Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Margaret Woffington
MARGARET WOFFINGTON.
During the years 1726 and 1727, Madame Violante, an Italian rope-dancer, famed for her grace and agility, had been entertaining London with frequent repetitions of her marvellous feats. In 1728 she moved to Dublin, opening a booth there. For some time she was successful, and her exhibitions were resorted to by people of the best fashion. But gradually the receipts dwindled—the tight-rope had ceased either to amaze or to amuse. Madame Violante found it necessary, in order to retain the favour of her patrons, to provide a novel entertainment. So she introduced the “Beggar’s Opera” to a Dublin audience, and attracted the town to an extraordinary degree.
She procured fitting scenery, dresses, and decorations; but as her theatre was unsanctioned by the authorities, she did not venture to engage a regular troop of comedians. She formed a company of children, however, little more than ten years of age, and drilled and instructed them carefully in the parts they were to play. Probably the success of a similar entertainment recently given by children in London stimulated her exertions if it did not originate them. The “Lilliputian actors” played with remarkable ability; the performance was agreed on all hands to be vastly new, pretty, curious, altogether admirable; the children attracted crowded houses night after night. Several of the little performers adhered to the profession of the stage and achieved further distinction in their maturer efforts. Miss Betty Barnes, the Macheath, was afterwards, as Mrs. Martin and (by a second marriage) Mrs. Workman, known as a good actress. The representative of Peachum, Isaac Sparks, was subsequently an excellent low comedian and a favourite clown in pantomime. Master Barrington, who played Filch, made at a later date a considerable figure in Irishmen and low comedy. Miss Ruth Jenks, was Lucy. Miss Mackey was Mrs. Peachum; and the little girl, aged ten, whose mother kept a huckster’s shop on Ormond Quay, and who made her first appearance on any stage in the character of Polly Peachum, was famous afterwards all the world over as Mistress Margaret Woffington.
After a few years Madame Violante let her booth, and an attempt was made to present there dramatic performances by a regular company. The success of these excited the jealousy and alarm of the managers of the old-established theatre in Smock Alley; they applied to the Lord Mayor, who interposed his authority, and forbade the representations in the booth. A new theatre was therefore built in Rainsford Street, which was out of the jurisdiction of the mayor; and another new theatre was shortly afterwards constructed in Aungier Street. No time was lost in completing it, the opening performance being presented within ten months of the foundation-stone having been laid. Mrs. Woffington was a member of the company; but for some time her exertions were limited to the execution of dances between the acts. The public, however, had already begun to look upon her with favour. On the 12th February, 1737, she made her first appearance in a speaking character. She played Ophelia at the Aungier Street Theatre to a loudly applauding audience.
“She now,” says a critic, “began to unveil those beauties, and display those graces and accomplishments which for so many years afterwards charmed mankind.”
Her next triumph was as Lucy, in Mr. Fielding’s farce of the “Virgin Unmasked.” On the occasion of her benefit, she first undertook one of those characters of which the assumption of male attire is the most prominent and popular charm. She appeared in the farce of the “Female Officer,” by H. Brooke, after having acted Phillis in Sir Richard Steele’s comedy of the “Conscious Lovers.” In her second season she was recognised as an established favourite. The severe winter of 1739, and the suffering and distress it entailed upon the poorer classes of the city, hindered all public amusements and inflicted severe loss upon the theatres: for nearly three months they were entirely closed. In the following spring, “at the desire of several persons of quality,” she first stepped on the boards in her celebrated character of Sir Harry Wildair, in Farquhar’s comedy of the “Constant Couple.” The audience were delighted with her performance, and Rich, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, moved by her extraordinary success, at once secured her services for his ensuing season.
She made her first appearance before a London audience on the 6th November, 1740. The part selected for her debût was that of Sylvia in the “Recruiting Officer.” As Farquhar, for various reasons, is but little read in these days, it may be necessary to state that in the third act of the comedy Sylvia the heroine enters “in man’s apparel.”
“Your name?” demands Brazen.
“Wilful, Jack Wilful, at your service,” she replies.
“What, the Kentish Wilfuls, or those of Staffordshire?”
