I have formerly known an Actress carry this Theatrical Prudery to such a height, that she was very near keeping herself chaste by it: Her Fondness for Virtue on the Stage she began to think might perswade the World that it had made an Impression on her private Life; and the Appearances of it actually went so far that, in an Epilogue to an obscure Play, the Profits of which were given to her, and wherein she acted a Part of impregnable Chastity, she bespoke the Favour of the Ladies by a Protestation that in Honour of their Goodness and Virtue she would dedicate her unblemish'd Life to their Example. Part of this Vestal Vow, I remember, was contain'd in the following Verse:
_Study to live the Character I play_.[148]
But alas! how weak are the strongest Works of Art when Nature besieges it? for though this good Creature so far held out her Distaste to Mankind that they could never reduce her to marry any one of 'em; yet we must own she grew, like _Cæsar_, greater by her Fall! Her first heroick Motive to a Surrender was to save the Life of a Lover who in his Despair had vow'd to destroy himself, with which Act of Mercy (in a jealous Dispute once in my Hearing) she was provoked to reproach him in these very Words: _Villain! did not I save your Life?_ The generous Lover, in return to that first tender Obligation, gave Life to her First-born,[149] and that pious Offspring has since raised to her Memory several innocent Grandchildren.
So that, as we see, it is not the Hood that makes the Monk, nor the Veil the Vestal; I am apt to think that if the personal Morals of an Actor were to be weighed by his Appearance on the Stage, the Advantage and Favour (if any were due to either side) might rather incline to the Traitor than the Heroe, to the _Sempronius_ than the _Cato_, or to the _Syphax_ than the _Juba_: Because no Man can naturally desire to cover his Honesty with a wicked Appearance; but an ill Man might possibly incline to cover his Guilt with the Appearance of Virtue, which was the Case of the frail Fair One now mentioned. But be this Question decided as it may, _Sandford_ always appear'd to me the honester Man in proportion to the Spirit wherewith he exposed the wicked and immoral Characters he acted: For had his Heart been unsound, or tainted with the least Guilt of them, his Conscience must, in spite of him, in any too near a Resemblance of himself, have been a Check upon the Vivacity of his Action. _Sandford_ therefore might be said to have contributed his equal Share with the foremost Actors to the true and laudable Use of the Stage: And in this Light too, of being so frequently the Object of common Distaste, we may honestly stile him a Theatrical Martyr to Poetical Justice: For in making Vice odious or Virtue amiable, where does the Merit differ? To hate the one or love the other are but leading Steps to the same Temple of Fame, tho' at different Portals.[150]