Leaving him on his road from Lambeth to Covent Garden, we
must introduce more important personages.
Mr. Vane was a wealthy gentleman from Shropshire, whom business had
called to London four months ago, and now pleasure detained. Business
still occupied the letters he sent now and then to his native county; but
it had ceased to occupy the writer. He was a man of learning and taste,
as times went; and his love of the Arts had taken him some time before
our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended to taste;
and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a lady of
great beauty, and a comedian high in favor with the town.
The first night he saw her was an epoch in the history of this
gentleman's mind. He had learning and refinement, and he had not great
practical experience, and such men are most open to impression from the
stage. He saw a being, all grace and bright nature, move like a goddess
among the stiff puppets of the scene; her glee and her pathos were
equally catching, she held a golden key at which all the doors of the
heart flew open. Her face, too, was as full of goodness as
intelligence--it was like no other farce; the heart bounded to meet it.
He rented a box at her theater. He was there every night before the
curtain drew up; and I'm sorry to say, he at last took half a dislike to
Sunday--Sunday "which knits up the raveled sleave of care," Sunday "tired
nature's sweet restorer," because on Sunday there was no Peg Woffington.
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