He spoke of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which, in this summer of 1721, had stood some years completed, the stupendous “monument without a tomb” to its creator’s genius.
Mr. Cibber had been entertaining a party of provincial actors and actresses to luncheon at the “Globe” tavern, in Fleet Street, where, amongst other things, they had consumed a half-gallon of arrack punch at six shillings the quart. The company was in consequence very merry, and, though still properly impressed with the magnitude of the occasion, a little more inclined than heretofore, perhaps, to familiarity with its host, and even to a touch of that professional sportiveness whose cheap but characteristic quality seems somehow to this day to suggest the missing link, much sought and unaccountably overlooked, between men and monkeys. Mr. Cibber, however, genial as always in self-sufficiency, recked nothing of the change. He walked at the height of pompous good-humour, his usually pasty countenance flushed, his hat under his arm, and his full wig pushed a trifle back from his forehead. He wore a heavily embroidered claret-coloured coat with stiff skirts, buttoned at the waist alone, black velvet breeches, ruffles, and a “bosom” of Mechlin lace, pearl silk stockings with gold clocks, and scarlet heels to his shoes. His magnificence put into the shade the somewhat meretricious finery of his companions, and that was exactly as it should have been. King Colley would have wished to impress upon the public in general the fact that he was merely acting cicerone, in a spirit of tolerant condescension, to certain country insignificances whom it was his humour to patronise, and that there was something a little fine in his taking these humble, unsophisticated souls under his personal protection, and exhibiting to them the lions of the Metropolis.
The party, chattering, laughing, and gaping, went down Fleet Street, and paused a moment at the ruined gateway on Ludgate Hill. It had been gutted by the great fire, but the mutilated statues of King Lud and his sons still remained to its west front. Mr. Cibber pointed out the middle figure.
“King Lud,” he said.
“Lud!” responded Mrs. Lightfoot, and Mr. Barney Bellingham, low comedian, laughed suddenly, and then looked preternaturally solemn.
They were some five or six in all, including a “heavy father” and spouse, “Sweet Corinna,” so called, the most affectedly rapturous of ingénues, and the two above-mentioned. Mrs. Lightfoot, a faded coquette in a soiled “paysanne,” had once played Hypolita in the Laureate’s own “She Would and She Would Not,” and could claim some kinship with genius.
“A fabulous monarch,” said Mr. Cibber grandiloquently, “and therefore figuring not inappropriately on the portal, as one might call it, to Pretence. Your servant, sir.”
He addressed a little old gentleman who at that moment had alighted from a chair which had been deposited close beside the speaker. The stranger was the most withered small creature it was possible to conceive—a nonagenarian at least by his looks—a fledgling of second childhood, his head, naked and skinny, in a great wig like a nest. His eyes were dim, his nose was a rasped claw, his fingers were horny talons. He was dressed very plainly, almost like a farmer, in a drab-coloured coat and breeches; and something of rustic vigour showed in the positive sprightliness with which, in spite of his years, he stepped out upon the stones. Mr. Cibber, a practised reader of character, distinguished the country cousin in him at once, and was moved to some affable patronage.
“If you are going our way, sir,” he said, “and an arm would be of any service to you? My name is Cibber—Colley Cibber, sir, of whom it is just possible you may have heard.”
“O, indeed!” said the old gentleman, with a kindly, nervous lift of his eyes. “Mr. Cibber is it? A very gratifying accident. I must live remote beyond conception, sir, to be ignorant of that name. Thank you, Mr. Cibber. You were saying, sir, as I alighted——?”