Woodward[29], endow'd with various tricks of face, Great master in the science of grimace, 370 From Ireland ventures, favourite of the town, Lured by the pleasing prospect of renown; A speaking harlequin, made up of whim, He twists, he twines, he tortures every limb; Plays to the eye with a mere monkey's art, And leaves to sense the conquest of the heart. We laugh indeed, but, on reflection's birth, We wonder at ourselves, and curse our mirth. His walk of parts he fatally misplaced, And inclination fondly took for taste; 380 Hence hath the town so often seen display'd Beau in burlesque, high life in masquerade. But when bold wits,--not such as patch up plays, Cold and correct, in these insipid days,-- Some comic character, strong featured, urge To probability's extremest verge; Where modest Judgment her decree suspends, And, for a time, nor censures, nor commends; Where critics can't determine on the spot Whether it is in nature found or not, 390 There Woodward safely shall his powers exert, Nor fail of favour where he shows desert; Hence he in Bobadil such praises bore, Such worthy praises, Kitely[30] scarce had more. By turns transform'd into all kind of shapes, Constant to none, Foote laughs, cries, struts, and scrapes: Now in the centre, now in van or rear, The Proteus shifts, bawd, parson, auctioneer. His strokes of humour, and his bursts of sport, Are all contain'd in this one word--distort. 400 Doth a man stutter, look a-squint, or halt? Mimics draw humour out of Nature's fault, With personal defects their mirth adorn, And bang misfortunes out to public scorn. E'en I, whom Nature cast in hideous mould, Whom, having made, she trembled to behold, Beneath the load of mimicry may groan, And find that Nature's errors are my own. Shadows behind of Foote and Woodward came; Wilkinson this, Obrien[31] was that name. 410 Strange to relate, but wonderfully true, That even shadows have their shadows too! With not a single comic power endued, The first a mere, mere mimic's mimic stood; The last, by Nature form'd to please, who shows, In Johnson's Stephen, which way genius grows, Self quite put off, affects with too much art To put on Woodward in each mangled part; Adopts his shrug, his wink, his stare; nay, more, His voice, and croaks; for Woodward croak'd before. 420 When a dull copier simple grace neglects, And rests his imitation in defects, We readily forgive; but such vile arts Are double guilt in men of real parts. By Nature form'd in her perversest mood, With no one requisite of art endued, Next Jackson came[32]--Observe that settled glare, Which better speaks a puppet than a player; List to that voice--did ever Discord hear Sounds so well fitted to her untuned ear? 430 When to enforce some very tender part, The right hand slips by instinct on the heart,