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WILLIAM WARREN
presented in the drama, at ten thousand
points. His plays were in every mode and
mood of the Comic Muse, and ranged in
quality from the best of Shakespeare to
the worst of Dr. Jones. In old-fashioned
farces, with their strong, sometimes vul-
gar, often noisy, usually vital fun ;
in taw-
dry patriotic or emotional melodramas ;
standard old English comedies ; in cheap
local pieces, narrow and petty in their
appeal ; in delicate French comediettas,
whose colors are laid on with a brush like
Meissonier's ; in English versions of the
best Parisian dramas, subtle, sophisticated,
exigent oifinesse and adresse in the player,
— in each and all of these Mr. Warren
was easily chief among many good actors ;
to the demands of each and all he was
amply adequate. The one fault of his style
was a slight excess in the use of stentorian
tones, — the result, I suspect, of his early
immersion in farce, — and his gift of pa-
thetic suggestion, though generally sure,
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