Part 9

The Wargrave theatre lacked nothing that could be wanted for its completeness. The auditorium was splendid. There was a saloon quite as superb, wherein the audience could sup like kings and the invited could afterwards dance. Between the acts of performance pages and lackeys, in scarlet and gold, proffered choice refreshments to the spectators, who were not likely to be hard upon players under a management of such unparalleled liberality. The acting company was made up of professional players--Munden, Delpini, and Moses Kean, among the men, with the best and prettiest actresses of the Richmond Theatre. Lord Barrymore and Captain Walthen were the chief amateurs. Low comedy and pantomime formed the ‘walk’ of my lord, who on one occasion danced a celebrated _pas Russe_ with Delpini as it was then danced at the opera. Now and then the noble proprietor would stand disguised as a check-taker, and promote ‘rows’ with the farmers and their wives, disputing the validity of their letters of invitation. It was also his fond delight to mingle with them, in disguise again, as they wended homeward, listening to or provoking their criticism. He probably heard some unwelcome truths, for he could not have long escaped detection. Within doors the night’s pleasures were not at an end with the play. Dancing, gambling, music, and folly to its utmost limits succeeded; and he, or _she_, was held in scorn who attempted to go to bed before 5 A.M. Indeed, such persons were not allowed to sleep if they did withdraw before the appointed hour. From five o’clock to noon was the Wargrave season for sleep. The company were consigned to the ‘upper and lower barracks,’ as the two divisions were called where the single and the married, or those who might as well have been, were billeted for the night.

Lord Barrymore did not confine himself to acting on a private stage. In August, 1790, he ‘was so humble as to perform a buffoon dance and act scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of Edwin _junior_, the comedian; and I,’ writes Walpole, ‘like an old fool, but calling myself a philosopher that loves to study human nature in all its disguises, went to see the performance!’ Walpole used to call the earl ‘the strolling player.’ On the above occasion, however, there is one thing to be remembered: Lord Barrymore, invited to play the fool, condescended to that degradation in order to serve young Edwin, whose affection and filial duty towards a sick and helpless mother had won the noble amateur’s regard.

Lord Barrymore married in 1792, in which year the splendid theatre at Wargrave was pulled down. In March, 1793, he was, as captain of militia, escorting some French prisoners through Kent. On his way he halted at an inn to give them and his own men refreshment; which being done, he kissed the handsome landlady and departed in his phaeton, his groom mounting the horse Lord Barrymore had previously ridden. The man put a loaded gun into the carriage, and Lord Barrymore had not ridden far when it exploded and killed him on the spot. Thus ended, at the age of twenty-four years, the career of the young earl, who was the most indefatigable, if not the most able, amateur actor of his day.

Such examples fired less noble youths, who left their lawful callings, broke articles and indentures, and set up for themselves by representing somebody else. Three of our best bygone comedians belong to this class, and may claim some brief record at our hands.

Oxberry, who was distinguished for the way in which he acted personages who were less remarkable for their simplicity than for their silliness, was a pupil of Stubbs, the animal painter, and subsequently was in the house of Ribeau, the bookseller. The attractions of the private theatres in Queen Anne Street and Berwick Street were too much for him. Oxberry’s first appearance was made at the former place, as Hassan, in the ‘Castle Spectre.’ The well-known players, Mrs. W. West and John Cooper, acted together as Alonzo and Leonora in ‘The Revenge,’ at a private theatre in Bath, to the horror of their friends and the general scandalising of the city of which they were natives. The Bath manager looked on the young pair with a business eye, and the youthful amateurs were soon enrolled among the professionals. In their first stages, professionals scarcely reckon above amateurs. They play what they can, and such comic actors as Wilkinson and Harley are not the only pair of funny fellows upon record who played the most lofty tragedy in opposition to each other. Little Knight, as he used to be called, was, like Long Oxberry, intended for art, but he too took to private acting, and passed thence to the stage, where he was supreme in peasants, and particularly rustics, of sheer simplicity of character. His Sim in ‘Wild Oats’ was an exquisite bit of acting, and this is said without any disparagement of Mr. D. James, who recently acted the part at Mr. Belmore’s benefit with a natural truthfulness which reminded old play-goers of the ‘real old thing.’ If Mr. Knight did not succeed in pictorial art, he left a son who did--the gentleman who so recently retired from the secretaryship of the Royal Academy. The two names of Knight and Harley were, for a long time, pleasant in the ears of the patrons of the drama. John Pritt Harley was intended for many things, but amateur acting made a capital comedian of him. His father was a reputable draper and mercer--and jealous actors used to say that he sold stays and that his son helped to make them. The truth is that he was first devoted to surgery, but Harley ‘couldn’t abide it.’ Next he tried the law, and sat on a stool with the edge of a desk pressing into him till he could bear it no longer. There was, at the time, a company of amateurs who performed in the old Lyceum, and there, and at other private theatres, Harley worked away as joyously as he ever played; and worked harder still through country theatres, learning how to starve as well as act, and to fancy that a cup of tea and a penny loaf made a good dinner--which no man could make upon them. His opportunity came when, in 1815, Mr. Arnold, who had watched some part of his progress, brought him out at the Lyceum--his old amateur playing ground--as Marcelli, in ‘The Devil’s Bridge.’ Harley lived a highly-esteemed actor and a most respectable bachelor. Some little joking used to be pointed at him in print, on account of an alleged attachment between him and Miss Tree, the most graceful of dancers and of columbines. But Miss Tree was a Mrs. Quin--though she had scarcely seen her husband, since she was compelled to marry him in her childhood. The nicest pointed bit of wit was manufactured in a hoaxing announcement of a benefit to be taken by both parties. The pieces advertised were ‘A Tale of _Mystery_,’ and a ‘Harley-Quinade.’ The names of the parties could not have been more ingeniously put together in sport. Harley, though a mannerist, was an excellent actor to the last. When he was stricken with apoplexy, while playing Bottom, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ at the Princess’s Theatre, in Charles Kean’s time, he was carried home, and the last words he uttered were words in his part: ‘I feel an exposition to sleep coming over me.’ And straightway the unconscious speaker slept--for aye!

