Peg Woffington | Page 7

a diplomatist. First
of all, he said to himself: "What is this man doing here?" 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:
"Let us go upon the stage." The fourth act had just concluded.
"Go upon the stage!" said Mr. Vane; "what, where she--I mean among
the actors?"

"Yes; come into the green-room. There are one or two people of
reputation there; I will introduce you to them, if you please."
"Go upon the stage!" 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; be 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
"Richard the Third" 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 " Richard," 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. "Did you ever see so great and true an
actress upon the whole?"
Mr. Cibber opened his eyes, a slight flush came into his wash-leather
face, and he replied: "I 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."
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,