purely, and so it always
makes itself to be felt by that object: it is not anger, but grief
assuming the appearance of anger,--love awkwardly counterfeiting hate,
as sweet countenances when they try to frown: but such sternness and
fierce disgust as Hamlet is made to show, is no counterfeit, but the
real face of absolute aversion,--of irreconcilable alienation. It may
be said he puts on the madman; but then he should only so far put on
this counterfeit lunacy as his own real distraction will give him
leave; that is, incompletely, imperfectly; not in that confirmed
practised way, like a master of his art, or, as Dame Quickly would
say, 'like one of those harlotry players.'

I mean no disrespect to any actor, but the sort of pleasure which
Shakespeare's plays give in the acting seems to me not at all to
differ from that which the audience receive from those of other
writers; and, _they being in themselves essentially so different from
all others_, I must conclude that there is something in the nature of
acting which levels all distinctions. And in fact, who does not speak
indifferently of the _Gamester_ and of _Macbeth_ as fine stage
performances, and praise the Mrs. Beverley in the same way as the Lady
Macbeth of Mrs. S.? Belvidera, and Calista, and Isabella, and
Euphrasia, are they less liked than Imogen, or than Juliet, or than
Desdemona? Are they not spoken of and remembered in the same way? Is
not the female performer as great (as they call it) in one as in the
other? Did not Garrick shine, and was not he ambitious of shining in
every drawling tragedy that his wretched day produced,--the
productions of the Hills and the Murphys and the Browns,--and shall he
have that honour to dwell in our minds for ever as an inseparable
concomitant with Shakespeare? A kindred mind! O who can read that
affecting sonnet of Shakespeare which alludes to his profession as a
player:

Oh for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public custom breeds--
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand--

Or that other confession:

Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to thy view,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear--

Who can read these instances of jealous self-wa