TWO DISTINGUISHED VISITORS.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan—

was a very great man in those days in many ways; but what made him just now of especial importance to Mr. Samuel Erin was that he was the manager of Drury Lane Theatre.

That Mr. Harris, of Covent Garden, should have snapped at the ‘Vortigern’ bait had been a satisfactory circumstance enough (though indeed he had only ‘sucked it’ and got off the hook), but the coming of Sheridan was quite another matter. Compared with him, all other managers were small fry.

It was with a less assured demeanour, therefore, than usual, and with an expectancy somewhat tempered with awe, that Mr. Samuel Erin repaired to the parlour. Even the MS. in his hand had lost some of its virtue in view of the authority who was about to pronounce upon it; it was almost as if he had been a young author with his own play; a work of immense original genius, but which he was about to submit for the first time to a leading publisher. It was some relief to him to feel that Dr. Parr would be present, who was well known to him, and a believer in the Shakespearean manuscripts.

As he entered the room the great man came forward to shake him frankly by the hand. His manner was more than gracious, it was genial, and seemed to put him at his ease in a moment. His appearance was not imposing—a man of forty-five inclined to corpulency, with a loose-fitting coat secured by one button over the chest, and a carelessly knotted white neck-cloth—he wore his own hair, already very grey, tied behind with a black riband. His face was puffy, and evinced signs of what was even then called ‘free living. What redeemed it, however, and invested the whole man with marvellous attraction were his bright and sparkling eyes, which glittered with merriment and good humour. The antiquary was so fascinated with them that for the moment he took no notice of the other person in the room, till Sheridan called his attention to him.

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‘You have doubtless seen our friend here pretty often before, Mr. Erin?’ he said smiling.

The antiquary turned round and held out his hand mechanically. The other, however, instead of taking it, drew himself up to his full height (which was a good way), put his hands behind him, and bowed stiffly; it was not Dr. Parr but John Kemble.

Mr. Erin, as a playgoer, had of course seen him ‘pretty often before,’ but generally in royal robes or in armour, attired as a king or a warrior; as it happened he had never before seen him in plain clothes. He had a noble figure and a handsome face—though, strange to say, not a very mobile one—and, so far, was in strong contrast to his companion; the difference in expression was even greater. Mr. Kemble had a sternness of demeanour that was almost forbidding, and which reminded Mr. Erin on the instant that he was an intimate friend of Malone’s.

‘I did not expect the honour of a visit from Mr. Kemble,’ said the antiquary drily.

‘I did not come, sir, of my own free will,’ was the uncompromising reply, delivered in deep tragic tones. ‘I am here at the request of my friend Mr. Sheridan.’

‘Quite true,’ observed that gentleman, his eyes dancing with laughter at the antagonistic attitude of his two companions; the tragedian like a stately St. Bernard with stiff tail, who resents the attention of some half-breed of no insignificant stature, and that ventures to entertain a very tolerable opinion of itself.

‘I dragged him here, Mr. Erin, like iniquity, with cart-ropes. The quarrels of commentators, I know, are like the bars of a castle; they’ll be shot rather than open their arms to one another. For my sake, however, I hope you will, both of you, make a truce while this little matter of business is under discussion; then to it again hammer and tongs with all my heart.—Now, where’s this play?’

Mr. Erin produced it from his breast-pocket, into which he had hurriedly thrust it.

‘Oh, that’s it, is it? Gad! he carries it about with him as a mother carries a newborn babe, whose paternity has never been questioned.’

Kemble smiled, as Coriolanus might have done at the mention of gratitude.

‘I think, Mr. Sheridan,’ said the antiquary in an offended tone, ‘if you will be so good as to glance at yonder certificate, including among other authorities your friend Dr. Parr, you must admit that the legitimacy of “Vortigern and Rowena“ is tolerably well established. Herbert Croft, Dr. Walton, the Poet Laureate, Sir James Bland Burgess, are vouchers——’

‘Weighty enough, indeed,’ interposed the manager impatiently; ‘anything ought to go down with such names attached to it. But the play, the play’s the thing. Let’s look at it.’

It was a detail, if report spoke true, that Sheridan did not always insist upon. He had offered to accept a comedy from the authoress of ‘Evelina’ unread, and to put it on the boards of Drury Lane. Even now, when the manuscript was spread out before him, he seemed to shrink from the task he had imposed upon himself.

‘Gad!’ he exclaimed, ‘there seems a good lot of it!’

‘There are two thousand eight hundred lines in all,’ explained Mr. Erin gravely.

‘Fourteen hundred lines are deemed sufficient for an acting drama,’ observed Mr. Kemble acidly.

‘The dramas of William Shakespeare, sir, with which I happen to have some acquaintance,’ returned the antiquary with bitter significance, ‘extend in more than one case to a greater length than the “Vortigern.”’

‘Come, come, Kemble,’ said the manager good-naturedly. ‘Surplusage is no error, and one can hardly complain because one gets two plays for the price of one. Now, Mr. Erin, would you prefer to be present at our investigation or not? Mothers generally shrink from an inquest upon even a foster-child, but there have been Roman matrons——’

‘I make it an invariable rule, Mr. Sheridan,’ put in the antiquary hastily, ‘though on the present occasion there is no ground, of course, for its being put in practice, never to permit the literary offspring of which you speak to leave my hands.’

‘Afraid of body-snatching, eh? Think of you and me wanting to steal a play, Kemble! Why, Drury Lane is a perfect foundling hospital for them. However, just as you please, sir.’

Then, while Mr. Erin sat apart affecting to be immersed in a folio (but with his ears wide open), the two sat down to the manuscript, from which Kemble now and then read aloud in deep sonorous tones, which were not always so sarcastic as he intended them to be.

