"Their Majesties' Servants".: Annals of the English Stage from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean, Volume 1

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Page xvii - Then to the well-trod stage anon If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.
Page 271 - Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Though but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names,) How will our fathers rise up in a rage, And swear all shame is lost in George's age...
Page 55 - Edward Kynaston died in 1712, and lies buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. If not the greatest actor of his day, Kynaston was the greatest of the " boy-actresses." So exalted was his reputation, " that," says Downes, " it has since been disputable among the judicious, whether any woman that succeeded him so sensibly touched the audience as he.
Page 401 - With double force th' enliven'd scene he wakes, Yet quits not Nature's bounds. He knows to keep Each due decorum: now the heart he shakes, And now with well-urged sense th'enlighten'd judgment takes.
Page 94 - I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton, wherein my judgment, my ear, and my imagination, were not fully satisfied; which, since his time, I cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever...
Page 174 - I heard, they said to one another. The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the handsome woman near me : but it vexed me to see Moll Davis, in the box over the King's and my Lady Castlemaine's...
Page 408 - Tis my chief wish, my joy, my only plan, To lose no drop of that immortal man ! ' No man in Garrick's position would now venture to write additions to Shakspeare.
Page 89 - The most that a Vandyke can arrive at, is, to make his portraits of great persons seem to think; a Shakspeare goes farther yet, and tells you what his pictures thought; a Betterton steps beyond them both, and calls them from the grave, to breathe, and be themselves again, in feature, speech, and motion.
Page 171 - Cromwell, who looks as well as I have known her, and well clad; but when the House began to fill she put on her vizard, and so kept it on all the play ; which of late is become a great fashion among the ladies, which hides their whole face.
Page 21 - ... trod on; such eyes to their laps, that no chips light in them ; such pillows to their backs, that they take no hurt; such masking in their ears, I know not what; such giving them pippins, to pass the time; such playing at foot-saunt without cards ; such ticking, such toying, such smiling, such winking, and such manning them home when the sports are ended...

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