itself was inaugurated on the part of the fashionable amateurs by a
performance of ‘The Provoked Husband.’ Lord Villiers was at the cost
of getting it up, but that was nothing to a man who was the prince of
macaronies, and who, as Walpole remarks, had ‘fashioned away’ all he
possessed. The play, followed by a sort of _pose plastique_, called
‘Pygmalion and the Statue,’ was acted in a barn, expensively fitted
up for the occasion, near Henley. Lord Villiers and Miss Hodges were
Lord and Lady Townley. Walpole says, on hearsay, that ‘it went off
to admiration.’ Mrs. Montagu, also on report, says: ‘I suppose the
merit of this entertainment was, that people were to go many miles
in frost and snow, to see in a barn what would have been every way
better at the theatre in Drury Lane or Covent Garden.’ Walpole speaks
of M. Texier’s Pygmalion as ‘inimitable.’ The Frenchman was at that
time much patronised in town for his ‘readings.’ Miss Hodges acted the
Statue. Mrs. Montagu’s sharp criticism takes this shape: ‘Modern nymphs
are so warm and yielding that less art than that of M. Texier might
have animated the nymph. My niece will never stand to be made love to
before a numerous audience.’ The Lady Townley and Galatea of these gay
doings sacrificed herself, we suppose, to these important duties. ‘Miss
Hodges’ father,’ writes Mrs. Montagu, ‘is lately dead: her mother is
dying. How many indecorums the girl has brought together in one _petite
pièce_!’ The play was not all the entertainment of the night, which was
one of the most inclement of that pitiless winter. ‘There was a ball,’
says the lady letter-writer, ‘prepared after the play, but the barn had
so benumbed the vivacity of the company, and the beaux’ feet were so
cold and the noses of the belles were so blue, many retired to a warm
bed at the inn at Henley, instead of partaking of the dance.’ Walpole
gives play to his fancy over these facts. ‘Considering,’ he says, ‘what
an Iceland night it was, I concluded the company and audience would all
be brought to town in waggons, petrified, and stowed in a statuary’s
yard in Piccadilly.’
We have heard over and over again of such private theatres as
Winterslow, near Salisbury, which was burnt down on the night after
a performance in which Fox and similar spirits had acted with equal
vivacity in tragedy and farce. Other incidents are to be found in
Walpole and similar gossiping chroniclers of the time. None of those
private theatres, however, can match with Wargrave, in Berkshire,
where, in the last century, Lord Barrymore held sway during his brief
and boisterous life. When Lord Barrymore succeeded to the lordship
of himself, that ‘heritage of woe,’ he came before the world with a
splendour so extravagant in its character that the world was aghast
at his recklessness. Wild and audacious as was the character of this
wayward boy’s life, he was in some sort a gentleman in his vices. He
was brave and generous and kindly hearted. Since his time we have had
a line (now extinct, or effete in the infirmity and imbecility of a
surviving member or two) of gentlemen who plunged into blackguardism
as a relief from the burden of life. They would play loosely at cards,
swindle a dear friend at horse-dealing, and half a dozen of them
together would not be afraid to fall upon some helpless creature and
beat him into pulp by way of a ‘lark.’ Lord Barrymore was simply a
‘rake,’ and he injured no man but himself. He came into the hunting
field more like a king of France and Navarre than an English gentleman,
and his negro trumpeters played fantasias in the woods, to the infinite
surprise, no doubt, of the foxes. He kept perpetual open house, and
Mrs. Delpini superintended it for him. What he most prided himself upon
was his taste for the drama, and the way he carried it into effect made
Wargrave brilliant and famous in its little day.
This noble youth began modestly enough. His first private theatre was
in one of his own barns. The first piece played in it was ‘Miss in
her Teens,’ in which he acted Flash; and no one of the illustrious
performers, youth or maiden, was over seventeen years of age. Noble
by birth, as all the amateur Thespians were, this performance was not
given to an exclusively aristocratic audience, but to all the villagers
and the peasantry in the vicinity of the village who cared to come.
