It has been said that GARRICK in assuming the sick King in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, was extremely happy in giving SHAKESPEARE'S portrait every embellishment that fine acting could possibly add to the poet's picture. If we do not presume too much, we think it impossible that greater justice could have been done to the aged and infirm Monarch, than what Mr. Kemble has performed in this character. Before we speak of the delicacy with which he illustrates the beauties of the author, we must be permitted to observe that his attention to the dignity of his situation, as a King, in giving the scene all the splendor the chamber of a Monarch requires, and his person all the elegance of costume, shews a desire on his part to render Stage exhibitions as perfect as possible for public gratification. There was not an article of the most trivial description connected with his scenes, but what was necessary to impress on the imagination the reality of his character, and the dignity of the Monarch, his dress in this part displays the taste of a very refined actor. error of which we complain. Mr. Kemble, who is supposed to be dead, lifts up his leg and pushes himself while Isabella is pulling him after her, here the probability of the Scene is reduced, and the Auditors who a moment before were like "Niobe all tears," resume a merry feature, and the curtain drops amidst a laughing audience. We should not have made it the subject of public animadversion, had not Mr. Kemble's leg been re-animated every night he died in this Play, till the resurrection of that member destroyed the effect of a very interesting scene, and became offensive to reflection, more particularly as it was done by a man of his good sense and great talents, and we do not hesitate to say, that it was only public esteem for his superior abilities, that prevented the audience from humbly requesting him to die again. This defect might be easily obviated, if one of the attendants was well rehearsed in the art of laying hold of his hand at the moment his distressed Isabella attempted to pull him along, this would produce the intended effect, and the curtain would drop with every satisfaction to the public. But however the language of the poet may be entitled to our admiration, and Mr. Kemble's personification claim our highest encomium, yet the audience do not feel pleased with seeing a human being so long in a state of suffering; and though the poet has only presented this feeble character in one act, wé venture to say the Public would have been better satisfied if Mr. Kemble had shortened his part. In justice to this gentleman, he gives the text in the most effective manner, and assumes the passions of the character with the utmost accuracy, and colours them in all the perfection of art. There are one or two lines which he gives beyond all possible description. First when led to his couch, he says, "Set me the Crown upon my pillow, here," here the ambition of his nature is finely exhibited, and his love of that diadem which he is every moment on the eve of quitting for ever. Mr. Kemble in speaking this line shews his great knowledge of nature. He is also equally great in the fifth scene, in giving these words. "Where is the Crown? Who took it from me?" Many other parts of the character are finely pourtrayed by him, and evince the conception of a great mind, and the performance of a great actor. Mr. Kemble appeared this winter, for the first time, in the Part of the Stranger, in the Tragedy of 66 Douglas." If there is any thing worthy of notice in his assumption of the Old Man, it is his stage attire, which bore the feature of great novelty, and we recollect that his deviation from the usual manner of dressing this Ciraracter met with some public reprobation, but we are inclined to think, that Mr. Kemble's habiliments were far more appropriate to the situation of the Old Man, than the Costume generally worn; it not only gave a becoming contrast to the other Characters of the Drama, but carried a pleasing rusticity of appearance.-The voice, figure, and deportment of Mr. K. do not well accord with the aged rustic; his endeavours to make his voice tremulous and feeble, render his efforts ridiculous, and laughable. We do not mean to censure him for trying the versatility of his powers; but while he can ride triumphant in a sphere where Melpomene shines on him, in all the radiance of her lustre, he is wrong to leave that circle beyond which she must cease to protect her favorite genius. We had some inclination to postpone for the present, our remarks on Mr. Kemble's performance of Orestes, in the Tragedy of the " Distressed Mother," as we cannot give the subject that space in our work, it is fairly intitled to; but as his delineation of the character possesses a sublimity of feature, which exceeds our ability to describe with accuracy; and is the ne plus ultra of art, we cannot refrain from making it a subject of limited notice. In the third Scene of the fourth Act, where Hermione shews the agony of dissappointed love, and works on the feelings of Orestes to kill Pyrrhus, till he says "That were to make him blest; and me more "Wretched :-Have you a foe, "And shall I let him live? My rival too? "Ere yon meridian sun declines, he dies: "And you shall say, that I deserve your love." It is impossible to bestow too much praise on the whole of this Scene; but when he assumes the reso lution to destroy Pyrrhus, after a long combat between love, honor, and ambition, (in which every passion of the soul is finely shewn) he delivers the above language with great majesty of action and beauty of expression, and so delicately softens the energy of his delivery in the last line, which expresses a hope that he shall deserve her love, that fills the auditors mind with the utmost anxiety for his fate. In the second scene of the fifth Act, he enters with an unsheathed sabre and informs Hermione, "Madam, 'tis done: your orders are obeyed: Here he finely pourtrays a mixture of grief, with an affected satisfacion in having obliged the idol of his love. This information produces one of the most finished and perfect pieces of acting that ever dignified the English Stage, when she finds that Pyrrhus, the darling of her soul, had been destroyed by Orestes, and rebukes the enormity of the offence in these lines "Peace, monster, peace! Go tell thy horrid tale "To savages, and howl it out in deserts." and shortly after, she says in a paroxysm of rage "I renounce "My friends, my country, Greece, and all mankind, These sentiments bring on a display of the passions in Orestes that are difficult to describe, particularly when he looks, as it were, within his soul, and expresses in a state of wonder and amazement. "Am I awake! where am I! soft, my soul: Why should her anger thunder against me? He then begins to be alive to his degraded state, and beautifully gives a solemn and dignified pathos to the following passages: "I am indeed a most outrageous monster! "A Ruffian, murderer, a base assassin ! "And all to please a false ungrateful woman." His mind instantly runs into a confused and hurried reflection, "Hence forward let the laws of nations cease; "Oh never more shall my torn mind be healed, "A dreadful band of gloomy cares surround me, "And lay strong seige to my distracted soul.", This speech he gives with such a variety of feeling, and expresses each passage with so much energy, that the eye and mind of the spectator must be closely rivetted from the sublimity of his effort. On his companion Pylades informing him that Hermione had plunged the poignard in her breast, and lay grasping the body of her favourite Pyrrhus in the agonies of death, he is particularly great in expressing the passions of these lines: "I thank you Gods,-I never could expect "To be so wretched!-You have been industrious "To finish your decrees; to make Orestes "I am singled out to bear the wrath of Heaven." In his last Scene it is impossible to paint the grandeur and sublimity with which he exhibits the passions of his disordered intellect, all that the mind can picture to itself of a great soul under the affliction of strong but insulted love, united also to S |