'Has the reader ever seen Mr. Macready in the character of Macbeth? If he have, he can never forget the stupefied murderer withdrawing from the chamber in which he has just done the dread act, with fascinated gaze retreatingly regarding his royal victim, and awaking with a guilty start as he runs unconsciously against his hard-souled partner in guilt, who in vain tries to infuse into the weaker spirit of her paralysed husband her own metaphysical superiority. In this scene we know that Mr. Macready's acting was perfect, for the pressure at our heart, the suspension of our breathing, and the creeping of our hair, made us _feel_ that it was so. We see him now, as stealthily he places his foot over the threshold of the chamber of death to re-appear on the stage; the intensely staring eye, that cannot remove from what 'tis horror to look upon; the awfully natural absorption of his soul by that "sorry sight," which one little minute has brought about; his starting and awaking from his entranced state, as he runs against his wife in his retreat, and his full passionate burst of blended remorse, terror, and superstition, as refusing counsel, regardless of remonstrance, heedless of probable detection, he pours forth his "brain-sickly" convictions, of having in one little moment cut the cable that had held him to the rest of the great human family. All this we can see in our mind's eye, for the actor gave us a picture of passion that time can never obliterate. But how would it have been with a cloddish unimaginative fellow, whom nature never intended should understand Shakspere? Would he not, conscious that he was among shoals and quicksands of feelings, too nice for his appreciation, seek to tear over all by a tempest of rant, which would be a more ruthless murder on Shakspere than Macbeth's on the king? And why should we be delighted with Mr. Macready's delineation, and disgusted with the ranter? Simply because the former has _observed_, treasured up, and felt every genuine exhibition of human feeling that came in his way, and applied it appropriately to all the situations to which it was related in nature. A single instance will make this clear. Mr. Kean one night, in the concluding part of the combat scene of Richard III., when supposed to be wounded to the death, before falling, steadily regarded his foe, and painfully raising his right arm in act to strike, the relaxed and dying limb, unable to second the spirit, fell heavily and harmlessly to his side, indicating merely the fierce bravery of the usurper living in all its strength, when the body which it would move, was all but a senseless clod. Pit, gallery, and boxes arose with an enthusiasm beyond description, and by their repeated plaudits bore testimony the intense naturalness of the struggle. The actor being afterwards complimented upon the _hit_, said, that he had taken the action from Jack Painter, the prize-fighter, when the latter was beaten