I

THE OLD ACTORS

in

Do not know a more mortifying thing than to be conscious of a foregone delight, with a total oblivion of the person and manner which conveyed it. In dreams I often stretch and strain after the countenance of Edwin, whom I once saw Peeping Tom. I cannot catch a feature of him. He is no more to me than Nokes or Pinkethman. Parsons, and still more Dodd, were near being lost to me till I was refreshed with their portraits (fine treat) the other day at Mr Matthew's gallery at Highgate; which, with the exception of the Hogarth pictures, a few years since exhibited in Pall Mall, was the most delightful collection I ever gained admission to. There hang the players, in their single persons and in grouped scenes, from the Restoration,-Bettertons, Booths, Garricks, justifying the prejudices which we entertain for themthe Bracegirdles, the Mountforts, and the Oldfields, fresh as Cibber has described them-the Woffington (a true Hogarth) upon a couch, dallying and dangerous-the screen scene in Brinsley's famous comedy, with Smith and Mrs Abingdon whom I have not seen, and the rest, whom having seen, I see still there. There is Henderson, unrivalled in Comus, whom I saw at second hand in the elder HarleyHarley, the rival of Holman, in Horatio-Holman, with the bright glittering teeth in Lothario, and the deep paviour's sighs in Romeo-the jolliest person ("our son is fat") of any Hamlet I have yet seen,