The Biography of the British Stage: Being Correct Narratives of the Lives of All the Principal Actors & Actresses .. Interspersed with Original Anecdotes and Choice and Illustrative Poetry. To which is Added, a Comic Poem, Entitled "The Actress."

Front Cover
Sherwood, Jones, 1824 - Actors - 295 pages
 

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 174 - ... and a dry, drolling, or laughing levity took such full possession of him, that I can only refer the idea of him to your imagination. In some of his low characters, that became it, he had a shuffling shamble in his gait, with so contented an ignorance in his aspect, and an aukward absurdity in his gesture, that had you not known him, you could not have believed, that naturally he could have had a grain of common sense.
Page 252 - Oh ! . she was good as she was fair. None — none on earth above her ! As pure in thought as angels are, To know her was to love her. When little, and her eyes, her voice, Her every gesture said
Page 205 - ... brother, and told her he had prepared a vessel to bear her for ever from me. — They were about to depart, when the burning fever in my heart rushed upon my brain — Picture the young tiger, when first his savage nature rouses him to vengeance — the knife was in my gripe — I sprung upon them — with one hand I tore the faithless woman from his damned embrace, and with the other — stabbed my brother to the heart.
Page 115 - Without grace or dignity he comes forward; he shows an unconsciousness that anybody is before him, and is often so forgetful of the respect due to an audience that he turns his back upon them in some of those scenes...
Page 175 - The Libertine ;" and in the delineation of those arduous characters I shall display much feeling and discrimination, together with much taste in my dresses, and elegance in my manner. The audience will be delighted with my exertions, and testify by rapturous applause their most decided approbation. " When we consider, in addition to my professional merits, the loveliness of my person, and the fascination of my face, which are only equalled by the amiability of my private character, having never...
Page 134 - Macbeth} on the spot where many of the transactions took place. It is recorded in GUTHRIE'S ' History of Scotland,' that Queen Elizabeth sent some English actors to the Court of her successor James, which was then held at Perth ; and it is supposed that Shakspeare was one of the number. This idea receives strong confirmation by the following striking circumstance :—The Castle of Dunsinane is situated about seven or eight miles from Perth. When I examined, some years ago, the remains of that Castle,...
Page 174 - He scarce ever made his first entrance in a play but he was received with an involuntary applause, not of hands only, for those may be, and have often been partially prostituted and bespoken; but by a general laughter, which the very sight of him provoked, and nature could not resist; yet the louder the laugh the graver was his look upon it...
Page 114 - Covent-garden have spared themselves the disgrace to which they would be subject by countenancing such impudence and incompetency. Even his performance of the inferior characters of the drama would be objectionable, if there was nothing to render him ridiculous, but one of the vilest figures that has been seen either on or off the stage ; and if his mind was half so...
Page 38 - Raven bore away towards Cuxhaven, aad upon the coast adjacent underwent the horrors of being wrecked in a season of peculiar inclemency. For two days and nights the crew of this ill-fated vessel were subject to incredible misery ; the cold was intense, and while clinging to the fragments of their shattered ship, many brave seamen, wasted with toil, dropped in the dullness of death to a dark and stormy grave.
Page 142 - I forget your insolent demeanor, or the acuteness of my mortified feelings. Look at me again, sir. What alteration beyond that of dress do you discover in me ? Am I a better man than I was then ? What is there in me NOw, that you should overwhelm me with your compliments ? Keep your wine, sir — it would choke me. Come, gentlemen, let us leave his house ;" and the actor walked away from the mortified and abashed landlord. This was related to me by an eye-witness, and was, I believe, published in...

Bibliographic information