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As she grew up, she continued to act; and a few years saw her the favourite of that eminent dramatic temple, Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, where she was able, despite of her low birth and early education, to represent to perfection ladies of rank and fashion. Of tall stature, and dignified in form―elegant, and, though not an absolute beauty, possessing a face full of expression and vivacity-a perfect mistress of dancing, and, thanks to Madame Violante, speaking French fluently-lively, intelligent, witty, and accomplished-no wonder Mistress Woffington turned the heads and won the hearts of her audiences. Rich, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, brought her to London in the winter of 1740. She was just twenty-two when she made her first appearance at his theatre, and took the town by storm in the male character of Sir Harry Wildair. This, and her Millimants, her Lady Townlys, and Lady Bettys, and lots of other dashing representations, charmed the belles and bewitched the beaux of George the II.'s time. Garrick acted with her, fell in love with her, and lived her slave. A comical quarrel, that made the town laugh, ended their tender intimacy, and she returned to Dublin, and to 'the Smock Alley Theatre of her early fame. Her beauty and accomplishments, her wit and vivacity, the endless charms of her conversation, made her company, in her native city, equally attractive off and on the stage; even the grave and dignified in church and state looked at their convivial meetings for the society of Peg Woffington; she was the only woman admitted a member of the famous Beef-steak Club, the rendezvous in Dublin of all the intellect of the day, including lords and members of parliament, men of fashion, and literati. This club, of which she was even president, dwindling into party and political strife, Miss Woffington retired in disgust, and returned to London in 1756.

It was at this time that Edmund Burke became enamoured of, at least, her intelligence and wonderful powers of conversation. Whether her beauty also enslaved him, his own high morality, and the fact of her being somewhat passée and an invalid, must leave

VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.

21

a matter of doubt. Their acquaintance was of short duration; for poor Peg's rapidly declining health forced her soon after into retirement, and brought on her death early in 1760. She passed from the mimic and the real scene much regretted; for, like Nell Gwynne, her blame had the palliation of many womanly qualifications and much goodness of heart. John Hoole, the graceful translator of Tasso and Ariosto, wrote a monody to her memory, of which the following lines form a part:

"Blest in each art, by Nature form'd to please,
With beauty, sense, with elegance and ease,
Whose piercing genius studied all mankind,
All Shakespeare opening to thy vigorous mind;
In every scene of comic humour known,
In sprightly sallies wit was all thy own;
Whether you seemed the cit's more humble wife,
Or shone in Townly's higher sphere of life,
Alike thy spirit knew each turn of wit,
And gave new force to all the poet writ.
Nor was thy worth to public scenes confined,
Thou knew'st the noblest feelings of the mind;

Thy ears were ever open to distress,
Thy ready hand was ever stretch'd to bless,
Thy breast humane for each unhappy felt,
Thy heart for others' sorrows prone to melt.
In vain did Envy point her scorpion sting,
In vain did Malice shake her blasting wing,
Each generous breast disdain'd th' unpleasing tale,
And cast o'er every fault oblivion's veil."

The influence of Mistress Woffington, of whatsoever nature it might be, proved to Mr. Burke in its result beneficial, since report has it that it was she who induced him to produce in a separate form his first important and acknowledged work. This bore the following title, "A Vindication of Natural Society, or a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every species of Artificial Society. In a letter to Lord ****, by a late Noble Writer." It came out in 1756. The purport of it was this: -the celebrated statesman and political writer of latitudina

