Curiosities of Impecuniosity Part 8

"My lodgin's in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed 'ull 'old two. Come home and sleep with me; and we'll take in a couple of black puddin's, or a f.a.ggot, or something nice an' 'ot for supper. Come along."

The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion's dirty linen and unwashed face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look, which did not escape the stranger's quick observation, turned and reluctantly went with him.

When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a sn.o.b, and that he was engaged for the Princess's Theatre, where Macready was then playing.

"If you like," said he, "I'll take you to the super-master; he lives close by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill."

He did so, and an engagement followed. This piece of luck filled the unfortunate lad's heart with delight. The pay was only a s.h.i.+lling a night, but he could live on it; and it was the first step in a profession of which he had dreamed as the summit of human ambition and felicity ever since he first saw a play performed "with real water" on the boards of old Sadler's Wells. With what tremulous eagerness and delight he went to rehearsal with his dirty friend and benefactor! With what wonder and curiosity he inspected the stage-door, the wings and the dressing-room under the stage, and with what awe he eyed the mighty magician who lorded it above his fellows with such undemonstratively quiet and yet most impressive dignity!

The play was Shakespeare's 'King Lear,' and in the combat scene the lists were formed on the stage by short battle-axes and long spears, the former being stuck upright in holes arranged for their reception, two of the latter placed crossways, and one on the top of them horizontally between each axe. Macready was particularly anxious that this should be done rapidly, and without hesitation; and the efforts of the supers to carry out his instructions were simply ludicrous. The men with the battle-axes couldn't hit upon the holes, and some absolutely went down upon their knees to feel for them, while the spearmen either were awfully slow and nervously careful, or they missed the supports and created a clatter and confusion, which appeared to plunge Macready into a furious state of anger and disgust. The new super, all eyes and ears, shared the great tragedian's feelings; he saw at once that the entire effect depended upon the dash and spirit of the soldier's action in eagerly and readily extemporising these warlike barriers; and he devised a plan by which his axe was thrust as it were at once into the earth, with scarcely a downward glance. He was pointing out how readily this was done, to his neighbours on either side, and telling them to pa.s.s the hint along, when he was startled by the deep strong voice of the tragedian, who had come up to him, and said abruptly, "What's your name, my man?"

"My friend did, what I am not going to do (not having his permission), he told Macready his name, and he, after a grunt, and a quick, keen glance from under his knitted brows, repeated it aloud, saying,--

"I shall not forget it. It's the name of the first super I ever saw with brains."

On the night of the first performance some few days after, my friend was taken out of his ordinary soldier costume, and arrayed more carefully and picturesquely in a more costly fas.h.i.+on to play the part of a knight in special attendance upon the king, from whom he had the honour of receiving a message. Alas! that honour cost him a friend--the jealousy of the shoemaker broke out in spite and bitterness which acc.u.mulated and intensified to such an extent that at the end of the week he was caught in the act of hiding in the dark behind one of the beams of wood supporting the stage, for the purpose of throwing a big stone at the poor fellow with whom, under the influence of pity, he had shared his food and lodging. It was impossible to conceive a more cowardly or malignant rascal than this fellow had become under the influence of envy and jealousy.

The cla.s.s of theatrical people employed as supernumeraries (commonly called "supers") form the background figures of stage pictures, soldiers, sailors, peasants, citizens, mobs, &c., playing the dumb accessory parts; and they are as a rule neither too respectable nor too intelligent. To train and teach them is a task which sorely tries the patience of the super-master, and their lazy, poverty-stricken, and generally not too cleanly aspect is provocative of contempt and dislike amongst the actors.

