"Mr. is brought forward as a downright, common madman, just broke loose from a madhouse at Richmond, and is going with a club to dash out the brains of his daughter and her infant. The infant is no other than a large wooden doll: it fell on the floor the other evening without receiving any hurt, at which the audience laughed." 66 Mr. seemed to be rehearsing Don Felix, with an eye to Macduff, or some face-making character." Mr. - both speaks and sings as if he had a lozenge or a slice of marmalade in his mouth. If he could go to America and leave his voice behind him, it would be a great benefit to the parent country." "Mrs. never appeared to us anything but an ordinary musical instrument, and at present she is very much out of tune." "Mr. makes his face up into a bad joke, and flings it right into the teeth of the spectators." "Mr. acts as if he was moved by wires. He is a very lively automa ton." most as if the genius of a May-pole had inspired a human form. He is said to make a very handsome Comus; so he would make a very handsome Caliban, and the common sense of the transformation would be the same. "Of Mr. C's Romeo we cannot speak with patience. He bestrides the stage like a Colossus, throws his arms into the air like the sails of a windmill, and his motion is as unwieldy as that of a young elephant. Quere, why does he not marry?" Now all these smart and sarcastic nothings are very easily written, very well calculated to amuse a breakfast table, and elicit the exclamations of Capital! how good! d-d keen ! &c., &c., &c., but we beg leave respectfully to suggest they are not-criticism! Perhaps the best sentence in Hazlitt's book is this: "Mr. Kemble has been compared lately (in the Times), to the ruin of a magnificent temple, in which the divinity still resides. This is not the case. The temple is unimpaired, but the divinity is sometimes from home." Here is certainly not a bad specimen of the multum in parvo. One of the best remarks, in this line, we ever read, was by a critic in a London paper (not Hazlitt), on a debutant ́in Richard the Third, who was too good to be hissed, but not good enough to be applauded. The writer said, "we never before thoroughly understood honest Dogberry when he exclaims, most tolerable and not to be endured.'' Before quitting Hazlitt, we must point out the following observations to the attention of all those who think the scenery and appointments the great indispensables of a play, and in which all the merit is supposed to lie, as the wisdom in the judge's wig : "One of the scenes (in the Duke of Milan), a view of the court-house, was most beautiful. Indeed the splendour of the scenery and dresses frequently took away from the effect of Mr. Kean's countenance." In later times, much good acting has been entirely swamped by unnecessary pageantry. All public characters are lawful subjects for public criticism, from the sovereign on the throne, to the lowest subordinate who says "the coach is wait ing," on the stage. ""Tis the rough brake which virtue must go through," and is to be endured with becoming philosophy. Any one who writhes under it, should get rid as soon as possible, and how he may, of his sensitive feelings, and encase himself in the hide of a rhinoceros. It is certainly not pleasant to think that the reputation which it has taken a quarter of a century to establish, may be "snuffed out by an article," and possibly an incompetent one, in a quarter of an hour. But the patient must console himself by reflecting, that mighty men have, ere now, been extinguished by trifling agencies. King Pyrrhus was slain by an old woman, who threw a tile on his head; Lord Anson, who sailed round the world, caught his death by tumbling into a brook; and the great Duke of Marlborough died of sixpence. The actor of thirty years' standing is often criticised, and perhaps condemned by the scribbling tyro of three months' experience. John Kemble wrote out the part of Hamlet thirty times, and each time discovered something new which had escaped him before. During his last season, he said, "Now that I am retiring, I am only beginning thoroughly to understand my art." After Mrs. Siddons had left the stage, a friend calling on her one morning, found her in her garden musing over a book. "What are you reading," said the visiter. "You will hardly guess," replied Melpomene. "I am reading over Lady Macbeth, and I am amazed to discover some new points in the character, which I never found out while acting it." In truth, to act is difficult, but to write what is called a criticism on acting, is wonderfully easy. ECKERMANN AND GOETHE. THIS is by no means a book to be dishis time, still his was an honest, faithregarded. Eckermann was not quite the person to understand the greatest poet of ful, affectionate nature, and, for the last ten years of Goethe's life, he was constantly about his person, was engaged in the details of preparing for the press the final edition, revised by the author, of Goethe's Works,-was in more intimate confidence with him than could have been likely to have existed between minds more nearly on the same level. We have here his recollections, -a pleasant, gossipping, good-natured book. The first part of it was published a few years after Goethe's death, and since translated in America by Mrs. Fuller. Her translation, as also the original of Eckerman's first publication, we have seen. The translation was, we thought, better than translations in general. Since then Eckermann added another volume, and both are now, for the first time, brought before the English reader by Mr. Oxenford, whose translation of "Goethe's Autobiography" leaves little to be desired that can be learned without a knowledge of the original language. Of Eckermann himself our readers may desire to know something. He was born at Winsen-on-the-Luke, a little town between Hamburg and Luneberg. It is scarcely possible to imagine a state of poverty greater than that of his family. His father's house was a mere hut. It had but one room capable of being heated. There was a hayloft above this room, to which they mounted by a ladder from outside. There were no stairs. All round were desolate heath and marsh lands, which seemed interminable. John Peter Eckermann, our hero, was the youngest child of his father's second marriage. His parents were advanced in years when he was born, and the accidents of life made him grow up very much alone with them. The elder children were scattered about in their search for means of life. One brother was a sailor; one a trader, engaged in the business of the whale fisheries. Sisters were either married or in service; and the child of his father's old age was thus without natural companionship of brothers and sisters. A cow supplied the family with milk, some of which they were able to sell for a few pence. A "Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret. Translated by John Oxenford." 