racter he represents require no fuch thing; or if his vehemence be not quite out of place, it is often of a very abfurd kind. These are faults which a man falls into, not thro' an excess of fire, as the vulgar suppose, but thro' a defect of it. He does not perceive that he is exerting his utmost efforts to exprefs a paffion which he is not to feel; and in confequence of that blunder he does not feel what he ought; and therefore 'tis impoffible he fhould exprefs it. In this cafe the actor greatly misinforms himself if he thinks it is fire that he perceives in his temper; it is rather a madness, an abfurdity, and as fuch the more judicious of the audience will be fure to look on it.

Perhaps it will yet remain the opinion of fome, that tho' an extravagant action or a misplaced rant, do not deserve the name of an excefs of fire; yet in many characters, even where the player is not blameable in either of these points, he may too freely give himself up to the ardour of his difpofition, and be carried away into faults by

it.

Under the fpecious pretence that every actor ought to tye himself down to a certain and regular gradation in his playing, there may be fome who will object that the warmth of theatrical action ought only to difclofe itself fucceffively; and that if the player, at the first instant of his entering into a paffionate part, throws into it all that fire which he ought to have expreffed at fome period afterwards, it will be just to reproach him with having too much fire, in that first inftant.

There is more of fhew than of folidity in this argument; and it is indeed already answered by

the diftinction which we have eftablished be-tween the vehemence of action, and the truefire of the actor. The beft judges indeed often. wish to fee the player raifing himself into the most violent emotions only by regular degrees, but they wou'd notwithstanding have his fire be always equal. Nature knows no gradations in the rife of this enlivening fpirit; nor do they expect to find any on the stage, where every man who knows what he ought to be pleas'd with, likes to fee the readiness of conception and vivacity of expreffion always at their utmost height.

The actress who has tenderness and fenfibility in her nature, and who eafily and readily feels every paffion that the author intends the fhou'd defcribe, is not for that reafon to flatter hérfelf that she may excel in the profeffion without fire. To feel the paffions we are to point out to others, is certainly a neceffary first step to perfection in playing; but it is not all that is expected of the performer, they may even be exquifitely felt, and yet for want of this fire they may be but very ill expreffed. The feeling them ftrongly may indeed be alone fufficient for the affecting a few particular perfons; but when a numerous audience is to be mov'd in the strongest and most pathetic manner, much more is requir'd.

In this cafe there is a neceffity not only for a due portion of fire, but even of vehemence. Both thefe are as requifite here, to the affecting the audience, as agitation of the air is to flame. A fire may be fufficient to warm, nay to burn the neighbouring objects, while it fmothers within its bounds; but it will never take place upon more diftant things, unless

it have the affiftance of a strong mind to promote and carry on its ravages.

The player, who wants feeling, will never be allow'd by thofe who are judges to be a good one, tho' he may be acknowledged to have the declamatory talents of fome of our beft orators; and even he who does not want this great qualification, but who, tho' he has it, wants fire to give it force and luftre, and who cannot be vehement, when the circumftances of the character he reprefents require it, will always find his reputation as inferior to that of the performer, who is able to add to the fame fenfibility, the force of that warmth and energy we have been celebrating, as the fuccefs of that orator, whofe élocution does not come up to the merits of his reasoning, will be to that of him in whom the auditors find both thofe advantages united and acting on them together.

We are ready to believe that Mr. Berry in the character of Sciolto, actually feels the fhock the author represents him under, when his daughter is prov'd to be a proft:tute: It ought to be allow'd him, that we even fee in his countenance the anguish, rage and defpair, which the author meant to defcribe in that affecting circumftance; but when he speaks,

It is enough, but I am flow to execute
And juftice lingers in my lazy hand-
Thus let me wipe difhonour from my name,
And cut thee from the earth, thou ftain to goodness.

Or when he afterwards, with eyes big with real tears, fays to Altamont,

Haft

Haft thou not read what brave Virginius did;
With his own hand, he flew his only daughter
To fave her from the fierce Decemvir's luft.
He flew her, yet unfpotted, to prevent

The shame that he might know

fhou'd I do?

Then what

But thou haft ty'd my hand. I will not kill her,
But by the ruin the has brought upon us,
The common infamy that brands us both,
She fhall not 'fcape.

When this player, we wou'd obferve, pronounces thefe lines, we cannot but acknowledge from his countenance, that he feels the meaning of them ftrongly; but we find he is very little able to give expreffion to that feeling. Let us compare this with the rage and anguifh of a father, in the before quoted King Lear, and remember how they discover themselves in the voice, as well as countenance of Mr. Garrick when he plays that character, and we shall fee the truth of what we have obferved as to the fuperiority of the joint powers of fenfibility and elevation above that of feeling alone in its strongest light. With what a heartfelt anguifh does he burn at the ingratitude of his child, and with what amazing force does he convey his inmost fentiments on it to us, when he cries out,

Hear nature!

Dear goddess, hear! and if thou doft intend
To make that creature fruitful, change thy purpose,
Pronounce upon her womb the barren curfe,
That from her blasted body never spring
A child to honour her-but if fhe muft bring forth,
Defeat her joy with some distorted birth,

Or

L

Or monftrous form, the prodigy o'the time,
And fo perverfe of fpirit, that it may live.
Her torment, as 'twas born; to fret her cheeks
With conftant tears, and wrinkle her young brow,
Turn all her mother's pains to fhame and fcorn,
That fhe may curse her crime too late, and feel
How fharper than a ferpent's tooth it is

To have a thanklefs child.

We wou'd not be understood, even in this eminent view of the fuperiority on the fide of the player, who has both feeling and elocution, to mean that he who has only one of them, is useless in a theatre. We have (thanks to our poets of later times) fcenes in which a man who has nothing but a declamatory voice without feeling, nay almoft without meaning, may acquit himself well enough: And Shakespear's felf has given us many inftances, in which the other quality fenfibility alone will do; in which power of voice or propriety of figure are not wanting, but if the player have only feeling in himself, he will make every body elfe feel with him fufficiently. The character of the old fervant Adam, in As you like it, is of this kind: And had not good fortune rather than judgment thrown it into the manager's way, to give this part to the abovementioned Mr. Berry, perhaps neither they or we had ever known, that in his proper way he is one of the best players of the time.

When we see that honeft veteran come upon the stage, his low condition, and his venerable looks, give us no room to expect elocution from him; all that we require in a character like this, is nature; and its utmoft merit is the being

strongly