THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 DAYS OF THE DANDIES 
 
 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 ATHEN^UM PRESS 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 MRS. JORDAN
 
 Mrs. Jordan 
 
 Etched by G. Meunier, from the painting by Romney
 
 Librar 
 
 506 
 
 3%Bc3 
 
 1*30 
 v,l 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 PREFACES are seldom honoured with much 
 attention. They are commonly passed over until 
 curiosity is completely gratified by the contents of 
 the work. But a few lines, in which an author 
 must speak of himself, may, at a moment of 
 leisure, attract the reader's notice; and certainly 
 should never detain it long. I have merely to lay 
 before him the reasons that induced me to com- 
 pose the work now published. 
 
 From the death of Mrs. Jordan up to the year 
 1824, inclusive, a sort of sullen and interrupted 
 annoyance occasionally recalled the public mind 
 to the disappointment as to Mrs. Jordan's circum- 
 stances, and the injury sustained by her creditors 
 and some members of her family. Having had 
 the pleasure of Mrs. Jordan's personal acquaint- 
 ance for some years, and having paid unwearied 
 attention to her professional exertions from their 
 very commencement in London, it was not, per- 
 haps, too extravagant a thought that I might con-
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 struct a narrative, not without attraction of two 
 kinds, that should exhibit a more perfect picture 
 of her than had been given while she occupied the 
 stage, and a truer representation of her private life 
 than other writers had yet been enabled to supply. 
 As to the stage on which she acted, I had long 
 been conversant with its history, the inquiries 
 essential to my "Life of Mr. Kemble" had ex- 
 tended beyond himself, and the results were either 
 present to my mind, or were of easy reference in 
 the great mass of theatrical documents around me. 
 As to her last moments, Sir Jonah Harrington, in 
 a work published in 1827, had given such intelli- 
 gence as he obtained upon the spot, and spoken 
 with reserve on some other points of her history 
 hardly less interesting. Certain private friends, 
 for whom I entertain entire respect, here offered 
 to my use a very interesting portion of Mrs. Jor- 
 dan's correspondence, throwing a steady light 
 upon the most momentous incidents in her private 
 life. As they were eminently calculated to settle, 
 by their authority, everything that had been 
 questioned, and showed her candour and affection 
 equal at least to the warmest wishes of her friends, 
 I accepted them with pride and pleasure. Per- 
 mitted to use the very documents themselves,
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 I have printed them exactly from the originals in 
 her own handwriting. They are unstudied compo- 
 sitions, but they all sprung warm from the heart, 
 and, like her acting, speak its true and impas- 
 sioned language. 
 
 Her acting, indeed, was heart in action, and its 
 pulsations vibrated to the extremities of its the- 
 atrical habitation. The fault of the great bulk of 
 her imitators, or contemporaries, was that they 
 never seemed under the actual influence of a pas- 
 sion, but to play from the recollection of it. They 
 described the sensations, the vice of French 
 tragedy. But this is not the place for disquisition. 
 I therefore refer the reader to my work for every 
 satisfaction of this sort, and conclude with a hope 
 that what I have executed with great zeal and 
 unwearied application may be fortunate enough to 
 amuse his leisure, and place Mrs. Jordan herself, 
 and persons connected with her in life, in the true 
 relative positions, either as to the present age or 
 posterity. j. B. 
 
 60 Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, 
 November, f8jo.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What Is to Be Expected in These Memoirs Mrs. Jor- 
 dan's Family Theatrical Irregularity Commonly Pro- 
 gressive Mrs. Bland Her Story Her Husband 
 Her Sisters Ryder First Employs the Talent of Miss 
 Francis Daly's "Duenna" Sketch of His Character 
 as a Man and a Manager Lieut. Charles Doyne Pro- 
 poses Marriage to Miss Francis After Some Delibera- 
 tion His Proposals Are Declined; by Whose Advice 
 in Particular Ireland a Good School of Acting 
 Mrs. Abington Miss Francis as an Actress, and Her 
 Own Notion of Her Powers Compared with Mrs. 
 Abington 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Miss Francis Arrives at Leeds in July, 1782 Her Interview 
 with Tate Wilkinson His Determination in Her Favour 
 Her First Appearance Was in Tragedy, in the Part of 
 Calista Her Reception "The Greenwood Laddie," 
 and Its Effect Tate Prophesies That She Will Reach 
 the Summit Change of Name at York, the Choice of 
 One on That Occasion Her Aunt, Miss Phillips, Dan- 
 gerously 111 at York, Makes Her Niece Her Heir The 
 Application of Mrs. Jordan When a Young Actress 
 Mr. William Smith Sees Her in the Race Week She
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 Acted Rutland and the Romp before Him Interests 
 Himself Warmly about Her She Acts Arionelli Mr. 
 Knight Lady Leake Swan, the Critic, Teaches Mrs. 
 Jordan Zara Sheffield, an Alarm The Duke of Nor- 
 folk Mrs. Jordan's Rivals Mrs. Smith, and Her 
 March Extraordinary 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Year 1783 Mrs. Jordan's Amazing Popularity in the 
 Character of William, in " Rosina " Mrs. Brooke the 
 Authoress Her Husband, Curate to Wilkinson's Father 
 at the Savoy The King's Chaplain Transported 
 Garrick's Officious Meddling Mrs. Baddeley at York 
 A Lesson to Our Heroine of Negative Instruction Mrs. 
 Mills, Fawcett's First Wife, an Example of Application to 
 Her The Art of Mortifying a Scenic Rival Mrs. 
 Ward, a Great Professor Mrs. Brown, the Wife of 
 Harlequin Brown, Her " Country Girl " Miss Wilkin- 
 son, afterward Mrs. Mountain Season of 1785, the 
 Last of Mrs. Jordan as a Member of the York Company 
 
 An Instance of Her Caprice Sees Mrs. Yates as Mar- 
 garet of Anjou Dick Yates's Opinion of Mrs. Jordan 
 
 Mrs. Siddons Also for Rustication Mrs. Robinson, 
 the Prophetess Takes Leave of Yorkshire in the " Poor 
 Soldier," to Proceed to London 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Ascendency of Mrs. Siddons Struggle of Covent Gar- 
 den Mrs. Abington Mr. Henderson Miss Farren 
 Compared with the Former Abington The Hopes En- 
 tertained that the "Country Girl" might Revive the 
 Train of Comedy Within and Without-door Talk of 
 Her Her First Appearance, on the i8th of October, 
 1785 Mrs. Inchbald's Opinion of Her Fulness and 
 Comic Richness of Tone not Provincialism Excited
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Unbounded Laughter Her Male Figure Her Letter 
 Scene About Nineteen, the Age of Miss Peggy 
 Henderson Mr. Harris Mrs. Inchbald Her Step- 
 son and Mrs. Jordan Her Viola, in " Twelfth Night," 
 Particularly Examined Barbarous Curtailments of the 
 Play Viola Succeeded by Imogen Mrs. Clive Dies 
 Compared, in Some Points, with Mrs. Jordan The 
 '/Heiress" Had No Part for Mrs. Jordan "She 
 Would and She Would Not," Her Hypolita The 
 " Irish Widow," on Her Benefit Night Now, Certainly, 
 the Great Support of the Theatre 62 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In the Recess Thinks of Her Old Friends in Yorkshire 
 Difference of Nine Months Odd Conjuncture Mrs. 
 Robinson, the Prophetess Return to Leeds of Mrs. 
 Jordan on the Night of That Lady's Benefit Acts a 
 Single Night, Now Dividing the House Mrs. Jordan at 
 Edinburgh The " Belle's Stratagem " Her Own 
 Epilogue, Its Point Death of Mrs. Baddeley at This 
 Juncture Mrs. Jordan Succeeds Mrs. Siddons at Hull 
 and Wakefield General Burgoyne Translates " Richard 
 Cceur de Lion" for Drury, in 1786, and Mrs. Jordan 
 Accepts Matilda Death of Princess Amelia Closes the 
 Theatres H. R. H.'s Clock, by Tompion The Royal 
 Vault A Friend of the Author's Passes the Night in 
 It His Feelings Compared with Juliet's Imagination 
 Dodsley's " Cleone," and Mrs. Siddons " Love for 
 Love," and the Miss Prue of Jordan Congreve and 
 His Preferments Mrs. Jordan's Roxalana . . . 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 King's Management Mrs. Jordan in the Summer of 1787 
 Miss Farren, Too, in Yorkshire, Distinguishes Fawcett, 
 Since a Truly Original Actor Kemble Alters the " Pil-
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 FAGZ 
 
 grim" for Mrs. Jordan Her Juletta The Character 
 Describes Itself Beautiful Passages Madness Ex- 
 hibited Frequently on the Stage "The New Peerage" 
 
 Old Macklin Remembered When He Had Forgotten 
 Shylock Interesting Appeal of the Veteran New 
 Plays by Miss Lee and Captain Jephson Smith Did 
 Not Act Much with Mrs. Jordan His Last Benefit 
 Anecdote of Him when at Eton His Intimacy with 
 Garrick His Comedy Lewis and Bensley Compared 
 with Him as Gentlemen Abington and Farren Palmer 
 Returns to His Viola Mrs. Jordan's Sir Harry Wildair 
 
 Theatrical Politics King's Abdication . . . 104 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Kemble's Management from October, 1788 The "Panel," 
 for Mrs. Jordan Beatrice and Her Gown Her Per- 
 formance in the " Confederacy " Her Rosalind Some- 
 what Divides the Town Whether the Sprightliness or 
 the Sensibility Should Predominate ? Perhaps the 
 Truer Rosalind, if Shakespeare Were to Decide Her 
 Nell, in the " Devil to Pay " Moody, in Jobson Mrs. 
 Jordan's Opinion of Her Own Art Her Aspiration after 
 the Fine Lady Mr. Cumberland Writes for Mrs. Jordan 
 His Comedy of the " Impostors " a Hurried Composi- 
 tion while Writing " Calvary " The " Farmhouse," Mrs. 
 Jordan's Country Lass In the Summer of 1789, Edwin 
 Engaged Her at Richmond The King's Illness Com- 
 menced at Cheltenham when Mrs. Jordan was There 
 The Question of the Regency Display of Burke His 
 Vehement Dexterity King's Recovery, Sympathy of 
 the Stage Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel 
 Lennox The Drawing-room The Opera House Des- 
 troyed by Fire The French Revolution . . . 132
 
 CONTENTS xv 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Summer of 1789 Tate Wilkinson's Benefit at Leeds, 
 Mrs. Jordan Arrives to Act for Him The Yorkshire 
 Prudery Mrs. Jordan at Harrowgate on Her Way to 
 Join Mr. Jackson at Edinburgh Mrs. Siddons at York 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots Mrs. Fawcett's Compliment 
 to Her Mrs. Siddons Prefers to Act in London, and 
 Why Mrs. Jordan and Miss Farren in the Same Places 
 
 The Prince of Wales Miss Catley's Death The 
 " Two Gentlemen of Verona " Idly Revived Mrs. Jor- 
 dan's First Appearance at Drury Lane This Season, so 
 Late as February, 1790 Mr. Kemble Engages Her 
 Brother, Bland He Acts Sebastian to Her Viola 
 Mrs. Behn's " Rover " Altered by Mr. Kemble Jordan 
 and Woffington in Hellena Young Bannister His 
 Character through Life Morris's " Adventurers " 
 Mrs. Jordan's Little Pickle The " Spoil'd Child " Called 
 Her Own, Perhaps Bickerstaff's The " Intriguing Cham- 
 bermaid " " Better Late than Never " Mrs. Jordan 
 the Heroine Munden Comes to Town from Chester 
 
 Mrs. Jordan Plays Celia in the "Humourous Lieu- 
 tenant " of Fletcher Beauties of That Character Her 
 Alarming Epilogue by Harry Bunbury Summer of 1791, 
 
 a Journey to York Kemble vice Jordan . . . 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Doctor Woolcot Does Justice to Mrs. Jordan The Drury 
 Lane Company Remove to the Opera House The 
 Opening Laugh at Their Difficulties Additional Prices 
 Carried Fawcett's Arrival in London with His Wife 
 Both Engaged by Mr. Harris Mrs. Jordan and Mr. 
 Kemble The Press Accuses the Actress of Deserting 
 Her Duty Proof to the Contrary The Declared Ad- 
 miration of a Royal Duke Mrs. Jordan's Family Mr. 
 Ford Made Pleas for Attacking Her She Appeals to
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 the Public by Letter Finding that She Was, Notwith- 
 standing, Still Persecuted, She Addresses the Audience 
 in Person, and Remains Absolute Mistress of the Field 
 
 " Cymon " Revived with Great Splendour The 
 Beauty of the Cast Kelly's Hospitality and His Guests 
 
 The "Village Coquette," for Mrs. Jordan's Night 
 Richardson's " Fugitive" Acted by Her Miss Herbert, 
 in That Comedy, Miss Farren Mrs. Sheridan Dies, 
 Commemorated by Genius Her Epitaph Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, What He Thought and Said of Mrs. Jordan 
 
 Regret That She Never Sat to Him Brings Out a 
 Play Called " Anna," against the Opinion of Kemble 
 Fate of Her Novelty Of Mrs. Siddons's Of Miss 
 Farren's Mrs. Jordan in Lady Restless Cumber- 
 land's " Armourer " 188 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 History of Drury Lane Theatres Their Origin in the 
 Cockpit, a Little Before the Retirement of Shakespeare 
 
 Destroyed by a Mob in 1617 The Phoenix Built in 
 the Same Spot Its Preservation in the Great Rebellion 
 
 Rhodes, the Bookseller, and His Two Apprentices, 
 Betterton and Kynaston Obtains a License First for 
 the Phoenix, and Then Joins D'Avenant in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields A New Theatre Erected by Killigrew in Drury 
 Lane Opened in 1662; Burnt Nine Years Afterward 
 A Church Brief Granted on This Calamity Sir Chris- 
 topher Wren Builds Once More upon the Old Spot 
 The Advantages of His Plan Displayed by Colley Cibber 
 
 Apology for Its Plainness in a Prologue and Epilogue 
 by the Great Dryden, Spoken at Its Opening in 1674 
 Union of the Two Companies in Drury Lane Theatre 
 Christopher Rich, Patentee Silenced by the Chamber- 
 lain Patents Dormant Sir Richard Steele's License 
 to Himself, Wilks, Booth, and Cibber Mr. Highmore
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 PACK 
 
 Mr. Fleetwood The Illustrious Garrick Becomes 
 Purchaser with Mr. Lacy Twenty Years' Splendour of 
 Old Drury On the Great Actor's Retirement, Sheridan 
 Succeeds Him At Length the House is Taken Down 
 
 Author's Regard for It, and Personal Acquaintance 
 with Its Merits and Its Defects Presages on Its Fall . 220 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Grand National Theatre Description of It Open- 
 ing with Sacred Music First Play Acted on the 2ist of 
 April Innovations of Mr. Kemble in " Macbeth " 
 The Bell The Dagger The Ghost of Banquo 
 Musical Witches Charles Kemble Securities from 
 Fire Reservoir Iron Curtain Mere Tricks The 
 Vanity of Speculative Science Mrs. Jordan not Em- 
 ployed Kemble Miss Farren Does the Honours 
 Fitzpatrick G. Colman Mr. Cumberland's Comedy 
 of the "Jew" The Gratitude of Israel Kemble's 
 "Lodoiska" Three Farces Three Days Together 
 Mrs. Jordan Acts for the Widows and Orphans Made 
 on the 1st of June Three Farces Again, and for Four 
 Days Harris versus Kemble In the Summer, John 
 Bannister at Liverpool Winter of 1794-95 Mrs. 
 Davenport A Shilling Gallery Put Up " Emilia 
 Galotti " at Drury " Nobody " Mrs. Jordan's Fright 
 
 The " Rage " The " Wedding Day " of Mrs. Inch- 
 bald Mrs. Jordan's Portrait Seen Again by the Author, 
 Forty Years after It Was Painted Her Helena 
 " Measure for Measure " Miss Mellon Mrs. Coutts 
 
 The Duchess Miss Arne " Alexander the Great," 
 
 a Ballet 235 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Death of Parsons His Peculiar Merits Holland and 
 Powell Spouting Clubs Political Orators Parsons
 
 xviii CONTENTS 
 
 FAGB 
 
 and the Lion The " Wheel of Fortune" Madame 
 d'Arblay Jerningham's "Welsh Heiress," Mrs. Jordan 
 in Plinlimmon Drury Attacking Its Own Splendours 
 Chaos Umpire in the Concern "Seven Ages" for Mrs. 
 Siddons " First Love," by Cumberland ; Sabina Rosny, 
 Mrs. Jordan Her Enchanting Effect Some Pleasing 
 Recollections Cumberland's Opinion of Her Nature 
 to Be Upheld by Mrs. Jordan Winter of 1795-96 
 The " Dependent " The " Rival Queens " Kemble in 
 Alexander Mrs. Jordan Confined Miss Decamp in 
 Columbine Mrs. Jordan in Fidelia, Her Power upon 
 Mr. Kemble His Sense of Her Acting in the " Plain 
 Dealer" Gives It to the Author in the Words of 
 Sterne The "Iron Chest," and Its Failure Sheridan 
 Wished Mrs. Jordan in That Play " Vortigern " Has 
 That Advantage ; She Acts Flavia Ireland Chatter- 
 ton Queen Elizabeth, Her Little Attention to Players 
 
 Mrs. Jordan Speaks Merry's Epilogue Poor Ben- 
 son's Death 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Mr. Colman and the Reopening of His "Iron Chest" 
 Season of 1796-97 The Losses of Drury; Parsons, 
 Dodd The Latter Excellent in Old Winterton Con- 
 trasted with Fawcett Wroughton Appointed Stage- 
 manager Mrs. Jordan and Her Salary Ballet Miss 
 Parissot and the " Triumph of Love " Madame Hilligs- 
 berg, an Atalanta in Running Dowton Recommended 
 by Cumberland An Admirer Before of Mr. Henderson 
 
 Garrick's Prejudice Deficiencies of the Company 
 Revivals Jephson's " Conspiracy " The Force of Ridi- 
 cule Miss Farren Contumacious New Comedy Post- 
 poned Miss Farren's Return and Triumph Play 
 Destroyed The " Shipwreck " The Operatic " Honey- 
 moon " " Friend in Need " New Imogen Miss
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 PACR 
 
 Farren's Retirement to a Coronet Mrs. Pope's Death 
 and Character The Author Becomes Acquainted with 
 Mrs. Jordan In the Distress of Drury Lane House, 
 Reynolds Writes for Mrs. Jordan Cumberland's Be- 
 haviour at the Exhibition of the " Will " Mrs. Jordan's 
 Albina, and Her Seven Ages of Woman " Dido," and 
 " My Night Gown and Slippers " Prince Hoare at 
 Covent Garden Mrs. Jordan a Full Contrast to the 
 Selfish of Her Profession 283 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Death of Charles Macklin His Works Collected by 
 Murphy Mrs. Jordan's Kind Subscription " The Jew 
 That Shakespeare Drew " Interpreted by Sir Joseph 
 Mawbey Dryden's " CEdipus " Lines in, Applied to 
 Macklin Their Beauty Lord Mansfield's Regard for 
 Macklin Note His Lordship's Opinion on the French 
 Revolution The " Heir at Law " " Filthy Dowlas " 
 " Italian Monk," at the Summer Theatre Mrs. 
 Jordan visits Richmond and Margate Sees Mrs. Abing- 
 ton in Beatrice Her Excellence in the Character 
 Miss Betterton, Since Mrs. Glover The Chasm at 
 Dniry How Miss Farren Was to Be Replaced Miss 
 Humphreys in Lady Emily Miss Biggs in the " Irish 
 Widow " Miss Decamp a Lover in the " Chimney 
 Comer" Mrs. Jordan in Sir Edward Bloomley De- 
 fects of "Cheap Living" Jordan Rather Restive 
 Again Quite the Duchess Her Happy Illustration of 
 That Title Mrs. Crawford's Idle Return Lord Dun- 
 can's Victory Mrs. Jordan Acts for the Sufferers 
 Something Fine Kemble Acts Hotspur John 
 Palmer's Death in the Summer Effects of It in the 
 Theatre 310
 
 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 What Is to Be Expected in These Memoirs Mrs. Jordan's 
 Family Theatrical Irregularity Commonly Progressive 
 Mrs. Bland Her Story Her Husband Her Sisters 
 Ryder First Employs the Talent of Miss Francis Daly's 
 " Duenna " Sketch of His Character as a Man and a Man- 
 ager Lieut. Charles Doyne Proposes Marriage to Miss 
 Francis After Some Deliberation His Proposals Are De- 
 clined; by Whose Advice in Particular Ireland a Good 
 School of Acting Mrs. Abington Miss Francis as an 
 Actress, and Her Own Notion of Her Powers Compared 
 with Mrs. Abington. 
 
 |HE lady of whom I have undertaken the 
 biography unquestionably demands such 
 a tribute from the country which she 
 adorned with her talents ; and from me par- 
 ticularly, who discharge but a debt to the muse of 
 Comedy, after having celebrated the two principal 
 favourites of her serious sister. 
 
 I assure the reader that this allusion to any pre-
 
 a MRS. JORDAN 
 
 vious works of mine arises from no feeling of 
 vanity ; but that he may, from them at least, infer 
 the temper with which the present work will be 
 written, and rely upon every becoming delicacy in 
 treating the subject. I see the delightful and 
 much-lamented mother affectionately honoured in 
 her children ; and, not in the least depending upon 
 her merits, I know that they will justify even 
 higher favour (if higher can be shown) by pro- 
 gressive merits of their own. This declaration is 
 equally removed, I trust, from servility and rude- 
 ness ; it is the necessary prelude to what must be 
 an impartial narrative, executed in the tone of 
 sincere, yet gentlemanly, freedom. 
 
 But there would be little interest in such a com- 
 position, if the variety of its incidents were to be 
 coloured by any remarkable elevation of its sub- 
 ject ; it is the diversity of her lot that must render 
 the " Life of Mrs. Jordan " valuable to the moral- 
 ist, and of conspicuous importance to the public in 
 general. The whole of it justifies the following 
 brief, but unequal, summary. She began life in 
 the midst of difficulty and ambiguity; by her 
 own genius attained all the honours of her profes- 
 sion, and the envy, which, like the shadow, threw 
 them fuller upon the eye. She lived for a series
 
 MRS. JORDAN 3 
 
 of years in the bosom of a beloved family, with 
 every accompaniment of splendour; and expired 
 in a foreign land, at a distance from all that she 
 loved, and overwhelmed by disasters, to which she 
 could see no termination but the grave. 
 
 The mother of Mrs. Jordan was one of three 
 sisters of a Welsh family of the name of Phillips. 
 Their father I believe to have been in orders, but 
 there is little promotion among the Welsh clergy ; 
 the scanty provision he could make for his family 
 induced his three daughters to go upon the stage ; 
 and we know from unquestionable authority, that 
 they were all respectable in the profession. 
 
 Miss Grace Phillips yielded to the addresses of 
 a Mr. Bland, and she went to Ireland along with 
 him, where they were married by a Catholic priest. 
 I presume she continued her profession without 
 interruption ; for her husband was a minor, and his 
 father being little disposed to sanction his youth- 
 ful ardour, and, as a civilian, entirely master of 
 his ground, procured the marriage to be annulled, 
 as one contracted in nonage, and void, from the 
 want of parental consent. 
 
 I venture, in opposition to the usual statements, 
 to throw the birth of Mrs. Jordan as far back as 
 the year 1762, because I well remember hearing
 
 4 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 her age stated to have been sixteen in the year 
 1778, when an old military friend, then on the 
 recruiting service at Cork, saw her there, in the 
 company of which Daly was the manager, who 
 had brought her out the year before. In this 
 unfortunate condition of her parents, Mrs. Jordan 
 was born in the neighbourhood of Waterford, 
 about the year 1762, and was christened, I sup- 
 pose, Dorothy, though, somewhat romantically, 
 she signed herself, commonly, Dora, when she 
 wrote more than the initial D. of the name. 
 
 Irregularity of any kind is commonly progres- 
 sive, and seldom prosperous. The misfortunes of 
 Mrs. Jordan may be said to have commenced at 
 her very birth, and the hue then impressed upon 
 her fate continued to tinge it to its close ; there 
 was an ambiguity in her situation, always produc- 
 tive of annoyance ; and the cultivation and the 
 practice of many virtues were not always thought 
 to balance the admitted dispensation with some of 
 the forms of life. 
 
 To the relations of her husband Mrs. Bland 
 generally seemed to consider herself under a sort 
 of vassalage. She probably expected that her 
 children might receive benefit by her attention to 
 their feelings ; and the stage-name borne by her
 
 MRS. JORDAN 5 
 
 daughter was therefore Francis, except when some 
 irritation, usually transient, made her try at least 
 to mortify them by the use of that of Bland. 
 
 It is obvious, from the accounts of Wilkinson 
 and Hitchcock, that the three sisters, whom I 
 have already alluded to, were well educated and 
 accomplished women ; and that they were persons 
 of " gentle blood " may reasonably be supposed an 
 advantage in theatrical life. To the higher orders 
 it is a favourite apology, I have observed, that 
 the players whom they patronise are " persons of a 
 respectable family," and pleasure itself must be 
 regulated by pride. 
 
 The studies of the stage, it may here be ob- 
 served, constitute a better education than is com- 
 monly derived from the schools. What other 
 ladies have under their command, constantly en- 
 camped, such "an army of good words" as our 
 actresses ? Who, besides them, are so stored with 
 every variety of neat and polished thought ? Who 
 else can have equal self-possession, equal address ; 
 and, above all, who ever approach them in distinct 
 articulation, in voluble or impressive delivery ? 
 So great are these advantages, that they have kept 
 very powerful actresses in high reputation for their 
 wit, who could scarcely read their parts, and never
 
 6 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 acquired the orthography in which they were all 
 of them printed. 
 
 We shall not therefore be surprised that, with- 
 out the possibility of her receiving an expensive 
 education, which her embarrassed parents could 
 not afford, Mrs. Jordan acquired, almost domesti- 
 cally, a very correct diction in her native language, 
 and the power of composing agreeably, in either 
 prose or verse, with little premeditation. When 
 at length it was determined that she also, with the 
 family bias, should appear upon the stage, Mr. 
 Ryder entrusted to her the slight part of Phebe in 
 " As You Like It ; " quite unconscious of the real 
 union that would one day take place between her 
 representative and the poet's Rosalind : 
 
 " I'll marry you, if ever I marry woman ; 
 And I'll be married to-morrow." 
 
 - As you Like It. 
 
 The popularity of Mr. Ryder, as a manager and 
 actor in Dublin, was great and well merited. As a 
 gentleman he was in truth highly cultivated, and 
 his daughter studied the classics, and translated 
 elegantly from the Latin poets. Some of her 
 writings I very recently perused with pleasure. 
 Ryder's company was at the time strong, and he
 
 MRS. JORDAN 7 
 
 could therefore allot no important, perhaps ade- 
 quate, business to our young aspirant. His rival 
 Daly had more in his power, or promised more ; 
 and the celebrated opera of the " Duenna " being 
 pirated, and called the " Governess," with the char- 
 acters reversed, Miss Francis assumed the male 
 attire in the character of Lopez. She also acted 
 the Romp in the farce so called, and Tomboy sat 
 better upon her than Lopez; and the Master of 
 Horse in Ireland, Captain Jephson's tragedy of the 
 " Count of Narbonne " being acted at both theatres, 
 Daly gave Miss Francis the interesting part of 
 Adelaide, and she became attractive as an actress 
 in her sixteenth year. 
 
 Daly now took her with him to Cork, and here 
 we have some accurate recollections of her by the 
 friend to whom I before alluded, the publication of 
 whose memoirs during the progress of the present 
 work gives me the opportunity of inserting in her 
 life a sketch so lively and authentic. See Mr. P. 
 L. Gordon's "Personal Memoirs," vol. i. p. 341. 
 
 " She had met with great applause, especially in 
 the farce of the ' Romp,' and Heaphy, the mana- 
 ger of the Cork theatre, engaged her at twenty 
 shillings per week, along with her father, who was 
 employed as a scene-shifter. The young lady was
 
 8 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 at this time in her seventeenth year, and though 
 not a regular beauty, she was universally admired, 
 and proved a great attraction. On this account 
 the manager gave her a benefit, but for want of 
 patronage it proved a complete failure, the ex- 
 penses of the house being more than her receipts. 
 A party of young men, at the head of which was a 
 Mr. Smith, a banker's clerk, were desirous that 
 their favourite should have another benefit, and 
 they called lustily for Heaphy to come on the 
 stage, but he would not appear. The young Pats 
 were, however, determined to carry their point, 
 and being joined by the pit, they proceeded to tear 
 up the benches, and to attack the orchestra, who, 
 to drown the clamour, had begun fiddling. This 
 was alarming, and the acting manager, O'Keefe, 
 Heaphy 's son-in-law, at length judged it prudent 
 to make his appearance, when a spokesman deliv- 
 ered, in an appropriate harangue, the desire of the 
 audience that Miss Phillips should have a free 
 benefit. O'Keefe remonstrated, stating that the 
 season had been unprofitable to the manager ; but 
 this excuse was not admitted, and he was com- 
 pelled to yield to the wishes of the public alias 
 a score of wild bucks, of which I made one. 
 
 " The benefit was fixed for an early evening and
 
 MRS. JORDAN 9 
 
 our debutante had an audience that produced above 
 forty pounds ; an immense sum in her eyes, we 
 may easily suppose, as it was probably the first 
 money she ever had. Her popularity increased 
 before the season closed. Henderson and I met 
 at a supper-party, to which Miss Phillips had also 
 been invited. This celebrated actor complimented 
 her in the most flattering manner on her talents, 
 advising her to study her profession, and to as- 
 sume a higher walk in comedy than playing 
 Romps ; and success, he said, would be certain. 
 On her return to Dublin, her salary was raised 
 to three guineas a week." (From Pryse Gordon's 
 "Personal Memoirs," vol. i. p. 341.) 
 
 Mrs. Daly, the once celebrated Miss Barsanti, 
 it should here be observed, was extremely tena- 
 cious as to the characters to which she had the 
 prescriptive right of excellence, as well as situa- 
 tion. She might be the more tenacious, as her 
 husband's attentions were not confined by his 
 vow, and his own admiration always accompanied, 
 if it did not precede, that of the public for every 
 lady of merit in his company. 
 
 Richard Daly, Esq., patentee of the Dublin 
 Theatre, was born in the County Galway, and 
 educated at Trinity College ; as a preparation for
 
 10 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 the course he intended to run through life, he had 
 fought sixteen duels in two years, three with the 
 small-sword, and thirteen with pistols ; and he, I 
 suppose, imagined, like Macbeth, with equal con- 
 fidence and more truth, that he bore a " charmed 
 life ; " for he had gone through the said sixteen 
 trials of his nerve without a single wound or 
 scratch of much consequence. He therefore used 
 to provoke such meetings on any usual and even 
 uncertain grounds, and entered the field in pea- 
 green, embroidered and ruffled and curled, as if 
 he had been to hold up a very different ball, and 
 gallantly presented his full front, conspicuously 
 finished with an elegant brooch, quite regardless 
 how soon the labours of the toilet "might soil 
 their honours in the dust." Daly, in person, was 
 remarkably handsome, and his features would have 
 been agreeable but for an inveterate and most dis- 
 tressing squint, the consciousness of which might 
 keep his courage eternally upon the lookout for 
 provocation ; and not seldom, from surprise alone, 
 afford him an opportunity for this his favourite 
 diversion. Like Wilkes, he must have been a 
 very unwelcome adversary to meet with the sword, 
 because the eye told the opposite party nothing 
 of his intentions. Mr. Daly's gallantry was equal
 
 MRS. JORDAN n 
 
 at least to his courage, and the latter was often 
 necessary to defend him in the unbridled indul- 
 gence that through life he permitted to the former. 
 He was said to be the general lover in his theatri- 
 cal company ; and, I presume, the resistance of the 
 fair to a manager may be somewhat modified by 
 the danger of offending one who has the power 
 to appoint them to parts, either striking or other- 
 wise, and who must not be irritated, if he cannot 
 be obliged. It has been said, too, that any of his 
 subjects risked a great deal by an escape from 
 either his love or his tyranny ; for he would put 
 his bond in force upon the refractory, and con- 
 demn to a hopeless imprisonment those who, from 
 virtue or disgust, had determined to disappoint 
 him. 
 
 It has been asserted that he teased Miss Francis 
 with his addresses, and that, upon her resistance 
 and desertion of his theatre, he actually sued for 
 the penalty on her article, and that it was paid 
 for her by the benevolence of a stranger. Such 
 a conduct is in violent opposition to another 
 report, that he had been a favoured lover of the 
 young lady. Upon the subject of her early ad- 
 mirers, there is one story which exists upon an 
 authority above dispute, namely, that of the per-
 
 12 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 sonal friend of the lover. This, therefore, I shall 
 here introduce, and in the words of the writer, 
 Sir Jonah Barrington. 
 
 "The company then proceeded to perform in 
 the provinces, and at Waterford occurred the first 
 grave incident in the life of Mrs. Jordan. Lieut. 
 Charles Doyne, of the Third Regiment of heavy 
 horse (Greens), was then quartered in that city ; 
 and, struck with the narvet and almost irresistible 
 attractions of the young performer, his heart 
 yielded, and he became seriously and honourably 
 attached to her. Lieutenant Doyne was not hand- 
 some, but he was a gentleman and a worthy man, 
 and had been my friend and companion some years 
 at the university. I knew him intimately, and he 
 entrusted me with his passion. Miss Francis's 
 mother was then alive, and sedulously attended 
 her. Full of ardour and thoughtlessness myself, I 
 advised him, if he could win the young lady, to 
 marry her, adding, that, no doubt, fortune must 
 smile on so disinterested a union. Her mother, 
 however, was of a different opinion ; and as she 
 had no fortune but her talent, the exercise of 
 which was to be relinquished with the name 
 of Francis, it became a matter of serious con- 
 sideration from what source they were to draw
 
 MRS. JORDAN 13 
 
 their support, with the probability, too, of a 
 family. His commission was altogether inade- 
 quate, and his private fortune very small. This 
 obstacle, in short, was insurmountable. Mrs. 
 Francis, anticipating the future celebrity of her 
 child, and unwilling to extinguish in obscurity all 
 chance of fame and fortune by means of the pro- 
 fession she had adopted, worked upon her daughter 
 to decline the proposal. The treaty, accordingly, 
 ended, and Lieutenant Doyne appeared to me for 
 a little time almost inconsolable. Miss Francis, 
 accompanied by her mother, soon after went over 
 to England, and for nearly twenty years I never 
 saw that unrivalled performer. 
 
 " Mr. Owenson, the father of Lady Morgan, 
 took a warm interest in the welfare of Miss 
 Francis, and was the principal adviser of her 
 mother in rejecting Mr. Doyne' s addresses." He 
 was an actor who excelled in the performance of 
 Irish characters, discriminated from Johnstone by a 
 very inferior power as a singer, and never elevat- 
 ing them to so gentlemanly a rank as they enjoyed 
 in the hands of that masterly performer. 
 
 Among the obvious reasons which appear to 
 have broken off the union we are speaking of, 
 those that respect the advantage of the whole
 
 14 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 family were probably least urged, and yet most 
 felt. They had got what their own knowledge of 
 acting told them was a treasure if it could be 
 applied. An ordinary marriage, and a consequent 
 retirement from the stage, was burying it from all 
 use, either to herself or others. Besides this, Mrs. 
 Bland had herself seen that passion, though strong 
 enough to brave the present for its object, shrinks 
 at the weary test of the future. A sense of dis- 
 parity, which the relations feel from the first, is 
 felt at length by the husband himself. Every 
 succeeding year weakens the attachment, and 
 strengthens the objections to it. The parties are 
 separated, and the wife deserted is thrown upon a 
 provision, with pain either demanded or satisfied ; 
 while the talent, kindled in youth, and then fanned 
 into independence by the public breath, is to be 
 revived in maturity from a long slumber, and per- 
 haps never to regain the blaze at which it was 
 quenched, much less the volume of splendour 
 which its uninterrupted progress might have 
 reached. 
 
 There were other reasons which might weigh 
 with Miss Francis, and which will suggest them- 
 selves to the mind of every reader: Lieutenant 
 Doyne had no personal advantages; his rank in
 
 MRS. JORDAN 15 
 
 the army was inconsiderable ; and his private for- 
 tune slender, which, translated from the idiom of 
 the sister island, is, perhaps, little or nothing. 
 How far she had entangled herself with Daly, and 
 by what ill-considered engagements he might pre- 
 tend to detain her, are now of little moment, 
 though at the time decisive of her fate. She 
 directed her course to England. But before we 
 show our fair wanderer upon her new stage, it 
 may be proper to inquire what facilities the king- 
 dom she quitted afforded for the attainment of 
 histrionic excellence. 
 
 Ireland, as a school for a young actress, had 
 been long rendered of first-rate importance by the 
 brilliant career of Mrs. Abington, who acted at 
 both the Dublin theatres, and unquestionably pos- 
 sessed very peculiar and hitherto unapproached 
 talent. She, I think, took more entire possession 
 of the stage than any actress I have seen ; there 
 was, however, no assumption in her dignity ; she 
 was a lawful and graceful sovereign, who exerted 
 her full power, and enjoyed her established pre- 
 rogatives. The ladies of her day wore the hoop 
 and its concomitant train. The Spectator s exer- 
 cise of the fan was really no play of fancy. Shall 
 I say that I have never seen it in a hand so dex-
 
 1 6 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 terous as that of Mrs. Abington ? She was a 
 woman of great application ; to speak as she did 
 required more thought than usually attends female 
 study. Far the greater part of the sex rely upon 
 an intuition which seldom misleads them ; such 
 discernment as it gives becomes habitual and is 
 commonly sufficient, or sufficient for common pur- 
 poses. But commonplace was not the station of 
 Abington. She was always beyond the surface, 
 untwisted all the chains which bind ideas together, 
 and seized upon the exact cadence and emphasis 
 by which the point of the dialogue is enforced. 
 Her voice was of a high pitch, and not very pow- 
 erful. Her management of it alone made it an 
 organ ; yet this was so perfect that we sometimes 
 converted the mere effect into a cause, and sup- 
 posed it was the sharpness of the tone that had 
 conveyed the sting. Yet, her figure considered, 
 her voice rather sounded inadequate ; its articula- 
 tion, however, gave both strength and smartness 
 to it, though it could not give sweetness. You 
 heard her well, and without difficulty ; and it is 
 the first duty of a public speaker to be audible 
 and intelligible. Her deportment is not so easily 
 described ; more womanly than Farren, fuller, yet 
 not heavy, like Younge, and far beyond even the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 17 
 
 conception of modern fine ladies, Mrs. Abington 
 remains in memory as a thing for chance to re- 
 store to us, rather than design, and revive our 
 polite comedy at the same time. 
 
 Miss Francis, with her natural good sense, could 
 not fail to discover that she had undertaken no 
 slight enterprise. The speaking voice, it is true, 
 soon makes its way, and the possessor of nature's 
 music perceives the spell that it has breathed 
 around. To be listened to without a sign of weari- 
 ness to dress by a few words of slight impor- 
 tance every countenance in smiles to see even 
 habitual cunning desert the worldly, and gravity 
 the thoughtful such are the tributes uniformly 
 paid to a melodious utterance. The young actress 
 would be aware also of the perfect symmetry of 
 her form, and though below the majestic and 
 above the common, might consider herself seated 
 as it were about the centre of humanity, and 
 reaching far indeed into the rival realms of feeling 
 and humour. 
 
 Miss Francis never effused herself much in 
 talk ; she had no ambition after the voluble and 
 the witty. I know not that she would have been 
 much distinguished had chance diverted her from 
 the stage ; yet I think I know that she could not
 
 l8 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 have been happy without the exercise of her the- 
 atric talent, and that she was seeking the only 
 medium that could display the unbounded humour, 
 the whim, the sportiveness of her own nature on 
 the one hand, or the persuasive reason and unaf- 
 fected sensibility that gave a sterling value to the 
 lighter parts of her composition on the other. 
 
 She never gave herself the credit of much 
 study, and the truth was that, except as to mere 
 words, her studies lay little in books. With her 
 eye and ear she would become insensibly learned. 
 All the peculiarities of action and the whole gamut 
 of tone were speedily acquired ; the general notion 
 of a character once settled, she called upon nature, 
 within her own bosom, to fill up the outline, and 
 the mighty parent stored it with richer materials 
 than ever fancy could devise, except it was the 
 fancy that embodied Falstaff, a part so made out 
 that every speech is a lesson as to the mode of its 
 delivery, and to understand whose language thor- 
 oughly is to be himself. 
 
 I have named these two great women together, 
 though they had not the slightest resemblance 
 even when viewed in the same characters. When 
 Mrs. Abington changed her higher range of char- 
 acters for the cast of Mrs. Jordan in comedy, she
 
 MRS. JORDAN 19 
 
 always reminded you of the sphere she dropped 
 from ; there was no little high life below stairs. 
 Mrs. Jordan was the genuine thing itself, and that 
 she imitated at all never obtruded itself for a mo- 
 ment upon her audience. There was a heartiness 
 in her enjoyment, a sincerity in her laugh, that 
 sunk the actress in the woman ; she seemed only 
 to exhibit herself and her own wild fancies, and 
 utter the impromptus of the moment. 
 
 The reader will perhaps ask here whether this 
 was at all borne out by the fact, and whether Mrs. 
 Jordan's natural character any way resembled this 
 stage impression of her ? The answer, as far as 
 i had means to estimate her, is, not in the least. 
 She needed to touch the boards of the theatre to 
 draw from her what delighted equally all ranks 
 and ages of either sex, about whose preeminence 
 there never was the slightest dispute ; and if this 
 charm of hers yielded to tragedy the first place, it 
 was only because the miseries of life take deeper 
 hold of the mind than its enjoyments, and history, 
 epic poetry, tragedy, the romance of real life, and 
 romance itself, confirm us in our gloomy prefer- 
 ence. We neglect our best teacher, Gratiano, and 
 say, like his companions in the play, that he 
 speaks "an infinite deal of nothing." It is much
 
 20 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 easier to say this than to answer the following 
 queries : 
 
 ' Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, 
 Sit like his grandsire, cut in alabaster ? 
 Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice 
 By being peevish ? Let me play the fool ; 
 With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come ; 
 And let my liver rather heat with wine 
 Than my heart cool with mortifying groans." 
 
 At all events, such a man looks only at what is 
 real in misfortune ; his temper keeps him from all 
 anticipation before it arrives, and exaggeration 
 after ; he removes melancholy from his mind as 
 speedily as he can, and places it, for ever, beyond 
 the reach of a darker but kindred spirit, misan- 
 thropy.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Miss Francis Arrives at Leeds in July, 1782 Her Interview 
 with Tate Wilkinson His Determination in Her Favour 
 Her First Appearance Was in Tragedy, in the Part of Calista 
 Her Reception "The Greenwood Laddie," and Its Effect 
 
 Tate Prophesies That She Will Reach the Summit 
 Change of Name at York, the Choice of One on That Occa- 
 sion Her Aunt, Miss Phillips, Dangerously 111 at York, 
 Makes Her Niece Her Heir The Application of Mrs. Jordan 
 When a Young Actress Mr. William Smith Sees Her in the 
 Race Week She Acted Rutland and the Romp before Him 
 
 Interests Himself Warmly about Her She Acts Arionelli 
 
 Mr. Knight Lady Leake Swan, the Critic, Teaches 
 Mrs. Jordan Zara Sheffield, an Alarm The Duke of 
 Norfolk Mrs. Jordan's Rivals Mrs. Smith, and Her 
 March Extraordinary. 
 
 |T was early in the month of July, 1782, 
 that Tate Wilkinson, manager of the 
 York company, then at Leeds, was in- 
 formed that Miss Francis, with her mother, 
 brother, and sister, were arrived, and requested to 
 see him at his earliest convenience. That worthy 
 man immediately visited them at their inn, and 
 found, in Mrs. Bland, the mother, his own Desde- 
 
 21
 
 22 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 mona at Dublin, in the year 1758, when he acted 
 Othello, and indeed almost everything. She was 
 at that time Miss Grace Phillips. 
 
 The party was fatigued with the journey, and 
 the first glance of the manager sufficed to ac- 
 quaint him with their indifferent circumstances. 
 The mother had an introduction which, like that 
 of brother soldiers, is always strong: she had 
 served with Mr. Wilkinson in the campaigns of 
 their youth; and it was not unlikely that the 
 young lady inherited some theatrical talent, as 
 the quality of the soil she sprang from. How- 
 ever, he asked her laconically whether her line 
 was tragedy, comedy, or opera? To which, in 
 one word, she answered, " All." 
 
 When telling her story afterward, she always 
 said, at this point of it : " Sir, in my life I never 
 saw an elderly gentleman more astonished ! " 
 Mrs. Bland now found herself at full liberty to 
 dilate upon her daughter's merits ; and, fond as 
 she always was of her, it is possible that even a 
 mother's fondness did not overrate them. Upon 
 the virtues of her heart, she was copious with 
 equal reason she was a girl of nineteen, and 
 the whole family depended upon her. 
 
 The most benevolent man is often obliged to
 
 MRS. JORDAN 23 
 
 shape his kindness by his interest. Before Mr. 
 Wilkinson opened a negotiation, it became neces- 
 sary for him to reflect a little ; and he withdrew 
 accordingly to another room for a few minutes to 
 decide whether he should give the common nega- 
 tive, that his company was too full at present, or 
 enter upon the business with that friendly con- 
 cession that left the terms of the engagement 
 alone to be adjusted. It is not too much praise 
 here to say that his heart determined him. On 
 his reentering the room, which he soon did, his 
 smile told the adventurers they were likely to gain 
 some provision, however trifling, and a friend who 
 was to be secured by zeal and attention to the 
 concern in which he was engaged. But the hero- 
 ine, at that time, exhibited not a vestige of her 
 comic powers either in feature or manner. On 
 the contrary, like the player in "Hamlet," she 
 had, with a slight parody, 
 
 " Tears in her eyes, dejection in her aspect, 
 A broken voice, and her whole function suited 
 With forms to her distress." 
 
 When Wilkinson besought her to favour him 
 with the usual "taste of her quality," a passionate 
 speech, the languor that sat upon her frame pro-
 
 24 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 nounced her just then to be incapable of any 
 assumed passion. She wished to merit an engage- 
 ment by a fair trial on the boards, and the man- 
 ager assented to this, the fairest of all propositions. 
 Their considerate friend now ordered a bottle of 
 Madeira to be brought in, and the friendly charm 
 soon revived the spirits of the travellers, who 
 chatted gaily upon the subject of the Irish stage, 
 and the general news of that kingdom, till at 
 length the manager espied a favourable opportu- 
 nity of repeating his request for the speech, which 
 was to decide in some degree his opinion of her 
 value ; and the interesting woman spoke for him 
 a few lines of Calista, which they settled she was 
 to act on the Thursday following, with Lucy, in 
 the " Virgin Unmasked." The exquisite and 
 plaintive melody of her voice, the distinctness of 
 her articulation, the truth and nature that looked 
 through her, affected the experienced actor deeply ; 
 his internal delight could only be balanced by his 
 hopes, and he poured out his praise and his con- 
 gratulation in no measured language. As is usual 
 on such occasions, the modest actress replied that 
 "if she could but please her manager she should 
 be satisfied ; and that, should she achieve the 
 public favour, he should ever find her grateful
 
 MRS. JORDAN 25 
 
 for the aid he had afforded to her necessity." If 
 the heart speaks too much on these occasions, it 
 is cruel to arrest its triumph by a suspicion dis- 
 honourable to our nature ; Tate acknowledged a 
 sudden "impulse of regard," and the parties sepa- 
 rated with mutual good wishes, and expressions of 
 entire confidence in the result. 
 
 It was on the nth of July, 1782, that, under 
 the name of Francis (for her mother desired the 
 manager to cancel that of Bland, inserted in the 
 playbills), she was put up, for the first time, at 
 Leeds, in the character of Calista ; but, greatly 
 to the manager's surprise, Mrs. Bland had desired 
 he would announce that, after the play, Miss 
 Francis would sing the song of the " Greenwood 
 Laddie." As we have said, Wilkinson had detected 
 no symptoms of comedy in the heroine of the 
 evening ; but he did them the credit to believe 
 that they knew well what they were doing, and 
 so merely threw out an incantation which had 
 previously been found irresistible. 
 
 The manager of a country circuit, like that of 
 York, is a person of no little importance ; and, if 
 he be a man accomplished like Tate Wilkinson, 
 is likely to stand well with all the principal gentry 
 in the great towns which he visits. Literature
 
 26 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 naturally allies itself to the stage, and what lover 
 of letters would be insensible to the social claims 
 of one who had not only himself represented the 
 whole range of dramatic character, but, as a mimic, 
 was also the representative of theatric life; who 
 could bring before them Garrick and Foote, and 
 even Woffington and Pritchard, and a long et 
 cetera of both sexes ; and was of all humours that 
 had shown themselves humours for near half a 
 century? It is not to be doubted that, on the 
 present occasion, Tate would fairly relate to the 
 patrons of the playhouse all that he had himself 
 felt of the charm about the young actress ; and 
 that for the double object of affording her suita- 
 ble minds to impress, and of deriving himself the 
 means of holding together a numerous company, 
 popular only by the quality and variety of its 
 attractions. Her rehearsals had elevated his 
 hopes to the tone of prophecy, and he ventured 
 to say that Miss Francis would be at the very 
 head of the profession. Yet Gibber, it is prob- 
 able, lingered about his heart, as she had done 
 about his master, Garrick's ; and of comedy, for 
 the present, there was no question. 
 
 She was heard through the play with the great- 
 est attention and sympathy, and the manager
 
 MRS. JORDAN 27 
 
 began to tremble at the absurdity, as he reasona- 
 bly thought it, of Calista arising from the dead, 
 and rushing before an audience in their tears, to 
 sing a ballad in the pastoral style, which nobody 
 called for or cared about. But on she jumped, 
 with her elastic spring, and a smile that Nature's 
 own cunning hand had moulded, in a frock and a 
 little mob-cap, and her curls, as she wore them all 
 her life ; and she sang her ballad so enchantingly 
 as to fascinate her hearers, and convince the man- 
 ager that every charm had not been exhausted by 
 past times, nor all of them numbered, for the 
 volunteer unaccompanied ballad of Mrs. Jordan 
 was peculiar to her, and charmed only by her 
 voice and manner. Leeds, though a manufactur- 
 ing town, and strongly addicted to the interests 
 of trade, was, at the call of the charmer, induced 
 to crowd her benefit on the 5th of August ; and, 
 that being over, the troop were seen in full march 
 for York, where Wilkinson had ordered his new 
 acquisition to be announced as Calista, by the 
 name of Francis. 
 
