Part 6

Whatever may be said against women appearing on the stage, there is something more repulsive in men and boys taking female parts in a play, at least, so it seems to our moral feelings, and aesthetically the practice is still more objectionable. Male performers can never represent the spontaneous grace, melting voice, and tender looks of a female, and the ludicrous contretemps the custom frequently caused further showed its absurdity. Thus, on one occasion, Charles II. inquired why the commencement of the play was delayed. The manager stepped forward and craved his Majesty's indulgence, as the queen was not yet shaved. And whatever Prynne might say in his 'Histrio Mastix' against female actors, the practice caught on and became general. Of course, the opposition did not cease at once; even in France it raised its head as late as 1733. A speaker against the stage spoke thus at the Jesuits' College in Paris: 'They (the actresses) do not form the deadly shafts of Cupid, but they level them with the eye, and shoot with the utmost dexterity and skill. Such women I mean as represent destructive love characters.... How artfully do they hurl the most inconsiderable dart! What multitudes are wounded by a single one!' And, indeed, what multitudes have our Nancy Oldfields, Bracegirdles, Gwynnes, Kitty Clives, Perditas, Meltons, and the whole galaxy of theatrical beauties not only wounded, but conquered, and sometimes killed!

The life of an actress had many ups and downs--as it has now--in former days. There was the eccentric Charlotte Charke, daughter of Colley Cibber, who for some mysterious reason for many years went in male attire, and who acted on the stage if she could get employment. There was then in Bear Yard, Clare Market, a theatre, occasionally used as a tennis-court and as an auction-room. 'Thither,' she says in her Memoirs, 'I adventured to see if there was any character wanting--a custom very frequent among the gentry who exhibited in that slaughter-house of dramatic poetry. One night, I remember, the "Recruiting Officer" was to be performed.... To my unbounded joy Captain Plume was so unfortunate that he came at five o'clock to say that he did not know a word of his part.... The question being put to me, I immediately replied that I could do such a thing, but was ... resolved to stand upon terms ... one guinea paid in advance, which terms were complied with.'

We mentioned above that the life of an actress has many ups and downs even now. In justification of that statement let us quote from the _Star_ of September 12, 1896: 'A pathetic story of an aged lady, who had been a popular actress, but upon whom evil days had come, and who was found dead in a poorly-furnished bedroom in a third-floor back at Whitfield Street, Tottenham Court Road, was told yesterday to the coroner. The old lady was Louisa Marshall, aged seventy, sister of a celebrated clown at Drury Lane, who died before her. She used to teach the piano, and had a small pension from the Musical and Dramatic Sick Fund. The contents of her room, an old piano and some theatrical dresses, were said to be worth fifty shillings at most.' But, as Byron says, let us lay this sheet of sorrow on the shelf, and speak of lively, joyous Nell Gwynne, who drove that amorous Pepys nearly mad. His Diary is full of her. First she is simply 'pretty, witty Nell' (April 3, 1665). On January 23, 1666, Nelly is brought to him in a box at the theatre. 'A most pretty woman.... I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is.' On March 2, in the same year, 'Nell ... comes in like a young gallant, and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her.' On May 1, 1667, he writes: 'To Westminster. In the way many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging's door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one. She seemed a mighty pretty creature.' But, according to her ardent admirer, this 'mighty pretty creature' could use mighty strong language too, for he says of her (October 5, 1667): 'But to see how Nell cursed for having so few people in the pit was strange.' And again, on October 26, he reports: 'Nelly and Beck Marshall (one of the great Presbyterian's daughters) falling out the other day, the latter called the other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her: "I was but one man's mistress, though I was brought up in a disreputable house to fill strong waters to the gentlemen, and you are a mistress to three or four, though a Presbyter's praying daughter."' And Nell may have been right, for Beck Marshall seems to have been a trifle fast. Pepys says, on May 2, 1668: 'To the King's (play) house, where ... the play being over, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed off the stage, and look mighty fine and pretty, and noble; and also Nell, in her boy's clothes, mighty pretty. But, Lord! their confidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their talk!' Pepys, in the end, seems to have cooled in his devotion to pretty Nell, for on January 7, 1669, he wrote in his Diary: 'My wife and I to the King's play-house.... We sat in an upper box, and the jade Nell came and sat in the next box, a bold, merry slut, who lay laughing there upon people, and with a comrade of hers, of the Duke's house, that came in to see the play.'

