“ Angela's mother advances in a minuet step, to soft music, like Goldsmith's bear, and is absolutely enveloped in flames—none but a salamander, or Messrs. Shadrach and company can enact the part with safety. But when we are presented with a dead Hamlet, Banquo, or lady Anne, those impressive non-naturals of the poet of Nature, they walk in as quiet and unadorned as at a morning rehearsal; marching like a vender of clumsy Italian images, "with all their imperfections on their head," and an additional load attributable to the imperfect head of the manager. ”

“ To his poignant wit, and poisonous malignity, Aristophanes joined great intrepidity of spirit. By the indefatigable exercise of his talents he proceeded, unrestrained by fear, unchecked by conscience, inaccessible to shame or pity, and alike regardless of the anger of foes and the feelings of friends, giving to the middle comedy still more force and acumen than ever belonged to the old. He cajoled the multitude by a plausible affectation of a violent love for Athens, and an inveterate hatred to all on whom he chose to fix the odium of wishing to enslave her. ”

“ If this passion was simply painful we should shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could excite such a passion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the case is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity; so that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in history, it always touches with delight. ”

“ This notion of our having a simple pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means choose to do, from what we should be eager enough to see, if it was once done. We delight in seeing things which so far from doing, our heartiest wishes would be, to see redressed. This noble capital, the pride of England and of Europe, I believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. ”

“ There is not in the whole catalogue of acting plays a character more disadvantageous to an actor, than that of Alonzo. A compound of imbecility and baseness, yet an object of commiseration: an unmanly, blubbering, lovesick, querulous creature; a soldier, whining, piping and besprent with tears, destitute of any good quality to gain esteem, or any brilliant trait or interesting circumstance to relieve an actor under the weight of representing him. ”

“ The death of Socrates has always been considered one of the most interesting and afflicting events in history—interesting as it exhibits in that illustrious philosopher the highest dignity to which mere human nature has ever attained, and afflicting as it displays in the Athenians the lowest depth of baseness to which nations may sink. ”

“ Can those, who, loving the drama, and feeling its beauties with a true classic spirit, wish to see the public taste won over to the tragic muse, hope that it can be accomplished, or can they be surprised that on the contrary, tragedy so often excites merriment when they reflect upon the way dramatic poetry is often delivered upon the stage. ”

“ Does it give force, interest or dignity to the lines of a speech to take up twice or thrice as much time in speaking them as the most formal, deliberate, or pompous prig of an orator would employ upon them? Why will not actors condescend to speak "like the folks of this world," particularly as they pretend to imitate them? We never were at a royal levee—but we have been at the pains to ask several persons who have been, whether any king, or prince, or peer spoke there, as Mr. Kemble or as Mr. Holman, or Mr. Pope after him, speak in Hamlet, Richard, Macbeth, &c. ”

“ Spranger Barry was in his person above five feet eleven inches high, finely formed, and possessing a countenance in which manliness and sweetness of feature were so happily blended, as formed one of the best imitations of the Apollo Belvidere. With this fine commanding figure, he was so much in the free and easy management of his limbs, as never to look encumbered, or present an ungraceful attitude, in all his various movements on the stage. Even his exits and entrances had peculiar graces, from their characteristic ease and simplicity. ”

“ Sir G. So my lord have you,
What do I care who gives you? since my lord
Does purpose to be private, I'll not cross him.
I know not, Mr. Allworth, how my lord
May be provided, and therefore there's a purse
Of gold: 'twill serve this night's expense; tomorrow
I'll furnish him with any sums. In the meantime
Use my ring to my chaplain; he is beneficed
At my manor of Gotham, and call'd Parson Welldo:
'Tis no matter for a license, I'll bear him out in't.
Marg. With your favour, sir, what warrant is your ring? ”

“ The giant satirist Juvenal, was a conspicuous illustration of this truth. While his superior intelligence and sagacity unfolded to him in their full size the vices and follies of his fellow-creatures, his superior philanthropy heightened his indignation at them. The same may perhaps be said of the dramatic satirists, or writers of comedy in general. We could adduce many instances to corroborate this assertion. That very man who stands unrivalled at the head of comic poetry, stands not less high in the estimation of all who know him, for generosity and benevolence. ”

“ Of no actor with whom we are acquainted can it with more truth be said than it may of Mr. Wood, that he never performs a character positively ill. A judgment clear, sound, and in general severely correct, with exemplary labour and industry, secure him completely, even in those characters for which he is least fitted, from offending the taste of his auditors, or rendering his performance ridiculous; an assertion we would hazard on the head of very few if any actors in America. ”

“ Lysias, one of the most celebrated orators of the age, composed an oration in the most splendid and pathetic terms, and offered it to Socrates to be delivered as his defence before the judges. Socrates read it; but after having praised the eloquence and animation of the whole, rejected it, as neither manly nor expressive of fortitude; and comparing it to Sicyonian shoes, which though fitting, were proofs of effeminacy, he observed that a philosopher ought to be conspicuous for magnanimity, and for firmness of soul. ”

“ How dost thou, Marall? Lik'd you my meat so ill,
You'll dine no more with me?
Greedy. I will when you please,
And it like your ladyship.
Lady A. When you please, Mr. Greedy;
If meat can do it, you shall be satisfied;
And now, my lord, pray take into your knowledge
This gentleman; howe'er his outside's coarse,
Presents Wellborn. ”

