Mr Holcroft had, at this time, few friends or acquaintance in London, and those few were very little able to afford him any material assistance. The oldest were Shield and P——, both of whom he had known in strolling companies in the North: they had separated, had come to London about the same time, and met by chance. Shield first discovered Holcroft poring over an old book-stall, in Goodge-Street: they immediately recognized each other with a good deal of pleasure, and a friendly intercourse commenced, which was uninterrupted to the last. When the place of composer of the birth-day minuets at court became vacant by the death of Mr Weideman, Mr Holcroft applied to Mr Greville to procure the place for Mr Shield; with what success I do not know.
Mr Shield at the period we are speaking of, had an engagement at the Opera-house. It was winter, and in consequence of some new piece, they had very long rehearsals every morning. One day he was detained longer than usual, his dinner-hour was over, he felt himself very cold when he came out, and his attendance for so many hours had sharpened his appetite. He therefore proceeded up the Hay-market with a determination to get some refreshment at the first place that offered. He had strolled into St. Martin’s-lane, without meeting with any thing that he liked: till he came to a little bye-court, called Porridge Island; at the corner of which, in a dark, dirty-looking window, he discovered a large round of beef smoking, which strongly seconded the disposition he already felt in himself to satisfy his hunger. He did not, however, much like the appearance of the place: he looked again, the temptation grew stronger, and at last he ventured in. Having asked for dinner, he was shewn into a room up one pair of stairs, not very large, but convenient and clean, where he found several persons already set down to dinner. He was invited to join them, and to his great joy found both the fare and the accommodation excellent. But his attention was shortly much more powerfully arrested by the conversation which took place at the table. Philosophy, religion, politics, poetry, the belles lettres were talked of, and in such a manner, as to shew that every person there was familiar with such subjects, and that they formed the ordinary topics of conversation. Mr Shield listened in a manner which denoted his surprise and pleasure. The conversation at one time began to take rather a free turn, when a grave, elderly looking man, who sat at the head of the table, addressed the new guest, telling him that he seemed a young man, and by his countenance shewed some signs of grace; that he would not have him mind what was said by persons who scarcely believed their own sophisms; that he himself when young had been attacked and staggered by the same objections; that he had examined them all, and found them all false and hollow. This diverted the discourse to other subjects which were more agreeable. The name of the person who had thus addressed Mr Shield, and who thus assumed the office of a censor, was Cannon: he was the son of an Irish bishop. He was advanced in years, and presided in the company with an air of authority that was partly submitted to in earnest, and partly humoured for the joke’s sake. He regularly dined here every day. On entering the room, he first pulled off his great coat, and fastened it with two long pins to the back of a tall cane-worked old chair with knobs behind: and after disposing of his umbrella, which in those days was a great singularity, he used to pay his respects to the company with much formality, and then sat down. He had one place, which was always kept for him; and for this privilege it seems he paid double price. If any stranger came in by chance, and took possession of his seat, he would never sit down in any other, but walked up and down the room in a restless way, till the person was gone. It was his constant custom to carry with him a small pocket volume of Milton, or Young’s Night Thoughts, in which he had made a great number of marginal notes; and as soon as dinner was over, he regularly took out one of his favourite authors, and opening the book at random, requested the person who sat next him, whether a stranger, or one of the usual company, to read aloud a certain passage which he thought very beautiful. This offer was of course declined by those who knew him, who in return begged that he would favour the company with it himself, which he did, at the same time repeating the remarks which he had made in the margin. He then very deliberately closed the book, and put it into his pocket again. Cannon was a man of letters, and had travelled. He spoke a very florid language, full of epithets and compound words, and professed to be engaged in an edition of Tibullus. Mr Shield was so much amused with this old gentleman, and interested in the general conversation, (not to say that the commons were excellent), that he was determined he would in future dine no where else: he was also eager to inform Holcroft of the discovery he had made, whom he invited to go along with him the next day, and who also became a very constant visitor. The persons who were generally present were Messieurs Shield, Nicholson, Holcroft, Cannon, etc., who formed themselves into a little society, which in compliment to the last mentioned person, was called ‘The Cannonian.’ The president was rather tenacious of his opinions, and impatient of contradiction; and frequently some very warm altercations took place in consequence between him and Mr Holcroft.
The other friend of Mr Holcroft, mentioned above, was a young Scotchman, who had been in Booth’s company with him, but soon quitted it, and came up to London two or three years before him. They had had a violent quarrel while they were in this company, but meeting again in London, with new objects before them, and where they were both to a considerable degree strangers, former disagreements were forgotten, and a friendly intercourse commenced. He strenuously advised Holcroft to turn his thoughts to writing, or reporting for the newspapers, which he himself had found a lucrative employment, which Holcroft declined, being more bent on pushing his way at the theatre.
