CHAPTER VI.

THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS.

There is a letter extant, written to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1586, in which the writer speaks "with pious indignation of overcrowded playhouses and deserted churches;" and says "it was a wofull sight to see two hundred proude players jett in their silks where fyve hundred pore people sterve in the streetes." From this and many similar allusions we glean that actors were not in the infancy of our English dramatic art the shabby impecunious class they afterwards became. They were on the whole well to do, and highly respectable men of college education, who were in most cases poets as well as players, patronised and encouraged by all classes, except those who were so bitterly jealous of their extraordinary influence--the clergy. A special Act of Parliament was passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth for their encouragement and protection, and they had that which many of the well-born and wealthy envied them--the right of wearing the badges of royal and noble families, ensuring them respect, hospitality, and protection, wherever they went. The profession of the player was not then open to all comers, and those who dared to adopt it without licence from "any baron, or person of high rank, or two justices of the peace," were "deemed and treated as rogues and vagabonds;" prison and the whipping-post, or cart-tail, stocks, and the pillory, being but the milder forms of that treatment promised them in the often quoted, commonly misrepresented, Act of "good Queen Bess."

Some of the dramatic poets and players, plunging headlong into dissipation and debauchery, were at length abandoned by their fellows, and sank into the depths of misery and extreme poverty; but the majority prospered, and went about in their silks and velvets, with roses in their shoes, and swords by their sides, no longer the poor scholars they had been in their college days--the licensed beggars, who, when they came into a town, set all the dogs barking--but prosperous gentlemen of fair repute, such as were Shakespeare, and Edward Alleyn, the founder of the Hospital and College at Dulwich.

But a great change was at hand when the rebellion broke out, and civil war gave the Puritans dominant power. Their stage-plays and interludes were abolished, and the players' occupation was gone. Worse still, the very Act of Parliament which had been created for their protection was turned against them, and they were classed with the rogues and vagabonds against whom it had formerly protected them. Then the whipping and imprisonment, and even selling into slavery, became the poor players' miserable ill-fortune, and the reign of impecuniosity began in all its rigorous severity and terror. The London playhouses, which, between the years 1570 and 1629, had grown from one (the Theatre in Shoreditch) to seventeen, were shut up, and had all their stages, chambers (boxes, we call them), and galleries pulled down. Small wonder was it, therefore, that the players, almost to a man, drew their swords for the King, and fought stoutly under the royal banner. In the 'Historia Histrionica,' printed in 1699, we read the following dialogue:

"Lovewit. 'Prythee, Trueman, what became of these players when the stage was put down, and the rebellion raised?'

"Trueman. 'Most of 'em, except Lown, Taylor, and Pollard, who were superannuated, went into the King's army, and, like good men and true, served their old master, though in a different, yet more honourable, capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place (I think Basing House) by Harrison (he that was after hanged at Charing Cross), who refused him quarter, and shot him in the head after he had laid down his arms, abusing Scripture at the same time in saying, "Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently." Mohun was a captain (and after the wars were ended here served in Flanders, where he received pay as a major); Hart was a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dathson, in Prince Rupert's regiment; Burt was cornet in the same troop, and Shatterd, quarter-master. Allen, of the Cockpit, was a major, and quarter-master-general at Oxford. I have not heard of one of these players of note who sided with the other party, but only Swanston, and he professed himself a Presbyterian, took up the trade of a jeweller, and lived in Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy: the rest either lost, or exposed, their lives for their King. When the wars were over, and the Royalists wholly subdued, most of 'em who were left alive gathered to London, and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old trade privately. They made up one company out of all the scattered members of several; and in the winter before the King's murder, 1648, they ventured to act some plays, with as much caution and privity as could be, at the Cockpit (now Drury Lane Theatre). They continued undisturbed for three or four days; but at last, as they were representing the tragedy of 'The Bloody Brother' (in which Lowin acted Aubrey; Taylor, Rolla; Pollard, the cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised 'em about the middle of the play, and carried them away in their habits, not permitting them to shift, to Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they plundered them of their clothes and let 'em loose again. Afterwards, in Oliver's time, they used to act privately, three or four miles, or more, out of town, now here, now there, sometimes in noblemen's houses, in particular Holland House, at Kensington, where the nobility and gentry who met--but in no great numbers--used to make up a sum for them--each giving a broad piece, or the like--and Alexander Goffe (the woman-actor at Blackfriars) used to be jackall, and give notice of the time and place. At Christmas and Bartholomew Fair they used to bribe the officer who commanded at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at, to act, for a few days, at the "Red Bull," but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers. Some picked up a little money by publishing the copies of plays never before printed, but kept up in MS.; for instance, in the year 1652, Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Wild Goose Chase' was printed in folio, for the public use of all the ingenious, as the title-page says, and the private benefit of Jown Lowin and Joseph Taylor, servants to his late Majesty; and by them dedicated to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poetry: wherein they modestly intimate their wants, and with sufficient cause; whatever they were before the wars, they were afterwards reduced to a necessitous condition.'"

Hard times these for the poor wandering players.

It is curious to note that a reputed natural son of Oliver Cromwell became an actor. This was Joe Trefusis, nicknamed "Honest Joe," described as a person of "infinite humour and shrewd conceits." On one occasion, driven, we presume, by impecuniosity, Joe volunteered as a seaman, and served under the Duke of York. This was just before the memorable sea-fight between the duke and the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, in which Joe took part, as he confessed, with great fear, which was not, you may be sure, decreased when one of the sailors, grimly preparing for the strife, said to him "Now, master play-actor, you're a-going to take part in one of the deepest and bloodiest tragedies you ever heard of."

Another player of Puritan descent was the famous American actress, Charlotte Cushman, the name of her ancestor, Robert Cushman, being one that figures honourably and prominently as a leader amongst the Pilgrim Fathers. She tells us many anecdotes of the impecuniosity which afflicted her in the early days of her career. It was decided that she should abandon singing, and commence acting, and her first essay was to be in--of all parts--"Lady Macbeth"! She was then a tall, thin, fair-skinned, country girl, and being unable to procure a suitable costume, Madame Closel, a short, fat, dark-complexioned French woman, was applied to, and laughed heartily at the ludicrous idea of her clothes being worn by Miss Cushman, who says,--

"By dint of piecing out the skirt of one dress it was made to answer for an under-skirt, and then another dress was taken in in every direction to do duty as an over-dress, and so make up the costume. And thus I essayed for the first time the part of Lady Macbeth."

At that time her only place for study was an empty garret in the house in which she lodged, and her practice was to shut herself up in it alone, and sitting on the floor commit her "lines" to memory.

Miss Cushman was not the only actress whom impecuniosity and consequent vocal efforts led to the stage. The famous Kitty Clive, whose maiden name was Rafter, was originally maid-of-all-work to Miss Knowles, who lodged at Mrs. Snells, a well-known fan-painter, in Church Row, Hounsditch. The Bell Tavern immediately opposite this house, was kept by a Drury Lane box-keeper, named Watson, at which house an actor's beef-steak club was held. One morning, when Harry Woodward, Dunstall, and other well-known London actors were in their club-room, they heard a girl singing very sweetly and prettily in the street outside, and going to the window found that the cheerful notes emanated from the throat of a charming little maid-servant, who was scrubbing the street-door step at Mrs. Snell's house. The actors looked at each other and smiled, as they crowded the open window to listen, and the final result was, in 1728, the introduction of the poor singer to the stage. She afterwards married Counsellor Clive, and being not a little of the shrew, it is said, quarrelled with him so seriously, that before the honeymoon was fairly out, the "happy pair" agreed to separate. It must not, however, be supposed that Kitty Clive was born to a menial position: she was the daughter of an Irish gentleman, ruined, as so many Irish gentlemen were, by their adherence to the cause of James II.

Amongst those so ruined was the father of the illustrious actor and dramatic author, Charles Macklin, who on one occasion, when about to insure some property, was asked, "How the clerk should designate him?"

"Call me," replied the actor, "Charles Macklin, a vagabond by Act of Parliament"--the old law of Queen Elizabeth, which the Puritans had extended to all players, being then unrepealed.

There was doubtless a tinge of bitterness in the joke; for Macklin's early experience had been a severe and trying one, in the gaunt school of poverty and hardship.

When in his twenty-sixth year, being ashamed of depending upon his poor old mother for his living, he left home, and travelling as a steerage passenger from Dublin to Bristol, arrived in that opulent city when a third-class company of players were performing there. He took lodgings over a mean little snuff and tobacco shop, next door but one to the theatre, and there became acquainted with a couple of the players, a man and a woman, who introduced him behind the scenes. To this he owed his introduction to the stage; for the manager detecting signs of histrionic taste and ambition in the young Irishman, engaged him, despite his strongly pronounced brogue, to play Richmond in Shakespeare's 'Richard III.'

James Kirkman, said to have been a natural son of Macklin's, writing of his _début_, said, "Considering the strong vernacular accent with which Mr. Macklin (then MacLaughlin) spoke, the reader would be at a loss to account for the applause which he met with on his first appearance, if he was not told that Bristol has always been so much inhabited by the Irish that their tones in speaking have become familiar there."

The young Irish enthusiast afterwards travelled with this little company, making himself generally useful, by writing the playbills and distributing them--printing was too costly for poor strollers in those days--by carpentery when the stage had to be set up in some barn or inn-yard, by writing on occasions prologue or epilogue, without which no play was then considered complete, by composing and singing topical songs, "complimentary and adulatory to the village in which they happen to play," to use his fist, which he did with great skill and strength, when the vulgar rustic audiences were disturbed by the quarrelsome, or were rude and coarsely offensive to his professional sisters and brethren. Kirkman says, "His circle of acting was more enlarged than Garrick's; for in one night he played Antonia, and Belvidera in 'Venice Preserved,' harlequin in the interlude, or entertainment, sang three comic songs between the acts, and between the play and the entertainment indulged the audience with an Irish jig"; often doing this when his share of the profits (for the original sharing system of Shakespeare's day then prevailed among strollers) was not more than four or five pence per night, to which was usually added a share of the candle-ends, candles being in use for lighting the stage, affixed round hoops to form chandeliers for the auditorium, in the making of which Macklin displayed peculiar skill.

There is a good story told by Kirkman of a time when Macklin was with a company of strollers in Wales. One night they had the misfortune to arrive in Llangadoc, a little place in Carmarthenshire, so late that neither shelter, beds, nor food enough for all could be obtained, and Macklin, who, "from the high rank he held in the company was entitled to the first choice," resigned his claim in favour of a member of the corps who was too sick and weak to pass the night in the open air.

