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fibly prevalent in them, that we perceive its furnifhing them with the fentences which we admire as they proceed from their mouths. The great pleasure we have from feeing a play acted, rather than from hearing it read, is owing to the keeping up the illufion, the appearance of a reality in the former circumftance; and that this may be kept up to us by the actor, it is neceffary, that what he delivers fhou'd feem the result of the occurrences that have occafioned it, not a part of a leffon got by rote, to be repeated to us at proper periods.

It is a very common thing among the Italian comedians, in their more ludicrous fcenes, to fill up their part with fomething spoke off hand, and not only unwritten, but even unpremeditated. The geftures with which they accompany this fort of pleafantry, often cheat us into a laugh at a very forry joke; but yet people fee their performances with pleasure they accept of truth in the place of wit, and are very well contented with knowing that whatever the fcene wants in eloquence it has in nature. Tho' we are fenfible that there are not quite fo many good things faid in one of thefe fcenes, as in one of our own more regularly perform'd ones; we cannot but be pleased, at the fame time, at the height the illufion is kept up to, while we are fenfible that it is in a great meafure real life, not an imaginary representation of it, that we are attending to.

This crime in actors, if it be one, is not peculiar to that nation; we have had inftances of it among ourselves. Our celebrated Norris had introduc'd a thoufand occafional pleasantries into every one of the ridiculous characters he was famous for playing; and wou'd feldom be prevail'd

with to take much pains about acting a new part; he only made himself mafter of the heads and matter of it, and of the sense of the whole play; his own genius for drollery supply'd the reft; and if the author rav'd at the abufe, the audience never fail'd to be pleas'd with it.

We live, 'tis true, in an age of criticism in which nothing of this kind is fuffer'd; but perhaps if fome of the modern farces which have been cram'd down our throats had been play'd off in the fame manner, the delicacy of these gentlemen wou'd have been full as little fhock'd as it has been at the representation of them as they were written.

It is indeed indifputable that the dramatic writings of a man of wit and genius, as they are ftudied and regular, are infinitely preferable to the impertinent additions that a player can be able to make to them extempore; but the imperfection of the human memory is one great obftacle to our feeing plays thus regularly compos'd, perform'd with all the advantages we cou'd wifh. When an actor's remembrance ferves him but imperfectly, he is liable to be confounded and puzzled in the midft of the moft interefting scenes; and even when it serves him faithfully, but that at the expence of infinite labour and difficulty, we continually fee the great care of recollecting what he is next to fay ftamp'd in his forehead, while he is delivering to us what ought to employ his whole attention.

The great care of the player fhou'd be to let us fee nothing of himfelf, but every thing of his character, while he is on the stage. We are vext to fee that Mr. Garrick in Iago, in Othello; and in king Lear, as well

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as in Abel Drugger: We wou'd, if it were poffible, have the identity, nay the existence of the man funk upon us in the representation, and have only the General or the Villain, the Monarch or the Fool fhewn to us.

How fhall an actor be able to fucceed in thus hiding himself under the covert of his character, if we continually perceive that he is only repeating to us fomething that he has before got by rote for that purpofe? Nay, to go farther, how is it poffible for him even to fhew us the actor, while his memory is upon the rack, and his principal attention is employ'd about it?

If the course of the waters deftin'd to furnish a fountain by their rife and falls, be ftop'd in part, by fome obftacle thrown into the pipes thro' which they fhou'd have been distributed, the jets and cascades will be able to perform but a very fmall part of their effect; and in the fame manner, if what the actor is to deliver do not occur to him with all that freedom and rapidity that it ought, the fineft talents in the world will be of very little use in the embellishing it.

There is in this particular a vaft advantage in the having been long accuftom'd to the ftage, and long practis'd in a part. Indeed without the latter circumftance in fome degree affift the player, it is fcarce poffible for him to fucceed well in this great point, of wholly forgetting himfelf and his own concerns, to give us the heroe he represents, unfully'd either with the fears or the awkwardness of the player who represents him.

We have seen the firft nights of Macbeth, and fome other characters which Mr. Garrick has afterwards acted with the highest and most deserv'd applaufe, hurt confiderably by his unacquaintance

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with the personage, and uncertain memory of the things to be repeated.

On the contrary, how much does Mr. Ryan owe to his long familiarity with the parts he plays, in the applause he receives from his manner of executing many of them. An inattention and abfence of mind too frequent with him, hurt his reputation in many characters; but where he throws off this indolence, how much the perfon he reprefents does he appear in many very capital parts. In the Prince of Wales, in the first part of Henry the Fourth, every thing is fo ready to his memory, and every article of his deportment fo perfect in his thoughts, that he is no longer Mr. Ryan, but the Prince, as foon as he enters on the character. With how much true fpirit, with how great juftice to the author, does he repeat his vindication and promife of fervices to his father, to whom, when he upbraids him with his degenerate vices, and tells him what he expects from them, he answers,

Do not think fo, you shall not find it fo;
And heaven forgive them that fo much have sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me.
I will redeem all this on Piercy's head,
And in the closing of fome glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your fon,
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And ftain my favours in a bloody mask;
Which wash'd away, fhall take my shame all
with it.

And that shall be the day whene'er it lights,
That this fame child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-prais'd knight,
And your unthought of Harry chance to meet.
L

For

For every honour fitting on his helm,

Wou'd they were multitudes, and on my head,
My fhame's redoubled: For the time will come,
That I fhall make this Northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.

Piercy is but my factor, good my lord,
T'engrofs up glorious deeds on my behalf,
And I will call him to fo ftrict account,
That he fhall render every glory up,

Yea even the flighteft reckoning of his time,
Or I will tear the treasure from his heart:
This in the name of heaven I promise here,
The which, if I perform, and do survive,
I do befeech your majefty may falve
The long grown wounds of my intemperance;
If not, the end of life cancels all bond,
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

The applause the audience always gives this performer on his delivering this fpeech, is far from being more than he deferves. We fee nothing of the player in it: 'Tis nature itself. The contrition, the refolution, the gallantry, and the folemnity exprefs'd in it, all fucceed one another as they wou'd do in real life; and we are ready to believe ourselves carry'd back to old times, and hearing the first fentiments of that noble daring that afterwards carry'd Harry the Fifth thro' the conqueft of France, breathing themselves out of his own full heart.

To return. The matter the player is to deliver, prefents itself much too flowly, even when it occurs juft at the inftant he is to speak it. His memory ought to take in at one inftant, not only every thing that he is to fay at the pre

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