IBRARY E UNIVERSITY OF CAL [FORNIA LOS ANGELES WILLIAM s. MOVES * MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS BY LESTER WALLACK WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LAURENCE MUTTON WITH POR1 NEW-YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1889 Copyright, 1888-1889, by Charles Scribner's Sons. College Library PtJ 2.2,37 The best talk, proverbially, is that which escapes up the open chimney, and cannot be repeated. The following papers are simply the result of an effort to catch and preserve the familiar talk of a veteran of the stage on its way to the fireplace of a certain front room in Thirty-fourth Street, New York : They do not pretend to be complete or consecutive ; or even to be what is termed literature: merely the Social and Professional Memories of Half a Century, affec- tionately inscribed to the audiences the speaker had addressed in other days, and in other ways. Too feeble in health during the List winter of his life to perform the manual labor of writing his reminiscences or even to attempt studied dictation, Mr. Wallack was able only to recount in familiar conversation with a responsive listener, and from time to time, these stories and incidents of bis long viii Preface. career, which were taken down by a stenographer literally and without omission. His sudden death left the work in its present fragmentary and un- finished state, and although he revised and corrected the greater part of it, certain portions he never saw after they were transcribed. The matter has been arranged as far as possible in chronological order, but in other respecls it stands here as it fell from his lips. The Biographical Sketch, the Illustrations, the Appendix, and the Index have been added by the Editor. The portraits of Mr. Wallack and of his friends and contemporaries are reproduced, with one or two exceptions, from original drawings and life photographs, nearly all of which have never before been engraved. The List of Characters Played by Mr. Lester Wallack some three hun- dred in number is believed to be complete. It his been compiled from the records of Wallack' s Theatre and from many files of old playbills in different col- lections, and in its preparation the Editor has been assisted by Mr. Henry Edwards, Mr. John Gilbert, Mr. Joseph N. Ireland, Mr. Charles C. More an, Mr. William Winter, Mr. Charles E, Wallack, and Mrs. Preface. ix Lester W attack, to whom be wishes here to express his thanks. How much of the charm of these papers has been lost in the transcription only those familiar with Mr. W attack's powers js a story-teller can ever know. The warmth and the brightness of the nar- ration have been preserved, but the accents, the mod- ulations, the gesture and the expression a very great part, if not the best part, of his talk the open chimney has received and dispersed forever. LAURENCE MUTTON. " The Players." January, 1889. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The portraits of actors and actresses are from rare life photographs in the collection of the Editor. PAGE LESTER WALLACK Frontispiece. JAMES WILLIAM WALLACK 5 JOHN JOHNSTONE (from a miniature) 9 WALLACK'S THEATRE, BROADWAY AT BROOME STREET 15 WALLACK'S THEATRE, BROADWAY AT THIR- TEENTH STREET 19 WALLACK'S THEATRE, BROADWAY AT THIRTIETH STREET 25 LESTER WALLACK AT STAMFORD 1888 29 FAC-SIMILE OF LESTER WALLACK'S CONTRACT WITH BENJAMIN WEBSTER 33 HENRY WALLACK 34 NATIONAL THEATRE, LEONARD AND CHURCH STREETS 37 LESTER WALLACK AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-TWO ... 45 xii List of Illustrations. G. V. BROOKE 58 CHARLES J. MATHEWS 62 A. H. DAVENPORT 64 MRS. CHARLES J. MATHEWS (Miss Lizzie Weston) 65 LESTER WALLACK AS LEON DELMAR 67 HARRY BECKETT 73 CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN 76 DION BOUCICAULT 79 TESTIMONIALS TO J. W. WALLACK 85 CHARLES KEAN 92 FAC-SIMILE OF A LETTER FROM EDMUND KEAN TO J. W. WALLACK 93 MRS. CHARLES KEAN ... 96 DOUGLAS JERROLD 97 FAC-SIMILE OF A NOTE FROM HARRIET MELLON COUTTS TO EDMUND KEAN 99 BURTON'S THEATRE, CHAMBERS STREET 101 WILLIAM E. BURTON 103 F. S. CHANFRAU 105 SIGNOR DE BEGNIS 109 THOMAS HAMBLIN 1 16 C. W. CLARKE 117 JAMES W. WALLACK, JR 1 18 BULWER-LYTTON 123 W. C. MACREADY 125 GEORGE H. BARRETT 133 BROADWAY THEATRE, NEAR ANTHONY STREET 135 THOMAS HADAWAY 138 List of Illustrations. xiii PAGE GEORGE VANDENHOFF 139 JOHN DYOTT 141 THOMAS PLACIDE 142 WILLIAM RUFUS BLAKE 143 GEORGE JORDAN 145 MRS. VERNON 146 CHARLES WALCOT (the elder) 148 MARY GANNON 1 50 LAURA KEENE 151 MRS. F. B. CONWAY 152 MRS. JOHN HOEY 153 MADELINE HENRIQUES 155 CHARLES FISHER 155 AGNES ROBERTSON BOUCICAULT 156 WILLIAM J. REYNOLDS 156 JOSEPH JEFFERSON 157 TOM TAYLOR 159 C. W. COULDOCK 1 60 SARA STEVENS 161 CHARLES PETERS 161 E. A. SOTHERN 163 TOM ROBERTSON 1 70 H. J. MONTAGUE 1 74 WILLIAM FARREN 179 JOHN GILBERT 181 SAMUEL LOVER 187 TYRONE POWER 1 89 F. B. CONWAY 193 xiv List of Illustrations. PAGE SKKTCU OK J. W. WALLACK IN CHARACTER, BY MlLLAlS 211 FAC-SIMILE or THE HILL OF THE OPENING NIGHT OF THE BROADWAY THEATRE, AND OF LESTER WALLACK'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN AMERICA At End of Volume. MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS LESTER WALLACK. THAT dramatic talent is inherent is shown in the history of the three great theatrical families of this country the Booths, the Jeffersons and the Wallacks. Lester Wallack, the subject of this present sketch, is the last of a long line of well- graced actors ; and as a mere study of heredity the story of his descent cannot fail to interest even those who have no interest in the affairs of the stage. William Wallack, the first of the name of whom there is any record, was an actor and a vocalist at Astley's Amphitheatre in London, towards the end of the last century. He married Elizabeth Field, at one time a leading member of Garrick's company, and the mother, by a 2 Lester Wallack. former husband, Dr. Granger, of Mrs. Jones, who played at the Park Theatre, New York, in the season of 1805-6, who was called, because of her beauty, "the Jordan of America," and whose two daughters, Mrs. Edmund Simpson and Mrs. Bancker, were themselves favorite actresses in New York. William Wallack and Elizabeth Field Granger, his wife, had four children who left their marks upon the British and the American stage Hen- ry, James William, Mary and Elizabeth. Mary Wallack Mrs. Stanley Mrs. Hill made her American debut at the Chatham Theatre, New York, in June, 1827. She remained there for a season or two, retired into private life, and died in New Orleans in 1834. Elizabeth Wallack Mrs. Pincott never came to this country. She was the mother of Mrs. Alfred Wigan. Henry Wallack, the oldest of the family, was born in London in 1790. He is believed by Mr. Joseph N. Ireland to have appeared in this country as early as 1818, although the bills of the Anthony Street Theatre, New York, record " his first appearance in America " at that house Lester Wallack. on the ninth of May, 1821, and in the part ot Young Norval. He was very prominently before the public for almost fifty years ; and as an actor and a man he was deservedly popular. He played an unusually wide range of parts, from Hamlet to Dandy Dinmont, and in his later years he excelled in such characters as Sir Peter Teazle and Sir Anthony Absolute. He died in New York in 1870. Henry Wallack was the father of James William Wallack, Jr., and of two daughters, Julia and Fanny. " Young Jim Wallack," as he was affec- tionately called, is still pleasantly remembered here for his admirable performance of Fagin in "Oliver Twist," ofMercutio, of Mathias in "The Bells," of Leon de Bourbon in "The Man in the Iron Mask," of Henry D unbar and of other parts. He was born in London in 1818, came first to this country in 1838, and died here in 1873. Fanny and Julia Wallack made their debuts together in " The Hunchback " as Helen and Julia to the Master Walter of their father at the New Chatham Theatre, afterwards Purdy's National Theatre, in the Bowery, New York, on the twenty-third of December, 1839. Lester Wallack. Fanny Wallack Mrs. Charles Moorehouse became a decided favorite with the public, and died in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1856. Julia Wallack married William Hoskin, better known in England than in America, and subsequently went upon the lyric stage in London as " Miss Julia Harland." She was at the Park Theatre, New York, in 1842. James William Wallack, the second son of William Wallack and the father of Lester Wal- lack, was, to paraphrase the remark of a biog- rapher of the famous Brown family of Scotland, in regard to the author of " Rab and His Friends," the Apex of all the Wallacks ! So long as he lived he was Mister Wallack, the Wallack, WALLACK himself ; and since his death, and the accession of his son and successor, he is always styled " the Elder Wallack " by those who have known both father and son. He was born in London in 1795 ; he appeared in the spectacle of " Blue Beard," at the house after- wards known as the Surrey Theatre, when he was but four years of age ; and before he was fifteen he had filled an engagement of two years at JAMES WILLIAM WALLACK. Lester Wallack. Drury Lane. His first success, as a man, was made at this latter house in 1812, when he played Laertes to the Hamlet of Elliston ; and he soon became an acknowledged favorite in the British metropolis in such romantic parts as Rob Roy, Rolla and Roderick Dim ; while as Petruchio, Mercutio, Benedick and the like he was regarded as the only possible successor of Charles Kemble. He made his first appearance in the United States at the Park Theatre, New York, September seventh, 1 8 1 8 ; and he was again in this country in 1822, in 1832, and from 1834 to 1836. In 1837 ne became manager of the National Theatre, on the corner of Leonard and Church Streets, New York, which was thus the original " Wallack's," although it never bore that name. Mr. Wallack was at the Park Theatre, under Mr. Simpson's management, in the season of 18434; an d in 1852 he assumed control of Brougham's Lyceum, which he called "Wal- lack's." In 1 86 1 he built the second Wallack's Theatre on Broadway at Thirteenth Street, and at the close of the season of 1862 he bowed his acknowledgment of calls for the manager, and 8 Lester Wallack. was never seen in any public capacity again. He died in New York on Christmas Day, 1864. James William Wallack was educated in the best dramatic school, that of experience, and with the most accomplished actors as his tutors and models. He had seen play, if he had not played with them, such masters of his art as Kean, Kemble, Bannister, Elliston, Mathews (the Elder), Cooke, Fawcett, Incledon, Macready, Booth, Liston, Young, Mrs. Jordan, Miss Mellon and Mrs. Siddons. He inherited beauty and grace of person, quick perception, a finely modu- lated and unusually sweet voice, and a decided genius for his profession. As Shylock, Don Cczsar, Martin Heywood and The Scholar he had no peer. In 1817 Mr. Wallack married the daughter of John Johnstone, a very celebrated Irish comedian and vocalist, familiarly known as " Irish " John- stone, and one of the most prominent social and dramatic figures in London in the days of the regency. Mrs. Wallack came to America with her husband in 1818, and frequently thereafter; but she died in London in 1851. As the grand- JOHN JOHNSTONE. [FROM A MINIATURE.] Lester Wallack. 1 1 son of his grandparents, paternal and maternal, as the son of his father, the nephew of his uncles and his aunts, and the cousin of his cousins, Lester Wallack certainly could claim blood as blue as that which flows in the veins of all the dramatic Howards. John Johnstone Wallack, known to the public as Lester Wallack, the eldest son of the Elder Wallack, was born in the city of New York on the night of the thirty-first of December, 1819, or on the morning of the first of January, 1820, so near the stroke of midnight that he was never sure whether he came in with the New Year or was left by the Old ; and it was not until his marriage in 1848 that he definitely adopted the latter date, because the first of January chanced to be the birthday of his wife. Con- cerning his early professional life, which began in Great Britain, he has spoken freely and fully in the pages to which these are but a brief introduc- tion. His first appearance in the United States was made at the Broadway Theatre, New York, on the night of the twenty-seventh of September 1847, m the farce of " Used Up," when he re- 12 Lester Wallack. tained the name of John Wallack Lester, which he had previously assumed on the other side of the Atlantic. The rare bill of this entertain- ment, which was also the opening night of the theatre, reproduced in fac-simile at the end of this volume, is from the collection of Douglas Taylor, Esqr., of New York. Mr. Lester's second part was that of the Vis- count de Ligny in " The Captain of the Watch," on the fourth of October; and during this season his name appears as Captain Absolute, Major Murray in " The Jacobite," Sir Frederick Blount in " Money," Osric, to the Hamlet of Mr. Mur- doch, Frederick in " Ernestine," Littleton Coke, Dazzle, Mercutio, Count de Jolimaitre in Mrs. Mowatt's " Fashion," and many more. The season ended on the fourth of July, 1848, and on the seventeenth of that month he appeared at the Chatham Theatre as Don Ccesar de Bazan, and later as Dick Dashall and Robert Macaire. On the twenty-eighth of August of the same year Edwin Forrest played Othello at the Broadway Theatre, when Mr. Lester was his Cassio ; and the drama of " Monte-Cristo," with Mr. Lester Lester Wallack. 13 as Edmund Dantes, was produced on the even- ing of December twenty-fifth as a Christmas spectacle. It ran for fifty consecutive nights. Mr. Lester made his first appearance at the Bowery Theatre, and as Don C Jack Ran- dall in "Birth" (March twenty-seventh, 1871); John GartJi in " John Garth " (December fif- teenth, 1871); Gibson Greene in "Married in Haste" (January twelfth, 1876); Chester Dcla- field and Mark Delafield in " Twins " (April twelfth, 1876) ; Hugh Trevor in " All For Her" (January twenty-second, 1877); Adonis Ever- green in " My Awful Dad " (March tenth, 1877) ; Henry Beauclcrc in " Diplomacy " (April first, 1878); and Prosper Couramont in "A Scrap of Paper" (March tenth, 1879); making his final appearance upon that stage, in that part, at the close of the regular season, April eleventh, 1881, Lester Wallack. 23 when after a management of twenty years the theatre passed out of his hands. During this long period some of the brightest and most healthy of modern plays were produced at this house, and many of the most deservedly popular actors and actresses in America trod its boards. Charles Fisher's name first appears on its bills September twenty-fifth, 1861 ; Mark Smith's, March seventeenth, 1862 ; John Gilbert's, October twenty-second, 1862 ; Edwin L. Daven- port's, September twenty-first, 1865 5 James W. Wallack, Jr.'s, November twenty- third, 1865 ; Frederick Robinson's, December twelfth, 1865; Joseph B. Folk's, September twenty-fifth, 1867; Miss Emily Mestayer's, September twenty- third, 1 868 ; Charles James Mathews's, April eighteenth, 1872; Harry Beckett's, September thirtieth, 1873; H. J. Montague's, October fifth, 1874; and Henry Edwards's November seventh, 1879. "Oliver Twist," with its wonderful cast, includ- ing James W. Wallack, Jr., as Fagin, Edwin L. Davenport as Bill Sikes, Miss Eytinge as Nancy, and George Holland as Bumble, was produced on December twenty-seventh, 1867; while "The 24 Lester Wallack. Shaughraun " began its career of success on November fourteenth, 1874. Mrs. Hoey retired finally from the stage in April, 1864; Miss Mary Gannon made her last appearance (as Mary Nctley in " Ours ") January twenty-seventh, 1868 ; Mrs. Vernon was last seen by the public, who loved her so sincerely, on April third, 1869 (as Mrs. Sutcliffe in "School "); and William R. Floyd died in November, 1880. Mr. Wallack broke ground for the third and last Wallack's Theatre, on the north-east corner of Broadway and Thirtieth Street, on the twenty- first of May, 1881, and opened it with "The School for Scandal " January fourth, 1882. His name was not in the bills, but he made a short address. He first appeared as an actor upon that stage on the third of January, 1883, when he revived the comedy of "Ours." He created the part of Colonel Crichton in " Impulse " February sixteenth, 1885, and the part of Walter Trevill- ian in " Valerie " February sixteenth, 1886; and he made his last appearance there in " The Cap- tain of the Watch " May first, 1886. Although actively engaged in its management until October, Lester Wallack. 27 1887, he appeared there but rarely, playing " star engagements " in other cities of the Union, and in other theatres in New York, notably in the Park Theatre, on Broadway near Twenty- second Street, where he was the original Colonel W. W. Woodd'\i\ "The Colonel" January four- teenth, 1882 ; and while Wallack's Theatre was Wallack's Theatre so long as he lived, it was Wallack's in little more than in name, and many of its traditions had departed. Mr. Wallack's last appearance as an actor upon any stage was at the Grand Opera House, New York, where he played Young Marlow, with Mr. Gilbert and Madame Ponisi, his old and faithful friends, as Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle, May twenty-ninth, 1886. He was last seen of the public at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, May twenty-first, 1888, when he made a short speech between the acts of " Ham- let," played in his honor with the strongest cast the tragedy has ever seen in America. Mr. Booth was Hamlet, Mr. Barrett The Ghost, Mr. Mayo The King, Mr. Gilbert Polonitis, Mr. Plimpton Laertes, Mr. Wheelock The First 28 Lester Wallack. Actor, Mr. Milnes Levick The Second Actor, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Florence The Gravediggers, Mr. Edwards The Priest, Madame Modjeska Ophelia, Miss Kellogg Gertrude, and Miss Rose Coghlan The Player Queen. This was one of the most remarkable and most pleasant events in Mr. Wallack's professional life, and the last words he ever uttered in the public ear, containing a prophecy, never, alas ! to be fulfilled, are here repeated : " I bid you all good-night. But mind, this is not a farewell, for if it please God to once more give me control over this rebell- ious limb I may trouble you again. With these few sincere words I bid you a respectful good- night, and leave the stage to ' Hamlet ' and to you." He died at his country home near Stamford, Connecticut, on the sixth of September, 1888, and was buried in the cemetery of Woodlawn on the ninth of the same month. With him died the name of Wallack, which in his own art and in his own person he did so much to adorn. With him, too, died Young- Marlozu, Jack Absolute, Young Wilding, Rover, Alfred Evelyn, Hugh LESTER WALLACK AT STAMFORD 1888. Lester Wallack. 31 Chalcote and Elliott Grey. For forty years, as actor and manager, he was one of the most prominent figures upon the American stage ; and his place there is no one to fill. MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS. CHAPTER I. MY first experience on any stage was at an establishment at Mitcham, in Surrey, called Baron House Academy, a fine old mansion which had become a private school. Colman's "Heir at Law" was produced immediately be- fore the beginning of the summer holidays, upon an improvised stage in the school-room, with the English usher as prompter and general man- ager. As the son of " the celebrated Mr. Wai- lack," it was felt proper, naturally, that I should take part and, between the acts, I was billed for the speech from Home's tragedy of "Douglas" " My name is Norval" although I was only ten years of age. I was dressed in a red tunic trimmed with fur, white trousers and red shoes, 34 Memories of Fifty Years. and carried a round wooden shield and a wooden sword painted blue. As for the lines, I suppose I must have painted them red. How I spoke them Heaven only knows. I only remember that I never missed a syllable. My next appearance was at another school performance given at Brighton, when I was about fifteen years old. This was at a seminary kept by a Mr. Allfree, which was then rather celebrated, and the play was " Pi- zarro." At that time my uncle, Henry Wallack, was stage-man- ager at Covent Garden. Of course all the boys were racking their brains and ransacking the shops to find what they should wear. My mother applied to my uncle, who sent down a lot of splendid properties, a leopard-skin robe and all the necessary things for Rolla, which were of course very much too large for me, particu- larly the sandals. I remember nothing of the play except that it went off with a great deal of applause ; but I do remember that the end was HENRY WALLACK. Memories of Fifty Years. 