BOOK II
CHAPTER I
At the expiration of his year, Mr Holcroft left John Watson and his associates at Newmarket; and returned, as he had intended, to his father, who then kept a cobbler’s stall in South-Audley Street. He was at this time near sixteen. He continued to work in the stall with his father, till the latter could afford to pay a journey-man shoe-maker, to instruct him in the business of making shoes, which in time he learned so well, as to obtain the best wages.
From his early childhood, however, he had eagerly read whatever books came in his way, and this habit did not now leave him: so that, though an exceedingly quick workman, it was rarely that he had a shilling to spare, except for absolute necessaries; and when he had, it was spent at an old book-stall, and his time was again idled away in reading.—Such was the complaint continually made against him. At nineteen, he travelled to Liverpool with his father, who seems still to have retained his love of wandering, and who was most probably determined in this excursion by a desire to revisit his native country. This happened in the year 1764: and in the year following, Mr Holcroft married. While he continued at Liverpool, he procured the humble office of teaching children to read, at a small school in the town. But in less than a year, he left the country, and came to London. Here he continued to work at his trade as a shoe-maker, yet gleaning knowledge with all the industry in his power. He had advanced as far as fractions in Arithmetic, knew something of geometry, could write a legible hand, and had made himself a complete master of vocal music. But the stooping position required in making shoes brought on a return of his old disorder, the asthma; and as he hated the trade, he made every effort to find out some other employment.
Mr Holcroft had, through life, except during the time he was at Newmarket, felt the effects of poverty very severely: but they now preyed more upon his mind than his body. He continually ruminated on the advantages that would have resulted from a good education; and the consciousness that he had neither received one, nor could now pay for instruction, gave him the utmost uneasiness. He was not aware that the desultory materials which he had been at so much pains to collect, would at last form themselves into a consistent mass.
It seems however, that at this period he could not resist the inclination he occasionally felt to commit his thoughts to paper: he even found an editor of a newspaper (the Whitehall Evening Post,) who so far approved of his essays, as to pay him five shillings a column for them. One of them was transcribed into the Annual Register: but, according to his own account, it was much too jejune a performance to deserve any such honour. About this time, Mr Holcroft attempted to set up a day-school somewhere in the country, where for three months he lived upon potatoes and buttermilk, and had but one scholar. At the expiration of the first quarter, he gave up his school, and returned to London. After this, he obtained admission into the family of Mr Granville Sharpe, with whom he went to reside, partly in the character of a servant, and partly I believe as a secretary. It is not certain, whether he was introduced to the notice of this amiable but eccentric man, by his literary efforts, or by accident. Both before and after he went to live with Mr S. he had been accustomed to attend a reading-room, or spouting-club, the members of which in turn rehearsed scenes and passages out of plays. His master did not think this the best mode of spending his time, and made some attempts to cure him of what he considered as an idle habit. These, however, proved ineffectual, and he was at length dismissed from the house of his patron.
He now found himself once more in the streets of London, without money, without a friend, that shame or pride would suffer him to disclose his wants to, or a habitation of any kind to hide his head in. At last, as he was wandering along wherever his feet led him, his eye accidentally glanced on a printed paper pasted against the wall. This was an invitation to all those spirited young fellows, who chose to make their fortunes as common soldiers in the service of the East India Company. He read it with the greatest satisfaction, and was posting away with all haste to enrol his name in that honourable corps, when he was met by one of the persons, whom he had known at the spouting-club. His companion, seeing his bundle and rueful face, asked him where he was going; to which Holcroft replied, that, had he inquired five minutes sooner, he could not have told him; but that, at present, he was for the wars. At this his spouting friend appeared greatly surprised, and told him he thought he could put him upon a better scheme. He said, one Macklin, a famous London actor, was going over to play in Dublin; that he had been inquiring of him for a young fellow, who had a turn for the stage; and that, if Holcroft pleased, he would introduce him; observing that it would be time enough to carry the knapsack, if the sock did not succeed. This proposal was too agreeable to our adventurer to be heard with inattention. Accordingly, having thanked his acquaintance, and accepted his offer, the next day was fixed upon for his introduction to Macklin. The friend, on whom Holcroft had thus unexpectedly lighted was, in fact, a kind of scout, employed by Macklin, to pick up young adventurers of promising talents: it being one of this actor’s passions to make actors of others; though he was in some respects the worst qualified for the office of any man in the world.
The next morning they proceeded to the place of appointment, when they found the great man seated on his couch, which stood by the fire; and on which, whenever he felt himself tired or drowsy, he went to rest, both day and night; so that he sometimes was not in bed for a fortnight together. As they went in, they were followed by his wife, who brought him a bason of tea and some toast, with each of which he found fifty faults in the rudest manner. He afterwards called to her several times, upon the most frivolous occasions, when she was dignified with the style and title of Bess. His countenance, as it appeared to Mr Holcroft at this interview, was the most forbidding he had ever beheld; and age, which had deprived him of his teeth, had not added to its softness. After desiring the young candidate to sit down, he eyed him very narrowly for some time, and then asked him, What had put it into his head to turn actor? The abruptness of the question disconcerted him; and it was some time before he could answer, in rather a confused manner, that he had taken it into his head to suppose it was genius, but that it was very possible he might be mistaken. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘that’s possible enough; and by G—d, Sir, you are not the first that I have known so mistaken.’ Holcroft smiled at his satire, and the other grinned ghastly with his leathern lips, for our tyro had not added to the beauty of his visage by repeating his words. While Macklin was drinking his tea, they talked on indifferent subjects; and as Holcroft did not happen to differ with him, but on the contrary had opportunities of saying several things which confirmed his opinions, he was pleased to allow that he had the appearance of an ingenious young man. When his beverage was finished, he desired him to speak a speech out of some play, which being done, he remarked that he had never in his life heard a young spouter speak naturally, and therefore he was not surprised that Holcroft did not: but, as he seemed tractable, and willing to learn, if he would call again on the morrow, he would hear and answer him further.
When they had descended into the street, Holcroft’s companion assured him it would do, for that he had met with a very favourable reception; which was indeed the case, considering the character of the person to whom their visit had been paid.
According to the account Mr Holcroft has left of this extraordinary man, the author of the comedy of the Man of the World, he was born in the century before the last, yet at the time of Mr Holcroft’s application to him (which was in the year 1770) his faculties did not seem in the least impaired. He was said to have been bred in the interior parts of Ireland, and in such utter ignorance, as not to be able to read at the age of forty. The progress, therefore, which he made afterwards, was an astonishing proof of his genius and industry. His body, like his mind, was cast in a mould as rough as it was durable. His aspect and address confounded his inferiors; and the delight he took in making others fear and admire him gave him an aversion to the society of those whose knowledge exceeded his own; nor was he ever heard to acknowledge superiority in any man. He had no respect for the modesty of youth or sex, but would say the most discouraging, as well as grossest things; and felt pleasure in proportion to the pain he gave. It was common with him to ask his pupils, why they did not rather think of becoming bricklayers than players. He was impatient of contradiction to an extreme; and when he found fault, if the person attempted to answer, he stopped him without hearing, by saying, ‘Ha, you have always a reason for being in the wrong!’ This impatience carried him still farther; it often rendered him exceedingly abusive. He could pronounce the words scoundrel, fool, blockhead, familiarly, without the least annoyance to his nervous system. He indeed pretended to the strictest impartiality, and while his passions were unconcerned, often preserved it: but these were so extremely irritable, that the least opposition was construed into an unpardonable insult; and the want of immediate apprehension in his pupils subjected them to the most galling contempt, which excited despair instead of emulation. His authority was too severe a climate for the tender plant of genius ever to thrive in. His judgment was, however, in general sound, and his instructions those of a master. ‘In short,’ says Mr H., ‘if I may estimate the sensations of others by my own, those despots, who, as we are told, shoot their attendants for their diversion, are not regarded with more awe than Macklin was by his pupils and domestics.’ Such is the conclusion of his severe, but apparently faithful portrait of this singular character; and it will be seen in the sequel, that he had sufficient opportunity for rendering it accurate.
Having finished their visit, Holcroft and his friend adjourned to the Black Lion, in Russell Street, which was at that time a place of resort for theatrical people. He here learnt that Mr Foote was going to take a company to Edinburgh, after the close of the summer season. Being now anxious to secure himself an engagement, and the manner of Macklin having neither prejudiced him much in his favour, nor given him any certain hopes of success, he resolved to apply to Mr Foote. Accordingly, making some slight excuse to his companion, he hastened into Suffolk Street.
He had the good fortune to find the manager at breakfast with a young man, whom he employed partly on the stage, and partly as an amanuensis. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘young gentleman, I guess your business by the sheepishness of your manner; you have got the theatrical cacoethes, you have rubbed your shoulder against the scene: hey, is it not so?’ Holcroft answered that it was. ‘Well, and what great hero should you wish to personate? Hamlet, or Richard, or Othello, or who?’ Holcroft replied, that he distrusted his capacity for performing any that he had mentioned. ‘Indeed,’ said he, ‘that’s a wonderful sign of grace. I have been teazed for these many years by all the spouters in London, of which honourable fraternity I dare say you are a member; for I can perceive no stage varnish, none of your true strolling brass lacker on your face.’—‘No indeed, Sir.’—‘I thought so. Well, Sir, I never saw a spouter before, that did not want to surprise the town in Pierre, or Lothario, or some character that demands all the address, and every requisite of a master in the art. But, come, give us a touch of your quality; a speech: here’s a youngster,’ pointing to his secretary, ‘will roar Jaffier against Pierre, let the loudest take both.’ Accordingly, he held the book, and at it they fell: the scene they chose, was that of the before-mentioned characters in Venice Preserved. For a little while after they began, it seems that Holcroft took the hint Foote had thrown out, and restrained his wrath: but this appeared so insipid, and the ideas of rant and excellence were so strongly connected in his mind, that when Jaffier began to exalt his voice, he could no longer contain himself; but, as Nic. Bottom says, they both roared so, that it would have done your heart good to hear them. Foote smiled, and after enduring this vigorous attack upon his organs of hearing as long as he was able, interrupted them.