“Both, sir,” says Sylvia. “I’m related to all the Wilfuls in Europe, and I’m head of the family at present.” And afterwards she continues: “Had I but a commission in my pocket, I fancy my breeches would become me as well as any ranting fellow of them all: for I take a bold step, a rakish toss, a smart cock, and an impudent air, to be the principal ingredients in the composition of a captain. What’s here? Rose, my nurse’s daughter! I’ll go and practise. Come, child, kiss me at once!”
Her success was beyond all question. She subsequently played Lady Sadlife, in Cibber’s “Double Gallant,” Aura, in Charles Johnson’s comedy of “Country Lasses,” and, on the 21st November, “by particular desire,” she appeared as Sir Harry Wildair, repeating the character twenty times during her first season.
For seven years since the death of Wilks, the original representative of Sir Harry, the comedy of the “Constant Couple” had been in a great measure lain aside. Farquhar himself had asserted that when Wilks died there would be no longer a Sir Harry. When Garrick undertook the part in 1742, Wilkinson describes his performance as a failure, and the two biographers of the Roscius pass it over without comment. Yet the best critics hastened to pronounce in favour of Mrs. Woffington’s representation of the character. The town was delighted with her: the theatre was crowded to excess. It was not, as Tate Wilkinson points out, merely the whim of a winter; nor did the excitement arise solely from curiosity to see a woman sustain a man’s character. She evinced a peculiar fitness for the part, “she appeared with the true spirit of a well-bred rake of quality.” “She remained the unrivalled Wildair during her life.” “The ease, manner of address, vivacity, and figure of a young man of fashion were never more happily exhibited.” “The best proof of this matter,” Wilkinson goes on to say, “is the well-known success and profit she brought to the different theatres in England and Ireland wherever her name was published for Sir Harry Wildair. The managers had recourse to the lady for this character whenever they had fears of the want of an audience; and indeed for some years before she died, as she never by her articles was to play it, but with her own consent, she always conferred a favour on the manager whenever she changed her sex and filled the house.”
Davies describes her as “the most beautiful woman that ever adorned a theatre.” She was tall and well made, though slight in figure. She had a peculiar grace and freedom in her movements; there was a thoroughly well-bred and elegant air about her action; her face was singularly expressive; her features delicate, yet well defined, her eyes being superb, while over these were incessantly playing, giving point, and force, and brilliance to her every word and look, a pair of strongly marked mobile eyebrows. She was particularly careful in her dress, and always thoroughly prepared with the words of her part. Her voice, we learn, was inclined to be sharp in tone, a disadvantage in her performance of tragedy. When Foote gave his entertainment called “The Diversion of a Morning,” at the Haymarket, in 1746, he professed to find occupations for the actors who had declared they should be ruined by his persistence in his illegal performances, while he gave imitations of them in the new professions he selected for them. Mr. Quin, from his sonorous voice and weighty manner, he appointed a watchman, with a cry of “Past twelve o’clock, and a cloudy morning.” Mr. Delane, who was alleged to have but one eye, a beggar-man in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Mr. Ryan, whose voice was odd and shrill, a razor-grinder; and Mrs. Woffington, because of her harsh tones, an orange-woman to the playhouse. And then he went on to give a ludicrous travestie of Garrick’s dying scenes, in which the great actor was apt to hesitate and protract his words; as in Lothario: “Adorns my fall and che-che-che-che-che-cheers my heart in dy-dy-dying.”
But it may be noted that a certain harshness of voice is rather an advantage to an actress in her assumptions of male character. Admirers of Déjazet will recollect that her discordant tones, while they struck unpleasantly on the ear when she appeared as a heroine, ceased to be remarked, even if they did not assist the illusion, when she trod the boards the hero of the night.
During her first season, Mrs. Woffington played also Elvira in Dryden’s “Spanish Friar;” Violante in Theobald’s “Double Falsehood,” Amanda in Cibber’s “Love’s Last Shift;” Lætitia in Congreve’s “Old Bachelor,” and a few other characters. She was but twenty-two, and had already become the greatest public favourite in the theatre. Her rivals at Drury Lane were Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Clive, formerly Miss Raftor.
One night, during her performance of Sir Harry, when finishing a scene amidst a hurricane of applause, she rushed into the green room and cried, elated with joy:
“Mr. Quin, Mr. Quin, I have played this part so often that half the town believe me to be a real man.”
