University of Virginia Library

MR. LISTON.

Of all the actors I have ever seen, Kean and Liston
appear to me to be the greatest, and to have
the least in common with others of their species.
Of the two, perhaps Liston is the most original. He
is the Hogarth of actors; and like that great painter,
has been more highly than justly appreciated. Not
that either have been too highly thought of—“I
hold the thing to be impossible”—but the broad,
rich humor, which is the distinguishing characteristic
of both, has, from its prominence, thrown their
minor good properties onto the shade. Hogarth, to
the qualities peculiarly his own, added the rare
merit of being a chaste and skilful colorist, (the
most difficult thing to be attained in painting, considering
it purely as an art,) and was, moreover—
however generally such an opinion may be entertained—not
the least of a carcaturist. Neither is

Liston, notwithstanding it pleases certain pragmatical
persons, who, I humbly apprehend, know nothing
about the matter, to assert the contrary.
There are now, as in the days of William Shakspeare,
those who discountenance all cachinnatory
movements as unbecoming; regarding gravity as
the only outward and visible type of that great
inward accumulation of wisdom, which generally
lies too deep to be ever discovered. These
people think because Mr. Liston occasionally plays
coarse and foolish parts in coarse and foolish
farces, that Mr. Liston is, consequently, a coarse
and foolish fellow, and only fit to amuse the uneducated
vulgar; and as “grimace” and “buffoonery”
are the two standing words used in abusing
comedians, let their faults be what they may,
they have not unfrequently been applied to Liston.
Now if any one be free from what is meant by
these two words, as set down in many dictionaries,
it is this actor. The merits of his unparalleled
countenance are passive, not active; and distortion
would only render that countenance common-place,
which in a state of blank repose, is intensely ridiculous.

The great merit of Liston is his earnestness.
Kean does not appear more earnest in Othello than
does Liston at the loss of a pocket-handkerchief, or

being overcharged a shilling in a tavern-bill. His
whole soul seems to be absorbed in an affair of this
kind. He does not bustle about or put himself in
a passion in order to make the audience laugh at
the ridiculous nature of the circumstances, as other
actors do; but all the faculties of the man's mind
seem concentrated to endeavor to convince or persuade,
as the case may require, solely to save the
said shilling, or regain the said handkerchief; and
it is the contrast between the disproportion of the
exercise employed and the importance of the object
to be attained—like the wars of the Lilliputians and
the Blefuscudians—that is so supremely ridiculous.
Fools may say that this is merely admirable foolery
—it is a great deal more. It is a shrewd satire
upon humanity, turning into burlesque the lofty
pretensions—the power and knowledge and wit
and wisdom of mankind, and presents a stronger
and truer picture of the littleness of man and his
pursuits than a thousand homilies. Even Heraclitus,
could he look at Liston, would laugh to see
the “noble reason” and “infinite faculties” of one
of the “paragon of animals” utterly prostrated by
the loss of an inside place in a stage-coach; and he
would indeed exclaim with the poet, though in a
very different sense, “what a piece of work is man!”
I think I never saw or read a more forcible exemplification
of the importance a man's feelings and
actions are to himself, and the less than the shadow
of a shade they are to the rest of the world, than is to
be witnessed in a farce where Liston alights from a
coach top, and is followed on to the stage by the
driver for the customary gratuity. Those who
have traveled in England may have remarked the
manner in which the coachmen receive what the
traveler may be pleased to give them. While he
is getting the money from his pocket Jehu is all attention;
but the moment he has received it, his
business is over—he turns upon his heel, and all
traces of the giver pass from his mind for ever.
Liston detains the coachman, (and you can see in
his countenance the vital importance he attaches to
what he is about,) in order to draw the distinction
and durably impress it upon his mind that his (Liston's)
giving him a sixpence was by no means a
compulsory measure, but a pure and spontaneous
emanation of generosity, or, to use his own phraseology,
“hentirely hoptional.” A person standing
on the brink of a running stream on a cold day,
seriously employed in “writing his name in water,”
would be accounted insane—the attempt to write
munificence and generosity on the coachman's
mind, is equally futile; yet how many in the
world make these and similar efforts who are not
accounted crazy, and whose last will and testament
stands good in law.

There has been much said about the ugliness of
Liston's physiognomy. I do not think it such as
can be fairly termed ugly; yet it is a face that a
sensitive sculptor would faint to look upon—a large
mass of inanimate flesh, with only an every-day
mouth, a most insignificant nose, both as to size
and shape, and a pair of lack-lustre eyes to diversify
the blank and extensive prospect, but the word
“ugly” gives no more definite idea of it than the
word “beauty.” It is a paradoxical face, most expressive
in expressing the absence of all expression;
yet at times combining the expression of the most
inveterate stupidity with concentrated conceit and
supreme self-satisfaction, in a way that has never
been equalled. There are many who, by the common
play of the muscles or contortion of the features,
can counterfeit stupidity and conceit, in a
greater or less degree, at separate times; but not
one who, like Liston, can at the same time make
you feel perfectly assured not only that the personage
he is representing has not an idea, but also,
that all attempts to make him sensible of that fact,
or to inoculate him with one, would be altogether
hopeless. His voice is as unique as his face; and
the deep sepulchral croak, in which he narrates

petty grievances, leaves you no choice whether to
laugh or let it alone. There is a farce, entitled
“Comfortable Lodgings,” in which he enacts the
part of a rich and hypochondriacal Englishman,
traveling to get clear of an unaccountable melancholy,
and to learn to enjoy himself like other people,
and describes one of his peculiarities with good
effect. In answer to his servant's inquiry of “Lord,
sir, why can't you laugh, and do as other people
do?” “Laugh!” he exclaims in a tone from the
bottom of his chest, and with the bitter emphasis of
a misanthrope—“laugh! I cannot laugh! I cannot
do as other people do! When I look around
me (looking at the pit with a dull stare) I see every
one laughing and merry, (a fact,) while my face
remains as immoveable as a face carved on a brass
knocker!” “Do as other people do?” he continues—“I
can't do as other people do. Even in the
packet-boat, when all the passengers were as passengers
who had never been at sea before usually
are, I tried to be like them! but I could not! I
looked on a disappointed man!”

Incomparable Liston! Thou hast been a benefit
and a luxury unto the melancholy inhabitants
of this great city for many a day! Thou hast refuted
the trite axiom that “money will not purchase
pleasure;” for what man in London town,

for the last twenty years, who could put his hand
into his breeches pocket, and find therein three
shillings and sixpence, but could say unto himself,
“Liston plays—I will hie me unto the theatre and
forget my cares—lo! I will laugh!” And if laughing
promoteth (as physicians affirm) the healthy
action of the biliary organs, from what floods of
acrimony and ill-will hast thou cleared the livers
of men! Even exquisites, as they looked at thee,
have been awakened from their state of graceful
torpor, and the corset laces of fair ladies have been
cracked in twain. Thou hast pleased alike the
well-judging, the ill-judging, and those who take
not the trouble of judging at all. As the Persian
saith—“may thy shadow never be less!”