lydorus, got so drunk, that he fell into a real and profound sleep, from which no noise could rouse hin. Horace, indeed, mentions a female performer, called Arbuscula; but as we find, from his own authority, that men personated women on the Roman stage, she probably was only an emboliaria, who performed in the interludes and dances exhibited between the acts, and at the end of the play. Servius calls her Mima, but that may mean nothing more than one who acted in the mimes, or danced in the pantomime dances; and this seems the more probable from the manner in which she is mentioned by Cicero, from whom we learn that the part of Andromache was performed by a male actor on that very day when Arbuscula exhibited with the highest applause. The same practice prevailed in the time of the emperors; for in the list of parts which Nero, with a preposterous ambition, acted in the public theatre, we find that of Canace, who was represented in labour on the stage. " In the interludes exhibited between the acts, undoubtedly women appeared. The elder Pliny informs us, that a female, named Lucceïa, acted in these interludes for an hundred years; and Galeria Copiola for above ninety years, having been first introduced on the scene in the fourteenth year of her age, in the year of Rome 672, when Caius Marius the younger, and Cneidus Carbo, were consuls, and having performed in the 104th year of her age, six years before the death of Augustus, in the consulate of C. Poppæus and Quintus Sulpicius, A. U. C. 762. Eunuchs also sometimes represented women on the Roman stage, as they do at this day in Italy; for we find that Sporus, who made so conspicuous a figure in the time of Nero, being appointed in the year 70, [A. U. C. 823,] to personate a nymph, who, in an interlude exhibited before Vitellius, was to be carried off by a ravisher, rather than endure the indignity of wearing a female dress on the stage, put himself to death; a singular end for one, who, about ten years before, had been publickly espoused to Nero, in the Hymeneal veil, and had been carried through one of the streets of Rome by the side of that monster, in the imperial robes of the empresses, ornamented with a profusion of jewels. Thus ancient was the usage, which, though not adopted in the neighbouring countries of France and Italy, prevailed in England froin the infancy of the stage. The prejudice against women appearing on the scene continued so strong, that, until near the time of the Restoration, boys constantly performed female characters: and, strange as it may now appear, the old practice was not deserted without many apologies for the indecorum of the novel usage. In 1659 or 1660, in imitation of the foreign theatres, women were first introduced on the scene. In 1656, indeed, Mrs. Coleman, the wife of Mr. Edward Coleman, represented Ianthe in the first part of D'Avenant's Siege of Rhodes; but the little she had to say was spoken in recitative. The first woman that appeared in any regular drama on a public stage, performed the part of Desdemona; but who the lady was I am unable to ascertain. The play of Othello is enumerated by Downes as one of the stockplays of the king's company, on their opening their theatre in Drury Lane in April, 1663; and it appears, from a paper found with Sir Henry Herbert's officebook, and indorsed by him, that it was one of the stockplays of the same company from the time they began to play without a patent at the Red Bull in St. John street. Mrs. Hughs performed the part of Desdemona in 1663, when the company removed to Drury Lane, and obtained the title of the king's servants; but whesher she performed with them while they played at the Red Bull, or in Vere street, near Clare-market, has not been ascertained. Perhaps Mrs. Saunderson made her first essay there, though she afterwards was enlisted in D'Avenant's company. The received tradition is, that she was the first English actress. It is certain, however, that for some time after the Restoration, men also acted female parts; and Mr. Kynaston, even after woinen had assumed their proper rank on the stage, was not only endured but admired, if we may believe a contemporary writer, who assures us, "that being then very young, he made a complete stagebeauty, performing his parts so well, (particularly Arthiope and Aglaura,) that it has since been disputable among the judicious, whether any woman that succeeded him, touched the audience so sensibly as he. In D'Avenant's company, the first actress that appeared, was probably Mrs. Saunderson, who performed Tanthe in the Siege of Rhodes, on the opening of his new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in April, 1662. It does not appear, from Downes's account, that while D'Avenant's company performed at the Cock-pit in Drury Lane, during the years 165, 1600, and 1661, they had any female performer among them, or that Othello was acted by them at that period. PORTRAIT OF A PLAYER. He knowes the right yse of the world, wherein hee comes to play a part, and so away. His life is not idle, for it is all action, and no man need be more wary in his doings, for the eyes of all men are vpon him. His profession has in it a kind of contradiction, for none is more dislik'd, and yet none more applauded; and hee has this inisfortune of some scholler, too much witte makes him a fool. He is like our painting gentlewomen, seldome in his owne face, seldomer in his cloathes, and hee pleases the better hee counterfeits, except onely when hee is disguised with straw for gold lace. Hee does not onely personate on the stage, but sometime in the street; for he is mask'd still in the habite of a gentleman. His parts find him oathes and good words, which he keeps for his vse and discourse, and makes shew with them of a fashionable