[ 558 J 
THEATRICAL REVIEW; AND MUSIC. 
N the present instance, we shall confine 
ourselves to the criticism ofa single 
character— t 
RICHARD THE THIRD, 
On Monday, 20th June, Mr. Kean re- 
turned to Drury-lane boards to ‘‘ complete 
his engagement,”’ and resumed the charac- 
ter of Glo’ster, in Richard the Third. His 
mode of performing this character never 
was accordant to our apprehension of it, 
and our opinion of it was not changed by this 
repetition—at least not for the better. We 
cannot but regard it, especially through the 
first three acts, completely a misconcep- 
tion. When, from the Richard whom 
Shakspeare presents to us in our study, we 
go to the representation at the Theatre, we 
find little or nothing of it in the Richard of 
Mr. Kean. In the former we see a high- 
minded towering spirit,-mingled with a 
peculiarly-characteristic species of humour, 
making a proud jest of the machinations 
and crimes that are to. be steps of his am- 
bition ; and in the conscious superiority of 
mental power, dissimulation and art, ex- 
ulting in those impediments and_deformi- 
ties of outward shape, with which the 
caprice of nature seems vainly to have 
endeavoured to thwart the aspirings of 
that intellectual shrewdness and ruthless 
determination of purpose with which she 
has inwardly endowed him. We image 
him to ourselves (as Shakspeare has, in 
fact, described him) as one—who, though 
he is prepared to “ hew his way out with 
a bloody axe,”’ is equally competent to all 
other modes of extrication ;—who 
«* Can smile, and murder while he smiles; 
~ And cry content to that which grieves his heart ; 
And wet his cheeks with artificial tears, 
And frame his face to all occasions ;”— 
who can frolic in hyperbole ; and caricature 
his own ruthless presumption— 
«* He'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall ; 
He'll slay more gazers than the basilisk ; 
but who, at the same time, can 
, "© Play the orator as well as Nestor, 
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could ;”—~ 
and who in the infinite versatility of a pliant 
and imaginative mind, 
= © can add colours to the camelion,” and 
“© Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,” 
as well as 
« set the murderous Machiavel to school ;” 
but who shews himself, on every apt occa- 
sion, the joculator as well as the politician ; 
the man of as high accomplishment as 
ambition ; the hero.as well as the villain ; 
and who, after enumerating, with most ex- 
traordinary wit and eloquence, as well as 
with wonderful depth of penetration and 
vividness of fancy, all, the difficulties in his 
way, and the daringness of the “ over- 
him as he halts by them.” 
weening” presumption with which the re- 
solves to encounter them,—while yet 
«© between his soul’s desire and him 
(The lustful Edward’s title buried) 
Were Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward, 
With all the unlook'd-for issue of their bodies, 
To take their place ere he could seat himsel/,) 
could sportively conclude, with the exult- 
ing resolute levity of one who prides himself 
in the conviction that every thing to him is 
practicable and easy, 
** Can I do this, and cannot get a crown ? 
Tut ! were it further off, I’d pluck it down.” 
This we see in the Richard of Shak- 
speare; and to us, it is utterly astonishing 
that any one, who has read that very ex- 
traordinary soliloquy at the end of the 
second scene in the third act of the Third 
Part of Henry VI., from which these quo- 
tations are taken, can fail to see it also: 
or to detect the covert exultation of the 
preat dramatist, in his exhibition of one of 
the most wonderful combinations of power 
and versatility that ever received the authen- 
tic stamp of nature from the creative and 
assimilative hand of genius. 
This extraordinary combination of hu- 
mours, powers and attributes never fails to 
present itself to us, from the first appearance 
of Richard in the fifth act of the Second Part 
of Henry VI., where he menaces at once and 
banters Clifford with the simile of a bark- 
ing cur, clapping his tail between his legs, 
and yelping from the bear’s assault,— 
“« Oft have I seena hot e’erweening cur 
Run back and bite, because he was withheld; 
Who, being suffered in the bear’s fell paw, 
Hath clapp’d his tail between his legs and cry’d,"—~ 
to his courtship of Lady Anne, in the 
earlier—and his cajolery of the Queen, 
whose children he is represented as having 
murdered (for in Shakspeare, and in history, 
he does really cajole her) in the latter 
scenes of the play before us. 
In Mr. Kean’s Richard, on the contrary, 
we see, from beginning to end, one jaun- 
diced, discontented, gloomy vein of rank- 
ling malignity, relieved by no lighter 
touches of the fancy ;— sneering where 
he should insinuate, and sareastic eyen 
where he should soothe. We hear, per- 
petually recurring, the same monotonous 
surly grow], when he talks to Lady Anne, 
of “‘his proud heart suing in sweet sooth- 
ing words for her beauty’s fee,’”’ and when 
he is soliciting the Queen to “ prepare 
her daughter’s ear to hear a lover's tale,” 
as when he mistakingly snarls, instead of 
laughing, at the “ dogs,” for ‘ barking at 
i The only 
reliefs, are sudden stops, perpetually recur- 
ring, without cause or meaning—frequently, 
even, between adjective and substantive— 
as if, after having stumbled upon an epithet, 
he was obliged to knock at his breast with 
the 
