We must apologize for an oversight in our last week's article. The allusion made to Mr. KEAN'S acting of _Luke_ in the _City Madam_ was totally inapplicable to the part and to the play. We were thinking of his performance of the concluding scenes of the _New Way to Pay Old Debts_. We confounded one of MASSINGER'S strange heroes with the other. It was _Sir Giles Overreach_ we meant; nor are we sure that our remark was just, even with this explanation. When we consider the intense tone, in which Mr. KEAN thinks it proper (and he is quite as likely to be in the right as his blundering critic) to pitch the temperament of that monstrous character from the beginning, it follows but logically and naturally, that where the wild uncontrollable man comes to be baffled of his purpose, his passions should assume a frenzied manner, which it was altogether absurd to expect should be the same with the manner of the cautious and self-restraining _Cantwell_, even when he breaks loose from all bonds in the agony of his final exposure. We never felt more strongly the good sense of the saying,--Comparisons are odious. They betray us not seldom into bitter errors of judgment; and sometimes, as in the present instance, into absolute matter of fact blunders. But we have recanted.
_Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends; now first made public by a Gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from genuine MSS. which have been in the possession of the Quickly Family near four hundred years_. London: Robinsons, 1796
A copy of this work sold at the Roxburgh sale for five guineas. We have both before and since that time picked it up at stalls for eighteen pence. Reader, if you shall ever light upon a copy in the same way, we counsel you to buy it. We are deceived if there be not in it much of the true Shakspearian stuff. We present you with a few of the Letters, which may speak for themselves:--
"I pr'ythee, Hal, lend me thy 'kerchief. An thy unkindness have not started more salt gouts down my poor old cheek, than my good rapier hath of blood from foemen's gashes in five and thirty years' service, then am I a very senseless mummy. I squander away in drinkings monies belonging to the soldiery! I do deny it--they have had part--the surplus is gone in charity--accuse the parish officers--make them restore--the whoreson wardens do now put on the cloak of supplication at the church doors, intercepting gentlemen for charity, forsooth!--'Tis a robbery, a villainous robbery! to come upon a gentleman reeking with piety, God's book in his hand, brimfull of the sacrament! Thou knowest, Hal, as I am but man, I dare in some sort leer at the plate and pass, but as I have the body and blood of Christ within me, could I do it? An I did not make an oblation of a matter of ten pound after the battle of Shrewsbury, in humble gratitude for thy safety, Hal, then am I the veriest transgressor denounced in God's code. But I'll see them damned ere I'll be charitable again. Let 'em coin the plate--let them coin the holy chalice...."