Atlantic on their passing favourites _cum grano salis_. In a
word, we are persuaded that Hodgkinson came nearer to Barry
in Barry's line, than any actor now living does to Garrick,
Barry, or Mossop in theirs. In Faulconbridge, and in it
alone he was perhaps equal to Barry.

Spranger Barry was in his person above five feet eleven inches high,
finely formed, and possessing a countenance in which manliness and
sweetness of feature were so happily blended, as formed one of the best
imitations of the Apollo Belvidere. With this fine commanding figure, he
was so much in the free and easy management of his limbs, as never to
look encumbered, or present an ungraceful attitude, in all his various
movements on the stage. Even his _exits_ and _entrances_ had peculiar
graces, from their characteristic ease and simplicity. What must have
greatly assisted Barry in the grace and ease of treading the stage, was
his skill in dancing and fencing; the first of which he was early in
life very fond of; and, on his coming to England, again instructed in,
under the care of the celebrated Denoyer, dancing-master to Frederick
Prince of Wales's family. This was done at the prince's request after he
had seen him play in lord Townley, in the Provoked Husband. In short
when he appeared in the scene, grouped with other actors of ordinary
size, he appeared as much above them in his various qualifications as in
the proud superiority of his figure.

"So, when a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
All eyes are idly bent on him who follows next."

To this figure he added a voice so peculiarly musical as very early in
life obtained him the character of "the silver-toned Barry," which, in
all his love scenes, lighted up by the smiles of such a countenance, was
persuasion itself. Indeed, so strongly did he communicate his feelings
on these occasions, that whoever observed the expressive countenances of
most of the female part of his audience, each seemed to say, in the
language of Desdemona,

"Would that Heaven had made me such a man."

Yet, with all this softness, it was capable of the fullest extent of
rage, which he often most powerfully exemplified, in several passages of
Alexander, Orestes, Othello, &c.

We are aware of Churchill's criticism in the Rosciad standing against
us, where he says, "his voice comes forth like Echo from her cell." But
however party might have cried up this writer as a poet and a sa