Autobiography, a Collection of the Most Instructive and Amusing Lives Ever Published, Volumen1

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Hunt and Clarke, 1826
 

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Página 101 - ... at once; and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack ! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion. Down goes her dainty, diving, body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions ; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water ; and, to complete her...
Página 66 - All this ? ay, more: Fret, till your proud heart break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble.
Página 87 - ... before his time; and yet his general excellence may be comprehended in one article, viz. a plain and palpable simplicity of nature, which was so utterly his own, that he was often as unaccountably diverting in his common speech, as on the stage. I saw him once...
Página 164 - Such then was the mettlesome modesty he set out with ; upon this principle he produced several frank and free farces, that seemed to knock all distinctions of mankind on the head. Religion, laws, government, priests, judges, and ministers, were all laid flat at the feet of this Herculean satirist...
Página 65 - Betterton ; and it has often amazed me to see those who soon came after him, throw out in some parts of a character a just and graceful spirit which Betterton himself could not but have applauded ; and yet, in the equally shining passages of the same character, have heavily...
Página 101 - Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady.
Página 293 - Meaning, the Fable of Mars and Venus* was form'd into a connected Presentation of Dances in Character, wherein the Passions were so happily expressed, and the whole Story so intelligibly told by a mute Narration of Gesture only, that even thinking Spectators allow'd it both a pleasing and a rational Entertainment...
Página 100 - Mountfort, whose second marriage gave her the name of Verbruggen, was mistress of more variety of humour than I ever knew in any one woman actress. This variety too was attended with an equal vivacity, which made her excellent in characters extremely different. -As she was naturally a pleasant...
Página 64 - Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the gho«t, which, though it might have astonished, had not provoked him ? For you may observe, that in this beautiful speech the passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonishment, or an impatience limited by filial reverence, to...
Página 310 - ... if the common fame of her may be believed, which in my memory was not doubted, she had less to be laid to her charge, than any other of those ladies who were in the same state of preferment : she never meddled in matters of serious moment, or was the tool of working politicians ; never...

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