DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
DICKENS'S LONDON ; OR, LONDON IN THE WORKS 
 OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 By T. EDOAE PEMBEETON. 
 
 Price 6s., post free, and of all Booksellers. 
 
 " Mr. Pembertoii has ' invented ' a very new style 
 of book, and has carried out his idea with excellent 
 industry and marked success. . . . All admirers 
 of the works of Charles Dickens will thank Mr. 
 Pemberton for a very original and very interesting 
 book." — Birminr/ham Daily Post, Dec. 17th, 1875. 
 
' t , »' t^t" f 't' 
 
 A/f<;^^i) 
 
 i til 
 
 M^ HENRY IRYING AS 'ALFRED JINGLE." 
 
CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 AXD 
 
 THE STAGE 
 
 A RECORD 
 
 OF HIS CONNECTION' WITH THE DRAMA AS PLAYWRIGHT ACTOR 
 
 AND CRITIC. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. EDGAR PEMBERTON, 
 
 Author of " Dickens's London. 
 
 WITH NEW PORTRAITS IN CHARACTER OF 
 
 MISS JENNIE LEE, M^'^iRViNG, AN^D,' '>1R. TOOLE. 
 
 London : 
 GEORGE REDWAY, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN 
 
 i8SS. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 K30LLT AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, 
 
 AND KINGS rON-ON-THAMES. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — Introductory ...... 1 
 
 II. — The Stage in his Notels ... 5 
 
 III. — Dickens as a Dramatist ... 79 
 
 lY. — Dickens as an Actor .... 96 
 
 Y. — Adaptations and Impersonations . . 13G 
 
 YI. — The Stage in his Speeches . . 18G 
 
 YII. — The Stage in his Letters . . . 201 
 
 YIII. — Dickens as a Dramatic Critic . . 2S'2 
 
 IX. — Conclusion 24 G 
 
 250859 
 
DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
DIGKEXS A:N'D the STAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IXTRODUCTOKY. 
 
 It has often been said that in gaining a great 
 novelist the English-speaking world lost an 
 almost unequalled actor, and a most powerful 
 dramatist ; in other words, that if, instead of 
 devoting himself to the writing of fiction in 
 volume form, Charles Dickens had identified 
 himself with the stage, he would have made upon 
 it, both as performer and as writer, a name 
 second to none in theatrical history. The ques- 
 tion is hardly to be argued. By the interpreta- 
 tion of parts undertaken in amateur performances, 
 and still more notably by the extraordinary 
 dramatic power which he evinced at the reading 
 desk, and by means of which he was able, alone, 
 and unaided by scenery or other stage surround- 
 ings, to hold, spellbound, critical audiences, and 
 at his will to call forth tears or laughter, Dickens 
 proved that as an actor he was the possessor 
 of absolute genius. To judge of his powers as a 
 dramatist by the little plays that are fathered 
 with his name would be manifestly absurd. It 
 
 1 
 
2 DJCIvENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 cannot be said that any one of tliem possesses 
 distinctive dramatic merit ; but all were the work 
 of his 'prentice hand, written, probably, at a time 
 when he was anxious and willing to write any- 
 thing that would be likely to bring him before 
 the public and to set him going on a much 
 coveted literary career ; and it is quite certain 
 that all would have been forgotten had they not 
 been associated with the name of " Boz." It is 
 quite likely, indeed, that it was the magic of 
 that name, though then only in its infancy, that 
 induced London managers to accept and produce 
 such trivialities as "The Strange Gentleman," 
 " The Village Coquettes" and " Is She His Wife ; 
 or, Something Singular." At about the time 
 when this last-named " burletta " received bold 
 advertisement as a " newly-discovered play by 
 Charles Dickens," the compiler of these pages 
 witnessed its representation on the stage. It 
 was well performed, the part of Mr. Limbury 
 being in especially competent hands, but not- 
 withstanding its authorship, it entirely failed to 
 excite either interest, laughter or applause, and 
 it is exceedingly doubtful whether Dickens would 
 have been grateful to those who, with the honest 
 intention of doing honour to his name, had 
 resuscitated the dramatic work of his inexperi- 
 enced days. Why, it is often asked, did not our 
 novelist in his best days contribute to the 
 dramatic literature of his time ? The answer. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. i 
 
 to those who have any experience in such 
 matters, seems simple enough. Would anyone 
 who had such absolute command of the read- 
 ing world prefer to write for the stage, when, 
 in edition rapidly succeeding edition, his work 
 found eacrer demand in book form ? Would 
 Shakespeare have immortalised his great ideas in 
 scenes and acts, to be interpreted (or misinter- 
 preted) by the players of all time, if there had 
 in his day existed a Messrs. Chapman & Hall, to 
 produce them as Dickens's works were produced? 
 Think for one moment of the saving in time, 
 and in wear and tear of mind and body, that the 
 novelist has over the dramatist, and then ask 
 why Dickens elected to be the one rather than the 
 other. Seated in the seclusion of his comfortable 
 study, the skilled and popular novelist conjures up 
 his characters, word-paints his scenes, sends his 
 manuscript to the publisher, corrects his proofs, 
 and knows, at least, that his creations will be 
 read as they have by him been thought out. 
 There are no delays in consulting this or that 
 theatrical manager as to whether his work is 
 suitable for the particular theatre which he 
 governs ; no doubts as to whether it is in touch 
 with the prevailing fashion of the moment ; no 
 perplexities as to the suitable casting of the 
 characters ; no scene-painter or stage-carpenter 
 to be consulted ; no wearisome rehearsals to be 
 attended ; no first-night agonies to be under- 
 gone ; no too hastily-written criticisms to be 
 
 1^ 
 
i DICKENS AND THE STAGE 
 
 read. Happy enough must be the successful 
 dramatist, but happier far the favouriio 
 novelist. It must be remembered, too, that eve a 
 so short a time ago as the days of Dickens, the 
 English stage was not the stage of to-day. Not 
 only was the reward of the playwright a far 
 smaller one, but (those who deplore the palmy 
 days of the drama notwithstanding) the chances 
 of getting his work brilliantly interpreted and 
 artistically staged were infinitely less. Dickens, 
 at the age of forty, devoting his genius to the 
 London stage of 1887 is a thing for the theatre- 
 lover to lie and dream about. But though his 
 brilliant pen was not directed to the writing of 
 sparkling comedy dialogue — to the imbroglio of 
 rollicking farce, — or to the conjuring up of soul- 
 stirring melodrama — his keen interest in the thea- 
 tre and his vivid knowledge of it and its surround- 
 ings from every point of view, were features in 
 his life, and bright and welcome streams 
 running through his inimitable contributions 
 to English literature. Such being the case, it 
 seems worth while to the writer— and he hopes 
 that his view will be shared by his readers — to 
 linger for awhile within the pleasant precincts of 
 Dickens's stageland. 
 
 The illustrations were produced under the superintendence 
 of Mr. Fred. Gr. Kitton, hut publisher and writer both desire to 
 record their indebtedness to Messrs. Barraud, and to Messrs. 
 Kingsbury and Notcutt, for their courteous permission for the 
 artist to make use of their excellent portraits of Miss Jennie 
 Lee and Mr. Toole. 
 
> 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 
 
 Probably the first mention of " things theatrical " 
 made in Dickens's published writings, is in that 
 chapter in the delightful " Sketches by Boz," 
 entitled " Private Theatres," and which com- 
 mences as follows : — 
 
 " Eichard the Third, Duke of G-lo'ster, £2 ; 
 Earl of Richmond, £1 ; Duke of Buckingham, 
 15s.; Catesby, 12s.; Tressell, 10s. 6d.; Lord 
 Stanley, 5s. ; Lord Mayor of London, 2s. 6d." 
 
 " Such are the written placards wafered up in 
 the gentlemen's dressing-room, or the green- 
 room (where there is any), at a private theatre; 
 and such are the sums extracted from the shop 
 till, or over-charged in the office expenditure, by 
 the donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for 
 permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance 
 and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. 
 This they do in proportion to the scope afforded 
 by the character for the display of their imbecility. 
 For instance, the Duke of Grlo'ster is well worth 
 two pounds, because he has it all to himself; he 
 must wear a real sword, and, what is better still, 
 
6 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 he must draw it several times in the course of the 
 piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth 
 fifteen shillings ; then there is the stabbing King 
 Henry — decidedly cheap at three and six pence, 
 that's eighteen and six pence ; bullying the 
 coflSn bearers — say eighteen pence, though it's 
 worth much more, that's a pound. Then the love 
 scene with Lady Ann, and the bustle of the 
 fourth act, can't be dear at ten shillings more — 
 that's only one pound ten, including the ' off with 
 his head ! ' which is sure to bring down the 
 applause— and it is very easy to do — ^Orf with his 
 'ed' (very quick and loud; then slow and 
 sneeringly) — 'So much for B-u-u-uckingham.' 
 Lay the emphasis on the * uck ' ; get yourself 
 gradually into a corner, and work with your right 
 hand, while you're saying it, as if you were feel- 
 ing your way, and it's sure to do. The tent scene 
 is confessedly worth half-a-sovereign, and so you 
 have the fight in, gratis, andeverybody knows what 
 1/ an effect may be produced by a good combat." 
 
 Luckily we do not, now-a-days, hear much of 
 these private theatres, the principal patrons of 
 which were, according to Dickens, " dirty boys, 
 low copying clerks in attorney's offices, capacious 
 headed youths from city counting-houses, Jews, 
 whose busiaess as lenders of fancy dresses is a 
 sure passport to the amateur stage, shop-boys, 
 who now and then mistake their master's money 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 
 
 for their own ; and a choice miscellany of idle 
 vagabonds " ; but the " donkeys— ^Yho pay for 
 permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance 
 on the stage," find a ready outlet in the present 
 matinee system. How many an immature Juliet 
 (I beg her pardon, she generally, I think, prefers 
 to pose as the heroine of " La Dame aux 
 Camelias), how many a would-be emulator of 
 Irving has paid dearly for the privilege of figur- 
 ino- at an afternoon performance at a London 
 theatre, only to prove that the stage is the 
 very last vocation that she, or he, should follow. 
 But the would-be dramatist is in this respect 
 an even greater sinner than the amateur actress 
 or actor. How many hopeless failures have 
 during the past few years been brought under 
 the notice of a helpless public at matinees'? 
 How many hundreds, nay thousands, of pounds, 
 must in this way have been squandered I It would 
 have been well, indeed, for many an over-confi- 
 dent author if the theatre in which his utter 
 incompetence has been made manifest had been a 
 «• private one." 
 
 To return to the private theatres of " Boz," 
 however, ^rt^e find that the '' Jenkinses, Walkers, 
 Thomsons, Barkers, Solomons, etc," who disport 
 themselves on the boards thereof had a singular (?) 
 habit of assuming for stage purposes such names 
 as "Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Ran- 
 
8 DICKENS A^B THE STAGE. 
 
 dolph, Byron, and St. Clair," and we are given a 
 glimpse behind the scenes prior to a performance 
 of " Macbeth." *' The little narrow passages 
 beneath the stage are neither especially clean nor 
 too brilliantly lighted ; and the absence of any 
 flooring, together with the damp, mildewy smell 
 which pervades the place, does not conduce in 
 any great degree to their comfortable appearance. 
 Don't fall over this plate-basket, it's one of the 
 ' properties ' — the caldron for the witches' cave ; 
 and the three uncouth-looking figures, with 
 broken clothes-props in their hands, who are 
 drinking gin-and-water out of a pint pot, are the 
 weird sisters That snuff-shop- 
 looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo ; and 
 the young lady with the miserable display of 
 legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hare's 
 foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large woman, 
 who is consulting the stage directions in Cumber- 
 land's edition of ' Macbeth,' is the Lady Macbeth 
 of the night That stupid milk- 
 sop, with light hair and bow legs — a kind of man 
 whom you can warrant town-made — is fresh 
 caught; he plays Malcolm to-night, just to 
 accustom himself to an audience. He will get 
 on better by degrees ; he will play Othello in a 
 month, and in a month more will very probably 
 be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. 
 The black-eyed female, with whom he is talking 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 9 
 
 SO earnestly, is dressed for the 'gentle-woman.' 
 It is her first appearance, too— in that character. 
 The boy of fourteen, who is having his eyebrows 
 smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, 
 King of Scotland ; and the two dirty men with 
 the corked countenances, in very old green 
 tunics and dirty drab boots, are the ' army.' " 
 
 Humorous as is this grim description there is 
 about it an unsavoury squalor, and a sense of 
 degradation to Shakespeare and the drama, which, 
 however true it may have been, makes one turn 
 with a sigh of relief even to the expensive, the 
 wearisome, and the much abused, semi-amateur 
 matinee of to-day. With positive dehght one 
 turns from it to the delightful sketch on draw- 
 ing-room theatricals which the same volume 
 contains, and which is known to every one under 
 its title of "Mrs. Joseph Porter." It is need- 
 less to say much here of that famous amateur 
 representation of '' Othello," which was given in 
 the house of Mr. Grattleton, of Clapham Else, in 
 which a delay was occasioned by the detention of 
 lago at his duties m the Post Office ; in which 
 none of the performers could walk in their tights, 
 or move their arms in their jackets ; in which 
 the pantaloons were too small, the boots too 
 large, and the swords of all shapes and sizes ; in 
 which the Eoderigo, naturally too tall for the 
 scenery, wore a black velvet hat with immense 
 
10 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 white plumes, the glory of which was lost in 
 " the flies " ; and the only other inconvenience 
 of which was, that when it was off his head he 
 could not put it on, and when it was on he 
 could not take it off; in which this same unlucky 
 Eoderigo fell with his head and shoulders as 
 neatly through one of the side scenes, as a 
 harlequin would jump through a panel in a 
 Christmas pantomime; and of all of which, and 
 much m.ore, critical and ill-natured Mrs. Joseph 
 Porter made abundant fun, and, alas ! so much 
 mischief with wealthy Uncle Tom. Many of us 
 have witnessed the ludicrous and almost pitiable 
 absurdities of these primitive amateur theatrical 
 performances ; some of us (let it with contrition 
 be confessed !) have even gone so far as to take 
 part in them, and it is very certain that on each 
 and every occasion that such an entertainment (?) 
 is given, there is, among the audience, a Mrs. 
 Joseph Porter. Let one word be said in favour 
 of the Grattleton family. They did not air their 
 incompetence in public, they did not give their 
 performance on behalf of *' a charity." All 
 honour to the Gattletons for confining their 
 "acting" to the Theatre Eoyal, Back Drawing 
 Room. Shame upon you, Mrs. Joseph Porter, 
 for being under such circumstances so captious. 
 A Mrs. Joseph Porter, who has been bullied into 
 paying five shillings for a ticket, has earned a 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 11 
 
 manifest right to say, and do, what she 
 pleases. 
 
 Before taking leave of " The Sketches " men- 
 tion must not be omitted of the delightful 
 chapter entitled *'Astley's" (Kit and Barbara 
 with their mothers and Little Jacob had, later on, 
 a right royal evening there you will remember),r--/^ 
 and in which " Boz " says : — '• We should very ^^ 
 much like to see some piece in which all the 
 dramatis personse were orphans. Fathers are 
 invariably great nuisances on the stage, and 
 always have to give the hero or heroine a long 
 explanation of what was done before the curtain 
 rose, usually commencing with, ' It is now 
 nineteen years, my dear child, since your blessed 
 mother (here the old villain's voice falters) con- 
 fided you to my charge. You were then an 
 infant, etc., etc' Or else they have to discover, 
 all of a sudden, that somebody whom they have 
 been in constant communication with, during 
 three long acts, without the slightest suspicion, 
 is their own child ; in which case they exclaim, 
 ' Ah, what do I see ? This bracelet ! That smile ! 
 These documents ! Those eyes ! Can I believe 
 my' senses ? It must be ! Yes — it is, it is my 
 child I ' ' My father,' exclaims the child ; and 
 they fall into each other's arms, and look over 
 each other's shoulders, and the audience give 
 three rounds of applause." 
 
12 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 In " The Pickwick Papers " the drama is 
 chiefly represented by that amusing vagabond, 
 Mr. Alfred Jingle, who, albeit not an ornament 
 to his profession, was, no doubt, in his own line 
 of business, a very excellent actor. And here it 
 seems worth while to note that, while Dickens 
 saw all that was amusing, grotesque, tawdry, 
 and even humiliating, in some phases of theatrical 
 life, he touched the subject with so delicate and 
 humorous a hand, that not even the most 
 ardent stickler for the honour of the actor and 
 the position of his art can take exception to it. 
 Proof of this is amply found in the fact that out 
 of the character of this graceless and impudent 
 strolling player, whose life was certainly not one 
 to add lustre to the theatrical profession, Mr. 
 Henry Irving has found one of his most brilliantly 
 successful comedy impersonations. Other writers 
 who have from time to time, with heavier hand 
 and less delicacy of perception, endeavoured in 
 their books to make capital out of the *' truth 
 about the stage " — in other words, to speak of 
 that seamy side which, in common with every 
 other art, profession, or business by which men 
 and women make a living, the theatre can pre- 
 sent — have only given offence to its best advo- 
 cates and annoyance to an outside public un- 
 anxious to be enlightened on such subjects. 
 Dickens, on the other hand, whether he is 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 13 
 
 speaking of the rascality of Jingle, the absurd- 
 ities of the Crummies family, the pretensions of 
 Mr. Wopsle, or the degradation of poor old 
 Frederick Dorrit, only makes one smile and 
 sigh and think in a kindly spirit of an institution 
 to which the majority of us are inestimably 
 indebted. 
 
 It was to Mr. Jingle, it will be remembered, that 
 Mr. Pickwick and his friends were under obliga- 
 tions for the introduction to Mr. Jem Hutley, 
 otherwise known as " dismal Jemmy "—" rum fel- 
 low — does the heavy business— no actor— strange 
 man — all sorts of miseries " — and it was that same 
 '' Dismal Jemmy" who, having declared that *' to 
 be before the footlights is like sitting at a grand 
 Court show, and admiring the silken dresses of 
 the gaudy throng ; to be behind them is to be 
 the people who make that finery, uncared for and 
 unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or 
 live, as fortune wills it," related to the Pick- 
 wickians " The Stroller's Tale." The Consump- 
 tive Clown who is the unsavoury hero of this 
 ghastly story, has become a somewhat hackneyed 
 subject for ephemeral fiction (to the would-be 
 writer of sensational romance, the combination oi 
 bismuth and hectic flush, gas glare and pneu- 
 monia, a laughing audience and a lungless 
 comedian, are tantalizing materials), and except 
 that some fine passages occur in his memoir, the 
 
14 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 history of the broken-down and drunken " John " 
 might well be omitted from these pages. Here, 
 however, are some theatrical lines that are too 
 good to be passed over : — 
 
 "Everybody who is at all acquainted with 
 theatrical matters knows what a host of shabby, 
 poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a 
 large establishment — not regularly engaged 
 actors, but ballet people, procession men, 
 tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during 
 the run of a pantomime or an Easter piece, and 
 are then discharged, until the production of some 
 heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their 
 services." To this unfortunate class the hapless 
 and dissolute " John " belonged, and the outcome 
 of his wretched life was the horrible death, in which 
 Dickens united his pen with the pencil of Sey- 
 mour to make memory-haunting. It is no wonder 
 that, having been associated with such scenes, the 
 dismal Mr. Hutley should, as he leant with Mr. 
 Pickwick over the balustrades of Eochester 
 Bridge (on the destruction of the old bridge one 
 of these balustrades became a garden fixture at 
 Gad's Hill), opine that, " The calm, cool water 
 seems to me to murmur an invitation to repose 
 and rest. A bound, a splash, a brief struggle ; 
 there is an eddy for an instant, it gradually sub- 
 sides into a gentle ripple ; the waters have 
 closed above your bead, and the world has 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 15 
 
 closed upon your miseries and misfortunes for 
 ever ! " 
 
 A far more wholesome and authentic picture of 
 theatrical life, and of the clown's life in particular, 
 is to be found in the delightful pages of 
 the '-'Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi," edited by 
 " Boz," a work which might alone stand in evi- 
 dence of Dickens's intense interest in the stage. 
 To quote from " Grrimaldi," would be an un- 
 necessary and superfluous task. It is a theatrical 
 classic that should be familiar to every stage- 
 student. 
 
 Dickens is said to have held this work in 
 very light estimation, and to have spoken of 
 the material which in general composed it as 
 " twaddle," but the warmth with which he re- 
 sented an objection to his handUng the subject 
 on the ground that he could never have seen 
 Grimaldi, shows that it must have had a place 
 in his affections. '' I understand," he wrote, 
 " that a gentleman unknown is going about this 
 town, privately informing all ladies and gentle-, 
 men of discontented natures, that, on a com- 
 parison of dates and putting together of many 
 little circumstances which occur to his great 
 sagacity, he has made the profound discovery 
 that I can never have seen Grimaldi, whose life 
 I have edited, and that the book must therefore of 
 necessity be bad. Xow, although I was brought 
 
16 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 up from remote country parts in the dark ages 
 of 1819 and 1820 to behold the splendour of 
 Christmas pantomimes and the humour of Joe, 
 in whose honour, I am informed, I clapped my 
 hands with great precocity, and although I even 
 saw him act in the remote times of 1823 ; yet 
 as I had not then aspired to the dignity of a 
 tail coat, though forced by a relentless parent 
 into my first pair of boots, I am willing, with the 
 view of saving this honest gentleman further time 
 and trouble, to concede that I had not arrived 
 at man's estate when Grimaldi left the stage, 
 and that my recollections of his acting are, to my 
 loss, but shadowy and imperfect. Which con- 
 fession I now make publicly, and without mental 
 qualification or reserve, to all whom it may con- 
 cern. But the deduction of this pleasant gentle- 
 man, that therefore the Grimaldi book must be 
 bad, I must take leave to doubt. I don't think 
 that to edit a man's biography from his own 
 notes, it is essential you should have known him, 
 and I don't believe that Lord Braybrooke had 
 more than the very slightest acquaintance with 
 Mr. Pepys, whose memoirs he edited two cen- 
 turies after he died." 
 
 At this period Dickens's mind must have been 
 much turned towards the stage, for in writing 
 to his friend, Mr. John Forster, he says : — 
 " Talking of comedies, I still see No Thorough- 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 17 
 
 FARE staring me in the face, every time I look 
 down that road," — and "the allusion to the 
 comedy," remarks Mr. Forster, " expresses a fancy 
 he, at this time, had of being able to contribute 
 some such achievement in aid of Macready's 
 gallant efforts at Covent Grarden to bring back to 
 the stage its higher asssociations of literature 
 and intellectual enjoyment. It connects curi- 
 ously now, that unrealised hope with the exact 
 title of the only story he ever helped himself to 
 dramatise, and which Mr. Fechter played at the 
 Adelphi, three years before his death." 
 
 It was to Macready, too, " as a slight token of 
 admiration and regard," that Dickens inscribed 
 the pages of his next novel, the delightful 
 " Nicholas Nickleby," wherein that famous group 
 of theatrical characters who gathered around the 
 standard of Mr. Vincent Crummies, were intro- 
 duced to the world. Every line that is written 
 about Mr. Crummies and his followers is instinct 
 with good-natured humour, and from the moment 
 when, in the road-side inn, " yet twelve miles 
 short of Portsmouth," the reader comes into con- 
 tact with the kindly old " circuit " manager, he 
 finds himself in the best of good company. The 
 key-note to the character of Mr. Crummies is 
 sounded in the very first words that are written 
 concerning him. "Mr. Vincent Crummies re- 
 ceived Nicholas with an inclination of the head, 
 
 2 
 
18 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 something between the courtesy of a Eoman 
 Emperor and the nod of a pot companion," and 
 then proceeded with the rehearsal of that terrific 
 stage combat, in which " the short sailor made 
 a vigorous cut at the tall sailor's legs, which 
 would have shaved them clean off had it taken 
 effect," whereupon "the tall sailor jumped over 
 the short sailor's sword, wherefore to balance the 
 matter, and make it all fair, the tall sailor 
 administered the same cut, and the short sailor 
 jumped over Ms sword. After this, there was a 
 good deal of dodging about, and hitching up of 
 the inexpressibles in the absence of braces, and 
 then the short sailor (who was the moral character 
 evidently, for he always had the best of it), made 
 a violent demonstration, and closed with the 
 tall sailor, who, after a few unavailing struggles, 
 went down, and expired in great torture 
 as the short sailor put his foot upon his 
 breast, and bored a hole in him through and 
 through." 
 
 What a delightful summing-up of the old- 
 fashioned broadside fight of the stage is this, 
 and what, in its way, could be more perfect than 
 the indignant reply of Mr. Crummies to Nicholas's 
 unsophisticated remark that he thought the effect 
 would have been better if the combatants had 
 been a " little more of a size." 
 
 " Size ! " repeated Mr. Crummies ; '^ why, it is the 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 19 
 
 essence of the combat that there should be a 
 foot or two between them. How are you to get 
 up the sympathies of an audience in a legitimate 
 manner if there isn't a little man contending 
 against a big one — unless there's at least five to 
 one — and we haven't hands enough for that 
 business in our company." 
 
 Theatrical economy such as this, and necessarily 
 enforced stage expedients resulting thereupon, 
 should surely be borne in mind by the too exact- 
 ing critic. 
 
 It is soon after this that the managerial eye of 
 Mr. Crummies becomes fliscinated with the 
 terribly worn and emaciated appearance of the 
 unhappy Smike, who would, he declared, •'' with- 
 out a pad upon his body, and hardly a touch of 
 paint upon his face, make such an actor for the 
 starved business as was never seen in this country. 
 Only let him be tolerably well up in the 
 Apothecary in ' Romeo and Juliet,' with the 
 slightest possible dab of red on the tip of his 
 nose, and he'd be certain of three rounds the 
 moment he put his head out of the practicable 
 door in the front grooves O.P.'' 
 
 A professional engagement with this extra- 
 ordinary attraction, and with Nicholas, having 
 been- made, Mr. Crummies dilates to the latter 
 upon his duties as dramatic author to the 
 company. 
 
 2* 
 
20 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 "We'll have a new show-piece out directly," 
 said the manager. "Let me see — peculiar re- 
 sources of this establishment — new and splendid 
 scenery — you must manage to introduce a real 
 pump and two' washing tubs." 
 
 " Into the piece ? " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes," replied the manager. " I bought 'em 
 cheap, at a sale the other day, and they'll come 
 in admirably. That's the London plan. They 
 look up some dresses, and properties, and have a 
 piece written to fit 'em. Most of the theatres 
 keep an author on purpose." 
 
 Nobody can for one moment imagine or sug- 
 gest that that is nowadays the " London plan," 
 but budding dramatists, who are anxious to 
 obtain a hearing at any cost, and under any 
 management, may still find themselves occasionally 
 brought into contact with the managerial pump 
 and tubs. He may think himself lucky, too, if 
 these articles are always of an inanimate nature. 
 The request to write another " speaking part " 
 into a play upon which he has already expended 
 his best efforts, is among the most trying ordeals 
 that the experienced and uninfluential stage 
 author has to undergo. 
 
 " And what should I get for all this ? " inquired 
 Nicholas, after he had received his instructions 
 about writing the play, the important part that 
 he would be expected to play in it, and an 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 21 
 
 expression of regret that he was unable to ander- 
 take the designing of wood-cuts and posters. 
 '' Could I live by it ? " 
 
 " Live by it ? " said the manager. " Like a 
 prince I ^Yith your own salary, and your friend's, 
 and your writingfs, vou'd make — Ah ! vou'd make 
 a pound a week ! " 
 
 Certainly in the days when Charles Dickens 
 wrote " Nicholas Nickleby " there was little in- 
 ducement for the young author to dabble in 
 stage work. Dramatists of our time, or, at all 
 events, the well known and successful ones, have 
 another and a pleasanter tale to tell. 
 
 Determined to try his luck, however, Nicholas 
 cast in his lot with Mr. Crummies, and accompany- 
 ing him to Portsmouth, " turned into an entry, 
 in which there was a strong smell of orange peel 
 and lamp oil, with an under-current of sawdust, 
 groped through a dark passage, and, descending 
 a step or two, threaded a little maze of canvas 
 screens and paint pots, and emerged upon the 
 stage of the Portsmouth Theatre." 
 
 '' Here we are," said Mr. Crummies. 
 
 " It was not very light, but Nicholas found 
 himself close to the first entrance on the prompt 
 side, among bare walls, dusty scenes, mildewed 
 clouds, heavily daubed draperies, and dirty 
 floors. He looked about him ; ceiling, pit, boxes, 
 gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of 
 
22 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 every kind, all looked coarse, cold, gloomy, and 
 wretched." 
 
 " Is this a theatre ? " whispered Smike, in 
 amazement. *' I thought it was a blaze of light 
 and tinery ! " 
 
 " ^^'hy, so it is," replied Nicholas, " but not by 
 day, Smike — not by day." 
 
 In his " Aboat England with Dickens," Mr. 
 Alfred Rimmer gives a very interesting illustra- 
 tion of the exterior of the Portsmouth Theatre 
 as it appeared in the days of Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies. 
 
 Here, on the stage, and during the rehearsal 
 of the little ballet interlude entitled "The Indian 
 Savage and the Maiden," Nicholas made the ac- 
 quaintance of Mrs. Crummies, of Miss Ninetta 
 Crummies (otherwise known as the Infant Pheno- 
 menon), and of the other members of the 
 Crummies company which, it will be remembered, 
 included Mr. Folair, the pantomimist ; Mr. Len- 
 ville, who '' did first tragedy " ; "a slim young 
 gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low- 
 spirited lovers, and sang tenor songs, and who 
 had come arm-in-arm with the comic country- 
 man " ; " an inebriated elderly gentleman in the 
 last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm 
 and virtuous old men " ; " another elderly gentle- 
 man, a shade more respectable, who played the 
 irascible old men — those funny fellows who have 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 23 
 
 nephews in the army, and perpetually run about 
 with thick sticks to compel them to marry heir- 
 esses " ; a roving-looking person in a rough great- 
 coat, who was the hero of swaggering comedy ; 
 Miss Snevellicci, " who could do anything, from a 
 medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always 
 played some part in blue silk knee smalls at her 
 benefit " ; Miss Belvawney, " who seldom aspired 
 to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page 
 in white silk hose, to stand with one leg bent, 
 and contemplate the audience, or go in and out 
 after Mr. Crummies in stately tragedy " ; Miss 
 Ledbrook ; Miss Bravassa — the beautiful 
 Miss Bravassa — *Svho had once had her 
 likeness taken * in character ' by an engraver's 
 apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up for 
 sale in the pastrycook's window, and the green- 
 grocer's, and at the circulating library, and the 
 box-office, whenever the announce-bills came out 
 for her annual night " ; Mrs. Lenville, " decidedly 
 Iq that way in which she would wish to be if she 
 truly loved Mr. Lenville"; Miss G-azingi, and 
 Mrs. GrruddcD, " who assisted Mrs. Crummies in 
 her domestic affairs, and took money at the 
 doors, and dressed the ladies, and swept the 
 house, and held the prompt-book when everybody 
 else was on for the last scene, and acted any kind 
 of part in any emergency without ever learning 
 it, and was put down in the bills under any name 
 
24 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 or names whatever that occurred to Mr. Crummies 
 as looking well in print." 
 
 With a company so constituted it will be 
 readily understood that Nicholas's position as 
 playwright was fraught with perplexities. They 
 were soon to commence. 
 
 *' Is there anything good for me ? " enquired 
 Mr. Folair anxiously. 
 
 '* Let me see," said Nicholas, *' you play the 
 faithful and attached servant ; you are turned out 
 of doors with the wife and child." 
 
 " Always coupled with that infernal Pheno- 
 menon," sighed Mr. Folair. " And we go into 
 poor lodgings, where I won't take any wages, 
 and talk sentiment, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Why, yes," replied Nicholas, '* that is in the 
 course of the piece.'' 
 
 " I must have a dance of some kind, you know," 
 said Mr. Folair. " You'll have to introduce one 
 for the Phenomenon, so you'd better make it a 
 pas de deux, and save time." 
 
 " There's nothing easier than that," said Mr. 
 Lenville. ..." You get the distressed lady, 
 and the little child, and the attached servant, 
 into the poor lodgings, don't you ? Well, look 
 here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair, 
 and buries her face in her pocket-handkerchief. 
 ' What makes you weep. Mamma ? ' says the 
 child. ' Don't weep, Mamma, or you'll make me 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 25 
 
 weep too I ' ' And me,' says the faithfal servant 
 rubbing bis eyes with his arm. ' What can we 
 do to raise your spirits, dear Mamma ? ' says the 
 little child. ' Aye, what can we do ? ' says the 
 faithful servant. ' Oh, Pierre,' says the distressed 
 lady, ' would that I could shake off these painful 
 thoughts I ' ' Try, Ma'am, try,' says the faithful 
 servant ; * rouse yourself. Ma'am ; be amused.' 
 ' I will,' says the lady, ' I will learn to suffer with 
 fortitude. Do you remember that dance, my 
 honest friend, which, in happier days, you prac- 
 tised with this sweet angel ? It never failed to 
 calm my spirits then. Oh ! let me see it once 
 acfain before I die I ' There it is, cue for the 
 band, before 1 die — and off they go. That's the 
 regular thing, isn't it, Tommy ? " 
 
 "That's it," replied Mr. Folair. "The dis- 
 tressed lady, overpowered by old recollections, 
 faints at the end of the dance, and you close in 
 with a picture." 
 
 With his own part Mr. Lenville was better 
 satisfied, and indeed, where is the "first tragedy" 
 gentleman who could deny that to turn your 
 wife and child out of doors ; in a fit of 
 rage and jealousy to stab your eldest son in the 
 library ; to be about to destroy yourself when 
 the clock strikes ten; and then, remem- 
 bering to have heard a clock strike ten in 
 your infancy, to become remorseful and 
 
26 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 repentant ; who can deny that all this is " very 
 good business " ? 
 
 But before the performance of his own adapted 
 play, Nicholas was destined to witness one of the 
 stock productions of Mr. Vincent Crummies, 
 which is thus described : — 
 
 " The plot was most interesting. It belonged 
 to no particular age, people, or country, and was 
 perhaps the more delightful on that account, as 
 nobody's previous information could afford the 
 remotest glimmering of what would ever come of 
 it. An outlaw had been very successful in doing 
 something somewhere, and came home in triumph 
 to the sound of shouts and fiddles, to greet his 
 wife — a lady of masculine mind, who talked a 
 good deal about her father's bones, which, it 
 seemed, were unburied, though whether from a 
 peculiar taste on the part of the old gentleman 
 himself, or the reprehensible neglect of his 
 relations, did not appear. This outlaw's wife 
 was, somehow or other, mixed up w4th a patriarch 
 living in a castle a long way off, and this patri- 
 arch was the father of several of the characters, 
 but he didn't exactly know which, and was uncer- 
 tain whether he had brought up the right ones 
 in his castle or the wrong ones, but rather in- 
 clined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy, 
 relieved his mind with a banquet, during which 
 solemnity somebody in a cloak said ' Beware ! ' 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 27 
 
 ■which somebody was known by nobody (except 
 the audience) to be the outlaw himself, who bad 
 come there for reasons unexplained, but possibly 
 with an eye to the spoons. There was an agree- 
 able little surprise, in the way of certain love 
 passages between the desponding captive and 
 Miss Snevellicci, and the comic fighting-man and 
 Miss Bravassa ; besides which Mr. Lenville had 
 several verv traoric scenes in the dark, while on 
 throat-cutting expeditions, which were all baffled 
 by the skill and bravery of the comic fighting- 
 man (who overheard whatever was said all 
 through the piece) and the intrepidity of Miss 
 Snevellicci, who adopted tights, and therein re- 
 paired to the prison of her captive lover, with a 
 small basket of refreshments and a dark lantern. 
 At last it came out that the patriarch was the 
 man who had treated the bones of the outlaw's 
 father-in-law with so much disrespect, for which 
 cause and reason the outlaw's wife repaired to 
 his castle to kill him, and so got into a dark 
 room, where, after a good deal of groping in the 
 dark, everybody got hold of everybody else, and 
 took them for somebody besides, which occasioned 
 a vast quantity of confusion, with some pistolling, 
 loss of life, and torchlight ; after which the patri- 
 arch came forward, and observing, with a knowing 
 look, that he knew all about his children now, 
 and would tell them when they got inside, said 
 
28 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 that there could not be a more appropriate occa- 
 sion for marrying the young people than that ; 
 and therefore he joined their hands, with the full 
 consent of the indefatigable page, who (being the 
 only other person surviving) pointed with his cap 
 into the clouds and his right hand to the ground ; 
 thereby invoking a blessing, and giving the cue 
 for the curtain to come down, w^hich it did, amidst 
 general applause." 
 
 The production of Nicholas's initial dramatic 
 effort was fixed for Miss Snevellicci's " bespeak 
 night," and in accordance with a provincial cus- 
 tom then in vogue among minor theatrical 
 companies, author and actress sallied forth to 
 solicit the patronage of histrionically disposed 
 Portsmouth. If only for the interview which the 
 not too well-assorted pair had with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Curdle of happy memory, the pilgrimage was well 
 worth makinor. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Curdle was supposed, by those 
 who were best informed on such points, to possess 
 quite the London taste in matters relating to 
 literature and the drama ; and as to Mr. Curdle, 
 he had written a pamphlet of sixty-four pages, 
 post octavo, on the character of the Nurse's 
 deceased husband in * Eomeo and Juliet,' with an 
 inquiry whether he really had been a * merry 
 man ' in his lifetime, or whether it was merely 
 his widow's affectionate partiality that induced 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 29 
 
 her so to report him. He had likewise proved, 
 that by altering the received mode of punctuation, 
 any one of Shakespeare's plays could be made 
 quite different, and the sense completely 
 changed ; it is needless to say, therefore, that he 
 was a great critic, and a very profound and most 
 oricrinal thinker." 
 
 Like most such self-appointed critics, Mr. Curdle 
 was a great stickler for what are called the 
 " unities " of the drama, and in response to an 
 inquiry from Nicholas as to what he considered 
 these same " unities " to be, he gave the follow- 
 ing instructive, and hardly to be contradicted, 
 definition. 
 
 «' The unities, sir," he said, " are a complete- 
 ness — a kind of universal dovetailedness with 
 regard to place and time — a sort of general one- 
 ness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an 
 expression. I take those to be the dramatic 
 unities, so far as I have been able to bestow 
 attention upon them, and I have read much upon 
 the subject, and thought much. I find, running 
 through the performances of this child," said Mr. 
 Curdle, turning to the Phenomenon (it is needless 
 to remind the reader that the young lady was 
 present on the occasion), '' a unity of feeling, a 
 breadth, a light and shade, a warmth of colouring, 
 a tone, a harmony, a glow, an artistical develop- 
 ment of original conceptions, which I look for in 
 
30 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 vain, among older performers. I don't know 
 whether I make myself understood." 
 
 " Perfectly," replied Nicholas. 
 
 It must be owned that Mr. Curdle's remarks 
 contain some excellent stock phrases of which 
 would-be critics of the present day are not slow to 
 make use. 
 
 Very soon after this Miss Snevellicci took her 
 benefit, Nicholas's pump-and-tub adaptation was 
 produced with splendid success, and the happy 
 dramatist was rewarded with '^ a presentation copy 
 of Mr. Curdle's pamphlet, with that gentleman's 
 own autograph (in itself an inestimable treasure) 
 on the fly-leaf, accompanied with a note, contain- 
 ing many expressions of approval, and an un- 
 solicited assurance that Mr. Curdle would be very 
 happy to read Shakespeare to him for three hours 
 every morning before breakfast during his stay in 
 town." 
 
 And now it was that Miss Petowker, of the 
 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, joined the company; 
 that same Miss Petowker who, notwithstanding her 
 dislike to "doing anything professional at private 
 parties," was good enough, within the sanctity of 
 the Kenwigs' family circle, to recite " The Blood 
 Drinker's Burial," — to which end she " let down 
 her back hair, and taking up her position at the 
 other end of the room, with the bachelor friend 
 posted in a corner, to rush out at the cue, ' in 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 
 
 31 
 
 death expire,' and catch her in his arms ^Yhen 
 she died raving mad, went through the perform- 
 ance with extraordinary spirit." 
 
 " ' The Blood Drinker ' will die with that girl," 
 said Mr. Crummies to Nicholas while they were 
 discussing this important engagement, " and she's 
 the only sylph I ever saw, who could stand upon 
 one leg, and play the tambourine on her other 
 knee, lihe a sylph." 
 
 But the estimation in which the worthy 
 manager held the histrionic accomplishments of 
 Miss Petowker was not to be outdone by the 
 veneration with which he regarded the absolute 
 genius of Mrs. Crummies. '' I pledge you my 
 professional word," said he, speaking of his wife, 
 '• I didnt even know she could dance till her last 
 benefit, and then she played Juliet and Helen 
 Macgregor, and did the skipping-rope hornpipe 
 between the pieces. The very first time I saw 
 that woman, she stood upon her head on the butt- 
 end of a spear, surrounded with blazing fire- 
 works." 
 
 Who that is familiar with them will ever forget, 
 or fail to be grateful for, the humours of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Crummies on the occasion of Miss Petowker's 
 marriage to Mr. Lillyvick ? for had not the 
 manager, who personated the bride's father, " in 
 pursuance of a happy and original conception 
 ' made up ' for the part by arraying himself in a 
 
32 DICKENS A^D THE STAGE. 
 
 theatrical wig, of a style and pattern commonly 
 known as a brown Greorge," and by " assuming a 
 snufF-coloured suit^of the previous century, with 
 grey silk stockings, and buckles to his shoes ? " 
 " The better to support his assumed character," too, 
 " he had determined to be greatly overcome, and, 
 consequently, when they entered the church, the 
 sobs of the affectionate parent were so heart- 
 rending that the pew-opener suggested the pro- 
 priety of his retiring to the vestry, and comforting 
 himself with a glass of water before the ceremony 
 began." 
 
 On her part Mrs. Crummies conducted herself 
 with a stern and gloomy jmajesty, and advanced 
 up the aisle " with that [stage walk, which con- 
 sists of a stride^ and a stop alternately," and it 
 must not be forgotten that when it came to the 
 signing of the registers Mr. Crummies " care- 
 fully wiped and put on an immense pair of 
 spectacles.*' 
 
 That jealousy was not an unknown factor in 
 the dramatic company of Mr. Crummies is shown 
 by the challenge from Mr. Lenville which, '' per 
 favour of Mr. Folair," was conveyed to Nicholas, 
 and by him received with^contempt. " He cast 
 about for some other way of annoying you," ex- 
 plained the abashed '* Second," " and making 
 himself popular at the same time — for that's the 
 point. Notoriety, notoriety, is the thing. Bless 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS XOVELS. 33 
 
 you, if he had pinked you, it would have been 
 worth — ah, it would have been worth eight or 
 ten shillings a week to him. All the town would 
 have come to see the actor who nearly killed a 
 man by mistake," (this alluded to Mr. Lenville's 
 intention to play " Tybalt " with a real sword). 
 "I shouldn't wonder if it had got him an 
 engagement in London. However, he was 
 obliged to try some other mode of getting 
 popular, and this one occurred to him. It's a 
 clever idea, really. If you had shown the white 
 feather, and let him pull your nose, he'd have 
 got it into the paper ; if you had sworn the 
 peace against him, it would have been in the 
 paper too, and he'd have been just as much talked 
 about as you — don't you see ? " 
 
 On Nicholas's declaring that he might have to 
 leave the company, Mr. Crummies evinced many 
 tokens of grief and consternation, but seeing 
 there was no help for it he proceeded to look at 
 the matter from a business point of view. 
 " Let me see," he said, ^' This is Wednesday 
 night, ^ye'll have posters out the first thing 
 in the morning, announcing positively your last 
 appearance for to-morrow." 
 
 " But, perhaps it may not be my last appear' 
 ance, you know," said Nicholas. " L^nless I am 
 summoned away, I should be sorry to inconveni- 
 ence you by leaving before the end of the week." 
 
 3 
 
34 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " So much the better," returned Mr. Crummies, 
 " We can have positively your last appearance 
 on Thursday — re-engagement for one night more 
 on Friday — and, yielding to the wishes of 
 numerous influential patrons, who were disap- 
 pointed in obtaining seats, on Saturday. That 
 ought to bring three very decent houses." 
 
 " Then I am to make three last appearances, 
 am I ? " inquired Nicholas, smiling. 
 
 " Yes," rejoined the manager, scratching his 
 head with an air of some vexation ; " three is 
 not enough, and it's very bungling and irregular 
 not to have more, but if we can't help it we can't, 
 so there's no use in talking. A novelty would be 
 very desirable. You couldn't sing a comic song 
 on the pony's back, could you ? " 
 
 " No," replied Nicholas. " I couldn't indeed." 
 " It has drawn money before now," said Mr. 
 Crummies, with a look of disappointment. 
 " What do you think of a brilliant display of 
 fireworks ? " 
 
 " That vrould be rather expensive," replied 
 Nicholas, drily. 
 
 " Eighteenpence would do it," said Mr. 
 Crummies. " You on the top of a pair of steps 
 with the phenomenon in an attitude ; * Farewell ' 
 on a transparency behind ; and nine peoj^le at 
 the wings with a squib in each hand — all the 
 dozen and a half going off at once — it would 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 35 
 
 be very grand — awful from the front, quite 
 
 awful." 
 
