highly useful to the Theatre, and has occasionally been a respectable substitute for the above gentleman, when indisposition has kept him from his duty to the Public. Mr. H. has a pleasing voice and genteel person, but wants a sprightliness and ease of deportment, the possession of which would add greatly to the force of his mimic efforts.

There is a peculiar pleasure which accompanies the pen, when employed in delineating the merit of those persons, whose labours entitle them to a distinguished place in the history of men celebrated for their great proficiency in any of the refined and elevated arts. It is therefore with no small share of gratification we attempt to canvass the Scenic merits of Mr. Kemble. Before however we enter into an analysis of the Public efforts, we shall make a few remarks on his person, features, and voice, which arise from the many illiberal portraits that have been given of him, in which his physical qualifications for the Stage, have been drawn with an ungest outline and coloured with an acrimonious pencil. If a foreigner who was anxious to know something of the state of the national Theatre, and its professional ornaments, were to peruse the pages of several of our recent publications on the Stage, he would be led to believe that our English Roscius partook more of the monster than the man, from the manner in which the envenomed pen of slander had bedaubed his person and character; but on seeing Mr. K. the stranger would be soon satisfied that though malice

of our remarks, as we are not in want of managerial favor nor dread its opposition.

had shewn him in unfavourable colours, yet nature and art had presented an elegant gentleman and an accomplished actor. There is a majesty of person in Mr. Kemble which nature has bestowed, as if she had particularly marked him for a votary of the Thespian art; his frame is so formed that his Stage drapery always decorates his person with a becoming elegance; had he been proportionably lusty to the size of his limbs the graceful effect of his Scenic habiliments would be much reduced, but being rather thin his professional garments flow with all the beauty and ease that a tasteful fancy and classical mind can suggest. For parts that require dignity and strong expression, no man ever had features of a more happy cast; they powerfully describe all the great passions that belong to elevated life and superior sensibility, and possess a flexibility that strongly imprints what the soul feels and dictates. His eyes are large and of a brilliant lustre, and always have an appropriate motion to the agitation of his muscles, when in their descriptive use. His features express such a majesty of mind, and possessing the power to convey the sublime of the passions, are therefore not calculated for low humour, and if employed to display the ludicrous of Thalia, Mr. Kemble would injure himself as a Player. His voice may be compared to that of Demosthenes as related by Plutarch, which though naturally defective, has been greatly improved in sweetness and expansion, and rendered powerfully effective by judicious care. As this gentleman laid the foundation of his present well earned fame from the personification of Hamlet, we shall therefore make it the first subject of

1804

our remark. To canvass his delineation of the cha- London racter in general terms would be only going over beaten ground, and as we think his performance of the Dane is an effort of uncommon ability, we shall therefore enumerate some of those delicacies of picture peculiar to his own descriptive powers. The Play of Hamlet has been so amply illustrated by various and able, writers, and is so well known to the Public, that any remark on the beauties of the poet would be superfluous, further than what are necessary for shewing the skill of the Actor.

The Author has drawn this Prince of a reserved Ke and cautious turn, arising from a melancholy impressed on his mind by his father's untimely death, and some consequent misfortunes. The passions by which he is actuated, do not, except in a few places, rise to any great vehemence, but to distinguish his feigned madness from his real provocation for the indulgence of gloomy reflections, require an actor of the nicest discrimination and variety of talent to give those delicacies of tint which has accompanied the Poet's pencil. In Mr. Kemble's assumption of the character we forget the actor, and see the Dane; every line of the part seems to have been analysed and converted by hiin' into the most perfect picture of human feeling, and rendered strongly productive of the auditor's sympathy for his interesting and affecting situation. Passing over several little beauties of delivery in the first scene with the king and his mother, we come to the following soliloquy,

"O, that this too solid flesh would melt,
"Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!"

which he gives with such a richness of expression, that it at once rivets attention and animates our faculties into the liveliest sense of his exquisite and peculiar gifts. There are also several lines in the Scene with Horatio, Bernardo and Marcellus, that are finely pourtrayed; first when he

says,

"Methinks I see my Father,"

and on Horatio's observing:

H.

"My Lord I think I saw him yesternight,
"Saw! Who?"

The manner Mr. Kemble puts the above question. to Horatio, is an effort in Scenic painting graced with all the perfection of art, to illustrate which with propriety we are at a loss for adequate terms.

We are sorry the extent of our work will not permit us to follow him through those numerous passages of the Poet that possess a superlative beauty by his consummate art of elucidation, we therefore must content ourselves with only giving the most prominent pictures of his action. Mr. Kemble's manner of receiving his father's ghost, is a fine mixture of astonishment and resolution, and the reverence which he preserves in speaking these words,

"Go on, I'll follow thee,"

is a happiness of art which is only to be found in this Actor. COLLEY CIBBER has minutely described the manner in which BETTERTON personified Hamlet, and has been particularly illustrative of the beauties of his descriptive power in this Scene, and as far as we can form an opinion from the language of CIBBER. and the acting of Kemble, we think there is not a

tint or shade which Betterton gave the prince, but which may be seen in Mr. K.'s delineation of the cha racter. There is a talent peculiar to this gentleman which is strongly felt by an audience, but it is of a nature not easily described, a happiness of action and play of the features which often convey the passions of a part more forcibly than the language of the poet; this art is theatrically called bye-play, and no one is more judicious in the display, or more successful in the use of it than Mr. Kemble. The serious part of this Tragic tale is finely relieved by the poet, and this actor is extremely happy in mixing a dignified gravity with the gaiety of the scholar, in the scene where he swears Horatio and his companions to secrecy, with respect to his father's ghost.-Again, when Polonius says,

H.

"What's the matter, my Lord?
"Between who?"

Mr. Kemble is particularly happy in this question; it is an effort of great descriptive excellence. And in the following speech he gives these lines with wonderful effect.

"For yourself, Sir, shall be as old, as

"I am, if like a crab, you could go backward."

The gentlemanly sneer was never better displayed than when Kemble shews Guilderstern and Rosencrantz, that the nature of their visit is not unknown to him, and laughs them into a confession of the motive for their coming. We confess we feel ourselves inadequate to give a just description of his features and action, when he addresses his visitors thus,