Their pay is not extravagant, being usually a s.h.i.+lling a night, but their histrionic pride is great, and their reverence for the actors profound, while for one to stand a little closer to the footlights than his fellows do, and consequently nearer the audience, or to be selected to go on alone to deliver a letter or receive a message, is the very summit of his ambition; a dangerous elevation, too, for from the time that he is so gloriously distinguished he is regarded with envy, spite, and malice, by his fellows, who try their best to oust him and take his place. This, my friend, above mentioned, soon experienced, for his life became a succession of bitter annoyances and coa.r.s.e insults, varied when necessity compelled with an occasional fight, in which, despite his feeble health he generally contrived to give a fair account of his adversary, inheriting some of his father's skill as a boxer, and having been a constant student of that art when at school. At the termination of the Macready performances he was engaged at one of the old tavern theatres of those days, now known as the Britannia Theatre, then as the Britannia Saloon, where the stage-manager, a gentle and kindly old man (Mr. Wilton) was particularly good to him, and at last, after hearing him read a Shakespearian speech, entrusted him with small parts, contrary to the conviction of Mrs. Lane, the clever wife of the then proprietor, in whose place she now reigns. She, finding that the boy blushed and stammered when she spoke to him, p.r.o.nounced him unfit for the experiment.

"He has an impediment in his speech," said she.

Some years after, my friend having in the meantime abandoned the stage for art (of which he was for years an ardent, indefatigable student), under the pressure of severe impecuniosity, became a country scene-painter and afterwards an actor, playing in the course of his theatrical career a wide range of second and third-rate parts, sometimes doubling as many as three or four in a single piece, and often both playing and painting scenery.

Once, while Miss Mary Glover was manageress of the Cheltenham and Bath theatres, in consequence of the non-arrival of about half the expected company, he doubled tremendously, playing four characters in the burlesque and two in the farce, with the most rapid changes of "make up" and costume, one being a comic n.i.g.g.e.r with songs. Miss Glover had taken the theatre under the pressure of impecuniosity, trusting to the chance of success for the payment of her company. At the end of the first week she paid half salaries, at the end of the second and third weeks no salaries, or, in the parlance of the initiated, "the ghost did not walk," and great doubtless was the trouble and suffering consequently endured. My friend was reduced to bread and b.u.t.ter for meals, and found even those materials none too plentiful, when one evening he was summoned into the dressing-room of Miss Glover. The lady was in tears, but they were tears of indignant rage.

"Sir!" said she, "I was never so insulted in all my life!"

"What's wrong, madam? Who has insulted you?"

"Who has insulted me, sir! Why you have!" cried she, with a look of astonishment.

"I, madam! How?" he exclaimed with a similar expression.

"Look at your gloves, sir!"

"Well, madam, they are clean, I washed them myself."

"But, sir! Berlin gloves! It's monstrous! I was never so treated before in all my life! Paltry cotton. You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a leading character too. I never played with a gentleman before in your part who did not wear new white kids!"

"I laughed," said my friend. "It was rude, I know, but for the life of me I couldn't help it. Here was my employer living in comparative luxury at first-cla.s.s lodgings in a fas.h.i.+onable town, abusing a poor devil whom she had cheated and half-starved, because, in a back-street garret with scarcely a penny in his pocket, he did not wear nightly, as he otherwise would have done, a new pair of white kid gloves!"

The late Miss Oliver, who stood by at the time, called the fellow who dared to laugh at a manageress in such dire distress, "a brute."

On another occasion Mr. Huntley May Macarthy, a once well-known and very eccentric provincial manager, abruptly closed the theatre at Bury St.

Edmunds, after keeping it open a week or ten days, leaving the unfortunate company to escape from the dilemma of debt and difficulty into which so many of them were deeply plunged. Some had drawn a fortnight's salary in advance, to pay their travelling expenses to Bury St. Edmunds, and they had all been gathered from far and near by the London agent. In that case my friend the editor found his ark of safety in falling back upon his old profession. He painted the portrait of a local celebrity, which, being exhibited in the town, soon brought him sitters enough to enable him to help himself and spare something for one or two of his less happily situated brothers and sisters in misfortune. I remember my friend remarked as curious on each of these occasions the quietude with which the histrionics submitted to be so unfairly treated. Neither in the case of Miss Glover nor that of Mr. Macarthy were there any attacks made upon them to the face, heartily as they were cursed and abused behind their backs.

