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usages—that he would play the character as he felt it should be played . Sir reader , that was dignity , if you please : and many , even of the percipient and impressible , who have not heard Macready speak that language of threat and defiance , are yet to learn how much of beautiful energy it possesses . Reader , you have seen a marble figure in armour , lying extended on a tomb , the effigies of one who has lain beneath that stone some six hundred years ? Or , you have seen a pictured representation of this John , as he stood in mailed preparation , cased cap-a-pie in steel meshes—jet from crown to heel , save the little bands of silver which edged his cope and belted his corslet ,
and the coronet that circled the coif of black iron net ? and perhaps your fancy has helped you to a spark which vivified this picture , and kindled throu gh it motion , life , and sense . Evan with the perfection of form , mould , and habit , which your moral vision would cast into that picture , and look upon it in its fulness and exactness of life—even so might your bodily sense have
looked on King John at eight o ' clock on Monday evening , Dec . 9 , 1833 . Ay , and you would have seen him think , and heard him speak his thoughts : and not on scientific principles of elocution were his thoughts spoken , but on principles which warn the science , and may teach it to know its deficiencies .
Were I to select a scene in which the superior mental powers were put forth unaccompanied by any of those physical projections , broad masses and flaring lights of execution , which can be seen and felt by the least minded auditor—appreciated—in a
way—by the most uncognisant of the philosophy of thought ; 1 should choose the regal interview with the sophistical knavepriest , Pandulf . How the actor himself may estimate his quality in that scene , I cannot inquire ; he ought to be satisfied I may tell him , and that ' satisfy' to him , is , I suspect , the most difficult attainment of his studies . How the audience received it , I
do know , and I think they did not understand it , and while it was in course of action , were , probably , contrasting it with their recollection of somebod y else in the part ; and so very different was it , that if they felt its power , they feared to compromise their reputation for taste and judgment by applauding it . Or , was it
that they took in a deep satisfaction while watching so correct an illustration of characteristic thoughts and sentiments , and silently admired and acquiesced in the nice discrimination which presented the language in a truth and force which it had never before received ? Whenever I have been witness to this acted
drama , and the John was in other heads ( or hands ) than Macready ' s , those two speeches , one of reply to Pandulf , ' What earthly name to interrogatories , &c . ' and that addressed to Philip , whose Brother of England , you blaspheme in this , is a breeze that fan ' s John ' s coal into flame , two regular peals ot plaudit have followed their delivery . Now , reader , why was
Untitled Article
116 King John .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 116, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/32/
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