The good, stupid wench mentioned regretfully that the postage was two shillings and ninepence. I said, ‘Susan, this long story about things that you know nothing of, and can take no interest in, my good girl, has cost you, it seems, far more than it is worth.’ ‘Yes, indeed, ma’am,’ she answered, ‘it has. I like very well to hear from Mr. Raffer, but I do wish he would pay the postage.’ ‘Has this thoughtless man often put you to the expense?’ I inquired. ‘Oh, no, ma’am; it’s the first since he went; but he says he shall write again.’ ‘Shall you answer it, Susan?’ I asked. ‘Lor, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I should never know where to find a place to begin upon. Doesn’t you think, ma’am, it’s more like a piece of reading in the newspaper than a letter? Then I shouldn’t like to pay another two-and-ninepence.’ ‘Then, Susan,’ I said, ‘as my son’s name is mentioned in this letter, suppose I give you five shillings for it—that will pay the postage, and buy you a nice frilled neckerchief.’ Susan blushed and smiled with delight. The bargain was struck at once for this and any other despatch Mr. Raffer may send, silence on the subject being promised.... My only qualm of conscience in getting hold of the letter was, that I suggested to Susan to buy a frilled neckerchief, never allowing my own maids to wear any but plain ones.
In those days mistresses could rule the costume of their maids. In ours the latter dress in the same ill-taste adopted by their mistresses. But chignons, at last, have gone out, and with them the abominable smell which ‘pervaded’ the atmosphere.
By 1813 the minuet, a knowledge of dancing which Mrs. Montagu thought of more importance than a knowledge of French, ceased to be known in the ball-room. It fingered on the stage. The Coburg Theatre audiences looked upon the Minuet de la Cour and Gavotte, danced by M. and Mdme. Le Clercq, with a sort of wondering delight, and Taglioni and Fanny Elsler danced it on our opera stage, forty years ago, as a lady and cavalier of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. When the waltz first attempted (with its vulgar familiarity and an intimacy which made an Oriental ambassador almost faint) to supplant the minuet, in which the gentleman scarcely touched the tips of the lady’s fingers, and seemed abashed at his own audacity, there was a general outcry of fie upon it. But young ladies soon learned to laugh at the objections of their mothers, and flung themselves on the shirt-fronts of their partners with alacrity. Fashion sanctified it, and the youthful world thought it ill-bred prudery to set its face against what fashionable people of good taste considered innocent and amusing.
The actors of the first half of the century come pleasantly to the memories of some survivors, and to the knowledge of others who will be glad to become acquainted with them. Graceful Elliston, in Octavian, is said to have been superior to John Kemble. George Frederick Cooke was always fine, but never sober; ‘often so drunk as not to be able to come on the stage at all, and generally as not to be able to stand when on.’ We sit with Cooke’s exasperated audience, kept half an hour beyond time, when he was to play Mr. Oakley, and we join in the hissing when he does appear, and enjoy the mingled surprise and indignation that light up his countenance. ‘He, however, recollected himself, and after one violent effort, in which every feature of his speaking countenance had its peculiar expression, made a sort of half-disdainful half-respectful bow, and an exit steadier than his entrée, though hardly steady enough for dignity.’ Cooke’s Oakley, in its way, was as good as Emery’s Tyke, which, as a bit of tragi-comedy, was inexpressibly grand.
In 1809 Kemble was declining. In reference to his Hamlet, Jackson says, ‘Kemble was, of course, great, and his triumph, I believe, complete; but, in my humble opinion, he has gone off a good deal.’ Of the then new Covent Garden (burnt down in 1808), he writes; ‘It appears to me small, and the prevailing colour—brick red—very common and ineffective. The doors too, though they cost a large sum, and will, if they last as long, be very handsome some years hence, have a mean appearance, the mahogany being so very pale.’ Kemble lingered too long upon the stage. In 1801 we read, in reference to his Hotspur, ‘In some parts he warmed up to the situation and was very good; but he is too old for such a character, and the dress only shows off his unfitness the more. It made him appear decidedly aged, and thus, in a great measure, rendered all he had to say ineffective.’ But in those last years of his career Kemble flashed forth gleams of his old glory. In the year last named he and Mrs. Siddons played inimitably in ‘Isabella,’ in which Charles Kemble played Carlos, and showed signs that he was not going to remain the mere ‘stick’ which he had been for many years. Mrs. Siddons was, on the other hand, deteriorating. She had grown enormously large. When she killed herself, in ‘Isabella,’ and fell to the ground, the stage groaned beneath her; and if, in any character, she knelt, it took two good men to get her comfortably on her legs again. The greatest theatrical novelty of the day was when Kemble appeared at court to take leave on his intended departure for America, where he was to play twenty-two nights for six thousand pounds and his expenses paid. After all, Kemble did not go; his appearance at court, ‘a player,’ made some people think the world was coming to an end. But there was a worse sign of the times. When Bellingham, after shooting Mr. Percival, was conveyed in a coach to Newgate, the mob escorted and cheered him, shook hands with him, and congratulated him on having murdered a minister.
It is startling to find Mrs. Siddons accused of want of feeling when she took leave of the stage. As John Kemble continued to linger on it, his power of attracting audiences grew less. In 1812 it is said of his King John, ‘his conception of the character remains, of course, as excellent as ever; but his voice is gone, and I am told when the play is ended he is so exhausted as hardly to be able to speak or move.’
We conclude these desultory samples of by-gone life with an example of the remuneration of a leading barrister of the first years of this century, namely, Garrow. It is said of him that ‘he went into court one morning at York, made a speech of about twenty minutes, then doffed his wig and gown, pocketed four hundred pounds, besides one hundred pounds for his expenses, and drove off again to London.’
Those who have examined these grains from a full measure may find more perfect enjoyment by perusing ‘The Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson,’ and the interesting second series of the work known as ‘The Bath Archives.’