r of him and Cassius at their
interview, that, setting foot to foot, and grinning at each other,
with the aspect of two cobblers engaged, they thrust their left sides
together, with repeated shoots, that the hilts of their swords may clash
for the entertainment of the audience; as if they were a couple of merry
andrews, endeavouring to raise the laugh of the vulgar, on some scaffold
of Bartholomew Fair. The despair of a great man, who falls a victim to
the infernal practices of a subtle traitor who enjoyed his confidence,
this English Aesopus represents, by beating his own forehead, and
beating like a bull; and, indeed, in almost all his most interesting
scenes, performs such strange shakings of the head, and other antic
gesticulations, that when I first saw him act, I imagined the poor man
laboured under the paralytical disorder, which is known by the name
of St. Vitus's dance. In short, he seems to be a stranger to the more
refined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression is of the
vulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet; so that
he has recourse to such violence of affected agitation, as imposes upon
the undiscerning spectator; but to the eye of taste, evinces him a mere
player of that class whom your admired Shakespeare justly compares to
Nature's journeyman tearing a passion to rags. Yet this man, in spite of
all these absurdities, is an admirable Falstaff, exhibits the character
of the eighth Henry to the life, is reasonably applauded in the Plain
Dealer, excels in the part of Sir John Brute, and would be equal to many
humorous situations in low comedy, which his pride will not allow him to
undertake. I should not have been so severe upon this actor, had I not
seen him extolled by his partisans with the most ridiculous and fulsome
manifestations of praise, even in those very circumstances wherein (as I
have observed) he chiefly failed."

Peregrine, not a little piqued to hear the qualifications of such a
celebrated actor in England treated with such freedom and disrespect,
answered, with some asperity, that the chevalier was a true critic,
more industrious in observing the blemishes than in acknowledging the
excellence of those who fell under his examination.

It was not to be supposed that one actor could shine equally in all
characters; and though his observations were undoubtedly very judicious,
he himself could not help wondering that some of them had always escaped
his notice