Theatrical Review. 667 



Gets off with half a heart eaten away 



Oh you shall 'scape with less if she's my child!] 



Vane (to PYM). We never thought of this surely not dreamed 

 Of this it never can could come to this! 



Pym (after a pause). If England should declare her will to me 



Strafford. No not for England, now not for heaven, now 

 See, Pym for me ! My sake ! I kneel to you ! 

 There I will thank you for the death my friend, 

 This is the meeting you will send me proud 

 To my chill grave ! Dear Pym I'll love you well ! 

 Save him for me, and let me love you well ! 



Pym. England I am thine own ! Dost thou exact 

 That service ? I obey thee to the end ! 



Straff ord (as he totters out). O God, I shall die first I shall die 

 first! 



We do not deny the author's possession of considerable tact in the 

 management of his dramatic situations ; and he has, no doubt, sha- 

 dowed in his own mind the individuality of" Strafford;" but, allowing 

 that he had made no mistake in the conception of the character, he 

 has not, independently of that, sketched it in such a way as to give 

 to others an idea of his meaning. What Macready makes the cha- 

 racter, he did not get from his written part : he either created a 

 being of his own or else read what history tells us of the real " Straf- 

 ford," who, notwithstanding his shameful tergiversation, still deserves 

 our pity, as a high-spirited though mistaken man offering himself as 

 an unavailing sacrifice for the sinfulness and insincerity of an obstinate 

 tyrant and master. 



By the way, we may observe, in conclusion, how injudicious it is 

 for an author's friends and claqueurs to call on him to appear before 

 the audience, when such a feeling with respect to the play was mani- 

 fested, as was really the case, on the first night of its representation. 

 The whole system now so much in vogue, of calling on actors to 

 make an unmeaning bow, is at once indelicate towards the performer 

 and ridiculous in the audience. " Oh, reform it altogether." Such 

 persons as Macready, Vandenhoff, Farren, and Helen Faucit, ought 

 to give a lesson to public taste by leaving the house instantly after 

 the conclusion of the play. A few unsuccessful calls would soon tire 

 the most noisy audience. 



