This idea of the character, which never leaves the mind in reading the play, was delightfully represented on the stage. Miss O’Neill did not once overstep the limits of propriety, and was interesting in every part. Her conversation with the page was delicately familiar and playful. Her death was judiciously varied, and did not affect the imagination less, because it gave no shock to the senses. Her greatest effort, however, was in the scene with Polydore, where she asks him, ‘Where did you rest last night?’ and where she falls senseless on the floor at his answer. The breathless expectation, the solemn injunction, the terror which the discovery strikes to her heart as if she had been struck with lightning, had an irresistible effect. Nothing could be pourtrayed with greater truth and feeling. We liked Charles Kemble’s Castalio not much, and Mr. Conway’s Polydore not at all. It is impossible that this gentleman should become an actor, unless he could take ‘a cubit from his stature.’ Mr. Young’s Chamont was quite as good as the character deserves. Mr. Kean’s appearance at Drury-Lane on Tuesday, in the Duke Aranza, in the Honey Moon, excited considerable expectations in the public. Our own were not fulfilled. We think this the least brilliant of all his characters. It was Duke and no Duke. It had severity without dignity; and was deficient in ease, grace, and gaiety. He played the feigned character as if it were reality. Now we believe that a spirit of raillery should be thrown over the part, so as to carry off the gravity of the imposture. There is in Mr. Kean an infinite variety of talent, with a certain monotony of genius. He has not the same ease in doing common things that he has energy on great occasions. We seldom entirely lose sight of his Richard, and to a certain degree, in all his acting, ‘_he still plays the dog_.’ His dancing was encored. George II. encored Garrick in the _Minuet de la Cour_: Mr. Kean’s was not like court dancing. It had more alacrity than ease. THE MERCHANT OF BRUGES _The Examiner._ _December 17, 1815._