Between country actors and audiences, there was an easy freedom. Miller, of Birmingham, played Frenchmen well and Hamlet abominably, for which last he was hissed, and thereupon he told the audience that since they wouldn't have his Hamlet, they shouldn't have his Frenchman! Mrs. Charke records that one night, as she was playing Pyrrhus, she was called upon to deliver some speeches of Scrub, in which she had distinguished herself the night before. In like manner, when Incledon was singing the most pathetic ballad, his rude hearers would demand some coarse popular song, nor let him off till he had sung it!
"Oh! take more pity in thine eyes!" said a Portsmouth Richard to Lady Anne. "Would they were battle-axe," said Miss White (instead of "basilisks") "to strike thee dead!" This, however, was probably only a slip.[85] At all events, it was not so shocking as Brereton's first indications of his insanity when, at a country theatre, and playing with his wife (afterwards Mrs. Kemble), he made her dance a minuet with him, when she ought to have been weeping; and when she died in character, the poor fellow (a star in the country) would, if not watched, walk up to her and seriously bewail the sad condition of his darling wife.
Brereton, in his day, had seen as much misery while strolling as Bensley,—a gentleman as well-born as himself. The latter once tramping it with Robinson, they found that they had but a penny between them. They tossed as to who should have the mutton pie which it could purchase, and Bensley burst into tears while the winner devoured the prize. Their next dinner was purchased by their cutting off their hair, then worn long, and selling it. And this incident of the hair reminds me of Fox, the manager's son at Brighton, who, when hair-powder was worn by some and denounced by others, because of the tax upon it, appeared, in some fine gentleman's part, with his head half in powder and half without. To allay the uproar that ensued, he explained that he did it to please both parties, and of course gratified neither. Some old strolling companies, on the tramp, walked very many hundreds of miles during the year. Even the richer brethren of the craft sometimes suffered tribulation. As once happened with the Bath Company, when their scenery, machinery, dresses, and "property" of every theatrical sort, were burnt in their caravans, as they were crossing Salisbury Plain.
I return again to the old houses, for a moment, to consider three subjects not yet touched upon,—the old rage for prologues and epilogues,—the "dedications" of plays, and the "benefits" of the actors.
Mr. Dibdin as Mungo.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Garrick dressed Macbeth in a suit of scarlet and gold. Macklin, in 1774, was the first to introduce any Scottish character into the costume.
[85] Judging from Tate Wilkinson's account of this lady and her mother, this was not a slip.