MISS SMITHSON'S JULIET.
A FRENCHMAN having exhausted his vernacular epithets of praise, magitifique, superb°, &c., concluded by adding " 'tis what you call in English, pretty good ! ' " Such is, we find, about the Eng- lish translation of the raptures of our neighbours on Miss SMITHSON.
First, as to her personal qualifications. Her figure, without being very nicely moulded, is yet on the whole sufficiently graceful for the stage, and pleasing in its general character. Her face is not hand- some, but it is lit up with eyes of a very agreeable lustre, and altoge- ther the countenance is expressive and prepossessing. So far all is well, and suited to the business of the stage in the gentler and feminine departments of tragedy; but we now come to one important particular —the voice, in which we certainly find Miss SMITHSON defective. Her voice is of a coarse kind, slightly touched with husk, and she often speaks with a decided Devonshire drawl. Having premised thus much respecting the lady's personal attri- butes, we pass to the consideration of her performance. The style of Miss SiIrrnsoN ie composite, and made up of what is termed the English natural school of acting and the French stilted tragedy. These two manners she plays off in piano and forte against each other for the sake of contrast ; and in the same sentence she gives us the familiarity.of MACREADY or KEAN, and the heroics of Miulemoiselle GEORGE. Her level acting is English, and her rants are sublimely French.
The balcony scene was for the most part of the former character. SHAKSPEARE has certainly given to Juliet a greater degree of ardour 1 han he has conferred on Romeo, and Miss SMITHSON allows none of the warmth of the poet's conception to escape in her personation.. The sentiments of passion proceed from her with an extreme unction ; and she loves with a somewhat hoyden animation and boisterous fervour. When indeed Juliet speaks of the blushes which might be seen (light permitting) on her cheeks, it was difficult to suppress a smile, so whimsically did the boast of bashfulness contrast with the forward freedom of manlier. The delicacy on the word " marriage"— the mincing prudish hesitation—was also ridiculously incongruous. Why Juliet should concentrate all her modesty and reserve upon t hat single word, it were not credit able to the heroine's character to under- stand : there is too much of the Miss Prue in the nicety. We have further to object, that in this scene, as in all others which allowed of it, a simper was more pervading than is consistent with good taste. We have observed that the character of Juliet, as drawn by the poet, ex- ceeds in warmth that of Romeo, and the personations of Miss SMITHSON and KEMBLE certainly served to make this point the more marked. Mr. KEMBLE i 'S Romeo is, we know, a superlatively excellent piece of acting; every body agrees that it Is so, and we would by no means dispute the position. This, indeed, we will say on our own hehalfs, that we never heard a Romeo who made more noise in his distress ; which no doubt is the grand test of merit in the performance. The passage where Romeo hears the sad tidings of Juliet's death, "then I de ty the stars," was particularly fine. Except from the elephant in Exeter 'Change, we never heard an expression of grief more efficiently uttered. One could not fail to perceive that a young gentleman who spoke so very loud mist be sunk to the last depth of affliction, whence a con- siderable vocal effort is necessary to relief. When we fall into a pit, we must cry loud, or lack sympathy or succour. It is to be regretted that there is no measure of vociferation by which we might with exactitude ascertain the merit in particular parts. To the best of our hearing, we will always rate the excellence of Romeos by the noise of their sorrow ; but sometimes we suffer under colds, when the ears are not so sensible as they should be, and dull even to genius which rivals the voice of a town bull. Whenever a prodigious uproar is made, we vehemently clap in the theatre ; and shall, as now, applaud in print. Perfect as Mr. KEMBLE was in the unequivocal manifestations of grief, we thought him—if we may without ruin to our critical reputa- tions hazard the objection—a little colder than SHAKSPEARE has rendered necessary in his love-making. We were young once in our lives ; and in those days it scarcely comported with our ideas of passion to turn a back upon a mistress, and throw not a lingering regard to the idol from whom the lover was parting. Mr. KEMBLE, when he says fine things to Juliet, certainly speaks to her ; but having clone so, he turns to the right face, and looks at the audience till it is time for him to address her again. When he-quits her too, he walks straight out, in a manner which, if observed by Orpheus, would have delivered Euridyce from Hades. When he is called back, he marches in Avith the com- posed tranquil gait of the philosophical Hamlet. We marvelled only to see him dressed in pink, and that his stocking was not down. The air of indifference in the Romeo made the extreme impetu- osity of the Mies passion the more striking. One part of Mr. KEMBLE'S acting, however, really seemed to us excellent; and that was his bearing after the death of Tybalt. The wild consternation, the bewildered horror of his look, was perfectly appropriate to the situation. Whatever charge of insensibility to the charms of his mistress may attach to Mr. KEMBLE'S Romeo, none belongs to his insensibility to the poison in the last scene. However cold may have seemed his heart, his stomach evinces an acute susceptibility, and Gil Blas in the cavern simulated colic with all-enduring patience compared with Mr. KEMBLE'S representation of the distresses of poison. He makes us feel that he has been dealing with an apothecary, by most unequivocal diagnostics. And here we may ask, whether it is as a compliment to physic that Romeo makes such a particular ado when killed with a drug? Observe how people die by the sword or the dagger on the stage—they clap their hands to the wounded part, give a genteel " Oh," fail gently down, and die without noise or pother. But Romeo testifies as clamorous an indisposition to quit the world, and, in mellow sounds, as loud a distaste for the means, as that animal so tenaciously attached to the joys of life, the luxurious pig. No painter in the colic, proper to his vocation, gives stronger or more unequivocal expression to his intestine troubles than does Juliet's lover. We wish they would introduce prussic acid on the stage ; it would work off much more genteelly than the oxalic now in use, which is only fit for boot-tops. In the latter part of the play, we think Miss SMITHSON'S acting was less open to exception than in the earlier scenes of more delicacy and and difficulty ; and she was undeniably more applauded in the tragic situations, the rants incidental to which lost nothing of their extrava- gance by her delivery. Altogether, we should rate the lady as an ac- quisition to the stage—no wonder, no marvel, not a SIDDONS, no, nor an O'NEIL, but a fair actress as actresses go.
Mr. WRENCH, an excellent actor in his way, played the gallant Mereutio with very much of the manner of Tom and Jerry. Mrs. DAVENPORT'S Nurse is unalloyed perfection.
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