1813-14. SUCCESS AT BATH. 93 present at my second performance of Orestes; and on his sounding me upon my expectations in regard to London, I stated my fixed intention not to make the hazard of an appearance there except upon a high salary and for a term of years, as the chances might be against me in the outset of my career, and if I could not regain lost ground I ought at least to indemnify myself pecuniarily for the advantages I should resign in the estimation I at present enjoyed. He had no objections to offer to my reasoning, and on his return to London I received proposals from Mr. Harris for an engagement of three years, not to be terminable at the manager's option (which was the customary form) at the end of the first. This correspondence was carried on for some weeks, during which I continued to win "golden opinions" in the characters of Hotspur, King Richard III., George Barnwell, Luke in 'Riches,' Alexander, &c. I was very warmly received in the characters of Orestes and Alexander at Bristol, and concluded my performances at Bath with the play of Riches,' repeated for my benefit to a crowded audience. The prosperous issue of this engagement was acknowledged very cordially by the managers, who fixed its payment on the terms I had asked, and entered into a contract with me for the next season for a longer period and at an increased rate of payment. To me the result of this visit to Bath was remunerative beyond its local influence. An engagement of 507. per week for seven weeks was proposed to me by the Dublin management, and was of course accepted without hesitation. This, as an indication of extended reputation, and consequently of ample income, made me more independent of the London managers. My father had, in writing to Fawcett on the subject of the Covent Garden negotiation with me, without my cognizance, suggested to them an experimental engagement for me of six or eight nights at £20 per night, my permanent establishment in the theatre to be determined by the degree of my success. At this proposition, which Fawcett doubted as being agreeable to me, they eagerly caught, and forthwith tendered it me, which I instantaneously and summarily declined; but on this, and other business, I went myself to London, and met there my father, who had gone to form engagements with Kean and Miss O'Neill. On the irrevocable step that he would have me take, I could not be brought to concur with his opinions, and, declining the terms proposed by Covent Garden, trusted my fortunes for another year to the promise which the country theatres held out to me. My stay in London was limited to a few days, which I did not fail to turn to the best account. All the world was then under the attraction of the two theatrical magnets of the day, and it was not likely that I should be insensible to their influence. 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. I use this expression as applicable to him in the character which Cibber's clever stagey compilation has given to an English audience as Richard Plantagenet, in place of Shakespeare's creation-the earnest, active, versatile spirit, "impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer," who makes a business of his ambition, without let or demur clearing away or cutting down the obstacles to his progress, with not one pause of compunctious hesitation. There was a solidity of deportment and manner, and at the same time a sort of unctuous enjoyment of his successful craft, in the soliloquising 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 Shakespearean. 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. These points have often. proved stumbling-blocks to actors and false lights to the discernment of audiences. The instances have not been rare in the Drama's history when the frequenters of theatres, on 1813-14. KEAN AS RICHARD III. 95 the occasion of an actor's or an actress's first essay in any popular character, have reserved their judgments for the effect to be produced by one line or one speech, the particular point rendered famous by some preceding player; and the artist has as often been betrayed into laboured efforts to give prominence to such isolated passages, instead of relying on his penetration into the full depth of the poet's intention and the perfect comprehension of his one large and grand idea. "Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.”* My father and self were betimes in our box. Pope was the lachrymose and rather tedious performer of Henry VI. But when the scene changed, and a little keenly-visaged man rapidly bustled across the stage, I felt there was meaning in the alertness of his manner and the quickness of his step. As the play proceeded I became more and more satisfied that there was a mind of no common order. In his angry complaining of Nature's injustice to his bodily imperfections, as he uttered the line, "To shrink my arm up like a withered shrub," he remained looking on the limb for some moments with a sort of bitter discontent, and then struck it back in angry disgust. My father, who sat behind me, touched me, and whispered, "It's very poor!" "Oh, no!" I replied, "it is no common thing," for I found myself stretching over the box to observe him. The scene with Lady Anne was entered on with evident confidence, and was well sustained, in the affected earnestness of penitence, to its successful close. In tempting Buckingham to the murder of the children, he did. not impress me as Cooke was wont to do, in whom the sense of the crime was apparent in the gloomy hesitation with which he gave reluctant utterance to the deed of blood. Kean's manner was consistent with his conception, proposing their death as a political necessity, and sharply requiring it as a business to be done. The two actors were equally effective in their respective views of the unscrupulous tyrant; but leaving to Cooke the 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 "Let all begin, go on, and end consistently." HORACE, Art of Poetry. From which the preceding quotation is also taken, and in effect translated by Macready's context.-ED. 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 became animated, fluent, and communicative. His anecdotes were related with a lively sense of the ridiculous; in the melodies he sang there was a touching grace, and his powers of mimicry were most humorously or happily exerted in an admirable imitation of Braham; and in a story of Incledon acting Steady the Quaker at Rochester without any rehearsal,-where, in singing the favourite air, "When the lads of the village so merrily, oh!" he heard himself to his dismay and consternation accompanied by a single bassoon,-the music of his voice, his perplexity at each recurring sound of the bassoon, his undertone maledictions on the self-satisfied musician, the peculiarity of his habits, all were hit off with a humour and an exactness that equalled the best display Mathews ever made, and almost convulsed us with laughter. It was a memorable evening, the first and last I ever spent in private with this extraordinary man. 1814-15. MISS O'NEILL AS JULIET. 97 In its outward graces how different was the excellence which, a night or two after, excited my enthusiastic admiration when Shakespeare's Juliet made her entry on the scene in the person of Miss O'Neill! Our seats in the orchestra of Covent Garden gave me the opportunity of noting every slightest flash of emotion or shade of thought that passed over her countenance. The charming picture she presented was one that time could not efface from the memory. It was not altogether the matchless beauty of form and face, but the spirit of perfect innocence and purity that seemed to glisten in her speaking eyes and breathe from her chiselled. lips. To her might justly be ascribed the negative praise, in my mind the highest commendation that, as an artist, man or woman can receive, of a total absence of any approach to affectation. There was in her look, voice, and manner an artlessness, an apparent unconsciousness (so foreign to the generality of stage performers) that riveted the spectator's gaze; but when, with altered tones and eager glance, she inquired, as he lingeringly left her, the name of Romeo of the Nurse, and bade her go and learn it, the revolution in her whole being was evident, anticipating the worse, "If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding-bed." I have heard objections to the warmth of her passionate confessions in the garden scene; but the love of the maid of sunny Italy is not to be measured and judged by the phlegmatic formalist. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, is her heart's utterance. Love was to her life; life not valued, if unsustained by love. Such was the impression Miss O'Neill's conception of the character made, rendering its catastrophe the only natural refuge of a guileless passion so irresistible and absorbing. In the second act the impatience of the love sick maid to obtain tidings of her lover was delightfully contrasted with the winning playfulness with which she so dexterously lured back to doting fondness the pettish humour of the testy old VOL I. H |