Far from discouraging our new beginner, he told him, that with respect to giving the meaning of the words, he spoke much more correctly than he had expected. ‘But,’ said he, ‘like other novices, you seem to imagine that all excellence lies in the lungs: whereas such violent exertions should be used but very sparingly, and upon extraordinary occasions; for (besides that these two gentlemen, instead of straining their throats, are supposed to be in common conversation) if an actor make no reserve of his powers, how is he to rise according to the tone of the passion?’ He then read the scene they had rehearsed, and with so much propriety and ease, as well as force, that Holcroft was surprised, having hitherto supposed the risible faculties to be the only ones over which he had any great power.
Mr Holcroft afterwards displayed his musical talents, which also met with the approbation of Foote; who, however, told him, that as he was entirely inexperienced with respect to the stage, if he engaged him, his salary at first would be very low. He said, it was impossible to judge with certainty of stage requisites, till they had been proved; and that if, upon consideration, he thought it expedient to accept of one pound per week, he might come to him again a day or two before the theatre in the Haymarket shut up; but that if he could meet with a more flattering offer in the mean time, he begged he might be no obstacle.
Mr Holcroft came away from this celebrated wit, delighted with the ease and frankness of his behaviour, and elated with his prospect of success. But as he had promised Macklin to call again, he did not think it right to fail in his engagement. Accordingly, on his second visit, he gave him a part to read in a piece of which he himself was the author, and which had met with great success. Having finished this task apparently to the satisfaction of the author, the latter paid his visitor so high a compliment, as to read to him some scenes of a comedy, which he was then writing. They were characteristic and satirical, and met with Holcroft’s sincere and hearty approbation, which, it may be supposed, did not a little contribute to prejudice Macklin in his favour. He, however, thought himself bound not to act with duplicity; and he therefore told Macklin of the offer he had had from Foote, excusing this second application from the necessity he was under of getting immediate employment. Macklin allowed the force of his excuse, but thought he might do better in Ireland. He inquired if Holcroft had any objection to become a prompter, adding that the office was profitable, and one, for which, from the good hand he wrote, and other circumstances, he might easily qualify himself. Holcroft answered that Macklin was the best judge of his fitness for the office, and that he had no objection to the situation, except that it would be more agreeable to his inclination to become an actor. This inclination the other said might be indulged at the same time, which would render him so much the more useful. Little parts would frequently be wanting; the going on for these would accustom him to face the audience, and tread the stage, which would be an advantage. Holcroft then demanded what salary would be annexed to this office; and received for answer, that, as there was a good deal of trouble in it, he could not have less than thirty shillings a week, especially if he undertook to perform small parts occasionally. Macklin also informed him, that he was not manager himself, he only went as a performer: but that Mr ——, one of the managers, was in town, to whom he would speak, and in two or three days return him a positive answer. In the interim he desired his protegé to call in the morning, and he would give him instructions in the part he had read to him, for he had some thoughts of letting him play it. After making proper acknowledgments for these favours, our young adventurer took his leave, much better pleased than at his first visit.
CHAPTER II
It was not long before everything was settled in the manner proposed by Macklin, and Mr Holcroft was informed, that it was necessary for him to set off for Dublin, it being the intention of the proprietors to open the theatre about the beginning of October. In consequence of the desire he had expressed to appear in some character, Macklin had promised not only to procure him such an opportunity, but likewise to instruct and become his patron: and on Holcroft’s representing to him his want of cash for the journey, he lent him six guineas on the part of the managers, and gave him a letter to Mr ——, who would, he said, provide him with a lodging, and do him other trifling services, which would be agreeable to a person in his situation.
Holcroft now rewarded his spouting friend with a guinea, redeemed his clothes, which he had been forced to pawn, and left London, elated with the most flattering hopes.—He arrived in Dublin about the latter end of September, 1770. The novelty of the scene, and the vast difference in the economy and manners of the people, made a strong impression on his imagination. The bar at the mouth of the Liffy renders the entrance up that river passable only to ships of small burthen, and to them only when the tide serves. It was low water when the packet arrived at the mouth of the river, and a boat came alongside of the vessel, into which most of the passengers went, rather than wait another tide, and our adventurer among the rest. The river divides the city, and the other passengers were set on shore on the quay; but Holcroft, as directed by his letter, inquired for Capel-Street, which was on the opposite side. Thither, accordingly, he was carried; and his trunk and himself landed in a beer-house. He was rather astonished, when the waterman demanded five and five-pence, together with a quart of three-penny, for his conveyance from the packet: and the more so, as he had seen the other passengers give but a shilling each, and one or two of the meaner among them only sixpence. He remonstrated against the imposition, and quoted the precedent of the shilling; but in vain.
The disorder of their looks, the smoothness of their tongues, and the possession they had taken of his trunk, on which one of them seated himself, while the other argued the case, induced our novice to comply with their demands: but what gave him the greatest astonishment was, that the landlord of the beer-house, who had sworn stoutly to their honesty, while he was paying them, no sooner saw their backs turned, than, according to his own phraseology, ‘he pitched them to the divel, for a couple of cut-throat, chating rascals, that desarved hanging worse than a murderer.’
The reflections to which this and similar scenes gave rise in Mr Holcroft’s mind, though trite, are not the less worthy of attention. He says, ‘During my short stay in Ireland, I had but too many occasions to observe a shocking depravity of manners, which I attribute either to the laws, or the want of a due enforcement of them. The Irish are habitually, not naturally, licentious. They have all that warmth and generosity which are the characteristics of the best dispositions; and when properly educated, are an honour to mankind. Ireland has produced many first-rate geniuses; and in my opinion, nothing but the foregoing circumstance has prevented her from producing many more. It is the legislature which forms the manners of a nation.’
When our traveller set out from London, he was assured that the house would open in the beginning of October, but it was November before the season commenced; so that his finances were once more exhausted, and he was obliged to apply to the friend to whom Macklin had recommended him, for a farther supply. The acting manager was one D——, a busy, bustling fellow, void of all civility, who pretended to carry the world before him.
Mr Holcroft soon discovered that there was an insurmountable antipathy between this man’s disposition and his own. But the means of his subsistence were at stake; he endeavoured, therefore, to accommodate himself to the other’s temper as much as possible, and waited for the arrival of Macklin with the utmost impatience. He understood that his engagement had been permanently fixed at thirty shillings a week; but, when he went to the treasury, he found it reduced to a guinea; and whenever he pleaded his engagement, received the most mortifying and insulting answers. He discovered the entire improbability of his becoming a favourite. None were such but those who could administer the grossest flattery, and who industriously listened to whatever was said in the theatre concerning this petty despot and his management, in order to repeat it in the ear of their employer.
Holcroft had vainly imagined that the presence of Macklin would put an end to all his grievances: he looked up to him as his patron, as one who had been the occasion of his leaving England, who had pledged himself to be his friend, and was bound to protect him. Whether D—— had prejudiced him against Holcroft, or whether Macklin himself was aware of his deficiency in the honeyed arts of adulation, he could not determine; but he found him very cold in his interest, and far more disposed to browbeat than countenance him. He had, as we have seen, promised to teach him a part, and bring him out in it; but when he ventured to remind him of it, he received only sarcastic remarks on his incapacity. Holcroft, however, persisted in asserting the positiveness of his agreement with respect to his salary, concerning which Macklin had the meanness to equivocate; but he succeeded in obtaining an addition of four shillings a week.
Unable to extricate himself, he endured the insults of malice and ignorance for five months, till the money which he had borrowed had been deducted from his stipend, and then D—— immediately discharged him. It would be no easy task to describe what he must have felt at this moment: he was not possessed of five shillings in the world, was in a strange country, and had no means, now that he was shut out from the theatre, of obtaining a livelihood. He saw nothing but misery and famine before him, and he uttered the bitterest exclamations against Macklin for the perfidiousness of his conduct. This he felt so strongly, that though Macklin by the severity of his manner had gained an almost entire ascendancy over him, he went to his house, and with the utmost firmness, after observing that he would rather starve than incur any further obligations to him, displayed the impropriety and injustice of his conduct in such animated terms, that all his wonted sternness fled, and the cynic stood abashed before the boy.
There was another theatre open in Smock-Alley, under the direction of Mossop: but he was insolvent, and none of his people were paid. Here, however, as a last resource, Holcroft applied, and was engaged at the same nominal salary that he had in Capel-Street.
It soon appeared that there was no probability of his being paid for his performance at Mossop’s theatre: he was therefore forced to quit Dublin, and went on board the Packet for Parkgate, in March, 1771.
The wind was fair till they had lost sight of the hill of Hoath; but soon after sun-set, a hurricane came on, which in this narrow and rocky sea, put their lives in imminent danger. Of this, however, from the violent effects of the sea-sickness, Holcroft was insensible. They were driven during the storm, considerably to the north; and such was the ignorance of the master and his two or three superannuated mariners, that he still continued sailing to the northward, having no knowledge of navigation, but what he had gained by coasting between the two kingdoms. He was therefore on the present occasion quite at a loss; so that in all probability they might have made a voyage to Greenland, had not an intelligent Scotchman among the passengers known some of the headlands in his own country. The master would have contested the point, but that the passengers perceived his want of skill, and joined the North-Briton, who with a degree of warmth expressive of his attachment to his bleak hills, exclaimed, ‘What the de’el, mon, d’ye think I dinna ken the craig of Ailsa?’
