They may be very well when the actor's ingenuity, however paradoxical, is more amusing than the author's sense but it is not so in this case. From some such miscalculation, or desire of finding out a clue to the character, other than "was set down" for him, Mr. Kean did not display his usual resources and felicitous spirit in these terrific scenes: -he drivelled, and looked vacant, and moved his lips, so as not to be heard, and did nothing, and appeared, at times, as if he would quite forget himself. The pauses were too long; the indications of remote meaning were too significant to be well understood. The spectator was big with expectation of seeing some extraordinary means employed: but the general result did not correspond to the waste of preparation. In a subsequent part, Mr. Kean did not give to the reply of Lear, "Aye, every inch a king!"-the same vehemence and emphasis that Mr. Booth did; and in this he was justified; for, in the text, it is an exclamation of indignant irony, not of conscious superiority; and he immediately adds with deep disdain, to prove the nothingness of his pretensions

"When I do stare, see how the subject quakes."

Almost the only passage in which Mr. Kean obtained his usual heart-felt tribute, was in his interview with

Cordelia, after he awakes from sleep, and has been

restored to his senses

"Pray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upwards: and to deal plainly,
I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks, I should know you, and know this man ;
Yet I am doubtful; for I'm mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nay, I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

Cordelia. And so I am; I am."

In uttering the last words, Mr. Kean staggered faintly into Cordelia's arms, and his sobs of tenderness, and his ecstasy of joy commingled, drew streaming tears from the brightest eyes

Which sacred pity had engender'd there.

Mr. Rae was very effective in the part of Edgar, and was received with very great applause. If this gentleman could rein in a certain " 'false gallop" in his "voice and gait, he would be a most respectable addition, from the spirit and impressiveness of his declamation, to the general strength of any theatre, and we heartily congratulate him on his return to Drury

Lane.

MRS. SIDDONS.*

PLAYERS should be immortal, if their own wishes or ours could make them so; but they are not. They not only die like other people, but like other people they cease to be young, and are no longer themselves, even while living. Their health, strength, beauty, voice, fails them; nor can they, without these advantages, perform the same feats, or command the same applause that they did when possessed of them. It is the common lot; players are only not exempt from it. Mrs. Siddons retired once from the stage; why should she return to it again? She cannot retire from it twice with dignity; and yet it is to be wished that she should do all things with dignity. Any loss of reputation to her is a loss to the world. Has she not had enough of glory? The homage she has received is greater than that which is paid to queens. The enthusiasm she excited had something idolatrous about it; she was regarded less with ad

* June 15, 1816.

She was not only the

miration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. She raised tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of elder time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind. idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultuous shouts of the pit in breathless expectation, and ⚫quenched the 'blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, through long years of solitude, her face has shone as if an had appeared from heaven; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs. Siddons was an event in every one's life; and does she think we have forgot her? Or would she remind us of herself by showing us what she was not? Or is she to continue on the stage to the very last, till all her grace

eye

and all her grandeur gone, shall leave behind them

only a melancholy blank? Or is she merely to be played off as "the baby of a girl" for a few nights?" Rather than so," come, Genius of Gil Blas, thou that didst inspire him in an evil hour to perform his promise to the Archbishop of Grenada, "and champion us to the utterance" of what we think on this occasion.

It is said that the Princess Charlotte has expressed a desire to see Mrs. Siddons in her best parts, and this, it is said, is a thing highly desirable. We do not know that the Princess has expressed any such wish, and we shall suppose that she has not, because we do not think it altogether a reasonable one. If the Princess Charlotte had expressed a wish to see Mr. Garrick, this would have been a thing highly desirable, but it would have been impossible; or if she had desired to see Mrs. Siddons in her best days, it would have been equally so; and yet without this, we do not think it desirable that she should see her at all. It is said to be desirable that a Princess should have a taste for the fine arts, and that this is best promoted by seeing the highest models of perfection. But it is of the first importance for Princes to acquire a taste for what is reasonable; and the second thing which it is desirable they should acquire is, a deference to public opinion; and we think neither of these objects likely to be promoted in the

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