The Autobiography of William Jerdan
William Horace Keppell to William Jerdan [July 1831?]
“8, Charlotte-street, Fitzroy-square.”
“My dear Sir,
“Availing myself of your kind permission, I enclose to
you one of my announcements, and I have only to add, in reference to what I
said on Sunday, that as this ![]()
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is my first appeal to a
London audience, and with the rank I hold in the theatre, it is a matter of
pride (independent of any feeling of interest) that my house should be a good
one. I do not know why it is, because you have done me former favours, that I
am to presume on your adding to them,—though, as Sterne tells, ‘we water a twig, because we have
planted it,’—but any influence you will use in my behalf on this
occasion, I shall most gratefully remember ) and with your numerous connexion
you have amply the power: but the Pit of our house is the most material part of
it, and if I fail at all, it is there I fear. But, enough! I will enclose to
you any number of tickets you think you can disperse, and you will of course
feel at liberty to return what are not used.
“Allow me to remain, with my best thanks for your
good-nature towards me, on this and other matters,
“My dear sir,
“Your faithful and obliged servant,
“P. S.—Waylett has promised to play for me, although her own
benefit is advertised as her last night. She has permitted mo to advertise
that she consents to play for my benefit, being positively her last
night.”
William Horace Keppell (1831 fl.)
English actor who performed Hamlet in America in 1831; he was a younger son of the
novelist Isabella Kelly.
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
Clergyman and novelist; author of
The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy (1759-67) and
A Sentimental Journey through France and
Italy (1768).
Harriet Waylett [née Cooke] (1800-1851)
English provincial actress who in 1819 married an actor named Waylett; she was afterwards
married to the musician George Alexander Lee (1802-1851).
