ot necessary, but useful;
it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live
only in the praise of his critics.

In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed
him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of
the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor.
Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary
credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an
almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people
around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon.
What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial
visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true.
The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial
nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's
tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it.
"What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands
a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern
gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit
ditties of no tone;" and you imagine AEolian strains. At last,
William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat
him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the
scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of
acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap
of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and
solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning
himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and
enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he
tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and
finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly,
and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear
the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you
tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile,
and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint
in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several
times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of
Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that
archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the
son of Hagar,