The Lives of the Players, Volume 1 |
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accordingly acquaintance acted actor actress admiration afterwards amusing ANNE OLDFIELD appearance applause Ashbury audience BARTON BOOTH beauty became Betterton Booth celebrated character circumstances Colley Cibber comedy consequence Covent Garden death distinguished Dogget drama Drury Lane Drury-Lane Dublin Duke Earl EDWARD KYNASTON effect ELIZABETH BARRY eminent endeavours engaged esteemed excellence Farquhar father favour Foote fortune friends Garrick genius gentleman GEORGE FARQUHAR Haymarket Haymarket Theatre hero honour humour James Quin Johnson King King's Company Kynaston Lady Mason lived London Lord Lord Chamberlain Macklin Majesty manager manner merit mother nature never night obliged occasion Oldfield opinion Othello performance person play players poet possessed profession Quin racter received replied respect retired returned ROBERT WILKS salary Savage says scene season sent Shakspeare soon spirit stage success talent taste theatre theatrical Theophilus Cibber thought tion took town tragedy whole Wilks WILLIAM MOUNTFORT young
Popular passages
Page 268 - His gardens next your admiration call, On every side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene: Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other.
Page 277 - Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear Thy voice — my own affrights me with its echoes.
Page 19 - Othello ; the mixture of love that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of passions as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and perfectly convince him that it is to stab it, to admit that worst of daggers, jealousy.
Page 86 - Barry, in characters of greatness, had a presence of elevated dignity, her mien and motion superb, and gracefully majestic; her voice, full, clear, and strong, so that no violence of passion could be too much for her; and when distress, or tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting melody and softness. In the art of exciting pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet seen, or what your imagination can conceive.
Page 251 - Foote went first to that coffee-house, one of its habitues was a lively little man who supplied it with ' red port ;* with whom he formed an acquaintance ; whom he then described living in Durham-yard with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant...
Page 142 - best good man with the worst-natured muse," declared that " Love's Last Shift " was the best first play that any author, in his memory, had produced ; and that for a young fellow to show himself such an actor, and such a writer, in one day, was something extraordinary.
Page 19 - ... had been unnatural, nay, impossible, in Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the same tragedy, where he tells the manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was urged with so moving and graceful an energy, that, while I walked in the cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him represent.
Page 300 - While the audience were sitting wondering what it would be, the manager came forward, and after making his bow, acquainted them 'That as. he was training some young performers for the stage, he would, with their permission, whilst tea was getting ready, proceed with his instructions before them...
Page 11 - But alas! to preserve this medium, between mouthing, and meaning too little, to keep the attention more pleasingly awake, by a tempered spirit, than by mere vehemence of voice, is of all the master-strokes of an actor, the most difficult to reach.
Page 12 - Act where his father's ghost appears, through the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror, turn instantly, on the sight of his father's spirit, as pale as his neckqloth ; when his whole body seemed to be affected with a tremor inexpressible, so that, had his father's ghost actually risen before him, he could not have been seized with more real agonies.