Quin only growled out a repartee more free than refined. She was the subject of all sorts of congratulatory and laudatory verses. Instance the following: “Lines addressed to Mrs. Woffington appearing in the part of Sylvia in the ‘Recruiting Officer.’
When first in petticoats you trod the stage,
Our sex with love you fired—your own with rage.
In breeches, next, so well you played the cheat,
The pretty fellow and the rake complete,
Each sex was then with different passions moved,
The men grew envious and the women loved.”
In the season of 1741-42, Mrs. Woffington was engaged at Drury Lane. Among other characters she appeared as Rosalind in “As You Like It,” Nerissa in “Merchant of Venice,” Lady Brute in the “Provoked Wife,” and Mrs. Sullen in the “Beaux Stratagem.” On her benefit, she played Clarissa in the “Confederacy,” by Sir John Vanbrugh. But public attention was this year averted. On the 19th October, 1741, at the theatre in Goodman’s Fields had been performed, “A Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music, divided into Two Parts. Tickets three, two, and one shilling. N.B. Between the Two Parts of the Concert will be presented an Historical Play, called the ‘Life and Death of King Richard the Third,’ the part of King Richard by a gentleman, who never appeared on any stage.” This gentleman was David Garrick, who had, however, sustained several characters at Ipswich during the preceding summer. The concert was charged for and not the play, which was presumed to be performed gratis, in order to evade the terms of the Licensing Act. The fame of the new actor was of course noised abroad; the public crowded to the eastern part of the town, hitherto neglected. “From the polite ends of Westminster the most elegant company flocked to Goodman’s Fields, insomuch that from Temple Bar the whole way was covered with a string of coaches.” In the following season Garrick was playing at Drury Lane both in tragedy and comedy. Mrs. Woffington played Mrs. Sullen to his Archer in the “Beaux Stratagem,” Charlotte to his Millamour in Mr. Fielding’s unsuccessful comedy of the “Wedding Day,” and Lady Anne to his Richard the Third. On the occasion of her benefit, she resigned to him her part of Sir Harry Wildair, and assumed that of Lady Lurewell in the same comedy. Of her performance of Sir Harry, Garrick would say: “It was a great attempt for a woman, but still it was not Sir Harry Wildair.” The public, however, did not agree with him, or at all events, they preferred her interpretation of the part to his. On Mrs. Woffington’s benefit, in 1745, the part of Cherry in the “Beaux Stratagem,” was played by Miss M. Woffington, “being her first appearance on any stage.” She was probably the younger sister of Mrs. Woffington, afterwards married to the Hon. and Rev. George Cholmondeley, of whom mention is made in “Boswell’s Life of Johnson.”
During the summer of 1742, Garrick and Mrs. Woffington had visited Dublin, where an extraordinary reception awaited them. We read that “Garrick’s success exceeded all imagination, he was caressed by all ranks of people; at the same time, it must be acknowledged that Mrs. Woffington was nearly as great a favourite.” However, the crowds attracted to the theatre during the hottest months of the year, brought about very serious consequences. An epidemic distemper, which was called the “Garrick Fever,” prevailed greatly; and proved fatal to many.
Returning from Dublin, Mrs. Woffington took lodgings in the same house with Macklin the actor. Garrick, as the friend of both, was a frequent visitor, and always warmly welcomed. But in 1743, a division arose between Garrick and Macklin. With other performers they had revolted against the misrule of Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane; but Garrick, finding the Lord Chamberlain opposed to the mutineers, and the struggle for reform quite hopeless, had made a separate peace for himself. But he was never again on terms of friendship with Macklin. Mrs. Woffington was now keeping house with Garrick, bearing, by agreement, the monthly expenses alternately. Garrick was accused of being parsimonious. “With his domestic saving we have nothing to do,” said Dr. Johnson: “I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong.” When the Doctor told the same story to Reynolds, he mentioned an additional circumstance: “Why,” said Garrick, “it’s as red as blood!”
