His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade, These be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade. Homer's epithets were much admired by antiquity: see what great justness and variety there are in these epithets of the trees in the forest, where the Redcross Knight lost Truth. B. i. 8, 9. Cant. i. The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall, 9. The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. Stan. I shall trouble you no more, but desire you to let me conclude with these verses, though I think they have already been quoted by you. They are directions to young ladies oppressed with calumny, vi. 6. 14. The best (said he) that I can you advise, For when the cause whence evil doth arise Abstain from pleasure and restrain your will, T. So shall you soon repair your present evil plight.' N° 541. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1712. Format enim natura priùs nos intùs ad omnem HOR. Ars Poet. v. 108. For nature forms and softens us within, And writes our fortune's changes in our face : Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports, And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul: And these are all interpreted by speech.-ROSCOMMON. My friend the Templar, whom I have so often mentioned in these writings, having determined to lay aside his poetical studies, in order to a closer pursuit of the law, has put together, as a farewell essay, some thoughts concerning pronunciation and action, which he has given me leave to communicate to the public. They are chiefly collected from his favourite author Cicero, who is known to have been an intimate friend of Roscius the actor, and a good judge of dramatic performances, as well as the most eloquent pleader of the time in which he lived. Cicero concludes his celebrated books De. Oratore with some precepts for pronunciation and action, without which part he affirms that the best orator in the world can never succeed; and an indifferent one, who is master of this, shall gain much greater applause. What could make a stronger impression,' says he, than those exclamations of Gracchus?" Whither shall I turn? Wretch that I am! to what place betake myself? Shall I go to the Capitol? Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's blood. Or shall I return to my house? Yet there I behold my mother plunged in misery, weeping and despairing!' These breaks and turns of passion, it seems, were so enforced by the eyes, voice, and gesture, of the speaker, that his very enemies could not refrain from tears. 'I insist,' says Tully, upon this the rather, because our orators, who are as it were actors of the truth itself, have quitted this manner of speaking; and the players, who are but the imitators of truth, have taken it up.' 6 I shall therefore pursue the hint he has here given me, and for the service of the British stage I shall copy some of the rules which this great Roman master has laid down; yet without confining myself wholly to his thoughts or words: and to adapt this essay the more to the purpose for which I intend it, instead of the examples he has inserted in this discourse out of the ancient tragedies, I shall make use of parallel passages out of the most celebrated of our own. The design of art is to assist action as much as possible in the representation of nature; for the appearance of reality is that which moves us in all representations, and these have always the greater force the nearer they approach to nature, and the less they shew of imitation. Nature herself has assigned to every motion of the soul its peculiar cast of the countenance, tone of voice, and manner of gesture through the whole person; all the features of the face and tones of the voice answer, like strings upon musical instruments, to the impressions made on them by the mind. Thus the sounds of the voice, according to the various touches which raise them, from themselves into an acute or grave, quick or slow, loud or soft, tone. These too may be subdivided into various kinds of tones, as the gentle, the rough, the contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the intermitted, the broken, abrupt, wind ing, softened, or elevated. Every one of these may be employed with art and judgment; and all supply the actor, as colours do the painter, with an expressive variety. Anger exerts its peculiar voice in an acute, raised, and hurrying sound. The passionate character of King Lear, as it is admirably drawn by Shakspeare, abounds with the strongest instances of this kind. -Death! Confusion ! Fiery! what quality ?-why Gloster! Gloster! I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. -&c. Sorrow and complaint demand a voice quite different; flexible, slow, interrupted, and modulated in a mournful tone: as in that pathetical soliloquy of Cardinal Wolsey on his fall. Farewell!-a long farewell to all my greatness! We have likewise a fine example of this in the whole part of Andromache in the Distrest Mother, particularly in these lines— I'll go, and in the anguish of my heart Weep o'er my child- -If he must die, my life Fear expresses itself in a low, hesitating, and abject sound. If the reader considers the following speech of Lady Macbeth, while her husband is about the murder of Duncan and his grooms, he will ima¬ gine her even affrighted with the sound of her own voice while she is speaking it. Alas! I am afraid they have awak'd, And 'tis not done; th' attempt, and not the deed, Courage assumes a louder tone, as in that speech of Don Sebastian. Here satiate all your fury; Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me; Can take in all, and verge enough for more. Pleasure dissolves into a luxurious, mild, tender, and joyous modulation; as in the following lines in Caius Marius. Lavinia! O there's music in the name, That softening me to infant tenderness, Makes my heart spring like the first leap of life. And perplexity is different from all these; grave but not bemoaning, with an earnest uniform sound of voice; as in that celebrated speech of Hamlet. To be, or not to be! -that is the question. To sleep; perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub; Must give us pause -There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, |