It is the tritest of platitudes to say
that he could ill be spared by the English stage. We never _can_ spare a
good actor. As well can we spare a good book or a good picture. But
there would be much cause for gratulation, if Robson were spared, ere
his powers definitively decline, to visit the United States. The
American people ought to see Robson. They have had our tragedians, good,
bad, and indifferent. They have filled the pockets of William Macready
and of Charles Kean with dollars. They have heard our men-singers and
our women-singers,--the birds that can sing, and the birds that can't
sing, but _will_ sing. The most notable of our drolls, Buckstone and
Keeley, have been here, and have received a cordial welcome. But Robson
has hitherto been lacking on this side the Atlantic. That he would be
thoroughly appreciated by the theatrical public of America I cannot for
one instant doubt. It is given to England to produce eccentrics, but for
other nations to understand them better than the English do. The Germans
are better critics of the satire of Hogarth, the French of the humor of
Sterne, and the Americans of the philosophy of Shakspeare, than we to
whose country those illustrious belong. In Boston, in New York, in
Philadelphia, crowded and enthusiastic audiences would, I venture to
foretell, hang on the utterances of Robson, and expound to their own
entire satisfaction his most eloquent by-play, his subtlest gestures.
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