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out desiring any thing better; in fact, they were well content with it,—all but a few restless and impatient spirits whom nothing would satisfy. But they must not be called untrue to, or inconsistent with, themselves, because they now feel Mr Kean's acting to be something still better. In giving us the perfection of nature instead of the perfection of art, Mr Kean has displaced a fine thing to substitute a finer; and let us not shrink from giving him the "honour due," whatever expense it may cost us. But in fact, to praise Kean is not to depreciate Kemble, any more than to admire Shakspeare is to undervalue Racine. Each has his peculiar and distinctive merits,—only it would be idle not to confess that those of the one are of a higher and rarer kind than those of the other.

To come more immediately to the characteristics of Mr Kean's genius, the most remarkable feature of it is Passion—Passion in all its power and and in all its weakness—in its heights and its depths—its temples and its dungeons. In his breast there seems to exist an inexhaustible spring of passion, which adapts itself in a most extraordinary manner to all the calls that are made upon it. It either wells and murmurs forth in a continuous and musical stream of love, as in the milder parts of Othello,—or gushes out in interrupted sobs of grief and disappointment, as in Richard II.—or boils, and bursts, and thunders along, in one overwhelming torrent of rage and revenge, as in the last act of Sir Giles Overreach,—or alternately, and almost coincidently, takes all these forms, as in the third act of Othello,—or, more terrible than all, becomes fixed and frozen up by remorse, as immediately after the murders of Macbeth.

Passion seems to be the very food, the breath, the vital principle, of his mental existence. He adapts himself to all its forms, detects its most delicate shades, follows it through all its windings and blendings, pierces to its most secret recesses. In his mind's kingdom passion holds "sovereign sway and mastery." It commands all the powers it finds there, and compels them to do its bidding. It "reigns there and revels."

Mr Kean's passion is as various as it is natural and true. It shapes itself to all forms and characters, and shapes all forms and characters to itself; and yet always preserves its own. It delights in contrasts, and flies from one to another with marvellous rapidity; yet never loses itself by the way. It seems also to have no predilection for one form or condition more than another,—but whatever it is at the moment, it is that wholly and exclusively. If he has to express love, his whole soul seems to cling to the being on whom he gazes—his eye swims—his voice melts and trembles—his very existence seems concentrated, and ready to be breathed forth in one full sigh of silent delight; and when at last he speaks, the words fall from his lips as if they were the smallest part of what he would express. And in all this there is no shew, no endeavour, no pretence; for real love is the most unpretending thing in the world, the most quiet, the most able to repose upon itself, and the most willing to do so. One the other hand, if it is his cue to hate, it is scarcely possible to imagine yourself looking at and listening to the same person. His eyes glare—his teeth grind against each other—his voice is broken and hoarse—his hands clench and open alternately, as if they were revelling in the blood of his enemy—and his whole frame seems to have imbibed the will and the powers of a demon. This extraordinary actor's delineations of all the other passions possess alike a force, a truth, and a distinctness, which render them absolutely perfect. He lays before us a portrait of the human heart, in all its beauty, and in all its deformity; and the picture must be a likeness, because it is instantly recognised.

Next to Mr Kean's unrivalled power of expressing passion, is that which he possesses in an almost equal degree, of depicting those extraordinary exhibitions of mental force—of moral will almost entirely dissevered from the bodily senses,—which Shakspeare alone has given us. Such, for instance, as Richard III. and Iago. In these he becomes, as the characters themselves are, almost wholly mind—etherial and triumphant mind;—and yet mind so mysteriously connected with, and symbolized by, bodily expression, as never to become too attenuated for our touch—never too rarefied for our sight. We perpetually feel its operations to be those of a power to which we have a certain degree of kindred, but not a sufficient-