We must not add to the grievances of Ireland by altogether overlooking Erin’s private theatricals. From the day in 1544, when Bale’s ‘Pammachius’ was acted by amateurs at the market cross of Kilkenny, to the last recent record of Irish amateur acting, in the ‘Dublin Evening Mail,’ this amusement has been a favourite one among the ‘West Britons.’ The practice did not die out at the Union. Kilkenny, Lurgan, Carton, and Dublin had their private stages. When the amateur actors played for charity’s sake everybody took private boxes and nobody paid for them. In 1761, the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ was played at the Duke of Leinster’s (Carton). Dean Marly played Lockit, and wrote and spoke the prologue, in which the reverend gentleman thus alluded to himself:

But when this busy mimic scene is o’er All shall resume the worth they had before; Lockit himself his knavery shall resign, And lose the Gaoler in the dull Divine.

The above was not quite as dignified as Milton’s ‘Arcades,’ played by the children of the Dowager Countess of Derby, at her house, Harefield Place; or as ‘Comus,’ acted by the young Egertons before the Earl of Bridgewater, at Ludlow Castle. Perhaps it was more amusing.

One of our own best amateur actresses was the Princess Mary of Cambridge (now Duchess of Teck). This excellent lady had once to commence the piece (a musical piece, written for the occasion by an amateur) on a private stage in one of the noblest of our country mansions. An illustrious audience was waiting for the curtain to go up; but the kindly-hearted princess was thinking of some less illustrious folks, who were not among that audience and whom she desired to see there, namely, the servants of the household--as many as could be spared. They had had much trouble, and she hoped they would be allowed to share in the amusement. There was some difficulty; but it was only when she was informed that the servants were really ‘in front,’ that the ‘Queen of Hearts’ (her part in the piece) answered that she was ready to begin the play. She never acted better than on this occasion.

_THE SMELL OF THE LAMPS._

As we look at the two volumes of Mr. Planché’s autobiography we experience a sensation of delight. They remind us of a story told of Maria Tree, long after she had become Mrs. Bradshaw, and was accustomed to luxuries unknown in her early and humble life. She was one night crossing the stage behind the curtain, on a short way to a private box, when she stopped for a moment, and, as she caught the well-known incense of the foot-lights, joyously exclaimed, ‘The smell of the lamps! How I love it!’ Therewith she spoke of the old times, when she worked hard--that is, ‘played,’ for the support of others as well as for her own support; and what a happy time it was, and how she wished it could all come over again! The noble peer who had the honour of escorting her, looked profoundly edified, smiled good-humouredly, and then completed his duty as escort. Here we open Mr. Planché’s book, and catch from it a ‘smell of the lamps.’ Yes, there must have been--must be--something delicious in it to those who have achieved success. To old play-goers there is a similar delight in books of stage reminiscences which include memories of great actors whom those play-goers have seen in their youth. A few of these still survive to talk of the old glories and to prove by comparison of ‘cast’ that for the costly metal of other days we have nothing now but pinchbeck. We have heard one of the old gentlemen of the _ancien régime_ talk, with unfeigned emotion, of the way in which ‘The Gamester’ used to be acted by Mrs. Siddons, John Kemble, Charles Kemble, and George Frederick Cooke. How ladies sobbed and found it hard to suppress a shriek; how gentlemen veiled their eyes to hide the impertinent tears, and tried to look as if nothing were the matter; and, how people who had seen the dreadful tragedy more than once, and dreaded to witness it again, were so fascinated that they would stand in the box-passages gazing through the glass panels of the box doors, beholding the action of the drama, but sparing themselves the heartbreaking utterances of the chief personages. Within a few weeks we have heard a veteran play-goer give imitations of John Kemble in ‘Coriolanus,’ which he last played more than half a century ago! It had the perfect enunciation which was the chief merit of the Kemble school; it was dignified; it gave an idea of a grand actor, and it was a pleasure conferred on the hearers such as Charles Mathews the elder used to confer on his audiences ‘At Home,’ when he presented them with Tate Wilkinson, and they were delighted to make acquaintance with the famous man who had so long before got, as the old Irishwoman said at Billy Fullam’s funeral, his ‘pit order at last.’

