CHAPTER III. - The author's explanation.-Notice of the change in the Covent Garden management.-Feelings of the comic writers. -Dinner given by Mr. Kemble.-His first appearance at Covent Garden.—Revivals.—Pizarro transferred.—Raising the Wind.-The Caravan.-The Dog-English Fleet. Elliston and his benefit. His copious address.- Miss Duncan.-Blind Bargain.- Kemble's kindness to its author.-Tobin.-Peculiar fate of Mr. Kemble.-Master Betty.-Sketch of him.--Hough.--Belfast.-Edinburgh and Mr. Jackson.-Home, the author of Douglas.-Macready. -Roscius in Town.--Immense crowd.-How he appeared. -Critically examined-His house the first season. -Decline of his influence.-Mania cured, and how. - I HAVE now arrived at the opening of the winter season of 1803-4, and having thus brought the particular notice of the drama, with its authors and actors, down to a period within almost general recollection, the limits of my work may allowably restrict me to the leading events of the stage and the personal history of Mr. Kemble. I say the limits of my work, because I by no means feel, or affect to feel, any apprehension, where it may be necessary to treat of existing merits. It is surely possible, even in criticism, to catch that tone of urbanity, which qualifies rebuke by the obvious conviction, that the writer can have no spleen to gratify. Difference of opinion may be expected in the fluctuations of taste; but a smile of superior genius will easily dispose of inveterate prejudice in the critic, who cannot help his birth in another century, and may, perhaps, pride himself upon being taught in a different school. The change of the stage management was very properly noticed from the stage by Fawcett, who spoke and sang an occasional address, composed on the spur of the moment, probably by Dibdin. Its object was to let Mr. Lewis down comfortably from his command to that private station in the company, which, as he filled it, was distinction enough for any man. The feeling of this address, whoever wrote it, partook more of affection to the old course than triumph in the new. "In fame's gazette, perhaps our mimic band And our new captain we salute with pride, To speak of him who lately rul'd so well; The writer then goes on to enumerate the coming claims of comedy and opera-and the accession of the two greatest tragedians in the world is hinted only in the phrase that, in laughter's interval, at times the audience will hear "Melpomene petition for a tear." Surely the situation of Leontes is here evinced among the company "I have tremor cordis on me-my heart dances; WINTER'S TALE. Melpomene too was in no very mendicant condition, maintaining, as she did, five members of the Kemble family in her suite at this theatre-Mr. Kemble himself, Mr. Charles Kemble, Mr. H. Siddons, Mrs. Siddons, and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. H. Siddons. The comic writers for that theatre were by no means pleasant under the change; they had found the field open long, and were alarmed at any invasion. Mr. Harris said what he could to still their apprehensions, but they bore their dismay in legible characters about with them. One of Thalia's chief supporters, upon this serious advent, was advised "to fall in gratitude to his knees, that Heaven had blessed him with only two children." He did the only proper thing on the occasion-he imparted the advice received to Mr. Kemble himself, who told ine of it, almost suffocated with laughter. In England every thing is settled by a dinner, and the new allies invited Sheridan to witness their mutual felicity. When the wine had circulated freely, the proprietors of Covent Garden began to express their sentiments in a vein of the greatest cordiality-upon which Sheridan, with very bitter pleasantry, reproached them with their facility or their hypocrisy. Two fellows," said he, "that have absolutely hated each other deadly all their lives."-" False," said Mr. Harris, (very whimsically,) we have not hated each other these six weeks-have we, Kemble ?" The truth is, that there is nothing in liberal competition, for either fame or fortune, that should unfit men for union. Cicero has long since told us, that the most effectual cement is the familiarization to each other of minds marked by their integrity. Sed omnium societatum nulla præstantior est, nulla firmior, quam cum VIRI BONI moribus similes familiaritate conjuncti sunt."-De Officiis, lib. i. Before Mr. Kemble entered upon his allotted management, he entertained the leading actors of Covent Garden at his house, in Great Russel street; and his great rival, Cooke, attended the invitation, as it appeared to me, with very sincere pleasure. Mr. Const, Mr. Reynolds, and myself, were invited, although he had never trod the boards, and a very peculiar and not unentertaining day we had of it. Before dinner was served up, I fell into conversation with Cooke in the library, and, if I had not acquired too decisive evidences of his indiscretion to doubt the charges against him, from any thing done or said by him on that day I should never have suspected his firmness, but have left him, thoroughly a convert to his well-informed mind and gentlemanly man ners. I shall by no means remove the veil, which in decent life should always be thrown between the convivial and the calm observer. One pleasantry we had, late of course in the sittings, which burst from the prolific fancy of H. Johnston. He chose to imagine, in the Christmas preparation of a pantomime, the sudden and alarming indisposition of the Harlequin; and he made Mr. Harris himself announce the event to the company, and call upon their zeal for the property, to show with what success they could supply the place of that knight with the wooden sword. The course he prescribed to himself for each person was a remonstrance in their tone