UC-NRLF 
 
 SB 113 IIS 
 
k *s 
 
 us*?. 
 
 / 
 
 • 1 1 & 
 
 y 
 
 - 
 
 -T^r^SHM*^ 
 
 V>- 
 
 M i& - ■< 
 
 ^v 
 
 
 u 
 
 >X 
 
 3& 
 
 It! 
 
m 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/edwardloomisdaveOOedgerich 
 
A 
 
 A*-CX^\ 
 
 <^W ***'*/ 
 
 y 
 
 *<3fac**+* /> 
 
 */ 
 
 /?/^ 
 
Cntoaru loomts 
 ©atienport 
 
 m 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EDWIN FRANCIS EDGETT 
 
 $ubUtation£ of €f>e SDunlap g&ocietp* j^etD £erie£ &o. 14* 
 $dDgorft, 1901. 
 
X 
 
This is one of an edition of two hundred and 
 sixty-five copies printed from type for the Dunlap 
 Society in the month of October, 1901. 
 
EDWARD LOOMIS DAVENPORT 
 
»»*« 
 

EDWARD LOOMIS 
 DAVENPORT 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EDWIN FRANCIS EDGETT 
 
 i »' • « 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 THE DUNLAP SOCIETY 
 
 1901 
 
Copyright by 
 
 Edwin Francis Edgett 
 
 1901 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE basis of this brief biography of Edward 
 Loomis Davenport is a manuscript that has 
 been in existence twenty years or more. It was 
 discovered among the papers of the late Fanny 
 Davenport, and had evidently been secured by her 
 from its writer with the intention of revision and 
 publication. When it came into the hands of the 
 editor of this volume, it was hoped that it could be 
 prepared for the press with but slight excision 
 and alteration. A careful examination, however, 
 showed that its matter and manner made it impos- 
 sible of publication in anything approaching the 
 original form. It was therefore used simply as a 
 storehouse of biographical material, and was drawn 
 upon only when absolutely necessary. Some of 
 the facts in this volume, a number of newspaper 
 extracts, and a few anecdotes are taken from the 
 manuscript; for the rest of his material, the pres- 
 ent editor has searched elsewhere. |His chief re- 
 gret is that he has discovered so little, and that as 
 a whole he has done scant justice to his distiry 
 guished subject. The result of his work is more 
 in the nature of a biographical sketch than of a 
 ix 
 
 M70839 
 
completed biography. But whatever its shortcom- 
 ings, it brings into collected form, for the first 
 time, the principal events in the career of an actor 
 whose work has too long remained unrecorded. 
 Some day an exhaustive critical account of his 
 life may be written upon the foundation of the fol- 
 lowing pages. \Eor the present this attempt at a 
 biography must sufficeA 
 
 Editorial Rooms of 
 
 Boston Evening Transcript, 
 
 September 21, 1901. 
 
^1 ib JbV 
 
EDWARD LOOMIS DAVENPORT 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
Ctitoarti iUomts Batoenpott 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 9 >»» J. • 
 
 CHAPTER !• •'••••> 
 
 THE life of an actor who for forty years held 
 an influential and a commanding position on 
 the American stage deserves enduring record. Yet 
 the renown of Edward Loomis Davenport at the 
 present moment, almost a generation after his 
 death, lives only in the memory of playgoers of his ^> 
 own time. The biographies of other American 
 actors, and the universal testimony of his contem- 
 poraries, show that he ranked among the great 
 figures of the American theatre. During his long 
 career upon the stage he acted both in America 
 and in England, he supported prominent actors, 
 he headed his own company, he was the manager 
 of several theatres, and he was a member of stock 
 companies under the management of others. He 
 was as well known in San Francisco as in Boston, 
 
% 2ftograpf>p of 
 
 which was his native city. Many actors are said 
 to be versatile, whereas their versatility merely 
 consists in their ability to act certain varying char- 
 acters without giving offense in any of them. Mr. 
 Davenport's versatility, however, was of different 
 kind from this. He was a tragedian, a comedian, 
 a farceur, a mimic, a possessor of almost every 
 talent which goes to the making of a dramatic 
 genius. He could act Othello, and William in 
 "Black-eyed Susan" not merely with equal ability 
 and equal/.y well. Many an actor has done that. 
 But he could act both those characters, and many 
 hundreds more, in a manner which showed that he 
 had a perfect command of dramatic effect as ex- 
 pressed by means of his own individuality. Mem- 
 bers of his own profession, as well as the general 
 public, vied with each other in their enthusiasm 
 over his acting. The wide range of his power, the 
 unlimited scope of his ambition to do all things, 
 the restless energy of a temperament which did 
 not allow him to concentrate his energies upon the 
 j really great characters in the English drama, th& 
 lack of foresight which led him to combine man-J •* 
 agement with acting, all resulted in diffusing not 
 merely his genius, but also his reputation. While 
 he lived his fame was secure, but only while he 
 lived. He could not realize that, with all his ver- 
 satility and genius, he was building up so evanes- 
 cent a reputation. The public of his time had its 
 moods, and, like every actor, he had his days of 
 
<£Dtoarb £oomi£ SDabmpott 5 
 
 sunny prosperity and cloudy adversity closely in- 
 termingled. Yet, during his forty years of public 
 life he was by many uninterruptedly admired and 
 honored, and that admiration and honor have con- 
 tinued till now. His name stands beside the names 
 of the Booths, of Forrest, of the Jeffersons, and of 
 Cushman in the minds of all who saw him. The 
 contemporary records of his time attest the quality 
 and the solidity of his reputation. It remains for 
 these pages to gather the scattered memorials of a 
 long, ambitious, and notable career, and to preserve 
 them in permanent form for the service of pos- 
 terity. 
 
 Among the innkeepers of Boston during the 
 early part of the nineteenth century was Asher 
 Davenport. For a short period he was interested 
 in a business way in one of the Boston play-houses, 
 but there was nothing either in his personal in- 
 clinations or in his business associations which 
 connected him in any serious fashion with the 
 theatre and its people. At his inn on Elm Street, 
 in exactly that portion now cut through by Wash- 
 ington Street, was born the son who, through him- 
 self and his children, was destined to make the 
 Davenport name famous in American theatrical an- 
 nals. He was christened Edward Loomis Daven- 
 port, and the date of his birth was November 15, 
 181 5. The record of his boyhood indicates no pre- 
 cocious talent for the stage, although while attend- 
 ing school in New Haven, whither the family had 
 
% 2&00taj>l)p of 
 
 temporarily removed, he won a portion of local and 
 school-boy fame as a declaimer and reader. In 
 after years, when Mr. Davenport had gained the 
 deserved honors of his profession, his master would 
 frequently recall to his mind the triumphant man- 
 ner in which he had many times recited "Alexan- 
 der's Feast" ; and whenever the starring tours ex- 
 tended to Hartford, old Mr. Lovell was sure of a 
 kindly invitation to witness his former pupil's 
 interpretations of Othello, Hamlet, Benedick, Sir 
 Giles Overreach, and a dozen other roles. Upon 
 returning to Boston, young Davenport resumed 
 attendance at the Mayhew School, and while still 
 a pupil there, at about the age of fourteen, he be- 
 came more or less conspicuous as the "leading 
 man" of a juvenile stock company which gave 
 performances in an improvised theatre situated on 
 Sudbury Street. Here he made the beginnings of 
 his successful career as an actor, performing many 
 favorite characters then prominent in the reper- 
 tories of aspiring amateurs. The youthful man- 
 agers of this play-house made no fixed charge for 
 admission, but a box placed at the door begged all 
 patrons to "remember the poor." Who the "poor" 
 were is not stated. Before he had reached his six- 
 teenth year his school-days were finished, his ef- 
 forts to obtain the coveted Franklin medal failing 
 solely because his penmanship was not up to the 
 Boston standard of grace and legibility. 
 His first attempt at a business career was made 
 
<£btoa?b ltoomt£ HPatontpott* 7 
 
 in a wholesale dry-goods house, and although the 
 work was not uncongenial in itself, he soon found 
 that his tastes led him far away from day-books 
 and ledgers. He was already looking longingly 
 toward the stage. A play-book was his constant 
 companion. With a pen in one hand and the most 
 popular play of the day in the other, he managed 
 to drag out an uncomfortable existence of two 
 years. To confide his ambitions to his parents 
 would have been useless. As time passed on, his 
 desire for the stage increased by leaps and bounds. 
 From the dry-goods trade he had turned to the 
 confectionery business, and from the exacting du- 
 ties of this work he managed to find a few hours 
 weekly in which to indulge his passion for acting. 
 With Edwin H. Chapin, later a celebrated Uni- 
 versalist clergyman, and John P. Addams, after- 
 ward a well-known actor, he became a member of 
 the Siddonian Dramatic Club. Of his efforts at 
 this period few records remain, but it is certain 
 that he was personally popular among his asso- 
 ciates for the generosity of his nature and the up- 
 rightness of his character. His judgment and 
 opinions were invariably called upon and had im- 
 portant weight in the decision of any mooted ques- 
 tion. After spending a short period in Lynn as 
 clerk of a hotel managed by an elder brother, he 
 returned to Boston and was employed by his father 
 at the Exchange Coffee House on Devonshire 
 Street. It was at this house that Edwin Forrest 
 
■y 
 % 2&iogra*>!)p of 
 
 was wont to make his headquarters when profes- 
 sional engagements called him to Boston. 
 
 But the young aspirant was still far from happy. 
 His determination to become an actor remained as 
 firm as ever, and the years added to his youth 
 merely added an incentive to his unfulfilled desires. 
 His father refused to listen to any projects which 
 would make the ambitious son an actor. At last 
 his coming of age found him firmly resolved to 
 wait no longer. Aided by the good offices of a 
 brother, he called upon George H. Barrett, at that 
 time a member of the stock company at the Tre- 
 mont Theatre, and through his influence was en- 
 gaged to play small parts in support of the elder 
 Booth, who was then acting at Providence. Noth- 
 ing could have given him greater satisfaction, and 
 it was with a glad heart that he left Boston and 
 prepared to take his first step in the profession 
 which had been the acme of his boyhood longings. 
 
 It was in 1836 that young Davenport began his 
 career as a professional actor. Under the assumed 
 name of "Mr. Dee," he appeared at the old Lion 
 Theatre, or Brick Circus, in Providence, as Parson 
 Willdo in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," to 
 the Sir Giles Overreach of Junius Brutus Booth. 
 In the cast with him were David Ingersoll as Well- 
 born and George F. Browne as Tapwell. His suc- 
 cess promised much for the future, but it is doubt- 
 ful if the young actor dared dream of the time 
 when he himself would become the Sir Giles Over- 
 
<£t»toarb fioomi£ SDatontport 9 
 
 reach of the American stage. Although Massin- 
 ger's play is now unknown except to the student 
 of the Elizabethan drama, its popularity as an 
 acting play lasted well into the third quarter of the 
 nineteenth century. Its leading character had been 
 acted by John Henderson, by John Philip Kemble, 
 by George Frederick Cooke, by Edmund Kean, as 
 well as by the elder Booth. William Hazlitt con- 
 sidered Kemble's Sir Giles Overreach a contempti- 
 ble piece of acting, saying that he must have been 
 thrust into the part against his will, but of Kean 
 he had quite another tale to tell. Kean first played 
 the part in January, 1816, and Hazlitt wrote im- 
 mediately thereafter in the "Examiner" : "We 
 cannot conceive of any one's doing Mr. Kean's 
 part of Sir Giles Overreach so well as himself. 
 We have seen others in the part, superior in the 
 look and costume, in hardened, clownish, rustic in- 
 sensibility ; but in the soul and spirit, no one equal 
 to him. He is a truly great actor. This is one of 
 his very best parts. He has not a single fault." * 
 Much the same was said in later days of Mr. Dav- 
 enport's acting as Sir Giles. But in his first ap- 
 pearance on the stage he had to content himself 
 with the few brief lines allotted to Parson Willdo 
 in the final act of the play. 
 
 A week later the young actor made a bold cast 
 of the die, and appeared at New Bedford in the 
 
 1 "Criticisms and Dramatic Essays of the English 
 Stage." By William Hazlitt. London, 1851. Page 235. 
 2 
 
io % 2&ograjrt>p of 
 
 character of Young Norval. To this performance 
 he brought all the energy of his youth and a de- 
 termination to win at all hazards. His popularity 
 was assured. His novitiate was over almost be- 
 fore it had begun. He next appeared at the Tre- 
 mont Theatre in Boston, and remained there an 
 entire season, playing general utility and some- 
 times more responsible parts. An engagement of 
 several seasons at the Walnut Street Theatre in 
 Philadelphia followed. To illustrate the thorough- 
 ness with which the young actor portrayed every 
 character assigned to him, and to show the esteem 
 in which he was held by visiting stars, the follow- 
 ing story is pertinent. Edwin Forrest on a pre- 
 vious occasion had played Richelieu, and Mr. Dav- 
 enport had been cast for Joseph. Venturing a de- 
 parture from the traditional methods of presenting 
 the character, he had represented the priest in 
 bare limbs. So much was Mr. Forrest pleased 
 with his subordinate's originality and with his act- 
 ing of the character that upon his return to the 
 Walnut Street Theatre he said to the manager: 
 "Cast Davenport for Joseph; fix the rest as you 
 like." 
 
 In Ireland's "Records of the New York Stage" 
 the 9th of August, 1843, i s given as the date of 
 Mr. Davenport's first appearance in that city. It 
 is probable, however, that he had appeared there 
 before, but the date thus set down may be taken 
 as the starting-point of his reputation in New 
 
<£btuarb Itoomis SDabcnport. « » 
 
 York. On this occasion he played Frederick Fits- 
 alien in "He 's not Amiss" at Niblo's Theatre; 
 on the 1 6th of August he is recorded as play- 
 ing Baudon in "Military Manoeuvres"; on the 
 19th, Archard in "Mile. D'Angerville" ; on the 
 23d, the Golden Farmer in the play of that name, 
 to John Sefton's Jemmy Twitcher. On the 27th 
 of the following December he made his debut 
 at the Bowery Theatre under the management 
 of Thomas S. Hamblin, and at once became one 
 of the most popular players at that house of popu- 
 lar favorites. On this particular evening John 
 Howard Payne's "Brutus" was given for the. bene- 
 fit of the manager. In it Mr. Davenport acted 
 the part of Titus, and he further added to the even? 
 ing's entertainment by singing a nautical song be- 
 tween the two pieces on the programme. The 
 next fall N. H. Bannister's "Putnam ; or, the Iron 
 Son of '76" was produced, and in it Mr. Davenport 
 had the Yankee part of Major Sapling. This play 
 had the long run in those days of seventy-eight 
 consecutive performances, and it was furthermore 
 revived repeatedly. In January Mr. Davenport 
 appeared in "Old Heads and Young Hearts" as 
 Littleton Coke, with John R. Scott as Jesse Rural 
 and J. B. Booth, Jr., as Tom Coke. For the 25th 
 of April, 1845, hi s benefit was advertised, and he 
 was to appear as Marchmont in "Robin Hood," 
 Hezekiah Pokeabout in "Everybody's Mess," and 
 as Ben the Boatswain. The theatre took fire that 
 
12 % 2&ograp!>p of 
 
 : 
 
 evening just before the doors were opened, and 
 was entirely destroyed. The company thereafter 
 played at the Bowery Amphitheatre, formerly the 
 Zoological Institute. It is said that on one occa- 
 sion he even sang Thaddeus in "The Bohemian 
 Girl," and that he acquitted himself creditably. 
 
