BOOKS.

MACREADY'S REMINISCENCES.*

WHETHER Macready's genius as an actor deserved the high praise he received from his friends and from a large portion of the public is a question not lightly to be answered, and one upon which just now we do not propose to enter. It is, at least, certain that he succeeded in acquiring no common reputation, and that he numbered amongst his admirers many of his most distinguished contemporaries. This much, too, may be safely asserted, that if Macready lacked in any degree the noble inspiration which is the chief requisite of the actor, as of the poet, no man ever toiled at

his art more sedulously. He spared no labour to excel, giving to the study of his characters all the energy he possessed, and that

energy was tremendous. "The cultivation of my art," he writes, "was always uppermost in my mind," and while admitting that the life of an actor had not been adopted by choice, he was re- solved to lose no opportunity of improvement, and to rise to the- foremost rank in his profession.

The record of Macready's struggles, as recorded by him in these "Reminiscences," is full of interest, both as regards the man-and.

the great art to which he dedicated his life. A worcl about -the latter first. The decline of the drama in our time is a comrean subject of complaint, and that it is a complaint not ill-founded will be evident to any one who reads these pages. From his early manhood, or rather from his youth, for owing to -his father's misfortunes, the cares of a theatrical manager devolved upon him at the early age of sixteen, Macready witnessed the-re-

presentations of actors who loved their art, and did not merely regard it as a means of livelihood. Some of his portraits of these-

celebrities are drawn with masterly precision, and his comments exhibit a critical sagacity which was perhaps one of his most striking gifts. Macready was but nineteen when he acted at Newcastle

with Mrs. Siddons in the Gamester and in Douglas. The half-

ignorant admiration he then felt for that superb actress showed the truth of his instincts, and time, with larger knowledge, did but increase his enthusiasm. Writing of a performance by Mrs. Sid-

dons when long past her prime, Macready says that no one who. had seen her then for the first time could "have formed any idea_

of the matchless fidelity with which the passions of our nature

could be portrayed, or have remotely conceived the point of sub- limity to which her wonderful powers of expression could raise

the poet's thought. In no other theatrical artist were, I believe, the charms of voice; the graces of personal beauty, and the gifts. of genius ever so grandly and harmoniously combined." In his youthful days, too, he acted with Mrs. Jordan, whose voice was one of the most melodious he ever heard, and whose laugh

was "so rich, so apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self- enjoying, as to be at all times irresistible." Miss O'Neill was- charming the world as Juliet, and the picture she presented can- not, Macready observes, be effaced from the memory. "It was. not altogether the matchless beauty of form -and face, but the spirit of perfect innocence and purity that seemed to glisten, in her speaking eyes and breathe from her chiselled lips. To her- might justly be ascribed the negative praise—in my. mind the highest commendation that, as an artist, man or woman. can receive—of a total absence of any approach to affectation. There was in her look, voice, and manner an artlessness, an apparent unconsciousness (so foreign to the generality of stage performers) that riveted the spectator's gaze ;" and in another place, he writes of her as possessing "endowments of genius that placed her on the very loftiest pinnacle of her profession." Macready also acted with that "pride of the British Stage," John Kemble, and a few lines of his carefully-finished portrait of that celebrity may be transferred to our columns On the sum of Kemble's merits judgments differed; that he was a great artist all allowed. His person was cast in the heroic mould, and as may be seen in Lawrence's splendid portraits of him in Oorio- lanns, Hamlet, and Rolla, reached the most perfect ideal of manly beauty. But he had serious disadvantages to contend with, in a very

disagreeable voice, husky and untaneable His limbs were not supple,—indeed, his stately bearing verged on stiffness ; and hie style, more suited to the majestic, the lofty, and the stern, than the pathetic,.

• Macready's Remissiscestros, and Beleclions from his Marks and bolters. Bdited/ay Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. 2 vole. London: Macmillan and Co. 1875. might not inaptly, in respect to his movement on the stage, be termed -statuesque. In all he did, the study was apparent. The ars edare artem, with all his great talent, he did not reach, but he compelled the respect and admiration, where he did not excite the sympathies of his audience. His noble form and stately bearing attracted and fixed observation, and his studious correctness retained attention, but in the torrent and tempest of passion he had not the sustained power of Telma or Kean ; but like a Rembrandt picture, his performances were remarkable for most brilliant effects, worked out with wonderful skill, on a sombre ground which only a great master of his art could have achieved."

Another theatrical star of the period was Kean ; and l■facready, who admired extremely his personation of Richard III., contrasts it with Cooke's representation of the part—Cooke himself being one of the most popular actors of the day—and with that of Booth, Kean's rival, who, in figure, voice, and manner, so closely resembled him that he might be mistaken for his twin-brother. When Macready was in his prime, the art he practised so sedu- lously was not debased into a mere spectacle, nor was it found necessary to allure spectators by the exhibition of half-naked -ballet-dancers. The provincial theatres afforded at that time admirable schools of art, and no manager dreamed of exhibiting a piece, however favourably received, for hundreds of successive nights, a plan as injurious to an actor of real genius as any that could be devised. Before Macready's death, the British Stage, which he had done so much to purify and to elevate, had lost the high character it possessed in the palmy days of the histrionic art; and writing in his old age to Mrs. Pollock, Macready ob- serves, with some truth certainly, if with some exaggeration, "I must not say there seems to be no stage now, but for a school of -the theatrical art where must we look ?"

