Street Theatre on that November night. The university students in the
gallery, who generally made it rattle with their wit, were silent
as soon as the curtain rose. The Dublin audience was by no means an
audience easy to please, or one that would befool itself by passing
mediocrity with the stamp of genius upon it. ‘Douglas,’ too, is a
tragedy that must be attentively listened to, to be enjoyed, and
enjoyment is out of the question if the poetry of the piece be a lost
beauty to the deliverer of the lines. On this night, Dublin ratified
the Belfast verdict. The graceful boy excited the utmost enthusiasm,
and the manager offered him an engagement at an increasing salary,
for any number of years. The offer was wisely declined by Master
Betty’s father, and the ‘Infant Roscius’ went on his bright career.
He played one other part, admirably suited to him in every respect,
Prince Arthur, in ‘King John,’ and he fairly drowned the house in tears
with it. Frederick, in ‘Lovers’ Vows,’ and Romeo, were only a trifle
beyond his age, not at all beyond his grasp, though love-making was the
circumstance which he could the least satisfactorily portray. A boy
sighing like furnace to young beauty must have seemed as ridiculous as
a Juliet of fifty, looking older than the Nurse, and who, one would
think, ought to be ashamed of herself to be out in a balcony at that
time of night, talking nonsense with that young fellow with a feather
in his cap and a sword on his thigh! Dublin wits made fun of Master
Betty’s wooing, and were epigrammatic upon it in the style of Martial,
and saucy actresses seized the same theme to air their saucy wit. These
casters of stones from the roadside could not impede the boy’s triumph.
He produced immense effect, even in Thomson’s dreary ‘Tancred,’ but I
am sorry to find it asserted that he acted Hamlet, after learning the
part in three days. The great Betterton, greatest of the great masters
of their art, used to say that he had acted Hamlet and studied it for
fifty years, and had not got to the bottom of its philosophy even
then. However, the boy’s remarkable gifts made his Hamlet successful.
There was a rare comedian who played with him, Richard Jones, with
a cast in one eye. Accomplished Dick, whose only serious fault was
excess in peppermint lozenges, acted Osric, Count Cassel, and Mercutio,
in three of the pieces in which Master Betty played the principal
characters. What a glorious true comedian was Dick! After delighting a
whole generation with his comedy, Jones retired. He taught clergymen
to read the Lord’s Prayer as if they were in earnest, and to deliver
the messages of the Gospel as if they believed in them; and in this
way Dick Jones did as much for the church as any of the bishops or
archbishops of his time.
It is to be noted here that Master Betty’s first appearance in Dublin
in 1803 was a more triumphant matter than John Kemble’s in 1781. This
was in the older Smock Alley Theatre. The alley was so called from the
Sallys who most did congregate there. He played high comedy as well
as tragedy; but, says Mr. Gilbert, in his ‘History of Dublin,’ ‘his
negligent delivery and heaviness of deportment impeded his progress
until these defects were removed by the instruction of his friend,
Captain Jephson.’ Is not this delicious? Fancy John Kemble being
made an actor by a half-pay captain who had written a tragedy! This
tragedy was called the ‘Count of Narbonne,’ and therein, says Gilbert,
‘Kemble’s reputation was first established.’ It was not on a very firm
basis, for John was engaged only on the modest salary of 5_l._ a week!
Master Betty’s progress through the other parts of Ireland was as
completely successful as at Dublin and Belfast. Mrs. Pero engaged
him for six nights at Cork. His terms here were one-fourth of the
receipts and one clear benefit, that is to say, the whole of the
receipts free of expense. As the receipts rarely exceeded ten pounds,
the prospects were not brilliant. But, with Master Betty, the ‘houses’
reached one hundred pounds. The smaller receipts may have arisen from
a circumstance sufficient to keep an audience away. There was a Cork
tailor hanged for robbery; but, after he was cut down, a Cork actor,
named Glover, succeeded, by friction and other means, in bringing him
to life again! On the same night, and for many nights, the tailor,
drunk and unhanged, _would_ go to the theatre and publicly acknowledge
the service of Mr. Glover in bringing him to life again! And it _is_
said that he was the third tailor who had outlived hanging during ten
years!
