top of the list stand
Bouffe and Dejazet. Respecting the latter, we have but little to add to
the opinion we expressed in a recent number of this Magazine. After a
long and fatiguing career, and at an age when most actresses have either
left the stage, or dwindled into duennas and other subordinate parts,
she still affords more pleasure by her performances than nine-tenths of
her youthful contemporaries. Her _making-up_, is admirable, and she and
Madame Doche divide between the honour of being the best dressed women
on the French stage. In the ball-room or the street she still looks
young; for although her face depends upon paint, her figure is erect and
juvenile, and one would hardly suspect her of being the mother of
"Monsieur Eugene Dejazet, who has attained some celebrity as a musical
composer, and of a daughter who appeared at the St. James's theatre, in
1844, under the name of Mademoiselle Herminie." Her generosity and
excellent heart have endeared her to her comrades. Her wit and ready
repartee are proverbial. Mr. Hervey quotes a few of her _bon mots_, but
he might have made a better selection. It is true that, besides the
difficulty of translation, he may have been hampered by the latitude the
lady allows herself. He regrets that a collection of her smart sayings
is not made, to be called Dejazetiana; and opines that it would rival in
merit, and far surpass in bulk, the volume containing the sallies of the
famous Sophie Arnould. Something of the sort has been published, under
the title of the "Perroquet de Mademoiselle Dejazet," but to its
authenticity or value we are unable to speak.

In the year 1821, a young man in his twenty-first year, by trade a
carver and gilder, was engaged to act at the new theatre of the Panorama
Dramatique, at the enormous salary of twelve pounds per annum. To
augment this pittance, and to please his father, who was averse to his
new profession, he employed himself between the acts in gilding frames
in a small workshop behind the scenes. This ill-paid aspirant to
histrionic fame was MARIE BOUFFE, "the most perfect comedian of his
day," says Mr. Hervey, and we fully coincide in the verdict. Bouffe, is
one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and agreeable actors we ever
saw; subtle and delicate in his conceptions of character, energetic
without rant, ever true to Nature, and of a rare versatility of talent.
We have known several persons who fancied, partly perhaps on account of
his n