permission was given for the engaging of women as actresses, on the
ground that the employment of men in such parts had given great
offence. I more particularly notice this matter, because it was a
knight who first opened a theatre with a regular female _troupe_
added to the usual number of male actors. Sir William’s ladies were
Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Saunderson, Mrs. Davies, Mrs. Long, Mrs. Gibbs,
Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Holden, and Mrs. Jennings. The first four were Sir
William’s principal actresses, and these were boarded in the knight’s
own dwelling-house. Their title of “Mistress” does not necessarily
imply that they were married ladies, but rather that they were old
enough to be so.
This knight, too, was the first who introduced scenery on the stage. I
will add (_par parenthèse_) that it was a priest who first suggested
the levelling of the pit with the stage, for the purpose of masquerades
and balls.
Prynne was not among those who fancied that morality would profit
by the introduction of actresses. He had his misgivings as to the
effects likely to be produced on the susceptible young gallants of
his day. Touching the appearance of the French actresses at the
Blackfriars Theatre, noticed above, he calls it “an impudent, shameful,
un-womanish, graceless, if not more than w----ish attempt.” The fashion
was, undoubtedly, first set by the court, and by no less a person than
a queen. Anne of Denmark, wife of James I., acted a part in a pastoral.
They who remember some of the incidents of the training she gave her
son, the princely knight young Henry, will hardly think that Anne gave
dignity to the occupation she temporarily assumed.
Mrs. Saunderson is said to have been the first regularly-engaged
actress who opened her lips on the English stage. Had she and her
compeers only half the charms which report ascribed to them, they
must have afforded far more pleasure to audience and spectators than
the “beautiful woman-actor,” Stephen Hamerton Hart, with his womanly
dignity; Burt, with his odious female sprightliness; or Goffe, who was
as hearty and bustling as old Mrs. Davenport. King Charles himself and
his cavaliers, too, must have been especially delighted when they were
no longer kept waiting for the commencement of a play, on the ground
that the _Queen_ was not yet shaved.
It is curious that there were some people not near so strait-laced
as Prynne, who considered that public virtue would suffer shipwreck
if actresses were permitted to establish themselves in the general
favor. The opposite party, of course, went to an opposite extreme;
and in 1672, not only were “Philaster,” and Killigrew’s “Parson’s
Wedding,” played _entirely_ by women, but one of the “Miss” Marshalls,
gay daughter of a Presbyterian minister, on both occasions spoke
the prologue and epilogue in male attire. “Philaster” is simply an
absurd piece, which was rendered popular by Hart and Nell Gwyn;
but with respect to Killigrew’s piece, it is so disgusting, from
the commencement to the finale, that I can hardly fancy how any
individuals, barely alive to their humanity, could be brought to utter
and enact the turpitudes which Killigrew set down for them, or that an
audience could be kept from fleeing from the house before the first act
was over.
But the gallants could endure anything rather than a return to such
effects as are alluded to by a contemporary writer, who, by way of
introducing a female Desdemona, said in his prologue--
“Our women are defective and so sized
You’d think they were some of the guard disguised;
For, to speak truth, men act that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With brow so large, and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call _Desdemona_--enter _Giant_.”
Half a century elapsed before knight or gentleman took an actress from
the stage, for the purpose of making her his wife. The squires, in
this case, had precedence of the knights; and the antiquary, Martin
Folkyes, led the way by espousing Lucretia Bradshaw, the uncorrupted
amid corruption, and the original Corinna in the “Confederacy,” Dorinda
in the “Beaux Stratagem,” and Arabella Zeal in the “Fair Quaker of
Deal.” This marriage took place in 1713, and there was not a happier
hearth in England than that of the antiquary and the actress. A knight
of the Garter followed, with an earl’s coronet, and in 1735 the great
Lord Peterborough acknowledged his marriage with that daughter of sweet
sounds, Anastasia Robinson. This example at once flattered, provoked,
and stimulated the ladies, one of whom, the daughter of Earl de
Waldegrave, Lady Henrietta Herbert, married young Beard the actor. This
was thought “low,” and another knight’s daughter was less censured for
marrying her father’s footman. The “Beggars’ Opera” gave two coronets
to two Pollys. Lavinia Fenton (Betswick), the original Polly at
Lincoln’s Inn, in 1728, became Duchess of Bolton a few years later; and
in 1813, no less a man than Lord Thurlow married Mary Catherine Bolton,
who was scarcely an inferior _Polly_ to the original lady, who gave up
_Polly_ to become a Bolton.
