Produced by James Rusk PEG WOFFINGTON By Charles Reade To T. Taylor, Esq., my friend, and coadjutor in the comedy of âMasks and Faces,â to whom the reader owes much of the best matter in this tale: and to the memory of Margaret Woffington, falsely _summed up_ until to-day, this âDramatic Storyâ is inscribed by CHARLES READE.-- LONDON. Dec. 15, 1852. CHAPTER I. ABOUT the middle of the last century, at eight o'clock in the evening, in a large but poor apartment, a man was slumbering on a rough couch. His rusty and worn suit of black was of a piece with his uncarpeted room, the deal table of home manufacture, and its slim unsnuffed candle. The man was Triplet, scene painter, actor and writer of sanguinary plays, in which what ought to be, viz., truth, plot, situation and dialogue, were not; and what ought not to be, were--_scilicet,_ small talk, big talk, fops, ruffians, and ghosts. His three mediocrities fell so short of one talent that he was sometimes _impransus._ He slumbered, but uneasily; the dramatic author was uppermost, and his âDemon of the Hayloftâ hung upon the thread of popular favor. On his uneasy slumber entered from the theater Mrs. Triplet. She was a lady who in one respect fell behind her husband; she lacked his variety in ill-doing, but she recovered herself by doing her one thing a shade worse than he did any of his three. She was what is called in grim sport an actress; she had just cast her mite of discredit on royalty by playing the Queen, and had trundled home the moment the breath was out of her royal body. She came in rotatory with fatigue, and fell, gristle, into a chair; she wrenched from her brow a diadem and eyed it with contempt, took from her pocket a sausage, and contemplated it with respect and affection, placed it in a frying-pan on the fire, and entered her bedroom, meaning to don a loose wrapper, and dethrone herself into comfort. But the poor woman was shot walking by Morpheus, and subsided altogether; for dramatic performances, amusing and exciting to youth seated in the pit, convey a certain weariness to those bright beings who sparkle on the stage for bread and cheese. Royalty, disposed of, still left its trail of events. The sausage began to âspit.â The sound was hardly out of its body, when poor Triplet writhed like a worm on a hook. âSpitter, spittest,â went the sausage. Triplet groaned, and at last his inarticulate murmurs became words: âThat's right, pit now, that is so reasonable to condemn a poor fellow's play before you have heard it out.â Then, with a change of tone, âTom,â muttered he, âthey are losing their respect for specters; if they do, hunger will make a ghost of me.â Next he fancied the clown or somebody had got into his ghost's costume. âDear,â said the poor dreamer, âthe clown makes a very pretty specter, with his ghastly white face, and his blood-boltered cheeks and nose. I never saw the fun of a clown before, no! no! no! it is not the clown, it is worse, much worse; oh, dear, ugh!â and Triplet rolled off the couch like Richard the Third. He sat a moment on the floor, with a finger in each eye; and then, finding he was neither daubing, ranting, nor deluging earth with âacts,â he accused himself of indolence, and sat down to write a small tale of blood and bombast; he took his seat at the deal table with some alacrity, for he had recently made a discovery. How to write well, _rien que cela._ âFirst, think in as homely a way as you can; next, shove your pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction,â (when done, find a publisher--if you can). âThis,â said Triplet, âinsures common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis,â said Triplet, apologetically, âand elegance to the dress they wear.â Triplet, then casting his eyes round in search of such actual circumstances as could be incorporated on this plan with fiction, began to work thus: TRIPLET'S FACTS. TRIPLET'S FICTION. A farthing dip is on the table. A solitary candle cast its pale gleams around. It wants snuffing. Its elongated wick betrayed an owner steeped in oblivion. He jumped up, and snuffed it. He rose languidly, and trimmed it with his fingers. Burned his with an instrument that he had by his fingers, and swore a little. side for that purpose, and muttered a silent ejaculation Before, however, the mole Triplet could undermine literature and level it with the dust, various interruptions and divisions broke in upon his design, and _sic nos servavit_ Apollo. As he wrote the last sentence, a loud rap came to his door. A servant in livery brought him a note from Mr. Vane, dated Covent Garden. Triplet's eyes sparkled, he bustled, wormed himself into a less rusty coat, and started off to the Theater Royal, Covent Garden. In those days, the artists of the pen and the brush ferreted patrons, instead of aiming to be indispensable to the public, the only patron worth a single gesture of the quill. Mr. Vane had conversed with Triplet, that is, let Triplet talk to him in a coffee-house, and Triplet, the most sanguine of unfortunate men, had already built a series of expectations upon that interview, when this note arrived. Leaving him on his road from Lambeth to Covent Garden, we must introduce more important personages. Mr. Vane was a wealthy gentleman from Shropshire, whom business had called to London four months ago, and now pleasure detained. Business still occupied the letters he sent now and then to his native county; but it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was a man of learning and taste, as times went; and his love of the Arts had taken him some time before our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended to taste; and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a