This kind of inability he shared with Shakspeare and Jonson, as he shared likewise some of their excellences. It seems reasonable to expect that a great dramatick poet should without difficulty become a great actor; that he who can feel, could express: that he who can excite passion, should exhibit with great readiness its external modes: but since experience has fully proved that of those powers, whatever be their affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree by him who has very little of the other; it must be allowed that they depend upon different faculties, or on different use of the same faculty; that the actor must have a pliancy of mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a variety of tones, which the poet may be easily supposed to want; or that the attention of the poet and the player have been differently employed: the one has been considering thought, and the other action; one has watched the heart, and the other contemplated the face.
Forced Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom, which Mr. Otway attempted to perform and failed in. This event appears to have happened in the year 1672. R
