deliers and the benches. The elder Colman was himself compelled to make his first appearance on a public stage, and considering these wretches as his masters, yielded to their pleasure, and pronounced the gratifying words, "he is discharged."

Mr. Macklin first legally established against the leaders of these "forcible feebles" a charge of conspiracy; and Lord Mansfield in the kindest manner pressed his opinion that the compensation to be made by the parties to Mr. Macklin should be left to the master. Macklin himself, however, proposed a very moderate reimbursement for his losses, from which debt of justice, one of the conspirators, by name only William AUGUSTUS Miles, did himself the honour to abscond. In fact, Macklin had so narrowed his own satisfaction, that he found himself absolutely out of pocket in respect of his costs on the information.

For two seasons the managers had persisted in their acquiescence, and he had therefore a right to the salary and the benefits, which so weak a conduct on their part had deprived him of. But here there was a slight difficulty, and that was, to establish whether Macklin was engaged at the theatre or not? A bill of discovery was therefore filed in Chancery ; and this dramatic piece, upon the Horatian precept, Nonum prematur in annum, had been before the great theatrical manager, the Lord Chancellor of England, for nearly nine years. This to a man, at that time certainly NINETY, was a grievance, which he was advised to terminate. The late Lord Kenyon was the barrister, who on the 6th of June 1781, gave it as his opinion, that the equity cause should be abandoned, and that he should try his fortune at law. This sound advice was ultimately attended with the success already stated. As soon as Macklin obtained the award, he made his opponent, the manager, a present of it. He interpreted rather like Portia than Shylock.

"This bond doth give me here no jot of BLOOD."

But the highly momentous parts of these proceedings are the two clear and satisfactory positions laid down by Lord Mansfield; one as to the rights of the audience, the other as to those of the actor. For the first, he thus expresses himself. "Every man that is at the play house, has a right to express his approbation or disapprobation INSTANTANEOUSLY, according as he likes either the acting or piece. There is a right due to the theatre-an unalterable right-they MUST HAVE THAT."

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For the second, thus he secures the actor or author.--“ It is not necessary to prove a parole, or written agreement, in order to make a conspiracy: if persons concur in acts to do the same thing, upon any bad or improper principles, it is conspiracy."

But the application of these dicta cannot be further extended, until a late period of these memoirs.

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CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Kemble's acting.—Its peculiar character.--The great and beautiful in art.-Vulgar nature.-Macbeth.-Academic style.-Melody.--Familiar touches in diction.Sir Joshua Reynolds quoted in support of the Author's opinions -Colman's Season, 1784.--Two to One.--Mrs. Inchbald.--Holcroft's Noble Peasant.--Hayley's Lord Russel.--Miss Kemble.--George Steevens.-Anecdote of Palmer in this play.-Mr. Steevens's furious prejudice against Mrs. Siddons.-Hayley's want of delicacy and inconsistency exposed.--Rhyming Comedies.-Peeping Tom.-George Alexander Stevens.--Mr. Kemble in the recess goes to Liverpool and Manchester.--Mrs. Siddons at Edinburgh.--Dublin.-Cork.-Her illness.-Systematic attacks upon her.--Younger and Mrs. Mattocks.-Their triumph in Lear over Henderson and Mrs. Siddons.Travesty of the Beggar's Opera.

HAVING Conducted Mr. Kemble to the close of his first season in town, it may be proper to consider now the peculiar style of his acting-by which I mean, in course, the idea he had formed to himself of the art, and the power with which it was to be executed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his seventh discourse upon painting, has the following most beautiful passage; by which we see the opinion of Mr. Burke verified as to that great artist: "To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher." To have altered the arrangement of it would have better suited my immediate object, but I would not take even a slight liberty with the composition of so great a writer.

