nor were they able to inform me. been ignorant, * All that lebrated Le Kain is remarkable. But though not easy to trace its true source, it has probably originated in the military music, which some of the Hottentots have occasionally heard, and which has operated powerfully on the minds of a people, who, like the other savage tribes, are ardent lovers of melody. To be continued. He Unlike I could gather upon the subject from has already established a reputation those to whom, like myself, it had been a matter of astonishment, was, that being nanearly as great as that of Talma, I turally gifted with fine ears, they fell into expect, too, that you'll be a little it instinctively; for, at the Missionary In- startled, if not scandalized, when I stitution, nothing beyond the plain chaunt, tell you that. I think he deserves itor melody, is taught; the men and women that he is, upon the whole, nearly as singing the same note upon different octaves. If this be correct, it is a singu- great an actor-that he possesses as lar phenomenon, that a horde of savages consummate a judgment, as pure and should, by instinct or accident, have at- delicate a taste, as clear, quick, and tained that of which the polished and vivid conceptions, and as admirable luxurious Greeks are supposed to have and wondrous a power of embodying those conceptions. For physical powers he is about as much" and as little indebted to nature as Talma is : but it is remarkable, that whatever Talma wants, Kean has, and whatever Kean wants, Talma has. Talma, Kean's person is insignificant, and his voice is totally bad; and unlike Talma, also, his eye is like lightning, and his face has a power of exIn tragedy the English have, I pression that is perfectly magical. think, more merely good actors than The action of Talma is less constrainwe have; but a merely good actor is ed and redundant than that of any the most insipid person in the world other French tragedian; but Kean's to describe, so I shall tell you no more is still less so than his. It has much about them. But there is one tragic much more variety, and yet is much Actor on the London stage, by whom more simple and natural ; his attitude I have been so deeply interested, and in any given situation being precisely whose powers appear to me of so ex- that which a consummate painter traordinary a description, that I shall would assign to it. If I were to notake some pains to give you an idea tice the general resemblance, and the of them. His name is Kean. The general difference between these two coincidence of name with our own ce-extraordinary actors, I should say, KEAN AND TALMA. BY M. DE ST. FOIX. * That there exists a natural sympathy between sounds, tending to form that harmonious combination which is distinguished by the name of concords, the most simple experiment places beyond a doubt. Harmony,' it has been well observed, is not an adventitious quality in sonorous bodies, but it is in some sense inherent in every sound, however produced. Every sound is as much made up of three component parts, as a ray of light is composed of seven primary colours.' It is difficult then to conceive, that a refined people, who arrived at such perfection in sculpture and painting, should have remained such barbarians in musical science; and still more difficult to conceive, that the stupid Hottentot should have stumbled on a discovery that was denied to the subtlety and enthusiasm of Greece. Perhaps the hypothesis concerning the ignorance of musical combinations amongst the Greeks is built upon too slight a foundation, for the little that has been handed down upon this subject seems hardly to warrant the conclusions that have been drawn.' 6 that both draw their resources fresh lips, as if they were the smallest part and direct from nature, and that both of what he would express. And in study her as she exists in the depths all this there is no show; no endeaof their own hearts; but that Talma your; no pretence: for real love is has more imagination than passion, the most unpretending thing in the and Kean more passion than imagina-world; the most quiet; the most able- tion. Not that Talma wants passion, to repose upon itself, and the most or that Kean wants imagination; but willing to do so. If hatred and repassion is the characteristic of the one venge are his themes, it is hardly posand imagination of the other. When sible to image yourself looking at, or Talma exclaims in Macbeth, Il est listening to the same person. His la la! the strength of his imagina- eyes glare; his teeth grind against tion kindles that of the spectators, till each other; his voice is hoarse and they absolutely see the image of the broken; his hands clinch and open murdered king reflected from his face. alternately, as if they were revelling His imagination is still more conspi- in the blood of his enemy; and his.. cuous in the tremendous power he whole frame seems to have imbibed gives to the words in the same play, the will and the powers of a demon. Attete, donc, ce sang qui coule jus- This actor's delineation of all the qu'a moi! But surely the most other violent passions as remorse, splendid and astonishing of all theatri- jealousy, despair, &c. seem to me to cal exhibitions, and the effects of possess alike a force, a truth, and a which are to be attributed to the re-distinctness, which render them alalising power of his imagination, is that most perfect. And all is done, too, of Talma in Edipus, at the moment without the slightest appearance of that he discovers his involuntary art or effort. It is scarcely possible,. crimes. It is a thing to be seen while you are seeing him, to recollect once, and remembered for ever; but that he is an actor; and he himself not to be described. Kean has no- seems never for a moment to feel that thing like this in the same class of he has an audience before him. Kean's acting. His characteristic, as I have picture of remorse, as