very urgent necessity. After a time some of his
friends raised a subscription in order to relieve Macready of a part
of the burden which his own zeal in the cause had brought upon
himself. Yet, although his own contribution to it had not been ever
less than one hundred pounds a year [about a twelfth of his whole
income], he was so fond of the night-school that he accepted this aid
as a proof of the estimation in which his work was held, and as an
additional fund, but not in ease of his own payments." Such a close to
such a life will seem either a lame and impotent conclusion or a most
fitting and harmonious cadence, according to the point of view.

We have spoken chiefly of Macready's character as a man, which was so
attractive in itself, and is so faithfully and lucidly mirrored in
this record of his life, that the work may be commended to readers of
every class and ranked with the choicest specimens of biography. As
the record of an artistic career its interest is of course more
limited. Yet in this respect also its excellence is very great, and if
the art which Macready practiced with such assiduity and devotion,
though with no undue estimate of its value or importance, held a
higher place in the world's regard, the light which is here thrown on
its processes and requirements would be received as an inestimable
boon. But at least his example, the spirit in which he worked, is
worthy of the study and emulation of those who cultivate any art. In
none has excellence ever been achieved by deeper thought or more
unremitting labor. It would be absurd to question Macready's real
eminence, based on the judgment of critical audiences with whom great
acting was not a mere matter of tradition. But we may readily concede
that in natural endowments he fell short of the most illustrious of
his predecessors, that he lacked the intuitive grasp which he ascribes
to Mrs. Siddons and to Kean, and that he never reached the intensity
and complete _abandon_ which gave an overwhelming effect to their
highest performances. We may apply to his acting what Carlyle has so
justly said of the poetry of Schiller, that it "shows rather like a
partial than a universal gift--the labored product of certain
faculties rather than the spontaneous product of his whole nature."
There was always the perception of the natural limit of his
qualifications, instead of any suggestiveness of a boundless capacity.
His voice, though rich and musical and of extraor