine artist; neither will fit another age or another individual. So we are not surprised to hear that Macready "in after life had the difficult task of unlearning much that was impressed apon him in his boyish days." Worse for a youth afflicted with a fierce and imperious temper was the circumstance that, as his father was forced to keep out of the way to avoid arrest, he had to carry on the business of his theatres for him. Managers are by necessity despots. How hurtful to one, already taken the Surrey Theatre, where the law allowed him to perform only burlettas, wasted on Macbeth performed as a pantomime, and on Captain Macheath, with Gay's pithy prose thrown into jingling rhyme. The first public experiment in the use of gas also attracted his notice in the shape of a star before a house in Pall Mall," which relighted itself as the wind every now and then blew out some of its jets." This visit over, young Macready had to begin the work of life in earnest. The father was in Lancaster Castle, a prisoner for debt, until set free by the proceedings in bankruptcy, and the task of working his company and keeping it together was undertaken by his son. All went so well in his hands, that the son was able to remit to his father three pounds a week "in his melancholy duress at Lancaster," and to carry on his theatre at Newcastle with credit. Before the season closed his father obtained his release, his certificate of bankruptcy having been granted under circumstances which speak volumes for his integrity, and which his son records with an honourable pride. When the elder Macready resumed the direction of his theatre, his son, though relieved from business responsibilities, continued to superintend the rehearsals, and in the getting-up of the melodramas, pantomimes, etc., he "was the instructor of the performers." No wonder he fell into the habit of playing the schoolmaster to all about him, which the poet. There is an interest so deep and made him in after-years so obnoxious to thrilling in the story, such power in the situa his fellows. The time for his own début tions, and such a charm in the language, that had now arrived. It was made in the with an actor possessed of energy, a tolerable elocution, and some grace of deportment, the character of Romeo at Birmingham, character will sufficiently interpret itself to where his father had again become man- the majority of an audience to win for its ager. What he tells of his feelings on representative, from their delight, the reward the occasion confirms our conviction, of applause really due to the poet's excellence. that inclination, quite as much as duty, A total failure in Hamlet is of rare occurrence. sent him upon the stage. "There be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly," in The emotions I experienced on first cross the character, who could as soon explain and ing the stage, and coming forward in face of reconcile its seeming inconsistencies, as transthe lights and the applauding audience, were late a page of Sanscrit. Dr. Johnson, who so almost overpowering. There was a mist be- lucidly describes the mind of Polonius, has fore my eyes. I seemed to see nothing of the left us in his observations clear proof that he dazzling scene before me, and for some time I did not understand that of Hamlet; and au was like an automaton moving in certain de- diences have been known to cheer innovations fined limits. I went mechanically through the and traps for applause, which the following variations in which I had drilled myself, and words of the text have shown to be at utter it was not until the plaudits of the audience, I variance with the author's intention! awoke me from the kind of waking dream in crude essay, like those of many others, was which I seemed to be moving, that I gained pronounced a success; but the probing inquiry my self-possession, and really entered into the and laborious study of my after-life have spirit of the character and, I may say, felt the manifested to me how little was due to my passion, I was to represent. Every round of applause acted like inspiration on me: I "trod own skill in that early personation. on air," became another being, or a happier self; and when the curtain fell at the conclusion of the play, and the intimate friends and performers crowded on the stage to raise up the Juliet and myself, shaking my hands with fervent congratulations, a lady asked me, "Well, sir, how do you feel now?" my boyish answer was without disguise, "I feel as if I should like to act it all over again." 