The lady was certainly in love with Garrick. The fact is not so much to be marvelled at. He was handsome, sprightly, courtly, and witty; his genius had not merely brought him wealth, it had placed him absolutely at the head of his profession; and it is probable that for some time he encouraged her in the idea that he would ultimately propose marriage to her. She indeed informed Murphy that she was so near being married to Garrick, that he had tried the wedding-ring on her finger. But at last he came to the conclusion that such a union would be unadvisable. He professed that the idea of the marriage haunted his dreams, and disturbed his sleep. At last he took an opportunity of intimating to her as gently as he could, that it was out of his power to offer her matrimony. She was very angry: all attempts to soothe her were in vain. “Go, sir,” she said; “henceforward I separate myself from you for ever. From this hour I decline to see you or to speak with you except in the course of professional business or in the presence of a third person.” And she kept her word.
Some time before he had addressed her in a song which had been much talked of at the time, called “Lovely Peggy,” beginning with the lines,
Once more I’ll tune my vocal shell,
To hills and dales my passion tell—
A flame which time can never quell,
Which burns for thee, my Peggy.
But this was all over now. She packed up all the presents he had ever given her and returned them to him with a farewell letter. Soon their quarrel became town talk. Many absurd exaggerations of it were current, and caricatures no way flattering to the gentleman appeared in the print shops and amused the public. He returned her presents to him: although he is alleged to have retained the most valuable, a pair of diamond shoe-buckles, which had cost her a considerable sum. She waited a month, and then addressed him a note, delicately reminding him that the buckles had not been found amongst the other articles he had sent back. He replied, “that they were the only little memorials he had of the many pleasant hours he had passed in her society, and he trusted she would permit him to keep them for her sake.” “She saw through this,” says our authority, “but she had too much spirit to reply, and Garrick retained the buckles to the last hour of his life.” She never forgave him, though she acted with him in various plays, for they were both servants of the same manager. But when, in 1747, he became joint patentee with Lacy of Drury Lane Theatre, the fact of her being a member of his company presented embarrassments to both. For a season escape was impossible. Her remaining in the theatre was additionally disagreeable to her, from the incessant struggle for parts which ensued; Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Clive being also actresses of the company, and all having claims for pre-eminence that could not be disregarded. “No two women of high rank,” says Davies, “ever hated one another more unreservedly than these great dames of the theatre, Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Woffington,” and their frequent conflicts in the green-room occasioned many grotesque scenes diverting enough to the other actors. Mrs. Clive was violent and impetuous; Mrs. Woffington “was well-bred, seemingly very calm, and at all times mistress of herself. She blunted the sharp speeches of Mrs. Clive by her apparently civil but keen and sarcastic replies, thus she often threw Clive off her guard, by an arch severity which the warmth of the other could not easily parry.”
At the commencement of the following season, Mrs. Woffington withdrew from Garrick’s theatre, and accepted an engagement at Covent Garden, where she remained three years. She had now full scope for her talents, and while she proved herself unequalled in elegant and humorous comedy, she achieved no inconsiderable fame from her efforts in the higher walks of tragedy. She was especially commended for her performance of Lady Jane Grey in Rowe’s tragedy of that name, while her Andromache and Hermione were greatly admired for their classical beauty. But it is manifest that her voice was not well adapted for displays of feeling and passion: it became harsh and strained in the effort to be declamatory. She had studied under Cibber, who had instructed her in a pompous system of elocution. He was of the old school of actors who delighted in a system of intoning the lines entrusted them to deliver, and who, in their desire to be musical, effectually excluded nature and pathos from their eloquence. Mrs. Woffington, however, had toiled indefatigably to attain excellence in this branch of her profession. She had indeed visited Paris to study the performances of the French actress Mademoiselle Dumesnil, who had acquired extraordinary repute for the classical grace of her action, and the natural beauty of her elocution. An anecdote is told of this lady which bears witness to the truthfulness of her performance. She was playing Cleopatra, and in the course of the fifth act of the tragedy had to declaim several violent and imprecatory lines with the excess of passion, amongst others, “Je maudrais les Dieux, s’ils me rendroient le jour.” “For shame of you, you vile hussy, be off!” exclaimed an old officer in the stage box, pushing her away from him. The indignation of the audience interrupted the performance, but the actress turned, and loudly expressed her thanks to the old gentleman for the most flattering marks of applause she had ever received.
