Curiosities of the American Stage Part 9

Edmund Kean first played Hamlet in New York in the month of December, 1820, Junius Brutus Booth in the October of the following year. Concerning these men and their rivalry volumes have been written; each had his enthusiastic admirers, and the Hamlet of each has become a matter of history. That Kean believed in his own Hamlet in his younger days there can be no question now, and he gave to it the closest study until the widow of Garrick induced him to alter his reading of the "closet scene,"

and to adopt the manner of her band; an innovation which left him ever after dissatisfied with himself in that part of the tragedy. Hazlitt considered Kean's kissing of Ophelia's hand, in the famous scene between them in Act III., "the finest commentary that was ever made on Shakspere.... The manner in which Mr. Kean acted in the scene of the play before the King and Queen," he adds, "was the most daring of any, and the force and animation which he gave it cannot be too highly applauded. Its extreme boldness bordered 'on the verge of all we hate,' and the effect it produced was a test of the extraordinary powers of this extraordinary actor." The younger Booth, writing of the elder Kean, defends his father's foe in the following n.o.ble words: "The fact that Kean disliked to act Hamlet, and failed to satisfy his critics in that character, is no proof that his personation was false. If it was consistent with his conception, and that conception was intelligible, as it must have been, it was true.

What right have I, whose temperament and mode of thinking are dissimilar to yours, to denounce your exposition of such a puzzle as Hamlet? He is the epitome of mankind, not an individual: a sort of magic mirror in which all men and all women see the reflex of themselves, and therefore has his story always been, is still, and will ever be the most popular of stage tragedies."

That Edwin Booth should not have written concerning the Hamlet of his father in the same charming vein is greatly to be regretted. There are men still living who recollect the elder Booth in the part--he played it for the last time in New York in 1843--and to these it is one of the most delightful of memories. Thomas R. Gould, writing in 1868, sums up as follows his own ideas of the Hamlet of this great man: "The total impression left by his impersonation at the time of its occurrence, and which still abides, was that of a spiritual melancholy, at once acute and profound. This quality colored his tenderest feeling and his airiest fancy. You felt its presence even when he was off the stage."

This famous decade of the New York stage saw other great actors and other great Hamlets, some of whom in point of time preceded Kean and Booth.

Joseph George Holman played Hamlet at the Park Theatre in September, 1812, James William Wallack, on the same stage, in September, 1818, Robert Campbell Maywood in 1819, John Jay Adams in 1822, William Augustus Conway in 1824, Thomas Hamblin in 1825, and last, but not least, William Charles Macready in October, 1826.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM C. MACREADY.]

Of the Hamlet of John R. Duff there is, strange to say, no record in New York, although he played here occasionally between the years 1814 and 1827. He was very popular in Boston and Philadelphia, and a writer in the Boston _Centinel_, in the autumn of 1810, does "not hesitate to say, that in some of the scenes [of _Hamlet_], and those of no ordinary grade of difficulty, he has never been excelled on the Boston boards." His wife is still considered by certain old play-goers to have been the best Ophelia ever seen in the United States, and no account of the tragedy in this country can be complete without mention of her name. As Ophelia, in New York and elsewhere, she supported the elder Booth, the elder Kean, the elder Conway, Cooper, Payne, Wallack, and other stars; and Mr. Booth wrote to George Holland in 1836 that he considered her "the greatest actress in the world."

Mr. Macready was the first of a trio of remarkable Hamlets who came to this country from England at about the same period. Charles Kean was the second, in 1830, Charles Kemble the third, in 1832. Of Macready's Hamlet he says himself, in his _Reminiscences_: "The thought and practice I have through my professional career devoted to it, made it in my own judgment and in those [_sic_] of critics whom I had most reason to fear and respect, one of the most finished, though not the most popular, in my _repertoire_."

In Cole's _Biography of Charles Kean_, inspired by its subject and written under his direction, if not at his dictation, is the following account of his first attempt at Hamlet: "The new Hamlet was received with enthusiasm.

From his entrance to the close of the performance the applause was unanimous and incessant. The celebrated 'Is it the King?' in the third act, produced an electrical effect. To use a favorite expression of his father's, 'The pit rose at him.'"

Concerning the Hamlet of Charles Kemble, his daughter wrote, in 1832: "I have acted Ophelia three times with my father, and each time in that beautiful scene where his madness and his love gush forth together, like a torrent swollen with storms that bears a thousand blossoms on its turbid waters, I have experienced such deep emotion as hardly to be able to speak.... Now the great beauty of all my father's performances, but particularly of Hamlet, is a wonderful accuracy in the detail of the character which he represents," etc.

