THE BRISTOL STOCK COMPANY

The engagement at the Royalty was only a stopgap, and at its termination the wise Mr. Ben Terry took his daughter "to school," in one of the famous stock companies that then most happily existed in all the large provincial towns. They were indeed "schools"—schools of a very practical order—and in them most of the leading actors of our generation graduated.

Now that they have vanished, the great question among the would-be actors and actresses of to-day (or I should say among those who are in earnest) is "where can we find a true dramatic school?" Alas! too many of them abjure school, and, with the awkwardness (though very little of the timidity) of half-fledged birds, flutter blindly on to the stage, and blunder under the unwonted glare of footlights, to the bewilderment of the theatrical habituÉs and the despair of critics, but apparently to the great satisfaction of themselves and their foolishly admiring friends.

I am inclined to think that theatre-lovers who never lived in a large town in the good old stock company days missed one of the joys of life. The actors and actresses in those companies (I speak from personal experience) were our pride and our delight. Their names were familiar in our mouths and homes as household words. Eagerly we scanned the ever-changing play-bills to see what this or that favourite would do next; anxiously we turned to the newspaper to see if the privileged critic did full justice to them. They were, both on and off the stage, our local heroes, heroines, soul-inspirers, and mirth-provokers. They were familiar figures in our streets, and we loved to meet them. When, according to the custom of those days, the "stars" from London came down to be supported by the stock company, we were so loyal to the friends who delighted us all the year round that we pretended to think little or nothing of the stars. When, in due course, some of them moved on to London, we watched their careers with the deepest interest. In short, between the players and their patrons there existed a personal affection. If they did not know each other "off the stage," the magnetic touch was there, and it meant everything to those on both sides of the curtain. The result was painstaking and sound (if not always great) acting, and well-judged applause from fond and encouraging audiences. Under such conditions, actors who already had their hearts in their vocation, did not care how hard they worked, and constant experience, coupled with true endeavour, perfected them in their art.

But it was hard work! Edward Compton has told me that at the shortest notice he was called upon to study and play within one week important parts in "The Octoroon," "The Old Toll House," "Thirty Years of a Gambler's Life," and "Raby Rattler," and I believe Sir Henry Irving could record even harder experiences.

But the firing of the clay brought out the colours on the porcelain, and the colours lasted. At the time when Ellen Terry was taken to one of these important schools, there was no better stock company in England than that brought together by Mr. J. H. Chute, the enterprising and far-seeing manager of the Theatre Royal, Bristol. Mr. Chute seemed to have a knack of gathering about him most of the promising young artists of the day, and certainly those who learnt their lessons under the roof of his academy did justice to his name.

It is tantalising to think of a West of England stock company (Mr. Chute at that time was responsible for the Bath as well as the Bristol theatre) that, within a very short period, could boast of such a constellation of names as Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendal), Marie Wilton (Lady Bancroft), Henrietta Hodson (Mrs. Labouchere), Kate Bishop, Kate and Ellen Terry, George Melville, Arthur Stirling, George and William Rignold, W. H. Vernon, David James, Charles Coghlan, Arthur Wood, John Rouse, and J. F. Cathcart.

No wonder that in such a school, and with such schoolmates, Ellen Terry learnt very useful lessons. There was an abundance of work. One-act farces and genuine burlesques were then in vogue, and these, with tragedy or comedy, formed the day's rehearsal and the evening's bill. Every one took part in them, and both for brains and body it was sharp and onerous work. But they were enthusiasts; they were aware of their local popularity; they were ready to tackle anything that came in their way, and so their names were made.

For example, Ellen Terry was cast for a part in a burlesque. She told the stage manager that she could neither sing nor dance. The reply was laconic and decisive: "You've got to do it!" "And I did, in a way," she says; "but it was the best thing that could happen to me, for it took the self-consciousness out of me—and, after a while, I thought it was capital fun, for the Bath and Bristol people were very kind."

But it was not all burlesque. Relief to clever William Brough's "Endymion"—"Perseus and Andromeda; or the Maid and the Monster," and so forth, was found in serious drama, and sometimes in Shakespeare. Kate Terry had preceded her younger sister to Bristol, and speedily established herself as a favourite. Her Portia and Beatrice were already popular performances, and renewed zest was added to them when "Pretty Miss Ellen" was at hand to play Nerissa and Hero.

During this useful engagement Ellen Terry formed an intense admiration for some of her co-mates. She fell in love with the beautiful singing voice of Madge Robertson (it was an open question then whether our Mrs. Kendal of to-day would devote herself to opera or drama), and she is especially warm in her praises of the finished acting of Charles Coghlan. How some of these budding artists crossed each other's paths in later and famous days we shall see in the course of these pages.

From an old friend, who in the days of his youth aspired to be an actor, but, after a short trial, quitted the stage to make his name as journalist and author, I have received the following interesting notes:—

"You ask me, my dear Pemberton," he writes, "to give you my recollections of Ellen Terry in those now, alas! far-off days of my youth, when I was for a brief time connected in a very humble capacity with the Theatre Royal, Bristol. It was in the early sixties (1862, I think) that Ellen and her elder sister, Kate (now Mrs. Arthur Lewis), were engaged by the late James Henry Chute as members of his stock company, Kate playing the juvenile lead and the principal ladies in the classical burlesques, which were then the vogue and quite as attractive as the legitimate drama. The company also included Miss Henrietta Hodson (now Mrs. Labouchere), soubrette and principal boy, the late Charles Coghlan, light comedian, William and George Rignold, John Rouse, Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, and their daughter Madge, the latter only in her early 'teens, and Arthur Wood, 'first low comedian.'

"Ellen Terry was then a girl of about fourteen, of tall figure, with a round, dimpled, laughing, mischievous face, a pair of merry, saucy grey eyes, and an aureole of golden hair, which she wore, in the words of a modern ditty, 'hanging down her back.' Although dwarfed, in a measure, as an actress, by the more experienced skill and the superior rÔles of her fascinating sister, Ellen soon became a great favourite in Bristol. Her popularity was largely due to her performances in two of the Brough brothers' burlesques—'Endymion' and 'Perseus and Andromeda.' In the former Miss Hodson played Endymion, Kate Terry was Diana, and Ellen, Cupid, and a very arch, piquant sprite, full of movement and laughter, Miss Ellen was.

"She wore a loose short-skirted sort of tunic with a pair of miniature wings, and of course carried the conventional bow and quiver. Some of the more prudish of the Bristol theatre-goers—the same people who had been wont to roar over the vulgar comicalities of Johnny Rouse—were half inclined to be shocked at a scantiness of attire that even Mr. Chute himself was disposed to think (i.e. for the modest early sixties: to-day a Cupid with a 'skirted tunic' would be considered sadly over-dressed) a 'little daring.'

"But Ellen Terry's charm, her delightful grace and innate refinement, quite disarmed the prudes, and Cupid triumphed in front of the curtain as well as behind it, and lightly shot his darts in all directions. Miss Hodson was at that time a deservedly great favourite, but the Terry sisters unconsciously became the founders of a new cult among local playgoers, and set up an empire of their own; in fact, I am hardly exaggerating if I say that there were among the gilded youth of Bristol two rival factions—the Hodson faction and the Terry faction, whose friendly antagonism was as keen, if not as fatal, as that of the Montagues and the Capulets.

"If my memory serves me right, Ellen was the Dictys of the other burlesque, Miss Hodson and Miss Kate Terry playing the two rÔles of the title. In one of these pieces Arthur Wood had to speak a line in which occurs the phrase, "such a mystery here." He made much nightly capital—for these burlesques had long runs considering they were played by a stock company in a provincial theatre—by emphasising the syllables of 'mystery,' so as to make the sentence sound 'such a Miss Terry here.'

"I was only a general utility actor in that company, and I had to play one of the crowd in 'Perseus and Andromeda,' whose duty it was to be suddenly turned to stone, after the fashion of Lot's wife—only with a more studied artistic pose—at the sight of Medusa's head. In order to give vraisemblance to the illusion, we of the populace were costumed in a parti-coloured fashion, one half white, the other half of some strong colour, and our faces were made up on one side only with a sort of whitewash. When, at the given signal, we turned round our white sides with the precision of soldiers at drill to the full stream of the limelight, striking simultaneously more or less statuesque attitudes, the situation was, for those days, effective, and nightly brought down the house and evoked a call for the manager. I recollect that before the production, in order to ascertain the effect of the whitewash, one or two of us, true to our profession of 'general utility,' had to put it on at a midnight rehearsal, after we had resumed our ordinary dress. Many years have elapsed since the incident, yet I can still hear the peals of musical laughter with which Ellen Terry greeted our intensely comical appearance, and I can still see the mischief and good-natured ridicule sparkling in her merry eyes.

