assurance, a lady!"

"There's one clever woman among ye; Peg something, plays Lothario, Lady
Betty Modish, and what not?"

"What! admire Woffington?" screamed Mrs. Clive; "why, she is the greatest
gabbler on the stage."

"I don't care," was the reply, "there's nature about the jade. Don't
contradict me," added she, with sudden fury; "a parcel of children."

"No, madam," said Clive humbly. "Mr. Cibber, will you try and prevail on
Mrs. Bracegirdle to favor us with a recitation?"

Cibber handed his cane with pomp to a small actor. Bracegirdle did the
same; and, striking the attitudes that had passed for heroic in their
day, they declaimed out of the "Rival Queens" two or three tirades, which
I graciously spare the reader of this tale. Their elocution was neat and
silvery; but not one bit like the way people speak in streets, palaces,
fields, roads and rooms. They had not made the grand discovery, which Mr.
A. Wigan on the stage, and every man of sense off it, has made in our day
and nation; namely, that the stage is a representation, not of stage, but
of life; and that an actor ought to speak and act in imitation of human
beings, not of speaking machines that have run and creaked in a stage
groove, with their eyes shut upon the world at large, upon nature, upon
truth, upon man, upon woman and upon child.

"This is slow," cried Cibber; "let us show these young people how ladies
and gentlemen moved fifty years ago, _dansons."_