There was no ghastly interruption of the performance of the Roscius.
The engagement was extended to nine nights, and the one which followed
at Waterford was equally successful. As he proceeded, Master Betty
studied and extended his _répertoire_. He added to his list Octavian,
and on his benefit nights he played in the farce, on one occasion Don
Carlos in ‘Lovers’ Quarrels,’ on another Captain Flash in ‘Miss in
her Teens.’ Subsequently, in Londonderry, the flood of success still
increasing, the pit could only be entered at box prices. Master Betty
played in Londonderry long before the time when a Mr. MacTaggart,
an old citizen, used to be called upon between the acts to give his
unbiassed critical opinions on the performances. It was the rarest fun
for the house, and the most painful wholesomeness for the actors, Frank
Connor and his father, Villars, Fitzsimons, Cunningham, O’Callaghan,
and clever Miss M’Keevor (with her pretty voice and sparkling one eye),
to hear the stern and salubrious criticism of Mr. MacTaggart, at the
end of which there was a cry for the tune of ‘No Surrender!’ Not to
wound certain susceptibilities, and yet be national, the key-bugle
gentleman, who was half the orchestra, generally played ‘Norah Creena,’
and thus the play proceeded merrily.
Master Betty played Zanga at Londonderry, and he passed thence to
Glasgow, where for fourteen nights he attracted crowded audiences, and
added to his other parts Richard the Third, which he must have learnt
as he sailed from Belfast up the Clyde. Jackson, the manager, went all
but mad with delight and full houses. He wrote an account of his new
treasure in terms more transcendent than ‘the transcendent boy’ himself
could accept. Had Young Roscius been a divinity descended upon earth,
the rhapsody could not have been more highly pitched; but it was fully
endorsed by nine-tenths of the Glasgow people, and when a bold fellow
ventured to write a satirical philippic against the divine idol of
the hour, he was driven out of the city as guilty of something like
sacrilege, profanation, and general unutterable wickedness.
On May 21, 1804, the transcendental Mr. Jackson was walking on the High
Bridge, Edinburgh, when he met an old gentleman of some celebrity, the
Rev. Mr. Home. ‘Sir,’ said Jackson, ‘your play, “Douglas,” is to be
acted to-night with a new and wonderful actor. I hope you will come
down to the house.’ Forty-eight years before (1756) Home had gone
joyously down to the Edinburgh Theatre to see his ‘Douglas’ represented
for the first time. West Digges (not Henry West Betty) was the Norval,
and the house was half full of ministers of the Kirk, who got into a
sea of troubles for presuming to see acted a play written by a fellow
in the ministry.
The Lady Randolph was Mrs. Ward, daughter of a player of the Betterton
period, and mother, I think, of Mrs. Roger Kemble. On that night one
enthusiastic Scotsman was so delighted that at the end of the fourth
act he arose and roared aloud, ‘Where’s Wully Shakespeare noo?’ Home
had also seen Spranger Barry in the hero (he was the original Norval
(Douglas) on the play being first acted in 1757 in London). Home was
an aged man in 1804, and lived in retirement. He did not know his
‘Douglas’ was to be played, nor had he ever heard of Master Betty!
Never heard of him whom Jackson said he had been presented to Earth by
Heaven and Nature! ‘The pleasing movements of his perfect and divine
nature,’ said Jackson, ‘were incorporated in his person previous to
his birth.’ Home could not refuse to go and see this phenomenon. He
stipulated to have his old place at the wing, that is, behind the stage
door, partially opened, so that he could see up the stage. The old man
was entirely overcome. Digges and Barry, he declared, were leather and
prunella compared with this inspired child who acted his Norval as he
the author had conceived it. Home’s enthusiasm was so excited that,
when Master Betty was summoned by the ‘thunders’ of applause and the
‘hurricane’ of approbation to appear before the audience, Home tottered
forward also, tears streaming from his eyes, and rapture beaming on
his venerable countenance. The triumph was complete. The most impartial
critics especially praised the boy’s conception of the poet, and it was
the highest praise they could give. Between June 28 and August 9 he
acted fifteen times, often under the most august patronage that could
be found in Edinburgh. For the first time he played Selim (Achmet) in
‘Barbarossa’ during this engagement, and with such effect as to make
him more the ‘darling’ than ever of duchesses and ladies in general.
Four days after the later date named above, the marvellous boy stood
before a Birmingham audience, whither he had gone covered with kisses
from Scottish beauties, and laden with the approval, counsel, and
blessing of Lords of Session.
Mr. Macready, father of the lately deceased actor, bargained for the
Roscius, and overreached himself. He thought 10_l._ a night too much!
He proposed that he should deduct 60_l._ from each night’s receipts,
and that Master Betty should take half of what remained. The result was
that Roscius got 50_l._ nightly instead of 10_l._ The first four nights
were not overcrowded, but the boy grew on the town, and at last upon
the whole country. Stage-coaches were advertised specially to carry
parties from various distances to the Birmingham Theatre. The highest
receipt was 266_l._ to his Richard. Selim was the next. 261_l._ The
lowest receipt was also to his Richard. On the first night he played
it there was only 80_l._ in the house. He left Birmingham with the
assurance of a local poet that he was Cooke, Kemble, Holman, Garrick,
all in one. Sheffield was delighted to have him at raised prices of
admission. He made his first appearance to deliver a rhymed deprecatory
address, in reference to wide-cast ridicule on his being a mere boy, in
which were these lines:
When at our Shakespeare’s shrine my swelling heart
Bursts forth and claims some kindred tear to start,
Frown not, if I avow that falling tear
Inspires my soul and bids me persevere.
His Hamlet drew the highest sum at Sheffield, 140_l._; his Selim the
lowest, 60_l._, which was just doubled when he played the same part
for his own benefit. London had caught curiosity, if not enthusiasm,
to see him; the Sheffield hotels became crowded with London families,
and ‘Six-inside coaches to see the Young Roscius’ plied at Doncaster
to carry people from the races. At Liverpool there were riots and
spoliation at the box-office. At Chester wild delight. At Manchester
tickets were put up to lottery. At Stockport he played morning and
evening, and travelled after it all night to play at Leicester, where
he also acted on some occasions twice in one day! and where every lady
who could write occasional verses showered upon him a very deluge of
rhyme.
November had now been reached. In that month John Kemble, who is
supposed to have protested against the dignity of the stage being
lowered by a speaking puppet, wrote a letter to Mr. Betty. In this
letter John said: ‘I could not deny myself the satisfaction I feel in
knowing I shall soon have the happiness of welcoming you and Master
Betty to Covent Garden Theatre. Give me leave to say how heartily
I congratulate the stage on the ornament and support it is, by the
judgment of all the world, to receive from Master Betty’s extraordinary
talents and exertions.’ After this we may dismiss as nonsense the lofty
talk about the Kemble feeling as to the dignity of the stage being
wounded. Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons would not play in the same piece
with Master Betty, as Jones, Charles Young, Miss Smith (Mrs. Bartley),
and others had done in the country, but Mr. Kemble (as manager)
was delighted that the Covent Garden treasury should profit by the
extraordinary talents of a boy whom the Kemble followers continually
depreciated.
On Saturday, December 1, 1804, Master Betty appeared at Covent Garden
in the character of Selim. Soon after mid-day the old theatre--the
one which Rich had built and to which he transferred his company from
Lincoln’s Inn Fields--was beset by a crowd which swelled into a
multitude, not one in ten of whom succeeded in fighting his way into
the house when the doors were opened. Such a struggle--sometimes for
life--had never been known. Even in the house strong men fainted like
delicate girls; an hour passed before the shrieks of the suffering
subsided, and we are even told that ‘the ladies in one or two boxes
were employed almost the whole night in fanning the gentlemen who were
behind them in the pit!’ The only wonder is that the excited multitude,
faint for want of air, irritable by being overcrowded, and fierce in
struggling for space which no victor in the struggle could obtain, ever
was subdued to a condition of calm sufficient to enable them to enjoy
the ‘rare delight’ within reach. However, in the second act Master
Betty appeared--modest, self-possessed, and not at all moved out of
his assumed character by the tempest of welcome which greeted him.
From first to last, he ‘electrified’ the audience. He never failed, we
are told, whenever he aimed at making a point. His attention to the
business of the stage was that of a careful and conscientious veteran.
His acting denoted study. His genius won applause--not his age, and
youthful grace. There was ‘conception,’ rather than ‘instruction’ to
be seen in all he did and said. His undertones could be heard at the
very back of the galleries. The pathos, the joy, the exultation of
a part (once so favourite a part with young actors), enchanted the
audience. That they felt all these things sincerely is proved by the
fact that--as one newspaper critic writes--‘the audience could not
lower their minds to attend to the farce, which was not suffered to be
concluded.’
The theatrical career of his ‘Young Roscius’ period amounted to this.
He played at both houses in London from December 1804 to April 1805, in
a wide range of characters, and supported by some of the first actors
of the day. He then played in every town of importance throughout
England and Scotland. He returned to London for the season 1805-6, and
acted twenty-four nights at each theatre, at fifty guineas a night.
Subsequently he acted in the country; and finally, he took leave of the
stage at Bath in March 1808. Altogether, London possessed him but a few
months. The madness which prevailed about him was ‘midsummer madness,’
though it was but a short fit. That he himself did not go mad is the
great wonder. Princes of the blood called on him, the Lord Chancellor
invited him, nobles had him day after day to dinner, and the King
presented him to the Queen and Princesses in the room behind the Royal
box. Ladies carried him off to the Park as those of Charles II.’s time
did with Kynaston. When he was ill the sympathetic town rushed to read
his bulletins with tremulous eagerness. Portraits of him abounded,
presents were poured in upon him, poets and poetasters deafened the
ear about him, misses patted his beautiful hair and asked ‘locks’ from
him. The future King of France and Navarre, Count d’Artois, afterwards
Charles X., witnessed his performance, in French, of ‘Zaphna,’ at
Lady Percival’s; Gentleman Smith presented him with Garrick relics;
Cambridge University gave ‘Roscius’ as the subject for the Brown Prize
Medal, and the House of Commons adjourned, at the request of Pitt,
in order to witness his ‘Hamlet.’ At the Westminster Latin Play (the
‘Adelphi’ of Terence) he was present in a sort of royal state, and the
Archbishop of York all but publicly blest him. Some carping persons
remarked that the boy was too ignorant to understand a word of the play
that was acted in his presence. When it is remembered how Latin was and
is pronounced at Westminster, it is not too much to say that Terence
(had he been there) would not have understood much more of his own play
than Master Betty did.
The boy reigned triumphantly through his little day, and the
professional critics generally praised to the skies his mental capacity
as well as his bodily endowments. They discovered beauty in both,
and it is to the boy’s credit that their praise did not render him
conceited. He studied new parts, and his attention to business, his
modesty, his boyish spirits in the green room, his docility, and
the respect he paid to older artists, were among the items of the
professional critic’s praise.
Let us pass from the professional critics to the judgment of private
individuals of undoubted ability to form and give one (we have only to
premise that Master Betty played alternately at Covent Garden and Drury
Lane). And first, Lord Henley. Writing to Lord Auckland, on December 7,
1804, he says, ‘I went to see the Young Roscius with an unprejudiced
mind, or rather, perhaps, with the opinion you seem to have formed of
him, and left the theatre in the highest admiration of his wonderful
talents. As I scarcely remember Garrick, I may say (though there be,
doubtless, room for improvement) that I never saw such fine acting,
and yet the poor boy’s voice was that night a good deal affected by a
cold. I would willingly pay a guinea for a place on every night of his
appearing in a new character.’
Even Fox, intent as he was on public business, and absorbed by
questions of magnitude concerning his country, and of importance
touching himself, was caught by the general enthusiasm. There is a
letter of his, dated December 17, 1804, addressed to his ‘Dear Young
One,’ Lord Holland, who was then about thirty years old. The writer
urges his nephew to hasten from Spain to England, on account of the
serious parliamentary struggle likely to occur; adding, ‘there
is always a chance of questions in which the Prince of Wales is
particularly concerned;’ and subjoining the sagacious statesmanlike
remark: ‘It is very desirable that the power, strength, and union of
the Opposition should appear considerable while out of office, in order
that if ever they should come in it may be plain that they have an
existence of their own, and are not the mere creatures of the Crown.’
But Fox breaks suddenly away from subjects of crafty statesmanship,
with this sentence: ‘Everybody here is mad about this Boy Actor, even
Uncle Dick is full of astonishment and admiration. We go to town
to-morrow to see him, and from what I have heard, I own I shall be
disappointed if he is not a prodigy.’
On the same day Fox wrote a letter from St. Anne’s Hill to the Hon.
C. Grey (the Lord Grey of the Reform Bill). It is bristling with
‘politicks,’ but between reference to party battles and remarks
on Burke, the statesman says: ‘Everybody is mad about this Young
Roscius, and we go to town to-morrow to see him. The accounts of him
seem incredible; but the opinion of him is nearly unanimous, and
Fitzpatrick, who went strongly prepossessed against him, was perfectly
astonished and full of admiration.’
We do not find any letter of Fox’s extant to tell us his opinion of
the ‘tenth wonder.’ We can go with him to the play, nevertheless.
‘While young Betty was in all his glory,’ says Samuel Rogers, in his
‘Table Talk,’ ‘I went with Fox and Mrs. Fox, after dining with them in
Arlington Street, to see him act Hamlet; and, during the play scene,
Fox, to my infinite surprise, said, “This is finer than Garrick!”’ Fox
would not have said so if he had not thought so. He did not say as
much to Master Betty, but he best proved his sympathy by sitting with
and reading to him passages from the great dramatists, mingled with
excellent counsel.
Windham, the famous statesman, who as much loved to see a pugilistic
fight as Fox did to throw double sixes, and to whom a stroll in
Leicester Fields was as agreeable as an hour with an Italian poet
was to Fox--Windham hurried through the Fields to Covent Garden. His
diary for the year 1804 is lost; but in that for 1805 we come upon
his opinion of the attractive player, after visits in both years. On
January 31, 1805, there is this entry in his diary;--‘Went, according
to arrangement, with Elliot and Grenville to play; Master Betty in
Frederick’ (‘Lovers’ Vows’). ‘Lord Spencer, who had been shooting
at Osterley, came afterwards. Liked Master B. better than before,
but still inclined to my former opinion; his action certainly very
graceful, except now and then that he is a little tottering on his
legs, and his recitation just, but his countenance not expressive; his
voice neither powerful nor pleasing.’
