As I was walking one morning with Buckthorne, near one of the
Principal theaters, he directed my attention to a group of those
equivocal beings that may often be seen hovering about the
stage-doors of theaters. They were marvellously ill-favored in
their attire, their coats buttoned up to their chins; yet they
wore their hats smartly on one side, and had a certain knowing,
dirty-gentlemanlike air, which is common to the subalterns of the
drama. Buckthorne knew them well by early experience.
These, said he, are the ghosts of departed kings and heroes;
fellows who sway sceptres and truncheons; command kingdoms and
armies; and after giving way realms and treasures over night,
have scarce a shilling to pay for a breakfast in the morning. Yet
they have the true vagabond abhorrence of all useful and
industrious employment; and they have their pleasures too: one of
which is to lounge in this way in the sunshine, at the
stage-door, during rehearsals, and make hackneyed theatrical
jokes on all passers-by.
Nothing is more traditional and legitimate than the stage. Old
scenery, old clothes, old sentiments, old ranting, and old jokes,
are handed down from generation to generation; and will probably
continue to be so, until time shall be no more. Every hanger-on
of a theater becomes a wag by inheritance, and flourishes about
at tap-rooms and six-penny clubs, with the property jokes of the
green-room.
While amusing ourselves with reconnoitring this group, we noticed
one in particular who appeared to be the oracle. He was a
weather-beaten veteran, a little bronzed by time and beer, who
had no doubt, grown gray in the parts of robbers, cardinals,
Roman senators, and walking noblemen.
“There’s something in the set of that hat, and the turn of that
physiognomy, that is extremely familiar to me,” said Buckthorne.
He looked a little closer. “I cannot be mistaken,” added he,
“that must be my old brother of the truncheon, Flimsey, the
tragic hero of the strolling company.”
It was he in fact. The poor fellow showed evident signs that
times went hard with him; he was so finely and shabbily dressed.
His coat was somewhat threadbare, and of the Lord Townly cut;
single-breasted, and scarcely capable of meeting in front of his
body; which, from long intimacy, had acquired the symmetry and
robustness of a beer-barrel. He wore a pair of dingy white
stockinet pantaloons, which had much ado to reach his waistcoat;
a great quantity of dirty cravat; and a pair of old
russet-colored tragedy boots.
When his companions had dispersed, Buckthorne drew him aside and
made Himself known to him. The tragic veteran could scarcely
recognize him, or believe that he was really his quondam
associate “little gentleman Jack.” Buckthorne invited him to a
neighboring coffee-house to talk over old times; and in the
course of a little while we were put in possession of his history
in brief.
He had continued to act the heroes in the strolling company for
some time after Buckthorne had left it, or rather had been driven
from it so abruptly. At length the manager died, and the troop
was thrown into confusion. Every one aspired to the crown; every
one was for taking the lead; and the manager’s widow, although a
tragedy queen, and a brimstone to boot, pronounced it utterly
impossible to keep any control over such a set of tempestuous
rascallions.
Upon this hint I spoke, said Flimsey—I stepped forward, and
offered my services in the most effectual way. They were
accepted. In a week’s time I married the widow and succeeded to
the throne. “The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the
marriage table,” as Hamlet says. But the ghost of my predecessor
never haunted me; and I inherited crowns, sceptres, bowls,
daggers, and all the stage trappings and trumpery, not omitting
the widow, without the least molestation.
I now led a flourishing life of it; for our company was pretty
strong And attractive, and as my wife and I took the heavy parts
of tragedy, it was a great saving to the treasury. We carried off
the palm from all the rival shows at country fairs; and I assure
you we have even drawn full houses, and being applauded by the
critics at Bartlemy fair itself, though we had Astley’s troupe,
the Irish giant, and “the death of Nelson” in wax-work to contend
against.
I soon began to experience, however, the cares of command. I
discovered that there were cabals breaking out in the company,
headed by the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly
peevish, fractious fellow, and always in ill-humor. I had a great
mind to turn him off at once, but I could not do without him, for
there was not a droller scoundrel on the stage. His very shape
was comic, for he had to turn his back upon the audience and all
the ladies were ready to die with laughing. He felt his
importance, and took advantage of it. He would keep the audience
in a continual roar, and then come behind the scenes and fret and
fume and play the very devil. I excused a great deal in him,
however, knowing that comic actors are a little prone to this
infirmity of temper.