"If I had to describe her acting in those days, I should say its chief characteristic was a vivacious sauciness. Her voice already had some of the rich sympathetic quality which has since been one of her most distinctive charms. Although only in the first flush of a joyous girlhood, she was yet familiar enough with the stage to be absolutely at home on it, and in such complete touch with her audiences that she could afford to discard the serious spirit altogether, even when the situation demanded a less frivolous mood. That she made these little subordinate parts in the burlesques not only dominate the stage at the time, but also caused them to live in the memory all these years, is evidence enough of the compelling force and infection of her irrepressible mirthfulness. At rehearsals, even more than when acting, she was brimful of merriment, taking nothing gravely;—a gay, mercurial child, flitting about hither and thither with ever the same exuberant insouciance, the same defiant spirit of laughter, as if life and all its possibilities of tangle and tragedy had only a holiday meeting for her. As I look back on those bright and too brief 'salad' days, it seems to me that Ellen Terry might have been regarded as the epitome of that 'golden age' in which people 'fleeted the time carelessly.'

"Mrs. Terry always accompanied her daughters to and from the theatre every night, and watched them from the wings during the whole time they were on the stage. They lodged during the season in Queen Square, then the recognised quarter for theatrical folks. The theatre itself was situated in King Street; I believe it still exists, but its glory, like that of Ichabod, has long since departed. A theatre in Park Row has superseded the famous old house where so many great actors and actresses were trained; and the whole neighbourhood round that building, once throbbing with artistic interest, has become sordid and neglected, and redolent of ship chandlery. But in the old times, outside the little narrow stage-door, crowds of dazzled Lotharios and stage-struck worshippers used to throng to see the 'Terrys' go home after the performance. Mrs. Terry played her part of duenna with uncommon vigilance, and it was little more than a snap-shot vision of three hurrying and well-wrapped up figures that rewarded the admirers for their patience.

"I recollect one poor lad who was an assistant in a large drapery establishment in Wine Street, Bristol. He was infatuated with the beautiful Kate Terry, though he had never spoken to her, and probably he never even saw her off the stage. But he left bouquets and other gifts addressed to her at the stage-door, and as there was nothing to indicate who the donor was, or where he lived, she could not send them back. Sometime after this young fellow was arrested for embezzlement. He had taken his employer's money, partly in order to gratify a passion for the theatre, and partly to enable him to buy presents for the divinity whom he worshipped from afar. It was a painful little drama of real life; and I know that no one was more distressed than Miss Terry herself when she read the account of the magisterial proceedings in the paper.

"I could tell you a lot about the 'Old Duke' tavern, the famous theatrical rendezvous of those days; but the 'Terrys,' of course, did not come on in that convivial scene. I am reminded, however, that one of its regular habituÉs was Charley Adams, the theatre prompter, about whom many diverting stories might be told. Whenever there was a stage wait or anything went wrong, Charley lost his head entirely, and rushed about with 'language' on his lips and tears streaming down his cheeks. On one occasion the stage was kept waiting for George Rignold, the audience began to be impatient, and Charley was distracted. Ellen Terry happened to be standing in the prompt wing, and, rendered desperate by the growing delay, Charley, with forcible if florid eloquence, expressed in the true Bristol vernacular, pushed her on to the stage. 'Go on! go on!' he screamed, making the objective of his imperative mood fairly totter with adjectives. Miss Terry was, however, by no means embarrassed. She quietly took in the situation: her always welcome presence elicited a hearty cheer, and by the time she had crossed the stage and disappeared on the O.P. side, the missing actor had turned up and proceeded to 'smooth out the creases.'

"Poor old Charley was often a butt for Ellen Terry's pleasant banter. He was a rather illiterate man, and made mistakes of speech which were an irresistible theme of ridicule with this mirthful maiden. How she laughed when he spoke of the 'Jorgon's' head, and called the statues 'statties,' and performed other amazing feats of verbal metamorphosis.

