Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
Lear King of England, and his Three Daughters, an Historical Play, acted at the Duke s Theatre 1687. It is one of Shakespear's most moving tragedies revived, with alterations. Injured Love, or the Cruel Husband, a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal 1707. His other works are chiefly these, The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel. Mr.
A man might be wandering through a wood with Shakespear's owl-chorus in his mouth, but were he then to hear for the first time the real shout of the owl he would assuredly stop short and wonder whence that unearthly cry could proceed.
Dryden and Row's manner, Sir, are quite out of fashion; our taste has gone back a whole century, Fletcher, Ben Johnson, and all the plays of Shakespear, are the only things that go down. 'How, cried I, 'is it possible the present age can be pleased with that antiquated dialect, that obsolete humour, those overcharged characters, which abound in the works you mention? 'Sir, returned my companion, 'the public think nothing about dialect, or humour, or character; for that is none of their business, they only go to be amused, and find themselves happy when they can enjoy a pantomime, under the sanction of Johnson's or Shakespear's name. 'So then, I suppose, cried I, 'that our modern dramatists are rather imitators of Shakespear than of nature. 'To say the truth, returned my companion, 'I don't know that they imitate any thing at all; nor, indeed does the public require it of them: it is not the composition of the piece, but the number of starts and attitudes that may be introduced into it that elicits applause.
'Twas this that occasion'd so many Admirable Plays heretofore, as Shakespear's, Fletcher's, and Johnson's, and 'twas this alone that made the Town able to keep so many Play-houses alive, who now cannot supply one.
The greater part of the life of the mightiest genius that ever existed is spent in doing nothing, and saying nothing. Pope has observed of Shakespear's plays, that, "had all the speeches been printed without the names of the persons, we might have applied them with certainty to every speaker."
At that time coaches not being in use, and as gentlemen were accustomed to ride to the playhouse, Shakespear, driven to the last necessity, went to the playhouse door, and pick'd up a little money by taking care of the gentlemens horses who came to the play; he became eminent even in that profession, and was taken notice of for his diligence and skill in it; he had soon more business than he himself could manage, and at last hired boys under him, who were known by the name of Shakespear's boys: Some of the players accidentally conversing with him, found him so acute, and master of so fine a conversation, that struck therewith, they and recommended him to the house, in which he was first admitted in a very low station, but he did not long remain so, for he soon distinguished himself, if not as an extraordinary actor, at least as a fine writer.
"Thou art not a dead man yet it seems, Sir Robert; art going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that thou comest in this fashion? Or dost mean to return to Anjou as bare as thou camest out of it?" For Sir Robert had, like Edgar in Shakespear's Lear, "reserved himself a blanket, else had we all been shamed."
His next was the Tragedy of Jane Shore, written in imitation of Shakespear's stile; acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, and dedicated to the duke of Queensberry and Dover. How Mr. Rowe could imagine that this play is written at all in imitation of Shakespear's stile, we cannot conceive; for so far as we are able to judge, it bears not the least resemblance to that of Shakespear.
But Shakespear's Magick cou'd not copy'd be, Within that Circle none durst walk but He. I should not, however, have troubled you with these Remarks, if there were not something else in this Comedy, which wants to be exorcised more than the Witches.
By their wit, sense, and eloquence together, they generally contrive to govern their husbands. Uneducated people have most exuberance of invention and the greatest freedom from prejudice. Shakespear's was evidently an uneducated mind, both in the freshness of his imagination and in the variety of his views; as Milton's was scholastic, in the texture both of his thoughts and feelings.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking