earnestly studied and applied, to overcome them. These observations, and these efforts, while they well deserve the attention and zealous emulation of every aspirant to the representation of this arduous part, no less demand the serious consideration of every one who shall venture to criticise the performance. Let the personation of Constance be attempted by whomsoever it may, the critic should ever bear in mind these memorable words from the pen of her deceased representative:-" Her gorgeous affliction, if such an expression is allowable, is of so sublime and so intense a character, that the personation of its grandeur, with the utterance of its rapid and astonishing eloquence, almost overwhelms the mind that meditates its realization, and utterly exhausts the frame which endeavours to express its agitations." It is, then, under a deep impression of the arduousness of this character, even to the most gifted and experienced performer, and of the indulgence especially due to every young actress to whose lot it falls to assume a part so lofty, so interesting, and so difficult, that we shall offer a few remarks on the acting of the lady who now fills it on the boards of Drury-Lane, and who may fairly be regarded at present as the sole representative of Shakespeare's Lady Constance on the metropolitan stage.

What strikes us first of all in Miss Helen Faucit's personation, is, her clear and perfect conception that feeling, not pride, is the mainspring of the character; that the dignity of bearing natural to and inseparable from it, and which the advantage of a tall, graceful figure enables this actress to maintain with little effort, is at the same time an easy, unconscious dignity, quite different from that air of self-importance, that acting of majesty, which has been mistakenly ascribed to it by those who have attributed to the heroine an ambitious nature. She makes us feel throughout, not only the depth, the tenderness, and the poetry of the maternal affection, dwelling in a vivid fancy and a glowing heart; but is ever true to that "constant,

loving, noble nature," which is not more sensitive to insult from her foes and falsehood from her friends, than it is ever ready to welcome with fresh gratitude and confidence the return of better feelings in any who have injured her.

That intimate association, in short, of gracefulness with force, and of tenderness with dignity, which this lady has so happily displayed in other leading characters of Shakespeare, is her especial qualification for this arduous part-the most arduous, we believe, of all the Shakespearian female characters-for this plain reason, that while it is one of those exhibiting the highest order of powers, the range of emotions included in it is the widest, and the alternations, the fluctuations, between the height of virtuous indignation and contempt, and the softest depth of tenderness, are the most sudden and the most extreme. The principle of contrast, in fact that great element of the romantic drama, as of all romantic art—which Shakespeare delighted to employ, not only in opposing one character to another, but in developing each character individually, is carried to the highest pitch by the trials to which the course of the dramatic incident subjects the sensitive, passionate, and poetic-the noble and vigorous nature of Constance.

Here, again, we turn, for an illustration, to Mrs. Siddons's performance of the part. It seems well established, by the concurring testimony of all who preserve distinct recollections of her acting, that on a general estimate of her tragic powers, it was in gracefully commanding force that she so wonderfully excelled, and in the expression of tenderness that she was often felt to be deficient, -a defect which must have been especially apparent in her personation of those Shakespearian characters wherein exquisite feeling is combined with extraordinary vigour. It has not surprised us, therefore, in conversing with persons on whose judgment and candour we can rely, and who have repeatedly witnessed the great actress's

representation of The Lady Constance, to find that in the passages of melting tenderness which abound in the part, a want of adequate expression was very sensibly felt. Majestic and terrible, then, as her performance of the indignant scenes undoubtedly was, yet it must have failed, for want of sufficient contrast, to derive all that startling boldness of relief which the dramatist himself has given to those electric passages.

Labouring, too, under the misconception already pointed out, as to the essential qualities of the character, it would be but natural that, in the scenes where Constance and her son stand alone, deserted and betrayed, amid their treacherous friends and their triumphant enemies, Mrs. Siddons, properly making the impulse of resentful scorn the immediate spring of her vituperation, should have failed to clear its expression wholly from her brow in those passages wherein the action requires her to turn it upon her child. We think it one of the most notable merits in the representation of the part by the lady who now personates it, that so far from letting the indignant excitement cast for one moment the slightest shade upon her brow or harshness into her tone when turning to the boy, she follows undeviatingly the poet's indication; and, in like manner as he has made the first effusion poured out by Constance on hearing her abandonment, one of maternal grief and tenderness only, so amidst her subsequent bursts of indignant reproach and fiery denunciation, in every look and word which the present actress addresses to Arthur, the afflicted mother seems to find relief from those effusions of bitterness, as repugnant to her nature as they are withering in their power, by melting into double tenderness over the beauties and misfortunes of her child.

This, we repeat, seems to us to be one of the very happiest features in Miss Faucit's personation of The Lady Constance. Thus it is, for example, that in the first scene with Elinor, she renders with such perfect truth and beauty the exquisitely characteristic pas

sage:

D 2

His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee:

Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd
To do him justice, and revenge on you.

Again, in her scene with Salisbury, where Constance is informed of the peace made between the two kings, and where the emotions that agitate her are deeper and more conflicting, we can conceive nothing in acting, or in reality, more exquisitely touching than the expression which she gives to the passage,

But thou art fair; and at thy birth, dear boy, &c.

The faltering pauses, more eloquent than the finest declamation, must have gone directly, not only to every mother's heart, but to every heart present, alive to any touch of sympathy. Indescribably sweet, too, in her utterance, are the words,—

Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,

And with the half-blown rose.

In those brief accents she breathes to us all the inmost soul of Constance, the idolizing mother, delicately sensitive and richly imaginative. Nor can anything be more beautiful in itself, or more true to nature and to the poet, than the graceful fondness with which, after throwing herself on the ground in the climax of her grief, she looks up, and raises her hand to play with the ringlets of her boy as he stands drooping over her.

We must speak rather more at large of Miss Faucit's acting in the following scene, the most difficult of all in so difficult a part. Undoubtedly, the dramatist conceived of his heroine as of one endowed with the most vigorous as well as exquisite physical powers. Only such a person could rise to the adequate expression of that towering sublimity of virtuous invective and religious invocation which was indispensable to this part of his dramatic purpose. Equally certain it seems to be, that these solemnly

appealing and witheringly scornful passages, demanding, above all things, the display of what is commonly meant by tragic force, were the most successful parts of Mrs. Šiddons's personation of The Lady Constance. Not having had the advantage of witnessing those majestic efforts of the great actress, we are not enabled to compare the force of delivery shown in those particular sentences by Mrs. Siddons and by the present actress respectively. But we have the means of comparing the force of execution in the present performer with what we conceive that the part itself demands, and in that view we find her personation adequate. The force which Shakespeare exhibits in the eloquence of Constance, is not the hard force of an arrogant, imperious termagant, such as we see in his Queen Elinor, but the elastic force that springs from a mind and person having all the vigour of a character at once so intellectual, so poetical, and so essentially feminine as that of Constance. To the expression of this highest and most genuine tragic force we repeat that Miss Faucit shows her powers to be not only fully equal, but peculiarly adapted. She has that truest histrionic strength, which consists in an ample share of physical power in the ordinary sense, combined with exquisite modulation of tone and flexibility of feature-by turns the firm and the varying expressiveness of figure, voice, and eye. We say this after much attentive study of her acting, especially in her Shakespearian parts; and as regards the performance of The Lady Constance in particular, how perfect soever Mrs. Siddons may have been in certain other Shakespearian characters, yet, considering her decided deficiency in tenderness, we cannot hesitate to regard the present personation of the heroine of King John as truer to that spirit of bold and beautiful contrast which, we have already observed, is in the very essence of the part, as it is in that of the whole Shakespearian drama.

Thus it is that the caressing of her boy, while