mus abounds too much in them, in the character of the God of Revels; yet, to the honour of Volpone and Comus, we mean when Mr. Quin represents those characters, perhaps it has not been found out by any body, that has not read as well as seen those pieces, that there is a line in meafure, or a fingle rhyme in either of them.

We have had occafion to speak of this great player's delivering the invocation to Cotytto, in his character of Comus in another place, and that on another account. It may be added here, that this is one of those passages in Comus where the rhyme breaks in upon the folemnity and sense, and in which Mr. Quin wholly finks it upon us; delivering the words in their natural periods, without regard either to the jingle or to the measure; except that he preferves so much of the last as is enough, without rendering his delivery forc'd or stiff, to keep up a peculiar smoothness and majesty in it.

Another instance, in the same piece, is his courting thelady as she sits in the enchanted chair. The poet has thrown every thing that he here delivers, into rhyme and a peculiar measure, but Mr. Quin finks both in a great degree upon us, and by that means gives a majesty to the sense that it wants in every mouth beside. Who, as we before observ'd, that had not read the piece, would find out the rhymes as he speaks this;

Hence, loathed melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks and fighs un

holy,

Find out fome uncouth cell

Where

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings.

There, under Ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks,

In deep Cimmerian darkness ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heav'n yelep'd, Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two fifter-graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful jollity:

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles;
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple fleek,
Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right-hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty.

The spirit with which this player delivers this truly poetical speech, is such, as perhaps never was, or will be equal'd; and we hardly know whether most to admire, that or his judgment, in the peculiar article we have been treating of, the making us lose the rhyme, which here would add a stiffness to what the poet meant, and making it the freest speech in the world. There is another, in the fame scene, yet more feverely loaded with the double chain of rhyme and measure; it is even thrown into the stanza's and alternate rhyme of a ballad; yet the

:

art

art of this player almost entirely throws off both, and gives the true force and dignity to the sentiment contained in it, that it would have had if deliver'd in profe. The passage we mean is, his address to the lady after the entertainment his magic had given her.

:

Caft thine eyes around and fee
How from ev'ry element,
Nature's sweets are cull'd for thee,
And her choicest bleffings fent.
Fire, water, earth, and air combine
To compofe the rich repaft;
Their aid the distant seasons join,
To court thy smell, thy fight, thy tafte.
Hither fummer, autumn, spring,
Hither all your tributes bring;
Here on bended knee be feen

Doing homage to your queen.

If we would fee a beauty of this kind, fet off in its true light and value by comparison, let us recollect the under players acting in one of Lee's tragedies. Whoever has feen Hannibal's Overthrow has found that some, tho' very good players, and particularly excellent in their characters there, have not the address to keep the unnatural jingle of the rhyme out of their ears, even in fome of the most paffionate scenes; but the fubalterns never fail to give it us strong at every tenth syllable, let the sense fare as it can. The Tag, in the Orphan, famous for having been spoke in this

manner,

To his temptation lewdly she inclin'd
Her foul, and for an apple damn'd mankind,

was

was also for a long time deliver'd, by successive players, with fuch a religious observance of the rhyme, that there was almost as absolute a stop at the end of one of the lines, as at that of the other.

A more modern instance, and one which we wish to fee mended, as it is of the number of the few things that displease us in a very pleasing play, is that of the Friar in Romeo and Juliet, who enters, at his morning employ of gathering medicinal herbs for the use of the poor, with these lines.

The grey-ey'd morn siniles on the frowning night,
Cheq'ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
Now ere the fun advance his burning eye
The day to chear, or night's dank dew to dry,
I must fill up this ofier cage of ours
With potent herbs, and precious juiced flow'rs.
Mighty is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, trees, ftones, and their true qualities :
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor ought fo good but, strain'd from its fair use,
Revolts to vice, and stumbles on abuse.

The poet, according to the fashion of the times, has thrown this into rhyme; but we do not want the player to put us in continual mind of that blemish, or to preserve what we wish had not been exhibited: we dare pronounce it, that if the actor we have mentioned before had these lines to speak, their sense would affect the audience as much more than it at present does, as the rhyme would be less diftinguish'd.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

Whether Tragedy ought or ought not to be spoke in a declamatory manner.

P

ERHAPS, among all the questions that have been or may be started upon the fubject of the player's profession, there is no one about which the world is less agreed than this, Whether or not declamation be a proper manner of speaking for the performer in tragedy? The occasion of all the diversity of opinions which we meet with on this head, however, rather arifes from disputes about words than about things; and many who strenuously oppose the decisions of one another on the subject, only do it because they understand the terms declamatory and declamation in a different sense from one another.

Those who argue the most strongly against this manner of delivery in tragedy, in general understand by declamatory speaking, that unmeaning recitation, that unnatural and monotonous delivery which too many of our fecond rate players have fallen into; and which, as it is not dictated by nature, may indeed deafen and weary the ears of an audience, but can never speak either to the understanding or to the heart.

Declamatory speaking of this kind ought to be banish'd from every part, from every kind of tragedy; but our modern criticks, who, to avoid this extreme, run into the other contrary one of aflerting that the verse of tragedy can never be spoke too familiarly, or brought too near to com

K

mon