A CRITICAL EXAMINATION of the Merits and Demerits of the principal Performers in England and Ireland. CHA P. I. An Addrefs to Audiences. HE fimplicity of nature is her choiceft TH beauty; to examine it with the eye of an unrivalled mafter; to pluck the sweetest of her flowers; to tranfplant them into his own garden; to cherish and raise them to perfection, which Nature herself could scarcely tranfcend, was a task to which the genius of Shakespeare only was equal. He knew the springs of all our affections, the fource of every paffion, Q3 fion, and its method of acting upon the human mind; when he had explored, he painted them with boldness; he delineated them fo exactly, the affimilation was fo nice, that the copy was scarcely to be diftinguished from the original. Who is there that reads Clarence's dream in Richard the fecond, that does not fee every image that he describes, and feel the effect which he attributes to it: his account of the ftruggles which he fuppofed himself to have with the waters before he was fuffocated, is fo ftriking; the torments that he went thro' after death are fo powerfully painted, that one would be almost apt to believe, that Shakefpeare had paffed by the channel of drowning to the regions of immortality, from whence, by some strange chance, he escaped back into life, like fome of those visionaries whom we find mentioned in the Roman Martyrology and Venerable Bede. The beft writers of the Drama, who have fucceeded this great mafter, whether in the different provinces of ferious or comic, are in comparison of him but twilight to funfhinę. Το copy his manners, to catch his fpirit, and illuftrate his text, is a talk to which 6 fcarcely scarcely any actor was ever equal; he who is, muft confeffedly be allowed to stand among performers in a light as fuperior as Shakespeare does among poets; and there is no body who has traced Mr. Garrick through all his walks but what will allow him deservedly the fituation. Nature has furnished him with great fenfibility and fire, with a lively eye, not quite black, but extremely dark and piercing; his countenance taken altogether is strikingly marking; and no man is better able to suit his natural advantages to the different characters in which he appears. The perfection of his performance is fufficiently acknowledged by the repeated approbation of his audience. It would require more than a folio volume to defcribe the various excellencies which this gentleman displays in his caft of characters, whether tragic or comic. We fhall pass fome ftrictures upon his appearances in a few parts of each; and thence fome idea of his merit may be fairly deduced. Perhaps it may be said, with as much justice as truth, that he is the greatest, if not the only actor who has appeared in Lear and Abel Drugger; MacQ4 beth beth and Benedict; Hamlet and Sir John Brute; Chamont and Archer; Tancred and Ranger; Jaffeir and Bays; Lufignan and Lord Chalkftone. It would be difficult to determine which of the tragic characters we have mentioned require the ftrongest attributes; which of the comic stand in need of the greatest abilities. His performance in Lear is certainly very capital; nor is it in man's power to vary the paffions which actuate that character in a manner more striking. If it was the master-piece of Shakespeare to write, fo is it the Chefd'œuvres of Garrick to act: nor is there a beauty of the Play which he does not wonderfully illustrate; and thro' the whole his genius appears almost as powerfully creative as that of the Divine Author, from whose pen it dropped, Whether we confider him feated upon his throne in fullnefs of a content, which he fhares out with infinite complacency among his pelican daughters; raving at the affronts under which they lay him; drenched in the pitiless form; expofed to all the fury of the heavens; or mad as the vexed winds; whe ther ther we view him wearied with vile croffes; or at the last extremity, calling forth all the ftrength and fpirits of an almoft exhausted old man, to free himself from surrounding peril, and fave his dear Cordelia, we must pronounce him inimitable. His knowledge of the paffions, and their feveral methods of operating on the mind, are by him through the whole very properly marked. With what emphatic rage does he pronounce, Darkness and devils ---Saddle my horses; What heart of fenfibility is there that does not fwell with horror at the awful folemnity with which he utters the curfe of, Blafts upon thee, Th' untented woundings of a a father's curfe How beautifully expreffive appears the bitternefs of his anger fubfiding into a reflection on his own folly? how artfully does he endeavour to fupprefs the juftly provoked tear, when he fays, Old fond eyes, Lament this caufe again, I'll pluck ye out, And |