All came, and there was a pit of red cloaks and smock frocks, and
ample provision of creature comforts for the whole barn. From this
modest origin sprang the noble theatre which Cox of Covent Garden
Theatre built for the earl at a cost of 60,000_l._ It was a marvellous
edifice. For pantomimic performances it had traps and springs and
other machinery that might satisfy the requirements of Mr. George
Conquest himself, who practised gymnastics, for exercise, when he was
a student at a German university, and who is now the first of gymnastic
performers instead of being the profoundest of philosophers--though
there is no reason why he may not be both.
The Wargrave theatre lacked nothing that could be wanted for its
completeness. The auditorium was splendid. There was a saloon quite as
superb, wherein the audience could sup like kings and the invited could
afterwards dance. Between the acts of performance pages and lackeys,
in scarlet and gold, proffered choice refreshments to the spectators,
who were not likely to be hard upon players under a management of such
unparalleled liberality. The acting company was made up of professional
players--Munden, Delpini, and Moses Kean, among the men, with the
best and prettiest actresses of the Richmond Theatre. Lord Barrymore
and Captain Walthen were the chief amateurs. Low comedy and pantomime
formed the ‘walk’ of my lord, who on one occasion danced a celebrated
_pas Russe_ with Delpini as it was then danced at the opera. Now and
then the noble proprietor would stand disguised as a check-taker, and
promote ‘rows’ with the farmers and their wives, disputing the validity
of their letters of invitation. It was also his fond delight to mingle
with them, in disguise again, as they wended homeward, listening to or
provoking their criticism. He probably heard some unwelcome truths,
for he could not have long escaped detection. Within doors the night’s
pleasures were not at an end with the play. Dancing, gambling, music,
and folly to its utmost limits succeeded; and he, or _she_, was held
in scorn who attempted to go to bed before 5 A.M. Indeed, such persons
were not allowed to sleep if they did withdraw before the appointed
hour. From five o’clock to noon was the Wargrave season for sleep. The
company were consigned to the ‘upper and lower barracks,’ as the two
divisions were called where the single and the married, or those who
might as well have been, were billeted for the night.
Lord Barrymore did not confine himself to acting on a private stage.
In August, 1790, he ‘was so humble as to perform a buffoon dance and
act scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of Edwin
_junior_, the comedian; and I,’ writes Walpole, ‘like an old fool, but
calling myself a philosopher that loves to study human nature in all
its disguises, went to see the performance!’ Walpole used to call the
earl ‘the strolling player.’ On the above occasion, however, there is
one thing to be remembered: Lord Barrymore, invited to play the fool,
condescended to that degradation in order to serve young Edwin, whose
affection and filial duty towards a sick and helpless mother had won
the noble amateur’s regard.
Lord Barrymore married in 1792, in which year the splendid theatre
at Wargrave was pulled down. In March, 1793, he was, as captain of
militia, escorting some French prisoners through Kent. On his way he
halted at an inn to give them and his own men refreshment; which being
done, he kissed the handsome landlady and departed in his phaeton, his
groom mounting the horse Lord Barrymore had previously ridden. The man
put a loaded gun into the carriage, and Lord Barrymore had not ridden
far when it exploded and killed him on the spot. Thus ended, at the age
of twenty-four years, the career of the young earl, who was the most
indefatigable, if not the most able, amateur actor of his day.
Such examples fired less noble youths, who left their lawful
callings, broke articles and indentures, and set up for themselves by
representing somebody else. Three of our best bygone comedians belong
to this class, and may claim some brief record at our hands.
Oxberry, who was distinguished for the way in which he acted personages
who were less remarkable for their simplicity than for their silliness,
was a pupil of Stubbs, the animal painter, and subsequently was in
the house of Ribeau, the bookseller. The attractions of the private
theatres in Queen Anne Street and Berwick Street were too much for him.