 But the only female name unsusceptible of 
 change is the baptismal. The surname is one 
 above confinement, and variable with the condi- 
 tion of the bearer. Upon the arrival of the ladies
 
 28 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 at York, the manager received a note from Mrs. 
 Bland, stating that, for very particular reasons, 
 which would be explained, the name of Francis 
 must be changed, and some other adopted. Wil- 
 kinson naturally proposed Bland, to which she had 
 a natural title, but the actress now wrote to him 
 " that his wish, as to the insertion of Bland, could 
 not be complied with, as that name in the prints 
 might probably much injure her in the opinion of 
 her father's relations." I choose to cite, on this 
 occasion, the manager's own words, because I 
 believe them to be sincere, and find them marked 
 with a propriety that will not escape admiration. 
 "So," says he, "on our meeting, and the matter 
 being explained, there appeared obvious and press- 
 ing reasons for a change of name, and that of Mrs. 
 Jordan was adopted." What Wilkinson deliber- 
 ately writes may be depended on. In conversa- 
 tion, he used to claim the honour of having been 
 her godfather on this occasion, and, as the son of 
 a clergyman, indulged himself with an allusion 
 to the "Jordan," which she had luckily passed, 
 whatever badge of her former slavery she might 
 still carry about her ; and she gratefully bore the 
 name on this pious recommendation. As to the 
 Mrs. now assumed, it was a shield that protected
 
 MRS. JORDAN 29 
 
 the wearer from all frivolous suitors ; and here I 
 shall drop the subject, though her manager lingers 
 about it. The Jordan is a name sufficiently de- 
 voted to fame ; and though, at one time, in York 
 itself, the ford was used instead of the river, yet 
 her fame, as an actress, may flow on by that ap- 
 pellation alone, as long as her existence is 
 remembered. 
 
 But the reader must be made acquainted with 
 the reason which produced this new decision as to 
 name, on the arrival at York, which had, indeed, 
 before been attended with some difficulty. The 
 fact was, that her aunt, Miss Phillips, who had 
 also been an actress in the York company, and 
 was now lying dangerously ill, had that last in- 
 firmity of the Welsh mind, a high value for the 
 families to which she claimed alliance. She had 
 earnestly entreated to see her sister, Mrs. Bland, 
 and to welcome her niece, whom she pronounced 
 to be already an honour to the stock from which 
 she derived alike her theatrical and lineal honours ; 
 and as this near relation was at the point of death, 
 and destined a very enviable wardrobe as a legacy 
 to her beloved niece, upon the payment of a slight 
 equity of redemption, both prudence and affection 
 concurred in allowing the last wish of an aunt
 
 30 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 who felt her interest so strongly. Miss Phillips 
 is said to have considered herself the greatest 
 actress that had ever appeared, and she had the 
 opinion to herself. Her niece has been generally 
 considered unrivalled in her particular walk, but 
 it was a pretension which I believe she never 
 uttered, if she for a moment believed it to be just. 
 Within a week after this transaction the aunt 
 died, and Mrs. Jordan pursued her profession, 
 though she did not exactly tread in her steps. 
 Her aunt had been an indolent actress ; our hero- 
 ine, on the contrary, was then so indefatigable in 
 her application that she studied a new character 
 and played it between day and day. And when 
 we consider that stage business in the provincial 
 towns is commonly thus hurried, and yet that the 
 seeds are there sown whose maturity is so rich 
 a feast to us in London, we may well admit that 
 no profession is more laborious, that in none are 
 brighter powers displayed, and that memory is 
 there cultivated to an extent of copiousness and 
 accuracy of which no equal examples can be 
 found. To all these qualities must be added 
 the tact by which character is discerned, and 
 embodied and preserved in perfect consistency 
 with the poet's outline, filled up by the expression,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 31 
 
 the gesture, the eye, the gait, to which the actor 
 accommodates unfailingly his mental and personal 
 habits during the exhibition. What is technically 
 called the business of a part, may be learned from 
 some member of the company who has seen it 
 played. But still much must be left to the indi- 
 vidual who assumes the character ; and they who 
 have attended, with any candour, performances 
 out of the metropolis, must, on the whole, be 
 astonished at their relative perfection. 
 
 The race week at York brings many visitors to 
 the theatre who cannot be expected there on less 
 excitement. Among such amateurs of the turf and 
 the boards was to be numbered Mr. William 
 Smith, the admired actor of Drury Lane Theatre. 
 Mrs. Jordan had the pleasure of acting Rutland 
 before that gentleman, and she followed her serious 
 interest by the performance of Priscilla Tomboy in 
 the " Romp," which she had acted in Dublin the 
 year before, and in which she continued to delight 
 as long as figure permitted her to retain the charac- 
 ter. Smith was a warm-hearted and gentlemanly 
 man, and when strongly impressed by merit did 
 not content himself with his personal gratification, 
 but both spoke and wrote of the subject with every 
 wish to serve ; and in the case of Mrs. Jordan,
 
 32 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 fortunately, with the power. Smith felicitated the 
 manager, and attended every performance of the 
 actress while he stayed in York, and Wilkinson 
 became somewhat alarmed lest he should lose his 
 charmer through this enthusiasm ; however, he had 
 taken care to make her sign an article before they 
 quitted Leeds, and the forfeiture of a theatrical 
 article, reader, is attended by a penal condition 
 not very soluble to a rival manager, and quite 
 destructive to an unaided actress. 
 
 At York Mrs. Jordan assumed the part of Ari- 
 onelli in the " Son-in-law," and played it with 
 laughable effect ; but I own I can hardly conceive 
 an exhibition more incongruous. For what is the 
 point burlesqued ? That a male in the Italian 
 Opera sings with a voice that resembles in its 
 upper tones that of a female ; and the more of 
 a Hercules the actor's form displays, the more 
 risible will be the shrill effeminacy of his voice. 
 In old Bannister this contrast was perfect. But 
 place a female in Arionelli, and all contrast is at 
 an end ; dress her how you will, the spectator sees 
 that it is a woman, and for a woman to sing 
 soprano is natural, and can excite no laughter. 
 If it be the Italian style only that she burlesques, 
 the laugh is merely the laugh of ignorance ; if it
 
 MRS. JORDAN 33 
 
 be the figure and the foreign utterance, the first 
 cannot be assumed, and the latter ends with the 
 first speech. There is one point, to be sure, in 
 the dialogue, that suits alike the character of Ari- 
 onelli and his representative. As to marrying the 
 old man's daughter, they may either of them de- 
 clare, " it is quite out of my way." The favourite, 
 either in the theatre or on the course, is apt to en- 
 gross the attention. To give Mrs. Jordan Ario- 
 nelli offended the actor who had before represented 
 it, and Mr. Wilkinson lost the services of a deserv- 
 ing man, a Mr. Tyler, on this occasion. Some- 
 thing was expected from Knight, our old favourite, 
 who had come from Edinburgh, into the York 
 company, to support the gay and sparkling char- 
 acters of the drama, and he had Lothario assigned 
 to him, that he might act with the Jordan in the 
 " Fair Penitent." How he should fail in it so en- 
 tirely as he did, I can with difficulty conceive : his 
 figure admirably suited the part ; he was an actor 
 who weighed everything he uttered critically all 
 his life; indeed, the sagacious manager ventured 
 to recommend any other profession in the world to 
 him rather than the stage. The actor was too 
 firmly upon his centre to be overthrown by this 
 shock, rude as it was. He had "that within
 
 34 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 which passeth show," and smiled at the manager's 
 injunction and his fears ; from the latter of which 
 Mr. Knight soon recovered his friend Tate by 
 some admirable performances, till at length he 
 gained at Bath a very high and merited reputation. 
 In the midst of this career of Mrs. Jordan, her 
 attention, for a moment only, was called to the 
 d6but of a Lady Leake, who, from "a train of 
 unavoidable misfortunes," had sought the refuge 
 of a theatre, as her husband had been compelled 
 to accept that of the King's Bench. A " rag of 
 quality " has a stage attraction to the little great 
 they delight their own vanity in the exercise of 
 their compassion, and support the manager, though 
 they never can the actress. This lady had not 
 soared indecently with her inexperienced wings : 
 she levelled but at Amelia, in Colman's " English 
 Merchant ; " but, after all, the policy may be ques- 
 tioned that seeks to make impression where no 
 impression can be made. In a part powerfully 
 written, a character boldly drawn, the novice is 
 supported, in some degree, by the dress she wears. 
 In the boyish declamations of our schools, you will 
 admire the nervous beauties they deliver, however 
 limited their powers of delivery may be ; and the 
 speaker has some share, at least, in the applause
 
 MRS. JORDAN 35 
 
 excited. Give a boy mediocrity to dole out, and 
 you are sure to yawn, if you do not sleep, and his 
 relations will clap the only hands at his exit. At 
 rehearsal, in the morning, this lady's voice seemed 
 to fill the empty region like a bell, as she exclaimed, 
 triumphantly, to the manager but the bell was 
 muffled in the evening, and its faint efforts dis- 
 turbed no ear in the front of the theatre. The 
 audience allowed their pity to silence their censure, 
 and Lady Leake courted her fortune where we 
 sincerely hope that she was kinder. 
 
 In addition to the chance of some rival's dis- 
 turbing her ascendancy, Mrs. Jordan needed all 
 the friendship of her manager to protect her from 
 the ill-will of the community. Some of his kind- 
 ness to her, the patentee has not allowed to de- 
 pend for its fame upon her own recollection, and 
 of one piece, his recital may provoke the risibility 
 of the reader. "I introduced her," says Tate, 
 "to our critic, Mr. Cornelius Swan, 1 of York, 
 
 1 Swan had the very demon of tuition in him. On a report, 
 in the decline of his life, that Garrick was about to resume the 
 part of Othello, he teased him with his remarks upon the play, 
 at immeasurable length ; and the manager transferred them to 
 George Steevens, who, as Shakespeare's editor, thought, at first, 
 there might be something in the labours of Cornelius, and that 
 he might better regulate the stage directions in the play, by any
 
 36 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 who said he would teach her to act." And when 
 Mrs. Jordan was ill, he was admitted to the little 
 bedchamber, where, by the side of the bed, with 
 Mrs. Bland's old red cloak round his neck, he 
 would sit and instruct his pupil in Hill's character 
 of Zara. " You must revive that tragedy, Wilkin- 
 son," said he, "for I have given the Jordan but 
 three lessons, and she is so adroit at receiving my 
 instructions, that I declare she repeats the char- 
 acter as well as Mrs. Gibber ever did ; nay, let 
 me do the Jordan justice, for I do not exceed, 
 when with truth I declare, Jordan speaks it as well 
 as I could myself." Cornelius, in his fondness, 
 
 reasonable notions upon the subject of the terrible end of Des- 
 demona. But the Swan of York and the Ouse was, at length, 
 deemed to have little in common with that of Stratford and the 
 Avon ; and the page of Shakespeare was not allowed to boast 
 the improvements of Cornelius Swan. Not that Steevens was 
 at all sullen to the claims of our metropolitical city upon Shake- 
 speare ; for, I remember, he used to carry Harry Rowe's " Mac- 
 beth " in his pocket, and, sometimes, when any difference between 
 himself and Malone upon a probable reading of the text was 
 mentioned, he would say, with that glance of mischief which 
 was so peculiar to him, " Now, sir, Harry Rowe, the trumpeter, 
 decides the point with infinitely less trouble I " 
 
 It is needless to add that Mr. Garrick, during the latter part 
 of his career, dropped the part of Othello altogether. The com- 
 plexion of the noble Moor lessened the brilliant efficacy of his 
 eye. Take from the snake its power of fascination, and its prey 
 is gone.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 37 
 
 adopted her as his child, but, at his death, he did 
 not leave her a shilling. 
 
 In the usual order of the circuit, Wakefield 
 and Doncaster enjoyed the excellence of the new 
 actress, and confident in her strength, the man- 
 ager thought that Sheffield itself might merit an 
 invasion from the troop, though, of late, that town 
 had shown an almost ruinous indifference to 
 theatrical amusement. But that experiment may 
 be sufficient for danger, which yields no profit. 
 Mrs. Jordan, at Sheffield, was placed in peril of 
 her life. The occasion was this. Pilon had 
 brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, in May, 1782, 
 an opera called the " Fair American." From this 
 opera his misfortunes were to be dated. Carter, 
 his composer, sued him for his charge for very 
 indifferent music ; the poor author had no profits 
 himself from the theatre, and was obliged to ab- 
 scond. As the last novelty that had succeeded, 
 though not brilliantly, the York manager procured 
 a copy of it, and it was acted at Sheffield, on the 
 1 8th of October, 1782. The scene discovered 
 Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Knight sitting at tea, as 
 chambermaid and footman, and the audience were 
 enjoying their humour, when, on a sudden, without 
 the slightest warning, what is technically called
 
 38 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 a curtain, with its ponderous wooden roller, fell 
 from the roof of the theatre at their feet ; had 
 they been a few inches more forward on the stage, 
 or had they been advancing from their seats to- 
 ward the front, one or both of them might have 
 been crushed to death, and the stage of Garrick 
 never have witnessed an attraction in comedy 
 equal to his own. 
 
 The fine lady, in comedy, of the York company, 
 at this time, was Mrs. Smith, an actress of great 
 diligence and merit ; in all other respects the 
 very opposite to poor Jordan, as she was well 
 connected, in very comfortable circumstances, 
 happy in her husband and her friends, and in 
 possession of the most valuable line of business 
 in the theatre. 
 
 This lady expected, at the end of September, an 
 increase to her family, and the great object of her 
 thoughts was to make the periods before and after 
 her confinement as short as possible, that her 
 rival might not appear, or, at least, not be seen 
 often, in any of the characters that she considered 
 her own ; such as Emmeline, Lady Racket, Lady 
 Bell, Lady Teazle, Lady Alton, Indiana, and others 
 in that cast. She, therefore, rendered the virgin 
 purity of some of them rather questionable to the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 39 
 
 eye, and was admonished by the manager to with- 
 draw, since the quick study of Mrs. Jordan could 
 at any time supply her place at a day's notice, and 
 it was, therefore, idle to inconvenience herself in 
 her present situation. Her confinement took place 
 on the 2d of October, in a remarkably wet season, 
 and on the 13th the march of the troop was to 
 take place from Doncaster to Sheffield. In her 
 impatience to act, soon after her delivery, in a 
 damp garden, she absolutely began to exercise her- 
 self daily, in order that she might be able to per- 
 form the journey of eighteen miles to Sheffield. 
 She performed the journey, it is true, but the 
 result of her folly was a lameness in the hip, which 
 for some time threatened serious consequences. 
 Lame as she was, however, rather than submit 
 to Mrs. Jordan's performing her part of Fanny, 
 in the "Clandestine Marriage," she determined 
 to hobble through it herself, though really as 
 crippled as Lord Ogleby seemed, and absolutely 
 rendered herself incapable, by it, of all exertion, 
 from the end of October to the middle of 
 December. 
 
 It was at Sheffield that the late amiable Duke 
 of Norfolk commenced an admiration of Mrs. 
 Jordan which continued through life : he was an
 
 40 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 honourable and useful friend, on many occasions, 
 in her theatrical progress. Some patronage she 
 had at her benefit, but neither she nor her mana- 
 ger could boast of their profits, though the river 
 Don converted all their iron into gold for the 
 industrious dwellers upon its banks. And thus 
 it was that, employed, but not supported, the 
 company left Sheffield for Kingston-upon-Hull. 
 
 Although the prefix of Mrs. to her name might 
 have been thought a sufficient apology for the 
 indisposition which confined her to her apartments 
 at Hull till the month of December, yet her suc- 
 cess had been so great, and the mortification of 
 her stage sisters so complete, that they availed 
 themselves of all the artifices of insinuation to 
 lower her attraction with the lady patronesses of 
 Hull ; and represented her moral character to 
 be such as to render her unworthy of their 
 notice. The affected regret that, with talents 
 like hers, there should be so much to reprove 
 in her conduct, 
 
 " The shrug the hum the ha those petty brands 
 That calumny doth use," 
 
 worked their way so effectually, that, in spite of 
 the applause which had run before her, she was
 
 MRS. JORDAN 41 
 
 but coolly received on the evening after the Christ- 
 mas festival, when she acted her admired " Calista," 
 and followed it by the famous " Highland Laddie." 
 There was a cold and sarcastic application of the 
 character of the heroine to the performer, among 
 the ladies, which chilled the actress, and rendered 
 the scene languid ; so little harmony had these 
 ungracious beings retained about them, that any- 
 thing like hilarity offended their prejudice, and 
 Mrs. Jordan was absolutely that night hissed in 
 her song, which had previously received the most 
 unfailing applause. 
 
 Her own good sense, and the advice of her 
 judicious and friendly manager, led her to bear up 
 against this temporary displeasure, and when it 
 was fully made known that her manners were as 
 decorous as her diligence was extraordinary, and 
 that scandal, at all events, could not deny her pro- 
 fessional power to delight, the town at last gave 
 up a scrutiny that they had no great right to 
 institute into the private history of this popular 
 representative ; and their smiling presence, on 
 common nights, not being withdrawn at her bene- 
 fit, the mutual good understanding produced mu- 
 tual advantage, for the actress's talents improved 
 with her circumstances.
 
 42 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Thus, at length happily established in her profes- 
 sion, and looking now forward with some confi- 
 dence to the ability of supporting the family so 
 dear to her, closed the year 1782, Mrs. Jordan's 
 first season in the York company.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Year 1783 Mrs. Jordan's Amazing Popularity in the Char- 
 acter of William, in " Rosina" Mrs. Brooke the Authoress 
 
 Her Husband, Curate to Wilkinson's Father at the Savoy 
 
 The King's Chaplain Transported Garrick's Officious 
 Meddling Mrs. Baddeley at York A Lesson to Our Hero- 
 ine of Negative Instruction Mrs. Mills, Fawcett's First Wife, 
 an Example of Application to Her The Art of Mortifying 
 a Scenic Rival Mrs. Ward, a Great Professor Mrs. 
 Brown, the Wife of Harlequin Brown, Her " Country Girl " 
 Miss Wilkinson, afterward Mrs. Mountain Season of 1785, 
 the Last of Mrs. Jordan as a Member of the York Company 
 
 An Instance of Her Caprice Sees Mrs. Yates as Margaret 
 of Anjou Dick Yates's Opinion of Mrs. Jordan Mrs. Sid- 
 dons Also for Rustication Mrs. Robinson, the Prophetess 
 
 Takes Leave of Yorkshire in the " Poor Soldier," to 
 Proceed to London. 
 
 JHE year 1783 added to Mrs. Jordan's 
 range of characters one which was ap- 
 plauded and followed with enthusiasm. 
 It was no other than the part of William in Mrs. 
 Brooke's unaffected rustic opera called "Rosina." 
 The neatness of her figure in the male attire was 
 for years remarkable ; but the attraction after all 
 is purely feminine, and the display of female, not 
 
 43
 
 44 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 male perfections. Did the lady really look like a 
 man, the coarse androgynus would be hooted from 
 the stage. 
 
 Mrs. Brooke was truly an ingenious woman and 
 an excellent novelist. Her husband had been the 
 curate of Wilkinson's father at the Savoy, and 
 the imagined exemption of that place from the 
 operation of the marriage act actually exposed 
 the king's chaplain to transportation. The anguish 
 of an innocent but wounded spirit precipitated 
 his end ; the government of that time persisting 
 in the sacrifice of the venerable victim, who, con- 
 trary to law, had presumed to unite the willing in 
 the holy bands of matrimony, without the publica- 
 tion of banns, or the shorter permission of Doctors 
 Commons. Mrs. Wilkinson in vain placed a peti- 
 tion in the hand of George the Second. Not the 
 slightest notice whatever was taken of it. But it 
 was odd enough that this catastrophe was brought 
 on by the officious meddling of David Garrick, on 
 the occasion of Vemon's marrying Miss Poitier. 
 Such recollections rendered "Rosina" an object 
 of great interest to Tate Wilkinson, and he got it 
 up with his utmost ability. 
 
 It was during the spring meeting at York this 
 year that Mrs. Jordan had one of those early les-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 45 
 
 sons, which are hardly to be remembered without 
 shuddering. I allude to the appearance there of 
 the beautiful Mrs. Baddeley. At her arrival she 
 impressed her audiences in the most favourable 
 manner. In opera she performed Clarissa, Polly, 
 and Rosetta ; and Imogen in the play of " Cymbe- 
 line," in which her beautiful countenance used to 
 excite the greatest interest. Among her peculiari- 
 ties was an immoderate addiction to laudanum, 
 which has the power of bestowing a momentary 
 vivacity, subsiding into an oblivion of care, suc- 
 ceeded by a wretchedness which itself alone can 
 remove ; the patient thus lives a course of mental 
 delusion, neither his pleasures nor his pains being 
 the fair effects of circumstances, and the charmed 
 life bearing a fatality about it infinitely more dread- 
 ful than the natural lot from which it has escaped. 
 It may reasonably be supposed that on the night 
 of her benefit she sought the doubtful aid in ques- 
 tion, but it proved a treacherous ally. She was 
 unfortunately lame at the time, and intoxicated to 
 stupidity by the fumes of the opiate she had swal- 
 lowed. The worst of it was that, the habit not 
 being generally known, the stupefaction was attrib- 
 uted to drunkenness, and a disgust taken, which is 
 seldom, or rather never, quite removed.
 
 46 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 The sequel of this unfortunate's existence may 
 be worth a second paragraph. She soon became 
 idle, disordered, unsteady, and of no value in the 
 theatre, dropped into contempt and neglect, and 
 was plundered of the little she had, by one of 
 those attached friends which indolence is happy to 
 find, and of which it is invariably the prey. Mrs. 
 Baddeley had at one time her carriage, and every 
 voluptuous accompaniment that a mere sensualist 
 can enjoy : but her wealth mouldered away, insen- 
 sibly and unaccountably, and she died at Edin- 
 burgh shortly after, in the most squalid poverty 
 and disease, in a state of mental horror which 
 perhaps opium only is able to inflict upon us. To 
 the last she was supported by the charity of the 
 profession, always awake to a sister's claim ; 
 though on this occasion, with the dreadful reflec- 
 tion that, either as to herself or society, it would 
 have been better if her release had earlier arrived. 
 By which, in truth, the one had escaped much 
 inconceivable torment, and the other the burthen 
 of a hopeless benevolence. 
 
 Whoever has attentively observed and considered 
 the life of an actress may often wonder that the 
 long repetition of even the most finished characters 
 does not diminish the power of the charmer ; or,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 47 
 
 if he does not look at it in this way, come to a 
 not very favourable decision, that the whole is 
 quite mechanical, and that, like a timepiece in 
 order, the performance of one day is exactly simi- 
 lar to that of another, equally regular as to the 
 whole, and equally striking in the proper situa- 
 tions. But there is, in the smoothest passage 
 through a theatre, sufficient to ruffle the temper, 
 to annoy the self-love, to excite the jealousy or 
 the dread of the coldest temperaments. Every 
 such incident renovates the charm by stimulating 
 the exertion ; and they cannot forget the public 
 until they forget themselves. 
 
 But to return. The lesson of Mrs. Baddeley was 
 a "negative instruction" to our young actress; 
 she had another of a very different kind, in 
 the person of Mrs. Mills, subsequently Mrs. 
 John Fawcett. This lady had a zeal, an applica- 
 tion, a versatility perhaps unequalled in the pro- 
 fession ; her value was invaluable. She seemed 
 to be informed by one master principle only, 
 the prosperity of the company. She was the 
 steady lever of the daily work, she was the prop 
 on any emergency, and her kindness was equal to 
 her fidelity. To the manager her services were 
 bound ; but, he consenting, she would study any
 
 48 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 novelty, deprive herself even of needful rest, to 
 serve the benefit of any brother or sister in the 
 community. At the death of her first husband, 
 a valuable actor, Mrs. Mills became united to Mr. 
 Fawcett, and maintained her honourable estima- 
 tion to the lamented period of her death in 1797. 
 Thus, with Cato, the Jordan might be said to be 
 "doubly armed " as an actress. 
 
 " Her death, her life, her bane and antidote, 
 Were both before her. 
 This in a moment brings her to an end ; 
 While that informs her she shall never die." 
 
 The desire to see this charming woman in Will- 
 iam continued, and the "Poor Soldier" being got 
 up in the spring of 1 784, she was by acclamation 
 saluted the Patrick of the piece, and it was pro- 
 nounced to be unapproachable, let who would 
 contest the palm with her. 
 
 There was another lesson taught our excellent 
 actress by the York company, the art of morti- 
 fying a rival. This art was practised in its high- 
 est perfection by a Mrs. Ward, a competitor with 
 the Jordan in the male attire, and remarkably fond 
 of the display. This lady's husband was in the 
 band, and therefore, we must presume, fully per-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 49 
 
 mitted the exhibition of his wife's charms, since 
 it took place nightly in his own presence. This 
 lady was at the head of a band of malignants, who 
 were accustomed to take their seats at the stage 
 doors while Mrs. Jordan was acting, and, by every 
 description of annoyance, try at least to lessen 
 her power by disturbing her self-possession. They 
 persevered in this cruelty so long, that at last the 
 ingenuity of the persecuted taught her a very 
 delicate "measure of revenge." She would, with 
 little aid from the imagination, frequently go upon 
 the stage with her eyelids irritated and the tear- 
 drop starting from them, as though ill or recently 
 affected by injury. This became noticed by the 
 audience and begat inquiry, whether their favour- 
 ite was indisposed, or anything had offended her ? 
 She took care that several friends should be ready 
 with the proper answer to the query, and thus the 
 ungenerous treatment recoiled upon the heads of 
 her enemies. There was a law, to be sure, in 
 the York theatre, as well as others, to prevent 
 any such occupancy of the stage-doors ; but there 
 are subjects too mighty for any theatrical laws, 
 and the manager made assurance doubly sure by 
 calling in the aid of a padlock whenever the doors 
 were not essential to the stage business. Thus he
 
 50 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 chastised the malignity of the invaders, and the 
 punishment was not the less felt for not being 
 personally administered. Any individual to whom 
 the cause was hinted could say, "It may be so. 
 I won't assert that no member of the company 
 might disturb Mrs. Jordan ; but, for my own part, 
 I never sat at the door but from the fair curiosity 
 to see how she would act in particular situations, 
 and consider the points she made for my own im- 
 provement ; and this, madam, my own husband 
 commanded me to do." 
 
 Although the character of Mrs. Jordan's acting 
 was truly personal, by which I mean that in every 
 part she played she infused herself more com- 
 pletely than any other actress has done, yet still 
 she did not deny her performance the benefit of 
 what other minds had thrown out, and very will- 
 ingly adopted the points of other artists when 
 they naturally combined with her own. There 
 was an actress in the company, of great comic 
 power, though very unequal in her performances ; 
 she was the wife of Brown, -who, in the years 1 786 
 and 1787, became the Harlequin of Covent Gar- 
 den Theatre. Mrs. Brown, in her range of per- 
 formances, acted the Country Girl, a character 
 which, however it happened, until then had never
 
 MRS. JORDAN 51 
 
 attracted the particular attention of Mrs. Jordan. 
 Our heroine paid her the compliment of seeing 
 and deeply considering this performance ; she no- 
 ticed the business of the part, and in the sallies of 
 a performer then by no means young, saw the 
 ground she determined herself to occupy, with 
 more seasonable graces and more truly girlish 
 hilarity and whim. It was hence said that Mrs. 
 Brown taught her to play the part, but this was 
 by no means the case; for at that time, as it 
 proved in town shortly after, the preeminence of 
 Mrs. Jordan was admitted by all her elastic 
 spring, her peculiarly artless action, her laugh, and 
 the rich tones of her articulate voice were at all 
 times peculiar and triumphant. 
 
 About this time an incident occurred to which 
 the heart and memory of Jordan were feelingly 
 alive. A young lady, not more than fifteen, at- 
 tracted perhaps by the name of the manager, 
 which was then her own, applied to Tate Wilkin- 
 son for an engagement. She had her parents 
 with her, who depended upon her for their subsist- 
 ence ; her musical talent was even then consider- 
 able, her figure small, but extremely neat, her 
 features beautiful and interesting. My readers 
 will have no difficulty in admitting all this, and
 
 52 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 more, when I tell them the young lady became the 
 late Mrs. Mountain, of Covent Garden Theatre. 
 Wilkinson thought himself so circumstanced at 
 this juncture that, with some lingering compunc- 
 tion for doing so, he brought himself to decline 
 the engagement ; she was at liberty, it was true, to 
 volunteer her talents for any of the company who 
 might accept her aid. For one benefit she acted 
 the Maid of the Mill, and fought her way through 
 the popular " Lecture on Heads," by George Alex- 
 ander Stevens. This made a little noise in the 
 stage circle, and Mr. Inchbald, the son-in-law of 
 the famous Mrs. Inchbald, thought it worth while 
 to make her a handsome offer to act Rosetta, in 
 " Love in a Village," on his benefit night, which 
 was the 3d of December, 1784. Her impression 
 in this character determined the manager, and he 
 engaged her, though it lost him the friendship of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Powell, since at the Norwich theatre. 
 She played for her namesake, the manager's night, 
 Stella, in "Robin Hood," on the 2ist; and need- 
 ing some present relief, he graciously proposed 
 a benefit to her, which was most thankfully ac- 
 cepted, and on the 3ist of December " Lionel and 
 Clarissa" was performed, Colonel Oldboy by the 
 manager, Clarissa by Miss Wilkinson, first studied
 
 MRS. JORDAN 53 
 
 on that occasion, and (what may not be done with 
 benevolence working at the root ?) Lionel by the 
 charmer Jordan, who came forward with the 
 warmth of a true sister, and imparted to the char- 
 acter of Lionel a feature of which its male repre- 
 sentatives, for the most part, have seldom known 
 the value, or have been unable to attain, its sensi- 
 ble utterance. Here, as in her own case, Mrs. 
 Jordan happily saw an interesting young lady 
 patronised equally for her filial affection and her 
 talents. The opera was admired, and the famous 
 " Lecture on Heads " rapturously applauded. 
 C 'est le premier pas qui coute. Miss Wilkinson 
 had now a smooth road under her feet, and always 
 spoke with pleasure of the kind aid which Mrs. 
 Jordan had rendered at a time when it was almost 
 vital to herself and her family. The metropolis 
 puts the seal upon stage merits, and a town en- 
 gagement has a steady comfort and respectability, 
 infinitely preferable to the hurry and fatigue of 
 provincial business ; but actors are always fond of 
 detailing their early adventures, and perhaps the 
 various conditions of human occupation do not 
 afford one so abounding in the essentials of a 
 good story as the life of a country comedian. 
 The season of 1785 was the last that Mrs. Jor-
 
 54 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 dan acted as a member of Wilkinson's company. 
 It is a singular circumstance that she should have 
 omitted to practise the usual address which leaves 
 regret behind departure. I presume that she 
 heard occasionally from Smith on the subject of 
 a town engagement, though her removal to Drury 
 Lane Theatre was not finally settled till the au- 
 tumn of that year. There is a restlessness that 
 precedes any material change of our condition, 
 that breaks up our harmony with the existing rela- 
 tions of life. Mrs. Jordan, in the opinion of her 
 manager, was now grown careless and indifferent ; 
 her desire to oblige diminished, her self-will in- 
 creased, and she was capricious enough to excuse 
 herself from obeying some calls upon her, which 
 she showed herself equally able and unwilling to 
 gratify. He gives an instance which we shall not 
 shun, because censurable. For the benefit of Mr. 
 Mills, March 15, 1785, she was announced in the 
 bills to sing a song from " Summer's Amusement," 
 at the end of the third act of " Cymbeline," and to 
 act after the play the favourite character of Pat- 
 rick in the " Poor Soldier," and sing the songs of 
 the piece in course. But she absolutely refused 
 to come on between the acts of "Cymbeline" 
 merely to warble a ballad, and, whoever was disap-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 55 
 
 pointed, or whatever might be the result, an- 
 nounced her determination to persist nothing 
 in the world should alter her. She was indis- 
 posed, and would not do it. With this mood of 
 hers it was not likely that either manager or audi- 
 ence should concur. Had she been really ill, her 
 course should have been to stay at home and let 
 an apology be made for her. This, however dis- 
 tressing to the actor, whom it would compel to 
 disappoint his patrons, if really true, must be 
 borne; but to choose what she would do against 
 the positive pledge of the playbill was a sort of 
 treasonable rebellion, to be subdued by force and 
 arms. She came to the house, and sullenly 
 dressed herself at once for Patrick. She came 
 early enough to hear, for it was impossible to en- 
 joy, the gathering and the bursting of the storm. 
 Mills came on the stage to address the house ; but 
 what could he say against that special bond, the 
 playbill ? The audience would hear nothing but 
 the song from Mrs. Jordan ; so, at last, on she 
 came, very pale, fainting against the frontispiece 
 in the dress of the Poor Soldier himself, and thus 
 suited and very much out of sorts, was constrained 
 to warble " In the Prattling Hours of Youth," com- 
 posed by Doctor Arnold, and very pleasing. The
 
 56 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 words, perhaps, have no great meaning in them, 
 for the joint authors of the opera were Miles and 
 Miles Peter Andrews. The manager suggests 
 that the audience, perhaps, might not have con- 
 quered had the actress taken her benefit ; as that 
 was yet to come, "her poverty, but not her will 
 consented," and they were obeyed, but not grati- 
 fied. Illness cannot be soon dismissed, whether 
 real or fancied, in the face of the public. 
 
 On Tuesday, April 26, 1785, Mrs. Jordan had 
 an opportunity of seeing that great actress, Mrs. 
 Yates, in her favourite Margaret of Anjou, in 
 Franklin's "Earl of Warwick." This was her 
 last public appearance but one, in the following 
 June, when she acted for the imbecile Bellamy, 
 once the rival of Gibber herself. The farce after 
 the tragedy was "Cymon," thus cast: Sylvia, 
 Miss Wilkinson ; Fatima, Mrs. Jordan ; Dorcas, 
 Mrs. Brown. One should have expected, from 
 such an actor as Richard Yates, something like 
 a sound judgment in his own art, but he thus 
 spoke of the fair trine : " Miss Wilkinson, very 
 pleasing and promising; Mrs. Brown, the height 
 of excellence ; Mrs. Jordan, merely a piece of 
 theatrical mediocrity." But I am apt to think she 
 might not choose to exert herself. Indeed, her
 
 MRS. JORDAN 57 
 
 benefit at Leeds was very thinly attended on 
 the 25th of July, though her Imogen had always 
 been a favourite ; and she added the " Fair Ameri- 
 can," an opera by Pilon, which was thought at- 
 tractive. The same people, when she had visited 
 London, crowded the same seats to suffocation. 
 What had changed more than the circumstances 
 of the actress? A good deal of prophecy was 
 sported on her intended journey to London. One 
 of her rivals in male costume told the manager 
 that, "when he had lost his great treasure (the 
 term he was fond of applying to the Jordan), it 
 would soon be turned back upon his hands, and 
 it would be glad to come, if he would accept it." 
 The retort courteous was addressed to the same 
 manager, for her daughter, by Mrs. Bland, who 
 being seated at the stage-door, while Mrs. Robin- 
 son was on the stage, " begged, as an act of kind- 
 ness, that he would inform her when that fright ' 
 had done speaking and acting, for it was so horrid 
 she could not look at her." Now the fact really 
 was that this " fright " was a very pretty woman, 
 somewhat refined in her manners and utterance, 
 and so peculiarly neat in her attire that it was 
 a common compliment to say that the Graces 
 attended her toilet.
 
 $8 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Mrs. Siddons herself saw Mrs. Jordan at York, 
 in the month of August, 1785, and seemed to 
 think (by which I suppose Tate implies said) that 
 "she was better where she was, than to venture 
 on the London boards." Alas ! she did not sus- 
 pect how soon the "unthought of" Country Girl 
 would even number carriages with her in the long 
 procession to Drury Lane Theatre. 
 
 William Woodfall, it may be observed, gave the 
 same advice to Mrs. Siddons, that she should keep 
 to small theatres in the country, where she could 
 be heard ; she was too weak for the London stages. 
 This indeed at the time was the fact ; but let me 
 add, in behalf of the great genius of tragedy, that, 
 had the Cumaean Sybil herself announced the more 
 than rival progress of the boy Betty, she would 
 have been credited, perhaps, by the Muse of 
 neither Tragedy nor Comedy, though such a poet 
 as Virgil had added to her ravings the charms of 
 
 immortal verse. 
 
 " Can such things be, 
 And overcome us like a summer cloud, 
 Without our special wonder ? " 
 
 Her last performance as a member of the com- 
 pany was at Wakefield, on Friday, Sept. 9, 1785, 
 in the favourite " Poor Soldier," from which place
 
 MRS. JORDAN 59 
 
 she set off for London with no great cheer of 
 mind, for she was never sanguine, nor did the 
 long experience of her popularity ever completely 
 divest her of alarm. Some confidence she might 
 place in Mr. Smith's judgment, but then to act 
 the second parts in tragedy to the towering gran- 
 deur and deliberate style of Mrs. Siddons could 
 not be contemplated without dismay. As to the 
 salary, the preliminary condition went no farther 
 than four pounds per week, and if it stopped there, 
 her change of place was no advantage, since her 
 circumstances could not improve. The town stamp, 
 to be sure, gave a currency, but then the weight 
 was to be considered, and the fashion to be veri- 
 fied. If her first article was not soon cancelled, it 
 (to use Mrs. Robinson's neuter pronoun) would be 
 glad to get back again to York and find its former 
 station unoccupied. But something, in all these 
 cases, must be risked. The state of the Drury 
 Lane and Covent Garden companies is extremely 
 well known, in our country theatres, from the cir- 
 culation of our newspapers ; in addition, the man- 
 agers of such concerns are in correspondence 
 continually with some town friends, who inform 
 them of everything material to their interest. 
 After much reflection, Mrs. Jordan thought she
 
 60 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 saw a line open to her, of the youthful and tender 
 in tragedy or Shakespearian comedy, with the 
 whole class of romps either in the middle comedy 
 or the modern farce ; she there resolved to make 
 her mark, not perhaps because she absolutely 
 thought it best suited her own powers, for this 
 it is probable she never was fully convinced of, 
 but because there she would interfere no other- 
 wise with Mrs. Siddons, or Miss Farren, or Miss 
 Pope, than as popularity might so far divide with 
 those ladies the honours of public patronage, and 
 the smiles of a successful management. To the 
 policy, perhaps propriety, of this decision, on many 
 accounts, neither Sheridan nor King offered any 
 objection ; and it removed all such enmity as 
 might be expected from invading the business 
 of any other established favourite. With her 
 patron Smith she was not likely to act much, 
 unless she came into tragedy: as the gentleman 
 in comedy, he was most frequently at the side of 
 Miss Farren, and unquestionably the most accom- 
 plished man with whom she ever played ; for 
 Palmer was never perfectly the gay honourable 
 man of the world, however plausible, insinuating, 
 and graceful in display, and such qualities on the 
 stage, as in life itself, are rather the means by
 
 MRS. JORDAN 61 
 
 which the designing succeed, than the manifes- 
 tations of the truly valuable in human character. 
 Let the reader conceive these two actors to have 
 exchanged characters as the Charles and Joseph 
 of the "School for Scandal."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Ascendency of Mrs. Siddons Straggle of Covent Garden 
 Mrs. Abington Mr. Henderson Miss Farren Compared 
 with the Former Abington The Hopes Entertained that 
 the " Country Girl " might Revive the Train of Comedy 
 Within and Without-door Talk of Her Her First Appear- 
 ance, on the i8th of October, 1785 Mrs. Inchbald's Opin- 
 ion of Her Fulness and Comic Richness of Tone not 
 Provincialism Excited Unbounded Laughter Her Male 
 Figure Her Letter Scene About Nineteen, the Age of 
 Miss Peggy Henderson Mr. Harris Mrs. Inchbald 
 Her Stepson and Mrs. Jordan Her Viola, in " Twelfth 
 Night," Particularly Examined Barbarous Curtailments of 
 the Play Viola Succeeded by Imogen Mrs. Clive Dies 
 Compared, in Some Points, with Mrs. Jordan The " Heir- 
 ess" Had No Part for Mrs. Jordan" She Would and She 
 Would Not," Her Hypolita The " Irish Widow," on Her 
 Benefit Night Now, Certainly, the Great Support of the 
 Theatre. 
 
 i HE success of Mrs. Siddons had been 
 too dazzling not to excite envy in the 
 profession. If there could be any com- 
 petition with her excellence, it was in the recollec- 
 tion of the dead rather than the performances of 
 the living that it was to be found. Mrs. Siddons, 
 
 62
 
 MRS. JORDAN 63 
 
 too, maintained a distance in her manners that 
 irritated the self-love of those with whom she 
 mixed in the business of the stage ; and she was 
 supposed to show rather strongly the conscious- 
 ness of living familiarly with the higher orders. 
 She had in fact monopolised their attention and 
 their patronage. Her nights of performance alone 
 were well attended, and she had two benefits 
 each season, for which everything fashionable re- 
 served itself ; and the benefits of others, if she did 
 not act for them, were reduced nearly to the 
 actor's private connection, and many were disap- 
 pointed in their little circles by an apology that 
 ended with, " You know we must go on Mrs. Sid- 
 dons' s night ; and we then leave town directly." 
 
 Indeed, the very performances of the stage had 
 little attention in which the great actress did not 
 appear; and the farces after her tragedy were 
 acted with slender effect, and to audiences dimin- 
 ished to half then- number the genteeler portion 
 for the most part quitting the theatre when the 
 tragedy ended, that the impression she had made 
 might remain undisturbed. The delicate and feel- 
 ing, after the agony they had endured, were com- 
 monly as much exhausted by their sympathy as 
 the actress had been by her exertions ; and they
 
 64 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 really were unable to enjoy the ensuing pleas- 
 antry, which five minutes and a green curtain 
 only divided from their sorrows. By going, they 
 secured the privilege too of talking solely of the 
 fashionable idol, and were content to be listened 
 to simply as talking about her who interested 
 everybody, and whom all were solicitous to be 
 thought to know. For a time it may be supposed 
 the other theatre struggled against the stream. 
 Mrs. Abington had some claims upon fashionable 
 life, whose taste she had formerly led, and with 
 the aid of Henderson revived the charm that had 
 attended the wit and the perverse courtship of 
 Benedick and Beatrice. But she had passed her 
 meridian ; and although I am perfectly satisfied 
 that Miss Farren, in comedy, never approached 
 her nearer than Mrs. Esten did Mrs. Siddons, in 
 tragedy, that she never took her ground, as one 
 may say, in a style of such absolute authority, 
 yet the beauty of her countenance, and at least 
 ladylike appearance of her figure and manners, 
 the sense that constantly proceeded from her, and 
 the refined style of her utterance, her youth, and 
 fashionable connection, at length established her 
 in the cast of genteel and sentimental comedy, 
 and I found the younger part of the critical world
 
 MRS. JORDAN 65 
 
 little aware how much Lady Teazle lost in being 
 transferred to Miss Farren. But all this made no 
 6clat ; it did not injure one feather in the crest of 
 the tragic queen. Something that, if it did not 
 destroy, at least divided with her, the public atten- 
 tion, was the daily hope of the troop, who found 
 themselves nothing in her presence ; and every 
 eye was turned to the " Country Girl," who might 
 put matters upon a footing nearer equality, and, 
 by establishing herself, revive the public recollec- 
 tion that such men as King, Smith, Palmer, Par- 
 sons, Dodd, and Bannister merited to be at least 
 not totally deserted, and were not, perhaps, with- 
 out important claims among those who promote 
 the happiness of the human race. 
 
 But whatever the rehearsals on the stage of 
 Drury might have shown of the new actress, the 
 without-door world, I remember, was not very 
 much assailed. The puff preliminary had not 
 been greatly resorted to, and the common inquiries 
 produced the usual answers of discretion. " I 
 think she is clever. One thing I can tell you, she 
 is like nothing you have been used to. Her laugh 
 is good, but then she is, or seems to be, very 
 nervous. We shall see. But I am sure we want 
 something."
 
 66 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 At length, on Tuesday, the i8th of October, 
 1785, the curtain drew up to the "Country Girl" 
 of Mrs. Jordan. This was a very judicious altera- 
 tion by Garrick (with perhaps some regard to 
 Lee's) from the " Country Wife " of Wycherley. 
 One is astonished, in referring to the original in 
 that poet's volume, to see the impurities which 
 encrusted it, and that any man, capable of all that 
 is sufficient for comic effect in it, should have so 
 bad a taste as to pollute either his mind or his 
 paper with the vile bestialities stuck about the 
 business, and really impeding the action. There 
 is little now to offend even the scrupulous, and 
 the comedy is extremely lively when a Peggy, 
 the author's Pinchwife, can be found. 
 
 Mrs. Inchbald knew her in the York company, 
 and records of her that " she came to town with 
 no report in her favour, to elevate her above a 
 very moderate salary (four pounds), or to attract 
 more than a very moderate house when she ap- 
 peared. But here moderation stopped. She at 
 once displayed such consummate art, with such 
 bewitching nature, such excellent sense, and 
 such innocent simplicity, that her auditors were 
 boundless in their plaudits, and so warm in her 
 praises, when they left the theatre, that their
 
 MRS. JORDAN 67 
 
 friends at home would not give credit to the 
 extent of their eulogiums." 
 
 Nothing can be more exactly true than this re- 
 port. I agree also with that lady in the melody 
 of her voice ; but ^in the remark that " her pronun- 
 ciation was imperfect," I cannot concur. " Most 
 of her words were uttered with a kind of provincial 
 dialect." It was not of that description at all. 
 It was a principle of giving to certain words a ful- 
 ness and comic richness, which rendered them 
 more truly representatives of the ideas they stood 
 for; it was expressing all the juice from the grape 
 of the laughing vine. To instance once for all. 
 She knew the importance attached to a best gown. 
 Let the reader recollect the full volume of sound 
 which she threw into those words, and he will 
 understand me. It was not provincial dialect 
 it was humourous delivery, and, as a charm, only 
 inferior to her laugh. Again, " But I don't " 
 I won't " " Bud " " Grum," and a hundred 
 others, to which she communicated such blurt sig- 
 nificance, such whimsical cadence, as showed she 
 was the great mistress of comic utterance, and 
 aware of all the infinite varieties which modify the 
 effects of the human voice. Henderson had the 
 same sort of talent without the perfect voice. It
 
 68 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 was best displayed in his reading. A reflection 
 upon this hint will show what a narrow, imperfect, 
 and even delusive record printing must needs be, 
 of what in living speech accompanied the utterance 
 of the mere words. Such was Mrs. Jordan when 
 she burst upon the metropolis, in the year 1785. 
 Perhaps no actress ever excited so much laughter. 
 The low comedian has a hundred resorts by which 
 risibility may be produced. In addition to a 
 ludicrous cast of features, he may resort, if he 
 chooses, to the buffoonery of the fair ; he may 
 dress himself ridiculously; he may border even 
 upon indecency in his action, and be at least a 
 general hint of double entendre, to those whose 
 minds are equally impure. But the actress has 
 nothing beyond the mere words she utters, but 
 what is drawn from her own hilarity, and the ex- 
 pression of features, which never submit to exag- 
 geration. She cannot pass by the claims of her 
 sex, and self-love will preserve her from any will- 
 ing diminution of her personal beauty. How 
 exactly had this child of nature calculated her 
 efficacy, that no intention on her part was ever 
 missed, and, from first to last, the audience re- 
 sponded uniformly in an astonishment of delight. 
 In the third act they more clearly saw what gave
 
 MRS. JORDAN 69 
 
 the elasticity to her step. She is made to assume 
 the male attire ; and the great painter of the age 
 pronounced her figure the neatest and most per- 
 fect in symmetry that he had ever seen. This 
 distinction remained with her a long time, not- 
 withstanding the many family encroachments 
 upon the public pleasure. 
 
 But her fertility as an actress was at its height 
 in the letter scene, perhaps the most perfect of all 
 her efforts, and the best jeu de thtdtre known with- 
 out mechanism. The very pen and ink were made 
 to express the rustic petulance of the writer of the 
 first epistle, and the eager delight that composed 
 the second, which was to be despatched instead of 
 it to her lover. King was her Moody upon this 
 occasion, but I thought Wrought on afterward 
 gave more effect to the intimidation. He had a 
 vast deal of truth in his comedy, and concealed 
 every appearance of the actor's art. 
 
 There was a seeming coincidence in the ages of 
 the actress and the character she played. The 
 play concludes with some rhymes, no great achieve- 
 ment, it is true, I suppose them Garrick's, in 
 which Miss Peggy apologises for deserting her Bud : 
 
 " I've reasons will convince you all, and strong ones ; 
 Except old folks, who hanker after young ones :
 
 70 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Bud was so passionate, and grown so thrifty, 
 'Twas a sad life : and then he was near fifty 1 
 I'm but nineteen." 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Jordan looked rather more, not in 
 her action, which was juvenile to the last, but the 
 comic maturity of her expression seemed to an- 
 nounce a longer experience of life and of the stage 
 than could have been attained at nineteen. She 
 retired that night from the theatre, happy to the 
 extent of her wishes, and satisfied that she would 
 not long be rated on the treasurer's books at four 
 pounds per week. Smith congratulated with her 
 very sincerely. He had bestowed upon the theatre, 
 which he loved, a new and a powerful magnet, able 
 to attract on the off nights of Mrs. Siddons, and 
 even strengthen those of tragedy ; which, with no 
 greater force than Cumberland evinced in the 
 " Carmelite," began to need something auxiliary. 
 
 Henderson was now acting the " Roman Father " 
 at the other house, in which he made wonderful 
 effect. He had seen Mrs. Jordan in Ireland and 
 at York, and was fully satisfied of her great merit ; 
 but Mr. Harris did not feel it, or was on the 
 opposition side of the house: he said she would 
 be an excellent Filch ; and here he prophesied, 
 for she stole away the hearts of the town, and
 
 MRS. JORDAN 71 
 
 tried all his skill as a manager, great as it con- 
 fessedly was. 
 
 The " Country Girl " was repeated on the third 
 night of performance at Drury Lane ; that is, 
 " Braganza " and " Measure for Measure " only 
 intervening, so that they allowed her till the Mon- 
 day of the following week, when the two houses 
 commenced acting together for the season, and she 
 had the honour of dividing the town that evening 
 with Henderson, who repeated his " Roman Father" 
 with Mrs. Inchbald's amusing farce of " Appear- 
 ance Is Against Them." The sudden passage of 
 this lady's muse from neglect to managerial wel- 
 come the talent and the specimens remaining 
 exactly the same during the opposite sentences, 
 shows how little real judgment enters into such 
 decisions. The success of a "Mogul Tale," a 
 farcical extravaganza, founded on the balloon 
 mania, and unworthy of the press, at length ren- 
 dered Mr. Harris and Mr. Colman alike willing to 
 afford her a clear stage for her talents as a writer. 
 As an actress she had been some time in the 
 Covent Garden company. Her beauty had sug- 
 gested her as a successor to Mrs. Hartley ; but 
 she never could absolutely clear her utterance from 
 the effects of an impediment, which has given rise
 
 72 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 to some amusing stories among the minor wits of 
 the theatre. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan was said to have discovered some 
 partiality to this lady's stepson by Mr. Inchbald's 
 first wife. The humble Nell, of the York stage, 
 had not the necessary weight in the balance to 
 determine the gentleman. After her town experi- 
 ment, he began to estimate her value by the 
 popular standard, and brought himself to make 
 proposals, which were seriously declined. He 
 might have been honoured, had his delicacy for- 
 bade him to entertain any notion of a union, cir- 
 cumstanced as the young lady was ; but when he 
 could teach his principle to give way to his inter- 
 est, he merited the rejection of his temptation for 
 a weightier. The mention of Mrs. Inchbald 
 introduced this anecdote before its actual period ; 
 but if the lady's turn to refuse was subsequent 
 to our present date, the gentleman's took place 
 before it ; and it may as well, therefore, stand 
 where we have been led by any thread to work it 
 into the narrative. 
 
