The National Register.
London, England, 1808-01-04 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

13

a statue can be viewed ; but Acting surpasses them both.
and with a Promothean power, gives motion, and voice, and
life!

But though Acting, thus considered, of all the fine Arts
comes nearest to Nature's Prototype; yet it is the most difficult
to be criticised, because Its productions are the most evanescent.
If we wish to decide on the merit of a picture or a statue, we
way keep it before our eyes, unvarying in its expression and un-
injured in its workmanship, for an hour, for a day, for years :
if we disapprove it at a first glance, we have opportunies of
discovering its beauties by degrees, of revising, perhaps totally
changing our original judgment. But the representation of
Nature, which is produced by Acting, vanishes as soon as it is
beheld ; and though the spectator may not happen to be in the
right frame of mind at the moment when the actor delivers a
particular passage, there is no opportunity of arresting the
images in order to ascertain their merits or defects.
Yet, though Acting is thus of all the Fine Arts the most dif-
ficult to be criticised, it is nevertheless the most universally and
the most confidently canvassed. An uninformed person who
enters a gallery of pictures or statues, if he gives any opinion
at all, usually gives it with some sort of reserve : he for the
most part leans to the favourable side: and, even when he dis-
approves a work, he usually makes use of some such phrase as,
1 don't admire it, but very likely that is because I know
" nothing about painting. or sculpture." But almost every body
who enters a Theatre, thinks himself entitled to give a positive
opinion on Acting, although he perhaps may never have seen
fifty plays in his whole life. No one should believe that every
reasonable creature whom Nature has brought into the world,
can judge of acting, because good acting is a reasonable repre-
sentation of Nature: for Acting, as well as the other Arts by
which Nature is represented, has rules which direct, and rules
which restrain, not only its mechanism, but even its conception;
rules whirl' cannot be understood and applied without original
taste, extensive readin;,-, theatrical intercourse, and long ex-
perience.
If these positions be true, our readers will not he surprised,
when we declare the very low opinion we entertain of the thea-
trical critics, who blot the periodical publications of the present
age. As dramatic nature now appears, reduced to regular scien-
, titic principles, yet casually " snatching a grace beyond the
" reach" of any settled principle at all, attired in a garb, which
though it ought to fit her closely, yet is not the dress which
site wears on ordinary occasions, sometimes restrained by tbe
necessity of subordination, and sometimes stimulated fiir the dis-
play of magnificent effects, there can be but very few persons
who have the natural qualifications for judging nicely of acting,
and fewer yet to whom education and practice have imparted
their final and necessary skill. In our theatres there must al-
ways he a scarcity of fine actors, because in the highest walk of
the profession no man can he really great, without a union of
all the qualities which can give executive brilliancy to accuratp.
conception; among which are many of the powers of poetical
combination, all t tie qualities of discriminative analysis, and al"'
the qualities of a finished gentleman. There is as a lamentable
scarcity of fine critics in our newspapers ; and it would be dit •
ficult to find four of these authors who possess poetry enough to
• feel, and yet coolness enough to discriminate ; gaiety enough
to laugh, and yet elegance enough to understand high-breeding:
who know the green-room sufficiently to distinguish how much
effect is produced by the author, and how much by the actor ;
who, with all these natural and artificial requisites for forming
their judgment, have adequate Lowers of (omposition for de -
livering that judgment gracefully, and so much moderatinn as
to abstain from condemning to.mercifully.
After having said so much of the requisites for perfect criti.
cism, it would he the height of vanity and presumption to pro-
mise that our criticisms will be perfect ; but we may be allow-
ed to say, that it' we are not capable of doing all that these
principles require, we trust to avoid what these principles con-
demn. Before we animadvert upon a play or upon an actor,
it is our custom to study the play itself, with a view either of
discussing its merits, or of estimating its characters. Before we
make positive assertions, we shall take care to ascertain our
facts ; and having once made up our minds upon truth, we shall
never sacrifice that truth to party pique, or to the vauity of