lady of great beauty, and a comedian high in favor with the town. The first night he saw her was an epoch in the history of this gentleman's mind. He had learning and refinement, and he had not great practical experience, and such men are most open to impression from the stage. He saw a being, all grace and bright nature, move like a goddess among the stiff puppets of the scene; her glee and her pathos were equally catching, she held a golden key at which all the doors of the heart flew open. Her face, too, was as full of goodness as intelligence--it was like no other farce; the heart bounded to meet it. He rented a box at her theater. He was there every night before the curtain drew up; and I'm sorry to say, he at last took half a dislike to Sunday--Sunday âwhich knits up the raveled sleave of care,â Sunday âtired nature's sweet restorer,â because on Sunday there was no Peg Woffington. At first he regarded her as a being of another sphere, an incarnation of poetry and art; but by degrees his secret aspirations became bolder. She was a woman; there were men who knew her; some of them inferior to him in position, and, he flattered himself, in mind. He had even heard a tale against her character. To him her face was its confutation, and he knew how loose-tongued is calumny; but still--! At last, one day he sent her a letter, unsigned. This letter expressed his admiration of her talent in warm but respectful terms; the writer told her it had become necessary to his heart to return her in some way his thanks for the land of enchantment to which she had introduced him. Soon after this, choice flowers found their way to her dressing-room every night, and now and then verses and precious stones mingled with her roses and eglantine. And oh, how he watched the great actress's eye all the night; how he tried to discover whether she looked oftener toward his box than the corresponding box on the other side of the house. Did she notice him, or did she not? What a point gained, if she was conscious of his nightly attendance. She would feel he was a friend, not a mere auditor. He was jealous of the pit, on whom Mrs. Woffington lavished her smiles without measure. At last, one day he sent her a wreath of flowers, and implored her, if any word he had said to her had pleased or interested her, to wear this wreath that night. After he had done this he trembled; he had courted a decision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in patience and time. She made her _entree;_ he turned cold as she glided into sight from the prompter's side; he raised his eyes slowly and fearfully from her feet to her head; her head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich glossy honors. âFool!â thought he, âto think she would hang frivolities upon that glorious head for me.â Yet his disappointment told him he had really hoped it; he would not have sat out the play but for a leaden incapacity of motion that seized him. The curtain drew up for the fifth act, and!--could he believe his eyes?--Mrs. Woffington stood upon the stage with his wreath upon her graceful head. She took away his breath. She spoke the epilogue, and, as the curtain fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his box, and made him a distinct, queen-like courtesy; his heart fluttered to his mouth, and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. In short-- Mrs. Woffington, as an actress, justified a portion of this enthusiasm; she was one of the truest artists of her day; a fine lady in her hands was a lady, with the genteel affectation of a gentlewoman, not a harlot's affectation, which is simply and without exaggeration what the stage commonly gives us for a fine lady; an old woman in her hands was a thorough woman, thoroughly old, not a cackling young person of epicene gender. She played Sir Harry Wildair like a man, which is how he ought to be played (or, which is better still, not at all), so that Garrick acknowledged her as a male rival, and abandoned the part he no longer monopolized. Now it very, very rarely happens that a woman of her age is high enough in art and knowledge to do these things. In players, vanity cripples art at every step. The young actress who is not a Woffington aims to display herself by means of her part, which is vanity; not to raise her part by sinking herself in it, which is art. It has been my misfortune to see ----, and----, and ----, et ceteras, play the man; Nature, forgive them, if you can, for art never will; they never reached any idea more manly than a steady resolve to exhibit the points of a woman with greater ferocity than they could in a gown. But consider, ladies, a man is not the meanest of the brute creation, so how can he be an unwomanly female? This sort of actress aims not to give her author's creation to the public, but to trot out the person instead of the creation, and shows sots what a calf it has--and is. Vanity, vanity! all is vanity! Mesdames les Charlatanes. Margaret Woffington was of another mold; she played the ladies of high comedy with grace, distinction, and delicacy. But in Sir Harry Wildair she parted with a woman's mincing foot and tongue, and played the man in a style large, spirited and _elance._ As Mrs. Day (committee) she painted wrinkles on her lovely face so honestly that she was taken for threescore, and she carried out the design with voice and person, and did a vulgar old woman to the life. She disfigured her own beauties to show the beauty of her art; in a word, she was an artist! It does not follow she was the greatest artist that ever breathed; far from it. Mr. Vane was carried to this notion by passion and ignorance. On the