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Show CONCLUSION. 537 while others, when playing an enraged hero, howled and shrieked like furies. The greater part of those actors invariably assumed the look of conspirators; on the first appearance of one of them, a spectator of taste would be led to believe that he had to murder three or four people in the course of the piece ; whereas, when the curtain fell, it turned out that he had murdered nobody but the author. T h e most monotonous and psalmodic declamation accompanied these mysterious looks. T h e actresses thought that when they laid aside the comic sock to assume the Greek or R o m a n mantle, it was improper to act naturally. They assumed the most lugubrious aspect, and their deportment and walk were those of a criminal going toward the scaffold. They spoke in that lamentable tone, the continuation of which is enough to distress the most insensible being ; they studied to give their voice a convulsive trembling, and to make each verse " drag its slow length along" in the most insufferable manner ; and finally, in order to produce great effects, they called to their aid deep, protracted or (if we may use the expression with impunity) wire-drawn sighs, tears, groans, sobs, and shrieks, when there was not the least occasion, or even excuse, for either. The mime should shun the imitation of these vices; denied, as he is, the use of words, in him they would become, if possible, more reprehensible and ridiculous than in a mock tragedian. W h y should we not act like those who are really under the influence of the passion which we are desirous of representing ? Must Zayre, in order to move and affect us, never for an instant drop the tone of bitter lamentation ? Is it necessary for Hermione to stun us unceasingly, in order to depict the rage which devours her ?- or, to render Achilles more outrageous than he is in the Iliad, in order to give the spectators a true idea of his im- |