"I will endeavour in the following Dissection of our Puppet Heroe, to convince my dear Country Men and Country Women, that they are madly following an Ignis fatuus, or Will of the Whisp, which they take for real substantial Light, and which I shall prove to be only the Rush-light of Genius, the Idol of Fashion, and an Air-drawn Favourite of the Imagination."
— Garrick, David (1717-1779)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for W. Bickerton
Date
1744
Metaphor
"I will endeavour in the following Dissection of our Puppet Heroe, to convince my dear Country Men and Country Women, that they are madly following an Ignis fatuus, or Will of the Whisp, which they take for real substantial Light, and which I shall prove to be only the Rush-light of Genius, the Idol of Fashion, and an Air-drawn Favourite of the Imagination."
Metaphor in Context
AS I have a long Time (twenty Years, or more) made the STAGE, and ACTING, my Study and Entertainment, I look upon myself, and indeed am thought by my Intimates, a proper Person to animadvert upon, or approve, the Errors and the Excellencies of the Theatre; and as there can be no better Opportunity offer itself than now, when the Town is running after their little fashionable Actor, in a Character of which he is, properly speaking, the Anticlimax of, or rather the Antipode of Shakespear; I will endeavour in the following Dissection of our Puppet Heroe, to convince my dear Country Men and Country Women, that they are madly following an Ignis fatuus, or Will of the Whisp, which they take for real substantial Light, and which I shall prove to be only the Rush-light of Genius, the Idol of Fashion, and an Air-drawn Favourite of the Imagination.
(pp. 1-2)
(pp. 1-2)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in the Folger Library; text from ECCO-TCP.
Citation
1 entry in ESTC (1744).
An Essay on Acting: In Which Will Be Consider'd the Mimical Behaviour of a Certain Fashionable Faulty Actor, ... to Which Will Be Added, a Short Criticism on His Acting Macbeth. (London: Printed for W. Bickerton, 1744). <Link to ESTC> <Link to ECCO-TCP>
An Essay on Acting: In Which Will Be Consider'd the Mimical Behaviour of a Certain Fashionable Faulty Actor, ... to Which Will Be Added, a Short Criticism on His Acting Macbeth. (London: Printed for W. Bickerton, 1744). <Link to ESTC> <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
07/03/2014
