The lives of actors partake of the extreme alternations and varied excitement of their profession. To the philosopher there is nothing anomalous in the frequent contrast between the lessons of virtue they enact and the recklessness of their habits. When we consider how much they are the sport of fortune, and how often poverty and contempt form the background to the picture of love, triumph, or wit, in which they figure; and remember the constant draft upon nervous sensibility and the resources of temperament, as well as intelligence, it is their lot to undergo, we cannot reasonably wonder that extravagances of conduct, vagaries of habit, and a proneness to seek pleasure in the immediate, characterize players. ‘Players,’ says Hazlitt, ‘are the only honest hypocrites.’ It is proved by judicial statistics, that ‘of all classes they are the freest from crime;’ while their charitable sympathies are proverbial; in marriage and finance, however, they are the reverse of precisians; yet few more pleasing examples of domestic virtue and happiness can be found than some recorded in histrionic memoirs. A kindly but acute observer who long fraternized with the craft, Douglas Jerrold, said of the strolling player: ‘He is the merry preacher of the noblest, grandest lessons of human thought. He is the poet’s pilgrim, and in the forlornest byways and abodes of men, calls forth new sympathies, sheds upon the cold, dull trade of real life an hour of poetic glory. He informs human clay with thoughts and throbbings that refine it; and for this he was for centuries a “rogue and a vagabond,” and is, even now, a long, long day’s march from the vantage-ground of respectability.’ Through the annals of the English stage there may be traced a vein of romantic vicissitude as suggestive as any the written drama affords:—Wilks, generous and spirited, abandoning a profitable engagement in Dublin, with language as noble in its key as one of Fletcher’s characters, to allay the conjugal jealousy of a brother actor; Nell Gwynn discouraged in her theatrical ambition by the manager, becoming orange-girl to the theatre in order to be in the line of her aspirations, which, when realized, made her the mistress of a king and the envy of courtiers; Mountfort killed in an impromptu duel with a noble rival for the love of Mrs. Bracegirdle; the charming Mrs. Woffington disguised as a man, at a country ball, undeceiving the affianced of her disloyal lover; the beautiful Miss Bellamy meditating suicide on the steps of Westminster Bridge; Savage asleep on a street-bunk, and, three days after, the admired guest at a lord’s table; the eccentricities of Cibber’s daft daughter; Holcraft’s affecting story of his boyhood, and the ludicrous self-importance displayed in his account of his trial for treason; the fascinating dialogue of the benevolent Mrs. Jordan with the Quaker in the rain under a shed; Jerrold’s father playing in a barn upon an estate that was rightfully his own; and Douglas himself, the future dramatic author, carried on the stage by Kean, as the child in Rolla. Palmer fell dead while personating The Stranger, in consequence of the excess of sorrow which the situation induced, he having just been stricken by a great domestic bereavement; Williams was killed by Quin; and Mountford and Clive murdered. Quin’s memorable jokes; Cooke’s lapses from more than Roman dignity and Anglo-Saxon sense to a worse than Indian sottishness; Grimaldi, whom Hook called ‘the Garrick of Clowns,’ and to whom Byron gave a silver snuff-box, leaving buffoonery and harlequin whirls to train pigeons, collect flies, or meet with London robbers; Matthews, after keeping the Park audience in a roar for hours, crossing the river to stroll in pensive thought under the trees at Hoboken; and the versatile and admired Hodgkinson dying at a solitary tavern on the road to Washington, amid the horrors of pestilence, and his body thrown into a field by slaves; Booth’s extraordinary fits of contemplative originality, and the grotesque night adventures in which Kean was the leader, are but incidental glimpses of a world in which the violent, fantastic, and reckless instincts of human nature are wantonly displayed, yielding curious material for the metaphysician, and ample scope for charity. An English poet has brought together many such anecdotes of Kean—some touching in the highest degree, some superlatively ridiculous, and others shocking to the heart,—yet all kindled with the forlorn glory of genius, like the scathed form of Milton’s fallen angel. And what a mercurial compound was Samuel Foote—London’s great source of fun and satire for years,—whose chance observations became proverbs, who used to find a seat for Gray the poet, stand ruefully against the scenes to have his artificial leg attached, and then go forward to set the house in a roar,—as ingenious as Steele in evading ‘injunctions,’ who lived by his ‘takings off,’ over which the grave Johnson shook with merriment, and whose ‘wits’ were literally his capital, whereby he realized three fortunes! It is no wonder people frequented Macklin’s ordinary when he quitted the stage; nor that they listened until far into the night to that ‘perpetual showman of the extraordinary in manners, adventure, sentimentality, and sin’—Elliston,—whose ‘I’ll never call you Jack, my boy, again,’ equalled in comic zest the tragic force of Kean’s ‘God bless the child,’ in Bertram, who made life itself a comedy, and played the ‘child of fortune’ to the end; exuberant in vagaries, a vagabond by instinct, celebrating the ‘triumph of abstinence by excess,’ and with ‘eccentricity absolutely germane to his being,’ yet could so perfectly enact the ‘regal style’ in common life that Charles Lamb declared he should ‘repose under no inscription but one of pure Latinity.’ The Memoirs of Grimaldi was the first book Dickens published, and in that biography of a harlequin are the smiles and tears of a genuine romance. In the perusal of such an experience we realize how directly comedy springs from human life; the piazzas of Spain and Italy, with their motley crowds and glib dialogue, gave birth to the theatre. What a curious fact in human nature is the relation of seeming to being in the drama. Dr. Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, was dining with the celebrated Betterton, and said: ‘Pray, Mr. Betterton, inform me what is the reason you actors can affect your audiences with speaking of things imaginary as if they were real, while we of the church speak of things real which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why, my lord,’ replied the player, ‘the reason is plain. We actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’ It has been observed that there are no English lives worth reading except those of players, who, ‘by the nature of the case, have bidden respectability good day;’ and a grave literary critic explains on higher grounds than this abandon, why there is an intrinsic charm in an actor’s memoirs, when he remarks that, ‘notwithstanding everything which may be said against the theatrical profession, it certainly does require from those who pursue it a certain quickness and liveliness of mind.’
The very nature of the vocation is inciting to vagrant propensities and thoughtless adventures. The English theatre originated in strollers who performed in inn-yards; and the Greek drama is associated with the ‘cart of Thespis.’ I have seen an itinerant company of Italians perform a tragedy in the old Roman amphitheatre at Verona, on a spring afternoon, to a hundred spectators grouped about the lower tiers of that magnificent relic of antiquity, where gladiators once contended in the presence of thousands. It was an impressive evidence of the universality of dramatic taste, which, however modified by circumstances, always reasserts itself in all nations and climes. The best historians, cognizant of this, make the condition and influence of the theatre a subject of record; and its phases undoubtedly mirror the characteristic in social and national life more truly than any other institution. It was a great bone of contention between the Puritans and Cavaliers; Macaulay finds it needful to revert to the subject to illustrate the reign of Charles II. and the Commonwealth, and Hildreth to mark the difference of public sentiment in New England and the other States after the revolution. Its critical history in England would afford a reliable scale by which to measure the rise, progress, and lapses of civilization and public taste. Upon this arena the great controversy between nature and art, rules and inspiration, eclecticism and adherence to a school, which, under different names, forms an everlasting problem to the votaries of intellectual enjoyment, was boldly fought. And the discussion once inspired by Kemble and Kean has been renewed by the respective advocates of Rachel and Ristori.
The diminished influence of the stage is obvious in its comparative isolation. ‘The dramatic temperament,’ observes Mrs. Kemble, ‘always exceptional in England, is becoming daily more so under the various adverse influences of a civilization and society which fosters a genuine dislike to exhibitions of emotion, and a cynical disbelief in the reality of it, both necessarily depressing, first its expression, and next its existence.’ This social repudiation of the dramatic instinct undoubtedly affects its professional development; and the stage in Great Britain, of late years, with the exception of the lyric drama, appeals far more to the amusing than the tragic element; the comic muse and the melodrama have long been in the ascendant. The social character which once rendered the stage in England a connecting link between literature and the town, refined circles and the public at large, no longer exists; that such a relation naturally obtains we perceive in the mutual advantages then derived from its recognition; authors and actors, indeed, have a reciprocal interest in the drama, while the tone of society and manners is directly influenced by, and reflected from, the theatre; much, therefore, of the deterioration of the latter is owing to its being in a great degree abandoned by those whose taste, character, and personal influence alone can redeem it from abuse and degradation; for it has been well said that the theatre is respectable only in proportion as it is respected. A traditional charm and intellectual dignity, as well as social attractiveness, linger around the memory of its palmy days;—when Quin so nobly