Thus runs the comedy, trippingly as the tongue of a gay raconteur. Sometimes the scenes are exaggerated, sometimes the characters may be overdrawn, but the satire is true, and the wit is of the best. Take, for instance, the picture reproduced above. Are not its colours—albeit bold and merciless—tinged with the redeeming hue of naturalness? And of you, fair daughters of Eve (if any of you condescend to read these pages), let the author ask one impertinent little question: Is there not something in the conversation of Dick Steele's First Lady, or his Second Lady, or all the other Ladies, which suggests the charity and intellectuality that doth hedge in an afternoon tea?
CHAPTER X
THE BARTON BOOTHS
"Sweet are the charms of her I love,
More fragrant than the damask rose;
Soft as the down of turtle-dove,
Gentle as winds when zephyr blows;
Refreshing as descending rains,
On sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains."
Thus rhapsodised the great Barton Booth, who could write harmless poetry when the cares of acting did not press too hard upon him. In this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a lady who seems to have been, at first, a trifle parsimonious in her smiles; for, in another song intended for the same siren, the lover asks:
"Can then a look create a thought
Which time can ne'er remove?
Yes, foolish heart, again thou'rt caught,
Again thou bleed'st for Love.
"She sees the conquest of her eyes,
Nor heals the wounds she gave;
She smiles when'er my blushes rise,
And, sighing, shuns her Slave.
"Then, Swain, be bold! and still adore her
Still the flying fair pursue:
Love, and friendship, still implore her,
Pleading night and day for you."
[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH]
Who was this "flying fair" that the swain pursued with such despairing fervour? Nance Oldfield? Nay, there was no romance there, for while Booth could make the most exquisite stage love to the actress, he never carried that love beyond the mimic world. Rather was it the lovely Mistress Santlow, that dancing bit of sunshine, who turned the heads of many an amorous spectator, and had enough of the temptress about her to lead a mighty warrior from the path of domestic constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry, moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had gone never to return. They remembered, longed for, and now longed in vain for that sight which used to set a whole audience half distraught with delight, when in the very ecstacy of her dance, Santlow contrived to loosen her clustering auburn hair, and letting it fall about such a neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily imagine than imitate, danced on, the locks flying in the air, and half-a-dozen hearts at the end of every one of them."