sional volatility. Even Garrick is known to have looked prematurely old. Yet Garrick had everything to support him-fortune, prudence, and a good constitution. When we hear actors, equally great in their way, but less happy in bodily frame, rebuked severely for certain excesses alleged against them, we sometimes think it a pity that the rebukers do not know what it is to go through all that wear and tear of sensation, and to be at a loss how to keep up a proper level of excitement in their general feelings. We are not sure that Madame Pasta does not unconsciously let herself grow fatter than might be wished, out of an uneasy feeling of something to be supported and strengthened in this way; especially when it is considered that persons of her profession lead artificial lives, and cannot so well be kept healthy as others, by good hours, and a life otherwise uninterfered with....

As to a concert-room or an oratorio, it is a dull business compared with singing amidst the feelings of a scene. Such places are fittest for instrumental performances, and for instrument-like singers. In the concert-room, the audience expect little passion, and find it. They are themselves in a dull and formal state; there is often a majority of musicians present, and a majority of musicians cannot be of the first order, nor do they desire anything of the first order in others. They wish the singers to act up simply to their own notions of excellence, which are but a reflection of themselves. All is quiet, mechanical, mediocre. Up gets a lady or gentleman, book in hand, and out of this is to disburse us the proper quantity of notes, checked by that emblem of reference to the dead letter. She does so; is duly delivered of a B, or a D; and everything is "as well as can be expected."

So in an oratorio. The audience are all assembled, as grave as need be; the season, and the usual dull character of `oratorios, helps to formalize them; there is a good deal of mourning in the house; and sacred music is to be performed, mixed with a little illegal profane. That is to say, there is nothing real in the business, and nobody can be either properly merry or mournful. Which is just the case. In comes a gentleman dressed in black,

hitching his way along sideways, and leading a lady up the alley behind the orchestra; another follows, and another, equally polite and preparatory; it is Madame So-and-so, in a hat and feathers; it is Miss W. or Mrs. Z., all dressed like other gentlewomen, which is odd and like other gentlewomen they take their seats, and look as if they ought to drink tea. Music-books make their appearance, as in the concert-room; and up rises the lady or gentleman to sing in the same formal manner, and be discreet in their flats. The sacred music drags; the profane music hops; and the audience wish themselves in their beds.

Madame Pasta may probably not excel at such exhibitions as these. We do not desire that she should. It would not be easy to persuade us that, sing where she may, her singing would not be better than the most formal perfection; but the worst thing we can say of an oratorio is, that not even she can take us there. Put her on the stage, or in a company among friends; let loose her feelings; and then we have the soul of music; and this is the only real music in the world.

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That we make what we find on such occasions, and listen with our imaginations upon us, is only saying in other words that the occasion is fit to excite the enthusiasm; otherwise how does it happen that it is not equally excited on others? Doubtless there must be enthusiasm and imagination to do fit justice to the same qualities in the performer. Loveliness must have love. But how is it that love is excited by some things and not by others? How is it that multitudes are wound up to enthusiasm by one orator and not by another, and that Madame Pasta produces the same sensa tion from Naples to Berlin? She is not an unknown singer, trumped up by a solitary enthusiast. Cities are her admirers; and she would take hearts by storm everywhere, whether critics explained or not by what magic she did it.

It is nevertheless very pleasant to us to know what the magic is. We never feel the value of criticism, except when it enables us to double our delight in this manner; for none can hold in greater contempt than we do the common cant of criticism, or less pride themselves in finding out those common defects to which critics in general have a natural attraction. It is truth that gives Madame

another, unalloyed with a contradiction, and makes the heart sometimes gush inwardly with tenderness at the countenance that little suspects it. The reason is, that some of the most painful infirmities with which the state of society besets us, are then taken away, and we not only think we have reason to be delighted, but are sure of it. For this we know no bounds to our gratitude; and it is just; for you could not more transport a man shaken all over with palsy by suddenly gifting him with firmness, than you do any human being, in the present state of things, by making him secure upon any one point which he ardently desires to believe in. There is therefore a moral charm, of the most liberal kind, in Madame Pasta's performances, which argues well for her personal character; and personal character, wish as we may, always mingles more or less with the impression created by others upon us. It is indeed a part of them, which helps to make them what they are, off a stage or on it, pretending or not pretending. It is true there is a difference between moral truth and imaginative; and it does not follow that, because Madame Pasta tells the truth in everything she does on the stage, she should be an example of the virtue elsewhere. It is an argument, however, that she would be so; just as the taste for an accomplishment implies that a person is more likely to excel in it, than if there were no such taste. Madame Pasta has to look sorrowful, and no sorrow can be completer:-she has to look joyful, and her face is all joy,-as true and total a beaming, as that of a girl without a spectator, who sees her lover hailing her from a distance. We have seen such looks; and they have stood us in stead of any other certainty. Madame Pasta knows the truth well, and knows how to honour it; and this is an evidence that the inclination of her nature is true, whatever the world may have done to spoil it. We are aware, mind, of no such spoliation. Our impulse, if we knew this charming performer (which is a pleasure incompatible with the confounded critical office we have taken upon us) would be to give as implicit belief to everything she said off the stage, as on it. But we wish to guard against

a wrong argument; and to show the triumph and the beautiful tendencies of truth, whether borne out in all their quarters

or not.