Kirkman, telling the story, says: "After supping with 'Lady Hawley,' Macklin made his bow and retired to the room where the luggage was stored. Here he undressed himself and adopted the following humorous expedient: He instantly arrayed himself in the dress of Emilia in the 'Moor of Venice' (a part he occasionally played), tied up a small bundle in a handkerchief and slipped out of the house unperceived. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, apparently much fatigued, and addressing the landlady in the most piteous terms, recounted a variety of misfortunes that had befallen 'her,' and concluded the speech with a heart-moving request that 'she' might have shelter for the night, as 'she' was a total stranger in that part of the country. The supposed young woman was informed by the unsuspecting landlady that all her beds were full, but that in pity for her distressed condition some contrivance would be made to let her have part of a bed. Charles now hugged himself at the success of his scheme, and, after he had partaken of some refreshment, was, to his great astonishment, conducted by the servant to the bedroom of the landlady herself, where he was left alone to undress. In this dilemma he scarcely knew how to act. To retreat he knew not how without risking discovery. However, into bed he went, convulsed with silent laughter. He had not been in bed many minutes before Mrs. 'Boniface,' who was upwards of sixty years, but completely the character in size and shape, made her appearance. Charles struggled hard with himself for some moments, but the comic scene had such an effect on him at last that he could contain himself no longer, and at the instant the old lady got into bed burst into a fit of laughter."

Mrs. Boniface, believing "the poor young girl was in a fit," got up as fast as she could, and roared out so loudly and effectually for help that everybody in the house was alarmed, and the itinerant actresses coming into the chamber discovered, to their intense astonishment, who it was that the landlady had given half of her bed to. The laughter spread, was taken up on the stairs, and echoed from room to room, until the whole house rang with it. The anger of the landlady was appeased. This occurred in 1730 or 1731.

An old friend of mine, who in his time has been actor, artist, journalist, dramatist, and novelist, and is now a well-known London editor, once told me the following story of his first connection with the stage.

He was a feeble, consumptive lad of sixteen, when the drunkenness and cruelty of a worthless step-father drove him penniless from home. All through one long, wretched, and utterly hopeless day he had been wandering through the streets of London seeking employment. Naturally shy, reserved, and timid, his awkward mode of addressing a stranger while perplexed what account to give of himself, together with the hesitation, stammering, and blushing which accompanied it, had brought upon him nothing but scornful treatment, insulting suspicions, and failure after failure. He found himself at the close of a long, hot day, with burning feet and aching limbs, hungry, faint, and plunged into the very lowest depths of despair, on the banks of the New River, where he had often been before to fish. His desire was to escape observation, and he dragged himself along, passed fishermen and boys, until, finding their line stretched out from one to another still far ahead, he sat down in the long grass completely exhausted, and turning on his face, wept silently.

Now it so happened that a tall, lank, sallow-faced young fisherman, with a beard of a fortnight's growth, and clothes of a once fashionable cut, but then threadbare, discoloured, ill-fitting, and very greasy at the cuffs and collar, particularly noted the tall, thin boy, and presently strolled up to, and sat down beside him.

"Hallo, guv'nor," said he; "what's up?"

The poor boy had no voice and no heart to reply, so he pretended to be asleep.

"Wat's yer been a doin' on? Run away from home?"

After a pause, and without moving, the poor lad said,--

"I've got no home now."

"Where do you come from?"

"Not very far."

"Where are you going to?"

"Don't know."

"Have you got any money?"

"None."

"Where's your father and mother?"

"Father's dead."

"And yer mother? Can't she keep yer? Ain't she got no home neither?"

The boy felt that any attempt to reply would betray his violent emotion. He got up silently and walked away.

The stranger followed, overtook him, and walked beside him.

"You've come from a long way off, young un--ain't yer?"

The runaway nodded, although he was really within about a mile and a half of his starting-point.

"Yer seems awfully tired. Why I do b'lieve as yer a crying. Wot's the matter?"

There was an expression of sincere sympathy in the man's face, and my young friend answered in a low faint voice, broken with sobs,--

"I've no home, and no relatives or friends to go to; and I don't know what to do."

The man eyed him very curiously before he replied,--

"My lodgin's in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed 'ull 'old two. Come home and sleep with me; and we'll take in a couple of black puddin's, or a faggot, or something nice an' 'ot for supper. Come along."

The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion's dirty linen and unwashed face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look, which did not escape the stranger's quick observation, turned and reluctantly went with him.

When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a snob, and that he was engaged for the Princess's Theatre, where Macready was then playing.

"If you like," said he, "I'll take you to the super-master; he lives close by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill."

He did so, and an engagement followed. This piece of luck filled the unfortunate lad's heart with delight. The pay was only a shilling a night, but he could live on it; and it was the first step in a profession of which he had dreamed as the summit of human ambition and felicity ever since he first saw a play performed "with real water" on the boards of old Sadler's Wells. With what tremulous eagerness and delight he went to rehearsal with his dirty friend and benefactor! With what wonder and curiosity he inspected the stage-door, the wings and the dressing-room under the stage, and with what awe he eyed the mighty magician who lorded it above his fellows with such undemonstratively quiet and yet most impressive dignity!

The play was Shakespeare's 'King Lear,' and in the combat scene the lists were formed on the stage by short battle-axes and long spears, the former being stuck upright in holes arranged for their reception, two of the latter placed crossways, and one on the top of them horizontally between each axe. Macready was particularly anxious that this should be done rapidly, and without hesitation; and the efforts of the supers to carry out his instructions were simply ludicrous. The men with the battle-axes couldn't hit upon the holes, and some absolutely went down upon their knees to feel for them, while the spearmen either were awfully slow and nervously careful, or they missed the supports and created a clatter and confusion, which appeared to plunge Macready into a furious state of anger and disgust. The new super, all eyes and ears, shared the great tragedian's feelings; he saw at once that the entire effect depended upon the dash and spirit of the soldier's action in eagerly and readily extemporising these warlike barriers; and he devised a plan by which his axe was thrust as it were at once into the earth, with scarcely a downward glance. He was pointing out how readily this was done, to his neighbours on either side, and telling them to pass the hint along, when he was startled by the deep strong voice of the tragedian, who had come up to him, and said abruptly, "What's your name, my man?"

"My friend did, what I am not going to do (not having his permission), he told Macready his name, and he, after a grunt, and a quick, keen glance from under his knitted brows, repeated it aloud, saying,--

"I shall not forget it. It's the name of the first super I ever saw with brains."

On the night of the first performance some few days after, my friend was taken out of his ordinary soldier costume, and arrayed more carefully and picturesquely in a more costly fashion to play the part of a knight in special attendance upon the king, from whom he had the honour of receiving a message. Alas! that honour cost him a friend--the jealousy of the shoemaker broke out in spite and bitterness which accumulated and intensified to such an extent that at the end of the week he was caught in the act of hiding in the dark behind one of the beams of wood supporting the stage, for the purpose of throwing a big stone at the poor fellow with whom, under the influence of pity, he had shared his food and lodging. It was impossible to conceive a more cowardly or malignant rascal than this fellow had become under the influence of envy and jealousy.

The class of theatrical people employed as supernumeraries (commonly called "supers") form the background figures of stage pictures, soldiers, sailors, peasants, citizens, mobs, &c., playing the dumb accessory parts; and they are as a rule neither too respectable nor too intelligent. To train and teach them is a task which sorely tries the patience of the super-master, and their lazy, poverty-stricken, and generally not too cleanly aspect is provocative of contempt and dislike amongst the actors. Their pay is not extravagant, being usually a shilling a night, but their histrionic pride is great, and their reverence for the actors profound, while for one to stand a little closer to the footlights than his fellows do, and consequently nearer the audience, or to be selected to go on alone to deliver a letter or receive a message, is the very summit of his ambition; a dangerous elevation, too, for from the time that he is so gloriously distinguished he is regarded with envy, spite, and malice, by his fellows, who try their best to oust him and take his place. This, my friend, above mentioned, soon experienced, for his life became a succession of bitter annoyances and coarse insults, varied when necessity compelled with an occasional fight, in which, despite his feeble health he generally contrived to give a fair account of his adversary, inheriting some of his father's skill as a boxer, and having been a constant student of that art when at school. At the termination of the Macready performances he was engaged at one of the old tavern theatres of those days, now known as the Britannia Theatre, then as the Britannia Saloon, where the stage-manager, a gentle and kindly old man (Mr. Wilton) was particularly good to him, and at last, after hearing him read a Shakespearian speech, entrusted him with small parts, contrary to the conviction of Mrs. Lane, the clever wife of the then proprietor, in whose place she now reigns. She, finding that the boy blushed and stammered when she spoke to him, pronounced him unfit for the experiment.

"He has an impediment in his speech," said she.

Some years after, my friend having in the meantime abandoned the stage for art (of which he was for years an ardent, indefatigable student), under the pressure of severe impecuniosity, became a country scene-painter and afterwards an actor, playing in the course of his theatrical career a wide range of second and third-rate parts, sometimes doubling as many as three or four in a single piece, and often both playing and painting scenery. Once, while Miss Mary Glover was manageress of the Cheltenham and Bath theatres, in consequence of the non-arrival of about half the expected company, he doubled tremendously, playing four characters in the burlesque and two in the farce, with the most rapid changes of "make up" and costume, one being a comic nigger with songs. Miss Glover had taken the theatre under the pressure of impecuniosity, trusting to the chance of success for the payment of her company. At the end of the first week she paid half salaries, at the end of the second and third weeks no salaries, or, in the parlance of the initiated, "the ghost did not walk," and great doubtless was the trouble and suffering consequently endured. My friend was reduced to bread and butter for meals, and found even those materials none too plentiful, when one evening he was summoned into the dressing-room of Miss Glover. The lady was in tears, but they were tears of indignant rage.

"Sir!" said she, "I was never so insulted in all my life!"

"What's wrong, madam? Who has insulted you?"

"Who has insulted me, sir! Why you have!" cried she, with a look of astonishment.

"I, madam! How?" he exclaimed with a similar expression.

"Look at your gloves, sir!"

"Well, madam, they are clean, I washed them myself."

"But, sir! Berlin gloves! It's monstrous! I was never so treated before in all my life! Paltry cotton. You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a leading character too. I never played with a gentleman before in your part who did not wear new white kids!"

"I laughed," said my friend. "It was rude, I know, but for the life of me I couldn't help it. Here was my employer living in comparative luxury at first-class lodgings in a fashionable town, abusing a poor devil whom she had cheated and half-starved, because, in a back-street garret with scarcely a penny in his pocket, he did not wear nightly, as he otherwise would have done, a new pair of white kid gloves!"

