tears.
But she made another triumph (the author himself coached her in the
part), and helped to give the production all manner of success.

[Footnote A: As Cibber says, Mrs. Bracegirdle "inspired the best
authors to write for her, and two of them [Rowe and Congreve] when
they gave her a lover in a play, seem'd palpably to plead their
own passions, and make their private court to her in fictitious
characters."]

It is a curious fact that the writing of the tragedy was indirectly
due to political disappointment. Rowe had set himself assiduously to
the study of Spanish with the idea of securing from Lord Halifax a
diplomatic position, and his reward for this energy was so intangible
that he soon gave up hopes of foreign travel and turned his attention
to the tribulations of Jane. In other words, the noble Halifax merely
expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Rowe could now read "Don Quixote"
in the original.

Thus Nance played on, sometimes in comedy, and again in tragedy, when,
despite her customary objections, the pages had to drag her train
about. It was a train that swept all before it.

The speaking of trains and pages suggests the fact that in old times
the heroes and heroines of tragedy always wore, either in peculiarity
of dress or pomp of surroundings, the badge of greatness. Nowadays a
few bars of romantic music, to usher these characters on the stage,
will suffice. But things were different then; our ancestors insisted
that the aforesaid _dramatis personnae_ should be labelled, frilled
and furbelowed.

Addison has an interesting essay on the subject.[A]

[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 42.]

"But among all our tragic artifices," he says, "I am the most offended
at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of
the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to
clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head which rises so very high,
that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his
head than to the sole of his foot. One would believe that we thought
a great man and a tall man the same thing. This very much embarrasses
the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady
all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he
pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by
his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of
feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see