BEHIND 
 THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 THE STAGE AS I MEW IT. 
 WX.BAX 
 
(IJornell ImttBraitg ffiibrarg 
 
 3tljata, Ntm fork 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PN 2594.027 
 
 Behind the footlights, or, The stage as 
 
 ahts, or, The sta 
 
 3 1924 026 122 329 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026122329 
 
BEHIND 
 THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
^haicapeareslastflti/- ^e 'call Tor On auUior. 
 
BEHIND 
 
 THE FOOTLIGHTS; 
 
 THE STAGE AS I KHEW IT. 
 
 W. C. DAY. 
 
 " Let me play the Fool ; 
 With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." 
 
 — Merchant of Venice. 
 
 EUustratfH fig ffi. as» 3Le Janu. 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK: 
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. 
 
 1885. 
 
 ^All righfs refervgdi} 
 
RANKKN AND CO., miNTKRR, 
 
 DUaKV HOUSF, DRUHT COUHT, STRAND, 
 
 LOSDON, W.C. 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 WHEN a tradesman opens a new shop, and is 
 anxious to dispose of his goods, his first act is 
 to issue to his patrons, the public, such a catalogue of 
 his wares as will ensure the commodities being regarded 
 in the most favourable light. He warrants everything. 
 This rule applies with equal force to the mercantile pro- 
 fessional, be he lawyer, doctor, divine, or simple author 
 or artist. It behoves him to recommend his work by 
 some cunningly-contrived , device, and to affix to his 
 nostrum an attractive label, so as to induce the 
 patient to swallow the potion cheerfully. And where, 
 let me ask, can a dealer hit upon, and offer to his cus- 
 tomer a more enticing trap-bait than in the innocent and 
 ingenuous title Truth ? Secure under that «gis, he can 
 draw upon his imagination from St. Paul's to the Antipodes, 
 and set down taradiddle after taradiddle with the impunity 
 of the infallible Pope of Rome. The grocer warrants 
 his roasted coffee free from chicory, and the confiding 
 housewife at once plumps down upon the counter of 
 the tea warehouse one shilling and eightpence, for 
 sixteen ounces of the fifteenpenny mulatto-coloured 
 abomination, with the docility of a lamb. The dairyman 
 pops an additional penny per quart upon his "guaran- 
 teed pure milk," and the unsuspicious invalid imbibes 
 the skim-wash with an inward assurance of its bodily 
 nourishment and support. Champagne, bottled on Count 
 Phizzy's estate in the south of France, and bearing that 
 nobleman's heraldic lozenge branded on the cork, com- 
 mands an extra two guineas per dozen from the amateur 
 
( ii ) 
 
 connoisseur at his wine merchant's ; whilst brandy, " neat 
 as imported," and the juice of the juniper berry, stamped 
 by the Boniface's distiller, as positively free from aqueous 
 adulteration, are insisted upon as wholesome and nutri- 
 tious beverages, by that numerous class of ancient spinster 
 who consider a nightcap of scalding hot alcohol, "at 
 their time of life," as grateful, and, indeed, essential 
 to their health and longevity. In each, and in all 
 of these cases, the assurance of the purveyor who 
 supplies the article is accepted in good faith by the 
 purchaser, and the bare idea of chicanery on his part 
 is scouted as unworthy of his social status. Very well 
 then, the author of these sketches only follows the 
 lead of the counter, and of his bretfiren of the quill, 
 when he honourably and faithfully assures the reader that 
 the incidents in the following pages are free from adultera- 
 tion, and literally and absolutely true. Of " My Dabut on 
 the Stage," an actor now living, and not many years since 
 the respected lessee of a Metropolitan popular place of 
 amusement, was the hero, and from his own lips the 
 facts related in the tale were supplied. "A Tragedian's 
 Irish Debut" and " Coriolanus at the Seaside," owe 
 their existence to the late distinguished tragedian Charles 
 Dillon (to whom the adventures really occurred) and 
 who was wont to narrate them to his intimate friends in 
 his own characteristic and inimitable style. For the rest, 
 the author was a witness of, or has been a participator 
 in, all the scenes described, and has neither added to 
 nor subtracted from the fidelity of the event. He takes 
 this opportunity of acknowledging his indebtedness to 
 his zealous collaborator, Mr. G. B. Le Fanu, whose illus- 
 trations have given to his .characters a vivid life and 
 reality the pen must have striven in vain to impart. 
 
 W. C. DAY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 AuATEUR Theatricals 
 
 
 raffs 
 
 ... I 
 
 A Tkagedian's Irish D^but 
 
 
 ... 14 
 
 COBIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE... 
 
 
 ... 31 
 
 Mt D&bvs: on the Stage 
 
 
 ... 48 
 
 The Late Charles Dillon ... 
 
 
 ... 57 
 
 Shakespeare's Last Plat ... 
 
 
 ... 60 
 
 A Memorable Pereobmanob... 
 
 
 ... 68 
 
 An Amateur Ebheabsal 
 
 
 ... 81 
 
 The Scenic Club and Its Doings. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 ... 96 
 
 ,1 ,1 ,, 
 
 „ 11. 
 
 ... 113 
 
 ,, n >> 
 
 „ in. 
 
 ... 122 
 
 »» " " 
 
 „ IV. 
 
 ... 135 
 
 >i )t Jt 
 
 „ V. 
 
 ... 146 
 
 1} M " 
 
 „ VI. 
 
 ... 160 
 
 t) »J J' 
 
 „ Vii. 
 
 ... 172 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 
 
 ... 190 
 
I LLUST RATION S. 
 
 Pago 
 Shakespeare's Last Play Frontispiece. 
 
 The Mayok of Ballykooney's "Bespeak" ... 28 
 
 Mr. Abolphus Greville is Seized at Ophelia's Grave by 
 
 HIS "Ma" 66 
 
 The Death op St. Aldobrand ... ... 77 
 
 Mr. Schott Comyns Introduces the Earl of Eichmond ... 93 
 
 The Green Room of the Scenic Club ... ... 112 
 
 The Dressing Room of the Scenic Club 183 
 
 A "Surprise" for Romeo ... .. 184 
 
BEHIISrD 
 THE FOOTLIQHTS. 
 
 AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 
 
 THE facilities which the establishment of numerous 
 institutions, during the last five-and-thirty or forty 
 years, has afTorded the metropolitan youth for the enjoy- 
 ment of his leisure hours, and the exercise of his 
 social proclivity, in whatever direction it may tend, are in 
 nothing more extended than in the well-conducted, 
 spacious, and conveniently situated buildings where the 
 stage-struck amateur of to-day is at liberty to disport 
 himself. The houses devoted to such performances are 
 usually provided with suitable scenery, possess adequate 
 properties, a sufficient number of carpenters and scene- 
 shifters, a tuneful orchestra, and efficient attendance both 
 before and behind the curtain. As a rule, too, the amateur 
 actor of the present age contents himself with the represen- 
 tation of some drama of modern life, in which his every- 
 day habiliments, sitting easily upon him, escape the ridicule 
 that a partially-washed toga and a dirty pair of melted- 
 butter-coloured tights inevitably provoke, when, encircling a 
 dumpy Roman, poised on a, base of calves anatomiically 
 at variance with the classic standard. What a contrast 
 such a stage., presents with the amateur Thespian Temple of 
 
 B 
 
2 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 my youth, monopolising with a rival establishment in 
 Wilson-street, Gray's Inn-lane, now converted into a 
 parochial school, the nightly exhibitions of the many 
 kindred spirits, who, as frequently as their finances permitted! 
 (and, I fear it must be conceded, occasionally a little- 
 oftener), gave dramatic entertainments within its dirty and 
 narrow walls. 
 
 In the year of grace 1840, the building at the corner of 
 White Hart-street, Catherine-street, Strand, now the 
 publishing office of the Echo newspaper, was a private 
 theatre, rejoicing in the classic nomenclature of Royal 
 Pantheon. 
 
 Here on ordinary nights, if not furnished with a ticket of 
 admission by some lady or gentleman engaged in the- 
 performance, that privilege was obtainable "from the potboy 
 at the " Two Spies " public-house adjoining the theatre, a^ 
 notification to that effect appearing at the foot of the 
 playbill, announcing the tariff at which it could be procured- 
 Thus armed, and entering through an ordinary street-door 
 in Catherine-street, approached by a couple of stone steps, 
 you proceeded along a narrow, mouldy passage, whose 
 walls had been innocent of paint or whitewash for at least 
 a generation, and the dirt and dinginess of which were 
 illuminated by the spectral light emitted by a one-jet gas 
 branch at its furthest extremity. This single gaslight did 
 treble duty, as it lit, or was supposed to light, the groping 
 audience along the entrance passage, and up the flight of 
 steep and narrow stairs at the end leading to the auditorium, 
 as well as the little pigeon-hole at the bottom of the stair- 
 case, where you handed your admission card to the pro- 
 prietor's eldest son, receiving in exchange a voucher for the 
 part of the house you were destined to occupy. 
 
 Well, you are seated at last, and glance around. The 
 theatre is of the legitimate horseshoe form, and consists of 
 boxes, pit, and gallery, with a private box — much the size 
 and shape of a sentry-box — on either side. The two front 
 rows of the pit have been boarded off to form the orchestra, 
 consisting on ordinary occasions of two violins and a 
 piccolo, but on " grand nights," when Richard the Third, 
 Macbeth, or King John is performed, the exigencies of these 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 3 
 
 warriors' armies are met by the addition of a fourth musician, 
 who, having thumped a toy-size drum for several minutes, 
 with the resolution of the late Tom Sayers when profes- 
 sionally engaged, effects a hasty exit behind the scenes 
 through a door under the stage, in order to perform on an 
 antiquated cracked cornet k piston the " distant music " 
 that heralds the approach of the contending parties', from 
 a depth of about fourteen feet at the back. 
 
 The pit holds about sixty persons, the gallery about forty, 
 whilst, say, threescore more are wedged into th^ two rows of 
 unstuffed seats forming the boxes, amusing themselves by 
 beating a tattoo, with hands, sticks, or umbrellas, against the 
 red ochre and yellow fagade of tb.i; " Circle," till the fourth 
 overture has been "executed," and the curtain rung up. 
 Six gas burners, without glas,ses, shielded from the orchestra 
 by what had once been gteen tin-shades, form the " float," 
 and two three-branch. -|raseliers with cracked glass globes, 
 pendent from the tops of the private boxes, assiste'd by a 
 flame in the centre of the lobby at the back, nearly the 
 length of a greengrocer's light in a market neighbourhood 
 on a Saturday night, complete the entire illuminating power 
 in the audience part of the house. The box audience, that 
 is, the front row — from which bonnets are excluded, in view 
 of Vne threepenny impost for their care, annexed to the 
 restriction — are shown to their seats by a cadaverous- 
 ' visaged broken-down-looking man, of some sixty odd years 
 of age, who combines, with the duties of check-taker and 
 box-keeper in front, those of stage footman and assistant 
 dresser behind, for as soon as the front row is tolerably full, 
 he delegates the check-taking office to the tender care of 
 the tawdrily-attired fat old lady attached to the " cloak- 
 room," and hurries behind the scenes, in order to superin- 
 tend the novice's arrangement of his stage finery, and see 
 that the two supers comprising the opposing "armies" 
 are duly disposed at opposite entrances. 
 
 He is habited in a footman's left-off livery suit of faded 
 pea-green, enriched with gilt buttons, a gold-band collar, 
 and a couple of stage epaulettes as shoulder-knots. 
 Fearfully seedy '■ salmon-cotton fleshings do duty for 
 the orthodox white silk stockings ; and the " get-up " is 
 
 B 2 
 
4 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 completed by a pair of stage shoes, such as Shylock wears, 
 surmounted with two huge metal buckles considerably 
 tarnished. This apparel not only renders him conspicuous 
 in his capacity of box-keeper, but saves the necessity of 
 change of dress, as well as the time occupied in the process, 
 as he is appropriately attired for his duties behind the scenes, 
 to clear the stage, or carry on the Dutch-metal gilt throne 
 for the monarch of the night. On extreme occasions, 
 when Brutus had to address the mob, or Macbeth insisted 
 on an augmentation of his "forces," a cloak was thrown 
 over his lively suit, and he was thrust on to the stage to 
 furnish the additional contingent. At such times, some 
 portion of the familiar salmon-coloured fleshings, with the 
 tarnished buckles and tiie Shylock shoes at their extremity, 
 would be plainly percepti'We beneath the disguise mantle, 
 and betrayed to the audieijce the demand upon the 
 resources of the establishment by which such extraneous 
 aid had been obtained. 
 
 The progenitors of this lugubrioiJS specimen of the 
 "human form divine," on whose wan .ind faded-looking 
 countenance, strictly in keeping with his dress, even the 
 frequent humours of an amateur performance ^could barely 
 conjure up a smile, had transmitted to him the fai*oily name 
 of Green, to which his godfathers and godmothe".''s had 
 ■contributed the baptismal addition of James ; but the 
 manager of the Royal Panthfeon — than whom a mors 
 eccentric presiding genius of a dramatic temple never 
 figured in the archives of stage history — not content with 
 so homely a cognomen, had confen;ed on him the high- 
 sounding appellation of Fabuletto."-. This degenerated 
 into " Fab " with the habitues of the theatre. 
 
 Who that has once exhibited on the hoards of the little 
 Catherine-street playhouse, when Benjarriin Smythson was 
 the proprietor, can possibly forget him !— the indescribable 
 costume with which he encased his portly -figure, his ex- 
 pansive forehead, his frank and somewhat hafidsome, open 
 countenance, his expressive, laughing eye,>his good- 
 humoured, smiling mouth, his vivacious ready^ reply, and, 
 above all, the round, full, sonorous tone, and the dignity of 
 manner with which he rung out the simplest instruction, or 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 5 
 
 addressed to you the most commonplace remark. He was 
 grandiloquent in all he said' or did. A stage king, off the 
 stage ! Stately in his step, statuesque in his attitude, 
 authoritative in the very wave of his hand ! I can see him 
 now, directing the placing of the single board that formed 
 " the platform " for the appearance of Hamlet's Ghost. 
 
 " Fabuletto, let me feel confident the planks are properly 
 secured. I would not have an accident befall Mr. St. Clair 
 for -the dignity of the whole body. And Marco " * — (this 
 was addressed to one of his sons, a young man of eighteen 
 or nineteen years of age, who rendered occasional assistance 
 with the scenery) — " may I rely upon you in protecting the 
 extremity of the platform from change of position during the 
 descent of the apparition ? " 
 
 As the " descent " did not exceed at the furthest two feet 
 six, it would have been matter of small moment, so far as 
 safety of limb was concerned, whether the representative of 
 the elder Hamlet's shade preserved or not his equilibrium 
 on the nine-inch board that formed the terminus of his 
 midnight ramble. 
 
 One anecdote will serve to illustrate the felicitous manner, 
 always at his command, that he would adopt to rectify an 
 error or escape from a difBculty, whilst at the same time 
 reconciling the histrionic tyro to the nonplus the necessities 
 of the occasion compelled, and thoroughly satisfying his 
 wish or gratifying his ambition. 
 
 The play was Hamlet. I should premise that the Pan- 
 theon boasted no stock wardrobe j that was supplied by one 
 Brice, of Brownlow-street, Drury-lane, at the time referred 
 to the recognised theatrical costumier of the amateur stage. 
 Smythson contracted with Brice to dress each night's per- 
 formance for a stated sum ; this was occasionally augmented, 
 as when a Roman tragedy was attempted, and it became 
 necessary for sundry togas to pay a visit to the laundry, or 
 when a melodrama of the blood-and-thunder school wound 
 up the entertainments, and the band of robbers had to 
 appear in additional numbers, with long cloaks and slouch 
 
 * The late Mr. M. N. Smythson, for eighteen years the talented and 
 respected chorus master of the Royal Italian Opera. 
 
6 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 hats, and decorated with as many daggers and pistols as 
 the belt of the stripling round whose slender waist it was 
 buckled could reasonably accommodate. But on ordinary 
 occasions the salary of the costumier was a fixed one, and 
 being somewhat " cabined, cribbed, confined," the condi- 
 tion of tunics and trunks, especially of those allotted to the 
 minor characters, was now and then proportionately seedy. 
 
 On this occasion a novice, under the euphonious theatri- 
 cal sobriquet of Walter Melville, smelt the lamps for the 
 first time in the character of Guildenstern. For this privi- 
 lege his contribution to the evening's expenses amounted to 
 the (to him) munificent sum of seven shillings and sixpence. 
 This amount, by the way, was considerably in excess of 
 that usually expended for indulging in a part of similar 
 importance, but Mr. Melville was a fledgeling, and hence 
 the unaccustomed addition. It was usual with the dresser, 
 when aware that a first appearance was accompanied by an 
 extra outlay of the silver ore, to select a tolerably decent 
 garment for the debutant, one boasting at least an average 
 number of spangles or bugles, and not so utterly destitute 
 of hooks and eyes or buttons, as to necessitate the emptying 
 of more than one pincushion in order to ensure its security 
 on the back of the wearer ; but in this particular instance 
 the representative of Guildenstern had been thrust into a 
 very old, much-torn velvet shirt, whence the original 
 maroon colour had long since departed, and which appeared 
 to him not remarkably suited to the gallant courtier for 
 whom it had been designed. 
 
 His appeal to Fabuletto for a gayer suit having proved 
 unsuccessful, and scarcely determining whether to put up 
 with the one provided, or solicit the Manager's interference 
 for an exchange, he timidly approached that dignitary, and, 
 with a nervous temerity that hardly rendered his complaint 
 audible, contrived to stammer out, " Oh, please, sir, I think 
 Mr. Fabuletto has made a mistake with my dress." 
 
 " An error ! " exclaimed the Manager, in his loudest, 
 ringing tone — and as he spoke he assumed a look of 
 astonishment, as if mistake, or even inadvertence, was an 
 event unknown within those walls — " an error, Mr. Melville ! 
 explain yourself, sir, if you please.'' 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. ^ 
 
 ■" Why, I play Guildenstern," continued the youth, with 
 fast increasing embarrassment, and he hesitated, as 
 considering in what terms most safely to prefer his 
 request. 
 
 " Truly it is so, thou sayest aright, and you will find me 
 at the wing, sir, watching with anxious eye the courtly gait 
 and gallant bearing you will assume, when embodying that 
 distinguished courtier of the Court of Denmark." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Smythson, but I am afraid they haven't given 
 me the proper dress." 
 
 " You would not surely imply, sir, that my Prime Minister, 
 whose archaeological researches in stage costume are un- 
 grudgingly admitted by the highest authorities, and to whose 
 care I delegate the responsibility of distribution, has inad- 
 vertently been guilty of inaccuracy ! You enact Guilden- 
 ■stern, is it not so ? " 
 
 " Y-e-es," stammered out the astonished and terrified lad, 
 " but look at the book, sir, if you please," and he held out 
 wkh trembling hand a well-thumbed copy of Cumberland's 
 acting edition of the tragedy of Hamlet. 
 
 "What is this, young gentleman ? " inquired Smythson, 
 ■slowly extending his hand for the book, and glancing at the 
 title-page. " Oh, I perceive, ' the divine emanation of our 
 glorious bard ' which we are now about to represent." 
 
 " But please to look at the costume, sir ; see what the 
 ■book says is the proper dress for Guildenstern." 
 
 " Do thou read, Mr. Melville, the text is illegible to me 
 without extraneous aid, and I have unfortunately left my 
 ;glasses in the saloon ; read thou, and ' with good accent 
 and good discretion.' " 
 
 The poor youth took the play-book from his hand, so 
 agitated at his own presumption that he with difficulty held 
 it steady enough to enable him to read, " Guildenstern, 
 Amber ibid." 
 
 " But the context, sir ; let us have the context, if you 
 .please," said the Manager. 
 
 Mr. Melville looked up into his face with an expression 
 "that could not have been more blank had he been requested 
 to undertake the translation of Thucydides. 
 
 " The context in this case will be the preceding charac- 
 
8 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 ter," continued Smythson, in explanation — "Rosencrantz 
 Mr. Melville." 
 
 " Oh ! I see," said the crimson-faced embryo actor, and he 
 proceeded to read, "Rosencrantz — Green velvet jacket, 
 trunks and cloak, trimmed with gold, scarlet silk puffs, white 
 silk hose, shoes and rosettes, black hat and white feathers. 
 Guildenstern — Amber ibid." 
 
 " The resources of our establishment, Mr. Melville," 
 interrupted the Manager, to whom the true cause of com- 
 plaint at once became apparent, "although taxed to their 
 utmost limit, must occasionally submit to a trifling devia- 
 tion from the orthodoxy of the acting copy, but in these 
 extreme exigencies we endeavour to accommodate such 
 discrepancies to the most subordinate roles. What may 
 be your cause of complaint at the present moment ? " 
 
 " My dress is the wrong colour" hazarded the trembling 
 youth ; " this one is crimson, and you see the book says 
 I ought to wear an amber ibid." 
 
 " Pardon me ; did I not understand you to be the 
 representative of Bernardo ? " 
 
 " No, no ; not Bernardo, sir, I play Guildenstern." 
 
 " Guildenstern !" echoed the Manager, surveying his 
 victim from head to foot with a curious expression of 
 inquiry, as if endeavouring to clear his memory from some 
 temporary confusion. 
 
 " Yes, Guildenstern," was the rejoinder. 
 
 " A thousand pardons, my dear sir, ten thousand pardons, 
 Mr. Melville ; in the excitement of my multifarious duties 
 I had — for the nonce — confounded you with Mr. Walter 
 (you are Mr. Walter Melville) ; I refer to the young gentle- 
 man now in the hands of the costumier, who, like yourself, is 
 a debutant to-night in the character of Bernardo. I con- 
 gratulate you, and myself too, sir, for the reputation of our 
 establishment, that the oversight has been detected ere too 
 late for reparation. Fabuletto," he continued, calling at 
 the top of his voice to that functionary, who was busily 
 occupied in trimming a small oil lamp placed behind the 
 paper moon to illuminate "The Platform before the Castle 
 at Elsinore " — " Proceed without delay to my study, where 
 in the bottom drawer of the large escritoire you will find a 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 9 
 
 pair of aml>er-ca\oared pantaloons — GuildensterrCs panta- 
 loons I — those are for this young gentleman ; go, bring them 
 hither and with speed, Fabuletto, for the overture is rung 
 in." 
 
 Fabuletto returned in a few minutes, with a huge pair of 
 faded yellow satin breeches, lent to Smythson some few 
 years previously by an old provincial actor, for whose 
 benefit he had performed Lord Lumbercourt, in The Man 
 of the World, at the little theatre in Tottenham Street, then 
 known as the " Queen's." 
 
 " There, sir," said the portly Manager, as soon as Mr. 
 Melville's diminutive person had been secreted in the 
 cumbersome habiliment, " you are now habited in the 
 amber ibid. It appears to have been constructed for a 
 figure of somewhat more heroic model, but as the Pantheon 
 wardrobe does not boast an extensive selection of amber 
 ibid costumes, we must contrive to adapt its capacity to your, 
 at present, scarcely developed anatomy. ' To be thus is 
 nothing,'" he proceeded, at the same time taking in a tuck 
 of about eighteen inches, so as to accommodate its width 
 to the young gentleman's girth, " but to be safely thus," he 
 added, thrusting an enormous blanket-pin through the gam- 
 boge continuations, and so securing them to the old velvet 
 jacket as to prevent them dropping off, " ' to be safely thus.' 
 There, sir, in the matter of costume you are now complete, 
 and permit me to add, correct. Mr. Strickland, the peru- 
 quier, in the adjoining apartment, will apply the necessary 
 carmine, and you are then prepared for what I hope will 
 eventuate in a most triumphant debut. Farewell, sir, and do 
 not forget that the eyes of Europe are upon you ! " 
 
 The last words were accompanied by a dignified wave of 
 the hand in the direction of the dark and narrow staircase 
 leading from the dressing-room to the stage. 
 
 With the management of his theatre, Benjamin Smyth- 
 son combined the business of theatrical agent, his office 
 being the large room on the first floor facing the street 
 (used as a green-room on nights of performance), and this 
 occupation he supplemented with that of teacher of elocu- 
 tion, mainly directed to youthful aspirants for fame on the 
 boards of his own theatre. He was, however, no empiric 
 
10 BEHIND THK FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 professor of the art, having been a provincial actor of some 
 repute for many years, and well recognised as a competent 
 exponent of the leading characters in the old standard 
 comedies. He had also, as a youth, played with John 
 Kemble in his starring engagements, and would frequently 
 relate amusing anecdotes of that marvellous tragedian 
 Edmund Kean, with whom he had on many occasions acted 
 in the provinces some years later in life. He displayed 
 great sincerity of manner when imparting instruction to a 
 pupil, as well as a natural adroitness in inducing the theatri- 
 cal tyro to accept his services for a short course of lessons ; 
 nor less an adept was he in bestowing praise or distributing 
 flattery on the histrionic efforts of his patrons, invariably 
 contriving to mete it out, in quantity and in quality, pre- 
 cisely suited to the credulity of the recipient. 
 
 " I have come to you, Smythson," said a conceited young 
 coxcomb of about twenty, to him, one evening, as he swag- 
 gered into the Pantheon saloon, assuming an air of superi- 
 ority over those there assembled, to most of whom he was 
 an absolute stranger, — " I've come to you to see if you can 
 put me up for Claude Melnotte next Thursday. I've had a 
 row at Pym's " (Pym's was the rival amateur establishment 
 in Wilson-street, referred to in the early part of this narra- 
 tive), " and I mean to act here in future — that is, if you can 
 give us good parts at low figures. I fancy you've seen me 
 play, for a fellow told me you was at Pym's the other night 
 when I did Othello." 
 
 " I assuredly had the gratification of witnessing some 
 portion of your representation, but I was unfortunately 
 obliged to depart ere its termination, having an engagement 
 of importance at my own domicile." 
 
 " Well, what did you think of it, eh ? All my friends 
 say it was stunning." 
 
 " I perceive your friends are enthusiastic in their appre- 
 ciation of the dramatic art, Mr. , — I beg your pardon, 
 
 but I have not the felicity of knowing your nom de theatre" 
 
 " Who ? » 
 
 " I mean your name — the cognomen you adopt on the 
 stage," said the Manager. 
 
 •' Oh 1 Wellington Moore." 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 11^ 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Moore ; your friends but do you 
 justice j they are no incompetent judges of histrionic merit. 
 I must confess I was very favourably impressed with the 
 portion of your Othello I witnessed. Your picturesque 
 costume, and the similitude of your figure, in heiqht, to the 
 late Edmund Kean (of whom you are scarcely old enough 
 to retain a lucid remembrance), brought vividly to my mind 
 for an instant a vision of that gigantic genius." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that ? " ejaculated the already- 
 trapped new comer, who inwardly recorded a vow from that 
 moment never to set foot on any stage but that of the 
 Royal Pantheon. 
 
 " I will not so far expose myself, sir, to the imputation of 
 flattery as to assert that I pursued the comparison between 
 Mr. Kean and yourself, in your relative embodiments of the 
 Venetian Moor, through all the varied metaphysical 
 ramifications of the character, but I certainly may commit 
 myself without reservation to the remark that the upper 
 register of your voice forcibly recalled to my remembrance 
 the harsher notes of that gentleman's intonation." 
 
 Beneath the stage of the Pantheon was a room some 
 twenty-five feet square, designated the " saloon " ; and it 
 was here the ladies and gentlemen comprising the general 
 dramatis persona of Smythson's theatre were accustomed to 
 assemble on such evenings as the house was closed, to 
 arrange forthcoming performances, obtain representatives for 
 the various characters, and discourse generally of theatrical 
 matters. 
 
 When an amateur had decided on taking a "night" 
 (" benefit " it was sometimes called, but this was a fearful 
 misnomer) — the expenses of which, inclusive of lighting, 
 band, dresses, printing, &c., averaged from six to eight 
 pounds, according to the dramas selected, and the conse- 
 quent contingent extra properties or scenery — ^he affixed on 
 the green baize notice-board suspended over the fireplace a 
 placard to that effect, with the names of the pieces decided 
 on, and a list of the characters comprised therein. Against 
 each part appeared the amount required from the actor for 
 its assumption, and the number of tickets to be placed at 
 his disposal as an equivalent, generally (at the prices fixed 
 
12 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 for admission) about three times the amount, if not the 
 value, of the sum paid. These tickets the actors were sup- 
 posed to re-sell to their friends, and so recoup themselves 
 for their outlay, and obtain the amusement gratuitously ; 
 though, in the majority of cases, this mode of reimburse- 
 ment was, like Antonio's " means," entirely in supposition. 
 
 As the assumption of a character was thus left absolutely 
 at the mercy of any aspirant whose pocket was equal to its 
 importance, it may readily be predicted the parts were not 
 always filled by the most competent representatives ; 
 though it is only just to add, that, for the most part, a fair 
 amount of discretion was exercised in the selection, as few 
 but the very vain or very youthful ventured to face the 
 ridicule inseparable from early efforts in leading parts, until 
 they had gained at least some little experience. 
 
 Funny scenes, however, have been enacted on the 
 Pantheon stage ; and an Othello dressed d la Kean, with 
 black bandy legs, a cock-eyed Macbeth, a stuttering 
 Romeo, and a one-armed Sir Giles Overreach, are amongst 
 my reminiscences of strange sights. 
 
 On the other hand, setting aside the drawbacks of a 
 limited stage, with scenery and properties not always 
 historically correct, I have seen many a performance on 
 those boards that would not have disgraced a regular 
 metropolitan theatre ; whilst among the celebrities of the 
 Thespian art whose names have long been household 
 words in theatrical annals, occur to me those of Creswick, 
 Henry Marston, Howe, Leigh Murray, Jemmy Rogers, J. 
 Kinloch, Nye Chart, &c., all of whom made their first 
 attempts at this dramatic nursery. 
 
 At that day, the taste for the legitimate and poetic drama, 
 cultivated by Macready's memorable lesseeship and 
 management of the National Theatres, pervaded not only 
 the general playgoing public, but diffused its influence 
 almost universally through the amateur acting world. 
 Hence the ptice de resistance at the Pantheon Theatre was 
 commonly a five-act tragedy, or standard comedy of the old 
 school, supplemented by a farce or petit drama, as a wind- 
 up to the entertainment. Burlesque in 1840 was in a very 
 debilitated state of health, Botniastes Furioso and Tom 
 
AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 13 
 
 Thumb being the most popular and staple dishes of that 
 kind of fare. 
 
 Benjamin Smythson died in September, 1841, and shortly 
 afterwards the lease of the property was purchased by a Mr. 
 Christie ; but, unaided by the tact and experience of the 
 former proprietor, his lesseeship did not prove remunerative, 
 and after about eighteen months' tenancy he abandoned 
 the speculation, and the Royal Pantheon, as a theatre, 
 ceased to be. 
 
 It is the fashion to ridicule amateur theatricals, and to 
 associate with such representations ridicule, if not contempt. 
 That such censure is often merited is past denial; on 
 the other hand, it must be conceded that the amateur stage 
 has been the arena that first fostered and encouraged 
 the early efforts of many of our greatest actors, to the 
 exercise of whose subsequent talents we are indebted 
 for many an hour of elevated delight and intellectual 
 enjoyment. Mental diversion is as essential to youth as 
 physical recreation; and surely time spent in the study 
 of human nature, its passions and emotions ; " the 
 putting in action all the springs and impulses which make 
 up this, our mortal being," so as to fitly embody, and 
 faithfully present them on the stage, is infinitely 
 better employed than in the perusal of trashy, sensational 
 literature, or lackadaisical novels, destitute alike of diction 
 or probability. " To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to 
 Nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own 
 image, and the very age and body of the time his form and 
 pressure," has been laid down, by the world's philosopher, 
 as the purpose of playing ; and few will be disposed to deny 
 the existence, in the study of high-class dramatic literature, 
 of an ennobling, an elevating, and a refining influence. 
 
A TRAGEDIAN'S IRISH DEBUT. 
 
 — :o:- 
 
 " Theatre Royal, Ballyrooney, 
 " Sunday Night. 
 " 1\ /r YDEAR FRIEND, — Yourfame has reached Bally- 
 J_YX rooney; your triumphs, in all the great pro- 
 vincial towns of your native land, have been wafted across 
 the sea, and are welcomed in Co. Tipperary with the enthu- 
 siasm that belongs to the Sister Isle. But no theatrical 
 success can be complete till indorsed with the favourable 
 verdict of an Irish audience ; that is the stamp that con- 
 verts the actor's reputation into standard metal, and gives 
 it a welcome currency throughout the civilized world. 
 Ballyrooney boasts a stage trodden by Kean, the Kembles, 
 and the mighty Siddons, and it's their mantle that's now 
 floating over my footlights to descend on the shoulders of 
 rising genius. The opportunity is a golden one, and, as I 
 hear you are shortly to make your debut in the Saxon 
 Metropolis, I tender it you with all the ardour of a brother 
 artist and the sincerity of a true Irishman. The proclama- 
 tion of peace — the result of our glorious conquests in the 
 Crimea — is to be celebrated in this town to-morrow week,, 
 when all the surrounding country will be enflte. The Lord 
 Lieutenant comes over from Dublin to witness the rejoic- 
 ings, and my old friend Phelim O'Downam has enormous 
 interest with him, and will secure a 'bespeak' for the 
 opening night. I need not tell you the patronage of our 
 aristocracy follows as a matter of course. Don't hesitate a 
 moment ; I understand you're an enterprising man, and an 
 El Dorado lies at your feet. You shall have the theatre for 
 
A tragedian's IRISH D^BUT. 1 5 
 
 the week for a paltry fifty pounds, and I leave to the gene- 
 rosity of your nature a parting gift as we shake hands upon 
 leavetaking. Send me twenty pounds as deposit by return 
 of post, and a list of your characters for the five nights. 
 The opening part we must reserve for selection by His 
 Excellency. Phelim will drop him a line as soon as yours 
 reaches me. 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Terence Dohertv; 
 " To Cyrus Dissborn, Esq." 
 
 It was late in the spring of 1856, when Mr. Cyrus Diss- 
 born, then the lessee and leading tragedian of the Theatre 
 Royal, in a celebrated Yorkshire town on the northern 
 circuit, received the foregoing epistle. His fame in pro- 
 ifiinent Shakespearian characters had long been firmly 
 established in- the provinces, and, having extended to the 
 metropolis, negotiations were then pending with the pro- 
 prietor of a popular West-end house for his appearance on 
 its boards in the approaching autumn. He read the letter 
 over several times at his breakfast-table, digesting its con- 
 tents with his tea and toast. The " business " at his own 
 theatre had been but indifferent lately, the Tykes having 
 seen Hamlet, Macbeth, Shylock, and Othello till they were 
 as familiar with their principal scenes as the actors them- 
 selves, and he had been for some time debating in his mind 
 what fresh kind of theatrical pabulum he could offer to his 
 patrons that would whet anew their appetites, and secure 
 him the novelty of a good first price. His determination 
 was taken ; he would close with the offer of Terence 
 Doherty, and give the Lord Lieutenant and the Bally- 
 roonians a taste of his quality. 
 
 Cyrus Dissborn owned an impulsive nature, and a resolu- 
 tion once made was on the instant acted on. He despatched 
 by that night's post a list of the characters he had decided 
 on, full instructions as to their immediate publicity, and, 
 most important of all, both to Terence and himself, the 
 required deposit in the shape of a twenty pound note. 
 Being announced, to perform every night of the week on 
 
l6 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 his own stage, it would be Sunday morning before he and 
 his company could set out for the Promised Land, and as 
 the distance they had to travel by land and sea was but 
 little short of three hundred miles, but brief time must 
 elapse between the hour of their arrival at Ballyrooney and 
 the ringing up of the curtain before the deputy monarch of 
 the Emerald Isle. 
 
 We will not pause to inquire into our tragedian's vision 
 of the interior of the theatre on this particular night. It 
 was the " Midsummer Night's Dream " of Thespian fame, 
 with the character of the ass omitted. All the fairies were 
 there, exercising their most potent spells. Titania, the 
 Queen, Puck, Peasblossom, Cobweb, and Moth — all had 
 instructions to 
 
 " Be kind and courteous to this gentleman, 
 Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes." 
 
 In his dream, Ireland was — for that week at least — nothing 
 less than a dramatic Eden, and the stage of the little play- 
 house the mythological gardens of the Hesperides, where 
 grew but golden fruit. He had but to reach forth his hand, 
 and pluck. There was no dragon to guard the treasure. 
 The gaslights, in his imagination, seemed to burn more 
 brilliant there than in his Yorkshire theatre ; the gilding 
 looked fresher ; nay, he could almost fancy he smelt the 
 new paint with which the auditorium had been embellished 
 for the occasion. The orchestra appeared quite as extensive 
 as at the London Opera House, and the dulcet strains of 
 Hibernia's symbolic harp floated in his ears in tuneful 
 melody. And then the audience ! — the anxious, the enthu- 
 siastic, the admiring crowd ! The pit was one sea of heads ; 
 the gallery a mass of human beings so compressed together 
 that Turkey figs, flattened in deal boxes for exportation, 
 seemed in comparison positively isolated. And lastly— if 
 indeed a fancy so exuberantly inventive could have an 
 ending — the boxes ! row behind row of feminine loveliness, 
 and masculine intelligence and power ; a vista of wealth, 
 beauty, and intellect, with the Lord Lieutenant seated in its 
 centre with his Lady in their chairs of State. 
 
 Never did Time pass slower with the schoolboy who 
 calculates on his slate, in place of the, sum allotted to him, 
 
A TRAGEDIANS IRISH DEBUT. 1 7 
 
 the number of hours he must pore over his books ere the 
 Christmas holidays arrive, than with Cyrus Dissborn did 
 the week preceding the Sabbath morning that he and his 
 little company were to set out. His nightly duties that, at 
 other times, he regarded as pleasures, so enamoured was 
 he of his profession, now seemed " double, double toil and 
 trouble," and the very sun itself appeared to be suffering 
 from some atmospheric influence that retarded the 
 rapidity of its diurnal course. Sunday morning came 
 at last, and brought with it a dismal, cloudy sky that threat- 
 ened sloppy pavements to the Yorkshire town before night- 
 fall. There was a heaviness in the air, a leaden mist hung 
 over the houses and settled in the streets, and where an 
 opening in the thoroughfare enabled the eye to penetrate 
 into the distant country, the prospect became even more 
 gloomy and depressing than in the town. It was one 
 of those mornings that invite to home comforts, and make 
 one shudder at the notion of quitting the fireside. But to 
 the eye of Cyrus there never had been a brighter dawn ; 
 the buoyancy of his spirits saw nothing but sunshine, the 
 very temper of his mind was waterproof. All the company 
 had risen at an early hour to take advantage of the Parlia- 
 mentary train to Liverpool, whence they were to take ship 
 to the Irish coast. Economy in the selection of his troupe, 
 though not naturally a component part of our hero's nature, 
 was rendered compulsory by the state of his exchequer. 
 He, therefore, limited it to the heavy man, juvenile lead, 
 first old man, walking gentleman, and a couple of utility 
 gents — disciples of Thespis not unfrequently supplied from 
 the amateur stage by unsuccessful aspirants to parts of a 
 higher range — who abandon happy homes and loving faces, 
 to experience too late the fallacy of their own ambition, 
 and the insincerity of friends' flattery. Two of the opposite 
 sex completed the party. 
 
 Arrived at Liverpool, the railway carriage was exchanged 
 for the vessel's deck, and the basket luggage stored thereon, 
 covered with a tarpaulin to further protect it from the 
 boisterous weather. Our voyagers sought the shelter of the 
 forecabin for similar reason, as the rain the early morning 
 had foreshadowed, had for several hours been steadily 
 
 c 
 
l8 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 descending, and promised a constancy proverbially discon- 
 nected with the weathercock. The utility lady was in a 
 fearful state of mind ; it was her debut on the boards of a 
 ship, and the novelty of the surrounding scene, viewed as 
 it was, under the disadvantages of conflicting elements and 
 approaching night, struck terror to her heart, culminating as 
 she regarded the man at the helm. This individual 
 resolved himself in her imagination into a sort of marine 
 Ixion, his punishment made even more terrible than his 
 namesake's from the aqueous element where he was forced 
 to undergo it. Wandering " aft " to inspect him more 
 narrowly, her terrors were confirmed, and her pity for his 
 fate augmented, by the imposition of perpetual silence en- 
 joined on the spectator. "What a dreadful fate must be hisj" 
 she thought, as she read, with a trepidation it was impossible 
 to repress, old Neptune's sentence for his crimes emblazoned 
 in gold letters on the instrument of torture to which his 
 hands were tethered, " You are forbidden to speak to the 
 man at the wheel." 
 
 The forecabin of a passenger ship between England and 
 Ireland afforded, at the time of this narrative, but indifferent 
 accommodation for the traveller's repose. Night came on, 
 and the monarchs of the stage found themselves but ill 
 attended on shipboard; the "caitiffs" and "sirrahs" 
 accustomed to bow down with obsequious salaams on the 
 boards of the Yorkshire Theatre, at the mere intimation by 
 the oligarch of the scene, that it was desirable for them to 
 drain the poisoned goblet, or immolate themselves by any 
 kindred dramatic specific, were no longer there to support 
 the Prince's drooping head, or hold the cracked yellow 
 earthenware basin to the mouth of the sickening Emperor. 
 
 The steward, a thick-set, stalwart Irishman, whose ruddy 
 countenance denoted absolute contempt for the entire 
 Pharmacopoeia, occasionally peeped in, and suggested 
 another rummer of hot brandy and water as the most 
 effectual palliative he was acquainted with for " any koind 
 o' nauche-a," and one of the sailors as regularly followed 
 him five minutes afterwards, armed with the orthodox mop, 
 to clear away what he knew, by about that time, would be 
 the effects of the steward's prescription. 
 
A tragedian's IRISH DEBUT. I9 
 
 But it is high time for our little party to leave the ship 
 and step on Paddy's soil. Let us then leave to the reader's 
 conception the miseries and distresses of that memorable 
 night, and the laggard pace at which each dreary hour 
 passed in the atmosphere of a crowded cabin, polluted by 
 the fume of wet clothes and the steamy odour of the labour- 
 ing vessel, on whose dismal and deserted deck the raindrops 
 continued to patter with oppressive monotony. 
 
 The afternoon of Monday was far advanced when the 
 voyagers landed at a small seaport town on the western Irish 
 coast, from whence to Ballyrooney was a good two hours' 
 ride by rail. The train was timed to start for that place as 
 soon as possible after the arrival of the steamer, and no 
 time was lost by Mr. Dissborn and his companions in pro- 
 curing their tickets, and seeing the wickerwork abomination 
 securely deposited in the luggage van. As the train moved 
 out of the station, and the effects of the vessel's motion 
 gradually subsided, the spirits of the party slowly revived, 
 and conversation that had lain on the shelf for many hours 
 past began to assert itself as the train sped on. 
 
 Ballyrooney railway station was reached at last, the hour 
 five o'clock, and the rain still pouring down with pitiless 
 persistency. To convey all the baggage to the Theatre, 
 situated in a remote part of the town, in the two rickety 
 jaunting cars plying for hire at the station gates, was 
 absolutely out of the question, so, consigning the arrange- 
 ment of their transport to the joint abilities of the " utility 
 man " and the " responsible gentleman," our tragedian, with 
 the two ladies and the "juvenile lead," mounted one of 
 the cars, and desired the driver to proceed with all possible 
 haste to their destination. As they rattled through the 
 streets their eyes searched in vain the walls and shop- 
 windows for posters and announce bills of the night's 
 programme. Mr. Dissborn's vivid imagination had pictured 
 his name displayed in gigantic characters in every possible 
 hue of the rainbow, wherever " coigne of vantage " presented 
 itself on the route, surmounted with some hieroglyphical 
 device, emblematic of the Lord Lieutenant's patronage and 
 presence, and could hardly succeed in convincing himself 
 that their absence was not assignable to the neglect of the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 bill-sticker, or the effect of continual rain on the hoarding 
 and walls. 
 