They were eight days without putting into any port, except sending the boat on shore on the evening of the seventh at the Isle of Man, to procure some provisions for the passengers, who were almost starving, having consumed the stock, which is usually provided for voyages of this kind, in a day or two after the storm had abated. The reason of their being kept so long from port was the dead calm which had succeeded; and which the mariners, who are the most superstitious of all beings, attributed to there being some Jonas on board. This opinion they inculcated among the poor Irish who had paid half a crown for their passage in the hold; who were as ignorant as themselves, and much more mischievous. Unluckily, Holcroft was the person on whom their suspicions lighted. They had discovered him to be a player, a profession, which was at one time regarded by the universal consent of mankind as altogether profane. The common Irish in the hold were chiefly catholics, and the sixth day from their departure happened to be Easter-Sunday. Holcroft had sauntered off the quarter-deck, with a volume of Hudibras in his hand, and had walked to the other end of the vessel, when he found himself encircled by two or three fellows with most ferocious countenances, who were gazing earnestly at him, with looks expressive of loathing and revenge. Most of the passengers were at breakfast, and there was no one on deck but these men, and a couple of the sailors, who joined them. The peculiarity of their manner excited his notice, and one of them asked him, his lips quivering with rage, ‘If he had not better be getting a prayer-book, than be reading plays upon that blessed day?’ Holcroft now perceived that the fellows were inebriated, and very imprudently, instead of soothing them, asked them if they imagined there was as much harm in reading a play as in getting drunk on that day, and so early in the morning. ‘By the holy father,’ replied the spokesman, ‘I know you. You are the Jonas, and by Jasus the ship will never see land till you are tossed over-board, you and your plays along with you: and sure it will be a great deal better that such a wicked wretch as you should go to the bottom, than that all the poor innocent souls in the ship should be lost.’ This speech entirely disconcerted him. The fellow’s resolute tone, and the approbation which his companions discovered, were alarming. He, however, preserved presence of mind enough to assure them, it was not a play-book that he was reading, and opened it to convince them, while he slunk away to the quarter-deck, which he gained not without the greatest difficulty. Mr Holcroft arrived at Chester without any farther accident.
CHAPTER III
Mr Holcroft had now the world once more before him; and he resolved to write to such travelling companies as he could obtain any intelligence of. His knowledge of music, his talents as a singer, and his recent arrival from the Dublin theatre, were recommendations which procured him the offer of several engagements. He closed with one, in a company that was then at Leeds in Yorkshire. In this his evil fortune was again predominant. He found the affairs of the company in a state of the greatest disorder: the players were despised in the town, and quarrelling with one another and the manager. Here, however, he discovered how necessary practice is to the profession of a player; and perceived that, though some of his new associates could scarcely read, they could all, from the mere force of habit, speak better on the stage than he could.
In a few weeks, in consequence of continual bickerings and jealousies, most of the players deserted the manager; and no others coming to supply their places, the company dissolved of itself. A letter had followed our luckless hero from Chester, inviting him to join another set of actors, then at Hereford: but this had been written nearly a month; it was a hundred and sixty miles across the country, and he did not know, if he set out, whether he should find them there; or if he did, whether they might now stand in need of his assistance. But his money was by this time reduced so low, that it was necessary to come to an immediate determination. With a heavy heart, then, and a light purse, did he begin another journey: and on the fifth day, entered an inn by the road-side, which was eight-and-twenty miles from Hereford, with the sum of nine-pence in his pocket; and in the morning made his exit pennyless. The fatigue he had already undergone, and the scanty fare he had allowed himself, had so reduced his spirits, that he found considerable difficulty in performing this last day’s journey on an empty stomach: but there was no remedy. About four o’clock he ascended the hill that looks down upon that ancient city, at the sight of which a thousand anxieties took possession of his bosom. He inquired of the first person he met, with an emotion not easily to be expressed, if the comedians had left Hereford; and to his great joy, was answered that they had not. Faint, weary, and ready to drop with hunger, he traversed the town to inquire for the manager: but it was one of the nights on which they did not perform, and the manager was not to be found. He was then directed to his brother, who was a barber in the place; and upon the family’s observing his weakness, and desiring to know if he was not well, he collected courage enough to tell them that he was greatly fatigued, having come a long journey, and for the last day not having broken his fast, except at the brook. Notwithstanding this confession, in making which he had evidently done great violence to his feelings, they heard it without offering him the least refreshment, or so much as testifying either surprise or pity; and he left the house with tears in his eyes. When the players understood that a fresh member was come to join them, they, from sympathy, very soon discovered his situation; and were not a little incensed at the story of the barber.
The company into which Mr Holcroft was now introduced was that of the Kembles: the father of Mrs. Siddons was the manager. Mr H. continued with this company some time; and in the course of their peregrinations he visited Ludlow, Worcester, Leominster, Bewdly, Bromsgrove, and Droitwitch; in all which places he acted inferior parts. One of the actors in this company, of the name of Downing or Dunning, seems to have made a pretty strong impression on Mr H.’s fancy, for he has left a very particular description of him. This stage-hero had a large, red, bottle-nose, with little intellect; but he was tall, looked passably when made up for the stage, and had a tolerable voice, though monotonous. To hide the redness of his nose, it was his custom to powder it: but unluckily he drank brandy; the humour that flowed to his nose, made it irritable, and in the course of a scene the powder was usually rubbed off. His wife stood behind the scenes with the powder-puff ready, and exclaimed when he came off—‘Lord! Curse it, George! how you rub your poor nose! Come here, and let me powder it. Do you think Alexander the Great had such a nose? I am sure Juliet would never have married Romeo with such a bottle-nose. Upon my word, if your nose had been so red, and large, when you ran away with me from the boarding-school, I should never have stepped into the same chaise with you and your journeyman captain, I assure you.’ George seldom made any reply to these harangues, except ‘Pshaw, woman,’ or by beginning to repeat his part.
In the year 1798, when Mr Holcroft spent an evening with old Mrs. Kemble, and talked over past times with her, she gave a whimsical picture of this wife of Downing. Mrs. D. was addicted to drinking, exceedingly nervous, and snuffled when she spoke. She used to tell her own story as follows: ‘He calls himself Downing, Ma’am, but his name is Dunning. I was a quaker, Ma’am, when he first knew me, and put to a boarding-school. He and one Chalmers (I suppose you have heard of that Chalmers, he gave himself the title of Captain)—Well, Ma’am, while I was at the boarding-school, they came a courting to me. Dunning, my husband, that you see there, was a tall, handsome fellow enough; he had not such a bottle-nose then, Ma’am, nor such spindle legs; so he put on a coat edged with gold lace, I don’t know where he got it, and gave himself the airs of a gentleman. He thought I was a great fortune; but, God help me, I had not a shilling; and I believed him to be what he pretended, when all the while he was no better than a barber; and this Captain Chalmers was his journeyman. So they persuaded me, innocent fool, to run away with them, thinking they had got a prize, and I thought the same; so the biter on both sides was bit. So that is the history, Ma’am, of me and Mr Dunning.’
This maudlin lady was often employed to receive the money at the play-house door, and was suspected of petty embezzlements to supply herself with liquor. Mr Holcroft used sometimes to rally her a little unmercifully on her love of the bottle, and the adventure of the Captain. The dialogue is somewhat coarse, but it may serve as a sample of the tone of conversation which prevailed in provincial companies at that time. ‘It is very cold to-night, Mrs. Downing.’—‘Yes, sir.’—‘I hope you take care to keep yourself warm.’—‘What do you mean, sir?’—‘Flannel and a little comfort.’ ‘What comfort, sir!’—‘You know what I mean.’—‘I know nothing about you, sir!’—‘A drop of cordial; lamb’s wool is a good lining.’—‘Gods curse your linings, sir; I know nothing about linings.’—‘Nay, don’t be angry; I have not said you are tipsy.’ ‘Gods curse your sayings, sir, I don’t care for your sayings. Mr Downing shall never set foot, after this night, on the same boards with such an impertinent puppy.’—‘Nay, my dear Mrs. Downing.’—‘Yes, sir, you are no better; and if George Downing was a man, he would soon teach you good manners.’—‘He is well qualified, my dear Mrs. D., for he practised upon many a block-head before he came to mine.’—‘And what of that, sir. I understand you; but a barber is as good as a cobbler at any time.’
Now it must be allowed, that though there is not much wit or humour in all this, it is very easy and free spoken. Mr Holcroft was young at the time, and probably ready enough to give into any joke, which he found the common practice of the place.—It may be remarked by the way, that there is a peculiar tone of banter and irony, bordering on ribaldry, which seems almost inseparable from the profession of strolling players. For this many reasons might be given: 1. The contempt (often most undeserved, no doubt) in which they are held by the world, and which they naturally reflect back on one another; for they must soon learn to despise a profession which they see despised by every one else, at least with that single exception which self-love contrives to reserve for us all. 2. The circumstance that they live by repeating the wit of others, and that they must naturally ape what they live by. In nine instances out of ten, however, this habitual temptation must produce impertinence instead of wit. 3. The custom of repeating things without meaning or consequence on the stage, must lead to the same freedom of speech when they are off. It is only acting a part. 4. They have not much else to do, and they assume a certain levity of manner as a resource against ennui, as well as to hide a sense of the mortifications and hardships they so often meet with. Lastly, their mode of life, which is always in companies, and in situations where they have an opportunity of becoming acquainted every moment with one another’s weak sides, gives rise to a propensity to quizzing, as it does in all other open societies; such as of boys at school, of collegians, among lawyers, etc.—But to return to our narrative.
The company of which old Mr Kemble was the manager, was more respectable than many other companies of strolling players; but it was not in so flourishing a condition as to place the manager beyond the reach of the immediate smiles or frowns of fortune. Of this the following anecdote may be cited as an instance. A benefit had been fixed for some of the family, in which Miss Kemble, then a little girl, was to come forward in some part, as a juvenile prodigy. The taste of the audience was not, it seems, so accommodating as in the present day, and the extreme youth of the performer disposed the gallery to noise and uproar instead of admiration. Their turbulent dissatisfaction quite disconcerted the child, and she was retiring bashfully from the stage, when her mother, who was a woman of a high spirit, and alarmed for the success of her little actress, came forward, and leading the child to the front of the house, made her repeat the fable of the Boys and the Frogs, which entirely turned the tide of popular opinion in her favour. What must the feelings of the same mother have been, when this child (afterwards Mrs. Siddons), became the admiration of the whole kingdom, the first seeing of whom was an event in every person’s life never to be forgotten!
It may not be improper to remark in this place, that Mrs. Siddons first appeared in London about the year 1778, without exciting any great notice or expectation. She had acquired her fame in the country, before she was received in 1783 with such unbounded applause on the London theatres. There is a playful and lively letter from Mr Holcroft to Miss Kemble (most probably Mrs. Siddons), dated, 12th Feb., 1779, returning her thanks for the favour of her late visit to him while in town, and desiring his remembrances to theatrical friends in the country, and among others, his Baises Mains to a Mr Davis.
A difference with the manager (old Mr Kemble), occasioned Mr Holcroft to leave this company; from which he went to that of Stanton, which performed at Birmingham and in the neighbourhood, and sometimes made excursions to the north of England. A memorandum of Mr Holcroft, dated 1799, gives some account of himself, and of one of his fellow-actors while in this company. ‘A person called on me of the name of F——, who began by asking if I knew him. I answered no. He replied that it was likely enough, but that we had been acquainted when I was an actor in Walsal, where he played the second fiddle, and doubted not but I should remember that we had often played at billiards together. I answered that I recollected nothing of his person, though I played at billiards with several people, and probably with him. I then asked, which was the best player of the two? He replied that, because he squinted, people thought he could not play; but that, to the best of his recollection, he had won six or seven pounds of me, which greatly distressed me. Yes, said I, the loss of such a sum at that time (in 1773), would have so distressed me, that though I do forget multitudes of things and persons, I think I should not have forgotten such an incident. I was therefore persuaded he was much mistaken in the sum. In answer to this, he said, he had remarked to me at the time we were both upon the same lay; and finding I took offence at the expression, he had softened it by saying, we neither of us wished to lose our money. He therefore proposed that I should pay him by going halves with him, when he played and betted again. What degree of truth there was in all this, I cannot now exactly tell, only I know that I had a high spirit, and a detestation of all gambling conspiracies, though at that time I played for money and wished to win. I was poor, neither did I then conceive it to be wrong. The man said, he should not have taken the liberty to come to a gentleman so high in the world (at this I could not but smile,) as I now was, had not Mr Clementi told him I was without pride, and entirely free of access. He is a stout man, nearly six feet high, and lives at Birmingham, where he teaches the violin, has daughters, whom he has taught to fiddle, play the harpsichord, etc., and sells music among his scholars. His business in London, he tells me, is to bring up his wife and daughters, and leave them here, the latter for instruction; and that one great motive for visiting me was, to hear Fanny (Miss Holcroft) play. In addition to ungain size, awkwardness, and squinting, he has a clownish gesticulation, and makes such strange contortions of face, as, were it not to avoid giving offence, would excite continual laughter. In talking of billiards, he spoke of a gentleman at Walsal, with whom he used to play, who came with his pockets full of guineas, and that the chinking of these excited in him the most extraordinary desire to win. Here he got up, and gave a picture by gesticulating, squinting, and drawing his muscles awry, of the agitation he used to be in when going to strike the balls. Nothing could exceed the effect of his naïveté. The conclusion of his history of Walsal was, that playing at billiards with Stanton, the manager, the latter complained of the largeness of the pockets; to which F—— replied, yes, they were very large, large indeed, as unconscionably large as his four dead shares, added to the five shares he received for the acting of his wife and children; which so affronted Stanton, that he discharged him the next week. He said he left Walsal with thirty pounds in his pocket, which he had won at billiards, promising his wife never to play more, and that he had kept his word. As he appeared to have been the industrious father of a family, I invited him to bring his daughters, and hear Fanny, who did not then happen to be at home; but his left-handed country breeding, or some other motive, made him decline fixing any time.’[[2]]
To enable the reader to understand the satirical allusion to the manager’s shares, which cost poor F—— his situation as second fiddler in the company, it may be necessary to give a short account of the economy of a provincial theatre. This I cannot do better than by citing Mr Holcroft’s own words. ‘A company of travelling comedians then is a small kingdom, of which the manager is the monarch. Their code of laws seems to have existed with few material variations since the days of Shakespeare, who is, with great reason, the god of their idolatry.—The person who is rich enough to furnish a wardrobe and scenes, commences manager, and has his privileges accordingly: if there are twenty persons in the company, for instance, the manager included, the receipts of the house, after all incidental expenses are deducted, are divided into four and twenty shares, four of which are called dead shares, and taken by the manager as payment for the use of his dresses and scenes; to these is added the share to which he is entitled as a performer. Our manager (Stanton), has five sons and daughters all ranked as performers; so that he sweeps eleven shares, that is, near half the profits of the theatre, into his pocket every night. This is a continual subject of discontent to the rest of the actors, who are all, to a man, disaffected to the higher powers. They are, however, most of them in debt to the manager, and of course chained to his galley; a circumstance which he does not fail to remind them of, whenever they are refractory.
‘They appear to be a set of merry, thoughtless beings, who laugh in the midst of poverty, and who never want a quotation or a story to recruit their spirits. When they get any money, they seem in haste to spend it, lest some tyrant, in the shape of a dun, should snatch it from them. They have a circuit or set of towns, to which they resort when the time comes round; so that there are but three or four in our company who are not well known in *****. I observe that the town’s-people are continually railing at them: yet are exceedingly unhappy, if they fail to return at the appointed time. It is a saying among us, that a player’s six-pence does not go as far as a town’s-man’s groat; therefore, though the latter are continually abusing them for running in debt, they take good care to indemnify themselves, and are no great losers, if they get ten shillings in the pound.’
This patriarchal manager, with his wife, sons, and daughters, seems to have been not only an object of envy, but from his blunders and stupidity, the butt of the whole company. Among other instances, which are related of his talent for absurdity, he wished to have Shylock in the Merchant of Venice played in the dialect of Duke’s Place, and was positive Shakespeare intended it so. He once told the duke in Othello, a messenger was arrived from the gallows, instead of the galleys; and in playing the part of Bardolph, where that worthy person, descanting on the fieriness of his nose, says, ‘Behold these meteors, these exhalations,’ he used to lift his hands to heaven with a solemn flourish, as if he had really seen ‘the heavens on fire.’
CHAPTER IV
While Mr Holcroft was in this company, or a short time before he entered it, he married again. His second wife was the sister of a Mr Tipler, of Nottingham: by her he had two children, William, born in 1773, and Sophy, born at Cockermouth, in 1775. Her mother either died in child-bed of her, or shortly after. This marriage would have been a very happy one, had it not been embittered by scenes of continual distress and disappointment, which Mrs. H. bore with a resignation and sweetness of temper, which could not but endear her to a husband of Mr Holcroft’s character. There is a sort of Shandean manuscript of his, written at this time, and in which he gives an account of his own situation, crosses, poverty, etc. In this there are several passages expressive of the tenderest attachment to his wife; and which, from the amiable character he has drawn of her, she seems to have deserved. One of these will, I think, strongly paint the amiableness of his own heart. After describing a series of misfortunes, he breaks out into the following beautiful address to his wife.
‘Oh Matilda! shall I ever forget thy tenderness and resignation? Or when in the bitterness of despair, beholding thee pregnant, wan with watching thy sick infant, and sitting assiduously at thy needle to earn a morsel of bread,—when thou hast beheld the salt rheum of biting anguish scald my agonizing cheek, with what tender love, what mild, what sweet persuasive patience, thou hast comforted my soul, and made even misery smile in hope, and fond forgetfulness! Richer than all the monarchs of the east, Matilda, has thy kindness made me: the world affords not thy equal!’
Mr Holcroft afterwards removed with his wife into Booth’s company. She had a good figure, and her husband had taught her to sing, and instructed her sufficiently in the business of the stage to render her serviceable to the theatre. When at Cockermouth in 1775, Mr Holcroft addressed a letter and a poem to David Garrick, which I shall here insert; both as they are curious in themselves, and are characteristic of the state of his feelings at the time. For the romantic extravagance of his appeal to Garrick’s generosity, no other apology seems necessary, than the old adage, that drowning men catch at straws.
‘To David Garrick, Esq.
‘Sir, I know of no excuse that I can make for the impertinence of this address, but my feelings. They press hard upon me, they are not to be withstood. They have told me your sympathetic heart sighs for the distressed, and weeps with the child of sorrow. I believe they told me truth.
‘I am a strolling comedian, have a wife and family, for whom I would fain provide, but have sometimes, notwithstanding the strictest economy, found the task a very difficult one. I am now near three hundred miles from London, in a company that must, in all human probability, soon be dispersed; my wife lying-in at an inn, and in circumstances that I cannot describe. I do not wish to eat the bread of idleness; I neither know, nor wish to know any thing of luxury; and a trifling salary would make me affluent. I have played in the country with applause, and my friends, I am afraid, have flattered me: some of them have ranked me among the sons of genius, and I have, at times, been silly enough to believe them. I have succeeded best in low comedy and old men. I understand music very well, something of French and fencing, and have a very quick memory, as I can repeat any part under four lengths at six hours’ notice. I have studied character, situation, dress, deliberation, enunciation, but above all, the eye and the manner; and have so far succeeded, as to be entirely at the head of my profession here in all those characters which nature has any way qualified me for. I am afraid, Sir, you think by this time that I have undertaken to write my own panegyric. That, however, is far from my intention; neither do I wish for employment in any but a very subordinate situation. My wife is a good figure, but her timidity would always place her behind a Queen at your theatre. If you were to find me capable of any thing better than an attendant, to your judgment would I cheerfully accede. If you do not chuse to employ my wife, but would only engage me, I think we should both remember it with that enthusiasm of gratitude, with which good minds are oppressed when they receive favours which they have no possible means of returning.
