The stain, the curse, of each succeeding year!)
For something, or for nothing, in his pride
He struck me. (While I tell it do I live?)
He smote me on the cheek.
The words comprehended in parentheses, are occasional starts of digression dictated by rage, and should be uttered passionately, we do not mean loudly, but with vehement indignation! So Mossop uttered them, changing his key and speaking the words with the rapidity expressive of rage—and then, after a struggle, falling down to the solemn level of his narrative again. These, however, Mr. Kemble spoke rather in a tone of whining lamentation. The limited organs of Mr. K. might make it policy in him to do so; but Mr. Cooper has not that plea to offer. Be that as it may, the character is defaced by it. The Moor’s fire is not supposed to be extinguished; it is only covered up, to break out with more terrible fury, when the accomplishment of his purpose will allow it. In going over the sad recital of his woes, to a confidential friend, the poet, in order the more perfectly to unfold his character, makes the hidden fire burst forth in momentary blazes. To sink this is to deprive the character of one of its most essential beauties; to give it the directly opposite expression of piteous lamentation is, indeed, reversing the noble character of the Moor.
One of the wonderful excellencies of Mossop in this part was his artful display of hypocrisy in the words and purpose, while his external port silently asserted his superiority, and the native majesty of his looks and manner bespoke the magnitude of the sacrifice he was making to vengeance, thereby giving a deeper colouring to the inexorable vindictiveness of his nature, and more forcibly illustrating the inflexible firmness of his soul. All other actors that we have ever seen reduce Zanga to a mere slavish croucher in all points; and destroy the very basis of the character by an overacted humiliation, highly improper because too glaring not to excite Alonzo’s suspicions. He must be a dull Alonzo indeed, if he could not look through such flimsy dissimulation.
Yet with all these defects, for which, as well as many other transgressions, the modern crop of young actors are indebted to the example of Mr. Kemble, Mr. Cooper gave us in several places as great satisfaction as with our remembrance of “THE Zanga,” we ever hoped to experience. From the time he avows his villany to Alonzo, on to the end, he deserved unqualified praise; nor can we imagine how any one who had not made up his mind upon the great original, to whom we have alluded, could wish or conceive it to be more happily performed.
Mr. Wood’s Alonzo was an animated and respectable piece of acting.
Richard III.
Mr. Cooper conceives that crookbacked usurper with sufficient accuracy, reads it with tolerable correctness, and acts it with great spirit. In this character he evidently has the greatest model extant [Cooke] in his eye. When first, some five years ago, we saw Mr. Cooper perform Richard, we thought he played it tolerably, but wanted weight. He is much improved in this respect since that time, and has acquired in those few years a sufficiency of the personal importance requisite for the character of Richard.