you absolutely long to go home, and do some good action.  The play seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of the house, and realise your laudable intentions.  At length the final bell rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable in human breasts steps forth—­a miser.  Elliston was more of a piece.  Did he play Ranger? and did Ranger fill the general bosom of the town with satisfaction? why should he not be Ranger, and diffuse the same cordial satisfaction among his private circles? with his temperament, his animal spirits, his good-nature, his follies perchance, could he do better than identify himself with his impersonation?  Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical character presented to us in actual life? or what would the performer have gained by divesting himself of the impersonation?  Could the man Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the airy briskness, the forwardness, and ’scape goat trickeries of his prototype?

“But there is something not natural in this everlasting acting; we want the real man.”

Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom you cannot, or will not see, under some adventitious trappings, which, nevertheless, sit not at all inconsistently upon him?  What if it is the nature of some men to be highly artificial?  The fault is least reprehensible in players.  Cibber was his own Foppington, with almost as much wit as Vanburgh could add to it.

“My conceit of his person,”—­it is Ben Jonson speaking of Lord Bacon,—­“was never increased towards him by his place or honours.  But I have, and do reverence him for the greatness, that was only proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever one of the greatest men, that had been in many ages.  In his adversity I ever prayed that heaven would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.”

The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicuous in the subject of these idle reminiscences, than in my Lord Verulam.  Those who have imagined that an unexpected elevation to the direction of a great London Theatre, affected the consequence of Elliston, or at all changed his nature, knew not the essential greatness of the man whom they disparage.  It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan’s Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more than dust and a shadow), on the morning of his election to that high office.  Grasping my hand with a look of significance, he only uttered,—­“Have you heard the news?”—­then with another look following up the blow, he subjoined, “I am the future Manager of Drury Lane Theatre.”—­Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon his new-blown dignities at leisure.  In fact, nothing could be said to it.  Expressive silence alone could muse his praise.  This was in his great style.