The late Miss Oliver, who stood by at the time, called the fellow who dared to laugh at a manageress in such dire distress, "a brute."

On another occasion Mr. Huntley May Macarthy, a once well-known and very eccentric provincial manager, abruptly closed the theatre at Bury St. Edmunds, after keeping it open a week or ten days, leaving the unfortunate company to escape from the dilemma of debt and difficulty into which so many of them were deeply plunged. Some had drawn a fortnight's salary in advance, to pay their travelling expenses to Bury St. Edmunds, and they had all been gathered from far and near by the London agent. In that case my friend the editor found his ark of safety in falling back upon his old profession. He painted the portrait of a local celebrity, which, being exhibited in the town, soon brought him sitters enough to enable him to help himself and spare something for one or two of his less happily situated brothers and sisters in misfortune. I remember my friend remarked as curious on each of these occasions the quietude with which the histrionics submitted to be so unfairly treated. Neither in the case of Miss Glover nor that of Mr. Macarthy were there any attacks made upon them to the face, heartily as they were cursed and abused behind their backs.

In explanation of this I may recall what Mrs. Mathews said of her husband, the elder Mathews, when he suffered under the same infliction, which in the old days of "circuits" and "strolling companies" was a very common one and is still by no means unknown. She said,--

"I have heard Mr. Mathews say that he has gone to the theatre at night without having tasted anything since a meagre breakfast, determined to refuse to go on the stage unless some portion of his arrears was first paid. When, however, he entered the green-room his spirits were so cheered by the attention of his brethren, and the _éclat_ of his reception that his fainting resolution was restored, all his discontent utterly banished for the time, and he was again reconciled to starvation: nay, he even felt afraid of offending the unfeeling manager, and returned home silent upon the subject of his claims."

No actor was ever better acquainted with poverty than that extraordinary man Edmund Kean. Endowed with rare genius, and a potency of will, that impelled him to surmount any obstacle lying in the pathway leading towards fame, this player's fate was yet infelicitous. Maternal solicitude, moral training, and those circumstantial influences which induce regular habits, were alike denied him. All the regularities, vicissitudes, vexations, disappointments, sorrows, trials and romance common to the lives of strolling players, characterized the early career of Edmund Kean. Through his mother he was related to George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. That mother was Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey, the reputed author of our National Anthem. The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house, situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress, that "about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to me, and said, 'Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her lodgings in Chancery Lane.' Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and found Nance Carey near her time. We asked her if she had proper necessaries, and she replied, 'No--nothing'; whereupon Mrs. Byrne begged the loan of some baby-clothes, and Nance Carey was removed to the chambers in Gray's Inn, which her father then occupied, and it was there that the future tragedian was born." Ann Carey had been under the protection of Aaron Kean, and he afterwards abandoned her. She came of an unfortunate stock, for Henry Carey, as I have stated, notwithstanding his talents was always in difficulties, which only forsook him when he committed self-destruction; and his son, George Saville Carey--printer, mimic, scientific lecturer, and occasional poetaster and dramatist--would have been without a decent burial, but for the charity of a few friends. His daughter when only fifteen years old, quitted her home and became a strolling actress; but when out of an engagement she would return to London, and pick up a scanty home in its streets as a hawker. It was in such occupation that Aaron Kean first saw the woman.

In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean's mother was selfish, calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child, with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he was three years old, and living under the protection of a poor man and his wife, in Soho. It is said that these worthy people had found little Edmund hungry and forlorn, and left in a doorway, one winter's night.

Of the boy's history, after the mother had abandoned him to the period when he found succour from the kind couple in Soho, nothing is known. Ann Carey demanded her child, and quickly turned her offspring to profit; getting him engaged to appear as a reposing Cupid in one of the Opera House ballets, and subsequently to appear in a Drury Lane pantomime--the boy was little more than three years old. When in 1794 at Drury Lane, John Kemble produced 'Macbeth' with exceedingly novel stage business, Edmund Kean was one of the goblin troupe, introduced for the purpose of giving additional impressiveness to the incantation scene. It was not long afterwards that he played the part of a page in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor.' His education was of the slightest, and intermittent; he was a pupil at a small school in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and at another place of instruction in Chapel Street, Soho; and the expenses for such education were defrayed by a few generously disposed people, who were impressed by the boy's beauty and intelligence. Ann Carey, almost destitute, went away from Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and, with her boy found a lodging in Ewer Street, Southwark. Young Edmund, restive and adventurous, determined to run away from home, and with a few necessaries tied up in a bundle slung on a stick, made his way to Portsmouth, and engaged himself in the capacity of cabin boy for a ship bound to Madeira. Not sufficiently robust to do some of the work incidental to his duties, he resolved to be again free; which he accomplished by feigning deafness. Discharged at the end of the return voyage, he walked from Portsmouth to London, and hungry, footsore and heart-weary, made his way to the old lodging in Southwark. He found that his mother had left her shabby tenement for a place in Richardson's show troupe, then perambulating the country.

He bethought him that he might find a shelter under the roof of his uncle, Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square. This uncle, who was a mimic, ventriloquist, and general entertainer, received young Edmund Kean kindly, gave him a home, and became his preceptor in many of the mysteries belonging to the histrionic art. Miss Tidswell, the acquaintance of his mother, and an actress of respectable position at Drury Lane, also showed great interest in the welfare of the boy. He made progress in the arts of dancing, singing, declamation, and fencing, and even in those days he became familiar with the creations of Shakespeare. Through the influence of Miss Tidswell, he obtained an engagement for some parts at Drury Lane, Prince Arthur in 'King John' being one. The boy excited notice, as the following anecdote related by Mrs. Charles Kemble shows.

"One morning before the rehearsal commenced, I was crossing the stage, when my attention was attracted by the sounds of loud applause issuing from the direction of the green-room. I enquired the cause, and was told that it was only little Kean reciting 'Richard III.' My informant said that he was very clever. I went into the green-room and saw the little fellow facing an admiring group, and reciting lustily."

On the death of Moses Kean, his nephew's only real friend was Miss Tidswell. Under her he studied Shakespearian characters, and while residing with her joined the company of Saunders, Bartholomew Fair. There he gave imitations of the nightingale and monkey, of the form and movement of the snake; and at Bartholomew Fair he acted the part of Tom Thumb. Soon afterwards, hearing that his mother was acting at Portsmouth, he set out from London for the seaport named; but on reaching it discovered that the information given him concerning Anna Carey was incorrect. His situation was trying, for he was destitute and friendless. Young Kean, however, had a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment consisting of "Selections from 'Hamlet,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Jane Shore,' with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." The entertainment was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund Kean at this time was fourteen years old.

Reciting Rolla's "address to the Peruvians" one evening before an audience at Sadler's Wells, a country manager, then present, was so much impressed by the declamation of the lad, that young Kean received an offer to play leading characters for twenty nights at the York Theatre. The offer was accepted, he was highly successful, and for many years from the time of that York engagement, the future tragedian of Drury Lane underwent the vicissitudes peculiar to the life of the old-fashioned stroller. It was not long ere he encountered the famous showman, Richardson, who speedily made terms with the precocious and versatile youth. It turned out that Anne Carey was in the company. She proposed that her son should join with her in her labours, and that she should receive his earnings. But they did not long labour together, and parted, not to meet again till Kean made his great success in 1814 at Drury Lane. While with a manager named Butler, at Northampton, Kean played walking gentlemen, Harlequin, and sang comic songs for a salary of fifteen shillings a week. While attached to Butler's company, he enacted the character of Octavian, in the 'Mountaineers' with such ability, that a gentleman connected with the Haymarket, who saw the performance, undertook to procure the young tragedian an engagement, provided that he could reach London to appear at a specified time. Kean, being without money, could only have travelled on foot, and the journey to London by such means would have taken up so much time, that he despairingly saw that the engagement must remain unfulfilled. Butler, with the greatest good nature, said "that he would defray the expenses of a stage-coach journey." Kean, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "If ever fortune smiles upon my efforts, I will not forget you."

The Haymarket engagement proved humiliating, the young actor being cast for very insignificant parts. However, in one character, Ganem, in the 'Mountaineers,' by the admirable manner in which he spoke certain words, he drew forth such unmistakable applause, that he availed himself of a recommendation addressed to John Kemble. In an interview with that celebrity, Kean found the eminent tragedian so chilling and unsympathetic in manner, that the poor fellow hurried from the theatre stung to the quick by his inauspicious reception. He again visited the provinces, and again experienced many privations, disappointments, humiliations, and rebuffs. Fate appeared to frown upon him; but it must be remembered that Kean was young, exceedingly small of stature, unconventional in his style of acting, and thoroughly original in every assumption that he undertook. Moreover, his temper was violent, haughty, and sensitive.

It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the capacity of usher at a school in Hertfordshire. In 1807 at Belfast, he played with Mrs. Siddons; and as Jaffier in 'Venice Preserved' made a strong impression. But the tragedienne's opinion of him was not flattering; for on first seeing him, she remarked, "he was a horrid little man," and criticising his enaction in Otway's pathetic drama said, "He plays the part very, very well, but there is too little of him wherewith to make a great actor." Notwithstanding taunts, impecuniosity, heart-burnings, and neglect, the young aspirant studied laboriously, and allowed no opportunity to slip by which he might gain increased knowledge of stage art, and of human nature; but during his hard apprenticeship, he was forced to have recourse to many shifts, and to endure much suffering. After playing an engagement in Kent, he accepted another for a single night at Braintree, in Essex.

