Excerpt from The Lives of the Players, Vol. 1 of 2The nature of his task necessarily directed him to disregard dates and minute circumstances, save in a few epochal events, and to study the general appearance rather than those particular markings which distinguish personal from historical por traiture. His pencil has been withheld from warts, scars, and freckles, but the nobler features have been painted with industrious care. With several individuals he has perhaps not failed, and where he ventures to offer a judgment either on defects, talents, or degrees of excellence, he has not only endeavoured to be correct in weighing the testimony of others, but well supported where he has found himself constrained to differ from received Opinions.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.