There was a certain rhythmical roll in many lines like the thunder of the surf, and also (as in its case) a head of foam which gave the impression of strength. For example:—

Full fifty breathless bodies struck my sight;
And some with gaping mouths did seem to mock me;
Whilst others, smiling in cold death itself,
Scoffingly bade me look on that which soon
Would wrench from off my brow this sacred crown,
And make me too a subject like themselves.

From Kemble’s mouth at least such lines were not wanting in majestic vigour, though he lent it to them involuntarily. It was evident enough, indeed, that he was adverse to the acceptance of the play, while Sheridan was in favour of it. What doubtless furthered Mr. Erin’s hopes was that Sheridan had notoriously no very high opinion of Shakespeare himself; he thought his genius exaggerated. Presently Kemble came to the three best lines in the tragedy—

Give me a sword,

I have so clogged and badged this with blood
And slippery gore, that it doth mock my grasp;
A sword I say!

A speech he delivered with fine emphasis.

‘Come, that is better than “Titus Andronicus,” anyway,’ said Sheridan slily.

‘An echo, sir, a mere echo of “Richard the Third,”’ growled the tragedian.

‘Let us hope it will answer with “Richard the Fourth,”’ was the laughing rejoinder.

Their disagreement was like the conflict between the whale and a sword-fish, and could have but the same end.

‘I don’t mean to say that some things here are not better than others,’ said Kemble doggedly, ‘though perhaps I may be permitted to add that you hear them to the best advantage; but to me the whole thing has a false ring.’

‘Perhaps it’s my want of ear,’ returned the manager; ‘but do you think, Mr. Kemble,’ here he sank his voice to a whisper, ‘that many people have good ears?’

The drollery and even roguishness of his face as he hazarded this inquiry was indescribable. The tragedian ‘put the question by’ and pursued his argument.

‘Whatever you think of Shakespeare, Mr. Sheridan, you must allow that he at least always wrote poetry. Now, much of what I have had the honour to read to you is not poetry.’

‘But let us suppose Shakespeare was drunk.’

‘Sir!’ exclaimed the tragedian in an offended tone.

‘Sir!’ echoed the antiquary, dropping the folio with a crash.

‘Good Heavens! gentlemen, may not one even put a postulate? Even Euclid, a writer of little imagination, permits that much. It is not such a very impossible supposition. Have you never heard of a man of genius with a turn for the bottle?’

As he looked very hard at the tragedian, that gentleman felt called upon to reply. ‘I have no personal experience of anything of that kind,’ he said loftily.

‘Well, of course not; how should you?’ returned Sheridan blandly, but with a curve of the lip that seemed to say, ‘We are talking of men of genius.’ Perhaps his reference to his own weakness made him bitter. If it was so, the feeling was very transitory; it was with his most winning smile that he presently addressed his friend, ‘Come, Prester John, we can do nothing without you in this affair; surely you will not fail us.’

‘I will have no responsibility in the matter,’ was the haughty reply. ‘I will not append my name to yonder list; I will not have it go forth to the world that I admit the genuineness of this production; I will not stamp it with my warranty; I will not——’

‘Tut, tut, man,’ broke in the manager impatiently; ‘but you’ll act, you’ll act.’

‘Well, yes, I will play Vortigern.’

‘And Mrs. Siddons will play Edmunda?’

‘Nay, sir, that is a question for herself. I cannot answer for Sarah; she always takes her own way.’

‘To hear you talk one would think she was your wife instead of your sister,’ said the manager laughing. ‘Then the Country Girl’ (so Mrs. Jordan was called from her first success, which had been made in that piece) ‘shall be Flavia, who has to appear in man’s clothes; she loves to wear the breeches, as the poor Duke has long discovered. Well, we’ll take your friend Shakespeare’s play, Mr. Erin.’ And the manager rose from his chair with a yawn, like one who has concluded a distasteful business.

‘But, ahem! nothing has been said about terms,’ suggested the antiquary.

‘Terms? Does he mean money?’ said the manager, looking towards the tragedian with an air of extreme astonishment, as though he would say, ‘Can I believe my ears?’

‘I am almost inclined to believe he does,’ replied the other, smiling for the first time.

‘But surely not money down; not ready money, he can’t mean that.’

The antiquary’s face unmistakably implied that he did.

‘Good heavens, Mr. Erin, who has any ready money? I was just talking of the Duke of Clarence, has he any ready money? Not a guinea—though you should threaten to drown him, like his namesake, in a butt of malmsey—to save his life.’

‘The money might be paid out of the profits of the first night, and then half profits,’ suggested Mr. Erin.

‘Mere details—business,’ cried the manager disdainfully. ‘You must see Albany Wallis about all that. That’s a pretty face,’ he added, stopping abruptly beneath a picture on the wall and pointing to it—’a charming face.’

‘It is the portrait of my niece, Margaret.’

‘Aye, aye; love, faith, a pure soul in a fair body; a true heart, I am sure of it.’

His voice, freighted with genuine feeling, seemed to melt away in music.

‘She is in truth a good girl, Mr. Sheridan: the light of my poor house.’

‘Take care of her, sir; be kind to her, lest, when it is too late, you rue it.’

He was gone in a flash, and the door closed behind him.

Mr. Erin looked at the tragedian in amazement.

‘Some likeness to his late wife, I fancy,’ observed that gentleman in grave explanation. ‘Her death was a matter of much regret to him.’ He seemed to be about to hold out his hand, but something restrained him; his eye had lit by chance on the certificate. ‘Good morning, Mr. Erin,’ he said with a stiff bow.

‘Good morning, Mr. Kemble.’