We will conclude with the extract we alluded to last week, and which our new dimensions allow us to indulge in. It is from a book written by one of the deepest thinkers of the time; so that the reader will see we are not the only critics, nor the best, whom Madame Pasta has rendered enthusiastic. Now if she can do this with critics as well as communities, what greater proof of her merits can any party desire?

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"I liked Mademoiselle Mars exceedingly well, till I saw Madame Pasta whom I liked so much better. The reason is, the one is the perfection of French, the other of natural acting. Madame Pasta is Italian, and she might be English-Mademoiselle Mars belongs emphatically to her country; the scene of her triumphs is Paris. She plays naturally too, but it is French nature. Let me explain. She has, it is true, none of the vices of the French theatre, its extravagance, its flutter, its grimace, and affectation, but her merit in these respects is as it were negative, and she seems to put an artificial restraint upon herself. There is still a pettiness, an attention to minutiæ, an etiquette, a mannerism about her acting she does not give an entire loose to her feelings, or trust to the unpremeditated and habitual impulse of her situation. She has greater elegance, perhaps, and precision of style, than Madame Pasta, but not half her boldness or grace. In short, everything she does is voluntary, instead of being spontaneous. It seems as if she might be acting from marginal directions to her part. When not speaking, she stands in general quite still. When she speaks, she extends first one hand and then the other, in a way that you can foresee every time she does so, or in which a machine might be elaborately constructed to develope different successive movements. When she enters, she advances in a straight line from the other end to the middle of the stage with the slight unvarying trip of her countrywomen, and then stops short, as if under the drill of a fugal-man. When she speaks, she articulates with perfect clearness and propriety, but it is the facility of a singer executing a difficult passage. The case is that of habit, not of nature. Whatever she does, is right in the intention, and she takes care not to carry it too far; but she appears to say beforehand, "This I will do, I must not do that." Her acting is an inimitable study or consummate rehearsal of the part as a preparatory performance: she hardly yet appears to have assumed the character; something more is wanting, and that something you find in Madame Pasta. If Mademoiselle Mars has to smile, a slight and evanescent expression of pleasure passes across the surface of her face; twinkles in her eyelids, dimples her chin, compresses her lips, and plays on each feature: when Madame Pasta smiles, a beam of joy seems to have struck upon her heart, and to irradiate her countenance. Her whole face is

bathed and melted in expression, instead of its glancing from particular points. When she speaks, it is in music. When she moves, it is without thinking whether she is graceful or not. When she weeps, it is a fountain of tears, not a few trickling drops, that glitter and vanish the instant after. The French themselves admire Madame Pasta's acting, (who

indeed can help it?) but they go away thinking how much one of her simple movements would be improved by their extravagant gesticulations, and that her noble, natural expression would be the better for having twenty airs of mincing affectation added to it. In her Nina there is a listless vacancy, an awkward grace, a want of bienseance, that is like a child or a changeling, and that no French actress would venture upon for a moment, lest she should be suspected of a want of esprit or of bon mien. A French actress always plays before the court; she is always in the presence of an audience, with whom she first settles her personal pretensions by a significant hint or side-glance, and then as much nature and simplicity as you please. Poor Madame Pasta thinks no more of the audience than Nina herself would, if she could be observed by stealth, or than the fawn that wounded comes to drink, or the flower that droops in the sun or wags its sweet head in the gale.. She gives herself entirely up to the impression of the part, loses her power over herself, is led away by her feelings either to an expression of stupor or of artless joy, borrows beauty from deformity, charms unconsciously, and is transformed into the very being she represents. She does not act the character she is it, looks it, breathes it. She does not study for an effect, but strives to possess herself of the feeling which should dictate what she is to do, and which gives birth to the proper degree of grace, dignity, ease, or force. She makes no point all the way through, but her whole style and manner is in perfect keeping, as if she were really a love-sick, carecrazed maiden, occupied with one deep sorrow, and who had no other idea or interest in the world. This alone is true nature and true art. The rest is sophistical; and French art is not free from the imputation; it never places an implicit faith in nature, but always mixes up a certain portion of art, that is, of consciousness and affectation with it." Hazlitt's Plain Speaker.

WALKS HOME BY NIGHT IN BAD WEATHER.
WATCHMEN.

THE readers of these our fourpenny lucubrations need not be informed that we keep no carriage. The consequence is, that being visitors of the theatre, and having some inconsiderate friends who grow pleasanter and pleasanter till one in the morning, we are great walkers home by night; and this has made us great acquaintances of watchmen, moonlight, mud-light, and other accompaniments of that interesting hour. Luckily we are fond of a walk by night. It does not always do us good; but that is not the fault of the hour, but our own, who ought to be stouter; and therefore we extract what good we can out of our necessity, with becoming temper. It is a remarkable thing in nature, and one of the good-naturedest things we know of her, that the mere fact of looking about us, and being conscious of what is going on, is its own reward, if we do but notice it in good-humour. Nature is a