Fanny Kemble—Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kemble—Dowton—Perlet—Macready—Potier—Lablache—Paganini—Donzelli—Madame Albert—Mdlle. Mars—Mdlle. Jenny Vertpre—Cartigny—Lemaitre—Rachel—“Junius Redivivus”—Sarah Flower Adams—Eliza Flower—Mrs. Leman Grimstone—Leigh Hunt—Isabella Jane Towers—Thomas James Serle—Douglas Jerrold—Richard Peake—The elder Mathews—Egerton Webb—Talfourd—Charles Lamb—Edward Holmes—John Oxenford.
The occurrence of Fanny
Kemble’s name reminds us to narrate the interest created by her first
appearance on the stage, to retrieve the fortunes of the theatre of which her father was then lessee. It was one of those nights not to be
forgotten in theatrical annals. The young girl herself—under twenty—coming out as
the girl-heroine of tragedy, Shakespeare’s Juliet; her
mother, Mrs. Charles Kemble, after a retirement from the
stage of some years playing (for this especial night of her daughter’s début and her husband’s effort to re-establish the attraction of Covent
Garden Theatre) the part of Lady Capulet; her father,
Charles Kemble, a man much past fifty years of age, enacting with
wonderful spirit and vigour the mercurial character of Mercutio; combined to excite into enthusiasm the assembled audience. The
plaudits that overwhelmed Mrs. Charles Kemble, causing her to stand
trembling with emotion and melted into real tears that
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| FANNY KEMBLE—DOWTON. | 73 |
Dowton’s Cantwell was one of those fine embodiments of class character that would alone
suffice to make the lasting fame of an actor. Had Dowton never played any
other part that? this, he would have survived to posterity as a perfect performer; his sleek
condition, his spotless black clothes, his placidly-folded hands, his smooth, serene voice, his
apparently cloudless countenance, with nevertheless a furtive, watchful look in the eye, a
calmly-compressed mouth, with nevertheless a betraying devil of sensuality lurking beneath the
carefully-maintained compression—these sub-expressions of the eye and lip uncontrollably
breaking forth in momentary flash and sudden, involuntary quiver,—during the scenes with
Lady
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Of Macready’s playing Virginius, Rob Roy,—and
subsequently King John [one of his very best-conceived
impersonations, for our detailed description of which see pages 340-1-2 of “Shakespeare-Characters”], Henry V., Prospero, Benedick, Richelieu,
Walsingham, and a score of other admirably
characteristic personifications, we will not allow ourselves to speak at length; owing many
private kindnesses and courtesies to the gentleman,
| MACREADY—POTIER | 75 |
Of Potier’s acting we had frequent
opportunities of judging; since he, with several of his best brother comedians, at the time we
are referring to, came to London in the successive French companies that then first, and
subsequently, repaired thither to act French pieces. It was a novelty that took: for the
majority of fashionable play-goers were sufficiently versed in the language to appreciate and
enjoy the finished acting and entertaining pieces then produced. In the year 1830 Leigh Hunt started his Tatler, generally writing the Theatre, Opera, and Concert
notices in it himself, under the heading of “The Play-goer;” but occasionally he
asked me (C. C. C.) to supply his place; and accordingly, several of the articles—such as
those recording Lablache’s initiative appearances
in London, Paganini’s, Donzelli’s, charming Madame
Albert’s, Laporte’s, and on
the Philharmonic Society, bear witness to our enjoyment of some of the best performances going
on during the few years that Leigh Hunt’s Tatler existed. Afterwards, we witnessed in brilliant
succession Mademoiselle Mars,—whose Celimene in Moliere’s “Misanthrope” was unrivalled, and whose playing of Valerie, a blind girl of sixteen, who recovers her lost sight, when
Mars was nearly sixty years of age, was a marvel of dramatic
success—Mdlle. Plessy, a consummate embodiment
of French lady-like elegance; Jenny Vertpré, whose portrayal of
feline nature and bearing beneath feminine person and carriage, as the cat metamorphosed into a
woman, was unique in clever peculiarity of achievement; Cartigny, great in Moliere’s “Dépit Amoureux” as Gros Rene; Perlet, exquisite in
Moliere’s
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Another contributor to Leigh
Hunt’s Tatler was Mrs. Leman Grimstone,
whose papers appeared with the signature “M. L. G.” She was one of the very first
of those who modestly yet firmly advocated women’s rights: a subject now almost worn
threadbare and hackneyed by zealous partisans, but then put forth diffidently, sedately,
| MRS. LEMAN GRIMSTONE. | 77 |
[We affix a note to the following verses, not from any doubt that their beautiful tenderness can escape the observation of our readers, but because we owe to the fair author an acknowledgment for the heartfelt gratification which this and other previous communications from her pen have afforded to ourselves.]