 The driver reined in his steed at the front entrance of a 
 large whitewashed building, resembling a colossal barn j 
 one side of which abutted on a blacksmith's shop, whence 
 proceeded an offensive odour of the stable, and wherein 
 a bevy of sturdy smiths — seven or eight in number — was 
 standing round a forge, whilst a couple more were engaged 
 in shoeing a grey cart-horse by the blazing light it afforded. 
 A dirty alley, three or four feet in width, bordered the 
 Theatre — for such it was — on the other side, and led down 
 to the stage and gallery doors ; these were situated side by 
 side, and flanked by a dustheap and a dilapidated hoarding, 
 inscribed, in white letters, "Beware of the water-spout," 
 There was scarcely time for recovery from the bewilderment 
 this prospect occasioned, when, in response to the car- 
 driver's knocking with his fist on the little green door, 
 designated " Box Entrance," the said door swung back on 
 its rusty hinges, and two persons presented themselves in 
 the entrance ; they were the Manager and his friend and 
 factotum, Mr. Phelim O'Downam. 
 
 " Mr. Dissborn, I belaive," said the former gentleman, 
 extending his hand as he spoke. " I'm deloighted to 
 welcome ye to Erin's Isle." The tragedian, having 
 acknowledged the compliment and concluded the hand- 
 shaking, descended from the car, and assisted the ladies to 
 alight. 
 
 " Allow me to present to ye my friend, Mr. Phelim 
 O'Downam," he proceeded, and Phelim, advancing for the 
 introduction, took Mr. Dissborn's right hand between both ot 
 his own, and worked it up and down like a pump-handle. 
 
 Phelim was a short, stout man, with very broad shoulders, 
 very coarse hands, and feet large enough for a giant. He 
 was habited in a faded, mulberry colour velveteen shooting 
 jacket, and an emerald green plush waistcoat with enormous 
 pearl buttons, his extremities being encased in a pair of 
 brown leggings considerably the worse for wear. His tout 
 ensemble seemed a cross between an under gamekeeper and 
 the individual who performs on the Pandean pipes with 
 Punch and Judy. The party, passing through the little 
 
A tragedian's IRISH D^BUT. 21 
 
 green door, were ushered into the box lobby, the further 
 end having been partitioned off as refreshment saloon and 
 cloak-room. Here the mask was lifted, and Mr. Dissbom 
 given to understand that the Lord Lieutenant would not be 
 there that night. The crestfallen Thespian received the 
 intelligence with a shrug that shook all his fortitude into 
 his boots. 
 
 "May we expect him to-morrow night?" he inquired, 
 nervously, already anticipating the negative of the Manager's 
 headshake. 
 
 " I'm afraid to tell ye it's past hopin' for," rejoined that 
 functionary ; " he's returnin' to Dooblin by special train in 
 themornin'. Phelim wrote to him last week, /"wrote to him, 
 but a divil a line could we git in reply ; in fact, I dun know 
 what they're doin' wid him in Dooblin. Phelim called on 
 him this mornin' at the ' Protector's Head ' — the hotel in the 
 town where he's stayin' — but he wouldn't listen to him at 
 all, and, to be candid wid ye, he was jist beginnin' to be 
 rude a bit, when Phelim thought it prudent to retoire." 
 
 " Shall we have anything of a house to-night ? " pursued 
 poor Dissbom ; " I hope that " 
 
 " I don't fancy it'll be crowded to-noight," interrupted Mr. 
 Doherty ; " but Ballyrooney is an iligant place — an aristo- 
 cratic place, and I've had the boxes made deeper, and jist 
 a shade aisier in the sates. All you've got to do, Mr. 
 Dissborn, is to hit yer audience ; only hit the people 
 to-noight, and I give ye my honour you'll have the 
 fashionables in the mornin' surroundin' the box office in 
 swarms." 
 
 With this assurance the company separated, the tragedian 
 and his friends being shown into an apartment at the back 
 of the stage some eight feet square, euphonised as the 
 " Green-room," to partake of some refreshment before pre- 
 paring for the labours of the evening. It was long past seven 
 o'clock, the hour announced for the rising of the curtain, 
 when Mr. Cyrus Dissborn, dressed as Claude Melnotte, 
 stood silent, dejected, and alone, at the prompt side first 
 entrance of the Theatre Royal, Ballyrooney, The music 
 had just been rung in, and two violinists in very seedy garb 
 were engaged in tuning their instruments, whilst the cornet 
 
2 2 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 and trombone players, completing the orchestra, divided 
 their attention alternately between' freeing those brazen 
 tubes from accumulated expectoration, and trimming the 
 half-dozen old-fashioned oil-lamps that constituted the 
 " float." The scraping on the catgut sounded " scissors " 
 in poor Cyrus's ears, and his vision of Irish harmony 
 vanished like a ghost. 
 
 The national jig (called by courtesy the "overture") 
 ceased, and up went the green baize for The Lady of Lyons. 
 The third scene came — interior of Melnotte's cottage — and 
 on to the stage, rifle in hand, bounded the youthful Claude. 
 
 " Give me joy, dear mother, I have won the prize ! " 
 
 His eyes glanced quickly at the front of the house, only 
 to realise the sad satire he had uttered. A party of four 
 young gentlemen were assembled in a knot at one side of 
 the boxes, intent on the purchase of oranges and cakes 
 from a dirty old woman with a basket slung over her 
 carrot-coloured arm, and a tattered "belcher " handkerchief 
 thrown over her expansive shoulders. Two ladies and a 
 child (Mrs. Phelim O'Downam and the proprietor's wife 
 and daughter) were ostentatiously posted in the centre, and 
 completed the " dress circle " attendance, while ten or a 
 dozen lads in shirt-sleeves, and a few factory girls, destitute 
 of cap or bonnet, made up the census of the Olympia 
 above it. 
 
 " Bravo ! " ejaculated the Manager from the pit, clapping 
 his hands vehemently, and beating an accompaniment with 
 his feet on the floor. 
 
 "Bravo!" roared Phelim, who was seated next his 
 employer, and added a rider to the latter's exordium by 
 rapping on the empty bench beside him with a bludgeon 
 the thickness of a hop-pole. 
 
 Mr. Dissborn went through his part with the best power 
 he could command under such dispiriting circumstances, 
 and scarcely had the curtain reached the stage when the 
 two Irishmen were standing by his side. 
 
 " Hurrah ! " exclaimed Doherty, dealing him a thwack 
 on the back like a blow from a sledge-hammer, " hurrah, 
 me boy ! faith, you've hit 'em — it's all right ; you've hit the 
 Ballyrooney boys, it's as right as a trivet."' 
 
A tragedian's IRISH DifiUT. 23 
 
 Phelim expressed his congratulations in equally demon- 
 strative terms, but substituted a glass of reeking poteen for 
 the thwack on the back of his master. 
 
 It will readily be imagined that, after a day of such 
 fatigue and excitement, our hero was not dilatory in seek- 
 ing his repose at his inn ; but " sleep, that knits up the 
 ravelled sleeve of care," is coy of her entrance when the 
 mind is overcharged, and the miserable prospect his specu- 
 lation promised kept poor Dissborn's eyes open and his 
 thoughts engaged through many long and anxious hours. 
 He was awakened from a sound sleep about eight in the 
 morning by a rapping at the door, and an announcement 
 from the waiter that two gentlemen downstairs were desirous 
 to see him. The waiter had disobeyed his injunction of 
 the previous night as to disturbance, the visitors, he 
 explained, being so importunate, so, sending word he 
 would be with them in half an hour, he hastily dressed, 
 and descended to the coffee-room. Having warmly 
 exchanged greetings with his friends of the overnight, 
 Mr. Terence Doherty thus propounded the day's pro- 
 gramme : — 
 
 "Energy, me dear Mr. Dissborn!" exclaimed the 
 Manager, "is the one essential ingrejient to success in 
 loife; it's the only way in fact to get at the people of 
 Ballyrooney. Phelim and I have been thinking this 
 mather over, and we've diskivered a way to serve ye. Be 
 quick with yer coifee, man j put on your hat, and come 
 along wid me and Phelim. Nothin's to be done without 
 energy, sir." 
 
 " That's thrue for ye," acquiesced Phelim ; " energy, as 
 they say on the racecoorse's, the kerrect card." 
 
 They all three proceeded to a large draper's store in the 
 principal street of the town, where the tragedian was for- 
 mally introduced to about five-and-twenty shop assistants 
 as a " moighty janius," and requested to write ordars for 
 their admission in the evening in order that they might 
 verify his assertion. This manner of securing a " house " 
 was repeated at the grocer's, butcher's, baker's, and trades- 
 people generally, till it gradually dawned on Mr. Dissborn's 
 mind as forming a part of Terence Doherty's system of pro- 
 
S4 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 viding economically for the domestic menage. Tlie day's 
 tour was completed, and Mr. Dissbornj havitig despatched 
 a hasty meal at his hotel, proceeded to the- theatre to pre- 
 pare for his duties. He was met at the stage-door by a 
 rough-looking individual in a fustian suit, of whose face 
 and figure he fancied he had some misty recollection. 
 
 " Shure, now," said the stranger, proffering a filthy black 
 hand as he spoke, "and isn't it the moighty new English 
 player I'd be spakin' to ?'' 
 
 Conceiving himself the party alluded to, the "moighty 
 player " thrust both his hands into his pockets, and nodded 
 a haughty assent — 
 
 " An' what may be the play to-noight ? " he inquired. 
 
 " Richelieu" was the rejoinder. 
 
 " Dun know 'im," said the stranger. " Was he an Orange- 
 man, or one of yer Saxon rulers ? " 
 
 The tragedian drew himself up to his extremes! height, 
 and pursed his lips into a contemptuous smile. 
 
 "No mather for that," said the stranger. "Anyhow, me 
 and the boys '11 come and see him to-poight." 
 
 Mr. Dissborn's features were slowly relaxing at the 
 contemplation of the promised patronage, when he con- 
 tinued — 
 
 " Walk yerself into my smithy now, and jist write out an 
 order for a dozen of us j stay, make it thirteen by the way ; 
 my foreman's youngest boy's jist got over, the masles, and 
 he's promised him a threat to the play." 
 
 In an instant the truth flashed across the actor's mind ; 
 the speaker was the blacksmith he had noticed on his arrival, 
 shoeing the grey cart horse at the blazing forge next door. 
 Scorn, contempt, disgust, rage — the whole catalogue of " Le 
 Brun's passions " was depicted in his countenance in a 
 phalanx; but as he turned haughtily away and entered the 
 stage-door, he seemed to read in the blacksmith's confront- 
 ing look and insolent snap of the fingers, a determination of 
 purpose that puzzled and unnerved him. 
 
 Some hour and a half might have elapsed, andRichelieu 
 and the Capuchin Joseph were debating in the second act 
 how best to frustrate the Orleans conspiracy that threatened 
 the Cardinal's hfe. 
 
A tragedian's IRISH D]fiBUTi 
 
 25 
 
 '^Bah !" exclaimed Richelieu, "the statues of our stately 
 policy are sculptured by the chisel — not the axe ! " 
 
 The axe ! clink — clink — clink, a sharp ringing sound, as 
 of metallic substances striking against each other, grated on 
 his ear. Clink — clink — clink — ^again ! it grew louder and 
 louder, and appeared to issue from the thin wall on the 
 smithy side of the Theatre. What could it be ? He could 
 no longer doubt-^it must be, it was the blacksmith and his 
 thirteen "boys" hammering on their anvils in token of 
 defiance. 
 
 The scene ended,' the distracted Cardinal rushed to 
 Phelimi whom he saw standing at the wing, entreating him 
 to run next door and put an end to the horrid din. 
 
 " And is it an end to it you'd be puttin' ? " demanded 
 Phelim. " Shure now, ye might as well thry to blow down 
 a lighthouse wid the bellows. If ye want 'em to leave off 
 work, faith, and ye'U have to let 'em come in to the 
 theayther." The blacksmith had conquered. 
 
 A rehearsal of Hamlet was called for eleven o'clock the 
 next morning,, and shortly after the Manager and his friend 
 Phelim presented themselves on the stage. 
 
 " Phelim and -I have been thinkin' this mather over again," 
 said the former, addressing Mr. Dissborn, " and we've hit 
 ona broight idea. It's of no usestandin' still, Mr. Dissbotnj 
 energy, me boy — energy is the only way to hit the Bally- 
 roonians." 
 
 " Thrue for ye again," chimed in his companion, 
 "Energy's my sentiment all over the world." 
 
 Mr. Doherty proceeded to explain the philosopher's stone 
 these Irish Siamese twins had di^cpvered. The Mayor of 
 Ballyrooney had just received the honour of knighthood at 
 the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, and if they could manage 
 to obtain his patronage for one night, the misfortunes of 
 the speculation must inevitably be retrieved. To Phelim 
 was confided the task of immediately waiting upon the 
 Mayor's son, and soliciting his interest with his father in 
 the matter. The young man readily undertook the com- 
 mission; being a bit of a scapegrace, he outran the 
 constable at times, and on such occasions was in the habit 
 of applying to Doherty for pecuniary assistance ; in truth, 
 
26 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 the latter was at this moment the holder of his acceptance 
 for twenty-five pounds, the interest, at the rate of sixty per 
 cent., for the fourth renewal, being due and payable at the 
 end of the week. Whether this fact stimulated his exer- 
 tion is neither here nor there. The commission was of 
 a somewhat delicate nature, the Mayor, a sexagenarian, 
 having but a few months prior taken to his heart and 
 hearth, as wife and Mayoress, an attractive young lady of 
 barely twenty summers, for whom, it was whispered about, 
 his offspring entertained a. penchant not strictly en regie for 
 a step-son. He succeeded — personally or through the 
 lady's influence matters little — in obtaining the object of 
 his errand, and hastened back to the theatre to acquaint 
 the Manager with his success, his father and the Mayoress 
 having been graciously pleased to appoint Saturday (the last 
 night of Dissborn's appearance) for their patronage and 
 presence en grand tenue. . 
 
 The play selected for the occasion was Muck Ado About 
 Nothing, and everybody concerned set to work in earnest 
 to realise the title. The orchestra was to be increased by 
 a drummer, capable of utilising his talent on a triangle when 
 the drumsticks were out of use ; a new scene, expressly for 
 Benedick to make love in, was to be painted ; a couple of 
 lanterns for the watchmen attending Dogberry and Verges, 
 were to be furnished by the blacksmith next door ; and, 
 above all, to make the old Mayor as comfortable, and also 
 as imposing, as possible, a portion of the seats in the centre 
 of the dress-circle would be taken down, and replaced by 
 two civic stage chairs, furbished up with Dutch metal and 
 red cotton velvet. The Mayor's son suggested, as a suitable 
 expression of respect to his father's new dignity, and an 
 acceptable compliment to the amour propre of his young 
 mother-in-law as Mayoress, the erection of a banner over 
 this mimic throne, with some heraldic device thereon, and 
 the scene-painter was then and there invested with carte 
 blanche to carry out the design in an appropriate manner. 
 
 The eventful evening arrived ; each of the band had per- 
 mission to pass two friends into the pit ; the blacksmith's 
 free list — in virtue of the loan of the lanterns — had been 
 doubled; the linendraper's assistants had compromised 
 
The Myor of BaU^'rooneys ^Bespeak. 
 
 ■•If 
 
A tragedian's IRISH D^BUT. 29 
 
 ; with Doherty for the accommodation of a score of their 
 acquaintance at seven o'clock upon second price terms, 
 and_ the baker's man had debited himself with three 
 shillings and sixpence, for his own and half-a-dozen friends' 
 admission to the gallery, pledging his word of honour to 
 Phelim to cancel the liability on Saturday night. Added 
 to all these was the rush at the doors ; the news of the 
 Mayor of Ballyrooney being on view in his robe of office, 
 in company with his young wife, had aroused curiosity 
 among " the boys," who assembled in the centre of the 
 gallery in strong force, the very place where the object 
 they had in view, or rather wished to have in view, was 
 physically impossible. 
 
 Benedick had looked to this important night to recoup 
 the losses of preceding ones, and lighter of heart than he 
 had felt for some days, bounded on the stage when he 
 received his cue with the lightness of a young gazelle. 
 
 " Bravo ! " shouted the Manager in stentorian voice from 
 his usual place in the pit. 
 
 " Bravo ! " roared Phelim, who sat close in attendance, 
 and whack, whack, whack, went the bludgeon on the empty 
 bench at his side. Terence put a sudden end to the tattoo 
 by snatching the shillalagh from his subordinate's hand, and 
 waving it fiercely over his head ; then, jumping on the seat, 
 he looked up at the gallery, and called on " the boys " to 
 give, the " moighty actor a cheer-e." 
 
 Hearty as were the Yorkshire shouts so familiar to the 
 tragedian's ears, they sounded but as love whispers com- 
 pared to the wild hurrah the Patlanders sent forth in 
 response to the Manager's appeal. But there was little 
 charm in their ring, for Benedick's thoughts were other- 
 where, and his mind's.eye saw but the two empty state chairs 
 where he had looked for the attraction of the night. What 
 cou/d be the matter ? At rehearsal that morning the Mayor's 
 son had pledged him his honour his father and mother-in- 
 law would infallibly be in their places at seven o'clock to 
 the minute. It was now past eight, and the throne was 
 tenantless. What could it be? The act over, he was 
 striding dejectedly to his dressing-room, where his progress 
 was arrested by Phelim O'Downam. 
 
30 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 " Och ! " said that gentleman, " I'm afeared there's some- 
 thin' wrong wid the Mayor; the young Mayor's in the 
 green-room waitin' to spake to ye." 
 
 To rush there and fling open the door were the work of 
 an instant. Stretched on one of the benches skirting that 
 place of retirement, with both his legs poised on the table 
 before him, lay the hopeful son and heir of the Chief 
 Magistrate of Ballyrooney. He was strongly under the 
 influence of the national beverage, and balanced in one 
 comer of his mouth a dirty dhudeen, filled with the rankest 
 description of Irish "bird's-eye." 
 
 " Faith, I've bad news for ye, Mr. What's yer Name," he 
 hiccoughed out, removing the pipe from his mouth. " Father 
 can't come to-noight." 
 
 " Death and damnation ! " ejaculated the tragedian, 
 applying his hands to his forehead a la Othello in the third 
 act. 
 
 " Och ! take it aisy, man ; dun put yerself out in the 
 laist. I'he fact is there was a bit of a shindy t'other noight 
 at the Red Cow — that's father's whiskey-shop in Rowdy 
 Street — and one of the boys got an ugly rap wid a shillalagh. 
 He doid next day, and afther the inquest, the spalpeens 
 have bin wakin' him this afthernoon at our house. I left 
 father an hour ago as dhrunk as a fiddler, and the Mayoress 
 bathin' his face wid a towel. I knew it was no use yer 
 waitin' for 'em to-noight, so I jist ran here to tell ye, that ye 
 shouldn^t feel disappinted." 
 
 The morning dawned — a bright and cheery Sabbath 
 morning — and the church bells were ringing merrily for 
 service, as our little party, having reached the coast, steamed 
 from the pierhead for English land, thoroughly disgusted 
 with their tour, and with a Tragedian's Irish D^but. 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 
 
 -:o:- 
 
 THE vitality of the poetic drama, however its vigour 
 may occasionally languish on the metropolitan stage, 
 is pretty generally acknowledged by provincial managers ; 
 andassoon as acountry audience evinces signs of indiflference 
 to the more flimsy kind of fare provided for its amusement, 
 the entrepreneur looks, with a tolerable degree of certainty, 
 to the inexhaustible safe anchorage of Shakespeare's Bay. 
 Still, continuous repetition, even of the most sublime lan- 
 guage, palls the mental faculties, and falls flatly upon the 
 ear ; and the veriest enthusiast of the " legitimate " may 
 witness Othello, Hamlet, Richard III., and Macbeth, till, 
 unlike the last-named chieftain, he is forced to cry, " Hold, 
 enough \" and to sigh for " fresh woods and pastures new." 
 
 The production of Roman plays makes such heavy 
 demands on the resources of minor establishments, in the 
 way of scenery, wardrobe, and supernumeraries, that their 
 representation is rarely attempted on provincial stages ; and 
 hence it occurred to Mr. Harry Primus, a celebrated trage- 
 dian of some twenty years ago, that a revival of one of these 
 classical dramas, at the little town of Roughley, in Lan- 
 cashire, might, apart from the interest attaching to its story, 
 prove a source of remuneration for a few nights, from the 
 sheer novelty of such kind of entertainment. 
 
 Primus may be said to have been well-nigh born on 
 the stage, for his father, from his earliest childhood, 
 was manager of an extensive Northern circuit, on whose 
 various boards periodically appeared all the great tragic 
 stars of the day ; and thup, from his tenth year, when he 
 
32 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 first smelt the lamps, as Albert to the William Tell of 
 Macready, he imbibed an almost fanatical love of the 
 classic drama, which an ardent poetical imagination and 
 quick perception, combined with a mind of no ordinary 
 vigour, and the personal advantages of a naturally clear 
 and musical voice and good presence, assisted to foster, 
 and ultimately established him as indisputably one of the 
 first tragedians of his time. 
 
 With a mind thus constituted, and of an impulsive and 
 enthusiastic nature, it may readily be conceived Harry 
 Primus did not stop to inquire if it were possible to drill 
 the forces at his command into anything like competent 
 representatives of noble Romans, or whether the inhabi- 
 tants of a North Lancashire town were compounded of 
 sufficiently ductile material to receive the impression he 
 contemplated ; enough for him that he was the possessor 
 of a large quantity of stage paraphernalia employed in 
 Roman plays, all thoroughly orthodox, and in capital 
 working condition. The large lozenge-shaped shields 
 carried by the warlike supers retained their original forms, 
 and were but very slightly battered ; the tinfoil blades of 
 the broadswords shone with nearly their pristine brightness ; 
 the fasces borne before the Brummagem consuls were pre- 
 cisely the same bundle of brown rolling-pins they originally 
 were ; and the S.P.Q.R.'s, forming the centre of the trium- 
 phal standards, as well as the eagles which surmounted 
 them, were as nearly redolent of Dutch-metal as when first 
 turned cut of the theatrical atelier by the hands of the 
 Drury Lane property-man. So far all was couleur de rose. 
 The London costumier was confiding, and the necessary 
 number of togas having returned from the wash-tub, the 
 helmets having been reburnished, and the sandals super- 
 vised by the dramatic cordwainer, all was pronounced ready 
 for the venture; and one broiling hot Saturday afternoon, in 
 June, 1 86 — , the following week being Whitsuntide — Mr. 
 , Harry Primus and his wife, accompanied by his entire 
 dramatis personcB, arrived, by parliamentary train, at the little 
 watering-place to which we have alluded. 
 
 Roughiey is a small unimportant town on the North Lan- 
 cashire coast, its bold and rugged shore reflecting not 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 33 
 
 inaptly the manners of its native population ; and, indeed, 
 the visitors resorting there in festive seasons cannot be 
 accused of excess of refinement, for, sooth to say, the bent 
 of their minds inclines pretty much to the local tastes, and 
 by far the larger majority would experience more satisfac- 
 tion in witnessing an exhibition of the rougher kind of athletic 
 sports, than in sitting in a heated theatre on a baking hot 
 summer evening, listening to the blank verse of a ponderous 
 five-act play. 
 
 But the enthusiastic Shakespearian actor saw, with ex- 
 cited vision, an equally enthusiastic audience ; to his ardent 
 imagination the idea of apathy to the heroic addresses of 
 Coriolanus, or want of sympathy with his haughty invectives 
 against democratic rule, or his ill-concealed hatred of 
 " The common cry of curs ! whose breath he hates 
 As reek o' the rotten fens," 
 
 could not exist even among the coarsest and most untutored 
 of Lancastrian auditors ; and he regarded the pecuniary 
 result of his enterprise with but little anxiety, as he surveyed 
 the many enormous coloured posters with which his " agent 
 in advance " had plastered every available hoarding in and 
 about the town, announcing " a grand revival, for three 
 nights only, of Shakespeare's historical tragedy of Corio- 
 lanus, with entirely new scenery, dresses, and appoint- 
 ments." 
 
 The duties of the "agent in advance," in addition to 
 billing the walls, and procuring the display in various 
 public-house windows of a streaming playbill (embellished 
 with a large wood-cut of a Roman warrior, sword and shield 
 in hand, in the attitude of the bronze statue of Achilles at 
 the entrance of Hyde Park), comprised conveyance of the 
 wardrobe and properties to the theatre ; the selection of 
 lodgings for the manager and his lady, and furnishment of 
 the larder for the three days' consumption ; valetting Mr. 
 Primus for his morning labours, and dressing the same 
 gentleman for the stage at night ; after which he might be 
 discovered in Act I. in " The Streets of Rome," declaring to 
 his fellow-citizens that " Caius Marcius was chief enemy to 
 the people j" subsequently recognised " before Corioli " as 
 the foremost standard-bearer, ready to sacrifice his last 
 
 D 
 
34 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 ruddy drop in supporting the cause of the individual he 
 had half an hour before been denouncing ; and finally, in 
 Act v., having withdrawn his allegiance from Coriolanus, 
 and transferred his services to his enemy Aufidius, he turned 
 up in " A Public Place at Antium," as the leading conspirator 
 against his quondam master, anxiously awaiting his present 
 employer's cue of "Insolent villain !" to exclaim, in his most 
 demonstrative manner, "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him !" and 
 lunge an unmistakable property dagger half a foot or so 
 behind the armour of the doomed one, by which theatrical 
 strategy, and strictly 
 
 " With the whiff and wind of his fell sword 
 The unnerved Roman falls ! " 
 
 as does the curtain on the tragedy of Coriolanus, and the 
 exertions of the " agent in advance " for that night, so far 
 as his duties on the stage are concerned. 
 
 William, for such was the homely baptismal appendage 
 to which this all-round gentleman laid claim, had made 
 choice of lodgings for Mr. Primus in a part of the town as 
 contiguous to the theatre as possible ; but in his zeal to 
 save his master unnecessary exercise, he had entirely over- 
 looked the circumstance of the erection of an immense 
 canvas circus within thirty yards of the front of the house, 
 and the existence, within a similar distance in its rear, of 
 extensive public gardens, whose gaieties were in full swing 
 about a couple of hours after midnight ; for at the time of 
 our narrative it was not considered necessary for the well- 
 being of society to attempt to suppress immorality, or en- 
 force decent conduct by Act of Parliament, and the hour 
 when revellers at holiday seasons chose to determine their 
 orgies was entirely dependent on their own inclinations, or 
 the capability of longer maintaining a position which the 
 late Miss Ada Menken, as Mazeppa, was accustomed to 
 describe, whilst standing in the limelight on Astley's stage, 
 with the shield-arm extended at full length, for the better 
 protection and display of her figure, and the right one 
 grasping a glittering blade pointed towards the chandelier, 
 uas 
 
 " The godlike attitude of freedom and of man ! " 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 35 
 
 Besides the attractions referred to there were, in close 
 proximity to Mr. Primus's apartments, drinking and refresh- 
 ment booths, and marquees for the patrons of the merry 
 dance, steam roundabouts in one perpetual and giddy 
 whirl, swings in incessant restless motion, dizzying the eye 
 and dazing the brain, exhibitions of dwarfs and giants, 
 spectral skeletons and obese monstrosities of humanity ; 
 freaks of Nature in the animal kingdom to amaze the eye 
 and puzzle the comprehension — sheep that at their decease 
 could supply the butcher with four legs and a couple of 
 shoulders ; pigs boldly challenging comparison with double- 
 headed Janus ; a menagerie, whose contents, assuming 
 the veracity of the proprietor, were a living reflex of the 
 original Noah's Ark, with a very extensive modern appendix ; 
 stalls for the disposal of gilt gingerbread, ginger-beer, and 
 " toffy ; " vendors of every conceivable mosaic ornament 
 for the adornment of the softer sex, and purveyors of all 
 imaginable condiments for the support and delectation of 
 the rougher one ; not to mention a sparring booth, for the 
 practice and display of the art of self-defence, outside of 
 which a robust professor of that noble science.— (with a 
 flat, repulsive, grog-pimpled and small-pock-marked face, 
 from whose centre protruded an unnaturally wide-nostrilled 
 and unmistakably broken proboscis, forming a limited 
 verandah to a mouth the width of a bull-dog's, and from 
 either side of whose head projected a lappet of crimson- 
 coloured shapeless flesh, with a deep indentation in the 
 centre, serving for the conveyance of sound, and approach- 
 ing in size to the ear of a King Charles's spaniel) — outside 
 which booth, I say, this interesting specimen of the human 
 form divine occupied himself, during the greater part of the 
 day, in issuing invitations to the uninitiated passer-by to 
 " have on the mittens " just for five minutes with his profes- 
 sional colleague on the other side of the canvas, who would 
 pledge himself to do his utmost, in that limited space of 
 time, to assimilate the face of his antagonist to that of the 
 speaker. 
 
 To give due publicity to these various allurements, the 
 hoarsest and the loudest lungs, the most deafening speaking 
 trumpets, the noisiest drums, the heaviest clanging gongs, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 BEHIND THE TOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 and the shrillest of feminine show-folk voices — if it be per- 
 missible to apply that substantive to such stentorian organs of 
 respiration — were employed the livelong day, so that it is 
 easy to conceive our tragedian, on arriving at his new 
 domicile, was not over favourably impressed with the 
 selected locality, and began seriously to revolve in his mind 
 the possibility of getting through his work under such dis- 
 tressing drawbacks. First, there was his own part to read 
 up, for he had not played Coriolanus for several years, and 
 was anything but firm in the text; then there were the 
 various scenes to cut, and adapt the characters to the capa- 
 cities of their representatives, the prompt-book to prepare, 
 the plot of the scenery to draw out, and a variety of other 
 studious matter to consider and execute ; and all this had 
 to be accomplished within forty-eight hours, including the 
 intervention of Sunday, when the theatre, as a matter of 
 necessity, would be closed to him. 
 
 It was past seven o'clock on this memorable Saturday 
 night, and our tragedian and his wife were seated at tea in 
 their new apartments, with William in attendance awaiting 
 instructions, when a significant shake of Mr. Primus's head, 
 in response to his better-half s suggestion whether it would • 
 not be advisable, even at this advanced hour, to send forth 
 the agent in search of more secluded quarters, determined 
 that proposition conclusively, and the entrance at the same 
 instant of the landlady, bearing a relay of bread and butter 
 in one hand, and an old cracked earthenware basin filled 
 with periwinkles in the other, changed the current of his 
 reflection, and caused him to raise his eyes and regard the 
 new-comer. 
 
 Miss Jane Pickett, for so was the landlady called, was a 
 dapper little spinster of some sixty odd years, but as lively 
 in her movements, and as vivacious in her speech, as a 
 woman of half her age.' Her height did not exceed a yard 
 and a half, and her bult was on a proportionately diminu- 
 tive scale ; but her frame was nattily and compactly knit, 
 and she delighted in assuring everyone that, in the early 
 part of the century, she had always been considered as 
 possessing " a very sweet temper," and was spoken of as a 
 "neat and pretty little figure." She had a wide and 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 37' 
 
 uncommonly lofty forehead, that the absence of much eye- 
 brow served to increase, and which shone with a polished 
 brightness that might have stared old Sol full in the face 
 without so much as a blink. It may appear a little 
 paradoxical to say that though her eyes were indefinite in 
 colour (resembling most a gooseberry when its bright 
 green hue is slowly merging into ripeness) they had a 
 lively merry twinkle ; but a close observer might oc- 
 casionally discern 'neath their sparkle a lurking furtive 
 glance, disproving the axiom that the eyes are, upon all 
 occasions, the mirror of the mind. Her dearest friends 
 have been known to remark a decided change in the 
 colour of her nose during the last twenty years, which 
 was then suspiciously ruddy at the tip, and various 
 causes have been suggested by them as explanatory 
 of the metamorphosis ; but I believe the real secret to be 
 discoverable in a small vial, intended only to ornament her 
 dressing-table, but which, through lapse of memory, has now 
 and then been visible on the sitting-room mantelpiece, con- 
 taining a white liquid with a heavy powdered sediment, 
 disguised with a label, " Lotion for chilblains, for external 
 use only." 
 
 In disposition sprightly and gay, and in domestic tittle'- 
 tattle animated and energetic. Miss Pickett was utterly 
 incapable of concentrating her ideas on any one particular 
 subject, however commonplace or simple its nature ; and 
 she would dart off at a tangent into matter entirely foreign 
 to the theme, accompanying the digression with an amount 
 of pantomimic action that caused her arms to fly about like 
 those of an old-fashioned semaphore, and her head to waggle 
 backwards and forwards as if afflicted with chronic para- 
 lysis. This was more than usually the case when anyone 
 praised her excellent health, or commented on her con- 
 stitutional appetite, and would become ludicrously 
 extravagant in her endeavour to combat a badinage that 
 suggested hidden attachment to alcohol, or hinted a 
 suspicion whether the gill of boiling-hot water she nightly 
 conveyed to her bedchamber was, as she invariably declared 
 it to be, really for the purpose of washing her hands. 
 
 Such, then, was our hero's landlady, and his introduction 
 
38 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 to her was at ihe moment she entered the room with the 
 bread and butter and winkles as described. 
 
 " Good evening, sir," she began, accompanying the 
 salutation with one of those old-fashioned buckram inclina- 
 tions of the head, taught by preceptors to adults, under the 
 title of " deportment." " I hope you like your apartments. 
 I don't know, madam," she continued, with a smirk, setting 
 the winkles on the table, and plucking a hair-pin from her 
 coiffure for their extraction, "whether your good gentleman 
 will condescend to a homely relish ; but our little town is 
 celebrated for its Crustacea." 
 
 Miss Pickett, whose father, to use her own words, was a 
 " bibliopolist," revelled in long words, and never missed 
 an opportunity of introducing one of rare or obsolete use, 
 acquired in her youthful and more prosperous days. 
 
 "I am very partial to wink— to shell-fish," replied Mr. 
 Primus gallantly, with difficulty repressing a titter at th6 
 landlady's pomposity. 
 
 As the tragedian and his wife discussed their repast. Miss 
 Pickett rattled off, with marvellous volubility, a laconic 
 history of the town and its allurements, enlarging on the 
 encouragement accorded by the surrounding gentry to 
 intellectual dramatic entertainments, and magnifying the 
 curiosity which such a novelty as Coriolanus could not fail 
 to excite among the humbler classes ; and with such per- 
 sistency and tact did the little woman pursue her subject, 
 that the actor rose from his meal to proceed to rehearsal, 
 perfectly elated with the prophesied success, and assured 
 within himself that the rival attractions of Roughley Fair, 
 and the baking-hot Whitsuntide weather combined, would 
 have no more effect on the attendance at his theatre than a 
 passing April shower could exercise on the back of a water- 
 fowl. 
 
 Havingordered boiled tripe and onions for supper at twelve 
 o'clock — for our hero was somewhat Bohemian in his tastes, 
 and scouted the notion of stated seasons for certain dishes — 
 Mr. and Mrs. Primus set off to the theatre for a night rehearsal. 
 Here they found surrounding the stage-door their own little 
 company, and a party of Lancashire boors, whom the 
 "agent in advance" had induced, by offers of increased 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 39 
 
 remuneration and unlimited beer, to forego their Whitsun 
 festivities, and appear on the stage as classic warriors and 
 representatives of Roman rabble. For the embodiment of 
 the latter characters but little tuition was needed ; for 
 certainly Nature had been eminently successful, in the 
 sample before us, in producing some of the coarsest and 
 most uncivilized specimens of humanity that ever disgraced 
 the theatrical forum, to give their sweet voices for the 
 election of a consul, or yell out, " Hoo ! hoo ! " at his 
 expulsion from the Capitol. Indeed, the directions of 
 Coriolanus, 
 
 ' ' Bid them wash their faces 
 And keep their teeth clean," 
 
 might, with great propriety, have been applied to the whole 
 crew. 
 
 All the corps dramatique being now assembled on the 
 stage, a candle was lighted, and placed on a rickety deal 
 table close to the " float," and Mr. Wing, stage-manager and 
 prompter, book in hand, took his seat thereat, in an old 
 state armchair, which did duty at night for a monarch's 
 coronation or a cottager's repose, as occasion required, and 
 the rehearsal commenced. 
 
 " What, be we to change t' clothes at noight ? " demanded 
 the roughest and dirtiest of the Lancashire gang, selected 
 to form one of the mutinous citizens in the opening scene. 
 This was spoken with as much disgust of tone and manner 
 as if he had been urged to the commission of some revolt- 
 ing barbarity. 
 
 "So, oi am to be soger, eh?" exclaimed, another, who 
 had been told off as a lictor. "Dang it, oi like t' army ; oi 
 run awa' t' list when oi was lad ; but oi warn't 'igh enuf 
 'cept for drummer, an' oi hates music." 
 
 " Silence there, you supers ! "thundered Mr. Wing, " and 
 clear the stage. Now, then, you first citizen, lead on your 
 mob." 
 
 But why attempt description of a rehearsal in the theatre 
 of a small provincial town ? What reader is not familiar with 
 its difficulties and distresses, its mishaps, its shortcomings, 
 its makeshifts, its emergencies, and its deceits ? Who does 
 not know the dodges the country manager must resort to, in 
 
40 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 order to make his slender company of a dozen perform the 
 duties of a score ? Who has not beheld a three-legged 
 stool exalted into the dignity of a ducal chair for the Doge 
 of Venice, or peeped into the modern whitewashed flower- 
 pot that at night represented the classic urn in which 
 Virginia's ashes were contained ? Who does not remember 
 the occasion when the necessities of the wardrobe-keeper 
 have compelled Macbeth to dispense with his tartan, or 
 made it compulsory for his representative to address eight 
 imaginary royal spectres off the third entrance, for mere 
 lack of regal robes wherein to envelop them ? Which of us 
 has not heard his Grace the Duke of Gloster improvise a 
 line or two to visionary bearers of King Henry's corpse, 
 ordering them to keep back whilst he is wooing the Lady 
 Anne, for no other reason than that the property-man is 
 destitute of a coffin in which to enclose the remains of the 
 deceased, and the " unmannered dog," whom he should 
 command to " advance his halberd higher than his breast," 
 happens at that moment to be absent from his post, having 
 been sent over the way to the public-house to fetch a pint 
 of " stout-and-bitter " for the refreshment of the scion of the 
 royal house of York, at the termination of the second act ? 
 The fair Ophelia has been buried off the stage for want 
 of a trap-door through which to pass her bier to its final 
 resting-place ; and when the stage has boasted this neces- 
 sary convenience, the leaves of a decayed cabbage have 
 frequently supplied the " sweets to the sweet," which the 
 Queen of Denmark has scattered in her grave ; and the 
 " virgin crants " and " maiden strewments," to whose dis- 
 tribution the churlish priest so unfeelingly objects, are often 
 nothing more than delusive tributes to her memory, as (the 
 action of the lady's arm in casting them into the chasm 
 being all that is visible to the audience) the portly figure 
 and canonicals of the officiating clergyman conceal the 
 supposed distributor and her empty basket from view, till 
 the fiery Laertes, like another Marcus Curtius, rushes to 
 the rescue, and, by leaping into the unfinished mausoleum, 
 contrives to distract the attention, and leave undiscovered 
 by the audience the imposition so unblushingly put upon 
 them. 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 41 
 
 Well, the rehearsal of Coriolanus was pretty much after 
 this fashion. The language which Shakespeare fairly dis- 
 tributed between Titus Lartius and Cominius was mono- 
 polised by the latter, as the company could only afford one 
 Roman general to oppose the Volcians instead of a couple ; 
 by the same nice exigency which compels " needs must " 
 when his Satanic Majesty assumes "the ribbons," the 
 tribunes of the people were compressed into one repre- 
 sentative, to wit, Junius Brutus, though, considering these 
 advocates of the " great unwashed " as a body corporate, 
 there was little room for complaint in the present case, as 
 the individual to whom their interests were confided shook 
 the weighing-machine at the Roughley Station at sixteen 
 stone four, and was, besides, possessed of a pair of arms and 
 a breadth of shoulder that apparently rendered it dangerous 
 ground to attempt to gainsay his dictum, and thoroughly 
 justified his arrogating to himself the choleric invectives 
 assigned by the author to his colleague, as well as his as- 
 sumption of the first citizen's privilege in ordering Corio- 
 lanus to " the steep Tarpeian rock " (a sentence, by the way, 
 which he ultimately took upon himself to commute to 
 banishment for life from the city of Rome) ; winding up his 
 multifarious labours by appropriating the two final lines of 
 the third act (by rights the property of the leading citizen), 
 wherein he expresses his intention to see the deposed con- 
 sul safe out at the gates, and invokes, by way of finale, the 
 blessing of the Gods on himself and his imaginary assistants, 
 a benediction to which he was decidedly entitled for the 
 heroic manner in which he had sustained the characters of 
 half-a-dozen people. 
 
 Numerous were the shifts of this kind to which Mr. 
 Wing was reduced to render intelligible the text of 
 the play with his limited forces, nor was his ingenuity 
 taxed to a less degree in matters of scenery and pro- 
 perties; but long experience under similar circumstances 
 had matured his natural tact, so that the rehearsal came 
 to an end, if not with positive success, at least with 
 fair promise of getting through the tragedy somehow, 
 with the aid of further practice on the ensuing Monday 
 morning. 
 
42 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 It was the supernumeraries — the Lancashire contingent 
 — that caused him the greatest trouble and anxiety ; their 
 utter ignorance of all matters theatrical, and natural brutish 
 stolidity, made their zeal difficult of restraint when ex- 
 pelling Coriolanus from Rome, and was very nearly con- 
 verting the mimic combat between the opposing armies 
 into one of stern reality and a trial of strength. Indeed, it 
 appeared to the entire gang matter of astonishment that 
 the various clubs, staves, and weapons of attack served out 
 to the representatives of "the mob" should be frantically 
 brandished on so many occasions, with cries of mutiny and 
 discontent, without so much as a blow being struck ; and 
 one old fellow in particular, a burly, thick-set man, with a 
 hard-featured, forbidding countenance, who had kept his fists 
 tightly clenched all the evening, and his left foot advanced 
 in a semi-pugilistic attitude, as if awaiting the opportunity 
 for a " scrimmage," thought he perceived his chance at last, 
 when, at the termination of Brutus's speech, inciting the 
 citizens to repair to the Capitol, the stage-manager told 
 him in an authoritative tone, and with some asperity of man- 
 ner, "to go to L, ;" and it was only by the prompt inter- 
 vention of Mr. Primus, in explaining that the supposed 
 anathema was simply a stage direction for him to cross over 
 to the left, that his ferocity was at length appeased, and his 
 equanimity restored for the conclusion of the scene by a 
 liberal gratuity for beer. 
 
 Another weighty difiSculty presented itself in the band. 
 The occurrence of Roughley Fair in the Whitsun Week had 
 been overlooked both by lessee and manager, and they 
 found to their consternation that every available musician 
 in the town had been snapped up by some rival establish- 
 ment, with the exception of a spare-built, weazen-faced old 
 foreigner, apparently affected with palsy, who, attired in a 
 threadbare coat and down-at-heel carpet slippers, with 
 difficulty opened the door of the wretched ramshackle hovel 
 to which Mr. Wing had been directed, and announced him- 
 self as the Herr Schloz, whose name, written in a school- 
 boy's hand on a piece of dirty cardboard, with "professor 
 of music " underneath it, was fastened by four rusty nails to 
 the door, on the spot usually occupied by the knocker. His 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 43 
 
 engagement was Hobson's choice ; there was 
 
 " Nothing lived 'twixt him and silence." 
 SO, he having made a clean breast of it, by the admissior> 
 that drums and trumpets being out of the question, 
 "flourishes" and "martial music" must be dispensed 
 with, it was agreed that he should read the tragedy through 
 on Sunday, and adapt such airs and instruments to the 
 various situations as he and his three assistants, who were 
 to comprise the orchestra, could contrive to execute. 
 
 The clock of Roughley parish church had just sounded 
 midnight when the rehearsal concluded, and Mr. Primus, 
 having locked up the stage-door, and bade a hasty " good- 
 night '' to his company, linked his wife's arm in his owr, 
 and hastened home to their lodgings. Miss Pickett was 
 in attendance, and the tripe and onions and a foaming 
 pewter being soon placed on the table, and as quickly dis- 
 posed of, the fussy little landlady proceeded to clear the 
 cloth, and, producing a bottle of " Old Tom," which the 
 " agent in advance " had provided, suggested the necessity 
 of "just a snifter" to settle the onions. 
 