 At Niblo's Garden, on July 14, 1845, Mr. Daven- 
 port appeared as Beauseant in "The Lady of Ly- 
 ons" in support of Mrs. Mowatt, the actress with 
 whom he was to assume a year later the position 
 f leading man. In this performance Claude Mel- 
 notte was acted by W.H.Crisp, and Colonel Damas 
 by William H. Chippendale. When the new Bow- 
 ery Theatre was opened, on August 4, 1845, Mr. 
 Davenport resumed his position as a leading actor 
 at that house, appearing as Sir Adelbert in "The 
 Sleeping Beauty" and Charles in "Charles II." 
 During the season he played a great many different 
 characters, and became more popular than ever. 
 "The Wizard of the Wave" was produced, with 
 Mr. Davenport as Tom Truck and John R. Scott 
 as Charles Falkner; "Ivanhoe" was revived, with 
 Mr. Davenport in the title role, F. S. Chanfrau as 
 Cedric, John R. Scott as Isaac of York, and Mrs. 
 Jones as Rebecca; and a new drama by T. W. Pitt- 
 man, entitled "The Last of the Thousand and One 
 Nights," was performed, with Davenport as the 
 Sultan Schariah and Chanfrau as Kerim. On the 
 9th of July, 1846, Mr. Davenport took his fare- 
 well benefit, playing Wildrake in "The Love Chase" 
 
to Mrs. Henry Hunt's Constance. In the summer 
 of 1846 he made his first appearance in Albany, 
 then an important theatrical centre, as Claude Mel- 
 notte to the Pauline of Mrs. Melinda Jones, the 
 wife of the renowned Count Joannes. The en- 
 gagement was a brief one, and of it H. P. Phelps 
 thus speaks in his "Players of a Century : A Rec- 
 ord of the Albany Stage" : 
 
 It speaks well for the dramatic taste of Albanians that 
 Mr. Davenport, from the very first, was a great favorite 
 with them. The American stage has had few, if any, 
 better general actors. Versatile to a remarkable de- 
 gree, refined, polished, and classical, yet capable of most 
 powerful acting, while he may have been excelled in 
 single characters, he was the peer of any when tragedy 
 and comedy are both considered. Few who saw it will 
 forget his personation of Brutus, or dissent from the 
 opinion that he was indeed the noblest Roman of them 
 all. It was the last character he played in Albany. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TEN years had passed since that momentous 
 first night at Providence. During these years 
 Mr. Davenport had had every advantage open to 
 the young actor of that day. He had been trained 
 in the best school of acting — the stock company; 
 he had become familiar with an extensive list of 
 popular characters ; he had played all sorts of parts, 
 from valets to the heroes of tragedy ; and through 
 practical experience he had gained a valuable know- 
 ledge of the many varied ins and outs of an ac- 
 tor's life. His reputation had increased steadily, 
 until he had become known both within and with- 
 out the dramatic profession as an actor of excep- 
 tional intellectual ability. Hence engagements 
 came to him without the asking. 
 
 In 1846 he was engaged as leading man in sup- 
 port of Anna Cora Mowatt, a talented and culti- 
 vated woman who, through an interest in the 
 drama and active participation in amateur theat- 
 ricals, had the year previously entered the pro- 
 fessional ranks. Her first season had brought her 
 an unusual amount of success for a beginner, but 
 she had been unfortunate in the selection of a lead- 
 14 
 
<£btoar& 3loomig SDatoenport *5 
 
 ing man, and at the opening of her second year she 
 sought other and more capable support. In her 
 "Autobiography" she says : 
 
 My engagements for the first year concluded at New 
 
 Orleans. Our contract with Mr. C , which then came 
 
 to an end, was not renewed. Edward L. Davenport of 
 Boston was strongly recommended to Mr. Mowatt by 
 old and leading members of the profession. His high) 
 moral character, his unassuming and gentleman-like man-! 
 ners, his wonderful versatility and indisputable talents, 
 caused him to be selected as the person who was to 
 travel with us during my second year on the stage. 
 Upon this selection, every succeeding month and year 
 gave us new cause for congratulation. The prominent 
 position he has since won upon the English stage, and 
 the honors he has received from fastidious English audi- 
 ences, are the just reward of intrinsic but most unosten- 
 tatious merit. The American public were doubly satis- 
 fied with the choice made of a professional associate, 
 because Mr. Davenport is a countryman. We commenced 
 our theatrical tour at Buffalo, and made the whole cir- 
 cuit of the United States. Another prosperous year 
 crowned our exertions. 1 
 
 Their season in New York began at the Park 
 Theatre, on September 28, 1846, with "Romeo and 
 Juliet," followed during the engagement by Fazio 
 to Mrs. Mowatt's Bianca, Benedick to her Beatrice, 
 St. Pierre to her Mariana, Charles Austencourt to 
 
 1 "Autobiography of an Actress; or, Eight Years on 
 the Stage." By Anna Cora Mowatt. Boston, 1854. Page 
 253. 
 
16 % 25iosra$)p of 
 
 her Helen Morrett, and Louis XV to her Marchion- 
 ess de Clermont. Mr. Davenport aided the star so 
 ably that he proved himself something more than 
 the average leading man. Many years after this 
 period Laurence Hutton wrote : "E. L. Davenport 
 played Romeo in 1846. Where is there to-day a 
 better or a more artistic Romeo than his ?" At the 
 outset of his association with her, Mrs. Mowatt 
 was scarcely more than a novice, and she found 
 Mr. Davenport's assistance of great value. Al- 
 though he by no means assumed the position of 
 instructor, his opinions and advice were gracefully 
 volunteered and graciously accepted. In spite of 
 her inexperience and her temerity in beginning at 
 the top of the profession, Mrs. Mowatt was a sur- 
 prisingly good actress. She was a very interest- 
 ing woman, and carried with her into her profes- 
 sion an atmosphere of refinement and exceptional 
 self-possession. 
 
 The tour included a large section of the South, 
 and at several places in which there were no thea- 
 tres Mrs. Mowatt gave readings and Mr. Daven- 
 port enlivened the entertainments with both senti- 
 mental and comic songs. On their way from 
 Vicksburg to Louisville by boat, they were accom- 
 panied by Henry Clay, and the efforts of the pas- 
 sengers were naturally directed toward making the 
 trip an interesting one for the distinguished states- 
 man. Mr. Davenport was naturally the leader. 
 He sang comic, patriotic, and pathetic songs, and 
 
<£btoarb ffioomig SDatoenport x 7 
 
 recited humorous sketches involving the imper- 
 sonation of a half-dozen or more characters. In 
 everything he attempted his rare versatility was 
 brought to the fore. One evening he entered the 
 steamboat saloon disguised as a Yankee. He wore 
 a red wig, striped pantaloons which displayed a 
 liberal supply of ankle, a short jacket, and a flame- 
 colored cravat. His hands were thrust deeply into 
 his pockets, and his "jog-along" gait could have 
 originated only in New England. Except by Mrs. 
 Mowatt, who tells the story, and her husband, he 
 was not recognized when he entered the cabin. 
 The passengers supposed that he was a new ar- 
 rival taken on at the last landing-place. He began 
 to talk loudly and familiarly in a nasal voice, ask- 
 ing questions of everybody. He gave Mr. Mowatt 
 a nudge, and accosted him with : "Stranger, I hear 
 that 's Henry Clay; I guess I '11 scrape acquain- 
 tance with him, if you '11 do the polite thing." Mr. 
 Mowatt of course presented the new-comer to Mr. 
 Clay, and his remarks to the "best representative 
 of republican royalty," as he designated the states- 
 man, convulsed the passengers with laughter. 
 Fearing that the affair might go too far, Mrs. 
 Mowatt quietly let Mr. Clay into the secret, and 
 Mr. Davenport's fun was therefore at an end. 
 
 With such festivities to lighten the burdens im- 
 posed by travel and hard work, Mr. Davenport's 
 first season with Mrs. Mowatt progressed rapidly. 
 The unvarying geniality of his manner, his jovial- 
 3 
 
18 % 2&osrapl)p of 
 
 ity, and his courtliness, as the occasion demanded, 
 made him as great a favorite in private life as his 
 genius as an actor made him on the stage. He 
 possessed in a wonderful degree the ability to adapt 
 himself to circumstances. Whether in the com- 
 pany of statesmen or divines, of aged or young, of 
 rich or poor, of educated or uneducated, his pres- 
 ence was always a pleasure, and the natural dignity 
 of his manner impressed everybody with whom he 
 came in contact. 
 
 The first season with Mrs. Mowatt ended in 
 Cincinnati, and at his final performance there Mr. 
 Davenport was presented, by some young men of 
 the city, with a suitably inscribed watch and chain. 
 
 Immediately after the close of the tour, Mr. 
 Mowatt sailed for England to make arrangements 
 for a London season for his wife; and as Mr. 
 Davenport had been reengaged to support Mrs. 
 Mowatt a second year, he would naturally be in- 
 cluded in the enterprise. Macready, with whom 
 Mr. Mowatt consulted, thought it impolitic for 
 Mrs. Mowatt to make her English debut in a Lon- 
 don theatre, and his advice being accepted, plans 
 were completed for a preliminary tour of the larger 
 provincial towns. During this summer, however, 
 Mrs. Mowatt herself had not been idle. She com- 
 pleted her play "Armand," the title role of which 
 had been written especially for Mr. Davenport, 
 and "suited to his vigorous and impulsive style of 
 acting." Their season in New York began on 
 
September 23, at the Park Theatre, with James 
 Sheridan Knowles's play "Love," and on the 27th 
 "Armand" was produced, with the following cast : 
 
 Armand E. L. Davenport. 
 
 King Louis XV Mr. Hield. 
 
 Due de Richelieu " Barry. 
 
 Due d'Antin " Dougherty. 
 
 Le Sage A. Andrews. 
 
 Victor Miss Susan Denin. 
 
 Dame Babetle Mrs. Vernon. 
 
 Jacqueline Miss Horn. 
 
 Blanche Mrs. Mowatt. 
 
 The play was favorably received, and ran for six 
 nights, or until the end of the engagement. "Mr. 
 Davenport's personation of Armand" says Mrs. 
 Mowatt, "gained him fresh laurels. I was too 
 nervous and too much tormented with anxieties for 
 the success of the play to embody the character of 
 Blanche to my own satisfaction." At the close of 
 the engagement at the Park Theatre, Mrs. Mowatt 
 and Mr. Davenport went to Boston, and there took 
 their farewell of the American stage. On the first 
 of November, 1847, accompanied by Mr. Mowatt, 
 they sailed from Boston for Liverpool on the 
 steamship Cambria. It was to be six years before 
 Mr. Davenport would return to his native country. 
 A letter written by Mr. Davenport to Edwin For- 
 rest a few weeks prior to his departure is espe- 
 cially pertinent in view of their later estrangement. 
 It bears date of October 10, 1847. 
 
20 €titoarb Sttoomig 2Datoen$>ort 
 
 I have not words to express the gratification and 
 pleasure I felt in witnessing your masterly performance. 
 It was probably the last time I shall have an opportunity 
 to see you for years, but I assure you, however long it 
 may be, the remembrance will always live in my mind 
 as vividly as now. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AT the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on Decem- 
 XI ber 6, 1847, Mr. Davenport made his first 
 appearance on the English stage. The play was 
 "The Lady of Lyons," Mrs. Mowatt acting Paul- 
 ine and Mr. Davenport Claude Melnotte. The 
 only existing records of this important epoch in 
 Mr. Davenport's career are naturally the daily and 
 weekly newspapers of Manchester, and to them we 
 must go for an account of the manner in which he 
 was received by a public with whose tastes and 
 customs he was utterly unacquainted. The Man- 
 chester "Guardian," then and now one of the lead- 
 ing newspapers of Great Britain outside of Lon- 
 don, thus speaks of the performance : 
 
 We did not see the first two acts of the play, but we 
 saw sufficient to form a highly favorable opinion of both 
 actors. In the third act, where Pauline discovers in the 
 homely cottage of the mother the cheat Claude has prac- 
 tised upon her, there was much powerful acting on the 
 part of both. . . . Both actors were called before the 
 curtain at the close of the play, and, having received the 
 cordial tribute of applause, Mrs. Mowatt glided off, sig- 
 nificantly pointing to Mr. Davenport as equally deserv- 
 ing of the tribute with herself. As if touched with the 
 21 
 
22 % 2&iogra#>p ** 
 
 friendliness of the reception, Mr. Davenport addressed 
 the audience in terms of grateful acknowledgment. 
 "Ladies and gentlemen: It is with no ordinary feelings 
 that I appear before you, respectfully to offer Mrs. 
 Mowatt's acknowledgments, and permit me to add my 
 own, for the hearty manner in which you have received 
 our first efforts before a British public. Though stran- 
 gers among you, the fair report which reached us in 
 our own land of the generous appreciation of the drama 
 here (especially by a Manchester audience) ; of their 
 warm reception of those who seek to maintain its purity; 
 of their well-known hospitality to the children of a sis- 
 ter country, led us to hope for some indulgence; and 
 allow me to say we are sensible of having to-night re- 
 ceived not that indulgence alone, but the most cheering 
 encouragement at your hands. Should we be so fortu- 
 nate, during the present engagement, as to leave the same 
 impression upon your memories which our own coun- 
 trymen have permitted us to believe we have left on 
 theirs, we shall hail it as a most auspicious welcome to 
 this motherland of art and science; we shall feel that the 
 good wishes of our friends have not been breathed in 
 vain; and in redoubling our exertions will seek to merit 
 the favor which you seem prepared so liberally to be- 
 stow." 
 
 The engagement was successful beyond expec- 
 tation, continuing two weeks. Leaving Manches- 
 ter at its close, Mrs. Mowatt and Mr. Davenport 
 proceeded immediately to London, where they 
 opened at the Princess's Theatre on January 5, 
 1848, in "The Hunchback," beginning an engage- 
 ment which lasted on alternate nights for six 
 weeks. The cast of "The Hunchback," which 
 
<£btoatb Hoomi£ 2Datanpott 2 3 
 
 was repeated on the second night of the engage- 
 ment, is as follows : 
 
 Master Walter Mr. Cooper. 
 
 Sir Thomas Clifford ... " Davenport. 
 
 Lord Tinsel " James Vining. 
 
 Master Wilford .... " C. Fisher. 
 Master Heart-well .... " Norton. 
 
 Modus " Compton. 
 