In explanation of this I may recall what Mrs. Mathews said of her husband, the elder Mathews, when he suffered under the same infliction, which in the old days of "circuits" and "strolling companies" was a very common one and is still by no means unknown. She said,--

"I have heard Mr. Mathews say that he has gone to the theatre at night without having tasted anything since a meagre breakfast, determined to refuse to go on the stage unless some portion of his arrears was first paid. When, however, he entered the green-room his spirits were so cheered by the attention of his brethren, and the _eclat_ of his reception that his fainting resolution was restored, all his discontent utterly banished for the time, and he was again reconciled to starvation: nay, he even felt afraid of offending the unfeeling manager, and returned home silent upon the subject of his claims."

No actor was ever better acquainted with poverty than that extraordinary man Edmund Kean. Endowed with rare genius, and a potency of will, that impelled him to surmount any obstacle lying in the pathway leading towards fame, this player's fate was yet infelicitous. Maternal solicitude, moral training, and those circ.u.mstantial influences which induce regular habits, were alike denied him. All the regularities, vicissitudes, vexations, disappointments, sorrows, trials and romance common to the lives of strolling players, characterized the early career of Edmund Kean. Through his mother he was related to George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. That mother was Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey, the reputed author of our National Anthem. The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house, situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress, that "about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to me, and said, 'Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her lodgings in Chancery Lane.' Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and found Nance Carey near her time. We asked her if she had proper necessaries, and she replied, 'No--nothing'; whereupon Mrs. Byrne begged the loan of some baby-clothes, and Nance Carey was removed to the chambers in Gray's Inn, which her father then occupied, and it was there that the future tragedian was born." Ann Carey had been under the protection of Aaron Kean, and he afterwards abandoned her. She came of an unfortunate stock, for Henry Carey, as I have stated, notwithstanding his talents was always in difficulties, which only forsook him when he committed self-destruction; and his son, George Saville Carey--printer, mimic, scientific lecturer, and occasional poetaster and dramatist--would have been without a decent burial, but for the charity of a few friends. His daughter when only fifteen years old, quitted her home and became a strolling actress; but when out of an engagement she would return to London, and pick up a scanty home in its streets as a hawker. It was in such occupation that Aaron Kean first saw the woman.

In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean's mother was selfish, calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child, with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he was three years old, and living under the protection of a poor man and his wife, in Soho. It is said that these worthy people had found little Edmund hungry and forlorn, and left in a doorway, one winter's night.

Of the boy's history, after the mother had abandoned him to the period when he found succour from the kind couple in Soho, nothing is known. Ann Carey demanded her child, and quickly turned her offspring to profit; getting him engaged to appear as a reposing Cupid in one of the Opera House ballets, and subsequently to appear in a Drury Lane pantomime--the boy was little more than three years old. When in 1794 at Drury Lane, John Kemble produced 'Macbeth' with exceedingly novel stage business, Edmund Kean was one of the goblin troupe, introduced for the purpose of giving additional impressiveness to the incantation scene. It was not long afterwards that he played the part of a page in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor.' His education was of the slightest, and intermittent; he was a pupil at a small school in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and at another place of instruction in Chapel Street, Soho; and the expenses for such education were defrayed by a few generously disposed people, who were impressed by the boy's beauty and intelligence. Ann Carey, almost dest.i.tute, went away from Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and, with her boy found a lodging in Ewer Street, Southwark. Young Edmund, restive and adventurous, determined to run away from home, and with a few necessaries tied up in a bundle slung on a stick, made his way to Portsmouth, and engaged himself in the capacity of cabin boy for a s.h.i.+p bound to Madeira.

Not sufficiently robust to do some of the work incidental to his duties, he resolved to be again free; which he accomplished by feigning deafness.

