Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

The notion was too farcical. The claim of Merrit to a fellowship with Carlyle dispelled the cloud that the intelligence of the death of the author of the “Sartor Resartus” had superinduced. And, to the great surprise and disgust of poor Paul, we all burst into an incontrollable roar of laughter. Merrit eventually abandoned writing and took to farming. In that occupation, I understand, he discovered his métier.

I mentioned a little while back that the business of dramatic criticism is conducive of longevity. When I first went professionally to the theatre stalls in 1870, until I gave up that healthy practice in 1890, I saw on first night after first night the same faces. They never appeared to be ill or tired. They never sent substitutes on important premiers. They never appeared to grow any older from year to year.

There was Joseph Knight, for example. He was occupying the critic’s stall long before I ever saw the inside of a London theatre, and he continued to occupy it—with credit to himself, and to the great satisfaction of the performers—for years after my connection with the Press had ceased. He was a fine, burly, broad-shouldered man. Hailed from Yorkshire, I think, and with his bronzed face, brown beard, genial smile, and keen eye, presented more the appearance of a retired officer of the mercantile marine than of a haunter of the auditorium, and a man who usually got up in the afternoon, and came home with the milk in the morning. He had a hearty way with him, and talked in a torrent that seemed to rush over pebbles. “Willie” Wilde used to give a wonderfully realistic imitation of Jo Knight, which the subject overhearing in the foyer of the Avenue Theatre one night gravely resented. But the two men “made it up,” and Knight, indeed, became so friendly with his imitator that on one occasion he asked him to write his weekly article in the Athenæum for him. Willie readily consented; and when the article in due course appeared, it turned out to be a really remarkable travesty of dear Jo’s somewhat turgid and oracular style. The essay gave great delight to those who were in the secret. But Knight never saw the joke—I question whether he ever saw any joke—and expressed to Wilde his gratitude for the admirable manner in which he had filled his place.

Once and only once did I see the “Knight Owl” in a rage. Joseph was a sort of pluralist in dramatico-critical benefices, representing at one time three or four daily and weekly publications. This fact came to the knowledge of the very young critic of a very young weekly paper, who thought that he saw his way to a pungent personal paragraph. The paragraph duly made its appearance, and Knight was severely taken to task because he was in the habit of writing about the same performance in several newspapers. The young critic put it at half a dozen, which was overshooting the mark by at least two. At the very next first night of a new play, Knight and his small accuser were in their stalls before the rising of the curtain. Knight, perceiving his prey from afar off, made toward him and, assuming a very threatening attitude, said:

“What you wrote about me in your infernal paper is—A Lie!”

The youthful criticaster adjusted his monocle, produced a notebook and pencil, and, with the well-bred suavity of a man dying to oblige his accuser, inquired, “How many of it is a—er—lie?” and prepared to take down the correction for use in a future issue. But the torrent of Knight’s speech tumbled unintelligible over the pebbles, and he returned to his own stall snorting defiance.

Moy Thomas was an excellent judge of what a play ought to be, and understood also the sort of treatment best suited to the public for whom he wrote. For many years he wrote the dramatic notices for the Daily News. In those far-off days it had a literary staff, the character of which was not second to that of any morning journal. Thomas’s articles were remarkable for their admirable lucidity, sound judgment, and polished literary style. He also provided the dramatic notices for the Graphic.

“Willie” Wilde, whom I have just mentioned in connection with the burly Joseph Knight, was a determined first-nighter. He was an exceedingly talkative man, and he talked so very well that one did not care to stop his agreeable chatter even when it was inconveniently out of place. One evening I happened to occupy a stall next to that of a then well-known gentleman of the Jewish persuasion who commenced in Fleet Street as an advertising canvasser, and subsequently blossomed into a newspaper proprietor, although the newspaper in question was, to quote the immortal excuse of the wet-nurse in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” “a very little one.” I imagine he has done well, for the last time I saw him he was lolling back in a victoria, and driving down Portland Place with the air of a man who owned all the houses on both sides. On the occasion to which I allude, he had not as yet arrived at the victoria stage. Indeed, he had been released from gaol that very morning. He had been remanded in custody on a charge of a commercial kind; but being now out on bail, and having none of that supersensitiveness which would characterize a Gentile similarly situated, he celebrated his release by taking his wife to the theatre. Wilde was sitting immediately behind the pair, and next to William Mackay, to whom, as the play proceeded, he indulged in a series of humorous commentaries. Our hero, being very intent on the play—an opera-bouffe—became at last annoyed by the chatter behind him, and, turning round to Mackay, who had not uttered a word, said in a voice audible all over the place:

“I wish, sir, you’d make less noise.”

Mackay, conscious of innocence and deeply resentful, turned to Wilde, and observed audibly, with a touch of malice which was seldom absent from his impromptus: