ABSTRACT
The manner of a frightened Partridge can never have been at all like the manner of Hamlet. It is obvious that the naturalness required from Hamlet is very different from the naturalness of a Partridge; and Fielding made a great mistake in assimilating the representation of Garrick to the nature of a serving-man. The most general error of authors, and of actors, is turgidity rather than flatness. The striving to be effective easily leads into the error of exaggeration. The acting of Mr. Horace Wigan, as the pious banker in “The Settling Day,” which suggested these remarks, is quite as much below the truth of nature in its tameness and absence of individuality, as it would have been above the truth had he represented the conventional stage hypocrite. The modern French actors have seen the error; and some English actors have followed their example, and aimed at greater quietness and “naturalness.”.
