Who now shall part us?" "I," replies Pescara, entering. Booth's action, as he stepped upon the scene, had something of the measured force of his first entrance in Richard, and something of the stealthy tread of his Iago; while the word he uttered, gave voice in one little syllable to the whole malign personality of the char acter. In a later scene, he was accustomed to recount a dream or vision, in a manner desperately vivid. A lady of much histrionic excellence, told in our hearing, how, as Florinda, in this scene, she involuntarily shrank from his touch, possessed by his ferocious aspect and resounding voice. But he, with that conscious and tactile delicacy, which never left him, even when most filled with the inspiration of his art, in a few lowtoned words reassured her, and proceeded without a moment's pause, to possess with his vision the imagination of his auditors. The calm directing mind sat at the centre of his wildest passion, like "The whirlwind's heart of peace." REUBEN GLENROY. LET us touch a few other characters with a slight pencil. In Colman's play, "Town and Country," Reuben, accompanied by Cosey, is seeking his lost love in the labyrinths of London. The kind old man makes some casual remark, at which the lover winces. Cosey. "I beg pardon for bringing her to your mind.” Booth gave the first word with a pathetic ringing clearness, paused slightly before and after her," and closed the sentence, in a manner very low, clear, and quick; most exquisitely conveying the plain meaning, that she was always in his mind. OCTAVIAN. OCTAVIAN, in the "Mountaineers," is a ragged and melancholy Spaniard, of high birth and breeding, who finds his love, Floranthe, after long and wretched separation, and under extraordinary circumstances. The deep joy of this discovery was depicted by Mr. Booth with a tender fullness of expression most winning to the popular heart. We also recall one unique gesture. He locked the fingers of his raised hand within the fingers of Floranthe, while speaking, a subtle and beautiful diversion on that dangerous thing, the stage embrace. Booth rarely yielded even to the most vociferous call to appear before the curtain. On one occasion, however, in Octavian, at the close of the play, he came towards the footlights as the curtain was descending, let it fall behind him, was still atmosphered by the melancholy beauty of the character, bowed to the audience, and silently withdrew. BERTRAM. CLERGYMEN are seldom good playwrights: witness the "Zanga" of Dr. Young, the "Cataline" of Mr. Croly. The old feud between the pulpit and the stage makes it difficult for any combatant to fight, either for love, or fame, or hire, successfully on both sides. The didactic and the dramatic methods of presenting truth, lie respectively at opposite poles and an author is determined by native temperament or mental constitution towards either one or the other method, but never towards both. Let this view furnish what excuse it may for the Reverend J. Maturin, who wrote the wretched tragedy of "Bertram." The play is a little worse than the "Apostate," and that is highly unnecessary. Morbid passion, adultery, murder, suicide, mark its criminal progress; and it is choked by a throng of incongruous and unnatural incidents. Bad as the play is, Booth descended occasionally to its level, and by the touch of his histrionic genius, stirred its corruption into a transient phosphorescent brilliancy. To Bertram, as to Pescara, he contributed himself; and in the enjoyment of his consummate art, we sometimes happily lost sight of the author. Bertram is picked up from a wreck and borne in on men's shoulders, as one drowned. In his slow recovery of consciousness, Mr. Booth took the spectator with him. One could almost feel the partial flow and quick ebb of the vital current; and the intermittent thrill of life to his extremities. He delivered such passages as and "No dews from Heaven fall on this blighted soil," “I have offended Heaven, I will not mock it,” with a melancholy, undeserved, Byronic grace. We find nothing else in this play worthy to illustrate our subject. |