of voice their perfect action in rising to make the attempt, in the circular run, in the rolling of the head, and the usual attitudes; concluding with a leap at the door, to imitate the agile escape of that hero. He spared neither the absent nor the present members of the fraternity, and no man in the room more enjoyed the harlequin of Mr. Cooke, than he did himself. Mr. Johnston, however, was then no longer a member of the Covent Garden company, having concluded an engagement at the other theatre; and Mr. Charles Kemble filled his line of business under the new management. Incledon obliged us with some of his finest airs, given with a power of tone, and a pathos, that I never, before or since, have heard so astonishingly combined. The vibration he excited in the room, (an extremely fine one,) seemed absolutely to threaten every thing vitreous around him. I retired, not among the latest of the guests, in the fear that something might occur to break in upon recollections so agreeable. It was on the 24th of September, 1803, that Mr. Kemble made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre in his favourite Hamlet, which part, precisely TWENTY years before, had introduced him to a London audience, at the rival house. The applause was extreme upon his entrance, and his new friend, Mr. Harris, paid him the compliment of attending his performance. Mrs. Siddons, with similar policy, kept to her original charm, and acted Isabella on the 27th. She excited and justified the highest admiration. The new manager had made an arrangement with Mr. Cooke, calculated to conciliate their rival claims, in consequence of which, on the 3d of October, to Mr. Cooke's Richard Mr. Kemble performed the Earl of Richmond. On the 5th Mr. Kemble acted one of his most admired parts in comedy, Lord Townley, and Miss Louisa Brunton, a younger sister of Mrs. Merry, made her debût in his Lady, and gave the promise of a very elegant, if not a great and original, votaress of the comic muse. This play was perfectly acted in all its parts. The John Moody of Emery was what Lear calls the "thing itself;" look, action, tone, dialect, feeling, all true, and all Yorkshire. The beautiful tragedy of Douglas followed, on the 6th, in which Mr. Kemble now acted the Stranger, and H. Siddons his adopted son. The printing of Sheridan's Pizarro laid it open, of course, to every stage, and Mr. Kemble got it up at his present theatre with great splendour. In nearly all its essentials the play, though it had changed its scene, retained its original performers; with the exception now of Murray and his daughter, in Ataliba and Cora. Cooke, it was supposed, would he very powerful in Pizarro. I think Sir Wilful Witwood, in the third degree of drink, is also said to be "powerful." Upon his entrance it was soon apparent, that he knew nothing that he did, and the audience could understand nothing that he said. He fell back overpowered, before the conclusion of the first act, and, in the opinion of the spectators, was dead drunk. Mr. Kemble came on, and assured the house that "Mr. Cooke was really unwell, and unable to proceed;" of which, in truth, there could not be the smallest doubt; and Mr. Siddons even distinguished himself in reading the character. Three days afterwards, Cooke was allowed very indulgently to perform Pizarro; I believe without the dramatic certificate of any physician-a document at all times of infinite value for its accuracy. One of Mr. Kemble's favourite afterpieces was Arthur and Emmeline, so finely acted formerly by himself and Miss Farren. Their present representatives were Charles Kemble and Mrs. H. Siddons. It was still delightful. The 5th of November presented the first dramatic production of James Kenny, in the farce called Raising the Wind. The needy adventurer, Jeremy Diddler, who has lost every thing but his spirits, and makes them carry him through every thing, in the hands of Lewis was a source of exquisite diversion. Often as I bring that delightful actor before me, and renew faintly (which Mr. JONES does not do) the astonishing varieties of his hilarity, I repeatedly see his accomplished deportment covering the unfortunate rents in his only coat, and borrowing such a thing as two and tenpence, or some such odd and broken sum of money. As Mr. Reynolds, on the 12th, chose to transfer his three per cents. from the stock of the Governor and Company of Covent Garden, I have nothing to say. In my opinion, the interest was as good as he could procure in any other fund; and if he had waited but a single day, there would have been a great demand in the market, and a consequent rise of "three per cents." But he had latterly been amusing himself with water-works; and imagined that the actual element, flowing between canvass rocks and painted herbage, overshaded by immovable foliage, would be a vast improvement in our stage; and that a real dog would make a real splash in a trough containing real water. All this he put in proof on the 5th of December in his serio-comico romance called "The Caravan," at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. No man ever took better measure of the public mind than Reynolds. There was a little scandal in the theatre, on the subject of this dog. The brave fellow, who plunged into the stream, and actually saved the child, was a native of Newfoundland, and named Carlo. Now it was said that the animal who smelt the lamps" was actually a mastiff, in the service of the stage-manager, Bannister himself. It was reported, too, that, when presenting himself to the house, he dressed himself up in clothes of the same colour and cut as those worn by the diver, even to the hair and the queue, and stood impudently before the spectators with all the swagger of having performed the achievement. So. gentle reader, in our panto |