ene in the first act where the king heaps favors and
commendations on his valiant warrior was eloquent of conscious guilt:
the constrained attitude, the shifting, uneasy glance, told, louder
than words, of a wicked purpose and a stinging conscience. From
the moment of the murder the wretched thane lives in a perpetual
atmosphere of fear. He is afraid of everything--first of his own
unwashed hands, and next of the dead king; then of Banquo and of
Banquo's ghost; and finally he is afraid of all the world. It is only
at the last that the mere physical courage of the soldier reasserts
itself, and Macbeth, driven to bay by Fate, fights with the fierce
energy of despair.

As to Rossi's Lear, it is not to be criticised. Words fail when the
heartstrings are thrilled to trembling and to tears. The pathos
of Lear's recognition of Cordelia was past the power of words to
describe. He stands at first gazing in vague bewilderment at the face
of his child, then into the darkened and troubled gaze steals anew the
light of reason and of recognition: unutterable sorrow, inexpressible
remorse, sweep across the quivering features, and with an inarticulate
sob Lear would fain sink on his knees at his wronged daughter's feet
to pray for pardon. That people rose and left the house in a very
passion of tears is the fittest criticism that can be bestowed upon
this personation.

The list of the Shakesperian characters closed with Romeo. Rossi was
the divinest of lovers, in spite of his forty years and his stalwart
proportions, and the balcony scene was an exquisite love-duet that
needed not the aid of music to lend it sweetness. But in the Italian
version the play was so cut and garbled that there could be little
pleasure in listening to it for any one familiar with the original.

Outside of his Shakespearian repertoire, Rossi has appeared in only
two plays--the _Kean_ of the elder Dumas, and _Nero_, a tragedy
by Signer Cosso, The first, originally written for Lemaitre, is an
ill-constructed, improbable melodrama. But it contains one grand
scene--namely, that where Kean, whilst playing Hamlet, goes mad upon
the stage; and this scene Rossi renders superbly. As to Nero, it is
marvelous to witness the complete eclipse of the refined, accomplished
gentleman and intellectual actor behind the brutal physiognomy of the
wicked emperor. It is Hamlet transformed into a prize-fighter.

In person, Signor Rossi is less strikingly handsome than is his
ri