About this time Fenella's benefit at the theatre was announced, an event of some importance to her, as the second season of the theatre had been particularly unproductive, and the limping manager had failed almost entirely to pay the salaries of his performers. I think Douglas was the play selected by her, in which she was to personate Lady Randolph; and in order to the effective _cast_ of the piece, it was essential that Mc---- should perform Glenalvon. He had frequently treated Fenella with rudeness, and evidently disliked her; he objected to the part assigned him, and absented himself from the rehearsals of the tragedy. But as he was notoriously a devotee of the bottle, and frequently remiss in his duty, little was thought of his absence. The benefit night arrived; the time came for the curtain to rise; but no Glenalvon had appeared behind the scenes; and it was soon made known that Mc---- had not studied the part, and would not appear that night. The house was crowded; and to Fenella's great mortification, it was necessary that some other performer should _read the part_. This was done, and the play came off lamely enough.
Fenella was not destitute of spirit, and she resented this affront in the proper manner. Mc----'s benefit took place a few weeks after, and she resolutely refused to play for him. As she was the only actress in the company possessing any claim to talent, it was impossible to _cast_ a piece without her; and the consequence of her name being absent from the bills for Mc----'s benefit was, that no one attended, or so few as to render it a most irksome task to go through the performances. The rage of the disappointed beneficiary was boundless: he vowed that he would be revenged upon Fenella for the injury she had done him, although in just resentment of an affront for which he deserved no better treatment.
Mc---- was a good draughtsman, and frequently sketched figures with great accuracy. He resorted to his pencil as the instrument of his revenge, and caricatured Fenella with so much skill, that while no one could mistake the original of the sketch, the incongruities of the details were such as to render it highly ludicrous.
The chief quality of a caricature seems to be _disproportion_--an unfitness of parts to each other. Simple exaggeration does not suffice to produce the effect desired, for if all the details of the picture be equally exaggerated, it may present a disagreeable likeness, but it does not produce that deep sense of the ridiculous which arises from an incongruous classification of the details. This rule is perhaps better tested than any other, by the _reductio ad absurdum_, and it is well illustrated by those extravagant French prints, in which heads of enormous comparative dimensions are placed upon bodies and limbs ridiculously diminutive, the effect of the disproportion being heightened by the accessaries of dress, &c. This is perhaps the most extravagant kind of caricature, but it requires far less skill than those sketches in which the more minute incongruities of features, form and costume, are resorted to. These sometimes exhibit much graphic ability, and it is a curious fact, that in pictures of this kind, where every feature is distorted, the strongest likenesses are sometimes preserved.[2] It is _truth_ presented through the medium of the ludicrous. Like the burlesque in writing, which exhibits an argument even more forcibly, because it presents the whole matter in a ridiculous light. But I am forgetting my story.