[49] Grimaldi was not in requisition for any part at the Haymarket, till "Mother Goose" was revived with two new scenes, and subsequently a third, on Monday, December 26, 1808. "La Perouse" was revived, "for the first time these four years," on Thursday, January 26, 1809, and not in March, as here stated. La Perouse was performed by Bologna, junior; Madame Perouse, by Miss Bristow; Umba, by Miss Adams; Kanko, suitor to Umba, by Mr. Grimaldi; their first appearance in those characters. The eighteenth representation was on April 5th.
[50] On Joe's benefit night was performed the "Busy Body;" Marplot, by Mr. Lewis; and "Mother Goose." Mr. Lewis took his final leave of the stage, on the 29th, as the Copper Captain, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife;" "The Ghost;" and "Valentine and Orson." The season terminated on May 31st, with the "Exile," and "Valentine and Orson."
Sadler's Wells presented no particular novelty in 1809.[51] Its chief production was a piece called "Johnnie Armstrong," in which Grimaldi played Kirstie, a kind of "Touchstone:" it was very successful, and the season closed, as all the Sadler's Wells seasons did at that time, with great profits.
[51] Sadler's Wells opened at Easter, April 3, 1809, and in the pantomime of "Fashion's Fool; or, The Aquatic Harlequin," Grimaldi played Clown, and sang the songs of "Odd Fish," and the "Whip Club." On Whit Monday, May 22, he played the Wild Man, in the Aquatic Melodramatic Romance of "The Wild Man: or, Water Pageant." On July 31, a new harlequinade, called "Castles in the Air; or, Columbine Cowslip," was produced. Grimaldi played Clown, with the Song of "Looney's Lamentation for Miss Margery Muggins," and a quartetto caricatura, called "Cut and Come Again; or, The Clown's Ordinary." On Mrs. C. Dibdin's night, October 16, Grimaldi, in compliment to her, sang three new songs, in addition to those pertaining to "Castles in the Air."
Before adverting to the little adventure arising out of one of the nocturnal rides to which reference has been already made, it will be necessary to mention a few circumstances, upon which such interest as it possesses mainly depends.
The pantomime was usually played first, at Sadler's Wells. When this was the case Grimaldi was at liberty by about half-past eight: he would sometimes call at the Sir Hugh Myddleton, and take a glass of wine and water with some friends who frequented the house, and then start off in his gig to Finchley.
He had several times met at this tavern a young man of the name of George Hamilton, a working jeweller, residing somewhere in Clerkenwell, a sociable good-tempered merry fellow enough, but rather too much addicted to drinking and squandering his money. This man was very sensitive upon the subject of trade, being, as the phrase goes, above his business, having an ambition to be a gentleman, and resenting any allusion to his occupation as a personal affront. He was a very ingenious and skilful man at his business, and could earn a great deal of money; but his companions suspected that these absurdities led him into spending more than he could well afford. Grimaldi was so strongly impressed with this opinion, that, with a good-hearted impulse, he frequently felt tempted to remonstrate with him upon his folly. Their slight intimacy, however, restrained him, and the man continued to take his own course.
These were his mental peculiarities: he had a remarkable physical peculiarity besides, wanting, either from an accident or a natural defect, the third finger of his left hand. Whether he wished to conceal this imperfection, or had some other defect in the same hand, is uncertain; but he invariably kept his little finger in a bent position beneath the palm of it; so that when he sat, or walked, as he usually did, with his left hand half hidden in his pocket, the defect was not observable; but when he suddenly changed his position, or drew forth his hand in discourse, it had always the appearance of having only two fingers upon it.
Grimaldi's first acquaintance with this person was in 1808, when he was very frequently at Sadler's Wells, and the Sir Hugh Myddleton. At the termination of the summer season he lost sight of him, in consequence of his engagements taking him elsewhere; but in Easter 1809, when Sadler's Wells re-opened, and Grimaldi resumed his habit of calling at the tavern for half an hour or so, before driving out to Finchley, he again encountered him. He had been married in the interval, and frequently took his wife, a pretty young creature, to the tavern with him, as at that time many tradesmen in the neighbourhood were accustomed to do.
Grimaldi paid little attention to these circumstances at first; but a change had come over the man which irresistibly attracted his attention. He had become very violent and irritable,—had acquired a nervous restlessness of manner, an occasional incoherence of speech, a wildness of look, and betrayed many other indications of a mind somewhat disordered. He dressed differently too: formerly he had been neatly attired, and looked like a respectable, well-doing man; but now he was showy and gaudy, wore a number of large rings and other articles of cheap jewellery, and his desire to be thought a great man had increased, greatly, so much so, indeed, that his declamations against trade and all concerned in it, deeply affronted the worthies who were wont to assemble at the Sir Hugh, and occasioned many disputes and altercations.