35 a most undignified one for me, because as I fell dead I fell just exactly where the curtain must come down on me ; and when it began to de- scend, one of the soldiers, and the boy who played Alonzo, stepped forward, and taking me, one by one leg and one by the other, dragged me up the stage; a bit of new "business" which was greatly appreciated if I might judge from the " roars" in front. On returning from my first visit to America, which had been a purely social one, and before it was quite determined whether I should finally go into the army or not, my father, who was about to set out upon a starring tour to Bath and other provincial towns, proposed that I should join him, partly as a companion and partly to support him in such parts as could safely be entrusted to one who could only be looked upon as an amateur; and the first ap- pearance I made on any stage after I arrived at manhood was as Angela in a play called "Tor- tesa the Usurer," by N. P. Willis. I had seen it brought out before, when my father had the National Theatre in New York. The character 36 Memories of Fifty Years. of Tortcsa was written for him, and when he went over to England he took the play with him and starred in it. The character I assumed was originally acted by Edmon S. Conner, then his " leading juvenile." During this tour I played that part, Macduff to his Macbeth, and Richmond to his Richard III., and these, I think, constituted the main portion of my endeavors at that time. This was just after the burning of the National Theatre in 1839. I had done enough, inexperienced as I was (so my father told me afterwards), to show that, if ever the profession should become a ne- cessity to me, I had a certain amount of prom- ise ; that in fact I had "the gift." During this engagement I assumed the name of "Allan Field," which had belonged to a relative of the family. I hesitated long before I made up my mind to become an actor; but when I finally did so, I determined that I should know my profession from beginning to end, and should depend upon it for my sole support; and the consequence was that my poor mother often cried in those Memories of Fifty Years. 39 early days because I would not let her send me a five-pound note now and then, to add to my weekly stipend of twenty shillings ! I was resolved that whatever success I might make I would owe to myself, and not to my father's name ; therefore, as Mr. Lester I played the Earl of Rochester in the town of Rochester, in a comedy called " Charles II.," by John How- ard Payne. I had a very good part the sec- ond part of the piece. Charles Kemble was King Charles, Fawcett playing Edward and Jones the Earl of Rochester in the original cast, at Covent Garden. The season at Rochester was a short one, as my uncle Henry Wallack, who had taken the theatre as an experiment, had it for only a few weeks. This was my first professional engagement. My salary was one pound a week ; and I was paid about as punctually as were actors in small companies at that time. Three pounds a week was a good salary in a country theatre, and five pounds was enormous. When we got to the larger provin- cial cities salaries were a little higher ; but I very much doubt if any leading actor at Bath, Bristol, 40 Memories of Fifty Years. Liverpool or Manchester ever received more than ten pounds a week in those days. My experience at another provincial theatre the Theatre Royal, Southampton was some- what curious. The house was taken by a Mr. W. J. A. Abingdon, a barrister in very good practice and a rich man, who was wildly enthu- siastic upon every subject connected with the drama. His particular craze was his fancy that he resembled Shakspere, and he indulged his pride in having himself painted as the Bard of Avon, after Roubillac's statue in Westminster Abbey, a portrait which was distributed broad- cast over Southampton and the neighboring town of Winchester. I soon became a favorite with him, and as I was pretty careful in my study and acting, although very inexperienced, a short time after my joining his company he made me stage-manager ; and a pretty queer stage-manager I suppose I was ! This must have been about 1844, because a little later I became a great Liverpool favorite. But to re- turn : We performed alternate nights at Win- chester and Southampton, and the company Memories of Fifty Years. 41 used to travel in a little omnibus, with a lantern in its corner. After playing in Southampton we had to go to Winchester, and vice versa. We acted in three plays a night in those days, and had to write out our own parts, too. We were not provided with books, and studied by the light of this lantern, arriving at our destination awfully tired in the middle of the night, or per- haps early in the morning. Sometimes we had but one rehearsal, and sometimes two, seldom more ; and to this early discipline I owe the re- tentive powers of memory which have been of such wonderful assistance to me ever since. In the course of a few months I found myself in the Irish capital, and I was a member of the company of the Theatre Royal there for a couple of seasons. During that time I became acquainted with a young cornet in the Fifth Dragoon Guards. He was six feet six in height, and a remarkably handsome, though boyish, looking fellow. He was always at the theatre, either before or behind the footlights, and having some talent as an ama- teur he was never happy unless he was acting. His father, Sir Alexander Newton Don, was a very 42 Memories of Fifty Years. wealthy man, who died while his son was a child. The boy's guardians were the celebrated Mr. Majoribanks, the great banker, and, I think, the Duke of Cleveland. He was the wildest of the wild, and when he became of age and inherited his splendid property he immediately went upon the turf, where he lost every penny of it in four or five years. When I met him the second time, to my utter astonishment, it was here in New York, where he had come to play an engagement, having entered the profession. He appeared as Sir Charles Coldstream in " Used Up," a part in which I had made some quiet fame. Baronets were not so common in that time as they are now, and, as people were curious to see one, he drew very well. He then went to Australia, where he died, still a young man. He was one of the most eccentric and extraordinary characters I ever knew. He played under his own name and title, Sir William Don, Bart., and on his trip through the South, the farther away he got from what we may call first-class towns and civiliza- tion generally, the less they understood what Sir William Don, Bart., meant, and, to his great Memories of Fifty Years. 43 amusement, he was generally addressed as " Mr. Bart. ! " Don had a travelling agent named Wilton, who was nearly driven to distraction by his em- ployer's wild behavior. If at the close of an en- gagement there chanced to be a small profit, say fifty or sixty dollars, Don would distribute it all among the carpenters and scene-shifters, leaving himself without a penny. Concerning his methods of doing business, Wilton used to tell the follow- ing story : " Once he had occasion to take a short drive, and he hailed a cab. What do you sup- pose he did ? It was a most extraordinary thing ; he asked the man if he had any change. The man said ' No ' ; and I had none. The fare was half a dollar, and Sir William tore a dollar bill in two and gave the driver half, destroying the bill but not satisfying the brute." I remem- ber Don saying to me one day, " My dear John, if you will take a walk with me I will give you the great surprise of your life. You will see me pay a bill ! " And so he did, astonishing the re- cipient of the money, Fox, the tailor, even more than he surprised me. Speaking once of his 44 Memories of Fifty Years. financial condition he said, "I have not a penny in the world, but when my dear old mother dies I shall come in for seventy thousand pounds. I 'd rather want and be hard up than wtsh ill to her. But with seventy thousand pounds and the strictest economy, I ought to get on very com- fortably for a year at least." I was in Dublin during what were called the great Post-office riots. They were caused by a most peculiar state of affairs. Some time before the railroads were established in Ireland an Italian named Bianconi took the contract to carry the mails that were landed at Queenstown, and held it for years. He was a young fellow, very much liked, and no doubt the men who drove his carts all over the country were given to the ex- change of compliments and whisky with the peasantry. Bianconi was so popular that they Erinized his name, and called him Brian Cooney. Finally, it was reported to the Government that Bianconi was charging a great deal too much, and among other systems of reform or economy it was determined to look into the matter. The result was that the authorities advertised for offers for the LESTER WALLACK AT THE AGE OF 32. Memories of Fifty Years. 47 delivery of the mails in the various parts of the island, on the ground that the vehicles and horses of the present contractor were not satisfactory, and that too much valuable time was lost on the way. I rather think the only railway in Ireland at that time was from Kingstown to Dublin, a very short distance, ten minutes or so. This was in 1844 or '45 . The new contract was awarded to somebody, I could not say who, but the consequence was that, with true Irish readiness for a row upon any prov- ocation, the Irish people, resenting what they believed was an interference with their rights, set out to smfash everything that was not driven by Brian Cooney or his men. Sackville Street, Dublin, one of the finest thor- oughfares in the world, was crowded with men and women by the thousands. There was stone- throwing, and all those little amusements that an Irish mob (or for that matter any mob) indulges in, and at last the military had to be called out, the police having no control over the people, at least not sufficient to prevent their doing mischief. Colonel Scarlett, afterwards the celebrated Sir James Scarlett, who led the charge of the Heavy 48 Memories of Fifty Years. Brigade in the Crimea, dispatched the troop in which Don was a subaltern, and, realizing the danger to which the men would be liable by stone- throwing, the order was given that they should wear their helmets ; but " Billy " Don swore he would not wear a helmet for "any bloody mob," as he called it, and he appeared with nothing on his head but his little forage cap. I was present when it was calculated that there were at least ten thousand persons around the Post-office, yell- ing, hallooing and throwing stones. When this troop, the Fifth Dragoon Guards, a fine regiment, came marching down, there was never such a scat- tering. It is worth recording simply to show what a red-coat or a blue-coat is to a mob. The soldiers simply rode quietly through them, and back, and they melted away. It was like pouring hot water or tea on a lump of sugar. After it was over, Sir William Don \vas called up and had a "wigging," as they called it, because he did not wear his helmet. But then he was always getting "wiggings" from somebody for something. The Dublin gallery is proverbial, or was in my day, for the shrewdness and humor of its outspoken Memories of Fifty Years. 49 criticism. I remember one particular occasion when a man named Morrison, who led the chorus, a gigantic fellow and very ugly, afforded no little amusement to the audience and his fellow-singers. We had at that period what are called " Ticket Nights." After the benefits of the regular per- formers the underlings of the theatre, the leader of the chorus, the ushers in front and the ticket takers, would have a benefit in common, when it was the custom to give them half the receipts ; the manager doing it because he knew perfectly well that the house would be jammed full to the ceil- ing, as the beneficiaries sold their tickets among their friends and in great quantities. The curi- ous part was the fact that the ushers and ticket takers, who, of course, never played anything themselves, made up for it by pestering the man- agement for some particular play which they pre- ferred. The people on the stage, chorus singers, etc., naturally wanted to do something, to get a chance they never had in any other part of the season. This man Morrison, who, by the way, was known as "Nigger Morrison," because of his dusky complexion, had a baritone voice and so Memories of Fifty Years. insisted upon singing a ballad between the acts on this particular " Ticket Night." Now the occupants of the gallery were original in their methods and ingenious in the application of them. They would wait until there was a gap in the play, as there always is, and then say their say. The expected chance came when Morrison went on and began : " Oh, I was young and lovely once" pausing a moment to draw his breath. "And a bloody long toimeago it must have been, Morrison, me boy !" was the response from the gods. There was no more song for Morrison ! To give another instance of the quickness of these fellows : A bass singer named Leffler and a very charming singer he was, too came to Dublin, I think with the Pyne troop, which opened in "La Sonnambula." Leffler was both- ered for a dress for Count Rndolpho. He was very fond of swaggering and making a show, and he went to the lessee in a great state of mind to know what he should wear. The lessee asked, "Where is your own dress?" "Oh!" said Leffler, " I don't know ; they were going to send it over, and it has not arrived, and upon Memories of Fifty Years. 51 my honor I have n't got anything to put on. I don't know what I shall do." "You have got some tights, I suppose, and some Hessian boots ; you have a plain coat, or if not I will find you one, and you can go on looking like a gentleman who is traveling." This was a very proper dress, but LefHer replied, "I always go on and make a show, and I must have something military ! " Now it chanced that the regiment stationed in Dublin had a few days before sold the old uni- forms of its band white coats with yellow facings, and scarlet trousers with a white seam. LefHer thought this the very thing, and selected a suit which fitted him to perfection. When the overture was finished he swaggered out upon the stage thus gorgeously clad and with a riding- whip in his hand. Before he could open his mouth a man in the gallery, who recognized the costume, cried : " Good-avenin', Mr. Leffler. Give us a chune on the clarionet ! " Barry, the prompter, came on one night to make a speech, somebody having been taken ill. It was the fashion then to wear white duck trou- sers. Barry had been out in a shower of rain al\\\ Home's tragedy of" Douglas," and my father played Glenalvon. He dressed Kean and absolutely "shoved" him upon the stage, for he was very nervous ; but he played that night to a tremendous house and to a great reception. Of course it was a very crude performance, and the endeavor to imitate his father in all the passion- ate scenes was palpable throughout. For a few ^frf+cA, r/ ?CdLSL*~>*' r I Memories of Fifty Years. 95 nights the curiosity of the town crowded the house, but the excitement did not continue, and he went to the provinces with varying success. Charles was always devoted to his mother. She travelled about with him in his early days, after his father's death, and when he was be- tween twenty-five and thirty years of age ; and he worked hard to make a mere living for the two. During his visits to Brighton he was a frequent guest at my father's house, where he was sincerely liked. On one occasion it chanced that the Duchess of St. Albans was at Brighton while he was playing an engagement there. Moved by an affectionate feeling for the father, with whom (when Miss Mellon) she had often acted, she went to the theatre to see the son ; and from the moment she saw Charles his for- tune was made. She said: "This young man shall go to the top of the tree," and he did. Her influence in Brighton was all-powerful. Her tradespeople, with their families, filled the pit, and their working people filled the galleries. She made parties for him, and even sent the Duke himself to call for him at the Ship Hotel, 96 Memories of Fifty Years. where he was staying. The Duchess was the queen of fashion, and of course Kean at once became popular. This led to his reappearance in London. I remember being in Kean's dressing-room in Brighton when Bunn came in to conclude the London engagement. Bunn. said : " Don't be alarmed; your success is cer- tain. Your 'Is 't the King?' in 'Hamlet' is what will bring them." When Bunn went out, Kean, who was the most sus- picious fellow I ever saw, said : " Is that man serious ; is that man sincere ? " I don't think that in those days he had faith in any- MRS. CHARLES KEAN. bodyexcept Cole, his biographer. He subsequently became very intimate with the St. Albans family, which included the niece, Miss Burdctt-Coutts; and when the Duchess died the story went around that Kean would have no difficulty in winning the hand of the great heiress. Miss Ellen Tree, who was acting with him, according to rumor had been in love Memories of Fifty Years. 97 with him for years. He came into the theatre, at Dublin, one night and said abruptly : " Ellen, if you wish to marry me, to-morrow or never!" He was in a white heat of passion, and the story was that he had just received a flat rejection from Miss Burdett-Coutts. Kean and Miss Tree were married the very next day, and on that night, by a curious coincidence, they acted in "The Honeymoon" together. This story was current at the time; I give it as I heard it, but cannot vouch for its absolute truth. Douglas Jerrold was a great enemy of Charles Kean. There was some feud between them ; what, I do not know; but he never could en- dure Charles, and invariably spoke of him as "the son of his father." Macready, who admired the genius of the elder Kean, would not have the * , DOUGLAS JERROI.D. younger at any price, and used to refer to him, before his London appearance, as "that young man who goes about the country." Jerrold wrote "The Rent Day," and the plan 98 Memories of Fifty Years. of the scenery was taken from Sir David Wil- kie's great pictures, "The Rent Day" and "Dis- training for Rent." The part of Martin Heywood was written for my father. Sir David Wilkie went to see the play and cried like a baby over it. I have a letter he wrote to the then lessee of the theatre about acting. He subsequently sent my father one of the engravings, with his autograph beneath. I have the picture now. The play made a great success at the time. Charles Kean's second visit to America was under my father's management, in 1839, an ^ h was to have acted Richard III. in the National Theatre, New York, the night it was destroyed by fire. CHAPTER IV. WM. E. BURTOX first came to this country at my father's instance and by his advice. Burton as did very many of the debutants from the country theatres had suffered from the envy and rivalry of those already established in the good graces of London audiences. He appeared in the metropolis, at Covent Garden or Drury Lane, as Mara/I to the Sir Giles Overreach of Edmund Kean. Dowton and other esteemed favorites had been familiar in this part, and Bur- ton had, of course, to suffer the usual agonies of comparison. He was discouraged, and, on the whole, treated anything but fairly. In his de- spondent frame of mind my father, who had met him at various provincial theatres and who well knew his powers, told him there was a fine field open to him in America. Accordingly Burton Memories of Fifty Years. 103 came to the United States. He appeared in Philadelphia, was prosperous, became an im- mense favorite there, and was also much appre- ciated in literary circles, for he was an accomplished scholar. It was a great pride and pleas- ure to my father to be the cause of his first appearance in New York, and to bring him out at the National Theatre. His great ability was soon acknowl- edged and appreciated, and his WILLIAM E. BURTON. ultimate success when he took the Chambers Street house was a matter of course. This leads me to speak here of William Mitchell, for a long time Burton's only rival. Mitchell was originally a country actor in Eng- land. I am not quite certain whether my father brought him out or found him here, but at any rate he saw him play and was struck with his cleverness and quickness. He had been stage-manager of some of the provincial cir- cuits in England, and my father gave him the same position in the National Theatre, IO4 Memories of Fifty Years. which was then at the corner of Leonard and Church streets. It had been built for an opera house, but failed in that capacity, and, when my father took it, as I have said, he gave Mitchell direction of the stage. I was over here on a mere visit then in 1838, just as the country was recovering from the great money panic of that year ; when they had " shin plasters," as they called them, instead of money, as we had during the late war. In the very zenith of the theatre's success it was burned, and the company of course was thrown out of employment. My father, who was a good deal knocked down at first, " shook his feathers," and as he had people coming whom he had engaged in England he had to find some place for them, so he took Niblo's Garden and there brought out John Vandenhoff ' s daughter, who made an immense success ; which was very fortunate, because it enabled him to employ a number of actors who would otherwise have been idle and without salaries. When his short lease at Niblo's expired he went back to England ; and Mitchell as well as the others had to cast about them for what they could get. Memories of Fifty Years. 105 Mitchell finally took the building at 444 Broadway, next door to Tattersall's, and turned it into the Olympic Theatre. He made it a cheap house and inaugurated what was the first reduction in prices; namely, twelve and a half cents to the pit. He began to produce travesties on everything that was played anywhere else. He had an actor named Horncastlc, who had been a tenor singer in my father's company at the National, a fellow who had some talent for turn- ing serious matter into burlesque. When, for instance, the opera of " Zampa, the Red Corsair," was brought out, they travestied it and called it " Sam Parr and his Red, Coarse Hair." This was the beginning of Mitch- ell's prosperity. He displayed immense activity in getting everything new which was farcical and burlesque. He was ahead of everybody else, and the consequence was that his house was crowded every night. I rather think that under his management Chanfrau first came out as Mose. Mitchell used to talk to the boys in the CHANFRAU. 106 Memories of Fifty Years. pit, who paid their shilling for admission, and if they were particularly noisy, or misbehaved themselves in any way, he would go on and make a speech, saying, perhaps, " Boys, if you don't behave I '11 raise the price to a quarter, as sure as you live ! " A very effectual threat. The first serious check Mitchell received was from Burton, who was a very shrewd and exceed- ingly clever man. He saw from a distance, from his eyrie in Philadelphia, what Mitchell was doing ; and he came here and took the Chambers Street Theatre, before long completely smothering Mitchell by doing the things he did ; only doing them much 'better. He was a whole host in him- self, certainly the first low comedian of his time. From the opening of the Chambers Street house Mitchell's Olympic went down ; there is no doubt about that. Burton at last literally snuffed him out ; and that, in very brief, is the history of Mitchell's theatre. Burton took care to present everything with a little better scenery, and a good deal better casts, and then he engaged John Brougham, who was worth fifty Horncastles. It Memories of Fifty Years. 107 was the very strongest attraction in New York for a very long time. My father made thirty-five passages across the Atlantic in the old packet ships, before the day of steamers. On the occasion of one of his depart- ures for America, the Drury Club a branch of the Beefsteak Club presented him with a gold gridiron with a gold beefsteak upon it, the whole designed by Clarkson Stanfield. Underneath the steak the following inscription by Beaz- ley, a celebrated wit and the architect who built the present Lyceum Theatre, was engraved : " Presented to J. W. Wallack, Esqr., on his De- parture to America, by the Members of the Drury Club, May, 1832," with the clever motto, "A steak in both countries, a broil in neither." He never could endure the ballet, and some of his fashionable friends used to remonstrate with him on the subject at the time when the ballet was an essential thing, and when it fol- lowed every opera as a matter of course, being recognized as an indispensable finish to the night's entertainment. But in those days we had, to be sure, Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, Cerito, and Carlotta io8 Memories of Fifty Years. Grisi. At last a friend of his, a well-known man about town, said to him: "My dear Wallack, it is very curious that you do not see the beauties of imagination shown by the poses of the ballet," and so on. My father, getting out of patience, replied : " Look here, it is hard enough to stand these absurdities in an opera, and though I can comprehend people singing their joys, I am damned if I can understand their dancing their griefs." However, while he was the manager of the National in New York he succumbed to the popular demands for a dance or a song between the two plays, for there was then always a double bill, and he made a very liberal offer to Signer De Begnis, the vocalist, to go with him to America. De Begnis agreed, and it was under- stood that he was to give little snatches from the operas soq.gs from Rossini's "Barbiere," and all those pieces in which the celebrated baritone parts occur and out he came. At that time I was waiting for an appointment which I had been promised in the army, and my father very much wanted me first to see the land in which I SIGNOR DE BEGNIS. Memories of Fifty Years. 1 1 1 had been born. The National Theatre had fin- ished one season, and my father had gone to England to make his engagements for the next. He brought out then with him some people who became very celebrated afterwards : Mr. Wil- son, the tenor singer; Seguin and Miss Shirreff. They went in another vessel, but De Begnis took passage with us in a sailing ship called the "Quebec." This was in the year 1838, and we were wind-bound for some days at Portsmouth. De Begnis was with us at the hotel there, with one or two friends and members of my father's company who were to be our fellow-passengers. De Begnis was delighted at the idea of going to America, and extremely delighted at the idea of going to sea ; but he evidently had not the slightest idea what a sea voyage was like, beyond a smooth-water trip to Dublin which he had made in some of the steamboats. This was just a few months before steamers started running across the Atlantic. The ship that was to take us to America was at Spithead, Portsmouth, waiting for the wind to change. It was a violent head-wind, and the captain decided, as there was 112 Memories of Fifty Years. a great deal of business to be done with the agents at Portsmouth, that he would not start until the wind was in the right quarter; so we took it as easy as we could in the hotel there. De Begnis made up his mind one morning to make a visit to the vessel at Spithead, about five or six miles from Portsmouth, which he did, go- ing out in one of the fine, large pilot boats of those waters. He was awfully frightened because there was rather a sea on, and when he got aboard the ship he was so pleased to find him- self alive that he would not go back. While we were waiting dinner for him the boat returned, bringing a note from him to my father, written in French and reading: "Pray send up to my room, get all my packages and send them off to the ship. I could not dare venture back, for je ri aime pas la dansc die petit bateau ! " Well, when we started, as we did at last as soon as the gale moderated, De Begnis, who was never for a moment seasick, was the most nerv- ous creature I ever saw in my life. When he came up on deck wrapped in a huge velvet cloak and wearing a black velvet cap, he used to ex- Memories of Fifty Years. 113 press wonder at everything he saw. It happened a couple of nights after we sailed that the cap- tain, thinking it was coming on to blow, sent aloft to shorten sail. De Begnis said to him : " Oh, ah, mon Capitaine, de man ! what he go up dere for, why he go up the pole ? " meaning the mast. " He is going up to reef the topsail," re- plied the captain. " To do what ? " " To reef the topsail." "To reefa de top of de sail ? Inde dark ? Mon Dieu ! now he go higher, and with- out a candle ! " He was about six feet in height, a very large man, with a tremendous portly kind of bear- ing, and it was all the more funny to see the awful funk he was in if it blew in the slightest degree ; the only time he was really happy being when it was a dead calm. When all the passen- gers were blaspheming at the delay he would say: "Ah, it is beautiful; it is acallum to-day. I am not afright ; when it blow I am afright ; to-day it is a callum, and I go to play veest ! " I used to climb to the mizzentop very often with my book in my pocket, and sit there with my arm around a rope and read by the hour. The ii4 Memories of Fifty Years. first time De Begnis saw me going up the shrouds he said : " Ha ! look atde young Wallack ! Don't go up dere, you fools ; suppose de strings was to broke, you 'd go to de devil in de water ! " One night it was blowing very hard, and the ship was "taken aback," which is a very dangerous thing, and my father, who was an old sailor, knew what it meant, and sung out to the steward : " Shut in the deadlights ! " The next morning it was all right again, the sea had gone down, and De Begnis, who had been awfully scared, said : " I was not the only one afright ; there was the old Wallack, he was afright ; I hear him call to de steward to give him a light to die by ! " The first day out we were what is called " on the wind," and the vessel was lying over pretty well. De Begnis, with nothing on but his drawers and shirt, put his body half-way into the main cabin and called out : " Steward ! where de devil is de steward ! Aska de capitaine why de ship she goes so crook ! Tell him de Signer de Begnis cannot shave ! " He stood one day by the wheel and said : " What de devil that man he do, he turn de wheel around ? " The captain replied : " He Memories of Fifty Years. 1 1 5 steers the vessel." " What is dat he keep a-look- ing at like a damn fool ? " " That is the compass ; he watches the compass and steers the vessel by it." " Ha ! dat is a umpick " [humbug]. "How do you suppose we find our way across the ocean then?" asked the captain. "You get de ship by de shore, you put up de sail, de wind she blow, and you go dis way and dat way. Sometimes de straight way, and after a while you get dere by chance, God knows how ! And yet you tell me dat de man he make her go straight when he turn de wheel round? Umpick! All umpick !" Although he longed to go back to his own country he never had the courage. He arrived in the year 1838 and died here of cholera in 1849. When I came over to make my appear- ance, ten years after this voyage, I found De Begnis here singing at concerts and all that kind of thing. He had money of his own too. He used to say : " Why de devil your father he go so often across de ocean ? Some day he go to play Don Ccesar de Bazan with de fish." Mr. Tom Hamblin, a very old friend of my father's, came to him one day during his n6 Memories of Fifty Years. management of the National Theatre, and said that he had discovered a remarkable genius. Hamblin had then just married a Miss Medina, aliterary lady, and whether it was his wife or himself who had made this great discovery I do not remem- ber ; but that does not matter. He said : " This is an extraordinary girl ; she is the daughter of a dread- ful old woman, who is any- thing but what she should be; but she is herself a charming little creature. The old mother has been able to keep her at school, and the child is a pure, sweet little thing, seventeen years old. My wife has written an adaptation of Bulwer's 'Ernest Maltravers,' and here will be a great chance for a sensation, if you will bring out the play and engage the girl, who is now under my tuition and under my wife's chaperonage. We want to keep her out of this dreadful ditch in which her mother and her associates are floundering ; and the mother has given her to us to take care of." THOMAS HAMBLIN. Memories of Fifty Years. 1 1 7 My father answered, "Very well," and he en- gaged Mr. Hamblin and his protegee, having first, of course, read the play. He found that there was a part in it called Richard Darvil, very cleverly adapted and amplified, and that Miss Medina had carried the scene into Italy and had turned him from an English highway robber into a sort of brigand hero, all of which she did to fit my father's romantic style. My father played Richard Darvil, Hamblin played Ernest, C. W. Clarke, I think, was in the cast, the little prodigy, who was called " Miss Missou- ri," appeared as Alice, and the drama made an enormous hit. What follows is very curious and very sad. There was, of course, much gossip about the heroine, be- cause of her decided ability, her beauty and her romantic story ; and it was more than insinuated that she was one of Hamblin's vic- tims, and that Mrs. Hamblin, who had taken her out of the gutter, had written this part for her and helped create the great sensation for C. W. CLARKE. u8 Memories of Fifty Years. her, was fully aware of the fact. Well, houses were crowded. Hamblin was a general favorite, and my father, of course, was enormously popu- lar; but the great thing was this girl. When the play was in its zenith Miss Missouri was taken suddenly ill and died in the very midst of her great success. The old woman (the mother) reported that she had been ruined by Hamblin, and that this Miss Medina in revenge had poisoned her. The story went about, and there was the most terrific row that can possibly be imagined. Hamblin could hardly appear, for fear of being mobbed. Of course, my father had to stop the run of the play for the moment ; and, indeed, I think before she died that my father had given up the part of Richard Darvil, Hamblin taking it, and young James Wallack, my cousin, playing Ernest Maltravers. I think my father had some engagement to fulfil elsewhere out of his own theatre. At any rate, the poor girl died, and it JAMES W. WALLACK, JR. Memories of Fifty Years. 119 is certain that Hamblin's enemies made the most of the matter. But at last it all blew over. I do not for a moment believe that Hamblin was responsible for the girl's death, but that she died of consumption, being naturally very delicate. I remember very well dining with Hamblin and his wife (who retained her nom de plume, " Medina ") during the following year. She was one of the most brilliant women I ever met. She was very plain, but a wonderfully bright woman, charming in every way. Well, while I was here on that visit, and a very short time after that very dinner at which I was present, she died also, and this old woman, the mother of Missouri, immediately went about swearing that Hamblin was then living with somebody else, and that between them they had killed his wife. I was at the Astor House, where we were stopping then, and my father came home a good deal worried and flustered. He had been sent for by Hamblin, who was there with the corpse in the house. A mob had gathered around the door, and they were going to batter it down and kill Hamblin ; the terrible old woman haranguing I2O Memories of Fifty Years. all the Bowery people she had collected together for that purpose. She said that he was not con- tent, after causing the murder of her own child, until he had murdered the murderess; and noth- ing but my father's personal popularity quieted that mob. He got on the steps of the house and made a speech to them. She was a horri- ble sight, this old woman, with her long white witch-like hair flying about her face, in appear- ance a perfect Meg Merrilies. I remember one of Hamblin's great parts was in the adaptation of a novel called " Norman Leslie," in which he played the hero. He was playing that part among others when Miss Me- dina was taken ill. She was not the mother of any of his children. I remember the younger Tom Hamblin when the Theatrical Fund was first started here. They used to have a Fund Dinner and the plate was sent around ; and a magnificent success it was at first. I don't know why they ever gave it up. Once when Colonel Henry Stebbins presided, my father sitting on his right and Burton on his left (they dined at the Astor House), to the astonishment of the Memories of Fifty Years. 121 two hundred persons who were present, as the dessert came on, this handsome little boy in a jacket walked calmly around the tables till he came to the chairman, when he presented a paper which read : " The widow of Thomas Hamblin [Mrs. Shaw] sends his son to express her wishes for the success of the Theatrical Fund." Ham- blin married Mrs. Shaw after Miss Medina's death. CHAPTER V. WHEN Lord Lytton wrote " Money " early in the forties, my father was engaged in the Hay- market Theatre, and was acting with Macready. One day he came to the house and said : "Jack, here is a great chance for you. You can read ' Money,' the play which they say is going to out-celebrate ' The School for Scandal.' They want to ring me into it, but I do not see anything in it I can do." When I had read the manu- script I exclaimed : " Good Heavens, it will take three weeks to play it once through." It was terribly long, and certainly it would have taken a good six hours. My father said : " Macready and Bulwer want me to play Captain Dudley Smooth ; I have read the part but have not read the play, so you can tell me what you think of it." Well, I sat up all night over it, and felt it a Memories of Fifty Years. 123 tremendous compliment to have a chance to read the comedy which was to set the whole town on fire. My father then read the play, and told Sir Edward and Macready that he could not see him- self in the part, and that he was perfectly sure he could not do it justice. Macready said : " Will you letmeread the part to you as /conceive it ?" My father of course consented, and Macready came to the house for that purpose, and when he had finished my father said: " I can see the merit of the part, but I do not see the merit of Mr. Wallack in it. Do you think Sir Edward would allow me to make a suggestion?" Macready said he thought so, and my fa- ther continued : " You have the very man for the part in the theater Wrench." The result was that Wrench was the original Smooth and played it admirably. The first night the piece seemed to the audi- ence unconscionably long, and some of the very scenes that afterwards became most celebrated, BULWER-LYTTON. 