great author, whose sense is deeper than the repeater's understanding. This true majesty Kynaston had so entire a command of, that when he whispered the following plain line to Hotspur, Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it! he conveyed a more terrible menace in it, than the loudest intemperance of voice could swell to. But let the bold imitator beware, for without the look, and just elocution that waited on it, an attempt of the same nature may fall to nothing. "But the dignity of this character appeared in Kynaston still more shining, in the private scene between the King, and Prince his son: there you saw majesty, in that sort of grief, which only majesty could feel! there the paternal concern, for the errors of the son, made the monarch more revered and dreaded: his reproaches, so just, yet so unmixed with anger, (and therefore the more piercing,) opening as it were the arms of nature, with a secret wish, that filial duty, and penitence awaked, might fall into them with grace and honour. In this affecting scene, I thought Kynaston showed his most masterly strokes of nature; expressing all the various motions of the heart, with the same force, dignity, and feeling, they are written; adding to the whole, that peculiar and becoming grace, which the best writer cannot inspire into any actor that is not born with it." How inimitably is the varied excellence of Monfort depicted in the following speaking picture: "Monfort, a younger man by twenty years, and at this time in his highest reputation, was an actor of a very different style: of person he was tall, well made, fair, and of an agreeable aspect: his voice clear, full, and melodious: in tragedy he was the most affecting lover within my memory. His addresses had a resistless recommendation from the very tone of his voice, which gave his words such a softness, that, as Dryden says, -Like flakes of feather'd snow, share of it, or what is equal to it, so lively a pleasantness of humour, that when either of these fell into his hands upon the stage, he wantoned with them, to the highest delight of his auditors. The agreeable was so natural to him, that even in that dissolute character of the Rover he seemed to wash off the guilt from vice, and gave it charms and merit. For though it may be a reproach to the poet, to draw such characters, not only unpunished, but rewarded, the actor may still be allowed his due praise in his excellent performance. And this is a distinction which, when this co medy was acted at Whitehall, King William's Queen Mary was pleased to make in favour of Monfort, notwithstanding her disapprobation of the play. "He had, besides all this, a variety in his genius which few capital actors have shown, or perhaps have thought it any addition to their merit to arrive at; he could entirely change himself; could at once throw off the man of sense, for the brisk, vain, rude, and lively coxcomb, the false, flashy pretender to wit, and the dupe of his own sufficiency: of this he gave a delightful instance in the character of Sparkish in Wycherly's Country Wife. In that of Sir Courtly Nice his excellence was still greater; there, his whole man, voice, mien, and gesture, was no longer Monfort, but another person. There, the insipid, soft civility, the elegant and formal mien, the drawling dress, and the empty eminence of his attitudes, delicacy of voice, the stately flatness of his adwere so nicely observed and guarded by him, that had he not been an entire master of nature, had he not kept his judgment, as it were, a sentinel upon himself, not to admit the least likeness of what he used to be, to enter into any part of his performance, he could not possibly have so completely finished it." Our author is even more felicitous in his and high farce. The following critic brings description of the performers in low comedy Nokes-the Liston of his age-so vividly before us, that we seem almost as well acquainted with him, as with his delicious successor. "Nokes was an actor of quite a different genius from any I have ever read, heard of, or seen, since or before his time; and yet his ge All this he particularly verified in that scene of Alexander, where the hero throws himself at the feet of Statira for pardon of his past in-neral excellence may be comprehended in one fidelities. There we saw the great, the tender, article, viz., a plain and palpable simplicity of the penitent, the despairing, the transported, nature, which was so utterly his own, that he and the amiable, in the highest perfection. In was often as unaccountably diverting in his comedy, he gave the truest life to what we call common speech as on the stage. I saw him the Fine Gentleman; his spirit shone the once, giving an account of some table-talk, to brighter for being polished with decency: in another actor behind the scenes, which a man scenes of gayety, he never broke into the re- of quality accidentally listening to, was so degard, that was due to the presence of equal or ceived by his manner, that he asked him, if superior characters, though inferior actors that was a new play he was rehearsing? It played them; he filled the stage, not by elbow- seems almost amazing, that this simplicity, so ing, and crossing it before others, or discon- easy to Nokes, should never be caught, by any certing their action, but by surpassing them, one of his successors. Leigh