When I looked down on the _parterre_, I beheld a motley assemblage in various costumes: there were a great number of the military; there were the well-dressed daughters of people of some condition, in the French fashion of two or three years back; there were girls in the Tyrolean costume, with their scarlet boddices and silver chains; and the women of Munich, with their odd little two-horned caps of rich gold or silver brocade,--forming altogether a singular spectacle. As for the scenery, it was very well, but would bear no comparison to Stanfield's glorious illusions.
The inducement held out to me to-night was to see Ferdinand Eslair play the Duke of Alva in "Egmont." Eslair, formerly one of the first actors at Manheim, when Manheim boasted the first theatre in Germany, is esteemed the finest tragedian here, and the Duke of Alva is one of his best characters. It appeared to me a superb piece of acting; so quietly stern, so fearfully hard and composed: it was a fine conception cast in bronze:--in this consisted its beauty and truth as a whole. Some of his _silent_ passages, and his by-play, were admirable. He gave us, in the scene with Egmont, an exact living transcript of Titian's famous picture of the Duke of Alva; the dress, the attitude, the position of the helmet and the glove on the table beside him, every thing was so well calculated, at once so unobtrusive and so unexpected, that it was like a recognition. Egmont was well played by Racke, but did not strike me so much. Mademoiselle Schöller, who plays the young heroines here, is a pupil of Madame Schröder, (the German Siddons,) and promises well; but she wants development; she wants the power, the passion, the tenderness, the energy of Clärchen. Clärchen is a plebeian girl, but an impassioned and devoted woman--she is a sort of Flemish Juliet. There is the same truth of nature and passion, the same impress of intense and luxuriant life--but then it is a different life--it is a Rubens compared to a Titian--and such Clärchen ought to be. Now to give all the internal power and poetry, yet preserve all the external simplicity and homeliness of the character,--to give all the _abandon_, yet preserve all the delicacy,--to give the delicacy, yet keep clear of all super-refinement, and in the concentrated despair of her last scene (where she poisons herself) to be calm without being cold, and profoundly tragic without the usual tragedy airs, must be difficult--exceedingly difficult; in short, to play Clärchen, as I conceive the character ought to be played, would require a young actress, uniting sufficient genius to conceive it aright, with sufficient delicacy and judgment not to colour it too highly: there was no danger of the latter mistake with Mademoiselle Schöller, in whose hands Clärchen became a mere pretty affectionate girl. In that lovely scene with Egmont in the third act, which might be contrasted with Juliet's balcony scene, as a test of the powers of a young actress, Mademoiselle Schöller was timid even to feebleness; the change of manner, when Clärchen substitutes the tender familiarity of the second person singular (Du) for the tone of respect in which she before addressed her lover, should have been felt and marked, so as to have been _felt_ and _remarked_: but this was not the case. In short, I was disappointed by this scene.