All of this would seem to be _ex parte_ evidence, but it is interesting nevertheless; and neither Mr. Macready, Mr. Kean, nor Miss Kemble, perhaps, was very far astray. On the other hand, George Henry Lewes (_On Actors and the Art of Acting_) says that "Macready's Hamlet was, in his opinion, bad, due allowance being made for the intelligence it displayed. He was lachrymose and fretful; too fond of a cambric pocket-handkerchief to be really effective.... It was 'a thing of shreds and patches,' not a whole." The flourishing of this handkerchief just before the play scene gave great offence to Forrest, who had the bad taste to hiss it in Edinburgh; and thus began the wretched feud which nearly convulsed two continents, and ended in bloodshed at Astor Place, New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES KEMBLE.]

Confessing that the elder Kean could not have surpa.s.sed the younger in certain melodramatic parts, Lewes adds that it was never an intellectual treat to see him (Charles Kean) play any of Shakspere's heroes; and the author of _The Actor_ says: "Charles Kean's Hamlet has many beauties, but he is physically disqualified to do justice to any character in tragedy.... Nature has given him a most unmelodious voice, the sound of which seems to flow rather through his nose than its appropriate organ, a face altogether unsuited to the character he attempts, and we doubt if she ever intended him for an actor." Apropos of Kean's difficulties in the utterance of certain of the consonants, particularly _m_ and _n_, the London _Punch_ acknowledged his antiquarian researches, and thanked him for having proved Shylock to be a vegetarian by his reading of the following lines:

"You take my life When you do take the _beans_ whereby I live!"

Macready described Charles Kemble as a first-rate actor in second-rate parts, and said that "in Hamlet he was Charles Kemble at his heaviest,"

while other critics dismiss his Hamlet as "pa.s.sable." Thus do the doctors of criticism disagree.

It was said of Forrest, many years ago, that "his Hamlet seemed like some philosophical Hercules rather than the sad, unhappy youth of Denmark." If this was true of him when first spoken, it was much more true of him in his representation of the part during the later years of his life, and as he is only remembered by the large majority of the play-goers of the present. Forrest was too great an artist to play badly any part he ever undertook, but his Hamlet certainly was the least pleasing of all his Shaksperian _roles_. Physically, he was altogether too robust. His too, too solid flesh was bone and muscle. The soul of Hamlet, as drawn by his creator, and as conceived by every thorough Shaksperian student since Shakspere's day, could hardly have existed in a frame so magnificent as that which nature had given Edwin Forrest. No subtle mind, wily as was Hamlet's, whether it were sound or unsound, was ever found in so sound a body. Forrest, when he was young enough to play Hamlet, never knew what nerves or indigestion were. He gave to the part no little thought, and no doubt he understood it thoroughly; but that it did not suit him physically, and that he realized the fact, seemed often manifest when he was playing it. He presented the tragedy at Niblo's Garden in 1860, Edwin Booth--at the Winter Garden--appearing in the same part at the same time; and the contrast between the powerful robustious figure, deep chest tones, and somewhat ponderous action of the elder actor, and the lithe, poetic, romantic, melancholy rendition of the younger, was very marked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES KEAN.]

Forrest first played Hamlet in New York at the Park Theatre, in the month of October, 1829, when he was but twenty-three years of age; and at his last public appearance here, November 22, 1872, he read portions of the tragedy at Steinway Hall. Mr. Eddy, Mr. Studley, and other tragedians of Mr. Forrest's "school of acting" were not more satisfactory in the part of Hamlet than was Mr. Forrest himself. John McCullough, however, a pupil of Forrest's, and his leading man for a number of years, met with more success. Although a native of Ireland, his professional life was begun and almost entirely spent in America, and he may be considered a native Hamlet, to this manor born. His voice and action in certain scenes where loud declamation is demanded by the text were quite after the manner of Forrest, but as a whole he excelled his master in the part. He was free from mannerisms, his figure was manly and striking, he was neither too puny nor too burly, his sentiment was not mawkish, nor was his honesty brutal.

George Vandenhoff made his first appearance in America at the Park Theatre, New York, on the 21st of September, 1842, in the character of Hamlet, when Miss Sarah Hildreth, afterwards the wife of Gen. Benjamin F.

