Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

cruelty had hardly weakened, is most striking, and he seems at once to regain the independence which he had lost.

There is another passage of very peculiar interest, which we hope it will not be prolonging these remarks too far to quote, as affording a very striking instance of the effect which the powers of Talma are able to produce, under almost any circumstances. When Pyrrhus, at one part of the play, consents to surrender Astyanax, and by this rupture with Andromache, resolves to marry Hermione, Orestes is thrown at once into the utmost despair by this sudden change of plans, and by this disappointment of his hopes. When he again appears with Pylades, he threatens to take the most violent measures, to interrupt this marriage, and to carry off Hermione by force from the court where she was detained. His friend naturally feels for the wound which his fame must suffer from such an outrage, and the dishonour which it would bring upon a name rendered sacred throughout Greece, from the unmerited misfortunes which he had sustained. "Voila donc le succès qu'aura votre ambassade. Oreste ravisseur." But such considerations are of no avail in the intemperance of his present feelings; and Orestes, after alluding to the injury of a second rejection by Hermione, proceeds to another motive, which urged him to any means, however violent to secure his object, and which most powerfully interests the imagination. Every one knows the supposed history of that mysterious character, whose destiny seemed to have placed him at the disposal of some unrelenting enemy of the human race, and who had suffered every misfortune which could oppress human nature.

"——Mais, s'il faut ne te rien deguiser
Mon innocence enfin commence a me peser,
Je ne sais, de tout tems, quelle injuste puissence
Laisse le crime en paix, et poursuit l'innocence,
De quelque part sur moi que je trouve les yeux,
Je ne vois que malheurs qui condamnent lea Dieux,
Meritons leur courroux, justifions leur haine,
Et que le fruit du crime en précéde la peine."

It is a remark of Seneca, that the most sublime spectacle in nature is the view of a great man struggling against misfortune, and such a character has ever been considered as the most appropriate subject for dramatic representation. The extreme difficulty of succeeding, in the very important passage which I have quoted, is obviously because the very reverse of such a spectacle is now presented to the mind,—when Orestes is made to abandon that distinction in his fate which alone gave him any peculiar hold over the feelings of the spectators, and because the actor must continue to engage, even more deeply than before, their interest and their pity, at the very time when the sentiments he utters must necessarily lower the dignity of the character he sustains, and diminish the compassion he had previously awakened. How, then, is that ascendency over the mind, which the singular destiny of Orestes naturally acquires, to be preserved, when he no longer is to be regarded as the innocent sufferer who claims our interest, and when he is content to descend to the level of ordinary men? In this very difficult passage Talma is eminently successful; no vehemence of manner accompanies the desperate resolution he expresses, the recollection of the misery he has suffered, and the dread of the greater misfortunes which his present intentions must bring upon him, seem wholly to overpower him, and his countenance, marked with the utmost dejection and wretchedness, appears still to appeal for mercy to the power which persecutes him. Everything in his appearance and voice conveys the impression of a person overwhelmed with misfortunes, and hurried on, by an impulse he cannot controul, into greater calamities, and more complicated misery. The very sentiment which he avows, seems to proceed from the over-ruling influence of a destiny which he has in vain attempted to resist, and to be only another proof of the unceasing persecution to which he is exposed; and though he no longer commands admiration, or deserves esteem, he becomes more than ever the object of the deepest commiseration. Talma appears to attach much importance to the impression which this passage may produce, as much of the view which he exhibits of the character of Orestes seems intended to assist its effect; and we certainly consider it as the greatest and most successful effort of genius, which we have ever seen displayed upon any stage. After witnessing this representation of the character of Orestes at this melancholy period of his life, it was with no ordinary interest that we shortly after saw Talma perform the part of Orestes in Iphigénie en Tauride, a play which represents very beautifully the only event in his life, which ever seemed likely to secure his happiness, the discovery of his sister; and we shall never forget the beautiful expression of Talma's countenance, and the delightful tones of his voice, when he described to his sister and his friend, the emotions which the feeling of happiness so new to him had created, and the hopes of future exertion and honour, which he now felt himself able to entertain.

