There was, in his delivering these lines, an expression of tenderness which appealed forcibly to the heart; and was rendered still more striking by the abrupt transition to his sword,
Can the sword---- Who shall resist me in a parent's cause?
which he executed with a felicity that nothing but consummate genius could accomplish. Again he blazed out with _the true spirit_ in the following lines:
The blood of Douglas will protect itself. Then let yon false Glenalvon beware of me.
That part, however, in which he disclosed not only exquisite feeling but a soundness of judgment that would do honour to an experienced actor, was where Glenalvon taunts him, for the purpose of rousing his spirit to resentment. In that speech particularly which begins,
Sir, I have been accustomed all my days To hear and speak the plain and simple truth.
The suppression of his indignation in this and the succeeding passages--the climax of passion marked in his face, his tone and his action, when he says to himself
Hast thou no fears for thy presumptuous self?
till at last he flames into ungovernable rage in
Did I not fear to freeze thy shallow valour, And make thee sink too soon beneath my sword, I'd tell thee--what thou art--I know thee well.
was altogether a string of beauties such as it rarely falls to the lot of the critic to commemorate. Had age and personal hardihood been added, it would have defied the cavils of the most churlish criticism, and deprived even enmity of all pretence to censure.
The next striking beauty he disclosed was in his reply to Randolph, when the latter offers his arbitration between him and Glenalvon.
Nay, my good lord, though I revere you much, My cause I plead not, nor demand your judgment.
The cold peremptory dignity he threw into these words was beautifully conceived, and executed in a masterly manner: nor was he less successful in the transition to an expression of poignant but smothered sensibility in the next line:
I blush to speak: I will not, cannot speak Th' opprobrious words that I from him have borne.
His delivery of this and all the other lines of the speech that followed it, deserved the thunders of applause with which it was greeted--it was, indeed, admirable.
In impassioned feeling lies Master Payne's strength. Hence his last scene was deeply affecting. Though we could well have spared that KEMBLEIAN dying trope, his rising up and falling again. It is because we seriously respect Master Payne's talents that we make this remark: clap-traps and stage trick of every kind cannot be too studiously avoided by persons of real parts.