If you took acting away from me, I'd stop breathing.

If you took acting away from me, I'd stop breathing.

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my
own just above the others; because in read more

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my
own just above the others; because in it I recognize the union
and culmination of my own. To me it seems as if when God
conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was
Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it
with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal
Drama.

See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run;
and yet they steal my thunder.

See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run;
and yet they steal my thunder.

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan,
And hold the faithful mirror up to man.

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan,
And hold the faithful mirror up to man.

To have a smattering knowledge of anything.

To have a smattering knowledge of anything.

Within a stone's throw of it.

Within a stone's throw of it.

Tom Goodwin was an actor-man,
Old Drury's pride and boast,
In all the light and spritely parts,
read more

Tom Goodwin was an actor-man,
Old Drury's pride and boast,
In all the light and spritely parts,
Especially the ghost.

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.

The asses' bridge.
[Lat., Pons Asinorum.]

The asses' bridge.
[Lat., Pons Asinorum.]