for though it may be a reproach to the poet to draw such characters, not
only unpunished, but rewarded, the actor may still be allowed his due
praise in his excellent performance; and this was a distinction which,
when this comedy was acted at Whitehall, King William's Queen Mary
was pleased to make in favour of Mountford, notwithstanding her
disapprobation of the play; which was heightened by the consideration
of its having been written by a lady, viz. Mrs. Behn, from whom more
modesty might have been expected.

'He had, besides all this, a variety in his genius, which few capital
actors have shewn, or perhaps have thought it any addition of their
merit to arrive at; he could entirely change himself, could at once
throw off the man of sense, for the brisk, vain, rude, lively coxcomb,
the false, flashy pretender to wit, and the dupe of his own sufficiency;
of this he gave a delightful instance, in the character of Sparkish, in
Wycherley's Country Wife: in that of Sir Courtly Nice, by Crown, his
excellence was still greater; there his whole man, voice, mien, and
gesture, was no longer Mountford, but another person; there, the
insipid, soft civility, the elegant and formal mien, the drawling
delicacy of voice, the stately flatness of his address, and the empty
eminence of his attitudes, were so nicely observed, that had he not been
an entire matter of nature, had he not kept his judgment, as it were a
centinel upon himself, not to admit the least likeness of what he used
to be, to enter into any part of his performance, he could not possibly
have so compleatly finished it.'

Mr. Cibber further observes, that if, some years after the death of
Mountford, he himself had any success in those parts, he acknowledges
the advantages he had received from the just idea, and strong
impressions from Mountford's acting them.' 'Had he been remembered (says