Lo, when the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its warp'd mirror to a gaping age; There, where to raise the Drama's moral tone, Fool Harlequin usurps Apollo's throne.
Where mincing dancers sport tight pantalets, And turn fop's heads while turning pirouettes.
And turn from gentle Juliet's woe, To count the twirls of Fanny Elssler's toe.
Farce followed comedy, and reach'd her prime
In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time;
Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best,
And turn'd some very serious things to jest.
Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers:
'Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.
We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens,
When "Chrononhotonthologos must die,"
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.
BYRON, Hints from Horace.
Where one base scene shall turn more souls to There has been more by us in some one play
Laughed into wit and virtue, than hath been
By twenty tedious lectures drawn from sin,
And foppish humor; hence the cause doth rise,
Men are not won by th' ears, so well as eyes.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting. GOLDSMITH, Retaliation.
Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks:
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you; the table is this place;
The carver's me; the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish;
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind marks and beaux, I hope you're pepper-proof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join,
Are butcher's meat, a battle's a sirloin;
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.
GEORGE FARQUHAR, The Way to Win Him.
With weaker passion will affect the heart, Than when the faithful eye beholds the past. FRANCIS' Horace.
Whose every look and gesture was a joke
To clapping theatres, and shouting crowds,
And made even thick-lipp'd, musing melancholy
To gather up her face into a smile
Before she was aware.
The other held a globe, which to his will
Obedient turn'd, and owned the master's skill;
Things of the noblest kind his genius drew,
And look'd through nature at a single view;
A loose he gave to his unbounded soul,
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll;
Call'd into being scenes unknown before
And passing nature's bounds, was something more. IBID, Rosciad.
Far from the sun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face; the dauntless child
Stretched forth his little arms and smiled.
"This pencil take," she said, "whose colors clear Richly paint the vernal year;
Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;
Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." GRAY, Progress of Poesy.
If manly sense; if nature link'd with art;
If thorough knowledge of the human heart;
If powers of acting vast and unconfin'd;
If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd;
If strong expression, and strange powers which lie
Within the magic circle of the eye;
If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know,
And which no face so well as his can show
Deserve the preference; Garrick! take the chair,
Nor quit it till thou place an equal there.
CHURCHILL, Rosciad.
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