ey felt a shuddering in their veins, and
participated in the astonishment and the horror so apparent in the
actor. Davies in his Dramatic Miscellanies records this fact; and in the
Richardsoniana, we find that the first time Booth attempted the ghost
when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck him with
such horror that he became disconcerted to such a degree, that he could
not speak his part. Here seems no want of evidence of the force of the
ideal presence in this marvellous acting: these facts might deserve a
philosophical investigation.

Le Kain, the French actor, who retired from the Parisian stage, like our
Garrick, covered with glory and gold, was one day congratulated by a
company on the retirement which he was preparing to enjoy. "As to
glory," modestly replied this actor, "I do not flatter myself to have
acquired much. This kind of reward is always disputed by many, and you
yourselves would not allow it, were I to assume it. As to the money, I
have not so much reason to be satisfied; at the Italian Theatre, their
share is far more considerable than mine; an actor there may get twenty
to twenty-five thousand livres, and my share amounts at the most to ten
or twelve thousand." "How! the devil!" exclaimed a rude chevalier of the
order of St. Louis, who was present, "How! the devil! a vile stroller is
not content with twelve thousand livres annually, and I, who am in the
king's service, who sleep upon a cannon and lavish my blood for my
country, I must consider myself as fortunate in having obtained a
pension of one thousand livres." "And do you account as nothing, sir,
the liberty of addressing me thus?" replied Le Kain, with all the
sublimity and conciseness of an irritated Orosmane.

The memoirs of Mademoiselle Clairon display her exalted feeling of the
character of a sublime actress; she was of opinion, that in common life
the truly sublime actor should be a hero, or heroine off the stage. "If
I am only a vulgar and ordinary woman during twenty hours of the day,
whatever effort I may make, I shall only be an ordinary and vulgar woman
in Agrippina or Semiramis, during the remaining four." In society she
was nicknamed the Queen of Carthage, from her admirable personification
of Dido in a tragedy of that name.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: Palmer's death took place on the Liverpool stage, August
2, 1798; he was in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The death of his
wife and his son had some tim