On the day that the performance was to take place at Braintree, the actor stood, without a farthing in his pocket, on the Kent bank of the Thames. Bound to fulfil his engagement, it was necessary for him to cross the river; and his impecunious condition precluded all possibility of hiring a boat. The strong-willed stroller was not to be daunted. He threw off his clothes, tied them into a bundle, which he held in his teeth, plunged into the river, and speedily reached the shore. With his clothes saturated with water, half-famished, and tired in every limb, he yet went on for "Rolla," before the Braintree audience. While performing he fainted, and an illness of fever and ague was the consequence of his swimming expedition. On recovering he tramped all the way to Swansea, and played in that town. He was then in his twentieth year. Proceeding to Gloucester, he became a member of Beverley's company, and was advertised to play Young Rapid. The usual means had been taken to attract an audience, but at the time for the rising of the curtain there were only two persons in the auditorium; so the eighteenpence taken at the doors were returned to the couple of playgoers, and the theatre lights extinguished. A few nights Kean performed with a lady who had left the scholastic profession for that of the stage, and this lady, Miss Chambers, afterwards became Mrs. Kean. When at Stroud, Master Betty was announced to perform Hamlet and Norval; Kean found himself cast for Laertes and Glenalvon. The actor could not brook what he deemed an indignity,--that of playing secondary characters to a mere boy; and for three days and three nights, he was away from the theatre, every individual connected with it being ignorant of his whereabouts. On reappearing he said, "I have been in the fields, in the woods, I am starved; I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since I've been out; but I'll go again, and as often as I see myself put in such characters. I won't play second to any man living, except to John Kemble." In the summer of 1808, Kean married Mary Chambers, the wife being nine years older than the husband. Soon after the marriage, Beverley told them that he intended dispensing with their services, and they soon had to drain the cup of poverty to its dregs. To the honour of the woman he had taken to his heart, she cheered and soothed him in his tremendous struggle. He suffered not only the pangs of poverty, but too often the stings of hostile criticisms from provincial scribes, utterly unable to appreciate his passionate and original renderings of dramatic characterization. At Birmingham he thought himself and his wife well paid, when during an engagement they each received a pound for their weekly services. So ably did he act that Stephen Kemble made proposals to negotiate a London engagement; but Kean deemed that further experience was necessary before he should attempt a metropolitan appearance in leading characters. Terrible toil and terrible suffering had to be undergone ere he was to reach the pinnacle of success.

Closing his performances at Birmingham, he made terms with Andrew Cherry to appear at Swansea. So indigent was the actor, that he was necessitated to undertake the journey on foot, a journey of 200 miles; and his wife, who accompanied him, was likely soon to become a mother. Mr. and Mrs. Kean owed money in Birmingham, or possibly the wife might have remained in the town; and from it--early one summer morning--they departed on their long and wearisome way, adding to their miserable store of money some additions as they proceeded, by giving recitations at the residences of the gentry. In a fortnight they reached Bristol, were ferried over to Newport, and at last reached Swansea, where they obtained lodgings. Kean's acting was not warmly received; and referring to one of his impersonations in the town, he remarked, "I played the part finely, and yet they would not applaud me!" The actor grew moody, splenetic, and gave way to insobriety. A son born to him at this period he named Howard; and it was soon after the birth of the child that the Keans left Swansea, with Cherry, for other towns in the principality, and subsequently they crossed over to Ireland. At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called 'La Perouse.' It was at Waterford that Edmund Kean's second son, Charles, was born. Beaching Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker, who paid sixpence for admission. At Carlisle Kean appealed to the barristers on Assize, asking for their presence, when he would deliver a series of recitations, his reward to be at their discretion; but the appeal was made in vain. In the autumn of 1811, the family in the most miserable condition arrived in York, and from the ball-room, Minster Yard, Kean issued a circular announcing, "for one night only," an entertainment comprising recitals, dramatic selections, imitations of actors, and singing by himself, assisted by his wife; but the scheme ended with anything but a prosperous result. Under their struggles, husband and wife broke into a wail of grief, as they contemplated their innocent and unfortunate babes. The mother on her knees, supplicated for spiritual influence to annihilate their sufferings by death, but the fiery-willed player still kept courage, "I will go on, I will hope against hope!!" They got to London, where, at Sadler's Wells, Kean had a short engagement at two pounds a week, and then he had engagements at Weymouth and Exeter; in which latter place he played for a salary of one pound a week. Through the influence of an old friend, Dr. Drury, Kean at length obtained an engagement at Drury Lane. But ere his triumph on the London boards was effected, the child, Howard, died, an event to which the actor never alluded without feelings of grief. While Kean was concluding his Exeter performances, his wife and child were desolate in the garret of a house in Cecil Street, Strand; and they would have starved, but that the liberality of Dr. Drury succoured them. Even on the eve of his Drury Lane success, Kean underwent many trials and sufferings. Save Dr. Drury he was without a friend. On his _début_, that memorable evening at Drury Lane, 26th January, 1814, the directors of the establishment denied him everything calculated to awaken hope and courage. Kean went to the dressing-room, and from the dressing-room to the stage, conscious that he had been treated with superciliousness, apathy, and injustice. Under such treatment, and with all his previous trials, it was only a perfect knowledge of his own transcendent powers, that carried him through the ordeal. The effect of his triumph in Shylock, may best be described in the words of his late biographer. "In an almost phrenzied ecstasy he rushed through the wet to his humble lodging, sprang up the stairs, and threw open the door. His wife ran to meet him; no words were required, his radiant countenance told all--and they mingled together the first tears of true happiness they had as yet experienced. He told her of his proud achievement, and in a burst of exultation exclaimed, 'Mary, you shall ride in your carriage, and, Charley my boy,' taking the child from the cradle and kissing him, 'you shall go to Eton, and'--a sad reminiscence crossed his mind, his joy was overshadowed, and he murmured in broken accents, 'Oh that Howard had lived to see it! But he is better where he is.'" Pity that so fine a nature as Edmund Kean's, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind. When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling, it is scarcely surprising that the term "poor players," should have become proverbial. The victims of a social ban, originating in the bigotry of church and conventicle; following a profession, perhaps of all professions the most scouted by smooth, smug respectability, and certainly of all professions the most liable to fluctuations of success from the caprices, whims and "breeches-pocket" condition of its patrons; it seems but natural that the history of the stage should yield numerous illustrations of man impecunious.

Then, too, it must be borne in mind, that the greater number of men and women who have recruited the ranks of the histrionics have been people of romantic and "happy-go-lucky" temperament; light-hearted, generous to a fault, unworldly in the money-making sense, and frequently of the most irregular and unbusiness-like habits. Such characteristics had Theophilus Cibber, Shuter, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, Ward, and John Reeve; and though the precarious nature of the profession, the necessarily unsettled habits of its followers, and the unreality of the life, may be conducive in a degree to impecuniosity, it seems to me--and I have strutted several fretful hours--the only real cause of players being poorer than other people is due to extravagance and irregularity. Frugal, steady, trustworthy habits invariably increase a man's well-being, in any calling; and the theatrical profession is no exception to the rule.

Richardson, the showman, was born in a workhouse, and was in his early years a mere little social arab, cast upon the world without friends or education; and he began his social career by exhibiting a little child with spotted skin, calling him the "spotted boy." The first venture was profitable, and the showman went on making money, and saved it. He then set up a show theatre, succeeded so well that year after year he had to enlarge it, and at last it became the largest in the kingdom. Richardson likewise established a character for honesty, and all that is summed up in the words "manly conduct."

John Quick--George the Third's favourite comedian--had, too, in his time been poor enough. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and when only fourteen years old ran away from home, with the idea of taking to the stage for a profession. Without any money in his pocket he started on his romantic journey, and managed to find a booth company at Fulham, where he was allowed to enact Altamont in the 'Fair Penitent.'

Having played to the satisfaction of the manager, that worthy commanded his wife to set the _débutant_ down for a whole share of the night's receipts, which at the close of the last piece amounted to three shillings. Quick rose in his profession, and by forethought and prudence amassed a fortune of £10,000.

Braham's boyhood was surrounded with hardships and privations. Early left an orphan, he was obliged to walk the streets of London as a vendor of pencils. In that situation he was befriended by Leoni, a vocalist at the synagogue in Duke's Place, Covent Garden, who trained the lad's voice, so remarkable for its peculiar sweetness of tone and expression. For Leoni's benefit, in 1787, at the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, young Braham made his _début_. His genius, of its kind, was unsurpassable; but it was the prudence added to it which laid the foundation of his fortune, which would have remained in the possessor's hands but that the vocalist entered unwittingly on theatrical management.

Even in the more humble departments of theatrical life may be found thrifty examples of people, who, versed in the somewhat difficult part of making both ends meet, at length found themselves in a reputable and flourishing position. Such an instance is that of Bennett, a theatrical manager once well known in the Midlands. Bennett possessed a gift for doing things himself--his only assistant being an old lady, one Mrs. Gamage. He began his career with a puppet-show, was thrifty on its poor proceeds, and eventually became proprietor of a theatre. Bennett was successful as an actor at Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and towns adjacent. His travelling-cases, boxes, and chests, had their surfaces touched up by the scenic artist, and in the theatre did duty for castle walls, palace terraces, and palatial furniture; his helmets, and other stage properties, were of canvas, easy to fold up for packing, and many of his properties combined several utilities. He would arrange with his friends to take money at the doors, and Mrs. Gamage combined the offices of candle-snuffer and constable, and during the day she cooked and cleaned up at home. Bennett has been known to seek out musical young men in a town, and allow them the privilege of singing on his stage; or, if they were at all proficient on an instrument, allow them to play in his orchestra. He dressed as a fine gentleman by day, and like a mechanic in the evening. He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.

Old Philip Astley, Davidge, John Douglas, and Samuel Phelps, all poor men at the outset of life, entered on theatrical management, carried it on with care, tact and probity, and all of them died reputable, and in comfort. Garrick, the Kembles, Charles Mayne Young, Munden, Richard Jones, William Farren, Liston, Macready, and a host of other gifted actors, died rich, having lived amidst the respect of the highest social circles; but it will be found in each particular case, that they were men of high character, and prudent habits.

In some other instances the impecuniosity of actors has resulted from short-sightedness to their own interests, imprudence, and utter incompetence in business matters, but unfortunately extravagance, and other irregular habits of life, have been the frequent cause of poverty.

Nicholson, once lessee of the Newcastle Theatre, by want of business habits gradually became a poor man, so poor that he became money-taker at Drury Lane, and subsequently died in the workhouse of the town where he had been theatrical manager; and Faucit-Saville, formerly lessee and manager at Gravesend, Margate, Deal and other theatres, died while engaged as money-taker at the City of London Theatre.

Some who saw 'Manfred,' when revived at Drury Lane by Mr. Chatterton, with Phelps as the hero of Byron's sombre, but impressive, dramatic poem, may possibly, when leaving the house between the acts, have noticed one of the checktakers, an old gentleman of stagy deportment, enveloped in an old, faded cloak. That individual was no other than the once famous tragedian, Mr. Denvil, who was the original Manfred when Bunn produced the tragedy at Covent Garden, long ere Mr. Phelps made his _début_ at the Haymarket. In the character of Manfred, Denvil made an intense and abiding impression, became lessee of theatres in town and country, but from want of _nous_, and from want of prudence, dwindled in the social scale, and sank to the menial capacity in which he was to be seen at Drury Lane.