evening of our tale he was at his post patiently sitting out one of those sanguinary discourses our rude forefathers thought were tragic plays. _Sedet aeternumque Sedebit Infelix Theseus,_ because Mrs. Woffington is to speak the epilogue. These epilogues were curiosities of the human mind; they whom, just to ourselves and _them,_ we call our _forbears,_ had an idea their blood and bombast were not ridiculous enough in themselves, so when the curtain had fallen on the _debris_ of the _dramatis personae,_ and of common sense, they sent on an actress to turn all the sentiment so laboriously acquired into a jest. To insist that nothing good or beautiful shall be carried safe from a play out into the street was the bigotry of English horseplay. Was a Lucretia the heroine of the tragedy, she was careful in the epilogue to speak like Messalina. Did a king's mistress come to hunger and repentance, she disinfected all the _petites maitresses_ in the house of the moral, by assuring them that sin is a joke, repentance a greater, and that she individually was ready for either if they would but cry, laugh and pay. Then the audience used to laugh, and if they did not, lo! the manager, actor and author of heroic tragedy were exceeding sorrowful. While sitting attendance on the epilogue Mr. Vane had nothing to distract him from the congregation but a sanguinary sermon in five heads, so his eyes roved over the pews, and presently he became aware of a familiar face watching him closely. The gentleman to whom it belonged finding himself recognized left his seat, and a minute later Sir Charles Pomander entered Mr. Vane's box. This Sir Charles Pomander was a gentleman of vice; pleasure he called it. Mr. Vane had made his acquaintance two years ago in Shropshire. Sir Charles, who husbanded everything except his soul, had turned himself out to grass for a month. His object was, by roast mutton, bread with some little flour in it, air, water, temperance, chastity and peace, to be enabled to take a deeper plunge into impurities of food and morals. A few nights ago, unseen by Mr. Vane, he had observed him in the theater; an ordinary man would have gone at once and shaken hands with him, but this was not an ordinary man, this was a diplomatist. First of all, he said to himself: âWhat is this man doing here?â Then he soon discovered this man must be in love with some actress; then it became his business to know who she was; this, too, soon betrayed itself. Then it became more than ever Sir Charles's business to know whether Mrs. Woffington returned the sentiment; and here his penetration was at fault, for the moment; he determined, however, to discover. Mr. Vane then received his friend, all unsuspicious how that friend had been skinning him with his eyes for some time past. After the usual compliments had passed between two gentlemen who had been hand and glove for a month and forgotten each other's existence for two years, Sir Charles, still keeping in view his design, said: âLet us go upon the stage.â The fourth act had just concluded. âGo upon the stage!â said Mr. Vane; âwhat, where she--I mean among the actors?â âYes; come into the green-room. There are one or two people of reputation there; I will introduce you to them, if you please.â âGo upon the stage!â why, if it had been proposed to him to go to heaven he would not have been more astonished. He was too astonished at first to realize the full beauty of the arrangement, by means of which he might be within a yard of Mrs. Woffington, might feel her dress rustle past him, might speak to her, might drink her voice fresh from her lips almost before it mingled with meaner air. Silence gives consent, and Mr. Vane, though he thought a great deal, said nothing; so Pomander rose, and they left the boxes together. He led the way to the stage door, which was opened obsequiously to him; they then passed through a dismal passage, and suddenly emerged upon that scene of enchantment, the stage--a dirty platform encumbered on all sides with piles of scenery in flats. They threaded their way through rusty velvet actors and fustian carpenters, and entered the green-room. At the door of this magic chamber Vane trembled and half wished he could retire. They entered; his apprehension gave way to disappointment, she was not there. Collecting himself, he was presently introduced to a smart, jaunty, and, to do him justice, _distingue_ old beau. This was Colley Cibber, Esq., poet laureate, and retired actor and dramatist, a gentleman who is entitled to a word or two. This Cibber was the only actor since Shakespeare's time who had both acted and written well. Pope's personal resentment misleads the reader of English poetry as to Cibber's real place among the wits of the day. The man's talent was dramatic, not didactic, or epic, or pastoral. Pope was not so deep in the drama as in other matters, and Cibber was one of its luminaries; he wrote some of the best comedies of his day. He also succeeded where Dryden, for lack of true dramatic taste, failed. He tampered successfully with Shakespeare. Colley Cibber's version of âRichard the Thirdâ is impudent and slightly larcenic, but it is marvelously effective. It has stood a century, and probably will stand forever; and the most admired passages in what literary humbugs who pretend they know Shakespeare by the closet, not the stage, accept as Shakespeare's âRichard,â are Cibber's. Mr. Cibber was now in private life, a mild edition of his own Lord Foppington; he had none of the snob-fop as represented on our conventional stage; nobody ever had, and lived. He was in tolerably good taste; but he went ever gold-laced, highly powdered, scented, and diamonded, dispensing graceful bows, praises of whoever had the good luck to be dead, and satire of all who were here to enjoy it. Mr. Vane, to whom the drama had now become the golden branch of letters, looked with some awe on this veteran, for he had seen many Woffingtons. He fell soon upon the subject nearest his heart. He asked Mr. Cibber what he thought of Mrs. Woffington. The old gentleman thought well of the young lady's talent, especially her comedy; in tragedy, said he, she imitates Mademoiselle Dumenil, of the Theatre Francais, and confounds the stage rhetorician with the actress. The next question was not so fortunate. âDid you ever see so great and true an actress upon the whole?