THE GREEN ROOM.
Nothing can be more striking than to hear a lady, who has just been figuring upon the stage as a coquette or a romp, explaining to some friend the distress she is labouring under in consequence of the serious illness of her mother or aunt; or to see a gentleman fresh from the boards, upon which he has been amusing the audience as Caleb Quotem or Jeremy Diddler, with tears in his eyes, and a low comedy wig on his head, giving an account of the melancholy state of his wife and three children, all dying of scarlatina; but such is too often the case: too often, while the player is tortured with physical pain, or sinking under moral distress, he is obliged in his vocation to wear the face of mirth, and distort his features into the extremes of grimace. The actress, writhing under the pangs of ingratitude in man, or insult from woman, is similarly driven to strain her lungs to charm the ears of an audience, or exhibit her graceful figure to the best advantage in the animated dance, for the amusement of the half-price company of a one shilling gallery, while her heart is bursting with sorrow; add to all these inevitable ills, the constant labour of practice and rehearsal, the caprice of the public, the tyranny of managers, the rarity of excellence, the misery of defeat, and the uncertainty of health and capability, and then might one ask, Who would be an actor, who could be any thing else?—Hook's Gervase Skinner.
The first Italian performer that made any distinguished figure in London was Valentini, a true, sensible singer at that time, but of a throat too weak to sustain those melodious warblings, for which the fairer sex have since idolized his successors. However, this defect was so well supplied by his action, that his hearers bore with the absurdity of his singing his first part of Turnus, in Camilla, all in Italian, while every other character was sung and recited to him in English.—Life of Colley Gibber.
To attain complex and difficult ends by simple means, whether in physics or politics, falls not to the lot of man. What should we think of the man who should insist on having a simple watch, which should answer every object of that machine, and yet possess the simplicity of a sun-dial? The artificer would naturally say to such a customer, "Sir, if you want a sun-dial, you can have a very cheap and a very simple one; but if you desire a watch, I shall be glad to learn how its operations are to be accomplished without complex mechanism."