‘I am, Sir,
‘Your very humble Servant, etc.
‘Cockermouth, in Cumberland,
June 1st, 1775, at the house
of George Bowes, hatter.
‘P.S. With respect to the trifling Poem inclosed, I meant only to ease my own heart by it: should it reach yours, it will be more than I can expect.’
HOPE;
OR,
THE DELUSION.
‘Advance, soft soother of the mind,
Oh! hither bend, a welcome guest:
Sweet Hope! stray hither, here thou’lt find
Those sanguine thoughts, that please thee best.
Fair Fancy bring, thy darling child,
Deck’d in loose robes of Alpine white:
With thee, her happy Parent, wild
She wings her bold, romantic flight.
Blest pair! I’ll sing, inspir’d by you,
Of wealth bestow’d to noble ends,
Of sweet enchanting scenes in view,
Of future times and faithful friends.
Tho’ my sweet William, prattling youth,
For bread oft begs in accents meek;
Matilda, fairest flower of truth,
Droops on my breast her dew-dipt cheek.
Tho’ the big tears run down my face
To see her aspect wan and mild,
And hear her lov’d affection trace
My care-mark’d features in our child.
Tho’ fortune lowly bows my neck,
And cares not for the wretch’s groan,—
Yet smile but Hope, or Fancy beck,
And I’ll ascend her star-built throne.
Now, now, I mount! Behold me rise!
Hope lends me strength, and Fancy wings,
Oh! listen to the magic lies,
Which fleeting, faithless Fancy sings!
With Independence truly blest,
Of some neat cot she styles me lord,
Where Age and Labour love to rest,
Where healthy viands press the board.
Now lay me down, kind nymph, at ease
Beneath yon verdant mountain’s brow,
Where wanton zephyrs fan the trees,
Where violets spring, and waters flow.
What joys—delusive charmer, hold!
Despair has seiz’d my thick’ning blood:
Her lips how pale! Her cheek how cold!
Matilda faints for want of food!’
The foregoing stanzas have been given less for the poetry than the history they contain. The distress which they paint did not, it seems, reach Garrick’s heart: at least Mr Holcroft left Cockermouth some time after without having received an answer to his letter. Whether his wife died before or after he left Cockermouth, I do not know; but there is an epitaph on Mrs. Holcroft, written about this period, in which he feelingly laments her loss.
Beauty, Love, and Truth lie here:
Passenger, a moment stay!
Breathe a sigh, and drop a tear,
O’er her much-lamented clay.
Death! thy dart is harmless now,
Widow’d griefs thy stroke defy:
Weak the terrors of thy brow
To the wretch who longs to die.
At the time that Mr Holcroft was at Cockermouth, he was in Booth’s company, which he had joined at Carlisle in the autumn of 1774. He had just then left Stanton’s company, who were performing at Kendal. He was recommended to Booth by a friend of the name of Hatton, who was an excellent comedian, and the hero of the company. He had spoken in high terms of Holcroft’s talents, who himself sent off a letter as his avant-courier, in which he undertook to do a great deal for very little. He engaged to perform all the old men, and principal low-comedy characters; he was to be the music, that is, literally the sole accompaniment to all songs, etc., on his fiddle in the orchestra; he undertook to instruct the younger performers in singing and music, and to write out the different casts or parts in every new comedy; and, lastly, he was to furnish the theatre with several new pieces, never published, but which he brought with him in manuscript, among the rest Dr. Last in his Chariot, which character he himself performed. Here was certainly enough for one man to do; and for all these services, various and important as they were, he stipulated that he should be entitled to a share and a half of the profits of the theatre, which generally amounted to between four and five pounds a night whenever it opened, that is, three times a week. This proposed salary could not, therefore, amount to more than seventeen or eighteen shillings weekly.
In the above list of employments, which Mr Holcroft undertook to fulfil, the capital attraction, and that which he believed no country manager could resist, was the character of Dr. Last, which he did in imitation of the London performers. The scene in which he produced the most effect was that of the doctor’s examination. This, as I have heard it described, was a very laughable, if not a very pleasing performance. Mr Holcroft was naturally rather long-backed; and in order to give a ridiculous appearance to the doctor, he used to lean forwards, with his chin raised as high as possible into the air, and his body projecting proportionably behind; and in this frog-like attitude, with his eyes staring wide open, and his teeth chattering, he answered the questions that were put to him, in a harsh, tremulous voice, sometimes growling, and sometimes squeaking, and with such odd starts and twitches of countenance, that the effect produced upon the generality of spectators was altogether convulsive. The person who gave me this description said he thought the part a good deal overdone, but that it was a very entertaining caricature. Mr Holcroft himself went through this part to gratify a friend, a very short time before his death. He said, it always produced a very great effect, whenever he acted it; but that the chief, or only merit it had, was that of being a close imitation of Weston’s manner of doing it.[[3]]
The history of the company in which Mr Holcroft was now engaged, deserves notice from its singularity. The name of the original founder of the company was Mills, a Scotchman. He and his family had formerly travelled the country, playing nothing but Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd. This they continued to do for several years without either scenery or music. As the younger branches of the family grew up, one of them became a scene-painter, and some of the others learned to fiddle. They now, therefore, added scenes and music to the representation of their favourite pastoral. They afterwards enlarged their circuit, and made excursions into the North of England: and though the loves of Patie and Peggy were a never-failing source of delight on the other side of the Tweed, their English auditors grew tired of this constant sameness. They therefore, after the performance of the Gentle Shepherd, which was still the business of the evening, introduced a farce occasionally, as a great treat to the audience. Mills’s daughters married players. This brought an accession of strength into the family, so that they were now able to act regular plays; and by degrees, Allan Ramsay, with his shepherds and shepherdesses, and flocks of bleating sheep, was entirely discarded. Still, however, during the life-time of Mills, the whole business of the theatre, even to the shifting of the scenes, or making up of the dresses, was carried on in the circle of his own family. At his death, the property of the theatre was purchased by a Mr Buck (formerly of Covent Garden theatre), who kept an inn at Penrith, and it was by him let out to Booth.
Mrs. Sparks, of Drury Lane Theatre, was an actress in this company, at the time Mr Holcroft belonged to it, and the youngest daughter of Mills, the late manager. Mrs. Inchbald was playing in the same company, at Inverness, in Scotland, in 1773, or the winter of 1774. The company afterwards went to Glasgow, where not being permitted to play, they were all in the utmost distress. The whole stock was detained for rent and board, etc., at an inn. From this awkward situation they were liberated by a young Scotchman, who had just joined the company in a kind of frolic, and who paid their score, and set them off to Kilmarnock, and from thence to Ayr, where they had a very brilliant run of good fortune.
Booth, the manager, was the same person who has since been well known as the inventor of the polygraphic art, and of the art of making cloth without spinning or weaving. He appears to have been always a man of much versatility of enterprise; and at this time added to his employments of manager and actor, the profession of a portrait-painter. The first thing he did when he came to any town, was to wait on the magistrate, to ask leave for his company to play; or if this was refused, that he might have the honour of painting his picture. If his scenes and dresses were lying idle, he was the more busy with his pencil: and that tempting bait hung out at the shop-windows, Likenesses taken in this manner for half-a-guinea, seldom failed to fill his pockets, while his company were starving.
CHAPTER V
Mr Holcroft continued in Booth’s company about a year and a half. He next joined Bates’s company, which made the circuit of the principal towns on the east side of the north of England, including Durham, Sunderland, Darlington, Scarborough, Stockton-upon-Tees, etc.
It was sometime in the year 1777, that Mr Holcroft walked with Mr Shield (the celebrated composer, who was then one of the band in the same company) from Durham to Stockton-upon-Tees. Mr Holcroft employed himself on the road in studying Lowth’s Grammar, and reading Pope’s Homer.—The writers that we read in our youth are those, for whom we generally retain the greatest fondness. Pope always continued a favorite with Mr Holcroft, and held the highest place in his esteem after Milton, Shakspeare, and Dryden. He used often, in particular, to repeat the character of Atticus, which he considered as the finest piece of satire in the language. Moral description, good sense, keen observation, and strong passion, are the qualities which he seems chiefly to have sought in poetry. He had therefore little relish even for the best of our descriptive poets, and often spoke with indifference, approaching to contempt, of Thomson, Akenside, and others. He was, however, at this time, exceedingly eager to make himself acquainted with all our English poets of any note; and he was seldom without a volume of poetry in his pocket.
At the time that Bates’s company were at Scarborough, Fisher, the late celebrated Oboe player, gave concerts there, which were led by Dance, and in which a Miss Harrop, (afterwards Mrs. Bates) was the principal vocal performer. Holcroft used to sing in the choruses.—He at this time practised a good deal on the fiddle, which he continued ever after to do occasionally; but he never became a good performer. It was Bates, who conducted the commemoration of Handel at Westminster Abbey.
Among the parts which Mr Holcroft played most frequently, were—Polonius, which he did respectably; Scrub, in the Beaux’ Stratagem; Bundle, in the Waterman; and Abel Drugger. He acted this last character after he came to London, one night when Garrick happened to be present.
At Stockton-upon-Tees, Mr Holcroft first became acquainted with Ritson, the antiquarian, and author of the Treatise on animal food, who was afterwards one of his most intimate friends. He was at that time articled to an attorney in the town; but was, like most other young men of taste or talents, fonder of poetry than the law. The poet Cunningham was an actor in the same company. He was the intimate friend of Shield. He was, it seems, a man of a delicate constitution, of retired habits, and extreme sensibility, but an amiable and worthy man. The parts in which he acted with most success were mincing fops and pert coxcombs,—characters the most opposite to his own. He played Garrick’s character of Fribble, in Miss in her Teens. He also excelled in Comus. He was often subject to fits of absence; as a proof of which, he once forgot that he had played the Duke of Albany in King Lear, and had returned to the door of the theatre for the second time, before he recollected himself.—Besides his descriptive poems, he wrote several prologues; and an opera called “The Lass with Speech,” which was offered to the theatres, but never acted, and from which the Lying Valet was taken. He dedicated his poems to Garrick, who sent him two guineas on the occasion, which he returned, begging that they might be added to the theatrical fund. It seems he either did not want pecuniary remuneration for the compliment he had paid to Garrick, or he thought this a very inadequate one. When he was writing anything, his room was strewed with little scraps of paper, on which he wrote down any thought as it occurred; and afterwards he had some difficulty in connecting these scattered, half-forgotten fragments together, before he could make out a fair copy.
