l equipment,--all those things become the subject first
of interested inquiry and next of pleased recognition. Willard is
neither of the stately, the weird, the mysterious, nor the ferocious
order of actor. There is nothing in him of either Werner, Manfred, or
Sir Giles Overreach. He belongs not to either the tradition of John
Kemble or of Edmund Kean. His personality, nevertheless, is of a
distinctive and interesting kind. He has the self-poise and the exalted
calm of immense reserve power and of tender and tremulous sensibility
perfectly controlled. His acting is conspicuously marked by two of the
loveliest attributes of art--simplicity and sincerity. He conceals
neither the face nor the heart. His figure is fine and his demeanour is
that of vigorous mental authority informed by moral purity and by the
self-respect of a manly spirit. Goodness, although a quality seldom
taken into the critical estimate, nevertheless has its part in spiritual
constitution and in consequent effect. It was, for instance, an element
of artistic potentiality in the late John McCullough. It operated
spontaneously; and just so it does in the acting of Willard, who, first
of all, gives the satisfying impression of being genuine. A direct and
thorough method of expression naturally accompanies that order of mind
and that quality of temperament. Every movement that Willard makes upon
the stage is clear, free, open, firm, and of an obvious significance.
Every tone of his rich and resonant voice is distinctly intended and is
distinctly heard. There are no "flaws and starts." He has formed a
precise ideal. He knows exactly how to embody and to utter it, and he
makes the manifestation of it sharp, defined, positive, and cogent. His
meaning cannot be missed. He has an unerring sense of proportion and
symmetry. The character that he represents is shown, indeed, all at
once, as a unique identity; but it is not all at once developed, the
manifestation of it being made gradually to proceed under the stress of
experience and of emotion. He rises with the occasion. His feelings are
deep, and he is possessed of extraordinary power for the utterance of
them--not simply vocal power, although that, in his case, is
exceptional, but the rare faculty of becoming convulsed, inspired,
transfigured, by passion, and of being swept along by it, and of
sweeping along his hearers. His manner covers, without concealing, great
intensity. This is such a combination of traits