ANIGHT WITH SHAKSPEARE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 3804, 27 July 1880, Page 2

ANIGHT WITH SHAKSPEARE.

♦ Those who expected that Mr Hoskins' leoture on Shakspeare illustrated by recitals and readings would be an intellectual treat were fated to have their expectations more than realized. The entertainment was without exception the most enjoyable we can remember, and we are sure it gave unlimited pleasure to the rapt and attentive audience. In numbers the audience was not large but it was keenly appreciative, and breathless silence obtained through the delivery of the lecture. Opening with a concise account of the Bard's life so far as it ii known, Mr Hoskins gave as his first illustration the scenes from Macbeth in which the regicide of King Duncan is described. The distracted utterances of the Thane of Glamis, torn with the conflicting emotions, o'erleaping ambition and natural kindness, were delivered with a vividness that gave a startling air of reality to the scene. The unnatural promptings of his unwomanly consort urging the Thane to screw his courage to the sticking point and commit the fatal deed, added to the word picture and made it complete. Then followed the scene from Henry IV. introducing Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Dame Quickly, and Prince Hal. The comments on Bardolph's appearance were delivered with a rich unctuousness and rough humour that evoked hearty laughter, while the satire contained in the reckoning up of the word " honor " lost nothing in the delivery. The well known and ever memorable oration by Mark Antony over the dead body of Caesar closed the first part. The stirring eloquence of that oration touches even the casual reader, but to hear it delivered with all the expression and studied care of a past master in the art of elocution awakens the mind to the incomparable beauty and force of the language used. In the second part, the fall of wolsey, from Henry VIII, enabled Mr Hoskins to vary the tone of delivery, and the closing words of the once all-powerful Cardinal were delivered with infinite pathos. Then came one of the most interesting portions of the entertainment. Mr Hoskins essayed the task of embodying two of the unseen characters only referred to in Macbeth and Hamlet. In the former play the Thane of Cawdor suffers death for treason, but his character is sketched by the words of Lord Angus in describing the death scene. " Nothing became bis life like theTeavjng pf it." On the words of Lord Angus, and on the ex» pression of the King, relating to the frank and open countenance of his whilom loyal subject. Mr Hoskins built up a character m words so graphic and realistic that the unseen Thane became fixed in the mind's eye as a noble but erring man, worthy the pity and esteem of all students, «' Yp.r;cj£ " was even more graphically described, His caustjg wis and playful humour, his gentleness and amiar bility, his duties as the Censor of the Court of Denmark, were made so probable that henceforth we shall hold in reverence the skull that the moody Hamlet apostrophises with "Alas, poor Yonck." The lecture closed with a eulogy of Shakspeare, and better English, more impressively delivered, it has not been our fortune to listen to. "Gentle Wjjl Shakspeare " has a worthy scholar in Mr Hoskins. and in pursuit of a veritable labor of love lie' gave hjs. audience material for future profitable thought •' The entertainment was pleasantly diversi? fied with glees by the Orpheus Club, and by solos, all creditably rendered. • •