befriended the author of The Seasons; when Steele was a patentee, and Mrs. Bracegirdle inspired the best authors to write for her, and received a legacy from Congreve; when Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith discussed new plays and old readings with Garrick, and Mrs. Oldfield remembered poor Savage in her will; or Sheridan vibrated between the greenroom and the dress circle. Similar pleasing associations belong to the era of Mrs. Siddons, when she doffed the majestic air of Lady Macbeth to mingle with the literati of Edinburgh; and nightly saw Reynolds, Gibbon, Burke, and Fox in the orchestra. Peg Woffington charmed Burke, and incited him to his first successful literary effort; and Archbishop Tillotson profited by the elocution of Butterton. We are told, in corresponding memoirs, of Kitty Clive’s ‘clear laugh,’ ‘fair Abington with her dove-like looks,’ ‘charming Mrs. Barry,’ and ‘womanly Mrs. Pritchard.’ There is no vocation so directly inspired by love of approbation; the stimulus of applause is an indispensable encouragement, and popular caprice vents itself without limit in deifying or degrading the children of Thespis. It is not to be wondered at that diseased vanity often results from such adulation as attends the successful actor. ‘Is it possible,’ asks Sir Lytton, ‘that this man—so fondled, so shouted to, so dandled by the world—can, at bedtime, take off the whole of Macbeth with his stockings?’ The old essayists criticized the stage with efficiency; men of political fame watched with interest over its destiny; men of genius proclaimed its worth, and men of birth took an active part in its support and direction. Thus encouraged and inspired, actors of the higher order felt a degree of responsibility to the public, and indulged in aspirations that gave elevation and significance to their art. Its evanescent triumphs, when compared with those of letters, painting, or sculpture, have often been lamented; Cibber is eloquently pathetic on the subject, and Campbell has expressed the sentiment in a memorable stanza. In one respect, however, the fragility of histrionic renown is an advantage; no species of enjoyment from art has been made the theme of such glowing reminiscence; as if inspired by the very consciousness that the merit they celebrated had no permanent memorial, intelligent lovers of the drama describe, in conversation and literature, the traits of favourite performers and the effects they have produced, with a zest, acuteness, and enthusiasm rarely awarded the votaries of other pursuits. What genial emphasis, even in the traditional memory of Wilks’ Sir Harry Wildair, Barry’s Jaffier, Quin’s Falstaff, Henderson’s Sir Giles, Yates’ Shakspeare’s Fools, Macklin’s Shylock, Harry Woodworth’s Captain Boabdil, Cooke’s McSycophant, Siddons’ Lady Macbeth, and Kean’s Othello! Yet in no art is eclecticism more a desideratum; our great actors proverbially suffer for adequate support in the minor characters; rivalry and division of labour sadly mar the possible perfection of the modern stage. Walpole, who was an epicurean in his dramatic as in his social tastes, sighed for the incarnation in one prodigy of the voice of Mrs. Cibber, the eye of Garrick, and the soul of Mrs. Pritchard. In Cibber’s eulogies upon the tragic genius of Betterton, or the inimitable drollery of Nokes,—Hunt’s genial memoirs of Jack Bannister, Lamb’s account of Munden’s acting, Campbell’s tribute to Mrs. Siddons, and Barry Cornwall’s description of Kean’s characters,—there is a relish and earnestness seldom devoted to the limner and the bard, who, we feel, can speak best for themselves to posterity. Indeed, the heartiness of appreciation manifested by literary men towards great actors, is the result of natural affinity. There is something, too, in the mere vocation of the latter, when efficiently realized, that excites intellectual and personal sympathy. The actor seems a noble volunteer in behalf of humanity,—a kind of spontaneous lay-figure upon which the drapery of human life may be arranged at pleasure;—he is the oral interpreter of the individual mind to the hearts of the people; and takes upon himself the passion, wit, and sentiment of types of the race, that all may realize their action and quality.
NEWSPAPERS.
‘What is it but a map of busy life?’—Cowper.
remember how vivid was the impression of Paris life, in its contrasts and economy, derived from the distribution of the ‘Entr’ Acte’ at the Opera Comique, announcing the death of Talleyrand. Cinti Damoreau had just warbled a finale in the Pré Aux Clercs, and the applause had scarcely died away, when a shower of neatly-printed gazettes were seized and pondered. There was a minute description of the last hours of a man associated with dynasties and diplomacy for half a century, who had been the confidant of the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, and a few moments before bade farewell to earth and Louis Philippe; and all these historical and incongruous memories solemnized by death, filled up the interval of a gay and crowded opera, and the pauses of an exquisite vocalist;—a more bewildering consciousness of the past and present, of art and history, of intrigue and melody, of mortality and pastime, it is difficult to imagine.