rian notoriety, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, dying in 1751, bequeathed his manuscripts for publication to his friend, the poet David Mallet. Mallet brought them out in 1753; but scarcely had they appeared when a general cry was raised against them on account of their attack on Christianity and their infidel tone and tendency. The grand jury of Westminster, on the 16th of October, 1754, presented them as tending to the subversion of religion, government, and morality, and as being also against his Majesty's peace. The sensation about these productions still existed, when Edmund Burke, ever ready to enter the lists against profanity, adopted the like plan of confuting Bolingbroke, which he had before employed in the case of Dr. Lucas. This was to imitate (and he admirably did so) the style of Bolingbroke, which he had heard called inimitable, and to carry on a course of ironical argument in the same language and the same mode of persuasion as his model, so as to show that the system of reasoning used by the noble writer against religion might be urged with equal strength and equal falsity against any institution, whether human or divine. The Vindication of Natural Society displayed at once the extent of its author's knowledge in the historical statements, the versatility of his genius in the happy mimicry of Bolingbroke, and the force of his sagacity in perceiving, though hitherto unguided by experience, the tendency of scepticism to dissolve the bands of society. So absolute was the imitative art of Burke, that Mallet, who had ushered the disgraceful writings of Bolingbroke into public notice, actually went to Dodsley the publisher's shop, when crowded, to make an open disclaimer as to Bolingbroke or he being author or editor of the insidious production. One fault only may be attributed to this Vindication of Natural Society, and that lies in its very cleverness; for, so concealed is the irony throughout, that the reader runs the risk of taking the whole for earnest, and being led by the fascinating elegance and energetic eloquence of the diction to a conclusion far different from the one intended. This pamphlet attracted much attention, and had a fair success. It

DR. JOHNSON'S OPINION OF BURKE'S ESSAY.

23

brought Burke, when he came to be known as its author, such favour and encouragement as induced him to make, in the same year, another literary venture of a very different nature. This was his celebrated "Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"—an essay which at once established its author's eminence as a writer, and which has never ceased to retain its merited popularity. This charming production is a valuable addition to English literature. It displays the learning of a scholar, the invention of a poet, and the wisdom of a philosopher. Dr. Johnson considered it a model of philosophical judgment. "We have," he said, "an example of true criticism in Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. There is no great merit in showing how many plays have ghosts in them, or how this ghost is better than that; you must show how terror is impressed on the human heart."

In this famous essay the author's design is to lay down such principles as may tend to ascertain and distinguish the sublime and the beautiful in any art, and to form a sort of standard for each. In his mode of doing this, he exhibits a mind feelingly alive to each fine impulse, able to investigate its own operations, their effects and causes. He unites Longinus and Aristotle. Burke is a philosophical anatomist of human sensations. Whoever turns his attention to subjects of taste must see that his enumeration of the qualities which constitute sublimity and beauty is exact. Of the sublime he says, "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime."

When he comes to speak of beauty, he propounds a theory, of which the following is the substance. Beauty is that quality, or those qualities, of bodies by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it. This idea cannot arise from proportion, since, in vegetables and animals, there is no standard by which we can

measure our ideas of proportion, and in man exact proportion is not always the criterion of beauty; neither can it arise from fitness, since then all animals would have beauty, for every one seems best adapted to its own way of living; and in man strength would have the name of beauty, which, however, presents a very different idea. Nor is it the result of perfection, for we are often charmed with the imperfections of an agreeable object; nor, lastly, of the qualities and virtues of the mind, since such rather conciliate our esteem than our love. Beauty, therefore, is no creature of reason, but some merely sensible quality acting mechanically upon the mind by the intervention of the senses." It is needless, however, to enter further, or perhaps thus far, into the contents of a production so generally read and known, and every where to be had. What resulted from its first publication is more appropriate to the present subject.

He had achieved

The appearance of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful proved a grand epoch in Burke's life. From it date his eminence as a writer and his position as a public man. the manifestation of his intellectual powers; and great people sought to know him. Among them Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson courted intimacy with the author of the Sublime and Beautiful. Warm, intimate, life-lasting friendship followed swiftly in the track of this acquaintance with the illustrious painter and with the colossus of English literature. Reynolds was rich and hospitable, and his house was the favourite resort of talent. Among the moral and wise, Johnson stood like Saul among the people. The potent Doctor from the commencement discovered in Burke that extraordinary genius and knowledge which the world afterwards saw. He it was who declared that Burke was the greatest man living; and that if one were to be driven to seek shelter from a shower of rain under the same gateway with him, one must in a few minutes perceive his superiority over common This observation showed not only Johnson's exalted idea of Burke, but also his own discernment. He perceived in Burke

men.

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