Edinburgh Bookshelf

Kay's Originals Vol. 2

Search

Volume 9 Page 272
  Enlarge Enlarge     Pictures Pictures
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 203 excited feelings too powerful to be repressed. When this ill-fated family bade adieu to our shores, they carried with them the grateful benedictions of the poor and the respect of all men of all, parties, who honour mitifortune, when ennobled by virtue. No. CCXLI. MR. CLINCH AND MRS. YATES, IN THE CHARACTERS OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BRAGANZA. THOUGHan actor of considerable merit, we are not aware that any biographical notice of MR. CLINCH is to be found. He appears to have played in Edinburgh during three seasons only; first, in the winter and summer of 1785, and again in the winter of 1786. Early in January of the former year he was announced as forming one of the corps dramatique ;I but he did not come forward till the end of February, when we find his arrival thus noticed :-“ Mr. Clinch, from the Theatre Royal, Dublin, who has been 60 long expected here, is arrived, and is to appear in the part of Othello on Monday.” The manner in which he acquitted himself on his (‘ first appearance in this kingdom ” is recorded in the following critique of his performance :- ‘‘ This character has always been considered as a most ardnous one, from the variety of qualifications it requires in the actor. * * Mr. Clinch, with a figure happily suited to the part, and a voice powerful and agreeably modulated, entered into the spirit of the muchinjured Moor in a manner that deeply interested the audience, and exhibited in lively colours the tortures of him ‘Who doats, yet doubts ; suspects, yet strongly loves.’ The passages in which E. Clinch particularly excelled were that in which Iago makea the first impression on him, and in that beautiful speech beginning- ‘- Had it pleased heaven To try me with affliction-had it rained All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head- Steeped me in poverty to the very lips- Given to captivity me and my hopes- I should have found in some place of my soul A drop of patience.’ Though we do not think that the declamatory parts in the beginning of the play were 80 well sustained as those scenes in which Othello is ‘ perplexed in the extreme,’ yet Clinch‘s performance, taken altogether, was a piece of excellent acting, and amply entitled him to the applause bestowed by a genteel, numerous, and, what is not RO often the case, an attentive audience.” During his first season Mr. Clinch enacted Castalio, in the Unhappy Marriage ; Alexander, in the Rival Queens ; the Duke of Braganza, etc. Scottish Stage.” 1 The Theatre WBS then under the management of Mr. Jackson, author of a “Historp of the
Volume 9 Page 273
  Enlarge Enlarge