"Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the
end of which Jones asked him which of the players he liked best?
To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the
question, 'The King, without doubt.'--'Indeed, Mr Partridge,'
says Mrs Miller, 'you are not of the same opinion with the town;
for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player
who was ever on the stage.'--'He the best player!' cries
Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer; 'why I could act as well as
he myself. I am sure if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked
in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then to be
sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his
mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why any man, that is,
any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the
same. I know you are only joking with me; but indeed, madam,
though I never was at a play in London, yet I have seen acting
before in the country, and the King for my money; he speaks all
his words distinctly, and half as loud again as the other.
Anybody may see he is an actor.'"

In this excellent passage Partridge is represented as a very bad
theatrical critic. But none of those who laugh at him possess
the tithe of his sensibility to theatrical excellence. He
admires in the wrong place; but he trembles in the right place.
It is indeed because he is so much excited by the acting of
Garrick, that he ranks him below the strutting, mouthing
performer, who personates the King. So, we have heard it said
that, in some parts of Spain and Portugal, an actor who should
represent a depraved character finely, instead of calling down
the applauses of the audience, is hissed and pelted without