â Mr. Cibber opened his eyes, a slight flush came into his wash-leather face, and he replied: âI have not only seen many equal, many superior to her, but I have seen some half dozen who would have eaten her up and spit her out again, and not known they had done anything out of the way.â Here Pomander soothed the veteran's dudgeon by explaining in dulcet tones that his friend was not long from Shropshire, and--The critic interrupted him, and bade him not dilute the excuse. Now Mr. Vane had as much to say as either of them, but he had not the habit, which dramatic folks have, of carrying his whole bank in his cheek-pocket, so they quenched him for two minutes. But lovers are not silenced, he soon returned to the attack; he dwelt on the grace, the ease, the freshness, the intelligence, the universal beauty of Mrs. Woffington. Pomander sneered, to draw him out. Cibber smiled, with good-natured superiority. This nettled the young gentleman, he fired up, his handsome countenance glowed, he turned Demosthenes for her he loved. One advantage he had over both Cibber and Pomander, a fair stock of classical learning; on this he now drew. âOther actors and actresses,â said he, âare monotonous in voice, monotonous in action, but Mrs. Woffington's delivery has the compass and variety of nature, and her movements are free from the stale uniformity that distinguishes artifice from art. The others seem to me to have but two dreams of grace, a sort of crawling on stilts is their motion, and an angular stiffness their repose.â He then cited the most famous statues of antiquity, and quoted situations in plays where, by her fine dramatic instinct, Mrs. Woffington, he said, threw her person into postures similar to these, and of equal beauty; not that she strikes attitudes like the rest, but she melts from one beautiful statue into another; and, if sculptors could gather from her immortal graces, painters, too, might take from her face the beauties that belong of right to passion and thought, and orators might revive their withered art, and learn from those golden lips the music of old Athens, that quelled tempestuous mobs, and princes drunk with victory. Much as this was, he was going to say more, ever so much more, but he became conscious of a singular sort of grin upon every face; this grin made him turn rapidly round to look for its cause. It explained itself at once; at his very elbow was a lady, whom his heart recognized, though her back was turned to him. She was dressed in a rich silk gown, pearl white, with flowers and sprigs embroidered; her beautiful white neck and arms were bare. She was sweeping up the room with the epilogue in her hand, learning it off by heart; at the other end of the room she turned, and now she shone full upon him. It certainly was a dazzling creature. She had a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth, with a hundred varying expressions, and that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remarkable than all, her eyebrows--the actor's feature; they were jet black, strongly marked, and in repose were arched like a rainbow; but it was their extraordinary flexibility which made other faces upon the stage look sleepy beside Margaret Woffington's. In person she was considerably above the middle height, and so finely formed that one could not determine the exact character of her figure. At one time it seemed all stateliness, at another time elegance personified, and flowing voluptuousness at another. She was Juno, Psyche, Hebe, by turns, and for aught we know at will. It must be confessed that a sort of halo of personal grandeur surrounds a great actress. A scene is set; half a dozen nobodies are there lost in it, because they are and seem lumps of nothing. The great artist steps upon that scene, and how she fills it in a moment! Mind and majesty wait upon her in the air; her person is lost in the greatness of her personal presence; she dilates with _thought,_ and a stupid giantess looks a dwarf beside her. No wonder then that Mr. Vane felt overpowered by this torch in a closet. To vary the metaphor, it seemed to him, as she swept up and down, as if the green-room was a shell, and this glorious creature must burst it and be free. Meantime, the others saw a pretty actress studying her business; and Cibber saw a dramatic school-girl learning what he presumed to be a very silly set of words. Sir C. Pomander's eye had been on her the moment she entered, and he watched keenly the effect of Vane's eloquent eulogy; but apparently the actress was too deep in her epilogue for anything else. She came in, saying, âMum, mum, mum,â over her task, and she went on doing so. The experienced Mr. Cibber, who had divined Vane in an instant, drew him into a corner, and complimented him on his well-timed eulogy. âYou acted that mighty well, sir,â said he. âStop my vitals! if I did not think you were in earnest, till I saw the jade had slipped in among us. It told, sir--it told.â Up fired Vane. âWhat do you mean, sir?