“ Venoni has youth, wealth, power, abilities: let him not tell me, that he quits the world, because it contains for him nothing but sufferings; he must remain in it, to preserve others from suffering like himself. Let him not tell me, that his own prospects are forever closed; the noblest is still entirely open to him, that of brightening the prospects of others!—oh! shame on the selfish being who looks upon life as worthless, while it gives him the power to impart comfort, or to relieve distress; who, because happiness is dead to himself, forgets that for others it still exists ”

“ Ve. Josepha!—angel, your prayers—oh! pray for me: pray for me! Exit with guards.
Venoni. My joy—my amazement—but oh! let me fly to rescue—follow me, my friends—there is a poor old man—a captive.——
Vice. Be calm, dear youth; Lodovico is in safety: in guiding us to your dungeon, this worthy friar discovered and released him.
Venoni. My friend, my preserver! how can I reward——
Vice. If my power—if my whole fortune can recompense——
Mi. I have preserved innocence, I have detected vice, I have served the cause of humanity: I find a sufficient reward in the feelings of my own heart. ”

“ Had it been practicable to have tied down the clattering hands of the ill judges who were commonly the majority of an audience, to what amazing perfection might the English theatre have arrived, with so just an actor as Betterton at the head of it! If what was truth only could have been applauded, how many noisy actors had shook their plumes with shame, who, from the injudicious approbation of the multitude, have bawled and strutted in the place of merit! ”

“ It should seem that Euripides was the first to make an advance towards reconciliation; as appears from a letter of his, in which he speaks thus: “Inconstancy is not my character. I have retained every friend except Sophocles; though I no longer see him, I do not hate him. Injustice has alienated me from him; justice reproaches me for it. I hope time will cement our reunion. What mortal ill is not caused at times by those wicked spirits who are never so happy as when they sow dissension among those who by nature and reason are meant to promote the felicity of each other.” ”

“ What! so early in life will he quit the world? his immense wealth too——
Ben. His wealth? ah, my good lord, I suspect tis that very wealth which has proved the cause of his seclusion from the world. The prior Cœlestino knew of his riches, and kindly came to comfort him in his distress. He talked to him—he soothed him—he flattered him—he is as subtle as a serpent, and as smooth and slippery as an eel! he wormed himself into Venoni’s very heart; the deluded youth threw himself into his arms, and the seducer bore him to the convent. ”

“ Tis evident, that your life also is aimed at: you are a rival, whom the prior abhors; and whom it was first necessary to deceive, before he could gratify his vengeance. Your vows once pronounced—your wealth secured—separated from your friends—deprived of all assistance; then it is that the storm of revenge and malice will burst in all its horrors on your devoted head. You will be dead to all the rest of nature, but you will still exist for Cœlestino; will exist to feel the whole extent of his barbarity, to experience every refinement of torture and every species of agony ”

“ Notwithstanding the extraordinary power he showed in blowing Alexander once more into a blaze of admiration, Betterton had so just a sense of what was true or false applause, that I have heard him say, he never thought any kind of it equal to an attentive silence; that there were many ways of deceiving an audience into a loud one; but to keep them hushed and quiet was an applause which only truth and merit could arrive at; of which art there never was an equal master to himself. ”

“ For twelve long months cut off from all society—deprived of every joy, of every comfort, even deprived of light—then, when suddenly the radience of a thousand torches blazes upon her wondering eye, when music swells upon her ear and, still more melting still more melodious, when the voice of affection speaks touchingly to her heart; nay, if she then prefers her gloomy cell to liberty and pleasure, Josepha’s virtue must be more than human. ”

“ Y’s Hamlet, a learned and perspicuous critic says “A performance exhibiting stronger marks of genius, finer animation, or happier display of intellect we have seldom witnessed. Mr. Young has studied this masterpiece of Shakspeare with infinite care, not merely as to the text and general scope of the character, but throughout all its shades and gradations, discriminating with the utmost truth and nicety, each particular feature of Hamlet, and presenting a whole so finished and forcible, as to leave the strongest impressions on the mind of his audience.” ”

“ I am afraid it may be too naturally accounted for: for when we complain that the finest music, purchased at such vast expense, is so often thrown away upon the most miserable poetry, we seem not to consider that when the movement of the air and the tone of the voice are exquisitely harmonious, though we regard not one word of what we hear, yet the power of the melody is so busy in the heart, that we naturally annex ideas to it of our own creation, and, in some sort, become ourselves the poet to the composer; and what poet is so dull as not to be charmed with the child of his own fancy? ”

“ I had worked upon the superstition and enthusiasm of the weak-minded Hortensia; I had persuaded her, that happiness and virtue existed not, except within the walls of a convent; already she saw in fancy her daughter’s head encircled with a wreath of sainted glory, and she placed her in the Ursuline convent, in hopes that the example of the nuns might induce her to join their sisterhood—Josepha was in my power defenceless! ”

“ As for those gymnastic heroes, who, like captain Barclay, merely run against old Time, they are, indeed, unentitled to the fame they pant for. It may be thought ungenerous to oppose youthful agility to the hobbling pace of the old gentleman, yet, as he is well known to be sound in wind, he probably will run the briskest of them down at last.
The art of running only requires the sanction of some man of quality, to establish it at the head of all our modern amusements. There is a certain sameness in other divertisements, which must become irksome to the spectator. ”

