could imagine no different expression of
them. He was Werner and Melantius because Werner and Melantius were
Macready.

Shakespeare's characters do not so adapt themselves to individual
idiosyncrasies. No man can hope to identify himself with them unless
he can give wings to his faculties and soar above the plane of his
actual emotions. Often, no doubt, apparent triumphs have been gained
by displays of histrionic power that owed little to the informing
spirit of the poet. But Macready has never been accused of seeking
such results: whatever his performances may have lacked, they were
always imbued with a fine intelligence which brought all the details
into harmony and kept the attention fixed on the conception of the
character. Thus in Macbeth, which was perhaps, on the whole, his most
perfect impersonation, every look and gesture, every intonation,
conveyed the idea of one who lived on the border-line of an invisible
world, to whom all shapes and actions were half phantasmal, for whom
clear vision and sober contemplation were impossible. All his
utterances were abrupt, all his movements hurried; a certain wildness,
not of mere mental agitation, but of a spirit nurtured on unrealities,
marked his manner and countenance throughout. In Hamlet there was the
drawback of a physical appearance unsuited to the part. Yet it was the
character which he had studied most profoundly, and in which, as we
remember him in it, he held the most complete sway over the minds and
feelings of his audiences. None of his performances, as may be
imagined, was so distinguished by its intellectuality, yet none was so
simply and irresistibly pathetic. The abstraction and self-communing
in the delivery of the famous soliloquy can never have been surpassed,
and were probably never equaled; and throughout the closet scene there
was a reality in the tenderness, the vehemence, and the awe which
held the spectators breathless and spellbound. "Beautiful Hamlet,
farewell, farewell!" are his closing words in recording his last
performance of the part. But this was no final parting: while memory
retained her seat in the mind of this great artist, this true and
loving servant of Shakespeare's genius, the matchless creations with
which he had so identified himself could never cease to be the
subjects of daily meditation. "On one occasion," we are told, "after
his powers had so much failed that it was long since he had been
capable of holding or reading a boo