The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events

by Leigh Hunt

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."

Mr. Barrymore (of whom we have no unpleasing recollection) had something of this manner with him; but the extremity of the style is now quite gone out.

The only capital performers we remember, that are now dead and gone, with the exception of two or three already mentioned, were Mrs. Jordan, a charming cordial actress, on the homely side of the agreeable, with a delightful voice; and Suett, who was the very personification of weak whimsicality, with a laugh like a peal of giggles. Mathews gives him to the life.