Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Volume III Part 2

"Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take--all myself!"

The grace and _abandon_ in the manner, and the softness of accent, which imparted a new and charming effect to this pa.s.sage, cannot be expressed in words; and it was so delicately touched, and so transitory,--so dependent, like a beautiful chord in music, on that which prepared and followed it, that it was found impossible to seize and fix it in a drawing.

From the first scene with the nurse, two drawings have been made. The idea of Juliet discovered as the curtain rises, gazing from the window, and watching for the return of her confidante, is perfectly new. The att.i.tude (or more properly, one of her att.i.tudes, for they are various as they are graceful and appropriate) is given in the seventh sketch, and the artist has conveyed it with peculiar grace and truth. The action chosen for the eighth drawing occurs immediately after Juliet's little moment of petulance, (so justly provoked,) and before she utters in a caressing tone, "Come, what says Romeo?" The first speech in this scene,

"O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, Driving back shadows over low'ring hills: Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,

And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid--wings."

--and the soliloquy in the second scene of the third act, "Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!" in which there is no particular point of dramatic effect to be made, are instances of that innate sense of poetical harmony, which enabled her to impart the most exquisite pleasure, merely by her feeling, graceful, animated delivery of these beautiful lines. The most musical intonation of voice, the happiest emphasis, and the utmost refinement, as well as the most expressive grace of action, were here combined to carry pa.s.sion and poetry at once and vividly to the heart: but this perfect triumph of illusion is more than painting could convey.

The ninth and tenth sketches are from the second scene with the nurse, called in theatrical phrase "the Banishment Scene." One of the grandest and most impressive pa.s.sages in the whole performance was Juliet's reply to her nurse.

"_Nurse._ Shame come to Romeo!

_Juliet._ Blister'd be thy tongue, For such a wis.h.!.+ he was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit; For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd Sole monarch of the universal earth."

The loftiness of look and gesture with which she p.r.o.nounced the last line, cannot be forgotten: but the effect consisted so much in the action of the arm, as she stepped across the stage, and in the kindling eye and brow, rather than in the att.i.tude only, that it could not well be conveyed in a drawing. The first point selected is from the pa.s.sage, "O break, my heart!--poor bankrupt, break at once!" in which the gesture is full of expressive and pathetic grace. The tenth drawing represents the action which accompanied her exclamation, "Tybalt is dead--and Romeo--banished!" The tone of piercing anguish in which she p.r.o.nounced the last word, _banished_, and then threw herself into the arms of her nurse, in all the helplessness of utter desolation, formed one of the finest pa.s.sages in her performance.

The scene in which the lovers part, called the Garden Scene, follows; and the pa.s.sage selected is--

"Art thou gone so? my love, my lord, my friend?

I must hear from thee every day i' the hour!"

The subdued and tremulous intonation with which all the speeches in this scene were given, as though the voice were broken and exhausted with excessive weeping; and the manner in which she still, though half insensible in her nurse's arms, signed a last farewell to her husband, were among the most delicate and original beauties of the character.

The two next drawings are from the fifth scene of the third act. The latter part of this scene contained many new and beautiful touches of feeling which originated with Miss Kemble herself. It is here that the real character of Juliet is first developed;--it is here that, abandoned by the whole world, and left to struggle alone with her fearful destiny, the high-souled and devoted woman takes place of the tender, trembling girl. The confiding, helpless anguish with which she at first throws herself upon her nurse--("Some comfort, nurse!")--the gradual relaxing of her embrace, as the old woman counsels her to forget Romeo and marry Paris--the tone in which she utters the question--

"Speakest thou from thy heart?

_Nurse._ From my soul too, Or else beshrew them both!"

And then the gathering up of herself with all the majesty of offended virtue, as she p.r.o.nounces that grand "Amen!"--the effect of which was felt in every bosom----these were _revelations_ of beauty and feeling which we owed to f.a.n.n.y Kemble alone. They were points which had never before been felt or conveyed in the same manner. The shrinking up wholly into herself, and the concentrated scorn with which she uttered the lines--

"Go, counsellor!

Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain!"

are very spiritedly given in the fourteenth drawing.

From the scene with the friar, in the fourth act, the action selected is where she grasps her poniard with the resolution of despair--

"Give me some present counsel; or, behold, 'Twixt my extremes and me this b.l.o.o.d.y knife Shall play the umpire!"

One of the most original effects of feeling and genius in the whole play occurred in the course of this scene; but, unfortunately, it was not found susceptible of graphic delineation. It was the peculiar manner with which she uttered the words--

"Are you at leisure, holy father, now?

Or shall I come to you at evening ma.s.s?"

The question in itself is nothing; but what a volume of misery and dread suspense was in that look with which she turned from Paris to the friar, and the tone with which she uttered those simple words! This was beyond the pencil's art to convey, and could but be felt and remembered.

The next drawing is therefore from the scene in which she drinks the sleeping potion. The idea of speaking the first part of the soliloquy seated, and with the calmness of one settled and bent up "to act a dismal scene alone," until her fixed meditation on the fearful issue, and the horrible images crowding on her mind, work her up to gradual frenzy, was new, and originated with Miss Kemble. The att.i.tude expressed in the drawing--"O look, methinks I see my cousin's ghost,"--was always hailed with an excess of enthusiasm of which I thought many parts of her performance far more deserving.

The eighteenth sketch is from the sleeping scene; and the last two drawings are from the tomb scene. The merits of this last scene were chiefly those of att.i.tude, look, and manner; and the whole were at once so graceful and beautiful, as well as terribly impressive, that they afforded some relief from the horrors of the situation, and the ravings of Romeo. The alteration of Shakspeare, in the last act, is certainly founded on the historical tale of the Giulietta: but though the circ.u.mstances are borrowed, yet the spirit in which they are related by the ancient novelist, has not been taken into consideration by those who manufactured this additional scene of superfluous horror.[13] In Juliet's death, Miss Kemble seized an original idea, and worked it up with the most powerful and beautiful effect; but this effect consisted not so much in one att.i.tude or look, as in a progressive series of action and expression, so true--so painfully true, that as one of the chief beauties was the rapidity with which the whole pa.s.sed from the fascinated yet aching sight--the artist has relinquished any attempt to fix it on paper.

f.a.n.n.y Kemble made her first appearance in the character of Juliet, October 6th, 1829, and bid a last farewell to her London audience in May, 1832: during these three years she played through a very diversified range of parts, both in tragedy and high comedy.[14]

Sustained by her native genius and good taste, and by the kindly feeling of her audience, she could not be said to have failed in any, not even in those which her inexperience and extreme youth rendered _premature_, to say the least. She never--except in one or two instances[15]--had a voice in the selection of her parts, which, I think, was in some cases exceedingly injudicious, as far as her individual powers were concerned.