Another specimen of an unsuccessful manager was Huntley May, who had been lessee of nearly all the small provincial theatres in the kingdom. This man had but a very imperfect sense of honour, part of his business being to issue as large bills as he could possibly get printed, announcing the most splendid dramatic productions, which, when the evening arrived, were never presented. Often his audience grew riotous and pugnacious. One night, an assemblage threatened to pull up his benches; but Mr. May, not unaccustomed to such scenes, appeared before the footlights and exclaimed,--

"What's up now, boys?"

"Money, money. It's a swindle!"

"Hark at 'em now. Murder and Moses! there's broths of boys for yer. Money's just what I want myself. Think of your Cathedral ground; who lies in it? My sainted wife, Norah; poor soul! she loved Exeter so that she would come here to be buried among ye. We all love ye! myself and little Pat. Aisy now, I'll give you a thrate. To-morrow night's my benefit, make me a thumping house; Norah won't forget you in heaven. Behave like gentlemen, come early to-morrow night. Good luck to ye!" which audacious address seems by all accounts to have satisfied his easily satisfied audience.

But even when the old country managers, and there were many, got their living honestly, and by fair means, the profession frequently had the hardest of lots. The strolling players were a merry-headed and easily contented race; but it would be difficult to name any class of people that have known greater oppression. Regarded by a large section of English people as rogues and vagabonds, they were often at the mercy of common informers and petty-minded magistrates.

A circumstance in the career of Moss, a clever actor, and respectable manager, well illustrates such petty persecution. He opened the Whitehaven Theatre for a night or two with some success, but in less than a week the manager and his troupe were put in "durance vile." Arrested on a Saturday night, they had to remain in the "lock-up" throughout Sunday. On Monday morning they were taken up before the magistrates, and arraigned upon a somewhat extraordinary charge. An inhabitant of Whitehaven, a person to whom credit was given by his acquaintances for sanity and truthfulness, appeared in open court to denounce the strollers, not only as a curse to society generally, but to his town in particular. It was declared by this individual that "before the theatre opened there was an immense haul of herrings; but since the players had entered the place, the fish had all fled, and that in consequence the fishermen were suffering. Misfortune always followed the wake of actors; wherever they appeared, they carried a curse." In spite of reference to sundry tomes of jurisprudence, and notwithstanding consultation with the town-clerk, the magistrates could not pronounce a verdict. However they prohibited the reopening of the theatre, and the sons of the "wicked one" had to pack about their business in the best way they could.

Edward Stirling applying to a local magistrate at Romford in Essex, for permission to perform for a few nights in the Town Hall, received but sorry treatment from the bigoted official.

"What, sir! Bring your beggarly actors into this town to demoralize the people? No, sir. I'll have no such profligacy in Romford; poor people shall not be wheedled out of their money by your tomfooleries. The first player that comes here I'll clap in the stocks as a rogue and a vagabond. Good morning, sir."

Even in fair seasons the pay of the strollers was wretched in the extreme. In 1826, Mrs. John Noel, desirous of getting her two daughters into practical training for the stage, applied to a wandering manager--Black Beverley--as to whether he could find room for the young ladies in his company. Mrs. Noel was informed that his troupe was about visiting Highgate, and that her daughters could join, on condition that they would put up with the sharing system, and find their own costumes. The engagement was accepted, the elder of the two girls (afterwards Mrs. George Hodson) being cast for Juliana, and the younger (afterwards Mrs. Henry Marston) for Volante in Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon.' Black Beverley was to be the Duke Aranza, and the performance was to take place at the White Lion Tavern. The young ladies _débuted_, and their remuneration was one shilling and sixpence each. The men and women were homely, respectable people, and the leading actors eagerly accepted Mrs. John Noel's invitation to a substantial supper she had packed in a hamper, and of which the poor players gratefully partook, eating as if they had been without food for days.

A well-known actor remembers playing the Stranger, Philip, in 'Luke the Labourer,' and a farce character at a small theatre in Chelsea, and receiving twopence for his services, and then having to walk to the Mile End Road!

Phelps, when attached to Huggins' company, has tramped with his bag on his shoulders, more than once a distance of five-and-twenty miles, being without coach-money; and his wife and child at Preston had, in the early time of Phelps' career, for nearly a week to subsist on a rather small meat-pie. It was a terrible thing some fifty years ago, for some stage-stricken swain, or maiden, to depart hundreds of miles, perchance so far as Scotland, and find themselves in some poorly-paid company. Twenty shillings a week would be considered a fair salary. There would be scores of miles to travel, certain dresses to find, and upon the residue of the scant income the player had to live. When things failed it was sometimes literally tragic; for the tyros had little chance of escape, railways and cheap steamers being unknown.

What a _bizarre_ picture is that drawn by Edmund Stirling of Ben Smithson's Agency for Actors, at the "White Hart" in Drury Lane!

"Kind-hearted considerate Ben," writes his remembrancer, "a real Samaritan, ever ready with food and kindly words to cheer and encourage the poor stroller. Ben, strongly impregnated with the 'Mysteries of Udolpho' school, was wont to use grandiloquent words for every day purposes. His hostel became a 'castle'; back parlours, smelling strongly of 'baccy,' tapestry chambers; dilapidated staircases, lumber closets, and dark landings, 'galleries, crow's-nests, and eagle towers;' his beer-cellars were known as 'dungeon keeps;' 'Barclay's entire' at fourpence per pot became 'nectar,' like Mr. Dick Swiveller's 'rosy wine;' and his two serving-men, plain Bob and Dick, were transformed into 'Robarto' and 'Ricardo.' Every poor player that arrived, footsore and hungered, was styled according to his robe, Kemble, Kean, Munden, or Siddons; Smithson knowing full well how pleasantly a little flattery would tickle the palate. There was always a bed, supper, and breakfast, money or not, in that Mecca for wanderers. Such liberality brought failure in its train, and the 'White Hart's' doors speedily closed on Ben and his 'good intentions.'"

Not less amusing, too, is Mr. Stirling's description of the Brothers Strickland and their lesseeship of the Oddfellows' lodge-room, at the Chiswick "Red Cow," where they announced "A London company for two nights, with 'Pizarro,' as played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; elaborate scenery and heart-rending effects. Pit, one shilling; boxes, two; and standing room, sixpence. Seats booked at the 'Red Cow' daily from 10 till 4. Schools and children half-price."

Stirling tried to get employment under the Stricklands, and having wended his way to the tavern, was shown into the kitchen, and there found the company dressed for the evening's performance of 'Pizarro.' At a table, superintending the tea, Elvira sat in faded black robes, wielding a tea-pot, and ever and anon scowling at her base destroyer, Pizarro. He sat aloof, encased in rusty tin armour, a ferocious wig and locks to match, in his hand a long pipe, and by his side an empty glass. Cora, the lovely Peruvian maid, employed her soft hands in toasting muffins, assisted by her husband, the Spanish Alonzo. Such was the heat of the climate, combined with the effects of something short, that Peruvians and Spaniards sat socially together, doing their pipes and beer. Strickland engaged Stirling to play Richmond on the following Monday, but he wasn't to have anything for it.

Perhaps there is no more pertinent illustration of a chequered career--a career with indigence at one end and splendid wealth at the other--than that furnished by the life of Harriet Mellon, afterwards Mrs. Coutts, and subsequently Duchess of St. Alban's. She was not the only actress who made a fortunate marriage. Anastasia Robinson married the Earl of Peterborough; Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachem, in the 'Beggar's Opera,' gave her hand to the Duke of Bolton; Louisa Brunton became Countess of Craven, and Elizabeth Farren exchanged her name for that of Countess of Derby. But not one of those enumerated had known the privations and hardships suffered by Harriet Mellon. When raised to affluence as Mrs. Coutts, and when coroneted as a duchess, she sometimes with mirth and sometimes with pathos referred to those old days of her life, when she was downcast by harsh treatment and impecuniosity, and was never ashamed of the time when she was nothing more than a poor strolling actress.

In 1789 Harriet Mellon, with her mother and Entwisle, her step-father, joined the theatrical company of Stanton. In the city of Lichfield the tenement is still pointed out where the Entwisles lodged in a couple of rooms, each ten feet by four and three-quarters across, with windows two feet square; the rent for the lodgings being two shillings a week. Stanton on one occasion obtained a bespeak from a squire, who requested a performance of the 'Country Girl.' The manager was only too glad to play anything, so low had been the ebb of his fortunes. No copy of the comedy being in the manager's possession, an actor was despatched to a town not many miles distant for the necessary volume. Extra delay took place, the needy _commissionnaire_ having gone on foot, putting the coach-money in his pocket. When he returned the play-book was cut up leaf by leaf and distributed to the company to transcribe; at least to those acquainted with the art of penmanship. It is stated that the copyists were few. Harriet Mellon, though of junior rank in the company, was cast for Peggy. She had the part given her in virtue of her ready and trustworthy memory. The girl's heart filled with enthusiasm when she learned that she was to perform the title _rôle_. But her heart filled with sorrow an hour or two afterwards when she inspected the square-cut and dingy, snuff-coloured coat, held aloft by the manager, as the garment in which Peggy should appear as the boy, the character assumed in the park scene by the country girl. Being made acquainted with Harriet's disgust at the costume furnished by the manager, Mrs. Entwisle bethought her of acquaintances who might help her daughter out of the trouble. A lady housekeeper to whom the mother applied, suggested the loan of a fashionable suit from one of her young masters. The proposition was declined. The housekeeper then stated that an idea crossed her: she might be enabled to procure a small and well-cut suit of clothes elsewhere.

Mother and daughter spent an anxious afternoon, and about four o'clock, at their lodgings, a lad made his appearance with a parcel, and not long afterwards the friendly housekeeper appeared too. The old lady said she had called on another old lady in a similar capacity to herself, and by her kind offices had procured not the clothes of any young gentleman, but the wedding-dress of her old master, and as he was only a "dwarfy" when young, probably the clothes would fit Harriet. A pang smote the breast of Miss Mellon as she thought the garments must be at least thirty years old; but the parcel was unfastened, and it was found to contain a light amber-coloured silk coat, silver trimmed white satin waistcoat and smalls; pale blue silk stockings, shoes laced, stock buckles, and ruffles.

Harriet Mellon was in raptures. Half-past six o'clock came, the barn was crowded, and the one musician, Entwisle, led off with 'Rule Britannia,' 'Britons, strike Home,' and 'The Bonny Pitman.' Up went the curtain, and the comedy began. The family whose bespeak proved so attractive were delighted with the performance, and especially with the acting of Miss Harriet. In the park scene the baronet and lady grew particularly grave of countenance as they surveyed Peggy in the boy's clothes, which gravity continued during the remaining part of the entertainment.

