An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber ... Written by himselfHunt & Clarke, 1826 - 340 pages |
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acted actors actress affairs allowed applause approbation audience auditors Beggar's Opera better Betterton Booth character Cibber Colley Cibber Collier comedian comedy court delight distress Dogget Drury-lane duke's company entertainment equal excellence excuse extraordinary fame farther favour folly fortune gave gentleman give happiness Haymarket Haymarket theatre honour hope humour imagined inclination judge judgment king knew labour laugh least Leigh less liberty license lord chamberlain Love for Love managers master ment merit nature never obliged observed occasion Oldfield opera opinion Othello particular passion patentees perhaps person play pleasure pounds Powel pretend profits proper racter reader reason scenes seemed share sir John Vanbrugh sir Richard sir Richard Steele sometimes sort speak spectators spirit stage sure Swiney taste Tatler terton theatre theatrical thought tion Tony Leigh took tragedy true truth vanity voice Wilks word write
Popular passages
Page 66 - All this ? ay, more: Fret, till your proud heart break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble.
Page 102 - ... 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 impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit that she will not give her lover leave to praise it. Silent assenting bows, and vain...
Page 82 - Pray what is the meaning," said he, " that we never see a rogue in a play, but, Godsfish ! they always clap him on a black periwig, when it is well known one of the greatest rogues in England always wears a fair one...
Page 88 - In the ludicrous distresses which by the laws of comedy folly is often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous and inconsolable, that when he had shook you to a fatigue of laughter, it became a moot point whether you ought not to have pitied him.
Page 156 - The poets, who must live by courts, or starve, Were proud so good a government to serve ; And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane, Tainted the stage for some small snip of gain.
Page 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...
Page 71 - Publick, by whom they must live, had Spirit enough to discountenance, and declare against all the Trash and Fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the Actors, and the Authors, to the best of their Power, must naturally have serv'd their daily Table, with sound and wholesome Diet.
Page 28 - ... a lick at the laureat will always be a sure bait, ad captandum vulgus, to catch him little readers...
Page 60 - ... to the assistance of the weaker party, it was no wonder they should grow too hard for sense and simple nature, when it is considered how many more people there are that can see and hear than think and judge. So wanton a change of the public taste therefore began to fall as heavy upon the kind's company, as their greater excellence in action had before fallen upon their competitors. Of which encroachment upon wit, several good prologues in those days frequently complained.
Page 58 - This defect was so well considered by Shakspeare, that in few of his plays he has any greater dependence upon the ladies than in the innocence and simplicity of a Desdemona, an Ophelia, or in the short specimen of a fond and virtuous Portia. The additional objects then of real, beautiful women, could not but draw a proportion of new admirers to the theatre.