The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-29 00:00:00

Lablache, and a snortle like incipient apoplexy,
when, in a twinkling, ho is perhaps bowing to his
audience, in propria persona, over the moveable
lid of one of his desk cabinets, adjusting Lis white
cravat, or arranging his own hair, or buttoning one
of his white kid gloves, with the most amazingly
serene and imperturbable of countenances. Hardly
has he announced in half a dozen words the inter-
view he has had with another wayfarer in life, when
again, in a twinkling, he is airing a new costume,
in the full glare of the footlights—arrayed from
top to toe as a lady of the last century, arrayed in
fact from the glossy braid of her tresses to the
dainty point of ber satin slipper in the utmost
amplitude and delicacy of (we may fairly use the
phrase in this age of steel hoops and crinoline) her
feminine "surroundings." Here in literal truth, in
the person of Mr. Woodin, we have realised before
our gaze that well-known couplet in Dryden's
" Absolom and Achitophel"—
"A man so various that he seemed to be
Not ONE but all mankind's opitome !"
_ _ _

And he is not merely in the strictest sense of the
words "A Host in himself"—as the giver of these
Entertainments. He is more than that—he is him-
self A whole Company into the bargain. Yet
though he is in this manner, as we have said, him-
self a whole Company—Heavy Father, Walking
Gentleman, Duenna, Lover (of either sex), and so
forth—he could not possibly (remembering the
swiftneEs of his changes), there is, at any rate, this
to be said, he could not possibly complete the Com-
pany by being—Prompter. Supposing Sophocles
again to be in the ascendant amongst us, or any
other of the Greek Tragedians—we all remember
" Antigone" and the Vandenhoffs—we would
earnestly recommend the selection of Mr.
Woodin as—the Chorus. Speaking to us as he
does in so many voices, appearing before us as he
does in so many shapes, one might almost he
bewildered at last into the notion that his must
be some disembodied spirits (" high spirits," surely)
entering at pleasure into the semblance of certain
individualities; oue might occasionally, we say, be
bewildered into this notion, so confused is our
recollection of his identity—but that there he is
repeatedly "himself again" like Richard—the
genuine Simon Pure in the snow-white linen, the
dress coat and the black broad-cloth "continua-
tions." Yet, while admitting him (solely by reason
of these perpetual reminders of his identity) to be
in point of fact, like the rest of us, an actual Noun
Substantive—we must insist upon it, at any rate,
that if he is a Noun at all he must certainly be a
Noun of Multitude—signifying many. Never was
the truth of Shakspere's philosophic summary of
human life more signally verified than in Woodin
that comprehensive assertion that—
"ONE MAN is his time plays many parts."

