Joseph Grimaldi

1828 to 1836.

The farewell benefit at Drury Lane—Grimaldi's last appearance and parting address—The Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, and its prompt reply to his communication—Miserable career and death of his son—His wife dies, and he returns from Woolwich (whither he had previously removed) to London—His retirement.

The three gentlemen who were mentioned in conjunction with Miss Kelly, in the course of the last chapter, exerted themselves with so much energy, that Grimaldi's benefit far exceeded his most sanguine expectations. In addition to the most effective company of the theatre, were secured the services of Miss Kelly, and Madam Fearon;[90] Miss Fanny Ayton, Miss Love,[91] Mathews, Keeley, and Bartley, besides an immense number of pantomime performers, who crowded to offer their aid, and among whom were—Barnes, Southby, Ridgway and his two sons, and young Grimaldi. Mr. James Wallack arranged everything, and exerted himself as much as he could have done if the night had been his own. The announced bill ran thus:—

Mr. GRIMALDI'S FAREWELL BENEFIT.
On Friday, June 27th, 1828,
will be performed,
JONATHAN IN ENGLAND;
after which
A MUSICAL MELANGE.
To be succeeded by
THE ADOPTED CHILD,
and concluded with
HARLEQUIN HOAX,
In which Mr. Grimaldi will act clown in one scene, sing a song, and speak his
FAREWELL ADDRESS.

It was greatly in favour of the benefit, that Covent Garden had closed the night before; the pit and galleries were completely filled in less than half an hour after opening the doors, the boxes were very good from the first, and at half-price were as crowded as the other parts of the house. In the last piece Grimaldi acted one scene, but being wholly unable to stand, went through it seated upon a chair. Even in this distressing condition he retained enough of his old humour to succeed in calling down repeated shouts of merriment and laughter. The song, too, in theatrical language, "went" as well as ever; and at length, when the pantomime approached its termination, he made his appearance before the audience in his private dress, amidst thunders of applause. As soon as silence could be obtained, and he could muster up sufficient courage to speak, he advanced to the foot-lights, and delivered, as well as his emotions would permit, the following Farewell Address.—

"Ladies and Gentlemen:—In putting off the clown's garment, allow me to drop also the clown's taciturnity, and address you in a few parting sentences. I entered early on this course of life, and leave it prematurely. Eight-and-forty years only have passed over my head—but I am going as fast down the hill of life as that older Joe—John Anderson. Like vaulting ambition, I have overleaped myself, and pay the penalty in an advanced old age. If I have now any aptitude for tumbling, it is through bodily infirmity, for I am worse on my feet than I used to be on my head. It is four years since I jumped my last jump—filched my last oyster—boiled my last sausage—and set in for retirement. Not quite so well provided for, I must acknowledge, as in the days of my clownship, for then, I dare say, some of you remember, I used to have a fowl in one pocket and sauce for it in the other.

"To-night has seen me assume the motley for a short time—it clung to my skin as I took it off, and the old cap and bells rang mournfully as I quitted them for ever.

"With the same respectful feelings as ever do I find myself in your presence—in the presence of my last audience—this kindly assemblage so happily contradicting the adage that a favourite has no friends. For the benevolence that brought you hither—accept, ladies and gentlemen, my warmest and most grateful thanks, and believe, that of one and all, Joseph Grimaldi takes a double leave, with a farewell on his lips, and a tear in his eyes.

"Farewell! That you and yours may ever enjoy that greatest earthly good—health, is the sincere wish of your faithful and obliged servant. God bless you all!"

It was with no trifling difficulty that Grimaldi reached the conclusion of this little speech, although the audience cheered loudly, and gave him every possible expression of encouragement and sympathy. When he had finished, he still stood in the same place, bewildered and motionless, his feelings being so greatly excited, that the little power illness had left wholly deserted him. In this condition he stood for a minute or two, when Mr. Harley, who was at the side scene, commiserating his emotion, kindly advanced and led him off the stage, assisted by his son. As a token of his respect and gratitude, Grimaldi took off a new wig which he wore on the occasion, and presented it to Mr. Harley, together with the original address, which he held in his hand. Our friend has them both, carefully preserved in a small museum of wigs, autographs, portraits, and other memorials of the most distinguished men in every branch of the profession, of which for upwards of twenty-eight years he has been deservedly one of the most popular members.