 Gaylove "A. Harris. 
 
 Fathom " S. Cowell. 
 
 Thomas " Wynn. 
 
 Stephen " Palmer. 
 
 Holdwell " Muckwell. 
 
 Williams " T. Hill. 
 
 Simpson " Stacy. 
 
 Waiter " Henry. 
 
 Julia Mrs. Mowatt. 
 
 Helen Miss Emmeline Montague. 
 
 The night was an eventful and exacting one for 
 Mrs. Mowatt. "Mr. Davenport escaped the an- 
 noyances to which I had been subjected,'' she 
 writes. "The part of Clifford is not one in which 
 he could exhibit the extent of his talents, but his 
 fine person, manly bearing, and quietly earnest act- 
 ing won ready favor." The next part for Mr. 
 Davenport was Benedick, and thereafter the en- 
 gagement successfully continued its allotted pe- 
 riod. 
 
 From London, Mr. Davenport wrote home, in 
 February, 1848: 
 
2 4 % S&ograptjp of 
 
 You of course have heard of our very pleasant advent 
 here. Thus far we are delighted. It will take us some 
 little time to get our posts well bedded in the soil of their 
 beef-eating, porter-guzzling hearts, but when we do, 
 "git out o' the way, old Dan Tucker." We live in hope 
 that when we do return our friends at home will not 
 be very much ashamed of us. We feel that even now 
 we have improved in our style. Tell Ayling I have seen 
 nothing here of my size, age, looks, and weight that I 
 fear. I hope to see him here in the spring, and by that 
 time I shall have been through the provinces, and can 
 give him any information he may require, though I fear 
 he won't find anything that will alarm him. Gilbert is 
 at the same house we are playing at, and he is held in 
 high esteem. There were three of us the other night in 
 one piece, and we did go it strong, each proud of each 
 other. I see with sorrow the vile use to which the Fed- 
 eral is being put — to what it will come under T.'s direc- 
 tion we can't say. 
 
 From the Princess's Theatre they went to the 
 Olympic Theatre, the famous little playhouse in 
 Wych Street that has recently been forced to give 
 way before the march of modern improvement. 
 Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, the tragedian whose 
 Othello had startled London playgoers by its in- 
 tensity some two years before, had just left the 
 Olympic for a provincial tour, and the American 
 players were engaged to fill his place until his re- 
 turn. "The Lady of Lyons" was the opening bill, 
 and was repeated six successive nights. Upon 
 Mr. Brooke's return, a new tragedy by Henry 
 Spicer, entitled "The Lords of Ellingham," was 
 
€btoar& Xoomig SDatoenport 2 s 
 
 produced, with Mrs. Mowatt as Edith, Mr. Daven- 
 port as Dudley Latymer, and Mr. Brooke as Lau- 
 rency, but it was not of sufficient distinction to win 
 any lasting popularity. The engagement contin- 
 ued until the theatre closed for the season, Mr. 
 Davenport acting characters of equal importance 
 with Mr. Brooke. It is well known to all students 
 of the stage that Brooke was an actor of the robust 
 school, and the contrast of his acting with that 
 of Mr. Davenport was sufficiently marked to call 
 forth many comments in favor of the American 
 actor's superior discrimination, intelligence, and 
 good taste. One critic went so far as to say that 
 "when he [Mr. Davenport] plays I ago to Mr. 
 Brooke's Othello, Iago is the ruling spirit of the 
 piece ; but when the cast is reversed, Iago sinks to 
 the level of a truculent ruffian, and Othello rises 
 into the dignity of a brave, honorable, and injured 
 man." 
 
 In the autumn of 1848 an engagement began at 
 the Theatre Royal, Marylebone, which, by frequent 
 renewals, was destined to last through nearly half 
 a year. The first night was given over to "As 
 You Like It," with Mrs. Mowatt as Rosalind and 
 Mr. Davenport as Orlando. The programmes 
 thereafter show frequent changes. "In two or 
 three instances the choice of plays was left to the 
 management," says Mrs. Mowatt. "I, not pos- 
 sessing Mr. Davenport's remarkable versatility, 
 which enabled him to embody with equal ease an 
 4 
 
26 % 2&iograj>l)p of 
 
 Othello or a Yankee, a cardinal or a sailor, was 
 consequently the sufferer. On one occasion the 
 manager selected a drama by Serle, entitled 'The 
 Shadow on the Wall/ The character of the hero- 
 ine had been very successfully represented by Mrs. 
 Keeley, but it was as much out of my reach as 
 Lady Macbeth was out of hers. In spite of my 
 shortcomings as Cicely, the play was rendered suf- 
 ficiently attractive by Mr. Davenport's thrilling 
 personation of Luke, to be repeated several times. 
 The critics courteously ignored my failure, but that 
 did not render the mortification less poignant to 
 myself." On January 18, 1849, Mrs - Mowatt's 
 play "Armand" was performed at the Theatre 
 Royal, Marylebone, for the first time in England. 
 It had been previously read by several distin- 
 guished literary men, and under their advice had 
 been subjected by Mrs. Mowatt to a thorough re- 
 vision. Mr. Davenport of course played the title 
 role, and his success, the success of the author, 
 and the success of the play was complete. The 
 critic of the "Examiner" remarked of Mr. Daven- 
 port: "He rendered able support to the piece as 
 Armand, the artisan. He maintained a frank, 
 manly bearing, without degenerating into insolence, 
 and, to our perceptions, without the transatlantic 
 exaggeration which haunts the imagination of 
 some of our critics, who might find the reality 
 nearer home." "Armand" was acted twenty-one 
 nights, and the season then closed with the produc- 
 
<£&toarb Hoomig SDatenport 2 7 
 
 tion of "The Witch Wife," a drama in five acts 
 by Henry Spicer. 
 
 On the 8th of January, 1849, Mr. Davenport 
 married Miss Fanny Vining, with whom he had 
 first appeared at the Marylebone Theatre in James 
 Sheridan Knowles's play, "Love." Henceforth 
 their careers were to be practically one and the 
 same. 
 
 After the summer vacation, Mr. and Mrs. Dav- 
 enport returned to London, and in September the 
 Theatre Royal, Marylebone, was reopened, with 
 Mrs. Mowatt as the star and Mr. Davenport in 
 the title role of Epes Sargent's tragedy "Velasco." 
 The character of Isidora was acted by Mrs. Daven- 
 port, who for some time retained upon the stage the 
 name of Fanny Vining. During the season a num- 
 ber of new plays were produced, with varying suc- 
 cess, including John Oxenford's translation of La- 
 tour de St. Ybars's "Virginie," with Mrs. Mowatt 
 in the title role and Mr. Davenport as Virginms. 
 "Cymbeline" and "Twelfth Night" were given, but 
 the most notable revival of all was that of "Romeo 
 and Juliet," with Miss Vining in "a fervid imper- 
 sonation of the impassioned Romeo" Mrs. Mowatt 
 as Juliet, and Mr. Davenport as Mercutio. 
 
 In the meantime a new Olympic Theatre had 
 arisen from the ashes of the old, and for its com- 
 pany were engaged Mr. Davenport, Mr. Brooke, 
 Mr. Conway, Alfred Wigan, Henry Compton, Mrs. 
 Mowatt, Miss Fanny Vining, Mrs. Seymour, and 
 
28 
 
 % 2&iograj>l)p of 
 
 numerous lesser lights. The opening bill for the 
 evening of December 26, 1849, was "Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona," and as there was no part in that 
 play for Mrs. Mowatt, she delivered the inaugural 
 address, written by Albert Smith of "Mont Blanc" 
 fame. Shakspere's comedy was cast as follows : 
 
 The Duke of Milan Mr. Ryder. 
 
 Valentine " Davenport. 
 
 Proteus " Conway. 
 
 Antonio " G. Cooke. 
 
 Panthino " Kinloch. 
 
 Thurio " Belton. 
 
 Eglamour "J. Howard. 
 
 Speed " Scharf. 
 
 Launce " Compton. 
 
 Host " Morris. 
 
 The Duke's Knight " Haines. 
 
 First Outlaw " Stanton. 
 
 Second Outlaw " Younge. 
 
 Third Outlaw " Morrison. 
 
 Julia Miss Fanny Vining. 
 
 Silvia Mrs. Seymour. 
 
 Lucetta Miss Marshall. 
 
 Ursula " Mears. 
 
 A letter written home by Mr. Davenport at this 
 period reads as follows : 
 
 London. At least it would be, but I have been taken 
 fifty miles by express train in 1^ hours and five minutes 
 to Brighton to get a sniff of salt air, having a couple 
 more leisure days, being in Passion Week, when the shop 
 is shut. Therefore I beg to begin as follows : Brighton, 
 
€btoarti Hoomig 2Datoen#ort 2 9 
 
 April 4, 1849. My Dear Friend F . Well, we are still 
 
 here in John Bulldom, and are still better Yankees than 
 ever ; our last success has raised us in our own estimation 
 severaj, feet, and per cent, to match. We feel thanks. 
 Yankees are some "punkins," and dear old America in 
 the dim distance looms up like the seventy-four-gun ship 
 of nations amidst a whole squadron of Baltimore clip- 
 pers. We are a great people and bound to be greater, 
 and to any fool who dares to squint at us we will prove 
 we are nutmeg graters of the greatest sort. We are still 
 at the Marylebone, that is recommencing Monday, April 9, 
 after Easter week, and I presume we remain there until 
 the season's closing, say latter part of June. Open your 
 eyes, O ye two-week stars in America, and see the 
 names of Mowatt and Davenport sixteen and seventeen 
 weeks successively and successfully before an admiring 
 public! Bull-headed and porter-sucking, wine-drinking 
 and horse-racing, dog-fighting and half-and-half-destroy- 
 ing though they be, there are some here who (the best 
 compliment I can pay them) ought to have been Yankees. 
 You would go right off the handle to be here a month. 
 Why, everything is a system, even from playing to buying 
 a house or sending a letter through the post. Speaking 
 of the eminent Mr. Macready, who I believe is acknow- 
 ledged here as the head of the drama, he is announced 
 as the Eminent Tragedian, but Mr. James Anderson is 
 now posted as the Preeminent — in my opinion, though 
 humble, this is a streak of agonistic imagination that is 
 smelling exceedingly strong of egotistical self-praise. 
 What say you? ... I still hold to my original opin- 
 ion that we have more natural talent in America, but not 
 so much application. We are careless. I mean all con- 
 cerned, from manager to supes. Here rehearsals are 
 made of importance, and when a piece is to be done the 
 property men, musicians, and actors must each do their 
 share. It is a system here that I should gladly see in- 
 
3° % 2&iograpl)p of 
 
 troduced into our theatres, and if ever I have power I 
 will strive to bring it around. 
 
 We can play Shakspere almost without a rehearsal. 
 Not so here. The actors and all know and feel their 
 responsibility (I am speaking of the greatest theatres), 
 and for their own credit's sake are alive to all. Stage 
 appointments are also here more attended to, effects of 
 scenery more studied, the artist being for a period the 
 director for his own purpose; then the machinist, and 
 then, with good acting, regulated by a stage manager 
 who knows his business, you see things done well; but 
 remove any one of the screws and you will have a lame 
 machine. I have seen one piece, "Armand," put on the 
 stage here in the little theatre we are playing in, better 
 than anything of the kind in our largest house. Yet in 
 talent I say we can lick 'em. I 've seen only one actress 
 here yet that I would engage as leading woman — I mean 
 after stars — and her name is Fanny Vining; she is a 
 young, fine-looking creature, very talented, and how 
 managers have imported heaps of Coleman Popes and 
 Tyrrells and fifty thousand more into' our country and 
 made the people think they were London leaders, I can't 
 see. She will be a jewel to any manager who can 
 get her as his leading lady. Both Mrs. Mowatt and my- 
 self have taken quite a fancy to her, and I should n't 
 wonder if we enticed her over. As to young men — I 
 am not vain, but I can see no one here that I need 
 fear. 
 
 C. Cushman can lick all the tragedy ones (heavy), and 
 our little Mowatt all the juvenile and comedy ones. I 
 have not seen Helen Faucit yet; I of course except Mrs. 
 Nisbett. There is no old man can compare with Henry 
 Placide, and young Wheatleigh and Murdoch can hang 
 'em all in light comedy. So you see we go, and yet they 
 are so loth to allow that Yankees have talent. 
 
 I shall not write to my little brother this steamer, so 
 
<£&toarb Jloomig SDatocttpott 31 
 
 if you see him tell him I received his "pencil sketch" of 
 March 31 ; came to hand to-day. 
 
 Love to all whom you deem care for me. I hope by 
 next steamer but one to let you know when we do re- 
 turn. We remain away one year more. Certain offers 
 are to be made, and if certain folks have gumption 
 enough to see they will do better staying than coming — 
 why, etc., etc. Believe me, yours most sincerely, 
 
 Edward L. Davenport. 
 
 "Two Gentlemen of Verona" was repeated on 
 the remaining evenings of the week, and then on 
 the ensuing Monday Mr. Davenport played Bene- 
 dick to the Beatrice of Mrs. Mowatt. "Twelfth 
 Night" followed, and then came "Othello," with 
 Mr. Brooke in the title role, Mr. Davenport as 
 Iago, Mrs. Mowatt as Desdemona, and Miss Vining 
 as Emilia. The season continued auspiciously, and 
 on the 19th of February "The Noble Heart," by 
 George Henry Lewes, had its first presentation, 
 with Mr. Brooke as Don Gomez, Mr. Davenport 
 as Leon, and Mrs. Mowatt as Juanna. The second 
 novelty was Mrs. Mowatt's own play "Fashion," 
 in which the author declined to appear, her part 
 of Gertrude being acted by Miss Vining "more 
 effectively than its author had ever done," remarks 
 Mrs. Mowatt. "Mr. Davenport personated the old 
 farmer, Adam Trueman," she continues. "The 
 happy blending of deep pathos and hearty humor 
 in his embodiment made the performance a memor- 
 able one." The play ran only two weeks, a much 
 shorter period than "Armand" had run at the 
 
32 % 2ftograpJ)p of 
 
 Theatre Royal, Marylebone, the season before, and 
 met with only qualified success, probably because 
 the democratic utterances of some of the characters 
 did not accord with the political prejudices of the 
 majority of the Olympic Theatre patrons. One 
 night there was an emphatic hiss in answer to one 
 of Adam Trueman's speeches. With quick pres- 
 ence of mind, Mr. Davenport stopped suddenly, 
 coolly folded his arms, gazed steadily at the por- 
 tion of the theatre whence had come the hiss, and 
 by his silence demanded the judgment of the audi- 
 ence upon the interruption. His perfect self-pos- 
 session at once put the audience upon his side, and 
 a torrent of applause set the disturber and his com- 
 rades far into the background. The performance 
 then proceeded without further interruption. Sev- 
 eral other new plays were acted, and several more 
 put into rehearsal, when the career of the Olympic 
 Theatre and its splendid company of actors was 
 brought to a sudden end by the arrest of Mr. Wal- 
 ter Watts, who both at the Marylebone and the 
 Olympic theatres had been cutting a wide swath in 
 the theatrical world. 
 