As a careful and for the most part a just estimate of the stage during a very brilliant period, the attraction of these -volumes can scarcely be surpassed. Readers also who have no special interest-in theatrical matters, but who enjoy miscellaneous gossip, will be allured from page to page, attracted by familiar names and by observations upon popular actors and authors. We venture to doubt, however, whether Sir Frederick Pollock has acted altogether wisely in publishing, apparently without abridgment and without any special supervision, the diary kept by Macready during a long series of years. A man may jot down for his own convenience and as a help to his memory a number of facts which are of interest to no one else, and this Macready was in the habit of doing. Thus, for instance, several pages are devoted to a bare record of theatrical engagements like the iollowing :— "April 28th.—Drury Lane Engagement.

May 23rd.—Last night at Drury Lane and benefit.

May 26th.—Birmingham.

June 9th.—Taunton.

June 12th.—Bridgewater.

June 23rd.—Second Engagement at Paris.

July 24th.—London.

July 28th.—Exeter (5 nights).

August 7th.—Swansea.

August llth.—Birmingham (one fortnight).

September 8th.—Yarmouth (four nights). September lfith.—Cambridge (one week).

September 29th.—Lincoln (three nights). October 6th.—Shrewsbury (three nights). October 13th.—Liverpool (one fortnight). October 27th.—Nottingham (five nights)."

Many minute items connected with the writer's household and income are inserted in these diaries. We learn when he has a cold and when he is out of spirits, when he gives a servant notice to quit, when he receives and unpacks his wine, when he has his hair cut, when he goes to church, and when and for what price he buys a cow. Then again, we meet with various expressions of penitence for time misspent, opportunities lost, irritable feelings indulged. Such regret is perfectly natural, and he who does not share it must be but too well satisfied with his own attainments ; but it is seldom well for a man to proclaim the contrition in the market-place which he has painfully felt in the closet, and it may be doubted if the reticence a man owes to himself during life-time should be dispensed with when death has removed him from the scene. It is, indeed, doubtful whether a diary that records per- sonal feelings, griefs, and aspirations should be ever given to the world. If the writer of such penitential and emotional effusions has given his executors permission to print them, they cease to be of value as an index to character ; if he has not given permis- sion, it strikes us that,they are of too sacred a character to be brought into the light of day. It is needless, perhaps, to add, with regard to Macready, that the bulk of his diary is free from objection on this ground ; but when we are forced to follow him into the valley of humiliation, it is always with a feeling of pain.

Those who doubt whether Macready deserves to rank with the

greatest actors of the century may find some ground in these pages for what they deem his shortcomings. No superlative success can ever be attained by an artist who has not such faith in his art as to hold it in the highest esteem. A man may hate an occupation, and yet derive from it a good income, but an artist cannot reach the fame which of all is the most worthy, unless his enthusiasm for his profession correspond with his industry. Macready seems to have been haunted by the notion that an actor is not regarded as a gentleman, and he notes towards the close of his career, as a kind of wonder, that he is treated upon terms of perfect equality by men of rank and position. Though at all times intensely anxious to excel, he writes of his profession as one who is chained to it unwillingly. When his fame was fully established, he ob- serves, "I come from each night's performance wearied and in- capacitated in body, and sunk and languid in mind ; compelled to be a party to the blunders, the ignorance, and wanton buffoonery which degrades the poor art I am labouring in." In another place, he writes of acting as "the worst exercise of a man's intellect ;" deplores his degraded position, by which he is proscribed from the privilege common to many of his associates, viz., that of going to Court ; and towards the close of his theatrical career observes that he certainly never feels pleasure on going to act, and would always rather be excused from it. These remarkable words were not the utterance of an ambitions and disappointed man, who had failed in the attainment of his object. Macready's success as an actor was singularly rapid, and it was won almost without a drawback. His professional acquirements raised him in the estimate of such judges as Lord Lytton and Dickens to the front rank in his profession, and his high character as well as scholarly education brought him into terms of intimate acquaintance, and often of warm friendship, with the best men of the age. Even people who professed a Puritanic aversion to the theatre gave a welcome to Macready, and clergymen and bishops were not slow to honour the actor who was also a Christian gentleman, and who had striven so conscien- tiously to purify and to elevate the Stage. Macready had his faults, like other good men, but no one can question his sincerity, and it is impossible to read these Diaries without arriving at the conviction that, in spite of the applause he received, he was never satisfied with the profession to which he was indebted for his fame. Macready was pre-eminently a family man, and many bereavements distressed him in his old age. Nevertheless, the days of leisure and seclusion at Sherborne and at Cheltenham were perhaps the happiest of his life, and the following character- istic anecdote with which we close these highly interesting volumes does honour to the memory of a just and good man, whose actions still "smell sweet and blossom in the dust." The school to which the anecdote alludes was said by one of her Majesty's Inspectors to be the best evening school he had seen :- "His great interest was in the cause of education, especially among the poorer classes, which he developed at the cost of incessant personal exer- tions, and mainly at his own expense. He established a night-school, which he conducted himself, and in which he was assisted by voluntary teachers from among the gentlemen and tradesmen of the town, who attended in turns ; but he was himself never absent from his post, except under very urgent necessity. After a time, some of his friends raised a subscription in order to relieve Macready of a part of the burden which his own zeal in the cause had brought upon himself. Yet although his own contribution to it had not been over less than .£100 a year, he was so fond of the night-school that he accepted this aid as a proof of the estimation in which his work was held, and as an additional fund, but not in ease of his own payments. On one occasion, when driving over to the neighbouring town of Yeovil on matters of business connected with the Sherborne Institution, his companion jokingly remarked that a country fly was a sorry conveyance for the great tragedian, and that he ought to keep his own carriage and pair. He said, ' Ah ! but then I must give up my night-school.' "