HISTORY OF THE LONDON STAGE First Edition, in Two Vols., 1889 Sa ond Edition (written), in One Vol., January, ,94 > FANNY KEM'BLE HISTORY OF THE LONDON STAGE AND ITS FAMOUS PLAYERS (1576-1903). BY H. BARTON BAKER AUTHOR OF "OUR OLD ACTORS," " STORIES OF THE STREETS OF LONDON," ETC. WITH TEN PORTRAITS ENGRAVED ON COPPER LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON AND CO. 1904 Q\\.1 -t LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I. FANNY KEMBLE . .... Frontispiece II. RICHARD BURBAGE . ... To face page 20 III. ANN OLDFIELD . . . . ,,62 IV. DAVID GARRICK . . ,,74 V. EDMUND KEAN . . . . ,,88 VI. PEG WOFFINGTON . . . . ,,114 VII. SARAH SIDDONS . . . . ,,130 VIII. SAMUEL FOOTE . . 216 IX. ROBERT WILLIAM ELLISTON . 254 X. INTERIOR OF SADLER'S WELLS THEATRE . 360 THE AUTHOR HAS MUCH PLEASURE IN Inscribing tbis Dolume (BY PERMISSION) TO SIR CHARLES WYNDHAM AS THE DOYEN MANAGER OF THE LONDON STAGE o o r: c J PREFACE A FULL and complete history of the London stage would fill some scores of volumes Geneste re- quired ten for the history of the patent theatres and the Haymarket he touches upon little else from 1660 to 1830. With the space at my disposal I could do no more than generalise ; but I have endeavoured to give a continuous and consecutive history of the rise, pro- gress, changes, vicissitudes of the London stage from its foundation in 1576 to the present day from the Blackfriars of Shakespeare and the Drury Lane of Garrick to "the Vic." and the Bower Saloon. My difficulty has been to select out of the plethora of materials such as would most vividly tell my story, as well as prove most acceptable to my readers. To con- dense within one volume the principal dramatic events, with some account of the authors who created them and the actors who embodied them, through a period of about three hundred and thirty years, distributed among the many scores of theatres that have risen, fallen, and still exist, from the time when James Bur- bage built The Theatre to the opening of the New Gaiety, has been a task to which much thought and labour have had to be given. In treating of the actors I have been compelled, except in rare cases, to confine myself entirely to their stage careers. That important viii PREFACE omissions will be detected, that actors, concerning whom fuller details might be expected, are only glanced at, goes without saying ; for all such shortcomings my plea must be lack of space. Having been a constant playgoer from early boyhood, and associated with the stage both before and behind the curtain during the greater part of my life, I have been enabled to give personal impressions and remi- niscences of some of the famous actors of the past in their later days as well as of those of the present. In my very brief remarks upon the drama of the day I could scarcely refer to the enormous influence which Ibsen has exercised upon the work of Messrs. Pinero, H. A. Jones, Esmond, Haddon Chambers, and others of our leading dramatists, an influence which, whether for good or ill, is paramount over the dramatic literature of Europe. The edition of 1889 has been thoroughly revised, the original text pruned, a great deal of new matter introduced, and the chronicles of the stage brought up to the autumn of 1903. H. BARTON BAKER CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ' THE LONDON THEATRES FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME I THE ELIZABETHAN AND STUART THEATRES BUILT l DESTROYED PAGE The Theatre . . .. 1576 1597 . 4 The Curtain . ... 1577 1623 (?) . 4 The Hope . ... 1613 1656 . . . 8 The Rose . ... 1592 ? . . 8 The Swan . ... 1598 1632 ? . 8 The Blackfriars . . . 1596 1647 (?) . .12 The Globe . . . 1597 1644 . . . 10 The Newington . ? ? . . . n The Fortune . . . 1599 1656 . . 14 The Red Bull. . . . 1599 (?) 1661 (?) . . . 15 The Cockpit I ( . . i S The Phoenix ) The Whitefriars . ? ? . . . 16 Salisbury Court . . . 1629 1666 . . .17 II THE RESTORATION THEATRES Vere Street, Clare Market . . 1660 1663 (?) . . 46 Lincoln's Inn Fields (The Duke's) . 1660 1743 ( ? ) IO 7 The Nursery . ... 1662 ? . . 40 Dorset Garden (Duke's) . . 1672 1706 (?) . . 38 1 When a note of interrogation follows the date, it is doubtful. When the note stands alone, the date is unknown,/ A blank left in the second column of figures, denotes that the theatre is still standing. When two or more names are bracketed, it indicates that the theatre has been known by each of those titles. 1809 1882 . .311 x CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF III BYGONE WEST END THEATRES (BUILT DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES) BUILT DESTROYED PAGE The Queen's \ The King's V .. 1705 1892 .. 162 Her Majesty's J The Sans Souci . . .1793 1834 . . 346 The Lyceum . . ^ The English Opera House > .1794 1902 274 The Theatre Royal Lyceum J Astley's Middlesex Amphitheatre] Olympic Pavilion lgo6 lg ? Little Drury Lane Olympic " Concerts of Ancient Music " Regency Theatre of Varieties West London Queen's Fitzroy Queen's (second time) Prince of Wales's The Argyll Rooms Theatre . . . 1819 1823 . . 346 The Orange Street, Chelsea . . .1831 1832 . . 346 The Albion \ _o._ The New Queen's) ' The Westminster Theatre . . .1832 1836 . . 347 The Royal Kent, Kensington High Street . 1834 1840 . . 347 The Colisseum, Albany Street . . .1841 1842 . . 348 The Bijou (Her Majesty's) . . ? 1867 . .207 Holborn Mirror } . ... 1866 1879 326 Duke's Queen's National [ . . . . 1867 1878 . . 328 Queen's Globe . . ... 1868 1902 . . 330 Gaiety . . ... 1868 1903 . . 338 Charing Cross ^ Folly . . 1869 1895 . . 335 Toole's J Opera Comique . . . . 1870 1899 334 Alhambra (as a dramatic theatre) . . 1871 1884 . . . 343 Amphitheatre, Holborn Connaught j. . . ,874 1888 . . 327 Alcazar Theatre Royal, Holborn THE LONDON THEATRES XI The Aquarium Theatre ) The Imperial ) Empire (as a dramatic theatre) The Royal English Opera House (now the Palace Theatre) . . . BUILT DESTROYED 1876 1885 1884 1890 1887 532 344 - 345 IV THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY Drury Lane ,' The Haymarket ! Covent Garden iKe Sans Pareil Adelphi The New Royal Sussex The Royal Pavilion Theatre, West Theatre Royal, Marylebone Royal Alfred The Marylebone The West London Theatre Rayner's New Subscription Theatre in the Strand \ New Strand > Theatre Royal, Strand J The St. James's ^ The Prince's \ . . . The St. James's J Miss Kelly's Theatre \ New English Opera House > . New Royalty ) The Princess's . . . The Vaudeville . . . . . New Chelsea ^ Belgravia > . . . . Royal Court J The Criterion . . ... The Savoy . . . The Comedy ... The Avenue . . . The Novelty \ The Folies Dramatique The Jodrell The Great Queen Street Theatre) The Prince's ) The Prince of Wales's J Terry's Theatre . . . . The Shaftesbury . . ... 1663 1720 1732 1806 1831 1832 1835 1840 1840 1870 1870 1874 1881 1881 1882 1882 1884 1887 1888 45 211 - 413 438 439 456 45i 474 498 501 509 512 5U 516 518 519 521 522 xii CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BUILT DESTROYED PAGE The Lyric . ... 1888 . .523 The Garrick . . . 1889 . . 526 The Duke of York's . 1892 . . 529 Daly's Theatre . . . . 1893 -53 His Majesty's . ... 1897 . . . 534 Wyndham's . . . . 1900 . . 509 The Imperial . . . . 1901 . . 532 The Apollo . ... 1901 . . 533 The New Theatre . . 1903 . . .511 The New Gaiety . . 1903 . . . 542 THE WEST SUBURBAN THEATRES Lyric Opera House . . . 1888 . . -534 The Kilburn . . . 1895 The Grand, Fulham . . . 1897 . . 534 The Coronet, Netting Hill . . 1898 . . . 534 The Richmond 1 . ... 1893 534 The King's Theatre, Hammersmith . 1897 . . 534 The Ealing . ... * ... THE NORTHERN THEATRES (PAST AND PRESENT) ^ \V Sadler's Wells . ... 1765 . .351 The Grecian . ... 1832 1881 . . . 376 The Clarence The King's Cross The Albert Saloon . . . ? . . 378 The Britannia . . . 1841 . . 378 Highbury Barn . ... 1865 1871 . . . 381 The Variety, Hoxton . . . 1871 . . . 381 The Park, Camden Town 1 lg8j The Alexandra ) The Philharmonic \ g 8 The Grand / The Parkhurst . . . 1890 . . 383 The New Alexandra, Stoke Newington 1897 . . 383 The Queen's, Crouch End . 1897 . . . 283 The Dalston . . . . 1898 . . 383 The Camden . ... 1900 . . 383 The New Marlborough, Holloway -1903 - v . . .383 1 The old Richmond Theatre, built in 1765, was not pulled down until 1884. THE LONDON THEATRES xiii THE SOUTHERN THEATRES (PAST AND PRESENT) BUILT DESTROYED PAGE 780 1895 . . . 384 The Royal Grove Astley's Amphitheatre Davis's Amphitheatre Batty's Amphitheatre Theatre Royal, Westminster Banger's Amphitheatre The Royal Circus \ 1782 380 The Surrey / The Cobourg j l8lg lg7 , 39 6 The Victoria J The Rotunda . . . . . 1833 1838 . . .400 The Bower Saloon . . . . 1838 1879 . . .399 The Royal Borough . ? ? . . 400 The Greenwich . .1864 . . 400 The Carlton, Greenwich ... * . 4o The Old Deptford . . . ? ? . . 400 The Elephant and Castle . .1872 . . 400 The Metropole, Camberwell . . 1894 . . 401 The New Brixton . . . 1896 . . 401 The Kennington . . . 1898 . . . 401 The Crown, Peckham . . 1898 . . . 401 The Terris, Rotherhithe . . . 1899 . . 401 The Duchess (as a theatre), Balham .1899 - 4< The Broadway, Deptford . . . 1897 . . 401 THE EAST END THEATRES (PAST AND PRESENT) Goodman's Fields (two theatres) . .1703 I75 1 .66 The Royalty ^ The East London \ . .1787 1828 . . . 402 The Brunswick J The Shakespeare, Curtain Road . . 1 820 The City Theatre, Grub Street \ lg , g 6 4O4 The City Pantheon The Pavilion . . . . 1829 . . 406 The Garrick, Leman Street . .1830 1875 ? . . . 406 The City of London . . . 1835 1868 . . . 407 The New East London, Stepney . ? The Royal Standard \ lg 7 4O g The New Standard J The Effingham Saloon \ lg79 m m 4C>9 The New East London / xiv CHRONOLOGICAL LIST BUILT DESTROYED PAGE The Oriental \ 8fi ? The Albion, Poplar/ The Theatre Royal, Stratford * . . 409 The Borough, Stratford . . 1896 . . 409 This, as far as I have been able to discover, is a complete list of the metropolitan theatres from 1576 to 1903, though doubtless others may have existed which have sunk into irretrievable oblivion. I have omitted all mention of houses which have been used only for amateur performances. The most famous of these were, one in Catherine Street, afterwards the Echo office, and others situated in Gough Street and Rawstorne Street, upon the boards of which many an afterwards great actor first tried his wings. A more recent one, built about thirty or forty years ago, is the Bijou at Bayswater. Important performances are some- times given. It was there Nonna Vanna^ prohibited, no one knows why, by the Lord Chamberlain, was produced during 1903. * The managers of the theatres marked with a star have neglected to furnish me with dates. PART I THE STAGE UNDER ELIZABETH AND THE STUART KINGS THE LONDON STAGE CHAPTER I The Theatre The Curtain The Paris Garden The Hope The Rose The Globe The Swan The Newington The Blackfriars The Fortune -The Red Bull The Cockpit The Whitefriars The Salisbury Court Audiences Actors Plays Music The Question of Scenery A Play-day at the Blackfriars. IN mediaeval times the Miracle plays, Mysteries, and Moralities, the earliest forms of the Western drama, were represented in churches or on wooden movable plat- forms raised in the market places ; but from Henry the Seventh's reign, when a passion for dramatic amusements began to develop among all classes, to the earlier years of " the Virgin Queen," the trained companies of actors, which many noblemen attached to their households, when not required by their lords, would roam from town to town giving public performances, usually in inn yards ; and it was the ancient inn yard, with its open area, its two or three tiers of galleries with rooms at the back, that was taken as a model for the first English theatre, a model that has never since been departed from. Upon the site of what is now Holywell Lane, Shore- ditch, during the Middle Ages, stood the Priory of St. John the Baptist ; at the Reformation it shared the common fate of religious houses, and after lying in ruins -LVNDON STAGE for some time, one Giles Allen purchased the ground and leased it out for building. One of these plots was taken by James Burbage, Burbadge, or Burbidge the name is indifferently spelt an actor in the Earl of Leicester's company, but a joiner by trade, in partnership with his father-in-law, John Braynes, and thereon they erected a circular wooden building, open to the sky, at a cost of 600 or ^700, for theatrical and other amusements, which they named the Theatre, 1 and which was opened to the public in the autumn of 1576. Not for long, however, did this novel venture enjoy a monopoly ; during the following year a rival house sprang up in its immediate neighbourhood, and was called the Curtain ; the name still survives in Curtain Road. Writing at this time, Stow says : " Many houses have been there builded [on the site of the Priory] for the lodgings of noblemen, of strangers born, and other- wise. And near unto are builded two publique houses for the acting and shew of Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories for recreation. Whereof the one is called the Courtein and the other the Theatre, both standing on the south side towards the field." The Elizabethan drama, as we understand the term, was not yet born ; Marlowe, the first of the great dramatists, did not produce his Tamburlaine until about eleven years afterwards, and the earliest known plays of John Lyly and George Peele do not date farther back than 1584. Ralph Roister Doister, Gammer Gurtoris Needle, and Gordubuc, the first dramatic works in the English language that have any claim to be styled comedy and tragedy, were written at a -much earlier 1 Mr. Ordish, a weighty authority, in his Early London Theatres, opines that this was the first building erected in Europe for the performance of secular plays. In 1600, Paris had but two theatres, London nine or ten. UNDER ELIZABETH AND THE STUARTS 5 date, but only for private performance. 1 On the public stage were represented " Moralities," " Jigs," " Inter- ludes," 2 and such a barbarous medley of bombast and buffoonery as we have in the old plays of Damon and Pithias, Appius and Virginia, and Cambyses which Shakespeare has immortalised by his reference to " the King Cambyses vein," in Henry IV. From these and similar specimens of the pre-Marlowe drama that have descended to us, we can form a tolerably accurate idea of the dramatic portion of the entertain- ment given at the earliest theatres. At the Theatre there was a movable stage for dramatic performances, 3 but the entertainment consisted mostly of tumbling, vaulting, rope dancing, and fencing. A passage in Lambard's Perambulations of Kent (1576) affords a curious hint as to the prices charged for admission. " Those who go to Paris Gardens, the Bell Savage, 4 or the Theatre to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, must not account of any pleasant spectacle unless first they pay one penny at the gate, another at the 1 The first-named piece was written by Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton College, previous to 1553, and was probably acted by his scholars; the second was by John Still, also a clergyman, and played at Christ's College, Cambridge ; while Lord Sackville's Gordubuc, or Perrex and Porrex, was performed before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, in 1561. 2 In the " Moralities," the vices and virtues were personified. The recently revived Everyman is a fair specimen of that species of composi- tion. The "Jig" was made up of satirical verses, recited or sung by the clown to the accompaniment of pipe and tabor, to which he danced. "Interludes" were satirical dialogues on the follies and vices of the time; they were first introduced by John Heywood in the reign of Henry VII. 3 Mr. Ordish conjectures that the word playhouse was derived from the Anglo- Saxon plega-Hus, plega signifying a game or sport, while stage-play was so called from the circumstance that dramatic performances always took place on scaffolds or stages. 4 The inn yards continued to be used for dramatic exhibitions for some years after this time, and the Bell Sauvage on Ludgate Hill was one of the most famous of these extemporised playhouses. 6 THE LONDON STAGE entry to the scaffold, and a third for a quiet sitting." The last must, indeed, have been a desideratum in these early theatres, since the unruliness of the audience, who frequently indulged in riots and tumults, was continually getting the managers into hot water with the civic authorities, most of whom were leavened with Puritan- ism. In 1580 the Lord Mayor appealed against Braynes and Burbage to the Lords of the Council, who at that very time had under consideration certain disturbances which had occurred on a certain Sunday 1 in the April of that year, and in this memorial his lordship disdain- fully alludes to " the players of playes and tumblers " as being "a very superfluous sort of men," and opines that "the exercise of those playes is a great hindrance of the service of God." Here we have the germ of that fanaticism which grew year by year, until it was strong enough, under the gloomy reign of the saints, to sweep every pleasure out of existence. There was a constant struggle between the Court, as represented by the Privy Council, and the civic authorities about the players ; the former repeatedly solicited the City to show indulgence to the players, as Her Majesty some- times took delight in such pastimes, and these per- formances were necessary to enable them to attain more dexterity and perfection, the better to content Her Majesty. The Theatre enjoyed but a brief career. In 1597, Giles Allen, the ground landlord, perhaps under pressure of the Puritan citizens, intimated to Messrs. Braynes and Burbage that he required the land for other 1 The playhouses were open in London on Sundays, even in Charles the First's time ; though it would appear that such amusements were never law- ful on the Sabbath, and were forbidden by enactments at different periods. In 1595 there were performances on Christmas Day. UNDER ELIZABETH AND THE STUARTS 7 purposes. Now, according to the stipulations of the lease, Burbage had the power to remove the building at the end of his term ; but Allen denied this right, and evidently thought he had the power of evading it. One morning, however, the actors and some assistants set about pulling down the house, and, in spite of the armed resistance of the ground landlord, amidst a great tumult, succeeded in carrying off the materials to Bankside, Southwark, and the timber thus saved helped to erect another theatre, which was afterwards called the Globe. The Curtain was evidently a superior house to the Theatre ; some of the most celebrated companies of the time appeared there, notably the Lord Chamberlain's, known in the next reign as the King's, of which Shake- speare was a member. Here it is probable that Romeo and Juliet and Every Man in His Humour were first presented. There is no known reference to the Curtain after 1623, though it may have existed until the final suppression of the theatres, between 1642 and 1647. In the meantime theatrical amusements had been migrating southward, and at the close of the sixteenth and opening of the seventeenth century the Bankside, Southwark, was the great centre of theatrical London. In the petition of John Taylor, "the Water Poet," to James I. (1615) for the suppression of all theatres on the Middlesex side of the Thames, he states that 40,000 watermen plied for hire between Windsor and Gravesend, that half of these had been called into existence by the Southwark theatres and other places of amusement, which visitors always approached by the Thames, and he draws a direful picture of the ruin that will fall upon his craft if theatres are allowed to be erected within four miles of the city. The most popular place of amusement, however, on 8 THE LONDON STAGE Bankside, was Paris Garden, afterwards better known as the Bear Garden. 1 About 1585, in order to vary the brutal amusements of bull-baiting and cock-fighting, a theatre was opened here ; it was little more than a wooden frame set on trestles and wheels, so that it could be pushed aside to make room for the sports. In 1613, after the destruction of the Globe, Philip Henslowe, Edward Alleyn's father-in-law and the author of the famous Diary, which throws such a wonderful light upon the theatrical arrangements of his time, rebuilt and greatly enlarged this house, which was there- after known as the Hope. It is conjectured that the White Bear public-house the name is, undoubtedly, a reminiscence of Paris Garden occupies the site of it. Henslowe had built a theatre called the Rose within the precincts of the Bear Garden as early as 1592, in which it is probable that Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and the first part of Henry F/., Marlowe's Jew of Malta, and some of Greene's and Peele's plays were first performed. The Rose was the summer house of the Fortune, as the Globe was of the Blackfriars. Now between Edward Alleyn, 2 master of the Bear Garden, and James Burbage there seems to have been a strong rivalry, and it was to oppose Alleyn that the manager of the Theatre transported the materials of the building to Bankside, and there erected the Globe, which was opened in 1597, just in the lusty spring of the Elizabethan drama. Marlowe, Greene, and Peele had done their work and passed away ; Shakespeare had written his earlier plays, and, ere the century closed, Ben 1 The Bear Garden survived even the Puritan rule, and continued to flourish until the early decades of the eighteenth century, when it was super- seded in popular favour by the notorious Hockley-in-the-Hole, in Smithfield. 2 Edward Alleyn was one of the finest actors of his day, the proprietor of the Fortune Theatre, and the founder of Dulwich College. UNDER ELIZABETH AND THE STUARTS 9 Jonson, Chapman, Thomas Hey wood, and several minor lights had begun to wield their pens. A German traveller 1 who visited England in 1598 gives us the following curious description of the theatres of that period, and of Paris Garden: "Within the city are some theatres where English actors represent almost every day tragedies and comedies to very numerous audiences ; these are combined with excellent music and variety of dances. There is still another place built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears that are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other ; and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot ; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the place of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment, there often follows that of whip- ping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them on account of his chain ; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles, and every- where else, the English are constantly smoking tobacco, and in this manner they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the further end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and putting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out through their nostrils, like funnels, along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion from the head. In 1 Paul Hentznerus's/0r;/joo a year as director, as well as in consideration of the patent, which was made out in his name. During twenty years Drury Lane enjoyed an almost uninterrupted prosperity, though the share netted by each manager, ,1,500, would not be thought much in these days. Wilks died first, then Booth, after which Gibber retired. After the death and retirement of the Triumvirate, dark days again fell upon Drury Lane. In 1732 a gentleman named Highmore purchased Gibber's share for ,3,000, and shortly afterwards acquired that of Mrs. Wilks ; but a revolt of the company, stirred up by Colley's worthless son, 1 obliged him to close the house a ruined man, and sell his interest at a great sacrifice to Charles Fleetwood, a young fellow of good family, who, together with Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, the purchaser of Mrs. Booth's moiety, now became proprietor of the patent rights. Fleetwood was a spendthrift, a gambler, a man utterly devoid of honesty and honour, always deeply in debt 1 Theophilus Gibber, who was drowned in October, 1758, crossing over from Ireland, the husband of the great Mrs. Gibber, famous for his im- personation of Ancient Pistol, by which name he is frequently referred to by his contemporaries ; he was a very disreputable personage. 64 THE LONDON STAGE and difficulties, and under his direction dramatic art sank to a very low level. The first gleam of light that illumined this gloomy prospect was the appearance of Charles Macklin as Shylock. As early as 1725 the young Irish actor had essayed a more natural style of acting at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and had been discharged for flying in the face of tradition. Some years afterwards he was engaged by Fleetwood for Drury Lane. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice had not been performed for forty years, a spurious version by Lord Lansdowne, called The Jew of Venice, in which the actors rendered Shylock as a low comedy part, having taken its place. Macklin now proposed to revive the original text, and to play Shylock as a tragic character. Manager and actors were aghast at such a daring proposal, and it was only when business was hopelessly bad that, in the season of 1741, Fleet- wood consented to the experiment being made. Yet even after the play was announced his courage gave way, and he begged Macklin to forego his intention. But the Irishman was firm. The play was produced on January nth, and his impassioned fervour and natural acting took the jaded town by storm. A German critic, named Lichtenberg, who saw him in after life play the part, gives a good idea of the leading features of the impersonation. " Picture to yourself," he writes, "a somewhat portly man, with a yellowish, coarse face, a nose by no means deficient in length, breadth, or thickness, and a mouth, in the cutting of which Nature's knife seems to have slipped as far as the ear, on one side at least, as it appeared to me. His dress is black and long, his trousers likewise long and wide ; his three- cornered hat is red. The words he speaks on coming on the stage are slow and full of import. * Three THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 65 thousand ducats.' The two tKs and the two s's, especi- ally the last after the t, Macklin mouths with such unction that one would think he were at once tasting the ducats, and all that could be purchased with them. Three such words spoken in that situation marks the whole character. In the scene, when for the first time he misses his daughter, he appears without his hat, with his hair standing on end, and in some places a finger's length above the crown, as if the wind from the gallows had blown it up. Both hands are firmly clenched, and all his movements are abrupt and convulsive." So terribly malignant was his action and expression in the court scene that a shudder went through an audience that had been accustomed to roar with laughter at this situation. Even George II., who so despised " blays and boetry," was appalled by the performance, and could not sleep after witnessing it ; while Pope immor- talised the actor in the couplet : "This is the Jew That Shakespeare drew." Macklin had given the first blow to the old school of acting ; he had aroused a desire for something new, fresh, and unconventional ; but he lacked the stability of character, the tact, and the genius to carry out the revolution he had initiated ; it was reserved for a far greater actor, David Garrick, to develop his ideas, and give them practical effect. Before touching on the career of David Garrick, it will be necessary to the proper understanding of his connection with Drury Lane to give some account of the theatre at which he made his first appearance upon the stage. In 1729 a Mr. Thomas Odell, who after the passing F 66 THE LONDON STAGE of the Licensing Act was made Deputy Licenser of Plays in the Lord Chamberlain's office, converted a silk- throwster's shop in Leman Street, Whitechapel, into a theatre, 1 and engaged as his stage manager an actor from Dublin, named Henry Giffard. 2 Odell, not under- standing anything about theatres, very soon transferred his rights in the building to Giffard, who, finding the speculation a promising one, to quote Chetwood's words (History of the Stage], " in the year 1733 caused to be built (in Ayliffe Street, close by) an entire new, beauti- ful, convenient theatre, by the same architect with that of Covent Garden : where dramatic pieces were per- formed with the utmost elegance and propriety." Strange to relate, this remote Temple of Thespis was destined not only to be the scene of the debut of David Garrick, but indirectly to bring about a most important piece of legislation that shaped the destinies of the stage, and all connected with it, for over a century. Henry Fielding's Pasquin, and The Historical Register, in which Sir Robert Walpole is so severely satirised and ridiculed, is commonly held responsible for having pro- 1 There was a yet earlier theatre in Goodman's Fields, however, accord- ing to the following passage extracted from an old periodical called The Observator, which was published about the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1703, it informs its readers, in the character of Tutchin, that " the great playhouse has calved a young one in Goodman's Fields, in the passage by the Ship Tavern, betwixt Prescot and Chambers Street." To this information Observator replies : " It is a very good place in Rosemary Lane precinct, and I know no reason why the quality at both ends of the town should not have the same diversions. This will be a great ease to the ladies of Rag Fair, who are now forced to trudge as far as Lincoln's Inn Fields to mix themselves with quality. The mumpers of Knockvargis will now have the playhouse come to them who were not able to stump it to the other end of the town on their wooden legs ; the Does in Tower Hill Park and Rosemary Lane purlieu will be foddered nearer home this winter, and the sailors will have better entertainment for their loose coin." 2 It was here, in 1730, Fielding's second piece, The Temple Beau, was first produced. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 67 yoked that Minister in 1737 to introduce the famous Licensing Act ; but it was really the immediate result of a play never acted, called The Golden Rump. The MS. of this piece, by a hand unknown, was sent to Giffard, who, frightened at its audacious abuse of the King and his ministers, carried it to Walpole. It was the last straw, and, after reading it, Sir Robert at once brought in a Bill which not only strictly limited the metropolitan theatres to two, but established a censor- ship over the drama as well. Giffard received ,1,000 for his loyalty, but it destroyed the legal status of his theatre. Giffard seems to have had a good company, and several of his actors afterwards rose to distinction ; notably Walker, the original Captain Macheath in The Beggars Opera, and the finest Faulconbridge of which there is any tradition ; Yates, afterwards a famous member of Garrick's corps dramatique at Drury Lane, and the original Sir Oliver Surface ; Bullock, a low comedian highly praised ; Harry Woodward, then a boy ; Mrs. Giffard, who subsequently held a leading position in the patent houses, and Giffard himself, a man of no inconsiderable talent. After the passing of the Act, Giffard took his company to Lincoln's Inn Fields, which breach of the law, as he rented the house from Rich, the manager of Covent Garden, the paten- tees seem to have winked at. But the speculation did not prove a success, and in the following year he returned to Goodman's Fields. There never was an Act of Parliament so stringently worded that its enactments could not in some way be evaded ; so Giffard hit upon the expedient of issuing tickets at one, two, and three shillings for a concert " at the late theatre in Ayliffe Street," and performing a play 68 THE LONDON STAGE gratis between the two parts. The plays selected were those of the regular dramatic repertory, 1 yet no one seems to have interfered with him, Whitechapel prob- ably being considered at that time a part of the metro- polis far too remote to come into rivalry with Covent Garden. At the close of the "thirties," David Garrick, then in the wine business with his brother Peter in Durham Yard, Adelphi, was haunting the theatres and coffee- houses and every place where the actors resorted, chafing at the restraint which his friends put upon his inclina- tion. One night, when he was behind the scenes at Goodman's Fields, Yates, who was playing Harlequin, was taken suddenly ill, and young Garrick, who just before had made a hit in an amateur performance 2 got up by Cave, the printer, in the old room over St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, was easily prevailed upon to take his place. Harlequin, except in Rich's pantomimes, was not a mere acrobat in those days ; he was a speaking part, an impromptu wit, and Garrick seems to have acquitted himself well on the occasion, for soon after- wards he accompanied Giffard's company to Ipswich, where he played under the name of Lydgate. Deter- mined now to be an actor, Garrick, on his return to London, tried both the patent houses, and, finding they would none of him, made his debut at the unlicensed theatre in Goodman's Fields, October Qth, 1741, as Richard III. As usual, the entertainment was called "a concert of 1 It is worth noting that Giffard here reeved The Winters Tale, for the first time for one hundred years. 2 As a boy of eleven, Garrick had organised a company of juvenile players for a performance of The Rewriting Officer, in which he took the part of Kite, and as he grew up his love of amateur acting was frequently indulged in at his native city, Lichfield. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 69 vocal and instrumental music " in two parts, admission to which was by tickets at one, two, and three shillings, to be obtained at the Fleece Tavern, near the theatre. And between the two parts of the concert was presented gratis, "an historical play called The Life and Death of King Richard III." etc., etc. " The part of King Richard by a young gentleman who never appeared on any stage." This, as we know, was a playbill fib. Having made himself well known as a young man about town with very original ideas upon acting, many of Garrick's friends journeyed from the west to witness his performance. From the first his success was assured ; accustomed to the cold and stilted declamation, without heart, soul, or impulse, of the time, the effect of his fire and passion upon the audience was electrical ; the marvellous tent scene, the tiger-like ferocity of the last act, and the awful agony of the death scene were such as had never been witnessed in living memory. The press declared his reception to have been the greatest and most extraordinary ever known on such an occasion. After a few nights all fashionable London was rushing east to see the new actor. Pope, who had sat at Betterton's feet, said magnificently, " That young man never had a rival and never will have a rival " ; and William Pitt pronounced him to be the only actor in England. Nevertheless, " Garrick's easy and familiar yet forcible style of delivery at first threw the critics into some hesitation concerning the propriety as well as novelty of his manner," says Davies (Life of Gar rick). "They had been long accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite admiration and to entrap applause ; to the just modulation of the words, and concurring 70 THE LONDON STAGE expression of the features from the genuine workings of nature they had been strangers, at least for some time. Quin, after he had seen Garrick in some im- portant character, declared peremptorily that if the young fellow was right, he and the rest of the players had been wrong." Aaron Hill, in his dedication to The Fatal Vision, 1716, animadverts upon the affected, vicious, and un- natural" tone of voice so common among actors of the time. Antony Aston, in writing of Mrs. Barry, says : " Neither she, nor any of the actresses of those times, had any tone in their speech, so much lately in use." This sing-song delivery was undoubtedly borrowed from the Parisian stage, where it was the mode during the time of Louis XV. Against these vices of style Garrick used the most potent of all weapons, ridicule. When playing Bayes in The Rehearsal, he would check the actors who spoke naturally and proceed to teach them how to deliver the speeches in true theatrical manner. For this purpose he selected some of the most eminent performers, and assumed the manner and deportment of each in his turn. He would begin with Delane, who, next to Quin, was the leading tragedian of the time. Retiring to the back of the stage, drawing his left arm across his heart, resting his right elbow upon it. and raising a finger to his nose, he would come forward with a stately gait, nodding his head as he advanced, and deliver a speech in the exact tones of this declamatory tragedian. After that he would pro- ceed to imitate other prominent performers of the day. He never, however, mimicked Quin, whom he con- sidered an excellent actor in parts that suited him and Quin was a duellist who had killed his man. At Goodman's Fields, Garrick ran the whole gamut of THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 71 stage characters ; he played burlesque as Bayes, he appeared as jeune premier in the parts of Chamont and Lothario, as a comedy old man, Fondlewife, in The Old Bachelor, as the tragedian in Hamlet, and as a low comedian in The Lying Valet. The theatre closed on May 27th, 1742, in the midst of a most brilliant success, not to open again. The patentees of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, thoroughly roused by the alarming diminution in their receipts, determined to enforce the recently passed Act of Parlia- ment ; so with the co-operation of Sir John Bernard, a London magistrate, and the original mover of the Act, they so far intimidated Garrick and Giffard, that the one seems to have been reduced to the necessity of making an engagement with Fleetwood, and the other of shut- ting up his theatre. Odell's old theatre in Leman Street, which after Giffard's resignation had been used only for rope- dancing and such-like exhibitions, was now reopened as a playhouse, but with an unknown company. The last time I can find any mention of Goodman's Fields is under date 1751. But whether it is Odell's or Giffard's theatre I cannot determine. The latter seems to have been converted into a warehouse, which was burned down in 1802. Garrick was engaged by Fleetwood at a salary of six hundred guineas per annum, the largest sum that had ever yet been paid to an actor, Quin receiving only five hundred pounds. On the nth of May, 1742, he made his first appearance at Drury Lane as Chamont in The Orphan. He then performed for six nights at Good- man's Fields, returned to Drury Lane on the 28th, played Lear, and on the 3ist appeared as Richard. This was the last time he acted in London that season, 72 THE LONDON STAGE being engaged for Dublin, where his success was as great as in London. He reappeared at Drury Lane for the season on October 5th, in the same year, as Bayes. Notwithstanding Fleetwood's unthrifty habits, Drury Lane, thanks to Macklin, who was the manager, seems to have been tolerably prosperous for a time, but towards the close of the year 1743, the patentee's reckless ex- travagance had thrown its affairs into the utmost con- fusion ; bailiffs were in possession, actors' salaries were unpaid, and they themselves treated with insolence, while the stage was disgraced by the most contemptible exhibitions from Sadler's Wells. It was a repetition of the old story of Christopher Rich. The company determined to secede, and waited upon the Lord Chamberlain in the hope of obtaining a licence to open the Haymarket. This was peremptorily refused, and consequently they had no alternative but to return to Fleet wood. He consented to take back all the re- calcitrants except Macklin, whom he regarded as the ringleader. Garrick offered to pay Macklin 6 a week out of his own pocket until matters could be smoothed over, but the hot-headed Irishman would not listen to any compromise, and on the first night of the season, December 5th, 1743, with the aid of some friends, organised a riot in the theatre. Garrick was hissed and not allowed to speak ; pamphlets were issued on both sides ; and Fleetwood engaged some thirty bruisers, headed by the notorious Jack Broughton, the first of the champion prize-fighters, to deal with the rioters, who, as usual, chiefly congregated in the pit. The most disgraceful scenes were almost nightly enacted within the theatre, until Macklin was again engaged ; though he did not gain this victory without having to make THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 73 submission in a prologue written for the occasion, in which he protested " No revolution plots are mine, again You see, thank Heaven, the quietest of men." But Fleetwood's reign was nearly over ; impaired in health and fortune, and hopelessly embarrassed, he had mortgaged the patent for ,3,000, and had borrowed ,7,000 on the dresses, scenery, and properties of the house, and now the lender was in possession as receiver. Fleetwood advertised that the patent was to be sold before a Master in Chancery. Two City men determined to be the purchasers, provided that James Lacy, who was at that time assistant manager to Rich at Covent Garden, would undertake the management. Lacy had formerly been a manufacturer at Norwich, but through misfortunes in business, and a taste for theatricals, he took to the stage, played under Rich at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and under Fielding at the Haymarket ; he was also the builder of Ranelagh Music House, which he sold for ,4,000. Lacy was to be a joint partner, but the purchasers were to lay down the whole of the money required, and to hold Lacy's third in the mortgage until his share of the profits enabled him to discharge his obligation. After some complications, into which I need not enter, the matter was settled, and requiring a partner, Lacy proposed to David Garrick, who, having money, reputa- tion, and ability, was a most desirable one, to join him ; by the advice of his friends, Garrick accepted. The new patent was granted, and it was stipulated that the two partners were to be equal sharers in the profits, except that Garrick was to be paid a salary for acting. Drury Lane opened under this new management on 74 THE LONDON STAGE September i5th, 1746. The business of the theatre was divided between the partners, Garrick entirely superintending the stage. Order, decency, and decorum were now strictly enforced ; punctuality was insisted upon at rehearsals, at which as much attention was paid to the business of the scene as though the audience was already present ; he also insisted upon the actors being perfect in their parts, and those who did not conform to his rules were suspended. Nor were his reforms less notable before the curtain ; at the bottom of a bill for October, 1747, was printed the following notice: "As the admittance of persons behind the scenes has occa- sioned a general complaint on account of the frequent interruption in the performance, it is hoped that gentle- men won't be offended that no money will be taken there for the future." This struck a death-blow at the intolerable abuse of allowing spectators to be seated on the stage during the performance a subject upon which I shall have more to say in a future chapter but the rule does not seem to have been rigidly enforced, at least after a time. (See next chapter.) Garrick gathered about him a noble company, includ- ing Macklin ; Spranger Barry, who at Covent Garden had achieved a success scarcely inferior to his own ; Mrs. Pritchard, a grand tragedienne ; Mrs. Gibber, most tender and exquisite of Juliets and Ophelias ; delight- ful Peg Woffington, most inimitable of high-comedy actresses, a Sir Harry Wildair second only to Wilks, and a tragic actress as well ; Kitty Clive, unapproachable in the broader comedy, etc. On March iQth, 1748, Macbeth, freed from most of Davenant's alterations, though still a long way from the text, was revived. The music, supposed to be by Locke, which had been foisted into Davenant's version, was D AV ID B ARRI C K THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 75 retained ; the singing witches were dressed in the most charming costumes, some of white satin and lace, and were rouged and powdered, and made to look as attrac- tive as possible. Garrick wore a scarlet coat, silk stock- ings, and a powdered wig ; and Mrs. Pritchard, as Lady Macbeth, was attired as a fashionable lady of the period. But their acting was marvellous, especially in the murder scene. Garrick's dagger soliloquy rilled the audience with terror. " When," says Murphy (Life of Garrick), "he re-entered with the bloody dagger in his hand, he was absolutely scared out of his senses ; his distraction of mind and agonising horrors were finely contrasted by Mrs. Pritchard's seeming apathy, tranquillity, and con- fidence. Their looks and actions supplied the place of words, and their terrifying whispers made the scene awful and tremendous." Yet he failed as Othello, a circumstance, perhaps, greatly owing to the smallness of his stature. In 1750, both Barry and Mrs. Gibber went over to Covent Garden, which possessed by far the stronger company. This was the season of the famous Romeo and Juliet rivalry, which will be referred to in the chapter on Covent Garden. Garrick had to fight against the opposition house by producing pantomime, though he had promised never to resort to it. In a prologue, on the opening night, he told the audience that if they would not come to see Lear and Hamlet, he must give them Harlequin. And he did it so well that Rich trembled upon his throne. 1 Garrick never disgraced Drury Lane by any unworthy production ; some of the tragedies and comedies were terribly dull, but they never compromised the dignity of the stage. In a piece called The Chinese Festival, brought out in 1755, however, the pit and 1 See the next chapter. 76 THE LONDON STAGE gallery took such offence at the introduction of foreign dancers, that although the performance was by the King's command, and His Majesty was present, a riot ensued, great damage was done to the theatre, and Garrick's house in Southampton Street narrowly escaped being sacked. During this season Mrs. Gibber returned. The range of characters that Garrick sustained during a single season is surprising : Ranger, Hamlet, Archer, Romeo, Benedick, Lear, Sir John Brute, Don Felix, Bayes, Lothario, Kitely, Lord Chalkstone (a gouty old man), Abel Drugger, in the mutilated version of Ben Jonson's Alchemist, Leon (Rule a Wife and Have a Wife), Leontes, Lord Townley, etc. Drury Lane experienced a great loss in 1758, when Harry Woodward, most delightful of light comedians, of Prince Hals, of Copper Captains, of Petruchios, seceded to go into partnership with Barry at Dublin. Although Garrick had set his face against allowing the audience upon the stage, the nuisance still continued on benefit nights ; and as it brought a large sum of money to the btntficiaires, it was difficult to abolish. It was this consideration that in 1762 induced him to enlarge Drury Lane so as to increase the capacity of the auditorium, which would then hold ^335. A year later, however, the musical pieces at Covent Garden, such as The Beggar s Opera and Love in a Village, proved so attractive that the nightly takings at Drury Lane fell to ^30, ^15, and even ^"5 a night. It was at this time that Garrick took his Continental trip, and created as great a sensation in France and Italy as he had among his own countrymen. A clever young actor named Powell, who made a very decided hit, took the place of Roscius until his return. 1 1 His career was a brief one ; he became manager of the Bristol theatre, and died in that city. There is a tablet to his memory in the cathedral. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 77 A magnificent reception was accorded the great actor when he reappeared on Drury Lane stage on September I4th, 1765, as Benedick. The King honoured the per- formance by his presence, the house was filled to over- flowing, and his entrance was hailed by a succession of ringing cheers. It was said that a finer polish and elegance marked his acting on his return, and all the enthusiasm of nearly a quarter of a century back was reawakened among the public ; night after night the theatre was crammed, and from that time until his retirement, Garrick never played to a bad house. In the January of the following year, Mrs. Gibber died. Barry returned to Drury Lane, after an absence of ten years, in 1767, and with him Mrs. Dancer, after- wards his wife, who, it was said, rivalled even Sarah Siddons as Lady Randolph. Mrs. Abington, finest of fine ladies, and most incomparable of comediennes, Parsons, Baddeley, Dodd, King, and Ross, were now members of the company. Mrs. Pritchard retired in 1768, and Kitty Clive, after forty years' service, during the following season. Garrick made a curious experiment at the end of 1772, when he altered Hamlet (Hamlet was one of his finest parts) ; he cut out the plot, in which Laertes seconds the King, for the destruction of the Prince, and excised Osric and the grave-diggers. Sad to relate, this barbarous version of the play kept the stage for several years. Writing to Notes and Queries a few years back, Lieut. - Colonel Alexander Fergusson says : " Recently I have had occasion to inspect some old family correspondence which had successively passed through the hands of Mr. Upcott and Mr. Dawson Turner, and came upon what purports to be a weekly 78 THE LONDON STAGE pay list of Drury Lane Theatre of the year 1773. The paper, which is unsigned, is a very large sheet of what in the present day wpuld be called 'toned/ but in the last generation * whitey-brown,' paper of a very coarse description, and is voluminous, seeing there are on it some 1 80 names, representing an expenditure of ^522 75. 6d. a week. DRURY LANE THEATRE PAY LIST, i3th February, 1773, at ^87 is. $d. diem, or ^522 js. 6d. per week. Men. s. d. James Lacy, Esq. - - 16 13 o David Garrick, Esq. - ( 16 13 o \ 17 10 o Mr. S. Barry and Wife - 50 o o Mr. King 800 Mr. Reddish 800 Mr. Jefferson 1 - 800 Mr. Dame and W. (wife) - 800 Mr. Dibdin - 600 Mr. Bannister and W. 600 Mr. Clinch 2 10 o Women. Mrs. Abington 800 Miss Pope 800 Miss Young - 700 Singers. Mr. Vernon - 800 Mrs. Smith - 660 Miss Venables - 660 Dancers. Mr. Daigville and W. 600 Signora Vidini - 500 Mrs. Sutton - 500 Mr. Grimaldi and W. 500 1 This was an ancestor great-grandfather, I believe of Joseph Jefferson. Grimaldi was the father of the famous " Joe." THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 79 Besides to many performers of less account, there are also payments to men dressers, women dressers, pro- jrties, music, band, ^49 ; soldiers, ^4 4^. ; numberers, ; house barber, \ 4^.; candlewoman, 12^.; insioner, Mr. Waldgrave, los. 6d. ; and last, but not least, the item 'sinking fund,' ^2i." 1 On the 29th of December, 1775, The Merchant of Venice was performed at Drury Lane ; King was the Shylock, and Portia was played " by a young lady, being her first appearance." The young lady was a country actress named Siddons, whom Garrick had brought up from Cheltenham on the report of King and " fighting " Parson Bates, the editor of The Morning Post. It was not her first appearance, however, as she had sustained the silent part of Venus in the revival of the Shake- spearian Jubilee Procession, which had been transferred to the Drury Lane stage after its exhibition at Stratford- on-Avon in 1763, and was afterwards frequently revived. Mrs. Siddons as Portia proved a terrible fiasco ; her voice was weak, her movements were awkward, her dress was old, faded, and in bad taste. After appearing in one or two other characters, with a similar result, she played Lady Anne to Garrick' s Richard. Nervousness seems to have utterly overpowered her, and the critics pronounced the young actress " lamentable." After that, full of bitterness and disappointment, she went back to the country to gain confidence and mature her latent genius. 1 In 1765, the expenses of Drury Lane were under 70 a night, and the company consisted of 160 performers, among whom were names of high celebrity. At the head of the company was Garrick at a salary of per night, 2 i$s. 6d.\ Mr. Yates (the famous Othello) and his wife, $ 6s. 8d.; Palmer and his wife, 2 ; King, the celebrated Sir Peter Teazle and Lord g!eby, i 6s. &/.; Parsons, 6s. &/.; Mrs. Gibber, 2 ios.; Mrs. Pritchard, 2 6s. &/. ; Mrs. Clive, i 155-.; Miss Pope, the best of chambermaids 135-. 4^.; Signor Guestinelli, the chief singer, i y. ^d.\ Signer Grimaldi and his wife, chief dancer, \. 8o THE LONDON STAGE Early in 1776, warned by failing powers, Garrick announced his retirement from the stage, and a series of farewell performances of his great characters brought people from the remotest parts of the kingdom, and even from the Continent, to Drury Lane. It was on the loth of June, 1776, that, in the character of Don Felix in The Wonder, the curtain fell for the last time upon the greatest actor to judge by the universal paean of praise that rose from the greatest men of every variety of taste and prejudice that England, or perhaps the world, has ever known. There was not a dry eye within the walls of the theatre that night ; and, as slowly, and reluctantly he passed behind the curtain, a mournful cry of " Fare- well " broke from hundreds of quivering lips like a mighty sob. On September 2ist, 1776, Richard Brinsley Sheridan succeeded to the vacant throne in partnership with his father-in-law, Thomas Linley, the composer, and Dr. Ford. ,35,000 was Garrick's price for his share of the patent ; of this Sheridan took two-fourteenths, Linley the same, and Dr. Ford three-fourteenths. Two years later Sheridan bought Lacy's share for ,45,000. Moore wonders how this impecunious young man, who, at the time, had hardly sufficient for his household expenses, became possessed of all these thousands, and succeeding biographers have agreed with the poet in regarding it as an unsolved mystery. But there is a passage in Lock- hart's Life of Scott that throws light upon the puzzle. It occurs in Sir Walter's diary (January I3th, 1826), just after Moore's biography of the great wit was published ; Scott is referring to a visit of Charles Mathews (the elder), and the various subjects they conversed about. " Mathews says it is very simple in Tom Moore to admire how Sheridan came by the means of paying the THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 81 price of Drury Lane Theatre, when all the world knows he never paid it at all ; and that Lacy, who sold it, was reduced to want by his breach of faith." As Sheridan never paid anyone, it is not likely he would have made exception in the case of Garrick and Lacy ; the former received the money for Linley's and Ford's share, but probably never a farthing from Brinsley. The production of the School for Scandal, at the commencement of 1777, rendered Sheridan's first season a remarkably fortunate one. The famous comedy was a prodigious success from the first night, thanks to the screen scene, the most superlatively effective situation in the whole round of comedy. Mrs. Abington was Lady Teazle ; Smith, the prince of fine gentlemen, Charles ; Jack Palmer, the plausible, Joseph ; King, a distinguished actor of old men, Sir Peter ; Yates, equally good in tragedy and comedy, Sir Oliver ; Dodd and Parsons, two of Lamb's favourites, Sir Benjamin and Crabtree ; Baddeley, 1 of Twelfth-Night cake memory, Moses ; Miss Pope, an admirable actress, Mrs. Candour. It was a wonderful cast. The attraction of 1773 and the two following seasons was Henderson, upon whom it was considered that the mantle of Roscius had fallen. On October loth, 1782, Mrs. Siddons made her rentrde as the heroine of Southerne's Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage. And with what a difference since her last appearance ! Her beautiful face and form, the exquisite tones of her voice, her deep tenderness, seized upon every heart, and her overwhelming agony 1 Baddeley left a sum of money to provide a cake to be cut in the green-room of Drury Lane on every Twelfth Night in memory of him. For several years Sir Augustus Harris turned the celebration into a huge reception after the performance, but long since it has gone back to a more select gathering. G 82 THE LONDON STAGE thrilled every soul as it had never been thrilled before. Men wept, women fell into hysterics, transports of applause shook the house ; the excitement and en- thusiasm were almost terrible in their intensity, and the curtain fell amidst such acclamations as perhaps even Garrick had never roused. The salary she was engaged at was $ a week. This very inadequate stipend was, of course, quickly increased ; but notwithstanding the rush- and houses nightly crowded to the ceiling, at the end of the season she was in receipt of only 20. Her benefit, however, realised a large sum. It was not until the second season, February 2nd, 1784, that she played the part she is now best remem- bered by, Lady Macbeth ; in this she had memories of Mrs. Pritchard to struggle against, and old playgoers considered her inferior to Garrick's great actress in the part. So nervous was Sheridan regarding such com- parisons that he begged her, on the first night, even at the last moment, to cut out, in the sleep-walking scene, the business of washing her hands in pantomime, which had never been done before, Mrs. Pritchard holding the lamp throughout the scene. But she was firm against his entreaties, and was justified by the result. On September 3Oth, 1783, John Philip Kemble made his first appearance at Drury Lane in the character of Hamlet ; he created considerable attention, but no enthusiasm. Two years later, inimitable Dora Jordan came up from Yorkshire and opened here as Peggy in The Country Girl, to add a new joy to London life. How she could act in serious parts, in Viola, Charles Lamb has described in one of the most exquisite passages of The Essays of Elia. In the meantime, Sir Christopher Wren's theatre had fallen into such decay that in 1791 it was found necessary THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 83 to pull it down. And on June the 4th the grand old house that had stood in six reigns, which had witnessed the triumphs of Hart, Mohun, Betterton, Booth, Garrick, of Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Woffing- ton, Mrs. Abington, and many other peerless actors and actresses, closed its doors for ever, and next day was handed over to pickaxe and shovel. The new Drury Lane was opened on March i2th, 1794, with, it being the first day of Lent, a selection from Handel's oratorios and the Coronation March ; the stage was set to resemble a Gothic cathedral. The old theatre had held 2,000 people, the new accommo- dated 3,6 1 1, or nearly 600 more than the present building. The numbers were as follows : the pit, 800 ; the boxes, 1,828 ; the two-shilling gallery, 675 ; the one- shilling, 308; money, ,1,771. The dimensions of the house were: the opening of the curtain, 43 feet; height, 38 feet ; height from pit to ceiling, 56 feet. The season for dramatic performances did not com- mence until April 2ist, when a grand revival of Macbeth was presented, with Kemble and Mrs. Siddons in the leading roles ; Charles Kemble making his first appear- ance in London as Malcolm. Some modern effects were anticipated by arranging that the ghost of Banquo should be invisible, while the gorgeous setting of the banquet scene was the talk of the town, and for the first time since the days o Dorset Garden we hear rather more of the scenery than of the acting. An epilogue, written by George Colman, was spoken by Miss Farren, in which defiance was hurled at the Fire Fiend : " The very ravages of fire we scout, For we have wherewithal to put it out In ample reservoirs our firm reliance When streams set conflagration at defiance." 84 THE LONDON STAGE The curtain was then raised to show the stage turned into a vast lake, upon which a man was rowing a boat, while a cascade tumbled down at the back ; upon this an iron curtain was lowered, and tapped with a hammer to show that there was no deception ; it was declared to be an impossibility that fire could ever obtain a mastery over such elaborate precautions, indeed, it was sarcastic- ally remarked that a little fire would do good both to actors and dramatists, though it could not singe a feather among the audience. And yet within fifteen years this boasted flame-proof building was burned to the ground. Sheridan, unfortunately for the success of the theatre, was again the manager. Neither the reign of Christo- pher Rich nor Charles Fleetwood was more disgraceful to the stage than that of the brilliant wit upon whose self-entailed ruin so much false sentiment has been shed by partial biographers. Neither actors, tradespeople, nor workpeople were paid ; even Kemble and his sister were more than once driven by their necessities to the sordid resource of refusing to go on the stage until arrears of salary were settled. Such strikes were of every night occurrence among other members of the company, and, their just demands sometimes being refused, incompetent persons were put into their parts. Even the poorest employes were not paid their wages ; Fanny Kemble, in her " Records," tells us how, on Saturday morning, the workpeople would assail him with, " For God's sake, Mr. Sheridan, pay us our salaries. For Heaven's sake let us have something this week " ; how he would faithfully promise that their wants should be attended to, and then, after emptying the treasury of the week's receipts, would slip out of the theatre by another door, and leave them penniless. Neither did he expend any money upon the theatrical THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 85 stock ; the wardrobe for the ordinary dramatic repertoire was little better than a collection of rags, and the scenery was dingy and dilapidated. "He never paid the slightest attention to the economy of the establish- ment," says one of his biographers, Dr. Watkins, "nor took any pains to uphold its credit ; his talents were excited only to exhaust the resources of the theatre for his private purposes." Failure was the natural con- sequence of such a state of affairs. King had been Sheridan's first manager, but from 1788 to 1796 John Kemble filled that most unthankful post. Besides being out of pocket a large sum for arrears of salary, Kemble was the scapegoat who had to bear the brunt of infuriated creditors, and was once arrested for a debt of the unprincipled lessee for which he had made himself responsible. Worn out and dis- gusted at last, he resigned his office to Wroughton, though he continued to be a member of the company. In the year 1800, however, Sheridan, who had enormous influence over the great tragedian, as indeed he had over everyone upon whom he cared to exercise his irresistible fascination, again prevailed upon Kemble to be his lieutenant, promising him a share 1 of the profits. But finding that he had no intention of fulfilling the bargain, John Philip, in 1802, finally severed his connec- tion with Drury Lane, and purchased a sixth of the Covent Garden patent. The records of Kemble's management are little more than a list of Shakespearian and other revivals of the legitimate drama, interspersed with ponderous new plays such as The Iron Chest, 1796, in which he made such a deadly fiasco. The most notable of these latter produc- tions was Sheridan's translation of Kotzebue's Pizarro, 1799. Stuffed with patriotic speeches, at a time when 86 THE LONDON STAGE England was at fever heat, with the two Kembles in picturesque parts, and Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Jordan as the two heroines, it drew crowded houses. With the new century came a new species of play, borrowed from the German, a corollary to Mrs. Radcliffe's and Monk Lewis's romances. The Castle Spectre of the latter writer had been the success of 1798. Holcroft's A Tale of Mystery,, brought out at Co vent Garden in 1802, is credited with being the first of the melodramas. These plays were carried on partly in dialogue, partly in dumbshow, the whole action to the ac- companiment of music. Sheridan, finding that these com- positions drew more money than the legitimate, deluged the stage with them. Now began the reign of grand processions, costly dresses, real elephants, performing dogs, and real water. Covent Garden, in self-defence, was obliged to follow suit, and such pieces as The Miller and his Men, The Dog of Montargis, The Dumb Maid of Genoa, with a sword combat, in which every blow had to keep time to music, The Bleeding Nun of Lindenberg, Timour the Tartar, The Forty Thieves, Aladdin the Arabian Nights stories were played seriously in those days and scores of others, entirely overshadowed the legitimate. On the 24th of February, 1809, Drury Lane was burned down for the second time in its history, and into such low esteem had the National Theatre fallen that, but for Samuel Whitbread, the principal share- holder, it would not have been rebuilt. Through his indefatigable exertions, however, ,400,000 was raised by subscription, 1 and after a long delay the new house was commenced. 1 ,60,000 of this enormous sum went in securing patent rights. The second Drury Lane patent, which, as I have previously explained, dated THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 87 Sheridan's application for the management was refused by the directors, chiefly through the firmness of Whit- bread, and the fourth and present Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, built by Holland after the model, it is said, of the great theatre at t Bordeaux, was opened on October loth, 1812, under the direction of Samuel, James Arnold, a dramatic author, and first manager of the Lyceum, assisted by a committee of lords and gentlemen, among whom were the Earls of Dudley and Essex, Lord Byron, Samuel Whitbread, Douglas Kinnaird, etc. The new house was inaugurated with a great flourish of trumpets and beating of drums. In the previous August the committee had advertised a free and open competition for an address to be spoken on the opening night ; an invitation to which, however doubtful it might have been for the interests of the theatre, posterity is indebted for those inimitable jeux d? esprit, "the Rejected Addresses " of James and Horace Smith. As not one of the hundred and twelve sent in was considered worthy only from 1719, was granted for a term of years, and was afterwards re- newed from time to time. The rights of both the original patents granted to Killigrew and Davenant had been acquired by Christopher Rich, and by him transmitted to his son John, who, while manager of Covent Garden, according to the tolerably well - authenticated story, bought the actual document from a Mr. Clarke, to whom, most probably, thriftless, impecunious Charles Killigrew had pawned it, for 100 and a hogshead of claret. When the new theatre was being erected, inquiries began to be made about this patent, of which nothing had been heard for about a century, and it was then discovered to be in the possession of the Covent Garden patentees, to whom ,20,000 was paid for its redemption ; Sheridan received a second 20,000, while an equal sum was paid to the Linley and other interests in the Drury Lane patent created in 1776. On the opening of the theatre a new term of twenty-five years was granted ; this expired during Bunn's management in 1837, and, as he made no application for a renewal, he was questioned by the Lord Chamberlain as to the authority upon which he was keeping the house open ; he then produced the veritable patent of Killigrew, together with a receipt for 9,561 19^. ^d. from the proprietor of Covent Garden, dated December I7th, 1813, which was the last instalment of the purchase money. 88 THE LONDON STAGE of the occasion, Lord Byron was prevailed upon to write the address, which was delivered by Elliston. The decision, however, did not pass without a protest upon the part of the rejected, for on the second or third night a Dr. Busby and his son addressed the audience from the boxes, upon the supposed injustice with which their effusions had been treated, both having sent in a poem ; the Doctor offered to recite his, and to appeal to the judgment of the audience whether it was not better than Lord Byron's. Although the new Drury Lane company included Elliston, Dowton, Robert Palmer, Wewitzer, the last of the Garrick Company, 1 Raymond, Rae, Wroughton, Jack Bannister, Wrench, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Edwin, Miss Duncan, Miss Kelly, Miss Mellon, it was inferior as a whole to that of Covent Garden, which could boast of John and Charles Kemble, Young, Emery, Liston, Sally Booth. Neither was the amateur management particularly successful ; the first season closed with a heavy loss, and the second commenced under very depressing circumstances. Several new actors appeared, but all failed, until, on the 26th of January, 1814, an obscure country tragedian, named Edmund Kean, who had been engaged in sheer .desperation, and brought up from Exeter, a very model of a strolling player, shabby, almost shoeless, whom the mediocrities treated at rehearsal with unconcealed contempt, made his appearance here as Shylock to an indifferent and half-filled house. But when the curtain fell upon the fourth act it was upon such a burst of enthusiasm as had not been heard since the night on 1 Wewitzer, the last surviving man of the Garrick Company, lived until 1831. But Mrs. John Kemble, Brereton's widow, nte Priscilla Hopkins, survived until 1845, dying at the age of ninety. EDMUND KEAN. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 89 which Mrs. Siddons first played Isabella. The next day all London was ringing with the fame of the new actor. Richard was his next impersonation. " Just returned from seeing Kean in Richard," wrote Byron in his diary. " By Jove, he is a soul ! Life, nature, truth, without exaggeration or diminution." Coleridge said it was reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. The receipts rose from ,100 to ,600 nightly. After his third appearance, Whitbread raised his salary from 8 to 20. One week the committee presented him with ,100, the next with .500, while splendid presents flowed in upon him from all sides ; society fawned upon him, flattered him, courted him, and made him the idol of the hour. Hamlet, Othello, a stupendous perform- ance, I ago, Luke in Riches, followed in quick suc- cession. For the sixty-eight nights during which Kean per- formed, the receipts were ,38,942, while the total for the season was ,68,329, yet the theatre closed with a loss to the directors of ,20,000. It is said that disappointment at the failure of the speculation which he had done so much to promote so preyed upon Whitbread's mind, that it was the immediate cause of his terrible suicide in 1815. During the second season, Kean appeared as Macbeth, but his great hits were Zanga, in The Revenge, and Sir Giles Overreach. " He looks like Michael Angelo's ' Rebellious Angel ' ! " exclaimed Southey, appalled by the awful expression of his features in the great scene of Zanga. ''Like the Arch-fiend himself!" exclaimed another. A writer in Blackwood's wrote that his last scene of Sir Giles was "the most terrific exhibition of human passions that had been witnessed on the modern stage." Maturin's Bertram, and Sir Edward Mortimer 9 o THE LONDON STAGE in The Iron Chest, in which Kemble had failed, were among his greatest triumphs. Rivals sprang up to contest the bays with him, among them Junius Brutus Booth, the father of Edwin, who had played Richard at Covent Garden in imitation of Kean, and was thought by some to be his equal. So the Drury Lane management engaged Booth to play lago to their Othello. It was one of the most memor- able contests that even that stage ever witnessed. Never did Kean act as he acted on that night, " He glared anon upon the now diminutive lago," wrote Barry Cornwall, "he seized and tossed him aside with irresistible vehemence. The fury and whirlwind of the passions seemed to have endowed him with supernatural strength. His eyes were glittering and bloodshot, his veins were swollen, and his whole figure restless and violent." He played Abel Drugger, Garrick's old part, and Tom Tug in The Waterman, and sang the songs he had a very sweet voice. One of his greatest parts was Lear, which he acted from the text. People thought that his wonderful effects were spontaneous. On the contrary, "he studied and slaved beyond any actor I ever knew," said a contemporary. He would shut himself up in his room all day to rehearse the pro- duction of a single line. During six years Kean was the Atlas that supported the burden of the huge theatre. Rivals rose, but all paled before the splendour of his overwhelming genius. Within a few years " the committee of noblemen and gentlemen," having lost ,80,000 since the opening of the new theatre, grew tired of so unprofitable a burden, and in 1819 Drury Lane passed into the hands of that eccentric genius whom Lamb has so magnificently apostrophised in one of his essays, Robert THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 91 William Elliston. Elliston had been before the London public since 1796; In 1804 he had made a marked success at Old Drury as the Duke Aranza in Tobin's Honeymoon, and he had already been a manager at the Olympic. Elliston was one of the finest representatives of high comedy the stage has ever known, and in his best days would probably have carried the palm away even from Charles Kemble. The terms under which he undertook the tremendous responsibilities of "the National Theatre" were simply ruinous. The rental was to be ,10,200 per annum, exclusive of all rates; yet there were 635 perpetual free admissions, or renter's tickets, another creation of Sheridan's ; and, as if this were not eftough, the new lessee engaged, before the end of the second season, to spend 6,000 in beautifying the building. He opened with a grand company, Kean, Pope, Holland, Harley, Oxberry, Dowton, Munden, Mrs. W. West, Mrs. Egerton, Mrs. Glover, Miss Kelly, Mrs. Orger, etc., and his success was considerable. One of Elliston's earliest and greatest hits, however, was a wretched melodrama, called The Cataract of the Ganges, in which a real waterfall drew more money than all the histrionic talent. Elliston magnificently redeemed his bond by spending, in 1822, 22,000 upon the building; the interior was entirely remodelled by Beazley, the ceiling was lowered fourteen feet, and the boxes were brought forward five feet, thus somewhat diminishing the capacity of the auditorium, and leaving it much as it was until the recent alterations. 1 When Kean came back from his American 1 The portico in Catherine Street, and colonnade in Little Russell Street, were not added until 1831. Drury Lane underwent extensive renovation in 1866. The present dimensions of the building are 131 feet from north to south, and 237 feet from east to west ; beyond this is a space of 93 feet devoted to scene rooms, making the entire length 330 feet. 92 THE LONDON STAGE tour, in 1822, he returned to Drury Lane. Elliston celebrated his arrival by a street procession, and the great actor was escorted to the stage door by a troop of horsemen bruisers, jockeys, prize-fighters, publicans followed up by a rabble rout that gathered through the streets ; Elliston in a carriage and four and six outriders, and Kean's coach drawn by four negroes. Fancy Sir Henry Irving going to the theatre in that style ! The great event of the engagement was another contest, this time between Kean and Charles Young, in which they acted Othello and lago, Jaffier and Pierre, and other parts in now forgotten plays. The excitement and enthu- siasm of the audiences were boundless. A critic in The Examiner wrote that it was impossible to convey an idea of those performances to persons who had not witnessed them. " For it is not in human nature to reach the pitch of excellence attained by Mr. Kean on the two occasions, without some extraordinary stimulus." Though the public support was generous, it could not keep pace with the gigantic expenditure, nor, it must be added, with the thriftless personal extravagance of the manager, and, after struggling with debt and difficulties for some time, Elliston, in 1826, was a bankrupt. The shareholders treated him with heartless and impolitic severity ; during his seven years' lesseeship he had spent "30,000 in improving their property, and had paid them ,66,000 in rent; to them ,5,500 was the total of his liabilities, and for this debt he offered ample security ; but they would have nothing but their bond, and closed the doors against him. A notable first appearance in the last year of Elliston's management was that of Ellen Tree, who commenced her first London engagement here in September, 1826, as Donna Violante in The Wonder with pronounced THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 93 success. 1 With the exception of one bright interval under Macready, the sun of Drury Lane set with Elliston. Elliston was succeeded by Stephen Price, who was satirically nicknamed the American " Chesterfield." It was under his management that Charles Kean made his debut October ist, 1827, as young Norval in Douglas. Charles was not seventeen at the time, and left Eton to take to the stage for his own and his mother's support, his father, through dissipation and extravagance, having fallen into embarrassments from which he never ex- tricated himself. There was a crowded house, and the youth was warmly received, but he made no mark. He played several other parts, and the audience dwindled nightly. At Christmas in the following year he returned as Romeo, and met with only a cold reception. Mr. Price took the theatre at a rental of ; 10,600, which he did not pay, and at the end of his fourth season the shareholders had not only to lose their money, but to pay him to give up possession. There was, however, at least one creditable act con- nected with Price's management ; when, owing to the difficulties at Covent Garden, Charles Kemble could not give Joey Grimaldi a farewell benefit at the house with which his name had been so long associated, Price offered him the use of Drury Lane. In 1815, Grimaldi had a serious illness, and from that time he never knew a single day's health. At length his sufferings became so acute, that men were obliged to be kept waiting at 1 Three years previously she had appeared as Olivia in Twelfth Night, for her sister Maria's benefit at Covent Garden, but that was only tentative. She remained at Drury Lane for three years, after which she transferred her services to the rival house, where she played Romeo to Fanny Kemble's Juliet. She was the original Ion (at the Haymarket) in Sergeant Talfourd's tragedy of that name, and was the original representative of several of Sheridan Knowles's heroines Mariana in The Wife, the Queen in the Rose of Arragon, the Countess in Love. 94 THE LONDON STAGE the side scenes to catch him in their arms when he came staggering and exhausted off the stage ; his sinews were gathered up into knots by the cramp that followed their every exertion ; and during the waits, his limbs had to be chafed to enable him to go on with the performance. He had taken a farewell benefit at Sadler's Wells in March, 1828, and on June 27th, in the same year, he made his last public appearance at Drury Lane. The scene was very affecting ; he was to act the clown in one scene of Harlequin Hoax, and speak a farewell address. But what a difference from the old days, 1 when he used to come bounding upon the stage full of life and vigour, amidst a roar of delight from the expectant audience ! The roar of applause was more enthusiastic than ever ; but instead of the sprightly Joey of old, a prematurely aged man, unable to stand, was carried before the foot- lights on a chair; yet the old humour sparkled as brilliantly as ever ; his old jokes, his old songs never provoked louder shouts of laughter than on the last occasion he was ever to utter them. "It is four years," he said in his farewell speech, "since I jumped my last jump, filched my last oyster, and boiled my last sausage. To-night has seen me assume the motley for a short time ; it clung to my skin as I took it off, and the old cap and bells rang mourn- fully as I quitted them for ever." When the last word was spoken Harley led him, utterly overcome, off the stage amidst a tremendous sympathetic demonstration, and when he quitted the theatre, a huge crowd followed his vehicle, cheering him the whole way home to Penton- ville. He realised close upon ^600 by this benefit, and the Drury Lane fund allowed him ^100 a year for the remainder of his life. 1 See " Sadler's Wells." THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 95 Alexander Lee, musical composer and publisher, was the next tenant of the National Theatre. There is an entry in Macready's Diary to the effect that on July 3ist, 1830, he entered into an engagement with Mr. A. Lee for three years at Drury Lane ; 30 per week the first year and 40 the second and third, with a half clear benefit each year. Lee had no money, but presently found a backer in Captain Polhill, the member for Bed- ford. In consequence of constant quarrels between Mrs. Waylett, whom Lee had married, and an actress favoured by the Captain, Lee's reign came quickly to an end, and Polhill appointed Bunn, " the poet Bunn " of Punch, who had been Elliston's stage-manager in 1823, in his place. Captain Polhill retired from the manage- ment in 1834, with a loss of ,50,000. And from that time until 1839, Bunn was sole lessee. There was not a style of entertainment that Bunn did not essay; he began with the legitimate drama, and descended, in 1839, to tight-rope dancers and Van Amburg, the lion tamer. It must be added in extenua- tion, however, that he received more royal patronage through the " Lion King " than for any other form of entertainment he presented, Queen Victoria commanding two special performances. Opera, however, was the staple fare ; he gave English versions of Weber's and Rossini's operas, mutilated, it is true, but competently rendered ; he treated his patrons to German opera, and Jullien's Promenade Concerts, varied \yy tableaux viv ants, and Macready, Phelps, and Mrs. Warner in tragedy. He boasts in his book, The Stage, that nearly every great actor of the day appeared under his management, as well as every great European singer and dancer. Yet Alfred Bunn was simply a showman, and he made Drury Lane only a big booth. But he could not make it pay, 96 THE LONDON STAGE and at the end of five years had to retire thousands in debt. An actor named Hammond, at that time manager of the Strand Theatre, where we shall meet him again, was rash enough to be tempted by a rental reduced to ^"5,000 a year. But although he engaged Macready, Elton, Phelps, and Mrs. Warner, he had to close early in March. Jullien and Eliason filled out the remainder of the season with their concerts. At Christmas, 1841, Macready, after failing at Covent Garden, was again tempted to try his fortune in manage- ment. He produced The Two Gentlemen of Verona, poor Gerald Griffin's Gisippus, Byron's Marino Faliero, Handel's Ads and Galatea, but the last only was a monetary success. Through an obstinate policy, or rather over-punctilious regard for his public pledges, he would not permit it to be sung* more than three times a week, and thus frittered away its attraction. Yet we cannot but admire the fine artistic sense and proud probity of the man, who preferred losing his money to breaking faith with his supporters and countenancing those long runs which are death to art. In the company were James Anderson, Samuel Phelps, Keeley, Harley, Elton, Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. Stirling, Mrs. Keeley, Miss Priscilla Horton. Macready, in his opening bill, announced that the grand saloon attached to the boxes should be protected " from all improper intrusion." With a determined hand he swept away those shameful abuses which had hitherto disgraced the auditorium of our theatres, and introduced an order and decorum until then unknown. The second season opened with a performance of As You Like It, and a cast which probably was never THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 97 equalled. Mrs. Nisbett, Rosalind ; Mrs. Stirling, Celia ; Mrs. Keeley, Audrey ; Macready, Jacques ; Anderson, Orlando ; Phelps, Adam ; Graham, Oliver ; Keeley, Touchstone ; Compton, William ; Ryder, the Banished Duke his first appearance in London ; George Bennett, Duke Frederick ; Elton, the First Lord, etc. A splendid revival of King John followed with an equally fine cast, Helen Faucit as Constance ; Westland Marston's Patricians Daughter and Browning's The Blot on the Scutcheon were the novelties ; and there was a revival of Dryden's King Arthur, with Purcell's famous music, all before Christmas. In connection with King Arthur, James Anderson, in his memoirs, tells a remarkable story. During the rehearsals Tom Cooke, the musical director, was in despair of being able to find anyone who could do justice to the solos in Come, if you dare! Anderson, who had noticed the fine voice of a young chorus singer named Sims Reeves, suggested him as a solution of the difficulty, and was laughed at by Cooke for the proposal. Macready, however, impressed by Anderson's persis- tency, desired Cooke to try the young man alone. "In less than twenty minutes Cooke returned in raptures of delight. Rushing up to me, he embraced me again and again, swearing, in his odd way, that we must change places / must conduct the orchestra, and he take my place on the stage. The result was delight- ful ; Mr. Reeves made a great hit, and was nightly encored in his magnificent solos. Shortly after this he went to Italy." Finding the " legitimate" unprofitable, Macready, in April, 1843, engaged Clara Novello, and produced Sappho^ a grand opera ; Milton's Comus followed, and a new play by Knowles. But it was all in vain ; the H 98 TIfE LONDON STAGE enormous rental, the cruel burden of renter's tickets, which half filled the best seats on the best nights, and indifferent public support, sent the unfortunate manager adrift, wrecked in health and fortune. This was the last season in which the patent rights were enjoyed by the two great theatres ; the new Licensing Act was passed in that year. 1 It was the end of the ancien regime, and from that time a new order of things dramatic obtained. After Macready, Bunn again. In 1844 he engaged Charles Kean, who since his d6but seventeen years before had been gaining fame and fortune, for a series of performances, which almost rivalled the successes of the father ; but operas, ballets, extravaganzas, and pantomimes were Bunn's principal productions ; in- deed, Drury Lane was for years an opera-house rather than a theatre. Here were produced Balfe's Bohemian Girl, for which Bunn wrote the idiotic libretto, The Maid of Athens, and many other of his works ; Benedict's Brides of Venice; Wallace's Maritana, etc., sung by Miss Romer, Madame Anna Thillon, Miss Rainforth, Borrani, Stretton, Weiss, and Sims Reeves, who was engaged in 1847-8. In the latter year the Cirque National, from the Champs Elysees, performed at Drury Lane, and on June 1 4th (1848), a French company appeared in a version of Monte Cristo which extended over two nights. A serious riot was the consequence of this new departure in stage art, and the circus returned, to be succeeded by more opera. After which Bunn had to retire to Boulogne, and depend upon a friend for mere subsistence. 1 See the chapter on the Olympic for a detailed account of the effects of this revolutionary measure. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 99 On December 26th, 1849, James Anderson undertook the management, with a respectable but by no means brilliant company. His most notable productions were Ingomar no man ever played the part as Anderson did and Azael, the latter splendidly mounted the Temple of I sis was a wonderful set. But neither the legitimate nor the spectacular would draw, and Anderson retired, a ruined man, in the summer of the great Exhibition year. He was immediately followed by an American circus, that cleared thousands. Such was the taste of the day. Old Drury was the scene of another notable " Fare- well " on February 26th, 1851, when Macready made his last appearance upon the stage in the character of Macbeth. Macready had the bad taste to despise or pretend to despise the profession to which he owed fortune, position, reputation, and cast no " longing, lingering glance" behind, such as had marked the farewell of Garrick, of Kemble, of Siddons, who passionately loved their art. On that morning he wrote in his Diary : "My first thought when I awoke was that this day was to be the close of my professional life. I meditated on it, and not one feeling of regret inter- mingled with the placid satisfaction accompanying my performance of every act, needfully preparative to the coming event." This is not the utterance of an artist, but of a mere workman, and after reading it I can never believe that Macready was more than a very fine conven- tional actor, one who, had he been gifted with the divine afflatus, could not have been so destitute of enthusiasm, of sentiment, of soul. He was the product and the re- . presentative of a sordidly inartistic age. In writing of the night he says : " To attempt any description of the house, of the wild enthusiasm of applause, every little portion of the vast assembly in motion, the prolongation, ioo THE LONDON STAGE the deafening cheers would be useless." The object of the ovation was the person least moved by it. A grand farewell dinner was given him at the London Tavern, at which some very great people, literary, artistic, aristo- cratic, were present. We shall meet Macready again at Covent Garden. In the autumn season, Gye, of Covent Garden, ven- tured upon this forlorn hope with tragedy and opera ; but although the theatre was called for a time " The Grand National Opera House," prices raised, and com- petent artists engaged, it would not pay. In the July of 1852 a Mr. Sheridan Smith was manager for one week, and for the same space of time a Mr. De Vere wielded Garrick's sceptre ; in the October of the same year Mr. George Bolton was a six days' monarch : none of these gentlemen having the wherewithal to meet the first week's expenses. At the close of the year last named, the directors let the theatre to Mr. E. T. Smith, publican and ex-police- man, at" a rental of ,3,500. What a falling off was there from the Elliston and Macready days ! Uncle Toms Cabin, then in the full flush of its popularity, inaugurated a seven years' reign on Boxing Night, 1852. It was a lucky hit, for the whole nation was in one of its periodical fits of sickly sentiment over Mrs. Stowe's highly coloured fiction. Gold, the earliest dramatic version of Charles Reade's Never Too Late to Mend, followed, and completed the prosperity of the season. During 1853 and 1854, Gustavus Brooke, whom we shall meet at the Olympic, drew crowded houses. But following in Bunn's footsteps, Smith made Drury Lane an opera-house rather than a theatre. Italian opera was given at cheap prices in 1853 and in succeeding seasons : stalls, four shillings ; dress-circle, THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 101 half-a-crown ; second circles and pit, one shilling ; arid the two galleries, sixpence ; while one guinea was the highest price charged for a private box. And at this tariff the public could hear Madame Gassier, Lucy Escott, Miss Huddart, Hamilton Braham, Bettini, Borrani, etc. But Smith, like Bunn, was a showman and of a lower grade; he, Smith, alternated Gustavus Brooke, Miss Glynn, and Charles Mathews with Chinese con- jurers and a man-fly who crawled upon the ceiling, and the great Rachel with a circus. Yet he might have succeeded in making the speculation remunerative had he confined his energies within reasonable bounds ; but he was at the same time lessee of Drury Lane, the Alhambra, Her Majesty's, and a travelling circus ; land- lord of the Radnor Tavern, at the top of Chancery Lane, wine merchant, auctioneer, picture dealer, land agent, bill discounter, newspaper proprietor, etc., etc. No wonder that, between so many stools, he ultimately came to the ground. Dion Boucicault, after his quarrel with Webster, in the early autumn of 1862, opened Drury Lane for a season with The Colleen Bawn, Madame Celeste, himself, and his wife being the principal attractions. This was fol- lowed by the Relief of Lucknow. In the December of the same year, Edmund Falconer, having made ^13,000 by The Peep o Day at the Lyceum, was ambitious to try his fortunes at the National Theatre. His opening piece, Bonnie Dundee, upon which he spent a large sum, was a direful failure. In 1863 he entered into partner- ship with his acting manager, F. B. Chatterton, and produced finely mounted revivals of King John, Henry IV., Manfred, Faust, and Comus, with Phelps, Walter Montgomery, Mrs. Hermann Vezin, and a fairly good company to interpret them. Phelps's delineation of 102 THE LONDON STAGE Byron's sombre hero was, with Werner, I think, the finest thing in tragedy the Sadler's Wells manager ever did. His address to Astarte had in it a ring of pathetic passion that he seldom rose to, and the declamatory speeches were given with a power of elocution that one never hears nowadays. The scenic effects were grand ; no scene more stupendous than the Hall of Ahrimanes, with the Demon seated on his globe of fire surrounded by his satellites, could be imagined. The part had been performed at Drury Lane many years before by an actor named Denvil, who made a great hit in it. When Phelps was playing the part, Denvil was taking checks at the gallery door. Within three years Falconer lost all his money, and Chatterton was then accepted by the committee as sole lessee at a rental of ^"6,000 per annum, and ^10 a night for every additional performance over 200. When we compare this with the sum paid by E. T. Smith a few years previously, we gather how rapidly theatrical property was even then rising in the market. Chatterton followed on with Shakespeare and Byron and the old comedies, interpreted by Phelps, Walter Montgomery, Barry Sullivan, John Ryder, Helen Faucit, Mrs. Hermann Vezin, Miss Neilson. But he afterwards told the world that Shakespeare spelt ruin, and Byron, bankruptcy. So in 1868 he brought out The Great City, the first of those panoramic dramas of modern life which have since attained to such extraordinary proportions on this very stage. The introduction of a real cab and a real horse was then considered a marvel of realism. A series of adaptations of Scott's novels, with beautiful Adelaide Neilson as Rebecca and Amy Robsart, Phelps in the double role of King James and Trapbois in The Fortunes of Nigel, and other romantic dramas, together THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 103 with the annual pantomime and William Beverley's transformation scene, kept the theatre going for a time. But by-and-by both actors and entertainments deterior- ated in quality, falling from bad to worse. He made a final effort during his last season, engaged Mrs. Her- mann Vezin, Ryder, and Charles Dillon as the star, produced Macbeth, Othello, The Winters Tale, Bel- phegor, and other plays ; but Dillon was only a wreck. Even the pantomime did not draw, and on February 4th, 1879, Chatterton retired with liabilities amounting to ,36,000. Drury Lane, however, was not responsible for all the losses ; he was at this time manager of the Adelphi and Princess's as well, and neither was paying. November 6th, 1879, enter "Augustus Druriolanus," as his friends used to call the future knight. The story of how Augustus Harris became lessee of Drury Lane, as told by himself, reads like a bit of smart fiction. Passing the house one day, he saw a notice on the doors that it was closed. He had always cherished a belief that he could work Drury Lane and make it a success, by means of gorgeous pantomimes. Someone offered to find him the money to carry out his ideas. Relying upon this promise, he proposed himself as a tenant to the committee of proprietors, who, after some hesitation, touching his youth he was only twenty-seven agreed to let him the theatre, on condition that he would pay ;i,ooo down. At that time all his worldly wealth was 3 155-. He hurried off to his backer, but the gentle- man backed out, and suggested a dinner at the Aquarium instead. To continue in his own words, " I was ready to go anywhere and catch at a straw. At the Aquarium he, the ex-backer, introduced me to Mr. Rendle " (after- wards his father-in-law) " in these words, ' Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Augustus Harris, the new 104 THE LONDON STAGE lessee of Drury Lane. I believe you were one of the unsuccessful proposers for the theatre,' and then, turning to me, he said, ' Mr. Rendle wanted to give the Vokeses another chance at the Lane.' ' Harris proposed to join forces with Mr. Rendle, he to find the work, his partner the money, confessing candidly in the same breath his financial position. u I saw him several times, and told him that with ,3,000 I would undertake to open the house and produce my pantomime. This was a bold venture, seeing that this year Covent Garden was going to do pantomime on the most lavish scale ! A bold venture ! I look back, and it seems mad- ness ! Well, sir, I think Rendle got tired of me, and to get rid of me at last said, * Look here, Harris, I will find ; 2,000, on condition you find the first ,1,000.' * Agreed/ I cried, ' I'll do it.' ' And perhaps at that moment he did not possess as many pence ! Off he went to a refreshment contractor, and obtained from him a promise of .250 as soon as the lease was signed ; then with great difficulty he induced a relative to do a little bill for another ,250. That afternoon, while walking in the park, he met a couple of friends, who invited him home to dinner with them. Over the wine and cigars he asked for a loan of ,250, and got it. " Next day I bounced into Rendle's office. ' Got .750, can't get any more.' My frankness, my earnestness, more than my plans, I think, won him, and he lent me the money ; but the capital was ,2,750, not ,3,000." Harris started the most prosperous reign that any monarch of Old Drury had enjoyed since David Garrick with George Rignold in Henry V.; then followed the pantomime, Blue Beard ; both were successful. Next season he began the series of spectacular sensational dramas with The World; Youth, Pluck, A Million of THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 105 Money, A Sailors Knot, etc., followed one another, all of the same pattern. During his management, however, he produced six of Shakespeare's plays and a few ro- mantic dramas, such as The Spanish Armada, The Royal Oak. In the summer of 1881 he brought over the Saxe-Meiningen Company, a notable engagement, which exercised an important influence upon English stage art. In the following year Ristori appeared once more as Elizabeth, Lady Macbeth, and in other of her favourite roles. The company of the Theatre Frangais was here in 1893, and previous to this, in 1886, the manager started opera seasons with the finest artistes to be found the De Reszkes, Mme. Melba, Lassalle, Emma Eames, Nordica, etc. Of his Covent Garden seasons I shall have something to say at the end of the next chapter. Each Christmas brought forth a pantomime more gorgeous and elaborate than its predecessors. Truly they were not the pantomimes of old ; they were all glitter, pageantry, costume, scenery, processions, and mechanical effects, and sometimes not even Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell could save them from being dreary but they paid, the manager made money, the shareholders got good dividends so nimporte ! Being Sheriff of the City of London in 1891, on the occasion of the German Emperor's visit, Harris received the honour of knighthood. The number of his undertakings, which included six or seven theatres, innumerable travelling companies, a newspaper, besides ordinary business speculations, ex- hausted his physique, and he fell a victim to a wasting disease at the age of forty-five, June 22nd, 1896. During the next season, Drury Lane was carried on under the name of his widow, but since then it has been io6 THE LONDON STAGE managed by a syndicate, with Arthur Collins, who was Sir Augustus's business man, as manager. He has followed faithfully in the steps of his predecessor, and produced an annual sensational drama, The White Heather, The Price of Peace, The Millionaire, The Best of Friends, exhausting earth, fire, and water, both above and beneath, for blood-curdling situations, until one anxiously asks, what has he left undone, what will be the next startler ? And each Christmas he has given us the usual gorgeous pantomime with the usual people. In 1901, ,15,000 was spent upon reconstructing and redecorating the house, great improvements being effected, not only in the auditorium, but in the mechan- ical arrangement of the stage. In the following year, Mr. Collins returned to a custom that had lately lapsed, and opened the great theatre for a summer season with a very elaborate production of Ben Hur. This year he has gone one better with Sir Henry Irving and Dante, which, though disappointing as a play, was probably the most stupendous "get up" that any stage has yet shown. The Fortunatus cap that was bestowed upon Sir Augustus has been inherited by his successor, as the handsome dividends that the shareholders receive each year, and the splendid reserve fund which is constantly being added to, amply testify. I wonder if the ghosts of a century of ruined managers ever revisit the scene of their earthly misfortunes ? If so, how mortifying the contrast must be ! CHAPTER II The Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatres, 1660-1743, and the Three Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, 1732-1903 Their famous Actors and Actresses The origin of English Pantomime A retrospect of histrionic and dramatic Art and Literature from Betterton to Macready. UNDER date November 2Oth, 1660, Pepys wrote in his Diary: " Mr. Shipley and I went to the new playhouse near Lincoln's Inn Fields (which was formerly Gibbon's tennis court), where the play of Beggars Bush was newly begun, and so we went in and saw it well acted. It is the finest playhouse, I believe, that ever was in England." This theatre had been opened a week or two previously under the patent 1 granted by Charles II. to Sir William Davenant, poet, dramatist, and soldier. Pepys' reference to it as " the finest playhouse " is curious, since within eight years after its erection, Sir William found it to be too small, and started building a new house in Dorset Gardens. He died in the same year (1668), leaving his interest in the patent to Lady Davenant, who was assisted in the management by Harris and Betterton. At the lady's death, Charles and Alexander Davenant succeeded to her rights. On the retirement of the latter in 1690, Charles sold his interest to Christopher Rich. The fortunes of the house during the few following years have been sketched in the chapter on Drury Lane, and how, when the Lord Chamberlain silenced 1 See Chapter I. 107 io8 THE LONDON STAGE his patent, rogue Rich, being possessed of the lease of Davenant's old theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at once set about rebuilding it. It was not, however, until after the accession of George I. that he could obtain leave again to exercise the rights of his patent. .But ere the curtain rose upon the new stage the crafty lawyer had gone to render up his last account, and it was his son John who opened the house, December 8th, 1714. It is described by contemporaries as a handsome building, the interior superbly adorned with mirrors on each side, the stage furnished with new scenery, and ''more extended" than Drury Lane. John Rich had a taste for acting, and at first essayed tragedy ; but, being a man entirely devoid of education, he made a dismal failure. Yet there was a strong dra- matic genius in this coarse, illiterate man, and it burst forth when, in \i7^i ^ e appeared as Harlequin, in a pantomime called Harlequin Executed. Borrowed from the Italian Arlecchino, Harlequin had hitherto been a speaking part ; it was Rich, or Lun, as he chose to call himself in the bills, who, simply from his inability to speak upon the stage, originated the silent Harlequin, 1 yet by mere dumb action he could rival the power and pathos of the most accomplished tragedian. "On his last revival of The Sorcerer" writes Jackson, in his History of the Scottish Stage, "I saw him practise the hatching of Harlequin by the heat of the sun, in order to point out the business to Miles, who, though excellent in the line of dumb significance, found it no easy matter to retain the lesson Rich had taught him this certainly was a masterpiece in dumbshow from the 1 The speaking Harlequin was common, however, for many years after- wards ; we find Garrick performing it at Goodman's Fields (see p. 68), and long afterwards Harry Woodward was famous in the character. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 109 first chipping of the egg, his receiving of motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, to his quick Harlequin trip round. the empty shell, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue and every motion a voice, which spoke with most miraculous organ to the understanding and sensation of the observers." Early in 1723 the managers of Drury Lane, in rivalry to Rich, pnxtuced a pantomime by Dr. Thurmond, a dancing-master, entitled Harlequin Doctor Faustus, which, constructed on a much more elaborate scale than those hitherto given at Lincoln's Inn Fields, may be considered as the first English pantomime. Not to be outdone, in the December of the same year, Rich brought out his famous Necromancer ; or Harlequin Executed, which far surpassed in splendour all that had yet been seen. The prologue to this piece is very suggestive as to the relative positions of the two houses. " Yon rival theatre by success made great, Plotting destruction to our sinking State, Turn'd our own arms upon us and woe be to us They needs must raise the Devil to undo us ; Straight our enchanter gave his spirit wing, And conjur'd all the town within this ring." A continuous rivalry was now carried on between the two theatres, and pantomime became the great attraction at both ; for while at Drury Lane Booth, Wilks, Gibber, and Mrs. Oldfield could draw but ^500 a week to the Treasury, the Jjgnius of_Nonsense would swell the receipts to ^1,000. The price to the boxes was raised from four to five shillings at pantomime time ; but the following curious notice was put upon the bill of the play : " The advance money to be returned to those who choose to go out before the overture of the enter-* tainment." As late as 1747 we find a similar notice no THE LONDON STAGE in Garrick's bills. Yet when Garrick became one of the managers of Drury Lane he promised the audience that he would not attempt to gain their patronage by such spurious attractions as pantomimes ; but in spite of the appeal he made to the public to support him in his laudable resolve, 1 he was very soon compelled to rescind his promise, and follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. The opening of the old English pantomime was really modelled with certain modifications upon the masque of the Elizabethan and the Stuart days, that by its gorgeous scenery and mechanical effects anticipated the spectacular display of a later date_ The story was usually founded upon a classical subject, and was illus- trated with music and grand scenic effects ; on to this was tacked a comic transformation after the Italian style. Harlequin was turned into a magician, who, by a touch of his bat, could transform a palace into a hut, men and women into wheelbarrows and chairs, and colonnades into beds of tulips or serpents, and all these mechanical tricks were worked as deftly nearly two centuries ago as they are now. Harlequin was the hero, for the clown was simply a rustic servant of Pantaloon's, and played a very unimportant part in the piece until the genius of Grimaldi developed him into a new dramatic creation. It may be mentioned that the tight spangled dress was not worn by Harlequin until the nineteenth century. From the days of The Necromancer pantomimes never ceased 1 " 'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence Of rescu'd nature and reviving sense ; To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show, For useful mirth and salutary woe ; Bid scenic virtue form the rising age, And truth diffuse her radiance from the stage." 2 See p. 23. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES in to be the best trump card a manager could play at either of the patent houses. The opening of the new Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre drew away several members of the Drury Lane com- pany. In 1717 James Quin, who had just before made his de*but at the latter house, passed over to Lincoln's Inn Fields, with which, and Covent Garden, his future career was mostly associated. It was not until 1720, however, that he made his great hit in the character of Falstaff; he was acknowledged to be the best representative of the fat knight since Betterton. As a tragedian he was the most stilted of declaimers " Heavy and phlegmatic, he trod the stage, Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage," wrote Churchill in The Rosciad, yet until Garrick rose he was indisputably the first actor of his day. A most serious riot occurred at the Portugal Street Theatre in 1721 through the practice of allowing certain privileged persons to sit upon the stage during the per- formance. As an illustration of the theatrical manners of the age this incident is worth pages of description. One night, in a principal scene of Macbeth, a nobleman crossed from one side of the stage to the other, in front of the actors, to speak to a friend ; when Rich remonstrated with him upon the impropriety of such behaviour my lord struck him in the face. Rich and Quin drew their swords, the rest of the company supported them, and the beaux took the offender's side. But the players proving too strong, their foes were driven out of the theatre. Reinforced, the rioters soon returned, smashed the handsome mirrors that lined the proscenium, threw torches among the scenery, tore up the seats, and it was not until the military were called out that the disturbance ii2 THE LONDON STAGE was quelled. From that time a fashion, which had been introduced by Charles II., of posting a guard on each side the stage, was revived, and partly survives to the present day in the soldiers that attend the performances at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Perhaps the greatest event of Rich's management was the production of Gay's Beggars Opera (1727-8). This " Newgate Pastoral " took the town by storm, and drew crowded houses for sixty-two nights. Ladies had their fans painted with subjects from the piece ; Sir Robert Walpole and Townshend went to see themselves satirised as the two thieves and receivers, Peachum and Lockit ; Walker, the original Macheath, and Lavinia Fenton, the Polly Peachum, became the darlings of the town. At the end of the season the Duke of Bolton carried Polly away, and afterwards made her his duchess a position which she well became by her wit, her taste, her under- standing, and her manners. Towards the end of 1731 John Rich, on account of Lincoln's Inn Fields having fallen into decay, 1 set on foot a subscription for erecting a new theatre in_Bow_ Street, Covent Garden. A year afterwards he vacated the old house. And here the story of the Portugal Street theatre may be said to end. In 1733-4^ was opened by the celebrated Porpora with ^arfTtalian opera company, in opposition to Handel at the King's Theatre, and became the more fashionable house of the two. After that it was let for balls, concerts, and was occasion- ally taken by actors whom the patent theatres left out in the cold. The latest date, as far as I can discover, at which it was used as a J;heatre was 1742-3, when it was opened by Giffard for a short time after the final 1 As the house had been opened only seventeen years, this would lead us to suppose that the "rebuilding" must have been very superficial. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 113 closing of Goodman's Fields. The building afterwards served at different times as a barrack, an auction-room, a china warehouse, and it was not until 1848, when it was pulled down for the enlargement of the museum of the College of Surgeons, that the last remains of the theatre finally disappeared. Most of the great actors and actresses who flourished between 1662 and 1730 had appeared within those walls. And here were produced Congreve's two greatest comedies, and two of the greatest in the world's litera- ture, Love for Love, 1695, The Way of the World, 1700, and his one tragedy, The Mourning Bride, which, if it does not contain "the true Promethean fire," is a work of great merit, especially in its versification, and was the model for Rowe, Young, and the best writers in the tragic vein who immediately followed him. Six thousand pounds being quickly subscribed for the new theatre, the building was at once commenced. Its progress seems to have excited considerable interest among " the quality," and the precincts became quite a fashionable resort, a number of people assembling every day to watch the masons at work. Rich paid the Duke of Bedford ^100 a year as ground rent; this, at the old manager's death, was raised to ^300, and in 1792 to ^940. The house was decorated in gorgeous style by the Italian artist, Amiconi, who painted a magnificent ceiling, representing the gods banqueting in the clouds ; the scenery, said to have been very fine, was by the same artist, assisted by George Lambert, the founder of the Beefsteak Club. It was but a small theatre ; from the stage to the back of the boxes the length was only fifty- one feet, and it would hold when full not more Hhan 200, although space was economised to such an extent that only twenty-one inches were allowed to each i ii4 THE LONDON STAGE person. The prices of admission were boxes, 5$. ; pit, 35. 6d. ; galleries, 2s. and is. ; and seats on the IPS. 6d. ; there were two entrances, one under the Piazza, and the other in Bow Street. On the first night, December 7th, 1732, so great was the demand for places that pit and boxes were amalga- mated at 55". The opening piece was Congreve's Way of the World. This was followed by a revival of the Beggar s Opera, with the original cast, which ran twenty nights, while the rest of the company played at Lincoln's Inn Fields. During the first few years of its existence there is little that is interesting in the history of Covent Garden ; season after season old tragedies and old comedies, occasionally varied by a new play, succeeded each other in regular succession. The company also remained \ pretty much the same, except when death removed the veterans. A dead level of conventional dulness and mediocrity reigned throughout the theatrical world, and no first appearance of any interest took place at Covent Garden until Peg Woffington, whose saucy face still looks down upon us JronTthe walls of the Garrick Club, already the idol of Dublin, having, after many rebuffs, forced her way into the presence of John Rich and his seven-and- twenty cats, prevailed upon the eccentric manager to engage her. She opened on November 8th, 1740, as Sylvia, in the Recruiting Officer. On the 2oth of the same month she played Sir Harry Wildair in the Constant Couple, and electrified the town by a perform- ance such as had not been seen since Wilks played the part. She repeated the character twenty times during the season to crowded houses. No woman before, or since, ever made so delightful a stage rake, so elegant, so fascinating, so debonair, that even ladies fell in love PEG WOFFINBTON THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 115 with her. In the following season she went over to Drury Lane. But it was at Covent Garden, in 1757, while playing Rosalind, that she was death-stricken. She had complained of feeling unwell all through the performance, but when, in the epilogue, she came to the line, "If I were among you I would kiss as many as had beards that pleased me," her voice broke, she faltered, then screaming " O God! O God! " tottered to the stage door, and was caught by someone standing there. She lingered on for three years, but never again was the brilliant actress seen upon the stage. She was only forty-four years of age. In 1744 the noted George Anne Bellamy made her first appearance upon these boards as Monimia in The Orphan. She was such a mere child at the time that Quin objected to play with her, but so admirably did she acquit herself, that at the end of the performance he caught her in his arms and exclaimed, " Thou art a divine creature, and the true spirit is in thee." In after years, though far inferior in genius to those great actresses, she rivalled both Mrs. Gibber and Woffington. For this, however, she was more indebted to her beauty and brilliant conversational gifts, in which she almost equalled "the lovely Peggy," between her and whom there was deadly rivalry, than to her histrionic powers. She was Garrick's Juliet during the famous run of Shakespeare's tragedy at Drury Lane. 1 1 In 1785, worn down by poverty, degradation, and sickness, the once charming George Anne Bellamy, who had intoxicated the town by her charms of manner and person, now so decrepit that she could not rise from the armchair in which she was seated upon the stage, took leave of the public at Drury Lane, where a benefit had been organised to save from utter starvation the woman who once, in her magnificent generosity, gave .1,000 towards the better clothing of our soldiers abroad, and never passed a sentinel on guard afterwards without a blessing. Some time before her death she published her very amusing memoirs. n6 THE LONDON STAGE Pantomime still reigned supreme at Covent Garden as it had at Lincoln's Inn Fields ; John Rich had little more consideration for the dignity of the drama than had his father, and when acting would not draw he did not scruple to supplement it with wild beasts, tumblers, contortionists, and rope-dancers. And yet he divided with Drury Lane all the histrionic ability of the time. But he always believed himself to be a crushed tragedian ; took pupils and gave levies at which he delighted to spout scenes from Richard the Third, in his ludicrous fashion. He was jealous of every successful actor. When poor George Anne Bellamy made her great hit as Juliet, he declared it was not owing to her acting, but to his arrangement of the funeral procession ; and when Barry was drawing crowded houses, he would peep through the curtain of a night and mutter to himself, " What, you are come again, are you ? Much good may it do you ! I don't envy your taste." Tate Wilkinson in his Memoirs, and Jackson in his History of the Scottish Stage, tell many amusing stones of Rich's eccentricities, and of his extraordinary habit of calling everyone out of his or her name. When the new theatre first opened Quin was in the height of his popularity ; haughty, absolute, overbearing, every actor, and even John Rich himself, trembled before him. In 1746 Garrick accepted an engagement to play at Covent Garden with Quin, against Quin, and in Quin's stronghold. It was in Rowe's Fair Penitent the battle of the schools was fought : the elder actor was Horatio, Garrick " the gallant, gay Lothario." It was a marvel- lous contrast, the monotonous cadences, the dreary pauses, the sawing of the air, the dignified indifference to the sentiments he was uttering, which marked Quin's style ; and the passion, the impulse, the deep intensity of his THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 117 rival ; and although the old school had still many ad- herents, the public verdict was not long in doubt. In 1750 a far more formidable rival, " silver-tongued " Spranger Barry, divided the suffrages of the town with Garrick in Romeo ; playgoers were astonished at the play running twelve nights at Drury Lane and thirteen at the Covent Garden, and wits composed epigrams upon the extraordinary event. Barry's fine person, handsome face, and musical voice gave him a great advantage over " little David," and, in addition, he had Mrs. Gibber, the most passionately pathetic of actresses, for his Juliet. A lady after seeing the play at both houses remarked that if she had been the Juliet to Garrick she should have expected he would have come up to her, and if she had been the Juliet to Barry she would certainly have jumped down to him. But when the two played Lear against one another, Garrick's supremacy asserted itself. Wonderful stories, however, are told of Barry's Othello, of ladies shrieking with terror at his delivery of the line, " I'll tear her all to pieces " ; of actors who were so vividly impressed that they could not sleep after witnessing it. 1 At fifty this Apollo had become old and infirm, and Reynolds, the dramatist, 1 Churchill, however, (The Rosciact), who, though severe and sarcastic upon most of the actors of the time, could yet praise highly where praise was merited, in his picture of Barry gives one the idea of a conventional and somewhat affected actor : " Who else can speak so very, very fine, That sense may kindly end with every line." Again : " When he appears most perfect, still we find Something which jars upon and hurts the mind : Whatever lights upon a part are thrown, We see too plainly they are not his own. No flame from nature ever yet he caught, Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught ; He raised his trophies on the base apart, And conn'd his passions as he conn'd his part." n8 THE LONDON STAGE gives a sadly contrasted picture of him as the noble Moor in a full suit of gold-laced scarlet, a little cocked hat, knee-breeches, and silk stockings, that conspicuously displayed a pair of gouty legs. j^Kich died in 1761, leaving the theatre to his son-in-law, ^ohnJBeard. 1 the vocalist, for himself and wife, with the proviso that the property should be sold whenever he could obtain ,60,000 for it ; and it was for this sum that George Colman the elder, Harris, Rutherford, and Powell, in 1767, purchased the patent. The event was celebrated in an " occasional prologue" to The Rehearsal, written by Whitehead, and spoken by Powell, on the opening night of the season, four lines of which ran : " For Brentford's State two kings could once suffice, In ours behold four kings of Brentford rise, All smelling to one nosegay's od'rous savour The balmy nosegay of the public favour." The company at this time included Powell, a very fine tragedian, of whom mention has been made in the previous chapter, " Gentlemen " Smith, Bensley, Shuter, Macklin, Woodward, Yates, Hull, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Bellamy, Mrs. Mattocks, Mrs. Ward, Miss Macklin, Mrs. Buckley, etc. Rich had depended principally upon pantomimes, and Beard upon light musical pieces, but the new management resorted to a more legitimate entertainment to draw the public. Before the end of the first season, however, the partners were divided into two factions, with Harris 1 Miss Rich was Beard's second wife, his first was Lady Hamilton Herbert, the daughter of the Earl of Waldegrave. Beard was a very worthy fellow, and until the appearance of Incledon, was unequalled as an English ballad singer. The elder Dibdin considered him the finest of all our native tenors. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 119 and Rutherford on one side and Colman and Powell on the other. It seems to have been, as usual, a case of cherchez la femme ; a Mrs. Lessingham, a favourite of Harris's, not having the parts assigned her which she fancied, succeeded in irritating her cher ami against Colman, who was the stage director, and to such a height did hostilities rise at last, that after the close of the season, in June 1768, Colman took possession of the keys and refused Harris admission to the theatre. The latter, together with Rutherford and a posse of roughs, broke into the house through a window in Hart Street and carried off a considerable part of the wardrobe, books, and other property. This led to a lawsuit, which was not settled until 1770; a quarrel between Harris and the lady who had caused all this disturbance, in the interim, however, considerably tended to an amicable arrange- ment by which Colman was reinstated as manager. March I5th, 1773, marked an important era in dramatic history, for on that night Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer was produced at Covent Garden. And it required all the influence of Dr. Johnson and his literary coterie to induce Colman to accept the piece. Several of the company refused to play in a comedy that was so ungenteel. But the audience soon caught the spirit of the author, and nature once more asserted her sway upon the stage over the inane artificialities of the school of Hugh Kelly. 1 That same year Lewis, the most mercurial of come- dians, made his first appearance in London ; and Macklin, at the age of eighty-four, performed Macbeth for the first time on the metropolitan stage, and had the courage to substitute Highland tartans a costume which survived until Charles Kean's famous revival of 1 Seep. 155. 120 THE LONDON STAGE the tragedy at the Princess's for Garrick's gold-laced scarlet coat. It was said at the time that he looked more like an old Scotch piper than a prince of the blood royal, and that his performance was very uneven ; so while some applauded, others hissed. This opposition, he asserted, proceeded from his brother actors ; law proceedings and affidavits followed, and the next time he appeared as Macbeth he was met with howls of disapprobation ; more than that, the audience insisted upon his discharge upon the spot, and would not listen to a word until an actor brought a board upon the stage, upon which was written: "At the command of the public, Mr. Macklin is discharged." The next season, however, found him re-established in favour. Colman sold his share of the patent in 1774, and as Powell was dead and Rutherford was a mere cypher, hjaj-ris took that absolute position in the direction of the tKeatre which he retained until his death. Spranger Barry made his last appearance upon the stage here as Jaffier, in October, 1776, and died in the following January. Harry Woodward passed away in the same year. In 1780 we find the irrepressible non- agenarian, Macklin, playing Sir Pertinax Macsycophant in his own comedy, The Man of the World, for the first time in London. From 1779 to his premature death in 1785, Hender- son, who, as I have said before, was generally considered to be Garrick's successor, was the leading attraction at Covent Gorden. We shall meet him at the Hay- market in an earlier part of his career. Covent Garden underwent so many alterations in 1787 that it was virtually rebuilt, and five years later was again greatly enlarged. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 121 A very remarkable farewell was witnessed at Covent Garden on May 7th, 1789, when Macklin, at the age of ninety-nine, took leave of the stage in his great part of Shylock, which he had recreated fifty-seven years previously at Drury Lane, before Bolingbroke, Swift, Steele, and Pope. Memory had long been failing the wonderful old man, and his dazed look when he entered the green-room, and his strange questions, prepared everyone for a breakdown. He delivered the first two or three speeches correctly, but evidently without any understanding ; then he stopped, tried to go on again, but all was blank, and coming forward to the footlights, he begged the audience, in a broken voice, to pardon him, and allow his substitute, who had been kept ready dressed at the wings, to finish the performance. He lived to his hundred and eighth year, but never again set foot upon the stage. Full justice has scarcely been done to Macklin's remarkable powers; it was he who, in 1741, initiated that sweeping reform in the histrionic art which Garrick perfected, 1 ahd it was he who, as we have just seen, in 1773, made the first attempt at appropriate costume upon the English stage. Churchill, however, describes his acting as "hard, affected, and constrained," and he had a harsh and unprepossessing countenance. Macklin was a dramatic author of some ability ; The Man of the World kept the stage until Phelps's retirement ; he was 1 As Garrick and Macklin were fast friends long before the former appeared upon the stage, and used to spend hours together walking up and down beneath the Covent Garden Piazza, discussing the state of the drama, it is very probable that these conversations gave Garrick his first idea of a new style of acting, which his natural powers so admirably adapted him to carry out. In regard to Macklin's age there is a doubt, but he always asserted that he was born in the year of the Battle of the Boyne, 1690, and there is considerable evidence to prove the correctness of his assertion. 122 THE LONDON STAGE also the author of another very good comedy, Love a la Mode. Charles Incledon, perhaps the greatest tenor this country has ever produced, made his first appearance at Covent Garden as Dermot in The Poor Soldier in 1790. He had been a man-of-war's-man, though previous to his entering the navy he had received some musical education as a chorister at Exeter Cathedral from the famous organist, Jackson. Incledon must have been a marvellous ballad-singer ; when Rauzzini heard him at Bath, rolling his voice grandly up like a surge of the sea till, touching the top note, it died away in sweetness, he exclaimed in rapture, " Corpo di Dio ! it was very lucky there was some roof above, or you would be heard by the angels in heaven and make them jealous." He himself used to tell a story of the effect he produced upon Mrs. Siddons : " She paid me one of the finest compliments I ever received. I sang ' The Storm ' after dinner; she cried and sobbed like a child. Taking both my hands she said, ' All that I and my brother ever did is nothing to the effect you produce.' ' ; " I remember," says William Robson, in The Old Playgoer, " when the elite of taste and science and literature were assembled to pay the well-deserved compliment of a dinner to John Kemble, and to present him with a handsome piece of plate on his retirement, Incledon sang, when requested, his best song, ' The Storm.' The effect was sublime, the silence holy, the feeling intense; and while Talma was recovering from his astonishment, Kemble placed his hand on the arm of the great French actor and said, in an agitated, emphatic, and proud tone, * That is an English singer." Munden adds that Talma jumped up from his seat and embraced him. Yet Incledon never received more than ^16 a week. His last appearance in London was under Elliston at Drury Lane in 1820. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 123 Mrs. Glover, afterwards the most incomparable of "old women," made her London debut here in 1797. In the first year of the nineteenth century, George Frederick Cooke, who, like Kean, had been for years a country stroller, at the age of forty-five created a veri- table sensation upon these boards as Richard. The story of his life is a sad record of wasted genius- wasted by the vilest dissipation. Never did actor more sorely try the patience of an indulgent public. Some- times he would disappoint a crowded house by not appearing at all ; at others he would present himself in a state of speechless intoxication. Illness was the culprit's excuse for his shortcomings, and in spite of their indignation the audience could not repress a roar of laughter when one night, after several ineffectual efforts to proceed, he laid his hand upon his heart, and hiccoughed, " My old complaint, ladies and gentlemen, my old complaint." His last appearance at Covent Garden, and in London, was June 5th, 1810, when he played Falstaff. Two years afterwards he died in Boston, U.S., being the first of the great English actors who starred in America. Cooke left behind an enormous reputation ; some considered him superior to Kean in the character of Richard. A few years ago a criticism upon Cooke, written by Charles Lamb for the columns of the Morning Post (January 2nd, 1802), was reproduced in the Athenceum. It is a fine piece of analysis, which brings the actor and his style vividly before us. I have only space, however, to quote one or two of the salient points. " He has a tongue that can wheedle the devil. It has been the policy of that ancient and grey simulator, in all ages, to hide his horns and claws. The Richard of Mr. Cooke perpetually 124 THE LONDON STAGE obtrudes his. We see the effect of his deceit uniformly successful ; but we do not comprehend how it succeeds. . . . The hypocrisy is too glaring and visible. . . . We are inclined to admit that in the delivery of single sentences, in a new and often felicitous light thrown on old and hitherto misconstrued passages, no actor that we have seen has gone beyond Mr. Cooke. He is always alive to the scene before him, and by the fire and novelty of his manner he seems likely to infuse some warm blood into the frozen declamatory style into which our theatres have for some time past been degenerating." There is a vivid description of Cooke's Sir Giles Overreach in Lockhart's Life of Scott, contained in a letter of Sir Walter to Joanna Baillie (March i3th, 1813), " I saw him [John Kemble] play Sir Giles Over- reach, the Richard III. of middling life, last night; but he came not within a hundred miles of Cooke, whose terrible visage, and short, abrupt, and savage utterance gave a reality almost to that extraordinary scene in which he boasts of his own successful villainy to a nobleman of worth and honour, of whose alliance he is ambitious. Cooke, somehow, contrived to impress upon the audience the idea of such a monster of enormity as had learned to pique himself even upon his own atrocious character." Washington Irving describes his acting as I ago in the third act of Othello. " He grasped Kemble's left hand with his own, and then fixed his right, like a claw, on his shoulder. In this position, drawing himself up to him with his short arm, he breathed his poisonous whispers into his ears. Kemble coiled and twisted his hand, writhing to get away, his right hand clasping his brows, and darting his eye back on I ago." These several criticisms convey one impression, that THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 125 of an actor of superlative power, who, by his terrific intensity, took an audience captive, and rendered them utterly oblivious, at the time, of his exaggerations and contempt of nature. His Sir Pertinax Macsycophant and Archy Macsarcasm (Love a la Mode] were, accord- ing to contemporary opinion, excellent performances. With all his shortcomings, which would be fatal to him according to present ideas of stage art, George Frederick Cooke must have been a very extraordinary actor. It was in 1803 that John Kemble, after his final break with Sheridan, purchased a sixth part of the Covent Garden patent for ,23,000, though thirty-six years previously the whole had fetched only "60,000. He succeeded Lewis, whose share it was he had bought, as stage-manager and general director. Mrs. Siddons shortly afterwards quitted Drury Lane and joined her brother in his new venture. At the end of the next year, Covent Garden witnessed one of those extraordinary furores which occasionally seize upon the British public for some rather ordinary personage or exhibition, while superior talent goes to the wall. A boy actor, named Master Betty, and called "the tenth wonder of the world," was at that time turn- ing the brains of provincial audiences, and although the Covent Garden company included Kemble, Siddons, Cooke, Munden, the management considered it worth while to offer this juvenile prodigy 50 a night. By one o'clock on December ist, 1804, the date of his first appearance, a prodigious concourse filled Bow Street. Towards evening the crowd assumed such alarming proportions that it was considered necessary to send for a guard of soldiers to clear the entrance and to form passages and approaches, that a probable catastrophe might be averted. Within a few minutes after the 126 THE LONDON STAGE doors were opened the theatre was crammed, seats, lobbies, passages even that did not command a glimpse of the stage ; gentlemen wedged into suffocating corners were only kept from fainting by ladies' fans, while swooning persons of both sexes had to be dragged out of the human mass every few minutes. Drury Lane took ^300 from the overflow. The roar of applause that burst forth as this infant phenomenon, who appeared in a version of Voltaire's Mdrope called Bar- barossa, dressed as the slave Achmet, stepped from the wings, was overwhelming, and as the audience had come determined to adore this new fetish, his success was proportionate to his reception. London enthusiasm surpassed even the extravagances of the provinces ; duchesses contended for the honour of driving the young Roscius, as he was called, about in their carriages ; if he were indisposed, bulletins were regularly issued ; William Pitt adjourned the House of Commons in order to see him play some particular part, and the University of Cambridge made him the subject for a prize medal. Yet he was only a clever boy who had been well parrotted : the books from which he studied were marked for every inflection of the voice, and for every move- ment of the arms and legs. The craze, however, was of short duration ; when he returned in the next season he drew but indifferent houses. On September 3Oth, 1808, Covent Garden was burned to the ground, twenty-three firemen perishing in the ruins. The loss of property was estimated at ,150,000, of which only 50,000 was covered by insurance. Before passing on to the new theatre, let me en- deavour to give some idea of the aspect of the old house. A drawing of the interior of Covent Garden, made about 1763, shows us the stage lit at the back by six THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 127 chandeliers, each with twelve candles in brass sockets. Garrick abolished these at Drury Lane when he returned from the Continent, substituting concealed lamps in their place and introducing footlights. Tate Wilkinson, in his delightful Wandering Patentee, gives a vivid picture of the appearance of the theatre at this period. " On crowded nights an amphitheatre of seats was raised upon the stage, where there would be groups of ill-dressed lads and persons sitting on the stage in front three or four feet deep ; so that, in fact, a performer on a popular night could not step with safety, lest he should thereby hurt or affend, or be thrown down amidst scores of idle or tipsy apprentices. But it was the beaux who usually affected that part of the house. There was only one entrance on each side the stage, which was always particularly crowded. First they sported their own figures to gratify self-consequence and impede and in- terfere with the performers who had to come on and go off the stage. They loved to affront the audience, particularly the gallery part, who would answer by showering down oranges and half-eaten apples, to the great terror of the ladies in the pit, who were so closely wedged they could not move." Fancy the absurdity of Macbeth fresh from the murder of Duncan having to push his way through a throng of beaux. Riots so often arose from these causes that royal proclamations were issued, even as far back as 1673, forbidding spectators to be admitted to the stage, but the evil continued until Garrick suppressed it at Drury Lane in 1762.* 1 In his very first playbill, as noted in the previous chapter, Garrick prohibited the admission of strangers to the stage. Long before that the Triumvirate made a successful stand against this custom, Gibber assuming the right of refusing admission by the stage door, without distinction ; but it was at the risk of his life, so furious were the beaux at being denied their privilege. Under Fleetwood and John Rich the abuse was again permitted. 128 THE LONDON STAGE With a stage half proscenium, and lit by candles, there was not much scope for scenic effects, nevertheless Garrick engaged the famous Dutch artist Louthenberg ; but it was only to paint for his pantomimes and spec- tacles, while the legitimate drama went dingy enough. From the days of Dorset Garden, stage upholstery, as it is now called, with the exceptions just mentioned, was utterly neglected ; no appeal was made to the eye ; good plays and bad plays were finely acted, the actor was all-sufficient, and no gorgeous setting was considered necessary for the dramatic pictures. Eight months after the disastrous fire, a new and more splendid Covent Garden rose from the ashes of the old. Both Kemble and Mrs. Siddons had lost their stage wardrobes, which were consumed in the flames. But generous friends came forward to their assistance. The Duke of Northumberland sent Kemble the munifi- cent sum of ,10,000, and returned him the bond on the day the first stone of the new house was laid, requesting that it might be thrown in to heighten the flames. The Prince of Wales presented him with ,1,000, and laid the foundation stone on December 3ist, 1803. New Covent Garden cost ,150,000, ; 100,000 of which was raised in shares of ,500 each. Smirke was the archi- tect, his model being the Temple of Minerva in the Acropolis at Athens ; and the statues of Tragedy and Comedy, niched under the Doric portico in Bow Street, were by Flaxman. On account of the great expense of the undertaking, Kemble raised the prices of admission ; the boxes were advanced from six to seven shillings, and pit from three- and-sixpence to four shillings, and a third tier of boxes was erected and let for ,12,000 a year. This, and a patriotic opposition to the engagement of Madame i THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 129 Catalan!, led to the famous, or infamous, Old Price riots. The opening night was September i8th, 1804; the plays were Macbeth and The Quaker. As Kemble, after God Save the King, stepped forward to speak the opening address, he was saluted with groans, hisses, cat- calls, and shouts of " Old Prices!" Not one word of the play was heard. The Riot Act was read from the stage ; constables and even soldiers were called in, but the rioters held their ground. This went on night after night with ever-increasing violence. Men stuck the letters O. P. on their hats and waistcoats ; ladies wore O. P. medals. Dustmen's bells, coachmen's horns, watchmen's rattles, and a kind of carmagnole called the O. P. dance, nightly drowned every word the actors spoke. After a struggle of sixty-one nights, Kemble was obliged to give in, lower the pit to the old price, and do away with the private boxes. The ordinary expenses of Covent Garden at this period were ^300 a night ; there was a quadruple company for tragedy, comedy, opera, and ballet. Between the years 1809 and 1821, tragedy was re- presented by Kemble, Cooke, Macready, Young, Charles Kemble, Conway, Terry, Abbot, Mrs. Siddons, Miss O'Neill, Mrs. Bunn, etc., etc. ; comedy by Munden, Johnstone, Liston, Jones, C. Kemble, Farren, Fawcett, Blanchard, Mathews, Emery, Farley, Yates ; Mesdames Jordan, Davison, Brunton, Gibbs, C. Kemble, Foote, Davenport, etc. ; in opera by Braham, Incledon, Sinclair, Philips ; Mesdames Catalani, Stephens, Maria Tree, Love, Fearon ; in pantomime by Byrne, Farley, Grim- aldi, Bologna, Ellar. Between the two dates named above the receipts were ,1,000,000, averaging ,80,000 a season. During those years some notable first appearances K I 3 THE LONDON STAGE and two famous farewells had taken place on the boards of Covent Garden. In 1813, that most delicious of English vocalists, " enchanting Kitty Stephens," as James Smith lovingly called her, made her debut at the age of nineteen as Mandane in Dr. Arne's Artaxerxes, and was hailed as the rival of Catalani. Competent critics opined that no English cantatrice, either before or after her, has ever built so pure and perfect an English style upon an elaborate Italian basis. Leigh Hunt said that her bird-like triumphs in the part of Polly (Peachum) were like nothing else heard on the stage, and left all competition behind. A lady of un- impeachable character, in 1838 she became Countess of Essex. It is not many years ago since she passed away at the great age of eighty-eight. Although she appeared on two occasions afterwards, namely, in 1817 and 1819, Mrs. Siddons took her leave of the stage on June 29th, 1812, as Lady Macbeth; with true artistic feeling, the audience insisted that the play should terminate with the sleep-walking scene, so that the last grand impression might not be disturbed. The consensus of eulogy by all who saw her act in her great days, as in the case of Garrick, renders the great- ness of her genius indisputable. " The enthusiasm she excited," to quote Hazlitt, "had something idolatrous about it ; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. We can conceive nothing grander. . . . She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of older time. . . . She was tragedy personified." During the latter years of her professional life, how- ever, she became unwieldy in person, and stagey, heavy, SARAH SIDDONS. . THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 131 and monotonous in style ; when she appeared for the last time in 1817, as Lady Randolph, no spark of that superlative genius, over which Hazlitt rhapsodised, lit up the performance. 1 Wonderful stories are told of her power over the spectators. Macready relates that when she played Aspasia in Tamburlaine, after seeing her lover strangled before her eyes, so terrible was her agony as she fell lifeless upon the stage, that the audience believed she was really dead, and only the assurances of the manager could pacify them. One night Charles Young was play- ing Beverley to her Mrs. Beverley in The Gamester, and in the great scene was so overwhelmed by her pathos that he could not speak. Unto the last she received the homage of the great ; even the Duke of Wellington attended her receptions, and carriages were drawn up before her door nearly all day long. At Covent Garden, on October 6th, 1814, her successor to the robe of Melpomene, Miss O'Neill, from Dublin, made her first appearance in London as Juliet, and at once achieved an enormous success. Macready, in his Reminiscences, tells us of her artless unconsciousness, her freedom from affectation, her fervid Italian passion in the balcony scene, and adds, " Through- out my whole experience, hers was the only representa- tion of Juliet I have ever seen." Hazlitt writes : " Her highest effort, perhaps, was in portraying tremulous joy, a rapture bordering on frenzy, an inspiration of delight, portentous of sudden and fearful disaster. We never remember to have been more delighted by her acting than when we had seen her in Isabella, at the return of Biron, clasp him in wild rapture, forgetting her dreadful 1 See Macready's Reminiscences. i 3 2 THE LONDON STAGE condition, 1 gaze on him with eyes lit up with strange fire, and reply to his question by laughter in which horror and transport mingled." In tenderness and pathos she is said to have equalled Mrs. Siddons in her early days ; but she had never the ideality, never rose to the sublimity of that marvellous actress in pure tragedy. Her stage career was very short; in 1819 she married Sir William Wrixon Beecher, and retired from the stage. In that same year the beautiful Maria Foote, then only sixteen, was introduced to the London public on these boards, as Amanthis in The Child of Nature, but did not create any particular impression. It was not until she brought her breach of promise case against " Pea Green" Hayne that she became the rage. Miss Foote seems to have been rather a very excellent amateur than an actress ; it was said of her that she danced and sang more like a highly accomplished lady than a professional. Mrs. Bancroft has given us some very interesting glimpses of the once popular favourite in her last days, in On and Off the Stage. " I was never a great actress," she used to say, " though people thought me fascinating, and I suppose I was." And no doubt it was that innate fascination in which lay the secret of her charm. She was the original Virginia in Virginius, and Macready highly commends her performance of the character. As everyone knows, she married the eccentric Lord Petersham, afterwards Earl of Harrington. On September i6th, 1816, William Charles Macready made his first bow to a London audience upon these boards as Orestes in Ambrose Philips's Distresse Mother. Though well received, he created no sensa- 1 Biron is Isabella's husband, but, believing him dead, she has marrie Villeroy. tl ! THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 133 tion, and his progress in public favour was not rapid, for he had two formidable rivals in the theatre, Charles Young and Charles Kemble, who divided the principal tragic parts between them, and Macready was for some ears relegated to a series of melodramatic heroes, such as Gambia in The Slave, and Rob Roy, varied by repulsive villains, such as Pescara in Shiel's Apostate, and Wallenberg in Maturin's Manuel. In less than a year after Macready 's d^but, on June 29th, 1817, John Philip Kemble bade farewell to the footlights in his greatest character, Coriolanus. And never did he play the part more grandly. " As he approached the last act," writes Mr. Fitzgerald, in his book on the Kembles, "a gloom seemed to settle down on the audience ; and when at the end he came slowly forward to make his address, he was greeted with a shout like thunder of 'No farewell!' It was long before he could obtain silence, or could control his feel- ings sufficiently to speak. At last he faltered out, ' I have now appeared before you for the last time : this night closes my professional life.' At this a tremendous tumult broke out, with cries of ' No, no !' ... At the end he withdrew with a long and lingering gaze, just as Garrick had done." Unlike Mrs. Siddons, he retained all his grandeur to the last, and seems to have retired in the ripe autumn of his powers. A grand dinner was given in his honour, at which Lord Holland took the chair, and the Duke of Bedford, the Marquis of Lans- downe, and others of the highest nobility, together with the most eminent men connected with literature and art, were present. Indeed, not even Garrick left the stage with such tclat as attended the retirement of " the noblest Roman of them all." 1 1 For a full appreciation of Kemble's acting, see pp. 148-9. 134 THE LONDON STAGE Yet, notwithstanding the magnificent companies he gathered about him, the Kemble management was far from satisfactory in its relations to art. The hugeness of the theatre in time rendered the acting, even of Mrs. Siddons, coarse and stilted ; all the resources of the house were chiefly lavished upon spectacles, such as Blue Beard, with its gorgeous show and real elephants. But for this, Sheridan's reckless management at Drury Lane was chiefly responsible ; where, as I have previously said, the author of the School for Scandal engaged per- forming dogs, or anything that would draw a tasteless, ignorant public, indifferent to everything save sensation and raree-show, and Covent Garden in self-defence was compelled to follow his lead or play to empty benches. John Kemble, on his retirement, made over his share of the Covent Garden patent to his brother Charles, most inimitable of Mercutios, Mirabels, Petruchios, Doricourts, most perfect of light comedians. Differences soon arose between Charles Kemble and Henry Harris, the son of Colman's old partner, who was the principal shareholder ; this quarrel at length led to litigation and a Chancery suit. The disagreement between the partners was ultimately settled by a compromise, and Harris retired, upon Kemble and the other shareholders undertaking to pay for the theatre the monstrous rental of ,12,500 per annum. A committee of management was formed, and, as is usual under such circumstances, made a terrible fiasco ; Young, Miss Stephens, and Liston seceded and went over to the other house, which, under Elliston, was already plethoric with talent. So Drury Lane became the fashion, and Covent Garden was literally a desert. In 1823, Macready followed his old associates. And these defections were brought about to save, all THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 135 told, about 20 a week. Failure was the inevitable result of such mistakes ; the committee was bankrupt, and Charles Kemble undertook the sole direction of the theatre. King John, with appropriate scenery and dresses, revived in 1823, was the earliest of the archaeological Shakespearian revivals, and initiated a new departure in theatrical art. When Dance endeavoured to persuade John Kemble to dress his Roman characters a little more in accordance with antiquity, he replied that he did not wish to be taken for an antiquary. Planche, who arranged the revival of King John, had similar prejudices to contend against. Farley wanted to know, if all the money was spent upon Shakespeare, what was he to do for his Easter piece ? And when the actors were shown the peculiar pot-shaped helmets they had to wear, they declared the audience would roar at them. "And so they did," writes Planche, "but it was with approbation." The curious caprices of the public's moral judgment in this country were well exemplified in 1825 by the different receptions accorded to Kean, at Drury Lane, after his crim. con. trial over Alderman Cox's wife, and that given to Miss Foote after her action for breach of promise against " Pea Green " Hayne. While the former was hooted off the stage, the latter attracted the largest audience ever assembled within the walls of that theatre ; seats were taken weeks in advance, guineas were paid for places in the orchestra, and the total receipts amounted to ^900 165-. The actress's appearance as Letitia Hardy was greeted with waving of hats and handkerchiefs and hysterical sobs from the ladies, while every point that could in any way be twisted into an allusion to her recent experiences was 136 THE LONDON STAGE greeted with bursts of acclamation. Undoubtedly Maria Foote was more sinned against than sinning, 1 but so was Kean, though in a less degree. Charles Kemble was neither a judicious nor a fortunate manager, 2 and by the year 1829 the affairs of the theatre were in such a disastrous condition that the bailiffs were in possession for taxes. Inevitable ruin seemed to stare the hapless lessee in the face, when his daughter Fanny, then only in her seventeenth year, stepped into the breach, appeared as Juliet, and redeemed the fortunes of the house. It had got abroad that, as the young lady was not intended for the stage, it was an act of heroic self- sacrifice ; and as she was likewise very beautiful, the public flocked in their thousands, and the critics went into raptures over her Juliet, Euphrasia, Belvidera, Mrs. Beverley. But Miss Kemble, notwithstanding the over- flowing houses she drew, which enabled her father in the one season to pay off .13,000 of his debts, was not a genius ; she had no true sympathy with her art, and was chiefly conspicuous, like Macready, after her short- lived triumph, for casting scorn and contempt upon everything and everybody connected with it. 1 When scarcely seventeen, she had been seduced by Colonel Berkeley, afterwards Earl Fitzhardinge, under a promise of marriage, and lived under his protection for five years. Joseph Hayne, of Burdrop Park, a sporting cad, a great patron of prize-fighters, ignorant of this circumstance, made her an offer of marriage. Berkeley was despicable enough to betray to him the secret of his liaison with the lady, and even hinted that it still continued, which was a falsehood. Thereupon Hayne broke off the marriage. Soon afterwards, however, he renewed the engagement. The bridal day was fixed ; the morning came, but no bridegroom. His friends had spirited him away into the country, and kept him there by force. When he got away from them, he fixed the day for the second time, and Miss Foote gave up her profession, sold her wardrobe, and for the second time herjianrf failed to put in an appearance. The jury awarded ,3,000. 2 Some idea of the state of affairs may be gathered from the fact that between May iyth and July 22nd 11,000 orders were issued. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 137 In May, 1832, Laporte, who is better known by his connection with the opera-house, became manager of Covent Garden, and on the 3Oth of that month, Charles Young, the most successful actor of the Kemble school, took his farewell of the stage. Although almost ex- clusively a tragedian of the heavy order, Fanny Kemble tells us, in her Records of a Girlhood, that he had no tragic mental power, but a perception and a passion for humour, and that he constantly indulged in private in ludicrous stories, personal mimicry, admirable imita- tions of national accent, a power of grimace that equalled Grimaldi's, and the most irresistible comical way of resuming in the midst of the broadest buffoonery the stately dignity of his own natural countenance, voice, and manner. I think, however, Mrs. Butler has scarcely done Young justice. After he played lago to Kean's Othello at Drury Lane in 1822, even the great Edmund shrank from comparison. " I have never seen Young act," he said. " Everyone has said he could not hold a farthing rushlight to me, but he can. He is an actor, and though I flatter myself he could not act Othello as I do, yet what chance should I have in lago after his d d musical voice. Tell him he has made as great a hit in lago as ever I did in Othello." From 1822 until his retirement, Young never played for less than ^50 a night, as high a sum as Kean ever received. When, in 1 808, Julius Cczsar was played at Covent Garden with John Kemble as Brutus, Charles Kemble as Marc Antony, and Young as Cassius, the success of the last was second to neither of his great rivals. The year after Young bade adieu to the footlights, Covent Garden was the scene of one of the most notable, and at the same time saddest, of theatrical farewells. 138 THE LONDON STAGE On March 23rd, 1833, Edmund Kean and his son Charles stood together for the first time upon the London stage, as Othello and I ago. 1 The house was crammed to suffocation. Brandy had long since shattered the reputation, the genius, and the health of the great actor. He had been very ill through- out the winter, and was utterly unfit to sustain the fatigue and excitement of such a night ; but he went through the part, dying as he went, until he came to the " farewell," in which in the old days he used to stir the very souls of the spectators ; he broke down on the words " Othello's occupation's gone!" Then, gasping for breath, he began, " Be sure thou prove ' but, unable to proceed, he fell upon his son's shoulder, moaning, " I am dying speak to them for me." And so the curtain descended upon him for ever. In that same year, 1833, Covent Garden passed under the management of Bunn, who was already lessee of Drury Lane. After two years he resigned in favour of Osbaldiston, of transpontine fame, who, although he engaged Charles Kemble and Macready and an excellent company, endeavoured to attract the public by reduced prices, always a fatal step in London theatres, and the usual disastrous result followed the experiment. The stages of the patent houses had been sinking lower and lower in public estimation since the retirement of John Kemble, and the downfall of Elliston at Drury Lane ; an utter indifference to theatrical amusements, 1 Edmund Kean was very bitter against Charles for having taken to the stage against his strict prohibition, but a reconciliation had taken place between father and son several years previously, when the elder Kean acted for Charles's benefit at Glasgow in October, 1828, the former playing Brutus, the latter, Titus, in Howard Payne's tragedy Brutus; or, the Fall of Tarquin. THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 139 similar to that which marked the closing years of the seventeenth century, 1 infected the public. The situation is graphically described in one of Wilson's Nodes Ambrosiancz. Says Christopher North to Tickler, " The drama, I fear, is in a bad way in London, Tim, and if so, it cannot be very flourishing in the provinces. Mr. Mathews acknowledges 2 that fashion is fatal to it. ' I meet young gentlemen now,' says he, ' who formerly used to think it almost a crime not to go to the theatre ; but they now ask, " Where- abouts is Covent Garden Theatre ? " although the same people would faint away if it were thought they had not been to the Italian Opera. If they are asked whether they have seen Kean or not lately, they will say, " Kean Kean ? No ; where does he act ? I have not been there these three years." Formerly it was the fashion to go to the theatre ; but now a lady cannot show her face at table next day, and say she has been to the theatre. If they are asked whether they have been at Covent Garden or Drury Lane, they say, " Oh dear no ; I never go there, it is too low !"...! remember the time when it was no shame to go to see the legitimate drama. It was the fashion to go and see Miss O'Neill for a season, and Mr. Kean for a season ; if they were real and sincere admirers of those actors they would have followed them ; but we found the theatres at which they acted dropped down from ^600 to ^200.' ' Some of Mathews' utter- ances may have been tinged by sarcasm, but they were perfectly correct in the main. Years before this was written, Scott, when it was 1 See p. 52. 2 Mathews, among other leading members of the profession, appeared before the Committee on Sir James Graham's Bill to give evidence as to the state of the drama. 1 40 THE LONDON STAGE mooted that he should write for the stage, says in one of his letters (1819): " I do not think the character of the audience in London is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them. One half come to prosecute their debaucheries, so openly that it would degrade a bagnio ; another set to snooze off their beef-steaks and port wine ; a third are critics of the fourth column of the newspaper ; fashion, wit, or literature there is not, and, on the whole, I would far rather write verses for mine honest friend Punch and his audience. The only thing that could tempt me to be so silly, would be to assist a friend in such a degrading task, who was to have the whole profit and shame of it." / How much of this state of things was due to the public and how much to the managers, it would be difficult to say ; but I think it will be evident to every one who has read these pages that personal extravagance, blundering, and a lack of business capacity was at the bottom of many of the failures I have recorded. It was Osbaldiston who introduced the last of the English classical tragediennes, Miss Helen Faucit, to the London public. Her first appearance upon the stage was at Richmond in 1833, when she was only thirteen. In that charming series of articles which appeared in Blackwood several years ago, and has since been republished, on " Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters," she has thus prettily described how she came to be an actress. "One hot afternoon my sister and myself, finding it yet too sunny to walk down to the river we had to pass the theatre (in Richmond by the Thames) on the way- took refuge in a cool place to rest awhile. On the stage was a flight of steps and a balcony, left standing, no doubt, after rehearsal, or prepared for that of the next THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 141 day. After sitting on the steps for a while, my sister exclaimed, ' Why, this might do for Romeo and Juliet'^ balcony. Go up, birdie, and I will be your Romeo.' Upon this, amid much laughter and with no little stum- bling over the words, we went through the balcony scene, I being prompter. . . . My sister and I went away to the river, leaving the shadowy gloom of the stage as we found it. To our surprise and consternation, we learned some time after that there had been a listener. When our friends arrived some days later, the lessee told them that having occasion to go from the dwelling-house to his private box, he heard voices, listened, and remained during the time of our merry rehearsal. He spoke in such warm terms of the Juliet's voice, its adaptability to the character, her figure I was tall for my age and so forth, that in the end he prevailed on my friends to let me make a trial on his stage. To this, at my then very tender age, they were loth to consent. But I was to be announced simply as a young lady her first appearance. At the worst a failure would not matter ; and, at any rate, the experiment would show whether I had gifts or not in that direction. Thus did a little frolic prove to be the turning-point of my life." Three years after her appearance at Richmond, she appeared at Co vent Garden as Julia in The Hunchback, with such success that the manager offered her a three years' engagement. Miss Faucit was thereafter the original Pauline in The Lady of Lyons, in which she made her first great impression. Her range of characters was very wide. She was a famous Juliet, a fine Lady Macbeth, and a celebrated Rosalind. The writer of these pages saw her play the last-named part only when the freshness and spontaneity of youth had long de- parted, at one of her last appearances, at the Hay market, 142 THE LONDON STAGE but its noble, subtle intellectuality rendered it a living commentary upon the text of Shakespeare ; in its perfect refinement, its minute touches, its delicate elaboration, its supreme finish, it formed a remarkable contrast between the old school and the new. What a splendid eulogy is that of De Quincey upon her Antigone, which she played here in 1845, and through the provinces, and at Dublin as well. But in London, Sophocles' immortal tragedy, though illustrated by Mendelssohn's music, was only un succes (Fes time. "Then, suddenly oh heavens, what a revelation of beauty ! forth stepped, walking in brightness, the most faultless of Grecian marbles, Miss Helen Faucit, as Antigone. What perfection of Athenian sculpture the noble figure, the lovely arms, the fluent drapery! What an unveiling of the statuesque ! Is it Hebe ? Is it Aurora ? Is it a goddess that moves before us ? Perfect she is in form, perfect in attitude. It flattered one's patriotic feelings to see this noble young countrywoman, realising so exquisitely and restoring to our imagination the noblest of Grecian girls." " It is hard to say," wrote Alison, " whether her Rosalind is the more charming, or her Lady Teazle the most fascinating, her Belvidera the more moving, or her Juliet the more heart-rending." One of the last great efforts to bring back to Covent Garden something of its ancient glory was the Macready management, which commenced on September 3Oth, 1837, with a splendid revival of The Winters Tale, and a fine company, including Phelps, Harley, Elton, James Anderson (his first appearance in London), Miss Faucit, Miss Huddart, Miss Taylor, a delightful comedy actress, etc. Between the opening night and Christmas, in addition to The Winter s Tale, Hamlet, Othello, The Bridal (an alteration of The Maid's Tragedy], Werner, THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 143 Macbeth, and several legitimate comedies were produced, and entailed a loss of ,3,000 in two months. After Christmas, the pantomime was preceded by a revival of King Lear, from the text; then came Bulwer's Lady of Lyons, which proved a trump card, though only after it had been played some little time. Coriolanus fol- lowed ; but though mounted in the most perfect manner, failed to attract, and was played on one occasion to $$. The next season opened with a company forty-six in number, the very pick of the profession. Coriolanus was performed on the first night, with Vandenhoff in the title role. A wonderful revival of The Tempest followed, with Macready as Prospero ; George Bennett, Caliban ; Helen Faucit, Miranda ; Phelps, Antonio ; Anderson, Ferdinand. This was a decided success, and for fifty- five nights the receipts averaged 230 a night. There is a very significant passage in James Ander- son's memoirs. " Had the manager only followed the advice of his officers, it might have gone one hundred nights more to like receipts. But no, he would never give the public what it wanted, but only what he liked ; this he considered consistent with his pledges to give novelty and variety. ... He had a temper and will peculiar to himself; he would manage the theatre in his own way, and that was how he came to lose his money. Instead of running The Tempest nightly to fine houses, he chose to revive a dull old piece called The Royal Oak, which we played to empty benches." Henry V., grandly cast, was the last of Macready 's Shakespearian revivals at Covent Garden, and in the July of 1839 he retired, a heavy loser. Madame Vestris was the next candidate for this crown of thorns, and gathered about her an admirable company Harley, the Keeleys, Mrs. Nisbett, Charles 144 THE LONDON STAGE Mathews, Anderson, etc. Loves Labour s Lost was her opening piece, September 3Oth, 1839. A blunder marred the inauguration. Madame closed the shilling gallery ; the offended deities of the high Olympus filled the lower gallery and pit to overflowing on the first night, and hooted and yelled and damned the play, which would otherwise have proved successful. Light pieces from the Olympic and opera were then tried ; but the success of the season was Sheridan Knowles's Love, with Anderson as Huon, and Ellen Tree as the Countess. It ran fifty nights to large audiences, and then unfor- tunately had to be withdrawn in consequence of Miss Tree having made other engagements. Leigh Hunt's Legend of Florence, in which " the fair Ellen " is said to have played divinely as Ginevra, fell flat. An event worth noting in the early part of 1840 was the production of Romeo and Juliet, according to the text of Shakespeare, doubtless for the first time since the Commonwealth period, for Miss Jane Mordaunt, Mrs. Nisbett's sister, to appear as the heroine ; but she made no impression. It was in this season that Charles Kemble returned to the stage for a few nights "at Her Majesty's com- mand," and played to greater houses than he had been ever able to draw in his younger days. "In Don Felix, Charles Surface, and Benedick, he was incomparably fine," says Mr. Anderson, "but more especially so in Mercutio. In this part I had a better chance of watch- ing his acting, as I played Romeo to him, and I will say truthfully that I never saw, and shall never see again, anything in comedy acting so superlatively fine as his Mercutio. He was at this time considerably over seventy years of age, but acted like a man of forty." 1 George Vandenhoff, in his Leaves from an Actor's Note- Book, tells a good story illustrative of Charles Kemble's powers ; Vandenhoff played THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 145 The season came to a close on May 2Qth with The Merry Wives of Windsor. " I much fear," to again quote Mr. Anderson's personal experiences, "that, not- withstanding all the wonderful endeavours to deserve success, there was a heavy loss at the treasury. . . . Under Madame's management, nothing was in any way slighted or neglected. Even the most trifling piece produced was given with earnest care and expense." The next season opened with The Merry Wives of Windsor; followed by a revival of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, The Spanish Curate, and a new play of Knowles's ; but nothing drew until Boucicault's London Assurance was produced in March, 1841. It ran sixty-nine nights, and ended the season, when, Madame being about ^600 short of a rental of as many thousands, the proprietors, who by their greed had done much to ruin their own property, closed the doors against her. The dramatic annals of Covent Garden virtually ended with the Vestris management. Charles Kemble again opened the theatre in 1842 to bring out his daughter, Adelaide, the singer, a great artiste, as Norma. Then Bunn once more ventured upon the speculation. But both seasons were very brief. In the following year the Anti-Corn Law League opened the house as a bazaar. In 1844-6, Jullien's famous concerts and bals masques were given there, and in 1847, after undergoing considerable alterations, the Mercutio at Covent Garden, when the last of the Kembles had retired. Next day, in the green-room, after complimenting the young man upon his performance, Mr. Kemble offered to give him a few hints ; he was then nearly seventy years of age, and was dressed at the time in his ordinary street attire, but he gave the Queen Mab speech with a grace and beauty such as the young actor had never conceived, reducing him to despair at his own crude efforts. L 146 THE LONDON STAGE Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, was converted into the Royal " Italian Opera." Delafield, the entrepreneur, spent ,40,000 in adapting the theatre to the new style of entertainment, and in two years lost 60,000 besides. In 1850, Mr. Gye became lessee, and held that position with varying fortunes until 1856. On the 4th of March in that year, at the close of a bal masque" given by Wizard Anderson, the old home of the Kembles was again destroyed by fire. Some account of the present theatre and its annals as an opera house will be found at the end of the next chapter. Having thus brought this imperfect sketch of the great patent theatres to a conclusion, it may be useful to take a retrospective glance at the various phases through which the actor's art passed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or rather from Betterton to the retirement of Macready, and add a few notes upon the drama of the same period. When we remember the very decided Gallic tastes of the King and his courtiers, among whom were numbered Killigrew and Davenant, the patentees of the two theatres of the time, it cannot be doubted that the Restoration actors modelled their style upon that of the French school. Betterton accompanied Davenant to Paris to study the arrangements of the theatres, and must have seen the great Baron act, and Champmesle, and Dumesnil, and knowing the royal preference, would certainly have profited thereby. When he returned to London he gave hints to Elizabeth Barry, though she had probably already been trained in the French method by one who was well acquainted with it, her lover, Rochester. An ideal grandeur and a magnificent declam- ation were the distinguishing features of French classic THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 147 tragedy, and in the great French artistes just mentioned these were combined with a power and intensity that rendered the artificial natural. I believe that the acting of Betterton and his associates was of this order. But with this noble actor, the glories, the very soul of the school, departed ; even Barton Booth seems to have fallen short of the splendid powers of his prototype and master, Betterton, though Aaron Hill finely said of him, " the blind might have seen him in his voice, and the deaf have heard him in his visage." After Booth, turgid declamation, rant without passion, a stilted utterance that disdained nature, the very dry bones and dust of tradition, were all that survived ; mediocrity reigned supreme, and tragedy was represented by such conven- tional actors as Ryan, Boheme, Mills, Delane, and Quin, until the coming of David Garrick. Writing of the first time he saw this great genius act, Richard Cumberland says : "It seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene ; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to expel the barbarism and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation." And Cumberland's was but the echo of universal opinion. Garrick was a phenomenal actor ; without any previous apprenticeship, preparation or drudgery, at a remote end of the town which had hitherto been as unknown to fashion as the wilds of Africa, without preliminary puff of any kind, he took the whole play- going public by storm. There is no parallel to this in theatrical history. From Richard III. to Abel Drugger, from King Lear to Don Felix, from Macbeth to Bayes, his tragic force, his keen sense of humour, his 148 THE LONDON STAGE marvellous genius carried all before it. Yet he did not quite obliterate the old artificial style. " Even Mrs. Gibber," Cumberland says, " in a high-pitched key sang or recitatived her speeches like a French actress." Being inimitable, unapproachable, Garrick founded no school, left behind him no imitator unless it were Henderson, whose early death gave John Kemble the lead in tragedy and brought back the artificial and declamatory style that reigned supreme until the advent of Edmund Kean. Both the actors last named formed schools ; one half the mediocrities spouted and paused and strutted, John Kembles in miniature ; the other half ranted in hoarse accents and rushed about the stage and fancied they were Keans. But the grandeur, the majesty with which the one invested certain characters, and those marvellous flashes of genius by which the other carried every spectator out of himself, in fine, the informing soul of each was absent in his imitators; even Charles Young, the finest representative of the Kemble cult, though he had something of the stately grace and dignity of the original, never knew those moments of inspiration, as when Kemble, in Coriolanus, dashed in among the flying / soldiers as though he had indeed the strength and power to sweep a score of them before him like blades of grass. Sir Walter Scott has exactly defined the limits of his genius in the following passage : " John Kemble certainly is a great artist. It is a pity he shows too much of his machinery. I wish he could be double-capped, as they say of watches ; but the fault of too much study certainly does not belong to many of his tribe. He is, I think, very great in those parts especially where character is tinged by some ac- quired and systematic habits, like those of the Stoic THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 149 philosophy in Cato and Brutus, or of misanthropy in Penruddock ; but sudden turns and natural bursts of passion are not his forte. . . . "He seems to me always to play best those characters in which there is a predominating tinge of some over- mastering passion, or acquired habit of acting and speak- ing, colouring the whole man. The patrician pride of Coriolanus, the stoicism of Brutus and Cato, the rapid and hurried vehemence of Hotspur, mark the class of characters I mean. But he fails where a ready and pliable yielding to the events and passions of life makes what may be termed a more natural personage. Accord- ingly, I think his Macbeth, Lear, and especially his Richard, inferior in spirit and truth. In Hamlet, the natural fixed melancholy of the prince places him within Kemble's range ; yet many delicate and sudden turns of passion slip through his fingers. He is a lordly vessel, goodly and magnificent when going large before the wind, but wanting the facility to go 'ready about,' so that he is sometimes among the breakers before he can wear ship." Edmund Kean approached nearest to Garrick ; there was the same electrical passion, the same abandon in both ; but Kean had many tricks and mannerisms, and he had had years of practice in the provinces before he astounded a Drury Lane audience, while, as it has been already said, all his apparently spontaneous effects were the result of deep study. After Kean came Macready, a mannerist, lacking all enthusiasm for his art, nay, more, despising it ; yet by dint of dogged application and a naturally fine intel- lectual grasp developing into a noble actor. But Edmund Kean, "the little man with a great soul," was really the last of the English tragedians, the last who could "pluck 150 THE LONDON STAGE out the heart of the mystery " of Shakespeare's great creations, the last who could soar into the regions of ideal passion and carry his spectators with him. Macready was the founder of the modern school, of which Irving is the present representative, though he had more of the ideal and was nearer to the demi- gods than any of his followers. Yet for all that he was only a supremely fine melodramatic actor, as his greatest successes were not in Shakespeare or in the poetic drama, but in such plays as Virginius, William Tell, Richelieu, Werner. Tragic acting, indeed, began to decline with the tragic drama, and after Barton Booth, if not after Betterton, tragedians became phenomenal ; even Garrick's company did not possess a tragic actor of the first rank. Macklin was hard and harsh ; Thomas Sheridan was a stilted declaimer ; Mossop, a mouther and ranter of the most pronounced type ; Reddish and John Palmer were good actors in many parts, but not in the first rank ; and Smith, in tragedy, was the most mediocre of heroes. The ladies, however, well sustained the traditions of Ann Marshall, Mrs. Betterton, Mrs. Barry, and Mrs. Porter. Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Spranger Barry, Mrs. Gibber, 1 Mrs. Yates, were tragic actresses of the highest order, and little inferior to these was that glorious comedienne, Peg Woffington, and, perhaps, Miss Younge. The strength of Garrick's companies, especially the later ones, lay in their comic talent, and this supremacy of comedy lasted till the end of the eighteenth and during 1 Churchill pronounced a fine eulogy upon this great actress in the lines " To melt the heart with sympathetic woe, Awake the sigh and teach the tear to flow, To put on Henry's wild distracted glare, And freeze the soul with horror and despair." THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 151 the first years of the nineteenth century. Woodward, King, Smith, Parsons, Dodd, Weston, Edwin, Suett, Mathews, Liston, Bannister, Emery, Quick, Dowton, Elliston, Charles Kemble, Kitty Clive, Mrs. Abington, Dora Jordan, these were the perfection of comedians ; each was a Garrick or a Siddons in comedy, and, indeed, Garrick himself was as great in comedy as in tragedy. How few names, not half a dozen, are inscribed upon the roll of Melpomene to balance this glowing record of the goddess of laughter. And many another name little inferior to those quoted might be added. That the dramatic art, which is always in its highest vigour in the heroic ages of nations and wanes before the advance of the artifical conditions of life, had passed its meridian even in Garrick' s days may be gathered from the fact that up to the time of the Triumvirate the public went to see the play, well acted all round, as when Gibber, Booth, Wilks, Dogget, Mrs. Oldfield, etc., performed together and stood shoulder to shoulder in respective merit, and would have thought it very bad art for one to overshadow all the rest. It was Garrick who inaugurated the star system, for he was the first of a line of great actors who were a head and shoulders above their contemporaries ; and so for a hundred and fifty years the general public has been drawn, not by the excellence of a play or a company, but by the talent or popularity of one or two actors or actresses, tragic or comic. Were it possible to recall out of Hades the Hamlet of Betterton, the Richard of Garrick, the Coriolanus of Kemble, the Othello of Kean, and the Virginius of Macready, the cultured playgoer would find it hard to determine which was the grandest performance ; but the votes of the many would be given en masse to Garrick, 152 THE LONDON STAGE Kean, and Macready, to the first two for their universal- ity, to the last because he would be most en rapport with the spirit of the age, which is nothing if not real- istic. We are out of touch with the heroic, with enthusiasm, with passion, and the modern actor, to compromise with the Philistinism of his audience, en- deavours to render tragedy natural, that is, common- place, which is just about equal to a painter attempting to render Raphael or Michael Angelo in unison with Teniers. What is there of realism in Shakespeare's Macbeth ? The barbarous, half-savage Highlander of history has been transfigured by the poet into one of the great psychological studies of the world, his utterances are couched in the sublimest .poetry ; Macbeth might have thought all that Shakespeare has made him say, as any coarse and ignorant man might feel all the pangs of Othello, yet be without the power to give them utter- ance ; and it is this marvellous gift of the mighty dramatist to interpret and give a voice to the dumb soul of ordinary humanity, through which he appeals to all humanity, cultured or ignorant. Nevertheless, like all tragic geniuses from /Eschylus and Sophocles, he is an idealist and can never be adequately rendered by the familiar realism of recent actors. Figuratively, the English stage has been developed by successive waves of idealism and realism, the latter ever the stronger, with a strength increasing with each successive ebb and flow. In comedy the artificial brilliancy, the perfect finish, the subtle minutiae of the characters of Congreve, Farquhar, and Vanbrugh, with modification ever tending to the familiar, extended from Wilks to Charles Kemble and expired with the latter. ! THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 153 During the second half of the eighteenth century, in consequence of the failure of dramatic genius, the actor held the stage without a rival, supreme over the dramatist; and the reign of the scene-painter and the mechanist was still afar off. Tragedy died with Otway, and there is not a work of the eighteenth century that has the ring of true passion in it : Congreve's Mourning Bride, of which I have made previous mention ; Rowe's Jane Shore (1713), stilted and artificial, though not with- out merit; Young's Revenge (1721), which, in the part of Zanga, has afforded splendid opportunities to most of our great tragedians ; Moore's Gamester (1753), power- ful in conception, but most bald and prosaic in execution, about which cling memories of some of the finest efforts of Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill, are the only works worth mentioning. Any number of dull, stilted plays were produced under the name of tragedies, several written by men of great ability, such as Dr. Johnson's Irene and James Thomson's Sophonisba^ but all have long since sunk into oblivion. Among them, however, was one that was hailed as an almost more than Shake- spearian effort Home's tragedy of Douglas, in which both Spranger Barry's wife and Mrs. Siddons acted so wonderfully as Lady Randolph. One need not be so very old to remember the day when every schoolboy learned to spout the famous speech, " My name is Norval," and in Scotland it shared with Rob Roy the distinction of being regarded as the national play, and woe to the actor who was not perfect in the text, for every little boy in the gallery knew it by heart. The story of the enthusiastic Scot who at one of the earlier representations of the piece at Covent Garden rose up in the pit, and, addressing the audience, exclaimed, " Where's your Wully Shakespeare the noo ? " is well 154 THE LONDON STAGE known. It is extremely difficult for modern taste to discover in what the greatness of Douglas consisted. The great successes achieved by the Booths, the Garricks, and the Kembles were in the plays of Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher. But what garbled versions they were of those great writers, more especially of Shakespeare. Every dramatic manipulator, from Dryden and Davenant to Nahum Tate and Theophilus Gibber, thought he could improve upon " the sweet Swan of Avon " ; the consequence was that not a single play of his was given without impertinent interpola- tions and monstrous alterations, amounting in some to an absolute change of plot and motive. Indeed, it is only within the memory of the present generation that Garrick's version of Romeo and Juliet and Gibber's Richard III. have given place to Shakespeare's ; and Macready first restored the Fool to King Lear. A comparison between the dramatic literature of the first three decades and the last seventy years of the eighteenth century is startling in its contrast. Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Farquhar, Gibber, Steele were all plying their pens during the first period, and such a galaxy of comedy writers producing in the same era has no parallel in our own or in any other history. The great work of the second period is The School for Scandal ; but fine as is the wit of Sheridan, Congreve's is finer, and were it not for the screen scene, which is probably the finest situation in the whole range of comedy, the work would be little more than a clever plagiary upon "Tom Jones," Wycherley's Plain Dealer, and Moliere's Le Misanthrope. The Rivals, previously produced at Covent Garden, was damned on the first night, January i 7th, 1775. Sheridan held it was through the incompe- tence of the actor who personated Sir Lucius. Yet it THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 155 was finely cast, with Shuter, Woodward, Lewis, and Quick in the principal parts. Certain alterations, how- ever, being made, the first night's judgment was speedily reversed by contemporaries, as it has been by posterity. A few comedies that preceded Sheridan's great works must not go unmentioned. Colman the elder's Jealous Wife (1761), and The Clandestine Marriage (1766), an admirable work; Arthur Murphy's The Way to keep Him (1760), and All in the Wrong (1761), two spirited comedies; and above all, Goldsmith's delightful She Stoops to Conquer, given to Covent Garden in 1773. A reference to this work renders necessary some account of the school of comedy it was destined to displace. A new species of comedy called the sentimental had become the fashion during the first half of the eighteenth century. Steele's three comedies, The Tender Husband (1703), The Lying Lover (1704), and The Conscioiis Lovers (1721), were the earliest specimens of this form of composition ; but they found no imitators until Hugh Kelly produced his False Delicacy (1768), which, though far from being so contemptible a piece of work as many critics have represented it to be, is overcharged with superfine writing. Cumberland followed in Kelly's steps with melodramatic additions, while in the hands of Holcroft and Mrs. Inchbald the style degenerated into the domestic drama of the last century. So great was the success of False Delicacy that it ran eight successive nights, and would have gone longer, but Garrick had pledged himself to the public that no new piece should run beyond that limit. It was, however, performed twenty times afterwards during the season. The comedies of Colman the younger were popular not only in their day, but certain of them, such as John Bull, The Poor Gentleman both written for Covent 156 THE LONDON STAGE Garden and The Heir at Law (for the Hay market) were favourites within these fi ve-and-twenty years. They were essentially of the sentimental school, stilted in the serious scenes, and though humorous, almost destitute of wit. Nevertheless these plays are remarkable, as, in conjunction with those of Holcroft, Cumberland, and Mrs. Inchbald, they mark a new era in stage literature ; hitherto kings and nobles only had filled the tragic scene, and the beaux and belles the comic, but the authors just named, infected by the spirit of the French Revolution, chose most of their heroes and heroines from among the people, and their comic characters from a class that is almost entirely absent from the works of Congreve and even Sheridan. Colman was the creator of that terrible bore, the virtuous peasant, who always carried his entire wardrobe in a coloured pocket-handkerchief at the end of a stick, who was always fighting in defence of the hapless village maiden, eternally spouting platitudes, was as eager as the stage sailor to bestow his last shilling upon anyone in want, and always expressed joy by stamping about and singing " Ri fol, riddi iddi ido," a conventional figure that was driven from the stage by the burlesques of H. J. Byron. One of the most notable of Colman's pieces was the once famous Mountaineers, written for Covent Garden (1793); the mad lover, Octavian, was a favourite part with Kemble, Kean, Elliston, and many of their successors ; indeed, the last words that Edmund Kean ever uttered were from the dying speech of Octavian, " Farewell, Flo Floranthe." Mrs. Inchbald was one of the dramatic luminaries of the Bow Street house during the last two decades of the eighteenth century, but no audience could now endure any one of her works. Yet Such Things Are, a most wretched agglomeration of twaddle, nightly crowded the THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 157 theatre to the ceiling ; hundreds were turned away from the doors, and the lucky authoress realised ^900 by it. Wives as they Were and Maids as they Are, Lovers Vows, Everyone has his Fault, kept the stage for many years ; but the sentiment is mawkish and overstrained, the comic scenes, though occasionally sprightly, cannot boast of much wit, while the characters are of the most conventional type. Mrs. Cowley's bright comedy, The Belles Stratagem (1780), which was given a new lease of life by Irving's and Ellen Terry's admirable acting, and most of Holcroft's works, including the only one of his that has kept the stage, The Road to Ruin (1792), were produced at Covent Garden. Several of Cumber- land's plays first saw the footlights at that house, but his best-known works were given to Drury Lane ; notably, The Wheel of Fortune (1795), which, in the misanthrope Penruddock, furnished John Kemble with one of his finest impersonations; a few will remember Samuel Phelps's admirable rendering of this part. A dramatic novelty that originated in the second half of the eighteenth century was the musical farce and operatic drama, for although The Beggar s Opera was the progenitor of all, it did not find imitators for many years. Of these musical pieces, Charles Dibdin's Quaker, The Padlock, TJie Waterman, and Isaac Bickerstaff's delicious Love in a Village, with its charming comedy and delight- ful airs, and his Lionel and Clarissa, now quite forgotten, may be taken as types. These and others in the same style, Inkle and Yarico, Rosina, No Song no Supper, The Miller and his Men, etc., etc., with music by some of our best composers, were among the most popular of English dramatic entertainments. During the nineteenth century, the great theatres added little to the literature of the country. Such as it 158 THE LONDON STAGE is, Covent Garden had the lion's share. Here were produced some of Morton's best works : Town and Country ', in which the character of Plastic may claim to be the first of that long series of gentlemanly villains, of which Captain Hawkesly in Still Waters Run Deep is the most pronounced development ; The School of Reform, in which the elder Emery played so magnifi- cently as Tyke ; and Speed the Plough, performed not so many years ago, were among the number. For this house O'Keefe wrote his Wild Oats, George Colman the younger The Poor Gentleman (1800) and John Bull (1803), with Fawcett as Job Thornberry ; Cooke, Pere- grine ; Blanchard, Sir Simon ; Lewis, Tom Shuffieton ; Johnstone, Dennis ; Emery, Dan. In tragedy, Shiel's Evadne and The Apostate, which, though containing passages of real poetry, owed their success almost entirely to the grand acting of Miss O'Neill, Charles Young, and Macready, are the only tragic productions that need be mentioned previous to the rise of Sheridan Knowles. Virginius, the first of Knowles's plays produced in London, was brought out at Covent Garden, on May i7th, 1820; the title role was probably Macready 's grandest effort, and the tragedy was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Knowles was hailed as a Shakespeare Redivivus, and it must be admitted that to an audience surfeited with the sham classicism of such plays as Ambrose Phillips's Distressed Mother, which even Macready had selected to make his London de"but in, there was a reality of flesh and blood about the new writer's treatment of the pathetic old Roman story, marvellously refreshing. Virginius is a powerful play with fine dramatic situa- tions, and, well acted, must always command the tears and sympathies of the spectators ; but we have only THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 159 to compare it with John Webster's grand old tragedy, Appius and Virginia, to perceive how much the modern author falls short of the capabilities of the subject. With the exception of two or three isolated passages, the blank verse is little better than inverted and dis- torted prose. In those days, when even the educated were ignorant of Elizabethan dramatic literature, Knowles was accounted to be an imitator of that school ; but his knowledge of the great masters of his art was probably confined to the acted plays of Shakespeare and Mas- singer, and his model was the latter. The Hunchback, with Fanny Kemble, then in the height of her fame, as the heroine, was also contributed to Covent Garden ; her acting as Julia is said to have drawn more tears than any stage representation since Kemble and Siddons appeared in The Stranger. Knowles himself played Master Walter ; but, burly in form, below the middle height, and pedantic in utter- ance, he could have been but a poor representative of his hero ; Charles Kemble, the original Sir Thomas Clifford, said afterwards that the only person who did not under- stand the author was the gentleman who played Master Walter. With an obscure plot that Knowles himself could never quite satisfactorily explain, no very strong situations, and almost invariably played to empty benches, it kept the stage only because Julia was a showy part that every lady used to be ambitious to act. The Love Chase was rendered a passing success by Mrs. Nisbett's brilliant performance of Constance ; but it is utterly artificial. Macready gave life to William Tell by his splendid acting, but the play virtually died with him. A showy but somewhat stilted heroine, a good stage part, and two excellent dramatic situations kept The Wife alive for many years. The rest of his plays passed away with the original representatives. 160 THE LONDON STAGE Bulwer Lytton's dramas were far more successful. His first dramatic essay, The Lady of Lyons, in spite of its stilted diction and improbable plot, has drawn more money into theatrical treasuries in town and country than any other play of the pre-sensational period. The cause is not far to seek ; it lies in the vividness of the action, without which the literary merit of a play counts for nothing. Within a few days of its production it was entitled The Adventurer, and it was not until a run of nine nights had assured him of success that the author would permit his name to appear upon the bills. Richelieu, a much better work, less, bombastic, and with really fine stage situations, quickly followed, and met with equal favour, though Macready was doubtful of it up to the last moment. Money, produced at the Haymarket in 1840, was another of Bulwer's successes. It was got up regardless of cost ; D'Orsay was called in to suggest the costumes, and the tailor of the " Last of the Dandies " made them. The cast was a record. Macready and Helen Faucit, Evelyn and Clara ; Walter Lacy, Blount ; Webster, Graves ; Mrs. Glover, Lady Franklin ; Wrench, Dudley Smooth ; Miss Horton, Georgina ; Strickland, Sir John Vesey. The comedy has been revived again and again for long runs up to within a very recent period, the last revival being, I think, at the Garrick. But its char- acters are out of date, and it has now probably been consigned to limbo. Serjeant Talfourd's noble but coldly classical play Ion preceded Bulwer's in date. Byron's Werner, Sardana- palus, and The Foscari were brought out at Drury Lane, and afforded Macready some of his greatest triumphs, and Marino Faliero at Covent Garden. There were The Patricians Daughter and other poetical plays by THE HISTORY OF THE PATENT THEATRES 161 Westland Marston all dead and gone, but Boucicault's clever hotchpotch London Assurance was performed only a few years ago at the Criterion, with Wyndham as Dazzle. After the early forties, dramatic literature was buried under an avalanche of melodrama ; Level's The Wifes Secret, Love's Sacrifice, and a few others of the quasi- poetical school occasionally came to the front, but they have all passed into oblivion, and it is very improbable they will ever be drawn out of it. In the course of the following pages I shall have to make frequent references to the new school, originated by Pinero and Jones, which has once more raised the drama to the dignity of litera- ture ; but any general survey of the dramatic authors of our own time would only give rise to controversy. M CHAPTER III The Great Haymarket Theatre A sketch of the history of the Italian Opera and Opera Ballet in London, and some account of the famous Singers and Dancers who have appeared between 1705 and 1903 TAKING the West End theatres in chronological order, the great theatre in the Haymarket must precede the little one. It was the strained relations between Christopher Rich and the leading members of his company that first suggested to Sir John Van- brugh the project of building a new theatre in the Haymarket, "for which," says Cibber, "he raised a subscription of thirty persons of quality, at one hundred pounds each, in consideration whereof every subscriber for his own life was to be admitted to whatever entertain- ments should be publicly performed there, without further payment for his entrance. Of this theatre I saw the first stone laid, on which 'was inscribed 'The Little Whig,' in honour to a lady of extraordinary beauty, 1 then the celebrated toast and pride of that party. In the year J 7O5, when this house was finished, Betterton and his co-partners dissolved their own agreement, and threw themselves under the direction of Sir John Vanbrugh and Mr. Congreve." And Colley goes on to tell us, in his diffuse manner, that the actors depended upon the genius of those two famous writers and the splendour of the new house to draw the public; "but," he adds, " almost every proper quality and convenience of a good 1 Lady Sunderland. 162 THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 163 theatre had been sacrificed or neglected to show the spectator a vast triumphal piece of architecture. For what could their vast columns, their gilded cornices, their immoderate high roofs avail, when scarcely one word in two could be distinctly heard in it ? Nor had it then the form it now stands in, which necessity two or three years afterwards reduced it to. At the first opening, the flat ceiling, that is now over the orchestra, was then a semi -oval arch, that sprung fifteen feet higher from above the cornice. The, ceiling over the pit, too, was still more raised, being one level line from the highest back part of the upper gallery to the front of the stage; the front boxes were a continual semicircle to the bare walls of the house on each side. This extraordinary and superfluous space occasioned such an undulation from the voice of every actor, that generally what they said sounded like the gabbling of so many people in the lofty aisles of a cathedral. The tone of a trumpet, or the swell of an eunuch's holding note, it is true, might be sweetened by it ; but the articulate sounds of a speaking voice were drowned by the hollow reverberations of one word upon another. To this inconvenience why might we not add that of its situation ? for at that time it had not the advantage of the large city, which has since been built in its neighbourhood ; those costly spaces of Han- over, Grosvenor, and Cavendish Squares, with the many great and adjacent streets about them, were then but so many green fields of pasture, from whence they could draw little or no sustenance unless it were that of a milk diet. The City, the Inns of Court, and the middle part of the town, which were the most constant support of a theatre, and chiefly to be relied on, were now too far out of the reach of an easy walk, and coach hire is often too hard a tax upon the pit and gallery." 1 64 THE LONDON STAGE It was in 1705 that the first opera in the Italian style, with recitatives, was performed in this country at Drury Lane ; it was called Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus, written by Motteaux ; it so hit the fashionable taste that the lessees decided to open the Queen's Theatre, as the new house was christened (April 9th, 1705), in honour of the reigning sovereign, with one of these exotics, a translation from the Italian, entitled The Triumph of Love. It proved an utter failure, being performed only three nights, after which the .manager had to turn to the drama, and in October Vanbrugh produced his admirable comedy The Confederacy. But whether it was on account of the bad acoustic properties of the house, or from other causes, comedy was little more successful than opera, and neither The Confederacy, nor two or three other works from the same pen, drew the public to the Queen's. Congreve quickly retired from the unfortunate speculation, and Sir John Vanbrugh was glad to let the house to a Mr. Owen Swiney, Rich's factotum and man of business, who was to pay ^5 for every acting day, and not more than ^700 for the entire year. Swiney commenced operations in October, 1 706 ; and business improved under the new manager, who brought some fresh blood into the corps dramatique. The union of the two companies under Colonel Brett, however, 1 and the growing taste for Italian singers and Italian music, brought about an arrangement with Swiney, by which the Queen's Theatre was to be devoted entirely to opera, while the actors were ordered to return to Drury Lane, there to remain under the patentees, Her Majesty's only company of comedians. The reader of the previous chapters will already have learned how this happy arrangement came to an end, 1 See p. 56. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 165 how another revolt of the actors brought a number of them back to the Haymarket, where on certain nights they varied the operatic with the dramatic, considerable alterations having been made in the house to adapt it for the speaking voice. There would be little interest in following all the complications between actors and managers that occurred at this period. By-and-by, Collier, the new patentee of Drury Lane, became also the lessee of the Queen's ; after which the actors went back to their old quarters at Drury Lane, and the Haymarket was finally delivered over to the lyric drama. And with this arrangement really commences the history of Italian opera in England. Every reader of the Spectator will remember how felicitously Addison l has ridiculed the absurdities and crudities of the opera, as it existed in his time. Some great star or stars were brought from Italy to sustain the principal parts, while the minor characters were sustained by English singers ; so the lover pleaded to his mistress in a tongue unknown to her, and the lady replied with equal fervour in rhythmical cadences of which he understood not a syllable ; heroes addressed their soldiers or their slaves in the liquid accents of Rome or Naples, and were answered in the dialect of Cockayne. 2 Mrs. Tofts, a very fine singer, was the first of our English prime donne ; associated with her 1 Much of Addison's virulence against Italian opera, however, resulted from the failure of his own effort at the lyric drama, Rosamond, with music by Thomas Clayton, described as " a jargon of sounds," brought out at the Queen's in 1707. 2 According to Dr. Burney (History of Music], the music of these early operas was neither dramatic, passionate, pathetic, nor graceful. The first violin accompaniment was printed over the voice part, and if the words indicated sorrow it was marked slow, if they implied pleasure it was marked quick. 166 THE LONDON STAGE was Margarite L'Epine, and Valentini, the first of those male soprani who so long enchanted English ears. There were several native singers of note ; Leveredge, a famous basso, and Hughes, a tenor. The absurdities of such a mongrel dialect were too transparent, and, to use Addison's words, " the audience grew tired of understanding half the opera, and therefore, to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have so ordered it at present that the whole opera is per- formed in an unknown tongue." The last of those hybrid productions was Pyrrhus and Demetrius, I7O8, 1 and in that same year arrived the famous Nicolini, a name familiar to every reader of the Spectator. Two years later, George Frederick Handel, George the First's Chapel Master at Hanover, was invited over to England ; Aaron Hill, the author of several plays, who was then director of the Queen's Theatre under Collier, engaged the great German com- poser to write an opera upon a subject taken from Tasso, and on February 24th, 1711, Handel's first opera, Rinaldo, was produced at that house, and ran fifteen nights. Rinaldo, though the earliest, was one of the finest works that Handel gave to the stage ; among the music are to be found the two beautiful and well-known airs " Cara Sposa" and " Lascia ch'io pianga." Elabor- ate scenic effects were introduced into these operas, much to the scorn of the Spectator. " How would the wits of King Charles's time have laughed to have seen Nicolini exposed to a tempest in robes of ermine, and sailing in an open boat upon a sea of pasteboard. What a field of raillery would they have been let into, had they been entertained with painted dragons spitting 1 The first opera produced in this country wholly in Italian was Buonon- cini's Almahide, 1710. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 167 wildfire, enchanted chariots drawn by Flanders mares, and real cascades in artificial landskips. . . . Rinaldo is filled with thunder and lightning, illuminations and fire- works." Another opera, called Hydaspes, afforded excellent fun for Mr. Spectator. In this Nicolini was thrown into an amphitheatre to be devoured by a lion, to whom he appealed in the minor key, softly whispering in the feline ear the story of his love ; then defying the beast in bravura passages, telling him he may tear his bosom but cannot touch his heart, and after cajoling the monarch of the forest into listening to these dulcet strains, Hydaspes took a mean advantage of his tender- ness and throttled him. To the powers of Nicolini the Tatler gives ungrudging praise. " Nicolini sets off the character he bears in every opera by his action as much as he does the words of it by his voice ; every limb and finger contributes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is scarcely a beautiful posture in an old statue which he does not plant himself in, as the different circumstances of the story give occasion for it ; he performs the most ordi- nary action in a manner suitable to the greatness of his character, and shows the prince even in the giving of a letter or the despatch of a letter." Nicolini's salary, however, was only 800 guineas a year. Yet so early as 1711 we hear of Swiney, bankrupt through excess of expenses over receipts, having to fly the country. About the same time as Rinaldo, an opera by Gas- parini, founded upon Shakespeare's Hamlet y and entitled Ambletto, was brought out, the overture of which must have been very remarkable for such a subject, consist- ing, as it did, of four movements closing with a jig / 1 68 THE LONDON STAGE Handel's most formidable rival was Buononcini. He very equally divided the town with the German master, although he was infinitely inferior to him. Swift has immortalised the Italian in his witty epi- gram : " Some say that Signer Buononcini Compared to Handel's a mere ninny ; While others say that to him Handel Is hardly fit to hold a candle. Strange, that such difference should be 'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee ! " The Duchess of Marlborough, not Sarah, however, thought so much of Buononcini's talents, that she settled ^500 a year upon him. Handel composed no fewer than thirty-five Italian operas, some of the airs from which he afterwards intro- duced into his oratorios. " Whatever pleasure," says Mr. Hogarth, in his Memoirs of the Opera, " they must have given to the audiences of that age, they would fail to do so now ; and, indeed, their performance would be impracticable. The music was written for a class of voices, the male soprano, which no longer exists, and for these no performers could now be found. A series of recitatives and airs, with only an occasional duet, and a concluding chorus of the slightest kind, would appear meagre and dull to ears accustomed to the brilliant concerted pieces and finales of the modern stage ; and Handel's accompaniments would seem thin and poor amidst the richness and variety of the modern orchestra." In 1785, when the celebrated Madame Mara made her first appearance at the King's Theatre, Handel's operas were already regarded as old-fashioned and out of date. It was not only between the composers that the taste THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 169 of the town was divided, for each singer had his or her partisans, who would scruple at nothing for the glorifica- tion of the favourite and the mortification of her rival. This spirit manifested itself very strongly at the time when Mrs. Tofts and Margarite L'Epine were the dive of the day, but it never rose to such a height as when the fashionable world was at war over the merits of the celebrated Cuzzoni and Faustina. No one was too great to join in this absurd partisanship, even Sir Robert Walpole was infected by it, being a supporter of Faustina. His lady, however, attempted to hold the balance between the two, and one day, when her hus- band was away, invited both Faustina and Cuzzoni to dinner. But no truce, however brief, could exist be- tween these bitter enemies ; at table they began by bickering, went on to quarrelling, and from wordy war proceeded to blows and scratches, playing havoc with the china. On another occasion, Lady Walpole engaged both the dive to sing at a concert at her house. Fearing another entente , she dared not allow them to meet ; so while one was performing she lured the other to a remote apartment, under the pretence of showing her something curious ; and when it came to her turn to entertain the company, her ladyship had to resort to the same ruse with her rival. The Cuzzoni party was headed by the Countess of Pembroke, whose followers used to hoot whenever Faustina appeared upon the stage. The London Journal for June loth, 1727, says: "A great disturbance hap- pened at the opera, occasioned by the partisans of the two celebrated rival ladies, Cuzzoni and Faustina. The contention was at first only carried on by hissing on one side and clapping on the other ; but proceeded at length to the melodious use of catcalls and other accompani- 1 7 o THE LONDON STAGE ments, which manifested the zeal and politeness of that illustrious assembly." At length this continuous turmoil became so unendurable that the managers of the King's Theatre the name had been changed at the accession of George I. determined to rid themselves of one of these firebrands. Having discovered that Lady Pembroke had extracted an oath from Cuzzoni that she would never take one shilling less than Faustina, they, at the commencement of a new season, offered her one sovereign less than her rival, and by this means so disgusted the lady that she quitted the country. In the year 1720 a Royal Academy of Music was established at the King's Theatre, for which Handel was engaged to write a series of operas. The affair was a terrible failure, ; 15,000 was lost by the end of the year, and subscribers were so backward in paying up, that legal proceedings were threatened against them in the public papers. This brought about a new mode of subscription, which, with certain modifications, has continued to the present day. Tickets were issued for a season of fifty nights on payment of ten guineas down, an engagement to pay five more on February ist, and the remaining five on May ist. Within seven years the whole of the capital, ,50,000, was lost, and the Academy ceased to exist in 1728. One of the great features of the Opera House now was the gorgeous masquerades arranged by Heidegger, who was bandmaster to George I., and prided himself on being the ugliest man in Europe; these, in splendour, it was said, far surpassed even those of Italy. In 1724, however, in consequence of a sermon preached by the Bishop of London, these balls were prohibited, and it was not until past the middle of the century that they THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 171 were revived. It is worth noting that it was in the King's Theatre that Handel's Esther, the first oratorio ever heard in England, was given, and in the next year, 1732, his exquisite Ads and Galatea was produced at the same house. All other operatic events, however, at this period were thrown into the shade by the appearance, in 1734, of the marvellous Farinelli. Dr. Burney says that without the assistance of gesture or graceful attitude, he astonished and enchanted his hearers by the force, extent, and mellifluous tones of his voice, even when he had nothing to execute or express. No intervals were too close, too wide, too rapid for his execution. Composers were unable to write passages difficult enough to display the full extent .of his powers. On his arrival in England, at a private rehearsal given in the apartments of Cuzzoni, the manager of the opera observed that the band did not follow him, but were all gaping with wonder. He de- sired them to be attentive, but they confessed they were unable to keep pace with the singer, and were not only disabled, but overwhelmed by his talent. He could hold on and swell a note to such a surpassing length, that people could scarcely be persuaded but that it was continued by some hidden wind instrument while he took breath. He seems, however, to have been partly indebted for this power to the formation of his lungs, which were capable of holding an immense volume of air. His voice was said to have had the power of tran- quillising the half-insane Ferdinand VI. ; and an enthu- siastic Englishwoman exclaimed blasphemously, after hearing him, " One God, one Farinelli." Farinelli received a salary of ,15,000 a year and a clear benefit, which was worth another ^"2,000. Yet, so capricious is fashion, that two years afterwards he sang to a ^35 house. 172 THE LONDON STAGE Senesino was another famous male soprano, who sang in Handel's operas in 1726. After him came Caffarelli, of whom a curious story is told. He had been a pupil under the great Porpora ; during five years the master made him sing only scales ; at the end of that time the pupil asked when he was to be taught to sing. " You have nothing more to learn," answered Porpora, " you are now the greatest singer in the world." And so he proved himself to be. As we have noted in a previous chapter, Porpora directed an Italian opera company at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1733 and 1734, after which he went over to the King's Theatre for a time while Handel, in partner- ship with Heidegger, took opera to Covent Garden. Among the singers who interpreted Handel's operas was Anastasia Robinson, the unacknowledged wife of that eccentric genius the Earl of Peterborough, a pure and noble woman whose whole life was one self-sacrifice, and whom George Meredith has taken as the heroine of one of his novels. In 1741 the King's Theatre was under the manage- ment of the Earl of Middlesex. From the retirement of Handel from the operatic stage in 1740 until the advent of Gliick with his Orfeo, in 1770, the art of musical composition made little progress, and the only event that claims notice in this brief rdsumd was the production, in 1762, of Dr. Arne's Artaxerxes, an opera which until far into the last century was regarded as our one classical work. It is now merely curious as a specimen of a dead and gone school of weak and florid music, which, even at the date of this production, was rapidly dying out in its birthplace, Italy. Writing in 1747, Horace Walpole gives a curious and sarcastic account of an opera by Vaneschi, called Fetonte. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 173 1 The Pantheon in Oxford Street was built, in 1770, by Wyatt at a cost of ;6o,ooo for concerts, balls, and other amusements. It opened in 1772, being intended for a kind of winter Ranelagh. Horace Walpole highly eulogises in one of his letters the beauty of its decorations, the ceilings and panels of the ballroom being painted after the style of Raphael's loggias. Masquer- ades were given here, and in 1784, Lunardi's famous balloon was exhibited. It was fitted up as an opera house after the destruction of the King's Theatre. Curious to relate, in 1792, just after the company had vacated the Pantheon, it was burned to the ground. It was rebuilt on the old plan ; but in 1811 was reconstructed after the model of the great theatre at Milan, for the i 7 4 THE LONDON STAGE The exterior of the old King's Theatre, according to a print still extant, was unworthy of the architect of Blenheim : it was a dull, heavy building of red brick, roofed with black glazed tiles, and having a frontage only thirty-five feet in width ; with its three circular- headed doors and windows it looked more like a meeting-house than a theatre. And now let us turn to the interesting Musical Reminiscences of Lord Mount Edgcumbe for a picture of the old and new house, and of the old and new regime. Writing of the former he says : " The boxes were then much larger and more commodious than they are now. . . . The front was then occupied by open public boxes, or an amphitheatre (as it is called in French theatres), communicating with the pit. Both of these were filled exclusively with the highest classes of society, all, without exception, in full dress, then universally worn. The audiences thus as- sembled were considered as indisputably presenting a finer spectacle than any other theatre in Europe, and absolutely astonished the foreign performers, to whom such a sight was entirely new. At the end of the performance the company of the pit and boxes repaired to the coffee-room, which was then the best assembly in London, private ones being rarely given on opera nights ; and all the first society was regularly to be seen there. Over the front box was the five-shilling gallery, then resorted to by respectable persons not in full dress ; and above that an upper gallery, to which the admission was three shillings. Subsequently the house was en- circled with private boxes, yet still the prices remained performance of Italian comic operas. The stage was ninety feet deep and fifty- six wide, and the pit held 1,200 people. It was opened on February 25th, 1812, with Tom Dibdin's opera. The Cabinet^ at opera prices. But the speculation failed, and two years afterwards scenery, fittings, all were sold off, and the licence was never again renewed. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 175 the same, and the pit preserved its respectability, and even grandeur, till the old house was burned down in 1789." " Formerly," he continues, "every lady possessing an opera box considered it as much her home as her house, and was as sure to be found there, few missing any of the performances. If prevented from going, the loan of her box and the gratuitous use of the tickets was a favour always cheerfully offered and thankfully received, as a matter of course, without any idea of payment. Then, too, it was a favour to ask gentlemen to belong to a box, when subscribing to one was actually advantageous. Now no lady can propose to them to give her more than double the price of admission at the door, so that, having paid so exorbitantly, everyone is glad to be reimbursed at least a part of the great expense which she must often support alone. Boxes and tickets are therefore no longer given, they are let for what can be got ; for which traffic the circulating libraries afford an easy accommodation. Many, too, which are not taken for the season, are disposed of in the same manner, and are almost put up to auction, their price varying from three to eight or even ten guineas, according to the performance of the evening or other accidental circum- stances." The foundation-stone of the second King's Theatre was laid by the Right Honourable John Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, on April 3rd, 1790; the architect was Michael Novosielski, and the building was opened on the 26th of March, 1791, but only with a music and dancing licence, and no legal status could be obtained for the house until after the burning down of the Pantheon in the following year ; that place of amuse- ment having, while the company performed there, 176 THE LONDON STAGE assumed the title of the King's Theatre, and appro- priated the patent. Mr. O'Reilly, the manager of the Oxford Street house, had contracted debts to the amount of ,30,000, and it was arranged by a com- mittee, over which the Prince of Wales presided, that these liabilities should be taken over by the share- holders of the new theatre in order to get back the original licence. This was a crushing burden to begin with, and sank more than one enterprising manager. During the three seasons that the new Drury Lane was building the company performed here, 1 after which the house was given up entirely to opera. The great prime donne of the first twelve years of the new house were Mara, Banti, Grassini, and Mrs. Billington; while from 1804 to 1806 inclusive, Braham was a leading tenor. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, an unexceptionable judge, pronounced Banti to have been the most "delightful singer" he ever heard. She died at Bologna in 1806, and left her larynx, which was of extraordinary size, to be preserved in a bottle in the museum of that town. Mrs. Billington was a beautiful singer, but an indifferent actress. She had received a careful training in Italy, and her vocal powers were greatly appreciated there. Once, however, she nearly fell a victim to the superstition of the people. While singing at Naples an eruption of Vesuvius burst forth; the Neapolitans, thinking it a judgment upon them for countenancing an English heretic, were about to spring upon the stage and seize her, when fortunately the eruption ceased and their fury melted into enthusi- astic applause. Mara retired in 1794; Banti, as we have seen, died 1 Dramatic performances had been frequently given in the old house. Spranger Barry opened it in 1766, etc. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 177 in 1 806 ; the same year witnessed the last appearance of Grassini in England and the retirement of Mrs. Billington. The last-named lady took Mozart's Clemenza di Tito for her benefit. It was the first time the great composer's music was heard in London. The principal parts were sung by the bdndficiaire and Braham. But the Italians of the company neither understood nor relished the music, one of the concerted pieces being more difficult to study than half a dozen whole operas of the Italian school. So after a few repetitions this fine opera was laid aside and neglected. It had been produced by the suggestion of the Prince of Wales, who seems to have been the only Englishman at that time capable of appreciating Mozart's genius, and the score was supplied from his own library. The same season Braham quitted the Italian stage and devoted himself entirely to English music. Thus five of the constellations of the Opera House disappeared almost simultaneously. It was, however, in that same year, 1806, that Madame Catalani, who had already won golden opinions on the Continent, first appeared in London. Passing through Paris on her way to England, she sang before Napoleon, who was greatly delighted with her. " Where are you going," he demanded, " that you wish to leave Paris ? " " To London, sire," she replied. "You must remain in Paris," was the peremptory rejoinder. "You will be well paid and your talents better appreciated here; 10,000 francs a year, two months' leave of absence. That is settled. Adieu." The lady, however, contrived to escape across the Channel and to fulfil her engagement. Her terms were 2,000 guineas for the season. But the next year she increased them to 5,000 guineas. The manager objected that it left him nothing for his other 1 78 THE LONDON STAGE artists. "What do you want else when you have my wife's talent ? " demanded her husband, Valabreque. " She and four or five puppets (poupe'es] are enough." And that was all the public got, and for a time it sufficed to crowd the theatre. Finally, her terms became so enormous that managers, especially when the public began to grow tired of " the four or five puppets," even with Madame, feared to incur the responsibility of en- gaging her. How history repeats itself. Does not this read like a reminiscence of a celebrated songstress of our own day ? Catalani left the King's Theatre in 1813, and after that was heard chiefly at concerts. She gained by these entertainments ; 10,000 in one season of four months in London, and doubled that sum in a tour through the English provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. Yet even these sums are moderate when compared with Patti's earnings. Catalani herself seems to have been a simple-minded, good-natured creature, and more than one story is told of her charitable disposition. But her husband was a low-bred, avaricious fellow. He called her his poule d'or, which she certainly was to him. Captain Gronow relates in his Reminiscences that when she was at Stowe, Vala- breque sent in a bill to the Marquis of Buckingham for seventeen hundred pounds for seventeen songs his wife had sung in company, although she was on the footing of a guest. But he was usually left behind when she was invited to distinguished houses. She is described by contemporaries as being very beautiful, not a great actress, but making up for all deficiencies by the charm of her manner. Her voice, Captain Gronow says, "was transcendent." But she appears to have preferred to astonish her audience by extraordinary feats of execu- tion, such as leaping two octaves at once, and by the THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 179 lost florid fioturi, rather than pleasing them by purity of style. These faults, as an inevitable consequence, increased with time. One of her favourite feats was to sing the " Non piu andrai " of Figaro, and by mere force of lungs and volume of voice to rise above all the brass of the orchestra. Her last appearance in opera took place in 1824, in Mayer's I I Fanatico per la Musica; but she cut out everything that did not tend to the display of her bravura powers, and walked through the part without condescending to act. Each night the audience grew thinner, until she finally withdrew from the stage. Her last appearance in public was at Dublin in 1828. Between 1804 and 1807 a Mr. Goold was the manager of the King's Theatre. At his death, in the year last named, it again came into the hands of Taylor, to whom I have previously referred. Taylor was always in debt and difficulties, and, during the greater part of the time that he was director, lived within the King's Bench or its "rules." " How can you conduct the King's Theatre, perpetually in durance as you are ? " remarked a friend. " My dear fellow," replied the manager, "how could I possibly conduct it if I were at liberty ? I should be eaten up, sir devoured. Here comes a dancer ' Mr. Taylor, I want such a dress ' ; another ' I want such and such ornaments.' One singer demands to sing a part different from the one allotted to him, another to have an addition to his appointments. No ; let me be shut up, and then they go to my secretary ; he, they know, cannot go beyond his line, but if they get at me pshaw ! no man at large can manage that theatre ; and, in faith, no man who undertakes it ought to be at large." Taylor had a partner named Waters, who was Goold's executor ; between the two, as affairs grew worse, there i8o THE LONDON STAGE were continual disagreements. At length Taylor closed the theatre. Waters tried to get possession, but Taylor's people resisted. Free rights were of constant occur- rence, until the former at length succeeded in forcing an entrance. This was in 1813. Waters carried on the management from 1814 to 1820, when, overwhelmed by debt, he was compelled to retire. The house \yas then taken by Mr. Ebers, a bookseller, who gave to the world his experiences of its management in a volume entitled, Seven Years of the Kings Theatre. During that period he never lost a less sum than ,3,000 in a season, frequently considerably more. Thus, from its establishment in this country, we find that Italian opera, spite of the fashionable patronage which had always been accorded it, was not only an unprofitable, but a ruinous speculation to all who undertook it. The following passages, however, extracted from a theatrical magazine of the period are very suggestive as to the cause of Mr. Ebers's failure, and are extremely im- portant as describing the style in which operas were put upon the stage of the King's Theatre in 1823 : "It is with feelings of the liveliest indignation that we direct the attention of our readers to the continuance of disreputable abuses, which render this magnificent estab- lishment a living monument of national dishonour. When a foreigner views the imposing exterior of the opera-house, its numerous columns, its splendid piazzas, and its colossal dimensions, he reasonably expects that the interior will exhibit corresponding attractions, and hurries to the theatre buoyant with the hope of antici- pated delight. He pays his half-guinea, and is introduced into this fancied temple of elegance and grandeur. The filthy condition of the corridors, where the dirt of ages reposes in undisturbed tranquillity, secure from the lustra- THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 181 tions of a scrubbing-brush, soon convinces our enthusiast that no lord of the vestibule protects the flowing train of a countess from plebeian pollution. He hurries on and fixes his gaze on that venerable specimen of the antique, the drop-curtain, whose faded hues and tarnished dingi- ness are only surpassed by the murky sails of a coal- lighter. The indulgent spectator overlooks these glaring violations of common decency, and recollecting that the musical department is under the direction of a committee of noblemen of acknowledged taste and ample fortune, he makes sure that this union of talent and wealth will procure him the highest treat that a fanatico per musica can possibly desire. But here again he is doomed to disappointment ; his high-wrought expectations terminate in a mixed feeling of scorn, contempt, and indignation. This is no fanciful picture, but a feeble attempt at delineating the various emotions which a foreigner ex- periences at the wretched want of effective management in the King's Theatre." The writer then goes on to animadvert upon the badness of the singers, the lack of variety in the operas produced, broken promises, and general incompetence. A month or two afterwards the same journal comments very strongly upon the curtain being rung down and the lights put out in the middle of the ballet. It might have been want of means to carry on the management pro- perly that was at the bottom of these terrible short- lt |: comings, but it was certainly hopeless to expect public patronage for such an ill-directed establishment. In 1818 the auditorium of the King's Theatre was reconstructed and modelled in the form in which many of us remember it, by Nash and Repton, who, in 1820, added the colonnades, the entire alteration costing ,50,000. The shape was horse-shoe ; in dimensions it 1 82 THE LONDON STAGE was within a few feet of La Scala. Its length from the curtain to the back of the boxes was 102 feet ; the extreme width, 75 feet ; the stage was 60 feet long and 80 feet wide. The subscription to the new theatre was increased to sixty representations, and the charges to thirty guineas a seat. But during Catalani's engagement the price of a box to hold six was advanced from 180 guineas to 300. Although the first two decades of the last century were not very remarkable for great singers, they were peculiarly rich in great works. Catalani introduced Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, being herself the original Susanna in London. 1 In 1811 the immortal composer's Cosifan tutte was heard for the first time, and received with unbounded delight. // Flauto Magico followed, but the company was inadequate to the interpretation of this difficult work, and it failed. The year 1817 should be marked with a red letter in operatic annals, since it witnessed the production of the incomparable Don Giovanni, brought out in the teeth of a strong cabal and immense difficulties. Its success was triumphant. It was played twenty-three nights to overflowing houses, and restored the exhausted treasury to a flourishing con- dition. The original cast embraced Madame Camporese, Madame Fodor, Signers Crivelli, Ambrogetti, 2 Naldi, and Agrisani. In the same year Madame Pasta, then a mere girl, no older than the century, made her debut, but 1 Madame Vestris sang the part here in 1816, in the purest style of Italian vocalisation, it is said. 2 Ambrogetti was a great artiste ; being cast for the part of the Father in an operatic version of Mrs. Opie's Father and Daughter, called Agnese, he studied in Bedlam every form of madness. But his acting was so terrible that the public could not endure it, and the opera failed through the very greatness of the performance. The realism that in our time has drawn crowds to see Drink and Resurrection was not appreciated a hundred years ago. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 183 seems to have given little indication of her future pre- eminent genius, and created no attention. With the appearance of Signer Garcia in 1818 began the reign of Rossini, he introducing the Barbiere, the first opera of that composer heard in England. From 1821 to 1828, fourteen out of the thirty-four operas sung were by the great Italian maestro ; Mozart came next. Rossini visited London in 1824 to conduct his opera of Zelmira. Madame Rossini, a singer of great eminence in Italy, sustained the principal part ; but, although she was still beautiful in person and grand in style, she was passte, and was coldly received. It was her last appearance upon the stage. In 1825, Velluti, the last of the male soprani, appeared. Thirty years had elapsed since this class of voice had been heard by the English public. So strong were the prejudices entertained against the new singer that it was only after much hesitation that the management decided to permit his appearance. Lord Mount Edgcumbe describes the event : " At the moment when he was expected to appear, the most profound silence reigned in one of the most crowded audiences I ever saw, broken on his entering by loud applauses of encouragement. The first note he uttered gave a shock of surprise, almost of disgust, to inex- perienced ears ; but his performance was listened to with attention and great applause throughout, with but few expressions of disapprobation, speedily suppressed. The opera he chose for his d6but was // Crociato in Egitto, by a German composer named Meyerbeer, till then unknown in this country. The music was quite of the new school, but not copied from Rossini ; it was original, odd, flighty, and might even be termed fantastic." Might not this be the mild criticism of an old gentle- 1 84 THE LONDON STAGE man of a dozen years ago upon Wagner ? His lordship's remarks upon Rossini's works, in which he complains of the sudden change of motives, the absence of airs, and the noisy instrumentation, so different from the thin melodious operas of his youth, are equally suggestive. Rossini and Meyerbeer were to him what Wagner was to his grandchildren. Ebers's unfortunate seven years terminated in 1827, after which the house, at a rental of ^800 per annum, passed into the hands of Laporte and Laurent, who continued the management through good and evil fortune until 1842. At the accession of Victoria, the King's Theatre was renamed Her Majesty's. From 1824 to 1846 was the golden age of opera in this country, if not for the impresarii, at least for the public, as between those two dates the lyric drama was interpreted by artists such as, perhaps, those of no other period in its history can compare. Pasta re- appeared in 1824, when she was at the height of those marvellous powers that rendered her the greatest lyric artist the world has ever heard. " Pasta," says Hogarth, " was what a musical performer ought to be, but is so very seldom a complete impersonation of the character she assumed. We thought not of admiring the great vocalist; we even forgot that it was Pasta who stood before us while we were thrilled with horror by the frenzy of the desperate Medea, or wept for the sorrows of the love- lorn Nina " (Paiesello's Nina). After a long and, as it had been supposed, final retirement from the stage, she reappeared for one night in 1850 in selections from Anna Bullena. The melancholy scene is admirably pictured by Mr. Chorley. Her toilet was neglected, her hair absurdly dressed, as, indeed, was her whole figure. Among the audience was Rachel, who cruelly and THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 185 openly ridiculed the whole performance, and Madame Viardot, then in the height of her fame, came to hear Pasta for the first time. " She attempted the final mad scene of the opera, the most complicated and brilliant among the mad scenes on the modern stage, an example of vocal display till then unparalleled. By that time, tired, unprepared, in ruin as she was, she had rallied a little. When, on Anne Boleyn's hearing the coronation music for her rival, the heroine searches for her own crown upon her brow, Madame Pasta wildly turned in the direction of the festive sounds, the old irresistible charm broke out; nay, even in the final song, with its roulades and its scales of shakes ascending by a semi- tone, the consummate vocalist and tragedian was able to combine form with meaning, the moment of the situation was indicated at least to the younger artist. ' You are right,' was Madame Viardot's quick and heartfelt response (her eyes full of tears) to a friend beside her. ' You are right. It is like the Cenacolo of Da Vinci at Milan a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest in the world.' ' Sontag came to London in 1828, but her Berlin (she was a Prussian by birth) and Paris idolaters had aroused such marvellous expectations in the English public that she was a disappointment. Gradually, however, a re- action took place, and ere the season was over she had become an established favourite. Upon her marriage with Count Rossi, a Piedmontese noble, she retired from the stage. The revolution of 1848 stripping him of his possessions, she again resumed her profession, reappearing at Her Majesty's during the seasons of 1 849-50 ; and, most curious to relate, although now a middle-aged woman, appealing to a new generation of opera-goers, and immediately following Jenny Lind, her i86 THE LONDON STAGE $ second success was as brilliant as her first. Her style, like Catalani's, was excessively florid ; she excelled in light opera. The year after Sontag's de"but, 1829, a yet greater artiste made her bow before an English public Madame Malibran, the original Amina in this country. Some- one Chorley, I think has felicitously called her the Garrick of the Italian stage, to mark her great diversity of style as compared with Pasta, whom he calls the Siddons of opera. A romantic pathos hovers around the memory of this glorious artiste. Her history was a sad one : a harsh father (Garcia) in her childhood, an unhappy marriage with a man double her age in her girlhood, and then her early death at twenty-eight, just after she was united to De Begnis, the man of her choice. In private life she was as warm-hearted and generous as she was great in public. " Boundless as were Malibran's resources, keen as was her intelligence, dazzling as was her genius, she never produced a single type in opera for other women to adopt. She passed over the stage like a meteor, as an apparition of wonder rather than as one who, on her departure, left her mantle behind for others to take up and wear." Each season now brought forth a new prodigy. In 1830 appeared Lablache, whose first part was Geronimo in // Matrimonio Segreto. " Musical history," says Chorley, " contains no account of a bass singer so gifted by nature, so accomplished by art, so popular without measure or drawbacks, as Louis Lablache. His shoe was as big as a child's boat, one could have clad a child in one of his gloves," and yet, he goes on to say, that so perfectly artistic was he in dress and bearing that the spectator was never shocked by his abnormal size. Rubini created immense enthusiasm upon his appear- THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 187 ance in 1831. The fascination of his voice was irresist- ible ; even his brother artistes would linger at the wings while he was singing, loth to lose a single note. The compass of his voice was marvellous ; he could begin on the high B flat without preparation, and hold on it for a considerable time. At Milan the people flocked in crowds to hear this wonderful effect, and never failed to encore it. One night, raising his eyes to heaven, extending his arms, inflating his chest, and opening his mouth, he endeavoured as usual to give forth the wonderful note. But B flat would not come. Greatly disconcerted, the tenor brought all the force of his splendid lungs into play and gave it forth with immense vigour. But he could feel that he had in some way injured himself. He went through the performance, however, as brilliantly as ever. When it was over he sent for a surgeon, who very soon discovered that he had broken his collar-bone it had been unable to resist the tension of his lungs. " Can a man go on singing with a broken clavicle?" he inquired. " Certainly," replied the doctor ; "and if you take care not to lift any weight, you will experience no disagreeable effects." And he did go on singing for years afterwards. Tamburini appeared in 1832, Grisi in 1834, Persiani in 1838, and Mario in 1839. Out of this combination was formed the world-famous Puritani quartette, Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, and Grisi ; such a one had never before been approached upon the lyric stage, and probably never will be again. In 1842 a noble artiste burst upon the town, Miss Adelaide Kemble, "the greatest English singer (though not the best of this century)," says Chorley, " a poetical and thoughtful artiste, whose name will never be lost as long as the art of dramatic singing is spoken of." He says that in 1 88 THE LONDON STAGE Norma she could compare with Pasta, and could be preferred (apart from voice and person) to Grisi. " In comedy, her Susanna was good enough for any opera- house in Europe, no matter how high the standard." Tamburini's name is inextricably associated with what may be regarded as the last of the theatrical riots. The favourite baritone had been superseded by an inferior artiste named Colletti, upon which his colleagues of the theatre organised a clique to compel his re-engagement, and enlisted upon their side the fashionable part of the audience. On Colletti's appearance he was saluted with a storm of hisses from the omnibus boxes, and shouts of " Tamburini ! " Laporte appeared, but could not make himself heard. At length the noble occupants of one of the boxes, headed by a Prince of the Blood, still living, leaped upon the stage, the curtain fell, the invaders waving their hats, shouted " Victory!" and Laporte was obliged to give way. The affair is the subject of one of the Ingoldsby Legends, "The row in an omnibus box." At the death of Laporte, in 1842, Her Majesty's passed under the direction of Mr. Lumley, who had been con- cerned in the previous management. The event of his first season was the debut of Ronconi, who, in the greatness of his acting, rivalled even Lablache, and that with a voice limited in compass, inferior in quality, and possessing little power of execution ; added to these drawbacks were a low stature and commonplace features. He was the original Rigoletto in London. Verdi was heard for the first time in this country in Ernani, in 1845. People hardly knew what to make of the new style, and its reception was anything but cordial. Early in 1846 there rose a rumour that a new opera speculation was to be initiated at Covent Garden. A THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 189 disagreement between Lumley and his conductor Costa, ended in all except one of "la vieille garde "- Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, Costa and Lablache seceding from Her Majesty's, and opening, under Persiani's husband, the great dramatic house for opera. The one who alone remained true to the old theatre was the great basso. Never was such acrimony, such furious disputes, or such an unscrupulous paper war carried on between two rival establishments as marked the commencement of the operatic year of 1847. Both houses appear to have suffered severely by the competition ; Madame Persiani was ill and unable to appear through the losses sustained by her husband. And Lumley seems to have been in little better plight, when the appearance of Jenny Lind suddenly raised his fortunes to the very pinnacle of success. Bunn had engaged "the Swedish Nightingale" in 1845 to appear at Drury Lane. Lumley, however, protested that Her Majesty's was the only place in London at which she could make her debut, and so in- duced her to sign another agreement. Bunn was offered ,2,000 to cancel his arrangement, which he refused ; but afterwards so terrified her by letters and paragraphs in the public papers, that she feared to set her foot on English ground. Late one night Lumley started for Vienna ; as ruin was close upon him, he was ready to undertake any obligation to get her over, and after binding himself to pay all damages 1 that she might incur through her breach of faith with Bunn, at last succeeded in securing his prize. The contest between the three managements, for Covent Garden was backing up Drury Lane, raised the expectations of the public to fever heat. 1 When the case was tried, Bunn, who put his damages at ,10,000, was awarded by the jury ,2,500. i 9 o THE LONDON STAGE A new complication arose when the Lord Chamberlain refused to license Roberto II Diavalo, in which she had arranged to appear. This difficulty, however, was over- come, and the eventful night at length arrived. " Rarely," says Lumley, in his Reminiscences, " was ever seen such excitement at Her Majesty's Theatre. The crowd at the doors might have led to a suspicion of an Entente in a capital less orderly than London ; and the struggle for entrance was violent beyond precedent so violent, indeed, that the phrase 'a Jenny Lind crush' became a proverbial expression. Nor was this crowd the result of a hasty gathering. From an early hour in the afternoon, the Hay market became so thronged as to be impassable to pedestrians. As to the file of carriages, it seemed as interminable as it was dense." Describing the performance, Chorley says: " She appeared as Alice in Robert (it was the first representation of Meyerbeer's opera in Italian in this country), an appearance not to be risked by any singer the least nervous. The girl, dragged hastily down the stage in the midst of a crowd, has at once, and when out of breath, to begin on an accented note, without time to think or look around her. I have never seen anyone so composed as Mdlle. Lind on that night. Though the thunder of welcome was loud and long enough to stop the orchestra and to bewilder a veteran, and though it was acknowledged with due modesty, her hands did not tremble one even arranged a ring on the finger of the other and her voice spoke out as firmly as if neither fear nor failure was possible. . . . The scenes of Alice, thoroughly well given and perfectly suited to the powers of their giver, were waited for, listened to in breathless silence, and received with applause which was neither encourage- ment, nor appreciation, nor enthusiasm, so much as THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 191 idolatry. Woe to those during that season who ventured to say or to write that any other great singer had ever sung in the Haymarket Opera House ! To my cost, I know they were consigned to such ignominy as belongs to the idiotic slanderer. Old and seemingly solid friend- ships were broken, and for ever, in that year." But Mdlle. Lind was only a shooting star. Prudery and certain religious scruples with which she had be- come imbued through sanctimonious friends and epis- copal patrons determined her to quit the stage, and there were great .wailings and weepings, and a tremendous demonstration when, on May i8th, 1849, the wonderful songstress, but doubtful artiste, made her last bow behind the footlights. Sophie Cruvelli, who had fled overwhelmed by the Swedish vocalist's success, returned, and Madame Sontag, as before mentioned, stepped into the breach and kept Lumley's fortunes 'afloat a little longer. In 1848, Mr. Sims Reeves made his first appearance at the Italian Opera as Carlo, in Linda di Chamouni, and was received with enthusiasm, but, in consequence of a disagreement with the management, he appeared but once. He reappeared in the next season with Miss Catherine Hayes in Lucia di Lammermoor as Edgardo. 1 In 1849 he sang Elvino in La Somnambula, and in the next year, Ernani. He was a superb artiste and a great singer, but though highly successful at the Italian Opera, it is in English f opera and oratorio that he will be chiefly remembered. The year 1851 was marked by the first production of Beethoven's Fidelia in this country ; Cruvelli being the 1 He had sung this part at Drury Lane in 1847, after making a great success in it that same year at La Scala. Berlioz, who was the conductor at Drury Lane, was very enthusiastic about the English tenor. 1 92 THE LONDON STAGE original Fidelio a magnificent performance. In 1852 the struggle between the two houses ended in the dis- comfiture of Her Majesty's, and landed Lumley in the bankruptcy court. The theatre now remained closed until the burning of Covent Garden in 1856, upon which Lumley once more became director of the old house ; but he was terribly handicapped by Lord Ward, who, at the time of his bankruptcy, had bought in the theatrical proper- ties, and now required him to make over the lease of the house as security. Fortune, however, returned to him with the advent of Giuglini, the last of the pure Italian tenors, and of that exquisite vocalist and actress Piccolomini, who, in La Traviata, created a furore second only to Jenny Lind. The debut of Titiens in 1858, as Valentine in Les Huguenots, roused great excitement, both out of doors and behind the scenes. Even the rehearsals became exciting events. " As her powerful voice," says Lumley, " rang through the theatre and excited the plaudits of all present, so the latent fire of Giuglini (the Raoul) became kindled in its turn, and, one artiste vying with the other in power and passion of musical declamation, each rehearsal became a brilliant performance. Indeed, so strongly were both artistes and connoisseurs impressed with the merits of Mdlle. Titiens, that fears were expressed lest she should utterly 'swamp' the favourite tenor. ' He will never be able to come up to that powerful voice in the last act,' sajd one. I fore- saw that their fears were groundless, and the result proved I was right, for in his personation of Raoul, Giuglini raised himself to the pinnacle of his profes- sion." The success at night was magnificent ; the Queen was present, and, upon leaving her box, told the impresario that it was beautiful. And those who can THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 193 i 9 4 THE LONDON STAGE ever seen upon this stage. 1 On the 26th of April, 1862, Mapleson, who had been E. T. Smith's acting manager, undertook the direction of the house. During the winter season of 1864, the Pyne and Harrison Company occupied the theatre, and followed up their predecessor's experiment by adding a Christmas pantomime to their other attractions. 2 It was in the season of 1867, the year in which the house was burned to the ground, that that glorious artiste, Christine Nilsson, made her debut here as Margherita, and achieved a triumph. Personally, at least, Gounod's heroine never had so ideal a representa- tive ; the slender, graceful figure, the fair hair, the beautiful, dreamy, northern face, with its deep-set, grey- blue eyes, the exquisite voice, that thrilled like a silver bell, the poetry and passion of her acting were all that could be conceived of the creation of Gounod's music. Her Violetta, her Mignon, - her Alice, her Desdemona (in Rossini's Otello] were all wonderfully beautiful per- formances. Among her greatest successes was the double role of Margherita and Helen in Boito's Mefis- tofele. I never heard wilder enthusiasm than she roused in the prison scene, after her solo and the duet with 1 Arditi told a good tale of his showman proclivities. One Oaks day, when he was the impresario of Her Majesty's, he invited Arditi, Titiens, Giuglini, and one or two others, to drive down to Epsom with him. A drag and a spanking turn-out were provided. It was noticed, as they drove along the road, that the conveyance excited a great deal of attention ; everybody stared at it and made remarks as it passed. During a halt, Giuglini hap- pened to pass round at the back of the drag, and there to his horror he saw a board on which were inscribed in glaring letters the words, " E. T. Smith's Operatic Company." There were ructions, and everyone refused to go a step further until the advertisement was removed. 2 Falconer opened the house in November, 1866, with Oonagh, the longest play on record. At two o'clock on the Sunday morning, the stage carpenters pulled the carpet from underneath the feet of the actors ; before they could scramble to their feet someone rang down the curtain, and the play was never finished. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 195 Campanini, as Faust, who was that night in fine form ; men sprang up on their seats, and cheered in a babel of tongues, and waved their hats, and ladies their pocket- handkerchiefs, in indescribable excitement. But I have advanced far into the chronicles of the new house. Before pursuing the story of the opera further, I must retrace my steps to give some account of the sister art, which for some years not only shared in importance with the lyric, but at one time threatened almost to supersede it. The opera ballet dates in' this country from 1 734, when Mademoiselle Salle appeared at Covent Garden and created a wonderful furore. On her benefit night men fought their way to the doors sword in hand, and when she took her leave, purses of gold and bonbons of guineas were showered upon the stage. 1 Contemporaries are enthusiastic in their praise of her acting as Galatea in the ballet of Pygmalion and Galatea. After her departure there was a long pause before her successor appeared. On the Continent the rage for this graceful form of entertainment compelled opera composers to in- troduce the danseur and danseuse into all their works, however inappropriate might be their presence. 2 "You must write me the music for a chacone to this," said Vestris the eldest (le dieu de danse, as he called himself) to Gliick, when the latter was writing the Iphigenia in Tauris. " Do you think the Greeks knew anything 1 Yet twenty years later, when Garrick brought a troupe of French dancers to Drury Lane, there was a riot among the pittites, and after the performance, they marched to Southampton Street and broke his windows. But the opera in those days was exclusively patronised by the aristocracy. 2 The ballet was popular in Italy as early as the beginning of the six- teenth century ; it was introduced into France by Catherine de Medicis, and was in vogue all over Europe in the seventeenth century. 196 THE LONDON STAGE about a chacone ? " answered Gluck indignantly. " Did they not ? " exclaimed Vestris, with a look of astonish- ment ; " how I pity them ! " Our continual wars with France rendered it very diffi- cult to get good dancers, for in that country alone was there thorough training in this art. Sometimes the Parisians let us have a danseuse whose popularity was on the wane, such as Mademoiselle Guimard, who appeared at the King's Theatre in 1789. Lord Mount Edgcumbe says that, "although sixty years of age, she was full of grace, and danced most ex- quisitely." But the lady was not nearly so old as his lordship represents, having been born in 1743. Made- leine Guimard was a noble woman as well as a fine artiste, and during the terrible distress that preceded the revolution, spent a large portion of her earnings in relieving the starving people, and this without breathing a word to anyone of her charitable deeds. The wars with the Republic and the Empire entirely cut off our supplies of Parisian danseuses for the next twenty years and more ; and even for some time after the peace the French were very loth to allow per fide Albion to have any but second-class artistes whom they did not care to keep, and as the opera-dancers were trained by an academy under the immediate control of a Minister, none could leave the country without permission. Upon becoming lessee of the Opera House, in 1821, Mr. Ebers resolved to make a desperate effort to bring over some of the stars of the Parisian ballet. Of such importance were these negotiations, that they had to be conducted through the medium of the English am- bassador at Paris, who put himself in communication with the Baron de la Ferte", the Intendant of the Theatres. The artistes especially desired were the THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 197 then reigning favourites of the dance Albert and Noblet. The Intendant received the application with all suavity, but threw every possible obstacle in the way of granting it. After, however, as much duplicity and diplomacy as might have been required to bring about a treaty between two hostile nations, it was arranged that the desired ones should be spared to Albion for two months. For their services, Albert was to receive 50 for each performance, and Noblet ^550 for the entire engagement; in addition to which, ,25 was to be allowed each for the expenses of the journey. Two other celebrated dancers, Coulon and Bias, were en- gaged upon the same terms, together with three others, two males at ^430 and ^240 each, and a lady at ^270. The incense offered to Noblet might have turned any female brain. She was run after by the aristocracy, invited everywhere, literally worshipped ; she was the universal theme of conversation ; the fashionable world could think of nothing else. The Earl of Fife, then one of the principal patrons of the opera, placed a carriage at her disposal during her stay, and every Sunday gave dinner-parties in her honour. No sooner were her rehearsals announced than all the men of fashion, and all who were, or would be thought, judges of the graceful, eagerly solicited for admission to them, paying for the privilege as at a regular representa- tion. Nor was the curiosity confined to the gentlemen ; ladies of the first rank and fashion found their way to the theatre, and participated in the interest excited by the new arrivals. These children of Terpsichore, being so splendidly received, did not care to leave their comfortable quarters at the expiration of the given time. Upon which there was great excitement in Paris ; the perfidy of Albion i 9 8 THE LONDON STAGE had this time passed beyond the limits of endurance, since it treacherously desired to deprive France even of its dancers. Urgent remonstrances were made by the French Academy, and the Baron de la Ferte sent over a special envoy to negotiate the return of the recalci- trants. After a very heated correspondence, it was arranged that they should remain in London until the end of the season, and that henceforth two first and two second dancers should be allowed to come over every season from the schools of the Academy, and that in return a pledge must be given that no dancer should be brought from Paris contrary to the wishes of the Academy. A treaty to this effect was drawn up in full form, signed, sealed, and witnessed. From this year, 1821, considerably more than a hun- dred and fifty years after the Continent, however, the ballet rose to the dignity of an institution. In the accounts of the season, Mr. Ebers stated that while the opera cost ,8,636, the expenses of the ballet were ,10,678. The prima donna, Madame Camporese, an immense favourite and a fine singer, received only ,1,650 for the season, while the principal male dancer, Albert, was paid ,1,785, and the premiere danseuse, Noblet, .1,537. There was the same discrepancy throughout. De Begnis and his wife Ronzi de Begnis, Madame Vestris, and Ambrogetti, all fine artistes, re- ceived but ;6oo each ; while two second dancers, Bias and Deshayes, were paid respectively ,650 and .930. It had been stipulated in the first treaty that, at the end of Albert and Noblet's engagement, two other dancers of equal fame, Paul and Anatole, should take their places ; consequently, when the former arranged to remain until the end of the season, the manager found himself saddled with double expenses, which, to gratify THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 199 his aristocratic patrons, he had to endure. In addition to the salaries before stated, Paul took ,1,200 for half the season, Anatole ,1,300, and the Vestrises, the dancers, father and son, ,1,200. The most curious feature in these accounts is the enormous sums paid to a class of artistes who have wholly disappeared the male dancers, who actually received larger salaries than the danseuse. No ballet was possible without their assistance, and many of them were not only consummate pantomimists, but very beautiful executants. Albert is said to have been the most graceful dancer that was ever seen at the London opera, while Paul ''seemed literally to fly as he bounded from the stage, so light and zephyry were his motions." Yet the ballets were as wretchedly mounted as the operas. Ebers himself writes : " The same scenes, the same dresses, and the same decorations figured in every performance, till the eye was wearied and the imagina- tion disgusted by seeing different countries and ages all exhibiting the same scenes and costumes. Nor was the scarcity of dresses confined to the coryphees and figur- antes of the ballet and the inferior characters of the opera ; the premiers sujets were as sparingly appointed. Every other theatre gave cftrrect scenery and costume, with every possible degree of magnificence ; it was only at the opera scenes and dresses were mean and in- appropriate." He mentions it as worthy of particular note that he introduced repeated changes of dress in the same performance, and that in the ballet of Aline the dresses were three times varied. But it was not until the advent of the world-famous Taglioni and Fanny Elssler that the ballet attained its highest development and popularity. A critic happily defined Taglioni as the poetry, Elssler as the wit of 200 THE LONDON STAGE motion. Their style was entirely different. Nothing like the chaste and exquisite movements of the former in La Sylphide, La Fille de Danube > Giselle, L Ombre have ever been seen before or since. But Elssler was more than a danseuse "she was the only artist of the century, perhaps, who combined in so striking a degree the two talents of actress and dancer." " Nothing in execution was too daring for her, nothing too pointed," says Chorley in his Musical Recollections. "If Mdlle. Taglioni flew, she flashed. The one floated on to the stage like a nymph, the other showered every sparkling fascination round her like a sorceress. Her versatility, too, was complete ; she had every style, every national humour under her feet she could be Spanish for the Spaniards, or Russian for the Northerns, or Neapolitan for those who love the de- licious Tarantula. But beyond these, Mdlle. Elssler, as an actress, commanded powers of high and subtle rarity." One of her greatest triumphs was in the ballet of the Tarantula, which is the story of a girl who pretends to be tarantula-mad that she may dance an elderly suitor into declining her hand. " The manner in which she wrought its whimsical scenes up to a climax ; the grace, the daring, the incessant brilliancy, the feverish buoyancy, and the sly humour with which she managed to let the public into the secret that her madness was only feigned, raised this ridiculous farce to the level of a work of art." In private life, it is said that the most prudish man or woman might have passed days in her society without being recalled to any recollection of the scanty stage dress, and the attitudes more fitted for sculpture than for social life ; in short, by any look, gesture, or allusion belonging to the dancer's craft. In America, divines THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 201 offered her their pews at meeting-houses, students serenaded her, rich men showered gold and diamonds upon her instead of bouquets. Besides these empresses of the dance, there were queens that were scarcely inferior to them: the charming Cerito, Adele Dumilatre, the very incarnation of grace, and fascinating Carlotta Grisi. In 1843, Dumilatre, in Les Houris, nightly crowded Fop's Alley ; and in Un Bal sous Louis XIV., the minuet de la cour, in which Elssler was her cavalier, became the rage. Ondine with Cerito made an equal sensation, while the divine Fanny eclipsed them all in Le Delire d'un Peintre and the world-famous Cachuca, which was ground on every organ, whistled by every boy, and attempted on the boards of every provincial theatre. And with this wonderful combination of dancers were musical stars of equal splendour Grisi, Persiani, Mario, Lablache, etc. On June loth, 1843, there appeared in the theatrical news of the Examiner the following paragraph : " A Spanish danseuse, Donna Lola Montez, made her appearance between the acts of the opera on Saturday, and executed a characteristic step called ' El Olano.' The Donna was destitute of those graces which impart such a charm to the French and Italian dancers ; but there was a certain intensity of expression, and, as it seemed, a certain nationality, which gave her a peculiar interest. In spite of the encouraging reception she met, she has not danced since Saturday, which remains a mystery." Such was the announcement of the first public appearance of this thereafter notorious person. Mr. Lumley accounts for "the mystery." He says the lady was introduced to him by a certain nobleman as the daughter of a celebrated Spanish patriot and martyr, and represented as a dancer of consummate ability ; he 202 THE LONDON STAGE very soon discovered that in both particulars he had been deceived that she was not a Spaniard, but an English- woman, and, although singularly beautiful, and with a certain novelty of style, had no pretensions to the name of artiste or danseuse. Yet the public received her with every sign of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, he would not allow her to appear after the first two or three nights. The story told of her exit is that the impresario having made some disparaging remarks upon her dancing, she broke her umbrella over his head. The novelty of 1845 was the " Viennoise " children. A dancing-mistress of Vienna had trained thirty-six little girls into a corps de ballet. Their marvellous success in the Austrian capital induced the English manager to offer to engage them. The Austrian authorities interposed ; they feared to trust these young lambs within the wolf-fold of the heretics at least, so it was whispered. But all difficulties were ultimately overcome, and the little ladies were allowed to appear before a London public. Their success was very great. They were splendidly trained, and executed their dances with a precision little short of marvellous. Their greatest performance was the Pas de Miroir, in which one division performed a very elaborate dance before a gauze intended to represent a mirror, while another set on the opposite side went through the reverse movements so accurately that the illusion of a reflected dance was perfect. Lucille Grahn, who, the critics said, combined the ;j ideal forms of Taglioni with the realism of Elssler and I the sprightliness of Carlotta Grisi, appeared in the same I season. Nor among the danseuses must we forget the danseurs, the celebrated Perrot, St. Leon, and M. Charles. j The ballet of Eoline, with Lucille Grahn, rivalled the j past popularity of the Sylphide and Ondine ; and the j THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 203 Mazurka d* Extase, with Perrot, excited almost as much enthusiasm as Elssler's Pas de Fascination. Taglioni reappeared, after an absence, that same year. But the great event of all was the famous Pas de Quatre. How it was brought about must be told in the words of its projector, Mr. Lumley. " With such materials in my grasp as the four celebrated danseuses Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Cerito, and Lucille Grahn it was my ambition to unite them all in one striking diver- tissement. But ambition, even seconded by managerial will, scarcely sufficed to put so audacious a project into execution. The government of a great state was but a trifle compared to the government of such subjects as those whom I was supposed to be able to command ; for these were subjects who considered themselves far above mortal control, or, more properly speaking, each was a queen in her own right alone, absolute, supreme. . . . But there existed difficulties even beyond a manager's calculations. Material obstacles were easily overcome. When it was feared that Carlotta Grisi would not be able to leave Paris in time to rehearse and appear for the occasion, a vessel was chartered from the Steam Navigation Company to waft the sylph at a moment's notice across the Channel ; a special train was engaged and ready at Dover ; relays of horses were in waiting to aid the flight of the danseuse all the way from Paris to Calais. In the execution of the project the difficulty was again manifold. Every twinkle of each foot in every pas had to be nicely weighed in the balance, so as to give no preponderance. Each danseuse was to shine in her peculiar style and grace to the last stretch of perfection, but no one was to outshine the others unless in her own individual belief. Lastly, the famous Pas de Qitatre was composed with all the art of which 204 THE LONDON STAGE the distinguished dancing-master, Perrot, was capable. All was at length adjusted. Satisfaction was in every mind; the Pas de Quatre was rehearsed was announced; the very morning of the event had arrived, no further hindrances were expected. Suddenly, while I was en- gaged with the lawyers in my room, poor Perrot rushed unannounced into my presence in a state of intense despair. He uttered frantic exclamations, tore his hair, and at last found breath to say all was over, that the Pas de Quatre had fallen to the ground, and could never be given. With difficulty the unfortunate ballet-master was calmed down to a sufficient state of reason to be able to explain the cause of his anguish. When all was ready, I had desired Perrot to regulate the order in which the separate pas of each danseuse should come. The place of honour, the last in such cases, as in regal processions, had been ceded without over-much hesitation to Mdlle. Taglioni. Of the remaining ladies, who claimed equal rights, founded on talent and popularity, neither would appear before the others. * Mon Dieu ! ' exclaimed the ballet- master, ' Cerito will not begin before Carlotta, nor Carlotta before Cerito ; there is no way to make them stir all is finished!' 'The solution is easy,' said I; 'let the oldest take her unquestionable right to the envied position.' The ballet-master smote his forehead, smiled assent, and bounded from the room upon the stage. The judgment of the manager was announced. The ladies tittered, laughed, drew back, and were now as much disinclined to accept the right of position as they had been before eager to claim it. The order of the ladies being settled, the Grand Pas de Quatre was finally performed on the same night before a delighted audience, who little knew how nearly they had been deprived of their promised treat." THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 205 The excitement out of doors was as great as it was within ; the house was crowded to suffocation every night ; from the palace to the shop-counter it was the one absorbing topic of conversation. The excitement crossed the Channel, foreign newspapers teemed with histories of its wonders. Foreign courts received accounts of its captivations with official despatches. "It was literally a European event." The wonderful Pas was revived in 1847 with Rosati, a new luminary, in place of Lucille Grahn, the other three being as before. Les Quatre Saisons, another very remarkable ballet, produced in 1848, with Carlotta Grisi, Cerito, Marie Taglioni, Rosati, Perrot, and St. Le*on, was received with almost equal enthusiasm. But already the tide was turning. The first decline of the ballet may be traced to the appearance of Jenny Lind, to the development of that craze which admitted of no rivalry. Languid swells began to be bored with trying to understand the story of those poetic and elaborate entertainments, and cared only for the de- tached dances. One of, if not the last of the great opera ballets was Le Corsair, 1856. Rosati, last of the line of opera danseuses, was the Medora, Ronzani the Conrad. But in spite of the splendour of the pro- duction, upon which an immense sum was expended, it was a failure. Gradually the ballet sank in importance, until it became only an adjunct to the opera, as in Guglielmo Tell, Roberto II Diavolo. In 1857 a troupe of Spanish dancers appeared at the Haymarket, of which the famous Perea Nena was the principal, and revolutionised the art. The marvellous rapidity and variety of her steps, which were worked up to a de- lirium of motion, created a great sensation ; the sylph- like beauty, the poetic vivacity of Taglioni and Elssler 206 THE LONDON STAGE were seen no more ; many dancers imitated Perea Nena, but they could neither approach the facility of her steps nor the exquisite voluptuous Spanish grace of the original ; they simply vulgarised the terpsichorean art. Only twice since the fifties has London been afforded a glimpse of the poetry of motion when Madame Dor appeared in Babil and Bijou in 1872, and Adelina Rossi in the magnificent ballet Excelsior at Her Majesty's in 1885. Both, but especially the latter, were fine ex- amples of the classic school. Ballet, except in Drury Lane pantomime, is now a monopoly of the variety theatre ; the Empire and the Alhambra mount these productions with a splendour never dreamed of in the days of Taglioni and Elssler, but the prima ballerina is extinct. Dancing must now be reckoned among the lost arts. To return to the story of the opera. Earl Dudley held Lumley's lease, which did not expire until 1891, so he determined to rebuild the theatre, after the fire. It was completed in 1872, at a cost of ,50,000. But no tenant could be found. As the greater number of the stalls and boxes were let upon lease, the expenses would exceed the receipts, though the house were to be crammed every night. It was sold by auction in 1874 for ,31,000. The religious Christy minstrels, Moody and Sankey, were the first tenants, and proved "a draw." But on April 3Oth, 1877, Mapleson ventured again to become lessee, and opened the new house as Her Majesty's Opera, with Norma. It was almost the last appear- ance of Titiens. A few short weeks afterwards her glorious voice was hushed in death. o The most remarkable debut at the new house was that of Etelka Gerster, a supremely fine singer, who made a great impression as Gilda, Amina, Lucia, Margherita, THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 207 Linda. The reappearance of Tamberlik after a long- absence was another remarkable event. Rossini's Otello was the part chosen. In the old days he, like Rubini, was celebrated for giving the high B flat from the chest, and everyone in the audience was on the tiptoe of ex- pectation for this wonderful note. He acted and sang magnificently, though the middle register of his voice was a little worn. At last, in the scene with lago (Faure) in the third act, the eagerly anticipated note rang through the house. It was like an electric shock, and evoked a frantic shout of applause, renewed again and again. Nilsson sang during several seasons, Trebelli remained faithful to her old home, Minnie Hauk made a success as Carmen, the company was usually fairly good, sometimes excellent ; but the house never paid, it never could pay. Carl Rosa had seasons here in 1879, 1880, and 1882. Mayer brought Sarah Bernhardt and a French opera company in 1886; there were promenade concerts in the next year under Van Biene. Mapleson started the opera season of 1889 ; then it was taken over by a company, with a capital of ,40,000, which in less than a year came to grief. French plays by the Gymnase Company, and Sarah Bernhardt, 1890, as Jeanne d? Arc. But in the year before the grand old house fell into the most utter degradation. In 1889 it was the scene of a boxing tournament, and the stage which had been trodden by some of the grandest lyric artistes of the day was given up to bruisers. A " gorgeous" pantomime was, how- ever, produced at the close of the year. But the end was at hand. In 1892, all the effects were sold off, and soon afterwards the building was demolished. 1 1 Attached to the old Opera House, that was burned down in 1867, was a small theatre called the Bijou, which was used occasionally for concerts 208 THE LONDON STAGE To complete this brief sketch of the opera in England, I must go back to Covent Garden, after the fire. The ruins were scarcely cold ere the rebuilding was decided upon. The Duke of Bedford granted a ground lease for ninety years at a rental of ^850, more than an acre of additional land being acquired by the demolition of the Piazza Hotel and other houses. The huge theatre cost ^70,000. The area of the stage, ex- clusive of the bow in front of the proscenium, is 90 feet by 88 feet; the length of the entire building on the Bow Street side is 127 feet, on the Hart Street side, 210 feet. It was opened on May i5th, 1858, by Gye with Les Huguenots, in which Mario and Grisi sustained the chief parts ; followed by La Traviata with Bosio. Some of the most famous debuts which have taken place at the present house are those of Adelina Patti, 1861, Pauline Lucca, Albani, Santley, Trebelli, Faure, Tamberlik, Gayarre". In 1869 the management of the two opera houses was amalgamated, the first result of which was the with- drawal of Costa, and this was followed by the secession of Mdlles. Christine Nilsson and lima Di Murska, Foli, Santley, and others. Before 1871 the impossible fusion was dissolved, and Messrs. Gye and Mapleson were I once more in active opposition, the latter at Drury Lane, where he gave operatic performances until he returned ? to his old quarters in the Haymarket. Mr. Gye's management was chiefly remarkable for the j superior manner in which the operas were mounted, a j detail that had never received much attention at the | other house, but it was, at the same time, responsible for j an evil which finally threatened to crush Italian opera j and light entertainments. Mathews and his wife gave their entertainment "Charles Mathews at Home," here in 1862. THE OPERA AND BALLET IN ENGLAND 209 out of existence the star prima donna, who was paid such enormous sums that a satisfactory ensemble was rendered impossible. A Philistine public, whose artistic sympathies were nil, whose musical tastes simply de- pended upon the fashion of the moment, were brought to the belief that there was nothing worth hearing except Madame Patti, and it was only on the nights that lady and one or two others sang that the house was filled. It was reserved for the energy of Augustus Harris who, after successfully experimenting with Italian Opera at Drury Lane in 1886, undertook the management of Covent Garden for the following season to pluck up courage to refuse the terms of and dispense with the services of the star prima donna. Opera was grown musty with worn-out traditions ; everything was hack- neyed, conventional, lifeless ; the operatic stage was a generation behind the dramatic ; a realistic age was disgusted at its dreary artificiality. The new impresario reformed this altogether. The introduction of the De Reszkes, Lassalle, and other fine male artistes, rendered the men rather than the women the chief draw ; Madame Melba, however, has of late sung the public back to their old love. To enumerate all the great, singers that Sir Augustus Harris introduced to the London public would be to name most of the greatest of the day, notably Madame Calve. It was under his management that the Meister singer was first heard in England, not- withstanding that up to the last a certain royal person- age was opposed to the experiment, though after hearing that great masterpiece the Prince handsomely acknow- ledged his mistake. Tristan und Isolde, the Valkyrie were also added to the repertory by this dauntless entrepreneur, who had the audacity even to eliminate the word " Italian" from the bills, which, as the libretto p 210 THE LONDON STAGE was quite as frequently sung in French and German, as in the tongue of Rossini, had long become an absurd anomaly, and substitute for it " The Royal Opera." The worn-out, oleaginous, wooden-faced choristers, in their dingy or tawdry costumes, whose action and expression were invariable, whether they were witness- ing a wedding or a murder, gave place to fresh voices, youth, sympathy, and bright, appropriate dresses. Since the death of Harris, Covent Garden has been managed by a syndicate of " noblemen and gentlemen," who have expended large sums upon remodelling and refurnishing the stage, and in bringing the house up to present-day requirements, though no improvements can ever render it, inferior as it is to almost every opera house on the Continent, worthy to be the lyric theatre of the greatest city of the world. 1 For several seasons the trend has been entirely in the direction of Wagner. The magnificent productions of the " Ring," and the success which has attended them, and the preponderance of the great German maestro s works over those of all other composers, have unmistak- ably indicated the musical proclivities of the day. But of late there have been signs, if not of reaction, at least of a reawakened taste for lighter and more tuneful operas, thanks chiefly to the splendid singing of Madame Melba, and the no less splendid powers, both vocal and histrionic, of that grand artiste, Madame Calve. There is another remarkable circumstance connected with the revivification of opera by Sir Augustus Harris : he solved the problem that had baffled all his prede- cessors how to make opera pay, and he has bequeathed the secret to his heirs. 1 See note 2, at the end. CHAPTER IV The Little Theatre in the Hay market Its Rise, Progress, Fortunes, and those who have shared in them, 1720-1903 A 7 TER Drury Lane, there is not a theatre in London so rich in memories of the great actors who have strutted and fretted their hours upon the stage as "the little theatre in the Haymarket." In the old days of the patent monopoly it was a kind of a chapel-at-ease to Drury Lane and Covent Garden, doing duty for them during the summer months, and here candidates for admission to those mighty universities of the histrionic art most frequently first sought the suffrages of a metro- politan audience. In 1720, one John Potter, a carpenter, purchased the site of an old inn called " The King's Head," and erected thereupon a small theatre. As the building, decorations, scenery, and dresses cost in all only fifteen hundred pounds, it could not have been a very splendid affair. Colley Gibber complained that Sir John Vanbrugh's great house, on the opposite side, was built in the country ; but during the fourteen years that followed its erection, Hanover and Grosvenor Squares were built, and new streets were being laid out on all sides of them ; yet still to the north and the west green fields, and farm- houses, and milkmaids, and hayricks were within a few minutes' walk. Having no patent or licence, Mr. Potter opened with a company of young amateurs, who had been acting at a tavern in St. Alban's Street. 