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.”
CITY DWELLINGS AND CITY GARDENS.
I have before me a map of old London drawn about the middle of the seventeenth century. It gives an excellent bird’s-eye survey of the metropolis, which comparatively speaking forms a prolonged cluster of houses without any great depth, isolated warehouses lining the banks of the Thames a little below London Bridge, but scarcely extending beyond the Tower: trees, fields, and marsh stretch out towards the confines of Bow and Epping Forest. Windmills and farmhouses stud the country behind the Exchange and the Guildhall, whilst noblemen’s and merchants’ mansions peer above the trees which cover the slopes of Islington, Highgate, and Hampstead. The churches of St. Sepulchre’s, St. Andrew’s in Holborn, and St. Dunstan’s, stand, as it were, on the verge of the City, whilst the Convent Garden, the New Exchange, Salisbury House, York House, Suffolk House, and Whitehall may be said to have been entirely out in green fields. Bayard’s Castle, a veritable fortress, with its own stairs leading down to the water-side, dips its stone feet in the very mud of the Thames. The spot now known as