|
You took me, Colin, when a girl, unto your home and
heart,
To bear in all your after fate a fond and faithful part;
And tell me, have I ever tried that duty to forego—
Or pined there was not joy for me, when you were sunk in woe?
No—I would rather share your tear than any other’s
glee,
For though you’re nothing to the world, you’re all the world to me;
You make a palace of my shed—this rough-hewn bench a throne—
There’s sunlight for me in your smile, and music in your tone.
I look upon you when you sleep, my eyes with tears grow dim,
I cry, “O Parent of the poor, look down from Heaven on him—
Behold him toil from day to day, exhausting strength and soul—
Oh look with mercy on him, Lord, for Thou canst make him
whole!”
And when at last relieving sleep has on my eyelids smiled,
How oft are they forbade to close in slumber, by my child;
I take the little murmurer that spoils my span of rest,
And feel it is a part of thee I lull upon my breast.
There’s only one return I crave—I may not need it long,
And it may soothe thee when I’m where—the wretched feel no wrong!
I ask not for a kinder tone—for thou wert ever kind;
I ask not for less frugal fare—my fare I do not mind;
|
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|
I ask not for attire more gay—if such as I have got
Suffice to make me fair to thee, for more I murmur not.
But I would ask some share of hours that you at clubs bestow—
Of knowledge thai you prize so much, might I not something know?
Subtract from meetings among men, each eve, an hour for me—
Make me companion of your soul, as I may surely be!
If you will read, I’ll sit and work: then think, when you’re away,
Less tedious I shall find, the time, dear Colin, of
your stay.
A meet companion soon I’ll be for e’en your studious hours—
And teacher of those little ones you call your cottage flowers;
And if we be not rich and great, we may be wise and kind;
And as my heart can warm your heart, so may my mind your mind.
M. L. G.
|
Leigh Hunt’s Tatler was followed early in 1834 by his London Journal, to which my (C. C. C.’s) lamented sister, Isabella Jane Towers, contributed some verses, entitled “To Gathered Roses,” in imitation of Herrick, as previously, in the Literary Examiner, which he published in 1823, he had inserted her “Stanzas to a Fly that had survived the Winter of 1822.” She was the author of three graceful books of juvenile tales, “The Children’s Fireside,” “The Young Wanderer’s Cave,” and “The Wanderings of Tom Starboard.”
In the spring of 1835 was brought out at the English Opera House a drama entitled “The Shadow on the Wall,” and when it made its appearance in printed form it was accompanied by the following dedication:—
The truest gratification felt by an Author, in laying his work before the Public, is the hope to render it a memento of private affection. The Writer of
| THOMAS JAMES SERLE. | 79 |
|
“The Shadow on the Wall”
