Well, learning to enjoy Horace, you will say, was no specific for turning a boy into a player. Perhaps not; but there was less satisfactory customs then prevailing among the _Mercatores Scissores_. The masters treated the boys who missed their election to St. John's, with canary and cake, as if to teach them that drinking was a solace for disappointment. Then the discipline was lax, and young Merchant Tailors of the Bench were seduced by the rather older Merchant Tailors of the Table, to taverns, and to ordinaries, where gaming was practised, and to the playhouse, where they learned something new from the Vizard Masks in the pit. Then, there was young Beckingham, the linen-draper's son, and a Merchant Tailor of the Table, who wrote a tragedy, "Scipio Africanus," to see which the whole school occupied a great portion of the Lincoln's Inn Fields' pit, and sent up applauding shouts for Quin, who acted Scipio, as well as for their schoolfellow, the author. These practices and the traditions of others may have influenced a lively and thoughtless boy, who was proud to play Peachum in the juvenile company, who acted the "Beggar's Opera," under the elder Rich, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. I cannot find exactly the date when Woodward commenced as a professional actor; but he was not more than a mere youth. There was a boy of his name, at Goodman's Fields, who played pantomime parts before Harry Woodward appeared there in 1730,--commencing then a career with Simple, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," which ended at Covent Garden, on the 13th of January 1777, with Stephano, in the "Tempest." On the 10th of April, the then new comedy, "Know your own Mind," was acted, for his benefit, and on that day week, the lad who used to play under the gateway of the Anchor brewery,--to trudge, in all weathers, over old London Bridge, to Merchant Tailors' School, and who preferred the life of a player to that of a candle-maker, died; and with him, it was said, as Wildair with Wilks, Captain Bobadil died too. Woodward was one of the most careful dressers on the stage; not as regards chronology, but perfection of suit; of fitness, no one then made account. Woodward played Mercutio in the full dress of a very fine gentleman of Woodward's day; it was unexceptionable as costume, though not fitting in the play. Then, he was one of the few lucky actors who never seemed to grow old. After nigh upon half a century of labour, his Fitzpatrick,[124] in "News from Parnassus," was as young in look and buoyant in manner as the Spruce of his earlier days. He was also among one of the few judicious and generous actors, when in the highest favour with the town; at which season, he did not disdain, when it was needful, to go on as a soldier, to deliver a message; but then he delivered it like a soldier, and the frequenters of the joyous rooms under and over the "Piazza," made approving reference to that "clever little bit of Woodward's, last night."