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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
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 *
Untitled Article
Macready ' s Coriolanus . 79
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Citation
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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/
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