At the time that Mr Shield was most with him, he had been long in ill health, apparently in a decline; and this had given a deeper tinge of melancholy to the natural thoughtfulness of his disposition. A little before his death, he wrote the following lines, which seem to convey a presentiment of his fate.
‘Sweet object of the zephyr’s kiss,
Come rose, come, courted by the hours,
Queen of the banks, the garden’s bliss,
Come, and abash yon tawdry flow’rs.
“Why call us to revokeless doom,”
With grief the op’ning buds reply,
“Scarce suffer’d to expand our bloom,
Scarce born, alas! before we die.”
‘Man, having pass’d appointed years,
(Years are but days) the scene must close:
And when Fate’s messenger appears,
What is he but a withering rose?’
These lines can hardly fail of being acceptable to the reader, when he is told, they were the last ever written by a man, to whom we are indebted for some of the most pleasing and elegant pastoral descriptions in the language.—It must abate something of the contempt with which we are too apt to mention the name of a strolling player, when we recollect that Cunningham was one.
Mr Holcroft had never been satisfied with his employment as a strolling actor in the country. He sighed for the literary advantages, and literary intercourse which London afforded. He was indeed the whole time labouring hard to cultivate his mind, and acquire whatever information was within his reach. But his opportunities were very confined. He had studied Shakespeare with the greatest ardour, and with some advantage to himself in his profession. Polonius was the character in which he was most successful: he also played Hamlet, and other parts, of which he was but an indifferent representative. I have been told, that Mr Holcroft’s acting, both in its excellences and defects, more resembled Bensley’s than any other person’s. The excellent sense and judgment of that able actor were almost entirely deprived of their effect, by his disadvantages of voice and manner. Mr Holcroft, in the performance of grave parts, had the same distinct, but harsh articulation, and the same unbending stiffness of deportment.
After wandering for seven years as an itinerant actor, with no very brilliant success, he resolved upon trying his fortune in London, and arrived there early in the latter end of 1777. His stay with the last company, which he joined, must therefore have been short. His separation from this company was I believe in some measure hastened by little disagreeable circumstances, but it was no doubt chiefly owing to the general bias of his inclination, to the desire and expectation of fame of some sort or other, either theatrical or literary, on which his mind had for some years been brooding. It is not likely that his success on the stage, though it might in time have ensured him a livelihood in inferior parts, would ever have been such as to satisfy the ambition of an aspiring and vigorous mind. It was, however, on his talents as an actor, that he first rested his hopes of pushing his fortune in London, and of recommending himself to the favour of the public. But before we follow him up to town, it may not be improper to take a retrospect of the path we have already trod. There are some persons of nice tastes, who may perhaps be disgusted with the meanness of his adventures; and who may think the situation in which he embarked in life, and the society into whose characters and manners he seems to have entered with so much relish, unworthy of a man of genius.
But it should be recollected, first, that men of genius do not always chuse their own profession or pursuit. In Mr Holcroft’s case, the question was, whether he should turn strolling player, or starve.
Secondly, there are in this very profession, which is held in such contempt, circumstances which must make a man of genius, not very averse to enter into it. In spite of the real misery, meanness, ignorance, and folly, often to be found among its followers, the player as well as the poet, lives in an ideal world.
The scenes of petty vexation, poverty, and disappointment, which he has to encounter, are endless; so are the scenes of grandeur, pomp, and pleasure, in which he is as constantly an actor. If his waking thoughts are sometimes disagreeable, his dreams are delightful, and the business of his life is to dream. This may be a reason why every one else should shun this profession as a pest, but it is for this very reason that the man of genius may pass his time pleasantly and profitably in it. But let us hear Mr Holcroft’s apology for his former way of life, which seems to have been dictated with a view to his own feelings. ‘Know then,’ he says,[[4]] ‘there is a certain set or society of men, frequently to be met in straggling parties about this kingdom, who by a peculiar kind of magic, will metamorphose an old barn, stable, or out-house, in such a wonderful manner, that the said barn, stable, or out-house, shall appear, according as it suits the will or purpose of the said magicians, at one time a prince’s palace; at another, a peasant’s cottage; now the noisy receptacle of drunken clubs, and wearied travellers, called an inn; anon the magnificent dome of a Grecian temple. Nay, so vast is their art, that, by pronouncing audibly certain sentences, which are penned down for them by the head, or master magician, they transport the said barn, stable, or out-house, thus metamorphosed, over sea, or land, rocks, mountains, or deserts, into whatsoever hot, cold, or temperate region the director wills, with as much facility as my lady’s squirrel can crack a nut-shell. What is still more wonderful, they carry all their spectators along with them, without the witchery of broom-sticks. These necromancers, although whenever they please they become princes, kings, and heroes, and reign over all the empires of the vast and peopled earth; though they bestow governments, vice-royalties, and principalities, upon their adherents, divide the spoils of nations among their pimps, pages, and parasites, and give a kingdom for a kiss, for they are exceedingly amorous; yet, no sooner do their sorceries cease, though but the moment before they were revelling and banqueting with Marc Antony, or quaffing nectar with Jupiter himself, it is a safe wager of a pound to a penny that half of them go supperless to bed. A set of poor, but pleasant rogues! miserable, but merry wags! that weep without sorrow, stab without anger, die without dread, and laugh, sing, and dance, to inspire mirth in others, while surrounded themselves with wretchedness. A thing still more remarkable in these enchanters is, that they completely effect their purpose, and make those, who delight in observing the wonderful effects of their art, laugh or cry, condemn or admire, love or hate, just as they please; subjugating the heart with every various passion: more especially when they pronounce the charms and incantations of a certain sorcerer, called Shakespeare, whose science was so powerful, that he himself thus describes it:
——I have oft be-dimm’d
The noon-tide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds, etc.’
CHAPTER VI
Mr Holcroft arrived in London, just at the time that Mr Sheridan came into the management of Drury-Lane. He endeavoured to procure an engagement at this, and at the other house; but in vain. As a last desperate resource, when his money was nearly exhausted, he sat down and wrote a farce, called The Crisis, or Love and Famine which Mrs. Sheridan was prevailed on to read; and this, with his musical knowledge (as he was able to sing in all choruses), procured him an engagement at twenty shillings a week. On his being engaged, Mr Holcroft was desired by Mr Sheridan to give in his cast of parts to Mr Hopkins, the prompter; and they were as follow:
| Don Manuel, | Kind Impostor. |
| Hardcastle, | She Stoops to Conquer. |
| Justice Woodcock, | Love in a Village. |
| Hodge, | Ditto. |
| Giles, | Maid of the Mill. |
| Ralph, | Ditto. |
| Sir Harry Sycamore, | Ditto. |
| Scrub, | Beaux’ Stratagem. |
| Sir Anthony Absolute, | Rivals. |
| General Savage, | School for Wives. |
| Colin Macleod, | Faithless Lover. |
| Mortimer, | Ditto. |
| Sir Benjamin Dove, | Brothers. |
| Major O’Flaherty, | West-Indian. |
| Fulmer, | Ditto. |
| Varland, | Ditto. |
| Colonel Oldboy, | Lionel and Clarissa. |
It was in this last part that Mr Holcroft particularly wished to have made his first appearance. The manner in which he procured a recommendation to Mrs. Sheridan, was through his cousin, Mrs. Greville. In consequence of this connexion, he also obtained introductions to Mrs. Crewe, and several other persons of fashion, who interested themselves in his behalf; and an epistolary intercourse commenced between him and Mr Greville on subjects of taste and the theatre, which continued for some years.
His farce of the Crisis was, I believe, played but once, for the benefit of Hopkins, the prompter, when it was favourably received. This Mr Hopkins, who had the regulation of the inferior parts in the theatre, entertained a very low opinion of Mr Holcroft’s powers as an actor; and he remained unnoticed, till Mr Sheridan by chance saw him in the part of Mungo, with which he was so much pleased as to order his weekly salary to be raised to five and twenty shillings. Both his salary and his reputation in the theatre seem now to have remained stationary during this and the following season, though he constantly attended the theatre to perform the most menial parts. The following extract from a letter addressed to Mr Sheridan, will sufficiently explain both his situation and feelings at this time:—
‘Depressed, dejected, chained by Misfortune to the rock of Despair, while the vultures Poverty and Disappointment are feasting with increase of appetite upon me, I have no chance of deliverance but from you. You, Sir, I hope, will be my Alcides! Mr Evans says, he must increase the deductions he already makes from my salary (9s. per week), unless I can obtain your order to the contrary. It is scarcely possible I should maintain my family, which will shortly be increased, upon my present income. Were I not under deductions at the office, my receipts would very little exceed sixty pounds a year; and this I enjoy more through your favour than any consequence I am of to the theatre, though continually employed. But then it is either to sit in a senate or at a card-table, or to walk in a procession, or to sing in a chorus, which is all that the prompter, who has the direction of this kind of business, thinks me capable of. Nay, in so little esteem am I held by Mr Hopkins, that he took the part of a dumb steward in Love for Love from another person, and made me do it; and when by your permission I played Mawworm, he said, had he been well and up, it should not have been so. I do not mention this as a subject of accusation against Mr Hopkins, but merely to shew that if I am consigned to his penetration, I am doomed to everlasting oblivion.
