Peg Woffington | Page 4

up
until to-day, this "Dramatic Story" 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 "Demon of the Hayloft" 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
"spit." The sound was hardly out of its body, when poor Triplet writhed
like a worm on a hook. "Spitter, spittest," went the sausage. Triplet
groaned, and at last his inarticulate murmurs became words: "That's
right, pit now, that is so reasonable to condemn a poor fellow's play

before you have heard it out." Then, with a change of tone, "Tom,"
muttered he, "they are losing their respect for specters; if they do,
hunger will make a ghost of me." Next he fancied the clown or
somebody had got into his ghost's costume.
"Dear," said the poor dreamer, "the 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!" 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 "acts," 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._
"First, 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" (when
done, find a publisher--if you can). "This," said Triplet, "insures
common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis," said
Triplet, apologetically, "and elegance to the dress they wear." 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