 In Edmund Yates's entertaining "Memoirs of 
 a Man of the World" may be found an account 
 of the man who played so large a part in the stage 
 affairs of London at this period. 
 
 Who was Mr. Walter Watts? Personally, a cheery, 
 light- whiskered, pleasant little man, of convivial andcham- 
 
MR. DAVENPORT AS ADAM TRUEMAN 
 IN "FASHION." 
 
€btoatf» ttoomig SDatoenport 33 
 
 pagne-supper-giving tendencies. What was he? Actors 
 in those days were, as a rule, not very clear about busi- 
 ness matters; they knew he was not an actor; they 
 thought he was "something in the City." He was an 
 excellent paymaster, very hospitable to all authors and 
 critics, drove in a handsome brougham, and made ele- 
 gant presents to the "leading ladies" whom he admired. 
 "Something in the City," it was opined, must be a good 
 berth. The position which Walter Watts really occu- 
 pied in the City was that of a clerk in the Globe Insur- 
 ance office at a comparatively small salary, and the money 
 on which he had lived in luxury and carried out his 
 theatrical speculations was obtained by fraud. By in- 
 genious alterations in the pass-books and ledgers, aided, 
 one would imagine, by gross carelessness on the part of 
 responsible officials, Watts, when discovered and arrested 
 in April, 1850, had robbed his employers of upwards of 
 £70,000. There was some technical legal difficulty in 
 framing the indictment against him, and he was actually 
 convicted of stealing "a piece of paper." A point of law 
 was reserved, but afterward given against him; he was 
 sentenced to ten years' transportation, but committed sui- 
 cide the same night by hanging himself to the grating 
 of his cell. He was the precursor of Robson and Red- 
 path, both of whom swindled in a somewhat similar way, 
 and on a similar gigantic scale. 
 
 Of Mr. Davenport's work so far upon the Lon- 
 don stage, a critic wrote at this period : 
 
 Mr. Davenport, better known, perhaps, as the "Ameri- 
 can tragedian," is an actor whose capabilities embrace 
 the highest range of histrionic art. Whilst possessing 
 those attributes which never fail in their favorable effect 
 upon the stage — viz.: a fine figure and rich, melodious 
 5 
 
34 % 2&osrapl)p of 
 
 voice — his conceptions are marked by an intimate know- 
 ledge of human nature and the working of the various 
 passions and emotions by which we are ever and anon 
 agitated, and this renders his impersonations vivid and 
 instinct with fidelity. His delineations of feeling, such 
 as in Ingomar, are warm and impulsive, and his ebulli- 
 tions of passion, as in Othello or Virginius, intense and 
 consuming, but the great charm of his acting consists in 
 his identity with his assumed characters, and the nature 
 and life which he instills into them, combined with an 
 ease and elegance of gesture, as well as an agreeable 
 freedom from rant or mouthing. 
 
 Books relating to the English stage of the mid- 
 nineteenth century almost uniformly pass over in 
 silence the various important engagements played 
 by Mrs. Mowatt and Mr. Davenport at the leading 
 London theatres. In his reminiscences quoted 
 from above, however, Mr. Yates, in speaking of 
 the Theatre Royal, Marylebone, and the celebrated 
 actors he saw there, adds : 
 
 For there was first introduced to an English public 
 the fascinating Anna Cora Mowatt, an American actress, 
 who was also a poetess and a very charming woman. 
 With her was her compatriot, Mr. E. L. Davenport, who 
 not merely played Shaksperian and other heroes, but 
 actually dared to appear as a British sailor — William in 
 "Black-eyed Susan," a character created by the great 
 "Tippy" Cooke. Mrs. Mowatt and Mr. Davenport were 
 very popular, both here and at the Olympic. 
 
 A serious illness necessitated Mrs. Mowatt's 
 temporary retirement from the stage, and Mr. 
 
€btoarb £oomi£ SDatoenport 35 
 
 Davenport was therefore obliged to accept other 
 engagements. After her recovery she played brief 
 seasons in the English provinces and in Ireland, 
 with G. V. Brooke and Barry Sullivan successively 
 as her leading actors. Once only did Mr. Daven- 
 port again act in her support. The occasion was 
 her benefit in Liverpool, and in order to play his 
 original role in "Armand" he journeyed especially 
 from London, while appearing at the Haymarket 
 Theatre, for that purpose. After a long illness, 
 Mr. Mowatt died while his wife was fulfilling pro- 
 fessional engagements away from London, but he 
 was surrounded by many devoted friends, of whom 
 Mr. Davenport was one. In the summer of 1851, 
 Mrs. Mowatt returned to the United States, and, 
 after a few brief tours of the American theatres, 
 she retired permanently from the stage. Her 
 final appearance was made in New York at Niblo's 
 Garden on June 3, 1854, in the character of Paul- 
 ine. A few days later she was married to William 
 F. Ritchie, of Richmond, and, after living first in 
 the South and then in England, she died July 29, 
 1870, in the London suburb of Twickenham. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MACREADY had been for over a quarter of a 
 century the leading actor on the English 
 stage. Although fond of the renown which his 
 profession brought him, and thoroughly in love 
 with its artistic elements, he was so absolutely and 
 continually out of sorts with its discomforts and 
 degradations that he had many times resolved upon 
 permanent retirement. The step so frequently con- 
 sidered was finally definitely resolved upon, and on 
 October 28, 1850, he began at the Haymarket 
 Theatre a series of farewell performances which 
 continued over three months. In these Mr. Dav- 
 enport bore a leading part, for, to quote William 
 Archer, in his "Life of Macready," "The American 
 actor, E. L. Davenport, played seconds during this 
 engagement in place of Wallack, the support for 
 the rest being much as before." Such brief men- 
 tion is scanty enough, and certainly undeserved, 
 for Mr. Davenport, in playing opposite parts to 
 Macready during this engagement, was holding a 
 position once filled by Samuel Phelps, George Van- 
 denhoff, and the younger James W. Wallack. 
 That Macready himself, in his published diaries, 
 36 
 
€btoatb 3ioomi£ SDatoenpork 37 
 
 should make no mention whatever of Mr. Daven- 
 port or of any of the actors who supported him 
 during this important period of his career was to 
 be expected. In his "Leaves from an Actor's 
 Note-Book," George Vandenhoff writes at length 
 upon this feature of the great actor's character : 
 
 Whatever was his part for the night, whether he was 
 Othello or I ago, Brutus or Cassius, Post humus or Ia- 
 chimo, that part must be the feature of the play; and] 
 this was to be effected not by his own towering and 
 surpassing excellence in the character, but by such an 
 arrangement of the scene and such a position of every 
 other person on the stage as must make all others sub- 
 ordinatejand put him on a pedestal, as it were, always 
 the main figure in the group, the most prominent object 
 in the action. Thus, when he played Othello, lago was 
 to be nowhere! Othello was to be the sole consideration, 
 the sole character to be evolved, the all-engrossing ob- 
 ject to the eye and heart of the audience. lago was a 
 mere stoker, whose business was to supply Othello's pas- 
 sion with fuel, and keep up his high pressure. The next 
 night, perhaps, he took lago, and lo, presto! everything 
 was changed. Othello was to become a mere puppet for 
 lago to play with, a pipe for Iago's master-skill to "sound 
 from its lowest note to the top of its compass"! Iago's 
 intellect, his fiendish subtlety, his specious, calculating 
 malignity were to be the sole features of the play. 
 
 Other actors than Macready have sometimes, and 
 with less cause, attempted thus to magnify their 
 importance in the public eye. At any rate, Mr. 
 Davenport certainly must have suffered from this 
 weakness of the great actor, whose repertory dur- 
 
3« 31 25iogra#)p of . 
 
 ing his farewell engagement ranged from Hamlet 
 and Othello, Shylock and Richelieu, to Virginius 
 and Wolsey, King John, Benedick, and Brutus, the 
 season closing on February 3, 1851, with a per- 
 formance of King Lear. For the farewell of all 
 the scene was shifted to Drury Lane, where, on 
 February 26, Macready, in the character of Mac- 
 beth, made his final appearance in public. It is 
 related that, on a certain evening of this engage- 
 ment, the intensity of Mr. Davenport's acting dis- 
 pleased Macready, whereat the subordinate was 
 summoned into the presence of the star, who re- 
 marked: "Mr. Davenport, I wish you would not 
 act quite so much. Your extreme earnestness de- 
 tracts from the legitimate effect." This rebuke 
 naturally nettled its recipient, and on the following 
 evening he went through the first act with folded 
 arms and without any attempt at expressive action. 
 Macready again summoned him, and said: "You 
 will oblige me, Mr. Davenport, by throwing a 
 little more animation into your acting." The epi- 
 sode of course ended there, to the satisfaction of 
 both sides. The contemporary newspaper reports 
 naturally referred more than once to Mr. Daven- 
 port, and from them a few quotations will not be 
 out of place. 
 
 Mr. Davenport may well entertain some feelings of 
 pride at his present high position at the Haymarket, the 
 scene of the principal dramatic triumphs of English ac- 
 tors of modern times; long known as the only metro- 
 
MR. DAVENPORT AS SHYLOCK. 
 

<£&toarb Eoomtg SDatoenpotk 39 
 
 politan temple for the legitimate drama, the Haymarket 
 appears now to be just gaining the zenith of its well- 
 earned popularity. I was quite pleased to observe that 
 Mr. Davenport was not only immediately recognized by 
 the audience when he made his appearance as Macduff 
 on Monday, but that he was right heartily welcomed, as 
 if he were an old favorite. I will say it not because he is 
 a true American, but I assure you that in the fourth act 
 Davenport actually received heartier and more prolonged 
 applause than Macready received during the evening, 
 with the exception of that bestowed upon him when he 
 first entered, and at his exit. This is a plain fact. The 
 leading critics award our American actor due praise. 
 The "Times" says he played Macduff with a great deal 
 of genuine feeling; "possessed of good natural qualifica- 
 tions and endowed with much intelligence, this gentle- 
 man has an excellent chance of advancing in a line which 
 is by no means overstocked." The "Morning Post" says 
 that Davenport acted with judgment and feeling; the 
 "Chronicle" says that his Macduff was "a very effective 
 performance," and the "Herald" remarks that a better 
 Macduff could not have been selected, that Mr. Daven- 
 port is an acquisition to the company, and will be emi- 
 nently useful, "for his tragic embodiments have always 
 been notable for their force and intelligence." 
 
 Over twenty years before, or, to be exact, on the 
 8th of June, 1829, there was produced in Lon- 
 don, at the old Surrey Theatre, on the thither side 
 of the Thames, a two-act "nautical and domestic" 
 drama entitled "Black-eyed Susan ; or, All in the 
 Downs." It was a trifle light as air, and has 
 long been languishing in the limbo of forgotten 
 dramas. Its first night did not take the London 
 
4° 31 2&iograj>l)p of 
 
 world by storm, but the piece gradually grew into 
 favor, and finally made the fame of Douglas Jer- 
 rold, then a young man only twenty-six years of 
 age. He had been engaged as a hack dramatic 
 writer for the Surrey Theatre, then under the man- 
 agement of R. W. Elliston, at a salary of five pounds 
 a week, and "Black-eyed Susan" was his first ef- 
 fort to fulfil the duties of that position. T. P. Cooke, 
 the famous Irish actor of sailor characters, who 
 had not played at the Surrey Theatre for ten years, 
 made his appearance there as William, and was 
 also the Long Tom Coffin in the after-piece, "The 
 Pilot." It is reported that "the audience was hot 
 and noisy almost throughout the evening. Now 
 and then, in a lull, the seeds of wit intrusted by the 
 author to the gardener (Mr. Buckstone) were 
 loudly appreciated, but the early scenes of Susan's 
 'heart-rending woe' would not appease the clamour. 
 By and by came the clever denouement, when, just 
 previously to the execution, the captain enters with 
 a document proving William to have been dis- 
 charged when he committed the offense. The at- 
 tentive few applauded so loudly as to silence the 
 noisy audience. They listened, and caught up the 
 capitally managed incident. The effect was star- 
 tling and electrical. The whole audience leaped 
 with joy, and rushed into frantic enthusiasm. 
 Such was the commencement of the career of a 
 drama which, in theatrical phrase, has brought 
 more money to manager and actor than any piece 
 
dUbtoarti ttoomig SMbmport 41 
 
 of its class, but to its author a sort of sic vos non 
 vobis result." 
 
 The long-deserted Surrey Theatre slowly began 
 to fill nightly, and Elliston's ebbing fortunes 
 turned. All London flocked across the Thames 
 to the unfashionable home of melodrama, and T. P. 
 Cooke became one of the notabilities of the day. 
 A hackney cab carried him every evening, all ac- 
 coutred as he was in the sailor garb of William, 
 from the Waterloo Road to Bow Street, so that he 
 might appear in "Black-eyed Susan" at Covent 
 Garden as well as at the old Surrey. On the even- 
 ing of the three-hundredth performance the theatre 
 was brilliantly decorated, and vast multitudes 
 thronged the neighboring thoroughfares. Given 
 at Drury Lane later, it saved the management from 
 dire financial disaster, and for a generation actors 
 and managers in England and America reaped a 
 rich harvest of pounds and dollars. Testimonials 
 rewarded Cooke and Elliston for their success, but 
 all that Jerrold received was a beggarly seventy 
 pounds. When the play had run three hundred 
 nights, Elliston coolly remarked to Jerrold: "My 
 dear boy, why don't you get your friends to pre- 
 sent you with a bit of plate ?" * 
 
 In this play Mr. Davenport was destined to 
 achieve no inconsiderable success. As early as 
 1 84 1 he had appeared at the Arch Street Theatre 
 
 1 "The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold." By his 
 son, Blanchard Jerrold. Page 92. 
 6 
 
42 % 25io0tapf}p of 
 
 in Philadelphia as Captain Crosstree to the William 
 of Edmon S. Conner and the Susan of Mrs. W. R. 
 Blake, and it was not long thereafter before he 
 began to act William with ever-increasing popu- 
 larity. Therefore it was altogether fitting that 
 Benjamin Webster, at the conclusion of Mac- 
 ready's season at the Haymarket Theatre, should 
 engage Mr. Davenport to appear in a special re- 
 vival of Douglas Jerrold's play. The interview 
 between Mr. Webster and Mr. Davenport which 
 resulted in this engagement is thus told by Howard 
 Paul: 
 
 "They tell me," observed Webster, "that when 
 you were at the Marylebone you made quite a sen- 
 sation as William in 'Black-eyed Susan.' " 
 
 "It is true I did play it repeatedly, and it seem- 
 ingly gave satisfaction." 
 
 "Well, I think of putting it up for you at the 
 Haymarket next week. I had a note from Charles 
 Dickens this morning saying that he should feel 
 great pleasure in witnessing your representation of 
 the character. Mr. Jerrold, the author of the 
 piece, has also more than once signified his desire 
 of seeing you. What do you say ? Suppose I put 
 it up on Monday night ?" 
 
