The ambassador, by medium of his interpreter, asked for two soups, and a portion of four different dishes of fish with oil, vinegar, mustard, pepper, salt, and sugar, in the same plate, which, apparently to the eyes of the waiters, and to their utter astonishment and surprise, he eagerly devoured. The waiters had been cautioned by one of the suite not to notice the manner in which his Excellency ate his dinner, lest it should offend him; and their occasional absence from the room gave Mathews or his companion an opportunity of depositing the incongruous medley in the ashes under the grate—a large fire having been provided. The ambassador continued to mingle the remaining viands, during dinner, in a similar heterogeneous way. The chamber in which his Excellency slept was brilliantly illuminated with wax-candles, and in one corner of the room a table was fitted up, under the direction of one of the party, to represent an oratory, with such appropriate apparatus as could best be procured. A private sailing-barge was moored at the stairs by the fountain early the next morning, to convey the ambassador and his attendants to the Prince Regent at the Nore. The people again assembled in vast multitudes to witness the embarkation. Carpets were placed on the stairs at the water's edge, for the state and comfort of his Excellency; who, the instant he entered the barge, turned round and bade a grateful farewell to the multitude, at the same time placing his hand upon his bosom, and taking off his huge cocked hat. The captain of the barge, a supremely illiterate, good-humoured cockney, was introduced most ceremoniously to the ambassador, and purposely placed on his right hand. It is impossible to describe the variety of absurd and extravagant stratagems practised on the credulity of the captain by Mathews, and with consummate success, until the barge arrived in sight of the King's frigate, which by a previous understanding, recognized the ambassador by signals. The officers were all dressed in full uniform, and prepared to receive him. When on board, the whole party threw off their disguises, and were entertained by Captain Selby with a splendid dinner, to which the lieutenants of the ship were invited.
After the banquet, Mathews, in his own character, kept the company in high spirits by his incomparable mimic powers for more than ten hours, incorporating with admirable effect the entire narrative of the journey to Gravesend, and his, "acts and deeds" at the Falcon. Towards the close of the feast, and about half-an-hour before the party took their departure, in order to give the commander and his officers "a touch of his quality," Mathews assumed his ambassadorial attire, and the captain of the barge, still in ignorance of the joke, was introduced into the cabin, between whom and his Excellency an indescribable scene of rich burlesque was enacted. The party left the ship for Gravesend at four o'clock in the morning—Mathews, in his "habit as he lived," with the addition of a pair of spectacles, which he had a peculiar way of wearing to conceal his identity, even from the most acute observer. Mathews again resumed his station by the side of the captain, as a person who had left the frigate for a temporary purpose. The simple captain recounted to Mathews all that the Spanish ambassador had enacted, both in his transit from Gravesend to the Nore, and whilst he (the captain) was permitted to join the festive board in the cabin, with singular fidelity, and to the great amusement of the original party, who, during the whole of this ambassadorial excursion, never lost their gravity, except when they were left to themselves. They landed at Gravesend, and from thence departed to London, luxuriating upon the hoax.
Grimaldi as Clown. After De Wilde.
[Grimaldi, the Clown.]
Joseph Grimaldi had for his paternal grandfather a dancer, so vigorous as to rejoice in the appellation of "Iron Legs." His son, the father of our Grimaldi, was a native of Genoa, and in 1760 came to England as dentist to Queen Charlotte. He soon, however, resigned this situation, commenced dancing and fencing-master, and was appointed ballet-master of Drury Lane Theatre and Sadler's Wells with the post of primo buffo. He was an honest and charitable man, and was never known to be inebriated, though he was very eccentric. He had a vague and profound dread of the fourteenth day of the month: at its approach he was always nervous, disquieted, and anxious; directly it had passed he was another man again, and invariably exclaimed, in his broken English, "Ah! now I am safe for anoder month." It is remarkable that he actually died on the fourteenth day of March; and that he was born, christened, and married on the fourteenth of the month. This was the same man who, in the time of Lord George Gordon's Riots, when people for the purpose of protecting their houses from the fury of the mob, inscribed upon their doors the words "No Popery," actually with the view of keeping in the right with all parties, and preventing the possibility of offending any by his form of worship, wrote up "No Religion at all," which announcement appeared in large characters in front of his house in Little Russell Street: the protective idea was perfectly successful.
Joseph Grimaldi, our "Joe," was born out of wedlock on the 18th of December, 1778, in Stanhope Street, Clare Market; his mother being Rebecca Brooker, who had been from her infancy a dancer at Drury Lane, and subsequently at Sadler's Wells played old women. Joe's eccentric father was then more than seventy years old; and twenty-five months afterwards was born another son, Joseph's only brother.
Our Joe Grimaldi, at the age of one year and eleven months, was brought out by his father, on the boards of Old Drury, as "the little clown," in the pantomime of Robinson Crusoe, at a salary of 15s. per week. In 1781 he first appeared at Sadler's Wells, in the arduous character of a monkey: here he remained (one season only excepted) until the termination of his professional career, forty-nine years afterwards, when in his farewell address, at Sadler's Wells, he said:—"At a very early age, before that of three years, I was introduced to the public by my father, at this theatre." This is not very clear, since it would seem to contradict the statement of his having appeared at Drury Lane. During the first piece in which little Joe played at Sadler's Wells, he had nearly lost his life: in one of the scenes, the clown, his father, was swinging him as a monkey, round and round by a chain, which broke, and he was hurled a considerable distance into the pit, fortunately into the very arms of an old gentleman who was sitting gazing at the stage with intense interest.
At this time, "the little clown's" full-dress was embroidered coat and breeches, silk stockings, paste buckles, and cocked-hat; and a guinea in his pocket, which he one day gave to a distressed woman, for which act his father gave him a caning (though not till five months after), which he remembered as long as he lived. Old Grimaldi died in 1788, leaving 1,500l., but the executor becoming bankrupt, the two sons lost the whole of their fortune. Joe stuck to the stage, and at Drury Lane Mr. Sheridan raised his salary, unasked, to 1l. a-week. His leisure was now passed in breeding pigeons and collecting insects; of the latter he had a cabinet of 4,000 specimens. He now removed with his mother to Pentonville, where the house is to this day pointed out in Penton Place. About this time, early one morning, Joe found near the Tower of London a purse of gold coin and a bundle of Bank-notes, which, on his way home, he sat down to count upon the spot where now stands the Eagle Tavern, in the City Road. There were 380 guineas and 200l. in notes, making in the whole 599l. Grimaldi repeatedly advertised in the daily newspapers the finding of the money, but he never heard a syllable regarding the treasure he had so singularly acquired. His maternal grandfather, it appears, once left a purse of gold, nearly 400l., upon a post near the Royal Exchange, and found it there untouched after the lapse of nearly an hour.