Page 164, line 26, etc. _Sir Simon, etc_. All these characters are in
Wycherley's "Love in a Wood."
Page 166, line 21. _King_. Thomas King (1730-1805), at one time
manager of Drury Lane, the original Sir Peter Teazle, on May 8, 1777,
the first night of the "School for Scandal," and the most famous actor
in the part until he retired in 1802.
Page 167, line 14. _Miss Pope_. Jane Pope (1742-1818), the original
Mrs. Candour, left the stage in 1808.
Page 167, line 15 from foot. _Manager's comedy_. Sheridan was manager
of Drury Lane when the "School for Scandal" was produced.
Page 167, same line. _Miss Farren ... Mrs. Abingdon_. Elizabeth
Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, played Lady Teazle for the last
time in 1797. Mrs. Abingdon had retired from Drury Lane in 1782.
Page 167, line 10 from foot. _Smith_. "Gentleman" Smith took his
farewell of the stage, as Charles Surface, in 1788.
Page 168, end of essay. _Fashionable tragedy_. See page 328, line 21,
for the continuation of this essay in the _London Magazine_.
* * * * *
Page 168. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN.
See note to the essay "On Some of the Old Actors" above. Lamb lifted
this essay into the _London Magazine_ from _The Examiner_, where it
had appeared on November 7 and 8, 1819, with slight changes.
Page 168, title. _Munden_. Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832) acted at
Covent Garden practically continuously from 1790 to 1811. He moved
to Drury Lane in 1813, and remained there till the end. His farewell
performance was on May 31, 1824. We know Lamb to have met Munden from
Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_.
Page 168, line 2 of essay. _Cockletop_. In O'Keeffe's farce "Modern
Antiques." This farce is no longer played, although a skilful hand
might, I think, make it attractive to our audiences. Barry Cornwall in
his memoir of Lamb has a passage concerning Munden as Cockletop, which
helps to support Lamb's praise. Support is not necessary, but useful;
it is one of the misfortunes of the actor's calling that he can live
only in the praise of his critics.
In the Drama of "Modern Antiques," especially, space was allowed
him for his movements. The words were nothing. The prosperity of
the piece depended exclusively on the genius of the actor.
Munden enacted the part of an old man credulous beyond ordinary
credulity; and when he came upon the stage there was in him an
almost sublime look of wonder, passing over the scene and people
around him, and settling apparently somewhere beyond the moon.
What he believed in, improbable as it was to mere terrestrial
visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,--to be true.
The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial
nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's
tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognised it.
"What a large tear!" he exclaimed. Then they place in his hands
a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern
gridiron. He touches the chords gently: "pipes to the spirit
ditties of no tone;" and you imagine Æolian strains. At last,
William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat
him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the
scull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of
acting that I ever witnessed. Munden accepts the accredited cap
of Tell, with confusion and reverence. He places it slowly and
solemnly on his head, growing taller in the act of crowning
himself. Soon he swells into the heroic size; a great archer; and
enters upon his dreadful task. He weighs the arrow carefully; he
tries the tension of the bow, the elasticity of the string; and
finally, after a most deliberate aim, he permits the arrow to fly,
and looks forward at the same time with intense anxiety. You hear
the twang, you see the hero's knitted forehead, his eagerness; you
tremble;--at last you mark his calmer brow, his relaxing smile,
and are satisfied that the son is saved!--It is difficult to paint
in words this extraordinary performance, which I have several
times seen; but you feel that it is transcendent. You think of
Sagittarius, in the broad circle of the Zodiac; you recollect that
archery is as old as Genesis; you are reminded that Ishmael, the
son of Hagar, wandered about the Judæan deserts and became an
archer.
Page 169, line 16. _Edwin_. This would probably be John Edwin the
Elder (1749-1790). But John Edwin the Younger (1768-1805) might have
been meant. He was well known in Nipperkin, one of Munden's parts.
Page 169, line 21. _Farley...Knight...Liston_. Charles Farley
(1771-1859), mainly known as the deviser of Covent Garden pantomimes;
Edward Knight (1774-1826), an eccentric little comedian; John Listen
(1776?-1846), whose mock biography Lamb wrote (see Vol. I.).
Page 169, line 7 from foot. _Sir Christopher Curry...Old Dornton_. Sir
Christopher in "Inkle and Yarico," by the younger Colman; Old Dornton
in Holcroft's "Road to Ruin."
Page 170, line 6. _The Cobbler of Preston_. A play, founded on "The
Taming of the Shrew," by Charles Johnson, written in 1716.