 | Crayon sketches |  |
MRS. HILSON.
There is no actress who has run the risk of injuring
a well-earned reputation more than this lady.
She plays all and every thing; and though we
should be the last to advocate the whims and airs
of actors, in refusing parts which they consider beneath
them, or unsuited to their abilities, yet there
is no reason why any of them should absolutely
sacrifice themselves in the cause of the theatre.
We have seen Mrs. Hilson, in a short space of time,
play Ophelia, Dolly Bull, and Lady Macbeth, together
with various other incongruities; yet, in our
estimation, Mrs. Hilson is by no means a lady of versatile
abilities. She has not the faculty of mobility,
and, except in a limited degree, is not at home
either in comedy, tragedy, or farce;—and yet there
are a hundred parts in which she is far superior to
any one else. When we remark that Mrs. Hilson is
not at home either in comedy, tragedy, or farce, we
mean in the broad and extreme parts of each.
Nature has denied her the physical requisites for
such efforts, and the exhibition of violent passions
or emotions of any kind is not her forte; but in
country. We have never seen her Imogen in
Cymbeline, but have heard it highly spoken of;
and a woman that can do justice to such characters
as Desdemona and Imogen, ought not to care about
excelling in any thing else.
Her Ophelia is beautiful, and she performs even
Lady Macbeth better than a host of others—with
more propriety than Mrs. Sloman, (who by the way,
does it very badly,) though perhaps not so effectively;
yet she can no more make it what it ought
to be, than her husband can do justice to the
“worthy thane of Cawdor.” She has not strength
and energy for tragedy—she can portray tenderness,
but not agony—grief, but not despair. In comedy
she is happier, but still not quite at home, and appears
to us constitutionally unfitted for it; her temperament
is too melancholy to enter into the irrepressible
buoyancy of comedy; and though, having
an abundance of common sense, a thing a good
deal in request upon the boards, she does all she
undertakes very well, yet her gaiety, like Clara
Fisher's efforts in the pathetic, is only put on;—it
does not come from or go directly to the heart—
both of them appear warring against their nature.
Mrs. Hilson cannot assume the dashing airs and
affectation of a lady of quality, or the pertness and
Mary in John Bull, as Lady Amaranth in Wild
Oats, and hundreds of a similar cast—in the Emily
Worthingtons and Julia Faulkners of the drama,
she is far, very far superior to any actress on this
side of the Atlantic. Her heroines do not smack
of the stage; the loud protestation and exaggerated
action are not there: on the contrary, the quiet
grace in every movement, and the sweet and simple
earnestness with which the sentiments are delivered,
render such personations perfect, and leave
her without a rival in this class of character. We
never saw what we could call a wrong conception
on the part of Mrs. Hilson; and she has always
given more pleasure and less dissatisfaction than
any one who ever appeared in such a number of
characters. There is one thing, for which indeed
she ought not to be praised, because it is no more
than the performance of a simple duty, but which
at least deserves mention in consequence of the flagrant
neglect of others, and that is, she always
takes the trouble of committing her part to memory,
and gives the words of the author instead of thrusting
forward foolish impertinencies on the spur of
the moment.
| Crayon sketches | |