I had another trouble of a nearer and dearer nature to struggle
with; which was, the affection of my wife. As ill luck would have
it, she took it into her head to be very fond of me, and became
intolerably jealous. I could not keep a pretty girl in the
company, and hardly dared embrace an ugly one, even when my part
required it. I have known her to reduce a fine lady to tatters,
“to very rags,” as Hamlet says, in an instant, and destroy one of
the very best dresses in the wardrobe; merely because she saw me
kiss her at the side scenes;—though I give you my honor it was
done merely by way of rehearsal.
This was doubly annoying, because I have a natural liking to
pretty faces, and wish to have them about me; and because they
are indispensable to the success of a company at a fair, where
one has to vie with so many rival theatres. But when once a
jealous wife gets a freak in her head there’s no use in talking
of interest or anything else. Egad, sirs, I have more than once
trembled when, during a fit of her tantrums, she was playing high
tragedy, and flourishing her tin dagger on the stage, lest she
should give way to her humor, and stab some fancied rival in good
earnest.
I went on better, however, than could be expected, considering
the weakness of my flesh and the violence of my rib. I had not a
much worse time of it than old Jupiter, whose spouse was
continually ferreting out some new intrigue and making the
heavens almost too hot to hold him.
At length, as luck would have it, we were performing at a country
fair, when I understood the theatre of a neighboring town to be
vacant. I had always been desirous to be enrolled in a settled
company, and the height of my desire was to get on a par with a
brother-in-law, who was manager of a regular theatre, and who had
looked down upon me. Here was an opportunity not to be neglected.
I concluded an agreement with the proprietors, and in a few days
opened the theatre with great eclát.
Behold me now at the summit of my ambition, “the high top-gallant
of my joy,” as Thomas says. No longer a chieftain of a wandering
tribe, but the monarch of a legitimate throne—and entitled to
call even the great potentates of Covent Garden and Drury Lane
cousin.
You no doubt think my happiness complete. Alas, sir! I was one of
the Most uncomfortable dogs living. No one knows, who has not
tried, the miseries of a manager; but above all, of a country
management—no one can conceive the contentions and quarrels
within doors, the oppressions and vexations from without.
I was pestered with the bloods and loungers of a country town,
who infested my green-room, and played the mischief among my
actresses. But there was no shaking them off. It would have been
ruin to affront them; for, though troublesome friends, they would
have been dangerous enemies. Then there were the village critics
and village amateurs, who were continually tormenting me with
advice, and getting into a passion if I would not take
it:—especially the village doctor and the village attorney; who
had both been to London occasionally, and knew what acting should
be.
I had also to manage as arrant a crew of scapegraces as were ever
collected together within the walls of a theatre. I had been
obliged to combine my original troupe with some of the former
troupe of the theatre, who were favorites with the public. Here
was a mixture that produced perpetual ferment. They were all the
time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I
scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they
quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they
were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each
other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the
character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character
that a manager can possess.
Their waggery at times drove me almost crazy; for there is
nothing so Vexatious as the hackneyed tricks and hoaxes and
pleasantries of a veteran band of theatrical vagabonds. I
relished them well enough, it is true, while I was merely one of
the company, but as manager I found them detestable. They were
incessantly bringing some disgrace upon the theatre by their
tavern frolics, and their pranks about the country town. All my
lectures upon the importance of keeping up the dignity of the
profession, and the respectability of the company were in vain.
The villains could not sympathize with the delicate feelings of a
man in station. They even trifled with the seriousness of stage
business. I have had the whole piece interrupted, and a crowded
audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the
actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind, and have known
Hamlet stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a
dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful
consequences of a manager’s getting a character for good nature.
I was intolerably annoyed, too, by the great actors who came down
_starring_, as it is called, from London. Of all baneful
influences, keep me from that of a London star. A first-rate
actress going the rounds of the country theatres, is as bad as a
blazing comet, whisking about the heavens, and shaking fire, and
plagues, and discords from its tail.
The moment one of these “heavenly bodies” appeared on my horizon,
I was sure to be in hot water. My theatre was overrun by
provincial dandies, copper-washed counterfeits of Bond street
loungers; who are always proud to be in the train of an actress
from town, and anxious to be thought on exceeding good terms with
her. It was really a relief to me when some random young nobleman
would come in pursuit of the bait, and awe all this small fry to
a distance. I have always felt myself more at ease with a
nobleman than with the dandy of a country town.
And then the injuries I suffered in my personal dignity and my
managerial authority from the visits of these great London
actors. Sir, I was no longer master of myself or my throne. I was
hectored and lectured in my own green-room, and made an absolute
nincompoop on my own stage. There is no tyrant so absolute and
capricious as a London star at a country theatre.
I dreaded the sight of all of them; and yet if I did not engage
them, I was sure of having the public clamorous against me. They
drew full houses, and appeared to be making my fortune; but they
swallowed up all the profits by their insatiable demands. They
were absolute tape-worms to my little theatre; the more it took
in, the poorer it grew. They were sure to leave me with an
exhausted public, empty benches, and a score or two of affronts
to settle among the townsfolk, in consequence of
misunderstandings about the taking of places.
But the worst thing I had to undergo in my managerial career was
patronage. Oh, sir, of all things deliver me from the patronage
of the great people of a country town. It was my ruin. You must
know that this town, though small, was filled with feuds, and
parties, and great folks; being a busy little trading and
manufacturing town. The mischief was that their greatness was of
a kind not to be settled by reference to the court calendar, or
college of heraldry. It was therefore the most quarrelsome kind
of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but let me tell you
there are no feuds more furious than the frontier feuds, which
take place on these “debatable lands” of gentility. The most
violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that
occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between
the ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of
needles.
At the town where I was situated there were perpetual
altercations of the kind. The head manufacturer’s lady, for
instance, was at daggers drawings with the head shopkeeper’s, and
both were too rich and had too many friends to be treated
lightly. The doctor’s and lawyer’s ladies held their heads still
higher; but they in their turn were kept in check by the wife of
a country banker, who kept her own carriage; while a masculine
widow of cracked character, and second-hand fashion, who lived in
a large house, and was in some way related to nobility, looked
down upon them all. She had been exiled from the great world, but
here she ruled absolute. To be sure her manners were not
over-elegant, nor her fortune over-large; but then, sir, her
blood—oh, her blood carried it all hollow, there was no
withstanding a woman with such blood in her veins.
After all, she had frequent battles for precedence at balls and
assemblies, with some of the sturdy dames of the neighborhood,
who stood upon their wealth and their reputations; but then she
had two dashing daughters, who dressed as fine as dragons, and
had as high blood as their mother, and seconded her in
everything. So they carried their point with high heads, and
every body hated, abused, and stood in awe of the Fantadlins.
Such was the state of the fashionable world in this
self-important little town. Unluckily I was not as well
acquainted with its politics as I should have been. I had found
myself a stranger and in great perplexities during my first
season; I determined, therefore, to put myself under the
patronage of some powerful name, and thus to take the field with
the prejudices of the public in my favor. I cast round my
thoughts for the purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs.
Fantadlin. No one seemed to me to have a more absolute sway in
the world of fashion. I had always noticed that her party slammed
the box door the loudest at the theatre; had most beaux attending
on them; and talked and laughed loudest during the performance;
and then the Miss Fantadlins wore always more feathers and
flowers than any other ladies; and used quizzing glasses
incessantly. The first evening of my theatre’s reopening,
therefore, was announced in flaring capitals on the play bills,
“under the patronage of the Honorable Mrs. Fantadlin,”
Sir, the whole community flew to arms! The banker’s wife felt her
Dignity grievously insulted at not having the preference; her
husband being high bailiff, and the richest man in the place. She
immediately issued invitations for a large party, for the night
of the performance, and asked many a lady to it whom she never
had noticed before. The fashionable world had long groaned under
the tyranny of the Fantadlins, and were glad to make a common
cause against this new instance of assumption.—Presume to
patronize the theatre! insufferable! Those, too, who had never
before been noticed by the banker’s lady, were ready to enlist in
any quarrel, for the honor of her acquaintance. All minor feuds
were therefore forgotten. The doctor’s lady and the lawyer’s lady
met together; and the manufacturer’s lady and the shopkeeper’s
lady kissed each other, and all, headed by the banker’s lady,
voted the theatre a _bore_, and determined to encourage nothing
but the Indian Jugglers, and Mr. Walker’s Eidonianeon.
