dBooks desire

I have seen," he adds, "Hippesley act the First Murderer in 'Macbeth;'
his face was made pale with chalk, distinguished with large whiskers
and a long black wig." "Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces and
begin!" cries Hamlet to Lucianus, the poisoner; so that even in
Shakespeare's time grimness of aspect on the part of the stage villain
may have been thought indispensable. Churchill's friend, Lloyd, in his
admirable poem, "The Actor," published in 1762, writes on this head:
To suit the dress demands the actor's art,
Yet there are those who over-dress the part:
To some prescriptive right gives settled things--
Black wigs to murderers, feathered hats to kings.
Quin appeared upon the stage almost invariably in a profuse
full-bottomed periwig. Garrick brought into fashion a wig of much
smaller size, worn low on the forehead, with five crisp curls on
either side, and known generally as the "Garrick cut." But the great
actor occasionally varied the mode of his peruke. The portraits by
Wood, Sherwin, and Dance exhibit him in three different forms of
wigs.


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