211 212 THE LONDON STAGE On December i5th, 1720, a newspaper of the day published the following advertisement: "At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, between Little Suffolk Street and James Street, which is now completely fur- nished, will be presented a French Comedy, as soon as the rest of the actors arrive from Paris, who are duly expected. Boxes and pit, five shillings ; gallery, two-and- sixpence." On the 2Qth of the same month, the rest of the actors having, I presume, arrived, the house was opened with La Fille a la Mode, ou le Badaud de Paris, "under the patronage of a distinguished nobleman," the company, according to the fashion of the day, styling themselves "the French Comedians of his Grace the Duke of Montague." Performances at first were given four times a week, then two were found to be sufficient, and the prices of admission were lowered, boxes to four shillings, pit to half a crown, and gallery to eighteen- pence. As the aristocracy alone would support foreign entertainments, the French speculation languished, and on the 4th of the following May came to an end. In 1726 we find the Haymarket in the possession of acrobats, tumblers, and the famous rope-dancer, Signora Violante, who, in Dublin, first trained Peg Woffington for the stage. Of the history of " the little theatre in the Hay- market" so called to distinguish it from its big brother opposite during the early years of its existence, we can obtain only stray glimpses through the medium of advertisements in old newspapers, for its doings were considered quite beneath the notice of the dramatic historians of the time. Colley Cibber does not deign to mention it in his Apology. It lived only upon suf- ferance. Occasionally a temporary licence was obtained, through the influence of some nobleman, for regular LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 213 dramatic performances ; at others it was opened by amateurs, or by authors who could not obtain a home for their bantlings at Lincoln's Inn or Drury Lane. An extraordinary production of this kind was brought out here in 1729 by one Johnson, a dancing-master of Chester. It was called Hurlothrumbo, or the Super- natural. A contemporary describes the author as play- ing a part called Lord Flame, and " speaking sometimes in one key, sometimes in another ; sometimes dancing, sometimes fiddling, sometimes walking upon stilts." This curious medley had a run of thirty nights. Fielding is the first great name connected with this house. It was here, in 1730, that he produced his once- famous burlesque The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. Like the yet more famous Rehearsal, it was a satire upon the heavy tragedies of the day, and, though greatly altered to fall in with the humour of succeeding generations, it kept the stage until within living memory. Lord Grizzle was one of Liston's favourite parts. Swift is accredited with saying that he never laughed but twice, and one of these occasions was at a performance of Tom Thumb. About eight out of the twenty-seven dramatic pieces which flowed from the facile pen of the author of Tom Jones were first produced upon the Hay market stage. Most of them are in the burlesque style indeed, Field- ing was undoubtedly the father of modern burlesque, and one or two of his efforts in that line, founded on classic subjects, with songs and duets that might almost have been written by Byron or Brough, could with very little alteration have been revived at the old Strand Theatre. His comedy was intensely personal; no public abuse and no public character, from the Prime Minister to the actors at the neighbouring theatre, escaped flagel- lation by that keen and daring wit. 214 THE LONDON STAGE The first English company of any note that performed at the Hay market were the Drury Lane rebels, under Theophilus Gibber. 1 The patentees appealed to the law, and one of the actors, Harper, was arrested to make a trial case, under the old Act of Elizabeth, which accounted all players wandering from place to place or playing in unlicensed buildings as rogues and vaga- bonds. 2 Popular feeling, however, was all on the side of Harper, who was a householder and a man of means, so he was acquitted of the charge, and the house re- mained open until the following May. Fielding, having found some "adventurers" to risk their money, undertook the management of the Hay- market in 1734; but he opened either on sufferance or in defiance of the law, as the following advertisement will show: "March 5th, 1735, The Great Mogul's Company of English Comedians, newly imported at the New Theatre in the Haymarket. Sealed tickets for Monday, March 8th, being the third day of the entertainment, may be had at the Two Blue Posts, Bow Street, Covent Garden, and at the Bedford Coffee House, in the Great Piazza." We find but few familiar names among this company ; Macklin's is the only one of any repute, he not having returned to Drury Lane with the rest of the revolted company. Fielding's management lasted until the passing of the Licensing Act (1737), which his bitter satire upon Sir Robert Walpole, under the name of Quidam in The Historical Register, played here in the year just named, did much to bring about. 3 The Act was extremely unpopular, and audiences loved to damn new plays simply because they were licensed. A fine opportunity of displaying their animus 1 See p. 63. 2 See note " Rogues and Vagabonds," at the end. 3 See p. 67. LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 215 was afforded by the announcement (1738) that a French company was about to give a series of representations "under distinguished patronage" at "the little theatre." As it was publicly threatened that the performance would be violently interfered with, a detachment of soldiers was ordered to the Hay market, and one of the West- minster magistrates, Justice Deveil, took a seat in the pit as the representative of law and order. Nothing so exasperated John Bull in those days as to flourish the French flag before his eyes, for he was nothing if not national. As soon as possible after the doors were opened the house was crammed from floor to ceiling, and the audience sounded the note of preparation by singing in chorus " The Roast Beef of Old England." When the curtain rose, the actors were discovered standing between two files of Grenadier Guards, the soldiers with fixed bayonets and resting upon their firelocks. A roar of indignation greeted this sight ; the whole pit rose and, turning to the Justice, demanded that the military should be withdrawn. He dared not resist the appeal, and gave the men the signal to retire. But when the actors opened their mouths, their words were drowned by howls, hisses, catcalls, and every kind of diabolical noise, while patriotic individuals demanded to know why English actors should be prohibited from appearing upon that stage and foreigners obtain per- mission and protection. Deveil promised that if the performance was permitted to go on he would lay the grievance before the King, but shouts of " No treaties !" was the unanimous answer. As they could not make their voices heard, the unfortunate French people ranged themselves for a dance ; then from all parts of the house rained a hailstorm of peas, covering the stage and rendering dancing impossible. The Justice called for 216 THE LONDON STAGE a candle to read the Riot Act, and threatened to summon the military to disperse the audience, but the attitude of the rioters was so menacing that it remained a threat and nothing more. The French and Spanish am- bassadors and their wives, and other aristocratic patrons, now hurried from their boxes ; while the management, finding it useless to oppose the storm, ordered the curtain to be dropped. " And," says a contemporary writer, " no battle gained by Marlborough ever elicited more frantic enthusiasm than did this victory over foreign actors." For several years after the passing of the obnoxious Act " the little theatre " led but a vagabond existence ; it was only occasionally taken by some adventurer, who, having nothing to lose, could evade or defy the law. In the February of 1744 another rebellious subject of the lords of the patent opened this refuge for destitute and quarrelsome players. This was Charles Macklin, who was already one of the foremost actors of the day. Macklin was a teacher of his art, and, with a slight sprinkling of professionals, his company was made up of amateurs and pupils. Among the latter was a young fellow about town, well known at the Bedford Coffee House for his wit, named Samuel Foote, who here made his first appearance upon any stage as Othello to his tutor's I ago. 1 The future droll was short and stout, with a round, full, flat face, and his appearance as the Moor must have been extremely funny. In September, 1744, Theophilus Cibber again re- volted against his manager, and, with some other mal- contents, on September nth in that year, once more opened " the little theatre " with Shakespeare's Romeo 1 This could scarcely have been funnier than when, more than a century later, Sothern played Othello to Buckstone's I ago on these same boards. :.' i ; ; i !- OTE LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 217 and Jiiliet, which was played for the first time "for one hundred years." 1 Since 1680 a garbled version of the tragedy, by Otway, entitled Cams Marius^ in which the Veronese lovers were converted into ancient Romans, had pos- sessed the stage. 2 The success of the revival was an- nounced the next morning in the General Advertiser, wherein it was stated that " many persons of distinction were last night in the pit and gallery, who could not find room in the boxes." On the i4th it was "bespoke by several ladies of quality." Theophilus's daughter Jane was the Juliet. How he contrived to drive the proverbial coach and four through the Act of Parliament is explained by the following advertisement which ap- peared in the Advertiser. " At Mr. Gibber's academy, in the Haymarket, will be a concert ; after which will be exhibited gratis a rehearsal in the form of a play, called Romeo and Juliet" But in the course of a few weeks, on October 22nd, the house was closed by order of the Lord Chamberlain. During this brief season it would seem that Theophilus also revived Cymbeline for the first time since the Restoration. When he left the theatre, Mrs. Charke, Colley Gibber's notorious daughter, who always played male parts and wore male attire in private life, tried to keep the company together, but was very soon expelled. 1 That is, according to Mr. Gibber ; but Pepys records seeing Romeo and Juliet at the Opera House (Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre) in March, 1662. This could hardly be James Howard's version, as that was produced at Drury Lane. It must not be supposed that Gibber gave the play from the text ; it was announced as revised and altered by himself, but the alterations were chiefly borrowed from Caius Marius. 2 In Fielding's Tom Thtimb, Huncamunca exclaims : " Oh Tom Thumb, Tom Thumb, wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?" In the notes to the play the author quotes the lines, not from Shakespeare, but from Otway, where it stands: "Oh Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius?" a proof of how little Shakespeare was known at the time. 218 THE LONDON STAGE The result of Foote's appearance in tragedy was an engagement at Drury Lane for comedy parts. There he made so great a success as a mimic in the character of Bayes in The Rehearsal, that, finding himself over- shadowed by the genius of Garrick, he determined to turn manager on his own account. Failing to procure a licence, he took a leaf out of Mr. Gibber's book, and on April 22nd, 1 747, announced that a concert of music would on that day be performed at the theatre in the Hay- market, after which would be presented gratis a new entertainment, called The Diversions of the Morning, and a farce taken from The Old Bachelor, entitled The Credulous Husband Fondlewife, Mr. Foote and an epilogue by the B d d (Bedford) Coffee House. The Diversions and the Epilogue consisted of a mimicry of the best-known men of the day actors, doctors, lawyers, statesmen. The managers of the patent houses could not tolerate such an infringement of their rights as a performance by one of the most popular comedians of the time. They appealed to the Westminster magis- trates, and on the second night the constables entered the theatre and dispersed the audience. But Foote was not so easily to be put down. The very next morning he published the following announce- ment in the General Advertiser : "On Saturday after- noon, exactly at twelve o'clock, at the new theatre in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote begs the favour of his friends to come and drink a dish of chocolate with him, and 'tis hoped there will be a great deal of company and some joyous spirits. He will endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible. Tickets to be had for this entertainment at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar, without which no one will be admitted. N.B. Sir Dilbury Diddle will be there, and Lady Betty Frisk has LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 219 absolutely promised." No one knew what this advertise- ment meant, and a crowded house was the natural result- When the curtain rose, Foote came forward and in- formed the audience that, "as he was training some young performers for the stage, he would, with their permission, whilst chocolate was getting ready, proceed with his instructions before them." Then some young people, engaged for the purpose, were brought upon the stage, and, under the pretence of instructing them in the art of acting, he introduced his imitations. The authorities did not again interfere with him, so he altered the time of his entertainment from morning to evening, and the title to " Tea " ; and to drink a dish of tea with Mr. Foote, as going to his theatre came to be styled, was the rage of the season. Next year he called his performance " An Auction of Pictures." Here is one of his advertisements : " At the forty-ninth day's sale at his auction-room in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote will exhibit a choice collection of pictures some entirely new lots, consisting of a poet, a beau, a Frenchman, a miser, a tailor, a sot, two young gentlemen, and a ghost ; two of which are originals, the rest copies from the best masters." In this he mimicked the peculiarities of Justice Deveil, Cock, the auctioneer, and the notorious orator, Henley. To the attractions of his " Auction" he presently added a "Cat Concert," in ridicule of the Italian opera, and engaged a man so celebrated for his imitations of those tuneful animals that he was known as Cat Harris. And fashion, as usual, flocked to the Hay- market to hear and see its tastes turned into ridicule. In 1749 the little theatre nearly came to an untimely end through a hoax perpetrated for a wager by the Duke of Montagu. One morning the town was thrown into a wonderful state of excitement by the announcement that, 220 THE LONDON STAGE on a certain evening, the " Great Bottle Conjurer " would appear at the Hay market ; that, among other extra- ordinary feats, he would put himself into a quart bottle and sing a song therein ; that he would summon up the spirits of dead relations for anyone desirous of seeing them, and enable the living to converse with the dead. There was, and is, no limit to English gullibility, and the house was crammed, not with the ignorant, and vulgar, but with the fashionable world. After a long delay, during which the dupes grew very impatient, a person came forward and informed the audience that the bottle conjurer was unable to appear that evening, but if they would come again the next, he would undertake to squeeze himself into a pint bottle instead of a quart. The spectators, being deficient in a sense of humour, resented the joke ; the Duke of Cumberland, who was among the gulls, drew his sword, and leaping upon the stage, called upon everybody to follow him. The people, ripe for mischief, were too loyal to decline a prince's invitation. The seats were smashed, the scenery was torn down, the wreckage carried into the street, where a bonfire was made of it ; and but for the timely appearance of the authorities, the building itself would have been added to the fuel. During the winter months, Foote was engaged at one or the other of the winter theatres, where many of his best pieces were produced, and afterwards transferred in the summer months to the Haymarket. His satire was not keener or more impartial than Fielding's, but the great novelist's characters were performed by only ordinary actors, while Foote, who was one of the most extraordinary mimics that ever lived, embodied his own caricatures, and thereby increased their poignancy tenfold. The audacity of his personalities was astounding. In LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 221 The Orators (1762), he personated, under the name of Peter Paragraph, a noted printer, publisher, and aider-, man of Dublin, known as one-legged George Faulkener. The Irishman brought an action of libel against him : a trial ensued. Next season at the Haymarket, the incorrigible wit introduced a new scene into the piece, representing the trial, in which he caricatured judge, counsel, and jury. In The Mayor of Garrat, one of his wittiest pieces, under the name of Matthew Mug, he held up to public derision the silly old Duke of Newcastle, of whom he used to say that he always appeared as if he had lost an hour in the morning, and was looking for it all the rest of the day. One of his most notorious caricatures was Mr. Cad- wallader in The Author. The original of this character was an intimate friend of his, a Welsh gentleman named Ap-Rice, an enormously corpulent person, with a broad, staring face, an incoherent way of speaking, a loud voice, an awkward gait, a trick of rolling his head about from side to side, and of sucking his Wrists. Here was a splendid subject for our mimic, and he produced him to the life, to the huge delight of the audience, among which more than once was to be found Ap-Rice him- self, who, in happy ignorance that he was gazing upon his own reflection, laughed as loudly and applauded as vigorously as anybody. But it was impossible that he could long remain in this blissful ignorance, for so un- mistakable was the imitation to everybody but the victim, that he could not enter a coffee-room, or be seen in any public place, without people whispering, " There's Cadwallader ! " or someone calling after him, " This is my Becky, my dear Becky" one of the phrases in the play. When the Welshman at length realised the fact, he was furious, and obtained an injunction from the Lord Chamberlain to restrain the performance. 222 *THE LONDON STAGE In A Trip to Calais, under the name of Lady Kitty Crocodile, Foote threatened to hold up to public censure the bigamous Duchess of Kingston. The piece was never played ; but in another version, called The Capuchin, he gibbeted an infamous scoundrel, Jackson, a hedge parson, one of the duchess's creatures. In revenge this fellow bribed a discharged coachman of Foote's to bring a hideous accusation against his master. The charge broke down, but it broke Foote's heart ; he was never the same man again. Ten years before this, in 1766, Foote had obtained a patent for his theatre at the cost of a limb. While on a visit at Lord Mexborough's during the hunting season, the Duke of York, for a frolic, mounted him upon a blood horse. The animal threw him, and his leg, being fractured in two places, had to be amputated. Consider- ing that he ought to make the victim of his ill-timed jest some amends, the Duke interceded with the King, and obtained a patent, by which Foote was legally per- mitted to keep open the Haymarket between May i4th and September i4th. And thus, after a vagabond existence of forty-six years, " the little theatre " was at last raised to the dignity of a lawful dramatic temple. Thereupon the manager made some extensive altera- tions and improvements in the house, which had hitherto been little better than a barn. Immediately after the Jackson affair, in 1777, he sold his interest to George Colman, recently one of the patentees of Covent Garden, for an annuity of ,1,600 per annum. He lived only a few months afterwards. Before commencing his second season, Colman new- roofed the house, furbished up the decorations, converted the side-slips of the gallery into a third tier of boxes, and added an approach of a few feet wide, which was LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 223 dignified by the name of a lobby. " In Foote's time," says Colman the younger, " there was scarcely any space between the boxes and the pit ; so that the attention of the audience in this part of the theatre was frequently disturbed by post-horns and the out-of-door cries of ' extraordinary news from France.' But, after all, the passages to the side-boxes were so narrow that two stout gentlemen could scarcely pass one another ; and I often thought it would be better to furnish my side-box customers with a bell to tie round their necks at the pay- door, to give warning of their approach and prevent jostling." Scenery and decorations w r ere of the barest description, while the costumes, being always of the fashion of the day, were regulated by the means of the performers. Although Harry Woodward, Baddeley, the elder Bannister, and other actors of note occasionally appeared upon the Haymarket stage, the members of Foote's regular company, whatever might have been their merits, can scarcely be counted among the noted actors of the eighteenth century. Exceptions, however, must be made in favour of three comedians first, Ned Shuter, whom Garrick pronounced to be the greatest comic genius he had ever known. Shuter was the original old Hard- castle and Sir Anthony Absolute. Strange to say, he was a follower of that most bitter enemy of the players, George Whitefield ; he would sometimes attend five different meeting-houses on Sundays, and when very drunk could scarcely be restrained from preaching in the streets. This maudlin religion and his liberal donations so impressed the famous preacher, that on the occasion of one of Shuter's benefits he actually recommended the congregation to attend -just that once. The second, Weston, Foote took out of a booth at Bartholomew 224 THE LONDON STAGE Fair. It was for him he wrote the part of Jerry Sneak, in The Mayor of Garrat. To judge by contemporary criticism, Weston must have been a wonderful actor in such parts as Scrub in The Beaux Stratagem, and Abel Drugger, in which he was thought to excel even Garrick. But a long probation of miserable strolling had utterly demoralised him, and in 1776 he died the victim of habitual intemperance. Quick, George the Third's favourite actor, made his first appearance here as one of the pupils in Foote's Orators, in 1 767. His impersona- tions of Dogberry and Tony Lumpkin were among the finest the stage has seen. Foote's patent died with him, and it was under an annual licence, which in 1811 was extended from four to five months, that his successor opened the house. With the accession of the elder Colman to the mana- gerial throne began the golden era of " the little theatre," which for the next forty years and more continued in full meridian splendour. Three notable first appear- ances inaugurated Colman's first season : charming Miss Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby, a finished actress of the fine ladies of comedy, but little above mediocrity in serious parts. Edwin, Weston's successor, and his equal in humour though not in art, for he was terribly addicted to u gagging." Like Weston, his sottishness was a disease. A contemporary says : " I have seen him brought to the stage-door in the bottom of a chaise, senseless and motionless ; if the clothes could be put upon him, and he was pushed on to the lamps, he rubbed his stupid eyes for a minute ; consciousness and brilliant humour awakened together ; and his acting seemed only the richer for the bestial indulgence that had overwhelmed him." Henderson, whom we have met both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, was the most important of the three; his Shylock, Hamlet, and Falstaff LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 225 in the last some thought him superior to Quin drew to Colman's treasury between four and five thousand pounds within a month. It was Henderson who, by his fine recitation, first brought Cowper's " Johnny Gilpin " into popularity. He afterwards went to Drury Lane, but death in 1785 cut short his career, which promised great things. It now became the routine for the best performers of the two great winter theatres to appear at the Haymarket during the summer months, and actors and actresses who had successfully passed through a provincial probation here made their first trial for the highest honours of their profession. In 1789, failing health of body and mind obliged the elder Colman to relinquish the management to his son. All his best work had been done for the great houses, and his pen added nothing of permanent value to the repertory of the Haymarket. He died in 1794. The reign of George the younger commenced with a terrible calamity. On February 3rd, I794, 1 their Majesties com- manded a play at this theatre. An enormous crowd awaited the opening of the doors, and the rush was so terrible that fifteen persons were trampled to death, and many others greatly injured. The house was closed in consequence ; but people soon forget such catastrophes, and when the summer came the theatre was as crowded as ever. "George the younger almost monopolised the Haymarket stage, as far as new plays went, with his own productions. In the year 1800 the company in- cluded John Emery, Charles Kemble, Fawcett, Jack Bannister, Dicky Suett, 2 Farley, Barrymore, Irish John- 1 During the rebuilding of Drury Lane, which took place this year, the patentees allowed the theatre to be opened under their authority for the winter months. 2 Those who would know something about these actors, I refer to the Essays of Elia, wherein Charles Lamb has immortalised more than one of them. Q 226 THE LONDON STAGE stone, Mrs. Mountain, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Gibbs, etc. Elliston, whom we have met at Drury Lane, and "shall meet again at the Olympic and the Surrey, made his debut here in 1796 ; and Charles Mathews the elder, in 1802. Liston's first appearance was in 1805. In that year there occurred at the Haymarket one of the most curious riots in theatrical annals. In 1767, Foote produced a burlesque, the author of which was never discovered, entitled, The Tailors : a Tragedy for Warm Weather. Dowton announced the revival of this piece for his benefit. As the title implies, it was a satire upon the sartorial craft, and upon the bills being issued, an indignation meeting was convened among the knights of the needle, who vowed to oppose the per- formance by might and main. Menacing letters were sent to Dowton telling him that seventeen thousand tailors would attend to hiss the piece, and one, who signed himself DEATH, added that ten thousand more could be found if necessary. These threats were laughed at by the actors ; but when night came it was discovered that the craft were in earnest, and that, with few excep- tions, they had contrived to secure every seat in the house, while a mob without still squeezed for admission. The moment Dowton appeared upon the stage there rose a hideous uproar, and someone threw a pair of shears at him. Not a word would the rioters listen to, nor would they accept any compromise in the way of changing the piece. Within howled and hissed sans intermission hundreds of exasperated tailors ; outside howled and bellowed thousands of raging tailors, who attempted to storm the house. So formidable did the riot wax, that a magistrate had to be sent for and special constables called out ; but these were helpless against overwhelming odds, so a troop of Life Guards was ulti- LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 227 mately summoned, who, after making sixteen prisoners, put the rest to flight. In the season of 1807, Charles Young, a tragedian of the Kemble school, who came to be acknowledged as John Philip's legitimate successor in classic tragedy, made his debut as Hamlet, and created a marked impression. A curious exhibition was presented here in 1810, when a middle-aged West Indian, named Robert Coates, who had already rendered himself the sensation of the town by his extraordinary costume and equipage, ap- peared as Romeo, dressed in a sky-blue spangled cloak, red pantaloons, muslin vest, a full-bottomed wig, and an opera-hat. His acting was on a par with his make-up, and convulsed the house with laughter, while as a climax, his small-clothes, being over tight, gave way in the seams. Never was burlesque so comical as his dying scene ; he dragged Juliet out of the tomb as if she had been a bundle of old clothes ; before falling, he spread an enormous silk pocket-handkerchief upon the stage, put his opera-hat for a pillow, and then very gently laid him- self down. "Ah, you may laugh," he said, in answer to the shriek that hailed this new device, " but I do not intend to soil my nice new velvet dress upon these dirty boards." Shouts of " encore " followed his death, and he obeyed the demand with alacrity, swallowed the poison over again, and repeated all the symptoms of a violent mal de mer with more gusto than before. The performance was demanded a third time, when Juliet, entering into the absurdity of the situation, rose up, and advancing to the footlights, gave a quotation from the play, very aptly altered : " Dying is such sweet sorrow, That he will die again until to-morrow." 228 THE LONDON STAGE This, however, was not Mr. Coates's first exhibition ; as he had already appeared as Lothario in The Fair Penitent, the audience knew what was in store for them, and came armed with apples, oranges, turnips, and carrots, which were showered upon him at the fall of the curtain. He was a well-known character about town, conspicuous from the extraordinary vehicle in which he rode, a carriage modelled in shape and brilliancy of hue upon the fairy car of a pantomime, drawn by two white horses, each of which had a silver cock with outspread wings as large as life attached to its neck. The buckles of his shoes and the buttons of his coat were of diamonds. He was supposed to be immensely rich, but it was afterwards discovered he had only ,10,000, which he had devoted to these follies, and an income of 500 a year. Although the Haymarket was a thriving speculation, George Colman was always in the hands of the Jews. In an evil moment, in 1805, he took his brother-in-law, Morris, into partnership, and made over to him and another man, named Winston, one half of the property ; an attorney, one Tabourdin, purchased another eighth, which, contrary to the conditions of sale, he secretly made over to Morris, whose design was to get every- thing into his own hands. This led to endless disputes and litigation, which, in 1813, landed Colman in the King's Bench, closed the theatre for a whole season, and finally obliged him to resign all share in the manage- ment. It is a curious circumstance that the four responsible managers which the Haymarket had known up to this period were all eminent dramatic authors. Here, as we have seen, were produced many of Fielding's burlesques, and nearly all Foote's excellent farces, to which posterity LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 229 has never assigned their rightful place among the humor- ous and witty productions of the eighteenth century. Foote was the English Aristophanes, and like the great Athenian, was nothing if not personal ; consequently most of his fun and satire are now incomprehensible without a commentary, and even then can never have the point for us that they had for the contemporaries of the victims. But for the student of manners they are brimful of interest and information. As I have before said, Colman the elder's contributions to the Haymarket repertoire were very insignificant, being merely farces, such as Polly Honey combe > The Manager in Distress, and one or two alterations of old plays. George the younger gave most of his best work to this house, together with a number of dramas now fallen into oblivion. Here were first performed The Heir at Law, and The Moun- taineers. When Colman was appointed examiner of plays, he made himself the bugbear of actors and mana- gers. All " damns," and even the words " Providence," " Heaven," "hell," " Oh hid!" " paradise," were blotted out of the MSS. submitted to him. And his avarice was equal to his purism ; he would not permit a song, or even an address, to be interpolated without exacting his fee. He exercised this tyrannic jurisdiction until his death in 1836. Morris, now sole lessee, in 1820 demolished the old building, to erect, at a cost of ,20,000, on a site a little to the north of it, the theatre with which we are all familiar. It opened on July 4th, 1821, with The Rivals; Terry, Oxberry, Jones, and Miss de Camp in the princi- pal parts. In 1822 the company included Vining, Charles Kemble, Jones, Elliston, Oxberry, Mrs. West, Mrs. Glover, Miss Kelly, and Madame Vestris. Two years later it was joined by William Farren. 1825 was 2 3 o THE LONDON STAGE the Paul Pry year; this comedy ran 114 nights to over- flowing houses. But what a cast it was ! Farren, Mrs. Waylett, Mrs. Glover, Madame Vestris, and Liston, whose only successor in the part was Wright. Up to this time no comic actor had ever held so high a position upon the London stage or received so large a salary as John Liston ; ^50, and even ^60, a night were paid him in town and country ; his genius was farcical, extravagant, but irresistibly comical. Yet he was grave, and even stately in appearance, though abnormally ugly, and to his dying day believed that his forte was tragedy. The remaining years of Morris's management may be passed over in a few sentences. Season after season the same plays were performed, with now and again a novelty in the shape of comedy, farce, or a musical trifle, usually written for the particular talent of one actor or actress ; but audiences seemed to be content year after year to see William Farren in Sir Peter Teazle or Lord Ogleby, and other parts in old comedy, sparingly diversi- fied by an occasional new character. Madame Vestris, Mrs. Waylett, Mrs. Honey, could always draw delighted audiences by their charming singing and acting, while Liston and John Reeve kept them in a roar of laughter. In the stock company were the elder Vining and James Vining, Buckstone, and Mrs. Glover. This lady made a sensation here in 1833 by appearing as Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor. The elder Kean starred here during several seasons, and Charles Kemble played a round of his famous parts in 1835. In 1836, Sergeant Talfourd's Ion was produced with Ellen Tree in the title- role and Vandenhoff as Adrastus, fine performances both. Turning over the playbills of this period, we are struck by an air of repose in things theatrical such as we experience in wandering through some quiet and little- LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 231 frequented picture-gallery. Generation after generation the walls are covered by the same masterpieces growing mellower and mellower with time ; occasionally a new canvas is added to their number that attracts the visitor for a while, but only to send him back more lovingly to his old favourites, the beauties of which grow upon him with each visit. Benjamin Webster, who had been a member of the company since 1829,* became lessee of the Haymarket in 1837, and under his direction the house more than maintained its old prestige, both from a dramatic and a histrionic point of view. Phelps made his London debut in the August of that year as Shylock. He was then under an engagement to Macready for Covent Garden at 12 a week. So successful was he that Macready con- fessed that when he read the criticism in the Morning Herald he was depressed by it. This jealousy bore fruit at Covent Garden, for after Phelps had performed Othello, Macduff, and Jaffier with marked approbation from the audience, he was dropped out of the bill. Macready, 2 Helen Faucit, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean played long and frequent engagements during the next few years, Creswick had a three years' engagement in 1847 at the Haymarket, while comedy was represented by Farren, Charles Mathews, Strickland, Buckstone, Tyrone Power, Mrs. Glover, Madame Vestris, Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. Stirling. Here Madame Celeste, of whom I shall write more fully when I come to the Adelphi, 1 His first appearance was in London at the Cobourg in 1818. He was afterwards a member of the West London Company. In 1824 he was at Drury Lane ; it was Undertaking the part of Pompey in Measure for Measure, at a very few hours' notice, in consequence of Harley's illness, that first brought him into notice. 2 Macready played his last engagement here in 1851, previous to his fare- well performance at Drury Lane. 232 THE LONDON STAGE made her first great mark as an actress in such dramas as The Wept of the Wishton Wish, Marie Ducange, and others of the romantic school. Among the dramatic productions of this period were Lord Lytton's Money, Douglas Jerrold's charming Time Works Wonders, several of Westland Marston's finest plays, Heart of the World, 1847, Strathmore; Sheridan Knowles's Love Chase, and Charles Reade's and Tom Taylor's Masks and Faces; Mrs. Stirling's Peg Woffing- ton and Anne Carew in A Sheep in Wolf s Clothing, brought out at the Lyceum in 1857, were perhaps her finest impersonations. In February, 1852, Barry Sullivan made his first appearance in London at the Haymarket as Hamlet, with some measure of success ; he afterwards acted in other plays. He returned to the little theatre three years later, and played a round of leading parts with Helen Faucit. He was afterwards seen at Drury Lane. Sullivan was a competent actor of the old bow-wow school ; but though an enormous favourite in Ireland and the provinces, he never took any firm hold of the metropolitan public. Webster made many improvements in the Haymarket: he widened the proscenium eleven feet, and introduced gas, this being the last theatre in London in which candles were used. When Webster went over to the Adelphi in 1853, the Haymarket passed into the hands of John Baldwin Buckstone, who, as the author (in all) of about 150 plays, and as a low comedian of the first rank, was already a great stage favourite. Twenty-five years had elapsed since he made his first bow at the Adelphi as Bobby Trot, in his own drama of Luke the Labourer; previous to which he had been a favourite at the Surrey, LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 233 and during the latter years of Morris's management had been connected, both as author and actor, with the theatre of which he now became the manager. A charming actress and a beautiful singer, Miss Featherstone, afterwards Mrs. Howard Paul, came over here from the Strand in October, 1854, to play Captain Macheath in The Beggar s Opera. A lovely woman, with a fine figure and the dash and fire of &jeune premier, she looked and acted the part splendidly, and her singing of the music was little inferior to Sims Reeves', of whom she used to give a wonderful imitation. For many years Miss Featherstone was a great favourite on the London stage in this character, as Apollo in Midas, and other parts. In 1869 she performed a tour de force at Drury Lane, doubling Hecate with Lady Macbeth. J. L. Toole made an appearance here in the same year as Simmons in The Spitalfields Weaver, one of Wright's best parts, but I think he played only a few nights. Covent Garden having been converted into an opera house, and Drury Lane being little better than a huge show, Buckstone was enabled to gather about him all the available comedy talent of the day, and although it was not equal to that at the command of his predeces- sors, we look back upon the performances of the old comedies under his management with a belief that, for ensemble, we shall not see the like again. The Shake- spearian clown of the stage died with Compton, who joined the new lessee in his first season, and for eighteen years remained true to his chief. He founded his style upon that of Harley, who had received the traditions of King and Woodward. Such a Touchstone, such a clown in the Twelfth Night, it is hopeless to look for now ; they had the true Shakespearian flavour dry, quaint, 234 THE LONDON STAGE antique. And his creations in modern comedy and farce were equally admirable. Quite as excellent in his way was Buckstone: his Tony Lumpkin, his Bob Acres, his Backbite, his Sir Andrew Aguecheek, still remain unrivalled. Clever actors have played them since, and have made us laugh heartily ; but their humour is quite a different thing to the author's humour, it is the humour of the nineteenth century masquerading in the costume of the eighteenth. Indeed, it is that distinction which renders all representations of old comedy at the present day so unsatisfactory ; the modern actor is so much the child of his age that he cannot even simulate the form of any other. A famous actor, William Farren, who had been before the public for many years, and whom we shall meet again at the Olympic and the Strand, took his leave of the stage in 1855, surrounded by his old associates. He survived until 1861. One of the earlier successes of Buckstone's manage- ment was Perea Nena. 1 Amy Sedgwick, in the summer of 1 8^7, made a great success as Hesther Grazebrook in Tom Taylor's Unequal Match. In the style of entertainment the new lessee followed closely in the steps of his predecessors ; revivals of old comedies were relieved by the production of new ones, of melo- drama, domestic drama, a sprinkling of tragedy, while not infrequently the bill of fare would consist of four light pieces a comedietta, perhaps by Dance, and three farces. Buckstone's first season extended over five years, and during that period the house was not closed one night when the law permitted it to be open. That the profits were as remarkable as the length is very doubtful. 1 See p. 205 LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 235 The Haymarket was at this time a very late house, being usually open until one o'clock in the morning. In the opera season those were the days of half price 1 numbers, after leaving Her Majesty's, would go over to the little theatre opposite to see some favourite actor in a popular character. Wright was paid ^50 a week for some time to appear in a farce about midnight; the receipts after that hour averaging 100 a week. But the conditions of social life are entirely changed ; most people lived in London proper in those days, or at least within a mile or two of the centre, and were not afraid of a little walk; there was no rush for the train or omnibus; men and their wives walked leisurely home, or adjourned to some quiet place for a little supper. They went to the theatre to enjoy the play and the little treat afterwards; and not because it was "the thing" to see some mediocre, production that had been running five hundred or eight hundred nights. Very few people go to the theatre nowadays for mere pleasure ; you have only to watch the bored expression on the faces of returning playgoers in the trains to be assured that they have de- rived little enjoyment from their visit. And it is the same with all other exhibitions ; the number of people who do bitter penance yearly by gazing upon the walls of the Royal Academy would fill a martyrology. But whatever is "the go" for the hour everybody, from the duchess to the greengrocer's lady, must follow ; individ- uality is dying out ; everyone you meet dresses in the same manner, talks in the same manner, does the same things, goes to the same places and that is why certain playhouses fill. Edwin Booth made his first appearance in England at the Haymarket as Sir Giles Overreach in 1861, and 1 Half price was not established at the Haymarket until about 1835. 236 THE LONDON STAGE afterwards appeared as Shylock and Richelieu, but with- out making any monetary success ; though at that time, or near about it, Gustavus Brooke was drawing crowded houses at Drury Lane. The fortunes of the theatre were at the very lowest ebb, and a crash was imminent when, as a mere pis alter, Edward Sothern from Laura Keene's was engaged to appear November nth, 1861, as Lord Dundreary in Tom Taylor's American Cousin. Sothern's American success in the part was one of those instances in which greatness is thrust upon a man against his will. As the piece was originally written, Asa Trenchard, created by Jefferson, was the principal character ; and Sothern, at that time the light comedian at Laura Keene's, was so disgusted with the part of the silly lord, that he was induced to play it only on con- dition that he would be allowed to gag and do as he pleased in it. So he resolved to turn it into ridicule, and make it perfectly unendurable to the audience. He gagged, he hopped, he lisped, fully expecting to evoke a storm of disapprobation. To his astonishment, the audience laughed and applauded, and professional in- stinct told him that he had made a hit instead of a fiasco. Night after night he added some new gag, some new absurdity, until the once despised part overshadowed every other and was the thing of the comedy. Edwin Booth ended his engagement on the Saturday night, and on Monday Our American Cousin was pro- duced without any previous announcement. On the first night it was such a deadly fiasco that Buckstone put up a notice in the green-room : " Next Thursday, She Stoops to Conquer." Charles Mathews, who was in front, went behind and said, " Buckstone, you push this piece." " But it is an offence to all the swells." LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 237 " Don't you believe it," cried Mathews ; " you push it, and it will please them more than anybody else." Buck- stone was induced to give it further trial. The critics had not been slow in recognising the originality of the conception. John Oxenford, in the Times, took the exact measure of the actor and the part when he said that, although generations of fops had been seen upon the London stage, no fop exactly like Lord Dundreary had ever before appeared. " To test him by anything in the actual world would be to ignore his special merit, which consists in giving a conventional notion the most novel and fantastical expression that can be imagined." Although those who came to the theatre heartily enjoyed this new dramatic sensation, it was not, how- ever, until the Cattle Show week brought the country people to the house that the performance took any real grip upon the public. The piece was withdrawn before Christmas, and Sothern was engaged to appear after the run of the pantomime, for at that time, and much more recently, every London theatre produced its Christ- mas annual. " But don't come back with that infernal Lord Dundreary," were Buckstone's parting words. The pantomime was evidently a failure, for it had to be backed up by five-act plays and a lady star long, since extinguished. Sothern returned on January 27th, and as Lord Dundreary had been much talked about in the interim, he reopened in that character to a crowded house. From that night the craze, that most of us have heard about, set in, and the first of " the long runs " was inaugurated by one of the worst plays ever perpetrated by a competent playwright, and one of the most outrt performances that ever caught the public taste. It ran four hundred nights, and Buckstone realised ,30,000 clear profit by it. 238 THE LONDON STAGE Sothern's next original part was David Garrick in Robertson's comedy of that name, which, in the hands of Sir Charles Wyndham, is still a trump card. It was brought out in the April of 1864. The author of Caste was then an unknown playwright, a hack translator of French dramas for Lacey, the theatrical bookseller, and he received only ^40 for his work, at least that was the sum stipulated, though Sothern behaved very hand- somely when success was assured. With provincial starring engagements between each new play, Sothern appeared in Brother Sam at the end of 1864, and in Westland Marston's Favourite of Fortune and Robert- son's Home, a version of L ' Aventuriere, 1865. These plays, with The Hero of Romance (1868), were, after Dundreary, the most successful of his impersonations. The first appearance in England of Madame Beatrice in a version of that fine play, Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, October, 1864, should not be passed unnoticed. Miss Madge Robertson made her first appearance in London here, in 1865, as Ophelia to Walter Montgomery's Hamlet. In the meantime, however, Buckstone had become a mere cipher in the management, arrd, as is so frequently the case, the ally he had called in to his succour now pushed him from his throne. No man with less pretensions to histrionic excellence than Sothern ever made a great success. As a comedian he was decidedly inferior to Charles Mathews, while in serious parts he was mediocrity personified ; in fact, he was Lord Dundreary in everything he attempted, even in Claude Melnotte. He was the fashion, how- ever ; he was received in the best society, hunted with dukes, was the guest of millionaires, and, aoove all, was ever overflowing with high animal spirits and a bonhomie that rendered him as great a social as he was a histrionic success. LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 239 Sothern's popularity, however, was greatly on the wane at the close of the " sixties," and in 1870 the pro- duction of Gilbert's The Palace of Truth^ which was followed by Pygmalion and Galatea, in which Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendal) first made her reputation, once more raised the sinking fortunes of the Haymarket. But charmingly original as were these fairy comedies, the vein was but a shallow one, it was soon exhausted, and the third of the series, The Wicked World^ 1873, failed to draw. Buckstone's next ally was J. S. Clarke, whose won- derfully grotesque performance, Major Wellington de Boots, had already rendered him a great favourite with London audiences. Poor Buckstone was one of the old type of managers, extravagant and unbusinesslike, and for years lived upon the sufferance of Jews, and of Christians scarcely as merciful. Once more the ally became the master, and the name of John Baldwin Buckstone in 1878 disappeared from the Haymarket playbills to give place to that of John S. Clarke. A farewell benefit was arranged for the veteran actor in August, 1879. Money was to be the play, and he was to appear as the Old Member in the Club scene ; but before the date fixed Buckstone was stricken with paralysis, and the idea had to be abandoned. Later on another benefit was arranged, and Barry Sullivan appeared as Benedick. In that same year Adelaide Neilson appeared here as Juliet and Rosalind with the most brilliant success. Unhappily it proved to be her last engagement in London. By-and-by came the news of her untimely death in Paris. There is nothing else in Clarke's management that calls for notice here. In 1880 the Haymarket, reconstructed and rendered 240 THE LONDON STAGE the most luxuriously splendid theatre of the time, came under the Bancroft management. The disturbances on the opening night, February ist, during the perform- ance of Money, augured ill for the new regime. A keen judgment that seldom erred, or when it did, hastened to retire from its false position, a sympathy that usually anticipated public taste and feeling, and had been one of the secrets of the Bancrofts' success at the Prince of Wales's, here seemed to wholly desert them. The abolition of the pit was a false move, and for ever wrecked the popularity of the management. Nor were the performances to be compared with those which had been given in Tottenham Street. The best of the old company, the Kendals, Hare, John Clayton, had become managers on their own account ; again, the actors, accustomed to a very small stage, seemed lost in the larger area of their new home, and oscillated between extravagance on one side and inaudibility on the other. The reception of the new lessee was about the stormiest that had been heard in a theatre for many years. Mr. Bancroft stated his case fairly enough, but he did not satisfy his old supporters, who ever after had a grudge against him. The pit has always been one of the most time-honoured of English theatrical institutions, and it was particularly so at the Haymarket. In no theatre in London, except the Lyceum, would the innovation have raised so formidable an opposition. As an instance, Mrs. John Wood abolished the pit at the St. James's without exciting a murmur ; and the Opera Comique had not one worthy of the name ; but the Haymarket was always what is styled a " pit-house," that part of the theatre being invariably well attended, and by a good class of persons ; it was these who resented being excluded from their favourable resort. LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 241 When the Robertson comedies were transferred to the Haymarket, they were like Dutch pictures expanded to a large canvas, and the real flimsiness of the material was fatally apparent ; though it must be added, in defence of the works themselves, that the cast was inferior, that Mrs. Bancroft, especially as Mary Netley, in Ours, had fallen into exaggerations to make the scenes "go," and that, above all, the school had seen its day, and that a more robust style of play as well as of acting was coming into vogue. Most of the old Prince of Wales's successes, Money, Ours, Caste, School, Masks and Faces, Diplomacy, School for Scandal, and one of Buckstone's famous pieces, The Overland Route, were repeated here. Of the new plays produced, Fedora, perhaps, in which Mrs. Bernard Beere gave a performance second only to Sarah Bernhardt's, was the most successful. An attempt, May, 1884, to present in the home of traditional old comedy a rendering of The Rivals, archaeologically correct as a picture, but entirely modern in arrangement and in histrionic treatment, deservedly failed. Pinero's Lord and Commons, 1883, was produced here, but it was not one of his successful works. On the 20th of July, 1885, Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft retired from the management of the Haymarket, and from the stage as well. It was the most important theatrical farewell that had taken place, perhaps, since Macready's, for actors, as a rule, nowadays linger super- fluous upon the scenes of their old triumphs, most fre- quently until their powers are exhausted, and a younger generation is cynical about their traditions, so that their death or disappearance excites little attention. But Mrs. Bancroft retired in her full maturity, though it cannot be denied that during the last few years she had R 24 2 THE LONDON STAGE developed a tendency to over-accentuation, the growth of which has marred so many fine actors and actresses of the past. On that parting night all differences between manager and audience were forgotten ; from two o'clock in the afternoon crowds gathered about the doors, anxious to do honour to those who had so admirably catered for their amusement and intellectual gratification during twenty years, and to catch a last glimpse of the charm- ing actress, who, at different theatres, had been the delight of London audiences for nearly thirty. The bill was made up of selections from Money, Masks and Faces, London Assurance, supported by the b&Uficiaire^ Charles Wyndham, Coghlan, Arthur Cecil, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendal, John Clayton, Mrs. Stirling, and a host of others. Henry Irving delivered an address, and Toole made one of his droll speeches, in which he referred to his first meeting with Marie Wilton on the stage of the Lyceum at the first rehearsal of Belphegor, when she was a trembling debutante unknown to London. Both Mr. he was not Sir Squire in those days and Mrs. Bancroft played engagements in after years, the former at the Lyceum, in the The Dead Heart, and both in the revival of Diplomacy at the Garrick, where the lady also reappeared as Lady Franklin in a revival of Money and on one or two other occasions. The Haymarket was reopened in September by Messrs. Russell and Bashford the latter had been the Bancrofts' acting manager with a version of Hugh Conway's Dark Days, but it was not successful. Nor was the sporting drama, Hard Hit^ in which Willard and Marion Terry acted very finely ; nor Mrs. Brown- Potter and Kyrle Bellew in a revival of the old Prince of Wales's play, Man and Wife. LITTLE THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET 243 Another fiasco was Nadjesda, a powerful but uneven play, the first act dealing with a risky situation, in which Emily Rigl, an Austrian actress of great ability, was treated with a sample of British ruffianism from pit and gallery that aroused a storm of indignation from all decent people. It was as Prince Zabouroff, in this drama, that Beerbohm Tree first threw off certain crudities of manner which marred his earlier per- formances, and gave us one of those studies of re- strained and consummate art with which he has been identified ever since. A great success was made with Sir Charles Young's powerful drama, Jim the Penman, which was performed in the seasons of 1886-7. But the Russell- B.shford regime was a brief one, and in the autumn of 1887 the historic playhouse passed into the hands of Mr. Beerbohm Tree. Among the most notable of his productions were Haddon Chambers's Captain Swift, a striking play that afforded the manager one of his finest impersonations ; A Mans Shadow (1889), in which Miss Julia Neilson made her first hit as Julie, and the veteran, James Fernandez, thrilled and astonished the house by his great acting as De Noirville, the advocate; A Village Priest (1889), in which Rose Leclercq, as the mother, greatly distinguished herself. In The Dancing Girl (1891), Julia Neilson attained the high-water mark of her reputation, and it was a prodigious success. The same cannot be said of The Tempter, a picturesque, poetical, mediaeval play, ex- quisitely produced, by the same author. But Trilby created a furore; Hypatia (1893) was staged with a classic beauty beyond all praise. Oscar Wilde's two best comedies, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, the latter under Lewis Waller's tenancy, were brought out in 1893-4. There were revivals of 244 THE LONDON STAGE The Merry Wives of Windsor, of Henry IV. (1896), for Tree to play Falstaff, and Hamlet, in which Mrs. Beerbohm Tree gave the finest realistic rendering of Ophelia's mad scene that I can remember. There were other plays, John a Dreams, A Bunch of Violets, etc., each and all produced with an artistic care, a perfection of detail, and a poetic insight that have only been exceeded by his later work. Mr. Tree having passed over to his new theatre, Messrs. Harrison and Cyril Maude took up the lease of the Haymarket in October, 1896, and started their campaign with a success, a version of Stanley Weyman's Under the Red Robe ; The Little Minister was another great draw ; revivals of She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals, the inevitable School for Scandal, Caste, The Black Tulip, a new version of The Ladies Battle, all of which owed so much of their success to the delightful acting of Winifred Emery and the artistic performances of her husband. Longest run of all was The Second in Command. One of the latest revivals was The Clandestine Marriage, in which Cyril Maude played with his usual artistic care the old beau, Lord Ogleby. Cousin Kate, by a new writer, is keeping up the extra- ordinary run of luck that has followed nearly all the productions of the present management. Mrs. Cyril Maude's unfortunate absence, however, has left a void that there is little prospect of being satisfactorily filled up. PART III THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST CHAPTER I > The Olympic, 1805-99 Its History With some account of the rise of the minor Theatres and the Repeal of the Licensing Act of 1737. THE rise of the London minor stage and the fall of the great patent houses give us one of the most curious chapters in theatrical history. In a country like France, where the histrionic art is a part of the national life, such a collapse as that of Drury Lane and Covent Garden would have been impossible ; but in England, where art of all kinds is an outside matter, only to be thought about when business is done, in a nation in which the great mass of all classes, when they take amusement, require only something to laugh at, or something "to stretch the gaping eyes of idiot wonder," perhaps the most remarkable part of the case is that the patent houses should have held their ground so long ; and, indeed, as I have endeavoured to show in the preceding pages, it was only through pandering to the aforesaid vulgar tastes with raree-show and buffoonery that, after Garrick's time, these managers averted the ever-threatening ruin. During the sixty or seventy years that succeeded the passing of Sir Robert Walpole's Licensing Act the metropolis grew apace, and though two theatres might have sufficed for 1737, it by no means followed that they were adequate to the requirements of the earlier decades of the next century. Why should East London, 247 248 THE LONDON STAGE South London, North London, which were every day extending farther and farther away from Central London, not enjoy theatrical amusements if the people desired them ? Such a plea it was impossible to deny ; and one after another new theatres were allowed to open during the summer months, under the permission of the Lord Chamberlain. * But, in order to evade the Licensing Act, the Italian word " Burletta" was introduced to designate the new style of theatrical entertainment. It proved a very elastic term, comprehending opera, serious and comic, farce, pantomime, melodrama, burlesque, in fine, any- thing except tragedy and comedy; the one hard and fast rule being that a certain number of songs should be introduced, and the notes of a piano occasionally struck throughout the performance. Since the days of Garrick a new theatrical audience had been gradually developing. Until the close of the eighteenth century, or perhaps more correctly speaking the opening years of the nine- teenth, the lower orders of our great city cared little for indoor amusements. Pugilism, cock and dog fighting, bear and bull baiting, and such-like sports and pastimes, were alone to their tastes ; and even the galleries of Drury Lane and Covent Garden were mostly filled, only excepting the servants of the nobility, by the people who now patronise the dress-circle ; the pit was the' resort of barristers, doctors, and critics, and only nobility, or the richest gentry, frequented the boxes. Thus, with the exception, perhaps, of panto- mime time, the audience in its entirety was an educated one. When Sheridan brought horses and elephants to Drury Lane, and the Covent Garden management had to follow suit, a lower order of spectators was attracted ; and as the working classes grew less brutal in their THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 249 habits, they occasionally varied the delights of the cock- pit and the bull-baiting field with the tamer recreation of the playhouse. But poetry and wit had no charms for these new patrons of the drama ; they required something more highly spiced, something that would produce in a milder form the excitement of seeing a dog gored to death by a bull, or a couple of bantams spurring each other to shreds. What kindred feeling had they with the woes of Romeo and Juliet, or with the fine ladies and gentle- men of the School for Scandal? Such people were not of their world ; they wanted mimic murders and deeds of violence with all the coarse realism of the Newgate Calendar to satisfy their old appetite for blood, and if there were woes and love-making and jesting, it must be of the kind with which they were familiar. And it was not long before caterers sprang up ready and eager to supply such viands. Yet it was not the lower orders alone who were bringing about these changes in theatrical amusements ; the tastes of the great bulk of the playgoing public were tending in the same direction. Both in literature and the drama the classic was everywhere receding before the romantic. Fielding and Miss Burney were forsaken for Mrs. RadclifTe and " Monk " Lewis ; we were invaded by the German school of horrors ; everything seemed flat and insipid that was not flavoured with them, and the great theatres found that such pieces as A Tale of Mystery, Raymond and Agnes, The Castle Spectre, The Miller and his Men, were more attractive than Shakespeare or Sheridan. Here was the door by which the Licensing Act could be evaded; and to supply this new demand, and to cater for these new audiences, small theatres began to be 250 THE LONDON STAGE built, first in Central London and afterwards in more remote districts where, as there were neither trains nor omnibuses, nor any other cheap modes of conveyance in those days, they secured a veritable monopoly. It was no wonder the managers of the patent houses, with their enormous rentals and expenses, fought desperately against this innovation, which was decimating their pits and galleries, while fashion had almost deserted the dramatic for the lyric stage. Within twenty or thirty years from their first starting the summer houses were firmly established. Although their liabilities were smaller, the minor managers had as hard a fight for existence and complained as bitterly of the lack of public support as did their aristocratic brethren at Drury Lane and Covent Garden ; but they were under the impres- sion that if they could only, succeed in abolishing the privileges of those houses, all would be well with them ; while the patent holders, on their side, believed that could they fully exact the monopoly given them by law, golden days would return. Thus, while "the minors" were petitioning the Lord Chamberlain to relieve them of all restrictions, the patentees were constantly urging him to abolish these obnoxious rivals altogether. As I have previously stated, the minor theatres were privileged to be open only during the summer months, when Drury Lane and Covent Garden were closed, but gradually the seasons of the latter were extended be- yond their usual time, which brought forth remonstrances from the other side, who, to retaliate, continued to per- form after the great houses had commenced their winter campaign. As the patent theatres, however, fell from their high estate and passed into the hands of mere adventurers, who devoted them to opera, wild-beast shows, circuses, and melodrama, rather than to those THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 251 plays by which they held their privileges, the incongruity of the monopoly became more and more apparent. Most actors were in favour of unrestricted competition, not from any artistic consideration, but because it would give them a wider field for their vanity and profit ; even William Macready petitioned Parliament to that effect. As time went on, the Press, the public, and the House of Commons began to take sides in the discussion, and mostly favoured free trade in things theatrical. Senti- mentalists urged that the Licensing Act was inimical to the intellectual advancement of the people, and drew charming pictures of Southwark, Whitechapel, and Shoreditch crowding in their thousands to listen to the words of " the immortal bard " and to laugh over the wit of Sheridan ; blood and murder, vulgar farce, and inane pantomimes, they prophesied, would no longer be tolerated, and the golden age of the drama would be indeed inaugurated. During several years influential men, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton among the rest, had been urging upon the House the necessity of a change in the law ; but it was a long time before our legislators could be induced to appoint a Committee to investigate the question ; actors and other experts were examined, and at length, in 1843, Sir James Graham introduced and carried a Bill, by which the patent privileges were abolished, and all London theatres placed under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain. No sooner did this Act become law than the managers of the minor theatres made a rush upon Shakespeare. But a very brief experiment convinced them that they had been reckoning without their audiences, and that although Whitechapel or Shoreditch might occasionally like to see a " well- mouthed actor " in Richard, Macbeth, or Hamlet, it 252 THE LONDON STAGE preferred for its staple fare The Murder of Maria Martin and The Bandit of the Blind Mine. In only one outlying theatre, Sadler's Wells, did the new Act in any way fulfil the expectations of its admirers, and there, indeed, it scored an absolute triumph. From an artistic point of view the change, though in- evitable and unavoidable, was not an unmixed blessing ; it scattered the talent that should have been concen- trated, it lowered the standard of excellence, and it fostered the vanity and petty ambition of men who, with just ability enough to represent Banquo or Laertes, aspired to Macbeth and Hamlet. Histrionic talent has never been so abounding in any age or country that competent artists for the representation of high tragedy and comedy could be found more than sufficient for two or three theatres. The first of the West End minor theatres that won a prominent position was the Wych Street house. In the reign of Elizabeth, Drury Lane was known as the Via de Aldwych. Drury House, built towards the end of the sixteenth century, gave a new title to the thorough- fare, running northward, while the southern end came to be known as Wych Street. Close to Drury rose Craven House, erected by the Earl of Craven for the reception of his bride, James the First's daughter, the titular Queen of Bohemia. It was a fine mansion, shut in by iron gates, and with extensive grounds in the rear. Long after its fellows had disappeared, and " the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane" had become a byword, Craven House still stood, shorn of its gardens, and converted into a public-house that bore the name of " The Queen of Bohemia," in memory of its former mistress. To save the building from falling it was pulled down in 1805, an( ^> upon the ground being THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 253 cleared, a portion of the site was taken on lease by Philip Astley, the founder of the Amphitheatre, 1 so long known by his name, for the purpose of raising a circus thereon. The Olympic Pavilion was built chiefly out of the materials of an old French warship, the Ville de Paris- Wheel de Parry Astley called it which was sold, with some other naval prizes, about this time. No sooner was the lease signed than Astley proceeded to collect workmen out of the neighbouring public-houses and set them to work. Seated in a little one-horse chaise, that he used to drive about in, but which was scarcely capacious enough to contain his very rotund figure, from morning until night, in all weathers, he directed the operations, and saw that there was no idling or shirking. There was very little brickwork in the build- ing ; the yards and bowsprits of the ship formed the uprights and supports, the deck was used for the stage and flooring, the sides for the outward walls, while the roof was of tin. The Pavilion was in the form of a tent. There was one tier of boxes, a pit, which surrounded the circle, and, at the back of the pit, a gallery. There was no orchestra, the musicians being placed in two stage-boxes facing one another. The entire cost was only ^800. Obtaining a licence, through the influence of Queen Charlotte, for music, dancing, burlettas, pantomime, and equestrian exhibitions, Astley opened the place in 1806. But it was a complete failure from the beginning. No attraction could draw the public to " Astley 's Middle- sex Amphitheatre," not even pugilistic exhibitions by such renowned heroes of the prize-ring as " Dutch Sam," and others of equal celebrity ; so, after losing 1 See " Astley's Amphitheatre." 254 THE LONDON STAGE about ten thousand pounds, Astley tried to let it, and, in 1813, sent circulars round to the various theatrical managers describing its peculiar advantages. " We'll throw the bone, Johnny," he said to his son, " and let the dogs fight for it ; someone will snap at it." The dog that did snap at it was that eccentric genius Elliston, whom we have already met at Drury Lane. "The very thing for me," he exclaimed, "so near to Drury Lane ; it will be quite a family circle." He entered into negotiations with Astley, and arranged to give him ,2,800 for the building, and an annuity of 20 during the remainder of his life. Not long was he burdened with the latter payment, as Astley died in the following year. Elliston's opening night was April iQth, 1813, the name of the house being changed from the "Olympic Pavilion" to "Little Drury Lane." The rivalry of an actor so popular as Robert William Elliston was not to be ignored by the patent houses, the managers of which presented a memorial to the Lord Chamberlain, setting forth that the licence granted to the late Philip Astley extended only for the time during which the Amphitheatre in Westminster Road was closed, and was restricted to equestrian exhibitions. The result of this representation was the closing of the theatre in the following month. But Elliston was not a man to be easily beaten ; he had good friends at Court, through whose influence he obtained a new licence, under which he reopened the house in the December of the same year ; but, as a sacrifice to the suscepti- bilities of the great managers, he reverted to the old name the Olympic Pavilion. This minor stage only just missed the honour of in- troducing Edmund Kean to London ; during the in- terregnum Elliston had been in correspondence with ROBERT WILLIAM ELLISTON THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 255 him. The following letter from the famous actor, who was at the time only a poor unknown stroller, steeped to the lips in poverty, is so full of suggestion that it needs no comment : " Barnstaple, Oct. 2nd, 1813. "SIR, I have this moment received your proposal for the Wych Street Theatre, id est, Little Drury Lane, and much deplore your letter not finding me. Neglect does not rank in the catalogue of 'my follies. The terms Miss Tidswell, by your authority, mentioned to me is the superintending of the stage, the whole of the principal line of business under all denomina- tions of acting, and an equal division of the house on the night of my benefit, with three guineas a week salary. The pecuniary terms, I own, do not justify the renown of your establishment ; but I place so firm a reliance on your reputed liberality that, on the proof of my humble abilities and assiduity towards the promotion of your interests, you will not be unmindful of mine. I accept, Sir, your present proposal, simply requesting you will name what time you expect me in London, etc. " Your obedient servt, "EDMUND KEAN." Until he had obtained the licence it was impossible for Elliston to fix the date of opening, and in the meantime Kean had received an offer for Drury Lane, which he at once accepted. Thereupon Elliston asserted his prior claim, and no entreaties from the poor stroller could turn him from prosecuting it. His conduct, to say the least, was harsh and uncharitable, as the name of Edmund Kean on the playbill at that time was not worth a shilling. The dispute, which very nearly lost Kean his chance at Drury Lane, was ultimately arranged by his finding a substitute, an actor named Bernard ; but as Elliston had to pay this man a week, Kean under- took to give the 2 extra out of his own pocket. When Robert William heard of the little man's success he, no doubt, greatly repented of his lenity. 256 THE LONDON STAGE Pantomimes, ballets, farces, melodramas all bearing the, orthodox title of "burlettas" were, as in other minor theatres, the stock bill of fare, and to these were added such other attractions as tight-rope dancers, performing- dogs, and one Baker, a professional pedestrian, who had walked a thousand miles in twenty days, appeared here to sing songs and dance hornpipes in "the identical shoes" in which he had performed his famous walk. In 1818 the manager again roused the active wrath of the great patentees by playing Milman's Fazio, a five-act tragedy ; but although all the influence of the powerful Drury Lane committee was brought to bear against him, he once more survived the storm, and came out of the struggle stronger than ever. In that year he rebuilt the theatre at a cost of ,2,500, and engaged a superior company, in which Wrench, the light comedian, and Mrs. Edwin, one of the finest melodramatic actresses of her day, were included. To add still further to the attractions, he himself acted here for the first time, in a new piece called Rochester, which, together with an extravaganza, ran through the entire season, drawing large and fashion- able audiences. Planche, some of whose earliest dramatic efforts were produced at the Olympic, tells a good story of Elliston at this period. He had written for him a sort of speak- ing pantomime called Little Red Riding Hood. On the first night everything went wrong in the mechanical department. When the performance was over, Elliston summoned all the carpenters and scene-shifters on to the stage, in front of a cottage scene, having a practi- cable door and window ; leading Planche forward, and standing in the centre, with his back to the footlights, he harangued them in the most grandiloquent manner, expatiating on the enormity of their offence, their in- THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 257 gratitude to the man whose bread they were eating, the disgrace they had brought upon the theatre, the cruel injury they had inflicted on the young and promising author by his side ; then, pointing in the most tragical attitude to his wife and daughters, who were in his box, he bade them look upon the family they had ruined, and, burying his face in his handkerchief to stifle his sobs, passed slowly through the door "of the scene, leav- ing his audience silent, abashed, and somewhat affected, yet rather relieved at being let off with a lecture. The next minute the casement was thrown violently open, and thrusting out his head, his face all scarlet with fury, he roared out, " I discharge you all." " I feel utterly unable," says the writer, "to convey an idea of this ludicrous scene, and I question whether anyone un- acquainted with the man, his voice, action, and wonderful facial expression, could thoroughly realise the glorious absurdity of it from verbal description." In 1819, Elliston became the manager of Drury Lane, and, according to the articles of his lease, he was pro- hibited from being connected with the management of any other theatre. During the next five years the Olympic conducted four entrepreneurs to the bankruptcy court. In 1824, . Elliston having lost everything at Drury Lane, the mortgagees sold the Olympic Pavilion, building, scenery, wardrobe, and all, for ,4,860. An engraving of the theatre at this time shows a high brick wall, with a verandah-like abutment and tent-like entrance. Mr. John Scott, who had built the Sans Pareil, afterwards the Adelphi, was the next manager, and he inaugurated a reign of red-hot melodrama. At the latter end of the year 1830, Madame Vestris, being out of an engagement, made up her mind to take a theatre, and the Olympic being the only available one s 258 THE LONDON STAGE in the market, it was Hobson's choice. She opened it on January 3rd in the following year with a drama on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots, in which Miss Foote, who appears to have been for a short time in partnership with her, played the heroine, and an extrava- ganza by Planche entitled Olympic Revels. It is at this point that the real history of the Wych Street theatre, which now took an acknowledged and a high position among the places of amusement of the metropolis, may be said to commence. Madame Vestris was the first of the manageresses, as was set forth in the address spoken by her on the opening night, which commenced : " Noble and gentle, matrons, patrons, friends, Before you here a venturous woman bends ; A warrior-woman, that in strife embarks, The first of all dramatic Joans of Arc ; Cheer on the enterprise thus dared by me, The first that ever led a company ! What though, until this very hour and age, A lessee lady never owned a stage ! " During Madame Vestris's second season, Liston was one of the stock company, and James Bland, who, until the appearance of Robson, had no equal as a burlesque actor in the mock-heroic style that depends for its humour upon the exaggeration of passion, instead of buffoonery. Encouraged by the success of her under- taking, each year she made greater efforts to attract public favour, and in 1833 her company included Keeley, Liston, Bland, James Vining, Frank Matthews, Mrs. Orger, Miss Go ward (Mrs. Keeley), and her incompar- able self. The entertainment was of the lightest and brightest comedietta, farce, extravaganza. Planche was the dramatic genius loci, and no other could have been found so exactly suitable to the requirements of THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 259 the management. Planche had a delicacy of touch in burlesque that has never been equalled by any other English writer. Classical subjects have been travestied for the stage since the days of Henry Fielding ; but Planche, while travestying the ancient myths, did it with a refinement unknown to his predecessors. His chief triumphs, however, were in a field until then unexplored by playwrights the fairy lore of France, as it exists in the pages of Perrault and the Countess d'Aulnoy. Under his hand those exquisite fairy tales never degenerated into mere nonsense, and though every character was treated from a humorous point of view, no beautiful thought or creation was held up to ridicule ; street slang was never called in to eke out shortness of wit, and when puns were introduced which was not too frequently they were real puns, appropriate to the situation, and not dragged in for the mere purpose of word-twisting ; the fantastic, the grotesque, and the poetic were combined in almost equal degrees. And what an interpreter he had in Madame Vestris ! one endowed with histrionic abilities that were brilliant even in the highest range of comedy, with a voice equal to the requirements of the finest music, with a taste the most refined, and a personal beauty that was peerless ! To quote Planche's own words : " The extraordinary and continued success of this experiment was due, not only to the admirable singing and piquante performance of that gifted lady, but also to the charm of novelty imparted to it by the elegance and accuracy of the costume, it having been previously the practice to dress a burlesque in the most outrd and ridiculous fashion. My suggestion to try the effect of persons picturesquely attired speaking absurd doggerel fortunately took the fancy of the fair lessee, and the alteration was highly 2 6o THE LONDON STAGE appreciated by the public. But many old actors could never get over their early impressions ; Liston thought to the last that Prometheus, instead of the Phrygian cap, tunic, and trousers, should have been dressed like a great lubberly boy, in a red jacket and nankeens, with a pinafore all besmeared with lollipops." Nor were her reforms confined to the burlesque part of the programme. Writing of the Olympic at this time, in his autobiography, Charles Mathews says : " There was introduced for the first time in England that reform in all theatrical matters which has since been adopted at every theatre in the kingdom. Drawing- rooms were fitted up like drawing-rooms, and fitted with care and taste. Two chairs no longer indicated that two persons were to be seated. A claret-coloured coat, salmon-coloured trousers, with a broad black stripe, a sky-blue neckcloth with a large paste brooch, and a cut- steel eyeglass with a pink ribbon, no longer marked the light-comedy gentleman, and the public at once recog- nised and appreciated the changes." Never for a moment did the fair manageress relax her vigilance ; when not acting, she was always in her box watching the performance and detecting the slightest faults or shortcomings. It was on December 7th, 1835, at the age of thirty- one, that " young" Charles Mathews made his first appearance upon the public stage at the Olympic. The event is thus described in a newspaper of the day : " Olympic. On Monday this house was crowded in every part ; the announcement of the first appearance of Mr. Charles Mathews was sufficient to excite the curiosity of the general playgoer, as well as the actors, who mustered strong upon the occasion. We never recollect on any previous one so many performers con- 13 THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 261 gregated in the audience part of the theatre. Listen introduced him to the public, and appeared satisfied with the talent displayed by the new debutant. Two burlettes were produced the first a translation by Mathews, in which he performed 'the Hunchback'd Lover'; the second a clever and original piece, entitled Old and Young Stagers, by Leman Rede. In the latter, Liston enacted the Old Stager, and Mathews the young one. We are not disposed to be too severe on the juvenile aspirant, and will make every allowance for a first appearance. His performance throughout was such as to give promise of future excellence ; at present he wants that repose which only time and study can accomplish. He occasionally reminded us of his late father, par- ticularly in a song which he introduced, and which he executed exceedingly well ; it called forth an unanimous encore. We shall wait his appearance in some other character before we give a decided opinion of his talents, but at the same time must do him the justice to say it was one of the most successful debuts we have ever witnessed." Mathews was educated for an architect, he had also been a protege of the Earl of Blessington's, and accom- panied that nobleman and his famous countess to Italy for the purpose of pursuing his studies. From that time he moved in the most fashionable circles of society, and contracted habits and associations very unsuited to a struggling professional man. His father lost all his money by bad speculations, theatrical and otherwise, and at his death young Charles found that he must set to work in earnest to gain a livelihood ; so he took an empty room in Furnival's Inn, and had his name painted upon the panels with the addition of the word " Archi- tect." As no one appeared to be desirous of testing the 262 THE LONDON STAGE young man's powers of construction, his friends advised him to try for a district surveyorship. There was a vacancy in the district of Bow and Bethnal Green, and Mathews enlisted all the interest he could muster to obtain the post. To continue in his own words : " The emoluments arising from the appointment were not startling, and about ^"40 per annum compensated me for my agreeable labours that is, would have done, had I received it ; but there was the difficulty. It con- sisted of fees, fees to be collected by myself in person, and a pretty time I had of it. At one house I knocked humbly, after considerable hesitation ; the door was opened cautiously with the chain up, and a stout, suspicious-looking dame, in a pair of nankeen stays, asked me if I ' came arter the taxes or summat ? ' ' No, madam/ I answered deferentially, 'I am the district surveyor from Cutthroat Lane, and ' Oh, bother ! ' said the lady, ' summons me if you like; I'm not going to be humbugged by you.' Another defaulter kept an oilcloth warehouse in Whitechapel. I was some time before I could summon up courage to enter, as there were several customers assembled. However, I ventured, and was met by an appeal that was irresistible. ' What ? ' he said, ' you, a gentleman, come to a poor man like me for such a paltry sum as that ! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.' Then turning to the customers, ' What do you think of this? Here's a gentleman who I did not wait to hear the rest, but made my exit at once, thinking I was lucky to escape being tossed in a blanket." This was not the kind of experience to suit the associate of D'Orsay, the pet of earls and countesses, and although averse to the stage as a profession, he now turned his thoughts in that direction. He had been a THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 263 writer of light pieces, and an amateur actor in the private theatres of his friends from boyhood ; and, born as it were within the shadow of the green baize, it was no raw novice who made his first bow to a London audience on that December night. The Olympic, however, was the only theatre at that period upon which he could have achieved a success, for his style was new, was entirely opposed to the stage traditions that still ruled the dramatic world, and were to rule it for many years to come. His light comedy was quite a different thing from that of the 0z//r/-dressed, swaggering, back-slapping, restless, loud-talking gentle- man who then possessed the stage ; it was the most perfect blending of art and nature, or rather it was the most perfect example of natural art, the English stage has ever known. Mathews did not, as superficial ob- servers used to say, do and talk precisely as a man would in the privacy of his own drawing-room ; no landscape can be transferred to canvas exactly as it exists, but only as it appears through the medium of the painter's eye ; no character can be drawn, no story, however realistic, can be told until it has been sub- limated in the novelist's imagination ; and no actor can tread the stage without imparting a certain artificial colouring and polish to his creations, unless he would have his efforts condemned as crude and unnatural. However closely art and nature may approach each other, the moment they are confounded together each loses its distinctive charm. It was the very perfection of Charles Mathews's art that made it look so much like nature ; founded upon the best French school, his acting was quite equal to his models. No English rival ap- proached that combination of consummate ease, non- chalance, polished manner, and brilliant vivacity that 264 THE LONDON STAGE marked his performances until he was nearly seventy years of age. Whatever he did was apparently without effort ; even in such extravagances as Patter versus Clatter and He would be an Actor, in which he assumed several different characters, we had the same delightful repose ; when he suddenly changed from the young officer to the chattering barber, or the man with a cold in his head, or from the Welsh gardener to the French lady, he never resorted to caricature to emphasise the change ; he was never haunted by the memory of the previous character, and a fear that he might be falling back upon it. He had full confidence in his skill and fine judgment. ' How admirably was the latter dis- played in the second act of Used Up / Sir Charles Coldstream approached only as near to a ploughman as a gentleman could. I have seen other actors approach very much nearer, because in their coarse art they thought a violent contrast should be made between the first and the second act. But to return to our chronicle. When Listen retired from the stage, in the season of 1836-7, William Farren joined the company. Farren, who is the father and grandfather of the living actors of that name, and was son of the original Careless in The School for Scandal, was one of the finest actors of his time. As early as 1818 he made a great success at Covent Garden as Sir Peter Teazle, with Young, Charles Kemble, Blanchard, and Liston in the cast, and from that time until his retirement in 1855 retained his prestige as Sir Peter, Lord Ogleby, Marrall, Dr. Prim- rose", Grandfather Whitehead, Sir Anthony Absolute, etc. Imagine a lever de rideau acted by Charles Mathews, Keeley, James Vining, Mrs. Orger, Mrs. Keeley, THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 265 Madame Vestris, and Farren ! They all appeared to- gether in You Cannot Marry Your Grandmother. It will be somewhat startling to present-day playgoers to be told that with such a magnificent array of talent the highest price of admission was four shillings ; indeed, there were but two prices, as in 1837 Madame Vestris abolished the gallery, converting it into boxes ; the pit was two shillings. Though general salaries were small, both Liston and Farren took very large ones, and the manageress and Charles Mathews must have put them- selves down for a pretty considerable sum weekly. The wonder is, how the theatre could possibly have been kept on at such a tariff. In the July of 1838, Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris were married in Kensington Church, and directly afterwards started for America. Mathews's account of their trip goes very far to prove that there was not much exaggeration in Dickens's pictures of the Americans of that generation. Arriving at an hotel in New York, fatigued by their voyage, in the midst of some public ball, they naturally desired privacy, and because they objected to show themselves like prize oxen, it was voted that they had insulted the American citizens ; a clique was formed against them, the prospects of their tour were ruined, and by Christmas they were once more in London. And not a day too soon, for the Olympic company had been playing to a heavy loss during the whole time they had been absent. It may be supposed that the little theatre no longer satisfied the Mathews' ambition, as, in 1839, they quitted the Olympic for Covent Garden. 'During the next ten years the fortunes of the Wych Street house were extremely chequered. George Wilde, a penniless adventurer, George Bolton, another, Kate Howard, 266 THE LONDON STAGE Davidson, etc., etc., came like shadows and so departed, leaving no record behind, except in the books of their creditors. Those were followed by Miss Davenport, and, in 1848, by Walter Watts, a clerk in the Globe Insurance Office, who lavished a lot of money, not his own, upon the theatre. It was under Watts, January, 1848, that Gustavus Brooke made his first appearance in London as Othello. There was a great similarity between the careers of Edmund Kean and the Irish tragedian ; both were reckless and dissipated, and both passed their early years in strolling companies. While at Manchester, where he played second parts, Brooke attracted the attention of Macready, who engaged him for Drury Lane in 1845. Finding himself cast for the unimportant part of Salanio in the Merchant of Venice, however, he broke his en- gagement and went back to strolling. Only a few months before he opened at the Olympic he was playing in a theatre built under a railway arch at Kilmarnock, and was driven to such extremities that he had to take up his abode there night and day. Brooke had a good stage-face and presence, a voice deep and musical as a full-toned organ, and great power. Though he was guilty at times of " tearing a passion to rags, to very tatters," there was a soul in his rant, and a reality in his bursts of passion, that hurried the spectator on and blinded one to his exaggerations. No such sensational debut had been made since the night Edmund Kean played Shylock for the first time at Drury Lane; "the pit rose" at him as it had at "the little man in the capes," and applause culminated in an enthusiastic demonstration. Yet never were the critics more divergent in their opinions, for while the Times pronounced him to be purely original, exquisite in his THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 267 pathos, and overwhelming in his rage, the Examiner considered him utterly conventional and a mere mouther. Whatever might have been Brooke's faults, there was no Othello between his and Salvini's. His Sir Giles Overreach was a remarkable piece of acting. I have never seen anything more startling upon the stage than his last act, especially that point where, in the full tempest of his fury, he was rushing sword in hand upon his creature, Marrall the sudden stop, as one struck by palsy, the horror of the face, the gripping of the wrist that refused to perform his will, and the muttered cry : " Some undone widow sits upon my arm ! " Even the actors engaged in the scene were appalled by the terrible realism, and almost forgot their parts. Brooke was also an admirable comedian in certain Irish characters, such as O'Callaghan in the once favourite farce of His Last Legs. He was afterwards as great a success at Drury Lane as he had been at the Olympic. The public took prodigiously to the new star, and Brooke might have held a permanent position upon the London stage but for that sin which has proved the destruction of so many actors ; it was the story of George Frederick Cooke over again : a disappointed or an outraged public in town and country that soon grew disgusted with their favourite. There was a touch of heroism in his death : he went down in the wreck of the London, January, 1866, while on his way to Australia, and he was last seen working manfully at the pumps. Perhaps " there was nothing in his life became him like his leaving it." On March 29th, 1849, at five o'clock in the evening, the Olympic was discovered to be on fire, and in a little while all that remained of Philip Astley's "Wheel de Parry" was a mass of smouldering ruins. There was a strong suspicion of incendiarism. 