Oxberry’s first appearance was made at the former place, as Hassan,
in the ‘Castle Spectre.’ The well-known players, Mrs. W. West and
John Cooper, acted together as Alonzo and Leonora in ‘The Revenge,’
at a private theatre in Bath, to the horror of their friends and the
general scandalising of the city of which they were natives. The Bath
manager looked on the young pair with a business eye, and the youthful
amateurs were soon enrolled among the professionals. In their first
stages, professionals scarcely reckon above amateurs. They play what
they can, and such comic actors as Wilkinson and Harley are not the
only pair of funny fellows upon record who played the most lofty
tragedy in opposition to each other. Little Knight, as he used to be
called, was, like Long Oxberry, intended for art, but he too took to
private acting, and passed thence to the stage, where he was supreme in
peasants, and particularly rustics, of sheer simplicity of character.
His Sim in ‘Wild Oats’ was an exquisite bit of acting, and this is said
without any disparagement of Mr. D. James, who recently acted the part
at Mr. Belmore’s benefit with a natural truthfulness which reminded
old play-goers of the ‘real old thing.’ If Mr. Knight did not succeed
in pictorial art, he left a son who did--the gentleman who so recently
retired from the secretaryship of the Royal Academy. The two names of
Knight and Harley were, for a long time, pleasant in the ears of the
patrons of the drama. John Pritt Harley was intended for many things,
but amateur acting made a capital comedian of him. His father was a
reputable draper and mercer--and jealous actors used to say that he
sold stays and that his son helped to make them. The truth is that he
was first devoted to surgery, but Harley ‘couldn’t abide it.’ Next he
tried the law, and sat on a stool with the edge of a desk pressing into
him till he could bear it no longer. There was, at the time, a company
of amateurs who performed in the old Lyceum, and there, and at other
private theatres, Harley worked away as joyously as he ever played; and
worked harder still through country theatres, learning how to starve
as well as act, and to fancy that a cup of tea and a penny loaf made a
good dinner--which no man could make upon them. His opportunity came
when, in 1815, Mr. Arnold, who had watched some part of his progress,
brought him out at the Lyceum--his old amateur playing ground--as
Marcelli, in ‘The Devil’s Bridge.’ Harley lived a highly-esteemed actor
and a most respectable bachelor. Some little joking used to be pointed
at him in print, on account of an alleged attachment between him and
Miss Tree, the most graceful of dancers and of columbines. But Miss
Tree was a Mrs. Quin--though she had scarcely seen her husband, since
she was compelled to marry him in her childhood. The nicest pointed
bit of wit was manufactured in a hoaxing announcement of a benefit
to be taken by both parties. The pieces advertised were ‘A Tale of
_Mystery_,’ and a ‘Harley-Quinade.’ The names of the parties could
not have been more ingeniously put together in sport. Harley, though
a mannerist, was an excellent actor to the last. When he was stricken
with apoplexy, while playing Bottom, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’
at the Princess’s Theatre, in Charles Kean’s time, he was carried
home, and the last words he uttered were words in his part: ‘I feel an
exposition to sleep coming over me.’ And straightway the unconscious
speaker slept--for aye!
We must not add to the grievances of Ireland by altogether overlooking
Erin’s private theatricals. From the day in 1544, when Bale’s
‘Pammachius’ was acted by amateurs at the market cross of Kilkenny,
to the last recent record of Irish amateur acting, in the ‘Dublin
Evening Mail,’ this amusement has been a favourite one among the ‘West
Britons.’ The practice did not die out at the Union. Kilkenny, Lurgan,
Carton, and Dublin had their private stages. When the amateur actors
played for charity’s sake everybody took private boxes and nobody paid
for them. In 1761, the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ was played at the Duke of
Leinster’s (Carton). Dean Marly played Lockit, and wrote and spoke the
prologue, in which the reverend gentleman thus alluded to himself:
But when this busy mimic scene is o’er
All shall resume the worth they had before;
Lockit himself his knavery shall resign,
And lose the Gaoler in the dull Divine.
The above was not quite as dignified as Milton’s ‘Arcades,’ played by
the children of the Dowager Countess of Derby, at her house, Harefield
Place; or as ‘Comus,’ acted by the young Egertons before the Earl of
Bridgewater, at Ludlow Castle. Perhaps it was more amusing.
One of our own best amateur actresses was the Princess Mary of
Cambridge (now Duchess of Teck). This excellent lady had once to
commence the piece (a musical piece, written for the occasion by an
amateur) on a private stage in one of the noblest of our country
mansions. An illustrious audience was waiting for the curtain to go up;
but the kindly-hearted princess was thinking of some less illustrious
folks, who were not among that audience and whom she desired to see
there, namely, the servants of the household--as many as could be
spared. They had had much trouble, and she hoped they would be allowed
to share in the amusement. There was some difficulty; but it was only
when she was informed that the servants were really ‘in front,’ that
the ‘Queen of Hearts’ (her part in the piece) answered that she was
ready to begin the play. She never acted better than on this occasion.
_THE SMELL OF THE LAMPS._
As we look at the two volumes of Mr. Planché’s autobiography we
experience a sensation of delight. They remind us of a story told of
Maria Tree, long after she had become Mrs. Bradshaw, and was accustomed
to luxuries unknown in her early and humble life. She was one night
crossing the stage behind the curtain, on a short way to a private
box, when she stopped for a moment, and, as she caught the well-known
incense of the foot-lights, joyously exclaimed, ‘The smell of the
lamps! How I love it!’ Therewith she spoke of the old times, when she
worked hard--that is, ‘played,’ for the support of others as well as
for her own support; and what a happy time it was, and how she wished
it could all come over again! The noble peer who had the honour of
escorting her, looked profoundly edified, smiled good-humouredly,
and then completed his duty as escort. Here we open Mr. Planché’s
book, and catch from it a ‘smell of the lamps.’ Yes, there must have
been--must be--something delicious in it to those who have achieved
success. To old play-goers there is a similar delight in books of
stage reminiscences which include memories of great actors whom those
play-goers have seen in their youth. A few of these still survive to
talk of the old glories and to prove by comparison of ‘cast’ that for
the costly metal of other days we have nothing now but pinchbeck. We
have heard one of the old gentlemen of the _ancien régime_ talk, with
unfeigned emotion, of the way in which ‘The Gamester’ used to be acted
by Mrs. Siddons, John Kemble, Charles Kemble, and George Frederick
Cooke. How ladies sobbed and found it hard to suppress a shriek; how
gentlemen veiled their eyes to hide the impertinent tears, and tried
to look as if nothing were the matter; and, how people who had seen
the dreadful tragedy more than once, and dreaded to witness it again,
were so fascinated that they would stand in the box-passages gazing
through the glass panels of the box doors, beholding the action of the
drama, but sparing themselves the heartbreaking utterances of the chief
personages. Within a few weeks we have heard a veteran play-goer give
imitations of John Kemble in ‘Coriolanus,’ which he last played more
than half a century ago! It had the perfect enunciation which was the
chief merit of the Kemble school; it was dignified; it gave an idea of
a grand actor, and it was a pleasure conferred on the hearers such as
Charles Mathews the elder used to confer on his audiences ‘At Home,’
when he presented them with Tate Wilkinson, and they were delighted to
make acquaintance with the famous man who had so long before got, as
the old Irishwoman said at Billy Fullam’s funeral, his ‘pit order at
last.’
While we wait for a paper-cutter to open the closed pages of Mr.
Planché’s book, we will just remark that those were days when audiences
were differently arranged to what they are now. In the little
summer-house in the Haymarket, when stalls were not yet invented,
the two-shilling gallery was the rendezvous of some of the richest
tradesmen in Pall Mall and the neighbourhood around. At that period,
London tradesmen lived and slept at their places of business. They did
not pass their nights at a country house. London audiences were made up
almost entirely of London people. In the present day, they are largely
made up of visitors from the country. In proportion as travelling
companies of actors of merit increase and continue to represent plays
sometimes better than they are represented in London, country visitors
will cease to go to ‘the play,’ as it is called, in the metropolis, and
will find some other resort where they can shuffle off the mortal coil
of tediousness which holds them bound during their absence from home.
In good old times the pit was the place, not only for the critics, but
for the most eminent men of the day. Indeed, not only eminent men, but
ladies also, whose granddaughters, as they sweep into the stalls, would
think meanly of their grandmothers and grandfathers, and would shudder
at the thought of themselves, being in that vulgar part of the house.