 " I am recommended a thimbleful after supper by the 
 faculty," she said, tapping her chest rapidly with her closed 
 hand, as if to drive away the approaching indigestion, " and 
 I really consider a little stimulant as a nightcap essential 
 to people advancing in years." 
 
 The tragedian smiled acquiescence in the sentiment, and 
 invited the landlady to join him in a social glass. 
 
 Under its cheering influence Miss Pickett soon became 
 very loquacious, and unrolled her budget of dramatic remi- 
 niscences. These were neither very extensive nor particu- 
 larly lucid, being chiefly confined to a eulogy on the glitter 
 of the elder Kean's knife when drawn by him as Shylock 
 across the stage, and a lively description of a huge tomb- 
 stone that Charles Young, as Rienzi, dragged to the foot- 
 lights, and apostrophised to some treasonous citizens with 
 a view of inciting them to rebellion. These early recollec- 
 tions were supplemented with a recent love episode in her 
 own life, by which it appeared she was within an ace of 
 becoming the wife of an old actor in her advancing years ; 
 but some slight difference of opinion arising between her 
 
44 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 and the swain, as to the subsequent proprietorship of a 
 couple of tumble-down cottages in the Walworth-road, the 
 affair was delayed, and the engagement ultimately adjourned 
 sine die. 
 
 Sunday had passed ; the holy day was enrolled in the 
 archives of old Time, and a glorious Whit Monday dawned 
 on Roughley. The sun rose resplendently, and the briny 
 ocean sparkled in his beams, and danced with the gaiety of 
 life and youth. As the waves rolled over the pebbly beach 
 they gave forth the murmurs of their sport, growing louder 
 and louder in approaching the shore, as though the very 
 waters caught the hilarity of the season, and were wishful 
 to mingle in its boisterous mirth. The holiday folk, in their 
 gayest and best apparel, poured into the town by quick 
 succeeding trains, all hastening merrily along the High- 
 street and making their way to the seaside. On the beach 
 are assembled a bevy of huge, sun-tanned, web-footed 
 fellows, in coarse fustian trousers and thick dark-blue 
 guernsey shirts, the same garments they don in the bleakest 
 winter or the hottest summer's day, shouting out to the 
 gathering throng the enticements of their almost native 
 element. The proprietors of swings, Aunt Sallys, and long 
 plate-iron tubes, designated by their owners "shooting- 
 galleries," where the highest prize is a few mouldy nuts and 
 the reputation of having gained a " bull's-eye," are driving 
 a roaring trade, whilst the counter attractions of the circus 
 and the menagerie, the giants, the skeletons, and the 
 modern Daniel Lamberts, not forgetting the sparring-booth, 
 each enlist their fair quota of supporters, and help to swell 
 the ceaseless din of the fair. The amusements of each 
 succeeding hour are but a repetition of the last, and seven 
 o'clock, the hour for opening, arrives, and still the revellers 
 make no sign around the theatre's doors. 
 
 " This way for th' muse-um ! " roared out the lessee of a 
 sugarloaf-shaped marquee, rapping with a cane an old 
 board suspended over the entrance, whereon was displayed, 
 in every variety of coloured ochre, a heterogeneous collec- 
 tion of reptiles, birds, and fishes that must have puzzled 
 the first naturalist in Christendom to classify or describe. 
 
 "Which is the way to the play-'ouse?" inquired an old 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 45 
 
 lady, whose curiosity had been excited by the woodcut of 
 the Roman warrior at the head of the playbill. " I wants 
 to see Krilanis." 
 
 "No sich booth in the fair, marra," answered the 
 proprietor of the museum; "this 'ere's the shop for 
 'igh hart. If yer Wants t' encouridge natif talen', ourn's 
 the crib." 
 
 The doors of the theatre were at last opened, and the 
 tragedy began. Herr Schloz had not attended the morning 
 rehearsal. The fact is, he had been engaged all day in 
 looking up his three instrumentalists, and perfecting them 
 as much as possible in their evening work. He had read 
 through the play furnished him by Mr. Wing on the Satur- 
 day night, and selected three popular melodies as appro- 
 priate to the scenes and situations where he proposed to 
 introduce them. So, having, given our tragedian, whilst 
 dressing, an assurance " that he would find all right," 
 Mr. Harry Primus walked on to the stage as Caius 
 Marcius, with no more idea of the musical mllange in store 
 for him, than the animal representing the Dog of Montargis 
 possesses of the geographical position of the Forest of 
 Bondy. 
 
 Excepting that one of the Lancashire gang composing 
 " the mob " was recognised by a chum in the gallery and 
 saluted as ''fBill,"—all went fairly well till Marcius's 
 triumphal entry into Rome, which was the scene Herr 
 Schloz had fixed upon for the display of his minstrelsy. 
 Imagine the astonishnient of the noble victor when, in place 
 of the martial strains that should herald the approach of the 
 procession, the first sound that caught his ears was the 
 familiar air of "When Johnny comes marching home." 
 Never were lines more appropriate than those he delivered 
 when the music ceased : — 
 
 , "May ihese same .instruments which you profane 
 Never sound more ! " 
 
 The play went on, and the procession went off, standard- 
 bearers, lictors, and mob in strange confusion ; a running 
 commentary.being indulged in by the audience during their 
 exit, principally in allusion to the legs of the supers, 
 
46 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 variously referred to as " shanks," and " mill-post?," "pins,' 
 " spindles," " wackers," and " stumps ; " indeed, the chaffy 
 banter, which seems the peculiar prerogative of stage 
 armies, was distributed all round with blameless impartiality. 
 But the chef d'orckestre felt his success was assured, and 
 awaited with inward satisfaction his second opportunity. 
 This occurred at the end of the third act, where Coriolanus 
 is banished from the city. 
 
 Primus gave the celebrated speech, " You common cry 
 of curs," with his accustomed fire ; and conscious of his own 
 power and the impressiveness of the situation, he drew 
 himself up to his full height for his exit with the words, 
 "There is a world elsewhere." Just as he was in the act of 
 delivering them, the little fiddler, bursting to make manifest 
 to the audience the heroic self-reliance of the banished 
 consul, struck up the then popular melody, " Paddle your 
 own canoe." He had harped the chord aright. Boxes, 
 pit, and gallery joined energetically in full chorus ; and the 
 old German, rising from his music-stool, turned to the 
 house, his face beaming with delight, and bowed his 
 grateful acknowledgments. 
 
 But his crowning triumph was yet to come. Thus far he 
 had divided the honours of the night, and poor Coriolanus 
 began to realise how sadly he had miscalculated a Roughley 
 Whitsuntide audience, and that it was like chipping granite 
 with a toothpick to attempt to inoculate their unemotional 
 natures with the poetic fervour of his own. Still he looked 
 hopefully to the last act, fancying the quarrel with Aufidius, 
 and the prospect of a fight which it holds out, might appeal 
 to their sympathies and arouse their enthusiasm. But even 
 in this he was fated to disappointment. The scene went 
 well, and the death was loudly applauded ; albeit it evoked 
 a homely censure from an occupant of the pit, who 
 exclaimed, " Sarves 'im domned well roight fur roundin' on 
 t' ould gal " (meaning his mother, Volumnia) ; but as 
 the soldiers advanced to raise the dead body and bear it off 
 the stage to solemn strains, the fatal fiddle, with flute and 
 trombone accompaniment, once more put in their claim to 
 suffrage. To strengthen the funeral dirge and heighten its 
 effects, Herr Schloz had induced his orchestral assistants to 
 
CORIOLANUS AT THE SEASIDE. 47 
 
 support their instrumentation with a vocal chorus. It ran 
 thus : — 
 
 " Thus Death, who kings and tars despatches, 
 In vain his life has doffed ; 
 For though his body's under hatches, 
 His soul has gone aloft." 
 
 This was too much. It is the last straw that breaks the 
 camel's back. Primus could bear a great deal, and in his 
 love of, and enthusiasm for, his art, he was accustomed to 
 overlook with manly fortitude many a ridiculous incident ; 
 but in one of his best parts, a character in which his powers 
 had been acknowledged in all the principal theatres in the 
 kingdom, to have his well-won honours plucked from him 
 on a little provincial stage by an unknown, penniless, 
 German fiddler ! Bah ! Flesh and blood could not stand 
 it. 
 
 " Take down the bills from the doors in the morning," 
 he said to William, as he walked slowly and dejectedly 
 home to his lodgings. " We'll leave this cursed Roughley 
 to-morrow, and have no more of Coriolanus by the 
 Seaside." 
 
MY DEBUT ON THE STAGE. 
 
 — :o:- 
 
 The Hero of the following Story is a well-known Actor, 
 NOT MANY Years since the respected Lessee of a Metro- 
 politan popular Place of Amusement. 
 
 IT was in the Christmas week intervening between the 
 exit of the year of grace 1842 and the advent of its 
 successor, that I first seriously conceived the idea of 
 appearing on the stage. My father, good man, with 
 enduring faith in the axiom that learning is better than 
 lands or gold, had kept me at boarding school till I had 
 completed my seventeenth year, though whether, this pro- 
 longed tuition was induced by actual reliance on the 
 proverb, oir by the fact of the lands and gold not being 
 exactly bequeathable about this time, is beyond my ken at 
 the present moment. Anyhow, at school I was kept, a 
 great hobble-de-hoy, impatient of the restraint of the peda- 
 gogue, and indignant at being compelled to bundle into 
 bed in broad daylight, on a lovely summer's evening, in 
 company with my schoolfellows in petticoats and knicker- 
 bockers. But I had all the pride and aspirations of youth, 
 and well do I remember my ecstasy on leaving school, the 
 first boy in the elocution class, and presenting to my 
 parents, on my arrival home, before I had well discharged 
 my duty to the door-mat, the half-calf bound edition of the 
 " Arabian Nights," awarded me as an appropriate recogni- 
 tion of my oratorical accomplishments. 
 
 It was the custom at the Doctor's establishment at 
 Stamford Hill, where I matriculated, to get up theatrical 
 entertainments at the Christmas holidays, and invite to 
 these exhibitions the parents and friends of the pupils. The 
 
MY d£but on the stage. 49 
 
 plays, as a rule, were selected from Shakespeare's works, 
 and as the local costumier was too exacting for our 
 exchequer in his charge for the hire of brocade and bullion, 
 we resolved on this occasion to throw him over, and enact 
 the tragedy of Julius Cmsar, where the bed linen could be 
 utilised as togas, and the Roman shirt beneath fairly repre- 
 sented by Brutus donning the night-dress of a lad of ten 
 reaching scarcely down to his knees. The actor's chest 
 being enveloped in the sheet, concealed the shortcomings 
 of the bedgown in that region, and when gracefully pinned 
 up in plaits on the shoulder, really looked as near the 
 orthodox article as could reasonably be expected. 
 
 It was as Brutus I distinguished myself that evening, and 
 the applause I received when on the platform, added to the 
 congratulations of the audience after I had left it, inwardly 
 assured me that I had realised Marc Antony's encomium, 
 
 " This was the noblest Roman of them all." 
 
 One little incident rather disturbed my classic gravity, 
 though it was soon forgotten in the excitement and delight 
 of the scene. Brutus shakes off the mortal coil in the last 
 act, by running on his sword, politely held horizontally by 
 Strato for the impalement. Strato's representative — with 
 whom I was a special favourite — had stationed himself as 
 near the end pf the stage as possible, in order to afford me 
 the necessary applomb in approaching the deadly weapon. 
 The impetuosity and dash of my rush knocked him off the 
 balance from his kneeling position, and in falling, he 
 clutched at the calico sheet fastened to the side of the room 
 as a curtain. The fabric being frail, broke from its moor- 
 ings, and fell to the floor, covering — as with a virgin pall — 
 the bodies of the deceased Roman and his faithful retainer. 
 We scrambled from beneath its folds, and regaining our 
 feet, walked off the platform arm-in-arm, amidst shouts of 
 laughter and derisive applause. 
 
 But the seed was sown— the cacoethes had taken root 1 
 I was conscious of immense superiority over my dramatic 
 colleagues, and felt as convinced then, as I now do that I 
 am penning this narrative, that I was destined for a great 
 career, and to occupy at least a quarto page in the archives 
 
 E 
 
50 llEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 of Thespian fame. What could I not do (I thought) on a 
 regular stage, with the accessories of correct scenery, 
 dresses, and appointments, with gaslights at my feet instead 
 of decimal tallow candles, and an orchestra of proper 
 musicians, in place of the senior Tomkin's flute, and kit- 
 fiddle of the gouty French dancing-master ! 
 
 The opportunity soon arrived. There flourished, the 
 third of a century ago, in Wilson-street, Gray's Inn-road, 
 a little private theatre, under the proprietorship of one 
 Richard Pym. To this temple and its frequenters I was 
 introduced shortly after the occurrence related, and very 
 soon became initiated into its mysteries, and absorbed in 
 its allurements. No further introduction or ceremony was 
 needed between the ladies and gentlemen, as they were 
 styled, who formed the corps dramatique, than the exchange 
 of their theatrical pseudonyms, and thus it came about that 
 within a month— a little month — I became acquainted and 
 enamoured (for to see her was to love her) with the ador- 
 able Miss Alicia Bellaire, then a blooming creature about 
 my own age, and eldest daughter of Mrs. George Smith, 
 widow and clear- starcher, of No. 99, Baldwin's-gardens, 
 Leather-lane, E.C. To this lady's domicile Alicia retired 
 nightly for nutrition and repose, after leaving the establish- 
 ment of Madame Josephine Tibbs — the proprietress of a 
 dingy milliner's shop, in a gloomy street running out of 
 the Mile End-road, where she was engaged six days out 
 of the seven, from nine a.m. till six p.m., in the tasteful 
 manufacture of caps and bonnets, and the arrangement 
 thereon, a la mode deP Orient, of imitation ostrich feathers, 
 or articles of mosaic jewelry from the ateliers of the Midland 
 Counties. Yes — she was in truth a milliner, and, as Hotspur 
 puts it, perfumdd like one, though 'twixt her finger and her 
 thumb, in lieu of the pouncet box the gallant officer places 
 in the hand of his fop, she was wont to hold and flutter 
 the prettiest and daintiest of Indian rice fans, with a naivet6 
 of manner Madame Vestris alone could have equalled, and 
 none but the peerless Mrs. Nisbett have excelled. 
 
 Well, we met and we loved ; the better part of my pocket 
 money allowance I expended on my inamorata in ginger 
 beer and buns, and having passed the evening hours in 
 
MY D^BUT ON THE STAGE. 5 1 
 
 such bliss as only stage Romeos express, and Juliets in 
 their 'teens reciprocate, I used to accompany Alicia home 
 to the maternal dovecot, and bid her " good-night " till the 
 morrow, always reserving my parting kiss till I left her at 
 the door, in order to mingle with the sweetness of her lips 
 the flavour of the twopenny Bath bun I had purchased for 
 her at the pastrycook's at the corner of Gray's Inn-road. 
 
 The custom was at Mr. Pym's — as at other private 
 theatres —to wafer up in the room where the amateurs 
 assembled on closed nights a notice of coming performances, 
 and, under the title of the play proposed, appeared a list 
 of the characters ; opposite to each being affixed the 
 amount the tyro must disburse for its enactment. Many a 
 time and oft did my eyes scan these figures in the hope of 
 finding some part suitable alike to my ambition and my 
 banking account, and where Alicia could appear conjointly 
 as my lover, or my wedded wife. But Romeos and Claude 
 Melnottes were high in the market, and I scorned the 
 notion of an afterpiece, where a testy old fellow, in a worn 
 court suit and frowzy brown wig, is for ever disagreeing 
 with his better-half, in sombre napless velveteen and hair 
 powder, as uncongenial to my own feelings as a lover, 
 besides exhibiting the idol of my soul under the disad- 
 vantage of assumed wrinkles and in a peevish mood. 
 
 One night I was addressed by a gentleman, many years my 
 senior, who was getting up Hamlet for his benefit, and asked 
 whether I would not like to make my first appearance 
 therein as the king. He had, no doubt, observed my young 
 love's dream, as he insinuated that Miss Bellaire, on my com- 
 pliance, would, in all probability, appear as the Queen. 
 Here was a chance ! Claudius and Gertrude are almost 
 inseparable in every scene of the tragedy. They enter 
 hand-in-hand in state to a flourish of trumpets and the 
 beat of big drums ; they sit beside each other at the mock 
 play ; they stand touching each other over Ophelia's grave ; 
 they occupy the same throne in the final scene in loving 
 proximity, and the same gilt pasteboard goblet touches the 
 lips of both ere they die. Enough ! The bargain was struck, 
 half-a-sovereign being the sum I was to hand over for the 
 monarchy, and I there and then sealed the contract by 
 
 E 3 
 
52 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 the deposit of my last half-crown piece. At the suggestion 
 of Miss Bellaire — who was credited with great taste in the 
 selection — Adolphus Greville was the w;« de thedtre finally 
 fixed on as the synonym for James Wilkins, and under 
 which I should become known to posterity. The night of 
 performance came, and, punctually as the clock struck six, 
 I wended my way to Wilson-street. The playbill, with my 
 new name at full length, I pulled out of my pocket to look 
 at, and then folded up and returned there so frequently on 
 my road, that the printing was nearly illegible at the creases 
 long before I arrived at the stage-door. I at once proceeded 
 to the dressing-room allotted me, and tore off my ordinary 
 clothes with the rapidity. of a schoolboy about to bathe. In 
 about half an hour I was dressed, with the exception of my 
 long, rabbit-skin-trimmed regal robe, and forwarded to 
 another apartment to be " made up," lest the paint and 
 powder should fall on that garment and " mess it " in the 
 process. My eyebrows having been burnt-corked till they 
 looked as shaggy as a Scotch terrier's, and my cheeks over- 
 laid with crape hair to give me " weight " till there was 
 little else visible of my spare countenance than my eyes 
 and nose, I returned to the dressing-room, and assumed the 
 ermine. 
 
 My parents were, as I believed, ignorant of these proceed- 
 ings, and it never occurred to me that they entertained any 
 suspicion concerning them. My father was accustomed 
 to .spend his evenings at a public-house where an Odd 
 Fellows' Lodge was held, and I was usually asleep in bed 
 at the early hour of the morning he returned home, but the 
 mother's sagacity had an inkling of the truth, accidentally 
 confirmed by a kind female neighbour, describing herself 
 as her son's well-wisher. I knew that my mother had gone 
 to Hammersmith that day to pay a visit, and so felt secure 
 of my position for the night. But I reckoned without my 
 host ; the " well-wisher " had somehow possessed herself of 
 a playbill, and had ascertained, beyond a doubt, that 
 Adolphus Greville and James Wilkins were one and the 
 same person. Determined to spoil sport, she hastened to 
 the mutual friend at Hammersmith, acquainted my mother 
 with her discovery, and, full of wrath and indignation, the 
 
Mrjdatphas GmilU is seized at QMidsgroAfe by fus . 
 
MY D^BUT ON THE STAGE. 55 
 
 two ladies returned to town by the last 'bus but one. 
 Claudius and Gertrude had been on in the court scene, and 
 I had taken my first peep at the footlights. Recovering 
 slowly from the perspiration induced by stage fright, I was 
 beginning to feel less uncomfortable, and looked forward 
 with a child's delight to two hours and three-quarters of 
 dramatic paradise. By the time the drop had fallen on the 
 fourth act, I had acquired tolerable confidence, and the 
 best of the fun was yet to come. Not to speak of the 
 churchyard scene, where his majesty, having little to say and 
 a long while to wait, could whisper love and congratulations 
 to his consort, there was the final scene, wherein to support 
 my soul's idol when she fainted, and afterwards meet my 
 death at Hamlefs hands, and expire in my state chair. 
 
 It was hard upon ten o'clock, and I was stationed at 
 Ophelia's grave. The priest had pronounced his benedic- 
 tion over the dummy coffin, and Laertes had concluded the 
 usual inquiry whether there was anything more to be done 
 before the shovelful of earth was returned to the pail under 
 the stage, and the skull handed down to the property man, 
 to be put away for the night. Suddenly, a voice, which 
 "foolish custom had made terrible," struck upon my 
 terrified ear, demanding, in spasmodic tones, the where- 
 abouts of Adolphus Greville. The name seemed, like 
 Macbeth's "Amen," to ^tlck in the speaker's throat. 
 Instinctively I hugged my royal mantle closer, and 
 " bonnetted " myself with my diadem for disguise. It was 
 useless ; the prompter had pointed out to the enraged parent 
 her erratic offspring, and with a bound, like a mountain 
 goat, she was at my side, grasping with both hands the fluffy 
 collar of my regal envelope. Vainly did I remonstrate, 
 and endeavour to disengage myself from her grip. She 
 quelled my resistance by hissing out loud enough for the 
 audience to hear, " Leave this place instantly, you wicked 
 child, or your father shall know of your doings.',' Here 
 was a drop ! The reigning monarch of Denmark to be 
 addressed as a " wicked child," and threatened with the 
 vengeance of his Pa! My heart sunk within me; I 
 abdicated on the spot, and suffered myself to be dragged 
 ruthlessly off the stage, and pushed, in all my finery, along 
 
56 
 
 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS, 
 
 the dirty, narrow passage leading to the street, alternately 
 by my loving mother and her friend, the " well-wisher." 
 I was not even allowed to return to the dressing-room for 
 my clothes, but was bundled into a hackney-coach, posted 
 ready at the stage-door for its victim, and driven home, 
 peated between my captors like a criminal in the custody of 
 the police. 
 
 The manner in which Hamlet avenged his father's 
 death in the absence of his deposed uncle on that particular 
 occasion, I am unable to inform the curious. I only know 
 that, under renewed threats of paternal communication, I 
 was ultimately induced to retire supperless to my solitary 
 bedchamber, where I lay awake half the night, reflecting on 
 my degradation, and on the result of my ignominious 
 
 " D^BUT ON THE StAGE." 
 
THE LATE CHARLES DILLON. 
 
 — :o: — 
 
 FEW, if indeed anyone, among my numerous theatrical 
 acquaintance, could relate an anecdote with the racy 
 humour of the late Charles Dillon. The reader's imagina- 
 tion must supply that deficiency in the following story. 
 
 When lessee of the SheflSeld Theatre in 1856, he was 
 applied to on one occasion for its use for an amateur 
 performance on behalf of some local charity. The play 
 was Julius Ccesar, all the dramatis persona being filled by 
 amateurs, save the Imperial victim of the Senate House, 
 who was personated by a Mr. Courte, a member of the 
 manager's stock company. The representative of Marc 
 Antony — a tradesman of the town — ^had a wholesome dread 
 lest his coming exhibition should reach the ears of his better- 
 half, who entertained an unconquerable aversion to his 
 appearing on the stage, and was, moreover, the grey mare 
 in the would-be Imperator's domestic minage. He conse- 
 quently assumed a nom de thedire, and strictly impressing on 
 his brother artists the necessity of maintaining the secret, 
 contrived to keep the cat in the bag successfully till the 
 night of performance arrived, when some goodnatured friend, 
 " on sport intent," gave Mrs. Marc Antony " the office " 
 shortly after her husband's departure for the theatre. 
 
 To don her most commanding toilette, follow him thither, 
 and compel his ignominious retreat was the matron's deci- 
 sion on the instant. She arrived just as Mr. Courte, as 
 Julius Caesar, had joined the majority, and was lying com- 
 fortably at the base of Pompey's statue. Marc Antony 
 stood by his side, arranging his toga in graceful folds, prior 
 
58 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 to requesting his deceased friend's forgiveness for his meek- 
 ness and gentleness towards the SheflSeld butchers who, 
 five minutes previously, had given him his quietus with 
 their celebrated town's bare bodkins. Swinging himself 
 round towards the prompt-side to obtain a graceful pose, 
 his eyes lighted on his conjugal partner, who, with bated 
 breath, but uplifted fist, was gesticulating at him in an atti- 
 tude unhappily too familiar to render hesitation on his part 
 a question of time. 
 
 Never was the stage of the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, 
 crossed in fewer strides by the most elastic of acrobats than 
 by Marc Antony, who — apparelledas hewas — was in the street 
 in a jifiy, only too pleased, by abandoning the arena, to 
 escape the chastisement his temerity had provoked. Though 
 the audience roared at his precipitate retreat, they were 
 ignorant of the cause, and waited some minutes for the play 
 to proceed. Their patience being exhausted, loud cries 
 arose for the manager, on which Mr. Dillon appeared, and 
 announced that the tragedy must come to an abrupt termi- 
 nation, as the return of the noble Roman to his post was 
 beyond even the pale of hope. . This was received with a 
 shout of dissent, and vociferous demands for the return of 
 the admission money. Dillon hesitated a moment, con- 
 sidering how best to quell the impending storm. Suddenly 
 he remembered that the prostrate Emperor was " up " in 
 the character of Antony, having played it to his own Brutus 
 only a few months ago. The idea struck him whether the 
 corpse might not be resuscitated, and so enabled to preach 
 Marc Antoriy's friendly oration over himself ! The fancy 
 tickled him,' and advancing to the footlights, he suggested 
 this to the audience as the only alternative to dropping the 
 curtain. They at once received the proposition with that 
 unanimity which Sheridan's Puff declares to be indigenous 
 to the theatre, and in reply to shouts of — "Now then, 
 Co'urte, lad ; up wi'e, and get to work," Julius Caesar sprang 
 to his feet, divested himself of the Imperial laurel wreath 
 and mantle, and^flung them ,on the stage, as representatives 
 of defunct Imperialism. Then, kneeling beside the gar- 
 ments, he raised his, hands heavenwards, and commenced 
 the celebrated oration, " Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding 
 
THE LATE CHARLES DILLON. 59 
 
 piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these 
 butchers ! " 
 
 Strange to say, and Dillon assured me of this as a fact, 
 so interested had the audience become in the development 
 of the story that, notwithstanding the absurdity of the 
 situation, the laughter subsided into silence after the first 
 few lines, and the tragedy was listened to to its close with 
 breathless attention. 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S LAST PLAY. 
 
 — :o: — 
 
 THE autumn of 1847 had far advanced, the Margate 
 steamers had ceased running for a fortnight, and the 
 wagonettes, promising tourists a trip round the Isle of 
 Thanet for half-a-crown, had all been taken off the road, 
 and the horses turned out to grass and rheumatism. 
 Drivers, with their attendant sprites, who travel all the 
 distance on the hind steps of the vehicle, had exchanged 
 their Jehu's attire for the fustian smock of tillers of the soil ; 
 and the ramshackle caravans, wherein these expeditions are 
 performed, had been many days since stowed away in moss- 
 roofed outbuildings and deserted livery stable -yards 
 till next year's genial spring. The bathing machines had 
 been removed from the lonely beach to secure them from 
 the damaging storms of approaching winter, and arranged 
 in long rows up side streets, looking like so many " Cheap 
 Jacks'" depositories camping out for the night on their 
 road to some neighbouring fair. In a word, the season had 
 gone, the year's holiday was at an end, and everyone was 
 preparing to get back to town and resume the business of 
 his everyday life. Many had lingered by the sad sea-shore 
 till the circulating medium had attained the extreme of 
 shabbiness, and rendered speedy return a matter of necessity, 
 while not a few among the many so situated were in a 
 labyrinth of perplexity as to how — when the happy hunting 
 ground was reached — the budget for the coming winter was 
 tobeframed so as adequately to provide the needful ways and 
 means. Without positively confessing myself amongst this 
 class, it would be sheer affectation to assert that my banking 
 
Shakespeare's last play. 6i 
 
 account boasted double numerals, or to deny that I had 
 not received a notification from the manager of "The 
 National Cockleshell Bank Company, Limited," suggesting 
 that more frequent visits to the " Pay in " counter of that 
 establishment would not be considered as intrusions. 
 
 Brooding on this intimation, and mentally reckoning up 
 the amount due to my landlord, the outstanding balance 
 to the butcher, the little " chalk " stuck up at the dairy, and 
 the arrears of the laundress's bill tor renovating cuffs and 
 shirt collars, my attention was directed, whilst sauntering up 
 Bow-street, to the window of a theatrical bookseller, then 
 (1847) in the proprietorship of one Edward Turner, and 
 numbered 37. In it were displayed a number of portraits 
 of histrions of a past generation ; old newspapers contain- 
 ing critiques on the debuts of bygone dramatic celebrities ; 
 playbills of first and final performances of almost forgotten 
 exponents of the Tragic and Comic Muses ; and a somewhat 
 extensive collection of old play-books, several of these of 
 such remote date as to claim the distinction of curios. 
 Amongst them was a dark blue paper covered pamphlet, 
 whose worn and greasy condition bore unmistakable 
 evidence of antiquity, and the title-page of which read as 
 follows : — " Double Falsehood ; or. The Distrest Lovers." A 
 Play as it is acted in the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane. 
 Written originally by W. Shakespeare ; and now revised 
 and adapted to the Stage by Mr. Theobald, the author of 
 "Shakespeare Restor'd." London: Printed by J. Watts, 
 at the Printing-office in Wild-court, Lincoln's-inn-fields. 
 MDCCXXViii. Then followed the cast of dramatis 
 personm on the night of the production ; the prologue and 
 epilogue spoken on the occasion ; a preface, explanatory of 
 how the MS. came into Mr. Theobald's possession, a 
 dedication to the Right Hon. George Dodington, begging 
 his patronage and protection for a work which it had been 
 the dedicator's happiness to rescue from obscurity and 
 restore to the stage, and, above all, Letters Patent of His 
 Majesty King George II. granted to Lewis Theobald, for 
 fourteen years to come. Here was an El Dorado; an 
 original play of the " Divine William " — his last production, 
 too — lost to the stage for 120 years, and last, though not by 
 
62 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 any means least, its authenticity guaranteed by the auto- 
 graph of a monarch ! Such an opportunity for the manu- 
 facture of a little " sugar " was not to be heedlessly thrown 
 aside. The invaluable treasure was ticketed, "The last 
 production of the immortal Shakespeare, 2s. 6d. only." I 
 at once entered the shop, and the gold mine was in my 
 hand, though before sinking a shaft I made a desperate 
 attempt to discount the sixpence, and induce the proprietor's 
 acceptance of " even money," but, finding that gentleman 
 inexorable, I flung the demi-dollar on the counter with a 
 bang, and walked off triumphantly with my prize. Having 
 communicated the lucky coup to a friend, an occasional 
 partner with me in theatrical speculations, we promptly 
 ■decided on the production of Double Falsehood on the 
 earliest available chance. 
 
 The opportunity soon came. The Theatre Royal 
 Olympic, then licensed to James Cann, of Cursitor-street, 
 Chancery-lane, was in the market, and we became " respon- 
 sible lessees " of that establishment for " one night only," 
 with the option of indefinite continuance should the public 
 trout accept the fly. We procured the insertion of short 
 paragraphs in some minor theatrical prints, wherein the 
 editorial " we " gave the playgoing world to understand 
 what a treat was in store for it, and shortly afterwards a 
 flaming playbill let the cat out of the bag in the following 
 interesting terms : — 
 
 Shakespeare's Last Play, 
 
 Theatre Royal Olympic, Wych-street, Drury-lane, 
 
 Licensed by the Lord Chamberlain to James Cann, 
 
 24, Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. 
 
 The public is respectfully informed that this Theatre, being 
 the only one at present accessible in the Metropolis, has been 
 taken by, a committee of gentlemen, for the purpose of 
 restoring to the stage a treasure which has been lost to it for 
 a period of a hundred-and-twenty years, viz. : — 
 
 The last production of the Immortal 
 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
Shakespeare's last play. 63 
 
 Discovered in MS., in the handwriting of Downes, the 
 famous prompter, sixty years after his death, by the cele- 
 brated Lewis Theobald, and by him presented to His 
 Majesty George I., in 1726, whose successor, George 
 II., in the ensuing year, approving its authenticity, 
 granted to its restorer His Royal Letters Patent for its 
 publication; who accordingly produced it at Drury-lane 
 Theatre forthwith ; embracing in its cast the names of 
 Booth, Wilks, and other celebrated actors of that day. 
 Its immense success and brilliant reception only received a 
 check in the lamented death of its patron, since which time 
 
 The Play has been lost to the world ! 
 
 A copy of it, with the King's Patent attached, having been 
 discovered, it has been determined to place it again before 
 the public, assisted by such talent as is at present available, 
 and in a manner not unworthy the fame of its immortal 
 author ! In accordance with this resolution, the above 
 commodious and elegant theatre will open on 
 
 Monday, November 22nd, 1847, 
 
 When will be presented, with new dresses, decorations, &c.. 
 
 By Mr. Nathan, of Tichbourne-street, 
 
 Shakespeare's last production, in five acts, entitled 
 
 Double Falsehood ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 The Distressed Lovers. 
 
 Then followed the cast, myself and friend of course sustain- 
 ing the two leading characters, the other parts being filled 
 by seedy professionals out of engagement, with a contingent 
 of subordinates from the amateur stage. Miss Fanny 
 Hamilton, who attained some popularity at the Olympic 
 under George Wild's management, was engaged for the 
 heroine, and Mrs. Graham, long associated with Sadler's 
 Wells, personated the second lady. The box-ofiSce was 
 opened a few days before the eventful Monday, and as an 
 
64 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS 
 
 allurement to visit it, a notice was appended to the play- 
 bill to the effect that applica.nts for four dress circle 
 tickets, or a private box (in plain language for the invest- 
 ment of a sovereign), would be favoured with a peep 
 at the play-book with the Royal Patent attached. This 
 dodge was sufficiently successful to " dot " the first two 
 rows of the boxes with curious or suspicious auditors, 
 besides disposing of two private ones to a suburban 
 schoolmaster whose pupils had clubbed together the where- 
 withal to witness the new play. The pedagogue having 
 persuaded the box book-keeper to allow him "just to glance " 
 at the Royal Patent attached, before investing his scholars' 
 two guineas, had more than half convinced himself that the 
 "get-up" was genuine, and hugged the delusion of the 
 Royal coat of arms as an orthodox hall-mark. 
 
 The 22nd November, 1847, arrived with almanack 
 punctuality ; the dull, gloomy day universally associated 
 with that month had terminated with a dense fog, through 
 which nevertheless it was not difficult to calculate the few 
 dozen individuals assembled round the pit and gallery 
 doors of the old Olympic, awaiting their opening at half- 
 past six. A buzz of conversation was going on amongst 
 them about the coming event, and as my friend and self, 
 before entering the stage-door, mingled with the group for 
 some minutes in the endeavour to ascertain its . tone, the 
 ominous epithets, " a get-up," " swindle," a " do," " hum- 
 bug," " another Ireland forgery," &c., were unpleasantly 
 audible, and gave fearful presage of a looming storm. 
 
 "There'll be a row to-night. Bill," whispered my partner, as 
 we withdrew; "before you go in to dress, run in front and tell 
 George to be sure and bring round the first price receipts 
 all over the house the moment the first act drop's down." 
 
 The theatre was nearly half full, the " free list " being 
 extensively patronised, and the recipients of its hospitality 
 judiciously distributed from floor to roof, to lead the 
 applause and ensure, if possible, the success of the spec. All 
 the clocks in the neighbourhood had a full half hour ago 
 proclaimed the advent of seven, the stated hour for com- 
 mencement, and an additional strain had been put upon the 
 orchestra in the shape of a popular set of quadrilles, as a 
 
Shakespeare's last play. 65 
 
 supplement to a lengthy overture, in order to quell the 
 impatience that was every moment becoming more pro- 
 nounced by the clattering of sticks and umbrellas, and 
 above which was unmistakably discernible that wheezing, 
 sibilant sound actors are wont to connect with the 
 Michaelmas bird. 
 
 At last the curtain was raised, and for " The interior of 
 a Royal Palace in Andalusia, in Spain," a country at the 
 period of the play in the zenith of its magnificence, 
 appeared a pair of " flats " representing a modern drawing- 
 Toom, the centre panel almost of a neutral tint, from 
 contact with the dirty hands of the numberless scene- 
 shifters who had " run them on " for the last — I won't say 
 how many years. A titter, with difficulty repressed by the 
 «'sh, 'sh's," "Silence!" "Down in front!" &c., of our 
 friends, expanded into a boisterous guffaw as Duke 
 Angelo and Roderick, his son, stalked on attended by 
 a couple of courtiers (amateurs), one of whom in recog- 
 nition of " Hallo, Jim ! " addressed to him by a youth in 
 the pit, deliberately singled out his friend and returned the 
 salutation with, " All right, old boy," and a familiar nod of 
 the head. I was standing beside the prompter ready for 
 my entrance in the next scene, and can vividly remember, 
 even at this lapse of years, the effect this sally produced, 
 and recall the sudden sinking of my hopes as the con- 
 viction flashed across me that the game was up, and 
 Double Falsehood an irretrievably gone coon. The scene — 
 a short one — over, a cloth was let down, and "open 
 country with village in distance " took its place. No little 
 hilarity had possessed the audience at the contretemps just 
 described, and I congratulated myself that Camillo, my 
 stage parent, had a soliloquy of some twenty lines to deliver 
 before my appearance, which might modify their drollery, 
 and take the rough edge off the chaffl 
 
 The reception usually accorded to the leading character 
 was condescendingly vouchsafed, and the scene proceeded 
 midst such growing silence that I was rapidly persuading 
 myself my powers (of which I don't mind now confessing I 
 then entertained no contemptible opinion) must ultimately 
 silence the jokers and master the discontents. But Mr. 
 
 F 
 
66 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 Theobald's Shakespeare had put into his hero's (Julio's) 
 mouth some unfortunate words, and these afforded excuse 
 for further ridicule. Miss Fanny Hamilton (Violante) was 
 a lady to whom Nature had been no niggard in the matter 
 of flesh and muscle, as she scaled about fourteen stone, and 
 her appearance in the following act, in the disguise of a 
 shepherd boy, attired in light green-coloured pants, was the 
 signal for a fresh outburst, that reached its climax when she 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " How his eyes shake fire, and measure every piece of youth 
 about me." 
 
 The audience was now thrown entirely out of balance, 
 and all hope of attention and enlisting further interest in 
 the story at an end. To add to our chagrin, the half-price, 
 admitted at the close of the third act, brought a fresh con- 
 tingent of lively youth, not at all slow in imbibing the spirit 
 of the earlier arrivals, nor in contributing their quota to the 
 fun. As scene succeeded scene, no opportunity was 
 allowed to escape where the dialogue gave an opening for 
 badinage, or was capable of double entendre, and as the drama, 
 written in a coarse age, presented many such chances, it 
 may be readily imagined what desperate uphill work it was 
 for the performers to preserve decent gravity and play- the 
 tragedy to its close. 
 
 At length the curtain fell, long previous to which George, 
 acting upon our oft-reiterated instructions, had brought the 
 entire receipts to the dressing-room my friend and self had 
 appropriated to ourselves. Though not the enormous 
 gold mine we had anticipated, it was large enough to reim- 
 burse the outlay, and leave a little to the good, and we 
 were deliberating whether to retain the bird-in-hand, or 
 invest it in renting the theatre another night, when loud 
 shouts of laughter, mingled with slight applause, and a cry 
 of " Manager," reached our ears. Rushing to the first 
 entrance, the cause of the merriment was soon explained. 
 Some wag in the pit had raised the cry of " Author," and 
 the idea so tickled the audience that the majority refused 
 to leave without a response being made to the call. This 
 jeu d'esprit put the nightcap upon all notion of attempting 
 a second performance, but determined to die game, my 
 
Shakespeare's last play. 67 
 
 friend hurried to the green-room, where on a rickety shelf 
 over the fireplace figured a life-size plaster bust of the 
 Immortal Bard. Hastily reaching it down, covered with 
 dust an inch thick which he did not wait to remove, he 
 strode majestically on the stage and held it out to the 
 audience. Such a peal of laughter greeted this audacity 
 as completely drowned the indignant hisses of a few 
 reverential malcontents, the fun being capped by the leader 
 of the orchestra, who, mounting his music-stool with stoical 
 gravity, approvingly patted the bald pate of the poet with 
 the end of his fiddle-bow. And thus ended our stage 
 representation of Shakespeare's Last Play. (See 
 FrontispUce^ 
 
 F 2 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 
 
 ■:o: — 
 
 " "T) ILL ! " suddenly exclaimed a deep-toned, resonant 
 
 Ij voice to the writer of this history, " what do you 
 say to a theatrical spec, and a week's acting in the 
 country ? '"' 
 
 " Where and when ?" was the rejoinder. 
 
 " Why Easter week at Woolwich ; the theatre's to be had 
 for about a fiver, we'd open with a drama, and I could get 
 Grammani and old Hartland, the pantaloon, to vamp up a 
 pantomime, and take a share in the venture." 
 
 " It's a thing to be thought of," I replied ; and forthwith 
 a colloquy was commenced as to the proposed lesseeship 
 and management of the speculation. 
 
 It was in a small, ill-lit, ill-whitewashed, and ill-ventilated 
 parlour at the back of the shop. No. i6. New-street, Covent- 
 garden, that the foregoing conversation took place one 
 Sunday morning in the spring of 1847, between Mr. Charles 
 Shum Gould Gilbert, the proprietor, and myself. 
 
 Gilbert (a nom de theatre) was an illegitimate offspring 
 of a Colonel Shum Gould, an officer in the army, who 
 served with some distinction in a cavalry regiment under 
 Wellington in the Peninsular War. Being seriously wounded 
 at the battle of Vittoria in 1813, and believing himself 
 about to join the majority, the Colonel confided to a brother 
 officer, a bosom friend of his youth, the responsibility of 
 educating his son Charles, then a child of seven or eight 
 years, until of a suitable age to be apprenticed to some 
 respectable trade. The foster father of the future boot- 
 maker, theatrical amateur, and lessee of the Royalty Theatre 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 69 
 
 in the years 1852, '53, and '54 — then known as "Miss 
 Kelly's " — carried out the trust of his friend in the most 
 cheeseparing and parsimonious style. He entertained the 
 idea, indigenous to that age, that a youth whose future 
 energies were to be devoted to " trade " had little need of 
 further education than is comprised in the three R's, and 
 consequently young Gould was packed off to a beggarly 
 day school in the neighbourhood of Long Acre, for the 
 acquirement of this erudition, and a small sum paid regularly 
 to an elderly female, residing in Little Compton-street, for 
 his lodging, clothing, and weekly maintenance. The boy 
 was endowed with a natural aptness and quickness of per- 
 ception unusual in a child of his years, and having little 
 attention paid him by the aged custodian, whose sympathies 
 did not extend beyond the punctual collection of the allow- 
 ance, became instinctively observant of what was passing 
 around him, and noticed how children of his age amused 
 their play hours, when destitute of that museum of toys 
 which ornaments the nursery or schoolroom of the wealthier 
 class. His mind took an early dramatic bias, and not con- 
 tent with white satining the trousers of the British sailor, 
 or tinselling the " Pirate of the Seas " till his person was 
 armed to the teeth like a porcupine, and looked as impene- 
 trable as an armadillo, he accompanied the performance of 
 these pasteboard characters on the stage of his home-made 
 playhouse with appropriate dialogue ; thus early acquiring 
 that distinctness of utterance and vivacity of gesture which 
 gave life and sprightliness to his conversation, and distinc- 
 tive colouring to the many amusing reminiscences of his 
 youth that he was wont to relate so vividly up to a ripe old 
 age. Occasional visits to the galleries of the minor theatres 
 fostered his elocutionary taste, and made him a staunch 
 believer in the autocracy of lungs ; for the dramas of that 
 day bristled with national and moral sentiments, and the 
 hero or heroine was always looked upon as more or less 
 patriotic or virtuous in proportion to the strength of his or 
 her organs of respiration. 
 
