On May 21, 1804, the transcendental Mr. Jackson was walking on the High Bridge, Edinburgh, when he met an old gentleman of some celebrity, the Rev. Mr. Home. ‘Sir,’ said Jackson, ‘your play, “Douglas,” is to be acted to-night with a new and wonderful actor. I hope you will come down to the house.’ Forty-eight years before (1756) Home had gone joyously down to the Edinburgh Theatre to see his ‘Douglas’ represented for the first time. West Digges (not Henry West Betty) was the Norval, and the house was half full of ministers of the Kirk, who got into a sea of troubles for presuming to see acted a play written by a fellow in the ministry.
The Lady Randolph was Mrs. Ward, daughter of a player of the Betterton period, and mother, I think, of Mrs. Roger Kemble. On that night one enthusiastic Scotsman was so delighted that at the end of the fourth act he arose and roared aloud, ‘Where’s Wully Shakespeare noo?’ Home had also seen Spranger Barry in the hero (he was the original Norval (Douglas) on the play being first acted in 1757 in London). Home was an aged man in 1804, and lived in retirement. He did not know his ‘Douglas’ was to be played, nor had he ever heard of Master Betty! Never heard of him whom Jackson said he had been presented to Earth by Heaven and Nature! ‘The pleasing movements of his perfect and divine nature,’ said Jackson, ‘were incorporated in his person previous to his birth.’ Home could not refuse to go and see this phenomenon. He stipulated to have his old place at the wing, that is, behind the stage door, partially opened, so that he could see up the stage. The old man was entirely overcome. Digges and Barry, he declared, were leather and prunella compared with this inspired child who acted his Norval as he the author had conceived it. Home’s enthusiasm was so excited that, when Master Betty was summoned by the ‘thunders’ of applause and the ‘hurricane’ of approbation to appear before the audience, Home tottered forward also, tears streaming from his eyes, and rapture beaming on his venerable countenance. The triumph was complete. The most impartial critics especially praised the boy’s conception of the poet, and it was the highest praise they could give. Between June 28 and August 9 he acted fifteen times, often under the most august patronage that could be found in Edinburgh. For the first time he played Selim (Achmet) in ‘Barbarossa’ during this engagement, and with such effect as to make him more the ‘darling’ than ever of duchesses and ladies in general. Four days after the later date named above, the marvellous boy stood before a Birmingham audience, whither he had gone covered with kisses from Scottish beauties, and laden with the approval, counsel, and blessing of Lords of Session.
Mr. Macready, father of the lately deceased actor, bargained for the Roscius, and overreached himself. He thought 10l. a night too much! He proposed that he should deduct 60l. from each night’s receipts, and that Master Betty should take half of what remained. The result was that Roscius got 50l. nightly instead of 10l. The first four nights were not overcrowded, but the boy grew on the town, and at last upon the whole country. Stage-coaches were advertised specially to carry parties from various distances to the Birmingham Theatre. The highest receipt was 266l. to his Richard. Selim was the next. 261l. The lowest receipt was also to his Richard. On the first night he played it there was only 80l. in the house. He left Birmingham with the assurance of a local poet that he was Cooke, Kemble, Holman, Garrick, all in one. Sheffield was delighted to have him at raised prices of admission. He made his first appearance to deliver a rhymed deprecatory address, in reference to wide-cast ridicule on his being a mere boy, in which were these lines:
When at our Shakespeare’s shrine my swelling heart
Bursts forth and claims some kindred tear to start,
Frown not, if I avow that falling tear
Inspires my soul and bids me persevere.
His Hamlet drew the highest sum at Sheffield, 140l.; his Selim the lowest, 60l., which was just doubled when he played the same part for his own benefit. London had caught curiosity, if not enthusiasm, to see him; the Sheffield hotels became crowded with London families, and ‘Six-inside coaches to see the Young Roscius’ plied at Doncaster to carry people from the races. At Liverpool there were riots and spoliation at the box-office. At Chester wild delight. At Manchester tickets were put up to lottery. At Stockport he played morning and evening, and travelled after it all night to play at Leicester, where he also acted on some occasions twice in one day! and where every lady who could write occasional verses showered upon him a very deluge of rhyme.
November had now been reached. In that month John Kemble, who is supposed to have protested against the dignity of the stage being lowered by a speaking puppet, wrote a letter to Mr. Betty. In this letter John said: ‘I could not deny myself the satisfaction I feel in knowing I shall soon have the happiness of welcoming you and Master Betty to Covent Garden Theatre. Give me leave to say how heartily I congratulate the stage on the ornament and support it is, by the judgment of all the world, to receive from Master Betty’s extraordinary talents and exertions.’ After this we may dismiss as nonsense the lofty talk about the Kemble feeling as to the dignity of the stage being wounded. Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons would not play in the same piece with Master Betty, as Jones, Charles Young, Miss Smith (Mrs. Bartley), and others had done in the country, but Mr. Kemble (as manager) was delighted that the Covent Garden treasury should profit by the extraordinary talents of a boy whom the Kemble followers continually depreciated.