A Book of the Play: Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character, Volume 2

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Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876 - Theater

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Page 70 - Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ; Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance : Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i...
Page 85 - He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see One such to-day, as other plays should be ; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas...
Page 276 - GLOUCESTER'S Castle. Enter EDMUND, with a letter. Edm. Thou, Nature, art my goddess ; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother ? Why bastard ? wherefore base ? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue ? Why brand they us With base? with baseness ? bastardy? base, base?
Page 239 - Cuckolds all awry,' 2 the old dance of England. Of the ladies that danced, the Duke of Monmouth's mistress, and my Lady Castlemaine, and a daughter of Sir Harry de Vicke's," were the best. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queen herself, stand up : and indeed he dances rarely, and much better than the Duke of York.
Page 21 - Will not a filthy play, with the blast of a trumpet, sooner call thither a thousand, than an hour's tolling of a bell bring to the sermon a hundred?
Page 322 - It was known in Tonson's family, and told to Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and that, when it had been at first printed with his name, he came early in the morning, before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Budgell, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then making for a place.
Page 198 - The King's players had a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and Garter, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous.
Page 74 - England, by representing duels, battles, and the like; which renders our stage too like the theatres where they fight prizes. For what is more ridiculous than to represent an army with a drum and five men behind it; all which the hero of the other side is to drive in before him; or to see a duel fought, and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which we know are so blunted that we might give a man an hour to kill another in good earnest with them.
Page 92 - I have known a bell introduced into several tragedies with good effect ; and have seen the whole assembly in a very great alarm all the while it has been ringing.
Page 134 - ... reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the greatness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation of her senses.

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