fpeech requires variety, or where the different parts of the fame character give us the reprefentation of different paffions, who is, we will not fay more vary'd, but who is fo much, fo very different from himself as this performer? If he is thus full of variety where neceffary in the feveral parts of the fame character, how vastly more fo is he in the different characters he plays! Thefe plead loudly against this charge of monotony as a natural imperfection in him, as they are as various as can be felected from the whole compafs of our dramatic writings.. Will any man fuppofe that the player has a natural and unalterable fameness in his voice and manner who performs two fo different parts as thofe of Cato and Sir John Falstaff, and both equally well; both fo well, that the greatest players of the age have never dar'd to put themselves upon the comparifon with him in either of them. If any one fufpect Mr. Quin of too much fameness in his manner in Cato, let them fufpend their judgment till they have feen him in Jaques; let them attend to his defcription of the fool: A fool, a fool, I met a fool i'th' foreft, Call me not fool till heaven hath fent me for tune: And then he drew a dial from his poak, And, looking on it with lack-luftre eye, Says very gravely, It is ten o'clock. Thus Thus may we fee, quoth he, how the world wags; 'Tis but an hour ago that it was nine, And in another hour 'twill be eleven ; An hour by his dial. O noble fool! Every body that is free from prejudice will allow that there is more variety in Mr. Quin's fpeaking this, than any player we are able to remember ever gave his audience in barely telling a story, for this is no more; tho' fo well given by the poet, and fo happily deliver'd by this player, that it gives us a greater variety of pleasure than we find almost any where in the fame number of lines. The part we are mentioning abounds with beauties; and this actor does not fail to give them all their true luftre. To give an additional inftance from the fame play, let us call to mind his manner of delivering that never too often to be repeated description of the several stages of human life: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; Mewling Mewling and puking in its nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy with his fatchel, Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin❜d, With fpectacles on nofe, and pouch at fide, Is fecond childishness, and mere oblivion, Whoever remembers his fpeaking this, remembers one of the greatest things ever executed upon the ftage: the masterly manner in which he throws off the measure in these lines has no small merit; but the inimitable beauty with which he delivers the feveral parts is fuch as one would think must have fham'd every body out of the charge of monotony against him, and establifh'd him as the ftandard of true and rational variety. If there can be thought to be any occafion for a farther inftance of this beauty in this great player, let us remember him in the Spanish Fryar, and recollect the change of his tone and accent, while he is threatening the Colonel, and when the palliating purse of guineas has been drop'd before him; or when we have thought of his Othello, let us remember his Sir John Falstaff: with what inimitable spirit, humour, and variety, does he deliver that excellent account Shakespear has given of his foldiers, "If I be not afham'd of my foldiers I am a fows'd gurnet; I mifus'd the king's prefs-money moft damnably: I have got, in exchange for an hundred and fifty foldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I prefs me none but good houfe-holders, yeomen's fons: enquire me out contracted batchellors, fuch as have been afk'd twice on the banns, fuch a commodity of warm flaves, who had as lieve hear the devil as a drum, fuch as fear the report of a culverin worse than a ftruck fowl or a hurt wild-duck; I prefs me none but fuch toafts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins heads; and they have bought out their fervices, and now my whole charge confifts of antients, corporals, lieutenants, and gentlemen of companies, flaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs lick'd his fores; fuch as indeed were never foldiers, but difcarded ferving men, younger fons to younger brothers, unjuft tapfters and oftlers tradefallen, the calm cankers of a quiet world and long peace, ten times more difhonourably ragged than an old-fac'd antient; fuch have. I to fill up the rooms of fuch as have bought out their fervices, You wou'd think I had an hundred and fifty tatter'd prodigals juft come from fwine-keeping; from eating draff and hufks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told me, I had been unloading all the gibbets and had prefs'd the dead bodies. No eye hath feen fuch fcare-crows-I'll not march with them thro' Coventry, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the moft of them out of prifon. There's but a fhirt and a half in my whole company, and the half fhirt is two napkins tack'd together, and thrown over the fhoulders like a herald's coat without fleeves: and the fhirt, to fay truth, was ftolen from the host at St. Alban's, or the reduc'd innkeeper of Daintry; but that's all one, they'll find linen enough on every hedge. Never was there more room for humour and variety in the player than in this famous fpeech, and never was there fo much of either fhewn in it as by the perfon we are celebrating in this part. We wish the charge of famenefs in deportment in all characters, which fome are apt to lay against another great player, could as juftly or as eafily be got over as the injudicious charge of monotony against Mr. Quin is by thefe, and might be by a thousand other inftances. We are also to reckon, among the number of the caufes of falfe recitation, or a vicious delivery in our actors, the reigning paffion that most of them have for fome particular manner of playing: if they fuppofe they have merit in any one thing, they will not reft till they introduce that fort of merit into every part, even into things the most oppofite and contradictory: if they have been told they |