268 THE LONDON STAGE The house was rebuilt and reopened by Walter Watts at the end of the same year, but was abruptly closed in March, 1850, in consequence of the manager's arrest for enormous defalcations and forgery, which made his name rather famous in Old Bailey records. After another fiasco by George Bolton, William Farren came here from the Strand with a fine company Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Stirling, Compton, Leigh Murray ; he afterwards engaged Helen paucit for a series of legitimate performances. Yet with all his efforts and all the talent at his com- mand, Farren could not draw the public to any profitable extent. There is one factor, however, to be taken into consideration ; Farren, though not then seventy years old, was a mere wreck ; his speech was so indistinct that he might have been acting in a foreign tongue for all that could be understood of his utterances, and as he persisted in playing principal parts, this circumstance might have had something to do with the bad business. On Easter Monday, 1853, Frederick Robson made his first appearance on this stage in an old farce entitled, Catching an Heiress, Robson had for some years been low comedian at the Grecian Saloon. He then went to Dublin for two or three seasons, where Farren saw him act and engaged him for the Olympic. Robson, how- ever, attracted no particular attention until Talfourd's burlesque on Macbeth was brought out a few weeks later ; then his tragi-comic style burst upon the town with all the force of a new creation. Three months afterwards he appeared as Shylock in another burlesque by the same author, and the next morning the Times pro- nounced him to be the greatest actor that had been seen upon the stage since Edmund Kean. This was followed by a wonderful impersonation, and a wonderful comic THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 269 song in one of the trashiest of farces, The Wandering Minstrel, " Villikins and his Dinah," that he had sung hundreds of times at the Grecian ; it now drew all fashionable London for a twelvemonth. It was more than a success, it was a furore. Everybody was singing " Too roo ral, too roo ral, too ral li da." It was intro- duced upon the most extraordinary occasions, even by a counsel in his address to the jury; "Villikins and his Dinah " was the ballad par excellence from the Belgravia drawing-room to the St. Giles's beershop. Farren took leave of the Olympic in September, 1853, as Lord Ogleby, and on the i7th of October Alfred Wigan inaugurated his reign with The Camp at the Olympic, and Tom Taylor's Plot and Passion, in which Mrs. Stirling, Wigan, and Emery played superbly, and Robson made another enormous hit as the spy Des- maret. I may note that the stalls were now raised to five shillings. A first appearance has to be noted, that of Miss Her- bert, who had come over from the Strand, in a power- ful play called Retribution } we shall meet her again at the St. James's. But Robson was the unique attraction. The ghoul-like Yellow Dwarf was followed by the still more wonderful impersonation of Medea, with its wild, savage intensity, and grotesque commonplace. Masa- niello was little inferior with the song "I'm a Shrimp," in which he reduced his body to boneless limpness, and the weird, mad scene, with his imitations of Charles Kean. And his success was equally great in domestic drama. What a wonderful performance was his Daddy Hardacre ; it was the very ferocity of avarice. Hardly less successful was his Sampson Burr, in The Porter s Knot, but the sentimentality was somewhat strained and mawkish. Robson was a great genius ; who that saw 270 THE LONDON STAGE him when in the full possession of his powers can ever forget the strange-looking little man with the small body and the big head, who played upon his audience as though they had been the keys of a piano, now convul- sing them with laughter as he perpetrated some out- rageous drollery, now hushing them into awe-struck silence by an electrical burst of passion or pathos, or holding them midway between terror and laughter as he performed some weirdly grotesque dance ? The im- pression he conveyed in those moments of extreme tension was that of a man overwrought by excitement to the verge of madness ; the wild, gleaming eyes, the nervous twitchings of the marvellously plastic features, the utter abandon to the feeling of the moment, whether it were tragic or grotesque, the instantaneous transition from the tragedian to the clown, were no stage- tricks, but an inspiration, an irrepressible impulse. He was mor- bidly timid and nervous ; he could never realise the great position he had attained, and was ever haunted by a fear that his fall would be as sudden as had been his rise ; success had a delirious effect upon him, and to deaden the stage-fright, which he could never overcome, he resorted to stimulants with the usual result. When in August, 1857, Alfred Wigan retired from the management of the Olympic, it was undertaken by Robson in partnership with the acting manager, Emden. Poor Robson, his career was brief as it was brilliant, and its brilliancy was dulled long before the end. He had been famous scarcely seven years when his powers began to fail, and his terror of facing the audience became so great that while waiting for his cue he would gnaw his arms until they bled, and cry out piteously, " I dare not go on, I dare not ! " until the prompter had at times absolutely to thrust him before the footlights. THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 271 Robson's last original part was Dogbriar, in Watts Philips's drama, Camillas Husband, produced at the end of 1862; but by this time he was only the shadow of his former self. Melter Moss, in The Ticket-of- Leave Man, was written for him, but after a few rehearsals another actor, George Vincent, had to be engaged for the part, and on February i2th, 1864, before the run of that notable play came to an end, Frederick Robson had breathed his last. The Ticket-of-Leave Man achieved the longest run recorded up to that time. It was one of a species of plays that had been delighting East End audiences for many years ; but the style and the acting were toned down, the extravagances pruned, and the West End found a new sensation in scenes of low London life, which had not been so realistically rendered upon the stage since the days of Tom and Jerry. Emden relinquished the management of the Olympic shortly after his partner's death, and was succeeded in the autumn of 1864 by Horace Wigan, the original Hawkshaw of the play last named. The new manager produced during his tenure a series of romantic plays which came to be known as " The Olympic Drama" as in the days that were passed Buckstone's pieces were called " The Adelphi Drama" of which Henry Neville, who had made himself famous as Bob Brierley, and Kate Terry were the principal exponents. Neville's impassioned, impulsive style excellently adapted him for the heroes of such plays as The Serf, Henry Dunbar, while as the heroine of domestic and romantic drama Miss Terry was the true successor of Mrs. Stirling. She was less successful in the legitimate, as she lacked poetry and distinction, although it was as Juliet at the Adelphi, in August, 1867, that sne elected to take leave 272 THE LONDON STAGE of the London stage. At the end of four years Wigan retired, and Benjamin Webster conducted the house for one season. He was followed in 1869 by Mr. Listen, who made some marked successes with adaptations of Dickens's and Wilkie Collins's novels, chief of which were Little Emly and The Woman in White. Ada Cavendish spent a large sum of money in 1872 to make the Olympic one of the most charming theatres in London. The New Magdalen was her principal production. Miss Cavendish was an excellent actress, endowed with power, passion, and pathos, and but for chronic ill-health might have risen to a high position. Her Mercy Merrick, by which she is chiefly remembered, was a remarkably fine performance of a part that taxed all the beauty and all the art of the actress to enlist the sympathies of the audience and achieve a success. A notable impersonation of this lady's was Miss Gwilt, another of Wilkie Collins's shady heroines. Miss Cavendish's management was brief as it was profitless, and in 1873 Henry Neville succeeded her, and was lessee for some six years. Tom Taylor's Clancarty, with Ada Cavendish as the heroine the original and the best of all The Two Orphans, Clytie, Buckingham, The Scuttled Ship; revivals of The Ticket- of-Leave Man, Henry Dunbar, The Wife's Secret, were among his productions. W. S. Gilbert's Gretchen was staged here soon after Mr. Neville's secession in 1879. John Hollingshead, Edgar Bruce,, Genevieve Ward, Agnes Hewitt, John Coleman, etc., tried their fortunes at the Olympic between the last-named year and the closing of the old house in May, 1890, but nothing was done that calls for comment. Entirely rebuilt and greatly enlarged, with a seating accommodation for three thousand people, and a stage THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 273 inferior in size only to Drury Lane, the New Olympic was opened by Mr. Wilson Barrett in January, 1891, with a play bearing the suggestive title of The People s Idol. But if Mr. Barrett was the people's idol, the worshippers withheld their sacrifices, and although he revived The Lights o London, Hamlet \ The Silver King, and appeared in a new version of Belphegor, called The Acrobat, which unfortunately called up damaging re- collections of Charles Dillon in the part, the ill luck of the old house seemed to have passed on to the new. Signor Lago started an opera season here in Sep- tember, 1892, and produced Tschaikowsky's Eugene Ondgin. The great Russian composer's music was almost unknown eleven years ago, and the work was indifferently received. The season terminated abruptly. A curious dramatic experiment was made in 1895 by the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate, when an elaborately got up version of The Pilgrims Progress was staged with a voluptuous ballet shade of the Bedford tinker! while Miss Grace Hawthorne repre- sented the pious Christian very much in the guise of a pantomime prince. It was an extraordinary production. There would be no interest and no purpose in re- counting the names of the red-hot melodramas, the plunges into the legitimate all more or less failures that succeeded one another in rapid succession until the final closing of the unfortunate house in the autumn of 1899. A troupe of midgets at very low prices were the last who appeared upon its boards. A little while and even its site, traversed by a great thoroughfare, will be forgotten. CHAPTER II The English Opera House and Theatre Royal Lyceum Its Records under the Keeleys, Madame Vestris, Charles Fechter, Sir Henry Irving, etc., 1809-1902 IN 1765, Mr. James Payne, an architect, erected, upon a piece of ground that formerly belonged to Exeter House, a building, constructed for the exhibi- tions of " The Society of Artists," which he christened the Lyceum. Three years later, divisions taking place among the members, certain of them went off to Somerset House, and there founded the Royal Academy, while the original body soon afterwards sank into ob- livion. The premises were then purchased by Mr. Lingham, a breeches-maker in the Strand, who let them for exhibitions, or balls, or meetings, or any other purpose for which he could find a tenant. About 1794, Dr. Arnold, the musical composer, rebuilt the interior as a theatre, but being unable to obtain a licence through the strenuous opposition of the patentees of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, he had at last to give Lingham back his lease and forfeit the improvements with it. By including a large saloon and some smaller rooms, as well as the theatre, in the building, it could accommodate several exhibitions at one time. When the Amphi- theatre in Westminster Road was burnt down, it was here that Astley brought his circus. The Musical Glasses (without Shakespeare), phantasmagoria, pano- ramas, 'made their home at the Lyceum. It was, by 274 THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 275 turns, a school of eloquence, a concert-room, a Roman Catholic chapel, the show-place of a white negro girl, and of a porcupine man ; here actors out of engage- ments gave entertainments ; and here it was that in 1802, Madame Tussaud, upon her arrival in England, first exhibited her collection of waxwork figures. Not until 1809 did the Lyceum become a regular theatre. In that year the burnt-out company of Drury Lane obtained a special licence from the Lord Chamber- lain to give dramatic performances at the Lyceum, where they performed during each winter, until the new Drury Lane was ready, in 1812. Samuel James Arnold, the son of the composer, and the manager for the Drury Lane Committee, obtained a licence for the performance of English opera during the summer months, on the plea that it would become the nursery of English singers for the patent theatres, and in 1810 the name of the building was changed to the English Opera House. Ballad operas old and new, musical farces, melodramas, such as Love in a Village, One d Clock; or, the Knight and the Wood Demon, No Song no Supper, The Devil's Bridge, were interpreted in different seasons by Braham, Liston, Fawcett, Oxberry, Mrs. Mountain, Mrs. Bland, Fanny Kelly. Here about 1 8 1 1 was produced Tom Moore's single dramatic essay, M.P. ; or, the Blue Stocking. In 1815, having, at the death of Whitbread, retired from the management of Drury Lane, Arnold was granted a ninety-nine years' lease of the Strand property from the Marquis of Exeter, at a ground rent of ^700 per annum, and purchased the whole block of buildings that now form a square between Wellington Street and Exeter Street, rebuilding the houses, shops, and theatre, at a cost of ,80,000. The northern end of Wellington 276 THE LONDON STAGE Street was not formed until 1829; Exeter Change, the Zoological Gardens and monsters' show-place of that day, occupied the site and projected over the pavement of the Strand ; consequently the principal entrance to the theatre was beneath a small stone portico, supported by six Ionic columns, leading into a long, vaulted passage, upon which a door of the adjoining tavern opened, as it still does, into what was the pit passage. The entrances to pit and gallery were in Exeter Court. At prices ranging from one to five shillings, the house was computed to hold ^350. The interior was hand- somely decorated, but the great feature of the building was a saloon seventy-two feet long and forty wide, fitted up as a winter garden, with flowers and shrubs, and diversified in character each season : sometimes it re- presented an Italian terrace, then a Chinese pavilion, at another it was adorned with pictures of ancient Egypt. This house was one of the earlier places of public amusement that adopted the use of gas, as the Hay- market was the last, and in 1817 the announcement that gas-lights were introduced over the whole stage was made the great feature in the bills. It had been used at the Olympic, however, two years previously. Later on in the same season this innovation was extended to the auditorium. The new house was opened June i5th, 1816, with two musical pieces, Up All Night ; or, The Smuggler s Cave, and The Boarding House, and an Address by Miss Kelly. Between 1 8 1 6 and 1 8 1 8, Harley, Miss Love, a charming singer, and T. P. Cooke, were in the com- pany. Fanny Kelly, however, was the bright particular star of the theatre. Charles Lamb was in love with her, and a letter dated 1819, in which he proposed to the de- lightful actress who declined has recently come to light. THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 277 Fanny Kelly, when she was nine years of age, played the Duke of York to George Frederick Cooke's Richard, on his first appearance in London in 1810; and Prince Arthur to Mrs. Siddons's Constance. She achieved no distinction in her profession, however, until 1814, when her clever acting at this theatre made the success of a pantomime called Harlequin Hoax. In the first season of the new house, The Maid and the Magpie, an adapta- tion of a French drama, La Pie Voleuse, was pro- duced. It was just after the cause ctlebre of Eliza Penning, and a certain similarity between the two stories, together with the exquisite pathos of Miss Kelly as the falsely accused servant, Annette, created a great sensation. Memories of this old drama still survive in Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, and in H. J. Byron's burlesque. From that time Miss Kelly became identi- fied with the heroines of domestic drama, and in such parts as Phoebe in The Millers Maid, Lisette in The Sergeant's Wife, and many others written expressly to suit her particular style, she had no rival in her own day, nor has she had a successor. She was equally excellent in certain soubrette parts in farces, and while never lacking dramatic intensity or broad humour, her style was perfectly natural, no slight commendation in an age when stage art was generally stilted and artificial. Although very plain, she was twice in danger of her life from rejected lovers : one man fired at her from Drury Lane pit, and the bullet passed over her head ; at Dublin another love-sick swain was so violent and threatening in his behaviour that she had to give him into custody. The ludicrous side of the story is that both were proved to be insane. "What can it mean?" she said very naively to the Dublin magistrate before whom the latter case was brought. "It can't be my 278 THE LONDON STAGE beauty that drives these poor people mad ! " We shall meet Miss Kelly again at the Strand and the Royalty. Another striking success was that of Blanche's once famous melodrama, The Vampire, for which that greatest exponent of diablerie, T. P. Cooke, was en- gaged. It was for this piece that the star, or vampire trap was invented. It was a very ingenious contrivance ; so perfect were the springs, that when the actor vanished it seemed that he had gone through the solid boards, as no opening was discernible. The licence granted to the English Opera House extended from July ist to October; but, except by special permission for some particular occasion, no play belonging to the repertoire of the winter theatres was allowed to be performed. The old fare had to be ad- hered to ballad opera and dramas, strong melodrama, bearing such titles as The Death Fetch; pantomimes and versions of German and Italian opera, cut down to a commonplace serious or comic drama, with songs and duets, most of the concerted pieces being omitted in the first place, because the company could not sing them, and in the second, because the public would not have cared about them. 1 But the theatre did not pay ; and in 1817 the management resorted to the curious experiment of giving two performances a night, the one commencing at six, the other at half-past nine, at reduced prices, a practice that was very speedily abandoned. 1 The musical taste of the period was barbarous in the extreme. When Oberon was first produced at Covent Garden, in 1823, all the concerted pieces were cut out, and it was thought the audience would not stand even the exquisite " Mermaid's Song." At the very house I am writing of, when // Barbiere was brought out as a sort of musical comedy, Rossini's score was varied by excerpts from Dibdin, Philips, and three or four other com- posers. THE BYGONE THEATRES *OF THE WEST 279 It was on this stage, in 1818, that Mathews the elder first appeared in his famous entertainment Mathews at Home. His extraordinary powers of mimicry had for some time overshadowed his great abilities as an actor, so that, as he complained in his opening address, both managers and the Press had fallen into the habit of regarding him as a mere mimic, and on the opening of the great theatres he occasionally found himself left out in the cold. Years before, Charles Dibdin had appeared at the old house in a musical and. mimetic entertainment, and it was this that suggested the idea of the At Home to Mathews. Arnold, the manager, offered to engage him for seven years at a thousand a year, terms with which, never anticipating the enormous success that the entertainment would achieve, he at once closed. The At Home was to be given each year in April and May at the English Opera House, and in the provinces during the remaining months. When the success was assured, more favourable terms for the artist, however, were arranged. The following copy of the first bill of Mathews's entertainment may prove interesting to the curious reader : THEATRE ROYAL, ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE, STRAND. The public are respectfully informed that they will find Mr. Mathews "At Home" this evening, Thursday, April 2nd, 1818; Saturday the 4th, and on the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday following, when he will have the honour of presenting his visitors with an enter- tainment called MAIL GOACH ADVENTURES; Affording an introduction for various comic songs, imitations, &c. Previous to which he will address the company on the subject of his present attempt. PART FIRST. Recitation Introductory address General improvement in the conveyance of live lumber, as exemplified, in the progress of heavy 2 8o THE, LONDON STAGE coach, light coach, caterpillar and mail Whimsical description of an expedition to Brentford. SONG Mail Coach. Recitation Description of the passengers Lisping Lady and Critic in Black. SONG Royal Visitors. Recitation Breaking of a spring Passengers at Highgate Lite- rary Butcher Socrates in the Shambles Definition of Belles-Lettres French Poets Rhyming Defended. SONG Cobbler a la Franc, aise. Recitation Theatrical Conversation Dimensions of Drury Lane and Covent Garden stages Matter-of-fact Conversation Satire on Truisms. SONG Incontrovertible Facts in various Branches of Knowledge. PART SECOND. Mr. Mathews will deliver an experimental lecture on Ventriloquy. PART THIRD. Recitation Digression on the Study of the Law ; Whimsical Trial, Goody Grim versus Lapstone Scramble at Supper Drunken Farmer Extrartfrom Hippisly's Drunken Man. SONG London Newspapers. Recitation Imitation of Fond Barney of York Arrival of a Scotch Lady Long Story about Nothing. SONG Bartholomew Fair. Recitation A Quack Doctor Mountebank's harangue Anecdote of a Yorkshire man. SONG Nightingale Club. The entertainment to conclude with novel specimens of Imitation, in which several tragic and comic performers will give their different ideas how " Hamlet's Advice to the Players " should be spoken. Mathews has had many imitators in this kind of entertainment, his own son among the number, but never an equal. To judge by the stories related by THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 281 Mrs. Mathews, his powers of mimicry, or rather of transformation, must have been nothing less than marvellous, for without make-up, change of dress, or any stage trickery, he could so transform his personality as to deceive his most intimate friends. He was once expelled from behind the scenes of the Liverpool Theatre, where he was actually playing at the time, as an intrusive stranger ; and the next moment, after simply allowing his features and figure to assume their normal appearance, passed through the stage-door again and was recognised as Mr. Mathews. In those days the habitues of the boxes had the entree of the green- room of Drury Lane ; among those who availed them- selves of the privilege was a curious old gentleman, whose name, it was understood, was Pennyman, and whose behaviour was so eccentric that he soon became a notorious character. " No one," to use Mrs. Mathews's words, "could tell how the gentleman got admittance, and therefore there was no mode of excluding him. Every night he attracted inconvenient numbers to the green-room ; and on the nights when my husband per- formed it was a matter of much regret to the performers that Mathews always came to the theatre too early or too late to see a subject whom he, of all others, ought to see. It was really surprising that no suspicion of the truth arose. One night, in the midst of a greater excite- ment than was usually created by him, he suddenly re- vealed himself to the assembled crowd as Mr. Mathews." When Godwin was writing Claudes ley, he asked Mathews to furnish him with some hints upon the possibilities of disguise. Mathews invited him to dinner, and while his guest was conversing with Mrs. Mathews, slipped out of the room ; almost immediately afterwards a servant entered to announce a Mr. Jenkins. Mrs. 282 THE LONDON STAGE Mathews looked vexed, and had scarcely time to ex- plain that it was a troublesome and eccentric neighbour, when the new visitor entered. He was introduced to Mr. Godwin, and began to talk so incessantly about that gentleman's works, and made such impertinent inquiries concerning the forthcoming one, that the illus- trious author, bored and annoyed, rose from his seat and went to the window, that opened on to the lawn ; but Mr. Jenkins was not to be so easily evaded ; he pushed before him and officiously offered to unfasten the window ; after fumbling a little, he threw it open and turned round ; then, to his astonishment, Godwin saw another man not Mr. Jenkins, but Charles Mathews. After this Mathews became a terror to judges and barristers whenever he was seen in court. One day, while on a provincial tour, he strolled into the sessions-house at Shrewsbury during a trial. Presently an usher came to him with the judge's compliments to inquire if he would like a seat upon' the bench. Rather astonished, as he had no acquaintance with his lordship, Mathews followed his conductor and was most effusively received. Relating the incident some years afterwards to a legal friend, he was commenting upon the polite- ness shown him, when the listener burst out laughing. " I've heard the judge tell the story," he said, "and I remember him saying, ' I was so frightened when I caught sight of that d d Mathews in the court with his eyes upon me that I couldn't fix my thoughts upon the case, for I believed he had come there for the purpose of taking me off on the stage that night, so I thought it was best to be as civil to him as possible.' ' Small as were the privileges accorded to the minor theatres, the managers of the patent houses endeavoured to curtail them by prolonging their own seasons further THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 283 into the summer, and there were appeals to the public from one side and to the Lord Chamberlain from the other. There is a good story illustrative of this feud told in an unpublished letter of Peake's. Dr. Kitchener, who was a general friend of the theatrical people of the day, hit upon what he considered the splendid idea of inviting the four belligerent managers of the Hay- market, English Opera House, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane to a dinner, at which there should be no other guests. The arrangement was kept a close secret, and each arrived profoundly ignorant of the others' presence. Their combined astonishment may be ima- gined. But, after a little awkwardness, they could not withstand the ludicrousness of the situation, and, burst- ing out into a hearty laugh, shook hands and put a good face upon the matter. The doctor now tried hard to introduce the subject of their differences, but for a time they parried all his efforts, until at last Elliston, then lessee of Drury Lane, rose, and with an air of over- whelming hauteur laid his hand upon Arnold's head and exclaimed, " Minor manager, I will crush you ! " Masquerades and costume recitals were given at the English Opera House to fill up the winter months, and occasionally special permission was obtained for some distinguished actor to appear in a round of legitimate characters. It was in 1821 that Mrs. Glover played Hamlet for her benefit, and a year or two later Mathews was allowed to appear in some of his famous characters of legitimate comedy. Here, in 1821, was produced the operatic version of Guy Mannering, Miss Kelly being Meg Merrilies. Listen and Madame Vestris in 1823 were playing in Sweethearts and Wives. In the same season was given a dramatic version of Mrs. Shelly 's weird romance Frankenstein. T. P. 284 THE LONDON STAGE Cooke's Monster was a wonderful performance, which he afterwards repeated at the Porte St. Martin, and for eighty nights thrilled the Parisians as he had thrilled the Londoners. No less hair-stirring was his Zamiel, in an English version of Der Freischutz. Though the score was very much condensed, the great opera was an enormous success. The minor house could still boast of the finest talent of the day ; in addition to the actors already named may be added Miss Stephens, Henry Phillips, Miss Romer ; two celebrated juvenile prodigies of the time Clara Fisher and Master Burke ; James Bland, Keeley ; and, on July 2nd, 1825, the bills an- nounced that Miss Goward, from the Theatres Royal, Norwich and York, would make her first appearance in London as Rosina in the ballad opera of that name, and Little Pickle in The Spoiled Child. That lady was destined to become one of the greatest favourites, scarcely excepting Fanny Kelly, that ever trod those boards, but she was better known thereafter as Mrs. Keeley. During 1828, an explosion of gas having compelled the closing of Covent Garden, the company appeared here, and Kean played some of his finest parts Shy- lock, Sir Giles Overreach, Sir Edward Mortimer. A famous melodramatic sensation, The Bottle Imp, in which O'Smith, who was to be Cooke's successor in diablerie, played the Imp, and Frank Matthews made his first appearance, was produced in the same year, and ran forty-four nights. On February loth, 1830, while in the occupancy of a French company, the English Opera House died the natural death of all theatres by fire. It was a terrible conflagration, sweeping away one side of Exeter Street, and involving a loss to Mr. Arnold of ^8,000. During THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 285 the next three years the company played now at the Adelphi, now at the Olympic ; and it was not until July, 1834, that the present building was finished and opened under the name of the " New Theatre Royal, Lyceum, and English Opera House." Beazeley, the architect, made a curious omission in the plan the gallery stairs were forgotten ; this extraordinary oversight was not discovered until the building was finished, and a temporary wooden staircase, which, however, remained for several years, had to be hastily put up for the ascent of the gods to their Olympus. By this time the entire neighbourhood had been transmogrified. Old Exeter Change had disappeared several years previously, Wellington Street had been opened, and the principal entrance to the theatre was transferred from the Strand to the new thoroughfare, an alteration that can scarcely be said to have been for the better. The first success at the New Lyceum was made with John Barnett's charming opera, The Mountain Sylph, Miss Romer and Henry Phillips in the principal parts ; it was played a hundred nights to crowded houses, and the season was extended, for the first time, through November. Frederick Lemaitre played Robert Macaire and other of his famous characters here in 1835, and, by royal authority, the house was allowed to open in April, and to continue open until the following January, 1 but with such ill results that, after trying the experiment of reduced prices, the management became bankrupt, and was ultimately resolved into a common- wealth among the company. Arnold lost during the two seasons ,4,000. Then came Italian Opera Buffa and French plays, an English version of La Sonnambula, 1 This was the first advantage gained by the minor houses over the patentees. See the preceding chapter. 286 THE LONDON STAGE with Miss Romer as Amina, The Dice of Death, Les Huguenots as a musical drama, Mrs. Keeley playing Valentine all more or less failures. It was at this house, in the winter of 1838-9, pro- menade concerts, called Concerts a la Musard, from the name of the conductor, announced as a novelty from Paris, were first introduced into this country. The music was entirely instrumental. As they were continued for several seasons, from November to May, it may be presumed that they were tolerably successful. Here, in 1837, Compton made his London debut as Robin in The Waterman, and two years later Mrs. Stirling joined the company. A commonwealth, chiefly composed of actors from Covent Garden, opened here in 1840, and next year Balfe undertook the management with a great flourish of trumpets, and with what appeared to be an excellent chance of success a real national opera, after the continental form ; no mere string of ballads, but works worthy to stand beside the productions of Italy and Germany, were to be produced. The Queen headed the list of subscribers. Orchestra-stalls were formed for the first time, and the prices of admission raised to seven shillings. A spectacular opera upon an Egyptian subject, called Keolanthe, composed by the manager, was produced on the opening night, and Macfarren was to set to work upon something to follow. But these were all castles in the air ; very soon there was a de- fection of the principal artistes; everything went wrong, and after a ten weeks' struggle the doors were suddenly closed. Perhaps the failure is more easily explainable than the disappointed impresario cared to admit. The people who could appreciate Mozart and Rossini, and even Bellini and Donizetti, would not care to listen to THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 287 Keolanthe, of which probably not a bar survives in anybody's memory ; and as in those days every girl had not learned to strum upon the piano happy days! the taste for even such music as this had not yet risen among the masses. Hinc illcz lacrymce. After this came German opera, with stalls at ten shillings and six- pence, the first time we hear of such a price in a theatre ; but the German went the way of the English ; the Italian school had the monopoly of fashionable patron- age, and the music of the Teutons was " caviare " to our dilettanti. Jullien and his band performed here early in 1842 ; then came Vestris's company from Covent Garden, at the break up of her management, and in September the house was converted into an " American Amphitheatre," a wild-beast show, with the famous Carter, the lion king, for star. Later on in the same year, in April, charming Mrs. Waylett undertook the management; the tariff was reduced and half-price taken to all parts of the house ; and to heighten the attraction, Signor Nano, the Gnome Fly, was engaged to crawl upon the ceiling, walk up perpendicular walls, and fly about the place like a veritable diptera a very extraordinary exhibition, but it could not save the management from coming to an abrupt termination. This house was one of the first to avail itself of the change in the licensing law ; and on the 29th of January, 1844, the English Opera House became the Theatre Royal Lyceum. The season opened with Shakespeare's Henry IV., an aspiring amateur, Captain Harvey Tuckett, playing Falstaff; the rest of the company were taken from the rank and file of the patent theatres. A fortnight's trial, to empty benches, cured the Lyceum of its ambition for the legitimate, and on Easter Monday 288 THE LONDON STAGE in the same year, the Keeleys, who had long been supreme favourites at this house, took up the sceptre. They gathered about them an admirable company for the class of pieces they performed farce, extravaganza, and strong domestic drama, which made up an evening's entertainment at once solid and bright, and so various as to suit almost any taste. Dickens was then in the very zenith of his popularity, and dramatic versions of his novels were sure cards. Martin Chuzzlewit scored a great success here, running ninety nights. The cast was admirable. Sam Emery, whom some of us remember, and who made his first appearance in London upon these boards in 1843, was the Jonas ; Alfred Wigan, the Montague Tigg ; Frank Matthews, the Pecksniff; Keeley, Sairey Gamp; Mrs. Keeley, young Bailey ; Miss Woolgar and Mrs. Wigan, the two girls. Then followed The Chimes, in which little Keeley was Trotty, and his wife, Margaret Veck ; The Battle of Life, The Cricket on the Hearth Mrs. Keeley was an incomparable Dot and numerous extravaganzas by Mark Lemon, Gilbert a Beckett, and others. The Caudle Lectures were also dramatised, with Keeley as Mrs. Caudle. The Keeley management terminated on June nth, 1847, in consequence of a disagreement with Arnold, the principal landlord, and on October i8th, Madame Vestris succeeded to the vacant throne, with one of the finest comedy companies of modern days Mrs. Fitz- william, Mrs. Leigh Murray, Miss Fairbrother a charming and beautiful actress, afterwards the morganatic wife of the Duke of Cambridge and Mrs. Stirling ; Charles Mathews, Frank Matthews (no relation beyond the name), whose mellow, unctuous old men were a delight to witness, Leigh Murray, a very fine comedian, THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 289 Meadows, Charles Selby, Harley, quaintest of comedians, Buckstone, oiliest and raciest of his kind, and last, but not least, the manageress herself, though then, alas ! falling into the sere and yellow leaf. The opening piece was The Pride of the Market ; but the successes of the season were Used Up, Box and Cox, and A Rough Diamond. The Lyceum, under the new management, became the most delightful theatrical resort in all London. Extravaganza and burlesque, as written by Planche" and as mounted by Vestris, were brought to the highest excellence of which they were capable Riquet with the Tuft, King Charming, The King of the Peacocks, The Island of Jewels, were among the most famous. It was in The Island of Jewels (1849), Planch^ tells us, that the first approach to a transformation scene was introduced. In the last scene William Beverley, who was the scenic artist, arranged the leaves of a palm tree to fall and discover six fairies, each supporting a coronet of jewels. " It produced such an effect," he adds, "as I scarcely remember having witnessed on any similar occasion up to that period, and every theatre rushed into imitation." Such was the small beginning of those elaborate displays of scenic art. There were revivals of The Merry Wives of Windsor Vestris, Mrs. Ford ; Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Page and of The School for Scandal, and the production of Dance's once favourite comedy, A Wonderful Woman, in which Madame and Frank Matthews played so superbly. Madame Vestris had at this time passed the meridian of her powers, but Mathews was in the perfection of his, with a charm of style, an exquisite polish, that had no rival off the Parisian stage. In comedy, farce, or bur- lesque he was equally at home ; he could carry a whole THE LONDON STAGE piece upon his shoulders, without ever wearying an audience ; and in powers of transformation he was sur- passed only by his father. It was on this stage that Patter versus Clatter, and He would be an Actor, with their marvellous changes, mostly in front of the audience, together with the famous Game of Speculation (1851), first saw the footlights. A curious piece called The Chain of Events, in eight acts, was brought out in 1852, with wonderful scenery and a built-up ship that was tossed about in a storm, the earliest mechanical stage effect of the kind. There was no lack of public support ; but, as every- body knows, the speculation ended in bankruptcy. Let the manager himself explain the causes of this disaster. " For seven years we worked day and night, with un- varying success, but the want of capital to fall back upon was for ever the drawback upon our efforts. Every piece used to be got up upon credit, and the outlay had always to be repaid before a profit could be realised ; and all the large receipts accruing from the brilliant houses from Christmas to Easter were more than swallowed up by the utter blank that followed from Easter to Michaelmas. . . . During these seven years, buoyed up by hope, I battled with my fate, and made head against my increasing difficulties, till one heavy fall of snow at Christmas spared me the trouble of continuing my existence." The fact was, Mathews entered upon the lesseeship burdened with debts standing over from the Olympic and Covent Garden failures, and was never out of the hands of the Jews. Then he had for wife one of the most extravagant of women, to whom the most costly luxuries had become necessities of life. In such a small item as gloves, for instance, she would sometimes use up a box in a single night ; if a pair, or half a dozen THE BYGONE THEATRES. OF THE WEST 291 pairs in succession, fitted with the slightest crease, they were cast aside, and for every scene a fresh pair was put on. When lace curtains were required upon the stage they were real lace, and everything else was on the same scale ; while so minutely particular was she in small matters, that she would pass a white laced handkerchief over the furniture of the green-room, and even the balusters of the staircases leading to the dressing-rooms, and woe to the cleaners if the delicate cambric was soiled. All that this meant can, perhaps, only be appreciated by those who are acquainted with that temple of dust behind the scenes of a theatre. Mathews was made bankrupt, but obtained a first- class certificate. Soon afterwards he was arrested by an inveterate creditor and thrown into Lancaster gaol. More than once before he had had a narrow escape of such a fate, a propos of which he used to tell some amusing stories. One night, as he was entering the stage-door of the Lyceum, a bailiff tapped him upon the shoulder, " Why have you not renewed the bill?" asked the man. "He" (the creditor) " wouldn't renew it," replied Mathews. " Well, then, just write your name across this," said the man, producing a long slip of blue paper with a stamp in the corner. Mathews did so. " Now I'm your creditor, and shall be happy to renew if you can't pay at the end of the time." And with these words he disappeared. He had paid the debt out of his own pocket to save the actor from a prison. Who shall talk about stony-hearted bailiffs after that ? "How many times," Mathews writes, ''have I gone upon the stage with a heavy heart and a merry face, to act the very part in jest that I was playing behind the scenes in earnest, and not a sympathetic smile to pity me. On the contrary, everybody seemed to believe that 292 THE LONDON STAGE I revelled in it, and every allusion I had made to duns and bailiffs was hailed by the audience as the emanation of a light heart and most unctuous enjoyment. Had I been a tragedian and walked on with a melancholy air and serious face, I should have cause for feeling my un- fortunate position ' Poor fellow, see how down he is ! ' But the painfully successful effort of assuming gaiety and joyousness difficult as it was robbed me of all sympathy. ' Pooh ! pooh ! he doesn't care, he likes it ; he's in his element." After being incarcerated for nearly a month in Lancaster gaol he was released. He had taken his seat in the railway carriage, bound for London, when a man sitting opposite to him pointed to the Castle, as they steamed by, and remarked to a lady sitting beside him, " That's were Charley Mathews is ! " " Really," answered the lady sympathetically, " poor fellow ! " " Poor fellow ! not at all," answered the other ; "he revels in it. Lord bless you, he's been in every prison in England ! " A few days after his release Madame Vestris died. She had retired from the stage in 1854, in consequence of ill-health. The last piece she played in was a version of La Joie Fait Peur, called Sunshine through the Clouds. Professor Anderson with " Magic and Mystery," and a season of Italian opera, consequent on the burning of Covent Garden, with Adelaide Ristori on the off nights, for opera was performed only three times a week in those days, filled up the interregnum between the passing of the Vestris -Mathews management and the coming of Charles Dillon. Dillon opened the Lyceum in 1856 in his great part Belphegor, and achieved an immediate success ; pictur- esque, glowing with passion, and with a power of pathos that has never been surpassed and seldom equalled, he THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 293 roused the audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. J. L. Toole played Fanfaronade, and Marie Wilton, who had acted the part with Dillon at Bristol, where she had already made a brilliant reputation, was the Henri, a most exquisite bit of acting, which, with her piquante and sprightly performance of Perdita in B rough's burlesque on The Winters Tale, that con- cluded the programme, secured for her an emphatic success. Dillon's next character was D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, and not since Elliston had such robust and vividly picturesque acting been witnessed upon the stage. Charles Dillon well deserved to be called the English Frederick Lemaitre. Nor was his talent con- fined to melodrama ; there were scenes in his Virginius the like of which had not been seen since Macready, and his King Lear has not been equalled by any succeeding English actor. Italian opera and Ristori occupied the theatre during the summer months, and the Pyne and Harrison company during the autumn ; the latter drew immense houses with The Rose of Castile. Dillon resumed the manage- ment at Christmas with a splendid spectacle, Lalla Rookh, in which Miss Woolgar and J. L. Toole ap- peared. Miss Helen Faucit supported the manager in Macbeth, The Lady of Lyons, and Much Ado about Nothing. His last production was a revival of Louis XL Dillon had the ball at his feet, and had he possessed the tact, the culture, and the judgment of Henry Irving, he might have anticipated the latter's success. But Dillon had been trained in a bad school ; he had risen out of the mire of the profession, and, with little education beyond such as he had picked up in his 294 THE LONDON STAGE professional career, he could not shake off old habits and associations. When he should have been attending to the business of the stage, he was at the bar of a public-house surrounded by unworthy parasites. After a tedious and ineffective rehearsal, to which he paid little attention, he would dine off a rump-steak and a pot of porter in his dressing-room ; then, cigar in mouth, stroll round into the Sfrand to see the people flocking to the pit, dress hurriedly at the last moment, and when the performance was over carouse " potations pottle deep " with some of his satellites. Though he lived in no style beyond keeping a plain brougham, he was always over head and ears in debt, borrowed money at 100 per cent, and often paid 200 ; so that although the receipts of the theatre were very large, as fast as the money came in it was appropriated by greedy creditors, and at the end of two seasons he had to retire. It is worth noting that it was under Charles Dillon's management that stalls were permanently established at the Lyceum ; the charge was at first only five shillings, but was afterwards raised to six. Edmund Falconer was the next manager, and made a great hit with Extremes ; or, Men of the Day, of which he was the author. But the one success being followed by several failures, the theatre again became tenantless, until it was opened by Madame Celeste. Her principal success was a dramatised version of A Tale of Two Cities, in which she gave a wonderful rendering of Madame Dufarge. But at the end of the second season she retired a heavy loser by her speculation. More Italian opera with Titiens, Alboni, Giuglini, after which Falconer again took up the management. His first production, August, 1861 Woman against the World, with Mrs. Charles Young, afterwards Mrs. Hermann THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 295 Vezin was a go. His second, The Peep o Day Boys, was played considerably over a twelvemonth, and all London flocked to see the great quarry scene and the heroine precipitated from the breaking bridge, which in breathless excitement rivalled the water-cave of The Colleen Bawn. When Falconer went to Drury Lane the famous French actor, Charles Fechter, took over the lease. Fechter inaugurated a new era in English histrionic art that led to the great theatrical revival of the nineteenth century. He began by revolutionising the stage. The ancient grooves, trap-doors, and sticky flats were abolished, the flooring so constructed that it could be taken to pieces like a child's puzzle, scenery could be raised or sunk bodily, and all the shifting was done on the mezzanine stage beneath ; ceilings were no longer represented by hanging cloths, or the walls of a room by open wings, but were solidly built, 1 the old glaring " floats," which used to make such hideous lights and shadows upon the faces of the performers, were sunk and subdued, and set scene succeeded set scene with a rapidity that in those days, when seldom more than one set was attempted in each act, was regarded as marvellous. But it was not alone in the mechanical and artistic departments that Fechter wrought such startling changes : he shook to their foundation the worn-out traditions of the old school of acting, which, however excellent it might have been in its time, had become musty and pedantic. Fechter was well known to the London public, as he had already played Hamlet at the Princess's, when he 1 There is nothing new under the sun. Goethe, in his Autobiography, part 3, book xi., says that in the French theatres (even in his youth) they shut in the sides and formed real walls for the interior scenes. 296 THE LONDON STAGE opened the Lyceum on January loth, 1863, with The Dukes Motto. Henri Largardere was one of his most brilliant parts, and he crowded the Lyceum for many months with all the brains and all the fashion of Lon- don. Yet its magnificent mounting was surpassed by that of Beldemonio^ which followed, and was succeeded by Hamlet. Of Fechter's interpretation of the part I shall have something to say when I come to the Princess's. The Kings Butterfly (Fan/an la Tulip e\ The Road- side Inn (Robert Macaire), The Mountebank, a version of Belphegor, and Ruy Bias made up the principal work of the second season, which ended with a loss. In the third a poor drama, entitled The Watch Cry, in which Fechter played a dumb part in wonderful pantomime, was followed by one of his finest efforts, The Master of Ravenswood ; his delineation of Scott's fated hero was superb ; very beautiful was Carlotta Leclercq's Lucy ; Emery's Caleb Balderstone was a gem, and the quick- sand effect in the last act has never been excelled, either in effect or ingenuity. The play was a great success. A revival of The Corsican Brothers, with several im- portant innovations from Kean's method, came next, and such a rendering of the twin brothers has never been seen before or since. Boucicault occupied the stage in the autumn following with his own drama, The Long Strike. Fechter returned at Christmas with Rouge et Noir, an adaptation of the famous La Vie d'un Jouer, previously known in England by a version called The Hut of* the Red Mountains. The great French actor was admirably seconded by Kate Terry, Carlotta Leclercq, Hermann Vezin, Emery, George Jordan, Addison, Harry Widdicombe, Mrs. Ternan, Miss Henrade, etc. His last important pro- duction was The Lady of Lyons. Bulwer's hero is THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 297 essentially French, and, taken for all in all, perhaps, the author's conception was never before so vividly realised; the high-falutin speeches put into the mouth of Claude were, for the first time, not premeditated declamation, but bursts of natural emotion, and even that most artificial harangue in the cottage scene had such intensity of conviction and abandon that the tinsel seemed gold. Fechter's power lay in that glowing passion, that wonder- ful picturesqueness, which carry away the imagination of the audience, qualities that are no longer to be found upon our stage. The reign which commenced so brilliantly closed but gloomily on May 24th, 1867, with a performance of The Duke s Motto. E. T. Smith carried on the theatre for the next two seasons. He produced Westland Marston's Life for Life, in which Adelaide Neilson made her first great hit as a poetical actress ; Bulwer Lytton's very much out-of-date play The Sea Captain, renamed The Right- ful Heir, during the same season, was the only other event of note that need be recorded here. Under the management of the Mansell brothers an experiment in opera-bouffe was made by the production of Chilpe'ric, but proved a dismal failure. And when, in the autumn of 1871, Mr. H. L. Bateman entered upon the speculation, everyone prophesied a like fate for him. And at the start it seemed as though their gloomy vaticinations would certainly be realised. Bateman took the Lyceum especially to bring forward his daughter Isabel, in whom he believed he had a prize equal to her sister Kate, of Leah fame. He commenced his campaign with a dramatic version of George Sand's La Petite Fadette, called Fanchette. Both play and actress failed. Pickwick, with Irving as Jingle, was a succts destime, but there was no money in it. Matters were growing 298 THE LONDON STAGE desperate, and as a pis aller a piece by Leopold Lewis, founded upon one of Erckman-Chatrain's celebrated stories, at that time in Henry Irving's possession, was put in the bills. Bateman had regarded that fine character-actor, George Belmore, as the second string to his bow, for although Irving had made his mark at the St. James's and at the Queen's in Long Acre, and more especially at the Vaudeville, as Digby Grant, no one was pre- pared for such a revelation of power and originality as burst upon the town on that November night in 1871, when he gave his first performance of the ghost- haunted Burgomaster, Mathias. We must go back to the night when Robson first played Shylock to find a parallel to the sensation he made. The drama ran 150 nights to overflowing houses. Later on Irving appeared as Jeremy Diddler in Raising the Wind, and Kate Bateman as Leah, and Medea, in a new version of the classical tragedy by Wills. Irving's next hit was in Charles /., September, 1872, which ran 180 nights, a beautiful poetical play, and Irving's acting in it " one entire and perfect chrysolite." The stage has never given us anything finer of the kind in dignity, in pathos, in kingliness. Isabel Bateman played the Queen excellently, but it was not until Ellen Terry took up the character that we could realise all the awful agony of the parting in the last scene, that drowned the house in tears. In the following year we had Eugene Aram, a powerful drama, but not very successful. Yet Irving has done few things more striking than the first scene with Houseman ; the sudden transition from the calm, poetical scholar to the fierce, determined man revealed the whole psychology of the character by a single flash. THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 299 Richelieu was a production of 1873, a ^ ne perform- ance, which in the anathema rose almost to greatness. Philip, a charming drama, followed in February, and was admirably acted both by the leading actor and John Clayton. But it was in the following season, on October 3ist, 1874, when Irving appeared as Hamlet, that his popularity rose to its greatest height. Manager Bate- man was a king among entrepreneurs ; he worked the Press for all it was worth, and sent invitations to the editors of all the great provincial papers. They accepted, and next morning their eulogies were scattered all over the kingdom. Hamlet ran until June 25th, 1875, out- living poor Bateman, who died in the previous March. Macbeth was the piece de resistance of the autumn of 1875, and was splendidly staged; from the first scene, where the weird sisters loomed out of the chaotic darkness by flashes of lightning, to the black, ponderous stonework of Glamis Castle and the towers of Dunsinane, bathed in blood-red sunset, we were never out of the fateful atmosphere of the mighty tragedy. When he reproduced the play in 1888, Irving had greatly im- proved upon his first rendering, notably of the murder scene ; there were some very fine points in the fourth act the sense of doom in the gloomy utterance and haggard face but the craven conception of "the noble Thane " can never be acceptable, and the last act was weak. Miss Bateman was the Lady Macbeth. It is best to pass over Othello, February, 1876, in silence. It soon gave place to Tennyson's Queen Mary, in which Miss Bateman played the title-role and Irving Philip of Spain ; another failure. It was followed by The Belle s Stratagem. The Carl Rosa Company had possession of the house during the autumn, and Miss 300 THE LONDON STAGE Bateman opened the dramatic season with Fazio. The next great revival was Richard III. from the text, in January, 1877. I have always considered this to be one of Sir Henry's best Shakespearian parts. The last act was deficient in physical power, but the conception was full of intensity and subtlety, while some of the scenes were remarkably striking. The Lyons Mail followed Richard. Then, at the beginning of the new year, Louis XI., the finest thing he had yet done ; a wonderful study. Vanderdecken was the next production. This was Mrs. Bateman's last season, and on December 3Oth, 1878, Henry Irving became sole lessee of the Lyceum. He began with an elaborate revival of Hamlet, and Ellen Terry made her first appearance here as Ophelia. The Lady of Lyons ended the season. The next opened with The Iron Chest, but it was not a success, and soon gave place to one of Irving's most notable revivals, The Merchant of Venice. It was a dream of ancient Venice, bathed in an atmosphere of enchanting poetry. And what a piece of acting was Ellen Terry's Portia ! How tender, how womanly, and altogether delightful. Irving's Jew was very fine, but a little too mild. The revival was a prodigious success, achieving the longest run on record, to celebrate which the manager gave a sumptuous supper on the stage after the performance, on the hundredth night, at which Lord Houghton presided. A very elaborate get-up of The Corsican Brothers commenced the next season. Irving followed Kean's conception of the dual role, but after Fechter, who threw all the fierce Corsican nature into the last act, the deadly northern calm of Irving, where he confronted Chateau Renaud, was not convincing. I could never understand why The Cup (1881) was THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 301 never revived after its first production. No grander scene was ever set upon the Lyceum stage than the Temple of Artemis, and Miss Terry's Camma was a beautiful performance. In May, Irving and Booth alternated Othello and lago. Both the Othellos were bad, but Irving's lago was consummately fine. A re- vival of The Two Roses must be mentioned, since it introduced George Alexander to the London stage in the part of Caleb Deecie. The event of 1882 was the production of Romeo and Juliet. Irving made three huge mistakes when he played Othello, Claude Melnotte, and Romeo, and it was only in certain scenes, notably that with the Nurse, that Miss Terry rose to the occasion. Terriss was utterly con- ventional as Mercutio ; the only well-played parts were the Nurse of Mrs. Stirling and the Apothecary of Tom Mead. And yet with such exquisite art was the tragedy evolved, that never was I so impressed by its marvellous beauty as on the three occasions that I witnessed it at the Lyceum. I was living in the halls and streets of mediaeval Italy ; I felt the glow of the sunshine, the chill of the vault of all the Capulets, and I was overwhelmed by the fatalism of the immortal love story. The genius of a great artist pervaded the whole, and communicated its sense of harmony to the spectator. If Ellen Terry fell short of our desires as Juliet, she infinitely exceeded all expectations as Beatrice, when Much Ado aboiit Nothing was produced in October, 1882. She played Leonato's daughter as it had never been played before ; she broke through every tradition of the part, she was a law unto herself in it ; yet even the most orthodox of old actors grew enthusiastic over her, and some even declared her to be the most delightful Beatrice they had ever seen. 302 THE LONDON STAGE Miss Mary Anderson made her London debut here in 1883, while Irving was on his first American tour, and by her beautiful face and figure and graceful pose captivated the town as Galatea and in other parts. Another American, Lawrence Barrett, a good actor, failed to make much impression in a play called Yorick. Later in the year 1884, Irving, on his return from America, revived Twelfth Night. Not one of his happiest efforts, but Ellen Terry was an exquisite Viola. During the summer extensive alterations were made in the theatre, the roof of the gallery was raised, the dress-circle enlarged, and the principal entrance recon- structed. In the autumn Miss Anderson attempted Juliet in a costly get-up of Shakespeare's tragedy. Calling up, as I write, memories of famous Lyceum first nights, not one is more delightful than \ho, premiere of Olivia, May, 1885. As Romeo and Juliet was fired with the passion and turbulence of mediaevalism, so was Olivia steeped in the pastoral quietude of the eighteenth century, when there were no unrest and " burning questions," and life passed drowsily and evenly. Irving's Vicar was charming ; it revealed a depth of pathos never suspected by his admirers. Olivia was one of Miss Terry's most adorable performances. When she struck Thornhill with the cry " Devil ! " what a thrill went through the house, then a hurricane of applause. But how risky it was ; only the intense conviction of the actress saved it from a laugh. The scene between father and daughter, and the return of the wanderers were never surpassed in pathos ; there was not a dry eye in the house ; even the hardened critics blew their noses and furtively wiped their cheeks. But it must be conceded that the iQth of December, 1885, the first night of Faust, was, after all, the greatest THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 303 of Lyceum premieres. The applications for reserved seats would have taxed the capacity of a dozen theatres thousands came from Germany alone. People gathered about the pit and gallery doors at nine in the morning ; by six o'clock the crowd was half-way across the road of the Strand. Scores of despairing women gathered in the vestibule in the forlorn hope of returned seats, casting beseeching eyes upon Joe Hurst, whose visage was stern and inexorable ; some were so desperate that they seemed more than half inclined to make a rush up the stairs. It was a wonderful production. The old German streets, Margaret's garden, the Brocken with the wild, grey, misty revel, and eldritch screams of the witches whirling round the crimson, electric figure of the fiend. And after all the terrors, the dawn-lit ancient city of Nuremberg. I think Irving was at his best on the first night ; he was more reposeful, yet more terribly intense than afterwards. What a fiasco poor Conway made as Faust, as great as Alexander's success in Valentine. The latter soon afterwards succeeded to the title-role. But vivid above all other impressions of the play is the Margaret of Ellen Terry ; from the few words of her first entrance, through the joyousness of the jewels scene, the simple pathos and exquisite tenderness of the love duologues, the overwhelming agony at the fountain, the frantic despair in the church, and the madness and death of the end. What a performance it was ! The 1 3 8th night of Faust, which closed the season, was notable as marking the last appearance of Mrs. Stirling upon the stage, after a service to her art of fifty- seven years. In her early days she was an incomparable heroine of domestic drama, and a good all-round actress ; in her later years a supreme exponent of the old woman 3 o 4 THE LONDON STAGE of classical comedy. Mrs. Malaprop died with her. Martha was her last character. The continuity of the Irving management was now constantly broken by the American tours. Sarah Bern- hardt was here with Theodora in 1887 ; Richard Mans- field, the American actor, appeared in a version of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with little success ; and Miss Anderson gave an elaborate revival of The Winters Tale in 1888. In the June of the same year Miss Terry appeared in one of the most exquisite of her creations, Ellaline in The Amber Heart, and Irving played Robert Macaire. In the summer of 1889, Verdi's Otello was first sung in England with Tamagno and Maurel ; and Sarah Bernhardt played another season, in which she acted La Tosca for the first time in London. The autumn production was The Dead Heart, of which nothing good can be said ; then followed Macbeth, with Miss Terry as the Lady, a character she should never have attempted. Ravenswood could not compare with Fechter's version, especially in the acting. 1891, another trip to America, during which great improvements were again effected in the theatre. Splendidly redecorated, it was opened by the Daly company. 1892, Henry VIII. Not even on this stage was the revel at York Place, with the masque, " the white satin dance," to Edward German's quaint music, which is now known to everyone, surpassed. Irving's Wolsey was a well-considered performance; Miss Terry's Queen Katherine another mistake. King Lear belongs to the same year. Lear was quite outside the limits of Irving's art, and in avoiding the traditions of his predecessors, he stripped the character of all grandeur, while in the mad scenes he not only failed THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 305 to indicate a powerful intellect shattered, but he degraded the once great monarch to the level of a doddering lunatic. A creation so stupendous as King Lear cannot be dragged down from the sublime heights, where it stands beside CEdipus and Prometheus, to the gutters of realism, without the incongruity being apparent to the least artistic intelligence. The grand mise en scene and Ellen Terry's Cordelia and never had Shakespeare's heroine a more exquisite interpretation were the only redeeming features of a very inadequate production. But this fiasco was atoned by the glorious triumph of Tennyson's Becket (1893). Many, like myself, consider that Irving attained to the zenith of his art in this tragedy, and that the martyr of Canterbury is the greatest piece of acting he has given us. Never before did he equal the grandeur of his defiance of the nobles in the Hall of Northampton Castle, the stern asceticism, the devotional fervour of the later scenes, or the solemn impressiveness of the death. Rosamond, perhaps, was the last of those beautiful creations by which Miss Terry will be chiefly remembered in the years to come, for her Imogen was a disappointment. Ellen Terry was the one poetical actress of her generation her own sister, Marian, was nearest to her; all her most celebrated contemporaries were realists. Charles Reade said of her: " She is an enigma; her eyes are pale, her nose rather long, her mouth nothing particular. Her complexion a delicate brick-dust, her lhair rather like tow. Yet, somehow, she is beautiful. [Her expression kills any pretty face you see beside her. jShe is a pattern of fawn-like grace. Whether in move- Iment or repose, grace pervades the hussy." As in [private life, this rare fascination was one of the secrets lof her public success ; a fascination so absolute that it x 306 THE LONDON STAGE carried you away without the power to criticise. Her Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, Portia, Beatrice could never hav.e been surpassed by the actresses of past days, and leave all of her own generation far behind. Sarah Bernhardt has said that her greatest treat was to see o Ellen Terry act, and Wendell Holmes, when she was in America, after her mad scene of Ophelia, paid homage to her by kissing the hem of her dress. Yet in her early days she showed no promise of future excellence. The Bancrofts were the first to draw forth the latent fire in Portia. But it was only under Henry Irving that her genius was fully developed. One regret of all playgoers is that they have never seen her in the part of parts, of which she would have been an ideal representative Rosalind ; another, that she should ever have attempted characters so utterly outside her limits as Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine, and The Viking heroine. But such mistakes have been made by all great artistes in all ages. Irving was never famous for the companies he gathered about him ; his confreres were efficient, and that was all. William Terriss was, perhaps, the most conspicuous ; his best parts were Squire Thornhill, Henry VIII., and Henry II. And now briefly to resume the chronicle of the Lyceum. King Arthur was the not very commend- able production of 1 894 ; Don Quixote and A Story of Waterloo of 1895. As Corporal Brewster, Irving scored another triumph ; he has done nothing more perfect ; perhaps in no other part has he so completely sunk Henry Irving in the character he represents. Another of the manager's American trips left the Lyceum in possession of Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Michael and His Lost Angel, a fine THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 307 piece of work, was, from causes which I have not space to discuss, strangled in its birth. For the Crown, a noble play, though well acted, was beyond the genius of its exponents. Irving's autumn production, Cymbe- line, 1876, was not remarkable from any point of view. It was followed by a reproduction of Richard III., and in 1897, Miss Terry played Rejane's great part, Madame St. Gene, not unsuccessfully. Peter the Great and The Medicine Man, 1898, need not be dwelt upon. The splendid fortune which had shone upon the Lyceum since the first night of The Bells, thanks to plays that did not catch on with the public and Irving's repeated and long absences in the States, was waning fast. Irving relinquished the management, which was taken up by a syndicate, with Mr. Comyns Carr as managing director. Much abuse has been heaped upon the head of the actor-manager ; yet he has, at least, a love for his art, and, whatever mistakes he may commit through egotism, he has some knowledge of it ; but a syndicate of business men would sacrifice the genius of the world, from Homer to Tennyson, to add one per per cent, to a dividend, and the voice of one man of culture is certain to be overpowered by the clamour of the Philistine board. Coquelin appeared as Cyrano de Bergerac in the summer of 1898, and during the autumn and winter Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Campbell again occupied the boards. Robespierre, 1899, was the next Irving pro- duction. Wilson Barrett followed with revivals of The Silver King and other plays, and the Benson company played a season before Sir Henry returned to stage Coriolanus. No character could have been more unsuited to his subtle, purely intellectual style than Caius Marcius, which requires the greatest breadth and 3 o8 THE LONDON STAGE physical power. By, as in Lear, pedantically ignoring the traditions of his predecessors, he rendered the part colourless ; the Coriolanus of Plutarch did not sneer at his enemies, he bullied them, and the flying legions of Rome would certainly not have rushed back to victory had they been objurgated in the style adopted by Sir Henry Irving. Lewis Waller followed on with The Three Musketeers in the autumn, and Henry V. began the new century. In 1901, Sherlock Holmes took the stage. In the following year there was a revival of Faust. Oh what a falling off was there ! And on July 1 9th, 1902, the curtain fell, for the last time, on a performance of The Merchant of Venice and Waterloo and the story of the Lyceum was ended. I have dwelt at some length upon the history of this house, as for many years it was the premier theatre, the Comedie Frangaise of England, and the Irving management its supreme factor. It would be scarcely possible to over-estimate the benignant influence which Sir Henry has exercised over the English stage. The soul of generosity, with a personality that has won for him the friendship of all sorts and conditions of men, he attracted to the theatre people of all shades of thought, from the bishop to the scientist ; and, completing the work initiated by Fechter and the Bancrofts, he has been chiefly instrumental in raising the drama and the actor from the pitiful slough of the middle Victorian period to the position they held under James I. Poor old theatre, to which for so many thousands of nights all the intellect, all the beauty, all the fashion from all parts of the world flocked eagerly, whose doings were discussed from India to Land's End, scene of such brilliant assemblies, of such delightful memories, of the triumphs of so many great artistes, living and dead, THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 309 thou art now but the salle des pas perdus ; the applause is hushed, the lights are extinguished for ever, the rats are thy only tenants, the dust of death is over all, and thou art only awaiting the coming of the housebreaker to be among the things that have been and are not. Any account of the Lyceum would be incomplete without some reference to a famous institution which, during fifty years, had its home within those walls. I refer to the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, founded by John Rich in 1735. During seventy years the meetings were held in a room in Covent Garden. When the theatre was burned down in 1808, the society took up its quarters for one year at the Bedford Coffee House. Thence in 1809 it removed to the Lyceum. Upon the rebuilding of the house after the fire, a couple of rooms were added for their especial accommodation, and there all meetings were held until the dissolution of the club in 1867. Sir Henry Irving used them as reception-rooms. The "Steakers" were very aristocratic and very exclusive. It was rigidly laid down that their number should never exceed twenty-four, and they would not make an ex- ception even for the Prince Regent, who had to wait his turn. The members met every Saturday night to eat beef-steaks and drink port wine. At the end of the dining-room was an enormous grating in the form of a gridiron, through which the fire was seen, and the steaks were handed from the kitchen. Over this was the quotation : " If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly." There was perfect equality, and the last-made member, 3 ro THE LONDON STAGE even were he of royal blood, was made the fag of the rest. There is a capital story told of this peculiarity of the society. On a certain occasion, when a large and dis- tinguished party had met, a wealthy and pretentious Liverpool merchant was among the guests. Something occurred to rouse his suspicion that the royal and titled persons were myths, and he communicated this conviction to his host, remarking that it was a very good joke, but he saw through it. The idea was instantly seized, and the Beefsteaks, to keep up the delusion, resolved themselves into a society of tradesmen. The Duke of Sussex reproached Alderman Wood for the tough steaks he had sent last Saturday. The Alderman retorted upon his royal brother by complaining of the ill- fitting stays he had sent his wife. Sir Francis Burdett told Whitbread his last cask of beer was sour, and the latter accounted for it by saying that it had been left too long in the Tower. A leaf had to be withdrawn to shorten the table, and in closing it the chair of the Duke of Leinster, who was president, was overbalanced, and both the duke and the chair fell into the grate. No one moved, everybody roared, and His Grace had to scramble to his feet as best he could. This confirmed the mer- chant's scepticism. " Why," he said, "if he had been a real duke, would they not all have run to pick him up ?" CHAPTER III The Tottenham Street Theatre, better known as The Prince of Wales's, 1809-82 A Curious Chapter in Theatrical History. OME WHERE in the latter decades of the eight- w_y eenth century a Signior Paschali built a concert- room in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, which was afterwards purchased and enlarged by the directors of the " Concerts of Ancient Music," whose entertainments were ''patronised by royalty." In 1802 the building came into the hands of a society of amateur actors called the Pic Nics, who frequently provoked the satiric pencil of Gilray, and their success was great enough to bring down upon them the hostility of the legitimate theatres. Six years later the concert-room was converted into a circus, which, however, enjoyed a very brief existence. After being closed for a time, Mr. Paul, a gunsmith and silversmith in the Strand, whose wife fancied she had a call for the stage, and would speedily become a second Vestris, bought the place and fitted it up as a theatre. The lady opened as Rosetta in Love in a Village. At the end of a few months the unfortunate husband was in the bankruptcy court, after which the assignees and some tradesmen attempted to carry on the theatre; 'but the loss was so heavy that they soon gave up their undertaking. In the December of 1814 the property, which had cost 3" 3 i2 THE LONDON STAGE ,4,000, was sold to Mr. Harry Beverley for ^"315, and the scenery and other accessories were thrown in for another ^300 ; while the rent was only ^"177 per annum and the taxes 35. After some considerable alterations it was opened early in the following year under the name of the Regency Theatre of Varieties. It was essentially a minor, with a very mediocre company, though the manager the father, by-the-by, of William Beverley, the famous scenic artist and his brother, Roxby Beverley, were both exceedingly clever actors who, had they chosen to remain in London, would have been in the foremost rank of comedians ; but preferring to reign in the provinces rather than to serve in a principal London theatre, they became the proprietors of a circuit in the north. The Regency, thanks to the restrictive laws, did not provide a very elevated style of entertainment for its patrons, melodrama and farce being the staple fare. After six years', struggle the Beverleys retired in favour of Brunton, but they returned for a season or two in 1826. Brunton, on assuming the management, re- christened the house the West London Theatre, and introduced a superior style of entertainment, while his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Yates, of whom some account will be found in the chapter on the Adelphi, became the bright particular star. Talk about driving a coach and four through an Act of Parliament, that feat was certainly accomplished by Brunton when, in spite of the patent theatres, he played She Stoops to Conquer, The School for Scandal, The Wonder, and called them " bur- lettas," introducing a song or a few chords of music here and there to keep up the farce. A little later on Planche describes the place as "about as dark and dingy a den as ever sheltered the, children THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 313 of Thespis." The stage was only twenty-one feet wide at the proscenium and thirty-six feet deep ; the prices ranged from four shillings to one ; the auditorium would hold about ^130. A picture now before me represent- ing the exterior of the theatre in 1826 shows that no alteration was ever made in the street frontage ; there is the ugly squat portico and the blank wall beyond, just as they appeared to the last. In 1826 the West London became the home of the French companies who visited London. There was a subscription season of forty nights ; the plays, however, were given only once or twice a week during winter and spring. It is suggestive to mention that when Mdlle. Georges was engaged, the prices were raised to two shillings and five ; but the aristocracy, who at that time alone supported foreign companies, would not pay the price, and the great Parisian actress appeared to empty benches. During 1829, three different managers tried their fortunes at the West London Tom Dibdin, Watkins Burroughs, and Mrs. Waylett. The latter, who made her London debut at the Adelphi, was now in the first rank of English cantatrices, rivalling Mrs. Honey, and even the great Vestris herself. It is curious to mark how certain forms of art flourish and then disappear. During the early years of the nineteenth century there was a positive glut of English songstresses, Miss Stephens, Miss Love, Mrs. Honey, Mrs. Waylett, Madame Vestris, all of whom for beauty of voice, exquisite method and expression, especially in what, for lack of a better word, I must call the serio-comic style an expression horribly vulgarised by the music-hall " artistes" have no successors in the present day. These ladies, with the exception of the last, who frequently 3I4 THE LONDON STAGE soared into a much higher region of art, were essentially ballad singers, and their favourite songs were brought into every piece they appeared in, with an utter dis- regard of the fitness of things which seems quite amazing to an age that prides itself upon its rigid correctness in theatrical details ; as an instance, in a dramatic version of Beaumarchais's Mariage de Figaro, in which she played Susanna, Mrs. Waylett sang " The Soldier's Tear," " I'd be a Butterfly," " The Light Guitar," "My Own Bluebell," while in a version of Boieldieu's Jeanne de Paris she introduced, as the Princess of Navarre, " I've Been Roaming," " The Merry Swiss Boy," " Oh, No, We Never Mention Her," and "The Dashing White Sergeant." 1 The fair manageress surrounded herself with a capital company, including Miss Jarman, afterwards Mrs. Ternan, a charming actress ; Vining, Alexander Lee, etc. ; but, although she added melodrama to these more elegant pieces, the public did not support her, and she soon gave place to other ambitious spirits. Mrs. Fitzwilliam seems to have been one of these, 2 but was very soon succeeded by Melrose and Chapman, who so greatly embroiled themselves with the patentees that the owners of the theatre expelled them. In January, 1831, after being closed some little time for alterations and decorations, the theatre in Tottenham Street, as it had been called during the past two years, was once more rechristened the Queen's, and reopened under the management of Mrs. Nisbett, who brought with her Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Humby, and a good stock company. If it had been possible to make this unlucky 1 See also p. 278. 2 It is very difficult to ascertain the actual managers from the playbills as very frequently their names do not appear at all. THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 315 theatre pay, that feat should have been accomplished by one of the most beautiful women and exquisite comediennes of the time. 1 Old playgoers still speak raptur- ously of that silvery laugh, to hear which alone was worth a visit to the theatre ; of that wonderful verve and "go" which, in the fullest sense of the word, created such parts as Constance in The Love Chase and Lady Gay Spanker in London Assurance ; but although she and Mrs. Glover played nightly in light pieces, Mrs. Nisbett, in April, had to engage an extra attraction in the person of a French pantomime actress, Madame Celeste, who here made her first appearance in London, at the age of fifteen, 1 as a dumb Arab boy, in a piece called The French Spy, a part which, as she could not speak one word of English, was played throughout in dumbshow ; yet by the beauty and grace of her dancing and action she made a decided hit. In 1833 the name of the house was changed to the Fitzroy ; but not for long, as two years later it once more became the Queen's, with Mrs. Nisbett's name again at the head of the bill. The person who found the money, however, was the notorious Ephraim Bond, the money-lender, who kept a gambling-house in St. James's Street, second only in importance to Crockford's (the 1 Mrs. Nisbett, then Miss Mordaunt, had made her first appearance in London, as the Widow Cheerly, at Drury Lane, October i6th, 1829; but she had been on the stage from childhood, having played Juliet at ten as a juvenile prodigy. 2 Young as she was, Celeste had already played an engagement in America, where she married an officer named Elliot, who died shortly after- wards ; she had also appeared in Liverpool as Fenella in Masaniello. She returned to America in 1834, where she created so much enthusiasm that at Washington the people yoked themselves to her carriage and proclaimed her a citizen of the United States, while General Jackson himself presented her to the Council of Ministers. Leaving America with a considerable fortune, she reappeared at Drury Lane in 1837, and afterwards performed at the Haymarket and the Adelphi. 3I 6 THE LONDON STAGE Ephraim Sharpe of Disraeli's Henrietta Temple] ; he seems to have taken it for beautiful Mrs. Honey. There was an admirable company Wrench, Elton, Tilbury, Morris Barnett, Tom Green, John Reeve, Mrs. Orger, Miss Murray, Mrs. Honey, and Mrs. Nisbett. The lightest of light pieces were performed, sometimes as many as six one-act trifles making up the bill. During the Lent of 1837 and 1838 by which time Mrs. Nisbett's name no longer figured as manageress, she being at that time at Co vent Garden with Macready Madame Vestris and Charles Mathews, in consequence of some absurd regulations, being unable to play at their own theatre, the Olympic, brought their company to Tottenham Street, when the theatre was again known as the Fitzroy. In the October of 1839 the house, rechristened the Queen's, came into the hands of Mr. C. J. James, a scenic artist, who, from that time until the final close of the theatre, was never dissociated from the management. For years the Queen's, or the Dust Hole, as it was irreverently called among actors, was one of the curiosi- ties of London. Mr. James began by reducing the prices to two shillings, one shilling, and sixpence, and this tariff was afterwards lowered to one shilling and sixpence, eightpence, and fourpence, with half-prices to boxes and pit. Melodramas of the most terrific de- scription, bearing the most tremendous titles, were performed. Only fancy going to see Footpad Joe, the Terror of Charing Cross; or, the Dog of the Abbey ; The Death Wedding; or, the Witch of the Heath; The Inn of Death ; or, the Dog Witness. The great star of the latter was Jack Matthews, who used to boast that he was the only " Dog Hamlet." At booths and fairs this gentleman played the Prince of Denmark with a THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 317 large black dog at his heels, who used to "bay the moon " at the sight of the ghost and throttle the king in the last scene, which would be arrived at in about half an hour after the commencement. The Skeleton of the Wave; or^ the Ocean Spirit ', was another favourite play at the Queen's ; but what a feast of horrors for one night was The Demon Lord ; The Poison Tree ; or, the Law of Java, which in future bills became The Poison Tree of Java ; or, the Spectre Bride and the Demon Nun; and to wind up on this particular night, The Death Plank ; or, the Dumb Sailor Boy. These highly seasoned dramas were, however, occasionally diversified by the engagement of Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. Honey, and by Shakespearian productions. The style in which the plays were rendered may be imagined ; no burlesque was ever half so extravagant ; in one piece the villain was thrown into the corner fifteen times by the hero, and invariably consoled himself by the remark that he "must dissemble," or that a "time would come." The acting, as may be imagined, was in unison with the drama. Anything so utterly stilted and unnatural it would be impossible to conceive at the present day ; burlesque could not exaggerate it, as it was beyond the reach of exaggeration, even in the utterance of the simplest words. If a character asked for a piece of bread and cheese he would raise and lower his eyebrows three times, pause between each word, which was dragged up from the very pit of his stomach, and intoned as tragic- ally as though he had requested a cup of poison. The Queen's shared with the Bower Saloon in Stangate the reputation of being the lowest theatre in London ; and then the neighbourhood ! always im- pregnated with "an ancient and fish-like smell" from the fried fish, which was the staple commerce of the 3 i8 THE LONDON STAGE street. Such was the house that Miss Marie Wilton, in 1865, being at that time in search of a theatre, fixed upon as a home for elegant comedy. Truly it had been under the direction of Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. Fitz- william, Mrs. Waylett, Madame Vestris, but that was a generation ago, and the experiment cannot be character- ised as anything less than daring in the extreme. What she saw one night upon visiting the theatre might have daunted the boldest resolution. I will give it in her own words: "Some of the occupants of the stalls (the price of admission was, I think, a shilling) were engaged between the acts in devouring oranges (their faces being buried in them) and drinking ginger- beer. Babies were being rocked or smacked to be quiet, which proceeding in many cases had an opposite effect. A woman looked up to our box, and seeing us staring aghast with, I suppose, an expression of horror upon my face, first of all ' took a sight ' at us, and then shouted, ' Now then, you stuck-up ones, come out of that, or I'll send this 'ere orange at your 'eads.' Mr. Byron went to the back of the box and laughed until we thought he would be ill. He said my face was a study. ' Oh, Byron ! ' I said, * do you think the people from the West End will ever come into those seats ? ' ' No/ he replied, ' not those seats.' Of course he made jokes the whole evening. One woman in the stalls called out, ' I say, Mrs. Groves, 'ere's one for you,' at the same moment throwing a big orange ; upon which Mr. Byron remarked, ' Nice woman, Mrs. Grove orange grove! I think, if I could, I would at that moment have retired from my bargain ; but the deed was done, and there was no going back from it." The money required to start the speculation, ,1,000, Mrs. Bancroft informs us, was borrowed of her brother- THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 319 in-law, Mr. Francis Drake, and with this the decorators and upholsterers were set to work to cleanse and furbish up the Dust Hole. When this task was done a balance of only ^150 was left in the treasury, but from that time, again to quote her own words, " Not one shilling further was ever borrowed by me from, or given to me by anyone, living or dead, in connection with this enter- prise." H. J. Byron was in partnership with Miss Wilton, but risked only his work. The Prince of Wales having given permission for the use of his name, the theatre was opened under its new management in September, 1865, with a comedietta by J. P. Wooler, entitled A Winning Hazard, Byron's burlesque of La Sonnambula, in which Marie Wilton played Elvino, and the farce of Vandyke Brown; the company included " little Johnny" Clarke, Fred Dewar, Bancroft, Miss Fanny Josephs, Miss Goodall, Miss Lavine, and three Miss Wiltons. The speculation was a success from the first, and even on the opening night hansoms, for the first time for twenty -five years, drove up to the doors of the Tottenham Street Theatre. Yet on that first night the Prince of Wales's had the narrowest escape of being burned to the ground through a bundle of shavings having taken fire beneath the pit. The next programme was Byron's War to the Knife, and a second burlesque from the same pen, Lucia de Lammermoor. But although the house paid from the beginning, the first really great success was Tom Robert- son's Society, produced on November iith, 1865; this soon became the talk of the town. Robertson had previously made a hit with David Garrick at the Hay- market ; but Society had gone the round of the managers, and had been rejected almost with contempt ; indeed, one wrote " bosh " across it. So much more depends, 3 2o THE LONDON STAGE however, upon the circumstances under which a play is put before the public than on the play itself. Many a fine work has failed simply from the fact that it was produced under inauspicious influences, while mediocre productions have attained a success far greater than their merits warranted, because they have happened just to fit an occasion and have been favoured by surround- ings. Society was clever, but not great, and the managers who rejected it were not so short-sighted as they may now appear to have been ; played under the conditions of dramatic art that then obtained, it would certainly have fallen flat ; as a new departure in the drama it required a new departure in histrionic art for a successful interpretation ; that it secured at the Prince of Wales's, and at once hit the public taste. At the Christmas of 1865, Miss Wilton appeared as Little Don Giovanni ; her last burlesque part. Another comedy by H. J. Byron, A Hundred Thousand Pounds ; and then, on September i5th, 1866, Robertson's second comedy, Ours, suggested by Millais's picture "The Black Brunswicker." In Society the Robertsonian method was only in embryo, in Ours its form was fully developed, but it was reserved for Caste, produced April 6th, 1869, just after the dissolution of the Wilton- Byron partner- ship, to display its highest capabilities. The story was so human that it appealed to every kindly feeling of our nature, and was as sympathetic to the stalls as it was to the gallery. It was the Alpha and the Omega of the Robertsonian method ; it contained all that had gone before, anticipated all that was to come. The author, although a very bad actor, was a genius as a stage manager. After reading his comedies, people wonder what there was in dialogue, at times so bald, to fascinate an audience and draw them night after night THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 321 to hang delightedly on every word. x It was not exactly the play, it was the novelty of the representation and the skill with which it was rendered that constituted the charm. The style of acting was a surprise ; nothing so perfectly realistic, so devoid of staginess, had ever yet been seen in an English theatre. But Robertson domi- nated all. " I don't want actors," he said ; "I want people that will do just what I tell them " ; and he certainly contrived to infuse the very souls of his creations into those who personated them. Looking back now, after a lapse of many years, when the school has passed away and a new order obtains in things theatrical, the glow of remembrance is almost as fervid as when those performances were the talk of every drawing-room, What a charming piece of acting was Younge's George D'Alroy ; his many successors never hit the simple- hearted, noble-minded gentleman, as Robertson con- ceived him, so perfectly as he did. Some tried the lisp, but it never had the same effect ; it was an excrescence with them, while with him it was full of suggestion ; again, all succeeding George D'Alroys were a little too clever to fall in love with the poor ballet-girl ; but when Younge played the part, you never for a moment were in doubt as to the probability, for it was exactly what that George D'Alroy would have done. Bancroft's drawling but fine-hearted swell was admirable in its freshness and departure from old types. Another memorable performance was the Sam Gerridge of John Hare, his first appearance in London. And George Honey! was there ever such an Eccles ? Some thought it extravagant, and perhaps it was ; yet who, with a soul for humour, would have lost one touch of its vivid colours, who would have had its inimitable drollery less emphasised? It was the exaggeration of a Dickens, of Y 322 THE LONDON STAGE a man thoroughly possessed by the relish of his own drollery, and communicating by its very intensity the relish to the spectators. But even above all this ex- cellence was the delicious Polly Eccles of Mrs. Bancroft, so saucy, so piquante, such a .blending of laughter and tears, in fine, so thoroughly human. Pages might be written in analysis of this matchless performance, but those who have seen it will be able to recall its every detail, and those who have not, well, words cannot paint it for them. Yet she tells us that she preferred Naomi Tighe. We do not think many will agree with her. Delightful as was Naomi Tighe, it was artificial, where- as Polly Eccles was the quintessence of nature. It was probably a surprise to old playgoers to hear that in length of run Caste stood as low as fifth, when compared to other plays produced at this theatre. Of Robertson's comedies, School ran the greatest number of nights, and Ours came second. Diplomacy and Masks and Faces both exceeded Caste in longevity. A long run was made by Wilkie Collins's Man and Wife, founded upon his novel of that name, which ex- cited almost as much indignation in athletes, from the attack it made upon their order, as did Kipling's "flannelled fools" and "muddied oafs" not long ago. A gruesome piece. Coghlan was very fine in it. It was in 1874 that Mr. Gilbert's delightful little comedietta, Sweethearts, was produced ; and it was as Jenny Northcote that Mrs. Bancroft's art was at its finest. It was the marvellous flow of animal spirits, the intense enjoyment of the actress in her own con- ception, which made the laughter as spontaneous as the tears that carried the audience away with Polly Eccles ; but a much higher art was revealed in the performance of Mr. Gilbert's heroine. Yet the ars celare artem, to THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 323 use a horribly hackneyed phrase, was so perfect that every aspiring amateur thought she had only to ape the forward schoolgirl in the first act, and powder her hair and look lacrymose in the last to emulate Mrs. Bancroft ; in her stupid self-conceit she never thought of the flashes, the subtle touches revealing the love and tenderness that palpitated beneath the espieglerie of the wayward Jenny, the exquisite bits of business, that re- quired such delicacy in handling. Even finer was the last act ; the deep pathos that was veiled by that calm, placid face, the story of the blighted life that you read, not through any conventional stage emotion, but by the mere drooping of an eyelid, the least quiver of the lip, the faltering on a syllable were as perfect as anything the French stage could show. Poor Robertson's share in the triumphs of the Bancroft management was as brief as it was brilliant. Artistic- ally, however, his vein was exhausted ; he had done his work, he had swept away old conventionalities ; but had he written many more pieces he would have established affectations even more objectionable than those he had displaced. All the characters of the plays lived in the best of all possible worlds, in which the troubles of early years were for the happiness of later, tears were always dried up by* the sunshine of smiles, and the curtain fell upon love and kisses. The teacup -and- saucer-trousers-pocket-school was very good in its way in the hands of its original exponents, but was carried to an absurd extent by their imitators, and to be quite inaudible and utterly inanimate were beginning to be considered the acme of good acting. A rude shock to the school was experienced when The Merchant of Venice was subjected to its cult, though we should all look leniently upon that error, since it first revealed to us the powers of Ellen Terry in the part of Portia. 