I know that she played in several contrary to her own opinion, taste, and judgment, and from a principle of duty. Not _duty_ only, but a feeling of delicacy, natural to a generous mind, which disdained the appearance of presuming on her real power, rendered her docile, in some instances, to a degree which I regretted while I loved her for it. She had a perception of some of the traditional absurdities of dress, and ridiculous technical anomalies of theatrical arrangements, which she had not power to alter, and which I have seen her endure with wondrous good temper. Had she remained on the stage, her fine taste and original and powerful mind would have carried the public with her in some things which she contemplated: for instance, she had an idea of restoring King Lear, as originally written by Shakspeare, and playing the _real_ Cordelia to her father's Lear. When left to her own judgment, she ever thought more of what was worthy and beautiful in itself, than she calculated on the amount of vulgar applause it might attract, or the sums it might bring to the treasury. Thus, for her first benefit she played Portia, a character which no vain, self-confident actress would have selected for such an occasion, because, as the play is now performed, the part is comparatively short, is always considered of secondary importance, and affords but few effective points: this was represented to her; but she persisted in her choice: and how she played it out of her own heart and soul! how she revelled in the poetry of the part, with a conscious sense and enjoyment of its beauty, which was communicated to her audience! Self, after the first tremor, was forgotten, and vanity lost in her glowing perception of the charm of the character. She lamented over every beautiful line and pa.s.sage which had been "_cut out_" by profane hands.[16] To those which remained, the rich and mellow tones of her voice gave added power, blending with the music of the verse. It was by her own earnest wish that she played Camiola, in Ma.s.singer's Maid of Honour, and this was certainly one of her most exquisite and most finished parts; but the quiet elegance, the perfect delicacy of the delineation were never appreciated. She was aware of this: she said, "The first rows of the pit, and the first few boxes will understand me; for the rest of that great theatre, I ought to play as they paint the scenes--in great splashes of black and white." Bianca, in Millman's Fazio, was another of her finest parts, and as it contained more stage effect, it told more with the public. In this character she certainly took even her greatest admirers by surprise. The expression of slumbering pa.s.sion, and its gradual developement, were so fervently portrayed, and yet so nicely shaded; the frenzy of jealousy, and the alienation of intellect, so admirably discriminated, and so powerfully given, that when the first emotions had subsided, not admiration only, but wonder seized upon her audience: nor shall I easily forget the pale composure with which she bore this--one of her most intoxicating triumphs.

In Constance, in Queen Katherine, in Lady Macbeth, the want of amplitude and maturity of person, of physical weight and power, and a deficiency both of experience and self-confidence, were against her; but her conception of character was so _true_, and her personal resemblance to her aunt so striking, in spite of her comparatively diminutive features and figure, that one of the best and severest of our dramatic critics said, "it was like looking at Mrs. Siddons through the wrong end of an opera-gla.s.s."[17] She had conceived the idea of giving quite a new reading, which undoubtedly would have been the _true_ reading, of the character of Katherine of Arragon, and instead of playing it with the splendid poetical colouring in which Mrs. Siddons had arrayed it, bring it down to the prosaic delineation which Shakspeare really gave, and history and Holbein have transmitted to us; but the experiment was deemed too hazardous; and it was so. The public at large would never have understood it. The character of the queen mother, in her own tragedy of Francis I., was another part of which the weight seemed to overwhelm her youthful powers, and after the first few nights she ceased to play it.

While on the English stage, she never became so far the finished artist as to be independent of her own emotions, her own individual sentiments.

It was not only necessary that she should understand a character, it was necessary that she should _feel_ it. She invariably excelled in those characters in which her sympathies were awakened. In Juliet, in Portia, in Camiola, in Julia,[18] (perhaps the most _popular_ of all her parts,) and I believe I may add, in Bianca, she will not soon or easily be surpa.s.sed. For the same reason, if she could be said to have failed in any part, it was in that of Calista, which she abhorred, and never, I believe, could comprehend. Isabella[19] was another part which I think she never really felt; she never could throw her powers into it. The bald style and the prosaic monotonous misery of the first acts, in which her aunt called forth such torrents of tears, wearied her; though the tragic of the situations in the last act roused her, and was given most effectively. She had not, at the time she took leave of us, conquered the mechanical part of her profession--the last, but not the least necessary department of her art, which it had taken her aunt Siddons seven years, and Pasta almost as long, to achieve; she was too much under the influence of her own nerves and moods of feeling; the warm blushes, the hot tears, the sob, the tremor, were at times too real.

After playing in Mrs. Beverly, Bianca, and Julia, the physical suffering and excitement were sometimes most painful; and the performance of Constance actually deprived her of her hearing for several hours, and rendered her own voice inaudible to her; this, it will be allowed, was paying somewhat dear for her laurels, even though she had valued them more than in truth she ever did.

f.a.n.n.y Kemble, as one of a gifted race, "the latest born of all Olympus' faded hierarchy," had really a just pride in the professional distinction of her family. She was proud of being a Kemble, and not insensible to the idea of treading in the steps of her aunt. But she had seen the stage desecrated, and never for a moment indulged the thought that she was destined to regenerate it. She felt truly her own position.

