ewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one.
The thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder; as
the restorer of natural and legitimate acting; as the only one who
could understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the
next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming
modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy of
such praise.

"'Sblood, man!" said he, "no praise at all. You don't imagine that I
think you all this. I only want the public to think so. Nothing so easy
as gulling the public if you only set up a prodigy. You need not try to
act well, you must only act furiously. No matter what you do, or how
you act, so that it be but odd and strange. We will have all the pit
packed, and the newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous
actors, it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If
you rant, it shall be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall be a
touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into raptures, and
shout and yell, at certain points which you shall make. If you do but
escape pelting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the
theatre is made."

I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be the
restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama; my very
swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of
elocution. Alas, sir! my usual luck attended me. Before I arrived in
the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared. A woman who could dance
the slack rope, and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery with
fire-works all round her. She was seized on by the management with
avidity; she was the saving of the great national theatre for the
season. Nothing was talked of but Madame Saqui's fire-works and
flame-colored pantaloons; and nature, Shakespeare, the legitimate
drama, and poor Pillgarlick were completely left in the lurch.

However, as the manager was in honor bound to provide for me, he kept
his word. It had been a turn-up of a die whether I should be Alexander
the Great or Alexander the copper-smith; the latter carried it. I could
not be put at the head of the drama, so I was put at the tail. In other
words, I was enrolled among the number of what are called useful men;
who, let me tell you, are the only comfortable actors on the stage. We
are safe from hisses and below the hope of applause. We fear not the
success of rivals,