 On the 28th of the month, Mrs. Jordan acted 
 Peggy a third time, and her bark might be said to 
 have safely landed her. She now was persuaded 
 to indulge the town with a steadier gaze at her
 
 MRS. JORDAN 73 
 
 male figure, and chose the part of Viola in Shake- 
 speare's "Twelfth Night," a character of infinite 
 delicacy and enchanting eloquence ; one, in a 
 word, where the great poet exhibits a sensibility 
 so truly feminine, that in his world of wonders it 
 has scarcely yet excited sufficient critical praise. 
 We were now to make the experiment how her 
 "provincial dialect" would be borne in the music 
 of verse, such as even Shakespeare has seldom 
 written. " It was all well enough," said the vener- 
 able stagers, "while she could romp it away with 
 a jump and a laugh ; but what will they say to 
 her in the loving and beloved Viola, who acts so 
 tenderly and ' speaks so masterly ' all the science 
 of the passion, in words that ' echo truly ' all its 
 best feelings ? " What ! why, that the mere 
 melody of her utterance brought tears into the 
 eyes, and that passion had never had so modest 
 and enchanting an interpreter. In a word, it was 
 Nature herself showing us the heart of her own 
 mystery, and at the same time throwing out a 
 proud defiance to Art to approach it for a mo- 
 ment. She long continued to delight the town 
 with her Viola, which she thus acted for the first 
 time on the nth of November, 1785. 
 
 English audiences seldom know more of a play
 
 74 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 than is spoken from the stage, and the modern 
 collection of English plays contains no more than 
 the mutilators of the drama think proper to pre- 
 serve of the author's text. I perceive in the pas- 
 sage above, that I have indulged in a favourite 
 practice of throwing into a sentence some of the 
 inimitable language of the poet, and usually in the 
 play under consideration. The happy possessors 
 of these stage copies have never either seen or 
 heard the expressions so introduced, and I shall 
 give a just notion of the injury done to our great 
 poet by quoting the sentences connected with the 
 lovely character of Viola. In the third scene of 
 the second act, the duke (Viola being present as 
 Cesario) calls to his musicians to play the tune of 
 an "old and antique song," which had given more 
 relief to his passion 
 
 " Than the light airs and recollected terms 
 Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times." 
 
 He follows its repetition by this question to the 
 youth at his side. 
 
 ' Duke. How dost thou like this tune ? 
 
 Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat 
 Where love is thron'd. 
 
 Duke. Thou dost speak masterly."
 
 MRS. JORDAN 75 
 
 The player who dismissed this short passage, in 
 the language of Othello 
 
 " Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
 Richer than all his tribe." 
 
 And that, as it should seem, merely to relieve the 
 gentlemen in the orchestra from the trouble of 
 playing a few bars of pathetic and appropriate 
 music. 
 
 " Who would not laugh, if such a man there be ? 
 Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ? " 
 
 In the original play, Feste, the jester, is brought 
 in to sing the song, and his appearance draws 
 another beautiful remark from the duke to his 
 young favourite : 
 
 " Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain ; 
 The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 
 And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, 
 Do use to chant it : it is silly sooth, 
 And dallies with the innocence of love, 
 Like the old age." 
 
 And then follows the song written by Shakespeare, 
 "Come Away, Come Away, Death," which wan- 
 dered about the pendulous world a long while, until 
 at last Kelly and Crouch bound it fast to the 
 " Pizarro " of Sheridan and Kotzebue ; but the
 
 76 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 notes of the musician echoing too faithfully 
 the burthen of those feeble words "come away," 
 the whole appeared too light for the occasion. 
 
 It is in this scene, too, that the tender poet has 
 given us the fine picture of a hopeless passion 
 pining in thought, and gracing a rooted grief with 
 the faint smile which Patience for ever wears 
 upon some monument to the dead. Retaining 
 this point for Viola, the wretched taste alluded 
 to cut away all the essential preparation for such 
 a thing, and marred the exquisite address of the 
 poet. But enough. 
 
 In the great variety of the character, with the 
 duke, Olivia, and the drunken assailants, Mrs. 
 Jordan found ample field for her powers ; and 
 she long continued to delight the town in Viola, 
 which she thus acted for the first time at Drury 
 Lane Theatre on the I ith of November, 1785. 
 
 Viola is but the comedy of Imogen in "Cym- 
 beline," and the one part seemed to be the step 
 to the other, which Mrs. Jordan indeed acted on 
 the 2 1 st. The truth, however, was that Mrs. 
 Siddons had invested tragedy so completely with 
 her own requisites, that it was only in the male 
 habit that Mrs. Jordan seemed the true and per- 
 fect Imogen. She had not the natural dignity of
 
 MRS. JORDAN 77 
 
 the wife of Posthumus. She could not burst upon 
 the insolent lachimo in the terrors of offended 
 virtue. She could not wear the lightnings of 
 scorn in her countenance. She hardly seemed out 
 of personal danger, whereas Imogen could only 
 be shocked by the impurity of suggestion, and 
 knew her virtue, no less than her rank, secured 
 her from a profane touch, let who might be the 
 audacious libertine in her presence. It never was 
 a favourite performance, and we were rejoiced 
 when she found another Romp in the Miss Hoy- 
 den of the "Trip to Scarborough," which she 
 acted on the 9th of January, 1786. 
 
 There are certain coincidences in the things of 
 this world that force themselves on our minds, as 
 if they were bound by some relation of design. 
 On the 6th of December, 1785, the only comic 
 actress who could be named with Mrs. Jordan died. 
 We allude to the great Catherine Clive, who then 
 expired at her cottage near Walpole's Gothic play- 
 thing called Strawberry Hill ; but not till she had 
 heard from the best authority that the Nell, which 
 had established her own reputation in the year 
 1731, would at length find a second representative 
 equally favoured by nature with herself, and who 
 resembled her also in the brilliant attraction which
 
 7 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 she gave to the male habit. The second actress, 
 like the first, had at once doubled her salary by 
 her enchanting narvete" ; and if Gibber, the great 
 author of the "Careless Husband," had done this 
 piece of justice to the original Nell, Sheridan, the 
 not less great, though less fertile author of the 
 " School for Scandal," conferred the same benefit 
 upon her successor. Clive, though she tried com- 
 position, had never mastered the elements of lan- 
 guage, and she spelled most audaciously. Jordan, 
 though she left the drama to authors by profes- 
 sion, wrote an occasional address as smartly as 
 any of them ; and her letters were always distin- 
 guished for a pointed accuracy and great marks of 
 sound judgment. 
 
 The Country Girl had begun to excite rather valu- 
 able notice, when she was met in her career rather 
 unpropitiously by a new comedy of first-rate merit, 
 in which she had no part, all the characters being 
 distributed among the old established actors of the 
 Drury Lane company. I allude to Burgoyne's 
 " Heiress," first acted on the I4th of January, 
 1 786. When I say unpropitiously, I do not mean 
 to imply any designed injury ; there was no char- 
 acter in the comedy that would at all have suited 
 Mrs. Jordan's powers. Lady Emily was, in fact,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 79 
 
 a complimentary sketch of Miss Farren herself. 
 Miss Alscrip looked absolutely like another sketch 
 of Miss Pope, though certain not complimentary. 
 Miss Alton suited the beauty of Mrs. Crouch, and 
 Blandish's sister parasite, like himself, appeared 
 only to be detested. The Christmas pantomime 
 of " Hurly Burly " was the running afterpiece ; 
 so that she was not frequently before the public 
 eye, for her farces hitherto were only the " Romp " 
 and the "Virgin Unmasked." The confinement 
 of Mrs. Siddons took place on the 28th of 
 December, so that she did not return to the 
 stage till early in February. I observed then, 
 however, that they did not use Mrs. Jordan after 
 the tragedies : the great actress could fill the 
 houses herself. The " Heiress," however, was 
 indebted to her for support ; the latter account 
 would have been very thin without her. 
 
 At length, King put into rehearsal the comedy 
 of " She Would and She Would Not," it is but fair 
 to presume, that he might have the pleasure of 
 exhibiting Mrs. Jordan in the famous Hypolita, a 
 character of nearly unequalled bustle, and involved 
 in comic business so complicated and ingenious, 
 as it is hardly possible could have occurred to any 
 wit who was not by profession an actor, and it is
 
 8o MRS. JORDAN 
 
 but fair to Colley Gibber to add, to no actor who 
 was not a wit. There is wit, be it remembered, in 
 situation, in readiness, in extrication, involution ; 
 the making deliverance renew perplexity, and per- 
 plexity itself generate relief. When certain critics 
 have denied wit to this comedy, they seem to have 
 limited the term to a merejeu de mot. But what- 
 ever be the predominant quality of Gibber, it is 
 not exhausted by his brilliant heroine; for Trap- 
 panti is fully equal to Hypolita. " To serve thy- 
 self, my cousin," might as fairly have been said to 
 King at least as Buckingham, on this occasion ; 
 for Trappanti was the character by nature best 
 fitted to his face of brass. He played it inimitably 
 well, to be sure, and Parsons and Miss Pope sus- 
 tained Don Manuel and Villetta. Yet these con- 
 summate artists could, by a favourite critic, be 
 merely said to be little inferior to the darling of 
 nature in her twenty-fourth year. It was first 
 acted on the 2/th of March, and continued a stock 
 play while Mrs. Jordan remained in the company. 
 The Whigs of that day had a very strong per- 
 sonal attachment in their politics : they loved the 
 principles sometimes for the men, and the men 
 frequently for the principles. Burgoyne being 
 attached to the Earl of Derby, they supported
 
 Mrs. Jordan as 
 
 Kngraved h niez/.<itiiit by Jones, after the painting by Hoppm-r
 
 MRS. JORDAN 81 
 
 ardently the " Heiress " and Miss Farren ; but 
 they were not insensible to the claims of Mrs. 
 Jordan, and on the night of her benefit, when she 
 repeated Hypolita, and played the "Irish Widow" 
 for the first time, such an audience was collected 
 as had been very seldom seen, and the Whig club 
 made her a very handsome present, as a tribute to 
 her merit. 
 
 She was now certainly the great support of the 
 theatre ; she frequently acted in play and farce on 
 the same night, and for three months together 
 hardly had more than one day's interval in the 
 week. The managers had tripled her original 
 salary, and gave her two benefits in the season ; an 
 innovation first made for Mrs. Siddons, and very 
 idly made. Comedy had now decidedly taken the 
 ascendency. Tragedy had been worn down by 
 endless repetition, and the taste of King, the man- 
 ager, did not lead him to the buskin. There was 
 no serious muse to invoke among us, and Mrs. 
 Siddons was reduced to revive the feeble tragedy 
 of " Percy," to act Elwina, when she had nothing 
 like novelty to give us. She even verged toward 
 comedy in her struggle for attraction, and played 
 her original trial part of Portia, with King for 
 Shylock ; for Kemble seemed now an excrescence
 
 82 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 in the company. There was in fact no effort 
 made but by Mrs. Jordan, who, at the end of the 
 season, left them for the country, to receive the 
 homage of old friends, and the solicitations of new 
 ones, and take the current when it served, as it 
 was impelled by the breath of praise, and left in 
 its course a precious deposit of pure gold for her 
 to gather.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In the Recess Thinks of Her Old Friends in Yorkshire Differ 
 ence of Nine Months Odd Conjuncture Mrs. Robinson, 
 the Prophetess Return to Leeds of Mrs. Jordan on the 
 Night of That Lady's Benefit Acts a Single Night, Now 
 Dividing the House Mrs. Jordan at Edinburgh The 
 11 Belle's Stratagem " Her Own Epilogue, Its Point Death 
 of Mrs. Baddeley at This Juncture Mrs. Jordan Succeeds 
 Mrs. Siddons at Hull and Wakefield General Burgoyne 
 Translates "Richard Coeur de Lion" for Drury, in 1786, and 
 Mrs. Jordan Accepts Matilda Death of Princess Amelia 
 Closes the Theatres H. R. H.'s Clock, by Tompion The 
 Royal Vault A Friend of the Author's Passes the Night 
 in It His Feelings Compared with Juliet's Imagination 
 Dodsley's " Cleone," and Mrs. Siddons " Love for Love," 
 and the Miss Prue of Jordan Congreve and His Prefer- 
 ments Mrs. Jordan's Roxalana. 
 
 CHANGE of condition so striking was 
 calculated to try the firmest temper. 
 Mrs. Jordan, certainly, was no stoic, 
 and she would at any time have disdained to affect 
 an indifference which she did not feel. All that 
 was woman about her anticipated her reception by 
 the manager and the performers at Leeds, which 
 
 83
 
 84 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 she had so recently quitted, and the enjoyment of 
 the first salary of one pound, eleven shillings, and 
 sixpence per week. She had now to consider in 
 her carriage, on the supposition that Wilkinson 
 might entreat her to play, with what terms she 
 would condescend to be satisfied, now she had 
 passed the assay in the metropolis, the metal being, 
 to a scruple, precisely of the same value before 
 the journey to London. 
 
 The "whirligig of time brings his revenges." 
 Mrs. Robinson, the prophetess, had, like other 
 false prophets, lived down her presumed wisdom. 
 She had sneered at the expedition of Jordan, and 
 pronounced her failure in town, and speedy wish 
 to be again welcome at her old quarters. The 
 London newspapers had since afforded her suffi- 
 cient mortification. The first salary, two benefits, 
 and immense presents, lavished upon a hated rival, 
 were even at a distance barely to be endured. This 
 unhappy lady, " whose doom reserved her to more 
 wrath," on the i6th of June, 1786, was to take 
 her benefit at Leeds. She was to act Horatia in 
 the "Roman Father," which the genius of Hen- 
 derson had rendered popular, though it hastened 
 his death, and had put up the " Irish Widow " for 
 her farce, because Mrs. Jordan had selected it for
 
 MRS. JORDAN 85 
 
 her benefit in London. It announced as plainly as 
 words could speak it, " Well ! Leeds also has her 
 Widow Brady, though the courtiers bear away the 
 honours of the tournament." 
 
 On this i6th of June, a Friday ! Mrs. Jordan, 
 attended by her mother and her sister, arrived in 
 the town of Leeds, and, after dinner, made their 
 appearance in an upper box at the theatre. It 
 was the benefit of the very " fright " whom poor 
 Mrs. Bland could neither bear to hear nor see ; and 
 what I am afraid the old lady bore without much 
 uneasiness, the house was far from being a good 
 one. An absence of only nine months, with an 
 audience so stationary as that of Leeds, was not 
 likely to erase the features of Jordan from their 
 memory, and she most certainly did not succeed 
 if she tried to keep herself concealed. But I do 
 not imagine for a moment that the child of nature 
 had so much art about her. I am sure she had 
 an honest joy in the buzz that turned every eye 
 up to the balcony box ; and, during the farce, she 
 came down behind the scenes, and made her com- 
 pliments very gracefully to her former associates 
 in the greenroom. No people do these things so 
 well as players they are accustomed to assume 
 every variety of manner, and if, like others, occa-
 
 86 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 sionally insincere, they are never clumsy hypo- 
 crites. After having thus made herself free 
 behind the curtain, she walked forward to the 
 very edge of the wing, and, leaning with a fash- 
 ionable air on her sister, observed the rival Widow 
 Brady, and was fully observed by the audience 
 herself. Tate makes himself very merry by 
 glancing looks of defiance between the two ladies, 
 which I dare say they were discreet enough to 
 keep to themselves. But Tate seems to enjoy 
 the mortification likely to be felt by Mrs. Robin- 
 son, and perhaps fancied only some contempt in 
 the great woman because the humbler artist had 
 disobliged him. 
 
 It was now the turn of Mrs. Jordan to be 
 solicited, and she consented to act a single night, 
 dividing the receipt with the manager after a 
 deduction of fifteen pounds. To this he sub- 
 mitted, though he did not expect any great profit 
 to either party ; for he remembered that the 
 Leeds people had enjoyed or neglected her for 
 four summers in succession, and not distinguished 
 her parting benefit by any great patronage. But 
 the fashion had operated a mighty change in her 
 favour, and the good gentry of Leeds now longed 
 most passionately to see the actress of whom they
 
 MRS. JORDAN 87 
 
 had so recently been weary. She was announced 
 to act the Country Girl and the Romp on the 
 2 ist, and the house overflowed before the play 
 began. The demand for places was so extraordi- 
 nary that seven rows of the pit were laid into the 
 boxes. Both play and farce, it should be ob- 
 served, by her town success in the heroines, had 
 been worn to the felt by the country hoydens; 
 but she was no longer her mere self, but the 
 minion of rank and taste, and London. The Sid- 
 dons succeeded her upon the York circuit the 
 month following, and Mrs. Jordan went to the 
 north to fulfil her various engagements. At 
 Edinburgh she ventured to speak of the only 
 rival she could have, but it was not with Pope's 
 humility to Bolingbroke. 
 
 " Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, 
 Pursue the triumph and partake the gale ? " 
 
 There seems to be a sly hint at the despotism 
 of the turban, that bears no brother near the 
 throne. As to Yorkshire, however, Mrs. Siddons 
 became the absolute sovereign. The rage with 
 which she was followed had no parallel ; and if 
 the metropolitical chair was not devoted by a 
 salique law to the male sex, and it had been to
 
 88 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 be filled by the votes of the natives, it is probable 
 that she might have carried the election. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan took for her benefit Mrs. Cowley's 
 "Belle's Stratagem," and after a very charming 
 performance of Letitia Hardy, came forward to 
 address her accomplished friends in the northern 
 Athens. Later in life she used to hesitate in the 
 employment of her poetical talent ; now, how- 
 ever, in her gaiett du c&ur, she wrote as well as 
 spoke the following lines, which have at least one 
 sparkling and original point, but she became a 
 fixed star. 
 
 "MRS. JORDAN'S ADDRESS TO THE AUDIENCE OF 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 " On Monday, Aug. 6, 1786. 
 
 " Presumption 'tis, in learning's seat, 
 For me the Muses to entreat : 
 Yet, bold as the attempt may be, 
 I'll mount the steed of poesy ; 
 And as my Pegasus is small, 
 If stumbling, I've not far to fall. 
 
 " Hear then, ye Nine ! the boon I ask, 
 While (throwing off the comic mask) 
 With gratitude I here confess 
 How much you've heighten'd my success. 
 
 " By sealing thus my sentence now, 
 You've heap'd new laurels on my brow ;
 
 MRS. JORDAN 89 
 
 Nor is the Northern sprig less green 
 Than that which in the South was seen; 
 For though your sun may colder be, 
 Your hearts I've found as warm for me. 
 
 11 One wreath I only gain'd before, 
 But your kind candour gives me more ; 
 And, like your union, both combine 
 To make the garland brighter shine. 
 
 " 'Tis true such planets sparkled here, 
 As made me tremble to appear, 
 A twinkling star, just come in sight, 
 Which, tow'rds the Pole, might give no light ! 
 
 " Melpomene has made such work, 
 Reigning despotic like the Turk, 
 I fear'd Thalia had no chance 
 Her laughing standard to advance : 
 But yet, her youngest ensign, I 
 Took courage, was resolv'd to try, 
 And stand the hazard of the die. 
 
 " Since then the vent'rous game I've tried, 
 With Nature only for my guide ; 
 The bets, if fairly won, I'll take, 
 Nor wish to make it my last stake." 
 
 The good people at Edinburgh, we thus see, 
 permitted Mrs. Jordan to show her own wit. But 
 those of Glasgow, when it came to their turn to 
 welcome the great actress, presented her with a
 
 90 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 gold medal, and an inscription not badly turned. 
 It was transmitted with a single line of admira- 
 tion and jealousy. 
 
 " To Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 " MADAM : Accept this trifle from the Glas- 
 gow audience, who are as great admirers of genius 
 as the critics of Edinburgh." 
 
 On one side of the medal is the Glasgow arms, 
 which are a tree, etc. ; on the other side a feather, 
 with the following inscription : 
 
 41 Bays from our tree you could not gather, 
 
 No branch of it deserves that name ; 
 So take it all, call it a feather, 
 And place it in your cap of fame." 
 
 While this charming woman was on her way to 
 Edinburgh, rejoicing in her strength, the scene 
 closed on the unfortunate Mrs. Baddeley, at her 
 lodgings there in Shakespeare Square, on the 1st 
 of July. She had originally appeared in Ophelia, 
 and Mr. Garrick, whose judgment in his own art 
 will not be questioned, pronounced her delight- 
 ful. She communicated a charm to the "ador- 
 able Fanny" in the "Clandestine Marriage," and 
 Zoffani painted her, with King and her husband,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 91 
 
 in that play, at the command of George III. 
 They who now look at the words and the music 
 of the "Jubilee " may exhibit a smile of incredulity 
 to hear that the ballad of "Sweet Willy O," as 
 given by her, was irresistible, and drew crowds 
 to the theatre. But with whatever charms of 
 beauty or pathos she was graced, she was self- 
 devoted to poverty and disease. Extraordinary 
 beauty on the stage commonly seals the fate of 
 the victim : the moral restraints there are worn 
 so slightly that they drop at the breath of adu- 
 lation, and the public amusement becomes the 
 public prey. Disappointments now awaken an 
 unavailing regret ; reflection must be silenced 
 by some anodyne, or distraction ensues ; but the 
 temporary friend soon changes his character, 
 and consummates the misery he was called in 
 to avert. 
 
 Mrs. Baddeley died in her forty-second year. 
 I have a little anticipated this close when speak- 
 ing of her at York, on the first appearance there 
 of Mrs. Jordan ; but in the order of time, it came 
 again before me, with her own idea strongly im- 
 pressed upon my memory, and I have dismissed 
 her with tender pity for her fate, and gratitude 
 for the pleasure derived in my youth from her
 
 92 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 talents. Returning to her engagement at Drury 
 Lane, Mrs. Jordan was invited to try at least to dis- 
 pel some of the gloom with which the tragic queen 
 had covered the land ; the " laughing standard " 
 might be reared by her, but was then certainly 
 not followed. The receipts at Hull and Wakefield 
 were mere apologies for the inhabitants, who gen- 
 erally were too much distressed to go abroad on 
 trivial occasions. In this position the gay actress 
 thought ardently of the capital, where no such 
 disparity in their attractions existed, and where 
 her merits were appreciated by all ranks. 
 
 Upon her arrival, she did not discover any very 
 great preparation of the manager for a brilliant 
 season. General Burgoyne, on the success of 
 his "Heiress," might reasonably continue his 
 dramatic pursuits ; and the vast popularity of Se- 
 daine's "Richard Cceur de Lion," in Paris, graced, 
 or rather informed by the divine music of Gre"try, 
 set both of our theatres to work to prepare it for 
 the English stage. Macnally undertook it for Mr. 
 Harris, and Burgoyne for Sheridan. The latter, 
 with great happiness, introduced Richard's queen 
 in the situation of Blondel, and Mrs. Jordan ac- 
 cepted the part of Matilda, while the majestic 
 figure of Kemble was seen by the audience taking
 
 MRS. JORDAN 93 
 
 his melancholy exercise in the prison of Leopold, 
 Duke of Austria, whose resentment of an insult 
 offered to him by Richard, at the siege of Acre, 
 led him to load his unhappy captive with irons, 
 and demand an enormous sum for his ransom. 
 Perhaps no production ever had more effect than 
 the Richard of Drury Lane ; and so fascinating 
 was its ensemble, that no alteration made after- 
 ward in the cast was felt otherwise than as an 
 injury, and more voice or more science in the 
 principals only told the opera intruders that there 
 was a truth and a grace beyond their reach, and 
 that if you did not touch the heart here, you did 
 nothing. 1 
 
 This entertainment was brought out on the 24th 
 of October, after the "Winter's Tale," and was 
 repeated every evening, till the ist of November, 
 when the two theatres were closed, on account of 
 the death of the king's aunt, the Princess Amelia. 
 The etiquette of that period kept the people with- 
 out amusement, and the actors without bread, 
 twelve days ; an intolerable grievance, and totally 
 
 1 " 'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake, 
 The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake I 
 But where the force of energy is found, 
 When the sense rises on the wings of sound." 
 
 Collins, p. 96.
 
 94 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 uncalled for. In some cases of royal demise, 
 when a prince, the hope of succession, in the flower 
 of his age, is cut off, the public suffer, and the 
 willing respect paid to the reigning family is 
 accompanied by a personal grief, almost uniformly 
 felt ; but even then, all privation as to income 
 should be prevented : they who are not allowed to 
 work for themselves should be compensated by 
 the state. The humanity and real wisdom of the 
 present reign has abridged the interval as much 
 as possible, and marked the respect with any 
 character rather than sufferance. 
 
 The princess had left a very considerable sum, 
 indeed, with reversions of annuities, a splendid 
 fortune, to Prince Charles Hesse. But as she 
 mentioned nothing of mourning to her household, 
 a petition, in form, was presented to Lord Besbor- 
 ough. That nobleman thought the request fit to 
 be indulged, but he was opposed in it. What 
 notion he might entertain of the illustrious legatee, 
 I cannot say, but he declared that if the prince 
 refused to discharge the bills, he would pay the 
 expense out of his own pocket. The princess her- 
 self displayed great affection, and very minute 
 attention, to all the individuals of her establish- 
 ment, from the ladies of her bedchamber and the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 95 
 
 two Ladies Waldegrave, to whom thousands were 
 given, down to the menial servants of her stables 
 and her kitchen, to whom a year's wages were 
 bequeathed. She had forgotten a few old pen- 
 sioners upon her bounty, retired from her service, 
 or who had suffered by casualty ; but there could 
 be no difficulty in the legatee's decision that her 
 Royal Highness intended torsupport them for their 
 lives rather than her own, and bequeathed as much 
 of her mind along with her money, as could trans- 
 migrate to her favoured relation. 
 
 The royal family has been remarked for a sin- 
 gular attention to the distribution of time. I 
 should like to know the present state of the 
 curious clock, the masterpiece of Tompion, on 
 which he put the price of .600, when he made 
 it for the Duke of Cumberland, from whom it 
 came to his sister Amelia. 
 
 On Saturday, November i ith, her Royal High- 
 ness being what was called privately interred in 
 the royal vault of King Henry the Seventh's 
 chapel, at Westminster, the theatres opened again 
 on the Monday following. 
 
 Before we surfer the royal vault, however, to 
 close upon the Princess Amelia, we claim the 
 privilege of age, to tell an actual occurrence which
 
 96 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 happened to a particular friend. While the work- 
 men were busy in preparing for the interment, 
 which was soon to take place, a gentleman, from 
 curiosity, had procured a taper, and gone down 
 into this venerable cemetery. His design was 
 to let " contemplation," as Milton says, " have her 
 fill," while, at intervals, he carefully copied in 
 his note-book some df the inscriptions upon the 
 splendid coffins around him. Time had passed 
 away unheeded by the antiquary, and night had 
 been closing fast upon one of the brief days of 
 November. His eye, at length, was caught by 
 some person moving at a distance in the vault ; 
 by his taper he saw a fellow, in the coat of a 
 soldier, attempting to wrench away a silver plate 
 from one of the coffins. He called out, in an angry 
 tone, to the man, who ran away in fear of being 
 punished for the robbery he had intended. Our 
 friend thought it better, not to pursue the wretch, 
 but composing his nerves a little, sat down to copy 
 the inscription which is placed upon the coffin of 
 the Duke of Cumberland ; while thus engaged, the 
 trap-door of the vault fell over his head, at a 
 distance, and, in a short time, all his sensibility 
 was roused by hearing the outer gate of the abbey 
 itself ring upon its hinges, the bolts secured, and
 
 MRS. JORDAN 97 
 
 the key turning in the wards of the lock. His 
 first impression was that he had a long night 
 to pass among the dead ; his wasting taper now 
 began to tell him that he would soon, moreover, 
 be in total darkness. Horror, in spite of philos- 
 ophy, was creeping fast upon his aching sense, 
 and at length the last glimmer expired, and he 
 sat, motionless, in the gloomy silence of the grave. 
 He became incapable of thought ; he was breath- 
 ing a heavy and noisome atmosphere, the night 
 was chill and damp, but he remained through it in 
 a waking stupor, a sort of living death, as it 
 respected either memory or reason. When, at 
 last, the vault was opened, and daylight visited the 
 aperture, he made his way carefully to the steps, 
 and passed up them and through the cathedral, 
 inattentive to all the objects about him. By a 
 kind of instinct, he took the way to his own house 
 in a distant part of the town. But the fancy had 
 been too much excited for safety, and an alarming 
 fever succeeded the adventure, from which the 
 friendly skill of Doctor Austen, in about six weeks, 
 recovered him. He was a very intimate friend of 
 Henderson's, and told me the story himself. It is 
 impossible not to remember the almost parallel 
 situation of Juliet, in the monument of the Capu-
 
 98 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 lets, and a finer passage cannot be found in the 
 descriptive poetry of any nation. In order to keep 
 our great poet's philosophy safe from objection in 
 the comparison, it will be remembered that the 
 perceived gradations settle in stupor, and that 
 the sudden shock causes distraction. 
 
 " How, if when I'm laid into the tomb, 
 I wake before the time that Romeo 
 Comes to redeem me ? there's a fearful point ! 
 Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, 
 To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in ? 
 Or if I live, is it not very like, 
 The horrible conceit of death and night, 
 Together with the terror of the place, 
 As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, 
 Where, for these many hundred years, the bones 
 Of all my buried ancestors are packt ; 
 Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
 Lies festering in his shroud ; where, as they say, 
 At some hours in the night spirits resort 
 Alack ! alack 1 shall I not be distraught, 
 Invironed with all these hideous fears ; 
 And madly play with my forefathers' joints, 
 And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? 
 And in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, 
 As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ? " 
 
 I know that, removed from the scene, and fairly 
 estimating the danger, the reason of man can con- 
 fine itself to the merely disagreeable in the pic-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 99 
 
 ture; but the uncertainty as to one portion of 
 ourselves, the ignorance of the nursery, and the 
 condition of our nerves, would keep the bravest 
 of us, I believe, from coveting such an experi- 
 ment. 
 
 Among the efforts made to keep up the attrac- 
 tion of tragedy at Drury Lane Theatre, was the 
 revival of Dodsley's " Cleone " for Mrs. Siddons. 
 She could support it only two nights, but the 
 critics assigned a wonderful reason indeed for its 
 failure, namely, "that the refined feelings of the 
 present times affect to revolt at tragedies where 
 insipidity does not prevail." Surely it was not 
 by their insipidity that Isabella and Shore and 
 Calista and Belvidera had been rendered of late 
 so popular among us. A better reason might be, 
 that it was truly distressing to see Mrs. Siddons 
 in the agonies of Cleone only a little month be- 
 fore her own confinement. If there be anything 
 whatever in stage exertion, Cleone was quite 
 enough, one would think, to destroy her. Or 
 were the very boards of Garrick's theatre bound 
 to confirm his judgment of the play in question, 
 which he originally refused ? 
 
 Mrs. Jordan was more fortunate than her 
 great rival : the getting up of " Love for Love "
 
 ioo MRS. JORDAN 
 
 afforded her, in Miss Prue, a character exactly 
 suitable to her style of acting, and which kept its 
 hold upon the public mind. The first scene, 
 where she enters with Tattle to Mrs. Foresight 
 and her sister, was inimitably natural. The scents, 
 of which the beau had been so liberal ; the half 
 check upon the too plain words which she blurted 
 out with gay simplicity ; and afterward the apt 
 scholar and the catechism of love, and the con- 
 firmation of its doctrines, were rich comedy in- 
 deed, for she had genius enough to keep it from 
 offending. The courtship with Ben, with the 
 sweet savours of Tattle all the time in her nos- 
 trils, afforded a striking contrast ; the sullen aver- 
 sion of her look, the " I ain't deaf," with her 
 skilful utterance of the word, the consolatory 
 " I'm too big to be whipped," her abuse of the 
 " sea calf," and the " tar barrel," and the passion 
 of tears, were all truth itself. Miss Prue has only 
 one more scene, the first of the fifth act, where 
 she exclaims, with indignation, " What ! must I go 
 to bed to nurse again, and be a child as long as 
 she's an old woman ? Indeed, but I won't." The 
 last word, as she contrived to utter it, and the 
 " Fiddle of a rod ! I'll have a husband," with 
 the hint as to " Robin the butler," naturally
 
 MRS. JORDAN 101 
 
 enough produce the locking up of the young 
 lady, whom the author unfortunately has left 
 under lock and key, and neither involved in the 
 catastrophe nor called in at the conclusion of 
 the play. 
 
 Notwithstanding the eternal wit of Congreve's 
 comedies, which is not approached even by Sheri- 
 dan, it is not true that they have no real character. 
 The present play abounds in characters admirably 
 discriminated and preserved. Foresight and Sir 
 Sampson Legend are perfectly in nature. So is 
 Ben, though the lingo of the forecastle may vary 
 from time to time ; but he has the true mind of a 
 sailor, and "another trip" is his only remedy for 
 disappointment. A sailor, too, always uses the 
 terms of his profession, to which he is more heartily 
 attached than any other man, and, among his 
 oddities, is more metaphorical in his brief vocabu- 
 lary than all the rhetoricians or even poets of the 
 community. 
 
 "Love for Love" was first acted on the night 
 of opening of the new theatre in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields. Hamlet considered himself entitled to a 
 whole share among the players, for a few lines 
 inserted into the play before his uncle. Congreve 
 received that compliment on writing " Love for
 
 102 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Love : " a whole share in the concern, for a single 
 play per year. It is fatal to withdraw from an 
 author the stimulus of necessity ; the author of 
 four such comedies as Congreve's could easily 
 persuade himself that he had done enough for 
 fame. Plunging a wit into the pipe-office, or 
 making him a licenser of either coaches or wine, 
 is like marrying an actress, and taking her from 
 the stage ; the parties are no better than others 
 in the new situations ; to extend their attraction, 
 and therefore happiness, they should be left to 
 exert their genius in its proper sphere. To reward 
 utility, without abridging it, is a problem of diffi- 
 cult solution. We may be apt to think such a 
 poet disgraced by his preferments. Congreve, 
 however, did not wish to be considered as an 
 author, yet it is only as an author that he enjoys 
 a name among the illustrious of his country. 
 
 Doctor Johnson has said of Congreve, "that he 
 was an original writer, who borrowed neither the 
 models of his plot, nor the manner of his dia- 
 logue." A mind so perspicacious as the doctor's, 
 had he been acquainted with the writings of Ben 
 Jonson, could not have failed to discern innumer- 
 able points of similitude between them as to the 
 personages of the drama, and the manner of the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 103 
 
 dialogue. The great Lord Camden was fond of 
 displaying them. 
 
 On the 1 5th of February, Mrs. Jordan assumed 
 the character of Roxalana, in the " Sultan," for 
 the first time. She had, like Mrs. Abington, 
 skill enough to keep such a trifle as this from 
 becoming contemptible. On the I2th of March, 
 Mr. Holcroft produced at Drury Lane a new 
 comedy called "Seduction," but he made no use 
 of the talents of Mrs. Jordan. Like Mrs. Siddons 
 herself, she seems to have been considered as 
 devoted to the writings only of men of genius.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 King's Management Mrs. Jordan in the Summer of 1787 
 Miss Farren, Too, in Yorkshire, Distinguishes Fawcett, Since 
 a Truly Original Actor Kemble Alters the " Pilgrim " for 
 Mrs. Jordan Her Juletta The Character Describes Itself 
 
 Beautiful Passages Madness Exhibited Frequently on 
 the Stage " The New Peerage " Old Macklin Remembered 
 When He Had Forgotten Shylock Interesting Appeal of 
 the Veteran New Plays by Miss Lee and Captain Jephson 
 
 Smith Did Not Act Much with Mrs. Jordan His Last 
 Benefit Anecdote of Him when at Eton His Intimacy 
 with Garrick His Comedy Lewis and Bensley Compared 
 with Him as Gentlemen Abington and Farren Palmer 
 Returns to His Viola Mrs. Jordan's Sir Harry Wildair^ 
 Theatrical Politics King's Abdication. 
 
 JT must be admitted that no theatre ever 
 displayed so little management as that 
 of Drury under King, from the time of 
 Mrs. Jordan's first appearance. He had received 
 two such accessions as no other period is ever 
 likely to produce, and he contented himself with 
 wearing them down. The stock plays of a theatre 
 are excellent things, we know, but an endless 
 repetition of them will thin the most judicious 
 audiences. Nothing could be done for Mrs. Sid- 
 
 104
 
 MRS. JORDAN 105 
 
 dons, as to original composition ; and for Jordan, 
 whose sphere was less poetical (though within the 
 limits of Viola and the Country Girl there was 
 all the comic world of delicate feeling, poignant 
 humour, and youthful simplicity), nothing was 
 attempted. I dare say Sheridan, in his visionary 
 schemes, meditated to write for her ; and the 
 reverence at the playhouse for his powers might 
 tend to discourage those who, humbler in their 
 pretensions, were more certain in their perform- 
 ances. The politics, too, that really engrossed the 
 great wit, sometimes were adverse to the humbler. 
 Burgoyne was of the Whig party; and Holcroft, 
 however occasionally beyond their standard, was 
 at all times in opposition. The theatre was never 
 really and truly thrown open to such talent as 
 there was among us. Sheridan would undertake 
 everything, and do nothing. There was a com- 
 mittee of proprietors, who only attended to the 
 economy of the wardrobe, and they could not be 
 tempted by all the eloquence of Tom King to ven- 
 ture the smallest outlay without the consent of 
 Mr. Sheridan, who was always too busy either to 
 give it or refuse it. Thus it was that Harris, at 
 the other house, beat them, with all the cards 
 absolutely in their hands.
 
 106 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 The northern circuit, during the summer of 
 1 7%7* again attracted Mrs. Jordan, and her three 
 nights at Leeds were brilliantly attended ; she 
 acted Rosalind with Roxalana, Hypolita with 
 Miss Lucy, Viola with Miss Hoyden. His 
 Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, her early patron 
 and steady friend, supported her nobly on the 
 night of her benefit. She could not stay longer 
 with Tate Wilkinson, but assured him that her 
 successor from Drury Lane, Miss Barnes, was a 
 diamond of the first water. That lady made her 
 first impression in Juliet to the Romeo of Mr. 
 Fawcett ; but the expression of the garden scene, 
 " Hist ! Romeo, Hist ! " was a piece of informa- 
 tion as well as a signal, for the audience literally 
 hissed the young Juliet to a degree that precluded 
 any repetition of the offence. Tate always consid- 
 ered Mrs. Jordan to have amused herself on the 
 above occasion, for she was not easily deceived 
 as to the requisites for her profession. Miss 
 Barnes, thus forced from her Romeo Fawcett, 
 married out of the house of Montague, and in 
 private life remained inoffensive and respectable. 
 Leaving our sportive mischief to her harvest in 
 Scotland, she was not likely to hear with indiffer- 
 ence that her comic competitor, Miss Farren, who
 
 MRS. JORDAN 107 
 
 rarely stirred from London, had this summer Col- 
 man's permission to play for the benefit of her 
 sister Margaret, afterward Mrs. Knight. She 
 achieved the great distinction of three rows of 
 the pit laid into the boxes, and for the good 
 people of Yorkshire, at York and Hull, acted 
 Lady Paragon, Lady Townley, Lady Teazle, Mrs. 
 Oakley, Widow Belmour, Charlotte, in the " Hypo- 
 crite," Mrs. Sullen, and Violante ; attended in after- 
 pieces by her Maria in the " Citizen," Miss Tittup 
 in "Bon Ton," and a character in which she 
 always delighted me, Emmeline, in Dryden's 
 " Masque of King Arthur." 
 
 The chain of cause and effect has its striking 
 exemplification upon the real life of the stage. 
 Miss Farren's Violante absolutely tended to direct 
 our excellent Fawcett to the right course for him 
 as an actor. He was so disposed himself to trag- 
 edy, that when he could be moved to personate 
 the fine gentlemen in comedy, they were usually 
 a very serious business, of more weight than 
 brightness. But he was, on the night of her 
 Violante, induced to accept Colonel Britton, 
 with, I believe, a preference for Don Felix, and 
 the great actress pronounced him a very promis- 
 ing young actor. Thus his comic impression
 
 io8 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 gained strength. He played Peeping Tom for 
 his benefit at Hull, so as to astonish those who 
 had seen his tragedy, and at last he became a 
 great, original, masterly comedian, always natu- 
 ral and extremely powerful. He has recently re- 
 tired from the stage into private life ; what he 
 was as an actor may be estimated with great 
 accuracy by seeing Harley of Drury Lane Thea- 
 tre. It has been said that Jones reminds us of 
 Lewis, and it was truly said : he is a translation 
 into a less brilliant language, yet accurately ren- 
 dered ; but as t6 Fawcett, Harley is not only like, 
 but the same thing as though the veteran had 
 been driven back upon his early days with all the 
 confidence and vigour of his maturity anticipated. 
 This must be understood of the bustle about both. 
 Whether, at a distant time, Harley may ever equal 
 his predecessor in characters of advanced life and 
 rustic, or, at any rate, not refined feeling, remains 
 a question. His buoyancy is everything at pres- 
 ent. The modern rage for music demands that 
 our comic men should have much of the Italian 
 buffo, and it has introduced a sort of rigmarole 
 extravaganza of little meaning but amazing rapid- 
 ity. Mr. Fawcett' s second wife was an expert 
 musician, and she disciplined him admirably on
 
 MRS. JORDAN 109 
 
 these occasions, though his own father was a 
 singer and a pupil of Tom Arne's. 
 
 The winter season of 1787-88 had the advan- 
 tage of Kemble's studies, and they led him to a 
 character that seemed expressly contrived for 
 Mrs. Jordan that of Juletta in the " Pilgrim " 
 of Fletcher. That the fable is somewhat fantas- 
 tic will be readily admitted, but at the same time 
 it must be confessed that the incidents are singu- 
 larly entertaining. The author makes Juletta de- 
 lineate herself, and the passage will show the great 
 variety with which he had decorated his favourite 
 character, and the scope it afforded to the infinite 
 humour of Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 " Jul. I am a little footboy, 
 
 That walk o' nights, and fright old gentlemen ; 
 Make 'em lose hats and cloaks. . 
 
 Alph. And horses too. 
 
 Jul. Sometimes I do, sir, teach 'em the way through 
 
 ditches, 
 
 And how to break their worships' shins and noses, 
 Against old broken stiles and stumps. 
 
 Alph. A fine art! 
 
 I feel it in my bones yet. 
 
 Jul. I'm a drum, sir 
 
 A drum at midnight ; ran, tan, tan, tan, tan, sir ! 
 Do you take me for Juletta ? I'm a page, sir, 
 That brought a letter from the Duke of Medina,
 
 no MRS. JORDAN 
 
 To have one Signor Alphonso (just such another 
 As your old worship) worm'd for running mad, sir ; 
 Alas ! you are mistaken. 
 
 Alph. Thou'rt the devil. 
 
 And so thou hast us'd me. 
 
 //. I am anything. 
 
 An old woman, that tells fortunes frights good people, 
 And sends them to Segovia, for their [souls' sake]. 
 I am strange airs, and excellent sweet voices ; 
 I'm anything to do my mistress good, believe me. 
 She now recover'd, and her wishes crown'd, 
 I am Juletta again. Pray, sir, forgive me." 
 
 Perhaps this will be thought the finest vivd 
 voce delineation of a character existing. Ben 
 Jonson has a similar exposition in his "Brain- 
 worm ; " but I always thought the boast of 
 "Every Man in His Humour" heavy and barely 
 credible. Juletta is as light as Ariel, and as 
 sportive as Puck. 
 
 The soul of the poet Fletcher was exquisitely 
 tempered, and he has even a woman's fondness 
 for the tender virtues. Among them he touches 
 fidelity with a peculiar fondness. The reader 
 should refer to the passage where Bellario is ques- 
 tioned as to Arethusa, in "Philaster." There is 
 a beautiful counterpart in this character of Juletta, 
 which, equally firm as to the main point of trust, 
 breaks away into a strain of comic sarcasm, that
 
 MRS. JORDAN m 
 
 lost nothing in coming through the melodious 
 organ of Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 "Jul. If I did know, and her trust lay upon me, 
 Not all your angers, nor your flatteries, 
 Should make me speak ; but having no more interest 
 Than I may well deliver to the air, 
 I'll tell you what I know, and tell it liberally; 
 I think she's gone, because we cannot find her; 
 I think she's weary of your tyranny, 
 And therefore gone ; maybe she is in love ; 
 Maybe in love where you show no great liking : 
 And therefore gone." 
 
 These old comedies, it is true, needed a good 
 deal of weeding, but Kemble, after Vanbrugh, had 
 left the " Pilgrim " pure enough in all conscience. 
 The charm of their easy verse, so near the ca- 
 dence of good conversation, so pointed, and yet so 
 musical, will always plead for their revival, as 
 much for the language as the invention and char- 
 acter with which they abound. A fashion ob- 
 tained in the time of Fletcher, of which humanity 
 then did not feel ashamed I allude to the prac- 
 tice of exposing what should be the sacred mys- 
 teries of madness to the derision of a public 
 audience. The inside of a bedlam, in a variety of 
 tragedies and comedies, was emptied out upon the 
 stage, and, I fear, afforded a thoughtless enjoy-
 
 H2 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 ment, unmixed with the just horror which belongs 
 to such a profanation. Creatures of all conditions, 
 in all the fantastic disarray of their disturbed 
 senses, succeeded each other upon the stage, or 
 entered into contests of delusion and prejudice 
 with each other in a crowd 
 
 " Whilst they, so perfect is their misery, 
 Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
 But boast themselves more comely than before." 
 
 Comus. 
 
 The " Pilgrim " has some scenes of this kind ; 
 but the most powerful are those which, with a full 
 knowledge of their tendency, the ingenious cru- 
 elty of her brothers assembles before the Duch- 
 ess of Malfy, the great masterwork of Webster, 
 a tragic writer equal to everything but Shakes- 
 peare. 
 
 Again we had a new comedy from the pen of 
 Harriet Lee, which appeared on the loth of No- 
 vember, and Mrs. Jordan had no part assigned to 
 her ; it was called " The New Peerage ; or, Our 
 Eyes May Deceive Us." King and Miss Farren 
 had all that was striking in it. Mrs. Crouch, hav- 
 ing spoke herself into favour in the " Heiress," 
 had another miss allotted her, called Sophia Har- 
 ley. The "New Peerage" has long since disap-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 113 
 
 peared, and, perhaps, does not merit to take rank 
 among the established nobility of the drama. 
 
 The great excellence of the veteran, Macklin, 
 drew considerable audiences whenever he appeared 
 at Covent Garden Theatre, and he had been an- 
 nounced to perform his own Shylock on the roth 
 of January, 1788, at the extraordinary age of 
 eighty-nine. I went there to compare his per- 
 formance with that of my friend Henderson, 
 whose loss I even still regret, and, with some anx- 
 iety and much veneration, secured a station in the 
 pit, which none but the young should scuffle 
 about, for it was much contested. You just saw 
 the foot of the actor, and thus had his full expres- 
 sion and whole figure bearing upon your eye ; and 
 I most seriously assure the modish frequenter of 
 the side-boxes or stage-box, that if he never occu- 
 pied that station he never saw what was delicate 
 and exact and discriminative, and I was going to 
 add sublime, in acting. There, and thus anx- 
 iously, Garrick had been watched even to agony ; 
 and in Shylock, at least, and Sir Pertinax, Mack- 
 lin was a Garrick. It was a little before my per- 
 sonal introduction to Macklin, but I would not, at 
 that time, miss a repetition of his triumph in the 
 Jew. Who would not decorate the chambers of
 
 114 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 memory with portraits thus painted by the great 
 masters, in living colours and all the truth of 
 nature ? 
 
 Macklin got through the first act with spirit and 
 vigour, and, except to a very verbal critic, without 
 material imperfection. In the second he became 
 confused, and sensible of his confusion. With his 
 usual manliness, and waiting for no admonition 
 from others, he advanced to the front of the 
 stage, and with a solemnity in his manner that 
 became extremely touching, thus addressed his 
 audience : 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen : Within these very 
 few hours, I have been seized with a terror of mind 
 I never in my life felt before ; it has totally des- 
 troyed my corporeal as well as mental faculties. 
 I must, therefore, request your patience this night 
 a request which an old man of eighty-nine years 
 of age may hope is not unreasonable. Should it 
 be granted, unless my health shall be entirely 
 reestablished, you may depend upon it, this will be 
 the last night of my ever appearing before you in 
 so ridiculous a situation." 
 
 Thus dignified, even in his wreck, was that 
 great man, whom Pope had immortalised by a 
 compliment, and whose humanity Lord Mansfield
 
 MRS. JORDAN 115 
 
 had pronounced to be at least equal to his skill as 
 an actor. He recovered with the generous ap- 
 plause of the audience, and got through the play 
 by great attention from the prompter and his 
 assistant. It was now said that Leveredge had 
 sung upon the stage at the still greater age of 
 ninety-six, an effort, though unusual, not exciting 
 much surprise. Music is of easy recollection : 
 tunes may be said to haunt the memory, and the 
 first bar leads through the whole melody with 
 great accuracy ; but a thousand lines of pointed 
 verse, intersected with cues, and accompanied with 
 stage business, with passions to be assumed, and 
 interest to be enforced, may, at times, startle 
 the coolest brain, and agitate the most practised 
 speaker. 
 
 Among reasonable expectations it might have 
 been presumed that a new tragedy, by Jephson, 
 would have aided, or been aided by, the great 
 tragic strength of Drury Lane Theatre ; but it 
 was cut short 'in the commencement of its career 
 by Kemble's illness, and, the next season, was 
 never heard of until the nth of December, when 
 Wroughton supported the character which Palmer 
 had given up for his royalty management. The 
 injury done to this beautiful effort, by interrup-
 
 Il6 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 tions of many kinds, required a philosophy at least 
 on a par with the author's poetry. 
 
 Although Smith had the full merit of bringing 
 Mrs. Jordan to Drury Lane Theatre, and enjoyed 
 her popularity for a variety of reasons, he yet, as 
 an actor, was not in the least strengthened by her 
 talents they did not act in the same pieces. 
 There can be no doubt that Smith's retirement 
 was hastened by the predominance of Mrs. Sid- 
 dons and her brother. The usage of the theatre 
 did not allow such an actor as Smith to be divested 
 of the business he had been engaged to sustain ; 
 and Mr. Kemble had at least calmness enough not 
 to express any impatience for the tragic sceptre, 
 which he was sure to receive at no distant day. 
 
 On the loth of March, 1788, Smith took his 
 last benefit, and himself acted Macbeth to the 
 Lady of Mrs. Siddons, Kemble performing Mac- 
 duff, and despatching his great rival from the 
 mimic world. He spoke an address, in which he 
 announced his retirement to a country life and 
 the sports of the field and the turf, to which he 
 had through life been always strongly addicted. 
 The habit of acting in our great towns during the 
 race weeks has given to our actors, pretty gen- 
 erally, a love for the course, and many of them
 
 MRS. JORDAN 117 
 
 pique themselves upon never missing such things. 
 Kemble is the only great actor who never talked 
 to me of a "gallop after the hounds," and it was 
 not till late in life that he became a horseman. 
 
