Shakespeare’s characters do not so adapt themselves to individual idiosyncrasies.  No man can hope to identify himself with them unless he can give wings to his faculties and soar above the plane of his actual emotions.  Often, no doubt, apparent triumphs have been gained by displays of histrionic power that owed little to the informing spirit of the poet.  But Macready has never been accused of seeking such results:  whatever his performances may have lacked, they were always imbued with a fine intelligence which brought all the details into harmony and kept the attention fixed on the conception of the character.  Thus in Macbeth, which was perhaps, on the whole, his most perfect impersonation, every look and gesture, every intonation, conveyed the idea of one who lived on the border-line of an invisible world, to whom all shapes and actions were half phantasmal, for whom clear vision and sober contemplation were impossible.  All his utterances were abrupt, all his movements hurried; a certain wildness, not of mere mental agitation, but of a spirit nurtured on unrealities, marked his manner and countenance throughout.  In Hamlet there was the drawback of a physical appearance unsuited to the part.  Yet it was the character which he had studied most profoundly, and in which, as we remember him in it, he held the most complete sway over the minds and feelings of his audiences.  None of his performances, as may be imagined, was so distinguished by its intellectuality, yet none was so simply and irresistibly pathetic.  The abstraction and self-communing in the delivery of the famous soliloquy can never have been surpassed, and were probably never equaled; and throughout the closet scene there was a reality in the tenderness, the vehemence, and the awe which held the spectators breathless and spellbound.  “Beautiful Hamlet, farewell, farewell!” are his closing words in recording his last performance of the part.  But this was no final parting:  while memory retained her seat in the mind of this great artist, this true and loving servant of Shakespeare’s genius, the matchless creations with which he had so identified himself could never cease to be the subjects of daily meditation.  “On one occasion,” we are told, “after his powers had so much failed that it was long since he had been capable of holding or reading a book to himself, he said he had been reading Hamlet.  On some surprise being expressed, he touched his forehead, and said ‘Here;’ and when asked if he could recollect the whole play, he replied, ’Yes, every word, every pause; and the very pauses have eloquence.’”

Books Received

The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost.  By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster New York:  D. & J. Sadlier.

Man and Beast Here and Hereafter.  By Rev. J.G.  Wood, M.A., F.L.S.  New
York:  George Routledge & Son.

Lakey’s Village and Country Houses, comprising eighty-four pages of
Designs.  New York:  The Orange Judd Co.