If then I had always too careless a Concern for false or vulgar Applause, I ought not to complain if I have had less of it than others of my time, or not less of it than I desired: Yet I will venture to say, that from the common weak Appetite of false Applause, many Actors have run into more Errors and Absurdities, than their greatest Ignorance could otherwise have committed:[248] If this Charge is true, it will lie chiefly upon the better Judgment of the Spectator to reform it.
But not to make too great a Merit of my avoiding this common Road to Applause, perhaps I was vain enough to think I had more ways than one to come at it. That, in the Variety of Characters I acted, the Chances to win it were the stronger on my Side--That, if the Multitude were not in a Roar to see me in _Cardinal Wolsey_, I could be sure of them in Alderman _Fondlewife_. If they hated me in _Iago_, in Sir _Fopling_ they took me for a fine Gentleman; if they were silent at _Syphax_, no _Italian_ Eunuch was more applauded than when I sung in Sir _Courtly_. If the Morals of _Æsop_ were too grave for them, Justice _Shallow_ was as simple and as merry an old Rake as the wisest of our young ones could wish me.[249] And though the Terror and Detestation raised by King _Richard_ might be too severe a Delight for them, yet the more gentle and modern Vanities of a Poet Bays, or the well-bred Vices of a Lord _Foppington_, were not at all more than their merry Hearts or nicer Morals could bear.
These few Instances out of fifty more I could give you, may serve to explain what sort of Merit I at most pretended to; which was, that I supplied with Variety whatever I might want of that particular Skill wherein others went before me. How this Variety was executed (for by that only is its value to be rated) you who have so often been my Spectator are the proper Judge: If you pronounce my Performance to have been defective, I am condemn'd by my own Evidence; if you acquit me, these Out-lines may serve for a Sketch of my Theatrical Character.
_The State of the Stage continued. The Occasion of Wilks's commencing Actor. His Success. Facts relating to his Theatrical Talent. Actors more or less esteem'd from their private Characters._