Mr. Kean's attitude in leaning against
the side of the stage before he comes forward to address Lady Anne,
is one of the most graceful and striking ever witnessed on the
stage. It would do for Titian to paint. The frequent and rapid
transition of his voice from the expression of the fiercest passion
to the most familiar tones of conversation was that which gave a
peculiar grace of novelty to his acting on his first appearance.
This has been since imitated and caricatured by others, and he
himself uses the artifice more sparingly than he did. His by-play is
excellent. His manner of bidding his friends 'Good night', after
pausing with the point of his sword drawn slowly backward and
forward on the ground, as if considering the plan of the battle next
day, is a particularly happy and natural thought. He gives to the
two last acts of the play the greatest animation and effect. He
fills every part of the stage; and makes up for the deficiency of
his person by what has been sometimes objected to as an excess of
action, The concluding scene in which he is killed by Richmond is
the most brilliant of the whole. He fights at last like one drunk
with wounds; and the attitude in which he stands with his hands
stretched out, after his sword is wrested from him, has a
preternatural and terrific grandeur, as if his will could not be
disarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair had power to kill.
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