a sign by waving his hand to those around him. He has said nothing yet, but his bewildered motions betray the trouble of his soul; and when, in the last act, he exclaims, on quitting Jocasta, Oui, Laïus est mon père et je suis votre fils,'1 we think we see open before us the cavern of Tænarus, into which mortals are dragged by perfidious destiny. In Andromaque, when Hermione, out of her senses, accuses Orestes of having assassinated Pyrrhus without her participation, Orestes answers, "Et ne m'avez-vous pas Vous-même, ici, tantôt, ordonné son trépas?'' It is said that Le Kain, in reciting this verse, laid an emphasis on every word, as if to recall to Hermione all the circumstances of the order he had received from her. This would be very well before a judge; but, before a woman one loves, the despair of finding her unjust and cruel, is the only sentiment that fills the soul. It is thus that Talma conceives the situation: an exclamation escapes from the heart of Orestes; he pronounces the first words with emphasis, and those that follow with a sound of voice gradually weakening: his arms fall, his countenance becomes in an instant pale as death, and the emotion of the spectator augments in proportion as he seems to lose the power of expressing himself. The manner in which Talma recites the succeeding monologue is sublime. The kind of innocence that returns to the soul of Orestes only to torture it, when he repeats this verse— J'assassine à regret un roi que je révère,”1 inspires a compassion which the genius of Racine itself could hardly have foreseen altogether. Great actors have almost always made trial of themselves in the madness of Orestes; but it is there above all that the grandeur of gestures and of Yes, Laius is my father and I am your son." 2 "I assassinate with regret a king that I revere." features adds wonderfully to the effect of the despair. The power of grief is so much the more terrible, as it displays it self through the very repose and dignity of a noble nature. In pieces taken from Roman history, Talma displays a talent of a very different nature, but not less remarkable in its way. We understand Tacitus better after having seen him perform the part of Nero; he manifests in that part a great sagacity; for it is only by sagacity that a virtuous mind seizes. the symptoms of guilt; nevertheless, he produces a still stronger effect, I think, in those parts where we love to abandon ourselves, in listening to him, to the sentiments he expresses. He has done Bayard, in du Belloy's play, the service of setting him free from those airs of rodomontade which other authors had thought it necessary to bestow upon him: this Gascon hero is again become, thanks to Talma, as simple in tragedy as in history. His costume in this part, his plain and appropriate gestures, recall the statues of knights that we see in old churches, and we feel astonished that a man who possesses so truly the feeling of ancient art, has been able to transport himself also to the character of the middle ages. Talma sometimes plays the part of Pharan in a tragedy by Ducis, on an Arabian subject, Abufar. A number of enchanting verses sheds a wonderful charm over this tragedy; the colors of the East, the pensive melancholy of the south of Asia, the melancholy which belongs to those regions where the sun consumes instead of embellishing nature, make themselves admirably felt in this work. The same Talma, the Grecian, the Roman, the chivalrous, becomes an Arab of the desert, full of energy and of love; his looks are guarded, as if to avoid the heat of the sun's rays; his gestures evince an admirable alternation of indolence and impetuosity; sometimes fate overwhelms him, sometimes he appears more powerful than nature herself, and seems to triumph over her: the passion which devours him, the object of which is a woman whom he believes to be his sister, is concealed in his bosom; one would say, by his uncertain pace, that he wishes to fly from himself; his eyes are averted from her he loves, his hands repel an image which he thinks he always sees at his side; and when at last he presses Salema to his heart, with this simple word, J'ai froid,' he finds means of expressing at once the shudder of soul, and the devouring ardor which he endeavors to hide. Many faults may be found in the plays of Shakspeare adapted to our theatre by Ducis; but it would be great injustice to deny them beauties of the first order; the genius of Ducis is in his heart, and it is there that he is great. Talma performs his characters like a friend to the talent of this noble old man. The scene of the witches, in Macbeth, is changed into recitation in the French play. Talma should be seen endeavoring to render something vulgar and uncouth in