When Burton opened in Chambers Street, he was forty-four years old, in the prime of life, his powers mature and approaching culmination. Let us endeavor to give a portrait of the comedian as he appeared at this time. Above the medium height; rotund in form, yet not cumbersome; limbs well proportioned; deep-chested, with harmonious breadth of shoulder; neck short and robust; large and well-balanced head; the hair worn short behind, longer in front, and brushed smartly toward the temples; face clean-shaven; complexion bordering on the florid; full chin and cheeks; eyes seemingly blue or gray, beneath brows not over heavy, and capable of every conceivable expression; nose straight, and somewhat sharply inclined; mouth large, the lips thin, and wearing in repose a smile half playful, half trenchant. Such is the picture memory draws, the likeness in some degree confirmed by engravings in our possession. Outlined thus, and in his proper person, he seemed in general aspect to blend the suave respectability of a bank president with the easy-going air of an English country squire. We shall have occasion to refer in due course to the marvellous changes that were possible to that face and form, when the man became the actor and walked the stage with Momus, with Dickens, and with Shakespeare. Prominent among his physical attributes was a clear, strong voice, capable of a great variety of intonations, and his delivery was such that no words of his were ever lost in any part of the house.
Before entering the wide field of our memories, we wish to offer some observations respecting the comedian's mental equipment, and to consider briefly the features of his unrivalled powers. We have no doubt but that the classical education of his youth had much to do with his early preference for the tragic muse. His mind, imbued with admiration for classic form and color, was fed with divine images, which, while replete with grace and beauty, bore still the impress of Greek austerity. He inclined naturally, therefore, toward the conception of that which was the predominating influence in his mental training. At the same time, after eschewing his predilections for tragedy, he found that the classic discipline had created a receptivity of mind in the highest degree important to his future study; and that quickened apprehension proved of inestimable value in his subsequent introduction to Shakespeare, the old dramatists, and in all his intellectual excursions.
Yielding to him, then, this vantage-ground of culture, let us glance at the attributes of his genius, which entitle him, as we think, to the claim made for him—namely, one of the greatest actors in his line the stage has known. We need not specify that line further than to say that it passes with the title of "low comedy"; but Burton's versatility was so extraordinary, his repertory so extended, his conceptions so forcible, that the theatric nomenclature seems insufficient to define and measure the scope and range of his abilities. His impersonations, especially those Shakespearian, were often of too high an order to be classed under the accepted notion of low comedy. Let us style him an expounder and representative of the Humor of the Drama in all its aspects, and we shall come nearer to what he really was. For an all-embracing perception of humor revealed itself perpetually in his acting. As the imagination of Longfellow transformed to organ pipes the musketry of the Springfield Arsenal, so would Burton change dull inanities into vital and joyous images. This informing power, this native faculty of rising superior to the part assumed, and investing it with undreamed-of humorous interest, was an instinct of his genius, and gave to all his embodiments an originality and a flavor peculiarly his own. The character mattered not. It might be Nick Bottom or Paul Pry, Cuttle or Micawber, Doctor Ollapod or Charles Goldfinch, Sleek or Toodle. There was the complete identification, the superlative realization of the author's meaning; but the felicitous interpretation, the by-play, the way of saying a thing, the facial expression—his own and no other man's,—the Burtonian touch and treatment. In the extravagance of farcical abandon no one ever was funny as he. In comic portraits like Toby Tramp or Jem Baggs, he absolutely exhaled mirth; and we cannot help thinking how perfectly Hazlitt describes him in writing of Liston: "His farce is not caricature; his drollery oozes out of his features, and trickles down his face; his voice is a pitch-pipe for laughter." "We have seen Burton," says Wemyss, "keep an audience in roars of inextinguishable laughter, for minutes in succession, while an expression of ludicrous bewilderment, of blank confusion, or pompous inflation, settled upon his countenance." And this was penned by Wemyss at a time when Cuttle, Micawber, Sleek, and Toodle were yet to be.
In thus indicating Burton's natural gifts, we must not lose sight of the study and knowledge necessary to their development and to the achievement of his fame. Let it not be supposed that his famous delineations were so many intuitions, easily shaped and clothed by him into substantial dramatic form. Easy, indeed, they might appear in the handling—for it was characteristic of the great comedian never to seem to entirely expend himself,—he always suggested a reserved force;—but this facile rendering was attained at the expense of as much intellectual attrition as Moore declared the melodious numbers of his verse often cost him.
The late Dr. John W. Francis relates a conversation with the famous George Frederick Cooke, respecting the actor's impersonation of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, and in reply to the question, how he acquired so profound a knowledge of the Scotch accentuation, Cooke said: "I studied more than two and a half years in my own room, with repeated intercourse with Scotch society, in order to master the Scottish dialect, before I ventured to appear on the boards in Edinburgh, as Sir Pertinax, and when I did, Sawney took me for a native. It was the hardest task I ever undertook." How do we know how many years of thoughtful application the comedian's masterpieces expressed?
Mr. Burton was a student and man of the world as well as actor, and the supremacy of his performances was due to his close and comprehensive study of his author, his acquaintance with dramatic composition, his artistic sense, his thorough knowledge of the stage, his varied experience, his human insight,—the rest, like Dogberry's reading and writing, came by nature.
It is a habit with old play-goers, when over their cakes and ale, to recall the "palmy days" of the drama, and to say: "Ah, you should have seen——; he was a great artist—none equal to him nowadays. Ah, the stage has declined since the old time." We do not wholly believe in the drama's decadence, but as we enter upon our Recollections we feel that there were our palmy days, and the years seem long between. Twenty-four have passed since the comedian died, and there has been no sign of a successor to the mask and mantle. And it may be twice—nay, thrice twenty before the actor shall arise who will compel us to recall the triumphs of Burton for the sake of comparison.
MR. BURTON IN FARCE.
A man like Mr. Burton, endowed with keen humorous perception and the mimetic faculty, competent to express easily and with unction every phase of mirthful extravagance suggested by fancy and flow of spirit, must occasionally yield to the imperious demands of his nature, and, perforce, when so pressed, he opens the safety-valve of play and gives escape to his excess of humor.