pening to wear a wig on account of having lost his
hair by a fever, he suddenly took off the wig, and dashed it at the head
of the performer, exclaiming, "You dog! I'll throw my laurels at you."

Mathews, the comedian, I had the pleasure of seeing at Mr. Hill's
several times, and of witnessing his imitations, which, admirable as
they were on the stage, were still more so in private. His wife
occasionally came with him, with her handsome eyes, and charitably made
tea for us. Many years afterward I had the pleasure of seeing them at
their own table; and I thought that while Time, with unusual courtesy,
had spared the sweet countenance of the lady, he had given more force
and interest to that of the husband in the very plowing of it up. Strong
lines had been cut, and the face stood them well. I had seldom been more
surprised than on coming close to Mathews on that occasion, and seeing
the bust which he possessed in his gallery of his friend Liston. Some of
these comic actors, like comic writers, are as unfarcical as can be
imagined in their interior. The taste for humor comes to them by the
force of contrast. The last time I had seen Mathews, his face appeared
to me insignificant to what it was then. On the former occasion he
looked like an irritable in-door pet: on the latter, he seemed to have
been grappling with the world, and to have got vigor by it. His face had
looked out upon the Atlantic, and said to the old waves, "Buffet on; I
have seen trouble as well as you." The paralytic affection, or whatever
it was, that twisted his mouth when young, had formerly appeared to be
master of his face, and given it a character of indecision and alarm. It
now seemed a minor thing; a twist in a piece of old oak. And what a bust
was Liston's! The mouth and chin, with the throat under it, hung like an
old bag; but the upper part of the head was as fine as possible. There
was a speculation, a lookout, and even an elevation of character in it,
as unlike the Liston on the stage, as Lear is to King Pippin. One might
imagine Laberius to have had such a face.

The reasons why Mathews's imitations were still better in private than
in public were, that he was more at his ease personally, more secure of
his audience ("fit though few"), and able to interest them with traits
of private character, which could not have been introduced on the stage.
He gave, for instance, to persons who he thought could take it rightly,
a picture of the manners a