hercle's

Updated: May 12, 2025

To such devices, in good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his voice so effectually, giving you one moment the pitch of 'the sucking dove, or 'roaring you like any nightingale, and the next, 'the Hercle's vein, with a genius who knew how to play, not 'the tyrant's part only, but 'the lover's, which is more condoling, and whose suggestion that the audience should look to their eyes in that case, was by no means a superfluous one; with a genius who had all passions at his command, who could drown, at his pleasure, the sharp critic's eye, or blind it with showers of pity, or 'make it water with the merriest tears, that the passion of loud laughter ever shed, with such resources, prince's edicts could be laughed to scorn.

Delia Bacon - The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded