Day.

Play.

MASTER BETTY'S NIGHTS, THEATRE ROYAL DRURY LANE, SEASON 1804-5.

Farce.

1804. Dec. 10.

Monday

Douglas

Citizen

13.

Thursday

Do.

Of Age To-morrow

15.

Saturday

1805. Feb. 13.

Wednesday

Barbarossa

Douglas

Spoiled Child

584 19 6

33 7 0

751 19 6
618 6

6

Deserter

673 7 6

46 10 6

719 18 0

15.

Friday

Barbarossa

High Life Below Stairs

558 7 0

46 7 6

604 14 6

19.

Tuesday

Lovers' Vows

Citizen

571 16 6

44 5

0

616 1 6

21.

Thursday

Douglas

Bon Ton

652 3 6

36 13 6

688 17 0

23.

Saturday

Tancred

Apprentice

557 10 0

48 12 0

606 2 0

26.

Tuesday

Do.

Bon Ton

569 14 0

48 18 6

618 12 6

Thursday

Lovers' Vows

Wedding Day

565 18 6

Saturday

Devil to Pay

605 13 0

612 4 6

Irishman in London

Doctor and Apothecary

Thursday

560 17 6

42 14 0

603 11 6

6.

Saturday

Barbarossa

Cœur de Lion

535 12 0

45 7 6

580 19 6

16.

Tuesday

Hamlet

Spoiled Child

531 15 6

43 10 6

575 9 0

Thursday

Douglas

586 6 0

631 3 0

Of Age To-morrow

Thus the reader has seen, in the accurate detail of the treasurer, that the sum taken by the house on his eight and twenty performances, was to the astonishing amount of seventeen thousand two hundred and ten pounds, eleven shillings, sterling money. That this gives an average receipt nightly, of six hundred and fourteen pounds, thirteen shillings, and three pence. That the treasury paid him for these services no less than

L.2782 10s. being 3 nights at 50 guineas
25 do. 100 do.

L.157 10

2625 O

L.2782 10

This is independent of his benefits, which were all free, and of which he had four in the season; and these, with presents, must have been each worth 1000 guincas to him.

The boy, however, as I have said, was certainly extraordinary still there was, rather too apparent, a great deficiency of elementary knowledge. One of his admirers proposed two measures, which, in his judgment, would supply all deficiencies. "Let them," said he, "buy him a first folio of Shakspeare; and get some clergyman to teach him Greek." Both of these desiderata were, I think, subsequently conferred upon Mr. Betty. I believe, too, that he taught himself English, not less necessary to his perfection than the language of Eschylus. But it was the prodigy that we followed, and not the powers. Our love could not last to his years of discretion; and when he really acted by his own understanding, his admirers had come to their senses.

In the mean time all the favouritism, and more than the innocence of former patronesses, was lavished upon him. He might have chosen, among our titled dames, the carriage he would honour with his person; and the young Roscius had "wiped away all trivial fond records" of the excellences of Siddons and Kemble. The ARTS strove to perpetuate his countenance and his figure: OPIE painted him on the Grampian hills, as the shepherd Norval-NORTHCOTE exhibited him in a Vandyke costume, retiring from the altar of Shakspeare, as having born thence, not stolen,

"Jove's authentic fire."

Heath engraved the latter picture, which the father published himself; and inscribed to H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence, a decided patron of the stage. Several heads adorned the fugitive lives of him, more or less like, as the artist had

been favoured with a private or public view of his features; and his bust was the rival of his pictures in our exhibitions. Amidst all this adulation, all this desperate folly, be it one consolation to his mature self, that he never lost the genuine modesty of his carriage, and that his temper at least was as steady as his diligence.

Mrs. Siddons was confinéd by a severe and tedious indisposition.

Mr. Kemble all this time said little; he acted Penruddock occasionally, and took a part of no great moment in a passing novelty. Indeed what can a sensible man decide, in such a night, but attendre le jour? It arrived at the close of the first season. Mrs. Litchfield, with her husband, had always been a devoted admirer of Mr. Kemble in tragedy. She had been an intelligent observer, a close one, of the new favourite, and had anticipated the return of the people to better attraction. It struck her to try, for her benefit, a tragedy of Shakspeare, acted by the veteran artists, and she asked Mr. Kemble whether he would play Othello for her night? His answer was, that he would do so with the greatest pleasure, but felt himself bound to tell her, that he thought the choice a weak one. She had concluded otherwise; and made the attempt to render the town ashamed of its injustice. Mr. Kemble acted Othello in a style of surpassing dignity and emotion. Cooke gave his utmost insinuation to Iago; and C. Kemble acted Cassio, so as to bestow a third fine male character upon the play. Mrs. H. Siddons, a lovely actress, was the Desdemona; she herself Emilia. Mr. Heathcote had the stage box, and the young Roscius sat in the front of it; and I have no sort of doubt, received a great and hearty pleasure from the performance. The audience were enthusiastic in their applause, and there were persons who said openly"The charm is dispelled-the business is settled." I can almost forgive indignant excellence for insulting the public, in its turn, with the production of a Roscia, in the infantine pertness of Miss Mudie.

