vanity, were the continual subject of public
approbation--his face was remarkably handsome, he was tall, well
proportioned, and graceful. He had one of the finest voices in England,
and played well on several musical instruments. These not only
disqualified him for resisting, but increased the amount of the
temptations that surrounded him. Thus, while his personal
accomplishments fitted him for gaining the affections of the sex,
fortune made him a desirable prey for their cupidity. The breath of
flattery blew upon him in every direction, and inflamed his vanity and
self-love, while all the wiles and allurements which artful wantonness
could practise upon unsuspicious youth, were played off against his
heart; and thus his passions, which in all probability were
complexionally strong, became ungovernable. Coarse undisguised flattery
too often makes its way to the hearts of the wisest and the best--How
then could a poor youth like Hodgkinson be expected to refuse it, when
administered by beauty, and disguised by elegance and refinement.

Co-ordinate with the rise of his fame and fortune therefore was the
growth of the evils which were fated to endanger the one, and to make
shipwreck of the other; and his professional success and his
gallantries, running parallel to each other like the two wheels of a
gig, left their marks on every road he travelled in the north of
England, to the great delight of the major part of his profession, who
sickened at his superiority, and exulted in every thing that threatened
to injure his reputation and degrade him in the eyes of the public. Nor
did their malice want subjects to work upon: The _Statiras_ and the
_Roxanas_ by turns got possession of our young _Alexander_, and the
demon of licentiousness seems to have exercised more than his customary
dominion over the ladies, for the ruin of the young man. In whatever
company Hodgkinson played, he became the object, too often the victim of
their arts, and some unfortunate husband or lover had to deplore the
unconcealed infidelity of his _cara sposa_. Nay, in one instance,
theatrical sovereignty itself found its rights invaded, and had to
lament a treason which it could not punish. In plain English, the wife
of one of his managers played "All for love, or the world well lost,"
and ran away with him. It was on this occasion he left the northern line
of theatres, and joined the company of Bath and Bristol, whither his
great professional fame had p