The manner in which this friend of our author began his career in life, deserves a place in a work which is little else than a history of the difficulties and successes which attend the efforts of men of talents and literature.
Mr P——, whose connexions were respectable, came to town, with recommendations to a banking-house in the city, and with an intention to get a place as clerk in some counting-house, or public office. He delivered his letters, and his friends promised they would be on the look-out for him. He called once or twice to no purpose, and as his time hung rather idly on his hands, he had employed himself in writing one or two anonymous letters on the politics of the day, which were inserted in the General Advertiser. It so happened that one of the partners in the house to which he had been recommended, had a principal share in this very paper: and when he called, he told him that he had heard of nothing in the way that he wished; but taking out the Advertiser, and shewing him his own letter in it, ‘If now,’ said he, ‘you could do something of this kind, I might possibly be of service to you.’ Mr P—— replied, with some eagerness, that he was the author of the letter. ‘Aye, indeed,’ says the other, ‘then come with me; we must have some farther talk together.’ So saying, he took our young politician with him into another room; and after being closeted some time, it was arranged that P—— should be immediately employed as a writer and reporter for this paper, at a guinea and half a week. The very next night there was to be an important debate in the house, and our young gentleman was to make his coup d’essai. As however he was entirely ignorant of the forms and rules of reporting, it was thought necessary to give him some previous instructions; and he was told, that he should place himself so as to be able to hear the speakers distinctly; that he should provide himself with a pencil and pocket-book, in which he must note down the speeches as privately as he could; but that as he was a stranger, and might be noticed the more on that account, if any one came to interrupt him, he was to say nothing, but put half a guinea into his hand. Thus equipped and instructed, Mr P—— went early to his post, and planted himself in the middle of the gallery, directly in front of the speaker. He had his pencil and pocket-book ready in his hand, and the instant the debate opened, began to take notes with so much eagerness, and so little precaution, that a messenger came to him, and said, ‘Sir, you must give over writing.’ As he had been prepared for this event, he took the half-guinea out of his pocket, and bending his hand behind him, offered the half-guinea, which was lodged in the palm of it, to the door-keeper, who took it without saying a word, and the other went on with his writing as before. But no sooner had he begun, than the man very quietly tapped him on the shoulder again, and said, ‘Sir, you must give over writing.’ This second rebuff was quite unexpected, and completely disconcerted our zealous reporter. He put his pencil and paper in his pocket, and sat during the remainder of the debate in a state of the utmost confusion, not expecting to remember a single sentence. He went home and related his ill-success; professing his inability to give any account of what he had heard. ‘But,’ said his employer, ‘you may at least try: you must surely recollect something of what passed.’ He said, ‘no: he had been in such a state of agitation the whole time, that it would be in vain to attempt it.’ As no one else had gone from the same office, and it was absolutely necessary to give some account of the debate the next morning, he was again urged to make the attempt, and at length complied. He was left in the room by himself, and scarcely knowing what he did, began an account of the speech of Lord Nugent, who had opened the question. He was surprised to find that he could recollect the few first sentences. Still he despaired of being able to proceed; but by degrees, one thing recalled another, he still kept writing on without knowing what was to follow, and when he had finished one page, sent it down to the press. His hopes now began to revive, he returned to the charge, and writing under an apprehension that the words might every minute escape from his memory, he despatched sheet after sheet so vigorously, that the press could hardly keep pace with him. They had now printed two columns and a half, and Lord Nugent was still speaking. At last, the proprietor, who had at first dreaded a dearth of information, and whose fears were now alarmed the contrary way, came up to him, and said, ‘My G—d, when will this Lord Nugent’s speech be done? Was there no other speaker the whole evening?’ ‘Oh yes, there are seven or eight more to come.’ The other laughed, and told P—— that he had quite mistaken the business; that in his way of going on, he would fill a volume instead of a newspaper, and that he must begin again entirely, and instead of giving every word and sentence, merely repeat the heads of each speech, and a few of the most striking arguments. ‘Oh, is that all you want,’ exclaimed P——, at once relieved from his terrors, ‘then I’m your man.’ Accordingly he set to work afresh, cut down Lord Nugent into half a column, and the other speakers had a proportionable space allotted them: and the report, thus curtailed, was the next day noticed as the ablest and fullest that had been given of the debate. The person, to whom this anecdote relates, has been long known to the public as the editor and proprietor of the only constitutional paper that remains.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
Mr Holcroft, as he had intended, let part of his house, in Southampton Buildings, to lodgers. Among other inmates, were Miss Kemble (afterwards Mrs. Whitelocke) and his friend N——. Holcroft used to take frequent opportunities of urging this gentleman to devote his talents to works of taste and imagination, and his mind teemed with the plots of comedies and subjects of novels, which he wished his friend to write. But as Mr N——’s pursuits were of a totally different kind, it generally happened that Holcroft himself, in the end, executed the works which he had planned for another. Of this kind was his first novel, entitled Alwyn, or, the Gentleman Comedian, which it was originally intended that Mr N. should compile from materials to be furnished by Holcroft, but of which he, in fact, only wrote a few short letters, evidently very much against the grain.
