ing of him in all the great attributes of the art, he was one of those prodigies that occur only once or twice in a century. Kean is not the copyist of any other, but an actor who finds all his resources in nature. It is from the wonderful truth, energy, and force with which he strikes out, and presents the natural working of the passions, that he excites the emotions and engages the sympathy of the audience. It is to him that, after 139 nights of continued loss and disappointment, the subscribers are indebted for the success of the season." Kean was not fortunate in original characters-valuable auxiliaries in an actor's career, as they remove him beyond the danger of comparison and preconceived conclusions. His strength was in Shakspeare, and to Shakspeare he always retreated after an advance on less substantial ground. When he saw Talma at Paris, in Orestes, in 1818, he was piqued by the warm admiration of his wife, and said—“ I will show you that I can beat that." Accordingly he wrote over to the Drury-lane management, and recommended an early revival of Racine's declamatory tragedy, as anglicised by Aaron Hill. The result disappointed himself and the public. Othello was unquestionably his masterpiece; and, perhaps, his very best performance of this great character was on the 20th of February, 1817, when Booth was pitted against him in Iago. This Junius Brutus Booth was not unlike Kean in personal appearance. He had made a hit in Richard III., at Covent Garden, a few days before, but left suddenly in consequence of some misunderstanding about salary. He had many partisans, and was loudly applauded when he made his entrance at Drury-lane, as Iago. In the third act, Kean put forth all his strength, and literally strangled his opponent, who never appeared again on the same boards. He was announced for the 22nd, but was too ill to perform, and returned back to Covent Garden, where, after the usual tumult, explanation, and apology, he was permitted to appear to the end of the season, and gradually subsided into insignificance. We have often asked ourselves, whether Edmund Kean, if he were to appear now for the first time, would produce the effect and attraction which he formerly did? We think the answer may be in the affirmative; for although modern audiences are not so easily excited to enthusiasm as they were in our young days, and look more at the general accompaniments than at the individual acting, true nature and genius will never fail to vindicate themselves, let taste, caprice, or fashion, merge into what channel it will. Lord Byron was once seized with a convulsive fit on seeing Kean in the last scene of Sir Giles Overreach. His opinion of the leading actors of his day was, that Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two; but that Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together. In his preface to "Marino Faliero" he says (and the passage is worth transcribing): "The long complaints of the actual state of the drama, arise from no fault of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble, Cooke, and Kean, in their very different manners, or than Elliston in gentleman's comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill I never saw, having made and kept a determination to see nothing which should divide or disturb my recollection of Siddons. [Is this to be received as a compliment to Miss O'Neill ?] Siddons and Kemble were the ideal of tragic action; I never saw anything at all resembling them in person; for this reason we shall never see again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of dignity, we should remember that it is a grace and not an art, and not to be attained by study. In all not supernatural parts he is perfect; even his very defects belong, or seem to belong, to the parts themselves, and appear truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say, in reference to his acting, what the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, "that he was the only man he ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of Plutarch." Kean, as Lord Byron says, may have been deficient in dignity, but he was eminently graceful in action, to which his skill in dancing and fencing materially contributed. We have seen his attitude, while leaning against the wing, listening to Lady Anne, in Richard III., elicit loud applause from its striking elegance. His figure being small, was perfectly under command. Not so with poor Conway, who was so bullied by the newspapers for being tall, that he twisted himself into all sorts of incomprehensible bends to diminish the height, which many other actors would have given their eyes for. Conway was a remarkably handsome man (here he is in Richmond, by Dewilde), and so attractive in private society, that when ladies in Bath and Newcastle gave invitations to tea, they added to the cards, "Mr. Conway will be present," as an additional inducement. Conway and Warde had each a patronising dowager in Bath, who sat in opposite stage-boxes and led the applause for their respective protegés. The red and green factions of the circus at Constantinople, or the feuds of the Ursinis and Colonnas, at Rome, never raged with greater intensity than the "Vereker" and "Piozzi" parties which divided "British Baia" in support of their two favourite heroes of the buskin. Conway had been also extremely popular in Dublin. Fortune smiled on him until he appeared in London, in 1813, as Alexander the Great. He played many corresponding parts with