MRS. JORDAN AND MR. SUETT.

303

mentioned, were Mrs. Jordan, a charming cordial actress, on the homely side of the agreeable, with a delightful voice; and Suett, who was the very personification of weak whimsicality, with a laugh like a peal of giggles. Mathews gives him to the life.

We shall conclude this chapter with some delightful playgoing recollections of the best theatrical critic now living *. the best, indeed, as far as we know, that this country ever saw. He is one who does not respect criticism a jot too much, nor any of the feelings connected with humanity, or the imitation of it, too little. We here have him giving us an account of the impression made upon him by the first sight of a play, and concluding with a good hint to those older children, who, because they have cut their drums open, think nothing remains in life to be pleased with. A child may like a theatre, because he is not thoroughly acquainted with it; but if he beeome a wise man, he will find reason to like it, because he is.

Life always flows with a certain freshness in these quarters; nor, with all their drawbacks, have we more agreeable impressions from any neighbourhood in London, than what we receive from the district containing the great theatres. It is one of

the most social and the least sordid.

"At the north end of Cross Court," says Mr. Lamb, "there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old Drury-Garrick's Drury—all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation. I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

*

*

*

"In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!-with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door-not that which is left-but between that and an inner door, in shelter. Oh, when shall I be such an expectant again!-with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses was, chase some oranges, chase some nonpareils, chase a bill of the play:' chase pro chuse. But when we got in and I beheld the green

*Alas! now dead. This passage was written before the departure of our admirable friend.

304

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF A PLAY-GOER.

curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to1 be disclosed-the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida,' in Rowe's 'Shakspeare,'-the tent scene with Diomede; and a sight of that plate can always bring back, in a measure, the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters, reaching down, were adorned with a glittering substance (I know not what) under glass : (as it seemed), resembling-a homely fancy-but I judged it to be sugar-candy-yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy! The orchestra lights at length arose, those 'fair Auroras!' Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again; and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up-I was not past six years old-and the play was 'Artaxerxes!'

"I had dabbled a little in the Universal History'-the ancient part of it-and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted: to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not its import; but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princes, passed before me-I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awestruck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has ever since visited me but in dreams. Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldames seemed to me a piece of grave historie justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.

"The next play to which I was taken, was the 'Lady of the Manor,' of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime called 'Lun's Ghost'a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead -but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire) Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud-the father of a line of harlequins-transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

"My third play followed in quick succession. It was The Way of the World." I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe' followed, in which Crusoe, Man Friday, and the Parrot were as good and authentic as in the story. The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape and grin, in stone, around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars.

"I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF A PLAY-GOER.

305

theatre. That old Artaxerxes' evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all

'Was nourished I could not tell how.'

At

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reverence was gone! The green curtain was no longer a veil drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present a royal ghost,' but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights-the orchestra lights-came up, a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell, which had been like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at, which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries-of six short twelvemonths-had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance, to me, of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations."-ELIA, p. 221.

X

CHAPTER VIII.

COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE. Bow Street once the Bond Street of London-Fashions at that timeInfamous frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and others-Wycherly and the Countess of Drogheda-Tonson the Bookseller-FieldingRussell Street-Dryden beaten by hired ruffians in Rose StreetHis Presidency at Will's Coffee-House-Character of that PlaceAddison and Button's Coffee-House-Pope, Philips, and GarthArmstrong-Boswell's introduction to Johnson-The HummumsGhost Story there-Covent Garden-The Church-Car, Earl of Somerset-Butler, Southern, Eastcourt, Sir Robert StrangeMacklin-Curious Dialogue with him when past a centuryDr. Walcot-Covent Garden Market-Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and Miss Ray-Henrietta Street-Mrs. Clive-James Street-Partridge, the almanack-maker-Mysterious lady-King Street Arne and his Father The four Indian Kings Southampton Row-Maiden Lane-Voltaire-Long Acre and its Mug Houses-Prior's resort there-Newport Street-St. Martin's Lane, and Leicester Square-Sir Joshua Reynolds-Hogarth-Sir Isaac Newton.

JOW STREET was once the Bond Street of London. Mrs. Bracegirdle began an epilogue of Dryden's with saying—

"I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux

From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bowstreet beaux;

Some from Whitehall, but from the Temple

more:

A Covent-garden porter brought me four."

"With a

Sir Walter Scott says, in a note on the passage, slight alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written Bond Street beaux. A billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than flattering."*

Mrs. Bracegirdle spoke this epilogue at Drury Lane. There was no Covent Garden theatre then. People of fashion occupied the houses in Bow Street, and mantuas floated up and down the pavement. This was towards the end of the Stuart's reign, and the beginning of the next century-the times of Dryden, Wycherly, and the Spectator. The beau of Charles's time is well-known. He wore, when in full flower, a peruke to imitate the flowing locks of youth, a Spanish hat, clothes of slashed silk or velvet, the slashes tied with ribands, * Scott's 'Dryden,' vol. viii., p. 178,

a coat resembling a vest rather than the modern coat, and silk stockings, with roses in his shoes. The Spanish was afterwards changed for the cocked hat, the flowing peruke for one more compact; the coat began to stiffen into the modern shape, and when in full dress, the beau wore his hat under his arm. His grimaces have been described by Dryden

"His various modes from various fathers follow;

One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow;
His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed;

And this the yard-long snake that twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gained,

Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.
Another's diving bow he did adore,

Which with a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he, with full decorum, brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake." *

One of these perukes would sometimes cost forty or fifty pounds. The fair sex at this time waxed and waned through all the varieties of dishabilles, hoop-petticoats, and stomachers. We must not enter upon this boundless sphere, especially as we have to treat upon it from time to time. We shall content ourselves with describing a set of lady's clothes, advertised as stolen in the year 1709, and which would appear to have belonged to a belle resolved to strike even Bow Street with astonishment. They consisted of "a black silk petticoat, with a red-and-white calico border; cherry-coloured stays, trimmed with blue and silver; a red and dove-coloured "damask gown, flowered with large trees; a yellow satin apron, trimmed with white Persian; muslin head-cloths, with crowfoot edging; double ruffles with fine edging; a black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood!"† It is probable, however, the lady did not wear all these colours at once.

A tavern in Bow Street, the Cock, became notorious for a frolic of Sir Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and others, frequently mentioned in the biographies, but too disgusting to be told. There was an account of it in Pepy's manuscript, but it was obliged to be omitted in the printing. Anthony à Wood found it out, and first gave it to the public. It was not commonly dissolute, there was a filthiness in it, which would have been incredible if told of any other period than that of

In the prologue to Etherege's play of the 'Man of Mode.' Scott's 'Dryden,' vol. x., p. 340.

† Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii., p. 317.