expreffing in our gefture, our aftonishment, our grief, our anger, &c. And why is the player, because under the fame circumstances a dozen nights together, to give us but one of them in a conftant repetition! 'tis this that helps to pall the fame piece, however good, when daily repeated to us: We are fenfible of this variety in our own natures of expreffing even the fame paffion under the fame circumftances, and we are disgusted to fee the player, night after night, in the fame parts of his character use the very fame tone and cadence in his voice, the fame attitude in his figure, and the fame geftures and motions of all kinds. This ought to be as tedious to us, as it wou'd be to be compell'd to contemplate hour after hour the fame revolutions of the hand in a watch, which tho' juft, no body ever thought pleafing.

There is fome peculiar bye-play naturally enough annexed to certain fcenes in comedy, which we fuffer very willingly over and over again, nay which we love the repeated ufe of; but then we wou'd not have even this every time fervilely repeated in the fame manner.

The reafon why the modern actors are so very uniform, feems to be that they play rather from memory than from a feeling of the paffions of their parts. When an actor, who has the true feeds of his art in him, who has genius, fenfibility, and fire, performs a part in which he is thoroughly affected; when he has the command of himfelf fo far that he is able to vary his manner occafionally, his better way is then not to attempt the varying his geftures and play as the main end of what he is about; let him fuffer himfelf to be wholly poffefs'd of his part, let him 06 make

make the character as it were real to him, and nature will do the reft: the power he has of varying his manner will exert itself without his particular attention to it, and tho' his fenfe of the nature of the character will make him always appear in general the fame man in it, he will yet always appear new.

CHA P. XVIII.

Of graces in Playing.

S an actor fenfible that his playing is perfect

properly varied? An audience will always admire and efteem him in this cafe; but there will ftill want something more in order to their being charm'd with him whenever he appears; and he will fee others of much lefs merit please infinitely more, unless he finds the way of joining to these advantages, the graces of delivery, and those of action.

When we declare that every thing ought to be conducted with Dignity in tragedy, we say all that concerns the player in regard to it; we include in that fingle word all the graces that belong to this fpecies of playing. Thofe that fallin the way of the actor in comedy, are on the other hand almost infinite; what we have already delivered under the head of fineffes, belong principally to this article alfo; and much of what we have there defcrib'd, may be indifferently exprefs'd by one or the other of these names.

The fineffes in comedy are almost all of them properly enough arrang'd under the heads of graces but there are, befides thefe, feveral other

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graces

graces properly and peculiarly fo call'd, which will inake the business of this chapter.

These are what above all other things raise the reputation of the player, and they make one of the principal embellifhinents of genteel comedy. 'Tis a misfortune to the world that all who have attempted to teach this elegant article of the players profeffion, have found it as difficult to give any precepts in it, as to define what it truly is. What can be faid of it ap proaching towards a definition, is at the utmost only this, that it is the art of rendering nature elegant even in her defects, and this without altering her face. If the reader wou'd have a much better idea of what it is than all that words can give him, let him look upon Mr. Garrick in the characters of Ranger, of Archer and of Benedick. The fecond of these is far from being of the number of those he plays beft, and yet there are in many parts of it certain occafional graces thrown in, in his doing it, which we are apt to believe it wanted, even when the celebrated Mr. Wilks perform'd it. Perhaps the other two are as advantageous characters for a man of spirit to appear in, as the whole compafs of the ftage affords. They are in their own nature pleafing to the highest degree; but we are to remember that the more beauties the author has thrown into them, the more they require that fort of elegance in the performer, which we have been here defcribing as the general fpring of all the graces in the way of his profeffion: And we have found lately that the character of Othello fcarce had more fhare in rendering the convuls'd actor, celebrated by Mr. Foot, contemptible, than the native beauties of Ranger may have in height

heightening the defects of a performer, whofe fole merit is the being able to copy in it some few of the beauties of the player we have juft mention'd.

Every performer who finds himself not cut out for giving all the graces, all the amiable eloquence we are defcribing to his play in characters of this kind, will do wifely to renounce all thought of genteel comedy. A man may be able to make a figure in a Duke of Burgundy, or even to bawl out the character of the BaItard in King Lear, who is not equal to the task of performing the mad Edgar, or the afflicted king. There are enough of an audience who will think well of a man for being fomething like what they are told they ought to be pleas'd with; and while the English ftage ftands as it does at prefent, when noife will go down for paffion, and impudence for gaiety, the player who does not want these accomplishments, will never want employment, nor even reputation, with the generality of the world; unlefs he runs out of his way, and attempts things which require the moit oppofite qualifications.

The advice we are fo free in this place to give to the actors, is yet greatly more neceffary to the actreffes of the prefent time. Nothing is more certain than that a woman, unless fhe is qualify'd to behave gracefully in a drawing room, is not capable of performing the part of Lady Townley, or of many other genteel female characters of the modern comedies. Nothing is more fhocking to a fpectator of any degree of judgment, thin to fee a woman enter upon the ftage with the drefs of a princefs, and the air of an oyster-wench. Whoever faw the daughter

of

of Profpero in the Tempest as lately acted in Drury Lane, will be very fenfible of the force of this propofition.

It might have been poffible, we prefume, to have found out a perfon among the number of those whom the manager of that house has taken into his pay this winter, either because he thought he fhou'd want them, or because he intended the mafter of the other houfe fhou'd, a player more like a Duke of Savoy than the perfon who acted her lover Ferdinando; but all the infignificancy of that performer was loft to the audience in the fuperior abfurdity of the other; and scarce any body but instead of recollecting how much he was too bad for his dukedom, remember'd only how much too good he was for his mistress.

We wou'd not be understood to aim this cenfure at the perfons of the performers we are fpeaking of; we have feen them act in characters in which they have pleas'd their audience very well, and have very defervedly been applauded for it; we mean only to remind the manager that we fee his cunning, in fparing his better performers, and know how we ought to judge of him for it.

In many parts in comedy it is less to the purpose for the actor to put on the deportment of a man whom good company had render'd a complaifant and agreeable companion, than to give himself the air and manner of one whofe whole habit is form'd upon the plan of that of the gayeft and the moft fpirited people of the age.

The pleafing glofs, the elegant Je ne fçais quoi, that charms us in this manner of playing fome of

the