[6] This story was reprinted in several American papers. A dentist of some note in a leading city, not appreciating its satire, wrote a long letter to Mr. Irving, offering to make him a new set of teeth, on a patented system of his own, which had given great pleasure to a number of eminent American ladies and gentlemen. He enclosed a list of his clients, and the price of their teeth. As an inducement for Irving to accept his proposals, he quoted “very moderate terms,” on condition that “if satisfactory” he should “have the use of his name” in public, thus “acting up to the liberal principles of the English practitioner.”
[7] The misunderstanding between Forrest and Macready has been canvassed and discussed in most histories of the modern stage. Forrest believed that his ill-success in London was the result of a plot on the part of Macready to write him down. So fixed in his mind was this view of his failure, that brooding over it evidently unmanned him. He went to the Edinburgh Theatre (shortly before he left England for America) and hissed Macready in Hamlet. In a letter to the Pennsylvanian, Nov. 22, 1848, he wrote:—
“On the occasion alluded to, Mr. Macready introduced a fancy dance into his performance of Hamlet, which I designated as a pas de mouchoir, and which I hissed, for I thought it a desecration of the scene; and the audience thought so, too; for, a few nights afterwards, when Mr. Macready repeated the part of Hamlet with the same ‘tomfoolery,’ the intelligent audience greeted it with a universal hiss.
“Mr. Macready is stated to have said last night that he ‘had never entertained towards me a feeling of unkindness.’ I unhesitatingly pronounce this to be a wilful and unblushing falsehood. I most solemnly aver, and do believe, that Mr. Macready, instigated by his narrow, envious mind and selfish fears, did secretly—not openly—suborn several writers for the English press to write me down. Among them was one Forster, a ‘toady’ of the eminent tragedian,—one who is ever ready to do his dirty work; and this Forster, at the bidding of his patron, attacked me in print, even before I had appeared upon the London boards, and continued to abuse me at every opportunity afterwards.
“I assert also, and solemnly believe, that Mr. Macready connived, when his friends went to the theatre in London, to hiss me, and did hiss me, with the purpose of driving me from the stage; and all this happened many months before the affair at Edinburgh, to which Mr. Macready refers, and in relation to which he jesuitically remarked, that ‘until that act he never entertained towards me a feeling of unkindness.’”
It is worth while adding in this place the following interesting account of the fatal riot, which is extracted from Barrett’s life of Edwin Forrest published by Jas. R. Osgood & Co., in 1881:—
“On the 7th of May, 1848, Macready began an engagement at the Astor Place Opera House, under the management of J. H. Hackett. The theatre was packed by his enemies, and he was hooted from the stage. He prepared to return to his own country, but was persuaded by his friends to remain, in order that he might see how far the public indorsed the opposition against him. An invitation to this effect, signed by many of the best citizens of New York, was taken as a defiance by the admirers of Forrest, who prepared to meet the issue. Forrest was playing at the Broadway Theatre, and on the 16th of May, Macready, at the Astor Place house, was announced to reappear as Macbeth. The authorities had been called to the aid of the signers of the call, and when the doors were opened the theatre was instantly filled by a crowd of persons favorable to the actor, while the great mass of his enemies were excluded. These filled the street, however, while the few who did gain admission showed their opposition upon the appearance of Macready. At the first attempt the assailants were confronted by a body of Macready’s friends within the theatre too powerful to be resisted; but the majority without added a threatening reinforcement when the decisive moment for violence should arrive.
“The play was stopped. Macready, hustled from the back door in the cloak of a friend, barely escaped with his life, and the mimic tragedy within doors gave way to the approaching real tragedy without. The theatre was attacked on all sides by the mob, and its destruction seemed inevitable. Troops were called out; the order was given to disperse. The angry crowd only hooted a reply of derision. The riot act was read amid the yells and oaths of the blood-seeking rabble; stones and missiles were hurled at the Seventh Regiment; the police gave way before the overpowering numbers of the mob, and at last, the soldiers, sore pressed, wounded, and nearly demoralized by the assaults which they were not allowed to repulse, were called upon to fire. They responded with blank cartridges, which only increased the fury of the crowd. A pause, and then the order was given to load with balls. A volley was fired: the cries were hushed; the smoke cleared away; the ground was red with the blood of some thirty unfortunate men; the rioters vanished into the darkness before that hail of wrath, and the stain of blood was upon that quarrel which began far away in Old England and ended so tragically here.”
