To paint the passion's force, and mark it well,
The proper action nature's self will tell:
No pleasing pow'rs distortions e'er express,
And nicer judgment always loaths excess.
In sock or buskin, who o'erleaps the bounds,
Disgusts our reason, and the taste confounds.
Of all the evils which the stage molest,
I hate your fool who overacts his jest:
Who murders what the poet finely writ,
And, like a bungler, haggles all his wit,
With shrug, and grin, and gesture out of place,
And writes a foolish comment with his face.
Old Johnson once, tho' Cibber's perter vein
But meanly groupes him with a num'rous train,
With steady face, and sober hum'rous mien,
Fill'd the strong outlines of the comic scene.
What was writ down, with decent utt'rance spoke,
Betray'd no symptom of the conscious joke;
The very man in look, in voice, in air,
And tho' upon the stage, appear'd no play'r.