 But before saying good-bye to Mr. Crummies 
 and the Portsmouth Theatre, Nicholas had the 
 honour of an introduction to Miss Snevellicci's 
 papa, " who had been in the profession ever since 
 he had first played the ten-year-old imps in the 
 Christmas pantomimes ; who could sing a little, 
 dance a little, fence a little, act a little, and do 
 everything a little but not much ; who had been 
 sometimes in the ballet, and sometimes in the 
 chorus, at every theatre in London ; who was 
 always selected in virtue of his figure to play 
 the military visitors and the speechless noble- 
 men ; who always wore a smart dress, and came 
 in arm-in-arm with a smart lady in short 
 petticoats, and always did it with such an air 
 that people in the pit had been several times 
 known to cry out ' Bravo ! ' under the impression 
 that he was somebody. Such was Miss 
 Snevillicci's papa, upon whom some envious 
 persons cast the imputation that he occasionally 
 beat Miss Snevellicci's mama, who was still a 
 dancer, with a neat little figure, and some re- 
 mains of good looks ; and who now sat, as she 
 danced— being rather too old for the glare of the 
 footlights — in the back ground." 
 
 Miss Snevellicci's papa was gracious enough to 
 compliment Nicholas upon his acting, saying that 
 
 3* 
 
36 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 there hadn't been such a hit made — " no, not 
 since the first appearance of his friend Mr. 
 Grlavormelly, at the Coburg." 
 
 " You have seen him, sir ? " said Miss 
 Snevellicci's papa. 
 
 " No, really, I never did," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " You never saw my friend Grlavormelly, sir ? " 
 said Miss Snevellicci's papa, "then you have 
 never seen acting yet. If he had lived " 
 
 " Oh, he is dead, is he ? " interrupted Nicholas. 
 " He is," said Mr. Snevellicci ; " but he isn't 
 in Westminster Abbey, more's the shame. He 
 was a — well, no matter. He has gone to that 
 bourne from whence no traveller returns. I hope 
 he is appreciated there." 
 
 It was on the next day that the public were in- 
 formed, " in all the colours of the rainbow, and 
 in letters afflicted with every possible variation 
 of spinal deformity, that Mr. Johnson " (other- 
 wise Nicholas Nickleby) " would have the honour 
 of making his last appearance that evening, and 
 how that an early application for places was re- 
 quested, in consequence of the extraordinary 
 overflow attendant on his performances, it being 
 a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one 
 long since established beyond dispute, that it is 
 a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a 
 theatre unless they can be first brought to 
 believe that they can never get into it." 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 37 
 
 he entertainment was not only a great 
 success in itself, but an unexpected lustre was 
 added to it from the fact that a London man- 
 ager was in the boxes. 
 
 " When everybody was dressed and the curtain 
 went up, the excitement occasioned by the pre- 
 sence of the London manager increased a thou- 
 sandfold. Everybody happened to know that 
 the London manager had come down specially to 
 witness his or her own performance, and all were 
 in a flutter of anxiety and expectation. . . . 
 Once the London manager was seen to smile — he 
 smiled at the comic countryman's pretending to 
 catch a blue-bottle, while Mrs. Crummies was 
 making her greatest effect. ' Very good, my fine 
 fellow,' said jNL:. Crummies, shaking his fist at 
 the comic countryman when he came off, 'you 
 leave this company next Saturday night.' " 
 
 " In the same way, everybody who was on the 
 stage beheld no audience but one individual; 
 everybody played to the London manager. When 
 Mr. Lenville, in a sudden burst of passion, called 
 the emperor a miscreant, and then, biting his 
 glove, said : * But I must dissemble,' instead of 
 looking gloomily at the boards and so waiting for 
 his cue, as is proper in such cases, he kept his 
 eyes fixed upon the London manager. When 
 Miss Bravassa sang her song at her lover, who 
 according to custom stood ready to shake hands 
 
38 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 with her between the verses, they looked, not at 
 each other, but at the London manager. Mr. 
 Crummies died point-blank at him ; and when 
 the two guards came in to take the body off after 
 a very hard death, it was seen to open its eyes 
 and glance at the London manager. At length 
 the London manager was discovered to be asleep, 
 and shortly after that he woke up and went 
 away, whereupon all the company fell foul of 
 the comic countryman, declaring that his buf- 
 foonery was the sole cause ; and Mr. Crummies 
 said that he had put up with it a long time, but 
 that he really couldn't stand it any longer, and 
 therefore would feel obliged by his looking out 
 for another engagement." 
 
 After this, it will be remembered, Nicholas 
 bade a final farewell to the stage, and it is not 
 until we are nearly at the end of his history, and 
 his lines have permanently fallen into other, if 
 not more pleasant places, that Mr. Crummies 
 again appears, " for positively the last time " 
 upon the scene. 
 
 '' Positively the last appearance of Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies of Provincial Celebrity ! ! ! " was, in- 
 deed, the announcement that met the eye of 
 Nicholas as, in absent mood, he glanced at a 
 play-bill hanging outside a minor London 
 theatre. 
 
 " In one line by itself was an announcement 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 39 
 
 of the first night of a new melo-drama ; in an- 
 other line by itself was an announcement of the 
 last six nights of an old one; a third line was 
 devoted to the re-engagement of the unrivalled 
 African knife-swallower, who had kindly suffered 
 himself to be prevailed upon to forego his country 
 engagements for one week longer; a fourth line 
 announced that Mr. Suit tie Timberry, having 
 recovered from his late severe indisposition, 
 would have the honour of appearing that even- 
 ing ; a fifth line said that there were ' Cheers, 
 Tears, and Laughter ! ' every night ; a sixth, that 
 that was positively the last appearance of Mr. 
 Vincent Crummies of Provincial Celebrity." 
 
 " Surely it must be the same man," thought 
 Nicholas. " There can't be two Vincent 
 Crummies " ; and in a few moments he found 
 himself in the managerial presence. 
 
 " Mr. Crummies was unfeignedly glad to see 
 him, and starting up from before a small dress- 
 ing-glass, with oDe very bushy eyebrow stuck on 
 crooked over his left eye, and the fellow eye- 
 brow and the calf of one of his legs in his hand, 
 embraced him cordially, at the same time 
 observing, * that it would do Mrs. Crummles's 
 heart good to bid him good-bye before they 
 went.' " 
 
 " * But where are you going to that you talk 
 about bidding good-bye ? ' asked Nicholas. 
 
40 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 *' ^ Haven't you seen it in the papers ? ' said 
 Mr. Crummies, with some dignity. 
 
 " ' No,' replied Nicholas. 
 
 " ' I wonder at that,' said the manager ; * it 
 was among the varieties. I had the paragraph 
 here somewhere— but I don't know — oh, yes, 
 here it is ! ' 
 
 " So saying Mr. Crummies, after pretending 
 that he thought he must have lost it, produced a 
 square inch of newspaper from the pantaloons he 
 wore in private life, and gave it to Nicholas to 
 read. 
 
 *' ' The talented Vincent Crummies, long fa- 
 vourably known to fame as a country manager 
 and actor of no ordinary pretensions, is about to 
 cross the Atlantic on a histrionic expedition. 
 Crummies is to be accompanied, we hear, by his 
 lady and gifted family. We know no man superior 
 to Crummies in his particular line of character, 
 or one who, whether as a public or private indi- 
 vidual, could carry with him the best wishes of 
 a larger circle of friends. Crummies is certain 
 to succeed.' 
 
 " * Here's another bit,' said Mr. Crummies, 
 handing over a still smaller scrap. ' This is 
 from the notices to correspondents, this one.' 
 
 " Nicholas read it aloud : — 
 
 " ' Philo Dramaticus. — Crummies, the country 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 41 
 
 manager and actor, cannot be more than forty- 
 three or forty-four years of age. Crummies is 
 XoT a Prussian, having been bom in Chelsea.' 
 
 " ' Humph ! ' said Nicholas, ' that's an odd 
 paragraph.' 
 
 " ' Very,' said Crummies, scratching the side 
 of his nose, and looking at Nicholas with an as- 
 sumption of great concern. ' I can't think who 
 puts these things in. / didn't.' " 
 
 "Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr. 
 Crummies shook his head twice or thrice with 
 profound gravity, and remarking that he could 
 not for the life of him imagine how the news- 
 papers found out the things they did, folded up 
 the extracts and put them in his pocket again." 
 
 Nicholas was now informed that if he wished 
 to take a last adieu of Mrs. Crummies, he must 
 repair that night to a farewell supper, given in 
 honour of the family at a neighbouring tavern, 
 " at which Mr. Snittle Tifnberry would preside, 
 while the honours of the vice-chair would be 
 sustained by the African Swallower." 
 
 " It was upon the whole a very distinguished 
 party, for independently of the lesser theatrical 
 lights who clustered on this occasion round Mr. 
 Snittle Timberry, there was a literary gentleman 
 present, who had dramatised in his time two 
 hundred and forty-seven novels, as fast as they 
 
42 DICKENS AND THE STAGK. 
 
 came out — some of them faster than they had 
 come out — and was a literary gentleman in con- 
 sequence." 
 
 Nicholas expressed his gratification at meeting 
 a person of such great distinction. 
 
 '' ' Sir,' replied the wit, ' you're very welcome, 
 
 I'm sure. The honour is rediprocal, sir, as I 
 
 » 
 
 usually say when I dramatise a book. Did you 
 ever hear a definition of fame, sir ? ' " 
 
 " * I have heard several,' replied Nicholas with 
 a smile. * What is yours ? ' " 
 
 " ' When I dramatise a book, sir,' said the 
 literary gentleman, ' that^s fame — for its 
 author.'" 
 
 " ' Oh, inded !' rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " ' That's fame, sir,' said the literary gentleman. 
 
 " ' So Eichard Turpin, Tom King, and Jerry 
 Abershaw, have handed down to fame the names 
 of those on whom they committed their most im- 
 pudent robberies, ' said Nicholas. 
 
 "'I do not know anything about that, sir,' 
 answered the literary gentleman. 
 
 " ' Shakespeare dramatised stories which had 
 previously appeared in print, it is true,' ob- 
 served Nicholas. 
 
 " ' Meaning Bill, sir ? ' said the literary gentle- 
 man. * So he did. Bill was an adaptor, certainly, 
 so he was — and very well he adapted, too, con- 
 sidering.' 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS N'OYELS. 43 
 
 " I was about to say,' rejoined Nicholas, * that 
 Shakespeare derived some of his plots from old 
 tales and legends in general circulation ; but it 
 seems to me that some of the gentlemen of your 
 craft of the present day have shot very far 
 beyond him.' 
 
 " ' You're quite right, sir,' interrupted the 
 literary gentleman, leaning back in his chair and 
 exercising his tooth-pick. ' Human intellect, sir, 
 has progressed since his time — is progressing — 
 will progress.' 
 
 " ' Shot beyond him, I mean/ resumed 
 Nicholas, ' in quite another respect, for whereas 
 he brought within the magic circle of his genius 
 traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and 
 turned familiar things into constellations which 
 should enlighten the world for ages, you drag 
 within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects 
 not at all adapted to the purposes of the stage, 
 and debase .as he exalted. For instance, you 
 take the uncompleted books of living authors, 
 fresh from their hands, wet from the press, cut, 
 hack and carve them to the powers and capacities 
 of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, 
 finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely 
 vamp up ideas not yet worked out by their 
 original projector, but which have doubtless cost 
 him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights ; 
 by a comparison of incidents and dialogue, down to 
 
U DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 the very last word lie may have written a fort- 
 night before, do your utmost to anticipate his plot 
 — all this without his permission and against his 
 will ; and then, to crown the whole proceeding, 
 publish in some mean pamphlet an unmeaning 
 farrago of garbled extracts from his work, to 
 which you put your name as author, with the 
 honourable distinction annexed of having perpe- 
 trated a hundred other outrages of the same des- 
 cription. Now, show me the distinction between 
 such pilfering as this and picking a man's 
 pocket in the street ; unless, indeed, it be that 
 the legislature has a regard for pocket handker- 
 chiefs, and leaves men's brains, except when they 
 are knocked out by violence, to take care of 
 themselves.' 
 
 '' ' Men must live, sir,' said the literary gentle- 
 man, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 "* That would be an equally fair plea in both 
 cases,' replied Nicholas, ' but if you put it upon 
 that ground, I have nothing more to say than, if 
 I were a writer of books, and you a thirsty drama- 
 tist, I would rather pay your tavern score for six 
 months — large as it might be — than have a niche 
 in the Temple of Fame with you for the humblest 
 corner of my pedestal, through six hundred 
 generations.'" 
 
 After this outburst one is scarcely surprised to 
 read that '* the conversation threatened to take a 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 45 
 
 somewhat angry tone " (the subject of it was one on 
 which Dickens had good cause to feel strongly, 
 and, like many more injured men, he perhaps, as 
 will be seen later on in these pages, hardly 
 weighed the force of his remarks), but the 
 " literary gentleman " was presumably a lover of 
 peace, and not only did the banquet go off magni- 
 ficently, but the subsequent and inevitable 
 speech-making was a gratifiying success until the 
 health of the literary gentleman himself had to 
 be drunk, when " it being discovered that he had 
 been drunk for some time in another acceptation 
 of the term, and was then asleep on the stairs, 
 the intention was abandoned, and the honour 
 transferred to the ladies." 
 
 When the time came for Nicholas to bid fare- 
 well to the warm-heartedVincent Crummies, "not 
 a jot of the theatrical manner remained ; he put 
 out his hand with an air which, if he could have 
 summoned it at will, would have made him the 
 best actor of his day in homely parts, and when 
 Nicholas shook it with the warmth he honestly 
 felt, appeared thoroughly melted." 
 
 « ' We were a very happy little company, John- 
 son,' said poor Crumm.les. 'You and I never 
 had a word. I shall be very glad to-morrow 
 morning to think that I saw you again, but now 
 I almost wish you hadn't come.'" 
 
 Very briefly has the compiler of these pages 
 
46 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 passed over the inimitable chapters in " Nicholas 
 Nickleby," in which the Crummies family, and 
 the Crummies cDmpany, do immortal service. Of 
 course, since those days great advances in dramatic 
 art have been made, and especially are provincial 
 play-houses better provided with entertainment, 
 but what was true of the minor theatre then, is 
 more or less true of the minor theatre of to-day, 
 and if in Dickens's descriptions exaggerations 
 creep in, they may be forgiven a hundred times 
 over for their humour. Certainly, at the present 
 time we are not free from pretentious, self-con- 
 stituted critics of the Curdle type ; London man- 
 agers are still in a position (especially at panto- 
 mime time) to flutter the country theatrical 
 dove-cot ; repeated '^ last appearances " are not 
 absolutely things of a bye-gone day ; " literary 
 gentlemen " are now and then known to purloin 
 plots ; and the great question concerning news- 
 paper paragraphs, which Mr. Crummies summed 
 up in the words, " I can't think who puts these 
 things in. / didn't," remains unanswered. 
 
 With all their little foibles the Crummies com- 
 pany were a genial, merry, honest set of people. 
 One reads of them with delight, and takes leave 
 of them with regret. They may not, from the 
 severely critical point of view, have been a credit 
 to the stage ; but who can say that they disgraced 
 it? 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 47 
 
 In " Martin Chuzzlewit," brief mention of the 
 stage is made in a manner far less agreeable. At 
 the house of the fashionable Mr. Tigg Montague, 
 Jonas Chuzzlewit was presented to a certain Mr. 
 Pip, with the recommendation that he was a 
 " theatrical man — capital man to know — oh, 
 capital man I " and in the course of the conversa- 
 tion, this engaging gentleman told the following 
 dainty anecdote : 
 
 " ' But the Viscount's the boy,' cried Pip, who 
 invented a new oath for the introduction of 
 everything he said. * The Viscount's the boy ! 
 He came into our place one night to take Her 
 home, rather slued, but not much, and said, 
 " Where's Pip ? I want to see Pip. Produce Pip ! " 
 " What is the row, my lord? " *' Shakespeare's an 
 infernal humbug, Pip ! What's the good of 
 Shakespeare, Pip ? I never read him. What the 
 devil is it all about, Pip ? There's a lot of feet in 
 Shakespeare's verse, but there ain't legs worth 
 mentioning in Shakespeare's plays, are there, 
 Pip ? Juliet, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and 
 all the rest of 'em, whatever their names are, 
 might as well have no legs at all, for anything 
 the audience know about it, Pip. Why, in that 
 respect they're all Miss Biffins to the audience, 
 Pip. ril tell you what it is. What the people 
 call dramatic poetry is a collection of sermons. 
 Do I go to the theatre to be lectured? No, Pip. 
 
48 DICKENS AND THE STAQE. 
 
 If I wanted that, I'd go to cliurch. What is the 
 legitimate object of the drama, Pip ? Human 
 nature. What are legs ? Human nature. Then 
 let us have plenty of leg pieces, Pip, and I'll 
 stand by you, my buck ! " ' And I am proud to 
 say,' added Pip, ' that he did stand by me, 
 handsomely I ' " 
 
 If it can be said of him that he really belonged 
 to the stage, Mr. Pip certainly disgraced it. 
 
 In " Dombey and Son," and " David Copper- 
 field," although it should not be forgotten that 
 David in his salad days saw " Julius Caesar " per- 
 formed at Covent Grarden, and thought that " to 
 have all those Roman nobles alive before me, and 
 walking in and out for my entertainment, in- 
 stead of being the stem task-masters they had 
 been at school, was a most novel and delightful 
 effect," there is little or no mention made of 
 the theatre, or of theatrical people ; and a few 
 years ago the same might have been said of 
 *' Bleak House," but now that the concert-hall 
 furnishes so many recruits to the stage, a little 
 space in these pages surely need not be grudged 
 to the famous " Little Swills." 
 
 '* Bleak House" was written long before the 
 days when the palatial concert-halls of the present 
 time had sprung into existence, and " Little 
 Swills," who might nowadays have been driving 
 his own well-appointed carriage, and doing three 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 49 
 
 or four higlily remunerative " turns " nightly, 
 was perforce obliged to exercise his talent in the 
 first-floor room at the " Sol's Arms," hard by 
 Chancery Lane, where harmonic meetings took 
 place twice weekly, and where a window-bill ex- 
 pressed a hope that his (Little Swills's) friends 
 would " rally round him and support first-rate 
 talent." Little Swills, who is described as " a 
 chubby little man, with a moist eye and an in- 
 flamed nose," was of a persevering disposition, and 
 was evidently great at " topical allusions," for did 
 he not make a point of being present at the inquest 
 held at the Sol's Arms on the body of the unhappy 
 law writer, with a view of getting up an imitation 
 of the coroner, and making it a principal feature 
 of the harmonic meeting in the evening ? — and 
 did he not redeem his intention by saying at 
 that intellectual and convivial gathering, 
 " Grentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a 
 short description of a scene of real life that came 
 off here to-day " ? AVhereupon, being much 
 applauded and encouraged, he went out of the 
 room as Swills, came in as the coroner (" not the 
 least in the world like him "), described the 
 inquest, with recreative intervals of pianoforte 
 accompaniment to the refrain, " With his (the 
 coroner's) tippj tol li doll, tippy tol lo doll, tippy 
 tol li doll, Dee ! " In the hot summer months 
 the harmonic meetings at the ".Sol's Arms," were 
 
 4 
 
50 mCKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 discontinued^ and then Little Swills was engaged 
 at the Pastoral Grardens down the river, " where 
 he comes out in quite an innocent manner, and 
 sings comic ditties of a juvenile complexion, cal- 
 culated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings 
 of the most fastidious mind " ; but on the night 
 of the terrible death of old Krook, he was back 
 in his old quarters, and " after keeping the lovers 
 of harmony in a roar like a very Yorick," was 
 heard " taking the gruff line in a concerted piece, 
 and sentimentally adjuring his friends and 
 patrons to ' Listen, listen, listen. Tew the wa-ter 
 Fall ! ' " and, later on, when the Smallweed 
 family had taken mysterious possession of the 
 Krook establishment, he was to the fore with 
 " what are professionally known as * patter' allu- 
 sions to the subject"; his efforts being well- 
 seconded by those of Miss M. Melville son " in the 
 revived Caledonian melody of * We're a' nodding,' " 
 that eminent vocalist pointing the sentiment 
 that " ' the dogs love broo ' (whatever the nature 
 of that refreshment may be) with such archness 
 and such a turn of the head towards next door, 
 that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. 
 Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly 
 honoured with a double encore." 
 
 And so Mr. Swills passes out of the glorious 
 pages of " Bleak House," and the reader is left 
 JFi wonder whether he ever became accepted on 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 51 
 
 the Stage proper as one of the leading comedians 
 of the day. Perhaps, however, poor Little Swills 
 flourished before his time, and in the degenerate 
 days when comedy, or even comic acting, was 
 preferred to concert-hall singing. 
 
 In ''Little Dorrit " there is a very touching 
 description of poor old Frederick Dorrit in the 
 days when he played the clarionet in a small 
 London theatre, and a very graphic description 
 of a ballet rehearsal which took place on the day 
 when Little Dorrit herself, in her anxiety con- 
 cerning her flighty sister Fanny, found her way 
 into the mysterious world " behind the scenes." 
 
 " Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the 
 ways of theatres as of the ways of gold mines, 
 and when she was directed to a furtive sort of 
 door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that 
 appeared to be ashamed of itself and to be hiding 
 in an alley, she hesitated to approach it, being 
 further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen 
 close-shaved gentlemen, with their hats very 
 strangely on, who were hanging about the door, 
 looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her 
 applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, 
 for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for 
 her to enter a dark hall — it was more like a great 
 grim lamp gone out than anything else — where 
 she could hear the distant playing of music and 
 the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in 
 
 4* 
 
.^2 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 want of airing that he had a blue mould upon 
 him, sat watching this dark place from a 
 hole in a corner, like a spider; and he told her 
 that he would send a message up to Miss Dorrit 
 by the first lady or gentleman that went through. 
 The first lady who went through, had a roll of 
 music, half in her mufi' and half out of it, and 
 was in such a tumbled condition altogether that 
 it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to 
 iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and 
 said * Come with me ; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit 
 for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went with her, draw- 
 ing nearer and nearer at every step she took in 
 the darkness to the sound of music and the 
 sound of dancing feet." 
 
 '^ At last they came into a maze of dust, where 
 a quantity of people were tumbling over one an- 
 other, and where there was such a confusion of 
 unaccountable shapes and beams, bulkheads, 
 brick walls, ropes and rollers, and such a mix- 
 ing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed 
 to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of 
 the universe. Little Dorrit, left to herself, and 
 knocked against by somebody every minute, was 
 quite bewildered when she heard her sister's 
 voice." 
 
 The conversation between the sisters requires 
 no record here, and indeed, it was very soon 
 interrupted, as was also the chattering of a 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 53 
 
 number of young ladies who sat on anything 
 they could find, who all " wanted ironing," and 
 who all " had a curious way of looking every- 
 where while they chattered," by " a monotonous 
 boy in a Scotch cap," who put his head round a 
 beam on the left, and said, " Less noise there, 
 ladies ! " and by '' a sprightly gentleman, with a 
 quantity of black hair," who put his head round 
 a beam on the right, and said, " Less noise 
 there, darlings." 
 
 This couple having very shortly afterwards 
 severally given the warning of " Look out there, 
 ladies," and " Look out there, darlings," all " the 
 young ladies rose, and began shaking their skirts 
 out behind," and when " Now ladies," and 
 "Xow darlings," had been cried, Little Dorrit 
 was left alone to listen to the music and the 
 dancing feet, and the accompaniment of the voice 
 of the gentleman with the black hair, who was 
 continually calling out, ' " One, two, three, four, 
 five, six — go ! One, two, three, four, five, six — 
 go I Steady, darlings I One, two, three, four, 
 five, six — go ! ' " Ultimately the voice stopped, 
 and they all came back again, more or less out 
 of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, 
 and making ready for the streets, and when 
 the boy and the man had in their accustomed 
 manner, and each from his own beam, said, 
 " Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies," and 
 
64 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " Everybody at eleven to-morrow, darlings," Amy 
 and Fanny Dorrit were left to themselves. 
 
 " When they were alone, something was rolled 
 up or by other means got out of the way, and 
 there was a great empty well before them, look- 
 ing down into the depths of which, Fanny said, 
 * Now Uncle ! ' Little Dorrit, as her eyes became 
 used to the darkness, faintly made him out, at 
 the bottom of the well, in an obscure corner by 
 himself, with his instrument in its ragged case 
 under his arm." 
 
 *' The old man looked as if the remote high 
 gallery windows, with their little strip of sky, 
 might have been the point of his better 
 fortunes, from which he had descended until 
 he had gradually sunk down below there to 
 the bottom. He had been in that place six 
 nights a week for many years, but had never 
 been observed to raise his eyes above his music- 
 book, and was confidently believed to have never 
 seen a play. There were legends in the place 
 that he did not so much as know the popular 
 heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low 
 comedian had ' mugged ' at him in his richest 
 manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had 
 shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters 
 had a joke that he was dead without being aware 
 of it, and the frequenters of the pit supposed 
 him to pass his whole life, night and day, 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 55 
 
 and Sunday and all, in the orchestra. 
 They had tried him a few times with 
 pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he 
 had always responded to this attention with a 
 momentary waking-up of manner that had the 
 pale phantom of a gentleman in it ; beyond this 
 he never, on any occasion, had any other part 
 in what was going on than the part written 
 out for the clarionet : in private life, where 
 there was no part for the clarionet, he had no 
 part at all." 
 
 In this there is something so terribly pathetic 
 that it is almost a relief to know that in " Great 
 Expectations," Dickens returned to his earlier 
 and humorous view of theatrical life. 
 
 From the moment when the appreciative 
 reader is introduced to the pompous, Eoman- 
 nosed, parish clerk, Mr. AVopsle, who was con- 
 vinced that if the Church was " thrown open," 
 he would speedily make his mark in it, he finds 
 himself in the best of good company, and when 
 Mr. Wopsle changes his name to AValdengarver, 
 and tries his fortune on the stage, he is seen at 
 his greatest ; albeit Joe Gargery expressed it as his 
 opinion that in his change of life he had " had a 
 drop." 
 
 " ' Had a drop, Joe ? ' enquired Pip. 
 
 " ' Why, yes,' said Joe, lowering his voice, ' he's 
 left the Church and went into the play-acting. 
 
56 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Which the play-acting have likeways brought him 
 to London along with me. And his wish were, 
 if no offence, as I would 'and you that.' 
 
 Pip took what Joe gave him, and found it to 
 be '* the crumpled play-bill of a small metro- 
 politan theatre, announcing the first appearance 
 in that very week of ' the celebrated Provincial 
 Amateur of Eoscian renown, whose unique per- 
 formances in the highest tragic walk of our 
 National Bard has lately occasioned so great a 
 sensation in local dramatic circles.' 
 
 " ' Were you at his performance, Joe ? ' in- 
 quired Pip. 
 
 " ' I were^ said Joe, with emphasis and 
 solemnity. 
 
 " ' Was there a great sensation ? ' 
 
 " * Why,' said Joe, * yes, there certainly were a 
 peck of orange-peel. Partickler when he see the 
 ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir, whether 
 it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his work 
 with a good heart, to be continually cutting in 
 betwixt him and the ghost with " Amen ! " A 
 man may have had a misfortun' and been in the 
 Church, but that is no reason why you should put 
 him out at such a time. Which I meanter say, 
 if the ghost of a man's own father cannot be 
 allowed to claim his attention, what can, sir ? 
 Still more, when his mourning 'at is unfortunately 
 made so small as that the weio^ht of the black 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS .NOVELS. 57 
 
 feathers brings it off, try to keep it on how you 
 may.'" 
 
 Pip's experience of Mr. Wopsle's (or Mr. Wal- 
 dengarver's) performance of Hamlet, is described 
 by hiim as follows : — 
 
 " On our arrival in Denmark, we found the 
 king and queen of that country elevated in two 
 arm-chairs, on a kitchen table, holding a Court. 
 The whole of the Danish nobility were in attend- 
 ance ; consisting of a noble boy, in the wash- 
 leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable 
 peer with a dirty face, who seemed to have risen 
 from the people late in life, and the Danish 
 chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of 
 white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a 
 fenainine appearance. My gifted townsman stood 
 gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could have 
 wished that his curls and forehead had been more 
 probable. 
 
 " Several curious little circumstances transpired 
 as the action proceeded. The late king of the 
 country not only appeared to have been troubled 
 with a cough at the time of his decease, but to 
 have taken it with him to the tomb, and to have 
 brought it back. The royal phantom also carried 
 a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to 
 which it had the appearance of occasionally 
 referring, and that, too, with an air of anxiety 
 and a tendency to lose the place of reference 
 
68 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 which were suggestive of a state of mortality. It 
 was this, I conceive, which led to the shade's 
 being advised by the gallery to ' turn over ! ' — a 
 recommendation which it took extremely ill. It 
 was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit 
 that whereas it always appeared with an air of 
 having been out a long time and walked an im- 
 mense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely 
 contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be 
 received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a 
 very buxom lady, though no doubt historically 
 brazen, was considered by the public to have too 
 much brass about her ; her chin being attached 
 to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as 
 if she had gorgeous toothache), her waist being 
 encircled by another, and each of her arms by 
 another, so that she was openly mentioned as the 
 ' kettledrum.' 
 
 *' The noble boy in the ancestral boots, was in- 
 consistent, representing himself, as it were in one 
 breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a 
 gravedigger, a clergyman, and a person of the 
 utmost importance at a Court fencing match, on 
 the authority of whose practised eye and nice 
 discrimination the finest strokes were judged. 
 This gradually led to a want of toleration for 
 him, and even — on his being detected in holy 
 orders and declining to perform the funeral service 
 — to the general indignation taking the form of 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 59 
 
 nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow 
 musical madness, that when, in course of time, 
 she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it 
 up, and buried it, a sulky man who had been cool- 
 ing his impatient nose against an iron bar in the 
 front row of the gallery, growled, ' Now the baby's 
 put to bed let's have supper I ' Which, to say 
 the least of it, was out of keeping. 
 
 " Upon my unfortunate townsman all these in- 
 cidents accumulated with playful effect. When- 
 ever that undecided Prince had to ask a question 
 or state a doubt, the public helped him out with 
 it. As for example, on the question whether it 
 was nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, 
 and some no, and some inclining to both opinions 
 said ' toss up for it," and quite a Debating Society 
 arose. When he asked what such fellows as he 
 do crawling between earth and heaven, he was 
 encouraged with loud cries of * Hear, hear ! ' 
 When he appeared with his stocking disordered 
 (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one 
 very neat fold in the top, which I suppose always 
 to be got up with a flat iron), a conversation took 
 place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his 
 leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn 
 the ghost had given him. On his taking the 
 recorders — very like a little black flute that had 
 just been played in the orchestra and handed out 
 at the door — be was called upon unanimously for 
 
60 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Rule Eritannia. When he recommended the 
 player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man 
 said, * And don't you do it neither; you're a deal 
 worse than him I ' And I grieve to say that 
 peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every 
 one of these occasions. 
 
 " But his greatest trials were in the church- 
 yard, which had the appearance of a primeval 
 forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash- 
 house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the 
 other. Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black 
 cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike, 
 the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly 
 way, ' Look out ! There's the undertaker a 
 coming, to see how you're getting on with your 
 work ! ' I believe it is well known in a constitu- 
 tional country that Mr. Wopsle could not 
 possibly have returned the skull, after moralising 
 over it, without dusting his fingers on a white 
 napkin taken from his breast ; but even that 
 innocent and indispensable action did not pass 
 without the comment ' Wai-ter ! ' The arrival 
 of the body for interment (in an empty black 
 box with the lid tumbling open) was the signal 
 for a general joy which was much enhanced by 
 the discovery, among the bearers of an in- 
 dividual obnoxious to identification. The joy 
 attended Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with 
 Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and the 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 61 
 
 grave, and slackened no more until he had 
 tumbled the King off the kitchen-table, and had 
 died by inches from the ankles upwards." 
 
 Those who have been present at a theatrical 
 entertainment when an unholy ''joy" of this 
 kind inspires an irreverently disposed gallery will 
 always keenly relish the truth and the rich humour 
 of this inimitable description ; and those who 
 have had any experience of the absolutely in- 
 curable conceit of the amateur actor who believes 
 himself capable of impersonating exacting 
 characters, which, after life-long study, are 
 rarely perfect in the hands of the professional 
 player, will not feel the least atom of surprise on 
 finding that even after this merciless " gnying," 
 Mr. Wopsle— or, " Mr. Waldengarver "—was self- 
 satisfied, sanguine, and serene. 
 
 "'How did you like my reading of the 
 character, gentlemen ? ' said Mr. AYaldengarver, 
 almost, if not quite, with patronage on the 
 subsequent visit of Pip and Herbert Pocket to 
 his dressing-room. 
 
 " Herbert said from behind (again poking me), 
 ' massive and concrete.' So I said boldly, as if 
 I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon 
 it, ' massive and concrete.' 
 
 " ' I am glad to have your approbation, gentle- 
 men,' said Mr. Waldengarver, with dignity. 
 
 " ' But 1*11 tell you one thing, Mr. AYalden- 
 
62 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 garver,' said the * dresser,' who was divesting him 
 of his Danish garments, ' in which you're out in 
 your reading. Now mind ! I don't care who 
 says the contrary ; I tell you so. You're out in 
 your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs 
 in profile. The last Hamlet as T dressed, made 
 the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, 
 till I got him to put a large red wafer on each 
 of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which 
 was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of 
 the pit, and whenever his reading brought him 
 into profile, I called out, " I don't see no wafers ! " 
 And at night his reading was lovely.' 
 
 ^' Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as 
 to say *a faithful dependent — I overlook his 
 folly ; ' and then said aloud, * My view is a little 
 classic and thoughful for them here ; but they 
 will improve, they will improve.' 
 
 " * Did you observe gentlemen,' continued Mr. 
 Waldengarver, * that there was a man in the 
 gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the 
 service — I mean the representation ? ' 
 
 " We basely replied that we rather thought 
 we had noticed such a man. I added, ' He was 
 drunk, no doubt.' 
 
 " ' Oh dear no, sir,' said Mr. Wopsle, ' not 
 drunk. His employer would see to that sir. 
 His employer would not allow him to be drunk.' 
 
 " ' You know his employer ? ' said I. 
 
THE STAOE IN HIS NOVELS. 63 
 
 " Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened 
 them again, performing both ceremonies very 
 slowly. 
 
 " * You must have observed gentlemen,' said 
 he, 'an ignorant and blatant ass, with a rasping 
 throat, and a countenance expressive of low 
 malignity, who went through — I will not say 
 sustained — the role (if I may use a French ex- 
 pression) of Claudius, King of Denmark. That 
 is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the pro- 
 fession.' " 
 
 Pip is charitable enough to say that he did 
 not know " whether he should have been more 
 sorry for ]\Ir. ^Vopsle if he had been in despair." 
 but Dickens, no doubt, knew that men of the 
 Wopsle class (and there are plenty of them) 
 require no pity, but are, on the contrary, to be 
 envied for their impenetrable and always self- 
 sustaining vanity. 
 
 jNIr. ^yopsle, however, did not rise to fame by 
 leaps and bounds, for on the next occasion when 
 Pip visited the theatre which was fortunate 
 enough to claim him as a member of its com- 
 pany, he found — " A virtuous boatswam in his 
 Majesty's service — a most excellent man, though 
 I could have wished his trousers not quite so 
 tight in some places and not quite so loose in 
 others— who knocked all the little men's hats 
 over their eyes, though he was very generous- 
 
64 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. " 
 
 and brave, and who would'nt hear of anybody 
 paying taxes, though he was very patriotic. He 
 had a bag of money in his pocket, like a 
 pudding in the cloth, and on that property 
 married a young person in bed furniture, with 
 great rejoicings ; the whole population of Ports- 
 mouth (nine in number at the last census) turn- 
 ing out on the beach, to rub their own hands 
 and shake everybody else's, and sing ' fill, fill I ' 
 A certain dark-complexioned Swab, however, who 
 wouldn't fill or do anything else that was pro- 
 posed to him, and w^hose heart was openly stated 
 (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure- 
 head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all 
 mankind into difficulties ; which was so effectu- 
 ally done (the Swab family having considerable 
 political influence) that it took half the evening 
 to get things right, and then it was only brought 
 about through an honest little grocer, with a white 
 hat, black gaiters and red nose, getting into a clock 
 with a gridiron, and listening, and coming out, 
 and knocking everybody down from behind with 
 the gridiron whom he couldn't confute with what 
 he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle's 
 (who had never been heard of before) coming in 
 with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary 
 of great power, direct from the Admiralty, to say 
 that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the 
 spot, and that he had brought the boatswain 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 65 
 
 down the Union Jack, as a slight acknowledg- 
 of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned 
 for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on 
 the Jack, and then cheering up and addressing 
 Mr. Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited permission 
 to take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle conceding 
 his fin with a gracious dignity, was immediately 
 shoved into a dusty corner while everybody 
 danced a hornpipe, and from that corner, survey- 
 ing the public with a discontented eye, became 
 aware of me. 
 
 " The second piece was the last new grand 
 comic Christmas pantomime, in the first scene of 
 which it pained me to suspect that I detected 
 Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs, under a highly 
 magnified phosphoric countenance, and a shock 
 of red curtain fringe for his hair, engaged in the 
 manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and dis- 
 playing great cowardice when his gigantic 
 master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. But 
 he presently presented himself under worthier 
 circumstances, for the Grenius of Youthful Love 
 being in want of assistance — on account of the 
 parental brutality of an ignorant farmer, who 
 opposed the choice of his daughters heart by 
 purposely foiling upon the object in a flour-sack, 
 out of the first-floor window — summoned a senten- 
 tious enchanter, and he, coming up from the 
 antipodes rather unsteadily, after an apparently 
 
 5 
 
66 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle, in a 
 high-crowned hat, with a necromantic work in 
 one volume under his arm. The business of this 
 enchanter on earth being principally to be talked 
 at, sung at, butted at, danced at, and flashed at 
 with fires of various colours, he had a good deal of 
 time on his hands." 
 
 Very incomplete would be this portion of the 
 writer's task without due mention being made 
 of the " P. Salcy Family," whose names figure 
 in that chapter of " The Uncommercial 
 Traveller," entitled " In the French 
 Flemish Country." Finding himself in this 
 locality, and deciding to stay there, Dickens 
 says : — 
 
 " What part in my decision was borne by 
 Monsieur P. Salcy is of no moment, though 
 I own to encountering that gentleman's name on 
 a red bill on the wall before I made up my mind. 
 Monsieur P. Salcy, ' pai' permission de 31. le 
 Maire,' had established his theatre in the white- 
 washed Hotel de Ville, on the steps of which 
 illustrious edifice I stood. And Monsieur P. 
 Salcy, privileged director of such theatre, situate 
 in ' the first theatrical arrondissement of the 
 department of the North,' invited French- 
 Flemish mankind to come and partake of the 
 intellectual banquet provided by his family of 
 dramatic artists, fifteen subjects in number. 
 
THE STAGE IN BIS NOVELS. 67 
 
 'La Famille P. Scdcy, composee cV artistes 
 dramatiques, au nomhre de 15 sujets,^ 
 
 " The members of the Family P. Salcy were so 
 fat and so like one another, fathers, mothers, 
 sisters, brothers, uncles and aunts, that I think 
 the local audience were much confused about 
 the plot of the piece under representation, and 
 to the last expected that everybody must turn 
 out to be the long-lost relative of everybody else. 
 The theatre was established on the top storey of 
 the Hotel de Ville, and was approached by a 
 long bare staircase, whereon, in an airy situation, 
 one of the P. Salcy Family — a stout gentleman, 
 imperfectly repressed by a belt — took the money. 
 This occasioned the greatest excitement of the 
 evening, for, no sooner did the curtain rise on 
 the introductory vaudeville, and reveal in the 
 person of the young lover (singing a very short 
 song with his eyebrows) apparently the very 
 same identical stout gentleman imperfectly re- 
 pressed by a belt, than everybody rushed out to 
 the paying place, to ascertain if he could possibly 
 have put on that dress-coat, that clear com- 
 plexion, and those arched black vocal eyebrows, 
 in so short a space of time. It then became 
 manifest that this was another stout gentleman, 
 imperfectly repressed by a belt, to whom, before 
 the spectators had recovered their presence of 
 
 5* 
 
68 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 mind, entered a third stout gentleman, imper- 
 fectly repressed by a belt, exactly like him. 
 These two ' subjects,' making, with the money- 
 taker, three of the announced fifteen, fell into 
 conversation touching a charming young widow, 
 who, presently appearing, proved to be a stout 
 lady, altogether irrepressible by any means — 
 quite a parallel case to the American negro — 
 fourth of the fifteen subjects and sister of the 
 fifth, who presided over the check department. 
 In good time the whole of the fifteen subjects 
 were dramatically presented, and we had the 
 inevitable Ma Mere, Ma Mere, and also the in- 
 evitable malediction d''un pere, and likewise the 
 inevitable Marquis, and also the inevitable 
 provincial young man, weak-minded but faithful, 
 who followed Julie to Paris, and cried and 
 laughed and choked all at once. The story was 
 brought out with the help of a virtuous spin- 
 ning wheel in the beginning, a vicious set of 
 diamonds in the middle, and a rheumatic bless- 
 ing (which arrived by post), from Ma Mere 
 towards the end ; the whole resulting in a small 
 sword in the body of one of the stout gentlemen, 
 imj)erfectly repressed by a belt, fifty thousand 
 francs per annum, and a decoration to the other 
 stout gentleman, imperfectly repressed by a belt, 
 and an assurance from everybody to the pro- 
 vincial young man that if he were not supremely 
 
THE STAGE I.N HIS NOVELS. 69 
 
 happy — which he seemed to have no reason 
 whatever for being — he ought to be. This 
 afforded him a fine opportunity for crying and 
 laughing and choking all at once, and sent the 
 audience home sentimentally delighted. Au- 
 dience more attentive or better behaved there 
 could not possibly be, though the places in the 
 second rank in the theatre of the Family 
 P. Salcy were sixpence each in English 
 money, and the places of first rank a shilling. 
 How the fifteen subjects ever got so fat upon it, 
 the kind Heavens know." 
 
 This delightful description of a common-place 
 French play, in the hands of a common-place 
 French company — though, by the way, the dismal 
 "Ma Mere, Ma Mere" refrain is not unknown 
 even within the classic walls of the Theatre 
 Francais — is preceded in the pages of *' The Un- 
 commercial Traveller " by a theatrical chapter, 
 entitled " Two Views of a Cheap Theatre." In it 
 Dickens says : " I walked up Bow Street, disposed 
 to be angry with the shops there that were letting 
 out theatrical secrets by exhibiting to work-a-day 
 humanity the stuff of which diadems and robes of 
 kings are made. I noticed that some shops 
 which had once been in the dramatic line, and 
 had struggled out of it, were not getting on 
 prosperously — like some actors I have known, 
 who took to business and failed to make it answer. 
 
70 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 In a word, those streets looked so dull, and, con- 
 sidered as theatrical streets, so broken and 
 bankrupt, that the ' Found Dead ' on the black- 
 board at the police-station might have an- 
 nounced the decease of the Drama, and the pools 
 of water outside the fire-engine makers at the 
 corner of Long Acre might have been occasioned 
 by his having brought out the whole of his stock 
 to play upon its last smouldering ashes. 
 
 "And yet, on such a night, in so degenerate a 
 time, the object of my journey was theatrical. 
 And yet, within half an hour, I was in an immense 
 theatre, capable of holding nearly five thousand 
 people. 
 
 " What theatre ? Her Majesty's ? Far better 
 Royal Italian Opera ? Far better. Infinitely 
 superior to the latter for hearing in ; infinitely 
 superior to both for seeing in. To every part of 
 this theatre, spacious fire-proof ways of ingress 
 and egress. For every part of it, convenient 
 places of refreshment and retiring rooms. Every- 
 thing to eat and drink carefully supervised as to 
 quality, and sold at an appointed price ; respect- 
 able female attendants ready for the commonest 
 women in the audience ; a general air of considera- 
 tion, decorum, and supervision, most commend- 
 able ; an unquestionably humanising influence in 
 all the social arrangements of the place. 
 
 " Surely a dear theatre, then ? Because there 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 71 
 
 were in London (not very long ago) tlieatres with 
 entrance-prices up to half-a-guinea a head, whose 
 arrangements were not half so civilised. Surely, 
 therefore, a dear theatre? Not very dear. A 
 gallery at threepence, another gallery at four- 
 pence, a pit at sixpence, boxes and pit-stalls at a 
 shilling, and a few private boxes at half-a- 
 crown. 
 
 " My uncommercial curiosity induced me to 
 go into every nook of this great place, and among 
 every class of the audience assembled in it — 
 amounting that evening, as I calculated, to about 
 two thousand and odd hundreds. Magnificently 
 lighted by a firmament of sparkling chandeliers, 
 the building was ventilated to perfection. INIy 
 sense of smell, without being particularly delicate, 
 has been so offended in some of the commoner 
 places of public resort, that I have often been 
 obliged to leave them when I have made an un- 
 commercial journey expressly to look on. The 
 air of this theatre was fresh, cool, and whole- 
 some. To help towards this end, very sensible 
 precautions had been used, ingeniously com- 
 bining the experience of hospitals and railway 
 stations. Asphalt pavement substituted for 
 wooden floors, honest bare walls of glazed brick 
 and tile — even at the back of the boxes — for 
 plaster and paper, no benches stuffed, and no 
 carpeting or baize used ; a cool material with a 
 
72 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 light glazed surface, being the covering of the 
 seats. 
 
