Page:The Rosciad - Churchill (1761, 2nd edition).djvu/36

For me, by Nature form'd to judge with phlegm,
I can't acquit by wholesale nor condemn.
The best things carried to excess are wrong; 715
The start may be too frequent, pause too long.
But only us'd in proper time and place,
Severest judgment must allow them Grace.

If Bunglers, form'd on Imitation's plan,
Just in the way that Monkies mimic Man; 720
Their copied scene with mangled arts disgrace,
And pause and start with the same vacant face;
We join the critic laugh; those tricks we scorn,
Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn.

But when, from Nature's pure and genuine source, 715
These strokes of acting flow with gen'rous force;
When in the features all the soul's portray'd,
And passions, such as Garrick's, are display'd;
To me they seem from quickest feelings caught:
Each start, is Nature; and each pause, is Thought. 800

When Reason yields to Passion's wild alarms,
And the whole state of Man is up in arms;
What, but a Critic, could condemn the Play'r
For pausing here, when Cool Sense pauses there?
Whilst, working from the heart, the fire I trace, 805
And mark it strongly flaming to the face;