Coal Yard, Drury Lane, seems to have been Nell Gwynne's birthplace, a low, disreputable locality, and she died in a fine house on the south side of Pall Mall. Previously to that, she had lived in a house on the north side, whose site is now occupied by the Army and Navy Club. Though Drury Lane in the days of Nell Gwynne was a fashionable locality, it would seem that only to the southern division this epithet could be applied; the northern end, towards Holborn, had a low and mean character, and Coal Yard consisted of miserable tenements. It has recently been rebuilt, and is now called Goldsmith Street. Nell Gwynne died in 1691, and was pompously interred in the parish church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Dr. Tennison, the then Vicar, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preaching her funeral sermon. This sermon was afterwards brought forward at Court to impede the doctor's preferment; but Queen Mary, having heard the objection, answered: 'Well, what then? This I have heard before, and it is a proof that the unfortunate woman died a true penitent, who through the course of her life never let the wretched ask in vain.' This was certainly as noble an answer to give on the part of a Queen as it was mean on the part of King Charles II. to say on his deathbed: 'Don't let poor Nelly starve.' Was it not in his power to make provision for her, instead of leaving her to the charity of the world?

Another both fortunate and unfortunate actress was Mrs. Montford, whose husband was murdered as he had come to escort Mrs. Bracegirdle, after Captain Hill's attempt at abducting this lady, on her leaving the theatre, of which more hereafter. On Mrs. Montford, or Mountfort--the name is found spelt both ways--Gray wrote his ballad of 'Black-eyed Susan.' Lord Berkeley's partiality for her was so great that at his decease he left her L300 a year, on condition that she did not marry; he also purchased Cowley, near Uxbridge, for her--the place had been the summer residence of Rich, the actor--and from time to time made her presents of considerable sums. She fell in love with a Mr. Booth, a then well-known actor, but, not wishing to lose her annuity, she did not marry him, though she gave him the preference over many others of her suitors. Mrs. Montford had an intimate friend, Miss Santlow, a celebrated dancer; but, through the liberality of one of her admirers, she became possessed of a fortune, which rendered her independent of the stage, upon which Mr. Booth proposed to her, and was accepted. This so affected Mrs. Montford that she became mentally deranged, and was brought from Cowley to London to have the best advice. As she was not violent and had lucid moments, she was not rigorously confined, but suffered to go about the house. One day she asked her attendant what play was to be performed that evening, and was told it was 'Hamlet.' In this piece, whilst she was on the stage, she had always appeared as Ophelia. The recollection struck her, and with the cunning always allied with insanity, she found means to elude the watchfulness of her servants, and to reach the theatre, where she concealed herself till the time when Ophelia was to appear, when she rushed on the stage, pushing the lady who was to act the character aside, and exhibited a more perfect representation of madness than the most consummate mimic art could produce. She was, in truth, Ophelia herself, the very incarnation of madness. Nature having made this last effort, her vital powers failed her. On going off, she prophetically exclaimed: 'It is all over!' As she was being conveyed home, 'she,' in Gray's words, 'like a lily drooping, bowed her head and died.'

Lovely Nancy Oldfield, who quitted the bar of the Mitre, in St. James's Market, then kept by her aunt, Mrs. Voss, became, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the great attraction at Drury Lane. Her intimacy with General Churchill, cousin of the great Duke of Marlborough, obtained for her a grave in Westminster Abbey. Persons of rank and distinction contended for the honour of bearing her pall, and her remains lay in state for three days in the Jerusalem Chamber!

We referred above to the attempt made by Captain Hill to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle. Hill had offered her his hand and had been refused. He determined to abduct her by force. He induced his friend Lord Mahun to assist him. A coach was stationed near the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane, with six soldiers to force her into it, which they attempted to do as she came down Drury Lane about ten o'clock at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and a friend, Mr. Page. The attempt was resisted, a crowd collected, and Hill ordered the soldiers to let the lady go, and she was escorted home by her friends. She then sent for her friend Mr. Montford, who soon after turned the corner of Norfolk Street, where Hill challenged him, as he attributed Mrs. Bracegirdle's rejection of him to her love for Montford, which suspicion, however, was groundless, and ran him through the body before he could draw his sword. Hill made his escape; Montford died from his wounds.

