Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/234

 860 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS forget The audience were standing ; some had mounted on the benches ; there was wild waving of hats and handkerchiefs, a storm of cheering, great showering of bouquets. Her second character in London was Lady Macbeth, to the Macbeth of Ed- win Forrest ; but the American actor failed to please, and the audience gave free expression to their discontent. Greatly disgusted, Forrest withdrew, deluding himself with the belief that he was the victim of a conspiracy. Miss Cushman's success knew no abatement. She played a round of parts, assisted by James Wallack, Leigh Murray, and Mrs. Stirling, appearing now as Rosalind, now as Juliana in "The Honeymoon," as Mrs. Haller, as Beatrice, as Julia in "The Hunchback." Her second season was even more successful than her first. After a long provincial tour she appeared in December, 1845, as Romeo at the Hay- market Theatre, then under the management of Mr. Webster, her sister Susan assuming the character of Juliet. She had sent for her family to share her pros- perity, and had established them in a furnished house at Bayswater. Her success as Romeo was very great. The tragedy was played for eighty nights. Her performance won applause even from those most opposed to the representation of Shakespeare's hero by a woman. For a time her intense ear- nestness of speech and manner, the passion of her interviews with Juliet, the fury of her combat with Tybalt, the despair of her closing scenes, bore down all oppo- sition, silenced criticism, and excited her audience to an extraordinary degree. She appeared afterward, but not in London, as Hamlet, following an unfortu- nate example set by Mrs. Siddons ; and as Ion in Talfourd's tragedy of that name. In America, toward the close of her career, she even ventured to appear as Cardinal Wolsey, obtaining great applause by her exertions in the character, and the skill and force of her impersonation. But histrionic feats of this kind tres- pass against good taste, do violence to the intentions of the dramatists, and are, in truth, departures from the purpose of playing. Miss Cushman had for ex- cuse — in the first instance, at any rate — her anxiety to forward the professional interests of her sister, who, in truth, had little qualification for the stage, apart from her good looks and her graces of manner. The sisters had played together in Philadelphia in " The Genoese " — a drama written by a young American — when, to give support and encouragement to Susan in her personation of the hero- ine, Charlotte undertook the part of her lover. Their success prompted them to appear in " Romeo and Juliet." Other plays, in which both could appear, were afterward selected — such, for instance, as " Twelfth Night," in which Charlotte played Viola to the Olivia of Susan — so that the engagement of one might com- pel the engagement of the other. Susan, however, quitted the stage in 1847, to become the wife of Dr. Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool. Charlotte Cushman called few new plays into being. Dramas, entitled " In- fatuation," by James Kenny, in 1845, and "Duchess Eli our," by the late H. F. Chorley, in 1854, were produced for her, but were surr /narily condemned by the audience, being scarcely permitted indeed a second performance in either case.