Discharged at the end of the return voyage, he walked from Portsmouth to London, and hungry, footsore and heart-weary, made his way to the old lodging in Southwark. He found that his mother had left her shabby tenement for a place in Richardson's show troupe, then perambulating the country.

He bethought him that he might find a shelter under the roof of his uncle, Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square. This uncle, who was a mimic, ventriloquist, and general entertainer, received young Edmund Kean kindly, gave him a home, and became his preceptor in many of the mysteries belonging to the histrionic art. Miss Tidswell, the acquaintance of his mother, and an actress of respectable position at Drury Lane, also showed great interest in the welfare of the boy. He made progress in the arts of dancing, singing, declamation, and fencing, and even in those days he became familiar with the creations of Shakespeare.

Through the influence of Miss Tidswell, he obtained an engagement for some parts at Drury Lane, Prince Arthur in 'King John' being one. The boy excited notice, as the following anecdote related by Mrs. Charles Kemble shows.

"One morning before the rehearsal commenced, I was crossing the stage, when my attention was attracted by the sounds of loud applause issuing from the direction of the green-room. I enquired the cause, and was told that it was only little Kean reciting 'Richard III.' My informant said that he was very clever. I went into the green-room and saw the little fellow facing an admiring group, and reciting l.u.s.tily."

On the death of Moses Kean, his nephew's only real friend was Miss Tidswell. Under her he studied Shakespearian characters, and while residing with her joined the company of Saunders, Bartholomew Fair. There he gave imitations of the nightingale and monkey, of the form and movement of the snake; and at Bartholomew Fair he acted the part of Tom Thumb. Soon afterwards, hearing that his mother was acting at Portsmouth, he set out from London for the seaport named; but on reaching it discovered that the information given him concerning Anna Carey was incorrect. His situation was trying, for he was dest.i.tute and friendless. Young Kean, however, had a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment consisting of "Selections from 'Hamlet,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Jane Sh.o.r.e,'

with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." The entertainment was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund Kean at this time was fourteen years old.

Reciting Rolla's "address to the Peruvians" one evening before an audience at Sadler's Wells, a country manager, then present, was so much impressed by the declamation of the lad, that young Kean received an offer to play leading characters for twenty nights at the York Theatre. The offer was accepted, he was highly successful, and for many years from the time of that York engagement, the future tragedian of Drury Lane underwent the vicissitudes peculiar to the life of the old-fas.h.i.+oned stroller. It was not long ere he encountered the famous showman, Richardson, who speedily made terms with the precocious and versatile youth. It turned out that Anne Carey was in the company. She proposed that her son should join with her in her labours, and that she should receive his earnings. But they did not long labour together, and parted, not to meet again till Kean made his great success in 1814 at Drury Lane. While with a manager named Butler, at Northampton, Kean played walking gentlemen, Harlequin, and sang comic songs for a salary of fifteen s.h.i.+llings a week. While attached to Butler's company, he enacted the character of Octavian, in the 'Mountaineers' with such ability, that a gentleman connected with the Haymarket, who saw the performance, undertook to procure the young tragedian an engagement, provided that he could reach London to appear at a specified time. Kean, being without money, could only have travelled on foot, and the journey to London by such means would have taken up so much time, that he despairingly saw that the engagement must remain unfulfilled. Butler, with the greatest good nature, said "that he would defray the expenses of a stage-coach journey." Kean, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "If ever fortune smiles upon my efforts, I will not forget you."

The Haymarket engagement proved humiliating, the young actor being cast for very insignificant parts. However, in one character, Ganem, in the 'Mountaineers,' by the admirable manner in which he spoke certain words, he drew forth such unmistakable applause, that he availed himself of a recommendation addressed to John Kemble. In an interview with that celebrity, Kean found the eminent tragedian so chilling and unsympathetic in manner, that the poor fellow hurried from the theatre stung to the quick by his inauspicious reception. He again visited the provinces, and again experienced many privations, disappointments, humiliations, and rebuffs. Fate appeared to frown upon him; but it must be remembered that Kean was young, exceedingly small of stature, unconventional in his style of acting, and thoroughly original in every a.s.sumption that he undertook.