3 2 4 THE LONDON STAGE It is worthy of note that a more robust style of drama, such as Diplomacy, one of the most perfect performances given at the Prince of Wales's, Peril, etc., followed the Robertson comedies. Money was the best acted of the Bancroft old comedy revivals ; Mrs. Bancroft's Lady Franklin was admirable, and Coghlan rendered that stilted sentimentalist Evelyn for the first time endur- able. The School for Scandal and Masks and Faces were admirably staged ; but the tone of the Prince of Wales's was essentially modern, there was no conviction about the powdered wigs and velvet coats ; if the dresses were of the eighteenth century, the men and women were essentially of the nineteenth ; but, again, the highest praise must be accorded to Coghlan's Charles Surface ; no actor within my memory has equalled him in Sheridan's gay hero. He was the full - blooded, port- wine drinking, boisterous young gentleman of the eighteenth century. The secret of the success of the Bancroft management was its practical, business-like conduct ; the Bancrofts gathered about them the finest talent, compatible with their style of entertainment, and frequently contented themselves with subordinate parts in the interests of the piece. When they made a mistake they never failed not only frankly to acknowledge, but to retrieve it as quickly as possible, no matter at what cost. Everything they attempted in scenery, in costume, in acting was finished to the minutest detail. An evening at the Prince of Wales's was an artistic pleasure undisturbed by any jarring chord. The Bancroft management came to an end in 1879, and the theatre passed into the hands of Edgar Bruce. His first success was Genevieve Ward in Forget Me Not, a most powerful performance. This was followed by THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 325 I Bur-nancl's Colonel, 1881, which was destined to exceed 1 the longest of the Bancroft runs. Curious to relate, this I piece was accepted and even put into rehearsal by the previous manager and then declined. The judgment, however, that so determined can scarcely be questioned, considering that The Colonel was but a new rendering of an old piece from a French original, The Serious Family, which had been a stock comedy at the Haymarket in Buckstone's days ; and who could have had sufficient forethought to foresee that the transference of the satire from sham piety to sham aesthetics would have so seized upon the public taste ? Beerbohm Tree made his debut as Lambert Streyke in this play. Although other pieces were produced by Mr. Bruce, with The Colonel all that is interesting in the history of the theatre terminates. A dispute between the lessees, Bancroft and James, and the tenant as to which of the three should be responsible for the alterations insisted upon by the Board of Works ended in closing the doors of the Prince of Wales's for ever as a theatre in 1882. And the old house, associated with so many delightful memories, became a Salvation Army barracks to what base uses may we not return ! The last remains of the building have only just disappeared, and I understand that Mr. Frank Curzon intends to erect a new theatre upon the site. CHAPTER IV The Holborn Theatre (known also as the Mirror and the Duke's) The Holborn Amphitheatre (alias the Connaught, the Alcazar, the Theatre Royal, Holborn) The Queen's, Long Acre The Globe The Opera Comique Toole's (The Charing Cross, The Folly). THE utter stagnation into which theatrical specula- tion had fallen by the middle of the last century is testified by the circumstance that from 1841, when the Princess's was opened, until 1866 no new theatre was added to central London, and that several could not find tenants. The first person who ventured upon what had long been regarded as the forlornest of hopes an addition to the number of our dramatic temples was Mr. Sefton Parry, who, in 1866, erected a theatre upon the site of an old coach-yard and stables, and called it after the thoroughfare in which it was situated, THE HOLBORN. It was opened in the October of that year with Flying Scud, a sporting drama, which, with a real horse and that fine actor George Belmore as the old jockey Nat Gosling, proved a hit. But it was a solitary one. When Mr. Parry retired from the management in 1868, it was undertaken by Miss Fanny Josephs ; and in the following season she gave place to Mr. Barry Sullivan, an actor of the old school, who, with Mrs. Hermann Vezin as his leading lady, played a round of the old- fashioned legitimate drama, such as The Gamester ; but 326 THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 327 the abrupt closing of the theatre in the January of 1871 told its own story. When, in 1875, Mr- Horace Wigan became lessee, the Holborn was renamed the Mirror. His brief tenancy was marked by one important production, All For Pier, the first of the dramas founded upon the Sydney Carton episode (which Dickens had borrowed from Dumas). When John Clayton, who had hitherto been esteemed only an indifferently good actor, appeared in this play, a great future, as an exponent of the romantic drama, was predicted for him. It was the most picturesque and poetic performance that had been seen since Fechter's Ruy Bias. But All For Her> though moved from theatre to theatre, was never more than un succes d'estime, and curious to say, Clayton never made another hit in the romantic drama, unless it was as Osip in Les Danischeffs. Truly his ever-in- creasing obesity afterwards unfitted him for the heroic, yet it does not quite explain the why and the where- fore of the circumstance. After Horace Wigan the house was again re- christened, this time the Duke's Theatre. Many were its managers and as many were their disappointments. Messrs. Holt and Wilmot broke the spell of ill luck with Paul Merritt's New Babylon in 1879. On June 4th in the following year the Duke's was burned to the ground. A portion of the First Avenue Hotel now covers the site. An almost forgotten place of dramatic entertainment, which was first called the Amphitheatre^ Holborn, and opened as a circus in 1868, and then converted into the Connaught Theatre, afterwards the Alcazar, and finally THE THEATRE ROYAL, Holborn, may be dismissed in a few sentences. It was John Hollingshead who 328 THE LONDON STAGE started it as a dramatic speculation in 1874, at cheap prices. Beginning with pantomime he leaped to Beau- mont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy and other old- world plays, which were interpreted by one or two serious actors, and the rest from the Gaiety. Perhaps he intended it for a huge joke and did not mind paying for the fun. George Rignold played a short season here in a version of Adam Bede and other pieces. But it was a hopeless affair from the first, and about 1888 wa.s converted into a building called the Central Hall. On October 24th, 1867, St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, having been reconstructed, was opened as THE QUEEN'S THEATRE. Although Alfred Wigan's name appeared at the head of the bill, it was an open secret that the lessee was Mr. Labouchere. During its brief existence the Queen's took a very important position among London houses. The first piece produced upon its boards was an adaptation of Charles Reade's White Lies. Mr. Listen, who afterwards took the Olympic, succeeded Wigan ; then came Ernest Clifton, under whom most of the most notable successes of the house were achieved. It was here that Mrs. Rousby made her London debut in 1869 as Fiordelisa in the Fool's Revenge ; and drew very large audiences in 'Twixt Axe and Crown, and Joan of Arc. A beautiful face and the enthusiastic patronage of Tom Taylor, made for this actress one of those meretricious and transitory reputations which are common enough in stage annals ; though she might have held the public longer had not her own follies robbed her of its respect. The Queen's could always boast of one of the finest companies in London. J. L. Toole and Lionel Brough were the stock comedians ; and it was here, after his engagement at the St. James's, that Henry Irving, in THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 329 such plays as Dearer Than Life, The Lancashire Lass, firmly established himself as an actor of exceptional powers. Miss Nelly Moore and Miss Henrietta Hod- son, two ingenues that even the French stage might have been proud of, were chiefly identified with this theatre ; John Ryder, Sam Emery, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, Hermann Vezin, Charles Wyndham were also at different times members of the company. Phelps played Bottom in a very fine revival of A Midsummer Nighfs Dream in 1870, and also appeared in one or two new plays. Cymbeline was produced in the following year; there was also a revival of The Tempest ! , both for Henrietta Hodson. Some may remember the fiasco of The Last Days of Pompeii, which was so mercilessly burlesqued. And in 1872 George Rignold, a robust, picturesque actor of the Dillon school, who had he not gone away to Australia might have raised himself to a fine position on the London stage, made his mark in Watts Philips' Amos Clark, in which Miss Wallis first appeared. In the same year Colonel Richards's Crom- well, brought out as a counterblast to Charles I., offered Rignold another chance of distinguishing himself, as the Lord Protector. This was followed by Old London, a new version of Jack Sheppard, in which Miss Hodson played Jack. Here ended the Labouchere management, and for a time the tenants were various. The Queen's scored but few successes, The Turn of the Tide, a version of the old Victorian drama The Black Doctor, produced early in its life, and Mrs. Rousby's engagements being the chief. Under Mrs. Seymour's direction, in 1873, Charles Reade's Wander- ing Heir was given, with Mrs. John Wood, and after- wards Ellen Terry, as the heroine. In 1875 Salvini, who came from Drury Lane, appeared here as Othello. 33 o THE LONDON STAGE One of the greatest pieces of tragic acting the world has ever seen, not only in overwhelming power, but in subtle art : it created a profound impression. Salvini also appeared as Macbeth, Hamlet, and while at Covent Garden, in 1884, King Lear; all were fine perform- ances, but none equalled Othello. By the perfection of its mechanical plant the house was admirably adapted for spectacular drama. After Drury Lane it was the largest theatre in the West End. It was converted into the Clerical Co-operative Stores in 1878, and was no more fortunate in business than it had been in art. THE GLOBE was erected by Sefton Parry upon a portion of the site of Lyon's Inn, an old Inn of Courts that dated back to the time of Henry VIII. But for many years previous to its demolition it had been the resort of shady characters. 1 The Globe was opened in December, 1868, with one of H. J. Byron's best comedies, Cyril's Success, in which W. H. Vernon made his first bow to a London audience. Cyril's was the only success scored by Parry, and in 1871 the Globe passed into the hands of Harry Montague, who, having disagreed with his partners at the Vaudeville about the importance given to burlesque, in which he did not play, seceded from the triumvirate. Montague was the women's darling, and the most fascinating actor of his time. He began at the St. James's under Webster. 1^-ondon managers did not care about engaging novices in the days of " Old Ben," but Montague was so per- severing that Webster said afterwards, " D n the fellow, I was obliged to give him an engagement to get rid of him ! " 1 It acquired a notoriety at the beginning of the nineteenth century as having been the abode of William Weare, a turfite, who was murdered by his associates, Thurtell and Probert. THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 331 His principal productions at the Globe were H. J. Byron's Partners for Life ; Albery's Forgiven ; Oriana ; Frank Marshall's False Shame ; a revival of Douglas Jerrold's Time Works Wonders ; a dramatic version of Dombey and Son, with Sam Emery as Cap'n Cuttle, and Helen Barry as Mrs. bombey. Montague had an excellent company, which included Haymarket Compton and Miss Carlotta Addison, then a charming juvenile lady ; but the theatre never paid, and he went away to America, never to return. Edgar Bruce rented the Globe for a time, and brought from the Aquarium Theatre the adaptation of "Bleak House" called Jo, in which Miss Jennie Lee gave that powerful, wonderfully pathetic, and haunting performance of the street arab, that must ever linger in the memory of those who saw it. Edward Righton succeeded Bruce, and was fairly successful with revivals of Money, She Stoops to Conquer, with Merritt's Stolen Kisses, the burlesque of My Poll and My Partner Joe, interpreted by Henry Neville, Righton, William Farren, John Ryder, Mrs. Chippendale, Mrs. John Wood. Corny ns Carr's version of Far From the Madding- Crowd, April, 1882, with Mrs. Bernard Beere as Bath- sheba, will be remembered on account of the dispute between Mrs. Kendal, Mr. Pinero, and Mr. C. C., as to the originality of The Squire, which bore such a re- markable resemblance to Mr. Hardy's famous novel. But whatever might have been the rights of the case, the St. James's play was an overwhelming success, and the Globe's was a failure. After the production of Sydney Grundy's comic opera, The Vicar of Bray, Mrs. Bernard Beere became manageress, and made a fiasco with Tennyson's J^he Promise of May, November, 1882. The second night was rendered remarkable 33 2 THE LONDON STAGE by the late Marquis of Queensberry, of prize-ring celebrity, rising up in the stalls to proclaim himself an agnostic and denounce the poet's type of that cult, as embodied in the character of Edgar. A dramatic version of Jane Eyre, by G. W. Wills, with Charles Kelly as Rochester and Mrs. Beere as the heroine, was scarcely more fortunate. In 1884 we find the names of John Hollingshead and J. L. Shine at the top of the bill ; but a year later Charles Hawtrey took their place with The Private Secretary, brought from the Prince's with its third and most successful Rev. Robert Spalding, Mr. Penley. A failure at its birthplace, it here became one of the greatest successes of the century. Very few theatres so frequently changed hands and styles of entertainment as the Globe. Richard Mans- field, the American actor, whom we have met at the Lyceum, produced Richard III. on a magnificent scale in 1889, and was very wroth with the British Press and public because he shared the same fate with so many of his predecessors. In the following year Mr. F. R. Benson commenced his first London season with a beautiful revival of The Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the now famous dramatic poet, Mr. Stephen Phillips, played the small part of Flute, the bellows- mender. Norman Forbes was the lessee in 1891, but quickly retired, a poorer if not a wiser man. One of the most charming of comic operas, Ma Mie Rosette, with that delightful singer, Eugene Oudin, as Henry IV., was brought out here in 1892. And early in the next year Charley s A^tnt, transferred from the Royalty, com- menced its record-breaking run of four years. Translated into French, it was played five hundred nights at the Theatre de Cluny. In the English provinces the THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 333 success of this mediocre farce was and is equally phe- nomenal. Yet another man-in-petticoats piece, Miss Frances of Yale, with Grossmith, in 1897, failed to attract the laughter-loving public. Lewis Waller brought out his version of The Three Musketeers here in 1898 ; and John Hare, in the same year, gave us E. V. Esmond's A Bachelors Romance, revivals of several of Tom Robertson's comedies, and best of all, Pinero's The Gay Lord Quex, 1899. I do not know of a finer piece of dramatic work in the whole range of comedy than the second act of this play. No scene ever more gripped an audience in breathless suspense, or evoked a wilder burst of applause at the end, than the duel between Sophie so splendidly played by Miss Irene Vanbrugh and my lord. The way in which the natural vulgarity of the ex-lady's-maid broke through the genteel veneer of the manicurist, the alter- nations of bully, triumph, entreaty, the tenacity of her fidelity to the woman for whose cause she was fighting, and her final burst of admiration for the magnanimous foe who yielded at discretion, was most perfect acting. Wilson Barrett made some successes here, and a very remarkable one was achieved by Miss Julia Neil- son in Sweet Nell of Old Drury, 1 90 1 , originally played at the Haymarket, an extraordinary perversion of his- tory, in which the saucy orange-girl, whose coarseness of speech and manner is historical, is transformed into a sentimental philanthropist, who might at the present day be the pet of an evangelical parson. But the multitude flocked to see the whitewashing of Nell, so riimporte. *And with a revival of this drama on the 22nd March, 1902, the doors of the Globe Theatre finally closed. It was a jerry-built house, run up with a view to the long- deferred Strand improvement. If a fire had broken out 334 THE LONDON STAGE it would have burned like a match-box. It is curious that those guardians of the public safety, the County Council, who are so severely conscientious where other managers are in question, should have been unaware of this fact and have continued to let it without alterations. It held about 1,000 people at a money value of ^210. THE OPERA COMIQUE, like the Globe, was erected upon the Lyon's Inn site, and was opened in October, 1870. It was at that time one of the most artistically decorated theatres in London. But its scattered en- trances in three thoroughfares, interminable passages, and draughty stalls, that threatened every visitor with neuralgia and catarrh, and the " outlandish " name, heavily handicapped it from the first. The opening season was an utter fiasco. But in the next it was fortunate enough to secure the company of the Com^die Franchise, which, driven from its home by the German invasion, performed for the first time in its history out of Paris. Madame Ristori, after a long absence from this country, played an engagement here in 1873, appearing as Marie Antoinette, Lucrezia Borgia, and in the sleep-walking scene of Lady Macbeth a wonderful piece of acting that realised all the Siddons traditions. It was at this house that the Gilbert and Sullivan combination practically commenced though the Trial by Jury first saw the footlights at the Royalty in 1875 in November, 1878, with The Sorcerer, one of the best of the long series of comic operas that delighted the English public for a score of years. I can see little Grossmith now hopping round the fire like a frog in the* creepy-droll incantation scene. Lady Sangaziire was played by Mrs. Howard Paul, her last appearance upon the stage. H.M.S. Pinafore came next with its breezy THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 335 humour and catching melodies ; The Pirates of Penzance, and everybody was singing the policemen's chorus ; then Patience, a delightful piece of work. And what artistic- ally finished performances they were ; every performer was so perfectly fitted and trained Grossmith, Temple, Jessie Bond, Leonora Braham, Miss Everard, Rutland Barrington, Alice Barnett ! When, in 1881, D'Oyley Carte removed the company to his new theatre, he certainly carried away with him the luck and prestige of the Opera Comique. Musical pieces in imitation of the Gilbert and Sullivan school, French comic operas were tried with indifferent success. Lotta, one of the most famous of American comediennes, who is said to be a millionaire, appeared here in the double role of Little Nell and the Marchioness, and other parts, but failed to attract. . Mrs. Bernard Beere conducted the season of 1887-8, and created a great impression as Lena Despard in As in a Loo king- Glass, breaking a lance, many thought, with the divine Sarah herself in the terrible death scene. Arthur Roberts made a success here with a burlesque on. Joan of Arc in 1891. In the next year there was a season of French plays. David James was " sole lessee " for a time; Compton tried legitimate comedy; Willie Edouin was manager for a while. Just before their departure for Australia (1893), the Dacres opened the theatre for a few weeks. Nellie Farren took the house to bring out a burlesque upon Trilby, but Arthur Roberts had anticipated her elsewhere, and the venture failed, as had most of the others. Alice in Wonderland, 1898, and a drama by Simms, A Good Time, April, 1899, were the last productions before the house w^s finally closed for demolition. TOOLE'S THEATRE, now covered by the new buildings of 33 6 THE LONDON STAGE the Charing Cross Hospital, was developed out of the Polygraphic Hall, which was chiefly remarkable for the monologue entertainment " My Carpet Bag," given by Woodin, one of the numerous imitators of the elder Mathews. The Hall was converted into a tiny playhouse in 1869, and christened the Charing Cross Theatre. But it held no position until it came into the hands of J. S. Clarke, of Major Wellington de Boots fame, in 1872. His most notable production was The Rivals, in which Mrs. Stirling gave her splendid performance of Mrs. Malaprop for the first time, and Clarke appeared as Bob Acres, a very humorous and clever piece of acting, but not "fighting Bob." When Mr. Alexander Henderson took the house in 1876, he rechristened it the Folly, and his wife, charming Lydia Thompson, was the great attraction in burlesque. In 1878 a phenomenal success was achieved with Les Cloches de Corneville, in which Miss Violet Cameron made her first hit as Germaine, and Shiel Barry gave a performance of Caspar, the Miser, such as had not been seen since Robson's Daddy Hardacre. J. L. Toole undertook the management in November, 1879. Pinero's first comedy Imprudence was brought out here in 1881, and a second, Boys and Girls, in the next year ; both were failures. The author was too un- conventional for the audiences of that time, and his originality, it must be added, was crude and ill-digested, being in the process of crystallisation. H. J. Byron's The Upper Crust, and others by the same author, and burlesques on popular plays, such as Stage-Dora and Paw Claudian, or The Roman Awry, in which that bright clever actress Marie Linden gave her delightful imitations, were much more successful. In 1882 Mr. Toole initiated the objectionable THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST- 337 American practice of calling the theatre after his own name, and so it was thenceforth known as "Toole's." The Daly Company made their first appearance here in 1884. The theatre was let to various companies and managers during the frequent absence of the lessee, but during the rest of its existence there is little that calls for notice. J. M. Barrie's first play, Walker, London, was pro- duced in 1892, and enjoyed a long run. The house was considerably enlarged, though after the alterations it could not seat more than 900, and improved by the genial comedian, who has unfortunately been lost to the laughter-loving public for so long a time through a prostrating illness. His last production was Thorough- bred in February, 1895, and the theatre, which was not very prosperous in its last years, having been acquired for the extension of Charing Cross Hospital, was closed in the spring of that year. CHAPTER V The old Gaiety The Alhambra The Empire The (New) English Opera 'House The Sans Souci, etc. THE old GAIETY was constructed out of the Strand Music Hall, which had proved a failure in the days when the music-hall was not so much in favour as it is at present, by the late Mr. Lionel Lawson of The Daily Telegraph. It was opened on December 2ist, 1868, with an adaptation from the French, On the Cards, Alfred Wigan playing the leading part, and a burlesque on Robert the Devil, with the Daubans, Nelly Farren, who came from the Olympic, and Fanny Josephs, as the chief attractions. Thirty years ago and much more recently, a burlesque was considered by most theatres in town and country to be an in- dispensable wind-up to the evening's entertainment. The Gaiety from the first produced burlesque upon a morelavish scale than any of its rivals. But in its earlier days "the sacred lamp" was not always alight. A romantic play entitled Dreams, by Tom Robertson, was brought out in 1869. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews appeared in 1873 m Married for Money, and at the end of the same year Phelps, Toole, Charles Mathews, Hermann Vezin, acted to- gether in John Bull, a combination that drew all theatrical London. Phelps also appeared in several of his celebrated comedy roles. 338 THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 339 Toole began a career of some years in H. J. Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling. Irving played Chevenix, and very much impressed Charles Dickens by his acting. "That young man will be a great actor," was his prophecy. Another hit of Irving's at this theatre was Bob Gasset in Dearer than Life. Adelaide Neilson was in both pieces. Madame Angot represented opera-bouffe here, and Zampa, with Santley in the title-role, serious opera. French companies played here every season from 1874, and it was on this stage that Sarah Bernhardt made her first appearance before the English public with the company of the Comedie Fran9aise on their second visit to England in 1879. There was an immense rush to see the actress, whose fame had preceded her ; every seat was taken, and crowds nightly and daily besieged the doors of pit and gallery. The greatest house was on the night she played Donna Sol in Hernani ^571. She also created a profound impression in Phedre. I have always thought that from a purely artistic point of view, she has never acted so finely as in com- bination with artistes who could claim something like equality with the diva in their own line of art. She was then the central figure of a great picture, in harmony with all the subordinate parts ; since then she has too frequently made the mistake of surrounding herself with mediocrities-, which destroys the sense of proportion ; she has studied only her own effects, with- out relation to the whole, and has developed strong mannerisms, the constant repetition of which often fatigues the ear. For several years she appeared in London only at this theatre. When the Gaiety opened for the season, in December, 340 THE LONDON STAGE 1878, the manager informed his patrons that during the ten years of its existence the theatre had been closed only ten weeks, and as a balance against that interval there had been morning performances equal to one year and three months. It was Mr. Hollingshead who first abolished the infamous system of fees, which, however, has come into force again under managers who ought to blush for countenancing such extortion. What would a man say to be charged sixpence at an hotel for the menu of the dinner he sat down to eat ? Not but what some of the blame is due to the public, who would persist in tipping the attendants in spite of all notices against the usage. Another institution initiated by John Hollingshead, the matinee, for the production of untried plays, proved a plague to dramatic critics, who had to sit stewing on hot summer afternoons to witness inanities that were never heard of again. This is a thing of the past, and afternoon performances, as at present understood, are a great boon to the dwellers in suburbia. Between whiles old comedies and dramas were given Congreve's Love for Love, Sheridan's A Trip to Scar- borough, The Critic, George Barnwell, The Castle Spectre to exemplify Hollingshead's theory that the old drama was very inferior to the modern ; and played as it was by actors in up-to-date style, with their tongues in their cheeks, he had no difficulty in communicating his faith to a Gaiety audience. . Charles Mathews played most of his later engagements at the Gaiety, and there created his last famous character, Mr. Councillor Punch, in My Awful Dad, 1875. H. J. Byron was also closely identified with the house both as actor and author. As the years passed on, burlesque became more and more absolute on those boards. But the THE BYGONE THEATRES OF THE WEST 341 Gaiety school never equalled that of the Strand ; it was coarser, less artistic, too much to please "the boys." Yet its record bears a good array of names Toole, Edward Terry, Tom Thorne, Kate Vaughan, Edward Royce, Lonnen, and, greatest of all, Nelly Farren and Fred Leslie. Miss Farren, who had been principal burlesque actress at the Olympic, was on the staff of the Gaiety from the opening night ; for a time, however, she played seconds to Patty Josephs, but not for long. I remember her and Toole in The Princess of Trebizonde, in the early days ; how piquante and droll they were. She played a number of comedy parts in the seventies and early eighties Miss Prue in Love for Love, Miss Hoyden in The Man of Quality, Clemency Newcombe in The Battle of Life, Nan in Good for Nothing. How delightful she was in The Grasshopper, Carmen Up to Data, Little Faust, Little Don Ccesar, Babes in the Wood, and how many more ! Nellie Farren was much more than a mere burlesque actress ; there were flashes of passion and intensity, especially in her street arabs, that thrilled with true tragic power. But what she is chiefly remembered by are her wild spirits, her audacity, her verve, her "go." In Fred Leslie, who joined the company in 1885, s ^e had an alter ego. Never was buffoonery carried to such an excess upon the dramatic stage as by those two in Monte Cristo, Ruy Bias, and especially between Little Jack Sheppard and Blueskin. But the fun was so real, so apparently spontaneous, so thoroughly enjoyed by the buffoons themselves, that it was irresistible. It was during the run of Cinder- Ellen, in 1892, that poor "Nellie" was struck down by rheumatism, brought on, it is said, by damp tights ; in order to make the silk fit close to her limbs, she 342 THE LONDON STAGE was in the habit of first dipping them in water. And Leslie did not long survive his co-mate. The Gaiety never replaced them as artistes. There was always that note of intensity in Leslie's acting, without which burlesque is tomfoolery; witness his "looking-glass" song in Cinder-Ellen, what a touch of quite tearful pathos there was in the old man lamenting the loss of his youth. It was about 1881, with Burnand's Whittington and His Cat, I think, that Hollingshead instituted that dreary thing, the three-act "burlesque drama." But it extended on into Mr. George Edwardes's management, until early in the nineties, when was introduced the American variety show, called musical comedy. Nat Goodwin appeared in the off season of 1900, but gradually the new departure has monopolised the stage, each specimen usually for a couple of years. An end- less line of " Girls" has been varied by one J- B. Howe, a great favourite in Whitechapel, took the house, renamed it the Royal Albert, furbished it up, and, with a fair company and a better style of entertainment, en- deavoured to resuscitate its fortunes ; but all his efforts SOUTHERN AND EAST END THEATRES 407 were in vain, and he quitted the speculation bankrupt. The Garrick has long since ceased to be numbered among metropolitan theatres. The next in order of the East End houses was a second CITY OF LONDON, built in Norton Folgate, by Beazeley, the architect of the Lyceum. It was opened on the 3oth of March, 1835, under the management of Cockerton. For a brief season, in 1837, it was under the direction of the famous Mrs. Honey, after which it again came into the hands of Cockerton, who was presently joined by Richard Shepherd, afterwards so well known as the manager of the Surrey. Mr. and Mrs. Honner opened the house in the summer of 1846, and in addition to a series of original dramas produced several of Shakespeare's plays, in which Mrs. Honner, a very fine actress, George Bennett, Saville, etc., appeared. There was also an excellent dramatic version of Dickens's The Battle of Life given, in which the lady just named played Clemency in a style that could only have been surpassed by Mrs. Keeley. But the most prosperous days of the City were under the directorship of Johnson and Nelson Lee, who came here from the Standard. Johnson and Lee were the successors to Richardson in his famous booth, which they conducted until it was finally broken up. They were the first, at the City of London, permanently to reduce the prices of admission ; previous to their time there was no lower price than sixpence to the gallery at any of the East End theatres, they made it threepence, and sixpence to the pit ; the experiment proved highly successful. The "old City" was the best of the East End theatres. After the repeal of the Patent Laws nearly all the leading tragedians from the West End houses starred here in the legitimate drama, 4 o8 THE LONDON STAGE and the companies, though of the melodramatic school, were excellent. When Nelson Lee ceased to direct its destines, about 1865, the house fell to a very low level, and the stage being required for the extension of the North London line, between Shoreditch and Broad Street, it finally closed in 1868. The frontage in Norton Folgate is still standing. THE STANDARD, Shoreditch, was opened about six months after the City. From 1837 it was, for several years, under the directorship of Johnson and Lee. It was put up for sale in 1849, and fell into the hands of John Douglass, who, like Lee, had been a showman. After his death it passed to his sons. The " Royal Standard " was burnt down in 1867. Rebuilt on a much more extensive scale, it was reopened as the " New Standard " in the following year. This theatre, although it usually kept a good stock company, was the first of the East End houses that attracted the stars from the west and West End plays. Twenty, thirty, forty years ago all the best actors of the day appeared at different times upon its stage, a circumstance which, at that time, rendered it unique among theatres of its class, and drew to it a very much superior audience, chiefly from the northern suburbs. It has an enormous capacity. It was asserted to be the largest theatre in London, and was handsomely decorated. In the days of Richard Douglass, who was a very fine scenic artist, a pupil of Beverley's, its pantomimes ran those of Drury Lane very close. The Melvilles father, widow, and sons have been the lessees for many years. Walter Melville is the author of several lurid dramas, written especially for the Standard, two of which have recently been seen at the Adelphi. A particular feature of the Standard, ever SOUTHERN AND EAST END THEATRES 409 since I can remember, has been an annual season of opera, usually by J. W. Turner's troupe. The Grand, the Dalston, the Stoke Newington have taken away most of the old patrons of the house, which is now, I think, chiefly dependent upon the locality for its supporters, and for them necessarily the management has to cater. The Effingham Saloon, Whitechapel, was first opened somewhere about sixty years ago. Rebuilt in 1867, it was renamed THE EAST LONDON. It was the favourite resort of the sailors and inhabitants of Wapping and the dock neighbourhood, and the pieces represented were adapted to their primitive tastes. It was one of the lowest audiences in London. The East London was burned down in 1879. As the theatre had not paid for some time, it was not rebuilt. But of late years a house for the performance of Yedisha plays for the Polish Jews, now called "Wonderland," has been opened upon the old site. A music-hall in High Street, Poplar, was, in 1867, converted into a theatre called THE ORIENTAL, but after a few years it reverted to its original form of entertain- ment. It was once considered a very remote house, but Stratford can now boast of two well-conducted, well- paying theatres, where West End plays and West End stars are frequently seen. Sir Henry Irving has appeared there. PART V THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY CHAPTER I The Adelphi, 1866-1903, and Famous Adelphi Dramas and Actors , The West London Theatre. THE first founder of THE ADELPHI THEATRE was a colour maker and sort of Jack-of-all-trades in the Strand, named John Scott. He had accumulated a very large fortune by the invention of a washing blue, called the " Old True Blue," manufactured from the sooty deposit of some peculiar wood; a discovery he had made by accident while travelling in the Black Forest. Being fond of the society of actors, whom he was in the habit of entertaining, his daughter conceived a passion for the stage, and persuaded him to .buy some ruinous old property in the rear and at the side of his dwelling- house and build a theatre. The colour merchant was rash enough to invest ; 1 0,000 in purchasing leases and building a small theatre, which he christened the Sans Pareil. It was opened on November 27th, 1806, with an entertainment consisting of songs, recitations, imitations a La the elder Mathews, the whole being written and delivered by Miss Scott ; the performance winding up with a display of fireworks. Such speculations on the part of outsiders almost invariably prove a disastrous failure ; this, however, was a brilliant exception. John Scott was one of those persons who succeed in everything they undertake ; he 413 4 i 4 THE LONDON STAGE was indefatigable in his management, and of an evening would take off his coat, go into the cheap parts of the house, and pack the people close together ; he used to boast that he thus often increased the takings by five pounds a night. Miss Scott also seems to have been a clever girl, who most ably seconded her father off the stage by her talents on. It was not long before the monologue and pyro- technic entertainment developed into the dramatic, and the Sans Pareil became another thorn in the sides of the lessees of the patent theatres. The usual prices were charged: boxes, 45-.; pit, 2S.\ gallery, is.; the doors were opened at 5.30, and the play began at 6.3O, 1 with half-price to boxes at 8.30. The company was evidently of the most mediocre description, everything depending upon that tremendously energetic and industrious lady, Miss Scott, who not only performed in all the pieces except the pantomimes, but, according to the playbills, wrote them nearly all ; at the bottom of three-fourths of the programmes there is a line in italics, which informs the reader that ''the whole of this evening's entertainment is written by Miss Scott." Sometimes this statement is modified Miss Scott has only rearranged the scenes and situations but she has always had something to do with the entertainment; her name has invariably a line to itself, is preceded by an "and," and is printed in very large caps., which strongly contrast with the very small type that was deemed sufficient for everybody else ; unless it be some stray star from Drury Lane or Covent Garden a star at the 1 This was the usual time of commencement even seventy years ago ; in the middle of the i8th century it was six ; the lack of a complete set of play- bills at the British Museum renders it impossible to trace the intermediate times back to the three o'clock of Pepys's days. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 415 Sans Pareil, though a very small satellite in its own dramatic horizon. Upon one occasion, Miss Scott indignantly disclaims any connection with any other Scott who may be playing elsewhere, and emphatically declares that she has never yet appeared in any other theatre. Melodramas, styled burlettas in the bills, bear- ing such titles as The Red Robber, The Old Oak Chest, The Amazon Q,ueen, are the pieces de resistance, and , musical farces also called burlettas ; these again are frequently supplemented by monkeys from Paris, slack- rope dancers from Vienna, wonderful dwarfs, and, at holiday seasons, by pantomimes. John Scott was as lucky with his theatre as he had been with his "Old True Blue," and made, it is said, thereby another large fortune. In the year 1819 he sold the Sans Pareil to Messrs. Jones and Rod well for .25,000. His daughter retired with him, at least I do not again come across her name in the playbills. The name of the house was changed with the management from the Sans Pareil to the Adelphi, and opened under that title on October i8th, 1819. The announcement informed the public that it had undergone considerable improvements, and, after the first week, it was further added that " the brilliant effect of the gas chandelier suspended from the dome is the subject of universal admiration." In this year John Reeve made his first appearance here upon the London stage, and his remark- able talent in broad comedy quickly rendered him a rival to the great Listen himself. The style of entertainment under Messrs. Jones and Rodwell was a decided improvement on that favoured by the proprietor of the "Old True Blue"; melodramas of the red-hot school were still performed, but they were varied by dramatic adaptations of Walter Scott's novels. 4 i 6 THE LONDON STAGE The management having, it would seem, prospered, the Adelphi in 1821 underwent further alterations, and the opening bills descant glowingly upon the splendid decorations, the enlarged passages, that rendered the house, in aspect, entirely new. This season was remark- able for the first appearance in London of that inimitable droll, u little Keeley." No less important was the debut of Mrs. Waylett, one of the most charming singers and piquante actresses of the century, whom we have met in Tottenham Street. The Adelphi hitherto had excited scant notice from the Press, which in those days seldom deigned to note the doings of a minor theatre, while its audiences were chiefly drawn from the humblest classes. But during the season of 1821 it became the most popular house in London. It was during this year that a journalist of a very low type named Pierce Egan, who afterwards founded Bell's Life, a writer whose pen was principally devoted to the reports of the prize-ring, in a sporting vernacular that was long peculiarly associated with pugilism, brought out a periodical work, with coloured plates by the two Cruik- shanks, entitled Tom and Jerry ; or, Life in London. Before the second number was published, Mr. Egan, whose style was the apotheosis of slang and vulgarity, found himself famous. It was one of those curious crazes which at times seize upon the public for some book, some play, or actor, whose merits are not in- frequently in the inverse ratio of its or his popularity. The publisher of this recherche work was suddenly over- whelmed with orders, his shop was besieged by eager purchasers ; the press could not turn out copies fast enough, and a small army of women and children were employed day and night in colouring the engravings. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 417 With each number the madness increased ; pictures of Bob Logic, Corinthian Tom, and Jerry Hawthorn adorned every print and bookseller's window, everybody became Corinthian ; tailors advertised the Corinthian coat, the Corinthian pantaloons ; shoemakers made only the Corinthian shoe, and hatters filled their windows with the Corinthian hat. A dramatic version of the famous book was produced at the Adelphi ; but, as it has happened to so many great stage successes, the piece was received on the first night with such hostility that Rodwell declared it should not be played again, and it was with great difficulty his partner induced him to alter his determination. How much reason he had to thank him for his advice is a matter of history. The cast was exceptionally good, his part fitting each actor like a glove. That excellent comedian, Wrench, was" the Tom; Reeve was Jerry; Wilkinson, Bob Logic. Referring to this piece in his Experiences, Serjeant Ballantine says : " A little un- known man who had been given some three lines to say contrived in doing so to create roars of laughter. His part was written up, and from that time to his death he was recognised as one of the most comic actors that ever delighted an audience. This was Robert Keeley." He played the small part of Jemmy Green. Even Wai- bourn, who went on for Dusty Bob, and who had scarcely a line to speak, became a celebrity; he took a tavern at Battle Bridge, and George Cruikshank painted the sign, representing him in his famous character. The author recorded his opinion that it was " one of, if not the greatest triumph of histrionic art ever exhibited upon the stage ! " Kean declared that during the whole course of his theatrical career he had never seen any performance equal to it. This, of course, was 2 E 4 i8 THE LONDON STAGE an exaggeration. Far more significant was the uncon- scious testimony of an actor of the day, who, while witnessing the performance from the front, exclaimed, ''Good heavens! is it possible? It certainly w a real dustman they've got upon the stage. I am very sorry that our profession has sunk so low as to be compelled to go into the streets to get a person of that description to support the character ! " And he left the house in disgust. Nor was the actor the only one so deceived ; so life-like were the presentments of Tattersall's and its frequenters in the scene representing the famous repository at Hyde Park Corner, of Tom Cribb, the noted pugilist, and other sporting characters in Tom CribUs Parlour, that bets were made that it was these notabilities themselves who nightly appeared upon the scene. The piece ran through the remainder of the season, which was considerably more than a hundred nights, opened the next, and was revived again and again with unabated success ; nothing like it had ever been pre- viously known in theatrical annals, seats were taken weeks in advance, people made journeys from the re- motest parts of the country to witness it and in the old stage-coach days that meant more than it does now and five guineas were at times paid for one seat. The Puritans were up in arms ; they stood at the theatre doors laden with tracts, which they tried to thrust into the hands of everyone who entered ; the serious Press inveighed against it, ministers denounced it from the pulpit, the Lord Chamberlain was petitioned to sup- press it ; he went to the Adelphi to sit in judgment, saw, and enjoyed the piece so hugely, that he went again and took my lady with him. All opposition only swelled the success and made everyone more eager to THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 419 see it. In 1822 there were ten theatres in and about London, to say nothing of the provinces, playing Tom and Jerry, and everywhere with the same success. For a time the high-falutin of tragedy, the artificial humours of comedy, the nightmares of melodrama were set aside, and Life in London was presented as it was, from Almack's in the West to All Max the beggar's home in the East ; from the ball of the opera to the dancing crib in Ratcliff Highway. No wonder it was successful. The man about town was curious to see how nearly the presentment of such scenes approached to the reality, while respectability always eager to get a peep behind the curtain that conceals the forbidden flocked to catch a glimpse of that naughty world it dared not visit in any other way. At the bottom of the bill was the following curious announcement : "A facsimile of the treadmill, by a French artist in ivory work, drawn from his actual experience on the spot for the last three months ! " Life in London was followed by Green in France ; or, Tom and Jerry s Tour, in which the two heroes were transported to Paris, and made to pass through a series of adventures illustrative of fast life in the French capital. But though it was produced in a far more elaborate and costly manner than its predecessor, like all sequels, Green in France proved a failure, and after being forced for thirty-five nights, was shelved, and Life in London revived. Another piece by Pierce Egan, The Life of an Actor, produced September 4th, 1824, was more successful. It was a coarse burlesque upon the theatrical profession, its shifts, its poverty, its seamy and ridiculous side ; the thing chiefly owed its success to the farcical humour of John Reeve, in the part of Abraham Delawhang, in which he gave his imitations of contemporary actors. 420 THE LONDON STAGE But the time was not ripe for the realistic, except as a change, and by-and-by a tremendous melodramatic spectacle, entitled Valmondi ; or, the Unhallowed Sepul- chre, with a hero who had drunk of the elixir of life, an attendant demon, an auto-da-fe 1 , and a catastrophe in the infernal regions, occupied the boards upon which Black Sal and Dusty Bob had recently performed their wonderful breakdown. This terrible drama had fatal consequences for one of the managers of the Adelphi ; a theatrical magazine for March, 1825, which announces the decease of Mr. Rodwell, informs us that "the anxiety and fatigue he endured in arranging for the representation of the melodrama of Valmondi brought on the complaint which ended in his death." Jones immediately retired from the management, and on October loth the Adelphi opened under the direction of Terry and Yates. Both had been members of Drury Lane and Covent Garden companies, and Yates had made some mark at the former. Wrench, John Reeve, T. P. Cooke, Tyrone Power, who had joined in the previous year, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and Miss Brunton, afterwards Mrs. Yates, were among the company engaged. Under the new management the Adelphi advanced rapidly in public favour and reputa- tion. Its first great hit was the dramatic version of Fenimore Cooper's famous novel, The Pilot. Fitzball, the adapter, shifted the odious and ridiculous parts assigned by the author to the British to the Yankees themselves ; and Scott tells us in his Diary (October 2ist, 1826) that "the Americans were so much dis- pleased that they attempted a row, which rendered the piece doubly attractive to the seamen of Wapping, who came up and crowded the house night after night to support the honour of the British flag." This will go a THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 421 great way to account for the extraordinary run extra- ordinary for those days of two hundred nights, which The Pilot enjoyed. The great feature of the performance was T. P. Cooke's Long Tom Coffin. Cooke had served in the Royal Navy, and distinguished himself at the battle of St. Vincent. In 1804 he quitted the main-deck of a man-o'-war for the stage, and made his first appearance at the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square. He was afterwards a member of most of the metropolitan com- panies, including that of Drury Lane and the English Opera House, where we have met him. When, in 1825, he appeared at the Adelphi he was an actor of considerable reputation, and in Cooper's nautical hero presented upon the stage, probably for the first time, a real seaman. How Cooke acted the sailor is graphic- ally described in the following passage from the de- lightful Nodes Ambrosiancz. " Shepherd. But tell me, Sir, did you gang to see Mr. Tay Pay Cook in The Pilot ? "North. The best sailor that ever trod the stage. " Shepherd. Do you ca' yon treddin' the stage ? Yon's no treddin'. When he first loupit out o' the boat on dry laun', tryin' to steady himself on his harpoon, he garred me find the verra furm aneath me in the pit shovin' up and down as if the earth were lousen'd from her moorin's, I grew amaist sea-sick. " North. Nothing overdone ; no bad bye play, blab- bing of the land-lubber ; not too much pulling up of the trousers ; no ostentatious display of pigtail ; one chunk of tobacco into his cheek without any perceptible chew, sufficient to show that next to grog quid is dear ; no puling, no whining, when on some strong occasion he pipes his eye, but merely a slight choking of that full, 422 THE LONDON STAGE deep, rich, mellow voice, symphonious, James, in all its keys with the ocean's, whether piping in the shrouds, or blowing great guns, running up, James, by way of pastime, the whole gamut ; and then so much heart and soul, James, in minute particulars, justifying the most passionate exhibition when comes crisis or catas- trophe. " Shepherd. What for do you no mention the horn- pipe ? I wad gie fifty pounds to be able to dance yon way. Faith I wad astonish them at Kirns. The way he twists the knees of him, and rins on his heels, and down to the floor wi' a wide spread-eagle amaist to his verra doup, up again like mad, and awa' off intil some ither nawtical movements : the hornpipe, bafflin' a' com- prehension as to its meanin', and then all the while siccan' a face ! " Cooke's next great hit was Vanderdecken in the melodrama of The Flying Dutchman. His fine figure and expressive features, his skill in make-up and picturesqueness, imparted to his melodramatic panto- mime a wonderful power and vividness. In 1827 the Adelphi was again enlarged both before and behind the curtain. But at the latter end of 1828, wrecked in health and fortune, having lost all his own savings, 500 lent him by Ballantyne, and ,1,250 for which his friend, Walter Scott, had pledged his credit, Terry retired from the partnership. He died in the following June. In the next season Charles Mathews joined Yates, paying 17,000 for a half-share. Some seasons previously Yates had appeared in a monologue entitled Sketches of Life and Character; the two partners now united in a duologue entertainment of a similar kind. Yates possessed great powers of mimicry as well as histrionic talent of a very high order ; he was THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 423 equally at home as Alexander, the roue in Victorine, as Mantalini in Nicholas Nickleby, as the bold Miles Bertram in The Wreck Ashore, and as Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. During the next few years this house could boast of companies which made the name of the little minor theatre famous throughout the dramatic world. And yet, somehow, it could not be made to pay; whether it was badly managed, or managers lived beyond their means, or the public were not sufficiently liberal in their support, it would be difficult to determine. Yates, however, had a great friend in the Duchess of St. Albans (formerly Miss Mellon), who frequently came to his assistance. Mathews dying in 1835 a poor man, his son, Charles the younger, took his place, but retired at the end of the first season. Then Yates found another partner, a man named Gladstone, who ultimately became sole lessee, and succeeded in effecting what his far cleverer pre- decessors had failed in, making the house pay. Poor Yates died broken-hearted in 1842, in the very zenith of his powers, at the age of forty-seven. Edward Stirling tells a good story about him in Old Drury Lane, which is worth repeating. During one of the Westminster elections he was seen by the mob entering the Tory polling booth. A cry was raised of " Yates voting against us, oh, oh ! " The actor laid his hand upon his bosom, and vowed his heart was with them. " Ladies and gentlemen," he said, as soon as he could be heard, " on this joyous occasion pray be merciful on this my first appearance on a political stage, and I promise you the last. You may return Old Nick if you like ; my wish is ever to please my best supporters, the people." " Hurrah, bravo! give us 'Jim Crow'!" shouted the 4 2 4 THE LONDON STAGE mob. In an instant Yates, with the utmost sang-froid, whistled the tune, danced a breakdown round the hust- ings, and wound up with singing "Wheel about, Jump about, Vote just so ; Let your bobs Be spent On my 'Jim Crow.'" 1 His .wife, nte Brunton, the sister of the beautiful Louisa Brunton, afterwards Countess of Craven, was an incomparable heroine of melodrama, and an excellent actress of high-class comedy as well. She had made her London debut at Covent Garden, in 1817, as Letitia Hardy with brilliant success; as Violante (The Wonder), Beatrice, Rosalind, Olivia, and Miss Hardcastle she was admirable, reminding the old playgoers of her time of Mrs. Abington and Miss Farren. Mrs. Yates survived her husband nearly twenty years. Madame Celeste made her first appearance at the Adelphi in 1833, in St. Marys Eve. In the same year the house sustained a great loss by the early death of John Reeve. Fortunately, an excellent successor was at hand in Edward Wright, who had just made a great success at the St. James's. 2 Wright worthily took the position that had been occupied by Liston and Reeve. His Paul Pry was little, if at all, inferior to the original representa- tive's. As a farce actor he was inimitable, especially in The Spitalsfields Weaver and Domestic Economy. The 1 Rice, an American actor, in the thirties, was the first to introduce the nigger upon the English stage at this theatre, in the character of Jim Crow, and his then novel song and dance was for a time the rage in town and country. 2 His first appearance in London was at the Tottenham Street Theatre, 1830 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 425 actor who afterwards made the nearest approach to his drollery was George Honey. Edmund Yates, in his autobiography, relates how, in the helpless exhaustion of inextinguishable laughter, he has fallen a limp mass across the ledge of the boxes at the Adelphi at the irresistible fooling of this comedian, and the writer of these pages can recall similar experiences. Whenever Wright came upon the stage he brought with him an atmosphere of laughter, that alike infected audience and actors, for actors could no more resist the in- fection than could the spectators ; I have seen the action of a scene brought to a standstill while those on the stage were endeavouring to swallow the risibility that choked them. Yet his humour was totally devoid of effort ; if you ever thought of asking yourself why you held your aching sides and wiped your streaming eyes, you found the question rather difficult to answer. His costume was seldom what could be called outre, when we remember that the fine gentlemen of comedy then attired themselves in light blue coats, salmon-coloured trousers, and pink waistcoats ; his make-up was more that of a light than a low comedian ; he was not much given to grimace, yet he had but to twiddle his eyeglass and assume that intense look of utter surprise which accompanied his " Bless my soul, you don't say so ?" and your " face crumpled up like a damp towel." But it must be confessed that he was coarse, terribly coarse. When Charles Kean engagecl him for the Princess's, the more fastidious audience of Oxford Street would not tolerate his freedom of speech, and for two or three years he received fifty pounds a week without appearing on the stage. Buckstone paid him that salary to play a farce after midnight at the Hay market. But he was a fountain of spontaneous humour, a source of 426 THE LONDON STAGE inexhaustible laughter. He was never, however, really at home except at the Adelphi. Wright had an excellent coadjutor in Paul Bedford ; but Paul was only a foil, a pantaloon to Wright's clown ; a remarkably fine voice rendered him invaluable in burlesque, while his enormous bulk was a natural source of fun. Authors wrote only skeleton parts for these two inveterate "gaggers," who, after a while, usually abandoned the text altogether and trusted to their own resources. Paul Bedford's two greatest hits were Jack Gong in The Green Bushes, in which his "I believe you, my boy," became the cant phrase of the day, and Blue- skin in Jack Sheppard. And that brings me to another famous Adelphi success, the dramatic version of Ainsworth's noted novel, in 1840, which created scarcely less sensation than Tom and Jerry. Paul Bedford's singing of " Jolly Nose " was one of the great attractions of the drama. Mrs. Keeley must have made the most delightful of housebreakers. She was an actress of wonderful variety, since she could equally delight audiences in prison-breaking Jack, poor Smike, Little Nell, Dot, and the slaveys of broad farce. Jack Sheppard became the popular craze. It crowded the Adelphi ; versions of it were brought out at half a dozen theatres, and everybody was chaunting " Nix, my dolly pals, fake away ! " The Chadbands were again up in arms, advertising by their invectives the thing they condemned ; the Press took up a severely moral tone, and so much pressure was brought to bear upon the Lord Chamberlain that by-and-by the piece was interdicted. In 1844, Madame Celeste, in partnership with Benja- min Webster, became lessee of the Adelphi, and those fine artistes divided their services between the Hay- THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 427 market, of which Webster was then lessee, and the Strand. Celeste, though the range of her characters was very wide, is now chiefly remembered by her association with a school of plays which were known by the phrase of " The Adelphi Drama," though several were produced at the Haymarket. Nearly all of them were written by Buckstone, who, when he migrated from the Surrey, for which he had written several pieces, to the Adelphi in 1829 or 1830, became the stock playwright of the Strand house. The first of the series of dramas was The Wreck Ashore, in which Yates and Mrs. Yates, O' Smith, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam acted. Victorine, an adaptation from the French, gave the Yateses two powerful parts. Mrs. Stirling made her first appearance at the West End in The Dream at Sea, in the part of Biddy Nutts, 1836. These dramas followed on the lines of the ordinary fiction of the period ; the language was stilted, the plots were ultra-sentimental, the heroes and heroines immaculate, the villains of the deepest dye, but they were very effective lay figures in their day. 1 The best known are Green Bushes, 1845, and The Flowers of the Forest, 1849, in which, as Miami and Cynthia, Madame Celeste had her finest opportunities. Those who saw her only in her latter days play Miami could form no conception of what she had been in her prime, of the grace, the picturesqueness of her pantomime, the* intensity of love, hate, revenge that she threw into her delineation of the Indian girl. It was in the portrayal of wild, passionate, half-savage natures that she chiefly excelled. 1 It is curious to note the enormous difference in the remuneration received by dramatic authors in those days and in these. Buckstone was the author of 1 50 dramas, comedies, and farces ; he was paid only ^60 for a three-act drama, though he afterwards raised the price to .70 and 10 for provincial rights during a twelvemonth ; while a certain living writer of melodramas has received in fees as much as ,10,000 for a single piece. 428 THE LONDON STAGE An attempt was made to revive The Flowers of the Forest some years ago, but the audience laughed at what they called the old-fashioned twaddle. And as it was then interpreted they were not far wrong. But when Mrs. Fitzwilliam * was Starlight Bess, Miss Woolgar, 2 Lemuel, O'Smith, Ishmael the Wolf, and Buckstone and Paul Bedford, Cheap Jack and the Kinchin, it was quite a different thing, and, with such a caste, and the text modernised, would tell almost as powerfully upon an Adelphi audience now as it did half a century ago. Again, modern melodrama with all its striking effects has given us nothing more picturesque than the last scene of that same drama, in which Cynthia; cast out from her tribe, is made by her father to expiate the death of Lemuel by her own self-immolation ; the wild scene, the picturesque groups of gipsies lit up by the smoky glare of the torches, and now and again illumined by flashes of lightning, the powerful acting of the terrible O'Smith, the awful intensity yet the exquisite beauty of Celeste's every utterance and movement, so admirably contrasted with the silent agony of Starlight Bess, formed quite a Salvator Rosa picture. Alfred Mellon, the conductor of the theatre, who afterwards married Miss Woolgar, composed some delightfully appropriate music for the action, which added greatly to the effect. As a delineator of the terrors of melodrama, O'Smith was scarcely inferior to T. P. Cooke. No doubt we should think him shockingly conventional and unreal nowadays, but he had real power and intensity, together 1 Mrs. Fitzwilliam, who was identified with Buckstone's management, was one of the most delightful comic actresses of her day. But it was the touch of true pathos, which is the gift of all real humorists, that rendered her Nelly O'Neill, in Green Bushes, and Starlight Bess so striking. She died about 1856. 2 Miss Woolgar made her first appearance at the Adelphi in 1843. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 429 with an intuitive sense of the picturesque. In one of the old dramas, I believe it was Peter Bell, he played the part of a drunkard, and in one scene he had to upset a cup of liquor; with a cry of horror he cast himself upon the stage and ravenously licked up the spilled drink. It was one of those daring bits of business that only a strong actor, confident in his own power, would have dared attempt ; had it been weakly done it would have raised a laugh ; as he did it, it sent a shudder through the house. His death-scene of the pirate, Grampus, in The Wreck Ashore was a wonderful piece of melo- dramatic acting ; the ghastly face peering in at the window of the room where the two girls are alone, the moving of the latch by the invisible hand, the firing of the gun by the heroine, and that terrible figure, ragged and emaciated, falling in through the doorway death-stricken. It was grim, horrible if you will, but it was picturesque, intense and imaginative, and there- fore could not be revolting. And this high-priest of terror was in private life a very mild, middle-aged gentleman, with a hobby for collecting butterflies. Was it not a curious con- tradiction ? In 1853, Webster retired from the Haymarket and devoted himself entirely to the Adelphi, with which he was thereafter to be solely identified. The Buckstone vein of melodrama was by this time pretty well ex- hausted, and a new series of a higher order followed, with which the names of Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, Watts Philips, and Dion Boucicault are associated ; among the most notable of these plays may be named Masks and Faces ^ Two Loves and a Life, The Poor 1 Masks and Faces was first played at the Haymarket, 1852 ; it was revived here and became a stock play. 43 o THE LONDON STAGE Strollers, The Dead Heart, in all of which Webster, and in most Celeste, greatly distinguished themselves. Webster was an actor of consummate ability, and would have been an acquisition even to the Comedie Fran^aise in its best days. He had greater variety than perhaps any other actor of his generation. What a seemingly impassable interval there was between the broad humour of the Somersetshire ploughman, Giles, in The Qiieensberry Fte, and the slimy, snake-like hypo- crite Tartuffe a splendid performance ; or the callous drunkard Richard Pride and that most charming of his creations, Triplet. Richard Pride is only a very ordinary melodramatic part, but as played by Webster it was an elaborate psychological study; Richard Pride is drunk almost throughout the play, but there was no monotony in Webster's performance, for in each scene he gave a different phase of the vice. Yet, with fine artistic skill, though he could not help rendering the picture repulsive, he always avoided making it brutal. Janet was another of Celeste's most powerful performances. I can re- member nothing more thrilling than her agony after she had left her child at the Foundling, her frantic cries as she tore at the walls to try and get it back again. No other actor has played Triplet with the subtlety of Webster ; the poor dramatist is only a strolling player after all, though with the soul of a gentleman beneath his vanity and bombast, and this Webster showed distinctly. Bancroft, undoubtedly the best exponent of the part after the original, failed to convey this impres- sion ; he was too much the broken-down gentleman throughout, while Beerbohm Tree was too lacrymose, missing the hopeful Bohemian spirit, to whom the gift of a guinea would open heavens of delight. Robert Landry in The Dead Heart was another of THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 431 Webster's masterpieces ; the scene in which he was brought out of the Bastille with brain and body paralysed, the gradual awakening of consciousness and memory, acted only by facial expression, would keep the house riveted in dead silence for minutes. Irving's Robert Landry would not bear comparison with the original. There is only one reading of the part, and that was Webster's ; it would not bear modernising nor attempts at originality. It was by the acting, and the acting only, that the old Adelphi won its fame ; little care or expense was bestowed upon mounting its pieces ; its dresses were usually shabby, and its scenes and sets were little elaborated, while its supers passed into a byword, "Adelphi guests." .Ill-health having compelled Wright to retire in 1858, J. L. Toole, at the recommendation of Charles Dickens, was installed in his place, and made his first appearance here in Good for Nothing. A year or two afterwards he played Spriggins in Id on parle Franfais, perhaps the most famous of all his parts. In the early summer of the same year the old house, that had become a veritable dust-hole, was pulled down, and a new and more spacious building rose in its place, which was opened on Boxing Night in the same year. Most of the famous actors who had made its fame had passed away, or did not long survive the change. Mrs. Fitzwilliam, O'Smith, Tyrone Power, the great Irish actor, were dead ; Mrs. Yates had retired many years previously, Wright was seen no more, Madame Celeste remained only a short time, in consequence of disagree- ment with the management, and of the famous company soon Webster himself, Mrs. Mellon (Miss Woolgar), and Paul Bedford were the only representatives. The new Adelphi made a promising beginning with 432 THE LONDON STAGE The Colleen Bawn, the first of the sensational dramas, that is to say, the first drama in which a striking mechanical effect was the principal attraction, and the first serious drama in which the actor became of secondary importance to the mechanist and scene-painter. There had been shaking waters and rolling billows and other watery effects before the cavern scene of The Colleen Bawn, chief among which was the famous rolling wave in Ads and Galatea at Drury Lane in Macready's time ; but transparent stage-water had never before been seen, and a few yards of blue gauze did more than all the finest acting in the world could have accomplished, it filled the Adelphi for hundreds of nights, it filled the treasuries of provincial managers, it sent people to the theatre that had never been before, and it made the fortune of the author. Yet it is said that he was not actually the inventor of the wonderful thing, but that the idea first occurred to an old stage carpenter while he was constructing the scene. Nevertheless the piece was well acted. Myles-na- Coppeleen was, with Shaun the Post, Boucicault's best part ; Mrs. Boucicault was a charming Colleen Bawn ; Falconer was the Danny Mann ; and it could not have been better played ; indeed, every part was almost perfect in its way, and the drama was very cleverly constructed. But there is no denying that, but for the blue gauze, The Colleen Bawn might not have run twenty nights. Boucicault had treated the Adelphi audiences to water in his first essay in the sensational school ; in his next, The Octoroon, produced in November, 1861, he gave them fire. At this time there were only two kinds of theatrical entertainment the public would patronise the sensa- tional and the burlesque and the metropolitan theatres, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 433 with one or two exceptions, were divided between the pair. As the person who brought the grist to the mill, Boucicault soon became the paramount power at the Adelphi ; an excellent stage manager and a stern re- former, he certainly did considerable service in sweeping away the cobwebs of antiquated tradition which had nowhere gathered thicker than here ; and he must be coupled with Fechter and the Bancrofts as among the pioneers in the reform of the English stage. The Octoroon, however, did not rival its predecessor in attraction, and the audience was sent through fire and water after a time, that is to say, the two sensations were given nightly. A wretched piece called Grimaldi ; or, the Life of an Actress, and a new version of the old drama of The Vampire called The Phantom, in which the author enacted an Irish ghost, who could only be brought back to a corporeal state by being laid in "the moonbames," afterwards supplemented The Octo- roon, but with only doubtful success. A quarrel between the two partners sent Boucicault to Drury Lane. The Dead Heart, however, more than compensated by its popularity for the withdrawal of the great Dion. Miss Avonia Jones, Gustavus Brooke's widow, now varied the reign of melodrama by classical tragedy, and made some impression as Medea. In the autumn of 1863 the Adelphi scored a most emphatic success by the appearance of Miss Bateman in an adaptation of a German play called Deborah, rechristened Leah. It was a gloomy and monotonous work, but the actress gave so powerful and original a rendering of the central figure that it took with the public at once ; gauze waters, burning ships, railway accidents, stone quarries, were all forgotten, and for 210 nights everybody rushed to shudder and weep over the wrongs and to thrill at the 2 F 434 THE LONDON STAGE awful curse of the vengeful and broken-hearted Jewess. Miss Bateman came to us from America, though she had appeared with her sister in London as a sort of juvenile phenomenon as early as 1850. After a tour in the provinces, Miss Bateman returned to the Adelphi in 1865, and opened as Julia in The Hunchback ; but she was essentially a one-part actress, and failed to convince the playgoers as Knowles's dis- agreeable heroine. Married in 1866, she took a formal leave of the stage at Her Majesty's Theatre, and, as a matter of course, returned to it two years afterwards. The next great attraction at the Adelphi was Joseph Jefferson, who opened there as Rip Van Winkle, Sep- tember 4th, 1865. No truer, more pathetic, or purely artistic piece of acting, within its limits, has ever been seen upon the English stage than Jefferson's rendering of Washington Irving's vagabond hero, and it is satis- factory to reflect that without any meretricious effects, without a suspicion of the least pandering to degraded tastes, it crowded the house for 172 nights. Fechter was here in 1868, when No Thoroughfare was produced, furnishing the great French actor with one of the most remarkable of his impersonations, and Webster with his last original character, Joey Ladle. Previous to this, in the same year, a version of Monte Cristo was brought out, with a cast exceptionally fine, including George Belmore, Mrs. Leigh Murray, Fechter, W T ebster, Carlotta Leclercq, Miss Woolgar, Arthur Stirling, Henry Ashley, Tom Stuart; but it was a failure. In the autumn of 1870, Webster, having fallen into difficulties, took Chatterton into partnership, and the theatre was announced to be under their joint management. Two years later, after a reign of twenty-eight years, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 435 Webster finally retired, upon a rental paid him by Chatterton, whose name now appeared alone at the head of the bills. Fechter played his last engagement in England here in the same year ; and Madame Celeste, alas, reappeared upon the scene of her former triumphs, only to sadden old playgoers by comparisons between the past and present, and to excite the incredulity of younger ones. And this was not her last appearance ; again at the end of 1874 she exhibited the wreck of her fine powers to an unsympathising audience. During these years there is little worth recording in the annals of the Adelphi ; revivals of old successes, with a sprinkling of new plays, Irish and otherwise, and a short season of English opera under Carl Rosa in 1873, when The Merry Wives of Windsor was produced, chiefly distinguished the Chatterton management ; a remarkable run was achieved in the last-named year with Burnand's Proof, admirably cast. After Chatter- ton's downfall the theatre fell into the hands of a marine- store dealer named Clark, and the glory of the old house seemed to have indeed departed. I must not omit to mention the very great success achieved by Bouci- cault's Irish drama, The Shaughraun, which had a very long run. The Gatti regime, however, that started in 1879, was destined to resuscitate its fortunes, though its inaugura- tion was very ominous. Handsomely redecorated and reconstructed, it opened with a melodrama called The Crimson Cross, for which Hermann Vezin, Henry Neville, Adelaide Neilson were engaged. But the first night was one of the cruellest fiascoes I have ever witnessed. There was a dead set against the play, which was literally hooted, though I have heard worse well ap- plauded. Revivals and new plays followed, supported 436 THE LONDON STAGE by the same " star " company, but with no great results. Charles Warner, whose energy and breadth of style were excellently suited to the house, was leading man for some time, appearing as Michael Strogoff, Richard Pride, and Tom Robinson. But, perhaps, the first assured success was Henry Pettit's Taken from Life, December, 1881. Pettit was an ideal playwright in the exact sense of the word ; he was destitute of literary form, his dialogue was utterly commonplace, his characters mere lay figures, but he had a knack of constructing plots out of ancient con- ventions, of dressing up telling situations, and an un- erring eye for stage effect that appealed more strongly to the general public than would any work of genius. It mattered nothing that he used the same stories, situations, and puppets, with slight variations, over and over again ; people flocked to see his dramas, and were as delighted with the re'chaujfe', nay, far more so, than if it had been the most startling novelty ; for the ordinary playgoer loves to anticipate the end of the story, and is dissatisfied if the author prove too cunning for him. Edwin Booth was here in 1882, and made some im- pression in The Fool's Revenge, his Bertuccio being a very powerful performance. In the next year G. R. Sims first co-operated with Pettit, and In The Ranks was their joint production. The partnership proved a phenomenal success, and was carried on until death dis- solved it. Dramas by Wilkie Collins, Robert Buchanan, Charles Reade, Comyns Carr, H addon Chambers, well acted, perfectly mounted, were produced, but none pleased like the Pettit and Sims mixture. William Terriss succeeded Warner as leading man, and in such dramas as The Union Jack, The Silver Falls, rendered himself a supreme favourite ; his handsome person, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 437 bold, breezy, aggressive style exactly fitting him for the heroes of Adelphi melodrama. In 1889 ne made a trip to America, and on his return went to Drury Lane with Paul Kaiivar, afterwards rejoining the Lyceum company. His place at the Adelphi was filled in the interim by George Alexander, Kyrle Bellew, Charles Warner, Henry Neville. When, after an absence of three or four years, he returned to the Gattis, his vogue in The Swordsman s Daughter, Boys Together, In the Days of the Duke, and other dramas, was greater than ever. Pettit's death and Terris's cruel assassination, December, 1897, inflicted a fatal blow upon Adelphi drama. Mrs. Brown -Potter and Kyrle Bellew were here in 1898 with Charlotte Corday. Gillette made a great success in Secret Service, and a less in The Heart of Maryland. Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet here in 1899. The old house was pulled down, and rebuilt with an extended frontage and handsome auditorium, and re- opened by Mr. Tom Davis as the Century Theatre, on September 7th, 1901, with an American variety show, The Whirl of the Town. But the town would have none of it, and the outcry against the barbarous new name brought back, in the following year, the time- honoured " Adelphi." The latest productions have been The Arizona; Sapho, 1902, in which Olga Nethersole made a great hit by her powerful perform- ance of Daudet's heroine. 716* Christian King, 1902, with Wilson Barrett, was not a successor to The Sign of the Cross, and a stage version of Captain Kettle did not rival the popularity of the novel. Pending the appearance of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, last summer, the management called in the most lurid of East End dramas. Yet The Worst Woman in London and Her Second Time on Earth, which might have been predicted 43 8 THE LONDON STAGE would be ghastly failures, proved what might be called un sitcces de curiosite. The old and the new Adelphi drama is seemingly played out, and the future of this theatre is problematical. WEST LONDON, 1831-1903. In 1831 a theatre was opened in Church Street, Marylebone, and called the New Royal Sussex. A few years afterwards it was renamed the Royal Pavilion Theatre, West, and in 1837, the Royal Marylebone. It was for several years under the management of John Douglass, and for some part of his time was little better than a show. An attempt was made in 1847 to regenerate the house when, under the name of the Theatre Royal, Marylebone, it was for a short time directed by Mrs. Warner, the Drury Lane actress ; but her efforts were unsuccessful. E. T. Smith was manager in 1852, and J. W. Wallack in the next year. It was in 1858 that Mr. J. W. Cave commenced an association with the house which, on and off, lasted for many years. In 1864 it was rebuilt and enlarged so as to hold 2,000 persons, and became the western home of East End melodrama. The name of the house was once more changed, to the Royal Alfred, in 1866, and a better style of entertainment was attempted. Charles Harcourt was the manager for a while, and he brought the com- pany from the Queen's, under Miss Henrietta Hodson, to play a' short engagement here. But four years later the Royal Alfred was again known as the Marylebone, and the natives of Paddington were once more treated to their old bill of fare. Within the last few years the house has been handsomely rebuilt, and is now known as the West London, but it still adheres to its old line sensational drama. CHAPTER II The Strand and the Royalty A Chapter on Burlesque The Strand, 1832-1903. " HP HE little theatre " in the Strand stands upon the JL site of a building that, from 1820 to 1828, was occupied, first by Reinagle and Barker's, and afterwards by Burford's Panorama. When Burford removed his exhibition to Leicester Square, the premises were con- verted into a temporary chapel by some wandering sectarians, who, after two or three years, departed else- where. It was towards the close of 1831 that Benjamin Lionel Rayner, a celebrated impersonator of Yorkshire characters, upon whom it was said John Emery's mantle had fallen, and supposed to have been afterwards the celebrated "Joe Muggins' Dog" of the Era, assisted by one Captain Bell, a turfite, and a Mr. Galbraith, who exhibited as a conjurer under the name of Henry, set about transforming the place into a small theatre. The alterations being completed in seven weeks, it was opened on January 25th, 1832, as " Rayner 's New Sub- scription Theatre in the Strand," but was soon afterwards christened the " New Strand Theatre." The house was not licensed, and money was taken by the sale of tickets at an office outside the door. It was just at the time that the disputes between the patent and the minor theatres were at their acutest stage, the latter daily growing bolder and more denant, 439 44 o THE LONDON STAGE and the opening piece was a skit upon the theatrical situation, entitled Professionals Puzzled ; or, Struggles at Starting ; this was followed by Mystification, a trifle written for Mrs. Waylett, and The Millers Maid, in which Rayner appeared in his famous part of Giles, concluded the programme. The interior of the theatre was tastefully fitted up ; the decorations were white and gold, with silver pillars. The prices were four shillings, three shillings, two shillings, there being no gallery. A few weeks after it opened the house was announced as being under the sole management of Mrs. Waylett, who, no doubt, found the money to keep the concern going. Here she introduced her usual light style of entertainment, musical farce and extravaganza, in which her delightful singing and piquante acting were the chief attraction. But it was the old story that I have told again and again, there was no public support, and on the second Saturday in November the new theatre was abruptly closed. In the February of 1833 the doors were reopened, and Fanny Kelly gave her monologue entertainment, " Dramatic Recollections, with Studies of Character," another imitation of Mathews's " At Home " ; but it was an utter failure. In October, Wrench and Russell attempted a dramatic season ; at the end of the first week the Lord Chamberlain, stirred up by the patentees, closed the house. In 1834, Mrs. Waylett's name again appeared at the head of the bill as sole lessee, and beneath was printed "Admission gratis." Every kind of expedient was resorted to in order to evade the law ; at an adjoining confectioner's, people paid four shillings for an ounce of lozenges, and were presented with a box tickjjt ; while with half an ounce of peppermint djops, for which two shillings were given, was handed a ticket THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 441 for the pit. An arrangement was then made with Glossop, of the Victoria, and the public were informed at the bottom of the playbill that by purchasing a ticket for the Victoria they would obtain a free admission for the Strand. An Indian chief and his squaw were engaged. Mrs. Nisbett " starred" here. New dramas, new musical pieces, new travesties were produced and acted by a good stock company, among which we find the names of Miss P. Horton and Oxberry. A great hit was made by a burlesque upon Manfred by Gilbert a Beckett, entitled Man Fred, in which Byron's hero was turned into a mysterious and melancholy chimney- sweep, and Astarte, played by Priscilla Horton, was rechristened Annie Starkie. But in March, 1835, the Lord Chamberlain swooped down upon the defiers of his authority, shut the theatre, and fined the actors. In the next year, however, the New Strand was placed on the same footing as the Olympic and Adelphi, and then (May ist) passed into the hands of Douglas Jerrold and his brother-in-law, James Hammond, a burlesque actor of considerable talent. The partnership lasted only a few months. Though a dramatic author, theatres, at least behind the scenes, were distasteful to Jerrold ; perhaps he had seen too much of them in his young days, when his father was the manager of what was known as the ''Kent circuit," which included Deal, Sheerness, and other small towns. Nor was the Strand speculation fortunate enough to overcome such prejudices, though probably his share in it did not extend beyond the productions of his pen. At the dissolution of the partnership, Hammond spoke an address, evidently written by Jerrold, which throws considerable light upon the affairs of the theatre a^ this time. " We began with a tragic drama, The Painter of 442 THE LONDON STAGE Ghent" he says ; " but as the aspect of the boxes and pit was much more tragic than we could wish, we, in sailors' phrase, ' let go the painter.' We tried something like a ballet, which after a few nights (but purely out of mercy to the reputations of Taglioni and Perrot) we withdrew. We found that our legs were not very good, and so we resolved to produce comedy of words and character ; in other phrase, mistrusting our legs, we resolved hence- forth only to stand upon our heads." Jerrold, under the nom de plume of Henry Brownrigg, wrote many short pieces for the little stage within a few months The Bill Sticker ; Hercules, King of Clubs ; The Perils of Pippins ; or, an Old House in the City ; and lastly, the one-act tragedy, The Painter of Ghent. His Drury Lane success, The Rent Day, was also played here. In The Painter he himself acted the hero, but his success was not marked, and after a fortnight he quitted the stage, never again to appear upon it until those famous days of " splendid strolling" with Dickens, Forster, Mark Lemon. Hammond was manager of the New Strand up to 1839, when, unfortunately for himself, he was tempted by the offer of a low rental to venture upon Drury Lane. His greatest hit was a travesty, called Othello ', according to Act of Parliament, in which was reflected the struggles of the management to meet the requisitions of the law. Hammond's Othello, "an independent nigger from the Republic of Hayti," was a very striking per- formance, and Harry v Hall's lago was equally happy. A gallery, capable of holding 800 people, was now added to the auditorium, and the prices were lowered to three shillings, one shilling and sixpence, and one shilling, with half-price to all parts. In regard to the entertain- ment provided, Dickens's novels, then in all the freshness THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 443 of their first issue, were freely laid under contribution. A dramatic version of the Pickwick Papers was brought out under the title of Sam Weller in the year of publi- cation, and Nicholas Nickleby followed in 1839 ; drama, however, was almost invariably supplemented by ex- travaganza. We next find the conjurer Jacobs in possession of the house. In 1841 the name of Harry Hall heads the bills, and the Keeleys are starring here, and Mrs. Stirling is playing Aline, a version of Linda di Chamouni. As soon as the novel of Martin Chuzzlewit appears, the paste-and-scissors dramatist of the theatre lays his claws upon it. Then there is an attempt at tragedy, which upon that stage must have been very ludicrous. But from Shakespeare the management has quickly to de,- scend to Bos-Jesmen and General Tom Thumb ! Fox Cooper is the lessee in 1847, and reduces the prices, to stalls, three shillings ; boxes, one-and-sixpence ; pit, one shilling ; and gallery, fourpence. Oxberry is manager in the following year, and Edward Hooper's name succeeds his with significant rapidity. After performing at the Strand as a star for a few weeks, William Farren took the house (1848). This is the first notable event in the history of the theatre. The Clandestine Marriage, The Road to Ruin, The Love Chase, and other comedies were given here with Farren, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Stirling, Leigh Murray and his wife, Mrs. Alfred Philips, Compton, Henry Farren, and Diddear in the principal parts ; comedies were varied by the inevitable extravaganzas, and one or two pretty domestic dramas by Mark Lemon. Mrs. Stirling made a success as Adrienne Lecouvreur in The Reigning Favourite, a translation of the French play, even after Rachel had recently appeared in the character. The 444 THE LONDON STAGE Vicar of Wakefield, with Farren as Dr. Primrose, Mrs. Stirling as Olivia, and Mrs. Glover as Mrs. Primrose, was a very fine performance. It was just at the end of Mrs. Glover's career, it was her last engagement. Farren left the Strand for the Olympic in 1850. William Copeland, a Liverpool manager, tried his fortune here in the next year, and rechristened the theatre " Punch's Playhouse." Many familiar names appear in the playbills at this time Walter Lacy, Charles Selby, Tom Robertson, Charlotte Saunders, Mrs. Selby, Edward Stirling; drama and burlesque were the staple fare. But a couple of seasons were sufficient for Mr. Copeland. He was followed by Allcroft, the box-keeper of Bond Street, and in 1853, Miss Rebecca Isaacs, the well- known vocalist, was directress under that gentleman. Operas were now tried, among others Der Frieschutz. Then came Barry Sullivan, who had just been playing at the Haymarket, in Shakespeare. Allcroft, in partner- ship with Payne, continued to manage the Strand until 1856, when the latter took the whole responsibility upon himself, and brought the theatre to the very lowest ebb. Leicester Buckingham's name headed the bill during the season of 1857. No theatrical speculation in London seemed more hopeless, when, in February, 1858, the Strand was undertaken by W. H. Swanborough, whose name, however, for pecuniary reasons, almost immediately gave place in the bills to that of his daughter, Miss Swanborough, a very charming actress, and a favourite at the Haymarket. At last, after five-and-twenty years of much cloud and little sunshine, the house was to enter upon a career of prosperity, and for that it was chiefly indebted to the pen of the late H. J. Byron, with THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 445 whose burlesque, Fra Diavolo, the management secured an initial success. The Strand has been more faithful to its earliest traditions than most other houses. From the first it was a home of burlesque, and with no other theatre, save the Gaiety, is that species of dramatic composition so thoroughly identified. English burlesque goes back to the days of Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle and the famous Rehearsal. But it was Fielding who first introduced that medley of song, dance, and absurdity which we now identify with the name ; and Fielding took his inspiration from The Beggars Opera; Gay's celebrated Newgate pastoral may be likewise regarded as the originator of the old English comic opera of Bickerstaff and Dibdin, and, indeed, of all the dramatic " musical melanges" that since that day have held a foremost place in the favour of our theatrical audiences. Kane O'Hara's Midas was in the late Mrs. Howard Paul's repertory, Apollo, with the beautiful song " Pray Goody," having always been a favourite with English cantatrices. Henry Carey, the author of " Sally in our Alley," wrote several extrava- ganzas, and Bombastes has not long ceased to be a favourite with amateurs. Travesties of Shakespeare were common enough seventy and eighty years ago, but they were of a rough, coarse type, and it was not until the rise of Planche that a more elegant turn was given to these trifles. The supreme geniuses of the Planche school of extra- vaganza, Madame Vestris and Mrs. Waylett, however, had passed away, and with them much of the aroma they used to impart to those dainty trifles ; as audiences became more mixed, a stronger flavouring was required for the coarser palates. The hour had struck for some- 446 THE LONDON STAGE thing new, and the man was there to supply it, a struggling young author just rising into fame, who boldly carved out a path for himself. He took the transpontine drama of the ludicrous exaggeration of which the north side of the Thames was far from being free as the butt at which to shoot his shafts of ridicule ; the brigand in six-tab tunic and buckled belt stuck all round with daggers and pistols, and basket-hiked swords, with combats to music, the heavy father always invoking his grey hairs, and given alternately to cursing and blessing, the village maiden walking through frost and snow in silk stockings and sandalled shoes, of which playgoers were beginning to tire, here were splendid materials for burlesque. A capital company entered heart and soul into Byron's fun " little Johnny Clarke," James Rogers, James Bland, who, until the appearance of Robson, was the king of burlesque, Charlotte Saun- ders, Miss Oliver, and Marie Wilton, who, after leaving the Lyceum, had passed over to the Adelphi, but unable to get " any business there," had, when the old house was pulled down, transferred her services to the Strand. Nothing more delightfully piquante than Marie Wilton in burlesque can be conceived ; her style was not that of Vestris or of Waylett, it was her own and nobody else's. As far as it can be described, Dickens admirably hit it off in a letter to Forster : " I really wish you would go, between this and next Thursday, to see The Maid and the Magpie burlesque," he writes. " There is the strangest thing in it that ever I have seen on the stage the boy Pippo, by Miss Wilton. While it is astonishingly impudent (must be, or it couldn't be done at all), it is so stupendously like a boy, and unlike a woman, that it is perfectly free from offence. I never have seen such a thing. She does THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 447 an imitation of the dancing of the Christy Minstrels wonderfully clever which, in the audacity of its thorough-going, is surprising. A thing that you cannot imagine a woman doing at all ; and yet the manner, the appearance, the levity, impulse, and spirits of it are so exactly like a boy that you cannot think of anything like her sex in association with it. It begins at eight, and is over by a quarter-past nine. I never have seen such a curious thing, and the girl's talent is unchallengeable. I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the stage in my time, and the most singularly original." Fra Diavolo was the first of the long series of bur- lesques that drew crowds to the Strand night after night and year after year. It was the operas, varied by such old melodramas as The Miller and His Men, that Byron chiefly foisted his fun upon. One of the cleverest of the series was The Lady of Lyons, in which Rogers played Widow Melnotte and Charlotte Saunders, Claude. The former was excruciatingly droll, while the latter, who was called the female Robson, gave a very remark- able performance, especially in the last scene where she posed as Napoleon. It was a wonderful picture. He wrote for several successive companies. Bland and poor Jimmy Rogers, both excellent comedians, died before Marie Wilton left the Strand for Tottenham Street, and they were never adequately replaced ; but the same facile pen continued to pour forth with equal fluency The Kenilworths, The Ivanhoes, The Africaines for Messrs. James, Thorne, Terry, 1 Miss Raynham, Mrs. Raymond, etc., and their associates, as it had for the original company, and the houses were still crammed to repletion. 