companion. Hee is tragicall on the stage, but rampant in the tyring-house, and sweares oathes there which he never cond. The waiting women spectators are ouer ears in love with him, and ladies send for him to act in thier chambers. Your innes of court men were vndone but for him; hee is thier chiefe guest and imployment, and the sole businesse that makes them afternoones men. The poet only is his tyrant, and hee is bound to make his friends friend drunk at his charges. Shroue Tuesday hee fears as much as the bawds, and Lent is more damage to him then the Butcher. Hee was neuer so much discredited as in one act, and that was of Parliment, which giues Hostlers priuiledge before him, for which hee abhors it more then a corrupt judge. But to give him his due, one wel-furnish't actor has enough in him for fiue common gentlemen, and if hee haue a good body for sixe, and for resolution hee shall challenge any Cato, for it has been his practice to die brauely. GARRICK AND FOOTE. Garrick and Foote were the two theatrical meteors of their day both men of wit and education; both authors, managers, and actors; both objects that attracted the admiration of the public; and by this collision of characters they may perhaps better elucidate each other, than by an individual description. Foote was by far the better scholar of the two: and to this superiority he added also a good taste, a warm imagination, a strong turn for mimicry, and a constant fresh supply of occasional reading from the best authors of all descriptions. He could likewise apply all these advantages with great readiness; so that either with his pen, or in conversation, he was never at a loss. Garrick was no Grecian. Davies says of him, in his Memoirs, that he had once made himself master of all the Greek words;" but admitting that he had retained them, what sort of a Greek scholar would this knowledge have made him? In respect to the Latin, he might, perhaps, have acquired some proficiency when he was under the care of Dr. Johnson at Lichfield; but Johnson afterwards said of him, "David has not latin enough; he finds out the latin by the meaning, rather than the meaning by the latin." He was, however, tolerably conversant in the classics; a good Frenchman; and read and conversed occasionally in the Italian.-He also possessed a good taste, with a pleasing lively manner of delivery. The fact was, that Garrick's literary pursuits were in a great degree checked by the sudden influx of his fame and fortune; for when he became a manager, it happened of course, that from the care of a great theatre, from his own performances, and the attention which he paid to pecuniary concerns, he had no time for the high and regular improvement of the mind: he saw a mass of wealth presenting itself before him, and he "clutched" it with a much more certain grasp than the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth; leaving at his death more than one hundred thousand pounds, with this most affectionate compliment to his relations, "that he knew of no friends out of their circle." Though Foote was not deficient in paying his respects to men of rank and fashion, he never sought them with any kind of unbecoming eagerness, or made the least distinction at his table between them and the obscureşt guest, When that table too was all in a roar, as it usually was, he never stopped the career of his bon-mot out of respect to persons; it as readily struck a noble duke as a poor player. His visitors knew the terms on which they met some approved of them from the general love of wit and good humour, while others endured them in order the better to keep within his favour and friendship. Garrick, on the contrary, was all submission in the presence of either a peer or a poet; equally loth to of fend the dignity of the one, or provoke the irritability of the other hence he was, at times, too methodical in his conversation to admit of his mixing in "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." To his dependents and inferior players, however, he was indeed king DAVID, except when he had a mind to mortify them by means of one another. On such occasions he generally took up some of the lowest among them; whom he not only cast in the same scenes with himself, but frequently walked arm in arm with in the Green-room, and sometimes in his morning rambles about the streets. In his domestic arrangements Garrick was uniform and respectable: a handsome house in town and country, carriages, servants, &c. and when he gave grand entertainments, he saw some of the first company, for rank and abilities, in the kingdom. But in such meetings conversation generally partook more of a high-bred style, than the easy familiarity of a social party; except when Foote, Chase Price, Rigby, Fitzherbert, and others of this class were present. Then indeed the pale of high breeding was instantly broken down; and wit, fun, and good humour, became the order of the day. But fairly to taste the respective powers of these two distinguished characters, was to see them pitted together at the table of a third person, in the range of general and free conversation: a scene in which they often appeared, and where they both displayed powers which placed them so deservedly high on the scale of public importance. The mind of Garrick,-strong innatural force, which was further aided by great professional knowledge, talents for mimicry, a wide range of good company, and much acuteness of observation, afforded him innumerable topics of conversation, which he dilated upon in a very pleasing and agreeable manner: but this was in all cases regulated by, and made subordinate to, his deference for superiors in rank or station, and his great respect for the decorums of life. He dared not let his shaft fly with the |