_In a Letter to the Editor of the "London Magazine."_
Hark'ee, Mr. Editor. A word in your ear. They tell me you are going to
put me in print,--in print, Sir; to publish my life. What is my life to
you, Sir? What is it to you whether I ever lived at all? My life is a
very good life, Sir. I am insured at the Pelican, Sir. I am threescore
years and six,--six; mark me, Sir: but I can play Polonius, which, I
believe, few of your corre--correspondents can do, Sir. I suspect
tricks, Sir; I smell a rat: I do, I do. You would cog the die upon us:
you would, you would, Sir. But I will forestall you, Sir. You would be
deriving me from William the Conqueror, with a murrain to you. It is no
such thing, Sir. The town shall know better, Sir. They begin to smoke
your flams, Sir. Mr. Liston may be born where he pleases, Sir; but I
will not be born at Lup--Lupton Magna for anybody's pleasure, Sir. My
son and I have looked over the great map of Kent together, and we can
find no such place as you would palm upon us, Sir,--palm upon us, I say.
Neither Magna nor Parva, as my son says; and he knows Latin,
Sir,--Latin. If you write my life true, Sir, you must set down, that I,
Joseph Munden, comedian, came into the world upon Allhallows Day, Anno
Domini 1759,--1759; no sooner nor later, Sir: and I saw the first
light--the first light, remember, Sir--at Stoke Pogis,--Stoke Pogis,
_comitatu_ Bucks, and not at Lup--Lup Magna, which I believe to be no
better than moonshine,--moonshine; do you mark me, Sir? I wonder you can
put such flim-flams upon us, Sir: I do, I do. It does not become you,
Sir: I say it,--I say it. And my father was an honest tradesman, Sir: he
dealt in malt and hops, Sir; and was a Corporation-man, Sir; and of the
Church of England, Sir; and no Presbyterian, nor Ana--Anabaptist, Sir;
however you may be disposed to make honest people believe to the
contrary, Sir. Your bams are found out, Sir. The town will be your
stale puts no longer, Sir; and you must not send us jolly fellows,
Sir,--we that are comedians, Sir,--you must not send us into groves and
Charn--Charnwoods a-moping, Sir. Neither Charns, nor charnel-houses,
Sir. It is not our constitutions, Sir: I tell it you,--I tell it you. I
was a droll dog from my cradle. I came into the world tittering, and the
midwife tittered, and the gossips spilt their caudle with tittering; and
when I was brought to the font, the parson could not christen me for
tittering. So I was never more than half baptized. And when I was little
Joey, I made 'em all titter; there was not a melancholy face to be seen
in Pogis. Pure nature, Sir. I was born a comedian. Old Screwup, the
undertaker, could tell you, Sir, if he were living. Why, I was obliged
to be locked up every time there was to be a funeral at Pogis. I was, I
was, Sir. I used to _grimace_ at the mutes, as he called it, and put 'em
out with my mops and my mows, till they couldn't stand at a door for me.
And when I was locked up, with nothing but a cat in my company, I
followed my bent with trying to make her laugh; and sometimes she would,
and sometimes she would not. And my schoolmaster could make nothing of
me: I had only to thrust my tongue in my cheek,--in my cheek, Sir,--and
the rod dropped from his fingers; and so my education was limited, Sir.
And I grew up a young fellow, and it was thought convenient to enter me
upon some course of life that should make me serious; but it wouldn't
do, Sir. And I articled to a dry-salter. My father gave forty pounds
premium with me, Sir. I can show the indent--dent--dentures, Sir. But I
was born to be a comedian, Sir: so I ran away, and listed with the
players, Sir; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and
played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part
of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age; and he did not
know me again, but he knew me afterwards; and then he laughed, and I
laughed, and, what is better, the dry-salter laughed, and gave me up my
articles for the joke's sake: so that I came into court afterwards with
clean hands,--with clean hands; do you see, Sir?
[Here the manuscript becomes illegible for two or three sheets onwards,
which we presume to be occasioned by the absence of Mr. Munden, jun.,
who clearly transcribed it for the press thus far. The rest (with the
exception of the concluding paragraph, which seemingly is resumed in the
first handwriting) appears to contain a confused account of some lawsuit
in which the elder Munden was engaged; with a circumstantial history of
the proceedings on a case of breach of promise of marriage, made to or
by (we cannot pick out which) Jemima Munden, spinster, probably the
comedian's cousin, for it does not appear he had any sister; with a few
dates, rather better preserved, of this great actor's engagements,--as
"Cheltenham, [spelt Cheltnam,] 1776," "Bath, 1779," "London,
1789,"--together with stage-anecdotes of Messrs. Edwin, Wilson, Lee,
Lewis, etc.; over which we have strained our eyes to no purpose, in the
hope of presenting something amusing to the public. Towards the end, the
manuscript brightens up a little, as we have said, and concludes in the
following manner.]
---- stood before them for six-and-thirty years, [we suspect that Mr.
Munden is here speaking of his final leave-taking of the stage,] and to
be dismissed at last. But I was heart-whole,--heart-whole to the last,
Sir. What though a few drops did course themselves down the old
veteran's cheeks? who could help it, Sir? I was a giant that night, Sir,
and could have played fifty parts, each as arduous as Dozey. My
faculties were never better, Sir. But I was to be laid upon the shelf.
It did not suit the public to laugh with their old servant any longer,
Sir. [Here some moisture has blotted a sentence or two.] But I can play
Polonius still, Sir: I can, I can.
Your servant, Sir,
JOSEPH MUNDEN.
* * * * *
In the "Reflector," a short-lived periodical set up by Leigh Hunt, and
in which Lamb's quaint and beautiful poem, "A Farewell to Tobacco," and
his masterly critical essays on "The Tragedies of Shakspeare," and on
"The Genius of Hogarth," and other of his early writings, appeared, I
find the following characteristic article from Elia's pen.
The reader will observe (and smile as he observes) that there is a great
difference between the "good clerk" of fifty years ago and the "good
clerk" of to-day. He of yesterday is a wonderfully simple, humble,
automaton-like person, in comparison with the brisk, dashing,
independent "votaries of the desk" of the year eighteen hundred and
sixty-four.
* * * * *