 At the age of thirteen the lad was apprenticed to a boot- 
 maker, a nominal premium for the privilege having been 
 paid by his guardian to a professor of that craft, and with 
 
7© BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 this man alone for companion, the poor boy passed several 
 years, working all day in a dismal cellar, lighted only through 
 a grating in the street, and sleeping in a tumbledown garret 
 — the bedchamber also of his master — on a trestle camp 
 bedstead, the gift of his military protector. The cord- 
 wainer was a hard taskmaster, never dreaming of relaxa- 
 tion for himself or pupil ; he lived in a style no pauper of 
 the present day would submit to without abusing the Bum- 
 bledom of the Union, or invoking the assistance of the 
 Sunday Press ; and when the labours of the day were over, 
 and the frugal meal despatched — usually consisting of bread 
 and Dutch cheese, and never rising beyond the dignity of a 
 dried herring — he would light up his pipe, and persist in 
 reading aloud to the lad till the bedtime hour arrived, Tom 
 Paine's "Age of Reason," Mirabeau's "System of Nature," 
 or some similar philosophic and atheistic work. Little 
 wonder that, thus deprived of all social intercourse, the 
 boy's manners were brusque and his person slovenly ; still, 
 his mind, naturally well given, yearned to break away from 
 such bondage, and to mix in scenes and acquire habits 
 more congenial to its bent. The opportunity arrived. The 
 death of his master cancelling his indenture of apprentice- 
 ship, he transferred his services to another translator of 
 soles, with whom he resided in Red Lion-street, Holborn, 
 and a friendship quickly took root between the new asso- 
 ciates. Here books were at his command, works both of 
 instruction and amusement, and the young man's leisure 
 hours were spent principally in perusal of the former, the 
 purpose and endeavour of his studies being the acquisition 
 of such knowledge as would ultimately sever his connection 
 with leather and prunella. Young Gould's frugality, steadi- 
 ness, and perseverance so gained upon his employer, that, 
 after some years, he being then an old man without chick or 
 child to provide for, he made over the business to his pro- 
 t^g^, under an agreement providing that the stock-in-trade 
 should be paid for by easy instalments from the profits. 
 Some time afterwards, the house in Red Lion-street being 
 required for parochial improvements, Mr. Gould was bought 
 out by the Board of Works, and, though not in accordance 
 with his taste, which looked towards the stage as his 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 7 1 
 
 future profession with a longing eye, his prudence got 
 the better of his will, and he invested the proceeds of 
 the sale of his business in purchasing the lease of the boot 
 and shoe establishment in New-street, where the reader 
 made his acquaintance in the opening words of our tale. 
 
 Here he gave free rein to his dramatic penchant, there 
 being scarcely a week in the twelvemonth wherein his name 
 did not figure in the bill of some metropolitan or suburban 
 theatre. If a benefit for a decayed veteran actor was sug- 
 gested as feasible on some minor stage, Mr, Gilbert was 
 the hero of the evening, in consideration of his disposing 
 of a certain number of tickets. If the Greenwich, Ken- 
 sington, or Richmond Theatre was in the market for a 
 season of three or six nights, Charles at once became its 
 pro tern, proprietor. The dingy parlour at the back of the 
 shop — all the rest of the house being let off — served at 
 once as his breakfast and dining-room, library, and bed- 
 chamber, the latter, a unique arrangement on the top of 
 an antiquated oak wardrobe, some nine feet high, and two 
 in width, to which access was obtained by transferring from 
 the shop the ten-step ladder that served, during business 
 hours, to reach down " stock " from the upper shelves. 
 
 On Sunday mornings, from the hour of eleven till one, when 
 the opening of the public houses caused an interval, and not 
 unfrequently an exodus of the conclave, this gloomy apart- 
 ment was the acknowledged rendezvous of dramatic 
 amateurs — the trysting-place of youthful aspirants desirous 
 of figuring in coming displays, and prepared to part with 
 the savings of the last two months' pocket-money for that 
 seductive privilege; and a kind of club-room for older 
 stagers on the look-out for a similar opportunity, should 
 anything like a decent character turn up on the free list. 
 Pipes and coffee — the latter delicacy manufactured and 
 served out by Mr. Gilbert in person, at twopence per cup, 
 "just to cover expenses " — accompanied these Sabbatarian 
 reunions j and here performances were arranged, characters 
 distributed, first rehearsals gone through, and the tickets, 
 which the proprietor had taken from the veteran b'en'eficiaire, 
 re-issued to the novice at no trifling percentage. 
 
 Let us now hark back to the eventful Sunday morning 
 
72 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 in the spring of 1847. Mr. Gilbert briefly explained that 
 the Woolwich Theatre was in hand, and that to open it for 
 the Easter week was to discover a mine of wealth old 
 Croesus himself might have coveted, and to furnish a fund 
 of amusement for ourselves compared to which the familiar 
 "happy day" at Rosherville was positive torture. The cata- 
 logue of third-rate professional actors out of an engagement, 
 and of first-rate amateur ones assiduously in search of such 
 bondage, was run through in a jiffy; the pieces for the first 
 three nights then and there proposed and decided on, and 
 Gilbert was to look up the pantomimists before-named, and 
 endeavour to enlist their services in forming a common- 
 wealth. This was done, and the company materially 
 strengthened by the addition of W, H. Ridgway and his 
 sister as harlequin and columbine. Every pantomimic 
 clown of that day, whatever his vocal deficiency, was required 
 to favour his audience with a song soon after he assumed 
 the motley, and it suddenly flashed across Grammani's 
 recollection that George Bolton, the Olympic lessee, boasted 
 amongst his numerous stage properties a wicker-work 
 donkey ! — A brother zany had warbled " Hot Codlings " 
 and " Tipperty-witchet " thus mounted in an East-end 
 pantomime the preceding Christmas, and he knew a large 
 number of the gay-coloured posters that adorned the 
 Whitechapel walls at that season representing him in the act, 
 still remained on hand, and were procurable for a tithe of 
 their original cost. Here was a brilliant idea ! "MyGeeWoh 
 and my Granny ! " The consistency of this ditty, when 
 delivered d. chival, would extinguish the fame of the time- 
 honoured apple song, and cast " Tipperty-witchet " into the 
 shade for ever. 
 
 About this time an exhibition of Poses Plastiques was 
 very popular at the Walhalla in Leicester-square, the present 
 site of the Empire Theatre, and it was agreed, as a 
 canny policy, to engage a small troupe of male and female 
 artists (?), and transfer — at least on the bills — the living 
 sculpture of the Hall of Rome from the metropolitan 
 Acropolis to the Woolwich boards. Exhibitions of this 
 kind were then in their infancy, and, like the Minstrels of 
 the present day, " never performed out of London." To 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 73 
 
 provide a revolving table for the classic groups was beyond 
 even the pale of hope, but the deficit was more than 
 counterbalanced by the reflection that the crafty stratagem 
 imposed on the costumier, of adapting his limited stock of 
 statuary fleshings to the anatomy of the scratch Gods and 
 Goddesses, would be less apparent to the audience in 
 mythological statu quo, than if presented all round under 
 a dazzling lime-light. 
 
 All being prepared, huge posters announcing the opening 
 night of the Theatre Royal, Woolwich, during Easter week, 
 "under entirely new management," were entrusted to 
 the local bill-sticker to be displayed all over the town, sur- 
 mounted in each case, by a flaming cartoon of a life-size 
 clown on a full-size donkey, so as to arouse the enthusiasm of 
 the garrison town for the recherche treat in store for them. 
 
 Easter Sunday morning, at eleven o'clock, the company 
 were to be assembled on the landing-stage at the foot of 
 London-bridge, and proceed to the happy hunting-ground 
 by the Woolwich steamboat. Punctual as a German brass 
 band before your hotel door at the seaside breakfast-hour, 
 all were on the spot as the clock struck. One face alone 
 bore traces ofhaste and disappointment : it was Grammani's. 
 He had deferred, till the day of departure, obtaining possession 
 of the property donkey so obligingly loaned by the Olympic 
 lessee, and on presenting himself at an early hour at the 
 stage-door for the treasure, he found the hall-keeper as 
 obdurate as a sheriff's oflScer. Mr. Bolton had neglected 
 to leave instructions for its delivery, and the clown's 
 eloquence was inadequate to induce him to swerve from 
 his duty. A proposal to run back to town for it on the 
 Monday was negatived, by the impossibility of anyone's 
 absence from rehearsal on that morning, and a successful 
 mode of dealing with the dilemma formed the topic of 
 discussion, till all were landed safely at the Woolwich Dock- 
 yard Pier. Here the troupe broke up into small knots, 
 each proceeding to the selection of quarters suitable to 
 their taste, or, to speak more truthfully, to their pockets. 
 Our party put up at a humble hostelry in Beresford-street, 
 immediately opposite the theatre, and a contract was at 
 once concluded with the landlord, for bed and board for 
 
74 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 half-a-dozen persons for a stated daily sum. By way of 
 sampling the fare, dinner was to be got ready without delay j 
 and, that disposed of, the manager and a few friends saun- 
 tered leisurely, pipe in mouth, along the road that leads to 
 Blackheath-common, the donkey difficulty being uppermost 
 in the mind of everyone, as each coign of vantage passed 
 on the way exhibited his portrait , in chamelion hues. A 
 boy driving lazily forward a small herd of these animals 
 was a few score yards in our van. 
 
 " I say, Charley," exclaimed one of the party, dealing 
 Mr. Gilbert a smart smack on the shoulder by way of 
 emphasizing his discovery, " blowed if I don't see a way 
 out of the donkey hobble. Why not have a live one for 
 Graramani to-morrow night ? " 
 
 " By Jove ! Bill," replied the impressario, returning the 
 whack with an interest that would have made the eyes of a 
 money-lender twinkle, " you've hit it. Holloa, you boy ! " 
 he shouted to the driver of the team, and in another minute 
 that functionary and the Woolwich lessee were standing 
 side by side. 
 
 " I want to hire one of those donkeys, my boy, for to- 
 morrow night." 
 
 " Sixpence a hour. Sir ; 'ave which you likes." 
 " That big one looks the best ; I want him for the clown 
 at the theatre." 
 
 " Sixpence a hour, Sir, as long as you likes." 
 " He won't be wanted above ten minutes." 
 "Sixpence a hour, Sir; we can't take no less." 
 The price and the hour were so stereotyped on the lad's 
 mind that to separate them was a hopeless task ; so the 
 hour of ten on the morrow night, and the sum of sixpence 
 absolutely, were stipulated for boy and beast's attendance 
 at the stage-door of what the former resolutely persisted in 
 designating " the play 'us." The attractions offered to the 
 Woolwich public on this memorable Easter Monday con- 
 sisted of Maturin's tragedy of Bertram, pared down into 
 three acts, the Poses Plastiques Exhibition, from — very far 
 from — the Hall of Rome, and the grand comic pantomime 
 of Harlequin Little Red Riding Hood; or, Rodolph the 
 Wolf. 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 75 
 
 It was a pitiless night, the rain coming down in torrents, 
 and the wind rushing along the street with a violence it was 
 diflScult to withstand. The entrance to boxes, pit, and 
 gallery nearly adjoining each other, made the visitants 
 assembled at the doors appear no contemptible crowd, and 
 the hearts of the commonwealth company beat high with 
 anticipation, as they hurried down the dark and dirty narrow 
 passage beside the theatre conducting to the stage entrance. 
 It was verging on eight o'clock ; the drop had just fallen on 
 the first act of Bertram, and that romantic hero was stand- 
 ing at the prompt wing, complimenting the dark-haired 
 little girl who enacted Imogine's child on the way she had 
 coB^ported herself in the scene just concluded. Through 
 the shrill whistle of the wind, and the patter of the rain on 
 the skylight, a loud rat-tat was heard at the back. 
 
 " Bill," said Bertram to St. Aldobrand, who was standing 
 by his side, " run and see who's that at the door." In 
 obedience to the order the bolt was drawn, when boy and 
 donkey, both miserably drenched, were scarcely recognis- 
 able in the darkness. "We shan't want you these two 
 hours ; come again at ten o'clock." " Please let's come in, 
 master, we're so wet; I shan't charge yer on'y the 
 sixpence." 
 
 The good St. Aldobrand yielded to the appeal and 
 admitted boy and beasl^_ strictly admonishing the former 
 to remain perfectly stilt at the extreme back of the stage. 
 
 The second act of the tragedy was drawing to a close. 
 Bertram had discovered the faithlessness of Imogine by 
 that lady's open confession of her espousal with his rival, in 
 order, as she filially put it, " to save a famishing father ; " 
 and the hero of the night, artistically swathed in a blood- 
 red shirt, decorated with squares of brass the size of window 
 panes, to tinkle and make him look savage, was pointing 
 out to his distracted inamorata, in measured blank verse, 
 the ruthless manner in which he would anatomize her 
 husband by way of revenge for her cruel infidelity. St. 
 Aldobrand stood at the O. F. wing, sword in hand, awaiting 
 his dissection, after clinking weapons for a few minutes with 
 the desperate Bertram, to let the audience know, as they 
 were unable to see his swordmanship, what a devil of a 
 
76 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 fellow he was, and how obstinately he defended the path- 
 way to his heart. The breathless silence of the audience 
 enabled the donkey proprietor to catch the louder portion 
 of the dialogue, and in his anxiety to see what was going 
 on, he had crept gently past each wing till he and his beast 
 of burden stood actually cheek by jowl with the gallant 
 knight. Bertram espied the intruders from the stage, and 
 the hour of the night, the contract with the boy, and the pro- 
 bable expansion of sixpence into at least a florin, flashed 
 across his economic mind, and intermingled with the 
 dialogue thus : — 
 
 Bertram {looking off). Ha ! Those felon slaves are come — 
 He shall not perish by their ruffian 
 
 hands. 
 Mine be the task to slake his life's 
 heart blood ! 
 {Exit O. P. to sacrifice St. Aldohrand^ 
 
 St. Aldobrand {within). Off, villain, off! 
 
 ( Violent clash of swords.) 
 
 Bertram {aside to Boy). Why the devil did you come so 
 early? (To. St. Aldobrand.) Die, villain, die! {Con^ 
 
 tinuous clash of swords.) {To Boy.) By G I'll only 
 
 pay you sixpence. 
 
 Boy. All right, master. {Swords still clashing.) 
 
 St. Aldobrand. Oh, 1 am slain ! oh, oh ! 
 
 Bertram. This to thy soul, for I am Bertram. {To stage 
 carpenter.) George, turn the d — d beast into the road, and 
 pop the boy in the gallery. ( To St. Aldobrand.) Bill, go 
 in, and give 'em a back fall. 
 
 St. Aldobrand staggered on mortally wounded, and gave 
 the required tumble amidst a torrent of applause. Bertram 
 followed, and planting his left foot on the body, pointed 
 his bloody sword to the border lights in approved melo- 
 dramatic fashion, whilst the donkey, at this critical moment, 
 stalking leisurely in from the wing, proceeded to examine 
 the cotton velvet trunks of the defunct St. Aldobrand as 
 the act drop slowly descended. The play was virtually 
 over, as the shouts of laughter could not be repressed, and 
 rendered the final scenes little else than dumb show. 
 
 An hour had elapsed, a set of quadrilles had been played 
 
The death ofSiAlcbbnind. 
 
A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE. 79 
 
 through, and the Poses Plastiques Exhibition had com- 
 menced. Ajax had defied the electric fluid with his usual 
 coolness and impertinence, the Roman had put his sandal 
 to rights according to the classic model, and the female 
 artist number two had gracefully grasped the waists of the 
 two Roman warriors, as the youngest of the three Horatii 
 who, as we all know, were such terrible Turks about the 
 year 667 b.c. The fourth tableau was called. The repre- 
 sentative of " Innocence " was a perfect novice to the stage, 
 and vastly addicted to that terrible vice from which even 
 the staid Lady Macbeth was not entirely exempt. As Mr. 
 Blanchard once wittily remarked of a similar Goddess of 
 Love, she seemed rather to have sprung from " the scum of 
 the earth " than the mythological "' froth of the sea." She 
 had endeavoured to fortify herself for her task by repeated 
 appeals to hot rum and water during the evening, and long 
 before the time for her appearance on the platform had got 
 — to put it mildly — toleraWy braced up. With enormous 
 difficulty and extreme caution, her matronly figure had been 
 persuaded into a set of fleshings intended for a nymph of 
 sweet seventeen, and the tension of the silk had been put 
 to a severe test, to accommodate the fleshy burden it 
 enclosed. As the Woolwich playhouse did not possess a 
 "property" dove for "Innocence " to cuddle, a live pigeon 
 from an adjoining bird-fancier's shop had been procured as 
 a substitute, and was now placed in the hands of the 
 drunken lady, who, being just about to mount the platform, 
 renewed her application to the Wedderburn, and pronounced 
 herself " all right." Gingerly did the unsteady statue ascend 
 the three whitewashed steps, lest the fragile texture should 
 let go a reef, and so betray its trust. Hush ! it's all right ; 
 she's landed safe, and posed. 
 
 " Now keep steady, my dear," said the prompter, " and 
 don't take your eyes off the pigeon." 
 
 The bell rings, and the curtain is raised. The glare of 
 the footlights and the novelty of her position at once made 
 the statue uneasy, and she lost her pose by a sudden jerk, 
 in endeavouring to retain the bird, who was making furious 
 eflforts to regain his freedom. He succeeded in a few 
 seconds, and flew round the theatre to the frantic delight of 
 
8o BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 its occupants. This ^asco, the woman's trepidation, and the 
 hot rum and water combined, made a rapid dinouement 
 manifest ; she hiccoughed, and Gilbert saw at a glance the 
 supreme moment was at hand. 
 
 " Ring down, for God's sake ! " he roared to the prompter, 
 and the summons was instantly obeyed, but the tinkle of 
 the little bell was lost to the man in the " flies " by reason 
 of the roar in front ; and the fair-haired " Innocence," 
 helplessly drunk, fell flop upon the platform before it was 
 possible to get the curtain to the ground. No more Poses 
 Plastiques were attempted that night, and the pantomime 
 of Harlequin Little Red Riding Hood wound up this Easter 
 Monday's Memorable Performance. 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL. 
 
 •:o: — 
 
 THEATRES, like men, manners, and maggots, obey 
 the universal law of change. The rustic, emanci- 
 pated from the plough tail, having accepted Her Gracious 
 Majesty's shilling bounty, becomes transformed, in the 
 course of a few months, into that magnificent scarlet-coated 
 defender of his country's shores which the British taxpayer 
 admires on parade, and towards whose support and creature 
 comforts he contributes so liberally from his larder, through 
 the agency of his domestic servants. Manners, so primi- 
 tive, untutored, and gaucke in early youth, that the man of 
 middle age blushes within himself at the bare remembrance 
 of their former ownership are, by the mellowing influence of 
 his surroundings, and the humanizing flux of time, gradually 
 metamorphosed into that easy grace and polished bearing 
 which characterise the well-bred man ; till, having arrived at 
 that period of life, when the looking-glass is little consulted, 
 and bear's grease, as an acting ingredient, has been thrown 
 aside in disgust, the acquired accomplishments sit as easily 
 upon him as his swallow-tail coat, and he appears, to the 
 casual observer, so completely to the manner born, as to 
 have matriculated in gentility from his cradle, and imbibed 
 his mien and haviour from a pap-boat with his mother's 
 milk. And doth not the despised maggot — the reptile dis- 
 tasteful to the eye of refinement, and offensive to man's 
 sensitive nose — go through the same process of mutation, 
 and pass from its fleshy, dingy-coloured larva state into the 
 gaudy, dazzling butterfly, soaring into air on its rainbow- 
 tinted wings, disdainful of the vile earth whence it sprung? 
 If, then, Nature's works are subject to this transitory and 
 ever towering flight, what wonder that puny man, in the 
 
 a 
 
82 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 furtherance of his handiwork, seeks to follow in the foot- 
 steps of his great Original, and that the motto of his daily 
 life should be the proud "Excelsior?" 
 
 And to what, pray, inquires the gentle reader, may all 
 this trite philosophy point ? Simply, Messieurs et Dames, I 
 reply, to the '(ropular little theatre in the Strand, the bonny 
 bandbox of a house now so ably presided over by its 
 respected proprietress, Mrs. Swanborough, and which, since 
 its establishment, as the New Strand Theatre some half a 
 century ago, has undergone all the gradations of butterfly 
 life, and been subject to every vicissitude and change of 
 the puppets in a fantoccini show. 
 
 At the time of our tale its destinies were directed by a 
 gentleman whom, on de mortuis nil nisi bonum principle, we 
 shall christen Mr. Schott Corayns. This impressario had 
 contrived, during a short summer season, by sundry cunning 
 devices, to keep the portals of his dramatic temple ajar ; to 
 say " open" would be a misnomer, for under various pre-' 
 tences, such as " Closed for a night rehearsal of the new 
 piece," or " In consequence of the sudden indisposition of 
 Miss or Mr. Stopgap," the severity of whose attack was 
 guaranteed by the dummy certificate of a bogus physician,, 
 three or four nights only in each week were devoted to 
 public entertainments. Entertainment, by the way, is a 
 term of grace, accorded by custom to stage exhibitions of 
 all kinds, without reference to their quality, or the amount 
 of amusement they afford. 
 
 By such stratagems as these Comyns managed to hold 
 on like grim death through the sultry summer weather, 
 though it were vain to deny the peregrinations of the ghost . 
 on " treasury days " were often limited to the shortest and 
 most ambling of promenades, in the hope that the lengthen- 
 ing shadows of autumnal days would bring more grist to the 
 mill, and enable him, at the approach of winter, to vamp 
 up some festive hodge-podge wherewith to rega]e his patrons 
 at Christmas time. 
 
 Dodge after dodge did Mr. S. C. resort to for "extra"- 
 and " special " nights. Charities, ignorant to this day, so far 
 as regards any addition to their funds of such advantages, 
 were credited with benefit after benefit under this mag- 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL. 83 
 
 nanimous manager's rule ; patrons, to whom the very 
 existence of the little theatre was a myth, figured at the 
 head of the playbills, as giving their presence with their 
 patronage on "this particular occasion ;" actors, unable to 
 pursue their professional duties, through severe accidents or 
 chronic maladies, appealed to a generous and sympathising 
 public, times out of mind after their fractured limbs had 
 been " reduced," and the discarded crutches converted into 
 broom-handles, and when their inveterate disorders had long 
 yielded to pill or potion, and the anti-rheumatic flannel vest 
 been exchanged for spangled " fly " or tinselled tunic ; and 
 on one occasion, driven to his wit's end, and as a forlorn 
 hope, the hat having been sent round so repeatedly, that 
 the glimmer of a doubt was perceptible in front of the 
 curtain, as to the bona fides of these constant ruses, the name 
 of the senior churchwarden of St. Clement Danes — the 
 jovial Boniface of a neighbouring " pub." — was utilised as 
 having taken the theatre for one night only, with the chari- 
 table object of raising a fund for the deserving widow of a 
 Clare Market butcher, in the last stage of consumption, 
 whose sufferings and distress were known to — and we may 
 fairly surmise only to — the church ofhcials and the Strand 
 lessee. 
 
 It was one of these special nights, to quote the authority 
 of the playbill, whose reputation for veracity, as all the 
 world knows, is unimpeachable, that Mr. Schott Comyns 
 had set aside for his third annual benefit that season. 
 Impecunious lessees employ the term " annual " in connec- 
 tion with their benefit nights promiscuously, and quite apart 
 from any significance it may bear to the orthodox calendar. 
 To the needy one these adjectives and substantives are as 
 inseparable as smoke from fire, and as much a part of the bill 
 of fare as a pea of its pod. True, it is that, when brought 
 face to face with the Basinghall-street Commissioner, it was 
 Mr. Comyns' wont to attribute his present hopeless state of 
 insolvency to a series of these unfortunate rallyings of his 
 friends; but whether the receipts on such occasions 
 warranted the statement, or whether it was a mere coup 
 de ihedtre of the " cannie mon " to induce his creditors' 
 acceptance of a one and eightpenny dividend, in lieu of the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS, 
 
 Standard golden token of the realm to which they were 
 legally entitled, is a conundrum at whose solution it would 
 be ungracious to hazard a guess. In fact, there exists so 
 much legerdemain in things dramatic, both before and 
 behind the curtain, that an outsider is posed to detect the 
 jugglery, and explain how the strings are pulled. 
 
 These managerial benefits were worked in divers ways, 
 no unusual plan being to obtain the support and assistance, 
 or — to speak by the card — in the majority of cases the 
 assistance without the support, of some recently-formed 
 amateur club who, unwilling — like Thespis of old — to begin 
 in a cart, was ambitious of giving the public a taste of its 
 quality on the boards of a regular theatre. When such 
 services were not procurable collectively, a performance was 
 organised for the debut of some aspiring Hamlet or Mac- 
 beth, Mr. Comyns undertaking, with self-sacrificing gene- 
 rosity, to provide the entire dramatis persontz from his 
 extensive professional and amateur corps. 
 
 A neophyte Richard III. having been secured, in the 
 person of a Mr. Howard Gordon, whose resources, by 
 severe squeezing, yielded the metallic strain, Shakespeare's 
 tragedy of that name was announced in due form, the 
 entire arrangement of production being entrusted by that 
 gentleman, with the unsuspecting confidence of youth, to 
 the manager's well-tried experience and diplomacy. The 
 budding Duke of Gloster, having only donned the buskin 
 in a few subordinate characters in private, urged the neces- 
 sity of numerous rehearsals, but Mr. C, while admitting 
 such advantages, pointed out the inseparable expense, and 
 conscientiously considered the number might safely be 
 reduced in exact ratio with the limits of the Royal Prince's 
 treasury ; but as the porte-monnaie of the scion of the 
 House of York had already been tested to its utmost 
 tension in furnishing the ten pound deposit— for Comyns 
 remained inflexible as granite to the suggestion of a " fiver " 
 standing over against the receipts of the night — nothing 
 remained for him but to bow to circumstances, and submit 
 to the exigencies of an ill-lined purse. 
 
 " Take my word, Mr. Gordon," said the manager, when 
 the tyro's last sou had been extracted, " and I speak with 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL. '85 
 
 the authority of a lengthened experience, one good 
 rehearsal is better — infinitely better — than half-a-dozetl 
 imperfect ones. We'll have everybody here. I'll make the 
 ' call ' for half-past ten, so that if we find any little hitch 
 among the supers we can run over the scene a second 
 time." 
 
 "But," said the youth with diffidence, and only half 
 assured, "Richard the Third is a very full piece, Mr. 
 Comyns, and for the credit of the theatre, I think " 
 
 " Make your mind perfectly easy on that account," re- 
 plied the manager ; " you may depend upon that being my 
 very first consideration." 
 
 " I am afraid," pursued Mr. Gordon as a last effort, and 
 assuming the suasive tone intended for Lady Anne in his 
 courtship, " you rely too much upon me. I am letter per- 
 fect in the words, but some of my ' business ' may require 
 explanation to the ladies and gents in the throne scene." 
 
 "You can trust implicitly to the gentlemen," remon- 
 strated Mr. Comyns, with a somewhat reproachful emphasis 
 on the last syllable. " Everybody in the cast has played 
 the character before. Sir, and one word to an experienced 
 actor is enough. As for the ladies, the Duchess of York is 
 a matron, and the mother of many aspiring Glosters ; and 
 I am sure Mdlle. Christine Zema (your Lady Anne), though 
 comparatively a novice on the boards, possesses the true 
 intuition of genius, which, you will admit, Mr. Gordon, 
 more than counter-balances the experience of a less fertile 
 intelligence." 
 
 Mr. Gordon found himself but a poor match for the 
 Strand lessee's logic, for all the force of the former's argu- 
 ment had vanished with his last sovereign, and the latter 
 was, to all intents and purposes, the man in possession. 
 
 " You will take care that everybody attends the rehearsal 
 on Monday," whispered Richard III. dejectedly, as they 
 shook hands "at the stage- door; "you know I am entirely 
 in your hands, and I should not like the public to feel 
 that " 
 
 " My dear Sir," returned Mr. Comyns, squeezing the 
 Duke of Gloster's palm with a grip that sent pins and 
 needles nearly up to his arm-pit, " you have said enough. 
 
86 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 You have my word, Mr. Gordon. I shall see you on Mon- 
 day. Farewell !" 
 
 Monday arrived, as did Mr. Howard Gordon with the 
 punctuality of the sun, presenting himself at half-past ten 
 at the stage-door of the New Strand Theatre, He had some 
 days previously arranged with his employer, a solicitor of 
 standing in the New Inn, for a day's absence from " office," 
 on the plea of assisting his mother in packing up, that lady 
 being about to transfer her worldly possessions from a 
 ten-and-sixpenny floor lodging in Newcastle-street, to a less 
 pretentious abode in a neighbouring court. For weeks past 
 the youth had lived in a ferment of hope, expectation, and 
 neglect of his duties. His weekly 30s. stipend had been 
 hoarded up for months, in order to be let off, like a rocket, 
 with a bang at the end. He had run in debt for clothes, 
 obtained credit for his daily meals at dining-rooms adjacent 
 to his office, by promising the head waiter unlimited admis- 
 sions for the dress circle on the eventful evening, and con- 
 trived to wheedle his widowed mother out of a portion of 
 her meagre pittance, to pay, as he assured her, some pressing 
 debts, and prevent the loss of his situation through a 
 summons to the County Court. For a whole quarter of a 
 year had he lived in a fool's paradise, hugging the idea 
 that his fate was the stage, and that when once his hump- 
 backed Dick had seen the footlights, fame, ease, and fortune 
 would grovel at his feet. 
 
 " Who do you want ? " growled the stage-door Cerberus, 
 as Mr. Gordon was about to cross the threshold of the 
 sanctum. 
 
 " I've come to the rehearsal," replied the youth, in as 
 sonorous a tone as he could command, to impress the 
 official with his importance as the leading man. 
 
 " Rehearsal ! what rehearsal?" echoed the door-keeper, 
 " there ain't no rehearsals on now. The theaytur's shut up 
 for the season." 
 
 "The rehearsal of Richard the Third for to-night," 
 simpered our hero, half doubting the fidelity of his ears 
 or understanding. 
 
 " Oh, the hamatour job," tittered the man, " I'd forgot 
 all about that. There's a rehearsal on, then, is tbfere ?" 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL. 87 
 
 "Certainly," exclaimed Mr. Gordon, "at half-past ten 
 precisely ; are many of the ladies and gents come?" 
 
 " I ain't seen nobody yet," returned the Cerberus, " they 
 allers takes half-a-hour's law, you know ; that is, them as 
 comes." 
 
 " They who come !" echoed the tragedian, the echo, with 
 Hibernian politeness, adapting itself to an amendment of the 
 speaker's grammar. 
 
 " Ay, them as comes," repeated the door-keeper, entirely 
 regardless of the correction. " You ain't spoon enough, I 
 'spose, to expect 'em all here." 
 
 " Indeed I am, though," cried Richard III., with a con- 
 fident jerk of the head, and suddenly forgetful of his tragic 
 dignity. " Mr. Comyns gave me his word of honour, on 
 Saturday, everybody should be here at half-past ten to the 
 tick." 
 
 " Did he though ?" grinned the man with a chuckle. 
 " Then it's all right o' course. You knows the guv'ner, I 
 'spose ?" 
 
 " Intimately," rejoined Mr. Gordon. 
 
 " Ah, then," returned the door-keeper, " there's no call to 
 make yer uneasy about nothin'," with which consoling 
 observation he coolly seated himself on a broken rush- 
 bottom chair inside the doorway, and drawing from his 
 coat pocket a greasy copy of last week's Bell's Life, became 
 soon absorbed in the details of a prize fight recently decided 
 in the Midland Counties for £,t.oo aside. 
 
 Mr. Gk)rdon walked rapidly up the narrow court which, 
 previously to the rebuilding of the theatre, led from the 
 stage entrance to the Strand, and stared up and down that 
 thoroughfare with feverish anxiety for a good quarter of an 
 hour, without being gratified by any arrival of the nobility 
 of York or Lancaster. At last two slender lads, scarcely 
 out of their teens, and having the appearance of ofSce-boys, 
 turned sharply into the court, followed, a minute later, by 
 three dilapidated, frouzy individuals, in well-worn fustian, 
 the youngest two smoking short clay pipes, and the third, a 
 man of seventy, hobbling after them as well as he could with 
 the assistance of a stout ash stick. These were supers, 
 destined at night to represent the gallant army to whose 
 
88 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 courage and devotion the hump-backed tyrant confides the 
 hazard of the die, and the two consumptive-looking youths- 
 were no others than the representatives of sturdy Stanley and 
 the warlike Catesby, whose nocturnal feuds, when encased 
 in dazzling steel and allied to their respective factions, 
 were, as yet, not even in the womb of thought. Nearly 
 another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mdlle. Christine 
 Zema alighted from a 6d. omnibus (penny 'busses were 
 unknown in those days), and tripped down the court with 
 the alacrity of a ballet girl. Mr. Gordon wrung her hand 
 with the cordiality of a life's friendship, and accepted her 
 apologies for being " a little behind time " with the studied 
 grace of a dancing master. Two minutes more, and Mr. 
 Schott Comyns himself made his appearance, bearing a play- 
 book in his hand, and a bundle of house-bills under his 
 arm. To unrol them, and display in extra bold type the 
 names of Mr. Howard Gordon and Mdlle. Christine Zema 
 was the work of an instant, and saved any reference to the 
 variation of his watch with the church clock of St. Clement 
 Danes. 
 
 " We must get to work at once," said the manager, having 
 ordered the " rake " to be lighted, and seated himself at the 
 table in front of the stage. "Act I. Scene I. Enter 
 Lieutenant and Officer R.S.E. Lieutenant and Officer, 
 where are you ? No matter, they only speak a line each. 
 Enter Stanley L. Now, my lord, on with you, here at the 
 first entrance. That's right," — to his joyful queen. " Well, 
 what are you stopping for?" 
 
 It was the youth's first dramatic attempt, and he had no 
 idea of taking up a cue. Mr. Comyns briefly explained the 
 process, and then inquired for his majesty King Henry the 
 VI. 
 
 " Please, guv'nor," said our old acquaintance the door- 
 keeper, who was call-boy, property man, and general 
 factotum, " Mr. Johnson won't be here this morning. 
 He's got an engagement in the City." 
 
 " Of course, I remember," said the impressario, " he told 
 me so on Saturday. You need not be uneasy about Aim, 
 Mr. Gordon, he's played the part a score of times at least. 
 Well, then, that brings us to the end of the first act." 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL, 89 
 
 " Hadn't I better go through the soliloquy ? " suggested 
 the Duke of Gloster meekly. 
 
 " Pooh ! " rejoined Mr. Comyns, with a smile of ineffable 
 contempt. " A mere waste of time, Sir. I would not pay 
 so poor a compliment to your devotion to your art as to 
 suppose you had not the words at your fingers' ends. Tell 
 Mr. Johnson at night where you wish him to fall after you 
 have stabbed him, and I'll engage he shall die on the spot 
 to an inch. Act II. Enter Tressell L. Stay, I forgot. 
 Mr. Watson asked me to excuse him, and apologise to 
 you for his non-attendance. He's the second cashier at 
 Messrs. Crinoline and Co., the drapers in Oxford-street, 
 They've discovered some defalcation in the petty cash, and 
 there's to be an examination of the books this morning, 
 which he is obliged to attend. He'll be all right at night, 
 rely on it. Enter Lady Anne and procession. Jones and 
 Grogson (this to two supers) you will precede the coffin 
 with halberds reversed, and stand just clear of the archway; 
 The coffin will not be brought on, Mr, Gordon, for you see 
 it generally occasions a laugh, and we mustn't have any 
 pleasantries in this scene. Now, you can run through your 
 scene with Miss Zema ; I'm sure I can't be of any assis- 
 tance to either oi you, so I'll just pop into the Strand and 
 get a glass, for I feel nearly parched with so much talking. 
 I'll be back in ten minutes." 
 
 Within a shade of the allotted time Mr. Comyns had 
 returned, and resumed his seat at the table. 
 
 "Scene III. Buckingham and Lord Stanley. Mr. 
 Greville (this to the youthful Stanley). I have taken on 
 myself the responsibiUty of excusing Mr. Smith (Bucking- 
 ham) from rehearsal," said the manager. " He's engaged 
 in the Drury-lane pantomime, now in course of rehearsal, 
 as first policeman in the rallying scene, and his attendance 
 here would expose him to a fine from the lessee of the 
 National Theatre. I feel sure, under such circumstances, I 
 need not appeal to the generosity of the present company." 
 Here he blandly smiled at Gloster's representative, who 
 blushed up to the rim of his hat. " Enter Duchess of York. 
 Mrs. Tippler, first right entrance, if you please." 
 
 " If you please, Sir," whispered the door-keeper in the 
 
go BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 manager's ear, " Mrs. Tippler has stepped over to the 
 'Spotted Dog' for a few minutes. She said she was 
 starved, standing about here so long this cold morning, and 
 dying for a little hot spirit and water. Shall I run over and 
 tell her the stage waits ? " 
 
 The necessity for the errand was done away with by the 
 return of the lady, wiping her mouth. 
 
 "I did not hurry, Mr. Comyns," interposed her Ladyship 
 of York to that gentleman's remonstrance of delay, " for 
 Mr. Smith and Mrs. Flaunty won't be here, you know, and 
 I don't see how we can do the scene without Buckingham 
 and the Queen." 
 
 "Very true," exclaimed Mr. Comyns, eager to avail 
 himself of the proffered omission, " then we can pass on to 
 the third act. Act III. Crosby Palace. State chair and 
 stool C. Remember those properties, Oldfield." 
 
 The factotum bowed his head familiarly, in token of 
 obedience. 
 
 " Now," resumed the manager, " I really fear I must 
 assume the role of apologist. My two daughters, who play 
 the Princes, Mr. Gordon, are unfortunately suffering from 
 severe colds, and all my efforts with their mother were 
 futile to induce her to allow their attendance. The morning 
 was so bleak that no amount of wrapping up would reassure 
 Mrs. Comyns against the risk. I am really grieved, for the 
 dear children are such conscientious artists ; I assure you 
 they deeply feel the disadvantage of their absence. But they 
 are old hands, Mr. Gordon, and you can safely rely on 
 them to carry out any little ' business ' you suggest to me." 
 
 Mr. Gordon, having no little " business " to suggest, 
 bowed gracefully, and warmly acknowledged the proffered 
 privilege. 
 
 "The absence of Mr. Smith," resumed the manager, 
 "unfortunately interferes with our concluding the scene, 
 so we pass on to Lady Anne and Gloster. Would you like 
 to run through the words with Miss Zema, or do you con- 
 sider it unnecessary, Mr. Gordon ?" 
 
 Mr. Gordon did not consider it unnecessary, so Mr. 
 Comyns gave some instructions to the three supers lounging 
 at the back of the stage, while Gloster informed his injured 
 
AM AMATEUR REHEARSAL. 9 1 
 
 wife how thoroughly she had contrived to outlive his liking. 
 Lady Anne, having dried her tears, joined her brutal hus- 
 band at the prompt wing, and graciously complimented him 
 on his assumed ferocity. She had no idea that he could 
 look so fierce, and felt confident the scene would go 
 splendidly at night Gloster expressed his delight at her 
 admiration of his villainy, and was equally confident Miss 
 Zema's pathos would soften the heart of a savage. 
 
 "That scene was admirable !" exclaimed Mr. Cottjyns, 
 resuming his seat at the table. "I was really not prepared 
 for "such finished elocution. Miss Zema, allow me to con- 
 gratulate you on your portrayal of affliction. Believe me, I 
 was touched." 
 
 MissZema acknowledged the compliment with a courtesy, 
 for a parallel to which we must go back to the buckram 
 days of George the Fourth's youth. 
 
 "Come, we must push along," said the manager^ "time 
 is on the wing. As Buckingham and Catesby are absent, 
 itwill be useless to go through the scene with the Lord 
 Mayor. Oldfield, you'll do the Mayor, you can read it 
 fixjm the book; it will look as -if you were presenting an 
 address. We are obliged to resort to a little finesse now 
 and then, Mr. Gordon, to prevent subordinate characters 
 falling into incompetent hands. Act IV. The Presence 
 Chamber. Richard on throne. Everybody on here. Flourish 
 of trumpets as scene opens. I'm almost afraid we must 
 skip this scene, Mr. Gordon, and trust to the intelligence 
 of all concerned. It's a touch-and-go scene, you see, and 
 nothing can be done with it unless everyone is present. 
 It's rather unfortunate, perhaps, on z. spedal occasion like 
 this, but I have frequently known these scenes go better 
 haphazard than when time and attention have been 
 expended on them. I must claim your indulgence for the 
 omission, but I pledge you my honour I will do my utmost 
 at night- to remedy any little deficiency. Mr. Gordon, you 
 had better perhaps just try your voice with the last speech, 
 ' Why, ay, this looks rebellion j ho ! my horse ! ' so as to 
 ensure the act-drop coming down with d. furore" 
 
 The newly-crowned monarch greedily accepted the 
 challenge, and from that moment forgave Mr. Comyns from 
 
92 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 the bottom of his heart all the shortcomings of the 
 rehearsal. 
 
 " Mr, Gordon," said the manager, leading forward a 
 cadaverous-looking individual of six feet two, " Permit me 
 to introduce to you Mr. Gauntly, your Earl of Richmondj 
 I engaged Mr. Gauntly at additional expense, in order that 
 you might have a foeman worthy of your steel. As a 
 swordsman I may say he stands unrivalled, and your 
 experience must have proved to you the advantage of a 
 well-contested combat in Shakespearian tragedies." 
 
 "I've an awful sore throat," croaked the Earl, from 
 beneath a coarse worsted muffler of the shepherd plaid 
 pattern, " and this damned east wind touches it up horribly. 
 Perhaps, Mr. Mordon, I beg pardon, Comyns, did you 
 introduce the gentleman as Mor 1 " 
 
 " Gordon," interposed the manager. " Mr. Howard 
 Gordon." 
 
 " Gordon ! all right. I think, Mr. Gordon," resumed 
 Goliath, " we had better cut out the dialogue and come to 
 the blooming fight." 
 
 Thus appealed to, Mr. Gordon took a pull at the pewter 
 pot ordered from the " Spotted Dog " for the refreshment 
 of himself and the ladies, transferred his chimney-pot hat 
 from his head to the table, and firmly grasping one of the 
 iron hoop-handle combat swords, provided by Mr. Oldfield, 
 prepared to decide " the dreadful lay " to which the future 
 King Henry VII, pantomimically invited him. 
 
 One, two, three, under; one, two, three, over; Richard 
 thrusts, Richmond parries ; Richmond thrusts, Richard 
 parries ; Richard chops at Richmond's head, Richmond 
 cuts at Richard's feet ; then Richmond cuts at Richard's 
 feet, and Richard chops at Richmond's head ; now 
 Richard lunges at Richmond's stomach, and Richmond 
 returns the thrust at Richard's intestines. A pause ! 
 Richard now gathers up all his strength, and cuts at Rich- 
 mond's head, crossing over as he strikes ; Richmond returns 
 the compliment with like absurdity of action, but, alas ! sad 
 to relate, the unfortunate Richard's sword not being held 
 sufficiently high to protect his forehead from the blow, the 
 weapon of his towering antagonist alighted with terrific 
 
.WSStuliCmyn. inJJV'U'Ccs d.c Ecui- of Ridinwnd 
 
AN AMATEUR REHEARSAL. 95 
 
 force about an inch above his left eyebrow, inflicting a gash 
 whence the blood flowed in a copious and alarming stream. 
 In an instant everyone had gathered round the prostrate 
 monarch, whose condition made it at once apparent that his 
 tyrannies and crimes would not be enacted on the stage of 
 the New Strand Theatre that evening. 
 
 " Oldfield !" cried Mr. Comyns, as the fainting Howard 
 Gordon was carried to a cab at the top of the court for 
 conveyance to Charing-cross Hospital, " run to Perkins the 
 printer, and tell him to get out a small poster directly 
 (crown folio size will do), ' Theatre closed this evening, in 
 consequence of an alarming accident to a principal per- 
 former.' " 
 
 And thus ended the New Strand Theatre " Amateur 
 Rehearsal." 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS 
 
 — :o:- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Clubs : their Advantages and Privileges — Formation of the 
 "Scenic" — Difficulty of Choosing a Title — Emblematic Coat-Button 
 Suggested for Members : the Proposal Abandoned. 
 