 "I shall be delighted," replied Davenport, grati- 
 fied at the good intentions of his patrons. "And 
 I '11 tell you. Suppose I sing two songs and dance 
 a hornpipe with Susan. It may be a 'draw.' As 
 I Ve just been doing Othellos and Rochester s, it 
 will give them a specimen of variety." 
 
€btoat& floomte 2Dabenport 43 
 
 "Or of versatility, just as you please. It 's a 
 sealed matter. Up William goes for Monday, and 
 at 'half-price' on Tuesday night." 
 . The affair was a notable one. In the audience 
 sat Dickens, Thackeray, Mark Lemon, Douglas 
 Jerrold, and other eminent literary men. The first 
 piece on the programme was "Nan the Good for 
 Nothing," a popular play by J. B. Buckstone, and 
 then followed the feature of the evening. "Dav- 
 enport, the tragedian," says a contemporary writer, 
 "who for two months had been sustaining such 
 characters as Brutus, Laertes, Macduff, and Ulric, 
 was to be transformed into a rollicking, jaunty 
 jack tar. The transition was a difficult one, but 
 never was a William played with so much ease, 
 spirit, and naturalness. The house was 'brought 
 down,' as the saying goes, the box of novelists was 
 marked in its approbation, the ladies wept with the 
 trials of the brave, free-hearted sailor, and sympa- 
 thized with the virtuous Susan — everybody, even 
 the critic of the 'Times,' was pleased, and in conse- 
 quence 'Black-eyed Susan' revived is having a 
 run." The critic of the "Times," least of all among 
 his brethren inclined to look favorably upon an 
 intruding foreigner from America, was gracious 
 enough to acknowledge that "the chief feature of 
 the piece was the performance of William by Mr. 
 Davenport. Less nautical in his manner than Mr. 
 T. P. Cooke, this gentleman had nevertheless a 
 thorough command over the sympathies of his au- 
 dience, and this is a great point with a drama ad- 
 
44 % 2E>iograpJ)p of 
 
 dressed to the feelings. His hilarity is hearty and 
 unaffected, his pathos is manly and genuine, and, 
 as an additional quality, he looks the part to per- 
 fection. That here and there his movements be- 
 came somewhat artificial is not a fault. Part of 
 the piece is carried on in pantomime dumb show, 
 and this requires a formal mode of action. From 
 the beginning to the end of the piece he was ap- 
 plauded not only by the hands, but by the audible 
 mirth and visible tears of his public, and when it 
 was ascertained that the model sailor was not to 
 be strung from the yard-arm the delight expressed 
 was as if he had been a personal friend of every- 
 body present." In this revival of "Black-eyed 
 Susan" Mrs. Davenport acted the title role. 
 
 Soon after the end of his engagement at the 
 Haymarket Theatre, Mr. Davenport and his wife 
 started upon a tour through the provincial towns 
 of England, Ireland, and Scotland. At Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, Dublin, and elsewhere their reception 
 was enthusiastic and encouraging. "The Lady 
 of Lyons," "The Corsican Brothers," "Brutus," 
 "Macbeth," and "The Merchant of Venice" were 
 among the plays presented. But they were back 
 in London again before long, and in January, 1853, 
 they were taking conspicuous parts in the presen- 
 tation of Charles Reade's "Gold" at Drury Lane, 
 Mr. Davenport appearing as the hero, George San- 
 ford, and Mrs. Davenport as the heroine, Susan 
 Merton. Edward Stirling is said to have been ex- 
 
<£btoarb Hoomig SDatoenpott 45 
 
 j , 
 
 cellent as a kind-hearted, benevolent Hebrew — a 
 man the direct antithesis of his race as usually pre- 
 sented on the stage. The critics decried "Gold" 
 as a failure, but it drew large audiences and had 
 an extended run of six weeks. The lessee of 
 Drury Lane netted £1500 as his share of the prof- 
 its. The story is told that he, Smith by name, was 
 so involved in debt that he contemplated a flight 
 across the sea the moment the new drama proved 
 itself a failure. After the first week success was 
 assured, but all that Charles Reade received for 
 his share was twenty pounds a week and the 
 nightly rights to a private box. Some years later 
 "Gold" was used as the basis of a part of his novel 
 "It is Never Too Late to Mend." * 
 
 In the autumn of 1853 Mr. Davenport, still at 
 Drury Lane, again acted opposite roles to the 
 tragedian Brooke. They alternated as Othello 
 and I ago, and in the pages of his journal Edward 
 Lyman Blanchard records that on the 9th of Sep- 
 tember he went to Drury Lane, where he found 
 "Brooke's Othello a mistake altogether," and that 
 on the following evening he saw Brooke as Iago 
 and Davenport as Othello — "latter very fine." The 
 manager of Drury Lane, the same Smith who had 
 been put on his feet by Charles Reade's "Gold," 
 had announced his star as "that unparalleled trage- 
 
 1 "Charles Reade, Dramatist, Novelist, Journalist." By 
 Charles L. Reade and the Rev. Compton Reade. New 
 York, 1887. Pages 246, 247. 
 
46 % 2&togra#!>p of 
 
 dian, Mr. Brooke," and of course Mr. Davenport 
 figured only secondarily on the play-bills and the 
 placards. Thereafter for a year Mr. and Mrs. 
 Davenport filled their time with important engage- 
 ments here and there in the British theatres. 
 
 The day of their departure came at last, Mr. Dav- 
 enport to return to the country of his birth, from 
 which he had been absent almost seven years, and 
 Mrs. Davenport to accompany her husband to a 
 new land wherein she was to continue the success 
 already achieved in her native England. On the 
 1 2th of August they set sail for New York. Dur- 
 ing his professional career abroad Mr. Davenport 
 had established a reputation for solid worth as an 
 actor, and as the news of his success had from time 
 to time crossed the ocean, it was natural that his 
 return should be looked forward to at home with 
 much pleasant anticipation. His friends welcomed 
 him heartily, and the newspapers of the day con- 
 tain many warm words of cordial and flattering 
 greeting. 
 
 It was in 1852, during his sojourn in England, 
 that Bayle Bernard wrote of Mr. Davenport: 
 
 If Mr. Forrest and Mr. Hackett have been recognized 
 as the tragedian and comedian of America, Mr. Daven- 
 port stands between them, partaking the powers of both, 
 if not to the extent of either. He is the tragi-comic 
 genius, which holds the same place on the stage that the 
 romantic play does in the drama — that mixture of humor 
 and passion which has always been a compound most 
 
<£&toarti £oomi£ SDatoenport 47 
 
 agreeable to English feelings. That most plastic class 
 of faculty which makes some sacrifice of depth in order 
 to increase its range of surface, and which passes with 
 equal truth from a Benedick to a Romeo, and Jafiier to a 
 Faulconbridge, has been illustrated in our time by the 
 genius of Charles Kemble, and will soon have no expo- 
 nent as accomplished as Mr. Davenport. Thus we see 
 his greatest distinction — an extraordinary versatility in 
 which he has no rival, with the sole exception of James 
 Wallack, and for which his physical endowments are 
 quite commensurate with his mental. Nature has been 
 most liberal, and his taste and artistic feeling show his 
 sense of the obligation. He has an open, well-marked 
 countenance, expressive eyes and pliant brow, a voice that 
 is clear and flexible, and a well-formed, manly person. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AN engagement at the Broadway Theatre in New 
 £jL York awaited Mr. Davenport upon his return, 
 and on Monday evening, the nth of September, 
 1854, he reappeared before the American public in 
 the character of Othello. The theatre was crowded 
 to the doors, and his reception made him doubly 
 glad that at last he had forsaken England for 
 America. There was considerable interest shown 
 on the part of those present as to whether his long 
 residence abroad had developed in him any objec- 
 tionable "mannerisms" of speech or bearing, but 
 it was soon found that he was the same Davenport 
 who had gone away seven years before, improved 
 of course by the flight of time and the advantage of 
 wide and diversified experience. The performance 
 was in every way a gratifying success. The "Her- 
 ald" of the following morning thus described the 
 occasion in detail : 
 
 The first appearance of Mr. E. L. Davenport, after an 
 absence of seven years from his native country, during 
 which he has gradually won his way to fame in the higher 
 walks of the drama, drew a crowded and brilliant audi- 
 ence to the Broadway last night. From our previous 
 48 
 
<£btoar& Hoomi£ SDatoenport 49 
 
 recollection of his earlier career as a respectable actor in 
 melodramatic pieces, we confess that we did not antici- 
 pate his achieving any high degree of success in the 
 ambitious part which he had selected for his debut, and 
 which offered so many opportunities of contrast with the 
 triumphs won in it by some of his more celebrated prede- 
 cessors. It was a severe ordeal for an actor to pass 
 through, and in saying that Mr. Davenport fully justi- 
 fied expectations that had been framed from the high 
 reputation that had preceded him from England, we only 
 give effect to the unanimous verdict of the audience of 
 last evening. His Othello differs in many material re- 
 spects from the impersonations of that character to which 
 we have been accustomed; but its departure from the 
 old standard of recognized excellence only served to 
 demonstrate more forcibly the correctness of his taste 
 and to stamp him at once as an actor of original con- 
 ceptions and of unquestionable genius. In his natural 
 and truthful rendering of those delicate and sensitive 
 qualities of the Moor's character which are in general 
 lost in the effort to give an ad captandum effect to it, 
 and in his entire avoidance of those violent exaggerations 
 which, however they may please the multitude, are as 
 offensive to good taste as they are false to the spirit of 
 the text, and in the concentration and intensity of his 
 emotions, he approaches nearer the French school of 
 tragedy than any actor we have as yet seen. When, in 
 addition to those qualities, we state that he has a fine per- 
 son, a nobly framed head and expressive features, and a 
 soft and musical voice, we describe an appearance calcu- 
 lated to make no common impression upon an audience. 
 
 After what we have stated, it is scarcely necessary for 
 us to say that Mr. Davenport's debut last night was as 
 successful as his most sincere well-wishers could desire. 
 On his first appearance he was hailed, in his quality of an 
 old friend returning to his native land laden with honors, 
 
 7 
 
so % 2&iD0tap|)p of 
 
 with a cordial welcome from all parts of the house; as 
 the piece progressed this feeling warmed into enthusiasm, 
 and after the third act he was called before the curtain 
 to receive a fresh tribute of applause. At the termina- 
 tion of the piece the house rang with plaudits, and, in 
 obedience to a general call, Mr. Davenport came for- 
 ward and addressed the audience as follows: 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen : There are moments when 
 the heart falters, the lip quivers, and the tongue almost 
 refuses its office. It is not always fear of honor, disap- 
 pointment or reverse of fortune that causes either; for 
 in my case I will assert that your reception this evening, 
 on my return to my dear native land, has so completely 
 overpowered me that I fear I cannot find words to ex- 
 press the emotions that fill my breast. I had indeed 
 hoped for a hearty welcome. I felt that I should be sur- 
 rounded by true friends, with open hands to welcome 
 the wanderer home — hands with hearts in them — but my 
 wildest imagination, my fondest hopes, could never have 
 painted such a triumphant moment. Seven years absent, 
 ladies and gentlemen, during which time Heaven has 
 been pleased to give me health and strength to combat 
 against all obstacles and difficulties, to overleap all bar- 
 riers that beset the actor's path (and, believe me, in our 
 mimic world they are not few), to live down by close 
 study, intense application, and an indomitable persever- 
 ance any little prejudice that might naturally exist toward 
 a stranger. I have found myself nightly standing beside 
 the greatest artists of the land, and my humble efforts 
 have been received with most flattering favor, and, if I 
 may credit all that has been told me, often sharing the 
 honors of the occasion. It was not the echoing shout of 
 applause, the approbation nightly showered upon me, the 
 warm grasp of congratulating hands on all sides extended 
 toward me that made my heart swell with joy and my 
 foot tread firmly, but it was the innate pride that I was 
 
<£btoar& 3ioomi£ SDabenpott 5* 
 
 an American, a son of that bright and beautiful land 
 which claims and cherishes as its own the star-spangled 
 banner, whose sons know no such word as fail — that land 
 that will stand preeminent and proud amid the wreck 
 of empires and the dissolution of monarchies, envied and 
 admired by all the world. And the day that marked my 
 return was hailed with joy. I felt that a bright future 
 awaited me there; the laborer had proved worthy of his 
 hire, and was to receive at the hands of his own coun- 
 trymen the confirmation of the stamp given abroad, with- 
 out which it had been valueless. To-night has proved 
 they are not ashamed of their own Yankee boy, and 
 the recollection of this kind reception will live forever in 
 my memory. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot 
 close without telling you how anxious I have felt in again 
 resuming my career at home. I well know that others 
 have preceded me of far greater merit and more ex- 
 perience, and one, in particular, whose recent triumphs 
 on these very boards have proved his greatness, whose 
 transcendent genius and talent have made him the darling 
 of his countrymen; for they can point to him and chal- 
 lenge the world to produce his equal. The recollection 
 of his masterly performances will live forever, and show 
 to mankind that, like the immortal bard whose work he 
 so ably portrays, 'he is not for a day, but for all time.' 
 But your generous welcome to-night has proved that you 
 have hearts large enough not only to contain the old 
 favorite and unapproachable actor, but that you have also 
 a little corner for the new-comer who so tremblingly 
 awaited your verdict. I sincerely hope that this may be 
 but an earnest of his future success, and that time will 
 give him a more extended home in your good opinions." 
 
 "The Lady of Lyons" and "The Wife" were also 
 given, and for the closing night of the first week 
 
s 2 31 2&io0ta#)p of 
 
 of the engagement the play-bill records "the sixth 
 appearance of Mr. E. L. Davenport, the eminent 
 tragedian, returned from Europe after an absence 
 of six years, who will present the great play, in five 
 acts, as produced by him at the Theatre Royal, 
 Drury Lane, with immense success, called 'St. 
 Marc ; or, A Husband's Sacrifice,' by the late John 
 H. Wilkins, Esq." The cast included : 
 
 St. Marc E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Gismando F. B. Conway. 
 
 Lorenzo Mr. Gallagher. 
 
 Rosario "J. Grosvenor. 
 
 Balcastro M. W. Leffingwell. 
 
 Dianora Mme. Ponisi. 
 
 Theresa Mrs. Abbott. 
 
 Carolea Miss Wallis. 
 