 " These various contrivances are as well con- 
 sidered in the place in question as if it were a 
 Fever Hospital ; the result is that it is sweet 
 and henlthful. It has been constructed, from the 
 ground to the roof, with a careful reference to 
 sight and sound in every corner; the result is, 
 that its form is beautiful, and that the appear- 
 ance of the audience, as seen from the 
 proscenium-^with every face in it commanding 
 the stage, and the whole so admirably raked and 
 turned to that centre, that a hand can scarcely 
 move in the great assemblage without the move- 
 ment being seen from thence — is highly remark- 
 able in its union of vastness with compactness. 
 The stage itself, and all its appurtenances of 
 machinery, cellarage, height and breadth, are on 
 a scale more like the Scala at Milan, or the San 
 Carlo at Naples, or the Grrand Opera at Paris, 
 than any notion a stranger would be likely to 
 form of the Britannia Theatre at Hoxton, a mile 
 north of St. Luke's Hospital, in the Old Street 
 Koad, London. The ' Forty Thieves ' might be 
 played here, and every thief ride his real horse, 
 and the disguised captain bring in his oil jars 
 on a train of real camels, and nobody be put out 
 of the way. This really extraordinary place is the 
 achievement of one man's enterprise, and was 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 73 
 
 elected on the ruins of an inconvenient old 
 buildincr in less than five months, at a round 
 cost of five-and-twenty thousand pounds. To 
 dismiss this part of my subject, and still to 
 render to the proprietor the credit that is strictly 
 his due, I must add that his sense of the 
 responsibility upon him to make the best of his 
 audience, and to do his best for them, is a highly 
 agreeable sign of these times." 
 
 It is pleasant to know that what is here said of 
 the great East-end playhouse that thus aroused 
 the admiration of Dickens may with equal truth 
 be said to-day. Under the experienced and 
 admirable manaorement of Mrs. Sarah Lane, the 
 Britannia Theatre, Hoxton— or the "Brit," as it 
 is affectionately termed by its frequenters— is a 
 most popular, prosperous, and well-conducted 
 place of theatrical entertainment. The house, 
 too, can claim for itself the distinction of bemg 
 the only one that produces Christmas pantomimes 
 founded upon other lines than those of the worn 
 out themes which continually do duty at other 
 theatres all England over. 
 
 It was a pantomime that Dickens saw on the 
 occasion of his visit, and which, in his own inimit- 
 able way, he thus sums up : — 
 
 " AVe began at half-past six with a pantomime 
 — with a pantomime so long, that before it was 
 over I felt as if I had been travelling for six 
 
71 DICKENS A^J) THE STAGE. 
 
 weeks — going to India, say, by the Overland Mail. 
 The Spirit of Liberty was the principal personage 
 in the Introduction, and the Four Quarters of the 
 World came out of the globe, glittering, and dis- 
 coursed with the Spirit, who sang charmingly. 
 We were delighted to understand that there was 
 no liberty anywhere but among ourselves, and we 
 highly applauded the agreeable fact. In an 
 allegorical way, w^hich did as well as any other 
 way, we and the Spirit of Liberty got into a 
 Kingdom of Needles and Pins, and found them at 
 war with a potentate who called in to his aid their 
 old arch-enemy Rust, and who would have got the 
 better of them if the Spirit of Liberty had not in 
 the nick of time transformed the leaders into 
 Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, Harle- 
 quina, and a whole family of Sprites, consisting of 
 a remarkably stout father and three spineless 
 sons. We all knew what was coming when the 
 Spirit of Liberty addressed the King with the big 
 face, and His Majesty backed to the side-scenes 
 and began untying himself behind with his big 
 face all on one side. Our excitement at that 
 crisis was great, and our delight unbounded. 
 After this era in our existence, we went through 
 all the incidents of a pantomime ; it was not by 
 any means a savage pantomime, in the way of 
 burning or boiling people, or throwing them out 
 of window, or cutting them up ; was often very 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS NOVELS. 75 
 
 roll; was always liberally got up, and cleverly 
 presented. I noticed that the people who kept 
 the shops, and who represented the passengers in 
 the thoroughfares, and so forth, had no conven- 
 tionality in them, but were unusually like the 
 real thing — from which I infer that you may 
 take that audience in (if you wish to) concerning 
 Knights and Ladies, Fairies, Angels, or such like, 
 but they are not to be done as to anything in the 
 streets. I noticed, also, that when two young 
 men, dressed in exact imitation of the eel-and- 
 sausage-cravated portion of the audience, were 
 chased by policemen, and, finding themselves in 
 danger of being caught, dropped so suddenly as 
 to oblige the policemen to tumble over them, 
 there was great rejoicing — as though it were a 
 delicate reference to something they had heard of 
 before."' 
 
 '•' The pantomime was succeeded by a Melc- 
 Drama. Throughout the evening I was pleased to 
 observe Virtue quite as triumphant as she usually 
 is out of doors, and indeed I thought rather more 
 so. We all agreed (for the time) that honesty was 
 the best policy, and we were as hard as iron upon 
 Vice, and we wouldn't hear of Villainy getting 
 on in the world — no, not on any consideration 
 whatever." 
 
 " Between the pieces, we almost all of us went 
 out and refreshed. Many of us went the length 
 
76 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 of drinking beer at the bars of the neighbouring 
 public-houses, some of us drank spirits, crowds of 
 us had sandwiches and ginger-beer at the refresh- 
 ment bars established for us in the theatre. The 
 sandwich — as substantial as was consistent with 
 portability, and as cheap as possible — we hailed 
 as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its 
 way among us at all stages of the entertainment, 
 ard we were always delighted to see it ; its 
 adaptability to the varying moods of our nature 
 was surprising ; we could never weep so comfort- 
 ably as when our tears fell on our sandwich ; we 
 could never laugh so heartily as when we choked 
 with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful, 
 or Vice so deformed as when we paused, sandwich 
 in hand, to consider what would come of that 
 resolution of Wickedness in boots to sever Inno- 
 cence in flowered chintz from Honest Industry in 
 striped stockings. When the curtain fell for the 
 night, we still fell back upon sandwich, to help 
 us through the rain and mud, and home to bed." 
 The second half of this eminently theatrical 
 chapter deals with a Sunday religious service 
 held in the same theatre — in connection with 
 which Dickens pointedly notes that " the 
 lowest part of the audience of the previous 
 night luas not thereJ' Concerning such services 
 he says : " That these Sunday meetings in 
 theatres are good things I do not doubt. Nor 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS NOVELS. 11 
 
 do I doubt that they will work lower and lower 
 down in the social scale, if those who preside 
 over them will be very careful on two heads; 
 firstly, not to disparage the places in which they 
 speak, or the intelligence of their hearers ; 
 secondly, not to set themselves in antagonism to 
 the natural inborn desire of the mass of mankind 
 to recreate themselves and to be amused." 
 
 Stronger testimony than this of the estimation 
 in which Dickens held the stage, could hardly be 
 advanced. 
 
 Unless mention be made of the little French 
 actress, who, whimsically described as " The 
 Compact Enchantress," is one of his fellow 
 travellers on that wonderfully described journey 
 from London Bridge to Paris, to be found in that 
 chapter of the " Keprinted Pieces,'' entitled " A 
 Flight," and to whom he says, " I yielded up my 
 heart under the auspices of that brave child, 
 Meat-chell, at the St. James's Theatre the night 
 before last," reference to the theatrical characters 
 and scenes to be found in the published works 
 of Dickens is now practically exhausted — but 
 stay, the clown is still a sort of connecting link 
 between the stage and the circus, and no one will 
 grudge a word in these pages to ** Sleary's Horse- 
 manship," the humorous account of which en- 
 livens the somewhat gloomy chapters of " Hard 
 Times," especially as the lisping words of its 
 
78 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 warm-hearted old proprietor seem very well to 
 sum up all that Dickens felt in writing of things 
 connected with the theatre. 
 
 " People mutht be amuthed," said Mr. Sleary 
 to Mr. Gradgrind, " they can't be alwayth a 
 learning, nor yet they can't be alwayth a work- 
 ing, they ain't made for it. You nfiutht have 
 uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind 
 thing, too, and make the betht of uth, not the 
 wurtht." 
 
 This is exactl}^ what Dickens did. It is a little 
 curious, perhaps, to note, that in all his 
 allusions to the stage he chose its comic and 
 even sometimes its seamy side ; but that he 
 was an enthusiastic admirer of, and a firm 
 believer in it, in its better and intellectual phases, 
 the later portions of this book will amply show. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DICKEXS AS A DRAMATIST. 
 
 Ix that pleasant " series of daily companions," 
 happily entitled " The best of all Grood Com- 
 pany," Mr. Blanchard Jerrold in his " Day with 
 Charles Dickens," after bearing testimony to his 
 intense love for the stage, the excellence of his 
 acting, and the high opinion that Douglas Jerrold 
 had of his dramatic judgment, gives the following 
 letter addressed to the author of ^' Time AVorks 
 AYonders," and " Black Eye'd Susan." 
 
 " Devonshire Terrace, 
 
 '« Thirteenth June, 1843. 
 '•' My Dear Jerrold, — Yes, you have antici- 
 pated my occupation. Chuzzlewit be hanged — 
 high comedy and five hundred pounds are the 
 only matters I can think of. I call it ' The One 
 Thing Needful ; or, the Part is Better than the 
 Whole.' Here are the characters : — 
 
 Old Febrile . . . Mr. Farren. 
 
 Young Febrile (his son) . Mr. Howe. 
 Jack Hessians (his friend) . Mr. W. Lacy. 
 
80 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Chalks (a landlord) . Mr. Gougli. 
 
 Hon. Harry Staggers . . Mr. Mellon. 
 Sir Thomas Tip . . Mr. Buckstone. 
 Swig ..... Mr. Webster. 
 The Duke of Leeds . . Mr. Coutts. 
 Sir Smiven Growler . . Mr. Macready. 
 
 Servants, gamblers, visitors, etc. 
 
 Mrs. Febrile . . . Mrs. Glover. 
 Lady Tip .... Mrs. Humby. 
 Mrs. Sour . . . Mrs. Clifford, 
 Fanny .... Miss A. Smith. 
 
 '' One scene, where old Febrile tickles Lady 
 Tip in the ribs, and afterwards dances out with 
 his hat behind him, his stick before, and his eye 
 on the pit, I expect will bring the house down. 
 There is also another point — where old Febrile, 
 at the conclusion of his disclosure to Swig, rises 
 and says, * And now, Mr. Swig, tell me, have I 
 acted well ? ' and Swig says, ' Well, Mr. Febrile, 
 have you ever acted ill ? ' which will carry off the 
 piece." 
 
 Dashed off in high spirits in a letter to an 
 appreciative friend how admirably are the old 
 names, and the old humours of the comedy of a 
 bye-gone day here travestied ! What could not 
 Dickens have done in the regions of extrava- 
 ganza and burlesque ? 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIST. 81 
 
 In the same letter, after dealing with other 
 matters, he goes on to say: — 
 
 ** But I have my comedy to fly to — my only 
 comfort ! I walk up and down the street at the 
 back of the theatre every night, and peep in at 
 the green-room window, thinking of the time 
 when ' Dick-ens ' will be called for by excited 
 hundreds, and won't come — till Mr. Webster 
 (half Swig and half himself) shall enter from his 
 dressing-room, and quelling the tempest with a 
 smile, beseech that wizard if he be in the house 
 (here he looks up at my box), to accept the 
 conorratulations of the audience and indulore them 
 with a sight of the man who had got five hun- 
 dred pounds in money, and it's imposible to say 
 how much in laurels. Then I shall come for- 
 ward and bow, once, twice, thrice — roars of 
 approbation. Bravyo I brarvo I Hooray ! hoorar ! 
 hooroar I — one cheer more — and asking Webster 
 home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship 
 for that public-spirited individual, which Talfourd 
 (the vice) will echo with all his heart and soul, 
 and with tears in his eyes, adding in a perfectly 
 audible voice, and in the same breath, that " he's 
 a very wretched cweacure, but better than Ma- 
 cweady any way, for he wouldn't play Ion when it 
 was given to him.' After which he will propose 
 said Macready's health in terms of red-hot 
 eloquency." 
 
 6 
 
82 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " I am always, my dear Jerrold, faithfully yom' 
 friend, 
 
 "The Congreve of the 19th Century 
 
 C \Yhicli I mean to be called in the Sunday 
 papers.) 
 
 " P.S. — I shall dedicate it to Webster, begin- 
 ninor : — 
 
 o * 
 
 " ' My dear Sir, —When you first proposed to 
 stimulate the slumbering dramatic talent of 
 England, I assure you I had not the least idea, 
 etc., etc., etc' " 
 
 Alas, the comedy of his whimsical imagination 
 was never written, and his name as a dramatist 
 is chiefly associated with the three trivial pieces 
 mentioned in the introductory chapter, and 
 which, nowadays, are only interesting and valu- 
 able to the increasing number of collectors of 
 " Dickensiana." The libretto of ''The Village 
 Coquettes," which was in 1837 sold for ten- 
 pence, is now worth two guineas. " The Strange 
 Grentleman," and " Is She His Wife ? or. Some- 
 thing Singular," are exceedingly precious, and 
 playbills of each will realise a guinea. 
 
 Of some of these, the following are copies : — 
 
DICKEN^S AS A DRAMATIST. 83 
 
 ST. JAMES'S '^^m THEATRE. 
 Never Acted ! 
 
 This Evening, Tuesday, December 6th, 1836, 
 
 Will be performed (Tirst Time) an entirely new Operatic Bur- 
 letta, with New and Beautiful Scenery, appropriate Dresses and 
 Decorations, to be called 
 
 THE VILLAGE COQUETTES. 
 
 The Drama and Words of the Songs by "Boz." The music by 
 
 John Hullah. 
 
 Scene— An English Village. Period— The Autumn of 1729. 
 
 Squire Xorton ^Ir- Braham. 
 
 The Honorable Sparkins Flam {his friend) . Mr. M. Barnett. 
 Old Benson (a small farmer) . . . • Mr. Strickland. 
 Mr. Martin Stokes {a very small farmer v:ith 
 
 a very large circle of particular friends) Mr. Harley. 
 George Edmunds {betrothed to Lucy) . . Mr. Bennett. 
 
 Young Benson Mr. John Parry. 
 
 John Maddox {attached to Rose) . . . Mr. Gardner. 
 
 Lucy Benson Miss Rainforth. 
 
 ^osQ {her cousin) Miss Juaa Smith. 
 
 Villagers, Gamekeepers, Servants, Domestics, by the rest of the 
 Company, assisted by a numerous train of AuxiUaries. 
 
 Incidental to the Burletta the following Pieces of Music : 
 Overture. 
 Act I. 
 RouxD AND Chorus. "Hail to the Merry Autumn Days." 
 
 SoxG.— Miss Rainforth. " Love is not a feeling to pass away." 
 
 Song.- Mr. Braham, and Chorus. " The Cares of the Day." 
 
 Song.— Mr. Bennett. " Autumn Leaves." 
 
 Song.— Miss Julia Smith. "Some folks who have grown old 
 
 and sour." 
 Duet.— Miss Julia Smith and Mr. M. Barnett. 
 
 " Mr. Flam and his beautiful Rose." 
 Scexe.- Mr. Braham. "The ChUd and the Old Man." 
 
 Duet. — Miss Rainforth and Mr. Braham. 
 
 " In Rich and Lofty Stations Shine." 
 Finale to the First Act. " Turn him from his Farm." All 
 the Principals and Chorus. 
 
 6* 
 
81 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Act II. 
 
 Quartette.— Miss Rainforth, Miss Julia Smith, Mr. Braham, and 
 Mr. John Parry. " Hear me when I swear." 
 
 SoxG. — Mr. Braham. ''There's a charm in Spring." 
 
 Air.— Mr. John Parry. "My Fair Home." 
 
 Duet.— Mr. Bennett and Mr. Braham. ''Listen, thousrh I do 
 
 not fear vou." 
 Soxo.— :Miss Eainforth. " How Beautiful at Even Tide." 
 
 COUNTRY DANCE and Chorus. " Join the Dance. S 
 
 Quintette. " No light bound.', 
 
 Finale. 
 
 The whole of the musical arrangements under the direction of 
 
 Mr G. Stansbury. 
 On this occasion, Mr. Hullah loill preside in the Orchestra. 
 
 After which (50th time), an entireJv new Burletta written by 
 " BOZ," called 
 
 THE STRANOE GENTLEMAN! 
 
 Mr. Owen Overton {Mayor of a small 
 
 town on the road to Gretna and useful 
 
 at the St. Jameses Arms) . . . Mr. Hollingsworth. 
 John Johnson {detained at the St. James's 
 
 Arms) Mr. Sidney. 
 
 The Strange Gentleman {just arrived at 
 
 the St. James's Arms) .... Mr. Harlev. 
 Charles Tomkins {incognito at the St. 
 
 James's Arms) Mr. Forester. 
 
 Tom Sparks {a one-eyed " Boots " at the 
 
 St. James's Arms) .... Mr. Gardner. 
 John, ) ,„,,•., „ ^ ^7 c. 7- ' f ^Ir. Williamson. 
 Tom, \ ''"1''' "^ ^^'' ^i- ^«»'^^" ^" ) Mr May 
 Will,) ^''"'' Ulr! Coulson. 
 
 Julia Dobbs {looking for a husband at the 
 
 St. James's A rm'^sj .... Madame Sala. 
 Fanny Wilson {icith an aj)pointment at 
 
 the St. James's Arms)_ .... Miss Smith. 
 Mary Wilson {her sister, awkwardli/ 
 
 situated at the St. James's Arms) . Miss Julia Smith. 
 Mrs. Noakes {the landlady at the St. 
 
 James's Arms) Mrs. Penson. 
 
 Chambermaid {at the St. James's Arms) Miss Stuart. 
 
 The performance concluded with the per- 
 formance of a burletta entitled " Delicate 
 Attentions," and the playbills of the following 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIST. 85 
 
 day (December 7th, 1836), were headed with 
 the following announcement : — 
 
 THE VILLAGE COQUETTES. 
 
 This Biirletta exjierienced one of tlie most triumphant receptions 
 ever known. The Piece was, in its j^rogress, repeatedly loudly cheered, 
 and the greater part of the Music was unanimously encored hi/ a 
 brilliant and crowded audience. It is 'needless to say more tlian it 
 will be 
 
 REPEATED EVERY EVENING UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ! 
 
 The cast of "The Village Coquettes" re- 
 mained unaltered, but on this occasion " The 
 Strange Gentleman " was withdrawn from the 
 bill, and its place taken by the " Humorous 
 Burletta of Tom Thumb." The performance 
 concluded as before, with " Delicate Attentions." 
 
 The following is an extract from the bill of 
 the same theatre, dated March 14th, 1837, when 
 " Is She His Wife " formed an item in the pro- 
 gramme. The curtain rose on the representa- 
 tion of Adolph Adam's three-act *' Operatic Bur- 
 letta," called in its English dress " The Pos- 
 tillion." 
 
 After which an original comic Burletta in One Act, "written by 
 BOZ, called 
 
 IS SHE HIS WIFE? OR, SOMETHING 
 SINGULAR ! 
 
 Alfred Lovetown,Escj[ Mr. Forester. 
 
 Mr. Peter Limbury Mr. Gardner. 
 
 Felix Tapkins, Esq. {formerly of the India 
 House, Leadenhall Street, and now of Rustic 
 Lodge, near Reading) Mr. Harley. 
 
 Mrs. Lovetown Miss Allison. 
 
 Mrs. Peter Limbury Madame Sala. 
 
86 DICKENS AIsD THE STAGE. 
 
 Eepresentations were also given of a two-act 
 Operatic Burletta by Mrs. S. C. Hall, entitled 
 '' The French Refugee," and the still popular 
 farce, *' The Lottery Ticket." 
 
 Such programmes as these, contrast curiously 
 with those at the St. James's Theatre of the 
 present day, where, under the admirable 
 management of Messrs. Hare and Kendal, and 
 thanks mainly to the splendid acting of Mrs. 
 Kendal, comedy representations are given second 
 to none that have ever been seen either in this 
 or any other country. As a sign of the changed 
 habits of Londoners, it is noteworthy that in the 
 days of the " Boz " pieces, the theatre doors were 
 opened as early as half-past six, and the 
 curtain rose punctually at seven o'clock. The 
 prices then ranged from five shillings to 
 eighteen-pence, with reduced second prices at 
 "about nine o'clock." Certainly, as far as cost 
 was concerned, the playgoer of 1836-7 could 
 claim an advantage over us ; but probably that 
 advantage there ended. 
 
 Slight as they were, the pieces seem to have 
 been very well received, as extracts from the 
 dramatic criticisms of the day will show. 
 
 Here, for example, is an account, taken from 
 the Carlton Chronicle of October 1st, 1836, of 
 the first performance, at the St. James's Theatre, 
 of *^ The Strange Gfentleman " : 
 
DICKE^^S AS A DRAMATIST. 87 
 
 " The entertainments commenced with a 
 burletta from the pen of a gentleman who has 
 very much amused the town by the broad 
 humour and downright fun of sketches pub- 
 lished by him under the sobriquet ' Boz.' ' The 
 Strange Gentleman' is, we believe, founded upon 
 one of his own stories, and it abounds in those 
 strokes of quaintness, and happy perception and 
 rich description of the ludicrous, for which his 
 writings are remarkable. ... A great 
 number of mistakes occur ; there is a great 
 perplexity, and a number of accidents, which 
 chiefly tend to the inconvenience and annoyance 
 of the strange gentleman, who was personated 
 by Mr. Harley, and who was accordingly, as to 
 the physique and the performance, precisely what 
 Mr. Harley is, in whatsoever character he may 
 appear. . . . The piece was very well 
 received throughout." 
 
 Speaking of the production of " The Village 
 Coquettes," the same authority, on December 
 10, 1836, says: 
 
 " Mr. C. Dickens, who has made the town 
 laugh so heartily by his ' right merrie ' papers 
 touching the Pickwick Club, has in the 
 multiplicity of his literary occupations, found 
 leisure to write the dramatic and lyric portion 
 of an opera for this (the St. James's) Theatre. 
 It is styled ' The Village Coquettes,' and when 
 
88 DICKEx\S AND THE STAGE. 
 
 we add that the scene is laid one hundred years 
 ago, it will be seen that the title is pregnant of 
 the story. . . . For a simple village tale 
 of this kind, written either as an accessory to 
 the music, or as a vehicle for the melodies, a 
 sparkling dialogue would be inappropriate ; and 
 still wonie, it would have been thrown away in 
 the mouths of actors, and the ears (comprehen- 
 sive as they might be) of an audience come to 
 hear music. Smoothness and sweetness of flowing 
 sounds, was the great object to be attained in 
 the lyric portion of a ballad opera relating to a 
 passage of rustic life in England, * all of the 
 olden time.' . . . The music of the opera is 
 very pretty, and Mr. Hullah, the composer, has 
 given in it great promise of ability. The mise 
 en scene was admirable — nothing could be better 
 than the scenery and decorations. The dresses, 
 too, were quaint and pleasing with the exception 
 of the Squire's. Braham dressed him in a red 
 velvet shooting-jacket, laced gorgeously. . . 
 Braham sung with great taste, feeling, and 
 power. Miss Rainforth acquitted herself very 
 creditably." 
 
 It is odd to read in these days of the brilliant 
 librettos to which Mr. W. S. Gilbert has accus- 
 tomed us, that a critic was once found who 
 could declare that as " a vehicle for melodies, a 
 sparkling dialogue would be inappropriate." 
 
DICKENS AS A D?.A:MATI>T. 89 
 
 Assuredly the present day playgoer is more exact- 
 ing, and a dull " book " has, before now, sealed the 
 fate of an otherwise excellent operatic production. 
 '- Mr. Nightingale's Diary," says Mr. Grodfrey 
 Turner, in an article entitled "'Boz' and the 
 Play," which appeared in the Theatre Magazine, 
 " written by Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon, 
 served its purpose, and there an end. It is 
 worth remarking, that the earliest attempts at 
 authorship by Charles Dickens took a dramatic 
 form. He, and his biographer, John Forster, 
 both speak of certain nursery tragedies, achieved 
 at the age of eight or ten." That these juvenile 
 attempts (though, according to their author they 
 were " represented with great applause to over- 
 flowing nurseries,") are inaccessible, goes without 
 saying. 
 
 The writer is indebted to an interesting mono- 
 graph from the pen of Mr. E. H. Shepherd for 
 the following accumulated information respecting 
 the production at the Adelphi Theatre, in De- 
 cember, 1867, of the dramatic version of *' Xo 
 Thoroughfare." 
 
 '• It was on the eve of his second visit to 
 America that Charles Dickens assisted in drama- 
 tising his story of ' Xo Thoroughfare/ written 
 conjointly and in nearly equal portions with Mr. 
 Wilkie Collins, to form the Christmas number of 
 All the Year Round for 1867. In the midst of 
 
90 DICKEXS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 all the work of preparation for departure, the 
 Editors of his Letters inform us, Charles Dickens 
 gave minute attention to as much of the play as 
 could be completed before he left England. It 
 was ' the only story,' says Mr. Forster, ' he ever 
 helped himself to dramatise.' The incidents are 
 considerably changed in the drama, notably the 
 scene in the Monastery in Act the Fifth, following 
 Obenreizer's treachery on his fellow traveller, 
 which concludes the Fourth Act. The clock-lock 
 is placed in the monastery of St. Bernard, instead 
 of in the house of a notary, as in the tale. The 
 whole episode of Joey Ladle's courtship of Sally 
 Groldstraw, and his admiration of her ' beautiful 
 language,' is absent from the story and peculiar 
 to the play, and contains some highly felicitous 
 and characteristic Dickensian touches. Joey's 
 muddled way of moralising, his intense affection 
 for Sally Goldstraw, and his ludicrous attempts to 
 commit her sayings to memory, relieve the other- 
 wise somewhat sombre tone of the drama through- 
 out, and make the honest cellarman a personage 
 of much greater importance than he appears in 
 the published story. The play indeed in some 
 scenes departs from the story so widely as to be 
 entitled to rank as an entirely original produc- 
 tion. ' Xo Thoroughfare ' was first produced at 
 the Adelphi Theatre during Dickens's absence in 
 the United States. It was first performed on 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIST. 91 
 
 Boxing Xiglit of 1867, Mr. Fechter taking the 
 part of Obenreizer, and Mr. Webster that of Joey 
 Ladle. Some allusions to the piece and to its 
 favourable reception, when the news reached its 
 absentee author, are scattered through Dickens's 
 correspondence from iVmerica in the early part of 
 1868. From Xew York, early in January of that 
 year, he thus writes to his collaborator, Mr. 
 Wilkie Collins : — 
 
 " 'Xew York, Sunday, Jan. 12, 1868. 
 " ' First of the play. I am truly delighted to 
 learn that it made so great a success, and I hope 
 I may yet see it on the Adelphi boards. You 
 have had a world of trouble and work with it, but 
 I hope will be repaid in some degree by the 
 pleasure of a triumph. Even for the alteration 
 at the end of the Fourth Act I was fully prepared, 
 for I COULD NOT see the oriorinal effect in the 
 reading of the play, and could not make it go. 
 I aorree with Webster in thinkinof it best that 
 Obenreizer should die on the stage ; but no doubt 
 that point is disposed of. In reading the play 
 before the representation, I felt that it was too 
 long, and that there was a good deal of un- 
 necessary explanation. Those points are, no 
 doubt, disposed of too by this time." 
 
 " To his eldest son a few days later, Dickens 
 writes : 
 
92 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " ^ New York, Jan. 15, 1868. 
 
 " ' I had previously heard of the play, and had 
 the Times. It was a great relief and delight to 
 me, for I had no confidence in its success, being 
 reduced to the confines of despair by its length. 
 If I could have rehearsed it, I should have taken 
 the best part of an hour out of it. Fechter must 
 be very fine, and I should greatly like to see him 
 play the part.' 
 
 " To Fechter himself, who performed the 
 character of Obenreizer, Dickens wrote (from 
 Washington, February 24, 1868): 
 
 " ' Wilkie," {i.e. Mr. Wilkie Collins) " has uni- 
 formly written of you enthusiastically. In a letter 
 I had from him, dated the 10th of January, he 
 described your conception and execution of the 
 part in the most glowing terms. " Here Fechter 
 is magnificent." " Here his superb playing brings 
 the house down." " I should call even his exit 
 in the last Act one of the subtlest and finest 
 things he does in the piece." " You can hardly 
 imagine what he gets out of the part, or what he 
 makes of his passionate love for Marguerite." 
 These expressions, and many others like them, 
 crowded his letter. " I never did so want to see a 
 character played on the stage as I want to see 
 you play Obenreizer." 
 
DICKEXS AS A DRAMATIST. 93 
 
 The popularity of '• Xo Thoroughfare" at the 
 Adelphi was beyond all question, as will be 
 judged from the following conclusion to a notice 
 which appeared in the now extinct satirical 
 journal " The Mask," in which, previously, all 
 the weak points in the play had been mercilessly 
 pointed out, and most of the characters and their 
 representatives roundly *•' chaffed " : 
 
 " We heartily congratulate the management 
 upon the great success of the new play. The old 
 board on which is inscribed ' House full in every 
 part,' after a long retirement among the lumber 
 of the property-room, has again made its appear- 
 ance ; and, looking now quite fresh and beaming, 
 hangs proudly under the portico every night. 
 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins have made 
 their dramatic hit at last ! The first attempted 
 it many years ago and failed. The second has 
 attempted many times, and, as far as financial 
 success is concerned, has failed also. In ' No 
 Thoroughfare ' they are both at liberty to enjoy 
 their triumph to the utmost. It is a hit in every 
 sense of the word, more particularly in the sense 
 which is the pleasantest of all in managerial con- 
 sideration. Its * money' draw has never been 
 equalled in the annals of the theatre." 
 
 This chapter would perhaps be incomplete 
 •without mention being made of a little play, 
 
94 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 which Dickens wrote in 1839 for Covent Grarden, 
 which the actors could not agree about, and 
 which he turned afterwards into a story called 
 *'The Lamplighter." Writing in 1845, and 
 speaking of his early desire to become an actor, 
 and his interview with Mr. Bartley (mention of 
 which is made in the next chapter), he said : 
 
 *' I had an odd fancy, when I was reading the 
 unfortunate little farce at Covent Grarden, that 
 Bartley looked as if some struggling recollection 
 and connection were stirring up within him — but 
 it may only have been his doubts of that humor- 
 ous composition." 
 
 The manuscript of '' The Lamplighter," in its 
 dramatic form, but not in the handwriting of 
 Dickens, is to be seen in the Forster collection 
 at the South Kensington Museum. It is a 
 curiously dull little piece, clumsily arranged in 
 one act and three scenes, and the limited number 
 of copies that were some years ago printed are 
 interesting only to collectors. The best character 
 in it is that of the Lamplighter, Tom Grig, who 
 declares that when he grows rich he will have '' a 
 country house and a park," — and " I'll plant a 
 bit of it with a double row of gas lamps a mile 
 long, and go out with a French-polished mahogany 
 ladder, and two servants in livery behind me, to 
 light 'em up with my own hands every night." 
 
 To the lover of the stage, and taking possi- 
 
DICKENS AS A DEA3IATIST. 95 
 
 bilities into consideration, this bald record of 
 " Dickens as a Dramatist," seems sadly incom- 
 plete, but concerning bis work in this cMrection 
 there is practically nothing more to tell. The 
 consolation is that, after all, he did do something 
 in other ways ! 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 
 
 In an article in Longman's Magazine^ for May, 
 1883, Mr. Dutton Cook sums up the story told at 
 length by Mr. Forster, of Dickens's early in- 
 tention to become an actor. 
 
 " Early in life he had seriously contemplated 
 the stage as a profession, and had even solicited 
 an engagement at Covent Grarden Theatre. He 
 wrote to the stage manager, Mr. Bartley. ' I 
 told him how young I was, and exactly what I 
 thought I could do ; that I believed I had 
 a strong perception of character and oddity, 
 and a natural power of reproducing in 
 my own person what I observed in others.' 
 Mr. Bartley made an appointment with his 
 correspondent, then engaged at Doctors' Com- 
 mons as a shorthand writer for the Proctors, in 
 order to test his abilities ; but when the time 
 came Dickens was too ill with cold and inflamma- 
 tion of the face to appear. He had taken great 
 pains, however, as he has related, to prepare him- 
 self for success as an actor. * I went to some 
 
DICKENS AS AX ACTOR. 97 
 
 theatre every night, with a very few exceptions 
 for at least three years, really studying the bills 
 first, and going where there was the best acting, 
 and always to see Mathews whenever he played. 
 I practised immeusely (even such things ps 
 walking in and out, and sitting down in a chair), 
 often four, five, six hours a day, shut up in my 
 own room or walking about in the fields. . . . 
 I must have done a good deal, for, just as 
 Macready found me out, they used to challenge 
 me at Braham's ; and Yates, who was knowing 
 enough in these things, wasn't to be parried at 
 all.' .... Dickens's literary successes soon 
 induced him to abandon his intention of going 
 upon the stage; as he said— h« now 'did not 
 want money, and he had never thought of the 
 stage, but as a means of getting it.' Yet he 
 could not but bear in mind, long afterwards, how 
 near he had once been to ' another sort of life.' 
 Nor could he ever relinquish his old fondness for, 
 the actor's art; for he scarcely did himself justice 
 when he spoke of the stage as being to him but 
 a means of getting money. He obtained great 
 applause as an amateur actor, and he became 
 famous as a public reader of his own books; 
 his readings, in truth, closely resembling actings, 
 or suggesting rather the readings of an actor than 
 of an author. He was particular always on these 
 occasions as to the arrangement of his gas-lights, 
 
 7 
 
98 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 that his expression and play of face might be 
 properly seen and appraised. With this view a 
 special * gas-man,' ever accompanied him upon 
 his tours in the provinces. He resorted to much 
 ' stage business,' and employed sundry * stage 
 properties,' when he judged that he could in such 
 wise the better enforce or illustrate the intention 
 of his books. The cojDies of his stories from which 
 he read in public were marked with as many 
 * stage directions,' as are contained in the acting 
 editions of a play. When but a lad of sixteen, 
 with a fellow-clerk in a lawyer's office, he is under- 
 stood to have assumed certain characters at a 
 minor theatre — probably one of those establish- 
 ments supported entirely by amateur actors, 
 such as then existed in Wilson Street, Grray's Inn 
 Lane, and in Catherine Street, Strand." Such a 
 theatre, in short, as the one described in the 
 " Boz " sketches. 
 
 The first mention made by Mr. Forster of 
 Dickens's subsequently famous connection with 
 amateur theatricals, was in 1842, when, on the 
 occasion of his first visit to America, he took part 
 in some performances at Montreal. The pieces 
 selected were *^ A Koland for an Oliver," " Past 
 Two o'clock in the Morning," and " Deaf as a 
 Post " ; and the characters undertaken by Dickens 
 were respectively Alfred Highflyer, Mr. Snob- 
 bington, and Grallop. In addition to this, he was 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 99 
 
 responsible for the duties of stage management 
 and fulfilled them with characteristic thorough- 
 ness. " Didn't I come the Macready over them ? " 
 he wrote. "I had regular plots of the scenery 
 made out, and lists of the properties wanted, and 
 had them nailed up by the prompter's chair. 
 Every letter that was to be delivered was written ; 
 every piece of money that had to be given, pro- 
 vided. I prompted myself, when I was not on ; 
 and when I was, I made the regular prompter of 
 the theatre my deputy; and I never saw anything 
 so perfectly touch-and-go as the first two 
 pieces." 
 
 That the details of theatrical management had 
 a peculiar fascination for him is instanced in the 
 following anecdote, told by Mr. Charles Kent in 
 his " Charles Dickens as a Eeader." " Going 
 round by way of Lambeth one afternoon," says 
 Mr. Kent, " in the early summer of 1870, we 
 had skirted the Thames along the Surrey bank, 
 had crossed the river higher up, and, on our way 
 back, were returning at our leisure through 
 "Westminster, when, just as we were approaching 
 the shadow of the old Abbey at Poet's Corner, 
 under the roof-beams of which he was so soon to 
 be laid in his grave, with a rain of tears and 
 flowers, he abruptly asked, * What do you think 
 would be the realisation of one of my most 
 cherished day-dreams ? ' adding instantly, with- 
 
 7* 
 
100 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 out waiting for my answer, * To settle down for 
 the remainder of my life within easy distance of 
 a great theatre, in the direction of which I 
 should hold supreme authority. It should be a 
 house, of course, having a skilled and noble 
 company, and one in every way magnificently 
 appointed. The pieces acted should be dealt 
 with according to my pleasure, and touched lip 
 here and there in obedience to my own judgment ; 
 the players as well as the plays being absolutely 
 under my command. There,' said he, laugh- 
 ingly, and in a glow at the mere fancy, ' that's 
 my day-dream ! ' " 
 
 The success of the Canadian theatricals had 
 evidently fired him with a desire to appear again 
 behind the footlights, and to hold the managerial 
 reins, and accordingly we find him, in 1847, 
 entering heart and soul into the theatrical benefit 
 organised on behalf of Leigh Hunt, and in which 
 so many distinguished men took part. The 
 general management and supreme control were 
 given to Dickens, and the performances took 
 place on the 26th July at Manchester, and the 
 28th July at Liverpool, Ben Jonson's comedy, 
 " Every Man in His Humour " being followed on 
 the first night by " A G-ood Night's Rest " and 
 " Turning the Tables," and on the second by 
 "Comfortable Lodgings, or, Paris in 1750." 
 
 In 1848, on behalf of the endowment of a 
 
DICKENS AS AX ACTOR. 101 
 
 curatorship of Shakespeare's house at Stratford, 
 the performance of the comedy was repeated in 
 London. The following is a copy of the play- 
 bill : — 
 
 THEATEE EOYAL, HAYMARKET. 
 
 Hmatcur ipertormance 
 
 in aid of 
 
 THE FUND FOR THE ENDOWMENT OF A PERPETUAL 
 CLRATORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE, 
 
 To be ahvays held by some one distinguished in Literature, and 
 more especially in Dramatic Literature ; the Profits of which it is 
 the intention of the Shakespeare House Committee to keep entirely- 
 separate from the Fund now raising for the purchase of the 
 
 House. 
 
 On Wednesday Evening, May 17th, 1848, will b3 presented 
 BEN JONSON'S Comedy of 
 
 EYEEY MAX IX HIS HUMOUR. 
 
 Knowell {an old gentleman) . . . Mr. Dudley Costello. 
 Edward Knowell (his son) . . Mr. Frederick Dickens. 
 Brainworm {the father's man) . . Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 George Downwright (a plain squire) Mr. Frank Stone. 
 Wellbred {his half-brother) . . . Mr. G. H. Lewes. 
 Kitely (a merchant) .... Mr. John Forster. 
 Captain Bobadil {a Paul's man) . . Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 Master Stephen (a country gull) . ^Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 'Ma.ster ^Idthevr (the town gull) . . Mr. John Leech. 
 Thomas Cash {Kitely's cashier) . Mr. Augustus Dickens. 
 Oliver Cobb {a v:ater bearer) . . Mr. George Cruikshank. 
 Justice Clement {an old meri-y magis- 
 trate) Mr. Willmott. 
 
 'Roger Yovmdi] {his Clerk) . . . Mr. Cole. 
 
 Dame Kitely {Kitely's tcife) . . Miss Fortescue. 
 
 Mistress Bridget {her sister) . . Miss Kenworthv. 
 
 Tib (Cobb's wife) .... Mrs. Cowden Clarke. 
 
 The Costumes by Messrs. Nathan, of Titchbourne Street. 
 
102 
 
 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 To conclude with ]\Ir. Kenney's farce of 
 
 LOVE, LAW AND PHYSIC. 
 
 Doctor Camphor 
 
 Captain Danvers . 
 
 Flexible . 
 
 Andrew 
 
 Lubin Log 
 
 John Brown 
 
 Coachman 
 
 Laura . 
 
 Mrs. Hillary . 
 
 Chambermaid 
 
 Mr. George Cruikshank. 
 Mr. Frederick Dickens. 
 Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 Mr. G. H. Lewes. 
 Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 Mr. Eaton. 
 Miss Anne Romer. 
 Mrs. Cowden Clarke. 
 Miss Woulds. 
 
 The Band will perform, 
 Previous to the Comedy, Tlie Overture to Semiramide 
 
 Rossini 
 
 ( Battaylie Galop . 
 
 ■D . I Czarina Mazurka 
 
 Between J 
 
 the Acts 1 Arna Somnamhula 
 
 Kolloonitsch. 
 
 T. German Reed. 
 
 cornet \ 
 obligate I 
 
 Bellini, 
 t Wedding March .... Mendelssohn. 
 Previous to Farce, Tlie Prince of Wales Quadrilles . Jullien 
 
 *:)!.^ The doors will be opened at half-past six, and the performance 
 will commence at half-past seven 2}'i'eciseli/, ly which lime it is re- 
 quested that the whole of the company may be seated. 
 
 Directors of general arrangements — Mr. John Payne Collier, Mr. 
 Charles Knight, Mr. Peter Cunningham and the London Shakes- 
 eare House Committee. 
 
 Stage Manager — Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 
 Evening dress in all parts of the House. 
 
 a 
 
 Grreat difficulty," Mr. Forster says, " was 
 found in the selection of a suitable play to 
 alternate with our old Ben Jonson. *'The 
 Alchemist " had been such a favourite with some 
 of us, that, before finally laving it aside, we went 
 through two or three rehearsals, in which I 
 recollect thinking Dickens's Sir Epicure Mam- 
 mon as good as anything he had done; ^and 
 now the same trouble, with the same result. 
 
DICKENS .AS AN ACTOR. 103 
 
 arising from a vain desire to please everybody, 
 was taken successively with Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's * Beggar's Bush' and Groldsmith's 
 * Grood-natured Man,' with Jerrold's characteris- 
 tic drama of ' The Rent Day ' and Bulwer's 
 masterly comedy of ' Money.' Choice was at 
 last made of Shakespeare's * Merry Wives,' \m 
 which Lemon played FalstafF. I took again the 
 jealous husband, as in Jcnson's play, and 
 Dickens was Justice Shallow ; to which was 
 added a farce, 'Love, Law, and Physic,' in 
 which Dickens took the part he had acted long 
 ago, before his days of authorship ; and besides 
 the professional actresses engaged, we had for om* 
 Dame Quickly the lady to whom the world owes 
 incomparably the best ' Concordance to Shakes- 
 peare ' that has ever been published, Mrs. 
 Cowden Clarke. The success was undoubtedly 
 very great. At Manchester, Liverpool and 
 Edinburgh there were single representations, 
 but Birmingham and Glasgow had each two 
 nights, and two were given at the Haymarket, 
 on one of which the Queen and Prince were 
 present. The gross receipts from the nine 
 performances, before the necessary large deduc- 
 tions for London and local charges, were two 
 thousand five hundred and fifty-one pounds and 
 eight jjence." 
 
 Dickens, in his capacity as stage-manager, had 
 
104 DICKER'S AND THE STAGE. 
 
 prepared a set of rules for rehearsals, from 
 which the following is a quotation : " Eemem- 
 bering the very imperfect condition of all our plays 
 at present, the general expectation in reference to 
 them, the kind of audience before which they will 
 be presented, and the near approach of the nights 
 of performance, I hope everybody concerned 
 will abide by the following regulations, and will 
 aid in strictly carrying them out." .... 
 " Silence, on the stage and in the theatre, to be 
 faithfully observed, the lobbies, &c., being always 
 available for conversation. No book to be 
 referred to on the stage ; but those who are 
 imperfect to take their words from the prompter. 
 Everyone to act, as nearly as possible, as on the 
 night of performance ; everyone to speak out, 
 so as to be audible through the house. And 
 every mistake of exit, entrance, or situation to 
 be corrected three timies successively." . . 
 " All who were concerned in the first getting up of 
 ' Every Man in his Humour,' and who remember 
 how carefully the stage was always kept then, 
 and who have been engaged in the late re- 
 hearsals of the ' Merry Wives,' and have 
 experienced the difficulty of getting on or off, 
 of being heard, or of hearing anybody else, wil], 
 I am sure, acknowledge the indispensable 
 necessity of these regulations." 
 
 Mrs. Cowden Clarke, in the pleasant " Eecol- 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 105 
 
 lections of Writers," of which, she and her 
 husband are joint authors, naturally has much 
 to say of these famous amateur performances. 
 Speaking of the rehearsals, she says : *' Charles 
 Dickens, ever present, superintending, directing, 
 suggesting, with sleepless activity and vigilance : 
 the essence (>f punctuality and methodical 
 precision himself, he kept incessant watch that 
 others should be unfailiugly attentive and 
 careful throughout. Unlike most professional 
 rehearsals, where waiting about, dawdling, and 
 losing time, seem to be the order of the day, the 
 rehearsals under Charles Dickens's stage- 
 managership were strictly devoted to work — 
 serious, earnest work ; the consequence was that 
 when the evening of performance came, the pieces 
 went off with a smoothness and polish that 
 belong only to finished stage-business and 
 practised performers. He was always there 
 among the first arrivers at rehearsals, and re- 
 mained in a conspicuous position during their 
 progress till the very last moment of conclusion. 
 He had a small table placed rather to one side 
 of the stage, at which he generally sat, as the 
 scenes went on in which he himself took no part. 
 On this table rested a moderate sized box, its 
 interior divided into convenient compartments 
 for holding papers, letters, etc., and this interior 
 was always the very pink of neatness and orderly 
 
106 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 arrangement. Occasionally he would leave his 
 seat at the managerial table, and stand with his 
 back to the footlights in the very centre of the 
 front of the stage, and view the whole effect of 
 the rehearsed performance as it proceeded, ob- 
 serving the attitudes and positions of those 
 engaged in the dialogue, their mode of entrance, 
 exit, etc., etc. He never seemed to overlook 
 anything, but to note the very slightest point 
 that conduced to the ' going well' of the whole per- 
 formance. With all this supervision, however, it 
 was pleasant to remark the utter absence of 
 dictatorialness or arrogation of superiority that 
 diLtinguished his mode of ruling his troop : he 
 exerted his authority firmly and perpetually, but 
 in such a manner as to make it universally felt 
 to be for no purpose of self-assertion or self-im- 
 portance ; on the contrary, to be for the sole 
 purpose of ensuring general success to their 
 united efforts." 
 