Butler, was the Ophelia. The Polonius was Henry Placide, whom Mr.

Vandenhoff, in his _Leaves from an Actor's Note-Book_, called "the best Polonius and the best actor in his varied line in this country"; the Ghost was William Abbott, a superior actor in the higher range of parts; the Grave-digger was John Fisher, very popular and very able; the Horatio was Thomas Barry, who won for himself in later years no little distinction in New York and in Boston in the highest tragedy _roles_; and the first Mrs.

Thomas Barry, an actress of some ability, was Mr. Vandenhoff's Player Queen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWIN FORREST.]

The Hamlet of Edward L. Davenport was never so popular as it should have been, nor was Mr. Davenport himself properly appreciated as an actor during the last years of his life. He was out of the fashion so long that until a far-sighted management engaged him to play the part of Brutus, during the famous run of _Julius Caesar_ at Booth's Theatre in 1875-76, he was only known to the younger generation of theatre-goers, when he was known at all, as Miss f.a.n.n.y Davenport's father! That Mr.

Davenport, at the close of his long career, should have been banished to the Grand Opera-house, and to Wood's Museum, in upper Broadway, is a stronger argument in favor of the alleged degeneracy of the drama in this country than is the unhealthy popularity of the current variety shows, and the emotional plays from the French.

The faithful band of Mr. Davenport's friends who followed him to the west side of the town, during his occasional visits to the metropolis, found nothing in his acting to wean them from their allegiance, while he made many new and enthusiastic friends among the G.o.ds of the gallery, those keen and appreciative critics whose verdict, although not always the general verdict, is ever, in an artistic way, the most valuable and pleasing to the actor. But galleries, alas! do not fill managers' pockets, nor do they lead the popular taste; and Mr. Davenport, at one time a universal favorite in New York with galleries, boxes, and pits, lived to find himself, through no fault of his own, and to the lasting discredit of metropolitan audiences, neglected and ignored.

Hamlet was not Mr. Davenport's greatest part, as it is not the greatest part of many of the popular Hamlets of the present; his Sir Giles Overreach, his Bill Sikes, his Brutus, and his William, in _Black-eyed Susan_, were as fine as his Hamlet, if not finer; nevertheless it was a singularly complete conception of the character--scholarly, finished, and profound. In his younger days he played the part many times, and with some of the "finest combinations of talent" which the records of the stage can show. On the 16th of October, 1856, at Burton's Theatre, New York, Mark Smith was the Polonius, Burton and Placide the Grave-diggers, Charles Fisher the Ghost, and Mrs. Davenport the Ophelia to his Hamlet--a combination of strength in male parts almost unequalled. At Niblo's Garden, in 1861, Mrs. Barrow was his Ophelia, William Wheatley his Laertes, Thomas Placide his First Grave-digger, James William Wallack, Jr., his Ghost, and Mrs. Wallack the Queen; and at the Academy of Music, on the 21st of January, 1871, he played one act of _Hamlet_ to the Ophelia of Miss Agnes Ethel, on the occasion of the famous Holland Benefit, when the audience, as large as the great house would hold, was the only audience to which Mr. Davenport played Hamlet in many years that was at all worthy of the actor or his part. Miss Ethel was a perfect picture of the most beautiful Ophelia. It was her first attempt at anything like a legitimate tragedy part, and was decidedly successful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWARD L. DAVENPORT.]

The several engagements of Mr. and Mrs. Davenport after this were in no way remarkable, except sadly remarkable that so great an actor should have been forced, in the greatest city of the Union, to play Hamlet to such poor houses and with such uncongenial surroundings.

On the evening of August 30, 1875, Mr. Davenport appeared as Hamlet in the Grand Opera-house, New York. On the same evening Barry Sullivan, under the management of Jarrett & Palmer, made his appearance at Booth's Theatre in the same part. The comparison invited by the presentation of these rival Hamlets was not favorable to the Irish tragedian. He was extensively advertised, and his reception by his own countrymen was affectionate and sincere. The Irish regiment, the famous Sixty-ninth, was present on the opening night, and the house was crowded with our Irish citizens. The performance was superior to the general run of Hamlets, but it was not superlative. Mr. Sullivan had had great experience on the British stage, and was skilled in his profession, but his Hamlet was melodramatic, harsh at times, occasionally overacted, and in all respects totally different from the quiet, tender Hamlet of Mr. Davenport. Much of his business was believed to be new, and some of his novelties were effective, if not altogether according to the text of the tragedy. It was a Hamlet that appealed to the taste of the audiences of the Bowery rather than to those of the west side of the town. It is only just to say that Hamlet was not Mr. Sullivan's strongest part in America. As Richard III., as Beverly, in _The Gamester_, and as Richelieu, he appeared to advantage, although his success in this country was not as great as his reputation at home would have warranted. This was his second appearance in America. His first was made at the Broadway Theatre, New York, and in the character of Hamlet, on the 22d of November, 1858.

