You think, perhaps, that I have let you off altogether, because I have declined enlarging on this particular point; but no, my dear Smith, I have not had half my say out yet. It is not only that things are presented to us in Shakspeare's plays in a way that _was_ admirable, because adapted to the feelings and fancies of the time, when they first enriched the Globe, but not so admirable now: I have also to find fault with the manner in which the characters--granting that they are true to nature--are developed and made palpable to vulgar eyes. The fact is, my benevolent friend, that every thing is gigantic in his conceptions. He is like a sculptor who despises the easy flow of the resting figure, and fills his studio with agonizing athletes--every muscle on the stretch--the eyeballs projecting, and the hair on end. Even when he carves a slumbering nymph, her proportions are tremendous--she is like a sleeping tigress, calm and hushed, but giving evidence of preternatural strength; her very softness is the softness of melted gold--when it hardens it will kill like lead; or, if that is a bad image, her very quiet is the quiet of the sea--let the wind blow, and then----! Don't you see that Ophelia--Juliet--Imogen--all of them, are endowed with tremendous _power_, as well as other qualities? And that, as to the heroes, they are regular volcanoes every one of them? Is not this proved by the fact, that there is no hero in Shakspeare who does not demand as much bodily labour from his representative as would tire out a coal-whipper on the Thames? Is there one leading part in any of his plays that does not require an enormous outlay of voice? Now, can it be possible that no deep passion can coexist with a weak thorax? Run over the principal plays--_Macbeth_, _Richard_, _Romeo_, _Hamlet_ again, _Lear_--and depend on it, that this loudness of exclamation is not stage trick; it is part of the development of the character; and therefore I shall always blame that infernal asthmatical tendency of mine for having induced Mr Whibbler, of the Whitechapel Imperial, to decline my services when I offered to act Coriolanus for my own benefit, gratis. The consequence, however, of this Shakspearian fancy, of placing characters of passion in positions where they must split the ears of the groundlings, is, that it has become an English article of faith, that without some prodigious explosions, calling out the whole strength of the actor's lungs, the character falls dead. The Indian could not believe the air-gun had killed the bird, because he did not hear the report. We have reversed the Indian mode of reasoning, and always believe it is the noise that kills the bird. Oh, Smith! think of the bellowings of Sir Giles Overreach--and Barbarossa--and Zanga--and the diabolical howlings of Belvidera, and Isabella, and the Mourning Bride. Can people have no passion that don't disturb the whole neighbourhood with their noise? Can a woman not find out she has been jilted without