â said he. âDo you suppose my admiration of that lady is feigned?â âNo need to speak so loud, sir,â replied the old gentleman; âshe hears you. These hussies have ears like hawks.â He then dispensed a private wink and a public bow; with which he strolled away from Mr. Vane, and walked feebly and jauntily up the room, whistling âFair Hebe;â fixing his eye upon the past, and somewhat ostentatiously overlooking the existence of the present company. There is no great harm in an old gentleman whistling, but there are two ways of doing it; and as this old beau did it, it seemed not unlike a small cock-a-doodle-doo of general defiance; and the denizens of the green-room, swelled now to a considerable number by the addition of all the ladies and gentlemen who had been killed in the fourth act, or whom the buttery-fingered author could not keep in hand until the fall of the curtain, felt it as such; and so they were not sorry when Mrs. Woffington, looking up from her epilogue, cast a glance upon the old beau, waited for him, and walked parallel with him on the other side of the room, giving an absurdly exact imitation of his carriage and deportment. To make this more striking, she pulled out of her pocket, after a mock search, a huge paste ring, gazed on it with a ludicrous affectation of simple wonder, stuck it, like Cibber's diamond, on her little finger, and, pursing up her mouth, proceeded to whistle a quick movement, âWhich, by some devilish cantrip sleight,â played round the old beau's slow movement, without being at variance with it. As for the character of this ladylike performance, it was clear, brilliant, and loud as blacksmith. The folk laughed; Vane was shocked. âShe profanes herself by whistling,â thought he. Mr. Cibber was confounded. He appeared to have no idea whence came this sparkling adagio. He looked round, placed his hands to his ears, and left off whistling. So did his musical accomplice. âGentlemen,â said Cibber, with pathetic gravity, âthe wind howls most dismally this evening! I took it for a drunken shoemaker!â At this there was a roar of laughter, except from Mr. Vane. Peg Woffington laughed as merrily as the others, and showed a set of teeth that were really dazzling; but all in one moment, without the preliminaries an ordinary countenance requires, this laughing Venus pulled a face gloomy beyond conception. Down came her black brows straight as a line, and she cast a look of bitter reproach on all present; resuming her study, as who should say, âAre ye not ashamed to divert a poor girl from her epilogue?â And then she went on, âMum! mum! mum!â casting off ever and anon resentful glances; and this made the fools laugh again. The Laureate was now respectfully addressed by one of his admirers, James Quin, the Falstaff of the day, and the rival at this time of Garrick in tragic characters, though the general opinion was, that he could not long maintain a standing against the younger genius and his rising school of art. Off the stage, James Quin was a character; his eccentricities were three--a humorist, a glutton and an honest man; traits that often caused astonishment and ridicule, especially the last. âMay we not hope for something from Mr. Cibber's pen after so long a silence?â âNo,â was the considerate reply. âWho have ye got to play it?â âPlenty,â said Quin; âthere's your humble servant, there's--â âHumility at the head of the list,â cried she of the epilogue. âMum! mum! mum!â Vane thought this so sharp. âGarrick, Barry, Macklin, Kitty Clive here at my side, Mrs. Cibber, the best tragic actress I ever saw; and Woffington, who is as good a comedian as you ever saw, sir;â and Quin turned as red as fire. âKeep your temper, Jemmy,â said Mrs. Woffington with a severe accent. âMum! mum! mum!â âYou misunderstand my question,â replied Cibber, calmly; âI know your _dramatis personae_ but where the devil are your actors?â Here was a blow. âThe public,â said Quin, in some agitation, âwould snore if we acted as they did in your time.â âHow do you know that, sir?â was the supercilious rejoinder; _âyou never tried!â_ Mr. Quin was silenced. Peg Woffington looked off her epilogue. âBad as we are,â said she coolly, âwe might be worse.â Mr. Cibber turned round, slightly raised his eyebrows. âIndeed!â said he. âMadam!â added he, with a courteous smile, âwill you be kind enough to explain to me how you could be worse!â âIf, like a crab, we could go backward!â At this the auditors tittered; and Mr. Cibber had recourse to his spy-glass. This gentleman was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand, in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his spy-glass upon poor Peggy. âWhom have we here?â said he. Then he looked with his spy-glass to see. âOh, the little Irish orange-girl!â âWhose basket outweighed Colley Cibber's salary for the first twenty years of his dramatic career,â was the delicate reply to the above delicate remark. It staggered him for a moment; however, he affected a most puzzled air, then gradually allowed a light to steal into his features. âEh! ah! oh! how stupid I am; I understand; you sold something besides oranges!â âOh!â said Mr. Vane, and colored up to the temples, and cast a look on Cibber, as much as to say, âIf you were not seventy-three!â His ejaculation was something so different from any tone any other person there present could have uttered that the actress's eye dwelt on him for a single moment, and in that moment he felt himself looked through and through. âI sold the young fops a bargain, you mean,â was her calm reply; âand now I am come down to the old ones. A truce, Mr. Cibber, what do you understand by an actor? Tell me; for I am foolish enough to respect your opinion on these matters!