“I was articled to the law, and Pump Court was the pabulum where I began to qualify myself for Lord Chancellor. But fearful is the dramatic furor of attorney's clerks. My passion was not for bills of costs, but for bills of the play; I longed to draw, not leases, but audiences; as for pleas, my ambition was to please the town; and I cared nothing for Coke, while Shakspere's muse of fire warmed my imagination! Counsellor Cumming soon found his clerk going. I quitted the Court, leaving my solitary competitor the Pump to spout alone.”
A personable fellow * (for whom any lady might be proud to jump into the Serpentine, the jury finding a verdict of manslaughter against my good looks, with a deodand of five shillings on my whiskers! ) 'I left my father's house, and took with me'—as much wardrobe as I could conveniently carry ow, and behind my back.
* A very different looking personage to Mr. Bigstick must
have been the unhappy young gentleman, aged twenty-two, (see
the “Times” 21st March, 1835,) who killed himself by poison,
and left this letter upon his table:—
“I die a Catholic—I leave my mortal remains to my father
and mother, regretting that they should have allowed the
growth and development of a creature of so disagreeable a
conformation as their son. Endowed with the most exquisite
feelings, my face has always frightened the fair sex. I go
to seek in Heaven a society which my aspect will not annoy;
for I imagine that, freed from its carnal covering, my
spirit will not dismay the inhabitants of the other world.”
My first professional bow was in the Poor Gentleman, * and Raising the Wind, in a barn at Leighton Buzzard, where the Gods clambered up to the gallery by a ladder, through which many of the tippling deities could hardly see a hole!
* Another link in the dramatic chain is broken. Arthur
Griffinhoof has joined the jocund spirits of Garrick,
Hoadly, and the elder George.
Rejoice, ye witlings! for the lamp that dimmed your little
farthing rushlights, Death, the universal extinguisher, has
eclipsed for ever! Retailers of small talk, who fattened on
the unctuous crumbs of conceit that fell from the merry
man's table, make the most of your legacy: your master hath
carried his Broad Grins to Elysium. Ye select few, who
admired the wit and loved the man, mourn!
Thanks to the ghastly monarch! for he hath been a forbearing
creditor:—So large an amount of fun payable at sight, and
George a septuagenarian! Three days' grace—three score and
ten!
A day of mirth will it be on Styx, when the ferryman rows
over Mr. Merryman. Faith, Mr. Colman, you're a very droll
man!
What a coil attends the new comer! Churchill, Lloyd,
Thornton, Garrick, all inquiring about the modern Dram.
Pers.—“Ye jovial goblins,” quoth George, “a Dram, per se!”
Whereupon Sam—not the lexicographer—marching forth his
wooden leg, accepts, with an approving chuckle, the pun as
Foote-ing, or garnish; they are hail spirit well met, and
become as merry as ghosts.
Life's a Jest; and a merrier one than thine, facetious
George, Time shall not crack till the crack of doom.
The stalls (the cart-horses having been temporally ejected) sparkled with the elite—sixpenny-worth of coppers being paid for sitting apart in aristocratical exclusiveness. My declamation might have electrified Gog and Magog, and made the Men in Armour start from their spears! The barn rang with applause, my success was triumphant, and my fate decided.
“I next joined Mr. Dunderhead, the Dunstable manager, on whose boards I had the supreme felicity of beholding, for the first time, the Tum-bletuzzy. She danced with the castanets (le Pantomime de Vamour); my heart beat to her fairy footsteps; the long sixes capered before my eyes, my pulse thumped a hundred and twenty per minute—I wooed, and had well nigh won her—when our Harlequin, a ci-devant, ubiquitous, iniquitous barber, all but dashed the nectared cup from my lip. I did not horsewhip him, 'for that were poor revenge,'—no! I shewed him up on my benefit night in a patter song.”
“Bravo!” cried Mr. Bosky, “Let us, Mr. Bigstick, have the song by all means.”
The great Tragedian, screwing, à la Mathews, his mouth a-jar, condescendingly complied.
Stolen or stray'd my beautiful maid!