II.

TYRONE POWER,

*

Is certainly the prince of Irish actors.

Indeed we never

saw the Irishman even decently personated before we saw this admirable performer, nor do we conceive it possible for any future rival to disturb our opinion of him. Irish Johnstone is with the past: he may have equalled Power, but we doubt it-we are sure he could not have surpassed him. Power, beyond any actor we ever saw, and we have seen the best that have graced the boards of our old Drury, unites in himself the most literal fidelity with the richest humor this side of burlesque. He is always natural; he is the most picturesque of actors. The elder Mathews had far finer wit, knowledge of character and invention; his son a more sparkling fancy, wonderful quickness, and a keener wit. Jack Reeve was John Bull in grotesque, and Keeley is nature's self in little. In quiet humor, the last mentioned actor beats them all. Dowton, whom we saw in his decline, was a serious old gentleman of the sentimental school. Charles Kemble was the perfection of the genteel comedian. All of these performers were gifted with a universality to which Power can lay no claim, and yet we reiterate, in his single walk of Irishman, whether gentle or simple, the attorney or the tailor, the country

* 1840.

gentleman or the rustic, the ambassador or the valet, he is the finest, most natural, most attractive actor the stage now possesses.

When we first sat down to sketch the character of Power's acting, we thought to compare him with Keeley; a close analysis gives Power the palm. We say this with a genuine relish of the delicious quaintness, grave humor of Peter Spyk and Euclid Facile: both actors are men of excellent sense, but their humor and fancy are different. Powers is a Rubens in his rich colors, and Keeley a Teniers in his scrupulous exactness. Keeley is a Flemish painter among actors; cautious, thorough, elaborate. The effect of his acting proves this, though it may not be discovered while he is acting; he leaves a clear, fixed impression on the mind. This Power does not aim to create, or cannot; he is more the actor of impulse, not without study. He has too much nicety and neatness for that what we mean is, there is more of a riant spirit, an overflow of soul in his acting than in Keeley's, which might almost tempt one to say he was a careless actor. Keeley, on the contrary, is the most careful of actors, and gradually unfolds a character; Power displays it in the first scene. Both are admirable actors, with quite opposite temperaments; and the most we can say is, that the breadth of Power's humor is of a more sympathetic nature than the depth of Keeley's.

An undoubted proof of the genius of Power, for such he certainly possesses, is his constant freshness. Acting in a single line, one might regard him as liable to monotony, and that line comprehending but two ranges of character, diversify them as you will. New incidents, a new story, new characters may come in, but in every varying light,

you can find only either the Irish gentleman, or the Irish peasant; most delicately shaded, most nicely discriminated, yet only these two. It has been disputed whether Power can act the Irish gentleman; there is no doubt he is one. It is said, he carries into a genteel character the farcical conceits and low cunning that distinguish his Rory O'More, his Irish Lion, Teddy the Tiler, Looney M'Twolter, and Dr. O'Toole. We wish such critics to go and see his Irish Attorney. If that be not a portrait of the Irish gentleman of a past date, a harum-scarum rattlepate, but a genuine, humane-hearted gentleman withal, a man of sense to boot, then we know not what such a character should be. When Power chooses, he can assume the port and bearing of a finished gentleman. He always discovers the feelings of one. In this last-mentioned character, he is the exact picture of a country gentleman, who has lived much among his inferiors, and caught something of their slang and style. His Irish Ambassador is not so good. In O'Callaghan again we see the gentleman plainly, though clad in a rusty suit and worn beaver. His Sir Lucius O'Trigger we never saw; but the Park company could not sustain such a comedy as the Rivals. Where would be the Acres, Sir Anthony, the Captain Absolute, the Lydia Languish? To be sure we would have the best of Mrs. Malaprops, in Mrs. Wheatley. We would have a judicious actor in Mr. Chippendale, whatever part he assumed; and a tolerable one in Placide, whose powers have been far overstated. But we want Charles Kemble, Jack Reeve, Farren, and Mrs. Jordan, or Miss Chester, or Miss Kelly, if the play were to be cast as it deserved.

Excellent as is Mr. Power's Irish gentleman, his peasant

must be confessed beyond all praise: it is perfection. In the White Horse of the Peppers, he leaves for a time his original character, which is that of an Irish cavalier, and assumes that of a bog-trotter, The vast difference is seen at once. If he were good in the first, and such he certainly was, he was excellent in the last.

Another proof of Mr. Power's merit is, that he is the piece. In all the plays he performs, his character is not only the main character, but the only character of importance; and yet he so fills up the stage and the play, that he makes poor actors play well in his company. Other stars shine by themselves alone; Power shines in his own person, and through the rest of the company by a reflected light. In a word, Power is the herald of mirth and good humor wherever he comes; we greet his honest face with joy on the stage, or in the street, and cannot help regarding him as a much greater and better friend to humanity than a score of professed moralizers who never touch the heart.

III.

A FEW HOMERIC NODS IN MR. HALLAM.

HISTORIES of literature in general prove very unsatisfactory. The ground they cover is too wide; the topics discussed too multifarious; the space for each very limited. There is more of the narrative talent employed in them generally than critical acumen. A historical line of writers is deduced, and the genealogy of the various schools of literature and the mutations of taste and fashion are presented; but the individual traits of single writers, unless those of the first class, are too often overlooked, and the rare merits of minor writings, which are in less regard because less known, cast almost entirely in the shade, or else unfaithfully noticed. This general fault applies to the three most prominent histories of literature with which the modern scholar is acquainted-the work of Schlegel, Sismondi, and Bouterwek. The late Introduction to the literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by Mr. Hallam, is open to the same objections, and, if we are not greatly mistaken, to a wider and more prejudicial extent.

The capacity and requisite attainments on the part of a historian of European letters, would, if rigorously tested in the person of Mr. Hallam, incline one to place his preten