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¬deration, though not to the highest distino tions — nothing else can invite its professors to learned and polished educations; without which, in the superior branches of acting, there can be no brilliant succession. — We might have self- taught genius even from the desert, but the ordinary soil of nature must be highly dressed to be eminently productive, and its culture must be encouraged by the prices of the harvest. This truth is constantly exemplified in the Lon- don theatres — we have many clowns and buf- foons, and lower characters, most admirably re- presented, because, without at all undervaluing the talents such imitations call for, the most uneducated may excel in them, nay perhaps even excel the most; but, to fill the higher parts of tragedy, where the great, the wise, and the accom- plished, have often to speak in the stately measure of sublime poetry, or, as in genteel comedy, in the language of the high and fashionable world, classical taste and high breeding are indispensa- ble, and which no genius can imitate, because manners must be insensibly worked into the ¬habit ¬
