despairing, the transported, and the amiable, in the highest perfection.
In comedy he gave the truest life to what we call the fine gentleman;
his spirit shone the brighter for being polished by decency. In scenes
of gaiety he never broke into the regard that was due to the presence
of equal, or superior characters, tho' inferior actors played them; he
filled the stage, not by elbowing and crossing it before others, or
disconcerting their action, but by surpassing them in true and masterly
touches of nature; he never laughed at his own jest, unless the point
of his raillery upon another required it; he had a particular talent
in giving life to bons mots and repartees; the wit of the poet seemed
always to come from him extempore, and sharpened into more wit from his
brilliant manner of delivering it; he had himself a good share of it,
or what is equal to it, so lively a pleasantness of humour, that when
either of these fell into his hands upon the stage, he wantoned with
them to the highest delight of his auditors. The agreeable was so
natural to him, that even in that dissolute character of the Rover, he
seemed to wash off the guilt from vice, and gave it charms and merit;
for though it may be a reproach to the poet to draw such characters, not
only unpunished, but rewarded, the actor may still be allowed his due
praise in his excellent performance; and this was a distinction which,
when this comedy was acted at Whitehall, King William's Queen Mary
was pleased to make in favour of Mountford, notwithstanding her
disapprobation of the play; which was heightened by the consideration
of its having been written by a lady, viz. Mrs. Behn, from whom more
modesty might have been expected.

'He had, besides all this, a variety in his genius, which few capital
actors have shewn, or perhaps have thought it any addition of their
merit to arrive at; he could entirely change himself, could at once
throw off the man of sense, for the brisk, vain, rude, lively coxcomb,
the false, flashy pretender to wit, and the dupe of his own sufficiency;
of this he gave a delightful instance, in the character of Sparkish, in
Wycherley's Country Wife: in that of Sir Courtly Nice, by Crown, his
excellence was still greater; there his whole man, voice, mien, and
gesture, was no longer Mountford, but another person; there, the
insipid, soft civility, the elegant and formal mien, the drawling
delicacy of voice, the stately flatness of his address, and th