 There was "further compliment of leave-tak- 
 ing" between Smith and the public, on the loth 
 of June, when he acted the last time for the prop- 
 erty. He had been five and thirty years before 
 the town, and had kept up a friendly intercourse 
 with Garrick, whom he sometimes irritated, always 
 reverenced, and constantly studied. They both 
 loved money, and disputed, even to separation, 
 about pounds or guineas, in the weekly salary. 
 Smith had been educated at college, 1 and lived in 
 the best society ; his correspondence with his great 
 master is frequently graced by quotations from 
 Ovid and Virgil, and Catullus and Mrs. Hartley 
 concur in reminding the manager of his own 
 
 1 While Smith was at Eton, Doctor Sumner came suddenly 
 upon the scholars at their play, and the troop took flight, calling 
 out, " Away I here's Sumner." Smith not choosing to run, 
 was thus addressed by the doctor : " Is that a proper mode of 
 mentioning me ? ' Here's Sumner coming 1 ' Surely, it became 
 you to say Doctor Sumner." Smith, very submissively, dis- 
 claimed the remotest notion of disrespect, and added, as a 
 scholar, the classical vindication of the abruptness complained 
 of. " When the Romans saw Caesar approaching, they did not 
 say, Here comes Imperator Caesar, but, Caesar comes."
 
 n8 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 attachment to Mrs. Woffington. He would often 
 beg from Mr. Garrick an hour's attention to his 
 rehearsals, but I never could see that he had prof- 
 ited by the teacher, for his tragedy was uniformly 
 hard and unvaried, whereas the very vital prin- 
 ciple of Roscius was point, and he could no more 
 endure a character set to one tune, than he could 
 hear the slightest inattention to the stage busi- 
 ness. Smith's heroes in tragedy all, more or less, 
 reminded you of Bajazet it was the tyrant's 
 vein that he breathed ; he looked upon tragedy 
 to be something abstract, to which all character 
 has to bend ; so that he had but one manner for 
 Richard and Hamlet. But his nerve and gentle- 
 manly bearing carried him through a world of 
 emotion without exciting a tear, and you were 
 some way. satisfied, though "not much moved." 
 In comedy his manliness was the chief feature, 
 yet it was combined with pleasantry so perfectly 
 well-bred that I am unable to name any other 
 actors who have approached him. If they had 
 the pleasantry, they wanted the manliness ; where 
 there was man enough about them, either the 
 pleasantry was wanting, or the manliness checked 
 the pleasantry. Lewis had the pleasantry, but 
 carried to riot, and the manliness, though swelling
 
 MRS. JORDAN 119 
 
 up to the braggart. Bensley and Aikin were both 
 manly, but for pleasantry, alas ! it became satire 
 in passing their lips. I never laughed with Bens- 
 ley but once, and then he represented Malvolio, in 
 which I thought him perfection. Bensley had 
 been a soldier, yet his stage walk eternally re- 
 minded you of the " one, two, three, hop," of the 
 dancing-master ; this scientific progress of legs, in 
 yellow stockings, most villainously cross-gartered, 
 with a horrible laugh of ugly conceit to top the 
 whole, rendered him Shakespeare's Malvolio at all 
 points. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan had now an opportunity of seeing 
 at Covent Garden the great actress of her early 
 days in Ireland, to whom her mother had acted the 
 first Constantia in the " Chances," and whom the 
 best judges had pronounced to be the greatest 
 mistress of her art. But the only fine lady of 
 comedy was now grown lusty, and her humour, 
 like the gaiety of the mature at a festival, was 
 endured, rather than enjoyed, because there had 
 been a day when it was more suited to the person. 
 The Romp saw, however, what the style had 
 been in its meridian, and that it by no means 
 suited her own powers ; nature had done at least 
 as much for one as art had done for the other ;
 
 120 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 and who, beside, was ever great by imitation ? 
 Yet she thought she saw enough, if she herself 
 should ever assume the fashionable fair, to keep 
 her quite clear of the mincing manner of Miss 
 Farren, who, in Lady Teazle, was absolutely made 
 to laugh at her own mode of utterance ; in other 
 words, exemplify the ridicule by the natural manner 
 as much as the mimicry. 
 
 The business of the Royalty Theatre having 
 been settled by the interest of the winter paten- 
 tees, Mrs. Jordan was benefited in her Viola by 
 the return of the penitent Palmer to Drury and 
 Sir Toby. I have, in "The Life of Kemble," 
 told the tale of his "insidious humility," and, 
 therefore, will not repeat it here, but barely 
 state that, on the meeting between Sheridan and 
 himself, Palmer addressed him so exactly in the 
 style of Joseph Surface, that the witty author 
 stopped him by exclaiming, " Why, Jack, you for- 
 get I wrote it." Satisfied with his joke, he added 
 three pounds per week to the salary of the wan- 
 derer. As far as the public is concerned, patent 
 rights are justifiable, when, by the engagement of 
 responsible persons, they produce a perfect and 
 becoming amusement for the world about them. 
 But whenever new worlds start up at a great dis-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 12 1 
 
 tance, they have an equal right to be amused, and 
 within their own neighbourhoods. The popula- 
 tion should be the measure, and not the patentees. 
 It was on Friday, the 2d of May, 1788, that 
 Mrs. Jordan, for her own benefit, challenged the 
 fame of Mrs. Woffington, in the unequalled gaiety 
 of Farquhar's Sir Harry Wildair. When Gibber 
 wrote his sprightly comedy of "She Would and 
 She Would Not," in the year 1703, he made his 
 Hypolita assume the male disguise, and be as like 
 as he could make her to Sir Harry Wildair, in the 
 " Constant Couple," which had appeared at the 
 same theatre, Drury Lane, three years before. 
 The character of Sir Harry has the advantage in 
 point of dialogue. The talent of Farquhar for 
 comedy was astonishing. The timidity which 
 forbade him to act himself never moderated in the 
 least his conceptions for others, and he placed his 
 actors, at every step they took, upon the very 
 verge of danger. Wilks was the original per- 
 former of this jubilee of youthful fashion ; and 
 it requires the very highest captivations to render 
 it bearable. When Woffington took it up, she did 
 what she was not aware of, namely, that the audi- 
 ence permitted the actress to purify the character, 
 and enjoyed the language from a woman, which
 
 122 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 might have disgusted from a man speaking before 
 women as I have heard spoiled children com- 
 mended for what would, a few years after, shut 
 them out of the room if they ventured so far. 
 No, Mrs. Woffington, in spite of Quin's joke, upon 
 your supposing that " half the house took you for 
 a man," I am convinced that no creature there 
 supposed it for a moment : it was the travesty, 
 seen throughout, that really constituted the charm 
 of your performance, and rendered it not only gay, 
 but innocent. And thus it was with Mrs. Jordan, 
 who, however beautiful in her figure, stood con- 
 fessed a perfect and decided woman, and courted, 
 and intrigued, and quarrelled, and cudgelled in 
 whimsical imitation of the ruder man. 
 
 I remember her well on this night of laughter, 
 charmingly dressed, and provokingly at ease in 
 situations which, unaided by wine, few men view 
 without embarrassment. Accordingly, no doubt, 
 either Wilks or Lewis was the more perfect repre- 
 sentative of Wildair ; but neither of them afforded 
 such delight as the two female rakes, who were 
 loved for their own sakes, while laughed at for 
 ours. I need only notice the shouts of applause 
 that followed Mrs. Jordan's dilemma, and exit in 
 the fifth act.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 123 
 
 " Here I am brought to a very pretty dilemma. I must 
 commit murder, or commit matrimony; which is the best 
 now ? a license from Doctors Commons, or a sentence from 
 the Old Bailey? If I kill my man, the law hangs me; if 
 I marry my woman, I shall hang myself but, damn it, 
 cowards dare fight; I'll marry, that's the most daring 
 action of the two. \Exit" 
 
 There was something in Mrs. Jordan which was 
 fairly unaccountable. She was nervous in the 
 theatre, and even at the wing before she came on ; 
 once before the audience, she could do anything. 
 As the leading male of the comedy, at its close 
 she resolved to do all the honours. She stepped 
 before the curtain to the lamps, and gave out 
 the play for the next night ; she then announced, 
 with great impression, the play of "All for 
 Love," for the Monday, and with deliberate 
 respect pronounced the words, "being for 
 the benefit of Mistress Siddons." It took the 
 audience by surprise; but they felt the kind- 
 ness soon, and applauded it, when, without mak- 
 ing Peggy's mistake in her male attire, she 
 bowed profoundly, and hurried up to her dress- 
 ing-room, to prepare for Matilda, in "Richard 
 Cceur de Lion." 
 
 Before we are called away from the " Constant 
 Couple," it may be proper to notice the remark of
 
 124 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Steele in the Tatler upon its dialogue. It occurs 
 in No. 19 of those papers. 
 
 " This performance is the greatest instance we 
 can have of the irresistible force of proper action. 
 The dialogue in itself has something too low to 
 bear a criticism upon it ; but Mr. Wilks enters into 
 the part with so much skill, that the gallantry, the 
 youth, and gaiety of a young man of plentiful for- 
 tune is looked upon with as much indulgence on 
 the stage as in real life, without any of those in- 
 termixtures of wit and humour which usually pre- 
 possess us in favour of such characters in other 
 plays." 
 
 The above passage is a proof how inconsider- 
 ately men of genius sometimes write, to serve a 
 particular purpose. Here Wilks was to carry the 
 whole play upon his back, and the creator of the 
 character he acted was to be a nullity in his own 
 work. " The dialogue in itself has something too 
 low to bear criticism." It is the language, how- 
 ever, the only language, by which Wilks was to 
 convey the gallantry, and gaiety, which we will ad- 
 mit sat admirably well upon that graceful man. 
 The dialogue low, indeed ! All the characters are 
 not Bevils, but they have conversation language 
 suited to their qualities and purposes. "Bear
 
 MRS. JORDAN 125 
 
 criticism ! " Did Steele read what he has written ? 
 What did his friend Addison think of the slip-slop 
 which follows ? " The gallantry, the youth, and 
 gaiety of a young man," and these qualities "is 
 looked upon," and " Mr. Wilks enters into the 
 part." What part ? and how far are we to try back 
 for the antecedent ? But all this is carelessness, 
 it will be said. The critic who is unjust in his 
 censures should at least be correct in his language. 
 " Without intermixtures of wit and humour " the 
 play may be ; for these are not infusions into the 
 composition, but the characteristics of it. To 
 quote instances would be to transcribe whole 
 scenes. 
 
 I am unacquainted with a writer of domestic 
 comedy entitled to higher praise than Farquhar 
 may claim from his countrymen, and even now, 
 do but act his plays with the respectable talent 
 that still may be collected among us, and Congreve 
 himself, in spite of his elaborate wit, will have no 
 chance with him. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan did not, in the mode of great 
 actresses, desert the theatre the moment she had 
 secured her benefit ; she acted with them in both 
 play and farce, on the I3th of June, the last night 
 of the season.
 
 126 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 The king, accompanied by his family, this sum- 
 mer paid a visit to Cheltenham. He very fre- 
 quently rode out in the wet, and probably here 
 originated that tendency to fever that was soon 
 after to alarm the nation, and originate the ques- 
 tion as to the regency, so furiously contested, and 
 so triumphantly carried by Mr. Pitt. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan arrived there during the stay of 
 their Majesties, and was hardly less welcome to 
 her host of admirers at Cheltenham. In the re- 
 cess I shall examine how our great comedian was 
 likely to be affected by the schism in Drury Lane 
 Theatre. As far as she could feel interested about 
 the management, it may be supposed that her 
 wishes pointed to a comic rather than a serious 
 management of the concern ; but King, from long 
 habit, was more attached to Miss Farren than 
 herself ; and, indeed, her performance of the fine 
 lady, however inferior, critically speaking, to what 
 Mrs. Abington had been, was both nearer to the 
 fashionable woman of her day, and greatly superior 
 to anything that could be found in either town or 
 country. Lord Derby and the party, too, sup- 
 ported her with no barren admiration, and she 
 might, therefore, be an object of particular favour 
 with the manager, from interest as well as habit,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 127 
 
 perhaps also preference. The style of King was 
 always hard, precise, and pointed; he converted 
 everything into epigram, and certainly never him- 
 self yielded to luxuriant fancy, in the manner of 
 Jordan, one of whose laughs would disconcert the 
 most laboured efforts of sententious delivery. 
 The old school, as they called themselves, kept 
 together by choice ; for Bannister, in fact, as little 
 resembled them as Jordan, and she would have 
 been better with the comic actors, of whom Mun- 
 den was the head, than any other, as sharing with 
 her in the full flow of voluptuous humour. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan would be likely now to know some 
 of the secrets of the prison house. She saw that 
 the retirement of Smith strengthened Mr. Kemble 
 so materially that the concern mainly depended 
 upon him ; and the patentees might secretly smile 
 at the petulance of King, who attached too much 
 importance to his ministry, and might have been 
 satisfied with the mere stage-management, which, 
 in truth, was the extent of his competence. They 
 bore with his threats of abdication through the 
 summer, sounding Mr. Kemble as to the power 
 that he would expect in the situation, if he ac- 
 cepted it, and the recess passed away in talking 
 idly, and doing nothing for the ensuing season.
 
 128 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 At length King, seeing that the die was cast, 
 chose to desert the standard and appeal to the 
 public ; a very unwise measure, and intended to 
 do mischief. The newspapers had got their les- 
 son, and, on the hint from the property, attacked 
 King, then at the distance of two hundred miles 
 from London. They affected to regret his loss 
 as an actor, but as a manager they thought neither 
 the proprietors nor the public could lament his 
 absence. He turns these points very neatly in 
 his favour, by a reply such as he used of old 
 to venture to his friend Garrick, when they 
 differed. 
 
 " This paragraph," he writes, " I cannot but 
 consider as highly complimentary ; for it gives 
 me positive commendation in the line I under- 
 took to fill, and only obliquely censures me for 
 not making the most of a character with which 
 I have never been entrusted." 
 
 The newspapers boldly accused him of demand- 
 ing, beyond his salary, a thousand pounds a year 
 for managing for the seven next years. King gets 
 rid of this by saying that " the quantum of money 
 had never been an object of dispute." His com- 
 plaints, he affirms, rested chiefly on the undefined 
 office in which he had found himself, which sub-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 129 
 
 jected him to be called to account by authors for 
 not acting pieces which he had never heard of ; 
 for not encouraging performers with whom he had 
 no power to treat ; and for the want of novelty 
 which it was no part of his province to provide. 
 He becomes pleasant as he proceeds : " Should 
 any one, upon hearing this, ask me 'what was 
 my post at Drury Lane, and, if I was not man- 
 ager, who was ? ' I should be forced to answer, 
 like my friend Atall in the comedy, to the first, 
 I don't know, and to the last, I can't tell ; I can 
 only once more positively assert that I was not 
 manager; for I had not the power by any agree- 
 ment, nor, indeed, had I the wish, to approve 
 or reject any new dramatic work; the liberty 
 of engaging, encouraging, or discharging any 
 one performer, nor sufficient authority to com- 
 mand the cleaning of a coat, or adding, by way 
 of decoration, a yard of copper lace, both of 
 which, it must be allowed, were often much 
 wanted." 
 
 This explanation of King's produced some 
 effect. Kemble being announced as manager, 
 the town friends of King attacked him for ac- 
 cepting the trust upon humiliating conditions. 
 Kemble was, to be sure, the last man in the
 
 130 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 world to be suspected of doing so ; for he cer- 
 tainly felt his own value, and at all times firmly 
 asserted it. Though the writer of the accusation 
 was that villain Anonymous, Kemble informed the 
 public, rather than his assailant, " that no humilia- 
 tion degraded his services to those who did 
 him the honour to employ him ; and that the 
 power entrusted to him was perfectly satisfac- 
 tory to his own feelings, and entirely adequate 
 to the liberal encouragement of poets, of per- 
 formers, and to the conduct of the whole business 
 of the theatre." 
 
 As it is usual in such cases, the politicians of 
 the playhouse split into parties. The one set 
 looked upon the appointment as the herald of 
 reviving sense ; the other, as the devotion of the 
 whole stage to the interests of the house of 
 Kemble. But the truth was, his system of man- 
 agement was precisely that of Garrick, with a 
 greater desire to see strength everywhere. He 
 thought more of the whole than his great prede- 
 cessor, whether from modesty or judgment. Gar- 
 rick, knowing himself to be the Pit diamond, 
 surrounded himself with foil. Kemble, less daz- 
 zling, formed a cluster of kindred value about 
 him. His scheme of management was a good
 
 MRS. JORDAN 131 
 
 play and farce, well sorted, and strict regularity 
 in every part of the concern. Yet, from the first 
 hour of his management, I can, of my own knowl- 
 edge, assert that he did nothing without the per- 
 mission of Mr. Sheridan.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Kemble's Management from October, 1788 The "Panel," for 
 Mrs. Jordan Beatrice and Her Gown Her Performance in 
 the " Confederacy " Her Rosalind Somewhat Divides the 
 Town Whether the Sprightliness or the Sensibility Should 
 Predominate ? Perhaps the Truer Rosalind, if Shakespeare 
 Were to Decide Her Nell, in the " Devil to Pay " Moody, 
 in Jobson Mrs. Jordan's Opinion of Her Own Art Her 
 Aspiration after the Fine Lady Mr. Cumberland Writes for 
 Mrs. Jordan His Comedy of the "Impostors" a Hurried 
 Composition while Writing " Calvary " The " Farm- 
 house," Mrs. Jordan's Country Lass In the Summer of 
 1789, Edwin Engaged Her at Richmond The King's 
 Illness Commenced at Cheltenham when Mrs. Jordan was 
 There The Question of the Regency Display of Burke 
 His Vehement Dexterity King's Recovery, Sympathy of 
 the Stage Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel 
 Lennox The Drawing-room The Opera House Destroyed 
 by Fire The French Revolution. 
 
 jHE season of 1788-89 commenced in the 
 usual way, the routine of the last season. 
 Through the whole month of October 
 Mrs. Jordan had very little rest, and performed in 
 both pieces with untiring zeal and great attraction. 
 Kemble had not been inattentive to her, for he 
 
 13*
 
 MRS. JORDAN 133 
 
 had found time to make a capital addition to her 
 stock of afterpieces by cutting down a comedy of 
 BickerstafP s (taken from Calderon), and called by 
 him, " Tis Well It's No Worse." Kemble named 
 his farce, however, the " Panel," and I believe he 
 was right ; for the spectators love to be in the 
 secret, while the actors are in the dark, and really 
 enjoy a trick the more because it is none to them. 
 Whoever heard Mrs. Jordan, in Beatrice, reiterat- 
 ing her charge upon Lazarillo that "he certainly 
 stole her gown," in this farce, had a lesson of 
 comic utterance which he would never either forget 
 or equal. Vanbrugh's " Confederacy," also, was to 
 receive a Cerinna fully equal to any representative 
 of the character since the year 1705. Her Rosa- 
 lind, in " As You Like It," for her benefit, some- 
 what divided the town, and the lovers of the 
 sentimental and the humourous were arranged 
 under the standards of Siddons and Jordan. It 
 seemed to me that your mood determined the pref- 
 erence at the time. If we refer ourselves to 
 Shakespeare, who, in all reason, ought to deter- 
 mine on a matter so entirely his own, perhaps 
 Rosalind ought to excite laughter. She seems a 
 being of such natural sprightliness, that it is hardly 
 an effort for her to put down everything by her
 
 134 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 wit. She assumes the style of a saucy forester, 
 and the dress of a boy forest-born ; but the will 
 cannot give the power for the occasion, in the 
 degree she possesses of it : think of such an 
 impromptu, for example, as the costume of a 
 lover, the different paces of time, her dissection of 
 Jaques, and declaration, as it seems, of her real, 
 not assumed advice, "I had rather have a fool to 
 make me merry, than experience to make me sad, 
 and to travel for it too." Then, again, the broad 
 sally upon the tardy Orlando : 
 
 " Break an hour's promise in love ? he that will divide a 
 minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the 
 thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may 
 be said of him, that Cupid hath clapt him o' th' shoulder, 
 but I'll warrant him heart-whole." 
 
 Think, too, of the snail, his jointure and his des- 
 tiny. But the natural buoyancy of Rosalind is 
 incessant, and her wit inexhaustible. She "met 
 the banished duke, her father, yesterday, and had 
 much question with him." Do his losses, his 
 sufferings, the very circumstance of his not detect- 
 ing her, at all soften her mind ? No ; she is able 
 to divert herself even at such a moment. "He 
 ask'd me of what parentage I was ; I told him of 
 as good as he ; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But
 
 MRS. JORDAN 135 
 
 what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man 
 as Orlando ? " 
 
 Besides, therefore, the adaptation of her figure 
 to the moonish youth, I can have no doubt that 
 her peculiar animal spirits rendered her the truer 
 Rosalind. She sometimes rather carried a " fore- 
 hand shaft " too home perhaps ; but acting should 
 not be moulded to the sickly appetite : to excite 
 the honest, sincere, hearty laugh of the healthful 
 is the genuine praise, and should be the aim of the 
 true comedian. We should remember, too, that 
 to render all this comic power its very fullest 
 effect, she acted upon a stage of very moderate 
 compass, and in a theatre that would not hold 
 more than ^350, place your audience ever so 
 close to each other that she was at the time 
 not more than two and twenty, of great activity 
 and neatness, and really the darling of the public. 
 To speak of her Nell, in the " Devil to Pay," 
 which she acted after Rosalind, is unnecessary : 
 those who have seen it will laugh at the very 
 word ; those who have not may rest satisfied that 
 every succeeding performer of the part will pre- 
 serve some of her na'fvet6, with such powers as 
 they can bring to the competition. There was a 
 dry, sluggish determination about Moody that ren-
 
 136 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 dered his strap very efficient. His manner was 
 peculiar, but he was a valuable actor, and most 
 respectable man. 
 
 It is whimsical in such an actress as Mrs. 
 Jordan to long for the honours of polite comedy, 
 and content herself with a titter among the spec- 
 tators, instead of the convulsive roar of laughter 
 that followed the genuine workings of nature 
 within her. The secret of her charm, as she told 
 a friend, was that, "when she had mastered the 
 language of a part, she said to Dame Nature, My 
 head, hands, feet, and every member about me, 
 are at your commandment," and the bountiful 
 goddess gave her no farther trouble with the busi- 
 ness. But the fine lady is a being of art, and I 
 suppose must be left to the mode which fashioned 
 her. I should have devoted all the Lady Bells to 
 Miss Farren, without a wish for the flutter of the 
 fan, or the agony of the drawing-room curtsey ; but 
 it was her foible, and managers took care that she 
 should not stretch such pretensions too far. I 
 will admit that it may cross the deliberation of an 
 actress, that a time will arrive when age, or per- 
 haps, still more unluckily, figure, may somewhat 
 clash with the performance of the Romp, and 
 that the importance can only be kept by varying
 
 MRS. JORDAN 137 
 
 the business of the scene. But I think it rarely 
 happens that equal celebrity is gained in a second 
 line. The excellence that captivates at first takes 
 so strong a hold that even the character she first 
 appeared in is preferred to every other, even to 
 the very last of the actress. Clive said that the 
 town would prefer Garrick and herself, at eighty, 
 to all the youth of the theatre. I believe they 
 justified her opinion of their good taste. 
 
 I have hitherto lamented that no one, with 
 powers adequate to the task, had undertaken to 
 write for Mrs. Jordan ; and I drew the limits, I 
 think, accurately (and they were sufficiently ex- 
 tensive), within which an author of genius would 
 be sure to meet with the happiest aid from her 
 talents. Mr. Cumberland was unquestionably a 
 writer of great powers ; but he was unfortunately 
 too soon satisfied with his easy conceptions, and 
 too little careful to keep the species of his differ- 
 ent compositions distinct. He thus imposed a 
 double difficulty upon his muse, and one work was 
 unavoidably injurious to the other. He wrote a 
 novel and a comedy together, and recruited his 
 exhausted spirits by dreaming of an epic poem. 
 He amused himself with such trifles at a watering 
 place, and could not be astonished if they partook
 
 138 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 of the idle air of such resorts, and like their other 
 amusements were things to be forgotten. But a 
 dramatic mind will always do something. Cum- 
 berland did not try to produce a "School for 
 Scandal," 
 
 " For though the poet's matter nature be, 
 His art must give the fashion. And that he, 
 Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, 
 (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat 
 Upon the Muse's anvil." 
 
 However, he had devoted a few days to the 
 composition of two female characters in full con- 
 trast, and these he destined for Mrs. Jordan and 
 Miss Pope, who were to be assailed by two adven- 
 turers, called, instead of Aimwell and Archer, 
 Lord Janus and Polycarp. The latter, I presume, 
 so styled as fruitful in stratagems. Miss Pope as 
 the Deborah Sapient had all the novel attributes 
 of antiquated virginity to fancy ; for in her own 
 person she had none of them, but she feigned the 
 thing she was not, and disputed the palm of fine 
 acting with Jordan, who, as Miss Eleanor, pre- 
 tended the simplicity that she was far above, and 
 displayed both sense and sensibility of no common 
 sort. Cumberland here committed an error in 
 which he had many to participate, even
 
 MRS. JORDAN 139 
 
 " The greatest and the best of all the train, 
 Shakespeare." 
 
 Like the " Merchant of Venice," the " Impos- 
 tors " ended in the fourth act, and the fifth was 
 made up of such matter as the different fertility 
 of the two poets could supply ; in Shakespeare by 
 the two rings of Portia and Nerissa, and in Cum- 
 berland by incidents, also anticipated by the audi- 
 ence, but loaded by useless talk, and not like the 
 hors d'wtvre of Shakespeare, sportive, fanciful, 
 and diverting. 
 
 The epilogue was in better taste, and did not 
 spare even the author, for the following couplets 
 often applied to him : 
 
 11 But what is one poor puff of his own making 
 When all around him the wild waves are breaking ? 
 Plunged in the gulf, like Ceyx, still he raves, 
 Murmuring his own applause beneath the waves." * 
 
 The conclusion was personal as to the speaker, 
 and enumerated her wide range of utility very 
 pleasantly and pertinently : 
 
 " For me, tho' poets various arts employ 
 To make me wife, maid, widow, man, and boy, 
 
 1 " Nominat Halcyonen, ipsisque immunnurat undis." 
 
 Metam., xi. 567.
 
 140 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Yet all this while there's but one thing in nature 
 I truly aim to be your faithful creature. 
 Here I'm at home ; this is my natural part ; 
 This character flows freely from my heart." 
 
 Mrs. Jordan acted beautifully in this comedy, 
 but it was too weak to be long-lived. After the 
 first night it waited till the 4th of February for 
 the second, and closed its career on the sixth, 
 when neither author nor manager expected further 
 profit from it. As this author seldom suspected 
 the real cause of his failure, he might not be quite 
 content with what satisfied everybody else. It is 
 certain that he only once mentions Mrs. Jordan in 
 his memoirs, and merely names the play in his 
 progress to " Calvary." 
 
 Mr. Kemble again employed his pruning-knife 
 for Mrs. Jordan, and cut down the old " Country 
 Lasses" of Charles Johnson to an entertainment 
 in two acts, called the "Farmhouse." Her Aura 
 was extremely diverting, and the farce augmented 
 the stock list of very attractive afterpieces at 
 Drury Lane Theatre. 
 
 In the summer Edwin opened the Richmond 
 theatre, and announced Mrs. Jordan in an occa- 
 sional prologue, of which the poetry was not ex- 
 traordinary, but it describes plainly enough the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 141 
 
 popularity of the charmer, and, therefore, a few 
 lines of it may be pardoned for one accuracy 
 I don't mean that of rhyme. 
 
 11 My next vast merit I must have a word on, 
 Ecod! d'ye know I've got you Mistress Jordan." 
 
 And then he notices her leg, her ankle, foot, 
 and promises the girls " a kiss of Sir Harry ! " 
 When I read the fishy exclamation which is 
 printed in italics, I wonder that the licenser of 
 George the Third should have had no sense of the 
 profaneness which his more solemn successor, the 
 author of " Broad Grins," would now surely blot in 
 virtue of his oath. He actually struck out that 
 positive truism, " Cod's fish," in a modern farce, I 
 suppose upon the authority of Hamlet. "All 
 which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently 
 believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus 
 set down." But he owes the world nothing on 
 the score of pleasantry, at all events. 
 
 The long and melancholy illness of the king, 
 which originated most probably at Cheltenham, 
 hung heavily upon the theatres for the greater 
 part of the season. The stage, however, would 
 not, in Johnson's language, " echo back the public 
 voice," and could not much mitigate the public
 
 142 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 grief. I feel little disposition to enter into the 
 angry discussions in Parliament upon the subject 
 of the regency, but a few points in the contro- 
 versy, ran nantes in gurgite vasto, claim to be 
 remembered for their neatness, when the grave 
 has silenced the angry feelings of genius which 
 produced them. Mr. Burke took the lead in such 
 effusions. " He had heard of an idea entertained 
 of divine right in the house of Stuart, but he had 
 considered it long exploded ; but of late it had 
 returned unexpectedly upon us, Lord Chandos 
 having termed the chancellor of the exchequer 
 a heaven-born minister. The right was, therefore, 
 renewed upon earth, and only transferred from 
 a king to a minister." 
 
 In the same debate, being called to order by 
 Mr. Pitt, and the intemperance of his language 
 being sarcastically reproved, he happily retorted, 
 " That if he had expressed himself in the language 
 of passion, it arose, not from a hastiness of temper, 
 but from a deep consideration of the subject he 
 was pursuing the game of ambition itself, and 
 therefore it was not unnatural to be a little 
 elevated." 
 
 Upon another occasion he used language that 
 seemed indecorous, whatever might be thought of
 
 MRS. JORDAN 143 
 
 the proposition it laid down. He said, "The 
 Almighty had been pleased to smite the sovereign 
 with his hand ; he had hurled him from the throne, 
 and put him in the condition of the meanest peas- 
 ant in the country." The Marquis of Graham 
 called him to order, and was about to move that 
 his words be taken down, when Burke interrupted 
 him by a sentence, that at once softened the inde- 
 corum, and fired his envenomed arrow into the 
 bosom of the House itself. " The lamented situation 
 of the sovereign was not the act of the House, but 
 the will of the Divinity ; but depriving his blood, 
 the Prince of Wales, from the full inheritance of 
 his authority, was an act of that House." 
 
 How exactly did Burke, in his own person, 
 exemplify the course he himself had ascribed to 
 Junius. " He has carried away our royal eagle in 
 his pounces, and dashed him against a rock; but 
 while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin 
 and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming 
 down souse upon both Houses of Parliament ; yes, 
 he did make you his quarry, and you still bleed 
 from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, 
 and still crouch, beneath his rage." 
 
 It did not suit Mr. Burke to see that the present 
 question was of a trust, not an inheritance, and
 
 144 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 they who entrust are the only judges of the quan- 
 tum of power they may choose to delegate all 
 limitation implies unwillingness to trust beyond 
 the absolute necessity of the case. We do not 
 make laws to insult our imperfect nature, but to 
 restrain it against possible error or guilt. They 
 who suppose Pitt would have been more complais- 
 ant, had his office been secure, do not know the 
 man. His father, in such a case, might have 
 bowed to a regent : the son, less impetuous, was 
 more independent ; he was a calmer spirit of equal 
 pride. 
 
 It is impossible, in going through the business 
 of a theatre for any time, to be insensible to the 
 greater interests without. All that I can hope is, 
 that the diversification afforded by such topics 
 occasionally, or some points of taste, or personality 
 in the anecdotes, may atone for the digressions, if 
 they be such. 
 
 The recovery of the king from his alarming 
 indisposition had literally rendered the country, if 
 not wild, extremely elevated in their joy, and a 
 series of drawing-rooms and public entertainments, 
 given by the foreign ministers and the members 
 of the royal family, at which their Majesties were 
 present, testified amply that the recovery was no
 
 MRS. JORDAN 145 
 
 simulated appearance, but an absolute fact ; and I 
 cannot doubt that the late furious conduct of the 
 opposition, so little governed by the doctrines 
 which they had long upheld, had rendered them 
 unpopular to a degree beyond even the expecta- 
 tions of the minister, whose conduct had elevated 
 him in the esteem of his royal master, contrary to 
 the predictions of the supporters of the prince's 
 claims to a virtual inheritance of the royal powers. 
 While matters were in this state, an occurrence 
 happened which threw a damp, in some measure, 
 upon the brilliant pleasures of the time. On the 
 field-day of the Coldstream regiment of guards, 
 the 1 5th of May, the Hon. Colonel Lennox ad- 
 dressed himself (I cannot but think improperly) to 
 his colonel, H. R. H. the Duke of York, request- 
 ing to know whether his Royal Highness had said, 
 "that he (Colonel Lennox) had put up with lan- 
 guage unfit for any gentleman to bear? " The duke, 
 of course, at such a time, made no answer to the 
 question, but ordered the colonel to his post. As 
 soon as the field-day was over, his Royal Highness 
 desired the attendance of all the officers in the 
 orderly-room, where he called upon Colonel L. 
 to state his complaint. When he had done so, the 
 duke acknowledged that he had heard improper
 
 146 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 language had been put up with by the colonel ; 
 the precise words he declined to repeat, and upon 
 being pressed as to the author, the duke said, 
 " Colonel Lennox might consider him as an officer 
 of the regiment, and call upon him whenever he 
 pleased." 
 
 This opinion, the duke said, he had himself 
 heard given by a member at Daubigny's club, 
 whom, however, he would not name, and Colonel 
 JLennox wrote individually to all the members of 
 the club, and obtained no satisfactory answer. 
 This, consequently, made the matter the duke's 
 own, who willingly consented to give the satisfac- 
 tion demanded on the part of the colonel, and a 
 meeting took place between the parties on the 
 26th at Wimbledon, a convenient distance, and 
 one resorted to by the higher class of disputants ; 
 Lord Rawdon was the duke's second, Lord Win- 
 chilsea Colonel Lennox's. It ended in a shot 
 from the colonel, which struck the duke's curl, 
 who declining to return the fire, the matter 
 dropped, his Royal Highness refusing to give 
 any other sort of satisfaction, or admitting even 
 that he now considered either the honour or the 
 courage of the colonel established. The truth is 
 that, as to personal bravery, there could not be a
 
 MRS. JORDAN 147 
 
 question. Lennox was a good-tempered, careless 
 man, and might not go to a club -room with 
 a porcupine's fretfulness about him, and his quills 
 ready to challenge every smile in his company. 
 But I consider the affair at Wimbledon, however 
 impolitic, because the danger as to the parties was 
 unequal, to have been one of the bravest things in 
 the world. Had the ball taken effect one inch 
 from its course, Lennox could not have lived in 
 this country the remainder of his existence. 
 
 My friend Reynolds, in his very entertaining 
 life, tells us that on the very morning of the duel, 
 being at Lord's cricket ground, he saw, crickefa\\y 
 speaking, " standing out " in the long field, Lord 
 Winchilsea and Colonel Lennox, both of whom 
 seemed wholly occupied by their game. Lord 
 Winchilsea must have retired from this pleasanter 
 field to pen the account of the duel in concert 
 with Lord Rawdon, for it was inserted next day 
 in the newspapers. But Colonel Lennox did not 
 abstain from any of his usual habits on account 
 of his difference with royalty, and I do his Royal 
 Highness the duke the justice to say that he per- 
 sonally took no kind of exception at his doing so. 
 He readily consented to anything that might re- 
 lieve Colonel Lennox from his present embar-
 
 148 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 rassing situation. Accordingly, after a military 
 convention of the Coldstream in the orderly-room, 
 and a deliberation of two days, the officers came 
 to the following decision : " It is the opinion of 
 the regiment that, subsequent to the I5th of May, 
 Lieutenant - Colonel Lennox has behaved with 
 courage, but, from the peculiarity of the circum- 
 stances, not with judgment." 
 
 His judgment may, perhaps, be still more ques- 
 tionable on the following point. On the 4th of 
 June, the king's birthday, he absolutely presented 
 himself at court, and stood up with Lady Catha- 
 rine Barnard. The Prince of Wales did not see 
 this until he and his partner, the princess royal, 
 came to Mr. Lennox's place in the dance, when, 
 struck with the incongruity, he took the princess's 
 hand just as she was about to be turned by Mr. 
 Lennox, and led her to the bottom of the dance. 
 The Duke of York and the Princess Augusta 
 came next, and they turned the colonel without 
 the least particularity or exception. The Duke of 
 Clarence and the Princess Elizabeth came next, 
 and his Highness followed the example of the 
 Prince of Wales. The dance proceeded, however, 
 and Colonel Lennox and his lovely partner danced 
 down ; when they came to the prince and princess
 
 MRS. JORDAN 149 
 
 his Royal Highness took his sister and led her to 
 her chair by the queen. Her Majesty, addressing 
 herself to the Prince of Wales, said, "You seem 
 heated, sir, and tired." " I am heated and tired, 
 madam," said the prince, "not with the dance, 
 but tired of dancing in such company." "Then, 
 sir," said the queen, " it will be better for me to 
 withdraw, and put an end to the ball." " It cer- 
 tainly will be so," replied the prince, " for I never 
 will countenance insults given to my family, how- 
 ever they may be treated by others." At the 
 end of the dance, accordingly, her Majesty and 
 the princesses withdrew, and the ball concluded. 
 The prince, with his natural gallantry, explained 
 to Lady Catharine Barnard the reason of his con- 
 duct, and assured her ladyship that it gave him 
 much pain to have been under the necessity of 
 acting in a manner that might subject a lady to 
 a moment's embarrassment. 
 
 Thus, with a single country-dance, ended the 
 ball of St. James's on his Majesty's birthday, from 
 which he had determined so wisely to be absent ; 
 and thus, in the language of Voltaire, toute fut 
 consterne' dans le plus agrtable des chateaux pos- 
 sibles. 
 
 The Opera House had been designed by Sir
 
 ISO MRS. JORDAN 
 
 John Vanbrugh, and was finished in the year 
 1706. Its success, at first, was so very equivocal, 
 that when Nicolini and Valentina were sent for 
 from Italy, the following classical epigram was 
 levelled at the concern : 
 
 To emulate Araphion's praise, 
 
 Two Latian heroes come, 
 A sinking theatre to raise, 
 
 And prop Van's tottering dome. 
 
 " But how this last should come to pass, 
 
 Must still remain unknown, 
 Since these poor gentlemen, alas ! 
 Bring neither brick nor stone." 
 
 I was coming across the park from Pimlico, on 
 the night of the i/th of June, when, upon turning 
 the corner of the queen's house, this dreadful 
 conflagration burst upon my eye it seemed as 
 if the long lines of trees in the Mall were waving 
 in an atmosphere of flame. The fire appears to 
 have commenced in the roof, and the demonstra- 
 tion to have taken place rather earlier than the 
 incendiary had calculated. The dancers had been 
 rehearsing a ballet upon the stage that evening, 
 and sparks of fire fell upon their heads, and in 
 great terror they effected their escape. Madame 
 Ravelli was with great difficulty saved by a fire-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 151 
 
 man. Madame Guimard lost a slipper, but her 
 feet, as they ever did, bore her safely. 
 
 There never was the least doubt in the world 
 that the malignity of some foreign miscreant had 
 systematically effected the destruction of the 
 building : the whole roof was in combustion at 
 one moment ; a cloud of heavy smoke, for a few 
 seconds, hung over the building, succeeded by 
 a volume of flames, so fierce that they were felt 
 in St. James's Square, and so bright that you 
 might have read by them as at noonday. A very 
 excellent artist, who had been many years con- 
 nected with the Opera House, told me that Carne- 
 vale, upon his death-bed, revealed the name of the 
 incendiary. 
 
 As was customary in those days, the Bridewell 
 boys served their great engine with the vigour of 
 youth and the calm sagacity of veterans. Burke 
 might have come out of Carlton House; he was 
 standing before it, and anxiously directing the 
 attention of the firemen to its preservation. Mr. 
 Vanbrugh, a descendant of Sir John, was in the 
 greatest peril of all the sufferers he had an 
 annuity of eight hundred pounds, secured upon 
 the building. Some houses in Market Lane, the 
 usual rubbish about a theatre, were destroyed
 
 1 52 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 along with the Opera House. The stables of the 
 Whitehorse Inn also were a prey to the flames, 
 and at the back of the ruin the fire was burning 
 even fiercely, though low, at twelve o'clock the 
 next day. The books of the theatre were saved ; 
 so was the chest, in which there was about eight 
 hundred pounds, and this was nearly all that was 
 preserved. Never was devastation more complete. 
 
 However, Novosielsky erected, upon the old 
 site, a theatre really suited to the object, admira- 
 bly calculated for sound, and afforded that mag- 
 nificent refuge to the Drury Lane company, 
 which, perhaps, disposed both our managers 
 to erect playhouses which were fit for nothing 
 but operas. 
 
 But we were fallen upon days in which such 
 a mischief as the above was a trifle, injuring a few 
 individuals at most, and reparable by their own 
 ingenuity and enterprise, with the ready benevo- 
 lence of those who have charity far beyond their 
 pleasures. France now began to wear an appear- 
 ance which, to the intelligent, indicated a con- 
 vulsion transcending all that fiction had ever 
 imagined : 
 
 41 More than history could pattern, though devis'd, 
 And play'd to take spectators."
 
 MRS. JORDAN 153 
 
 The affliction and recovery of our own monarch 
 were rapidly followed by the insult, the degrada- 
 tion, the captivity, and the sacrifice of his great 
 rival ; and the stage, which had poured out its 
 song of triumph on the first theme, was soon to 
 display its puny imitation of the terrors and vic- 
 tories of the second, to discover freedom in the 
 excesses of a hired rabble, and the regeneration of 
 the human race in a government without balance, 
 in which parties immolated each other in succes- 
 sion, and any opinions held beyond the ascendant 
 of the hour exposed the venerable and the wise, 
 the virtuous and the beautiful, to the pike of the 
 assassin, or the equally thirsty axe of the guillo- 
 tine. Such exhibitions of the stage require tact 
 rather than talent ; the writers keep up the mad- 
 ness of the hour, and are hardly named when it 
 is past. Any attempt at composition would be 
 ridiculous, and useless if it were made ; happier 
 in one thing than the events they celebrate, that 
 the dramas may be forgotten with pleasure, and 
 the subjects of them are held in constant and 
 painful remembrance. 1 
 
 1 After all the horrible excesses of the revolutionary mania 
 had passed away, and the vast talents of Bonaparte had re- 
 duced the discordant elements to subjection, when the Bourbons
 
 154 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 had revisited and occupied their ancient throne, and a charter 
 had been consecrated which seemingly established them for 
 ages, a childish invasion of representative rights and the freedom 
 of the press has driven Charles the Tenth and his family once 
 more into exile, and stained his brief annals with the blood of 
 his people, unnecessarily and wantonly shed. But Napoleon had 
 pardoned the Polignacs, who were in his power. August, 1830.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Summer of 1789 Tate Wilkinson's Benefit at Leeds, Mrs. 
 Jordan Arrives to Act for Him The Yorkshire Prudery 
 Mrs. Jordan at Harrowgate on Her Way to Join Mr. Jackson 
 at Edinburgh Mrs. Siddons at York Mary, Queen of 
 Scots Mrs. Fawcett's Compliment to Her Mrs. Siddons 
 Prefers to Act in London, and Why Mrs. Jordan and Miss 
 Farren in the Same Places The Prince of Wales Miss 
 Catley's Death The "Two Gentlemen of Verona" Idly 
 Revived Mrs. Jordan's First Appearance at Drury Lane 
 This Season, so Late as February, 1 790 Mr. Kemble En- 
 gages Her Brother, Bland He Acts Sebastian to Her Viola 
 
 Mrs. Behn's "Rover" Altered by Mr. Kemble Jordan 
 and Woffington in Hellena Young Bannister His Char- 
 acter through Life Morris's " Adventurers " Mrs. Jordan's 
 Little Pickle The " Spoil'd Child " Called Her Own, Perhaps 
 Bickerstaff's The " Intriguing Chambermaid " " Better 
 Late than Never" Mrs. Jordan the Heroine Munden 
 Comes to Town from Chester Mrs. Jordan Plays Celia in 
 the " Humourous Lieutenant " of Fletcher Beauties of 
 That Character Her Alarming Epilogue by Harry Bunbury 
 
 Summer of 1791, a Journey to York Kemble vice Jordan. 
 
 [RS. JORDAN, in the summer of 1789, 
 took her usual northern tour; and her 
 old manager, Tate Wilkinson, having 
 been crippled by accident, received a letter from 
 her, to tell him that she would act at Leeds for 
 '55
 
 156 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 his benefit, and appointing the play and farce. 
 We are here furnished with a lively instance of 
 her power of sustaining fatigue. The night fixed 
 upon was Monday, the 6th of July, and at two 
 o'clock of that day Mrs. Jordan was not arrived. 
 The manager in distress had put off his benefit 
 until the Wednesday ; but at half-past four on the 
 Monday she sent him word that she was just ar- 
 rived, and ready to act Sir Harry Wildair and Nell 
 on that very evening, and was quite astonished to 
 see the play changed. She had come post from 
 London, and was in the family-way very obviously. 
 The play not having been done at the theatre a 
 long time, needed rehearsal. She told Tate that, 
 if she did not act that night she could not play at 
 all, for she was on the wing to Edinburgh, with a 
 500 penalty to pay if she did not arrive at the 
 appointed time. By great persuasion she consented 
 to stay till the Wednesday, but when he hinted 
 at the gratis performance, she said that was now 
 quite out of the question, her time was too val- 
 uable just then ; if she stayed she should be put 
 to great inconvenience, and must have thirty 
 guineas. However, she agreed to accept twenty, 
 and stay the two days for her old friend, and on 
 Wednesday astonished the precise ladies of Leeds
 
 MRS. JORDAN 157 
 
 with Sir Harry Wildair and his gallantries. The 
 manager fancied the applause not so violent as 
 she had been accustomed to in London, and sup- 
 posed that the country ladies did not think Sir 
 Harry's chastity improved by a female representa- 
 tive. This fact I have already presumed to doubt ; 
 and as to the applause, the payment of twenty 
 guineas, unwillingly, might make a lame man, with 
 a doctor and apothecary at his elbow, turn a deaf 
 ear to it. Nell, at all events, had none of Far- 
 quhar's freedom to restrain the thunder of applause. 
 It is dangerous to begin the habit of resting on a 
 journey, for upon leaving Leeds she reached Har- 
 rowgate, only fourteen miles off, when a subscrip- 
 tion purse from the company at the different hotels 
 so strongly tempted her that she agreed to re- 
 cruit herself there for three or four days, and 
 diversify the amusements of the devotees to sul- 
 phurated springs. But the penalty, which she 
 had awaked at Leeds to operate upon Tate Wilkin- 
 son, was brought still nearer enforcement by her 
 stay at Harrowgate ; and, on her arrival at Edin- 
 burgh, she found Jackson seriously offended and 
 disposed to litigation. 
 
 When Mrs. Siddons was at York this summer, 
 she put up for her benefit her friend St. John's
 
 158 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 tragedy of " Mary, Queen of Scots," which the 
 sympathy of all ranks, rather than any genius in 
 the play, rendered endurable. I mention it to 
 notice a circumstance honourable to the taste and 
 feeling of the first Mrs. Fawcett, a lady of great 
 merit. The manager sent her the part of Eliza- 
 beth to study. Her reply was remarkable ; she 
 said " she would willingly incur the forfeit rather 
 than act a character which she judged so ill- 
 drawn ; l and under any other actress than Mrs. 
 
 1 1 do not know whether Mrs. F. went historically to work in 
 her objections, or whether she looked at the part of Elizabeth 
 merely as an actress. But St. John makes the death of Mary pro- 
 ceed immediately from the St. Bartholomew, an event at thirteen 
 years distance. Sir Amias Paulet too is exhibited as a savage 
 gaoler in the play; but his noble letter to Walsingham quite 
 passed over. " I have great grief and bitterness of mind, that I 
 have liven," says he, " to see this unhappy day, in the which I 
 am required, by direction from my most gracious sovereign, to 
 do an act which God and the law forbiddeth." Evidently an 
 order to make away with his royal prisoner. I suppose the hypo- 
 crite had provided for her own " clearance," like Macbeth, and 
 had not the slightest fear of seeing the spirit of her murdered 
 victim at any banquet given for her supposed success. Sir Dm 
 Drury, though not named in the command, put his name to the 
 reply. At the dreadful St. Bartholomew, the wretched Charles 
 the Ninth was told by the governor of a fortress : " Sire, I have 
 communicated your orders to the garrison under my command ; 
 I find in it many loyal subjects and brave soldiers, but not one 
 executioner." I will not sully the humanity of our two country- 
 men by saying that they might conceive as much danger to
 
 MRS. JORDAN 159 
 
 Siddons, she would never consent to do it." Any- 
 thing that could more happily mark that, with that 
 great woman, all competition was out of the ques- 
 tion, will not easily be found. With any other 
 actress some equality in the parts might be a 
 thing of consideration. 
 
 As we have been led to mention Mrs. Siddons 
 and the performance by her of the leading charac- 
 ters in tragedy, let me just notice the preference 
 she felt for London, and the reason for it. She 
 explained herself thus to her friend, the York 
 manager. "Acting Isabella, for instance," said 
 she, " out of London is double the fatigue. There 
 the loud and long applause, at the great points 
 and striking situations, invigorated the system; 
 the time it occupied recruited the breath and 
 nerve. A cold, respectful, hard audience chills 
 and deadens an actress, and throws her back 
 upon herself ; whereas the warmth of approbation 
 confirms her in the character, and she kindles with 
 the enthusiasm she feels around her." 
 
 Mrs. Jordan said the same thing of her York- 
 shire audiences, and at one time declared she 
 never would act again among them. The courtly 
 
 reside in the compliance as resistance. This poor Davison, the 
 secretary, experienced to his ruin.
 
 160 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 style of Miss Farren suited them better : Lady 
 Milner used to sport the friend she so highly 
 esteemed in the stage-box ; and she was this 
 summer in the very highest vogue, for the Prince 
 of Wales patronised her, and the effect of his 
 decided taste made her receipts almost, for a few 
 nights, emulate those of Mrs. Siddons herself, the 
 greatest theatrical favourite that the country had 
 ever known. 
 
 The family of Catley coming from Yorkshire, 
 I am reminded of the decease of a favourite of 
 that name, the celebrated Anne Catley, whom I 
 could only know when a visible decline was sap- 
 ping the vital power that bore her once triumph- 
 antly above all humourous singers. 
 
 Miss Catley was, I think, married to General 
 Lascelles, and left a large family by him, four 
 sons and four daughters ; however, her will was 
 signed Anne Cateley, and was written entirely 
 in her own hand. The good sense that she 
 unquestionably possessed appears eminently in 
 the final settlement of her property. She makes 
 Gen. Francis Lascelles sole executor, and be- 
 queaths him ten pounds for a mourning ring. 
 The eldest of her four daughters at the time of 
 her decease was to have her wearing apparel,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 16 1 
 
 watch, trinkets, etc., as a distinction ; in all other 
 respects, the four sons and four daughters were to 
 have equal shares at the age of twenty-one years, 
 and, until then, their shares were to be invested 
 in the funds, and considered, as to the interest, 
 applicable to their education. She had bought the 
 house in which she died at Baling for the daugh- 
 ters, and, as far as a provident parent could do, 
 established them respectably. The probate called 
 her property ^5,000, but this was far from being 
 the whole of it. 
 
 There was in her personal character a good deal 
 of the careless boldness of Woffington ; like her, 
 too, she was extremely handsome, and her eye and 
 mouth had a peculiar expression of archness. She 
 aimed at the almost manly frankness of speech, 
 and acted as one superior to censure when she 
 raised the wonder of prudery. Catley had an 
 understanding too sound to vindicate the indiscre- 
 tions of her youth ; but her follies did not long 
 survive that period, and she amply atoned in her 
 maturity for the scandal she had excited formerly 
 in society. There was a graceful propriety in 
 her domestic concerns. She was never profuse, 
 and could therefore be liberal in all her arrange- 
 ments. In her youth she had been acquainted
 
 1 62 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 with difficulties, and the lesson was ever present 
 to her mind. Her ear was always open to the un- 
 happy, and her hand was enabled by economy to 
 spare no scanty relief to strangers without invading 
 the provision she had destined for her family. 
 In the great relations of life as a daughter, wife, 
 mother, and friend, she was on principle steady 
 and exemplary. Her complaint, a pulmonary con- 
 sumption, had wasted her to a shade, and it had 
 lingered beyond the usual term of that baneful 
 yet flattering pest. She was but forty-four at the 
 time of her decease. There were many points 
 of similarity between Mrs. Jordan and Miss 
 Catley ; not that the former ever possessed the 
 nerve or the prudence of the latter. 
 
