logue," when Wignell finding them resolute without moving from the
spot, without pausing, or changing his tone of voice, but in all the
pomposity of tragedy, went on as if it were part of the play.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there has been no
Prologue spoken to this play these twenty years--
The great, the important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome."----

This wonderful effusion put the audience in good humour--they laughed
incontinently--clapped and shouted _bravo_, and Wignell proceeded with
his usual stateliness, self-complacency, and composure.

Mr. Wignell's biographer above mentioned relates the following anecdote.
"During a rehearsal of _the suspicious husband_, Mr. Garrick exclaimed
"pray Mr. Wignell, why cannot you enter and say, "_Mr. Strictland, sir,
your coach is ready_", without all the declamatory pomp of Booth or
Quin?"--"Upon my soul, Mr. Garrick," replied poor Wignell, "_I thought I
had kept the sentiment down as much as possible._"" When Macklin
performed _Macbeth_ Wignell played the _doctor_, and in this serious
character provoked loud fits of laughter.

The above facts contain a valuable lesson to actors, some of whom can,
no more than Mr. Wignell, _get the sentiment down_, when they have an
event of such importance to announce as _the coach being ready_. In
serious truth we are persuaded that the fulsome, bombastical ridiculous
stateliness of some actors, tends to bring tragedy into disrepute, to
deprive it of its high preeminence, and must ultimately disgust the
multitude with some of the noblest productions of the human mind.

Two other characters of the tragedies already alluded to, demand from
the justice of criticism the most full and unmixed praise. _Falstaff_ in
Henry IV. and _Cacafogo_ in Rule a Wife and have a Wife, had in Mr.
Warren a most able representative. Having seen several--the select ones
of the last five and thirty years--we can truly say, without entering
into nice comparisons, that if we were to sit to those two plays a
hundred times in America or Great Britain, we could be well contented
with just such a Falstaff and just such a Cacafogo as Mr. Warren.

_The Foundling of the Forest._

In our first number we made a few observations on this comedy. They were
not very favourable to it; and, notwithstanding its great success in
representation, we are not at all disposed to retract any of them,
because our opinion of the intrinsic value of the piece i