. She had no need of the
robes, the sweeping train, the ornaments of the stage; in herself she is
as great as any being she ever represented in the ripeness and plenitude
of her power! I should not, I confess, have had the same paramount
abstracted feeling at seeing John Kemble there, whom I venerate at a
distance, and should not have known whether he was playing off the great
man or the great actor:--

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

I know it may be said in answer to all this pretext of keeping the
character of the player inviolate, 'What is there more common, in fact,
than for the hero of a tragedy to speak the prologue, or than for the
heroine, who has been stabbed or poisoned, to revive, and come forward
laughing in the epilogue?' As to the epilogue, it is spoken to get rid
of the idea of the tragedy altogether, and to ward off the fury of the
pit, who may be bent on its damnation. The greatest incongruity you can
hit upon is, therefore, the most proper for this purpose. But I deny
that the hero of a tragedy, or the principal character in it, is ever
pitched upon to deliver the prologue. It is always, by prescription,
some walking shadow, some poor player, who cannot even spoil a part
of any consequence. Is there not Mr. Claremont always at hand for
this purpose, whom the late king pronounced three times to be 'a bad
actor'?(1) What is there in common between that accustomed wave of the
hand and the cocked hat under the arm, and any passion or person that
can be brought forward on the stage? It is not that we can be said to
acquire a prejudice against so harmless an actor as Mr. Claremont:
we are born with a prejudice against a speaker of prologues. It is an
innate idea: a natural instinct: there is a particular organ in the
brain provided for it. Do we not all hate a manager? It is not because
he is insolent or impertinent, or fond of making ridiculous speeches, or
a notorious puffer, or ignorant, or mean, or vain, but it is because we
see him in a coat, waistcoat, and breeches. The stage is the world of
fantasy: it is Queen Mab that has invited us to her revels there, and
all that have to do with it should wear motley!

Lastly, there are some actors by profession whose faces we like to see
in the boxes or anywhere else; but it is because they are no actors, but
rather gentlemen and scholars, and in their proper places in the boxes,
or wherever they are. Does not an actor himself, I would ask, feel