 I am sure that I seldom feel inclined to revoke 
 at the suit of Shakespeare, but I never could 
 understand Kemble's reason for evoking the " Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona " from oblivion, in the month 
 of January, 1790. If, in the administration of 
 Garrick, with Holland and O'Brien, King and 
 Yates, Miss Bride and Mrs. Yates, nothing came 
 of this dramatic nothing, what was to be expected 
 from Wroughton and Barrymore, Bannister and 
 Dodd, Mrs. Kemble and Mrs. Goodall? It has 
 hardly sufficient interest for an opera ; for the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 163 
 
 soliloquy of Launce, coming on with his dog Crab 
 to talk to the audience, is in the very lowest style 
 of the booth, and surely never excited any con- 
 siderable laughter. There is a prettiness in parts 
 of the dialogue without nerve, hints of scenes that 
 should have been elaborated by the poet, and of 
 characters to which he afterward added that giant 
 strength which, either in tragedy or comedy, he 
 alone could infuse into dramatic nature. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan did not appear this season at Drury 
 Lane until the 8th of February, 1790, so that in 
 fact neither in tragedy nor comedy could the 
 manager avail himself of his greatest force. He 
 acted himself in a few monodramas, such as 
 "Henry the Fifth," and the happy start of the 
 Storaces in opera, with Cobb and Prince Hoare 
 to furnish dialogue and point to the counterpoint 
 of the composer, kept him alive until his comic 
 muse returned, which he had at length the pleas- 
 ure to see; and the Country Girl, in charming 
 health, took her usual hold of the fashionable 
 visitors and the public in general. 
 
 To oblige Mrs. Jordan, Kemble found or made 
 a situation for her brother, Mr. Bland, and he acted 
 Sebastian, in " Twelfth Night," to her Viola, com- 
 bining their natural with stage relationship. Per-
 
 1 64 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 haps he was personally more like her than a 
 stranger to her blood ; and as in his figure he did 
 not tower above the disguised sister, the mistake 
 of one for the other less offended the spectator's 
 eye. But it was not in this family that the males 
 shared the genius of the females that proud dis- 
 tinction the " bountiful blind woman " reserved 
 for the Kembles. 
 
 On the 8th of March, Kemble revived Mrs. 
 Behn's comedy of the " Rover," which he called 
 " Love in Many Masks," a confused and unin- 
 viting title ; but he had Mrs. Jordan for the suc- 
 cessor of Woffington, in the part of Hellena, and 
 Wilmore he acted himself. Blunt, which had been 
 performed by Shuter, lost nothing by being 
 trusted to the whim of Bannister, an actor who 
 now had established himself as the youthful eccen- 
 tric of the middle comedy, and the hero of the 
 eccentric farce ; the male counterpart of the 
 Romp in her gaiety, and, still more to his 
 honour, her only rival in the expression of feeling 
 that did not character as tragic. 
 
 Men, when made up of whim, like Bannister, 
 commonly fly out of the course, and, however 
 diverting in their humQur, secure everything but 
 respect from the world whom they cheer. But,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 165 
 
 from my first knowledge of Bannister to the 
 present hour, he made his prudence a guard over 
 his festivity, and though no man was ever more 
 solicited in social life, his amusement neither dis- 
 turbed his business nor deranged his circum- 
 stances : he could always dispense the liberal aid 
 which he did not need, and never drew on him- 
 self, in a single instance, that I remember, the 
 displeasure of the public. Being his contemporary 
 through no trivial series of years, I remember him 
 in tragedy, and am not sorry that he put off the 
 buskin early in his career. Unless the power in 
 tragedy is transcendent, excellence in comedy ren- 
 ders it questionable, and often, from some unlucky 
 recollections, ridiculous. When the actor attains 
 the wonderful in both, his universality enlarges his 
 honours. The genius of John Bannister met with 
 a congenial author in Mr. Prince Hoare, who may 
 perhaps, as a farce writer, be said to have best 
 suited his talent. But this palm is powerfully 
 contested by very able men. Yet whatever con- 
 test may exist among the writers of farce, there 
 is none whatever, where Bannister is concerned, 
 among the performers. I have seen no actor at 
 all near him where he was fully himself. 
 
 On the 1 8th of this month, Mr. Morris, then I
 
 1 66 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 believe at college, had a farce at Drury Lane, 
 called the "Adventurers." Peregrine was the 
 part designed for Bannister ; but Sir Peregrine, a 
 man uniformly unlucky, was given by Suett in a 
 style that carried the competition in his favour. 
 This author became a Master in Chancery, with 
 "his statutes, his recognisances, his fines, his 
 double vouchers, his recoveries ; " but alas, the 
 profession of literature should be lucrative for 
 more than two in an age, for any man of talents 
 to follow their bent, and forsake the substantial 
 for the tempting and perhaps the delusive, but 
 certainly never the permanent. 
 
 For her benefit this season Mrs. Jordan, after 
 the " Belle's Stratagem," presented a farce called 
 the "Spoil'd Child," and her Little Pickle took 
 its run among the romps of both sexes, which 
 her immortal youth long continued to supply 
 with the frolic of the pinafore and the tucker. 
 Pickle was ascribed to Mrs. Jordan herself, then 
 to Mr. Ford, whose Little Pickle was still younger, 
 we know. The truth is, I suppose, the exile Bick- 
 erstaff, whose Sultan had been kept alive by Mrs. 
 Jordan, still tried occasionally to be received under 
 cover, and that the " Spoil'd Child " might yet 
 contribute to the support of its parent.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 167 
 
 I touch only upon the new performances of 
 Mrs. Jordan, the routine is already known. It is 
 true that new study and a number of rehearsals 
 may be fatiguing to an actress who has to act five 
 out of six nights through a winter season ; but it 
 may be observed that, though the audiences are 
 changed, the parts remain the same, and it is im- 
 possible for them not to tire the performer upon 
 endless repetition ; so that, however burthened, it 
 is usual to wish not that the weight may be 
 lessened or the duty abridged, but that the quality 
 of the burthen may be a little altered. In the 
 season of 1790-91 the "Intriguing Chamber- 
 maid " of Henry Fielding, which he had dedicated 
 to Mrs. Clive, was revived for Mrs. Jordan, and 
 produced the most laughable effects. We may 
 imagine that Mr. Kemble looked carefully over 
 the dialogue. Palmer distinguished himself in the 
 character of the drunken colonel, and with Mrs. 
 Jordan merited less disputable matter, the farce 
 was not a general favourite. 
 
 On the i /th of November, 1790, Miles Peter 
 Andrews, who had a lively ambition for comic 
 fame, produced a comedy written by himself, 
 Reynolds, and Topham, but what was remark- 
 able in the composition was its being without the
 
 1 68 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 smallest attempt at novelty. Mrs. Jordan, who 
 performed the heroine in various disguises, ruins 
 the circumstances of Mr. Kemble, Saville, whom 
 she intends to marry. There is an under-plot of 
 a Sir Charles Chouce and the Flurries, and a Mr. 
 Pallet, the painter, and a Litigamus for Bannister, 
 Jr. It was a thing of shreds and patches, and 
 one of the parties had only to shake off his asso- 
 ciates and trust entirely to himself, earnestly and 
 assiduously, to become a dramatist, who is likely 
 to excite laughter for more than a century. " Bet- 
 ter Late Than Never " was not strong enough to 
 run. It was kindly contrasted in its course by 
 the " School for Scandal " and the " Rivals ; " by 
 which a manager might seem to be more solici- 
 tous for his own popularity than the success of 
 the new candidate. Besides that, not to run a new 
 play is, in fact, to tell the town that you cannot 
 depend upon it ; they will take you at your word 
 without difficulty. The death of this play, like 
 that of the " Iron Chest " subsequently, was 
 caused by Dodd, who always bestowed the whole 
 tediousness of his author upon the audience, 
 whereas your judicious player is alive to all the 
 impressions he makes in the house, and cuts his 
 matter short before it becomes insupportable.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 169 
 
 The epilogue contrasted the beau of former times 
 with his slang brother of the present ; and Mrs. 
 Jordan raised a laugh of complaisance to herself 
 in the latter mistake of the modern lounger ; for 
 he was a true critic in calling " Macbeth " an 
 
 opera. 
 
 " 'Zounds, be a little calmer ! 
 Who's that the Jordan ? No, you fool R. Palmer." 
 
 Although the more immediate subject of the 
 work leads me to Drury Lane Theatre in prefer- 
 ence, yet I willingly enter the rival house to com- 
 memorate the first appearance of such an actor as 
 Munden. He came from Chester avowedly to 
 take the business of Edwin, though he more re- 
 sembled Shuter in the broad, voluptuous style of 
 his comedy. On the 2d of December, 1790, he 
 acted Sir Francis Gripe in the "Miser," and 
 Jemmy Jumps in the "Farmer." He had not 
 the sly, personal humour of Edwin, who never 
 made you think of acting at all ; Munden, by his 
 evident enjoyment of the effect he produced, and 
 his reiterated efforts to make that effect as fervid 
 as he wished it, showed you his own conviction 
 that he had elaborately studied all that he was 
 doing, that he knew his conceptions to be just, 
 and that he executed them correctly, and, there-
 
 170 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 fore, demanded his reward in the enjoyment of 
 the audience. He was a slow actor for the most 
 part, and not the most accommodating in his style 
 to his brethren on the stage it was very difficult 
 to confine him ; he came up close to the lamps, 
 and, sideways, edged himself from one end of 
 them to the other; painted always remarkably 
 high for distant effect, and made his first and last 
 appeal to the gods ! He was, like Ned Shuter, 
 called, familiarly, Joe, all over the house; and, 
 more than any actor of his time, devoted himself 
 not only to business, but the profits of it. He 
 accumulated a handsome fortune in the profession, 
 and has a robust old age to indulge in the notions 
 only of acting again. 
 
 The benefit play of an actress is at least an 
 opportunity of putting the town in possession of 
 her own opinion of herself, and is, therefore, com- 
 monly seized for the purpose of extending the per- 
 former's claims. She can then invade the line of 
 a rival, and correct the perhaps obstinate preju- 
 dice of a manager. She may open new sources of 
 personal admiration she may, in a word, make 
 a benefit, the ingredients of which are known only 
 to herself. 
 
 On the 22d of March Mrs. Jordan availed her-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 171 
 
 self of this seasonable privilege, and revived, as 
 Woffington did, the "Humourous Lieutenant" of 
 Fletcher, that she might act his Celia, who now 
 gave name to the play, which was called the 
 "Greek Slave, or the School for Cowards." The 
 play being but little known, I think it may be 
 proper to notice the features of the character she 
 acted. Celia is beloved by the king's son, Deme- 
 trius, and attached to him on the score of his 
 valiant properties. Uneasy at an absence from 
 him longer than usual, she arrives at court, un- 
 known to the attendants, and is courteously sa- 
 luted by Demetrius, to their astonishment, which 
 makes them cluster round her in the usual manner, 
 and she beautifully exclaims : 
 
 " How these flies play i' the sunshine." 
 
 At a future interview between them, the prince's 
 honour calling him to the field, he reluctantly 
 quits his adored mistress, who now strengthens 
 his resolution, and there occurs a fine point for 
 the actress : 
 
 " Dem. I must have one farewell more. 
 Cel. No ! the drums beat Not a hand more." 
 
 She is tempted to become the king's concubine, 
 and displays her virtue and her wit in passages of
 
 172 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 equal point and beauty. The king, himself acting 
 his own reverend pander, and calling himself a 
 soldier, is thus saluted by her : 
 
 " Cel. Oh, wretched man, below the state of pity ! 
 Canst thou forget thou wert begot in honour ? 
 A free companion for a king ! a soldier ! 
 Whose nobleness dare feel no want but enemies ? 
 Canst thou forget this, and decline so wretchedly ! 
 Feed on the scum of sin ? Fling thy sword from thee ? 
 Dishonour to the noble name that nurs'd thee." 
 
 The monarch now reveals himself in one line of 
 uncommon expression : 
 " Ant. Why, then, I am a king, and mine own speaker." 
 
 Mark the truly dramatic reply of Celia, and 
 estimate its value to such an actress : 
 
 " Cel. And I, as free as you, mine own disposer. 
 There, take your jewels ; let 'em give them lustres 
 That have dark lives and souls ; wear them yourself, sir." 
 
 After the villainy of ordering a potion to be 
 given to her, the royal seducer sees her, like Ham- 
 let, come in reading, and, like Polonius, he draws 
 its application upon himself : 
 
 " Cel. I'm reading, sir, of a short treatise here, 
 That's called the Vanity of Lust : has your Grace seen it? 
 He says here that an old man's loose desire 
 Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wonder'd at;
 
 MRS. JORDAN 173 
 
 Which when they gather'd sticks and laid upon't, 
 And blew and blew, turn'd tail, and went out presently. 
 And, in another place, he calls their loves 
 Faint smells of dying flowers, carrying no comforts." 
 
 She proceeds to complete her argument, and 
 makes a convert of her old admirer. Demetrius 
 not doing justice to her virtues, but believing that 
 she has yielded to temptation, she quarrels with 
 him, and is only at length reconciled to the man 
 she loves, when she is discovered to have rank as 
 well as virtue to make her his equal. 
 
 There was something about Mrs. Jordan exceed- 
 ingly romantic, and that made her find what was 
 congenial in the princely connection of Celia. She 
 loved to indulge this tendency of her mind, and 
 was fond of the splendour of dress, though it 
 added nothing to her personal attraction. She 
 was the relaxation of dignity rather than state ; 
 and, whatever she might think, wore the trappings 
 of tragedy without any of their usual effect upon 
 the senses. 
 
 The real name of the character called Celia, in 
 the present play, is printed by the editors, Evanthe 
 and Enanthe, the first, having a decided mean- 
 ing, 1 I should prefer; and it is sufficiently discrim- 
 
 Flourishing in beauty.
 
 174 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 inated from the same poet's Evadne, the wife of 
 Amintor, in the " Maid's Tragedy." 
 
 Seward says, admirably well, upon such plays as 
 the present : " We could almost wish the readers 
 to drop the expectation of the events, to attend 
 with more care to the beauty and energy of the 
 sentiments, diction, passions, and characters." 
 And, I may add, whatever change may take place 
 in the manners of different times, and the taste of 
 expression, yet, if our plays are to boast of poetry 
 at all, our style must settle in the just medium of 
 Fletcher. The divinity of Shakespeare, if it could 
 be approached, cannot be sustained, and had bet- 
 ter, therefore, remain unattempted by his country- 
 men, who, by aping his grandiloquence, will easily 
 become turgid, but never sublime. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, after the play, spoke a very alarm- 
 ing epilogue, written purposely for her by Harry 
 Bunbury. But the reader will judge for himself 
 as to the startling expressions ; it was full of polit- 
 ical allusions. 
 
 44 How strange ! methinks I hear a critic say ; 
 What, she, the serious heroine of a play ! 
 The manager his want of sense evinces, 
 To pitch on hoydens for the love of princes ! 
 To trick out chambermaids in awkward pomp 
 Horrid ! to make a princess of a Romp.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 175 
 
 " Depend upon't,' replies indulgent John, 
 
 ' Some d d good-natur'd friend has set her on.' 
 
 Poh,' says old Surly, ' I shall now expect 
 
 To see Jack Pudding treated with respect ; 
 
 Cobblers in curricles alarm the Strand, 
 
 Or my Lord Chancellor drive six in hand.' 
 
 " But I've a precedent can quote the book 
 Czar Peter made an empress of a cook. 
 There now you're dumb, sir, nothing left to say ; \ 
 Why, changing is the fashion of the day. 
 Far wilder changes Paris can display. ) 
 
 There Monsieur Bowkit leaves ha ! ha ! the dance, 
 To read Ma'mselle a lecture on finance. 
 The nation's debts each hairdresser can state 'em, 
 And Friz in ways and means with hard pomatum : 
 Beaux lay down lap-dogs to take up the pen, 
 And patriot misses urge the rights of men : 
 Squat o'er their coals, sage fish-women debate, 
 Dealing at once in politics and skate ; 
 And shrewdly mixing to each taste the dish, 
 With fresh and stale philosophy and fish. 
 
 " If such odd changes you can gravely see, 
 Why not allow a transient change in me ? 
 The charms that mirth despotic makes to-night, 
 In grief may shine more eminently bright 
 More killing still the gaudy miss be seen, 
 Black as a crow all love and bombasin. 
 
 " Say, my fair friends, what change has more success 
 In catching lovers, than a change of dress ?
 
 1 76 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Caps, hats, and bonnets, Fashion's pack of hounds, 
 Each in its turn the trembling wretch surrounds; 
 One day you wound him with a civic crown; 
 Another with a tucker knock him down: 
 In cruel pink to-night your game pursue, 
 To-morrow pommel him in black and blue. 
 Now in a turque now en chemise assail him ; 
 Till the poor devil flounders, and you nail him. 
 
 " If I my frock have chang'd with some success, 
 And gain'd admirers in this regal dress ; 
 If faithful Celia should your favour prove ; 
 If pleas'd you listen to her constant love, 
 If tir'd with laugh, a sigh of pity ease you ; 
 I'll be a very weathercock to please you ; 
 The grave, the gay, alternately pursue, 
 Fix'd but in this my gratitude to you." 
 
 Methinks I hear some female reader now ex- 
 claim : " What, sir, and did your admired heroine 
 (for all authors admire their heroines, at least for 
 a time) What ! and did Mr. Bunbury write, and 
 Mrs. Jordan speak such a line as this in the face 
 of the public ? 
 
 " To pitch on hoydens for the love of princes ! " 
 A thing so personal, so ready of application, and 
 so sure of being made by either man or woman 
 who lived within the sound of rumour. My an- 
 swer must be : " Pray, madam, pay a little regard 
 to chronology, and suspect anything rather than
 
 MRS. JORDAN 177 
 
 a want of good taste in the Jordan. I can assure 
 you, on my personal knowledge, that I have no 
 such instances to record ; and that you will be 
 convinced of my sincerity if you will honour me 
 with your company into Yorkshire the very ensu- 
 ing summer. You will see, too, her attendant on 
 that occasion, and know a great deal of stage 
 matters two hundred miles from London. For 
 the ' love of princes ' you must wait awhile, and 
 you will not be robbed of your ingenious applica- 
 tion." Her friend, Harry Bunbury, had very faith- 
 fully attended as her laureate this year ; for when 
 she finished her favourite engagement at Rich- 
 mond, a neighbourhood dear to her for a great 
 portion of her life, he again exerted his sportive 
 muse in a farewell, which recapitulated all her 
 achievements, and expressed with much effect the 
 reasonable acknowledgments of the kindness she 
 had received. 
 
 The incessant application to the duties of a 
 profession, which is considered mere play by those 
 who never tried it, and its late hours and alterna- 
 tions of warm and chilling atmosphere, had at 
 length made Mrs. Jordan seriously ill ; she spat 
 blood very frequently, and seemed in a progressive 
 state of exhaustion, that might terminate in de-
 
 1 78 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 cline, if she did not spare herself all unnecessary 
 fatigue. Mrs. Jordan had not been at York for 
 some years, and her friend Wilkinson had engaged 
 her on the same terms as he had given to Mrs. 
 Siddons and to Miss Farren. As she played on 
 shares, her interest and the manager's were the 
 same. She was to have a clear benefit on the 
 Saturday in the assize week, and during that fol- 
 lowing, in which the musical festival occurred, she 
 was to act one night conditionally, to be fixed 
 by the manager. In the usual important style, 
 he announced her for the six nights in the sum- 
 mer assize week, and advertised her in advance to 
 commence her course with the "Country Girl," 
 and Nell in the " Devil to Pay." When he arrived 
 at York, he found Mrs. Jordan there, accompanied 
 by Mr. Ford (afterward Sir Richard), and she 
 refused Nell, because after Miss Peggy, another 
 rather active character, with a song always encored 
 at the end of it, it was really more than she could 
 undertake, the following days considered. It is 
 always dangerous to check a country manager in 
 the career of his management accordingly, dis- 
 appointed of the magical Nell and her song, the 
 ladies of York did not think the " Country Girl " 
 sufficiently attractive ; the house was not crowded,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 179 
 
 and there was no half-price, though Fawcett was 
 admitted to be strong as Gregory in the "Mock 
 Doctor." The miserable affectation of thinking 
 the " Country Girl " too vulgar for the refined 
 taste of York, made Jordan literally lose her tem- 
 per ; and she told the manager that, if the audi- 
 ence had possessed " or soul or sense," she would 
 have introduced a song. Tate begged that she 
 would do so still to oblige him, and she consented. 
 It was one written by a most amiable and even 
 learned young lady, a daughter of Ryder, the 
 comedian. The effect produced was quite rap- 
 turous, the whole theatre was one voice and one 
 will on the occasion (if the soul or sense might be 
 questioned), and they encored the singer most 
 alarmingly ; but their applause did not outlive the 
 song. Peggy was resigned to the ladies of Lon- 
 don ; and their preference of her was unshaken 
 to the last. As the audience became frigid, the 
 Jordan grew sullen. On the day following she 
 had recruited from her journey, and acted Miss 
 Hoyden in the " Trip to Scarborough," which was 
 received brilliantly, and the adorable Nell. The 
 audience did her full justice, and she was in the 
 happiest vein, and supped with her jovial manager. 
 The next performance was the "Belle's Strata-
 
 i8o MRS. JORDAN 
 
 gem," with the " Spoil'd Child." Here again the 
 ladies played the critic, and decided that fashiona- 
 ble existence was quite out of her line, and the 
 manager confesses that the receipt was shameful 
 to a degree the Pickle was admitted to be ex- 
 cellent. On the Thursday she performed Rosa- 
 lind ; here again her critics preferred the delicate 
 languor of Mrs. Esten, and our child of humour 
 could not smother her contempt for them. In 
 her anger, she spared neither performers nor spec- 
 tators ; and what she had said of the latter was, 
 with industrious malignity, circulated through the 
 city ; so that on the Friday, when she came on in 
 Sylvia, in the "Recruiting Officer," she showed 
 a determination to walk through the part, and the 
 audience became as indifferent as herself. The 
 receipt of the night was but twenty-five pounds. 
 The Saturday was her own night, Hypolita and 
 Miss Hoyden. Her house was not what she ex- 
 pected, and she was here deficient in the respect 
 of policy ; besides, the good will of those who 
 came was unquestionable, and should have been 
 acknowledged ; they should not have been slighted 
 for the sake of others who chose to stay away. 
 As early as the second act of the play, she sent 
 the manager word that she would not play on
 
 MRS. JORDAN 181 
 
 the York stage again ; though he had distributed 
 bills for her performing on Monday, the I5th of 
 August, Lady Bell in "Know Your Own Mind," 
 and Little Pickle. So that we see Tate was desir- 
 ous to enlarge the engagement, though so little 
 satisfied with the houses ; but as the reader will 
 remember, the manager had the appointment still 
 of one night in the festival week, whether she 
 enlarged her term with him or not, and he had 
 fixed this for the Wednesday following. Mr. 
 Ford and she were to dine with Wilkinson on the 
 Sunday. On the Saturday night, Ford writes an 
 excuse as to the dinner ; a decline of the engage- 
 ment to act further at York ; but a readiness as 
 to the festival night, on next Wednesday, or any 
 other he might appoint. " Mrs. Ford, feeling her- 
 self unwell, was desirous of passing a day or two 
 in the country." In this dilemma, giving up the 
 Jordan as to further service, Tate bethought him- 
 self of my ever-regretted Mr. Kemble, who, in the 
 mayoralty of his friend Wilson, was reposing him- 
 self very tranquilly at the Mansion House, and 
 " letting the world slide " in his easy indifference. 
 The truth was, he ought, for his own interest, to 
 have been at Liverpool ; but he made his health 
 the plea for stopping that call upon him, and hon-
 
 1 82 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 cured his friend's mayoralty by partaking his 
 hospitalities until the time arrived for joining his 
 brother Stephen at Newcastle, and giving him a 
 lift in his season. Late as it was, Tate posted to 
 the Mansion House, and found Kemble preparing 
 for bed ; but a matter of business led him to order 
 a bottle for his old manager, and they talked away 
 the little hours, though nothing was then con- 
 cluded. However, on the Sunday, in pursuance 
 of the invitation now made him to act in York, he 
 called upon Mrs. Jordan, and, in fact, settled with 
 her that she should take his place with his brother 
 Stephen at Newcastle in the assize week, on the 
 22d of August, and he would occupy hers at York 
 with Wilkinson. Mr. Kemble brought the mayor 
 along with him, and proposed the terms on which 
 alone he would act : first, that if Mrs. Jordan 
 acted on the Wednesday night, he would not act 
 at all ; he would supply her place then also, and 
 have the thirty guineas that she was to receive if 
 she played. Wilkinson told him it was pounds, 
 not guineas, that he gave, as Mrs. Siddons had so 
 been paid, and Miss Farren also. Here the mayor 
 was against him ; he would have it guineas, and 
 he carried that point. Now then the manager had 
 only to settle the Wednesday night with Mrs.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 183 
 
 Jordan, and accordingly his messenger found her 
 at Castle Howard, in the right humour to pay him 
 thirty pounds rather than even act on the single 
 night, which he now fixed for Tuesday (not 
 Wednesday), the i6th of August. The answer 
 was brief, and what the manager wished. The 
 signature causes me to preserve it. 
 
 " SIR : I agree with pleasure to your proposal 
 of giving you thirty pounds rather than ever per- 
 form in York. I shall return to-morrow and settle 
 the balance of the account. I am, sir, 
 
 " Your obliged, humble Servant, 
 
 " D. FORD." 
 
 On receiving this answer, all things seemed to 
 be adjusted. Giving up Monday night, he put up, 
 with his full consent, Mr. Kemble for Othello on 
 the Tuesday, and the name of Kemble, in York, 
 always popular in that city, went up in the same 
 proportion as that of the Jordan went down. That 
 lady arrived on the Monday noon, and most hon- 
 ourably paid her forfeit of thirty pounds. It was 
 not a pleasant thing, but under the circumstances 
 a right one her fame, as an actress, demanded 
 the sacrifice to use her own phrase, it was 
 " death to play on to such a milk and water and
 
 1 84 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 spiritless audience." But, however successfully 
 the day commenced for Tate, it was not over, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kemble dined with him. To his 
 utter dismay, Kemble said, as soon as they were 
 left alone, that, " without any impeachment of 
 their friendship, as he trusted, he was bound to 
 tell him that he had reflected on the engagement 
 he had made, which his understanding told him 
 was a very foolish one, and that he would act on 
 shares on the Tuesday, or not play at all ; for 
 unless he got 160 in the week, it was not worth 
 his while to play there." The parties separated 
 equally obstinate, and Kemble went to the music- 
 rooms, which were, on that night, assailed by the 
 most dreadful hurricane, attended by vivid flashes 
 of lightning ; and the sublime chorus from Handel, 
 " He gave them hailstones for rain," was awfully 
 verified from without. I never knew a man so 
 insensible to alarms of any kind as Kemble, he 
 pursued a purpose, or a train of thought, calmly, 
 in situations where other men are forced from 
 their poise, and now, upon being told, at intervals, 
 by the people about him, how happy they were 
 that he was to act to-morrow, he very coolly 
 replied that "he did not think he should have 
 that pleasure." The heat in the room was exces-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 185 
 
 sive ; the whole neighbourhood seemed in flames ; 
 Mara, Kelly, Crouch, and Harrison went through 
 the entertainments, and the ladies sat to hear them 
 to the end ; but it was a night of unexampled 
 terror. However, as Kemble would have said, 
 such casualties had nothing to do with his bargain, 
 in a thing of which nature he resembled his own 
 Hotspur, so as to " cavil on the ninth part of a 
 hair." 
 
 Tuesday morning came, says Tate, the bills 
 were printed, the rehearsal called, the performers 
 waiting, and no Mr. Kemble. At length the mayor 
 became uneasy, poor Mrs. Kemble was in tears, 
 " Kemble was fast asleep, and had given orders 
 not to disturb him." At length he wrote a line to 
 express his surprise to find his name in the bills, 
 and to repeat that he certainly would not act 
 unless the manager was kind enough to rectify the 
 mistake he had made. That excellent man, Mr. 
 Wilson, at last hit upon a medium between the 
 contending parties, and about one o'clock was 
 authorised to write the two lines following : 
 
 " Mr. Kemble agrees. 
 
 T. WILSON. 
 
 " He will be ready to rehearse at two o'clock."
 
 1 86 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 He went to the theatre, at the time, in perfect 
 good humour, and as if nothing discordant had 
 happened ; perhaps remembered Mrs. Jordan's 
 spleen, for he said "the audience should see that 
 he would take pains, whether the applause was 
 profuse or not." He had a very crowded house, 
 and Mrs. Jordan herself among his audience, lis- 
 tening to the applause, which was not the less 
 bountiful on account of the displeasure she had 
 excited. On the Wednesday she set off on the 
 Newcastle expedition, where she met with fresh 
 mortifications, leaving Kemble to draw that night 
 ,109 ic>r. 6d. to his Hamlet, the part in which 
 he was most distinguished, and, indeed, unap- 
 proached. His Macbeth, on the Thursday, was 
 also greatly admired, Lord Hastings, Petruchio, 
 and Collins's Ode bringing but a thin house, on 
 account of the attraction at the Assembly Rooms 
 on the Friday ; the actor was weak, in spite of his 
 system, however, on the Saturday, the weary 
 sun (for he must have been weary this week) made 
 a brilliant set in Zanga, and his share of the receipt 
 of the week, taken at the door, was close upon 
 ,150 but presents he unquestionably had. 
 
 As to poor Mrs. Jordan, she had never seen 
 such an assize week. The arrangement with her
 
 MRS. JORDAN 187 
 
 manager, Mr. Kemble, had left the advantage 
 entirely on his side. As was usual with such 
 stars, she had taken the management upon herself 
 at Newcastle, made the proper communications to 
 the newspapers, and announced her "Country 
 Girl" and "Nell" for Monday, the 22d of Au- 
 gust. Stephen Kemble' s company was at Lan- 
 caster, and well enough prepared for his brother's 
 exhibition ; but the change which was announced 
 found them utterly unprovided for their female 
 general, and they, therefore, took the resolution 
 not to march to Newcastle at all. The com- 
 mander-in-chief, without an army, talked of bring- 
 ing her action, and " doing she knew not what ; " 
 but the best thing she now could do was to think 
 steadily of home, and of the steadiest of all her 
 friends, a London audience. She had, in fact, 
 lost her summer, and was not entirely without 
 blame for losing her temper where it was her 
 interest to preserve it.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Doctor Woolcot Does Justice to Mrs. Jordan, The DroryLane 
 Company Remove to the Opera House The Opening 
 Laugh at Their Difficulties Additional Prices Carried 
 Fawcett's Arrival in London with His Wife Both Engaged 
 by Mr. Harris Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Kemble The Press 
 Accuses the Actress of Deserting Her Duty Proof to the 
 Contrary The Declared Admiration of a Royal Duke 
 Mrs. Jordan's Family Mr. Ford Made Pleas for Attacking 
 Her She Appeals to the Public by Letter Finding that 
 She Was, Notwithstanding, Still Persecuted, She Addresses 
 the Audience in Person, and Remains Absolute Mistress of 
 the Field " Cymon " Revived with Great Splendour The 
 Beauty of the Cast Kelly's Hospitality and His Guests 
 The " Village Coquette," for Mrs. Jordan's Night Richard- 
 son's "Fugitive" Acted by Her Miss Herbert, in That 
 Comedy, Miss Farren Mrs. Sheridan Dies, Commemorated 
 by Genius Her Epitaph Sir Joshua Reynolds, What He 
 Thought and Said of Mrs. Jordan Regret That She Never 
 Sat to Him Brings Out a Play Called " Anna," against 
 the Opinion of Kemble Fate of Her Novelty Of Mrs. 
 Siddons's Of Miss Farren's Mrs. Jordan in Lady Rest- 
 less Cumberland's " Armourer." 
 
 shall treat the memory of Mrs. Jordan 
 as we always did her person ; when she 
 had at all suffered, as on the late occa- 
 sion, we were happy to restore the equilibrium 
 of her mind by telling her anything of a soothing 
 
 1 88
 
 MRS. JORDAN 189 
 
 and respectful nature. The late Doctor Woolcot 
 greatly admired Mrs. Jordan, and though he will- 
 ingly admitted the excellence of Mrs. Clive, yet 
 thought that the following inscription to her, in an 
 obscure part of her garden, merited some illustra- 
 tion, in justice to the modern Thalia. Horace 
 Walpole's point is thus conveyed : 
 
 " Here liv'd the laughter-loving dame 
 A matchless actress, Clive her name ; 
 The Comic Muse with her retir'd, 
 And shed a tear when she expir'd." 
 
 Peter Pindar replies to the Horace of Straw- 
 berry Hill, not Rome : 
 
 " Truth and thy trumpet seem not to agree ; 
 Know Comedy is hearty all alive 
 The sprightly lass no more expir'd with Clive 
 Than Dame Humility will die with thee." 
 
 The venerable theatre of Garrick having been 
 condemned to demolition, and the proprietors ex- 
 tending their views to some lofty speculation 
 which was to leave them no competitors among 
 the intelligent classes, Mr. Holland prepared the 
 design of a magnificent pavilion for their approba- 
 tion ; and although it never was entirely completed, 
 enough was done to excite the horror of the fanati-
 
 19 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 cal part of the community. Burke's hatred of Mr. 
 Sheridan made him prompt them with the notion 
 that it emulated the temples of religion. But, for 
 the present, we have only ruins before us. 
 
 The Drury Lane company, in the season of 
 1791-92, removed to the Opera House on the 
 22d of September, and they carried a slight in- 
 crease of the prices of admission, which now be- 
 came six shillings to the boxes, and three shillings 
 and sixpence to the pit. Indeed, the splendid 
 situation in which they placed their friends seemed 
 to call for a small advance with propriety. Of all 
 things that could be named, an Italian opera 
 house was least suited to English play and farce, 
 demanding a constant succession of scenes called 
 flats, run on suddenly for the frequent changes 
 of place, and the small-sized scenes of Old 
 Drury were, with much difficulty, applied to the 
 grand void devoted to the groups of the French 
 ballet. 
 
 Cobb, though as a comic writer he could not 
 rank with Sheridan, had now proved himself a 
 very valuable ally to the theatre, for the " Haunted 
 Tower " had brought very excellent houses ; he 
 wrote a prelude for the opening of the season, 
 which excited risibility as soon as it was fairly
 
 MRS. JORDAN 191 
 
 heard, which it was not on the first night. The 
 jokes are somewhat a little forced, but they are 
 ingenious always, and often neat. The transport 
 of the scenery from poor Old Drury could not 
 escape him, the ocean was washed away by a 
 shower of rain, and the clouds were obliged to 
 be carried under an umbrella. The triumphal car 
 of Alexander was shattered to pieces by a hackney- 
 coach, at the corner of St. Martin's Lane, and the 
 coachman persisted that he was on his right side 
 of the way, and that Alexander, if he pleased, 
 might take his number. Among the actors, some 
 changes are in operation, Parsons now wants to 
 play tragedy, that he may be heard, and Wewitzer, 
 a critical maitre de ballet, who chatters about De- 
 mosthenes, and says that action is all, undertakes 
 to reform that of Hamlet, for instance, altogether. 
 He makes Parsons address the Ghost, a circum- 
 stance of itself enough to make any man give up 
 the ghost with laughter, and corrects the start of 
 astonishment and terror as idle and indecorous, 
 since he came to the platform expecting to see 
 it, and knew the royal shade to be his father. He 
 decides, therefore, upon the propriety of bowing 
 with filial reverence and love, which we may sup- 
 pose the paternal phantom to return with more
 
 192 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 solemnity, and the affecting grace of his time of 
 life. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan's brother, Bland, came on as an 
 opera singer, and maintained the rights of the 
 Italian stage. He at length withdrew with the 
 critic before mentioned, declaring that dancing 
 and the opera should always go together in con- 
 tempt of sense and nature. This, however it 
 might suit John Bull, was outrageous every way, 
 and little becoming the houseless, who had there 
 found a home, it resembled the gratitude of Drury 
 Lane itself, whose graceless sons no sooner get 
 shelter in their scrapes, than they give the dwell- 
 ing a bad character. 
 
 After a very spirited performance of the 
 " Haunted Tower," Mrs. Jordan's Beatrice in the 
 " Panel " put the audience in high good humour. 
 She ran over the ground easily, and without seem- 
 ing annoyed by it, but it made the exits and en- 
 trances comparatively tardy and flat some of 
 the actors considered it as a death-blow; but to 
 what will not use at length reconcile us ? How- 
 ever, we were drawn by that stage into a fondness 
 for spectacle, which we could gratify sooner than a 
 demand for sense, and at length the people them- 
 selves preferred the great theatre to the little one.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 193 
 
 As I attended the first appearance of Mr. 
 Munden before a London audience, so I cannot 
 pay a less compliment to a gentleman who was 
 in the York company with Mrs. Jordan, and who, 
 like Munden, came to supply the loss of Edwin ; 
 I mean Mr. John Fawcett, who was something 
 nearer to Edwin, but, as well as his competitor, 
 was an actor of great and original powers. If, 
 however, the supplying Edwin had been put up 
 as the stage prize to be disputed, I think the two 
 great competitors were Fawcett and Bannister. 
 As to the parts really played by Ed win, Bannister, 
 I believe, acted more of them, and, perhaps, was 
 nearer to him ; but the Pangloss of Fawcett was 
 quite equal to anything ever done by that great 
 comedian, who would have desired to live again, 
 purely to act such a superior Lingo. Mr. Fawcett 
 made the bow, which commenced a series of near 
 forty years at the same theatre, on the 22d Sep- 
 tember, 1791, in the part of Caleb in " He Would 
 Be a Soldier." He was greatly applauded, and 
 his wife, of whose merits I have already spoken, 
 appeared on the 3d of October following, in the 
 part of Nottingham in the " Earl of Essex." As 
 her husband in tragedy did not get beyond Kent 
 in "King Lear," so his wife seemed to settle
 
 194 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 about Emilia in "Othello," a part in which she 
 was loudly applauded. She was a good, because 
 a sensible second in tragedy ; but I ought to 
 explain that I mean no more than second rate 
 by the term, supposing characters to rank accord- 
 ing to their splendour or impression, and I explain 
 further by saying that Hermione and Andromache, 
 Zara and Almeria, Shore and Alicia, are equally 
 first-rate characters, and require equal talent in 
 the actress, who has usually performed either 
 alternately, when the theatre contained a rival. 
 Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Yates, and Miss Younge 
 were rivals to each other. In everything fortu- 
 nate, Mrs. Siddons never had a rival on the same 
 stage with her, so that the attention to her was 
 undivided, and her excellence undisputed. 
 
 I am apt to think that the unfortunate trip to 
 Newcastle might disturb in some measure the har- 
 mony between Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Kemble. He 
 certainly used to complain occasionally of that 
 lady ; and what proceeds from a manager soon 
 finds its way into the public journals. However, 
 as to her public duty, it would be difficult to find 
 a considerable actress in either theatre who had 
 laboured so very assiduously as herself. She had 
 played twenty-four nights in two months, and very
 
 MRS. JORDAN 195 
 
 frequently two parts in the same night ; and when 
 the management had no other attraction, she was 
 put up three nights together without novelty to 
 help her. If in such a course of duty indisposi- 
 tion sometimes caused an apology to be made, 
 there was obviously a reasonable ground for it, 
 without resorting to either caprice or her private 
 arrangements, with which the public amusement 
 was by no means connected. In spite of the 
 above matter of fact, it was now insinuated that 
 she was able to play, if she chose ; and another 
 position equally kind, that, not being absolutely 
 confined to her room, if she ventured abroad at 
 all, she ought to act at night, however languid she 
 might be, and not considering that, though it 
 was necessary to take the air, it was not advisable 
 to take the night air, after great exertion in 
 a weak state. But a circumstance had occurred 
 which was now generally known ; I mean the de- 
 clared admiration of a royal duke for this delight- 
 ful actress, and a wish for her society permanently, 
 on such terms as his peculiar situation alone per- 
 mitted. He invaded no man's absolute rights 
 he did not descend to corrupt or debase. Not 
 considering himself entirely a creature of the 
 state, he had presumed to avow an affection for a
 
 196 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 woman of the most fascinating description ; and 
 his yet unsullied honour was the pledge that the 
 fruits, if any, of such an union, should be consid- 
 ered most sacredly as his that he took the 
 duties of a father along with the natural relation. 
 We were now in the ferment of the French 
 revolution, and it became a crime in the eyes of 
 no small part of the public that Mrs. Jordan had 
 listened to a prince. In spite of his services as a 
 naval officer, and the frank, cordial manners which 
 were not more the characteristics of his profession 
 than of his own nature, the noble seaman was 
 neither well treated by the government, nor did 
 his popularity at all compensate a very niggardly 
 establishment. 1 On a sudden writers in the daily 
 
 *The union of the three royal brothers on the question of 
 the regency, as it distinctly menaced the minister, so it did not 
 greatly please the personage most interested in the question. 
 I understood from high authority, indeed, that his Majesty 
 thoroughly approved of the measures adopted by Mr. Pitt. It 
 was remarked that this question completely changed the feelings 
 of the two great parties. The Whigs were now for inherent in- 
 divisible sovereignty, and the Tories advocates for the power of 
 Parliament. The former disdaining any limitation of an heir; 
 the latter considering that very circumstance as exciting peculiar 
 vigilance, looking upon it, of course, as an abstract question, 
 and, to a man, admitting that, if any individual could be 
 regent without condition and limitation, the Prince of Wales was 
 the person.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 197 
 
 papers became most anxiously solicitous about 
 Mrs. Jordan's family (as if it had not at all times 
 been the " precious jewel of her soul "). " What, 
 in the new connection, became of Mrs. Jordan's 
 family?" Mr. Ford was elevated by some per- 
 sons into an injured and deserted man ; they 
 neither knew him, nor his privity to the advances 
 made by the noble suitor. They had never seen 
 him at the wing of the theatre, and thrown their 
 eyes, as he must have done, to the private boxes. 
 Mrs. Jordan was not a woman to hoodwink her- 
 self in any of her actions she knew the sanctions 
 of law and religion as well as anybody, and their 
 value ; this implies that she did not view them 
 with indifference. And had Mr. Ford, as she pro- 
 posed to him, taken that one step farther which 
 the duke could not take, the treaty with the latter 
 would have ended at the moment. 
 
 Finding herself thus annoyed at her very break- 
 fast-table, she resolved not to sit unmoved, but let 
 the public know her own feeling as a woman, 
 while she vindicated her conduct as an actress. 
 The following letter from her accordingly appeared 
 in all the public prints. It was dated from the 
 Treasury, by which must be meant the treasury of 
 the theatre.
 
 198 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 " TREASURY OFFICE, Nov. 30, 1790. 
 
 SIR : I have submitted in silence to the un- 
 provoked and unmanly abuse which, for some time 
 past, has been directed against me ; because it has 
 related to subjects about which the public could 
 not be interested ; but to an attack upon my con- 
 duct in my profession, and the charge of want of 
 respect and gratitude to the public, I think it my 
 duty to reply. 
 
 " Nothing can be more cruel and unfounded than 
 the insinuation that I absented myself from the 
 theatre on Saturday last from any other cause than 
 real inability from illness to sustain my part in the 
 entertainment. I have ever been ready and proud 
 to exert myself, to the utmost of my strength, 
 to fulfil my engagements with the theatre, and to 
 manifest my respect for the audience ; and no per- 
 son can be more grateful for the indulgence and 
 applause with which I have been constantly hon- 
 oured. I would not obtrude upon the public an 
 allusion to anything that does not relate to my 
 profession, in which alone I may, without presump- 
 tion, say I am accountable to them ; but thus 
 called on, in the present instance, there can be no 
 impropriety in my answering those who have so 
 ungenerously attacked me, 'that, if they could
 
 MRS. JORDAN 199 
 
 drive me from that profession, they would take 
 from me the only income I have, or mean to 
 possess, the whole earnings of which, upon the 
 past, and one-half for the future, I have already 
 settled upon my children.' Unjustly and cruelly 
 traduced as I have been upon this subject, I trust 
 that this short declaration will not be deemed 
 impertinent ; and for the rest, I appeal with confi- 
 dence to the justice and generosity of the public. 
 I am, sir, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "Don. JORDAN." 
 
 I have not preserved any of the ill-natured 
 sneers at this clear and candid explanation. It 
 had not (perhaps a vain attempt) satisfied every- 
 body, and I really now forget whether she or Mrs. 
 Crouch, in the interim, was the Matilda of " Rich- 
 ard Cceur de Lion;" but, on the roth of Decem- 
 ber, when she came on as Roxalana, in the 
 "Sultan," it was obvious that a decided dis- 
 pleasure was organised against her, and she had 
 nerve enough to advance intrepidly to the front, 
 with no affected ignorance of their meaning, and 
 properly confining herself to her theatrical duties, 
 thus addressed them :
 
 200 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 " LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I should con- 
 ceive myself utterly unworthy of your favour, 
 if the slightest mark of public disapprobation 
 did not affect me very sensibly. 
 
 "Since I have had the honour and the happi- 
 ness to strive here to please you, it has been my 
 constant endeavour, by unremitting assiduity, to 
 merit your approbation. I beg leave to assure 
 you, upon my honour, that I have never absented 
 myself one minute from the duties of my profes- 
 sion, but from real indisposition. Thus having 
 invariably acted, I do consider myself under the 
 public protection." 
 
 This was exactly the way to treat them. The 
 manner was extremely good ; the little hardship 
 that sat upon her brow, and like a cloud kept 
 back the comic smile that but waited their cheer 
 to burst forth, the graceful obeisance that fol- 
 lowed her complete triumph (for it was complete), 
 and the mode in which she resumed her task to 
 delight, after she had personally suffered pain, - 
 as she trusted them all to nature, so that steady 
 friend did not fail her in the least. There was 
 nothing in the " Sultan," certainly, that came near 
 the effect of the address. I was present, I re-
 
 Mrs. Crouch 
 
 Engraved by Bartolozzi
 
 MRS. JORDAN 201 
 
 member, and enjoyed it as much as I had done 
 Mrs. Siddons's more solemn vindication as to 
 Brereton's benefit. 
 
 The revival of Garrick's "Cymon," with great 
 splendour, was an affair of Kelly's, who certainly 
 could do a great deal in the spurring up Sheridan 
 to exertion. But now he might fill his theatre 
 with the personal admirers only of the female cast 
 of it, e. g. : 
 
 Sylvia .... Miss Hagley. 
 
 Urganda .... Mrs. Crouch. 
 
 Fatima .... Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 Phebe .... Miss Decamp. 
 
 Daphne .... Mrs. Bland. 
 
 Dorcas .... Dicky Suett. 
 
 It is, without the old lady, an instance which is 
 rarely met with, of captivations of great variety 
 combined very skilfully, and almost rendering the 
 " Cymon " of the former manager worthy of the 
 crowds that followed it. Bannister, Jr., had 
 more effect in Linco than Dodd ; Parsons re- 
 tained his old part, Dorus ; Kelly looked Cymon 
 exactly; and as to your Damon and Daemon, by 
 Dignum and Sedgewick, in musical merit and the 
 demerit of their acting, there was not a pin to
 
 202 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 choose between them. Old Bannister, too, was 
 excellent, either as Merlin or his master. 
 
 After this gay spectacle there was a supper at 
 Kelly's, at which, in the French phrase, I assisted, 
 and Sheridan joined us, with Richardson and Ford. 
 Mrs. Crouch sat at the head of the table and 
 pledged the success, to which she had so 
 much contributed, in the only wine she drank, 
 port. Kelly lived hospitably and with little cer- 
 emony, and gave his song and his claret with 
 equal readiness, and at that time they were equally 
 good. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, this season, was not what might 
 be called strong at her benefit, for her play was 
 the " Country Girl," and the farce, a rather hasty 
 thing, from the French of M. Simon, called the 
 "Village Coquette." It afforded Mrs. Jordan 
 the necessary field for the display of her talents, 
 and some clever scenery had been got up on the 
 introduction of a rural breakfast, in imitation of 
 Mrs. Hobart's Festino at Sans Souci. But noth- 
 ing more came of the farce, the management not 
 choosing to adopt it. 
 
 Mr. Richardson, the friend and constant com- 
 panion of Sheridan, at length brought out a 
 comedy at Drury Lane called the "Fugitive,"
 
 MRS. JORDAN 203 
 
 and the adventures of the heroine exhibited the 
 person of Mrs. Jordan rather than her peculiar 
 merits as an actress. She elopes with a lover, 
 whose joy has incapacitated him from conducting 
 his mistress in safety ; she falls into a variety of 
 snares, and keeps up a steady hue and cry after 
 her till the last act, when the usual reconciliations 
 produce the usual close. Miss Herbert, a charac- 
 ter for the nonce, not, perhaps, the most natural 
 in the world, from mere sympathy with the fugi- 
 tive, feigns herself a passion for Lord Dartford, 
 simply to take him out of Julia Wingrove's way ; 
 reasons with her brother, whom she loves, and is 
 the best friend in the world to her, and, through 
 the whole comedy, never speaks a single word 
 to this object of her solicitude. Like the great 
 majority of English play writers, Mr. Richardson 
 has no organisation of his materials and no origi- 
 nality in his incidents ; he conceives character, 
 but merely as vehicles for the author's senti- 
 ments. 
 
 Of his "Admiral" I have spoken in another 
 place, and shall here, therefore, merely notice a 
 generous and pointed sentence, which he has put 
 into the mouth of Miss Herbert. Young Win- 
 grove, when urged to excuse his sister's disobedi-
 
 204 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 ence as similar only to his own, ventures to reply, 
 " My sister, ma'am, is a woman ! " The sarcasm 
 of Miss Herbert is thus expressed : 
 
 " Miss Herb. My sister, ma'am, is a woman ! that is, 
 my sister is an interdicted being disinherited by nature of 
 her common bounties a creature with regard to whom 
 engagements lose their faith and contracts their obligations. 
 In your fictitious characters as lovers, you endeavour to 
 make us believe that we are exalted above human weak- 
 nesses ; but in your real characters as men, you more hon- 
 estly demonstrate to us that you place us even below your 
 own level, and deny us the equal truth and justice that 
 belongs alike to all intelligent beings." 
 
 Richardson, like Sheridan, got his love of 
 pointed sentences from Junius, whose tune was 
 continually in their ears. Had Sheridan come a 
 very few years earlier into the world, he would 
 have been a capital competitor in the list of candi- 
 dates for the honour of writing the letters signed 
 by that name, but at fifteen the thing was im- 
 possible. 
 
 On the 28th of June of the present year Sheri- 
 dan met with a loss that, in spite of his careless 
 habits, hung heavily upon his mind for years, the 
 death of his first wife, the eldest daughter of Mrs. 
 Linley, of Bath. She had married Mr. Sheridan 
 on the 24th of April, 1773, and his ardour as a
 
 MRS. JORDAN 205 
 
 lover was quite commensurate with the personal, 
 mental, and vocal captivations of the lady. He 
 had sighed for her, fought for her, wrote for her, 
 and, but for the distracting solicitations of party, 
 ambition, and the theatre, might have mingled his 
 own genius with hers in a retirement sufficient 
 alike for happiness and respectability ; a delicate 
 frame might have been spared many annoyances 
 to which it was subjected, and she might have 
 long been continued to society and her family. 
 She died at the Hotwells, Bristol, of a deep de- 
 cline, and excited the sorrow of every muse. 
 That of Doctor Harrington, in a language de- 
 voted to distinguished inscription, supplied the 
 following epitaph: 
 
 " In obitum 
 
 Dom. ELIZ. SHERIDAN, 
 
 Forma, voce, atque ingenio, 
 
 Inter ornatas ornatissimae, 
 
 Ab imo amores ita suspirat amicus. 
 
