Barry, in the memorable suit of white-puckered satin, had produced all the effect in "Douglas." This affected her spirits. Then she was annoyed at young Tate Wilkinson, whom Foote had just brought on the stage, and who had audaciously imitated the worst parts of Margaret's voice. Almost the only unkind act that can be laid to Mrs. Woffington's charge, was her consequent attempt to induce Rich not to enter into an engagement with Wilkinson. Her scorn drove the unfortunate young gentleman, for his story was a sad one, from the green-room, despite the interference of Shuter. One night, as she was playing Clarissa in the “Confederacy," she saw Wilkinson in a stage-box with Captain Forbes, and unable to control her rage, she came close to the box, and absolutely made him shrink back by the sneering sarcasm with which she flung at him one of her speeches. A rude woman in the box above mimicked her peculiar voice so well, as Clarissa tarned away, that Mrs. Woffington thought it came from Wilkinson. That night she swept through the green-room, a beautiful fury, and the next day, at Rich's levee, she assailed Tate with terrible eloquence, prophesied evil to him, wished the evil she prophesied, and altogether manifested little of the kindly nature which was, in truth, her own.

Soon followed thereon the fatal 3d of May, 1757. The play was "As You Like It," in which she acted Rosalind. Young Tate Wilkinson was standing at the wing as she passed on to the stage, and on her way she complimented him, ironically, on his recent success as a debutant. Wilkinson watched and studied her throughout the piece, till she came off early in the fifth act, and suddenly complained of being ill. Wilkinson offered his arm, leaning on which she retired to the green-room, rallied, went on, changed her dress, again trod the stage, defiantly of fate, and again yielded to the coming blow; but only for a moment. Once more she recovered, her self-will being so great, and she began the lines of the epilogue. She had just uttered, with fearful gayety, the words:"If I were among you, I'd kiss as many of had beards that pleased me- " when that once saucy tongue became paralyzed. A last flash of courage impelled her to an attempt to proceed; but it was vain, and at the sense that she was stricken, she flung up her hands, uttered a wild shriek in abject

you as

terror, and staggering towards the stage-door, fell into the arms stretched to receive her; and amid indescribable confusion of cheering and commiserating cries, Margaret Woffington disappeared from the stage, forever.

In November of that year, a fine gentleman asked, "What has become of Mrs. Woffington?" "She has been taken off by Colonel Cæsar," answered another fine gentleman. "Reduced to aut Cæsar aut nullus," said the smart Lord Tyrawley. "She is gone to be married," said Kitty Clive; "Colonel Cæsar bought the license at the same time Colonel Mostyn bought his." At this time, poor Margaret, in the meridian of her beauty, somewhat weary of her calling, ashamed, it is said, of her life, was slowly dying at "Teddington, in Twickenhamshire," as Walpole loved. to call it. So slowly, that the end did not come till 1760.

In the interval, Margaret Woffington is said to have lived to good purpose. Unreasonably exalted as her character has been, it is impossible to contemplate it at its close, without respect. Charity, good works, sorrow for the past, hope,-all the Magdalen was there in that beautiful wreck. In a playful time she and Colonel Cæsar had agreed that the survivor of the two should be the heir of the other; but Margaret would not let a jest do injury to her family and to the poor. Of her few thousands, she left the greater part to her sister; her mother she had pensioned and protected; to the poor of Teddington, among whom she reposes, she left well-endowed alms-houses. The poor, at least, may bless the memory of that once bright young creature, whom Madame Violante saw drawing water from the Liffey.

Those alms-houses form a better relic of Margaret Woffington than the poor stage-jewels which her dresser, Mrs. Barrington, a respectable actress, hoped to inherit. These were claimed by, and surrendered to, the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley, and were carried to Ireland by that lady's daughter, on her marriage with Sir William Bellingham.