124 Memories of Fifty Years. and most liked, were hissed. I do not know why ; probably it may have been because of Sir Ed- ward's personal or political enemies who were in the house, or perhaps the audience thought it too bold a departure from the old style. At all events there was a good deal of doubt about its success. But it was continued ; people got used to it ; Mr. Webster pushed it, and the conse- quence was that it began to grow popular after about the twentieth night, and it was destined to enjoy a long run. Years afterwards, when Ma- cready was in this country, he was asked to play the part of Alfred Evelyn, and he is reported to have replied : " I will not play that damned 'walking gentleman' any more." There are very few people now living, strange to say, who remember much of Macready's act- ing. I do not know why, because it is not so long since he retired, but I think that some description of his style and method would be interesting here. I was struck one day at rehearsal by a little altercation, although not a very ill-natured one, between t\vo members of my company, one a Memories of Fifty Years. 125 lady and the other a gentleman. The lady said : " Mr. Wallack, may I request Mr. Blank not to reply too quickly upon the ends of my speeches?" I turned to him and said : " Do not be quite so quick in your cues." He replied : " I see what you mean, Mr. Wallack, but I have not been used to these Macready pauses." I was puzzled to know what was meant by " Macready pauses," but the thing passed by only to occur again, when another gentleman of my company, who was relat- ing an anecdote, said : "Well, she made one of those ' Macready pau- ses,' " and then I began to think seriously what the phrase might mean, and on the next occa- sion, which was the third W. C. MACREAUY. 126 Memories of Fifty Years. time I had heard it, I said : "Stop," my patience being rather exhausted. "What do you mean by ' Macready pauses ? ' All you people, who have never seen Mr. Macready, but have merely heard of him as an eminent tragedian, seem to have a ridiculous idea about this ; tell me what you mean by ' Macready pauses ?" They replied : "Well, we have always heard that phrase used, Mr. Wallack." I replied that Mr. Macready was no more given to making unnecessary pauses than any other actor I ever knew, and that if he did make a pause there was a purpose in it, a mean- ing and a motive, which was always evident by its effect on the audience. There never was a man more effective than Mr. Macready, and in certain of his famous parts, since acted by other eminent artists, I have never seen anybody to equal him. Sir Frederick Pollock gives no idea of his acting at all. He does not show where Macready made his great effects. Macready, if he was anything in the world, was a student, and a great characteristic of his acting was that he was always in earnest; he never was guilty of what is Memories of Fifty Years. 127 called playing to his audience. The elder Kean sometimes did this ; but Macready never. His eye and his heart and his mind and his feeling were always with the author, always what the French call en scene. I remember in a play called "NinaSforza," in which Miss Faucit and my father supported him, one speech of his that greatly impressed me. His profile was towards the house as he stood facing the actor upon the stage; 4 and looking directly at his enemy he uttered the most bitter of speeches as an aside, making his audience understand fully that what he seemed to speak he only thought. I do not remember any other actor who could have accomplished this as he did it. He had a marvellous command of voice. His even speaking in its way was the most melodious I ever heard. In a whirlwind of passion I have known many voices more power- ful and quite as effective, but I remember nothing in really classical acting anything so beautiful as Macready in what we used to call " even-speak- ing." In this piece of " Nina Sforza " my father played a part called Raphael Doria. The drama 128 Memories of Fifty Years. was founded on the feuds of the Donas and the Spinolas, in which the Donas had been victorious and had completely ruined their enemies. This man Ugone Spinola had been pardoned by Doria, who had made a sort of companion of him out of pity, and because he had ruined him, and Spinola followed Dona everywhere ; ministered to his pleasures, tempted him to do everything that was evil, and in fact was insidiously leading him to his ruin. In one scene of the play Macready as Ugone had a soliloquy that was superbly given. The lines, as well as I remember them, began : " O Doria, Doria, When wilt thou pay me back the many groans, The tears, I 've wept in secret. When the red currents ran Spinola blood, And all our old ancestral palaces Were charred and levelled with the cumbent earth, In irreparable and endless shame." During this entire speech he played with his dagger in a nervous, semi-unconscious manner, drawing it half-way out of its sheath and letting Memories of Fifty Years. 129 it fall back, to be half withdrawn again. This action, simple as it appeared, emphasized most significantly the vengeful spirit of the words he uttered. It was a well-written play. Helen Faucit was excellent in it and my father had a very fine part. I remember one night, when walking home with my father from the Haymarket Theatre after the performance, which had been the play of "Virginius," that I asked him if he thought anything could be finer than Macready's acting of the titular part. He replied: "My boy, you cannot excel perfection !" I stood in front of the Astor Place Opera House on the night of the famous Macready- Forrest riot where the crowd was thickest, with my back to the railings of Mrs. Langdon's house, and when the military (the eighth company of the Seventh Regiment) came up there were, cu- rious to say, a great many women in the crowd. After the second volley was fired I heard a cry from behind me, and turned to see a man seated on the railings of Mrs. Langdon's house. He had been shot, and with a groan toppled over to 130 Memories of Fifty Years. the ground at my feet. I afterwards saw him lying dead at the hospital. After the firing I left the porch of the Union Club, then in Broadway, where I had taken refuge, with a " man about town," well known as " Dandy Marks." We stopped at a restaurant on Broadway and found there a crowd made up of all sorts of people dis- cussing this riot. The town was in a fearful con- dition, and for several days after was like a city in a state of siege. Some were saying it was a rascally thing that the people should be shot down and murdered in the streets, and others were arguing that the military had only done their duty. Marks naturally was all on the side of the military, because he commanded a troop of horse which dressed after the English loth Hussars, and was composed of young men of the best families in the city. One debater got so extremely excited discussing the riot that the tears ran down his face, and at length in a sort of frenzy he took off his coat and began " letting out " at everybody around him, no matter whether his victims were on his side of the question or not. He hit here, and there, and Memories of Fifty Years. 131 cracked right, left and center, clearing the whole place in a very few moments. When the thing was over Marks was not to be found ; and I had retired early myself! Forrest in the engagement during which the riots occurred played Macbeth, and when the lines came : " What rhubarb, senna or what purgative drug will scour these English hence?" the whole house rose and cheered for many minutes. Fredericks, an actor who died recently, was an exceedingly good-looking, tall and finely built man. He was an Irishman, and of rather a cynical and jealous nature. Macready, who was always rather dictatorial, worried Fredericks a good deal at rehearsals, and Fredericks, on Macready's last visit here, chanced to see him play Othello. Now it is a fact that the great tragedian's ap- pearance in " Othello " was very opposite to, and very much belied, the beauty of his acting. He wore a big negro-looking wig, and a long gown, in which he was very awkward; indeed he looked more like a very tall woman than a soldierly man. Fredericks was afterwards at a party, at 132 Memories of Fifty Years. which there was a great deal too much praise of Macready floating about to please him ; and at last he was appealed to for his opinion, and said : " I have nothing to say about the man's acting! But he looked like an elderly negress, of evil repute, going to a fancy ball ! " CHAPTER VI. WHILE I was still a member of Mr. Webster's company, to go back to the story of my own career, Mr. George H. Barrett, who had come to England to make engagements for a new theatre which was building on Broadway, near the corner of Anthony Street, New York, and which was to be called "The Broadway," went to the Haymarket, saw me, and thought he had found the very thing he wanted for America. He came to my mother's house and asked : " When does this season end ? " I told him, and he said : " Well, now, what are you get- ting here ? " " Six pounds a week," a very good salary in those days. He replied: " Well, I will give you eight, if you will go to the States." It was a great temptation, GEORGE H. BARRETT. 134 Memories of Fifty Years. because it secured to me the first line of comedy and because my father was then in America ; so I closed with him at once, and at the end of the Haymarket season sailed via the Cunard line, which then went to Boston only. There I saw my father, who was just about to start for England. This was the cause of my coming to America as an actor. I opened the Broadway Theatre, playing Sir Charles Coldstream, fell through a trap on the first night and nearly got killed. The stage had been built in a very hurried manner. Jumping on the trap, it gave way and I went through, but fortunately had presence of mind enough to catch myself by the elbows. I picked myself up uninjured, and had one of the greatest receptions I ever remember. I was the success of the evening, so the newspapers said. In those days I lived on Broadway, at a boarding-house kept by a Mrs. Black near Broome Street. Wallack's Theatre, strangely enough, afterwards stood on that very spot. The Broadway Theatre was built by, or for, one Col. Alvah Mann. The first season was IB m m IP m BROADWAY THEATRE, NEAR ANTHONY STREET. Memories of Fifty Years. 137 a losing one. There was a succession of man- agers, things were going very badly, and Mr. George Barrett finally gave up the stage man- agement, which devolved upon Mr. James Wai- lack, Jr., my cousin ; it then came into the hands of Mr. George Vandenhoff ; at last it came to Mr. William Rufus Blake, and then was pro- duced Boucicault's " Old Heads and Young Hearts," with Mr. Blake as Jesse Rural. The drama, which had never been done here before, brought up the fortunes of the theatre again. The next season Mr. Blake was still stage-man- ager, and we repeated various plays. Mr. For- rest had a very successful engagement there, dur- ing which I played Cassio to his Othello. Then James Anderson played an engagement, and I acted with him. I supported Forrest too in the " Broker of Bogota," and that was the first idea I got that I could do some serious work. The fortunes of the theatre went down once more, until at last an actor named George Andrews got hold of a book which was exciting and inter- esting the whole town. It was Dumas's " Count of Monte-Cristo." Andrews made a drama- 138 Memories of Fifty Years. tization of it, and offered it as a holiday piece, to be brought out on Christmas night. Mr. Blake came to me and told me about it. I said it was capable of making an excellent drama. He replied : "The drama is made; and you must play Monte- Cristo. " "Good Heavens, I cannot, "said I. "You must do this or the theatre will close," he answered ; " we have no one else to do it." I was in THOMAS HADAWAV. & ^^^Q fog}^ for J had neyer attempted anything of the kind ; but I said : " Very well, I will try it, and if I fail it will not be my fault." The consequence was an immense success one of the first plays that rivaled " Richard III." and " London Assurance " by a run of one hundred nights. Fanny Wallack, my cousin, played Haidcc and Mr. Fredericks played Fernand. Hadaway was in the piece and played Caderousse, It was the great hit of the season, and the thing that saved the theatre from bank- ruptcy. It was from Monte-Cristo that I got what celebrity I ever had in melodramatic characters, Memories of Fifty Years. 139 and, singular to say, most of the greatest suc- cesses I ever had were in parts which were a mixture of the serious and comic, like "The Romance of a Poor Young Man," " Jessie Brown," " Rosedale " and " The Streets of New York." I first met George Vandenhoff at the Broadway Theatre, where it seems he had made an engage- ment with Colonel Mann, in which he stipulated that he should not be held inferior to any one in the company. In other words, he was to be strictly the leading man. When Mr. Blake came into the stage management he advocated making a star theatre of it, and among other stars he engaged was my cousin, Mr. James Wallack, Jr. The opening play was " Othello," in which Wallack was cast for OtJiello, as a matter of course, and Vandenhoff for lago. About half- past six, the curtain being supposed to rise at sev- en, there was no Mr. Vandenhoff in the theatre. They sent a message to his lodgings or his hotel, GEORGE VANDENHOFF. 140 Memories of Fifty Years. or wherever he was, to know whether he was aware of the lateness of the hour. The messenger came back and reported that Mr. Vandenhoff was out and had left no word as to when he would return. The time approached for the commencement of the performance. Mr., Wallack was waiting, dressed for Othello ; I was waiting, dressed for Cassio, which I was to play that night ; every- body was waiting, dressed for everything. No Mr. Vandenhoff, no message, until about five minutes before the curtain should have risen, when a note did arrive at last from him, explain- ing that as his name in the bills and advertise- ments did not appear in equal prominence with Mr. Wallack's he did not intend to play at all. There was naturally a great deal of indignation expressed on the part of the management ; the audience were becoming impatient, and eventu- ally Mr. Blake went upon the stage before the curtain to explain the cause of the delay. He spoke to this effect : "Ladies and gentlemen: I am very sorry to appear before you as an apologist. We shall give you the play, but without Mr. Vandenhoff, Memories of Fifty Years. 141 who, not ten minutes ago, sent word that he would not act because his name did not appear in the bills in equal type with Mr. James Wallack's. It has been left to the management to give you an acceptable substitute in the person of Mr. Dyott, who, at this singularly short notice, will appear as lago. [Great applause.] We have given you the best possible rem- edy for the disappointment, and we leave it to you to give Mr. Vandenhoff his just deserts when- ever he shall appear before you again." The result of this was a very successful performance of the tragedy and a challenge from Mr. Vandenhoff to Mr. Blake. Mr. Thomas Placide consented to act as Mr. Blake's second. The affair, however, was patched up by the inter- ference of mutual friends and no blood was shed. Mr. Blake, off the stage as well as on, was a positive epitome of fun and humor. There was a gentleman in the company named Hind, who came to him one day with the pomposity which JOHN DYOTT. 142 Memories of Fifty Years. I have generally remarked prevails in a greater degree among the lesser luminaries of the stage than among the greater, and said : " Mr. Blake, I have ob- served an omission in the bills with regard to my name." Mr. Blake turned around from the managerial table and gazed at him with some surprise. "Mr. Hind, what is the omission ?" "I have always been particular, sir, about my initials; they are not in the bill." Mr. Blake, without asking him what his initials were, said very solemnly: "Mr. Hind, the omission shall be rectified." The consequence was that in the next bill in which the gentleman's name occurred Mr. Blake put "The Character of so and so by Mr. B. Hind," which, of course, caused a great deal of amusement in the company and a great deal of indignation on the part of Mr. Hind, whose THOMAS PLACIDE. Memories of Fifty Years. 143 initials were T. J., but who was called "Mr. Behind" ever after. On another occasion Mr. Blake had to deal with a gentleman of a somewhat higher style of ambition, whom we will call Jones. On the 22d of February a patriotic play was produced, which concluded with the appearance of the figure of Washington surrounded by every sort of emblem of patriotism in fact, in a blaze of glory. Mr. Jones said to the stage-manager: "Mr. Blake, I have frequently played the part that you have cast me for in this piece. I repre- sent the officer who carries the flag of our nation, and I have always, in that particular scene in which I carried it, been accus- tomed to sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'' Mr. Blake replied: "But a song here is entirely out of place ; it will be an inter- ruption to the course of the play, WILLIAM RUFUS BLAKE - and on this occasion I cannot consent to its intro- duction. We cannot sacrifice the play on that account." Mr. Jones replied ; 144 Memories of Fifty Years. "Mr. Blake, if I am to play this part I must sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' My name has invariably been in the bills with the addition of this line: 'In which he will sing "The Star- Spangled Banner." Mr. Blake persevered in his denial of the request, when Jones drew him- self up to his full height, which, by the bye, was not above five feet four, and majestically said: "Mr. Blake, I wish it to be recorded that I insist upon being billed as singirrg 'The Star- Spangled Banner.'' Blake declined any further conversation on the subject. But in the bill he wrote: "The Character of so and so by Mr. Jones, in which he insists upon singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner ! ' ' John Brougham in the mean time left Burton to go into management for himself at the little theatre on Broadway, near Broome Street, built forhim and called "Brougham's Lyceum." Bur- ton engaged Mr. Blake and myself; and having Mrs. Russell, afterwards so well known as Mrs. Hoey, and also Mrs. Vernon, Mr. Jordan and Mr. Tom Johnston, a strong combination, he Memories of Fifty Years. 145 wisely determined to present the old comedies, which became his staple commodity for that sea- son and the next. At the end of the first of these I went to England, where I found my father rapidly recovering from what had been a very serious illness; and under the advice of his physicians I persuaded him to return to America with me. During the season which followed our arrival I was still ful- filling my second engagement at Burton's ; and all this time Brougham's management was, as he himself described it to me, "a struggle ; things continually going from bad to worse." It having been ascertained that Brougham must positively retire from the man- agement, Major Rogers, the owner, determined to offer the house to my father, and the story of the transaction is rather a curious one, and perhaps worth repeating. They had various meetings on the subject of a lease, my father thinking the rent demanded too high, and Rog- ers that it was not high enough ; and they had GEORGE JORDAN. 