 Eheu ! eheu ! lugeant mortales ! 
 
 Eja, vero gaudeant ccelestes! 
 
 Dulces ad amplexus 
 Socians jam citharae melos, 
 
 Redit pergrata, 
 
 En ! iterum soror ; 
 
 Suaviusque nil manet 
 
 Hosannis."
 
 206 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 Sure every beauty, every grace 
 
 Which other females share, 
 Adorn'd thy mind, thy voice, thy face, 
 
 Thou fairest of the fair ! 
 Amidst the general distress, 
 O let a friend his grief express ! 
 
 " Mourn, mourn your loss, ye mortals, mourn 
 
 Rejoice, ye heavenly choir ! 
 To your embraces see return 
 
 A sister with her social lyre ; 
 Eliza now resumes her seat, 
 And makes your harmony complete." 
 
 She is perpetuated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 
 a picture beyond any praise of mine; an exqui- 
 site likeness of her person, and combining all the 
 poetry of art with the richest treasures of the 
 palette. Mr. Burke, who enjoyed above other men 
 the power of happy expression, said of his friend's 
 portraits, "that they remind the spectator of the 
 invention of history, and the amenity of landscape. 
 In painting portraits, he appeared not to be raised 
 upon that platform, but to descend to it from a 
 higher sphere." 
 
 The remains of Mrs. Sheridan rest in the cathe- 
 dral of Wells, in the same vault with those of her 
 beloved sister, Mrs. Tickell, who by a few years
 
 MRS. JORDAN 207 
 
 preceded her. Of the gifted family of Linley it 
 may truly be said, in the exquisite lines of 
 Thomson : 
 
 " As those we love decay, we die in part, 
 String after string is sever'd from the heart ; 
 'Till loosen'd life, at last but breathing clay, 
 Without one pang, is glad to fall away." 
 
 We had recently lost, also, the great painter we 
 have just mentioned ; and among all the admirers 
 of Mrs. Jordan he was the most fervent. They in- 
 deed worshipped at the same altar, and Nature was 
 the incessant study of them both. The painter 
 and the actress were alike offended by affecta- 
 tion and false action. Sir Joshua studied children 
 with the greatest care, when they imagined them- 
 selves unobserved, and could permit to every part 
 of the frame its unrestrained genuine motion. He 
 was quite enchanted, therefore, with a being who, 
 like Jordan, ran upon the stage as a playground, 
 and laughed from sincere wildness of delight. He 
 said " she vastly exceeded everything that he had 
 seen, and really was what others only affected to 
 be." The friend to whom he thus expressed him- 
 self had but just arrived in town, and, struck by 
 his enthusiasm, said to him, "What, sir, greater 
 than your friend Mrs. Abington ? " " Yes, sir,"
 
 208 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 said Sir Joshua, "greater than Mrs. Abington, 
 wherever she challenges comparison." "Well," 
 rejoined his friend, "at all events you must not 
 forget the more extended range of Mrs. Abington, 
 her fine lady." "I do not forget the fine lady 
 of Mrs. Abington, it is never to be forgotten. I 
 spoke of the two actresses where they challenged 
 comparison ; but as to more extensive range, I do 
 not know that you can make out your point, for, 
 opposed to these fashionable ladies, you have the 
 fashionable men of Mrs. Jordan, and the women 
 who would pass for men, whether Wildairs or 
 Hypolitas, in comedy, and the tender and exqui- 
 site Viola of Shakespeare, where she combines 
 feeling with sportive effect, and does as much 
 by the music of her melancholy as the music 
 of her laugh." 
 
 His friend told me that he took Sir Joshua's 
 recommendation, and hastened to become ac- 
 quainted with the great comedian, who assumed 
 full possession of his heart, and her impression is 
 little weakened at the present hour. I inquired 
 now more particularly whether she had ever sat 
 to Sir Joshua, or he had made any sketch of her ? 
 He told me decidedly not ; and therefore we 
 must be indebted to Romney for preserving her
 
 MRS. JORDAN 209 
 
 likeness with an action full of sprightliness 
 and grace, and that sufficiently early in her 
 career to want nothing as to the exterior of the 
 Country Girl ; for, as to the interior, the ac- 
 tress did not yield much to time, and the mind 
 and the laugh of her teens seemed always at her 
 command. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan in the autumn of 1792 was com- 
 pelled to unwilling retirement from her profes- 
 sional duties. She miscarried on the 6th of 
 August, at Petersham, of a daughter, being at the 
 time far advanced in her pregnancy. It was in 
 the month of September following that she came 
 to the play at Richmond, to see Mrs. Litchfield, 
 then a young actress, perform the part of Julia, in 
 the "Surrender of Calais." She was so pleased 
 with that lady's fine voice and spirited manner, 
 that she applauded her vehemently ; indeed, so 
 unguardedly, as to break the gold chain to which 
 a royal portrait was suspended, and cause it to fall 
 upon the stage from the box just over it. She 
 did not appear in the season of 1792-93 until the 
 2$th of February, in the oratorio period ; and then 
 she carried her point against Kemble, and brought 
 out a new comedy, called "Anna," which the 
 manager considered to be an outrageous insult to
 
 210 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 his authority. It was said to be written by a Miss 
 Cuthbertson, with a few touches from Jordan's 
 own pen. I never knew decidedly that the play 
 was rightly fathered upon either lady ; the Jordan, 
 however, evidently brought it forth. Disputes 
 ran very high about this play. Mrs. Jordan called 
 for novelty Kemble thought that she, like him- 
 self and his sister, should be contented with the 
 sterling drama, by which they had acquired their 
 reputations, and that the novelty should only as 
 entertainment hold up the train. He threatened 
 to resign his office if that play was done : it was 
 only done once, and thus the great disputants both 
 triumphed how far the reported displeasure of 
 Kemble contributed to the fate of the play, may 
 be a question ; I should not be disposed to carry 
 in this way a point against him, or a slighter man, 
 who was a manager. 
 
 The only thing I should have considered in Mrs. 
 Jordan's situation, was, how the play was written. 
 There is not the slightest novelty in " Anna." 
 There is an amorous old dowager, and the more 
 seasonable passion of two young ladies but the 
 whole family are Touchwood's. There was the 
 old disguise for Mrs. Jordan's figure, and the charm 
 which admitted of no disguise, a musical call upon
 
 MRS. JORDAN 211 
 
 her voice. To excite her lover's jealousy, she in 
 the male habit sings a love-song to herself, under 
 her own window, and is, by the usual clear-sighted 
 lover of the stage, immediately taken for a danger- 
 ous rival, and a challenge, and its consequence, a 
 meeting, follow, as things of course; they rush 
 not on, but into each other's arms, and a most 
 generous brother (things fancied every day) makes 
 a handsome provision for both parties. There is 
 a Miss Harcourt in " Anna," perhaps because there 
 was a Miss Herbert in the " Fugitive," and Mrs. 
 Powell was charged with the former lady, as Miss 
 Farren had been with the latter. Mrs. Jordan 
 spoke an epilogue of a very ponderous nature on 
 the subject of novelty, which should seem to have 
 had some newspaper origin, as may be seen by its 
 only points. 
 
 " Posts against Heralds wage their paper war 
 The Sun just rising, and the falling Star." 
 
 And again, a few lines on, 
 
 " The World and Times are grown as dull as Posts." 
 
 The town, however, were delighted to see their 
 gay comedian returned to them after a severe 
 illness, and she soon reconciled herself to her 
 old parts, since newer could not be found for her.
 
 212 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's turn for novelty next came on, 
 and the subject was "Ariadne." Murphy had 
 kept this tragedy long by him, and even printed it 
 before it was acted. Like most French tragedy, 
 it was cold and weak, declamatory and measured 
 in its effects, and better suited to the form and 
 style of Mrs. Yates than those of Mrs. Siddons, 
 who was rather Roman than Grecian, like her 
 brother. When we read of the astonishing im- 
 pression made by the French actresses, La 
 Champmel6, Le Couvreur, Dumesnil, Clairon, and 
 some few others, we must always recollect the 
 manner in which they warm those tirades of de- 
 scription, or metaphysical analyses, that unfold a 
 passion, rather than present it in operation. We 
 are not fond of fifty lines together, even when 
 they are Shakespeare's, and have little delight in 
 the sonorous modulations of mere eloquence. We 
 know nothing of heathen mythology in its great 
 influence, and the incestuous Ph&ire would in vain 
 mention the goddess of beauty to our ears as the 
 inspirer of her passion. I am serious in asserting 
 that the following lines could never excite the 
 cries of rapture in a British theatre that they have 
 so constantly produced in the Theatre Franais ; 
 whether from vanity or taste, the French are the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 213 
 
 modern Athenians. It is the sister of Ariadne 
 who speaks. 
 
 u Je respirois, Oenone, et depuis son absence, 
 Mes jours moins agitds couloient dan 1'innocence. 
 Soumise a mon epoux, et cachant mes ennuis, 
 De son fatal hymen je cultivois les fruits ; 
 Vaines precautions ! cruelle destinee ! 
 Par mon epoux lui-me'me a Trdzene amende, 
 J'ai revu 1'ennemi que j'avois e'loigne ; 
 Ma blessure trop vive aussi-t6t a saigne ; 
 Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cache'e, 
 C'est Venus toute entie're a sa proie attache'e." 
 
 Phtdre, by Racine. 
 
 This shameless passion of maturity would excite 
 laughter among us ; and the more heroic the form 
 of the speaker, the less should we excuse it. Such 
 a passion could only be borne, if at all, in the 
 melancholy garb of penitence, hardly announced 
 to be intelligible to the hearer, and succeeded by 
 unappeasable despair ! I run over the close in 
 such English as occurs at the moment : 
 
 " O vain precautions ! cruel destiny ! 
 
 Theseus, my husband, brings him to Trezene, 
 Once more I view the foe I had remov'd ; 
 Again gush'd from my wound its crimson flood ; 
 No longer now a smother'd ardour beat, 
 But Venus fir'd my veins, and revell'd in her prey."
 
 214 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 But the "Rival Sisters" had nothing of this 
 brilliant kind. I never thought Mrs. Siddons her- 
 self in very modern tragedy. She was best where 
 she had to strive against the fame of other per- 
 formers to weigh their different notions, and 
 determine on her own judgment, which, out of 
 many, was the true manner. She acted Ariadne, 
 I think, six times. 
 
 Miss Farren, the third great moving power in 
 the theatre, had a new character, though under 
 " False Colours ; " for such was the name of a 
 five-act comedy, written by Mr. Morris, a gentle- 
 man and a scholar, and a Templar, which was long 
 but another term for a wit. He, perhaps, wrote 
 rather too rapidly for duration ; but he lived his 
 nine nights, and then yielded up the field to other 
 adventurers of no greater force. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, on her benefit night, indulged 
 herself and her friends with a performance of 
 Lady Restless, in Murphy's "All in the Wrong," 
 and the " Devil to Pay " for her farce. In Nell 
 there could be no difference of opinion. In 
 Lady Restless, and parts of that rank, I never 
 could think her superior to other women. 
 Milton, in his "Comus," has a very happy ex- 
 pression upon a very different occasion. He
 
 MRS. JORDAN 215 
 
 says that the earth, if we were uniformly tem- 
 perate, would 
 
 " Be strangled with her waste fertility." 
 
 I always thought this the case with the beauti- 
 ful form of Mrs. Jordan, when enveloped in the 
 garments of a woman of fashion a train, except 
 of admirers, was a thing she had no skill in manag- 
 ing. Alert in every action, she kicked it hastily 
 out of her way. She had not the height that may 
 properly be said to command such an appendage 
 it wanted balance accordingly. The endeavour 
 to give this by lofty feathers always fails. The 
 face, which should be everything, is lost under the 
 waving plumage, supported by its cushion of 
 powdered hair. I am no great admirer of revolu- 
 tions, but that of France referred our ladies hap- 
 pily to the statues of the Greeks, rather than 
 the dressed dolls of the milliners, and for many 
 years they bore some evidences of the real human 
 figure about them. They have now gone to the 
 times of Queen Elizabeth for sleeves, which, by 
 their enormous swell and the slender bone at the 
 bottom of them, put all definement of their arms 
 out of the question, and the ingenious artist, 
 who represents human figures by coal-scuttles
 
 216 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 and gridirons, sauce-pans, horse-combs, and ex- 
 tinguishers, might express the outward sign of 
 the female arm by a stick with a bladder tied 
 to the end of it. But we see renewal even in 
 change itself. 
 
 Cumberland, as a man of letters, far exceeded 
 all his dramatic cotemporaries. His origin, the 
 great fame of his ancestors, his advantages as to 
 education, and, to do him justice, an application 
 that yielded only to that of Doctor Watson at 
 college, had placed him in no mean rank as a 
 scholar ; and he had a readiness in the applica- 
 tion of his power that somewhat justified Doctor 
 Johnson's theory, that a man can walk as well to 
 the east as to the west. How well he may walk, 
 depends upon his training, and the original make 
 and muscle of the limb. Critic, essayist, drama- 
 tist, novelist, polemic, and, as a poet, tragic, comic, 
 and epic, he exhausted all the literary adjectived 
 nouns or nouns adjective in ic or ist ; and this 
 universality has failed to attain the first rank, let 
 alone the first place, in anything. His quantity 
 was prodigious, and he threw his pieces up like 
 mushrooms, in a few hours. His language was 
 always perspicuous, usually delicate and neat, 
 sometimes pointed and brilliant. He wrote for
 
 MRS JORDAN 217 
 
 either theatre, and in the present year, 1793, he 
 had constructed for Covent Garden an opera on 
 the subject of Wat Tyler. This the aspen nerve 
 of my old friend the licenser, Mr. Larpent, un- 
 willing to alarm the civic chair by any call for an 
 exertion of the mace in a new rebellion, proscribed 
 ' with that official fiat, which is expurgatory in liter- 
 ature, Heaven knows ! anything but classical. In 
 cutting out the treason, Cumberland, oddly enough, 
 says he cut out all the comedy ; and thus joined 
 himself to those who have nothing good in their 
 pieces but what is objectionable. Instead of the 
 Tyler, we have an armourer, called Furnace, who 
 furnishes out the business of the play by ham- 
 mering professionally one Bluster on the head, 
 who was attempting to carry off another Rosa, 
 mond, for the Earl of Suffolk, in the days of 
 Richard the Second. 
 
 Cumberland's armourer lived three days, and 
 then gave way, as he said truly, to fashionable levi- 
 ties. But he was hurt still more on the i8th of 
 the same month of April, by the brilliant success 
 of Reynolds in his third comedy, called, with great 
 propriety, "How to Grow Rich." The dreamers 
 of the old school seem to have settled their notion 
 of what they called legitimate comedy somewhere
 
 218 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 about the " Conscious Lovers ; " they were to be 
 regulated by a receipt, and made like other stale 
 and tiresome amusements, as they had ever been 
 in the days of yore. To "eye nature's walks, 
 to shoot folly as it flies," to present to the 
 audience of the modern stage anything seen in 
 modern life, was somehow or other converted into 
 a crime by these critical playwrights, and the most 
 amusing, if not most instructive of modern authors, 
 has literally been persecuted for painting accu- 
 rately what he saw before him. The "Terence 
 of England," forsooth ! the " mender of hearts," 
 was excessively illiberal through life, and affected 
 to think my ingenious and pleasant friend a mere 
 idler of the garden, who under the awful roof of 
 Drury would be hooted ignominiously from the 
 stage. But in reference to the present play, where 
 could a comic satirist find more legitimate prey (if 
 that is the word) than the infamous faro banks, 
 that were now exciting the avarice and racking the 
 nerves of what should be the purest, as it is cer- 
 tainly the fairest part of the creation ? What more 
 morally in harmony, than the gibbeting a scoundrel 
 bailiff to infamy, who opened his luxurious retire- 
 ments to profligate gamblers, and taught the dis- 
 honest of high life how the defiance of injured
 
 MRS. JORDAN 219 
 
 creditors and splendid accommodation might be 
 enjoyed together ? 
 
 As to Mr. Lewis and his padded Epilogue, I 
 can only say that I never heard such roars of 
 laughter in a theatre ; and the notion, though 
 hazardous, was lucky ; but it was safe by what had 
 prepared its way : the temper of the house had 
 been worked up to it. Had it followed a dull 
 comedy, Lewis must have kept the pad in his 
 pocket to have but named it might have been 
 fatal. It was encored like a favourite air, " Pray 
 Goody," by Sinclair, or any other vocalist equally 
 sweet and natural, if there be one. Aye, and a 
 third time! but that exceeded Mr. Lewis's com- 
 plaisance, and the pad carried him off, or he the 
 pad, in measureless content. I really was almost 
 as happy as the author.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 History of Drury Lane Theatres Their Origin in the Cockpit, 
 a Little Before the Retirement of Shakespeare Destroyed 
 by a Mob in 1617 The Phoenix Built in the Same Spot 
 Its Preservation in the Great Rebellion Rhodes, the Book- 
 seller, and His Two Apprentices, Betterton and Kynaston 
 Obtains a License First for the Phoenix, and Then Joins 
 D'Avenant in Lincoln's Inn Fields A New Theatre Erected 
 by Killigrew in Drury Lane Opened in 1662; Burnt Nine 
 Years Afterward A Church Brief Granted on This Calam- 
 ity Sir Christopher Wren Builds Once More upon the Old 
 Spot The Advantages of His Plan Displayed by Colley 
 Cibber Apology for Its Plainness in a Prologue and Epi- 
 logue by the Great Dryden, Spoken at Its Opening in 1674 
 Union of the Two Companies in Drury Lane Theatre 
 Christopher Rich, Patentee Silenced by the Chamberlain 
 Patents Dormant Sir Richard Steele's License to Himself, 
 Wilks, Booth, and Cibber Mr. Highmore Mr. Fleetwood 
 The Illustrious Garrick Becomes Purchaser with Mr. Lacy 
 -Twenty Years' Splendour of Old Drury On the Great 
 Actor's Retirement, Sheridan Succeeds Him At Length 
 the House is Taken Down Author's Regard for It, and 
 Personal Acquaintance with Its Merits and Its Defects 
 Presages on Its Fall. 
 
 HE Drury Lane company acted under 
 the management of Mr. Colman at the 
 Little Theatre from the beginning of 
 the season 1793-94 until their own theatre was 
 ready for them. It looked a mere continuation of 
 
 220
 
 MRS. JORDAN 221 
 
 a summer season, and merits no particular survey. 
 Until, therefore, we have Mr. Holland's splendid 
 palace to walk into, we shall fill what may be 
 called the vacant space by inquiring what theatres 
 or playhouses ever stood upon or near the site of 
 the late theatre of Drury Lane. 
 
 The reader will not be surprised to find a cock- 
 pit produce a playhouse to cut off a segment of 
 the circle, and apply a scaffolding of some depth 
 as well as width provides easily in the daytime for 
 both spectators and performers. The cockpit 
 was present to the mind of Shakespeare when he 
 opened the warlike play of " Henry the Fifth." 
 
 " Can this cockpit hold 
 The vasty fields of France ? " 
 
 But Shakespeare's playhouses were the Globe, 
 a summer, and the Blackfriars, a winter quarters. 
 The cockpit in Drury Lane dates somewhere 
 about the period of his retirement from the scene, 
 for in 1617 it was destroyed by the rabble, though 
 newly erected, and all its apparatus along with the 
 building. The new edifice on the same spot was 
 called the Phoenix, which fabulous bird it bore in 
 front for a sign, and thus pointed to a conflagra- 
 tion as well as a renewal. It stood opposite the 
 Castle Tavern, and weathered the great rebellion
 
 222 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 as to its exterior, though the saints were far too 
 pure to allow a representation within of the trage- 
 dies of any other age. 
 
 The actors there, while we had a stage, were 
 called the queen's servants in the reign of James 
 the First until Queen Anne died in 1619. They 
 then became the Lady Elizabeth's ; and when 
 Charles the First married Henrietta of France, 
 they were styled the queen's servants again. It is 
 probable that Sir William d'Avenant, some time 
 before the Restoration, both at the Phoenix and 
 within the city walls, invited those who had not 
 totally been canted out of all rational enjoyment 
 to some mixed species of entertainment. But 
 with the actual return of the king, all restraint be- 
 ing removed, Rhodes, a bookseller who had con- 
 ducted the wardrobe of the Blackfriars during the 
 long reign of Fletcher, and had kept his fondness 
 alive through the dreary interval, fitted up the 
 cockpit once more, and got together a company, 
 some of whom he had contributed, it is probable, 
 to form, for Betterton and Kynaston had been his 
 apprentices. Rhodes, when Betterton was bound 
 to him, lived near Charing Cross, and it is fairly 
 presumable that his former station in the play- 
 house and his congenial business led him to pre-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 223 
 
 serve much stage literature from destruction ; so 
 that when at length a complete collection was 
 attempted, the stores of Rhodes would supply the 
 Herringman's with the quarto plays, which he had 
 so frequently dressed from the wardrobe he super- 
 intended. One can hardly forbear to imagine the 
 ardour of our two youths invading the repose of 
 these silent plays, and at a favourable season 
 drawing from their good-humoured master some 
 notions as to the various talents by which so much 
 genius was illustrated. In 1659, when Rhodes 
 got his license, Betterton was out of his time as 
 a bookseller; but a hint from his old master 
 brought him again into his service, and he could 
 not have met with a better guide as to the busi- 
 ness of the stage. Betterton applied himself to 
 the works of Fletcher with uncommon ardour, and 
 was speedily followed as the genuine successor of 
 the heroes of the Blackfriars in his " Loyal Sub- 
 ject," "Wild-goose Chase," "Spanish Curate," 
 and the immense variety which he had composed. 
 
 When D'Avenant and Killigrew obtained their 
 two patents, Rhodes thought it idle to stand out 
 upon his license at the Phoenix, and his company 
 joined that with which D'Avenant opened the 
 theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, under the style of
 
 224 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 the duke's servants. The superior title followed 
 the patent of Killigrew, the " king's servants ; " 
 and they at first acted in a house situated near 
 Clare market. However, finding this building ill 
 adapted to the purposes of playing, they resolved 
 to return to the old spot, and erected a new and 
 convenient theatre in Drury Lane. It was opened 
 on the 8th of April, 1662. But theatres have 
 been combustible from their origin, and this new 
 and sumptuous building was totally consumed in 
 the month of January, 1671-72. So rapid and 
 fierce was the conflagration that between fifty and 
 sixty adjacent houses were either burnt or blown 
 up.' We have so far benefited by experience that 
 the adjacent buildings now suffer less by the 
 destruction of our theatres, though their condem- 
 nation to the flames seems to be almost a patent 
 right, and a danger attached to the privilege. 
 
 1 The union of Church and king is usual, perhaps indissoluble, 
 but that of Church and theatre little to be looked for in any 
 age. A brief, however, was actually read through the kingdom 
 for the benefit of our stage sufferers. The register of Symons- 
 bury, in the county of Dorset, has the following liberal entry : 
 
 "Ann. 1673, April 27th. Collected by brief, for the Theatre 
 Royal in London, being burnt, the sum of Two Shillings. 
 'JOHN WAY, Curate, 
 
 " JAMES MOREY, > 
 
 \ Churchwardens? 
 " GEORGE SEAL, >
 
 MRS. JORDAN 225 
 
 The proprietors were not discouraged as to the 
 seat of the Muses, and determined, with all the 
 care they could take, to rebuild on the ancient 
 spot. They consulted Sir Christopher Wren 
 upon the subject, and put themselves with full 
 confidence in the hands of that great man. He 
 produced a plan which combined every advantage 
 to both actor and spectator, and was deliberately 
 approved and adopted by men of the soundest 
 judgment. The king himself, by command, had 
 sanctioned the plain, unornamented style of the 
 building; and the rule that pleasure, as we ad- 
 vance in intellect, proceeds from the eye to the 
 ear, seemed to have dictated all the internal ar- 
 rangements of the architect. Gibber, who knew 
 it in its perfection, before avarice had spoiled it, 
 thus contrasts its appearance forty years before 
 the time in which he was then writing : " The 
 area or platform of the old stage projected about 
 four feet forwarder in a semi-oval figure, parallel 
 to the benches of the pit ; the former lower doors 
 of entrance for the actors were brought down 
 between the two foremost (and then only) pilas- 
 ters ; in the place of which doors now the two 
 stage boxes are fixed. Where the doors of entrance 
 now are, there formerly stood two additional side
 
 226 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had 
 then almost a double effect in their loftiness and 
 magnificence. By this original form the usual 
 station of the actors in almost every scene was 
 advanced at least ten feet nearer to the audience 
 than they now can be, because, not only from the 
 stage's being shortened in front, but likewise from 
 the additional interposition of those stage boxes, 
 the actors (in respect of the spectators that fill 
 them) are kept so much more backward from the 
 main audience than they used to be ; but when 
 the actors were in possession of that forwarder 
 space to advance upon, the voice was then more 
 in the centre of the house, so that the most dis- 
 tant ear had scarce the least doubt or difficulty in 
 hearing what fell from the weakest utterance ; all 
 objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; 
 every painted scene was stronger ; every grand 
 scene and dance more extended ; every rich or 
 fine coloured habit had a more lively lustre; nor 
 was the minutest motion of a feature (properly 
 changing with the passion or humour it suited) 
 ever lost, as they frequently must be in the ob- 
 scurity of too great a distance : and how valuable 
 an advantage the facility of hearing distinctly is 
 to every well-acted scene, every common spectator
 
 MRS. JORDAN 227 
 
 is a judge : a voice scarce raised above the tone of 
 a whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, inno- 
 cent distress, or jealousy suppressed, often has 
 as much concern with the heart as the clamorous 
 passions ; and when on any of these occasions 
 such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, 
 how wide is the difference, from the great or little 
 satisfaction received from them." 
 
 This great man (for the reader must pardon, on 
 this occasion, my utter contempt for Pope's injus- 
 tice) well understood the subject, and spoke as an 
 actor who had personally felt the happy effects 
 resulting from Wren's original plan. The royal 
 injunction was, probably, in exact conformity with 
 the taste of the architect, who said with Shylock : 
 
 " Let not the glare of shallow foppery enter 
 My sober dwelling." 
 
 D'Avenant, with the second patent, had at 
 length settled in Dorset Gardens, and was turned 
 by nature to decoration. The "true state of 
 man " seemed to him bare and wretched ; he 
 loaded building with ornament, covered the stage 
 with tawdry procession and new invented ma- 
 chinery ; imagined even the full fables of Shakes- 
 peare's age deficient in effect : clapt two plays
 
 228 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 together, and re-wrote passages that should have 
 been more particularly sacred to him as the god- 
 son of Shakespeare ; " and if the rest be true 
 which we have heard," this degener Neoptolemus 
 became the decided enemy of simplicity and gen- 
 uine nature in the drama : 
 
 " Teem'd with new monsters, which the modest earth 
 Had to the marbled mansion, all above, 
 Never presented." 
 
 In this course of its patent rival, the new 
 theatre in Drury Lane opened on the 26th of 
 March, 1674, and to their disgrace apologised for 
 the plainness which was their real excellence. 
 They even pleaded the royal order as extenuation, 
 and showed their envy by adverting to the en- 
 couragement which the public, as they admitted, 
 had bestowed upon the scenery and decorations of 
 the other house. 
 
 Not contented with the authority of the throne, 
 they procured the " Patriarch of Poetry " to state 
 their case for them, and a few extracts from 
 Dryden's prologue on the occasion will show what 
 the plainness was of which they complained : 
 
 " A plain-built house, after so long a stay, 
 Will send you half unsatisfied away ;
 
 MRS. JORDAN 229 
 
 When, fall'n from your expected pomp, you find 
 A bare convenience only is design'd ; 
 You, who each day can theatres behold, 
 Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold, 
 Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we fear ; 
 And for the homely room disdain the cheer. 
 
 " For fame and honour we no longer strive, 
 We yield in both, and only beg to live : 
 Yet, if some pride, with want, may be allow'd, 
 We, in our plainness, may be justly proud 
 Our royal master will'd it should be so. 
 
 " While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign, 
 And for the pencil you the pen disdain : 
 'Tis to be fear'd 
 
 That, as a fire the former house o'erthrew, 
 Machines and tempests will destroy the new." 
 
 Dryden, luckless Dryden, here for his price 
 attacked himself. He and D'Avenant absolutely 
 wrote and contrived this "Tempest," which was 
 then acting at Dorset Gardens. The new house 
 had, however, some merits, and Dryden's epilogue 
 shall tell us what they were : 
 
 " Our house relieves the ladies from the frights 
 Of ill-pav'd streets, and long dark winter nights. 
 The Flanders horses, from a cold, bleak road, 
 Where bears, in furs, dare scarcely look abroad."
 
 230 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 However, he has one capital hit at the Dorset 
 Garden Minerva. That theatre was adorned with 
 the portraits of all our great poets, a matchless 
 decoration ! 
 
 " Though in their house the Poets' heads appear, 
 We hope we may presume their wits are here." 
 
 I should like, as a matter of curiosity, to know, 
 under D'Avenant's eye, what likeness of Shakes- 
 peare his theatre exhibited. 
 
 There was not, in this great city, at that time, 
 sufficient encouragement to support two patent 
 theatres, which, after a few years' struggle, united 
 the two companies under the roof of Wren's thea- 
 tre. After sundry changes both patents came 
 into the possession of Christopher Rich, but on 
 his misconduct in the management, the chamber- 
 lain silenced him in the year 1709; from which 
 time the Drury Lane company ceased to act under 
 the authority of either Killigrew or D'Avenant's 
 patents. But in the first year of the reign of 
 George I. a license was granted to Sir Richard 
 Steele for his life, and, three years afterward, to 
 establish a company under the management of 
 himself, Wilks, Booth, and Gibber. From this 
 period may be dated the vast ascendency of Drury 
 Lane theatre. The death of the two former pro-
 
 .S7; Riclutd 
 Engraved in me/zotint by I. Smith, from the paint. 
 Jonathan Richardson (1713)
 
 MRS. JORDAN 231 
 
 prietors, and the secession of the two latter, how- 
 ever, shook the concern to its centre, and the 
 property passed into the hands of Mr. Highmore, 
 who ruined himself in the speculation. The 
 theatre was now bought by Mr. Fleet wood, 
 another architect of ruin. But the brightest 
 star in the theatrical firmament soon became 
 stationary over Old Drury, and, in 1747, Mr. 
 Garrick's amazing talent, and Mr. Lacy's care, 
 commenced a period the most brilliant which ever 
 occurred in stage-management, and of which the 
 providence was equally conspicuous with the genius. 
 The twentieth year beheld the setting of the great 
 luminary we have mentioned, and the theatre en- 
 joyed the promise of a new but somewhat different 
 splendour. Mr. Sheridan, in 1776, became pro- 
 prietor of the concern ; for of his partners it is 
 unnecessary to speak. His eccentric, brilliant, 
 but yet unsteady course, if it satisfied himself, 
 was little calculated to emulate the management 
 of Garrick as a statesman, he lived without 
 office, and with only the fame of eloquence ; as 
 a poet, he depended upon the display made in his 
 youth, and which his most pressing and vital 
 interest could not induce him to repeat ; he had 
 even the powers of a man of business, but he
 
 232 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 exerted them too seldom tc have much efficacy 
 in his concerns. Where Garrick amassed a 
 splendid fortune, Sheridan accumulated nothing 
 but debt ; and he sealed his fate by the encum- 
 brances which the building of a national theatre 
 upon a vast scale necessarily fastened upon the 
 concern. 
 
 After showing the succession to the property, 
 there are yet a few particulars to notice as to the 
 Old Drury. After standing near 120 years, it 
 was at last taken down. The complaint of Gibber 
 regarded the position of the stage. He does not 
 charge the alterations with anything beyond trying 
 to contain a greater number of spectators. It is 
 rare, I think, for a house to change its whole char- 
 acter in its alterations. Garrick received it a 
 plain theatre, and the Adamses, by their improve- 
 ments, certainly did not greatly decorate it. To 
 the last, for I can bring it very accurately to my 
 mind's eye, it was a plain theatre as to its interior. 
 It had the common defect of all our theatres 
 except the Opera House, namely, that the pit 
 doors of entrance were close to the orchestra, and, 
 as they did not choose to leave the most valuable 
 part of the house without its complement, and 
 there was no mode of forcing the people who sat
 
 MRS. JORDAN 233 
 
 at a distance to inconvenience themselves, the 
 doorkeepers, by the box-screw, kept winding in 
 their late arrivals ; and the pressure into the mass 
 close to it, already ill at ease, and dreading a new 
 attack every moment from a rushing current of 
 cold air, which ushered in the stranger, occasioned 
 fits among the women, and fights among the men, 
 while the stage and the boxes alike suspended 
 every other amusement but looking on till silence 
 was restored. 
 
 Over this "perturbed spirit" I have seen the 
 solemn countenance of Kemble bent with calm 
 attention, and the assumed sympathy of Palmer 
 bow with graceful ambiguity. Mrs. Siddons had 
 somewhat more difficulty, for she could not be 
 sure always whether the disturbance arose from 
 the desire to see her, or the hysteric results of 
 that painful pleasure. Miss Farren, on these 
 occasions, relaxed the lovely smile which usually 
 sat upon her features, and looked among her 
 fashionable friends for pity that she should be so 
 annoyed. Mrs. Jordan saw it with the eyes of the 
 character she most commonly performed, and, at 
 the first symptom of composure below, started off 
 into the sprightly action and the unfailing laugh 
 which she had only to will and they obeyed.
 
 234 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 It was into this theatre that Garrick introduced 
 the French improvement of the trap or floating- 
 light in front of the stage, screened from the spec- 
 tators, and reflected upon the actor. Undoubtedly 
 it alters the course of nature, and casts shadow 
 upward it displays the hollows which expression 
 would wish to soften, and so far is decidedly un- 
 picturesque. But no artist has yet been able to 
 throw sufficient light downwards, and not lengthen 
 the shadows beyond the proper measure, and the 
 glittering chandelier, when lowered, is always 
 wished away by those seated above, so that we are 
 likely to remain as we are in the illumination of 
 our theatres. 
 
 The parting with Old Drury was a subject of 
 real grievance to many of its steady frequenters 
 they looked upon its limits as hallowed, and its 
 form as prescriptive ; they shrunk from the ap- 
 proaches of opera and spectacle. They said it 
 was the naturalisation of foreign habits, which 
 would debase, if they did not destroy, the plain 
 substance of our native tragedy and comedy.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Grand National Theatre Description of It Opening 
 with Sacred Music First Play Acted on the 2ist of April 
 Innovations of Mr. Kemble in " Macbeth " The Bell The 
 Dagger The Ghost of Banquo Musical Witches 
 Charles Kemble Securities from Fire Reservoir Iron 
 Curtain Mere Tricks The Vanity of Speculative Science 
 
 Mrs. Jordan not Employed Kemble Miss Farren Does 
 the Honours Fitzpatrick G. Colman Mr. Cumberland's 
 Comedy of the " Jew " The Gratitude of Israel Kemble's 
 "Lodoiska" Three Farces Three Days Together Mrs. 
 Jordan Acts for the Widows and Orphans Made on the ist 
 of June Three Farces Again, and for Four Days Harris 
 versus Kemble In the Summer, John Bannister at Liver- 
 pool Winter of 1794-95 Mrs. Davenport A Shilling 
 Gallery Put Up " Emilia Galotti " at Drury " Nobody " 
 Mrs. Jordan's Fright The " Rage " The " Wedding Day " 
 of Mrs. Inchbald Mrs. Jordan's Portrait Seen Again by the 
 Author, Forty Years after It Was Painted Her Helena 
 
 " Measure for Measure " Miss Mellon Mrs. Coutts 
 The Duchess Miss Arne " Alexander the Great," a 
 Ballet. 
 
 i HE architect of the Grand National 
 Theatre, language suited to the revolu- 
 tionary ideas then prevailing, had en- 
 tirely, here, given up the plan on which he had 
 constructed the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 
 
 235
 
 236 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 which displayed, internally, a sort of Dutch bulge 
 to its tiers of boxes, not unlike the marine style of 
 that solid people. He aimed at the substantial 
 where his space was confined, and at the light and 
 lofty where he had no limitations but his own feel- 
 ing. Looking to the long-established characters 
 of the two companies, one might have expected 
 him to reverse such an arrangement, and bestow 
 his levity on Mr. Harris. However, the facts 
 admit of no question ; they have both experienced 
 the same fate not a vestige of either theatre 
 remains. 
 
 The new Drury had very little frontage to its 
 boxes, and the divisions between them were only 
 shoulder high, so that there was no difficulty in 
 being seen or seeing. The covings of the upper 
 tier were lofty arches of the pointed order. There 
 were eight private boxes on the stage, and eight 
 dull and inconvenient slips, also called private, on 
 each side of the pit. It was at times difficult to 
 keep the standers in the pit from trespassing 
 on their fronts, and their hats, and sometimes 
 greatcoats, on a wet evening, made the secluded 
 gentry doubtful whether they could enjoy their 
 privilege unmolested. The tiers were not left 
 without some seeming support, and the most
 
 MRS. JORDAN 237 
 
 delicate candelabra of cast iron, fluted, and silver 
 lacquered, resting on the most elegant feet, at 
 intervals satisfied both the fancy and the eye. 
 Well relieved cameos, by Rebecca, ornamented 
 the fronts of the boxes ; the designs, which, how- 
 ever, could not be inspected, were from Ovid. 
 The four tiers of boxes, light as they seemed, 
 would absolutely contain 1,828 persons; the pit, 
 800 ; the two shilling gallery, 675 ; and the shil- 
 ling summit, or Olympus, 308 ; making a grand 
 total of 3,6 1 1 persons, who, if they all paid, sent 
 no less a sum than ^826 6s. into the treasury for 
 one night's amusement. I hesitate not to say that 
 there was comfort in every part of this theatre. 
 Mr. Holland had not crippled his gallery friends 
 by any necessity for stooping that they might see. 
 The beautiful dome over the pit was positively at 
 the height of fifty-six feet and a half from its floor. 
 The pit itself had twenty-five seats, and its depth 
 from the orchestra was fifty-four feet ; its width, 
 from side-box to side-box, forty-six feet. The 
 curtain on the stage measured a space of forty- 
 three feet, and its height was thirty-eight feet. 
 All this gives an impression of vastness, which 
 was never felt inside ; and there was a peculiarity 
 about this edifice that took away the chilling effect
 
 238 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 when subjected sometimes to a thin audience : a 
 few persons could seem to people the structure. 
 
 The exterior of this theatre was never com- 
 pleted. To put the house in a condition to admit 
 the public was the one thing needful ; what re- 
 mained could be revived from time to time as 
 a subject of conversation, and dropped when it 
 had answered the purpose of a " note of prepara- 
 tion " for the annual opening. But, indeed, to 
 give room for the whole design, the neighbour- 
 hood ought to have been changed, and the street 
 thrown back to the north, and the miserable 
 courts to the south swept away. To the west 
 only is there even tolerably free access for 
 carriages. 
 
 After a reasonable course of sacred music in 
 Lent, always improper as amusement, this theatre, 
 on the 2 1st of April, opened for its legitimate 
 objects, and the great object of Kemble's policy, 
 as well as taste, the representation of Shake- 
 speare's tragedies, and the sterling comedies of 
 every age, produced with suitable care and im- 
 provements, and followed by entertainments which 
 should not disgrace them. He thus established 
 Mrs. Siddons and himself in full scenic sover- 
 eignty, and if circumstances should ever provoke
 
 MRS. JORDAN 239 
 
 him to throw up the management, a thing not 
 beyond probability, the more desirable because less 
 responsible predominance as to the staple of the 
 theatre remained in Mr. Kemble and his family. 
 The present stage required scenery certainly thirty- 
 four feet in height, and about forty-two feet in 
 width, so that an entire suite of new scenes was 
 essential on great occasions, though where display 
 was not material the old pieced flats might be run 
 on still, and the huge gaps between them and the 
 wings filled up by any other scenes drawn forward 
 merely " to keep the wind away." 
 
 Dress, too, was now become a matter of no 
 slight moment ; the costume was to be accurate, 
 which was not expensive, and the materials were 
 to be genuine, not imitative, which certainly was 
 expensive, and very heavily so. Mr. Kemble had 
 studied Macbeth for the occasion as though the 
 play had never been done before. As to the 
 Thane of Glamis, he set at nought the prescrip- 
 tive manner of Garrick and others, along with his 
 dress, and merely inquired of the poet, and no 
 doubt fancied him to whisper to his slumbers, how 
 he would now direct his sublimest effort to be per- 
 formed. The first innovation, of any moment, was 
 in the soliloquy preceding the murder. Here he
 
 240 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 altered two points, one of action, and the other 
 of stage direction. Macbeth is on the stage, a 
 servant attending with a torch : 
 
 11 Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, 
 She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed." 
 
 And the servant goes out to do so. Now this 
 appears to have been a signal previously agreed 
 upon, at the hearing which Macbeth was to know 
 that his undaunted partner had prepared every- 
 thing for his hand ; and the bell's ringing would 
 excite no other attention, the servant having been 
 told that it was to announce the spiced cup, taken 
 always the last thing before retiring for the night. 
 Macbeth knew that he was to despatch Duncan 
 with the daggers of his very attendants, and his 
 lady had placed them before him when he entered 
 the royal apartment. This was working, naturally, 
 upon Macbeth's imagination while he remains 
 waiting the signal agreed upon. Hear what he 
 fancies : 
 
 " Macb. Is this a dagger, which I see before me, 
 The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee. 
 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." 
 
 He anxiously questions the nature of that which 
 eludes his grasp, and yet waves before his eye :
 
 MRS. JORDAN 241 
 
 41 1 see thee yet, in form as palpable 
 As this which now I draw. 
 Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going, 
 And such an instrument I was to use." 
 
 Mr. Kemble here drew half-way out of the 
 scabbard the sword he wore; not the dagger, 
 which was more constantly the companion of a 
 chieftain's person. He would not see that " this " 
 was this dagger, and that, though "such an in- 
 strument he was to use," it did not follow it was 
 to be his own, which at the moment was only 
 drawn to contrast corporeity with mere form. 
 After satisfying himself that the bloody business 
 alone had thus deceived his sight, Macbeth falls 
 into the accompanying terrors of "night and 
 silence ; " and at length " a bell rings," as we are 
 told in the only original copy of the play, and he 
 himself adds, " The bell invites me." Mr. Kemble 
 found in the raving slumbers of Lady Macbeth the 
 words " One, two why, then, 'tis time to do it ; " 
 upon which he took the clock for the warning, and 
 adopted it as a more striking signal, and begetting 
 a more awful attention in the audience. He was 
 here decidedly wrong ; no signal could be adopted 
 between them of which Lady Macbeth had not 
 the absolute command, and though the time for
 
 242 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 doing the deed might be about two of the clock, 
 the " moment of it " depended upon complete 
 readiness, which could not be announced till it was 
 perceived. The old manner of doing this is there- 
 fore right. For when "Time, with his hours, 
 should strike two," who can tell what might have 
 occurred ? The ominous owl might have excited 
 at least Duncan's attention, who seems not to 
 have been drugged, like his servile attendants. 
 The rocking earth had aroused some of the guests, 
 and the falling chimneys Lennox and others. Lady 
 Macbeth was to be sure of no impediment in the 
 royal apartment, and to make the signal only on 
 such a certainty ; nay, with all her care, Macbeth, 
 as he approached, heard two of the attendants 
 "wake each other," and stood "listening their 
 fear " until sleep again befriended the murderer. 
 The other point did not rest solely on Mr. 
 Kemble's authority. Lloyd, the poet, in 1761, 
 in his "Actor," that dawn of the Rosciad, thus 
 reproves the old practice of placing Banquo in the 
 seat of Macbeth : 
 
 " When chilling horrors shake the affrighted king, 
 And guilt torments him with her scorpion sting ; 
 When keenest feelings at his bosom pull, 
 And fancy tells him that the seat is full ;
 
 MRS. JORDAN 243 
 
 Why need the ghost usurp the monarch's place, 
 To frighten children with his mealy face ? 
 The king alone should form the phantom there, 
 And talk and tremble at the vacant chair." 
 
 I have already said that I have nothing to do 
 with the ridiculous mode of scenic effect. The 
 only question is what Shakespeare himself in- 
 tended, and how, without the disappearance and 
 return of the phantom, we are to reconcile the 
 almost momentary alarm of Macbeth a second 
 time, when he had expelled the intruder, and, 
 being gone, found himself again a man ? When 
 his reason and his courage have once triumphed 
 over vacancy, how can fancy so soon repeople the 
 void ? If the answer be that preternatural power 
 alarms the imagination here, it may as well amaze 
 the faculty of eyes and ears ; but the spectators 
 have no means but sight of judging what is 
 fancied by the starting murderer. In the pres- 
 ent case he might fancy Duncan in the regal seat 
 even more naturally than Banquo. But the poet's 
 own direction ought for ever to silence all doubt : 
 
 "Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth' 's place." 
 
 Folio i 1623. 
 
 When he has laid his perturbation to an infirm- 
 ity to which he had long been subject, and, re-
 
 244 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 covering heart, orders some wine to be filled, that 
 he may drink his wishes for Banquo's presence 
 and the general joy, our genuine play again marks 
 the entrance and the place thus, Enter Gtwst. 
 We have nothing to do with the philosophy of 
 the question, whatever it may be, but ought 
 to give absolute visible appearance, at least 
 to an age that did not doubt the possibility of it. 
 The imagination here is in the poet, not the 
 character. 
 
 There were sundry other novelties, perhaps re- 
 vivals, as to the witches and their incantations ; 
 indeed the noble firmness and compactness of 
 the action was dreadfully broken and attenuated 
 by the vast crowds of witches and spirits that 
 filled the stage, and thundered in the ear a music 
 of dire potency. The auxiliary injured the princi- 
 pal, and Matthew Locke became the rival of his 
 master. Mere speech, however masterly, is weak 
 upon the ear after the noise (call it harmony if 
 you will) of a full orchestra, and perhaps fifty 
 voices, with difficulty kept together in tolerable 
 time and tune. But with great readiness I sub- 
 mit to that public decision, which has declared 
 this play, so furnished, the most attractive of all 
 dramatic representations.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 245 
 
 I have already noticed the musical junto, which, 
 by a continual intercourse with Sheridan, consti- 
 tuted no inferior power to that of the manager, 
 and so much outlay could not perhaps have been 
 obtained for tragedy, unless it had embraced 
 the strong plea of combination, and employed the 
 singers of the theatre. On every other occasion, 
 the efforts were commonly made for opera, now 
 growing into a passion among us, fatal to the 
 genuine produce of our drama. 
 
 It was on this night that Charles Kemble, 
 happily rescued from the post-office, commenced 
 in the trivial part of Malcolm his profession of an 
 actor. He had the same preparation as his brother, 
 a classical education, and though he shares the 
 personal advantages of his family, seems to act 
 fairly from himself. Not so naturally gifted for 
 tragedy as his great brother, he is excellent in 
 many first-rate characters of the serious muse, 
 and, in comedy, he assumes a rank between the 
 deliberate, studied politeness of Palmer, and the 
 rattling caricature of a gentleman which sat so 
 delightfully upon Lewis. 
 
 We have still something more to say as to the 
 new theatre. The not distant destruction of the 
 Opera House by fire had excited the attention
 
 246 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 of scientific men to the subject ; and as they could 
 not do much in the way of prevention, since it is 
 and will be the "property of fire to burn," they 
 exhausted themselves, in case of accident, in 
 modes by which the flames might be locally extin- 
 guished, and the audience, in the meantime, cut 
 off from the stage, and, in perfect safety, either 
 wait the result, or quietly and without precipitation 
 walk out of the theatre. But the mistake in all 
 these structures is the communication of the boxes 
 themselves with the stage, and the vent afforded 
 by the circling passages of the respective tiers. 
 These should certainly be cut off by division-walls 
 to the very roof, reaching from the external walls 
 of the theatre to the frontispiece, and a strong 
 division be also made in the very roof itself, so 
 that the whole roof could never be on fire, nor 
 all of it fall in at the same time. An iron curtain 
 to drop down, and a reservoir, with pipes to play 
 on, in all the passages, were tricks to amuse 
 children in such matters. While the audience is 
 in a theatre, and all is stir and vigilance in the 
 building, all the popular danger is from them- 
 selves. Give them plenty of exits, and you do 
 all you can do ; but carelessness, either by day 
 or night, in the workmen or watchmen of a play-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 247 
 
 house, are the true things to guard against. Here 
 to care nothing about expense is salvation to the 
 concern. 
 
 However, something to excite talk and curiosity 
 merely may be excused ; I mean if we should 
 even be of opinion that such men as Sheridan, 
 and Holland, and Kemble, had really slender faith 
 in any of the inventions that time so severely tried 
 and found wanting. Mrs. Jordan had no share in 
 the opening of the new house, so that Kemble 
 and Miss Farren did the honours of the house- 
 warming. A Whig prologue, written by Fitz- 
 patrick, talked a long while about the French 
 Revolution, and at length brought out that this 
 building was reared in honour to somebody, and 
 was 
 
 " The silent tribute of surviving woe." 
 
 Ten lines further on the silence or the secret 
 ended, and it came broadly before us in the " glo- 
 ries of Shakespeare's scene." At that word the 
 audience used their hands, and Mr. Kemble made 
 his bow. Miss Farren had another sort of task. 
 George Colman wrote a pleasant account of all 
 the overdoings he so much despised, and he was 
 both pointed and intelligible. Miss Farren, though 
 a weak speaker of rhyme and poetry at all times,
 
 248 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 exerted herself on this brilliant occasion, and was 
 loudly cheered. He will really dispute the point 
 with me, but except as to " Terence," I prefer his 
 dramatic works to his father's Mr. Colman, the 
 younger, has the stronger mind. 
 
 " Macbeth " was repeated on the four following 
 nights, and yet twice more before the end of the 
 month, and on the 2d, 5th, and 7th of May. On 
 the 8th Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the "Jew" 
 was acted for the first time, of which Bannister, Jr., 
 was the benevolent Israelite. " I am ashamed to 
 say (Mr. C. writes) with what rapidity I despatched 
 that hasty composition." He showed it to Ban- 
 nister act by act as he wrote it. Indeed, to my old 
 friend it was a treasure just then, because it gave 
 him the lead in a successful play, and prevented 
 him from being smothered by the tragedies of 
 Shakespeare, or confined to farce. When Charles 
 Surface was ill (says Sheridan), the Jews put up 
 prayers for him in the synagogue, and some such 
 tributary unexpensive acknowledgments might now 
 have been made by the Goldsmids and the Solo- 
 mons to Mr. Cumberland. Of anything more 
 solid they have hardly been accused. They have 
 never much encouraged the theatres, except from 
 a love of music ; and then the singers were Jews
 
 MRS. JORDAN 249 
 
 Leoni and Braham. Mr. Cumberland deplores 
 the " ridicule and contempt " with which they had 
 been treated on the stage, till Sheva, as I presume 
 he thought, did them justice. Their character is 
 retrievable when Sheva is not extraordinary among 
 them ; in the meantime, they who worship mam- 
 mon so exclusively may pass through a fire of wit 
 to their " grim idol " without any severe mortifi- 
 cation. 
 
