The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-20 00:00:00

beth's great rival. This defiance rouses her fury and
serves to justify her vengeance. She signs the
warrant and leaves the room, bending a look on
her secretary, who fully comprehends it, and de-
parts to fulfil her wishes. Here a little liberty
is taken with history in the introduction
of James the Sixth, on a secret visit to the Queen to
implore compassion for his mother, and obtain, if
possible, her release. At the height of his entrea-
ties arrives the news of Mary's death, and the young
King giving vent to a burst of horror and indigna-
tion, lays his malediction on the murderess, and
rushes from her presence. From this critical posi-
tion, in which the Queen's dissimulation only in-
tensifies her guilt, she is rescued by fresh news--
only permissible by stage license, the approach of
the Armada, and then ad personal feeling vanishing
in her undoubted love of country, her heroism re-
stores her to her true dignity and altitude. She
gives orders to call out her troops, vows she will
lead them to the field in person, and grasping the
sword of her father, calls on her assembled nobles to
pledge their lives upon its blade. On this exciting
picture closes the second act. The third, which
opens at Greenwich, in the midst of the festivities
caused by the defeat of the Armada, is the weakest
in the play; and yet fulfils an important end in pre-
paring for its climax. Its action scarcely extends
beyonds the disgrace of Essex, who, having ex-
ceeded his instructions by his foray upon Cadiz,
has provoked the Queen's displeasure—her ambi-
tious jealousy imagining that she detects in her
new favourite a certain symptom of the old one.
Essex's indignation at his treatment, and irreverent
expressions, itfiaming the Queen in turn, she deals
him a hearty cuff—his hand flies to his sword ; ho
is instantly arrested, and quits her presence for the
Tower, pouring out a flood of invectives which leave
her amazed and choked with fury. With the fourth
act unfolds the tragic aspects of the story. Essex has
been condemned to death, not only for the present
treason but for his complicity with another, and
his danger having aroused the full measure of her
love for him she awaits the arrival of the ring by
which his danger is to be escaped. Her pride will
not allow her to pardon him without it, for its
sending would imply submission as well as prove
affection; but the ring comes not and she begins to
fear that his pride is equal to her own. He map
die even in defying her and thus involve her in
murder even blacker than that of Mary—the murder
of the man she loves. Her struggles are at their
height when the warrant is brought her to signs
and she—shrinking from it and turning
to it as love and pride alternately
sway her--at length believing that at the
approach of death, his courage must give way,
and he will send the needed mission, signs the
warrant with terrible fears, and again watches and
asks eagerly if any message has come from the Tower.
At length Lady Howard flies into her presence. She
has been entrusted with the ring but deprived of it
by her husband, who is the enemy of Essex, and
no sooner is this told, and the Queen with a shriek
of terror has ordered the execution to be
stayed than a distant gun proclaims its
work Essex has fallen, and she aghast
at the measure of her guilt, waves every-
one away from her, and falls to the ground
with a never-dying remorse. When the curtain
rises again, Elizabeth, worn with years and suffer-
ing, for she is now on the verge of seventy, is seat
to be trembling on the brink of the grave. AU
that sustains her is a will that has defeated every
enemy, and seems strong enough at last to wrestle
even with death. She had been prostrate for
several days when she had heard that the Com-
mons were discussing the question of her successor,
and as this was an invasion of her prerogative,
her strength had rallied for a last victory,
and she had ordered herself to be carried in a litter
to the house where she had once more subdued its
haughty patriots to silence. She enters, leaning
on the arm of Burleigh, elate with this achieve-
ment ; and, deceived by its excitement into the
belief that it has endowed her with a new life,
she orders a festivity at Windsor, and laughingly
fells Burleigh he shall have the honour of her
hand. She even goes so far as to com-
passionate her old Minister—to remind him
of his infirmities, and beg him to be pru-
dent, When at length the dream dist
solves—a pang seizes her, and she is warned that
in a few hours she must be dust. She commando
her court to leave her; and, stretched upon her"
couch, is forced to contemplate her fate. The
thought of Essex has come back to wring from her
a wail of mingled penitence and passion, and enforce
her dying estimate of all her delusions and posses-
sions. She has outlived everything—youth,
beauty, and personal homage—and now she
finds herself alone with the spectres of
Esaex and Mary. In her terrors she becomes
senseless, but is restored to a last consciousness by
the entrance of the young king. She bids kites
kneel, and crowns him. His dignity is proclaimed
to the people beneath her window, and their haPPY
shouts assail her ears just as her senses are deport-
ing. Love and vanity are gone, but pride is still
unconquered. She rises with a wild eft:at—plucks
the crown from the king's brow, and planting it oil
her own, falls back a monarch, even in death.
Such, in as few words as we can describe it, is
the stirring action of this play ; and, if it possesses
no other merit, it will be seen it is no narrow plat-
form for the powers of a great actresss. Here are
character and incident worthy even of a Ristori,
whatever may be the limitations imposed by the
meagre writing. How she grasps them is a,
matter which it is not so easy to describe. That
her Elizabeth, on the whole,
entirely convinced ;
her greatest triumph, we are
must be regarded That
but we are aware this assertion conveys but a very
vague idea of what this triumph really involves.
The Medea revealed to us her grace and passion,
but we required the Elizabeth to show us the
singular plasticity as well as vigour, which
could pass in such quick succession to emotions the
most opposite, and by certain abiding qualities,
forming the media of the transit, make taem as
truthful as they are vivid—gay one moment with the
lightest vanity—flaming the next with the fiercest
rage—trembling now with the tenderest feeling--
maddened anon with the deepest hate. There volt&
no excess in there transitions, her great art or belle!,
of truth enabling her to grasp the central ideas 01
Queen and Lover, availed her easily to modify
and harmonise their expressions. As a Pic-
ture of the agonies of a proud but Pas'
sionate heart, her struggles in the fourth sot'
whilst awaiting the ring from Essex, and yat
compelled to sign the warrant, we have never seen'
excelled. And yet her fifth act was unquestionably
the triumph of the night. The bent and withered
being that then tottered in before us, fo fearfully
contrasting with the regal bloom of her f rat or
pearance—the strong will that even could control
and keep death in abeyance, supplying to this
shrivelled tenement a power almost superhu-
man a bearing still majestic, or, if failings
only broken by remorse, and not by time
What a picture stood before us and yet,
if possible, more marvellous, as it was ^ un-
doubtedly more terrible—when, stretched upon her
couch, she surveyed the approach of death, and
tried to chase away its phantoms by lingering self-
deceptions—when hoping against hope her vanity
revived, and, straining her fainting limbs to catch
a last look at her glass, she gazed upon a face
scarcely less spectral than her fancies—What o
picture was again there, as truthful in its present-
ment as it was profound in its instruction.
It is but a trifling note to make that Madam°
Ristori throughout the play, as the Queen both in her
bloom and her decrepitude, is perhaps the most strik-
ing stage resemblance that has been given in our tittles
Her praise is something higher. She is an embodi-
meat of the woman which either a painter or a poet
could study with advantage. It is scarcely necessary
to add that her performance raised the audience to the
highest state of excitement,their applause throughout
its course rising to an enthusiastic summons at the
close of every act, which became, and very proparlY,
a double one at the conclusion. Madame Itistori
was ably supported by Signor Pezzana, in the cha-
racter of Essex, whose indignant denunciations at
the close of the third act were very deservedly or
plauded. Madlie. Glech, also, was very effective
iA
the character of Lady Howard.