The Tatler, Volume 1

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C. Whittingham, published by John Sharpe, 1803
 

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Page 266 - And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them : for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered : that 's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
Page 325 - Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. So when an angel by divine command, With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
Page 265 - Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first, and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Page 265 - ... twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.
Page 265 - Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus ; but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,- whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings...
Page 266 - ... accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Page 265 - Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.
Page 107 - That wave and glitter in the distant sun. When, if a sudden gust of wind arise, The brittle forest into atoms flies: The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And in a spangled shower the prospect ends...
Page 4 - I humbly presume should be principally intended for the use of politic persons, who are so public-spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look into transactions of state. Now these gentlemen, for the most part, being persons of strong zeal, and weak intellects, it is both a charitable and necessary work to offer something, whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after their reading, what to think...

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