Moreover, his temper was violent, haughty, and sensitive.

It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the capacity of usher at a school in Hertfords.h.i.+re. In 1807 at Belfast, he played with Mrs. Siddons; and as Jaffier in 'Venice Preserved' made a strong impression. But the tragedienne's opinion of him was not flattering; for on first seeing him, she remarked, "he was a horrid little man," and criticising his enaction in Otway's pathetic drama said, "He plays the part very, very well, but there is too little of him wherewith to make a great actor." Notwithstanding taunts, impecuniosity, heart-burnings, and neglect, the young aspirant studied laboriously, and allowed no opportunity to slip by which he might gain increased knowledge of stage art, and of human nature; but during his hard apprentices.h.i.+p, he was forced to have recourse to many s.h.i.+fts, and to endure much suffering.

After playing an engagement in Kent, he accepted another for a single night at Braintree, in Ess.e.x.

On the day that the performance was to take place at Braintree, the actor stood, without a farthing in his pocket, on the Kent bank of the Thames.

Bound to fulfil his engagement, it was necessary for him to cross the river; and his impecunious condition precluded all possibility of hiring a boat. The strong-willed stroller was not to be daunted. He threw off his clothes, tied them into a bundle, which he held in his teeth, plunged into the river, and speedily reached the sh.o.r.e. With his clothes saturated with water, half-famished, and tired in every limb, he yet went on for "Rolla,"

before the Braintree audience. While performing he fainted, and an illness of fever and ague was the consequence of his swimming expedition. On recovering he tramped all the way to Swansea, and played in that town. He was then in his twentieth year. Proceeding to Gloucester, he became a member of Beverley's company, and was advertised to play Young Rapid. The usual means had been taken to attract an audience, but at the time for the rising of the curtain there were only two persons in the auditorium; so the eighteenpence taken at the doors were returned to the couple of playgoers, and the theatre lights extinguished. A few nights Kean performed with a lady who had left the scholastic profession for that of the stage, and this lady, Miss Chambers, afterwards became Mrs. Kean. When at Stroud, Master Betty was announced to perform Hamlet and Norval; Kean found himself cast for Laertes and Glenalvon. The actor could not brook what he deemed an indignity,--that of playing secondary characters to a mere boy; and for three days and three nights, he was away from the theatre, every individual connected with it being ignorant of his whereabouts. On reappearing he said, "I have been in the fields, in the woods, I am starved; I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since I've been out; but I'll go again, and as often as I see myself put in such characters. I won't play second to any man living, except to John Kemble."

In the summer of 1808, Kean married Mary Chambers, the wife being nine years older than the husband. Soon after the marriage, Beverley told them that he intended dispensing with their services, and they soon had to drain the cup of poverty to its dregs. To the honour of the woman he had taken to his heart, she cheered and soothed him in his tremendous struggle. He suffered not only the pangs of poverty, but too often the stings of hostile criticisms from provincial scribes, utterly unable to appreciate his pa.s.sionate and original renderings of dramatic characterization. At Birmingham he thought himself and his wife well paid, when during an engagement they each received a pound for their weekly services. So ably did he act that Stephen Kemble made proposals to negotiate a London engagement; but Kean deemed that further experience was necessary before he should attempt a metropolitan appearance in leading characters. Terrible toil and terrible suffering had to be undergone ere he was to reach the pinnacle of success.

Closing his performances at Birmingham, he made terms with Andrew Cherry to appear at Swansea. So indigent was the actor, that he was necessitated to undertake the journey on foot, a journey of 200 miles; and his wife, who accompanied him, was likely soon to become a mother. Mr. and Mrs. Kean owed money in Birmingham, or possibly the wife might have remained in the town; and from it--early one summer morning--they departed on their long and wearisome way, adding to their miserable store of money some additions as they proceeded, by giving recitations at the residences of the gentry.

