When, to heighten the effect of their theatrical exhibitions, Thespis and his playfellows first daubed their faces with the lees of wine, they may be said to have initiated that art of “making-up” which has been of such important service to the stage.  Paint is to the actor’s face what costume is to his body—­a means of decoration or disguise, as the case may require; an aid to his assuming this or that character, and concealing the while his own personal identity from the spectator.  The mask of the classical theatre is only to be associated with a “make-up,” in that it substituted a fictitious facial expression for the actor’s own.  Roscius is said to have always played in a vizard, on account of a disfiguring obliquity of vision with which he was afflicted.  It was an especial tribute to his histrionic merits that the Romans, disregarding this defect, required him to relinquish his mask, that they might the better appreciate his exquisite oratory and delight in the music of his voice.  In much later years, however, “obliquity of vision” has been found to be no obstacle to success upon the stage.  Talma squinted, and a dramatic critic, writing in 1825, noted it as a strange fact that “our three light comedians, Elliston, Jones, and Browne,” each suffered from “what is called a cast in the eye.”

To young and inexperienced players a make-up is precious, in that it has a fortifying effect upon their courage, and relieves them in some degree of consciousness of their own personality.  They are the better enabled to forget themselves, seeing their identity can hardly be present to the minds of others.  Garrick made his first histrionic essay as Aboan, in the play of “Oroonoko,” “a part in which his features could not easily be discerned:  under the disguise of a black countenance he hoped to escape being known, should it be his misfortune not to please.”  When Bottom the Weaver is allotted the part of Pyramus, intense anxiety touching his make-up is an early sentiment with him.  “What beard were I best to play it in?” he inquires.  “I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.”  Clearly the beard was an important part of the make-up at this time.  Farther on, Bottom counsels his brother clowns:  “Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps;” and there are especial injunctions to the effect that Thisbe shall be provided with clean linen, that the lion shall pare his nails, and that there shall be abstinence from onions and garlic on the part of the company generally.