But the reflection it led me into was a kind of wonder, how, from the days of the actor here celebrated to our own, it should have been the fashion to compliment every performer in his turn, that has had the luck to please the town in any of the great characters of Shakespeare, with a notion of possessing a mind congenial to the poet’s how people should come thus unaccountably to confound the power of originating poetical images and conceptions with the faculty of being able to read or recite the same when put into words 1 or what connection that absolute mastery over the heart and soul of man, which a great dramatic poet possesses, has with those low tricks upon the eye and ear, which a player by observing a few general effects, which some common passion, as grief, anger, etc., usually has upon the gestures and exterior, can easily compass.

It would be an insult to my readers’ understandings to attempt anything like a criticism on this farrago of false thoughts and nonsense. Though sunk in death the forms the Poet drew, The Actor’s genius made them breathe anew Though, like the bard himself, in night they lay, Immortal Garrick call’d them back to day: And till Eternity with power sublime Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time, Shakespeare and Garrick like twin-stars shall shine, And earth irradiate with a beam divine. To paint fair Nature, by divine command, Her magic pencil in his glowing hand, A Shakespeare rose: then, to expand his fame Wide o’er this breathing world, a Garrick came. Going nearer, I found inscribed under this harlequin figure the following lines:. Though I would not go so far with some good Catholics abroad as to shut players altogether out of consecrated ground, yet I own I was not a little scandalized at the introduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a place set apart to remind us of the saddest realities. TAKING a turn the other day in the Abbey, I was struck with the affected attitude of a figure, which I do not remember to have seen before, and which upon examination proved to be a whole-length of the celebrated Mr.

8597 On the Tragedies of Shakespeare 1811 Charles Lamb On the Tragedies of Shakspeare Considered with Reference to Their Fitness for Stage Representation

Charles lamb shakespeare