In a fortnight they reached Bristol, were ferried over to Newport, and at last reached Swansea, where they obtained lodgings. Kean's acting was not warmly received; and referring to one of his impersonations in the town, he remarked, "I played the part finely, and yet they would not applaud me!" The actor grew moody, splenetic, and gave way to insobriety. A son born to him at this period he named Howard; and it was soon after the birth of the child that the Keans left Swansea, with Cherry, for other towns in the princ.i.p.ality, and subsequently they crossed over to Ireland.

At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called 'La Perouse.' It was at Waterford that Edmund Kean's second son, Charles, was born. Beaching Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker, who paid sixpence for admission. At Carlisle Kean appealed to the barristers on a.s.size, asking for their presence, when he would deliver a series of recitations, his reward to be at their discretion; but the appeal was made in vain. In the autumn of 1811, the family in the most miserable condition arrived in York, and from the ball-room, Minster Yard, Kean issued a circular announcing, "for one night only," an entertainment comprising recitals, dramatic selections, imitations of actors, and singing by himself, a.s.sisted by his wife; but the scheme ended with anything but a prosperous result. Under their struggles, husband and wife broke into a wail of grief, as they contemplated their innocent and unfortunate babes. The mother on her knees, supplicated for spiritual influence to annihilate their sufferings by death, but the fiery-willed player still kept courage, "I will go on, I will hope against hope!!" They got to London, where, at Sadler's Wells, Kean had a short engagement at two pounds a week, and then he had engagements at Weymouth and Exeter; in which latter place he played for a salary of one pound a week. Through the influence of an old friend, Dr. Drury, Kean at length obtained an engagement at Drury Lane. But ere his triumph on the London boards was effected, the child, Howard, died, an event to which the actor never alluded without feelings of grief. While Kean was concluding his Exeter performances, his wife and child were desolate in the garret of a house in Cecil Street, Strand; and they would have starved, but that the liberality of Dr. Drury succoured them. Even on the eve of his Drury Lane success, Kean underwent many trials and sufferings. Save Dr. Drury he was without a friend. On his _debut_, that memorable evening at Drury Lane, 26th January, 1814, the directors of the establishment denied him everything calculated to awaken hope and courage. Kean went to the dressing-room, and from the dressing-room to the stage, conscious that he had been treated with superciliousness, apathy, and injustice. Under such treatment, and with all his previous trials, it was only a perfect knowledge of his own transcendent powers, that carried him through the ordeal. The effect of his triumph in Shylock, may best be described in the words of his late biographer. "In an almost phrenzied ecstasy he rushed through the wet to his humble lodging, sprang up the stairs, and threw open the door. His wife ran to meet him; no words were required, his radiant countenance told all--and they mingled together the first tears of true happiness they had as yet experienced. He told her of his proud achievement, and in a burst of exultation exclaimed, 'Mary, you shall ride in your carriage, and, Charley my boy,' taking the child from the cradle and kissing him, 'you shall go to Eton, and'--a sad reminiscence crossed his mind, his joy was overshadowed, and he murmured in broken accents, 'Oh that Howard had lived to see it! But he is better where he is.'" Pity that so fine a nature as Edmund Kean's, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind.

When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling, it is scarcely surprising that the term "poor players," should have become proverbial. The victims of a social ban, originating in the bigotry of church and conventicle; following a profession, perhaps of all professions the most scouted by smooth, smug respectability, and certainly of all professions the most liable to fluctuations of success from the caprices, whims and "breeches-pocket" condition of its patrons; it seems but natural that the history of the stage should yield numerous ill.u.s.trations of man impecunious.

