done.... He had all the parts of an excellent orator, animating his
words with speaking, and speech with acting, his auditors being never
more delighted than when he spake, nor more sorry than when he held
his peace. Yet even then he was an excellent actor still, never
failing in his part when he had done speaking, but with his looks and
gestures maintaining it still to the height."

It is not my intention, even if time permitted, to go much into the
private life of the four actors of whom I propose to speak. Very
little is known of Burbage's private life, except that he was married;
perhaps Shakespeare and he may have been drawn nearer together by the
tie of a common sorrow; for, as the poet lost his beloved son Hamlet
when quite a child, so did Burbage lose his eldest son Richard.
Burbage died on March 13th, 1617, being then about 50 years of age:
Camden, in his _Annals of James I._, records his death, and calls him
a second Roscius. He was sincerely mourned by all those who loved
the dramatic art; and he numbered among his friends Shakespeare, Ben
Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and other "common players," whose
names were destined to become the most honored in the annals of
English literature. Burbage was the first great actor that England
ever saw, the original representative of many of Shakespeare's noblest
creations, among others, of Shylock, Richard, Romeo, Hamlet, Lear,
Othello, and Macbeth. We may fairly conclude Burbage's acting to have
had all the best characteristics of Natural, as opposed to Artificial
acting. The principles of the former are so clearly laid down by
Shakespeare, in Hamlet's advice to the players, that, perhaps, I
cannot do better than to repeat them:--

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your