and Underhil have in true and masterly touches of nature. He been well copied, though not equalled by never laughed at his own jest, unless the point others. But not all the mimical skill of Estof his raillery upon another required it. He court (famed as he was for it) although he had a particular talent, in giving life to bons had often seen Nokes, could scarce give us an mots and repartees: the wit of the poet seemed idea of him. After this, perhaps, it will be always to come from him extempore, and saying less of him, when I own, that though I sharpened into more wit from his brilliant have still the sound of every line he spoke, in manner of delivering it; he had himself a good | my ear, (which used not to be thought a bad gedy ever showed us such a tumult of passions, rising at once in one bosom? or what buskined hero, standing under the load of them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of his features! one,) yet I have often tried, by myself, but in vain, to reach the least distant likeness of the vis comica of Nokes. Though this may seem little to his praise, it may be negatively saying a good deal to it, because I have never seen any one actor, except himself, whom I could not at least so far imitate, as to give you a more than tolerable notion of his manner. But Nokes was so singular a species, and was so formed by nature for the stage, that I ques-nance, grave and sober; but the moment he tion if (beyond the trouble of getting words by heart) it ever cost him an hour's labour to arrive at that high reputation he had, and deserved. "The characters he particularly shone in were Sir Martin Marr-all, Gomez, in the Spanish Friar, Sir Nicolas Cully, in Love in a Tub, Barnaby Brittle, in the Wanton Wife, Sir Davy Dunce, in the Soldier's Fortune, Sosia, in Amphytrion, &c. &c. &c. To tell you how he acted them, is beyond the reach of criticism: but, to tell you what effect his action had upon the spectator, is not impossible: this, then, is all you will expect from me, and from hence I must leave you to guess at him. "His person was of the middle size, his voice clear and audible; his natural counte spoke, the settled seriousness of his features was utterly discharged, and a dry, drolling, or laughing levity took such full possession of him, that I can only refer the idea of him to your imagination. In some of his low characters, that became it, he had a shuffling shamble in his gait, with so contented an ignorance in his aspect, and an awkward absurdity in his gesture, that had you not known him, you could not have believed, that naturally he could have had a grain of common sense. In a word, I am tempted to sum up the character of Nokes, as a comedian, in a parody of what Shakspeare's Mark Antony says of Brutus as a hero: "His life was laughter, and the ludicrous So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, The portrait of Underhil has not less the air of exact resemblance, though the subject is of less richness. "Underhil was a correct and natural comedian; his particular excellence was in characters, that may be called still-life, I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid: to these he gave the exactest and most expressive colours, and, in some of them, looked as if it were not in the power of human passions to alter a fea "He scarce ever made his first entrance in a play, but he was received with an involuntary applause, not of hands only, for those may be, and have often been partially prostituted, and bespoken; but by a general laughter, which the very sight of him provoked, and nature could not resist; yet the louder the laugh, the graver was his look upon it; and sure, the ridiculous solemnity of his features were enough to have set a whole bench of bishops into a titter, could he have been honoured (may it be no offence to suppose it) with such grave and right reverend auditors. In the ludicrous distresses, which, by the laws of comedy, Folly is often involved in; he sunk into such a mixture of him. In the solemn formality of Obature of piteous pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous and inconsolable, that when he had shook you, to a fatigue of laughter, it became a moot point, whether you ought not to have pitied him. When he debated any matter by himself, he would shut up his mouth with a dumb studious pout, and roll his full eye into such a vacant amazement, such a palpable ignorance of what to think of it, that his silent perplexity (which would sometimes hold him several minutes) gave your imagination as full content as the most absurd thing he could say upon it. In the character of Sir Martin Marr-all, who is always committing blunders to the prejudice of his own interest, when he had brought himself to a dilemma in his affairs, by vainly proceeding upon his own head, and was afterwards afraid to look his governing servant and counsellor in the face; what a copious and distressful harangue have I seen him make with his looks (while the house has been in one continued roar, for several minutes) before he could prevail with his courage to speak a word to him! Then might you have, at once, read in his face vexation, that his own measures, which he had piqued himself upon, had failed;-envy, of his servant's superior wit ;-distress, to retrieve the occasion he had lost;-shame, to confess his folly; and yet a sullen desire, to