IN this world of amusement in which we dwell, palpably the finest piece of dramatic art is the "Rip Van Winkle" of Mr. Joseph Jefferson. We are accustomed to compare the personations of other actors. We establish degrees of merit in the efforts of Booth, Adams, Couldock, and Forrest, in tragedy, and Warren, Hackett, Owens, and Brougham in comedy. But when we come to Mr. Jefferson's "Rip," comparisons cease. It stands by itself, as sharply defined, as superbly drawn, as the Venus di Medici in statuary, one of Raphael's cartoons in painting, or Jenny Lind's Bird Song in music; and, if we ransack the records of the stage, we find nothing to which we can compare it.

For the reason that his personation belongs to an entirely new school. It is the commencement of that dramatic era which Shakspeare foreshadowed in his advice to the players. It is the dissolution of that system against which Charles Lamb and Addison wrote so powerfully in "Elia" and the "Spectator." I verily believe if Charles Lamb had seen Jefferson's "Rip Van Winkle," although he was denouncing such great artists as Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, he would never have written that essay on the plays of Shakspeare; and that, if Addison had seen it, the "Spectator" would have been minus some of those sketchy papers on the playhouses. I believe that gentle soul, Charles Lamb, would have taken his sister to see "Rip," and that they would have talked to each other as no two ever talked before; that great-hearted Addison would have taken off his hat and made his best bow to him; that watery Sterne would have shed a Niagara of tears over the simple narrative, and Steele would have gone and got drunk, out of sheer inability to do justice to the subject in any other way.

Mr. Jefferson's personation is totally unlike anything on the modern stage. Matilda Heron's "Camille," in her younger days, approximated to it somewhat, but at present there is nothing that resembles it on the stage. Mr. Jefferson has quietly ignored all the rules, regulations and precedents of the stage. The stereotyped stage-walk—a sort of comico-heroic strut, which has been pressed into service for all sorts of characters, from "Harlequin" to "Hamlet;" the stage gestures; the stage attitudes, which "Mrs. Toodles," curtain-lecturing her intoxicated spouse, and "Lucrezia Borgia," shielding "Genarro" from the "Duke," both assume; the rolling of the eyes in a fine frenzy; the mouthing of phrases in a set manner, to catch the praise of the groundlings; the hackneyed entrances and exits; the rant, and the making of points, are all foreign to Mr. Jefferson. With him, the stage is merely an accident and no more essential to his personation than it was to Irving's conception.

This school of acting which Mr. Jefferson has adopted is the very highest form of dramatic art. In it, he realizes the truth of the old adage, that it is the province of art to conceal art. He completely identifies himself with the character. That is the secret of his success—of his potent sway over the emotions of his auditors. It is this faculty which enables him so to blend humor with pathos that smiles follow tears in as quick succession as light follows shadow over a field on a summer afternoon. It is, perhaps, impossible for any person who has seen Booth to form any original conception of Hamlet. He invariably connects Hamlet with Booth, and the result is a theatrical Hamlet; and the poor Ghost always walks into our memories with a theatrical stride, and smells of the calcium. So with Couldock's "Luke Fielding," Charlotte Cushman's "Meg Merrilies," Forrest's "Coriolanus," or Burton's "Toodles." All these personations were unusually fine, but the actors could not always merge themselves in the characters, because there was always the partition of theatrical necessities and precedents in the way. This is not the case with Mr. Jefferson. We do not connect "Rip Van Winkle" with Jefferson, but Jefferson with "Rip Van Winkle." The transformation is complete. He acts, talks, walks, laughs, rejoices and mourns just as "Rip Van Winkle" would have done—just as any human being would have done in "Rip Van Winkle's" place. In looking at this personation—and I own to having laughed and cried over it many times—I never think of Jefferson. I never think of his art. I never get "enthused" enough even to applaud, for I should never think of applauding "Rip," were he alive and walking to-day the streets of the village of Falling Waters. To me, there is no Jefferson on the stage, but the magnificent creation of Irving, moving before me. And all this is done without the show of art. Mr. Jefferson never talks above the ordinary conversational tone of voice, uses only a few gestures, and those of the simplest description, attempts no tricks of facial expression, and makes less fuss than the veriest supernumerary on the stage; and yet I question whether any living artist has such an instantaneous command of the smiles and tears of an audience as he.

In fact, I confess I should be afraid of that man or woman who was not affected by this personation. It has been my good or bad luck, as the case may be, for many years past to have written on every actor and actress who have come to this city, and to have witnessed thousands of dramatic performances. Constant dropping of water wears away the rock, and I confess until I saw Mr. Jefferson, I have looked upon stage murders and all sorts of villainies with a large degree of composure; have even smiled at the lachrymose Mrs. Haller, beloved of young women, and have studied with all my might to discover the fun in the stage situation at which the audience was laughing; and instances are on record where I have slept the sleep of the just all through a five-act tragedy, overrunning with murders, suicides, rapes, burglaries, divorces and crim. con. enough to have started a second Boston in business. And when I first went to see Mr. Jefferson, I went all calloused with dramatic labor. But if that man didn't have me laughing and crying alternately the whole evening, then I'm a sinner.