 A GENERATION or two ago there was an aroma of 
 aristocracy attached to the word " club." It some- 
 how savoured of swelldom, and when you heard anyone 
 speak of So-and-so going there to dine, or to meet a friend, 
 you instinctively associated his dinner, if in the very early 
 spring, with whitebait, lamb, and asparagus, washed down 
 with wines of the choicest vintage, and expected the friend 
 must have a handle affixed to his name, or, to say the least, 
 was included in the census of the privileged " upper ten." 
 A vision of some palatial building in the most fashionable 
 quarter of the metropolis at once presented itself to your 
 gaze, the entrance approached by a commanding flight of 
 Italian marble steps, white as a snowflake, and guarded on 
 either side by a liveried footman of Brobdignagian stature, 
 with colossal calves to match, and features of defiant expres- 
 sion, surmounted with a periwig of lily white powdered 
 horse-hair curls. The mansion seemed to be always located 
 outside the radius of common, everyday life, and if, per- 
 chance, you had occasion to visit it on any particular occa- 
 sion — say, to call on one of your intimate Court Circular 
 acquaintance — to proceed thither on foot appeared as much 
 a dereliction of decorum, as it would be to offer the 
 " Hansom " cabby who drove you to its portal, anything 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 97 
 
 under twice the honorarium to which he was legally 
 entitled. " Meet me at the club," somehow sounded like 
 a mandate to throw aside the Bohemianism of your working- 
 day garments, and assume for the nonce a vesture of the 
 very best superfine ceremony. To be one of its members 
 notified to the common herd your private or professional 
 status, and expunged the nausea of commerce from your 
 door-plate. It erased, as by magic, the simple " Mr." from 
 your card-plate, and substituted " Esquire " at full length 
 distinctively in its place. Your most intimate friend, after 
 your successful ballot had been declared, and your instal- 
 lation become known, would pause ere he addressed you in 
 the street as " Jack " or " Jim," albeit such familiarity had 
 been his wont from childhood, and would substitute " My 
 dear John," or, " Let me assure you, James," with the fustian 
 ceremonial of a newly-elected parish beadle. In a word, 
 there was an exclusiyeness implied, and a prerogative attached 
 to a clubbist which placed him outside the pale of inferior 
 beings. In olden times, the working man or petty trades-. 
 man would pass his evenings at the " Grasshopper's Arms," 
 or " The King and Cucumber," on the opposite side of the 
 way, in the joint discussion of the latest bruising match and 
 a fourpenny rummer of hot gin-and-water ; varying such 
 delights, in the sultry summer months, at some suburban 
 tea gardens, with quoits or skittles, and the unvarying 
 concomitants of pipe and pewter pot. To him, the daily or 
 weekly newspaper was, so far as politics were concerned, a 
 sealed book, nor was he a whit more anxious to exercise 
 the franchise than are the chawbacons of to-day, whom the 
 Radical tub-thumper would persuade you are dying for 
 that privilege. His club was " the house Of call" for his 
 peculiar craft, and he knew it only by its simple, honest title— 
 the public-house. He sought not to sail under false colours, 
 nor to palm off his Paris diamond for a genuine Indian 
 gem. Colleges and clubs he regarded as institutions for 
 his betters, and was content to accept them as such, and to 
 pick up the knowledge suitable to his station at the parish 
 school, and take the amusement congenial to his taste at 
 the village ale-house and the county town " statute fair." 
 The ambition of the half-educated took a somewhat higher 
 
 H 
 
98 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 flight, that soared as the seeds of learning struck deeper 
 root ; till the youth who had garnered up his limited stock 
 of classic lore at boarding school, or under the guardianship 
 of a private tutor, began to tower in his aspirations, 
 and seek to emulate the amusements and places of resort of 
 persons above him in the social scale. Then it was that 
 the chess-board began to displace the domino-box, and the 
 aristocratic billiard-ball to serve an ejectment on the 
 plebeian nine-pin. The cosy "parlour" of the public- 
 house expanded into the commodious " assembly rooms " 
 of the Institution, and yards of rainbow-coloured " Brussels," 
 dotted with "Salivarium" ottomen, usurped the place of 
 littered sawdust, and circular japanned or yellow delfware 
 spittoons. The frequenters of these places were associates 
 of a literary institute, or members of an amateur dramatic 
 society, and periodical meetings were now convened 
 whereat to discuss the merits of the latest launched novel, 
 or arrange for the coming performance of a legitimate five- 
 act play. 
 
 With this general advance of intellect and expansion of 
 brain, a corresponding change of name, as a field for its 
 exercise, became a necessity. Troops of amateur actors 
 had hitherto figured under distinctive titles. "Shake- 
 sperians," " Thespians," " Histrions," all companies more or 
 less known to fame, we had had in abundance, while the 
 term " Society " had been coupled with their exploits in 
 every imaginable form of baptism. " The St. James's 
 Society," " The Olympic Society," " The Strand Society," 
 and so on, and so on, in connection with the name of the 
 theatre or hall where the exhibitions took place ; but, in 
 their wildest dreams of theatrical immortality, the amateur 
 performers of my young and roseate days had never 
 attempted to aspire to the dignity of clubbists, and I believe 
 I may congratulate myself on the luminous idea of first 
 linking that distinction to the amateur player. 
 
 And now to christen my bantling. If Richard the Third, 
 of hated memory, was imprudent enough, in a moment of 
 excitement, to offer his kingdom for the temporary loan of 
 a bay or brown undersized galloway, to replace the magni- 
 ficent sixteen-hands " White Surrey," we are accustomed to 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 99 
 
 hear him order His Grace the Diike of Norfolk to groom 
 and have ready for him at an unearthly hour of the morn- 
 ing, what would / not give, with due and deliberate reflec- 
 tion, and after having ineffectually ransacked my brains for 
 several consecutive hours, to hit upon a melodious, eupho- 
 nious, harmonious appellation, wherewith to bind in stage 
 wedlock my embryo club ? " What's in a name ? " inquires 
 Shakespeare, in the simplicity of his poet nature ; but I 
 would respectfully remind the Swan of Avon's ghost — for to 
 exchange a word or two on the quiet with the "divine 
 William " himself has long, long years ago, I fear, been 
 past praying for — that when his guv'nor penned that oft- 
 repeated quotation, he did not happen to remember, or 
 perhaps found it convenient to forget, the equally-familiar 
 aphorism, " Circumstances alter cases." Certainly it does 
 not signify a bronze farthing in an affair of love, whether you 
 ■apostrophize the wingless angel of your adoration as plain 
 " Sal " or beautiful " Cleopatra " ; but if the bum-bailiff, 
 armed with a distress warrant, happens to put his man in 
 on your (Jones's) ornamental walnut and coromandel, in 
 mistake for his (Smith's) deal or very ordinary mahogany, 
 the " What's in a name ? " conundrum assumes an altogether 
 different complexion. But no matter ! " What's that to do 
 with your new club ?" I fancy the impatient reader exclaim- 
 ing, and, acknowledging the justice of the reproof, and 
 submissively bowing to the cry of " Question," let us hasten 
 on. Well, then, I referred to a small volume of synonyms 
 I owned, and searched assiduously under the head of 
 Thespian, histrion, tragedian, comedian, harlequinian, and 
 all the other polysyllabic parts of speech whose finals 
 sounded catching and tintinabulary. Alas ! my energy was 
 unrewarded. Every word symbolical of the drama -or its 
 belongings appeared to have been used up, and the Lexicon 
 of old Dr. Samuel Johnson was as barren and as bare as a 
 newly-hatched chickabiddy emerging from its shell. 
 
 In this dilemma, I was walking down one of the lanes (I 
 think it must have been " Drury," for towards " Fetters " I 
 always entertained a natural antipathy, and with "Chancery" 
 ^—redolent of law and stuff gowns — I had little sympathy at 
 that time of day), when my eyes lighted on a flaming, 
 
 H 2 
 
roo - BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 coloured poster, announcing the advent, in the course of the 
 coming week, of an entirely new and original three- act 
 drama from the pen of J. B. Buckstone, Esq., of the Adelphi 
 Theatre, and which was to be introduced to the public at 
 that charming house, with the usual stereotyped accessories 
 of new dresses, scenery, and appointments. With the 
 neoph)te actor — and this rule, I fancy, holds good with 
 amateur and professional alike — the matter of dress is a 
 primary consideration. If \.\\& Jeune premier (that's the new- 
 £ingled French term for the juvenile tragedian — bah ! it 
 makes me sick, these foreign choke-jaws — but you must go 
 with the times, or you'll be voted an old fogey, and sent to 
 the rear accordingly), if the — I can not write it — if the 
 young gentleman before-mentioned plays a lover, he can 
 hardly expect to succeed — at all events with the fair sex — 
 unless he is unexceptionally dressed, and looks " nice." If, 
 on the other hand, it is his fate to enact the villain of the 
 piece (and all pieces boast villains in their dram. pers. or 
 how, I should like to know, could the moral be pointed, and 
 virtue prove triumphant in the last scene?), it is matter 
 of necessity that his clothes should be equally well adjusted 
 to his figure, and harmonize in cut and colour with the 
 dark, sinister scowl stage villains invariably put on with their 
 paint and crape hair. But how to associate " costume " 
 with a club? "Aye, there's the rub!" Again, was not 
 such an alliance just a wee bit infra dig. to the Herculean 
 walking-stick ? True, there was the authority of Shakespeare 
 himself for everyone giving due and proper consideration to 
 his tailor — 
 
 " Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy," 
 
 says old Polonius to his son and heir ; but, on the other 
 hand, in the very next line we find Mr. Billy qualifying the 
 recommendation, and expressly cautioning the young scape- 
 grace against paying a visit to the masquerade shop, for he 
 ^oes on — 
 
 "But not expressed in 'Fancy' : rich, not gaudy. 
 For the apparel oft proclaims the man." 
 
 Here, " Fancy " evidently points to the light fantastic toe, 
 and is intended as a gentle hint to Laertes not to issue in 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. lOI 
 
 the dawn of morning from the entrance-door of last night's 
 Bal Masqu^ in plum-coloured tights and richly spangled 
 doublet and mantle. No ! (figuratively) we must doff the 
 costume notion, and seek further a-field for the baptismal 
 cognomen. " Appointments ! " Somehow, I did not like 
 the word; there's a shoppy flavour about it. It sounds like 
 a boy being installed behind a counter, and one almost 
 expects to hear the amount of " screw " the governor is 
 disposed to offer him for the first six months. No ! 
 " Appointments " will not fill the required vacuum, and 
 must obviously be sent, with the discarded " costume," to 
 the right-about " Scenery ! " Come, this looks like 
 business. Drama — scenery ; scenery — drama. There is 
 evidently a connection between the two. You can't have a 
 play without scenery, at least you can, but you don't ; and 
 scenery without drama — well, of course t/uit's possible ; but 
 the excursion season has long passed away into history, and 
 we are not now talking about Richmond Hill and a telescope. 
 But " Scenery Club ! " Pshaw ! Two substantives together ! 
 That would never do, and, as a grammarian would put it, 
 plainly belongs to the objecirue case. Stay ! for what was I 
 sent to boarding-school, and what is it Dr. Muddlekinchen, 
 D.D., the principal of the establishment, has been always 
 endeavouring to hammer into my addled pericranium ? 
 " Be sure that yoiu" adjective agrees with your substantive 
 in gender, number, and case." The agreement — perfect 
 cordiality, in point of fact, so far as I was concerned — as to 
 sex and quantity, was as easy to establish as A. B. C, when 
 once I had contrived to lay my hands on the two necessary 
 parts of speech ; but it was to little purpose I should twirl 
 round and round my substantive Indian " club," unless I 
 could manage to light upon an adjective-magician's table, 
 whereupon to deposit the elongated skittle at the conclusion 
 of the ceremony, I am not a poet myself, but I am given 
 to understand from those who are accustomedto take their 
 little drops at the " Pierian spring," that the liveliest 
 thoughts and inspirations of the Muse are those that strike 
 the imagination most suddenly, and I presume it must have 
 been some small portion of this Promethean caloric that 
 descended upon my raven ringlets, when all at once it 
 
102 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 beamed upon me (a kind of " de grande vitesse" or mental 
 " Flying Dutchman ") that this substantive " scenery," which 
 had been haunting my imagination like Maskelyne and 
 Cooke's phantom at the Piccadilly Hall, was capable of 
 being transmogrified into the adjective " scenic." Here was 
 a discovery ! " evprjKa " (I have found it 1) I exclaimed aloud, 
 which, as being my entire capital in the Greek language, 
 I thought it as well to ventilate for the benefit of passers-by ; 
 and I forthwith hurried homewards at topmost speed, in 
 order to cogitate, in the peaceful solitude of my little study 
 on the four-pair back, how most effectually to launch the 
 newly-christened bumboat. " Scenic Club ! " I repeated 
 over and over again, and at each repetition the partnership 
 seemed to acquire additional strength and melody. There 
 was a consistency, as well as a euphony, in the union ; a 
 consistency, because scenery — that is, country scenery, for 
 here we drop the paint-pot and the coarse whitey-brown 
 canvas of the theatre — includes shrubs and trees ; shrubs 
 and trees are timber ; timber is wood — and " by this 
 declension," to quote the loquacious old dotard Lord Cham- 
 berlain of the play, it follows, as a matter of course, that 
 " clubs," being manufactured of the same pithy material as 
 their progenitors, have a natural sympathy for that branch 
 of the family forest whence they derive their existence, and 
 are clearly entitled to regard the " brave old oak " in the- 
 relationship — to put it as distantly as possible — of a 
 genealogical cater-cousin. 
 
 And now as to the euphony? What so dulcet, so sooth- 
 ing, so agreeably tinkling to the ear, as the variety of Arcadian 
 sounds emitted, at the close of a fine summer's day, from 
 the thorax of the woolly and downy-feathered inhabitants 
 of the beautiful landscape before us ? Listen to the note 
 of the throstle — vulgo thrush — only iMf reminds one of a 
 sore throat, and as such would be out of place in the dog 
 days ; drink in the mellifluous strains of the nightingale or 
 the skylark ; give ear to the screech of the jay, or the old- 
 maidish chatter of the parti-coloured pie ; and incline a 
 tentive auricle to the caw of the coal-black old gentleman 
 referred to by Macbeth, who, as light thickens, wends his 
 way homewards to the rooky wood. Is there not melody, 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 103 
 
 modulated and attuned to every ear, in this orchestra of 
 Nature ? Does not one's pulse beat correct Greenwich time, 
 and the human heart go pit-a-pat with chronometric pre- 
 cision, in unison with the harmony around us? We are 
 cheered by the music of the song bird of the wood, and to 
 a certain extent share its joy ; humanized by the cheerful 
 gregariousness of horse, cow, and baa-Iamb, and recognise 
 in that quality the social characteristic of our own nature. 
 If awakened from the phantom of an early morning's idle 
 dream, or aroused from the reverie of a midday foolish 
 chimera by the shrill invocation of our old friend Catesby's 
 village cock-a-doodle-do, we become reconciled to the 
 nuisance by the reflection that idleness is the root of all evil, 
 and grateful to Chanticleer for the lesson of industry he 
 teaches us ; and in our moments of extreme stupidity — and 
 who, pray, amongst the best of us, can claim immunity from 
 occasional attacks of that disease ? — we hark back to the 
 euphony of Creation's lower animals, and find sympathy 
 with our mental condition in the inane bray of a jackass. 
 Don't you be in a hurry, Mr. Cynical Reader, to condemn 
 all this as nonsense, and cry out in a bluster of indignation, 
 " This fellow's a lunatic !" It is the little tittlebat, remember, 
 that wiggles about on the surface of the stream, and gets 
 picked up for his pains ; whilst the crafty, big barbel gropes 
 his nose in the gravel at the bottom, and swallows his grub 
 in comparative security. So now, just shut yourself up in 
 your cellar, and commune with your thoughts for five 
 minutes, and then, emerging from your hiding-place, own, 
 with the candour of a gentleman, the consistency, the 
 euphony, and the philosophy I displayed when I decided 
 upon christening my new dramatic convocation, "The 
 Scenic Club." 
 
 Having christened my baby, and dressed it becomingly 
 in long clothes, the next thing, of course, was to take it 
 out of doors for a walk, and display the finery ; and it was 
 in the following manner that this publicity was effected. 
 
 That history repeats itself we have been informed over 
 and over again, and the present instance but adds an 
 additional name to the long list of subscribers to that asser- 
 tion. Messrs. Futtick and Simpson, the well-known art and 
 
I04 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 literary auctioneers, frequently offer to public competi- 
 tion — such is the phraseology of the catalogue — in their 
 extensive sale-room on the first floor of their establishment 
 in Leicester Square, the dramatic works of Shakespeare, 
 and other poets of the Elizabethan era ; and it was in this 
 selfsame building, known at the time of our story as 
 "The West Literary and Scientific Institute," that the 
 celebrated Scenic Club first drew breath, and also offered 
 for sale, to such stage-struck aspirants as could be induced 
 to join its ranks, the distinction of acting membership, 
 together with access to the extensive library (?) of the club, 
 contained in an old-fashioned mahogany bookcase at one 
 extreme end of the room, and consisting mainly of the 
 works of the old dramatists then most in vogue on the 
 stage, a few modern poets, sundry criticisms on the per- 
 formers of the day, and a few odd volumes of antiquities 
 more or less connected with matters theatrical. Paltry as 
 such a collection may now appear, as the encyclopaedia of a 
 body of histrions seeking the bubble reputation as illustra- 
 tors of the Immortal Bard, it must be conceded that the 
 amateur actor of a former generation was not over given to 
 those " Society " dramas wherein he had to figure in his 
 everyday costume, and perhaps run the gauntlet of cha.S 
 and coarse badinage from some rival performer, or acquaint- 
 ance whose purse was better lined, and whose wardrobe 
 might be, from that fact, less in need of repair or renewal. 
 Add to this, it would be useless to deny there is a charm 
 attached to the tinsel and the gewgaws of the stage that 
 you try in vain to extract from plain broadcloth or best 
 Saxony. Your " dress " or walking coat may be fashioned 
 with all the skill of Poole's best cutter-out, and sewn 
 together by the hands of his most experienced and pains- 
 taking workman ; the " kicksies " may fit d merveille, no 
 bagging about the knees, no bulging in the rear, and the 
 bottoms perfectly free from that elephantine ruck of super- 
 fluous material which, in the slop-made " breek," always 
 overhangs the spat, and conceals from admiration the better 
 part of your patent-leather ankle-jacks. All this to-rights- 
 ishness, let us grant, is excellent in the Park, or in a 
 crowded ball-room, where you can slink behind a tree or a 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. lO$ 
 
 carriage in the one case, or, by mixing among the revellers, 
 conceal your identity in the other, till the better-appointed 
 swell — should such a curiosity happen to crop up — passes by, 
 and you feel yourself- once more at liberty to be " upon 
 show ; " but when you are strutting your hour upon the 
 stage, full in the glare of the treacherous footlights, and 
 with every eye — male and female — fixed steadfastly upon 
 you, it is then that the hour of trial comes ; it is at that 
 moment that the conviction will force itself upon you, strive 
 as you may to repel it, of the probable, nay, of the actual 
 presence of some powerful rival in the front of the house, 
 a gold medallist in the society of swelldom, who, lounging 
 in the stalls or dress circle, with a diamond- studded shirt- 
 front more exposed, and gloves fitting tighter, and therefore 
 more uncomfortable (but no matter for that) than your own, 
 still commands the advantage of exhibiting conspicuously 
 to his immediate neighbours, his manly chest and unde- 
 niably filbert-shaped finger nails, and somehow contrives to 
 participate in, if indeed he does not positively engross, the 
 attention of the audience, of whom, for the nonce, you, and 
 you alone, ought to be the sole and central figure. It is a 
 fearful thing to have one's importance discounted, as it were, 
 under such circumstances, and to be forced to play second 
 violin in that particular orchestra where you had fondly 
 hugged the delusion youwould wield the conductor's biton. 
 But " telle est la vie," as the Frenchmen say to the nude 
 bathers on the beach of Boulogne-sur-Mer. 
 
 Now let us return to the club, for at present we have 
 got hold of little more than the extreme end of the 
 handle. 
 
 My immediate friend, Mr. Lemm, one of those bosom 
 chums we value so in the unsophisticated confidence of 
 youth, and who drop o£F, like the' teeth out of a comb, as 
 years roll on, and the patch on your crown becomes more 
 pronounced and assumes a superior polish, hinted that, to 
 be strictly de rigueur, the acting members of the Scenic Club 
 ought to display some distinguishing mark of their dignity. 
 Lemm professed the craft of a tailor, and now that the 
 old scythe-bearer has un warped my judgment, and laid open 
 the commercial millstone to the optic of experience, I can 
 
106 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 perceive the sly rogue's motive as plain as a pike-staff. He 
 dilated on the picturesque appearance of the Metropolitan 
 Police Force as they marched in single file out of Scotland 
 Yard, to take up their allotted beats for the night ; com- 
 mented on the regularity and artistic impressiveness of 
 their dark bluebottle uniform, and the starry sparkle of 
 the row of Britannia metal buttons dotting, at stated 
 intervals, their tumbler-pigeon-shaped breasts : plunged 
 into frantic panegyrics on the dazzling effect of scarlet 
 cloth when swathing the athletic models of Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty's Household troops, as not simply 
 inviting the attention of the fair, but actually compelling 
 the respect of the opposite sex, contending that uniformity 
 of design and colour in costume in all bodies corporate, 
 be they civil or military, was a sine qua, non, and formed 
 part and parcel of their high degree; and that for the 
 members of the Sceoic Club to appear in mufti, and walk 
 about the streets " in their habits as they lived," like ordinary 
 mortals, was to make undue surrender of their newly- 
 acquired status ; and, in fact, to stifle the safely-delivered 
 dramatic infant in its incipient swaddling clothes. I confess 
 I was touched, though hardly convinced, by the force of 
 my friend's oratory. There are subjects on which you 
 might have listened to the late Earl of Chatham, or even 
 to old Demosthenes himself, if you force me to be classic and 
 insist on an illustration from the ancients, "from misty 
 morn to dewy eve," and yet have paused, when the 
 elocutionist resumed his seat, ere you admitted yourself 
 talked down, and owned yourself a convert to the momen- 
 tum of his logic. Lemm's address was of this genre. 
 There was certainly a great deal in it, as well as a great deal 
 of'\\.; but somehow it did not seem to go, like the dart of 
 the God of Love, straight to the heart's bull's-eye, and at 
 the termination of the harangue, you found your mind 
 wiggle waggling about, like a weathercock on a stormy day, 
 uncertain whether to accept the odium of ridicule, perhaps 
 of derision, and pop on the " cap and bells " like a zany, or, 
 by shirking the livery, with its shoulder knots and hair 
 powder, to subside passively into the common-herd nonen- 
 tity, attracting no more observation from the out-of-door 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 107 
 
 world than does the " feeble, worn-out pantomimist of the 
 long ago, when the Christmas festivities are over, and the 
 dusty holly, with its faded, shrivelled berries, and the pale- 
 green mistletoe, with its withered, curled-up leaves, are 
 taken from behind the looking-glasses and picture frames 
 by the relentless housemaid, and pitched behind the destroy- 
 ing fire without compassion or regret. My mind played at 
 see-saw for a short space, self-respect and an inkling for 
 notoriety being alternately at the top of the plank ; but the 
 former eventually triumphed, and I flatly declined to take 
 on street doublet and hose. Of course, this is a figure of 
 speech, for the most enthusiastic among the members of 
 the club was hardly rabid enough to don trunks, ruffles, 
 and tights in a London thoroughfare, and would never have 
 gone beyond the length of an outer garment of ordinary 
 tone and texture, albeit " curiously cut," as Petruchio has 
 it, or distinctively braided or embellished. 
 
 Thwarted in his professional hopes — for I stood at bay 
 like a Spartan, and contested every inch of ground with 
 the desperation of the Thane of Cawdor in the last scene, 
 when he finds it is all U.P. with the witches' prophecy, 
 and that nothing remains for him but to chance the hazard 
 of the teetotum — Mr. Lemm attacked me in what I must 
 be weak enough to admit was a vulnerable point. I had 
 set my foot down — stuck it in the thickest mud indeed, as I 
 fancied — against any distinctive mark, the minutest outward 
 and visible sign of Scenic Club membership; but my 
 dense mire turned out after all to be nothing but fine sea 
 sand, whence it is as easy to withdraw your five toes as to 
 imprint them, and the tailor, perceiving my vacillation as 
 to the coat insignia, resolved to vacate his perch at the top 
 of the tree, and see if he could not pick up a crumb or two 
 about the root or lower branches. It was the Blue Ribbon 
 Army business of the present day. Just a dot — nothing more 
 — was needful to distinguish you as one of the cloth. Any- 
 one can abstain, if such be his desire, from " blue ruin " 
 or " Sir John Barleycorn," quite as well by force of will or 
 habit, as if he bedecks his breast with a square inch of 
 sarcenet, and turns up the whites of his eyes like a parish 
 clerk repeating the litany ; but this proceeding invites 
 
Io8 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 observation, and induces his fellow-men to regard him as the 
 good young man of the song, and it is just on the cards 
 that the goody-goodies will sympathize with the movement, 
 and accord him a support they would withhold under other 
 conditions. "If I can't sell ray broadcloth," soliloquized 
 Lemm — for I can see into his inner man now, as plainly as 
 if he were sliced up and laid out in sections on the dissecting- 
 table of St. Bartholomew's Hospital — " I must contrive 
 somehow to dispose of the lining and trimmings." So he 
 suggested the adoption of a coat button, to be uniformly 
 worn by every member of the club — not a great, flaring, 
 Lord Mayor's footman lump of metal, as large as a turnip, 
 and as bright as a glow-worm, but an unobtrusive, quiet, 
 modest little knob that, like a simple rosebud in an early 
 spring bouquet, at once becomes the cynosure of every eye, 
 despite the rivalry of its neighbours of the conservatory, 
 who vainly combine to conceal its beauty and perfume by 
 a union of scentless gaudy colour and meretricious display. 
 
 " A metal button of bronze, if you will, with a mulberry 
 tree impressed on it," said the tailor, " is the very best and 
 most appropriate thing we can hit on. A bust of Shake- 
 speare would not do, it would seem too presumptuous. At 
 the same time, some emblem, connecting in a manner the 
 drama of his age with the performances of the club, is 
 essential ; and what more consistent than the mulberry 
 tree, a cutting of which^ you will remember, Cowper (this 
 was my adopted theatrical name), the poet, planted at New 
 Place, in Stratford-upon-Avon." 
 
 "The idea is a happy one," I replied, tickled at the 
 notion, and falling into the snare with the docility of a 
 dove. " There's very little of the tailor's goose about you. 
 Jemmy Lemm." 
 
 " Come, drop the shop," said the snip, rather nettled, for 
 his taste and his trade were as wide apart as the poles. 
 " Don't let us have any larking while we are upon business, 
 Cowper, if you please. Is the thing settled ? " 
 
 " I suppose it won't be a very expensive affair ? " I 
 inquired, pausing at the foot of the venture, with the 
 caution of a family mouse about entering the door of the wire 
 trap whither the toothsome toasted Cheddar has enticed him. 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. IO9 
 
 " Pshaw ! a mere trifle,'' he rejoined. " I know a young 
 fellow who works at Webb's, the die sinkers in Drury-lane ; 
 he is a bit spooney upon me — not that I care for him a dump, 
 he's only a working chap, you know — but he'll get it done 
 for us at cost price. Is the thing settled ? " 
 
 What objection could any reasonable being raise to such 
 a munificent offer? Here was a man so wedded to [he 
 cause, as not only to waive all personal interest in its 
 favour, but even propose to invoke the disinterested assist- 
 ance of an outsider upon strictly economical terms. In a 
 House of Commons where two persons constitute a quorum, 
 the fact of the " ayes " being successful in a division is 
 mathematically equivocal to the well-known nem. con. 
 of that august assembly in St. Stephen's-square. The 
 button question was carried on these lines, and in fancy, 
 my friend and I could plainly perceive, looming in the 
 daylight of popularity, an entire grove of verdant, bronze- 
 green mulberry trees, flourishing in vigorous health on the 
 histrionic bosoms of Scenic Club celebrities. 
 
 " By the way, Cowper," said Mr. Lemm, as I rose to 
 depart from the little parlour in the rear of his tailor's shop 
 in Tavistock-row, Covent Garden, where this conversation 
 took place, " it would be as well perhaps to leave a trifling 
 deposit with the fellow at Webb's when I give him the order 
 for the die. He would not think of asking for it, I am sure, 
 but I should not care to lay myself under an obligation to 
 a chap in employ, and he arn't too well off', I expect. Have 
 you got half-a-sovereign about you? It is just as well to 
 keep these litde matters square. Short reckonings, &c., 
 you know the rest. I will put down the same amount, and 
 we can debit the club with the quid." 
 
 I could boast no great profusion of these useful little 
 coins at that time of day, but contrived to satisfy the 
 demand by an all-round application to the pockets of 
 trousers and vest ; at the same time acquiescing in the 
 tailor's sentiments about short accounts and friendship, with 
 a levity of manner that would have induced anyone, not 
 behind the scenes of my exchequer, to fancy it would only 
 have very slightly inconvenienced me to pay off the National 
 Debt. 
 
no BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 I called at my friend's a few days after this occurrence 
 to inquire as to the progress of the mulberry-tree shoot, 
 and was told that it had been planted, and was growing 
 admirably ; in other words, that a sketch was being pre- 
 pared for our approval before the die was handed over to 
 the engraver, Some days later on I was informed that " the 
 drawing " was still in hand, and at the lapse of a similar 
 period, I heard that the same hand was still grasping the 
 work of art, with a tenacity of hold that promised little 
 probability of release from its grip. Ultimately, a rough 
 pencil sketch of some tree or shrub — it might be a mulberry 
 or a bilberry plant so far as resemblance was discernible — 
 arrived by post, with an intimation scribbled underneath, 
 also in blacklead, that the die would be put in hand as soon 
 as the " drawing " was returned as " approved." I 
 expressed to Lemm just a hint of distrust as to the bona 
 fides of the artist, but all doubts were at once set at rest by 
 his suggestion that the design was possibly the handiwork of 
 Messrs. Webb's assistant himself, in that individual's con- 
 scientious anxiety not to incur unnecessary expense by the 
 employment of professional skill, and by his faithful promise 
 to see his friend, and report progress to me in due course. 
 
 In the meantime, I had mentioned to some of my 
 acquaintance how matters stood, and the subject got 
 bruited about, and discussed among the few members of the 
 club who, at this early stage of its existence, constituted its 
 entirety. The advisability of adopting a button of fantastic 
 design as " a badge of all our tribe," did not seem to meet 
 with general favour, and was, in the opinion of the majority, 
 a questionable policy, inviting chaff andderision. Its fate 
 was eventually sealed, and the idea abandoned altogether, 
 through the following impromptu, of which the wag of the 
 party delivered himself at a subsequent meeting of the 
 managing committee ; — 
 
 " When the Scenic Club members Will Shakespeare essay, 
 It were wise to avoid ostentatious display ; 
 As for emblem distinctive — a mulberry tree 
 Emblazoned on coat — is all fiddle-de-dee. 
 If the club makes a mull — when the stage they first strut on, 
 The bury will (ollow — they won't want the button." 
 
.^N-^^^\|. . 
 
 
 7^ <?/«^ Room or the Scenic Cltii 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Green-room and Company — Characteristics of the Dramatis 
 Persona. 
 
 BEHOLD the Scenic Club now fairly established, and in 
 thorough working order ; every member has had his 
 particular line of " business " assigned him. Let us take a 
 peep into the green room and see whom we have there. 
 
 First there is the leading man — the swell of the show — 
 who engrosses, or ought to engross, the principal interest of 
 the drama's story. That is he resting himself on the settee 
 at the back of the room, with a play-book in his hand. He 
 is refreshing his memory in the last scene before going upon 
 the stage. Just before him stands the juvenile tragedian, in 
 earnest conversation with the low-comedy man, who is 
 warming himself in front of the fire. He is paragon of all 
 the virtues, and, by virtue of those virtues, cosmopolitan 
 lover and beloved of all the stage heroines in existence. 
 Practising attitudes before the cheval-glass, we have the 
 heavy gentleman, chronic villain of the footlights, with a 
 rooted antipathy to most of the other characters in the play, 
 from some undefined cause not usually explained till the 
 last scene, and frequently not very lucidly then. Fourthly, 
 comes the first old man, and his character and conduct 
 differ considerably, being mainly dependent on the style of 
 drama in which he happens to be engaged. Should the 
 piece be of a serious or domestic description, he is 
 generally the parent of one of the amorous spoons, whom 
 he treats with unnatural and unmerited barbarity through 
 three or four long acts ; but being suddenly seized 
 with a fi,t of contrition in the last short one, lavishes his 
 benedictions right and left, upon everybody and upon every- 
 
 I 
 
114 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 thing, in a manner strangely inconsistent ■with the repu- 
 tation for remorseless cruelty which he has borne among the 
 inhabitants of the village where he has resided, shunned and 
 detested, for at least five-and-twenty, and often for a period 
 extending to fifty years. If the play be of a mirth-moving 
 tendency — but stay, is it not better to allow the first old man 
 to have his after-dinner snooze, and awaken him when our 
 call-boy surnmonses him to his place as an exponent of the 
 Comic Muse ? Next then, we have the walking gentlemen 
 and utility men. Observe the nice distinction, if you 
 please. The gentlemen walk, whilst the men adapt them- 
 selves to any contingency, and are equally at home on foot 
 or in a vehicle ; whether the carriage be a four-horse drag, 
 and the " utility " man its aristocratic Jehu, or simply a 
 shabby old night crawler, and he the boozy conductor of 
 the knacker one usually finds attached to those conveyances 
 
 after — 
 
 " The iron tongue of midnight hath tolled twelve." 
 
 The first walking gentleman often finds himself obliged to 
 set aside the suavity of demeanour one naturally associates 
 with the title, and make his appearance as a relentless villain, 
 the confiding friend and accomplice of the chronic scoundrel, 
 merely saying " yea " or " nay " between the long set 
 speeches of his colleague, and acquiescing in whatever 
 villainy the cut-throat proposes with a bland geniality of 
 disposition utterly opposed to his conduct towards every 
 other person in the play, and totally at variance with the 
 scowling, hang-dog eyebrows, and raven-black ringlet wig 
 wherewith for the nonce he has disguised his naturally 
 amiable countenance. " Utility " men are walking gentle- 
 men of an inferior grade. They head processions, frequently 
 hold military rank, and precede, with glittering, drawn 
 sword, a file of half-a-dozen supers in scarlet uniform, who 
 have been told off (out of sight of the audience) to arrest 
 the leading man on the quiet, and march him off to the 
 deepest dungeon of the adjacent castle-keep. They order 
 their men about with the despotism of a Siberian governor ; 
 shout " Halt," " Quick march," " Eyes right," " Order arms," 
 and all that sort of thing in a tone as nearly approaching a 
 savage bull-dog's bark as is possible of attainment by a 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. IlJ 
 
 human being, and in humble imitation of the orthodox 
 article, whom you can go and hear exercise the same rough 
 oratory any morning you feel disposed to stroll as far as 
 the courtyard of St. James's Palace, and with the addi- 
 tional inducement of having nothing to pay at the doors. 
 
 To come to the comic element of \!a& dramatis persona — 
 for you must not suppose the votaries of Melpomene have 
 it all to themselves, and wade through blood and crime 
 night after night without a slight introduction of the jeu 
 d'esptii. No, no ; nothing of the sort. For instance, when 
 Sir Giles Overreach (the old playgoer will remember) is 
 bully-ragging the artless daughter he professes so to love, 
 and instructing her to adorn herself in her very best Sun- 
 day robe decolUttee, in order to attract the notice of the 
 wealthy young nobleman he designs to be her husband, is 
 not the representative of the old curmudgeon obliged to 
 submit to a coarse guffaw from the giliery folk, because the 
 author of A New Way to Pay Old Debts insisted on 
 making Justice Greedy interrupt the lecture, to ascertain 
 whether his master would consent to sit down to dinner off 
 a fine young deer that had not been roasted with a Norfolk 
 dumpling in its belly ? Who that' has played Sir Giles has 
 not felt his dander rise when he finds all the dignity of his 
 tragedy upset by this ridiculous and uncalled-for interrup- 
 tion ? Mais, que voulez-voui ? You must put up with it, it 
 is very annoying, we know, and you feel perfectly justified in 
 your own mind when, softo voce, you consign the old dotardly 
 Justice and his Norfolk pudding to the other side of the 
 River Styx ; but as you axe not Mr. Philip Massenger, and 
 consequently not responsible for the text, all that remains 
 to your philosophy is to grin and bear the insult, and 
 endeavour, as soon as the magistrate's exit has left the field 
 open, to win back, by the force of your eloquence, the atten- 
 tion of the audience so unceremoniously infringed upon. 
 Justice Greedy, by the way, would be enacted by the first 
 old man, and that enviable line of the dramatic craft cannot 
 perhaps find a better illustration of what first old men in 
 comedy do, or expect to do, whenever they are upon the 
 stage. 
 
 It is their province to continually interrupt any other 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 character who has anything to say that is worth hearing. 
 Other people on the stage, in what are known as " their 
 scenes," may be regarded as intellectual jackals, whose 
 duty it is to provide succulent and digestible food for the 
 lion coraique. His best jests are all led up to ; his smartest 
 repartees prepared by the context of the previous speaker ; 
 the laughs all fall to his share, and even the low comedian, 
 whose cap and bells ought to confer upon him the preroga- 
 tive of head zany, is obliged to chatter — 
 
 "With bated breath and whispering humbleness," 
 
 whilst the first old man is before the " float," lest any of 
 his "fat" should be lost through the selfish grimaces of his 
 fellow-comedian. In fact, as the late William Farren is 
 reported to have said of himself on the retirement of the 
 celebrated Dowton, he is the " cock salmon of the market," 
 and all his brethren of the sock must be looked upon as 
 very small fry indeed. 
 
 We next approach the " low comedian " and the 
 " second low comedian." You perceive there are degrees 
 of folly as of wisdom, both on and off the theatre of life. 
 The low comedian is a fool ; the second low comedian 
 is a greater fool, whose penetration is not deep enough to 
 discover the stupidity of his friend until the latter explains 
 it to him. The explanation secures the titter or the roar of 
 the audience in a relative proportion to the extravagance 
 of the jest, and the low comedian thus becomes the reci- 
 pient of the inanity of the second low comedian's nonsense 
 as well as of his own. But there always exists a liberality 
 of disposition, a commonwealth of generosity, between these 
 merry-Andrews ; and, in order that the leading buffoon 
 should not arrogate all the fun to himself, he handsomely 
 permits his brother droll to interpolate the text with foreign 
 matter, technically known as " gag," whereby a division of 
 laughter and applause is obtained, enabling them, on retir- 
 ing to their dressing-room, to congratulate each other on 
 their success, and revel in the way in which " we knocked 
 them." 
 
 But the "genteel comedian" of the company should not 
 be left out in the cold all this while, because he is an indi- 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. I17 
 
 vidual of superior pretension, second, indeed, only in 
 importance to the first old man. To command absolute 
 success, this gentleman should possess attributes that do 
 not ordinarily fall to the lot of common mortality. . He 
 must be moderately tall, and the ownership of a good- 
 looking countenance may be considered a sine qua non. If 
 he represent the beau in an old comedy of the early part 
 of the century, habited in black silk stockings and knee- 
 breeches, with frilled shirt front, and ruffles concealing the 
 entire backs of his hands ; or if he illustrate a " masher " of 
 the present day, sporting a shirt collar he can't possibly 
 turn his head round in, and displaying a waistcoat cut so 
 low down that it is matter of speculation how he contrives 
 to keep it poised upon his body, and at the same time to 
 support the flaming coloured handkerchief he has stuffed 
 into one of its sides, it is equally essential that his appear- 
 ance, the moment he sets his foot upon the boards, should 
 attract and hold captive the gentler portion of his audience, 
 and enlist their interest and sympathy in his adventures 
 and escapades. From his first entrance till the final descent 
 of the curtain, the genteel comedian is the pet of the petti- 
 coats ; his courage and his gallantry are the theme of their 
 admiration, and they follow the episodes of his career, and 
 drink in the vivacious dialogue in which he greets his ruin 
 and disgrace, with an enthusiasm and a rapture that no 
 other character in the piece can command, until finally his 
 devotion to the beauteous damsel of his adoration is 
 rewarded by the fair hand he has pursued so persistently 
 through good and evil report, imperilling, for its dear sake, 
 life, fortune, and friends, and preserving inviolate only his 
 honour and his love ! 
 
 But it is not to be assumed that the genteel comedian 
 passes the whole of his theatrical existence in an odoriferous 
 atmosphere of bon-bons. Alas ! he is oftentimes compelled to 
 appear as the heartless representative of vice and profligacy, 
 although embellishing his iniquities with such a couleur-de- 
 rose tint that the audience is half tempted to speculate on the 
 philosophy of adopting or condemning his failings, until the 
 wary dramatist, ever-anxious to deliver an all-round lesson 
 to society, and convince the world that wickedness is the 
 
Il8 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 common property of human nature, and not a patented 
 monopoly of the poor and lowly, exhibits his depraved 
 nobleman (for the heroes of stage ethics are usually selected 
 from the peerage) in so despicable and heinous a light 
 that, despite his position and social advantages, you find 
 yourself driven, for common decency sake, to give him the 
 cold shoulder, and register your vote and interest on the 
 side of honesty and the parish Union. But somehow or 
 other, even when the genteel comedian is obliged to dis- 
 port himself under such unfavourable conditions as these, 
 he still contrives to retain, at his final exit, a certain amount 
 of the sympathy and condolence he has excited throughout 
 the play. How is this? you ask. He is well dressed, 
 good-looking, and bears himself with the air of a gentleman. 
 In that must\\& the secret. There is — and, do what you will, 
 I defy the most experienced laundress of good manners to 
 wash out the moral iron-mould — an aromatic flavour about 
 depravity and crime, when in the hands of the better-bred 
 and well clad, that you seek in vain to discover if the 
 criminal be poor and a denizen of St. George's-in-the- 
 East. 
 
 The light comedian will complete the list of our company 
 so far as its male constituent is concerned. He is an 
 epitome of all that is gay, thriftless, and mercurial. His 
 present and his future means of existence are matters alike 
 indifferent to his care and providence. In pursuit of his 
 lady fair, the indignation of the damsel's father, or the 
 instructions of the mistress of the house to prevent his 
 admission under any pretence, are no more barriers to his 
 desires than would be a garland of hot-house roses to the 
 escape of an enraged bull, should that animal happen to 
 find himself so tethered. Be the entrance to the mansion 
 never so sedulously watched, and its approach defended by 
 the staunchest of mastiffs, the lover scales the wall adjoin- 
 ing the dog-house, if even so stuccoed with broken glass 
 bottles as to render a cat in the neighbourhood a curiosity, 
 without the slightest let or hindrance, and serenades his 
 idol under her chamber window in the frostiest ol nights, 
 and in the brightest of moonlights, perfectly defiant of 
 catarrh, and unapprehensive of interruption. Should the 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. II9 
 
 situation of the farce demand his escape from the grip of 
 the bailifi's man, generally supposed from his craft to be up 
 to every move on the board, the light comedian contrives 
 to effect an exit upon the simplest possible lines, and 
 bounds through the folding-doors " in flat " with an elasti- 
 city and an audacity that completely dumbfound the 
 " bummy," when he slowly awakens to the conviction that 
 he has been done. It is only upon occasions when he 
 resorts to a bribe, to secure the good offices of a housemaid, 
 singing chambermaid, or the waiting woman in attendance, 
 for he regards all the sex, if in employ, as alike open to a 
 " consideration," that he exercises a prudence and a fore- 
 thought a little inconsistent with his volatile character. 
 Here the light comedian manifestly shows to advantage 
 as compared with the Melpomenian corruptor of honesty 
 and innocence. The cool, calculating tragic rascal rarely 
 descends to arithmetic in money matters. He always carries 
 about him in his purse the precise amount necessary for 
 the bribe he contemplates, and hands it over to his accom- 
 plice in villainy as indifferently as though its contents were 
 only so much Dutch metal. Some of these dramatic Roth- 
 schilds go the length of hurling their purses, bursting with 
 bullion, at the feet of a scorned rival or a discharged" 
 attendant. Does not the Moor of Venice treat lago's 
 better half in this fashion ? whilst the gardener's poetical: 
 son, Claude Melnotte, exercises an equal liberality, when 
 returning the whilom French Marquis his leather porte- 
 monnaie. And here we encounter one of those strange 
 anomalies that beset us through life, as well off as on the 
 stage. Whilst the thoughtful, circumspect wearer of the 
 buskin flings broadcast around him the currency of the 
 realm, the heedless, unreflective exhibitor of the sock doles 
 out a shilling or half-dollar to the female attendant, supple- 
 menting the bribe with a small further instalment, should 
 the original seducer prove incompetent for its office, or 
 making up the deficiency with a kiss, or a compliment as 
 to her good looks. But setting aside this little prudent 
 inconsistency, the light comedian of a company is an awfully 
 jolly dog, and lives on anything but bad terms with himself 
 and the ladies. 
 