The squires once more took their turn when Sheridan married Miss
Lindley; but before the last century closed, Miss Farren gave her hand
to “the proudest earl in England,” the Earl of Derby, Knight of the
Bath. In 1807, knight and squire took two ladies from the stage. In
that year Mr. Heathcote married the beautiful Miss Searle; and Earl
Craven married Louisa Brunton. We have still among us five ex-actresses
who married men of the degree of noble, knight, or squire. These are
Miss Stephens, the widowed Countess of Essex; Miss Foote, the widowed
Countess of Harrington; Miss O’Neill the widow of Sir William Beecher,
Bart.; Mrs. Nisbett, the relict of the bold Sir Felix Boothby; and Miss
M. Tree, whose late husband, Mr. Bradshaw, was at one time M. P. for
Canterbury.
There is something romantic in the lives of all these ladies, but most
in that of “Lizzy Farren,” and as the life of that lady of a Knight
of the Bath has something in common with the career of a celebrated
legal knight and judge, I will take some of its incidents as the chief
points in the following sketch, which is a supplementary chapter to the
Romance of History, and perhaps not the least interesting one in such a
series.
If gayety consists in noise, then was the market-place of Salisbury,
toward the close of Christmas Eve, 1769, extremely joyous and glad. In
the centre, on a raised stage, his Worship the Mayor was inaugurating
the holyday-time, by having a bout at single-stick with an itinerant
exhibitor of the art of self-defence from London. The “professor” had
been soliciting the magisterial permission to set up his stage in the
market-place, and he had not only received full license, but the chief
magistrate himself condescended to take a stick and try his strength
with the professor.
It was an edifying sight, and bumpkins and burgesses enjoyed it
consumedly. The professional fencer allowed his adversary to count
many “hits” out of pure gratitude. But he had some self-respect,
and in order that his reputation might not suffer in the estimation
of the spectators, he wound up the “set-to” by dealing a stroke on
the right-worshipful skull, which made the mayor imagine that chaos
was come again, and that all about him was dancing confusedly into
annihilation.
“I am afraid I have accidentally hurt your worship’s head,” said the
wickedly sympathizing single-stick player.
“H’m!” murmured the fallen great man, with a ghastly smile, and Iris’s
seven hues upon his cheek, “don’t mention it: there’s nothing in it!”
“I am truly rejoiced,” replied the professor to his assistant, with a
wink of the eye, “that his worship has not lost his senses.”
“Oh, ay!” exclaimed the rough aide, “he’s about as wise as ever he was.”
The single-stick player looked like Pizarro, who, when he _did_ kill
a friend occasionally--“his custom i’ th’ afternoon”--always went to
the funeral in a mourning suit and a droop of the eye--intended for
sympathy. In the meantime the mayor, who had been fancying himself in a
balloon, and that he was being whirled away from his native town, began
to think that the balloon was settling to earth again, and that the
representation of chaos had been indefinitely deferred. He continued,
however, holding on by the rail, as if the balloon was yet unsteady,
and he only complained of a drumming in the ears.
At that moment the not-to-be-mistaken sound of a real drum fell in
harsh accompaniment upon his singing-ears, and it had one good effect,
that of bringing back the magistrate and the man. Both looked through
the rather shaken windows of the one body, and indignation speedily
lighted up from within.
The sound came from the suburb of Fisherton, but it swelled insultingly
nearer and nearer, as though announcing that it was about to be beaten
in the borough, despite the lack of magisterial sanction. The great
depository of authority began to gaze in speechless horror, as the
bearer of the noisy instrument made his appearance in the market-place
at the head of a small procession, which was at once seen to consist of
a party of strolling actors.
The drummer was a thick-set man, with nothing healthy looking about him
but his nose, and that looked _too_ healthy. He was the low comedian,
and was naturally endowed to assume that distinctive line.
He was followed by three or four couple of “the ladies and gentlemen
of the company,” of some of whom it might be said, that shoes were
things they did not much stand upon. They had a shabby genteel air
about them, looked hungry and happy; and one or two wore one hand in
the pocket, upon an economizing principle in reference to gloves. The
light comedian cut jokes with the spectators, and was soon invited to
the consequence he aimed at--an invitation to “take a glass of wine.”
