CCCXI. In the poem referred to in the following very characteristic letter, Shelley expressed his intense sympathy with the cause of Greek independence then struggling to assert itself. Shelley had an exaggerated admiration for everything Greek, and a hatred of everything Turkish. It was his opinion that 'we are all Greeks; our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their roots in Greece.' In expressing his views of Christianity the poet is, as usual, very outspoken. My dear. Percy Bysshe Shelley to Pisa: April 11, 1822. -I have, as yet, received neither the nor his metaphysical companions-Time, my Lord, has a wallet on his back, and I suppose he has bagged them by the way. As he has had a good deal of alms for oblivion out of me, I think he might as well have favoured me this once; I have, indeed, just dropped another mite into his treasury, called Hellas, which I know not how to send to you, but I dare say some fury of the Hades of authors will bring one to Paris. It is a poem written on the Greek cause last summer-a sort of lyrical, dramatic, nondescript piece of business. You will have heard of a row we have had here, which, I dare say, will grow to a serious size before it arrives at Paris. It was, in fact, a trifling piece of business enough, arising from an insult of a drunken dragoon, offered to one of our party, and only serious, because one of Lord B.'s servants wounded the fellow dangerously with a pitchfork. He is now, however, recovering, and the echo of the affair will be heard long after the original report has ceased. Lord Byron has read me one or two letters of Moore to him, in which Moore speaks with great kindness of me; and of course I cannot but feel flattered by the approbation of a man, my inferiority to whom I am proud to acknowledge. Amongst other things, however, Moore, after giving Lord B. much good advice about public opinion, &c., seems to deprecate my influence on his mind, on the subject of religion, and to attribute the tone assumed in 'Cain' to my suggestions. Moore cautions him against my influ ence on this particular, with the most friendly zeal; and it is plain that his motive springs from a desire of benefiting Lord B., without degrading me. I think you know Moore. Pray assure him that I have not the smallest influence over Lord Byron, in this particular, and if I had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress. Cain' was conceived many years ago, and begun before I saw him last year at Ravenna. How happy should I not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly, any participation in that immortal work! I differ with Moore in thinking Christianity useful to the world; no man of sense can think it true; and the alliance of the monstrous superstitions of the popular worship with the pure doctrines of the Theism of such a man as Moore, turns to the profit of the former, and makes the latter the fountain of its own pollution. I agree with him that the doctrines of the French, and Material Philosophy, are as false as they are pernicious; but still they are better than Christianity, inasmuch as anarchy is better than despotism; for this reason, that the former is for a season, and that the latter is eternal. My admiration of the character, no less than of the genius of Moore, makes me rather wish that he should not have an ill opinion of me. Where are you? We settle this summer near Spezzia; Lord Byron at Leghorn. May not I hope to see you, even for a trip in Italy? I hope your wife and little ones are well. Mine grows a fine boy, and is quite well. I have contrived to get my musical coals at Newcastle itself. believe me, My dear In Sir Frederick Pollock's two volumes of interesting 'Reminiscences of Macready,' many highly characteristic letters of our great actor are given which point to the purity of his taste in matters dramatic and literary, and at once explain how that the English stage, during his reign, was elevated and refined, not so much by the comprehensiveness of his genius as by the hearty way he honoured his calling. The Poet Laureate, in a sonnet composed for Macready on his retirement from the stage, bids him Rank with the best, Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest W. C. Macready to Frederick Pollock. Bournemouth, Hants: August 9, 1853. My dear Pollock,-In my desire to be furnished with abundant gifts to my adopted institution, for so the apathy of our Sherbornian magnates will justify me in calling it, I took advantage of yesterday's post to enclose a message of inquiry to you in my hasty acknowledgment of your's and Mrs. Pollock's kindness; and to-day I follow it with my apologies for pressing on you so startling an invitation in so abrupt a manner. This, however, I know you will readily excuse. Whether you will as readily feel disposed to come and tell my rustic friends who Dante was, what were his aims and objects of his life, and how they were frustrated, on what pinnacle of fame he stands, and what was the kind of work that placed him there' that is the question.' If my lungs had held good, and my head were equal to the employment, I should apply their powers in this way, and endeavour to scatter plenty' of knowledge among my less fortunate fellow-men. But I am