"Their Majesties' Servants.": Annals of the English Stage, from Betterton to Edmund Kean. Actors-Authors--Audiences, Volume 2

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W. J. Widdleton, 1865 - Actors - 846 pages

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Page 34 - For physic and farces his equal there scarce is— His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.
Page 53 - ild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Page 135 - Sincerity, Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave Thy onward path, although the earth should gape, And from the gulf of hell destruction cry, To take dissimulation's winding way.
Page 254 - she did not look on them as female characters.
Page 80 - When Lothario gave Horatio the challenge Quin, instead of accepting it instantaneously, with the determined and unembarrassed brow of superior bravery, made a long pause, and dragged out the words, ' I'll meet thee there !' in such a manner as to make it appear absolutely ludicrous.
Page 162 - I never disgraced my colours by abandoning legitimate comedy, to whose service I am sworn, and in whose defence I have kept the field for nearly half a century — till at last I have survived all true national taste, and lived to see buffoonery, spectacle, and puerility so effectually triumph, that now to be repulsed from the stage is to be recommended to the closet ; and to be applauded by the theatre is little less than a passport to the puppet-show.
Page 76 - Garrick reckoned a tolerable author, though he has proved how little sense is necessary to form a great actor! His Cymon, his prologues and epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes, as well as in the footman's gallery. I do not mention the things written in his praise, because he writes most of them himself.
Page 408 - On crossing the stage toward the green-room, I met Kean, supported by his servant and another person, going in the direction of his dressing-room. When he saw me, he hung down his head, and waved his hand, and uttered some expressions of deep sorrow, and even remorse. ' I have ruined a fine play, and myself; I cannot look you in the face,' were the first words I caught.
Page 325 - ... tis what I prize so well that I ne'er pawned it yet, and hope I ne'er shall part with it. Nature and Fortune were certainly in league when you were born, and as the first took care to give you beauty enough to enslave the hearts of all the world, so the other resolved to do its merit justice, that none but a monarch, fit to rule that world, should e'er possess it, and in it he had an empire. The young prince you have given him, by his blooming virtues, early declares the mighty stock he came...
Page 228 - Have Britons drawn their sport, with partial view Form'd general notions from the rascal few ; Condemn'da people as for vices known, Which from their country banish'd, seek our own. At length, howe'er, the slavish chain is broke, And sense, awaken'd, scorns her ancient yoke ; Taught by thee, Moody, we now learn to raise Mirth from their foibles, from their virtue, praise.

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