He that stirs next to carve for his own rage, Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion. Silence that dreadful bell, it frights the isle From her propriety.
Now by heaven My blood begins my safer guides to rule; And passion, having my best judgment collied, Assays to lead the way: If I once stir Or do but lift this arm, the best of you Shall sink in my rebuke, &c. &c.
And indeed through the whole of that scene he was impressive and important: nor, with the exception of those occasional lapses which we have to regret in almost every character he plays, even in his Macbeth, and the liberties he occasionally takes with the text, was there any reason to complain, while every now and then, he emitted some of those splendid scintillations of light which distinguish his acting from that of every competitor in America.
In the last act, his performance was superlatively great. So great indeed, that if all the other parts had been _nearly equal_ to it, we should not at all hesitate to put it in competition with the Othello of any man now living. As it was, we pay it no compliment in saying that it was in every part much superior to that of Pope, the _quondam_ Othello of Covent Garden.
The character of Zanga would at first sight seem to be well calculated for Mr. Cooper’s talents: yet we cannot say that we very much admire him in it. That in his _execution_ of the part Mr. Cooper goes beyond Mr. Kemble is certain, while his conception of it is nearly the same. In the latter, both are deficient. If there ever was a character which only one man in the world could play perfectly, Zanga is that character, and Mossop was that man. In a mixed company some years ago at Mr. Foote’s, the celebrated doctor John Hill lanched out in praise of Mossop. Foote likewise admired him, but could not refrain from ridiculing and mimicking some of that great actor’s stately singularities; upon which Richard Malone said, and Garrick was present, “You must own this one truth, however, because I have it from the highest authority (bowing to Garrick) that Mossop is the only man who was ever known so to act a character that the judgment of a nation has not been able to mark a fault in it.” “I have often said,” replied Garrick, “that Mossop’s Zanga is perfectly faultless--but that is too little to say of it--it is a brilliant without a speck.”