Unfortunately, in making this remark, the old lady graciously patted the page's head for offering her the chair; and this action gave, with some of the ill-constituted minds that are ever on the titter, a ridiculous direction to a remark intended, I believe, for the paint and wanscots, etc. “Nothing is as it used to be,” remarked Mr. Cibber. “All the better for everything,” said Mrs. Clive. “We were laughing at this mighty little David, first actor of this mighty little age.” Now if Mr. Cibber thought to find in the newcomer an ally of the past in its indiscriminate attack upon the present, he was much mistaken; for the old actress made onslaught on this nonsense at once. “Ay, ay,” said she, “and not the first time by many hundreds. 'Tis a disease you have. Cure yourself, Colley. Davy Garrick pleases the public; and in trifles like acting, that take nobody to heaven, to please all the world, is to be great. Some pretend to higher aims, but none have 'em. You may hide this from young fools, mayhap, but not from an old 'oman like me. He! he! he! No, no, no--not from an old 'oman like me.” She then turned round in her chair, and with that sudden, unaccountable snappishness of tone to which the brisk old are subject, she snarled: “Gie me a pinch of snuff, some of ye, do!” Tobacco dust was instantly at her disposal. She took it with the points of her fingers delicately, and divested the crime of half its uncleanness and vulgarity--more an angel couldn't. “Monstrous sensible woman, though!” whispered Quin to Clive. “Hey, sir! what do you say, sir? for I'm a little deaf.” (Not very to praise, it seems.) “That your judgment, madam, is equal to the reputation of your talent.” The words were hardly spoken before the old lady rose upright as a tower. She then made an oblique preliminary sweep, and came down with such a courtesy as the young had never seen. James Quin, not to disgrace his generation, attempted a corresponding bow, for which his figure and apoplectic tendency rendered him unfit; and while he was transacting it, the graceful Cibber stepped gravely up, and looked down and up the process with his glass, like a naturalist inspecting some strange capriccio of an orang-outang. The gymnastics of courtesy ended without back-falls--Cibber lowered his tone. “You are right, Bracy. It is nonsense denying the young fellow's talent; but his Othello, now, Bracy! be just--his Othello!” “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” cried she; “I thought it was Desdemona's little black boy come in without the tea-kettle.” Quin laughed uproariously. “It made me laugh a deal more than Mr. Quin's Falstaff. Oh, dear! oh, dear!” “Falstaff, indeed! Snuff!” In the tone of a trumpet. Quin secretly revoked his good opinion of this woman's sense. “Madam,” said the page, timidly, “if you would but favor us with a specimen of the old style--”