: known the other is a fign of candour, not of weakness or folly; and is generally the attribute of those perfons who are fufficiently masters of themselves to be able to disguise their manner of thinking, or even their fenfibility of accidents adverfe or fortunate, but whose innate honour and virtue will not fuffer them to betray the truth. There are fome tones of the voice which are to be varied even under the fame genus. The figure of fpeech, which we call irony, may be equally dictated to us by anger, by contempt, or by mere mirth and good humour; but the ironical tone of voice, which is proper for the expreffing one of thefe kind of fentiments, is by no means proper to explain ourselves by, when we mean either of the other two. Love and friendship, in the fame manner, frequently fpeak the fame language; but the tone of voice by which they are to be expreffed, is by no means the fame : even the tones in which the various kinds of friendship itself are to be deliver'd, differ extremely from one another. That by which a father expreffes his tenderness and care for his favourite fon, is very different from that by which the fentiments of one friend are expreffed to another no way related to him. CHAP. CHAP. V. What ought to be the Manner of Recitation in Comedy. E XCEPTING only a very few inftances, in which it is the bufinefs of the player to entertain his audience with an affected and intentionally ridiculous, declamatory manner, nothing in comedy is to be deliver'd in the way of declamation. It is a general, and, allowing only for a very few exceptions, an indifpenfible rule, that the actor, in comedy, is to recite as naturally as poffible: he is to deliver what he has to fay, in the very fame manner that he would have fpoken it off the ftage, if he had been in the fame circumftances in real life that the perfon he reprefents is plac'd in. There is much lefs difficulty in conforming to this rule, in speaking the parts in thofe comedies which are written in what is now the ufual and natural manner, that is, in profe, than there was in delivering the author's language in the fame natural manner, when an abfurd cuftom had, an age or two ago, made it neceffary for the author to throw many at least, if not all his fpeeches, into verfe. In France the fame fpecies of folly, in a great measure, ftill reigns; and tho it is the intereft of the actors there, if they know the value of their reputation, to fpeak, for this reafon, nothing but profe, and notwithstanding that among whole companies of their comedians, it is no uncommon thing not to have fo much as one person who can speak verfe decently; yet the whole company generally prefer the plays writ ten ten in verfe; and this for no better reason, than that their parts in them are more easily remembered. The French audiences alfo greatly help forward this false taste, as the generality of them never fail to give the preference to a comedy written in verse, tho' the poet has evidently both cramp'd himself, and thrown a thousand difficulties in the way of the performer by writing it fo. It is not the bufinefs of a treatise of this kind to determine, whether the laws of poetry, fo far as they regard verfification, belong to comedy, properly fo call'd, or not; or whether there are fome, and only fome cafes in which they may, or ought to be admitted. Perhaps the judicious reader of those comedies that have been written in it, will find, that one great reason for the author's adding this tinfel to his piece, has been his wanting fterling merit to recommend it; and that one great thing that discountenanc'd profe, among those writers who fet it on foot, was, that as it had only the wit it contain❜d to recommend it, there requir'd more of that valuable commodity in it, than where there was fomething that might amufe the ear without it. Nothing can be more evident, than that rhyme and measure always tend to take off greatly from the air of truth, nature and reality, which the ilogue would otherwife have. In confequence of this, the actor's principal care and study ought to be, wherever, he is encumber'd with these fetters, to break the one, and, as much as poffible, fink and lofe the other in the reciting. Several of our Shakespear's and Ben Johnson's plays have paffages in rhyme and measure, in fome parts; and that excellent compofition Co mus anus 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 feen those pieces, that there is a line in meafure, or a fingle rhyme in either of them. We have had occafion to fpeak 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 thofe paffages in Comus where the rhyme breaks in upon the folemnity and fenfe, 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 fo much of the laft as is enough, without rendering his delivery forc'd or ftiff, to keep up a peculiar fmoothness and majefty in it. Another inftance, in the fame piece, is his courting the lady as fhe fits 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 majefty to the fenfe that it wants in every mouth befide. 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 blackeft midnight born, 'Mongft horrid fhapes, and fhrieks and fighs un holy, Find out fome uncouth cell Where Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven fings. There, under Ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks, In deep Cimmerian darkness ever dwell. Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles And in thy right-hand lead with thee The spirit with which this player delivers this truly poetical speech, is fuch, as perhaps never was, or will be equal'd; and we hardly know whether moft to admire, that or his judgment, in the peculiar article we have been treating of, the making us lofe the rhyme, which here would add a stiffness to what the poet meant, and making it the freeft fpeech 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 ftanBa's and alternate rhyme of a ballad; yet the art |