This novel came out in the year 1780, in two small volumes, and was printed for Fielding and Walker. What terms he procured for it with the bookseller, I do not know: its success was very moderate; and it was to his own novel that Mr Holcroft alludes, when he complains, in Hugh Trevor, that Wilmot’s novel had been characterized in the Monthly Review, as ‘a vulgar narrative of uninteresting occurrences.’
The most curious part of it is the account which Mr Holcroft has inserted of some of his own adventures as a strolling actor; for he himself is not the Gentleman Comedian. He has disguised his own name under that of Hilkirk, and Alwyn is the hero of the piece. The story is as follows: Alwyn, a young man, who is patronized by a Mr Stamford, in consequence of the friendship which had subsisted between him and Alwyn’s father, who had saved his life, falls in love with Maria, the daughter of his guardian or master. His passion preys upon his health; and, in order to conceal it from the family, and to try what absence may do towards effecting a cure, he determines to leave his patron’s house, and commence comedian. Young Stamford, Maria’s brother, is alone in the secret, and is the person to whom Alwyn addresses the account of his subsequent adventures. Mr Hilkirk, on whose story our author has chosen to ingraft his own, in like manner, falls in love with his master’s niece, is on this account, and for his frequenting sporting clubs and billiard rooms, discarded from his service as a clerk, and betakes himself to the stage. These two romantic youths correspond together, and endeavour to console one another, by comparing their mutual mishaps,—the pains of absence, poverty, and hopeless love. Alwyn proceeds to Kendal, where he is received by the inhabitants with extraordinary marks of attention; is supposed to be a gentleman in disguise; is envied by the players; and being invited to the assembly (a distinction never before allowed to any comedian), dances with a young, rich, lively widow, a West-Indian, who falls in love with him, and makes him an offer of her hand and fortune. This the youth politely declines, his affections being irrevocably engaged to another; and, in consequence of this, the lady being piqued by his refusal, enters into a plot against him in concert with one of the players (a veteran in the corps, who was offended that the part of Romeo, which he had played for fifty years, should be taken from him, and given to Alwyn). His pocket-book is searched; the name of the lady’s rival is discovered; and a letter is dispatched to old Stamford, informing him of the liberties which Mr Alwyn is said to have taken with his daughter’s name, and the equal presumption he had shewn in paying his addresses to the anonymous writer of the epistle. This letter, which is believed, gives a death-blow to his hopes. Maria Stamford, who had secretly returned his passion, is ashamed of her folly; the father is shocked; and the brother is incensed at the baseness and ingratitude of his friend. Another lover is now provided for Alwyn’s mistress, the son of a Mr Maitland, a rattling, thoughtless young fellow, who is not half sentimental enough for the young lady; and is accordingly rejected by her. The father of young Maitland is represented as an odd character, a half-crazy humourist, who, like the people of Laputa, makes every thing a subject of mathematical demonstration. He calculates the height and size of meteors, and is made to follow every ignis fatuus that he sees, through bog and briar. His graceless son ties a lantern to the house-dog’s tail, and sends his father on a bootless chase after it: the dog escapes from his keeper, gets in at the library window with his meteorological apparatus about him, and sets fire to the house. Maitland-Hall is converted into a heap of ruins; and what is worse, Mr Maitland’s strong-box, containing nearly all his property, is lost. Mr Stamford, his son, and daughter, are on a visit there at the time; and Maria Stamford must have perished in the flames, but that Alwyn, the ungrateful, the supposed worthless Alwyn, who had left the Kendal company, and was travelling homeward, happens, at that instant, to be passing by, and comes in time to rescue his lovely mistress from the flames. He however remains unknown, and pursues his journey. Tom Maitland’s fortune being thus dissipated by his frolic, it becomes a point of honour that Maria should give up her scruples, and join her hand to his; when this, now almost inevitable event, is put a stop to by a discovery,—that it was not the dog Pompey that had set fire to the house, but a gang of thieves, who had committed this flagrant act in order to carry off old Maitland’s strong box: that they had been detected, and their prize secured by the vigilance and activity of Alwyn’s friend, Hilkirk, who now appears to be the son of his former master, Seldon, and who is rewarded with the hand of his old sweet-heart, Julia Gowland, for the difficulties he has had to encounter, and to which he was purposely exposed by his father to enable him to bear adversity, and make a man of him. At the same time, Alwyn is recognized by a rich uncle, who adopts him as his heir; the story of the anonymous letter, and of his pretended treachery, is cleared up, and the whole ends happily in marriage.