The women were more tawdry-looking than the men, but they wore a
light-hearted, romping aspect--all, except the young lady who played
Ophelia and Columbine, who carried a baby, and looked as if she had not
been asleep since it was born, which was probably the case.
The _cortège_ was closed by a fine, gentleman-like man, who led by
the hand a little girl some ten years old. No one could look for
a moment at them, without at once feeling assured that there was
something in them which placed them above the fellows with whom they
consorted. They were father and daughter. _He_ manager; _she_ a species
of infant phenomenon. In his face were to be traced the furrows of
disappointment, and in his eye the gleam of hope. _Her_ face was
as faces of the young should ever be, full of enjoyment, love, and
feeling. The last two were especially there for the father, whose hand
she held, and into whose face she looked, ever and anon, with a smile
which never failed to be repaid in similar currency.
The refined air of the father, and the graceful bearing of the modest
daughter, won commendations from all beholders. He was an ex-surgeon
of Cork, who had given up his profession in order to follow the stage.
People set him down as insane, and so he was, but it was an insanity
which made a countess of his daughter. His name was Farren, and his
child, pet daughter of a pretty mother, was the inimitable Lizzy.
If the mayor could have read into history, he would have knelt down
and kissed Lizzy Farren’s shoe-buckles. As he could not so read, he
only saw in the sire a vagabond, and in the child a mountebank. On the
former he hurled down the whole weight of his magisterial wrath. It
was in vain that the manager declared he was on his way to solicit the
mayor’s license to act in Salisbury. That official gentleman declared
that it was an infraction of the law to pass from the suburb of
Fisherton into the borough of Salisbury before the mayor’s permission
had been previously signified.
“And that permission I will never give,” said his worship. “We are
a godly people here, and have no taste for rascal-players. As his
majesty’s representative, I am bound to encourage no amusements that
are not respectable.”
“But our young king,” interrupted Mr. Farren, “is himself a great
patron of the theatre.”
This was worse than a heavy blow at single-stick; and the mayor was the
more wrath as he had no argument ready to meet it. After looking angry
for a moment, a bright thought struck him.
“Ay, ay, sir! You will not, I hope, teach a mayor either fact or duty.
We know, sir, what the king (God bless him!) patronizes. His majesty
does not patronize strollers. He goes regularly to an _established_
church, sir, and to an _established_ theatre; and so, sir, I, as mayor,
support only establishments. Good heavens! what would become of the
throne and the altar, if a Mayor of Sarum were to do otherwise?”
As Mr. Farren did not well know, he could not readily tell; and as he
stood mute, the mayor continued to pour down upon the player and his
vocation, a shower of obloquy. At every allusion which he made to his
predilection for amusements that were respectable and instructive,
the single-stick player and his man drew themselves up, cried “_Hear!
hear!_” and looked down upon the actors with an air of burlesque
contempt. The actors, men and women, returned the look with a burst of
uncontrollable laughter. The mayor took this for deliberate insult,
aimed at himself and at what he chose to patronize. His protégés looked
the more proud, and became louder than ever in their self-applauding
“_Hear! hear!_” The players, the while, shrieked with laughter. Even
Mr. Farren and Lizzy could not refrain from risibility, for the
stick-player and his man were really members of the company. The former
was Mr. Frederick Fitzmontague, who was great in _Hamlet_. His man was
the ruffian in melodramas, and the clown in pantomimes, and as he did
a little private business of his own by accepting an engagement from a
religious society, during the dull season of the year, to preach on the
highways against theatricals, Mr. Osmond Brontere was usually known by
the cognomen of Missionary Jack.
The magisterial refusal to license this wandering company to play in
Salisbury, was followed by altercation; and altercation by riot. The
multitude took part with the actors, and they hooted the mayor; and
the latter, viewing poor Farren as the cause and guilty mover of all
that had occurred, summarily ordered his arrest; and, in spite of all
remonstrance, resistance, or loudly-expressed disgust, the manager
was ultimately lodged in the cage. The mob, then, satisfied at having
had a little excitement, and caring nothing more about the matter, at
length separated, and repaired to their respective homes. They went all
the quicker that the rain had begun to descend in torrents; and they
took little notice of poor Lizzy, who went home in the dusk, weeping
bitterly, and led by the hands of the matronly Ophelia and Missionary
Jack.