The last scene of this interesting tragedy is the most celebrated and most admired part in the range of Talma's characters, and undoubtedly it is impossible to find any acting more admirable or more affecting: After the death of Pyrrhus, he rushes upon the stage to inform Hermione that he had obeyed her dreadful commission, and to receive the reward of such a proof of his attachment; the horror of the crime which he had committed is sunk in his confidence of the claim he has now acquired to her gratitude, and he triumphantly relates the circumstances of the scene which had passed, as giving him such undeniable titles to the reward which had been promised to his firmness.—Madame de Stael has mentioned the effect he gives to the short and feeble reply which he makes, when Hermione accuses him of cruelty, and throws all the guilt of the murder on himself;—but it is in the subsequent part that he appears so great: After Hermione leaves him, and he recovers in some degree of the stupor which such an unexpected attack had produced, he repeats, in a hurried manner, the circumstances of his situation, and dwells on the perfidy of Hermione; but when he finds no palliation for his crime, and sees how completely he has been degraded by his unmanly weakness, the whole enormity of his guilt comes full upon his mind, and he acquires even dignity in the opinion of the beholder, from the solemn and emphatic manner in which he curses the folly and inhumanity of his conduct. But a further blow awaits him; and it is not till Pylades informs him of the death of Hermione, that the horrors of madness begin to seize on his mind. At first he remains motionless and thunderstruck with the dreadful issue of his enterprise; then, in a low and thrilling tone of voice, he laments the bitterness and misery of that destiny by which he is doomed to be for ever the victim of fate, (du malheur un modêle accompli,) till the wildness of madness comes over him: In a voice hardly heard, he seems to ask himself, "Quelle épaisse nuit tout a coup m'environne, de quelle coté sortir? D'ou-vient que je frissonne. Quelle horreur me saisit?"—and at once a shriek, dreadful beyond all description, announces the destruction of reason, and the agonies of madness. It is vain to describe the wild, desperate, and horrifying manner in which he represents Orestes tortured by the frightful visions with which the furies had visited his mind, till his nature, exhausted by such intense sufferings, sinks at once into a calm, more dreadful even than the wildness which had preceded it.

These remarks have been extended so much beyond the limits which can be interesting to those who have never seen this unrivalled actor, and to whom they can convey so very inadequate a notion of his powers, that it is impossible to make any further observations, which his performance in other characters may have suggested. The most interesting character, perhaps, in which we saw him perform after these, was Nero in Britannicus. Every person who has been in Paris, since the collection of statues was brought there, must have remarked the striking resemblance of Talma's countenance to the first busts of Nero; and this singular circumstance, along with the admirable manner in which he represents the impatient, headstrong, and profligate tyrant, rendered his acting in this character remarkably interesting. The opportunities Which he enjoyed of studying the character and the manner of Bonaparte,—who never forgot the assistance he received from Talma, when he first entered that city, where he was afterwards to govern with such unbounded power,—must have been present to his mind when he was preparing this difficult character; and if it is supposed that he must have been, even with this advantage, little able to imagine correctly the manner and deportment of so singular a character as the Roman Emperor, none will question the judgment, on this point, of that extraordinary person, under whose tyranny Talma so long lived, and who, as Talma has often declared, did actually suggest many improvements in the manner in which he had first acted the part.

Mademoiselle Georges, the great tragic actress, was reckoned at one time the most beautiful woman in France. She is now grown very large, and her movements are, from that cause, stiff and constrained; but she is still a fine woman, and her countenance, though not very striking at first sight, is capable of wonderful variety and intensity of expression; her style of acting may be said to be intermediate between the matronly dignity and majestic deportment of Mrs Siddons, and the enchanting sweetness and feminine graces of Miss O'Neil. In the delineation of strong feelings and violent passions, of grief, madness, or despair, she will not suffer from comparison with either of these actresses; but we should doubt whether she can ever have inspired as much moral sympathy and admiration as the one has always commanded, by the elevation and grandeur of her representation of characters of exalted virtue, and the other daily wins, by the interesting tenderness of her manner, by the truth and energy of her impassioned scenes, and the overpowering pathos of her distress.

The tragedy of Œdipe, by Voltaire, affords room for the display of the most characteristic qualities of Talma and Mademoiselle Georges; and when we saw them act Œdipus and Jocasta in this piece, we agreed that there were certainly no actor and actress, of equally transcendent merit, who act together in either of the London theatres. The distress of the play is of too horrible and repulsive a kind, we should conceive, to be ever admitted on the English stage; but it furnishes occasion for the display of consummate art in the imitation of the most terrible and overpowering emotions; and it is difficult to conceive a more powerful representation than they exhibited of the gloomy forebodings of suspicion, of the agonizing suspence of unsatisfied doubt, and the "sickening pang of hope deferred"—heightened, rather than diminished, by the consciousness of innocent intention, and the feeling of undeserved affliction, and giving way only to the certainty of irretrievable misery, and the phrenzy of utter despair.

In concluding these remarks, upon a subject which interested us so much, we are anxious to offer some general reflections upon the character of the French stage, which were suggested by the observations we had an opportunity of making. It is far from being our intention, to enter into any discussion of the rules upon which the construction of their tragedies is supposed to depend, or to occupy the time of our readers, by useless remarks upon the sacrifices which it is said must be made, by strictly observing the unities in dramatic compositions. Quite enough is known of the defects