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    tin ' s tragedian could not wish it were better in any place or passage . A censuringly-disposed critic , perhaps , would find nothing on which he could vent his reproof , though this is , by far , an easier office than pointing out beauties .

    In the last scene of this act he was equally just , but more broadly conspicuous . How fully those words 'I ' m content / told the difficulty he felt in submitting to an utterance of them ! And that outbursting of hitherto smouldered , crushed-within fire , on the words , ' How ! traitor ! ' and like a cataract , witli all the mighty gush of its bound-up strength , the lava of indignation , scorn , and rage poured forth ' The fires i' the lowest hell fold in the people / &c . Mother , honours , friends , Rome , all creatures , and all things , were whelmed and forgotten in the destructive sweep of that massive burst!—Tt vvns trnlv snhlirn ** I

    And that one word , * you !'—which was darted as if it were an arrow of fire at the unfortunate Tribune who * prated of service , ' will be remembered for years by those who heard it on the evening of Dec . 16 , 1833 . Then followed that gathering up into one compressed sense , a concentration to a focus , and lodged deep down in the heart ' s centre , all the parts and varieties of his disgust and indignation , and he in a full , round , resolutely full , grand , and scathing , yet most dignified voice , measured out ( as if not an atom of the entire weight of every syllable and letter should be lost ) that speech which concluded the

    act—1 Ye common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate , ' &c . Kemble Iiere exhibited stately scorn , indignation and high anger , and delivered the whole passage in a . very elevated voice . He accompanied the ' I banish you ! ' with a stately sweep of lifted arm . Macready banished them without the arm ' s sweep ; there was a deeper , grander , a more durable and intense thought in his manner . In their reception of the fifth act , the audience felt that Macready could not be resisted . They fully acknowledged from him all those magnificent strokes for which his predecessor was so much celebrated . In the whole scene Macready was immensely the superior . In the complication of the existing interests , events , feelings , distracting

    passions , and the catastrophe , is an unusual variety of high , and all-contending emotions . They advance , recede , meet , oppose and cross each other with a rapidity , depth , and force which demand the loftiest powers of intellect , perception , and judgment , and susceptibility to impression , which can be associated in man . It is in this changing , fluctuating variety , and the wondrous fitting of his existence to them , that the actor under notice stood so preeminent . Let the spectator close his eyes , and give but his ears in attention , he will feel that it is nature breathing each alteration in the tone o ^ voice ; or , art is bo finely taught , so closely , » o exquisitively instructed ' by nature , that he will be sure it is-nature herself that speaks . I should fill a volume , instead of making a short note , were I to enter into an analysis of these emotions , and showed whence they originated , when and how they commenced , and where they were checked , changed , and obliterated , or to describe the actor's manner and expression in them . However , one instance of the rich , though delicate , the clear , though so nicely discriminated , tinges of the feelings on the voice , I must not omit to mention . It occurred in those several mode *

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    Macready ' s Coriolanus . 79

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 79, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/81/