The Montgomerys; the Paynes, Harry and Fred; nor should the name of "Old Billy" Payne be omitted. "Billy" Payne it was, it will be remembered, who, in 1833, helped, from the stage of Covent Garden, the dying Edmund Kean.
Then there were the Marshalls, Harry and Joseph; Charles and Richard Stilt; and a very original and amusing Clown, Richard Flexmore, died August 20, 1860, aged 36. Tom Gray, a famous Clown of Covent Garden, died January 28th, 1768, aged upwards of 100 years; the Paulo family of Pantomimists; Dubois, Arthur and Charles Leclerq, Walter Hilyard, and many, many others.
In the 'twenties and 'thirties a popular and famous Pantaloon was "Jimmy" Barnes, died September 28th, 1838. Barnes, in the summer of 1830, was engaged to play in an English company at Paris, but they had hardly commenced to perform when the Revolution of July broke out. Some years afterwards Barnes published in "Bentley's Miscellany," from his old original M.S., an amusing and illustrated account of his wanderings.
Amongst other Pantaloons there have been—Thomas Blanchard, died August 20, 1859, aged 72; William Lynch, died June 29, 1861, aged 78; R. Norman, died September 16, 1858, aged 70; George Tanner, died February 8, 1870; and Paulo, a member of Mr. Charles Kean's Company at the Princess's Theatre, had as Pantaloon appeared in many Pantomimes. It is a notable fact that a good number of our Mimes were long-livers.
Long before Miss Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby (died April 21, 1829), first charmed a London audience, we hear of her in 1772 at Wakefield in one of her first parts—if not her first—that of Columbine. She could both sing well and dance gracefully. One of the earliest "parts" that even the great Mrs. Siddons (that afterwards was), when a young girl, played, was in connection with Pantomime, as Combes remembered to have seen her "Standing by the side of her father's stage, and knocking a pair of snuffers against a candle-stick to imitate the sound of a wind-mill, during the representation of some Harlequinade."
In days gone by Madame Leclerq, Carlotta Leclerq, Charles Kean's Columbine in the seasons of 1850-1-2, E. Dennett, Emma Boleno, died October 18th, 1867, aged 35; Marie Charles, who died from an accident by fire, Pavilion Theatre, January 21, 1864, and others have won considerable fame in the part of Columbine.
Amongst those who have played Harlequin in days gone by, have been the elder Kean, and the well-known actor, Mr. Wilson Barrett, who, early in his career, played this part for an extra two shillings and sixpence "thrown in," to augment his then weekly salary of seventeen shillings and sixpence; whilst Sir Henry Irving tells us that he also has appeared in Pantomime, in the character of a wicked fairy, named Venoma, in days since past, for a small monetary emolument.