"Charley was always at his best in the 'Old Duke' smoking-room with his long clay pipe, after his sixth 'small jug' of eleemosynary beer. Then he was confidential, impressive, sententious, and 'dear boy'd' every one with a friendship which was none the less sincere because its fount was somewhat alcoholic. It is many a year since the earth closed over thee, thou poor, excitable, and sometimes self-indulgent disciple of Thespis, but none who knew thee can ever have any but kindly memories of thy simple undisguised obsequiousness to the 'star,' and thy majestically patronising mien to the super.

"I have used the name Ellen Terry throughout the above notes, but at that time she was always and to every one, 'Nelly.' She was announced as 'Miss Nelly Terry' in the play-bills, and I have an old friendly letter from her, written only a few months after she left Bristol, in which she signs herself 'Nelly.' The handwriting is angular and 'school-missish,' with no indication of the soundness and flexible strength which have since become its characteristics.

"Perhaps I have laid too much stress on the two burlesque parts which have the deepest roots in my memory. 'Miss Nelly' played other parts; she was the 'walking lady' of the company, and I have (rather hazy) recollections of her in a crinolined dress in that fine old melodrama 'The Angel of Midnight; or, The Duel in the Snow'; as a fashionable dame in the glittering but immoral coterie which forms the personal background in 'The Marble Heart'; and as the ingenue in a once popular comedietta entitled 'The Little Treasure.'

"To say that she then showed unmistakable promise of the pre-eminent position to which she has since attained in English dramatic art would be to exhibit that 'after-the-event' wisdom which is so common a feature of modern prophecy. I will only say that we, the young fellows of that day, thought she was perfection; we toasted her in our necessarily frugal measures; we would gladly have been her hewers of wood and drawers of water. She had personal charm as well as histrionic skill. Her smiles were very sweet, but, alack for all of us, they were mathematically impartial."

These jottings are not only interesting as regards the early career of Kate and Ellen Terry, but they prove my views as to the affection in which the famous old stock companies were held by their devoted provincial patrons. In these days of ephemeral touring troupes such a condition of things is impossible, and really earnest students of the drama starve for lack of nourishment.

On April 2, 1862, the old Bath Theatre of many glorious memories was destroyed by fire; but James Henry Chute was not the man to be dismayed by disaster. Within a year it was rebuilt, and on March 4, 1863, was again ready for its faithful audiences.

As the opening programme is now historic, it is well to reproduce it here:—

Fairies—

Demoiselles Margarets, Montague, Owen, Fanny Marshall, Bullock, Vaughan, Clarke, A. Clarke, Gibson, Marchant, Holmes, Wootton, etc.

Other Fairies attending their King and Queen—

Misses Seymour, C. Wootten, Goodyer, Frailly, E. Frailly, C. Marchant, F. Marchant, Watts, etc.

Characters in Interlude performed by the Clowns—

Pyramus, by Bottom; Wall, by Snout; Thisbe, by Flute; Moonshine, by Starveling; Lion, by Snug.

Attendants on Theseus & Hippolyta—Huntsman, Esquire, etc.

The new Act-Drop by Messrs Grieve and Telbin.

To conclude with the new and laughable Farce, by J. Wooler, Esq., called:

MARRIAGE AT ANY PRICE

Speaking by the light of to-day, this was indeed a rich cast, and it is interesting to note how Madge Robertson and Ellen Terry—destined to become the two greatest actresses of their generation—thus played together in their "'prentice days." No doubt the "singing fairy" of the evening inspired Titania with her admiration for Mrs. Kendal's exquisite voice.

Long after their stock company days, the Terry Sisters held their well-merited and remarkable popularity in Bristol. That distinguished actor, W. H. Vernon, who, as we have seen, graduated as one of Mr. Chute's "young people," has told me how enthusiastically they were received when, with London honours thick upon them, they came to "star" in their old "school," in a piece called "A Sister's Penance," which had been a great success at the Adelphi Theatre. Vernon, who was "Miss Nelly's" lover on that occasion, was immensely struck by her merriment and high spirits at the rehearsal in the morning and (in contrast) her wonderful display of true emotion in the performance of the evening.

In connection with Ellen Terry's next appearance in London, it is curious to note that in the famous Bath programme that preceded it, William Rignold should figure as "Lord Dundreary"—the "Spirit of the Hour"; and that she should be so aptly chosen for "The Spirit of the Future."