â âAn actor, young lady,â said he, gravely, âis an artist who has gone deep enough in his art to make dunces, critics and greenhorns take it for nature; moreover, he really personates; which your mere _man of the stage_ never does. He has learned the true art of self-multiplication. He drops Betterton, Booth, Wilkes, or, ahem--â âCibber,â inserted Sir Charles Pomander. Cibber bowed. âIn his dressing-room, and comes out young or old, a fop, a valet, a lover, or a hero, with voice, mien, and every gesture to match. A grain less than this may be good speaking, fine preaching, deep grunting, high ranting, eloquent reciting; but I'll be hanged if it is acting!â âThen Colley Cibber never acted,â whispered Quin to Mrs. Clive. âThen Margaret Woffington is an actress,â said M. W.; âthe fine ladies take my Lady Betty for their sister. In Mrs. Day, I pass for a woman of seventy; and in Sir Harry Wildair I have been taken for a man. I would have told you that before, but I didn't know it was to my credit,â said she, slyly, âtill Mr. Cibber laid down the law.â âProof!â said Cibber. âA warm letter from one lady, diamond buckles from another, and an offer of her hand and fortune from a third; _rien que cela.â_ Mr. Cibber conveyed behind her back a look of absolute incredulity; she divined it. âI will not show you the letters,â continued she, âbecause Sir Harry, though a rake, was a gentleman; but here are the buckles;â and she fished them out of her pocket, capacious of such things. The buckles were gravely inspected, they made more than one eye water, they were undeniable. âWell, let us see what we can do for her,â said the Laureate. He tapped his box and without a moment's hesitation produced the most execrable distich in the language: âNow who is like Peggy, with talent at will, A maid loved her Harry, for want of a Bill? âWell, child,â continued he, after the applause which follows extemporary verses had subsided, âtake _me_ in. Play something to make me lose sight of saucy Peg Woffington, and I'll give the world five acts more before the curtain falls on Colley Cibber.â âIf you could be deceived,â put in Mr. Vane, somewhat timidly; âI think there is no disguise through which grace and beauty such as Mrs. Woffington's would not shine, to my eyes.â âThat is to praise my person at the expense of my wit, sir, is it not?â was her reply. This was the first word she had ever addressed to him. The tones appeared so sweet to him that he could not find anything to reply for listening to them; and Cibber resumed: âMeantime, I will show you a real actress; she is coming here to-night to meet me. Did ever you children hear of Ann Bracegirdle?â âBracegirdle!â said Mrs. Clive; âwhy, she has been dead this thirty years; at least I thought so.â âDead to the stage. There is more heat in her ashes than in your fire, Kate Clive! Ah! here comes her messenger,â continued he, as an ancient man appeared with a letter in his hand. This letter Mrs. Woffington snatched and read, and at the same instant in bounced the call-boy. âEpilogue called,â said this urchin, in the tone of command which these small fry of Parnassus adopt; and, obedient to his high behest, Mrs. Woffington moved to the door, with the Bracegirdle missive in her hand, but not before she had delivered its general contents: âThe great actress will be here in a few minutes,â said she, and she glided swiftly out of the room. CHAPTER II. PEOPLE whose mind or manners possess any feature, and are not as devoid of all eccentricity as half pounds of butter bought of metropolitan grocers, are recommended not to leave a roomful of their acquaintances until the last but one. Yes, they should always be penultimate. Perhaps Mrs. Woffington knew this; but epilogues are stubborn things, and call-boys undeniable. âDid you ever hear a woman whistle before?â âNever; but I saw one sit astride on an ass in Germany!â âThe saddle was not on her husband, I hope, madam?â âNo, sir; the husband walked by his kinsfolk's side, and made the best of a bad bargain, as Peggy's husband will have to.â âWait till some one ventures on the gay Lotharia--_illi aes triplex;_ that means he must have triple brass, Kitty.â âI deny that, sir; since his wife will always have enough for both.â âI have not observed the lady's brass,â said Vane, trembling with passion; âbut I observed her talent, and I noticed that whoever attacks her to her face comes badly off.â âWell said, sir,â answered Quin; âand I wish Kitty here would tell us why she hates Mrs. Woffington, the best-natured woman in the theater?â âI don't hate her, I don't trouble my head about her.â âYes, you hate her; for you never miss a cut at her!â âDo you hate a haunch of venison, Quin?â said the lady. âNo, you little unnatural monster,â replied Quin. âFor all that, you never miss a cut at one, so hold your tongue!â âLe beau raisonnement!