triumphs, and Brutus condemns his son to death. The play has supernatural scenes, which are failures; but those scenes which turn on the domestic affections, display unusual power. We believe the tragedy was written expressly for Mr. Booth. It is certain that the author was an intimate and admiring personal friend of the actor.

Booth enters running, and is called by some other character on the scene to minister to his amusement. The rounded back, the blank face, the restless, aimless motion of the hands, enacted folly to the life. Moved by his evil genius, Tarquin reports for pastime to Brutus, the details of his crime, beginning with the remark that he will fill the fool with wonder. Brutus replies

"You can say nothing that would make me wonder.'

Before the last word he made a slight pause, his looks grew keen, he uttered the word "wonder" with an ominous and penetrating accent, then leaned to listen.

During Tarquin's recital, Booth's eyes kindled with a strange blue light. His back straightened. He stood, crowned with reason, and on fire with indignation; and thus

transformed as into a strong avenging angel (Tarquin's story done), he hurled upon him an anathema, the agony of which should last "millions of years."

Never shall we forget that speech. Every fibre of his frame seemed to contribute to swell the energy of his voice. And all the elements of his voice

"Constringed in mass,"

burst upon the astonished and terrified offender. Nor can we forget Booth's pale and terrible face, nor the lightning of his glance, nor the unexpected, but most dramatic movement which supplemented the speech. While speaking he stood still, towering above his victim; but after the words "millions of years," he began to stride down the stage. The power which had animated his voice was transferred to his action; and he literally occupied the little stage, treading it transversely to the extreme corner, as if he would pass over among the audience; then turning abruptly, he strode up again to the other extreme, a fearful play of look and feature, betraying meanwhile a silent, inward, growing, and tremendous resolution.

We next find him in the public square, addressing the citizens, over the body of Lucretia. There was no elocution in this speech. It was rough in voice, half choked with feeling. The manner was at the farthest remove from that of an opera singer, listening to his own musical grief. But his tones seemed the outcry of a torn and bleeding heart, and in them a noble anger strove with and finally overmastered the softer emotions.

It is safe to affirm that no passage in any performance of his, either in or out of Shakespeare, exhibited a greater intensity of dramatic conception, or a more thorough accord of utterance and action than did the closing scene of this play. The Roman costume left head, neck, and arms bare. There might be seen swift changes of color; swifter and subtler movements of head and feature, now quivering and writhing with emotion, now fixed in immovable resolve. To watch this varied movement would have satisfied the deaf. To listen to the accompanying tones, often inarticulate heart-cries, wrung thence by the passion of the hour, would have given mental vision to the blind.

PESCARA.

SHIEL, in his play of the "Apostate," wrote the part of Pescara for Booth. Booth responded, by creating the character for Shiel: that is, he poured into its ugly and defective mould his own splendid faculty and abounding life. To speak the interior truth, we think both parties might have been better employed, Shiel in writing, Booth in delineating; for a more desperate example of inhuman depravity than this Pescara, could scarcely be hunted out of literature.

If it be said Iago is more fiendish; we answer, let him be so. The difference of the two characters is a difference of kind. Iago is an intellectual experiment on the part of a capable young man of twenty-eight, to see how successfully he can play the game of life, leaving God entirely out. He is full of subtlety, and many parts of his speeches, as set forth by the unmatched art of Shakespeare, might, when viewed apart from his character, shine in ethical discourse. Pes

cara, on the contrary, is an uninteresting villain, ventilating bad passions in turgid rhetoric; and holding the attention only by a cruel force of will, exercised in his office as governor of Granada.

Probably, there worked through the dull brain of the author, and out into his dark and cruel Spaniard, some dim reminiscence of Shakespeare's "super-subtle Venetian." Certainly, in the personation of Pescara, Booth drew off some of that spirit which filled his Iago, adulterated it with Shiel, and offered it with great acceptance to the rank palate of a popular audience

Darkening his power to lend base subjects light."

Yet the flashing and magnetic eye; the crisp, resonant, and changeful tones; the natural attitudes of easy power; the lithe strength in action, always characteristic of Booth, lent their wonted charm to this performance also, and made even Pescara yield a transitory delight.

Two sets of characters figure in the play; Moors and Christians. Pescara is one of the Christians. His first entrance is highly dramatic. Hemeya, a Moor, and his successful rival, is saying to Florinda —