Next morning as Harriet was at breakfast, a groom rode up to the door of the house where she lodged, and a letter was left for Miss Mellon, which proved a formal and frigid communication, requesting information respecting the means by which she had acquired the male attire worn by her on the previous evening.

The truth soon afterwards came out. The housekeeper to whom Mrs. Entwisle applied, not knowing when or for what the dress was wanted, went to the housekeeper of the very gentleman who bespoke the play; and his servant lent his wedding-dress that had been stowed away since the occasion of his nuptials. The young actress was cleared of all imputation, and on leaving the neighbourhood received from the baronet's lady a present in the shape of a handsome frock. Before that time, Harriet's mother would not allow, on account of shabby attire, the girl's attendance at Stafford church, but used to send her to Ingestre for Sunday morning worship, because at that place she was unknown.

Harriet's salary for some years was only fifteen shillings a week. Sheridan and the Hon. Mr. Monckton were appointed stewards of the Stafford races in 1794, and at the theatre in the town those gentlemen witnessed the acting of Miss Mellon as Letitia Hardy and Priscilla Tomboy. On Sheridan, the arbiter of London theatricals, affording hope to her that she might obtain an engagement at Drury Lane, the Entwisles with their daughter left for the metropolis. At a humble lodging in Walworth the family subsisted by means of a small sum of money, the proceeds from Harriet's farewell benefit in the country. Sheridan, a careless and procrastinating man, kept Mrs. Entwisle in cruel suspense concerning her daughter's _début_ at Drury Lane, mother and daughter being continually put off by the manager with excuses; but at last the opportunity came.

Drury Lane opened for the season 1795-1796 on the evening of September 16th, and on that occasion Miss Mellon went on as one of the vocalists, to join in the National Anthem. On September 17th the bill of the night announced a performance of 'The Rivals,' "Lydia Languish by a young lady, her first appearance." The young lady was the daughter of Mrs. Entwisle. She was very nervous at her _début_, and Sheridan thought it desirable that some time should elapse for her to become acquainted with the size and extent of the house, by joining in choruses before she again tried a prominent character. She remained in the background till October. The Michaelmas day before the family were exceedingly depressed, the girl's prospects being uncertain, and her salary only thirty shillings a week. Old-fashioned people, and exceedingly superstitious, the Entwisles and Harriet bewailed the absence of the luck-bringing goose on the 29th September. Through a gift, or by pinching, when strollers, they had usually managed to get Christmas mince pies, Shrove Tuesday pancakes, Easter tansy pudding, and the Michaelmas goose. It was a matter of sorrow to poor Harriet, that her finances would not allow her to purchase a goose, for the sake of tasting a bit for good-luck. When informed that she could at a Drury Lane cook-shop buy a quarter of the much-honoured bird the girl's delight knew no bounds. The purchase was made, and she was happy.

It came to pass that her fortunes brightened at Drury Lane, where she remained twenty years. When Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon' was produced, Harriet Mellon made a great hit in the character of Volante. Through drawing a prize in the Lottery she was enabled to purchase Holly Lodge, Highgate. The _Times_ of March the 2nd announced the marriage of "Thomas Coutts, Esq., to Miss Harriet Mellon, of Holly Lodge, Highgate." Her husband was a man of enormous wealth. Mrs. Coutts subsequently married the Duke of St. Albans, and at her death, in addition to other magnificent bequests, left to the lady now known as the Baroness Burdett Coutts, a fortune of £1,800,000.

One of the most gifted men that ever trod the stage was George Frederick Cooke. Indeed the splendour of his genius is said to have been almost as exceptional as the fierceness of his passions, and the recklessness of his habits. Drink, gambling, licentiousness, and prodigality, ruined his fortunes, and cut short his life. It may be urged in mitigation of his excesses, that like Kean he had indifferent home training, and that at a very early age he was left to the exercise of his own wilful and sensual nature. His father had been a soldier who left his widow in unprosperous circumstances. She quitted London, and settled at Berwick-upon-Tweed, where her son received an indifferent education, and where on several occasions he saw part of the Edinburgh Company perform. Cooke states, "that from that time plays and playing were never absent from his thoughts, that he pinched his belly to procure play-books, and actually studied one particular character,--Horatio, in the 'Fair Penitent.'" His mania to get into the play-house has amusing proof in a story, which, in after years, Cooke used to relate with gusto, and comicality. He much wished to see 'Douglas,' as did some companions, but all of them were without a farthing. They contrived to get into the theatre by a private entrance, and secreted themselves under the stage. Hope told them the flattering tale that they might steal out during the performance, and join the audience, by means of an aperture they had discovered in a passage leading to the pit. In carrying out the enterprise they were discovered by one of the company, and after a trying interrogatory shamefully turned out at the stage-door. Young Cooke, reckless, and persistent, urged his companions to go in and conquer notwithstanding an ignominious defeat; so they were constantly on the alert, and found by observation that a back door was left unguarded, which one evening they entered unperceived. Fairly in, the next consideration was, how they could conceal themselves until the rising of the curtain; their hope being that amidst the confusion and preparation behind the scenes, they might escape notice, and enjoy the magic show. Cooke saw a barrel, took advantage of the safe and snug retreat, creeping in like the hero of the famous melodrama 'Tekeli,'--in those days the admiration of the polished playgoing populace of the British metropolis. Unfortunately however there was danger in the lurking place; he had for companions two large cannon-balls, but the youth not being initiated into the mysteries of the scene, did not suspect that cannon-balls helped to make thunder in a barrel as well as in a twenty-four pounder, and little did poor George Frederick imagine where he was. The play was 'Macbeth,' and in the first scene the thunder was required to give due effect to the situation of the crouching witches, as the ascending baize revealed those beldames about to depart on their mission to meet Macbeth.

It was not long ere the Jupiter Tonans of the theatre, _alias_ the property-man, approached and seized the barrel, and the horror of the concealed boy may be imagined as the man proceeded to cover the open end with a piece of old carpet, and tie it carefully, to prevent the thunder from being spilt. Cooke was profoundly and heroically silent. The machine was lifted by the brawny stage servitor and carried carefully to the side-scene, lest in rolling, the thunder should rumble before its cue. All was made ready, the witches took their places amidst flames of resin, the thunder-bell rang, the barrel received its impetus with young Cooke and the cannon-balls,--the stage-stricken lad roaring lustily to the amazement of the thunderer, who neglected to stop the rolling machine, which entered on the stage, and Cooke, bursting off the carpet head of the barrel, appeared before the audience to the horror of the weird sisters, and to the hilarity of the spectators.

In Stukely, Sir Pertinax, Kitely, Iago, and Richard III., George Frederick Cooke was allowed to be unrivalled. But his social position was lowered and his fine talents deteriorated by intemperance and debauchery. He was in constant debt and difficulties, in spite of excellent emoluments. After much trouble, he on one occasion obtained a suit of clothes from a tailor indisposed to give credit. Cooke explained to him that there would be no doubt about the price being ready on his benefit, which was at hand. The tailor, a stage-struck swain, said that if he were allowed to appear on the benefit night, in addition to stage tuition from Cooke, the garments should be forthcoming. The tragedian agreed to give the instruction, and cast him for the post of Catesby, Cooke of course playing Richard. The night came, and the "snip" ranted and strutted, and in the tent scene, after, "Richard's himself again," on the entrance of Catesby, the tailor in answer to Richard's "Who's there?" halted, and stuttered "'Tis I, my lord, the early village cock." The audience roared; but after silence came, the tailor merely repeated the words just as before; upon which Cooke unable to keep his gravity or restrain his temper, roared out, "Then why the devil don't you crow?"

Another good story in connection with impecuniosity and a stage performance, is that told of Mossop, who, when at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, found himself in a peculiar predicament (the result of irregular payments) one night when he was playing Lear. His Kent was a creditor, who, as he personated the faithful nobleman supporting his aged master, whispered, "If you don't give me your honour, sir, that you'll pay me the arrears this night before I go home, I'll let you drop about the boards." Mossop alarmed said, "Don't talk to me now." "I will," said Kent, "I will;" adding, "Down you go." The manager was obliged to give the promise, and the actor before leaving the theatre received his wages.

John O'Keefe the author of 'Wild Oats,' relates a similar curious, and humorous anecdote concerning the "silver tongued" Spranger Barry. "The first character I saw Barry in was Jaffier, Mossop Pierre, and Mrs. Dancer the Belvidera. According to the usual compliment of assisting a dead tragic hero to get upon his legs, after the dropping of the curtain, two very curt persons walked on the stage to where Barry (the Jaffier) lay dead, and, stooping over him with great politeness and attention, helped him to rise. All three thus standing one of them said: 'I have an action, sir, against you,' and touched him on the shoulder. 'Indeed' replied Barry. 'This is rather a piece of treachery; at whose suit?' The plaintiff was named and Barry had no alternative but to walk off the stage, and was going out of the theatre in their custody. At that moment some scene-shifters and carpenters who had been observing the proceedings, and knew the situation of Barry, went off and returned almost immediately, dragging with them a huge piece of wood, in the rear of which was a bold and ferocious looking property-man who grasped a hatchet. Barry said, 'What are you about?' 'Sir,' said one, 'we are only preparing the altar of Merope, for we are going to make a sacrifice.' The speaker having concluded, grasped his hatchet and sternly eyed the bailiffs. 'Be quiet, you foolish fellows,' remonstrated the tragedian, who began to think the business serious. The minions of the law also grew apprehensive as the sacrificators looked on with fixed and stony eyes. Barry noticing the bailiffs beckon, went to them, and drawing him aside they said they would quit him if he would give his word of honour that the debt should be settled next day." The actor was gratefully complimentary to his supporters, not forgetting the altar of Merope. The circumstance occurred at the Dublin Theatre in 1778.

The narrator of this story has one equally amusing of Mahon and Macklin. "Bob," on one occasion said Macklin, "I intend to have you arrested for the debt you owe me, but I am considering whether I shall arrest you before or after your benefit." "Oh," said Mahon, "don't arrest me at all." "Yes, yes, Bob, you know I must; to prison you will have to go." "There's no occasion." "Oh yes, there is." "Well then, sir, if you must, wait till my benefit is over." "No! Bob, then you take the money and knock it about no one knows how nor where, and I shall never get a shilling of it; but if I arrest you before your benefit, some of those lords that you sing for in clubs and taverns and jovial bouts may come forward and pay this money for you. No, no, I'll have you touched on the shoulder before your benefit."