66 My In 1812 he found himself cast to play with Mrs. Siddons, as she took Newcastle on her way to London, where she was about to take her leave of the stage. The plays were "The Gamester" and Douglas." Young Norval in the latter was one of Macready's favourite parts; but he might well have been appalled, as he says he was, at the thought of playing Once launched in the profession, Mac- Beverley, and for the first time, to the ready worked at it with enthusiasm. Not Mrs. Beverley of the great actress. It content with the regular work of the was one of her greatest parts. Leigh week, he used to lock himself into the Hunt, writing in 1807, classes it with He cites "the betheatre after morning service on the Sun- her Lady Macbeth. days, and pace the stage in every direc-wildered melancholy of Lady Macbeth tion to give himself ease, and become walking in her sleep, or the widow's mute familiar in his deportment with exits stare of perfected misery by the corpse and entrances, and with every variety of of the gamester Beverley, two of the gesture and attitude. My characters," sublimest pieces of acting on the English he adds, were all acted over and over, stage," as the highest illustration of Mrs. and speeches recited, till, tired out, I was Siddons' power in the natural expression glad to breathe the fresh air again. This of profound emotion, which he considwas for several years a custom with me." ered to be "the result of genius rather The manager's son was sure to get quite than of grave study." his share of all the best parts, as well as Mr. Macready writes, as he always of the public favour; and so early as 1811 spoke, of Mrs. Šiddons with enthusiasm. we find him, while still only eighteen, With fear and trembling he was sent by risking his honours at Newcastle in the his father to her hotel to rehearse his part of Hamlet. It was a success. All scenes with her. "I hope, Mr. MacHamlets are so, more or less. His re-ready," was her good-natured salutation marks on the occasion are much to the purpose. 66 The critic who had made a study of this masterpiece would predict with confidence a failure in such an experiment, but he would not have taken into account the support to the young aspirant supplied by the genius of to him, "you have brought some hartshorn and water with you, as I am told you are terribly frightened at me." Some farther remarks she made about his being a very young husband. Had he not been the manager's son the remark would in all likelihood have been more ance of the words, "My wife and sister! well well! there is but one pang more, and then farewell world!" she raised her hands, clapping loudly, and calling out "Bravo! sir, bravo!" in sight of part of the audience, who joined in her applause. This incident of the "Bravo! sir, pointed than it was. It could not have been pleasant for an actress of her mature and stately proportions to find herself played to by a comparative boy. The business of the morning over, he took his leave with fear and trembling to steady his nerves for the coming night. He got through his first scene with ap-bravo!" comes with a chilling effect plause. In the next, his first with Mrs. after so much to make us think that the Beverley, he was so overcome by fear actress was lost in her part. It might at that his memory failed him, and he stood least have been kept out of sight of the bewildered. "Mrs. Siddons kindly whis- audience to whose tearful sympathies she pered the word to me (which I never was the next moment to make so terrible could take from the prompter), and the an appeal. Douglas went off without a scene proceeded." hitch. The great lady sent for her "Normanner gave him some excellent advice. val" after the play, and in her grandiose What eulogy can do justice to her personations! Will any verbal account of the most striking features of "the human face divine" convey a distinct portraiture of the individual? How much less can any force of description imprint on the imagination the sudden but thrilling effects of tone or look, of port or gesture, or even of the silence so often significative in the development of human passion! . . . I will not presume to catalogue the merits of this unrivalled artist, but may point out, as a guide to others, one great excellence that distinguished all her personations. This was the unity of design, the just relation of all parts to the whole, that made us forget the actress in the character she assumed. Throughout the tragedy of "The Gamester " devotion to her husband stood out as the mainspring of her actions, the ruling passion of her being; apparent when reduced to poverty in her graceful and cheerful submission to the lot to which his vice has subjected her, in her fond excuses of his ruinous weakness, in her conciliating expostulations with his angry impatience, in her indignant repulse of Stukely's advances, when in the awful dignity of outraged virtue she imprecates the vengeance of Heaven upon his guilty head. The climax to her sorrows and sufferings was in the dungeon, when on her knees, holding her dying husband, he dropped lifeless from her arms. Her glaring eyes were fixed in stony blackness on his face; the powers of life seemed suspended in her; her sister and Lewson gently raised her, and slowly led her unresisting from the body, her gaze never for an instant averted from it; when they reached the prison door she stopped, as if awakened from a trance, uttered a shriek of agony that would have pierced the hardest heart, and, rushing from them, flung herself as if for union in death, on the prostrate form before her. She stood alone on her height of excellence. Her acting was perfection, and as I recall it I do not wonder, novice as I was, at my perturbation when on the stage with her. But in the progress of the play I gradually regained more and more my self-possession, and in the last scene as she stood by the side wing, waiting for the cue of her entrance, on my utter remember what I say, -study, study, study, lived with me, and often in moments