While we wait for a paper-cutter to open the closed pages of Mr. Planché’s book, we will just remark that those were days when audiences were differently arranged to what they are now. In the little summer-house in the Haymarket, when stalls were not yet invented, the two-shilling gallery was the rendezvous of some of the richest tradesmen in Pall Mall and the neighbourhood around. At that period, London tradesmen lived and slept at their places of business. They did not pass their nights at a country house. London audiences were made up almost entirely of London people. In the present day, they are largely made up of visitors from the country. In proportion as travelling companies of actors of merit increase and continue to represent plays sometimes better than they are represented in London, country visitors will cease to go to ‘the play,’ as it is called, in the metropolis, and will find some other resort where they can shuffle off the mortal coil of tediousness which holds them bound during their absence from home.

In good old times the pit was the place, not only for the critics, but for the most eminent men of the day. Indeed, not only eminent men, but ladies also, whose granddaughters, as they sweep into the stalls, would think meanly of their grandmothers and grandfathers, and would shudder at the thought of themselves, being in that vulgar part of the house. It is an excellent vulgarity that sits there. Nineteen out of twenty, perhaps ninety out of a hundred, of persons in the pit are the truest patrons of the drama; they pay for the places; and, generally speaking, the places are made as uncomfortable as if the occupiers were intruders of whom the managers would be glad to get rid.

The best proof of the quality of the old pittites is to be found in the diary of the Right Hon. William Windham (1784-1810). One of the entries in the first-named year records a breakfast with Sir Joshua Reynolds, a visit to Miss Kemble, and ‘went in the evening to the pit with Mrs. Lukin.’ The play was ‘The Gamester.’ A day or two afterwards the great statesman went with Steevens and Miss Kemble to see ‘Measure for Measure.’ ‘After the play,’ writes Windham, ‘went with Miss Kemble to Mrs. Siddons’s dressing-room; met Sheridan there.’ What interest Windham took in that actress is illustrated in another entry: ‘Feb. 1, 1785. Drove to Mrs. Siddons in order to communicate a hint on a passage in Lady Macbeth, which she was to act the next night. Not finding her at home, went to her at the play-house.’ Well might Mrs. Siddons write, on inviting Windham to tea: ‘I am sure you would like it; and you can’t be to learn that I am truly sensible of the honour of your society.’

The pits in the London theatres have undergone as great a change, though a different one, as the pit at the opera, which now only nominally exists, if it exist at all. It is now an area of stalls; the old price for admission is doubled, and the entertainment is not worth an eighth of what charged for it compared with that of the olden time, when for an eight-and-sixpenny pit ticket you had Grisi, Mario, Lablache, and Tamburini, with minor vocalists, thorough artists, in the same opera. What a spectacle was the grand old house! The old aristocracy had their boxes for the season, as they had their town and country houses. You got intimate with them by sight; it was a pleasure to note how the beautiful young daughters of each family grew in gracefulness. You took respectful part in the marriages. At each opening season you marked whether the roses bloomed or paled upon the young cheeks, and you sympathised accordingly. You spoke of Lord Marlshire’s look with a hearty neighbourly feeling, and you were glad that Lady Marlshire really seemed only the eldest sister of a group of beauties who were her daughters. As for the sons of those great families, they were in full dress, sauntering or gossiping in that Elysium ill-naturedly called ‘Fops’ Alley’; they were exchanging recognitions with friends and kinsmen in all parts of the house. If you heard a distant laugh--loud enough where the laughers were moved to it--you might be sure it was caused by Lord Alvanley, who was telling some absurdly jocose story to a group of noble Young Englanders in the pit passage under the boxes. We have seen the quiet entry of a quiet man into a private box make quite a stir. Every stranger felt that the quiet man was a man of mark; he came to snatch a momentary joy, and then away to affairs of state again; he was the prime minister. Dozens of opera-goers have recorded their _souvenirs_ of the old glorious days when the opera, as they say, was an institution, opened only twice a week: whereas each house is merely an ordinary theatre, with audiences that are never, two nights running, chiefly made up of the same _habitués_. They have told what friendly interest used to be aroused when the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the Princess Victoria, took their seats every opera night. We seem again to hear a ringing laugh, and we know it comes from the sparkling English lady with an Italian title, the Countess St. Antonio. We seem again to see that marvellously audacious-looking pair, Lady Blessington and Count D’Orsay, gauging the house and appearing to differ as to conclusions. The red face of the Duchess of St. Albans and the almost as ruddy vessel from which her tea was poured have been described over and over again; and, in the records of other chroniclers we fancy that once more there come upon us the voices of two gentlemen who talked so above the singers that a remonstrant ‘Hush!’ went round the building. The offenders were the Duke of Gloucester and Sir Robert Wilson. The soldier would draw out of sight, and the prince would make a sort of apologetic remark in a voice a little higher than that which had given offence. These are reminiscences chronicled in the memoirs, diaries, and fugitive articles of old opera-goers.