it affects Macsaid, is passion-passion under all its beth after the murder of Duncan, if names and varieties-through all its it has not the overwhelming and terriwindings and blendings-in all its de- fic force of that of Talma in the same o licate shades and most secret recesses. play, has, I think, more variety, more Its operation never for a moment intensity, and more truth. There is... ceases to be visible; for, when he no extravagant and hurried action ; no · · ceases to speak, every motion of his loud and vehement tones of voice; thoughts is absolutely legible in the there is no bursting forth of the flames:/ astonishingly varied expression of his they are all within, and are only to face, and eye, and action. Passion be discovered by their torturing and seems to be the very breath of his withering effects upon, the, outward mental existence or rather its vital frame. The eye is fixed and vacant; stream-into which every thing else the hands hang down motionless, or resolves itself. If he has to express are clinched in the fruitless endeavour r love, his whole soul seems to cling to to suppress the agony of soul; the the being on whom he is gazing-knees tremble, and scarcely support his voice melts--his eye swims and the body-in the general and total trembles and the words fall from his convulsion of the frame, the tongue " refuses to obey the will, and the voice towards the actor who o can turn this picture into a living human being, and place it before us in all the breathing reality of flesh and blood. 15 1 becomes choked and lost in forced attempts at utterance. To all this succeeds a dead calm, which is not less fearful than the agitation which I wonder what the English would preceded. "There is a point at which say to my admiration of their favourite human suffering destroys itself. His actor; for he is their favourite, though, agonized mind and exhausted body they hardly seem to know it. At the can endure no more; and they sink theatre, indeed, the magical power of together into a motionless stupor. A his genius sometimes works them up loud knocking is at this instant heard into something approaching to enthu at the gate of the castle; but there he siasm; but, when they get home again, stands in the open hall, with the it is all forgotten: and if you ask their bloody witness of his guilt upon his opinion of him, they tell you that he hands, yet nothing can rouse him; is a very clever little fellow, with an I and his wife drags him away by force indifferent person and bad voiceto his chamber. I have no hesitation and that it is a pity he is not more in telling you that I think this piece prudent in his private character: that of acting (including from the time he makes an uncommonly good Macbeth quits the chamber of Dun- Richard III.; but that in Hamlet he can, till he is forced away to his own), is not near so much of a gentleman though it is not so tremendous as some as Kemble was, and that they don't parts of Talma's Edipus, nor so think he could play Coriolanus at all! fearfully grand as his Orestes, nor so, and that is all they know about the what I should call, beautiful as the Hamlet of that actor, is, without exception, the most affecting and impressive exhibition I ever beheld. matter! Even among the critics, 11 ་་་་ " B 20stry bus 6906 Frid bas PILDIW To the Editor of the Melange.2 t, ndi 1 But there is one other character in which this actor displays still greater powers than he does in Macbeth: a character in which he appears to me to have reached the absolute perfection of his art, in the very highest class of it. This is the Othello of ShakeAll men have faults; and, as thou art but man. · speare. You know I am not very Do not expect too much, for all must err. familiar with this celebrated English Of those who journey on with thee through life, 92, - ~ Thou hast thy failings too; so think not lightly dramatist. But, since I first saw Lest all thy hopings end in disappointment. Kean in Othello, I have taken great SIR,--The proper study of mankind, pains to make myself acquainted with is man; so Pope says; but we are inclinthis play in particular. I have seen ed to doubt, if the information acquired it twice since, and read it twice; and would be a sufficient compensation for though I have been a good deal puz- the drudgery of the study. A question zled by some old phraseology, yet the very naturally occurs-how much real more intimately I come to understand good can be obtained by the longest it, the more I am astonished at the and strictest investigation of the huwriter who could drew so miraculously man mind? We will suppose an intrue a picture of the human heart; and dividual who, by making man his only the more delighted admiration I feel study, can, at a single glance, pierce ນາ ત the inmost recesses of the bosom; who of a kindred spirit. Determined not ean unveil all the secrets of the heart, to be rash, we were in no hurry in by marking the changes and workings making our election; but, after trying of the face; one who can trace the anxiously and assiduously for a nummotives of every action, and can know ber of years, we never could find the the bias of every mind; whose know-kindred soul which, in idea, we had ledge of human nature is so thorough so often contemplated. We saw and correct, that he cannot be deceived shades in every character, that in no by any of his cotemporaries; and wise assimilated with our own; traits what then? will his happiness be in- from which we shrunk, as if it were creased? will the study of the mind intuitively; some possessed a weakexalt man in the individual's estima-ness, which required a support we tion? we are afraid not. The more were neither able nor willing to give. we know of the human mind, the Some, on the other hand, were SO more we know of its selfishness and conscious of self-superiority, that we depravity; and we believe every step turned from them in disgust; as