The student of dramatic history in America must have been struck with the irregularity of the appearance of Hamlet upon our boards during the last hundred years. In Joseph Norton Ireland's _Records of the New York Stage_, published in 1866-67, and the best and most complete work of its kind in this country, and perhaps in any country, there are seasons and successions of seasons in which there is to be found no hint of its production; in other seasons some domestic or imported star was seen in the tragedy, for a night or two at most, on its meteoric flight from horizon to horizon, while, on the other hand, for months together _Hamlet_ was of weekly if not of nightly occurrence at some of the theatres of the metropolis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES STARK.]

Probably at no period in the history of _Hamlet_, since the early days when Shakspere himself, according to tradition, played havoc with the Ghost, has any town witnessed such an epidemic of _Hamlet_ as pa.s.sed over the city of New York in the years 1857 and 1858. McKean Buchanan and Barry Sullivan appeared as Hamlet at the Broadway, James Stark and the elder Wallack at Wallack's, Edward Eddy at the Bowery, and John Milton Hengler, a rope-dancer, played Hamlet, "for one night only," at Burton's, followed at that house by Charles Carroll Hicks, James E. Murdoch, Edward L.

Davenport, and Edwin Booth.

The Hamlet of Edwin Booth, without doubt, is the most familiar and the most popular in America to-day. He has played the part in every important town in the Union, many hundreds of nights in New York alone, and to hundreds of thousands of persons, the warmest of his admirers and most constant attendants at his performances being men and women who are emphatically non-theatre-goers, and who never enter a play-house except to see Mr. Booth, and Mr. Booth in a Shaksperian part. He has done very much more than any other actor to educate the popular taste to a proper understanding of Hamlet, and to a proper appreciation of the beauties of the tragedy. He is the ideal Hamlet of half the people of the country who have any idea of Hamlet whatever.

In many minds Booth _is_ Hamlet, and Hamlet is Booth; any conception of Hamlet that is not Booth's, any picture of Hamlet which does not resemble the familiar features of Booth, any representation of Hamlet on the stage which is not an imitation of Booth's Hamlet, is considered no Hamlet at all. If the very Hamlet of tradition himself--the Amleth of the old Danish legend from which Shakspere drew, no doubt, the facts and fancies of his play--were to return to earth and walk the boards of an American theatre, he would find no followers if he walked not, looked not, spoke not after the manner of Edwin Booth.

Mr. Booth's Hamlet is original in many respects; it is intellectual, intelligent, carefully studied, complete to the smallest details, and greatly to be admired. Nature has given him the melancholy, romantic face, the magnetic eye, the graceful person, the stately carriage, the poetic temperament, which are in so marked a degree characteristic of Hamlet, while his genius in many scenes of the tragedy carries him far above any of the Hamlets this country has seen in many generations of plays.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWIN BOOTH.]

He first a.s.sumed the part in New York, and under Mr. Burton's management, at the Metropolitan Theatre, in the month of May, 1857. The engagement was short, and _Hamlet_ was presented two or three times. Even then, however, it created no little excitement, and was considered a very remarkable and finished representation in a young man but twenty-four years of age. In Mr. Burton's company that season were Charles Fisher, Mark Smith, Thomas Placide, Sarah Stevens, Mrs. Hughes, and Mr. Burton himself, by whom the young tragedian was ably supported.