1 Edward Terry made his first appearance in London at the Surrey, in 1867. In the same year he played the Gravedigger in Hamlet at the Lyceum, and joined the Strand company in 1869. 44 8 THE LONDON STAGE And there certainly was a " go," an excitement about burlesque at the Strand in those days that was never approached by any other house. The enjoyment of the performers was really, or apparently, so intense that the wild ecstatic breakdown into which they broke at the end of almost every scene seemed perfectly spontaneous; it was a frantic outburst of irrepressible animal spirits, and they seemed to have no more control over their legs than the audience had over their applause. You might call it rubbish, buffoonery, vulgarity, anything you liked, but your temperament must have been abnormally phlegmatic if you could resist the influence of that riotous mirth and not be carried away by it. Every vein, however rich, must be exhausted at last, and the same situations and the same word-twistings at length grew monotonous, more especially as the company became rrfore and more mediocre, and the old spirit gradually evaporated. The acme of dreariness perhaps was attained in a burlesque called The Vampire, the last, or one of the last, of the long procession of Swanborough burlesques, 1872. It was in 1868 (November 7th) that J. S. Clarke first appeared here as the immortal Major Wellington de Boots, and from that time was almost an annual visitor, playing The Toodles in 1869, while, in 1870, he made his first appearance in England in old comedy, and performed Dr. Ollapad, in The Poor Gentleman, for sixty consecutive nights. Byron himself had acted in several of his bright comedies, The Prompter s Box, Hes not such a Fool as He Looks (1872). In the last year Clarke was again the principal attraction, as indeed he continued to be for a certain period during nearly every season. In the meantime the Strand had lost much of its distinctive character ; a new species of THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 449 burlesque, very much inferior to the old in its best days, was initiated with Nemesis, which, however, enjoyed as long a run, if not a longer, than any of its predecessors. It was new, piquant French, with Marius in one of the principal parts, and greatly took -the public taste. A new era in the history of the Strand began with the production of Offenbach's tuneful Madame Favart, April, 1879. Though she had appeared for a short time as Germaine in Les Cloches de Corneville at the Folly, Florence St. John made her veritable London debut as Madame, and took the town by storm with her delicious voice, her charming acting, and beautiful face. Miss St. John and Violet Cameron, who played Suzanne, were at that time the two handsomest women on the London stage. Olivette, 1881, was as successful. Condemned by the Board of Works, in consequence of the panic that ensued after the burning of the Ring Theatre at Vienna, the Strand, which had been rebuilt at a cost of ,10,000 not many years before, was entirely reconstructed and enlarged, and opened on November 1 8th, 1882, with a burlesque by Byron and Farnie called Frolique. It was a failure, so was the next Cymbia, by Harry Paulton. It is very curious, but the play with which a rebuilt theatre reopens is almost invariably a failure. In January, 1883, J. S. Clarke appeared as Dromio of Syracuse in an elaborate revival of The Comedy of Errors-, but it failed to attract, and the management returned to comic opera, revivals of. Our Boys and other once successful plays, and a dramatic version of Anstey's Vice Versa. The latter was a go ; but the prestige of the house had waned. At the death of Mrs. Swanborough, who was in bankruptcy, Clarke announced himself as the lessee he had been the real lessee some time before. There was 2 G 450 THE LONDON STAGE a somewhat notable season of old comedies, during which works were resuscitated that had long been lying in oblivion, such as The Busy Body, A Trip to the Jubilee, in which Sir Harry Wildair figures, The Sus- picious disband, The Wonder, together with others better known The Clandestine Marriage, The Road to Ruin, etc., supported by William Farren, Edward Righton, H. B. Conway, Fanny Coleman, etc. Early in the nineties the theatre was sublet to Willie Edouin, who conducted it with varying fortunes for several years. Our Flat ran 600 nights, for which the authoress was munificently rewarded with ,50 ! A more legitimate success was scored by that admir- able piece of fooling, Niobe. Distinctly original, with a subtle, classical flavour ; less a burlesque than an irony, almost pathetic in its sharp-edged contrast be- tween antique ideality and sordid modern realism, so artistically represented by Beatrice Lamb as the re- vivified Niobe, and by Harry Paulton as the Life Insurance Philistine, it had. a singular fascination for the public, even for those upon whom the true satire and inner meaning were lost. It ran between 300 and 400 nights. A curious outcome of the popularity of Niobe, which .savours more of Paris than of London, was what, at the time, were called "Niobe wedding parties." It was quite the thing for those who had assisted at a wedding to go and see the Strand piece in the evening ; one night as many as twenty stalls and two boxes were engaged by a hymeneal party. How this extraordinary function was first started, or by whom, I am unable to say. During the last few years the Strand has secured very long runs with farcical comedies, notably Why THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 451 Jones Left Home, In the Soup ; but The Chinese Honey- moon, thanks very much to the irresistible drolleries of Louie Freer and the "go" and the clever imitations of Marie Dainton, promises to reach the record of the house. As I write it is fast approaching its nine hundredth representation and is still going strong. THE ROYALTY, 1840-1903 It was in 1840 that Fanny Kelly, having conceived the idea of investing the savings of a long theatrical life in establishing a school for acting, took a lease of some property in dingy Dean Street, Soho. The speculation proved so successful that she built a theatre upon a yard and a range of stables attached to the house. An engineer named Stephenson had patented an in- vention by which stage and scenery were to be worked by machinery. By means of a series of cog-wheels, placed beneath the stage and moved by leverage power, "the wings" could be shifted, "the borders" changed, the scenery raised or lowered, and even the stage sunk, cleared of whatever might be on it, reset, and wound up again. Miss Kelly received the most encouraging promises of support from high quarters, while the Press, in a series of preliminary puffs, prophesied a complete revolution in stage art. " Miss Kelly's Theatre," as it was called, first opened its doors on March 25th, 1840, with a drama by Morris Barnet, called Summer and Winter, in which the mana- geress and author sustained the principal parts. But, alas ! the wonderful machinery which was to be the making of the house proved its destruction. Stephenson had represented that the whole arrangement could be worked by one man, but when it came to the test a 4S 2 THE LONDON STAGE horse had to be employed. The theatre was a mere bandbox, and the trampling of the horse beneath the stage and the working of the cog-wheels shook every plank in the house and gave the audience St. Vitus's dance. At the end of five nights the actors outnumbered the spectators, and the house was closed. But how to get rid of the fatal machine ? The iron bars and bolts and stanchions which had been required to secure it were so embedded in the walls that it seemed at first as though the house would have to be pulled down, and, as it was, very expensive alterations had to be made before this white elephant could be removed. Miss Kelly's Theatre was consequently closed until the autumn, when she reopened it with the monologue enter- tainment in which she had appeared at the Strand in 1833, but with no better success. It was her last appearance upon the stage. After sinking ,7,000 in this unlucky ven- ture, she resumed her school, and amateur performances were given until 1849, when it is said that a conspiracy, into the details of which it is not necessary to enter, was formed to deprive her of her property, which was seized in default of her paying the sum of ^130. Miss Kelly survived unto her ninety-third year. At the end of her life a grant of ^150 was accorded her from the Civil List ; but she did not live to receive even the first instalment. The persons who had been so anxious to get posses- sion of the theatre opened it in 1850 as the "New English Opera House," with what was called a grand opera in three acts, The Last Crusade ; but the public would none of it, they would not come to Dean Street. For the next fifteen or sixteen years there is little worth recording in the history of this theatre, which was let for amateur performances. In 1861 it was chiefly THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 453 reconstructed, and reopened on the i2th of November under the name of the "New Royalty" and the direc- tion of Mrs. Selby, a well-known London actress ; even then the performances were mainly for the benefit of that lady's "pupils," for the house was again "a school for acting." Burlesque was the principal attraction ; Ada Cavendish, " a pupil," made her first appearance in public as Venus in the celebrated Ixion. In 1865, Adelaide Neilson made her debut as Juliet, and even then created considerable sensation among the critics. In the next year charming Miss Oliver, who had delighted Lyceum audiences under Vestris with her comedy acting, and Strand playgoers under the Swan- boroughs in burlesque, ventured upon the New Royalty, and was highly successful for several seasons. Black- Eyed Susan, her great hit, was one of the best of the burlesques. Fred Dewar as Captain Crosstree, Edwin Danvers as the Widow, and the manageress as " pretty Se-usan " were as droll and charming as anything the stage has seen in this style of piece. The company was excellent throughout. The Bohemian Gyurlvrzs the next production, in which one of the cleverest burlesque ac- tresses even " of the palmy days," Charlotte Saunders, was immense as the Gipsy Queen. And Craven's pretty little domestic dramas, Megs Diversion and Milky White, were almost as attractive as the burlesque. Miss Henrietta Hodson was the mistress of the little house in 1870, but only for a brief period. She revived some old comedies Tobin's Honeymoon and Wild Oats, in which she played the leading parts with Charles Wyndham, who had made his first appearance in London upon those boards in 1866 as Sir Arthur Lascelles, in All that Glitters is not Gold. As most people know, the famous comedian was on the Medical 454 THE LONDON STAGE Staff of the Federal Army during the American War. There is a story told of his first appearance upon any stage, which, if not correct, is at least ben trovato. It was at New York under Mrs. John Wood's husband ; the opening lines of his part were, " I am drunk with love and enthusiasm." He got as far as "I am drunk," when, overpowered by stage -fright, the words stuck in his throat, and he could go no farther. It was his first and last appearance upon that stage. Actors who rise to eminence usually begin with a fiasco ; mediocrity seldom feels nervous. That admirable opera-bouffe actress, Selina Dolares, made a hit here, in 1875, * n La Perichole. Mr. G. R. Sims's Crutch and Toothpick was a great success in 1879. Miss Lydia Thompson, with W. J. Hill and Miss Wadman, played in Little Orpheus and His Lute in 1881. Two years later Miss Kate Santley, ^who is still the lessee, took over the theatre, and had it reconstructed and handsomely decorated. It reopened in May with Sims's and Clay's comic opera, The Merry Duchess, a good-natured skit upon the sporting Duchess of Montrose, with Henry Ashley, Kate Munro, Arthur Williams, and Miss Santley in the principal parts. . Comic opera was now the go for a time, but there was not much money in it. Mr. Mayer, after he quitted the Gaiety, gave his annual series of French plays in Dean Street during several years. Here Ibsen's Ghosts was first played, in English, 1891. Mr. Bourchier started as manager here in 1895, and met with some success. Mr. Alexander's name headed the bill at the end of 1896; in the next season Louie Freer was playing in Oh Susannah ! and Penley in A Little Ray of Sunshine in 1899. In the following year Mrs. Patrick Campbell took over the house, had it beautifully decorated and upholstered, and presented The THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 455 Canary, The Sacrament of Judas, a very fine perform- ance of Magda, Fantastics, Echegary's Mariana, Pellias and Melisande, and revivals of The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray ; Bjornsen's Beyond Hitman Power , etc. When Mrs. Campbell went to America, George Giddens took her place for a season and brought out A Snug Little Kingdom, Sporting Simp- son, Lyre and Lancet, but not with satisfactory results. During the present year, Martin Harvey produced a Napoleonic play, The Exile, which had a very brief run. A season of German plays, now in progress, ends the chronicles of the Royalty up to the time of writing. CHAPTER III The St. James's Memoirs of the "Unlucky" Theatre, 1835-1903 IF ever a theatre honestly earned for itself the title of unlucky, that theatre was THE ST. JAMES'S, which from the time of its foundation until it came into the hands of Messrs. Hare and Kendal certainly spelt ruin and bankruptcy to all who were rash enough to invest in it. In the year 1835 the famous tenor, John Braham, then near upon sixty years of age, conceived the ambition to become a theatrical manager, and purchasing a site in King Street, St. James's, upon which stood an old-fashioned hotel, that dated back at least to the reign of the second Charles, called Nerot's, invested a large portion of the savings of a long professional life, ^"26,000, on its erection. It had taken many years of toil in those times, when hundreds were not paid for a song, to accumulate that amount, reckoning from the days when " Master Braham," at the age of thirteen, made his first appearance upon any stage at the old Royalty, in Wellclose Square. In building the new theatre, Braham, as many another actor has, both before and since, depended upon his personal popularity, and believed that his name at the head of the bill would be quite sufficient to secure a success. The St. James's opened on December 1 4th, 1835, 456 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 457 with Agnes Sore/, the music by Mrs. G. A. a Beckett ; it was styled, in obedience to Act of Parliament, "an operatic burletta," though it was a serious opera. Braham himself sang the tenor part, and was supported, among others, by Stretton and Miss Priscilla Horton, afterwards Mrs. German Reed, then one of the most charming of actresses and vocalists ; the heroine being sustained by a pupil of the manager, Miss Glossop, her first appearance upon any stage. The prices were what we should call cheap nowadays : boxes, five shillings ; pit, three ; gallery, two ; with half-price to all. Agnes Sorel was not a success, neither were any of the other pieces which were produced during a very short season of little over three months. People said the theatre was too far west for the general public, and there was a considerable amount of truth in this ; for although the St. James's is but a few minutes' walk from the Haymarket and the Opera House, it is only within the last few years that, except to visit the houses last named, theatrical audiences cared to go west of the Strand ; and now so the old order changes the new theatres are all in that direction. But the main cause of the failure was the common one, the utter indifference of the public to theatrical amuse- ments, and the abstention of the fashionable world, which patronised only Italian opera. In the following April the St. James's was opened by a Parisian company, under the management of Jenny Vertpree, with Auguste Nourrit as the star ; it was the first of that series of French plays with which this theatre was for so many years identified. On Thursday, September 29th, 1836, Braham re- opened the house, which in the announce-bill he pro- claimed to be the most splendid theatre in Europe, with 45 8 THE LONDON STAGE a comic piece by " Boz," called The Strange Gentleman. Dickens always had a penchant for the stage, and might have applied himself to dramatic authorship had not the success of the Pickwick Papers for once and all turned the current of his genius into another channel. The Strange Gentleman was founded upon one of the Sketches, The Great Winglebury Duel, and is written very much in the style of a modern farcical comedy ; it is full of complications, impossible coincidences, and grotesque situations ; Harley in the principal part added greatly to the success, and the piece ran about fifty nights. Thereupon Braham pressed for another from the same pen, and Dickens, collaborating with John Hullah, then a young and comparatively unknown man, produced Village Coquettes, an English opera, after the style of Bickerstaff's Love in a Village ; the manager was delighted with it, protested that nothing so good had been done since Sheridan's Duenna, and anticipated a great triumph. But all parties concerned were doomed to bitter disappointment. Village Coquettes was savagely cut up by the Press, failed to draw, and did not attain its twentieth night. The plot is on very old lines. A village beauty who all but falls into the snares set for her by a villainous squire and his friend, a rustic lover who talks sermons in a strong dialect, and a comic man who comes in for situations ; not that its conventionality was any bar to its success, as it was quite in accordance with the tastes of the day. John Parry abandoned his vocal entertainment, to which, however, he afterwards returned, to play in this piece and some others that followed. This failure, however, did not close Dickens's con- nection with the St. James's. In the following season, on March 6th, 1837, a farce by the great novelist, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 459 entitled Is She His Wife f was produced there, but with only moderate success. 1 Braham in the meantime was appearing in a round of his old parts : as Young Hawthorn in Love in a Village that charming old ballad opera that contains some of the prettiest of old English music ; as Henry Bertram in Guy Mannering, with Madame Sala as Meg Merrilies ; as Tom Tug in The Waterman, etc. ; in any of which, not many years before, the great tenor could draw large audiences ; but whether it was that age had " staled his infinite variety," or the public would not go so far west even to hear an old favourite, it is difficult to say, but the second season closed with another heavy loss. During the third season, Mrs. Stirling, Wright, and Mrs. Honey were added to the company ; the first was already a favourite at the Adelphi and the Strand. Nearly three-quarters of a century ago Fanny Stirling was beguiling our grandfathers and grandmothers of their tears in the heroines of domestic drama, in which, after Mrs. Yates had quitted the stage, she held the foremost place, and charming them by her vivacity as a comedienne, as she delighted another generation by her inimitable performances of the Nurse and Mrs. Malaprop. But neither Braham's singing, nor Mrs. Stirling's nor Mrs. Honey's nor Edward Wright's acting, could draw the public to the theatre. " I feel quite proud to-night," said the manager, entering the green-room one evening, 1 In 1838, Macready desiring to have something from his pen, he wrote a farce for Drury Lane called The Lamplighter, but upon being read in the green-room it was so unfavourably received by the company that he withdrew it. Dickens afterwards converted it into a story for The Pic Nic Papers, but for some reason it is not to be found in any collected edition of his works. This, if we except such pieces as No Thoroughfare, in which he collaborated with Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Nightingale's Diary, written for that " splendid strolling " in connection with the Guild of Literature and Art, closes the list of Charles Dickens's writings for the public stage. 460 THE LONDON STAGE " I have just counted the pit, and there are seventeen people in it ! " Nevertheless, he bravely held on to the sinking ship, until at the end of 1838 he found all his savings swept away, and himself, at the age of sixty- four, almost penniless. With an indomitable pluck that few men possess, he arranged a tour through America, where his success, notwithstanding his advanced age, was prodigious. Having replenished his coffers, he once more returned to his native land, and took up his abode with his daughter, the Countess Waldegrave, until his death in 1856, at the ripe age of eighty-three. But long ere that event took place the unlucky theatre had impoverished several others rash enough to under- take its management. Hooper opened in 1839 with a company that would now nightly cram any house in London : that fine veteran, Dowton ; Walter Lacy ; Wrench, the Charles Mathews of that time ; Mrs. Glover ; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews ; James Bland, who, until the rise of Robson, had no compeer as a burlesque actor ; Alfred Wigan, then in his very early days, and playing small parts ; Miss Turpin, a fine singer ; charming Mrs. Honey, beautiful as a houri, with the throat of a nightingale. How much the public appreciated such brilliant talent may be gathered from the circumstance that shortly afterwards a " Forest of Wild Animals " was announced in the playbills, and lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, and jaguars were brought to King Street to supple- ment the two-legged performers. Drury Lane had set the example by converting itself into a menagerie for Van Amburgh, and Bunn had found it to be a splendid speculation, against which Macready, with Shakespeare and a glorious company at Covent Garden, could not THE WEST END THEATRES OP TO-DAY 461 contend. " Our youthful Queen " having patronised the wild beast show at Drury Lane twice in one week, everyone was eager to display his or her loyalty by doing likewise, and for once the St. James's out of the French season was nightly crowded. When the lords of the forest had sated fashionable curiosity, a troupe of dogs, monkeys, and goats took their place. But ere this the best of the despised human actors had taken flight. Yet even with all his bestial attractions one season was enough for Mr. Hooper ; and after the usual French company, which occupied the house during May and June, the " Poet " Bunn opened the theatre on November 5th, 1839, with an opera company. Six weeks of empty benches, and the doors were closed suddenly ; and not again opened until the following April. It was the time of the Queen's marriage, and Bunn thought that a German opera company then a novelty in London would, under the circumstances, prove attractive. Accordingly, an arrangement was entered into with Herr Schumann, director of the opera at Mayence, and as a further compliment to royalty the theatre was renamed the Prince's. The Germans proved even more attractive than the wild beasts, not on account of their talent, for, with the exception of one or two of the men, the company, to judge from the strictures of the Press, must have been execrable ; but everything German was the rage just then, and the theatre was crowded nightly throughout the season. Unfortunately, Bunn was at the same time the manager of another unlucky theatre, Drury Lane, which brought him to the bankruptcy court. So the St. James's was once more in the market. Thinking, perhaps, that the spell of ill luck was 462 THE LONDON STAGE broken, Morris and John Barnett, the former a very clever comedian, who had been in Braham's company, and the latter a very popular composer, undertook the management in November, 1840, opening with an opera called Fridolin. But these victims of misplaced con- fidence only just escaped ruin. It was in 1842 that Mitchell, of Bond Street, became the lessee, and changed the name of the theatre back to St. James's, which it has borne ever since. Under his management, which lasted about twelve years, the house was almost entirely given up to French companies, and each season London had an opportunity of witnessing performances by the finest artistes of the Parisian stage. Mademoiselle Plessy, the delightful * Dejazet, the incom- parable Frederick Lemaitre, Ravel, Levasseur, and, above all, the grand Rachel. Though it was at Her Majesty's that Rachel Felix made her London debut as Hermione in Racine's Andromaque in 1841, it is with the St. James's she is chiefly associated in the memories of old playgoers. G. H. Lewes has drawn a curious parallel between the great Jewish tragedienne and Edmund Kean, both in their careers, their physical appearance, and their style of acting ; but it is with the modern Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, that the critic of the present day would be most inclined to draw comparisons ; both of Jewish extraction, half German, half French, the elder actress being the daughter of a Jew pedlar, born in French territory ; in physique and in their careers the similarity is remarkable. Upon her first appearance in this country at Her Majesty's, Rachel was received with an effusion perhaps even greater than that which has greeted her successor, for it was not only aristocracy, but royalty that was at THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 463 Rachel's feet ; the Duchess of Kent took a beautiful shawl from her own shoulders and wrapped it about the actress when she complained of cold one night at the wings ; the Queen presented her with a splendid bracelet inscribed, " From Victoria to Mademoiselle Rachel." When she fell ill frequent bulletins were issued, and upon her reappearance the Queen and the Queen Dowager were both present at the theatre to congratulate her upon her recovery. Allowing for the absence of royalty, we had a repetition of this furore when "the divine Sarah" used to be led down an alley of aristocracy resting upon the arm of some ducal host. By the time, however, that Rachel appeared at the St. James's, in 1846, certain details of her private life having oozed out, the drawing-rooms were closed against her, and royalty held aloof, though her transcendent genius still made her the idol of the theatre. The serpent-like grace and the overwhelming passion of Rachel live again in Sarah Bernhardt ; but the supreme excellence of the two artistes differs in kind. Rachel was essentially the grand tragedienne, the exponent of Corneille and Racine, the lineal descendant of the great tragic actresses of the eighteenth century of Clairon, Dumesnil, Adrienne Lecouvrer and though she abandoned the sing-song cadences of her prede- cessors, she never descended to the level of ordinary humanity ; her personations were ideal, heroic, such as their creators conceived them. Amidst the uncom- promising realism which universally pervades the spirit of our age, tragedy is impossible ; our idea of tragedy is a murder in Whitechapel ; Melpomene no longer carries the dagger and the bowl, but the kitchen poker and the carving-knife ; tragedy is absorbed in melo- drama, for melodrama is essentially realistic. 464 THE LONDON STAGE Sarah Bernhardt is not a tragedienne, but a great melodramatic actress ; her Phedre may be as terrible in its intensity as Rachel's, but it is human, while that of the elder actress was a hell-born chimera, a spirit of incarnate evil. Charlotte Bronte has well defined this when she says: "It is scarcely human nature that she shows you ; it is something wilder and worse ; the feel- ings and fury of a fiend." In another place she says more strongly : "It was like a glimpse of hell." All agree, however, that Rachel was deficient in the ex- pression of love and tenderness, that she had no pathos ; that is to say, where Sarah Bernhardt is strongest she was weakest. Her last appearance at the St. James's was in 1853; her last appearance upon any stage was at Charlestown, December i7th, 1856; after that she returned to France to die. Notwithstanding some great successes, Mitchell had his failures ; among others the German company, which in 1853 played Goethe's Faust and several of Shakespeare's plays in Deutsch. German, however, was a language not greatly cultivated fifty years ago, and the experiment was not a success. At the expiration of his lease, it is said that Mr. Mitchell's balance, like that of all his predecessors, was on the wrong side. A year later the unlucky theatre was taken by Mrs. Seymour, the lady who was so intimately associated with Charles Reade ; an actress of some power, who had formerly held a leading position at the Haymarket and other theatres. The opening piece was by Reade, The Kings Rival. Among the actors introduced to the London stage under this management may be mentioned the names of Miss Lydia Thompson and J. L. Toole. 1 1 Toole had appeared at the Haymarket two years previously, but it was just an appearance and nothing more; this was his first engagement in a London theatre. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 465 Miss Thompson, in Magic Toys, made a great hit by her charming dancing, but Toole's metropolitan success was reserved for the Lyceum, under Dillon. An English version of Euripides's Alcestis, with Gliick's music, the musical arrangements being under the direction of Sir Henry Bishop, proved as great a failure as Antigone had been at another house. Passing over the next few seasons of monotonous failures, we find Augustus Braham, undeterred by his father's fate, taking up the paternal sceptre, and in June, 1859, producing an opera by Edward Loder, called Raymond and Agnes, founded upon the ghastly episode in Lewis's Monk. Hamilton Braham, George Perren, Susan Pyne, and Madame Rudersdorf were in the cast ; but five nights of empty benches ended the speculation. Each succeeding year brought forth a new manager ; and Alfred Wigan's name next headed the bill, and it was during his short tenure that he gave some of those performances by which he is best remembered. I may especially note two plays, The Isle of St. Tropez and The Poor Nobleman, in which, even after the great French originals who had played them on these boards, he scored a remarkable success. At the Christmas of.i86i the name of Alfred Wigan gave place to that of George Vining, but before the following year was far advanced, the latter had been deposed in favour of Frank Matthews, a most admirable actor of old men's parts. It was during his season that Miss Herbert, who had been attached to the St. James's since Wigan's management, 1 startled the town by her powerful performance of Lady Audley, at a time when 1 Miss Herbert, after making her first appearance at the Strand, joined Wigan at the Olympic in 1856, and created some attention by her per- formance in Tom Taylor's Retribution. 2 H 466 THE LONDON STAGE Miss Braddon's novel was the sensation of the day. It drew for a while, but Matthews made no lasting success, and after a season Webster stepped into his shoes. He brought a fine company Charles Mathews and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, Miss Herbert, and Mrs. Stirling who played in a round of charming pieces. When Webster had grown tired of losing money, Miss Herbert relieved him of his bargain. Herself one of the finest actresses of the day, she gathered about her some excellent associates, including Walter Lacy, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, etc., and a good repertory of pieces, embracing most of the popular comedies, of Gold- smith, Sheridan, and Shakespeare. Henry Irving made his second appearance in London (1866) as Doricourt, in The Belles Stratagem. He created a favourable im- pression in the part ; but it was not until he played Rawdon Scudamore, the villain of Dion Boucicault's Hunted Down, that he made a distinct mark. John Clayton made his debut about this time. J. S. Clarke's first appearance in England as Major Wellington de Boots was at this theatre in 1867, and that excessively droll performance caught on at once. Like all her pre- decessors, Miss Herbert retired from the St. James's poorer in purse. In 1869, after the brief management of a Mademoiselle de la Ferte, Mrs. John Wood's name became identified with this house, and as her first productions, She Stoops to Conquer, and La Belle Sauvage, made the hit of the season, people began to think that she had solved the problem at last how to make the unlucky theatre pay. If she failed it was not for lack of good acting, when Lionel Brough, William Farren, John Clayton, Henry Marston, Mrs. Hermann Vezin, Miss Lydia Foote, and last, but not least, the clever manageress herself, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 467 appeared in the same plays. One of her most important productions was Sardou's Fernande, in which Mrs. Hermann Vezin gave a very striking impersonation of Clotilde, and Miss Fanny Brough played the heroine her debut, if I am not mistaken. Fortunately for herself and the public, she soon abandoned sentimental for comic roles. For a while it was thought Mrs. Wood was making a fortune; but from the season of 1873 she sublet the house to various speculators, and it was not until 1876 that she reappeared in her character of manageress. The next season was notable for an ad- mirable production of The D anise heffs, with John Clayton, Charles Warner, Hermann Vezin, Lydia Foote, Mrs. Wood, and Miss Fanny Addison in the principal parts. Produced within a twelvemonth after the French com- pany, with Madame Fargueil and M. Marais in the cast, had played it on these boards, it was a bold experiment though justified by the result. Miss Ada Cavendish, under the management of Mr. S. Hayes, gave here a series of performances previous to her departure for America in 1878. Early in the following year it was known in theatrical circles that Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, in partnership with Mr. Hare, were about to leave their snug quarters at the Court, and venture upon the unlucky St. James's. The people who believed in the legend of luck were fully convinced that the new lessees would go the way of the old ; how signally their prophecies have failed is known to all. Favourites as great as Mr. Hare and Mrs. Kendal, companies as good, pieces as well mounted, had resulted again and again at this house only in ruin to the speculator; but the new management came upon better days, when the current of fashion, and popular taste as well, was running in favour of dramatic amuse- 468 THE LONDON STAGE ments. That it well deserved its success is not to be disputed ; some of the most perfect performances of the London stage were given during their eight years' management at the King Street house. It was Mrs. Kendal, however, who was the backbone of the estab- lishment. She was at that time one of the best all-round actresses upon the English stage, the best grounded in her art, and the best representative of the thorough school. Born, as it were, upon the stage, and bred for her profession in good provincial schools, and under the eyes of parents who were steeped in its best traditions, Mrs. Kendal was proficient from top to toe ; equally at home in the brightest comedy and the deepest pathos of domestic drama, though not in the poetic. Yet this does not quite explain the secret of her popularity ; it is rather that she is the representative of all the proprieties of private life, the wife, the mother, the champion with a very loud trumpet of the respectabilities, in fine, it is as the matron of the British drama that the pater and mater familias of the middle classes especially patronise her, rather than for her talent. Hare's and Kendal's first season opened on October 4th, 1879, with one of their great successes at the Court, The Queens Shilling Mrs. Kendal's Kate Greville was one of her most brilliant performances and a short piece called M. Le Diic for John Hare. In January, 1881, Pinero's first successful comedy, The Money Spinner, was produced ; a clever, unconventional, but risky piece of work, as everyone in the piece is shady ; but it caught on, and established the author's reputation. A more assured success, however, was that delightful play The Squire, brought out at the end of the same year. Never did Mrs. Kendal appear to greater advantage than in Kate Verity. There was a THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 469 newspaper dispute ; Comyns Carr pointed out the extra- ordinary likeness the piece bore to a version of Far From the Madding Crowd, which he had submitted to Mrs. Kendal for approval. Pinero asserted that he had never read the novel, and knew nothing about the play. It was a very pretty quarrel as it stood, in which each party, as usual, protested that he was in the right. Impulse, 1882, in which Kendal acted so admirably as Captain Crichton. Mrs. Kendal tells us in her re- miniscences, was the most moneyful of all the pieces they produced. The Ironmaster, 1884, was another success. William and Susan, W. G. Wills's version of Black-Eyed Susan, afforded the manageress some scenes of heartrending pathos. There were also revivals of Peril w\& A Scrap of Paper Susan Hartley was another of Mrs. Kendal's very best comedy parts Clancarty, and others, to give the lady an opportunity of appearing in her favourite characters. A very excellent production of As You Like It brought down upon Mrs. Kendal's Rosalind an almost brutal attack from certain sections of the Press, who had eulogised performances of the part that could not compare with it. John Hare essayed Touchstone. It was the worst I have ever seen, and I have seen some bad ones, but then his style is ultra- modern. Mr. Kendal, who had been a slowly pro- gressive actor from the first, was a very finished artiste in his own line, which is not the romantic or the poetical, but the men of the day, before he left the St. James's. The expiration of the lease and the secession of Mr. Hare from the partnership ended the management in 1888. It had been in every way a brilliant success, and every production had been perfectly staged and well acted. Rutland Barrington came next with Brantingham 47 o THE LONDON STAGE Hall, a drama by W. S. Gilbert. His tenure was brief as it was unfortunate. Mrs. Langtry held the house for a short time, and produced As You Like It and Esther Sandraz. But the old fatality seemed to have fallen back upon the St. James's until the advent of George Alexander, in February, 1891. Commencing with a going success, brought from the Avenue, Sunlight and Shadow, following it up with H addon Chambers's clever drama The Idler and Lady Windermeres Fan the first of those brilliant comedies by Oscar Wilde, that promised another Sheridan, for such sparkling dialogue had not been heard on the stage since The School for Scandal, the new manager made a splendid start. Later on he gave another whimsical piece by the same author, The Importance of Being Earnest, which has been recently revived. Both were very much to the public taste. Liberty Hall, a pretty bit of Dickensonian domesticity, in which Marion Terry and Edward Righton acted so finely, did not prepare the public for the thunderbolt which was shot upon the Philistines from the stage of St. James's by Mr. Pinero on that May night in 1893, when The Second Mrs. Tanqueray first saw the footlights. It was certainly one of the most sensational first nights within living memory ; the daring of the play, the extraordinary powers revealed by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, until then, had been regarded only as a competent actress, literally electrified audience and critics. " The greatest play of the century," was the artistic verdict. " The most immoral production that has ever disgraced the English stage ! " was the whine of the Philistine. Con- troversy raged between the two parties, clergymen made Mrs. Tanqueray their text ; but the work was so great, the acting so striking, curiosity so eager, that the public THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 471 filled the theatre to overflowing, and Mr. Alexander's courage in accepting a play that even so broad-minded a manager as Mr. Hare feared to undertake was fully justified at the time, and yet more emphatically since. The part has been played by Jane Hading and Duse, studied by Sarah Bernhardt for production, and repeated again and again by Mrs. Campbell. To the morality that is founded only upon supposed ignorance of vice, which, by putting a white handker- chief over an ulcerous sore, can persuade itself that the sore does not exist, Mrs. Tanqueray is an abomination. But to those who hold that ^exposure is warning, that it is better for the young to know the pitfalls in the path of life than blindly to stumble into them and be lost in the depths, it is a profoundly moral play. I was stand- ing at the back of the pit one afternoon and heard two young men, evidently of reputable position, discussing the piece. " Well," remarked one, " I tell you this, if I had any connection with a woman like Paula Tanqueray, after seeing this play, I should cut her." So it was a moral to at least one person. The Masqueraders, by H. A. Jones, which followed, clever as it was, did not enjoy a long run, perhaps because Mrs. Campbell failed as Dulcie Larondie, and Mr. Alexander's next striking success, early in the year 1896, was The Prisoner of Zenda, in which Evelyn Millard gave so beautiful an impersonation of the Princess. Plays followed by Pinero, The Princess and the Butterfly, 1897, an exquisite bit of work, but too subtle and refined for a general success ; The Conquerors, 1898, evoked much disapprobation; Haddon Cham- bers's The Awakening was admirably acted by Fay Davis, Gertrude Kingston, and all concerned; Mrs. Craigie's The Folly of Being Wise, exceedingly 472 THE LONDON STAGE clever, but not convincing ; E. V. Esmond's The Wilderness, in which Eva Moore was delightful both as a comedienne and an emotional actress, and Alexan- der was at his very best, which is very good indeed. Riipert of Hentzau did not rival the success of The Prisoner of Zenda, while of the revivals of As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing, the glory was to the costumier and the scene-painter rather than to the actors. The Kendals played a season in 1898, and made a great hit with The Elder Miss Blossom, in which Mrs. Kendal showed to greater advantage than she had for some time past, in a very fine and pathetic performance. The notable event of 1902 was the production, on a most magnificent scale, of Stephen Phillips's beautiful poetic play, Paolo and Francesca. But it must be admitted the acting left much to be desired. Alexander was out of his element as the hunchbacked Giovanni ; Miss Millard lacked freshness as the heroine, in fact, she was a little too staid ; the rest of the caste indifferent. If I were King opened the autumn season. With all its absurdities and perversions of history it was a capital piece of stagecraft, and most admirably acted, from the principal down to the smallest parts ; the stage manage- ment was perfect, the mise en scene beautiful. Never has Alexander acted with more charm and abandon than he threw into Villon in the first act ; a very striking performance was that of Miss Suzanne Sheldon, as Huguette. In Old Heidelberg, his latest production, Mr. Alexander astonished his admirers by his youthful make-up ; he con- trived to cast off the years between youth and middle age, and appear as a veritable boy in look and word and action. I do not know when I have been so charmed as THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 473 by the simple beauty, so fresh, so unstrained, so pathetic, of the love scenes between Ulrich and Katie, the latter so delightfully acted by Miss Eva Moore, who in the early acts reminded me of Marie Wilton in her best days, as no other actress has ever yet recalled the inimitable Polly Eccles. I could not pay her a higher compliment. Mr. E. S. Willard, after a very long absence in the States, has held the theatre during the lessee's absence with a play by Louis N. Parker, The Cardinal, which he brought with him from America, and has proved a success. The St. James's auditorium was entirely reconstructed in 1900; it is now one of the handsomest houses in town, and shares with His Majesty's the distinction of being the highest-class theatre in London. The only advantage the latter can claim over its rival is that it works upon a larger scale. CHAPTER IV The Princess's, 1840-1900 The Great Shakespearian Revivals. DURING the early years of the nineteenth century there stood upon the north side of Oxford Street, not far from the Circus, a building called the Queen's Bazaar, used for the sale of fancy and miscellaneous goods. Burned down in 1829, it was rebuilt for exhibition purposes. Soon afterwards Hamlet, the noted silver- smith, whose shop, at the corner of Sidney's Alley, Leicester Square, was a fashionable lounge for the jeunesse dorte, conceived the idea of transforming the place into a theatre, which was opened on October 5th, 1840. That its construction had occupied some time is evident from a line in the announce-bill stating that permission to call it the Princess's had been obtained from the Queen previous to her accession to the throne ; the public was also informed that " this new and elegant theatre was fitted up with a style and splendour never before equalled in this country." The first entertain- ments given within its walls were Promenade Concerts, the prices being one and two shillings. These were continued for some months with indifferent success ; and it was not until December 26th, 1842, after undergoing considerable alterations, that the building was opened for opera, varied by light dramatic pieces. The bill was La Sonnambula, sung by Madame Garcia, Weiss, Temple- 474 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 475 ton, and Madame Sala, the mother of the famous jour- nalist; the extravaganza of The Yellow Dwarf being the after-piece. English versions of all the most popular Italian operas continued to be performed with such singers as Garcia, Anna Thillon, Miss Paton, while the dramatic company included Henry Wallack, Walter Lacy, Oxberry, and the Keeleys. Hamlet had at one time been considered a millionaire, but he incurred heavy losses through not being able to recover on certain bonds, for large sums, given him by the Prince Regent and the Duke of York. This and the unremunerative capital he had sunk in the theatre brought him to the bankruptcy court in 1843. The Princess's was mortgaged for ,15,000, and the manage- ment was now taken over by Maddox, a Jew, one of the principal mortgagees. Maddox made no change in the style of entertain- ment. Several of Balfe's forgotten operas were first given here. Various extraneous attractions were added to eke out the operatic : General Tom Thumb was engaged to appear after Don Pasquale ; Henry Russell sang " I'm Afloat," and other of his popular songs, as a light refreshment after Much Ado about Nothing; while an entertainment entitled Freaks of Fancy, sup- ported by a Mr. Lands and his " Infant Brothers," mitigated the terrors of Timour the Tartar ; domestic drama came to the fore in Gwynneth Vaughan (1844), with Mrs. Stirling in the title-role, and burlesque was represented by Wright, Paul Bedford, and Oxberry, in an extravaganza entitled The Three Graces. The great hit of 1844, however, was Don Ccesar de Bazan, which has been so recently revived by Lewis Waller, with James Wallack as the hero. Scribe's piece, suggested by the episode in Victor Hugo's Ruy 476 THE LONDON STAGE Bias, took the town immensely, and rival versions cropped up east and west ; the Haymarket produced one called A Match for a King, in which Charles Mathews played the impecunious Don ; but according to those who witnessed the performance, no one ever approached upon the London stage the dash, the romance, and chivalrous bearing of the original. In the next year Wallack further increased his fame by his performance of Massaroni in The Brigand^ a musical piece founded upon Eastlake's celebrated series of pictures ; his spirited and picturesque acting, together with his charming singing of the song " Gentle Zitella," which was presently thrummed and sung by everybody, drew all London to the Princess's. James Wallack afterwards went to America and established in New York the famous theatre that still bears his name. In the early part of the year 1845, two famous Americans, Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Forrest, made their London debut at the Princess's. Miss Cushman commenced her public career as a singer, with a fine contralto voice, that promised to secure for her a high position upon the operatic stage. After making a successful appearance at Boston, her native city, as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, she took an engagement at the St. Charles's Theatre, New Orleans, as prima donna. Soon after her arrival, prob- ably through injudicious attempts to extend the compass of her voice, her vocal powers entirely failed. This blow was all the more terrible since she had a widowed mother and sisters entirely dependent upon her. Her father had been a merchant of Boston, one of an old Puritan stock, but at his death left little provision behind, and all the hopes of the family were centred in Charlotte's prospects. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 477 An immense distance from home and among strangers, her position became a terrible one. When reduced almost to destitution, a friend suggested that she should try the dramatic stage, and persuaded her to see the leading actor and director of the theatre, Mr. Barton, the father of the writer of these pages, upon the subject. He very soon perceived that she had fine capabilities. " But," he used to say, " I could never draw them out, try as I would, until one day I put her into a towering I'age by certain rude remarks I purposely made, and then at last blazed forth the fire and passion I knew were smouldering within." She made her first appearance for his benefit, as Lady Macbeth, in the summer of 1835, and achieved a decided success. So poor was she at the time, that she had not the means of purchasing a dress for the part ; pride forbade her making this known until the last moment, and then a costume had to be borrowed from an actress of about double her size, and made to fit as it would. She now returned to the North, but misfortune still pursued her, for she had no sooner obtained an engage- ment at the Bowery, New York, than she was prostrated by illness, from which she had scarcely recovered when the theatre was burned to the ground, and all the theatrical wardrobe she had pinched herself to get together went with it. Even without such reverses, it was a terrible uphill fight, since she had to contend against such physical disadvantages as a face plain to ugliness, with a protruding chin, a nose like Mac- ready's^ and a raw-boned masculine figure that would have been scarcely acceptable in a male. I can remem- ber her at a much later period, clad in a hideous beaver bonnet, a short, rough jacket, and very narrow skirts, striding up and down the stage during a rehearsal, and 478 THE LONDON STAGE discussing the business with a gruff voice suggestive of anything rather than the soft sex. In Romeo she made an immense hit, and a yet greater sensation as Nancy Sikes, considered in America one of her greatest parts, though I do not think she ever performed it in England. In 1844 she was brought from New York to Philadelphia to play the leading parts with Macready, with whose style she from that time became strongly infected. Having reached the highest pinnacle of fame upon the American stage, it was now her ambition to test her powers upon a London audience, and at the end of the year just named she set sail for England. There was less gush and charlatanism in the theatrical profession in those days ; the photographic art was not born ; the quid pro quo system, "You beat the big drum for me in England, and I'll do the same for you in the States," was unthought of; and when Charlotte Cushman arrived in the old country there was no deputation to receive her, no suppers and no preliminary pars in the papers to rouse the curiosity of the public. She took humble lodgings in a Covent Garden street, made a pound of mutton chops last her three days for dinner, hastened to offer her services to the London managers and was rebuffed by one and all. How she ultimately obtained her first engagement in London is related by George Vandenhoff in his Leaves from an Actor s Note-Book, as told to him by the manager himself. " On her first introduction, Miss Cushman's personal gifts did not strike Ma produced in the following year, Mrs. Kean performing the part of Chorus. He made his final bow as a manager on August 29th, in the part of Cardinal Wolsey, though he afterwards appeared here in several short starring engagements. In September of the next year, Augustus Harris, the father of the late lessee of Drury Lane, who had for many years held an important position in the manage- ment of the Royal Italian Opera, took the Princess's. Among others whom he engaged was Henry Irving, then a stock-actor at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, who appeared first in a piece called Ivy Hall, afterwards as Osric in Hamlet ; but, as many a future great actor 490 THE LONDON STAGE has before him, failed to satisfy his manager, and returned to the provinces. It was in the following year that Harris introduced Fechter to the London public. It was not the French actor's first appearance in England, he had played with a Parisian company at the St. James's as early as 1846, but that was before he had made his reputation in The Corsican Brothers at the Porte St. Martin, and as Armand Duval in La Dame aux Cornelias. He opened as Ruy Bias. We were more insular in those days than we are now, and the French actor had to contend against our prejudices and a strong foreign accent ; but the charm of his style, his pathos, his passion, and above all, his beautiful poetical love-making we have had nothing like it since were irresistible. So far he was upon his own ground, a French actor playing a French part, the ideal hero of romantic drama. But when it was announced that he was about to challenge comparison with the great English actors of the past and present, and play Hamlet with a French accent British jealousy of the foreigner began to bristle again ; nevertheless, the experiment was the sensation of the season. On the night on which Fechter first played the part of the melancholy Dane on the stage of the Princess's Theatre was rung the death-knell of the traditional Prince of Denmark. 1 Whether the classic 1 There is every probability that an unbroken tradition as to the render- ing of certain of Shakespeare's characters, more especially Hamlet, though naturally growing hazier and less defined through each succeeding genera- tion, was handed down from the days of the poet to comparatively recent times. Rhodes, who organised the first theatrical company after General Monk had declared for the King, was prompter at the Blackfriars, and prompters are always storehouses of tradition. Again, many of the actors of the Restoration, notably Mohun and Hart, and the latter was Shake- speare's grand-nephew, had played at the great theatres, and would have associated with people who saw Burbage act, and to whom Joseph Taylor, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 491 grace of Kemble and Young or the new readings of Fechter and Irving be the truer rendering will be answered by each playgoer according to his individual preference. Hamlet, unlike the other great characters of the dramatist, has been a subject of literary con- troversy for the last hundred years. Hamlet, however, is a creation not of an age, but of all time, and is more en rapport with the psychology of to-day than it might have been with the age of his creator. We have had so many (( original" Hamlets during the last forty years, that we can scarcely conceive the effect produced by this daring innovator upon those accustomed to the orthodox rendering ; he discarded black velvet and bugles for a flowing costume of plain cloth, and short black hair for flaxen locks ; he threw all traditions, all conventionalisms, to the winds ; he treated Hamlet as a new part, and played it according to his own conceptions, unbiassed by any that had gone before; he sat where others had stood ; he changed all the sides, all the entrances, all the " business " ; he ignored all the old " points " ; he was free, colloquial, easy ; all this was rank heresy to the orthodox, but hailed as a revelation by the majority. Yet it was an unequal performance. Never, perhaps, were the two first acts more beautifully rendered, especially the soliloquy, " Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt." The scene with Ophelia was exquisite, but his delivery of " To be or not to be" his successor in all the great roles of tragedy, was perfectly familiar. Betterton was a pupil of old Rhodes, and must have been well drilled in the ways of his predecessors ; and although the influence of the French stage may have considerably modified his manner, he would have religiously adhered to the general " business " of the parts, for which actors used to have such a superstitious reverence that even a change of side for entrance was regarded as little short of heresy. Betterton's traditions descended to Booth and so on to Quin, Macklin, David Garrick, the Kembles, Charles Young, and Macready. 492 THE LONDON STAGE was villainous, the closet scene unsatisfactory, and the last act fantastic and not convincing. The success that had hitherto attended Fechter's per- formances received a severe and well-deserved check when he applied his Hamlet method to Othello, the English public would not tolerate a nineteenth-century Moor of Venice. In the October of 1862, Harris was succeeded by a Mr. Lindus, who, like many another man with more money than wit, took a theatre to gratify his wife's craving for publicity ; she obtained the publicity she desired, though not in a way gratifying to her vanity, and her husband, in 1863, was glad enough to retire in favour of George Vining. The latter almost inaugurated his management by a first appearance that promised great things. I allude to that of Mademoiselle Stella Colas, whose fine rendering of Juliet evoked the most extraordinary enthusiasm among a large section of the playgoing public. Although a French rather than an Italian Juliet, it was undoubtedly a striking and powerful performance. But she was only a shooting star that quickly disappeared from the theatrical horizon. Vining gave a number of famous sensational dramas to the stage. The Huguenot Captain, in which Adelaide Neilson made one of her earliest successes, with its splendid ballet, French grotesques, and elaborate stage setting. Then came The Streets of London, with its then wonderful fire scene, the fame of which, alas ! has long since been extinguished by later marvels ; Arrah na Pogue the most delightful of all Irish dramas with its ivy tower effect, that was more attractive to the crowd than even the admirable acting of Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault, or of John Brougham, or of Dominick Murray, immense as was his performance of Michael Feeny, or of charming Patty Oliver. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 493 Never Too Late to Mend was brought out in October, 1865. It was a stormy first night, long remembered. It seems somewhat ludicrous to us who have heard the groans of the man on the rack in La Tosca, and the agonising cries of the tortured boy in The Sign of the Cross, to read of a dramatic critic Mr. Tomlins was most probably under the effects of whisky at the time rising in the stalls to protest against the flogging of the boy Josephs in the model prison scene. There was a great clamour for and against George Vining, who defied the cabal ; the critics wrote down the play, but it ran 148 nights, and the profits were ,8,000. In that year, 1865, Charles Kean played his farewell engagement here. His death took place in January, 1868. After Dark was a great hit of the Vining manage- ment, though it was only another version of an old East End play, taken from the French by Edward Stirling, called the The Bohemians of Paris, with the famous underground railway sensation interpolated. Vining occasionally varied the sensational with more legitimate productions, such as The Monastery of St. Just, and Donna Diana. Benjamin Webster succeeded to the management in 1869; Chatterton joined him during the second season, and in 1872 became sole manager. The new director attempted to revive the legitimate glories of the house by the engagement of Phelps, who appeared here in all his most famous parts, alternating with Creswick, Othello and I ago, Macbeth and Macduff, etc. Charles Dillon, a wreck of the man who had made the great success at the Lyceum seventeen years before, played an engagement here in the autumn of 1873, appearing as Manfred in Lord Byron's tragedy, a part utterly unsuited to his style. The management, however, had 494 THE LONDON STAGE ultimately to go back to melodrama, to such pieces as Janet Pride, Lost in London, The Lancashire Lass. In November, 1875, Joseph Jefferson reappeared here as Rip Van Winkle, and was as successful as he had been at the Adelphi ten years previously. And now the days of the old Princess's began to be numbered ; the last remarkable production seen upon its boards was Charles Reade's version of L Assommoir Drink (1879) ; a gloomy and revolting play that was only redeemed by the extraordinary performance of Charles Warner in the part of Coupeau. In November, 1880, the new Princess's was opened by Edwin Booth, who utterly failed, and so most in- auspicously inaugurated the building. Wilson Barrett came here from the Court with Madame Modjeska in the spring of 1881. But the Hungarian tragedienne failed to draw, and Bronson Howard's play, The Old Love and the New, was put on. Fortune, however, frowned upon the management until the production of G. R. Sims's Lights o London, a new departure in domestic melodrama. Upon a purely con- ventional plot of the old school was grafted a number of clever realistic episodes of street life, which gave a freshness to old faces that at once caught on with the public. The author's next drama, The Romany Rye, however, did not quite equal its predecessor in popu- larity. But Jones and Hermann's The Silver King, the next on the list, far surpassed it. That i6th of November, 1882, was a notable first night. From the falling of the curtain on the first act, which gave a novel variety to an old theme, the play was a triumph ; and perhaps no better work of the kind has been seen upon the stage. The three dramas were perfectly staged and admirably cast. Mr. Willard, then new to the London THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 495 public, established his reputation by his original per- formance of the " Spider," in which he created a new type of the stage villain, and in each succeeding char- acter he more than maintained his position. After upwards of a year's run The Silver King gave place to Claudian, a poor play, by W. G. Wills, magni- ficently mounted, and with that wonderful earthquake effect. I can call up the scene before my mind's eye the gardens, the porticoed palaces steeped in the soft Italian moonlight, the groups of classic statues, the subdued music, the voluptuous dancing figures, the oppressive hush of the hot summer's night. Then all of a moment blank darkness, a vivid flash of lightning, a crash of thunder, the roll and rumble that shakes the theatre to its foundation ; a few moments' death-like silence, and the moonlight steals over the stage again and shows, where late were beautiful gardens and marble palaces, a chaotic ruin of broken walls and pillars. It was really terrifying. A revival of Hamlet, 1884, was notable from a scenic point of view. An artist was sent over to Denmark to take sketches of Elsinore. It was the first time an attempt had been made to impart local colour to the tragedy, and the result, especially in the first act and in the play scene, was very striking. Junius, a tragedy by the first Lord Lytton, 1885, was another grand coup de theatre. The ruined temple of Romulus, the streets and palace of the Tarquins, were unsurpassable stage pictures. }$ut Junius, like all other classical plays, was a failure, and Mr. Barrett had to fall back upon revivals of his melodramas, until Mr. Jones's Hoodman Blind, in which Miss Eastlake gave a remarkable performance in the dual role of Nance Yeulitt and Jess, and Willard, another striking study of a villain in Mark Lezzard, 496 THE LONDON STAGE was ready. Mr. Barrett was also seen at his very best in Jack Yeulitt. In Sidney Grundy's Clito, Miss Eastlake, who had never yet been seen in heavy tragedy, fairly electrified the house by the daring abandon, the fierce power, the wild abject terror of her Helle, the Greek courtesan; the manager was also excellent as Clito, while the staging was quite equal to that of Claudian and Junius. But the classical drama pretty well absorbed the profits of the realistic. The five years of Wilson Barrett's manage- ment are worthy of all praise as a record of strenuous endeavour to advance the higher theatrical art, but, alas ! it was only successful with the lower forms of it. Hawtrey succeeded Barrett, and I can remember his production of an effective play of Hamilton's, Harvest, in which poor Amy Roselle acted very finely. Then came Grace Haw- thorne, who made a success with Pettit's Hands Across the Sea. Upon his return from America in 1888, Wil- son Barrett appeared here in Ben ma Chree. Later on Miss Grace Hawthorne played an English version of Theodora, a wonderful get-up her dresses, it is said, cost 1,500 but they did not draw the ungrateful public. The lady lost some ,14,000 before she quitted Oxford Street. Then came Mrs. Langtry, who revived Antony and Cleopatra on a most magnificent scale, and produced several original pieces. But the theatrical current was flowing away from Oxford Street ; the gloomy, heavy house, so suggestive of a well, was never popular ; and after Wilson Barrett's retirement, public patronage rapidly dwindled. In 1896 an attempt was made to bring it back with East End melodrama, as represented by In Sight of St. Paul's, and cheap prices. Two Little Vagabonds scored a decided success in the same year, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 497 thanks to the sympathetic acting of Miss Kate Tyndal and Miss Sydney Fairbrother. Charles Warner at- tempted to revive his old triumphs in Drink and Never Too Late to Mend; old Adelphi dramas were brought back to life with varying, but no permanent success. Versions of Lorna Doone and Dr. Nikola were brought out in 1901. The Fatal Wedding, 1902, was the last piece that had any run. The County Council has since then closed the house until certain costly improvements shall be made. It is impossible for anyone to glance through these brief chronicles of the older West End theatres without being struck by the deplorable condition of things theat- rical during the greater part of the nineteenth century, thanks to the freaks of fashion and the black wave of Puritanism that swept over the country from about 1830 to 1870. The wonder is that the drama did not absolutely die out under the indifference and hostility of the great majority of the people. For dreariness those forty years can only be compared with the reign of "the Saints." 2 K CHAPTER V The Vaudeville The Court and the Criterion Wyndham's Theatre The New Theatre. THE VAUDEVILLE, 1870-1903, was built for three of the most popular actors of their time H. J. Montague, who had been playing the juvenile parts in Robertson's comedies at the Prince of Wales's, David James, one of the great favourites of the later Strand burlesque days, and Thomas Thorne, who had won a reputation at the same house. Such a combination seemed to be a guarantee of success. But it did not come to the opening bill, Love and Money, by Halliday, and a burlesque, called Don Carlos, April i6th, 1870; and it was not until the production of The Two Roses in the autumn that the public really took to the new theatre. Albery's charming comedy was an inspiration of the Robertson school, but the canvas was broader, the colouring brighter and deeper, though the dialogue, by the author's straining after far-fetched analogies, was more artificial even than that of School. Henry Irving had already made his mark at the St. James's and the Queen's, but it was as Digby Grant that he first rose to celebrity ; it was a wonderful bit of character acting. And then how charming was Harry Montague as Jack Wyatt, and poor Amy Fawsitt as Lottie, and what unction that drollest of comedians, George Honey, threw into the part of Our Mr. Jenkins. It was a delightful entertainment. 498 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 499 The Two Roses had a very long run, and soon after- wards Montague left his partners for the Globe. James and Thorne were joint managers for some years, but ultimately Thorne became sole lessee. All previous successes in the annals of the stage were left far behind by the record of Our Boys, which ran from January i6th, 1875, unto April i8th, 1879, and has been revived again and again, I know not how many times, not only at its first home, but at half a dozen other London theatres, to say nothing of the provinces. Yet there was in it only one piece of acting above the common, David James's Middlewick, but that pat of "dossett" butter did more for the comedy than all the talent of all the actors put together; it came home and appealed to ot TroXXo/ as no artistic touch ever could appeal. It was only a mediocre play ; when it was first offered to them, the managers might have bought, at least all the metropolitan rights, for a few hundreds, but their faith in it was not equal to such expenditure, for which the author had much to be thankful ; he made a fortune by the piece, and James and Thorne cleared between ,20,000 and 30,000 each. The earlier years of the Vaudeville have an excellent record of good plays and good companies ; the scene- painter and costumier were always in the background, and the actor to the fore. Old playgoers will recall the excellent revivals of The School for Scandal, which ran 400 nights the record; of The Rivals, 1883, in which the Sir Anthony Absolute of Farren, the Mrs. Mala- prop of Mrs. Stirling, the Lydia Languish of Miss Winifred Emery, were worthy of the best days of old comedy ; of The Road to Ruin, with Warner as Young Dornton, Farren as Old Dornton, David James as Gold- finch ; of Money, with Henry Neville, Farren, Righton, 500 THE LONDON STAGE Thorne, Ada Cavendish, Mrs. John Wood, Miss Alma Murray ; of others that I have forgotten. Then came a reign of farcical comedy, such as Confusion, which ran a twelvemonth ; Loose Tiles, Doo Brown and Co,, etc., interspersed with more serious plays Under fire, by Westland Marston, and best of all, H. A. Jones's Saints and Sinners, 1885, a clever play and a keen satire upon the narrow-minded bigotry and hypocrisy of sectarianism, which aroused the bile of the Mawworms and led to a fierce controversy, in which the more enlightened of the clergy took the side of the author, and even recom- mended their flocks to go and see the comedy. Nothing more charming was ever put upon the Vaudeville stage than Buchanan's Sophia, 1886. Kate Rorke was an ideal representative of Fielding's heroine ; and never was actor better fitted with a part than was Charles Warner with Tom Jones ; he looked it and acted it to perfection. I think Lady Bellaston was Rose Leclercq's first essay in the middle-aged fine lady, and what a fine performance it was ; no one has been found to succeed her in that role ; and Lottie Venne as Mrs. Honor, so full of dainty quaintness and espieglerie, while Thome's Partridge was, perhaps, the best thing he ever did. Josephs Sweetheart, another Fielding dramatisation, though not equal to the first, had a good run. The acting was not as good ; Thorne did not realise Parson Adams. Later on it came to Richardson's turn, and Miss Winifred Emery beguiled the town of its tears by her exquisite performance of Clarissa Harlowe, 1889. It was in this play that her future husband, Cyril Maude, I think, made his first appearance. The later years of Mr. Thome's management were not so fortunate ; perhaps the a^r-manager was too much en Evidence. Old successes were revived, but not THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 501 with the old casts ; Hedda Gabler, Rosmersholm, at matinees, were played for the first time in England (February, April, May, 1891) by Miss Robins, Marion Lea. It was the commencement of the Ibsen craze, and although the British public did not take to the cult it has exercised an enormous influence upon our dramatic authors. The original Vaudeville had one of those pinched-up frontages which characterised the old London theatres, that always sneaked back from public recognition as though ashamed of their existence. In 1891, the facade was greatly extended and remodelled and the interior redecorated and reupholstered. Little more than a year later, however, Messrs. Gatti took over the house, giving, it is said, ,15,000 for the twenty-one years' lease. They inaugurated their season with another revival of Our Boys. One of their greatest successes was that uproarious farce A Night Out, kept in the bill for hundreds of nights. The engagement of Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Hicks has proved good business, as the long runs of Sweet and Twenty, Alice in Wonder- land, Quality Street, and other successes have testified. The Vaudeville is able to make the same boast as the old Gaiety it has known only two lessees, and during almost as many years. THE COURT, 1870-1903, which was first called the New Chelsea Theatre, was opened on the same night as the Vaudeville April i6th, 1870 under the manage- ment of Messrs. Morgan and Oliver ; the prices were cheap, the entertainment a mixture of theatre and music- hall. Rechristened the Belgravia, the theatre dragged on a brief and miserable existence until it came into the hands of the late Miss Marie Litton. The original building was a dissenting chapel, and the builders of 502 THE LONDON STAGE the New Chelsea had not made more alterations than were imperatively necessary. The new lessee, however, entirely reconstructed the house, charmingly decorated it, and in January, 1871, it began a new and prosperous career as the Royal Court Theatre. Randal's Thitmb, by Gilbert, was the opening piece, supported by an excellent company, including Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, Hermann Vezin, and Mrs. Stephens. An early hit at the Court was Gilbert's adaptation of Le Chapeau de Faille, christened The Wedding March, one of the most uproariously funny of the Palais Royale musical farces. Many may remember that leviathan, but excruciatingly comic actor, William Hill, as Uncle Bopaddy. After a long run here it was revived at the Folly in 1879. But the Court never before or since has had such a sensation as the famous burlesque, The Happy Land, written by Gilbert himself under another name, upon his own fairy play, The Wicked World, 1873, m which the Government of the day was held up to merciless ridicule. Not since Fielding's Pasquin had such a pungent satire been put upon the stage. Ayrtoun, most philistine of ^Ediles, went to see his "counterfeit present- ment" going about with a pot of slate-coloured paint, with which he daubed all public buildings, statues, and monuments. " What is a ship ? " asks a competitive examiner. "I don't know," is the reply. "Then you shall be First Lord of the Admiralty," is the dictum. The trio and dance of Gladstone, Lowe, and Ayrtoun with the ensemble, " Here a save, there a save, every- where a save," were frantically encored again and again. But the Prime Minister was wroth, and the Lord Chamberlain ordered the make-up of the actors, which was so marvellously like the originals, to be modi- THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 503 fied. The Happy Land was afterwards revived at the Queen's. In 1875, J onn Hare became lessee of the Court, bringing with him the Kendals, Amy Fawsitt, John Clayton, H. Kemble, and for several seasons the Sloane Square Theatre was one of the most enjoyable places of amusement in all London. What delightful perform- ances they gave us of The Scrap of Paper, The Queens Shilling, A Qidet Ritbber, The Ladies Battle, etc., etc. Wilson Barrett came to the Court in 1879, and in the following season the celebrated Hungarian tragedienne, Madame Modjeska, played Juliet, and in a new play of Wills's, called Juana. Two years later, John Clayton inaugurated his manage- ment with a translation from the French, entitled Honour, followed by Boucicault's Mimi, founded on La Vie de Bohme, a beautiful performance of Marion Terry's as the heroine, but neither of the plays scored. Next a revival of Gilbert's Engaged, which was originally played at the Haymarket in 1877, one of the most scathing satires that ever came even from the pen of W. S. G. Henry J. Byron appeared as Cheviot Hill, the part created by George Honey. The Parvenu, Comrades, a play by Pinero, The Rector, a revival of Robertson's Play, and other pieces followed too rapidly for any great success. Arthur Cecil joined the management in the second season, and the partners associated themselves with an excellent company Marion Terry, Mrs. John Wood, Mackintosh, Brandon Thomas, Charles Sugden. No marked success, however,, rewarded the efforts of Messrs. Clayton and Cecil until the production of Pinero's The Magistrate, in March, 1885, which literally took the town by storm. Here was a new kind of far- cical comedy without a suspicion of French or German 504 THE LONDON STAGE origin, without risky situations or a flavour of double entendre, and yet as funny as anything we had ever borrowed from Paris ; it was a roar from beginning to end. One of the secrets of its success was its prob- ability. Such farces as Pink Dominoes are utterly ex- travagant and impossible ; but in The Magistrate one had only to grant the first premises, to admit the likeli- hood of an elderly gentleman placing himself in the hands of a boy, as Mr. Posket did in those of Cis Farringdon, for a benevolent purpose, which, as the author put it, was no great stfain upon the credulity, and every adventure that flowed therefrom was within the range of possibility. Nor did the piece, like previous three-act farces, rely upon situation alone ; the dialogue was witty and even brilliant, and the literary merit of the work incontestable, while the acting, down to the smallest part, both in Tke Magistrate and its successors; The Schoolmistress and Dandy Dick, all of which had long runs, was as near perfection as we can hope for. Mrs. John Wood, by her inimitable humour, would alone have carried the audience ; next to this admirable actress were the infinitely quaint and droll performances of Miss Norreys, especially as Peggy Hesselrigg ; next in order came Messrs. Cecil, Clayton, and Eversfield, while the ensemble was proportionately excellent. The old Court Theatre was pulled down to make way for local improvements in 1887. On the 24th of September, 1888, the new Court opened under the management of Mrs. John Wood and Mr. Arthur Chudleigh, with Mama, a version of Les Surprises d^l Divorce, in which the manageress, John Hare, and Arthur Cecil appeared. The new lessees were not as fortunate as their predecessors ; Mrs. Wood scored a success in Aunt Jack by that nonchalant, THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 505 daring humour that could say the riskiest things without offending ; and a very clever comedy by Pinero, The Cabinet Minister, admirably acted by Arthur Cecil, Weedon Grossmith, Brandon Thomas, Mrs. Wood, and a good all-round cast, drew all London, if not to enjoy the satire, to see the ladies' magnificent court dresses, that cost fabulous sums. The Amazons, another tren- chant satire by Pinero, was given here in 1893. It is rather curious that at a time when the suburban theatre was becoming an institution that the prosperity of the Chelsea house should so decline. There is little worth recording after Mrs. Wood's secession from the management. A Pantomime Rehearsal, brought from Terry's, was played for the 4OOth time in 1892. The names of Lumley, Charles Hawtrey appear at the head of the bills, then Chudleigh's and Mrs. John Wood's reappear in a piece called The Old Lady, 1892; after that Miss Annie Hughes, who revived Nancy ; Miss Robins followed with a translation of Echegary's Mariana. In 1897, J nn Hare returned to his old home with much eclat, the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke of York honouring the event by their presence. The opening play was a revival of Pinero's The Hobby Horse, first produced at the St. James's in 1886, but not a marked success. Later on in the autumn, Humper- dinck's The Children of the King was produced. His Excellency the Governor and Pinero's Trelawney of the Wells were successes. Mr. Kerr was manager in 1901, and staged a play of Ogilvie's and The Strange Adven- tures of Miss Brown. The first was a deadly failure. During the present summer the old morality play, Everyman, a most curious resuscitation, has been the afternoon attraction. 506 THE LONDON STAGE THE CRITERION, 1874-1903, stands upon the historic site of the old St. James's Market ; it was behind the counter of a glover's shop in that market that George III., then Prince of Wales, first met Hannah Lightfoot ; and it was at the Mitre Tavern close by, half a century previously, that Farquhar heard the landlady's niece reading The Scornful Lady, and struck by her dramatic power, introduced her to the stage, where she was known as Mrs. Oldfield. 1 The Criterion, which was at first only an adjunct to Messrs. Spiers and Pond's new hotel, was opened in the autumn of 1874. An underground temple of the drama into which it was necessary to pump air to save the audience from being asphyxiated was certainly a novelty. It opened with An American Lady, a new comedy by H. J. Byron, Mrs. John Wood playing the principal part. Opera-bouffe, which was then at the height of its popularity, followed, and was initiated by the Pres de St. Germain. The success of the Criterion however, was far from assured until Mr. Alexander Henderson, in 1877, converted it into an English Palais Royal by the first of a long line of farcical comedies, The Great Divorce Case and On Bail. The three-act farce was a novelty in England at this period, and, rendered as it was at the Criterion with almost Parisian vivacity and lightness of touch, made a great hit. On Bail was succeeded by Pink Dominoes, 1877, the first English piece that successfully broke down the icy wall of insular respectability, and induced the Mrs. Grundys to flock to hear naughtiness in their native tongue in French it was always quite another thing. 2 See p. 62. 2 Schneider used to say that her acting was far more prononce in London than in Paris, indeed, that a Parisian audience would not have stood what THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 507 Truth, Betsy, Foggertys Fairy, Fourteen Days, Little Miss Muffit, in which Miss Kate Rorke made her first hit, and acted most charmingly in an extremely delicate situation as Mimie. It was also the first occasion on which Mr. Beerbohm Tree came to the fore. These are the best-remembered pieces of the early days of this theatre. As burlesque has never been played as it was at the Strand in the Swanborough days, so farcical comedy has never been acted in this country, before or since, with the chic, the lightness of touch, the refinement, the neatness, the swing of the Criterion company George Giddens, Alfred Maltby, Herbert Standing, W. Blakeley, Henry Ashley, Harriett Coveney, Lottie Venne, Mary Rorke, W. J. Hill, and others with Charles Wyndham as the animating and directing spirit of all. Wyndham has always been regarded as the successor of Charles Mathews, but there is much to be differentiated in their individual styles. Mathews had not the dlan of Wynd- ham, nor had Wyndham ever quite the easy elegance or the repose that marked the most mercurial flights of the elder Charles. Actors of different generations, each was equally representative of his own. But Sir Charles Wyndham has a power and versatility that Mathews never possessed, he has depth, passion, pathos, whereas his famous predecessor, away from the lighter vein of comedy, was not distinguished. Wyndham had succeeded Henderson in the manage- ment of the theatre. Closed by order of the Board of Works for reconstruction, the house enlarged, superbly delighted her English patrons. She knew their taste, provided it was done by a French actress and in the French tongue. But ladies who have gone through an elaborate French course at school may always safely be trusted at French plays, as they are not likely to understand a word of them. 5 o8 THE LONDON STAGE upholstered, and lit throughout by electricity the first London theatre, I think, that trusted wholly to that illuminant the Criterion reopened its doors in April, 1884, with a revival of Brighton. In the following September, J. H. Macarthy's The Candidate proved a phenomenal success. At one time the advanced book- ing amounted to ,7,000. A revival of David Garrick was a triumph ; Wynd- ham's prestige was enormously increased by a perform- ance far superior to Sothern's, more especially in the last act, and it has been from that time a never-failing card to play when all else failed. Revivals of old comedies Wild Oats, London Assurance, The School for Scandal, She Stoops to Conquer, etc., with Mrs. Bernard Beere, Mary Moore, most fascinating of in- gdnues, Fanny Coleman, Rose Saker, David James, Arthur Bourchier, in addition to those already named, in the casts, relieved by occasional new plays, such as The Fringe of Society, in which Mrs. Langtry appeared, but of no permanent interest, fill up the chronicles of the Criterion until January, 1893, when The Bauble Shop, a very clever, if fantastic play, which, though it evoked much unfavourable criticism, won the favour of the public, commenced a new era in the programme of the theatre. The manager's greatest admirers were not prepared for such an exhibition of power and of the highest qualities of the histrionic art as that passionate invective, dignity, tenderness, love which he threw into the character of Clivebrook. From that night Sir Charles Wyndham ranged himself among the most finished actors in Europe. Another long run was made by that brilliant comedy, The Case of Rebellious Susan this, I think, was Miss Mary Moore's chef-d'oeuvre. In Rosemary, 1896, Wynd- THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 509 ham more than confirmed the high opinion he had created in The Bauble Shop ; here again we had the true ring of passion and pathos, and certainly no other English actor could have sustained a whole act in monologue without killing the play. The Liars, one of the very best of Henry Arthur Jones's comedies, and H addon Chambers's The Tyranny of Tears drew large audiences for scores of nights. The Jest was a mistake ; Sir Charles is essentially a modern actor, he is not happy in doublet and hose. It was most exquisitely staged, but it was a failure. Wyndham took his farewell of the old house, in which he had enjoyed so many triumphs, in the character of Sir Jasper Thorndyke, in July, 1899. In his parting speech he said: " This house, which ordinarily holds only ^220, holds to-night no less than ,1,474." The whole of the proceeds was generously given to the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund. Sir Charles still remained lessee of the Criterion ; for a time after his departure to his new house he was in partnership with Mr. Arthur Bourchier. Wheels With- in Wheels, Monsieur de Paris, and Lady Huntworttis Experiment, by Carton, The Under Current, The Girl from Maxims, John Hare with a revival of A Pair of Spectacles, the transference of The Marriage of Kitty from Wyndham's, are the most notable items in the history of the house since the departure of Sir Charles. The latest productions have been A Clean Slate, Just Like Callaghan, and E. V. Esmond's Billy s Little Love Affair, which has decidedly caught on. As it may be said of Sir Charles that le theatre est moi, I will for once depart from the chronological order I have adopted throughout these pages to jot down some brief notes upon WYNDHAM'S THEATRE, one of the most elegant and charmingly decorated and 510 THE LONDON STAGE upholstered houses in London. It was opened in November, 1899, with tne evergreen David Garrick ; the whole proceeds of the first night were given to the Aldershot Fund for the British Soldiers' Wives and Families ; a guinea each was paid for seats in the first three rows of the gallery, and the whole amounted to over ,4,000. A revival of 7^ke Liars, Dandy Dick, and then Cyrano de Bergerac, which, though beautifully staged (1900), was not a success ; as I said before, Sir Charles is not at his best in doublet and hose. Mrs. Danes Defence in the same year, however, made ample amends. Perhaps it is the finest play that Mr. Jones has written, certainly he has done nothing else so subtle and powerful as the scene in which Sir Daniel Carteret draws from the unhappy Mrs. Dane the proofs of her guilt ; the perfectly natural manner in* which the conviction is evolved is beyond all praise. And the interpreters were worthy of the author ; Miss Lena Ash well established her right to be classed among the greatest emotional actresses of the day, and has since fully maintained it by her wonderful performance in Resurrection; while Sir Charles has never surpassed the perfect art, the touches of tenderness, with a soupcon of cynicism, that distinguished his imperson- ation of Justice Carteret. In my whole theatrical ex- perience I cannot remember a scene that held an audience in more breathless suspense than the one referred to, or that evoked a more excited burst of applause, renewed again and again as the curtain fell upon it. The Mummy and the Humming Bird, The End of a Story, two or three revivals, the transference hereto of The Marriage of Kitty from the Duke of York's, a brief revival of Rosemary, and Mrs. Gorringes Necklace, by a new author, who has suddenly leaped into public THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 511 favour, Glittering Gloria, of which the bulldog, excel- lently supported by that clever comedian James Welch and others, was the leading attraction, brings us up to the latest success, Little Mary. For perhaps the first time an audience did not resent, but actually enjoyed being "sold." The secret of the enormous success of this very peculiar comedy is that it has given London a new catchword ; but for that, and Mr. Barrie's extra- ordinary good luck, it would most probably have been a fiasco. THE NEW THEATRE, 1903, another outcome of Sir Charles's indefatigable energy, and another very beautiful addition to the metropolitan playhouses, was opened on March i2th in the present year, 1903, with a revival of Rosemary. And again the lessee most generously devoted all the takings of the first night to a charitable purpose, connected with our soldiers and sailors. After a brief run of Rosemary, Forbes Robertson came hither from the Lyric with The Light that Failed, and was followed by Mrs. Patrick Campbell with a transla- tion from Sudermann, The Joy of Living, a gloomy and repulsive play, and revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Mrs. Gorringes Necklace, brought from Wyndham's, is still running. CHAPTER VI A BUNCH OF THEATRES The Savoy The Comedy The Avenue The Novelty The Prince of Wales's Terry's The Shaftesbury The Lyric. THE SAVOY, 1881-1903, built by D'Oyly Carte, was opened in October, 1881, with Patience, which had already enjoyed a good run at the Opera Comique. The Savoy, with its delicate decorations and quilted silk curtain and electric lighting, was one of the prettiest houses in London twenty years ago, when the old theatres had not yet emerged from ugliness, meanness, or tawdriness. The Gilbert-Sullivan combination was in the height of its popularity, and the glories of the Savoy began, and, up to the present time, has ended, with a partner- ship that gave delight to a whole generation of play- goers. It was an irony singularly in keeping with that spirit of incongruity and topsy-turveydom which dis- tinguishes Mr. Gilbert's humour, that while its most caustic sallies were levelled against puritan respectability, it was especially from that division of the public that the Savoy audiences were drawn, for the Savoy essentially had an audience of its own, many of whom scarcely attended any other theatre. So Mrs. Grundy sat and saw herself held up to ridicule, and laughed at her own absurd reflection, without any more sense of being in front of a looking-glass than had the original of Foote's 512 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 513 Cadwallader or Moliere's George Dandin when subjected to a similar ordeal. Mr. Gilbert had the supreme good fortune of being associated with a musician who was in perfect harmony with his ideas ; indeed, the words and the music of the lyrics are so indissolubly mingled that the one loses its significance without the other. Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote to please his public ; he was melodious, catchy, and never composed anything that Miss Jones could not strum upon her piano or warble in her drawing-room, or that Mr. Jones could not "get through." In each succeeding opera there were so many comic, so many sentimental songs, a madrigal, the regulation number of duets, trios, sestettes, and con- certed pieces, with very much the same phrasing in all. And here was the great secret of the success ; people flocked night after night to the Opera Comique and afterwards to the Savoy to catch the airs and imitate the vocalists at home. Yet they were delightful enter- tainments, when the wit and the music were interpreted by George Grossmith, Richard Temple, Rutland Bar- rington, Jessie Bond, Miss Brandram, Miss Everard, and others whose names will occur to the reader ; and then the mise en scene was so beautiful, the stage management so perfect, the whole thing so unique. What a first night The Mikado was ! I shall never forget the frantic delight of the audience over " Three Little Maids." It was the thing of the night. I do not think The Yeoman of the Guard has ever received its due. The Jester's song was an inspiration ; Sir Arthur never did anything else in that particular strain half so good. In lolanthe and The Princess Ida there was a poetic fantasy that recalled the librettist's fairy comedies. Recent revivals convey little 'conception of the fascination these operas exercised over the audiences 2 L 514 THE LONDON STAGE of the seventies and eighties, for the subtle charm, the aroma, so difficult to define, had gone from them. Even before the rupture between the associates, the inevitable decay that comes at last to all things, whether material or intellectual, marked with inferiority the later productions of those facile pens, such as The Grand Duke, 1896, and after they were divorced the glory departed. Yet H addon Hall, of which Sir Arthur composed the music and Mr. Sydney Grundy the libretto, was not without charm, but it had a short run. Clever composers and stage craftsmen have written for the Savoy Pinero, Comyns Carr, and Sullivan, 1898, Ivan Caryll, 1899, in The Lucky Star but I think the vein was exhausted ; even Sir Arthur's last score, which he left unfinished, The Emerald Isle, was not exhilarat- ing. And then the old company, that had been educated and steeped in the traditions of Gilbert and Sullivan opera, went one by one, and their successors, clever artistes though they are, lack the mellowness, the peculiar fitness of their predecessors. The Princess of Kensington was the last production at the Savoy. The house has been closed some time. THE COMEDY, 1881-1903, started on its career on October i5th, 1881, under the management of Alex- ander' Henderson, with Audran's La Mascotte, which had already been tried at Brighton ; its brightness, tune- fulness, humour, the drollery of Lionel Brough, and the piquante acting and beautiful singing of Miss Violet Cameron, in Bettina, caught the town at once and filled the new theatre for hundreds of nights. Planquette's Rip Van Winkle, in which Fred Leslie gave a perform- ance of the ne'er-do-well Rip that was only surpassed by Jefferson's, was scarcely less popular. Falka, with Violet Cameron, Miss Wadman, Ashley, Harry Paulton, Penley, was another well-deserved success. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 515 Mis*s Violet Melnotte succeeded Henderson in 1884, and comic opera gave place to drama. The Silver Shield, a very effective play by Sydney Grundy, 1885, in which the Dacres, Arthur Roberts, Kate Rorke appeared ; after Woman's Victory and Bad Boys, and a comic opera called Erminie, came Sister Mary, by Wilson Barrett and Clement Scott, with Miss Lingard and Leonard Boyne in the chief parts. It was at the Comedy that Mr. Beerbohm Tree made his first essay in management, and produced one of his great hits, The Red Lamp, 1887. Comyns Carr was the next manager. Two notable plays deserve mention Sydney Grundy's The New Woman and Pinero's The Benefit of the Doubt, in both of which Winifred Emery greatly distinguished herself, especially in the latter, in the risky scene where she became half intoxicated, acted by her with most consummate art and restraint. Yet greater was her triumph in that fine play, Sowing the Wind, another of Sydney Grundy's. I can remember few things more beautiful than Miss Emery's acting as Rosamond, or than the scenes between the two old men, as played by Cyril Maude and Brandon Thomas. Ada Rehan made one of her latest appearances in England here in 1896. Charles Hawtrey conducted the theatre for some time, and brought out a number of pieces suited to his particular vein, in which he was admirably supported by that excellent actress, Lottie Venne. Of these, perhaps, Jane, One Summers Day, To-Day were among the most successful. Arthur Roberts was here in 1898-9 with Milord Sir Smith, and a burlesque on The Three Musketeers, called The Tre-Dumas-Skiters. Mrs. Lewis Waller played Tess of the D' Urbervilles ; Forbes Robertson appeared as Count Tezma and in the Sacrament of Judas, and S i6 THE LONDON STAGE Mr. Nat Goodwin and Miss Marion Elliot gave us E. V. Esmond's pretty play, When We Were Twenty- one, which had made such a hit in America. The fortunes of the Comedy, however, were at a very low ebb when Mr. Lewis Waller brought Monsieur Beaucaire to their rescue. This is another instance of the impossibility of gauging the caprices of the public taste. The play was regarded as a mere pis aller, or at best a stop-gap ; it had utterly failed at Liverpool just before, and the enthusiasm with which it was received on its first production in London, and the crowds that from that time flocked nightly and daily to the theatre were a surprise astounding as it was agreeable to everyone interested in the result. The run of the play was not exhausted when Lewis Waller closed in the August of the present year, and he has resumed it at the Imperial pending the production of Ruy Bias. THE AVENUE would most probably never have been built but for the supposition that the South Eastern would have to purchase the site for the Charing Cross extension scheme. But the company did without it, and the theatre remains. It opened on the nth of March, 1882, with Madame Favart and a company in- cluding Miss St. John, Miss Wadman, Fred Leslie, and Marius. French comic opera was as much the rage twenty years ago as burlesque had been twenty years previously, and Les Manteaux Noirs, Lurette, La Vie, Nell Gwynne, and others, new and revived, followed one another under Miss Violet Melnotte's direction. But the first genuine successes were made by the series of comic operas Nadgy, The Old Guard, and others in which that inimitable droll, Arthur Roberts, kept the house in a roar of laughter by his antics and impromptus. His song and dance, "a la militaire," THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 517 in The Old Guard, tricked out with all the impedimenta of the camp, was one of the funniest things I ever saw. There is a spontaneity, a sparkle in Arthur Roberts's fun, that no other comedian approaches, while his verve, his neatness, the quickness of his repartee are rather French than English. George Alexander made his first appearance in the character of manager at the Avenue in 1890, with Dr. Bill. Something of a fluke was the success, but how splendid Fanny Brough was as Mrs. Horton ; and the Kangaroo dance with the girl in red, whose name was not in the programme ! I believe that dance was the making of the farce. The lurid French drama, A Struggle for Life, which was to be \\\e piece de resistance and Dr. Bill only a stop-gap, was a failure, and soon gave way to Sunlight and Shadow, afterwards trans- ferred to the St. James's. In the next season, Bronson Howard's The Henrietta and a version of Monte Crist o were the principal features. In the autumn of 1891, Henry Arthur Jones brought out one of his cleverest comedies, The Crusaders, at the Avenue ; its caustic political satire, Mr. Palsam, dis- pleased a portion of the Press, and they slated it, while it cut too near the cherished shams of everyday life to be acceptable to Philistia. Miss Olga Brandon's Una Dell and Lewis Waller's Philos Ingarfield, were fine performances. After a revival of Judah, Mr. Jones retired. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal played for a season here, in 1893, A White Lie, The Silver Shell-^-z. clever Nihilist play, in which Kendal played very finely. During the next few years the records of the Avenue are barren of successes ; Miss Annie Hughes revived Sweet Nancy and A Bit of Old China in 1898, and Forbes Robertson 5i8 THE LONDON STAGE and Mrs. Patrick Campbell were here for a short time in 1899. In the following season, Charles Hawtrey had a trump card in Lord and Lady Algy. The greatest success ever made at the Avenue, how- ever, was A Message from Mars, which ran hundreds of nights, though it had been rejected what an old, old story by most of the London managers. Yet, without enter- ing upon a controversy, which brought the play into the law courts, I question whether any other actor than Mr. Hawtrey would have made the piece go to anything like the same extent. It was old-fashioned and full of Dickens's conventionalities ; in the hands of any other comedian, Horace Parker would have been repulsive ; but Hawtrey was so utterly unconscious of his own beastly selfishness, he so fully believed that everybody about him was inconsiderate of his comfort, and he was so genial and good-tempered in his heartlessness, in fine, he was so thoroughly convincing, that he was positively delightful, as very selfish people very often are in real life. There is no actor on the stage so absolutely free from self-consciousness as Charles Hawtrey, even Wynd- ham could never tell a lie with such an artless tone of undoubtable veracity and such innocent blandness as he does. Hawtrey's art is within very narrow bounds, but it is perfect as far as it goes. In The Message from Mars, Arthur Williams did much for the play as the Tramp. The most fortunate of recent productions at this house have been Weedon Grossmith's The Night of the Party, The Little French Milliner, for which Miss Kate Philips was responsible, and Mrs. Willoughbys Kiss, in which Miss St. John appeared in a new line of character, the matron. Dolly Varden, a comic opera, is now running. THE NOVELTY, 1882-1903. The Great Queen Street THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 519 'heatre was a ne'er-do-well from the first. A comic opera, Me lit a ; or, the Parsons Daughter, opened and closed the Novelty, as it was first called, in December, 1882. In the next year it was rechristened the Folies Dramatiques, and Miss Nellie Harris's name headed the bill ; Miss Ada Cavendish appeared in a revival of The New Magdalen. Willie Edouin, Lionel B rough, Buchanan, all tried their luck at the unfortunate house, and with the same result failure. In 1888 it received its coup de grace by being rechristened the Jodrell ! after a lady who aspired to the honours of theatrical management. In that year the National Rus- sian Opera Company appeared there; an excellent troupe. During its twelve years of existence the theatre has been closed for longer periods than it has been open. Penley, after having it reconstructed and handsomely appointed, reopened the house as the Great Queen Street Theatre with A Little Ray of Sunshine, brought from the Royalty. He afterwards revived Charleys Aunt, but the public would not come. During the last two seasons the German company have given some prestige to the theatre, and when in some future age of the world the new street from Holborn to the Strand is finished, Mr. Penley 's theatre, if it has not crumbled to dust by that time, may become a popular place of enter- tainment. THE PRINCE OF WALES'S, 1884-1903, originally the Prince's, was considered to be a model of beauty when it was opened by Edgar Bruce on January i8th, 1884, with a revival of W. S. Gilbert's Palace of Truth; Kyrle Bellew, Beerbohm Tree, Miss Lingard, Miss Sophie Eyre, were in the cast. A very free adaptation of The Doll's House, the first of Ibsen seen in England, called Breaking a Butterfly, by Jones and Hermann, 520 THE LONDON STAGE was brought out in March; " Flora Goddard" (Norah) was played by Miss Lingard, whose style was quite unsuitable to the character. The play was severely criticised by the Press, and withdrawn within a month. The Private Secretary, with Beerbohm Tree as the Rev. Robert Spalding, was brought out at the Prince's, but it was so little successful that in less than three months it was replaced by a dramatic version of Called Sack, 1 which was just then the sensation of the novel- reading world. Macari was one of Mr. Tree's earliest hits ; Miss Lingard was Pauline. Mrs. Langtry was at the Prince's in the season of 1885 and 1886 with a revival of The School for Scandal, Coghlan playing Charles Surface to her Lady Teazle, a performance which I have noted elsewhere. 2 But The Princess George, another of the lady's produc- tions, was a dire fiasco. Carton's and Cecil Raleigh's first play, The Great Pink Pearl, first saw the footlights here in 1885. The house took the name of the Tottenham Street Theatre, which was last under the management of Edgar Bruce, when the latter was taken over by the Salvation Army, in 1886. It has never been identified with any particular form of entertain- ment. An extraordinary success was made in 1891 by L? Enfant Prodigue, that wonderful wordless play, with its fine music, so splendidly acted by Jane May, Zan- fretta, Courtis, and their associates. But such is the fickleness of public taste that A Pierrot's Life, finely played not long afterwards, failed to attract. Operatic burlesques Paul Jones, 1896, Blue-Eyed Susan, In Town, afterwards removed to the Gaiety- enjoyed long runs. In the last named, Arthur Roberts's cafe chantant song, with the corps de ballet and the pas 1 See "The Globe," p. 332. a See p. 324. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 521 de deux, with Sylvia Grey, were things to remember. Another great hit of Arthur Roberts's, later on, was Gentleman Joe, the Hansom Cabby. One of the best of comic operas, La Poupde, so admirably sung and acted by Courtice Pounds, Norman Salmond, Willie Edouin, and their confreres, was an enormous success. Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Forbes Robertson were here in 1899, and brought out a curious Japanese play, called The Moonlight Blossom. Hawtrey continued the run of A Message from Mars, and produced The Man from Blankneys, and, on his return from America, The President, 1902. The Country Mouse, for Annie Hughes ; a new version of Masks and Faces, for Marie Tempest to play Peg Woffington, also Becky Sharpe, for that lady, were productions of Mr. Frank Curzon's management. George Edwardes at present holds the stage with a variety show, The School Girl. TERRY'S THEATRE, 1887-1903, was built upon the site of the notorious " Coal Hole," where the renowned "Baron" Nicholson held the Judge and Jury Club. October, 1887, was the date of its birth. The Church- ivarden was the first piece, The Woman Hater the second, and both were fairly successful. But Sweet Lavender brought ,20,000 clear profit to the manager, and ran seven hundred nights. It was admirably cast- Brandon Thomas, Kerr, Maude Millett, Carlotta Addi- son. Terry was at his very best as Dick Phenyl ; indeed, he had never done anything so good. Curious to say, however, no one of the several actresses who played the title-role quite realised the character ; Rose Norreys, so clever in most parts, was quite out of it. Pinero wrote two more pieces for this theatre : In Chancery, 1890, The Times, 1892. There were some fine things in the latter, but it fell fiat. Terry's contributions 522 THE LONDON STAGE to theatrical history have been few and little remark- able. The New Boy, Jerome's Old Lamps for New, The Pantomime Rehearsal, were draws the latter a great one ; but it is a long time since the little theatre has enjoyed such a genuine success as My Lady Molly, the popularity of which shows no signs of waning. THE SHAFTESBURY, 1888-1903, under the direction of Miss Wallis, who had been leading lady at the Queen's, Drury Lane, Adelphi, was opened only a year later than Terry's, October, 1888, with As You Like It, followed by The Lady of Lyons, etc. But the legitimate drama as pronounced on that occasion in Shaftesbury Avenue failed to draw the public. Better fortune attended the management of Messrs. Willard and Lart in the following year. The Middleman greatly added to Mr. W. S. Willard's reputation and banking account as well. Judah, by the same author, was no less pros- perous. But it aroused one of those controversies which have so frequently raged about Mr. Jones's plays, when that dramatist has run counter to the bourgeois con- science, touching the false testimony of a minister of the gospel and the ethics thereof. No doubt this dispute drew larger audiences than the cleverness of the play ; people like to say they have been shocked, it testifies to their morality. Signior Lago did a season of Italian opera at the Shaftesbury in the autumn of 1891, and introduced Cavalleria Rusticana to a London public. Then Miss Wallis returned with strong drama The Pharisee and others not great successes. Comic opera took the place of drama in 1893 with La Rosiere, that failed, and was succeeded by Morocco Bound, one of, if not the first, of the English variety show pieces, a species that had so long been popular in THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 523 America. It owed its success on the first night to Letty Lind's imitation of a society lady's skirt dance the skirt dance was the drawing-room craze of the hour which, performed with all the chic that actress is famous for, brought down the house. A version of Marie Corelli's The Sorrows of Satan was staged here in 1897, with Lewis Waller in the principal part. The year before, ;i 5,000* was lost over a comic opera called The Little Genius. The most successful of all the variety show plays, The Belle of New York, was brought here in 1898, and introduced Edna May to the London public, as well .as Messrs. Harry Davenport, Sullivan, Lawton, and other clever Americans. The verve and "go" of all principals, chorus, ballet were irresistible, and those who came to sneer and condemn remained to applaud. Every street boy whistled the tunes, every piano thumped them, and everyone went to hear them. Since The Belle of New York the Shaftesbury has passed into the hands of the Americans, and has become a kind of annexe to the American theatres. The Fortune Teller, Are You a Mason f All on Account of Eliza, Jedbury Jurir, have been among the most recent productions. Fred Terry and Miss Neilson produced a curious mythical- tragical- musical play, called For Sword or Song, early in the year, but it had a very brief existence. A nigger troupe, that has certainly caught on, now holds the stage with In Dahomey. THE LYRIC, 1889-1903. That charming pastoral Dorothy, originally produced at the Gaiety in September, 1 It was computed that within six months just about this time ^32,000 was lost over light operas ; the largest sum is that named above, then follows Lord Tom Noddy, 6,000 ; Monte Carlo, 5,000 ; Newmarket, .3,000 ; On the March, 3,000. 524 THE LONDON STAGE 1886, but transferred to Shaftesbury Avenue from the Prince of Wales's, opened the Lyric on December 1 7th, 1888. It made the reputation of Miss Marie Tempest and of Hayden Coffin, by the now famous song of " Queen of My Heart," which, I believe, was an interpolation. After a run, at different theatres, of over 800 nights, it was succeeded by another idyll, Doris, which, however, had not the vogue of Dorothy. Audran's strikingly effective La Cigale, with Miss Geraldine Ulmar, caught the public, and was followed by The Mountebanks, Incognita, The Golden Web, Little Christopher Columbus, Dandy Dick Whittington. Each opera was beautifully mounted and interpreted by a company worthy of the beautiful theatre in which it was framed. Signora Duse made her first appearance in England here in May, 1893. It was a great change from light and cheerful comic opera to the gloomy melodrama of The Sign of the Cross, with its Whitechapel ruffians, Methodist revival meetings, and Gaiety comedy scenes, which would seem to prove that the ancients were quite up to date. But the clergy flocked to see it, and many recommended their flocks to do likewise, so that the home of song and dance became quite a weekday church, and the public rushed in thousands to hear the groans of the martyrs, witness the Neronic saturnalia, and hear Mr. Barrett spout texts and moral platitudes. Everybody con- sidered it as much a duty to go and see the Christian martyrs as afterwards the Salvation Lass in The Belle of New York. British crazes are very varied ; they embrace everything except poetry and art. Mr. Barrett afterwards appeared in his own version of The Manxman, contra Mr. Hall Caine, and between the two dramatists there arose a very pretty quarrel. Mr. Barrett attempted to repeat the popularity of his Chris- THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 525 tian play with an incursion into Judaism ; but the re- ligious boom was exhausted, and The Daughters of Babylon did not allure the fickle playgoer. After Mr. Barrett had essayed Virginius and Othello, came that curiously original Chinese play, The Cat and the Cherub, which caught on chiefly on account of its novelty. Arthur Roberts in Dandy Dan, the Life- guardsman, and A Modern Don Quixote. Then another incursion into the legitimate Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Campbell in Macbeth. Floradora, a capital variety piece, proved a huge attraction. Mr. Robertson undertook the direction of the Lyric in 1902, and achieved great success there with Mice and Men and The Light that Failed. It then went back to its old love, the musical piece a la Ame'ricaine, The Medal and the Maid. The last production, The Duchess of Dantzic, upon which it is said ,10,000 was expended, has proved an immense success. Very few of the new theatres have enjoyed such a prosperous career as the Lyric. CHAPTER VII The Garrick The Duke of York's Daly's The Imperial The Apollo His Majesty's The Dramatic and Histrionic Art of to-day. GARRICK, 1889-1903, is one of the handsomest _ theatres in London, and, reckoned by years, is second to none in the brilliancy of its record. It was inaugurated in May, 1889, with Mr. Pinero's fine play, The Profligate, so superbly acted by Forbes Robertson, Lewis Waller, Kate Rorke. An excellent production of La Tosca, with Mrs. Bernard Beere in Sarah Bernhardt's great part, followed, and then A Pair of Spectacles, which had a phenomenal run for a good play, and has been a profitable stop-gap ever afterwards. Mr. Hare's Benjamin Goldfinch was perhaps the finest among the many fine portraitures he has given us, and the Uncle Gregory of Mr. Charles Groves was a worthy pendant to it. Another finely interpreted play was Pinero's Lady Bountiful. The critics condemned it because the heroine was inconsistent ! To argue from analogy, one might have imagined that dramatic critics are drawn from a monastery. The play was too unconventional in its human analysis to please the many, and it cer- tainly had a very bad last act. But it was a fine piece of work ; a very beautiful performance was Marie Linden's Margaret Veale, and the lady had hitherto been chiefly known in burlesque ; Robertson, Hare, Groves, Kate Rorke, all were admirable, but could not fill the house. A Fool ' s Paradise, a much inferior 526 THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 527 work but more understandable, was better received, for the story of the poisoning wife was founded upon a recent cause cdlbere ; Miss Olga Nethersole greatly dis- tinguished herself in the part, and H. B. Irving, who had made his London debut just before as Lord Beaufoy in School, 1891, was the husband. There was a notable revival of Money, with Mrs. Bancroft as Lady Franklin, and of Diplomacy, 1893, which was better acted in some respects than it was at the old Prince of Wales's. Mr. Forbes Robertson, Miss Nethersole, and Miss Kate Rorke were superb. Mr. Pinero's great, though somewhat heavy play, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, caused almost as great a flutter in the dovecots of Puritanism as Mrs. Tanqueray had a little previously. There was one situation that thrilled the audience to the finger-tips, where the woman thrusts the Bible into the fire and then tears it out again. Nothing more daring was ever done upon the stage. Again Mrs. Campbell proved herself a fine artiste, and as the Duke, Mr. Hare gave us one of those faultless portraitures for which he is famous. Nothing finer than the scene between him and Mrs. Ebb- smith could come within the range of dramatic art. There was a strange tragedy in connection with the title of this play. A divorced woman of eccentric char- acter, of the name of Ebbsmith, was found drowned in the Thames with a ticket for the Garrick in her pocket ; she had previously written a letter to a friend, in which she said that the name of the play was preying upon her mind, and it was supposed that after witnessing a performance of it she committed suicide. Mr. Willard, returning from America for a time, pro- duced Barrie's The Professor s Love Story and Jones's The Rogues Comedy in 1896. 528 THE LONDON STAGE After Mr. Hare's retirement, the Garrick fell from its high standard ; inferior drama, comic opera, music-hall attractions held the stage until the advent of those two admirable artistes, Mr. and Mrs. Bourchier. Mr. Bourchier has done his best to restore its former prestige to the theatre by such plays as The Wedding Guest, which, because it preached true morality instead of the conventional, raised a storm of cant. But not such a tempest as Mr. Pinero's great play, Iris. Yet what could be more relentlessly moral than its catas- trophe ? Iris, after all, was only a weak woman who drifted into vice ; how many thousands of Irises are there not living this day, how many scores might have seen themselves reflected in the heroine of the play ? Perhaps that was one of the reasons that Iris was caviare to the general ? Was any situation ever more suggestive of horror than when the woman, reviled and driven forth by Moldanado, abandoned by the whole world, passes through the door homeless, outcast to what end ? It was appalling ; the Nemesis of a Greek tragedy is not more terrible. Was not the punishment enough ? Mr. Oscar Asche's Moldanado, the most overwhelming piece of acting since Salvini's Othello, ought alone to have drawn all London. Excellent as was Miss Fay Davis, she lacked the keynote of the character fascination. My Lady Virtue, The Bishop's Move, Pilkingtoris Peerage, and that clever satire, The Whitewashing of Julia. A season of French plays was given during the summer. A revival of Mrs. Craigie's and Murray Carson's clever comedy, The Bishop's Move, followed. H addon Chambers's The Golden Silence, which gives Violet Vanburgh an opportunity for some fine emotional acting, and Mr. Bourchier a part exactly suited to his style, now holds the bill. THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 529 THE DUKE OF YORK'S, 1892-1903, originally known by the clumsy name of the Trafalgar Square Theatre, was opened on September loth, 1892, with a comic opera, The Wedding Eve, acted by Decima Moore, Kate Chard, Joseph Tapley, George Barrett. As a revival of Dorothy followed very quickly, nothing need be said as to the success of the piece. The house was closed in January in consequence of a rupture between the pro- prietors, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wyatt, and the manager, Mr. Levenston. It was reopened in the following month with a farcical comedy, The County Councillor, in which Mr. Yorke Stephens, Cyril Maude, Fanny Brough ap- peared ; a couple of months afterwards, Mile. Nitouche, with Miss Yohe, was put in the bill. The name of the theatre was changed to the Duke of York's in September, 1895. Up to the production of The Gay Parisienne, in 1896, there is little but failure to record. The great success of the last-named piece was chiefly the work of Miss Louie Freer ; it was her London de"but ; her drollery, so original, and her song, " Sister Mary Jane's Top Note," in which she was pictured all over London, made her and the play famous. Since the Duke of York's has been under the director- ship of Mr. Charles Frohman, though he was guilty of such an inane variety show as The Girl Up There, several important plays have been brought out : that exquisite little Japanese piece, Madame Butterfly, so beautifully acted by Miss Evelyn Millard ; Anthony Hope's Adventures of Lady Ursula; L. N. Parker's Twin Sisters and The Swashbuckler; H. A. Jones's The Lackeys Carnival and The Princess's Nose, a failure; E. V. Esmond's The Sentimentalists; a revival of The Gay Lord Quex ; The Marriage of Kitty, inter- preted by Lewis Waller, H. B. Irving, Miss Millard, 2 M 530 THE LONDON STAGE Miss Irene Vanbrugh, Mr. Hare, Miss Marie Tempest. His great trump card, however, has been Barrie's Admirable Crichton, which ended with the 33Oth per- formance at the end of August, 1903. At first some, at least, of the critics uncertain whether to praise or to condemn thought it might prove to be too cleverly fantastic, too utterly unconventional for " the general," though intellectual London took to it at once. Pinero's splendid play, Letty, is a huge success. Irene Vanbrugh's Letty is an exquisite performance, and Nancy Price's Hilda the most original and vivid bit of comedy I have seen for some years. DALY'S THEATRE, 1893-1903. During several summer seasons of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, Daly's American company visited London, playing mostly at the Lyceum. It was a competent troupe of well-trained artistes, who acted together admirably. But a section of the Press gushed over them most fulsomely. We had nothing to compare with certain members, who were the elder Farren and Mrs. Glover redivivi and with something more all their own. While, as to Miss Ada Rehan, to hint that any English actress could come within comparison with her would be an insult to la belle Ame'ricaine. This was all mere raving ; we could show far finer actors in their own par- ticular line than the old man and woman of Daly's company, and although Miss Rehan was an excellent comedienne and an admirable artiste in all she did, yet she was not quite the genius that friends proclaimed her to be. I went to see her play Katharine, prepared for raptures. I tried my hardest to think the perform- ance what I had read it was. But I came away with the conviction that that splendid regal-looking woman, so grand and imposing in appearance, with her deep- THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 531 toned voice and deliberate utterance, was not the quick- tempered, passionate termagant that Shakespeare drew. I suppose the great favour with which his company was received in London by the Press suggested to Mr. Daly the idea of building a theatre, in the English metropolis, and on March i2th, 1893, the very handsome house that bears his name was opened with The Taming of the Shrew. But the speculation did not commence success- fully, and a splendid production of Tennyson's play, The Foresters, which the company had previously done in New York, though admirably acted, failed to draw. A revival of Twelfth Night, which ought to have been announced on the bills as by Augustin Daly and William Shakespeare, proved no more attractive. Mr. Daly was as much given to mutilating, " improving," and interpolating upon the bard as if he had been inspired by the ghosts of Tate and Gibber ; and The Two Gentle- men of Verona , brought out in 1895, an< ^ ^ s You Like It, which had been played many times before at the Lyceum, were elegant extracts from those plays arranged and modified by the facile pen of the American manager. During the company's absence from England, Mr. George Edwardes occupied the house, and made it pay a feat which the proprietor never accomplished. At Daly's death he became the lessee, not without some law complications, and produced a series of pieces on the Gaiety model, though of a higher class, especially from the musical point of view. All that beautiful scenery, costly dresses, and the best available talent could do to make a success of The Gaiety Girl, An Artist's Model, The Geisha, A Greek Slave the best of all, and the most refined was done, and the theatre has been a gold mine. It may be worth noting that the Carl Rosa company gave the first performance of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel here in 1898. 532 THE LONDON STAGE The Country Girl is the latest success, and although it has held the bill an abnormal time, no notice is given of its withdrawal. In 1876 an annexe for theatrical performances was opened in the Westminster Aquarium and called the Aquarium Theatre. Edgar Bruce was the manager, and the first piece presented was Jo, with Jennie Lee as the street arab, a performance that afterwards became almost world famous. It was while Phelps was playing an engagement here in 1878 that he broke down, strange to say, in the " Farewell " speech of Cardinal Wolsey, was carried off and never appeared upon a stage again. He died in the same year. In 1879, when the house came under the direction of Marie Litton, it was renamed THE IMPERIAL (1876-85, 1901-3). Miss Litton gave some really excellent revivals of old comedies, first in the afternoon and then in the evening ; The Poor Gentleman, The Beaux Stratagem, She Stoops to Conquer, supported by Farren, Lionel Brough, Kyrle Bellew, Mrs. Stirling, the lady herself, and efficient associates. A version of The Vicar of Wakefield, with John Ryder as Dr. Primrose and Miss Litton as Olivia, was another production. Mrs. Langtry appeared as Rosalind in 1882, and in the same year Miss Calhoun made her London debut in An Unequal Match. By 1885, the building had ceased to be used for legitimate dramatic representations. At the end of the century, Mrs. Langtry took a lease of the old theatre, rebuilt it on a magnificent scale, all marble and gilt, after the model of a Greek temple, and opened it at the end of April, 1900, with a very bad play, called The Queens Necklace, which some good acting and costly mounting did not save from failure. Mile. Mars followed, but did not redeem the fortunes of the THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 533 house. Then Herbert Waring took the management to exploit a play called A Man of His Word, and met with no better success than his predecessors. In 1902, before she went to America, Mrs. Langtry revived The Degenerates, a play that she had produced during her tenure of the Garrick, which had been very hostilely criticised. In the spring of the present year, Miss Ellen Terry produced an early play of Ibsen's, The Vikings, and clad in Amazonian garb, impersonated a sort of Valkyrie woman ; and as if this were not enough, Mr. Gordon Craig used the play as a vehicle for the exploitation of certain extraordinary theories of stage lighting and stage management. Miss Terry abandoned the Viking woman for Beatrice in a revival of Much Ado about Nothing. Mr.* Craig continued his experiments, concerning which, as I have not seen them, I have nothing to say. And now Lewis Waller, who played here for a short time, has taken the theatre on lease, and resumed the , run of M. Beaucaire. THE APOLLO, 1901-3, was opened in February, 1901, with an American show called The Belle of Bohemia, a fiasco ; after which Martin Harvey played The Cigarette Maker s Romance and The Only Way. But the first success was made by a musical version of Kitty Grey, which had been previously played at the Vaudeville as a comedy. It crowded the new theatre for hundreds of nights, and was one of the most enjoy- able things of the kind, as sung and acted by Evie Greene, Edna May, Maurice Farkoa, G. P. Huntly, whose up-to-date " Johnnie" was a strikingly original performance, ever given upon the London stage. What Would a Gentleman Do ? was the next piece. The Apollo is now under the directorship of the ubiquitous 534 THE LONDON STAGE George Edwardes. The Girl from Kays is still in the bill at the time of writing. There are still the suburban theatres of West London to be briefly noted. Richmond possessed a theatre as early as 1765. Mathews the elder, we are told in Mrs. Mathews' Memoirs of him, paid seven and a half guineas, when he was a very young man, in 1 793, for the privilege of playing Richard III. on that stage. Edmund Kean performed there in his great days, and died in the house attached to it. There Helen Faucit first appeared upon any stage in 1833. And Amy Sedgwick, twenty years later, fresh from Manchester, made what by a stretch might be called her metropolitan debut upon those boards. It was a queer, little, dark, dingy, squat theatre, of a type that no longer exists. It was pulled down, to save it from falling, in 1884. Until 1890* no attempt was made to replace it ; then a theatre was fitted up in the Assembly Rooms of an hotel, and opened with some dclat by Mrs. Langtry. In 1899 a new and handsome building was erected. THE CORONET THEATRE, Netting Hill, 1898, differs from the rest of the suburban houses in that it has produced several original pieces, and Mme. Rejane has acted there each season since the opening-. It was there also the Japanese actors, who were afterwards seen at the Criterion, made their first appearance, 1900. It is a handsome building both within and without, and holds 2,500 people. The same description may be applied to the Grand Theatre, Fulham, which was opened about the same time, though that is devoted to travelling companies. Hammersmith has now two theatres, the King's and the Lyric Opera House, and Ealing has also its temple of the drama. His MAJESTY'S THEATRE. Of all the new theatres which have been built during the last thirty or forty THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 535 years, Beerbohm Tree's splendid house in the Hay- market is certainly the most important. It occupies an historic site, it has the most imposing frontage of any theatre in London, 86 feet at the principal entrances, while the measurement of the three isolated sides com- bined is 332 feet j 1 a spacious auditorium, a la Louis Quatorze, decorated in a style as handsome as it is dignified, and a noble stage equal to the production of the most elaborate scenic effects, it certainly ranks as the first theatre in the metropolis, and has taken up the position, though with a difference, which was held by the Lyceum during the Irving regime. The house was opened at the end of April, 1897, as Her Majesty's Theatre the name being changed to His Majesty's by permission of the King at the opening of the season of 1902 with an address written by the Poet Laureate and Sir Gilbert Parker's The Seats of the Mighty. A bad choice, as the novel is undramatic. A revival of Trilby quickly took its place, while the next play, The Silver Key, another version of Dumas's Mile, de Belle Isle, was being prepared. In the following season, after a resuscitation of A Mans Shadow, there was a magnificent production of Julius Ccesar, which achieved the longest run of the tragedy on record. The principal parts were taken by the lessee, Lewis Waller, McLeay, Mrs. Tree, Evelyn Millard. From Marc Antony to Ragged Robin was a far leap, 1 A comparison between the dimensions of the new theatre and the old opera house may prove interesting. The frontage of the old house was 283 feet. The stage was 80 feet between walls ; 60 feet from orchestra to back wall ; width at curtain, 40 feet ; from curtain to back of boxes, 102 feet ; width of pit, 65 feet ; height, 56 feet. The figures for the new house are : 86 feet front ; stage, 70 feet by 50 feet, with recesses for scenery ; proscenium opening, 35 feet ; width of auditorium, 70 feet ; depth, 6 1 feet ; stage floor to gridiron, 60 feet ; from floor to cellars, 23 feet ; height, 45 feet. 536 THE LONDON STAGE but Mr. Tree has always been given to such violent exhibitions of versatility. Le Chemineau of Richepin was converted into a very delightful English idyll by Louis N. Parker, and was admirably acted by the lessee, Charles Warner, Frank McLeay, Lewis Waller, Mrs. Tree, Evelyn Millard. Miss Olga Nethersole appeared here in the early autumn of 1898 in a poetical play, splendidly staged, called The Termagant, and the regular season commenced with The Three Musketeers, a very brilliant and successful production. Carnac Sahib, by Jones, and a wonderful revival of King John, were the features of 1899. Mr. Tree played the King with much subtlety ; the Faulconbridge of Lewis Waller and the Hubert of McLeay were good, while the Constance of Julia Neilson would have scored if it had been distinguished by more nature and less artificiality. But the most important production at the new theatre, up to that time at least, was reserved for the new century. After a revival of Rip Van Winkle and a very exquisite staging of A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, in the earlier part of 1900, the manager in- augurated the autumn season with Stephen Phillips's Herod. The King of the Jews was and is Beerbohm Tree's finest impersonation in the poetic drama, and even those who had the highest opinion of his histrionic talent were surprised by the power, the picturesqueness, the abandon of his acting, more especially in the last act. I do not think that the Press did justice to Maud Jeffries as Mariamne, perhaps the physical labour might have been a little too apparent, but nevertheless it was a fine emotional performance, deserving of all praise. Indeed, the acting throughout the play was of a high order. Herod revealed to us that England has once more THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 537 a poet-dramatist, and it could not have fallen into better hands for a sympathetic interpretation than those of the manager of His Majesty's. From the first scene, in which the Jewish monarch was seated on the throne, looking like an embodiment of one of the stone figures in the Assyrian Room of the British Museum, Sphinx-like of face, clad in all the costly splendour of the East, and surrounded by all its barbaric gorgeousness, Roman, Syrian, Egyptian, Semitic, one's imagination was trans- ported to ancient Asia. Before us, through the marble columns of Herod's palace, lay Jerusalem with its tower- ing hills, now in the glare of noontide, now in the ruddy glow of evening, now in the glittering silvery moonlight, while up from the streets of David's city, through the silence of the night, rose strains of sweet music, until the moon sank and the stars faded in the roseate streamers that heralded the coming of the sun. This noble play opened the twentieth century as a promise of good omen. Twelfth Night was the piece de resistance of the following year, and within the scope it allowed, was as finely staged as Herod. Nothing could exceed in truth and beauty the picture of Olivia's garden, no such garden had ever been seen before upon the stage of a theatre. Here, again, the atmosphere of the serious scenes was steeped in poetry and in music, " the food of love " ; the delicious melodies were exquisitely rendered by Courtice Pounds, and the acting was admirable ; Lily Brayton's Viola, if not the Viola of Ellen Terry, was full of fervid passion, and created an excellent impression ; Maud Jeffries was a charming Olivia. A little more restraint in the comic scenes would have been preferable, but they were carried through with an exuberance of high spirits that it was impossible to resist. It was the finest production of the comedy ever put before an audience. 538 THE LONDON STAGE As a stage manager, Beerbohm Tree is pre-eminent ; like Irving, he has the power of impregnating every actor and every subordinate with his own conception, and infusing into them his own energy ; thus his every production is a harmony, in which every note is exactly balanced, so as to combine in a perfect ensemble. And now and again there bursts out an original touch that flashes upon the observer like an inspiration ; such as when, after the hilarious gaiety of the dance at the close of Twelfth Night, the clown is left upon the stage footing it to the music of his own pipe, as the curtain falls. The stage manager of the old days would have been horrified at what he would have denounced as an anti-climax. But the new idea was right ; it was a return to the keynote of the comedy ; it was like the sweet repose that comes to us after a joyous summer's day, and we sit in the waning light and muse over the pleasures past. It was a fine stroke of art. The same trick, if you like to call it so, was repeated with a vari- ation in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where, after Anne Page and the uproarious crew had disappeared, Falstaff and a tiny imp were left alone in the moonlight. The absolute success of a play frequently turns upon some little touch that seizes upon the public, and who can tell how much of the success of these two comedies was owing to the unconventional ending, and in the latter to that hilarious dance, brimming over with fun, in which, linked hand in hand, all the characters tripped again and again in and out before the curtain. It raised the delight of the audience to fever heat. In 1902, another play by Stephen Phillips, Ulysses, which gave even more scope for stage effect than Herod ; Calypso's isle was a dream of paradise, and the scenes in Hades have never been approached in terror, unless THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 539 by similar scenes in Dante, than which it was more con- vincing ; the Hall at Ithaca was a marvellous picture, both from the scenic and the histrionic point of view. Of the remaining plays produced by Mr. Tree, The Last of the Dandies, poor work superbly rendered, and The Eternal City, to which the same judgment applies, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Resurrection are the most noteworthy. Shakespeare's comedy, thanks to the combination of Mrs. Kendal and Ellen Terry, was the greatest of all the successes. Mrs. Kendal was admir- able and in her best form, while her companion was the Ellen Terry of the old days, brimming over with animal spirits, fascinating, beautiful, irresistible. Tolstoi's gloomy and repulsive theme owed much of its success to the great acting of Lena Ashwell. The six years' chronicle of the productions of His Majesty's Theatre, each one of which would be a record for a season, is quite unique in these days of long runs ; the magnitude of the labour they imposed upon the directing mind must have been enormous. London can boast to-day of more handsomely ap- pointed theatres than can any other capital in the world, not excepting Paris and New York. Though in certain arrangements in the auditorium for the comfort of the audience the latter may be in advance, in the staging of plays we are easily first. But the playhouse, after all, is only the husk, the play and the actor are the thing ! We have many good actors and actresses among us still, but, as in literature and in art, the tendency to a dead level of cleverness, as opposed to greatness, is constantly increasing. We look round in vain for successors to Irving, Wyndham, 540 THE LONDON STAGE Ellen Terry, for that individuality which raises certain artistes out of the crowd. In the drama I cannot see the successors to Pinero, to H. A. Jones, and to three or four others I might name, whose productiveness must wane in time. Yes, there is Barrie, who has great possibilities, and Stephen Phillips ; but then Phillips is a poet, consequently his productions are restricted, and would be acceptable only at three or four theatres at the most. I know that of these remarks it will be said that writers upon the stage have in all generations, as every famous actor was nearing the end of his or her career, been given to shaking their heads and croaking, " The art of acting will die with them." Yet the man has come when the hour has struck, and the stage has gone on much as before. And so I suppose it will be again, at least let us hope so. It is disquieting, however, to every lover of the drama that each year more and more theatres are given up to variety shows and to mere buffoonery. Even Wyndham's recently went over to farce, and the Criterion is everything by turns and nothing long. The Garrick under its present manager, and the Duke of York's during several seasons have adhered to good- class work, but a change of managers may at any time send these houses over to the majority, so that the St. James's, His Majesty's, and the Haymarket, which, however, has pandered too much to Mrs. Grundy and mawkish sentimentalism of late, are the only firmly estab- lished legitimate theatres in the metropolis. The opening of a number of handsome suburban theatres, that in decorations, stage appointments, and everything appertaining to stage art can hold their own against most of the houses of Central London, and seat THE WEST END THEATRES OF TO-DAY 541 the public at less than half their prices, is a startling new departure in things theatrical. It was feared at first that they would have a very damaging effect upon the finances of the West End theatres. I think it was Sir Henry Irving who expressed himself quite cheerfully upon this point by his belief that they would create new audiences, out of people whom the higher tariff and the fatigue and expense of the journey from the suburbs had hitherto kept out of the theatres, that they would prove a sort of school for the theatrical education of the suburbans, which would ultimately lead them to the fountain-head of the art. And I think this view is proving to be a correct one. As long as the theatre is simply a business specula- tion, so long must it be conducted upon purely business lines, and its customers must be provided with what they want, and not with what they ought to have. What then about a subsidised theatre? If a theatre be sup- ported by a public grant, that grant must come out of the public purse, and every taxpayer would think that he had a right to have his say about the conduct of the establishment. Now, as we should have all the Puritan element of the country dead against the subsidy, imagine the fate of the subsidised theatre. It would be the dead- liest of failures ; instead of raising dramatic art it would lower it to the depths of inanity, as it would fall under the dictation of Philistinism. Shakespeare would have to be emasculated even more than he is now ; every play produced would have to be written for "the young person," as she is supposed to be, and if there were any derelictions from the seventh commandment, pater familias would storm the newspapers with protests against the public money being used to promote im- morality. We have only to remember the storm that 542 THE LONDON STAGE was raised by certain plays of Pinero's and Jones's to realise what the attitude of a large section of Britishers would be ; possibly it would rouse another passive re- sistance movement, the Nonconformist conscience is so very sensitive to money. Well, the manager, as a public servant, would have to succumb, and the National Theatre would be converted into an institution for the dramatisation of the works of the Religious Tract Society. No, no national theatre is possible in this country until it is purged of Puritanism, and that de- sideratum is not likely to be realised until the Greek Kalends. THE NEW GAIETY was opened on October 26th, 1903, with The Orchid, a piece of the usual Gaiety pattern. It is a handsome house, constructed up to the latest im- provements, with a stage eighty feet wide and forty feet deep. When on Lyceum first nights people began to gather about the doors at nine a.m., it was considered to be a record. But the earliest first-nighter arrived at the Gaiety at five a.m., and all day long, under the pitiless rain, the crowd was swelling until it reached the church, and hundreds, after hours of patient endurance, could not obtain admission. Another record was the presence of the King and Queen. Royalty scarcely ever honours a premiere by its presence. NOTES TIME after time the old error, that has been fostered from the days of Junius, that the actor was by law a rogue and a vagabond, is raked up by some enemy of the stage. During the present year there has been a long controversy in the columns of a daily newspaper upon this subject. Let me endeavour to state the case. I will begin with the much mis- understood statutes of Elizabeth and James, for the interpreta- tion of which I shall once more quote the dialogue between Lovewit and Trueman in Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699): " LOVE. After all, I have been told that stage-plays are inconsistent with the laws of this kingdom, and players made rogues by statute. TRUE. He that told you so strained a point of truth. I never met with any law wholly to suppress them ; sometimes, indeed, they have been prohibited for a season, as in times of Lent, general mourning, or public calami- ties, or upon other occasions when the Government saw fit Thus, by proclamation, 7th of April, in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, plays and interludes were forbid until All Hallow- tide next following. (Hollinshed, p. 1184.) Some statutes have been made for their regulation or information, not general suppression. By the stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 4, 2 (which was made for the suppression of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars), it is enacted : ' That all persons that be, or utter themselves to be, proctors, procurers, patent gatherers , or collectors for gaols, prisons, or hospitals, or fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes and minstrels wandering abroad (other than players of interludes belonging to any baron of this realm, or any other honorable personage of greater degree, to be authorised to play under the hand and seal of arms of such baron or personage), all juglers, tinkers, pedlars, and petty chapmen wandering abroad, all wander- ing persons, &c., able in body, using loytering, and refusing to 543 544 THE LONDON STAGE work for such reasonable wages as is commonly given, &c. These shall be adjudged and deemed rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and punished as such' "LOVE. But this privilege of authorizing or licensing is taken away by the stat. Jas. I. ch. 7, s. i, and, therefore, all of them, as Mr. Collier 1 says, p. 242, are expressly brought under the aforesaid penalty without distinction." "TRUE. If he means all players, without distinction, 'tis a great mistake. For the force of the Queen's statute extends only to wandering players, and not to such as are the King's or Queen's servants, and established in settled houses by royal authority. On such the ill character of vagrant players (or, as they are now called, strollers) can cast no more aspersion than the wandering proctors in the same statute mentioned on those of Doctor's Commons. By a stat. made 3 Jac. s. i, ch. 21, it was enacted: ' That if any person shall, in any stage-play, interlude, shew, may- game or pageant, jestingly or prophanely speak or use the holy name of God, Christ Jesus, or of the Trinity, he shall forfeit for every such offence 10.' The stat. i Charles I. ch. i, s. 2, enacts : * That no meetings, assemblies, or concourse of people shall be out of their own parishes on the Lord's Day, for any sport or pastime whatsoever, nor any bear-baiting, bull-baiting, interludes, common plays, or other unlawful exercises and pastimes used by any person or persons within their own parishes'. These are all the statutes that I can think of relating to the stage and players ; but nothing to suppress them totally till the two ordinances of the Long Parliament, one of the 22nd October, 1647, tne other of the nth (9th) of February, 1647, by which all stage-plays and interludes are absolutely forbid, the stages, seats, galleries, etc., to be pulled down ; all players, though calling themselves the King's or Queen's servants, if convicted of acting two months before such conviction, to be punished as rogues accord- ing to the law ; the money received by them to go to the poor of the parish ; and every spectator to pay five shillings to the use of the poor. Also cock-fighting was prohibited by one of Oliver's Acts of 3ist March, 1654. But I suppose nobody pretends these things to be laws." From this we gather that it was only the Puritans who de- nounced the theatrical profession as unlawful ; but as their views 1 Short View of the Immorality and Prof aneness of the English Stage. See p. 54. NOTE 545 were precisely the same in regard to the fine arts and recrea- tion of any kind, they certainly cannot be quoted against the actor any more than they can against painters and poets, all of whom were equally obnoxious in the eyes of these miserable fanatics. There was no further legislation affecting the actor's legal position until the passing of the Licensing Act in 1/41. But here, again, the licensed actor was still recognised as an honourable member of society, the players of the patent theatres were still His Majesty's servants, and the players of Drury Lane were still a portion of the Royal Household, being yearly allowed so much scarlet cloth for vestment as gentlemen of the King's chamber, a custom that had begun under Charles II., 1 and did not fall into desuetude until after Garrick's time. Baddeley, the original Moses in The School for Scandal, was, I believe, the last actor who wore the royal livery. The new Licensing Act of 1843 made no radical alteration in the social standing of the theatrical profession ; it simply legalised as many theatres as the Lord Chamberlain chose to license ; but any company playing without such authority or a magis- trate's licence, in the eyes of the law, are rogues and vagabonds. 2 The following contrast between the actors and audiences of the early and late years of the eighteenth century, is from the reminiscences of Charles Macklin (Kirkman's life of): " The players in the earlier decades all lived in the neighbour- hood of the two theatres ; Quin, Booth, and Wilks lived almost constantly in Bow Street ; Colley Cibber in Charles Street ; Mrs. Pritchard and Billy Havard in Henrietta Street ; Garrick a greater part of his life in Southampton Street ; and the inferior players lodged in Little Russell Street, Vinegar Yard, and the little courts and streets about the Garden. So that all could be mustered to rehearsal by beat of drum, as might be said, and the expense of coach-hire be saved. But now," said the veteran, speaking at the close of the century, " we are strangely altered, we are all looking forward to squares and great streets, high ground and genteel neighbourhoods, no matter how far distant from the theatre, which should be always the great scene of 1 See p. 48. 2 The first royal patent was granted by Elizabeth to Leicester James Burbage was one of his players and it was under this licence that the first theatre was built. 2 N 546 THE LONDON STAGE business. The audience then had also their different situations ; a vulgar person was scarcely ever seen in the pit, and very few females frequented that part of the house. It was filled by young merchants of rising eminence ; barristers and students of the Inns of Court, who were generally well read in plays, and whose judgment was worth attending to. There were very few disturbances in the house ; the gravity and good sense of the pit not only kept the audience in order, but the players also. None but people of independent fortune and avowed rank ever presumed to go into the boxes ; all the lower part of the house was sacred to virtue and decorum ; no man sat covered in a box, nor stood up during the performance. The women of the town who frequented the theatre were then few in number, except in the galleries, and those few occupied two or three upper boxes on each side of the house." ADDENDUM TO COVENT GARDEN (p. 208) The new Opera House was opened in the midst of La Traviata rage, and Bosio at Covent Garden was no despicable rival to Piccolomini at Her Majesty's. During several years the Pyne and Harrison company occupied the theatre in the off seasons. Grisi took her farewell in 1861 ; Faust was pro- duced in 1863. Covent Garden was turned into a company in 1865, but was under the direction of Mapleson in the following year. The two impresarii were partners in 1869. 1872 wit- nessed the production of *the famous spectacle, Babil and Bijou , under Boucicault. After Gye's death, in 1878, the fortunes of the house were desperate " The Royal English Opera," Salvini, then a circus ! Lower still, William Holland, of Woolwich Gardens!! Mapleson came to the rescue in 1885; Halud in 1889. During the nineties there were pantomimes, and dramas were on one or two occasions transferred from Drury Lane at Christmas. INDEX Abmgton, Mrs., 77, 81 Actors of the Elizabethan stage, their social position ; the " rogue and vagabond" question, 21 and note at the end of the volume, 543-6 : under the Commonwealth, 30-5 Actress, first English, 19, 37, 38 Adelphi Theatre, 4 13-38: first called the Sans Pareil, 413 : early style of entertainment; Miss Scott,4i4-i5 : John Reeve ; Jones and Rodwell, managers, 415 : theatre renamed Adelphi, 416 : Keeley, Mrs. Way- lett ; production of Tom and Jerry ; extraordinary sensation, 416-19 : its successors, 419, 420 : Terry and Yates, managers ; T. P. Cooke in The Pilot; description of his acting, 420-2 : Yates's famous characters, 423 : Yates and "Jim Crow," 423-4 : Mrs. Yates, Madame Celeste, and Edward Wright, 424, 425 : Paul Bedford \Jack Sheppard,^ : Celeste and Webster management ; "the Adelphi Drama"; Celeste in Green Bushes, Flowers of the Forest, 427-8 : O'Smith, his acting as Grampus, 429 : Webster's great characters, Triplet, Richard Pride, The Dead Heart, 430-1 ; the New Adelphi, 431 : The Colleen Bawn, The Octoroon; Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault, 432-3 : Avonia Jones ; Kate Bateman in Leah, 433"34 : Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle; FechterinTVt? Thorough- fare, Monte Cristo, 434 : Chat- terton, manager ; Carl Rosa com- pany ; Proof, The Shaughraun; the Gatti regime, 435 : Pettit's and Sims's dramas ; William Terriss, 436-7 : house rebuilt as the Century Theatre ; recent productions, 437 Addison, Carlotta, 331 Alexander, George, 301-3,454,470-3, 517 Alexandra Theatre, Highbury Barn, 381 Alhambra as a theatre, 343-4, 437 Alleyn, Edward, 8, 20 Anderson, James, 96, 97, 99 Anderson, Mary, 302, 304 Apollo Theatre, 533-4 Aquarium Theatre (Imperial), 532 Asche, Oscar, 528 Ashwell, Lena, 510, 539 Astley's Amphitheatre, 384-9 : story of Philip Astley, 384 : how he built the " Royal Grove," 385 : Astley, junr. ; Davis's Amphitheatre ; Du- crow ; " Christopher North " de- scribes his pantomime, 386-7 : anecdotes of Ducrow ; burning of the theatre ; Batty, Cooke, 388 : Dion Boucicault renames it the Theatre Royal, Westminster ; Ada Isaac Menken, 389 Audiences, of the Elizabethan thea- tres, 1 8, 19, 27 : of the Restoration, 41, 42 : ^o?t]hue_ejghteenth century, 1SLH.: of Sity years ago, 235 Avenue Theatre, the, 516-18 B Baddeley, 77, 81 Balfe, 286 Ballet and ballet dancers. See the Great Haymarket Theatre Bancroft, Squire, 240-1, 319, 321, 430 Bancroft, Mrs., 239-41. See also Wilton, Marie Barrett, Wilson, 273, 333, 437, 494-6, 503, 515, 524-5 Barne, J. M., his plays, 244, 337, 5", 540 Barry, Mrs. Ann, 54, 57, 70, 144 Barry, Shiel, 336 547 548 INDEX Barry, Spranger (and Mrs.), 74, 75, 77, 115, 117, 120 Bateman, H. L., Isabel, and Kate, 297-9, 375, 433-4 Bear Garden, 8, 9 Bedford, Paul, 426, 428, 431, 475 Beefsteak Club, 309-10 Beere, Mrs. Bernard, 241, 331-2, 335, 508, 526 Beggars Opera, 112, 114, 233 Behn, Aphra ; her plays, 40 Bellamy, George Anne, 115 Bellew, Kyrle, 242, 437, 519, 530 Belmore, George, 326, 434 Bernhardt, Sarah, 207, 304, 339, 345, 437 403-4 Betterton, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 146 Betty, Master, 125-6 Black-Eyed Susan, 392-3 Blackfriars Theatre, 8, n, 12, 13, 18, 19,22: picture of a play-day at, 26-9 Bland, James, 446, 460 Booth, Barton, 61, 63, 147 Booth, Edwin, 235, 301, 436, 494 Booth, Junius Brutus, 90 Boucicault, Mr. and Mrs., 101, 145, 161, 389, 429, 432, 433, 435, 492, 503 Bourchier, Mr. and Mrs., 58 (note), 454, 508, 509, 528 Bower Saloon, 400 Bracegirdle, Mrs., 54, 57 Braham, John, 362, 456-9 Bray ton, Lily, 537 Britannia Theatre, 379-80 Brooke, Gustavus, 100, 266-7 Brough, Fanny, 467, 517 Brough, Lionel, 466, 514, 519, 530 Buchanan, Robert, 436, 500 Buckstone, 232, 234, 381, 427, 428 Bunn, 95, 98 Burbage, James and Richard, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 20, 21 Burlesque, history of, 213-14, 447 Burnand, 344, 353 Byron, H. J., 318-20, 329-30, 336, 339, 444-8, 503, 506 Cameron, Violet, 336, 449, 514 Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 306, 454-5, 470-1,511,518,521,527 Carr, Comyns, 307, 331, 436, 469, 514 Carton, 470, 517 Cavendish, Ada, 272, 453, 467, 500, 519 Cecil, Arthur, 503-5 Celeste, Madame, 101, 231, 294, 315, 424, 426-8, 431, 435 Chambers, Haddon, 435-6, 470-1, 509 Charing Cross Theatre. See Toole's Chatterton, F. B., 101, 102, 434-5, 493 Children of Paul's, of Chapel Royal, of the Revels, 12, 13, 39 Churchill's Rosciad, in, 117, 120 Gibber, Colley, 45, 48, 49, 5, 5*, 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63 Gibber, Mrs., 74, 75, 77, 117, 148 Gibber, Theophilus, 63, 216-17 City of London Theatre (Norton Folgate), 407, 408 City Theatre, Grub Street, 404-6 Clarke, " Johnny," 319, 446-7 Clarke, J. S., 239, 336, 448, 466 Clayton, 327, 466, 467, 503, 504 Clive, Kitty, 74 Coates, " Romeo," 227-8 Cobourg Theatre. See Victoria CockpitTheatres,Phcenixand,(Drury Lane), 15, 16, 18, 33, 36, 37 : White- hall, 1 6 Coghlan, Charles, 322, 324 Collier, Jeremy, 54 Collins, Wilkie, 272, 436 Colman, George, the elder, 118-19, 222, 224-5, 229 Colman the younger, 155, 225 228 Comedie Franchise (in London), 334, 339 Comedy Theatre, La Mascotte, Rip Van Winkle (opera) ; Beerbohm Tree's management ; The Red Lamp, The Benefit of the Doubt, Sowing the Wind, M. Beaucaire, 3M-i6 Compton, 233, 280, 331, 443 Congreve, 54, 58, 113, 114, 154, 162 Conquest, George, 378, 396 Cooke, George Frederick, 123-5 Cooke, T. P., 278, 284, 365/393, 420-2 Court Theatre ; The Happy Land; Hare and Kendal management ; Clayton and Cecil ; The Magis- trate, 501-5 Covent Garden, 113-46: built by John Rich; his eccentricities, 114- 18 : John Beard; Colman and Harris, managers, 118-19: She Stoops to Conquer, 119 : Macklin's farewell, 120 : the Master Betty INDEX 549 craze, 125 : theatre burned down, 126: description of old house, 127-8: rebuilt, 128: O. P. riots; a quadruple company, 129: Mrs. Siddons's farewell, 130 : debut of Miss O'Neill, 131 : of Macready, 132: Kemble's farewell, 133: Charles Kemble's management and revival of King John, 135 : Fanny Kemble's debut, 136: Charles Young's farewell, 137: Kean's last appearance ; vari- ous managers, 138: disastrous condition of the stage, 139-40 : Helen Faucit appears, 141 : the Macready management, 142-3 : Madame Vestris, lessee, 144 : Jullien's concerts, 145 : theatre converted into an opera house ; burned down, 146 : rebuilt ; debuts of famous singers, Patti, Lucca ; amalgamation of the two operas, 208 : Augustus Harris as im- presario; his great reforms; pro- duction of Die Meistersinger; Melba, Calvd, De Reszkes, 209- 10 : production of Faust j Pyne and Harrison company ; Grisi's farewell ; Babil and Bijou; turned into a circus, etc., 546 Ores wick, Wm., 370, 395, 493 Criterion Theatre ; Henderson's and Wyndham's management ; famous plays produced there, 506-9 Curtain Theatre, 4, 7 Cushman, Charlotte, 476-83 D Davenant, Sir William, 36-8, 45, 50, 146 Davenant, Charles, 47, 50-2 Davidge, 392~5> 45 Davis, Fay, 471, 528 Dibdins, the, 157, 313, 346, 364, 389-90 Dickens, Charles, 272, 288, 331, 339, 407, 431, 442, 443, 446 Dillon, Charles, 292-4, 493 Dodd,77, 8 1 "Dog stars," 86, 316-17, 360, 391 "Dog" Hamlet, 316 Dogget, 54, 6 1 Dorset Gardens Theatre, 38, 39 Douglass, John and Richard, 403 Dowton, 91 Dramatic literature and authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 40, 41, 48, 59 : of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- turies, 153-61 Drury Lane, 45-106 : the first build- ing as described by contempor- aries, 45-6 : the actors ; their social position, 47, 48 : burned down ; the second theatre, 49 : famous actors, 50-1 : union of the King's and the Duke's companies ; Christopher Rich, patentee, 52 : revolt of the actors, 53 : corruption of the stage, 54 : Collier's management; some great companies, 56-7 : dramatic annals of the period, 58-9 : the famous Triumvirate, 59-61 : Highmore and Fleetwood, 63 : Garrick's ddbut, 71 : a riot, 72: sale of patent to Lacy and Garrick, 73 : Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in Macbeth, 74-5 : riot over French dancers, 76 : Garrick's celebrated characters ; Harry Woodward re- tires ; Garrick's enlargement of theatre ; plays in France, 76 : his return to Drury Lane, 77 : salaries under Garrick, 78-9 : Mrs. Siddons appears, 79 : Garrick's farewell, 80 : Sheridan succeeds him ; how he obtained the patent ; the School for Scandal ; Baddeley's cake, 81 : Mrs. Siddons's rentree; her Lady Macbeth ; debut of Dora Jordan, 82 : demolition of Wren's theatre ; the new house ; description of it ; Sheridan's scandalous manage- ment and his productions, 83-5 : burning of the third theatre, 86 : story of the patent ; the new theatre, 87 : failure ; Edmund Kean revives the fortunes of the house, 88 : his successes and wonderful acting, 89 : his contest with Booth, 90 : Elliston, lessee ; he remodels the house, 9 1 : Elliston bankrupt,92 : Stephen Price,lessee ; Charles Kean's ddbut, 93 : Alex- ander Lee, Polhill, Bunn, Ham- mond, lessees ; Van Amburg ; opera ; promenade concerts, 95-6 : Macready, manager ; his com- pany, productions, and reforms, 96-8 : Bunn's second management, 98 : James Anderson ; Macready's farewell, 99 : various managers ; 55 INDEX E. T. Smith ; Uncle Tom's Cabin', Italian opera, 100 : Boucicault, Falconer ; Manfred, lor : Chat- terton's regime ; productions and companies, 102 : Augustus Harris ; how he became lessee, 103-4 : dramas ; Italian opera ; death of Harris, 105 : the present manage- ment, 106 Dryden, 37-9, 4, 49> 52, 58 Ducrow, 386-8 E Eastlake, Miss, 496 Edouin, Willie, 430, 521 Edwin, 224 Effingham Saloon, East London, 409 Egan, Pierce ( Tom and 'Jerry\ 416-19 Elephant and Castle Theatre, 400 Elizabethan and Stuart Theatres, actors, prices of admission, music, scenery, audiences, acting, 17-29 Elliston, R. W., 91-3, 226, 255-7, 283, 392-4 Emery, John and Samuel, 8, 296, 331 Emery, Winifred (Mrs. Maude), 244, 499, 5H Empire as a theatre, 344-5 English Opera House (Cambridge circus) ; Sullivan's Ivanhoe, 345-6 Esmond, H. V., 335, 473> 5 2 9 Fairbrother, Miss, 288 Falconer, Edmund, 101, 294-5, 432 Farquhar, 58, 60 Farren, Miss, 83 Farren, Nelly, 338, 341-2 Farren, William, 230-4, 268-9, 443~4 Farren, Wm., junr., 45> 499> 5> 530 Faucit, Helen, 140-2, 231-2, 268, 293> 534 Featherstone, Miss (Mrs. Howard Paul), 233 Fechter, Charles, 295-7, 434, 435, 490-2 Fenton, Lavinia, 112 Fernandez, James, 243 Fielding, Henry, 66, 213-14 Fitzwilliam, Mrs., 288, 314-18, 381, 420, 427, 428, 431 Fleetwood, Charles, 63, 71-3 Folly Theatre. See Toole's Foote, Maria, 132-6 Foote, Samuel, 218-19, 221, 229 Footlights introduced, 127 Forrest, Edwin, 476-80 Fortune Theatre, 8, 14, 15, 17 Freer, Louie, 451-4, 529 Gaiety Theatre, 338-42 ; Sarah Bern- hardt, Nelly Farren ; various pro- ductions ; last night of the old house, etc. ; the New Gaiety, 542 Garrick, David, 65-80, 116-17, 120, 147, 151 Garrick Theatre, Leman Street, 406 Garrick Theatre, St. Martin's ; actors, managers, and productions, 526-8 Giffard, H., 63-9 Gilbert, W. S., 239, 470, 502-3 Gilbert and Sullivan operas, 334-5, 512-14, 519 Globe Theatre (Bankside) 8,.n, 13, 14, 17, 19 Globe Theatre, Newcastle Street ; actors, managers, plays, 330-4 Glover, Mrs., 91, 123, 230, 283, 443-4, 460 Goldsmith, Oliver, 155 Goodman's Fields Theatre, 63-8, 71 Goodwin, Nat, 342, 510 Grand Theatre, Islington, 382 Grecian Saloon and Theatre, 376-8 Greenwich Theatre, 400 Grimaldi, Joe, 93, 94, 363-8 Grundy, Sydney, 496, 514 Gwynne, Nell, 47 H Hammond, James, 440-2 Happy Land, The, 502 Hare, John, 321, 333, 467, 503, 505, 509, 526, 527 Harley, 91, 289, 488 Harris, Augustus, 103-5, 209-10 Hart, 31-2, 47, 50-1 Hawtrey, Charles, 332, 505, 514-18 Haymarket Opera House, 163-210: description of first theatre, 163 : opened as a dramatic house ; first opera performed in this country, 164 : early operas, 165, 166 : Han- del's first opera; Nicolini, 166 : Mrs. Tofts, Margarite L'Epine, Cuzzoni, Faustina, 169 : Buonon- cini, 168: Farinelli, 171 : Senesino, Caffarelli, Anastasia Robinson ; Gliick's Orfeoj Artaxerxes, 172: INDEX 55 1 burning of the theatre ; opera at tho Pantheon, 173 : the Opera House and its usages in the eighteenth century ; the New Theatre, 175 : Mara, Banti, Grassini, Mrs. Billington, 176: Braham, Catalini, 1 7 7, 1 78 : Goold's and Taylor's management, 179 : the opera under Ebers ; wretched condition of the theatre, 181 : introduction of Mozart's operas; Pasta, Camporese, Madame Fodor, Ambrogetti, Crivelli, 182: Garcia; Rossini's operas ; Velluti, the last male soprano ; Meyerbeer, 183 : Pasta, 184, 185 : Sontag, 185 : Malibran, Lablache, Rubini, 186: Tamburini, Adelaide Kemble, Grisi, Mario, Persiani, 187 : the omnibus box riot ; Ronconi ; Lum- ley, manager, 188 : "la vieille garde," 189 : Jenny Lind's de"but ; the excitement she created, 190 : her retirement, 191 : Cruvelli, Sims Reeves, Catherine Hayes ; first production of Fidelio, 191 : Titiens, Giuglini, 192 : E. T. Smith, manager, 193 : Christine Nilsson ; Falconer's Oonagh ; theatre burned down, 194 : the opera ballet ; Mdlle. Salld, 195 : Mdlle. Guimard, 196: Albert, Noblet ; their enormous popularity, 197 : ballet overshadows opera, 198-9 : Taglioni and Fanny Elssler, 200 : Cerito, Dumilatre, Carlotta Grisi, Lola Montez, 201 : the Viennoise children; Lucille Grahn, 202 : the story of the famous Pas de Quatre; its wonder- ful success, 204-5 : the last of the opera ballets ; Rosati, 205 : Perea Nena, 205-6 : Madame Dor, Adelina Rossi, 206 : rebuilding of Her Majesty's, 206 : Etelka Gerster and rentree of Tamberlik, 206-7 ' vicissitudes of the theatre ; its demolition, 207. For further notes on opera, see page 546 Haymarket Theatre, the ; early history, 211-12: Fielding, manager; his burlesques, 213-14 : riots about a French company, 215: Samuel Foote ; his "Tea," 218: mimicry, 219 : the bottle conjurer riot, 220 : Foote's management; his farces, 221 : obtains a patent, 222 : Col- man reconstructs the theatre, 222 : Shuter, a follower of Whitefield, 223 : Weston, Quick, Edwin, Hen- derson, Miss Farren, 224 : a terrible disaster ; a great company, 225-6 : first appearance of Elliston, Mathews, Liston ; the tailors' riot, 226 : dbut of Charles Young ; " Romeo " Coates ; a ludicrous scene, 227-8 : Morris pulls down the old theatre and rebuilds ; his famous company, 229 : Paul Pry j Mrs. Glover as Falstaff; Ion, 230: Webster, manager ; his - company, 231 : Phelp's ddbut, 231 : remark- able plays produced ; ddbut of Barry Sullivan ; Buckstone, man- ager, 232 : Miss Featherstone as Captain Macheath ; J. L. Toole ; Compton's Shakespearian clowns, 233 : Perea Nena, Amy Sedgwick, 234 : the audiences fifty years ago; Edwin Booth, 235 : Sothern and Lord Dundreary, 236-7 : David Garrick produced ; Madame Beatrice, Madge Robertson, 238 : Gilbert's fairy comedies ; J. S . Clarke, manager ; Adelaide Neil- son, 239 : theatre reconstructed ; the Bancroft management ; a stormy beginning, 240-1 : retire- ment of the Bancrofts ; Russell and Bashford succeed, 242 : Emily Rigl and Nadjesda; Beerbohm Tree's rdgime ; his productions and actors, 243-4 : the Harrison and Cyril Maude management, 244 Henderson, John, 81, 120-5 Henslowe, Philip, 8, 23 Herbert, Miss, 269, 465-6 Hicks, "Brayvo," 3 54, 398 Hicks, Mr. and Mrs., 501 His Majesty's Theatre ; the building ; Mr. Beerbohm Tree ; Mr. Tree as stage manager ; productions, 535-9 Histrionic art from Betterton to Macready, 146-52 : of the present day, 539-42 Hodson, Henrietta, 329, 438, 453 Holborn Amphitheatre, 327 Holborn Theatre, 326-7 Hollingshead, John, 327, 338, 340-2 Honey, George, 321, 498 55 2 INDEX Honey, Mrs., 230, 3 14-1 7, 369, 407, 459-60 Hope Theatre, 8 Homer, Mrs., 354, 407 Horton, Miss P., 96, 441, 457 Hughes, Annie, 505, 517, 521 I Ibsen, 501, 519, 531 Imperial Theatre, 532-3 Incledon, Charles, 122 Irving, Henry, 106, 157, 297-9, 300-9, 3.28, 339, 342, 466, 488, 491-8 Irving, H. B., 527-9 James, David, 335, 447, 498-9, 58 Jefferson, Joseph, 434, 494 Jeffries, Maud, 536-7 Jerrold, Douglas, 392-5, 440-1 Jones, H. A., 243, 471, 494, 500, 509, 517, 519, 527, 529 Jordan, Mrs., 82, 87, 151 Jullien, 95, 96 K Kean, Charles, 93, 98, 483-9 Kean, Edmund, 88-9, 90, 135-8, 149, 230, 255, 346, 364, 398, 405, 534 Kean, Mrs. Charles, 92, 93, 489 Keeley, Mrs., 96, 264, 284-8, 426, 483 Keeley, Robert, 264, 416-17, 483 Kelly, Fanny, 276-7, 283, 440, 450-1 Kelly, Hugh, 155 Kemble, Charles, 83, 134-6, 145 Kemble, Fanny, 93, 136, 144 Kemble, John Philip, 82, 85, 125, : 33-5, i4o-9 151 Kendal, Mr. and Mrs. (see also Madge Robertson), 467-9,472, 503, 5*7, 539 Killigrew, Thomas, 45, 51, 146 King, Tom, 8r, 85 King's Cross Theatre, 381 Kitty Grey at Apollo, 533 Knowles, Sheridan, 158-9 Kynaston, 38, 51,57, 158-9 Lacey, 47 Lacy, James, 73, 84 Lacy, Walter, 160, 444, 485 Lane, Mrs., 354, 380 Langtry, Mrs., 470, 496, 508, 520, 530-4 Leclercq, Carlotta, 296, 434 Leclercq, Rose, 243, 500 Lee, Alexander, 95 Lee, Nat, 58 Lee, Jenny ("Jo"), 33 I ~5, 53 2 Lemaitre, Frederick, 285, 462 Leslie, Fred, 341-2, 514-16 Lewis, Charles, 119 Lewis, " Monk," 86 Licensing Act of 1737^ 67 Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, 37, 38, 41,45,47, 53,54, 55, 64: the first pantomimes ; John Rich, 108-10 : a great riot, in : how soldiers came to be posted at the patent theatres, 112: The Beggars Opera; final closing of theatre, 113 Linden, Laura, 526 Listen, John, 88, 226 Litton, Marie, 501, 530 Lowin, 13, 31, 32 Lun. See Rich, John Lyceum, the, and English Opera House ; its origin ; rebuilt as a theatre by Dr. Arnold ; the Society of Artists, 274 : first home of Madame Tussaud's waxworks/-; licensed as a theatre ; ballad operas, . 275 : the new theatre, description, of, and opening, 276 : Fanny Kelly, her famous characters ; anecdotes of her, 277 :. T. P. Cooke in The Vampire; bad business, 278: Mathews at Home'', copy of the first bill, 279-80 : Mathews's won- derful power of mimicry, 281 : anecdotes of him, 282 : Elliston and the minor managers ; anec- dotes of, 283 : Mrs. Glover as Hamlet, Miss f Kelly as Meg Merrilies, ' Listen, and Madame Vestris, 283 : T. P. Cooke as the Monster and Zamiel ; first appear- ance of Miss Coward (Mrs. Keeley) ; O'Smith as the Bottle Imp ; burning of the theatre, 284: the new theatre ; The Mountain Sylph; Frederick Lemaitre, 285 : the first promenade concerts ; de'butofCompton; Balfe's manage- ment, 286 : Jullien's concerts ; Vestris, Mrs. Waylett ; wild beast show ; the Gnome Fly ; Theatre Royal Lyceum ; Harvey Tuckett, 287 : the Keeley management ; dramatisations of Dickens ; some INDEX 553 famous actors ; Madame Vestris succeeds ; her company, 288 : Planche's burlesques ; 'the first transformation, scene, 289 : anec- dotes of Charles Mathews, 290-2 : Charles Dillon, manager ; his famous characters ; anecdotes of him, 292-4 : Pyne and Harrison ; opera ; Ristpri, 293 : stalls estab- lished ;Edmund Falconer; Madame Celeste's management ; Italian opera, 294-5 : Peep o' Day Boys ; Charles Fechter revolutionises the stage, 295 : his productions ; his acting ; E. T. Smith ; the Man- sells and Bateman, managers, 297 : Henry Irving ; The Bells, Charles /., Eugene Aram, 298: Richelieu, Hamlet, Macbeth, etc., 299 : Kate Bateman ; Richard III.; de"but of Ellen Terry; Merchant of Venice, Corsican,Brothers, Lpuis XL, etc., 300 : The Cup, Romeo and Jiiliet, Much Ado about Nothing, etc. ; George Alexander's London debut; Edwin Booth as Othello, 30 1 ; Mary Anderson, Lawrence Barrett ; Olivia,$02 : Faust; Mjs. Stirling's farewell, 303 : Sarah Bernhardt in Theodora and La Tosca; Richard Mansfield ; Miss Ander- son ; first performance of Verdi's Otello; Henry VI I L, King Lear, and other plays, -304 : Becket; Charles Reade on Ellen Terry, 305 : anecdotes of; Irving's com- panies ; A Story of Waterloo; Forbes Robertson and Mrs.. Patrick Campbell, 306-7 : Irving's later productions ; he relinquishes the management ; Cpquelin, Wilson Barrett, 307: Lewis Waller; Sher- lock Holmes; final closing of the theatre, 308 Lyric Theatre ; principal productions at, 523-5 Lytton, Bulwer, 160, 296-7 M Macklin, Charles, 64, 74, 119, 120 Macready, W. M., 95-9, 132-4, 150, 231 Marriott, Miss, 375, 389 Marston, Henry, 370-1, 466 Marston, Westland, 160, 232, 297 Marylebone Theatre. See West London Mathews the elder, 226, 279, 280-2, 422-3, 534 Mathews, Charles, 231, 237-8, 260-4, 2 9-2, 338, 340, 423, 466 Matthews, Mr. and Mrs. Frank, 288, 405, 460, 465, 466, 502 Maude, Cyril, 244, 500, 515, 529 Melodrama, 86, 249, 275-8, 316-17, 351-4 Menken, Ada Isaac, 389 Merrit, Paul, 327, 378 Millard, Evelyn, 471-2, 529 Minor theatres, history of, 247-52 : their particular styles of entertain- ment, 351-4 Miracle plays, 3 Miss and Mrs. in playbills, 48 Modjeska, Madame, 494, 503 Mohun, Michael, 36 Montague, H. J., 330, 498 Montgomery, Waiter, 102, 238 Moore, Eva, 472-3 Moore, Mary, 508 Morton, Thomas, 158 Mountford, 37 Murray, Mr. and Mrs. Leigh, 268, 288, 434, 443 N Nautical drama, 364-5 Neilson, Adelaide, 102, 239, 299, 435, 453, 492 Neilson, Julia, 243, 333, 523, 536 Nethersole, Olga, 437, 527, 53^ Neville, Henry, 71, 72, 435, 500 Newington Theatre, 1 1 Nisbett, Mrs., 96, 159, 314-18, 441 Novelty Theatre, Great Queen Street, 6 O'Keefe, 158 Oldfield, Ann, 55, 62, 63 Oliver, " Patty," 446, 453 Olympic, the ; rise of the minor theatres ; their audiences and style ' of entertainment before and after the repeal of the patent monopoly, 247-52 : Philip Astley and the Olympic Pavilion ; how it was built, 252-3: Elliston, manager; rechristened "Little Drury Lane"; a Ittter of Edmund Kean's ; his dispute with Elliston, 255 : curious entertainments ; anecdotes of Ellis- ton, 256-7: various managements, 554 INDEX 257 : Madame Vestris, lessee ; her company, 258 : Planche*'s bur- lesques, 259 : debut of " young " Charles Mathews, 260 : anecdotes | of him, 261: analysis of his acting, | 263-4 : great companies, 264 : Madame Vestris and Mathews marry and visit America, 265 : various managers ; Walter Watts, the forger ; de"but of Gustavus Brooke, 266 : his acting, charac- ter, and death ; theatre burned down, 267 : rebuilt ; George Bolton ; William Farren's manage- ment ; de"but of Robson ; analysis of his acting, 268-71 : Alfred Wigan, manager, 269, 270 : The Yellow Dwarf, Medea, Porter's Knot; Daddy Hardacre, 269 : Emden and Robson, managers ; The Ticket-of-Leave Man; Henry Neville, Kate Terry; The Serf, Henry Dunbar,?.'! \ : Liston, lessee ; Little Etrfly, The Woman in White, 272 : Ada Cavendish ; The New Magdalen', Henry Neville's management ; Clancarty, Two Orphans', various lessees, 272: the theatre rebuilt ; Wilson Barrett opens it ; Eugene Onegin, The Pilgrints Progress ; closing and demolition of the house, 273 O'Neill, Miss, 131-2 Opera Comique, the ; Come'die Frangaise ; the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, 334-5 Opera singers. See the Great Hay- market Theatre Oriental Theatre, Poplar, 409 Otway, Thomas, 41, 217 Osbaldiston, 394-5 O'Smith, 284, 427-31 Palmer, John, 81, 401-3 Pantheon as an opera house, 173-4 Pantomimes, origin of, 108-10 Paris Gardens, 5, 9 Parker, L. N., 529, 536 Parry, John, 458 Patent, the Killigrew and Davenant, 87 Paulton, Harry, 449-50, 514 Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel, 406 Peckham Theatre, 399 Peep o' Day Boys, the, 295 Penley, 332,454, 5M-I9 Pettit, Henry, 378, 436 Phelps, Samuel, 95, 96, 101, 231, 329, 33i 369-74, 493, 532 Philips, Watts, 304, 329, 429-31 Phillips, Stephen, 472, 538, 540 Philharmonic Theatre. See Grand Pinero, Arthur, 241, 331-6, 468, 503-4, 514, 521, 526, 528 Planch^'s extravaganzas, 258, 289 Plays. See authors' names and theatres Porter, Mrs., 55, 62 Potter, Mrs. Brown-, 242, 437 Pounds, Courtice, 521, 537 Prince's Theatre. See Prince of Wales's Prince of Wales's, Tottenham Street ; early history, 311 : called the Regency, 311-25 : the West London, 312 : description of it ; Mdlle. Georges ; famous ballad opera singers, 313 : Mrs. Waylett, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Mrs. Nisbett, etc., managers, 314: ddbut of Madame Celeste ; rechristened the Queen's, 315 : Mrs. Nisbett, Mrs. Honey, etc., managers ; the Fitzroy, renamed the Queen's ; the reign of melodrama ; extra- ordinary titles ; nicknamed the "DustHole,"3i6-i7 : Marie Wilton takes the house ; her first ex- periences of the audience, 318 : rechristened the Prince of Wales's ; production of Society, 319, 320 : Caste, Ours, School; Tom Robert- son and his cult, 321-3: Ellen Terry as Portia, 323 : Sweethearts, 324 : School for Scandal and other productions ; Edgar Bruce, manager ; Forget Me Not, 324 : The Colonel; closing of the theatre, 328 Prince of Wales's, Coventry Street ; sketch of its history, 519-21 Princess's Theatre, 474-97 : early history, 474 : J. W. Wallack in Don CcEsar de Bazan and The Brigand, 476 : Miss Cushman ; the story of her life, 476-9 : as Meg Merrilies, 480-1 : as Romeo, 482 : Charles Kean, manager, 483 : Pauline, The Corsican Brothers, 484-5 : the Shake- spearian revivals ; Sardanapalus, Louis XL, Courier of Lyons, INDEX 555 Richard II. , Winters Tale, 487 : cost of productions, salaries, 488 : Kean as an actor, 489 : Harris, lessee ; London ddbut of Henry Irving, 489-90 : Fechter as Ruy Bias and Hamlet, 490-1 : as Othello ; Vining's management ; Streets of London, Arrah na Pogue, 492 : Never Too Late to Mend; the dispute with the Press ; After Dark, 493 : Webster and Chatterton's regime ; Drink ; Charles Warner as Coupeau, 494 : theatre rebuilt ; Wilson Barrett, manager ; The Lights o* London, The Silver King, 494-5 : Hamlet, Clatidian; the great earthquake effect ; Junius, Hoodman Blind, 495 : Clito; Miss Eastlakeas Helle ; Mrs. Langtry as Cleopatra; recent productions, 497 Pritchard, Mrs., 74, 75, 83 Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, 328-30 Quick, 224 Quin, James, 70, 71, m, 115, 116 R Rachel, 462-4 Reade, Charles, 329, 429, 436, 464, 494 Red Bull Theatre, 15, 16, 32, 33, 36 Reeve, John, 230, 415, 417, 420, 424 Reeves, Sims, 97, 191, 377 Rehan, Ada, 515, 530-1 Rice, James ("Jim Crow"), 424 Rich, Christopher, 35, 52, 55 Rich, John, 67, 108-18 Righton, E., 331, 450, 470, 500 Rignold, George, 328-9 Riots, theatrical, 16, 72, 76, in, 120-1, 129, 188, 215, 220, 226 Ristori, 105, 292-3, 334 Roberts, Arthur, 335, 515-16, 520-1, 5 2 5 Robertson, Madge, 238-9, 331 Robertson, Forbes, 306-7, 511, 515, 517, 525, 526 Robertson, Tom, 238, 241, 319-23, 338, 444 Robson, Frederick, 268-71, 377 Rogers, " Jimmy," 446-7 Romer, Miss, 284-5 Rorke, Kate, 500, 507, 515, 526 Rose Theatre, the, 8 Rousby, Mrs., 328 Rouse, " Brayvo," 376-7 Royalty Theatre, 451-5 : Fanny Kelly's school of acting, 451 : Miss Kelly's Theatre, 452 : Mrs. Selby's pupils ; Ixion; Ada Cavendish and Adelaide Neilson's ddbuts, 452-3 : Miss Oliver's management ; Black-Eyed Susan burlesque, 453 : Henrietta Hodson, manager ; Charles Wyndham's de'but, 453 : anecdote of, 454 : Kate Santley, lessee ; late history of the theatre, 454-5 Royalty (Wellclose Square), 401-4 : opened by John Palmer, 401 : anecdotes of, 402-3 : theatre burned down and rebuilt ; a terrible catas- trophe, 404 Ryder, John, 96, 329, 483, 488, 530 Sadler's Wells, 351-75: as a Spa and " Musick House," 355 : Ned Ward's description of, 356-7 : Hockley-in-the-Hole,358 : Macklin describes Sadler's Wells and its en- tertainments, 559 : theatre built by Rosoman, 360 .' modern mounte- banks anticipated, 361 : a drama acted entirely by dogs, 36*2 : Grimaldi, anecdotes of, 362-3 : various rnanagers, 364 : the nauti- cal drama ; plays acted on real water, 365 : a curious playbill, 367 : Grimaldi's farewell ; anec- dotes of his acting, 368 : the coming of Samuel Phelps, 369 : anecdotes ; his great revivals ; his companies, 370-1 : analysis of his acting, 372-3 : a memorable night, 373-4 : Miss Marriott's regime, 375 : theatre rebuilt ; Mrs. Bateman, manager ; later events, 375-6 St. James's Theatre, 456-73 : founded by Braham ; its early struggles, 456-7 : Dickens writes for it, 458 : Braham's failure ; converted into a " Forest of Wild Animals," 460 : first German opera, 461 : Mitchell, manager ; great French companies, 462 : Rachel ; her great social success ; analysis of her acting, compared with Sarah Bernhardt, 463-4 : de'buts of Lydia Thompson and J. L. Toole, 464-5 : Wigan, 556 INDEX Vining, Frank Matthews ; Miss Herbert's management ; Mrs. John Wood, lessee ; actors ; plays, 465-7 : Kendal and Hare, mana- gers ; Mrs. Kendal's acting and characters, 468 : principal produc- tions, 469 : Rutland Barrington, Mrs. Langtry, 470 : George Alex- ander, manager ; his companies and productions St. John, Florence, 449, 516 Salisbury Court Theatre, 1 7, 33, 36, 38 Salvini, 329, 546 Sans Pareil. See Adelphi Sans Souci, 346 Saunders, Charlotte, 444, 447, 453 Savoy Theatre, and Gilbert and Sullivan operas, 512-14 Saxe-Meiningen Company, 105, 486 Scenery, when first used, 22-6 Schneider, anecdote of, 506 School for Scandal, production of, 8 1 Scott, Walter (dramatised novels), 283, 296, 369, 422 Sedgwick, Amy, 234, 534 Sedley, Sir Charles, 58 Shaftesbury Theatre, 522-3 Shakespeare, did he visit Scotland and Denmark? 14 Shakespeare and his plays, 7, 10, n, 152, 217 Shepherd, "Dick/' 395-6 Sheppard,Jack, 395 Sheridan, Brinsley, 80, 81-6, 154, 403 Shiel's plays, 158 Shirley s Masque of Peace, 23 Shuter, Ned, 223 Siddons, Mrs., 79, 81-5, 125, 130-1 Sims, G. R., 436, 454, 494 Smith, E. T., 100, 101, 194, 297, 438 Smithson, Miss, 405 Soldene, Emily, 382 Sothern, Edward, 236-8 Southern (dramatist), 41 Stage, London, reviews of, at different periods, 9, 22-9, 30-6, 146-54, 539-42 Standard Theatre, history of, 408-9 Steele, Richard, 58, 59, 62, 155 Stephens, "Kitty," 130 Stirling, Mrs., 96, 269, 301, 303, 336, 404, 427, 443, 459, 466, 475, 499, , 530 Strand Theatre, 439-50 : the found- ing of, 439 : Mrs. Waylett under- takes it ; evasions of the licensing laws, 440 : Hammond andTJouglas Jerrold, managers ; plays and bur- lesques, 441-3 : William Farren's management ; his company and productions ; Swanborough, lessee, 444 : the origin and rise of English burlesque, 445 : Marie Wilton ; Dickens on her acting, 446-7 : H. J. Byron and his burlesques, 446-8 : J. S. Clarke, 448 : opera bouffe ; Madame Favart, etc. ; Florence St. John and Violet Cameron ; theatre rebuilt ; Clarke, lessee, 449 : old comedies ; Niobe and " Niobe wedding parties," 450 : latest productions, 451 Sullivan, Barry, 232, 239, 326, 444 Surrey Theatre, 389-96 : as the " Royal Circus" ; collision with the authorities ; riots, 389-91 : " dog stars" and their ways, 391 : circus burned down and rebuilt as a theatre ; the Dibdins, Elliston, Douglas Jerrold, 392 : Black-Eyed Susan; enormous success, 393 : Elliston ; anecdotes of, 394 : D. Jerrold ; anecdotes of ; Davidge, Shepherd, and Creswick, a con- trast, 395 : burning of the theatre ; George Conquest, 396 Swan Theatre, 10, 11 Swanboroughs, The, 444, 449 Taylor, Tom ; his plays, 234, 269-70, 429, 465 Tempest, Marie, 521, 524, 530 Terriss, Wm., 301, 306, 436-7 Terry, D., 129, 420-2 Terry, Edward, 341, 447, 521 Terry, Ellen, 157, 300, 301-7, 329, 53i, 539 Terry, Kate, 271 Terry, Marian, 245, 302, 470, 503 Terry's Theatre, 521-2 The Theatre, 4-8 Thomas, Brandon, 503, 521 Thompson, Lydia, 336, 454, 464 Thorne, Tom, 241, 447, 498-9 Times of commencing performance at different periods, 18, 214 Toole, J. L., 233, 293, 328, 336, 338, 341,431,464 Tree, Beerbohm, 243-4, 325, 43, 507, 515, 519, 520, 535-9 INDEX 557 Tree, Mrs. B., 244, 535 Tree, Ellen, 92-3, 405 Tree, Maria, 93 V Vanbrugh, Sir John, 154 Vanbrugh, Irene, 333, 530 Vandenhoff, 481 Vaudeville Theatre, history of, 498- 501 Venne, Lottie, 500 Vernon, W. H., 330 Vestris, Madame, 143-5, l82 > I 9%i 229, 258, 265, 287-9, 313 Vezin, Hermann, 338, 371, 435, 467, 502 Vezin, Mrs. Hermann, 102,326,466-7 Victoria Theatre (Cobourg), history of, 397-9 Vincent, Miss, 354 Vining, George, 465, 492-3 W Walbourn, " Dusty Bob," 417 Walker, " Captain Macheath," 67 Wallack, James, 475-6 Waller, Lewis, 308, 333, 475, 515-17, 523, 526, 533, 535-6 Wallis, Miss, 522 Ward, Genevieve, 325 Warner, Charles, 43 6 ~7, 4^7, 494, 497, 499, 5 Warner, Mrs., 95, 369, 370, 438 Waylett, Mrs., 95, 287, 313-14, 405, 416, 440 Webster, Benjamin, 231-2, 330, 405, 429-34, 466, 493 West, Mrs. W., 91 West London Theatre, 438 Weston, 224 Whitbread, S., 86, 87, 89 Whitefriars Theatre, 16, 17 Wigan, Alfred, 269-71, 338, 460, 465, 483, 485, 488 Wigan, Horace, 271, 327 Wilde, Oscar, 243, 470 Wilks, Robert, 55, 59, 60, 63 Willard, 242, 494, 522, 527 Williams, Arthur, 378, 454, 518 Wills, G. W. ; his plays, 298, 469, 495, 503 Wilton, Marie (see also Mrs. Ban- croft), 293, 318-24, 446-7 Woffington, Peg, 94, 114-15 Women, their first appearance on the English stage, 19, 37, 38, 46-8 Wood, Mrs. John, 329, 331, 466-7, 500, 503-6 Woodward, Harry, 67, 76, 120 Woolgar, Miss (Mrs. Alfred Mellon), 428, 431-4 Wrench, 417, 460 Wright, Edward, 235, 424-6, 43 J > 459, 475 Wyndham, Charles, 329, 453~4, 507-11 Y Yarnold, Mrs., 354 Yates (of Garrick), 67, 81 Yates, Frederick, 420, 423-4, 427 Yates, Mrs. F., 312, 420, 424, 427, 43 i Young, Charles, 92, 137, 227 Many other actors are mentioned en passant. Theatres omitted will be found in the " List of Theatres Past and Present." PLYMOUTH WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON PRINTERS