146 Memories of Fifty Years. all those little disagreements which occur be- tween people who are striking a bargain. They met finally on the stage one day, when the theatre was quite empty and in charge of a jani- tor, and my father said: "Well, my dear Major Rogers, that ends the affair. I have made the best proposal I can afford, and therefore we must, I suppose, let the matter drop; but although the house is not a very good one, not so full as I could wish, I will try to explain to the audience." Whereupon he walked down the stage and ad- dressed the empty seats as follows : " Ladies and gentlemen, in con- sequence of the impossibility of a definite arrangement between Major Rogers and myself, I beg first to tender to him my thanks for the patience with which he has lis- tened to my unsuccessful arguments, and to offer to you my regrets that the kind and flattering desires that have been expressed, through the newspapers and by many of you individually, that I should have the honor of catering for your MRS. VERNON. Memories of Fifty Years. 147 amusement here cannot be realized." He then bowed and turned up the stage to go out at the stage-door, when Major Rogers cried: "Stop! stop ! That 's enough ; I consent to every- thing ! " and the bargain was struck. The first thing my father did when he took possession of the Lyceum was to engage Brougham and Blake, and naturally, of course, I also cast in my fort- une with him and became his stage-manager and leading man. A lady came to me one day and said she had heard that we were going to bring out a bur- lesque written by John Brougham and called " Pocahontas." This was a Miss Georgiana Hod- son, one of the handsomest women I ever saw. My father was ill in bed at this time, and I talked the matter over with her. I thought she looked like the sort of woman we wanted for the part. She had played in Boston, where she was a favor- ite, but she was anxious to make a New York appearance; so she was engaged and "Poca- hontas" was produced with great success. The piece was immensely clever and Brougham and Walcot were delightful in it. There was a Mr. 148 Memories of Fifty Years. Fred Lyster in the company who was spoiling to do something more than play simple parts in Wallack's Theatre. He was a musical man and he worked matters until at last he persuaded Miss Hodson that there was a gold mine wait- ing for her in California. One night, when I had acted in the first piece and was, as my father's representative, looking after matters, the prompter came to me in a great hurry and said: "Mr. Wallack, Miss Hodson has n't arrived." I replied: "The first piece is over ; she must be here; she must certainly be dress- ing by this time." "She has not arrived, sir," reiterated the CHARLES WALCOT. . prompter. 1 thought she might be ill, and sent to her residence to inquire; but Miss Hodson had gone, bag and baggage, and the position the management was in was a very pecu- liar one indeed. "Pocahontas" was a great attrac- tion then, and what to do I did not know. I went down to tell Mr. Brougham and Mr. Walcot, who dressed in the same room. I said: "Gentlemen, Memories of Fifty Years. 149 we are in a 'fix.' Miss Hodson has cut and run with Mr. Lyster and his company. All gone I don't know where, except that I heard some talk and gossip of her ultimate intention of visit- ing California." John Brougham stood speech- less, holding the hare's foot with which he was coloring his face. Walcot turned round and gasped, "For Heaven's sake, what are we going to do ? " "I don't know, but I '11 tell you what : if you are game we will play the piece without her." "Bless me," said Brougham, "play 'Po- cahontas' without Pocahontas? " "Yes; you will have to improvise. Get ready now and I will take care of the audience." I went on to the stage and said : " I am very sorry to appear, ladies and gentlemen, in the char- acter of an apologist. You have seen a good deal of me to-night in the first play, and I only wish that the extra sight you have of me could be accompa- nied by a more agreeable result; but I am obliged to tell you that we have no Pocahontas. Of course, under these circumstances we can but do what we should do; and to those who are not satisfied with this fact, and are not content to take what i so Memories of Fifty Years. MARY GANNON. we can give them, we will return the money." Walcot, who was standing at the side, called out like a prompter: " Half the money, dear boy; half the money ; they have had half the show." But I paid no attention to him and continued: "We can give you a charming novelty instead." Some of the people who were preparing to leave sat down again and all were quiet, wondering what was com- ing. " We will give you the play of 'Pocahontas' without Pocahontas," There was a shout directly. I said: "Therefore, as far as giving you ' Pocahontas ' goes, there will be no disappointment." The result was one of the greatest sprees ever seen upon the stage. Those two men were so clever that they absolutely im- provised all that was required in verse, and the burlesque never went better perhaps from that very fact. Mary Gannon played the part of Pocahontas the next night. It seemed decreed that when left to take care of the theatre during my father's absence I should Memories of Fifty Years. i 5 1 meet the sort of things I encountered with Miss Hodson. My father went to Boston to play a star engagement one winter and left me in charge of the theatre. Sheridan's "Rivals" was run- ning. Brougham was the Sir Lucius, Blake the Sir Anthony Absolute, I was the Captain Abso- lute and Miss Laura Keene was Lydia Languish. A short time before the curtain was to rise on a certain evening the prompter came to me in a great state of mind and said : "Miss Keene has not arrived." (This, by the way, was previous to Miss Hodson's flight.) I sent to her house to know if -she was ill, and found she had gone off to Baltimore with a man named Lutz. This person, it is said, had induced a lot of wealthy men to take a theatre and fit it up for him, on condi- tion that he engaged Miss Keene, and this he did. Before I had time to tell the audience about the difficulty a Mr. Meyers, who kept what was known as Meyers's Mourning Store, on LAURA KEENE. IS2 Memories of Fifty Years. Broadway, very near the theatre, and who was a great friend of Miss Kecne's (he and his daughters), sent word to say that he wished to see me at once. Although I was very busy I consented, because I fancied that he was privy to this whole affair, and thought perhaps he might have some reason to give or some expla- nation to make. He came rushing in and said, "What are you going to do?" I told him I was going on the stage to tell the people that Miss Keene had left. He repliedj "I am going out in front as Miss Keene's friend to hear what you have to say." I went on and told the exact truth. I said : "I am very sorry to have to ask your indulgence for the lady who is going, on a very short notice, to undertake the part of Lydia Lan- guish. She may, possibly, have to read it." There was a great mur- mur, " Miss Keene ! Miss Keene ! " " If you will give me your patience for a few moments I will explain." I continued : " Miss Keene has left the theatre and left the city. I do not know anything MRS. F. B. CONWAY. Memories of Fifty Years. about where she has gone, nor on what principle she has disappointed you to-night. I only tell you she has left the theater." The apology was accepted, the comedy was produced, and Mrs. Conway went through with flying colors as Lydia. Miss Keene subsequently wrote a letter to the papers in which she said she had gone to Baltimore because she had a brother who was very ill there. Miss Keene's place as leading lady was filled by Mrs. Hoey, who had retired from the stage upon her marriage to Mr. John Hoey, in 1851. As Mrs. Russell she had been a member of Bur- ton's Company for a number of years, and was a great favorite. Not long after Miss Keene's departure I went one New Year's day to call on Mrs. Hoey and her husband. She said to me, "I want to speak to you," took me to the win- dow, and, after looking at me a moment, added : "I am going back on the stage." "What! does John not object?" She replied: "He only makes the condition, that if I go on the stage MRS. HOEY. I 54 Memories of Fifty Years. again it is to be at Mr. Wallack's theatre, and nowhere else." I immediately caught on to this, because Miss Keene's going away had left a gap which was very difficult to fill, and a leading lady is never easy to find. When I went home I told my father of this, and he asked: "But who is this Mrs. Russell?" "Mrs. Russell is the best lady you can possibly get. She has been off the stage two or three years, but she was a very charming person and is exceedingly and justly popular, which, after all, is the great thing." So I introduced Mrs. Russell, or Mrs. Hoey, to my father, and the result was that he engaged her, and she made her reappearance in Sheridan Knowles's " Love Chase." I played Wildrake, and she Constance. I have seen stage fright very often, but I never shall forget the fright she was in that night. It would have been a very mortifying thing if she had made a failure then, and she was naturally very nervous, but she soon overcame it and was the enormous favorite she had been before. That is the history of her coming back. Burton was very angry that she Memories of Fifty Years. 155 did not return to him, but Wallack's Theatre had become the fashionable place of amusement and everything was going up-town. Wallack's was almost a mile above Burton's Chambers Street house, and that was decidedly in its favor. Then we went at the comedies again, and Mrs. Hoey very soon came to the front and got her old place, and even a higher one. In fact, on or off the stage, no lady had ever been more "ADELINE HENR deservedly popular than Mrs. John Hoey. When she finally retired little Miss Henriques appeared. She was also an immense fa- vorite. After the opening of Wal- lack's Theatre Burton in- troduced two admirable ar- CHARLES FISHER. tists to this country, Charles Fisher and Lysander Thompson, who first ap- peared on the same night and in the same piece, "The School of Reform," in Chambers Street, Memories of Fifty Years. in 1852. Burton had a profound knowledge of men and of their capabilities, and very quickly learned where to place the members of his company to the best advantage for him and for themselves ; so much so that when he brought out that clever comedy, "Masks and Faces," by Charles Reade, he played Triplet himself, but soon resigned it to Fisher, who made a great deal more of it. I have never seen any- body who could ever approach Fisher as Triplet ; the whole per- formance was a gentle, charming, beautiful thing. When Fisher and Thompson left Burton, natu- rally they drifted to the new house, which absorbed all the stock talent in the country at that time, including Mrs. Vernon, Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault, John Dyott, Wm. Reynolds, J. H. Stoddart, Humphrey Bland, George Holland, Sothern, Henry and MRS. BOUCICAULT. WILLIAM J. REYNOLDS. JOSEPH JEFFERSON. Memories of Fifty Years. '59 Thomas Placidc, besides those I have mentioned before. Mr. Bancroft Davis, an old friend of my father's, came to him one day at the Broome Street house with a play which Mr. Tom Taylor of London, who knew nothing of American theatres or American dra- matic possibilities, had sent out to this country for a mar- ket. Mr. Davis wished to have it produced at our house. I read the manuscript, was struck with its title, " Our American Cousin," but saw that it contained no part which could compare with the titular one created by Mr. Taylor no doubt with an idea of pleasing theatre-goers on our side of the Atlantic as well as his. I told Mr. Davis that it was hardly suited to our require- ments; that it wanted a great Yankee character- actor ; that Mr. Joseph Jefferson, then a stock- actor in Miss Laura Keene's company, was the TOM TAYLOR. i6o Memories of Fifty Years. very man for it, and advised its presentation to her. Mr. Davis replied : " At any rate I have done what my friend Mr. Taylor wished: I have given you the first choice." I said: "I think it is only right to tell you that if the play is to make a success at all, Jefferson is the man to make it." He took the play to Miss Keene, who read it. She did not see any great elements of popularity in it, but she thought that it might do to fill a gap some time, and she pigeon-holed it. She was just then busy getting up a Shak- sperian revival, "Midsummer Night's Dream." She had Mr. Blake with her and Mr. Jefferson, as well as Mr. Sothern, who was engaged to play such parts as I was playing at the other house. She was taking great pains with the " Midsummer Night's Dream," in which these people were all to appear; but it so happened that her scene- painters and her mechanics disappointed her in C. \V. COULDOCK. Memories of Fifty Years. 161 regard to the time in which she could produce it, and she found that this would delay her quite two weeks. Then she be- thought her of " Our Ameri- can Cousin," and she cast Mr. Blake for Binney tJie Butler, Mr. Couldock for Abel Murcot, Sara Stevens for Mary Mere- dith, Mr. Sothern for Lord Dundreary, with Mr. Jeffer- son, of course, for Asa Tren- cJiard. Blake positively re- fused the part of Binney, which was played by Charles Peters. Sothern, on looking over Lord Dundreary, found it was a part of forty or fifty lines, a sort of second old man; at least that was the view he took of it, and he went to Miss Keene, laid it upon her desk, and told her that he absolutely declined to play it. " You engaged me for Mr. Lester Wallack's parts, and I cannot possibly consent to undertake a thing of this sort." Miss SARA STEVENS. CHARLES PETERS. 1 62 Memories of Fifty Years. Kecne did not know what to do. She thought the play was a weak one and she wanted all her best talent in it, though Sothern was not consid- ered a great man then. At last she appealed to his generosity and asked him to do this thing as a mere matter of loyalty to her. At last he said: "Well, Miss Keene, I have read the part very carefully, and if you will let me 'gag' it and do what I please with it I will un- dertake it, though it is terribly bad." Miss Keene said, "Do anything you like with it, only play it," and then Sothern set about to think how he should dress it. That was a time when the long frock-coat was in fashion a coat that came down almost to the heels and was made like what is now called an Albert coat a coat that " Punch " took hold of and caricatured unmercifully. It happened that Brougham had borrowed from me the coat in which I had played a part called J7ie Debilitated Cous- in in " Bleak House," and with true Irish liberality and without thought that it was the property of somebody else, he generously lent it to Sothern; and that was the garment E. A. SOTHERN. Memories of Fifty Years. 16=, in which Sothern first appeared as Lord Dun- dreary. Jefferson was the star, but as the play went on, week after week, Asa TrcncJiard became common- place, and up came Lord Dundreary. Sothern added every night new "gags," he introduced the reading of brother Sam's letter, etc., until at last nothing else was talked of but Lord Dtmdreary. After Sothern had worn it pretty well out here he went to London. On the first night "Our Ameri- can Cousin" made such a dead fiasco at the Hay- market that Buckstone put up a notice in the green-room, "Next Thursday: 'She Stoops to Conquer.' ' Charles Mathews, who was in front, went behind and said: "Buckstone, you push this piece." "But it is an offense to all the swells." " Don't you believe it," replied Mathews; "you push it and it will please them more than anybody else." Buckstone was induced to give it further trial, and the consequence was four hundred consecutive nights. Sothern told me that Buckstone cleared thirty thousand pounds by it. CHAPTER VII. I HAVE frequently been asked, both by inter- viewing people and by my friends, what my method of study is, almost every actor having a method ; and apropos of this there comes in an anecdote about Macready. He always objected to a redundancy of gesture, and once said to my father : " My dear Wallack, you are naturally graceful ; I am not. I know that in gesture I do not excel, and facial expression is what I prin- cipally depend upon. In fact I absolutely make Mrs. Macready tie my hands behind my back, and I practice before a large glass and watch the face." My father replied: "Well, Macready, I suppose that is all very good, but did you ever try it with your legs tied ? " But in answer to this question, which has been so often asked concerning my method of study, Memories of Fifty Years. 167 I may say that the first thing is to get a thor- ough knowledge of the play. At first I gener- ally studied the other parts even a little more than I thought of my own ; and when I came to my own I studied it scene by scene to get the words perfect. I did not think so much of what I was going to do with them until I got them so correctly that I could play with them in two or three different ways. Having one scene in my head I would go to the next, there being perhaps two or three scenes in one act. I would then go to work to perfect the first act as a whole. My first thought was to try to get the author's mean- ing ; to pay that respect which was his due by carefully following his text. Having done that, I worked on the different modes of expressing the author, picked what I thought was best, etc., and then put that act by. Suppose we had four acts, for instance, I would then study the second after the same fashion, and so on, using the same method all through with the four. I studied alone of course at first, but when I thought my- self sufficiently au fait I would get Mrs. Wallack, or one of my sons, to hear me in the part, and 1 68 Memories of Fifty Years. then play it in two or three different ways in order to see how it affected them. While I was perfect in the room, the moment I got upon the stage at rehearsal the positions, uses of furni- ture, etc., interrupted all this. The use of these had all to be blended properly with what I had done before. With a chair here and a table there, and the footlights here and the audience there, I had to study how all this could be worked in so as to make as perfect an ensemble as possible. I do not know the systems of other artists, but that was mine. Of course, after all this prepara- tion, when I came before the audience things would suggest themselves to me in the very midst of what I was doing, " inspirations," if I may use so fine a word ; and I then sometimes got effects I did not dream of when studying, because I was playing before the audience and found out their mood. I do not think I ever sacrificed my study very much to the caprice of my audience. I have done it at times, perhaps, and to a certain extent in cases where I could execute just as gracefully, though not quite so correctly, and with equally telling effect. Memories of Fifty Years. 