The entire personation is so complete and individualized that it is very difficult to select any particular scene as better than others, for Mr. Jefferson is so thorough an artist that he neglects not even the smallest detail. But there are two or three scenes which seem to me to stand out more prominently than the rest. One in particular is the episode where he is ordered to leave the house of his wife. Most actors would have torn a passion to tatters at this point, ranted and rushed round the stage, delivered mock heroics and dashed off in an ecstasy of blue fire with their arms flourished in the air, utterly forgetful of unities or proprieties. How different, Jefferson! He is sitting upon a chair, partially turned from the audience, in a maudlin state. His wife orders him to leave her house and never return. Perhaps she has ordered him that way before, for he pays little heed to it. She repeats the order in a louder tone of voice, but still he pays no heed to it. He has stretched out his arm and raised his head as if to speak, when she again issues her order in an unmistakable manner. It strikes him like a thunder-bolt. Without changing the position of a limb, he sits as if that instant petrified. He is dumb with amazement, as the terrible truth gradually becomes clear in his muddled brains. The silence, the motionlessness, the fixed look of the face, are literally terrible. And when he rises slowly, quietly tells the wife he shall never return—for he has been driven away—stoops and kisses the little one, and so easily passes from the doorstep to the outer darkness, that it might have been the flitting of a shadow, you inevitably draw a breath of relief that the scene is over, and indulge in a genuine feeling of the most hearty sympathy for this good-for-nothing, lazy, drunken, good-hearted vagabond.

Equally, can there be anything more affecting than the scene when, after his sleep, he returns to his native village to find that no one remembers him? Or anything more sadly eloquent than the simple phrase, "Are we, then, so soon forgotten when we are gone?" pronounced so simply and quietly, and with such a gentle vein of sadness running through it? This appeal, which any other actor would have thrust into the face of his audience as the place for "a point," Mr. Jefferson delivers so simply that you hardly at first catch the full force of its meaning, or become aware how much of life is summed up in the few simple words. It is a page out of real life, only another proof of the folly of supposing that you or I are at all essential to the rest of the world.

Mr. Jefferson's make up is very remarkable. He must have studied the character with remarkable earnestness and closeness to draw it so perfectly. Before the sleep, his face is a thorough picture of the good-for-nothing vagabond who exists in every village and is remarkable for nothing but his big heart, which draws to him all the children and dogs of the neighborhood—a sure proof of the humanity of the dog. In general I think that big dogs and small children are the most perfect instances of thorough humanity in the world. A man who has a big heart will always be recognized by a dog quicker than by the two-legged humans. Equally, dogs and small children always recognize each other. After the sleep, the picture of the old man is just as perfect. In every detail of age—the pains in the joints, the shambling gait, the wrinkled face and the childish expression—he is the counterpart of old age. In neither phase of the character does he ever forget himself. He is always "Rip Van Winkle." His forgetfulness of the audience amounts almost to impudence, and he is equally forgetful of the actors. Off the stage, Jefferson is the most genial of men; like Yorick, full of jest and humor. On the stage, he never forgets that he is playing a character. He is "Rip Van Winkle" in front of the audience, behind the scenes, in the dressing room, and in the entr' actes even. He never lets himself down for an instant from the necessities of the role until the curtain falls on the last act. He believes that an actor can never become too familiar with a part, never study it too much, and the result is that he plays just as conscientiously now, as he did when he commenced, and is constantly making the personation better.

Another singular feature of Mr. Jefferson's acting, is, that he not only makes "Rip Van Winkle" an actual living personage, but the dog "Snyder" also. Although "Snyder" never puts in an appearance upon the stage, he is as important a dramatis persona as any on the stage. I think I have a perfect conception of that dog "Snyder"—a long, lank, shaggy, ill favored, yellow cur, loving "Rip" with all his heart, hating "Mrs. Rip," a sworn friend of all the children in the village, one ear bitten off in an unpleasantness with "Nick Vedder's" mean bull dog, but with a big heart after all in his carcass, and a dog who would always take the part of a small dog in a quarrel with a bigger one. Jefferson succeeds in making "Snyder" an actual canine, although he is never visible to the eye; and when "Snyder" goes rattling down the hill, scared out of his senses by Hendrick Hudson's phantom crew, I acknowledge to a feeling of sadness for the poor beast who is "Rip's" only friend.

Although Mr. Jefferson never makes a point of theatrical attitudes for mere effect, some of his poses are remarkably beautiful and artistic, especially that one as he stands shading his eyes with his hands, looking with amazement at the village of Falling Waters, after waking up from his sleep; also the careless way in which he sits upon the table in the first act, and the peculiar attitude in the chair when he is ordered from the house, to which I have already alluded. They are just such attitudes as a painter would choose to paint, or a sculptor to chisel. They are thoroughly artistic, and much of this is undoubtedly due to the fact that Mr. Jefferson has very excellent talent in, and knowledge of, the sculptor's art. Had he followed it as a profession he would undoubtedly have achieved an eminence quite as elevated as that which he enjoys in the dramatic world.

If I have devoted considerable of this letter's space to Mr. Jefferson, it is because his "Rip Van Winkle" is a production of art worthy more than passing notice, in the presence of which, the gauze and tinsel of the spectacular drama seem very tawdry, and mock heroics of the sensational and romantic schools of action very false. He stands the only embodiment of the natural school of action—the only true school. Who will be the next to follow him, and assist to reform and restore the stage to its proper place as a great educator of the people and exponent of art?

September 5, 1868.