mon conversation, forget that they are by this means robbing the tragic muse of a great part of her native and appropriated majefty, 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 fpoken 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 those 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 firft rate actors, and banish'd the bombaft that us'd to wound our ears continually from the mouths of the subordinate ones, who were eternally aiming to mimic the majesty that the principal performers employ'd on fcenes that were of the utmoft confequence, in the delivery of the most 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 reafon 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 perfon who reads it, if he does not accommodate his tone of voice to the nature of the matter of the treatise; and even in common conversation we find no fault with an oratorial tone, provided the subject 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 majefty of delivery, provided that the ftate and dignity of the speaker 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, imbib'd with our earliest education, and to esteem them as it were a fpecies of men different from, and plac'd above ourfelves; we therefore are not K 2 fur

furpriz'd to hear a Cato or a Pyrrhus deliver himfelf in a manner far more majestic than the ufual form of speech.

The pompous form of delivering tragedy is yet more peculiarly adapted to certain parts in those plays in which the events are taken from the ftories of the heroic ages: without doubt the player ought, in all things, to keep within proper bounds; he is not, even in these cafes, to go vaftly beyond nature: all that is to be allow'd him, is to fhew us thefe fcenes in a decent magnificence. Perhaps it is for this reason that no man ever did, or probably ever will, play the part of Comus with the fame fuccefs that Mr. Quin has done: notwithstanding that his person and age are very improper for the representation of a gay, young, and wanton god of revels; the majefty of his voice, and that pomp and dignity which he has been able to give to the declarations of that deity, charm and astonish us, and help in a great measure to keep up the illufion. The poet intended representing the character Mr. Quin plays in this mafque, not as a man but fomething greater. The French have likewife had an inftance of a like kind in a character they have lately much admir'd, and which being a magic power rais'd far above the ordinary pitch of human nature, they heard, with a just applause, rais'd also above mere nature in the fpeaking: the character we mean is Medea. When this forceress is lamenting the abfence of her faithless husband, the actress who represented her on that ftage fpeaks like another woman; but when the enters on the folemn rites of her myfteries, when the invokes the triple Hecate, and whirls along the air with her dragons, it was with the higheft admiration that

they

they heard the actress raise her voice to fomething more than mortal, and thunder out her

menaces.

CHAP. VII.

Of certain Obftacles which impair the Truth of the Recitation.

NE of the greateft obftacles we have to complain of on this account is an unlucky habit which too many of our players have fallen into, of straining their voices. When a man does not play in his natural tone, it is hardly poffible that he should play with truth: if the performers were themselves fenfible but of half the mifchief this unnatural trick does them, they would take infinite pains to keep within their compass. The very beft voice may be render'd inharmonious by being carry'd beyond its pitch, and where there is any natural imperfection in the organ, it becomes vaftly more fenfible in every ftrain, than it can be in fpeaking within compafs. We have several voices at this time upon the ftage, which, in their medium, are not disagreeable, but which, when the performer chufes to stretch themi beyond their pitch, become infupportable to the

ear.

Another powerful obftacle to the truth of a player's recitation, is monotony. Of this fault in delivery there are properly three kinds: first, a continual perfeverance in the fame modulation of voice; fecondly, a too great refemblance in the clofes of periods or fpeeches; and thirdly, a too frequent repetition of the fame inflexions. K 3

The

The firft of these kinds of monotony is much more general in this age than it is commonly fuppofed to be, and is equally the fault of our players in comedy and in tragedy: a great number of the prefent race of actors are from this fault eternally piping out the fame tune, like thofe little wind inftruments with which people teach birds to fing. The fecond kind is yet more common among our actors than the first, but it is in a manner peculiar to tragedy; the very people who play in comedy with fome fort of natural cadence, frequently when they have blank verfe put into their mouths, take up a fort of cant tone, and seem to think it a duty to clofe every sentence with an octave below. We are forry to bear hard upon the other sex ; but as every thing that carries the face of cenfure here is not meant as raillery but as hints for improvement, we cannot but obferve that the actreffes in tragedy are more faulty in this kind of monotony than the performers of the other fex; and that fome who are now but in a midling rank upon the stage would rife much higher, in the judgments of all those who are worth pleafing, if they could break themselves of this abfurd and unnatural custom. We have already mention'd a Lavinia who charm'd us very little lefs than the Califa of the fame play, tho' confeffedly the greatest actress on the prefent ftage; but this happen'd only once from this lady; the next time it was our fate to fee her, all the pleafing and fenfible variety of her voice was loft, every period clofed alike, and the fineft language that was ever yet put into the mouth of a woman, that of the Lady in Comus, became lifeless and infipid. The actress hinted at will pardon the freedom of this remark, which would