SUDDEN DEATH from INTENSE FEELING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 153, 12 January 1871, Page 7

SUDDEN DEATH from INTENSE FEELING.

The sudden death of Gottschalk, while at the piano, in the act of performing his famous composition " La Morte,,' is by no means the first circumstance of its kind related in musical and dramatic history. We recall immediately Moliere aud his " Malade Imaginarie." The chief personage in the comedy is a sick man, and this part was played by the author himself. It was the fourth night of the run. Moliere, weak and ailing, went on for; it, and got through it until ! the ' vne 'r.iine in which it Wb his ! tiu'7 ; " "- iii* ?'l. ' " :>J '■-'"• ~" «so uu: taai .'in tHKi'.'iiief, a- >v i j the persona in the play, were . c>ed. But, alas! it was no acting, for the poor dramatist was dead in truth. So says Bayle's account; but in another book there is a statement that Moliere was attacked in the scene where he speaks of rhubarb and senna (passing himself off as a physician) — blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils, and his limbs quivering with convulsions. He was then taken home, and his sufferings ceased for ever in two hours afterwards. In biographical history, there are some names especially interesting to. readers of all tastes. One of these is poor Wilrnon, the Earl of Eochester, of whom Hawthorn speaks so tenderly in his English travels ; and another Captain Farquhar. Farquhar died during the run of his " Beaux Stratager," perhaps his very best work. " Look on them kindly," said he in his letter to Wilkes, speaking of his two little children, soon to be fatherless, " for the sake of him who was to the last hour of his life thine." With Hughes it was more singular still. He died an hour after he received the account of the success of his " Seige of Damascus." Moody, the tragedian, fell a corpse in the very middle of his performance of Claudio, in Shakespeare's " Measure for Measure." He had been very melancholy for some time, on account of the loss of some member of his family, and on the evening of the play was "more than once seen to retire to his dressing-room and weep. But his impersonation was much better than it had ever been before ; so much so, indeed, that his fellow-actors remarked it. At last in the scene where Isabella bids him prepare for execution, and he answers in those beautiful lines beginning " Ah, but to die and go we know not where " he suddenly became faint, and fell to the stage. The audience, for a moment, imagined it was a new point, and applauded accordingly. Claudio's heart had burst with grief. Somewhat similar was the death of John Palmer, for whom Sheridan may be said to have written " The School for Scandal." The bill of the night was " The Stranger." Palmer, who had been, like Moody, beset with melancholy for some time before, played the gloomy Count in the early acts with usual effect. After uttering the line, " There is another and a better world," with most touching pathos, he suddenly paused, closed his eyes, and leaned upon the Francis of the night, Whitefield. He had spoken his last words upon earth. Edmund Keen's last appearance was in " Othello," of which occasion Barry Cornwall and Hawking have given very touching accounts. It seems that all had gone well until the third act ; gleams of the old fire . bad flashed forth and electrified the house as in the early days, and many i hoped to see the tragedian yet recover.

and play many times again. But when he came to those grand lines — 0 ! now for ever Farewell the tranquil mind ! Farewell content ! He paused ; then pealed forth in tones solemn and sweet as the wailing of an organ — tones so full of love, so wild with vain regret — that eternal adieu to happiness, in which we have the heavings of a breaking heart, the despairing lament of a lost soul. He proceeded slowly, until the music of the last cadence became but a breath, " Othello's occupation's gone !" It was over. The house rose frantically. " Speak to them, Charles," whispered the actor to his son ; "I am dying !" ! And so ho was. Yet another strange anecdote may be related of this fatal coincidence in death. An American actrees, whose name we have forgotten, was performing the part of Mrs. Sheppard, in the drama of " Jack Sheppard," In one scene her business was to stab herself. " Now," said she laughingly to some one in the wing, just before entering the stage, " I will go on and be killed, and then go home." Thoughtless jest ! she had scarcely stepped forward three feet before a heavy weightfell from the flies and crushed her instantly. In the cases of Moody and Palmer it is probale that their spirits, already in a state of deep despondency, were seriously aftected by the parts they were performing. Actors of strong nervous temperaments very often lose their identity in this manner, so much as to give way to violent fits of weeping in the very middle of a scene ; as for instance, the late Brooke on several occasions, or to a madness, such as sometimes beset the elder Booth in " Eichard III ;" but the instances we have related of instant death from excess of emotion (or whatever it may be called) are the only ones on record.