To anyone born with a taste for the theatre, a flair for the public demand in stage entertainment, and a desire for the society of actors and actresses, the position of dramatic critic on a London newspaper should be one of the most coveted berths on the ship. The opportunity of heralding a good play or of “slating” a bad one secures a true moment of satisfaction. Moreover, the occupation, notwithstanding the late hours, hot theatres, and liability to corporal punishment, involved, is one of the most healthy undertakings in the gift of the Press. A continuous pursuit of this gay science insures longevity. The dramatic critic is the most long-lived man in the profession. Some of the dramatic critics whom I knew in the early eighties and late seventies are still “hard at it,” I am pleased to hear. I imagine that the dramatic critic never dies. Like the majority of the plays upon which he passes judgment, he is translated or adapted.
John Oxenford, of the Times, was the doyen of the dramatic critics of my day. It was John’s proudest boast that he never wrote a word in the Thunderer that could do professional damage to an actor, or take the bread out of the mouth of an actress. An amiable sentiment, truly, but scarcely indicative of the critical attitude of a writer conscientiously performing his duty to the public, his employers—ay, and to the stage itself. Often after our Saturday dinner at the Junior Garrick Club, an association which I joined some time after my regular engagement as taster of new plays, I have heard the venerable man make this boast in a post-prandial speech. As the great majority of his hearers were actors, managers, and dramatic authors, the sentiment was invariably received with abundant applause.
Oxenford suffered for years from a chronic cough, which always announced his arrival at a theatre, and usually punctuated the performance throughout the night. Whether it was on account of this distressing affliction, or because he represented the leading journal, I do not know, but a box was always put at Mr. Oxenford’s disposition on the first night of a new play. Two determined “dead-heads” generally turned up sooner or later in the great man’s box. These were the late Lord Alfred Paget and John Murphy of Somerset House. The friendship between these three men, so different in station and in intellectual capacity, was exposed in a theatrical organ of the period, and in an article called “Dead-heads: Cornelius Nepos O’Mulligan.” O’Mulligan was evidently intended for Murphy. He was therein described as Oxenford’s toady, and his mission was indicated as being that of a diplomatic mediator who would persuade Oxenford to give a line of notice to some good-looking young woman on the stage in whom his lordship happened to take a passing interest. It was further suggested that Lord Alfred’s solicitude for the ambitious artist whom he wished to befriend was not altogether personal. Lord Alfred, it was said, was simply interesting himself in furtherance of the wishes of a third party—a Very Great Personage. That I do not believe. But what I do believe is that Oxenford was innocent of sinister designs on the part of his friends, and that when a kindly word appeared in the Times regarding the performance of some third-rate actress, enacting a fourth-rate part, the record testified to the possession of a kindly disposition and a congenital incapacity for saying “No.”
Murphy and Lord Alfred were both members of the Junior Garrick Club, and when the article to which I have alluded came out, Murphy consulted me as to what course he should take. Murphy had the baldest expanse of head I have ever seen—quite a continent it was. And it was surrounded by a fringe of red hair. He was clean-shaven, had a most bewitching squint, and a Cork accent of peculiar enormity.
“It’s not for meself I keer,” said John to me, with tears in his voice, “but Alfrid’s takin’ it to hear-r-r-t. He niver slep’ a wink since th’ attack on um come out. Now wh-h-at had we betther do?”
“I have no doubt that you and Lord Alfred will live it down,” I told him.
“Sure it’s what I’m afther tellin’ Alfrid meself. ‘Take no notice of um at all,’ says I. O’ny Alfrid wanted your opinion as well. He thinks sich a lot of your common-sinse, bedad.”
“Lord Alfred doesn’t suppose, by any chance, that I wrote the thing?” I asked.
“Alfrid would as soon think of suspectin’ Jan Axenford himself,” said Murphy. But he hesitated before he said it; his squint became more pronounced, and there was such a general air of confusion on his beaming and rubicund countenance that I was convinced that both the wily conspirators had attributed the essay to me, and that John had simply been “told off” by his noble friend to lure me into an admission.
Burlesque was still a leading card at the Gaiety, and one or two other “burlesque houses,” as they were called, though opera-bouffe was gradually superseding the old home-made article, with its pitiful puns and sawdust buffooneries. And the chorus engaged for these entertainments consisted of handsome girls possessing limbs suitable for exhibition in pink or yellow or violet tights. Murphy and Paget were constant visitors at these theatres. And his lordship would frequently present to some shapely ornament of the chorus a gold bangle as a token of his regards, and as an earnest of his desire for her success in the profession she had adopted. Some attempt on the part of a necessitous chorus girl to pawn one of his lordship’s bangles led to the discovery that the ornaments were of little value. And it eventually transpired that they had been purchased by the gross from a Jew dealer in Houndsditch. His lordship always posed among Bohemians as a poor man, and managers, therefore, thought it nothing that he should accept free admission to the playhouses. There was some searching of spirit among them when the aristocratic dead-head’s will was proved. He “cut up” for quite a lot of money. And when he died, John Murphy soon followed—of a broken heart, they said, and having nothing more to live for. So passed this par nobile fratum!