l
faces of the same oval form, would baffle his art; and he would be
reduced to the miserable shift of writing their names at the foot of his
picture. Yet there was a great difference; and a person who had seen
them once would no more have mistaken one of them for the other than he
would have mistaken Mr. Pitt for Mr. Fox. But the difference lay in
delicate lineaments and shades, reserved for pencils of a rare order.

This distinction runs through all the imitative arts. Foote's mimicry
was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off
only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr
or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. "If a man," said Johnson,
"hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one leg." Garrick, on the other hand,
could seize those differences of manner and pronunciation, which, though
highly characteristic, are yet too slight to be described. Foote, we
have no doubt, could have made the Haymarket Theatre shake with laughter
by imitating a conversation between a Scotchman and a Somersetshireman.
But Garrick could have imitated a conversation between two fashionable
men, both models of the best breeding, Lord Chesterfield, for example,
and Lord Albemarle, so that no person could doubt which was which,
although no person could say that, in any point, either Lord
Chesterfield or Lord Albemarle spoke or moved otherwise than in
conformity with the usages of the best society.

The same distinction is found in the drama and in fictitious narrative.
Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of
dialogue, stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,
endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he
has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the
characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in
all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates
widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric
if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one
ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the
mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of
Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions,
which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is
Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or
Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick'