THE BEE. BEING ESSAYS ON THE MOST INTERESTING SUBJECTS. Floriferis ut Apes in faltibus omnia libant, Omnia Nos itidem. LONDON: Printed for J. WILKIE, at the Bible, in St. Paul's Church-Yard. MDCCLIX. . [In the following reprint of The Bee, the pieces subsequently revised and included in Essays, 1765 (ed. 2, 1766) are omitted, being given in their later form under Essays'. The following pieces are also omitted: Four translations from Voltaire; The Sentiments of a Frenchman on the Temper of the English,' reprinted with alterations from the English translation (1747) of Le Blanc's Lettres; 'On Deceit and Falsehood,' reprinted with alterations from The Humourist, 1720; and An Account of the Augustan Age of England' (of doubtful authorship). Five poems are also omitted, which will be found in the companion volume of Goldsmith's Poems.] THE BEE NUMBER I. SATURDAY, October 6, 1759. REMARKS ON OUR THEATRES OUR theatres are now opened, and all Grub Street is preparing its advice to the managers; we shall undoubtedly hear learned disquisitions on the structure of one actor's legs, and another's eyebrows. We shall be told much of enunciations, tones, and attitudes, and shall have our lightest pleasures commented upon by didactic dullness. We shall, it is feared, be told, that Garrick is a fine actor, but then, as a manager, so avaricious! That Palmer is a most promising genius, and Holland likely to do well, in a particular cast of character. We shall have them giving Shuter instructions to amuse us by rule, and deploring over the ruins of desolated majesty in Covent Garden. As I love to be advising too, for advice is easily given, and bears a show of wisdom and superiority, I must be permitted to offer a few observations upon our theatres and actors, without, on this trivial occasion, throwing my thoughts into the formality of method. There is something in the deportment of all our players infinitely more stiff and formal than among the actors of other nations. Their action sits uneasy upon them; for as the English use very little gesture in ordinary conversation, our English-bred actors are obliged to supply stage gestures by their imagination alone. A French comedian finds proper models of action in every company and in every coffee-house he enters. An Englishman is obliged to take his models from the stage itself; he is obliged to imitate nature from an imitation of nature. I know of no set of men more likely to be improved by travelling than those of the theatrical profession. The inhabitants of the Continent are less reserved than here; they may be seen through upon a first acquaintance; such are the proper models to draw from; they are at once striking, and are found in great abundance. Though it would be inexcusable in a comedian to add anything of his own to the poet's dialogue, yet as to action he is entirely at liberty. By this he may show the fertility of his genius, the poignancy of his humour, and the exactness of his judgement; we scarce see a coxcomb or a fool in common life that has not some peculiar oddity in his action. These peculiarities it is not in the power of words to represent, and depend solely upon the actor. They give a relish to the humour of the poet, and make the appearance of nature more illusive; the Italians, it is true, mask some characters, and endeavour to preserve the peculiar humour by the make of the mask; but I have seen others still preserve a great fund of humour in the face without a mask; one actor, particularly, by a squint which he threw into some characters of low life, assumed a look of infinite solidity. This, though upon reflection we might condemn, yet, immediately, upon representation, we could not avoid being pleased with. To illustrate what I have been saying by the plays I have of late gone to see: In The Miser, which was played a few nights ago at Covent Garden, Lovegold appears through the whole in circumstances of exaggerated avarice; all the player's action, therefore, should conspire with the poet's design, and represent him as as epitome of penury. The French comedian, in this character, in the midst of one of his most violent passions, while he appears in an ungovernable rage, feels the demon of avarice still upon him, and stoops down to pick up a pin, which he quilts into the flap of his coatpocket with great assiduity. Two candles are lighted up for his wedding; he flies and turns one of them into the socket; it is, however, lighted up again; he then steals to it, and privately crams it into his pocket. The MockDoctor was lately played at the other house. Here again the comedian had an opportunity of heightening the ridicule by action. The French player sits in a chair with a high back, and then begins to show away by talking nonsense, which he would have thought Latin by those whom he knows do not understand a syllable of the matter. At last he grows enthusiastic, enjoys the admiration of the company, tosses his legs and arms about, and in the midst of his raptures and vociferation, he and the chair fall back together. All this appears dull enough in the recital, but the gravity of Cato could not stand it in the representation. In short, there is hardly a character in comedy to which a player of any real humour might not add strokes of vivacity that could not fail of applause. But instead of this we too often see our fine gentlemen do nothing, through a whole part, but strut, and open their snuff-box; our pretty fellows sit indecently with their legs across, and our clowns pull up their breeches. These, if once, or even twice, repeated, might do well enough; but to see them served up in every scene, argues the actor almost as barren as the character he would expose. The magnificence of our theatres is far superior to any others in Europe where plays only are acted. The great care our performers take in painting for a part, their exactness in all the minutiae of dress, and other |