Edmund Yates
Edmund Yates was an old friend. He knew my wife in her girlhood, and I first met him at Epsom on the historic day, in 1867, that Hermit won the Derby in a snowstorm. My mention of that incident reminds me that, years afterwards, at a public sale, among effects which had belonged to Mr. Baird—known on the turf as "Mr. Abingdon"—I came across a letter-case made from the coat of Hermit, and so inscribed on a silver shield. I bought it, that I might have the pleasure of giving it, on the thirtieth anniversary of the race, to Mr. Henry Chaplin, as he then was, the great horse's owner. Yates at that time held a position in the General Post Office and told me, soon afterwards, that he made an early marriage upon a small income and was handicapped for many a long year by a domestic calamity—the birth of three sons in eleven months.
Yates was an admirable after-dinner speaker and story-teller, a power which doubtless owed something to inheritance, both his parents having held prominent positions on the stage. At one dinner party, Edmund Yates, Dion Boucicault and George Augustus Sala, all being present, were asked in turn if they regretted and repented of any "backslidings" they had to answer for. Boucicault at once said he was sorry for his sins; Sala admitted that he hoped some day to be sorry; Yates, after a pause, smote the table and muttered "No." He was a fierce fighter.
A mutual friend was rather severely caricatured in Vanity Fair. I asked Yates what he thought the original would say about it. "Say, my dear B.? He'll say he thinks it delightful, but will go upstairs to his bedroom, lock the door, and rub his head in the hearthrug." When his trouble came, as it did soon afterwards, I wonder what his own conduct was.
His tragic end was connected with the revival of a comedy in which my wife appeared for her old friend John Hare, at the Garrick Theatre. Yates was seated in the centre of the stalls, and throughout my wife's performance had laughed and applauded heartily. At its close, when she was loudly called for by the audience, he gave her his last smile, turned to his neighbour and said: "The old brigade, the old brigade—it will take a deal to beat it!" He stooped for his hat, fell forward in a fit, and never recovered consciousness. "How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry!"
W. S. Gilbert
I made the acquaintance of W. S. Gilbert during the year I spent in Liverpool; he had just been "called" and was a briefless barrister on the Northern Circuit. Having failed to become attached to the staff of Punch, he was already a contributor to a comic journal called Fun, in which his Bab Ballads first appeared. Soon afterwards he began to write for the theatre. The Palace of Truth and Pygmalion and Galatea both had great success at the old Haymarket; the latter was perhaps a starting point in the brilliant career of Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendal).
He will, of course, be best remembered through the enduring success of the comic operas he wrote in conjunction with Arthur Sullivan, the most memorable of artistic partnerships.
What humorous things he was constantly uttering! I will endeavour to repeat one or two which may not have been heard. When the beautiful Scala Theatre was built on the site of our old Prince of Wales's, my wife was appropriately invited to perform the opening ceremony. At the end of the pretty speech she made, Gilbert joined her on the stage, and said he had been to the back of the dress circle, where he heard every word of it; adding that the voice was as beautiful as ever and that, if she continued to take pains and work hard, she might be sure of having a great career behind her.