The Sun.
London, England, 1834-05-15 00:00:00

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

The second part of Shakspeare's King Henry the Fourth
was last night produced at this Theatre, in a style of un-
common splendour. We do not remember to have ever
seen it better cast, if so well. Macready, as Henry the
Fourth, played with marked ease and propriety. There
was no straining after effect ; none of those startling in-
comprehensible transitions of voice and gesture in which
he is so apt to indulge ; his performance throughout was
chaste, feeling, intelligent, and in perfect keeping with the
truth of character. His delivery of the invocation to
sleep, in particular, was one of the finest things ever
heard on the stage. Every word was pregnant with
meaning—not even a whisper was lost. Again, what
could be more expressive than his sad, solemn appeal to his
son, when on waking from a brief sleep, he finds that the
young Prince has conveyed away the crown from his pil-
low ? We look on Macready's Henry the Fourth as by far
his best character. It is full of intelligence and sensibility.
and as respects truth and nature, and a certain equable and
sustained dignity, which is in the kistest accordance with
the spirit of the text, beats his Virginius hollow. Far-
ren's Justice Shallow deserves equal praise. It is a most
carefully finished performance, with this one slight draw-
back, that the study is a little too apparent. Mr. Farren's
range is-a circumscribed one, but within its limits " none
dare walk but he." He syllabled the common-places of
the old doating Justice with a fine characteristic show of un-
consciousness; and launched his favourite truism that " death
is common to all," just as though it were some bright intel-
lectual discovery destined to immortalize the name of Shal-
low. His well-known lament too, " Oh, the mad days
that I have seen, andto think how many of my old acquain-
tance are gone !" was given in that half-comic, half-pathetic li
spirit, which the audience recognized at once as genuine.
Dowton's Falstaff had many points of excellence—for we
alwa's find something to admire even in the weakest efforts
of this accomplished actor—but as a whole, though by no
means deficient in the requisite ease, it wanted humour and
spirit. Dowton did not seem as if he were fully awake to
all the peculiarities—the rich, unctuous gusto of the cha-
racter. He had not the arch and ready invention of the
sly old hypocrite who had lost his voice by " hallooing and
singing of anthems." The defect of his Falstaff was,
that though clever, it was common-place. However he is
by far the best " fat knight" we have. It must be re-
membered too that Falstaff does not show to such
advantage in the second, as in the first, part of
Henry the Fourth. His humour is a little dimmed,
and his scenes with Justice Shallow—that inimitable old
blockhead—rather divert our attention from him. Mis-
tress Quickly was well played by Mrs. C. Jones, who is a
pains-taking actress, and never fails to satisfy the judg-
ment. Cooper, as the Prince of Wales, and Webster as
Bardolph, performed with their usual propriety. At the
close of the play the Coronation Procession was introduced,
and was immediately succeeded by a splendid view of the
interior of Westminster Abbey as it will appear next month,
fitted up for the musical festival. In this scene we were
gratified by the vocal performances of Mademoiselle Grisi,
Signors Ivanhoff, Tamburini, Rubini, and Braham. Grim
especially distinguished herself by the feeling and tasteful
manner in which she sung Di Piacer. The house was
crowded to suffocation ; and the splendour of the two coro-
nation scenes elicited general applause.