----, and----, and ----, et ceteras, play the man; Nature, forgive them,
if you can, for art never will; they never reached any idea more manly
than a steady resolve to exhibit the points of a woman with greater
ferocity than they could in a gown. But consider, ladies, a man is not
the meanest of the brute creation, so how can he be an unwomanly female?
This sort of actress aims not to give her author's creation to the
public, but to trot out the person instead of the creation, and shows
sots what a calf it has--and is.

Vanity, vanity! all is vanity! Mesdames les Charlatanes.

Margaret Woffington was of another mold; she played the ladies of high
comedy with grace, distinction, and delicacy. But in Sir Harry Wildair
she parted with a woman's mincing foot and tongue, and played the man in
a style large, spirited and _elance._ As Mrs. Day (committee) she painted
wrinkles on her lovely face so honestly that she was taken for
threescore, and she carried out the design with voice and person, and did
a vulgar old woman to the life. She disfigured her own beauties to show
the beauty of her art; in a word, she was an artist! It does not follow
she was the greatest artist that ever breathed; far from it. Mr. Vane was
carried to this notion by passion and ignorance.

On the evening of our tale he was at his post patiently sitting out one
of those sanguinary discourses our rude forefathers thought were tragic
plays. _Sedet aeternumque Sedebit Infelix Theseus,_ because Mrs.
Woffington is to speak the epilogue.

These epilogues were curiosities of the human mind; they whom, just to
ourselves and _them,_ we call our _forbears, _ had an idea their blood
and bombast were not ridiculous enough in themselves, so when the curtain