We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals, in a book,
or shop-window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately
recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the
time when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We
almost fancy we see the pin’s point following the letter, to impress
its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination; and wince
involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend
old lady who instilled into our mind the first principles of education
for ninepence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to
poke our juvenile head occasionally, by way of adjusting the confusion
of ideas in which we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling
pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which recalls
so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley’s. It was not a
‘Royal Amphitheatre’ in those days, nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the
light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of the circus;
but the whole character of the place was the same, the pieces were the
same, the clown’s jokes were the same, the riding-masters were equally
grand, the comic performers equally witty, the tragedians equally
hoarse, and the ‘highly-trained chargers’ equally spirited. Astley’s
has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our
histrionic taste is gone, and with shame we confess, that we are far
more delighted and amused with the audience, than with the pageantry we
once so highly appreciated.
We like to watch a regular Astley’s party in the Easter or Midsummer
holidays—pa and ma, and nine or ten children, varying from five foot
six to two foot eleven: from fourteen years of age to four. We had just
taken our seat in one of the boxes, in the centre of the house, the
other night, when the next was occupied by just such a party as we
should have attempted to describe, had we depicted our _beau idéal_ of
a group of Astley’s visitors.
First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who, in
pursuance of pa’s directions, issued in a very audible voice from the
box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little girls were
ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess. Then came three
more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets and trousers,
with lay-down shirt-collars: then a child in a braided frock and high
state of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened to their
utmost width, was lifted over the seats—a process which occasioned a
considerable display of little pink legs—then came ma and pa, and then
the eldest son, a boy of fourteen years old, who was evidently trying
to look as if he did not belong to the family.
The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the
little girls, and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair; then
it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated
behind a pillar and could not see, so the governess was stuck behind
the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place. Then pa drilled the
boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket-handkerchiefs, and
ma having first nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls’
frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little
troop—an inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own
satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at pa, who was
standing up at the further end of the seat. Pa returned the glance, and
blew his nose very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from
behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch ma’s eye, with a look
expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the
little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley’s was more
than twice as large as Drury Lane, agreed to refer it to ‘George’ for
his decision; at which ‘George,’ who was no other than the young
gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated in no very
gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name repeated in so
loud a voice at a public place, on which all the children laughed very
heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing his
opinion, that ‘George began to think himself quite a man now,’
whereupon both pa and ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress
cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that ‘William always was
encouraged in his impertinence;’ and assumed a look of profound
contempt, which lasted the whole evening.
The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds. Pa
was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured
to look as if he wasn’t. As for ma, she was perfectly overcome by the
drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one of the
immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess peeped
out from behind the pillar again, and whenever she could catch ma’s
eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound,
to be in convulsions of laughter also. Then when the man in the
splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the
little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow who was
apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child’s
flirtation, the whole evening, with a small coquette of twelve years
old, who looked like a model of her mamma on a reduced scale; and who,
in common with the other little girls (who generally speaking have even
more coquettishness about them than much older ones), looked very
properly shocked, when the knight’s squire kissed the princess’s
confidential chambermaid.
When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more
delighted than ever; and the wish to see what was going forward,
completely conquering pa’s dignity, he stood up in the box, and
applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of horsemanship,
the governess leant across to ma, and retailed the clever remarks of
the children on that which had preceded: and ma, in the openness of her
heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop, and the governess,
gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a
brighter countenance: and the whole party seemed quite happy, except
the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being too grand to take any
interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of
by anybody else, occupied himself, from time to time, in rubbing the
place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his
glory.
We defy any one who has been to Astley’s two or three times, and is
consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which
precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season
after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at
least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that when
the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain drawn up
for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring,
the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken, with mathematical
precision, into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened as the
youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which follows
the clown’s shrill shout of ‘Here we are!’ just for old acquaintance’
sake. Nor can we quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence
for the riding-master, who follows the clown with a long whip in his
hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. He is none of
your second-rate riding-masters in nankeen dressing-gowns, with brown
frogs, but the regular gentleman-attendant on the principal riders, who
always wears a military uniform with a table-cloth inside the breast of
the coat, in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl trussed
for roasting. He is—but why should we attempt to describe that of which
no description can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man,
and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanour,
stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their jealousy considered it,
and the splendid head of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to
impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic
melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with
his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little
badinage; and the striking recollection of his own dignity, with which
he exclaims, ‘Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,’
can never be forgotten. The graceful air, too, with which he introduces
Miss Woolford into the arena, and, after assisting her to the saddle,
follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create a
deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present.
When Miss Woolford, and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together
to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the
following (commenced by the clown): ‘I say, sir!’—‘Well, sir?’ (it’s
always conducted in the politest manner.)—‘Did you ever happen to hear
I was in the army, sir?’—‘No, sir.’—‘Oh, yes, sir—I can go through my
exercise, sir.’—‘Indeed, sir!’—‘Shall I do it now, sir?’—‘If you
please, sir; come, sir—make haste’ (a cut with the long whip, and ‘Ha’
done now—I don’t like it,’ from the clown). Here the clown throws
himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic
convulsions, doubling himself up, and untying himself again, and making
himself look very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human
agony, to the vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is
interrupted by a second cut from the long whip, and a request to see
‘what Miss Woolford’s stopping for?’ On which, to the inexpressible
mirth of the gallery, he exclaims, ‘Now, Miss Woolford, what can I come
for to go, for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for
you, ma’am?’ On the lady’s announcing with a sweet smile that she wants
the two flags, they are, with sundry grimaces, procured and handed up;
the clown facetiously observing after the performance of the latter
ceremony—‘He, he, oh! I say, sir, Miss Woolford knows me; she smiled at
me.’ Another cut from the whip, a burst from the orchestra, a start
from the horse, and round goes Miss Woolford again on her graceful
performance, to the delight of every member of the audience, young or
old. The next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the
only additional fun being that of the clown making ludicrous grimaces
at the riding-master every time his back is turned; and finally
quitting the circle by jumping over his head, having previously
directed his attention another way.
Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about
the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the daytime? You will rarely
pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men
conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour
swagger, and a kind of conscious air, peculiar to people of this
description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps
are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and
very full light green trousers, pulls down the wristbands of his check
shirt, as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks
the white hat of the summer-before-last as knowingly over his right
eye, as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white
Berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of
his threadbare coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant, and not
come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a
blue surtout, clean collar, and white trousers, for half an hour, and
then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes: who has to boast night
after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of
a pound a-week and his boots to find; to talk of his father’s mansion
in the country, with a dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in
the New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a
rich heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is
in the family way, and out of an engagement?
Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long
face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of
his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who
does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants,
curates, landlords, and so forth.
By the way, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some
piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. Fathers are
invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the
hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain
rose, usually commencing with ‘It is now nineteen years, my dear child,
since your blessed mother (here the old villain’s voice falters)
confided you to my charge. You were then an infant,’ &c., &c. Or else
they have to discover, all of a sudden, that somebody whom they have
been in constant communication with, during three long acts, without
the slightest suspicion, is their own child: in which case they
exclaim, ‘Ah! what do I see? This bracelet! That smile! These
documents! Those eyes! Can I believe my senses?—It must be!—Yes—it is,
it is my child!’—‘My father!’ exclaims the child; and they fall into
each other’s arms, and look over each other’s shoulders, and the
audience give three rounds of applause.
To return from this digression, we were about to say, that these are
the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinising, outside
the stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley’s they are always more
numerous than at any other place. There is generally a groom or two,
sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men
in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and
carrying, perhaps, under one arm, a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped
up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years ago we used to stand
looking, open-mouthed, at these men, with a feeling of mysterious
curiosity, the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the
moment we are writing. We could not believe that the beings of light
and elegance, in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue
scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at
night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could
be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we beheld by day.
We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen
something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify
the walking gentleman with the ‘dirty swell,’ the comic singer with the
public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and
distress; but these other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of
the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the
exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them, who ever
knew a rider at Astley’s, or saw him but on horseback? Can our friend
in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to
the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We
cannot—we will not—believe it.