endeavors, and rendered trusting by the confidential intercourse that so naturally springs up between doctor and patient.

It appears to us, therefore, no matter of wonder that the doctor should aim to excel in conversation more than in composition-and should seek professional rather than literary fame. To become skilful and discriminating in his art; agreeable and gentlemanly in his address; to perform well the character of a judicious yet kind friend, and entertain by all allowable arts the dull hours of the invalid: to act the part of the philanthropist and the good Samaritan; these surely are honors sufficient for the ambition of any reasonable human creature, and require the exercise of virtues that make men akin to the angels.

XXIX.

THE PROFESSION OF AN ACTOR.

THE life of an actor is a severe trial of humanity. His temptations are many; his fortitude, too often, ineffectual; his success precarious. If he be resolute, uncontaminated by the society of his associates, and a genuine artist besides, he is worthy not only of the praise of the moralist, but also deserving the admiration of the critic. The prejudice against the profession, like most prevailing prejudices, is founded on general truth; but it is frequently absurd and baseless. The dissolute lives of actors, even in the majority of cases, may be supposed to result at least as often from failure in their

attempts to please, and ill treatment from the world, as from any other reasons. The very best men have sometimes been driven into vice, as well as seduced and insinuated into it. And how shall we dare to speak of the comparatively light vices of the actor without pity and tenderness, when we allow odious vices of the heart to go 'unwhipt of justice?' The sins of the flesh are visited in the flesh, and often end there. But the sins of the mind, the vices of the heart, are of a more incorrigible nature, are deeper dyed with guilt, the cancerous sores of the soul. There is this also to be considered -there are professional vices. Now, we would venture to declare, that there is no more dissipation, no more looseness of living among actors, than there is pettifogging among lawyers, or quackery among physicians.

We mean to write no apology for the actor; the worthy members of the profession need none, and as for the less deserving, or even the criminal, we deem it without our province to lay open the sores of the beggar, whose follies have induced them. It lies beyond our limits to lash the back already waled by the stripes of a cruel fortune. Ah! is not poverty, is not scorn, is not the solitude of their lives, is not the estrangement of the virtuous part of mankind from them, hard enough to bear without our adding to the mountain of abuse which has crushed many a human creature? Ye grave censors, who would crush the poor actor, thus over: borne, are ye free from all weakness, not to say impurity? Do ye array yourselves in no borrowed vestments of virtue, to conceal therewith the detestable meanness, the intolerable corruption of your ignoble spirits? Can a line be drawn separating the righteous from the profane? Is one man perfectly good, and another perfectly bad? Are we not all nearer an equality? A man may, in his frenzy, or in a

diabolical spirit, (little short of it,) commit murder—a crime neither you nor I, considerate reader, have committed—and yet he may have done much that we have left undone. May not the final account disclose an average of evil and goodness, much more closely balanced than we can now conceive of?

The actor, then, has not gained his just position. The statute gives him no better name than vagrant. It requires, however, but slight observation, and some acquaintance with the history of the stage, to discover that the art of acting is the most intellectual of all public amusements; is the profession of a gentleman, rightly considered; and is a walk of considerable dignity and usefulness. We are convinced of the truth of these positions-others may not be, and we must endeavor to make them good.

Let us only consider the qualifications necessary to form the excellent actor; thence we may learn his proper dignity. Both nature and art must unite in him to produce perfection, and nature both mental and physical, with a generous and peculiar education. An actor, with most people, is a mimic a sort of speaking automaton, an intellectual parrot. He must be at least a good general scholar, and in his walk of tragedy or comedy, a master. He must possess a considerable knowledge of antiquity, without being a mere antiquarian. He must not lose himself in costume or attitudes, though a knowledge of the first and skill in the second are necessary to enable him to personate with effect and power the heroes of an early age. Coriolanus could have been supported only by Kemble, and Orestes by Talma. The actor must be a keen and close observer of real life, of the multitudinous characters that fill this earthly scene; he must, from self-study, have analyzed those flickering impulses that often turn a point.

of action; to him must be familiar the wild havoc that passion, 'masterless passion,' makes, that forces us to like or loathe;' he must be able to disentangle the endless shifts of meanness and avaricious cunning. The most striking points are to be gathered from literal observation. Most great actors have followed this rule. Kean went to see a notorious felon hung, in order to catch his dying expression of horror and despair; Garrick drew his idea of Lear, and that powerful expression he is said to have given it, from an actual occurrence. Acting is a matter of fact, as well as a matter of imagination and sentiment. Pure imagination must be sustained by literal reason. Acting is an art, and all art is experimental.

The actor includes also the critic,-neither can he play with any force or spirit without something of the poet. In some modern pieces the actor surpasses the dramatist, and creates the characters for him, from a very scanty outline. All the filling up is in his hands. What effect cannot manner lend, even to the loftiest conceptions?

The actor is hence an intellectual artist, and, when truly excellent, a highly imaginative artist. That the actor should be a gentleman, a natural deduction would infer, from the intellectual nature of his pursuits, and from the education he must receive, or must give himself, to qualify him for the stage.

The education of the actor is a point to be briefly handled. We have in part spoken of this. The world and his own heart are his best and truest teachers. Dramatic literature is a rich department of our literature-perhaps the richest. He must be at home everywhere in it. Acting is an art. It is not study alone, nor experience, nor inspiration, nor the finest form and most expressive countenance, that form the great actor solely. All must concur and unite to produce

that character. An artist, he must work by rule; a man of genius, he must give himself freely to the impulses of his genius. Much must be done by the actor, for much is expected of him.

The actor is generally reputed to be born in the lower ranks of society, and yet he must play the fine gentleman, and the fine gentleman, too, of an age when a more courtly manner and elegant style was prevalent. This he must derive in part historically. In the instance of the finest actors ready access has been provided for them to the best circles. Garrick lived on terms of intimacy with Burke, Goldsmith and Johnson: Kemble was a frequent guest of royalty: Kean was the idol of Hazlitt and Byron : Matthews, the friend of Scott, Hunt, Hazlitt, and Lamb. Earlier yet, Burbage and Shakspeare were companions; at a later period, Booth and Betterton associated with Addison and Steele. These are a few of a thousand instances.

Though reality be the basis of acting, yet the actor should be richly invested with imagination; for he must assume passions he never, perhaps, felt, or certainly never felt to such a degree of intensity, and sometimes must paint local manners of which no trace remains, and whichare to be gathered purely from tradition. Acting, then, is an imaginative art as well as experimental. As such it ranks just below the very highest of the fine arts.

True genius never yet starved on the stage; give it display, and it must succeed. A man of genius may fail, but not a man of the right sort of genius. The author of Hamlet might be a very poor actor. The two lines ought to be kept apart. If vanity will carry a man on the stage, he must play what he can, not what he will. Shakspeare is said never to have risen above his Ghost-Booth assumed Hamlet at