Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-11-11

he took the one step from the sublime. The
sunny blue eye, the genial smile, the pleas
antry we found SO winning in social inter
course, never appeared upon the stage. His
genius, and the voice it swayed, were dedi-
/ Gated to tragedy. Child of nature as he was.
though consummated by art, he disdained
no resource which might minister to the
! legitimate effects Of tragedy And it may
be said that, Phidias blended the lion into
the god, in the face of his Jupiter, SO Booth
lifted the lions voice, 80 the prowling lion ,
Here | am, into the human scale, and
with iudicious reserve and translated mean
ing bade IL :. roar and thunder in the index
of the stormier passions.
Such a man, SO minded and go organized,
we will not say justifies, he neceSsitates the
stage. The moral argument is absorbed in
the inevitable fact. II the theatre had not
existed, he would have created it, according
to the Divine order, in which the soul invents
the circumstance Without it, there would
have been no field for the exercise Of his
peculiar powers In him grand passions
| found play through the imagination. not only
/ harmless, but fruitful and beautiful as art
Nay, it would seem as if the nature of this
man lay, a distinct personality, embryonic
in the very mind of Shakespeare, whose
grander characters awaited, as the centuries
rolled by, their destined and Completed repre-
"a
time, to give them living form, and vital
motion, and transcendant speech, and per-
sonal unity, and ever endeared rerneIn brance.
Following this is what seems to able
argument upon the superiority Of his friend
over other famous actors, particularly Gar
rick and kean, in which, alluding to the re-
mark Of Coleridge on kean's acting, he says:
- To see Booth in his best mood was not
like reading Shakespeare by flashes of light
ming in which binding glare alternates
with the fearful suspense of darkness, but
rather like reading him by the sunlight Of
summers day, light which casts deep shad
ows, gives play TO glorious harmonies of col
or. and shows all objects in vivid life and true
relation
In order TO acqui, the author OF any exag-
geration in his estimate of the man, or of
any intention TO conceal his faults, and also
to correct certain common impressions with
regard to him, we copy the following:
In according to Booth the gift of supreme
histrionic power, we do not imply that his
performances were faultless for the faultless
performer is simply the correct. We will
ltLElH hQlHlb tHdt US DdNt bct1 udlCicQ
by others, and haply surpassed in all second
ary qualities, excepting voice, which illumin-
ate the stage; he holding, beyond rivalry,
the single controlling quality of pene
trating, kindling, shaping Imagination
Genius can light its own fire; and it is the
peculiar property of hstronic genius to
cherish, manipulate, and apply the fame
Yet in the finest results of all art there is
something Independent Of the will. Mr.
BOOTH tcas perhaps the n1osI unequal OF oil Qre1t
actors And this inequality was more sadly
manifest towards the latter part of his career.
Ills excellence was, however, throughout his
life. go incalculable and surprising, that one
OF his very greatest Shakespcarean perform
ances took place in the year 1850, during his
last engagement 10 Boston.
Health. animal spirits, that Tigor which
comes from Just intervals Of repose, clearness
of voice in our trying climate, and general
freshness of the physical man, may all con-
spire 10 serve the exaoting hour, and vet the
spontaneous actor not find nln4eolt :. i tie
vein The transforming imaginative power
on which he relies TO identify himself with
the dramatic character. may be either slug
gish or asleep. The whence and whittier Of
that wind of the spirit, who knoweth? So
Mr. Booth to the casual attendant on his
performances. often failed to sustain his
great reputation. Only to those who, like
ourselves, had waited them through re
years, did the full depth and
refinement. the glow and sway of mind he
showed. entirely appear. Many q time,
when passion and imagination were COM
paratively wanting. have we admired the
subtle intellect Of his interpretations and
were. OH such occasions, content to follow
his lifted and guiding torch, along the spar
gemmed labyrinths of Shakespeare's more
intricate meanings.
Our course of remark has drifted us into
that cloud which hung over and partially
his fame, and which, in good mems
minds, affixed q blot on his personal charac-
ter We mean what has been called, with
needless exaggeration, his habit of intoxica-
ton. We would gladly avoid this subject.
but :. omittance is no quittance. and we
proceed to set the charge in it's true light.
During the forty years, save one, which
bounded his dramatic career, Mr.. Booth g
hdbif of life, both on his farm and on the
stage, was exeInplarily temperate. His rev
erence for the sacredness of all life amounted
to a superstition lie abstained for many
years on principle from the of animal
food. An " extravagant and erring spirit
allied TO madness, would sometimes take
possession Of hin, and hurry him away from
the theatre at the moment the performance
was to begin; and to this cause, and not to {
intoxication, should be attributed the not (
infrequent disappointment of the audience
Still it must be confessed, with grief and
pity, that the baser charge was often true.
4 resort to stimulants is the actors special
bane and ever present temptation to an
actor of Mr.. Booths spontaneous method,
sometimes an irresistible temptation. The
histrionic art was to him q c,.itits, religion.
Not to speak it profanely, he offered himself
q perpetual sacrifice to the god of terror and
of beauty; he staked - soul and body on
the action both" and the exhaustion some
times attendant upon ms performance Of the
fiery rite, was relieved by means question
able, pitiful, pardonable.
The work is too brief. but had he occupied
FIVE hundred pages. he could do his friend
no more justice than be has in his scarce two
hundred.
We scarcely dare to hope that in the few
crumbs we have given our readers, there is
any foretaste Of the feast in store for those
who NAV choose 1" avail themselves of it.
1t is printed on clear paper, and on the
Riverside Press, which is all that need be
said of the mechanical part OF the book.
Colburn's New Monthly.
In Difficulties.