Such is the story of one, of whom an anonymous contemporary has written," Mrs. Woffington is a downright cheat, a triumphant plagiary. She first steals your heart, and then laughs at you as secure of your applause. There is such a prepossession arises from her form; such a witchcraft in her beauty, and to those who are

personally acquainted with her, such an absolute command, from he sweetness of her disposition, that it is almost impossible to criticise upon her." With this criticism, I leave Margaret Woffington to the tender judgment of all gentle readers.

But while Margaret Woffington is slowly dying, here is a funeral passing through Berkeley Square.

is the name often pronounced in the crowd.

"Mr. Colley Cibber,"

It is one of which we

have, for some time, lost sight; let us return to it, before we pass on to that of other conspicuous men.

CHAPTER II.

COLLEY CIBBER.

IN the year 1671, the coffee-house politicians, the fine gentlemen, the scholars, and the gossips, generally, were in no lack of themes for discussion. In Bow Street, the quidnuncs congratulated themselves, from April to December, at the resolution of the Commons, whose members had rebuked the Lords for daring to alter an impost laid on sugar, to the effect that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the tax levied might be agreed to, but it could not be altered by the Lords. Knots of shabby-looking clergymen were constantly to be seen in Mr. Brent, the mercer's shop, discussing the arrangements just made for the sustenance of London incumbents, burnt out by the Great Fire. Up-stairs, in the long-room over Mr. Brent's shop, the "wit's room" at Will's, the company never wearied of hearing Major Mohun, the actor, speak of Lord Fairfax, who was just dead. There was much gossip, too, both there and about town, touching my Lord Manchester, lately deceased, the parliamentary general who had helped to restore monarchy. If he was the servant of two masters, some persons thought he had been sufficiently punished by being the husband of five wives. The critics were more genially engaged in canvassing the merits of Casaubon, the learned prebendary of Canterbury, who had recently laid aside his critical acumen with his mortal coil. The artists were canvassing the merits of a monument which was that year beginning to rear its head on Fish Street Hill. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren.

A foreign

sculptor from Holstein was, at that moment, preparing designs for the basso relievo now on the pedestal. This sculptor lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury, where, on the 6th of November, 1671, while arranging the completion of his figures, his lady upstairs,—she was of a cavalier family, and had the blood of William of Wyckham in her veins,-presented him with a living figure, the

counterfeit presentment of its father. The child thus born, as it were, with the London Monument, was named Colley Cibber. How Colley fared at school, stood his own ground, and was envied by the dunces he beat, in a double sense,—how he was determined to succeed in life, and did succeed, and was therefore denounced, as an ass or a knave, by those who failed, or who hated him for his success, or who feared the sarcasms which he himself delivered, without fear,—is known to us all.

The success of Colley Cibber, throughout life, may be ascribed to three circumstances; the acuteness with which he detected opportunity, the electric rapidity with which he seized it, and the marvellous unerring tact by which he turned it to profit. By this he was distinguished, despite some easy negligence and luxurious idleness, from his earliest days; and from his first to his last consequent triumph, he paid for each in the malevolence of those who envied him his victories and denied his merit.

When a lad at Grantham Free School, he alone accepted the magisterial proposal to compose a funeral oration, in honor of the dead King, Charles II. He gained such glory by his achievement that his fellows sent him to Coventry. For succeeding better than any of them in writing an ode in honor of the new King, an ode which he modestly owns to have been as execrable as any thing he composed half a century later, when poet-laureate, they ostracized the bard whom they could not equal in song. Colley was satisfied with his glory, and treated his young adversaries with all the mingled good-nature and audacity with which he subsequently treated his better armed enemy, Mr. Pope.

When he "met the Revolution," in 1688, at Nottingham, failing to obtain military employment, he gladly availed himself of an opportunity to wait behind Lady Churchill's chair, as she sat at table with the Princess Anne. Half a hundred years later he refers to the friend he acquired by thus performing lackey to her; and he happily caps a climax of glorious compliment to the then Duchess of Marlborough, by flatteringly alluding to something that pleasantly distinguished her above all the women of her time, a distinction which she received not from earthly sovereigns, but "from the Author of Nature" that of being “a great grandmother without gray hairs."