Ere morning dawned, a change had come over the scene. The rain had
ceased. A hard frost had set in. All Salisbury looked as if it were
built upon a frozen lake. The market-place itself was a _mer de
glace_. Christmas-day was scarcely visible when a boy of early habits,
standing at the door of an upholsterer’s shop, which bore above it
the name of Burroughs, fancied he saw something moving with stealthy
pace across the market-place; and he amused himself by watching it
through the gloom. It was developed, after a while, into the figure
of a thinly-clad girl, bearing in her arms a bowl of hot milk. She
trod cautiously, and looked, now down at her feet, now across the wide
square, to measure the distance she had yet to go. Each little foot
was put forward with hesitation, and so slowly was progress made, that
there was good chance of the boiling milk being frozen, before it had
been carried half-way to its destination.
The girl was Lizzy Farren, and in the bowl, which between her arms
looked as graceful as urn clasped by Arcadian nymph, lay the chief
portion of a breakfast destined, on this sad Christmas morning, for her
captive sire in the cage.
“She’ll be down!” said young Burroughs, as he saw her partially slip.
Lizzy, however, recovered herself; but so alarmed was she at her
situation, so terrified when she measured the distance she had to
accomplish by that which she had already traversed, that she fairly
stood still near the centre of the market-place, and wept aloud over
the hot bowl and her cold position. It was then that the young knight
recognised the crisis when he was authorized to interfere. He made a
run from the door, shot one leg in advance, drew the other quickly
after him, and went sliding, with express-train speed, close up to
Lizzy’s feet. _She_ no sooner saw the direful prospect of collision
than she shrieked with an energy which roused all the rooks in the
close.
“Hold hard!” exclaimed the merry-faced boy; “hold hard! that’s myself,
you Lizzy, and the milk. Hold hard!” he continued, as he half held her
up, half held on to her. “Hold hard! or we shall all be down together.”
“Oh, where do you come from? and how do you know my name is Lizzy?”
“Well! Mr. Fitzmontague lodges in our house, and he told us all about
you, last night. And he said, as sure as could be, you would be awake
before anybody in Salisbury. And sure enough, here you are, almost
before daylight.”
By the help of the young cavalier, the distressed damsel was relieved
from her perplexity. Young Burroughs offered to carry the bowl, which
she stoutly refused. “No one,” she said, “shall carry my father’s
breakfast to him, but myself, on such a morning.” And so, her
deliverer walked tenderly by her side, holding her cautiously up, nor
ceased from his care, until Lizzy and her burden had safely reached
the cage. Through the bars of the small window, Farren had watched her
coming; and he hailed her arrival with a “God bless you, my own child!”
“Oh, papa!” said Lizzy, weeping again, and embracing the bowl as warmly
as if it had been her father himself; “oh, papa! what would mamma and
my little sisters, and all our friends in Liverpool say, if they knew
how we are beginning our Christmas day?”
“Things unknown are unfelt, my darling. We will tell them nothing about
it, till Fortune gilds over the memory of it. But what do you bring,
Lizzy?--or rather, why do I ask? It is my breakfast; and Lizzy herself
has had none.”
A pretty altercation ensued; but Lizzy gained her point; and not one
drop would she taste till her sire had commenced the repast. Aided by
young Burroughs, she held the lip of the bowl through the bars of the
cage; and the little English maiden smiled, for the first time since
yesterday, at beholding her sire imbibe the quickening draught. It
was not till three years after that Barry and his wife played Evander
and Euphrasia in the Grecian Daughter, or Farren would have drawn a
parallel suitable to the occasion. He was not so well up in history as
in theatricals; and on the stage, history has a terrible time of it.
Witness this very tragedy in which Murphy has made Evander, King of
Sicily, and confounded Dionysius the elder, with his younger namesake.
To be sure, pleasant Palmer, who played the character, was about as
wise as Murphy.
When the primitive breakfast was concluded, Lizzy stood sad and silent;
and the father sadly and silently looked down at her; while young
Burroughs leaned against the wall, as sad and silent as either of them.
