endous--she is like a
sleeping tigress, calm and hushed, but giving evidence of preternatural
strength; her very softness is the softness of melted gold--when it
hardens it will kill like lead; or, if that is a bad image, her very
quiet is the quiet of the sea--let the wind blow, and then----! Don't
you see that Ophelia--Juliet--Imogen--all of them, are endowed with
tremendous _power_, as well as other qualities? And that, as to the
heroes, they are regular volcanoes every one of them? Is not this proved
by the fact, that there is no hero in Shakspeare who does not demand as
much bodily labour from his representative as would tire out a
coal-whipper on the Thames? Is there one leading part in any of his
plays that does not require an enormous outlay of voice? Now, can it be
possible that no deep passion can coexist with a weak thorax? Run over
the principal plays--_Macbeth_, _Richard_, _Romeo_, _Hamlet_ again,
_Lear_--and depend on it, that this loudness of exclamation is not stage
trick; it is part of the development of the character; and therefore I
shall always blame that infernal asthmatical tendency of mine for having
induced Mr Whibbler, of the Whitechapel Imperial, to decline my services
when I offered to act Coriolanus for my own benefit, gratis. The
consequence, however, of this Shakspearian fancy, of placing characters
of passion in positions where they must split the ears of the
groundlings, is, that it has become an English article of faith, that
without some prodigious explosions, calling out the whole strength of
the actor's lungs, the character falls dead. The Indian could not
believe the air-gun had killed the bird, because he did not hear the
report. We have reversed the Indian mode of reasoning, and always
believe it is the noise that kills the bird. Oh, Smith! think of the
bellowings of Sir Giles Overreach--and Barbarossa--and Zanga--and the
diabolical howlings of Belvidera, and Isabella, and the Mourning Bride.
Can people have no passion that don't disturb the whole neighbourhood
with their noise? Can a woman not find out she has been jilted without
risking a bloodvessel? Is this the way they do in common life? I
remember when that girl at Bermondsey hauled me up before David Jardine,
and produced all my letters, and the ring I had given her * * * * she
never spoke above her breath. And I was very glad to hush it up with
four-and-sixpence a-week.

Now the fault of Shakspeare is this, not that he puts