King, one of the finest comedians of the eighteenth century, and the original Sir Peter Teazle, made a large fortune; but lost it at the gambling-table. On one occasion he borrowed five guineas for a last stake, and he then won two hundred pounds. Escaping from the chamber, he fell on his knees, and in answer to a request from a companion, made oath on a Bible that he would relinquish his gamester's mania. But he became a member of the Miles Club, in St. James', and at the tables soon lost everything, and died in extreme poverty.

Bayle Bernard's father--John Bernard, a clever comedian, and, in his after years, a well-known manager of American theatres, went through many adventures during the period of his novitiate. After playing at Poole in Dorsetshire, and having spent the money he had earned, he thought he should return home, according to a promise made to his mother; but his success at Poole in playing the character of Major Oakley in the comedy of 'The Jealous Wife,' suppressed the dramatic tyro's notion about duty. A mania for the stage again seized him, and hearing that his old manager, Taylor, was playing at Shaftesbury, Bernard actually determined to join him in defiance of any privations that might arise from his being without a shilling in his pocket. Having given his mother assurance that he would not act again upon closing his engagement at Poole, writing home for supplies was out of the question; and though on paying his bill at an inn, he discovered that all his coppers at command did not amount to six, Bernard persisted in going on to Shaftesbury, a distance of thirty-six miles. Entrusting his trunk to a waggoner, he ate his breakfast, scribbled a note to his mother, making apology for his delay; tied up his linen in a bundle, and took a path across the fields to the high road, in order to escape notice from acquaintances who had known him in seemingly dashing circumstances. After having proceeded a few miles, he heard the horn of the guard from the stage-coach, and fearing it might contain some of his old companions, he jumped over a hedge for concealment, and in so doing alighted in a ditch, and sank up to his knees. On extricating his legs, a shoe was left behind, and its loser was compelled to take off his coat, roll up his shirt sleeves, and thrust his arm down the deep aperture, to recover what had been lost. But it was necessary to support himself by planting one foot against the hedge, and by grasping the roots of a holly bush, and while so doing his hold gave way at the most critical moment, and he was precipitated headlong into the mire. In consequence of the disaster he had to delay his journey two hours on the sunny side of a hayrick, for the purpose of putting his apparel in something like decent order. Arriving at Blandford, fear, fatigue, and vexation, continued to exhaust him, and he considered in what way he could most effectually lay out the threepence in his pocket. He determined on a glass of brandy, and going into an inn, called for the first that he had ever tasted. About to depart, having thrown down his coppers, the landlady informed him that two of them were bad. Bernard states that a feather might have felled him to the ground, and that he seemed to be without sense or motion, while the brandy seemed to congeal within him. The landlady looked in his face, and noticing his agitation, surmised doubtless the cause; for she good-naturedly told him not to mind it, but that should he ever again get within easy distance of the place not to forget her. Nearly twenty years afterwards, Bernard in company with Incledon, the vocalist, put up at the identical place, and related the adventure. Incledon thought on hearing the story, that it was Bernard's duty to give the house a good turn, and so he very generously assisted Bernard to run up a bill in five days to twenty pounds.

Ben Webster possessed a budget of amusing stories, involving ludicrous and startling incidents, connected with his ups and downs as a poor player. He began his professional career as a teacher of music and dancing, and having a passion for the stage, was undaunted in his fight with fortune, notwithstanding defeats and even humiliation. Hearing that Beverley, of the old Tottenham Street theatre, was about opening the Croydon theatre for a short season, Webster applied to that manager for the situation of walking gentleman.

"Full," said Beverley.

"Can I get in for 'little business,' and utility?" pleaded Webster.

"Full."

"Is there any chance for harlequin, and dancing?"

"I don't do pantomime or ballets; besides, I don't like male dancers; their legs are no draw."

"Could you give me a berth in the orchestra?"

"Well," said Beverley, in his peculiar manner, and with a strong word, which need not be repeated, "Why, just now you were a walking gentleman!"

"So I am, sir; but I have had a musical education, and necessity sometimes compels me to turn it to account."

"Well! what's your instrument?"

"Violin, tenor, violoncello, double bass, and double drum."

"Well! by Nero! (he played the fiddle you know) here, Harry (calling his son), bring the double--no, I mean a violin out of the orchestra."

Harry Beverley appeared with the instrument, and Webster was requested to give a taste of his quality. He began Tartini's 'Devil's Solo,' and had not gone far when the manager said that the specimen was sufficient, offering the soloist an engagement for the orchestral leadership at a guinea a week. Webster affirms, "That had a storm of gold fallen on him it could not have delighted Semele more than it did himself. He felt himself plucked out of the slough of despond." Webster had others to support, had to board himself, and in addition he resolved to get out of debt. To successfully carry out such arrangements the young professional had to practise considerable self-denial, walking to Croydon, ten miles every day, for rehearsal, and back to Shoreditch, on twopence--one penny for oatmeal, and the other for milk; and he did it for six weeks, Sundays excepted, when he luxuriated on shin of beef and cheek. While Webster was at Croydon, the gallery used to pelt the gentlemen of the orchestra with mutton pies. Indignation at first was uppermost, but on reflection, the assailed musicians made a virtue of necessity, collecting the fragments of not over-light pastry, ate them under the stage, and whatever might have been their composition, considered them as "ambrosia."

To be glad to eat the mutton pies with which the gods pelted the orchestra is undoubtedly a realisation of "out of evil cometh good," and is a curiosity of impecuniosity; but of all the curious curiosities commend me to an arithmetical calculation made by a modern actor, who entered on a five nights' engagement at Swansea, at the termination of which he had from the treasurer the sum of twenty-five shillings. Mr. Edward Atkins, who had to find his own wardrobe, upon entering into an arithmetical calculation, discovered that after deducting six shillings for coach fares, and five shillings for lodgings, there remained fourteen for professional work, being within a fraction of two shillings and ninepence halfpenny per evening's labour. The following is the list of parts played by the comedian, and the amount received for each:--

"Monday: 'Widow of Palermo'--Jeremy (with a handful of snuff and a glass of water thrown in his face), 10-1/2_d._; 'Is he Jealous?'--Belmour, 9-1/2_d._; 'Young Widow'--Splash, 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._ Tuesday: 'Englishman in France; or, Why Didn't I Kill Myself Yesterday?'--James, 9-1/2_d._; 'Mrs. White'--Peter White (with a medley duet, and mock gavotte, that caused a stiffness in the joints for three days), 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._; 'Secret' (without a panel in the scene)--Thomas, 10-1/2_d._ Wednesday: 'Carlitz and Christine'--Carlitz, very cheap, 7-1/2_d._; 'Two Gregories'--Gregory, without goose or ship, 10_d._; song, 'What's a Woman like?' 1-3/4_d._; 'Fortune's Frolic'--Robin, the talk of the town, 1_s._ 2-1/4_d._ Thursday: fully prepared with tools and syllables for three pieces, but the theatre was closed, 2_s._ 9-1/2_d._ Friday: 'Review'--Caleb Quotem, with two songs, 10-3/4_d._; 'Our Mary Ann'--Jonathan Junks, 9-1/2_d._; 'Loan Me a Crown'--Lightfoot, fifteen lengths, 7-1/4_d._; 'Captain's not Amiss'--John Stock, with clean shirt, the part requiring the actor to take off coat and waistcoat, 6_d._; walking over to next town on managerial business, 1/2_d._ Total, 14_s._"

For years the name of Charles Mathews was continually bandied about in connection with the subject of impecuniosity. Yet the harassing and unpleasant circumstances in which the comedian too often found himself through want of money were not produced by causes which in many instances have brought players into straits, insolvency, and sometimes even destitution. The parentage of Mathews was most reputable, his moral and intellectual training was all that could be desired, while his business habits must have been respectable, holding as he did for some time, with credit and capability, an appointment as a district surveyor. His social position too was excellent. But he married a very extravagant lady, and in conjunction with her entered on theatrical speculations, which his tastes and nature ill-fitted him to successfully promote; and not possessing adequate capital to legitimately advance his various theatrical schemes, he became the prey of money-lenders, and bill-discounters. Charles Mathews married Madame Vestris on July 18th, 1838, the lady being at that period the lessee of the Olympic Theatre, where her management had been characterised by exceptional taste and enterprise. But her expenditure, whether in relation to her theatre, or private life, had been lavish even to recklessness. After playing the seasons in the metropolis and making a provincial tour, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews accepted an offer from Stephen Price, manager of the Park Theatre, New York, to perform upon secured engagements of £20,000, with power at option to prolong their stay. However, Price's speculation proved a failure, Mathews' scheme of making a speedy fortune "melted into thin air," and then, affirms the disappointed comedian, "began the series of troubles which were destined to clog a great portion of my life." During the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Mathews for their American engagement the Olympic was kept open under the direction of a manager appointed by them, and on their return they found the finances in a very crippled state; a large amount of debt having been incurred, despite the large sums of money Mathews had transmitted across the Atlantic. In the hope of extricating himself from his great liabilities he took Covent Garden, never calculating the dangers of the perilous and uncertain sea on which he was about floating the bark of his fortunes. "Money," he says, "had to be procured at all hazards, and by every means, to prop up the concern till this new mine could be worked; and I was initiated for the first time in my life into all the mysteries of the money-lending art, and the concoction of those fatal instruments of destruction called Bills of Exchange.... Brokers and sheriff's officers soon entered on the scene, and I, who had never known what pecuniary difficulty meant, and had never had a debt in my life before, was gradually drawn into the inextricable vortex of involvement, a web which once thrown over a man can seldom be thrown off again. The consequence was not conceived at the time. It was a great speculation, and great difficulties appeared the legitimate consequences. Every Saturday was looked forward to with terror, for on every Saturday I had to pay, including the company, authors, band, carpenters, and workmen, employed before and behind the curtain, six hundred and eighty-four souls, with their wives and families all dependent upon my exertions." His liabilities were so numerous and heavy, that Mathews conceived that the best plan for him to pursue was without delay to wind up the speculation. Pity for him that he did not carry out the resolution. But the great success attending revivals of the 'Beggar's Opera,' the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' and other pieces, added to the subsequent still greater success of Boucicault's 'London Assurance,' induced the lessee to continue the management.

Everything looked brilliant and prosperous, but he found his position more intolerable as the sun of prosperity rose higher over his theatre. He states that when he paid no one, no one seemed to care, but the moment Jenkins got his money Jones became rampant.

"Why pay Jenkins? Why not pay me? You've used me shamefully, and you must take the consequences."