Mrs. Woffington’s performance of Veturia, in Thomson’s play of “Coriolanus” was greatly admired. From the epilogue it appears that in order to represent the character as thoroughly as possible, she had painted her beautiful face with wrinkles. “What other actress would do this?” asks a critic. In Thomson’s play, Veturia is the mother and Volumnia the wife of Coriolanus. On one occasion when Mrs. Cibber had been suddenly taken ill, Mrs. Woffington undertook at a very short notice to supply her place as Constance in “King John.” The audience, to whom the change in the distribution of the characters was announced, were at first, we are told, lost in surprise, and for some minutes, maintained absolute silence. Presently, however, by loud plaudits again and again renewed, they strove to make amends for their inattention to the accomplished lady, who had spared them the disappointment of a change in the play announced for performance that evening.
But at the close of the theatre in 1751, Mrs. Woffington did not renew her engagement. She considered herself slighted by Rich, the manager. It seems that Barry and Mrs. Cibber had been often too ill to appear; when the tragedies in which they sustained characters were postponed, and Mrs. Woffington’s comedies were substituted. To this she had no objection; but she complained that the bills announcing her performances were half taken up with a notification of the future night on which the tragedies would be given, the names of the tragedians, Quin, Barry, and Cibber, appearing in letters of an extraordinary size. She declared that the next time this slight was put upon her performance, she should plead illness and decline to play. Shortly afterwards “Jane Shore” had been announced, and was put off; the “Constant Couple” was advertised to be given instead, the objectionable names appearing at the bottom of the notice. At five o’clock she sent a message that she was ill and could not appear. The management had to fall back upon the best play they could substitute under the circumstances: Mr. Fielding’s “Miser,” the part of Lovegold by Mr. Macklin.
But the public began to murmur at the frequent changes in the promised performances, and determined to resent the disappointments. When Mrs. Woffington next appeared in “Lady Jane Grey,” she was received with a storm of disapprobation. She always persisted in attributing the attack upon her to a conspiracy of the manager’s friends. “Whoever,” Wilkinson writes in his memoirs, “is living and saw her that night, will own they never beheld any figure half so beautiful since. Her anger gave a glow to her complexion, and even added lustre to her charming eyes. They treated her very rudely, bade her ask pardon, and threw orange-peel. She behaved with great resolution, and treated their rudeness with glorious contempt. She left the stage, was called for, and with infinite persuasion was prevailed upon to return. However, she did, walked forward, and told them she was then ready and willing to perform her character if they chose to permit her; that the decision was theirs, on or off, just as they pleased, it was a matter of indifference to her. The ons had it, and all went smoothly afterwards.”
The two patent theatres in London being closed against her by her quarrels with Garrick and Rich, Mrs. Woffington went over to her old friends in Ireland, who warmly welcomed her. Sheridan, the manager, had been at first unwilling to engage her, deeming Cibber’s praises of her the extravagances of a lover of seventy. Finally, however, he agreed with her for one season at 400l.; a fortunate arrangement for him, as by four of her characters, Lady Townley, Maria, in the “Non-Juror,” Sir Harry Wildair, and Hermione, in the “Distressed Mother,” each performed ten times, his treasury was benefited to the extent of 4000l. Victor, the author of the “History of the Theatres,” wrote to the Countess of Orrery in 1751:—“Mrs. Woffington is the only theme either in or out of the theatre, her performances are in general admirable. She appeared in Lady Townley, and since Mrs. Oldfield, I have not seen a complete Lady Townley till that night. In Andromache, her grief was dignified, and her deportment elegant. In Jane Shore, nothing appeared remarkable but her superior figure, but in Hermione, she discovered such talents as have not been displayed since Mrs. Foster.” Next season her salary was doubled.
“Mrs. Woffington is much improved,” writes Mrs. Delany, “and did the part of Lady Townley last Saturday better than I have seen it done since Mrs. Oldfield’s time;” and then she adds a thoroughly feminine criticism: “She is a fine figure, but she spoils her appearance by the immoderate size of her hoops.”
