Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick: Interspersed with Characters and Anecdotes of His Theatrical Contemporaries. The Whole Forming a History of the Stage, which Includes a Period of Thirty-six Years, Volume 2

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Joseph Hill, 1780 - Actors

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Page 159 - Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours while you got and you gave!
Page 398 - James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered ; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man ? I am disappointed by that stroke of death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Page 158 - As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine ; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
Page 283 - Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out, Or rather like tragedy giving a rout. His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud; And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone, Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own : Say, where has our poet this malady caught, Or, wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Page 283 - Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Page 329 - I will very readily agree to my successors having more skill and ability for their station than I have ; but I defy them all to take more sincere, and more uninterrupted pains for your favour, or to be more truly sensible of it, than is, your most obedient and grateful servant.
Page 339 - Burke arose and appealed to the honourable assembly whether it could possibly be consistent with the rules of decency and liberality to exclude from the hearing of their debates a man to whom they were all obliged — one who was the great master of eloquence — in whose school they had all imbibed the art of speaking, and been taught the elements of rhetoric.
Page 327 - Garrick; but, in 1776, he sold his share of the patent, and formed a resolution of quitting the stage. He was, however, determined, before he left the theatre, to give the public proofs of his abilities, to delight them as highly as he had ever done in the flower and vigour of his life. To this end, about a fortnight or three weeks previous to his taking his final leave, he presented them with some of the most capital and trying characters of Shakspeare, — with Hamlet, Richard, and Lear, and some...
Page 158 - Twas only that when he was off he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day...
Page 140 - It may be justly said of Kelly, that no man ever profited more by a sudden change of fortune in his favour; prosperity caused an immediate and remarkable alteration in his whole conduct ; from a low, petulant, absurd, and ill-bred censurer, he was transformed to the humane, affable, good-natured, wellbred man.

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