"13. Terrace, Piccadilly, October 28. 1815.
"You are, it seems, in England again, as I am to hear from every
body but yourself; and I suppose you punctilious, because I did
not answer your last Irish letter. When did you leave the 'swate
country?' Never mind, I forgive you;--a strong proof of--I know not
what--to give the lie to--
'He never pardons who hath done the wrong.'
"You have written to * *. You have also written to Perry, who
intimates hope of an Opera from you. Coleridge has promised a
Tragedy. Now, if you keep Perry's word, and Coleridge keeps his
own, Drury Lane will be set up; and, sooth to say, it is in
grievous want of such a lift. We began at speed, and are blown
already. When I say 'we,' I mean Kinnaird, who is the 'all in all
sufficient,' and can count, which none of the rest of the Committee
can.
"It is really very good fun, as far as the daily and nightly stir
of these strutters and fretters go; and, if the concern could be
brought to pay a shilling in the pound, would do much credit to the
management. Mr. ---- has an accepted tragedy * * * * *, whose first
scene is in his sleep (I don't mean the author's). It was forwarded
to us as a prodigious favourite of Kean's; but the said Kean, upon
interrogation, denies his eulogy, and protests against his part.
How it will end, I know not.
"I say so much about the theatre, because there is nothing else
alive in London at this season. All the world are out of it, except
us, who remain to lie in,--in December, or perhaps earlier. Lady B.
is very ponderous and prosperous, apparently, and I wish it well
over.
"There is a play before me from a personage who signs himself
'Hibernicus.' The hero is Malachi, the Irishman and king; and the
villain and usurper, Turgesius, the Dane. The conclusion is fine.
Turgesius is chained by the leg (_vide_ stage direction) to a
pillar on the stage; and King Malachi makes him a speech, not
unlike Lord Castlereagh's about the balance of power and the
lawfulness of legitimacy, which puts Turgesius into a frenzy--as
Castlereagh's would, if his audience was chained by the leg. He
draws a dagger and rushes at the orator; but, finding himself at
the end of his tether, he sticks it into his own carcass, and dies,
saying, he has fulfilled a prophecy.
"Now, this is _serious downright matter of fact_, and the gravest
part of a tragedy which is not intended for burlesque. I tell it
you for the honour of Ireland. The writer hopes it will be
represented:--but what is Hope? nothing but the paint on the face
of Existence; the least touch of Truth rubs it off, and then we see
what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. I am not sure
that I have not said this last superfine reflection before. But
never mind;--it will do for the tragedy of Turgesius, to which I
can append it.
"Well, but how dost thou do? thou bard not of a thousand but three
thousand! I wish your friend, Sir John Piano-forte, had kept that
to himself, and not made it public at the trial of the song-seller
in Dublin. I tell you why: it is a liberal thing for Longman to do,
and honourable for you to obtain; but it will set all the 'hungry
and dinnerless, lank-jawed judges' upon the fortunate author. But
they be d----d!--the 'Jeffrey and the Moore together are confident
against the world in ink!' By the way, if poor C * * e--who is a
man of wonderful talent, and in distress[86], and about to publish
two vols. of Poesy and Biography, and who has been worse used by
the critics than ever we were--will you, if he comes out, promise
me to review him favourably in the E.R.? Praise him I think you
must, but you will also praise him _well_,--of all things the most
difficult. It will be the making of him.
"This must be a secret between you and me, as Jeffrey might not
like such a project;--nor, indeed, might C. himself like it. But I
do think he only wants a pioneer and a sparkle or two to explode
most gloriously. Ever yours most affectionately, B.
"P.S. This is a sad scribbler's letter; but the next shall be 'more
of this world.'"
[Footnote 86: It is but justice both to "him that gave and him that
took" to mention that the noble poet, at this time, with a delicacy
which enhanced the kindness, advanced to the eminent person here spoken
of, on the credit of some work he was about to produce, one hundred
pounds.]
* * * * *
As, after this letter, there occur but few allusions to his connection
with the Drury Lane Management, I shall here avail myself of the
opportunity to give some extracts from his "Detached Thoughts,"
containing recollections of his short acquaintance with the interior of
the theatre.
"When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee, and was one of the
Sub-Committee of Management, the number of _plays_ upon the shelves
were about _five_ hundred. Conceiving that amongst these there must be
_some_ of merit, in person and by proxy I caused an investigation. I do
not think that of those which I saw there was one which could be
conscientiously tolerated. There never were such things as most of them!
