THE LOWEST FORM.
[Actors' Make-Up.]
The art of making-up is one which every actor cultivates most assiduously. He can convey as much by his countenance as he can by the words which so glibly roll off his tongue. An extra wrinkle about the eye will whisper of anything between a diabolical murder and a hungry interior; a highly-coloured nose may either betray a tendency to a too frequent falling down in adoration of Bacchus, or the excessive colour may act as a silent reminder of a "cobd it de head" and the advisability of an immediate application of a small bottle of glycerine. All well and good. But some of our actors are beginning to play pranks with their faces, and are forgetting that they possess a canvas which needs as delicate touching with the colours as that on the easel of a Royal Academician. There is a positive danger of "the Villain at the Vic" making a successful re-appearance again—that estimable individual whose corkscrew curls were as black as his deeds; whose every glance told that "ber-lud, ber-lud, nothing but ber-lud, and let it be cer-r-rimson at that, my lor-rd!" would satisfy. You remember him. But it is not intended that these pages should either by word from pen or picture from pencil libel the face of any actor breathing. It is only desirable that the disciples of Thespis should be warned against overdoing their stage faces. There is really no need for it. They are not at Sadler's Wells to-day.
"THE VILLAIN AT THE VIC."
I remember one old actor at Sadler's Wells in the good old days. He used to boast that he had played several hundreds of parts during the last fifteen years, and had made one wig do for every character! He would flour it, tie it with a ribbon bow, and, lo! he had a George III. He would red-ochre it for a carroty cranium of a comic countryman, and he admitted once to black-leading it. His make-up was equally in keeping with his head-gear. He burnt a cork for making moustaches and eyebrows, he utilized the white-washed walls for powder, and scraped the red-brick flooring with his pocket-knife to gain a little colour for his cheeks. And even then he used to wonder how it was he could never get his face clean! Though it is to be hoped that no modern actor will ever have to stoop so low as the floor for his rouge, yet there seems to be rising up in our midst a generation of actors who altogether misunderstand the use of brush and pencil. Glance at this worthy fellow, for instance. Doubtless he is endowed with the best of intentions, but he has made his face resemble a sweep's, and the five-barred gate he has put on his forehead would not disgrace the entrance to a highly respectable turnip field.