I20 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 The ladies ! Yes, for to pass the dear creatures by in 
 silence would be to affix a slur on the gallantry of the 
 dullest wielder of a goose-quill. 
 
 First, then, comes the leading lady, the partner in love, 
 or in guilt, as the case may be, of the leading gentleman. 
 She, like him, has the " Pope's eye " of the joint, and a 
 very large proportion of the "fat " and choicest cuts 
 besides: Next, we have the juvenile lady, younger, slim- 
 mer, and less rubicund than No. i. As regards costume 
 and appearance, you may put her down as the pick of the 
 handicap, to be successfully steered to the matrimonial goal 
 by the fashionable light-weight of the dramatic turf. She 
 has to utter all the nice things we admire and consider so 
 Parnassian in our youth, and pooh-pooh, or turn a dull ear 
 to, when the moustache requires waxing, and the waving 
 locks of bygone days begin to exhibit the white feather. 
 In her turn, enter the first old lady, technically " old 
 woman," only age looks so bad upon paper as to be open 
 to objection, except when utilized as an advertisement in the 
 Era, under the head of " Stage Requirements." First old 
 ladies represent Duchesses, Countesses, Viscountesses, and 
 all the other s's that go to make up the dramatic " Debrett ; " 
 whilst second old women, as a matter of precedence, must 
 be content to play second fiddle to their more fortunate 
 sisterhood. Then comes the comic lady, whose vagaries 
 are, for the most part, confined to the lower grade of society. 
 Her representative should be obese and dumpy, for you 
 cannot squeeze much of a guffaw out of an attenuated, 
 lanky, wheezy female, with a horse-collar-shaped visage, 
 carmine her nose and pencil-line her features as you will; 
 while the podgy, jolly, round-faced old woman, on whose 
 gouty No. 8-shaped figure the most skilful of modistes 
 would fail to effect a fit, is as brimful of cachination as the 
 proverbial egg is of meat. It is customary to provide this 
 lady with a cotton umbrella of the Mts. Gamp pattern, and 
 a riticule of dimensions long since discarded as a mons- 
 trosity of the feudal age. Lastly, but by no means least, 
 we have the soubrette, or singing chambermaid, to whose 
 fascination, loquacity, and chronic curiosity about matters 
 wherewith she can have no possible concern, the audience 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 121 
 
 is indebted for no inconsiderable portion of its enjoyment 
 and risibility. Why all chambermaids should be expected 
 to carol like birds is beyond my ken, but that the'y claim 
 this prescriptive right upon the stage is indisputable, and 
 you might as well attempt to reap, the reward of a well- 
 spent life with a bill-hook, as to expect a dramatic cham- 
 bermaid to make a bed or light the bath-room fire without 
 the accompaniment of a petit chanson. 
 
 The roll-call of the Scenic Club company having now 
 sounded, and every soldier having loyally answered to his 
 name, our next proceeding is to set them on the march. 
 
BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Members of the Club meet to select opening Performance — Merchant 
 of Venice decided on, and performed at St. James's Theatre. 
 
 THE Committee met several evenings at the Literary 
 Institute in Leicester-square to organise an opening 
 performance, and separated on each occasion, after much 
 discussion, not unmixed with a little dissension, without 
 arriving at any result. The lecture theatre rented by the 
 club was unlicensed for the sale of wines and liquors, and 
 smoking within its walls was strictly interdicted. It was 
 warmed by hot-water pipes which, though diffusing a fair 
 amount of heat, deprived it of the snug, cosy atmosphere 
 a blazing coal fire imparts, and rendered the proceedings 
 rather matter of business than amusement. It is useless to 
 deny there is a geniality in " Wall's End," and a sociability 
 about hot brandy-and-water, that the cleverest tactician 
 cannot extract from iron hot-water pipes and lemonade, 
 and hence every " Scenic " who had set his mind upon 
 some particular favourite piece, and already, in his- mind's 
 eye, beheld himself habited in the glittering finery of its hero, 
 stuck, with the tenacity of a pitch-plaster, to the drama of 
 his choice, and pointed out to his fellow-clubbists its indis- 
 putable superiority over every counter proposition. From 
 Mr. Selfish's point of view, every character in its three or 
 five acts, was precisely suited to the peculiarities of the 
 individual he had selected to enact it, and fitted into its 
 place with the geometrical exactness of the zigzag-shaped 
 pieces of wood in a child's dissected puzzle. Mr. Jenkins 
 would look the old man's part to the life. Had Walter 
 Tomkins desired a character to exhibit his aristocratic 
 features and recognised military bearing to the greatest 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 23 
 
 advantage (\V. T. had a nose of the Wellington mould, and 
 a chest the shape of a cuirass), he could not by possibility 
 have hit upon one, in the whole range of Oxberry or Cum- 
 berland, so singularly adapted to his style and figure as Major 
 Popham Pontoon of the 4th Irish Indefencibles ; whilst 
 Tommy Jawkins' voice, heavy slouching gait, and slow, 
 ponderous deUvery were so minutely the characteristics of the 
 villain of the drama — ^the Honourable Scrooge Scamp, that 
 the author must surely have had him (Tommy) in his eye, 
 as the unrivalled representative of his model scoundrel, 
 when he drew so faithfully the idiosyncrasies designed to 
 symbohse the Beelzebub of fashionable life. Selfish's logic 
 would have been too convincing to withstand but for the 
 singular fact of Jenkins, Tomkins, and Jawkins holding 
 precisely the same views about the particular tragedy or 
 comedy they favoured, as Selfish did about his bantling, 
 and feeling equally confident with that histrion of his 
 (Selfish's) ability for, and adaptability to, the peculiar 
 character they had set aside especially for him. 
 
 To select an opening play, and to distribute its dramatis 
 persona satisfactorily among such opposing interests, ap- 
 peared impossible, and the chairman ultimately proposed 
 to convene a general meeting of the members elsewhere, 
 and discuss the subject collectively with open doors. To 
 give the gathering a social character, the Albion Hotel in 
 Great Russell-street, then — and until the passing of the 
 Act of Parliament which obliged its Boniface to close the 
 doors as the bell of St. Paul's struck twelve, and despatch 
 his Thespian votaries supperless to bed — the modern 
 Pantheon, was decided upon, it being perhaps considered 
 that the obstructiveness of the more contentious might 
 yield something of its obstinacy, under the suasive influence 
 of generous wine, and the soothing fumes of the weed, for 
 whose introduction into this fair Island we give credit and 
 " Thank you so much " to the gallant knight-errant, the hero 
 of the dirty Greenwich puddle, and finally of the execu- 
 tioner's axe. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said our old friend Lemm (secretary and 
 treasurer Jiro tern.), on the night of meeting as above, " I 
 am pleased to see so numerous a gathering, and anticipate 
 
124 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 from it a satisfactory result. Before we proceed to business, 
 it is necessary to nominate a chairman, and I beg to be 
 allowed to do so in the person of Mr. Charles Gould. Will 
 any gentleman kindly second that nomination?" 
 
 " I have great pleasure in doing so," said a sturdy, thick- 
 set, sallow-faced individual of middle age, who, having only 
 joined the society the same day, had presumably never set 
 eyes upon the proposed chairman till that moment. He 
 probably fancied it better to declare himself at once, and 
 so give the assemblage to understand he had not parted 
 with his subscription money in the morning to be regarded 
 as a cypher when the time for action arrived. 
 
 A buzz of approval ran round the room, announcing the 
 unanimous acceptance of the tailor's nomination, and Mr. 
 Gould moved from his place to the head of the long table 
 in the centre, and seated himself, as the presiding genius of 
 the evening, in the old-fashioned Windsor arm-chair appro- 
 priated to that distinguished functionary. 
 
 " Before we commence," said the chairman, " and to 
 prevent interruption to the proceedings, it will be better 
 that gentlemen order what refreshments they require. 
 Cowper, kindly touch the bell." 
 
 In answer to the summons a waiter shortly appeared. 
 
 " Stout and bitter," " Scotch whiskey hot," " Two pale 
 brandies," " Three cigars," " Gin cold," " Sherry Cob—" 
 
 " Half a moment, if you please, gentlemen," interposed 
 the attendant, and taking up one ot the half-dozen quill 
 pens and a sheet of paper laying before the chairman, he 
 proceeded to write down the various orders as rapidly as his 
 penmanship permitted. 
 
 The refreshments having been duly supplied, interruption 
 from without strictly forbidden, and silence proclaimed by 
 the little ivory hammer — the symbol of the president's 
 authority — the chairman rose, and gracefully bowed his 
 acknowledgments to the clapping of hands that greeted 
 him on every side. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he began, " I am proud of the distinction 
 conferred upon me by your selection of president this 
 evening. The name of our new member who so kindly 
 seconded Mr. Lemm's nomination is unknown to me, but 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 12$ 
 
 I feel not the less indebted to him for the honour on that 
 account." 
 
 " My name is Waithman," explained the seconder. 
 " Although only this morning elected a member of the club, 
 I felt no hesitation, Mr. Chairman, in seconding the pro- 
 posal of your secretary ; as I recognised in you a gentleman 
 of maturer years, and, by inference, of greater experience, 
 than the majority of the members I see around me." 
 
 I winced instinctively as I caught Lemm's eyes at the con- 
 clusion of this harangue. They glared as revengefully as Zanga's, 
 when that Sable Prince unbosoms himself to his victim in 
 the fifth act. The wily tailor knew well enough that I had 
 reckoned upon Hamlet being selected for our opening 
 night, and piqued myself upon being cast for the Danish 
 Prince, having played the character upon several occasions, 
 long before the Scenic Club was formed, or even dreamt of. 
 The truth flashed upon me ; my enthusiasm for the mul- 
 berry-tree button had died out with the collapse of the 
 scheme, and I had been imprudent enough to suggest to 
 my friend, though up to now unsuccessfully, the return of 
 my half-sovereign at his early convenience, and this was 
 his revenge ! Mr. Gould, who was a dozen years or more 
 my senior, had been promoted to the pride of place, and, 
 moreover, had discovered in Waithman, a coadjutor of at 
 least equally long standing to assist him in ousting me 
 from the pedestal of my ambition. Hamlet, skull in hand, 
 glided from my vision into the distant future, much after 
 the manner of his armour-clad governor on the platform of 
 Elsinore, and I saw that I should be obliged to reconcile 
 my aspirings to his rival Laertes, if still determined to don 
 the sables of the play. 
 
 " As you are aware, gentlemen," continued Mr. Gould, 
 as Waithman resumed his seat, "your committee have 
 already had several meetings without arriving at any definite 
 result. We must all admit it to be of the first importance 
 that, in selecting our opening piece, we consult rather the 
 ability of our recruits than their individual expectations. 
 It would be fatal to the club's stability to allow the 
 ambition of any gentleman to outweigh the general interest. 
 We must therefore consent to sink our emulative aspira- 
 
126 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 tlons at the outset, and await fitting opportunity for their 
 development." 
 
 I saw in an instant I was done. Gould was a prominent 
 member of a Radical Spouting Club, holding its weekly 
 meetings at a public-house in St, Martin's-lane, and 
 thoroughly accustomed to debate, rounding his sentences 
 with an oratorical power to which I could never assert any 
 claim. From the moment of the Scenic Club's formation, it 
 was a foregone conclusion, with the majority of the members, 
 that the hero of whatever drama was selected for the initial 
 performamce would have one of us two for its representative, 
 and I had managed to convince myself, without any 
 excessive amount of persuasion, that /was destined to be 
 what the "cheap Jacks" of street merchandise designate 
 " the happy man." 
 
 " Mr. Cowper suggested to me," said Mr. Lemm, casting 
 a withering look at me across the table as he spoke, " that 
 the tragedy of Hamlet, if carefully cast " 
 
 " I am perfectly sure, Sir," interrupted the chairman, with 
 the blandest and most conciliatory of smiles, " Mr. Cowper, 
 on reflection, will not advocate the acceptance of any piece, 
 and of that one especially, so very exacting on the unde- 
 veloped talents of a newly-formed society. His good sense 
 and experience must show him the necessity, and convince 
 him of the difficulty, of adequately filling the numerous 
 characters in such a play." 
 
 At this, Waithman shook his head negatively right and 
 left with a vigour that threatened the immediate dissolution 
 of the Prince of Denmark ; and the younger portion of the 
 auditory, who had no particular fancy as to character, so 
 long as the costume was showy, and they were allowed to 
 sport a feather or two in their head-gear, soon caught the 
 infection of their elder leader, and set their heads wagging 
 with a unanimity that cried as loudly as pantomimic action 
 could do, " No, no, no." 
 
 The tailor worshipped at Thalia's shrine, and affected 
 the embodiment of first old men. He was not nice as to 
 the particular character, so long as it was first chop. Sir 
 Peter Teazle, Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Robert Bramble, 
 Lord Ogleby, or any similar leading personage in the 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 12/ 
 
 catalogue of the favourite comedies of the last century, who 
 have all the " fat " to themselves, and are upon the stage in 
 nearly every scene, was quite good enough for him. 
 
 " Shall I be out of order, Mr. Chairman," he said, respect- 
 fully, endeavouring to convey by tone and manner that 
 whatever piece was chosen was indifferent to him, so long 
 as the arrangement was satisfactory to the company, " shall 
 I be out of order if I venture to make a proposal ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, Mr. Lemm," answered that functionary. 
 " We shall all, I am sure, be delighted to hear your proposi- 
 tion, feeling, as we do, that your consideration of the 
 general interest will prevail with you over any personal 
 inclination." 
 
 Though there was no mirror opposite to where I was 
 seated, I know how my countenance lighted up at this 
 " tip," as I saw in it the same fate awaiting Sir Peter Teazle 
 and Co. as bad befallen my unfortunate " glass of fashion 
 and mould of form." Lemm's time had surely come, and 
 I rejoiced accordingly. " At least," thought I, " we shall go to 
 the stake together." 
 
 " I fancy, gentlemen," continued the tailor, glancing 
 blandly up and down the long table, as if to pave the way 
 with the softest of felt for the reception of the ward of his 
 guardianship, "that Sheridan's comedy of the Rivals 
 would be by no means a bad opening piece. The ' busi- 
 ness' is simple and fairly well known, and I think we 
 might manage to cast it tolerably decent among our most 
 experienced members." 
 
 " The Rivals is worn threadbare !" exclaimed Mr. Waith- 
 man ; " they are doing it at the ' Garden' three times a-week. 
 Everybody has had enough of the Rivals." 
 
 " I am afraid, Mr. Secretary," said the chairman, " your 
 proposition is scarcely a happy one. As our friend observes, 
 the piece is very stale ; and I question the policy of inviting 
 comparison, by our crude efforts, with such a cast as that 
 of the 'Garden.'" 
 
 "Nobody would think of comparison!^ exclaimed the 
 tailor ; " that's too ridiculous, Mr. Waithman, is it not ? " 
 . This rejoinder was evidently intended for the chairman, 
 but, unwilling to exhibit any animus at the president's oppo- 
 
128 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 sition, though his blood was boiling to resent it, he addressed 
 his query to the newly-made member. 
 
 Mr. Waithman affected not to notice it, and suddenly 
 busied himself in politely passing the lucifer stand to a 
 gentleman nearly asleep on the opposite side of the table, 
 whose half smoked cigar lay beside him. 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," remarked Mr. Gould, adroitly 
 coming to the rescue of his seconder. " It is not what 
 the public should do, but what they will do, that we have to 
 fear. Amateurs as we are, audiences are apt to forget that 
 fact in a theatre. You see it is incumbent on us to dispose 
 of the tickets at some sort of price to meet the expenses ; 
 and people who pay for their amusement, however trifling 
 the sum, are not over-squeamish in their ill-nature if they 
 fancy their money foolishly thrown away. Farren's Sir 
 Anthony, all of us know, is faultless, and as well known as 
 Temple Bar, and though I am confident our worthy secre- 
 tary would do his very best to " 
 
 " Believe me, Mr. Gould, I was not considering myself 
 in the least," interrupted the tailor, " but I feel confident 
 that Faulkland in your hands, Mr. President " 
 
 " My dear Sir, said that gentleman, " we must leave 
 Faulkland entirely out of the question. If we conclude for 
 the Rivals, Faulkland, as a matter of course, would be 
 assigned to our friend Cowper ; because I should not con- 
 sider it right, or, indeed, just (strong emphasis here) after 
 the trouble he has bestowed on the organisation of the 
 club, and which, let me assure him, no one present appre- 
 ciates more highly than myself, to put in any claim to his 
 prejudice. The character, I know, w strictly in my line, 
 but that has nothing at all to do with it. But, Mr. Lemm, 
 you will concede that Sir Anthony is the part in the play, 
 and I would put it to you candidly, though I confess the 
 task an ungracious one, whether you feel sufficient confi- 
 dence in yourself to entrust the interest of the club, and 
 its future success— for after all, to look the thing in the face, 
 that is what it really comes to — to your rendering of the 
 character — in the face, too, of the criticism our opening 
 performance must necessarily be exposed to. If you are 
 self-reliant enough to take on your own shoulders " 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 29 
 
 " I am perfectly certain, Sir,'' interposed Mr. Waithman, 
 who perceived he would be left out in the cold if the 
 Rivals were accepted, " after your remarks, put with such 
 deUcacy, our secretary will not put the meeting to the pain 
 of rejecting his proposal, but will see the judiciousness of 
 withdrawing it." 
 
 Lemm was decidedly in a fix. He had nominated the 
 chairman to his post in the confident hope of receiving 
 that individual's support in the discussion he knew must 
 follow, but discovered too late he had raised a Franken- 
 stein whose devilry was too potent for its parent. 
 
 " I am entirely in the hands of the meeting, Mr. Pre- 
 sident," he began, blushing up to his ears, "and should cer- 
 tainly not have hazarded any suggestion that appeared pre- 
 judicial to the interest of the club ; but if you will take the 
 sense of the meeting " 
 
 " I really do not think, Mr. Secretary," interposed the 
 chairman, " we need put you to the unpleasantness of 
 explanation. Your generous consideration for the good 
 cause is known to, and appreciated by us all. You with- 
 draw the Rivals ? " 
 
 " Hear, hear, hear!" shouted Mr. Waithman, seizing an 
 empty tumbler by his side, and rapping it violently on 
 the table, to drown any further remonstrance from the 
 tailor. 
 
 " I was about to remark, gentlemen ," Mr. Lemm com- 
 menced, determined not to abandon Sir Anthony Absolute 
 without another struggle. 
 
 " Chair !" exclaimed Waithman, renewing his attack on 
 the table with the glass. " Chair, chair ! " 
 
 " I fear, Sir," said Mr. Gould, " we shall hardly arrive at 
 a result to-night if we do not make quicker progress. Your 
 considerate withdrawal of Sheridan's play leaves the stage 
 clear for another proposal." 
 
 " But if you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, one moment 
 to explain " 
 
 " Sit down, sit down ; chair, chair ! " from half-a-dozen 
 voices in chorus. 
 
 It was plain enough the tailor's perseverance would have 
 to go unrewarded. Seeing his case hopeless, he resumed 
 
 K 
 
130 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 his seat pettishly, and buried his confusion and his face in 
 a pewter pint pot. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," said a gentleman, with a ruddy, low- 
 comedy visage, and a voice not unlike poor Buckstone's, 
 " may I say a few words ? " Without waiting for the per- 
 mission requested, he continued, " I agree with all you say, 
 Sir, as to the importance of a good start. What's wanted is a 
 square, all-round play, where everybody that can act can 
 have his go." 
 
 A titter ran . round the room at this paradoxical maxim, 
 and the homely phraseology of the speaker. 
 
 " No larks, gents, if you please," continued Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald, perfectly unabashed, " we're on business. It's no 
 use fixing on a play with a lot of fellows in it who know 
 nothing. Young 'uns must stand down till they've had a 
 little practice. Now what I should call an out-and-out 
 pick is the Merchant of Venice. Charley could do — I beg 
 your pardon, Mr. Chairman, I forgot myself for the minute. 
 You play Shylock admirably, and have done it lots of times, 
 so we're right as a trivet for the leading part." 
 
 When Mr. Fitzgerald let slip the familiar " Charley " I 
 was not slow to discover there was a conspiracy in the 
 camp ; nor did the apology that followed the lapsus reassure 
 me. Anxiously I scrutinized every countenance to see 
 how the proposition was received. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," said Waithman, desirous of clinching 
 the matter off-hand, " I beg leave to second Mr. Fitzgerald's 
 nomination. Setting aside the immense advantage of your 
 own experience in so prominent a character as Shylock, I 
 fancy the Merchant of Vtnice will afford the club an oppor- 
 tunity of economizing its expenses that should not be lost 
 sight of by a young society. 1 have the pleasure of Miss 
 Cobham's acquaintance, the daughter of the late celebrated 
 tragedian, and have little doubt I could induce her, as a 
 special personal favour, to play Portia for us. Her name, 
 on our opening night, would be an attrac " 
 
 Here the chairman and Mr. Fitzgerald went into such an 
 ecstasy of delight, one would have imagined the brightest 
 feminine star in the theatrical firmament had rejected a 
 lucrative engagement at the National Theatre, specially to 
 
THE SCENIC CLOB AND ITS DOINGS. I31 
 
 favour the Scenic Club with her services as Belmont's 
 wealthy heiress. 
 
 " How could we cast the Merchant of Venice most effec- 
 tively ? " inquired the President, thoughtfully, regarding the 
 comedy as already accepted, and imagining himself in his 
 gaberdine, with the merchants on the Rialto. 
 
 " You, Mr. Chairman, would, of course, do the Jew," said 
 Fitzgerald, driving home the only nail left unfastened in the 
 lid of Mr. Hamlet's coffin. 
 
 Mr. Gould nodded his head affirmatively, and to me that 
 obeisance was more expressive than even the immortal 
 shake of the late Lord Burleigh's, for with it disappeared, in 
 the wake of the Prince of Denmark, the Jew's gaberdine, 
 his knife, scales, and the pound (avoirdupois) of Antonio's 
 flesh for which he was so rapacious. 
 
 " We may pass that, / think, gentlemen," suggested 
 Waithman, in allusion to Shylock and his proposed repre- 
 sentative, and he glanced around him with a satirical smile, 
 intended to put the matter beyond question. 
 
 Three young noodles, gathered in a knot round the fire- 
 place, whose dramatic aspirings soared no higher than the 
 occupation of a crimson cloth-draped bench in the Italian 
 Courts of Justice, in the " Trial Scene," habited in scarlet 
 cloaks and ermine tippets, as magnificoes of Venice, here 
 chimed in a vigorous " Hear, hear," one of the triumvirate 
 rising from his seat, the more conveniently to perform a 
 rattan on the table with his walking-stick, as indicative of 
 the uncompromising adherence of himself and friends. 
 
 Waithman knew well enough that his turn stood next on 
 the roll for preferment, and pressed his foot suggestively on 
 Fitzgerald's boot, as the cue for action. 
 
 " 1 am half afraid. Sir," pursued that gentleman, turning 
 his back to the " Sir," and staring earnestly in the faces of 
 all present to induce a general assent, " I am half afraid, 
 Sir, we're in a bit of a fix about Bassanio and Antonio. Mr. 
 Cowper, I fancy, is hardly heavy enough for the Merchant, 
 and if he plays " 
 
 " Mr. Cowper, as a matter of right, would do Bassanio," 
 interposed the chairman, " and I have no doubt, from his 
 experience as a lover (a titter, of course, at this sally), will 
 
 K 2 
 
13* BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 render a good account of himself in the part, Mr. Waith- 
 man will look Antonio well ; and I feel no jealousy will be 
 excited by the selection of a new member for so important 
 a character." 
 
 " New member ! Come, that's a good 'un, Charley," 
 exclaimed Fitzgerald ; " why none of us have " 
 
 "Order, order; chair, chair!" cried Waith man. "I am 
 surprised at you, Mr. Fitzgerald. I should not attempt, 
 for an instant, to stand in the way of any gentleman who 
 has a prior claim as a member of the club from its 
 formation." 
 
 " But I'm certain nobody in our lot could do it half so 
 well," cried Fitzgerald. " Young Forbes is our only man 
 in that line, and he's such .a lath of a fellow, it would puzzle 
 " old clo' " to find a pound of meat in his carcase." 
 
 This joke proved more potent than half-an-hour's argu- 
 ment. It settled my friend Forbes' claims then and there, 
 and that Mr. Waithman would lend Charley Gould the 
 sum of three thousand ducats, in their relative positions as 
 Antonio and Shylock, was as certain, from that moment, as 
 that the bell of St. Paul's, at no distant period, is destined 
 to strike twenty-four o'clock. 
 
 As soon as the laughter indulged in at poor Forbes' 
 expense had subsided, the chairman, having proclaimed 
 " silence " with his auctioneer's hammer in the usual way, 
 proceeded — 
 
 " It seems, gentlemen, that the Merchant of Venice meets 
 a certain amount of acceptance." 
 
 " General acceptance," vociferated Fitzgerald ; " general 
 acceptance." 
 
 Waithman could not, with any show of decency, echo 
 the precise words of his friend, so he compromised his 
 acquiescence with a sonorous " Hear, hear." 
 
 " Well, general acceptance, let us say, then," repeated 
 the president. " It only remains for me now, gentlemen, 
 to go through the formula of putting it from the chair, in 
 the usual way." 
 
 " Hadn't we better proceed with the cast of the other 
 characters ? " suggested the tailor, who had not spoken since 
 the collapse of his favourite, Rivals, but realized the fact 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 33 
 
 that the Merchant of Venice was un fait accompli^ and so 
 turned a favourable eye upon Launcelot Gobbo for himself. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Secretary," replied the chairman, " if the 
 members decide to accept \h&flay, we may leave the details 
 for future consideration." 
 
 This was the old story of the shipwrecked money-lender, 
 who, having gained a boat from the sinking vessel, and 
 taken on board his client's deeds and cash-box, pushed a 
 plank towards his exhausted companion, and congratulated 
 himself on being his preserver. 
 
 After some further slight discussion, the question was put 
 to the meeting by the chairman, and the Merchant of Venice 
 was accepted, by a fair majority, as the opening performance 
 of the Scenic Club. 
 
 " Alas, poor Cowper ! " I soliloquized, apostrophizing 
 my disappointment, a la Hamlet with the skull — for the 
 Dane, in his long black cloak, velvet hat, and funereal plume 
 of feathers was ever uppermost in my mind — " and has it 
 come to this ? " Here was I, the founder of the feast, who 
 had borne the heat and labour of the day, and considered 
 myself seated in the tragic curule chair — 
 
 " Firm as the stately oak 
 Which fiercest hurricanes assault in vain ! " — 
 
 suddenly hurled from my pedestal by the machinations of 
 the crafty old chairman (whom my friend the tailor had 
 raised to the presidency) and his confederate, Fitzgerald 
 — the low comedian — with the assistance of the unknown 
 mushroom member of the morning — Mr. Waithman. Had 
 not I played my favourite — Hamlet — several times, with 
 applause, to say nothing of the crooked-back tyrant, 
 Othello, lago, Shylock, Petruchio, &c. — all Shakespearian 
 heroes — not to mention Werner, Virginius, Sir Giles Over- 
 reach, Sir Edward Mortimer, and hosts of other leading 
 characters, in nearly every Amateur Dramatic Society that 
 had existed in London for the last half-dozen years ? 
 Where would be the Scenic Club now but for Cowper? that 
 egotistical young tragedian would very much like to inquire. 
 Why, to him it owed its existence. But for his christening, 
 its very name, like that of the disconsolate young lover iu 
 
134 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS, 
 
 the song, concerning whose nomdtbaptime^ne. are requested 
 to observe a respectful taciturnity, would never have been 
 heard ! But sic transit s^loria, as the street arabs now write 
 in their copy-books at the Board schools. The fiat had gone 
 forth, and Bassanio — and only Bassanio — it was the writer's 
 fortune — he begs pardon, he means his fate — to play. 
 
 I set about studying the part with my characteristic 
 determination to do, as the Yankees have it, my " level 
 best " with it, and looked forward to higher things in the 
 future. 
 
 It was not until close upon the eve of the performance, 
 which took place at the St. James's Theatre in the spring 
 of 1847, that the secret of the Merchant of Venice being 
 fixed upon as the opening play of the Scenic Club leaked 
 out. Fitzgerald, the low comedian of the company, was 
 the husband of Miss Cobham, and that young lady, who 
 subsequently adopted the stage professionally with some 
 success, was desirous of an appearance as Portia. Waith- 
 man — an assumed name — turned out to be Fitzgerald's 
 brother-in-law, and had been induced to join the club for 
 the sole object the triumvirate had in view. He was but 
 an indifferent actor, although he had had several years' pro- 
 vincial experience as a professional. Gould played Shy- 
 lock moderately well, as, indeed, he did most characters 
 when fairly master of the text, though this essential to 
 success was not with him an every-day occurrence. The 
 performance, as a whole, was a creditable one for an 
 amateur company crudely collected together. I had 
 my revenge upon my whilom chum, the tailor, desirous 
 as he was to be first old man. The character of Launcelot 
 was cast necessarily to the low comedian, Fitzgerald, 
 and my friend of the " goose " and scissors had to disport 
 himself as his blind father, old Gobbo, with his thick 
 walking stick, wicker basket, and dish of " property" doves. 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Club Performances continued — Damon and Pythias— "Vhe Plot of 
 the Play. 
 
 IT would little interest the reader of to-day to chronicle 
 seriatim the various performances of the Scenic Club. 
 They took place every second or third week during the 
 autumn and winter seasons, generally at such one of the minor 
 theatres as was procurable on easy terms, the St. James's, 
 Olympic, Strand, or Sadler's Wells being usually in the 
 market at frequent intervals. When neither of the above 
 was accessible, the Royalty in Dean-street — then a private 
 theatre known as Miss Kelly's, and later on as the Soho — 
 was the scene of action, and could its walls but imitate the 
 example of " Snout the tinker," the representative of " lime, 
 roughcast, and stone," in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 
 and assume the faculty of speech for awhile, many are the 
 tales of " righte merrie conceite " fhey could discourse with 
 glib and truthful tongue. Of one of such incidents it will 
 presently be our hint to speak, but as " order is heaven's 
 first law," we cannot do better than follow the celestial 
 canon, and narrate a laughable episode of one of the club's 
 representations, which took place at the Strand Theatre, on 
 Wednesday, 4th April, 1848. 
 
 The piece de risistance was Banim and Lalor Sheil's play 
 of Damon and Pythias, and to make the situation " where 
 the fun comes in " thoroughly intelligible, suppose we treat 
 the reader to a descriptive 
 
 Plot of the Play. 
 
 The scene is laid on classic ground, and the date of the 
 action so remote, that it will be sufficient, for the purpose 
 
136 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 of dramatic chronology, to generalize it as the toga toggery 
 era. 
 
 Dionysius has been elected King of Syracuse, and hailed 
 as such in the senate house of that classic city. Of course, 
 like most stage monarchs who come to grief in the last act, 
 he is a tyrant, and as such his election to the throne and 
 sceptre is strongly opposed by Damon. 
 
 This latter gentleman, as a matter of course, is a 
 demagogue, a Trafalgar-square Bank Holiday orator of the 
 classic era, who would make you believe he lives for 
 everyone in the world but himself, and is the disinterested 
 champion of freedom, staunchly devoted to public virtue 
 and rebel law ; an advocate of what he considers — or, at all 
 events, of what he says he considers — " the people's rights "; 
 and a friend to everything and everybody who desires to 
 upset order, promote revolution, and oppose, by every 
 possible means at his command, the powers that be. We 
 must give him credit for the best of motives in his anxiety 
 to do all this, and not hanker to go behind the scenes of 
 his heart, and see how the cat jumps when no one is looking 
 on. Indeed, you are asked to judge harshly the Syra- 
 cusian criminal law, which sentences him to death at a very 
 short notice, in consequence of an ineffectual attempt he 
 has made upon Dionysius's life, that individual's bright 
 Brummagem cuirass having turned the point of Damon's 
 bit of steel, and rejected the kind offer of "a freeman's 
 legacy," which are the words wherewith the demagogue 
 accompanies the blow that he aims at the tyrant's heart. 
 Damon is immediately seized by the soldiers — a couple of 
 supers introduced into the Syracusian House of Commons 
 — not to listen to the debate, but to separate the comba- 
 tants, should any of the ancient Parnellite party happen to 
 be on the Opposition benches, desirous of wielding the 
 shillalah, and settling the argument in the Hibernian fashion, 
 by force of arms. As soon as Damon is guarded on either 
 side; and further attack rendered impossible, Dionysius — 
 as master of the situation — rates the demagogue in precisely 
 similar terms to those the " varlet " employed against him 
 when fie was elected cock of the walk. He does the heroic, 
 and gives it him in this style — 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS, I37 
 
 " We reserve 
 This pruud assassinating demagogue, 
 Who whets his dagger on philosophy, 
 For an example to his cut-tbroac school, 
 The axe — and not the sword. Out of his blood 
 We'll mix a cement to our monarchy. 
 Here do we doom him to a public death ! " 
 
 Chains, and the usual metallic rattle, follow necessarily, and 
 in order to bring matters to a crisis, and prevent any morbid 
 sympathy being aroused, and a petition started soliciting 
 Royal clemency, the tyrant pops the extinguisher on every 
 ray of hope, by giving orders to his soldiery for an im- 
 promptu execution, as soon as the tools can be got 
 ready ; stalking off the stage, as cool as a cucumber, with 
 this assurance to Damon of his impending fate — 
 
 "Damon, thou hast few moments left for life." 
 
 The overthrown demagogue has a soft place about him ; 
 nay, he has a couple of soft places — a wife and a son. 
 These parties are resident in the suburbs of the city, and he 
 begs they may be sent for by the " Express " City 'bus 
 (they are quicker than the Underground Rail, though the 
 stifling atmosphere is much the same in both), and be per- 
 mitted to take leave of him before the fatal hour arrives. 
 The tyrant does not seem to see it, as the phrase goes. 
 He has earned for himself the stigma of despot, and is 
 determined, as he has been cast the unpleasant role, to make 
 the character a study, and enact it to the life. He refuses, 
 and now nothing remains for Damon but to pop his head 
 on the block, without the opportunity of presenting the 
 Lady Hermion — his wife — with a lock of his hair as a 
 parting souvenir. 
 
 Now comes the pith of the story. Damon has a friend, 
 one Pythias, a soldier, who is something more than a chum, 
 and may be best described, in the language of the school- 
 room, " as a regular brick." He is more than ordinarily 
 " spoony " upon Calanthe, a Grecian maiden of the 
 gentlest type, whom he is about to lead to the Hymeneal 
 altar as soon as ever the wedding dress is completed, and 
 the white silk bonnet, trimmed with orange blossoms, can 
 be obtained from the hands of the Syracusian Bond-street 
 
138 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 milliner, Pythias, while doing the tender with his y?(i«r/(j, 
 appears rather uneasy about his friend, having a kind of 
 second-sight foreboding there is a screw loose somewhere ; 
 and having gained Mademoiselle Calanthe's permission to 
 run and see what's up, he rushes into the identical street 
 through which Damon is being conducted, vigilantly 
 guarded, to the strains of the softest music, from his dungeon 
 to the place of execution. The guards, crossbows and all, 
 are, however,' powerless to prevent him, all unarmed as he is, 
 from getting quickly at his friend, and the latter, with little 
 palaver, informs him of his fate, adding that he has pleaded 
 unsuccessfully to Dionysius for half-a-dozen hours' respite, 
 wherein to visit his suburban cottage omk, and embrace his 
 wife and dear little boy for the last time. 
 
 Pythias, who is as good and generous as he is brave and 
 truthful, cannot understand a denial under such pressing 
 circumstances, and declares he is off to the palace at full 
 speed, to offer himself as prison hostage for his friend, until 
 such time as he returns in the evening. To save the scene- 
 shifters unnecessary exertion, Dionysius comes in at the 
 nick of time, and Pythias prefers his suit to him, assuring 
 him the return of Damon, to take his place on the scaffold 
 at the appointed hour, is as certain as quarter-day. The 
 tyrant is dumfounded, as well he might be, at such friend- 
 ship, but determines to test the bona fides of the offer, and 
 graciously grants the request of the soldier, whereupon the 
 chains. are taken off Damon by the super rank and file, and 
 slipped on to Pythias, who is then and there marched off 
 to his dungeon, to a few bars of the same soft music as 
 introduced his friend to us five minutes ago. 
 
 A new idea of life, and the obligations and reality of 
 friendship dawn upon the king, and he straightway resolves 
 to procure one of those long black stage cloaks, through 
 the opening folds of which everybody can perceive the 
 garments of the wearer underneath, except the individual 
 most immediately interested in discovering them, and (thus 
 perfectly disguised) visit Pythias in his confinement, and 
 tempt his vaunted honour and so forth, by proffering him the 
 means of escape before the fatal prison bell announces the 
 hour for ascending the scaffold. As to the return of Damon 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 139 
 
 before the sun goes down, to take his friend's place at the 
 block, he regards that as utter bosh, and no more expects 
 the realization of the demagogue's promise, than you 
 do to find alive, inside the travelling caravan, the six-legged 
 sheep or double-headed kangaroo, whose fac-simile, the 
 booth proprietor assures you, " on his honour," is painted 
 in rainbow colours on canvas outside the show. 
 
 Damon, freed from his fetters, thinks it absurd to dilly- 
 dally about, expressing maudlin gratitude, so, simply 
 squeezing the hand of his friend, and uttering with sup- 
 pressed sobs, " very many thanks, old man," he issues an 
 order to his faithful attendant, Lucullus — who is standing 
 at his side expressly to receive it — to pop the saddle and 
 bridle on his favourite nag in two two's, and rushes off at 
 the prompt wing to mount the animal out of sight of 
 the audience, sceptical perhaps (as a tragedian, and not 
 quite au fait at the Circus business) of his" equestrian talent, 
 and not wishing to risk the loss of his dignity, by coming 
 down a " cropper," in his Roman shirt and sandals, in full 
 glare of the footlights. 
 
 While Damon is on his horse and his journey to the 
 St. John's-wood retreat of his wife and child, Dionysius 
 repairs to Pythias' cell, and having commanded the " slave " 
 who attends him to unbar the door and get out, he puts on 
 a little " side," and informs the prisoner that he is a retainer 
 on the staff of the tyrant, and has accidentally discovered, 
 through a word incautiously dropped by the " guv," that that 
 Prince of blackguards has determined upon the sacrifice of 
 his life, to which purpose he has despatched a score of 
 inferior scoundrels upon Damon's track, to intercept the 
 return of that honourable man at the expiration of his 
 leave of absence upon urgent private affairs. 
 
 What's to be done now ? Dionysius goes on to assure the 
 soldier that he is so touched by his devotion, and " urged 
 by my pity for such noble friends," and, moreover, being 
 desirous of quitting the service of such a fiendish employer, 
 as soon as his month's notice expires, that he has come 
 there for the express purpose of aiding him in his escape ; 
 and thus he generously offers his prot^gd the means of 
 effecting it. 
 
140 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 " I have provided in the port of Syracuse 
 A good, quick-sailing ship : yonder she lies, 
 Her sails already spread before the breeze." 
 
 By this it would appear that His Majesty of Syracuse 
 was connected with the shipping interest of that city, and 
 extensively engaged in trade ; for we cannot stretch the 
 imagination so far as to suppose that his " flunkeys " — one 
 of whom the speaker represented himself to be — bad such 
 enormous perquisites as would enable them to purchase, and 
 keep in going order, such a tight little craft as the poet has 
 described above. In this respect, Dionysius probably 
 initiated the practice of the English nobility of to-day, the 
 crime de la crime of society, who consider it no disparage- 
 ment to their order to appear as proprietors of " Hansom " 
 cabs ; to advertise " best Wall's End " at " lowest cash 
 prices," guaranteeing the minerals as " perfectly free 
 from slate and white ash," and containing 224 lbs. avoir- 
 dupois " full weight " in each sack ; not to mention the 
 Pickford business of portering home from " the Stores " 
 grocery and chandlery, and descending to any petty dodge, 
 whereby to touch more " siller " and keep down expenses 
 at home. But this by the way. 
 
 Pythias rejects the magnanimous offer of his unknown 
 visitor. " We try the depths together ! " he exclaims, by 
 which rather vague observation, he desires to convey to the 
 front of the house his determination, come what come may, 
 to remain true to himself and his pledge, and trust to what 
 may turn up in the course of the afternoon. 
 
 By this time Damon has arrived at his suburban villa, 
 and Mrs. D., who expects him home in time for the five 
 o'clock tea, is discovered in the garden, with her boy, await- 
 ing the arrival of Papa. The child has scarcely left the 
 lawn, to greet his father's entrance at the front door, when 
 the latter bounds in, bearing his offspring in his arms, the little 
 one having found just time enough, before Damon's double 
 knock fell on his ear, to gather a pretty garland of flowers 
 from the conservatory in " flat." Husband and wife em- 
 brace, and the billing and cooing one remembers seeing on 
 the reverse of the William and Mary coinage is illustrated to 
 perfection. But soon 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 14I 
 
 "A change comes o'er the spirit of his dream," 
 and he appears fearfully down in the dumps. In vain does 
 his wife endeavour to cheer him, and request him to invite 
 back to his wan cheeks the roses of his youth. The truth 
 must out. He tells her how matters stand ; of Pythias' 
 noble friendship, and that it is compulsory he should cut 
 the leave-taking short, and hurry back to Syracuse to the 
 rescue of his friend. Naturally enough, Hermion implores 
 him to remain ; to break faith with the warrior ; to turn 
 tail, as it were, and allow the gallant Pythias to see it 
 through. " No, no ; not for Joseph," replies the patriot ; 
 it would never do for him to turn apostate to his own doc- 
 trines, and repudiate that honesty of purpose he has been 
 upholding all his lifetime to his fellow-men. He declares 
 his fixed intention of leaving without further delay, where- 
 upon Hermion faints in his arms, and he calls aloud to a 
 faithful servitor, who is hard at work at a flower-bed close 
 by, to take his mistress from his embrace, and deposit her 
 carefully, " this side up," on a conveniently adjacent garden 
 seat Soon as this is done, he passionately kisses his little 
 orphan, adjures him to be a good boy to his poor mamma, 
 and rushes from the stage to mount, as he supposes, the 
 noble animal his whilom slave LucuUus has been minding 
 for him all this while at the garden gate. 
 
 Now Lucullus, the freed slave, is affectionately attached 
 to his master, and, resolved to preserve his life, he has 
 taken upon himself the knacker's prerogative, and despatched 
 Damon's Pegasus to join the equine majority. He fences 
 with his governor somewhat at first, as, knowing the dema- 
 gogue's lofty sense of honour, he is -afraid to let the cat out 
 of the bag ; but truth, like a cork, must come to the surface, 
 and he is ultimately obliged to confess the deed. 
 
 And now ensues one of those clap-trap scenes, in which 
 the tragedian, gifted with healthy lungs, and with plenty of 
 " go " in him, revels ; as it is all " fat," and presents a 
 powerful comparison with the intense pathos of the pre- 
 ceding scene, when the major domo is parting from those 
 of the family circle he is credited with holding most dear 
 of every object on this side of the Metropolitan necropolis, 
 
 Damon, like the Liberal member for Birmingham, dis- 
 
142 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 dains all argument, and is as deaf as the proverbial post, to 
 each and every of LucuUus' reasons and excuses. He 
 realizes only the fact that the nag is non est, aiid he there- 
 fore without the means of getting back to the city. In 
 vain does LucuUus plead for mercy, and entreat his master 
 to spare his life as a quid pro quo for his own. Damon is 
 determined to settle him there and then. He seizes him 
 by the throat, informs him that " the eternal river of the 
 dead" is a shorter cut to perdition than the bridlepath to 
 Syracuse, and affords the audience some notion of his Sara- 
 sonian endowments in the pentameter line, 
 
 " I'll throw thee with one swing to Tartarus, 
 And follow after thee." 
 
