The right hand labours, and the left lies still; For he, resolved on Scripture grounds to go, What the right doth, the left-hand shall not know, 880 With studied impropriety of speech, He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach; To epithets allots emphatic state, Whilst principals, ungraced, like lackeys wait; In ways first trodden by himself excels, And stands alone in indeclinables; Conjunction, preposition, adverb join To stamp new vigour on the nervous line; In monosyllables his thunders roll, He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul. 890 In person taller than the common size, Behold where Barry[71] draws admiring eyes! When labouring passions, in his bosom pent, Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent; Spectators, with imagined terrors warm, Anxious expect the bursting of the storm: But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell, His voice comes forth, like Echo from her cell, To swell the tempest needful aid denies, And all adown the stage in feeble murmurs dies. 900 What man, like Barry, with such pains, can err In elocution, action, character? What man could give, if Barry was not here, Such well applauded tenderness to Lear? Who else can speak so very, very fine, That sense may kindly end with every line? Some dozen lines before the ghost is there, Behold him for the solemn scene prepare: See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb, Puts the whole body into proper trim:-- 910 From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art, Five lines hence comes a ghost, and, ha! a start. When he appears most perfect, still we find Something which jars upon and hurts the mind: Whatever lights upon a part are thrown, We see too plainly they are not his own: No flame from Nature ever yet he caught, Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught: He raised his trophies on the base of art, And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part. 920 Quin,[72] from afar, lured by the scent of fame, A stage leviathan, put in his claim, Pupil of Betterton[73] and Booth. Alone, Sullen he walk'd, and deem'd the chair his own: For how should moderns, mushrooms of the day, Who ne'er those masters knew, know how to play? Gray-bearded veterans, who, with partial tongue, Extol the times when they themselves were young, Who, having lost all relish for the stage, See not their own defects, but lash the age, 930 Received, with joyful murmurs of applause, Their darling chief, and lined[74] his favourite cause. Far be it from the candid Muse to tread Insulting o'er the ashes of the dead: But, just to living merit, she maintains, And dares the test, whilst Garrick's genius reigns, Ancients in vain endeavour to excel, Happily praised, if they could act as well. But, though prescription's force we disallow, Nor to antiquity submissive bow; 940 Though we deny imaginary grace, Founded on accidents of time and place,