CHAPTER XI

THE performance of Belvidera is now to be gone through with the same degree of attention paid to other characters; and, though only beauties of great prominence can be recorded, where all was beautiful, yet, however imperfect the transcript, it will afford some guide to future artists in selecting the luminous points of their own composition. Nor need they apprehend any servility, as the result of such attention to the merits of others. Many points of impression are inherent in the character-the action is regulated by the act-it must always be done in one way; others admit of almost infinite variety, and in the performer exhibit the extent of his studies in human nature. I have heard of an actor who would not allow his son to attend the performances of my friend Kemble lest his own manner should not be original. Such a rule would have kept Southerne from the page of Shakespeare-the author of Paradise Lost from the perusal of the Iliad. Every individual's power is or may be an aggregate of many forces reconciled to his own. I see in the actor alluded to what he might have learned; first, to use all gently,' and give consequence to moderation; neither to bellow nor to strut, for the first is not eloquent, and the second is not dignified; to avoid all violent extremes, piano succeeding forte, and to keep himself upon his centre, and to move from it. The greatest difficulty in the actor's art is to take his station upon the stage and remain on it, in full possession of himself and indifferent as to his change of place.

When Mrs. Siddons announced her intention as to Venice Preserved, the great point was to find a Jaffier. Smith had none of the softer parts of conversation about him. His

Jaffier would at least have sounded like Pierre. The recollection of the wonders in the rivalry between Garrick and Barry would be injurious here; and the mechanism of the character, however well studied, would do nothing without that show of passion, in the want of which Jaffier conspires against a higher sovereignty than that of Venice.

Mr. Brereton, however, felt himself inspired to make the attempt, and, to the surprise of all, acquitted himself in the most masterly manner. From about the level of such parts as Lewson, he sprung into the crown and hearted seat of love, and played in the wonderful fourth act fully up to the demand of such a Belvidera. He was like a thing inspired, and the source of his inspiration was the lovely being with whom he was to act. He might properly exclaim with Leontes before Hermione

'There is an air comes from her.'

There was no Venetian costume affected, for in modern times it is not worth the inquiry for stage purposes how the different parts of Europe dressed. Jaffier wore a grave but elegant suit, agreeing with his recent circumstances. Pierre, as a soldier, a full suit of scarlet and gold. I think Mr. Kemble once told me that the Venetian soldiers wore white; some slight indication of which peeped up in the white hat and feather of our older Pierres, for which Davies confesses himself unable to assign any reason. Bensley in that character was fully up to the mark, and had just left his friend, after appointing a midnight meeting for the purposes of precious mischief, when the heroine enters on her fond husband's ejaculating, Belvidera! poor Belvidera.'

He whom the world has injured is tempted to think that the ties of even kindred and connection are but loosely bound about him, and he fancies a change possible in all. The notion was dissipated to air by the glowing exultation with which Mrs. Siddons threw herself into the embrace of Jaffier:

'Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?

I joy more in thee

Than did thy mother, when she hugg'd thee first,
And bless'd the gods for all her travail past.'

The reverse feeling in Jaffier now carries his mind up to sublimity of expression-sublimity which does not exag gerate its object. I give the passage here as the eternal eulogy of the sex :—

'O woman, lovely woman! nature made thee

To temper man; we had been brutes without you:
Angels are painted fair, to look like you.

There's in you all that we believe of heaven,
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,

Eternal joy and everlasting love.'

Upon his picturing the miseries of want, with the images of which his fancy was teeming, nothing ever exceeded the fine burst of passion from Belvidera—

'O, I will love thee, even in madness love thee !'

and the act closed with all the natural anticipations of the still greater effects that were to follow.

There is something singularly irregular in the scenery of this play. Upon the breaking up of Jaffier's domestic establishment, he lodges Belvidera, as he tells Pierre, privately for a day or two, till he sees further what fortune will do for him. We next learn that a council's held, hard by, for the destruction of the empire, and that Jaffier is to be led to the place. We find it not badly chosen; it is the house of the Greek courtesan, Aquilina. But our surprise is extreme to see the private lodging of Belvidera under the same roof. Yet this is actually the case, though our audiences never suspect a syllable of the matter; for when Jaffier has been led to this dark divan, he finds himself unexpectedly at home; he calls rather loudly for Belvidera; awakens her from her repose; she enters the den of the conspirators, and strives to carry off her husband to his rest; but is given to the ruffians as a hostage, till we learn that old Renault has led her back to her apartment.

The modern alteration of this play omits the description of Belvidera's broken slumbers and expecting arms, and the audience imagine that Jaffier has brought her with him, and left her without, till the moment when it became necessary to produce her as his surety. If this was the design, more should have been omitted, particularly—

'Who calls so loud at this late peaceful hour?'

may really not be ar immense palaces of apart; where there i

and profigay o que forgotten apartes, if t

other.

For Belvidez sovee

spirators is one of the most excing scenes

ever created out of passion and promance

bestowed her most mem IF THE AIR35 Et

of the exclamation thrlet every de

As she is rising from her cases de anons by ther organ Renault, having conjured bes

'Rise, Madam ni mment mang

the alarmed yet searching sur was one of those expressions

sze tork of them

with characters of fire: you felt that there was a language more eloquent than speech, and sow beauty and intelli gence interpret the very silence of the poet.

The agony of astonishment in which she listens to Jaffer's bequest of her, with the accompanying daggerthe sob of melting reproach upon the words

'O, then unkind one !?

and the insupportable pathos with which she uttered'Don't, pry thee don't, in poverty forsake me!'

prepared the house for the repetition of the word 'Jaffer!' as she is borne off; and left an interval for the recovery of a great portion of her hearers from a sympathy too intense to be longer endured. The recollections of such power

'Pursue and overtake the wings of time;

And bring about again the hours, the days,
The years that made me happy.'

When thus inspired by Otway, Mrs. Siddons was the true Pythian priestess, and delivered the oracles of Apollo. If the reader suspect me of enthusiasm, I proudly plead

guilty to the charge: the usual feelings of our nature were sufficient for her conquest over the audience; but enthusiasm only can attempt to describe the means or the effects.

In the third act every sensible Belvidera must regret that the stage curtailments do not allow her to give the following fine portrait of a tender and elegant mind engaged in a hellish project:

'Belv. Why dwells that busy cloud upon thy face?

Why am I made a stranger ?-why that sigh,

And I not know the cause? Why, when the world
Is wrapt in rest, why chooses then my love
To wander up and down in horrid darkness ?—
Why starts he now, and looks as if he wish'd
His fate were finished?-Tell me, ease my fears:
Lest when we next time meet, I want the power
To search into the sickness of thy mind,

But talk as wildly then as thou look'st now.'

The charm of this lovely inquiry is its strict Nature; it grows alone out of the relations of the two beings: here is no figurative gloomy pomp; the poet and his art are concealed; Belvidera expostulates with her Jaffier.

However, the pruning knife has not cut away all the shoots from this tree of poetry, although the branches here and there look disunited, from a want of those lighter hangings that fill up the great mass so beautifully in the genuine work.

In the very fine reference to Portia, nothing could exceed the swell of soul, but the retort to Jaffier's question of reproach

For Brutus trusted her.'

'No:

The noble effusion of filial piety was rendered amazingly

'Murder my father!'

and all the witchery of woman dwelt in the question ad hominem

'And can'st thou shed the blood that gave me being?'

The 'Remember twelve!' at parting, I find had always been as a great sea-mark to the spectators of this admirable The difficulty is to preserve it from even the

scene.