ing the process of the story, but totally omitting
all the poetry of it, all the divine features of Shakespeare, his
stupendous intellect; and only taking care to give us enough of
passionate dialogue, which Banks or Lillo were never at a loss to
furnish; I see not how the effect could be much different upon an
audience, nor how the actor has it in his power to represent Shakespeare
to us differently from his representation of Banks or Lillo." It is
precisely by his speaking of that poetry, which one is accustomed to
hear hurried over or turned into mere oratory, that the actor might, if
he were conscious of the necessity of doing it, and properly trained to
do it, bring before the audience what is essential in Shakespeare. Here,
in the rendering of words, is the actor's first duty to his author, if
he is to remember that a play is acted, not for the exhibition of the
actor, but for the realisation of the play. We should think little of
the "dramatic effect" of a symphony, in which every individual note had
not been given its precise value by every instrument in the orchestra.
When do we ever, on the stage, see the slightest attempt, on the part of
even the "solo" players, to give its precise value to every word of that
poetry which is itself a not less elaborate piece of concerted music?

The two great dangers in the speaking of verse are the danger of
over-emphasising the meaning and the danger of over-emphasising the
sound. I was never more conscious of the former danger than when I heard
a lecture given in London by M. Silvain, of the Comedie Francaise, on
the art of speaking on the stage.

The method of M. Silvain (who, besides being an actor, is Professor of
Declamation at the Conservatoire) is the method of the elocutionist, but
of the elocutionist at his best. He has a large, round, vibrating voice,
over which he has perfect command. "M. Silvain," says M. Catulle
Mendes, "est de ceux, bien rares au Theatre Francais, qu'on entend meme
lorsqu'ils par lent bas." He has trained his voice to do everything that
he wants it to do; his whole body is full of life, energy, sensitiveness
to the emotion of every word; his gestures seem to be at once
spontaneous and calculated. He adores verse, for its own sake, as a
brilliant executant adores his violin; he has an excellent contempt for
prose, as an inferior form. In all his renderings of verse, he never
forgot that it was at the same time speech, the direct expression of