The National Register. — 1814-03-06 (London, England)

MARCH 6.  his efforts and abilities in obscurity, seems therefore to imply a just* charge of neglect on the purveyors frir the metropolitan stage. How he rould:continue his.exertions and_ improve his talents without being cheered by a siugle ray of patronage, and without any hope of ever emerging front his undeserved insignificance, is not less honourable to his courage as a man contending with adversity, .than it is a satisfactory proof of sterling genius, which, like the beacon on the rock, is only blown brighter by .the storm. The universal approbation with which Mr. kean's Shylock was received, even whibt the memory retained unimpaited the image of his excellent, though eccentric predecessor, encouraged him to undertake another character in which the first performers on the Brisish stage had hitherto filed to equal Cooke. Mr. Kean's Richard the Third has set the seal to his fame. Greater powers of conception and expression, a closer adherence to nature, mere judgment and energ.y, have none ever displayed. Bold enough to be original, he possessed sufficient science to be successful in his originality. The spirit of Cooke's departed excellence did not stand by to awe his fancy and cripple his exertions. He only saw the crafty, cruel, and yet heroic Plantagenet, and was what lie contemplated. His introductory soliloquy, in which his own deformity formsthe subject of his reflections, wits given with peculiar felicity. His pauses might be deemed long, were not the absence of the voice amply supplied by the play of the countenance, and the expressive energy and propriety of his action. Ile not only feels what he titters, but imparts his feelings to every spectator, and through the magic of sympathy transforms them. into the being he is, rather than represents. His scene with Henry in the Tower, in which impatience wound up into rage, impels him to murder the King, is one of the finest specimens of the histronic art. His guilty krover the Royal corpse is terrifically grand. Ilis wooing of Lady Anne displays, however, still greater variety. The mixture of earnestness and of sarcasm, with which he addresses the only being hi ever loved, and mocks her weakness and his own feelings, fills up in the most effective manner the picture which the poet has given us of Richard's character. Were we to go through every scene, we should only have to repeat oleominim similar to those we have expressed. We cannot. however, refrain from noticing two most transcendant beauties exclusively his own. When bidding his friends goodnight on the evening previous to the battle, Richard sinks into one of those fits of abstractedness which rob him of his alacrity. Mr. Knott: gradually fell off from the conversation in which he was engaged, issued confused and uncon!melba orders, and growing seemingly inattentive to all that passed around him, slowly drew lines with his sword upon the ground, as though fixing the positions of armies ; then with a sudden motion drew another line across as if he had just found his point of attack, and starting from his reverie, hastily bade his friends good-night, and rushed off the Stage. Here the actor certainly rises to an equality with the poet, as well as in the followin., instance. Mortally wounded after a desperate contest, and growing faint in body though unsubdoetl in soul, Mr. KEAN uncons sciously drops his sword through weakness, and continues to lounge with his bare band until death puts an end to the Tyrant's spirit with his life. After describing some of the beauties with which this gentleman's performance of Richard abounds, it is useless to add, that the applause with which his exertions are rewarded is Universal and enthusiastic, and that the only difficulty is now to obtain places, notwithstanding the size of tbis house, when Mr. K. is announced to play.