the roll of artists who have essayed similar parts for the last five and
twenty years, we can name not one who has given as she did what we may
best describe as a new stage sensation. Never was the pride of a free
maiden of ancient Greece more nobly expressed than in Parthenia: never
were the gradual steps from fear and abhorrence to love more finely
portrayed than in the stages of her rising passion for the savage
chieftain, whose captive hostage she was. Her Pauline was the old
patrician beauty of France living on the stage, a true woman in spite of
the selfish veneer of pride and caste with which the traditions of the
ancient _noblesse_ had covered her; while Galatea found in her certainly
the most poetic and beautiful representation of that fanciful character,
ever seen on any stage. This was the verdict of the public who thronged
the Lyceum to its utmost capacity, during the months of the past winter.
This was the verdict, too, of the largest provincial towns of the kingdom.
The critics, some of them, were willing to concede to Mary Anderson the
possession of every grace which can adorn a woman, and of every
qualification which can make an artist attractive, with a solitary but
fatal reservation--_she was devoid of genius_. But what, indeed, is genius
after all? It is the magic power to touch unerringly a sympathetic chord
in the human breast. The novelist, whose characters seem to be living; the
painter, the figures on whose canvas appear to breathe; the actor who,
while he treads the stage, is forgotten in the character he assumes; all
these possess it. This was the verdict of the public upon Mary Anderson,
and we are fain to believe that--_pace_ the critics--it was the true one.
Her Clarice was perhaps the least successful of her impersonations; and
given as an afterpiece, it taxed unfairly the endurance of an actress, who
had already been some hours upon the stage. But as a striking illustration
of the reality of her performance, we may mention, that, in the scene
where she is supposed by her guests to be acting, her fellow actors, who
should have applauded the tragic outburst which the public divine to be