“Well, child, why not? Only what makes you mumble like that? but they all do it now, I see. Bless my soul! our words used to come out like brandy-cherries; but now a sentence is like raspberry-jam, on the stage and off.” Cibber chuckled. “And why don't you men carry yourself like Cibber here?” “Don't press that question,” said Colley dryly. “A monstrous poor actor, though,” said the merciless old woman, in a mock aside to the others; “only twenty shillings a week for half his life;” and her shoulders went up to her ears--then she fell into a half reverie. “Yes, we were distinct,” said she; “but I must own, children, we were slow. Once, in the midst of a beautiful tirade, my lover went to sleep, and fell against me. A mighty pretty epigram, twenty lines, was writ on't by one of my gallants. Have ye as many of them as we used?” “In that respect,” said the page, “we are not behind our great-grandmothers.” “I call that pert,” said Mrs. Bracegirdle, with the air of one drawing scientific distinctions. “Now, is that a boy or a lady that spoke to me last?” “By its dress, I should say a boy,” said Cibber, with his glass; “by its 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.”_ A fiddler was caught, a beautiful slow minuet played, and a bit of “solemn dancing” done. Certainly it was not gay, but it must be owned it was beautiful; it was the dance of kings, the poetry of the courtly saloon.