"Perhaps no apology ought to be received for offences committed against the vehicle (whether it be the organ of seeing, or of hearing), by which our pleasures are conveyed to the mind. We must take care that the eye be not perplexed and distracted by a confusion of equal parts, or equal lights, or offended by an unharmonious mixture of colours, as we should guard against offending the ear by unharmonious sounds. We may venture to be more confident of the truth of this observation, since we find that Shakspeare, on a parallel occasion, has made Hamlet recommend to the players a precept

of the same kind,-never to offend the ear by harsh sounds : In the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of your passion, says he, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. And, yet, at the same time, he very justly observes, The end of playing, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature. No one can deny, that violent passions will naturally emit harsh and disagreeable tones: yet this great poet and critic thought that this imitation of nature would cost too much, if purchased at the expense of disagreeable sensations, or, as he expresses it. of splitting the ear. The poet and ACTOR, as well as the painter of genius, who is well acquainted with all the variety and sources of pleasure in the mind and imagination, has little regard or attention to common nature, or creeping after common sense. By overleaping those narrow bounds, he more effectually seizes the whole mind, and more powerfully accomplishes his purpose. This success is ignorantly imagined to proceed from inattention to all rules, and a defiance of reason and judgment; whereas it is in truth acting according to the best rules and the justest reason.

"He who thinks nature, in the narrow sense of the word, is alone to be followed, will produce but a scanty entertainment for the imagination: every thing is to be done with which it is natural for the mind to be pleased, whether it proceeds from simplicity or variety, uniformity or regularity; whether the scenes are familiar or exotic; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated; for it is natural for the mind to be pleased with all these in their turn. In short, whatever pleases has in it what is analogous to the mind, and is, therefore, in the highest and best sense of the word, natural."-Works, vol. i. p. 209. ed. 1798.

In this passage may be developed the principles of every thing that is great and beautiful in art, and consequently whatever is poetical in the conception of character. The actor who looks no farther than common nature for the expression of the passions, will be short of the true mark; for though we are as men all liable to the same influences, they are greatly modified by our personal qualities and individual habits. To instance in the character of Macbeth. An actor of no great elevation of mind, but of strong imagination, may throw out in his whole manner so speaking a terror, that he shall certainly be the true and perfect image of one who had committed a murder: but he may still leave a question to the spectator, whether that murderer be Macbeth, or not? Does the actor, for instance, exhibit to us a noble nature absolutely sunk and depraved by that act, or a base

one losing its very cunning in the fear of detection? Is he a hero, who descends to become an assassin, or a common stabber, who rises to become a royal murderer?

The direction in these cases is uniform. Look at the poet; you will see with what properties he invests his character; embody them, and you will be its just and natural representative. To be sure there can be no doubt of it. The difficulty is to hold steadily the conception thus formed, and to express all the characteristics of which it is composed. It is unnecessary to go minutely into the character of Macbeth; it has been analysed with great skill by Mr. Kemble himself, by Mr. Whateley, Professor Richardson, and others. The moral progression of the part must be the constant inspirer of the actor; above all, he must keep before him the influence of those spirits who know all mortal consequences; without this mental discipline to regulate the whole, the mere external demonstrations will often appear forced, disjointed, and unnatural; a regard to this principle removes all seeming inconsistency, and combines the whole into one great and consistent character.

The difficulties of such a task may well astonish our minds, and it may be reasonably enough asked, whether all this is done by an actor on the stage? The answer is ready; such must be the process in all efforts approaching to perfection, this is done. There is a mode of passing through a character, with no more effort, than will satisfy a common knowledge of it. If the actor seem to be in earnest, is sufficiently noisy, declaim in the received tune, or has some strange one of his own-if he practise all the tricks of his profession-if his body be disposed in suitable attitudes, his features wrung into what he calls expression, and he look successfully, there will be usually little doubt of its being a very fine performance; so no doubt it is, of what every body alike has done upon the common stages of England for a hundred years together. Is this NATURE well understood? is this ART in its perfection? Neither; it is a drilled exercise, which a boy has been made to do, who never comprehended the reason for any one thing that he did.

It may now be seen, that, where characters are finely made out by the poet, where qualities of the same mind oppose each other, where the passions themselves have a thousand shades admitting of palpable discrimination, it is no light study that He takes up, who would indeed become an actor. The short or royal road here is Ask your own heart, how you would feel in a similar situation." Again we say, right; nothing can be better. But WHAT Is that situation? How is it to be