Mr. Booth next appeared in New York on the 26th of November, 1860, at the same theatre--then called the Winter Garden--under the management of William Stuart. He opened as Hamlet, and had the support of Miss Ada Clifton as Ophelia, of Mrs. Duffield as the Queen, and of Mr. Davidge and J. H. Stoddart as the Grave-diggers. This was his first genuine metropolitan success in the part, although it was presented but five times during an engagement of four weeks. A year or two later he played Hamlet to the Ophelia of Mrs. Barrow; in 1863 he was supported by Lawrence Barrett, Humphrey Bland, "Dolly" Davenport, Vining Bowers, and Miss Clifton; and still at the Winter Garden he appeared as Hamlet from the 26th of November, 1864, until the 24th of March, 1865, one hundred consecutive nights! This was an event entirely unprecedented in the history of _Hamlet_ in any country, and probably the longest run that any _tragedy_ whatever had at that time enjoyed. It was before the days of _Rosedale_ and _Led Astray_--before managers dared to present a single play during an entire season, when changes of bill were of weekly if not of nightly occurrence, and when Mr. Booth himself, during an engagement of fifteen or eighteen nights, had played twelve or fifteen parts. "One hundred nights" of any production is no novelty now, since _Adonis_ and _Erminie_ have, with such little merit, drawn such full houses for so many months; but that one man should have played but this one part, and that too in a drama so decidedly a one-man play that _Hamlet_ with Hamlet left out has become a proverb wherever English is known, was a quarter of a century ago certainly a magnificent achievement. It moved Mr. Booth's many friends in New York to present to him on the 22d of January, 1867, the celebrated "Hamlet Medal," the most complimentary and well-merited testimonial that any young actor, no matter how brilliant his career, has ever received from the American public in the history of its stage.

During this famous engagement he was a.s.sociated with Thomas Placide as Grave-digger; with Charles Kemble Mason, an admirable Ghost; with Charles Walcot, Jr., as Horatio; with Owen Fawcett as Osric; with Mrs. James W.

Wallack, Jr., as the Queen; and with Mrs. Frank Chanfrau as Ophelia--as strong a combination of talent as the tragedy has often seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAWRENCE BARRETT.]

It is not possible to tell here the story of Mr. Booth's many productions of _Hamlet_ in New York, nor to do more than barely enumerate the ladies and gentlemen who have supported him. Among his Ophelias, not mentioned above, have been Miss Effie Germon (in 1866), Mme. Sch.e.l.ler, Miss Blanche De Bar, Miss Bella Pateman, Miss Jeffreys-Lewis, Miss Eleanor Carey, Mrs.

Alexina Fisher Baker, Miss Clara Jennings, Miss Minna Gale, and Mme.

Helena Modjeska. He has snubbed and stabbed John Dyott, David C. Anderson, Charles Fisher, and George Andrews, as Polonius. His Grave-diggers have been Robert Pateman, Charles Peters, and Owen Fawcett. Newton Gothold, J.

H. Taylor, David W. Waller, H. A. Weaver, Charles Barron, Charles Kemble Mason, and Lawrence Barrett have been his Ghosts, and Mrs. Marie Wilkins, Miss Mary Wells, Mrs. f.a.n.n.y Morant, and Miss Ida Vernon, in their turn, have been the mothers who his father had much offended.

Lawrence Barrett, now so intimately a.s.sociated with Mr. Booth throughout the United States, has played every male part in _Hamlet_ with the exception of Polonius and the First Grave-digger. His earliest appearance in the tragedy was in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, in 1855, when he represented the leading character in a version of the play announced on the bills as "The Grave Burst; or, The Ghost's Piteous Tale of Horror, by W. Shakspere, Esqr." The elaborate t.i.tle was supposed to be more taking with the theatre-going population of that particular town than the simple name by which it is usually known to Shaksperian students; but it is not recorded that the representation was popular, or that box receipts were in proportion to the outlay. Mr. Barrett played Laertes to the Hamlet of Miss Cushman, in Boston, some years later; he has been the Ghost to the Hamlet of Edwin Booth and Edward L. Davenport; and he has supported Barry Sullivan, Mr. Murdoch, and other leading tragedians at different seasons, taking the part of Horatio to Mr. Murdoch's Hamlet, John McCullough's Ghost, and Miss Clara Morris's Queen, at the famous festival at Cincinnati a few years ago. The fact that Mr. Barrett rarely plays Hamlet in New York is much to be regretted. In other cities, where he is better known in the part, he is greatly liked, and next to his Ca.s.sius it is perhaps the best thing he does. That it is a highly intellectual performance goes without saying, but it has other merits as well. It is vigorous, consistent, and unfailingly tender.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES E. MURDOCH.]

