And do not call them bastards.
Perdita.—I’ll not put
A dibble in earth, to set one slip of them;
No more than, were I painted, I should wish
This youth to say, ’twere well; and only therefore
Desire to breed by me.—Winter’s Tale, Act IV.
Madame Pasta appears to be of Perdita’s mind in respect to her acting, and I applaud her resolution heartily. We English are charged unjustly with wishing to disparage the French: we cannot help it; there is a natural antipathy between the two nations. Thus unable to deny their theatrical merit, we are said insidiously to have invented the appellation, French nature, to explain away or throw a stigma on their most successful exertions:
——‘Though that their art be nature,
We throw such changes of vexation on it,
As it may lose some colour.’