Her ambition was not professional. She had always the consciousness of a power--of which she has already given evidence--to ensure to herself a higher, a more real immortality than that which the stage can bestow.

She had a very high idea, abstractedly, of the capabilities of her art; but the native elegance of her mind, her poetical temperament, her profound sense of the _serious ideal_, rendered her extremely, and at times painfully sensitive, to the prosaic drawbacks which attended its exercise in public, and her strong understanding showed her its possible evils. She feared for the effect that incessant praise, incessant excitement, might at length produce on her temper. "I am in dismay,"

said she, (I give her _own_ words,) "when I think that all this may become necessary to me. Could I be sure of retaining my love for higher and better occupations, and my desire for a n.o.bler, though more distant fame, I should not have these apprehensions; but I am cut off by constant labour from those pursuits which I love and honour, and neither they, nor any of our capabilities, can outlive long neglect and disuse." Thus she felt, and thus she expressed herself at the age of twenty, and even while enjoying her success with a true girlish buoyancy of spirit, the more delightful, the more interesting, inasmuch as it seemed to tremble at itself. I have actually heard her reproached for not being _sufficiently_ elated and excited by the public homage; but, the truth is, she was grateful for praise, rather than intoxicated by it--more pleased with her success than proud of it.[20] "I dare not," said she, "feel all I _could_ feel: I must watch myself." And by a more exact attention to her religious duties, and by giving as much time as possible to the cultivation of many resources and accomplishments, she endeavoured to preserve the command over her own faculties, and the even balance of her mind. I am persuaded that this lofty tone of feeling, this mixture of self-subjection and self-respect, gave to her general deportment on the stage that indescribable charm, quite apart from any grace of person or action, which all who have seen her must have felt, and none can have forgotten.

And now, what shall I say more? If I dared to violate the sacredness of private intercourse, I could indeed say much--_much_ more. That she came forward and devoted herself for her family in times of trial and trouble--that twice she saved them from ruin--that she has achieved two fortunes, besides a brilliant fame, and by her talents won independence for herself and those she loved,--and that she has done all this before the age of five-and-twenty, is known to many; but few are aware how much more admirable, more respectable, than any of her mental gifts and her well-earned distinction, were the moral strength with which she sustained the severest ordeal to which a youthful character could be exposed; the simplicity with which she endured--half recoiling--the incessant adulation which beset her from morn to night;[21] her self-command in success; her gentle dignity in reverse; her straightforward integrity, which knew no turning nor shadow of turning; her n.o.ble spirit, which disdained all petty rivalry; her earnest sense of religion, "to which alone she trusted to keep her right."[22] Suddenly she became the idol of the public; suddenly she was transplanted into a sphere of society, where, as long as she could administer excitement to fas.h.i.+onable inanity, she was wors.h.i.+pped. She carried into those circles all the freshness of her vigorous and poetical mind--all the unworn feelings of her young heart. So much genuine simplicity, such perfect innocence and modesty, allied to such rare powers, and to an habitual familiarity with the language of poetry and the delineation of pa.s.sion, was not _there_ understood, or rather, was _mis_-understood--and no wonder! To the _blase_ men, the vapid girls, and artificial women, who then surrounded her, her generous feelings, "when the bright soul broke forth on every side," appeared mere acting; they were indeed constrained to believe it such; for if for a moment they had deemed it all real, it must have forced on them comparisons by no means favourable to themselves. If, under these circ.u.mstances, her quick sensibility to pleasurable emotion of all kinds, and her ready sympathy with all the _external_ refinement, splendour, and luxury of aristocratic life, conspired for a moment to dazzle her imagination, she recovered herself immediately, and from first to last, her warm and strong affections, the moral texture of her character; the refinement, which was as native to her mind, "as fragrance to the rose," remained unimpaired. These--a rich dower--she is about to carry into the shades of domestic life. Another land will be her future home. By another name shall fame speak of her, who was endeared to us as f.a.n.n.y KEMBLE: and _she_, who with no steady hand pens this slight tribute to the virtues she loved, bids to that name--farewell!

