art of this player almoft entirely throws off both, and gives the true force and dignity to the fentiment contained in it, that it would have had if deliver'd in profe. The paffage we mean is, his address to the lady after the entertainment his magic had given her.

Caft thine eyes around and fee
How from ev'ry element,
Nature's fweets are cull'd for thee,
And her choiceft bleffings fent.
Fire, water, earth, and air combine
To compofe the rich repast;
Their aid the diftant feasons join,
To court thy fmell, thy fight, thy tafte,
Hither fummer, autumn, fpring,
Hither all your tributes bring;
Here on bended knee be seen
Doing homage to your queen.

If we would fee a beauty of this kind, fet off in its true light and value by comparison, let us recollect the under players acting in one of Lee's tragedies. Whoever has feen Hannibal's Overthrow has found that fome, tho' very good players, and particularly excellent in their characters there, have not the address to keep the unnatural jingle of the rhyme out of their ears, even in fome of the most paffionate scenes; but the fubalterns never fail to give it us ftrong at every tenth fyllable, let the fenfe fare as it can. The Tag, in the Orphan, famous for having been spoke in this

manner,

To his temptation lewdly fhe inclin'd

Her foul, and for an apple damn'd mankind,

was alfo for a long time deliver'd, by fucceffive players, with fuch a religious obfervance of the rhyme, that there was almost as abfolute a ftop at the end of one of the lines, as at that of the other.

A more modern instance, and one which we wish to see mended, as it is of the number of the few things that displease us in a very pleasing play, is that of the Friar in Romeo and Juliet, who enters, at his morning employ of gathering medicinal herbs for the use of the poor, with these lines.

The grey-ey'd morn fmiles on the frowning night,
Cheq'ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
Now ere the fun advance his burning eye
The day to chear, or night's dank dew to dry,
I must fill up this ofier cage of ours

With potent herbs, and precious juiced flow'rs.
Mighty is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, trees, ftones, and their true qualities: For nought fo vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor ought fo good but, ftrain'd from its fair use, Revolts to vice, and ftumbles on abuse.

The poet, according to the fashion of the times, has thrown this into rhyme; but we do not want the player to put us in continual mind of that blemish, or to preferve what we wish had not been exhibited; we dare pronounce it, that if the actor we have mentioned before had these lines to fpeak, their fense would affect the audience as much more than it at prefent does, as the rhyme would be less distinguish'd.

СНАР.

CHA P. VI.

Whether Tragedy ought or ought not to be spoke in a declamatory manner.

PER

ERHAPS, among all the questions that have been or may be started upon the subject of the player's profeffion, there is no one about which the world is lefs agreed than this, Whether or not declamation be a proper manner of speaking for the performer in tragedy? The occation of all the diverfity of opinions which we meet with on this head, however, rather arifes from difputes about words than about things; and many who ftrenuously oppofe the decifions of one another on the fubject, only da it because they understand the terms declamatory and declamation in a different fenfe from one another.

Those who argue the most strongly against this manner of delivery in tragedy, in general underftand by declamatory fpeaking, that unmeaning recitation, that unnatural and monotonous delivery which too many of our fecond rate players have fallen into; and which, as it is not dictated by nature, may indeed deafen and weary the ears of an audience, but can never speak either to the understanding or to the heart.

Declamatory speaking of this kind ought to be banifh'd from every part, from every kind of tragedy; but our modern criticks, who, to avoid this extreme, run into the other contrary one of afferting that the verfe of tragedy can never be fpoke too familiarly, or brought too near to com K

mon converfation, forget that they are by this means robbing the tragic muse of a great part of her native and appropriated majesty, which in many cafes, tho' not in all, is to be kept up by the dignity of accent in the speaker. There was a time indeed when every thing in tragedy, if it was but the delivering a common meffage, was spoken in high heroics; but of late years this abfurdity has been in a great measure banish'd from the English, as well as from the French ftage. The French owe this rational improvement in their tragedy to Baron and Madam Cauvreur, and we to that excellent player Mr. Macklin: the pains he took while entrusted with the care of the actors at Drury-Lane, and the attention which the fuccefs of thofe pains acquir'd him from the now greatest actors of the English theatre, have founded for us a new method of the delivering tragedy from the first rate actors, and banish'd the bombaft that us'd to wound our ears continually from the mouths of the fubordinate ones, who were eternally aiming to mimic the majesty that the principal performers employ'd on scenes that were of the utmost consequence, in the delivery of the moft fimple and familiar phrafes, adapted to the trivial occafions which were afforded them to speak on.

It is certain that the players ought very carefully to avoid a too lofty and fonorous delivery when a fentiment only, not a paffion, is to be exprefs'd it ought alfo, as the excellent inftructer just mention'd us'd eternally to be inculcating into his pupils, to be always avoided when a fimple recital of facts was the substance of what was to be spoken, or when pure and cool reasoning was the fole meaning of the scene:

but

but tho' he banish'd noise and vehemence on these occafions, he allow'd that on many others, the pompous and founding delivery were juft, nay were neceffary in this fpecies of playing, and that no other manner of pronouncing the words was fit to accompany the thought the author expreffed by them, or able to convey it to the audience in its intended and proper dignity.

For the fame reason that induces many people who wholly condemn measure in comedy, to admit and recommend it in tragedy, we are of opinion that a more elevated and pompous manner of expreffion is proper in the latter, than is to be fuffered in the former.

When a piece of any kind is read to us, we are not fatisfy'd with the person who reads it, if he does not accommodate his tone of voice to the nature of the matter of the treatife; and even in common converfation we find no fault with an oratorial tone, provided the fubject be of importance. The native majefty of many parts of almost every tragedy require, for the fame reafon, that the performer deliver them not in a common tone of voice, but with a dignity which extremely well becomes fuch fentiments, tho' it would be abfurd if mifapply'd to trifles; nay, even in the other parts of a well written tragedy, we are not much hurt by a majesty of delivery, provided that the ftate and dignity of the fpeaker be fuch as fet him in a very confpicuous light, and place him much above the vulgar.

We are naturally apt to regard the antient heroes of Greece and Rome with a peculiar refpect, imoib'd with our earliest education, and to esteem them as it were a fpecies of men different from, and plac'd above ourselves; we therefore are not

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fur