Then, too, it must be borne in mind, that the greater number of men and women who have recruited the ranks of the histrionics have been people of romantic and "happy-go-lucky" temperament; light-hearted, generous to a fault, unworldly in the money-making sense, and frequently of the most irregular and unbusiness-like habits. Such characteristics had Theophilus Cibber, Shuter, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, Ward, and John Reeve; and though the precarious nature of the profession, the necessarily unsettled habits of its followers, and the unreality of the life, may be conducive in a degree to impecuniosity, it seems to me--and I have strutted several fretful hours--the only real cause of players being poorer than other people is due to extravagance and irregularity. Frugal, steady, trustworthy habits invariably increase a man's well-being, in any calling; and the theatrical profession is no exception to the rule.

Richardson, the showman, was born in a workhouse, and was in his early years a mere little social arab, cast upon the world without friends or education; and he began his social career by exhibiting a little child with spotted skin, calling him the "spotted boy." The first venture was profitable, and the showman went on making money, and saved it. He then set up a show theatre, succeeded so well that year after year he had to enlarge it, and at last it became the largest in the kingdom. Richardson likewise established a character for honesty, and all that is summed up in the words "manly conduct."

John Quick--George the Third's favourite comedian--had, too, in his time been poor enough. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and when only fourteen years old ran away from home, with the idea of taking to the stage for a profession. Without any money in his pocket he started on his romantic journey, and managed to find a booth company at Fulham, where he was allowed to enact Altamont in the 'Fair Penitent.'

Having played to the satisfaction of the manager, that worthy commanded his wife to set the _debutant_ down for a whole share of the night's receipts, which at the close of the last piece amounted to three s.h.i.+llings. Quick rose in his profession, and by forethought and prudence ama.s.sed a fortune of 10,000.

Braham's boyhood was surrounded with hards.h.i.+ps and privations. Early left an orphan, he was obliged to walk the streets of London as a vendor of pencils. In that situation he was befriended by Leoni, a vocalist at the synagogue in Duke's Place, Covent Garden, who trained the lad's voice, so remarkable for its peculiar sweetness of tone and expression. For Leoni's benefit, in 1787, at the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, young Braham made his _debut_. His genius, of its kind, was unsurpa.s.sable; but it was the prudence added to it which laid the foundation of his fortune, which would have remained in the possessor's hands but that the vocalist entered unwittingly on theatrical management.

Even in the more humble departments of theatrical life may be found thrifty examples of people, who, versed in the somewhat difficult part of making both ends meet, at length found themselves in a reputable and flouris.h.i.+ng position. Such an instance is that of Bennett, a theatrical manager once well known in the Midlands. Bennett possessed a gift for doing things himself--his only a.s.sistant being an old lady, one Mrs.

Gamage. He began his career with a puppet-show, was thrifty on its poor proceeds, and eventually became proprietor of a theatre. Bennett was successful as an actor at Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and towns adjacent. His travelling-cases, boxes, and chests, had their surfaces touched up by the scenic artist, and in the theatre did duty for castle walls, palace terraces, and palatial furniture; his helmets, and other stage properties, were of canvas, easy to fold up for packing, and many of his properties combined several utilities. He would arrange with his friends to take money at the doors, and Mrs. Gamage combined the offices of candle-snuffer and constable, and during the day she cooked and cleaned up at home. Bennett has been known to seek out musical young men in a town, and allow them the privilege of singing on his stage; or, if they were at all proficient on an instrument, allow them to play in his orchestra. He dressed as a fine gentleman by day, and like a mechanic in the evening. He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.

Old Philip Astley, Davidge, John Douglas, and Samuel Phelps, all poor men at the outset of life, entered on theatrical management, carried it on with care, tact and probity, and all of them died reputable, and in comfort. Garrick, the Kembles, Charles Mayne Young, Munden, Richard Jones, William Farren, Liston, Macready, and a host of other gifted actors, died rich, having lived amidst the respect of the highest social circles; but it will be found in each particular case, that they were men of high character, and prudent habits.