Having been led into a private room, and strengthened with a couple of glasses of Madeira, Grimaldi had to sustain another, and a scarcely less severe trial, in receiving the farewells and good wishes of his old associates. The street was thronged with people, who were waiting to see him come out, and as he entered the coach, which stood at the stage door, gave him three hearty cheers, amid which he drove off. But all was not over yet, for hundreds followed the vehicle until it reached his house, and upon getting out he was again hailed with a similar overwhelming shout of approbation and regard; nor could the crowd be prevailed upon to disperse until he had appeared on the top of the steps, and made his farewell bow.

Grimaldi was too exhausted and nervous, after the trying scenes through which he had just passed, to make any calculation that night of what the benefit had produced; but the next day, being somewhat recovered, he entered into the matter, and found the result to be as follows:—The house cost him 210l., the printing 70l. more, making the expenses 280l. The money taken at the doors amounted to rather more than 400l., besides which he sold 150l. worth of tickets, making a total of 550l. Deducting the expenses, the clear profits of the benefit amounted to 270l.

There was another source of great profit, which must not be forgotten, namely, the number of anonymous communications Grimaldi received, enclosing sums of money, and wishing him a happy retirement. He received six letters, each containing 20l., eleven containing 10l., and sixteen containing 5l. each. Thus, the amount forwarded by unknown hands was no less than 310l., which, added to the amount of profits just mentioned, makes the gross sum realized by this last benefit 580l., besides the 315l. which he had cleared at Sadler's Wells.

The highest tribute that can be paid to those who in secret forwarded their munificent donations, or to those who rendered him their valuable professional assistance, or to that large number who came forward to cheer the last public moments of a man who had so often, and so successfully, beguiled their leisure hours, is, that they smoothed the hard bed of premature and crippled old age, and rendered the slow decline of a life, scarcely in years past its prime, peaceful and contented. This benefit closed his theatrical existence, and filled his heart with deep and lasting emotions of gratitude.

Only one more circumstance connected with Grimaldi's theatrical existence remains to be told, and to that one we most anxiously and emphatically invite the attention of all who admire the drama—and what man of thought or feeling does not?—of all those who devote themselves to the cause of real charity—and of all those who now, reaping large gains from the exercise of a glittering and dazzling profession, forget that youth and strength will not last for ever, and that the more intoxicating their triumphs now, the more probable is the advent of a time of adversity and decay.

Counting over his gains, and dwelling upon his helpless state, Grimaldi was not long in finding that even now, whenever his little salary at Sadler's Wells should cease, he would not have adequate means of support. There was only one source to which he could apply for relief, and to that source he at once turned.

It is well known to all our readers, that two charitable societies exist in London, called the Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatrical Funds. They are distinct bodies, but were established with the same great and benevolent object. Every actor who, throughout his engagement at either of the large theatres, contributes a certain portion of his earnings to one of these funds, is entitled, if he should ever be reduced to the necessity of seeking it, to an annuity in proportion to the time for which he has contributed. To one of these most excellent institutions,—the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund,—Grimaldi had belonged for more than thirty years, promoting its interests not merely by his subscription, but by every means in his power. Feeling that in his hour of need and distress he had some claim upon its funds, he addressed the secretary, and stated the situation to which he was reduced. Early on the following morning he was visited by the gentleman to whom he had applied, who informed him that he was awarded a pension of 100l. a-year for the remainder of his life, and that he was deputed to pay him immediately the amount of one quarter in advance. His fears vanished at once, and he felt that want at all events could never be his portion.[92]

It can be observed at no better place than this, that all applications for relief from these funds are known only to the respective committees, and that the names of all annuitants are kept strictly secret during their lives; that the distribution of their property is confided to gentlemen accustomed to act with the utmost delicacy and discrimination, and that some of the greatest ornaments of the English stage have been relieved in their old age, when their powers of amusing and delighting were gone,—not as poor pensioners, or objects of compassion, but as persons who, not forgetting their poor brethren in their affluence, were not themselves forgotten, when unexpected misfortune or sickness fell upon them.