Even in more recent days actresses have made good matches. Miss Anna Maria Tree, of Covent Garden, in 1825 married James Bradshaw, of Grosvenor Place; in 1831, Miss Foote, the celebrated actress, became Countess of Harrington; Miss Farren, Countess of Derby; Miss Brunton, Countess of Craven; Miss Bolton became Lady Thurlow; Miss O'Neill married a baronet; Miss Kitty Stephens became Countess of Essex; Miss Campion was taken off the stage by the aged Duke of Devonshire. The list might be greatly extended, even to our own times; but the instances quoted are sufficient to show the prizes ladies may draw in the theatrical matrimonial lottery; and there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

*VIII.*

*QUEER CLUBS OF FORMER DAYS.*

The Virtuoso Club was established by some members of the Royal Society, and held its meetings at a tavern in Cornhill. Its professed object was to 'advance mechanical exercises, and promote useful experiments'; but, according to Ned Ward, their discussions usually ended in a general shindy, and results not to be described by a modern writer. The club claimed the merit of the invention of the barometer; but, for all that, its proceedings afforded fine sport to the satirists: thus, the members were said to aim at making beer without water, living like princes on three-halfpence a day, producing a table by which a husband may discover all the particulars of the tricks his wife may play him. The ridicule showered on the club at last reduced it to a little cynical cabal of half-pint moralists, who continued to meet at the same tavern. Convivially-disposed members of other learned societies have occasionally formed themselves into clubs. Thus some antiquaries, many years since, formed a club styled 'Noviomagians.' Mr. Crofton Croker was its president more than twenty years, and many other distinguished men were members.

A number of roistering companions used to hold a club at the Golden Fleece in Cornhill, after which they named their club. Each member on his admission had a characteristic name assigned to him--as Sir Nimmy Sneer, Sir Talkative Do-little, Sir Rumbus Rattle. They eventually adjourned to the Three Tuns, Southwark.

The No-Nose Club, whether it ever existed or not, was a horrible idea in itself; it flourished only during the lifetime of its founders.

The Club of Beaus was what its name implies--a club of fops and idiots. The only merit they seem to have had was that their habits were always scrupulously clean, though their language usually was filthy. Their meetings were held at an inn in Covent Garden.

The Quacks' Club, or Physical Society, was really an offshoot of the College of Physicians, which met at a tavern near the Exchange, where they discussed medical matters. The College of Physicians at that time was in Warwick Lane, where it remained till removed, in 1825, to Trafalgar Square.

The Weekly Dancing Club, or Buttock Ball, was held at a tavern in King Street, St. Giles, and was patronized by bullies, libertines, and strumpets; footmen who had robbed their masters and turned gentlemen; chambermaids who had stolen their mistresses' clothes and set up for gentlewomen. Though called a club, it was not really a close assembly, but everyone was admitted on the payment of sixpence, and no questions asked. The Dancing Academy was first established about the year 1710 by a dancing-master over the Coal Yard gateway into Drury Lane, and was so successful that it was removed to the more commodious premises mentioned above. But at last it became such a nuisance that the authorities shut it up. The Coal Yard above mentioned, the last turning on the north-east side of Drury Lane, is said to have been the birthplace of Nell Gwynne.

A club cultivating a certain filthy habit, which I can only indicate as one practised by the French peasantry, and as described in one of Zola's novels, was established at a public-house in Cripplegate. The manner in which the proceedings of the club are set forth by their chronicler is as hideous and repulsive as the writer can make it; it could not be reproduced in any modern publication without risk of prosecution, which, indeed, would be well deserved. But the manners of the eighteenth century were excessively coarse.

The Man-Killing Club, besides admitting no one to membership who had not killed his man, also bound itself to resist the Sheriff's myrmidons on their making any attempt to serve a writ on or seize one of them. It was founded in the reign of Charles II. by a knot of bullies, broken Life-Guardsmen, and old prize-fighters. Its meetings were held at a low public-house on the back-side of St. Clement's. The good old times!

The Surly Club was chiefly composed of master carmen, lightermen, and Billingsgate porters, who held their weekly meetings at a tavern near Billingsgate Dock, where City dames used to treat their journeymen with beakers of punch and new oysters. The object of their meetings was the practice of contradiction and of foul language, that they might not want impudence to abuse passengers on the Thames. This society first established the thumping-post at Billingsgate, to harden its members by whipping never to bridle their tongues from fear of corporeal punishment. Billingsgate language was, as may be supposed, much improved by them.

The Atheistical Club met at an inn in Westminster, and its name sufficiently indicates its object, namely, to take the devil's part. A trick was played on them by a man disguising himself in a bear's skin and making them believe he was the devil, which occurrence, it is said, broke up the club. Similar societies were discovered in Wells Street, and at the Angel, in St. Martin's Lane, and the members arrested; but, it turning out that in these cases the devil was less black than he was painted, the charges against them had to be withdrawn. The societies, in fact, were more political, with republican tendencies, inspired by the French Revolution, which was just then at its height, and the worship of Reason seems to have been one of their principles.

The Split-farthing Club held its weekly meetings at the Queen's Head in Bishopsgate Street, and was supposed to be composed chiefly of misers and skinflints. If any smoker among them left his box behind him, and wanted to borrow a pipe of tobacco of a brother, it would not be lent without a note of hand, which was generally written round the bowl of a pipe so as to prevent the waste of paper.