2 vols.: London, 1850. small piece of land, rescued from the adjoining waste, gave some coarse vegetables. Corn, however, it did not produce, and they were obliged to buy flour. His mother had some skill in spinning wool, and she made caps for the women of the village, and thus something was earned. His father was what Wordsworth calls a "wanderer," surely, not a very happy name for a pedlar, moving with the regularity of Phoebus Apollo himself through all the signs of the Zodiac. "My father's business consisted of a small traffic, which varied according to the seasons, and obliged him to be often absent from home, and to travel on foot about the country. In summer, he was seen with a light wooden box on his back, going in the heath country from village to village, hawking ribbons, thread, and silk. At the same time he purchased here woollen stockings and Beyderwand (a cloth woven out of the wool of the sheep on the heaths, and linen yarn), which he again disposed of in the Vierlande on the other side the Elbe, where he likewise went hawking. In the winter, he carried on a trade in rough quills and unbleached linen, which he bought up in the villages of the hut and marsh country, and took to Hamburgh when a ship offered. But in all cases his gains must have been very small, as we always lived in some degree of poverty.”—p. 14. When Our little Peterkin's own employment also varied with the season. spring commenced, and the waters of the Elbe had receded after their customary overflow, he collected the sedge which had been thrown into the dykes, and heaped them up as litter for the cow. Then came the lengthening days, and they were past watching the cow in the green spring meadows. Then came summer, and he had to bring dry wood from the thickets, distant about a German mile, for their firing through the year. When the harvest came he was seen as a gleaner in the fields of more fortunate men, or he was gathering acorns to sell for the purpose of feeding geese. The child of the old soldier longs to be old enough himself to shoulder a firelock. "Armour rusting in his halls On the blood of Clifford calls; Field of death, where'er thou be, Like the Clifford of the poet's imagination, young Eckermann, too, had had his dreams of ambition; and even in early youth it was not altogether disappointed. "When I was old enough, I went with my father from hamlet to hamlet, and helped to carry his bundle." At fourteen, Peterkin had learned to read and write. That he was born for anything better than the drudgery of some humble employment by which he might earn his bread never passed through his mind. Of poetry or of the fine arts he had heard nothing. There was not even that blind longing and striving which give evidence of the existence of something that may hereafter exhibit itself as power. Accident reveals to him the fact, that there was a world of beauty which he had not yet seen; a world, the creation of the mind itself exercising faculties of its own, called, no doubt, into action by occasions presented from without. His father had returned one evening from Hamburg, and his conversation was about his business there. The old man smoked, an accomplishment which Peterkin had not yet learned to indulge in, and he was particular as to his tobacco. The wrapper in which the tobacconist made up his wares exhibited his name and the device of a gallant horse, in full trot. Years after our young friend would have, on the sight of such a symbol, conjured up the demon that assumed the shape of the dead man who fell at Prague, and the lady that rode behind him till they came to the churchyard where she was to sleep for ever; but he had not yet heard of Bürger or of Leonore; and the horse was not to him much better or worse than a real horse of flesh, and blood, and bone. He had learned to write by copying matter set before him-why not draw? So, with pen, ink, and paper, he set to work, and drew a right good horse. He remained awake half the night with excitement and wonder at his success; and he rose early to look at his picture and satisfy ing," on the stage. ""Tis the rough brake which virtue must go through," and is to be endured with becoming philosophy. Any one who writhes under it, should get rid as soon as possible, and how he may, of his sensitive feelings, and encase himself in the hide of a rhinoceros. It is certainly not pleasant to think that the reputation which it has taken a quarter of a century to establish, may be "snuffed out by an article," and possibly an incompetent one, in a quarter of an hour. But the patient must console himself by reflecting, that mighty men have, ere now, been extinguished by trifling agencies. King Pyrrhus was slain by an old woman, who threw a tile on his head; Lord Anson, who sailed round the world, caught his death by tumbling into a brook; and the great Duke of Marlborough died of sixpence. The actor of thirty years' standing is often criticised, and perhaps condemned by the scribbling tyro of three months' experience. John Kemble wrote out the part of Hamlet thirty times, and each time discovered something new which had escaped him before. During his last season, he said, "Now that I am retiring, I am only beginning thoroughly to understand my art." After Mrs. Siddons had left the stage, a friend calling on her one morning, found her in her garden musing over a book. "What are you reading," said the visiter. "You will hardly guess," replied Melpomene. "I am reading over Lady Macbeth, and I am amazed to discover some new points in the character, which I never found out while acting it." In truth, to act is difficult, but to write what is called a criticism on acting, is wonderfully easy. ECKERMANN AND GOETHE. THIS is by no means a book to be dishis