THE FALSE ONE.[23]

And give you, mix'd with western sentimentalism, Some samples of the finest orientalism.

LORD BYRON.

Akbar, the most enlightened and renowned among the sovereigns of the East, reigned over all those vast territories, which extend from the Indus to the Ganges, and from the snowy mountains of the north to the kingdoms of Guzerat and Candeish on the south. After having subdued the factious omrahs, and the hereditary enemies of his family, and made tributary to his power most of the neighbouring kingdoms, there occurred a short period of profound peace. a.s.sisted by able ministers, Akbar employed this interval in alleviating the miseries, which half a century of war and ravage had called down upon this beautiful but ever wretched country. Commerce was relieved from the heavy imposts, which had hitherto clogged its progress; the revenues of the empire were improved and regulated; by a particular decree, the cultivators of the earth were exempted from serving in the imperial armies; and justice was every where impartially administered; tempered, however, with that extreme clemency, which in the early part of his reign, Akbar carried to an excess almost injurious to his interests. India, so long exposed to the desolating inroads of invaders, and torn by internal factions, began, at length, to "wear her plumed and jewelled turban with a smile of peace;"

and all the various nations united under his sway--the warlike Afghans, the proud Moguls, the gentle-spirited Hindoos, with one voice blessed the wise and humane government of the son of Baber, and unanimously bestowed upon him the t.i.tles of AKBAR, or the GREAT, and JUGGUT GROW, or GUARDIAN of MANKIND.

Meantime the happiness, which he had diffused among millions, seemed to have fled from the bosom of the sovereign. Cares far different from those of war, deeper than those of love, (for the love of eastern monarchs is seldom shadowed by anxiety,) possessed his thoughtful soul. He had been brought up in the strictest forms of the Mohammedan religion, and he meditated upon the text, which enjoins the extermination of all who rejected his prophet, till his conscience became like a troubled lake.

He reflected that in his vast dominions there were at least fifteen different religions, which were subdivided into about three hundred and fifty sects: to extirpate thousands and tens of thousands of his unoffending subjects, and pile up pyramids of human heads in honour of G.o.d and his prophet, as his predecessors had done before him, was, to his mild nature, not only abhorrent, but impossible. Yet as his power had never met with any obstacle, which force or address had not subdued before him, the idea of bringing this vast mult.i.tude to agree in one system of belief and wors.h.i.+p appeared to him not utterly hopeless.

He consulted, after long reflection, his favourite and secretary, Abul Fazil, the celebrated historian, of whom it was proverbially said, that "the monarchs of the East feared more the pen of Abul Fazil than the sword of Akbar." The acute mind of that great man saw instantly the wild impracticability of such a scheme; but willing to prove it to his master without absolutely contradicting his favourite scheme, he proposed, as a preparatory step, that the names of the various sects of religion known to exist in the sultan's dominions should be registered, and the tenets of their belief contained in their books of law, or promulgated by their priests, should be reviewed and compared; thence it would appear how far it was possible to reconcile them one with another.

This suggestion pleased the great king: and there went forth a decree from the imperial throne, commanding that all the religions and sects of religion to be found within the boundaries of the empire should send deputies, on a certain day, to the sultan, to deliver up their books of law, to declare openly the doctrines of their faith, and be registered by name in a volume kept for this purpose--whether they were followers of Jesus, of Moses, or of Mohammed; whether they wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d in the sun, in the fire, in the image, or in the stream; by written law or traditional practice: true believer or pagan infidel, none were excepted.