The New Orleans Democrat., 1876-03-18
glary and rape, and who have shown SO
lately q tolerance, tenderness, sym
pathy for assassins.
Miss AndersOn'S Blanca.

unlike the Fall Of Jerusalem and his
other dramas-was written, IL not ex-
pressly for the stage, ut least with
view to being acted; but, after enjoying
a brief run at Drury Lane, it fell from
favor. and has almost completely disap-
reared from the modern repertoire: /:
and Justly, we think. The plot is repul-
sive. the incidents meagre and common
place, the style turgid. the sentiment
tawdry. The fact is, Mr.. Milman was
no poet, and not all the professorships
at oxford, nor in the world, could make
him one. He was bookworm, knew
little of man and less Of nature, and
nothing short Of solitary confinement
could force any one to read, or at worst,
reread his "d'Amor." No spark Of i'm
agination glows in any line he ever
wrote, and how seldom that delicate
sprite, Fancy, 50 often mistaken for her
imperial sister, waited on him, one may
judge by tasting Philario's song in this
very play. .......
We can conceive no greater strain
upon the powers OF an actor than to
have his lot cast in such play, that
play cut up and compressed into half its
natural compass, and to be called on to
sustain the chief role with such support
as a casual stock company affords.
This was the demand made upon Miss
Anderson on Thursday night, and she
satisfied it in manner to win not only
the enthusiastic applause Of an excep-
tionally brilliant audience, but to justify
the highest hopes and confidence Of her
warmest friends.
We have no space for an analysis OF
the play, nor can we at this interval FOL
low her throughout with the prompter's
book in hand. The witchery Of the mu-
sic still fingers in our ears, and the dy-
ing fall of that strain we have not the
will to disturb. II not equal
throughout, it was still glorious theme
and in her highest moods the artist
bore us along on the crest Of her pas
sionate swell with an Irresistible force.
In the very first act, when Fdzio.
amid the caresses Of his two years wife,
turns half guilty in his thought again,
and recalls the witchery Of -AlddbeHa
which had so ensnared his earlier years,
the quick, sharp pang OF reawakened
jealousy betrayed in eye and gesture
even more than in Bianca's taunt-gave
instant assurance of the reserved power
of the actress and Of her genuine and
native force. .s,r.- t..ar ar
The tenderness, the absorbing, holy
selfishness of chaste love. repelling
SO much as a hint OF another guest en-
tering its secret chambers or being bid
den to its feast, was not less impress
siyely rendered in the second. And In
the third, the outraged wife, deserted.
betrayed, abandoned, racked with jeal-
ousy of the usurping mistress, doubly
humiliated by the coarse floutings and
still more intolerable pity OF her house
hold slaves; the desperate resolve to
pluck her husband from Alddbella's
arms, be the cost to him or her what it
may; the denunciation to the Duke;
the awful reflux of all the tides of being
when she finds that the doom she has
invoked on him she 50 madly loves is
death, and the agonized and bewildered
plea for pity, plea sinking lower and
lower with the ebb Of hope until at last
it clings to the knees of the meanest
councillor in it's self-abasing renuncia-
ton, were in turn portrayed with match
less eloquence and fidelity.
But in what school was this young
girl scarcely seventeen years, we are
old-taught? In what asylum has she
brooded over the face Of madness?
What hospitals have so familiarized
her with the lineaments Of death, that
she could reflect the very feature and
form of their most terrible aspect?
When, dishevelled, haggard, wan, she
staggers on the stage with one wild,
gibbering cry-her husband dead, her
self the doomsman-crazed with an
agony greater than brain can bear, the
eye, the form, the gesture, tell the tale
OF ravage without word. The specu
lation in those orbs is frenzy-the seal
on that face is deaths. She grows
ghastlier and more gahstly as you gaze,
and when at last beneath the strain the
heart itself breaks as break you feel it
must-the intense realism awes even the
galleries into solemn hush.
This is genius native, original. 1t
has no model and defies imitation.
Its voice is the universal language of
nature, not the studied lisp Of conven-
ton. 1t lacks no master, it needs none,
for it looks into its own heart, and out Of
its own fulness speaks.
Severe, conscientious work, we are
sure has given Miss Anderson all that she
has thus far realized; it will bring. her
higher things in the future, il she per-
severe. The censure of the few, not the
plaudits Of the crowd, she must learn
to hear and heed. The judicious
critic will warn her that decla-
nation is not the key Of passion
That is pompous, stilted, measured
this impetuous, vehement. aflame. 1t
catches its breath between the pauses
of the volleyed utterance in spasms-
has no time to bestow four syllables on
unrighteous and three on patience.
When it pleads for an imperilled hus-
bands life it has sobs in its voice and
means in its entreaty, and the elo-
uuence of despair in cyery motion. 1t |