f the
Cardinal, nearing its leave of the tenement that has served it so long,
glares out of the windows, with supernatural regard, over the luxury,
the intrigue, the danger, the politics, the empire it must soon behold
no more. As the piece is now produced, with fidelity to details of use
and decoration,--with armor, costumery, furniture, and music of the
period of Louis XIII.,--with all this boast of heraldry and pomp of
power, the illusion is most entire. The countenance is that of the old
portrait; white flowing locks, cap, robes, raised moustache, and pointed
beard,--all are there. The voice is an old man's husky treble, and we
have the old man's step, the tremor, and recurring spasmodic power; nor
is there any moment when the actor forgets the part he has assumed. Yes,
it is age itself; but the sunset of a life whose noonday was gallantry,
valor, strength,--and intellectual strength never so much as now. How we
lend our own impulses to the effort with which the veteran grasps the
sword wherewith he shore "the stalwart Englisher," strive with him in
that strong yearning to whirl it aloft, sink with him in the instant,
nerveless reaction, and sorrow that "a child could slay Richelieu now!"
He is not the intriguer of dark tradition, wily and cruel for low
ambitious ends, but entirely great, in his protection of innocence and
longing for affection, and most of all in that supreme love of France to
which his other motives are subservient. Booth seizes upon this as the
key-note of the play, and is never so grand as when he rises at full
height with the averment,

"I found France rent asunder;
The rich men despots, and the poor banditti;
Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple;
Brawls festering to rebellion, and weak laws
Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths,--
_I have re-created France!_"

Bulwer's "Richelieu," though written in that author's pedantic,
artificial manner, and catching the groundlings with cheap sentiment and
rhetorical platitudes, is yet full of telling dramatic effects, which,
through the inspiration of a fine actor, lift the most critical audience
to sudden heights. One of this sort is justly famous. We moderns, who so
feebly catch the spell which made the Church of Rome sovereign of
sovereigns for a thousand years, have it cast full upon us in the scene
where the Cardinal, deprived of temporal power, and defending his
beautiful ward from royalty itself, d