be reconciled and better advised for the future! What tra diah in the Committee, and in the boobily heaviness of Lolpoop, in the Squire of Alsatia, he seemed the immovable log he stood for! a countenance of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the blockhead of a character required it; his face was full and long; from his crown to the end of his nose was the shorter half of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features, when soberly composed, with an unwandering eye hanging over them, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal, that ever made beholders merry! not but, at other times, he could be awakened into spirit equally ridicu lous. In the coarse, rustic humour of Justice Clodpate, in Epsome Wells, he was a delightful brute! and in the blunt vivacity of Sir Sampson, in Love for Love, he showed all that true perverse spirit, that is commonly seen in much wit and ill-nature. This character is one of those few so well written, with so much wit and humour, that an actor must be the grossest dunce that does not appear with an unusual life in it: but it will still show as great a proportion of skill, to come near Underhil in the acting it, which (not to undervalue those who came soon after him) I have not yet seen. He was particularly admired too, for the Grave. digger, in Hamlet. The author of the Tatler recommends him to the favour of the town, upon that play's being acted for his benefit wherein, after his age had some years obliged | whole various excellence at once, was the part him to leave the stage, he came on again, for that day, to perform his old part; but, alas! so worn and disabled, as if himself was to have lain in the grave he was digging: when he could no more excite laughter, his infirmities were dismissed with pity: he died soon after a superannuated pensioner, in the list of those who were supported by the joint sharers, under the first patent granted to Sir Richard Steele." We pass reluctantly over the account of Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Betterton, and others of less note, to insert the following exquisite picture of one who seems to have been the most exquisite of actresses: of Melantha, in Marriage-Alamode. Melan- “Mrs. Monfort, whose second marriage gave her the name of Verbruggen, was mistress of more variety of humour than I ever knew in any one actress. This variety, too, was attended with an equal vivacity, which made her excellent in characters extremely different. As she was naturally a pleasant mimic, she had the skill to make that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre, which was the case of Estcourt already mentioned: but where the elocution is round, distinct, vo-humming it hastily over, as if she were impaluble, and various, as Mrs. Monfort's was, the tient to outgo her father's commands, by mimic, there, is a great assistant to the actor. making a complete conquest of him at once; Nothing, though ever so barren, if within the and that the letter might not embarrass her bounds of nature, could be flat in her hands. attack, crack! she crumbles it at once, into She gave many heightening touches to charac- her palm, and pours upon him her whole arters but coldly written, and often made an au- tillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes thor vain of his work, that in itself had but her dainty, diving body, to the ground, as if little merit. She was so fond of humour, in she were sinking under the conscious load what low part soever to be found, that she of her own attractions; then launches into a would make no scruple of defacing her fair flood of fine language and compliment, still form, to come heartily into it; for when she playing her chest forward in fifty falls and was eminent in several desirable characters risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, of wit and humour, in higher life, she would to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly be in as much fancy, when descending into the fond of her own wit, that she will not give her antiquated Abigail, or Fletcher, as when tri-lover leave to praise it; silent assenting bows, umphing in all the airs and vain graces of a fine lady; a merit, that few actresses care for. In a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called The Western Lass, which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal; with a strong Devonshire In this work, also, the reader may become dialect, a broad laughing voice, a poking head, acquainted, on familiar terms, with Wilkes round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the and Dogget, and Booth-fall in love with Mrs. most bedizening, dowdy dress, that ever co- Bracegirdle, as half the town did in days of vered the untrained limbs of a Joan Trot. To yore-and sit amidst applauding whigs and have seen her here, you would have thought it tories on the first representation of Cato. He impossible the same creature could ever have may follow the actors from the gorgeous scene been recovered, to what was as easy to her, the of their exploits to their private enjoyments, gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was share in their jealousies, laugh with them at her humour limited to her sex; for, while their own ludicrous distresses, and join in her shape permitted, she was a more adroit their happy social hours. Yet with all our pretty