Miss O'Neill in 1814 and 1815, and though the public received him well, some of the papers crusaded against him, which drove him from the stage in disgust. He de clined into the office of prompter at the Haymarket, went to America, and threw himself overboard on a voyage from New York to Charleston, in a fit of insanity. Conway was most unjustly treated, for he was a good actor, despite the detraction of "John Bull," and amiable in his private character. Here are two portraits of William Macready; one by Jackson, as the Sick King in the second part of Henry IV.; the other, as Orestes, by Boaden, presented to the Club by Captain Marryat. Macready appeared at Covent Garden in 1816, and retired at Drury-lane, in 1848-an actor of strong original conception, and great executive power, in a school of his own, which has found many followers. The period of his management - first at Covent Garden, and afterwards at Drury-lane, was marked by incessant activity, and many striking improvements in costume and stage mechanism. On the rapid strides since made in these departments, we shall speak more fully on a future opportunity. In our hasty glance through the rooms we have passed over many eminent artists who ought not to have been unnoticed. Much might be said, did space permit, of Mrs. Bartley, Mrs. Renaud, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Edwin, Mrs. Lichfield, Miss Kelly, Warde, Yates, Blanchard, Knight, Abbott, Tokely, Simmons, and Terry, cum multis aliis. We cannot pretend to be more than a guide-post on a pleasant road, leaving travellers to select their own restingplaces when the direction is pointed out. Of living celebrities, still in high career, we forbear to speak or to draw any comparisons. Posterity must classify them, as we have endeavoured to do by their progenitors. It will be found that the stage can still boast distinguished talent in every branch of the dramatic art, although, from the multiplication of theatres, that talent can no longer be concentrated as formerly in one or two distinct companies. The latest acquisition of the gallery we have carried our readers through, is a fine painting by Clint, representing a scene from the Clandestine Marriage, with W. Farren, R. Jones, and Farley as Lord Ogleby, Brush, and Canton. The colouring, grouping, and likenesses are all admirable. We had nearly forgotten Robert Coates, Esq., more familiarly called Romeo Coates, from his favourite character; an eccentric amateur, who as he bas obtained a niche in the collection of portraits, may claim a line or two in our references. Dewilde has flattered him, for he was, beyond all question, an ugly man, even more so than he is here represented. A West India proprietor, and the owner of extensive estates in the Island of Antigua, he possessed ample means for indulging a whimsical taste; and some forty years ago he was a man upon town of the first order of singularity. We recollect him a constant appendage to Bond-street, while yet that favoured locality was the fashionable louge, and before Regentstreet was thought of. He drove a light claret-coloured curricle, in shape like a cockle-shell, with beautiful bay horses and two outriders. He was usually attired in nankeen tights and silk stockings, to display his leg, on which he prided himself. His harness, panels, and liveries were bedizened with silver cocks, his adopted armorial bearings, and the motto, "Whilst I live, I'll crow." These unlucky cocks furnished an apt cue to his ridiculers, for as soon as he died in Romeo or Lothario, there arose from the gallery of the Haymarket a simultaneous burst of crowing, which seemed as if every farm-yard in England had furnished its quota for the gratulation. A cruel trick was once played off upon Coates, by sending him a fictitious invitation to one of the Prince Regent's grand fétes at Carlton House. When his name was announced, and he appeared in gorgeous costume, the Prince, who at once recollected that he was not included amongst the guests, whispered to those about him, This poor man has been hoaxed, but I will disappoint them." He then advanced to Coates, with that peculiar urbanity by which he was distinguished, and welcomed him in the most cordial manner. Di. vested of his theatrical mania, Mr. Coates was harmless, amiable, and charitable to a degree. He lived to a great age, and owed his death at last, in some sort, to the theatre. Coming out of Drury-lane, he was run over by a street cabriolet, and died from the effects of the accident on the 4th March, 1848. There have been many absurd amateurs, but none to compete with Romeo Coates, who ever seemed insensible to the merriment he af forded. It ought to have been stated before, that in this collection are two portraits of Shakspeare; one, a reduced copy by Ozias Humphreys, from the Chandos picture; the other a suspiciouslooking original without a pedigree, presented by II. Broadwood, Esq., M.P. All collectors should be on their guard against the army of pseudo Shakspeares with which Zinke, a wellknown and clever picture-cleaner and repairer, inundated the world, and gulled the credulous. His favourite subjects for conversion were old women, with high caps, to leave room for the capacious forehead of the bard—or dis. coloured James the Firsts! The celebrated Bellows forgery, by which Talma was swindled, and which he obstinately believed in to the day of his death, may be quoted as the finest emanation of Zinke's genius, and worthy to be classed in bold effrontery