Mr. Planché must have been among those ancient lovers of music and of song, and that he should record his experiences is a thing to be grateful for, especially as he writes of the battle and joys of life while he is still in harness and the wreathed bowl is in his hand. In 1818, he began with burlesque--‘Amoroso, King of Little Britain,’ written for amateurs, and taken by Harley, unknown to the author, to Drury Lane. In 1872, after fifty-four years of work, Mr. Planché executed the better portion of ‘Babil and Bijou,’ which, compared with ‘Amoroso,’ is as the _Great Eastern_ steamer to a walnut-shell. We heartily welcome all chroniclers of an art that lives only in the artist, and never survives him in tradition. Our own collection begins with Downes, and Mr. Planché’s emerald-green volumes will find room there. Scores of biographies are ‘squeezing’ room for him. Fred Reynolds’s portrait seems to say, ‘Let Planché come next to me.’ As we look at those dramatic historians we are struck with their usefulness as well as their power of entertaining. For example, a paragraph in one of the most ancient of dramatic chronicles--the ‘Roscius Anglicanus,’ by old Downes, the prompter--is of infinite use to the reputation of Shakespeare. Dryden, who produced _his_ version of ‘The Tempest’ to show how Shakespeare _ought_ to have written it, maintained that after the Restoration our national poet was not much cared for by the people, and that for a long time two plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were acted for one of Shakespeare. In Downes’s record the prompter registers the revival of ‘Hamlet;’ and, without any reference to Dryden, or knowledge, indeed, of his depreciation of Shakespeare, he states that the tragedy in question brought more money to the house and more reputation to the players than any piece by any other author during a great number of years.

To some nameless chronicler we owe a knowledge of the fact that Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ was played on board ship, in Shakespeare’s time, by sailors. Why was this left unnoticed when the royal captain of the _Galatea_ took the chair at the last Theatrical Fund dinner? But for the chroniclers we should be ignorant that, just six hundred years ago, the Chester mysteries and passion-plays were at their highest point of attraction. Indeed, they could never have been unattractive; for all those who undertook to witness the performance during about a month’s season were promised to be relieved from hundreds of years of the fire of purgatory. What a delicious feeling to the earnest play-goer, that the more regularly he went to the play on these occasions, the more pleasantly he would work out his salvation! The different dramatic scenes were represented by the best actors in the Chester trading companies. One would like to know on what principle the distribution of parts was made by the manager. Why should the Tanners have been chosen to play the ‘Fall of Lucifer’? What virtue was there in the Blacksmiths, that they should be especially appointed to enact ‘The Purification’? or, in the Butchers, that they should represent ‘The Temptation’? or, in the Bakers, that they should be deemed the fittest persons to illustrate ‘The Last Supper’? One can understand the Cooks being selected for ‘The Descent into Hell,’ because they were accustomed to stand fire; but what of angelical or evangelical could be found exclusively in the Tailors, that they should be cast for ‘The Ascension’? Were the Skinners, whose mission it was to play ‘The Resurrection,’ not deemed worthy of going higher? Or, were the Tailors lighter men, and more likely to rise with alacrity?

We are inclined to think that the idea of plays being naughty things and players more than naughty persons in the early days is a vulgar error. Plays must have been highly esteemed by the authorities, or Manningtree in Essex (and probably many another place) would not have enjoyed its privilege of holding a fair by tenure of exhibiting a certain number of stage plays annually.

There was undoubtedly something Aristophanic in many of the early plays. There was sharp satire, and sensitive ribs which shrank from the point of it. When the Cambridge University preachers satirised the Cambridge town morals the burgesses took the matter quietly; but when the Cambridge University players (students) caricatured the town manners in 1601, exaggerating their defects on the University stage, there was much indignation.