represents it; tho' it is certain they were never intended to be fo. Let us put the merit of Mrs. Cibber in this way, in a yet fairer light of comparifon. We remember to have feen Mrs. Ward, in the character of Cordelia, receiv'd with the utmoft applaufe: Shakespear has thrown into the mouth of this lady expreffions, as full of love for Edgar, as thofe he has given to Juliet for Romeo; perhaps the most affecting of those we have just quoted from that character, fcarce equal thofe in which Cordelia, after fhe has discover'd her unhappy lover in his madman's habit, avows her love to him. Come to my arms, thou deareft, best of men, And take the kindeft vows that e'er were spoke By a protefting maid. By the dear vital ftream that bathes my heart, These hallow'd rags of thine, this naked virtue, Ridiculous even to the meanest clown, To me are dearer than the richest pomp We all allow Mrs. Ward capable of great expreffion, and even of great tenderness in many cases; but when we hear thefe paffionate declarations from her, we cannot but perceive, that fhe wants that native tenderness, that peculiar turn to love in the very heart, which gives Mrs. Cibber a fuperiority in all these characters, to whoever did, or perhaps ever will speak them; a fuperiority which every body has acknowledged, tho' few have known the fource of. We will readily allow (fome body will perhaps obferve) that people who are themselves in love, or who are form'd by nature with a tendency to that paffion, are more proper than others to perform tender and amorous parts; but we cannot fee why they fhould be the only ones who are proper for them. To this we fhall anfwer, that if we will be at the pains of enquiring but a little into the hiftory of the ftage, we fhall find that the highest scenes of love in our best plays have never been fo expreffively represented as when the actor and actress were not only of amorous tempers, but were actually at the time of their playing thefe parts heartily in love with cach other. The Pfyche of Moliere, among the French, ow'd its prodigious fuccef, at the time when every body feem'd mad after it, to this peculiar accident, that all the love which the audience fuppos'd fo excellently pretended between the principal characters, was real, and they were fpeaking their own proper fentiments to one another, under the advantage of that excellent poet's language. But are we to conclude from this, and a few other fuch fingular inftances, (our objector will perhaps continue) that because the parts have fucceeded very well where the persons who reprefented them were in earnest, therefore all actors and actreffes muft have the fame paffions in their hearts, at leaft in general, if not for one another, in order to their playing the fame fort of characters with the like fuccefs? Muft a performer have a natural tenderness of foul, in order to his playing a tender part expreffively? We fee every. day people of good natural difpofitions reprefenting tyrants, and perfons full of cruelty, on the flage, with general applaufe; and we have an eminent eminent inftance of an actor who is very far from having any thing of the ridiculous turn of the fribbles of the age, in his real character, who yet is able to represent them inimitably to us upon the stage; nor is it neceffary for a man to be a favage in his nature, in order to his playing with great juftnefs and expreffion the Jew of Venice. Why therefore (he will conclude) may the case not stand with love, juft as it does with the other paffions?, and why may not an actor or an actress, without being fufceptible of all the foibles of that paffion, reprefent very fairly, very faithfully, and very expreffively, all its tranfports? The man who is capable of arguing in this ftrain, may be affur'd that he has never been in love himself, and probably has never had an opportunity of seeing two people who were fo: when fuch a man has obtain'd a true notion of love from experience, he will be fenfible that whatever may be the cafe in regard to the other paffions, the expreffion of this peculiar one is not to be had from art. Whatever attempts the beft actress in the world, who has it not from nature, can make to catch the genuine addrefs, the affecting air and deportment of the truly enamour'd maid, they will be always as different from nature, as the cold pretences of a common creature whom a man purchases for the night, are from the paffionate tenderness of a woman who really loves him. It is at beft but very imperfectly that the player counterfeits the other paffions, when he does not really and naturally give himself up to them'; but they are all lefs imperfectly copied by him, from what he fees in others, than love can be. G A A man will but very badly imitate the tone of voice cf a perfon in a rage, if his own blood is perfectly cool and calm at the time; but he may take in other affiftances, and borrow from nature fome of the other figns by which that paffion generally manifefts itself; and nothing is more certain, than that feveral of the modern actors, in fome of their best parts, have this trick of deceiving the eyes of their audience, when they have not merit enough in the character to please their ears. The player in this case faves himself, by addrefsing his art to one of the fenfes, when he is fenfible he cannot do his business by the other. But this refource is wholly loft in love: when that is the paffion to be reprefented, the player can no more deceive the eyes than he can the other fenfes of his audience, if nature has not given him a foul form'd to receive the paffion. The truth of this principle may be evinc'd without giving the objector the trouble of much reflection: nay, we fhall perhaps be led, whether we will or not, merely by obferving facts, to acknowledge, that an actor and an actress who play together a fcene where the two characters they reprefent are defperately in love with one another, can never execute their parts with any degree of perfection, if they do not really feel in their own hearts, at least for that inftant, all the tenderness, all the tranfports for one another, that the perfons they reprefent are endowed with by the poet. In effect, if it were not neceffary in order to the doing juftice to fuch a fcene, that the performers mutually feel the fentiments for each other which the poet defcribes in their feveral parts, at least for the moment while they are playing them, why why is it that we fee an actrefs appear fo very different from herself when the plays fuch a part, and has the man fhe really loves for her pretended admirer; and when the plays the fame part without this advantage? or why is it that we see the very beft of our actors, and those in particular who, under proper circumftances, fucceed beft of all in love-fcenes, yet make nothing of it when the character to whom they are to pay their addreffes is given to fome female performer, who, from her age or figure, is wholly incapable of charming them? If it is not fufficiently evident from this, that not only a man muft be capable of, and form'd for love, in his private character, but must even be capable of taking it up occafionally, in order to play the part of a lover well, we may yet add a third queftion, Why is it that a tender lovescene, tho' ever fo well apply'd on both fides, is yet perfectly cold and infipid to us, when the person who represents the lover, is a woman in the habit of the other fex? Is it not evidently from the perfuafion we are under, that the tenderness that character expreffes, is all affected and forced, from the natural impoffibility of one woman's feeling for another all that paffion which fhe is to reprefent to us in the scene? If we would know the reafon, why it is poffible for the player to borrow the appearances of the other paffions, without being naturally poffelfed of them; and yet impoffible for him, unlefs he can love himfelf, to copy, with any degree of fuccefs, the tranfports of that tender affection of the foul, we may venture to propose the following conjecture on the fubject. |