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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
keen delight of hearing Mrs. Fanny Kem-
ble at one of the last series of readings
which she gave in the Meionaon. I viv-
idly recall the occasion when I listened
to her delivery of The Merry Wives of
Windsor, and was one of an audience
which laughed itself almost faint over her
interpretation of Falstaff. A middle-aged
Englishwoman, in usual afternoon costume,
read from an ungarnished platform, out of
the big book which had come down to
her from her aunt, Mrs. Siddons ! Some
thirty years later I was present at Mr.
Beerbohm Tree's opening night in Boston,
and saw the leading actor — " made up "
with extreme skill, assisted by an accom-
plished company, using all the appliances
of an excellent stage — succeed in carry-
ing the part of Sir John Falstaff, in the
same comedy, through an entire evening
without once evoking a laugh for his in-
comparably humorous text.
Another case of professional misfit, which
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