From that hour the hearts of the two survivors were as one. Theirs had been a sad and mournful fate. Their destinies were similar. They lived—lived long—and as happily as two could live whose first dream of bliss had been thus cruelly broken. They lived to atone for the faults of those whom they had loved. They were never separated during their lives, and nearly at the same time the summons came to both to go and meet their Judge. They have long since passed away. Their clay has “returned to earth as it was, and their spirits have gone to the God who gave them.”
BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.
None of Shakspeare’s characters are insignificant. If I had been Garrick or Mrs. Siddons, I should have tried sometimes, as an experiment, the most apparently trifling of his personages. I believe they would give room for striking development, only there is this objection—neither Siddons nor Garrick, nor any other of the great actors _could_ take parts promiscuously from the crowd. They are too unlike each other. They are too essentially different identities to permit of being represented by one. Garrick might take Macbeth in the play—and _Scrub_ in the after-piece, and do them both well; but he could not play equally well with two such opposite characters by Shakspeare. No actor has appeared _capable_ of playing all his principal tragic _rôles_ well. It is sufficient honor to attain to the height of illustrating one or two. Kean, for example, was very great in Lear and Richard. He was fine, by starts, in Othello, but not equally so. He wanted sustained simplicity and calm grandeur. Othello was a hero of nature: he had the quiet self respect of a long successful soldier. Kean did not satisfy me, as a whole, in Othello. I like Forrest, in many respects, better. I saw Forrest play the part at Drury Lane one night far beyond what I had ever seen before; particularly the first half of the play was perfect; the last I thought wanted, although in a slight degree, that mellowing and chastening which time gives to a painting, and will, doubtless, perhaps _has_ given, to this part of that dignified and impressive portraiture. He carried with him a crowded and intellectual audience—and, at certain points, profound and unbreathing silence—the highest applause—indicated the grasp this distinguished tragedian had on the minds of the people who have beheld the character so often and so grandly given—and so often and ably criticised. Cassio’s drunken scene was full of the thrilling strokes of a master.