In 1753, Sheridan instituted the Beef Steak Club. It was maintained at his sole expense, and the chief persons invited were members of Parliament. Mrs. Woffington, the only woman admitted to its meetings, was placed in a great chair at the head of the table, and elected president. She had frankly avowed that she preferred the company of men to that of women, the latter, she said, talked of nothing but silks and scandal. “She was delighted with the novelty of her situation, and had wit and spirit to support it.” But it was a time of great political excitement. Dublin was swayed to and fro by party feeling. As it was not the custom to drain a glass without first naming a toast or proposing a sentiment, it became unavoidable that political discussion should be introduced into the club. Mrs. Woffington’s friends were chiefly of the court party; the conversation and toasts of the club became the common talk of the town, and a factious interpretation was at last put upon proceedings which were instituted solely for theatrical and social purposes. Sheridan was loudly censured: party spirit manifested itself on all sides. Victor writes, “The theatre and all public diversions have greatly suffered by these commotions. Even Mrs. Woffington has lost her influence, and has the misfortune to exhibit to empty boxes.” At length popular indignation broke out into open riot. A poor tragedy, “Mahomet,” a translation from the French of Voltaire, was produced. The audience chose to think certain passages in it peculiarly apposite to the political affairs of the day; were loud in their applause and in the demand for an encore of the particular speech in which the lines occurred. Sheridan laid aside for a month the representation of the tragedy; but on its next performance the audience became as excited as on the first occasion. Sheridan declined to permit the repetition of a speech accepted as offensive to the court party in Dublin, and further, he refused to obey the call which soon became universal from all parts of the house for “the Manager! Sheridan! the Manager!” Possessed with the idea that a personal assault upon him was in contemplation, he got into a chair and went home, leaving the theatre in an extraordinary uproar. Mrs. Woffington was induced to appear, “to try what influence a fine woman could have upon an enraged multitude;” but this had little effect, if it did not indeed increase the tumult, for the lady’s political sentiments and connections were well known. Then the rioters proceeded to demolish the theatre; the audience portion was rapidly defaced and broken up; a party leaped upon the stage, and with their swords cut and slashed the handsomely painted curtain, and all the scenery and properties they could reach, and finally they piled the doors torn from the boxes on a heap of burning coals in hopes that the theatre might be fired and destroyed. Sheridan relinquished his management with a determination never again to set foot in the theatre, and he took leave of the public in a well-written address published shortly afterwards. The theatre was temporarily repaired and opened about a fortnight after the riot, by the command of the Duke of Dorset, the Lord Lieutenant, for the benefit of Mrs. Woffington, when “All for Love” was played to a crowded house : after which Mrs. Woffington quitted Dublin for London. She reappeared at Covent Garden on the 22nd September, 1754, after an absence of three years. She played Maria in the “Non-Juror;” she “drew a great house—was welcomed with great applause, and played the part as well as it could be played.” Shortly afterwards she performed Lady Macbeth to Sheridan’s Macbeth, and was extremely well received.
Tate Wilkinson, in his memoirs, makes frequent mention of Mrs. Woffington. He relates particularly how on one occasion he had unwittingly given her great offence. He was quite a lad at the time, hanging about the stage-door of the theatre, begging for an engagement in any inferior capacity, and he had acquired some small fame for his skill in mimicry after the manner of Foote. Mrs. Woffington had been made very indignant by the information that the boy was in the habit of taking her off—could imitate her voice to the life, and so on. Probably she was quite aware that her voice was liable to criticism: but she was not on that account the better pleased with young Wilkinson’s travesty of her. The play was the “Confederacy,” in which she appeared as Clarissa. Wilkinson had been treated to the theatre by an old friend, Captain Forbes, after a liberal dinner. They occupied seats in the front of His Majesty’s box. The actors were indignant that an inferior member of their own profession should appear in a position so distinguished. Presently, it seems, a woman in the balcony over the royal box caused some amusement by repeating in a shrill tone some words of Mrs. Woffington’s character. The actress at once attributed the interruption to Tate Wilkinson, and grew very angry. She came close to the stage box, finishing one of her speeches with so sarcastic a sneer at him, that it made him draw back. She roused the indignation of the greenroom by her relation of the affront that had been put upon her. She met the lad afterwards at Mr. Rich’s levee, which he had attended soliciting an engagement. “She advanced with queen-like steps, viewing him contemptuously, and said, ‘Mr. Wilkinson, I have made a visit this morning to Mr. Rich to command and insist on his not giving you any engagement whatever. No, not of the most menial kind. Merit you have none; charity you deserve not, for if you did, my purse should give you a dinner. Your impudence to me last night where you had with such assurance placed yourself, is one proof of your ignorance, added to that I heard you echo my voice when I was acting, and I sincerely hope in whatever barn you are suffered as an unworthy stroller, that you will fully experience the same contempt you dared last night to offer me.’” Without permitting a reply she darted into her sedan chair, and left him to learn from Mr. Rich that he could not on any account be received into the theatre.