169 Ease of study depends a great deal upon whether the author is a practical playwright. The motives of the old writers were so clear and their mode of illustrating their meaning so thor- ough that they were a great deal easier, at least to me, than the more modern dramatists. There is a sort of power about them which seems to com- municate itself. Personally, I think that Shak- spere is almost the easiest study; perhaps because of my being accustomed as a boy to see Shakspere's plays ; but he always impresses himself upon one as he is read, and we are more likely to get greater ease of words. I always found Sheridan a very easy study ; but I have had more difficulty, curious to say (and I think many of my profes- sion, at least the best of them, will bear me out in this), in studying the extremely modern school of writers than I ever had with the older ones. In speaking Tom Robertson's lines, for instance, one is talking " every-day talk." It looks very easy, but it is most difficult, for if you are illus- trating Sheridan or Shakspere you are speaking in a language that is new to you ; which on that account impresses you all the more ; whereas if 170 Memories of Fifty Years. you have a speech from Tom Robertson or Bou- cicault you can give it just as well in two or three different ways. You cannot in Shakspere find any words to improve the text, but if you say : " How do you do this morning ? " or " How are you this morning ? " one is just as good as the other; and yet, as a rule, to give the author's text is usually both proper and just. As to my study, of course it depended upon how often I had seen a part and how familiar I was with the piece. Don Felix, for instance, I had seen my father play frequently, and natu- rally it was comparatively easy with me. But take Don Ccesar de Bazan. Some time after my father's death I was requested to play Don Ccesar, a character he had made peculiarly his own, and of which he was the original in the English lan- guage. It was fourteen or fifteen years since I had played it, and I said to Mrs. Wallack: "Be- fore I look at this part again I want you to see TOM ROBERTSON. Memories of Fifty Years. 171 if I remember anything of it." I not only rec- ollected the words, but I did not miss a syllable. She laid down the book in perfect astonishment. It seemed to come upon me directly, as though I had performed it the night before. This gift of memory has been always of inestimable service to me. With regard to self-consciousness on the stage, I have often noticed that actors are blamed for this as a fault ; and when I happened to see a criticism upon myself which seemed based on anything like reason, and was written by any- body worth listening to, or worth reading, or worth thinking of over again, I would do a little self-questioning upon the subject, and ask myself exactly what it meant, and how I should treat, in my own mind, the argument of the writer. I found, particularly in comedy, that if an actor is not self-conscious it is simply because he has not studied his effects. For instance, if I am preparing to play a comic part I calculate neces- sarily where I think the points will tell, or, to use a common phrase, where " the laugh will come in," as it must come in if one is going to 172 Memories of Fifty Years. be comic. And in doing that, of course there must be self-consciousness. I have studied a line, for example, which I felt would " go with a roar," and if the laughter came, there was the self-consciousness. I was perfectly conscious that I had been very funny. I had studied to be so, and I was so. There never was, in my opinion, a raconteur, from Charles Lamb or Theo- dore Hook down to Gilbert a Becket, or H. J. Byron, or Thackeray, or Dickens, or any of these men who spoke and told anecdotes at a dinner- table there never was one of them that was not conscious that he was going to be funny. He may have made a mistake and missed it sometimes ; but as a rule he enjoyed the story with the audience. Tragedy and comedy are very different. If a man is playing a serious part he is wrapped up in it, to the utter exclu- sion of the audience ; but the moment the come- dian has uttered his first line, and the laugh comes, there is a sort of en rapport between himself and the audience, and the thing must go. It is a matter which Charles Mathews and I very often made the subject of our conversa- Memories of Fifty Years. 173 tions, of which we had a great many, and he thoroughly agreed with me. I said to him : " Now, Charles, suppose yourself in one of those great parts in which no one can approach you, do you mean to say you play as well with a dull audience as with a bright one?" "No," he replied ; " it is out of the question to play if the audience don't go with you. You cannot play a part with spirit ; and for me it is simply impossible." A comedian can never forget his audience as much as a tragedian can. I am giving merely the experience of one comedian, but I know per- fectly well it is the feeling of many. I know that John Gilbert would say the same and that Blake felt the same. If I am studying in my room a serious part I become very intense, and do not think of the applause ; but if I am studying a comic part I want to feel the fun myself; then I feel sure of my audience. In fact, to sum the matter up, the actor wants the audience in comedy a great deal more than in a tragic part. He must never, however, appear to be con- scious of his clothes. Take a man like Mon- 174 Memories of Fifty Years. tague, for instance. He was charming in trouser and coat and "cigarette parts," and wore the dress of our day with the ease of a thorough gentle- man ; but put him in costume and he was gone, miserably conscious that he was awkward and out of place. Now, Mr. Bellew, on the other hand, is better in doublet and hose. His ap- pearance is romantic, he is natu- rally graceful, and the costume of other days suits him admi- rably. Apropos of this, I must tell you of the elder William Far- ren, who was the greatest old man comedian I ever saw. When Bou- cicault wrote " London Assur- ance " his audiences had never seen Mr. Farren in anything but knee-breech- es, silk stockings, diamond-buckled shoes and so on. His friends thought he could never play Sir Harconrt Courtly ; but he went to Stultz, the great tailor then, the Poole of the day, and ordered the most correct style of modern costume. His dressing was absolutely perfect, and his manner was as perfect as his H. J. MONTAGUE. Memories of fifty Years. 175 dress. One would suppose that he had never worn anything but frock-coat and trousers or an evening dress all his professional life. Sir Har- court should be made up exactly as a young man. Later actors have made it too evident to the audience that they wear a great bushy wig. Farren was faultless in the part, the veri- table elderly young man of real life, the man who had left off taking snuff because it was not the thing to do at all the man to be seen daily even yet in White's and at the club windows. Talking of " London Assurance," I remember standing behind the scenes at the Haymarket one night during the run of Bulwer's " Money," then at the very zenith of its first and great suc- cess, when some one came hurrying in and an- nounced, " An enormous hit at Covent Garden; the third act is over and it is tremendous. If the other two acts go in the same way it is an im- mense go." This was "London Assurance." I saw it the second night. It was really the first time that the perfection of the modern boxed-in scenery was displayed to the public. It was most beautifully done ; I can see the whole thing now 176 Memories of Fifty Years. the scenes and everything. It was, as I have said, something quite novel; and was of course a great success. When the curtain went down on the first act, the first night, there was a dead silence. It is a very ineffective ending and the scene was simply an anteroom in which there was no chance for very great display ; but when the cur- tain rose on the second act, the outside of " Oak Hall," there was an enormous amount of ap- plause ; and that act went with the most perfect "snap." The audience was in good humor from the moment of the entrance of that most per- fect actress, Mrs. Nisbett, as Lady Gay, for whom Boucicault wrote the part. Pie describes her as the seventh daughter of an earl, the baby of the family, married to a man considerably older than herself. Mrs. Nisbett's tall, lovely figure, her baby face, her silvery laugh, carried the whole house ; while the contrast with Keely, who was the original Dolly, was delicious. He was a country squire of about forty years of age, dressed to per- fection in his top-boots, etc. The fault of all later Dollys is that they are made to look and act too young. The first cast of " London Assur- Memories of Fifty Years. 177 ance " was a wonderful one throughout, even to the actor who played Cool, Mr. Brindal; and to the afterwards celebrated Alfred Wigan, who played Solomon Isaacs, and had about four words to say. That ensemble was one of the most perfect I ever saw. It had for that time a very great run, and it built up the declining fortunes of Covent Garden. As to what Brougham had to do with the play, I have heard Charles Mathews on the point, I have heard Boucicault on the point, and I have heard John Brougham himself on the point. There is very little doubt that Brougham first suggested the idea ; and there is no doubt that he intended the part of Dazzle for himself. Charles Mathews was the original Dazzle. So far as I know, Mr. Brougham, for a certain sum of money, conceded to Mr. Boucicault his entire rights in the comedy. John was far less officious in the matter than his friends were. They invented all sorts of tales ; but there is no question that the success of the whole thing was due to Mr. Bouci- cault, to his tact and cleverness and to the brill- iancy of his dialogue. 178 Memories of Fifty Years. The speech we technically call " the tag " of the play was written for Max Harkaway, and of course was consistent with the character of the honest old squire, but Farren insisted upon speaking it. Here is this old man, this Sir Harcourt Courtly, who has been trying all the time to impress upon everybody what a virtuous thing vice is, who has been plotting to run away with his friend's wife, who has all through been showing that he is a man totally without principle, making this very moral speech at the end. They represented to him that it was inconsistent, but he insisted upon it. Bouci- cault, who was a young man just rising, felt flattered as a young author to have all these great people acting his play, and was not in a position to do what he would certainly do now, say : " I won't have it " ; and consequently had to give in to Farren. On one occasion Drury Lane was in a very bad way, and when they were making engage- ments for the next season Farren was asked if he would not, in consideration of the poor busi- ness, come down a little in his salary. He said: Memories of Fifty Years. 179 " Certainly not, sirs. Mr. Jones and all these people can be replaced ; there are others in the market ; but suppose for a moment, if you please, the market to be a fish market, that you must have a cock-salmon, and that there is but one cock-salmon to be had. You will have to pay for the cock-salmon. Now, gentlemen, in this market / am the cock-salmon ! " Therefore Mr. Farren, who really was unrivalled at that time as the leading comic old man actor of cer- tain parts that required certain gifts, certain manner, etc., carried his point. There was no appeal from him at all ; if they wanted to keep him they had to give him WILLIAM FARR what money he asked, and also let him do what he liked with the parts he acted. He was known as the " Cock-salmon " as long as he lived. I remember a curious contretemps of Farren and Mrs. Glover, the greatest actress of "old women" in her day, or perhaps in any day. I was a mem- ber of the Haymarket Company, and we were playing the inevitable " School for Scandal," i8o Memories of Fifty Years. which came along at some time in almost every season. Mrs. Nisbett (Lady Boothby), one of the most glorious actresses that ever walked upon the stage, was Lady Teazle, Mr. Hudson Charles Surface, Stewart Joseph, I Sir Benjamin Back- bite, Mrs. Glover Mrs. Candour, and Farren of course a perfect Sir Peter. Imagine if you can the classic Haymarket Theatre in the classic " School for Scandal," with the classic Mr. Farren and the classic Mrs. Glover coming in the scandal scene to what is called " a dead stick." But oh ! when the act was over and the curtain went down ! A private little scene between the " classics " then was something to be remembered. " A nice mess you 've made of it, Glover ! " said Farren. " The fault was entirely yours ! " replied Glover. " We Ve played these parts together about five hundred times! " said Farren. "Then it's high time you remembered the text," said Glover. It ended with Farren swearing devoutly, and with the lady taking refuge in the traditional hysterics, Mrs. Nisbett saying to me, with a nudge of the elbow : " Look at the old fogies. They are both in the wrong ! " JOHN GILBERT. x Memories of Fifty Years. 183 I have played in "The School for Scandal" in I don't know how many British cities, Edinburgh, Southampton, Dublin, Manchester and Lon- don, and each has claimed in some mysterious manner to possess either the original manuscript or an authorized copy, although the authority which authorized it was never very clear to the unbiased mind. Calcraft always swore that the Theatre Royal, Dublin, had it in Sheridan's own handwriting, the Bath Theatre made the same claim, while the Haymarket utterly ignored the claims of either of them. This same scandal scene has been the subject of unending dispute between the prompters and the players, even down to John Gilbert's day. I have heard the prompter say: "Mr. Gilbert, I beg your pardon, you should come on the right!" "No, sir; I come on the left ! " " Mr. Gilbert, the last time you came on the left ! " " Great Heavens ! Sir, I 've played the part a thousand times and I think I ought to know ! " The prompter's lot is not a happy one. CHAPTER VIII. SOME of the experiences in my profession are very amusing. There are many instances of misapplication of a word or of a too quick in- clination to carry a joke or a telling line to the audience. There was an old actor named Harry Hunt. He was a bass singer and was the hus- band of the present Mrs. John Drew. Hunt was playing with us at the Broadway Theatre when I first came here. The play was " Money." George Vandenhoff played Evelyn and I Sir Frederick Blount. In the celebrated gambling scene there is a character called the Old Mem- ber, who has nothing to do but to call continually for the snuff-box. When Sir Edward Bulwer wrote that play I often thought how curious it was that in a first-class club there should be only one snuff-box. The characters, as they got excited, kept taking the snuff-box off the table. The Old Member is reading the paper all Memories of Fifty Years. 185 the time. Presently he looks for the snuff-box, and it is gone. He calls out to the waiter: " Waiter, the snuff-box ! " and the servant goes to Blount, or whoever has taken it, and puts it back on the table. Hunt never was perfect in the words of anything he played ; but on this occasion he had before him, inside the news- paper, all the cues and his own part ; so he had nothing to do but read it, and he was determined to be right for once. When the scene is culmi- nating, in the midst of all the confusion and the roar that is caused by certain necessities of the play, the last thing that is heard is this Old Mem- ber shouting : "Waiter, the snuff-box!" There was a momentary pause, when Hunt hallooed out: "Waiter, the buff-snox!" Of course, the scene closed with more laughter than ever before. Another very curious thing of that sort oc- curred to me when I was playing Charles Sur- face at Wallack's Theatre. An actor named H. B. Phillips was Crabtree, and in the scene in which Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite come on with the mass of scandal and stuff and a lot of information with regard to what has pre- 1 86 Memories of Fifty Years. viously occurred in the four acts, they proceed to say, " Have you heard the news?" and so on. They are describing this thing, and, of course, telling all sorts of stories that are not a bit true ; and Sir Benjamin Backbite, who is the first to enter, has to say, "Then Charles and Sir Peter began to fight with swords," and Crabtree rushes on, " Pistols, nephew ; pistols, nephew," all of which is, of course, false. Sir Benjamin says: "Oh, no, no, no, no; then Sir Peter was wounded. I know it was swords, because he was wounded with a thrust in the seconded "No, no, no, no," the other says; "a bullet in the thorax, a bullet in the thorax," and he was so anxious that he said, "No, no, no, no; a thul- let in the borax ! " Very curious to say, the audience hardly noticed this then, and would not have noticed it at all but for John Brougham, who never spared anybody (he was playing Sir Oliver Surface), and who said directly : " What the devil is his borax ? " I told this to an actor named John Sloane, who, by the bye, was the original Cassidy in "Jessie Brown," and who played Irishman as Memories of Fifty Years. 187 well as other things. John laughed very much at this. Well, when I went to fulfil the first star engagement I ever played, it was at Charles- ton, South Carolina, long before the war, of course,- I was Sir Charles Surface, and Sloane, who was playing Crabtree, actually thought this was a magnificent thing to do, and when he came on he said, " A thullet in his borax." He had told the story to a lot of people in Charleston, and they thought it a capital joke. He evidently considered it a legitimate " gag," if any gag can be considered legitimate. During my long career I have naturally been brought into con- / tact With Some Of the most in- SAMUEL LOVER. teresting men of my own profession and of the world at large. I saw a great deal, for instance, of Samuel Lover when he was in America in 1848. He was advertised to appear at the Broadway Theatre, and when he attempted to play in his own piece, "The White Horse of the Peppers," he was certainly the most frightfully 1 88 Memories of Fifty Years. nervous man I ever saw in my life. There was a great house because of the natural curiosity to see the poet in his own play. He was a very intimate friend of my father's. I stood in the wings when he came down as Gerald Pepper. The costume was the military dress of a cavalier of the time of James II., the scene of the play being the Revolution, William III. coming over and turning James II. out of the country, and Gerald Pepper was one of the Irish who re- mained faithful to the Stuart king. His feathers on this occasion were stuck in the back of his hat, his sword-belt was over the wrong shoulder, one of his boots was pulled up over his knee and the other was down over his foot. He looked as if somebody had pitchforked his clothes on to him, and he was trembling like a leaf. I in- duced him to put a little more color in his face, took his hat oft" and adjusted the feathers prop- erly, put his sword on as it ought to go, fixed his boots right, and literally pushed him on to the stage. Of course there is no harm now in saying that it was one of the worst amateur performances I ever saw in my life, and I don't TYRONE POWER. Memories of Fifty Years. 191 think Lover ever acted after that uncomfortable night. Maurice Power, a son of Tyrone Power, played an engagement in New York at about the same time. Tyrone Power was perhaps the greatest delineator of Irish character of the middle and peasant class that has ever been seen. His melancholy death in the lost steamer " Presi- dent" will be well remembered by all who take an interest in theatrical affairs. A son of the Duke of Richmond, who had delayed his return to England for the sake of accompanying Power in the same vessel, was also lost, and I can well remember the many applications to my father, who it was well known had made the voyage to America and back so very often, for his opinion upon their chances of escape. It was his pain- ful duty at last to convey to Mrs. Power the melancholy news that all hope was lost. It was the more touching perhaps from the fact that when he entered the house on his sad mission he was confronted by all the little gifts that the chil- dren had prepared as surprises for their father when he should arrive. 