LAVINIA WARREN.
The cynical remark of Richard to the young Prince of Wales that “so wise so young, they say, do ne’er live long,” does not always apply to stage children. The Batemans, Miss Mary McVicker, Miss Matilda Heron, Miss Clara Fisher, Miss Jean Margaret Davenport (from whose early career Dickens is believed to have drawn the character of Miss Crummles), and other juvenile wonders, lived to achieve more enduring greatness as men and women than was ever thrust upon them in their childish days—while many of the present veterans in the profession were on the stage as actors before they were old enough to read or write. Miss Fanny Davenport and Miss Susan Denin made their dramatic débuts as children in The Stranger, Pizarro, Metamora, or other of the standard plays of their youth; Mr. Jefferson, at the age of six, engaged in a stage combat with broadswords with one Master Titus, at the Park Theatre, for the benefit of the latter young gentleman; and Madame Ristori, carried upon the stage in a basket at the age of two months, was at the age of four years playing children’s parts in her native Italy. Miss Lotta began her professional career a Phenomenon when eight years old; but Lotta, to be measured by no known dramatic rules, is an Infant Phenomenon still. Miss Mary Taylor, than whom no lady in her maturity enjoyed greater popularity in New York, sang as a child in concerts, and even before she reached her teens was a great favorite in the choruses of the National Theatre on Church Street, New York; and there are to-day, among collectors of such things, rare prints, highly prized, of Miss Adelaide Phillips and of Miss Mary Gannon as child wonders; the latter young lady having been an actress before she was three years old.
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.
Evidences of such early dramatic experiences might readily be multiplied; but a decided distinction should be made between the phenomenal young actor or actress who walks upon the stage in leading parts, a child Richard or an infant Richmond, and the youthful artist, born of dramatic parents, who, never attempting what is beyond his years or his station, plays Young York or Young Clarence to support his father, says his few lines, gets his little bit of applause, is not noticed by the critics, and goes home like a good child to his mother and to his bed. It is as natural for the child of an actor to go upon the stage as it is for the son of a sailor to follow the sea; but while the young mariner before the mast is taught the rudiments of his profession by the roughest of experiences and the hardest of knocks, the young Roscius too frequently is given command of his dramatic ship before he can box the dramatic compass, or can tell the difference in the nautical drama between Black-eyed Susan and The Tempest.
BLIND TOM.