(_With Recollections_.)
Great actors have two lives, or rather they have double deaths. Their
leave-taking of the public, their "retirement," as biographers call it, is
one death; since a playgoer then considers an actor dead "to all intents
and purposes"--a very _non est_. Public regrets are showered about your
great actor, and by some he is forgotten with the last trump of his praise.
He "retires:" that is, he looks out for a cottage in the country, far
removed from his former sphere of action, (as plain John Fawcett did the
other day,) or he diverges to a snug box in the suburbs of London, still
lingering about the great stage, as did honest Joseph Munden about seven
years since. People in the boxes or pit look out for his successor in the
bills of the play--then say "we ne'er shall look upon his like again,"
(the greatest, though perhaps the most equivocal, tribute ever paid to
genius,) but a few months reconcile them to the loss; they approve the
successor, though they deplore the change, "and though the present they
regret, they are grateful for the past." Then comes your actor's second
farewell--his final exit--and "last of all comes death." A line or two in
a newspaper tells you that Munden died on Monday last. One exclaims "I
thought he had been dead these seven years;" but another, of more grateful
and reflective temperament, throws down the "_diurnal_" to lament the
death of the man as he had hitherto regretted the loss of the actor. His
former regret too is resuscitated. A mere paragraph rounds the little life
of your actor, his entrances and exits, and he who "appeared" on one stage
in 1790, as Sir Francis Gripe and Jemmy Jumps, disappeared from that
greater stage, or all the world, as Joseph Munden. We have often thought
these _farewells_ of actors must be with them dismal affairs, especially
in old age. They must remind them of a last farewell, and we know
The sense of death is most in apprehension.
But, is this fitting for the obituary of a _comic_ actor? Yes, we reply,
and as both are but occasions of appeal to the passions, we may think the
death of a tragedian less striking than the former, since all tragedies
end with death, and death in itself is but a scene of tragedy. Is any
lament of Shakspeare's heroes more touching than his apostrophe to the
scull of Yorick, the King's jester, the mad fellow that poured a flagon of
Rhenish on the clown's head: "a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent
fancy. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of
merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock
your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?"
Munden was the son of a poulterer in Brooke's Market, Holborn, where he
was born in the year 1758. His father died soon afterwards, leaving his
widow with slender means, and Munden was thrust upon the world to seek his
fortune at twelve years of age. He was placed in an apothecary's shop, but
soon left it for an attorney's office. Perhaps, like Dr. Wolcot, he
fancied the clinking of the pestle and mortar said "Kill 'em again! kill
'em again." From the attorney's office, he "fell off," as Hamlet's Ghost
would say, to a law-stationer's shop, and became "a hackney writer:" the
technicality needs not explanation: to hack at anything is neither the
road to fame nor a good meal. He was apprenticed in Chancery Lane: his
master died and was succeeded by an older man, of the square-toed
fraternity, who taxed Munden with being a Macaroni more than a tradesman.
Munden, in consequence, parted from his master, and once more returned to
the office of a solicitor. They who remember Munden, a staid-dressing man
in later years, may smile at his early observance of the glass of fashion.
About this time Munden appears to have first imbibed a taste for the stage,
and with it an admiration of the genius of Garrick; indeed, he had seen
more of Garrick's acting than had any of his contemporaries in 1820, Quick
and Bannister excepted. What a fine president would Munden have been of
the _Garrick Club_, the members of which probably know as much about
Garrick as they care about Thespis. Acquaintance with an actor fed Munden's
_penchant_ for the stage, but did not fill his pocket. Both started for
Liverpool, the actor upon an engagement, but Munden in _hope_ of one; the
latter engaged in the office of the Town Clerk, but only realized his hope
in copying for the theatre, walking in processions, and bearing banners,
at one shilling per night! At length he _acted_ the _first Carrier_ in
_Henry IV_. He next joined a company at Rochdale, which he soon left, and
returning to Liverpool, smothered his dramatic passion for two years, when
he started for Chester, with a light heart, a bundle wardrobe, and a
guinea. He entered Chester with his "last shilling," which he paid for
admission to the theatre, little thinking of provision for the night. Yet
Munden, in later life, was a prudent, parsimonious man. At the close of
the performance he fell in with a person who had been a butcher's
apprentice in Brooks's Market, and who remembering young Joseph's antic
tricks, gave him good cheer, and money for his return to London. On the
road, necessity overtook him, when meeting a Warwickshire militia-man, who
was marching to the town at which he was billeted, Munden prevailed on the
soldier to represent him as a comrade. The trick told: he was ordered to
the general mess-room and received as one among the warriors; and his
lively humour made him king of the company for the night. Next morning the
regiment mustered, and Munden was told to follow and be enlisted; but, as
he had obtained all he wished, a supper and a bed, he left his military
friends to their glory,[1] and proceeded to London. Here he again returned
to the law, but once more emerged from it, and joined a company at
Leatherhead, as a representative of old men. But the theatre was burnt.
