As the words are spoken before Macbeth enters, Irving, standing ready in the wings, of course heard the error. Later in the evening he sent for Mead and called his attention to the error, pointing out that as the audience knew so well the words of the swinging lines they might notice an error, and that it would be well to read over the part afresh. This he promised to do. Next night he got very anxious as the time drew near. He moved about restlessly behind the scenes saying over and over again to himself, “dragoon, no baboon—baboon!—dragoon!—dragoon!—baboon!” till he got himself hopelessly mixed. His comrades were in ecstasy. When at last he came to say the word he said it wrong; and as he had a voice whose tones he could not modify this is what the audience heard:
“Cool it with dragoon’s blood—No, no, baboon’s. My God! I’ve said it again! baboon’s blood.”
When we did Iolanthe, a version by W. G. Wills of King René’s Daughter, Mead took the part of Ebn Jaira, an Eastern Wizard. At one part of the piece, where things look very black indeed for the happiness of the blind girl, he has to say: “All shall be well in that immortal land where God hath His dwelling.” One night he got shaky in his words and surprised the audience with:
“In that immortal land where God hath His—Ah—um—His apartments!”
Such mental aberrations used to be fairly common in the old days when new parts had to be learned every night, and when the prompter, in so far as the “book” was concerned, was a hard-worked official and not an anachronism, as now. Macready had an experience of it once when playing Hamlet. The actor who took the part of the Priest in the graveyard scene was inadequately prepared and in the passage;
“for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles shall be thrown on her.”
he said, “shards, flints and beadles.” This almost overcame the star, who was heard to murmur to himself before he went on: “Beadles! Beadles!” and at the end of the play one behind him heard him say as he walked to his dressing-room:
“He said ‘beadles’!”