Mr. Bandmann played Hamlet in German, and of course with a German company, at the Stadt Theatre in the Bowery, just at the close of the first century of _Hamlet_ in New York. He attracted a great deal of attention among the German population of the city, and was so successful in it that it tempted him to study for the English-speaking stage. He presented considerable business that was new here, but well known in his father-land, bringing his Ghost from beneath the stage, introducing a ma.n.u.script copy of the speeches of the actors in the play scene, and turning its leaves back and forth in a restless way to hide the nervousness of Hamlet. This was subsequently noticed here in the performances of Mr. Fechter. Mr. Bandmann also drew from his pouch tablets upon which he set down the some dozen or sixteen lines to be introduced by the First Actor in the incident of the murder of Gonzago; and at the end of the scene he fell back into the arms of Horatio in a state of complete collapse. His acting throughout was effective and powerful.

The Hamlet of Salvini is powerful but not effective. It is not the Hamlet of tradition, nor does it overtop the traditional Hamlet in novelty and originality. If Salvini had played nothing but Hamlet here he never could have sustained the magnificent reputation he brought from foreign countries, and which he more than fulfilled in other parts. The man who excels as Ingomar, is superb as Samson, supreme in Oth.e.l.lo, and, in the entirely opposite character of Sullivan (David Garrick), displays such marked comedy powers, can hardly be expected to shine as the melancholy Dane.

Rossi's Hamlet is effective if not powerful. In his first interview with the Ghost he betrays no fear, because he sees in it only the image of a lamented and beloved father, while in the scene with the Queen, when the Ghost appears, he crouches behind his mother's chair in abject terror, because, as he explains it, the phantom is then an embodiment of conscience, the Ghost of a father whose mandate he has disobeyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES FECHTER.]

Unquestionably the imported Hamlet that has excited the greatest interest in New York in very many seasons is the Hamlet of Charles Fechter. The acting of no man, native or foreign, in the whole history of the American stage has been the subject of so much or of such varied criticism as his. There was no medium whatever concerning him in public opinion.

Those who were his admirers were wildly enthusiastic in his praise; those who did not like him did not like him at all, and were unsparing in their condemnation and their ridicule; but no one was wholly indifferent to his acting. He came to this country endorsed by the strongest of letters from Charles d.i.c.kens, who was his friend, and weighted by the wholesale and impolitic puffery of his managers; the result was that, in the judgment of the majority of those who saw him, he did not and could not sustain the magnificent reputation claimed for him in his advance advertis.e.m.e.nts. On the other hand, while he was in a manner snubbed by New York, he was hailed in Boston as the Roscius of the nineteenth century. His Hamlet, although very uneven and unequal, was certainly a marvellous performance, and while by reason of date it does not come within the scope of the present chapter, it is too important in many ways to be omitted. It was thoroughly untraditional. He gave to the Prince of Denmark the fair Saxon face and the light flowing hair of the Danes of to-day; in his own portly form he made the too, too solid flesh of Hamlet a real rather than an ideal feature of Hamlet's person: and much of his business, if not original with him, was at least unfamiliar to American play-goers. He was peculiarly "intense" in everything he did, while in what are called the intense scenes of the tragedy he was often more subdued and natural even than Mr. Davenport, who was remarkably free from emotional acting. His "rest, perturbed spirit," was excellent and effective by reason of its very quietness, and during all of the scene with the Ghost his acting was conspicuous by the absence of the conventional quivering, trembling, teeth-chattering agony which is so apt to be the result of the coming of the apparition. In the "rat-trap" and closet scenes, in which Mr. Booth is so good, so very excellent good, Mr. Fechter lacked dignity and repose; and in his advice to the players, while his reading was less distinct and intelligent than Mr. Booth's, his facial expression was wonderful and beyond all praise. He was inferior to Booth in the soliloquies, although charmingly tender in his intercourse with Ophelia. With the Queen in "the closet scene" he was almost brutal in his conduct, seeming to forget entirely--what Mr. Booth never overlooks--that Gertrude, although sinning, is still a woman and his own mother. He stabbed poor Polonius with a ferocity that destroyed all sympathy for Hamlet. His reading, apart from the accentuations and inflections which were natural to him at all times, was peculiar; his enunciation was frequently so rapid that it became unintelligible; he hurried through some of the finest pa.s.sages at a gallop, and lost some of the finest points; but his Hamlet as a whole was impressive and magnetic, the oftener seen the better liked. Mr. Fechter made his first appearance in America as Ruy Blas at Niblo's Garden, New York, on the 10th of January, 1870, under the management of Jarrett & Palmer; and he played Hamlet for the first time on the 15th of February the same year.