Munden next played at Windsor with tolerable success, at half a guinea per
week; and subsequently at Colnbrook and Andover. He returned to London,
and thence went to Canterbury, in 1780, to play low comedy characters,
where he first became what theatrical biographers term "a favourite."
After other provincial engagements and a short trial of management at
Sheffield, Munden appeared December 2, 1790, (a few nights after the first
appearance of Incledon,) at Covent Garden Theatre as _Sir Francis Gripe_,
in the _Busy Body_, and _Jemmy Jumps_ in the _Farmer_; his success in
which parts after the impressions made by Parsons and Edwin was little
short of a miracle. His popularity now became settled. He was the original
representative of _Old Rapid, Caustic, Brummagem, Lazarillo, (Two Strings
to your Bow,) Crack, Nipperkin, Sir Abel Handy, Sir Robert Bramble, Old
Dornton_, &c. In 1797 and 1798, he played at the Haymarket, but his summer
vacations were chiefly filled up by engagements at the provincial theatres.
Munden remained at Covent Garden Theatre till 1813, when he joined the
Drury Lane company. Here he remained until May 31, 1824, when he took his
farewell of the stage, in the characters of _Sir Robert Bramble, (Poor
Gentleman_,[2]) and _Old Dozy_, (in _Past Ten o'clock_.) He _read_ his
farewell address, thus rendering it strikingly ineffective, since his
spectacles became obscured with tears. The leave-taking had, however, a
touch of real tragedy, which few could withstand. He now retired with a
respectable fortune, and lived in genteel style in Bernard-street, Russell
Square, till his 74th year.
Munden's style of acting was exuberant with humour. His face was his
fortune: it was all changeful nature: his eye glistened and rolled, and
lit up alternately every corner of his laughing face: "then the eternal
tortuosities of his nose, and the alarming descent of his chin, contrasted,
as it eternally was, with the portentous rise of his eyebrows." He has
been blamed for grimace, but it should be remembered that many of his
characters verged on caricatures. That he could play comic characters
chastely was amply shown in his Polonius; and touch the finer feelings of
our nature was exemplified in his Old Dornton, in Holcroft's catching play
of the _Road to Ruin_. The fine discrimination evinced by Munden in the
grief and joy of the exclamations "Who would be a father," and "Who would
_not_ be a father," will not soon be forgotten. We think we see and hear
his stout figure, in black, with florid face, and powdered hair, his
raised and clasped hands,--rushing out of the lockup-house scene in all
the fervid extasy of a father rejoicing at the escape of his son from
destruction. In Crack, Dozey, Nipperkin, and other drunken characters, his
drollery was irresistible. His intoxication displayed as much
discrimination as his pathetic performances. Who can forget his stare in
being detected in his fuddling as Dozey, and his plea for drinking to
"_wa-ash_ down your honour's health:" or his _anti-polarity_ as Nipperkin,
when his very legs seemed drunk beneath him; his attempt to set down the
keg would stagger the disbelievers of perpetual motion. Again, who did not
relish the richness of his voice, and the arch crispness which he gave to
some words, while others came not trippingly off his tongue, but lingered
and jarred with an effect which accounts for so many imitators. His mouth
had a peculiar twist, somewhat resembling that of Mathews, which at times
almost forbad his plain speaking.