I perfectly remember relating an incident of my childhood to
Charles Lamb and his dear sister, and I have not the least doubt
that the intense interest he seemed to take in the recital,
induced him to adopt it as the principal feature in his beautiful
story of "Barbara S----." Much, however, as I venerate the
wonderful powers of Charles Lamb as a writer--grateful as I ever
must feel to have enjoyed for so many years the friendship of
himself and his dear sister, and proudly honoured as I am by the
two exquisite sonnets he has given to the world as tributary to my
humble talent, I have never been able thoroughly to appreciate the
extraordinary skill with which he has, in the construction of his
story, desired and contrived so to mystify and characterize
the events, as to keep me out of sight, and render it utterly
impossible for any one to guess at me as the original heroine....
In the year 1799, Miss Jackson, one of my mother's daughters, by
her first husband, was placed under the special care of dear old
Tate Wilkinson, proprietor of the York Theatre, there to practice,
as in due progression, what she had learned of Dramatic Art, while
a Chorus Singer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, coming back, as
she did after a few years, as the wife of the late celebrated,
inimitable Charles Mathews, to the Haymarket Theatre. In 1799,
through the influence of my uncle, Michael Kelly, the celebrated
singer and composer of that day, I was allowed to become a
miniature chorister in her place....
One Saturday, during the limited season of nine months in the
year, Mr. Peake (dear, good old gentleman!) looking, as I remember
he always did--anxiously perplexed--doubtless as to how he could
best dole out the too frequently insufficient amount provided for
the ill-paid company, silently looked me in the face, while he
carefully folded a very _dirty, ragged_ bank note--put it into my
hand, patted my cheek, and with a slight pressure on my shoulder,
hinting there was no time for our usual gossip--as good as said,
"go, my dear," and I hurried down the long gallery, lined down
each side with performers of all degrees, more than one of whom
whispered as I passed--"Is it full pay, dear?" I nodded "Yes," and
proceeded to my seat on the window of the landing-place.
It was a great comfort in those days, to have a bank-note to
look at; but not always easy to open one. Mine had been cut and
repaired with a line of gum paper, about twenty times as thick as
the note itself, threatening the total destruction of the thin
part.
Now observe in what small matters Fanny and Barbara were in a
marked degree different characters. Barbara, at 11 years of age,
was some time before she felt the different size of a guinea to a
half guinea, _held tight in her hand_. I, at nine years old, was
not so untaught, or innocent. I was a woman of the world. I took
_nothing_ for granted. I had a deep respect for Mr. Peake, but the
join might have disfigured the note--destroyed its currency; and
it was my business to see all safe. So, I carefully opened it. A
two pound-note instead of one! The blood rushed into my face, the
tears into my eyes, and for a moment, something like an ecstasy
of joy passed through my mind. "Oh! what a blessing to my dear
mother!"--"To whom?"--in an instant said my violently beating
heart,--"My mother?" Why she would spurn me for the wish. How
shall I ever own to her my guilty thought? I trembled violently--I
staggered back on my way to the Treasury, but no one would let me
pass, until I said, "But Mr. Peake has given me too much." "Too
much, has he?" said one, and was followed by a coarse, cold,
derisive, general laugh. Oh! how it went to my heart; but on I
went.
"If you please, Mr. Peake, you have given me a two--"
"A what?"
"A two, Sir!"
"A two!--God bless my soul!--tut-tut-tut-tut--dear, dear,
dear!--God bless my soul! There, dear," and without another word,
he, in exchange, laid a one pound note on the desk; a new one,
quite clean,--a bright, honest looking note,--mine, the one I had
a right to,--my own,--within the limit of my poor deservings.
Thus, my dear sir, I give (as you say you wish to have the _facts_
as accurately stated as possible) the simple, absolute truth.
As a matter of fact Miss Kelly did afterwards play in Morton's
"Children in the Wood," to Lamb's great satisfaction. The incident of
the roast fowl is in that play.
In Vol. I. will be found more than one eulogy of Miss Kelly's acting.
Page 231, last line. _Real hot tears_. In Crabb Robinson's diary Miss
Kelly relates that when, as Constance, in "King John," Mrs. Siddons
(not Mrs. Porter) wept over her, her collar was wet with Mrs. Siddons'
tears. Miss Kelly, of course, was playing Arthur.
Page 232, line 7. _Impediment ... pulpit_. This is more true than
the casual reader may suppose. Had Lamb not had an impediment in his
speech, he would have become, at Christ's Hospital, a Grecian, and
have gone to one of the universities; and the ordinary fate of a
Grecian was to take orders.
Page 232, line 13. _Mr. Liston_. Mrs. Cowden Clarke says that Liston
the comedian and his wife were among the visitors to the Lambs' rooms
at Great Russell Street.
Page 232, line 14. _Mrs. Charles Kemble_, _née_ Maria Theresa De Camp,
mother of Fanny Kemble.
Page 232, line 16. _Macready_. The only record of any conference
between Macready and Lamb is Macready's remark in his _Diary_ that he
met Lamb at Talfourd's, and Lamb said that he wished to draw his last
breath through a pipe, and exhale it in a pun. But this was long after
the present essay was written.
Page 232, line 17. _Picture Gallery ... Mr. Matthews_. See note below.
Page 232, line 26. _Not Diamond's_. Dimond was the proprietor of the
old Bath Theatre.
Page 235, first line. _Mrs. Crawford_. Anne Crawford (1734-1801),
_née_ Street, who was born at Bath, married successively a Mr. Dancer,
Spranger Barry the actor, and a Mr. Crawford. Her great part was Lady
Randolph in Home's "Douglas."
* * * * *
Page 235. THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY.
_London Magazine_, October, 1823, where, with slight differences,
it formed the concluding portion of the "Letter of Elia to Robert
Southey, Esquire," which will be found in Vol. I. The notes in that
volume should be consulted; but a little may be said here. This, the
less personal portion of the "Letter to Southey," seems to have been
all that Lamb cared to retain. He admitted afterwards, when his
anger against Southey had cooled, that his "guardian angel" had been
"absent" at the time he wrote it.
The Dean of Westminster at the time was Ireland, the friend of
Gifford--dean from 1815 to 1842. Lamb's protest against the
two-shilling fee was supported a year or so later than its first
appearance by Reynolds, in _Odes and Addresses_, 1825, in a sarcastic
appeal to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster to reduce that sum. The
passage in Lamb's essay being reprinted in 1833, suggests that the
reform still tarried. The evidence, however, of J.T. Smith, in his
_Book for a Rainy Day_, is that it was possible in 1822 to enter
Poets' Corner for sixpence. Dean Stanley, in his _Historical Memorials
of Westminster Abbey_, writes: "Free admission was given to the larger
part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first
appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts opened, and the fees
lowered in 1841...."
Lamb's reference to Southey and to André's monument is
characteristically mischievous. He is reminding Southey of his early
sympathy with rebels--his "Wat Tyler" and pantisocratic days. Major
John André, Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-general, was caught returning
from an interview with an American traitor--a perfectly honourable
proceeding in warfare--and was hanged by Washington as a spy in 1780.
No blame attached either to judge or victim. André's remains were
reburied in the Abbey in 1821. Lamb speaks of injury to André's figure
in the monument, but the usual thing was for the figure of Washington
to be attacked. Its head has had to be renewed more than once. Minor
thefts have also been committed. According to Mrs. Gordon's _Life of
Dean Buckland_, one piece of vandalism at any rate was the work of an
American, who returned to the dean two heads which he had appropriated
as relics.
In _The Examiner_ for April 8, 1821, is quoted from _The Traveller_
the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which
shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for churches
was in the air.