 On the Qth of June Mr. Kemble brought out 
 an afterpiece with music, which he had himself 
 translated from the French, called " Lodoiska." 
 There was the usual love incident for Kelly and 
 Crouch, and a band of Tartars with Barrymore 
 at their head, who profited greatly by the march- 
 ing orders which the manager knew so well how 
 to carry, by doing the business himself before 
 them. He got everybody readily to act parts in 
 it, and in dress, and scenery, and music it was a 
 perfect, spirited thing. Cumberland, now all ac- 
 quiescence, cut away an act from his "Natural 
 Son ; " and this four-act play and an entertain- 
 ment were then thought sufficient amusement for 
 the evening. The want of Mrs. Jordan began 
 now to be felt ; Mrs. Siddons had not acted after 
 the first week of June, and Kemble's management
 
 250 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 the three last days of the month was disgraced by 
 three farces, which I preserve as the severest 
 degradation that the great national theatre could 
 feel. 
 
 2/th. The "Children in the Wood" "Bon 
 Ton " " Lodoiska." 
 
 28th. The " Liar " -- " Lodoiska " " My 
 Grandmother." 
 
 30th. The " Children in the Wood " "High 
 Life Below" "Lodoiska." 
 
 The 2d of July was devoted to the benefit of 
 the widows and children of the brave men who 
 perished in Lord Howe's victory of the ist of 
 June. Mrs. Jordan, with the hearty consent of her 
 illustrious naval admirer, volunteered her only 
 performance of the Country Girl that season ; 
 Cobb, one of the readiest and most ingenious men 
 that I have ever known in theatres, ran together a 
 sort of second part of " No Song no Supper," very 
 eagerly taken by the house, which distinguished 
 itself this evening by a sea-fight, that showed all 
 the capabilities of the stage as to scenery and 
 machinery. The spectators coughed and enjoyed 
 the powder. Richardson wrote a very beautiful 
 prologue for the night, and Kemble spoke it. On 
 another occasion, and why not this ? The
 
 MRS. JORDAN 251 
 
 couplet which follows I have marked as tran- 
 scendently fortunate. 
 
 " Glory itself at such a shrine may bow, 
 And what is glory but a name for Howe ? " 
 
 On the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 7th of the month, the 
 town accepted of three farces as above, the " First 
 of June" concluding each evening's entertainment. 
 
 The following season had at least a better esti- 
 mate to guide it of the real force necessary in a 
 company; some of the gas had escaped, and the 
 grand machine was brought nearer to the earth. 
 
 Besides, Covent Garden Theatre had closed 
 early in June, to have time for her projected alter- 
 ations ; for the New Drury appeared so captivat- 
 ing, that nothing but change had any chance with 
 it, and Mr, Harris was not a man to be easily 
 frightened, nor to slumber in a false security. He 
 knew his rival thoroughly, and with all his Hercu- 
 lean strength, ventured to predict that he should 
 beat him, though he possessed the Siddons, the 
 Farren, and the Jordan. 
 
 In the summer of 1 794, the Haymarket Theatre 
 "lost half its soul" John Bannister went to 
 Liverpool, and Charles Kemble and Fawcett to- 
 gether supported his share of serious and comic
 
 252 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 business. The author of "No Song no Supper" 
 wrote an occasional address for Bannister, which 
 enumerated all the parts in which he was cele- 
 brated, and to assist frail memory, I will here run 
 them over, Lenitive, Walter, Sheva, Robin, 
 Trudge, Scout, Jacob, Philpot, Gradus, Vapour. 
 But such a list is itself a proud testimony of the 
 actor's merit. He was, in fact, the inspiring 
 genius of our farce writers. Liverpool did him 
 full justice, and they were no mean judges there 
 of good acting. 
 
 Colman, this summer, was furiously attacked 
 for playing three farces nightly at his theatre; 
 now, the fact is, that summer amusement, like 
 summer clothing, should never be heavy, and there 
 such arrangements were more than excusable ; they 
 were, in some sort, preferable. At the winter 
 theatres, with their extensive companies, such tri- 
 fling should vacate the patent. But the New Drury 
 at that time stood remarkably well with the daily 
 press. 
 
 On the 24th of September, 1794, Mrs. Daven- 
 port, an actress of infinite talent, made her first 
 appearance at Covent Garden Theatre, in which 
 she acted six and thirty years. She came to Lon- 
 don as a substitute for Mrs. Webb; but the sub-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 253 
 
 stitute, like the soldier so called in the militia, was 
 infinitely more fit for the duty than the overgrown 
 original had ever been. She had a very acute per- 
 ception of comic humour, and a strength and ear- 
 nestness that always carried the dialogue home. 
 Her d<but was in the Mrs. Hardcastle of " She 
 Stoops to Conquer." Quick, among our actors, 
 seemed her natural counterpart. I believe this 
 lady, in her long professional career, gave less 
 trouble than had ever been remarked, to either 
 manager, actor, or author she loved her busi- 
 ness, and did it well and cheerfully. While thus 
 remembering the new actress at the rival house, I 
 must not forget the new face which the theatre 
 itself now wore. The original deficiency of a one- 
 shilling gallery was only to be palliated, not cured : 
 part of the pit ceiling was cut away, to allow of a 
 slope view of the stage, and the manager persuaded 
 himself to think all well ; but as to his galleries, 
 he was greatly inferior to his wiser rival. He had, 
 however, given to his boxes an appearance of solid 
 richness his linings, and cappings, and gilding, 
 and ornaments were good, and everything done 
 that could be done, within the old walls, and under 
 the old roof. His judicious adoption of temporary 
 light comedy, with such writers as O'Keefe, Hoi-
 
 254 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 croft, Reynolds, and afterward Morton, brought 
 him great profits. 
 
 The Drury Lane season of 1794-95 commenced 
 rather inauspiciously. I cannot, at this distance, 
 recollect whose translation Mr. Kemble used of 
 Lessing's " Emilia Galotti," but it was acted only 
 four times, and exhibited Mrs. Siddons in a new 
 character to little purpose. Cumberland wrote a 
 prologue to it, and Colman an epilogue, neither of 
 them in danger of preservation, unless the follow- 
 ing argument for the king's humanity, which did 
 not need one, be destined to rival the Oxonian 
 pleasantry of Doctor Johnson : ' 
 
 11 Is he to ruin others' children prone, 
 Who has so many children of his own ?" 
 
 Mrs. Robinson this season added to the failures 
 of the commencement a two-act comedy called 
 " Nobody." An actress formerly herself, she had 
 influence enough to bring the following ladies to- 
 gether in so mere a trifle. I remember the delight 
 
 1 " Who drives fat oxen, should himself be fat." 
 
 As to the king's humanity, I find it questioned by the Whig 
 critic in such matters, Coke of Norfolk ; on whose authority 
 history is to style that excellent man " the worst who ever sat 
 upon a throne," and meriting the title of the "bloody king." 
 His hearers, it appears, hooted the critic down ; perhaps another 
 sort of prostration might have been preferable. Oct. 1830.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 255 
 
 she expressed at Mrs. Jordan's heading the list, 
 followed by Mrs. Goodall, Miss Pope, Miss Collins, 
 Miss Heard, and Miss Decamp. I cannot detail 
 the incidents, but I know well that to have great 
 names for trivial business is certain death to any 
 author. The spectators soon see that the per- 
 formers are discontented in their situations, and if 
 they condescend to them in mere kindness, it is 
 the unkindest thing they can do. The audience 
 soon avenge their complaisance upon the writer of 
 the piece ; what he courted for his support shrinks 
 from the voluntary task, and he falls, good easy 
 man, from his confidence in hollow professions. 
 
 Our dear Mrs. Jordan had powers of kindness 
 equal to her other gifts ; but she was not made for 
 a storm, and grew pitiably nervous if the house 
 showed marks of displeasure and contest, which 
 they liberally or illiberally did in abundance on the 
 present occasion. One might have supposed Mrs. 
 Robinson prescient of her fate by her epilogue, for 
 Mrs. Jordan hurried on to address the audience in 
 the words following : " Half dead and scarce recov- 
 ered from my fright." Recovered ! she was so 
 far from being recovered that she only repeated 
 twenty lines out of the epilogue, that had no con- 
 nection with each other; and the authoress was
 
 256 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 indignant with manager, actress, proprietor, and 
 even the public for not embalming " Nobody." It 
 had a prologue as well as an epilogue, for mere 
 verse cost her nothing. The piece was tried 
 again, but " who can revive the dead ? " 
 
 Mrs. Robinson was a good deal connected with 
 newspapers ; and as her lameness confined her to 
 the chair when at home, she was constantly writ- 
 ing, and tolerably free in her remarks. This 
 always operates mischievously upon the mind of 
 an actor, who is quite sure that the writer turned 
 dramatist will visit failure upon anything rather 
 than his piece that, in fact, had passed his tri- 
 bunal before. 
 
 While this novelty was thus vainly, perhaps not 
 seriously, tried at Drury, Mr. Harris brought out 
 another comedy, by Reynolds, which gave a name 
 to its own success, the " Rage." Their houses 
 were much richer than was ever expected by the 
 manager of Drury Lane. However, Mrs. Inch- 
 bald, almost wedded to Covent Garden, now wrote 
 a farce for Mrs. Jordan, in which I saw her with 
 infinite pleasure. It followed " Emilia Galotti," 
 on the ist of November, 1794, and was called the 
 " Wedding Day." The scenes between Sir Adam 
 Contest (King) and Lady Contest (Mrs. Jordan)
 
 MRS. JORDAN 257 
 
 display some of the most pointed language in the 
 drama, and Mrs. Inchbald fashioned every line to 
 her peculiar manner of utterance. The interest 
 was in a first wife's unexpected return on the very 
 day that her old man had again united himself to 
 a girl of eighteen. The new couple were of the 
 Teazle family, well lowered to farce. It was in 
 this piece that Mrs. Jordan introduced one of the 
 wonders of her ballad style, " In the Dead of the 
 Night," and Cupid knocked at the window, very 
 successfully, of every creature who heard her sing 
 it. It was almost as powerful as the Andromeda 
 of Euripides, at Abdera ; every man almost spoke, 
 however, not iambics, but anapaests : 
 
 " Cupid knock'd at my window, disturbing my rest." 
 
 " In every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet 
 melo dy, which drops from whether it will or no noth- 
 ing but Cupid, Cupid ! The whole city, like the heart of 
 one man, opened itself to love." 
 
 I think one of our occult sages once wrote a book 
 called " Natural Magic ; " this lady had by heart 
 the whole volume. The melody of her voice can- 
 not be revived ; but I, this very morning, had her 
 person and action brought truly before me by 
 a deliberate inspection of the portrait which the
 
 258 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 admirable Romney painted of her in the " Country 
 Girl." It is very properly in the possession of 
 Colonel Fitzclarence, and he may well be proud 
 of such a treasure. There is rather more back 
 than we should now show in lady portraits, but it 
 is perfect as to likeness, and just as naTve as it 
 was proper to exhibit her on canvas, where the 
 expression cannot change. It is a figure so de- 
 lightful altogether that Benedick only can express 
 the feeling it excites : 
 
 I will live in thy eyes, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy 
 heart." 
 
 " Pray, sir," said a young lady to me, " was Mrs. 
 Jordan critically handsome ? " My answer was 
 the absolute truth : " Dear madam, had you seen 
 her as I did, the question would never have 
 occurred to you ! " 
 
 On the 1 2th of December, Mr. Kemble revived 
 "All's Well that Ends Well," by Shakespeare, 
 and acted Bertram himself, but too ill to do any- 
 thing. Mrs. Jordan had here the trouble of study- 
 ing Helena, and curing the King (Mr. Bensley) of 
 a ridiculous disorder, and for a single night's per- 
 formance. There is but one scene that can act 
 upon a large stage, that of Parolles and his drum,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 259 
 
 with which Bannister made some amusement ; 
 au reste there was the beauty of Miss Miller pro- 
 moted from the choruses, and Mrs. Powell for 
 the venerable Countess, who detects the passion 
 of Helena for her son ; but not a hand was raised 
 in their favour, so that all was not well, and could 
 not end well, for it was not repeated. Opera now 
 took its turn, and the indefatigable Cobb brought 
 out his "Cherokee," with all the splendours of 
 scenery, dress, and decoration, now squandered in 
 all directions, to the amazement of poor King, 
 who could not command a few yards of copper 
 lace in his management. Kemble put his brother 
 Charles through all the ranks of the profession 
 here he was a friendly Indian, and coppered his 
 skin, like the great Barrymore, and Messrs. Sedg- 
 wick and Caulfield and Phillimore. How often 
 must he have wished himself in the post-office ! 
 
 " Uno avulso non deficit alter." Not at all hurt 
 by the fall of " All's Well," on the soth of Decem- 
 ber Kemble revived " Measure for Measure," with 
 Mrs. Siddons in the towering virtue of Isabella, 
 and himself in the Duke ; it remained on the stage 
 a perpetuity, finely acted throughout. 
 
 On the 3 ist of January, 1795, under the manage- 
 ment of Mr. Kemble, Miss Mellon, the future Mrs.
 
 260 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Coutts, and the present Duchess of St. Albans 
 (for such fortune may well render a man's style 
 giddy), acted Lydia Languish, in the " Rivals," 
 and obtained an engagement as an intended double 
 for Mrs. Jordan. Miss Farren had Mrs. Goodall 
 in the same secondary station, and Bannister, Jr., 
 now obtained a locum tenens in Captain Wathen, 
 who had long figured in private theatricals. But 
 Miss Mellon must not be passed over so lightly. 
 The public do not generally know that Coutts was 
 not the first banker who had distinguished this 
 young actress. While she was in Stanton's com- 
 pany, Mr. Wright, a banker at Stafford, showed 
 her great attention ; and it was creditable as well 
 as valuable, for his wife and daughters concurred 
 in protecting her. It was there that the member, 
 Sheridan, saw her, and he might strengthen him- 
 self abroad and at home by giving her an immediate 
 engagement at Drury Lane. He saw her in two 
 of Mrs. Jordan's most favourite characters, Rosa- 
 lind and the Romp. She was certainly above 
 mediocrity as an actress, though I used to think 
 too careless to do all she might have done. Her 
 figure was elegant in those days, and there was a 
 rather comic expression in her countenance. Had 
 Jordan never appeared, she might have reached 
 
 \r
 
 MRS. JORDAN 261 
 
 the first rank, and, been contented with her station 
 in a theatre ; few, in any kind of miscarriage, have 
 received such ample consolation. Chance, itself, 
 once contributed a prize of ten thousand pounds 
 to this minion of "Fortune's Frolic." I think 
 there seems to have been a good deal of sagacity 
 in her conduct : she saw her object with that 
 singleness which is necessary to all great success, 
 and made her very disposition itself a herald to 
 her elevation. I never thought her one of those 
 who 
 
 " Plan secret good, and blush to find it fame." 
 
 But a little ostentation may be pardoned in our 
 imperfect virtue. 
 
 The name of Arne is dear to all who love music ; 
 and great hopes were entertained that the doctor's 
 granddaughter would augment as a singer the 
 family honours, but her voice proved too weak for 
 so large a theatre. Her conception of Polly was 
 no doubt traditional, Mrs. Gibber having played 
 the character divinely. 
 
 On the i ith of February M. d'Egville brought 
 out his grand pantomime ballet of " Alexander the 
 Great, or the Conquest of Persia." He here ex- 
 hibited the general incidents of that conqueror's
 
 262 AIRS. JORDAN 
 
 progress, his difficulties in surmounting the appre- 
 hensions and reluctance of his army, his Amazonian 
 alliance, his furious impetuosity at the storming of 
 Gaza, the battle of Arbela, his treatment of Darius 
 and his family, his triumphant entrance into Baby- 
 lon, and marriage with Statira. Grandeur and 
 magnificence, splendid scenery, graceful, energetic, 
 expressive action, characterise this ballet through- 
 out. 
 
 I anticipate the reader's mistake, who may sup- 
 pose me to have been recording a triumph at the 
 Opera House. This performance was at the New 
 Drury, and designed to show all the capabilities of 
 that vast concern. It already rivalled the Italian 
 Opera itself, by its possession of the two Storaces, 
 Kelly, Crouch, Mrs. Bland, and Doctor Arnold's 
 pupil, Miss Leake ; and now ballet was added 
 to their attractions, and they defied everything 
 like competition. For three months together this 
 beautiful exhibition astonished and delighted the 
 public.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Death of Parsons His Peculiar Merits Holland and 
 Powell Spouting Clubs Political Orators Parsons and 
 the Lion The " Wheel of Fortune " Madame d'Arblay 
 Jerningham's " Welsh Heiress," Mrs. Jordan in Plinlim- 
 mon Drury Attacking Its Own Splendours Chaos Umpire 
 in the Concern "Seven Ages" for Mrs. Siddons "First 
 Love," by Cumberland ; Sabina Rosny, Mrs. Jordan Her 
 Enchanting Effect Some Pleasing Recollections Cum- 
 berland's Opinion of Her Nature to Be Upheld by Mrs. 
 Jordan Winter of 1795-96 The "Dependent" The 
 " Rival Queens " Kemble in Alexander Mrs. Jordan Con- 
 fined Miss Decamp in Columbine Mrs. Jordan in Fidelia, 
 Her Power upon Mr. Kemble His Sense of Her Acting in 
 the " Plain Dealer " Gives It to the Author in the Words 
 of Sterne The "Iron Chest," and Its Failure Sheridan 
 Wished Mrs. Jordan in That Play "Vortigern" Has That 
 Advantage ; She Acts Flavia Ireland Chatterton 
 Queen Elizabeth, Her Little Attention to Players Mrs. 
 Jordan Speaks Merry's Epilogue Poor Benson's Death. 
 
 stage had just now sustained a loss 
 which almost palsied comedy in the old 
 humourists of her train. I allude to the 
 death of Parsons on the 3d of February, 1795, in 
 the middle of the season. He had acted his inim- 
 itable Sir Fretful Plagiary on the iQth of January, 
 with his usual effect, though suffering perceptibly 
 
 263
 
 264 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 at the time from the asthma, which had long tor- 
 mented him. He told me that usquebaugh re- 
 lieved him ; but it quieted the irritation by slow 
 destruction, and he was almost a shadow when 
 he died. Nothing can be more true than the 
 ungrateful remark that, whatever be the talent, 
 the real or the mimic world can at least jog on 
 without it. In the case of Parsons, I can hardly 
 now convince myself that his place has ever been 
 supplied. I read over the parts which he made 
 his own, Corbaccio, Foresight, Moneytrap, Don 
 Manuel, Skirmish, Davy, Crabtree, Doiley, Sir 
 Fretful Plagiary, Alscrip. I find that they still 
 are acted, and rejoice that I have been mistaken. 
 Parsons was born in the year 1736, and had just 
 completed his fifty-ninth year when he quitted the 
 scene. He was educated at St. Paul's, and in- 
 tended to be an architect, but the life of his build- 
 ing, to use Shakespeare's language, was stolen by 
 such assassins of business as Holland and Powell, 
 who cast the rough honesty of Parsons in Kent, 
 and figured away themselves in Mad Tom and 
 Lear. However, when they came from the spout- 
 ing club to the Little Theatre in 1756, the adage 
 was verified, as to Parsons, 
 
 Thus safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall."
 
 MRS. JORDAN 265 
 
 He retained his original Kent but his friend 
 Powell dropped from Lear to the Bastard, to 
 rise again in good time to the elevation of the 
 club. 
 
 The very memory of a spouting club is almost 
 dead among us. But it was by no means a useless 
 assemblage, either as to probation or amusement. 
 In our youth we have visited several, and do not 
 think that either business or morals suffered so 
 much by them as by the more stylish amusements 
 of the present day. And if the large rooms in 
 houses of public entertainment are to be occupied 
 by orators, rather than hear the Thelwall's, the 
 Gale Jones's, the Cobbetts, and the Hunts, with 
 the noisy company they collect about them, our 
 choice is made : let us have the quiet refreshment 
 "that cheers but not inebriates," and listen to 
 even attempts, that give voice and action to the 
 lofty sense or intense passion of Shakespeare and 
 Otway ! Anything but this eternal destruction of 
 the poor world's peace by the enforcement of 
 speculative rights, never to be limited, and always 
 contested. 
 
 We beg pardon of the great actor's memory, 
 and return to celebrate his steady allegiance to a 
 theatre royal. He never could be tempted to
 
 266 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 quit the standard of his master, Garrick, and he 
 passed as an heirloom into the possession of Sher- 
 idan. 
 
 Architecture had made Parsons at least a 
 draughtsman, and I have seen some attempts in 
 oil, not contemptible, from his pencil. Let me 
 bear witness to his rich and singular power of 
 telling a story. One of his best has been versi- 
 fied by a very dear old friend, and called "Par- 
 sons the Actor and the Lion ; " and it is done as 
 well as a very humourous pen can do it, but the 
 face of the actor must be wanting the manner 
 of him, whose toe had touched a lion at the bed's 
 foot the shaggy mane the verification of the 
 fact the agony of suspense the knocks that 
 might wake the savage to their distraction, all 
 this should be seen and heard, but the reader 
 may enjoy his share of the event by turning to 
 page 1 80 in the second volume of Mr. Taylor's 
 poems. 
 
 The order of time leads me through losses that 
 cannot be repaired and gains that are soon ex- 
 hausted to the production, by Mr. Kemble, of a 
 play by Cumberland that is still popular. I mean 
 his " Wheel of Fortune," acted a first time on the 
 28th of February, 1795. It has a remarkable
 
 MRS. JORDAN 267 
 
 similarity to Kotzebue's " Stranger," of which he 
 might have heard some account, for, I believe, he 
 did not read German. He seems merely to have 
 used the hero, for Cumberland's lady is the wife of 
 Penruddock's false friend. The deep penitence 
 of Mrs. Haller is a striking feature in the German 
 which is weakness itself, as hinted only, in the 
 Woodville family. But Cumberland has a masterly 
 improvement where he makes Penruddock unfold 
 his wretchedness to the son of the very man who 
 had destroyed him by treachery. Kemble played 
 this character so as never to be forgotten ; he 
 had worked it into his heart, as if he believed 
 it part of his own personal history ; he kindled 
 so in his course, that when he stated who had 
 betrayed him to his brother Charles, who acted 
 Henry Woodville, that gentleman for an instant 
 was as an actor thrown off his poise, and rendered 
 motionless with agony. He told me this himself, 
 and that the frequent rehearsals had no power 
 whatever to prepare him for the terrific energy of 
 the disclosure before the audience. 
 
 In the " Wheel of Fortune " Miss Farren acted 
 Lady Tempest, one of those elegant sketches of 
 her sex that you may call by any name, very 
 agreeable, but not striking. Mr. Cumberland
 
 268 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 next determined to work for Mrs. Jordan, and 
 the same season, on the I2th of May, produced 
 his "First Love." 
 
 Madame D'Arblay tried a tragedy called " Edwy 
 and Elgiva," of which Mr. Kemble had no opin- 
 ion, though he and his sister played in it ; and 
 Mr. Jerningham, a very amiable man and a poet 
 of some fashion, procured his " Welsh Heiress " 
 one night's hearing ; and the magic of Plinlimmon, 
 for such was the mountainous appellation Mrs. 
 Jordan stood under, "bowed its cloud-capt head." 
 The characters of this play seemed to have been 
 suggested by some of the ancient mysteries and 
 moralities ; for instance, there were in one comedy 
 Fashion, Classical Frenzy, Fancy, and Conscience, 
 males, performed by Barrymore, Bannister, Jr., R. 
 Palmer, and Suett. 
 
 Barrymore, not well at home in Fashion, could 
 not learn the prologue, and it was read in this 
 perfect theatre ; and, as if the powers of the state 
 were in disunion, the epilogue, by Field Marshal 
 Conway, was permitted to attack the entry of 
 "Alexander into Babylon" and the Amazonian 
 Nudes ; though Harris, at the other house, was 
 beggaring himself to rival its splendour by get- 
 ting up Noverre's " Peleus and Thetis " in the
 
 MRS. JORDAN 269 
 
 court of Edward the Third. Chaos was come 
 again, and Kemble ought to have resigned at 
 once. Even Mrs. Siddons, in the dignity of form 
 and the power of expression able to have quelled 
 the impostor Mahomet, assumed the juvenile Pal- 
 myra for her benefit, and acted the Emmeline of 
 Dryden's "Arthur" after it; and Sam. Rogers, 
 Esq., wrote an address which would have suited 
 Jordan l or Farren to a tag, but rendered such a 
 woman as Siddons insipid. Lady Macbeth and 
 Volumnia, for "she cannot lay aside what grows 
 to her," talking of a time 
 
 " When the red coral rings its silver bells." 
 
 A sort of " Seven Ages " of woman, written with 
 some neatness, but requiring much curtailment, 
 for it was eighty-six lines. This was on the 2 7th 
 of April, and on the 2d of May, poor Mrs. Powell, 
 out of her wits for attraction to her night, appeared 
 in Young Norval. But these " fierce vanities " dis- 
 posed of, on the I2th of May "First Love" was 
 
 1 This notion of the author's appears to have had full counte- 
 nance from Mr. Rogers himself, who, in April, 1797, gave it to 
 Reynolds for an epilogue to his comedy of the " Will," and it 
 was then really spoken by Mrs. Jordan. Reynolds added, on 
 the change of speaker, some breadth to the fun, for which the 
 gay actress thought herself obliged to him.
 
 270 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 acted at the theatre so trifled with, and displayed 
 the skill of the veteran, good taste, and elegant 
 diction. Two such comedies in one season are 
 among the rarities of dramatic fertility. But Mrs. 
 Jordan here made a beautiful display of herself. 
 It was in a character called Sabina Rosny, whose 
 noble parents had perished in the French Revolu- 
 tion, and who, alone and unprotected, had effected 
 her escape to Italy. There, an English lord, in 
 her own language, " basely betrayed her by a 
 pretended marriage." Hear Mrs. Jordan utter 
 the following : 
 
 "What can I say or do? Shall a poor alien like me 
 contend with power like his ? Your laws will not redress 
 me ; my religion is not his religion. I know not who is that 
 Italian monk that married us I know not where to find 
 him; or, if I could, what then? My lord would little care 
 for that." 
 
 This is part of a lovely scene between Sabina 
 and Lady Ruby (Miss Farren), the first of the 
 fourth act. I have seldom seen Miss Farren to 
 more advantage : substantially, Lady Ruby is an- 
 other Lady Emily Gayville, and Sabina is a more 
 interesting Miss Alton. The offending Lord Sen- 
 sitive has still a large fund of slumbering honour 
 about him, that a suggestion will startle into
 
 MRS. JORDAN 271 
 
 atonement. Lady Ruby's probe is keen enough 
 to wake the dead. His lordship's journey to 
 Padua is spared by a delighted sylph at his elbow, 
 whose generous apology for her husband's error 
 threw everybody into tears. 
 
 " Sabina. I know not how to call it an offence, for what 
 am I ? My fortune nothing, my nobility a shadow ; a heart 
 to honour you is all that I can boast. How, then, can I be 
 angry, if, when returned to your own happy country, where 
 so many fairer ladies courted your attention, you forgot 
 poor, humble, lost Sabina." 
 
 A rival dramatist has noticed the great defi- 
 ciency of comedy in this play. I know not, with- 
 out being extraneous or violent, how it could have 
 been supplied. The reader of " First Love " will 
 hardly fail to find, with a favourite poet, 
 
 " The broadest laugh unfeeling Folly wears, 
 Less pleasing far, than Virtue's very tears." 
 
 What little humour the author could afford us 
 was in safe hands. Bannister, Jr., had a gener- 
 ous young seaman, and played it with great spirit. 
 Suett, who acted Billy Bustler, was a nervous, but, 
 therefore, safe actor ; he always kept the line and 
 felt the temper of the house. The Wrangler of 
 Miss Pope was the portrait of too large a por- 
 tion of fashionable women. King, Palmer, and
 
 272 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Wroughton were well suited, and the piece did 
 great service to the theatre. 
 
 Upon the subject of " First Love," Mr. Cumber- 
 land thus expresses himself. "When two such 
 exquisite actresses conspired to support me, I will 
 not be so vain as to presume I could have stood 
 without their help." (Mem. vol. ii. p. 281.) 
 
 But he has still more strongly marked his admi- 
 ration of our Euphrosyne, in a true and melan- 
 choly revision of our stage improvements. These 
 are his words : " If nature can hardly be upheld 
 by Mrs. Jordan, or Shakespeare by Mr. Kemble, 
 what author in his senses will attempt a comedy 
 more legitimate than the 'Forty Thieves,' or a 
 tragedy more serious than 'Tom Thumb'?" 
 (Mem. Supplement.) 
 
 The opening of Drury Lane Theatre for the 
 winter of 1795-96, announced the complete tri- 
 umph of Cumberland's muse. He had already 
 occupied seven nights by the three last comedies 
 produced, when, on the 2Oth of October, he incon- 
 siderately launched a fourth, called the " Depend- 
 ent," of which the name, I think, only remains. 
 This was at once withdrawn by the manager, and 
 properly. 
 
 Besides the fair attraction of D'Egville's grand
 
 MRS. JORDAN 273 
 
 ballet, Mr. Kemble thought himself bound to turn 
 its decoration to account in the representation of 
 Lee's tragedy of the " Rival Queens," he himself 
 now performing the part of Alexander. Such an 
 exhibition had never been witnessed in this country. 
 It was first displayed on the 23d of November, 
 and repeated as often as he could sustain the 
 personal fatigue. 
 
 The female reader will thank me for telling her 
 that Mrs. Siddons at last played Roxana without 
 powder, and it was found that her dark hair added 
 lustre, and even youth, to her striking features. 
 The ladies now frequently dressed their hair d la 
 Grecque ; perhaps the only tasteful fashion intro- 
 duced by the French reformers. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, early in the year 1796, suffered a 
 miscarriage, which kept her from theatrical duty 
 about a month. She was naturally attacked by 
 the malignant scribblers in another interest, as 
 refusing about ^150 during her absence from 
 caprice ! The fact is, that her reappearance was 
 regulated entirely by Doctor Warren. In the 
 meantime Miss Decamp's " Columbine " filled the 
 twenty houses to the roof. 
 
 On the 2 /th of February, 1796, Mr. Kemble 
 revived Wycherley's " Plain Dealer," and played
 
 274 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Manly to Mrs. Jordan's Fidelia. From their dif- 
 ferent lines he but seldom had acted with her. He 
 now met the charmer in one of the most winning 
 characters in our drama, and she quite subdued 
 him. 1 He told me that she was absolutely irre- 
 sistible, and I am sure he thought what he said. 
 There had been a good deal of contest occasion- 
 ally between them, and he was sometimes accused 
 of not sufficiently studying or promoting her in- 
 terest. Miss Farren often disputed points of 
 management with him ; and he had great diffi- 
 culty to keep the steady course which his own 
 judgment had settled. I freely admit that he had 
 done more for Mrs. Jordan, in the way of revival 
 and alteration, than for any other actress, if you 
 even name his sister, Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 March the I2th witnessed the first appearance 
 of the "Iron Chest," by Mr. Colman. Sheridan 
 wished Mrs. Jordan to take the part of Helen, 
 
 1 What he said to me upon the occasion will be rightly under- 
 stood. He used the language of Yorick, when he was no 
 jester. " It may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid heart, I 
 could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though 
 it was in the open street, without blushing." Kemble could 
 repeat the " Sentimental Journey " from beginning to end he 
 used to recite from Sterne on the stage, when he was a young 
 man.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 275 
 
 which seemed little calculated for Miss Farren. 
 I have spoken more than enough already about 
 this drama, and as Mrs. Jordan had nothing to do 
 with it, there is no reason why I should prolong 
 the discussion it occasioned. Sir Edward Morti- 
 mer has been a favourite part for Elliston, Young, 
 and Kean. I forget whether Mr. Macready's 
 " election " has seized it also for his. Kean has a 
 physical defect, which looks quite in keeping with 
 the gradual decay of Sir Edward ; and an energy, 
 which bursts like lightning from a gloomy sky, 
 and displays the mental agonies of this honourable 
 murderer. I should think he must be the best of 
 them. Kemble did not play it at all. 
 
 The " Iron Chest," when opened in public, 
 having presented nothing but the knife of its 
 owner, to convict him of murder, we are next to 
 examine the produce of an old trunk, from which 
 the play of " Vortigern " was extracted, to prove 
 the possessor an impostor. Upon the decided 
 failure of the former play, the property, rather 
 than the manager of Drury, announced the tragedy 
 called " Vortigern " to be in preparation ; and on 
 the 2d of April (to avoid the omen of folly), 
 sanctioned by Sheridan, whose irreverence on the 
 occasion I heard, it had a trial, whether written
 
 276 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 by Shakespeare or young Ireland. Mrs. Siddons 
 had excused herself from acting the part assigned 
 to her, which devolved in course upon Mrs. Powell. 
 Sheridan had no great opinion of Mrs. Jordan in 
 tragedy, but he well knew the value of her name, 
 and she accepted the character of Flavia. In 
 compliment, therefore, to her, I shall add some- 
 thing to what I have elsewhere written on the 
 subject. The complexion and extent of the fabri- 
 cation seem to have followed the recent one by 
 Chatterton ; and the happy repository they had 
 both chosen gave to each youth the power of 
 imputing to antiquity all that they were skilful 
 enough to compose ; with this advantage in favour 
 of Chatterton, that, what he attributed to Rowley 
 could be compared with no acknowledged writings 
 of his ; and if the fabricator could but keep to the 
 history, the manners, the diction, and the metre of 
 his presumed original, it would be, perhaps, im- 
 possible to detect him completely. As to young 
 Ireland, he exposed himself unnecessarily to a fur- 
 ther test, namely, whether a play attributed by 
 him to Shakespeare was good enough to be added 
 to his accredited compositions ? When young 
 Ireland acknowledged the whole of the discovered 
 MSS. to be his own, no part of their contents was
 
 MRS. JORDAN 277 
 
 superior to even the spontaneous effusions of his 
 pen. The poems of Rowley, though evident fab- 
 rications, and produced by Chatterton to the cred- 
 ulous of Bristol, are, in point of genius, so infinitely 
 beyond his acknowledged writings, that there are 
 many able judges of the subject who utterly dis- 
 believe that he was the real author, whether they 
 are Rowley's or not. 
 
 There was something in the story of Chatterton 
 peculiarly seducing to a young man of a poetical 
 cast of mind, and, with a very little more Shake- 
 spearian lore, he might have defied his critics, and 
 the worst play he could have produced have been 
 thought at least as good as "Titus Andronicus," 
 which Shakespeare's own partners delivered to the 
 world as his. But a single anachronism destroyed 
 him. To show this clearly : in the letter to the 
 poet, from the queen, commanding him to be at 
 Hamptowne with his best players on a certain 
 day, as the Earl of Leicester would be with her, 
 it is at once apparent that our poet was at the head 
 of no company of comedians, when Leicester 
 could be with her Majesty ; for he had not 
 written a single play, at any such period. Neither, 
 in fact, was Elizabeth an encourager of the 
 stage. See her letter written at this time to
 
 278 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Secretary Walsingham, which I copied from the 
 original, in the British Museum, Ayscough's 
 Catalogue. 
 
 " The Queen to Secretary Walsingfiam." 
 
 "January 25, 1586. 
 
 "The daily abuse of stage playes is such an 
 offence to the godlye, and so grete a hindrance to 
 the gospel, as the Papists do exceedingly rejoice at 
 the blemish thereof, and not without cause. For 
 every day in the week the Players' bills are set up 
 in sundry places of the city, some in the name of 
 Her Majesty's men, some th' Erie of Leicester's, 
 some th' Erie of Oxford's, the Lord Admiral's, 
 and divers others so that when the bells toll to 
 the Lecturers the trumpettes sound to the Stagers. 
 The Play-houses are pestered when the churches 
 are naked. At the one it is not possible to get a 
 place, at the other void seats are plenty. It is a 
 woful sight to see two hundred proude players jet 
 in their silkes, where five hundred poore people 
 starve in the stretes. But if this mischife must 
 be tolerated, let every stage in London pay a 
 weekly pension to the poore, that, ex hoc malo 
 proveniat aliquod bonum. But it were rather to
 
 MRS. JORDAN 279 
 
 be wished that players might be used as Apollo 
 did laughing, seme I in anno" 
 
 After reading this, let us only reflect upon the 
 ignorance that could make this royal precisian 
 write to a player, and begin her letter with the 
 familiar "Dear William," of intimacy. 
 
 I will do Mrs. Jordan the justice to say that 
 she acted her character of Flavia, bond fide, with 
 exquisite simplicity, and very properly did not 
 affect to play the critic, which is in fact decided 
 treachery, where you have liberty to reject the 
 part you play. This conduct could not be ex- 
 pected from the male part of the cast, nor was it 
 found about them, they knew Mr. Kemble's 
 opinion as to the play, and acted quite up to it. 
 Phillimore, in Horsa, would have damned Shake- 
 speare himself. The prologue and epilogue were 
 written by two out and out men, Sir James Bland 
 Burgess and Robert Merry. The former poet 
 commenced thus read by Whitfield : 
 
 " No common cause your verdict now demands, 
 Before the court immortal Shakespeare stands." 
 
 Merry was more flowery, of course, and he had 
 Mrs. Jordan to speak his lines :
 
 280 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 " Then do not frown, but give due share of praise, 
 Nor rend from Shakespeare's tomb the sacred bays, 
 The scatter'd flow'rs he left, benignly save ! 
 Posthumous flow'rs the garland of the grave ! " 
 
 She then proceeded to apply his many-coloured 
 characters to the audience, and, though extremely 
 frightened at the dreadful noise in the court, did 
 the poet's pleasant appeal as much justice as their 
 indignation allowed on the occasion. 
 
 The manager, now in earnest, acted a tragedy 
 by Miss Lee, called "Almeyda" it is a Moorish 
 fable sufficiently regular, poetically and even pa- 
 thetically written ; but Kemble and Siddons could 
 not keep the play alive longer than four nights 
 such is the destructive effect of burlesque, when 
 it precedes even respectable composition. This 
 was on the 2Oth of April, and on the 3Oth 
 Hoare's opera of "Mahmoud," in which Kemble 
 strengthened the piece by playing Mahmoud, 
 with Braham, from the Royalty, and a vast 
 musical strength, supported the fame of Storace, 
 as a composer, who had just dropped into the 
 grave. 
 
 Mr. Hoare presented Mrs. Siddons with a 
 tragedy, called "Julia," for her benefit, on the 
 2d of May, and, on the 6th, Mr. Bensley, after
 
 MRS. JORDAN 281 
 
 playing Evander, took his leave of the public. 
 There was a refined, gentlemanly scholarship in 
 all he did, and a soldierly deportment, which we 
 have never seen in his station since he quitted 
 it. Mrs. Jordan, on the Qth of June, performed 
 Letitia Hardy and Roxalana, for the benefit of 
 the widow and children of poor Benson, a valuable 
 man, who was accidentally taken from them by 
 a brain fever, he threw himself from the top of 
 his house in Bridges Street. Benson had the 
 misfortune to act Hengist, in the famous "Vorti- 
 gern," and, with his yoke-fellow, Horsa, received 
 some of the favours bestowed by the audience 
 upon such stupid invaders ; and it was feared that 
 sounds so unusual to his ears had rung in them 
 much longer than in reason they should have 
 done. Benson was an extremely modest, useful 
 man, distinguished for what actors call a quick 
 study, whom a few hours, at a slight warning, 
 enabled to supply the place of any second or third 
 rate absentee in the company. 
 
 On the night of his benefit, Mrs. Jordan spoke 
 an address, which the ready muse of Mr. Taylor 
 supplied ; it expatiated upon the charitable institu- 
 tions of the country, and as the house was really 
 crowded to the roof, there was little occasion to
 
 282 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 do more than compliment so useful a benevolence ; 
 it thus concluded : 
 
 " When every eye the plaintive story tells, 
 And every heart with liberal pity swells, 
 Let not the officious muse a theme prolong, 
 That melts, yet animates this generous throng." 
 
 The zeal of Mrs. Jordan, on this occasion, prop- 
 erly rendered her reception enthusiastic through 
 the evening play, farce, address ! What, all her- 
 self in this company of splendid talent ? no 
 competition ? yes ; Mr. Lewis, of the other 
 house, volunteered his Doricourt, or the play 
 could not have been done. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan amused herself this summer with 
 acting at the Richmond Theatre. That of Drury 
 Lane was going to destruction with all the celer- 
 ity that could be expected. Kemble had resigned, 
 as King had done before him Miss Farren 
 threatened retirement altogether. Such was the 
 fate of the Grand National Theatre, under the 
 auspices of the most brilliant genius of his time.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Mr. Colman and the Reopening of His "Iron Chest" Season 
 of 1796-97 The Losses of Drury; Parsons, Dodd The 
 Latter Excellent in Old Winterton Contrasted with Faw- 
 cett Wroughton Appointed Stage-manager Mrs. Jordan 
 and Her Salary Ballet Miss Parissot and the " Triumph 
 of Love" Madame Hilligsberg, an Atalanta in Running 
 Dowton Recommended by Cumberland An Admirer Before 
 of Mr. Henderson Garrick's Prejudice Deficiencies of 
 the Company Revivals Jephson's " Conspiracy " The 
 Force of Ridicule Miss Farren Contumacious New 
 Comedy Postponed Miss Farren's Return and Triumph 
 Play Destroyed The " Shipwreck " The Operatic 
 " Honeymoon " " Friend in Need " New Imogen Miss 
 Farren's Retirement to a Coronet Mrs. Pope's Death and 
 Character The Author Becomes Acquainted with Mrs. 
 Jordan In the Distress of Drury Lane House, Reynolds 
 Writes for Mrs. Jordan Cumberland's Behaviour at the 
 Exhibition of the "Will" Mrs. Jordan's Albina, and Her 
 Seven Ages of Woman " Dido," and "My Night Gown 
 and Slippers " Prince Hoare at Covent Garden Mrs. 
 Jordan a Full Contrast to the Selfish of Her Profession. 
 
 summer season of 1796 at the Hay- 
 market was devoted by Mr. Colman to 
 the revival of his own fame, which 
 suffered a severe wound at the great theatre, 
 that could only be medicated by a more suc- 
 283
 
 284 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 cessful treatment at the small one. The Bath 
 theatre on many occasions had the praise of sup- 
 plying, like its waters, to the salubrity of the 
 metropolis. On the disaster attending his " Iron 
 Chest," Mr. Colman looked around him for the 
 means of ensuring its triumph at the Haymarket, 
 and he heard enough of Elliston, then a young 
 man, as to his energy and powers of voice, to 
 think that he might chance to receive in him the 
 peculiar aid he required. 
 
 He tried him first in Octavian, and, in full con- 
 fidence of his talent, Elliston chose to act Vapour 
 after it, in the farce of " My Grandmother." 
 Every support that could be given to the new 
 performer on this trial was given ; it is, however, 
 but justice to acknowledge that he exceeded all 
 late adventurers in promise, and much as he has 
 done in the profession, I confess I think the 25th 
 of June, 1796, augured a great deal more. His 
 countenance was not such an index as Kemble's, 
 and he could not assume the languor of disap- 
 pointed love. In the picturesque forms of the 
 character he, and all men, were thrown to an im- 
 measurable distance by Kemble, who had a person 
 that far transcended competition. 
 
 Mr. Ellison repeated Octavian on the 28th, and
 
 
 T(. W. Rlliston 
 
 Engraved by Ant. c'ardon, from the painting by Bennett 

 
 MRS. JORDAN 285 
 
 on the ist of July; and the experiment having 
 completely answered, Mr. Colman turned his at- 
 tention at once to Sir Edward Mortimer, and gave 
 the docile tragedian the full advantage of the 
 author's instructions. Elliston, to use his own 
 phrase to me, had tried with the great actor 
 " the strength of his youth " in Octavian. In Sir 
 Edward he had nothing to fear ; if he raised the 
 character, he had everything to hope, from his 
 manager's gratitude, and the comparison that 
 would be made by the public. At length, on 
 the 29th of August, after rehearsals carefully 
 attended and all tediousness in the dialogue and 
 action pared away, the " Iron Chest " was pro- 
 duced at the Little Theatre, and received with 
 sufficient applause. It was acted thirteen times 
 in the remainder of the short Haymarket season. 
 
 Among the summer attractions Cumberland 
 produced a Spanish incident called " Don Pedro," 
 with the cognomen " II Diabolo," and Palmer might 
 have fancied himself once more at the Royalty ; 
 but it did not outlive its third night, and was not 
 above the ordinary sale-work of the stage, without 
 its all-atoning machinery, scenes, and splendid deco- 
 rations. 
 
 The opening of Drury Lane season 1796-97,
 
 286 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 under an inefficient direction and a discontented 
 company, had yet other difficulties, the infliction 
 of time. When Garrick quitted the stage Mrs. 
 Clive amused herself with anticipating the failure 
 of his puppets, when the master hand no longer 
 pulled the wires. She ascribed to his instruction 
 all that was good upon his stage, and, left to them- 
 selves, she thought the best of them but sorry 
 artists. But the momentum which he had given 
 to his company had been powerful, and in the 
 right direction ; and as there was little to oppose 
 them, they kept their individual course correctly, 
 and preserved the harmony of the system on 
 which they depended. 
 
 Death, however, was gradually diminishing the 
 group, Parsons was gone, and Dodd was now to 
 follow him ; an event which threw a gloom over 
 the assembled company, and even delayed the 
 opening till the 2Oth of September. If large 
 theatres were of detriment to fine acting, a fact 
 which I for one do not question, since they 
 have even demanded extravagance in the three 
 articles of action, expression, and utterance, per- 
 haps to no one comedian could they be more fatal 
 than to Dodd. This excellent actor had a weak 
 voice, but as he managed it on the stage of his
 
 MRS. JORDAN 287 
 
 great master, it was quite adequate to a cast of 
 petit-maitres, a sort of thin essences, whom a gale 
 too violent, or a noise too obstreperous, would 
 seem to annihilate. 
 
 Nor was he confined to the coxcomb, whose 
 wit almost redeemed his effeminacy ; he was the 
 paragon representative of all fatuity ; from the 
 Town-gull, or Master Stephen, two originals of 
 Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour," 
 with Master Slender, Roderigo, and Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek by Shakespeare, through all the comic 
 varieties, for they are no more in the genus 
 that Congreve and his successors have struggled 
 to impart to their copies. I say the genus, for it 
 has many species ; and the Sir Benjamin Backbite 
 of Sheridan belongs to the Master Matthew of 
 Jonson, however crossed in the breeding. 
 
 It was mortifying, I have no doubt, to Dodd to 
 be the point of censure in the dismal " Iron 
 Chest." It is for the author to judge how far he 
 may choose to venture the exhibition of second 
 childhood, which can neither amuse nor be laughed 
 at ; but never did I see more perfect acting than 
 the Old Adam Winterton of Dodd. Fawcett, who 
 succeeded him, forced out effect by a shrill, strong 
 tone of voice, and an occasional testiness, but he
 
 288 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 was not aged nor smooth in the part. A kindred 
 objection applied to Elliston in Sir Edward, when 
 contrasted with Kemble, the first only acted his 
 passions, and the latter only his infirmities. Mr. 
 Dodd had none of the restless ambition of our 
 present actors ; he remained at Drury, from his 
 first establishment there under Garrick, till the 
 1 7th of September, 1796, on which day he died. 
 His great passion was to collect the early editions 
 of our plays, which he began when they could be 
 bought by something below a duke's fortune ; and 
 his collection at its dispersion more than tripled its 
 original cost. 
 
 Mr. Wroughton was now appointed stage-man- 
 ager of the theatre, and he was too well acquainted 
 with the concern to deceive himself as to what he 
 undertook. Sheridan promised to write himself 
 again ; and it was very apparent, if he did not, that 
 the concern would not much longer be able to hold 
 out. The salaries were not paid up, whatever 
 success had attended the magnificent displays in 
 the management of Kemble. Indeed, so little did 
 Mr. Harris fear the National Theatre, that he only 
 thought of making his own hold as much money as 
 he could draw from the public ; and liberal treat- 
 ment of authors, and absolute mercantile punctu-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 289 
 
 ality, made him secure of all offers from writers, 
 who were not so absolutely independent as to 
 consider theatrical profits below their attention. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, I believe, got her money pretty 
 regularly. As to any other attractions in the 
 theatre, they might be said to consume part, if not 
 the greater part, of their receipts, by the lavish 
 decorations with which they were got up. Our 
 inimitable comedian required nothing of the sort. 
 Give her a good comedy and a pleasant farce, a 
 little novelty and fair play, and she could laugh 
 her way through a season. She had a powerful 
 friend, moreover, who would not allow her to be 
 trifled with ; a sort of friendship which secured for 
 the noble patron the steady aversion which, in 
 a certain quarter, was always manifested at the 
 very sound of his name. A good deal of this sort 
 of irritation I have myself witnessed at times ; 
 and when all policy had by a jury of good fellows 
 been long " found drowned." 
 
 Enough has been said to discover the author's 
 opinion of the splendid outrage committed by the 
 new scheme of things upon the spot on which 
 Drury Lane playhouse had once stood ; the heads 
 of the concern had been turned in the Haymarket, 
 and turned toward ballet. In consequence, a
 
 290 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 lovely stage-figure, Mdlle. Parissot, who seemed to 
 have studied her grace from the floating spirits 
 of the air in picture, was engaged to move 
 through an operatical ballet, and commenced her 
 progress on the ist of October. It was called 
 the " Triumph of Love." 
 
 The time was gone by for objection ; and though 
 a few sturdy critics, who had yet heard of Gar- 
 rick's engagement of Noverre, cried out most 
 piteously as to the anomaly now committed, the 
 fair tmigrante continued to astonish the public 
 in general, and a little amuse our anatomists, with 
 a command over the joints which had hitherto 
 been supposed attainable only to the early educa- 
 tion of the tumbler. The line of her figure, from 
 the finger of the right hand to the toe of the left 
 foot, was a sweep absolutely astonishing ; and 
 though now the graceful trick is generally per- 
 formed in ballet, yet, at the time we are speaking 
 of, dancing was certainly more strictly a science, 
 and either the jumper or the attitudinarian under- 
 valued by the masters of the art. Madame Hilligs- 
 berg had been allowed to break through the grand 
 rule of steps for musical notes, and absolutely run 
 away from the accompaniment of the orchestra, 
 and so as she did but run, she had the wit that
 
 MRS. JORDAN 291 
 
 Atalanta wanted, and kicked the golden apple 
 triumphantly before her. 
 
 " Dum talia secum 
 Exigit Hippomenes ; passu volat alite virgo. 
 
 Tamen ille decoram 
 Miratur magis : et cursus facit ipse decoram." 
 
 Metam. x. 586. 
 
 " Thus he : the virgin flies with winged pace, 
 And seems more beauteous from the breathing race." 
 
 Mr. Cumberland was himself an admired dra- 
 matic reader, and an excellent judge of acting. 
 But he was not a man to interfere with the 
 management of a theatre, or to give his opinion 
 unsolicited. When Mr. Dowton applied to 
 Wroughton, the manager, he referred that gentle- 
 man to Mr. Cumberland, as to a person whom he 
 had the pleasure to know ; and this becomes pecul- 
 iarly essential in the narrative, because it would 
 otherwise seem an ungrateful return of Cumber- 
 land to Bannister, who had first established his 
 "Jew," to bring up to town himself another per- 
 former of the character, as if dissatisfied with the 
 original Sheva, and only anxious to show himself 
 by a still better light, which he had at length dis- 
 covered. Whereas the truth was, that Dowton, 
 hearing of Elliston's success in the part, was
 
 292 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 anxious to measure his strength with that gentle- 
 man, and Mr. Cumberland came up to town with 
 him, merely, as I have said, to accredit, by his 
 friendly countenance, a deserving man and most 
 excellent actor. He performed Sheva on the i ith 
 of October, and remained unrivalled in the " Jew," 
 at least " that Cumberland drew." 
 
