Biographia Dramatica: pt. 2. Authors and actors: I-Y. Appendix. Additions and corrections

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812

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Page 414 - But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch ; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him.
Page 499 - Seven years, My Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement or one smile of favour.
Page 515 - The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates PROVING THAT IT IS LAWFUL, AND HATH BEEN HELD SO THROUGH ALL AGES, FOR ANY WHO HAVE THE POWER TO CALL TO ACCOUNT A TYRANT, OR WICKED KING, AND AFTER DUE CONVICTION TO DEPOSE AND PUT HIM TO DEATH, IF THE ORDINARY MAGISTRATE HAVE NEGLECTED OR DENIED TO DO IT.
Page 414 - As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.
Page 414 - Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him ; but something of art was wanting to the drama, till he came.
Page 693 - Tarlton before they would go to the queen, and he was their usher to prepare their advantageous access unto her. In a word, he told the queen more of her faults than most of her chaplains, and cured her melancholy better than all of her physicians. Much of his merriment lay in his very looks and actions, according to the epitaph written upon him: Hie situs est cujus poterat vox, actio, vultus, Ex Heraclito reddere Democritum.
Page 446 - I have been informed by an actor who was present, that while Lee was reading to major Mohun at a rehearsal, Mohun in the warmth of his admiration threw down his part and said — " Unless I were able to play it as well as you read it, to what purpose should I undertake it ?
Page 415 - If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially : perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them : wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours.
Page 441 - Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare...
Page 415 - To conclude of him; as he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and profitable rules for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us.

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