[8] Among the audience (says the “Tribune”) were Miss Ellen Terry herself, accompanied by an elderly gentleman, with gray hair, who to some was known to be Felix Moscheles, Mendelssohn’s godson, with his wife, and a young man of boyish appearance, known to many as the son of Lord Coleridge. In the other boxes were W. H. Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, Judge Brady, Augustus Schell, Algernon S. Sullivan, John H. Starin and Mrs. Starin, Howard Carroll and Mrs. Carroll, Madame Nilsson, Dr. Doremus and Mrs. Doremus, Mrs. Lester Wallack and Mrs. Arthur Wallack, Mr. and Mrs. William Bond, Mr. and Mrs. John Foord, Mrs. Charles Leland, Henry Rosener and Mrs. Rosener, and Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Moss. Among other well-known faces in the audience were noticed those of ex-Judge Horace Russell, General Horace Porter, Colonel and Mrs. Tobias, of Philadelphia; General Winslow, Dr. Fordyce Barker, George J. Gould, John Gilbert, Rafael Joseffy, Dr. Robert Laird Collier, of Chicago; Oscar Meyer and Mrs. Meyer, Mrs. John T. Raymond, Harry Edwards, Daniel Bixby, Charles Dudley Warner, John H. Bird, Mrs. John Nesbitt, Miss Jeffrey Lewis, Laurence Hutton, Mr. E. A. Buck, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, Colonel Knox, ex-Governor Dorsheimer, William Winter, and Dr. Macdonald.
[9] “Twelve Americans,” a graphic series of biographical sketches, by Howard Carroll, devotes some interesting pages to the story of John Gilbert’s life and work. For upwards of fifty years an actor, this veteran of the American stage was born on the 27th of February, 1810, at Boston, in a house “adjoining that in which Miss Cushman, the greatest of American actresses, first saw the light.” His parents were in a good position, and while they were not bigots, they did not altogether hold the theatrical profession as a highly reputable one. Young Gilbert was head of his class in declamation at the Boston High School. When he left school he was sent into a commercial house with a view to his becoming a dry-goods merchant. He disliked business, and after reciting Jaffer, in “Venice Preserved,” to the manager of the Tremont Theatre, he was granted an appearance. After opening the store where he was engaged he read with delight in the newspaper, that in the evening “a young gentleman of Boston” would make his début in the play of “Venice Preserved.” He appeared and “did well,” in spite of his uncle (who was his master), scowling at him in front. “O John! what have you done?” was the broken-hearted exclamation of his mother the next day. John had not dared to go to the store, and felt himself quite an outcast. He was forgiven, however, in due course, and made a second appearance as Sir Edward Mortimer, in “The Iron Chest.” He was successful beyond his expectations, and as “a boy actor” was praised as a phenomenon. Later he joined the stock company, and was reduced to “speaking utility” parts. Though disliking the drudgery of his place, he grew up with his work, and with the physical capacity for leading business he showed that he had also the mental strength for it. He played with Macready and Charlotte Cushman at the Princess’s Theatre, London. At the close of his engagement there he attended the leading English theatres to study actors and their methods. Thence he went to Paris to complete his studies. On his return to America he filled important engagements for some years at the old Park Theatre; then he went for a time to Boston, where he was a great favorite; and finally he joined the Wallacks, in New York, where he has familiarized the Empire city with the best interpretations of Sir Peter Teazle, old Dornton, old Hardy, Sir Anthony Absolute, Major Oakley, Master Walter, Hardcastle, Sir Harcourt Courtley, Adams, and other high-class comedy characters of the century. He is still to New York what the Elder Farren was to London.