The unfortunate young man to whom allusion has been frequently made in the course of the last few pages, was, as may easily be imagined, one of the chief sources of Grimaldi's care and trouble in his latter days. After remaining in his house for two months in a state of madness, he grew better, left one night to attend Sadler's Wells, where he was engaged, and was seen no more until the middle of the following year, when he again presented himself in a state of insanity, and was conveyed to his own lodgings and carefully attended. The next year he was dismissed from Sadler's Wells on account of his dissolute conduct; engaged at Drury Lane with a salary of eight pounds per week, most favourably received, and discharged at the end of the first season for his profligacy and drunkenness.

After this, he obtained an engagement for a month at the Pavilion in Whitechapel Road, but left that theatre also in disgrace, and fell into the lowest state of wretchedness and poverty. His dress had fallen to rags, his feet were thrust into two worn-out slippers, his face was pale with disease, and squalid with dirt and want, and he was steeped in degradation. The man who might have earned with ease, with comfort, and respectability, from six to seven hundred pounds a year, and have raised himself to far greater gains by common providence and care, was reduced to such a dreadful state of destitution and filth, that even his own parents could scarcely recognise him.

He was again received, and again found a home with his sick father. At Christmas, 1829, he obtained a situation at the Coburg, through the kindness of Davidge, and there he remained until Easter, 1830, when he took the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors' Act, to relieve himself from the creditors who were hunting him down. His support in prison and contingent expenses, amounting to forty pounds, were all paid by his father.

He next accepted an engagement at Edinburgh, which turned out a failure; and another at Manchester, at Christmas, 1830, by which he gained a few pounds. He then returned to the Coburg, where he might have almost permanently remained, but for his own misconduct, which once again cast him on the world.

In the following autumn, the son again presented himself at his father's door, reduced to a state of beggary and want not to be described. His mother, who had suffered greatly from his misdeeds, outrageous conduct, and gross and violent abuse, besought his father not to receive him, or aid him again, remembering how much he had already wasted the small remnant of his means only to minister to his extravagance and folly. But he could not witness his helpless and miserable state without compassion, and he was once more forgiven, once more became an inmate of the house, and remained there in a state of utter dependence.

In 1832, Sadler's Wells was let out for one season to Mrs. Fitzwilliam and Mr. W. H. Williams. They retained Grimaldi for some little time, but finding that he must be dismissed very shortly, he made preparations for meeting the consequent reduction of his income, by giving up the house in which he had lived for several years, and taking a cottage at Woolwich,[93] whither he had an additional inducement to retire, in the hope that change of air might prove beneficial to his wife, who had already been ill for some time.

They repaired to their new house in the latter end of September, and in the beginning of November the son received a letter from a brother actor, entreating him to perform for a benefit, at Sadler's Wells. His reception was so cordial and his acting so good, that on the very same evening, notwithstanding all that had previously passed, he was offered an engagement for the ensuing Christmas at the Coburg, and the next day, on his return to Woolwich, he communicated the intelligence. The following day was his birth-day—he completed his thirtieth year that morning—and before it had passed over, the then lessee of the Queen's Theatre waited upon him, and offered him an engagement for a short time at a weekly salary of 4l. He agreed to take it, and arranged to begin on the following Monday, November 25, in a part called Black CÆsar.

It was sorely against his father's will that he went to fulfil this engagement, for his health had been waning for some time, and he was fearful that he might relapse into his old habits. However, he was determined to go, and borrowing some money of his father, as was his usual wont, he left Woolwich on the Sunday morning.

On the Wednesday, Grimaldi had occasion to go to town, and eagerly embraced it as an opportunity for seeing his son, to whom, despite all the anxiety and losses he had caused him, he was still most tenderly attached. He wrote to him, naming the friend's house at which he would be found, and the young man came. He looked in excellent health—was in high spirits, and boasted of his success in terms which from all accounts, it appeared, were justified by its extent. Shortly after dinner he left, observing, that as he had to appear in the first scene of the first piece, he had no time to lose. His father never saw him more.