 The pair go off struggling desperately ; LucuUus strongly 
 opposing the path at the cross-roads indicating by the finger- 
 post " short cut to Tartarus across the fields ; " and of 
 course the cheers and "bravos" of an excited audience 
 follow them as the act-drop descends. 
 
 As they say in the penny nouvelettes, " we now approach 
 the bitter end ; " although, in this instance, the catastrophe 
 of the story has in it more of the syrupy than the bitter 
 twang. The scene represents the public place in Syracuse 
 where the naughty people of that fair city underwent the 
 extreme penalty of the law. There is the prison at the 
 back of the stage, with its heavy iron gates and ponderous 
 portcullis. On the O. P. side we have the scaffold, covered 
 with black cloth (of course) with the steps ascending to it 
 similarly draped. The executioner, axe in hand, his visage 
 covered with a visor, which visor renders that visage in- 
 visible, is posedclosetothe block, awaiting the command of 
 the officer in charge of the prisoner to perform his dreadful 
 office. AU is silent as the grave, except a very pianissimo 
 wheeze from the violins in the orchestra, 
 
 Pythias is now led forth from his dungeon, his face 
 nicely powdered, and both his cheeks pencil-lined, as a 
 proof of what terrible mental suffering will effect upon the 
 human countenance, even in the short space of half-a-dozen 
 hours. There is a legend of some enthusiastic representa- 
 tive of this character having gone the length of exchanging 
 his raven locks of the previous act, for an iron grey wig ot 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 43 
 
 an altogether diflferent pattern, but this may be condemned 
 as carrying the effects of grief to within a hair's-breadth of 
 improbability. Necessarily, for stage effect, Pythias' betrothed 
 — the heart-broken Calanthe — is stationed just outside the 
 gates of the jail, so as to be ready to receive him in her 
 arms on the instant, whilst her mother who, by his unto- 
 ward fate, is deprived of the satisfaction of hereafter sus- 
 taining the affecting role of mother-in-law, attends her poor 
 child-e in her bereavement, and materially assists in piling 
 up the agony. The parting between the young people is 
 heartrending, and any attentive listener might hear the 
 " oh ! my's " and the " dearee me's " of the errand-boys 
 and factory girls in the gallery, at the further end of the 
 street. The lovers are, however, torn asunder as soon as 
 the fatal hour is announced as having arrived, despite 
 Calanthe's passionate allusions to the well-known eccen- 
 tricities of clock dials, and her persistent assertion that 
 fully two minutes remain before it is incumbent on the 
 man with the watch, to shout out at the top of his voice, 
 " Now, my lads. Time ! " 
 
 The audience are aware, quite as well as Damon himself, 
 who is standing at the second right entrance, with dis- 
 hevelled hair and his face as white as a counterpane, ready 
 to rush to his friend's rescue as soon as he hears his cue, 
 that the faithful fellow will roll in, half dead with excite- 
 ment and exhaustion, in the very nick of time ; but still they 
 hold their breath, which is more than they can do with 
 their sympathy, when the critical moment arrives, and the 
 true-hearted Damon staggers madly across the stage, 
 prostrating himself, breathless and fainting, within half a 
 dozen yards of the tyrant's feet. He is raised up tenderly 
 by a couple of supernumeraries, specially told off for the 
 purpose, who have been drilled, and admonished over and 
 over again to be careful what they are about (for it is 
 ticklish work for these gentlemen, who are, so far as my 
 small stage experience extends, the stupidest creatures in 
 the world) ; and having regained his perpendicular, he gazes 
 confusedly around him as if to inquire what it all means, 
 and assure himself whether the whole thing is merely a 
 fantoccini puppet-show, or a Madame Tussaud's real 
 
144 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 Chamber of Horrors. The sight of poor Pythias 
 mounted on the scaffold, the executioner, the axe, the 
 black cloth, the solemn toll of the prison bell, and, above 
 all, the awe-stricken attitude of " the whole strength of the 
 establishment," recalls him to himself, and with one of 
 those strong hysterical stage laughs — of which, to be 
 thoroughly successful, the representative of Damon should 
 hold a very extensive stock, be a gold medallist, in fact, of 
 the histrionic alma mater, he rushes up the scaffold steps 
 to his friend, and bestows on him such a cuddle, as recalls 
 to the memory of all the old spinsters present what a 
 terrible mistake they must have committed in their youth, 
 in not having accepted one of the numerous offers which, 
 they are perpetually reminding their friends and acquaint- 
 ance, poured in upon them by the gross from eligible young 
 men of that epoch. 
 
 As soon as Damon has recovered his wind, which he 
 does whilst the audience is engaged in applauding his " ha ! 
 ha ! ha I has !" he relates the manner of his arrival and the 
 incidents of the journey. It appears that, while dragging 
 his old slave Lucullus along the Tartarusian-road, he 
 espied a quiet traveller " bestriding a good steed." Without 
 stopping to inquire the bagman's destination, or taking 
 into account his convenience, he rushed upon him and 
 peremptorily commanded him down from the saddle — 
 the Jack Sheppard business in point of fact. The traveller 
 slightly objected, but Damon goes on to inform us that he 
 would not be denied, and as a hungry tiger clutches his 
 poor prey, he sprang upon his throat, and so effected his 
 discomfiture. To illustrate the modus operandi of this 
 highway robbery, he seizes Pythias' windpipe, and shouting 
 " Thus, thus, I had him, Pythias ! " nearly strangles the 
 warrior in his anxiety to show him how he managed to save 
 his life. As a necessity, the grateful Pythias excuses the 
 garotter in thankfulness for his perservation, and the faithful 
 friends again embrace, doing the " ha ! ha ! ha ! " business 
 this time in concert. 
 
 The story is told. Dionysius throws off his disguise 
 mantle, discovers His Majesty, and stands confessed. He 
 is so touched, moreover, by this display of honour, friendship. 
 
THE SCENIC CiUB AND ITS DOINGS. 145 
 
 and all the best qualities of human nature rolled into a 
 lump (beg pardon, into two lumps) in the persons of Damon 
 and Pythias that, though previously a tyrant of the most 
 pronounced stamp, with a heart as inflexible as a flat-iron, he 
 presently becomes as ductile as a mackintosh wrapper in 
 the dog days, and pardons the twin brothers of fidelity and 
 honour. The friends embrace again— this time for the 
 last time ; the populace at the back of the stage, who have 
 witnessed the afiecting scene nightly for the last three weeks, 
 shout, " Hurrah ! " and " Life and Freedom ! " with that 
 perfect unanimity referred to by "Puflf" in the Critic; 
 the audience applaud lustily; the green baize curtain 
 descends rapidly ; and the fat old woman in the crowded 
 pit, anxious to dispose of her wares before the commence- 
 ment of the farce, inconveniences everybody, by the rough 
 business manner in which she thrusts herself and fruit 
 basket through its occupants, shouting out at the top of her 
 voice, " Ginger beer, bill of the play, bottled ale and stout, 
 oranges, nuts, and lemonade." 
 
146 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Damon and Pyth'os at the Strand Theatre — The Dressing Ronm — 
 Incidents of the Performance — A subsequent Repetition of the Play, 
 and debut of Mr. F. B. Chatterton, as Pythias, frustrated by Damon 
 Breaking his Leg — The Lessee's Apology for the Accident. 
 
 LET US hark back to the performance of this romantic 
 drama by the Scenic Club, the playbill of which is 
 now before me, its date April 4th, 1848. 
 
 The club had long ceased to rent the Lecture Theatre in 
 Leicester-square, and its weekly meetings were held at a 
 Tavern in the Strand adjoining the Adelphi Theatre, 
 known as the " Hampshire Hog," tenanted by the cele- 
 brated comedian Benjamin Conquest, for upwards of twenty 
 years the proprietor of the " Grecian," in the City-road, and 
 father of the present unrivalled pantomimist, Mr. George 
 Conquest, of the Surrey. This gentleman was our stage 
 manager, superintending all rehearsals and performances, 
 instructing us in the "business" of the play, and affording 
 the amateurs the advantage of his long and varied ex- 
 perience by every means in his power. However, when 
 a classic drama was to be represented, the compliment was 
 paid me, as the leading man, of directing the business of 
 such scenes as I was engaged in, and teaching the 
 supers any necessary details immediately connected with 
 myself. In fulfilment of these duties, I had been kept on 
 the stage of the Strand Theatre at the final rehearsal of 
 Damon and Pythias (the day of performance) from eleven 
 o'clock in the morning till nearly six, when it was time to 
 doff the broadcloth of the street, and assume the fleshings, 
 cachmere stiirt, and calico toga of a Syracusian senator. 
 During all these hours I had partaken of no further refresh- 
 ment than a penny bun, and a glass — well, it might have 
 been perhaps a short pint — of Barclay and Perkins' best 
 XXX. It goes without saying that I was as much " a 
 hungered and athirst " as it is possible for any enthusiastic 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 47 
 
 young tragedian to be whose body and soul are alike 
 absorbed in the coming display. 
 
 Damon and Pythias, as bosom friends, would naturally 
 attire themselves in the same dressing-room ; and by the 
 irony of fate, added to the fact of this room being the 
 largest and most comfortable in the Theatre, Dionysius and 
 his " minion " Philistius, who follows him through the play 
 like a poodle dog, found it convenient not to carry their 
 animosity beyond the prompter's box, but to " pal in " 
 with the faithful friends, and cast in their lot with the best 
 accomm odation. 
 
 It was a cold, cheerless night ; the equinoctial gales of 
 March having somehow been far awa' at the proper time of 
 arrival that year, and only reaching the metropolitan 
 terminus by a late train at the beginning of April. There 
 was a small register stove in the apartment, and a hundred- 
 weight of coals had been sent for in the morning, and 
 
 instructions given to the hall porter to kindle a d , no, a 
 
 bonny, bright blaze, and get the place well-aired and cosy 
 by six o'clock at the latest. As a reason for not having 
 carried out the order, the ofScial declared he had not seen 
 the charwoman all day long, and that he could not leave his 
 post till late in the afternoon, when upon applying a match 
 to the fagot, such a volume of smother issued from the 
 damp grate, and long unused chimney, that he was obliged 
 to pour a small Niagarian cascade on the carbon, to prevent 
 the arrival of a manual from the neighbouring Fire Brigade 
 Station. A windy, soaking night; a draughty, cobweb- 
 decorated, fireless dressing-room ; an empty stomach ! And 
 all for amusement ! Wbat is it the Scotchman says in the 
 play about "the labour we delight in," the medicine 
 bottle, and rheumatic shoots in the biceps ? Pshaw ! Poetry 
 must knock under to the unfurnished larder ; the bowels, 
 like the visual organ, must be fed, and when " there is that 
 within which passeth show " — i.e., nil — it is above all things 
 necessary to negotiate the intestinal canal. 
 
 " Warde ! " I exclaimed to my friend Pythias, who was 
 already dressed, and seated, pipe in mouth, with his legs 
 swinging in the air, upon the carpenter's bench arrangement 
 which borders these dressing apartments ; " I must have 
 
 L 2 
 
148 IIEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 something to eat before I go upon the stage. I have had 
 nothing all day." 
 
 " Send over the way for a sandwich," suggested my 
 thoughtful twin brother. 
 
 " I would not stuff myself, Cowper, if I were you," 
 chimed in Dionysius, who had put away three-quarters of 
 a pound of rump steak, and a similar weight of potatoes 
 in the middle of the day ; " you won't be able to act if you 
 cram yourself now.'' 
 
 " I don't care," I rejoined, disregarding the tyrant's 
 advice ; " I must have something solid. I am positively 
 famished." 
 
 " How about a nice hot chop and potatoes?" inquired 
 Philistius, who certainly evinced much greater sympathy 
 with my starving condition than did his overfed master, the 
 King. 
 
 " Capital ! " I acquiesced ; " the very thing. Will you 
 mind ordering it for me, Gunstone ? " 
 
 " With pleasure," answered my kind-hearted enemy, 
 opening the door as he spoke. " Here, boy, you're wanted 
 in No. I dressing-room. Make haste." 
 
 In answer to the demanded " boy," a very old, decrepit, 
 half-tipsy supernumerary made his appearance. 
 
 "What is it, gen'I'men?" demanded the future Syra- 
 cusian soldier ; " there ain't no boy here, 'cept the call-boy, 
 and he ain't come yet. Is there anything as I can fetch 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Exactly," said I ; " that's it. Run over the way to the 
 ' Spotted Dog,' and order me a mutton-chop — a good large 
 one, mind — and tell them to send it over, with some 
 potatoes and a pint of stout, the instant it is done. Be 
 sure it's a big one, and smoking hot. If they've no potatoes 
 ready, never mind them — I can't wait — I'll have some 
 pickles. Off with you, and tell them to make haste. 
 Vanish ! " 
 
 " All right, sir," exclaimed the leaden-footed Mercury, 
 and away he hobbled on his errand. 
 
 Fully half-an-hour had elapsed, and I was getting despe- 
 rately impatient, for the call-boy had knocked at the door, 
 with the intimation that the overture was " on." I had 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. I49 
 
 divested myself of every particle of clothing, except my 
 "Blucher" boots, which I retained to the last for warmth, 
 and was drawing on my fleshings preparatory to assuming 
 the shirt and toga, when a sharp rat, tat, tat, was given at 
 the door, and, in reply to the usual invitation to " Come 
 in," a dapper waiter, with a tray in his hand, and something 
 on it under a shining tin cover, stood by my side. 
 
 " The chop, eh ? " I exclaimed, hastily. " All right ; put 
 it down; it's for me." 
 
 "One and tuppence, if you please, sir," said the 
 masculine Hebe. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 " Must have the money, sir ; don't leave nothing at the 
 theayter without the money." 
 
 Imagine Damon, to whom the entire democratic popula- 
 tion of Syracuse entrust the enfranchisement of their 
 political rights, and the preservation of their homes and 
 birthrights, being refused "tick" by the scullion of a 
 common pot-house for a miserable fourteen D. 
 
 There was, alas ! no help for it ; it was, " No song, no 
 supper," so, realizing the necessity of dubbing up, I rose 
 from my seat, equipped in Nature's modest garb, and 
 hurrying to the chair whereupon my clothes lay huddled in 
 a heap, began fumbling about for the needful in the pockets 
 of my coat and trousers. At last I lighted on some silver, 
 but no copper currency was forthcoming. 
 
 " Have any of you fellows got any halfpence ? " I 
 demanded. 
 
 " How much do you want ? " inquired Philistius, who 
 had shown himself my friend previously by suggesting the 
 cutlet. 
 
 " Only twopence," I replied. " Can you lend me as 
 much?" 
 
 "There you are, old man. I don't want an I.O.U." 
 
 " Here, fellow ! " I exclaimed, tragically — I had nearly 
 dubbed him " Varlet," in the torrent of my wrath — " here 
 is your money," and I handed him the sum-total, with the 
 words — " Now, go ! " 
 
 " Please to remember the waiter, sir," and he held out 
 his hand for the tax. 
 
ISO BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 " No, you insulting wre-t-ch ! " I roared. " Be off !" 
 
 The terms of the notice to quit presented rather a homely 
 contrast with the dramatic " wre-t-ch " of the previous 
 moment, but one can't be always upon stilts, and time was 
 getting short. 
 
 "Get out of this!" said Philistius, who still stuck to me 
 like a leech. 
 
 " Cut it, old chap ; it's no go," added the tyrant, as a 
 rider to the order of his underling. 
 
 The waiter stared round the room with a significance 
 that showed a thorough contempt for the ancient Greeks ; 
 and, muttering a hurried soliloquy, of which the more 
 salient points were " shabby humbugs," " seedy snobs," and 
 "duffing actor blokes," sulkily withdrew from the classic 
 presence. 
 
 " Overture's just over, gentlemen !" shouted the call-boy, 
 rushing in at the door as the waiter sauntered out, and 
 followed by a large tortoiseshell cat ; " you've only three 
 minutes, gentlemen. Dionysius and Philistius, left, first 
 entrance," and having executed his commission, he skipped 
 away as nimbly as the chamois of the Alps. 
 
 " Behold us here ! " exclaimed the future monarch of 
 Syracuse, in mock heroic, whilst Philistius, thrusting his 
 tongue against his cheek a la Grimaldi, announced his 
 readiness with " Here we are ! " 
 
 The departure of the tyrant and the President of the 
 Senate House to fulfil their duties at the footlights, left 
 Damon and his faithful Pythias, the latter still occupied 
 with his calumet of peace (and tobacco), the sole inmates 
 of the dressing-room, except the cat and the assistant 
 dresser, who was waiting to aid me in the adjustment of 
 my fleshings, and to put the finishing touch on the graceful 
 set of my toga. 
 
 Whilst I was engaged in exchanging my Northampton 
 " crab-shells " for the senatorial sandals of Greece, and to 
 gain time for the quiet disposal of my mutton-chop with- 
 out bolting it, as the boa constrictor does the rabbits at 
 the " Zoo," the dresser busied himself in making fast at my 
 back the body fleshings, and connecting them, by string 
 and button, with those of my nether extremities. When 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 151 
 
 completed, I presented a fac-simile of the Achilles statue at 
 the entrance of Hyde Park, minus the sword and the shield. 
 
 "Nathan!"! cried, "hand me over the shirt, and get 
 the toga ready, if you please. I had better finish dressing 
 before I commence on the chop." 
 
 Nathan, of Tichborne-street, was costumier to the 
 club, and his dresser's name was Charles, generally 
 familiarized into " Charlie ; " but I preferred to retain the 
 cognomen of his employer, as better suited to the dignity 
 of a blank-verse play. 
 
 " If I was you, Mr. Cowper," rejoined the man, " I'd 
 tackle my supper before I put on ray dress. You're sure 
 to mess your toga. I don't see as how you can help to." 
 
 Thus advised, I advanced to the bench whereon lay the 
 tray, and the toothsome delicacies of the " Spotted Dog " 
 commissariat, and quickly removing the helmet -shaped tin 
 cover, and seizing the knife and fork by its side, I commen- 
 ced an attack on the mutton-chop in thorough good earnest. 
 
 I had scarcely got through a couple of mouthfuls, and 
 was wabbling about a lump of potato, so scalding hot as 
 to render swallowing it an impossibility, when Philistius, 
 having finished his first scene, re-entered the room, and 
 gave vent to a shivering " wheugh." 
 
 " How's the house, Gunstone ? " I inquired, in inarticulate 
 accents, for which imperfect elocution I hold the steaming 
 vegetable accountable to this day, and with an expression 
 of agony in my face inducing the idea I was a sufferer in 
 the hands of a dentist 
 
 " Beg pardon, Cowper ; what d'ye say ? " 
 
 I repeated the inquiry with somewhat more of distinct- 
 ness, and somewhat less of grimace. 
 
 " Pretty middling. They are dropping in tolerably sharp 
 now. By the time you are on I expect we shall have a 
 crammer. It's horribly cold on the stage," he added, with 
 a repetition of the "wheugh," "so I've come down here for 
 my hat. I'm not on any more in this act." With this he 
 reached down his chimney-pot beaver from a peg on the 
 wall, and, sticking it on his head a-kimbo, proceeded to 
 light a cigar. 
 
 A loud hammering at the room door was heard at this 
 
152 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 instant, evidently the result of its contact with some heavy 
 wooden substance, and, in response to Philistius' com- 
 mand lo " open locks, whoever knocks," in walked a rather 
 stout young gentleman of middle height, encased in a thick 
 rough cloth top coat, buttoned up to the chin, and carryin'g 
 under his left arm a huge walking-stick, with an enormous 
 knob at the end, obviously the instrument that had produced 
 the banging referred to. 
 
 This individual was a particular chum of Gunstone's, and 
 not at all theatrically given ; indeed, he ridiculed dramatic 
 performances altogether, whether professional or amateur, 
 and denounced actors in a body as " a lot of stupid 
 mummers;" but he visited the dressing-room on this 
 particular occasion at Mr. G.'s especial invite, " just to pop 
 in for ten minutes," and see what fun was to be had behind 
 the scenes. 
 
 " Good evening, sir," said this youth, addressing Pythias, 
 who was still seated on the bench, swinging his legs and 
 .smoking his pipe. 
 
 The gallant warrior, without leaving his seat to return 
 the civility, merely bobbed with his head a familiar " How 
 are you ? " and extended his mouth to its utmost capacity 
 to allow the escape of the cloud. 
 
 " I'm afraid. Jack," added the new comer, speaking to 
 his friend Gunslone, and staring at me in my fleshings 
 devouring my chop, " I'm a bit in the way here. I'll be off, 
 old man." 
 
 While venting this apology, he vainly endeavoured to 
 suppress a titter that was quickly developing into a roar. He 
 had never witnessed any similar scene, and the absurdity of 
 the situation tickled him. 
 
 " Damon's called," roared the call-boy, quite out of breath 
 from his haste, and flinging open the door as he spoke. 
 " Stage will wait in less than five minutes, sir." 
 
 " Damnation ! " I exclaimed, thrusting into my mouth a 
 piece of the mutton before the impious emphasis had well 
 died away, and hurling to the floor a Roman soldier's 
 helmet, stuck on my classic robe to prevent it falling off the 
 drum it was placed on. " Nathan, for God's sake, be quick 
 with the toga!" 
 
•^^ 
 
 The Drrssi/iff Room oftAe, Scenic Clu£. 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 55 
 
 The dresser had left the room some minutes since un- 
 noticed, but was quickly recalled by Philistius, who all but 
 upset his interloping friend in his anxiety to open the door. 
 '• Charlie " was thoroughly up to his work, and, seeing the 
 necessity for haste, threw the classic shirt towards me with 
 more dexterity than politeness. It was over my head in an 
 instant, and my nudity thus hidden from the vulgar gaze 
 of a non-theatrical outsider. The toga followed like light- 
 ning, and Nathan's assistant adjusted the folds with the 
 rapidity of a pantomime change. I was dressed ! 
 
 " Don't you go yet, old fellow," entreated Philistius of his 
 sporting friend, for such the stranger turned out to be. 
 "I'll send the chap out for some brandy, or would you like a 
 bottle of Guinness's brown 'fiz' better? " 
 
 "Nothing for me, Gunny, thanks. This sort of thing 
 ain't much in my way. Hoyles, the ' Spider,' puts the 
 gloves on to-night at Ben Caunt's ; it will be a treat ; I would 
 not miss it for a quid. So I'll say ta ta, old man." 
 
 Whether the visitor to the Champion of England's 
 boxing-saloon retired then and there, or was persuaded to 
 remain and partake of the proffered refreshment, must ever 
 be shrouded in the mystery of past events. I heard no 
 more than the invitation, and the seductive reason given for 
 its refusal. 
 
 It is pleasant to chronicle the fact that, by an almost 
 superhuman effort, as the penny-a-liners have it, I contrived 
 to save a " stage wait," and with it the inevitable " goose." 
 Within three minutes of the call-boy's summons, the patriot 
 of Syracuse was fully equipped in his snow-white sena- 
 torial dressing-gown, and waiting collectedly at the right 
 first entrance of the stage, ready — soon as the prompter's 
 whistle sounded the change of scene — to stalk bareheaded 
 into the streets of the Capital, and explain to the audience 
 the pitiable condition of public morality in the city ; letting 
 them into the secret of the measures he was concocting — 
 on the quiet — for the improvement of a 
 
 " Corrupted and voluptuous populace," 
 
 and unfolding generally the radical programme he proposed 
 to put in force to provoke a revolution, and make himself 
 
156 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 boss of the show. This has always been, and probably will 
 always remain, the demagogue's bill of fare. In the good 
 old times, as it is the custom to dub those historical eras 
 we know little or nothing about, Mr. Wat Tyler, John 
 Cade, Esq., Sir Thomas Wyatt, et hoc genus omne 
 turned their attention to rebellion ; the real object they had 
 at heart being their own individual advancement and 
 aggrandizement ; and as history, we are told, like echo, 
 repeats itself, the same unselfish (" bar one," as they say on 
 the Turf) love of country, propounded in the bunkum oratory 
 of needy and seedy patriots, maybe heard any Bank Holiday, 
 or summer Sunday afternoon, provided the weather be 
 reasonably fine, in this present year of grace, round the 
 " Reformers' Tree " in London's beautiful Hyde Park. 
 
 Everything progressed swimmingly, and " all went merry 
 as a marriage bell" till the end of the second scene in act 
 iv., when an incident occurred that upset the gravity of the 
 audience, and imperilled not a little the success of that act's 
 final scene. 
 
 Damon, it will be remembered, rents a snug little 
 suburban box just outside the Syracusian radius, where his 
 wife and child are rusticating in the garden, awaiting his 
 return home from business in the city ; and thither he 
 repairs, when released from captivity by his hostage Pythias, 
 to take a last farewell of his dear ones. The situation is a 
 telling one, and in pursuance of my Hymeneal troth plight, 
 to let my better half " go snacks " in all my worldly pos- 
 sessions, and stand in generally in any " bunce " that fell to 
 my share, it had been arranged between Miss De Burgh 
 (Herraion) and myself at rehearsals, that the act drop 
 should not descend rapidly upon Damon's exit and embrace 
 of his child, leaving his wife still in a swoon on the garden 
 seat, under the watchful eye of the faithful old digger ; but 
 as soon as the applause which would necessarily follow my 
 efforts had subsided, Mrs. D. should slowly revive from her 
 syncope, and gaze around her with that idiocy of expres- 
 sion we have most of us exhibited some time or other in 
 our lives, when awakening from a siesta induced by a too 
 familiar intimacy with the vinous produce of our dear 
 friends of the castanets and plum-coloured " smalls." 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. I57 
 
 As soon as she realized the dreadful solitude of her position, 
 severed from every tie she held dearest (here the agony is 
 piled up to the altitude of a domestic Ossa), she was to rush 
 to the centre of the stage, fall on her knees, and over her 
 child there, and embrace him in a paroxysm of hysterical 
 sobs, to pianissimo music and a slow curtain. We may 
 perhaps be pardoned informing the ignorant in theatrical 
 phrases, that the pace at which the " drop " is lowered at the 
 conclusion of an act, is regulated by the requirements of the 
 situation, and is technically known as a " slow " or " quick " 
 curtain. Miss Mandlebert, the late popular actress of the 
 Grecian Theatre, then a girl of very tender years, repre- 
 sented Damon's son and heir, and had been absent from all 
 rehearsals except the last one on the morning of perfor- 
 mance; she had therefore not been sufficiently instructed 
 to remain in the centre of the stage, where poor papa had 
 kissed and left her, until the arrival of " mother dear " to 
 soothe and repeat the cuddle ; and on Damon's exit, looked 
 innocently round the house, as if uncertain what to be at. 
 The Lady Hermion was too experienced an actress to 
 recover from her fainting fit until such time as the applause 
 had thoroughly ceased, and while she lay prostrate on the 
 garden seat, the child had discovered, lying by her side, 
 a heavy cluster of black ringlets that her mamma had 
 added to her natural locks, in imitation of the magnificent 
 head of hair of Mrs. Sarah Allen's advertisements. In 
 Damon's last passionate embrace of his wife, these embel- 
 lishments had somehow slipped their moorings, and lay, as 
 yet unobserved by the audience, within a few feet of their 
 late proprietor's flowing robe ; little Miss Mandlebert, 
 presumably tired of waiting so long alone, ran quickly up to 
 her stage parent, and stared inquiringly in her face, as 
 though to ascertain if she still slept ; then, picking up the 
 ringlets, she held them up, full in the gaze of the house, as high 
 as her tiny arm would permit, and stroking the still swoon- 
 ing Hermion's cheek with the other hand to arouse her, 
 exclaimed, in accents as distinct as those of a practised 
 elocutionist, " Look, Miss De Burgh, you've dropped your 
 curls ! " 
 
 Hermion still swooned on ; and the order for a " slow 
 
IS8 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 curtain," which the lady had been so careful to impress 
 upon the prompter, being scrupulously carried out, the drop 
 descended, as in duty bound, amidst the roars of the 
 delighted audience. 
 
 As may be supposed, it took Messrs. Damon and Co. 
 all their time, as the saying goes, to play back the more 
 facetiously inclined in the front of the house to an attentive 
 and serious mood. However, we succeeded more than 
 fairly well, and despite this untoward contretemps, I look 
 back to the entire representation as among the most 
 successful of the Scenic Club's efforts. Damon and Pythias 
 was repeated, with nearly the same cast, on several 
 subsequent occasions at different theatres. 
 
 Anent this play, yet one little anecdote more. 
 
 In the early autumn of 1852, the Royalty Theatre, then 
 called the Soho, was leased by Mr. Charles Gould, to whose 
 dramatic eccentricities I have had occasion to refer more 
 than once in the course of these reminiscences. A benefit had 
 been organized by the committee of some charitable insti- 
 tution whose name I do not retain, to take place at this 
 theatre, the play selected by them being Damon and Pythias. 
 One object of the performance was the introduction to the 
 stage of Mr. F. B. Chatterton, so many years lessee of our 
 National Theatre, who was to make his debut in the 
 character of Pythias, and I had been fixed upon to play my 
 old favourite, Damon. This was in my courtship days, and I 
 had driven my present better-half down to Hampton Court 
 the day before the intended performance, to partake of one 
 of those nice little dinners young lovers enjoyed so much, 
 and continue to enjoy, for aught I can tell to the contrary, 
 at the King's Head Hotel, opposite the Park, and adjoin- 
 ing the Palace gates. Returning home through Hampton 
 about six o'clock, that witching hour in Septenibei: when the 
 sun is just withdrawing his golden beams, and the balmy air 
 of twilight breathes peace and spooneyness to hearts that.love, 
 I contrived, by staring in my sweetheart's eyes instead of 
 looking where I was going, to bring the off-wheel of my 
 dog-cart in contact with the curb of the pathway, and the 
 sudden jolt served me as Banquo's apparition did the 
 valiant Macbeth, and " pushed us from our stool," deposi- 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 159 
 
 ting the Syracusian patriot of the morrow night in the 
 middle of the road, with a compound fracture of the right 
 leg. As I could not be removed to London, my future 
 good wife obtained for me a temporary hospital at the 
 house of a small builder hard by, where I lay on my back 
 for eight weeks. The next morning Mr. Gould was informed 
 of the accident, and advised to procure a substitute for the 
 damaged Cowper ; but not being able to light upon any 
 one studied in the character in the short time at his disposal, 
 and Damon being one of those parts it would be ridiculous 
 to read from the book, he determined to return the deposit- 
 money for the rent of the theatre, and to close the house for 
 the night ; this he effected thus. Two enormous posters 
 were affixed to the entrance-doors of the pit and boxes with 
 these words — 
 
 Royal Soho Theatre. 
 There will be no performance this evening, Damon having 
 
 accidentally broken his leg. 
 " Accidentally, quotha, Master ? A righte merrie conceite 
 i' faith, to fracture one's limb just for the fun of the thing." 
 
l6o BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A Medical Acquaintance — The Chemist's Shop — Individuality of 
 Christian Names — The "Doctor" speculates on the Turf; Non-success 
 and subsequent Difficulties. 
 
 THE Scenic Club had now existed over six years, averag- 
 ing, acting and honorary members included, close upon 
 a hundred subscribers ; and though new members were con- 
 tinually joining the ranks as others seceded, we contrived 
 to retain on the acting staff, during what must be con- 
 sidered, for an amateur society, that long period, the 
 majority of our most efficient original company. Having 
 myself been playing once every ten days or fortnight, for 
 five or six seasons prior to the foundation of this club, with 
 some society or other, I had had quite a dozen years of the 
 amusement, and, as may readily be supposed, the gilt had 
 somewhat worn off the gingerbread, and I was not quite so 
 red-hot to strut and fret my hour, as when the footlights and 
 their surroundings were spick and span new. True, when 
 opportunity offered for the repetition of an old part, I was 
 as ready, nay, as eager as formerly to embrace it; or when — 
 and which happened every now and again — a chance of per- 
 forming some minor character with a professional company 
 turned up, I rarely let the occasion slip, as it generally 
 enabled me to pick up some hint in stage business hitherto 
 undreamt of, or added by hook and by crook a treasured 
 addition to my former experience. These bye performances 
 introduced me to many stage celebrities, whose acquaint- 
 ance, and in many instances, friendships I enjoyed in after 
 life. But as to studying new characters for a single perfor- 
 mance, without the probability of being called upon to 
 repeat them, I am free to confess the enthusiasm had 
 waned ; and thus it came to pass that I was not an actor in, 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. l6l 
 
 but merely a co-conspirator of the harmless plot that 
 culminated in the following ludicrous incident. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that these little episodes are 
 no mere coinage of the imagination, but reminiscences of 
 realities ; and as such I have not scrupled in every case to 
 verify them with the names of the parties concerned. 
 
 Among my acquaintance in 1852, was one William 
 Jenner, the' proprietor of a small chemist's shop in Berwick- 
 street, Soho. Jenner was a Sussex man, and had passed 
 his early manhood in agricultural pursuits, his eldest brother 
 being a farmer of some standing in that county. William, 
 not being over bucolic in his tastes, resolved, when just 
 turned thirty years of age, to throw aside the ploughshare, 
 and no longer whistle o'er the Sussex lea; so, like Dick 
 Whittington of old, he came up to the gay Metropolis, to 
 seek his fortune in whatever might turn up, and promise 
 opportunity for amassing the " siller." He ran against a 
 Mr. Geeves, a plumber in a petty way of business in a 
 turning out of the Haymarket, and these two worthies, 
 neither of whom possessed much business aptitude, and still 
 less inclination for any employ demanding industry, soon 
 became sworn cronies. Whether it occurred to either, or to 
 both of them, that the human frame and brick and mortar 
 edifices might possibly be built on the same lines ; or, given 
 that the conduit pipes of both assimilating, it was easy to 
 repair them by the same workmen, I am unable to de- 
 termine ; but the fact remains that soon after the cement- 
 ing of these gentlenien's friendship, Jenner became installed 
 as a chemist, and visited Geeves' clients in the capacity of 
 under surveyor and foreman of the work, whenever the 
 plumber had a job; whilst Geeves repaid the civility by 
 attending Jenner's suffering patients as his assistant, and 
 advising as to the treatment of their intestinal canals. 
 Geeves' little place of business, like most of the small 
 plumbers' shops of the present day, was usually locked, and 
 you had to ring the bell half-a-dozen times at least before 
 anyone appeared in reply to the summons. The fact was, 
 though Geeves' name figured as proprietor of the house on 
 a brass plate on the entrance door, he merely rented, in 
 addition to the shop and a small parlour at the back, a bed- 
 in 
 
l62 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 room on an upper floor, which a slatternly girl from a 
 neighbouring coal-shed came every morning to " tidy up," as 
 she expressed it, and to valet the street door during the few 
 hours she was there, should anything so unlikely as a busi- 
 ness call present itself for the plumber's attention. 
 
 At this time the Act of Parliament prohibiting persons 
 keeping houses for betting purposes had not been intro- 
 duced, and it was open to any adventurous spirit of indolent 
 habits, with means sufficient to rent an " office " in a back 
 street at ten shillings a week, and to purchase a desk, three 
 or four cane-bottom chairs, and half-a-dozen penny printed lists 
 of the horses' names in the race, to fasten on a black-board, 
 and hang against the whitewashed bare walls of the apart- 
 ment, for the perusal of shop assistants and boy clerks, of 
 potmen and stable-lads, and similar classes, who systemati- 
 cally robbed their employers to furnish the means for their 
 " investments ; " it was competent for any scoundrel to 
 start one of these little swindling hells ; and it was the 
 custom of Mr. Geeves, during the racing season, to pass 
 his noondays in sauntering from one of these dens to 
 another, inspecting the variation in the odds, and weighing 
 in his mind the probable stability of each establishment, 
 before depositing his half-crown with the proprietor on the 
 animal of his choice, with a reasonable likelihood of receiving 
 his gains should the horse happen to prove successful. 
 
 Jenner's shop, if you ignored two gouty, pear-shaped glass 
 bottles, filled with some coloured liquid, that ornamented 
 the front window, and a huge red and green lamp, with a 
 crimson bull's-eye in the centre, that surmounted the door- 
 way (and was strangely out of proportion with the words 
 "Medical Hall," which appeared in lanky gold letters 
 immediately beneath it), might as well have been called a 
 hair-dresser's, a brush-maker's, or a petty perfumer's, as a 
 doctor's shop, for its stock-in-trade put in equal claims to 
 the usual plant of such depots. It consisted of combs of 
 all sorts — side, back, and front for ladies' tresses ; white bone, 
 black india-rubber, and imitation tortoiseshell for gentle- 
 men's heads and beards, and small tooth abominations for 
 eradicating superfluities from the fluffy noddles of neglected 
 juveniles. Then came brushes, sufficient in number and 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 63 
 
 variety to polish up and keep in holiday condition the 
 entire human frame. There were hair-brushes, whisker- 
 brushes, tooth-brushes, nail-brushes, shaving-brushes, and 
 ■"aurilaves" for the ears. There was soap — plain and 
 scented, in cake and in bar ; pomatum and brilliantine ; 
 hair-dye and whisker stain; tooth powder, hair powder, 
 face powder (christened "violet" powder), and insect 
 powder ! Yes, the very cockroaches and black-beetles 
 were not forgotten, and the extirpation of entomology from 
 the face of creation was guaranteed for one and three half- 
 pence, which included the Government stamp. Next came 
 the plasters — com, court, chest, and diachylum ; the oils — 
 hair, salad, lamp, and cod-liver ; the ointments, the liniments, 
 the ligaments, the peppermints, in drops or in liquid. 
 Now we have the " ines " — saline, pepsine, quinine, iodine, 
 florentine, gelatine, and glycerine, — vulgo, " ene," only the 
 former sounds more euphonious ; Epsom salts and smelling 
 salts ; senna and gum arable. " Unique preparations " for 
 the hair and moustache, and " specialities "■ for the teeth 
 and gums. Specifics for neuralgia and tic-douloureux, and 
 elixirs for headache, toothache, sideache, limbsache, and 
 griping pains in the abdomen. Sponges, and oil-silk bags 
 to contain them, are included in the catalogue, the latter 
 manufactured of some adhesive material that sticks to your 
 coat-tail with the heat of your pockets, and is consequently 
 rendered useless long before your arrival home. Then we 
 have feeding bottles, to supply maternal nourishment during 
 the enforced absence of the parent, and " Fuller's earth," 
 to render still more soft and delicate the infant's skin, when 
 the little cherub is bedaubed with it from crown to sole by 
 the doting mother on her return home. There were 
 bandages also of softest linen for sprains, broken legs and 
 arms, and deep and incised wounds ; and twopenny papers 
 of "prepared starch" wherein to steep and stiffen the 
 aforesaid bandages, and render them fit substitutes for 
 the discarded splint that had confined the fractured limb 
 during days and nights of sleepless agony. Besides all 
 these, Mr. Jenner dealt in what must be regarded as illegiti- 
 mates, remembering that he professed himself a medical 
 man. He had cigarettes in quarter of a hundred bundles 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 hidden in odd places, and a box or two of questionable 
 foreign cheroots, slyly concealed behind an immense jar 
 labelled " Camomile, " in order to avoid the prying eye of 
 the Inland Revenue officer, should that official seek to in- 
 stitute inquiries about " licensee! for the sale of tobacco and 
 snuff." At one side of the shop-door entrance stood a 
 bundle of walking-sticks, varying in value, or, to speak 
 by the card, in price, from twopence to a shilling ; whilst 
 on the opposite side figured a circular washing-tub, filled in 
 the hot summer months with bottles of lemonade and 
 " gingerpop," and surmounted by a lump of ice, to keep 
 them cool, and entice a visit from the thirsty wayfarer. At 
 the little side window on the left of the doorway some 
 petty stationery was displayed ; fancy tissue papers, cut in 
 sundry tasteful devices for grate ornaments ; packets of curl 
 paper ; a dozen steel pens sewn on a card, with a penholder 
 and a bone paper-cutter above them, and marked " only 
 8d.," and, by its side, note and letter paper, in half and 
 quarter quires, and sheets of " cream laid," four a penny. 
 And — but this was an innovation — there had recently been 
 discerned in the stationery window, as constituting a 
 portion of the chemist's stock, a few small leather-covered 
 pocket-books of oblong form, fastening at the end with a 
 metal clasp, and bearing on one side, emblazoned in 
 dazzling gold, the semblance of a race-horse at full gallop, his 
 speed urged on by his jockey's vigorous use of whip and 
 spur. These were no other than betting books, in a half- 
 dozen of which Mr. Jenner had invested in a moment of 
 Turf enthusiasm, consequent on his having drawn the 
 winner in a shilling lottery of the Liverpool Grand National 
 Steeplechase of the week before. 
 
 "From little causes great events arise," 
 
 sang the poet, and but for the presence of these same betting 
 books in the Doctor's shop window, it is open to question 
 whether he would ever have been chronicled as the hero of 
 the following story. 
 
 John Wells — " Tiny Wells " — as it was the fashion to 
 call the celebrated jockey so many years associated with 
 the Turf successes of the late Sir Joseph Hawley, and then 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 165 
 
 on the threshold of his fame, was one day walking up 
 Berwick-street past the " Medical Hall," in company with 
 his friend, " Jack Bilham." 
 
 And here may we be allowed to make a slight divergence 
 from our tale, in favour of a little philosophy about Christian 
 names? There are persons innumerable, both in public 
 and private society, whose Christian and surnames appear 
 inseparable under any circumstances, and are as much in 
 unison with themselves as their boots or their underlinen ; 
 nor is this characteristic confined to any particular trade or 
 profession, being as cosmopolitan as the blessed sun, that 
 lights alike the Antipodes and the gallant Briton. Take 
 the notabilities of the Bar. You speak of Edwin 
 James, Douglas Straight, or Montague Williams, and 
 the Edwin, the Douglas, and the Montague belong 
 equally to, and are as much a part of these coun- 
 sellors as are their wigs and gowns ; whilst no one was 
 ever heard to mention Ballantine except as " the learned 
 Serjeant;" to breathe Frederick, or Andrew, in connection 
 with the name of Mr. Inderwick, Q.C.,' or to denounce the 
 latest addition to the list of senior wranglers as anybody 
 else than plain Mrs. Weldon. Even the music-hall pro- 
 grammes shunt the " Georgina," albeit that demi-masculine 
 denomination would materially strengthen and lengthen 
 the " star " line, and it and Mrs. W. seem, in common par- 
 lance, as far apart as the poles. To go lower in the social 
 scale. There is Poole — the King of the tailors ! Why, I 
 question if anybody, except his family, and, perhaps, a few 
 bosom chums, ever heard him mentioned as the gallant 
 " Harry,"- while the marvellous steam machine, capable of 
 splitting a Bank of England note in two, would be em- 
 ployed in vain to separate the " Dr. CoUis " from the ordi- 
 nary " Browne," of chlorodyne notoriety. The " CoUis " 
 stamps the individuality of the nostrum, and you would 
 probably question the efficacy of Browne's mixture without 
 the connecting link. Where would be the attraction of 
 David James, or of Johnny Toole, without their Christian 
 names in the playbill ? It might be that some third-rate 
 Merry Andrew, whose antics you were about to witness^ 
 was trading on these comedians' well-deserved reputation. 
 
1 66 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 and announcing himself as Mr. J. or Mr. T. to mulct you 
 out of your entrance money ; but, preceded by David, or 
 John Laurence, you feel assured you have paid for the 
 genuine article, and are as certain to receive full value for 
 your outlay, as when you gleefully acknowledge the fact in 
 Smith's crowded Oyster Rooms in the Strand an hour after 
 the conclusion of the performance. Buckstone, Harley, 
 Compton were never so distinguished in their day by the 
 playgoing public, who ignored John, Pritt, and Harry, as 
 superfluities ; nor are Bancroft, Kendal, and Hare spoken 
 of in our time but as plain B,, K., and H. ; but who, in 
 this year of grace, would venture to extol the Juliet of Miss 
 Anderson, without coupling with it the adjunctive " Mary," 
 or eulogise the fascination of the Lyceum favourite, and 
 omit the familiarity of " Ellen " with the Terry? To solve 
 this mystery is impossible — at least, as far as the present 
 writer's ability goes — he can no more account for it than he 
 can assign a reason for the flavour of a pine-apple, the 
 scent of a rose, or the infliction of the School Board tax ; 
 but the fact remains indisputable. 
 
