Hare belonged to a distinctly higher social class than either Irving or Toole. So also did Sir Charles Wyndham. The son of a London doctor, he had received a first-rate education, and practised for some time as a doctor before going on the stage. A handsome person, great vivacity, and a well-bred lightness of touch made him a king of comedy, and his tradition is still one of the strongest inspirations in the modern theatre.
No account of the entertainers of the Nineties would be complete without reference to a form of amusement which, though it still exists in a small way, was in its biggest way thirty years ago. Its chief exponents were Corney Grain and George Grossmith. The German Reed entertainments have now a very far-away sound; the sight of the name gives the same sort of feeling as the sign over some old-fashioned confectioners’, “Routs Catered For.” Yet German Reed was very much alive in its time. It could not be otherwise with the aid of so very vital a person as the gigantic Corney Grain. Grain, who was intended for the Bar, reached the stage by easy stages of amateurism and semi-professionalism, and his career was complicated by a difficulty of classification. At first the Press would barely notice him, because the musical critics said he was not Music, and the dramatic critics said he was not Drama, and everybody agreed that he was not Art. The German Reed entertainment, however, at last found its public—a very peculiar one, very proper, very middle-class, and very much intrigued with what were supposed to be the ways and humours of a superior order of society. It is a public now very largely extinct; people want either stronger or more delicate meat. But those days were different. They were the days when nigger minstrels were a considerable “financial proposition.” I remember well the Press agent of one famous troop complaining to a Brighton newspaper that they had received scant notice during the visit of Sarah Bernhardt. “If it were a circus I could understand, but fancy playing second fiddle to that Frenchwoman!” he remarked in high dungeon. Both with the minstrels and with German Reed people could be sure of a due censorship of jokes and songs; they could enjoy all the luxury of wickedness without wickedness itself. “Thank you, Mr. Grain,” said a bishop once at the end of a performance, “I have been not only amused, but—edified.”
George Grossmith also tended to edification. In physique he was the exact opposite of Corney Grain, wizen and under-sized, and once when they appeared together—the rivals were very excellent friends—Grain ended a scene by picking up Grossmith and carrying him off the stage like a baby. George Grossmith was the son of one of those curious men who supply the newspapers with police court reports; the business is largely hereditary, and in this case the son began life as assistant to his father. Police courts, however, rarely sit late, and the “liners” have considerable leisure to follow any other occupation. Grossmith père was already established as a lecturer and entertainer, and it was quite natural that the two sons—George and Weedon—should follow in his footsteps. In the late Seventies George attracted the notice of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and as a result had a run of twelve years in Savoy Opera. Gilbert was at first violently opposed to the introduction, but had to acknowledge that it was a great success, though he could never refrain from an occasional tilt at what he considered the vulgarities of Grossmith’s style. In a certain part Grossmith received a box on the ear from one of the female characters, and used to fall head over heels on the stage. “I should be very much obliged if you would omit that piece of business, Mr. Grossmith,” suggested Gilbert. “Why? I get a tremendous laugh with it,” pleaded the actor. “So you would if you sat down on a pork pie,” retorted Gilbert, who could never bear that applause should be diverted from his “book” by mere “gag.”
It was just at the end of the Eighties that Grossmith left the Savoy for the business of “society entertainer” on the Corney Grain plan. He made an immediate success, the best tribute to which may be quoted; it was that of a girl at a Yorkshire seaside place: “Oh, how we did laugh! It was laugh, laugh, laugh! All the people kept laughing, and then we laughed. Then the people laughed again, and so did we, and when we got home we laughed more than ever, for none of us knew what we had been laughing at.” But for that happy weakness of human nature, fewer professional funny men would pay super-tax.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In a work like the present, where personal impressions are so largely mingled with the results of general and special reading, it is not easy to give the authority for every statement. Specific borrowings are indicated in the text. The author, however, would like to add an acknowledgment of his general obligation to the following:
“Recollections.” Lord Morley.
“Life of Archbishop Temple.” Seven Friends.