According to his own account, Tate Wilkinson could imitate Mrs. Woffington with great exactness. He says that Mrs. Garrick, listening behind a screen while he mimicked Mrs. Woffington for Garrick’s amusement, betrayed herself by her laughter. “It was not in his power to restrain the pleasure and great satisfaction she experienced. Perhaps,” he judiciously adds, “female prejudice might operate in my favour.” Mrs. Garrick had probably heard the song of “Lovely Peggy.” Afterwards he played Dollabella, in the burlesque of “Tom Thumb,” in imitation of Mrs. Woffington, amidst much applause. “Take me off, a puppy!” cried Mrs. Woffington, with some violence, “and in Dublin, too! If he dare attempt it there, he will be stoned to death.” She was mistaken, however. By his own account, the imitation was received with roars of laughter.
Certainly the lady had a temper. She was on very bad terms, we are told, with a Mrs. Bellamy, an actress at Covent Garden, who played Statira to Mrs. Woffington’s Roxana, in Lee’s tragedy of “The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great.” Mrs. Bellamy was a blond beauty, with golden hair and blue eyes, a rather affected but an accomplished actress. According to her story, the elegance of the costume she had received from Paris, and worn on the occasion, roused Mrs. Woffington’s animosity to the last degree. Roxana fairly drove Statira off the stage, and stabbed her almost behind the scenes: the audience saw her violence, and testified their displeasure at it. The affair excited some attention: in the summer Foote produced a burlesque, called “The Green Room Squabble; or a Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius.” The same tragedy had been made a battle-ground on a former occasion by two rival actresses. Mrs. Barry had stabbed her Statira, Mrs. Boutell, with such violence, that the dagger, though the point was blunted, “made its way through Mrs. Boutell’s stays, and entered about a quarter of an inch into the flesh.”
On the 24th of March, 1857, Mrs. Woffington, on her benefit, undertook the part of Lothario in “The Fair Penitent.” This appears to have been rather a mistake: an actress can hardly expect to succeed as the hero of a tragedy. On the 3rd of May following she appeared upon the stage for the last time. The play was “As You Like It,” in which she sustained the role of Rosalind. She had been ailing from the beginning of the season, but she had striven hard to save the public from any disappointment. Yet there were symptoms of failure now in her health and spirits—even in her beauty. “I was standing in the wings,” says Wilkinson, “as Mrs. Woffington in Rosalind, and Mrs. Vincent in Celia, were going on the stage in the first act. Mrs. Woffington ironically said she was glad to have that opportunity of congratulating me on my stage success, and did not doubt but such merit would ensure me an engagement the following winter. I bowed, but made her no answer. I knew her dislike to me, and was humiliated sufficiently, and needed not any slight to sink me lower. For then, and not till then, adversity had taught me to know myself. She went through Rosalind for four acts without my perceiving that she was in the least disordered; but in the fifth act she complained of great indisposition. I offered her my arm, the which she graciously accepted. I thought she looked softened in her behaviour, and had less of the hauteur. When she came off at the quick change of dress, she again complained of being ill, but got accoutred, and returned to finish the part, and pronounced the epilogue speech, ‘If it be true that good wine needs no bush,’ &c. But when arrived at, ‘If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards,’ &c., her voice broke—she faltered—endeavoured to go on, hut could not proceed; then, in a voice of tremor, exclaimed, ‘O God! O God!’ and tottered to the stage-door, speechless, where she was caught. The audience of course applauded till she was out of sight, and then sunk into awful looks of astonishment, both young and old, before and behind the curtain, to see one of the most handsome women of the age, a favourite principal actress, and who had for several seasons given high entertainment, struck so suddenly by the hand of death, in such a situation as to time and place, and in her prime of life.” At the time it was imagined that she could not possibly survive many hours, but she lingered until the 28th of March in the following year, in a state of acute suffering, a mere skeleton, the veriest shadow of her former self.