“ No apology therefore can be expected, for offering to the public a short sketch of the life of John Hodgkinson—a man, who, though dropped, at his birth, a darkling, into the world, contrived by the exercise of his personal endowments, without aid, friend, influence, or advantage, save those which nature in her bounty vouchsafed him, to mount to the highest rank in his profession—a profession to excel in which, requires more rich endowments of mind and person jointly, than any of those to which men have recourse for the acquisition of fame or fortune. ”

“ Venoni. Oh, talk not to me of resistance! what force can oppose the efforts of a lover, a frantic desperate lover! father, there was a maiden—how fair she was, nothing but thought can imagine—how I adored her, nothing but this heart can feel! father, this maiden—they tore her from me, they murdered her—murdered her barbarously—tis for her sake that I wish for liberty! tis to avenge her murder that I go to labour ”

“ Teresa. The poor marchioness indeed! well, Benedetto, for my part I feel no pity for misfortunes which people bring upon themselves. Why did not the marchioness take her daughter with her to the court of Naples? why did a mother ever consent to trust her daughter out of her sight! but forsooth she must be left behind in a convent, where soon afterwards an epidemic complaint attacks the sisterhood, and Josepha, abandoned to the care of strangers, sinks into an untimely grave, the victim of her mother’s neglect and imprudence. ”

“ Venoni. (quitting the grate) Of Josepha? say on you shall be heard.
Vice. Tell me then, cruel friend, what is your present object? why bury yourself in this abode of regret and sorrow, of repentance and despair? what reason, nay, what right have you to deprive society of talents, bestowed on you by Nature to employ for the benefit of mankind? and what excuse can you make for resigning into the hands of strangers that wealth which it is your sacred duty to distribute with your own? heaven has endowed you with talents capable of making your own existence useful ”

“ It is not to the actor, therefore, but to the vitiated and low taste of the spectator that the corruptions of the stage, of what kind soever, have been owing. If the public, by whom they must live, had spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their daily table with sound and wholesome diet.—But I have not yet done with my article of elocution. ”

“ What but a determination to inflame public curiosity to the highest pitch by a contrast as absurd as unnatural, could have induced them to put forward a little boy of twelve years old in the formidable tyrant Richard? like modern composers of music, their object was not to produce harmony or natural sweetness, but to execute difficulties. As the actor was a boy loitering on the verge of childhood, the plan, if not correct, was at least politic. But the public do not look on Master Payne in that light, and therefore, he ought to have selected parts more suitable to his time of life and talents. ”

“ Mark me, Venoni; life may become to man but one long scene of misery; yet surely the spirit of benevolence should never perish but with life.
Venoni. Nor shall mine perish even then, Benvolio. In the hands of those virtuous men to whom I shall confide my treasures, they will become the patrimony of the widow and the orphan, of the wanderer in a foreign land, and of him on whom the hand of sickness lies heavy. When my bones shall be whitened by time, still shall my riches feed the fainting beggar. ”

“ In order to enable himself to contest the palm of superiority with that great poet, Euripides frequently withdrew from the haunts of men, and confined himself in a solitary cave near Salamis, where he composed and finished some of the most excellent of his tragedies. The full vein of philosophy which pervaded his dramatic compositions, obtained for him the name of the philosophic poet, and so loudly did fame proclaim his extraordinary excellence, that Socrates, who never before visited the theatre, went constantly to attend the tragedies of Euripides. ”

“ At that moment the door opened and Macbeth appeared, a frightful figure of horror, rushing out sideways with one dagger, and his face in consternation, presented to the door, as if he were pursued, and the other dagger lifted up as if prepared for action. Thus he stood as if transfixed, seeming insensible to every thing but the chamber, unconscious of any presence else, and even to his wife’s address of “my husband.” In this breathless state, he hastily said in a whisper, as if to himself,
“I have done the deed.” ”

“ On the superiority in these mental faculties it would be difficult to decide between those extraordinary men who are the immediate subjects of our remark: for, if we are astonished at that power, which, from a single spot as it were, could collect sufficient materials for the construction of a world of its own, we cannot gaze without wonder at that proud magnificence of intellect, which, rushing like some mighty river, through extended lakes, and receiving into its bosom the contributary waters of a thousand regions, preserves its course its name, and its character, entire. ”

“ But, if he could harbour such a wish, his moral and intellectual character stands too high, to allow a suspicion of his employing such means—means so base and so bungling, that it may well be wondered at how even their high mightinesses could think of them. The truth is, no such thing was imagined—the whole had its root in causes which more deeply concern the public than Mr. Wood or Mr. Cone. A set of ignorant self-conceited young despots have erected themselves into a body of riot, for the purpose of controling the theatre, and bullying, not only the actors but the audience. ”

“ Any reader who has felt the fears and anxieties of a parent when the dear boy of his heart has been for a short time missing, and remembers the pangs of doubt, the apprehension, the painful forebodings, nay, the despair itself into which an absence protracted beyond custom, and not to be accounted for, has thrown him, will be able, from a retrospect of his reflections on such an occasion, to imagine what must have been the danger of this boy, and what the courage he must have had to encounter it—and will, while pondering with admiration upon his fortitude and manliness, tremble for his fate. ”