George Chapman.—The Widow’s Tears.
ACTING.—Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma,
or a hideous dream.
Shakespeare.—Julius Cæsar, Act II. Scene 1. (Brutus, after Cassius had moved him against Cæsar.)
ACTION.—Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2. (His directions to the players.)
Prodigious actions may as well be done
By weaver’s issue, as by prince’s son.
Dryden.—Absalom and Ahithophel, Part I. Line 638.
ACTOR.—He loved his friends (forgive this gushing tear;
Alas! I feel, I am no actor here.)
Lyttleton.—Prologue to Thomson’s Coriolanus.
ACTOR.—As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on
him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes
Did
scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him!
Shakespeare.—King Richard II. Act V. Scene 2. (York to his Duchess.)