Alas for poor Pillgarlick! I little knew the mischief that was
brewing against me. My box book remained blank. The evening
arrived, but no audience. The music struck up to a tolerable pit
and gallery, but no fashionables! I peeped anxiously from behind
the curtain, but the time passed away; the play was retarded
until pit and gallery became furious; and I had to raise the
curtain, and play my greatest part in tragedy to “a beggarly
account of empty boxes.”
It is true the Fantadlins came late, as was their custom, and
entered like a tempest, with a flutter of feathers and red
shawls; but they were evidently disconcerted at finding they had
no one to admire and envy them, and were enraged at this glaring
defection of their fashionable followers. All the beau-monde were
engaged at the banker’s lady’s rout. They remained for some time
in solitary and uncomfortable state, and though they had the
theatre almost to themselves, yet, for the first time, they
talked in whispers. They left the house at the end of the first
piece, and I never saw them afterwards.
Such was the rock on which I split. I never got over the
patronage of the Fantadlin family. It became the vogue to abuse
the theatre and declare the performers shocking. An equestrian
troupe opened a circus in the town about the same time, and rose
on my ruins. My house was deserted; my actors grew discontented
because they were ill paid; my door became a hammering-place for
every bailiff in the county; and my wife became more and more
shrewish and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort.
The establishment now became a scene of confusion and peculation.
I Was considered a ruined man, and of course fair game for every
one to pluck at, as every one plunders a sinking ship. Day after
day some of the troupe deserted, and like deserting soldiers,
carried off their arms and accoutrements with them. In this
manner my wardrobe took legs and walked away; my finery strolled
all over the country; my swords and daggers glittered in every
barn; until at last my tailor made “one fell swoop,” and carried
off three dress coats, half a dozen doublets, and nineteen pair
of flesh-colored pantaloons.
This was the “be all and the end all” of my fortune. I no longer
hesitated what to do. Egad, thought I, since stealing is the
order of the day, I’ll steal too. So I secretly gathered together
the jewels of my wardrobe; packed up a hero’s dress in a
handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly
stole off at dead of night—“the bell then beating one,”—leaving
my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and
my merciless foes, the bum-bailiffs.
Such, sir, was the “end of all my greatness.” I was heartily
cured of All passion for governing, and returned once more into
the ranks. I had for some time the usual run of an actor’s life.
I played in various country theatres, at fairs, and in barns;
sometimes hard pushed; sometimes flush, until on one occasion I
came within an ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of the
wonders of the age.
I was playing the part of Richard the Third in a country barn,
and Absolutely “out-Heroding Herod.” An agent of one of the great
London theatres was present. He was on the lookout for something
that might be got up as a prodigy. The theatre, it seems, was in
desperate condition—nothing but a miracle could save it. He
pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in
my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a
little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked; so that
it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the
agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder; as the restorer of
natural and legitimate acting; as the only one who could
understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the
next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming
modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy
of such praise.
“’Sblood, man!” said he, “no praise at all. You don’t imagine
that I think you all this. I only want the public to think so.
Nothing so easy as gulling the public if you only set up a
prodigy. You need not try to act well, you must only act
furiously. No matter what you do, or how you act, so that it be
but odd and strange. We will have all the pit packed, and the
newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous actors,
it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If
you rant, it shall be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall
be a touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into
raptures, and shout and yell, at certain points which you shall
make. If you do but escape pelting the first night, your fortune
and the fortune of the theatre is made.”