192 Memories of Fifty Years. The sympathy and good feeling that was shown afterwards in England was as general as it was unusual ; and the thoughtful kindness of Lord Melbourne, who was then Prime Minister, was exhibited in a very marked manner. Almost his last act before he resigned the premiership was the gift to Power's eldest son, William Tyrone Power, of a commission in the Army Commissariat Department. I remember very well the glee with which young William Power came to announce to our family the gratifying news. He was well versed in languages, speak- ing German, Italian and French ; the conse- quence was that his promotion was unusually rapid. He served all through the Crimean war, and became finally Sir William Tyrone Power, and absolute chief of the English Commissariat Department. It is not often that patronage is so wisely and successfully bestowed. A very different man from Power was Mr. Goffe, "the man-monkey," a capital performer in his own way, although naturally very low in the professional scale. Frederick Conway, who always stood upon his dignity as the representa- Memories of Fifty Years. 193 tive of high and noble parts, toged Romans and the like, was getting on famously in this country when he chanced to meet one night in a theat- rical bar-room Goffe, with whom in his more humble days and in the old country he had had intimate social and professional relations, play- ing with him in some of the smaller provincial towns, and upon pretty even terms. Goffe was delighted to meet his old companion, and ad- dressed him thus : " Well, now, is it ? yes, it is Convay ! Why, Con- vay, old man, how are ye?" " I beg your pardon, sir, I do not recognize you," said Conway. " Oh, come, I say now, none of that, that won't do, let 's take a glass together," said Goffe. There were some very swell members of the profession around them, and Conway felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but he replied : " I will certainly imbibe with you, sir; I have no objection." "I heard you were in America, but I did n't think I 'd meet ye. Well, now we are together here, Mr. Convay, F. B. CONWAY. 194 Memories of Fifty Years. can't we x make something hup? " " I do not understand, sir," said Convvay. " I have, at your request, just taken something down, and I think that is all that is necessary between us." "No, you don't see what I mean," persisted Goffe ; " there 's money for both of us. Suppose we 'ave a benefit together. You do a Roman part. I '11 do my scene as the hape between the hacts, and we '11 draw a lot of money." At last Conway lost all patience, and retorted : "Sir, I have endured the ups and downs of life in my time, I have met with various indignities, I have been appreciated and slighted, I can stand a great deal, but Cato and a ring-tailed monkey never!" When I was in Edinburgh Hackett came there to star, but the people did not quite understand his style of humor. He was very celebrated as Nimrod Wildfire in a piece called " The Ken- tuckian," and I remember acting with him in English " dude" parts, of which I was then very fond. Hackett's great character was Falstaff, or at least he thought it was. He used to bully the underlings at the theatre, although not in- Memories of Fifty Years. 195 tentionally, for he was too good-hearted to do anything that was cruel or mean ; but his ideas of discipline were autocratic, and he was exceed- ingly unpopular there, and elsewhere, among the lower members of the companies. He was play- ing Falstaff in " Henry IV.," I remember ; Wyndham, afterwards a celebrated actor (not the Wyndham of the present day), played The Prince of Wales ; Edward Glover, a son of old Mrs. Glover, played Hotspur, and Davidge, I think, Bardolph. On this particular occasion, in one of his great scenes, Hackett found that his stomach began to collapse. He wore, as all the Falstaffs do, of course, an immense paunch, which in Hackett's case was made of a wind-bag. It was found that a stuffed " stomach " in hot weather was a terrific burden to an actor, and at last some cos- turner invented one which fitted the dress to perfection, but was filled with air. The wearer blew it up, screwed on the top, and then it was all right. One of Hackett's enemies this even- ing had pricked a hole in his false abdomen, not large enough to make it collapse all at once, but 196 Memories of Fifty Years. by degrees, and Hackett found at the end of one scene that he was not quite as stout as he was before, and said to his dressing-man: "This is not all right ; I feel a looseness ; see if this screw is not unfastened." Everything was apparently in order and he went on again. He continued to decrease in size till at last there came a rush of wind and the stomach disappeared altogether, the actor finishing the scene as best he could and the audience convulsed with laughter. Pat Hearn was at one time a very celebrated character in New York. He was a brother to Judge Hearn and was known to everybody. There was not a car-driver, nor a hack-driver, nor an omnibus-driver, nor any pedestrian that frequented Broadway who was not familiar with the face and figure of Pat Hearn. He was cele- brated not only on account of keeping the swell gambling house of New York, but he was also known from his peculiarity of costume. Hat on one side, necktie of satin, scarf-pin of the most flaming description, gloves of the brightest lemon- colored kid, and all that sort of thing. We were going to produce a piece which was written by a Memories of Fifty Years. 197 son of Bishop Wainwright, Wadsworth Wain- wright, which was, I presume, the first positive society play that was ever brought out in New York, unless it might be Mrs. Mowatt's play of " Fashion." This, however, was a decided fail- ure. I played in it and my father directed the rehearsals. There was one scene in which I had to point out, to a country friend who came to visit New York, the various celebrities who passed. Here is so and so, etc. And now and then there was a little ripple of laughter as some one was recognized. Of course, I did not mention names. Presently I had to say, " Now, here is one with whom, perhaps, you may make acquaintance, although I would not advise you to be too closely intimate, because your pockets may suf- fer," and on came Sloane so perfectly dressed in imitation of Hearn, who was himself in the stalls, that the audience, one and all, recognized it di- rectly, and I do not remember in all my experi- ence ever hearing laughter continue such a great length of time as it did on that occasion. Sloane, being an Irishman himself, could imitate Hearn's 198 Memories of Fifty Years. brogue, and he entered with that peculiar swag- ger which was so well known to all New Yorkers. Pat Hearn laughed as much as anybody, although he was indignant, not because he was represented on the stage, for he rather enjoyed the notoriety, but, as in the case of all men who are caricatured, because he thought Sloane was not a bit like him. He met John Brougham some days after, and John said: "Well, Pat, what did you think of that imitation Sloane gave?" "It wuz all very well and very legitimate, so far as it wint, but pfy the divil could n't he dress a little bit loike me ? Who the divil iver saw me in such a get-up ? The waistcoat he wore ! If he wants a waistcoat I '11 buy him wan and sind him wan he can wear. I niver would father such a waistcoat as thot ! " "Then," said Brougham, "you refuse to recognize its Pat-Hernity ? " The Duke of Beaufort, who was the nephew of the Duke of Wellington, used to talk very freely to my father and to me. Of course everybody wanted to hear all that could be told about Wel- lington, what he did, and what he said. For instance, in speaking of " Up, Guards, and at Memories of Fifty Years. 199 them," my father, turning to Beaufort, said : "Now, did your uncle say that " The Duke of Beaufort interrupted him : " My dear Wallack, when 'you want to mention my uncle say ' The Duke ' ; there is only one duke with us, ' The Duke ! ' I have heard the question asked, and ' The Duke's ' reply : ' It is possible I might have said it, but I do not recollect it.' What he did do was to close up his glass and order the whole line to advance." Theodore Hook used to tell a very good anecdote of the Duke, who was rather fond of Hook, and who was showing him over Apsley House once, when he said : " Hook, I want you to come and look at this little bit of my camp life I still have about me," and he pointed out a little iron bed, in which, although he was then past seventy, he always slept; when Hook said : " I cannot con- ceive how you can sleep on that ; there is not room in it to turn round." " Of course not, sir ; why should I turn ? When a man turns round, it is time to turn out." He had the power of going to sleep at the most trying moments, the Duke of Beaufort used 2OO Memories of Fifty Years. to say, and with the utmost calmness and ease, and this is an anecdote he told my father : On one oc- casion they slept in a church in which there was nothing but a long table and some wooden chairs. The staff thought it necessary that he should lie down, and they put a saddle, with a blanket over it, on the table for his head, and then they put church candles all around it to keep the in- sects away. He threw himself on the table, folded his arms, and said : " Boys, take what rest you can ; I am going to sleep," and was off in two minutes. About six o'clock, soon after day- break, some of his staff awoke and stretched themselves, and were about to call him, but he was away to the front, and had been gone an hour. The Duke of Wellington was exactly my father's height, five feet eight and a half inches in his stockings. He kept his figure till the last; he never got fat. In their youth Bonaparte and he were both beautifully formed men, but Bonaparte afterwards became very stout. They were born the same year. He had a great com- pliment paid to him at his funeral. There was a deputation from every regiment in the British Memories of Fifty Years. 201 army, two or three privates, a sergeant and a couple of officers, and from all the regiments of the, Continent of which he was Honorary Colonel ; because he had been Generalissimo of the armies of Russia, Prussia, Hanover, France, England and Sweden. I suppose he was the only man of whom so much can be said. His watchword was Duty, and to do his duty was his only ambition. When he was put in command of a very unim- portant garrison town in England, just after one of his great victories, he said to the friends who sympathized with him : " I consider it my duty to accept any position in which I can be of service to my country ! " Here is an anecdote showing the coolness with which people in those days took certain matters and phases of society. This was about the time that Vestris lived with the Duke of Beaufort. One day my father was at Beaufort's place, and they went to the billiard-room in the afternoon to play. There were little tripods all round against the wall of the room, and on each one was placed a little dish covered with violets. My father stood talking with the Duchess, and said to her casu- 2O2 Memories of Fifty Ye-ars. ally, "What a lovely perfume there is from these violets." The Duke interrupted: "My dear Wallack, do you know what it cost me for violets for a certain friend of ours one year? She would have them all over the house, and I paid seven hundred pounds for those flowers alone." My father flushed up and did not know what to say ; but the Duchess replied very coolly : " Oh, my dear Mr. Wallack, do not be dis- turbed ; the Duke must have his little amuse- ments." The visit of Sir Richard Sutton, in his yacht "The Galatea," to this country brought to my mind an anecdote of an ancestor of his, in which my father was, to a certain extent, concerned. I don't know whether the present Sir Richard Sutton is a son or grandson of the Sutton my father knew. That Sir Richard Sutton was, like his descendant, however, a great sportsman and a great master of hounds in his county. When my father was upset in a coach and broke his leg near New Brunswick, N. J., he was not able to go home to England for some time. But, at last, when he did reach London, he went to see Memories of Fifty Years. 203 Sir Astley Cooper, a celebrated surgeon of that day, who had the leg broken again, it had been so badly set. It was a compound fracture, and became almost a hopeless case when my father heard of a young surgeon named Amesbury, who had already achieved some success, though he was as yet but little known to fame. He fitted a very peculiar and ingenious instrument on my father which held the limb in a certain position, and which, as the bones re-formed, had to be screwed up by degrees every day. This treatment at last put the patient firmly on his legs again. It so happened, I do not know how many months later, that Sir Richard Sut- ton, in hunting, had a bad fall and broke his leg. Of course, as he was a man of enormous wealth, the best surgeons w r ere consulted, but they could not give him any hope of ever sitting in the sad- dle again. Some one who knew my father hap- pened to be stopping with Sir Richard at his country place, and he said : " Young James Wallack, of Drury Lane Theatre, the actor, once had a compound fracture of the limb, and, as far as I can tell, worse than yours ; he is all 2O4 Memories of Fifty Years. right again and pursuing his profession, and you could hardly perceive that he had ever had any- thing the matter with his leg at all." Sir Rich- ard said: ''For Heaven's sake, who did it?" His friend replied that he did not know, but would advise him to write to Mr. Wallack him- self about it. Sir Richard said : " I do not know Mr. Wallack." "That does n't matter. If you will write to him I am sure he will take an in- terest in the case." So Sir Richard wrote and asked the particulars of Amesbury's treatment, and my father replied that he could himself recommend Amesbury heartily; that the way he had cured him was marvellous, and that he was most grateful for his skill. Sir Richard Sutton sent for Amesbury, and what he had done for my father he did for him, so that in less than three months after he found Sir Richard Sutton in his bed he put him in the saddle again. Sir Richard wrote my father a letter of thanks, which was almost superfluous, because he had nothing to do with his own cure or Sir Richard's, except to recommend the surgeon. At all events Sir Richard sent my father a pair of pistols, which Memories of Fifty Years. 205 I still possess. They are made of silver and steel, and were found by an ancestor of Sir Richard's on the field after the battle of Culloden, in which the Duke of Cumberland defeated the Pretender. They are beautiful specimens of the gunmaker's work of that day, and evidently had belonged to a Highland chief of rank. To return to my father : When he broke his leg he was playing a part called Captain Bertram, a naval officer who has been wounded and is confined entirely to his bed and his chair ; and when he appeared again he began in this same part of Captain Bertram. After the end of this first piece, when his audience was satisfied that he would never walk well again, they expected he would play some drunken part, in which he would have to limp and stagger around ; but when they heard his voice and saw him rush on the stage, the same dashing-looking fellow he was before he was hurt, of course the effect was tremendous, for no one knew that he could walk at all. When Thackeray was here on his last visit I was presented to him, at the old theatre, at the 206 Memories of Fifty Years. corner of Broome Street and Broadway. I thought him, with his great height, his spec- tacles, which gave him a very pedantic appear- ance, and his chin always carried in the air, the most pompous, supercilious person I had ever met ; but I lived to alter that opinion, and in a very short time. He saw the play, " A Cure for the Heartache," in which Blake and I played Old Rapid and Young Rapid. When the piece was over Mr. Blake and I went into the green-room and were introduced to Thackeray by my father, who knew him intimately in London. I remem- ber his saying: " I have seen to-night an illustra- tion of what I have preached over and over again, the endeavor of the artists to remember that they are presenting, not only in personal appearance but in manner, the picture of what is past and gone, of another era, of another age almost, cer- tainly of another generation. I wish to tell this to you two who have presented these characters so admirably. I shall go back to London and say : ' I have seen acting.' ' Thackeray then lived with a very great and dear friend of mine and my father's, and they Memories of Fifty Years. 207 had rooms together in Houston Street. I had a house next door but one to them, and this is how I became so intimate with Thackeray. T-he name of this gentleman was William Duer Robinson, a member of an old and well-known family, a family whose property was confiscated in revolutionary times because they stuck to the king. Thack- eray, I suppose, took a fancy to me ; at any rate it was understood every night when I came home from acting that if I saw a light in a certain win- dow I was to go in, and if not it was a sign they had gone out to dinner or to bed. When I did find them in we never parted until half- past two or three in the morning. Then was the time to see Thackeray at his best, because then he was like a boy; he did not attempt to be the genius of the party ; he would let Robinson or me do the entertaining while he would be the audience. It did not matter how ridiculous or impossible might be the things I said, he would laugh till the tears ran down his face ; such an unsophisticated, gentle-hearted creature as he was. He gave a large dinner, at which, I remember, were my father, George William Curtis, Mr. Robinson, 208 Memories of Fifty Years. myself and others, eighteen in all. It was the most delightful evening that could possibly be imagined. Thackeray, two nights before, had been to see my father play Shy lock, and he said : " Wallack, that is the first Shy lock who ever gave me the idea of what an ill-used man he was." On that evening I remember my father telling a story, which many an old actor here will recol- lect. It was the tale of a shipwreck as told by a clergyman who was on board, and the same scenes as described afterwards by an old sailor, the captain of the maintop. Thackeray's gentle and generous nature was so aroused by it that the tears ran down his face. Certainly one of the finest things my father did was the telling of that story. George Curtis and I sang a duet, I remember, " Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," and we were asked to repeat it three or four times. This all took place about the year 1855. On one occasion there was to be a dinner party of four. Thackeray said it might probably be the last time he should meet us convivially during this visit, so we agreed to dine together Memories of Fifty Years. 