"At length dinner was announced, and to tell you the truth, I had much rather have gone without any than sat down to dine. I was at the best very bashful, and Whiteley's coarse insinuation that I wanted a dinner, though jocularly spoken, stuck in my throat, and made me blush heartily when he helped me. But now his manner was changed, and he displayed such unfeigned hospitality, and such an earnest desire that we should enjoy ourselves, showing us himself the example, that before dinner was half over, I was perfectly comfortable. He pressed me to drink, but was greatly pleased at my refusing to comply. In a word, no two men were ever more different than Jemmy Whiteley in the rhodomontade of the morning and Mr. James Whiteley at his own hospitable, respectable board. He and my friend chatted and drank cheerfully. I looked on, listened, and sung two or three songs for them at Mr. W's request. When my friend made a motion to go, the good manager thus addressed me: "look you my good lad, when the waiter of a tavern or the potboy of a porter-house presents me a pot of beer or ale, I always blow off the froth from the top or wait till it subsides, and then bring it to the light and look down carefully through it, lest it should be muddy or foul, or have some dirt such as a candle-snuff, a mouse, a toad, or some trifle of that kind floating in it: in a word, to know what I am about to swallow. Just so I deal with men, when they approach me in a way that seeks connexion: for I dont like changing, and I greatly detest the fallings out and fallings in again which seem to make up the business and pleasure of so many in this life. While I was blackguarding you and you staring and laughing at me, I was looking down through your contents from your frothy powdered head down to the very bottom; and so, if your friend and you will call here tomorrow morning, I will try to bring my tongue down to some serious conversation with you.""
In a word, our youth next day found himself placed with a man of justice, honour, and generosity, with whom he remained till the grave terminated the contract. Whiteley's passions were so lively, and bad habit had so devested him of all control over his tongue that he would d—n and curse his actors, and call them foul names, even during the performance of the stage, and that too so loud that the audience would frequently hear him. Yet he was in substantial concerns a truly excellent man.
The next place in which Hodgkinson can be distinctly traced is the northern line of theatres, then under the management of Whitlock and Munden, viz. Newcastle, Sheffield, Lancaster, Preston, Warrington, and Chester. In the course of his business in this circuit, the extension of his fame more than kept pace with his years, and he was soon looked upon as the most promising actor of his age. At first he was valued chiefly for his musical talents. A gentleman now residing in Philadelphia was present at his first appearance in that circuit at Preston in Lancashire. A valuable actor and singer was put out of the character of Lubin in the Quaker, to make way for H's debut in that character, in which he was not so warmly received as the managers expected, being encored in only one of the songs. His matchless industry, however, grafted on his great talents, soon produced a rich harvest of the most excellent fruits. He became a very useful general actor, played any thing and every thing the managers thought it their interest to appoint him to, whether tragedy, comedy, opera, or farce; and too confident in his own powers to be captious or fastidious, he never reneged an inferior part, when it was the managers' interest he should play it, even when, by the laws of the theatre, he was entitled to the first. Mr. Whitlock told this writer that H. did with good will more work than any two performers they had. "I have known him," said the old gentleman, "after performing in both play and after-piece at Newcastle in Northumberland, set off without taking a moment's rest in a post-chaise, travel all night, and rehearse the next day and perform the next night in play and farce at Preston in Lancashire."
Powerful as were his talents, he would not, in all probability, have risen to acknowledged eminence in his profession for many years, if he had not fallen under the observation of Mrs. Siddons. That extraordinary actress, little less illustrious for private virtues than splendid talents, being engaged one summer in the northern theatres, observed with pleasure and astonishment, a young man of abilities far above the crowd that played with him. To adopt her own words, she at the first glance discerned a rough, uncleansed diamond sparkling in a heap of rubbish that surrounded it, and through the soil with which it still was encrusted emitting brilliant rays of light. It was her delight to stretch forth her mighty hand to raise genius from depression, and resolving to raise Hodgkinson she took the most decisive means to do so. She appointed him to perform the principal characters to her in every play in which she acted and brought him for the purpose along with her to all the provincial theatres in which she was engaged.
(To be continued.)
FOOTNOTES:
[F] Handsome as H. was, he had a strange defect in his eyes: one of them was smaller than the other, and in his efforts to reduce them to an equality, he sometimes produced a whimsical archness of physiognomy. He did not relish its being noticed, however, and thought the young Irishman very rude.
[G] In the low cant of the Irish, gross adulation is called the dirty butter of Ballyhack.
[H] A Jingle—means a very small piece of coin in the slang of the low Irish.