 As an instance of his attention to detail Mrs. 
 Cowden-Clarke speaks of the card bearing the 
 words, " Pass to the Stage : Charles Dickens," 
 " with the emphatic scribble beneath his name, 
 which formed the magic order for entrance 
 through the stage-door of the theatre." The 
 compiler of these pages is fortunate enough to 
 be able to reproduce a copy of this card in fac- 
 simile. 
 
DICKENS AS A^' ACTOK. 
 
 107 
 
 
 f.S)^^^<m^^^3^ac€.!^<HA^^^.^^^y^^t^ ^^ 
 
10 S DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " The * make-up ' of Dickens as Justice Shallow," 
 Mrs. Cowden-Clarke goes on to say, " was so 
 complete, that his own identity was almost un- 
 recognisable, when he came on to the stage, as 
 the curtain rose, in company with Sir Hugh and 
 Master Slender ; but after a moment's breathless 
 pause, the whole house burst forth into a roar 
 of applausive reception, which testified to the 
 boundless delight of the assembled audience on 
 beholding the literary idol of the day, actually 
 before them. His impersonation was perfect : 
 the old, stiff limbs, the senile stoop of the 
 shoulders, the head bent with age, the feeble 
 step, with a certain attempted smartness of 
 carriage characteristic of the conceited Justice 
 of the Peace — were all assumed and maintained 
 with wonderful accuracy ; while the articulation, 
 part lisp, part thickness of utterance, part a 
 kind of impeded sibilation, like that of a voice 
 that * pipes and whistles in the sound ' through 
 loss of teeth — gave consummate effect to his 
 mode of speech. The one in which Shallow says, 
 ' 'Tis the heart. Master Page ; 'tis here, 'tis here. 
 I have seen the time with my long sword I 
 would have made you four tall fellows skip like 
 rats,' was delivered with a humour of expression 
 in effete energy of action and would-be fire of 
 spirit that marvellously imaged fourscore years 
 in its attempt to denote vigour long since extinct." 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 109 
 
 Of Dickens's performance in * Every Man in 
 His Humour,' the same writer says : " The way 
 in which Charles Dickens impersonated that arch 
 braggart, Captain Bobadil, was a veritable piece 
 of genius : from the moment when he is dis- 
 covered lolling at full length on a bench in his 
 lodgings, calling for a ' cup o' small beer ' to 
 cool down the remnants of excitement from last 
 night's carouse with a set of roaring gallants, to 
 his final boast of having ' not so much as once 
 offered to resist ' the ' coarse fellow ' who set upon 
 him in the open streets, he was capital. The 
 mode in which he went to the back of the stage 
 before he made his exit from the first scene of 
 Act II., uttering the last word of the taunt he 
 flings at Downright with a bawl of stentorian 
 loudness, 'Scavenger!' and then darted off the 
 stage at full speed ; the insolent scorn of his 
 exclamation, ' This a Toledo ? pish ! ' bending the 
 sword into a curve as he spoke ; the swaggering 
 assumption of ease with which he leaned on 
 the shoulder of his interlocutor, puffing away his 
 tobacco smoke and puffing it off as ' your right 
 Trinidado ! ' the grand impudence of his lying 
 when explaining how he would despatch scores 
 of the enemy — ' challenge twenty more, kill 
 them ; twenty more, kill them ; twenty more, 
 kill them too ' ; ending by ' twenty score, that's 
 two hundred ; two hundred a day, five days a 
 
110 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 thousand ; forty thousand ; forty times five, five 
 times forty, two hundred days kills them all up 
 by computation,' rattling the words ofi" while 
 making an invisible sum of addition in the air, 
 and scoring it conclusively with an invisible line 
 underneath — were all the very height of fun." 
 
 Speaking of his performance in " Used Up," 
 our authority says " Charles Dickens's Sir Charles 
 Coldstream was excellent." 
 
 " The Farce of ' Love, Law and Physic,' " Mrs. 
 Cowden-Clarke continues, " was a large field for 
 
 the very hey-day of frolic and mirth 
 
 In token of Charles Dickens's appropriateness of 
 gesture, and dramatic discrimination, I may in- 
 stance his different mode of entrance on the 
 stage with me as Mrs. Quickly and as Mrs. 
 Hillary. Where Justice Shallow comes hurriedly 
 in with the former, Act III., Scene 4, saying to 
 her ' Break their talk. Mistress Quickly ; ' he 
 used to have hold of my arm, partly leaning on 
 it, partly leading me on by it, just like an old 
 man with an inferior ; but, as the curtain rose to 
 the ringing of bells, the clattering of horses, the 
 blowing of mail coach horn, the voices of 
 passengers calling to waiter and chambermaid, 
 &c., at the opening of * Love, Law and Physic,' 
 Charles Dickens used to tuck me under his arm 
 with the free-and-easy familiarity of a lawyer 
 patronising an actress whom he chances to find his 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. Ill 
 
 fellow traveller in a stage coach, and step smartly 
 on to the stage, with ' Come, bustle, bustle ; 
 tea and coffee for the ladies.' It is something to 
 remember, having been tucked under the arm 
 by Charles Dickens, and had one's hand hugged 
 against his side ! One thinks better of one's 
 hand ever after." 
 
 Abundant evidence is forthcoming of the 
 success of Dickens's acting on this occasion. 
 His Captain Bobadil was thus spoken of by one 
 of the leading critics of the day : '' Such a 
 Bobadil as that of Mr. Dickens had not been seen 
 within the memory of man. I well remember 
 the change which, according to his interpreta- 
 tion, took place in the character of the braggart 
 after he had received his cudgelling. Before the 
 beating he was so gallant and jaunty ; after it, 
 his very soul appeared to be crushed within him. 
 Even his bodily identity was altered. The 
 general feeling among the audience was com- 
 passion for the crest-fallen captain, which the 
 dramatist had scarcely intended to inspire. ' I 
 almost wish he had not been beaten,' was the 
 exclamation that circulated among the fairer 
 portion of the brilliant audience." 
 
 The same writer adds : " Well as the comedy 
 was performed, and great as was the interest 
 caused by the first appearance of so many gentle- 
 men eminent in literature on the stage of a 
 
112 DIUKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 theatre, the unsuitability of the work to modern 
 audiences could not be concealed. Lord Mel- 
 bourne, a man of decided theatrical proclivities, 
 occupied a private box, and was heard to say in 
 a too audible whisper, ' I knew this comedy was 
 dull, but I did not think it was so d d dull.' " 
 
 The next of these " splendid strollings," as the 
 performances were by no means inappropriately 
 dubbed, were given after an interval of about 
 two years. 
 
 "At the close of November, 1850," says Mr. 
 Forster, ''in the great hall of Lord Lytton's 
 old family mansion in Knebworth Park, there 
 were three private performances by the original 
 actors in ' Every Man in his Humour.' All the 
 circumstances and surroundings were very 
 brilliant ; some of the gentlemen of the county 
 played both in the comedy and farces ; our 
 generous host was profuse of all noble encourage- 
 ment, and amid the general pleasure and ex- 
 citement hopes rose high." 
 
 The following is a copy of the play-bill : — 
 
 KNEBWOKTH. 
 
 On Monday, November i8th, 1850, 
 ■will be performed, Ben Jonson's comedy of 
 
 EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUE. 
 
 Costumiers. — Messrs. Nathan, of Titchbourne street. 
 Perruquier. — Mr. Wilson, of the Strand. 
 
 Knowell {an old f/mtlema)i) . . . Mr. Delme RadcHffe. 
 Edward Knoweli {his sou) . . Mr. Henry Hawkins. 
 
DICKENS A3 AN AC TOR. 113 
 
 Brainworm {the father's man) . . Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 
 George Downright (a plain Squire) . Mr. Frank Stone. 
 
 Wellbred (his half-brother) . • . Mr. Henry Hale. 
 
 Kitely (a merchant) .... Mr. John' Forster. 
 
 Captain Bobadil (a PauVs man) . . Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 
 Master Stephen (a country (/nil) . Mr. Douglas Jerrold. 
 
 Master Matthe\^ {the toim gull) . Mr. J<jhn Leech. 
 
 Thomas Cash {Kitely's cashi.r) . Mr. Frederick Dickens. 
 
 Oliver Cobb (a water-bearer) . . Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 Justice Clement {an old merry macjis- 
 
 irate) '. The Hon. Eliot Yorke. 
 
 Roger Formal (his clerk) . . , Mr. Phantom. 
 
 Dame Kitely {Kitdy's wife) . . Miss Anne Romer. 
 
 Mistress Bridget (his sister) . . Miss Hogarth. 
 
 Tib {Cob's (cife) .... Mrs. Mark Lemon 
 
 (Who has kindly consented to act in lieu of Mfis. Charles Dickexs, 
 disabled bv an accident). 
 
 The Epilogue by Mr. Delme Radcliffe. 
 To conclude Tvith Mrs. Inchbald's farce of 
 
 AXIMAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 The Doctor ..... Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 
 La Fleur Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 
 The Marquis de Lancy . . . Mr. .John Leech. 
 
 Jeffery ...... Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 
 Constance ..'... Miss Hogarth. 
 
 Lisette ...... Miss Anne Romer. 
 
 Stage Manager . . . Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 
 The theatre ■will be open at half past six. The performance 
 •vriU begin precisely at half-past seven. 
 
 GOD SAVE THE QUEEN ! 
 
 The Epilogue, by Mr. F. P. Delme Radcliffe, 
 allusion to which is here made, takes the form of 
 a rhymed dialogue between old Knowell and 
 Wellbred. All the characters in the play are 
 referred to, and the mention of Dickens is made 
 as follows : 
 "Amongst the party there are pretty pickings I 
 
114 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 But say, can newspaper describe Charles 
 Dickens ? 
 
 Author and actor ; manager ; the soul 
 
 Of all who read or hear him ! on the whole 
 
 A very Household Worcl.^^ 
 
 Eeference is also made to the accident which 
 prevented the appearance of Mrs. Dickens : 
 
 Wellhred. Now, how about the ladies ? 
 
 KnoiuelL For my part 
 
 I have got their perfections all by heart. 
 
 Wellbred. Hush ' What would Dickens say 
 to such sweet word ? 
 
 KnoiuelL Why, that the lady emulates her 
 lord. 
 
 A word on her sad accident ; but quite 
 
 Impromptu, not intended for to-night. 
 
 Oh, may she soon recover from her sprain, 
 
 To tread with us, her friends, these boards 
 again ! 
 
 Wellhred. That fall sank all our spirits ; but 
 in need, 
 
 'Tis said, a friend is found a friend indeed. 
 
 Successful friendship has our cares allayed — 
 
 KnoiuelL Ay, and the case relieved by Lemon- 
 aid. 
 
 Out of these Knebworth performances sprang 
 the idea of the "Guild of Literature and Art," 
 and the determination to give, on behalf of its 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 115 
 
 endowment, another series of amateur entertain- 
 ments. A five-act comedy was to be written by 
 Sir Edward Lytton, and when a certain sum of 
 money had been obtained by public representa- 
 tions of it, the details of the scheme were to be 
 drawn up, and appeal made to those whom it 
 addressed more especially. " In a very few 
 months," writes Mr. Forster, " everything was 
 ready, except a farce which Dickens was to have 
 written to follow the comedy, and which unex- 
 pected cares of management and preparation 
 were held to absolve him from. There were other 
 reasons. *I have written the first scene,' he 
 wrote, ' and it has droll points in it, more farcical 
 points than you commonly find in farces — really 
 better. Yet I am constantly striving, for my 
 reputation's sake, to get into a meaning that is 
 impossible in a farce; constantly thinking of it, 
 therefore, against the grain, and constantly im- 
 pressed with a conviction that I could never act 
 in it myself with that wild abandonment which 
 can alone carry a farce off. Wherefore I have 
 confessed to Bulwer Lytton, and asked for abso- 
 lution.' There was substituted a new farce of 
 Lemon's, to which, however, Dickens soon con- 
 tributed so many jokes and so much Gampish 
 and other fun of his own, that it came to be in 
 effect, a joint piece of authorship." This was 
 the little play already alluded to in these pages. 
 
116 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 and subsequently made famous as " Mr. Night- 
 ingale's Diary." 
 
 The first performance of the new programme 
 took place at Devonshire House, on the 27th of 
 May, 1851, before the Queen and Prince and as 
 large an audience as places could be found for. 
 The success was considerable, and, after a series 
 of representations at the Hanover Square Rooms, 
 strolling began in the country. A copy of one 
 of the play-bills is here given : — 
 
 HANOVER SQUARE ROOMS. 
 
 On Wednesday Evening, June i8th, 1851, 
 
 Ubc Hmateur Company of tbe 0uil^ of 
 Xitcrature auD Brt, 
 
 To encourage Life Assurance and other Provident habits among 
 Authors and Artists ; to render such assistance to both as shall 
 never compromise their independence ; and to found a new Institu- 
 tion where honourable rest from arduous labour shall still be associ- 
 ated with the discharge of congenial duties ; 
 
 Will have the Honour of Performing, for the Third Time, a New 
 Comedy, in Five Acts, by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, 
 
 Bart., called 
 
 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM; 
 
 or, 
 MAXY SIDES TO A CHARACTER: 
 
 The Duke of Mid- f Peers attached to the \ Mr. P'rank Stone. 
 
 dlesex ) son of James II., ( 
 
 The Earl of Lof- 1 commonly called the i Mr. Dudley Costello. 
 
 tus \ First Pretender I 
 
 Lord Wilmot {a young 3Ian at the head 
 
 of the Mode more than a century ago, 
 
 son to Lord Loftus) .... Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 Mr. ShadoAvly Softhead {a young aentle- 
 
 man from the City, Friend and Double 
 
 to Lord frUmot) .... Mr. Douglas Jerrold. 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 
 
 117 
 
 Mr. Hardman {a RUiny Jftmber of Par- 
 litiment and Adherent to Sir Robert 
 IV(dpole) ...... 
 
 Sir Geoffrey Thomside {a gentleman of 
 (jood family and estate) 
 
 Mr. Goodenough Easy {in business, 
 Itii/hli/ respectable, and a friend of Sir 
 Geoffrey) 
 
 Lord Le Trimmer .... 
 
 Sir Thomas Timid 
 
 Colonel Flint 
 
 Mr. .Jacob Tonson {a hookseller) . 
 
 Smart (i-alet to Lord Wilrnot) 
 
 Hodffe (servant to Sir Geoffrey Tliorn- 
 side) ^ 
 
 Paddv O'Sullivan (J//-. Fullen^s land- 
 lord) 
 
 Mr. David Fallen {Grub Street author 
 and pamphleteer) . . . . 
 
 Mr John Forster. 
 Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 
 Mr. F. W. Toj.ham. 
 Mr. Peter Cunningham. 
 Mr. \^'estland Marston. 
 Mr. R. H. Home. 
 ^Ir. Charles Knight. 
 Mr. Wilkie Caiins. 
 
 Mr. .John Tenniel. 
 
 Mr. Robert Bell. 
 
 Mr. Ausustus Egg. 
 
 Lord Strongbow, Sir John Bruin, Coffee-House Loungers, DraAvers, 
 Watchmen and Newsmen. 
 
 Lucy (daughter to Sir Geoffrey Thorn- 
 side) Mrs. Henry Compton. 
 
 Barbara {daughter to Mr. Easy) . . Miss Young. 
 The Silent Ladv of Deadman's Lane . Mrs. Cue. 
 
 Scenery. 
 
 Lord Wilmot's Lodgings 
 
 "TheMuriUo" 
 
 Sir Geoffrey Thomside's Library . 
 
 "Will's Coffee-house . 
 
 The Streets and Deadman's Lane . 
 
 The Distrest Poet's Garret {after 
 
 IJo'/arth) .... 
 The Mall in the Park 
 An Open Space near the River 
 Tapestry Chamber in Deadman's 
 
 Lane 
 
 The Act Drop . . . . 
 
 Painted b\ 
 
 ■ Mr. Pitt. 
 
 t> 
 
 Mr. Absalom. 
 
 
 Mr. Pitt. 
 
 ff 
 
 Mr. Pitt. 
 
 
 Mr. Thomas Grieve, 
 
 M 
 
 Mr. Pitt. 
 
 »» 
 
 Mr. Teibin. 
 
 »» 
 
 Mr. Stanrield, R.A. 
 
 if 
 
 Mr. Louis Haehe. 
 
 *1 
 
 Mr. Roberts, R.A. 
 
 V 
 
 Previous to the Play, the Band -will perform, under the direction 
 of Mr. Lund, an Overture, composed expressly for this occasion by 
 Mr. C. Coote, Pianist to His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 The performance to conclude "with (for the second time) an 
 
 Original Farce, in One Act, by Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr. Mark 
 
 Lemon, entitled 
 
118 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 MK. NIGHTINGALE'S DIAEY: 
 
 Mr. Nightingale Mr. Dudley Costello. 
 
 Mr. Gdbblewig {of the Jliddle TemjAe) . Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 
 Tip {his Tiyer) \ Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 
 Slap {irrofeadoncdly Mr. Flormiville) . . Mr. Mark Lemon. 
 Lithers (landlord uf the " Water-Lily") . Mr. Wilkie Collins. 
 
 Rosina Miss Young. 
 
 Susan Mrs, Coe. 
 
 The Proscenium by Mr. Grace. The Theatre constructed by Mr. 
 Sloman, machinist of the Koyal Lyceum Theatre. The Properties 
 and Appointments by Mr. Gr. Foster. The Costumes (-with the 
 exception of the Ladies' dresses, and the dresses of the Farce, 
 which are by Messrs. Nathan, of Titchborne Street) made by Mr. 
 Barnett, of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Under the superintend- 
 ence of Mr. Augustus Egg, A.R.A. Perruquier, Mr. Wilson, 
 of the Strand. Prompter, ^Ir. Coe. 
 
 The whole Produced under the Direction of Mr. Chables Dickens. 
 
 The Band will be under the Direction of Mr. Lund. 
 
 Tickets (all the seats being reserved), iOi\ each, to be had of Mr. 
 Sams, I, St. James's Street). 
 
 Doors open at a Quarter before SEVEN; commence at exactly 
 a Quarter before EIGHT. The ti-hole of the audience are 2>cn-ticu- 
 larly recommended to be seated before a Quarter to Eiyht. 
 
 Notwithstandiug the immense attraction of its 
 cast, and the undoubted success of the enterprise 
 in which it was concern edj it is very much to be 
 doubted whether " Not so Bad as We Seem " was 
 the happiest selection that the amateurs could 
 have made. That, after a few performances, 
 " alterations " (ill omen to the dramatic author I) 
 were found necessary is evident. 
 
 In the edition of the comedy published in 
 1851, by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, for the 
 Guild of Literature and Art, the following "slip " 
 notice was inserted : 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 119 
 
 "The length of this Play necessitates (as in 
 * Richelieu ') many omissions in stage represen- 
 tations. The most important, a^ regards business 
 and plot, is that of the concluding scene in the 
 fourth act. By the omission of this scene, the 
 agency of Softhead in obtaining from the Duke 
 of Middlesex the Requisition to the Pretender 
 is suppressed. And Hard man is introduced 
 (Scene i. Act v.) as having obtained that im- 
 portant packet from Fallen's messenger. 
 
 " The place named in the printed Play for 
 the Duke's appointment with the Messenger, is 
 changed in the acting, from the wall by Lord 
 Berkeley's garden to the river-side, behind 
 Eanelagh ; a change that the spectator will 
 comprehend and appreciate when he sees the 
 beautiful river scene, which forms Mr. Stanfield's 
 generous contribution to the purposes for which 
 this Play is composed and performed." 
 
 It . seems more than likely that the master- 
 hand of Dickens had something to do with 
 these eminently practical, and diplomatically 
 brought about " cuts." 
 
 In Mr. R. H. Home's " Recollections of Con- 
 temporaries," associated with the Gevtlemans 
 Magazine, and which are comprised with the 
 delightful " Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
 ing," will be found the following account of the 
 Devonshire House performance : 
 
120 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " The Duke gave us the use of his large 
 picture gallery, to be fitted up with seats for the 
 audience ; and his library adjoining for the 
 erection of the theatre. The latter room being 
 longer than required for the stage and the 
 scenery, the back portion of it was screened off 
 for a " green room." Sir Joseph Paxton was 
 most careful in the erection of the theatre and 
 seats. There was a special box for the Queen. 
 None of the valuable paintings in the picture 
 gallery (arranged for the auditorium) were 
 removed ; but all were faced with planks, and 
 covered with crimson velvet draperies ; not a nail 
 was allowed to be hammered into the floor or 
 walls, the lateral supports being by the pressure 
 from end to end, of padded beams; and the 
 uprights, or stanchions, were fitted with iron 
 feet, firmly fixed to the floor by copper screws. 
 The lamps and their oil were well considered, 
 so that the smoke should not be offensive or 
 injurious — even the oil being slightly scented — 
 and there was a profusion of wax candles. Sir 
 Joseph Paxton also arranged the ventilation in 
 the most skilful manner ; and, with some assist- 
 ance from a theatrical machinist, he put up all 
 the scenes, curtains, and flies. Dickens was 
 unanimously chosen general manager, and 
 Mark Lemon stage manager. We had a pro- 
 fessional gentleman for prompter, as none of 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 121 
 
 the amateurs could be entrusted -with so technical, 
 ticklish, and momentous a duty. 
 
 *' Never in the world of theatres was a better 
 manager than Charles Dickens. Without, of 
 course, questioning the superiority of Groethe (in 
 the Weimar theatre) as a manager in all matters 
 of high-class dramatic literature, one cannot 
 think he could have been so excellent in all 
 general requirements, stage effects, and practical 
 details. Equally assiduous and unwearying as 
 Dickens, surely very few men ever were, or could 
 possibly be. He appeared almost ubiquitous and 
 sleepless." 
 
 Speaking of Dickens's acting in *' Not so Bad 
 as we Seem," Mr. Home says : 
 
 " The character and costume of •' Lord Wilmot, 
 a young man at the head of the Mode, more than 
 a century ago,' did not suit him. His bearing 
 on the stage, and the tone of his voice, were too 
 rigid, hard, and quarter-deck-like, for such * rank 
 and fashion,' and his make-up, with the three- 
 cornered, gold-laced, cocked hat, black curled 
 wig, huge sleeve cuffs, long flapped waistcoat, 
 knee-breeches and shoe-buckles, were not carried 
 off with the proper air ; so that he would have 
 made a good portrait of a captain of a Dutch 
 privateer, after having taken a capital prize. 
 When he shouted in praise of the wine of Burgundy 
 it far rather suggested fine kegs of Schiedam." 
 
122 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 In " Mr. Nightingale's Diary," however, 
 a great success was obtained. This little piece 
 had hardly any plot, and appears to have been 
 somewhat of the nature of what is, now-a- 
 days, known as a '' variety entertainment." In 
 it Dickens appeared in five different characters, 
 namely : Sam Weller ; Mr. Gabblewig, an over- 
 voluble barrister ; a hypochondriac ; Mrs. Gamp, 
 (" not the real Mrs. Gamp, but only a near 
 relation ") ; and an old sexton, ninety years of 
 age. He also took part in a broadsword combat, 
 fought d la Crummies. 
 
 In a critical account of these performances 
 which appeared in Bentley's Miscellany for June, 
 1851, great praise is bestowed upon Dickens's 
 impersonation of this Mrs. Gamp-like character. 
 
 Fascinating as the public actor's life, without 
 doubt, was to a man of Dickens's temperament, 
 it was some time, unless we except home per- 
 formances devised foi the entertainment of his 
 children, before he again appeared upon the 
 boards. But how excellent these back-drawing- 
 room productions must have been ! " Carrying 
 memory back to his home in the first half of 
 1854," says Mr. Forster, "there are few things 
 that arise more pleasantly in connection with it 
 than the children's theatricals. These began 
 with the first Twelfth Night at Tavistock House, 
 and were renewed until the principal actors ceased 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 123 
 
 to be children. The best of the performances 
 were 'Tom Thumb' and 'Fortunio,' in '54 and 
 '55; Dickens now joining first in the revel, and 
 Mr. Mark Lemon bringing into it his own clever 
 children and a very mountain of child-pleasing 
 fun in himself. In Fielding's burlesque he was 
 the giantess (xlumdalca, and Dickens was the 
 ghost of Gaffer Thumb ; the names by which 
 they respectively appeared, being the Infant 
 Phenomenon and the Modern Grarrick. 
 In 'Fortunio' (Twelfth Night, 1855) Dickens 
 played the testy Old Baron, and took advantage 
 of the excitement against the Czar, then raging, 
 to denounce him (in a song) as no other than 
 own cousin to the very Bear that Fortunio had 
 gone forth to subdue. He depicted him, in his 
 desolation of autocracy, as the Eobinson Crusoe 
 of absolute state, who had at his court many a 
 show-day, and many a high-day, but hadn't in all 
 his dominions a Friday. The bill, which attri- 
 buted these interpolations to ' the Dramatic 
 Poet of the Establishment,' deserves also men- 
 tion for the fun of the six large-lettered 
 announcements which stood at the head of it, 
 and could not have been bettered by Mr. 
 Crummies him.self. ' Ke-engagement of that 
 irresistible comedian Mr. Aingerl' 'Re-appear- 
 ance of Mr. H. who created so powerful an im- 
 pression last year!' 'Return of Mr. Charles 
 
124 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Dickens, Jun., from his German engagements ! ' 
 * Engagement of Miss Kate, who declined the 
 munificent offers of the Management last 
 season ! ' Mr. Passe, Mr. Mudperiod, ]Mr. .Measlj 
 Servile, and Mr. Wilkini Collini ! ' ' First ap- 
 pearance on any stage of Mr. Plornishmiroon- 
 tigoonter (who has been kept out of bed at a 
 vast expense).' The last performer mentioned 
 was yet some distance from the third year of his 
 age. Dickens was Mr. Passe." 
 
 In 1855, Tavistock House was the scene of 
 private theatricals on a far more ambitious scale. 
 Mr. Wilkie Collins's play, "The Lighthouse," 
 being performed with a degree of excellence and 
 completeness rarely surpassed in any theatre, and 
 with a success that naturally led to its production 
 elsewhere. 
 
 In his " Journal of a London Playgoer," jMr. 
 Henry Morley thus speaks of one of the private 
 performances of this dramatic work : — 
 
 '^ July 14:th, 1855. — On Tuesday evening, at 
 Campden House, Kensington, the residence of 
 Colonel Waugh, semi-private theatricals were 
 given, with a charitable purpose, and with striking 
 success, under the management of Mr. Charles 
 Dickens." 
 
 " At Campden House there is a miniature 
 theatre, complete with pit and boxes, stage and 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 125 
 
 footlights. For the benefit of the funds of the 
 Bournemouth Sanatorium for Consumptive 
 Patients, the amateurs performed in this little 
 theatre before a crowded audience, composed 
 principally of ladies, a new two-act play by Mr. 
 Wilkie Collins, and a two-act farce. The play 
 was called ' The Lighthouse,' and told a tale of 
 Eddystone in the old times. An exquisite picture 
 (for such it is, and not a mere ordinary scene) of 
 Eddystone as it stood in those days, from the 
 pencil of Mr. Stanfield, was the drop-scene, and 
 the actors were exhibited throughout as shut up 
 in a little room within the lighthouse, also of Mr. 
 Stanfield's painting, which, from its nature, could 
 with the best possible effect be set u^ in a 
 private drawing-room, or on a minature stage. 
 Similar exigencies appear also to have been con- 
 sulted in the manner of developing the plot of 
 the play ; the crime, the wreck, and all the events 
 upon which hangs the passion of the story, not 
 being produced upon the scene, but breaking out 
 from the narration of the actors. None of the 
 leading incidents are shown actually, but their 
 workings on the minds of the three lighthouse- 
 men who are the chief performers, and of the 
 few other persons introduced into the story, 
 contribute interest enough to sustain an earnest 
 attention throughout. The little piece told upon 
 the audience admirably." 
 
126 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " But it had rare advantages. It was, in its 
 principal parts, acted by distinguished writers, 
 with whose artistic skill upon the stage the 
 public has been for some time familiar. The 
 three lighthouse-men are at first shown cut off 
 by a month's storm from the mainland. They 
 are an old man and his son, together with the 
 father of the young man's sweetheart. The old 
 man's memory is haunted by what he believes to 
 have been his passive consent to a most foul 
 murder. Weakened by starvation, his brain 
 becomes wholly possessed by dread of this crime. 
 The spectre of the supposed murdered lady 
 seems to stand at his bedside and bid him speak. 
 He does speak, and, possessed with a wild horror 
 at all he recollects, reveals to his son his shame. 
 Upon the acting of this character depends the 
 whole force of the story, as presented to the 
 audience, and it is in the hands of a master. He 
 is a rough man, whose face has been familiar for 
 years with wind and spray, haggard and wild just 
 now, and something light-headed, oppressed not 
 more by conscience than by hunger. He tells 
 his tale and his son turns from him, shrinks from 
 his touch, struck down by horror of the crime, 
 and the humiliation to himself involved in it. 
 Eelief comes to the party soon after this ; they 
 are fed, and the physical depression is re- 
 moved. Eager then to regain his son's esteem. 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOX 127 
 
 and cancel the disclosure of his secret, the old 
 lighthous3-man changes in manner. By in- 
 numerable master-touches on the part of the 
 actor, we are shown what his rugged ways have 
 been of hiding up the knowledge that stirs 
 actively within his conscience ; but his effort to 
 be bold produces only nervous bluster, and his 
 frantic desire to recover his son's respect, though 
 he may take him by the throat to extort it from 
 him, is still mixed up with a horrible sense of 
 blood-guiltiness, wonderfully expressed by little 
 instinctive actions. I will not follow the story 
 to its last impressive moment of rough, nervous, 
 seaman's prayer, in which the old man stands 
 erect, with his hands joined over his head, over- 
 powered by the sudden removal of the load that 
 has so long weighed upon his heart. But to the 
 last that piece of the truest acting was watched 
 with minute attention by the company assembled ; 
 and rarely has acting on a public stage better re- 
 warded scrutiny." 
 
 The actor, of course, was Dickens, and it is 
 worth noting that Carlyle compared his wild 
 picturesqueness in this exacting part to the 
 famous figure in Nicholas Poussin's bacchanalian 
 dance in the National Grallery. 
 
 Mr. Clarkson Stanfield's " Lighthouse " act- 
 drop subsequently decorated the walls at Gad's 
 Hill, and although it took the great painter less 
 
128 DIUKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 than a couple of days to execute, fetched 1,000 
 guineas at the famous Dickens sale of 1870. A 
 cloth painted for the " Frozen Deep " which was 
 the next and last of these productions, also had a 
 prominent place in the Gad's Hill picture gallery. 
 
 " The Lighthouse " was subsequently produced 
 at the Olympic Theatre, under the management 
 of Messr?. Robson and Emden, and with Mr. F, 
 Eobson in the leading part. 
 
 Mrs. Cowden Clarke was much struck by Dickens's 
 performance in " The Lighthouse." Of it she 
 says : 
 
 " Later on in the scene a low planked recess 
 in the wall is opened, where Charles Dickens — as 
 the first lighthouse keeper, an old man with half- 
 dazed wits and a bewildered sense of some wrong 
 committed in bygone years — is discovered asleep 
 in his berth. A wonderful impersonation was 
 this ; very imaginative, very original, very wild, 
 very striking ; his grandly intelligent eyes were 
 made to assume a wandering look, — a sad, scared 
 lost gaze, as of one whose spirit was away from 
 present objects, and wholly occupied with absent 
 and long-past images." 
 
 About a year later on Mr. Wilkie Collin s's 
 drama, " The Frozen Deep," was performed with 
 equally gratifying results, and in some introduc- 
 tory lines that preface tliis powerful story as told 
 in narrative form its author writes : 
 
DICKEXS AS AN ACTOR. 129 
 
 " As long ago as the year 1856, I wrote a play 
 called ' The Frozen Deep.' 
 
 " The work was first represented by amateur 
 actors, at the house of the late Charles Dickens, 
 on the 6th of January, 1857. Mr. Dickens himself 
 played the principal part, and played it with a 
 truth, vigour and pathos never to be forgotten by 
 those who were fortunate enouo^h to witness the 
 performance. The other personages of the story 
 were represented by the ladies of Mr. Dickens's 
 family, by the late Mark Lemon, by the late 
 Augustus Egg, E.A., and by the author." 
 
 " The next appearance of * The Frozen Deep,' 
 (played by the Amateur Company) took place at 
 the G-allery of Illustration, Eegent Street, before 
 the Queen and the Royal Family, by the Queen's 
 own command. After this special performance 
 other representations of the work were given — 
 first at the Grallery of Illustration, subsequently 
 with professional actresses, in some of the prin- 
 cipal towns in England — for the benefit of the 
 family of a well-loved friend of ours, who died in 
 1857, the late Douglas Jerrold. At Manchester 
 the play was twice performed — on the second 
 evening in the presence of three thousand spec- 
 tators. This was, I think, the finest of all the 
 representations of * The Frozen Deep.' The extra- 
 ordinary intelligence and enthusiasm of the great 
 audience stimulated us all to do our best. Dickens 
 
 9 
 
130 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 surpassed himself. The trite phrase is the true 
 phrase to describe that magnificent piece of acting. 
 He literally electrified the audience." 
 
 The following is a copy of a portion of the 
 original playbill of this memorable performance. 
 
 In remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas Jerrold. 
 
 FREE TRADE HAEL. 
 
 UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF MR. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 On FRIDAY Evening August 21st, and on SATURDAY 
 Evening August 22nd, 1857, 
 
 AT EIGHT o'clock EXACTLY, 
 
 Will be presented an entirely New Romantic Drama in Three 
 
 Acts, by 
 
 MR. WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 CALLED 
 
 THE FROZEN DEEP. 
 
 The Overture composed expressly for this piece by Mr, Francesco 
 
 Rerger, Avho will conduct the Orchestra. 
 
 Captain Edsworth (of the " Sea Mew'') Mr. Edward Pigott. 
 Captain Helding (of the " Wanderer ") Mr. Alfred Dickens 
 Lieutenant Cray ford . . . ^Ir. Mark Lemon. 
 
 Frank Aldersley .... Mr. Wilkie Collins. 
 
 Richard Wardour .... Mr. Charles Dickens. 
 Lieutenant Steventon . . . Mr. Young Charles. * 
 
 John Want (Ship's Cook) . . Mr. Augustus Egg. 
 
 Bateson ^ (ttco of the " Sea-Jfeto's " _| Mr. Shirley Brooks. 
 Darker j Feople) '( Mr. Charles Collins. 
 
 Officers and Crews of the " Sea-Mew," and "Wanderer." 
 
 Mrs. Steventon Mrs. George Vining. 
 
 Rose Ebsworth .... Miss Ellen Sabine. 
 
 Lucy Crayford .... Miss Ellen Ternan. 
 
 Clara Burnham .... Miss Maria Ternan. 
 
 Nurse Esther Mrs. Ternan. 
 
 Maid Miss Mewte. t 
 
 The Scenery and Scenic Effects of the First Act, by Mr. Telbin. 
 
 The Scenery and Scenic Effects of the Second and Third Acts, by 
 Mr. Stanfield, r.a. 
 
 * A facetious nickname invented by Dickens for his eldest son. 
 t Another nickname by Dickens for a young lady -who had no- 
 thing to say. 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 131 
 
 Ten years after this " The Frozen Deep " was 
 professionally performed at the Olympic Thsatre, 
 with Mr. Henry Neville in the part " created " 
 by Dickens. 
 
 Considering that the greater part of its action 
 takes place in the Arctic regions, the mounting 
 of Mr. Wilkie ColUns's play was no light under- 
 taking for the amateur stage, but this is as 
 nothing compared with the successful interpre- 
 tation of the character of Eichard Wardour by 
 one who called himself an amateur actor. The 
 dramatist has depicted AVardour as a man 
 swayed by the most intense passions, placed by 
 circumstances in positions of the most terrible 
 trial. It is just one of those parts that bad or 
 even indifferent acting of a melodramatic school 
 would make ridiculous. But in the hands of 
 Dickens it became a magnificent human study, 
 and lifted the play, and all concerned in it, into 
 a splendid artistic success. 
 
 To these performances of ^Ir. Wilkie Collins's 
 drama, an incalculably great and ever-increasing 
 audience is indebted. 
 
 In the preface to " A Tale of Two Cities," 
 Dickens says : " When I was acting with my 
 children and friends, in Mr. Wilkie Collins's 
 drama of ' The Frozen Deep,' I first conceived 
 the main idea of this story. A strong desire was 
 upon me then, to embody it in my own person ; 
 
 9* 
 
132 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 and I traced out in my fancy, the state of mind 
 of which it would necessitate the presentation 
 to an observant spectator, with particular care 
 and interest." 
 
 The character he desired to play was of course 
 that of Sydney Carton. 
 
 " As the idea became familiar to me," he goes 
 on to say, "it gradually shaped itself into its 
 present form. Throughout its execution it had 
 complete possession of me ; I have so far verified 
 what is done and suffered in these pages, as that 
 I have certainly done and suffered it all myself." 
 
 He sent the proof-sheets of the story to his 
 friend Eegnier of the Theatre Franpais, and 
 wrote : "I should very much like to know what 
 you think of its being dramatised for a French 
 theatre." 
 
 Eegnier replied that, as he judged, such a play 
 would be prohibited by the authorities. 
 
 To Miss Mary Boyle, Dickens wrote : " I must 
 say that I like my Carton, and I have a faint 
 idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could 
 do something with his life and death." 
 
 A dramatic version t>f the novel was prepared 
 by Mr. Tom Taylor, and produced at the Lyceum 
 under Madame Celeste's management, with but 
 scant success. 
 
 A critical and very interesting account of '* Mi. 
 Dicken'ss Amateur Theatricals " appeared in 31ac- 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 133 
 
 millan^s Magazine for January, 1871, and the 
 writer thus expresses his opinion of Dickens's 
 acting abilities : 
 
 " To say that his acting was amateurish is to 
 depreciate it in the view of a professional actor, 
 but it is not necessarily to disparage it. Xo one 
 who heard the public readings from his own 
 books which Mr. Dickens subsequently gave with 
 so much success, needs to be told what rare 
 natural qualifications for the task he possessed. 
 Fine features, and a striking presence, with a 
 voice of great flexibility, were added to a perfect 
 mastery over the sense of his author, because 
 that author was himself. . 
 
 " If there was a certain ease and handmess 
 which the practice of the art as a profession 
 might have brought to him, he at least escaped 
 the tyranny of those conventionalisms which the 
 best actors (at least of our own time) have not 
 been able to resist. Mr. Dickens's acting — 
 certainly his serious acting — might have failed in 
 a large theatre, just as a picture painted by Cres- 
 wick or Cooke would have been ineffective if used 
 as a scene in that theatre. In both cases, broader 
 effects and less carefulness in details would have 
 been needed to produce the desired effect." 
 
 That Dickens, with his comparatively limited 
 experience, was not an absolutely perfect actor 
 goes without saying, but that, had the study of 
 
134 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 the stage been the work of his life, he would 
 have developed into a very great one, ample evi- 
 dence has been given. 
 
 To this invaluable testimony is given by Mrs. 
 Henry Compton, whose name was associated with 
 the most brilliant performances given in the days 
 of " splendid strolling." Mrs. Compton, who, as 
 Miss Emmelioe Montague, was recognised as one 
 of the most accomplished and delightful actresses 
 of those days, and who consequently speaks with 
 no ordinary authority, says that though she was, 
 on these occasions, appearing with "amateurs," 
 she always felt that in playing with Dickens she 
 had by her side an actor whose tact, talent, and 
 resource would be equal to any emergency that 
 might arise. She also tells how her gifted husband 
 used to declare that had Dickens adopted the 
 stage as a profession, he would have made upon 
 it fame and fortune. As a proof of the pleasant 
 manner in which all the arrangements of these 
 performances were carried out, and in order to 
 show the true delicacy with which Dickens con- 
 ducted all business matters connected with them, 
 Mrs. Compton most kindly allows the following 
 letter to appear in these pages : 
 
 ** Broadstairs, Kent. 
 "Fourteenth September, 1848. 
 " My Dear Miss Montague, 
 
 " Allow me to forward you, by favour of our 
 
DICKENS AS AN ACTOR. 135 
 
 friend, Mark Lemon, the enclosed cheque, which 
 is the mere business part of a crowd of pleasant 
 remembrances I shall always associate with you, 
 that are not to be coined into any sort of money 
 I know of. 
 
 " Believe in my sincere interest in all that 
 concerns your prosperity and happiness, and in 
 the real satisfaction I shall have if I can ever 
 testify it by any means of usefulness to you. 
 " Always faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens." 
 
 " Miss Emmeline Montague." 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that Dickens's 
 greatest histrionic triumphs were achieved at the 
 reading-desk. Those who are fortunate enough 
 to be able to recall the cunningly contrived and 
 admirably lighted platform, which was the out- 
 come of his keen eye for theatrical effect, and to 
 remember the mobile face, the expressive eye, 
 and the deftly-managed voice, which, in turn, 
 could conjure up love or terror, humour or des- 
 pair, have seen and heard one of the most remark- 
 able performances of which the history of English 
 theatrical art can boast. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 
 
 The immense popularity of the Dickens novels 
 naturally set the stage adaptors to work, and 
 their author, who was always exasperated at the 
 state of the law, which in this respect gives no pro- 
 tection to the novelist, seems to have undergone 
 torments. " Of what he suffered from these 
 adaptations of his books," says Mr. Forster, 
 " multiplied remorselessly at every theatre, I 
 have forborne to speak, but it was the subject of 
 complaint with him incessantly ; and more or 
 less satisfied as he was with individual per- 
 formances, such as Mr. Yates's Quilp or Manta- 
 lini, and Mrs. Keeley's Smike or Dot, there was 
 only one, that of Barnaby Rudge by the Miss 
 Fortescue who became afterwards Lady Grardner, 
 oa which I ever heard him dwell with a thorough 
 liking." In 1844 he wrote : " I saw the ' Carol ' 
 last night " (it was a version done at the Adelphi), 
 «' better than usual, and Wright seems to enjoy 
 Bob Cratchit, but heart-breaking to me. Oh, 
 Heaven ! if any forecast of this was ever in my 
 mind! Yet 0. Smith was drearily better than 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPi::ESONATIONS. 137 
 
 I expected. It is a great comfort to have that 
 kind of meat underdone, and his face is quite 
 perfect." " It is true," Mr. Forster continues, 
 " that to the dramatisations of his next and 
 other following Christmas stories he gave help 
 himself; but even then, all such efforts to assist 
 special representations were mere attempts to 
 render more tolerable what he had no power to 
 prevent, and, with a few rare exceptions, they 
 were never very successful." 
 
 This, to the present day, remains more or less 
 true ; but it should be added that more recent 
 adaptations have been better executed (notably 
 those that came from the sympathetic pen of the 
 late Andrew Halliday), and that some of them 
 have been decidedly and not undeservedly 
 popular. Dickens smarted under what he, not 
 unnaturally, considered a wrong, and in his 
 criticism he was proportionately severe. 
 
 One of the first writers for the stage to turn 
 his attention to the plots and characters created 
 by Dickens, was \yilliam Moncrieff, and on July 
 10th, 1837, his three-act adaptation of ''Pick- 
 wick," entitled " Sam Weller ; or, the Pick- 
 wickians," was performed for the first time at the 
 Theatre Eoyal, Strand. Protests and remon- 
 strances were made, and the printed copy of 
 this work is heralded by the following self- 
 satisfied and fiery *' Advertisement." 
 
138 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 "It is almost needless to observe, that this 
 drama is founded on the very original, graphic, 
 and clever * Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick 
 Club,' written by Mr. Dickens, better known 
 through his familiar cognomen * Boz.' It will be 
 quite supererogatory to point out the numerous 
 instances in which I have been obliged, for the 
 purposes of the stage, to depart from my original, 
 as the Papers are in everybody's hands, and the 
 deviations speak for themselves ; it may be 
 sufficient to say, that I have, in no instance, I 
 trust, departed from the spirit of my prototype, 
 however greatly I may have been compelled to 
 vary from their form and bearing ; and that I 
 have endeavoured to make the quantity of 
 original matter I was necessitated to write 
 amalgamate, not unworthily, I trust, with the 
 materials borrowed from Mr. Dickens. It would 
 have been a much more easy and genial task for 
 me to have written an entirely original work ; 
 especially, labouring as I have been, for some 
 time past, under the calamity of, I hope only 
 temporary, blindness ; but I was rather piqued 
 than otherwise to the work. The Papers had 
 been pronounced to be wholly undramatic ; two 
 very talented gentlemen, to use a newspaper 
 term, had both attempted the task and failed — 
 the one from sticking too closely to his original, 
 the other through departing too widely from it. 
 
