Mr. CHARLES KEMBLE commenced his series of" Shaksperian Read- ings"
on Monday, at Willis's Rooms, with Cymbeline, " a little com- pressed "—or, to speak more correctly, abridged—as he read it before the Queen and Court. The audience was select and fashionable ; and the reading, which occupied two hours with a short interval of rest, was listened to with gratified attention intermingled with ap- plause. Mr. KEMBLE has evidently studied carefully every passage ; and he took great pains to give dramatic effect to the delivery of the speeches, by varying the tones of his voice, and suiting the expression of his countenance and the action of his hands to the sentiment of the dialogue. In the more energetic manifestations of manly passion his power was effective : he was not equally successful, as might be ex- pected, in the plaintive utterance of feminine sorrow and rapture. And the attempt to accomplish what is almost impossible gave more the im- pression of artifice than is desirable in the reading of a play ; in which, we venture to think, the expression is proportioned to the reader's ap- preciation of the sentiment of the poetry and his significant and musical elocution. For example, no one that we have heard read Shakspere has been equal to COLERIDGE, who possessed these qualities in perfection.
Previous page