CHAP. IV.

Colman's Theatre.-Poor Suett.-The Village.-Fracas.-Elliston and Matthews.-The former compared to Achilles !-How an audience should be addressed.—Dowton. The Tailors.-Death.-Retreat of the ten thousand.-Masters of the Order.-Winter of 1805-6.-Zanga.-Gloster.Rowe really does imitate Shakspeare in Shore.-Proofs in abundance. Betty's Return.-Receipts contrasted.—Mr. Hargrave.-Betty in Brobdignag.-Season of 1806-7.The Triumph of Coriolanus.-Thomson.-Siddons.-Insult, how noticed by Kemble Theodore Hook.-Tekeli.-Mother Goose.-Isaac Reed. Tobin's Curfew.-Letter to the au thor from Mr. Kemble.-Noel Desenfans, esq..

MR. COLMAN now disposed of a part of the Haymarket Theatre to his brother-in-law, Mr. Morris, Mr. Winston, an old stager, and an attorney of the name of Tahourdine; a circumstance greatly indeed to be regretted; but I apprehend, at the time, unavoidable. I frankly confess, that I could have wished a property created by genius, continued and perpetuated by genius, had still kept itself from the contamination of bargain, and sale, and commercial speculation. But who can control his fate?" 66 The genius who now

held it, certainly not inferior to his predecessors, had a mind of so singular a cast, that he rather courted difficulty than avoided it. He paid at least twice over for every hundred pounds he obtained; and, to use his own figure, could not avoid the circuitous in any thing. "If you wanted to be in the pit of the Opera," said he, "You would cross the street where we now stand; a thing impossible to ME." A much loved friend of my youth had offered me the use of ten thousand pounds, for any theatrical speculation that I inclined to, dividing the profits with me. I mentioned the circumstance to Colman-He laughed and said "he had too much regard for me." "My dear fellow, I will not allow a friend to share my difficulties with me." In his usual way, he added a pleasantry relative to Sheridan's recent partner, which from delicacy I suppress. I should explain, that this had no reference whatever to the present arrangement, which, I be

lieve, then had never been even thought of. For many reasons I wish he had been less scrupulous. Bred a man of business, I could have aided his talent where alone he wanted help; and at the present moment Colman's theatre would have been his own house.

It had been an object of sincere regret to the lovers alike of comedy and opera, to see that Suett was rapidly sinking into the grave. I am silent over a man's indiscretions, when they do not clash with his professional duties-I have no right to pursue him into private life, and measure the progress of a destructive habit. Mr. Suett was a victim to nervous irritability. In our happy symposium, at Colman's theatre, a slight refection was for some time taken in the carpenter's room, where there was a regular president for the two hours of our sittings, and where, from Sheridan to very humble names indeed, the authors and patrons of the theatre mixed in the highest good humour with the performers of both sexes, acting on any particular evening.. The greatest decorum prevailed. On one of these nights, I remember, I was president, and sat decorated with the ribband and the medal; and poor Suett drew his seat next to my throne. He was uncalled for a few minutes, during which he gave me a most curious and unaffected detail of the horrors that invaded him nightly, whenever sleep surprised him, and left his fancy "to sport at will her wild creations." I solemnly declare that no powers, of even German invention, have yet given a series of images so terrific, nor displayed so graphically, as was this record of miseries sustained by Suett.

"I was afraid, methinks, to hear him tell it."

Poor fellow, he was buried on the 15th of July, in the burying-ground on the north side of St. Paul's Cathedral. He was attended to his grave by his two sons, and four private friends, with a considerable number of his theatrical brethren. Suett had received the rudiments of his musical education in her majesty's choir; and the Queen's boys were consequently in attendance, and, with the assistance of some professional singers, an Anthem was intended, and expected by a numerous assemblage of persons who loved him living, and his memory when dead." But it was found that the design, if persisted in, would incur additional fees to the cathedral, amounting to THIRTY-EIGHT pounds, and it would, I suppose, have "profaned the service of the dead to sing a requiem,' unless the established fees had been conceded to the chapter. The age inscribed upon the coffin of Richard Suett, was