Peg Woffington | Page 6

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