should be made to smart. And by the by, Mr. Bentley ought to 'suffer some.' The 'Lament of the Cherokee,' original in his last magazine, is so precisely similar to an article, with the same title, published in the 'Editors' Table' of the Knickerbocker for November last, that we are led to doubt whether both poems can be original! The Metropolitan Magazine is more conscientious; for although it copies our articles among its 'original papers,' it indicates their legitimate source elsewhere.
THE DRAMA.
Franklin Theatre.—Shales!—We question whether, since Æschuylus first raised poor bare-foot Tragedy on buskins, and gave her a comfortable cloak to her back, there has been seen in christendom a more original performance, than the personation, by Shales, at the Franklin Theatre, of Shakspeare's King Richard the Third. The fame of this eminent histrion had reached the metropolis long before himself arrived. The 'Literary Emporium,' that nourished and brought him up, saw his genius, and cultivated it; and when the fullness of time had arrived, wherein it should be given vent, the citizens repaired en masse to the public play-house, to see it spout, and to do honor to intellect. Their meed was won—'tremendous applause.' A service of polished tin plate was presented to the actor; and wreaths, the weight of which would gall the brow, were showered upon his head. In one of these tributes, which we have been favored to behold, the useful was pleasantly mingled with the sweet. Along a circular hay-band, were intertwined corpulent cabbages, white and red; while long yellow parsnips, and horizontal, rotary turnips, pranked with short festoons of dried apples, and set off by fresh green pickles, served to relieve the otherwise somewhat cumbrous character of a visible and most tangible emblem of dramatic renown. The first appearance of Shales in New-York will be long remembered. The wind was high, the night was dark; and never did we
that rushed along the gutters, and roared and rumbled in subterranean passages. Yet was the theatre full, notwithstauding certain vague rumors which had obtained, that our Roscius had cancelled his engagement. This, as it subsequently appeared, was indeed his purpose; but the manager threatened not to survive, if he persisted in carrying his resolution into effect, and he relented The curtain rose before an impatient and highly excited audience.
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We have seen Kean, Kemble, Macready, Booth; but we owe it to Shales to say, that neither of these, eminent as they were and are, ever played Richard the Third like him. There was 'a oneness, a depth, a breadth, a universal dove-tailedness, a light and a shade,' which completed our conception of what should constitute the tragic 'unities.' He had not reached the end of the first act, before those who came to scoff, remained to perform a very different service. The presiding genius of one of our largest and most popular daily journals sat near us, with fierceness in 's aspect. He had evidently come prepared to break a small fly on a large wheel, in his next day's sheet. But he was soon cowed into admiration. Let it suffice to say, that not a word of censure marred his gazette on the following morning. We have said there was 'a oneness' in the personation of Shales; and it is for this reason, that we despair of presenting a notice in detail, that shall do justice to his merits, which it is not too much to say, are of a peculiar kind. We shall therefore advert to only one or two characteristic points. The flexibility of his legs, and the lithe pliancy of his hands, are prominent features in his physique. The irregular action of these members is wholly spontaneous. A galvanized baboon could not better have displayed that emphatic inanity, which, in the strikingly original conception of Shales, distinguished Richard's physical action, while half crazy with doubt and vexation. Of both our actor's gesture and accent, we may say, that if they were not wholly independent of the will, but were suggested by mental impulse, then are there minds, and they are of no common class, which are subject, like the body, to a species of Saint Vitus' Dance. The meanings which, in the language of Shakspeare, are hid in articles, definite and indefinite, as well as in conjunctions and prepositions, it has not heretofore been the wont of tragedians to portray. Negligence like this cannot be laid to the charge of Shales. He has profited by the fine lessons upon accent given by popular showmen at the London fairs: 'Walk up, ladies and gen'lemen! Look through this 'ole into the box, and you vill perceive a animal, in the agonies of death, a lashin' the flies vith his tail!' It was with similar emphasis and force, that Shales exclaimed:
