At the north end of Cross Court there yet stands a portal, of some
architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at
present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if
you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance
to Old Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it
without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to
the evening when I passed through it to see _my first play_. The
afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder
folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating
heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of
which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to
remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.
We went with orders, which my godfather F.[23] had sent us. He kept
the oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone Building, in
Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had
pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John
Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if
John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his
manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by,
Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought
his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at
Bath--the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a
quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious
charge.--From either of these connexions it may be inferred that my
godfather could command an order for the then Drury Lane theatre at
pleasure--and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets,
in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole
remuneration which he had received for many years' nightly
illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre--and
he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's
familiarity--or supposed familiarity--was better to my godfather than
money.
[Footnote 23: Field.]
F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen: grandiloquent, yet courteous.
His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had
two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin
from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled
me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded
_vice versa_--but in those young years they impressed me with more awe
than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro--in his own
peculiar pronunciation monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicised,
into something like _verse verse_. By an imposing manner, and the help
of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the
highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow.
He is dead--and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my
first orders (little wondrous talismans!--slight keys, and
insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian
paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came
into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my
own--situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in
Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted
foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon
me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over
my allotment of three-quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion
in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all
betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more
prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who
abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at
the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door
in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again!--with the cry
of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those
days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the
theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase some
numparels, chase a bill of the play;"--chase _pro_ chuse. But when we
got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my
imagination, which was soon to be disclosed----the breathless
anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate
prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakespeare--the tent
scene with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in
a measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full
of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the
pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I
know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling--a homely
fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised
imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a
glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair
Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once
again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a
sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time.
The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play was
Artaxerxes!
I had dabbled a little in the Universal History--the ancient part of
it--and here was the court of Persia. I was being admitted to a sight
of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I
understood not its import--but I heard the word Darius, and I was in
the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous
vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not
players. I was in Persepolis for the time; and the burning idol of
their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was
awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more
than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such
pleasure has since visited me but in dreams.--Harlequin's invasion
followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates
into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice,
and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the
legend of St. Denys.
The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of
which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left
in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost--a
satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my
apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of
antiquity as Lud--the father of a line of Harlequins--transmitting his
dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the
primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white
patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins
(thought I) look when they are dead.
My third play followed in quick succession. It was the Way of the
World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I
remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me
like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed; in which
Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic as in
the story.--The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have
clean passed out of my head. I believe, I no more laughed at them,
than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the
grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout
meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old
Round Church (my church) of the Templars.
I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven
years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at
school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a
theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my
fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same
occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than
the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the
first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated
nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all--