The author’s early visits to Crow-street Theatre—Interruptions of the University men—College pranks—Old Mr. Sheridan in “Cato” and in “Alexander the Great”—Curious scene introduced, by mistake, in the latter tragedy—Mr. Digges in the Ghost of Hamlet’s father—Chorus of cocks—The author’s preference of comedy to tragedy—Remarks on Mr. Kean and the London moralists—Liston in “Paul Pry”—Old Sparkes—The Spanish dÉbutante—Irish Johnstone—Modern comedy—The French stage.

From my youth I was attached to theatrical representations, and have still a clear recollection of many of the eminent performers of my early days. My grandmother, with whom I resided for many years, had permanent silver tickets of admission to Crow-street Theatre, whither I was very frequently sent.

The playhouses in Dublin were then lighted by tallow candles, stuck into tin circles hanging from the middle of the stage, which were every now and then snuffed by some performer; and two soldiers, with fixed bayonets, always stood like statues on each side the stage, close to the boxes, to keep the audience in order. The galleries were very noisy and very droll. The ladies and gentlemen in the boxes always went dressed out nearly as for court; the strictest etiquette and decorum were preserved in that circle; whilst the pit, as being full of critics and wise men, was particularly respected, except when the young gentlemen of the University occasionally forced themselves in, to revenge some insult, real or imagined, to a member of their body; on which occasions, all the ladies, well-dressed men, and peaceable people generally, decamped forthwith, and the young gentlemen as generally proceeded to beat or turn out the residue of the audience, and to break every thing that came within their reach. These exploits were by no means uncommon; and the number and rank of the young culprits were so great, that (coupled with the impossibility of selecting the guilty,) the college would have been nearly depopulated, and many of the great families in Ireland enraged beyond measure, had the students been expelled or even rusticated.

I had the honour of being frequently present, and (as far as in mÊlÉe,) giving a helping hand to our encounters both in the play-houses and streets. We were in the habit of going about the latter, on dark nights, in coaches, and, by flinging out halfpence, breaking the windows of all the houses we rapidly drove by, to the astonishment and terror of the proprietors. At other times, we used to convey gunpowder squibs into all the lamps in several streets at once, and by longer or shorter fuses contrive to have them all burst about the same time, breaking every lamp to shivers and leaving whole streets in utter darkness. Occasionally we threw large crackers into the china and glass-shops, and delighted to see the terrified shopkeepers trampling on their own porcelain and cut-glass, for fear of an explosion. By way of a treat, we used sometimes to pay the watchmen to lend us their cloaks and rattles: by virtue whereof, we broke into the low prohibited gambling-houses, knocked out the lights, drove the gamblers down stairs, and then gave all their stakes to the watchmen. The whole body of watchmen belonging to one parish (that of the round church, St. Andrew’s) were our sworn friends, and would take our part against any other watchmen in Dublin. We made a permanent subscription, and paid each of these regularly seven shillings a week for his patronage. I mention these trifles, out of a thousand odd pranks, as a part of my plan, to show, from a comparison of the past with the present state of society in the Irish metropolis, the extraordinary improvement which has taken place in point of decorum within the last half century. The young gentlemen of the University then were in a state of great insubordination;—not as to their learning, but their wild habits: indeed, the singular feats of some of them would be scarcely credible now; and they were so linked together, that an offence to one was an offence to all. There were several noblemen’s sons with their gold-laced, and elder sons of baronets with their silver-laced gowns, who used to accompany us, with their gowns turned inside out: yet our freaks arose merely from the fire and natural vivacity of uncontrolled youth: no calm, deliberate vices,—no low meannesses,—were ever committed: that class of young men now termed “dandies” we then called macaronies; and we made it a standing rule to thrash them whenever we got a fair opportunity: such also as had been long tied to their “mothers’ apron-strings” we made no small sport with when we got them clear inside the college: we called them milk-sops, and if they declined drinking as much wine as ordered, we always dosed them (as in duty bound) with tumblers of salt and water till they came to their feeding, as we called it. Thus generally commenced a young man of fashion’s novitiate above fifty years ago. However, our wildness, instead of increasing as we advanced in our college courses, certainly diminished, and often left behind it the elements of much talent and virtue. Indeed, there were to the full as good scholars, and certainly to the full as high-bred, and much more talented gentlemen educated in the Dublin University then, than in this wiser and more cold-blooded era. But it has utterly degenerated.