‘Unhappily for me, when I performed Mawworm, you were not at the theatre. Interest rather than vanity makes me say, I was more successful than I had any reason to expect. The audience were in a continual laugh. I played Jerry Sneak for my own benefit last year, and with the same success; and if I could only be introduced to the town in old men and burletta singing, I know from former experience how soon I should be held in a very different estimation from what I am at present. You do not know, Sir, how useful I could be upon a thousand emergencies in the theatre, if I were but thought of; but this I shall never be till your express mandate is issued for that purpose.
‘You have frequently been pleased to express a partiality towards me, as well as a favourable opinion of my abilities. But, sir, if you do not immediately interest yourself in my behalf, I may grow grey, while I enjoy your favour without a possibility of confirming or increasing it. “Who’s the Dupe” prevented the Crisis from being played last year: now you tell me you will talk to me after Christmas; in the meantime “the Flitch of Bacon” and a new pantomime are preparing. I told those to whom I am indebted, I should have a chance of paying them soon, for that the Crisis would come out before the holidays. When I said so, I believed that it would; but they will think I meant to deceive them.’
The concluding sentence of this letter is remarkable, when we recollect the character of the celebrated man to whom it is addressed.
‘In short, I am arrived at the labyrinth of delays, where suspense and all his busy imps are tormenting me—You alone, Sir, hold the clue that can guide me out of it.’
Mr Sheridan, in spite of Mr Holcroft’s entreaties, was not inclined on this occasion to perform the part of Theseus; for he was still left to the mercy of the remorseless prompter, and had no opportunity of exerting his talents till the Camp came out (in 1780) when he endeavoured, as he expresses himself, to make a part of a foolish recruit, and succeeded; in consequence of which his salary was raised to thirty shillings weekly.
During the summer recesses of the years 1778 and 1779, Mr Holcroft had not been idle, but had made excursions to the Canterbury, Portsmouth, and Nottingham theatres, where he moved in a higher range of parts, and escaped from the drudgery of choruses and processions. The state of his health appears to have been one inducement for his leaving town in 1779; for he says in a letter, dated from Nottingham, in June, that but for this consideration, he believes it would have been more profitable for him to have remained in London. In these excursions he seems to have established a pretty intimate correspondence with a Mr Hughes, the Portsmouth or Plymouth manager; for we find the latter writing to him for a supply of performers, and Mr Holcroft in answer complaining of his being able only to meet with a Mrs. Hervey, of whom he gives a very satirical portrait, and a Mr Cubit, a singer, who, he observes, had already been with Mr Hughes, and who never visited a company twice.
Mr Holcroft’s business at the theatre, did not hinder him from pursuing his literary avocations. Besides the Crisis, he had already written two other after-pieces, the Shepherdess of the Alps, and the Maid of the Vale.
The following letter to Mrs. Sheridan, gives an account of the first of these:
‘Madam, It is with a peculiar pleasure that I have, by Mr Sheridan’s desire, an opportunity of addressing you. I am indebted to your benevolence and interposition, for my first obtaining admission in the theatre, and shall ever remember it with respect and gratitude. Give me leave, Madam, to intrude upon your patience for a moment, while I explain the motive of this address.—Mrs. Greville, Mrs. Crewe, and some other ladies of fashion and consequence, have kindly undertaken to patronize, and recommend the Shepherdess of the Alps. Mrs. Crewe has spoken to Mr Sheridan concerning it, as he informed me last night, desiring me at the same time, to send it to you, who he said would not only read it yourself, but put him in mind of it. I believe myself almost certain of your good wishes, when you read the beginning, and recollect that your late dear and worthy brother pointed out the subject to me, encouraged me to pursue it, and had not only undertaken to set it, but had actually composed two songs. Pardon me, Madam, for introducing so melancholy a reflection. His esteem for me, I might almost say his friendship, shall never be forgotten, let my condition in life hereafter be what it may; it does me too much honour. You likewise, Madam, have some share in the work: it was in consequence of your advice and observations, that the comic part was introduced: it was at first intended only to affect the nobler passions, and to have been entirely serious.—I would not willingly appear too urgent: yet cannot forbear expressing some anxiety about the fate of my poor Shepherdess. I spent all the summer about it, (certain as I thought then) of its coming out immediately.—I am, Madam,’ etc.
The Maid of the Vale was a translation from the Italian comic opera of La Buona Figliola, which Mr Arne, the son of Dr. Arne, employed him to alter and adapt to the English stage.
A good deal of altercation seems to have taken place between the author and musician respecting the division of the future profits of the piece; Mr Holcroft claiming one half, to which his employer did not think him by any means entitled. In consequence, I believe, of these disagreements, the piece was not brought forward.
Mr Holcroft afterwards offered his translation of this opera to Mr King, the late actor, at that time manager of Sadler’s Wells, by whom it was rejected. Mr Holcroft, however, wrote several little pieces for Mr King, which were brought out at this theatre. The Noble Peasant (which afterwards came out at the Haymarket,) was originally intended to have been acted here. Mr Holcroft always experienced from this gentleman the most liberal and friendly treatment, and was under considerable pecuniary obligations to him. Mr Foote died in October, 1777, a few weeks before Mr Holcroft came to town. In the spring of the following year, he published an Elegy on his Death, which was the first composition of his, that had appeared in print, (since his essays in the Whitehall Evening Post). It met with a favourable reception. He had always respected the character of Foote, had been personally known to him, and lamented his death in terms dictated by real feeling, as much as by the inspiration of the muse. At the same time, he published a short poem on Old Age, which was bound up with the elegy. In April 1779, I find him desiring his father, who lived at Bath, to make inquiries respecting the prizes given at the Bath Easton Vase, the subjects proposed, and the length of the poems. ‘I have an inclination,’ he says, ‘to become a candidate for fame at that temple of Apollo, not so much from a supposition that I shall gain the laurel, as because I think the plan deserves encouragement.’ The little deceptions of self-love, cannot but sometimes excite a smile.—It may be proper to notice here, that Mr Holcroft kept up at this period a constant correspondence with his father, whose wife rented a small house and garden, either at or in the neighbourhood of Bath. The letters that passed between them, do honour to the feelings of both parties. Mr Holcroft was always eager to communicate the news of any good fortune that had befallen him, and ready to lend every assistance in his power to his father, who was still frequently in pecuniary difficulties. From one of these letters, it appears that Mr Holcroft, among other employments, had engaged to write a paper, called the Actor, for the Westminster Magazine, and that he was secretary to a society, (the theatrical fund,) for which he received ten pounds a year. He also found time to write songs for Vauxhall, several of which became very popular. Among these, the greatest favourite was the ballad, beginning, ‘Down the Bourne and through the Mead,’ which was set to music by Shield. This song, which is written in the Scottish dialect, has often been taken for an old Scotch ballad, and has been actually printed in a collection of Scotch songs.—Mr Holcroft was one evening drinking tea with some friends at White-Conduit House, when the organ was playing the tune of Johnny and Mary. After they had listened some time, a person in the next box began to descant rather learnedly on the beauty of the Scotch airs, and the tenderness and simplicity of their popular poetry, bringing this very ballad as an illustration of his argument, neither the words nor music of which, he said, any one now living was capable of imitating. Mr Holcroft on this, took occasion to remark the strange force of prejudice, and turning to the gentleman, interrupted his argument by informing him, that he himself was the author of the song in question, and that the tune was composed by his friend, Mr Shield, who I believe was also there present.—This song had been composed for, and was originally sung at Vauxhall, by the celebrated Nan Catley. An Irish music-seller, at the St. Paul’s Head in the Strand, had procured the words and music, and had advertised them in his window to be sold. Mr Shield was accidentally passing, saw the music in the window, and went in to demand by what right the advertiser meant to publish his property. To this he received for answer, ‘By a very good right, for that the music was composed by him (the vender,) and that the words had been written by a friend, for Miss Catley, whom he very well knew.’ It was with difficulty that Mr Shield by informing him that he was the author of the music, prevailed on the pretended composer to relinquish his claim.
Mr Holcroft, almost on his coming to town, married his third wife; and soon after, she and Mr Holcroft determined upon taking a small house, and furnishing it. They were, however, diverted from this plan by a Mr Turner, an upholsterer, in Oxford Road, who persuaded them that it would be much more advantageous to take a large house, which he would furnish, and give them credit for any length of time they demanded. He said, that many persons by letting the upper part of their houses, not only cleared their rent, but were often gainers. These arguments, and the additional motive of making a more creditable appearance, induced Mr Holcroft to take a house in Southampton Buildings, which Mr Turner furnished as he had promised, to the value of 240l. But scarcely were the goods lodged in the house, before the upholsterer became a bankrupt, and his effects and bills were consigned over to his creditors, who immediately came on Mr Holcroft for 160l., 80l. having been at first advanced to Mr Turner for the furniture. This unexpected stroke completely ruined the prospects of our young house-keepers, and they were obliged to apply to several persons to prevent an execution, which was threatened. Mr Holcroft might indeed have sold his goods for nearly the amount of the debt against him: but it seems that he was unwilling to see his property melt away under the hands of an auctioneer, and to have to begin the world again, after having, in a manner, realized all his hopes, by attaining a permanent and respectable establishment in life. He wrote to several persons to assist him in this emergency, with a degree of importunity which can only be excused by the severity of his disappointment, and a sense that it was undeserved on his part. He wrote to Mr Greville, to a Mr Laurel, to Mr Sheridan, to the Proprietors of Drury-Lane, to persons whom he had never seen or known, with a kind of wild desperation. These applications indeed shewed no great knowledge of the world; but the abrupt appeals which he thus made to the humanity and generosity of others, at least proved that Mr Holcroft was not without a strong sense of these qualities in his own breast, which made him believe they might be found to a romantic degree in others. His friend, Mr King, at length relieved him from his immediate embarrassments by a loan of 80 or 100l. This, however, was to be repaid; and at no great distance of time, the same difficulties, and the same struggles to extricate himself from them returned. At one time, great hopes were entertained from the expected arrival of a Mr Marsac, a near relation of his wife, who had a handsome appointment in India; and who, in their present situation, it was thought, would be willing to assist them. But he did not arrive within the time which had been fixed. Mr Holcroft then wrote to a lady, high in rank and literary pretension, but a stranger to him, stating the circumstances of his case, and inclosing a comedy, which he had written as a voucher for the justice of his claims: she had been the laborious patroness of departed genius, and he thought might be the friend of living merit. But it seems, the inference was not justified by the event. The comedy was returned unread: and, indeed, if she had read it, a very favourable verdict could scarcely have been expected, under the annexed penalty of a hundred pounds. Mr Holcroft has recorded this extravagance and its result among the adventures of Wilmot, the usher, in Hugh Trevor. Mr Holcroft now looked forward, as a last resource, to the success of the comedy itself (Duplicity) which was afterwards acted with applause; but such was the author’s untoward fate, that even his success was attended with little advantage, and relieved his necessities but in part.
