Madame Rollan, who died in 1785, in the seventy-fifth year of her age,
was a principal dancer on Covent-garden stage in 1731, and followed her
profession, by private teaching, to the last year of her life. She had
so much celebrity in her day, that having one evening sprained her
ancle, no less an actor than Quin was ordered by the manager to make an
apology to the audience for her not appearing in the dance. Quin, who
looked upon all dancers as “the mere garnish of the stage,” at first
demurred; but being threatened with a forfeiture, he growlingly came
forward, and in his coarse way thus addressed the audience:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“I am desired by the manager to inform you, that the dance intended for
this night is obliged to be postponed, on account of mademoiselle Rollan
having dislocated her ancle: I wish it had been her neck.”
* * * * *
In Quin’s time Hippesley was the Roscius of low comedy; he had a large
scar on his cheek, occasioned by being dropped into the fire, by a
careless nurse, when an infant, which gave a very whimsical cast to his
features. Conversing with Quin concerning his son, he told him, he had
some thoughts of bringing him on the stage. “Oh,” replied the cynic, “if
that is your intention, I think it is high time you should burn his
face.”
* * * * *
On one of the first nights of the opera of Cymon at Drury-lane theatre,
when the late Mr. Vernon began the last air in the fourth act, which
runs,
“Torn from me, torn from me, which way did they take her?”
a dissatisfied musical critic immediately answered the actor’s
interrogation in the following words, and to the great astonishment of
the audience, in the exact tune of the air,
“Why towards Long-acre, towards Long-acre.”
This unexpected circumstance naturally embarrassed poor Vernon, but in a
moment recovering himself, he sung in rejoinder, the following words,
instead of the author’s:
“Ho, ho, did they so,
Then I’ll soon overtake her,
I’ll soon overtake her.”
Vernon then precipitately made his exit amidst the plaudits of the whole
house.
* * * * *
~Home Department.~