with the Ireland fabrications. Talma gave two hundred pounds sterling for this precious relic, painted on the exterior of an immense pair of bellows, said to have been the undoubted property of Queen Elizabeth. Neither was there wanting an appropriate legend in good old English, also supplied by the prolific brain of Zinke. It ran thus: "Whome have we here, Stucke onne the bellowes ? Oh! curste untowarde lučke, Naye, rather glorious lotte, To hymme assign'd, Who, like th' Almightie, rydes The wynges oth' winde." "Pystolle.' The enthusiastic French tragedian bestowed upon his purchase a sumptuous decoration, lined with velvet, the whole being enclosed in a mahogany case. On the sale of Talma's property at his death, all the Parisian fashionables attended, the grand object of attraction being the Bellows picture. During the sale, it was stated that the painter was a Flemish artist of the name of Porbus; that M. Talma had refused a thousand napoleons for the portrait, and that on one occsion, when the tragedian had been visited by Mr. Charles Lamb, the latter being shown the picture, fell upon his kness, and kissed it with idolatrous veneration. This was an unskilful parody on what James Boswell actually did when the Ireland manuscripts were placed before him, and he had satisfied himself that they were genuine. The bellows portrait accordingly was knocked down, after much competition, to a fortunate bidder for three thousand one hundred francs, about one hundred and thirty poun's sterling, and was transported back to London, where it may still be obtained as the only authentic likeness of Shakspeare. At a corresponding price, Zinke first sold it to Mr. Foster, the well-known dealer in curiosities, who disposed of it again for five guineas, not as an original, but avowedly as a modern antique, intended as a mere memento of the Bard of Avon. The picture is, undoubtedly, an old woman in a high cap, decorated with blue ribbons, and has been twice transformed into Shakspeare-the second time even more skilfully than the first. Whether there is really in existence any genuine portrait of Shakspeare, is a question that has been so often discussed, and so vehemently disputed, that it would be idle here to plunge anew into the controversy. None can be considered as entirely proved, though evidence preponderates in favour of the following, which may be authentic, although they do not strongly resemble each other, 1. The Felton portrait. 2. The Chandos por Pale as the Maybell trembling in the breeze From the deep mountain-breast, To be thy pursuivants when thou art wandering. Thy name is terrible; thine icy breath Stern order to the War-Fiend uttereth, Who stains the pleasant turf a fearful red; A myriad spirits brave, For whose eternal rest no saintly song is said. Yet have I known thee, Death, with gentle hand Arose a rustic tune From sunburnt, lusty reapers, binding up their sheaves. And even if, in some too cruel mood, Thou didst neglect the weary multitude, To clutch the fair bride in her orange-bloom- Upon the marriage night, And bear her pallid beauty to the marble tomb : Or the sweet child who prattles all day long Didst touch with chillness 'mid his cradle song- Up to his golden throne ;— When they are gathered there, thou, Death, shalt pass away. MORTIMER COLLINS. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF AN OPIUM-EATER. * THIS is in many respects a very re- sured up in an active and retentive memory for many a long year. In Tait's Magazine there were recollections of the poets Wordsworth and Southey, with whom he had been early an intimate friend and guest. There were pictures of Coleridge and of Lamb, as seen in the early dawning of their powers. Of De Quincey it must be felt, that he was one of the first to recognise the genius of those men, which there is no one who does not now acknowledge. That these memorials, and that an account of De Quincey himself should be preserved, is, we think, an important service to literature. We do not know how much is actual fact or how much is to be ascribed to unconscious states of mind, in which memory and imagination so blend as to be absolutely undistinguishable—or, thirdly, how much is absolute romance, and intended to be understood by the reader as being such, in the "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater." We only know that some thirty years ago, when we read it, it appeared to us to be the very most interesting paper we had ever read. To us it was true. We entertained no doubt of any, the minutest, incident of the strange dreams there described. We were ourselves thrown into a sort of trance, and became, as it were, dreamers. When we afterwards thought of the work, of the constructive power exhibited by the spiritual architect, the dæmon or genius who seizes into his own hand the powers which their proper owners would seem to have abandoned, and builds out of the chaos of sleep such palaces as those of Kublakhan, but only for Coleridges or De Quinceys, we felt that in the author of the "Confessions," whose name we had not then heard, another great poet was born into the world. It would appear that Mr. De Quincey is indolent, or perhaps only indifferent to fame, and that had it not been for an American collection of his works, he would still have delayed forming any himself. Difficulties, arising from the law "Selections from the Writings, Published and Unpublished, of Thomas De Quincey." Vols. I. and II. Edinburgh, 1853-4. VOL. XLIII.-NO. CCLVI. 2 E |