One of its brightest ornaments was reft from the stage; the public had lost a most hard-working and conscientious servant, to whom they had given a place in their hearts, promoting her to the rank of dear friend and favourite. The stage fills but a very small part now in the economy of our social enjoyment, but it was different with past generations. It was real pain to them to lose their darling actress—to contemplate no more the ceaseless grace of that supple, elegant figure—to watch no more the lovely face that seemed to sparkle with wit and humour and archness, as a diamond emits light—to dwell no longer upon the witching beauty of her smile—to listen no more to the joyous music of her laugh. She had been always ready at the call of her audience. She had never failed in her duty to the public as a performer. “Six nights in the week,” we learn, “have been often her appointed lot for playing, without murmuring. And though in the possession of all the first-line of characters, yet she never thought it improper or a degradation of her consequence to constantly play the Queen in ‘Hamlet,’ Lady Anne in ‘Richard the Third,’ and Lady Percy in ‘Henry the Fourth:’ parts which are mentioned as insults in the country if offered to a lady of consequence. She also cheerfully acted Hermione or Andromache, Lady Pliant or Lady Touchwood, Lady Sadlife or Lady Dainty, Angelina or Mrs. Trail, and several others, alternately, as best suited the interest of her manager.” Victor writes of her at Dublin: “She never disappointed one audience in three winters, either by real or affected illness; and yet I have often seen her on the stage when she ought to have been in her bed.” While another witness testifies in her favour: “to her honour be it ever remembered, that while in the zenith of her glory, courted and caressed by all ranks and degrees, she made no alteration in her behaviour; she remained the same gay, affable, obliging, good-natured Woffington to every one around her.” “Not the lowest performer in the theatre did she refuse playing for; out of twenty-six benefits, she acted in twenty-four. Such traits of character must endear the memory of Mrs. Woffington to every lover of the drama.”
She had originally held the faith of the Latin Church, but while at Dublin, in 1752, she had been conveyed by the manager, Mr. Sheridan, to his seat at Quilca, in the county of Cavan, about fifty miles from Dublin, and in the presence of a Protestant clergyman she had then renounced the religion of Rome in favour of Protestantism. It was alleged that an estate of the value of 200l. a-year had been left to her conditionally upon her recantation: but it is not clear that this was the case. Murphy, in his “Gray’s Inn Journal,” attributes a humorous motive to the conduct of the lady: “the most probable opinion is, that some eminent lawyer advised her to this step, in order to qualify her to wear a sword in Sir Harry Wildair and Lothario, which she could not safely attempt as a Papist, it being highly penal in this kingdom for any of the Romish communion to carry swords.”
It had been rumoured at one time that Mrs. Woffington had been secretly married to a Colonel Cæsar of the Guards: but this was not a true story. There had been an agreement between them, however, that the one who should first die should bequeath all his or her property to the survivor, and each had made a will containing such a provision. The gallant officer was said for some time previous to her death to have been unremitting in his attentions to the invalid, especially with a view to prevent any change being made in her will. However, it was contrived that his vigilance should be eluded, and Mrs. Woffington made a new disposition of her property in favour of her sister, the Honourable Mrs. Cholmondeley, who on the death of the actress became possessed of some five thousand pounds of her savings, with all her stage jewels and paraphernalia. These had been left in trust with Mrs. Barrington, a performer of tragedy, and were very rich and elegant of their kind. The lady resigned them into the hands of Mrs. Woffington’s executrix with an extreme reluctance.
O’Keeffe says that Mrs. Woffington maintained her mother during her life, and that she built and endowed several almshouses at Paddington. Hoole, the translator of Tasso, in a Monody on the Death of the Actress, has testified to the genuine goodness of her nature. After recording the excellence of her professional life, he proceeds:
Nor was thy worth to public scenes confined,
Thou knew’st the noblest feelings of the mind;
Thy ears were ever open to distress,
Thy ready hand was ever stretched to bless,
Thy breast humane for each unhappy felt,
Thy heart for others’ sorrows prone to melt, &c.
But a nobler literary tribute to the player and the woman has been raised in our own day; and to this we will conclude by now referring the reader—supposing, indeed, that he is not already acquainted with it (which, by the way, is supposing a good deal)—we allude to Mr. Charles Reade’s charming novel of “Peg Woffington.”