Mathurin was very kindly recommended to me by Walter Scott, to whom I
had recourse, firstly, in the hope that he would do something for us
himself; and, secondly, in my despair, that he would point out to us any
young (or old) writer of promise. Mathurin sent his Bertram and a letter
_without_ his address, so that at first I could give him no answer. When
I at last hit upon his residence, I sent him a favourable answer and
something more substantial. His play succeeded; but I was at that time
absent from England.
"I tried Coleridge too; but he had nothing feasible in hand at the time.
Mr. Sotheby obligingly offered _all_ his tragedies, and I pledged
myself, and notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committed Brethren,
did get 'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But, lo! in
the very heart of the matter, upon some _tepid_ness on the part of Kean,
or warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play. Sir J.B.
Burgess did also present four tragedies and a farce, and I moved
green-room and Sub-Committee, but they would not.
"Then the scenes I had to go through!--the authors, and the authoresses,
and the milliners, and the wild Irishmen,--the people from Brighton,
from Blackwall; from Chatham, from Cheltenham, from Dublin, from
Dundee,--who came in upon me! to all of whom it was proper to give a
civil answer, and a hearing, and a reading. Mrs. * * * *'s father, an
Irish dancing-master of sixty years, calling upon me to request to play
Archer, dressed in silk stockings on a frosty morning to show his legs
(which were certainly good and Irish for his age, and had been still
better,)--Miss Emma Somebody, with a play entitled 'The Bandit of
Bohemia,' or some such title or production,--Mr. O'Higgins, then
resident at Richmond, with an Irish tragedy, in which the unities could
not fail to be observed, for the protagonist was chained by the leg to a
pillar during the chief part of the performance. He was a wild man, of a
salvage appearance, and the difficulty of _not_ laughing at him was only
to be got over by reflecting upon the probable consequences of such
cachinnation.
"As I am really a civil and polite person, and _do_ hate giving pain
when it can be avoided, I sent them up to Douglas Kinnaird,--who is a
man of business, and sufficiently ready with a negative,--and left them
to settle with him; and as the beginning of next year I went abroad, I
have since been little aware of the progress of the theatres.
"Players are said to be an impracticable people. They are so; but I
managed to steer clear of any disputes with them, and excepting one
debate[87] with the elder Byrne about Miss Smith's _pas
de_--(something--I forget the technicals,)--I do not remember any
litigation of my own. I used to protect Miss Smith, because she was like
Lady Jane Harley in the face, and likenesses go a great way with me.
Indeed, in general, I left such things to my more bustling colleagues,
who used to reprove me seriously for not being able to take such things
in hand without buffooning with the histrions, or throwing things into
confusion by treating light matters with levity.
"Then the Committee!--then the Sub-Committee!--we were but few, but
never agreed. There was Peter Moore who contradicted Kinnaird, and
Kinnaird who contradicted every body: then our two managers, Rae and
Dibdin; and our secretary, Ward! and yet we were all very zealous and
in earnest to do good and so forth. * * * * furnished us with prologues
to our revived old English plays; but was not pleased with me for
complimenting him as 'the Upton' of our theatre (Mr. Upton is or was the
poet who writes the songs for Astley's), and almost gave up prologuing
in consequence.
"In the pantomime of 1815-16 there was a representation of the
masquerade of 1814 given by 'us youth' of Watier's Club to Wellington
and Co. Douglas Kinnaird and one or two others, with myself, put on
masks, and went on the stage with the [Greek: hoi polloi], to see the
effect of a theatre from the stage:--it is very grand. Douglas danced
among the figuranti too, and they were puzzled to find out who we were,
as being more than their number. It was odd enough that Douglas Kinnaird
and I should have been both at the _real_ masquerade, and afterwards in
the mimic one of the same, on the stage of Drury Lane theatre."
[Footnote 87: A correspondent of one of the monthly Miscellanies gives
the following account of this incident:--
"During Lord Byron's administration, a ballet was invented by the elder
Byrne, in which Miss Smith (since Mrs. Oscar Byrne) had a _pas seul_.
This the lady wished to remove to a later period in the ballet. The
ballet-master refused, and the lady swore she would not dance it at all.
The music incidental to the dance began to play, and the lady walked off
the stage. Both parties flounced into the green-room to lay the case
before Lord Byron, who happened to be the only person in that apartment.
The noble committee-man made an award in favour of Miss Smith, and both
complainants rushed angrily out of the room at the instant of my
entering it. 'If you had come a minute sooner,' said Lord Byron, 'you
would have heard a curious matter decided on by me: a question of
dancing!--by me,' added he, looking down at the lame limb, 'whom Nature
from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.' His countenance
fell after he had uttered this, as if he had said too much; and for a
moment there was an embarrassing silence on both sides."]
* * * * *