A fashion has prevailed for some years (introduced by the doctors of the perspective and statuary school of action) which sometimes increases the difficulty of giving verisimility to the scene, or rather destroys it altogether. We allude to the actors, in all possible cases, entering from the back, or near it. This though sometimes right, is peculiarly improper when the entering character is to speak _aside_ as he enters, and is supposed by the cunning of the scene not to be heard by the character who is on the stage before him. It was particularly observable in the performances of Othello and Venice Preserved. In the third scene of the third act, when Othello, followed by Iago, enters to Desdemona, Emilia, and Cassio, (which last takes his leave suddenly on the Moor’s approach) and Iago, in prosecution of his plan, exclaims, so as to be heard _by Othello only_, “HA! I LIKE NOT THAT,” Mr. Cooper and Mr. Wood entering too far from the stage, rendered it necessary for the latter to utter those words (_aside_) so loud, that they must necessarily have been heard by _all_ the other characters on the stage. Again, in Venice Preserved, in the night-scene on the Rialto, Jaffier being on the stage in his proper place, soliloquizing, Pierre enters and says what certainly neither Jaffier nor any but the audience should be presumed to hear. Mossop, Sheridan, Henderson, _et id genus omne_, entered so near the stage, that the voice of Pierre might be supposed to reach the audience, without passing through Jaffier’s ear. Side speaking ought always to be done in that way. Mr. Cooper, on the contrary, entered from the wing next the back scene, so that Jaffier stood between him and the audience, and must of course be supposed to have heard him, if the audience heard him; as they did, very distinctly too, from the remote end of the stage, say aloud, “Sure I’ve staid too long: The clock has struck, _and I may lose my proselyte_.” Exclusive of which a great injury to the necessary illusion arises from the _side_ speaker being obliged to speak so high that not only the characters on the stage, but the people in the neighbouring houses must be supposed to be all let into the secret, and he cannot, therefore, be thought to intend to speak aside. In the good old times they were as scrupulously exact in these matters, as they are now most blamably lax. HAMLET. Many of Mr. Cooper’s admirers set down his Hamlet as the best of his performances; a proposition to which we can never accede. Some parts of it, no doubt, are excellent, and in the play scene before the court, he is scarcely surpassed by any one. But in our opinion his Hamlet fades from the sight, when put in competition with his MACBETH,