The old Park theatre--what names, reminiscences, the words
bring back! Placide, Clarke, Mrs. Vernon, Fisher, Clara F., Mrs. Wood,
Mrs. Seguin, Ellen Tree, Hackett, the younger Kean, Macready, Mrs.
Richardson, Rice--singers, tragedians, comedians. What perfect
acting! Henry Placide in "Napoleon's Old Guard" or "Grandfather
Whitehead,"--or "the Provoked Husband" of Gibber, with Fanny Kemble
as Lady Townley--or Sheridan Knowles in his own "Virginius"--or
inimitable Power in "Born to Good Luck." These, and many more, the
years of youth and onward. Fanny Kemble--name to conjure up great
mimic scenes withal--perhaps the greatest. I remember well her
rendering of Bianca in "Fazio," and Marianna in "the Wife." Nothing
finer did ever stage exhibit--the veterans of all nations said so,
and my boyish heart and head felt it in every minute cell. The lady
was just matured, strong, better than merely beautiful, born from the
footlights, had had three years' practice in London and through the
British towns, and then she came to give America that young maturity
and roseate power in all their noon, or rather forenoon, flush. It was
my good luck to see her nearly every night she play'd at the old
Park--certainly in all her principal characters. I heard, these years,
well render'd, all the Italian and other operas in vogue, "Sonnambula,"
"the Puritans," "Der Freischutz," "Huguenots," "Fille d'Regiment,"
"Faust," "Etoile du Nord," "Poliuto," and others. Verdi's "Ernani,"
"Rigoletto," and "Trovatore," with Donnizetti's "Lucia" or "Favorita"
or "Lucrezia," and Auber's "Massaniello," or Rossini's "William Tell"
and "Gazza Ladra," were among my special enjoyments.
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