a worn-out instrument, and have to content myself with the manifestation of my will. I was very much interested by your remarks on the German Hamlet With much attention to the various criticisms I have seen on Devrient, I am disposed to regard him as a very second-rate mind. You characterise his performance as 'frigid and tiresome.' There is a volume in those two words. The morbidly acute sensibility and sensitiveness of Hamlet to be frozen up and stagnated in a declaiming and attitudinising statue or automaton leaves room for no further remark, but induces me to submit to you, whether you have not conceded more to the actor than he can rightly claim in pronouncing his understanding of the character to be correct.' We apply these terms of praise (and they are high praise) erroneously, I think, to a man who, in his delivery, shows us he understands the words he is uttering. But to fathom the depths of character, to trace its latent motives, to feel its finest quiverings of emotion, to comprehend the thoughts that are hidden under words, and thus possess oneself of the actual mind of the individual man, is the highest reach of the player's art, and is an achievement that I have discerned but in few. Kean-when under the impulse of his genius he seemed to clutch the whole idea of the man-was an extraordinary instance among those possessing the faculty of impersonation. But if he missed the character in his first attempt at conception, he never could recover it by study. Mrs. Siddons, in a loftier style, and to a greater extent, had this intuitive power. Indeed, she was a marvel-I might almost say a miracle. John Kemble is greatly overrated, I think, by the clever men, who, in their first enthusiasm, caught a glimpse of the skirts of his glory. Neither in Hamlet nor Macbeth, nor even in the passionate parts of Coriolanus did be give me the power of belief in him. He was very clever in points and magnificent in person. But what am I doing, and where have I been led? reading you a dull discourse on matters that you must be very indifferent about. Well, as Falstaff says of himself I may say of the Prince of Denmark, 'I have much more to say on behalf of that same Hamlet,' but I cannot help smiling as I think of the much already said. I grow very angry in turning to politics, and hating war as I do, cannot help wishing that crafty and grasping barbarian Czar may have his battalions pushed into the Pruth, Cronstadt and Odessa beaten about his ears, and some dexterous Orloff afterwards found to relieve mankind from his tyrannous machinations! You see what a sanguinary politician I am! I must admit a most cordial abhorrence of Russian Czars and Czarinas, from Peter the Brute, inclusive, down to this worthy descendant, who regards himself as having a mission to stop the march of human progress! Quousque tandem? I am looking for Forster in about a month, though he tells me he has fallen lame again since his return from Lillies. I am ever always, dear Pollock, Most sincerely yours W. C. MACREADY. СССХІІІ. Mr. Macready explains the process by which he checked a tendency to redundance of action in his early days. He also speaks of the frequent use of looking-glasses to reflect his postures. Madlle. Rachel's salon d'étude in Paris was fitted with mirrors so ingeniously arranged, both on the walls and the ceiling, that the effect of the merest movement of the body and the smallest fold in the drapery of her garments could be observed by her. W. C. Macready to Mrs. Pollock. Sherborne: June 20, 1856. My Dear Mrs. Pollock,-In a letter written to me on Thursday morning,' you make inquiry of me whether it is true that, in my youth, my action was redundant, and that I took extraordinary pains to chasten it? It is rather hard to give evidence on occurrences of so remote a date. Indeed, I must make myself quite certain whether I ever knew such a period as that of youth before I can answer your question. Of that, however, I will not at present treat, but inform you that there was a time when my action was redundant—when I was taught to attempt to imitate in gesture the action I might be relating, or to figure out some idea of the images of my speech. How was I made sensible of this offence against good taste? I very soon had misgivings suggested by my own observation of actual life. These became confirmed by remarking how sparingly, and therefore how effectively, Mrs. Siddons had recourse to gesticulation. In the beginning of one of the chapters of Peregrine Pickle' is the description of an actor (who must have been Quin) in Zanga, elaborately accompanying by gesture the narration of Alonzo's emotions on discovering and reading a letter; the absurdity is so apparent that I could not be blind to it, and applied the criticism to myself in various situations, which might have tempted me to something like the same extravagance. A line in the opening of one of the Cantos of Dante-I do not immediately remember it-made a deep impression on me in suggesting to me the dignity of repose; and so a theory became gradually formed in my mind, which was practically demonstrated to me to be a correct one, when I saw Talma act, whose every movement was a change of subject for the sculptor's or the painter's L L |