mmon power of recitation which distinguishes his acting from the
tame and monotonous declamation of the ordinary actors; and which gives
to the splendid language, and elevated sentiments of the French
tragedies, an effect which cannot easily be understood by any one who
has never seen them well performed. The part is one which is remarkably
popular at present in Paris, as there is something in the history of
that fabulous being, who has been represented as the victim of a
capricious and arbitrary Providence, and exposed during his whole life
to the most unmerited and horrible torments, which seems greatly to
interest the French people; and Talma has thus been led to bestow upon
the character a degree of reflection and preparation, which the parts
in a French tragedy do not in general require. There is a passage which
occurs in the first scene, which exhibits very strikingly the judgment
and genuine feeling which uniformly marks his acting. After mentioning
what had happened to him after his disappointment, with regard to
Hermione, and his separation from Pylades, he says, that he had hastened
to the great assembly of the Greeks, which the common interest of Greece
had called together, in the hope, that the ardour, the activity, and the
love of glory which had distinguished the period of youth, might revive
with the animating scene which was again presented to his mind.

"En ce calme trompeur J'arrivai dans la Grece
Et Je trouvois d'abord ces princes rassembles,
Qu'un peril assez grand sembloit avoir troubles.
J'y courus. Je pensai que la guerre et la gloire
De soins plus importants remplissoit ma memoire
Que mes sens reprenant leur premiere vigueur
L'amour acheveroit de sortir de mon coeur.
Mais admire avec mois le sort, dont la pursuite
Me fait courir alors au piege que j'evite."

There is a similar passage in Othello, in which, when the passion of
jealousy had seized upon his mind, the Moor laments the degradation to
which he had fallen, when all the objects of his former ambition ceased
to interest his imagination, or animate his exertions. In enumerating
the occupations which formed the pomp and glorious circumstance of war,
but for which the misery of his situation had completely unmanned him,
the actors who have attempted this character, fire with the description
of the arms which he now abandons, and of the scenes in which his renown
had been acquired. In this analogous passa