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I avail myself of the present opportunity to say that, much has been done in the way of scenic allusion, much is still to do for both Prospero and the royal shade of Denmark. Neither of them' are yet rightly drest: the first is but a conjurer with a wand; the second but a son of earth, clothed in the solid armour of the warrior. I know how common it is to say, "these are beings of the imagination, and they must "be left to it." But I think it is in the power of the stage, to do something, even in representations of this kind, to prevent that dreary plunge of the fancy down to common place reality. A greater attention to a few known principles of the sublime would easily effect this.

There was a line of character in comedy of which Mr. Bensley was by far the ablest representative--the class of satirists, like Scandal in Love for Love, Manly in the Plain Dealer, and Sir Clement Flint, which I have seen him play with pleasure, after the great original, King. It was quite delightful to hear this beautiful apostrophe to Lady Emilythat lady, observe, was Miss Farren: "And there SHE "stands; with sensibility and vivacity so uncommonly blend"ed, that they can extract benevolence wherever it exists, "and create it where it never was before.” The audience applied this praise, as the author intended them to do, as not more characteristic of Lady Emily, than of the charming actress by whom that lovely being was represented. Mr. King uttered this with his usual neatness, but I thought him hard compared with Bensley.

Mr. King, though confined in his powers, was one of the most perfect actors that ever graced the stage. His peculiar sententious manner made him seek, and indeed require, dialogue of the greatest point. The language of common parlance was not for his mouth. He converted every thing into epigram; and although no man's utterance was more rapid, yet the ictus fell so smartly upon the point, his tune was so perfect, and the members of his sentences were so well antagonised, that he spoke all such composition with more effect than any man of his time. Those who remember his delivery of Touchstone's degrees of the lie, and Puff's recapitulation of his own mendicant and literary arts, will have no difficulty in assenting to my remark. It was this quality that rendered him the very best speaker of prologues and epilogues that was ever heard. His manner added to the keenness of the rhymed couplet, and he presented the successive pictures of the ludicrous with so much truth, and without stooping in the least to mimicry, that his forty lines on such occasions composed a little drama perfect in itself, which had a charm independent of its relation to the play it accompanied.

He was at home in the arch and impudent Valet, who shares his master's imperfections with his confideuce, and governs him by his utility. A character, which I do not think belongs to our manners as a nation, and seems imported from the French stage, but never naturalized among us.

Nothing approached him in the dry and timid habitual bachelor, drawn into the desperate union with youth and beauty and gaiety. His Sir Peter Teazle was a masterpiece. The hen-peckt and observant husband too was a character closely suited to his powers. In Lord Ogelby, he exceeded all that could be desired, and outran, I should think, by many degrees, the poet's fondest expectations. To personate such a character King must have known it. Among the debauchees of fashion he had probably seen some battered follower of the graces, whose "way of life had fallen into the "sear, the yellow leaf," but who would struggle still to hide the wrinkles on his forehead with the verdant chaplet of youth. This character proceeded from the hand of a master, and was embodied by King with a truth and identity, of which it were vain, perhaps, to seek an equal example in the whole compass of the drama. I yet seem to hear him in that delirium of ecstacy to Lovewell in the fourth act:

L. Ogle. Inever was in such exquisite enchanting company, since my heart first conceived, or my senses tasted pleasure.

Love. Where are they, my lord? (Looking about.)

L. Ogle. In my mind, sir.

Love. What company have you there, my lord? (Smiling.)

L. Ogle. My own ideas, sir, which so crowd upon my imagination, and kindle it to such a delirium of ecstacy, that wit, wine, music, poetry, all combined, and each perfection, are but mere mortal shadows of my felicity.

A strong principle of association sometimes felt, and frequently unperceived, combines the subjects of our thought. Parsons is associated with King in our recollections by their constantly aiding each other in the drama. And a more powerful support of the interest of the scene than Parsons must never be expected to arise. He was formed to excite laughter, and although he would sometimes sport with those about him, and enjoy his triumph over their muscles, yet, generally speaking, he was a faithful delineator of character.

He had a figure, a gait, a countenance, a voice, that marked him out as the actor of old men in comedy. Whether he exhibited their avarice or their fondness, their insensibility or their weakness, he never lost the character for a moment.

I cannot pursue him through the long list of parts which he retained; (for whatever he once touched became his property through life;) but I will just notice a few of his most prominent performances, as they start up in my memory. His Foresight was a perfect thing; and his Corbaccio in the Fox

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astonished and delighted the best judges in the art. His deafness in this wretched cormorant was truth itself—his eager expectation of Volpone's decease-his villanous temptations of Mosca, and his miserable delight at every succeeding invention of the parasite, were above all praise. Nor was his expression confined to his face, amply as the features did their office; but every passion circulated in him to the extremities, and spoke in the motion of his feet or the more striking intelligence of his hands: the latter became the claws of a harpy, when they crawled over the parchment, which blasted all his hopes, by showing that Mosca had become the heir of Volpone, instead of himself.