AD-IPTATIONS AND i:5IPEKS0NATI0NS. 139 
 
 It struck me they were to be inade dramatic. I 
 knew well their author had never contemplated 
 the production of them in dramatic shape, or he 
 would have formed a regular plot, and given a 
 continuity to his work, which alone is wanting to 
 rank it with the finest comic fictions of any age 
 or country. The success of my undertaking has 
 justified my judgment. Some apology is due 
 to Mr. Dickens, for the liberty taken with 
 him in finishing his work before its time ; but 
 the great increase of popularity which it must 
 have received from my putting it on the stage, 
 will, I think, more than excuse a step, to which I 
 was urged, rather by circumstance than desire. 
 Some injudicious friends of Mr. Dickens, among 
 his brethren of the Press (preserve me from such 
 friends say I — of course I do not allude to the 
 manly, fair-dealing, daily Press, to which 
 I am under the greatest obligations), 
 have chosen to display much soreness at 
 the complete manner in which I have 
 triumphed over all the difficulties I had to 
 encounter in my undertaking. Every wretched 
 mongrel can, I am aware, dramatise the ' Pickwick 
 Papers,' now that I have shown them how, by 
 closely copying all I have done ; as is the case 
 with a low minor theatre, in the purlieus of 
 London — once respectable ; but even the original 
 author will admit that he had never contemplated 
 
140 DICKERS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 his matter could have been so compressed, and 
 his incidents put in so connected a form, as they 
 assume in ' Sam Weller ' ! — a character, by the 
 by, which I should think was only an after- con- 
 ception of its creator, and formed no part of his 
 original projection. Mr. Dickens has, by far, too 
 much genius, to nourish any of the petty feelings 
 evinced by his fostering friends ! whose articles, 
 being those of the ' high, intellectual ' Sunday- 
 school of criticism, are greatly too genteel and 
 abstruse for every-day reading, but must be kept 
 for Lord's-day examination only I AVhy these 
 gentry should object to my having dramatised 
 Mr. Dickens, I cannot conceive. Sir Walter 
 Scott, a name, I humbly submit, of sufficient 
 merit to be mentioned in the same page with the 
 writer of the ' Pickwick Club,' always looked upon 
 Mr. Pocock's and Mr. Terry's stage versions of 
 those immortal fictions, ' Eob Roy ' and * Ivanhoe,' 
 rather as a compliment than otherwise ; and I 
 had undoubted precedent for what I did in the 
 instance of the first dramatic writer of all time — 
 Shakespeare ! who has scarcely a play that is 
 not founded on some previous drama, history, 
 chronicle, popular tale, or story. AVhat then 
 means the twaddle of these ' high intellectuals ' 
 in so pathetically condoling with Mr. Dickens, 
 on the penalties he pays for his popularity in 
 being put on the stage ? Let these ' high intel- 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. Ul 
 
 lectuals ' speak to Mr. Dickens's publishers, and 
 they will learn it has rendered them, by increasing 
 their sale, the most fortunate of Chapmen and 
 dealers ! It is wasting time to show the absurdity 
 of these addle-pated persons, for their ' blow hot 
 and blow cold ' articles are as incomprehensible to 
 themselves as they are to everj^body else. In 
 one of them, I am, first of all, abused for having 
 sacrilegiously meddled with any of Mr. Dickens's 
 matter ; and then abused for not having meddled 
 with it enough. The reader is told that every- 
 body is pleased with my piece ; and is then 
 informed that nobody should be pleased with it. 
 Two or three low scenes between Sam and his 
 father, taken from the original work, are lauded 
 as ' written in a fine spirit of humanity ' ; while 
 some rather polite dialogues, that I have intro- 
 duced, between the ladies, are blackguarded by 
 this * high intellectual ' as vulgar." 
 
 Much more to the same purpose has the irate 
 adaptor to say before he comes to " the more 
 grateful task" of acknowledging the excellence of 
 the acting of some of those who took part in his 
 much criticised play. " By his impersonation of 
 Sam Weller," he says, " Mr. Hammond has 
 placed himself at the very head of his profession 
 — it is one of the most perfect performances the 
 British stage can now boast of," — and he has 
 nothing but praise for the Mr. Weller, Sen. of 
 
142 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Mr. H. Hall; the Job Trotter of Mr. Attwood; 
 the Jingle of Mr. Lee; the Mr. Pickwick of 
 Mr. Younge ; the Fat Boy (called by Mr. Mon- 
 crieff *' Master Joseph Dumpling,") of Mr. A. 
 Eichardson; the Isabella Wardle of Mrs. Ham- 
 mond; and the Emily Wardle of Miss 
 Daly. 
 
 As a specimen of Mr. Moncrieff's success in 
 *' not departing from the spirit of his prototype," 
 it may be mentioned that the last scene of " Sam 
 Weller " shows *' London, on the Accession of 
 the Queen," where the " Populace in holiday 
 clothes " listen to some dialogue between Mr. 
 Pickwick and Sam ; and then join all the 
 characters in a loyal chorus to the air of " Auber's 
 God Save the King ! Grustavus,'' during the sing- 
 ing of which, a " Procession of Heralds, Beef- 
 eaters, Guards, etc., are seen passing through 
 Temple Bar to proclaim the Accession of Her 
 Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the piece concludes, 
 amidst general shouts of joy and congratulation, 
 with Tableau I " 
 
 Dickens had his *' return match " with Mon- 
 crieff (who continued to dramatise his works) by 
 introducing the character of the " literary gentle- 
 man " to the farewell supper given to Mr. Vincent 
 Crummies, and this was responded to by the 
 thin-skinned adaptor in the following *' procla- 
 mation : " 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 143 
 
 NEW STEAXD THEATRE. 
 
 Nicholas Nickleby. 
 
 To the Public. 
 
 Some of the Newspapers having named me as the 
 person intended to be represented by an intempe- 
 rate and vulgar caricature in the last published 
 number of Nicholas Nickleby, which without 
 such information I should certainly never have 
 suspected, it may perhaps be necessary to say a 
 few words in order to set the Public right upon 
 the matter. • 
 
 Mr. Dickens complains that I have, in the 
 present very successful adaptation of " Nicholas 
 Nickleby," *' finished " his " unfinished work," 
 have *' anticipated his plot," " which had cost 
 him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights," 
 that I am a Richard Turpin, a Tom King, and 
 a Jerry Ahershaiu (that is, presuming he really 
 means me). In fact, that I am nothing more or 
 less than a species of Novel Highwayman, an uni- 
 versal Robber of Romance, having dramatised no 
 less than tivo hundred and forty-seven Novels, 
 as fast as they came out, and very often, Mira- 
 hile dictu, even " faster than they came out," 
 though I know not well how that could be. That 
 
144 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 I have stolen his brains (it would certainly appear 
 that he had lost them j, an act which he considers 
 equal in turpitude to stealing his pocket-hand- 
 kerchief, valuing the one at the same rate as the 
 other, and I know not what other atrocities 
 besides. I certainly plead guilty to having 
 dramatised his work, which I should not have 
 done till it had been completed had not two 
 other playwrights dramatised it before me, a 
 circumstance that did not seem displeasing either 
 to Mr. Dickens or his proprietors, Messrs. Chap- 
 man & Hall, as the latter themselves actually 
 published one of the adaptations alluded to, and 
 thus made themselves parties to it; independently 
 of which I did not commence my version till the 
 original work had been nearly fifteen months 
 before the Public, and the denouement was obvi- 
 ously in view: — that I should unfortunately have 
 hit upon the same way of ending the history as 
 that projected by Mr. Dickens, and thereby have 
 caused him any annoyance, I really regret ; but 
 there is a very easy way of making me " hide my 
 diminished head," let Mr. Dickens — and he has 
 five months before him — set his wits to work 
 again, and finish his '' Nicholas Nickleby " better 
 than I have done, and I shall sink into the 
 primitive mire, from which I have for a moment 
 attempted to emerge by catching at the hem of 
 his garment, a fate I shall deserve for my Quixotic 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IXPERSOXATIONS. 145 
 
 foolhardiness for continuing, as he says, '' to drag 
 into the magic circle of my dulness subjects not 
 at all dramatic, cutting, hacking, and carving 
 them to the powers and capacities of my actors 
 and the capabilities of my theatre," and " per- 
 suading the innocent Public, night after night, to 
 admire and applaud them." I could wish it were 
 generally agreed that no original Xovel, Eomance, 
 or Tale should be made use of for dramatic or 
 other purposes, without the original Author 
 having an interest in such appropriation, but as 
 such is not the case, and the works of novelists, 
 &c., have at all times been considered fair game 
 to the Dramatist, without any complaint from 
 their Authors, I do not perceive why I should be 
 expected to become a solitary exception, and be 
 debarred an advantage allowed to all others. I 
 never dramatised but ^ive Novels in my life — Mrs. 
 Opie's beautiful " Father and Daughter," Sir 
 Walter Scott's matchless " Ivanhoe," Sir Edward 
 Bulwer's masterly and complete " Eugene Aram," 
 the " Pickwick Miscellany," and, lastly, Mr. 
 Dickens's very clever " >^Mcholas Nickleby." Had 
 the shghtest intimation been conveyed to me, 
 either by Mr. Dickens or his proprietors, that my 
 using his work would be disagreeable or inimi- 
 cal, I should immediately have desisted ; but th 3 
 fact is, as in the case of '• Sam \yeller," had the 
 work been less successfully finished, not a word 
 
 JO 
 
146 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 would have been uttered in depreciation of my 
 using it by Mr. Dickens. 
 
 I willingly admit that the common practice of 
 dramatising works before their original authors 
 have completed them, is an unfair and vexatious 
 one; but it did not originate with me. I regret 
 Mr. Dickens should have lost his temper, and 
 descended to scurrility and abuse, where a tem- 
 perate remonstrance alone was needed, but has 
 suffered his irritability to make him forget the 
 good-breeding of a gentleman, and lose sight of 
 that sense which should ever characterise a man 
 of letters. As one of his admirers, I lament he 
 should so far have committed himself. Mr. 
 Dickens is at perfect liberty, if it will at all 
 gratify his spleen, to call me the veriest block- 
 head that ever catered for the stage : the Public 
 have too often decided upon my very humble 
 pretensions to be swayed by his ipse dixit now. 
 Grreat as his talents are, he is not to fancy him- 
 self " Sir Oracle," and think that when he speaks 
 no dog should " bark " ; he should not attempt 
 to " bestride us like a Colossus," and grumble 
 that we "poor petty mortals should seek to 
 creep between his legs." With all possible good 
 feeling, I would beg to hint to Mr. Dickens that 
 the depreciating the talents of another is but a 
 shallow and envious way of attempting to raise 
 one's own — that the calling the offending party a 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. U7 
 
 thief, sneering at his pecuniary circumstances, 
 and indulging in empty boasts of tavern treats, 
 are weapons of offence usually resorted to only 
 by the very lowest orders. Nothing is more 
 easy than to be ill-natured. I confess I write for 
 my living, and it is no discredit to Mr. Dickens 
 to say that those who know him best are aware 
 he is as much indebted to his pen for the dinner 
 of the day as I can possibly be. With respect to 
 the " six hundred generdtions *' through which 
 Mr. Dickens expects his " pedestal should remain 
 unshaken in the Temple of Fame," I can assure 
 him I have never anticipated that any credit I 
 might derive from dramatising Nicholas Nickleby 
 would more than endure beyond as many days. 
 Having himself unsuccessfully tried the Drama, 
 there is some excuse for Mr. Dickens's petulance 
 towards its professors ; but it is somewhat illiberal 
 and ungrateful that, being indebted to the stage 
 for so many of his best characters — Sam Wdler, 
 from Beazley's " Boarding House/' for example — 
 he should deny it a few in return. In putting 
 his present Novel upon the stage, there was no 
 intention to injure or annoy him ; and if it will 
 be any satisfaction to him, I promise him that 
 whatever offence I may have committed in the 
 present instance shall not be repeated in the 
 future — at least by me. 
 
 I cannot avail mvself of the liberal offer of 
 
 10* 
 
148 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 " paying the tavern bill," as a long and severe ill- 
 ness of nearly five years, with its consequent 
 deprivation of sight, has, during almost all that 
 period, wholly prevented my " taking my ease 
 in mine inn," however I might have wished it. 
 And now, hoping that Mr. Dickens may speedily 
 regain his good-humour, and indulge in a little 
 more generosity of feeling towards his humbler 
 brethren of the quill, I cordially bid him 
 farewell. 
 
 " Let the galled jade wince, 
 My withers are unwrung." 
 
 • William Moncrieff. 
 June 5th, 1839. 
 
 This is not very pretty reading, and it is 
 pleasant to turn to other sides of what, until the 
 existing laws of copyright are altered, must re- 
 main a vexed question. 
 
 An early and successful stage-adaptor of 
 Dickens's novels was Mr. Edward Stirling, and in 
 his entertaining book entitled " Old Drury 
 Lane," he has some interesting things to say 
 about his work in this direction. " For the 
 Adelphi Company," he writes, " I adapted 
 'Nicholas Nickleby,' in 1838. It was performed 
 at that theatre for the first time on November 
 19, 1838. The piece had a long run — one 
 hundred and sixty nights. The following was 
 the cast : 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 
 
 149 
 
 Ralph Nickleby . 
 Nicholas Nickleby . 
 Newman Xoggs . 
 Mantalini 
 Squeers 
 Scaley . 
 Smike . ^- . 
 John Browdie 
 Mrs. Xickleby . 
 Kate Xickleby 
 Madame Mantalini 
 j\Iiss Ivna gg . 
 Miss Squeers 
 Miss Price 
 Mrs. Squeers 
 
 . Cullenford. 
 
 John Webster. 
 . 0. Smith. 
 
 Yates. 
 . Wilkinson. 
 
 Saunders. 
 . Mrs. Keeley. 
 
 H. Beverly. 
 . Miss O'Xeil. 
 
 Miss Cotteril. 
 . Miss Shaw. 
 
 Miss Greorge. 
 . Miss Grower. 
 
 Miss Grove. 
 . Miss Fosbroke. 
 
 Speaking of this performance, Mr. Forster 
 says : ** He (Dickens) had been able to sit 
 through Xickleby, and to see a merit in parts of 
 the representation. Mr. Yates had a sufficiently 
 humorous meaning in his wildest extravagance, 
 and Mr. 0. Smith could put into his queer 
 angular oddities enough of a hard dry pathos to 
 conjure up shadows at least of Mantalini and 
 Xewman Xoggs. A quaint actor, named 
 Wilkinson, proved equal to the drollery, though 
 not the fierce brutality, of Squeers ; and even 
 Dickens, in the letter telling me of his visit to 
 the theatre, was able to praise ^ the skilful 
 
150 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 management and dressing of the boys, the 
 capital manner and speech of Fanny Squeers, 
 the dramatic representation of her card-party in 
 Squeers's parlour, the careful making up of all 
 the people, and the exceedingly good tableaux 
 formed from Browne's sketches. Mrs. Keeley's 
 first appearance beside the fire, and all the rest 
 of Smike was excellent.' " 
 
 A very carefully mounted, and, on the whole, 
 well-cast version of " Nicholas Nickleby," for 
 which Mr. Andrew Halliday was responsible, was 
 produced at the same theatre in 1875. On this 
 occasion those two excellent, and alas ! dead and 
 gone comedians, Mr. John Clarke and Mr. 
 Greorge Belmore, were seen at their best as 
 Squeers and Newman Noggs. Mr. Terriss was a 
 capital Nicholas, Mr. S. Emery an acceptable 
 John Browdie ; Mr. James Fernandez an im- 
 pressive Ralph ; Mrs. Alfred Mellon a venomous 
 Mrs. Squeers, and Miss Lydia Foote a pathetic 
 Smike. In this adaptation the charactr^r of 
 Mantalini was omitted, and a great " realistic" 
 feature was made of the starting of the York- 
 shire coach from the " Saracen's Head." In. 
 1885, in what can only be termed a dramatic 
 fragment taken from the book (the adaptor 
 called it an " episodic sketch "), Mr. John S. 
 Clarke, the famous American comedian, gave, at 
 the Strand Theatre, a wonderfully clever imper- 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 151 
 
 sonation of Xewman Xoggs. A performance of 
 Mr. Stirling's version at Worthing was not 
 given under the advantages of the one that won 
 some praise from Dickens at the Adelphi. " For 
 my benefit," says Mr. Stirling, " ' Nicholas 
 Nickleby' was announced. Without the ' Dothe- 
 boys Hair scholars, this performance could not, 
 however, take place. And here was the awkward 
 dilemma. Worthing mothers of the poorer 
 class did not countenance play-acting, believing 
 old Nick to be in some way connected with it. 
 A local Figaro helped me out of my difficulty. 
 The professor of the razor did a bit of most 
 things at his odd and leisure moments. He 
 was a performer on the FrcDch horn, a bird 
 fancier, newsvendor, corn-cutter — Heaven knows 
 what besides — a regular Caleb Quotem, in short. 
 ' 1*11 get you fifty, sir, never fear.' And he was 
 as good as his word. Lured from the by-streets 
 and alleys by his horn, like the children in the 
 * Pied Piper of Hamelin,' the small fry 
 followed him to the theatre yard; once there, 
 Figaro closed the gates upon Mr. Squeers's 
 children. Amidst crying and moaning they were 
 placed on the stage, sitting on benches, and kept 
 in order by Figaro's cane — poor children, com- 
 pletely bewildered. When the treacle was 
 administered, most of them cried. This delighted 
 the audience, thinking it so natural (so it was). At 
 
152 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 nine o'clock, the act over, our cruel barber threw 
 open the gates, driving his flock out, with a 
 pleasant intimation of what they would catch 
 when they arrived home. Mothers, fathers, 
 sisters, in wild disorder, had been scouring the 
 town for their runaways, and the police were 
 completely puzzled and at their wit's ends at 
 such a wholesale kidnapping. Figaro was 
 nearly torn to pieces when the truth was dis- 
 covered." 
 
 The City of London Theatre, built by Mr. 
 Beasly, was opened for the fir,st time, April 
 27th, 1837, with the original stage adaptation of 
 the " Pickwick Papers," by Mr. Stirling, with the 
 following cast : 
 
 Mr. Pickwick Williams (of the Hayiniarhet). 
 Sam Weller Wilkinson (Adelphi). 
 
 Fat Boy Tully (the Composer). 
 
 Jingle Fitzpatrick. 
 
 For obvious reasons, the " Pickwick Papers " 
 will never make a really satisfactory acting 
 play, and yet for the sake of one mar- 
 vellous impersonation its stage representation 
 will always be welcome and memorable 
 to the playgoers of to-day. Of course we 
 allude to the Jingle of Mr. Henry Irving. This 
 splendid piece of character acting would no doubt 
 have excited the admiration of Dickens himself. 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 153 
 
 The impudent strolling player is personified to the 
 life, and the creation of Dickens stamped with the 
 hall-mark of the acting genius of Irving is a thing 
 once seen to be ever remembered. 
 
 The Serjeant Buzfuz of Mr. Toole, too, will 
 always give popularity to the representation of 
 " Bardell v. Pickwick," and at benefit perfor- 
 mances brilliant theatrical names are often to 
 be found in the jury-box during the stage hear- 
 ing of that flimous trial. We think it may truly 
 be said that a really satisfactory impersonation 
 of Mr. Pickwick was never seen upon the stage. 
 
 Concerning an adaptation of " The Old Curio- 
 sity Shop," in which, at the Adelphi, Yates 
 played Quilp, and Mrs. Keeley was the Little 
 Xell, Mr. Stirling quotes the following amus- 
 ing, and eminently managerial letter : 
 
 " Dear Stirling, 
 
 '• Quilp's up in public estimation ; Nell's 
 down. I'll keep her there. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " F. Yates." 
 
 The " Old Curiosity Shop," has always been a 
 favourite subject with the stage adaptor, and some « 
 comparatively recent performances of the most 
 strongly drawn among the familiar characters 
 
154 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 will be pleasantly remembered by the Dickens- 
 loving playgoer. The late John Clarke was a 
 wonderful Quilp. In make-up and in dress, he 
 perfectly realised the well-known illustrations of 
 " Phiz,'' and the unfortunate lameness which some- 
 what marred the majority of his later performances, 
 in this part only added to its elfish grotesque- 
 ness, and ghoulish power. It was a marvellous 
 reproduction of the combined conception of artist 
 and author. In the same excellent version, 
 which was first produced at the Olympic, George 
 Belmore displayed both force and pathos as the 
 Grrandfather — and almost all the characters were 
 satisfactorily played — but it remained for Mr. 
 Frank Wyatt, in a much later adaptation, given 
 at the Opera Comique (when Miss Lotta, the 
 American actress, gave an extravagant impersona- 
 tion of The Marchioness), to completely realise 
 the humours of Dick Swiveller. A pit-fall to 
 some actresses has been a desire to display 
 versatility of talent by "doubling" the parts of 
 The Marchioness, and Little Nell, and the 
 result has always been disastrous to one or 
 other of the two characters, and sometimes to 
 both. Poor Nell, however, has generally been 
 the greater sufferer. 
 
 Mr. Stirling also prepared, for Mr. and Mrs. 
 Keeley, who were then the managers of the Lyceum, 
 the first stage version of Martin Chuzzlewit. With 
 
ADAPTATIO^'S AND IMPERSONATIONS. 15c 
 
 the following cast the piece 
 of 280 nights :— 
 
 Young Martin Chuzzlewit 
 Old Martin Chuzzlewit 
 Pecksniff 
 
 Tigg . 
 
 Jonas 
 
 Tom Pinch 
 
 Bailey 
 
 Mrs. Gramp . 
 
 Betsy Prig 
 
 Mrs. Todgers 
 
 Mercy 
 
 Charity 
 
 had a successful run 
 
 F. Vining. 
 
 R. Younge. 
 
 F. Mathews. 
 
 Alfred Wigan. 
 
 Emery. 
 
 Meadows. 
 
 Mrs. Keeley. 
 
 Keeley. 
 
 Collier. 
 
 Mrs. F. Mathews. 
 
 Miss Woolgar. 
 
 Miss Pincott. 
 
 ^lore recent noteworthy assumptions have been 
 the splendidly comic impersonation of Mrs. Gramp 
 by John Clarke (poor CJarke seemed to have taken 
 Dickens in " at the pores"), the capitally realised 
 Pecksniff of Mr. Lionel Brough ; and the cleverly 
 touched Tom Pinch of Mr. Thomas Thorne. 
 
 The pleasantest thing which Mr. Stirling has 
 to tell with regard to his connection with Dickens 
 is concerning his dramatisation of the "Christmas 
 Carol," which was done by the express sanction of 
 the author. The story is in itself so charming, and 
 is so daintily told, that Mr. Stirlinsj's own words 
 must be used : 
 
 " Dickens attended several rehearsals, furnish- 
 
156 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 ing valuable suggestions. Thinking to make Tiny 
 Tim (a pretty child) more effective, I ordered a 
 set of irons and bandages for his supposed weak 
 leg. When Dickens saw this tried on the child, 
 he took me aside : 
 
 " ' No, Stirling, no ; this won't do ! remember 
 how painful it would be to many of the audience 
 having crippled children.' " 
 
 Although it is to be found among the published 
 letters, Mr. Stirling also appropriately records 
 Dickens's written reply to the earnest entreaty of 
 the ladies and gentlemen of the theatrical pro- 
 fession that he would give two or three morn- 
 ing readings that they might have an opportunity 
 of hearing him. It ran as follows : 
 
 " Gad's- Hill Place, 
 " Higham by Eochester, Kent. 
 " Wednesday, March 24, 1869. 
 " Ladies and G-entlemen, 
 
 " I beg to assure you that I am much grati- 
 fied by the desire you do me the honour to 
 express in your letter handed to me by Mr. John 
 Clarke. 
 
 " Before that letter reached me I had heard of 
 your wish, and had mentioned to Messrs. Chappell 
 that it would be highly agreeable to me to anti- 
 cipate it if possible. They readily responded, and 
 we agreed upon having three morning readings 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 157 
 
 in London. As they are not yet publicly an- 
 nounced, I add a note of the days and subjects. 
 
 " Saturday, May 1st. ' Boots at the Holly-Tree 
 Inn,' and ' Sikes and Nancy,' from ' Oliver 
 Twist.' 
 
 " Saturday, May 8th. ' The Christmas Carol.' 
 " Saturday, May 22nd. ' Sikes and Nancy,' from 
 ' Oliver Twist,' and *The Trial,' from ' Pickwick.' 
 
 "With the warmest interest in your art, and in 
 its claims upon the general gratitude and re- 
 spect, 
 
 " Believe me always 
 
 " Faithfully your friend, 
 
 "CHAiiLES Dickens. 
 
 " To the ladies and gentlemen — my corres- 
 pondents through Mr. Clarke." 
 
 The " Sikes and Nancy," scene was notoriously 
 the most dramatic among Dickens's readings, and 
 it is noteworthy that he selected it twice for his 
 dramatic audience. 
 
 It is unnecessary to the purpose of these pages 
 to give a complete list of the dramas and farces 
 founded on the novels of Dickens. Those who are 
 interested in the subject cannot do better than 
 refer to the " Dramatic '' chapter of Mr. Fred Gr. 
 Kitton's wonderful book entitled " Dickensiana." 
 Wonderful is really the only word for this most 
 attractive volume. The information gathered to- 
 
15S DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 gether by Mr. Kitton on all matters connected 
 with Dickens and his works, is not only invalu- 
 able, but, apparently, exhaustive, and to give a 
 second list would be only to repeat work that has 
 already been thoroughly well done. 
 
 Disparagingly as ]Mr. Forster speaks of these 
 adaptations, and annoying and disappointing as 
 many of them must have been to Dickens, there 
 is no doubt that they were eagerly expected by 
 the playgoing public, and some of the representa- 
 tions were certainly, in a large degree, successful. 
 
 For example, in January, 1846, in that capital 
 but short-lived little periodical, " The Almanack 
 of the Month," a critic who signs himself 
 " W. H. W." thus speaks of the first performance 
 of a stage version of *' The Cricket on the 
 Hearth," at the Lyceum : 
 
 " That the Cricket might be served up quite 
 warm to the playgoing public, on th.Q foyer of the 
 Lyceum Theatre, its author — Mr. Charles Dickens 
 — supplied the dramatist, Mr. Albert Smith, with 
 proof-sheets hot from the press. On the evening 
 of the morning, therefore, on which the book was 
 published, its dramatic version was produced ; 
 and, as the adaptor stuck very closely indeed to 
 the text of the original, of course it succeeded. 
 Why, we are going to explain. 
 
 "Although Mr. Dickens does not profess dra- 
 matic authorship, yet his writings have had a 
 
ADAPIATIONS AND DIPERSONATIONS. 159 
 
 considerable influence on the stage. The charac- 
 ters in his novels are — despite the exaggeration 
 with which a few of the critical fraternity charge 
 him — completely natural ; so essentially natural, 
 indeed, that even after some of the stage adaptors 
 and actors have done their worst upon them, 
 they come upon the stage very like trans- 
 cripts from real life. As plays they are altogether 
 different from their predecessors. The dramatis 
 jpersonce cannot, as that of the sentimental 
 comedy and heavy melodrama, be summarily and 
 arbitrarily put into the various conventional 
 classes amongst which stage managers distribute 
 the 'parts.' One cannot safely be given out at 
 once to the ' heavy father ' of the company ; 
 another to the * smart servant ' ; a third to the 
 * low comedian ' ; a fourth to the 'juvenile tra- 
 gedian ' ; a fifth to the ' chambermaid,' or a 
 sixth to the ' sentimental young lady.' Dickens's 
 characters are too like nature for that. No in- 
 dividual is, in real life, always being funny, or be- 
 having wickedly, or eternally breathing forth 
 sentimentality. The same persons have their 
 times for being gay, and for being sad ; they have 
 their times for being brilliant and their dull 
 moments ; and so have the life portraits which 
 Dickens draws. Some dramatists have attempted 
 to set " Boz's " compositions ' to rights' for the 
 stage, and to make his characters stagily ' effective' 
 
160 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 after their own tastes, and the consequence has 
 been that plays done on that principle have been as 
 unnatural as a pantomime. In the present 
 instance, the dramatist has stuck to his text." 
 Speaking of the performance, he says : 
 " Mr. Keeley, without any regard to his usual 
 ' line ' of character, was grave and comic by turns. 
 He played Caleb Plummer, the toy maker. Mr. 
 Emery, the carter, acted and dressed as like a 
 carrier as if he had walked straight from the 
 yard of the ' Blossoms Inn,' or had been suddenly 
 transplanted from the ' Flower Pot.' Mr. 
 Meadows, the master toyman, was as like an evil 
 genius as a man in plum-coloured clothes and 
 gaiters could be ; and Mr. F. Vining pretended 
 to be deaf with a degree of success which at first 
 nearly took us in ; and afterwards to be a young 
 lover, with all the agility and sprightliness as he 
 displayed at that time immemorial when he first 
 took to the juvenile line of business. Slowboy 
 was said on the bills to be a Miss Turner, but so 
 life-like was her acting, that we could hardly 
 dissuade ourselves from the notion that she was 
 " Boz's " genuine and particular Slowboy, clothed 
 and animated. The young lady who performed 
 the fairy of the fireplace also deserves a word oi 
 praise. She came up through the hearth, and 
 spoke a long speech just before the bars of a 
 tolerably severe fire without wincing." 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 161 
 
 The critic closes his remarks with exDressions 
 of unstinted admiration for the Dot of Mrs.Keeley, 
 a performance which was at the time generally 
 acknowledged to be one of the most perfect in 
 that delightful actress's extensive repertory. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Keeley, indeed, were amongst the first, 
 the greatest, and the best of the impersonators 
 of Dickens's characters. 
 
 It must, however, be owned that some very 
 extraordinary and exasperating stage adaptations 
 of Dickens's works have from time to time been 
 written and performed. Take, for example, the 
 " Oliver Twist," of Mr. George Almar, which was 
 produced at the >Surrey Theatre, November 19th, 
 1838, and which, at the price of one penny, and 
 with the announcement of "This Play can be 
 performed without risk of infringing any rights," 
 was published among Dicks' Standard Plays. To 
 show the spirit in which the story is handled, it 
 is only necessary to quote the concluding lines 
 of Mr. Almar's work in which the youthful 
 Oliver (personated by a Master Owen) was 
 absolutely made to say the beautiful lines about 
 his unhappy mother with which the novel ends. 
 
 " Mr. Broivnloiv. And what is now wanted to 
 complete the happiness of Oliver Twist ? " 
 
 " Oliver. First that you will erect a small 
 white tablet in the church near which my poor 
 mother died, and on it grave the name of Agnes. 
 
 11 
 
162 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 There might be no coffin in that tomb ; but if 
 the spirits of the dead ever come back to earth to 
 visit spots hallowed by their love, I do believe that 
 the shade of my poor mother will often hover about 
 this solemn nook, though it is a church, and she 
 was weak and erring." 
 
 "Mr, Broivnloiv. The next request I will 
 make for you, dear Oliver, myself, and will make 
 it here — to you {to audience) Our hero is but 
 young ; but if his simple progress has beguiled 
 you of a smile, or his sorrows of a tear, forgive 
 the errors of the orphan boy, Oliver Twist." 
 Tableau. * (Seepage 185.) 
 By the way, in speaking of '' Oliver Twist," it 
 should not be forgotten that Master Charles 
 Bates at least once made a pointed allusion to 
 things theatrical. 
 
 "I never see such a jolly dog as that," cried 
 Master Bates (alluding to the unfortunate animal 
 of which Mr. Sikes was the owner), " Smelling 
 the grub like a old lady a-going to market ! 
 He'd make his fortune on the stage that dog 
 would, and rewive the drayma besides." 
 
 And it must also be remembered that it was 
 at this very representation of " Oliver Twist " at 
 the Surrey Theatre, in 1838, that Dickens is 
 said to have laid himself down in a corner of the 
 box, and to have risen again only when the cur- 
 tain had fallen. Macready's diary tells that about 
 
ADAPTATIONS AXD IMPERSONATIONS. 163 
 
 this time an adaptation of '•' Oliver Twist," 
 endorsed with the author's name, was proposed 
 to him, but the actor considered it impracticable 
 for any dramatic purpose. 
 
 " Fraser's Magazine " for March, 1842, contains 
 a most amusing account, from the pen of no less 
 a writer than Thackeray, of a performance of a 
 stage version of " Nicholas Xickleby," given in 
 Paris at the Ambigu-Comique Theatre. Before 
 dealing with the French play, a word of tribute 
 is given to the actors in the English version, 
 which will not be out of place here. 
 
 " ^yho does not remember the pathetic acting 
 of Mrs. Keeley in the part of Smike, as per- 
 formed at the Adelphi ; the obstinate good- 
 humour of Mr. Wilkinson, who, having to 
 represent the brutal Squeers, was, according to 
 his nature, so chuckling, oily, and kind-hearted, 
 that little boys must have thought it a good joke 
 to be flogged by him ; finally, the acting of the 
 admirable Yates in the kindred part of Mantalini? 
 Can France, I thought, produce a fop equal to 
 Yates ? Is there any vulgarity and assurance in 
 the Boulevard that can be compared to that of 
 which, in the character of ^Mantalini, he gives a 
 copy so wonderfully close to nature?" 
 
 The French play contained many glaring, not 
 to say outrageous, excrescences, and the depar- 
 tures from the story as told by Dickens would be 
 
 11* 
 
164 DICKENS AND THE STACK. 
 
 inexcusable if they were not, as told by Thackeray, 
 so intensely amusing. They must be briefly 
 dealt with here : 
 
 The scene of the first act was laid in the court 
 of a school, with great iron bars in front, and a 
 beauteous sylvan landscape beyond. The school 
 was known as the " Paradis des Enfans," kept 
 by Mr. Squeers, and in the neighbourhood was 
 supposed to stand the castle of the stately " Earl 
 of Clarendon." Lord Clarendon's daughter takes 
 French lessons from Mr. Squeers' sous-maitre^ 
 Neekolass Neeklbee, who is, however, no vulgar 
 usher, but lately an orphan ; and his uncle, the 
 rich London banker, Monsieur Ralph, taking 
 charge of the lad's portionless sister, has pro- 
 cured for Nicholas the place of usher at a school 
 in "le Yorksheer." 
 
 " A rich London banker," exclaims Thackeray, 
 " procuring his nephew a place in a school at 
 eight guineas per annum ! Sure there must be 
 some roguery in this ; and the more so when you 
 know that Monsieur Squeers, the keeper of the 
 Academy, was, a few years since, a vulgar rope- 
 dancer and tumbler at a fair." 
 
 While Nicholas is instructing, and it is to be 
 feared making love, to " Meess Annabel," one of 
 Mr. Squeers' scholars, a lad beautifully dressed, 
 fat, clean, and I'osy, is in the court-yard receiving 
 lessons on the clarionet from John Browdie, who 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 165 
 
 is described as a " drover."' This boy is 
 facetiously called by his master "Prospectus," 
 because he is so excessively fat and healthy, and 
 well clothed, that his mere appearance in the 
 court-yard is supposed to entice parents and 
 guardians to place their children in a seminary 
 where the scholars were in such admirable condi- 
 tion. And now Smike (pronounced Smeek) is 
 introduced, and it is explained that ten years 
 since he was left at the " Paradis des Enfans," 
 by a man named Becher, and that since that 
 time he has had no friend except the sous-maitre 
 Neeklbee. So the story goes on. Nicholas has his 
 difference with Browdie (concerning " Meess 
 Jenny," the fermiefs daughter). Browdie, in 
 dudgeon, takes up his stick and sets otf to 
 London with a drove of oxen (I;, — Nicholas in 
 defence of " Smeek " thrashes Squeers, and the 
 pupils of the Infants' Paradise break bounds and 
 leave their school for ever. The second act is 
 laid in " The tavern of Les Armes da Koi,'' in 
 London. 
 
 " It must be in the Yorkshire Eoad, that is 
 clear," says Thackeray, " for the first person 
 whom we see there is John Browdie ; to him 
 presently comes Prospectus, then Neeklbee, then 
 poor Smeek, each running away individually from 
 the Paradis des Enfans." 
 
 " It is likewise at this tavern that the great 
 
166 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 banker Kalph does his business, and lets you 
 into a number of his secrets. Hither, too, comes 
 Milor Clarendon, a handsome peer, forsooth, but 
 a sad reprobate I fear. Sorrow has driven him 
 to these wretched courses ; ten years since he 
 lost a son, a lovely child of six years of age ; and 
 hardened by the loss he has taken to gambling, 
 to the use of the vins de France, which take the 
 reason prisoner, and lead to other excitements still 
 more criminal. He has cast his eyes upon the 
 lovely Kate Niclsleby (he, the. father of Miss 
 Annabel !) and asks the banker to sup with him, 
 to lend him ten thousand pounds, and to bring 
 his niece with him. With every one of these 
 requests the capitalist promises to comply ; the 
 money he produces forthwith, the lady he goes 
 to fetch. Ah ! milor, beware ! beware ! your 
 health is bad, your property is ruined, death and 
 insolvency stare you in the face ; but what 
 cares Lord Clarendon ? He is desperate ; he 
 orders a splendid repast in a private apartment, 
 and while they are getting it ready, he and the 
 young lords of his acquaintance sit down and 
 crack a bottle in the coffee-room. A gallant set 
 of gentlemen truly, all in short coats with capes 
 to them, in tights and Hessian boots, such as 
 our nobility are in the custom of wearing. 
 
 "*I bet you cinq cents guinees, Lor Beef,' 
 says Milor Clarendon (whom the wine has begun 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IXPEPvSONATIONS. 167 
 
 to excite), * that I will have the lovely Kate 
 xSicklbee at supper with us to-night.' 
 
 " ' Done ! ' says Lor Beef. But why starts yon 
 stranger who has just come into the hotel? 
 Why, forsooth ? Because he is Nicholas 
 Nickleby, Kate's brother ; and a pretty noise he 
 makes when he hears of his lordship's project. 
 
 " ' You have Meess Neeklebee at your table, 
 sir ? You are a liar I ' 
 
 " All the lords start up. 
 
 " ' Who is this very strange person ? ' says 
 Milor Clarendon, as cool as a cucumber. 
 
 '' ' Dog I give me your name I ' shouts Nicholas. 
 
 " « Ha ! ha ! ha I ' says my lord scornfully. 
 
 "^John,' says Nickleby, seizing hold of a 
 waiter, ' tell me that man's name.' 
 
 ''John the waiter looks frightened, and hums 
 and has, when, at the moment, who should 
 walk in but Mr. Ealph the banker and his 
 niece. 
 
 " Raljjh. ' Nicholas ! confusion ! ' 
 
 " Kate, ' My brother I ' 
 
 '• Xicholas. ' Avaunt, woman ! Tell me, sirrah, 
 by what right you bring my sister into such 
 company, and whom is the villain to whom you 
 have presented her ? ' 
 
 " Ralph. ' Lord Clarendon.' 
 
 " Xicholas. * The father of :Meess Annabel ? 
 Gracious Heaven ! ' '' 
 
168 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 And in this spirit the outrageous travesty (it 
 was worth doing, by the way, if only for the 
 sake of the characteristic wood-cuts with which 
 Thackeray illustrat( s this article) runs on, until 
 " Smeek" having been discovered to be the heir 
 to the Clarendon estates, is hidden in the " Cad- 
 gers' Cavern," a thousand feet below the Thames, 
 is buried alive I is rescued by Nicholas and John 
 Browdie, and ultimately becomes Lord Smike ; 
 his newly-found sister Annabel openly declaring 
 that, she cares not for rank or fame, the name 
 she loving before all others being that of *' Lady 
 Annabel Nickleby." 
 
 The article from which these quotations have 
 been made is luckily accessible, and should be 
 read in full by all who appreciate the humour of 
 Dickens, the satire of Thackeray, and the one 
 great author's appreciation of the work of the 
 other. 
 
 Acknowledged adaptations of Dickens will 
 certainly continue to be written and produced 
 on the stage for many and many a long year to 
 come ; but who shall say how many successful 
 plays have been " suggested " and made popular 
 by his books ? In his '' Dickensiana " Mr. Kitten 
 deals with this question, and says: "Who, for 
 example, would imagine that the main feature of 
 the plot of Mr. Herman's drama of ' Claudian,' re- 
 cently performed in London, was suggested by an 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND niPEESONATIONS. 169 
 
 incident in one of Dickens's Christmas books ? 
 \Vho would have associated such gorgeously- 
 depicted scenes in the life of an emperor with 
 the simple and unaffected story of Christian 
 charity and repentance ? Yet such is the case ; 
 for Mr. Herman thus relates how he obtained 
 the more beautiful and more pathetic portion of 
 his conception of the hero of the drama. He had 
 found the idea of Claudian's eternal youth and 
 had connected it with the first glimpse of the 
 great curse. He felt that the idea was fine, that 
 it was dramatic ; but it was hard and unsym- 
 pathetic. He had been walking in his garden, 
 it was a brilliant, hot summer day, and to get 
 into complete shade for a while he went into his 
 library. Mechanically his fingers wandered over 
 the shelves, and quite by accident, he took out 
 ' The Christmas Carol' and opened it. His atten- 
 tion was arrested by the little incident in Marley's 
 visit to Scrooge — an incident barely referred to — 
 of the ghost of the fat alderman, who floats about 
 the air with his great chain of ledgers and cash 
 boxes, and who cries bitterly because he cannot 
 relieve the wants of a poor woman who is sitting 
 in the snow on the pavement. In a second Mr. 
 Herman's conception of Claudian is complete. 
 The pathos of a man who desired to do good, and 
 could not do so, gave birth to the idea of the 
 mm, everv one of whose charitable actions turned 
 
170 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 to bane, as a punishment for his past crimes. 
 From the ghost of the fat alderman to Claudian 
 is a long distance ; but human pathos and passion 
 were the same fifteen hundred years ago as now, 
 and the true poetry of a story, especially its true 
 dramatic poetry, is oftener in the treatment of 
 an idea than in the actual idea itself." 
 
 In this way, and often, it may be, without 
 the playwright, who believes himself to be 
 original, knowing that he is something of an 
 adaptor, the characters of Dickens and the 
 episodes in his books find their way on to the 
 stage, and the all-wise playgoer, who is fond of 
 saying that Dickens was no dramatist, is un- 
 consciously indebted to him for his entertainment. 
 
 In the year 1852, Mr. Forster tells us, 
 Dickens made a pilgrimage to Walworth, " to see 
 a youth rehearse who was supposed to have 
 talents for the stage, and he was able to gladden 
 Mr. Toole's friends by thinking favourably of 
 his chances of success. ' I remember what I 
 once myself wanted in that way,' he said, ' and I 
 should like to serve him.' " 
 
 That Dickens's judgment was not at fault 
 everyone knows, and it is curious to note that 
 the early encouragement of the great novelist 
 acted as an incentive to one of the best and 
 most successful of the stage delineators of his 
 creations. 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND i:\IPEESONATIONS, 171 
 
 Of the stage impersonators of Dickens's 
 characters, the genial and popuhir J. L. Toole 
 takes (who ^Yill grudge it him ?) first place, and 
 he has many interesting things to tell of his ex- 
 perience in these parts. 
 
 When the " Christmas Carol " was played at 
 the Adelphi, with Toole as Bob Cratchit, much 
 realism was got out of the Cratchit Christmas 
 dinner scene, a real roast goose and a real plum- 
 pudding being served up hot every night. Tiny 
 Tim was played by a somewhat emaciated little 
 girl, who sat by the fire-side and was fed with 
 dainty morsels by the other little Cratchits, 
 who clustered about the dinner-table, and who, 
 needless to say, were as willing to play as good 
 a knife and fork on the stage as they are sup- 
 posed to do in the book. 
 
 Of all the little Cratchits, however, this Tiny 
 Tim proved the most voracious. Like his 
 famous young relative Oliver Twist, he always 
 wanted " more," and night after night such large 
 portions of goose and plum-pudding were handed 
 to this exacting and hungry little invalid, that 
 even the good-natured Toole grew annoyed, feel- 
 ing that the poetry of the scene was being 
 missed, and at last became absolutely angry with 
 the child for its supposed gluttony. Being at 
 length taken to task on the subject, poor Tim 
 made a confession. The child had a sister (a not 
 
172 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 too well-fed sister) employed in the theatre. The 
 fire by which it sat was a " stage fire," through 
 which anj^thing could be easily conveyed to one 
 waiting on the other side, and poor little Tim's 
 goose and pudding were more than shared each 
 night. When Toole told this story to Dickens 
 he was greatly touched, and said : " I hope you 
 gave the child the whole goose." 
 
 Once, when Toole was playing his famous 
 part of Caleb Plamraer, in " The Cricket on the 
 Hearth," the actress who was to play the part of 
 the blind girl. Bertha, was suddenly taken ill, 
 and unable to appear; but the stage-manager 
 was equal to the occasion, and sent on another 
 young lady to read her part 1 1 1 
 
 By-t he-way, in addition to Bob Cratchit and 
 Caleb Plummer, Mr. Toole has successfully ap- 
 peared in stage versions of all the five important 
 Christmas books. As Toby Veck, in " The 
 Chimes " (a pathetic and admirable performance), 
 as Ben Britain, in " The Battle of Life " and as 
 Tetterby, in "The Haunted Man." 
 
 Dickens, we need hardly say, duly 'recognised 
 and admired the matured talents of the 
 comedian whose amateur efforts had secured his 
 critical approbation. He was especially anxious 
 that he should play Joe Gargery, in an adapta- 
 tion of " Great Expectations " (a part that ul- 
 timately fell into the capable hands of Mr. 
 
MR J. L, TOOLE AS "THE ARTFUL DODGER. 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPERSONATIONS. 173 
 
 Edward Eighton), and after seeing and praising 
 his excellent acting as Dick Dolland, in H. J. 
 Byron's " Uncle Dick's Darling," good- 
 humouredly asked if he thought it possible that 
 the dramatist had ever heard of another warm- 
 hearted "cheap-jack" whose name was Dr. 
 ]\Iarigold ? 
 
