atrical stage mimetic business is cut
up into specialities, men in most cases filling the parts of men, whilst
actresses fill the parts of women; the young representing the
characteristics of youth, whilst actors with special endowments simulate
the qualities of old age; some confining themselves to light and trivial
characters, whilst others are never required to strut before the scenes
with hurried paces, or to speak in phrases that lack dignity and fine
sentiment. But the popular advocate must in turn fill every _role_. If
childish simplicity be his client's leading characteristic, his
intonations will express pliancy and foolish confidence; or if it is
desirable that the jury should appreciate his client's honesty of
purpose, he speaks with a voice of blunt, bluff, manly frankness.
Whatever quality the advocate may wish to represent as the client's
distinctive characteristic, it must be suggested to the jury by mimetic
artifice of the finest sort. Speaking of a famous counsel, an
enthusiastic juryman once said to this writer--"In my time I have heard
Sir Alexander in pretty nearly every part: I've heard him as an old man
and a young woman; I have heard him when he has been a ship run down at
sea, and when he has been an oil-factory in a state of conflagration;
once, when I was foreman of a jury, I saw him poison his intimate
friend, and another time he did the part of a pious bank director in a
fashion that would have skinned the eyelids of Exeter Hall: he ain't bad
as a desolate widow with nine children, of which the eldest is under
eight years of age; but if ever I have to listen to him again, I should
like to see him as a young lady of good connexions who has been seduced
by an officer of the Guards." In the days of his forensic triumphs Henry
Brougham was remarkable for the mimetic power which enabled him to
describe friend or foe by a few subtle turns of the voice. At a later
period, long after he had left the bar, in compliance with a request
that he would return thanks for the bridesmaids at a wedding breakfast,
he observed, that "doubtless he had been selected for the task in
consideration of his youth, beauty, and innocence." The laughter that
followed this sally was of the sort which in poetic phraseology is
called inextinguishable; and one of the wedding guests who heard the
joke and the laughter, assures this writer that the storm of mirthful
applause was chiefly due to the delicacy and sweetness of the
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