No wonder that in such a school, and with such schoolmates, Ellen Terry learnt very useful lessons. There was an abundance of work. One-act farces and genuine burlesques were then in vogue, and these, with tragedy or comedy, formed the day's rehearsal and the evening's bill. Every one took part in them, and both for brains and body it was sharp and onerous work. But they were enthusiasts; they were aware of their local popularity; they were ready to tackle anything that came in their way, and so their names were made.
For example, Ellen Terry was cast for a part in a burlesque. She told the stage manager that she could neither sing nor dance. The reply was laconic and decisive: "You've got to do it!" "And I did, in a way," she says; "but it was the best thing that could happen to me, for it took the self-consciousness out of me—and, after a while, I thought it was capital fun, for the Bath and Bristol people were very kind."
But it was not all burlesque. Relief to clever William Brough's "Endymion"—"Perseus and Andromeda; or the Maid and the Monster," and so forth, was found in serious drama, and sometimes in Shakespeare. Kate Terry had preceded her younger sister to Bristol, and speedily established herself as a favourite. Her Portia and Beatrice were already popular performances, and renewed zest was added to them when "Pretty Miss Ellen" was at hand to play Nerissa and Hero.
During this useful engagement Ellen Terry formed an intense admiration for some of her co-mates. She fell in love with the beautiful singing voice of Madge Robertson (it was an open question then whether our Mrs. Kendal of to-day would devote herself to opera or drama), and she is especially warm in her praises of the finished acting of Charles Coghlan. How some of these budding artists crossed each other's paths in later and famous days we shall see in the course of these pages.
From an old friend, who in the days of his youth aspired to be an actor, but, after a short trial, quitted the stage to make his name as journalist and author, I have received the following interesting notes:—
"You ask me, my dear Pemberton," he writes, "to give you my recollections of Ellen Terry in those now, alas! far-off days of my youth, when I was for a brief time connected in a very humble capacity with the Theatre Royal, Bristol. It was in the early sixties (1862, I think) that Ellen and her elder sister, Kate (now Mrs. Arthur Lewis), were engaged by the late James Henry Chute as members of his stock company, Kate playing the juvenile lead and the principal ladies in the classical burlesques, which were then the vogue and quite as attractive as the legitimate drama. The company also included Miss Henrietta Hodson (now Mrs. Labouchere), soubrette and principal boy, the late Charles Coghlan, light comedian, William and George Rignold, John Rouse, Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, and their daughter Madge, the latter only in her early 'teens, and Arthur Wood, 'first low comedian.'
"Ellen Terry was then a girl of about fourteen, of tall figure, with a round, dimpled, laughing, mischievous face, a pair of merry, saucy grey eyes, and an aureole of golden hair, which she wore, in the words of a modern ditty, 'hanging down her back.' Although dwarfed, in a measure, as an actress, by the more experienced skill and the superior rôles of her fascinating sister, Ellen soon became a great favourite in Bristol. Her popularity was largely due to her performances in two of the Brough brothers' burlesques—'Endymion' and 'Perseus and Andromeda.' In the former Miss Hodson played Endymion, Kate Terry was Diana, and Ellen, Cupid, and a very arch, piquant sprite, full of movement and laughter, Miss Ellen was.
"She wore a loose short-skirted sort of tunic with a pair of miniature wings, and of course carried the conventional bow and quiver. Some of the more prudish of the Bristol theatre-goers—the same people who had been wont to roar over the vulgar comicalities of Johnny Rouse—were half inclined to be shocked at a scantiness of attire that even Mr. Chute himself was disposed to think (i.e. for the modest early sixties: to-day a Cupid with a 'skirted tunic' would be considered sadly over-dressed) a 'little daring.'
"But Ellen Terry's charm, her delightful grace and innate refinement, quite disarmed the prudes, and Cupid triumphed in front of the curtain as well as behind it, and lightly shot his darts in all directions. Miss Hodson was at that time a deservedly great favourite, but the Terry sisters unconsciously became the founders of a new cult among local playgoers, and set up an empire of their own; in fact, I am hardly exaggerating if I say that there were among the gilded youth of Bristol two rival factions—the Hodson faction and the Terry faction, whose friendly antagonism was as keen, if not as fatal, as that of the Montagues and the Capulets.