(_London Magazine_, October, 1822)
I do not know a more mortifying thing than to be conscious of a
foregone delight, with a total oblivion of the person and manner
which conveyed it. In dreams I often stretch and strain after the
countenance of Edwin, whom I once saw in Peeping Tom. I cannot catch a
feature of him. He is no more to me than Nokes or Pinkethman. Parsons,
and still more Dodd, were near being lost to me, till I was refreshed
with their portraits (fine treat) the other day at Mr. Mathews's
gallery at Highgate; which, with the exception of the Hogarth
pictures, a few years since exhibited in Pall Mall, was the most
delightful collection I ever gained admission to. There hang the
players, in their single persons, and in grouped scenes, from the
Restoration--Bettertons, Booths, Garricks, justifying the prejudices
which we entertain for them--the Bracegirdles, the Mountforts, and the
Oldfields, fresh as Cibber has described them--the Woffington (a true
Hogarth) upon a couch, dallying and dangerous--the Screen Scene in
Brinsley's famous comedy, with Smith and Mrs. Abingdon, whom I have
not seen, and the rest, whom having seen, I see still there. There is
Henderson, unrivalled in Comus, whom I saw at second hand in the elder
Harley--Harley, the rival of Holman, in Horatio--Holman, with the
bright glittering teeth in Lothario, and the deep paviour's sighs in
Romeo--the jolliest person ("our son is fat") of any Hamlet I have
yet seen, with the most laudable attempts (for a personable man) at
looking melancholy--and Pope, the abdicated monarch of tragedy and
comedy, in Harry the Eighth and Lord Townley. There hang the two
Aickins, brethren in mediocrity--Wroughton, who in Kitely seemed to
have forgotten that in prouder days he had personated Alexander--the
specious form of John Palmer, with the special effrontery of
Bobby--Bensley, with the trumpet-tongue, and little Quick (the retired
Dioclesian of Islington) with his squeak like a Bart'lemew fiddle.
There are fixed, cold as in life, the immovable features of Moody,
who, afraid of o'erstepping nature, sometimes stopped short of
her--and the restless fidgetiness of Lewis, who, with no such fears,
not seldom leaped o' the other side. There hang Farren and Whitfield,
and Burton and Phillimore, names of small account in those times, but
which, remembered now, or casually recalled by the sight of an old
play-bill, with their associated recordations, can "drown an eye
unused to flow." There too hangs (not far removed from them in death)
the graceful plainness of the first Mrs. Pope, with a voice unstrung
by age, but which, in her better days, must have competed with the
silver tones of Barry himself, so enchanting in decay do I remember
it--of all her lady parts exceeding herself in the Lady Quakeress
(there earth touched heaven!) of O'Keefe, when she played it to
the "merry cousin" of Lewis--and Mrs. Mattocks, the sensiblest
of viragos--and Miss Pope, a gentlewoman ever, to the verge of
ungentility, with Churchill's compliment still burnishing upon her gay
Honeycomb lips. There are the two Bannisters, and Sedgwick, and Kelly,
and Dignum (Diggy), and the bygone features of Mrs. Ward, matchless in
Lady Loverule; and the collective majesty of the whole Kemble family,
and (Shakspeare's woman) Dora Jordan; and, by her, _two Antics_, who
in former and in latter days have chiefly beguiled us of our griefs;
whose portraits we shall strive to recall, for the sympathy of those
who may not have had the benefit of viewing the matchless Highgate
Collection.