I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be
the restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama;
my very swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the
standard of elocution. Alas, sir! my usual luck attended me.
Before I arrived in the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared.
A woman who could dance the slack rope, and run up a cord from
the stage to the gallery with fire-works all round her. She was
seized on by the management with avidity; she was the saving of
the great national theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of
but Madame Saqui’s fire-works and flame-colored pantaloons; and
nature, Shakespeare, the legitimate drama, and poor Pillgarlick
were completely left in the lurch.
However, as the manager was in honor bound to provide for me, he
kept his word. It had been a turn-up of a die whether I should be
Alexander the Great or Alexander the copper-smith; the latter
carried it. I could not be put at the head of the drama, so I was
put at the tail. In other words, I was enrolled among the number
of what are called useful men; who, let me tell you, are the only
comfortable actors on the stage. We are safe from hisses and
below the hope of applause. We fear not the success of rivals,
nor dread the critic’s pen. So long as we get the words of our
parts, and they are not often many, it is all we care for. We
have our own merriment, our own friends, and our own admirers;
for every actor has his friends and admirers, from the highest to
the lowest. The first-rate actor dines with the noble amateur,
and entertains a fashionable table with scraps and songs and
theatrical slip-slop. The second-rate actors have their
second-rate friends and admirers, with whom they likewise spout
tragedy and talk slip-slop; and so down even to us; who have our
friends and admirers among spruce clerks and aspiring
apprentices, who treat us to a dinner now and then, and enjoy at
tenth hand the same scraps and songs and slip-slop that have been
served up by our more fortunate brethren at the tables of the
great.
I now, for the first time in my theatrical life, knew what true
pleasure is. I have known enough of notoriety to pity the poor
devils who are called favorites of the public. I would rather be
a kitten in the arms of a spoiled child, to be one moment petted
and pampered, and the next moment thumped over the head with the
spoon. I smile, too, to see our leading actors, fretting
themselves with envy and jealousy about a trumpery renown,
questionable in its quality and uncertain in its duration. I
laugh, too, though of course in my sleeve, at the bustle and
importance and trouble and perplexities of our manager, who is
harassing himself to death in the hopeless effort to please every
body.
I have found among my fellow subalterns two or three quondam
managers, who, like myself, have wielded the sceptres of country
theatres; and we have many a sly joke together at the expense of
the manager and the public. Sometimes, too, we meet like deposed
and exiled kings, talk over the events of our respective reigns;
moralize over a tankard of ale, and laugh at the humbug of the
great and little world; which, I take it, is the very essence of
practical philosophy.
Thus end the anecdotes of Buckthorne and his friends. A few
mornings after our hearing the history of the ex-manager, he
bounced into my room before I was out of bed.
“Give me joy! give me joy!” said he, rubbing his hands with the
utmost glee, “my great expectations are realized!”
I stared at him with a look of wonder and inquiry. “My booby
cousin is dead!” cried he, “may he rest in peace! He nearly broke
his neck in a fall from his horse in a fox-chase. By good luck he
lived long enough to make his will. He has made me his heir,
partly out of an odd feeling of retributive justice, and partly
because, as he says, none of his own family or friends know how
to enjoy such an estate. I’m off to the country to take
possession. I’ve done with authorship.—That for the critics!”
said he, snapping his fingers. “Come down to Doubting Castle when
I get settled, and egad! I’ll give you a rouse.” So saying he
shook me heartily by the hand and bounded off in high spirits.
A long time elapsed before I heard from him again. Indeed, it was
but a short time since that I received a letter written in the
happiest of moods. He was getting the estate into fine order,
everything went to his wishes, and what was more, he was married
to Sacharissa: who, it seems, had always entertained an ardent
though secret attachment for him, which he fortunately discovered
just after coming to his estate.
“I find,” said he, “you are a little given to the sin of
authorship which I renounce. If the anecdotes I have given you of
my story are of any interest, you may make use of them; but come
down to Doubting Castle and see how we live, and I’ll give you my
whole London life over a social glass; and a rattling history it
shall be about authors and reviewers.”
If ever I visit Doubting Castle, and get the history he promises,
the Public shall be sure to hear of it.