Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/177

Rh mirth with passionate intensity that any actor may well shrink from attempting. Murdoch has found favor in the part before a London audience. But Murdoch, with more true mirth than, perhaps, any of his compeers, has not that refined and brilliant lightness of manner, that grace, which I have described elsewhere as snuffing a candle in a way to make you feel that snuffing candles is the poetry of life, or taking snuff with a grace to witch the world with snuff taking. Who can act Benedick? Charles Kean, a shrivelled old man of sixty, who looked no more like Benedick than a dried herring, gave us by sheer art the best Benedick of many a year. Twenty years ago Mrs. Kean was a Beatrice worthy of the part, an actress of true gayety; and her merry, rollicking laugh, which used to set the house in a sympathetic roar, yet lingers delightfully in my ears. There is not an actress on our stage who can express the gayety of Beatrice, or point Beatrice's wit. Where, again, is there a Rosalind, or a Viola? Whoever has seen Ellen Tree as Rosalind, will echo this question with regret.

We have lately lost from the stage the charming Madeline Henriques—not a great actress, but one with a tasteful, finished, society manner, without pretence or affectation, and full of gentleness, grace, and feeling. Even she was incapable of Rosalind, or Viola, or of any ripe and truly intellectual part. She appeared best in quietly-earnest characters, and had more pathos than comedy. Her delicate and refined rendering was healthful for the art; and her marriage, in ending her theatrical career, caused an unusual loss to the American stage.

Madeline Henriques is not the only one of our modern actors who, charming in little society parts, would be lost in the rich old drama. Of all the Wallack company only one member catches the spirit of the old comedies—notwithstanding Mr. Wallack's persistent attempts to revive them—and this is Mr. John Gilbert. He has a sound, thorough drill, and that perfect knowledge of the traditions of the art which are necessary to old English comedy. Gilbert has scarcely the unction of the late Mr. Blake in Sir Anthony Absolute, nor the perfect finish of Placide in Sir Peter Teazle, but his range of parts is wider than that of either of those excellent actors. Mr. Wallack ought to produce Henry IV., just to show, what few know, that Mr. Gilbert's is the best Falstaff on the stage. It has more breadth, richer coloring, more unctuous mellowness than Hackett's, which, by excessive elaboration, is weakened in vigor and freedom. But Hackett is an admirable actor. His Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, in The Man of the World, is a perfect study. and exhibits a Scotchman of the world in colors supremely vivid, His Rip Van Winkle is far nearer the ordinary conception of that good-for-nothing Dutchman than Mr. Jefferson's, whose performance sis [sic] praised so much for its naturalness. Jefferson is natural, refined