s
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 b