The Club of Broken Shopkeepers held its meetings at the sign of Tumble-Down Dick, a famous boozing den in the Mint in Southwark, a sanctuary of knaves, sots, and bankrupts, honest or swindling, against arrest for debt. The sign of Tumble-Down Dick was set up in derision of Richard Cromwell, the allusion to his fall from power, or 'tumble-down,' being very common in the satires published after the Restoration. There was a house with the same sign at Brentford. Of course, the professed object of the meetings of the broken shopkeepers was that of driving away and forgetting care; and any new-comer among them, if he had any cash left, was liberally allowed to expend it for the furtherance of the club's object.

The Man-Hunting Club was composed chiefly of young limbs of the law; uncultivated youths, though they were law students, formed themselves into an association to hunt men over Lincoln's Inn Fields and the neighbourhood whom they might happen to meet crossing them at ten or eleven o'clock at night. They would be concealed upon the grass in one of the borders of the fields till they heard some single person coming along, when they would spring up with their swords drawn, run towards him, and cry: 'That's he; bloody wounds, that's he!' Usually the person so attacked would run away, when they would pursue him till he took refuge in an alehouse in some neighbouring street. But if the man-hunters encountered a person of courage, ready to fight them, they would sneak off, like the curs they really were. Their meeting-place was at a tavern close to Bear Yard, Clare Market.

The Yorkshire Club held its meetings on market-days at an inn in Smithfield. It was composed of sharp country-folk, who assumed the innocence of yokels. The most flourishing members among them, says one authority, were needle-pointed innkeepers; nick and froth victuallers, honest horse chaunters, pious Yorkshire attorneys; the rest good, harmless master hostlers, two or three innocent farriers, who had wormed their masters out of their shops, and themselves into them. When met for business, their deliberations were about horseflesh, blind eyes, spavins, bounders and malinders, and how to disguise defects and get rid of the animals.

The Mock-Heroes Club met at an alehouse in Baldwin's Gardens, and was composed chiefly of attorneys' clerks and young shopkeepers. On admission the new member assumed the name of some defunct hero, and ever afterwards was at the meetings called by that name; and as the club held its meetings in the public room, though at a separate table specially reserved for them, this formal and ridiculous way of addressing one another caused no slight amusement to the other persons frequenting the room. In other respects their language was high-flown. Thus, one would face about to his left-hand neighbour, with his right hand charged with a brimming tankard, saying: 'Most noble Scipio, the love and friendship of a soldier to you. The thanks of a brother to my valiant friend Hannibal, whom I cannot but value, though I had the honour to conquer.' 'My respects to you, brave Caesar,' cries one opposite, 'remembering the battle of Pharsalia.' And so on, till they had drunk themselves under the table.

The Lying Club, which held its meetings at the Bell Tavern, in Westminster, is said to have been established in 1669. Every member was to wear a blue cap with a red feather in it; before admittance he had to give proof of his powers of mendaciloquence; during club hours, that is, from four to ten p.m., no true word was to be uttered without a preliminary 'By your leave' to the chairman; and if any member told a 'whopper' which the chairman could not beat with a greater, the latter had to surrender his office for that evening. Ned Ward gives some exquisite specimens of the 'whoppers' told by members.

The Beggars' Club held its weekly meetings at a boozing ken in Old Street. All the sham cripples, blind men, etc., belonged to it, and there discussed the various stratagems they had adopted to excite public compassion, or intended to adopt for that purpose.

About 1735 a number of young gentlemen, who were pretenders to wit, formed themselves into a society, which met at the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden, and which they christened the Scatter-wit Society. But their literary performances were poor specimens of wit, contributed nothing to the reputation of the Rose Tavern as the resort of 'men of parts,' and consequently is not frequently mentioned in the literature of that day.

Bob Warden was the younger brother of Mr. Warden, a gentleman who, 'after having given a new turn to Jackanapes Lane, and promoted many useful objects for the good of the public, was undeservedly hanged.' We may explain here that Jackanapes Lane was the original name of Carey Street, north of the Law Courts, and the new turn Mr. Warden gave to it is the western bend connecting it with Portugal Street. Bob Warden, after his brother's death, was apprenticed to a painter, but, thinking more of his palate than his palette, he dropped the latter, and with some money left to him, established a convivial club at the Hill, in the Strand, where all sorts of queer characters, such as ruined gamesters, petticoat-pensioners, Irish captains, sharpers and cheats were welcome. As the meetings took place in a cellar, the club became known as the Cellar Club, and was the forerunner of the Coal Hole and the Lord Chief Baron Nicholson. Bob, amidst his roistering customers, drank himself to death.