 and insolence of mien, acts the crafty, cool, designing
Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector; in the character of the mild
patriot Brutus, loses all temper and decorum; nay, so ridiculous is the
behaviour of him and Cassius at their interview, that setting foot to foot, and
grinning at each other, with the aspect of two coblers enraged, they thrust
their left sides together, with repeated shocks, that the hilts of their swords
may clash for the entertainment of the audience; as if they were a couple of
Merry Andrews, endeavouring to raise the laugh of the vulgar, on some scaffold
at Bartholomew Fair. The despair of a great man who falls a sacrifice to the
infernal practices of a subtle traitor, that enjoyed his confidence, this
English Æsopus represents, by beating his own forehead, and bellowing like a
bull; and indeed, in almost all his most interesting scenes, performs such
strange shakings of the head, and other antic gesticulations, that when I first
saw him act, I imagined the poor man laboured under that paralytical disorder,
which is known by the name of St. Vitus's dance. In short, he seems to be a
stranger to the more refined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression
is of the vulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet; so
that he has recourse to such violence of affected agitation, as imposes upon the
undiscerning spectator, but to the eye of taste, evinces him a meer player of
that class whom your admired Shakespear justly compares to nature's journeymen
tearing a passion to rags. Yet this man, in spite of all these absurdities, is
an admirable Falstaff, exhibits the character of the eighth Henry to the life,
is reasonably applauded in the Plain Dealer, excels in the part of Sir John
Brute, and would be equal to many humorous situations in low comedy, which his
pride will not allow him to undertake. I should not have been so severe upon
these rivals, had not I seen them extolled by their partizans, with the most
ridiculous and fulsome manifestation of praise, even in those very circumstances
wherein (as I have observed) they chiefly failed.«
    Pickle, not a little piqued to hear the qualifications of the two most
celebrated actors in England treated with such freedom and disrespect, answered
with some asperity, that the chevalier was a true critick, more industrious in
observing the blemishes than in acknowledging the excellence of those who fell
under his examination. It was not to be supposed that one actor could shine
equally in all characters;