Grimaldi returned to Woolwich next day, and anxiously hoped on Sunday to see the misguided man to dinner, agreeably to a promise he had made. The day passed away, but he did not come; a few more days elapsed, and then he received an intimation from a stranger that his son was ill. He immediately wrote to a friend, (Mr. Glendinning the printer,) requesting him to ascertain the nature of his indisposition, which he feared was only the effect of some new intemperance, and if it should appear necessary, to procure him medical assistance. For two days he heard nothing; but this did not alarm him, for he entertained no doubt that his son's illness would disappear when the fumes of the liquor he had drunk had evaporated.

On the 11th of December, a friend came to his house as he was sitting by his wife's bed, to which she was confined by illness, and when, with much difficulty, he had descended to the parlour, told him with great care and delicacy that his son was dead.

In one instant every feeling of decrepitude or bodily weakness left him; his limbs recovered their original vigour; all his lassitude and debility vanished; a difficulty of breathing, under which he had long laboured, disappeared, and starting from his seat, he rushed to his wife's chamber, tearing, without the least difficulty, up a flight of stairs, which, a quarter of an hour before, it had taken him ten minutes to climb. He hurried to her bed-side, told her that her son was dead, heard her first passionate exclamation of grief, and falling into a chair, was once again an enfeebled and crippled old man.

The remains of the young man were interred, a few days afterwards, in the burial-ground of Whitfield's Tabernacle, in Tottenham-court-road; but some circumstances, apparently of a suspicious nature, being afterwards rumoured about, and it being whispered that marks of blows had been seen upon his head by those who laid him out, an inquest was holden upon the young man's body. Grimaldi states that the body was exhumed: from some passages in the newspapers of the day, it would appear that an informal inquest was held, and that the body was not disinterred. Be this as it may, it was proved before the coroner that his death had arisen from the natural consequences of a mis-spent life; that his body was covered with a fearful inflammation, and that he had died in a state of wild and furious madness, rising from his bed and dressing himself in stage costume to act snatches of the parts to which he had been most accustomed, and requiring to be held down to die, by strong manual force. This closing scene of his life took place at a public house in Pitt-street, Tottenham-court-road, and here the dismal tragedy ended.

It was long before Grimaldi in any degree recovered this great shock; his wife never did. She lingered on in a state of great suffering for two years afterwards, until death happily relieved her.

He was now left alone in the world; he had always been a domesticated man, delighting in nothing more than in the society of his relations and friends; and the condition of solitary desolation in which he was now left, nearly drove him into a state of melancholy madness. His crippled limbs and broken bodily health rendered it necessary to his existence that he should have an attentive nurse, and occasionally at least cheerful society; finding his situation wholly insupportable, he resolved to return to town, and wrote to a friend,[94] whose wife was his only remaining relative, to procure a small house for him in his own neighbourhood, where he too had lived so long and happily. A neat little dwelling, next door to this friend's house, in Southampton-street, Pentonville, being at that time to let, was taken and furnished for him, and thither he removed without more delay. Many of his old friends came from time to time to cheer him with a few minutes' conversation, and he experienced the warmest and kindest treatment from his neighbours, and from Mr. Richard Hughes, who bore in mind his promise to his dying sister, to the last moment of Grimaldi's life.

He concludes his Memoirs by taking a more cheerful view of his condition than could well have been expected of a man suffering so much, and ends in these words:—

"My histrionic acquaintance frequently favour me with their company, when we together review past scenes, and contrast them with those of the present time. My esteemed friend, Alfred Bunn, has been with me this very day, and I expect to see my amiable patroness, if she will permit me to call her so, Miss Kelly, to-morrow.

"In my solitary hours—and in spite of all the kindness of my friends I have many of them—my thoughts often dwell upon the past: and there is one circumstance which always affords me unmitigated satisfaction; it is simply that I cannot recollect one single instance in which I have intentionally wronged man, woman, or child, and this gives me great satisfaction and comfort.

"This is the 18th of December, 1836. I was born on the 18th of December, 1779, and consequently have completed my 57th year.