The original _Medea_, the great Ristori
herself, came to see Robson, and was delighted with and amazed at him.
She scarcely understood two words of English, but the actor's genius
struck her home through the bull's-hide target of an unknown tongue.
_"Uomo straordinario!"_ she went away saying.
I have anticipated the order of his successes, but at this distance of
time and places I can keep no chronological count of them. Robson has
always alternated the serio-comic burlesque with pure farce, and after
_Jem Baggs_ his brightest hits have been in the deaf ostler in "Boots at
the Swan" and the discharged criminal in "Retained for the Defence." In
the burlesque of "Masaniello," he had an opportunity--which some thought
would prove a magnificent one to him--of showing the grotesque side of
insanity; but, for some reason or other, the part seemed distasteful to
him. It may have been repugnant to his eminently sensitive spirit to
exhibit the ludicrous aspect of the most dreadful of human infirmities.
_A peste, fame, bello, et dementia libera nos, Domine!_ Perhaps the
piece itself was weak. At all events, "Masaniello" had but a brief run.
A drunken man, a jealous man, a deaf man, a fool, a vagabond, a demon, a
tyrant, Robson could marvellously depict: in the crazy Neapolitan
fisherman he either failed or was unwilling to excel.
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