While the application of the line may be here still
further emphasised by avowing, in regard to Mr.
Woodin's rapidity of impersonation, that there is
but " one man" who " in his time" [the whole enter-
tainment, as we have remarked occupies but two hours
altogether] " plays (so) many parts." And these
the mere " Characters " represented by Mr. Woodin
in his entertainment—how are they even to be here
passingly enumerated ? Dividing the body of Lon-
don Life adroitly, with a few trenchant syllables
into Four Quarters—passing through Spring with
its Fashionable Marriages, Public Dinners and Derby
Day ; through Summer with its Excursionists ;
through Autumn with its Tourists ; through Winter
with its Entertainments—who, and what, and where
are not the chosen Characters ? Snuffy old Mrs.
Poppies, the Pew Opener, with her benedictions
upon the bride and bridegroom, interrupted by an
incongruous growl over her douceur—" only a beg-
garly half-crowned." Tom Dibbs, the little shriek-
ing blackguard charity boy, all grin and muffin-cap
—scared away the instant afterwards by the stupen-
dous Goldknot, the very Beadle of Beadledom. Mr.
Bobbles, the delightful Secretary of the Great Um-
brella Lending Association—cheering himself on as
he reads the report for the last twelvemonth by
interpolated shunts of Rear ! Hear! from the
depths of his neckcloth. As to the Epsom
Downs on Derby Day—Mr. Woodin seems to crowd
himself off the stage altogether, so that we lose
.3ight of him entirely for a while—he seems abso-
lutely to crowd himself off the stage with—red-
coated Flying Jack, the vender of the c'rect card,
the whiskered Dvi Ling- creficirmun, the black-haired.
scarlet-cloaked Gipsy Fortune-teller, and the
Ticket-of-Leave-looking Thimble Rigger, who in
the midst of his hoarse patter bobs himself, table, thim-
bles, pea and all out of existence, on catching sight
of the coming—" Police." Added to these and
a swarm of others—the dirty cokernut-seller, the
clean capped and aproned gingerbread-seller, the
owner (or shall we say the nephew) of Aunt Sally,
the Veiled (bonvivant) Mordekana of the Borouche,
the Tidily Toddy tooler of the chaise and pair, with
dear old Mrs. Aldgato Pump of the dilapidated
Dogcart, and that wonderful spangled india
rubber acrobat Herr Jacobo Johnsonini. Have we
not, moreover, immediately afterwards brought
before us, at full length and in startling contrast to
each other, that garrulous old pragmatic Mr.
Rodney Hook, the meditative angler " with weak
nerves and strong objections," eagerly in quest of
quiet and the picturesque—and, haunting his foot-
step, literally dogging his footsteps, Thomas
Gubbins, the Ostler, over scratching that oakum
head of his, that looks as if it wanted
grooming with a currycomb, seeking a purchaser
for " a tidy dawg," at something, of course, like "a
tidy price," visibly bringing with him about his
frowzy dress the strongest flavour -of stableyard
ammonia. Hardly has Gubbins done scratching his
shock-head with the haft of the clasp-knife with
which he is carving his peripatatic dinner, while
talking to us in appropriate growls about his
" dawg," when he (the Ostler of the Red Lion) is
summarily replaced by the buxom Landlady of the
same. Widow Whimperley, to wit : with her pre-
posterous reminiscence of having had the question
popped to her on the top of the Monument, and
with those decoying glances of hers so plainly ask-
ing to have it popped again, that they must in-
fallibly have thrown old Mr. Weller, by the mere
,ense of his peril, into a cold and profuse perspira-
tion. Among the happiest of Mr. Woodin's kit-cat
portraits from the life, those ingenious half-lengths
,uddenly produced from the recesses of his Cabine

of Curiositics, commend us to Mr. Winelees, the

gantlnman, voixo in in auola. dirA And
lengthened confusion about his hat—to Deborah
Gunn, the boisterous old bathing woman—end to
Simpson Stentor, the town crier, bawling out his
incoherent announcements with the most ludicrous
sontempt for punctuation. As for the more finished
and more carefully elaborated delineations
—don't we all know perfectly well that heavy
sNs ell, Mr. Halcyon Higgins, possessor of a yacht
and hater of all " bawther," who smokes a meer-
,chaum (we are intimate with the very aroma of his
cavendish), and who possesses an invaluable nauti-
cal auxiliary in the dapper form of Jones, the
Skipper ? As to Jones himself, can't he spin a yarn
with the best of them, and dance a hornpipe with
the agility of a sea harlequin! Our Polyphonist's
skill in the articulation of patois, by the way, is not
the least surprising of his many gifts es a deline-
ator of the types of national character. Instance

his Cornish miner, with his wonderful subterranean
sort of ballad chant—his Welch girl with her pretty
guttural ditty—his flaxen-headed countrybumpkin,
with his preliminary jabber about the fineness of
the "meaning this Warning," and his extraordi.
rigmarole of a song in the broadest dialect of Dor-
.4etshire. IVitn?ss, moreover, the dry humour of
Sandy 11Thaster, the Scotchman, and the racy
un and roystering blarney of Barney O'Brien, the
Irish car driver. Another while—whew ! as at

he shrill call of the scene-shifter's whistle—we are

taken back a whole hundred years at a bound, from
1861 to 1761—our agile Proteus inc :mprehensibly
standing before us—no longer Mr. Woodin, but my
Lady Frances Foresight, a belle (of that far-off
kpoch) decidedly worth ringing—radiant in bro-
caded silks and hooped petticoats and jewelled
stomacher, in lappets and farthingale—her delicate
tresses powdered,and her blooming cheek perfected
with that last poignant touch of grace in those
days, the " beauty spot" so essential as an •adjunct
in the toilettes of our great-great-grandmothers.
How Mr. Woodin surpasses himself in the do:-

og scenes of his new entertainment those

only cfol Anderpt%nd who hay° themolvo witomed