CONSISTING O F CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON SEVERAL PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE: WITH A REVIEW OF HIS PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS, AND WITH ANECDOTES OF DRAMATIC POETS, ACTORS, &c. Μισω πλετον αγών, κολακων τροφον, εδε παρ' οφρυν LONDON: Printed for the AUTHOR, and fold at his Shop, in M.DCC.LXXXV. DRAMATIC MISCELLANIE S. All's well that ends well. CHAPTER XXI. Unpromifing fable to All's well that ends well.-Shakspeare's creative power.- Revival of this comedy in 1741.- Sickness of Milward. Mrs. Woffington. - Death of Milward. His character.—Superftition of the actors.-Parolles.-Macklin and Theophilus Cibber.-Chapman and Berry commended.—All's well that ends well revived by Garrick.-Diftribution of the parts.Abufe of wardship. - Fafcinating power of certain worthless characters. Lully, Swift, and Lord Rivers.-Word Christen 3925 .639 COP.I dom. Helen's defcription of Parolles. Definition of clown, or fool.-His occupation.-Defcription from Johnson and Stee. bens: -B. Jonfon and Fletcher. ShakSpeare's fuperior knowledge of nature and the qualities of his auditors.--Jonfon not averfe to mirth in tragedy. His Sejanus and Catiline.-Condition of phyficians in England, France, and Germany.-Helen's delicacy. A Phyfician's daughter curing a king, diftempered with a fistula, by a recipe of her dead father, is the history on which this play is founded; a plot strange and unpromifing. But the genius of Shakspeare meets with no obftacle from the uncouthness of the materials he works upon. Action and character are the chief engines he employs in this comedy, and he raises abundance of mirth from the fituations in which they are placed. Parolles and Lafeu are admirable contrafts, from the collifion of of whofe humours perpetual laughter is produced. Helen's fcheme, of gaining her husband's affections by paffing on him for a mistress, has been adopted with success by other dramatifts; particularly by Shirley in the Gamester, and Cibber in his first comedy of Love's laft Shift. All's well that ends well, after having lain more than a hundred years undisturbed upon the prompter's fhelf, was, in October, 1741, revived at the theatre in Drury-lane. Milward, who acted the King, is faid to have caught a diftemper which proved fatal to him, by wearing, in this part, a too light and airy fuit of clothes, which he put on after his fuppofed recovery. He felt himself seized with a fhivering; and was asked, by one of the players, how he found himself? How is it poffible for me,' he faid, with fome pleasantry, ' to be fick, when I have such a phyfician as Mrs. Woffington?' This elegant and beautiful actress was the Helen of the play. |