 But to return to " Tiny Wells " and Jack Bilham. Bilham 
 was a friend of the chemist, and essentially a horsey man. 
 The reader must not understand by this that Jack sported 
 trousers like a groom, so tight in the leg it seemed miracu- 
 lous how he contrived to get his limbs into them ; that his 
 boots had thick soles, laced up in the front, and yet shone 
 with an unnatural bright polish on the sloppiest of days ; or 
 that he eternally carried in his mouth a straw or a sprig of 
 evergreen, as was the wont of the late revered Viscount 
 Palmerston. No ! Mr. Bilham dressed and bore himself 
 fairly d la mode, and there was not the slightest flavour of 
 the stable in his manner or appearance. Far be it from 
 me to infer that he was a blind, sycophantic adherent of 
 Lindley Murray, or that an attentive ear might not now 
 and then detect a jostling among the personal pronouns ; 
 bat what then ? Don't we often meet with bad English in 
 fashionable novels, and read questionable French in the 
 prospectus of native "professors," who boast 'Ca^vc furity of 
 accent as a reason (or an excuse, if you will) for their high 
 charges ? There are sporting men — and of the better class. 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 167 
 
 too — who drift insensibly into the equine atmosphere. You 
 can almost fancy yourself walking down a Mews when in 
 their company, though the street should be Bond or 
 Regent ; but good-looking Jack was none of these, and yet 
 you felt confident, before he opened his mouth, that the 
 query he was about to propound to you would be connected 
 with the Turf. Just as.when, on a broiling hot summer day, 
 you happen to saunter through a shady spinny, and become 
 all of a sudden conscious of the presence of some adjacent 
 cooling spring. You seem to scent its refreshing odour 
 though you cannot see the stream, nor distinguish, midst 
 the surrounding silence, its gentle, soothing ripple. Mr. 
 Bilham and the young jockey paused at the chemist's shop ; 
 another moment, and they had entered it. 
 
 " Good morning, Doctor," said the former, extending his 
 hand to the proprietor, who was behind the counter with 
 an apron on, and the cuffs of his coat turned back. He 
 was engaged in spreading a chest-plaster for an elderly, 
 asthmatic-looking female, who patiently awaited its com- 
 pletion. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Bilham," rejoined the chemist, with 
 ironical courtesy, as he grasped the proffered palm. " And 
 what's the news ? " 
 
 " Well," rejoined his friend, going direct to his favourite 
 theme; "they take loo to 7 kindly this morning about 
 ' Lapidist' for ' The Guineas.' I am told it is a pretty good 
 thing." 
 
 " Do they, though ? " inquired the Doctor, mechanically, 
 not having the vaguest notion of what " The Guineas " 
 consisted. 
 
 " Tchu 1 " sneered the little jockey, with a contemptuous 
 toss of his head, "/would not take 100 to i about him. 
 We must see if we can't manage to look you up something 
 better than that, Mr. BUham." 
 
 "Who's your friend. Jack?" demanded the Doctor, 
 evidently startled by what he regarded as the lad's 
 audacity. 
 
 "What! don't you know 'Tiny Wells,' Bill ? " remon- 
 strated Jack, obviously disgusted with the chemist's 
 ignorance. 
 
l68 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 Mr. Jenner bashfully confessed himself in the dark as to 
 the boy's celebrity, but requested the honour of an intro- 
 duction forthwith. 
 
 " Certainly ! " exclaimed Mr. Bilham, emphatically, as if 
 nothing short of a thumping legacy, paid down upon the 
 nail, would have afforded him an equal amount of enjoy- 
 ment. " This gentleman," he continued, addressing the 
 lad and pointing to the chemist, who had now completed 
 the plaster, " is my doctor. Tiny ; and a damned good 
 fellow you'll find him if ever you require physicking. This 
 is young Wells, Bill, who rode ' Truth ' for the ' Cambridge ' 
 last back end. It's a big thing, mind you, for a five stone 
 thirteen jockey to win a handicap like that ; and you mark 
 what I tell you, before many seasons are over his head, 
 Tiny will be bang at the top of the tree." 
 
 Mr. Jenner sincerely hoped Mr. Bilham's prophecy might 
 be fulfilled, and that the lad would attain such lofty emi- 
 nence ; and declared himself willing at all times, as a 
 friend of his friend Jack's, to afford Mr. Wells the benefit 
 of his professional services on strictly ready-money terms. 
 
 " Let's have a look at those betting-books in the window, 
 if you please, Doctor," said Tiny. " Mine is just full, and I 
 may as well buy a new one of you for luck." 
 
 The chemist laid three or four of the evil tablets before 
 the young jockey, who, having selected one, inquired the 
 " damage." 
 
 '•Humbug!" exclaimed Mr. Bilham, byway of adjusting 
 the price. " Put it in your pocket. Tiny. The Doctor 
 wouldn't think of charging j^« for a bit of a thing like that. 
 You can make it up to him a hundredfold." 
 
 " Of course I will," said Tiny, as he pocketed the volume. 
 "Still, Mr. Bilham, I should not like, as the Doctor is 
 nearly a stranger, tc " 
 
 " Shut up ! " interposed Mr. Bilham. " The Doctor 
 knows well enough }ou are too much of a gentleman to 
 allow him to be done. " Don't you. Bill ? " 
 
 " Bill " did. He was certain that if Mr. Wells was in the 
 secret of any good thing on which he could safely invest a 
 half-sovereign, he would not fail to confide it to him " on 
 the quiet ; " and Mr. Wells, on his part, could not remember 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 69 
 
 anything that would afford him such deep gratification, as 
 to journey several miles out of his way, in order to impart 
 to his new-made friend the coveted intelligence. 
 
 Jenner's success in the steeplechase lottery had given him 
 a taste for Turf speculation. Like the lion whelp, he had 
 tasted blood, and his palate was whetted for a feast ; he 
 was pining for young Wells's " tip." 
 
 As already hinted, our hero was no strong advocate for 
 laborious work ; indeed, truth to tell, he was little averse to 
 a , trifling amusement during business hours ; and in the 
 small, ill-lit parlour at the rear of his shop, quiet card 
 parties were frequently held, as early in the evening as the 
 gas could be lighted with any show of decency, at which his 
 partner the plumber (Mr. Geeves), Mr. Bilham, and other 
 , acquaintance of idle or sporting tendency, assisted. The 
 game was always speculative — usually loo — and though the 
 stakes contended for were trivial, regarded from a gambling 
 point of view, they were stiU sufficiently heavy to make the 
 holding of bad cards a consideration to the Doctor, whose 
 ways and means were " cabined, cribbed, confined." Wells, 
 who had now become a constant visitor at " Medical Hall," 
 had introduced to that sanctum his young friend, the subse- 
 quent unrivalled horseman, George Fordham, who was 
 suffering from some ailment that required professional 
 advice ; and these two youths, then both in their teens, had 
 been brought to regard Jenner as a first-class practitioner, 
 and to place equal reUance on his " advice gratis " and his 
 half-crown boxes of bolus, as though he had been senior 
 sawbones at a metropolitan hospital, or the most fashionable 
 physician in Brook-street, Grosvenor-square. Had the 
 "Tiny" one caught a severe cold, through omitting to 
 change his silk jacket on the instant of dismounting, when 
 drenched to the skin by an April hail-storm at the recent 
 Epsom Spring Meeting; or had little Fordham^the 
 " Demon," as he was then called by his followers and the 
 racing public — bruised his leg severely, by cannoning against 
 a brother jockey, who refused to clear the way for him as 
 he brought his horse up with a fearless rush to the front, 
 the Berwick-street chemist was the oracle to be consulted, 
 and from his Apothecaries' Hall came the throat gargle, or 
 
1 70 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 lotion for the injured limb, destined to set these young dare- 
 devils on their legs again, and restore them to pristine 
 health in time for the next sporting carnival. 
 
 Around fashionable celebrities of every art or profes- 
 sion are ever gathered satellites, sycophants, and hangers- 
 on. To be seen walking across Lincoln's-inn, or down 
 Chancery-lane, in company with a gentleman wearing a 
 seedy black cloth gown and a dirty white horse-hair 
 wig, and carrying under his arm a bundle of papers tied 
 round with a piece of red tape, is regarded by one 
 man as a mark of honourable distinction. Another 
 would give an inch off the end of his well-waxed William 
 Holland moustache, only to be pointed out by a passer-by 
 to his friend, as being " the very gentleman he had noticed 
 talking to Mr. Henry Irving in Covent Garden Market the 
 other day," and wondering what notable he could possibly 
 be. The fact is, the double-faced Janus had intruded him- 
 self on the fashionable tragedian, to inquire if he would 
 kindly direct him the shortest cut to the Lyceum Theatre, 
 merely for the sake of vaunting his importance to his wife 
 and eldest boy over the evening dinner-table, and declaring 
 what a long and interesting conversation he had held that 
 morning with the amiable and distinguished actor. A third 
 parasite of celebrities would submit resignedly to the 
 ailment demanding medical advice, nor begrudge the two 
 guineas introductory fee he paid for it (the universal douceur, 
 by the way, amongst physicians of note used to be one 
 pound one, but we must charitably assume we have extra 
 value for the additional coin) that he might be able to 
 assure the friend who congratulated him on his perfect 
 recovery to health, that a more plain-spoken, worthy, kind- 
 hearted fellow, although Physician in Ordinary to the Court, 
 and consulted by half the crowned heads of Europe, than 
 Sir Timothy Ticklepalm, Bart., F.R.S., F.S. A., F.L.S., &c., 
 &c., &c. ; a more affable, anti-humbug man he never had the 
 pleasure of counting amongst his most intimate chums. 
 And if this be the case — and who will be bold enough to 
 gainsay it ? — where only one's vanity or amour propre is con- 
 cerned, what may not be urged in favour of an acquaintance 
 with a notability whose advice may possibly tend to the 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 171 
 
 augmentation of your banking account? To be acquainted 
 with a fashionable light-weight jockey, whose services are 
 in request, and whose society is sought after by half the 
 wealthy owners of racehorses in the kingdom ; and who, 
 from his very surroundings, is bound every now and then to 
 be in the possession of a stable secret for some profitable in- 
 vestment ! To be in the confidence of such a person ! To 
 be able to say to him, with the same freedom as you would 
 ring your hbrary bell, and desire the housemaid to wipe up 
 the ink you had spilt over your writing-desk, " Jack," or 
 " George," as the case might be, " shall I put my fiver on 
 ' Catch-em-alive ' now, or wait till the week after next, when 
 the stable money is on ? " . Is this, I should like to know, a 
 friend or an advantage to be despised ? With the fidelity of 
 the Hibernian echo, I unhesitatingly answer "No!" Well, 
 then, how can you wonder, reader, that the constant presence 
 of " Tiny " Wells, George Fordhara, and other turfites of 
 lesser note at " Medical Hall," brought with it a concomi- 
 tant assemblage of third and fourth-rate sporting men. 
 There were the " Colonel," the " Major," the " Captain," 
 and other officers of a mythical army, and a host of other 
 persons whose real names were sealed books to everybody 
 but themselves. There were " little Bobby," " old Fred," 
 "Sandy Charley," and sundry hangers-on to the jockeys' 
 coat tails, lounging round the chemist's shop of a morning, 
 awaiting the arrival of the lions of the day. Each and all 
 had "something good " to impart to "the Doctor" ; some- 
 thing that had not up to now even reached the cornucopian 
 ears of "Tiny" or his friend George; some horse for the Derby 
 or Ascot Stakes, whose success must infallibly prove an 
 " open sesame " to a hitherto unexplored gold mine 1 
 Jenner unhappily lent a ready ear to the syren's song, and 
 loss upon loss was the resu't The few pounds he had 
 garnered up through the jockey's information went back, with 
 compound interest, by following the "certainties" of the 
 outsiders; and these losses, added to those of bad hands at 
 cards, and the consequent gradual dwindling of his stock in 
 trade, caused the doctor's boots to be worn till the soles had 
 become thin, the collars and shirt cuffs ragged past 
 resuscitation by extra starching, and the elbows and lapels 
 
172 
 
 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 of the long-used frock coat lamentably in need of the patent 
 "reviver." Alas ! the truth must be told, the Doctor was 
 hard up, and the question now was, what could be done to 
 replenish the attenuated exchequer ? 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Bills and I.O.U's — The Promissory Note Renewed — Bene&t at Soho 
 Theatre — Romeo and yidiet — ^The Beneficiare appears as the Apothe- 
 cary of Mantua — A " Surprise " for Romeo — Unique Apology for Stage 
 Absence — Conclusion. 
 
 WHAT is it that first presents itself to the impecunious 
 mind on every occasion of difiSculty, as a stop- 
 gap to a gnawing appetite, and the chevaux-de-frise to the 
 broker's man ? This is not a conundrum, but a very serious 
 inquiry with many a man in his journey from the cradle to 
 the cemetery. The answer is a bill stamp, or that legal 
 document's younger brother, the seductive I. O. U. These 
 three liquid vowels have been the impassive cause of more 
 mischief among the world's inhabitants than the cannon, 
 the spear, and the sword. Not seldom are they responsible 
 for the husband's penury, the wife's tears, the dissipated 
 heirloom of the orphan. The thief may often trace his 
 crime and subsequent prison life to their duplicity, when he 
 first courted their aid to strengthen his extravagance ; and 
 the gambler curse, with his dying breath, the readiness their 
 presence gave him for the indulgence of his darling passion. 
 And yet they seem so simple in themselves ; wear such an 
 innocent air ; are so guileless, and, moreover, so very easy of 
 formation. A stroke of the goosequill and it is done ! The 
 empty larder is replenished, the hitherto implacable land- 
 lord retires benignly, and the bum bailiflf gets kicked out ! 
 Alas ! my impulsive and confiding friend, the bill stamp and 
 the I. O. U. may be present panaceas for all the ills of 
 humanity, but be sure, when the day of reckoning arrives, 
 they will be found the Pandora's box of credit. 
 
174 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 Well, a " kite " for twenty-five pounds was flown, the 
 obliging alchemist describing it as a "pony," and the 
 chemist and the plumber were again in funds. The cards 
 were shuffled as of yore, and the half-crown or half- 
 sovereign was once more invested on the "good thing." 
 But somehow Fortune resolutely refused her smiles to 
 the doctor. Though he should hold a hand of kings, 
 queens, and tens, the ace was sure to be out somewhere 
 that deal to guillotine his monarch, and the knave close at 
 hand to upset his confidence in the ten of trumps. Then 
 the "long shot " outsider he relied on to land him a lump 
 for the Goodwood Stakes, somehow pulled up dead lame on 
 the morning of his final gallop, and had to be scratched at 
 the last moment by his owner ; and the favourite that "could 
 not lose " the Cup on Thursday, and was bound to more 
 than recoup his Tuesday's losses, got done on the post a 
 short head, by an animal that figured in the quotations 
 when the flag fell at loo to 5. 
 
 Bills, Promissory notes, and I.O.U's are as sure to fall due 
 at the given time as the sun is to rise, the moon to have a 
 first quarter, and the collector to call for the Queen's taxes. 
 There is no pushing them back, as you serve the hands of 
 the hall dial when you come home late for dinner, and wish 
 to humbug your wife you were in to the tick. The two 
 months and three days' grace are things of the past, and the 
 order to stand and deliver is before you. " Attention ! 
 down with the ' Corianders,' Mr. Acceptor, you are no 
 longer allowed to stand at ease." 
 
 Now that the crisis had come, Mr. Jenner, as a matter of 
 course, was unprepared ; the time had flown so quickly, he 
 could hardly persuade himself that the bill had really 
 become due ; business with the plumber was Unusually 
 slack; in short, Mr. Geeves could hardly remember it 
 having been so bad for years. The visits of the Colonel 
 and the Captain to the apothecary's shop were less 
 frequent than formerly, and as for George Fordham and the 
 " Tiny " one, the race meetings were now general all over 
 the country, and jockeys must be away from town fiilfilling 
 their engagements. The hangers-on to their skirts had 
 dwindled down to a miserable few ; those among them who 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 75 
 
 could raise sufScient means to defray the railway fare by 
 " Parley " to the racing fixture, had followed in the wake of 
 the sporting world, in the hope of picking up their precarious 
 livelihood, and Jenner, Geeves, and good " Jack Bilhatn " 
 were nearly deserted by their acquaintance. However, the 
 last-named, who, to quote the eulogy of his friends, was 
 always a "trump," generously came to the front, and lent the 
 chemist the wherewithal to renew the promissory note, and 
 thus savedhim from the durance vile which, at the time of our 
 story, was the alternative between payment and the reverse. 
 
 " But," said Mr. Bilham, after the acceptance had been 
 renewed, and everything rendered velvety for the next two 
 months, " remember, Doctor, you must arrange to take up 
 the * kite ' when the time comes round. It is of no use 
 keeping on paying sixty per cent, to old Martin for the rest 
 of your life j so you had better scrape the stuflf together 
 and get shot of the damned thing." 
 
 To " scrape the stuiF together " is, no doubt, capital 
 advice ; the difficulty is to find the tools and procure the 
 scavenger ; but Jenner saw the necessity of providing the 
 " fantails," and resolved to set about it at once. 
 
 " I say, Cowper," he said to me, when we met in the 
 Strand one day, " do you know, I am in a devil of a fix ? " 
 
 The Doctor, familiar as we were, generally addressed me 
 by my theatrical name. He never " Bill'd " me in his life, 
 as he used to " Jack " Mr. Bilham, and " Tommy " his 
 partner the plumber. 
 
 " Indeed ! " I replied, composedly ; " that's not a first 
 appearance with you, Jenner. But what is the new roh 
 you complain of? " 
 
 " I've been stupid enough," he continued, " to put my 
 name to a " 
 
 "What's the amount?" I interposed, anticipating the 
 cause of the " fix." 
 
 " Five-and-twenty pounds," he rejoined ; " and how the 
 deuce I am to raise it I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 "And I'm sure /don't know," I replied. " It is no use 
 your looking at me, old man ; for you couldn't extract half 
 that sum from all my worldly possessions with a lever that 
 would lift St. Paul's." 
 
176 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 " I know that well enough," said the Doctor. " You 
 spend every halfpenny you get in your stage craze. By 
 the way, Cowper, that reminds me. Your club is always 
 playing for some charity or other ; couldn't you manage to 
 get me up a benefit at some little theatre? I could get rid 
 of no end of tickets." 
 
 By " your club," you understand the sly dog of course 
 alluded to the Scenic, but he fancied he might as well soft- 
 sawder me a bit, as King Pippin of the apple basket, and 
 hence the intended compliment. 
 
 " I will see what can be done. Doctor," I said, " and 
 let you know in a day or so," and we shook hands and 
 parted. 
 
 Amongst my particular theatrical cronies at this time, I 
 reckoned the late lessee of the Leicester Theatre Royal, 
 Mr. E. Clinton Hall, father of the present Stafford Hall, 
 the rising young scenic artist, whose work, especially in 
 last year's pantomime at Mr. Wilson Barrett's magnificent 
 Leeds Theatre, gained significant notice from the local • 
 Press. To this gentleman I imparted the chemist's proposal, 
 and, with that impulsive and fun-loving humour so charac- 
 teristic of his Hibernian nature, he at once caught at the 
 idea of a performance in which the doctor could sustain a 
 character. We ran over the names of a dozen plays in 
 which the company of the Scenic Club were studied, so 
 that the entertainment could be brought off forthwith. At 
 last he said — 
 
 " Has the club ever done Romeo and J^ultet, Bill ? " 
 
 " Never," I replied. " It is a very heavy piece, and " 
 
 " I know," he interrupted. " Mr. Cowper does not care 
 much about Romeo. You like something with more guts 
 in it, eh. Bill?" 
 
 JDon't be squeamish. Madam, if you please. I am per- 
 fectly en regie. Remember, we are talking " shop," and 
 "guts" is orthodox theatrical jargon for a strong part. 
 
 I confessed myself not oyer head and ears in love with 
 the " romantic young Corydon," as Beauseant dubs Claude 
 Melnotte, and inquired how he came to suggest so sombre 
 a tragedy. 
 
 "Why," he replied, bursting into a roar of laughter, 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 77 
 
 "liaven't we got a ready-made apothecary m the beneficiare? 
 Jenner is half-starved and thin enough, God knows ; his 
 poverty will consent to anything, so there's the text 
 illustrated ; and as to his will, that is quite of a mind with 
 his poverty, so long as you can show him a sovereign or so 
 hanging to it. Romeo and yuliet is the play against the 
 world, and I'll do the Friar and give Juliet her sleeping 
 draught." 
 
 " And what about Mr. Cowper ? " I inquired. " Is that 
 poor fellow to be left out in the cold, and you have all the 
 fun to yourself? " 
 
 " Oh, you can stand down for once, Mr. Tragedy ; or if 
 you really want a ' go in,' take a selection from the Prince 
 of Denmark, and give a taste of your quality to the half- 
 price." 
 
 All was arranged before we separated, and I undertook 
 to acquaint the Doctor with his good fortune on the 
 following day. 
 
 Mr. Jenner received the communication that a benefit 
 would be got up for him, on the absolute condition that he 
 appeared on the stage as the Apothecary in Romeo and 
 Juliet, with no trifling embarrassment, not to say positive 
 alarm. His taste ran little in the theatrical groove ; whilst 
 as to acting himself, he had no more notion of the art than 
 an itinerant German band entertains of time or harmony. I, 
 however, assured him, in the. words of Hamlet, that it was 
 " as easy as lying," whereupon he seemed more reconciled 
 to the donning of the sock, and fancied, in that case, he 
 should be able to acquit himself with tolerable efficiency. 
 I promised to give him all necessary instruction, and to 
 put the matter in hand without further delay.. 
 
 When Mr. Hall and I, as committee men of the club, 
 propounded the scheme at the next general meeting, we 
 were met with unwonted opposition. Some were averse to 
 the tragedy in itself; others opposed to the introduction of 
 a stranger, and that stranger, moreover, a perfect novice, to 
 take part in a performance ; whilst a third clique entertained 
 lofty objections to the services of so distinguished a body 
 as the Scenic Club being accorded for the advantage of an 
 obscure individual. We, however, managed ultimately to 
 
 N 
 
178 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 override these scruples, so as to gain consent to utilize the 
 name of the club in the play-bills and advertisements, though 
 at the cost of several members, who declared the concession 
 infra dig., and seceded in consequence at the end of the 
 season. 
 
 The Doctor's connections have T)een sufficiently indicated 
 to make the assumption clear, that the male portion of the 
 " benefit " audience would not materially affect the engage- 
 ments of the crime de la crime of society ; and it would be 
 doing a positive injustice to the memory of those ladies 
 who have long years ago retired from the cares and strifes 
 of this life, to claim for them any distinctive advantage 
 over their brethren. To be candid, the chemist's clientflle 
 had little in sympathy with the " upper ten " of either sex. 
 Berwick-street and neighbourhood have never been dis- 
 tinguished for wealth and fashion, the inhabitants being 
 for the most part of a motley kind ; petty shopkeepers, 
 with here and there a dilapidated lodging-house, scantily 
 provided with more than seedy furniture, intended for 
 "gentlemen only;" or, as the simpler-minded landlord 
 ingenuously puts it, " Beds to let for single men ; " whilst 
 the flaunting young damsels of the demi-monde who appro- 
 priate the Soho district to themselves, constituted a very 
 large, not to say by far the more considerable portion of 
 Mr. Jenner's feminine connection. It was to the patronage 
 of these classes the doctor principally appealed, and up- 
 wards of three hundred admissions were disposed of by 
 him long before the date of the interesting event, which 
 was announced to take place at the Royal Soho, now the 
 Royalty Theatre, and where, in addition to the valuable 
 services of the Scenic Club in Shakespeare's tragedy of 
 Romeo and yuliet, the beneficiare would exhibit his meagre 
 anatomy as the apothecary of Mantua, being " positively his 
 first and only appearance on any stage." 
 
 That the whole performance would be a spree was ap- 
 parent from the first, and the merry Clinton Hall hit upon 
 a notion that, if put in practice, would render the Doctor's 
 benefit a memorable night to all who witnessed it. It was 
 no other than to provide a board, technically known as a 
 " pantomime flap," the width of the door of the apothe- 
 
THE SCEMIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 79 
 
 cary's house which forms portion of the " Street in Mantua," 
 the opening scene of the fifth act. This facia, painted on 
 one side the same colour as the house, and not distinguish- 
 able from it, was to be firmly fixed over the door ; on its 
 reverse side were to figure in black Roman characters, half- 
 a-dozen inches long — 
 
 W. JENNER, 
 Chemist. 
 
 and as soon as the starved apothecary made his appearance 
 at the door, in reply to Romeo's summons, the flap was 
 to be turned over by pulling a cord fastened behind the 
 scene, and thus exhibit his name and business immediately 
 over his head. The wickedness of the thing and the fun 
 it promised tickled me, and on the instant I gave in my 
 faithful adherence to the " sell." The secret was to be 
 confined inviolably to our two selves, lest any unforeseen 
 circumstance should crop up to defeat, and 
 
 " Shake our fell purpose, nor keep peace between 
 The effect and it." 
 Furthermore, it was arranged that we should yisit the 
 costumier in company, and select a dress for the apothecary, 
 grotesque in style and cut, and anything but sombre in 
 colour ; and on the night of performance we three worthies 
 were to occupy a little dressing-room by ourselves, so that 
 we might assure the Doctor his nerves should not be un- 
 strung by the chaff of strangers, or himself exposed to any 
 of those practical jokes frequently indulged in towards 
 novices, and debutants in particular ; but this isolation was 
 really to keep him out of sight of Romeo and the rest till 
 the last moment, and so prevent the collapse of the wily 
 scheme. All was laid down as systematically as a clerk in 
 the first six months of his articles would proceed, if entrusted 
 with the survey of a water-butt, and we awaited the arrival 
 of the night with the hope and impatience of a prodigal 
 son on the eve of his coming of age. 
 
 For more than a fortnight I daily acted the tutor, and 
 gave the proprietor of " Medical Hall " instructions as to 
 
 N 3 
 
I'So BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 thedelivery of the text, and advice liovv to deport himself in 
 face of the cordial reception that was certain to greet him. 
 " Directly you hear the shout of applause," said I, 
 " stand perfectly still in the doorway ; put your right hand 
 on your heart, and bow again and again till they leave off 
 clapping. Take plenty of time before you say, ' Who calls 
 so loud } ' and when Mr. Whitford says, ' Come hither, 
 man,' advance towards him a couple of steps and stop. 
 His next words are, ' I see that thou art poor.' Here you 
 must shake your head slowly, from side to side, in this 
 manner ; stand quite still during his speech, and after you 
 have said, 'My poverty, but not my will, consents,' exit 
 through the door into your shop, looking cautiously around 
 as you go. I will be at the door to give you the draught 
 before you re-enter; and when you hand it to Romeo, 
 shake the bottle, and hold it up to the light to see if the 
 sediment mixes, just the same as you would do with a 
 mixture at home. When he gives you the purse, press it 
 fervently between both hands, so, and lift them upwards, 
 with a trembling shake, in this way ; keep your eyes con- 
 stantly fixed on your hands, as if thinking of nothing but 
 the money, till the words — 
 
 'Farewell j buy food, and get thyself in flesh,' 
 
 then go out the same way as before, only with less caution 
 and quicker. Now, if you remember to follow this out, 
 you'll do it as well as if you had been on the stage all your 
 life." 
 
 Over and over again did the chemist rehearse his task, 
 with me as his Romeo, in the little dark parlour at the 
 back of the shop, and go through his instructions, except 
 as to shaking the phial, which he always objected to as silly 
 and unnecessary for Aim. 
 
 The evening's entertainments were to commence with 
 the tragedy, and conclude with the " Closet Scene " from- 
 Hamlet ; and, by way of interlude, a solo on the violin was 
 to be executed by a Dr. Hall — to quote the language of the 
 playbill, " A professional friend of the beneficiare," and, in 
 truth, Jenner's chum sawbones, and proprietor of a twin- 
 brother " Medical Hall " in Poland-street, Oxford-street. 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. l8l 
 
 The eventful night arrived. All was now in apple-pie 
 order ; the theatre was crammed to its utmost capacity, and 
 the Doctor's friends and patrons, male and female, were 
 conspicuous in little gossiping groups from floor to ceiling 
 all over the house. The overture had been played, the 
 green-baize curtain rung up, and the tragedy was on. 
 Sampson had bit his thumb at the partisans of the -opposite 
 faction, as he has nibbled that picker and stealer any time 
 for the last three centuries on every stage in Great Britain ; 
 and Gregory, in obedience to his fellow-servant's instruc- 
 tions, had unsheathed his bit of cold steel, and stood ready 
 and impatient to deliver his " swashing blow." The love- 
 sick Romeo had encountered the lovely Juliet at old Squire 
 Capulet's ball masqu^, and, as- a matter of course, fallen 
 over head and ears in love with her at first sight; and Juliet, 
 on her part, had reciprocated the " spooning," and vowed, 
 as the majority of young ladies at her age are in the habit 
 of doing, that if she were not permitted to have Mr. 
 Montague as a hubby, she should forthwith set about 
 exchanging her neat little half-tester bedstead in the 
 governor's palatial town residence, for a cold damp bed 
 of loam, or it might even be of sticky clay, up to 
 your knees in slush in the winter months, five feet 
 six long, by a bare yard in width, in the suburban 
 Veronese cemetery. The fiery Tybalt had sent the 
 jesting Mercutio to his last account, and Romeo, in 
 avenging the murder of his dear friend, had dis- 
 patched the " Good King of Cats," as that dear friend 
 irreverently dubbed the furious one, in his wake, by a 
 single thrust of his "warranted real Damascus steel" blade. 
 As a fitting consequence of his crime, the Royal Prince of 
 Verona, to whom you have not previously had the honour 
 of an introduction, had banished the boy-lover from his 
 kingdom, who, only three short hours before, as his heart- 
 broken wife informs the pit and stalls, had entered into the 
 holy bonds of wedlock ; whilst Juliet had received from 
 the hands of Mr. Clinton Hall, in his capacity of Friar 
 Laurence, the small phial labelled " poison," in pursuance 
 of the Act of Parliament, but in reality containing the 
 " distillbd liquor " the lady was directed to swallow, in order 
 
l82 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 to deceive her parents, and induce the two-and-forty hours' 
 snooze she was to undergo, before awakening to life and 
 happiness, as lively as a kitten, and, like humped-backed 
 Dick the Third, thoroughly herself again. All this had 
 been effectively gone through, with the tiresome garrulity of 
 the old nurse thrown in ; but alas ! the son and heir to the 
 Montague estates had just had his cup of happiness upset, 
 while in the very act of lifting it to his lips, by the faithful 
 Balshazar's information — he had travelled " express " all the 
 way from Verona with the news — that his dearly-beloved 
 young bride had suddenly kicked the bucket, and that he 
 himself had witnessed the entombment of her remains in 
 Capel's monument, attended with all the pomp and cere- 
 mony befitting so solemn an occasion. 
 
 It was now all U. P. with the heart-stricken Romeo ; 
 nothing remained for him but to die. But how best to 
 effect the consummation so devoutly to be wished? " Ay, 
 there's the rub ! " as What's-his-name says in the play. In 
 the midst of the poor man's grief he had his wits about 
 him, which is more than can be said for most young men 
 of the present day — but that's neither here nor there. 
 Suddenly he remembered having noticed a chemist's and 
 druggist's depot somewhere thereabouts, where possibly he 
 could purchase a small quantity of elixir for disappointed 
 love. By the bye, there was the very shop ! Yes, though 
 almost a disciple of the Mantua Sir Wilfrid Lawson up to 
 now, he would, on this particular occasion, go in for the 
 bottle ! 
 
 " What ho, apothecary ! " exclaimed Mr. Whitford, deal- 
 ing Jenner's frail street-door a determined rat, tat, tat, with 
 his knuckles. 
 
 The time had come. Clinton Hall stood at my side, his 
 right arm resting against the scene, with the cord of the 
 pantomime flap clutched tightly between thumb and fore- 
 finger. 
 
 " Now mind. Doctor," said I, as the unconscious victim 
 prepared to answer the door, " take your time ; and, what- 
 ever you do, don't attempt to speak till they've quite done 
 applauding." 
 
 " All right, Cowper ; I know. Open the door." 
 
v4 Suiprise " for Romec, 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 185 
 
 " Be Steady," said I, as a last caution. " Go," and open 
 went the door with a fling. 
 
 He had his right foot over the ledge of the scene, and 
 was in the act of stepping over it with his left, when a 
 genuine shout of applause and recognition greeted him. 
 He was known — if not personally, at least by sight — to 
 quite half the audience, and his quaint appearance, in a 
 guise so distinct from his habitual black frock coat and 
 trousers, caused general merriment. Romeo, as is the 
 recognised courtesy of the stage on the entrance of the 
 hero of the night, remained passive until such time as the 
 applause should subside, and was now turning towards 
 Jenner as the latter uttered his first words, "Who calls so 
 loud?" 
 
 "Now's your time, Ned," I exclaimed, "over with it;" 
 and over in truth it went. 
 
 The click of the flap, as it struck against the scene, 
 caused poor Romeo to raise his eyes ; he started back a step 
 in amazement, and stood as if paralysed, mentally exclaiming 
 with Macbeth when he first catches sight of the murdered 
 Banquo's apparition, " Which of you have done this ? " 
 - To describe the scene that followed is altogether beyond 
 my goose-quill. As the newspaper reporters say, in speak- 
 ing of a destructive fire, or when relating the details of 
 a sad mine explosion or fearful railway accident, " it can 
 be much easier imagined than described." The roars of 
 laughter, the screams of delight, and the running fire of chaff) 
 mingled with a storm of hisses from that part of the audience 
 who looked on the trick as a disgusting irreverence, and 
 had paid their money for legitimate amusement, made such 
 a Babel of noises that to speak through the din was impos- 
 sible. The Doctor could not understand the row, and 
 bowed his head again and again, like a Mandarin figu re in 
 a grocer's shop. Romeo's fear was lest he should turn 
 round and see the board, in which case there was infallibly 
 an end of the scene, if not of the play. Eventually com- 
 parative silence was restored, and Mr. Jenner made the 
 apothecary's usual inquiry, " Who calls so loud ? " " Why, 
 W. Jenner, chemist, of course," shouted a stentorian voice 
 from the back of the gallery, and again was the uproar 
 
1 86 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 renewed. The half-frenzied Romeo looked imploringly at 
 the house, as much as to say, " Pray, ladies and gentlemen, 
 let me ask him for a dram of poison." In another few seconds 
 he had made this request, offering the shop-keeper his 
 purse and contents in settlement The latter, who, it seems, 
 did not require payment of his goods before delivery, simply 
 shook his head negatively, and re-entered his caboose to 
 prepare the mixture. He was back again on the stage in 
 an instant, phial in hand, and gave it the regular 
 professional shake, amidst renewed roars of laughter, before 
 confiding it to the intending suicide. Romeo now handed 
 him his golden reward, with the philosophic lecture about 
 the evil tendency of the circtlating medium which, in Mr. 
 Montague Junior's case, always accompanies the gift ; and 
 the Doctor, having clasped the treasure between both hands 
 in the approved fashion, as instructed, was about to go 
 indoors and count the " dibbs." In passing through the 
 doorway, which was rather of a low pitch, he — being very 
 tall — struck his sugar-loaf-shaped hat against the top ; 
 when off his head it rolled into the Mantua street, stopping 
 within a yard of the unhappy Romeo's feet. He stooped to 
 pick up the headgear, which act produced another yell, and 
 added not a little to the poor fellow's confusion. The 
 apothecary's exit concludes the scene, and some sort of 
 attention was given to the remainder of the play ; but yet 
 another fiasco was in store for the poor beneficiare. 
 
 " A letter for you, Dr. Jenner," said the call-boy, when 
 the door of our dressing-room had been opened in answer 
 to that small functionary's knock. " A man just left it at 
 the stage-door, and said you was to have it directly." 
 
 " A letter for me ! " said the Doctor in surprise. " I 
 wonder what the deuce it's about." 
 
 He tore open the envelope and read — 
 
 "My DEAR Jenner,— I much regret I shall be unable 
 to play the violin to-night. The fact is, I feel so nervous 
 now the time is at hand, that I must positively ask your 
 forgiveness for my absence. Wishing you every success, and 
 hoping it will cause no inconvenience, 
 
 "Yours most truly, 
 
 "Walter Hall." 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AKD ITS DOINGS. 1 87 
 
 "What the devil's to be done now, Cowper?" said the 
 Doctor to me as I was drawing on my sable silk tights, 
 preparatory to donning the jet bugled tunic of the Prince of 
 Denmark. 
 
 " Why, if we can't have Hall, we must do without him," 
 I replied, with the least possible concern at the misfortune. 
 *' All that can be done, is for you to go on and make an 
 apology." 
 
 " What ! Zgo on ! impossible ! " he exclaimed, " I should 
 not know what to say." 
 
 " Oh, it is easy enough. Tell them you very much 
 regret to be obliged to ask their indulgence for the omission 
 of the violin solo by your esteemed friend. Dr. Hall, who 
 has been unfortunately called out professionally, as it was 
 your earnest wish to carry out strictly the programme of the 
 night, but that " 
 
 " Stop, stop, stop," said the Doctor, " I could not recol- 
 lect half of that, I should make a rare mess of it. You go 
 on and say something, there's a good fellow." 
 
 " Not I ! old man," I exclaimed, pointing to my half-nude 
 condition. " Besides, it would never do for me to be seen till 
 I go on in the ' Closet Scene.' You will manage it right 
 enough. I will prompt you at the wing." 
 
 Clinton Hall could not be persuaded to apologize for the 
 absence of his namesake. He probably foresaw some more 
 fun in the Doctor's appearance before the footlights ; and as 
 I continued obdurate to Mr. Jenner's oft-repeated entreaties, 
 he was forced, will he, . nill he, to quote the gravedigger's 
 rhetoric, to rely on himself in his extremity. 
 
 The prompter pulled aside the green curtain to allow the 
 Mantua apothecary — for the doctor was still in his stage 
 habiliments — to pass in front of it, when he was again 
 received with jeers and laughter, though nothing in com- 
 parison with his first reception, for a considerable portion 
 of the audience had left, probably thinking they had 
 received fully sufficient value for their money, and (poor 
 benighted creatures !) indifferent to the treat in store for 
 them in the "Closet Scene." However, there were quite 
 enough left to thoroughly enjoy the concluding incident. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," the doctor began. 
 
1 88 BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 " Take off your sugar-loaf, old chap," from several voices 
 in chorus, for the chemist had forgotten to remove his 
 grotesque headgear. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," he repeated, somewhat 
 abashed, and growing every moment more nervous and 
 confused. "My friend's name, Dr. Hall, is down in the 
 playbill to play a tune on the fiddle." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " and ironical cheers, as the reporters say 
 in St. Stephen's-square. 
 
 " But I am very sorry to tell you," he went on, " it is im- 
 possible he can be here to-night." 
 
 " Why not ? " demanded a gruff voice from the pit, in a 
 manner that inferred he was not to be trifled with, and 
 would be content with nothing short of the advertised 
 entertainment. 
 
 " Well, to tell you the truth, Sir," answered the Doctor, 
 taken off his guard, and in a thoroughly conventional tone, 
 " he has been suddenly called out to a case of " 
 
 Here he paused, uncertain whether to leave the apology 
 where it stood, or if it were incumbent on him to state the 
 nature of the summons. 
 
 "What case?" shouted the same powerful voice from 
 the pit. 
 
 " A case of midwifery," I whispered to him from the 
 wing, not for an instant suspecting, or daring to hope he 
 would stand the joke. He turned his face to the curtain 
 where mine was peeping through, as if to seek confirmation 
 of the suggestion. With a look of imperturbable gravity, 
 and assuming the most earnest tone at my command, I 
 nodded an emphatic affirmative, and a rapid, " Yes, yes, 
 yes, certainly." 
 
 He had taken the bait. 
 
 " A case of midwifery, ladies and gentlemen." 
 
 "Where?" demanded his original questioner, in a tone 
 of thunder, and determined to have it all out. 
 
 The Doctor again turned his face towards the opening in 
 the curtain for instruction, and the same serious countenance 
 and stolid business look met his gaze. 
 
 " Tell them," I hissed out under my breath. " Give 
 them some name and address, or they won't stand it." 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. 1 89 
 
 " Where ? " once more demanded the waggish voice in 
 the pit, as he noticed the chemist's hesitation. 
 
 " Mrs. Spinks, the pork butcher's wife in Little Newport- 
 street," said the doctor, timidly. " She was confined this 
 evening about half-past eight of a hoy." 
 
 The " Closet Scene " of Hamlet had poor attraction for 
 the few remaining of the audience who patronised Mr. 
 Jenner's benefit night, and but little more for the wearer 
 of the sables. I hurried through it as rapidly as possible, 
 anxious to leave the theatre and join my companions at 
 Mr. Caldwell's tavern, the " Crown and Two Chairmen " 
 opposite, where a boiled leg of mutton and trimmings had 
 been ordered for half-past eleven o'clock, for a dozen or 
 more of those who-had been engaged over the way. We 
 did not separate till far into the morrow's daylight, and 
 over cheerful pipe and oft-replenished glass, many were the 
 tales recounted of past performances, and of the triumphs 
 and mishaps of the Scenic Club. 
 
rgo BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 AND now, kind reader, that we are about to separate, 
 confide the truth to me in a gentle whisper. Tell me, 
 have you been bored with these old-fashioned tales, and 
 wished them habited in more modern garb ; or have they 
 lightened and amused your leisure hours, and caused you to 
 reciprocate my hearty desire that we may meet again ? 
 Time has despoiled my once raven locks, aye, and reaped 
 them, too, with no niggard sickle, so that there may remain 
 little in unison between us on that score ; but human 
 Nature is human Nature in her decline, as in her heyday ; 
 and the joyous, boisterous roar of youth finds a mild and 
 cheerful echo, albeit mellowed by distance of Time, in the 
 jolly chuckle of vigorous age, rendered radiant by the 
 remembrance of the distant past. At this lapse of years I 
 can gleefully re-enter and enjoy the mirth-moving scenes I 
 have endeavoured to describe ; again, in fancy, assume the 
 tone and attitude of the patriot Damon, when hastily 
 summoned by the call-boy to the footlights, and compelled 
 to leave to the Strand Theatre tortoiseshell cat the half- 
 consumed mutton chop. Once more, with the quick, lynx 
 eye of early manhood, I detect the widowed .Hermion's 
 ringlets, as yet hidden by her classic robe, and now 
 ruthlessly dragged from their concealment by little 
 Miss Mandlebert, and held up to a laughing crowd 
 by the innocent child. The spleen and disappoint- 
 ment of the expectant Hamlet, when forced to resign 
 the trappings and the " suits of woe " in favour of the 
 white and silver wedding dress of fair Portia's bridegroom, 
 seem to revive and burn anew at the remembrance of the 
 wrong inflicted on the aspiring young tragedian; and the 
 pantomime flap over the apothecary's shop door, with 
 
THE SCENIC CLUB AND ITS DOINGS. I9I 
 
 *' W. Jenner, Chemist," painted on it, is as plainly visible to 
 tny eyes at this moment as on the eventful evening of the 
 Doctor's benefit. If you, dear Sir, or Madam, who have 
 been beguiled into looking in the peep-show, have in any 
 way shared in the fun of the puppets, let me indulge the 
 hope that you will, at no distant time, be pleased to renew 
 your acquaintance with him who pulled the string, and 
 who now most respectfully bids you, not farewell, but 
 " au revoir." 
 
 Kahkbh & Co., Printos, Drury House, Onir; Court, Strand, London, W.C.