Audrey

About this time, Mr. Charles Stagg, of the Williamsburgh theatre in

Virginia, sent by the Horn of Plenty, bound for London, a long letter to

an ancient comrade and player of small parts at Drury Lane. A few days

later, young Mr. Lee, writing by the Golden Lucy to an agreeable rake of

his acquaintance, burst into a five-page panegyric upon the Arpasia, the

Belvidera, the Monimia, who had so marvelously dawned upon the colonial

horizon. The recipient of this communication, being a frequenter of

Button's, and chancing one day to crack a bottle there with Mr. Colley

Cibber, drew from his pocket and read to that gentleman the eulogy of

Darden's Audrey, with the remark that the writer was an Oxford man and

must know whereof he wrote.

Cibber borrowed the letter, and the next day, in the company of Wilks and

a bottle of Burgundy, compared it with that of Mr. Charles Stagg,--the

latter's correspondent having also brought the matter to the great man's

notice.

"She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?" said

Cibber. "They're of an age. If the town took to her"-"If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?" added Wilks. "Here--where is't he says that, when she went out, for many moments

the pit was silent as the grave--and that then the applause was deep--not

shrill--and very long? 'Gad, if 'tis a Barry come again, and we could lay

hands on her, the house would be made!"

Gibber sighed. "You're dreaming, Bob," he said good-humoredly. "'Twas but

a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some belle sauvage with a

ranting tongue."

"Men's passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London,"

answered the other. "If the belle sauvage can move to that manner of

applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again he

says, 'A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of melting

sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the blood turns

cold and the heart is wrung to hear it'--Zoons, sir! What would it cost to

buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix overseas?"

"Something more than a lottery ticket," laughed the other, and beckoned to

the drawer. "We'll wait, Bob, until we're sure 'tis a phoenix indeed!

There's a gentleman in Virginia with whom I've some acquaintance, Colonel

William Byrd, that was the colony's agent here. I'll write to him for a

true account. There's time enough."