And so a weary two hours passed; at the end of which, a town-constable
appeared, accompanied by a clerical gentleman, and empowered to give
liberty to the captive. When the constable told the manager that his
liberation was owing to the intercession made in his behalf, by the
Reverend Mr. Snodgrass, who had just arrived in Salisbury, Lizzy
clapped her hands with agitation, for she saw that the clerical
interceder was no other than Missionary Jack. “Oh, Mr. Brontere,” said
the curious girl, when they had all reached home together, “how did you
ever manage it?”
“Well!” said the enterprising actor, with a laugh; “I called on his
worship, to inquire what Christmas charities might be acceptable; and
if there were any prisoners whom my humble means might liberate. He
named your papa, and the company have paid what was necessary. His
worship was not inexorable, particularly as I incidentally told him his
Majesty patronized, the other day, an itinerant company at Datchet. As
for _how_ I did it. I rather think I am irresistible in the dress in
which poor Will Havard, only two years ago, played ‘Old Adam.’ A little
ingenuity, as you see, has made it look very like a rector’s costume;
and, besides,” said Missionary Jack, “I sometimes think that nature
intended me for the church.”
* * * * *
Three years had elapsed. On the Christmas eve of 1772, all the
play-going people of Wakefield were in a state of pleasant excitement,
at the promise made in bills posted over the town announcing the
immediate appearance of the “Young Queen of Columbines.” All the young
bachelors of the town were besieging the box-office. In those days
there were not only theatres in provincial towns, but people really
went to them. Amid the applicants, was a sprightly-looking articled
clerk, who, having achieved his object, had stopped for a moment at the
stage-door to read the programme of the forthcoming pantomime. While
thus engaged the Columbine Queen, the most fairy-looking of youthful
figures, brilliant as spring, and light as gossamer, sweet fifteen,
with a look of being a year or two more, tripped into the street, on
her way home from rehearsal. Eighty years ago the gallantry of country
towns, with respect to pretty actresses, was much like that which
characterizes German localities now. It was of a rudely enthusiastic
quality. Accordingly, the fairy-looking Columbine had hardly proceeded
a dozen yards, when she had twice as many offers made her of arms,
whereon to find support over the slippery pavement. It was an
old-fashioned winter in Wakefield, and Columbine’s suitors had as many
falls in the course of their assiduities, as though they had been so
many “Lovers” in the pantomime, and the wand of Harlequin was tripping
them up as they skipped along. Columbine got skilfully rid of them all
in time, except one; and _he_ became at last so unwelcomely intrusive,
that the articled clerk, who was the very champion of distressed
damsels, and had been a watcher of what was going on, went up to the
young lady, took her arm in his, without any ceremony, and bade her
persecutor proceed any further, at his peril. The gentleman took the
hint, and left knight and lady to continue their way unmolested. They
no sooner saw themselves alone, when, looking into each other’s faces,
they laughed a merry laugh of recognition, and it would be difficult
to say which was the merrier--Miss Farren or Mr. Burroughs, the young
actress and the incipient lawyer.
When boxing-night came, there was a crowded house, and Lizzy created
a _furore_. Like Carlotta Grisi, she could sing as well as dance, and
there was a bright intellect, to boot, pervading all she did. On the
night in question, she sang between the acts; and young Burroughs,
ever watchful, especially marked the effect of her singing upon a
very ecstatic amateur who was seated next to him. “What a treasure,”
said the amateur, “would this girl be in Liverpool!” “Well,” remarked
Burroughs, “I am ready to accept an engagement for her. State your
terms. Thirty shillings a-week, I presume, will not quite exhaust your
treasury.” “I will certainly,” said the stranger, “tell our manager,
Younger, of the prize which is to be acquired so cheaply; and the
affair need not be delayed; for Younger is at the Swan, and will be
down here to-night, to see the pantomime.”
In five minutes, Burroughs was sitting face-to-face with Younger at
the inn, urging him to go at once, not to see Columbine dance, but to
hear her sing. “I wonder,” said the manager, “if your young friend is
the child of the Cork surgeon who married the daughter of Wright, the
Liverpool brewer. If so, she’s clever; besides, why----”
“Why she’ll make your fortune,” said the lawyer’s clerk. “She is the
grand-daughter of your Liverpool brewer, sings like a nightingale, and
is worth five pounds a week to you at least. Come and hear her.”