fellow than is usually seen upon the admiration for the theatrical artists, who yet stage: her easy air, action, mien, and ges-live in Cibber's Apology, we rejoice to believe ture, quite changed from the quoif to the cocked hat, and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bays, in the Rehearsal, had, for some time, lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true, coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character required. "But what found most employment for her and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling." that their high and joyous art is not declining. Kemble, indeed, and Mrs. Siddons, have forsaken that stateliest region of tragedy which they first opened to our gaze. But the latter could not be regarded as belonging to any age; her path was lonely as it was exalted, and she appeared, not as highest of a class which existed before her, but as a being of another order, destined "to leave the world no copy," but to enrich its imaginations for ever. whose the sweetest and most profound Yet have we, in the youngest of the Kemble line, at once an artist of antique grace in comedy, and a tragedian of look the most chivalrous and heroic-of "form and moving most express and admirable"-of enthusiasm to give vivid expression to the highest and the most honourable of human emotions. Still, in Macready, can we boast of one, whose rich and noble voice is adapted to all the most exquisite varieties of tenderness and passion-one, whose genius leads him to imbody characters the most imaginative and romantic-and who throws over his grandest pictures tints so mellow and so nicely blended, that, with all their inimitable variety, they sink in perfect harmony into the soul.Still, in Kean, have we a performer of intensity never equalled-of pathos | century! REVIEW OF JOHN DENNIS'S WORKS. JOHN DENNIS, the terror or the scorn of that age, which is sometimes honoured with the title of Augustan, has attained a lasting notoriety, to which the reviewers of our times can scarcely aspire. His name is immortalized in the Dunciad; his best essay is preserved in Johnson's Lives of the Poets; and his works yet keep their state in two substantial volumes, which are now before us. But the interest of the most poignant abuse and the severest criticism quickly perishes. We contemplate the sarcasms and the invectives which once stung into rage the irritable generation of poets, with as cold a curiosity as we look on the rusty javelins or stuffed reptiles in the glass cases of the curious. The works of Dennis will, however, assist us in forming a judgment of the criticism of his age, as compared with that of our own, and will afford us an opportunity of investigating the influences of that popular art on literature and on manners. But we must not forget, that Mr. Dennis laid claims to public esteem, not only as a critic, but as a wit, a politician, and a poet. In the first and the last of these characters, he can receive but little praise. His attempts at gayety and humour are weighty and awkward, almost without example. His poetry can only be described by negatives; it is not inharmonious, nor irregular, nor often turgid-for the author, too nice to sink into the mean, and too timid to rise into the bombastic, dwells in elaborate decencies for ever." The climax of his admiration for Queen Mary-"Mankind extols the king-the king admires the queen" -will give a fair specimen of his architectural eulogies. He is entitled to more respect as an honest patriot. He was, indeed, a true-hearted Englishman-with the legititmate prejudices of his country-warmly attached to the prin ciples of the revolution, detesting the French, abominating the Italian opera, and deprecating as heartily the triumph of the Pretender, as the success of a rival's tragedy. His political treatises, though not very elegantly finished, are made of sturdy materials. He appears, from some passages in his letters, to have cherished a genuine love of nature, and to have turned, with eager delight, to deep and quiet solitudes, for refreshment from the feverish excitements, the vexatious defeats, and the barren triumphs of his critical career. He admired Shakspeare, after the fashion of his age, as a wild, irregular genius, who would have been inconceivably greater, had he known and copied the ancients. The following is a part of his general criticism on this subject, and a fair specimen of his best style: "Shakspeare was one of the greatest geniuses that the world ever saw, for the tragic stage. Though he lay under greater disad vantages than any of his successors, yet had he greater and more genuine beauties than the best and greatest of them. And what makes the brightest glory of his character, those beauties were entirely his own, and owing to the force of his own nature; whereas, his faults were owing to his education, and to the age he lived in. One may say of him, as they did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is himself inimitable. His imaginations were often as just as they were bold and strong. He had a natural discretion which never could have been taught him, and his judgment was strong and penetrating. He seems to have wanted nothing but time and leisure for thought, to have found out those rules of which he appears so ignorant. His characters are always drawn justly, exactly, graphically, except