ADVERTISEMENT. A young Gentlewoman of about Nineteen Years of Age (bred in the Family of a Perfon of Quality lately deceased) whe Paints the finest Flefb-colour, wants a Place, and is to be heard of at the House of Minbeer Grotefque, a Dutch Painter in Barbican. N. B. She is also well skilled in the Drapery-part, and puts on Hoods and mixes Ribbons fo as to fuit the Colours of the Face with great Art and Success. R N° 42. Wednesday, April 18. Garganum mugire putes nemus aut mare Thufcum, RISTOTLE has obferved, That ordinary Writers in A Tragedy endeavour to raise Terror and Pity in their Audience, not by proper Senti A ments and Expreffions, but by the Dreffes Dreffes and Decorations of the Stage. There is fomething of this kind very ridiculous in the English Theatre. When the Author has a Mind to terrifie us, it thunders; When he would make us melancholy, the Stage is darkened. But among all our tragick Artifices, I am the most offended at those which are made use of to infpire us with magnifi-. cent Ideas of the Perfons that speak. The ordinary Method of making a Hero, is to clap a huge Plume of Feathers upon his Head, which rifes fo very high, that there is often a greater Length from his Chin to the Top of his Head, than to the Sole of his Foot. would believe, that we thought a great Man and a tall Man the fame thing. This very much embarraffes the Actor, who is forced to hold his Neck extreamly stiff and steady all the while he fpeaks; and notwithstanding any Anxieties which he pretends for his Mistress, his Country, or his Friends, one may fee by his Action, that his greatest Care and Concern is to keep the Plume of Feathers from falling off his Head. For my own part, when I fee a Man uttering his Complaints under fuch a Mountain of Feathers, I am apt to look upon One him him rather as an unfortunate Lunatick, than a diftreffed Hero. As these fuper fluous Ornaments upon the Head make a great Man, a Princess generally receives her Grandeur from those additional Incumbrances that fall into her Tail: I mean the broad fweeping Train that follows her in all her Motions, and finds conftant Employment for a Boy who ftands behind her to open and fpread it to advantage. I do not know how o thers are affected at this Sight, but, I muft confefs, my Eyes are wholly taken up with the Page's Part; and as for the Queen, I am not fo attentive to any thing the fpeaks, as to the right adjufting of her Train, left it fhould chance to trip up her Heels, or incommode her, as fhe walks to and fro upon the Stage. It is, in my Opinion, a very odd Spetacle, to fee a Queen venting her Paf fion in a difordered Motion, and a little Boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the Tail of her Gown. The Parts that the two Perfons act on the Stage at the fame Time, are very different: The Princefs is afraid left the fhould incur the Difpleasure of the King her Father, or lofe the Hero her Lover, whilft her Attendant is only concerned left left the fhould entangle her Feet in her Petticoat. WE are told, That an ancient Tra gick Poet, to move the Pity of his Au dience for his exiled Kings and diftreffed Heroes, ufed to make the Actors reprefent them in Dreffes and Cloaths that were thread-bare and decayed. This Artifice for moving Pity, feems as ill-contrived, as that we have been speaking of to infpire us with a great Idea of the Perfons introduced upon the Stage. In fhort, I would have our Conceptions raised by the Dignity of Thought and Sublimity of Expreffion, rather than by a Train of Robes or a Plume of Feathers. ANOTHER mechanical Method of making great Men, and adding Dige nity to Kings and Queens, is to accom pany them with Halberts and Battleaxes. Two or three Shifters of Scenes, with the two Candle-fnuffers, make up a compleat Body of Guards upon the English Stage, and by the Addition of a few Porters dreffed in red Coats, can represent above a dozen Legions. I have fometimes feen a Couple of Armies drawn up together upon the Stage, when the Poet has been difpofed to do S Ho Honour to his Generals. It is impoffible for the Reader's Imagination to multiply Twenty Men into fuch prodigious Multitudes, or to fancy that two three hundred thousand Soldiers are. fighting in a Room of forty or fifty Yards in Compass. Incidents of fuch nature should be told, not represented. Non tamen intus Digna geri promes in fcenam: multaque tolles Ex oculis, qua mox narret facundia præfens. Hor Yet there are things improper for a Scene, - I fhould therefore, in this Particular, recommend to my Countrymen the Example of the French Stage, where the Kings and Queens always appear unattended, and leave their Guards behind the Scenes. I fhould likewife be glad if we imitated the French in banishing from our Stage the Noife of Drums, Trumpets, and Huzzas; which is fometimes fo very great, that when there is a Battel in the Hay-Market Theatre, one may hear it as far as Charing-Cross. I |