the pitiable infirmity of man’s nature, that
can lay him open to such frenzies—but in
truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while
it lasted—you felt that an hour of such
mistake was worth an age with the eyes open.
Who would not wish to live but for a day in the conceit
of such a lady’s love as Olivia? Why, the
Duke would have given his principality but for a quarter
of a minute, sleeping or waking, to have been so deluded.
The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste manna,
to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate Hyperion.
O! shake not the castles of his pride—endure
yet for a season, bright moments of confidence—“stand
still ye watches of the element,” that Malvolio
may be still in fancy fair Olivia’s lord—but
fate and retribution say no—I hear the
mischievous titter of Maria—the witty taunts
of Sir Toby—the still more insupportable
triumph of the foolish knight—the counterfeit
Sir Topas is unmasked—and “thus the
whirligig of time,” as the true clown hath it,
“brings in his revenges.” I confess
that I never saw the catastrophe of this character
while Bensley played it without a kind of tragic interest.
There was good foolery too. Few now remember
Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him!
Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old actors, revived
the character some few seasons ago, and made it sufficiently
grotesque; but Dodd was
it, as it came out
of nature’s hands. It might be said to remain
in puris naturalibus. In expressing slowness
of apprehension this actor surpassed all others.
You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly
over his countenance, climbing up by little and little,
with a painful process, till it cleared up at last
to the fulness of a twilight conception—its
highest meridian. He seemed to keep back his
intellect, as some have had the power to retard their
pulsation. The balloon takes less time in filling,
than it took to cover the expansion of his broad moony
face over all its quarters with expression. A
glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of
his eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A
part of his forehead would catch a little intelligence,
and be a long time in communicating it to the remainder.
I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than
five and twenty years ago that walking in the gardens
of Gray’s Inn—they were then far
finer than they are now—the accursed Verulam
Buildings had not encroached upon all the east side
of them, cutting out delicate green crankles, and
shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves
of the terrace—the survivor stands gaping
and relationless as if it remembered its brother—they
are still the best gardens of any of the Inns of Court,
my beloved Temple not forgotten—have the
gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend
and law-breathing—Bacon has left the impress
of his foot upon their gravel walks—taking
my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the aforesaid
terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom