quired. This faculty of creating is born with us; but if the actor possesses it, the advice of persons of taste may then guide him; and as there is, in the art of reciting verse, a part in some degree mechanical, the lessons of an actor profoundly versed in his art, in initiating him who possesses the germ of talent in the fruits of his own experience, may save him many essays, and much study and time.

*

Lekain, from the commencement of his career, met with great success; his debuts lasted seventeen months. One day, when he had performed at Court, before Louis XV., the king said, after the play," This man has made cry, I, who never weep." This illustrious suffrage procured his admission amongst the French comedians. Before he appeared on their Theatre, he had already acquired some reputation at private Theatres. It was there that Voltaire first saw and noticed him, and there commenced his connexion with that great man.

* The actors of the French Theatre form a body, and the profits are shared amongst them in certain proportions. When a new actor makes his appearance, he acts, for a considerable time, as a probationer. If the public approve of him, he is at length admitted into the body, and to a certain share of the profits.

The system of declamation, then in vogue, was a sort of sing-song psalmody, which had existed from the very birth of the Theatre.

Lekain, subjected, in spite of himself, to the influence of example, felt the necessity of breaking his shackles, and abandoning the monotonous chaunt, and the pedantic rules, that bound his ardent soul in fetters; and, notwithstanding the constraint under which he laboured, he, at length, dared to utter, for the first time on the stage, the true accents of nature. Filled with a strong and profound sensibility, and a burning and communicative energy, his action, at first impassioned and irregular, pleased the young, who were enchanted with its violence and ardour, the warmth of his manner, and, above all, moved by the accents of a voice profoundly tragic. The amateurs of the ancient psalmody criticised him severely, and nicknamed him THE BULL. They did not find in him that pompous declamation. that chiming and measured diction, in which a profound respect for the cesura and the rhyme* made the verses always fall in regular cadence.

* All the French tragedies are in rhyme and hexameter verse, cut in the middle by the cesura, a mortal enemy to dramatic declamation.

His march, his movements, his attitudes, his action, had not that nobleness, those graces of our fathers, which then constituted the fine actor, and which the Marcels of the age taught to their pupils, in initiating them in the beauties of the minuet. Lekain, a plain plebeian, a workman in a goldsmith's shop, had not, it is true, been bred in the lap of queens, as Baron pretended actors ought to be; but nature, a still more noble instructress, had undertaken the charge of revealing to him her secrets..

Lekain, in time, succeeded in regulating the bad taste which his inexperience had, at first,

* Marcel was a dancing-master, and the first posturemaster of his day. He used to say, that none but the English possessed dignity enough for dancing well. He was so wrapt up in the sublimity of his art, that he would not pardon the least inelegance of posture. In his latter days, he was in very reduced circumstances, and severely afflicted with the gout. A young lady, one of his pupils, got her father to obtain him a pension from the king, and she was deputed to present it to him. She ran up to his chair, her eyes sparkling with joy, and put it into his hand. He immediately threw it from him, and said, "Go, and take it up, miss, and present it to me as I taught you." She burst into tears, and obeyed. "I consent to take it now, and thank you; but your elbow was not quite rounded enough."

naturally thrown into his play; he learnt to master his vivacity, and regulate its movements; yet he dared not, at first, entirely abandon the cadenced song, which was then regarded as the beau ideal of the art of declamation, and which the actor preserved, even in the bursts of passion. Mademoiselle Clairon, Granval, and other votaries of the art, followed, like him, this pompous and strongly accented system of declamation which they found established. Mademoiselle Dumenil alone took nature for her guide, and followed its impulse; which so enraged the critics, that they basely attributed it to inebriety. The harshness with which Mademoiselle Dumenil was criticised intimidated Lekain and the rest; they admired her, but had not the courage to follow her steps. These rules of convention were the tyrants of even the authors themselves, who bent beneath their baleful influence; even the divine Racine himself felt obliged to yield to them; hence, many of his heroes bear the imprint of the gallantry of the age of Louis XIV., and not that of their own period. Voltaire, in his "Temple of Taste," very ingeniously signalises this fault. In the admirable tragedy of " Andromache," (by Racine) Orestes and Pylades, whose friendship has

become proverbial, are not placed on an equality; Orestes thou's Pylades, while he respectfully calls his friend my lord, and always makes use of the pronoun you. It was not then considered proper on the stage that the principal personage should be addressed in the second person singular, by the confidant. Perhaps the actor who played the part of Orestes, in the time of Racine, had some share in this ridiculous distinction; perhaps he was shocked at the idea of so much familiarity in his friend, whom the author had thought proper to reduce to the inferior rank of a confidant. Following the example set by the world, the actors on the stage were proud of their imaginary ranks, and were, amongst themselves, very severe on points of etiquette.

This influence of the manners of the period is still felt in the tragedy of "Britannicus," and in several parts of the character of Nero. Nero, at first, paints to Narcissus his love for Junia, in colours that display an ardent and vicious soul. There is, in this love, a mixture of libertinage and budding ferocity; Nero is delighted with the tears, the cries, and terror of this young princess, carried off during the night from her home, and dragged before him by his soldiers, in the midst