thankes Sanders sequest 10-10 -27 DORAN'S ANNALS OF THE STAGE. CHAPTER I. MARGARET WOFFINGTON. THAT good-tempered woman who is looking with admiration at the pretty and delicate child who is drawing water from the Liffey, is Madame Violante. She is mistress of a booth, for ropedancing and other exhibitions in Dame Street. As the young girl turns homeward, with the bowl of water on her head, the lady follows, still admiring. The object of her admiration is as bright and as steady as a sunbeam. If she be ill-clad, she is exquisitely shaped, and she will live to lend her dresses to the two Miss Gunnings, to enable them to attend a drawing-room at the Castle; their first steps towards reaching the coronets of countess and duchess that were in store for them. This child, meanwhile, enters a shabby huckster's shop, kept by her widowed mother, on Ormond Quay. The father was a working bricklayer, and married the mother when she was as hard-working a laundress. There is another child in this poor household, a sister of the water-bearer, fair, but less fair than she. When Madame Violante first saw Mary and Margaret Woffington, she little dreamed that the latter would be the darling of London society, and the former the bride of a son of one of the proudest of English earls. Margaret Woffington, born in 1720, was very young when Madame Violante induced her mother to let her have the pretty child as a pupil. The foreign lady was of good repute, and Margaret became an apt pupil, performed little tricks while her mistress was on the rope, learned French thoroughly, and acquired graces of person, style, and carriage, by which she gained fortune, and reaped ruin. As a child, she played Macheath, in Madame's booth, when the 'Beggars' Opera" was acted there by children. From the age of seventeen to twenty, she was on the more regular Dublin stage, charming all eyes and hearts by her beauty, grace, and ability in a range of characters from Ophelia to Sir Harry Wildair. Rich at once engaged her, at a moderate salary, and, in 1740, brought her out, at Covent Garden, as Sylvia to Ryan's Plume and the younger Cibber's Brazen. A successful coup d'éssai emboldened her to try Sir Harry. She played it night after night, for weeks, and Wilks was forgotten. It is said she so enraptured one susceptible damsel, that the young lady, believing Sir Harry to be a man, made him an offer of marriage. Walpole was among the last to be pleased. "There is much in vogue, a Mrs. Woflington," he writes, in 1741; "a bad actress, but she has life." Walpole's friend, Conway, confesses that "all the town was in love with her;" but to Conway's eyes, she was only "an impudent Irish-faced girl." Even these fastidious gentlemen became converted, and, at a later period, Walpole records her excellent acting in Moore's "Foundling," with Garrick, Barry, and Mrs. Cibber. Her Lothario was not so successful as her Sir Harry; but her high-born ladies, her women of dash, spirit, and elegance, her homely, humorous females, in all these she triumphed; and triumphed in spite of a voice that was almost unmanageable for its harshness. Margaret and Garrick were very soon on very intimate terms. In the summer of 1742, they were together in Dublin, and on their return, according to a tradition of the stage, Garrick and Mrs. Woffington, living together, alternately supplied the expenses of the household, each being at the head of the latter during a month. In Garrick's term the table is said to have been but moderately furnished; whereas during the beautiful Margaret's month, there was a banquet and brilliant company daily; all the fashionable men about town being delighted at an invitation from the Irish actress. Johnson used to be among those visitors, and he noticed the difference in the quality of the housekeeping, after his usual fashion. "Is not this tea stronger than usual, madame? It's as red as blood!" It was Margaret's month, and the liberal lady smiled. That Garrick ever entertained thoughts of marrying Margaret, I very much doubt, despite the story, said to have been told by the lady to Murphy, that he had gone so far as to buy the weddingring, and try it on her finger. In the early part of the few years which elapsed between Garrick's debût in London and his marriage with Eva Maria Violetta, he lived in such affectionate intimacy with the charming Irish actress, as to address to her the song beginning with "Once more I'll tune the vocal shell, To hills and dales my passion tell, Notwithstanding this homage, the lady's infidelities were so numerous, that whatever may have been her wrath or disappointment, she had no right to expect that of so inconstant a mistress of one home, Garrick was likely to make the wife of another. However this may have been, it remains undeniable that Garrick preserved, to his last days, a pair of silver buckles which once belonged to that Peggy, who, from first to last, enthralled more hearts than any actress since the days of Elizabeth Barry ;-from those of young fellows with the down just budding on their lips, to what was left of those of old Owen Mac Swiney and older Colley Cibber, between which two ancient danglers, people compared Margaret to Susanna between the two Elders. 66 In good truth, her company was sought after by men of the first rank and distinction ;" and "persons of the gravest character, and most eminent for learning," felt honored by her acquaintance, and were charmed with her conversation. She founded her avowed preference of the company of men to that of women, on the alleged fact that the latter never talked but of satins and silks. She herself was endowed with a good understanding, which was much improved by contact with intellectual society, and by much reading. In short, it seems to have been impossible to resist this clever, vivacious, affable, and good-natured creature; one who laughed most unaffectedly at the joke which touched her own character nearest; whose errors are forgotten in her much-abounding and still-enduring charity, and who not only faithfully kept that part of the decalogue which says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," but provided a home for her neighbors' wives. through many generations, by building the asylum for them, which still exists at Teddington. "Mes enfans, sauvez-vous par la charité !" Margaret Woffington was the most beautiful and the least vain of the women of her day. Whatever character she had to play, she identified herself therewith; and did it happen to be that of an old or ordinary woman, she descended to the level of circumstances, and hid every natural beauty beneath wrinkles and stolidity, according to the exigencies of the part. Her sister, Mary Woffington, whom many living persons remember well, failed comparatively as an actress; but she achieved better fortune as a woman than her more able and attractive sister. By marriage she connected herself with Walpole's family, and Walpole, whose mother was the daughter of a timber-dealer, was disgusted. "I have been unfortunate in my own family," says Walpole to Mann, in 1746; "my nephew, Captain Cholmondeley, has married a player's sister." This last was Mrs. Woffington's sister, Mary. Captain, subsequently the Reverend Robert Cholmondeley, was the second son of the Earl Cholmondeley, who obtained Houghton, by marrying Walpole's only legitimate sister Mary. At the match between the captain and the player's sister the earl was greatly incensed, and he went to Mrs. Woffington to tell her as much. But Margaret so softened him by her winning ways, and won him by her good sense, and subdued him to her will, that he, at last, called her his "dear Mrs. Woffington," and declared that he was happy at his son's choice, in spite of his having been "so very much offended previously." This aroused Margaret's spirit a little. "Offended previously!" she exclaimed, "I have most cause to be offended now." Why, dear lady?" asked the earl. |