“ The prosperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon and the distress of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in history, as much as the destruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight in cases of this kind is very greatly heightened if the sufferer be some excellent person who sinks under an unworthy fortune. ”

“ Let the first three men who pass by the playhouse door be called in, one of them taken from the highest order of life, a second from the middle order, and the third from the very lowest class—let them hear a tragedy through, or even some parts of a comedy, and let them then give their verdict as on oath, whether what they heard, resembled anything they had ever heard before out of a playhouse, or perchance a madhouse, and they must answer in the negative or perjure themselves. ”

“ Perhaps no works of art, and no poetry extant, will more forcibly recall what we have read and fancied of the golden age, than these bas-reliefs. They are delightful both in design and execution. To imagine the art as co-existing with these in such an age of happy innocence as is here suggested, raises cold criticism itself almost to rhapsody. ”

“ The sorriest critic, however, knows that horror ought not to be produced on the stage. The boundary that separates terror from horror, is the lawful limit—the line not to be broken—the Rubicon which when the poet passes, he commits treason against the sovereign laws of the drama. The mighty magician of Udolpho, as the author of the pursuits of Literature calls Mrs. Radcliff, with powers almost beyond human, infused into the British public a taste for the horrible which has not yet been palled by the nauseous draughts of it, poured forth by her impotent successors. ”

“ Summer, as far as can be seen from without the enclosed area of Russel-square, has a butterfly perched on his hand, intimating that this is the season when this beautiful insect bursts from its chrysales into new life; and Winter sits shrunk and sheltered by drapery from inclemencies of which, to be strictly correct, it should appear to have been the cause. ”

“ In the first, which occupies the western side of the pedestal, peasants are resting from the labour of the plough; a yoked ox shows the nature of their employment; a ploughman takes a refreshing draught, from his wooden bottle, while a youth blows a horn to call his fellow labourers to an humble repast, which a female is busily engaged in preparing. ”

“ This arises from the conduct of the plot, which indeed constitutes the whole of its merit. In Europe, as in America, the judgment of every critic is at variance with the decision of the multitude upon it, for while at the Lyceum it has been applauded by "the million," it has been lashed by the judicious, in various respectable publications.
The time has been, nor has it long passed by, when that body in the community who decided the fate of every literary performance, far from being contented with effect upon the stage, condemned it, if it were not produced by an adequate cause in nature. ”

“ Defended by the reverence in which the people held him, Socrates was perpetually secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, and all their gratitude for his services, and they no longer paid the least reverence to the philosopher whom for fifty years Athens had regarded as a being of a superior order. ”

“ To any one who frequents the theatre, the characters of Longueville, L'Eclair, Gaspard, Rosabelle, and perhaps more, are quite familiar. They are among the worn out slippers of the modern dramatists. The character of Bertrand is a moral novelty on the stage, and not less unnatural than novel. Unnatural, not because he repents with a remorse truly horrible, but because, while filled with that remorse, he submits to be a murderer and a villian rather than violate an oath he had made to perpetrate any crime Longueville should command. ”

“ This rock ought certainly not to have been of Scotch granite. The pedestal alone should have been of this material, and all that surmounts it of bronze. Beside that real rock is almost as unscientific in this place, as would have been the real ermine on the Duke of Bedford's robes, or a real wig on his head; it is almost as destructive too of the chastity of sculpturesque effect. It gives a meager effect to the seasons, while it mars the simplicity of what would else have appeared a grand connected mass of imitative art. ”

“ It may also be pleaded with great truth in favour of the artist, that in consequence of the arrangement which he has adopted, there is in every view of the monument, something of merit and importance to gratify public attention. In front, there is the statue itself contrasted by the plainness and simplicity of the unadorned side of the pedestal. On the east side there is the most beautiful of the bas-reliefs: on the west, the most interesting view of the seasons, and what there is behind, God knows. The public are not yet permitted to walk round it. ”

“ Why human creatures should take delight in witnessing fictitious representations of the anguish and misfortunes of their fellow-beings, in tragedy, and, in comedy of those follies, foibles and imperfections which degrade their nature, is a question which many have asked, but few have been able to answer. ”

“ Where we see so much merit, merit so entirely his own, we advert to faults with great reluctance. But it is our duty and we must do it. Of the contagious nature of the Kemble plague in acting we cannot adduce a more lamentable proof than that it sometimes taints even this very judicious performer. ”

“ Absurd and unnatural as this miserable mode of speech is, it is very difficult to be got rid of, when it once becomes habitual to an actor; a memorable instance of which was old Mr. Wignell of Covent garden, the father of our late manager. He was one of the Quin school, and if now alive and able to act, would once more hitch in very handsomely with the recitativers of the new academy of acting, for, says the author of the Thespian dictionary, "He possessed the singular talent of imparting stateliness to comic dialogues, and merriment to tragic scenes." ”

“ The rehearsal being over, Mr. K. advanced to him and said, "You wish to be an actor, eh!"—then turning to one of the actors, "Here is a person," continued he, "who desires to go upon the stage, and is content by the way of a beginning, to snuff the candles—humble enough you'll say. But he says he can sing;" then ironically to H. "Now, pray sir, do us the favour to say what song you can sing—you perceive the gentlemen of the band are in the orchestra—or perhaps you would rather accompany yourself, as you say you play the fiddle." ”