 "The whole to conclude with the Nautical 
 Drama of 'Black-eyed Susan ; or, All in the Downs.' 
 William, a sailor, Mr. E. L. Davenport, with Lef- 
 fingwell as the Admiral, Davidge as Gnatbrain, 
 Seymour as Jacob Twigg, Mme. Ponisi as Susan, 
 and Josie Gougenheim as Dolly Mayflower" Thus 
 concluded the play-bill. In his entertaining vol- 
 ume entitled "Plays and Players," Laurence Hut- 
 ton writes : 
 
 The Old Broadway and its surroundings are among 
 the things that are past and gone, but the memory of 
 this evening is "as green as Christmas garlands" — for 
 it was the first evening, to us personally, of E. L. Daven- 
 
<£btoar& Eoomi£ SPatoenport 53 
 
 port, and the first time we had ever seen Jerrold's now 
 so familiar tale of the sea. We do not know which im- 
 pressed us more, the William of Davenport, or the Black- 
 eyed Susan, not of Mme. Ponisi, though she was very 
 good, but of Jerrold himself; whether it was the play or 
 the player that moved us — but moved we were, and the 
 night we have never forgotten. Mr. Davenport had come 
 back to his home and his American friends covered with 
 dramatic laurels, cordially bestowed by the critics and 
 theatre-going population of England, where he had been 
 pronounced "an artist equalled by few, and surpassed by 
 none, in his profession," and his reception here had been 
 very kind and hearty. We do not propose now to com- 
 ment upon "St. Marc." Mr. Davenport has often played 
 the part in New York, and only a few seasons ago at 
 Wood's Museum on Broadway. Our business in this 
 present chapter is with the afterpiece of "Black-eyed 
 Susan." 
 
 Mr. Davenport's reputation as William had been estab- 
 lished over the water, and had preceded him here; it 
 was much discussed before it was produced; anticipation 
 among the habitues of Broadway was great; reports as 
 to how strong a character William, in the hands of a 
 true artist, could be made were rife, and it was even 
 currently reported that George Frederick Cooke himself, 
 the great nautical actor of the past, 1 was only an ordi- 
 nary seaman as compared. His namesake, Mr. T. P. 
 Cooke, the original William — William the First of the 
 London stage — had rested a very successful dramatic rep- 
 utation upon the part; but it was confidently stated, in 
 
 1 Mr. Hutton evidently confuses George Frederick 
 Cooke with T. P. Cooke, whom he mentions in the next 
 sentence. George Frederick Cooke was a tragedian, and 
 was in no way renowned for his acting of nautical char- 
 acters. 
 
54 % 2&ograj>f)p of 
 
 advance of its presentation here, that this exponent of the 
 character was the superior of all his predecessors. On 
 the Saturday evening in question, the sixth night of his 
 engagement, but the first, we believe of "Black-eyed 
 Susan," the critics (there were not many of them pro- 
 fessional critics in those days, for dramatic editors were 
 not so common then as now) were present in full force, 
 and the denizens of the old right-hand corner of the pit 
 still speak enthusiastically of the occasion. 
 
 The five acts of "St. Marc" were duly listened to and 
 enjoyed, and the event of the evening was "rung up" 
 on a house well filled and kindly disposed. The opening 
 scenes were not of thrilling interest ; Susan was duly ad- 
 mired, and the usual sympathy felt for her and for "the 
 pangs, the dreadful pangs, that tear the sailor's wife, as, 
 wakeful on her tear-wet pillow, she lists and trembles at 
 the roaring sea." Doggrass made himself odious in the 
 eyes of the gallery; Gnatbrain threw the rolling-pin at 
 him, and won a round of gallery applause; Hatchet paid 
 the rent; Susan retired to her tear- wet pillow to list 
 again, and so forth, when scene fourth is on, "All in 
 the Downs," and enter Davenport as William; and, oh, 
 how briny a William in every look, and action, and ac- 
 cent, and hitch of trousers, of the salt sea salty was 
 William. What a shivering of timbers was there, and 
 what splicings of the main brace, and what belayings and 
 what running over at the scuppers, ye lubbers ! were 
 there when he embraced his Susan! The first three 
 scenes were but the prologue, and the play itself did 
 not begin until William appeared, or the interest ripen 
 until actual trouble came to Susan's natural protector, 
 when the captain was upset, and the audience discovered 
 who the victim of the protector's just indignation was, 
 and the result to William of such a blow to his superior 
 officer. 
 
 Davenport's acting in the final scene of the first act, 
 
<£btoarb Sioomi£ SDatoenpott* 55 
 
 when it was divested of the "clapping-on-of-the-main- 
 top-bowline," and all of that ordinary nautical drama 
 business, was very powerful, and marked with an earnest- 
 ness and artistic effect that the part of William, or its 
 kindred parts, rarely receives ; and it became apparent 
 to the audience that rumor for the once had been correct, 
 and that there was something very much out of the com- 
 mon in the representation. What has been poetically 
 called "the sugar of the performance" seemed, as it were, 
 to have been salted to the listeners; the curtain went 
 down on the first grand tableau to slow music, and on 
 an audience whose subdued silence attested the strong 
 effect produced, the whole house seeming to have entered 
 into the nautical spirit of the play, and to have tapped 
 its briny. 
 
 With Act II, "The Court Martial," we were particu- 
 larly impressed. Hardly, we think, in the range of 
 drama, can the proverb of the short step from the sub- 
 lime to the ridiculous find so apt an illustration as in an 
 indifferent, and if indifferent necessarily ridiculous per- 
 formance of this court-martial scene. In an artist's 
 hands, and with artistic support, it is sublime, almost, 
 as Portia's famous scene with the Jew before the Duke 
 and the Magnificoes of Venice; but when badly played, 
 how flat, stale, and unprofitable it becomes. We remem- 
 ber, not many years ago, how the miseries of a very 
 creditable William were entirely forgotten by a Brooklyn 
 audience one evening, on account of the ridiculous bear- 
 ing of the supers who played the twelve post-captains 
 of the fleet, and by the mirth-provoking delivery of 
 "Witnesses for the Prisoner," "The Prisoner," "The Pris- 
 oner," as passed on by the prompter. 
 
 But to return to Mr. Davenport and this performance 
 in question. There are occasions when the almost magnetic 
 influence of a thoroughly appreciative audience can so 
 stimulate and exalt an actor that the character he enacts 
 
56 % 2&ograpf)p of 
 
 becomes an inspiration in his hands, and for this William 
 and its impersonator, this first time we saw Mr. Davenport 
 in the part, we claim this inspiration ; he carried the house 
 with him; and this fact and the fact that he felt it added 
 "fresh fuel to the fire of his genius." One of the stan- 
 dard jokes of the play, the only "funny business" in the 
 trial scene, the reply of the boatswain, Mr. Quid, to the 
 Admiral's inquiry as to William's moral character: "His 
 moral character, your honor? Why, he plays on the 
 fiddle like an angel !" provoked not a smile ; it seemed 
 irreverent to laugh, the audience grasping at any straw 
 in William's favor. The decision of the court, "Guilty," 
 and the reading of the sentence, "Death," were terrible 
 blows to William's scores of friends before the foot- 
 lights; and William's subdued "Poor Susan" found echo 
 in every sympathizing heart in the audience. 
 
 The interest in the drama, however, did not reach its 
 intensest point until the last scene of all — the execution. 
 The farewells with his shipmates and friends, the last 
 dying gifts and bequests, and his parting from Susan 
 were all very harrowing, and very real, and very chok- 
 ing; but the culmination was William's standing under 
 the yard-arm, his bare neck ready for the rope that was 
 "to launch" him, the parson on the black platform, the 
 twelve melancholy-looking captains, the grief-stricken 
 Admiral Leffingwell, and "the entrance of Captain Cross- 
 tree with his pardon, and his honorable and explanatory 
 speech. Never was a Captain Crosstree so well received ! 
 
 We do not recall many evenings where a great actor 
 has so controlled and moved his audience as did Mr. Dav- 
 enport, and as we look back, and compare it with the 
 playing of other actors, we can only account for it as a 
 true artist's handling of an impressive part. 
 
 The tour thus begun so auspiciously at the 
 Broadway Theatre continued without interruption 
 
(gbtoarb Eoomtg SDatoenport 57 
 
 during the season of 1854-55, Mr. Davenport's 
 repertory including such characters, in addition to 
 those already mentioned, as Othello, Brutus, Claude 
 Melnotte, Benedick, Hamlet, Richard III, and the 
 Stranger. He went from New York to Philadel- 
 phia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, and on 
 the first day of the New Year (1855) he began an 
 engagement at the Boston Theatre in his native 
 city. A banner flung across the street opposite the 
 theatre bore the legend, "Welcome Home, E. L. 
 Davenport," and the front of the theatre was elabo- 
 rately decorated. The play was "Hamlet," and 
 the cast was : 
 
 Hamlet E. L. Davenport. 
 
 The Ghost H. F. Daly. 
 
 Claudius G. W. Johnson. 
 
 Polonius John Gilbert. 
 
 Laertes J. B. Howe. 
 
 Osric George Pauncefort. 
 
 Horatio Thomas Barry. 
 
 Rosencrants G. Johnson. 
 
 Guildenstem N. T. Davenport. 
 
 Marcellus Mr. Lyster. 
 
 Bernardo " Forrester. 
 
 Francisco " Gouldson. 
 
 Priest " Harcourt. 
 
 Lucianus " Holmes. 
 
 Player King William Cowell. 
 
 First Gravedigger John Wood. 
 
 Second Gravedigger S. D. Johnson. 
 
 Queen Gertrude Mrs. H. P. Grattan. 
 
 Ophelia . Julia Bennett Barrow. 
 
 8 
 
58 91 25iogtap|)p of 
 
 The programme concluded with the farce "Boots 
 at the Swan," in which Mr. Davenport did not 
 appear. He remained at the Boston Theatre two 
 weeks, appearing successively as Othello, St. Marc, 
 the Stranger, William in "Black-eyed Susan," 
 Richard III, and Brutus in John Howard Payne's 
 tragedy of that name. His popularity was suffi- 
 cient to demand his further stay in Boston after 
 the close of his engagement at the Boston Theatre, 
 and he went directly thence to the Boston Mu- 
 seum, where, on the 226. of January, he began a 
 season which was prolonged for an entire month. 
 He opened in "St. Marc," and then presented suc- 
 cessively "Black-eyed Susan," "Virginius," "Wil- 
 liam Tell," "The Noble Heart," "The Bride of 
 Lammermoor," and "The Honeymoon." On an 
 evening of this engagement Mr. Davenport was 
 playing the title role of William Tell in his best 
 manner. In the last scene, just before the shoot- 
 ing of the apple from Albert's head, a bow was 
 handed the hero, who thus apostrophized it : 
 
 Thou wilt not fail thy master, wilt thou? 
 
 Thou hast never failed him yet, old servant. No, 
 
 I 'm sure of thee — I acknowledge thy honesty; 
 
 Thou 'rt staunch — I 'd deserve to find thee treacherous 
 
 Could I suspect thee so. 
 
 Come, I will stake my all upon thee ! 
 
 At the final words, he pulled the bow-string 
 with the arrow in position. It slipped. He tried 
 
€btoart> Hoomi£ SDatomport 59 
 
 to replace the string upon the bow, but the loop 
 was broken. A piece of twine was adroitly handed 
 him from the wings. He fastened it to the string, 
 but even then the instrument failed to work. The 
 audience began to grow uneasy, the actors nervous, 
 and the prompter hysterical. A special messenger 
 was despatched to the property-room for another 
 bow, which was at last handed to the anxious actor. 
 This too was a failure, and not until a third bow 
 was brought did the scene proceed. On being 
 called before the curtain at the close of the per- 
 formance, Mr. Davenport remarked that the little 
 mishap of the evening had demonstrated the "value 
 of having two strings to one's bow." 
 
 The Boston engagement was followed, on Feb- 
 ruary 19, 1855, by a return to New York, and a 
 second season at the Broadway Theatre. "Ham- 
 let" was given on the opening night, and a revival 
 of "Othello" followed on the 20th, while on the 
 28th came the first performance in New York of 
 "The Egyptian; or, The Fall of Palmyra," with 
 Mr. Davenport and Madame Ponisi in the leading 
 roles of Abdas and Julia. The notable feature of 
 this engagement was the first appearance of Mrs. 
 Davenport on the American stage, the occasion 
 being Mr. Davenport's benefit, the date the 2d 
 of March, and the play "Love's Sacrifice." Mrs. 
 Davenport appeared as Margaret Elmore, and Mr. 
 Davenport as Matthezv Elmore. The "Tribune" 
 on the following morning contained this account: 
 
6o % 2&ograpl)p of 
 
 One of the most hearty welcomes ever given to a 
 stranger by a New York audience was accorded last 
 evening to Miss Fanny Vining, who made her first ap- 
 pearance in America at the Broadway Theatre. The 
 occasion was the benefit of Mr. E. L. Davenport, and 
 the play selected was Lovell's well-known "Love's Sac- 
 rifice." Miss Vining does not come among us unher- 
 alded; the English journals have borne their testimony 
 of the estimation in which she is held in London, where 
 she has long been connected with the Drury Lane Thea- 
 tre, and where her ability is unquestioned. She is suf- 
 ficiently mature in years to have outgrown faults of inex- 
 perience, and she has attained a point of excellence which 
 is only to be reached by long and careful cultivation of 
 talent naturally far above the average. She is a lady of 
 medium height, and not by any means majestic in ap- 
 pearance; her voice is clear, distinct, and well modu- 
 lated; her movements graceful, her countenance expres- 
 sive, her gestures quick and passionate, and her whole 
 style of playing rather of the impulsive order. She reads 
 well; her enunciation, though sometimes rapid, is dis- 
 tinct and totally free from that sing-song manner which 
 is frequently such a sorry blemish in a performance 
 otherwise good. Her quiet scenes were played with a 
 deep pathos which showed at the same time her appre- 
 hension of the author's meaning and her own artistic 
 skill, and the passionate passages were given with an 
 energy which brought down the house in good, solid 
 earnest She was called before the curtain at the end of 
 the third act, and also at the conclusion of the play, and 
 on making her appearance with Mr. Davenport was 
 greeted with an applauding shout which bore testimony of 
 the favor with which her efforts were received. 
 
