Unpromifing fable to All's well that ends well.— Shakspeare's creative power. vival of this comedy in 1741. Re Sickness of Death of Milward. Mrs. Woffington. Milward. His character.-Superftition of the actors. Parolles. Macklin and The. Cibber. Chapman and Berry commended. All's well that ends well revived by Garrick. Diftribution of the parts.— Abufe of wardship. Fascinating power of certain worthless characters. Lully, Swift, and Lord Rivers.-Word Christen dom. Helen's defcription of Parolles. Definition of clown, or fool.-His occupation. Defcription from Johnson and Steevens. B. Jonfon and Fletcher. ShakSpeare's fuperior knowledge of nature and the qualities of his auditors. verse to mirth in tragedy. and Catiline. Fonfon not a- 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 unpromising. But the genius of Shakfpeare meets with no obstacle 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 scheme, of gaining her husband's affections by paffing on him for a mistress, has been adopted with fuccefs by other dramatifts; particularly by Shirley in the Gamester, and Cibber in his first comedy of Love's last Shift. འ 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 supposed recovery. He felt himself feized with a fhivering; and was afked, by one of the players, how he found himfelf? How is it poffible for me,' he faid, with fome pleafantry, to be fick, when I have fuch a physician as Mrs. Woffington? This elegant and beautiful actress was the Helen of the play. His diftemper, however, increased, and foon after hurried him to his grave. So pleasing an actor as Milward deserves more than a flight remembrance. In the Memoirs of Garrick's Life, I fpoke of him as one who was not without a great share of merit, but was too apt to indulge himfelf in fuch an extension of voice as approached to vociferation. He prided himself so much in the harmony and sweetness of his tones, that he was heard to say, in a kind of rapture, after throwing out fome paffionate fpeeches in a favourite part, that he wished he could falute the Sweet echo, meaning his voice. His Lufignan, in Zara, was not much inferior to Mr. Garrick's representation of that part. Milward chofe Booth for his model; and, notwithstanding his inferiority to that accomplished tragedian, he was the only performer in tragedy, who, if he had survived, could have approached to our great Rofcius; who, though he would always have been the first, yet, in that cafe, would not |