to follow the example of that actress, and speak as nearly as may be in the manner she does, when she performs parts which have fome resemblance to those which they are to reprefent. Nothing could be more defirable, in the generality of our actors, than attempts of this kind; but nothing can be more difficult, not to say impofsible, than to fucceed to any great degree in them. We can no more, in a continued discourse, appropriate to ourselves all the inflexions of voice that we have admired in another perfon, than we can invariably, for a long time together, speak in an accent that is not natural to us. All that can be pretended to in this way, with any degree of fuccess, is to imitate, as nearly as that may be done, certain of the finer and more striking cadences of those performers, whose natural tone of voice is most like that of the perfo n is to attempt the imitation: as to the rest, nature alone can dictate what will be most expressive; and the fense of what is to be spoken is the only instructor which can disclose the fecrets of that eloquent magick of founds, by which the player is to excite in his audience all those emotions which it is his business to make them feel.

The principal of all these secrets is, not to employ indifferently those cadences, which tho' they are fomething alike in found, yet are different enough to be made, with proper management, the means of diftinguishing very different paffions. The tones of the voice, under the command of the actor, may be rang'd under different genera, each of which is compos'd of a number of species, in the fame manner as every one of the primitive

mitive colours divides itself into a multitude of different shades.

We may regard, for example, that tone by which we express authority *, and that by which we express pride, as both belonging to the fame genus; but yet it is evident that these two have their differences one from the other. By the first, we very frequently express no more than the just sense which we have of our own dignity; but by the other, we are always to be understood to carry the opinion we have of our greatness, much beyond the bounds of truth and reality.

The tone of voice, peculiar to the fimple creature who discloses all his heart to every body he meets, is very like that in which the prudent but ingenuous man declares the truth in any affair he is interrogated upon. They are both evidently of the same genus; but it would be an egregious blunder to use, or to understand, one of them for the other. The first is the tone of a weak perfon, who having neither understanding nor resolution enough to conceal his sentiments, reveals every thought of his heart, even in cafes where it is his intereft that they should be un

*

It may be imagined by fome, that we are here contradicting ourselves on this head; and that after having afferted that there may be several true and just tones used to express the fame passion, we are here admitting only one to express the sense of greatness which a man in authority carries always about him. We must observe, that we here use the term collectively; and mean, tho' we speak in the fingular number, every tone that is proper to express the sentiment in question; and the reader is defired to understand the fame, in regard to all the other tones which we are about to mention.

known: the other is a fign of candour, not of weakness or folly; and is generally the attribute of those persons who are fufficiently masters of themselves to be able to disguife their manner of thinking, or even their sensibility of accidents adverse or fortunate, but whose innate honour and virtue will not fuffer them to betray the truth.

There are fome tones of the voice which are The

to be varied even under the fame genus. figure of speech, which we call irony, may be equally dictated to us by anger, by contempt, or by mere mirth and good humour; but the ironical tone of voice, which is proper for the expreffing one of these kind of fentiments, is by no means proper to explain ourselves by, when

we mean either of the other two.

Love and friendship, in the fame manner, frequently speak the same language; but the tone of voice by which they are to be expressed, is by no means the fame: even the tones in which the various kinds of friendship itfelf are to be deliver'd, differ extremely from one another. That by which a father expreflès his tenderness and care for his favourite fon, is very different from that by which the fentiments of one friend are expreffed to another no way related to him.

CHAP. CHAP.

V.

What ought to be the Manner of Recitation in

E

Gomedy.

XCEPTING only a very few instances, in which it is the business of the player to entertain his audience with an affected and intentionally ridiculous, declamatory manner, nothing in comedy is to be deliver'd in the way of declamation. It is a general, and, allowing only for a very few exceptions, an indispensible rule, that the actor, in comedy, is to recite as naturally as poffible: he is to deliver what he has to say, in the very fame manner that he would have spoken it off the stage, if he had been in the fame circumstances in real life that the perfon he represents is plac'd in.

:

There is much less difficulty in conforming to this rule, in fpeaking the parts in those comedies which are written in what is now the usual and natural manner, that is, in profe, than there was in delivering the author's language in the fame natural manner, when an abfurd custom had, an age or two ago, made it necessary for the author to throw many at least, if not all his speeches, into verse. In France the fame species of folly, in a great measure, still reigns; and tho' it is the interest of the actors there, if they know the value of their reputation, to speak, for this reason, nothing but prose, and notwithstanding that among whole companies of their comedians, it is no uncommon thing not to have so much as one person who can speak verse decently; yet the whole company generally prefer the plays writ

ten

ten in verse; and this for no better reason, than that their parts in them are more easily remembered.

The French audiences also greatly help forward this false taste, as the generality of them never fail to give the preference to a comedy written in verse, thơ' the poet has evidently both cramp'd himself, and thrown a thousand difficulties in the way of the performer by writing it so.

It is not the business of a treatise of this kind to determine, whether the laws of poetry, fo far as they regard versification, belong to comedy, properly fo call'd, or not; or whether there are fome, and only some cases in which they may, or ought to be admitted. Perhaps the judicious reader of those comedies that have been written in it, will find, that one great reason for the author's adding this tinsel to his piece, has been his wanting sterling merit to recommend it; and that one great thing that discountenanc'd profe, among those writers who set it on foot, was, that as it had only the wit it contain'd to recommend it, there requir'd more of that valuable commodity in it, than where there was fomething that might amuse the ear without it.

Nothing can be more evident, than that rhyme and measure always tend to take off greatly from the air of truth, nature and reality, which the dialogue would otherwise have. In confequence of this, the actor's principal care and study ought to be, wherever he is encumber'd with these fetters, to break the one, and, as much as poffible, fink and lose the other in the reciting. Several of our Shakespear's and Ben Johnson's plays have paffages in rhyme and measure, in fome parts; and that excellent compofition Co

mus