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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
him in refinement, taste, and learning, is
his superior in this respect. The want from
which the difficulty grows is deep-seated,
and is, I am convinced, nothing else than
a lack of that temperamental solidity and
force out of which alone the actor's most
potent lightning can be forged. It is not
necessary for the purposes of passion that
this force should be accompanied with
what Mr. Irving's idolaters sneeringly de-
nominate " robustiousness." The sinew
and muscle — the brawn, if you please —
of which I speak is in the will and heart
and imagination, not in the arms and legs.
If one seeks it in its grandest form to-
day, it is to be found in Signor Salvini,
who in intellect is but little inferior to Mr.
Irving, and in artistic faculty is decidedly
above him ; but it filled the genius of the
pigmy Edmund Kean, and it is abundant
in our own slender Mr. Booth. It lies at
the root of the ability both to conceive and
to express the greatest human emotions ;
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