‘‘An actor! yes, Sir, I am an actor, and have been ever since I was an infant in arms; played the child that cries in the third act of the comedy of ‘The Chances,’ when it was got up with splendor by Old Gerald, at Sheerness, when I was only nine weeks old; and I recollect, that is, my mother told me, that I cried louder, and more naturally, than any child they’d ever had. That’s me,’ said he, pointing to the play-bill—Horatio, Mr. Howard. ‘I used to make a great part of Horatio once; and I can now send any Hamlet to h-ll in that character, when I give it energy and pathos; but this nine-tailed bashaw of a manager insists upon my keeping my ‘madness in the back-ground,’ as he calls it, and so I just walk through it, speak the words, and make it a poor, spooney, preaching son of a how-came-ye-so, and do no more for it than the author has.’
Mr. Cowell subsequently enlists under the same manager, and is received with great apparent cordiality by the members of his corps dramatique: ‘The loan of ‘properties,’ or any thing I have, is perfectly at your service,’ was iterated by all. Howard said: ‘My boy, by heavens, I’ll lend you my blue tights; oh, you’re perfectly welcome; I don’t wear them till the farce; Banquo’s one of my flesh parts; nothing like the naked truth; I’m h—l for nature. By-the-by, you’ll often have to wear black smalls and stockings; I’ll put you up to something; save your buying silks, darning, stitch-dropping, louse-ladders, and all that; grease your legs and burnt-cork ’em; it looks d——d well ‘from the front.’’ Mr. Cowell, it appears, was an artist of no mean pretensions; and while engaged on one occasion in sketching a picturesque view of Stoke Church, he was interrupted in rather a novel manner by a brother actor named Reymes, somewhat akin, we fancy, to his friend Howard, albeit ‘excellent company:’
‘Several times I was disturbed in my occupation, to look round to inquire the cause of a crash, every now and then, like the breaking of glass; and at length I caught a glimpse of Reymes, slyly jerking a pebble, under his arm, through one of the windows. I recollected twice, in walking home with him, late at night, from the theatre, his quietly taking a brick-bat from out of his coat-pocket and deliberately smashing it through the casement of the Town Hall, and walking on and continuing his conversation as if nothing had happened. Crack! again. I began to suspect an abberration of intellect, and said:
‘‘Reymes, for heaven’s sake what are you doing?’
‘‘Showing my gratitude,’ said he; and crack! went another.
‘‘Showing the devil!’ said I; ‘you’re breaking the church windows.’
‘‘Why, I know it—certainly; what do you stare at?’ said the eccentric. ‘I broke nearly every pane three weeks ago; I couldn’t hit them all. After you have broken a good many, the stones are apt to go through the holes you’ve already made. They only finished mending them the day before yesterday; I came out and asked the men when they were likely to get done;’ and clatter! clatter! went another.
‘‘That’s excellent!’ said he, in great glee. ‘I hit the frame just in the right place; I knocked out two large ones that time.’
‘‘Reymes,’ said I, with temper, ‘if you don’t desist, I must leave off my drawing.’
‘‘Well,’ said he, ‘only this one,’ and crack! it went; ‘there! I’ve done. Since it annoys you, I’ll come by myself to-morrow and finish the job; it’s the only means in my power of proving my gratitude.’