He was a master in the exhibition of vulgar importance. His Alscrip in the Heiress was ludicrous in the extreme-and Miss Pope was his genuine descendant. Old Doily in Mrs. Cowley's pleasant Farce of Who's the Dupe, yielded him ample scope for his talents; but it was perhaps reserved for Sheridan to show the utmost that Parsons could achieve, in Sir Fretful Plagiary in the Critic. I have repeatedly enjoyed this rich treat, and became sensible how painful laughter might be, when such a man as Parsons chose to throw his whole force into a character. When he stood under the castigation of Sneer, affecting to enjoy criticisms, which made him writhe in agony; when the tears were in his eyes, and he suddenly checked his unnatural laugh, to enable him to stare aghast upon his tormentors; a picture was exhibited of mental anguish and frantic rage, of mortified vanity and affected contempt, which would almost deter an author from the pen, unless he could be sure of his firmness under every possible provocation.

Perhaps it may a little diversify my page, if I here interpose some remarks of a merely critical nature upon the Critic itself. It seems quite clear to me that Sir Fretful should have been the author of the tragedy rehearsed, and not Puff. The former was a person to whom such a production might fairly have been imputed.-The pertinacity of Sir Fretful, and his resentment at the liberties taken with his muse, would have been infinitely more relished, than such feelings could be in Puff; who, besides, has shown himself so shrewd an observer of life, and given so masterly a detail of his own literary efforts, that HE cannot be supposed capable of the childish burlesque, which is to pass upon us as a tragedy written with a serious intention.

If in addition, Sir Fretful, had been given secretly to understand that Puff was the real author of the character of him, which Sneer had just pretended to repeat--and he had

allowed him to be present at his rehearsal, to secure his aid as a critic ;--between his resentment and his alarm, his petulance and his obsequiousness, a rehearsal of Sir Fretful's play would indeed have defied all gravity.

While I am on the subject of the Critic, let me record a remarkable instance of the keen sense of moral tendency in our audiences. On the first night of the piece, Puff entered abruptly upon his arts of assailing the charitable and humane, and those whom Providence had blest with affluence. The indignation of the audience here testified an apprehension that the best feelings of our nature might be chilled and checked by too marked an exposure of the impositions practised to excite it. The author found it necessary to insert a few lines (not printed) by which Puff disclaimed the wish "to deaden our feelings or lessen our humanity. To put us "on our guard, was, it seemed, essentially to serve the cause "of true charity." If the hearts of the audience were subdued by the apology, their judgment was reversed without a reason. The greatest moralists have taught, that the advantage to ourselves is the cultivation of benevolence into habit. Much reflection, and too close inquiry, leave time for the selfish passions to stop the charitable impulse. The man who deliberates will generally button up his pocket. Moreover, there is usually some distress where there is supplication. It may not be actually what it pretends; but let us not teach distrust upon system, lest it end in producing a habit of denial. There are many compensations for mistaken charity, none for hardness of heart.

It was not commonly supposed that Sheridan was a diligent reader of Dr. Barrow. Among the many admirable things, in the writings of that learned divine, is a definition of facetiousness. The late professor Porson once transcribed this into a small pocket volume of writing paper, in the way of a running text at the top of the page: intending to exemplify its positions from the copious stores of ancient and modern literature. I know not how far he had proceeded in the design, but such a tract would be a most interesting and tasteful accession to our elementary works. In the analysis which Sheridan gives of the PUFF OBLIQUE, or puff by implication, there is a striking resemblance to this masterly definition of facetiousness-the manner of putting the points is similar, and the cadence of the language is particularly imitated. This is Sheridan :-

"As to the PUFF OBLIQUE, or PUFF BY IMPLICATION, it is "too various and extensive to be illustrated by an instance; it attracts in titles and presumes in patents; it lurks in the

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"limitation of a subscription, and invites in the assurance of "crowd and incommodation at public places; it delights to "draw forth concealed merit, with a most disinterested assi"duity; and sometimes wears a countenance of smiling cen"sure and tender reproach.-It has a wonderful memory for "parliamentary debates, and will often give the whole speech of a favoured member with the most flattering accu"racy. But, above all, it is a great dealer in reports and "suppositions. It has the earliest intelligence of intended "preferments that will reflect honor on the patrons; and em"bryo promotions of modest gentlemen-who know nothing "of the matter themselves. It can hint a ribband for im"plied services, in the air of a common report; and with the carelessness of a casual paragraph, suggest officers into "commands-to which they have no pretensions but their "wishes. This, Sir, is the last principal class of the ART OF PUFFING—an art, which I hope you will now agree "with me, is of the highest dignity--yielding a tablature of "benevolence and public spirit; befriending equually trade, "gallantry, criticism and politics: the applause of genius! "the register of charity! the triumph of heroism! the self"defence of contractors! the fame of orators! and the ga"zette of ministers!-Critic, 1781. p. 44. Now for Dr. Barrow's definition of facetiousness :-

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"It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, that it "seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion "thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define "the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat al"lusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a "trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes "it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from "the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: "sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; "sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes "it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a "quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation; in cunningly di"verting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is "couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a "lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor; in a plausible "reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: some"times a scenical representation of persons or things, a "counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for "it sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a pre"sumptuous bluntness gives it being-often it consisteth in "one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell "how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being

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