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    art ; with all the gorgeousness of procession ^ the richness and right of costume , ay , though the wand of an enchanter should throw over the whole theatre a blaze of beauty and splendour which would shame the creations of fancy and imagination , all would be as nothing , all from him will vanish before that more

    attractive vision ,, one single truth of developement of human character and human passion , one just portraiture of intellect working at the heart and through the frame of man ; to that one thing alone will every faculty of eye , ear , and thought be fascinated and enchained . He can value not less than the former

    classes all that draws their best attention ; but his greater aptitude to man ' s illustration of man supersedes all other claims on him ; and green baize for scenery , with no other wardrobe than such as leaves the frame to free action and expression , would have more charms for him , while the devices of mind and heart were visibl y at work together in the actor , than all which decoration or

    embellishment can substitute in a baldness of verbosity , for a negation of passion , an obscuration of the poetry of thought , an unphilosophical mentality , or undiscriminated tinges and depths of character . Let him have character , embodied conceptions and emotions expressed with nature ' s truth , or passion harmoniously rising and beating with events , and ( all his nicety of appreciation of other adjuncts notwithstanding ") he will submerge and forgive tne pettier onences or inappropriate costume or anachronisms ,

    and time and place oppositions and blunderings , even though they should so far violate proprieties as to make Nilus and the Pyramids march over to the walls of Corioli , or permit St . Peter ' s church to elevate its head above ruined triumphal arches sixteen centuries before a stone of it was digged from the quarries , or the

    herald of king George the Fourth to blow his trumpet for king John under the walls of Angiers . To diminish the number ot this class throughout England , is the great aim of Mr . Bunn ' s theatrical economy ; to sicken the few germs of taste and feeling " for the true dramatic art in the other classes , is his glorious policy . But Mr . Bunn is not the first worker ; he did not originate this crime against genius , and elevated thought , and improving

    delight , though his ardour and industry , now he has taken up the trade , are much greater than any of his predecessors evinced . Messieurs the public , it was in your power to check it when it commenced ; the fault is yours that it speeds so rapidly . I will tell you why by and by . Still there remains enough to meet the strongest desires of this class . No actor whom I have yet scon

    is so endowed to meet them as is Macready . Whosoever of them saw him in King John on Monday evening , December 9 , will believe my assertion . On a future occasion I shall cast my eye over Hamlet , as he lived in , and came from Macready . If people would anatomize character and fee lings , and so learn to trace their links and

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    114 Readers of Shakspeare .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 114, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/30/