Excerpt from The Quarterly Review, Vol. 132: January and April, 1872 Of all dramatists this is true, but it is pre-eminently true of Shakspeare. And herein lies the secret of the unquestionable fact that his plays are, more than all others, the crucial test of an actor's power. None suffer more by bad acting, and none gain more by good. A clever declaimer, or practised player, may produce an impersonation not disagreeable but kindred genius can alone seize and turn to account the opportunities furnished by the poet to the performer for filling in the tints and shadows which are essential to complete the picture. Such, to all appear ance, was the genius of Betterton. What Steele has said of his Othello (tatler, N o. 167) happily illustrates at once. The genius of the actor and the dramatist in the particulars just indicated. The wonderful agony which he appeared in when he examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in Othello; the mixture of love that intruded upon his mind, upon the innocent answers Desdemona makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of passions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and perfectly convince him that it is to stab it, to admit that worst of daggers jealousy. Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene will find that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as Shakspearc himself. Find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences; but a reader that has seen Betterton act observes, there could not be a word added; that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay, impossible, in Othello's circumstances.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.