 of the poet. At a juncture, when
his whole soul ought to be alarmed with terror and amazement, and all his
attention engrossed by the dreadful object in view, I mean that of his friend
whom he had murthered; he expresses no passion but that of indignation against a
drinking glass, which he violently dashes in pieces on the floor, as if he had
perceived a spider in his wine; nay, while his eyes are fixed upon the ground,
he starts at the image of a dagger which he pretends to see above his head, as
if the pavement was a looking-glass that represented it by reflexion: and at one
time, I saw him walk a-cross the stage, and lend an inferior character a box on
the ear, after he had with great wrath pronounced Take thou that, or some
equivalent exclamation, at the other end of the scene. He represents the grief
of an hero, by the tears and manner of a whining schoolboy, and perverts the
genteel deportment of a gentleman, into the idle buffoonery of a miserable
tobacconist; his whole art is no other than a succession of frantic
vociferation, such as I have heard in the cells of Bedlam, a slowness,
hesitation and oppression of speech, as if he was troubled with an asthma,
convulsive startings, and a ductility of features, suited to the most
extravagant transitions. In a word, he is blessed with a distinct voice, and a
great share of vivacity; but in point of feeling, judgment, and grace, is, in my
opinion, altogether defective. Not to mention his impropriety in dress, which is
so absurd, that he acts the part of a youthful prince, in the habit of an
undertaker, and exhibits the gay, fashionable Lothario, in the appearance of a
mountebank. I beg pardon for treating this darling of the English with so little
ceremony; and to convince you of my candour, frankly confess, that
notwithstanding all I have said, he is qualified to make a considerable figure
in the low characters of humour, which are so much relished by a London
audience, if he could be prevailed upon to abate of that monstrous burlesque,
which is an outrage against nature and common sense. As for his competitor in
fame, with an equal share of capacity, he is inferior to him in personal
agility, sprightliness and voice. His utterance is a continual sing song, like
the chanting of vespers, and his action resembles that of heaving ballast into
the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment, he seems to have confounded the
ideas of dignity
