248 Two Dialogues by
other man may die x , without being killed by too much sensi bility.
GIB. But you will allow, however, that this sensibility, those fine feelings, made him the great actor he was.
JOHNS. This is all cant 2 , fit only for kitchen wenches and chambermaids : Garrick's trade was to represent passion, not to feel it. Ask Reynolds whether he felt the distress of Count Hugolino when he drew it 3 .
GIB. But surely he feels the passion at the moment he is representing it.
JOHNS. About as much as Punch feels 4 . That Garrick him self gave into this foppery of feelings I can easily believe ; but he knew at the same time that he lied. He might think it right, as far as I know, to have what fools imagined he ought to have ; but it is amazing that any one should be so ignorant as to think that an actor will risk his reputation by depending on the feelings that shall be excited in the presence of two hundred people, on the repetition of certain words which he has repeated two hundred times before in what actors call their study 5 . No, Sir, Garrick left nothing to chance ; every gesture, every expres sion of countenance, and variation of voice, was settled in his closet before he set his foot upon the stage 6 .
1 He died of a disease of the who believe yourself transformed into kidneys. Murphy's Garrick, p. 472. the very character you. represent ? "
2 Ante, i. 161 n., 314 n. Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that
3 North cote says that either Burke he had never felt so strong a per- or Goldsmith, seeing a head of a man suasion himself; "To be sure not, in Reynolds's picture gallery, * ex- Sir, (said Johnson ;) the thing is im- claimed that it struck him as being possible. And if Garrick really be- the precise person, countenance and lieved himself to be that monster, expression of the Count Ugolino as Richard the Third, he deserved to described by Dante in his Inferno! be hanged every time he performed Reynolds had not had Ugolino in it."' Life, iv. 243. See also ib. v. his thoughts when he drew the head. 46. Mrs. Pritchard, who was, said Northcote's Reynolds, i. 279. Johnson, ' a very good player ' (Life,
4 'Punch has no feelings.' Ante, v. 126); 'the surprising versatility i. 457. of whose talents ' Gibbon mentions
5 Study in this sense is not in (Misc. Works, i. 155); 'who was Johnson's Dictionary. celebrated in Lady Macbeth, owned
6 ' " Are you, Sir, (said Johnson to that she knew no more of that play Kemble) one of those enthusiasts than what was written for her by the
prompter
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