 One of the best of all Mr. Toole's assumptions is 
 that of the "Artful Dodger." Here Dickens's 
 splendidly drawn character is reproduced to the 
 very life, a fact which has been as heartily re- 
 cognised by American as by English au- 
 diences. Mr. Toole thoroughly realises both the 
 humour and the pathos of Dickens, and never 
 exaggerating either the one or the other, not only 
 pleases the multitude, but gives satisfaction to 
 the most fastidious. 
 
 This chapter will hardly be complete without 
 a glance being taken at the successful efforts of 
 other well-known Dickens impersonators. Mr. 
 John Billington, who was the original Ned 
 Plummer in Mr. Boucicault's dramatised version 
 of " The Cricket on the Hearth," has made the 
 part of John Perrybingle his own, playing it 
 with a rough power and pathos that never fails 
 to secure the attention and sympathy of his au- 
 diences. In country theatres this impersonation 
 is exceedingly popular. Mr. Billington was, too, 
 the original Walter Wilding, in " >s'o Thorough- 
 
174 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 fare," when Mrs. Billington played the " Veiled 
 Lady;" Mrs. Alfred Mellon was the delightful 
 Sally Goldstraw ; Mr. Henry Neville the manly 
 Vendale; the late Mr. Belmore the lawyer, Mr. 
 Bintry ; and the late Mr. Benjamin Webster, in a 
 part somewhat removed from his usual line, the 
 excellent and amusing Joey Ladle. Of Mr. 
 Fechter's vigorous acting as Obenreizer, in this 
 successful play mention has been made else- 
 where. It is some eleven years ago since, at the 
 Court Theatre, in Mr. W. S. Grilbert's adaptation of 
 " Great Expectations," Mr. John Clayton excited 
 admiration by his wonderful make-up and 
 acting as the lawyer, Jaggers. This was another 
 portrait that seemed to have stepped out of the 
 novel on to the stage. Later, Mr. Clayton made 
 his greatest success in a character which, though 
 it went under the name of Hugh Trevor, was 
 certainly no other than that of Sidney Carton. 
 Messrs. J. Palgrave Simpson and Herman 
 Merivale, the authors of " All for Her," did not 
 announce their play as an adaptation of "The 
 Tale of Two Cities," nor were they called upon 
 to do so, but they made admirable use of the 
 Carton episodes, and in so doing produced a work 
 which was ungrudgingly acknowledged to be the 
 most powerful that had been seen on the 
 English stage for some years. Speak- 
 ing of Mr. Clayton's performance in it a 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND IMPEKSOXATIOXS. 175 
 
 critic said : " It does not often fall to 
 the lot of an actor to have such a 
 part as that of Hugh Trevor assigned to him ; 
 but, on the other hand, it is not everyone who 
 can grasp his opportunity when it is before him. 
 This Mr. Clayton has done. It would have been 
 easy to make Trevor, the poor, reckless, good- 
 for-nothing drunkard, a very repulsive person ; 
 but this Mr. Clayton has not done. Drunk or 
 sober the man is still a gentleman, and from 
 first to last this fact is kept before us with ex- 
 ceptional art." The character of Micawber has 
 naturally been a popular one with comedians. 
 It has been successfully played by Mr. Edward 
 Terry (oddly enough this has so far been the 
 only Dickens part with which the name of that 
 popular actor is associated), Mr. Charles CoUette, 
 Mr. David Fisher, Mr. Fernandez, the late Mr. 
 Joseph Eldred, and others; but probably its most 
 successful representative has been found in the 
 American actor, Mr. Eowe. " Mr. Eowe's ]Micaw- 
 ber," says Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, "is a most 
 enjoyable performance; the player seems to 
 revel in the unctuous platitudes and stick- 
 flourishings — the fitful changes from hopeless 
 despondency born of 'pecuniary embarrassment 
 from his cradle upwards ' — to pleasant and eager 
 spirits, on the mention of Punch; his strange 
 and original attitudes, and quaint gamut of 
 
176 DICKEXS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 tones, make up a very quaint and racy picture. 
 All these oddities of speech and attitude give 
 the notion that they are the honest expression 
 of what is within. Had Mr. Dickens's Micawber 
 never been written, this stage character would have 
 been a very original parformance, bat it shows 
 what a vast dramatic force lies in all Mr. Dickens's 
 characters." 
 
 Mr. Eowe's acting had much to do with the 
 undoubted success that attended the production 
 of Mr. Andrew Halliday's adaptation of " David 
 Copperfield," called *' Little Em'ly." The ex- 
 cellence of Miss Ernstone in the character of 
 Martha on this occasion attracted the notice of 
 Dickens himself, and he personally expressed his 
 appreciation of it. The name of Mr. Samuel 
 Emery will always be happily remembered in 
 association with the characters of Dickens. Mr. 
 Emery was the original Jonas Chuzzlewit, Will 
 Fern, and John Perrybingle, and in more recent 
 days his realisation of the character of Dan'l 
 Peggotty was beyond reproach. Of his Captain 
 Cuttle in "Heart's Delight," Mr. Halliday's 
 version of " Dombey and Son," a critic said, 
 " When Mr. Emery comes rolling on to the stage, 
 made up to the very life after the pictures by 
 ' Phiz,' with the rubicund face and the bald pate, 
 the coarse canvas open shirt, and the hook in- 
 stead of a right hand, the roar that greets the 
 
ADAPTATIONS AXD BIPERSONATIONS. 177 
 
 favourite shows that half the actor's work is over. 
 He looks the part, and there is no prejudice on 
 that account." Fortunately, however, Mr. Emery's 
 acting was as good as his make-up, and the 
 pathetic as well as the humourous side of the 
 glorious old " Cap'n " was in his hands depicted 
 to the life. 
 
 Keferring to the American comedian, Mr 
 Florence's performance of Captain Cuttle, Mi\ 
 Punch, under date December 11th, 1880, pithily 
 says — 
 
 " ' Dombey and Son ' was reduced to Florence, 
 Florence appeared as Captain Cuttle twice, and 
 
 has now disappeared altogether As 
 
 Cuttle he was very funny; he was the well- 
 known pictorial Cuttle down to the ground, and 
 so Phiz-ically he was Cuttle, but morally he was 
 not, unless Americans interpret Charles Dickens's 
 characters after a fashion which is as unintelligible 
 to us as, we venture to say, it would have been 
 to the author. However, in this compressed 
 American tinned essence of ' Dombey and Son,' 
 Captain Cuttle being all Florence, does not even 
 a * little Paul ' on the audience." 
 
 The same eminent authority speaking of the 
 adaptation (entitled " Tom Pinch ") of " Martin 
 Chuzzlewit," produced at the Vaudeville in the 
 early months of 1881, says, ** Those who have 
 seen ^ Tom Pinch ' at the Vaudeville will readily 
 
 12 
 
178 DICKE^^S AND THE STAGE. 
 
 understand why, as a rule, the late Charles 
 Dickens so strongly objected to the dramatisa- 
 tion of his novels. The piece now playing under 
 this title, might just as well have been called 
 ' Tom Anybody ' — say ' Tom All-alone/ The 
 stage is said to hold up the mirror to Nature ; in 
 this case the glass used has been of rather 
 inferior quality. The result is a somewhat dis- 
 torted reflection of an episode in ' Martin 
 Chuzzlewit.' Mr. Tom Thorne appears in the 
 bills as Mr. Tom Pinch, but, in spite of a wig 
 of very peculiar construction, his identity is not 
 altogether lost in his new character, which is not 
 at all the real article, but Pinch-beck. The 
 Pecksniff of Mr. William Farren is sketchily 
 suggestive of Sir Peter Teazle in modern 
 costume; and the representatives of Cherry and 
 Merry, conscientiously preserve that reputation 
 for burlesque which the Vaudeville enjoyed in 
 the early days of its management " 
 
 " From a snuff-box point of view, this single 
 Pinch is nearly equal to a full mull." Mr. Thome's 
 Tom Pinch was, nevertheless, an impersonation of 
 much merit. 
 
 Mrs. Keeley, the original Dot, and the admir- 
 able " creatress " of many other Dickens parts, was 
 especially happy in the character of Clemency New- 
 come. " The part," said the Athenceum of Decem- 
 ber 2Q, 1846, " was the life, the soul, the salvation of 
 
."^•^^^^Vv ^^ 
 
 MISS JENNIE LEE AS JO 
 
ADAPTATI0:NS and IMPEESOXATIONS. 179 
 
 • the new drama. The actress was unwearied by 
 her exertions. Her costume was picturesque, her 
 action and by-play were everywhere appropriate, 
 her tones were full of feeling, honesty, and 
 earnestness. There was the eccentric, hard- 
 working, faithful little body, — an unmistakable 
 identity." In the same part sprightly Miss 
 " Nelly " Farren has also done good service, and 
 the name of this excellent and appreciative 
 actress is also honourably identified with the 
 humours of Tilly Slowboy and Sam Weller, and 
 the delicately portrayed sorrows of poor Smike. 
 ]Mrs. Jane Stephens, who is generally allowed to 
 be one of the best actresses of what are techni- 
 cally known as " old women's parts " ever known 
 on the English stage, has been seen as a wonder- 
 fully artistic, and absolutely uncompromising 
 Mrs. Squeers. 
 
 Xo more deservedly successful Dickens im- 
 personation has been seen than that of the 
 world-wide known Jo, of Miss Jennie Lee. 
 "When, in 1876, she played the part for the first 
 time in London, it was rightly said that a more 
 striking revelation of talent had seldom been 
 made. Miss Lee indeed plays Jo with " a realism 
 and a pathos difficult to surpass." " In get-up 
 and in acting," said the Athenceum, " the 
 character was thoroughly realised ; and the 
 hoarse voice, the slouching, dejected gait, and 
 
 12* 
 
180 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 the movement as of some hunted animal, were 
 admirably exhibited." Miss Lee's Jo has since 
 won the admiration of audiences, not only 
 throughout the United Kingdom, but in America 
 and Australia, and its popularity remains un- 
 abated. In speaking of the adaptation of 
 '' Bleak House," in which Miss Lee won fame 
 and fortune, a word of tribute should be paid to 
 the excellence of the Hortense of Miss Dolores 
 Drummond, and the clever portrait of Inspector 
 Bucket, given by Mr. Burnett. Mr. Edward 
 Compton has also done well in this part. 
 
 Some of our best comedians have appeared in 
 Dickens's comic female characters. The late i\Ir. 
 J. Clarke was, as has already been said, a wonderful 
 Mrs. G-amp, and Mr. Lionel Brough has dis- 
 tinguished himself as Tilly Slowboy. 
 
 Speaking of Miss Charlotte Cushman in his 
 *' Actor's JSote Book," Mr. Greorge Vandenhoff 
 says : 
 
 " The power of her scorn, and the terrible 
 earnestness of her revenge were immense. Her 
 greatest part, fearfully natural, dreadfully in- 
 tense, horribly real, was Nancy Sikes, in the 
 dramatic version of 'Oliver Twist'; it was too 
 true, it was painful, this actual presentation of 
 Dickens's poor abandoned, abused, murdered, 
 outcast of the streets ; a tigress with the touch, 
 and but one, of woman's almost deadened nature, 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND DIPERSONATIONS. 181 
 
 blotted and trampled under foot by man's 
 cruelty and sin." Xancy has been a favourite 
 part with other actresses, and Mr. Lionel Brough, 
 who, when he so wills it, never fails to make his 
 hearers laugh, has absolutely terrified them with 
 the wild force of his admirably conceived and con- 
 scientiously portrayed. Bill Sikes. It is satis- 
 factory to know that in his recent brilliant series 
 of revivals of Lyceum triumphs, Mr. Henry 
 Irsdng has not forgotten the success that he 
 made in earlier days in the character of Jingle, 
 and it is pleasant to see that the gifted actor- 
 manager, who has made an undoubtedly great 
 name in the highest branches of the drama, is 
 still alive to the importance and high-standing 
 of the art of the character delineator or eccentric 
 comedian. Mr. Irving's very acceptable decision 
 to reappear as Jingle, at a tim.e when he is 
 acknowledged to be the best Hamlet and the 
 finest Shy lock of his day, has been amply justified 
 by the enthusiasm with which the impersonation 
 has been received. At the Lyceum, the adapta- 
 tion of " Pickwick " has very wisely been narrowed 
 to the dimensions of a farce, with Jingle for its cen- 
 tral figure. " Mr. Irving," says a critic, " disdains 
 none of the acts of the low comedian. He vaults 
 lightly over the back of Mr. Archer, who represents 
 Job Trotter, and he even turns his back to the 
 audience, and with his hands in his coat-tail 
 
182 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 pockets, betrays the fact that he has been sitting 
 somewhere upon fresh paint or whitewash. It 
 must not be supposed, however, that it is by 
 these to tell the truth, rather unworthy arts 
 alone that he is enabled to cause hearty amuse- 
 ment. It is sufficient to refer, in proof of this 
 assertion, to the scene in which Jingle bam- 
 boozles poor Mr. Pickwick, whom he knows to 
 be listening, by shedding sympathetic tears as 
 he entertains Job Trotter with a recital of his 
 beloved mother's distresses. Mr. Albery's adapta- 
 tion in its present condensed form, is very pro- 
 perly styled a farce, but this particular scene is 
 comedy, and comedy of a high order, and it is 
 finely played by Mr. Irving, whose whole speech 
 and bearing have in them the very quintessence 
 of hypocrisy." 
 
 Of Mr. Irving's first appearance as Jingle, a 
 critic truthfully said : " jMr. Irving imparted to 
 the character a strange flavour of originality, 
 movement, and grotesque vivacity. The face 
 assumed an intelligent leanness, a Callot-like 
 intelligence and oddity. But there was much 
 more. This vivacity is not in life confined to 
 pattering over words glibly. An adventurer of 
 the kind must be restlessly watching faces and 
 movements of figures, and this will impart a 
 certain spasmodic nervousness. Mr. Irving's 
 figure seemed to acquire this. His shoulders 
 
ADAPTATIONS AND I3IPERS0NATI0NS. 183 
 
 went up towards his ears, his shoulder-blades 
 worked, his talk was strange and flourishing. 
 These were no unmeaning antics, but a nice 
 instinct had shown him that they were 
 appropriate — that a man of such pursuits would 
 necessarily by his over-eagerness and anxiety, make 
 such movements. Even to the little traditional 
 tricks of the stage, he gives an originality ; as 
 when he puts the watch by mistake into his 
 pocket, it had the air of a mistake ; but how 
 often have we seen the * funny ' man do the 
 same with an elaborate ostentation, taking the 
 audience into his confidence with nods and 
 winks ? " 
 
 In the latest Lyceum stage edition of "Pick- 
 wick," the veteran, and always excellent Mr. 
 Howe, succeeding the late Mr. Addison as Mr. 
 Pickwick, at least contrived to look the part to the 
 life, and Mr. Stephen Caffery was a very satis- 
 factory Sam Weller. It is curious to note that 
 while many of our best actors have done well in 
 Dickens's characters, comparatively few actresses 
 have made in them more than passing successes. 
 It is true that Mrs. Kendal, undoubtedly the 
 greatest actress of the day, has played Bertha 
 in "The Cricket on the Hearth," with all the 
 delightful tenderness of touch and subtlety of 
 art of which she is the mistress ; but the part is 
 by no means what is styled a " great " one, and 
 
184 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 it must be admitted that what, in theatrical 
 parlance would be called the " leading 
 characters " in Dickens's novels, do not lend 
 themselves so well to stage purposes as his 
 humorous and " cabinet " portraits. 
 
 Mr. Percy Fitzgerald thoroughly understood 
 this when, in his " Principles of Comedy and 
 Dramatic Effect," speaking of *' Little Em'ly " 
 at the Olympic, he said : " One of the charms of 
 Mr. Dickens's humour are those sudden analogies 
 between objects of mind and matter — strange and 
 surprising likenesses — and which is indeed 
 opening a new world. Another feature lies not 
 so much in making the characters, as in ' bringing 
 them out ' by the curious comments, hints, and 
 remarks of the novelist himself. It is as though 
 we were witnessing all the scenes of the story, 
 with a mysterious spirit by our side, who had 
 privileged and Asmodean access to secret interiors 
 of house and mind. Thus is given, for behaviour 
 and speech and deportment, otherwise unmean- 
 ing, a secret key, which makes all intelligible. 
 Now it is obvious that on the stage all this must 
 be lost. Numbers who go to the Olympic see 
 David Copperfield himself on the boards, in a 
 strange coat and gilt buttons, follow him as he 
 moves amongst the other characters, and would 
 own that he fulfils his duty to the play respect- 
 ably. He has about the same business that he 
 
ADAPTATIONS AKD IMPEESONATIOXS. 185 
 
 has in the story — friend of Steerforth and Peg- 
 gotty, unmasker of Uriah Heep, and so forth. 
 Given that selection of episodes now being 
 played, it might be asked, What more could be 
 added to the part ? Yet this is a superficial 
 view. Turn to the story, and we find that his is 
 the mind which reflects and colours the whole 
 course of events to us. Through him, as it were, 
 we see every character; it is his mind, his feeling, 
 the mind of the author himself, and his own life, 
 that fills up the whole. Through the eyes of 
 David, look forth the eyes of the writer; his 
 quick wit, his genius, illuminates that figure, 
 brings out the wit and humour of others, as steel 
 does with flint, and illustrates their doings with 
 a sort of commentary. Thus Copperfield becomes 
 the soul of all. We turn to the stage, and all 
 this must disappear ; there remains but a figure 
 in a long coat and gilt buttons, who walks on and 
 walks off, and is about as purposeless as one of 
 Madame Tussaud's images. Not but that the 
 adaptor has done his part with a surprising tact 
 and self-abnegation ; and we only use his skilful 
 adaptation to illustrate a principle." 
 
 * Note to page 162. — The writer has seen a stage-version 
 of " Little Dorrit " in which the Father of the Marshalsea in- 
 herits a title, and is hailed as Sir William Dorrit : and an adap- 
 tation of " Dombey and Son" in which poor Paul is stolen 
 by Mrs. Brown, and meets with his death while endeavouring 
 to escape, by way of the roof, from that good lady's house ! 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE STAGE IN HIS SPEECHES. 
 
 As the following extracts will jorove, Charles 
 Dickens's interest in, and knowledge of, every- 
 thing connected with the theatre were nowhere 
 better shown than in his public speeches. 
 
 On June 27th, 1855, speaking in Drury Lane 
 Theatre on the subject of Administrative Eeform, 
 he made the following happy allusions to his 
 surroundings in referring to the term, " the 
 private theatricals at Drury Lane," which had 
 been applied to the proceedings in question : 
 
 "Now, I have some slight acquaintance with 
 theatricals, private and public, and I will accept 
 that figure of the noble lord. I will not say that 
 if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty's 
 servants, I think I know where to put my hand 
 on ' the comic old gentleman ' ; nor that, if I 
 wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I know 
 what establishment to go to for the tricks and 
 changes, also for a very considerable host of 
 supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that 
 contention with which many of us are familiar, 
 both on these and on other boards, in which the 
 
THE fcTAGE IN HIS SPEECHES. 187 
 
 princix^al objects thrown about are loaves and 
 tishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the 
 reason for these private theatricals, and the 
 reason why, however ardently he may desire to 
 ring the curtain down upon them, there is not 
 the faintest present hope of their coming to a 
 conclusion. It is this : the public theatricals which 
 the noble lord is so condescending as to manage 
 are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cum- 
 brous, the parts so ill-distributed, the company so 
 full of * walking-gentlemen,' the managers have 
 such large families, and are so bent on putting 
 those families into what is theatrically called 
 'first business' — not because of their aptitude 
 for it, but because they are their families — that 
 we find ourselves bound to organise an opposition. 
 We have seen the Comedy of Errors played so 
 dismally like a tragedy that we really cannot 
 bear it. We are, therefore, making bold to get 
 up the School of Reform, and we hope, before 
 the play is out, to improve that noble lord by our 
 performance very considerably. If he object that 
 we have no right to improve him without his 
 license, we venture to claim that right in virtue 
 of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful 
 piper, whom we always pay." 
 
 On July 21st, 1858, he spoke at a public 
 meeting held at the Princess's Theatre, for the 
 
188 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 purpose of establishing the Koyal Dramatic 
 College. Mr. Charles Kean (who was at the time 
 appearing in his memorable revival of " The 
 Merchant of Venice,"), occupied the chair, and in 
 the course of his remarks, Dickens said : 
 
 " I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was 
 speaking, that in an hour or two from this time, 
 the spot upon which we are now assembled will be 
 transformed into the scene of a crafty and a cruel 
 bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the 
 Grand Canal of Venice will flow, with picturesque 
 fidelity, on the very spot where I now stand dry- 
 shod, and that ' the quality of mercy ' will be 
 beautifully stated to the Venetian Council by a 
 learned young doctor from Padua, on these very 
 boards on which we now enlarge upon the quality 
 of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it came 
 into my mind to consider liow different the real 
 bond of to-day is from the ideal bond of to-night. 
 Now, all generosity, all forbearance, all forget ful- 
 ness of little jealousies and unworthy divisions, 
 all united action for the general good. Then, all 
 selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, 
 and all evil — now all good. Then, a bond to be 
 broken within the compass of a few — three or 
 four — swiftly-passing hours ; — now, a bond to be 
 valid and of good effect generations hence." 
 
 On May 11th, 1864, at a meeting held at the 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS SPEECHES. 189 
 
 Adelphi Theatre for the purpose of founding the 
 Shakespeare Schools, in connection with the 
 Koyal Dramatic College, he said : 
 
 " Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the 
 whole design. There are foundation scholars at 
 Eton, foundation scholars at nearly all our old 
 schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a 
 noble part of our standard national literature, and 
 in remembrance of a great humanising art, will 
 do this thing for these children, it will at the 
 same time be doing a wise and good thing for 
 itself, and will unquestionably find its account in 
 it. Taking this view of the case — and I cannot 
 be satisfied to take a lower one — I cannot make a 
 sorry face about " the poor player." I think it is 
 a term very much misused and very little under- 
 stood — being, I venture to say, appropriated in a 
 wrong sense by players themselves. Therefore, 
 ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the 
 player to you exceptionally in this wise — that he 
 follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a 
 vocation very rarely affording the means of 
 accumulating money — that that vocation must, 
 from the nature of things, have in it many 
 undistinguished men and women to one dis- 
 tinguished one, that it is not a vocation the 
 exerciser of which can profit by the labours of 
 others, but in which he must earn every loaf of 
 his bread in his own person, with the aid of his 
 
190 DICKENS AND THE STyiQE. 
 
 own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own 
 memory, and his own life and spirits; and these 
 failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to 
 render him some little help in opening for his 
 children their paths through life. I say their 
 paths advisedly, because it is not often found, 
 except under the pressure of necessity, or where 
 there is strong hereditary talent — which is 
 always an exceptional case — that the children of 
 actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons 
 therefore need not in the least fear that by help- 
 ing to endow these schools they would help to 
 overstock the dramatic market. They would do 
 directly the reverse, for they would divert into 
 channels of public distinction and usefulness 
 those good qualities which would otherwise 
 languish in that market's over-rich super- 
 abundance." 
 
 *^t ^ dL .llfc 
 
 ^F "SP tF *** 
 
 " It has happened in these later times that 
 objections have been made to children of dra- 
 matic artists in certain little snivelling private 
 schools — but in public schools never. Therefore, 
 I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully 
 wise, in recognising the capacious liberality of a 
 public school, in seeking not a little hole-and- 
 corner place of education for their children ex- 
 clusively, but in addressing the whole of the 
 great middle class, and proposing to them to 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS SPEECHES. 191 
 
 come and join them, the actors, in their own 
 property, in a pnblic school, in a part of the 
 country where no such advantage is now to be 
 found." 
 
 On February 14th, 1866, Dickens officiated as 
 chairman at the annual dinner of the Dramatic, 
 Equestrian, and Musical Fund, at Willis's 
 Eooms, and in proposing the toast of the evening, 
 said : 
 
 " 1 rest the stronor claim of the society for 
 its useful existence and its truly charitable 
 functions on a very few words, though, as well as 
 I can recollect, upon something like six grounds. 
 First, it relieves the sick ; secondly, it buries the 
 dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of 
 the profession to journey to accept new engage- 
 ments whenever they find themselves stranded 
 in some remote, inhospitable place, or when, from 
 other circumstances, they find themselves per- 
 fectly crippled as to locomotion for want of 
 money; fourthly, it often finds such engage- 
 ments for them by acting as their honest, dis- 
 interested agent ; fifthly, it is its principle to 
 act humanely upon the instant, and never, as is 
 too often the case within my experience, to beat 
 about the bush till the bush is withered and 
 dead ; lastly, the society is not in the least 
 degree exclusive, but takes under its compre 
 
192 DlCIvENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 liensive care the whole range of the theatre and 
 the concert-room, from the manager in his room 
 of state, or in his caravan, or at the drum-head — 
 down to the theatrical housekeeper, who is 
 usually to be found among the cobwebs and the 
 flies, or down to the hall-porter, who passes his 
 life in a thorouo^h draus^ht — and, to the best of 
 my observation, in perpetually interrupted en- 
 deavours to eat somethins^ with a knife and fork 
 out of a basin, by a dusty fire, in that extra- 
 ordinary little gritty room, upon which the sun 
 never shines, and on the portals of which are in- 
 scribed the magic words ' stage-door.' " 
 
 '' Struggling artists must 
 
 necessarily change from place to place, and thus 
 it frequently happens that they become, as it 
 were, strangers in every place, and very slight 
 circumstances — a passing illness, the sickness of 
 the husband, wife, or child, a serious town, an 
 anathematising expounder of the gospel of 
 gentleness and forbearance — any one of these 
 causes may often in a few hours wreck them 
 upon a rock in the barren ocean; and then, 
 happily, this society, with the swift alacrity of 
 the life-boat, dashes to the rescue, and takes 
 
 ' hem off." " There is no class 
 
 (.f society the members of which so well help 
 themselves, or so well help each other. Not in 
 the whole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS SPEECHES. I'Jd 
 
 ani York Minster, not in the wliole quadrangle 
 of the Royal Exchange, not in the whole list of 
 members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns 
 of Court, not in the College of Physicians, not in 
 the College of Surgeons, can there possibly be 
 found more remarkable instances of uncomplain- 
 ing poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of 
 the generous remembrance of the claims of 
 kindred and professional brotherhood, than will 
 certainly be found in the dingiest and dirtiest 
 concert-room, in the least lucid theatre — even in 
 the raggedest tent circus that was ever stained 
 by weather. I have been twitted in print before 
 now with rather flattering actors when I address 
 them as one of their trustees at their General 
 Fund dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody, 
 unless it be sometimes myself; but in such a 
 company as the present I always feel it my man- 
 ful duty to bear my testimony to this fact — fiist, 
 because it is opposed to a stupid, unfeeling libel ; 
 secondly, because my doing so may afford some 
 slight encouragement to the persons who are 
 unjustly depreciated; and lastly, and most of ail, 
 because I know it is the truth." 
 
 In proposing the toast of *• The Ladies " on 
 this occasion Dickens made happy and appreci- 
 ative allusion to one who is still one of the most 
 deservedly popular actresses on our stage : — " It 
 is the privilege of this society annually to hear 
 
194 DICKENS A^D THE STAGE. 
 
 a lady speak for her own sex. Who so competent 
 to do this as Mrs. Stirling ? Surely one who has 
 so gracefully and so captivatingl}'', with such an 
 exquisite mixture of art, and fancy, and fidelity, 
 represented her own sex in innumerable charac- 
 ters, under an infinite variety of phases, cannot fail 
 to represent them well in her own character, 
 especially when it is, amidst her many triumphs, 
 the most agreeable of all. I beg to propose to 
 you 'The Ladies,' and I will couple with that 
 toast the name of Mrs. Stirling." 
 
 On April 6th, 1846, Dickens took the chair at 
 the first anniversary festival of the General 
 Theatrical Fund Association, and in the course of 
 the speech in which he proposed the toast of the 
 evening said : 
 
 " Let us ever remember that there is no class 
 of actors who stand so much in need of a retiring 
 fund as those who do not win the great prizes, 
 but w4io are nevertheless an essential part of the 
 theatrical system, and by consequence bear a 
 part in contributing to our pleasures. We owe 
 them a debt which we ought to pay. The beds 
 of such men are not of roses, but of very 
 artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are lives of 
 care and privation, and hard struggles with very 
 stern realities. It is among the poor actors who 
 drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously 
 like toast-rnd-water, and who preside at Earm.e-- 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS SIEECHES. 195 
 
 cide feasts with wonderful appetites for steaks, — 
 it is from their ranks that the most triumphant 
 favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, 
 the greater the instruction and delight we derive 
 from the rich English drama, the more we are 
 bound to succour and protect the humblest of 
 those votaries of the art who add to our instruc- 
 tion and amusement. 
 
 " Hazlitt has well said that ' There is no class 
 of society whom so many persons regard with 
 affection as actors. We greet them on the stage, 
 we like to meet them in the streets ; they always 
 recall to us pleasant associations.' When they 
 have strutted and fretted their hour upon the 
 stage, let them not be heard no more — but let 
 them be heard sometimes to say that they are 
 happy in their old age. When they have passed 
 for the last time from behind that glittering row 
 of lights with which we are all familiar, let them 
 not pass away into gloom and darkness — but let 
 them pass into cheerfulness and light — into a 
 contented and happy home. 
 
 " This is the object for which we have met ; 
 and I am too familiar with the English character 
 not to know that it will be effected. When we 
 come suddenly in a crowded street upon the 
 careworn features of a familiar face — crossing us 
 like the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten — 
 let us not recall those features with pain, in sad 
 
 13* 
 
106 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 remembrance of what they once were, but let us 
 in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or two 
 to meet it once again, as that of a friend who 
 has beguiled us of a moment of care, who has 
 taught us to sympathise with virtuous grief, 
 cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own — 
 and we all know how pleasant are such tears. 
 Let such a face be ever remembered as that of 
 our benefactor and our friend. 
 
 " I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether 
 I had ever been in any theatre in my life from 
 which I had not brought away some pleasant 
 association, however poor the theatre, and I 
 protest, out of my varied experience, I could 
 not remember even one from which I had not 
 brought some favourable impression, and that, 
 commencing with the period when I believed the 
 clown was a being born into the world with 
 infinite pockets, and ending with that in which 
 I saw the other night, outside one of the ' Koyal 
 Saloons,' a playbill which showed me ships 
 completely rigged, carrying men, and careering 
 over boundless and tempestuous oceans. And 
 now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of 
 our theatres and actors, I beg to propose that 
 you drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast 
 was drunk in this toast-drinking city, ' Prosperity 
 to the General Theatrical Fund.' " 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS SPEECHES. 107 
 
 On April 14th, 1851, the sixth annual dinner 
 of the General Fund was held at the London 
 Tavern. Dickens occupied the chair, and in the 
 course of his speech said : 
 
 "This is a theatrical association, expressly 
 adapted to the wants and to the means of the 
 whole theatrical profession all over England. It 
 is a society in which the word exclusiveness is 
 wholly unknown. It is a society which includes 
 every actor, whether he be Benedict, or Hamlet, 
 or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the Court 
 Physician, or, in the one person, the whole 
 King's army. He may do the « light business/ 
 or the * heavy,' or the comic, or the eccentric. 
 He may be the captain who courts the young 
 lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in 
 dressinor himself in a costume one hundred years 
 older than his time. Or he may be the young 
 lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpres- 
 sibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to 
 listen to the female members of it whenever 
 they sing, and to shake hands witli everybody 
 between all the verses. Or he be may the bai on 
 who gives the fete, and who sits uneasily on th? 
 sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the 
 fete is going on. Or he may be the peasant at 
 the fde who comes on the stage to swell the 
 drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, 
 always turns his glass upside down before he 
 
198 DICIvEXS AND THE STACIE. 
 
 begins to drink out of it. Or he may be tlie 
 
 clown who takes away the doorstep of the house 
 
 where the evening party is going on. Or he may 
 
 be the gentleman who issues out of the house on 
 
 the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. 
 
 Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy 
 
 who resides for ever in a revolving star with an 
 
 occasional visit to a bower or a palace. Or the 
 
 actor may be the armed head of the witch's 
 
 cauldron ; or even that extraordinary witch, 
 
 concerning whom I have observed in country 
 
 places, that he is much less like the notion 
 
 formed from the description of Hopkins than the 
 
 Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes* 
 
 The society, in short, says, 'Be you what you 
 
 may, be you actor or actress, be your path in the 
 
 profession never so high, or never so low, never 
 
 so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the 
 
 means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing 
 
 good to your brethren.' " 
 
 '' I have used the word grati- 
 tude ; and let any man ask his own heart, and 
 confess if we have not some grateful acknowledg- 
 ments for the actors' art ? Not peculiarly because 
 it is a profession often pursued, and as it were 
 marked, by poverty and misfortune, — for other 
 callings, God knows, have their distresses — nor 
 because the actor has sometimes to come from 
 scenes of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death 
 
THE .-^TAGE IX niS SPEECHES. 199 
 
 itself, to play his part before us — for all of us, in 
 our sj)lieres, have as often to do violence to our 
 feelings and to hide our hearts in fighting this 
 great battle of life and in discharging our duties 
 and responsibilities. But the art of the actor 
 excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or 
 humorous, which we are all familiar with. If 
 any man were to tell me that he denied his 
 acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply 
 put to him one question — * Whether he remem- 
 bered his first play ? ' 
 
 " If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your 
 recollection to that great night, and call to mind 
 the bright and harmless world which then 
 opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear 
 favourably of the effect upon your liberality on 
 this occasion from our secretary." 
 
 On the evening of March 1st, 1851, the 
 friends and admirers of Mr. Macready entertained 
 him at a public dinner. Sir E. B. Lytton took 
 the chair, and in proposing his health, and 
 alluding to Macready's farewell benefit at Drury 
 Lane, on which occasion he played the part of 
 Macbeth, Dickens said : 
 
 " When I looked round on the vast assemblage, 
 and observed the huge pit hushed into stillness 
 on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty 
 surging gallery, where men in their shirt-sleeves 
 
2C0 ricKi:>\s a^d the stage. 
 
 liad been sti iking out their arms like strong 
 swimmers — when I saw that boisterous human 
 flood become still water in a moment, and 
 remain so from the opening to the end of the 
 play, it suggested to me something besides the 
 trustworthiness of an English crowd, and the 
 delusion under which those labour who are apt to 
 disparage and malign it ; it suggested to me that 
 in meeting here to-night we undertook to repre- 
 sent something of the all-pervading feeling of 
 that crowd, through all its intermediate degrees, 
 from the full-dressed lady, with her diamonds 
 sparkling in her breast in the proscenium box, 
 to the half-undressed gentleman who bides his 
 time to take some refreshment in the back row 
 of the gallery." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE STAGE IX HIS LETTERS. 
 
 Scattered about among these pages are passages 
 from the delightful letters of Charles Dickens 
 bearing upon theatrical subjects, and in this 
 chapter it is proposed to give further extracts 
 from that happily preserved treasure-house. This 
 will most conveniently be done by merely quoting 
 them in their proper chronological order. 
 
 1836. (To Mr. John Hullah, concerning " The 
 Village Coquettes") 
 
 " Have you seen The Examiner ? It is rather 
 depreciatory of the opera; but, like all inveterate 
 critiques against Braham, so well done that I 
 cannot help laughing at it, for the life and soul 
 of me. I have seen The Sunday Times, The 
 Dispatch, and TJie Satirist, all of which blow 
 their critic trumpets against unhappy me most 
 lustily. Either I must have grievously awakened 
 the ire of all the ' adaptors ' and their friends, or 
 the drama must be decidedly bad. I haven't 
 made up my mind yet which of the two is the 
 fact." 
 
202 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 1837. (To Mr, J. P. Harleij.) 
 
 '' I have considered the terms on which I could 
 afford just now to sell Mr. Braham the acting 
 copyright in London of an entirely new piece for 
 the St. James's Theatre ; and I could not sit 
 down to write one in a single act of about one 
 hour long, under a hundred pounds. For a new 
 piece in two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds 
 would be the sum I should require. 
 
 " I do not know whether, with reference to 
 arrangements that were made with any other 
 writers, this may, or may not, appear a large 
 item. I state it merely with regard to the value 
 of my own time and writings at this mo- 
 ment. . . ." 
 
 1838. (To Mr. W. G, Macready, concerning 
 " The Lmnplighter") 
 
 " I have not seen you for the past week, because 
 I hoped when we next met to bring ' The Lamp- 
 lighter ' in my hand. ... I am afraid to 
 name any particular day, but I pledge myself 
 that you shall have it this month, and you may 
 calculate on that promise. I send you with this 
 a copy of a farce I wrote for Harley when he 
 left Drury Lane, and in which he acted for some 
 seventy nights. It is the best thing he does. 
 It is barely possible you might like to try it. 
 Any local or temporary allusions could be easily 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 2C3 
 
 altered. . . . P.S. For Heaven's sake don't 
 fancy that I liold ' The Strange Cfentleman ' in 
 any estimation, or have a wish upon the 
 subject." 
 
 December 13th, 1838. {The Same.)] 
 *• I can have bat one opinion on the subject — 
 withdraw the farce at once, by all means. . . . 
 Believe me that I have no other feeling of disap- 
 pointment connected with this matter but that 
 arising from the not having been able to be of 
 some use to 3'ou." 
 
 May 21st, 1842. (To Professor Felton, con- 
 cerning Araateiir Theatricals at Montreal.) 
 
 *' I would give something .... if you 
 could stumble into that very dark and dusty 
 theatre in the day-time (at any minute between 
 twelve and three), and see me with my coat off, 
 the stage manager and universal director, urgiug 
 impracticable ladies and impossible gentlemen on 
 to the very confines of insanity, shouting and 
 driving about, in my own person, to an extent 
 which would justify any philanthropic stranger 
 in clapping me into a strait -waistcoat without 
 further inquiry, endeavouring to goad H. into 
 some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's 
 duties, and strusforlincr in such a vortex of noise, 
 dirt, bustle, confusion, and inextricable entangle- 
 
20i DICKENS AKD THE STAGE. 
 
 nient of speech and ,iction as you would grow 
 giddy in contemplating. . . . This kind of 
 voluntary hard labour used to be my great de- 
 light. The favor has come upon me again, and 
 1 begin to be once more of opinion that nature 
 intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, 
 and that pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a 
 manager.*' 
 
 November 12th, 1842. (To Mr. W. G. 
 Macreadi/, concerning " The Patrician''s 
 DaurjJiter.") 
 
 "The more I think ofjMarston's play, the miore 
 sure I feel that a prologue to the purpose would 
 help it materially, and almost decide the fate of 
 any ticklish point on the first night. Now I have 
 an idea . . . . that would take the pro- 
 logue out of the conventional dress of prologues, 
 quite. Get the curtain up with a dash, and 
 begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. If, 
 on consideration, you should think with me, I will 
 write the prologue heartily." 
 
 (lite Same.) 
 
 " One suggestion, though it be a late one. Do 
 have upon the table, in the opening scene of the 
 second act, something in a velvet case, or frame, 
 that may look like a large miniature of Mabel, 
 such as one of Eoss's, and eschew that picture. 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 205 
 
 It haunts me with a sense of danger. Even a 
 titter, at that critical time, with the whole of that 
 act before you, would be a fatal thing. The 
 picture is bad in itself, bad in its effect upon the 
 beautiful room, bad in all its associations with 
 the house." 
 
 September 1st, 18 i3. (To Professor Felton, 
 CO ncerni ng Moxready.) 
 
 '' He is one of the noblest fellows in the world, 
 and I would give a great deal that you and I 
 should sit beside each other to see him play Vir- 
 ginius, Lear, or Werner, which I take to be, every 
 way, the greatest piece of exquisite perfection 
 that his lofty art is capable of attaining. His 
 Macbeth, especially the last act, is a tremendous 
 reality; bat so, inieed, is alaio.st everything he 
 does." 
 
 January 2nd, 1844. (The Same?) 
 
 " Of course you like Macrea Jy I 
 
 wish you could see him play Lear. It is stupen- 
 dously terrible.*' 
 
 November 13th, 1843. (To Mr. R. H. Horn-, 
 concerniiij *' The Village Coquettes,'' t&c.) 
 
 '•' Pray tell that besotted to let the opera 
 
 sink into its native obscurity. I did it in a fit 
 of d ble good nature long ago, for Huliah, 
 
206 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 wlio wrote some very pretty music to it. I just 
 put down for ever^^body what everybody at the 
 St. James's Theatre wanted to say and do, and 
 that they could say and do best, and I have been 
 most sincerely repentant ever since. The farce 
 I also did as a sort of practical joke, for Harley,* 
 whom I had known a long time. It was funny — 
 adapted from one of the published sketches called 
 the ' Grreat Winglebury Duel,' and was published 
 by Chapman and Hall. But I have no copy of it 
 now, nor should I think they have. But both 
 these things were done without the least con- 
 sideration or regard to reputation. 
 
 ''I wouldn't repeat them for a thousand 
 pounds apiece, and devoutly wish them to be 
 forgotten." 
 
 1844. (To Mr. Forster, concerning a repre- 
 sentation in Italy of Dumas' s " KeaoiJ^ 
 
 " There was a mysterious person called the 
 Prince of Yar-lees (^A'ales), the youngest and 
 slimmest man in the company, whose badinage 
 in Kean's dressing-room was irresistible ; and 
 the dresser wore top-boots, a Grreek skull cap, a 
 black velvet jacket, and leather breeches. One 
 or two of the actors looked very hard at me to 
 see how I was touched by these English pecu- 
 
 * I.e. " The Strange Gentleman." 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS LETTERS. 207 
 
 liarities, especially when Kean kissed his male 
 friends on both cheeks." 
 
 1844. {To Mr. Robert Keeley concerning an 
 adaptation of " Martin Chuzzleiuit"^ 
 
 " I cannot consistently, with the opinion I hold, 
 and have always held, in reference to the principle 
 of adapting novels for the stage, give you a pro- 
 logue to ' Chuzzlewit.' But believe me to be 
 quite sincere in saying that if I felt I could 
 reasonably do such a thing for anyone, I would 
 
 do it for you I presume Mrs. Keeley 
 
 will do Euth Pinch. If so, I feel secure about her, 
 and of Mrs. Gamp I am certain. But a queer 
 sensation begins in my legs, and comes upwards 
 to my forehead, when I think of Tom." 
 
 August 24th, 1844. (To Mr. Glarhson Stanfield.) 
 " Y^e have had weather here, since five o'clock 
 this morning, after your own heart. Suppose 
 yourself the Admiral in ' Black-Eyed Susan,' 
 after the acquittal of William, and when it was 
 possible to be on friendly terms with him. I am 
 T. P. (T. P. Cooke). My trousers are very full 
 at the ankles, my black neckerchief is tied in the 
 regular style, the name of my ship is painted 
 round my glazed hat, I have a red waistcoat on, 
 and the seams of my blue jacket are ' paid ' — per- 
 mit me to dicr you in the ribs when I make use 
 
208 DICKENS xiND THE STAGE. 
 
 of this nautical expression — in white. In my 
 hand I hold the very box connected with the 
 story of Sandomingerbilly. I lift up my eye- 
 brows as far as I can (on the T. P. model), take 
 a quid from the box, screw the lid on again 
 (chewing at the same time and looking pleasantly 
 at the pit), brush it with my right elbow, take 
 up my right leg, scrape my right foot on the 
 ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a 
 question of yours, namely, ' Indeed, what weather, 
 William ? ' I deliver myself as follows : 
 
 " ' Lord love your honour ! Weather ! Such 
 weather as would set all hands to the pumps 
 aboard one of your fresh -water cockboats, and 
 set the purser to his wits' end to stow away, for 
 the use of the ship's company, the casks full of 
 blue water as would come powering in over the 
 gunnel ! The dirtiest night, your honour, as 
 ever you see 'atween Spithead at gun-fire and the 
 Bay of Biscay ! The wind sou'-west, and your 
 house dead in the wind's eye ; the breakers 
 running up high upon the rocky beads, the 
 light'us no more looking thro' the fog than 
 Davy Jones's sarser eye through the blue sky 
 of heaven in a calm, or the blue top-lights of 
 your honour's lady cast down in a modest over- 
 hauling of her cat-heads ; avast (ivJdstlmg) my 
 dear eyes, here am I a-goin' ahead on to the 
 breakers.' (bowing). 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 209 
 
 ''Admired (smiling). ''So, William! I 
 admire plain speaking, as you know, and so does 
 old England, William, and old England's Queen. 
 But you were saying ' 
 
 " William. ' Aye, aye, your honour (scratch- 
 ing Ids head), I've lost my reckoning. Damme ! 
 — I ast pardon — but won't your honour throw 
 a hencoop on any old end of towline to a man 
 as is overboard ? ' 
 
 ''Admiral (smiling still). ' You were saying, 
 William, that the wind ' 
 
 " William (again cocking his leg and slapping 
 the thighs very hard). ' Avast heaving, your 
 honour * 
 
 "Admiral. ' You have described it well,William, 
 and I thank you. But who are these ? ' 
 
 ''Enter Supers in calico jackets to look like 
 cloth, some in brown holland jjetti coat-trousers 
 and big boots, all with very large buckles. Last 
 Super rolls in a cask, and pjretends to keep it. 
 Other Supers apjply their mugs to the bunghole, 
 and drink, previously holding them upside 
 down. 
 