 This vindication of Mr. Cumberland from an 
 aspersion as to one act of his dramatic life reminds 
 me of another, in which he showed his judgment 
 alike and his sincerity. Garrick had desired him 
 to attend to the performances of Henderson, and 
 report what he thought of him, which he did with 
 great frankness ; and, indeed, he seemed to alarm 
 the great actor by the equality he found, mentally 
 at least, in the operations of the two performers. 
 Henderson always considered himself ungenerously 
 obstructed by Garrick, and Mr. Cumberland has 
 left on record his own deliberate opinion, that he 
 thought rightly. " After a languishing negotia- 
 tion, which got at length into other hands than 
 mine, Garrick made the transfer of his property in 
 the theatre without the name of Henderson upon 
 the roll of his performers. Truth obliges me to 
 say that the negotiation, in all its parts and pas- 
 sages, was not creditable to Mr. Garrick."
 
 MRS. JORDAN 293 
 
 To return to Mr. Dowton. In one respect he 
 resembled Parsons, whose place was still to be sup- 
 plied ; he had been liberally educated for the pro- 
 fession of an architect, and was, like him, seduced 
 by private acting. But in acting he was of a very 
 different school, the chastest and therefore the 
 best. He was not disposed, like Munden, to re- 
 sort to occasional grimace, but made his aim legiti- 
 mately at character in the drama, and filled up 
 any perfect outline from an author, with all the 
 vitality that could be expected from the consum- 
 mate artist. Among his other excellences, he is a 
 great master of dialect, and preserves it without 
 the slightest mixture even in the vehemence of 
 passion, when any mode assumed by the tongue is 
 in most danger of being lost in the personal feel- 
 ing of the actor. As to utility in the theatre, he 
 was nearer to King than Parsons, and sensible 
 speaking made the great charm of his comedy, 
 with a kindly paternal warmth that glowed 
 through the oddities of exterior whim. 
 
 It was a melancholy thing to see the supple- 
 ments sought to the school of Garrick. They 
 could not get even a Foigard in the "Strata- 
 gem " without exciting an exclamation of " Think 
 of Moody ! " They were at least puzzled for a
 
 294 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Young Norval in "Douglas," a play essential to 
 Mrs. Siddons; and a Charles in the "School for 
 Scandal," because neither the interests of the 
 property nor the literary character of Sheridan 
 could permit the play to sleep. Kemble, man- 
 ager or not, was always ready for a revival, and 
 in the "Edward and Eleonora" of Thomson, he 
 but waked the dead for a single night, though Mrs. 
 Siddons and Mrs. Powell and himself and Palmer 
 did all that their skill could accomplish to excite 
 the unwilling tenants of the tomb. We hardly 
 think the enchanting author of the "Seasons" 
 could thank him for so disturbing his tragedy. 
 
 " Long on these mouldering bones have beat 
 The winter's snow, the summer's heat : 
 Unwilling, I my lips unclose ; 
 Leave me, leave me to repose." 
 
 On the 1 5th of November the same performers 
 tried a tragedy, by Jephson, upon the subject of 
 the hackneyed " Clemenza di Tito," by Metastasio, 
 called the " Conspiracy," but it was detected fully 
 in three nights, and humanely banished. 
 
 On the 2Qth of the same month an attempt was 
 made to see if a new comedy, from Holcroft, could 
 do anything for the theatre under political manage- 
 ment. It was called the " Force of Ridicule," not
 
 MRS. JORDAN 295 
 
 a bad title, though lost upon the concern. The 
 usual time of commencing passed over, and the 
 prologue not appearing to be addressed, the drowsy 
 orchestra, having renewed again and again the usual 
 symphonies of Handel, and Shaw having laid down 
 his fiddle in despair, at length Mr. Palmer, a 
 countenance of alarm and concern assumed for 
 the nonce, told them that "owing to some un- 
 foreseen accident Miss Farren had not come 
 to the theatre (the very chronometer of the 
 house !), but that a messenger had been des- 
 patched to know the reason of her absence, and 
 the proprietors humbly hoped the audience would 
 indulge them for a few minutes till the messen- 
 ger returned." About seven o'clock back came 
 Palmer again, au desespoir, that Miss Farren was 
 "too ill to leave her room," but that the audience, 
 who had heard nothing for three long hours but 
 the fruit women and the fiddlers, might take 
 either their money at the doors or Mrs. Siddons 
 in Isabella; and, accordingly, some of them did 
 one thing and some the other, while the cause 
 of this confusion was whispered differently. The 
 real fact, however, was that Miss Farren knew 
 her duty too well to dispute about fringe in a new 
 character ; she would have used some of her own.
 
 296 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 But finding there was but one chance of getting 
 a considerable sum of arrears in her salary, she 
 had seized upon the new comedy as an occasion 
 to give the proprietors notice that " if she did not 
 receive her money she would not leave her house ; " 
 and, accordingly, she kept her word better than 
 they did theirs, and the play stood over till the 6th 
 of December. 
 
 On that day poor Holcroft and his " Force of 
 Ridicule" went for nothing in the attraction. 
 Miss Farren was to appear ! and the mighty pub- 
 lic, always satisfied at last with some unmeaning 
 apology, assembled in great force, to show dis- 
 pleasure where it was not due, and wound a lady's 
 delicacy, who had already been robbed of her 
 property. As soon as she was seen upon the 
 stage the storm began to rage, and though the 
 hands might be said to put down the hisses, 
 she thought it best became her to retire ; but, 
 determined not to ask indulgence where she ac- 
 knowledged no offence, she begged Wroughton to 
 go on, and he managed the matter to a nicety, for 
 he besought the audience, in the name of Miss 
 Farren, to pardon the proprietors ; and Wroughton 
 loved the truth, and always spoke it, when he had 
 heard it. It is a ram avis in apologies.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 297 
 
 " If there has been any appearance of disrespect 
 to the public in the disappointment of Tuesday 
 last, I can take upon me, on the part of the pro- 
 prietors, to express the greatest regret for it ; and 
 to add, from myself as manager, as well as for 
 Miss Farren, that, under the present circumstances, 
 I hope you will pardon the error." Up to the 
 clouds (of course theatrical) went at once insulted 
 beauty, and the play was luckily before the audi- 
 ence, on which all the missiles brought with them 
 were impatiently discharged. The play was with 
 difficulty heard throughout, and thus the error of 
 husbands, in not sufficiently regarding their wives, 
 was not, as Mr. Sneer's friend projected, shamed 
 away by the " mere force of ridicule." 
 
 The next piece they brought out was musical, 
 and called the " Shipwreck ; " however, upon the 
 coast of Drury, such a thing was sincerely wel- 
 come, and the owners, Doctor Arnold and his son, 
 were not inhospitably treated by the natives. We 
 confess ourselves in some instances attracted, as 
 one of our poets has it, by the "whistlings of a 
 name," and that of Linley was peculiarly pleasant 
 to our ears ; but to Mr. Sheridan it should have 
 still more powerfully appealed. William Linley 
 had composed an opera called the " Honeymoon,"
 
 298 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 which literally failed from the weakness of its 
 dialogue. When he brought out the poetical off- 
 spring of his relation, he might have been at the 
 trouble to see that it was strong enough to keep 
 its feet. Could he, at all events, be indifferent to 
 the long procession of failures that were convinc- 
 ing the town of his theatre's being devoted to 
 ruin ? A very powerful man was at length started 
 against, and might have been the support of his 
 theatre. I allude to Morton, whose " Children in 
 the Wood" could not have been acted so often 
 by his company without attracting his notice. 
 The "Cure for the Heartache" has literally 
 been a fortune to every theatre in these king- 
 doms ; it was brought out by Mr. Harris on the 
 loth of January, 1797. 
 
 Mr. Prince Hoare supplied a " Friend in Need," 
 a musical entertainment of very peculiar interest, 
 on the Qth of February. He was a sure and 
 steady ally to Drury Lane Theatre. And on the 
 6th of March, a sister of Lady Beechey's, named 
 Worth ington, appeared in the character of Imogen. 
 Her terrors, however, were insurmountable. A 
 new ballet, and a revival of the " First of June," 
 on the same evening, looked somewhat reviving, 
 but a stroke, as of death, was at hand : the sudden
 
 MRS. JORDAN 299 
 
 announcement of Miss Farren's retirement from 
 the stage and elevation to a coronet. 1 The former 
 event took place on the 8th of April, 1797, after 
 the performance of Lady Teazle. 
 
 Instead of the usual rhymes at the end of the 
 play, the whole of the dramatis persona remaining 
 in their stations, Mr. Wroughton advanced and 
 addressed to the audience the following person- 
 alities as to Miss Farren, for them to ratify, if 
 they approved them. 
 
 " But ah ! this night, adieu the mirthful mien, 
 When Mirth's lov'd favourite quits the mimic scene ! 
 
 [Looking toward Miss Farren, who stood supported 
 
 by King and Miss Miller. 
 Startled Thalia would assent refuse, 
 But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse." 
 
 I cannot but think this too strongly, however 
 truly put, the lady being herself present. He 
 then spoke her acknowledgments, which she de- 
 clined doing for herself, and then the countess- 
 elect advanced, and curtseyed to the right, the left, 
 
 1 A slight suspicion may here arise, whether the determined 
 conduct at the " Force of Ridicule " was not an anticipation of 
 this event, and that it would be better to obtain all arrears 
 from the theatre, as Miss Farren, than leave them for subse- 
 quent adjustment between a noble earl and Mr. Sheridan the 
 politician.
 
 300 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 and the front, as is usual upon occasions of high 
 stage ceremonial. The late countess died on the 
 1 4th of March, having just completed her forty- 
 fourth year ; and, as respect was not pretended 
 where it was not felt, the second marriage took 
 place on the 1st of May following, and the stage 
 lost its only woman of fashion. I say its only 
 woman of fashion, because the disposer even of 
 coronets, the "insatiate archer" himself, had es- 
 poused the other just, but more solid representa- 
 tive of stylish females, Mrs. Pope, on the I5th of 
 March, in the fifty-second year of her age. I 
 shall consider her as a daughter of Garrick's thea- 
 tre, because there she acquired all the resources 
 of her art ; and they constituted her the most 
 general actress that the stage had ever seen. I 
 can, with perfect truth, say, that in tragedy, as 
 well as comedy, there were characters of which 
 she was the most perfect representative. Had 
 she possessed such a face as that of Mrs. Siddons, 
 there might have been more ; but then, some of 
 her sprightly comedy would have been awed down, 
 and she might on the whole have been less distin- 
 guished. In the days of Yates and Barry, she 
 established herself by unwearied diligence ; and 
 though always weak in point of chest, endured a
 
 MRS. JORDAN 301 
 
 continuance of exertion that was certainly too 
 much for her strength. She was the universal 
 favourite of her profession, and in private life 
 affectionately honoured by all who were worthy 
 of her society. Her manners were singularly fas- 
 cinating, as a happy compound of elegance, cor- 
 diality, and fine temper. In my first play I had 
 the happiness of her powerful aid, and it led natu- 
 rally to a friendly intercourse, which I valued as I 
 ought for I still regret her loss. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, about this time, without ceremony 
 introduced herself to me, and as she wished my 
 opinion upon some professional points, as these 
 occurred she referred to me by letter, and I gave 
 them the best consideration in my power. I 
 visited her, and saw her young family about her. 
 It was natural she should speak of the few oppor- 
 tunities afforded by the present management for 
 distinguishing herself, and the retirement of Miss 
 Farren led her to think of extending her range of 
 characters. She differed radically with that lady 
 as to Lady Teazle, and if it be a consistent charac- 
 ter, she was probably right ; but the only finely 
 drawn and masterly personage in the comedy is 
 Joseph Surface, and it was acted by the late John 
 Palmer so as to throw every other part into the
 
 302 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 shade. I can safely add that his smooth hypocrite 
 is still unapproached, and will probably remain so. 
 
 Wroughton, as an old Covent Garden actor, 
 was personally acquainted with both Morton and 
 Reynolds, and the latter gentleman found it con- 
 venient to tender through him a comedy to Drury 
 Lane Theatre. He was too good a judge of the 
 effective to pass over Mrs. Jordan, and she will- 
 ingly accepted the part designed for her. The 
 author himself has given a whimsical account of 
 the effect of his intrusion upon the sacred boards 
 of Drury Lane Theatre ; and he is borne out by 
 the contempt which the concern at all times af- 
 fected for the writers, and more sometimes than 
 the writers of the rival house. Yet surely, if they 
 reflected at all, there was nothing very despicable 
 in a writer who could attract crowded houses for 
 thirty nights together ; nor was the great national 
 theatre so exclusively devoted to the legitimate 
 drama, as not to have admitted from time to time 
 much indifferent composition, and unfortunately, 
 too, as irregular as it was dull. 
 
 On the i Qth of April, the great experiment was 
 made by the performance of the comedy of the 
 "Will." Cumberland had planted himself in the 
 orchestra to watch the effect, and really anticipat-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 303 
 
 ing a triumph which he never enjoyed. At the 
 first displeasure expressed by the audience, he left 
 his seat, hurried around to the greenroom, begged 
 Wroughton to introduce him to the author, and at 
 once impertinently addressed him thus : " Let this, 
 young gentleman, be a lesson to you." Wrough- 
 ton felt becoming indignation at the veteran's use 
 of the introduction he had given him. Cumber- 
 land hurried back to his station, and soon had 
 reason to think the author not quite so young in 
 the profession as he had supposed him. 
 
 The "Will," like many of Cumberland's own 
 comedies, was a novel dramatised. I do not mean 
 a novel, existing as such, turned into a play, but 
 the same kind of incidents, and in equal plenty, 
 as might have informed with bustle the usual 
 three volumes allotted by the great writers of the 
 day to their romances of real life. Accordingly, 
 it would take three full pages to give even an out- 
 line of the plot. As Sheridan's screen-scene, in 
 the "School for Scandal," had been conceived 
 from the work in which he found his Charles and 
 Joseph, so Reynolds had imagined he might use 
 the discovery of the philosopher Square in the 
 garret of Molly Segrim, and accordingly concealed 
 Sir Solomon Cynic in a recess among some straw,
 
 304 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 and a curtain is drawn before him, which Dolly 
 Rustic tries to secure by running his cane sword 
 into it to keep it close. The weapon is snatched 
 out by Howard to chastise Albina in the disguise 
 of a young midshipman, and the Cynic is discov- 
 ered with very laughable effect. There is more 
 humour still, for we have a haunted room and the 
 terrors of an old maid, and Albina (Mrs. Jordan) 
 engaged with everybody, and animating the whole, 
 as much by her generosity and justice as her ec- 
 centric humour and invention. 
 
 Nothing could be less equivocal than the suc- 
 cess of the piece, and Mrs. Jordan had at length 
 got a new character, which was likely to keep the 
 treasury of the theatre open to the performers 
 for some time to come. It was after this comedy 
 that Mrs. Jordan spoke the " Seven Ages " of 
 " Memory " Rogers ; to which Andrews, I think it 
 was, added some risible novelties for effect. It 
 was now evidently in the right mouth, and was a 
 great favourite accordingly. 
 
 The 28th of April was the first interruption 
 given to the " Will " in its run, being the benefit 
 night of John Palmer. He revived a tragedy, 
 written by Read, the rope-maker, called the 
 "Queen of Carthage." It had been acted in 1767
 
 MRS. JORDAN 305 
 
 also for a benefit, and was then performed by 
 Powell, Holland, Bensley, and Mrs. Yates. To 
 which, longo intervallo, were now opposed Barry- 
 more, Palmer, Caulfield, and Mrs. Siddons. Again 
 the house did not adopt the play, though ap- 
 plauded. I wish the publication had not been 
 suppressed, that I might have contrasted the man- 
 ners of the two Didos. How Read may have 
 written the play I can barely surmise ; but suppos- 
 ing it tolerable, I should fancy Yates was nearer 
 the classical, or rather French standard. Palmer 
 could only be an Ene"as in carnival time. After 
 the play, Palmer, who was fond of recitation, 
 indulged the audience with a repetition of Mr. 
 Colman's " Nightgown and Slippers ; " but the 
 decorum of a public assembly was insulted by 
 their ludicrous descriptions, and the actor received 
 a sensible rebuke with suitable acquiescence. 
 
 Few authors have been of more essential ser- 
 vice to the theatre than Mr. Prince Hoare. His 
 farces have stood the test of time, and are likely 
 to last as long as we either act or sing. Upon 
 Reynolds's reception at Drury Lane the beginning 
 of the year, he at once crossed over to Covent 
 Garden with a comic opera, called the " Italian 
 Villagers." The critics said it had some resem-
 
 306 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 blance to "As You Like It." If it had, it is the 
 only piece that ever had it ; for of all the efforts 
 of the mighty author, that is perhaps the most de- 
 lightful, exhibiting rural manners that are neither 
 affected nor clownish, neither Arcadian nor Spen- 
 cerian, with lessons intermixed, by which the 
 wisest may be improved, and the most saturnine 
 diverted. As to the fable of my friend Hoare, 
 I will not mar a curious tale by telling it, nor say 
 more of his opera than that Quick, Munden, and 
 Knight had very entertaining characters, and 
 played them well for the six scattered nights al- 
 lotted to the piece. 
 
 The " Tattlers," a comedy, by the late Doctor 
 Benjamin Hoadly, was acted for a single night 
 here on the 2Qth of April, and the character of 
 Fanny Alworthy was performed by Miss Mansel, 
 the future Mrs. Reynolds. But the essence of 
 the subject had been long extracted, and the 
 audience grew weary of what might have delighted 
 them about the time when it was written by the 
 doctor. 
 
 The next interruption given to the " Will " was 
 by the benefit of Mrs. Siddons, on the ist of May, 
 intended to be the wedding-day of Miss Farren, 
 and the entertainments of the bill were selected
 
 MRS. JORDAN 307 
 
 with reference to that event. Mrs. Piozzi, it was 
 whispered, had written an address for Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, to wind up the whole, and compliment the 
 noble pair by some apposite allusions to the titles 
 of the pieces selected. " To anticipate ill, it was 
 said, were but a ' Fatal Curiosity.' " This was the 
 play. " Each kindest wish waits on her ' Wed- 
 ding-day.' " This was the farce. There was a 
 third piece, which completed the nuptial allusions, 
 thus alluded to : " If 'tis not happy, why, ' The 
 Deuce Is in 'Em.' " 
 
 But all this ingenuity excited a laugh in the 
 wrong place, for, as our readers remember, the 
 subject of Mrs. Inchbald's "Wedding-day" was 
 an old man of rank marrying a young woman, and 
 the return of his first wife, before the day was 
 over ; and Colman's " Deuce Is in Him " is the 
 ridicule of platonic love. There could be no 
 doubt that the two ladies had nothing but serious 
 compliment in their thoughts ; but if the waggery 
 of Sheridan had designed to remind the lady of 
 the " Force of Ridicule," which she had deserted 
 so lately, he could not have found materials more 
 exactly suited to his purpose. 
 
 As to Mrs. Jordan, she laughed her way through 
 Lady Contest with infinite glee : her only comic
 
 308 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 rival had been promoted out of her way, and left 
 her, in every comedy, the positive choice of the 
 character she should play, and, accordingly, she 
 considerably extended her range by occasional 
 adoptions of the woman of fashion ; but nature 
 had fixed her to unbounded hilarity and deep sen- 
 sibility, and the goddess seemed to desert her 
 when she assumed such characters as were pro- 
 duced by fashion rather than herself. 
 
 Mr. Cumberland's extraordinary behaviour to 
 Reynolds was soon accounted for; he had a new 
 comedy himself in preparation, called the " Last 
 of the Family." Mrs. Jordan was the heroine, who 
 is the daughter of a man fond of his name, and 
 determined to impose it on his son-in-law. This 
 naturally fixes her affections upon a nameless 
 youth employed to write the family history. Her 
 love for the unknown youth speedily dismisses 
 him from his task, and his mistress feigns distrac- 
 tion to get him back again. He turns out to be 
 her first cousin, the son of her father's brother, 
 and consequently has no name to adopt. It lasted 
 six nights. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan closed the Covent Garden season by 
 acting Peggy and Nell, most kindly, for the bene- 
 fit of Mr. Haymes, and repeated the "Country
 
 MRS. JORDAN 309 
 
 Girl," for the widows and orphans of February 
 1 4th, the day of Lord St. Vincent's glorious vic- 
 tory. She addressed now every creature that 
 needed help, in the language of Horatio to the 
 ghost of Hamlet's father. 
 
 " If there be any good thing to be done, 
 That may to thee do ease, and grace to me, 
 
 Speak to me." 
 
 In short, she was a full and perfect contrast to 
 those whose service was always to be paid, though 
 exerted even for a relation.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Death of Charles Macklin His Works Collected by Murphy 
 Mrs. Jordan's Kind Subscription "The Jew That Shake- 
 speare Drew " Interpreted by Sir Joseph Mawbey Dry- 
 den's " CEdipus " Lines in, Applied to Macklin Their 
 Beauty Lord Mansfield's Regard for Macklin Note His 
 Lordship's Opinion on the French Revolution The " Heir 
 at Law" " Filthy Dowlas" " Italian Monk," at the Sum- 
 mer Theatre Mrs. Jordan visits Richmond and Margate 
 Sees Mrs. Abington in Beatrice Her Excellence in the 
 Character Miss Betterton, Since Mrs. Glover The Chasm 
 at Drury How Miss Farren Was to Be Replaced Miss 
 Humphreys in Lady Emily Miss Biggs in the " Irish 
 Widow" Miss Decamp a Lover in the "Chimney Comer" 
 
 Mrs. Jordan in Sir Edward Bloomley Defects of " Cheap 
 Living " Jordan Rather Restive Again Quite the Duchess 
 
 Her Happy Illustration of That Title Mrs. Crawford's 
 Idle Return Lord Duncan's Victory Mrs. Jordan Acts 
 for the Sufferers Something Fine Kemble Acts Hotspur 
 
 John Palmer's Death in the Summer Effects of It in 
 the Theatre. 
 
 the nth of July, 1797, died the long- 
 celebrated Charles Macklin, and it may 
 be said the stage lost its father in more 
 senses than that of senility. He attained the 
 great age of ninety-seven years, and was honoured 
 
 310
 
 MRS. JORDAN 311 
 
 equally for his talents and his virtues. It was 
 late in his life when I first saw him act, but I am 
 bound to say that, in what he did, he was a model, 
 not only of manly force, but critical acuteness. 
 He lived at a time when Johnson had made it a 
 fashion for the old to be dogmatical, and Macklin 
 availed himself fully of his privilege. The decline 
 of life had been rendered comfortable by the sub- 
 scription to his works edited by Arthur Murphy. 
 Mrs. Jordan sent him ten pounds on this occasion. 
 He died, where he had long lived, in Tavistock 
 Row, Covent Garden he had a metropolitan 
 constitution, and loved London sincerely ; the 
 verge of the old convent used to be an actor's 
 sanctuary. 
 
 We have all heard of the distich, called an im- 
 promptu, of the poet Pope's : 
 
 " This is the Jew 
 That Shakespeare drew." 
 
 But few of us, I believe, ever conceived their 
 meaning to be doubtful. It was a " nice discern- 
 ment between good and ill," as B. Jonson speaks, 
 that led Sir Joseph Mawbey to think what he 
 expresses so ingenuously in a letter before me : 
 " In applying the couplet, I was led to suppose,
 
 312 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 improperly, that his own mind and not the assumed 
 character described the man." When he gets right, 
 even, the baronet's expression does not become 
 much clearer. Why, then, the assumed character 
 did describe the man, and that (Shylock's) was a 
 bad one. Which he now would not say. 
 
 The application of Dryden's lines in " CEdipus " 
 to Charles Macklin is so just and elegant, that the 
 reader may be glad to read them once more, even 
 if they live in his memory. The intense school of 
 poetry, believe me, has not surpassed them. 
 
 " Of no distemper, of no blast he died, 
 But fell like autumn-fruit that mellow'd long, 
 Ev'n wonder'd at, because he dropped no sooner. 
 Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years, 
 Yet freely ran he on ten winters more ; 
 Till, like a clock worn out with eating time, 
 The wheels of weary life, at last, stood still." 
 
 The student in expressive harmony will find the 
 last line, in particular, possessed of imitative exact- 
 ness even astonishing. The slight suspensive 
 pause before and after the words "at last," will 
 render the closing foot of the verse immovable. 
 
 All the passages of Macklin 's life had a degree 
 of mystery about them which rarely attends a 
 man so honourable as he undoubtedly was. As a
 
 MRS. JORDAN 313 
 
 number of his mystifications happened when he 
 certainly had no failure of memory, he must have 
 amused himself with the silly curiosity around him, 
 and invented circumstances for the occasion. He 
 was in his thirty-fourth year before he appeared 
 upon the London stage ; acted his twenty years, 
 and retired from it, as far back as the year 1753. 
 He then seems to have recovered the strength he 
 had lost, and the powers of his mind enabled him 
 to give perfection to his masterwork, called the 
 "Man of the World." Its dialogue is distin- 
 guished by an almost political point and force, and 
 the character of Sir Archy MacSarcasm received 
 from the performance of its author a perfection 
 which has not attended any other dramatic repre- 
 sentation in my remembrance. Compared with 
 Macklin, Cooke was noisy and vulgar he could 
 not bow ; he had no " insidious humility " to make 
 a show with, it was effective, but that was all. 
 Macklin was "the true and perfect image of life 
 indeed." 
 
 His wife and daughter were ornaments of the 
 stage also, and Garrick was often indebted to the 
 volunteer kindness of Miss Macklin for a heroine, 
 when his own ladies chose to be too ill to appear 
 on a weak night. I am little disposed certainly to
 
 314 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 compliment the present at the expense of the past, 
 but I am compelled to say that, however inferior 
 in some points to their great predecessors, the 
 actresses of the modern stage at least do their 
 duty steadily to the managers and the public. He 
 is buried in the same vault with an only son in the 
 churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and was 
 attended to his grave by Mr. Hull and Mr. Munden, 
 the treasurer, and other officers of the theatre, and 
 a few private friends. 
 
 It is hardly extraneous to the subject of the 
 theatre to notice that the great Lord Mansfield 
 preceded Macklin by a few months, and expired 
 at the venerable age of eighty-nine years. When 
 Macklin had brought his enemies to his feet, and 
 refused the damages which the jury had awarded 
 to him, that illustrious man said to him, " Mr. 
 Macklin, you never acted better in your life." It 
 was a compliment to make a man proud. 1 
 
 The summer of 1797 was distinguished by, 
 
 1 I beg the reader's indulgence, while I return to Lord Mans- 
 field for a few moments. We live in a period that may be called 
 exclusively the commercial, or the moneyed age ; the dependence, 
 that cherished all the virtues by binding men to each other, is at 
 an end ; every man now thinks and acts, as Coriolanus says : 
 
 " As if a man were author of himself, 
 And knew no other kin."
 
 MRS. JORDAN 315 
 
 perhaps, the best comedy of the younger Colman, 
 the " Heir at Law," a play entirely suggested by 
 a short colloquy between Sir John Falstaff and 
 Mrs. Quickly, the substitution of " Dowlas ! filthy 
 dowlas ! for Holland of eight shillings an ell ; " 
 Daniel Dowlas, the chandler, for the real Lord 
 Duberly. The Dowlasses, and their household 
 refiner, Doctor Pangloss, excited, and will always 
 
 At such a time, when revolutions are again menacing the 
 repose of the world, the opinion of Lord Mansfield, given to his 
 friend Doctor Turton, on the French nation about 1792, merits 
 the deliberate attention of those who think. 
 
 "Mv DEAR TURTON: How can any two reasonable men 
 think differently on the subject ? A nation which, for more 
 than twelve centuries, has made a conspicuous figure in the 
 annals of Europe ; a nation where the polite arts first flourished 
 in the northern hemisphere, and found an asylum against the 
 barbarous incursions of the Goths and Vandals ; a nation whose 
 philosophers and men of science cherished and improved civilisa- 
 tion, and grafted on the feudal system, the best of all systems, 
 their laws respecting the descents and various modifications of 
 territorial property I To think that a nation like this should not, 
 in the course of so many centuries, have learned something worth 
 preserving, should not, in the course of so many centuries, have 
 hit upon some little code of laws, or a few principles sufficient to 
 form one ! Idiots 1 who, instead of retaining what was valuable, 
 sound, and energetic in their constitution, have at once sunk into 
 barbarity, lost sight of first principles, and brought forward a 
 farrago of laws fit for Botany Bay 1 It is enough to fill the mind 
 with astonishment and abhorrence 1 A constitution like this may 
 survive that of an old man, but nothing less than a miracle can 
 protect and transmit it down to posterity."
 
 316 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 excite, the hearty laugh of genuine comedy, when 
 the sickly sentiment, which had long, and perhaps 
 of necessity, usurped its place, shall be buried 
 in oblivion. I must be of opinion that genuine 
 laughable comedy is the most difficult of all 
 compositions ; I mean, in course, on this side 
 of extravagance. Both Suett and Fawcett were 
 unrivalled. 
 
 On the subject of my own, or, in honest truth, 
 Mrs. RadclifF s " Italian Monk," brought out in 
 the same season, I shall say nothing, but that 
 it was well received, and did, I believe, service to 
 the theatre. I am sure the liberal payment of Mr. 
 Colman was of great service to me. It was one- 
 third of nine nights, after expenses. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan passed the present summer between 
 Richmond and Margate. The opening season of 
 Covent Garden, or winter of 1797-98, afforded her 
 an opportunity of again seeing Mrs. Abington, to 
 whom her mother had acted the first Constantia 
 formerly upon the Irish stage. She returned to 
 Mr. Harris after an absence of six years, and I 
 saw her performance of Beatrice, which, in point 
 of skill, was equal to the efforts of her best time ; 
 but she had enlarged her figure, and her face, too, 
 by time, and could perhaps fascinate no one, with-
 
 
 Etched by W. Boucher, from a painting by (iain>borough. In 
 tht- n of Mrs. Kay 

 
 MRS. JORDAN 317 
 
 out the aid of recollection on his part. She was 
 no longer the " glass of fashion " that she had 
 once been ; the modern costume a la Grecque did 
 not suit her; she was now a matronly Beatrice; 
 but, while alive, the character clung to her closely, 
 and, in the year 1815, sunk into the grave along 
 with her, I will not say never to return, though 
 that is extremely probable, unless, indeed, it 
 should be decorated with the harmonies of some 
 future Bishop, and " Much Ado about Nothing," 
 convert this comedy, like many others, into an 
 opera, to save a sinking theatre. Which the spirit 
 of good taste (if such a spirit there be), in mercy 
 to the fame of Shakespeare avert ! 
 
 Previous to her appearance, which was on the 
 6th of October, Murray spoke an address written 
 by Mr. Colman, which referred to the school of 
 Garrick, and the nature to which it professed to 
 adhere, but sure, as it happened in the case of 
 Shakespeare himself, so well remembered by B. 
 Jonson, 
 
 " Thy art, 
 My gentle Garrick, must sustain a part." 
 
 This art, it is true, always tended to make the 
 imitation of nature more perfect, by the filling 
 up of numberless chasms, which mere language
 
 318 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 must always leave to the actor, in the most 
 finished character ever drawn by a dramatic 
 poet. 
 
 The coincidences of life are many, and often 
 singular. At the very time that Mrs. Abington 
 was evincing to us what her powers had been, by 
 what they still were, Mr. Harris displayed, in the 
 person of Miss Betterton, from the Bath theatre, 
 the only actress who ever, in the slightest degree, 
 resembled her. Then, however, she was con- 
 sidered as a tragedian, which naturally she was 
 not, and acted Elwina in the " Percy " of Miss 
 More. She was an early proficient in the studies 
 of her profession, and possessed a sound and crit- 
 ical understanding. This young lady is now Mrs. 
 Glover, the ablest actress in existence. But we 
 have the misfortune to live in a girlish age, and 
 womanhood is a disqualification. Things in their 
 nonage, like the boys that, "aiery of children," 
 that so annoyed Shakespeare, and then berattled 
 the common stage, now possess it merely. A true 
 genius, however, is welcome at whatever age, but 
 then, as a glorious exception, let the due honours 
 unaccompanied invest her only. 
 
 At Drury Lane Theatre, they were looking to 
 supply a fearful chasm indeed : that left by Miss
 
 MRS. JORDAN 319 
 
 Farren in the " Heiress." As far as figure went, 
 Miss Humphreys, whom I always looked upon as 
 a Jewess, might represent Lady Emily Gayville, 
 or any other lady of fashionable exterior ; but the 
 broken irregularity, always visible in the features 
 of the fairest daughter of Israel, destroyed her 
 beauty while she was speaking she was only a 
 fine woman while acting the silent one. 
 
 Miss Biggs, from the Bath stage, succeeded her 
 on the i /th of October, and on the whole pos- 
 sessed most requisites for the situation. Miss 
 Farren did not wear the male habit Miss Biggs 
 wore it with ease to herself, and yet without 
 effrontery. She acted the Irish Widow with great 
 spirit, and received the highest encouragement. 
 For the most part, I like the assumption of the 
 male attire better than the adoption of the sex. 
 Miss Decamp had become a lover in a farce by 
 Walsh Porter, called the "Chimney Corner," and 
 Mrs. Jordan was next to be received as a young and 
 dissipated baronet, called Sir Edward Bloomley, in 
 the comedy called "Cheap Living," by which 
 Reynolds, now a denizen of Drury, followed his 
 "Will" on the 2ist of October. 
 
 As the fable of the " Will " was a volume itself, 
 so " Cheap Living " had no story to tell. Charles
 
 320 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Woodland, having rescued Miss Bloomley from 
 robbers, has the passport of gratitude to her affec- 
 tions, and robs her of her honour. Neither of the 
 lovers, however, are happy without the tardy repa- 
 ration of religion. Sir Edward Bloomley preserves 
 Charles Woodland from being disinherited, and a 
 man, called Sponge, eats and drinks his way 
 through the piece, and by this cheap living gives a 
 title to the play, in which he has nothing else to 
 do. So that the efficient characters in the piece 
 are neither of them principals, and are there only 
 to display the meanness of the one, and the cun- 
 ning, vicious prematurity of the other. It was 
 merely a pair of lovers, to supply a decided attach- 
 ment of two of the performers, a frolic for 
 Mrs. Jordan and a bustle for Bannister, with 
 two hypocrites to the tune of Palmer and 
 Miss Pope, with a slight network only to keep 
 the odd fish together. All immoral, dishonest 
 persons. 
 
 If Cumberland had walked up now to him out 
 of the orchestra, the indignant " mender of hearts " 
 had been justified. The truth was, it was a very 
 hasty " Margate excursion " of the author, and 
 wanted much of his usual adroitness. Mrs. Jor- 
 dan did not like her character, and seemed dis-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 321 
 
 posed at one time to decline it altogether. 
 Wroughton's friendship for the author or anxi- 
 ety for the theatre made him notice her discontent 
 at rehearsal with some sharpness. "Why, you 
 are grand, madam quite the duchess again this 
 morning." "Very likely," replied Mrs. Jordan, 
 " for you are not the first person this very day 
 who has condescended to honour me ironically 
 with the title." Then, without the slightest pique 
 (says Reynolds himself), and with all her charac- 
 teristic humour, she told us that, having that 
 morning discharged her Irish cook for imperti- 
 nence, when she paid her the wages due to her 
 the indignant daughter of St. Patrick showed her 
 a shilling, and, banging it down upon the table, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Arrah now, honey, with this thirteener won't 
 I sit in the gallery ? and won't your Royal 
 Grace give me a curtsey ? and won't I give your 
 Royal Highness a howl, and a hiss into the bar- 
 gain?" 
 
 The word condescended, used by Mrs. Jordan, 
 while it levelled the manager with her cook, amply 
 corrected his very unpolite behaviour, and intro- 
 duced her story in the true way. It may be ob- 
 served here that the lower class of the Irish have
 
 322 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 more humour in their anger than those of any 
 other nation under the sun. 
 
 How few, in the profession of the stage, know 
 the true period for retiring from it, or, if they do, 
 find it convenient to retire. This reflection is ex- 
 torted from me by the return of Mrs. Crawford 
 in the character of Lady Randolph, with Harry 
 Johnston for her Norval, on the 23d of the month, 
 at Covent Garden Theatre. It was an appearance 
 for the benefit alone of Mrs. Siddons, and left her 
 the palm, which the memory of some, and the 
 inclination of more, up to that moment denied 
 her. 
 
 The sufferers in Lord Duncan's glorious action 
 on the coast of Holland left their relatives to the 
 benevolence of their countrymen, and the theatres 
 became receivers of their bounty in the disguise 
 of their pleasure. Mrs. Jordan acted for them, 
 thus adding the deed to the will, followed by the 
 prize. Cumberland contributed an address, which 
 was spoken by Wroughton, not, perhaps, quite 
 equal to that of Richardson for Howe ; indeed, 
 one couplet seemed completely Delia Cruscan, or 
 the muse of Rob. Merry: 
 
 "In the mid-watch, night's melancholy noon, 
 Humming their ditty to the pale-fac'd moon,"
 
 MRS. JORDAN 323 
 
 But on such occasions something fine is always 
 expected, and we must attend to the warning only 
 of Lady Macbeth : 
 
 " Think of this, good peers, but as a trick of custom." 
 
 Kemble had been kept from acting Hotspur in 
 London by the want of a Falstaff. A Mr. Long- 
 ley, on the 2 $th of November, afforded him an 
 opportunity of showing us the hero of the North, 
 but the candidate for the honours of Falstaff could 
 not decline " the word honour " on his examina- 
 tion, and was put aside. Drury Lane offered a 
 Mr. Archer, moreover, in the character of Shy- 
 lock, with about equal miscarriage. Such trifling 
 in the national theatre was monstrous. If the 
 reader will allow me to cast the "First Part of 
 Henry IV." from the two companies, he will 
 see how a play should be acted : The King, 
 Bensley ; the Prince, Lewis ; Hotspur, Kemble ; 
 Glendower, Digges ; Poins, C. Kemble ; Bar- 
 dolph, Moody ; Falstaff, Henderson ; and Mistress 
 Quickly, Mrs. Davenport and I hope, as Peter 
 Quince says, here is a play fitted ! But at one 
 time, you cuckoo ? No, not any one time, I 
 entirely believe. 
 
 Matthew George Lewis, the son of the deputy
 
 324 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 secretary at war, has been familiarly, perhaps 
 complimentarily, called Monk Lewis, from a ro- 
 mance written by him, of which the genius and 
 the indecorum are about equal. He was a scholar, 
 fashionable in his connections, fond of the thea- 
 tre, and more than a melodramatic writer, though 
 wedded to such stage effects and skilful in pro- 
 ducing them. He brought out, on the I4th of 
 December, a dramatic romance called the " Castle 
 Spectre," a piece really of one scene, but that so 
 astonishingly beautiful, that it drew crowds to the 
 theatre, and very nearly restored the house of 
 Sheridan. The secret of this spectre was ex- 
 tremely well kept ; the bill of the day gave not 
 a glimpse of light beyond the mere title, and the 
 actors in the piece answered to all kind inquirers 
 as to who the spectre was, or by whom represented, 
 " You'll see." The set scene in this theatre had 
 an oratory with a perforated door of pure Gothic, 
 over which was a window of rich tracery, and Mrs. 
 Jordan, who played Angela, being on the stage, a 
 brilliant illumination suddenly took place, and the 
 doors of the oratory opened : the light was per- 
 fectly celestial, and a majestic and lovely, but 
 melancholy image stood before us ; at this mo- 
 ment, in a low but sweet and thrilling harmony,
 
 MRS. JORDAN 325 
 
 the band played the strain of Jomelli's chaconne, 
 in his celebrated overture, in three flats. Every 
 hearer exclaimed : 
 
 " This is no mortal business, nor no sound 
 That the earth owns." 
 
 And the figure began slowly to advance ; it was 
 the spirit of Angela's mother, Mrs. Powell, in all 
 her beauty, with long sweeping envelopments of 
 muslin attached to the wrist, and picture as- 
 suredly has never approached the effect, though 
 it may have suggested it. Mrs. Jordan cowered 
 down motionless, with terror, and Mrs. Powell bent 
 over her prostrate daughter in maternal benedic- 
 tion. In a few minutes she entered the oratory 
 again, the doors closed, and darkness once more 
 enveloped the heroine and the scene. 
 
 As to the strain from Jomelli, its quality may 
 be gathered from one circumstance. My friend 
 Atwood, who, as a composer, needs no praise of 
 mine, converted it to the choir service ; and I my- 
 self heard him play it as the response in the 
 litany to the deep murmur of the organ in St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, and also in the king's chapel at 
 Windsor, and I am sure his master, Mozart, would 
 have applauded his taste.
 
 326 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 I borrow from myself what I have before written 
 as to my friend Kemble in the present play : 
 " There was one remarkable point of character in 
 Mr. Kemble ; that, out of the management, and 
 where responsibility was upon others, he was the 
 gentlest of all great actors he would do any- 
 thing." So that when he was cast into Percy, in 
 the present piece, a sort of Harlequin hero, who 
 gets into his enemy's castle after his Columbine, 
 Angela, he had to climb from a sofa to a Gothic 
 window, and, being alarmed by the stirring of his 
 black guards, he has to fall from the height flat 
 again at his length upon the said sofa, and seem 
 asleep, as they had before seen him. This he did 
 as boldly and suddenly as if he had been shot. 
 When people complimented him upon his unsus- 
 pected agility, " Nay," he used to say, " gentlemen, 
 Mr. Boaden has exceeded all compliment upon 
 this feat of mine, for he counselled me from ' Mac- 
 beth,' to 
 
 Jump the life to come.' " 
 
 But it was melancholy to see the abuse of such 
 talents. It is only in a barn that the Cato of a 
 company should be allowed to risk his neck. 
 
 The term black guards, used above, alludes to 
 the African servants in the play.
 
 MRS. JORDAN 327 
 
 As a disgusting flippancy was now become the 
 established characteristic of a preface, the author 
 thus vindicates the colour he has given to these 
 guards of Percy : " I thought it would give a 
 pleasing variety to the characters if I made my 
 servants black ; and could I have produced the 
 same effect by making my heroine blue, blue I 
 should have made her." Thus happily remember- 
 ing one of the associations of language used to 
 describe a bruise, black and blue. This principle 
 of thinking only of effect seems to have coloured 
 his dialogue also ; for, before the fifteenth century, 
 we have the following anachronisms : " a sheet 
 of foolscap," "kissing and smuggling," "an over- 
 grown turtle," " I heard the guitar," " plain cherry- 
 brandy," "Saib advances a sofa." His dresses 
 also were fashioned for effect alone, and the fool 
 of the play was red on one side and white on the 
 other with a "cocked hat," a "ruffled shirt," 
 "short breeches," and "silk stockings." The 
 reader sees what a narrow escape Mrs. Jordan 
 had from a " blue skin ; " of which the effect 
 would have been far from celestial, which was not 
 the case as to her dress, which was the picturesque 
 angelic. Enough of the antiquary. 
 
 The " Castle Spectre " was acted forty-six times
 
 328 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 between the I4th of December, 1797, and the close 
 of the season, in June. Lewis, aware of his ser- 
 vices, in a dispute with Sheridan once offered to 
 bet him all the money his play had brought into 
 the treasury. " No," replied the wit, " I can't 
 afford to do that, but I'll bet you all it is worth." 
 Wit is seldom so just a measure of obligation as 
 arithmetic. Sheridan should never have attacked 
 Lewis in Westminster Hall for merely endeavour- 
 ing to obtain the money due to him. Nor should 
 Colman have fallen foul of the ponderous machin- 
 ery, processions, and castles, and elephants of the 
 great theatre, if he himself ever intended to em- 
 ploy, and even extend, the costly pageantry. This, 
 however, he did on the i6th of January, 1798, by 
 the production of the well-known grand spectacle 
 called "Bluebeard," which Mrs. Jordan stayed to 
 see after acting the Country Girl. Everything 
 worked ill. The grand cavalcade in the moun- 
 tains, seen for half an hour to the same march (a 
 very fine one), with the small elephants, needing 
 the Gulliver-like aid of the scene-shifter, to get 
 them through the defiles, and the horrible bog- 
 gling at the destruction of Abomelique, merited 
 almost a second preface from the author of the 
 "Iron Chest." But, upon the whole, it was per-
 
 MRS. JORDAN 329 
 
 formed so well, and was so truly splendid, that it 
 has never been surpassed in my remembrance. If 
 I were to select the most prominent merit it had, I 
 should clearly name the sister of the heroine, 
 Irene, by Miss Decamp, who looked, and acted, 
 and sang, in such a way as to prove herself the 
 first melodramatic actress that had been seen 
 among us. It ran on just like the " Castle Spec- 
 tre," and must have produced immense receipts, 
 attended, it is true, with no slight expense of 
 dresses, decorations, and supernumeraries. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan now really played every night, for 
 when the "Castle Spectre" was not performed, 
 the " Country Girl " or the " Confederacy" called 
 her out, or she supported the " Will," which out- 
 lived " Cheap Living " by many a season. How- 
 ever, a little relief was promised, and given, by the 
 production of Kotzebue's " Stranger " on the 24th 
 of March, 1798, and Sheridan himself had been 
 induced by his new ally, Mr. Grubb, to read and 
 improve the translated play as Mr. Thompson 
 delivered it. He wrote the song which Mrs. 
 Bland sang in the Stranger's hearing, and which 
 echoed the exact feelings of his own wife, to a 
 tune which was familiar to his ear. I have done 
 with the controversy about this play ; for what sig-
 
 330 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 nifies the reasoning where every heart is touched, 
 and every eye is suffused with tears ? Reynolds 
 has ludicrously quarrelled with Mrs. Haller for 
 giving away the old six-and-twenty hock. She 
 conceived no wine too good for the weak and mis- 
 erable. Oh, these writers of comedy ! I wonder 
 the following stage direction escaped him : " The 
 baron stands opposite to Mrs. Haller, and from 
 time to time casts a glance at her, in which his 
 heart is swimming." 
 
 Kemble told me that in the " Stranger " he 
 should throw his Penruddock into the shade, and 
 I hardly believed that possible ; but Kotzebue had 
 a power infinitely beyond Cumberland, and the 
 sudden meeting of the Stranger and Mrs. Haller, 
 the conclusion of the fourth act, and the last scene 
 of the play are among the most exquisite things of 
 any stage. I am not a German critic, and cannot 
 tell whether his style be equal to that of Schiller, 
 but I suspect it is not. Yet the plays of Schil- 
 ler have little pathos, though they have a wild, 
 irregular greatness, that claims a relation to 
 Shakespeare. Let me say that Mr. Kemble here 
 showed himself in the highest power of his art, and 
 if possible, extended his reputation. Mrs. Siddons 
 had not equal metal to work, but she fashioned it
 
 MRS. JORDAN 331 
 
 with great skill, and excited the sobs of her fair 
 hearers in abundance. 
 
 On the i Qth of May, O'Keefe tried the effect at 
 Drury Lane of a comedy he had written for Mrs. 
 Jordan. It was called " She's Eloped," a very 
 bad title, containing an equivocal contraction and 
 an injudicious discovery. Poor man ! he was then 
 for the only time led into the greenroom by Mrs. 
 Powell, and decided against the prologue to his 
 play, in which Cumberland, I think it was, talked 
 of Homer and his poverty and his blindness, and 
 the proud pang of a wounded spirit came over 
 him. Mrs. Jordan, however, could not preserve 
 the comedy, though she acted Arabel, and spoke 
 an epilogue written by M. G. Lewis. O'Keefe 
 has these allusions to his play and Mrs. Jordan : 
 
 " For she's eloped, her gentle heart much griev'd : 
 
 That jilt, call'd Fortune, ceas'd to use me well 
 My comic efforts were but ill receiv'd ; 
 With Dora tho' she came, frowns greet my Arabel." 
 
 The night preceding Smith came to town to act 
 Charles, in the "School for Scandal," for his old 
 friend King's benefit. He now, as to Mrs. Jor- 
 dan, saw his prophttie accomplie. She was at the 
 summit of the profession, and to the theatre, 
 which he loved, invaluable. His discernment in this
 
 332 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 case may atone for his absurd puffing of the young 
 Roscius ; but Smith did not love John Kemble. 
 
 The summer of 1798 was rendered remarkable 
 in the history of the stage by the death of that 
 great comedian, my friend, John Palmer. This 
 happened to him while acting the character of the 
 Stranger, and he was struck down in that agonis- 
 ing scene in the fourth act between himself and 
 Whitfield, who performed Baron Steinfort, when 
 about to answer his inquiry after the former's 
 children. The words he tried in vain to articulate 
 were these : 
 
 " Stra. I left them at a small town hard by." 
 
 But this was so little calculated for effect, that, 
 still keeping to the baron as the person replied 
 to, Palmer was reported to have said to him : 
 " O God, God ! there is another, and a better 
 world." But the saints who spread this precious 
 falsehood were not quite wide of their aim ; for 
 they thus appear in the second act (not the fourth), 
 and are not spoken to Steinfort even there, but to 
 the Stranger's servant, Francis : 
 
 "Stra. Have you forgotten what the old man said this 
 
 morning ? 
 ' There is another and a better world ! ' "
 
 MRS. JORDAN 333 
 
 So that poor Palmer's dramatic life was two 
 acts longer, at least, than these gloomy owls 
 screamed it to have been. The play itself was 
 printed at Liverpool upon Palmer's death, and the 
 chief purchasers were the serious persons of the 
 evangelic persuasion, who more than insinuated 
 that the calamity befallen the theatre was a judg- 
 ment on profaneness, and used the play itself as 
 a text to sentence the players to perdition. 
 
 The truth is that Palmer had recently lost his 
 wife and a favourite child, and the man's distress, 
 meeting with matter so congenial in his profession, 
 excited a convulsive spasm that ended him in a 
 moment. Messrs. Hamerton, Callan, and Mara 
 were the persons who conveyed the lifeless body 
 from the stage into the greenroom, and every 
 effort of medical skill was employed for the space 
 of an hour in vain. The announcement then 
 made by the faculty excited the heavy sighs of the 
 men and the piercing shrieks of the women. The 
 impression was so terrific behind the curtain that 
 when Mr. Aickin, the manager, came forward to 
 announce the result to the audience, his remark- 
 ably manly nerve was so completely overpowered 
 by his horror that he withdrew, unable to articu- 
 late a single syllable ; and they had to learn Mr.
 
 334 MRS. JORDAN 
 
 Palmer's fate from Incledon, scarcely less agitated 
 than Mr. Aickin. 
 
 Mr. Garrick had slighted Palmer in his outset, 
 and said that he never would make an actor ; how- 
 ever, this judgment he lived to reverse. I can 
 readily believe that Palmer, as a stripling, might 
 have promised nothing but a showy figure at his 
 maturity. He was an actor made by time and 
 practice, not a genius like Henderson, who must 
 at once be Hamlet, and Benedick, and Richard, 
 and Falstaff, or nothing. 
 
 I do not think Mrs. Jordan acted anywhere 
 this summer but at Richmond ; for which there 
 appeared, indeed, to be sufficient family reasons. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I.
 
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