The Sun.
London, England, 1838-02-05 00:00:00

intellect at once powerful, comprehensive, and acute, but so accustomed
to " consider" too curiously, so penetrating, so ceaseless, and so nice in
,ts enquiries, that his vutnios Are no sooner roused than they are en_
• • --• "r Investigation ; and
tangled in the interminable mazes
_ _

" Thug, the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprizes of great pith and moment
In this regard theft` eurrentt turn awry,
And lose the name of action:"

Now we do not think that Mr. C: Kean gave sufficient prominence
to that wind] we May call the intellectual part of Hamlet.
He well potlrtrayed Hamlet's deep, filial grief for his father's
death and veneration for hit MernOry 1 his horror On discovering
the " foul, unnatural murder"—his detestation Of the guilty usurper—
his love for his Mothermingled with his abhafrence of her unfeel.
ingly hasty re-illaffiage--,-hit Warm attachment to' the lietlest-hearted
Horatio, and his conteMpt for the gtifel find& the mask of friend-
ship, would go about to entriP hint into the ardent, intense
devotedness of his affectiftn for Opheliii. But he did nost td frilly et.
press the philosophical reflection of EtaTidet--41is lofty and abstracted
contemPlation=the 66 effusions of his poetiCal hiltiginatidn—his pa-
thetic moraliiing tin lihmin rilortglity: Mr. Kean is too fe;ui of s pas,
sionate—a declamatory, ai;(I dl tiiJies a tinting{ nidde of delivery which
does not accord with the cool reflective chaffieta df Hierrilek: Thiit splendid
passage, " What a piece of work is man !" &c., was marred b, OAS an.
happy tendency. The same fault was occasionally visible in the scelle
with Ophelia; and in the lines, " Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned
to clay," &c., in the grave scene—the whole of which was deficient in
that solemn pathos which the poet has thrown around it. Mr. C. Kean's
acting, however, in the play scene, and that with his mother, was as fine
and impressive as we have ever seen. Nothing could exceed the effect
of his whisper, " Is it the King ?" or of his bitter irony, " Let the galled
jade wince," &c. In the scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he
was excellent. One great merit of the performance was the generally
natural and unaffected style of his acting, and the easy dignity with which
he entered into the lighter and more familiar conversations. This gave
a charm to his delivery of the advice to the players, yet we never heard
it given so much in the spirit of its own instructions. It is impossible
to speak in too laudatory terms of Mr. C. Kean's performance of the last
scene. His fencing was one of the most scientific and graceful exhibi-
tions of the kind ever beheld ; and the death was in the highest degree
impressive and affecting. Of the other performances Mr. Cooper's Ghost
was the best specimen of sepulchral elt-nltion we have listened to. Miss
Romer's Ophelia was clever, but not the gentle, plaintive, simple Ophe-
lia of the poet. Mr. Cook's Horatio was good, and MN, Ternan's
Gertrude in more than one instance displayed no mean power of acting.
Mr. King's Laertes, but—
" The rest is silence."

This evening Mr. Kean will play Richard the Third, and we anxiously
wait to see whether he will in this character, so peculiarly interesting
from its association with his immortal father, justify the favourable opi-
nion of his talents we have here ventured to express.