The criticisms of actors were generally less favourable. Kemble was
‘riveted,’ we are told, by the acting of Master Betty; but he was
contemptuously silent. Mrs. Siddons, according to Campbell, ‘never
concealed her disgust at the popular infatuation.’ At the end of the
play Lord Abercorn came into her box and told her that that boy, Betty,
would eclipse everything which had been called acting, in England. ‘My
Lord,’ she answered, ‘he is a very clever, pretty boy; but nothing
more.’ Mrs. Siddons, however, was meanly jealous of all that stood
between her and the public. When Mrs. Siddons was young, she was
jealous of grand old Mrs. Crawford. When Mrs. Siddons was old, and
had retired, she was jealous of young Miss O’Neill. She querulously
said that the public were fond of setting up new idols in order to
annoy their former favourites. George Frederick Cooke who had played
Glenalvon to Master Betty’s Norval--played it finely too, at his very
best--and could not crush the boy, after whom everybody was repeating
the line he made so famous,
The blood of Douglas can protect itself!
--Cooke alluded to him in his diary, for 1811, thus: ‘I was visited
by Master Payne, the American Young Roscius; I thought him a polite,
sensible youth, and the reverse of our Young Roscius.’ This was an
ebullition of irritability. Even those who could not praise Roscius
as a tenth wonder, acknowledged his courtesy and were struck by his
good common sense. Boaden, who makes the singular remark that ‘all
the favouritism, and more than the innocence, of former patronesses
was lavished on him,’ also tells us more intelligibly, that Master
Betty ‘never lost the genuine modesty of his carriage; and his temper,
at least, was as steady as his diligence.’ One actor said, ‘Among
clever boys he would have been a Triton among minnows;’ but Mrs.
Inchbald remarked, ‘Had I never seen boys act, I might have thought
him extraordinary.’ ‘Baby-faced child!’ said Campbell. ‘Handsome face!
graceful figure! marvellous power!’ is the testimony of Mrs. Mathews.
The most unbiassed judgment I can find is Miss Seward’s, who wrote thus
of him in 1804, after seeing him as Osman in ‘Zara’: ‘It could not have
been conceived or represented with more grace, sensibility, and fire,
though he is veritably an effeminate boy of thirteen; but his features
are cast in a diminutive mould, particularly his nose and mouth.
This circumstance must at every period of life be injurious to stage
effect; nor do I think his ear for blank verse faultless. Like Cooke,
he never fails to give the passions their whole force, by gesture
and action natural and just; but he does not do equal justice to the
harmony. It is, I think, superfluous to look forward to the mature
fruit of this luxuriant blossom.’ Miss Seward was right; but she was
less correct in her prophecy, ‘He will not live to bear it. Energies
various and violent will blast in no short time the vital powers,
evidently delicate.’ He survived this prophecy just seventy years! One
other opinion of him I cannot forbear adding. It is Elliston’s, and
it is in the very loftiest of Robert William’s manner, who was born a
little more than one hundred years ago! ‘Sir, my opinion of the young
gentleman’s talents will never transpire during my life. I have written
my convictions down. They have been attested by competent witnesses,
and sealed and deposited in the iron safe at my banker’s, to be drawn
forth and opened, with other important documents, at my death. The
world will then know what Mr. Elliston thought of Master Betty!’
The Young Roscius withdrew from the stage and entered Christ’s College,
Cambridge. He there enjoyed quiet study and luxurious seclusion.
Meanwhile that once boy with the flashing eyes, Edmund Kean, had got a
modest post at the Haymarket, where he played Rosencrantz to Mr. Rae’s
Hamlet. He had also struggled his way to Belfast, and had acted Osman
to Mrs. Siddons’ Zara. ‘He plays well, very well,’ said the lady: ‘but
there is too little of him to make a great actor.’ Edmund, too, had
married ‘Mary Chambers,’ at Stroud, and Mr. Beverley had turned the
young couple out of his company, ‘to teach them not to do it again!’
In 1812, ‘Mr. Betty,’ come to man’s estate, returned to the stage, at
Bath. A few months previously Mr. and Mrs. Kean were wandering from
town to town. In rooms, to which the public were invited by written
bills, in Kean’s hand, they recited scenes from plays and sang duets;
and _he_ trilled songs, spoke soliloquies, danced hornpipes, and gave
imitations!--and starved, and hoped--and would by no means despair.