But boldly, in his shoes, died of a noose
That he found under Tyburn tree.
To return to more general statistics, it may be stated that, in busy times, four dozen persons are engaged in perfecting the wardrobes of the ladies and gentlemen. Only to attire these and the children, forty-five dressers are required; and the various coiffures you behold have busily employed half a dozen hairdressers. If it should occur to you that you are sitting over or near a gasometer, you may find confidence in knowing that it is being watched by seventeen gasmen; and that even the young ladies who glitter and look so happy as they float in the air in transformation scenes, could not be roasted alive, provided they are released in time from the iron rods to which they are bound. These ineffably exquisite nymphs, however, suffer more or less from the trials they have to undergo for our amusement. Seldom a night passes without one or two of them fainting; and I remember, on once assisting several of them to alight, as they neared the ground, and they were screened from the public gaze, that their hands were cold and clammy, like clay. The blood had left the surface and rushed to the heart, and the spangled nymphs who seemed to rule destiny and the elements, were under a nervous tremor; but, almost as soon as they had touched the ground, they shook their spangles, laughed their light laugh, and tripped away in the direction of the stately housekeeper of Drury, Mrs. Lush, with dignity enough not to care to claim kinship with her namesake, the judge; for she was once of the household of Queen Adelaide, and now has the keeping of ‘the national theatre,’ with nine servants to obey her behests.
To those who would compare the season of 1865-1866 at Drury Lane with that of 1765-1766, it is only necessary to say that a hundred years ago Mrs. Pritchard was playing a character of which she was the original representative in 1761, namely, Mrs. Oakley, in Coleman’s ‘Jealous Wife,’ a part which has been well played this year by Mrs. Vezin to the excellent Mr. Oakley of Mr. Phelps. The Drury Lane company, a hundred years ago, included Garrick, Powell, Holland, King, Palmer, Parsons, Bensley, Dodd, Yates, Moody, Baddeley, all men of great but various merit. Among the ladies were Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Pritchard, Miss Pope, Mrs. Baddeley, and some others—a galaxy the like of which, in any one company, could nowhere be found in these later days. In that season of a hundred years ago, a new actress, Mrs. Fitzhenry, very nearly gained a seat upon the tragic throne. In the same season Melpomene lost her noblest daughter, albeit the last character her name was attached to in the bills was Lady Brute. I allude to Mrs. Cibber. ‘Mrs. Cibber dead!’ was Garrick’s cry; ‘then tragedy has died with her.’ Since that season of a century since, there has been no such Ophelia as hers, the touching charm of which used to melt a whole house to tears. It was the season in which Garrick abolished the candles in brass sockets, fixed in chandeliers, which hung on the stage; in place of which he introduced the footlights, which were then supplied by oil, and long retained the significant name of ‘floats.’ In that season, the first benefit was given for the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, ‘for the relief of those who, from infirmities, shall be obliged to retire from the stage.’ On this occasion Garrick acted Kitely, in ‘Every Man in his Humour.’ Lastly, in that season was produced, for the first time, the ever-lively comedy, ‘The Clandestine Marriage,’ in which King, as Lord Ogleby, won such renown that Garrick never ceased to repent of his having declined the character. After he left the stage he did not seem to be sorry for the course he had taken. ‘You all think,’ he used to say, ‘that no one can excel, or even equal King, in Lord Ogleby. It had great merit, but it was not my Lord Ogleby; and if I could appear again, that is the only character in which I should care to play.’ And, no doubt, Roscius would have delighted his audience, though his new reading might not have induced them to forget the original representation.
ABOUT MASTER BETTY.
In a valley at the foot of the Slieve Croob mountains, in County Antrim, there is a pretty village called Ballynahinch. The head of the river Lagan, which flows by Belfast into the lough, is to be found in that valley. Near the town is a ‘spa,’ with a couple of wells, and a delicious air, sufficient in itself to cure all travellers from Dublin who have narrowly escaped being poisoned by the Liffey, in whose murderous stinks the metropolitan authorities seem to think the chief attraction to draw strangers to Dublin is now to be found.
To the flax-cultivating Ballynahinch, in the last quarter of the last century, a gentleman named Betty brought (after a brief sojourn at Lisburn) his young English wife and their only child, a boy. This married couple were of very good blood. The lady was of the Stantons, of Hopton Court. Mr. Betty’s father was a physician of some celebrity, at Lisburn, where, and in the neighbourhood, he practised to such good purpose that he left a handsome fortune to his son. That son invested a portion of his inheritance in a farm, and in the manufacture of linen at Ballynahinch. Whence the Bettys originally came it would be hard to say. A good many Huguenots lie in the churchyard at Lisburn, and the Bettys may have originally sprung from a kindred source. In the reign of George the Second there was a Rev. Joseph Betty, who created a great sensation by a sermon which he preached at Oxford. Whether the Betty of Oxford was an ancestor of him of Ballynahinch is a question which may be left to Mr. Forster, the pedigree hunter.