â said Mr. Cibber. âJames Quin, don't interfere with nature's laws; let our ladies hate one another, it eases their minds; try to make them Christians, and you will not convert their tempers, but spoil your own. Peggy there hates George Anne Bellamy, because she has gaudy silk dresses from Paris, by paying for them, as _she_ could, if not too stingy. Kitty here hates Peggy because Rich has breeched her, whereas Kitty, who now sets up for a prude, wanted to put delicacy off and small-clothes on in Peg's stead, that is where the Kate and Peg shoe pinches, near the femoral artery, James. âShrimps have the souls of shrimps,â resumed this _censor castigatorque minorum._ âListen to me, and learn that really great actors are great in soul, and do not blubber like a great school-girl because Anne Bellamy has two yellow silk dresses from Paris, as I saw Woffington blubber in this room, and would not be comforted; nor fume like Kitty Clive, because Woffington has a pair of breeches and a little boy's rapier to go a playing at acting with. When I was young, two giantesses fought for empire upon this very stage, where now dwarfs crack and bounce like parched peas. They played Roxana and Statira in the 'Rival Queens.' Rival queens of art themselves, they put out all their strength. In the middle of the last act the town gave judgment in favor of Statira. What did Roxana? Did she spill grease on Statira's robe, as Peg Woffington would? or stab her, as I believe Kitty here capable of doing? No! Statira was never so tenderly killed as that night; she owned this to me. Roxana bade the theater farewell that night, and wrote to Statira thus: I give you word for word: 'Madam, the best judge we have has decided in your favor. I shall never play second on a stage where I have been first so long, but I shall often be a spectator, and methinks none will appreciate your talent more than I, who have felt its weight. My wardrobe, one of the best in Europe, is of no use to me; if you will honor me by selecting a few of my dresses, you will gratify me, and I shall fancy I see myself upon the stage to greater advantage than before.'â âAnd what did Statira answer, sir?â said Mr. Vane, eagerly. âShe answered thus: 'Madam, the town has often been wrong, and may have been so last night, in supposing that I vied successfully with your merit; but this much is certain--and here, madam, I am the best judge--that off the stage you have just conquered me. I shall wear with pride any dress you have honored, and shall feel inspired to great exertions by your presence among our spectators, unless, indeed, the sense of your magnanimity and the recollection of your talent should damp me by the dread of losing any portion of your good opinion.'â âWhat a couple of stiff old things,â said Mrs. Clive. âNay, madam, say not so,â cried Vane, warmly; âsurely, this was the lofty courtesy of two great minds not to be overbalanced by strife, defeat, or victory.â âWhat were their names, sir?â âStatira was the great Mrs. Oldfield. Roxana you will see here to-night.â This caused a sensation. Colley's reminiscences were interrupted by loud applause from the theater; the present seldom gives the past a long hearing. The old war-horse cocked his ears. âIt is Woffington speaking the epilogue,â said Quin. âOh, she has got the length of their foot, somehow,â said a small actress. âAnd the breadth of their hands, too,â said Pomander, waking from a nap. âIt is the depth of their hearts she has sounded,â said Vane. In those days, if a metaphor started up, the poor thing was coursed up hill and down dale, and torn limb from jacket; even in Parliament, a trope was sometimes hunted from one session into another. âYou were asking me about Mrs. Oldfield, sir,â resumed Cibber, rather peevishly. âI will own to you, I lack words to convey a just idea of her double and complete supremacy. But the comedians of this day are weak-strained _farceurs_ compared with her, and her tragic tone was thunder set to music. âI saw a brigadier-general cry like a child at her Indiana; I have seen her crying with pain herself at the wing (for she was always a great sufferer), I have seen her then spring upon the stage as Lady Townley, and in a moment sorrow brightened into joy: the air seemed to fill with singing-birds, that chirped the pleasures of fashion, love and youth in notes sparkling like diamonds and stars and prisms. She was above criticism, out of its scope, as is the blue sky; men went not to judge her, they drank her, and gazed at her, and were warmed at her, and refreshed by her. The fops were awed into silence, and with their humbler betters thanked Heaven for her, if they thanked it for anything. âIn all the crowded theater, care and pain and poverty were banished from the memory, while Oldfield's face spoke, and her tongue flashed melodies; the lawyer forgot his quillets; the polemic, the mote in his brother's eye; the old maid, her grudge against the two sexes; the old man, his gray hairs and his lost hours. And can it be, that all this which should have been immortal, is quite--quite lost, is as though it had never been?â he sighed. âCan it be that its fame is now sustained by me; who twang with my poor lute, cracked and old, these feeble praises of a broken lyre: 'Whose wires were golden and its heavenly air More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.'â He paused, and his eye looked back over many years. Then, with a very different tone, he added: âAnd that Jack Falstaff there must have seen her, now I think on't.â âOnly once, sir,â said Quin, âand I was but ten years old.â âHe saw her once, and he was ten years old; yet he calls Woffington a great comedian, and my son The's wife, with her hatchet face, the greatest tragedian he ever saw! Jemmy, what an ass you must be!â âMrs. Cibber always makes me cry, and t'other always makes me laugh,â said Quin, stoutly, âthat's why.â _Ce beau raisonnement_ met no answer, but a look of sovereign contempt. A very trifling incident saved the ladies of the British stage from further criticism. There were two candles in this room, one on each side; the call-boy had entered, and, poking about for something, knocked down and broke one of these. âAwkward imp!