of des- The words in italics are surely the 66 Française, "Vous m'avez fait voir, dans | come the tenant of the Glasgow and le rôle de Brutus, des beautés que je Dumfries theatres, his son made acn'avais pas aperçues en le composant." quaintance with a fresh public, and laid Mrs. Siddons had another great merit, the foundation of his popularity in the which Charles Young tersely expressed west of Scotland. He remembered with by saying, "She never indulged in im- peculiar satisfaction the knot of playagination at the expense of truth." Mac-goers who clustered in corners of the ready says the same thing in a more roundabout way. In giving life, and as it were reality to the character she represented, she never resorted to trick, or introduced what actors call "business," frequently inappropriate, and resulting from the want of intelligence to penetrate the depth of the emotions to be portrayed. Of Mrs. Jordan, whom he acted with soon afterwards at Leicester, Mr. Macready gives us some pleasant glimpses. The gayest, merriest, most spontaneous of actresses, she left no point unstudied, spared no pains to ensure her effects. At rehearsal [he says] I remarked, as watched this charming actress intently through her first scene, how minute and how particular her directions were; nor would she be satisfied, till by repetition she had seen the business executed exactly to her wish. The moving picture, the very life of the scene, was perfect in her mind, and she transferred it in all its earnestness to every movement on the stage. With a spirit of fun, that would have outlaughed Puck himself, there was a discrimination, an identity with her character, an artistic arrangement of the scene that made all appear spontaneous and accidental, though elaborated with the greatest care. Her voice was one of the most melodious I ever heard and who that once heard that laugh of hers could ever forget it . . . so rich, so apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self-enjoying as to be at all times irresistible. What this laugh was, and the secret of its charm, Leigh Hunt has told us in even happier language. Glasgow pit, and by their murmurs of approval encouraged the young actor with the belief that they were giving their thoughts to what was going on before them. The theatre was the largest out of the metropolis, and the necessity which he felt himself under of more careful study and practice to satisfy the de-. mands of an audience, which then, and we believe now, was critical as well as enthusiastic, had an excellent effect in advancing his mastery of his art. Here he had to measure his strength against young Betty, of whose energy, dignity, and pathos he speaks warmly, admitting at the same time that Betty did not study improvement in his art, and consequently deteriorated by becoming used-up in the frequent repetition of the same parts." Hitherto Macready had lived with his father. The temper of neither was good. The infirmity of his own, the son declares "to have been the source of most of the misery he had known in life." But when passion got the better of his father, "there was no curb to the violence of his language." Each had strong opinions; and as they did not always often provoked the displeasure of the run in the same groove, the son very father. "If two men," as Dogberry says, "ride upon a horse, one must ride behind;" " and we can well believe that the younger Macready was not likely to accept the hindmost place. He was now, too, approaching manhood; and after an angry parley, father and son parted on Her laughter is the happiest and most the understanding that the latter should natural on the stage. It intermingles it- thenceforth live apart, and receive a salself with her words, as fresh ideas afford her ary of three pounds a week. A truce fresh merriment; she does not so much in- was patched up for a time after the redulge as she seems unable to help it; it increases, it lessens with her fancy, and when turn of the company to their headquaryou expect it no longer according to the usual ters at Newcastle; but with such jarring habit of the stage, it sparkles forth at little elements, it could be of only brief duraintervals, as recollection revives it, like flame tion. Meanwhile the son did his best to from half-smothered embers. This is the keep up the reputation of his father's laughter of the feelings; and it is this pre-theatres, taking on himself a heavy share dominence of the heart in all she says and of the work, writing pieces from Scott's does that renders her the most delightful" Marmion" and "Rokeby," and re-aractress in characters which ought to be more lady-like than she can make them, and which acquire a better gentility with others. Oh for the return of such acting and such criticism! In 1813, the elder Macready having be ranging others, to meet the exigencies of the hour. In the midst of his labours, to spur his ambitious hopes, the tidings reached him of the triumph at Drury Lane, as Shylock, of the insignificant little Alonzo, of the Birmingham theatre. Macready had up to this time worked changed, and a little keenly-visaged man loyally for his father, and repaid all, and rapidly bustled across the stage, I felt there more than all, that had been expended was meaning in the alertness