ABSTRACT
The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which Charles Lamb picked up the other day-he know not by what chance it was preserved so long-tempts him to call to mind a few of the players, who make the principal figure in it. It presents the cast of parts in the Twelfth Night, at the old Drury Lane Theatre two-and-thirty years ago. Of all the actors who flourished in my time a melancholy phrase if taken aright, reader Bensley had most of the swell of soul, was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had the true poetical enthusiasm the rarest faculty among players. The lago of Bensley did not go to work so grossly. There was a triumphant tone about the character, natural to a general consciousness of power; but none of that petty vanity which chuckles.
