might not entirely, or all at
once, accord with that kind of taste which the actors we have been
accustomed to naturally generated in the multitude. His performance of
BELCOUR was as new to our audience as the chaste and natural acting of
Garrick was on _his_ first appearance to the admirers of Booth and Quin,
and for some time our audience could scarcely admire it. In some few
instances, indeed, a positive disrelish for it was openly avowed, and we
could not help feeling that those opinions were entitled to particular
respect as they could have come only by _inspiration_. Being uttered
before it was possible for the propounders to have formed a judgment by
mere human means upon that gentleman's merits. This we can aver, that he
had spoken only four lines, according to the letter press of the copy
now before us, when some person on one side of us remarked that he was
nothing to Mr. Chalmers, and in four lines more, another person on the
other side laid him down under another actor--but one, indeed of a very
superior kind to Mr. Chalmers.

As we have no pretensions to that kind of _inspiration_--that critical
second sight (as the Highland Scotch call it) but are fain to judge by
the mere humdrum human means of reason and experience, we felt it to be
our duty to see the character entirely performed by Mr. Dwyer before we
ventured to form an opinion on his acting it; and we are free to confess
that if all critics find it as difficult as we do to estimate the value
of an actor's performance, and are honestly disposed, they will not only
wait as we always do till the whole evidence is before them, but weigh
it scrupulously, without affection, prejudice, or malice, before they
venture to pass sentence.

Now it so happened that we differed essentially from those _inspired_
ones. We thought, as most critics who have seen him in England do, that
Mr. Dwyer's Belcour was a most elegant and accomplished specimen of
genteel acting--chaste, graceful, and where the character required and
admitted it, interesting and impressive. And we had the satisfaction to
perceive as the play advanced the audience conformed more and more to
the same opinion. It is greatly to Mr. Dwyer's credit that all the
applause he received, was extorted by his own merit, and drawn like
drops of blood reluctantly distilled from languid hearts.

In Tangent a character in which broader humour afforded him an
opportunity of coming nearer to the genteel taste. Mr