’Two advantages distinguished him in the strongest light from the rest of his fraternity:  he had learning to understand perfectly what it was his part to speak, and judgment to know how far it agreed, or disagreed with his character.  Hence arose a peculiar grace, which was visible to every spectator, though few were at the pains of examining into the cause of their pleasure.  He could soften, and slide over, with a kind of elegant negligence, the improprieties in the part he acted, while, on the contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an occasion, that he might alarm, awaken, and transport in those places only, where the dignity of his own good sense could be supported by that of his author.  A little reflexion upon this remarkable quality, will teach us to account for that manifest languor which has sometimes been observed in his action, and which was generally, though I think falsly, imputed to the natural indolence of his temper.  For the same reason, though in the customary round of his business, he would condescend to some parts in comedy; he seldom appeared in any of them with much advantage to his character.  The passions which he found in comedy, were not strong enough to excite his fire, and what seemed want of qualification, was only the absence of impression.  He had a talent at discovering the passions where they lay hid in some celebrated parts, by the injudicious practice of other actors; when he had discovered he soon grew able to express them; and his secret of his obtaining this great lesson of the theatre, was an adaption of his look to his voice, by which artful imitation of nature, the variations in the sound of his words, gave propriety to every change in his countenance, so that it was Mr. Booth’s peculiar felicity to be heard and seen the same, whether as the pleased, the grieved,the pitying,the reproachful,or the angry.  One would be almost tempted to borrow the aid of a very bold figure, and to express this excellence more significantly, beg permission to affirm, that the blind might have seen him in his voice, and the deaf have heard him in his visage.  His gesture, or as it is commonly called his action, was but the result, and necessary consequence of his dominion over his voice and countenance; for having by a concurrence of two such causes, impressed his imagination with such a stamp, and spirit of passion, he ever obeyed the impulse by a kind of natural dependency, and relaxed, or braced successively into all that fine expressiveness with which he painted what he spoke, without restraint, or affectation.’