I remember, even before that period, seeing old Mr. Sheridan perform the part of Cato at one of the Dublin theatres; I do not recollect which: but I well recollect his dress, which consisted of bright armour under a fine laced scarlet cloak, and surmounted by a huge, white, bushy, well-powdered wig (like Dr. Johnson’s), over which was stuck his helmet. I wondered much how he could kill himself without stripping off the armour before he performed that operation! I also recollect him particularly (even as if before my eyes now) playing Alexander the Great, and throwing the javelin at Clytus, whom happening to miss, he hit the cup-bearer, then played by one of the hack performers, a Mr. Jemmy Fotterel. Jemmy very naturally supposed that he was hit designedly, and that it was some new light of the great Mr. Sheridan to slay the cup-bearer in preference to his friend Clytus, which certainly would have been a less unjustifiable murder, and that he ought to tumble down and make a painful end, according to dramatic custom time immemorial. Immediately, therefore, on being struck, Mr. James Fotterel (who was the ugliest cup-bearer ever employed by any monarch) reeled, staggered, and fell very naturally, considering it was his first death; but being determined on this unexpected opportunity to make an impression upon the audience, when he found himself stretched out on the boards at full length, he began to roll about, kick, and flap the stage with his hands most immoderately; falling next into strong convulsions, exhibiting every symptom of exquisite torture, and at length expiring with a groan so loud and so long that it paralysed even the people in the galleries, whilst the ladies believed that he was really killed, and cried aloud at the misfortune.

Though then very young, I was myself so terrified in the pit that I never shall forget it. However, Mr. Jemmy Fotterel being dragged off by the legs, soon re-entered in rude health, and was more applauded than any Clytus had ever been;—even the slayer himself could not help laughing most heartily at the incident.

The actresses both of tragedy and genteel comedy formerly wore large hoops, and whenever they made a speech walked across the stage and changed sides with the performer who was to speak next, thus veering backwards and forwards, like a shuttlecock, during the entire performance. This custom partially prevailed in the continental theatres till very lately.

I recollect Mr. Barry, who was accounted the handsomest man of his day, and his lady (formerly Mrs. Dancer); also Mr. Digges, who used to play the Ghost in “Hamlet.” One night in doubling that part with (I believe) Polonius, Digges forgot, on appearing as the Ghost, previously to rub off the bright red paint with which his face had been daubed for the other character. A sprite with a large red nose and vermilioned cheeks was extremely novel and much applauded. There was also a famous actor who used to play the Cock that crew to call off the Ghost when Hamlet had done with him: this performer did his part so well that every body used to say he was the best Cock that ever had been heard at Smock-alley; and six or eight other gentry of the dunghill species were generally brought behind the scenes, who, on hearing him, mistook him for a brother cock, and set up their pipes all together: and thus, by the infinity of crowing at the same moment, the hour was the better marked, and the Ghost glided back to the other world in the midst of a perfect chorus of cocks—to the no small admiration of the audience.

The distinguishing merits of the old actors I cannot recollect, and indeed of many of the more modern ones I profess myself but a very moderate judge. One thing, however, I am sure of;—that, man or boy, I never admired tragedy, however well personated. Lofty feelings and strong passions may be admirably mimicked therein; but the ranting, whining, obviously premeditated starting, disciplined gesticulation, &c.—the committing of suicide in mellifluous blank verse, and rhyming when in the agonies of death,—stretch away so very far from nature, as to destroy all that illusion whereon the effect of dramatic exhibition in my mind entirely depends. Unless occasionally to witness some very celebrated new actor, I have not attended a tragedy these forty years; nor have I ever yet seen any tragedian on the British stage who made so decided an impression on my feelings as Mr. Kean, in some of his characters, has done. When I have seen other celebrated men enact the same parts, I have remained quite tranquil, however my judgment may have been satisfied: but he has made me shudder, and that, in my estimation, is the grand triumph of the tragedian’s art. I have seldom sat out the last murder scene of any play except “Tom Thumb,” or “Chrononhotonthologos,” which certainly are no burlesques on some of our standard tragedies.

