_The Corsican Brothers_.

Our gratitude is due in this great matter to men of letters, not to
actors. If it be asked, 'What have actors to do with literature and
criticism?' I answer, 'Nothing;' and add, 'That is my case.'

But the notorious bad taste of actors is not entirely due to their
living outside Literature, with its words for ever upon their lips,
but none of its truths engraven on their hearts. It may partly be
accounted for by the fact that for the purposes of an ambitious actor
bad plays are the best.

In reading actors' lives, nothing strikes you more than their delight
in making a hit in some part nobody ever thought anything of before.
Garrick was proud past all endurance of his Beverley in the
_Gamester_, and one can easily see why. Until people saw Garrick's
Beverley, they didn't think there was anything in the _Gamester_; nor
was there, except what Garrick put there. This is called creating a
part, and he is the greatest actor who creates most parts.

But genius in the author of the play is a terrible obstacle in the way
of an actor who aspires to identify himself once and for all with the
leading part in it. Mr. Irving may act Hamlet well or ill--and, for my
part, I think he acts it exceedingly well--but behind Mr. Irving's
Hamlet, as behind everybody else's Hamlet, there looms a greater
Hamlet than them all--Shakespeare's Hamlet, the real Hamlet.

But Mr. Irving's Mathias is quite another kettle of fish, all of Mr.
Irving's own catching. Who ever, on leaving the Lyceum, after seeing
_The Bells_, was heard to exclaim, 'It is all mighty fine; but