The success of the performance was unquestionable, but the alarms of the authorities were not over. Many of the players took upon themselves to restore passages in the comedy which had been effaced by the examiner; and, worse than this, Mr. Farren's appearance did not correspond with the drawing sent to the Chamberlain's office. His wig was especially objectionable; it was an exact copy of the silvery silken tresses of Talleyrand, which had acquired a European celebrity. It was plain that the actor had "made up" after the portrait of the statesman in the well-known engravings of the Congress of Vienna. Mr. Bunn had again to meet the angry expostulations of the Chamberlain. On the 14th of February he wrote to Lord Belfast: "The passages bearing reference to the Queen Matilda in conjunction with Struensee having been entirely omitted, will, I trust, be satisfactory to your lordship. Until the evening of performance I was not aware what style of wig Mr. Farren meant to adopt, such matters being entirely at the discretion of performers of his standard. I have since mentioned to him the objections which have been pointed out to me, but he has sent me word that he cannot consent so to mutilate his appearance, adding that it is a wig he wore two years ago in a comedy called 'Lords and Commons.'" If this was true there can be little doubt that the wig had been dressed anew and curling-ironed into a Talleyrand form that had not originally pertained to it. Meantime King William IV. had stirred in the matter, despatching his Chamberlain to the Lords Grey and Palmerston. "They—said to be exceedingly irate—instantly attended the performance. In the box exactly opposite to the one they occupied, sat, however, the gentleman himself, l'homme véritable, his Excellency Prince Talleyrand, in propriâ
personâ, and he laughed so heartily at the play, without once exhibiting any signs of annoyance at the appearance of his supposed prototype, that the whole affair wore a most absurd aspect; and thus terminated a singular specimen of 'great cry and little wool.'"
A stage wig has hardly since this risen to the importance of a state affair. Yet the Chamberlain has sometimes interfered to stay any direct stage portraiture of eminent characters. Thus Mr. Buckstone was prohibited from appearing "made up" as Lord John Russell, and Mr. A. Wigan, when performing the part of a French naval officer some five-and-twenty years ago, was directed by the authorities to reform his aspect, which too much resembled, it was alleged, the portraits of the Prince de Joinville. The actor effected a change in this instance which did not much mend the matter. It was understood at the time indeed that he had simply made his costume more correct, and otherwise had rather heightened than diminished his resemblance to the son of Louis Philippe. Other stage-wig questions have been of minor import—relating chiefly to the appropriateness of the coiffures of Hamlet and others. Should the Prince wear flaxen tresses or a "Brutus"? Should the Moor of Venice appear in a negro's close woolly curls, or are flowing locks permissible to him? These inquiries have a good deal exercised the histrionic profession from time to time. And there have been doubts about hair-powder and its compatibility with tragic purposes. Mademoiselle Mars, the famous French actress, decided upon defying accuracy of costume, and declined to wear a powdered wig in a serious part. Her example was followed by Rachel, Ristori, and others. When Auber's "Gustave, ou le Bal Masqué," was in rehearsal, the singers complained of the difficulty they experienced in expressing passionate sentiments in the powdered wigs and stately dress of the time of Louis XV. In the masquerade they were therefore permitted to assume such costumes as seemed to them suited to the violent catastrophe of the story. They argued that "le moindre geste violent peut exciter le rire en provoquant l'explosion d'un nuage blanc; les artistes sont donc contraints de se tenir dans une réserve et dans une immobilité qui jettent du froid sur toutes les situations." It is true that Garrick and his contemporaries wore hair-powder, and that in their hands the
drama certainly did not lack vehemently emotional displays. But then the spectators were in like case; and "explosions d'un nuage blanc" were probably of too common occurrence to excite derision or even attention.
Wigs are still matters of vital interest to the actors, and it is to be noted that the theatrical hairdressers have of late years devoted much study to this branch of their industry. The light comedian still indulges sometimes in curls of an unnatural flaxen, and the comic countryman is too often allowed to wear locks of a quite impossible crimson colour. Indeed, the headdresses that seem only contrived to move the laughter of the gallery, yet remain in an unsatisfactory condition. But in what are known as "character wigs" there has been marked amendment. The fictitious forehead is now very often artfully joined on to the real brow of the performer, without those distressing discrepancies of hue and texture which at one time were so very apparent, disturbing credibility and destroying illusion. And the decline of hair in colour and quantity has often been imitated in the theatre with very happy ingenuity. Heads in an iron-gray or partially bald state—varying from the first slight thinning of the locks to the time when they come to be combed over with a kind of "cat's cradle" or trellis-work look, to veil absolute calvity—are now represented by the actors with a completeness of a most artistic kind. With the ladies of the theatre blond wigs are now almost to be regarded as necessaries of histrionic life. This may be only a transient fashion, although it seems to have obtained very enduring vitality. Dr. Véron, writing of his experiences as manager of the Paris Opera House forty years ago, affirms: "Il y a des beautés de jour et des beautés du soir; une peau brune, jaune, ou noire, devient blanche à éclat de la lumière; les cheveux noirs réussissent mieux aussi au théâtre que les cheveux blonds." But the times have changed; the arts of the theatrical toilet have no doubt advanced greatly. On the stage now all complexions are brilliant, and light tresses are pronounced to be more admirable than dark. Yet Dr. Véron was not without skill and learning on these curious matters. He discourses learnedly in regard to the cosmetics of the theatre—paint and powder, Indian ink and carmine, and the chemical preparations necessary for the due fabrication of eyebrows and lashes, for making the eyes look
larger than life, for colouring the cheeks and lips, and whitening the nose and forehead. And especially the manager took pride in the capillary artifices of his establishment, and employed an "artist in hair," who held almost arrogant views of his professional acquirements. "My claim to the grateful remembrance of posterity," this superb coiffeur was wont to observe, "will consist in the fact that I made the wig in which Monsieur Talma performed his great part of Sylla!" The triumphs of the scene are necessarily short-lived; they exist only in the recollection of actual spectators, and these gradually dwindle and depart as Time goes and Death comes. Nevertheless something of this wig-maker's fame still survives, although Talma has been dead nearly half a century.
As Sylla, Talma was "made up" to resemble the first Napoleon. Macready writes in his "Journal" of Talma's appearance as Sylla: "The toga sat upon him as if it had been his daily costume. His coiffure might have been taken from an antique bust; but was in strict resemblance of Napoleon's. It was reported that several passages had been struck out of the text by the censor, under the apprehension of their application by the Parisians to the exiled Emperor; and an order was said to have been sent from the police forbidding Talma to cross his hands behind him, the ordinary habit of Napoleon." The tragedy of "Sylla" was written by M. Jouy, and was first performed at the Théâtre Francais in 1822.