In serious comedy, Kean’s Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach, seemed to me neither more nor less than actual identification of those portraitures: so much so, in fact, that I told him myself, after seeing him perform the first-mentioned part, that I could have found in my heart to knock his brains out the moment he had finished his performance.^[31]

Two errors, however, that great actor has in a remarkable degree: some of his pauses are so long, that he appears to have forgotten himself; and he pats his breast so often, that it really reminds one of a nurse patting her infant to keep it from squalling: it is a pity he is not aware of these imperfections!

If, however, I have been always inclined to undervalue tragedy, on the other hand, the great comic performers of my time in Ireland I perfectly recollect. I allude to the days of Ryder, O’Keeffe, Wilks, Wilder, Vandermere, &c. &c. &c.

The effect produced by even one singular actor, or one trivial incident, is sometimes surprising. The dramatic trifle or translation called “Paul Pry” had a greater run, I believe, than any piece of the kind ever exhibited in London, though it is a mere bagatelle—in itself nothing. I went to see it, and was greatly amused—not by the piece, but by the ultra oddity of one performer. Put any handsome, or even human-looking person, in Liston’s place, and take away his umbrella, and Paul Pry would scarcely bring another audience. His countenance certainly presents the drollest set of stationary features I ever saw, and has the uncommon merit of being exquisitely comic per se, without the slightest distortion: no artificial grimace, indeed, could improve his natural. I remember O’Keeffe, justly the delight of Dublin: and Ryder, the best Sir John Brute, Ranger, Marplot, &c. in the world: the prologue of “Bucks, have at ye all!” was repeated by him four hundred and twenty-four times. O’Keeffe’s Tony Lumpkin, Vandermere’s Skirmish, Wilder’s Colonel Oldboy, Wilks’s Jessamy, and the performances of several others in the comic line, came as near nature as acting and mimicry could possibly approach. There was also a first edition of Liston as to drollery, on the Dublin stage, usually called “Old Sparkes.” He was very tall, and of a very large size; with heavy-hanging jaws, gouty ancles, big paunch, and sluggish motion; but his comic face and natural drollery were irresistible. He was a most excellent actor in every thing he could personate: his grotesque figure, however, rendered these parts but few. Peachum, in the “Beggar’s Opera,” Caliban, (with his own additions) in “The Tempest,” and all bulky, droll, low characters, he did to the greatest perfection. At one time, when the audiences of Smock-Alley were beginning to flag, Old Sparkes told Ryder, if he would bring out the afterpiece of “The Padlock,” and permit him to manage it, he would ensure him a succession of good nights. Ryder gave him his way, and the bills announced a first appearance in the part of Leonora: the dÉbutante was reported to be a Spanish lady. The public curiosity was excited, and youth, beauty, and tremulous modesty were all anticipated; the house overflowed; impatience was unbounded; the play ended in confusion, and the overture of “The Padlock” was received with rapture. Leonora at length appeared; the clapping was like thunder, to give courage to the dÉbutante, who had a handsome face, and was very beautifully dressed as a Spanish donna, which it was supposed she really was. Her gigantic size, it is true, rather astonished the audience. However, they willingly took for granted that the Spaniards were an immense people, and it was observed that England must have had a great escape of the Spanish Armada, if the men were proportionably gigantic to the ladies. Her voice too was rather of the hoarsest, but that was accounted for by the sudden change of climate: at last, Leonora began her song of “Sweet Robin”—

and at the same moment Leonora’s mask falling off, Old Sparkes stood confessed, with an immense gander which he brought from under his cloak, and which he had trained to stand on his hand and screech to his voice, and in chorus with himself. The whim took: the roar of laughter was quite inconceivable: he had also got Mungo played by a real black: and the whole was so extravagantly ludicrous, and so entirely to the taste of the Irish galleries at that time, that his “Sweet Robin” was encored, and the frequent repetition of the piece replenished poor Ryder’s treasury for the residue of the season.

