The Album of the Cambridge Garrick Club: Containing Original and Select Papers on the Drama, and the Proceedings of that Society ...

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Society, 1836 - Actors - 287 pages
 

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Page 13 - Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.
Page 97 - The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new-name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.
Page 17 - ... mean ; if they unite hundreds in a sympathetic admiration of virtue, abhorrence of vice, or derision of folly ; it will remain to be shown how far the spectator is more criminally engaged, than if he had passed the evening in the idle gossip of society ; in the feverish pursuits of ambition ; or in the unsated and insatiable struggle after gain — the graver employments of the present life, but equally unconnected with our existence hereafter.
Page 41 - ... and I had some hesitation in proceeding, from anxiety and from joy. As RICHARD gradually blazed forth, the house was in a roar of applause, and the conspiring hand of POPE shadowed me with laurels.
Page 83 - At the end of the piece, the actors, in noblemen's houses and in taverns, where plays were frequently performed, prayed for the health and prosperity of their patrons; and in the publick theatres, for the king and queen. This prayer sometimes made part of the epilogue. Hence, probably, as Mr. Steevens has observed, the addition of Vivant rex et regina, to the modern play-bills.
Page 33 - Whereas we intend for the exercise of yonge gentlemen and scholers in our Colledge, to sett forth certain Comcedies and one Tragoedie. There being in that Tragcedie sondry personages of greatest astate, to be represented in auncient princely attire, which is no where to be had but within the Office of the Roabes at the Tower...
Page 41 - Neither were those of his own profession slow in profiting by the lessons which he gave them in the dramatic art. Preville, the best actor of France, acknowledged him for his master, and looked upon him as a model for imitation. With this actor, he once made a short excursion from Paris on horseback, when Preville took a fancy to act the part of a drunken cavalier.
Page 41 - he deserves every thing that he has acquired, for having seized the very soul of Shakspeare; for having embodied it in himself; and for having expanded its glory over the world.
Page 42 - ... representation of the part. This was a bitter cup ; and, to make the draught still more unpalatable, upon his asking whether his majesty approved his playing the Bastard, he was told, without the least compliment paid to his action, it was imagined that the king thought the character was rather too bold in the drawing, and that the colouring was overcharged and glaring. Mr. Garrick, who had been so accustomed to applause, and who of all men living most sensibly felt the neglect of it, was greatly...
Page 76 - ... execution.* My father possesses certain physical defects, a faintness of colouring in the face and eye, a weakness of voice ; and the corresponding intellectual deficiencies, a want of intensity, vigour, and concentrating power: these circumstances have led him (probably unconsciously) to give his attention and study to the finer and more fleeting shades of character, the more graceful and delicate manifestations of feeling...

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