Page:Poems on Several Occasions - Love - 1754.pdf/12

iv advantages, how many punctilios are necessary to help the comedian to support that delusion, which endeavours to realize any theatrical entertainment.A good actor, like a good picture, may lose much of his merit by being set in a bad light. I hope no one will be severe enough to think, that, possess'd of a ridiculous egotism, I am about to paint out any particular merit of my own; or assume the notion of a man of consequence, from the applause I have been honour'd with.—--I wou'd only wish to tell how particularly I am indebted to those who have overlook'd my faults and indulged me with their approbation, surrounded as I have been with infinite theatrical difficulties.

matters of this sort, in respect to the weightier concerns that engage the attention of mankind, may justly be esteem'd trifling; yet when it is considered that a person speaks, whose whole dependence is upon the courtesy of the public, by whom he is most immediately to be judg'd, to him,