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of*. It is also certain, that tho', in confideration of the deficiency of a number of proper subjects, we are induc'd to pardon in the persons who only play subordinate parts, the want of a peculiarly graceful figure, or of that fuperiority in the gifts of nature in general, which we look for in the players of the principal parts; yet we expect to find them tolerable: and indeed there is not one of the natural advantages which we require to be possess'd eminently by the first persons of the theatre, but we defire to fee in some degree in all the rest.

Let us look into any one of the plays of our writers of credit, and examine by it the merits of this point. We shall find all the characters engag'd in the whole play concern'd in animating and giving force to every scene of it, either by the share their passions give them in the incidents of it, or by that which they give to the passions of the reft, by the difficulties and perplexities they find themselves in, or by those into which their cunning or their absurdity throw the perfons whom they meant to injure or to serve: by their well-concerted blunders, the happy fruits of the sprightliness of the author's imagination, are the funds of everlasting pleasure to the greater part,

* The very first-rate actors would find a way of encreasing their reputation greatly, if they would sometimes take a pride in appearing in the second or even the third parts in our better plays. The honour of occafioning an audience to discover beauties in a part which they had never found in it before, is, in reality, much fuperior to that of obtaining applaufes from any of those grand characters which would itself command it, even tho' performed by but a moderate player.

at least, of every audience, and when nicely conducted, to the whole: or finally by their ambiguous actions or difcourse, which, presenting two feveral faces, gives occasion to the error of fome other character which is to be deceived, and by their continuance kept up in the mistake they were destin'd to raise. The very lowest characters in comedy are in this light to be continually in motion, and they are to keep our minds agitated during the whole piece : The very leaft among these are honoured with the name of actors in such or such a play; a name only given to the persons in a dramatic work, because they ought to be in continual action during the performance of it.

Voice and memory are faid by many to be all the qualifications that are necefiary to the fubordinate actors: But can voice and memory alone be fufficient for the player in reprefenting those characters, which, tho' not plac'd in the very fullest point of view, are yet often not less difficult to perform than even the capital part in the play? If the players of this lower rank want understanding, or fire; or, above all things, if nature has left them deficient in senfibility, how is it poffible they should succeed, we don't say to please, but barely to make themselves supportable, even in the less confiderable of those leffer characters; fince we find there is not one of them on whom the other more eminent perfonages of the piece, in a greater or smaller degree, have not a dependance ?

In tragedy the superiority of one of the parts of the play to another, is much greater than in comedy; but even the very lowest of the performers in these pieces, must not be wanting in the talents, at least in some degree, by which the greatest

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greatest are enabled to please. In many of the modern tragedies, we find a number of characters which tho' they do not intereft the audience fo highly as the three or four capital perfons of the drama, yet in the course of their parts have a great many very important things committed to them to be delivered, and those such as the audience will not bear to fee disfigured and mangled. Some passages there are in those characters which are only introduc'd as the confidants of the Kings and Heroes, and particularly in their recitals of events; this is a business they are generally charg'd with, and is, at least to the generality of an audience, as striking as the most artfully condu&ed scenes, by means of the fucceffion of the paffions they are addre's'd to, and the pomp of images in the description.

How can an actor fucceed without those natural advantages we have been describing, when he is to preferve all the dignity, all the beauty, that the author has given to one of these passages in the character he represents? These interefting recitations make indeed usually but a very finall part of the character of the confidant, and it is for this reason that these parts are so difficult to perform, or more properly speaking, are so seldom play'd well: A performer who is supported in his action by a part which is through the whole interesting and pathetick, must be a very bad one indeed, if he does not get applause from it. 'Tis a much greater difficulty to be graceful in the more trivial parts of a character in which there is something eminent: to find that fupport from the knowledge of the profeffion, which it is in vain to hope for from the far greater part of the character that it is allotted to appear in, provided

the performer's figure be not absolutely shocking, it is his business to impose upon the audience by a rich and well fancy'd dress. The player must have been favour'd in an extraordinary manner by nature, who can command respect in a plain habit.

The perfons whom the several neceffities of a theatre throw at a great distance from the shining characters, were much to be pitied, if while they have occafion for so many accomplishments and advantages from nature, they had reason to fear that while they possess'd all we require of them, they shou'd never be in the way of exciting, in any great degree, our attention or regard: Let us undeceive them in this difcouraging circumstance, and give a proper encouragement to their merit, by assuring such that our good opinion of them is not proportion'd to the consequence of their parts, but to the manner in which they acquit themselves in them; that real merit will find the way to shew itself as well under the name of Roffano as of Lothario or Horatio; and that when we are examining the merit of a portrait, we are not influenc'd by its being that of a monarch, more than by its being that of a common foldier.

REFLECTION II.

Tho' Persons are happy in the principal Advantages which are required in theatrical Performers, ought they not in general, after a certain Age, to quit the Stage?

WHA

HAT has been already observed in regard to the figure, may in a great meafure be applied also to the age of the theatrical

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trical performer. The greater part of an audience may expect to see upon the stage none but such whose face and figure are made to please, to charm the eyes; or fuch as are in the full bloom of life as to their age. We have abundantly prov'd that the former wou'd be an unreasonable injunction upon the managers of a playhouse; and, on just examination, the other will prove no less so.

In the fame manner as we are more diverted with the part of a person in a play who piques himself upon a beauty which he does not possess, as the perfection imaginarily possess'd by the character is in reality less possess'd by the person who performs it; a character in a play, which the author has made very absurdly to affect the charms and prerogatives of youth, ought to please us the more highly, as it is perform'd by an actress who really has fo little youth, that she cou'd not affect the having it in private life without being ridiculous.

It is evident therefore that players in certain characters appear to much the greater advantage for being past the age of love and plea

fure.

But we ought to admonish the actors, and much more the actresses, not to abuse this principle. - When the cool reception they meet with plainly informs them that they can no longer please, let them not obstinately persist in forcing themselves upon us; and what is yet of much more consequence, and of more frequent necessity, let them, before they are oblig'd wholly to quit the profeffion, have the prudence and the resignation to give up those parts, which tho' they might be

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