wishing for the time of her lover's returning to her, with all the warmth of imagination which Shakespear has thrown into that foliloquy,

Gallop apace, ye firey-footed steeds,

To Phoebus' manfion- Such a charioteer
As Phaeton would whip ye to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy clofe curtain, love-performing night,
To hood-wink jealous eyes; and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unfeen.

Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
'And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world fhall be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the gaudy fun.

All the fpirit and feeling that Mrs. Cibber throws into this fpeech appears natural, when we fee fo fine a fellow as Barry for the object of it; but should we fee fuch a Romeo as we have juft mention'd, it would fhock and diftafte, instead of charming us.

We know indeed, when we come to reflect, that players are but the reprefenters of paffions, not the people who really are figur'd to us as feeling them; but we want the illufion to be kept up as well as it can be, and we would be taught to forget this circumftance, if poffible, till the play is over.

We remember a little Juliet, of very confiderable merit, at the Hay-Market; and nothing is more certain, than that she would have appear'd, even with the fame fhare of genius and accomplishments, much more pleafing than fhe did, if there had been fome gay young fellow for her lover,

inftead

inftead of a perfon whom we could not but remember, at every fentence the deliver'd concerning him, to be too old for her choice, too little handsome to be in love with, and, into the bargain, her father.

To change the scene, let us confider the fame advantages and difadvantages in regard to the other fex. What actor in the world can fpeak his love, his adoration to Mrs. Hale, with the fame force and feeling that he could to Mifs Bellamy? Or even fuppofing he could, how very differently would the audience be affected, by the probability join'd with the expreffion, in the one cafe, and the unnatural and abfurd condition in the other.

Mr. Ryan has an uncommon claim to our applaufe in the part of Oreftes; but tho' always well receiv'd in it, he feldom commands fo much of it as he deferves. The reafon is evident: Mrs.. Horton, tho' an actrefs of confiderable merit in many things, is an unnatural Hermione. We fee the lover defpairing, raging, nay, even mad for this inconftant miftrefs, whom he purfues against his reafon, againft every thing, even while he fees her doating on another: what is his motive for this? there appears no other but the beauty of bright Helen's daughter? Let him, for heaven's fake then, for the future, have a handfome, a blooming actress to inspire all this in him. If Mrs. Woffington were Hermione, with all her faults, we fhould not think it at all unnatural in her lover to tell his friend, who talks of his hav ing determin'd to forget her,

O, I deceiv'd myself.

Do not upbraid th' unhappy man that loves thee,

-When her father,

Great Menelaus, gave away his daughter,
His lovely daughter, to this happy Pyrrhus,
Th' avenger of his wrongs, thou faw'ft my grief,
My torture, my defpair; and how I drag'd,
From fea to fea, a heavy chain of woes.

-When in the midst of my disastrous fate
I thought how the divine Hermione,

Deaf to my vows, regardless of my plaints,
Gave up herself, and all her charms to Pyrrhus,
Thou may'ft remember I abhor'd her name,
Strove to forget her, and repay her fcorn.
I made my friends, and even myself believe
-My foul was freed! alas, I did not fee
That all the malice of my heart was love.

What propriety, what juftice does there appear in all the strength and energy with which this player delivers this, when there is nothing in the lady to command fuch an unconquerable paffron, when the poet gives us nothing but her beauty for it, and when the managers will not allow us that. We judge it very poffible for Mr. Rich to find as good an Andromache as Mrs. Woffington; and fuppofing that she had not half the merit that the really has in tragedy in general, and that her voice was ten times lefs adapted to the fury of this part than it really is, we are confident her figure alone would give a new turn to the whole play, if employ'd in the character of Hermione. Pyrrhus is a grave man, and may be fuppos'd to have forfaken the Grecian princefs, for other charms in Andromache befide thofe of a face alone; but Oreftes feems to hint at nothing but the beauty of Hermione through his whole part: and we are apt to believe that the fpeech, which, tho spoken

spoken fenfibly enough, fits very ill upon him as it is, in the beginning of the fecond act, would appear with a new face, fpoken in the very fame tone and accent, if Mrs. Woffington stood in the place of the other lady.

Madam, you know my weakness; 'tis my fate
To love unpity'd-to defire to fee you,
And still to swear each time shall be the last.
My paffion breaks thro' my repeated oaths,
And every time I fee you I am perjur'd.
Even now I find my wounds bleed all afresh;
I blush to own it, but I know no cure.

I call the gods to witness I have try'd
Whatever man cou'd do, but try'd in vain,
To wear you from my mind. Thro' ftormy feas
And favage climes, in a whole year of abfence,
I courted dangers, and I long'd for death.

As would also that, in which, on that cunning creature's foothing his paffion, in order to make him the flave of her faithlefs purposes, he in a moment forgets every infult, every abuse he had receiv'd from her, and exclaims in tranfport,

O joy! O extafy! my foul's intranc'd!
O charming princefs! O tranfcendent maid !
My utmoft wifh-thus, thus let me exprefs
My boundless thanks! I never was unhappy!

Unnatural as this appears to us, as the play is at prefent acted, and as it muft appear if spoken with the eloquence of an angel under the fame circumftances, we are certain it would have all the beauties of juft playing, if fpoken in the very fame manner, and the object only chang❜d.

We

We flatter ourselves that nobody will be fo unjust to us, as to understand that we are aiming invectives against the perfon of Mrs. Horton in this place, or against the talents of the other players, fince in the courfe of this work a ftrict impartiality is determin'd to be obferv'd. We cannot fuppofe it a fault in this lady, that fhe is paft five and twenty; nor in Mr. Uber, that he is not able to speak the elder brother in Comus fo well as Mr. Garrick would have done it. There are characters enough on the English ftage, for which every kind of actor and actrefs is fit. What we are cenfuring is the conduct of the managers of the houses, who cannot, or who will not fee the abfurdity of giving fuch parts to such persons.

:

It has been with fome degree of juftice obferv'd, on the other hand, on this occafion, that it is the fituation and circumstances of the character, and not the perfon of the actor, wherein we are principally interested in thefe fcenes; and therefore, that our understandings, and not our eyes, are to be the judges of them that we frequently fee, in real life, the finest women of the age fighing for the moft difagreeable fellows that one could, perhaps, pick out of the whole herd of mankind; and that oddities, or feeming abfurdities of this fort, ought not to offend us on the stage, when we find that they are common off it. We need only anfwer to this, that pof. fibly, on reflection, we might be able to reconcile ourfelves to this fort of reprefentation; but we are to remember that reflection is not our bufinefs at a comedy, nor would we have the pleafure we are to receive at these entertaining reprefentations depend on a ferious and attentive thought.