 During the Philadelphia engagement which fol- 
 lowed the season in New York, Mrs. Davenport 
 
<£btoatb floomig SDatompott 6i 
 
 played Rosalind to the Jaques of Mr. Davenport, 
 Ophelia to his Hamlet, Beatrice to his Benedick, 
 and Donna Alda to his acting of the title character 
 in George Henry Boker's tragedy "Calaynos." 
 This play had been published some years pre- 
 viously, and had been given on the stage in Eng- 
 land by Samuel Phelps and in America by James 
 E. Murdoch. Its revival by Mr. Davenport in Mr. 
 Boker's own city was eagerly anticipated by Phila- 
 delphians, and the fact that it was presented for 
 Mrs. Davenport's benefit added appreciably to the 
 general interest. "Calaynos" was repeated several 
 times at the Walnut Street Theatre. "Richard III" 
 was also given, and on the 20th of April Mr. Dav- 
 enport was tendered a testimonial, at which he ap- 
 peared as Hamlet. From Philadelphia he went to 
 Providence for a brief engagement, Mrs. Davenport 
 returning to New York to appear on the 7th of May 
 as Juliet and on the 9th in "Charity's Love" at the 
 Broadway Theatre, where Mr. Davenport rejoined 
 her on the 14th. The opening play was "Love and 
 Loyalty," by William Robson, then given for the 
 first time in New York; and during the re- 
 mainder of the two weeks' season they appeared in 
 "Othello," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Love's 
 Sacrifice," "A Morning Call," "The Merchant of 
 Venice," "Black-eyed Susan," and "A New Way 
 to Pay Old Debts," in the latter play Mrs. Daven- 
 port appearing as Margaret. The ensuing criti- 
 cisms from the New York "Tribune" will give 
 
62 31 2&ograi% of 
 
 some idea of the impression created by Mr. Daven- 
 port in these great Shaksperian characters : 
 
 It is impossible to judge in ordinary plays, as in ordi- 
 nary actions, of the performer's power and capacity. It 
 requires a Shaksperian play in one, as a great crisis in 
 the other, to test the mettle of the man. ... It is 
 impossible to describe that strange power which at once 
 fixes and enchains you, gathers in your feelings in its 
 giant grasp, and holds for a time a mastery of your 
 being, making you smile, weep, dream, scorn, or love, as 
 it lists. In Mr. Davenport this power finds no dwelling. 
 The absence of this power, not that of taste, made him 
 unnatural. Mr. Davenport's delivery lacked spirit. This 
 was evident in the first act, when he mourns over the 
 frivolity of his mother. . . . On the appearance of 
 the Ghost, though neither the attitude nor expression 
 conveyed correctly the surprise of sudden terror, Mr. 
 Davenport was sufficiently effective while addressing the 
 Ghost in the agony of excitement; but when the Ghost 
 begins to speak, Mr. Davenport goes too far in his effort 
 to look petrified. Hamlet is powerfully agitated, but 
 though his whole being is convulsed by the horrible dis- 
 closure, life is not suspended. But Mr. Davenport stands 
 so cold and dead as to far more resemble his father's 
 Ghost than that individual itself. ... In the last 
 scene of the second act, where Hamlet's imagination, in- 
 fluenced by the interview with the actors, suggests to his 
 rich mind so many eloquent reflections, Mr. Davenport, 
 entering more into the spirit of the scene, warms up, and 
 when he exclaims, 
 
 "He would drown the stage with tears, 
 And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; 
 Make mad the guilty and appal the free," 
 
V 
 
 MR. DAVENPORT AS HAMLET. 
 
<£btoart> ffioomig SDatoenport 6 3 
 
 he is very effective; and when, this warmth mounting 
 into a paroxysm of rage, he calls the King 
 
 "Bloody, bawdy villain! 
 "Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!" 
 
 he sweeps the audience with him, and brings down de- 
 served applause. But on his appearance in the third act, 
 Mr. Davenport again resumes his lifeless air. . . . 
 On meeting Ophelia, Mr. Davenport is more excited, and 
 the audience at once feels it. 
 
 As an offset to this criticism it may be well to 
 call to mind the fact that when Salvini first visited 
 this country, some fifteen years later, he expressed 
 a desire to be introduced to Mr. Davenport after 
 having witnessed his performance of "Hamlet." 
 He was accordingly taken behind the scenes, 
 greeted his American comrade warmly, and ex- 
 claimed : "Anima ! Animal" ("Soul! Soul!") 
 
 The same critic thus referred at length to Mr. 
 Davenport's Richard III: 
 
 Mr. Davenport is infinitely more qualified for Richard 
 than for Hamlet. The lack of fire and deficiency of power 
 which we pointed out as his chief defects are more 
 apparent when his face is in repose and when he moves 
 about the stage without being stirred by any active im- 
 pulse. . . . When Richard, rushing on the stage, at 
 once breaks into a burst of passion, Mr. Davenport's 
 face and attitude powerfully represent the workings of 
 those hellish fiends of ambition, shame, and revenge on 
 his fellows for his deformity which riot at Richard's 
 
6 4 % S&ogtapJjp of 
 
 heart, and he casts on the audience a fit shadow of the 
 villain king. Nor is there anything in Mr. Davenport's 
 conception of Richard's physical attributes to break the 
 illusion. There was that, too, in his stealthy movement 
 and watchfulness of eye which conveyed a most correct 
 idea of Richard's infernal hypocrisy. Were Mr. Daven- 
 port to assume a little more ungainliness of person, and 
 throw a stronger dash of devil over his face, he would 
 be, as far as personnel is concerned, the best representative 
 of Richard upon the stage. When he begins to speak, his 
 lack of physical power becomes apparent. Occasionally he 
 speaks with unction and animation, but unless it is sus- 
 tained throughout with unbroken energy, and the ve- 
 hemences of utterance suited to the vehemence of senti- 
 ment, occasional efforts fail to reach the mind where the 
 attention has been impaired by previous weakness, and 
 the unity is thus lost. We miss, too, the exultant ferocity 
 which should mark every tone and look on climbing the 
 first step of the ladder by the murderer of the king. 
 . . . But if Mr. Davenport did not startle his audi- 
 ence by bold strokes of power, he excited well-deserved 
 admiration by the representation of those scenes in which 
 dissimulation and hypocrisy are exhibited. The wooing 
 of Lady Anne was an exquisite piece of acting, and his 
 exultation in the diabolical skill with which he waged 
 and won his suit was most keenly and faithfully depicted. 
 But Mr. Davenport's real triumph was in the scene while 
 Tyrrel is in the Tower murdering the babes. In the ren- 
 dering of the beautiful passage in which, subdued for a 
 moment by the scene and silence around and the feeling 
 of the fell deed that was going on inside, he softens, 
 while the thought of how horridly history will hereafter 
 picture him, and that at that moment there was not a hand 
 on earth to drop a flower upon his grave, stole remorse- 
 fully over his conscience, there was a thrilling pathos in 
 Mr. Davenport's air and voice and look which clothed 
 
€btoar& Xoomte SDatotnpott 6 5 
 
 the picture with a beautiful poesy and deeply stirred the 
 audience's heart. 
 
 On the whole, we think Mr. Davenport's personation 
 of Richard III, though it contains some blemishes, is 
 still full of many beauties, which justly entitle his very 
 noble effort to the gratitude of every true lover of 
 Shakspere. 
 
 It will be noticed that the chief exceptions taken 
 in these criticisms to Mr. Davenport's acting are 
 almost all upon his physical interpretations of char- 
 acter. The review of his Othello starts off even 
 more forbiddingly than its predecessors, and, like 
 most of the criticism of fifty years ago, is written 
 in that verbose, florid, and uninteresting style for- 
 tunately not now in vogue. 
 
 When Mr. Davenport appears we are at once struck 
 with his incapability to personate the character. Othello 
 should fix the interest of the audience on the instant of 
 his appearance by his proud bearing and impetuous man- 
 ner. Every movement should speak of the fiery Arab, 
 and a feeling of sympathy seize and hold the heart. But 
 Mr. Davenport enters with a stealthy pace, and more 
 with the air of some lugubrious Eastern dervish. . . . 
 Othello requires for personation a noble mien and strong 
 physical power which Mr. Davenport does not possess. 
 But the ease, elasticity, and gracefulness of action which 
 also belong to Othello Mr. Davenport does possess, and 
 with their assistance he endeavors to put on Othello and 
 make us forget that he does not look the man. Mr. Dav- 
 enport partially succeeds, but only partially. . . . We 
 have already expressed our opinion of Mr. Davenport's 
 Richard. We conceive, if possible, he would be still better 
 
 9 
 
66 % 2&iogtapl)p of 
 
 in lago, a character which we have always deemed the 
 character of the play, and which is especially suited to 
 his particular powers. But for Othello he is not by any 
 means so well qualified. 
 
 When before the Senate, the modesty of Othello de- 
 generates in Mr. Davenport's conception into humility; 
 his manner wears no spirit, and little bespeaks the brave, 
 noble chief of the soldiery of Venice. The romantic 
 story of his life is told with much monotony, and it is 
 only when he speaks of his love that he enlists inter- 
 est. . . . 
 
 In the second act, where the gates are thrown aside 
 and he breaks upon the drunken brawl of the Venetian 
 sentinels, Mr. Davenport wears an air of terrible ferocity, 
 when it should be simply one of stern anger and author- 
 ity of a commanding officer. But we pass to a scene 
 which Mr. Davenport renders with inimitable skill and 
 excellence. It is that in which the devil lago commences 
 his hellish work of torture. You almost see every cun- 
 ning arrow cleave the air, steal through the dark skin, 
 and rest and rankle in the rich, luxuriant Arab heart. 
 You see the shadow of the green-eyed monster glide 
 across him, make him first doubt, then shudder, then 
 shake with sorrow and despair. All these varying shades 
 of feeling were portrayed by Mr. Davenport with great 
 skill. 
 
 The engagement at the Broadway Theatre ended 
 Saturday evening, May 26, 1855. 
 
 It was in the course of this season that the un- 
 fortunate incident arose which led to the perma 
 nent estrangement between Edwin Forrest and Mr 
 Davenport. While appearing in Cincinnati, Mr ( 
 Davenport met Judge Conrad, the author of "J ac k: 
 
 / 
 
<£fctoarb Stoomig SDatoenport 6 7 
 
 Cade," and inquired if there were any restrictions 
 in the way of its production. Judge Conrad 
 promptly assured him that his consent was all that 
 was necessary. To Mr. Davenport's remark that 
 Forrest claimed the sole right to its production, 
 the author replied that Mr. Forrest had absolutely 
 no exclusive rights to the play, and that if Mr. 
 Davenport desired he was at perfect liberty to pre- 
 sent it. Furthermore, Judge Conrad added that he 
 would be very much pleased to see Mr. Davenport 
 act the title character of his play, whereupon it 
 was announced and successfully performed. Im- 
 mediately thereafter came a letter to Mr. Daven- 
 port from Forrest, warning him that he could not 
 present the play in the face of Forrest's exclusive 
 rights. To this letter the recipient replied, stating 
 that he was not aware of Mr. Forrest's superior 
 claim in the matter, but that he was willing to ac- 
 cede to his demands solely on the ground of profes- 
 sional courtesy and friendship. Here the matter 
 rested for the time being, although it was destined 
 to have a permanent effect upon the relations be- 
 tween the two actors. On the 9th of May, three 
 days after the close of Mr. Davenport's engage- 
 ment at the Broadway Theatre, a performance of 
 "Damon and Pythias" was given at the Academy 
 of Music in New York for the benefit of the elder 
 James W. Wallack. Although Forrest had made it 
 a strict rule not to appear at benefit performances, 
 he cast it aside this once in favor of his old friend 
 
68 % 2&io0tapi)p of 
 
 and comrade, and agreed to act Damon, although if 
 he had known at the time that Mr. Davenport was 
 to be the Pythias it is extremely doubtful if he 
 would have consented to appear. As it was, he cer- 
 tainly did not make a bad matter any better by re- 
 fusing to speak directly to Mr. Davenport even 
 when before the audience, and by saying, "Pythias 
 goes here," or "Pythias stands there," whenever the 
 action of the play brought them together. Many 
 years later, when Mr. Davenport sent him word 
 that he would be glad to play Iago to his Othello, 
 the reply came that he would not let Davenport 
 play Montano in his company ! "These were in his 
 violent moments," says Lawrence Barrett in his 
 biography of Forrest, "and illustrate the perverse 
 and soured elements of his nature." 
 
 In his "Life of Edwin Forrest," Rev. William 
 R. Alger uses this episode as the text for a brief 
 discussion of the trouble, and of Mr. Davenport's 
 qualities as an actor. 
 
 Forrest assigned an exalted artistic rank to the very 
 varied dramatic impersonations of Mr. E. L. Davenport, 
 every one of whose roles is marked by firm drawing, 
 distinct light and shade, fine consistency, and finish. His 
 Sir Giles Overreach was hardly surpassed by Kean or 
 Booth, and has not been approached by anybody else. 
 His quick, alert, springy tread full of fire and rapidity, 
 the whole man in every step, fixed the attention and 
 made every one feel that there was a terrific concentra- 
 tion of energy, an insane possession of the nerve centres, 
 portending something frightful soon to come. An old 
 
<#&toarb 3toomt£ SDatoettpotk 6 9 
 
 playgoer, on witnessing this impersonation, wrote the 
 following impromptu: 
 
 "While viewing each remembered scene, before my gaze 
 
 appears 
 Each famed depictor of Sir Giles for almost forty years ; 
 The elder Kean and mighty Booth have each held hearts 
 
 in thrall, 
 But without overreaching truth, you overreach them all." 
 
 It is a satisfaction to put on record this judgment of 
 one artist concerning another whose merit transcends 
 even his high reputation, especially as a coolness sepa- 
 rated the two men, Mr. Davenport having, through a 
 misapprehension of the fact of the publication of "Jack 
 Cade" by Judge Conrad, inferred that it had thus in 
 some sense become the property of the public, and pro- 
 duced it on the stage, while Forrest held it to be his 
 own private property. He had been so annoyed by such 
 proceedings on the part of other actors before, provoking 
 him into angry suits at law, that his temper was sore. 
 He wrote sharply to Mr. Davenport, who, even if he had 
 made a mistake, had done no conscious wrong and meant 
 no offense, and who replied in a calmer tone and with 
 better taste. Here the matter closed, but left an aliena- 
 tion — for Forrest, when irritated, was relentlessly tena- 
 cious of his point. Mr. Davenport is a man of gentle 
 and generous character, respected and beloved by all his 
 companions. He is also in all parts of his profession a 
 highly accomplished artist and critic. Accordingly, when 
 he expresses the conviction, as he repeatedly has, both 
 before and since the decease of his former friend and 
 great compeer, that Forrest was beyond comparison the 
 most original and the greatest actor America has pro- 
 duced, his words are weighty, and their spirit honors the 
 speaker as much as it does the subject. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A GLANCE at the American stage of this pe- 
 riod reveals the fact that it was, like the 
 nation at large, in a transition state of unrest and 
 upheaval. The exciting events which preceded 
 immediately the outbreak of the Civil War were 
 forcing the country into a turmoil of agitation and 
 strife which would not cease until Grant's final 
 victory in 1865, ten years thence. Prophecies of 
 bloodshed were on everybody's lips in the North 
 and in the South. With their every-day life so 
 beset by forebodings of an impending conflict, it 
 is a wonder that any attention at all was paid to 
 the theatre and its people. Yet, in spite of all the 
 political and social turmoil, the stage managed to 
 drag out a not wholly discouraging existence, and 
 to this period may be traced the height of the 
 reputation of many famous American actors. 
 
 Forrest was in his prime. Powerful, proud, self- 
 assertive, and antagonistic to all but his dearest per- 
 sonal friends, his public and private life had been 
 embittered by professional and personal conflicts 
 which resulted in placing him, at least in his own 
 opinion, at odds with half the world. The loyalty 
 70 
 
<£btoarb Xoomig SDatoenpott 7* 
 
 of his friends — and no man had more loyal friends 
 than Forrest — was practically all that made life 
 worth the living for him. Only recently they had 
 fought for him with intellect and brawn, and their 
 partizanship had been vehemently and disgrace- 
 fully shown in the Astor Place riots, by which a 
 distinguished English actor had been forcibly com- 
 pelled to flee for his life from New York to Boston, 
 and afterward to England. But Forrest, both be- 
 cause of and in spite of his temperament, loomed 
 the greatest figure on the American stage. Friend 
 and foe agreed in some measure to his right to 
 that position. 
 