the accent of the witches, and to preserve at the same time, all the dignity exacted by our theatre. "Par des mots inconnus, ces êtres monstrueux S'appelaient tour à tour, s'applaudissaient entre eux, The low and mysterious voice of the actor in pronouncing these verses, the manner in which he placed his finger on his mouth, like the statue of silence, his look, which altered to express a horrible and repulsive recollection,-all were combined to paint a species of the marvellous new to our theatre, and of which no former tradition could give any idea. Othello has not latterly succeeded on the French stage; it seems as if Orosmane prevented our rightly understanding Othello; but when Talma performs this part, the fifth act occasions as strong an emotion as if the assassination actually passed before our eyes; I have seen Talma, in private company a "I am ocld." declaim the last scene with his wife, whose voice and figure are so well suited to Desdemona; it was enough for him to pass his hand over his hair, and knit his brow, in order to become the Moor of Venice, and terror occupied all the distance of two paces from him, as if all the illusions of the theatre had encompassed him. Hamlet is his glory among the tragedies of foreign style. The spectators do not see the ghost of Hamlet's father on the French stage, the apparition passes only in the physiognomy of Talma, and it is certainly not at all the less terrifying. When, in the midst of a calm and melancholy conversation, he all at once perceives the spectre, all his motions are followed in the eyes that contemplate him, and we cannot doubt the presence of the phantom attested by such a look. When Hamlet enters alone in the third act, and recites in fine French verses the famous soliloquy, To be or not to be— "La mort, c'est le sommeil, c'est un réveil peut-être. Ressaisit l'existence, et s'attache à la terre," Talma used no gesture, he only sometimes shook his head as if to question earth and heaven respecting the nature of death. Without motion, the dignity of meditation absorbed all his being. He was one man, among two thousand silent spectators, interrogating thought concerning the destiny of mortals! In a few years all that was there will exist no longer; but others will assist in their turn at the same uncertainties, and will plunge, in like manner, into the abyss without knowing its depth. When Hamlet wishes to make his mother swear on the urn tnat incloses the ashes of her husband, that she had no part in the crime which caused his destruction, she hesitates, is roubled, and ends by confessing her guilt. Then Hamlet draws the dagger which his father commands him to plunge into the maternal bosom; but at the moment when he is about to strike, tenderness and compassion overcome him, and turning back towards the shade of his father, he exclaims, Grace, grace, mon père! with an accent in which all the emotions of nature seem at once to escape from the heart, and throwing himself at the feet of his mother, who has swooned away, he speaks to her these two lines, which contain a sentiment of inexhaustible pity— "Votre crime est horrible, exécrable, odieux, Mais il n'est pas plus grand que la bonté des cieux.” To conclude, it is impossible to think of Talma without recalling Manlius. This piece produced little effect on the stage; it is the subject of Otway's Venice Preserved, applied to an event of Roman history. Manlius conspires against the senate of Rome; he confides his secret to Servilius, whom he has loved for fifteen years; he confides it to him in spite of the suspicions of his other friends, who distrust the weakness of Servilius, and his love for his wife, the consul's daughter. What the conspirators feared actually takes place. Servilius is unable to hide from his wife the danger to which her father's life is exposed; she immediately runs to reveal it to him. Manlius is arrested, his projects discovered, and the senate condemns him to be thrown headlong from the Tarpeian Hill. Before Talma, people had scarcely discovered in this piece, which is feebly written, the passion of friendship which Manlius experiences for Servilius. When a note of the conspirator Rutilius gives to understand that the secret is betrayed, and betrayed by Servilius, Manlius enters with this note in his hand; he draws nigh to his guilty friend, already devoured by remorse, and showing him the lines which accuse him, pronounces these words,-Qu'en dis-tu?1 I ask all who have heard them, can the countenance and the tone of the voice ever express, at one time, so many different impressions? that rage, softened by an inward feeling of pity-that indignation, rendered by friendship alternately more lively and more feeble 1 "What sayest thou of it ?” |