of his manner upon that education at Rugby which was and the quickness of his step. As the play to prove of priceless value to his future proceeded I became more and more satisfied that there was a mind of no common order. career. Fresh disputes between them In his angry complaining of Nature's injustice arose. Neither would give way, and to his bodily imperfections, as he uttered the Macready left home upon an engagement line, "To shrink my arm up like a withered for Bath. The theatre there was at that shrub," he remained looking on the limb for time regarded as a sort of antechamber some moments with a sort of bitter discontent, to the great patent theatres of London, and then struck it back in angry disgust. My "and the judgment of a Bath audience a father, who sat behind me, touched me, and pretty sure presage of the decision of the whispered, "It's very poor!" "Oh, no!" I metropolis. The young actor stood the replied, "it is no common thing," for I found scrutiny of this critical public. He was The scene with Lady Anne was entered on myself stretching over the box to observe him. hailed with "compliments, invitations, with evident confidence, and was well sustroops of friends, and all the flattering tained, in the affected earnestness of petuevidences of unanimous success." The lance, to its successful close. In tempting rumour of his success soon spread. Mr. Buckingham to the murder of the children, he Harris of Covent Garden opened nego- did not impress me as Cooke was wont to do, tiations with him, and an engagement for in whom the sense of the crime was apparent seven weeks in Dublin at 50l. a week was in the gloomy hesitation with which he gave the best assurance that he had now fair- reluctant utterance to the deed of blood. ly got his foot on the first round of the Kean's manner was consistent with his conladder. The negotiations for Covent ception, proposing their death as a political necessity, and sharply requiring it as a busiGarden having taken him to London, Iness to be done. The two actors were equally where Kean and Miss O'Neill were effective in their respective views of the uncrowding the two great houses, the im-scrupulous tyrant; but leaving to Cooke the pressions they produced on him are well described: Places were taken one night at Drury Lane for "Richard III.," and for another Fawcett procured seats for us in the orchestra of Covent Garden, to see the Juliet of Miss O'Neill to the best advantage. Kean was engaged to sup with my father at the York Hotel after the performance of "Richard," to which I went with no ordinary feelings of curiosity. Cooke's representation of the part I had been present at several times, and it lived in my memory in all its sturdy vigour. There was a solidity of deportment and manner, and at the same time a sort of unctuous enjoyment of his successful craft, in the soliloquizing stage villany of Cooke, which gave powerful and rich effect to the sneers and overbearing retorts of Cibber's hero, and certain points (as the peculiar mode of delivering a passage is technically phrased), traditional from Garrick, were made with consummate skill, significance, and power. Kean's conception was decidedly more Shakespearian. He hurried you along in his resolute course with a spirit that brooked no delay. In inflexibility of will and sudden grasp of expedients he suggested the idea of a feudal Napoleon. His personation was throughout consistent, and he was only inferior to Cooke where he attempted points upon the same ground as his distinguished predecessor.. My father and self were betimes in our box. Pope was the lachrymose and rather tedious performer of Henry VI. But when the scene more prosaic version of Cibber, it would have been desirable to have seen the energy and restless activity of Kean giving life to racy language and scenes of direct and varied agency in the genuine tragedy with which his whole manner and appearance were so much more in harmony. In his studied mode of delivering the passages, "Well! as you guess?" and "Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!" he could not approach the searching, sarcastic incredulity, or the rich vindictive chuckle of Cooke; but in the bearing of the man throughout, as the intriguer, the tyrant, and the warrior, he seemed never to relax the ardour of his pursuit, presenting the life of the usurper as one unbroken whole, and closing it with a death picturesquely and poetically grand. Many of the Kemble school resisted conviction in his merits, but the fact that he made me feel was an argument to enrol me with the majority on the indisputable genius he displayed. We retired to the hotel as soon as the curtain fell, and were soon joined by Kean, accompanied, or rather attended, by Pope. I need not say with what intense scrutiny I regarded him as we shook hands on our mutual introduction. The mild and modest expression of his Italian features, and his unassuming manner, which I might perhaps justly describe as partaking in some degree of shyness, took me by surprise, and I remarked with special interest the indifference with which he endured the fulsome flatteries of Pope. He was very sparing of words during, and for some time after, supper; but about one o'clock, when the glass had circulated pretty freely, he |