“Yes, sir; I hold that your first and, I doubt not, your greatest, success as an actor, was your imitation for the good of your schoolfellows, of the mighty love passages between your good preceptor and that painted piece of crockery who had led him to marry her, that was old enough--ay, and nearly plain enough--to be his mother. What did he call her?--his Tiffy?--his Taffy?” “Nay, only his Tessy, The lady's name was Elizabeth, you must know.” “Call her Saint Elizabeth, Davy--your patron saint, for, by the Lord Harry, you would never have thought of coming on the stage if it had not been for the applause you won when you returned to the schoolroom after peeping through the door of the room where your schoolmaster chased his Tessy into a corner for a kiss! Davy, 't is your finest part still. If you and I were to act it, with a prologue written by Mr. Johnson, it would draw all the town.” “I doubt it not; but it would likewise draw down upon me the wrath of Mr. Johnson; and that is not to be lightly faced. But we have strayed from our text, Margaret.” “Our text? I have forgotten that there was some preaching being done. But all texts are but pretexts for straying, uttered in the hearing of the strayed. What is your text, Davy?” “The text is the actress without the heart, Margaret, and the evil that she doeth to the writer of the tragedy, to the man who hath a lease of the playhouse, and above all to her sister actress, Mistress Woffington.” “The last of the three evils would imperil the soul's safety of as blameless a lady as Kitty Clive herself. But, if Mistress Woffington acts her part well in the new tragedy, I scarce see how she can be hurt by the bad acting of Miss Hoppner.” “That is because you are a trifle superficial in your views of the drama, Mistress Woffington. What would you think of the painter who should declare that, if the lights in his picture were carefully put in, the shadows might be left to chance?” “Where is the analogy, David?” “It is apparent: the tragedy is the picture, Mrs. Woffington represents the lighting, and Miss Hoppner the shading. Heavens! Mrs. Woffington, madam, do you flatter yourself that the playgoers will be willing to accept the author's account of the fascinations of the woman whom you are representing, if you fail to rouse your rival to any point of jealousy? Miss Hoppner, for all the strong language the poet puts into her mouth, will not make the playgoers feel that the Lady Oriana bears you a grudge for having taken her lover from her; and when she stabs you with her dagger, she does so in such a halfhearted way that the whole house will perceive that she is not in earnest.” “Then they will blame her, and she will deserve the blame. They cannot blame me.”