the capital parts in genteel comedy, is not folely limited to the few parts we fee it employed about, but is of ufe in every character and every circumftance effential to that fort of playing. It is to be varied indeed according to the peculiarities of the feveral characters it is exerted under, but it is still to fhew itself so, that we find it the certain mark that diftinguishes the gayer people of high life from the reft of the world. The graces this gives to the playing of the person who has the command of it, are often thofe lively, fprightly and joyous ones which diftinguish the younger part of the English nobility, and which wou'd be infinitely more charming than they are, nay infinitely more defirable than any others, were they not fo frequently found the marks of the want of the more folid and truly valuable accomplishments. Sometimes they are less genteel, and confequently lefs engaging, yet are they not then without their peculiar merit, provided that they are apply'd with propriety. The impertinent and idle gaiety of the modern race of Petits maitres, wou'd but very ill become the arrogant statefman, or the precife and philofophick Cimberton of the modern comedy; or it wou'd agree as ill with the character of a man who, fond of an imaginary importance, feeks only to imprefs a refpect and awe upon the perfons he converfes with; yet it will be very happily apply'd in the character of Jack Tattle, and fifty other of the idle beaux of the ftage. As it is the business of the player to throw all the graces he is capable of into the characters of perfons who are to fucceed by being amiable, this is not to be omitted even in those characters where thefe ornamental ftrokes seem lefs effen effential, provided that it can be done without running away from probability. As we require graces in the actor even in places where he is copying the very defects of nature, which render the characters that are poffefs'd of them in fome degree abfurd and prepofterous, much more will it be allow'd us to do fo, when the player is to reprefent perfons who are render'd ridiculous only by fome foible of a higher kind, and efpecially if they are fuch as are to intereft our thoughts in the conduct of the play. In many characters the innocent and the ingenuous graces are the most proper, the most effential and ftriking; in others, the great, the noble and the commanding, are the more proper for the purpose. Love wounds all hearts in the fame manner; and the effects which its attacks produce are much the fame in all forts of men; yet the pains it occafions are felt diffe rently according to the different circumftances of education, birth and temper: and their effects. are therefore to be exprefs'd differently by the actor, when playing characters different in these refpects. It is to the honour of the prefent actreffes of the English stage, that they express this difference better than perhaps thofe of any age have done, and in general, greatly better than the men: love, in the mouths of many of our first actors, is much the fame thing whether it be offer'd to an inferior, a fuperior, or an equal; but Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Woffington are well enough acquainted with that paffion under the moft different circumstances, to have a peculiar turn of mind for each; they can add all the graces graces of gratitude and humility to love, when it has a fuperior for its object; all the infolence and affected difdain that pride itself could infpire, when it is offered from a inferior, and is to be return'd to him; and know the juft gradations by which they may defcend to countenance a paffion by a return, and even to give an air of dignity to the weakness they are to acknowledge on fuch occafions. Some people have been fo fond of an imaginary difference between the genteel and low comedy, as to fuppofe that the making us laugh was the fole province and prerogative of the latter, and that pleafantry was incompatible with dignity of character in the other: but there need no words to prove the contrary of this to those who have an opportunity of feeing Mrs. Woffington in the character of Berinthia. It is fcarce a lefs error to fuppofe, as fome do, that the graces we have been recommending to the attention of the player who wishes to excel in comedy, are peculiar to the higher characters in it, and that no performer has any business with them, who acts any thing less than the capital parts. We expect more or lefs of then in almoft every character; every object that can be offer'd to us is capable of fome kind of perfection; and it is an univerfal law of the stage, that nothing fnould be prefented on it that is not as perfect as it can be in its nature: every player is to make his character resemble that of people in the way of life out of which the author has taken it, but then he is to make the resemblance as perfect and at the fame time as agreeable as he can; he is a kind of portrait painter, whose business it is always to draw a handfome likenefs: we except thole those characters which the authors have meant to affect us in the contrary manner; and fetting thefe afide, every thing that is reprefented on the stage is to be reprefented in its faireft light. CHA P. XIX. Obfervations on fome Parts of the Art of Playing, of a fubordinate Kind to thofe we have hitherto been treating of. FTER we have attempted to defcribe A feverally the more eminent parts of the player's art, it remains that we speak of fome others lefs worthy our regard, yet not lefs neceffary to perfons in the profeffion. In the preceding chapters we have confidered what is effential to an actor relatively to the characters which he has to reprefent; we fhall in this, take into confideration what he ought to be careful of, independently of the effect that he expects this or that particular character, which he acts, fhould produce. Of whatever nature he intends that effect to be, he can never fucceed in it without a diftinct articulation of voice. The power of marking to an audience, by feveral judicious pauses, the sense of what is spoken, and of giving to every part of a sentence only juft fo much time as it ought to have, is not lefs effential to the delivery than the care of being articulate. Nothing can be fo provoking as to find a noble fentiment converted into nonsense or abfurdity in the mouth of the speaker; and yet this is a provocation that no man ever faw the mafque of Comus, or the tragedy of Othello, per form'd form'd without, for thefe twenty years in the fubordinate parts; while, as to the principa! characters, we have feen them perform'd by one whose thorough fenfe of their beauties Teems to declare him able even to have wrote them. The editions of our plays are many of them fo faulty, that what we charge upon the performers ought often rather to be laid upon the books they ftudy their parts in a man may very well be able to play a third or fourth character, even in tragedy, who is not qualify'd to criticife upon the blunders of an editor; the care of this matter is much too weighty for the officer in a company on whom it is generally laid, that is, the prompter; and it would be very prudent in many of our players, where the fenfe feems dubious to them in any part, to refer themselves to fome perfon of judgment who might be able to put them in the way of delivering what they are uncertain about, much better than it is poffible they otherwife fhould, by explaining it to them, if right; or otherwife, by correcting the falfe pointing, or whatever other fault of the edition it may be obfcur'd by. There falls likewife in the way of the player, another kind of punctuation, if it may be fo call'd, which has nothing to do with grammar or fyntax, and yet is of almost as much confequence to him as the other; we may call this the premonitory punctuation for long fentences; this gives rules for the carefully managing a reft, in fuch manner that the perfons may be able, after it, to deliver a long series of words, which ought, according to their fense, to be spoken without interruption, without an unnatural stopping to take breath. The |