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Dramatic essays [of] J. Forster, G.H. Lewes
Dramatic essays J Forster GH Lewes - of Author:John Forster Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: by its help for one moment raises himself to stare into the face of his opponent with a gaze that seemed to concentrate all Majesty, Hate and Knowledge, had an a... more »ir of the preternatural fit to close such a career! MACREADY AS HAMLET. October u, 1835. Mr. Macready's Hamlet is a noble and a beautiful performance.1 It is infinitely finer than it used to be, more subtle and various, multiplied and deepened in its lights and shadows, with its sudden and brilliant effects harmonised to the expression of profound feeling, lofty yet gentle, the grandest sustainment of imagination and sensibility we have ever witnessed on the stage. We considered Mr. Macready highly successful in this character before seeing him last Wednesday, yet he illustrated then what it is to study Shakespeare with a love unwearied by success. But genius may well be its own rival, for it has no other. We venture to think, without a shade of misgiving, that this performance was the noblest approach that the stage can present to Hamlet, as he exists in the wonderful creativeness of Shakespeare's fancy. Vivid delineations of moments of passion, we have seen equally fine, fragments of possibly superior beauty in the acting of the late Mr. Kean—but never such a grasp of thought, never such a sustained exhibition of single, profound, and enduring passion, cast in the yielding and varying mould of imagination. Mr. Macready was indeed the princely and heart-broken philosopher, the irresolute avenger, the friend of Horatio, the lover of Ophelia. 1 Drury Lane, October 7, 1835. Hamlet is more than this, it is true; but we must recollect the palpable intervention of the stage. Mr. Macready cannot exhibit that which "passeth show." We try in vain to conceive of an actor that should present with effect the exact Haml...« less