ny'd the fame conceffion. Is it poffible that a man can, in a series of different parts, continually command our applaufe, if he have not a just and diftinguishing apprehenfion, to give him at all times, and always with propriety, the neceffary admonitions for his juft deportment under every circumftance of every one of them? and indeed, if he have not a nice difcernment to per-... ceive the affinities of things, and the dependances of the incidents on one another? for this muft ever be the directing needle that points out the invariable pole, both to the poet and per

former.

It is not enough to entitle a player to our applaufe, that he remembers every ftriking incident, every beauty in his part; 'tis equally neceffary, that he diftinguish the true, the exact manner, under which every fingle beauty must be reprefented. It is not fufficient that he knows how to raife his paffion, he must know how to raife it by just rules, and to affign it its peculiar bounds and height, according to the degree the circumstances of his part require; below which it must not fink, and beyond which it must not rise.

It is not fufficient that his figure be in general good and proper for the ftage; and that his face can mark the changes of his foul: we fhall be dif fatisfied with him if his perfon be not always kept in a proper attitude; and fhall quarrel even with the expreffion of his countenance if it do not regulate itself at every circumstance, not only to the paffion, but to the degree of the paffion it is to defcribe to us.

It is not only effential to his fuccefs that he never let a paffage which he delivers, lofe the leaft part of its force, or of its delicacy, in his fpeaking

it:

*

it: when he has thus given it all the juftice imaginable, he must add to that all the graces that a ftudy'd delivery and action can beftow on it. He is not to content himself with following his author ftrictly and faithfully; but in many places, he muft affift and fupport him; he muft even in fome inftances become a fort of author himself; he mut know not only how to give the proper expreffion to every fineffe the poet has thrown into his part, but he must frequently add new ones; and not only execute, but create graces. A fart, a gefture, nay, a mere attention, properly employ'd, are often of as happy effect as a brilliant piece of wit in comedy, or a noble fentiment in tragedy; a peculiar cadence in the actor's voice, or a bare pause artfully thrown in, have frequently produc'd applaufe from a fentence, which if it had been delivered by an inferior performer, would not have had any attention paid to it by the hearers.

The art of exciting the paffions in an audience by the performer's raifing them in himself, with a judgment and exactnefs proportion'd justly to the feveral circumftances, is at leaft as difficult to arrive at, as that of giving its due force, or true delicacy, to every paffage. The poet who has made himself a mafter of the power of commanding the paffions and throwing the foul into every degree of them that he pleases, exerts his utmoft efforts in vain, and uses every art without fuccefs, when the actor does not join his fkill to the raifing the effects he intends by them. When even a

*The truth of this affertion will be made evident, when we come to fpeak of the fineffes in the art of the player, in the fecond part of this work. B 3

good

good part falls into bad hands, it is no uncommon thing to fee the audience laugh, where the author meant to have drawn their tears.

Few people are able to judge of the good understanding that is neceffary to the player, in order to his keeping up the fenfe and spirit of a fentiment; to prevent his exaggerating it to bombaft, or weakening and debafing it to nothing in the delivery; and to his diftinguishing the different fteps thro' which his author means to lead the paffions and the imaginations of his audience; and by which he is to carry himself from oppofite to oppofite affections.

There is an art of colouring peculiar to poetry, which, tho' in many refpects it be different from that in painting, is yet to be conducted by the fame kind of rules. We require of both the fame ftrength of tints, and the fame diftinctions in the diftribution of the brightneffes and fhadows; the fame caution in obferving the degradation of lights; and the fame art in throwing objects to a diftance, or in bringing them immediately under the eye.

It is not only the poet, but the player also, of whom we require this skill in colouring the objects he is to prefent to us; he, like the painter, must be a master of this ingenious theory of fhadows, the skilful application of which is by an infenfible gradation to conduct the eye from the firft and moft ftriking part of the picture to whatever lies obfcured in fhades behind. As the painter often gives us a profpect of an extenfive country in a very little piece, the poet fometimes in the compafs of a few lines, gives his actor a multitude of different impreffions: in this cafe the one as well as the other is to exert his skill in diftin

diftinguishing to us, that things tho' placed near to one another in the small bounds of the representation, are not neighbours to each other in the one cafe in the heart, or in the other in the profpect which is the fubject of the picture. The player ought to have as ftrict an attention to these differences, and as nice a judgment in them, as the poet; he muft no more than the painter, confound thofe things together between which nature has plac'd a vast distance, because they are to be seen in a small compass: But then he muft very nicely conduct himself in those fudden tranfitions, thro' which he is to make one paffion fucceed to another; and that perhaps its contrary.

The player has equal neceffity for addrefs and for precifion, to give the true ftrength to every paffage in his part, and to convey the fentiments delivered to his care, in their proper force and beauty. Nor are thefe qualifications lefs ufeful to him in dictating the neceffary geftures which are to accompany the expreffion; and in the forming not only his countenance, but his whole perfon, according to the nature of the age, ftation, and character of the perfon he represents; and even in the proportioning the tone of his voice and the attitudes of his figure, to the fituation in which he is plac'd.

It is evident then that a good understanding is as neceflary to a player, as a pilot is to a veffel at fea: 'Tis the understanding alone that governs the helm, that directs the whole fabrick, and calculates and marks out its courfe. There are fome inftances indeed in which an author has given fuch force and perfpicuity to a fentiment, that the understanding of the perfon who delivers

it in his words, is not interested in the reception it meets with from the audience; but these are only particular cafes.

The reader who has feen Milton's masque of Comus reprefented fome months ago at Drury Lane, will not be at a lofs for an inftance of this truth. The frugal manager of that theatre, who feems to understand it as the great fecret of his office to treat an audience as cheap as he can, and to give them no more good things at once than are juft fufficient to bring them together; had, at this time, converted a gaudy fcene which had been almost the only merit in a former entertainment, into a palace for Comus. He feemed to have confidered it as an unneceffary piece of luxury (to use the words of a very celebrated writer, who chufes to be namelefs on thefe occafions) to treat more than one of the fenfes of his audience at a time; and as the fight was here to be charm'd, there appear'd no fort of neceffity for addreffing any thing to the understanding.

On this occafion we had an opportunity of feeing the truth of the propofition just delivered in a very eminent manner; and found that Milton was able to do more, much more, than all that Addifon or his warmest friends and commentators have faid of him; even to make the man who play'd the part of the eldest brother, deliver words that fhou'd command applause.

We flatter ourselves that every body will allow in this cafe the understanding of the perfon who pronounc'd Milton's words, was not at all concern'd in procuring them a good reception; yet we remember the whole house rung with the joy of the audience on hearing the no

ble