and the incorrectness: but the farther I ргоceeded, the less I found it worth correcting; and indeed I believe nothing but Mrs. Abington's acting can make any thing of it. It is like all the rest of the pieces of Beaumont and Fletcher: they had good ideas, but never made the most of them; and seem to me to have finished their plays when they were drunk, so very improbable are the means by which they produce their denoue

ment.

"To produce a good play from one of theirs, I believe the only way would be, to take their plan, draw the characters from nature, omit all that is improbable, and entirely re-write the dialogue; for their language is at once hard and pert, vulgar and incorrect, and has neither the pathos of the preceding age nor the elegance of this. They are grossly indelicate, and yet have no simplicity. There is a wide difference between unrefined and vicious indecency: the first would not invent fig-leaves; the latter tears holes in them after they are invented."

(From an Extract of a Letter on the Progress of Tragedy.)

"The excellence of our dramatic writers is by no means equal to that of the great men we have produced in other walks.

"Theatric genius lay dormant after Shakspeare; waked with some bold and glorious, but irregular and often ridiculous, flights in Dryden; revived in Otway; maintained a kind of placid pleasing dignity in Rowe, and even shone in his Jane Shore.

"In Southern it seemed a genuine ray of nature and of Shakspeare; but, falling on an age still more Hottentot, was stifled in those gross and barbarous productions, tragicomedies. It turned to tuneful nonsense in The Mourning Bride; grew stark mad in Lee; whose cloak, a little the worse for wear, fell on Younge; yet in both was still a poet's cloak. It recovered its senses in Hughes and Fenton; who were afraid it

should relapse, and accordingly kept it down with a timid but amiable hand: and then it languished."

CCXCIX. Garrick.

Garrick's whisper on the stage was most deservedly praised for its being heard through the whole theatre, while the loud declamation of many of his colleagues was occasionally unintelligible. "The reason," replied Garrick, on this being remarked to him, " is, that many of the actors have no idea of distinctness in their pronunciation, and forget the lesson of acquiring a temperance that may give it smoothness.'

CCC. The same.

Garrick was one summer travelling in the north of England, when, happening to stop at a very obscure village, he heard the theatrical drum beating about the streets, and saw the principal performer (as was usual in those days) distributing the play

bills*. This was sufficient to induce him to stay the night, in order to see the comedy; which was The Recruiting Officer. He accordingly wrapped himself up in his great coat, to avoid being known: and, after having paid his shilling, seated himself in the pit; quite secure, he thought, from all eyes but his own. The actors, however, were better informed: as on one of the company recognizing him, it was unanimously determined in the green-room to return him his admission money; and the manager immediately waited on him for that purpose. Garrick, seeing the man approach, asked him, with some surprise, what was the matter? "Only to return you your money, Sir."-" What!" said Garrick ; "is it a bad shilling?"-"Oh, dear! no, Sir," replied the other; " but

*It was the custom about fifty years ago, particularly in the county towns of England and Ireland, to announce the play of the day by beat of drum through the principal streets, one of the performers attending to distribute the bills. It was likewise usual then, and long after that period, for the actresses to wait upon the principal ladies in the town with bills for their benefit-nights, and return their acknowledgments afterwards in sedan-chairs.

we make it a rule never to take any money

from one another.”

CCCI. The same.

On the same scale of acquaintance, a performer once told him, "that he often had the honour of playing in the same scene with him."-" With me?" said Garrick, in some surprise: "I really don't recollect it. Pray, what particular part was it?"—" The Cock in Hamlet, Sir.*"

This lady was so very natural an actress, and was so powerfully affected by her feelings, that she seldom retired from any great tragic part without being in some degree affected by a stomachic complaint.

CCCIII. The same.

It is generally thought that Mrs. Pritchard died of a mortification in her foot;

It was formerly the custom of the stage to employ a man behind the scenes to imitate the crowing of a cock in the ghost-scene in Hamlet; but this being often executed anskilfully, it threw an air of ridicule on the performance, and the custom was abolished.