I think about that time Mr. John Johnstone was a dragoon. His mother was a very good sort of woman, whom I remember extremely well. Between fifty and sixty years ago she gave me a little book, entitled “The History of the Seven Champions of Christendom,” which I have (with several other books of my childhood) to this day. She used to call at my grandmother’s, to sell run muslins, &c. which she carried about her hips in great wallets, passing them off for a hoop. She was called by the old women, in pleasantry, “Mull and Jacconot;” sold great bargains, and was a universal favourite with the ladies. Young Johnstone was a remarkably genteel well-looking lad; he used to bring presents of trout to my grandmother, which he caught in the great canal then going on close to Dublin. He soon went into the army: but having a weakness in his legs, he procured a speedy discharge, and acquired eminence on the Irish stage.

I never happened to meet Mr. John Johnstone for many years in private society till we met at dinner at Lord Barrymore’s, in 1812, where Col. Bloomfield, my old and good-hearted friend Mr. Richard Martin, and others, were assembled. I was glad to meet the distinguished comedian, and mentioned some circumstances to him which proved the extent of my memory. He sang that night as sweetly as ever I heard him on the stage, and that is saying much.

Mr. Johnstone was a truly excellent performer of the more refined species of Irish characters; but Nature had not given him enough of that original shoulder-twist, and what they call the “pot-sheen-twang,” which so strongly characterise the genuine national vis comica of the lower orders of Irish. In this respect, Owenson was superior to him, of whom the reader will find a more detailed account in a future page.

No modern comedy, in my mind, equals those of the old writers. The former are altogether devoid of that high-bred, witty playfulness of dialogue so conspicuous in the works of the latter. Gaudy spectacle, common-place clap-traps, forced dialogue, and bad puns, together with ill-placed mongrel sentiment, ad captandum vulgus, have been substituted to “make the unskilful laugh,” and to the manifest sorrow of the “judicious.” Perhaps so much the better:—as, although there are now most excellent scene-painters and fire-workers, the London stage appears to be almost destitute of competent performers in the parts of the old genuine comedy, and the present London audiences seem to prefer gunpowder, resin, brimstone, musketry, burning castles, dancing ponies, and German hobgoblins, to any human or Christian entertainments, evidently despising all those high-finished comic characters, which satisfy the understanding and owe nothing to the scenery.

In Paris the scenery and orchestra at the first theatre for acting in the world (the Theatre FranÇois) are below mediocrity. But there is another species of theatrical representation extant in France—namely, scriptural pieces; half burlesque, half melodrame. These are undoubtedly among the drollest things imaginable; mixing up in one unconnected mass, tragedy, comedy, and farce, painting, music, scenery, dress and undress, decency and indecency!^[32]

I have seen many admirable comedians on the continent. Nothing can possibly exceed Mademoiselle Mars (for instance) in many characters: but the French are all actors and actresses from their cradles; and a great number of performers, even at the minor theatres, seem to me to forget that they are playing, and at times nearly make the audience forget it too! Their spectacle is admirably good; their dancing excellent, and most of their dresses beautiful. Their orchestras are well filled, in every sense of the word, and the level of musical composition not so low as some of Mr. Bishop’s effusions. The French singing however is execrable; their tragedy rant; but their prose comedy nature itself!

In short, the French beyond doubt exceed all other people in the world with regard to theatrical matters: and as every man, woman, and child in Paris is equally attached to spectacle, every house is full, every company encouraged,—all tastes find some gratification. An Englishman can scarcely quit a Parisian theatre without having seen himself or some of his acquaintances characteristically and capitally represented: the Anglais supply certainly an inexhaustible source of French mimicry; and as we cannot help it, do what we will, our countrymen now begin to practise the good sense of laughing at themselves! John Bull thinks that roast beef is the finest dish in the whole world, and that the finest fellow in Europe is the man that eats it: on both points the Frenchman begs leave, tout À fait, to differ with John; and nothing can be sillier than to oppose opinions with a positive people, in their own country, and who never yet, right or wrong, gave up an argument.

No part of this world, I believe, combines corporeal and intellectual luxuries to an equal extent with Paris; and I am sure no place can afford them on such easy terms. There is a variety for the eye, the mind, and the palate quite inexhaustible, and within the reach of all purses.—However, no persons but those some time resident in the metropolis of France can even imagine its conveniences or its pleasures, and their cheapness: nor can there be any city where strangers are more kindly used, or more sedulously protected. In point of courtesy, sociability, animated good-nature, address and dress, I regret to say we cannot approach their well-bred females.