upon his entrance into every scene, he
seemed to seize upon the eyes and ears of the giddy and inadvertent. To
have talked or looked another way would then have been thought
insensibility or ignorance. In all his soliloquies of moment, the strong
intelligence of his attitude and aspect drew you into such an impatient
gaze, and eager expectation, that you almost imbibed the sentiment with
your eye, before the ear could reach it.

As Betterton is the centre to which all my observations upon action
tend, you will give me leave, under his character, to enlarge upon that
head. In the just delivery of poetical numbers, particularly where the
sentiments are pathetic, it is scarce credible upon how minute an
article of sound depends their greatest beauty or inaffection. The voice
of a singer is not more strictly tied to time and tune than that of an
actor in theatrical elocution. The least syllable too long, or too
slightly dwelt upon in a period, depreciates it to nothing; which very
syllable, if rightly touched, shall, like the heightening stroke of
light from a master's pencil, give life and spirit to the whole. I never
heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton wherein my judgment, my ear,
and my imagination were not fully satisfied, which, since his time I
cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever; not but it is possible
to be much his inferior with great excellencies, which I shall observe
in another place. Had it been practicable to have tied down the
clattering hands of the ill judges who were commonly the majority of an
audience, to what amazing perfection might the English theatre have
arrived, with so just an actor as Betterton at the head of it! If what
was truth only could have been applauded, how many noisy actors had
shook their plumes with shame, who, from the injudicious approbation of
the multitude, have bawled and strutted in the place of merit! If,
therefore, the bare speaking voice has such allurements in it, how much
less ought we to wonder, however we may lament, that the sweeter notes
of vocal music should so have captivated even the politer world into an
apostacy from sense to an idolatry of sound. Let us inquire whence this
enchantment rises. I am afraid it may be too naturally accounted for:
for when we complain that the finest music, purchased at such vast
expense, is so often thrown away upon the most miserable poetry, we seem
not to consider that when the movement of the air and the tone of th