ak
Th' opprobrious words that I from him have borne.

His delivery of this and all the other lines of the speech that followed
it, deserved the thunders of applause with which it was greeted--it was,
indeed, admirable.

In impassioned feeling lies Master Payne's strength. Hence his last
scene was deeply affecting. Though we could well have spared that
KEMBLEIAN dying trope, his rising up and falling again. It is because we
seriously respect Master Payne's talents that we make this remark:
clap-traps and stage trick of every kind cannot be too studiously
avoided by persons of real parts.

It would be injustice to omit one passage--

Just as my arm had mastered Randolph's sword
The villain came behind me----BUT I SLEW HIM.

In the break, the pause, and the last four words he was inimitably fine.

In Master Payne's performance of this character we perceived many
faults, which call for his own correction. They are, we think, such as
he has it in his power to get rid of. As they are general and pervade
all his performances, we reserve our observations upon them till we
close the course of criticism we are to bestow upon him, when we mean to
sum up our opinion of his general talents. Meantime we beg leave to
remind him that Mr. Garrick himself, after he had been near forty years
upon the stage, often shut himself up for days together restudying and
rehearsing parts he had acted with applause a hundred times before. _Sat
sapienti._

Nature has bestowed upon this young gentleman a countenance of no common
order. Its expression has not yet unfolded itself; but we entertain no
doubt that when manhood and diligent professional exercise shall have
brought the muscles of his face into full relief, and strengthened its
lines, it will be powerfully capable of all the inflexions necessary for
a general player. At present the character of his physiognomy is
perfectly discernible only upon a near view. When he advances towards
the front of the stage, the lines may be perceived from that part of the
pit and boxes which are near the orchestra; even then the shades are so
very much softened by youth, and the parts so rounded, and so utterly
free from acute angles, that they can, as yet, but faintly express
strong, turbulent emotions, or display the furious passions. In a boy of
his age, this, so far from being a defect, is a beauty, the reverse of
which would be unnatural; and if it were a defect, every day that passes
over h