vering the leafless branches of our trees, are the greatest beauties of nature; because it is their fortune to inhabit a country which is buried in fnow the greatest part of the year.

A Player of Drury-Lane, who is not without his merit when properly employ'd; who has good fenfe, a found judgment, and many other of the requifites for the ftage; but who remarkably wants this native fire about him, gives us a very eminent instance of the first kind, in the character of Priuli.

The poet, who has introduced this character in the midst of a high refentment, kindled upon a natural enough, tho’unjust cause, doubtless intended to fhew him to us in all the tranfports of rage and indignation for the lofs of a daughter whom he dearly loved, and who had been ftolen from him by a man whom he hated. Let us imagine Mr. Garrick under thefe circumftances: let us recollect the provok'd old man in King Lear; and when we remember from that, what ought to be the fpirited indignation of Priuli against Faffeir, we fhall fee a very ftrong inftance of the impropriety of forcing into this character a man who must be violent in spite of nature; and who, when he has conjur'd up all the powers of his foul, can give us only noify, empty found, inftead of that heart-felt anguifh, heightened into rage by the prefence of the offending perfon, with which the exafperated old man thus utters his curfes.

May all your joys in her prove falfe like mine.
A fteril fortune, and a barren bed
Attend you both: continual difcord make
Your days and nights bitter and grievous still:
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May the hard hand of a vexatious need
Opprefs and grind you; 'till at laft you find
The curfe of difobedience all your portion.

And afterwards, when the child of his once lov'd daughter is mention'd with an intent to footh him, adds:

Let it live

To bait thee for its bread, and din thine ears
With hungry cries, while its unhappy mother
Sits down and weeps in bitterness and want.

It is eafy to fee that the performer we are mentioning is, in this particular part, what has been much too feverely faid of him in all, a player in fpite of nature. There are many characters in which warmth and violence have no fhare; in these an actor, of this naturally fedate turn, is cut out to excel: but the forcing him into a part where things are requir'd which are not in him, is unfair, nay 'tis unjust both to himself and thofe who do it. If we would recollect, by way of contraft to the labour'd violence, the artificial heat with which these paffages are deliver'd by this actor, the true fpirit, the native fire with which a provok'd old man ought to deliver himfelf, let us look to the player we have juft mention'd, Mr. Garrick, in King Lear, at the conclufion of the fecond act, where, urg'd by the ingratitude and baseness of those whom he had rais'd to power, he cries out,

Heavens, drop your patience down!
Ye fee me here, ye gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age: wretched in both-

I'll hear no more; no-ye unnatural hags, I will have fuch revenges on you both, That all the world fhall-I will do fuch things; What they are yet I know not; but they fhall be The terrors of the earth-You think I'll weep; This heart fhall break into a thousand pieces Before I'll weep.-O, gods, I fhall be mad !

Perhaps nobody but Shakespear could have well drawn a character in fo ftrong a scene of rage and vehemence certainly no man, except the gentleman we have just mentioned in the character, ever did, or ever could do him juftice in the expreffing it. The whole compafs of the ftage will not afford us fo high a contrast of the true and the falfe fire, the native and the artificial violence we have been fpeaking of, as we fee in thefe; therefore more fpecimens of this defect are needlefs.

If we would proceed to enquire after inftances of the other; where the native inactivity of an actor's foul would cheat us into a belief that it has merit in it; and by a formal, dull, and cold recital, made in founding folemn accents, perfuade us, that the dignity of tragedy is beft kept up by this fleepy virtue; let us recollect the man who, about a twelvemonth fince, play'd a part in which we have been us'd to fee a performer, more eminent for force than for vivacity, fhine to great advantage; we mean Horatio in the Fair Penitent. When we have called to mind the true fpirit, the noble, the difdainful anger with which Mr. Quin addreffes Lothario in their quarrel, let us remember the philofophic fpirit, and cool blood with which this gentleman fpoke

'Tis well you are-the man who wrongs my friend,

To the earth's utmost verge wou'd I purfue;
No place, tho' ere fo holy, fhou'd protect him;
No fhape that artful fear ere found fhould hide him,
Till he fair anfwer made, and did me juftice.

We shall then be perfectly convinc'd of the absurdity of the doctrine thefe people have fet on foot to fcreen their own imperfections, and be able to judge how much truth there is in the affertion, that fpirit and fire are always blameable in grave

characters.

This is a tenet ftrongly maintain'd indeed by this infipid fet of players; but they are to know, that no character has any bufinefs in tragedy that is fo very philofophic as to be out of the reach of all paffions; that the whole feries of our dramatic writings does not furnifh us with one inftance of a good play in which there is such a part; and we may add, that the player, if he has any of the native fire in him which is fo effential to his profeffion, can never fhew it to fo much advantage as when the character he performs is naturally fedate; but is forc'd, by injuries too great to bear, to rife into all the violence of rage.

If it be neceffary to ftrengthen the evidencewe have given, of the abfurdity of this tame playing in characters where the paffions dictate otherwife, let us call to mind the fweet, unpaffion'd gentleman who fhewed himself firft' to us, two or three years ago, in the character of Hotspur. This player was one of the phlegmatic rank, and had convinc'd himself, by what he had heard from that great enemy to unneceffary vehemence, Mackin, that the highest merit of playing was openly

openly in his way, if he only purfued his natural coolness. It was not eafy for a perfon, fo nearly concern'd as this gentleman, to diftinguish between a judicious and an unnatural fuppreffion of the figns of rage in the leffons that excellent inftructor deliver'd in his lectures; and in confequence of his firm perfuafion that every thing was right that was not violent, he told his audience, with all the temper of a philofophér,

By heaven, methinks it were an eafy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon
Or drag up drowned honour by the locks.

Let us not be dupes to the artifices of the first of these fort of players, nor to the fophifms of the latter let us not always take the exclamations, or the contorfions of an actor of the first kind for fire, nor the ice of the latter for prudence. Far from imitating fome of the modern frequenters of the theatre, who are continually preaching it up to the young actors, whofe fuccefs they interest themselves in, that they are of all things to moderate their fire; let us pronounce it as a general rule to every person who attempts to fhine upon the ftage, that he cannot have too much of this enlivening spirit; that multitudes of players have: the ill luck to displease their audiences, only be-cause nature has deny'd them this great, this interefting requifite; or, which comes to much the fame end, becaufe their timidity, or fheepifh. bafhfulness has prevented them from making use of what they have of it; and that, on the other hand, many of our actors, who at prefent meet with a frequent applaufe, would eftablish themfelves a reputation much more general, and lefs: liable:

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