Mr Holcroft had, at this time, few friends or acquaintance in London, and those few were very little able to afford him any material assistance. The oldest were Shield and P——, both of whom he had known in strolling companies in the North: they had separated, had come to London about the same time, and met by chance. Shield first discovered Holcroft poring over an old book-stall, in Goodge-Street: they immediately recognized each other with a good deal of pleasure, and a friendly intercourse commenced, which was uninterrupted to the last. When the place of composer of the birth-day minuets at court became vacant by the death of Mr Weideman, Mr Holcroft applied to Mr Greville to procure the place for Mr Shield; with what success I do not know.
Mr Shield at the period we are speaking of, had an engagement at the Opera-house. It was winter, and in consequence of some new piece, they had very long rehearsals every morning. One day he was detained longer than usual, his dinner-hour was over, he felt himself very cold when he came out, and his attendance for so many hours had sharpened his appetite. He therefore proceeded up the Hay-market with a determination to get some refreshment at the first place that offered. He had strolled into St. Martin’s-lane, without meeting with any thing that he liked: till he came to a little bye-court, called Porridge Island; at the corner of which, in a dark, dirty-looking window, he discovered a large round of beef smoking, which strongly seconded the disposition he already felt in himself to satisfy his hunger. He did not, however, much like the appearance of the place: he looked again, the temptation grew stronger, and at last he ventured in. Having asked for dinner, he was shewn into a room up one pair of stairs, not very large, but convenient and clean, where he found several persons already set down to dinner. He was invited to join them, and to his great joy found both the fare and the accommodation excellent. But his attention was shortly much more powerfully arrested by the conversation which took place at the table. Philosophy, religion, politics, poetry, the belles lettres were talked of, and in such a manner, as to shew that every person there was familiar with such subjects, and that they formed the ordinary topics of conversation. Mr Shield listened in a manner which denoted his surprise and pleasure. The conversation at one time began to take rather a free turn, when a grave, elderly looking man, who sat at the head of the table, addressed the new guest, telling him that he seemed a young man, and by his countenance shewed some signs of grace; that he would not have him mind what was said by persons who scarcely believed their own sophisms; that he himself when young had been attacked and staggered by the same objections; that he had examined them all, and found them all false and hollow. This diverted the discourse to other subjects which were more agreeable. The name of the person who had thus addressed Mr Shield, and who thus assumed the office of a censor, was Cannon: he was the son of an Irish bishop. He was advanced in years, and presided in the company with an air of authority that was partly submitted to in earnest, and partly humoured for the joke’s sake. He regularly dined here every day. On entering the room, he first pulled off his great coat, and fastened it with two long pins to the back of a tall cane-worked old chair with knobs behind: and after disposing of his umbrella, which in those days was a great singularity, he used to pay his respects to the company with much formality, and then sat down. He had one place, which was always kept for him; and for this privilege it seems he paid double price. If any stranger came in by chance, and took possession of his seat, he would never sit down in any other, but walked up and down the room in a restless way, till the person was gone. It was his constant custom to carry with him a small pocket volume of Milton, or Young’s Night Thoughts, in which he had made a great number of marginal notes; and as soon as dinner was over, he regularly took out one of his favourite authors, and opening the book at random, requested the person who sat next him, whether a stranger, or one of the usual company, to read aloud a certain passage which he thought very beautiful. This offer was of course declined by those who knew him, who in return begged that he would favour the company with it himself, which he did, at the same time repeating the remarks which he had made in the margin. He then very deliberately closed the book, and put it into his pocket again. Cannon was a man of letters, and had travelled. He spoke a very florid language, full of epithets and compound words, and professed to be engaged in an edition of Tibullus. Mr Shield was so much amused with this old gentleman, and interested in the general conversation, (not to say that the commons were excellent), that he was determined he would in future dine no where else: he was also eager to inform Holcroft of the discovery he had made, whom he invited to go along with him the next day, and who also became a very constant visitor. The persons who were generally present were Messieurs Shield, Nicholson, Holcroft, Cannon, etc., who formed themselves into a little society, which in compliment to the last mentioned person, was called ‘The Cannonian.’ The president was rather tenacious of his opinions, and impatient of contradiction; and frequently some very warm altercations took place in consequence between him and Mr Holcroft.
The other friend of Mr Holcroft, mentioned above, was a young Scotchman, who had been in Booth’s company with him, but soon quitted it, and came up to London two or three years before him. They had had a violent quarrel while they were in this company, but meeting again in London, with new objects before them, and where they were both to a considerable degree strangers, former disagreements were forgotten, and a friendly intercourse commenced. He strenuously advised Holcroft to turn his thoughts to writing, or reporting for the newspapers, which he himself had found a lucrative employment, which Holcroft declined, being more bent on pushing his way at the theatre.
The manner in which this friend of our author began his career in life, deserves a place in a work which is little else than a history of the difficulties and successes which attend the efforts of men of talents and literature.
Mr P——, whose connexions were respectable, came to town, with recommendations to a banking-house in the city, and with an intention to get a place as clerk in some counting-house, or public office. He delivered his letters, and his friends promised they would be on the look-out for him. He called once or twice to no purpose, and as his time hung rather idly on his hands, he had employed himself in writing one or two anonymous letters on the politics of the day, which were inserted in the General Advertiser. It so happened that one of the partners in the house to which he had been recommended, had a principal share in this very paper: and when he called, he told him that he had heard of nothing in the way that he wished; but taking out the Advertiser, and shewing him his own letter in it, ‘If now,’ said he, ‘you could do something of this kind, I might possibly be of service to you.’ Mr P—— replied, with some eagerness, that he was the author of the letter. ‘Aye, indeed,’ says the other, ‘then come with me; we must have some farther talk together.’ So saying, he took our young politician with him into another room; and after being closeted some time, it was arranged that P—— should be immediately employed as a writer and reporter for this paper, at a guinea and half a week. The very next night there was to be an important debate in the house, and our young gentleman was to make his coup d’essai. As however he was entirely ignorant of the forms and rules of reporting, it was thought necessary to give him some previous instructions; and he was told, that he should place himself so as to be able to hear the speakers distinctly; that he should provide himself with a pencil and pocket-book, in which he must note down the speeches as privately as he could; but that as he was a stranger, and might be noticed the more on that account, if any one came to interrupt him, he was to say nothing, but put half a guinea into his hand. Thus equipped and instructed, Mr P—— went early to his post, and planted himself in the middle of the gallery, directly in front of the speaker. He had his pencil and pocket-book ready in his hand, and the instant the debate opened, began to take notes with so much eagerness, and so little precaution, that a messenger came to him, and said, ‘Sir, you must give over writing.’ As he had been prepared for this event, he took the half-guinea out of his pocket, and bending his hand behind him, offered the half-guinea, which was lodged in the palm of it, to the door-keeper, who took it without saying a word, and the other went on with his writing as before. But no sooner had he begun, than the man very quietly tapped him on the shoulder again, and said, ‘Sir, you must give over writing.’ This second rebuff was quite unexpected, and completely disconcerted our zealous reporter. He put his pencil and paper in his pocket, and sat during the remainder of the debate in a state of the utmost confusion, not expecting to remember a single sentence. He went home and related his ill-success; professing his inability to give any account of what he had heard. ‘But,’ said his employer, ‘you may at least try: you must surely recollect something of what passed.’ He said, ‘no: he had been in such a state of agitation the whole time, that it would be in vain to attempt it.’ As no one else had gone from the same office, and it was absolutely necessary to give some account of the debate the next morning, he was again urged to make the attempt, and at length complied. He was left in the room by himself, and scarcely knowing what he did, began an account of the speech of Lord Nugent, who had opened the question. He was surprised to find that he could recollect the few first sentences. Still he despaired of being able to proceed; but by degrees, one thing recalled another, he still kept writing on without knowing what was to follow, and when he had finished one page, sent it down to the press. His hopes now began to revive, he returned to the charge, and writing under an apprehension that the words might every minute escape from his memory, he despatched sheet after sheet so vigorously, that the press could hardly keep pace with him. They had now printed two columns and a half, and Lord Nugent was still speaking. At last, the proprietor, who had at first dreaded a dearth of information, and whose fears were now alarmed the contrary way, came up to him, and said, ‘My G—d, when will this Lord Nugent’s speech be done? Was there no other speaker the whole evening?’ ‘Oh yes, there are seven or eight more to come.’ The other laughed, and told P—— that he had quite mistaken the business; that in his way of going on, he would fill a volume instead of a newspaper, and that he must begin again entirely, and instead of giving every word and sentence, merely repeat the heads of each speech, and a few of the most striking arguments. ‘Oh, is that all you want,’ exclaimed P——, at once relieved from his terrors, ‘then I’m your man.’ Accordingly he set to work afresh, cut down Lord Nugent into half a column, and the other speakers had a proportionable space allotted them: and the report, thus curtailed, was the next day noticed as the ablest and fullest that had been given of the debate. The person, to whom this anecdote relates, has been long known to the public as the editor and proprietor of the only constitutional paper that remains.