battle, and wander on his own account
through an apprenticeship preceding his mature successes,--to gain those
professional acquirements which were needed to complete his education,
and to make that tasteful research to which he naturally inclined. He is
now in the sunshine of his noonday fame; and we may estimate his measure
of excellence by a review of those chosen and successful renderings,
that seem most clearly to define his genius, and to mark the limits of
height and versatility which he can attain.

Take, then, the part of Hamlet, which, in these days, the very mention
of his name suggests. Little remains to be said of that undying play,
whose pith and meaning escaped the sturdy English critics, until
Coleridge discovered it by looking into his own soul, and those
all-searching Germans pierced to the centre of a disposition quite in
keeping with their national character. A score of lights have since
brought out every thought and phrase, and we now have Hamlet so clearly
in our mind's eye as to wonder how our predecessors failed to comprehend
his image. But what does this tragedy demand of an actor? Proverbially,
that he himself shall fill it, and hold the stage from its commencement
to its end. The play of "Hamlet" is the part of Hamlet. The slowness of
its action, and the import of its dialogue and soliloquies, make all
depend upon the central figure. Next, he is to depict the most
accomplished gentleman ever drawn; not gallant, gay Mercutio, nor
courtly Benedict, but the prince and darling of a realm; one who cannot
"lack preferment," being of birth above mean ambition and self-conscious
unrest; a gentleman by heart, no less,--full of kindly good-fellowship,
brooking no titles with his friends, loving goodness and truth,
impatient of fools, scorning affectation; moreover, the glass of fashion
and the mould of form, the modern ideal of manly beauty,--which joins
with the classic face and figure that charm of expression revealing a
delicate mind within. For our Hamlet is both gentleman and scholar.
History and philosophy have taught him the vice of kings, the brevity of
power and forms, the immortality of principles, the art of
generalization; while contact with society has made him master of those
"shafts of gentle satire," for which all around him are his unconscious
targets. His self-respect and self-doubt balance each other, until the
latter outweighs the former, under the awful pressure of an unheard-of
woe