time, still his was an honest, faithregarded. Eckermann was not quite the person to understand the greatest poet of ful, affectionate nature, and, for the last ten years of Goethe's life, he was constantly about his person,-was engaged in the details of preparing for the press the final edition, revised by the author, of Goethe's Works,-was in more intimate confidence with him than could have been likely to have existed between minds more nearly on the same level. We have here his recollections, -a pleasant, gossipping, good-natured book. The first part of it was published a few years after Goethe's death, and since translated in America by Mrs. Fuller. Her translation, as also the original of Eckerman's first publication, we have seen. The translation was, we thought, better than translations in general. Since then Eckermann added another volume, and both are now, for the first time, brought before the English reader by Mr. Oxenford, whose translation of "Goethe's Autobiography" leaves little to be desired that can be learned without a knowledge of the original language. Of Eckermann himself our readers may desire to know something. He was born at Winsen-on-the-Luke, a little town between Hamburg and Luneberg. It is scarcely possible to imagine a state of poverty greater than that of his family. His father's house was a mere hut. It had but one room capable of being heated. There was a hayloft above this room, to which they mounted by a ladder from outside. There were no stairs. All round were desolate heath and marsh lands, which seemed interminable. John Peter Eckermann, our hero, was the youngest child of his father's second marriage. His parents were advanced in years when he was born, and the accidents of life made him grow up very much alone with them. The elder children were scattered about in their search for means of life. One brother was a sailor; one a trader, engaged in the business of the whale fisheries. Sisters were either married or in service; and the child of his father's old age was thus without natural companionship of brothers and sisters. A cow supplied the family with milk, some of which they were able to sell for a few pence. A "Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret. Translated by John Oxenford." 2 vols.: London, 1850. small piece of land, rescued from the adjoining waste, gave some coarse vegetables. Corn, however, it did not produce, and they were obliged to buy flour. His mother had some skill in spinning wool, and she made caps for the women of the village, and thus something was earned. His father was what Wordsworth calls a "wanderer," surely, not a very happy name for a pedlar, moving with the regularity of Phoebus Apollo himself through all the signs of the Zodiac. "My father's business consisted of a small traffic, which varied according to the seasons, and obliged him to be often absent from home, and to travel on foot about the country. In summer, he was seen with a light wooden box on his back, going in the heath country from village to village, hawking ribbons, thread, and silk. At the same time he purchased here woollen stockings and Beyderwand (a cloth woven out of the wool of the sheep on the heaths, and linen yarn), which he again disposed of in the Vierlande on the other side the Elbe, where he likewise went hawking. In the winter, he carried on a trade in rough quills and unbleached linen, which he bought up in the villages of the hut and marsh country, and took to Hamburgh when a ship offered. But in all cases his gains must have been very small, as we always lived in some degree of poverty."—p. 14. When Our little Peterkin's own employment also varied with the season. spring commenced, and the waters of the Elbe had receded after their customary overflow, he collected the sedge which had been thrown into the dykes, and heaped them up as litter for the cow. Then came the lengthening days, and they were past watching the cow in the green spring meadows. Then came summer, and he had to bring dry wood from the thickets, distant about a German mile, for their firing through the year. When the harvest came he was seen as a gleaner in the fields of more fortunate men, or he was gathering acorns to sell for the purpose of feeding geese. The child of the old soldier longs to be old enough himself to shoulder a firelock. "Armour rusting in his halls On the blood of Clifford calls; Field of death, where'er thou be, Like the Clifford of the poet's imagination, young Eckermann, too, had had his dreams of ambition; and even in early youth it was not altogether disappointed. "When I was old enough, I went with my father from hamlet to hamlet, and helped to carry his bundle." At fourteen, Peterkin had learned to read and write. That he was born for anything better than the drudgery of some humble employment by which he might earn his bread never passed through his mind. Of poetry or of the fine arts he had heard nothing. There was not even that blind longing and striving which give evidence of the existence of something that may hereafter exhibit itself as power. Accident reveals to him the fact, that there was a world of beauty which he had not yet seen; a world, the creation of the mind itself exercising faculties of its own, called, no doubt, into action by occasions presented from without. His father had returned one evening from Hamburg, and his conversation was about his business there. The old man smoked, an accomplishment which Peterkin had not yet learned to indulge in, and he was particular as to his tobacco. The wrapper in which the tobacconist made up his wares exhibited his name and the device of a gallant horse, in full trot. Years after our young friend would have, on the sight of such a symbol, conjured up the demon that assumed the shape of the dead man who fell at Prague, and the lady that rode behind him till they came to the churchyard where she was to sleep for ever; but he had not yet heard of Bürger or of Leonore; and the horse was not to him much better or worse than a real horse of flesh, and blood, and bone. He had learned to write by copying matter set before him-why not draw? So, with pen, ink, and paper, he set to work, and drew a right good horse. He remained awake half the night with excitement and wonder at his success; and he rose early to look at his picture and satisfy |