them in fuch a manner that one cannot know them.

The actor in comedy will not only find it neceffary to curb the luxuriancy of his genius in this heightening of objects, but he will often be oblig'd even to ufe many precautions when he has confin'd himself within reasonable bounds, before he ventures to lay on the charge.

Any thing confiderable of this kind never fucceeds but when the player has beforehand preparatorily led his audience up to a pitch of enthusiafm, in which they will not be able to judge of things with the fame feverity that they would have done in cool blood.

We have obferv'd that this force in playing is an exaggeration wholly to be dictated by a pleafantry of difpofition; it is like those liberties which we allow ourfelves in converfation, where we fpeak with freedom. A thousand extravagancies which a man of prudence would never venture to throw out, if he were confcious that he was heard by fober and fedate people, yet pafs off with high applaufe in companies where noify mirth and jollity are on foot.

There are feveral tones and geftures ufed in thefe exaggerations by the players, that would appear abfurd and prepofterous if we examin'd them with a ftrict reflection, which yet please us greatly when we fuffer them to pass without fcrutiny.

Befides thefe two cautions in regard to the player's applying this extraordinary force, there are yet two others that muft neceffarily be obferv'd to give it any pretenfions to fucceed; these are, that it be not too frequently repeated, and that it be never improperly plac'd.

As

As this kind of heightening is only to be permitted on certain conditions, fo there are also fome peculiar circumftances under which alone it can be properly apply'd in general, it can never justly have place in any of those characters which make what we rightly enough call those of genteel comedy; and above all things, it is unpardonable in those which the author means fhould intereft our paffions in favour of their defigns in all the other parts of comedy it may be made agreeable, and it often is neceflary.

Of all the comedians on the prefent ftage, the greatest applause is due to Mr. Woodward on this account; the heightening he gives to the character of Trappolin in the Duke and no Duke, has a greater effect than most things of this kind. In the part of Brass in the Confederacy, he is excellent in a judicious and well-temper'd use of it; but the character that ought to make him famous for ever in this respect, is Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.

This is really a comic character, tho' introduc'd in tragedy, and is of the number of those where an exaggeration of this kind is allowable, according to the ftricteft rules, because he is not the principal character of the play, nor are we much interested about him: we look upon him as a merry fellow who has drop'd into grave company by chance, and therefore he may without abfurdity stretch his faculties to entertain us.

To this lucky circumstance we are to add, that Shakespear has happily thrown into his part one of the boldeft, wildeft, and most extravagant flights of fancy that he was ever author of: here are circumstances under which the player is at full liberty to throw in all the force he can, and under which no man but the actor we are commending

could

could ever throw in enough. With what infinite ftrength does he run thro' the famous fpeech,

O, then I fee Queen Mab has been with him;
She is the fairy's midwife; and fhe comes,
In fize no bigger than an agat ftone
On the fore finger of an alderman,
Drawn by a team of little atomies
Athwart mens nofes as they lie afleep.

Her waggon spokes made of long spinner's
legs;

The cover, of the wings of grafshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonfhine's watery beams;
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lafh of film;
Her waggoner a fmall grey-coated gnat,
Not half fo big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazle nut,
Made by the joyner fquirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind, the fairies coachmakers.
And in this state fhe gallops night by night
Thro' lovers brains,and then they dream of
love;

On courtiers knees that dream on court'fies ftrait,
O'er doctors fingers who ftrait dream of fees,
O'er ladies lips who ftrait of kiffes dream,
Which oft the angry Mab blifters with plagues,
Because their breaths with fweet-meats tainted

are.

Sometimes the gallops o'er a lawyer's nofe,
And then hedreams of fmelling out a fuit:
And fometimes comes fhe with a tythe pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lies afleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice.

It is not more certain that none but Shakespear could have wrote this fpeech, than that no man but Woodward can speak it.

Does the plot of a comedy require that the valets or chambermaids who have parts in it should put on the airs of people of condition? In this cafe, provided that the actor or actress do not carry the exaggeration to fuch an excess that it is abfurd to imagine the people they mean to impose upon fhould not fee the cheat, the heightening up the whole renders it greatly the more agree

able.

It may be worth enquiring, why it is that we readily allow, and even generally approve, of a comic actor's burlefquing the character he performs, by carrying it extravagantly above its true rank in real life, and yet never suffer him, without imputation of a fault, to turn his part into travesty, by throwing it into fomething under the proper dignity? It may be anfwer'd, that a man of condition degrades himself in fome degree by putting on the difguife of a perfon of lower rank, and we are by no means willing that the actor make himself still lower by appearing to be particularly pleas'd with the change: there is always danger of the character's being fufpected of being really the low thing it affects to appear, if the player carries the diffimulation the leaft jot farther than is neceffary to the keeping up the plot these are plausible reasons why we are always hurt when we fee the player in the character of a gentleman ufe his art of exaggeration in defcending to the level of the meaner rank of mankind; but it is much otherwise in the case where the heightening is employ'd in adding a greatness and confequence to the character that

does

does not naturally belong to it. A person of the common rank always gains upon us, by aiming at high things, and expreffing an emulation to afpire to the manner of people above him; and, as the utmost he is ever able to arrive at can be only a very imperfect copy of what he would imitate, we have the additional pleasure of feeing the abfurdity and vanity of his attempts, while we are laughing at the folly of the people on whom he is impofing for not seeing thro' the cheat.

There are fome parts in playing of which the heightening of the character is not only agreeable to the audience, but is even abfolutely neceffary. It would be too tedious to the reader to enumerate characters in which this fort of exaggeration is expected by every body; we fhall only observe, that we are to count among these all those which are copies of originals that are not known, fuch, for inftance, as Crispin in the Anatomift; thofe in which the author has intended to copy fome real character, but has given himself fo great liberties in the doing it that it is a traveftie or burlefque upon the original, not a genuine representation of it; and in fine, thofe in which he has given to a good portrait some additional and very ftrong touches; fuch is that of the Mifer, which no man will ever play tolerably who does not boldly exaggerate upon all that he ever faw cf reality, in the manner of his performing it.

The judicious player will always fwell out his voice, and be very free with his geftures in the principal parts of the characters of the firft and fecond fort that we have mention'd, because they ⚫ are in them elves heightenings upon nature; and