The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)Hazlitt, William
General
The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)
Hazlitt, William
English essays -- 19th century
In the silent expression of feeling, we have seldom witnessed any thing
finer than her acting, where she is told of Romeo’s death, her listening
to the Friar’s story of the poison, and her change of manner towards the
Nurse, when she advises her to marry Paris. Her delivery of the speeches
in the scenes where she laments Romeo’s banishment, and anticipates her
waking in the tomb, marked the fine play and undulation of natural
sensibility, rising and falling with the gusts of passion, and at last
worked up into an agony of despair, in which imagination approaches the
brink of frenzy. Her actually screaming at the imaginary sight of
Tybalt’s ghost, appeared to us the only instance of extravagance or
caricature. Not only is there a distinction to be kept up between
physical and intellectual horror, (for the latter becomes more general,
internal, and absorbed, in proportion as it becomes more intense), but
the scream, in the present instance, startled the audience, as it
preceded the speech which explained its meaning. Perhaps the emphasis
given to the exclamation, ‘_And Romeo banished_,’ and to the description
of Tybalt, ‘_festering in his shroud_,’ was too much in that
epigrammatic, pointed style, which we think inconsistent with the severe
and simple dignity of tragedy.
In the last scene, at the tomb with Romeo, which, however, is not from
Shakespear, though it tells admirably on the stage, she did not produce
the effect we expected. Miss O’Neill seemed least successful in the
former part of the character, in the garden scene, &c. The expression of
tenderness bordered on hoydening, and affectation. The character of
Juliet is a pure effusion of nature. It is as serious, and as much in
earnest, as it is frank and susceptible. It has all the exquisite
voluptuousness of youthful innocence.—There is not the slightest
appearance of coquetry in it, no sentimental languor, no meretricious
assumption of fondness to take her lover by surprise. She ought not to
laugh, when she says, ‘I have forgot why I did call thee back,’ as if
conscious of the artifice, nor hang in a fondling posture over the
balcony. Shakespear has given a fine idea of the composure of the
character, where he first describes her at the window, leaning her cheek
upon her arm. The whole expression of her love should be like the breath
of flowers.
Mr. Jones’s Mercutio was lively farce. Of Mr. Conway’s Romeo, we cannot
speak with patience. He bestrides the stage like a Colossus, throws his
arms into the air like the sails of a windmill, and his motion is as
unwieldy as that of a young elephant. His voice breaks in thunder on the
ear like Gargantua’s, but when he pleases to be soft, he is ‘the very
beadle to an amorous sigh.’ Mr. Coates’s absurdities are tame and
trifling in comparison.—_Quere_, Why does he not marry?
MR. KEAN’S RICHARD.
_The Champion._
_Oct. 9, 1814._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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