personally acquainted with her, such an absolute command, from ine 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. "Mr. Colley Cibber," is the name often pronounced in the crowd. 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 gentlenen, 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, soine 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 upetairs,—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 presentinent 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 be 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."

He failed, indeed, in obtaining a commission, as he did in an attempt to enter the church; but for those failures Cibber was, in no wise, responsible. Had he grasped a pair of colors we should have heard of him, honorably, in Flanders. Had he received ordination, he would at least have as well known how to push his way as the Reverend Philip Bisse, who kissed the Countess of Plymouth in the dark, affecting to take her for a maid of honor, and who thereby gained that lively widow for a wife, and through her the bishoprics, successively, of St. Davids and Hereford.

Colley being alike debarred from ascending the pulpit, or leading to the imminently deadly breach, turned to the sock and buskin, alternately donning the one or the other, for nothing; but watching his opportunity, and never failing to take advantage of it.

He gladly, after a term of hungry probation, accepted the little part of the Chaplain, in the "Orphan ;" and when the old comedian Goodman swore there was the stuff for the making of a good actor in the young fellow, the tears came into Cibber's eyes; but they were tears of joy, for he recognized that his good time had commenced, and he watched opportunity more indefatigably than ever.

Meanwhile, he was happy on ten, and fifteen shillings a week, with food, and raiment, and lodging, under his father's roof, and an ardent desire that he might one day play lover to Mrs. Bracegirdle. When the ambitious young fellow had induced his sire to allow him £20 a year, in addition to the £1 a week which he then gained on the stage, Colley made love to a young lady off the stage, and married at the age of twenty-two. He and his wife were as happy as any young couple that ever took a leap in the dark. This is his own testimony; but beyond that darkness he looked eagerly, watching still for opportunity. It came, when Congreve's "Double Dealer" was to be played before Queen Mary. Kynaston had fallen suddenly ill, and who could learn and play the part of Lord Touchwood in a few hours? Congreve looks at Cibber, and the young actor looks confidently at Congreve. He undertakes the task, fired by the thought of promotion, and of performing before a crowned head. His success was perfect. Congreve was delighted, and the salary of the

ecstatic comedian was raised some few shillings a week.

His

young wife danced round him for joy at this glimpse of Golconda. The company of actors began to dislike him, after the fashion of his Grantham school-fellows.

Little recked Colley Cibber what men thought of him, provided only the thought helped him towards fortune. At a pinch, he supplied a new prologue, for the opening of a season at Drury Lane, the prosperity of which was menaced by an opposition from the new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The poet begged hard that he might have the speaking of his own piece, but he was not accounted actor good enough for that, and thus he lost, not by error of his own, a particular opportunity. But the master slipped a couple of guineas into his hand, and declared that he, Colley, "was a very ingenious young man." Cibber was consoled; he had, at all events, profited by the opportunity, of making way with his "Master." To be sure, said Colley, "he knows no difference between Dryden and Durfey;" but that also made no difference to Colley.

Some weeks subsequently the "Old Bachelor" was suddenly substituted for the previously announced tragedy of "Hamlet." When all the parts had been distributed to the principal actors, Cibber, ever vigilant, and ever ready, quietly remarked that they had forgotten one of the most telling parts in the whole play, Fondlewife. It was Doggett's great part. In it he was unapproachable. He was not a member of the company. Who could or would dare to face a public whose sides were still shaking with laughter at Doggett's irresistible performance of this character! No one knew the part; mid-day was at hand; the curtain must go up by four; the play could not be changed. What was to be done? Colley, of course, offered himself to do it, and his offer was treated with contempt; but the managers were compelled to accept it. Here was a golden chance which had golden results for Cibber. He played the part, at night, in dress, feature, voice, and action, so like to the incomparable Doggett himself, that the house was in an uproar of delight and perplexity, delight at beholding their favorite, and perplexity as to how it could possibly be he. For there sat Doggett himself, in the very centre of a forward row in the pit; a stimulant rather than a stumbling