The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-09 00:00:00

it. FECIITER.

The Princess's is still thrice every week crowded
with an enthusiastic audience hanging breathlessly
upon every syllable that falls from the lip, upon
every look that gleams from the eye, upon .every
emotion that plays over the mobile features of this
incomparable Artist. M. Fechter, as Hamlet, is
not only at this moment the " sight" of London, it
is one of its most exquisite and elevating sensations.
Those who have not witnessed this extraordinary
performance, those who have only read of it, or
who have seen the photographic representations of
the Great Actor as he appears in the character,
cannot form to themselves even the most glimmer-
ing notion of the effect produced upon the spectator
by it, as a manifestation, not so much of consum-
mate Art as of pure and unsophisticated Genius. The
character of Hamlet has now for the better part
of three hundred years been aninexplicable enigma,
an inscrutable mystery to all the Shaksperian
critics who have descanted upon that dramatic,
intellectual, metaphysical Marvel in terms of be-
wildered admiration. Beholding M. Fechter's
impersonation of Hamlet—everything enigmatical,
everything that before might have appeared mys-
tically incomprehensible and incoherent and at times
even absolutely inconsistent in the character, fades
out entirely, melts away altogether. The character,
the temperament, the whole wondrous idiocyncracy
of the Danish Prince come out at last clearly and
vividly before our recognition—Hamlet, as imper-
sonated by Mr. Fechter, is enshrined for ever in
our memory as " one entire and perfect chryso-
lite !" And how he looks it ! At his first
entrance upon the stage you are disappointed.
As he sits there moodily below the royal dais, with
his head and his glance bent downwards, com-
muning with himself dolefully over the memory
of his dead father—you hardly think him worthy
of the ideal Hamlet. Forgetting, perhaps, for the
moment, that Hamlet is thirty, you fancy hg lacks
adolescence and even comeliness. But—wait till he
rises, till his glance is raised, till he speaks ! Wait
till you see the cloud and sunshine of profound and
varying emotions flitting over that pale face—down
either side of which streams down that blonde
yellow hair that flows luxuriantly upon his shoul-
ders ! Wait till you hear the vibrations of that
dulcet voice, thrilling so often and so tenderly with
the tears in it—Wait! Through all the five acts you
follow his every movement (and his movements are
so full of grace !), his every glance (and at moments
his countenance appears so strikingly handsome!)
his every tone (and they are so perpetual in their
mutation, and so often and so deliciously vibrant
with pathetic tenderness fl—summoning him before
the drop scene at the close of each act, and particu-
larly before the green curtain, at the close of
the fifth, to receive the tined of public applause,
and (it is so, we are satisfied, with each one of the
public) of almost personal gratitude—in crashing
rounds of acclamations. We do not in writing
thus in any way exaggerate. The impersonation
of Hamlet by M. Pechter is exquisitely noble and
beautiful—it is a histrionic masterpiece. We can-
not often see him for our tears. We long
to grasp that hand that never moves without
revealing some new grace of gesticulation. The
imagination is haunted afterwards on leaving the
theatre by those thrilling accents and that alternately
beaming and mournful ccilantenance. And the
general admiration excited by Mr. Fechter's
Hamlet is in no way diminished, we may
be quite sure of this—it is incalculably enhanced
and intensified by the recollection that the
Great Actor who has now come over to London, in
order to show to delighted crowds of Englishmen
how Shakspere ought to be acted, and how among
' all the characters of Shakspere that marvellous
• tragic part of Hamlet ought to be delineated—is a
Frenchman! The impersonation of Hamlet by M.
Fechter, when viewed in the light of that astonish-
ing recollection, rises to the dignity of a rare Intel-
, lectual achievement. But it is far more than that
—it is immeasureably more than a mere source of
wonderment as a psychological phenomenon. There
is a living soul breathed into this remarkable creation
—that vitalising spirit which is the one essential
endowment of every really Great Actor—the living
soul of pure and nwpiestionable- genius. Associated
with Mr. Pechter in the performance, week after

week (upon every Monday, Wednesday, and Fri-
day) at the Princess's, of this Tragedy of Tragedies,
we ought to mention the name, if only
en passant, of Mr. Hermann Vezin, as an ele-
gant and impassioned Laertes, noting in re-
ference to the Claudius of Mr. Ryder that it is—
as it is almost always with Mr. Ryder—at once
painstaking and picturesque. But M. Fechter's
Hamlet, like the sun at noonday, outshines all
the stars by its dominating brilliancy. It is
nothing less, we repeat, than an achievement, and
we marvel no longer when we have once gazed upon
it through our tears, we marvel no longer that, it
produces so profound a sensation upon every even=
ing of its performance.