we that an individual descends in the es- saw them demanding homage to which, timation of another, causes a diminu-we thought, they had no other claim tion of happiness. Hence we infer, than a very large portion of conthat if we knew the motive of every ceit and arrogance. Some seemed action, we would think man descend- too gay, others too grave; some ing step by step, until he had stepped profuse, and some stingy; so that, entirely out of our good opinion. among all the young men to whom We have been induced, Mr. Editor, we were introduced, we could not to make those remarks, from having select one in whom we could repose studied man as he came under our unlimited confidence. We had read own observation; and we reluctantly a little, and from our books had learned confess, that all the good we have ob- the danger of being too rash in the tained, is only a more complete know- choice of a friend; but we are now ledge of man's infirmities and weak-convinced of the folly of being too nesses; and after weighing maturely, squeamish; for, by expecting too in our own minds, the advantages resulting from the knowledge we have acquired, we are compelled to say, that it has not added in the least to our happiness; and we thereby consider the study of man unprofitable. We may be blamed for holding such an opinion; but the current of thought is not easily checked; and we are at best warranted in holding our opinion, until we are convinced we are holding an erroneous one. We entered life with the same hopes and fears of other young men. We were determined to seek for happiness wherever there was a probability of finding it; and, as a principal desideratum, we wanted a friend whose bosom was the tenement much, and by prying too narrowly into the lives and characters of men, we have become so suspicious, that we can place faith in no one. From all this, we believe the proper study,' &c. &c. unprofitable, as it has burdened our mind with uneasiness, and told us, in no very pleasing terms, that we ought not to expect pure and unimpregnated water from a fountain that has its source in a spot defiled by a thousand causes. The Glasgow Water Company may raise, objections to this remark, by proying the purity of the water drawn from their pipes, after passing through a number of filtering processes; but we beg they will not think the remark invidious, as we have no wish to injure the sale of hereby declare that we consider the their water, being well aware of the ladies perfectly justifiable in keeping advantages we enjoy, in having such a their Strephous in suspence, being no mode of supply; but if they would more than a just retaliation, for the only consider for a moment what the manner in which a certain set of dangpath of life is, they will find that every lers strive to excite hopes and fears step abounds with contamination, and among the females of their acquaintthat neither the length of the way, nor ance. Smirking at their supposed the channel through which it must conquests, like summer insects among pass, are calculated to improve the flowers, they wander from one object quality of the body. to another, until their hearts get so Disappointed in not finding a completely embossed in vanity, that male friend in whom we could con- they are incapable of feeling a genuine fide, and feeling ourselves occasion-attachment, and at last deliver themally affected by the attentions paid selves up to men-hunters, as unfit to to us by the opposite sex, we resolved feel as themselves. We conclude from to seek for that solace in their society, this, that such conduct on the part of which fate had denied us among men. men, is one great stimulus to female The same cautious spirit still hovered caprice; and the men have no reason over us, and we were determined to to complain when they get a Rowland be perfectly convinced of a reciprocity for an Oliver. We cannot blame ourof, sentiment and feeling in a female selves with having been guilty of such soul, before we would unfold to it a dishonourable, and we may say, conthe workings of our own bosom.temptible mode of conduct; but the Beauty was, of course, desirable; but proper study,' &c. &c. ever running in the love of admiration which we saw our head, made us so wary, that we in lovely women, and the hosts of ri- were lost in the net of our own cunvals by which we saw them surround-ning. We drew the unfair inference, ed and beleagured, so chilled and ter- that women, who allowed more beaux rified us, that we thought happiness than one to pay them attention, could incompatible with those who dealt out possess no quality that was not comtheir smiles as liberally and generally pletely selfish; and, in despair, we as the sun emits his rays. This was a turned from beauty, to seek a congevery trying time of our life. We were nial mind among those who were less always admirers of beauty; but we indebted to nature for the richness of had pictured something more than her gifts. After a long and an anmere face and form to ourselves; and xious search, we at last stumbled, as the consciousness that it could only we thought, on the being destined to be enjoyed in idea, gave us some very make us happy. She was as plain pungent twitches. Had we taken into and homely as the most jealous husconsideration the coquetry of our own band would wish his help-mate to be. sex, we would have ceased to wonder at She seemed quite conscious of the the seeming capaciousness of female feebleness of her claims to admiration. bosoms. We mean nothing offensive She never was obtrusive; and evinced, to the ladies; but, in the days of our on all occasions, so much seeming experience among them, we have often eagerness to make other people happy, wondered at the impartial manner in that we immediately decked her mind which they dispensed their smiles and with all imaginable graces. After other tokens of approbation. We a very short siege, we carried the for |