Imatges de pàgina
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While there's no hold to fave us from deftruction.

All that bear this are villains, and I one, Not to roufe up at the great call of nature, To check the growth of thefe domeftic fpoilers, Who make us flaves, and tell us 'tis our charter..

Perhaps there have been few characters fo happily introduc'd to us, as that of Pierre is by thefe fentiments; we fee at once the greatnefs of foul we are to expect from him in every cir cumstance that fhall follow; and, as Mr. Quin plays the part, we are never fhock'd with the abfence of that greatnefs, even for a fingle moment,

When this player has the advantage of fuch a character as Cato, or Bajazet, his task is eafier in this way he rifes in those with the greatest eafe to a dignity that a character of this more private rank would not bear, and that nobody elfe equals but there is yet another part in which he excels even his dignity in thefe. The character_ we mean is Comus: in this, thro' the whole part, he is fomething more than man: the majesty of the Deity he reprefents, dwells about him in every attitude, and in the pronouncing every period; with what a fuperior greatnefs does he introduce himfelf to us by his manner of delivering the glorious lines that open his part.

The ftar that bids the fhepherd fold,
Now the top of heav'n doth hold,
And the gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay

In the fteep Atlantic ftream,

While the flope fun his upward beam

Shoots against the dusky pole,

Pacing tow'rd the other goal

Of

Of his chamber in the eaft;

Mean-time welcome joy and feaft.

And with what dignity, after the fong that is perform'd here, does he go on,

We that are of purer fire

Imitate the ftarry choir,

Who in their nightly watchful fspheres Lead in fwift dance the months and years. The founds, the feas, and all their finny drove, Now to the moon in wav'ring morrice move; While on the tawny fands and fhelves Trip the pert fairies, and the dapper elves.

H's invocation of Cotytto, which fucceeds this, is deliver'd with equal judgment with the reft. When men invoke the Divinity, they are to do it with the utmost humility and awe; but the player, here, remembers that he is only addreffing to an equal; himfelf a deity, and the imaginary being he addreffes to, no more. 'Tis therefore a peculiar mark of his judgment, as we have obferv'd, nota blemish in his playing, as fome have fuppos'd, that he here keeps up all the dignity he had fet out with, and in the fame spirit in which he had before fpoke, continues,

Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

Dark-veil'd Cotytto, t' whom the fecret flame.
Of midnight torches burns, myfterious dame,
Who ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darknefs fpits her thickeft gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air,

Stay thy cloudy Ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'ft with Hecate, and befriend

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Us, thy vow'd priefts, till utmoft end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the babling eaftern fcout,

The nice morn on the Indian fteep,
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep,
And to the tell tale fun defcry
Our conceal'd folemnity.

The manner in which he makes love to the lady, is of a piece with the reft. He is paffionately enamour'd of her; but then he courts her not with fupplications, but with promises; he gives her reafons for complying with him, rather than entreaties to do fo; and this in a tone and manner becoming a fuperior, not an inferior: in fhort, he makes love in a very moving and almoft compulfive way; but that rather as a Deity than a Mortal.

To fum up the praife of this quality in the performer we are mentioning in this part, we shall not fcruple to affirm, that if any thing claims the title of being the greateft fentence, and moft nobly pronounc'd of any on the English theatre, it is that threat of Comus to the lady, where, on her offering to get up to leave him, he tells her,

Nay, lady, fit-If I but wave this wand,
Your nerves are all bound up in alabaster,
And you a ftatue: or, as Daphne was,
Root-bound, who fled Apollo.

The majesty of this menace will perhaps always lofe half its power, when spoken by any body but the perfon we are celebrating for it.

Thefe

Thefe are the general rules for the deportment of the actor, where no peculiar occafion calls for geftures; but in many fcenes of tragedy, and particularly in many of thofe of the greatest tendernefs, or of the most violent emotions of the foul, from whatever caufe, the actor is abfolved from his general injunction, and is expected not only to ufe every proper gefture in its utmost force, that can mark to the audience any paffion, any affection of the foul; but he must even have recourse to many others which have no regular fignifica tion in their own nature, and yet ferve to keep up the life and fpirit of the action. It is not to be understood, however, that every paffionate part in tragedy neceffarily demands all these affiftances: it is even true, on the contrary, that fome of the greatest and most affecting scenes we know of, require no geftures at all; many of them would be render'd ridiculous by them; and perhaps it is not more just to tell the greatest actor of one of our houfes, that Othello would be more Othello with more gestures, than to inform a favourite of the other, that Romeo and Caftalio would exprefs fome of their moft tender fcenes much better if their arms had a little more rest allow'd them.

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Thofe geftures which tragedy allows as ornamentative, rather than expreffive, are vafily more under the command of art than the others; they have no meaning in themselves, the player gives them juft fuch as he pleafes by the look he adds to them: thefe are amufing, but the others are infinitely more important, as they regard that greatest of all confiderations to the judicious player, the truth of action.

An audience will expect that the geftures of a performer, even when they exprefs nothing, fhould yet have an air of expreffion and meaning; and particularly that they fhould feem eafy and natural, not ftudy'd, elaborate, and practis'd. In thofe characters which are meant most of all to intereft an audience, every motion fhould keep up an air of dignity; and not only in thefe, but in every other part, they fhould be occafionally varied. When they continue the fame throughout several scenes, the audience cannot but look on them as the habits of the man who acts, not as the effects of impreffions given him in the different fituations and circumftances of the character he is reprefenting.

To thefe rules we may add another more general one. The player ought to use more or fewer geftures of every kind, according to the tafte of the nation in which he performs. In France he fhould ufe greatly more than in England; and in England more than in Italy.

One farther remark may ferve to close this chapter. There are fore characters (to the honour of our poets be it spoken, they are principally in our farces, particularly in thofe which are borrowed from the French) which have been invented out of mere caprice and wantonnefs of fancy, and have nothing in real life that is at all like them. The actor has here no fure rules to go by, no model to form his character upon. Was there ever, among mankind fuch a monster as the Mock-Doctor? and what is the player to do who is to reprefent a thing that does not exift? Our way of judging of the performer in this cafe is, ufually, by comparing him with the player whom we remember to have laft perform'd the

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