"Battles, and the breath Of stormy war and violent death"
fill up the first part of the tragedy as it stands in Shakespeare, and that portion is also much diversified with abrupt changes of scene; so that it has been found expedient to alter the piece, with a view to its more practical adaptation to the stage. While however it is not acted in strict accordance with Shakespeare its essential parts are retained and represented. Many new lines, though, occur toward the close. McCullough used the version that was used by Forrest, who followed in the footsteps of Cooper, the elder Vandenhoff, and James R. Anderson. There is, perhaps, an excess of foreground--a superfluity of fights and processions--by way of preparing for the ordeal through which the character of Coriolanus is to be displayed. Yet when Hecuba at last is reached the interest of the situation makes itself felt with force. The massive presence and stalwart declamation of Edwin Forrest made him superb in this character; but the embodiment of Coriolanus by McCullough, while equal to its predecessor in physical majesty, was superior to it in intellectual haughtiness and in refinement. An actor's treatment of the character must, unavoidably, follow the large, broad style of the historical painter. There is scant opportunity afforded in any of the scenes allotted to Coriolanus for fine touches and delicate shading. During much of the action the spectator is aware only of an imperial figure that moves with a mountainous grace through the fleeting rabble of Roman plebeians and Volscians, dreadful in war, loftily calm in peace, irradiating the conscious superiority of power, dignity, worth, and honourable renown. McCullough filled that aspect of the part as if he had been born for it. His movements had the splendid repose not merely of great strength but of intellectual poise and native mental supremacy. The "I must be found" air of Othello was again displayed, in ripe perfection, through the Roman toga. His declamation was as fluent and as massively graceful as his demeanour. If this actor had not the sonorous, clarion voice of John Kemble, he yet certainly suggested the tradition of the stately port and dominating step of that great master of the dramatic art. He looked Coriolanus, to the life. More of poetic freedom might have been wished, in the decorative treatment of the person--a touch of wildness in the hair, a tinge of imaginative exaltation in the countenance, an air of mischance in the gashes of combat. Still the embodiment was correct in its superficial conventionality; and it certainly possessed affecting grandeur. Whenever there was opportunity for fine treatment, moreover, the actor seized and filled it, with the easy grace of unerring intuition and spontaneity. The delicacy of vocalism, the movement, the tone of sentiment, and the manliness of condition--the royal fibre of a great mind--in the act of withdrawal from the senate, was right and beautiful. It is difficult not to over-emphasise the physical symbols of mental condition, in the street scene with "the voices"; but there again the actor denoted a fine spiritual instinct. To a situation like that of the banishment he proved easily equal: indeed, he gave that magnificent outburst of scorn with tremendous power: but it was in the pathetic scene with Volumnia and Virgilia that he reached the summit of the Shakespearean conception. The deep heart as well as the imperial intellect of Coriolanus must then speak. It is, for the distracted son, a moment of agonised and pathetic conflict: for McCullough it was a moment of perfect adequacy and consummate success. The stormy utterance of revolted pride and furious disgust, in the denial of Volumnia's request--the tempestuous outburst, "I will not do it"--made as wild, fiery, and fine a moment in tragic acting as could be imagined; but the climax was attained in the pathetic cry--