Charles Dickens as a Reader | Page 2

played by Betterton! "Then might they know," he
exclaims, with a delightful extravagance of emphasis and quaint-ness
of phraseology, "the one was born alone to speak what the other only
knew to write!" The simple truth of the matter being that for the
making of a consummate actor, reader, or impersonator, not only is
there required, to begin with, a certain histrionic instinct or dramatic
aptitude, but a combination--very rarely to be met with, indeed--of
personal gifts, of physical peculiarities, of vocal and facial, nay, of
subtly and yet instantly appreciable characteristics. Referring merely to
those who are skilled as conversationalists, Sir Richard Steele remarks,
very justly, in the Spectator (No. 521), that, "In relations, the force of
the expression lies very often more in the look, the tone of voice, or the
gesture, than in the words themselves, which, being repeated in any
other manner by the undiscerning, bear a very different interpretation
from their original meaning." Whatever is said as to all that is requisite
in the delivery of an oration by the master of all oratory, applies with
equal distinctness to those who are readers or actors professionally. All
depends on the countenance, is the dictum of Cicero,{*} and even in
that, he says, the eyes bear sovereign sway.
* De Oratore iii., 59.
Elsewhere, in his great treatise, referring to what was all-essential in
oratorical delivery, according to Demosthenes, Tully, by a bold and
luminous phrase, declares Action to be, as it were, the speech of the
body,--"quasi sermo corporis." Voice, eyes, bearing, gesture,
countenance, each in turn, all of them together, are to the spoken words,
or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and emotions of
which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols, as to the
barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How essential every
external of this kind is, as affording some medium of communication
between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated upon the instant
by the rough and ready argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Without
insisting, for example, upon the impossibility of having a speech
delivered by one who is actually blind, and deaf, and dumb, we need
only imagine here its utterance, by some wall-eyed stammerer, who has
a visage about as wooden and inexpressive as the figure-head of a

merchantman. Occasionally, it is true, physical defects have been
actually conquered, individual peculiarities have been in a great
measure counteracted, by rhetorical artifice, or by the arts of oratorical
delivery: instance the lisp of Demosthenes, the stutter of Fox, the
brogue of Burke, and the burr of Brougham.
Sometimes, but very rarely, it has so happened that an actor of nearly
peerless excellence, that a reader of all but matchless power, has
achieved his triumphs, has acquired his reputation, in very despite of
almost every conceivable personal disadvantage. Than the renowned
actor already mentioned, for example, Thomas Betterton, a more
radiant name has hardly ever been inscribed upon the roll of English
players, from Burbage to Garrick. Yet what is the picture of this
incomparable tragedian, drawn by one who knew him and who has
described his person for us minutely, meaning Antony Aston, in his
theatrical pamphlet, called the Brief Supplement? Why it is absolutely
this,--"Mr. Betterton," says his truthful panegyrist, "although a
superlative good actor, laboured under an ill figure, being clumsily
made, having a great head, a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders,
and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach.
He had little eyes and a broad face, a little pock-fretten, a corpulent
body, and thick legs, with large feet. His voice was low and grumbling.
He was incapable of dancing, even in a country dance." And so forth!
Yet this was the consummate actor who was regarded by the more
discerning among his contemporaries, but most of all by the brother
actors who were immediately around him, as simply inimitable and
unapproachable.
There was John Henderson, again, great in his time, both as a tragic and
a comic actor, greatest of all as a reader or an impersonator. Hear him
described by one who has most carefully and laboriously written his
encomium, that is to say, by John Ireland, his biographer. What do we
read of him? That in height he was below the common standard, that
his frame was uncompacted, that his limbs were short and
ill-proportioned, that his countenance had little of that flexibility which
anticipates the tongue, that his eye had scarcely anything of that
language which, by preparing the spectator for the coming sentence,

enchains the attention, that his voice was neither silvery nor mellifluous.
Nevertheless, by a subtlety of discrimination, that seemed almost
intuitive, by a force of judgment and a fervency of mind, that were
simply exquisite