In impassioned feeling lies Master Payne's strength." Hence his last scene was deeply affecting; though we could well have spared that Kembleian dying trope, his rising up and falling again. It is because we se riously respect Master Payne's talents, that we make this remark: clap-traps and stage-trick of every kind, cannot be too studiously avoided by persons of real genius. It would be injustice to omit one passage― "Just as my arm had master'd Randolph's sword, In the break, the pause, and the last four words, he was inimitably fine. In Master Payne's performance of this character we perceived many faults, which call for his own correction. They are, we think, such as he has it in his power to get rid of. As they are general, and pervade all his performances, we reserve all our observations upon them till we close the course of criticism we are to bestow upon him, when we mean to sum up our opinion of his general talents. Meantime we beg leave to remind him, that Mr. Garrick himself, after he had been near forty years upon the stage, often shut himself up for days together, restudying and rehearsing parts he had acted with applause a hundred times before. Sat sapienti. Nature has bestowed upon this young gentleman a countenance of no common order. Its expression has not yet unfolded itself; but we entertain no doubt, that when manhood and diligent professional exercise shall have brought the muscles of his face into full relief, and strengthened its lines, it will be powerfully capable of all the inflexions necessary for a general player. At present, the character of his physiognomy is perfectly discernible only upon a near view. When he advances towards the front of the stage, the lines may be perceived from that part of the pit and boxes which are near the orchestra; even then the shades are so very much softened by youth, and the parts so rounded, and so utterly free from acute angles, that they can, as yet, but faintly express strong, turbulent emotions, or display the furious passions. In a boy of his age, this, so far from being a defect, is a beauty, the reverse of which would be unnatural; and if it were a defect, every day that passes over his head would remedy it. What is now wanting in muscular expression, is in a great measure supplied by his eye, which glows with animation and intelligence, and at times speaks the language of a soul really impassioned. Upon a close view, when apart from the factitious aids and incumbrances of stage-lights, cos tume, and paint, he must be a shallow-sighted phy. siognomist who would not at the first glance be struck by Master Payne's countenance. A more extraordinary mixture of softness and intelligence never were associated in a human face. The forehead is particu larly fine. Lavater would say that genius and energy were enthroned there; and over the whole, though yet quite boyish, there is a strong expression of what is called manliness; by which is to be understood, not present, but the indications of future manliness. How strongly and distinctly this is characterized in the boy's face, may be collected from an anecdote which, exclusive of its applicatiou to this subject, we think well worth relating, on account of the other party concerned in it. A day or two before Master Payne left Philadel phia, he and a friend of his walking in a remote part of the city, were encountered by a strange old woman, who requested alms with an earnestness which exacted attention. The gentleman who was in company with our youth, and from whom we deliver the story, being an Irishman, instantly recognizing in the petitioner, an unhappy country woman, stopped, surveyed her with more than cursory regard, and put his hand into his pocket in order to give her money. As there was in her aspect that which bespoke something that had once been better accommodated, and had claims above a common mendicant, he was searching in his pocket for a suitable piece of silver, when the generous boy, outstripping him, put unostentatiously, into the old lady's hand some pieces of silver. She viewed themdrew back-gazed upon him for some seconds with a fixed look of wonder, delight, and affection, then lifting up her eyes to heaven, in a tone of voice, and with a solemnity which no words can express, exclaimed, "May the great God of Heaven shower "down his blessings on your INFANT YEARS AND "MANLY FACE!" Quickness of conception beyond all other people is now allowed even by the English, to be characteristic of the people of Ireland, once considered by those of the sister kingdom as the Boeotians of Britain; and we are disposed to concur with the Irish gentleman, who, in his exultation and honest prejudice said, "that the woman might be known to be Irish from "her warm gratitude, her quick discernment, and "her elegant extemporaneous compliment." In fact, if Edmund Burke himself, who exceeded all mankind in the quickness and elegance of complimentary replies, had been considering the matter a whole hour, he could not have uttered any thing to surpass it. : Of Master Payne's person, we cannot speak (nor do we hope) so favourably as of his face. And we much fear that he will not be allowed to undergo the pain of mending it by abstinence from indulgence. Early hours, active or even hard exercise, particularly of the gymnastic kind, and diligent unremitting study, are as indispensable to his fame, if he means to be a player, as food or drink are to his support. In general his action is elegant-his attitudes bold and striking; but of the former he sometimes uses too much, and in his appropriation of the latter, he is not always sufficiently discriminating. This was particularly observable in his performance of Frederick, in Lovers' Vows-a character in which we shall have occasion to speak of him, and with great praise, in a future number. His walk too, which in his own unaffected natural gait is not exceptionable, he frequently spoils by a kind of pushing step, at open war with dignity of deportment. It would be well for this young gentleman if he had never seen Mr. Cooper. Perhaps he will be startled at this; and flatters himself that he never imitates that gentleman. We can readily conceive him to think so, even at the moment he is doing it. To imitate another, it is not necessary to intend to do so. Every day of their lives, men imitate without the intervention of the will. The manners of an admired, or much-observed individual, insensibly root themselves in a young person's habits he draws them into his system, as he does the atmosphere which surrounds him. We doubt very much whether Mr. Cooper himself would not be sur prized, if he knew how much he imitates Kemble. Though seemingly a paradox, we firmly rely upon it— Mr. Cooper may be aiming at Cooke, when he is by old habitual taint really hitting Kemble. On this subject of imitation much is to be said. Kemble rose when every bright luminary of the stage had set. Being the best of his day, in the metropolis, he has become the standard of acting to the young and inex. perienced. More from pride than want of judgment, he goes wrong. His system of acting is radically vicious; but as it makes labour pass as a substitute for genius, by transferring expression from its natural organs to the limbs, and making attitude and action the chief representatives of the passions and the feelings, it not only fascinates because it catches the eye, but is adopted because extremely convenient to the vast ma jority of young adventurers on the stage, who, possess. ing neither the feelings fit for the profession, nor the organs, nor the genius to express them if they had, are glad to find a substitute for both. Hence the system of Mr. Kemble has spread like a plague-infected the growing race of actors, mixed itself with the very lifeblood of the art, and extended its contagion through every new branch, even to the very last year's bud. Thus Mr. Kemble is imitated by those who never saw him. Let us tell Master Payne, that it is the very worst school he could go to, this of the statuary. It is as much inferior to the old one-to that of Garrick, Barry, Mossop, and Nature, as the block of marble from which the Farnesian Hercules was hewed, is to the god himself. Of its superiority we need urge no further proof than that of Mr. Cooke, who, though assuredly inferior to several of the old stock, and groaning under unexampled intemperance, has, in spite of of every impediment which artful jealousy and envy of his talents could raise against him, risen so highin public estimation, that even when just reeking from offences which would not have been endured in |