ge, Talma repeats these scenes
with much greater propriety and effect. He appeared overwhelmed by a
deep sense of the degradation to which a foolish and unmanly attachment
had reduced him; no gesture or tone of voice, expressive of the
slightest animation, escaped him, when he described the objects of his
youthful ambition; every thing denoted the shame and regret of a man who
felt that his glory and his occupation were gone, and who no longer
dared to look up with pride to the remembrance of those better days,
when his valour and his resolution were the admiration of Greece.

The scene between Orestes and Hermione on their first meeting, is one in
which Talma displays very great power: with his heart full of the
passion from which he had suffered so much, he begins the declaration of
his constancy in the most ardent and impressive manner, and for a time
seems to flatter himself, that resentment at the neglect which she had
met with from Pyrrhus might have awakened some affection for himself in
the breast of Hermione. At first she is anxious to secure Orestes in
case that Pyrrhus should ultimately slight her, and is at pains to
confirm the hope which she perceives that this passion had created: But
when he urges her to take the opportunity which how offered itself, of
leaving a court where she appeared to be detained only to witness the
marriage of her rival, she betrays at once the state of her mind:--

"Mais, seigneur, cependant s'il epouse Andromaque.
_Oreste_. He, madame.
_Her_. Songez quelle honte pour nous,
Si d'une Phrygienne il devenoit lepoux.
_Oreste_. Et vous le haissez!"--&c.

The indignant and bitter irony with which Talma delivers this speech,
when he finds that resentment at Pyrrhus, and not affection for himself,
has made her thus anxious to rivet the chains which her former 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
disappoi