can experience no higher pleasure of this kind
than in inscribing it to
C. N.
|
The writer of “The Shadow on
the Wall” was Thomas James Serle, and
the initials represented Cecilia Novello, who was his
affianced future wife. He had already been known to the theatrical world by his play of
“The Merchant of London,”
his tragedy of “The House of
Colberg,” his drama of “The
Yeoman’s Daughter,” and his play of “The Gamester of Milan.” After his marriage with my
(M. C. C.’s) sister Cecilia in 1836, we watched with enhanced
interest the successive production of his dramas and plays, “A Ghost Story,” “The Parole of Honour,” “Joan of Arc,” “Master Clarke,” “The Widow Queen,” and “Tender Precautions:” when he combined with the career
of dramatist that of lecturer, and, subsequently, that of political writer, continuing for many
years editor of one of our London newspapers. Ultimately he has returned to his first love of
literary production, having of late years written several carefully-composed plays and dramas
with the utmost maturity of thought and consideration. It was at his house, immediately after
his marriage, that we met an entirely new and delightful circle of literary men, his valued
friends and associates. It was there we first met Douglas
Jerrold, learning that he had written his “Black-eyed Susan” when only eighteen, that it was
rapidly followed by his “Devil’s
Ducat,” “Sally in Our
Alley,” “Mutiny at the
Nore,” “Bride of
Ludgate,” “Rent
Day,” “Golden
Calf,” “Ambrose
Gwinett,” and “John
Overy;” while he himself, soon after our introduction to him
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| RICHARD PEAKE. | 81 |
Of him and his super-exquisite wit more will be found in his letters to us, and our comments thereon, which we shall subsequently give in another portion of these Recollections.
It was at Serle’s hospitable board
that we met that right “merry fellow,” Richard
Peake, author of the droll farce “Master’s Rival,” and who used to write the
“Entertainments” and “At Homes” for the elder Mathews. Peake was the most humorous
storyteller and narrator himself; so much so that could he but have conquered his overwhelming
native bashfulness he would have made as good an actor, or even monologuist, as the best. We
remember hearing him tell a history of some visit he paid in the country, where he accompanied
his entertainers to their village church, in which was a preacher afflicted with so utterly
inarticulate an enunciation, made doubly indistinct by the vaulty resonance of the edifice,
that though a cavernous monotone pervaded the air yet not a syllable was audible to the
congregation. This wabbling, stentorian, portentously solemn, yet ludicrously inefficient voice
resounding through the aisles of the village temple, seems even yet to ring in our ears; as
well as a certain discordant yell that he affirmed proceeded from the bill of a bereaved goose,
pent up with some ducks in the area of a house near to one where he was staying, and which
perpetually proclaimed its griefs of captivity and desolation in the single screech of
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It was Peake’s manner and tone that gave peculiar comicality to such things as these when he told them.
He wrote a whimsical set of tales for a magazine, giving them the ridiculous punning name of “Dogs’ Tales;” in which there was a man startled by a noise in a lone house that made him exclaim, “Ha! is that a rat?” and then added, “No! it’s only a rat-tat,” on discovering that it was somebody knocking at the door. Peake was odd, excessively odd, in his fun. He told us that when he married, his wife continuing much affected by the circle of weeping friends from whom she had just parted, he suddenly snatched her hand in his, gave it a smart tap, and said peremptorily, “Come, come, come, come! we must have no more of this crying; we are now in another parish, you belong to me, and I insist upon it, you leave off!”
Once, when we were spending an evening at Serle’s, he, Douglas Jerrold, and
Egerton Webbe—who was an exceptionally clever
young man in many ways, but who, alas! died early—happened to be in earnest conversation
about Talfourd’s account of Charles Lamb, seeming to think that
Talfourd overrated Lamb’s
generosity of character in money-matters. We had listened silently to the discussion for a
time, but when the majority of opinion seemed to be settling down into a confirmed belief that
there was nothing, after all, so remarkably generous in the traits that
Lamb’s biographer had recorded, we stated, what we knew to be
the truth, that
| DOUGLAS JERROLD. | 83 |
After my death I wish no other herald, No other speaker of my living actions, To keep mine honour from corruption, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith. |
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Having mentioned Egerton Webbe, reminds us to relate that a sister of his was married to our early admirable friend Edward Holmes, who, after enjoying scarcely more than two years of happy wedded life with her,—of which he sent us a charming account in his letters to us when we had quitted England,—passed from earth for ever towards the close of the year 1859.
To our brother-in-law Mr. Serle we owe the pleasure of having known yet another accomplished writer,—Mr. John Oxenford, whom we used frequently to see in the boxes at the theatres after his highly poetical and romantic melodrama, entitled “The Dice of Death,” had interested us in it and him by its first performances. In wonderful contrast to the sombre Faustian grandeur of this piece came the out-and-out fun and frolic of his two farces, “A Day Well Spent” and “My Fellow Clerk,” proving him to be a master of versatility in dramatic art.
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