of all—­to repress the ready frown, and keep the features, perhaps I should say the muscles, of the face undisturbed, whilst intense passion would speak from the eye alone.”  If the propriety of some of these exercises be questionable, there can be no doubt that the general effect of such discipline was to correct the acquired tendencies of his youth and to chasten his style until it lacked nothing less than refinement.

All this concerned the technique of his art.  Its soul—­the thoughts, the feelings, the characters to be embodied by it—­formed the subject of deeper, more constant and more delightful meditation.  Here at least Macready was at no disadvantage in a comparison with the most illustrious of his predecessors.  Some there may have been who gave more vividly the salient points of a character, or who, as in the case of Kean’s Othello, infused into their personations of some of the grandest but least complex of Shakespeare’s creations an intensity of passion that defied all rivalry.  But none ever brought to the study of the poet the intellectual discernment, the sympathetic spirit, the true and heartfelt devotion with which Macready ministered at his shrine.  Not his own part alone, but the whole play, including the words and scenes omitted in representation, were imprinted in his memory and continually revolved.  The groundwork was thus laid in a thorough knowledge of the medium, to use the expression of Taine, applying it, however, not to mere external facts and circumstances, but to that individuality of form, ideas and style which the great dramatist has given to each of his works.  Then the meaning and bearing of every phrase received their share of light from the same general source, and the performance was pervaded throughout by a consistency and a subtle discrimination which rendered it a living commentary, acting on the intellect through the emotions.

It is easy to understand why, in the great variety of Macready’s impersonations, none stood out by universal consent as indubitably the greatest.  To all he gave his unstinted devotion and the full measure of his powers, and the choice was left to be determined mainly by the peculiar taste of the spectator.  Yet there were some which must be recalled with especial vividness as best exemplifying the scope of his genius and his general characteristics.  Two of these parts, Werner and Melantius, were not Shakespearian creations, but they were at least devices of the poetical imagination, not of the mere playwright’s handiwork.  In both we have the spectacle of a proud and sensitive but open and loving nature blighted with dishonor and misery through the crimes of one near in blood and cherished with an unsuspecting affection.  Here were conceptions that made no demands on his imaginative power.  He had not to transform himself into the characters, but only to give free play to the springs of his own nature.  The grief, the passion, the sudden revulsions of feeling were not mimetic displays:  one could imagine no different expression of them.  He was Werner and Melantius because Werner and Melantius were Macready.