It is an excellent vulgarity that sits there. Nineteen out of twenty,
perhaps ninety out of a hundred, of persons in the pit are the truest
patrons of the drama; they pay for the places; and, generally speaking,
the places are made as uncomfortable as if the occupiers were intruders
of whom the managers would be glad to get rid.
The best proof of the quality of the old pittites is to be found in
the diary of the Right Hon. William Windham (1784-1810). One of the
entries in the first-named year records a breakfast with Sir Joshua
Reynolds, a visit to Miss Kemble, and ‘went in the evening to the pit
with Mrs. Lukin.’ The play was ‘The Gamester.’ A day or two afterwards
the great statesman went with Steevens and Miss Kemble to see ‘Measure
for Measure.’ ‘After the play,’ writes Windham, ‘went with Miss Kemble
to Mrs. Siddons’s dressing-room; met Sheridan there.’ What interest
Windham took in that actress is illustrated in another entry: ‘Feb. 1,
1785. Drove to Mrs. Siddons in order to communicate a hint on a passage
in Lady Macbeth, which she was to act the next night. Not finding her
at home, went to her at the play-house.’ Well might Mrs. Siddons write,
on inviting Windham to tea: ‘I am sure you would like it; and you can’t
be to learn that I am truly sensible of the honour of your society.’
The pits in the London theatres have undergone as great a change,
though a different one, as the pit at the opera, which now only
nominally exists, if it exist at all. It is now an area of stalls;
the old price for admission is doubled, and the entertainment is not
worth an eighth of what charged for it compared with that of the olden
time, when for an eight-and-sixpenny pit ticket you had Grisi, Mario,
Lablache, and Tamburini, with minor vocalists, thorough artists, in
the same opera. What a spectacle was the grand old house! The old
aristocracy had their boxes for the season, as they had their town
and country houses. You got intimate with them by sight; it was a
pleasure to note how the beautiful young daughters of each family
grew in gracefulness. You took respectful part in the marriages. At
each opening season you marked whether the roses bloomed or paled
upon the young cheeks, and you sympathised accordingly. You spoke of
Lord Marlshire’s look with a hearty neighbourly feeling, and you were
glad that Lady Marlshire really seemed only the eldest sister of a
group of beauties who were her daughters. As for the sons of those
great families, they were in full dress, sauntering or gossiping in
that Elysium ill-naturedly called ‘Fops’ Alley’; they were exchanging
recognitions with friends and kinsmen in all parts of the house. If you
heard a distant laugh--loud enough where the laughers were moved to
it--you might be sure it was caused by Lord Alvanley, who was telling
some absurdly jocose story to a group of noble Young Englanders in the
pit passage under the boxes. We have seen the quiet entry of a quiet
man into a private box make quite a stir. Every stranger felt that the
quiet man was a man of mark; he came to snatch a momentary joy, and
then away to affairs of state again; he was the prime minister. Dozens
of opera-goers have recorded their _souvenirs_ of the old glorious days
when the opera, as they say, was an institution, opened only twice a
week: whereas each house is merely an ordinary theatre, with audiences
that are never, two nights running, chiefly made up of the same
_habitués_. They have told what friendly interest used to be aroused
when the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the Princess Victoria, took
their seats every opera night. We seem again to hear a ringing laugh,
and we know it comes from the sparkling English lady with an Italian
title, the Countess St. Antonio. We seem again to see that marvellously
audacious-looking pair, Lady Blessington and Count D’Orsay, gauging
the house and appearing to differ as to conclusions. The red face of
the Duchess of St. Albans and the almost as ruddy vessel from which
her tea was poured have been described over and over again; and, in
the records of other chroniclers we fancy that once more there come
upon us the voices of two gentlemen who talked so above the singers
that a remonstrant ‘Hush!’ went round the building. The offenders were
the Duke of Gloucester and Sir Robert Wilson. The soldier would draw
out of sight, and the prince would make a sort of apologetic remark in
a voice a little higher than that which had given offence. These are
reminiscences chronicled in the memoirs, diaries, and fugitive articles
of old opera-goers.