Edward Burbage, like Shakespeare's own portrait, is, we venture to
think, a trifle stolid. Field--Nathaniel Field, author of The Fatal
Dowry, and an actor of reputation--in his singular costume, and with
a face of perhaps not quite reassuring subtlety, might pass for the
original of those Italian, or Italianized, voluptuaries in sin which
pleased the fancy of Shakespeare's age. Mixed up with many striking,
thoroughly dramatic physiognomies, it must be confessed that some of
these portraits scarcely help at all to explain the power of the
players to whom they belonged. That, perhaps, is what we might
naturally expect; the more, in proportion as the dramatic art is a
matter in which many very subtle and indirect channels to men's
sympathy are called into play. Edward Alleyn, from the portrait
preserved at [78] his noble foundation at Dulwich, like a fine
Holbein, figures, in blent strength and delicacy, as a genial, or
perhaps jovial, soul, finding time for sentiment,--Prynne (included,
we suppose, in this company, like the skull at the feast) as a
likable if somewhat melancholic young man; while Garrick and his wife
playing cards, after Zoffany, present a pair of just very nice young
people.
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