Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/65

56 not monstrous (says Hamlet) that this player here, should, in a fiction, in a dream of passion, so force his soul to his conceit, that, from his workings all his visage warmed; tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?" These were Barry's excellencies, and in these he stood unrivalled. His mien and countenance were so expressive of grief, that, before he spoke, we were disposed to pity; but then his broken throb so wrung our soul with grief, that we were obliged to relieve ourselves by tears . In Macbeth, Barry was truly great, particularly in the dagger-scene: his pronunciation of the words, 'There's no such thing.' were inimitably fine; he spoke them as if he felt them. In his performance of Lear, he gave considerable marks of his judgment, by throwing a very strong and affecting cast of tenderness into his character: he never lost sight of the father; but in all his rage, even in the midst of his severest curses, you saw that his heart, heavily injured as he was, and provoked to the last excess of fury, still owned the offenders for his children. His figure was so happily disguised, that you lost the man in the actor, and had no other idea in his first appearance, than that of a very graceful, venerable, kingly, old man: but it was not in his person alone he supported the character; his whole action was of a piece: and the breaks in his voice, which were uncommonly beautiful, seemed the effect of real, not counterfeited sorrow.

"The advantage which he had from his person, the variety of his voice, and its particular aptitude to express the differing tones which sorrow, pity, or rage naturally produce, were of such service to him in this character, that he could not fail of pleasing; and his manner of playing Lear appeared perfectly consistent with the whole meaning of the poet. If any performer was ever born for one particular part, Barry was for Othello. There is a