â cried a velvet page. âI'll go _to the Treasury_ for another, ma'am,â said the boy pertly, and vanished with the fractured wax. I take advantage of the interruption to open Mr. Vane's mind to the reader. First he had been astonished at the freedom of sarcasm these people indulged in without quarreling; next at the non-respect of sex. âSo sex is not recognized in this community,â thought he. Then the glibness and merit of some of their answers surprised and amused him. He, like me, had seldom met an imaginative repartee, except in a play or a book. âSociety'sâ repartees were then, as they are now, the good old tree in various dresses and veils: _Tu quoque, tu mentiris, vos damnemini;_ but he was sick and dispirited on the whole; such very bright illusions had been dimmed in these few minutes. She was brilliant; but her manners, if not masculine, were very daring; and yet when she spoke to him, a stranger, how sweet and gentle her voice was! Then it was clear nothing but his ignorance could have placed her at the summit of her art. Still he clung to his enthusiasm for her. He drew Pomander aside. âWhat a simplicity there is in Mrs. Woffington!â said he; âthe rest, male and female, are all so affected; she is so fresh and natural. They are all hot-house plants; she is a cowslip with the May dew on it.â âWhat you take for simplicity is her refined art,â replied Sir Charles. âNo!â said Vane, âI never saw a more innocent creature!â Pomander laughed in his face; this laugh disconcerted him more than words; he spoke no more--he sat pensive. He was sorry he had come to this place, where everybody knew his goddess; yet nobody admired, nobody loved, and, alas! nobody respected her. He was roused from his reverie by a noise; the noise was caused by Cibber falling on Garrick, whom Pomander had maliciously quoted against all the tragedians of Colley Cibber's day. âI tell you,â cried the veteran, âthat this Garrick has banished dignity from the stage and given us in exchange what you and he take for fire; but it is smoke and vapor. His manner is little, like his person, it is all fuss and bustle. This is his idea of a tragic scene: A little fellow comes bustling in, goes bustling about, and runs bustling out.â Here Mr. Cibber left the room, to give greater effect to his description, but presently returned in a mighty pother, saying: â'Give me another horse!' Well, where's the horse? don't you see I'm waiting for him? 'Bind up my wounds!' Look sharp now with these wounds. 'Have mercy, Heaven!' but be quick about it, for the pit can't wait for Heaven. Bustle! bustle! bustle!â The old dog was so irresistibly funny that the whole company were obliged to laugh; but in the midst of their merriment Mrs. Woffington's voice was heard at the door. âThis way, madam.â A clear and somewhat shrill voice replied: âI know the way better than you, child;â and a stately old lady appeared on the threshold. âBracegirdle,â said Mr. Cibber. It may well be supposed that every eye was turned on this newcomer--that Roxana for whom Mr. Cibber's story had prepared a peculiar interest. She was dressed in a rich green velvet gown with gold fringe. Cibber remembered it; she had played the âEastern Queenâ in it. Heaven forgive all concerned! It was fearfully pinched in at the waist and ribs, so as to give the idea of wood inside, not woman. Her hair and eyebrows were iron-gray, and she had lost a front tooth, or she would still have been eminently handsome. She was tall and straight as a dart, and her noble port betrayed none of the weakness of age, only it was to be seen that her hands were a little weak, and the gold-headed crutch struck the ground rather sharply, as if it did a little limbs'-duty. Such was the lady who marched into the middle of the room, with a âHow do, Colley?â and, looking over the company's heads as if she did not see them, regarded the four walls with some interest. Like a cat, she seemed to think more of places than of folk. The page obsequiously offered her a chair. âNot so clean as it used to be,â said Mrs. Bracegirdle. Unfortunately, in making this remark, the old lady graciously patted the page's head for offering her the chair; and this action gave, with some of the ill-constituted minds that are ever on the titter, a ridiculous direction to a remark intended, I believe, for the paint and wanscots, etc. âNothing is as it used to be,â remarked Mr. Cibber. âAll the better for everything,â said Mrs. Clive. âWe were laughing at this mighty little David, first actor of this mighty little age.â Now if Mr. Cibber thought to find in the newcomer an ally of the past in its indiscriminate attack upon the present, he was much mistaken; for the old actress made onslaught on this nonsense at once. âAy, ay,â said she, âand not the first time by many hundreds. 'Tis a disease you have. Cure yourself, Colley. Davy Garrick pleases the public; and in trifles like acting, that take nobody to heaven, to please all the world, is to be great. Some pretend to higher aims, but none have 'em. You may hide this from young fools, mayhap, but not from an old 'oman like me. He! he! he! No, no, no--not from an old 'oman like me.â She then turned round in her chair, and with that sudden, unaccountable snappishness of tone to which the brisk old are subject, she snarled: âGie me a pinch of snuff, some of ye, do!â Tobacco dust was instantly at her disposal. She took it with the points of her fingers delicately, and divested the crime of half its uncleanness and vulgarity--more an angel couldn't. âMonstrous sensible woman, though!â whispered Quin to Clive. âHey, sir! what do you say, sir? for I'm a little deaf.â (Not very to praise, it seems.) âThat your judgment, madam, is equal to the reputation of your talent.â The words were hardly spoken before the old lady rose upright as a tower. She then made an oblique preliminary sweep, and came down with
{'title': 'Peg Woffington by Charles Reade', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}