 * Note. — Thei'e is no occasion to quote '•"William's" next 
 speech in full. The object of the extract is to show the mar- 
 vellous power that (had he cliosen to exercise it) Dickens 
 possessed as a -ui-iter of stage travesty. Another delicious 
 specimen of this stvle of writing is to be found in a letter dated 
 January 16th, 1854, and adlressed to Miss Mary Boyle, in 
 which an imaginary Falkland and Acres scene in "'The Kivals "' 
 is admiral)ly burlesijucd. 
 
 14 
 
210 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 *' Williaon {after shaJcing hands ivitli evevy- 
 hody). ' Who are these, your Honour? Messmates 
 as staunch and true as ever broke biscuit. Ain't 
 you, my lads ? ' 
 
 ''AIL ' Aye, aye, William. That we are ! that we 
 are ! ' 
 
 ''Admiral (pmtch affected). 'Oh, England ! what 
 
 wonder that ! But I will no longer detain 
 
 you from your sports, my humble friends ' — (Ad- 
 oniral speaks very loiv, and looks hard at the 
 orchestra^ this being the cue for the dance) — 
 ' from your sports, my humble friends. Fare- 
 well ! ' 
 
 'All, ' Hurrah ! hurrah ! ' {exit Admiral.) 
 
 , ' Voice behind. ' Suppose the dance, Mr. Stan- 
 field. Are you all ready ? Go, then ! ' " 
 
 September loth, 1845.— (To Mr. W. G. Mac- 
 ready.) 
 
 " N.B. Observe. — I think of changing my 
 present mode of life, and am open to an engage- 
 ment. 
 
 " N.B. No. 2. — I will undertake not to jolay 
 tragedy, though passion is my strength." 
 
 November 27th, 1846.— (To M. de Cerjat.) 
 " Keeley and his wife are making great -pre- 
 parations for producing the (Christmas story " 
 {" The Battle of Life,") " and I have made them 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS LETTERS. 211 
 
 (as an old stage manager) carry out one or two 
 expensive notions of mine ab^ut scenery and so 
 forth — in particular a sudden change from the 
 inside of the doctor's house, in the midst of the 
 ball, to the orchard in the snow — which ought to 
 tell very well. But actors are so bad, in general, 
 and the best are spread over so many theatres, 
 that the ' cast ' is black despair and moody mad- 
 ness." 
 
 December 19th, 1846.— fTo 2Irs. Charles 
 Dickens.) 
 
 " I really am bothered to death by this con- 
 founded dramatisation of the Christmas book 
 . . . I must exempt, however, from the 
 general slackness, both the Keeleys. I hope they 
 will be very good. I have never seen anything 
 of its kind better than the manner in which they 
 played the little supper scene between Clemency 
 and Britain yesterday. It was quite perfect, 
 even to me." 
 
 January 28th, 1847. — Ooncerninj the French 
 stage.) 
 
 " ' Clarissa Harlowe ' is still the rage. There 
 are some things in it rather calculated to astonish 
 the ghost of Eichardson, but Clarissa is very 
 admirably played" (by Rose Cheri), "and dies 
 better than the original, to my thinking ; but 
 
 14* 
 
212 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Ricbardson is no great favourite of mine, and 
 never seems to me to take liis top-boots off, 
 whatever he does. Several pieces are in com'se 
 of representation, involving rare portraits of the 
 English. In one, a servant, called ' Tom Bob,' 
 who wears a particularly English waistcoat, 
 trimmed with gold lace and concealing his 
 ankles, does very good things indeed. In another, 
 a Prime Minister of England, who has ruined 
 himself by railway speculations, hits off some of 
 our national characteristics very happily, fre- 
 quently making incidental mention of ' A^ish- 
 mingster,' ' Eegeen Street,' and other places with 
 which you are well acquainted. ' Sir Fakson ' i.^ 
 one of the characters in another play — ' P^nglish 
 to the Core ' ; and I saw a Lord Mayor of London 
 at one of the small theatres the other night, 
 looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's 
 waistcoat, the Order of the Garter, and a very 
 low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, not unlike a 
 dustman." 
 
 February 14th, 1847 :— 
 
 " Shall I ever forget Vestris,* in ' London 
 
 * Note. — Those who are versed in theatrical lore will remem- 
 ber that Madame Vestris and Harley were the original Grace 
 Harkaway and Mark Meddle in Boiicicault's well-known comedy, 
 originall}' produced at Covent Garden Theatre in 1841, — and 
 playgoers of to-day may recognise the fact that the same arti- 
 ficial, but theatrically-effective lines, make the same impression 
 upon an ordinary audience now as they did nearly fifty years 
 ajro. 
 
THE SI AGE IN HIS LETTERS. 213 
 
 Assurance,' bursting out with certain praises 
 (they always elicited three lounds) of a — of a 
 country morning, I think it was. The alrocity 
 was perpetrated, I remember, on a lawn before a 
 villa. It was led up to by flower-pots. The 
 thing was as like any honest sympathy, or honest 
 English, as the rose-pink on a sweep's face on 
 31ay-day is to a beautiful complexion ; but Harley 
 generally appeared touched to the soul, and a 
 man in the pit always cried out, ' Beau-ti-ful I ' " 
 
 November 7th, 1848. — (To J//'. Efftngltain 
 Williarn Wilson, concerning/ *• A Xational 
 Theatre.") 
 
 " That such a theatre as you describe would be 
 but worthy of this nation, and would not stand 
 low upon the list of its instructors, I have no 
 kind of doubt. I wish I could cherish a, 
 stronger faith than 1 have in the probability of 
 its establishment on a rational footing within 
 fifty years.*' 
 
 1849.— (Jo Mr, Forster.) 
 
 " Poor Eegnier has lost his only child. 
 Poole was at the funeral, and writes that he 
 never saw, or could have imagined, such 
 intensity of grief as Kegnier's at the grave. 
 How one loves him for it. ]]ut is it not 
 always true, in comedy and in tragedy, that 
 
214 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 the more real the mari, the n:ore genuine tlie 
 actor ? " 
 
 January 5th, 1851. — {To Sir Echvard Buhver 
 Lytfon, concerning ^' Not So Bad As We SeeinJ') 
 
 " I think it most admirable. Full of character, 
 strong in interest, rich in capital situations, and 
 certain to go nobly. You know how highly I 
 thought of ' Money,' but I sincerely think these 
 three acts finer. ... I cannot say too much 
 of the comedy to express what I think and feel 
 concerning it ; and I look at it, too, remember, 
 with the yellow eye of an actor ! I should have 
 taken to it (need I say so !) con aniore in any 
 case, but I should have been jealous of your 
 reputation, exactly as I appreciate your 
 generosity. If I had a misgiving of ten lines I 
 should have scrupulously mentioned it. 
 This brings me to my own part. If we had 
 anyone, or could get anyone, for Wilmot, I could 
 do (I think) something so near your meaning in 
 Sir Gilbert, that I let him go with, a pang. 
 Assumption has charms for me — I hardly know 
 for how many wild reasons — so delightful, that I 
 feel a loss of, oh ! I can't say what exquisite 
 foolery, when I lose a chance of being some one 
 in voice, etc., not at all like myself. But — I 
 speak quite freely, knowing you will not mistake 
 me — I know from experience that we could find 
 
THE STAGE iX IIIS LETTERS. 215 
 
 nobody to hold the play together in Wilmot if I 
 didn't do it. I think I could touch the gallant, 
 generous, careless pretence, with the real man at 
 the bottom of it, so as to take the audience with 
 him from the first scene, .... P.S. — I 
 have forgotten something. I suggest this title : 
 * Knowing the World ; or, Xot So Bad as We 
 Seem.' " 
 
 May 9th, 1853. — (To Mons. Regnier.) 
 '' There is a certain Miss Kelly, now sixty-two 
 years old, who was once one of the very best of 
 English actresses, in the greater and better days 
 of the English theatre. She has much need of 
 a benefit, and I am exerting myself to arrange 
 one for her, on about the 9th June, if possible, at 
 
 the St. James's Theatre It would 
 
 be a great attraction to the public, and a great 
 proof of friendship to me, if you would act." 
 
 May 20th, 1833.— {To the Same.) 
 
 '' I am heartily obliged to you for your kind 
 
 letter respecting Miss Kelly's benefit 
 
 Mitchell, like a brave garcon as he is, most will- 
 ingly consents to your acting for us." 
 
 Boulogne, August 2-ith, 1853.— (To Mr, TF. C, 
 Macready.) 
 
 *' I saw ' The ^Midsummer Night's Dream ' at 
 
21 G DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 the Opera Comique, done here (very well) last 
 night. The way in which a poet named Willyim 
 Shay Kes Peer gets drunk in company with Sir 
 John Foil Stayffe, fights with a noble 'night, 
 Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of- 
 lionour you may have read of in history, called 
 Mees Oleevia), and promises not to do so any 
 more on observing symptoms of love for him in 
 the Queen of England, is very remarkable. 
 Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and im- 
 penetrable disguise of a black velvet mask, two 
 inches deep by three broad, following him into 
 taverns and worse places, and enquiring of 
 persons of doubtful reputation for ' the sub- 
 lime Williams,' was inexpressibly ridiculous. And 
 yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite 
 admirable." 
 
 Paris, February 16th, 1855, — (To Miss 
 Hogarth.) 
 
 " * La Joie fait Peur ' at the Fran^ais de- 
 lighted me. Exquisitely played and beautifully 
 imagined altogether. Last night we went to the 
 Porte St. Martin to see a piece (English sub- 
 ject) called 'Jane Osborne,' which the characters 
 pronounce ' Ja Nosbornne.' The seducer was 
 Lord Nottingham. The comic Englishwoman's 
 name (she kept lodgings and was a very bad 
 character) was Missees Christmas. She had 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 217 
 
 begun to get into great difficulties with a gentle- 
 man of the name of Meestair Cornhill, when we 
 were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, 
 by the intolerable stench of the i>lace." 
 
 Paris, I800-06.— (To Mr. Fovstev,) 
 '' Incomparably the finest acting I ever saw, 
 I saw last night at the Ambigu. They have 
 revived that old piece, once immensely popular 
 in London under the name of ' Thirty Years of 
 a G-ambler's Life.' Old Lemaitre plays his 
 famous character, and never did I see anything, 
 in art, so exaltedly horrible and awful. In the 
 earlier acts he was so well made up, and so light 
 and active, that he really looked sufficiently 
 young. But in the last two, when he had grown 
 old and miserable, he did the finest things I 
 really believe, that are within the power of 
 acting. Two or three times, a great cry of 
 horror went all round the house. When he met, 
 in the inn yard, the traveller whom he murders, 
 and first saw his money, the manner in which the 
 crime came into his head — and eyes — was as 
 truthful as it was terrific. This traveller, being 
 a good fellow, gives him wine. You should see 
 the dim remembrance of his better days that 
 comes over him as he takes the glass, and, in a 
 strange dazed way, makes as if he were going to 
 touch the other man's, or do some airy thing 
 
218 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 with it, and then stops and flings the contents 
 down his hot throat, as if he were pouring it into 
 a lime-kiln. But this was nothing to what 
 follows after he has done the murder, and comes 
 home, with a basket of provisions, a ragged 
 pocket full of money, and a badly washed bloody 
 right hand — which his little girl finds out. 
 After the child asked him if he had hurt his 
 hand, his going aside, turning himself round, 
 and looking over all his clothes for spots, was so 
 inexpressibly dreadful that it really scared one. 
 He called for wine, and the sickness that came 
 upon him when he saw the colour, was one of the 
 things that brought out the curious cry I have 
 spoken of, from the audience. Then he fell into 
 a sort of bloody mist, and went on to the end 
 groping about with no mind for anything, except 
 making his fortune by staking this money, and 
 a faint, dull kind of love for the child. . . 
 And such a dress ; such a face ; and, above all, 
 such an extraordinary guilty, wicked thing as 
 he made of a knotted branch of a tree which 
 was his walking-stick, from the moment when 
 the idea of the murder came into his head ! 
 . . . . He got half-boastful of that walking- 
 staff to himself, and half afraid of it ; and didn't 
 know whether to be grimly pleased that it had 
 the jagged end or to hate it, and be horrified at 
 it. He sat at a little table in the inn-yard, 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 219 
 
 drinking with the traveller ; and this horrible 
 stick got between them like the Devil, while he 
 counted on his fingers the uses he could put the 
 money to." 
 
 '* In ' Comme il vous Plaira ' (a French, 
 version of * As You Like It,') nobody had any- 
 thing to do but to sit down as often as possible on 
 as many stones and trunks of trees as possible. 
 AYhen I had seen Jacques seat himself on 17 
 roots of trees, and 25 grey stones, which was at 
 the end "of the second act, I came away." 
 
 " Scribe and his wife were of the party, but 
 had to go away at the ice-time because it was 
 the first representation at the Opera Comique of 
 a new opera by Auber and himself, of which very 
 great expectations have been formed. It was 
 very curious to see him — the author of 400 
 pieces — getting nervous as the time approached, 
 and pulling out his watch every minute. At last 
 he dashed out as if he were going into what a 
 friend of mine calls a plunge bath." 
 
 " By-the-bye, I see a fine actor lost in Scribe. 
 In all his pieces he has everything done in his 
 own way ; and on that same night he was show- 
 ing what Rachel did not do, and wouldn't do, in 
 the last scene of ' Adrienne Lecouvreur,' with 
 extraordinary force and intensity." 
 
220 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Paris, January 19th, I806. — {To Mr. Wilkle 
 Collins), 
 
 "At the Porte St. Martin they are doing 
 the ' Orestes,' put into French verse by Alexandre 
 Dumas. Ixeally one of the absurdest things I 
 ever saw. The scene of the tomb, with all 
 manner of classical females, in black, grouping 
 themselves on the lid, and on the steps, and on 
 each other, and in every conceivable aspect of 
 obtrusive impossibility, is just like the window of 
 one of those artists in hair, who address the 
 friends of deceased persons." 
 
 January 9th, 1857. — {To Sir James Fmmcr- 
 son Tennenty concerning jprivate theatricals). 
 
 "As to the play itself; when it is made as 
 good as my care can make it, I derive a strange 
 feeling out of it, like writing a book in company ; 
 a satisfaction of a most singular kind, which has 
 no exact parallel in my life ; a something that I 
 sujipose to belong to the life of a labourer in art 
 alone, and which has to me a conviction of its 
 being actual truth without its pain, that I never 
 could adequately state if I were to try never so 
 hard. ... I assure you it has been a re- 
 markable lesson to my young people in patience, 
 perseverance, punctuality, and order; and, best 
 of all, in that kind of humility which is got from 
 the earned knowledo^e that whatever the rio^ht 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 221 
 
 hand finds to do must be done with the heart in 
 it, and in a desperate earnest." 
 
 — 1857, Doncaster (To Mr, Forsfer, concerninr/ 
 a performance of Lord Lytton's " Money.'* 
 
 '' I have rarely seen anything finer than Lord 
 Glossmore, a chorus-singer in bluchers, drab 
 trousers, and a brown sack ; and Dudley Smooth, 
 in somebody else's wig, hindside before. Stout 
 also, in anything he could lay hold of. The 
 waiter at the club had an immense moustache, 
 white trousers, and a striped jacket ; and he 
 brought everybody who came in a vinegar cruet. 
 The man who read the will beofan thus : ' I so- 
 and-so, being of unsound mind but firm of body.' 
 In spite of all this, however, the real character, 
 humour, wit, and good writing of the comedy, 
 made themselves apparent ; and the applause was 
 loud and repeated, and really seemed genuine. 
 Its capital things were not lost altogether. It 
 was succeeded by a jockey dance by five ladies, 
 who put their whips in their mouths and worked 
 imaginary winners up to the float — an immense 
 success." 
 
 December 28th, 1860. (To Miss Mary Boyle.) 
 
 " On Boxing Xight I was at Covent Garden. A 
 
 dull pantomime was 'worked' fas we say) better 
 
 than I ever saw a heavy piece worked on a first 
 
222 PICIvE^S AND THE STAGE. 
 
 niglit, until suddenly and without a moment's 
 warning, every scene on tliat immense stage fell 
 over on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight 
 behind ! There never was such a business ; about 
 sixty people who were on the stage being ex- 
 tinguished in the most remarkable manner. Not 
 a soul was hurt. In the uproar some moou-calf 
 rescued a porter pot six feet high (out of which 
 the clown had been drinking when the accident 
 happened), and stood it on the cushion of the 
 lowest proscenium box, P.S., beside a lady and 
 gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. 
 The moment the house knew that nobody was 
 injured, they directed their whole attention to this 
 gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the 
 lady and gentleman trying to hide behind it), 
 and roared with laughter. When a modest foot- 
 man came from behind the curtain to clear it, 
 and took it up in his arms like a Erobding- 
 nagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we 
 had laughed in our lives. I don't know why." 
 
 January 24th, 1862. (To Sir Echvard Bukcer 
 Lytton, concerning a jjro'posed operatic version 
 of " The Lady of Lyons.^') 
 
 " I do not think the production of such an 
 opera in the slightest degree likely to injure the 
 play or render it a less valuable property than it 
 is now. If it could have any effect upon so 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS LETTERS. 223 
 
 standard and popular a work as ' The Lady of 
 Lyons,' the eftect would, in my judgment, be 
 beneficial. But I believe the play to be high 
 above any such influence. Assuming you do 
 consent to the adaptation, in a desu"e to oblige 
 Oxenford, I would not recommend vour askinsf 
 any pecuniary compensation. This for two 
 reasons : firstly, because the compensation could 
 only be small at the best ; secondly, because 
 your taking it would associate you (unreasonably, 
 but not the less assuredly) with the opera. The 
 only objection I descry is purely one of feeling. 
 Pauline trotting about in front of the float, in- 
 voking the orchestra with a limp pocket-handker- 
 chief, is a notion that makes goose-flesh of my 
 back. Also a yelping tenor going away to the 
 wars in a scena half-an-hour long is painful to 
 contemplate. Damas, too, as a bass, with a 
 grizzled bald head, blatantly bellowing about : 
 
 ' ' Years long ago 
 When the sound of the drum 
 First made his blood glow 
 "With a rum ti tum turn," 
 
 rather sticks in my throat ; but there really 
 seems to me to be no other objection, if you can 
 get over this." 
 
 December 6th, 1862. (To Mons. Charles 
 FecJtter.) 
 
 *' I have read * The White Eose ' attentively. 
 
21M mCKEXS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 and think it an extremely good play. It is 
 vigorously written with a great knowledge of the 
 stage, and presents many striking situations. I 
 think the close particularly fine, impressive, bold, 
 and new. But I greatly doubt the expediency 
 of your doing aiiy historical play early in your 
 management. By the words 'historical play,' I 
 mean a play founded on any incident in English 
 history. Our ])ublic are accustomed to associate 
 historical pla3's with Shakespeare. In any other 
 hands, I believe they care very little for crowns 
 and dukedoms. What you want is something 
 with an interest of a more domestic and general 
 nature— an interest as romantic as you please, 
 but having a more general and wider response 
 than a disputed succession to the throne can have 
 for Englishmen at this time of day. Such interest 
 culminated in the last Stuart, and has worn 
 itself out. It would be uphill work to evoke an 
 interest in Perkin Warbeck. 
 
 " I do not doubt the play's being well received, 
 but my fear is that these people would be looked 
 upon as mere abstractions, and would have but 
 a cold welcome in consequence, and would not 
 lay hold of your audience. Now when you have 
 laid hold of your audience and have accustomed 
 them to your theatre, you may produce ' The 
 White I\ose,' with far greater justice to the 
 author, and to the manager also. Wait. Feel 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 225 
 
 yoar way. Perkin Warbeck is too far removed 
 from analogy with the sympathies and lives of 
 the people for a beginning." 
 
 February 19th, 1863. -(To Mr. F. C. Mac- 
 ready.) 
 
 "Paris generally is about as wicked and 
 extravagant as in the days of the Regency. 
 Madame Yiardot in the ' Orphee,' most splendid. 
 An opera of ' Faust,' a very sad and noble render- 
 ing of that sad and noble story. Stage manage- 
 ment remarkable for some admirable, and really 
 poetical, effects of light. In the more striking 
 situations, Mephistopheles surrounded by an 
 infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite 
 by a pale blue mournful light. The two never 
 blending. After Marguerite has taken the jewels 
 placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening 
 draws on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, 
 and the leaves of the trees droop and lose their 
 fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her 
 chamber window, which was innocently bright 
 and gay at first. I couldn't bear it, and gave in 
 completely. 
 
 " Fechter doing wonders over the way here,* 
 with a picturesque French drama. Miss Kate 
 Terr3% in a small part in it, perfectly charming. 
 
 * The letter is dated from the office of "All the Year 
 Kound." 
 
 15 
 
226 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 You may remember her making a noise, years 
 ago, doing a boy in an inn, in ' The Courier of 
 Lyons ' ? She has a tender love-scene in this 
 piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic 
 thing. I saw her do it at about three in the 
 morning of the day when the theatre opened, 
 surrounded by shavings and carpenters, and (of 
 course) with that inevitable hammer going ; and 
 I told Fechter : ' That is the very best piece of 
 womanly tenderness I have ever seen on the 
 stage, and you'll find that no audience can miss 
 it.' It is a comfort to add that it was instantly 
 seized upon, and is much talked of." 
 
 1864 (?).— (To Mr. John Forster.) 
 
 " I have been cautioning Fechter about the 
 play whereof he gave the plot and scenes to B ; 
 and out of which I have struck some enormities, 
 my account of which will (I think) amuse you. 
 It has one of the best first acts I ever saw ; but 
 if he can do much with the last two, not to say 
 three, there are resources in his art that I know 
 nothing about. When I went over the play this 
 day week, he was at least twenty minutes, in a 
 boat, in the last scene, discussing with another 
 gentleman (also in the boat) whether he should 
 kill him or not; after which the gentleman 
 dived over and swam for it. Also, in the most 
 important and dangerous parts of the play, there 
 
THE STAGE IX HIS LETTERS. 227 
 
 was a young person of the name of Pickles who 
 was constantly being mentioned by name, in 
 conjunction with the powers of light or darkness ; 
 as, ' Great Heaven ! Pickles ? ' 'By Hell, 'tis 
 
 Pickles!' * Pickles? a thousand Devils!' 
 
 « Distraction ! Pickles ? ' " 
 
 ]864. — [To Mr. John Forster.) 
 
 '* I went the other night to see ' The Streets of 
 London ' at the Princess's. A piece that is really 
 drawing all the town, and filling the house with 
 nightly overflows. It is the most depressing 
 instance, without exception, of an utterly 
 degraded and debased theatrical taste that has 
 ever come under my writhing notice. For not 
 only do the audiences — of all classes — go, but 
 they are unquestionably delighted. At Astley's 
 there has been much pufiing at great cost of a 
 certain Miss Ada Isaacs Menken, who is to be 
 seen bound on the horse in * Mazeppa ' ' ascend- 
 ing the fearful precipices, not as hitherto done by 
 a dummy.' Last night, having a boiling head, I 
 went out from here to cool myself on Waterloo 
 Bridge, and I thought I would go and see this 
 
 heroine Xow who do you think 
 
 the lady is ? If you do not already know, ask 
 that question of the highest Irish mountains that 
 look eternal, and they'll never tell you — Mrs. 
 Heenan I Contrariwise I assisted the other 
 
 15* 
 
228 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 night at the Adelphi and saw quite an admirable 
 performance of Mr. Toole and .Airs. Mellon — she, 
 an old servant, wonderfully like Anne — he, 
 showing a power of passion very unusual indeed 
 in a comic actor, as such things go, and of a 
 quite remarkable kind." 
 
 September 16th, 1867.— (T'o Mons. Charles 
 Fechter concerning *' The Lady of Lyons'^) 
 
 " Groing over the prompt-book carefully, I see 
 one change in your part to which (on Lytton's 
 behalf) I positively object, as I am quite certain 
 he would not consent to it. It is highly in- 
 judicious besides, as striking out the best known 
 line in the play. Turn to your part in Act III., 
 the speech beginning : 
 
 ' Pauline, Inj j)ride 
 Angels have fallen ere thy time: by pride :' 
 
 " You have made a passage farther on stand 
 
 ' Then did I seek to rise 
 Out of my mean estate. Thy hriyht image,'' ete. 
 
 " I must stipulate for your restoring it thus : 
 
 ' Then did I seek to rise 
 Out of the prison of my mean estate: 
 And with such jewels as the exploring mind 
 Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my ransom 
 From those twin jailers of the daring heart — - 
 Low birth and iron fortune. Tliy bright image,' etc., etc. 
 
 The last figure has been again and again quoted ; 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTEHS. 229 
 
 it is identified with the play ; it is fine in itself; 
 and above all, I KNOW that Lytton would not 
 let it go. Id writing to him to-day, fully explain- 
 ing the changes in detail, and saying that I dis- 
 approve of nothing else, I have told him that I 
 notice this change, and that 1 immediately let 
 you know that it must not be made. 
 
 "(There will not be a man in the house from 
 any newspaper who would not detect mutilations 
 in that speech, moreover.") 
 
 October 25th, 1867. (To Lord Lytton, con- 
 cerning his play, " The Captives.'') 
 
 " I have read the play with great attention, 
 interest, and admiration ; and I need not say to 
 you, that the art of it — the fine construction — the 
 exquisite nicety of the touches — with which it is 
 brought out, have been a study to me, in the 
 pursuit of which I have had extraordinary relish. 
 . . Xow, as to the classical ground and 
 manners of the play. I suppose the objection to 
 the Greek dress to be already — as De Foe would 
 write it — ^gotten over' by your suggestion. 
 I suppose the dress not to be conventionally asso- 
 ciated with stilts and boredom, but to be new 
 to the public eye and very picturesque. 
 Grant all that ; — the names remain. Now not 
 only used such names to be inseparable in^the 
 public mind from stately weariness, but of late 
 
:230 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 days they have become inseparable in the same 
 public mind from silly puns upon the names, and 
 from burlesque. You do no not know (I hope, at 
 least, for my friend's sake) what the Strand 
 Theatre is. A Grreek name, and a break-down 
 nigger dance, have become inseparable there. I 
 do not mean to say that your genius may not be 
 too powerful for such associations ; but I do most 
 positively mean to say that you would lose half 
 the play in overcoming them. At the best, you 
 would have to contend against them during the 
 first three acts. The old tendency to become 
 frozen on classical ground would be in the best 
 part of the audience ; the new tendency to titter 
 on such ground would be in the worst part. And 
 instead of starting fair with the audience, it is 
 my conviction that you would start with them 
 against you, and would have to win them 
 over." 
 
 May 22nd, 1868. (To Mons. FecJder, concern- 
 ing '^ No Thoroughfare.''') 
 
 " I have an*idea about the bedroom act, which 
 I should certainly have suggested if I had been 
 at our ' repetitions' here. I want it done to the 
 sound of the Waterfall. I want the sound of the 
 Waterfall louder and softer as the w^ind rises and 
 falls, to be spoken through — like the music. I 
 
THE STAGE IN HIS LETTERS. 231 
 
 vant the Waterfall listened to ivhen spoken of, 
 and not looked out at. The mystery and gloom 
 of the scene would be greatly helped by this, 
 and it would be new and picturesquely 
 fanciful." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 
 
 In the interesting paper to which reference has 
 already been made, that most excellent authority 
 the late Mr. Dutton Cook, quoting chieflj from 
 his letters,* speaks of Dickens as a dramatic critic, 
 and many English playgoers will be relieved 
 to find that he had not much sympathy with the 
 methods in vogue at the world-famed Ttieatre 
 Franpais. Of this immaculate playhouse he 
 wrote : " There is a dreary classicality ai that 
 establishment calculated to freeze the marrow. 
 Between ourselves, even one's best friends there 
 are at times aggravating. One tires of seeing a 
 man, through any number of acts, remembering 
 everything by patting his forehead with the flat 
 of his hand, jerking out sentences by shaking 
 himself, and piling them up in pyramids over his 
 
 * The writer might have followed the example of Mr. Dutton 
 Cook, and have added to this chapter, on criticism from, the 
 "letters"; but it seemed to him better to record the remain- 
 ing dramatic extracts from these (and many of them are 
 critical) in their own and separate place. See Cap. VII. 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 233 
 
 head with his right forefinger." And he relates 
 of a generic small comedy piece, peculiar to the 
 Franpais: "Where you see two sofas and three 
 little tables, to which a mau enters with his hat 
 on to talk to another man — and in respect of 
 which you know exactly when he will get up 
 from one sofa to sit on the other, and take his 
 hat off one table to put it upon the other — 
 which strikes one quite as ludicrously as a good 
 farce." 
 
 Dickens thoroughly disliked the " classical 
 drama," and this led him to speak disparagingly 
 of the acting of Eachel and Eistori. Indeed, he 
 went so far as to declare that the famous 
 " Medea " was " hopelessly bad " — and he was 
 enthusiastic concerning Eobson's acting in the 
 travesty in which the performance was bur- 
 lesqued. 
 
 Mr. Button Cook has more to tell of 
 Dickens's opinion on the merits cf French acting 
 than of English, but he bears testimony to his 
 undoubted and genuine admiration forMacready, 
 speaks of his delight at Miss Woolgar's Lemuel 
 in " The Grreen Bushes " at the Adelphi (long 
 after, and as Mrs. Alfred Mellon, this excellent 
 actress was the original Sally Goldstraw in " No 
 Thoroughfare," on the same boards) ; tells the 
 story of his pilgrimage to Walworth to see the 
 amateur performance in which ]Mr. Toole figured, 
 
234 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 and recounts the great impression made upon 
 him by Miss Marie Wilton's (Mrs. Bancroft's) early 
 impersonations at the Strand. 
 
 Mr. Dutton Cook goes on to say : 
 
 " Of Mr. Emery's personation of Mr. Potter in 
 
 * Still Waters Run Deep ' at the Olympic, in 
 1850, Dickens wrote: 'I don't think I ever saw 
 anything meant to be funny that struck me as so 
 extraordinarily droll ; T couldn't get over it at all.' 
 Of the William of T. P. Cooke in * Black-Eye'd 
 Susan,' Dickens wrote, congratulating the veteran 
 upon his admirable performance, and adding : 
 
 * It was so fresh and vigorous, so manly and 
 gallant, that I felt as if it splashed against my 
 theatre-heated face along with the spray of the 
 breezy sea.' 
 
 "'In 1858 he was applauding Dr. Westland 
 Marston's little drama, ' A Hard Struggle ' ; an ex- 
 cellent play, as good as ' La Joie fait Peur,' though 
 not at all like it, with ' capital acting,' by Mr. 
 Dillon. ' Real good acting, in imitation of nobody, 
 and honestly made out by himself.' ... It 
 was in 1842 that Dickens had written a prologue 
 for the same author's 'Patrician's Daughter,' 
 produced at Drury Lane by Macready. ' Camilla's 
 Husband,' at the Olympic in 1862, Dickens 
 thought to be 'a very good play, very well 
 played; real merit in Mr. Neville and Miss 
 ♦Saville.' In Fechter's management of the 
 
DICKEXS AS A DRAMATIC . CRITIC. 235 
 
 Lyceum, comraenced in 1S63, Dickens took 
 peculiar interest. The brilliant success of * The 
 Duke's Motto ' thoroughly rejoiced his heart, and 
 he specially noted 3Iiss Kate Terry's performance 
 in that play as ' perfectly charming ; the very 
 best piece of womanly tenderness he had ever 
 seen on the stage.' Fechter's Hamlet, Dickens 
 had from the first greatly admired. 'It was a 
 performance of extraordinary merit, by far the 
 most coherent, consistent, and intelligible 
 Hamlet I ever saw. Some of the delicacies 
 with which he rendered his conception clear 
 were extremely subtle. . . . Add to this a 
 perfectly picturesque and romantic '' make up," 
 and a remorseless destruction of all convention- 
 alities, and you have the leading virtues of the 
 impersonation. In Othello he did not succeed. 
 In lago he is very good. He is an admirable 
 artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage.' In 
 the production of * The Master of Eavenswood,' 
 Dickens took an active part, having, as he said, 
 ' an earnest desire to put Scott, for once, upon 
 the stage in his own gallant manner.' With the 
 Lucy of Miss CarJotta Leclercq," (destined to be 
 the heroine in " Xo Thoroughfare ") and " ' never 
 thought of for Lucv, till all other Lucies had 
 failed,' Dickens was extremely pleased. He 
 found the actress ' marvellously good,' highly 
 pathetic, and almost unrecognisable in person. 
 
236 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 . . . . There is no one on the stage who 
 could play the contract scene better or more 
 simply and naturally, and I find it impossible to 
 see it without crying.' With mention of 
 Fechter's Claude Melnotte — in a letter to Lord 
 Lytton — Dickens, says Mr. Dutton Cook, may be 
 said to have closed his essays as a dramatic critic. 
 ' Fechter has played nothing nearly so well as 
 Claude since he played in Paris in the " Dame 
 aux Camelias," or in London as Ruy Bias. He 
 played the fourth act as finely as Macready, and 
 the first act much better. The dress and bearing 
 in the fifth act are quite new and excellent. 
 . I cannot say too much of the brightness, 
 intelligence, picturesqueness, and care of Fech- 
 ter's impersonation throughout. There was a 
 remarkable delicacy in his gradually drooping 
 down on his way home with his bride, until he 
 fell upon the table a crushed heap of shame and 
 remorse, while his mother told Pauline the story. 
 His gradual recovery of himself as he formed better 
 resolutions was equally well expressed ; and his 
 rising at last upright again and wishing enthusi- 
 astically to join the army, brought the house 
 down.' ... 'I wish you could have been 
 there,' he wrote to the author. ' He never 
 spoke English half so well as he spoke your 
 English ; and the audience heard it with the 
 finest sympathy and respect. I felt that I 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 237 
 
 should be very proud indeed to be the writer of 
 the play.' " 
 
 Dickens naturally took keen interest in 
 the famous Shakespearean revivals organ- 
 ised by Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells, and 
 in writing to him on August 29th, 1847, he 
 said : 
 
 "My dear Sir. — 
 
 "I cannot resist the impulse I feel to 
 thank you for the very great pleasure I derived 
 from the representation of * Cymbeline ' at your 
 theatre on Thursday night. The excellent sense, 
 taste, and feeling manifest throughout, the great 
 beauty of all the stage arrangements, and the 
 respectful consideration (so to speak) shown by 
 every one concerned for the creation of the poet, 
 gave me extraordinary gratification. Xor could 
 I readily express to you, if I were to try, how 
 strong a sense of the great service such a theatre 
 renders to all who visit it, and to the general 
 cause of literature and art. 
 
 " Even at the risk of seeming to intrude this 
 sense upon you, I really cannot help assuring 
 you of my warm interest and admiration. And 
 perhaps you will receive my note with the greater 
 favour when I confess to having resisted a similar 
 impulse after several former visits to Sadler's 
 
238 DICKEXS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Wells, in my unwillingness to trouble 
 you. 
 
 " Let me hope that I may have the pleasure 
 of associating my public knowledge of you with 
 a more private and personal one than hitherto, 
 w^hen I return to town in October ; and believe 
 me, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 "Charles Dickens." 
 
 Charles Dillon was another actor for whom 
 Dickens entertained admiration. Writing to 
 the eminent dramatist. Dr. Westland Marston, 
 he said : " I have witnessed twice the representa- 
 tion of your charming little piece, ' A Hard 
 
 Struggle.' You ask me what I 
 
 think of Charles Dillon as an actor. His repre- 
 sentation of Reuben Holt was exactly what 
 acting should be — nature itself. I can't call to 
 mind any living actor who could have played it 
 so well. So closely did I watch him on both 
 occasions that I could only discover one slight 
 defect : on the receipt of the letter from his love 
 announcing the arrival of Lilian, in his emotion 
 he crumpled the paper in his hand. I think it 
 would have been more consistent had he folded 
 the letter carefully and placed it in his 
 breast." 
 
 So highly did Dickens think of this play that 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 2:J9 
 
 he suggested to his friend, Mons. Regnier, that 
 he would do well to produce an adaptation of it 
 at the Theatre Franpais. 
 
 A play in which Dickens took ^reat inte- 
 rest was the " Love's Martyrdom " of Mr. John 
 Saunders, and in the author's preface to the 
 published work, ample acknowledgment of this is 
 made. Having submitted the work for his inde- 
 pendent judgment, he received the following 
 reply, and nothing could more conclusively prove 
 the keen insight of Dickens as to the require- 
 ments of the stage : 
 
 " Tavistock House, 
 
 "Twenty-sixth October, 18.34. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — 
 
 " I have had much gratification and 
 pleasure in the receipt of your obliging com- 
 munication. Allow me to thank you for it, in 
 the first place, with great cordiality. 
 
 " Although I cannot say that I came without 
 any prepossessions to the perusal of your play (for 
 I had favourable inclinings towards it before I 
 begun), I can say that I read it with the closest 
 attention, and that it inspired me with a strong 
 interest and a genuine and high admiration. 
 The parts that involved some of the greatest 
 difficulties of your task appear to me those in 
 which you shine most. I would particularly 
 
240 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 instance the end of Julia as a very striking 
 example of this. The delicacy and beauty of her 
 redemption from her weak, rash lover, are very 
 far indeed beyond the range of any ordinary 
 dramatist, and display the true poetical strength. 
 
 "As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, 
 and in seeing the child of your fancy on his 
 stage, I will venture to point out to you, not 
 only what I take to be very dangerous portions 
 of ' Love's Martyrdom,' as it stands foi' jjresenta- 
 tion on the stage, but portions which I believe 
 Mr. Phelps will speedily regard in that light, 
 when he sees it before him in the persons of live 
 men and women on the wooden boards. Know- 
 ing him, I think he will be as violently dis- 
 couraged as he is now generously excited, and 
 it may be useful to you to be prepared for the 
 consideration of these passages. 
 
 "I do not regard it as a great stumbling- 
 block that the play of modern times best known 
 to an audience " (Sheridan Knowles's " Hunch- 
 back" was, of course, here alluded to) "pro- 
 ceeds upon the main idea of this, namely, that 
 there was a hunchback who, because of his in- 
 firmity, mistrusted himself. But it is certainly a 
 grain in the balance when the balance is going the 
 wrong way, and therefore should be most care- 
 fully minimised. The incident of the ring is 
 too insignificant to look at over a row of gas- 
 
DICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 211 
 
 liglits, is difficult to convey to an audience, and 
 the least thinor will make it ludicrous. If it be 
 so well done by Mr. Phelps himself as to be 
 otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable. 
 If it be either it will be perilous, and doubly so, 
 because you revert to it. The quarrel scene 
 between the two brothers in the third act is now 
 so long, that the justification of blind passion 
 and impetuosity, which can alone bear out 
 Franklyn before the eyes of a great concourse 
 of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own 
 brother, is lost. That the two should be parted, 
 and that Franklyn should again drive at him, 
 and strike him, and then wound him, is a state 
 of things to set the sympathy of the audience 
 in the wrong direction, and turned from the man 
 you make happy to the man you make un- 
 happy. I would on no account allow the artist 
 to appear attended by the picture more than 
 once. All the most sudden inconsistency of 
 Clarence I would soften down. ^Margaret must 
 act much better than any actress I have ever 
 seen if all her lines fall in pleasant places, there- 
 fore, I think she needs compression, too. 
 
 *' All this applies solely to the theatre. If you 
 revise the sheets for readers, will you note in the 
 margin the broken laughter and the appeal to 
 the Deity ? If, in summing them up, you find 
 you meant them, I would leave them as they 
 
 16 
 
242 DICKENS A^D THE STAGE. 
 
 stand by all means ; if not, I would blot, accord- 
 ingly- 
 
 " It is only in the hope of being slightly use- 
 ful to you, by anticipating what I believe Mr. 
 Phelps will discover, or what, if he should pass 
 it by, I have a strong conviction the audience 
 will find out, that I have ventured on these few 
 hints. Your concurrence with them yourself, or 
 re-consideration of your preference for the poem 
 as it stands, cannot in the least affect my interest 
 in your success. On the other hand, I have a 
 perfect confidence in your not taking my mis- 
 givings ill. They arise solely out of my sincere 
 desire for the triumph of your work. 
 
 " With renewed thanks for the pleasure you 
 have given me, I am, 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens." 
 
 If every London theatre possessed a " reader " 
 such as this, how many clever plays, written by 
 brilliant writers, hampered with inexperience of 
 stage-craft, might see the light ! But, it must be 
 owned, such readers are few and far between. 
 
 " Mr. Dickens," writes Mr. Saunders, " imme- 
 diately took steps for the introduction of the 
 drama to the theatre," and at the rehearsals, only 
 four or five days before the performance, which 
 
DICKENS AS A DEA:\IATIC CRITIC. 243 
 
 was evidently not much more than a succes 
 cVestwie, pointed out to the author " that the 
 play was not then in so good a state as it would 
 have been in Paris three weeks earlier." 
 
 The initial representation was given at the 
 Haymarket Theatre, June, 1855, and in it Mr. 
 Barry Sullivan, ]\lr. Howe, ]Mr. '\V. Farren, Miss 
 Helen Faucit, and those time-honoured Hay- 
 market Thespians, Messrs. Eogers, Braid, 
 ^yeathersby, Coe and Clark took part. 
 
 Mr. James T. Fields, the American publisher 
 and intimate friend of Dickens, says : " He was 
 passionately fond of the theatre, loved the lights 
 and music and flowers, and the happy faces of the 
 audience. He was accustomed to say that his love 
 of the theatre never failed, and, no matter how 
 dull the play, he was always careful while he sat in 
 the box to make no sound which could hurt the 
 feelings of the actors, or show any lack of atten- 
 tion. His genuine enthusiasm for Mr. Fechter's 
 acting was most interesting. He loved to describe 
 seeing him first, quite by accident, in Paris, 
 having strolled into a little theatre there one 
 night. * He was making love to a woman,' 
 Dickens said, ' and he so elevated her as well as 
 himself by the sentiment in which he enveloped 
 her, that they trod in a purer ether, and in 
 another sphere, quite lifted out of the present. 
 ^y Heavens ! I said to myself, a man who can 
 
 16* 
 
244 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 do this can do anything. I never saw two 
 people more purely and instantly elevated by the 
 power of love. The manner also,' he continued, ' in 
 w^hich he presses the hem of the dress of Lucy, 
 in the " Bride of Lammermoor," is something 
 wonderful. The man has genius in him which is 
 unmistakable.' " 
 
 When, early in 1870, Fechter left England for 
 America, Dickens contributed to the Atlantic 
 Monthly an article in his praise. " I cannot," 
 said the novelist, "wish my friend a better 
 audience than he will find in the American 
 people, and I cannot wish them a better actor 
 than they will find in my friend." 
 
 His admiration lor Fechter's famous rendering of 
 Hamlet is expressed in the following words : 
 
 " Perhaps no innovation in art was ever accepted 
 with so much favour by so many intelligent 
 persons, pre-committed to, and pre-occupied by, 
 another system, as Fechter's Hamlet. I take 
 this to have been the case (as it unquestionably 
 was in London), not beciiuse of its picturesque - 
 ness, not because of its novelty, not because of 
 its many scattered beauties, but because of its 
 perfect consistency with itself. Its great and 
 satisfying originality was in its possessing the 
 merit of a distinctly conceived and executed idea. 
 Fechter's Hamlet, a pale, woe-begone Norseman, 
 with long flaxen hair, wearing a strange garb, 
 
L'ICKENS AS A DRAMATIC CRITIC. 2i5 
 
 never associated with the part upon the English 
 stage (if ever seen there at all), and making a 
 piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of little 
 theatrical prescriptions without meaning, or like 
 Dr. Johnson's celebrated friend, with only one 
 idea in them, and that a wrong one, never could 
 have achieved its extraordinary success but for 
 its animation by one pervading purpose, to which 
 all changes were made intelligently subser^'ieDt.'' 
 
CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In this chapter the writer proposes to bring to- 
 gether sundry items without mention of which 
 the record of the connection of Charles Dickens 
 with the stage would hardly be complete, but 
 which do not absolutely belong to any of the 
 preceding divisions of the volume. 
 
 In Lady Pollock's " Macready as I knew him," 
 mention is made of that great actor's admiration 
 for Dickens. " Macready went on to dwell upon 
 the genius of Dickens, upon his irresistible 
 humour, his force, and his extraordinary powers 
 of perception. ' What a marvellous describer 
 Dickens is ! ' he said, with enthusiasm, ' how 
 comprehensive his glance ! What a pow^er he 
 has of penetrating his reader with his idea ! I 
 have laughed at Mr. F.'s aunt in " Little Dorrit," 
 till I was nearly choked ; and the lover's inven- 
 tions for his own epitaph (in the same w^ork) 
 seemed to come home to me. I began to 
 think I had composed the very same epitaph 
 
COXCLUSIOX. 247 
 
 for myself, at some remote period of my life, of 
 which I had forgotten the when and the 
 how.' " 
 
 In the same interesting work we find that — 
 *•' In the latter days of Macready's life, when the 
 weight of time and of sorrow pressed him down, 
 Dickens was his most frequent visitor ; he 
 cheered him with narratives of bygone days ; he 
 pom'ed some of his own abundant warmth into 
 his heart ; he led him into his own channels of 
 thought ; he gave readings to rouse his interest ; 
 he waked up in him again, by his vivid de- 
 scriptions, his sense of humour — he conjui'ed back 
 his smile and his laugh." 
 
