Of persons non-dramatic, many pass before the mind’s eye of the reader. Lord Nelson visited the Birmingham Theatre, and Macready noted his pale and interesting face, and listened so eagerly to all he uttered that for months after he used to be called upon to repeat ‘what Lord Nelson said to your father,’ which was to the effect that the esteem in which the elder Macready was held by the town made it ‘a pleasure and a duty’ for Lord Nelson to visit the theatre. With the placid and mournful-looking Admiral was Lady Hamilton, who laughed loud and long, clapped her uplifted hands with all her heart, and kicked her heels against the foot-board of her seat, as some verses were sung in honour of her and England’s hero.
There was a time when Macklin ceased to belong to the drama, when he was out of the world, in his old age, and his old Covent Garden house. One of the most characteristic of incidents is one told of Macklin in his dotage, when prejudice had survived all sense. Macready’s father called on the aged actor with lack-lustre eye, who was seated in an arm-chair, unconscious of anyone being present. Mrs. Macklin drew his attention to the visitor: ‘My dear, here is Mr. Macready come to see you.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Mr. Macready, my dear.’ ‘Ah! who is he?’ ‘Mr. Macready, you know, who went to Dublin, to play for your benefit.’ ‘Ha! my benefit! what was it? what did he act?’ ‘I acted Egerton, sir,’ replied Mr. Macready, ‘in your own play.’ ‘Ha! my play! what was it?’ ‘The “Man of the World,” sir.’ ‘Ha! “Man of the World!” devilish good title! who wrote it?’ ‘You did, sir.’ ‘Did I? well, what was it about?’ ‘Why, sir, there was a Scotchman’—‘Ah! damn them!’ Macklin’s hatred of the Scotch was vigorous after all other feeling was dead within him.
Equally good as a bit of character-painting is the full length of Mrs. Piozzi, whom William Charles Macready met at Bath, in the house of Dr. Gibbs. She struck the actor as something like one of Reynolds’s portraits walking out of its frame: ‘a little old lady dressed point devise in black satin, with dark glossy ringlets under her neat black hat, highly rouged, not the end of a ribbon or lace out of its place,’ and entering the room with unfaltering step. She was the idol of the hour, and Macready, specially introduced to her, was charmed with her vivacity and good humour. The little old lady read, by request, some passages from Milton, a task she delighted in, and for doing which effectively she considered herself well qualified. She chose the description of the lazar-house, from the 11th Book of ‘Paradise Lost,’ and dwelt with emphatic distinctness on the various ills to which mortality is exposed. ‘The finger on the dial-plate of the pendule was just approaching the hour of ten, when, with a Cinderella-like abruptness, she rose and took her leave, evidently as much gratified by contributing to our entertainment as we were by the opportunity of making her acquaintance.’ According to Dr. Gibbs, the vivacious old Cinderella never stayed after ten was about to strike. Circumstances might indeed prompt the sensitive lady to depart earlier. Mr. Macready subsequently met the lively little lioness at the Twisses. The company was mixed, old and young; the conversation was general, or people talked the young with the young, the old among themselves. Mrs. Piozzi was not the oracle on whose out-speakings all hearers reverentially waited. Consequently, ‘long before her accustomed hour,’ Mrs. Piozzi started up, and coldly wishing Mr. and Mrs. Twiss ‘good night,’ she left the room. To the general inquiries, by look or word, the hostess simply remarked, ‘She is very much displeased.’ The really gifted old lady’s vanity was wounded; lack of homage sent her home in a huff. Some of the best sketches in the book are of scenes of Macready’s holiday travel. On one occasion, in a corner of an Italian garden, near a church, he caught a priest kissing a young girl whom he had just confessed. Nothing could be merrier or better-humoured than Macready’s description of this pretty incident. The young Father, or brother, was quite in order; Rome claims absolute rule over faith—and morals.
We close this chronicle of so many varied hues with reluctance. That which belongs to the retired life of the actor is fully as interesting as the detail of the times when he was in harness. Indeed, in the closing letters addressed to the present Lady Pollock, there are circumstances of his early career not previously recorded. The record of the home-life is full of interest, and we sympathise with the old actor, who, as the fire of temperament died out, appeared purified and chastened by the process.
Macready, throughout his long life, had no ‘flexibility of spine’ for men of wealth or title, but he had, if he describes himself truly, perfect reverence for true genius, wheresoever found. He was oppressed with his own comparative littleness and his seeming inability to cope with men better endowed, intellectually, than himself. And yet, we find him, when he must have felt that he was great, was assured he was so by his most intimate admirers, and counted amongst them some of the foremost literary men and critics of the day—we find him, we say, moodily complaining that he was not sought for by ‘society,’ and not invited into it. There was no real ground for the complaint. He who made it was an honour to the society of which he was a part. Every page of this record, not least so those inscribed with confession of his faults, will raise him in the esteem of all its readers. He went to his rest in 1873, and he is fortunate in the friend to whom he confided the task of writing his life. The work, edited with modesty and judgment, is a permanent addition to our dramatic literature.
PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
As in Greece a man suffered no disparagement by being an actor there was no disposition to do in private what was not forbidden in public. The whole profession was ennobled when an actor so accomplished as Aristodemus was honoured with the office of ambassador.
In Rome a man was dishonoured by being a player. Accordingly noble Roman youths loved to act in private, excusing themselves on the ground that no professional actor polluted their private stage. Roman youths, however, had imperial example and noble justification when a Roman emperor made his first appearance on the public stage, and succeeded, as a matter of course.