Dramatic Miscellanies: Consisting of Critical Observations on Several Plays of Shakespeare: With a Review of His Principal Characters, and Those of Various Eminent Writers, as Represented by Mr. Garrick and Other Celebrated Comedians. With Anecdotes of Dramatic Poets, Actors, &c, Volume 2

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The author, 1784
 

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Page 206 - tis fittest. Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave. — Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.
Page 164 - He only, in a general honest thought, And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, 'This was a man!
Page 92 - What hands are here ? ha ! they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand ? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.
Page 12 - element,' but the word is over-worn. \Exit. Vio. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool ; And to do that well craves a kind of wit : He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye.
Page 170 - A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life ; but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse ; or, that if other excellences are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
Page 75 - ... opinion touching the power of Satan in matter of witchcraft, and asked me, with much gravity, if I did truly understand why the devil did work more with ancient women than others...
Page 43 - ... The rehearsing of a new play usually commenced with Garrick reading the script to the cast in the greenroom. From the very outset he conveyed his concept of the characters and their interpretations by acting out all the roles with the appropriate facial expressions, vocal intonations, and feelings. "As no man more perfectly knew the various characters of the drama than himself," writes Davies, "his reading of a new or revived piece was a matter of instruction.
Page 181 - His pauses and broken interruptions of speech, of which he was extremely enamored, sometimes to a degree of impropriety, were at times too inartificially repeated ; nor did he give that terror to the whole which the great poet intended should predominate. THOMAS DAVIES : ' Dramatic Miscellanies,
Page 207 - I'm mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments ; nor do I know Where I did sleep last night. — Pray, do not mock me ; For, as I am a man, I think that lady To be my child Cordelia.
Page 170 - ... all reafonable beings naturally love juftice, I cannot eafily be perfuaded, that the obfervation of juftice makes a play worfe ; or, that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rife better pleafed from the final triumph of perfecuted virtue. In the prefent cafe the publick has decided.

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