209 with him in Robinson's rooms. The party was to consist of Mr. Robinson, Thackeray, my father and myself. The hour arrived, and I came with a message from my father, who was laid up with the gout, one of his bad attacks, and could not accept. After waiting a long time for Thackeray, at last there came a ring at the bell, and the waiter brought up a large parcel and a note from him to say that a letter he had received com- pelled him to pack up as quickly as possible and start for England by the first steamer, and he added : " By the time you receive this, dear William, I shall be almost out of the harbor. Let me wish you a pleasant evening with the Wai- lacks, and let me ask you to accept this little gift as a remembrance of the many, many pleas- ant days and nights we have passed together." The gift was a beautiful silver vase. I never saw Thackeray again, but our short and intimate as- sociation is one of the most delightful reminis- cences of my life. The first time I ever met Sir John Millais he was as beautiful a boy as I ever saw, with per- fect, delicate features, and golden hair hanging 2io Memories of Fifty Years. down his back. It was during a shower of rain which had driven everybody upon Lord's Cricket Ground into the tennis-court for shelter. This lad had picked up a lot of the balls which were on the ground, and began shying them at a mark, some of the bystanders pelting him in return, as he stood in the centre of the place, and I can re- member him, as if it were yesterday, receiving and repelling their friendly attacks until the tennis- court keeper, taking him by the arm, led him gently away. On this occasion we became ac- quainted, and through him I met his sister, who is now my wife. In the course of time I took him to see my father in Don Ccesar, with whom he became perfectly enraptured. He made sketches of my father in that and other parts, some of which are still among my cherished possessions. He was so little then that we used to have to put books on a chair to make a seat high enough for him to sit on while he drew. At this time he was drawing and sketching, and hoping to become a painter some day. Mrs. Millais, his mother, knew Sir Martin Shee, who was Presi- SKETCH OF J. W. WALLACK IN CHARACTER, ' BY MILLAIS. Memories of Fifty Years. 213 dent of the Royal Academy. She told him that this little boy of hers had a great gift in the line of drawing, and Sir Martin replied : " For God's sake, do not encourage it. Many children show this sort of proclivity, and the end of it all is failure. It is not once in a thousand times that success is achieved. Bring him up to any pro- fession but mine." She asked him at least to gratify a mother's natural pride by looking at some of her darling's sketches. When he saw them he exclaimed rapturously: "It is your duty, by all means, Mrs. Millais, to encourage this boy in every way. He is a marvel ! " The result was that he was sent to the finest schools of art, and when the prize for the best historical drawing in pencil was awarded at one of the Royal Academy Assemblies the name of " Mr. Millais " was called. As a child in frocks was presented, the Duke of Sussex, who was in the chair, said in amazement : " Is this ' Mister Mil- lais'? Put him on the table!" And standing there he received his prize. LIST OF CHARACTERS PLAYED BY MR. LESTER WALLACK ADVOCATE Felix Dubois " Harry Ringdove ALL FOR HER Hugh Trevor ALMA MATER Count Pave AMERICANS IN PARIS Arthur Morris ANGEL IN THE ATTIC Michael Magnus APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC Felix Rosemary ASMODEUS (LITTLE DEVIL) Don Rafael As You LIKE IT Orlando AT LAST John Garlan AWKWARD ARRIVAL Ormonde BACHELOR OF ARTS Harry Jasper BARBER BRAVO Girolamo 215 216 List of Characters. BARRICK ROOM Colonel Ferrier BELLE'S STRATAGEM Courtall " " Doricourt " " Flutter BIRTH Jack Randall BLEAK HOUSE The Debilitated Cousin BLUE AND CHERRY Lord Alfred Dorset BOARDING SCHOOI Lieutenant Varley BOLD DRAGOON Leon Sabertash BOLD STROKE FOR A HUSBAND Don Julio BOSOM FRIENDS Mr. Union BRIGAND Massaroni BROKER OF BOGOTA Antonio de Cabarero BUSY BODY Marplot " " Sir George Airey CAPRICE Sir Edward Mordaunt CAPTAIN BLAND Captain Bland CAPTAIN OF THE WATCH de Ligny CAUGHT IN A TRAP ...... Marquis D 1 Arblay CENTRAL PARK Wyndham Otis CHARLES THE SECOND Rochester CHILD OF THE STATE Gros Rene CHRISTMAS DINNER Savage Hunter CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE Brush CLARISSE Martial COLONEL IV. W. Woodd List of Characters. 217 COMPACT Juan Ravages CONNUBIAL BLISS ASSOCIATION Filigree COOL AS A CUCUMBER Horatio Plummer CRITIC Puff CURE FOR THE HEARTACHE Young Rapid DAVID COPPERFIELD Steerforth DAY AFTER THE WEDDING .... Colonel Freeloi'e DEAR COUSIN WALTER Walter Hazleton DECIDED CASE 'Captain Dudley Vere DELICATE GROUND Alphonse de Grandier " " Citizen Sangfroid DIPLOMACY Harry Beaiiclerc DON OESAR DE BAZAN .... Don Ccesar de Bazan DRAMATIST Floriville DUKE HUMPHREY'S DINNER . . . Richard Burdon DUMB BELLE Vivian EDUCATION Vincent ELDER BROTHER Eustace ELOPEMENTS IN HIGH LIFE Hugh Travers ENGLISHMAN IN INDIA Tom Tape ERNESTINE Frederick ETON BOY Captain Popham EVERY BODY'S FRIEND Felix Feathcrly " " Twistleton EVERY ONE HAS His FAULT . . Sir Robert Bramble FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADY . Ruy Gomez 218 List of Characters. FASHION Colonel Howard " Jolimaitre FAST MEN OF THE OLDEN TIME .... Rochester FIRST IMPRESSIONS Peveril FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD . Valentine Honey ball FOLLIES OF A NIGHT Duke de Chartres " " Pierre Palliot FOUR MOUSQUETAIRES d'Artagnaii Fox CHASE Tom Waddy FRANKENSTEIN Frankenstein GAME OF LIFE Rupert Wolfe GAME OF LOVE Paul Weldon GAMESTER Lewson GIRALDA King Philip GOING TO THE BAD Hardingham GOOD FELLOW Umbraton HAMLET Horatio " Laertes Osric HEADS OR TAILS Dyecaster HEARTS ARE TRUMPS Count Wagstaff HEARTS AT FAULT Captain Hawk HEIR AT LAW Dick Dowlas HENRIETTE Emit Lefcvre HENRY THE FOURTH Prince of Wales His LAST LEGS . . List of Characters. 219 HOME Colonel White HONEY MOON Duke Aranza " " Rolando HOPELESS PASSION Jacques Pamela How SHE LOVES HIM Tom Vacil How TO GROW RICH Pave HUNCHBACK Modus HUSBAND TO ORDER Pierre Marceau IMPULSE Colonel Crichton INCONSTANT Duretete INVISIBLE HUSBAND Don Philip IRISH HEIRESS (WEST END) Percy Ardent IRON CHEST Orson Wilford J. J's . . . Mr. John J JACOBITE Major Murray JEALOUS WIFE Mr. Oakley JESSIE BROWN Randall McGregor JOHN BULL Hon. Tom Shuffleton JOHN GARTH John Garth KING JOHN Faulconbridge KING LEAR Edgar Oswald KING OF THE COMMONS Mungo Small KING OF THE MOUNTAINS Walter Harris KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE . . Captain Cozzens 220 List of Characters. KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE .... Tom Tittler KNOW YOUR OWN MIND Millamour LADIES' MAN Daffodill Twad LADY IN DIFFICULTIES Count Natzman LADY OF LYONS Claude Melnotte LADY OF ST. TROPEZ George Maurice LANCERS Victor de Courcy LAUGH WHEN You CAN Gossamer LEADING STRINGS Frank Leveson LEAP YEAR Walker LIAR Young Wilding LIKE AND UNLIKE Ernest Bridoux LITTLE DEVIL (ASMODEUS) Don Rafael LITTLE TREASURE Walter Maydenblush LONDON ASSURANCE Charles Courtley " " Dazzle LOVE AND MONEY Lord Fipley LOVE CHASE Wildrake LOVE FOR LOVE Valentine LOVE IN A MAZE Colonel Buckthorne " " Lord Miniver LOVE KNOT Bernard LOVE'S SACRIFICE St. Lo LUCKY HIT Chevalier Vibrac MACBETH Macduff MAGIC MARRIAGE . . . Monte Cellini List of Characters. 221 MAIDEN WIFE Ernest Devereux MAN AND WIFE Charles Austencourt MANIFEST DESTINY Jack Mutable MAN OF HONOR Jacques de Sanlieu MARRIAGE A LOTTERY Waverley MARRIED AN ACTRESS Frederick Plume MARRIED BACHELOR Sir Charles Courtall MARRIED IN HASTE Gibson Greene MARRIED LIFE Lionel Lynx " " Mr. Younghusband MARRIED RAKE Flightly MEN OF THE DAY Frank Hawthorne MERCHANT OF VENICE Bassanio " " " Gratiano MIMI King Charles II. MODEL HYPOCRITE La Touche MONEY Alfred Evelyn " Sir Frederick Blotint MONTE-CRISTO Edmund Dantes MORNING CALL Sir Edward Ardent MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Benedick " " " " .... Don Pedro MY AUNT Dick Dashall MY AWFUL DAD Adonis Evergreen MY COUSIN GERMAN Albert Ehrenstein MY FRIEND IN THE STRAPS O'Blarney 222 List of Characters. MY LITTLE ADOPTED Frederick Somers MY MASTER'S RIVAL Peter Shack MY NOBLE SON-IN-LAW . . . Lord Herbert de Vere NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS . . Lieutenant Kingston, R. N. NERVOUS MAN McShane NEW PARK John Brown NEW PRESIDENT De la Rampe NIGHT AND MORNING Philip Morton NOTHING VENTURE NOTHING WIN . . . De Launay NOT So BAD AS WE SEEM Lord Wiltnot OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN Horace OLD HEADS AND YOUNG HEADS . . . Littleton Coke OLD LOVE AND THE NEW Courttown OTHELLO Cassia OURS Hugh Chalcote OVERLAND ROUTE Tom Dexter PATRICIAN AND PARVENU Dick Moonshine PAULINE Horace de Beuzeval PAUL PRY Harry Stanley PERFECTION Charles Paragon PLAYING WITH FIRE Dr. Savage POOR GENTLEMAN Frederick Bramble POOR OF NEW YORK. . Badger PRIMA DONNA Rouble PRISON AND PALACE Alexis Romanoff PROMOTION Colonel Delagarde List of Characters. 223 ( Frank Rochford PURE GOLD \ Lancia QUEEN'S HUSBAND Don Manuel RECRUITING OFFICER Captain Brazen REGULAR Fix Hugh de Brass RENT DAY Toby Heywood RICHARD THE THIRD Richmond " " " Tressel RICHELIEU De Berrenghen RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF WOMEN. Sir Brian de Beausex RIGHTS OF MAN Arthur Elsmere RIVALS Captain Absolute ROAD TO RUIN Harry Dornton ROBERT MACAIRE Robert Macaire ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER Alfred Highflyer ROMANCE AND REALITY Frank Meredith ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN .... Manuel ROMEO AND JULIET Mercutio ROSEDALE Elliot Grey ROYALIST Henri de Flavigneul RULE A WIFE AND HAVE A WIFE Leon " " " " . . Michael Perez RULING PASSION Tom Dexter RURAL FELICITY Singleton Unit SAVILLE OF HAYSTED Ned Thirretl SCAN. MAG Edward Singleton 224 List of Characters. SCHOOL Jack Poynlz SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL ....... Charles Surface " " " .... Sir Benjamin Backbite SCHOOL OF REFORM Ferment SCRAP OF PAPER Prosper Couramont SECRETS WORTH KNOWING Rostrum SERIOUS FAMILY Charles Torrens " " Murphy Maguire SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER Young Marlow SHE WOULD AND SHE WOULD NOT . . Don Octavio SHE WOULD BE A SOLDIER . . . Captain Pendragon SHORT REIGN AND A MERRY ONE . Chevalier Romayne SIMPSON AND Co Mr. Bromley SISTERS Ernest Bridveux SKETCHES IN INDIA Tom Tape SOLDIER'S COURTSHIP Colonel Gayton SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER Frank Heartall SPEED THE PLOUGH Bob Handy SPELL BOUND Raoul de Beaupirre SPRING AND AUTUMN Rattle STATE PRISONER Lord Henry Harvey STRANGER The Stranger TEACHER TAUGHT Henry Aubrey TEMPER Hugh Emerson THREE GUARDSMEN d'Artagnan TIME WORKS WONDERS . Felix Goldthumb List of Characters. 225 TIT FOR TAT Fred. Tlwrnbiiry To MARRY OR NOT To MARRY. Sir Oswin Mortland TORTESA Angela TOWN AND COUNTRY Plastic " Reuben Glenroy TRUMPETER'S DAUGHTER Philipot TRYING IT ON Walsingham Potts TWELFTH NIGHT Agnecheek " " Orsino TWELVE LABORS OF HERCULES .... De Marillac Chester Delafield TWINS | I Mark Delafield Two BONNYCASTLES John James Johnson Two CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME . . . Howard Leslie Two TO ONE De Rameau USED UP Sir Charles Coldstream VALERIE Walter Trevillian VALET DE SHAM Trivett VENUS IN ARMS Dashall VETERAN Leon Delmar VICAR OF WAKEFIELD Mr. Burchell VICTORINE Alexandre VIRGINIUS Icilius WANTED A WIDOW Harry Revel WARWICK Edward IV. WAY TO GET MARRIED Tangent 226 List of Characters. WEKDS AMONG FLOWERS Crawley Webb WERNER Ulric WEST END (IRISH HEIRESS) Percy Ardent WHEAT AND CHAFF Arthur Beaufort WHEEL OF FORTUNE Sydenham WHO Do You TAKE ME FOR? . . Terence O'Reilly WHO SPEAKS FIRST Captain Charles WHO WANTS A GUINEA . . . Sir Larry McMurragh WIFE ,. Julian St. Pierre " Leonardo WILD OATS Rover WILL Howard WIVES AS THEY WERE Bronzely WONDER Colonel Briton " Don Felix WOODCOCK'S LITTLE GAME Woodcock WRECK ASHORE Captain Grampus YOUNG QUAKER Young Sadboy INDEX. A Becket, Gilbert, 172. Abingdon, A. J. A.? 40. Alfree, Mr., 34. Amesbury, Dr., 204. Anderson, James, 137. Andrews, George, 137. Astley, Phillip, i. Bancker, Mrs., 2. Bannister, John, 8. Barnay, Ludwig, 73-75. Barrett, George H., 133, 137. Barrett, Lawrence, 27. Barry, Richard, 51-52. Beaufort, Duchess of, 201-202. Beaufort, Duke of, 198-202. Beazley, S., 107. Beckett, Harry, 23, 73. Bellew, Kyrle, 174. Bianconi, 44-47. Black, Mrs., 134. Blake, William R., 137-144, 147, 151, 160, 161, 173, 206. Bland, Humphrey, 156. Bonaparte, Napoleon, 200. Boothby, Lady. See Mrs. Nis- bett. Booth, Edwin, 27. Booth, Junius Brutus, 8. Boucicault, Dion, 63, 79, 156, 174, 176, 177. Boucicault, Mrs., 156, 170. Brindal, Mr., 170. Brooke, G. V., 57-61. Brougham, John, 13, 58, 106, 144- 145, 147-150, 151, 162, 177, 186, 198. Brown, Dr. John, 4. Buckstone, J. B., 79, 165. Bulwer-Lytton, 57, 116, 122-124, 175, 184. Bunn, Alfred, 96. Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 96-97. Burton, William E., 13, 100-103, 108, 120, 145, 154-157. Byron, Henry J., 122. Calcraft, J. W. (J. W. Cole), 52-54, 183. Cerito, 107. Chanfrau, Frank S., 105. Gibber, Colley, 8r. Clarke, Corson W., 117. Cleveland, Duke of, 42. Coghlan, Rose, 28, Cole, J. W. (J. W. Calcraft), 96. 227 228 Index. Colman, George (Younger), 33. Conner, Edmon S., 36. Comvay, Frederick B., 192-194. Conway, Mrs. F. B., 153. Cooke, George Frederick, 8. Cooper, Sir Astley, 203. Couldock, C. W.^ 161. Coutts, Harriet. See Miss Mel- lon. Cumberland, Duke of, 205. Curtis, George William, 208-209. Cushman, Charlotte, 75-77. Cushman, Susan, 75-76. Davenport, A. H., 63, 64. Davenport, Edwin L., 23. Davenport, Lizzie Weston. See Mrs. Charles J. Mathews. Davidge, William, 195. Davis, Bancroft, 159-160. De Begnis, Guiseppe, 108-115. Dickens, Charles, 172. Don, Sir Alexander N., 41. Don, Sir William, 41-48. Dowton, W., loo. Drew, Mrs. John, 184. Dumas, Alex. (Elder), 13, 137. Dunn, James, 13. Dyott, John, 141, 156. Edwards, Henry, VI, 23, 28, 60. Elizabeth, Queen, 82. Elliston, William, 7, 8, 82-89. Elssler, Fanny, 107. Eytinge, Rose, 23. Farren, William, 77, 79, 174-175, 178-180. Faucit, Helen (Lady Martin), 56-57- 58, 127, 129. Faucit, Mrs., 57. Fawcett, John, 8, 39. Field, Allan (Lester Wallack), 36. Field, Elizabeth. See Mrs. Will- iam Wallack. Fisher, Charles, 23, 155-156. Florence, William J , 28. Floyd, William R., 24, 69. Forrest, Edwin, 12, 60-61, 129, I3L 137- Fredericks, W. S., 131-132, 138. Gannon, Mary, 18, 24, 150. Garrick, David, i, 80. George IV., 82, 83. Germon, Effie, 18. Gilbert, John, VI, 13, 23, 27, 69, 173. 183. Glover, Edward, 195. Glover, Mrs., 179-180, 195. Goffe, Mr., 192-194. Granger, Dr., 2. Granger, Mrs. See Mrs. William Wallack. Grisi, Carlotta, 107-108. Hackett, James H., 194-196. Hadaway, Thomas, 138. Hamblin, Thomas, 115-121. Hamblin, Mrs. Thomas (Miss Medina), 116-120. Hamblin, Mrs. Thomas (Mrs. Shaw), 120, 121. Hamblin, Thomas, Jr., 120, 121. Harland, Julia. See Julia Wal- lack. Hearn, Judge, 196. Hearn, Pat, 196-198. Henriques, Madeline, 18, 155. Index. 229 Hill, Mrs. See Mary Wallack. Hind, Thomas J., 141-143. Horlson, Georgiana, 147-150, 151. Hoey, John, 153. Hoey, Mrs. John (Mrs. Russell), 18, 24, 144, 153-155- Holland, George, 18, 23, 156. Home, John, 33, 92. Hook, Theodore, 172, 199. Horncastle, W., 105, 106. Horton, Priscilla (Mrs. German Reed), 78. Hoskin, W., 4 . Hoskin, Mrs. W. See Julia Wal- lack. Hudson, Mr. ("Irish Hudson"), 79, 1 80. Hunt, Henry, 184-185. Incledon, B. C., 8. Ireland, Joseph Norton, VI, 2-3- James II., 188. Jefferson, Joseph, 28, 159-165. Jerrold, Douglas, 97-98. Johnstone, John, 8. Johnstone, Susan. See Mrs. J. W. Wallack. Johnston, Thos., 144. Jones, Mrs. (Miss Granger), 2. Jones, Richard, 39. Jordan, Dora, 2, 8. Jordan, George, 144. Kean, Charles, 91-98. Kean , Mrs. Charles ( Ellen Tree) , 96-97. Kean, Edmund, 8, 59, 83, 92, 95, 97, zoo, 127. Kean, Mrs. Edmund, 92, 95. Keene, Laura, 18, 151-153, 159- 162. Kellogg, Gertrude, 28. Kelly, Robert, 176. Kemble, Charles, 7, 39. Kemble, John Phillip, 8. Knowles, James Sheridan, 154. Lamb, Charles, 172. Langdon, Mrs., 129. Leffler, Mr., 50-51. Lester, J. Wallack. See Lester Wallack. Levick, Milnes, 28. Listen, John, 8. Lover, Samuel, 187-191. Lutz, Mr., 151. Lyster, Frederick, 148-149. Lytton-Bulwer, 57, 116, 122-124, 175, 184. Macready, William C., 8, 57, 83- 84, 97, 122-132, 166. Majoribanks, Mr., 42. Mann, Alvah, 134, 138, Marks, Mr., 130-131. Martin, Lady. Sec Helen Faucit. Martin, M., 89-91. Mathews, Charles, 8. Mathews, Charles James, 23, 61- 74, 77-79- l6 5. I7 2 - I 73. I 77- Mathews, Mrs. C. J. (Madame Vestris), 62, 78, 201-202. Mathews, Mrs. C. J. (Lizzie Wes- ton Mrs. A. H. Davenport), 63-65, 72. Mayo, Frank, 27. Medina, Miss (Mrs. Thomas Hamblin) 116-120. 230 Index. Melbourne, Lord, 192. Mellon, Harriet (Duchess of St. Albans), 8, 95-96. Mestayer, Emily, 23. Meyers, Mr., 151-152. Millais, Mrs., 210-213. Millais, Sir John E., 210-213. Missouri, Louisa, 116-120. Mitchell, William, 103-106. Modjeska, Helen, 28. Montague, Henry J., 23, 174. Moorhouse, Mrs. Charles. See Fanny Wallack. Mordaunt, Plessy, 69. Moreau, Charles C., VI. Morrison, Mr., 49-50. Moss, Theodore, 18. Mowatt, Anna Cora, 12, 197. Murdoch, James E., 12. Napoleon Bonaparte, 200. Nisbett, Mrs. (Lady Boothby), 176, 1 80. Payne, John Howard, 39. Peters, Charles, 161. Phillips, H. B., 185-186. Pincott, Mrs. See Elizabeth Wallack. Placide, Henry, 18, 156-159. Placide, Thomas, 141, 159. Plimpton, Eben, 27. Polk, Joseph B., 23. Pollock, Sir Frederick, 126. Ponisi, Mme., 27. Poole, Mr., 174. Power, Maurice, 191. Power, Tyrone, 191. Power, Mrs. Tyrone, 191. Power, William Tyrone, 192. Price, Stephen, 91-92. Priichard, Mrs., 80. Purdy, Alexander H., 3. Reade, Charles, 156. Reed, Mrs. German (Priscilla Horton), 78. Reynolds, William J., 156. Richmond, Duke of, 191. Robertson, Agnes. See Mrs. Dion Boucicault. Robertson, Tom, 169-170. Robinson, Frederick, 23. Robinson, William Duer, 207, 209. Rogers, Major, 145-147. Rossini, 108. Roubillac, Leon Francois, 40. Russell, Mrs. See Mrs. Hoey. Salvini, T., 61. Scarlett, Sir James, 47-48. Seguin, Edward, in. Shakspere, 40, 56, 160, 169. Shaw, Mrs. See Mrs. Thomas Hamblin. Slice, Sir Martin, 210-213 Sheridan, Richard B., 151, 169, 183. Shirreff, Jane, in. Siddons, Sarah, 8. Simpson, Edmund, 7. Simpson, Mrs. Edmund, 2. Sloane, John, 76, 186-187, 197. Smith, Mark, 23. Sothern, Edward A., 18, 156, 160- 165- St. Albans, Duchess of. See Harriet Mellon. St. Albans, Duke of, 95. Stanfield, Clarkson, 107. Index. 231 Stanley, Mrs. See Mary Wai- lack. Stebbins, Henry G., 120. Stevens, Sara, 161. Stewart, Douglas. See E. A. Sothern. Stewart, Mr., 180. Stoddart, James H., 69, 156. Stuart, Charles Edward, 205. Stuart, James Edward Francis, 80. Stultz, Mr., 174. Sussex, Duke of, 213. Sutton, Sir Richard, 202-205. Taglioni, Marie, 107. Taylor, Douglas, 12. Taylor, Tom, 18, 159-160. Thackeray, William M., 172,205- 209. Thompson, Lysander, 155-156. Tree, Ellen. See Mrs. Charles Kean. Vanamburgh, Isaac, 89. Vandenhoff, Charlotte, 104. Vandenhoff, George, 137, 139- 141, 184. Vandenhoff, John, 104. Vernon, Mrs., 24, 144, 156. Vestris, Madame (Mrs. Charles Mathews), 62, 78, 201-202. Victoria, Queen, 53. Wainwright, Bishop, 197. Wainwright, Wadsworth, 197. Walcot, Charles (Elder), 147-150. Wallack, Charles E., VI. Wallack, Elizabeth, 2. Wallack, Fanny, 3-4, 138. Wallack, Henry, 2-3, 34, 39, 89- 91. Wallack, James W., 2, 4-11, 14, 18, 21, 33, 35-36, 70, 76, 77, 81- 82, 87-89, 91, 95, 98, loo, 103- 104, 105, 107-120, 122-123, I2 7> 129, 134, 145-147, 150-151, 154- 166, 197, 198-209, 210. Wallack, Mrs. James W. (Susan Johnstone), 8, 36-39. Wallack, James W., Jr., 3, 13, 23, 118, 137, 139-141. Wallack, John Johnstone. See Lester Wallack. Wallack, Julia, 3-4. Wallack, Lester. His descent, i-n. His birth, n. Sketch of his life, 11-31. His first professional appear- ance, 35. Hisprofessionalcareerin Great Britain, 35-41, 56-57, 75-79, His first appearance in Amer- ica, n, 134. His method of study, 166-171. His death, 28. Wallack, Mrs. Lester, VI -VII, II, 72-73, 167-168, I7O-I7I, 210. Wallack, Mary, 2. Wallack, William, 1-2. Wallack, Mrs. William, 1-2. Washington, George, 143. Webster, Benjamin, 77-78, 124, 133- Wellington, Duke of, 198-201. Weston, Lizzie. See Mrs. C. J. Mathews. Wewitzer, Ralph, 81-82. Wheelock, Joseph, 27. 232 Index. Wigan, Alfred. 177. Winter, Wilfiam, VI. Wigan, Mrs. Alfred, 2. Wood, Mrs. John, 18. Wilkie, Sir David, 98. Wrench, Mr., 123. William III., 188. Wyndham, Charles, 195. Willis, Nathaniel P., 35. Wyndham, Mr., 195. Wilson, John, in. Wilton, J. H., 43. Young, Charles, 8. THE DE VINNE PRESS. OF r.AUFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. UCLA-College Library PN 2287 W15A1 L 005 769 208 9 College Library pw 2L-87 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY IIIIMIII HIM Illll III Mill | II II |l |M | l| III | ||| A 001 065 527 2