Writs and executions poured in, and in every direction Mathews beheld the harpies of the law waiting to spring upon him, and the thousands he paid were partially swallowed up in legal expenses and interest. The hydra-headed monster, sixty per cent. was always about his legs. His shifts and escapades during this period read like passages from one of those comedies to which he used to impart such amusement by his animal spirits and humours. Some of the stories told by Mathews of his impecunious day, smack of a grim humour. Borrowing money at sixty per cent., he informs us, is not the facile operation some imagine, and, he adds, is attended by risk and worry even worse than the fearful percentage. He well remembered, after a fortnight of very hot weather and thinly attended seats at his theatre, having occasion to borrow two hundred pounds to patch up the Saturday's treasury, and making application to a bill-discounter three days before wanting the money.

"Ah, Mr. Mathews! how d'ye do? Glad to see you. Have a glass of sherry."

"No, thank you. I want a couple of hundred pounds to-morrow."

"Certainly, with pleasure. How long do you want it for? Have a glass of sherry?"

"Say three months."

"What security?"

"None."

"Very good--I must have a warrant of attorney."

"Of course."

"All right, Mr. Mathews; look in at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and I'll have it ready. Do have a glass of sherry!"

Mathews had no belief that the money would be ready at the time named, though the impecunious actor kept the appointment. He knew that the money-lender was gratified by the frequent appearance of a brougham at the door.

"Well, Mr. Mathews, I find I can't manage the £200. I can only let you have £150. I had no idea I was so short at my bankers. Amount actually overdrawn. But I've got a friend to do it for you; it's all the same. He'll be here directly. Bless me, how long he is. Have a glass of sherry? Are you going back to the theatre? I'll bring him with me in half-an-hour."

Neither money-lender nor his friend appeared at the theatre. On Friday Mathews again made application for the money.

"Didn't come till too late; but all right--you don't want it till to-morrow, you know. What's your treasury hour?"

"Two."

"Be here at twelve and it shall be ready."

The actor was there, punctual to the moment.

"All right. Have a glass of sherry? My nephew Dick has gone to the city for the cheque."

"But the time is getting on."

"Never mind. I'll be with you as the clock strikes two."

Four o'clock arrived, and neither usurer nor money was forthcoming, the salaries of the company of course remaining unpaid. A note forwarded announced that the money-lender would be with Mathews at six to the moment. At seven the long-expected gentleman rushed in breathless.

"Such a job Dick's had for you, Mr. Matthews! But here I am with the money. My friend disappointed me, but I managed without him. My nephew will read over the warrant of attorney."

"But I'm just going on the stage; there's no time now."

"Won't take five minutes. Dick, read the warrant. Now, here is the money. Let's see, £15 left off the old account."

"Oh, pray don't deduct that now."

"Better, Mr. Mathews, keeps all square. That's £15, then the interest three months, £17 10_s._, and £15, £32 10_s._ Warrant of Attorney £7 10_s._, that's £40. Then my nephew's fee, £1 1_s._, and my trouble, say £1, £42 10_s._ Here's 15_s._, that's £42 16_s._ Dick, have you got 4_s._?"

"I've got 3_s._ 6_d._"

"That will do; I've got 6_d._, that's £43; and £7 cash makes the £50."

"Yes; but I only get £7 odd."

"Never mind, keeps all square. Now the £100. Here is a cheque of Gribble and Co. on Lloyd's for £25 10_s._"

"What's the use of a cheque at this time of night?"

"Good as the bank, good as the money; you can pay it as money. Fifty sovereigns makes £75 10_s._, and a ten-pound note makes £85 10_s._--stay, it ought to be £95 10_s._ Here's another ten pound note. I forgot--there you are, £95 10_s._--only wants £4 10_s._ to make up the £100. You haven't got £4 10_s._ about you, have you Mr. Mathews, you could lend me till the morning, just to get it straight, you know."

"I believe I have; there are four sovereigns and ten shillings in silver."

"That's all right; £4 makes £99 10_s._ and 10_s._--stop, let's count them--count after your own father, as the saying is--four and five's nine, and three fourpenny pieces; all right. Stop--one's a threepenny. Got a penny, or a post-office stamp? Never mind, I won't be hard upon you for the penny. There you are, all comfortable. Good evening."

Mathews paid away the cheque "as money." Two days afterwards he got an indignant note, stating that the cheque was dishonoured. Out of temper, Mathews sent for the discounter, and he appeared with alacrity.

"Not paid! Gribble's cheque not paid--some mistake--it's as good as the Bank. Here, give it to me, I'll get it for you in five minutes. How long shall you be here?"

"An hour."

"I'll be back in twenty minutes."

Mathews saw no more of the discounter or the cheque, the scoundrel entirely disappearing with the only proof in his pocket. But sometimes biters were bit, for an entry in one of the actor's diaries, dated January 1843, states, "called on Lawrence Levy to pay him £30, but borrowed £20 of him instead."

On one occasion a very gentlemanly man waited on Mathews.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," he quietly said, "but I've a duty to perform, and I am sure you are too much a man of the world to quarrel with me. I have a writ against you for a hundred pounds, and must request immediate payment, or the pleasure of your company elsewhere."

"Quite impossible," said Mathews, "at this moment to meet it; but I will consult with my treasurer, and see what can be done."

"Excuse me," said the sheriff's officer, "but I cannot lose sight of you; and whatever is to be done, must be done here. Come, pay the money, and there's an end."

"It can't be done," said Mathews.

"Why didn't you get him to renew the bill?" replied the other.

"He wouldn't renew it; nothing would induce him."

"Nonsense," said he, "accept this bill for the same amount, and put your own time for payment, and I undertake to get you his receipt."

"Agreed," answered the actor, accepting the bill, which, without another word the sheriff's officer took up, threw down the receipt, and walked towards the door.

"Stop," said Mathews, "you said you couldn't leave me without the money. What does all this mean?"

"It means that I paid your debt as I knew you couldn't, and now you owe it me instead. Be punctual, and I'll do as much again."

The sheriff's officer just described was not the only one who befriended the luckless manager. A kindred functionary of the law, having been struck by the cruel conduct of a vindictive tradesman, actually paying the bill himself, and receiving the money back from Mathews in instalments of ten pounds.

Instances grave and gay might be multiplied of the actor's unfortunate position and the financial entanglements that, like heavy fetters, constrained him at every step. He said that the results of the Covent Garden speculation were for the first season _sowing_, for the second _hoeing_, and for the third _owing_. On his debts being called in, to his dismay he found that including rent the responsibilities amounted to the sum of £30,000. Mathews when he learned the fact was aghast, and his only remedy was the Insolvent Debtors' Court. Things were made easy for him, and he passed a week in an elegantly fitted chamber above the Porters' Lodge of the Queen's Bench Prison. He was not unacquainted with that prison, having had residence there soon after his first notorious American trip, and during that imprisonment he took advantage of the old rules pertaining to the liberties of the Bench, and played an engagement at the Surrey Theatre. The theatre being a few yards beyond the boundaries of the Queen's Bench liberties, Davidge, the Surrey lessee, and Cross, lessee of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, gave extra bail to enable Charles Mathews to have the day rule extended through the evening. A tipstaff was stationed at his dressing-room door and at each wing of the stage, to watch the actor, who, though out of the Bench, was in custody. When absolutely free from his Covent Garden liabilities he with a sense of honour that did him credit gave securities for what he considered purely personal debts, making himself still liable to the amount of about £4000, anticipating that the creditors would treat him with consideration and thoughtfulness. He was mistaken, and for years he still had the millstone round his neck. During his lesseeship of the Lyceum he was in the same straits as he was in the Old Covent Garden days. Accumulated interest, law expenses for raising money, grew year after year and Mathews was still in his miserable plight of impecuniosity. At length in July 1856, while about to play at the Preston Theatre, he was arrested and imprisoned in Lancaster Gaol. He chafed under the incarceration, and he has left a touching account of the misery he felt on being separated from his wife, and of the melancholy influences of his prison-house. His imprisonment created much gossip, and ere he left "durance vile" a somewhat singular recognition of his circumstances took place. His fellow-prisoners in Lancaster Gaol communicated with him as follows:

Letter addressed to Charles J. Mathews, in Lancaster Castle, July 1856:--

"ILLUSTRIOUS SIR,

"Permit us to address you as a brother-debtor surrounded by oppressive circumstances akin to our own, which are rendered the more striking to one who like yourself has acquired a world-wide reputation as an artist and elocutionist; and whose uniform kindness and manly conduct has excited the admiration of those who now respectfully, through this medium, tender you what they consider to be a just meed of approbation.

"With the newspaper gossip relative to your alleged state of affairs, which has been extensively circulated we have nothing to do and we know not whether you are fiercely opposed or otherwise; we seek not to elicit any facts connected with your position, but we beg most earnestly and respectfully to compassionate you as one of the most ingenious amongst our common manhood; and having for the most part felt the pangs attendant upon the day and hour of tribulation, allow us to express the strength of our sympathetic feeling by stating that we heartily wish you a signal, complete, and honourable release from that load of embarrassment which so unhappily depresses us all, but which, by reason of your refined sensibility must necessarily press with great force upon your mental organization; and this feeling compels us to say, 'Go on and conquer.'

"Signed on behalf of the members of the Long Room,

"JOHN HARRIDGE, "_Chairman_."

Mathews thought that there was an odd flavour of Mr. Micawber about the foregoing epistle. Subsequently he did what he should have done years before, sought freedom from his liabilities under legal protection. Many droll scenes took place when the comedian was under Bankruptcy examination. On one occasion Mr. Commissioner Law asked him why he had kept a brougham, instead of taking a cab to and fro between his residence and the theatre; and the lawyer was told thereupon by the debtor, that the brougham was hired from the purest motives of economy.

"In a word," said Mathews, "I really could not afford the price of cabs."

"I should have thought that cabs were more economical than a private carriage," replied Law.

"Not at all," said Mathews. "Cabs take ready money, a precious article, to be carefully treasured and only parted with under absolute necessity, but a brougham can always be hired on credit."

Mathews, free of his liabilities, became prosperous, and his latter days were marked by success and happiness.

Of his attractiveness on the stage it is almost superfluous to speak; it may be said with truth, "We shall not look upon his like again;" for though not a great actor, he was unapproachable in those light comedy parts that require dash and go. I remember seeing him play Dazzle in 'London Assurance,' at Melbourne, exactly thirty years, to the very day, from the date of its first performance; and though he was the oldest member of the company on the stage that night, he was in manner and appearance by far the youngest.