f having
frequented a Covent Garden club of critics, and been often admitted, by
virtue of an order, into the pit; a comparison immediately ensued,
not between the authors, but the actors of both nations, to whom
the chevalier and Peregrine were no strangers. Our hero, like a good
Englishman, made no scruple of giving the preference to the performers
of his own country, who, he alleged, obeyed the genuine impulses of
nature, in exhibiting the passions of the human mind; and entered so
warmly into the spirit of their several parts, that they often fancied
themselves the very heroes they represented; whereas, the action of
the Parisian players, even in their most interesting characters, was
generally such an extravagance in voice and gesture, as is nowhere to
be observed but on the stage. To illustrate this assertion, he availed
himself of his talent, and mimicked the manner and voice of all the
principal performers, male and female, belonging to the French comedy,
to the admiration of the chevalier, who, having complimented him upon
this surprising modulation, begged leave to dissent in some particulars
from the opinion he had avowed.

"That you have good actors in England," said he, "it would be unjust
and absurd in me to deny; your theatre is adorned by one woman, whose
sensibility and sweetness of voice is such as I have never observed on
any other stage; she has besides, an elegance of person and expression
of features, that wonderfully adapt her for the most engaging characters
of your best plays; and I must freely own that I have been as highly
delighted and as deeply affected by a Monimia and Belvidera at London,
as ever I was by Cornelia and Cleopatra at Paris. Your favourite actor
is a surprising genius. You can, moreover, boast of several comic actors
who are perfect masters of buffoonery and grimace; though, to be free
with you, I think in these qualifications you are excelled by the
players of Amsterdam. Yet one of your graciosos I cannot admire, in all
the characters he assumes. His utterance is a continual sing-song,
like the chanting of vespers; and his action resembles that of heaving
ballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment he seems to
have confounded the ideas of insolence and the dignity of mien; acts the
crafty cool, designing Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector;
in the character of the mild patriot Brutus, loses all temper and
decorum; nay, so ridiculous is the behaviou