uralized among the fictitious persons of the drama,
and Antonio himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage-directions)
seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of
the author and his friends,--then G. 'first knew fear,' and, mildly
turning to M., intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. Kemble
labored under a cold, and that the performance might possibly have been
postponed with advantage for some nights further,--still keeping the
same serene countenance, while M. sweat like a bull.

"It would be invidious to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening.
In vain did the plot thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the
dialogue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of the
sentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous development which
impended. In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood
still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand,--had wound himself
up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of
dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his
rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous;
for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an
eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level to
the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the
under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt.
There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would receive
it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence against
decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an irreverent
symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of verbiage stalked
on through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what would
come of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with an
irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself,--for she had been
coolly arguing the point of honor with him,--suddenly whips out a
poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a
murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up in
clamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far above
hisses. I believe at that instant, if they could have got him, they
would have torn the unfortunate author to pieces. Not that the act
itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion different from what they
themselves would have applauded upon another occasion in a