“Meantime you will have another cup of tea, Mr. Johnson,” said Peggy, smiling with a witchery of that type which, exercised in later years, caused her visitor to make a resolution never to frequent the green room of Drury Lane--a resolution which was possibly strengthened by the failure of his tragedy. “Mrs. Woffington,” said he, passing on his empty cup, “let me tell you I count it a pity so excellent a brewer of tea should waste her time upon the stage. Any wench may learn to act, but the successful brewing of tea demands the exercise of such judgment as cannot be easily acquired. Briefly, the woman is effaced by the act of going on the stage; but the brewing of tea is a revelation of femininity.” He took three more cupfuls. ***** The tragedy of “Oriana,” from the rehearsal of which Garrick and Mrs. Woffington had returned to find Johnson at their house on Bow Street, was by an unknown poet, but Garrick had come to the conclusion, after reading it, that it possessed sufficient merit to justify his producing it at Drury Lane. It abounded in that form of sentiment which found favor with playgoers in an age of artificiality, and its blank verse was strictly correct and inexpressible. It contained an apostrophe to the Star of Love, and eulogies of Liberty, Virtue, Hope, and other abstractions, without which no eighteenth century tragedy was considered to be complete. Oriana was a Venetian lady of the early republican period. She was in love with one Orsino, a prince, and they exchanged sentiments in the first act, bearing generally upon the advantages of first love, without touching upon its economic aspects. Unhappily, however, Orsino allowed himself to be attracted by a lady named Francesca, who made up in worldly possessions for the absence of those cheerless sentiments which Oriana had at her fingers' ends, and the result was that Oriana ran her dagger into the heart of her rival, into the chest of her faithless lover, and into her own stays. The business was carried on by the sorrowing relations of the three, with the valuable assistance of the ghosts of the slain, who explained their relative positions with fluency and lucidity, and urged upon the survivors, with considerable argumentative skill, the advisability of foregoing the elaborate scheme of revenge which each side was hoping to carry out against the other from the date of the obsequies of the deceased. The character of Oriana was being rehearsed by Miss Hoppner, an extremely handsome young woman, whom Garrick had met and engaged in the country, Mrs. Woffington being the fatally fascinating Francesca, and Garrick, himself, the Prince Orsino.