Mr. Copeland spoke last evening in Sever 11 before one of the large audiences that invariably greet this delightful lecturer. The talk was on Edwin Booth, M. Mounet-Sully, Henry Irving, and other eminent players in the character of Hamlet.

Hamlet, Mr. Copeland said, has been played since Shakespeare's plays were first presented on the stage. Shakespeare himself played in it, taking the part of the Ghost. The character of Hamlet itself was first interpreted to our knowledge by Burbage, who could scarcely have been very pleasing, for we are told that he was fat and scant of breath. The next great Hamlets of the past that we know anything of are Betterton, Garrick and Kemble; but even though we have much to tell us how these actors looked and how they played their parts, we cannot get a very distinct impression of their impersonations. Actors are like the visions in Macbeth who "come like shadows, so depart." The best criticism n acting that has come down to us, is the one that Fielding gives us in "Tom Jones," when Partridge sees Garrick at the play.

When Mr. Copeland came to consider the Hamlets of the modern stage, he took for a starting point Mr. Warren's. saying about the character "Give me Booth for the picture, Davenport for the business, and Murdock for the lines."

The picture as Booth presented it to us changed frequently almost it would seem with the deliberate intention of the actor. It has been said that the sight of a beloved face in the audience used to inspire Booth, and put new warmth into his acting. He was by nature of the classic school, and he fell naturally into the poses, which caused many people to think of him as cold and statue like. In Mr. Booth's interpretation of the part of Hamlet, the points where you value the picture of the character most are first; in the scene where he follows the ghost from the stage, holding the hilt of his sword in front of him; and again where, having stabbed Polonius, he turns to the Queen demanding "Is it the King?" Mr. Irving presents varying and sometimes. grotesque attitudes one after another, and the highest pictorial effect by M. Mounet Sully is the fluttering exit after the "Words, words, words," speech to Polonius.

Edwin Booth was content, to a great extent, with the traditional business of the part, but he often varied the arrangement of the portraits in the closet scene. Sometimes he had both portraits on the wall, and sometimes he had one portrait on the wall, and a miniature round his own neck. The one striking bit of new business added by Mr. Booth was his uniform practice already mentioned of holding the cross shaped hilt of his sword before him as he followed the apparation. Mr. Irving has added, among several salient details, the action of Hamlet in rushing up to the throne after the flight of the king and queen, when the play within a play is done. M. Mounet-Sully will probably be best remembered as regards illustrative detail, for his management of the entire play scene.

As to the lines, continued the lecturer, no one speaks them in our day as Mr. Booth did. He spoke in verse as if it were his native tongue, and his voice vibrated not only on the ear but on the soul. He was the last idealist in tragedy. Mr. Irving poses as an idealist, but no one can see him in "Louis XI," or "Dubosc," without thinking what a very realistic idealist he must be. Mr. Irving's speaking of the text in Hamlet, as wherever this actor is called upon to utter blank verse, is by turns sing-songy and jirkily prosy, but Mr. Irving is the most intellectual of players, and has illuminated the character of Hamlet with many subtle interpretations. As for M. Mounet-Tully, Hamlet is so strange to our ears on any tongue not English that the mind of his hearer is divided between natural bewilderment, and admiration for the varied beauty of this actor's delivery of his own language.