where he failed by not knowing history or the poetical art. He had, for the most part, is himself afterwards slain, to satisfy the requisitions of poetical justice; which, to Mr. Dennis's great distress, Shakspeare so often violates. It is quite amusing to observe, with how perverted an ingenuity all the gaps in Shakspeare's verses are filled up, the irregularities smoothed away, and the colloquial expressions changed for stately phrases. Thus, for example, the noble wish of Coriolanus on entering the forum "The honoured gods Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice more fairly distinguished them than any of his | his Country, or the Fatal Resentment." In successors have done, who have falsified the catastrophe, Coriolanus kills Aufidius, and them, or confounded them, by making love the predominant quality in all. He had so fine a talent for touching the passions, and they are so lively in him, and so truly in nature, that they often touch us more, without their due preparations, than those of other tragic poets, who have all the beauty of design and all the advantage of incidents. His master passion was terror, which he has often moved so powerfully and so wonderfully, that we may justly conclude, that if he had had the advantage of art and learning, he would have surpassed the very best and strongest of the ancients. His paintings are often so beautiful and so lively, so graceful and so powerful, especially where he uses them in order to move terror, that there is nothing, perhaps, more accomplished in our English poetry. His sentiments for the most part, in his best tragedies, are noble, generous, easy, and natural, and adapted to the persons who use them. His expression is, in many places, good and pure, after a hundred years; simple though elevated, graceful though bold, easy though strong. He seems to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony; that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable terminations. For that diversity distinguishes it from heroic harmony, and, bringing it nearer to common use, makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make when we are writing prose; we make such verse in common conversation. "If Shakspeare had these great qualities by nature, what would he not have been, if he had joined to so happy a genius learning and the poetical art. For want of the latter, our author has sometimes made gross mistakes in the characters which he has drawn from history, against the equality and conveniency of Witness manners of his dramatical persons. Menenius in the following tragedy, whom he has made an arrant buffoon, which is a great absurdity. For he might as well have imagined a grave majestic Jack Pudding as a buffoon in a Roman senator. Aufidius, the general of the Volscians, is shown a base and a profligate villain. He has offended against the equality of the manners even in the hero himself. For Coriolanus, who in the first part of the tragedy is shown so open, so frank, so violent, and so magnanimous, is represented in the latter part by Aufidius, which is contradicted by no one, a flattering, fawning, cringing, insinuating traitor." Mr. Dennis proceeds very generously to apologize for Shakspeare's faults, by observing that he had neither friends to consult, nor time to make corrections. He, also, attributes his lines "utterly void of celestial fire," and passages "harsh and unmusical," to the want of leisure to wait for felicitous hours and moments of choicest inspiration. To remedy these defects-to mend the harmony and to put life into the dulness of Shakspeare-Mr. Dennis has assayed, and brought his own genius to the alteration of Coriolanus for the stage, under the lofty title of the "Invader of is thus elegantly translated into classical language : "The great and tutelary gods of Rome Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice Supplied with worthy men: plant love among you: Adorn our temples with the pomp of peace, And, from our streets drive horrid war away." The conclusion of the hero's last speech on leaving Rome "Thus I turn my back: there is a world elsewhere." is elevated into the following heroic lines: "For me, thus, thus, I turn my back upon you, And make a better world where'er I go." His fond expression of constancy to his wife "That kiss I carried from thee, dear; and my true lip is thus refined: "That kiss I carried from my love, and my true lip The icicle which was wont to hang on Dian's temple," here more gracefully "hangs upon the temple of Diana." The burst of mingled pride, and triumph of Coriolanus, when taunted with the word "boy," is here exalted to tragic dignity. Our readers have, doubtless, ignorantly admired the original. Boy! False hound! The following is the improved version: Who does not now appreciate the sad lot of Shakspeare-so feelingly bewailed by Mr. Dennis-that he had not a critic, of the age of King William, by his side, to refine his style and elevate his conceptions! It is edifying to observe, how the canons of Mr. Dennis's criticism, which he regarded as the imperishable laws of genius, are now either exploded, or considered as matters of subordinate importance, wholly unaffecting the inward soul of poetry. No one now regards the merits of an Epic poem, as decided by the subservience of the fable and the action to the moral-by the presence or the ab |