Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/275

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THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC
263

equally to excel in the display of violent and pathetic emotions, to feign with equal correctness the wild phrensies of madness, and the sober melancholy of despair. She was happiest, I thought, in the delivery of those sentiments where tenderness and delicate feeling prevail; and of such a cast chiefly was the character in which we saw her perform. Her action is chaste, but never languid, and always correct, without any appearance: of study of constraint. On her first entrance on the stage, she was welcomed with universal applause, a testimony of public favour which was bestowed on no other performer, and every passage which she delivered with more than common energy was as flatteringly received. Madame Kaphuyze does not exceed the age of thirty, and for several years she has been the favourite of the Amsterdam stage. A Dutch lady, who accompanied us to the theatre, preferred her to Mrs. Siddons, whom she had seen in her principal characters, and of whose merits she spoke with just and critical admiration; but we sought her obvioully inferior to the great