Dramatic Effect

: The Drama--actors, Etc.

It is related in the annals of the stage, as a remarkable
instance of the force of imagination, that when Banks's play of the _Earl

of Essex_ was performed, a soldier, who stood sentinel on the stage,

entered so deeply into the distress of the scene, that in the delusion of

his imagination, upon the Countess of Nottingham's denying the receipt of

the ring which Essex had sent by her to the queen to claim a promise of

favour,
e exclaimed, "'Tis false! she has it in her bosom;" and

immediately seized the mock countess to make her deliver it up.





Charles Hulet, a comedian of some celebrity in the early part of the last

century, was an apprentice to a bookseller. After reading plays in his

master's shop, he used to repeat the speeches in the kitchen, in the

evening, to the destruction of many a chair, which he substituted in the

room of the real persons in the drama. One night, as he was repeating the

part of Alexander, with his wooden representative of Clitus, (an elbow

chair), and coming to the speech where the old general is to be killed,

this young mock Alexander snatched a poker, instead of a javelin, and threw

it with such strength, against poor Clitus, that the chair was killed upon

the spot, and lay mangled on the floor. The death of Clitus made a

monstrous noise, which disturbed the master in the parlour, who called out

to know the reason; and was answered by the cook below, "Nothing, sir, but

that Alexander has killed Clitus."



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