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Occupations-Acting: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan, And hold the faithful mirror up to man.— ROBERT LLOYD — The Actor. L. 265.

Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the vast universe serves for a theatre?— MONTAIGNE — Of the Most Excellent Men.

A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach.— POPE — Epistle to Mrs. Blount. With the Works of Voiture. L. 22.

There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit.— POPE — Horace. Ep. I. Bk. II. L. 304.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold- For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.— POPE — Prologue to Addison's Cato. L. 1.

Your scene precariously subsists too long On French translation and Italian song. Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage; Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.— POPE — Prologue to Addison's Cato. L. 42.

Tom Goodwin was an actor-man, Old Drury's pride and boast, In all the light and spritely parts, Especially the ghost. J. G. SAXE The Ghost Player. The play bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.— SCOTT — The Talisman. Introduction.

A beggarly account of empty boxes.— Shakespeare — Romeo and Juliet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 45.

A hit, a very palpable hit.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 294.

And, like a strutting player, whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.— Shakespeare — Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 153.

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have known a play; But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, Which makes it tedious. Midsummer-Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 61. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious.— Shakespeare — Richard II. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 23.

Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Midsummer-Night's Dream. Act III. Sc. I. L. 74. Good, my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. C.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 545.

I can counterfeit the deep tragedian; Speak and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, Intending deep suspicion.— Shakespeare — Richard III. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 5.

If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. As You Like It. Epilogue. L. 3. I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play, Have, by the very cunning of the scene, Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 617.

Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann'd.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 577.

Is there no play, To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Midsummer-Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 36. Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out, Even to a full disgrace.— Shakespeare — Coriolanus. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 40.

O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 32.

OCCUPATIONS-AGRICULTURE. 423 Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 1.

The play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 633.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 585.

Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age!— CHARLES SPRAGUE — Curiosity.

The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task: And, when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's anything but gay.— THACKERAY — The End of the Play.

In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play, (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse.— EDMUND WALLER — Prologue to the Maid's Tragedy. L. 35.

Agriculture. Look up! the wide extended plain Is billowy with its ripened grain, And on the summer winds are rolled Its waves of emerald and gold.— WM. HENRY BURLEIGH — The Harvest- Call. St. 5.

The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.— EMERSON — Society and Solitude.

Farming. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield: Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! S.— GRAY — Elegy in a Country Churchyard. St. 7.