 That amusing book entitled "Grlimpses of 
 Eeal Life, as seen in the Theatrical World and 
 in Bohemia, being the Confessions of Peter 
 Paters on, a Strolling Comedian," published in 
 1864, contains the following appreciative dedica- 
 tion to Dickens : 
 
 To 
 
 CHAELES DICKEXS, Esq., 
 
 Author of "Xiciiolas Xickleby," 
 
 The Creator of Mr. Vincent Crummies, 
 
 and 
 
 " The Infant Phenomenon," 
 
 THIS NARRATIVE, 
 
 In Admiration of that Gentleman's Literary Power, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 By his Humble Servant, 
 
 PETEK PATEESOX, 
 Strolling Player and Bohemian. 
 
248 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 Speaking through the medium of his " Actor's 
 Note-Book," of a dinner given by Sir James 
 Moon, then Lord Mayor of London, to the mem- 
 bers of the Garrick Club, on February 27th, 1855, 
 Mr. George Vandenhoff, having previously com- 
 plained of the dulness of the speeches, says : 
 " Dickens was not present, or he would have re- 
 deemed its " (the Garrick Club's) " honour, and 
 sent his hearers smiling to their beds." 
 
 In the first copies of the little volume of poems 
 entitled "Infelicia," and published under the 
 name of Adah Isaacs Menken of " Mazeppa " 
 renown, the following letter from Dickens, to 
 whom the book was dedicated, appeared in fac- 
 simile. 
 
 " Gad's Hill Place, 
 
 " Higham by Rochester, Kent, 
 "Monday, Twenty-First October, 1867. 
 
 " Dear Miss Menken, 
 
 *'I shall have great pleasure in accepting 
 your dedication, and I thank you for your portrait 
 as a highly remarkable specimen of photography. 
 
 " I also thank you for the verses enclosed in 
 your note. Many such enclosures come to me, 
 but few so pathetically written, fewer still so 
 modestly sent. ** Faithfully yours, 
 
 "Charles Dickens." 
 
 Before many copies of the book were sold this 
 letter was suppressed. 
 
CONCLUSION. 249 
 
 In Mr. Froude's " Thomas Carlyle ; a History 
 of His Life in London," will be found the follow- 
 ing :— On April 29th, 1863, Carlyle wrote : 
 
 " I had to go yesterday to Dickens's Reading, 
 8 p.m., Hanover Rooms, to the complete up- 
 setting of my evening habitudes and spiritual 
 composure. Dickens does do it capitally, such 
 as it is ; acts better than any Macready in the 
 world ; a whole tragic, comic, heroic theatre visible 
 performing under one hat, and keeping us laugh- 
 ing — in a sorry way, some of us thought — the 
 whole night. He is a good creature, too, and 
 makes fifty or sixty pounds by each of these 
 readings." 
 
 In the " Dickens Chapter," comprised in his 
 most entertaining " Recollections," Mr. Edmund 
 Yates has much that is interesting to say of 
 Dickens's fondness for the stage and, more par- 
 ticularly, of his liking for actors. 
 
 In the pleasant volume, entitled " Charles 
 Dickens as I knew him," Mr. George Dolby has 
 several things to tell of his " Chief," and his love 
 for and connection with the stage, recording how 
 " he worked incessantly with Fechter in the pro- 
 duction of a sensational drama at the Lyceum 
 entitled, * The Long Strike,' by Dion Boucicault " ; 
 how when in one of the American theatres, the 
 
250 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 shortness of the ballet skirts was a source of such 
 surprise to him, that in writing to Macready, he 
 said : " Having some amiable talk with a neat 
 little Spanish woman, who is the 'premiere 
 danseuse, I asked her in a joke to let me 
 measure her skirt with my dress glove. Hold- 
 ing the glove by the tip of the forefinger, I 
 found the skirt to be just three gloves long, and 
 yet its length was much in excess of the skirts of 
 two hundred other ladies whom the carpenters 
 were at that moment getting into their places 
 for a transformation scene on revolving columns, 
 or wires and ' travellers,' in wire cradles, up in 
 the flies, down in the cellars, in every descrip- 
 tion of float that Wilmot, gone distracted, could 
 imagine " ; how, during this same American 
 tour, and when *' No Thoroughfare " had become 
 an established success at the London Adelphi 
 Theatre, all the American theatres were play- 
 ing piratical versions of it ; and although Mr. 
 Dickens had, through Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, 
 registered the play as their property (they being 
 American citizens), still the managers defied the 
 law, and continued playing the piece to over- 
 flowing houses. This was a source of annoyance 
 to Mr. Dickens, less on account of the fees to which 
 he considered himself entitled, than on account 
 of the defiant manner in which his property was 
 taken ; notably in one case, in New York, when 
 
COXCLI'SIOX. 251 
 
 lie proposed to a leading manager that lie would 
 be pleased to superintend the mounting of the 
 piece in his theatre, if he would accept his 
 services, and would use his own book rather than 
 a mutilated one ; how, for the purpose of 
 superintending the rehearsals of "Xo Thorough- 
 fare," in its French dress, and '• assisting " at its 
 first representation at the Paris Vaudeville 
 Theatre, Dickens went to the French capital, and 
 returned highly delighted with the success of 
 " L'Abime," as it was then called ; how Mac- 
 ready in his old age, and living in retirement 
 at Cheltenham, came to one of the famous read- 
 ings, and speaking to Dickens of his rendering of 
 the terrible murder scene from '•' Oliver Twist," 
 said : " You remember my best days, my dear 
 boy ? No ! that's not it. Well, to make a long 
 story short, all I have to say is two Macbeths I " 
 how " his interest in all that appertained to the 
 theatrical world never left him, and one of the 
 latest acts of his life was to correct an agreement 
 for Miss Glynn (Mrs. Dallas) who had received 
 offers to visit Australia, through the agency of 
 the late Mr. E. P. Kingston, Artemus Ward's 
 manager " ; and finally how, at the readings given 
 to the members of the theatrical profession, and 
 into which he entered " with greater zest, I 
 think, than into any others of the course " ; he 
 " wanted to show how much a single performer 
 
252 DICXENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 could do without tlie aid and stimulus of any 
 of the ordinary adjuncts of the stage ; how many 
 effects of a genuinely startling character could 
 be produced without the help of scenery, costume, 
 limelight, or mechanical contrivances." 
 
 " He succeeded," says Mr. Dolby (and no one 
 could speak on the subject with greater authority), 
 " to perfection, in the presence even of so 
 thoroughly critical an audience. They applauded 
 every point, cheering each well-known character, 
 as the reader, by mere change of voice, manner 
 and action, brought forward the people of his tales." 
 
 The writer is indebted to Mr. Fred G. Kitton 
 for the following list of " Dickens's Theatrical 
 Portraits " : 
 
 I Wood cut drawn by Kenny Mea- 
 dows. Illustrated London News, 
 1845. 
 
 Pen drawing- by D. Maclise, 11. A. 
 ( Avith Fiirster as Kitely. Drawn on 
 Do. ' nay-bill, lle-pi'oduced in hand- 
 
 book of Dyce and Forster collec- 
 tions, South Kensington Museum. 
 
 Painting by C. R. Leslie, R.A., 
 Do. ^ 1846. Engraved on M'ood, 6'yr/^'//zc, 
 
 August 26th, 1871. 
 
 f ]n "The Lighthouse." Wood- 
 As Aaron Gurnock. < cut in Illustrated London News, 
 
 ( July 2 1 St, 1855. 
 
 ■^ { And another in Illustrated 
 
 \ Times, do. 
 
 , In " Used Up." Painting by 
 
 I Augustus Egg, R.A. This was 
 
 As Sir Charles Coldstream. < the property of Charles Dickens, 
 
 / and was sold by auction after the 
 ^ novelist's death. 
 
 ( In " The Frozen Deep." Cave 
 As Richard Wardour. } scene. Woodcut, Illustrated Lon- 
 
 ( don Nev:s, January 17th, 1857. 
 
 ) 
 
CONCLUSION. 253 
 
 In :\Iiss KLite Field's " Charles Albert Fechter," 
 which is dedicated to *• The Memory of Charles 
 Dickens," and which forms a volume of the 
 '•' American Actor Series," the old story of the 
 friendship existing between the great English 
 novelist and the famous French actor, and the 
 admiration that the one felt for the other, is 
 told over again. Miss Field is naturally eloquent 
 concerning the successful production of " Xo 
 Thoroughfare " in America, though, apparently, 
 she has little fciith in the amount of work that 
 Dickens put into either the story or the play. 
 *• It is probable," she says, " that after talking 
 over the plot together — a plot that is pre- 
 eminently Collinsish — Dickens started the story, 
 conceived the character of Joey Ladle, and, with 
 a touch here and there, left the rest to his 
 collaborateur." Miss Field also states that the 
 version of '• Belphegor " in which Fechter 
 appeared at the Lyceum, was '•' entirely re- 
 written by Charles Dickens, with a child's part 
 introduced to display the great dramatic ability 
 of Fechter's son Paul, then a child of seven." 
 
 The task that the writer set himself to per- 
 form is now at an end. He does not presume 
 that he has exhausted his theme, for any subject 
 with which the name of Charles Dickens is 
 associated is, apparently, inexhaustible ; — but if 
 he has succeeded in directing attention to the 
 
254 DICKENS AND THE STAGE. 
 
 enthusiastic interest that one of the greatest 
 writers of the century took in the stage, and the 
 well-being of the stage ; if he has pointed out 
 more directly, or more collectively, than has been 
 pointed out before the influence that his name 
 and works have had and hold upon the stage ; 
 or if, finally, he has caused any single reader an 
 enjoyment in the perusal of his pages equal to 
 that which he has taken in their compilation, his 
 labour will not have been in vain. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 TiCs^Kfl^-^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aaron Gnrnock 252 
 
 "A Christmas Carol" 155, 
 
 157, 169, 171 
 
 Addison, Mr 183 
 
 " Adrienne Lecouvreur " ... 219 
 
 "A Grood Xight's Rest " 100 
 
 *' A Hard Struggle " ••■234, 238 
 
 Alberv, Mr. James 182 
 
 Alfred Jingle 12, 
 
 13, 142, i;2, 181, 182 
 
 "All for Her" 1 174 
 
 Allison, Miss 85 
 
 " All the Year Round " 89 
 
 Almar, Mr. George 161 
 
 " American Actor Series " ... 253 
 *' A Midsummer Xight's 
 
 Dream" 215 
 
 *' An Actor's Note Rook "180, 248 
 
 " A National Theatre " 213 
 
 " Animal Magnetism " 113 
 
 Archer, Mr 181 
 
 *' A Roland for an Oliver "... 98 
 
 " Artemus Ward " 251 
 
 " Astlev's " II, 227 
 
 " As You Like It " 219 
 
 " A Tale of Two Cities " 131, 174 
 
 AthencBinn, The 178, 179 
 
 A tlantic Jloiithli/ 244 
 
 Attwood, Mr 142 
 
 Auber 219 
 
 Bancroft, Mrs 234 
 
 *' Bardell v. Pickwick " 153, 157 
 
 Barnett, Mr. M 83 
 
 Bartley, Mr 94, 96 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher 103 
 
 Bell, Mr. Robert 117 
 
 Belmore, Mr. George 150,154,174 
 
 " Belpliegor" 253 
 
 jBel va vnm/ JTiss 23 
 
 Bennett, Mr 83 
 
 Jientle}/''s JlisceUan^ 122 
 
 Billington, Mr. John 173 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Billinofton, Mrs 174 
 
 Birmingham 103 
 
 " Black-Eyed Snsan " 79, 207, 234 
 "Bleak House" 48, 50, 179, iSo" 
 " Boots at theHolly-TreeInn "157 
 Boucicault, Mr. Dion 173, 212, 249 
 Bovle, Mi^s Marv...i32, 209, 221 
 
 " Boz and the Play " 89 
 
 Braham Mr. 83, 84, 88,97, 201,202 
 
 Braid, Mr 243 
 
 Bravassa . Miss 23, 27, 37 
 
 Brooks, Mr. Shirley 130 
 
 Brough, Mr. Lionel 155, 180, 181 
 
 Buckstone, Mr 80 
 
 Burnett, Mr 180 
 
 BjTon, Mr. H. J 173 
 
 Caffery, Mr. Stephen 183 
 
 " Camilla's Husband " 234 
 
 Campden House 124 
 
 Captain Bobadil ,,.109, iii, 252 
 
 Carlton Chronicle 86, 87 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 127, 249 
 
 Celeste, Madame 132 
 
 Cerjat, Mons.de 210 
 
 Chapman and Hall ... 3, 118, 206 
 " Charles Dickens as a 
 
 Reader " 99 
 
 "Charles Dickens as I knew 
 
 him" 249 
 
 Cheri, Madame Rose 211 
 
 " Clarissa Harlowe " 211 
 
 Clark, Mr 243 
 
 Clarke, Mrs. Cowden loi, 
 
 102,103,104,106,108,109,110,128 
 
 Clarke, Mr. John 150, 
 
 154, 155, 156, 157, 180 
 
 Clarke, Mr. John S 150 
 
 Claude Jfelnotte 236 
 
 "Claudian" 168, 169 
 
 Clayton, Mr. John 174, 175 
 
 Clifford, Mrs 80 
 
 Coe, Mrs 117, 118 
 
256 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Coe, Mr ii8, 243 
 
 Cole, Mr 101 
 
 Collette, Mr. Charles 175 
 
 Collier, Mr. John Payne 102 
 
 Collins, Mr. Charles 130, 131 
 
 CoUins, Mr. Wilkie 89, 
 
 91, 92, 93, 117, 118, 12^, 125, 
 
 128, 130, 220, 253. 
 " Comfortable Lodgings " ... 100 
 
 Compton, Mr. Edward 180 
 
 Compton,Mrs. Henry, 1 17, 134, 135 
 
 Cook, Mr. Dutton 96, 
 
 232, 233, 234. 236 
 
 Cooke, Mr. T. P 207, 234 
 
 Costello, Mr. Dudley 101,116, 118 
 
 Conlson, Mr 84 
 
 Coutts, Mr 80 
 
 Cruiksliank, George loi, 102 
 
 Cunningham, Mr. Peter. 102, 117 
 
 Curdle, Mr 28,29, 46 
 
 Curdle, JIrs 28, 30 
 
 Cushman, Miss Charlotte ... 180 
 " Cymbeline " 237 
 
 Dallas, Mrs 251 
 
 Daly, Miss 142 
 
 " David Coppertield " 48, 
 
 176, 184, 185 
 
 "Deaf as a Post" 98 
 
 Devonshire, The Duke of ... 117 
 
 Devonshire House 116, 119 
 
 Dickens, Mr. Alfred 130 
 
 Dickens, Mr. Augustus loi 
 
 Dickens, Mrs. Charles ...113, 211 
 
 Dickens, Mr. Charles, Junr.. 91, 
 
 124, 130 
 
 Dickens, Mr. Frederick 101,102,113 
 
 " Dickensiana " 157, 168 
 
 Dillon, Mr. Charles 234, 238 
 
 Dolby, Mr. George 249, 252 
 
 " Dombey and Son"48,i62, 176, 177 
 Dramatic, Equestrian and 
 
 Musical Fund 191 
 
 *' Dr. Marigold " 173 
 
 Drummond, Miss Dolores ... 180 
 Dumas, Alexandre 206, 220 
 
 Eaton, Mr 102 
 
 Edinburgh 103 
 
 Egg, Mr. Augustus, i?.a loi, 
 
 102, 113, 117, 118, 129,130, 252 
 Eldred, Mr. Joseph 175 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Emery, Mr. S 150 
 
 15s, 160, 176, 177, 234 
 
 " English to the Core " 212 
 
 Ernstone, Miss 176 
 
 " Every Man in His Humour" 100, 
 loi, 104, 107, 109, 112 
 
 Fanny Dor rit 51, 52, 54, 55 
 
 Farren, Mr 79 
 
 P'arren, Miss NeUie 179 
 
 Farren, Mr. William 178, 243 
 
 Faucit, Miss Helen 243 
 
 "Faust" 225 
 
 Fechter, Mons. Charles 17, 
 
 91, 92, 174, 223, 225, 226, 
 228, 230, 234, 235, 236, 243, 
 244, 253 
 
 Felton, Professor 203, 205 
 
 Fernandez, Mi. James ...150, 175 
 
 Field, Miss Kate 253 
 
 Fielding, Henry 123 
 
 Fields, Mr. James T 243 
 
 risher, Mr. David 175 
 
 Fitzgerald, Mr. Percy ... 175, 184 
 
 Fitzpatrick, Mr 152 
 
 Florence, Mr 177 
 
 Folair, Mr 22, 24, 25, 32 
 
 Foote, Miss Lydia 150 
 
 Forester, Mr 84, 85 
 
 Forster, Mr. John 16, 
 
 89, 90, 94, 96, 98, loi, 102, 112, 
 113, 115, 117, 122, 136, 137, 
 158, 170, 206, 213, 221, 226, 
 227, 252 
 
 Fortescue, Miss loi, 136 
 
 Fraser^s Jlar/azine 163 
 
 Frederick Dorrit 13, 51, 54 
 
 Froude, Mr 249 
 
 Gad's Hill 14, 127, 128 
 
 Gallery of Illustration 129 
 
 Gardner, Mr 83, 84, 85 
 
 Gazinffi, JIis^ 23 
 
 General Theatrical Fund 
 
 Association 194, 197 
 
 Gentleman's Jfar/azine 119 
 
 Gilbert, Mr. W.'S 88, 174 
 
 Glasgow 103 
 
 " Glimpses of Real Life, etc." 247 
 
 Glover, Mrs 80 
 
 Glynn, Miss 251 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 103 
 
INDEX. 
 
 2h'i 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gou^h, Mr 80 
 
 Gower, Miss 149 
 
 " Great Expectations " 55,172,174 
 
 Griinaldi Joseph 15, 16 
 
 Gi'udden, Mrs 23 
 
 Guild of Literature and Art 114, 
 116, 118 
 
 Hale, Mr. Henry 113 
 
 Hall, Mr. H 142 
 
 Halliday, Mr. Andrew 137,150,176 
 
 "Hamlet" 235, 244, 248 
 
 Hammond, Mr 141 
 
 Hammond, Mrs 142 
 
 Hanover Square Kooms 116, 249 
 
 " Hard Times " 77, 78 
 
 Hare, Mr. John 86 
 
 Harley, Mr. J. P 83, 
 
 84, 85, 87, 202, 206, 212 
 
 Hazhtt, "WilKam 195 
 
 Hawkins, Mr. Henry 112 
 
 " Heart's Delight " 176 
 
 Herman, Mr. H 168, 169 
 
 Hingston, Mr. E. P 251 
 
 Hogarth, Miss 113, 216 
 
 HoUingsworth, Mr 84 
 
 Home, Mr. R. H. 117,119,121,205 
 
 Howe, Mr 79. 183, 243 
 
 Hullah, Mr. John 83, 88, 201, 205 
 
 Humby, Mrs 80 
 
 Hunt, Leigh 100 
 
 Inchbald, Mrs 113 
 
 "InfeUcia" 248 
 
 ' ' In the French Flemish 
 
 Country" 66 
 
 Irving, Mr. Henrv 12,152,181,182 
 " Is She His Wife'? " 2, 82, 85 
 
 "Jane Osborne" 216 
 
 Jem Hutley 13, 14 
 
 Jerrold, Blanchard 79 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas 79, 
 
 103, 113, 116, 129, 130 
 
 Joey Ladle 90, 91 
 
 John 14 
 
 Jonson, Ben ... 100, 101, 102, 112 
 Journal of a London Llai/joer 124 
 Justice /Shallow 103, 108, no 
 
 Kean, Charles 188 
 
 Keeley, Robert 154, 
 
 .155, 160, 161, 207, 210, 211 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Keeley, Mrs 136, 
 
 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 161, 
 163, 178, 207, 210, 211 
 
 Kellv,Miss 215 
 
 Kendal, Mr 86 
 
 Kendal, Mrs 86, 183 
 
 Kent, Mr. Charles 99 
 
 Kenworthy, Miss loi 
 
 Kitton, Mr. Fred G 157, 
 
 158, 168, 252 
 
 Knebworth 112, 114 
 
 Knight, Mr. Charles 102, 117 
 
 Knowles, Sheridan 240 
 
 L'Abime 251 
 
 Lacy, Mr. W 79 
 
 " La Dame aux CameUas "... 236 
 " La Joie Fait Peur " ... 216, 234 
 
 Lane, Mrs. Sarah 73 
 
 Leclercq, ]Miss Carlotta 235 
 
 Ledbrook, Jliss 23 
 
 Lee, Mr 142 
 
 Lee, Miss Jennie 179. 180 
 
 Leech, John loi, 113 
 
 Lenville, Mr 22, 
 
 23. 24, 25, 27, 32, 33, 37 
 
 Lenville, Mrs 23 
 
 Lemaitre, Mons 217, 218 
 
 Lemon, Mark 89, 
 
 loi, 102, 103, 113, 115, 117, 
 118, 120, 122, 123, 129, 130, 135 
 
 Lemon, Mi*s. Mark 113 
 
 Leshe, C. R. e.a 252 
 
 " Letters of Elizabeth Barrett 
 
 Browning" 119 
 
 Lewes, Mr. G. H loi, 102 
 
 " Little Dorrit " 51, 
 
 52, 53> 54. 162, 236 
 
 " Little Em'ly " 176, 184 
 
 " Little Sicills "... 48, 49, 50, 51 
 
 Liverpool 100, 103 
 
 London Assurance 212 
 
 London Tavern 197 
 
 Lone/man's Majazine 96 
 
 Lord Wilrnot 116, 121 
 
 Lotta, Miss 154 
 
 "Love, Law and Physic"... 102, 
 103, 107, no 
 
 " Love's Martyrdom " 239, 
 
 240, 241, 242 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lytton Sir E. Buhver (after- 
 wards Lord) 103, 
 
 112, 115, 116, 199, 214, 221, 
 222, 229, 236 
 
 Maclise, D. r.a 252 
 
 Macmillan\<; Jlacfctziae 132 
 
 Macready, W. C 17, 
 
 80, 81, 97, 99, 162, 199, 202, 
 204, 205, 210, 215, 225, 233, 
 234, 236, 237, 246, 247, 249, 251 
 
 Manchester 100, 103, 129 
 
 Marston, Dr. Westland 117, 
 
 204, 234, 238 
 
 " Martin Chuzzlewit " 47, 
 
 154, '^n^ 178, 207 
 
 Mathews, Mr. C 97 
 
 Mathews, Mr. Frank 155 
 
 Mathews, Mrs. Frank 155 
 
 May, Mr 84 
 
 "Mazeppa" 227, 248 
 
 Meadows, Mr 155, 160 
 
 Meadow^s, Kenny 252 
 
 Melbourne, Lord 112 
 
 Mellon, Mr 80 
 
 Mellon, Mrs. Alfred 150, 
 
 174, 228, 233 
 
 Ilelvilleson, Miss 31. 50 
 
 " Memoirs of Joseph Grim- 
 
 aldi " 15, 16 
 
 Menken, Miss Ada Isaacs 227, 248 
 
 Merivale, Herman 174 
 
 Moncrieflf, Mr. William 137, 
 
 142, 143, 148 
 
 " Money " 103, 214, 221 
 
 Morley, Mr. Henry 124 
 
 Montague, Miss Emmelinei34, 135 
 
 Montreal 98, 203 
 
 *' Mr. Nightingale's Diary "... 89, 
 
 116, 118, 122 
 
 "Mrs. Joseph Porter" 9 
 
 Neville, Mr. Henry 131, 174, 234 
 
 " Nicholas Nickleby " 17, 
 
 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 
 
 29, 30, 31. 32, 33, 34, 35» 36, 
 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 
 
 46, 143, 144, 145, 146, i47» 148, 
 
 149, 150, 151, 163, 164, 165, 
 
 166, 167, 168, 247 
 
 " Not so Bad as We Seem " 116, 
 
 118, 121, 214 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " No Thoroughfare " 16, 
 
 89, 90, 91, 93, 173, 230, 233, 
 23s, 250, 251, 253 
 
 Ohcitreizer 90, 91, 92 
 
 " Old Drury Lane " 148 
 
 "OHver Twist" 157, 
 
 161, 162, 163, 173, 251 
 
 O'Neil Miss 149 
 
 "Othello" 235 
 
 Paris 163, 
 
 216, 217, 220, 225, 250 
 
 Parry, Mr. John 83, 84 
 
 ' ' Past Two o'clock in the 
 
 Morning" 98 
 
 Paterson, Peter 247 
 
 Paxton, Sir Joseph 120 
 
 Penson, Mrs 84 
 
 Peioicker, Miss 30, 31 
 
 Phelps, Mr. Samuel 237, 
 
 240, 241, 242 
 
 Pigott, Mr. Edward 130 
 
 Pip, Mr 47,48 
 
 Pollock, Lady 246 
 
 Portraits 252 
 
 " Principles of Comedy and 
 
 Dramatic Effect" 184 
 
 " Private Theatres " 5 
 
 P. Saloy Family ... 66, 67, 68, 69 
 Punch 177 
 
 Rachel 219, 233 
 
 RadclifTe, Mr.F.P.Delme 112, 113 
 
 Rainforth, Miss 83, 88 
 
 Regnier, Mons 132, 213, 215, 239 
 
 "Reprinted Pieces" 77 
 
 Richardson, Mr. A 142 
 
 Richardson, Samuel 211, 212 
 
 Richard Wardour ...i^'^, 131, 252 
 
 Righton, Mr. Edward 173 
 
 Rimmer, Mr. Alfred 22 
 
 Ristori 233 
 
 Roberts, D., e.a 117 
 
 Robson, F 128, 233 
 
 Rogers, Mr 243 
 
 Romer, Miss Anne 102, 113 
 
 Rowe, Mr 175, 176 
 
 " Royal DramaticCoUege " 188,189 
 "Ruy Bias" 236 
 
 Sabine, Miss Ellen 130 
 
 Sadler's Wells 237, 238 
 
INDEX. 
 
 259 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sala, Madame 84, 85 
 
 Sally Goldatmio 90 
 
 "SamWeller" 137, i45 
 
 Saunders, Mr. John 239, 240, 242 
 
 Saville, Miss 234 
 
 Scribe 219 
 
 Shepherd, Mr. R. H 89 
 
 Sidney, Mr 84 
 
 *' Sikes andXancy" i57 
 
 Simpson, Mr. J. Palgrave ... 174 
 Sir Charles Coldstream... no, 252 
 
 Sir E2ncure JTammon 102 
 
 " Sketches by Boz " 5, 11, 98 
 
 "Sleary's Horsemanship" ... 77 
 
 Sleary,3ir 78 
 
 Smike i9» 22 
 
 Smith, Albert 158 
 
 Smith, Miss A 80 
 
 Smith, Miss Juha 83, 84 
 
 Smith Mr. 136, i49 
 
 Snittle Tirnhen-y 39, 4i 
 
 Snevellicci, JIlss 23 , 
 
 27, 28, 30, 35, 36 
 SouthKensingtonMuseum 94, 252 
 
 Stanfield, Clarkson, r.a 117, 
 
 119, 125, 127, 130, 207 
 
 Stephens, Mrs. Jane 179 
 
 " Still Waters Run Deep " ... 234 
 
 Stirhng, Mrs i94 
 
 Stirling, Mr. Edward 148, 
 
 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 
 Stone, Mr. Frank ... loi, 113, 116 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon loi 
 
 Strickland, Mr 83 
 
 Sullivan, Mr. Barry 243 
 
 Sydiuy Carton 132 
 
 Talfourd, Sergeant 81 
 
 Tavistock House 122 
 
 Taylor, Tom 132 
 
 Telbin, Mr 117, 13° 
 
 Tennent,Sir JamesEmmerson 220 
 
 Tenniel, Mr. John 117 
 
 Ternan, Mrs 13° 
 
 Ternan, Miss Ellen 130 
 
 Ternan, Miss Maria 130 
 
 Terriss, Mr. W 150 
 
 Terry, Mr. Edward 175 
 
 Terrv, Miss Kate 225, 235 
 
 Tliackeray W. jNI 163, 
 
 164, 165, 166, 167, 168 
 " The Alchemist " 102 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Almanack of The Mo-nth 158 
 Theatres — Adelphi 17, 
 
 89,90,91,93,148, 153, 
 
 163, 189, 228, 233, 250 
 
 Ambigu Comiquei63,2i7 
 
 Britannia (Hoxton) 72, 
 
 73i 74. 75. 76 
 
 City of London 152 
 
 Court 174 
 
 Covent Garden 17, 
 
 96, 212, 221 
 
 Drury Lane 186, 
 
 199, 202, 234 
 Haymarket loi, 103,243 
 
 Lyceum 132, 
 
 '154,158, 181, 183, 226, 
 235, 248, 253 
 Olympic 128, 131,184,234 
 Opera Comique (Bou- 
 logne) 216 
 
 OperaComique( Paris)2i9 
 Porte St. Martin 216, 220 
 
 Portsmouth 21, 22 
 
 Princess's 187, 227 
 
 St. James's 83, 
 
 85, 86, 87, 202, 206,215 
 
 Strand i37, 
 
 143. 150. 230, 234 
 
 Surrey 161, 162 
 
 Theatre Frangais ... 69, 
 132, 216, 232, 239 
 
 Vaudeville 177, 178 
 
 Vaudeville (Paris) ... 251 
 
 TJieatre 3Tagazin e 89 
 
 " The Battle of Life "... 210, 211 
 " The Best of all Good Com- 
 pany " 79 
 
 " TheBride of Lammermoor " 244 
 
 " The Captives " 229 
 
 "The Chimes" 172 
 
 " The Cric-ket on the Hearth " 
 
 158, 172, 173, 183 
 ' ' The Compact Enchantress " 77 
 "The Courier of Lyons " ... 226 
 
 " The Duke's Motto " 235 
 
 "The Frozen Deep " 128, 
 
 129, 130, 131, 252 
 
 The Garrick Club 248 
 
 " The Good Naturod ^lan "... T03 
 " TheGreal"\^'iiigleburj Duel " 206 
 "The Green Bushes" 233 
 
260 
 
 I^DEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " The Haunted Man " 172 
 
 " The Hunchback " 240 
 
 The Infant Fhenomenon... 22, 24, 
 29, 247 
 
 " The Lady of Lyons " 222, 
 
 223, 228, 236 
 
 " The Lamplighter " 94, 202 
 
 " The Lighthouse " 124, 
 
 125, 128, 252 
 
 " The Long Strike" 249 
 
 '' The Mask'' 93 
 
 " TheMaster of Ravenswood " 235 
 " The Merchant of Venice "... 188 
 " TheMerryWivesof Windsor" 
 
 103, 104 
 "The Old Curiosity Shop" 153 
 " The Patrician's Daughter" 
 
 204, 234 
 
 " The Pickwick Papers " ... 12, 
 
 138, i39> 152, i57> 181, 183 
 
 "The Kent Day" 103 
 
 " The Rivals "' 209 
 
 "The Strange Grentleman " 2, 
 
 82, 84, 86, 87, 203 
 
 " The Streets of London " ... 227 
 
 "The Stroller's Tale " 13 
 
 "The Uncommercial Travel- 
 ler" 66, 69 
 
 " The Village Coquettes "... 2, 
 82, 83, 85, 87. 201,205 
 
 " The White Rose" 223, 224 
 
 " Thirty Years of a Gambler's 
 
 Life" 217 
 
 Thome, Mr. Thomas 155, 178 
 
 Ticknor and Fields 250 
 
 " Time Works Wonders " ... 79 
 
 lorn Pinch 177 
 
 Toole, Mr. J. L 153, 
 
 170, 171, 172, 173, 228, 233 
 
 Topham, Mr. F. W 117 
 
 TuUyMr 152 
 
 Turner, Miss 160 
 
 Turner, Mr. Godfrey 89 
 
 " Turning the Tables " 100 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "Two Views of a Cheap 
 
 Theatre" 69, 
 
 70, 71. 72, 73» 74. 75» 76 
 "Used Up" 110,252 
 
 Vandenhoff, Mr. George 180, 248 
 
 Vestris, Madame 212 
 
 Viardot, Madame 225 
 
 Vincent Crummies 13, 
 
 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 
 
 31. 32, 33. 34. 35. 37. 38, 39. 
 40, 41, 45, 46, 122, 142, 247 
 T^incent Crummleii, Jfrs 22, 
 
 23. 31. 32,37. 39 
 
 Vining, Mr. F 155, 160 
 
 Vining, Mrs. George 130 
 
 Waugh, Colonel 124 
 
 Weathersby, Mr 243 
 
 Webster, Mr. Benjamin 80, 
 
 81, 82, 91, 174 
 
 Wigan, Mr. Alfred 155 
 
 Wilkinson, Mr 149, 152, 163 
 
 Williamson, Mr 84 
 
 Willis's Rooms 191 
 
 Willmott, Mr loi 
 
 Wilson, Mr.Ettingham William 213 
 
 Wilton, Miss Marie 234 
 
 Woolgar, Miss 155, 233 
 
 Wo2)de, Jlr 13, 
 
 55. 56. 57. 58, 59. 60, 61, 62, 
 
 63, 64, 65, 66 
 
 Worthing 151 
 
 Woulds, Miss 102 
 
 Wright, Mr 136 
 
 Wyatt, Mr. Frank 154 
 
 Yates, Mr. Edmund 249 
 
 Yates, Mr. F. ...: 97, 
 
 136, 149, 153, 163 
 
 York, The Hon. Eliot 113 
 
 Young, Miss 117, iiu 
 
 Younge, Mr 142, 155 
 
Mr. Redway's BiWiographical Publications. 
 
 TTIXTS TO COLLECTORS of Original Editions of the 
 Works of CHAELES DICKENS. By CHARLES PLUMPTRE 
 JOHNSON. Printed on hand-made paper, and bound in vellum. 
 Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 " Enthusiastic admirers of Dickens are greatly beholden to Mr, C. P. Johnson for 
 his useful and interesting ' Hints to Collectors of Original Editions of the Works of 
 Charles Dickens' (Redway). The book is a companion to the similar guide to 
 collectors of Thackeray's first editions, is compiled with the like care, and produced 
 with the like finish and taste." — The Saturday Review. 
 
 'yHE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SWIXBURNE ; a 
 
 Bibliosraphical list, arranged in chronological order, of the 
 published writings in Verse and Prose of ALGERNON CHARLES 
 SWINBURNE (1857-1887). Rev]sed and enlarged edition, in crown 
 8vo., parchment, price 6s. 
 
 \* Only 250 Copies Printed. 
 
 Literary and Historical Edition of Poc's liaren. 
 
 HE RAYEN, bj EDGAR ALLAX POE. Witli 
 Variorum Reafiinos, and a Literary and Historical Commentary. 
 By JOHN H. INGRAM. Embracing the genesis and history, the 
 translations into French, German, Hungarian and Latin, the 
 fabrications and parodies, and the bibliography of the most popular 
 lyrical poem in the world. Crown 8vo., parchment, gilt top, uncut, 
 price 33. 6d. 
 
 rr^OBACCO TALK AND SMOKERS' GOSSIP. An 
 
 Amusing Miscellany of Fact and AnecdDte relating to '-The 
 Great Plant " in all its Forms and Uses, including a Selection from 
 Nicotian Literature. Bound in fancy cloth, uncut edges. Price 2s. 
 
 " One of the best books of gossip we have met for some time. . . . It is literally 
 crammed full from begimiing to end of its 148 pages with well-selected anecdotes, 
 poems, and exceifjts from tobacco literature ami history." — Graphic. 
 
 '• The smoker should be grateful to the compilers of this pretty little volume. . . . 
 Xo smoker should be without it, and anti-tobacconists have only to turn over its 
 leaves to be converted " — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Something to please smokers ; and non-smokers may be interested in tracing the 
 effect of tobacco— the fatal, fragrant herb— on our literature."— /."f-'-arv Wo7-Ul. 
 
 T 
 
 GEORGE REDWAY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
2 MR, REDWAY'S BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The only PnMished Biography of John Leech. 
 
 JOHN LEECH, Artist and Humourist. A Biographical 
 Sketch, by FRED. G. KITTON. Au edition de luxe in demy 
 ISmo, cloth, price Is. 
 
 " In the absence of a fuller biography we cordially we Icome Mr. Kitton's inter- 
 esting little sketch." — Notes and Queries. 
 
 " The multitudinous admirers of the famous artist will find this touching 
 monograph well worth cai-eful reading and preservation.' ' — Daily Chrotiide. 
 
 " The very model of what such a memoir should be." — Graphic. 
 
 Ebcnezer Jones's Poems. 
 
 QTUDIES OF SENSATION AND EVENT, by 
 
 ^ EBENEZER JONES. Edited by Richard Herne Shep- 
 herd, with Memorial Notices of the Author by Sumner Jones and 
 W. J. Linton. In Post 8vo, with portrait, cloth, old style. Price 5s. 
 
 " This remarkable poet affords nearly the most striking instance of neglected 
 genius in our modern school of poetry. His poems are full of vivid disorderly 
 power."— D. G. Rossetti. 
 
 WELLERISMS FROM "PICKWICK" AND 
 ^^ "MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK." Selected by 
 CHARLES F. RIDEAL. Edited, with an Introduction, by 
 CHARLES KENT, Author of '• The Humour and Pathos of Charles 
 Dickens." Demy 18mo., 200 pages, cloth, uncut. Price 2s, 
 
 "Some write well, but he "whites Weller." — Epigram on Dickens. 
 
 "Some of the best saymgs of the immortal Sam and his sportive parent are 
 collected here. The book may be taken up for a few minutes with the cprtaintv 
 of affording amusement, and it can be carried away in the pocket."— LHcrary World. 
 
 ■' It was a very good idea .... the extracts are very humourous . . . 
 here nothing is missed." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 niCKENSIANA. A Bibliography of the Literature 
 relating to CHARLES DICKENS and his Writings. Com- 
 piled by FRED. C. KITTON, with a portrait of " Boz," from a 
 Drawing by Samuel Laurence. 544 pages, Crown 8vo., green 
 cloth boards, price 10s. [Only 500 copies print2d — a few remain.) 
 
 " DICKENSIANA." 
 " If with your Dickens lore you'd make 
 Consideralile headway. 
 The way to be well-read's to take 
 
 This book brouglit out by RED WAY. 
 'Tis clear, exhaustive, and compact, 
 
 Both well arranged and written ; 
 A mine of anecdote and fact, 
 Compiled by F. G. KITTON."— Pm71c/». 
 
 ]\fr. Sivinhurnes Xcw Poem. 
 
 A WORD FOR THE NAVY, by ALGERNON 
 
 '^^ CHARLES SWINBURNE. Edition limited to 250 copies, 
 each numbered. Price 5s 
 
 GEORGE RED WAY, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN. 
 
ME. EEDWAY'S BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS. 3 
 
 AN Efc^SAY ON THE GENIUS OF GEORGE 
 ^^^ CRUIKSHANK, by ^' THETA " (WILLIAM MAKEPEACE 
 THACKERAY). With all the original Woodcut Illustrations, a New 
 Portrait of CRUIKSHANK, etched by PAILTHORPB, and a Prefa- 
 tory Note on THACKERAY AS AN ART CRITIC, by W. E. 
 CHURCH. A few large-paper copies, with India proof portrait, in 
 imperial 8vo., parchment paper covers. Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 " Thackeray's essay ' On the Genius of G-eorge Cruikshauk,' reprinted from the 
 Westminster Review, is a piece of work well calculated to drive a critic of these days 
 to despair. How inimitable is its touch ! At once familiar and elegant, serious and 
 humorous, enthusiastically appreciative, and yet just and clear-sighted ; but, above 
 all, what the French call personnel. It is not the impersonnel reviewer who is going 
 thi'ough his paces . . . it is Thackeray talking to us as few can talk — talking with 
 apparent carelessness, even rambliugly, but never losing the tlu-ead of his discourse, 
 or saying a word too much, nor ever missing a point which may help to elucidate 
 his subject or enhance the charm of his essay. . . . Mr. W. E. Church's prefa- 
 tory note on ' Thackeray as an Art Critic ' is interesting and carefully compiled." — 
 Westminster Review, Jan. loth. 
 
 "As the original copy of the Westminster is now excessively rare, this re-issue wiU, 
 no doubt, be welcomed by collectors." — Birmingham Daily Mail. 
 
 " The new portrait of Cruikshank by F. W. Pailthorpe is a clear, firm etching." — 
 The Artist. 
 
 TTINTS TO COLLECTORS OF ORIGINAL 
 
 -*-■- EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF AVILLIAM MAKE- 
 PEACE THACKERAY, by CHARLES PLUMPTRE JOHNSON. 
 Printed on hand-made paper and bound in vellum. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 " . . . .A guide to those who are great admirers of Thackeray, and are col- 
 lecting first editions of his works. The dainty little volume, bound in parchment 
 and printed on hand-made paper, is very concise and convenient in form ; on each 
 page is an exact copy of the title-page of the work mentioned thereon, a collation of 
 pages and illustrations, useful hints on the differences in editions, with other matters 
 
 indispensable to collectors Altogether it represents a large amount of 
 
 labour and experience." — The Spectator. 
 
 CEA-SONG AND RIVER-RHYME, from Chaucer to 
 '^ Tennyson. Selected and Edited bv ESTELLE DAVENPORT 
 ADAMS. With a new Poem by ALGERNON CHARLES SWIN- 
 BURNE. With Twelve Etchings. Large crown 8vo, cloth, top edge 
 gilt, 10s. 6d. 
 
 " The book is, on the whole, one of the best of its kind ever published. — Glasgow 
 Herald. 
 
 " The editor has made the selection with praiseworthy judgment." — Morning Post 
 
 " Twelve really exquisite and delicately executed etchings of sea and river-side 
 accompany and complete this beautiful volume.'' — Morning Post. 
 
 " A special anthology delightful in itself and possessing the added graces of 
 elegant printing and dainty illustrations." — Scotsman. 
 
 " The volume is got up in the handsomest style, and includes a dozen etchings of 
 sea and river scenes, some of which are exquisite." — Literary World. 
 
 GEORGE RED WAY, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN. 
 
4 MR. EEDWAY'S BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Ketvly- Discovered Poem hy Charles Lamb 
 T^EAUTY AND THE BEAST; OE, A ROUGH OUT- 
 
 -^ SIDE WITH A GENTLIC HEAKT, by CHARLES LAMB. 
 Now first reprinted from the Original Edition of 1811, with Preface 
 and Notes, by RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD. Only 100 Copies 
 printed. Fcap. 8vo., printed on handsome paper at the Chiswick 
 Press, and bound in parchment by Burn to form a companion volume 
 to " Tamerlane." Price 10s. 6d. 
 
 OULTAN STORK, and other Stones and Sketches. By 
 ^ WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1S29-18I1). Now 
 first collected. To which is added THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
 THACKERAY, Revised and Considerably Enlarged. Demy 8vo.. 
 cloth, 10s. 6d. 
 
 (Uniform with the new " Standard " Edition of Smith, Elder and Co.) 
 
 "Admirers of Thackeray may be grateful for a reprint of 'Sultan Stork.'" — 
 Athenceum. 
 
 " A handsome Tohime." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 "Thackeray collectors, however, have only to be told that none of the pieces now 
 printed appear in the two volumes recently issued by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., 
 in order to make them desire their possession. They will also welcome the revision 
 of the Bibliography, since it now presents a complete list, arranged in chronological 
 order, of Thackeray's published writings in prose and verse, and also of his sketches 
 and dra^^^ngs," — Daily Chionicle. 
 
 " We do not assume to fix,' Mr. Thackeray's rank or to appraise his merits as an 
 art critic. "We only know that, in our opinion, few of his minor writings are so 
 pleasant to read as his shrewd and genial comments on modern painters and paint- 
 ings." — Saturday Review. 
 
 PORTUNATE LOVERS (The). Twenty-seven novels 
 of the Queen of Navarre. Translated from the original French 
 by ARTHUR MACHE N^. Edited and selected from the Heptameron, 
 with Notes, Pedigrees, aud an Introduction. By A. MARY F. 
 ROBINSON, With Original Etching by G. P. Jacomb-Hood. Large 
 crown 8vo., cloth, illuminated, top edge gilt, 10s. 6d. 
 
 ' ' Super-realistic as the love stories now and then are, according to our notions of 
 modesty, they have one and all a wholesome moral, and go far to throw light on an 
 interesting period in the history of France. Handsomely liound and ' got up,' and 
 furnished with a charming etching by Mr. Jacomb-Hood as frontispiece, the volume 
 may well be recommended to all readers, and particularly to all students of history." 
 —Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Miss Robinson's notes, and more especially her ably-written Introduction, which 
 is practically a biography of Margaret of Angouleme, will enable readers to appreciate 
 the ' personalities ' in the stories more keenly than would otherwise be possible," — 
 Scotsman. 
 
 GEORGE RED WAY, YORK STREET. COVENT GARDEN. 
 
HOME USE 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 MAIN LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below 
 
 1 month loans may he renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 Mb loans may be recharged by bringmg books 
 
 to Circulation Desk. 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior 
 
 to due date. 
 
 ill BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS 
 ALL B'""«„»«'^„„E CHECKED OUT. 
 
 ItC'D CIRC DhPI AUG 1 5 74 
 
 nPcU 
 
 im 
 
 Am 4 2001 
 
 J11L21J9I5_51 
 
 i^-qit m'""r^ 
 
 Mfip 1 W^ 
 
 "SET^ 
 
 i4^ 
 
 lETD. SEP 2 4 198t 
 
 $FP ?> 1 ?nnt — 
 
 LD21 — A-40m-5,'74 
 (R8191L) 
 
 General Library , 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
 - APR a 9 197 1 
 
 LD 2liW6W«W 
 (G4427sl0)476B 
 
 General Library . 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
U.C, BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 lllllllllllllllllMllllllllll 
 
 CDBSlbSSflS