 The elder Booth, only recently dead, had left 
 three sons as a heritage to his own profession. 
 The second was just beginning a high and honor- 
 able career which was to continue over thirty 
 years and make him, although an actor of entirely 
 different personality and method, the successor of 
 Forrest in the popular esteem. Edwin Booth, 
 however, received the approval of intellectual play- 
 goers with a unanimity which Forrest had never 
 won. The elder Wallack was drawing to the close 
 of a distinguished life, but the name was to be 
 perpetuated for over a generation longer by his 
 nephew, James W., Jr., and his son Lester. 
 Other members of the Wallack family had also 
 graced the stage of both Great Britain and Amer- 
 ica throughout the middle part of the century — 
 notably Henry, the father of the younger James, 
 
7 2 % 2&iosta£l)p of 
 
 and the latter's sisters Julia and Fanny. The 
 Falstaff of James H. Hackett had years before be- 
 come the criterion by which all Falstaffs on the 
 American stage were judged, and was at this pe- 
 riod renowned from end to end of the continent. 
 James E. Murdoch was in great vogue as a trage- 
 dian, and in the front rank of comedians were 
 Henry Placide,John Brougham, William E. Burton, 
 John Gilbert, William Rufus Blake, and William 
 Warren. Although unknown but a few years pre- 
 viously, Matilda Heron was shining conspicuously 
 midway in the path of her brilliant meteoric career 
 as an emotional actress ; and Julia Dean was near- 
 ing the close and Laura Keene just tasting the 
 first fruits of a brief footlight existence. Char- 
 lotte Cushman, eminent both as a cultivated woman 
 and a gifted actress, was at the very top of her 
 long-continued fame, and had before her nearly 
 twenty years in which to add to the solidity and 
 honor of the American stage. 
 
 The Jefferson family, already celebrated through 
 three generations of actors, was to rise still more 
 conspicuously in the public repute by the exqui- 
 site comedy delineations of the player whose Asa 
 Trenchard, Dr. Pangloss, Mr. Golightly, Bob 
 Acres, and Rip Van Winkle were to delight 
 many coming millions of playgoers. After having 
 served a novitiate beginning in his early infancy, 
 the third Joseph Jefferson, less than thirty years 
 of age at this period, was destined to become 
 
<£btoarb &oomi£ SDatoenport 73 
 
 the foremost comedian of his time. Edward A. 
 Sothern had just started upon a brilliant career 
 in which fate was to hold him up as the su- 
 perlatively comic creator and representative of a 
 single character; and a list of the promising dra- 
 matic youngsters of the time would not be com- 
 plete without the names of Edwin Adams, Frank 
 Mayo, William J. Florence, the younger Charles 
 R. Thorne, John T. Raymond, and Stuart Robson. 
 To Dion Boucicault must be given a niche of his 
 own, for that versatile Irishman justified the her- 
 itage of his nationality by the fertility of his genius 
 as a performer, creator, arranger, and adapter of 
 plays. 
 
 Such were the people by whom Edward L. Dav- 
 enport found himself surrounded midway in the 
 year 1855. In the matter of plays he had much 
 to choose from in the way of the old, and very 
 little in the way of the new. The classic repertory 
 of comedy, tragedy, and farce still survived, but 
 competent writers of modern plays were few and 
 far between. Forrest's prize offers had brought 
 forth scanty material for his choice, and with few 
 exceptions the public preferred to see over and 
 over again the plays whose worth they knew, 
 rather than to sit in judgment upon the merit of 
 strange and unfamiliar dramas. The plays in 
 which Mr. Davenport thenceforth appeared are 
 fairly typical of the status of the American thea- 
 tre during the third quarter of the nineteenth 
 10 
 
74 % 2&iogra$>fjp of 
 
 century. Only the very best — Shakspere and a 
 few others — have survived through the transition 
 between the old and new centuries. "Black-eyed 
 Susan," with its weirdly irrational plot, heavy 
 melodramatic incidents, fantastic characters, and 
 absurd dialogue, would be laughed to scorn by the 
 present age of theatre-goers — and justly, too. 
 Even "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," one of 
 the greatest Elizabethan dramas outside the Shak- 
 spere cycle, has literally died of old age, the im- 
 mensity of its theme and the power of its character- 
 drawing not being sufficient to outweigh the hor- 
 ror of its episodes in the minds of the majority of 
 the people of our over-sensitive epoch. As the 
 years passed by, Mr. Davenport himself discov- 
 ered that his Sir Giles Overreach could not hold 
 the public as it had once, but the fault lay beyond 
 all question with the public, and not with the actor. 
 The summer of 1855 was passed by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Davenport in a tour through Albany, Buffalo, 
 and other Eastern cities, their repertory including 
 a sensational play entitled "The Scalp Hunters," 
 in addition to the other dramas in which they were 
 already familiar. A letter which appeared in one 
 of the Albany papers during their engagement in 
 that city is worth printing as a curiosity : 
 
 Will you allow an "old salt" to make a few remarks 
 through your journal on the play of "Black-eyed Susan," 
 that was performed at the Albany Theatre last week? 
 After a good deal of persuasion from my wife, I went 
 to see Mr. Davenport (with some other friends), ex- 
 
MR. DAVENPORT AS SIR GILES. 
 
<£btoarti Hoomig SDabenpott 75 
 
 pecting, of course, to see it as I had seen it acted before. 
 But, sir, I was disappointed, and I have been round some 
 in different parts of the world for the last twenty-five 
 years, and I must say I never had the salt-water knocked 
 out of my toplights by anything equal to that perform- 
 ance. To criticize it would be out of the question, for it 
 was perfect; and when Mr. Davenport gave the chorus 
 in the "Yankee Ship and Yankee Crew," I thought I was 
 at home again on salt water, and looked at him to see 
 if he was not genuine, and everybody afloat, for without 
 any exception he is the most perfect sailor I have seen 
 in years, and the best I ever saw upon the stage. No 
 over-acting and nothing wanting. He represents the 
 sailor as he used to be in old times, for they as a class 
 are undergoing a change, and the old school are passing 
 away. If the play is performed again, I would advise all 
 to go and see it, whether they approve of such things 
 or not, for there is nothing in the performance but what 
 is to the life and perfectly in its place. 
 
 On Monday, September 17, the regular sea- 
 son began at the Broadway Theatre in New York, 
 with Mr. Davenport as the star. An extract from 
 the current press will give some idea of the people 
 by whom he was surrounded while at that house : 
 
 During the summer vacation the enterprising pro- 
 prietors — the Marshalls — were not inattentive to the re- 
 quirements and tastes of the theatre-going public, and so 
 from England and from home actors of repute and popu- 
 larity were obtained and enlisted as regular members of 
 the corps dramatique at this theatre. Among the former 
 are Miss Emma Harding, late of the Haymarket Thea- 
 tre, London, and Miss Josephine Manners, a vocalist 
 from the Theatre Royal, Liverpool. Among the latter 
 are that jolly comedian and capital stage manager, late 
 of Wallack's and Burton's, and who had occupied the 
 
7 6 % 2ftosrai% of 
 
 position of stage manager at the Broadway some four 
 years ago, a post which he again resumes ; Mr. Charles 
 Fisher, an excellent and judicious English actor who, we 
 believe, made his New York debut at Burton's; Mr. 
 Chapman, an old favorite, formerly of the Park Theatre ; 
 Mr. Fenno, who had been a few years ago a valuable 
 stock actor at the Broadway, and who has since been 
 playing first characters in Philadelphia, Washington, and 
 the rural districts generally; Mr. S. Eytinge, from the 
 Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia; Mrs. W. R. Blake, 
 and Mrs. Buckland. These, we believe, comprise all the 
 additions to the dramatic company at the Broadway, but 
 they are both numerous and valuable. Among the old 
 favorites retained are Madame Ponisi, Mrs. Warren, 
 and Mrs. Nagle. Mr. E. L. Davenport, one of the most 
 talented, judicious, and popular of our American actors, 
 commenced a brief engagement last evening. The recep- 
 tion given to him, as well as to Madame Ponisi and Mr. 
 Fisher, was extremely flattering. 
 
 The opening play of the season was Shakspere's 
 "Richard III," with Mr. Davenport in the title 
 character and Charles Fisher as Richmond. The 
 engagement lasted three weeks, its most notable 
 event being the production, on September 26, of 
 George H. Boker's "Francesca da Rimini," with 
 Mr. Davenport as Lanciotto, Charles Fisher as 
 Beppo, David Whiting as Malatesta, J. W. Laner- 
 gan as Paolo, Madame Ponisi as Francesca, and 
 Miss Manners as Ritta. 
 
 After a tour which included Philadelphia, Balti- 
 more, and Chicago, Boston was reached, and on 
 Wednesday evening Mr. Davenport played Pros- 
 pero in "The Tempest," probably for the first time. 
 
<g&toart) Hoomig SDatoenpott n 
 
 He superseded Thomas Barry for only a few per- 
 formances, that actor appearing in the part during 
 the remainder of the run. 
 
 Doubtless at no period of his career was Mr. 
 Davenport more popular in his native city than 
 at the present moment. In a letter to the "Spirit 
 of the Times," James Oakes, one of Edwin For- 
 rest's most intimate friends, said : "If there ever 
 was an actor who deserved to be fostered and en- 
 couraged by his townsmen, it is Edward L. Dav- 
 enport, as by his own industry he has, unaided, 
 climbed to his present position in the profession." 
 After leaving Boston, he played in the South until 
 early in May, and then returned to his native city 
 in order to begin an engagement at the National 
 Theatre, continuing there several weeks in his cus- 
 tomary repertory. A series of tours followed dur- 
 ing the two ensuing seasons. 
 
 On September 15, 1856, Mr. and Mrs. Daven- 
 port began an engagement in New York at Bur- 
 ton's new theatre in Broadway, near Bond Street, 
 which continued two months. They opened as the 
 Duke Aranza and Juliana in "The Honeymoon"; 
 on the 25th of September "The Witch Wife" was 
 given, with the Davenports as Matthew Hopkins 
 and Cecil Howard, and Burton as Anthony Gabo- 
 on the 1st of October they played Walter and Eli- 
 nor in "The Poor Scholar," with Burton as James 
 Blot. They appeared as Hamlet and Ophelia, 
 Charles Surface and Lady Teazle; and on the 17th 
 of November, Boucicault's "Genevieve; or, the 
 
7 8 % 2&osrapl)p of 
 
 Reign of Terror" was given, with Davenport as 
 Maurice Landry, Burton as Lorin, Charles Fisher 
 as Dixmer, Dan Setchell as Simon, and Mrs. Dav- 
 enport as Genevieve. 
 
 In the revival of "Hamlet," the Polonius was 
 Mark Smith, Burton and Placide were the Grave- 
 diggers, Charles Fisher was the Ghost, and Mrs. 
 Davenport the Ophelia to her husband's Dane — "a 
 combination of strength in the male parts almost 
 unequaled," remarks Laurence Hutton in "A Cen- 
 tury of Hamlet." 
 
 Leaving Burton's Theatre, they began an en- 
 gagement in "Charity's Love" at the Bowery Thea- 
 tre, on December 1st, which lasted until the 24th 
 of January, 1857. This was the period of Charles 
 Kean's popular Shaksperian revivals at the Prin- 
 cess's Theatre in London, and John Brougham, 
 emulous of his friend across the water, attempted a 
 pretentious revival of "King John" at the Bowery 
 Theatre, then under his management. On the 29th 
 of December it was brought out, with the follow- 
 ing cast : 
 
 King John E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Faulconbridge William Wheatley. 
 
 Hubert J. B. Howe. 
 
 King Philip Con. Clarke. 
 
 Dauphin Mr. Dunn. 
 
 Pandulph David Whiting. 
 
 Prince Arthur Kate Reignolds. 
 
 Constance Mrs. E. L. Davenport. 
 
<£btoarb 3loomi$ SDabcnport 79 
 
 And Brougham as leader of the supernumeraries! 
 Of this production Mrs. Erving Winslow (Kate 
 Reignolds) thus writes in her "Yesterdays with 
 Actors": 
 
 It may seem a singular role for such a man to under- 
 take, but he meant in every detail to insure success, and 
 it is needless to say, while he personated the head of one 
 army, the other was well officered, and more well-drilled, 
 earnest troops were never seen in a body of regular 
 soldiers. There never was a stage where the possibilities 
 were greater, being so deep as to permit the effect of the 
 army marching up from a valley at the back, and the 
 height of the theatre none realized more fully than myself 
 when, as Arthur, I stood upon the walls and looked down 
 into the sickening space before the leap he is supposed 
 to make. I have often jumped a distance of a few feet, 
 but even then there is a jar, as I found when I did it 
 night after night, although there is always a mattress 
 laid to "break the fall." But a leap such as the one I 
 speak of in "King John" could not be taken unless the 
 actor were to fulfil Shakspere's intention of death to the 
 one taking it. . . . This production of one of Shak- 
 spere's greatest plays, magnificently acted, failed so sig- 
 nally as to leave the manager with a nightly deficit, neces- 
 sitating the withdrawal of "King John" after only two 
 weeks. 
 
 After leaving the Bowery Theatre, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Davenport played a brief engagement at the Cham- 
 bers Street Theatre, and on April 20 they began a 
 short season at the Broadway Theatre in a new play 
 by George H. Miles, entitled "De Soto ; or, The Hero 
 of the Mississippi." The cast included Mr. Dav- 
 
8o 31 2&iogra#)p of 
 
 enport in the title role, Sol Eytinge as D'Alvardo, 
 A. H. Davenport as Moscaso, and Mrs. Davenport 
 as Ulah. As the public refused to patronize this 
 play, it was speedily withdrawn, and was followed 
 by "Julius Caesar," "Richard III," and "The 
 School for Scandal." In "Julius Caesar" Mr. Dav- 
 enport appeared as Brutus, the younger J. W. Wal- 
 lack as Cassius, and Mrs. Davenport as Portia. 
 The season at this house ended on the 30th of 
 May. At one time during the following season 
 of 1857-58 Mr. Davenport was playing Hamlet at 
 the Winter Garden, while at Wallaces the elder 
 J. W. Wallack was acting the same character, both 
 actors having rivals as the Dane at two theatres on 
 the East Side. At Wallack's Theatre, on Feb- 
 ruary 12, 1858, a notable performance of "Othello" 
 was given for the benefit of Henry C. Jarrett. Mr. 
 Davenport was the Othello, Edwin Booth the Iago, 
 A. H. Davenport the Cassio, Mrs. John Hoey the 
 Desdemona, and Mrs. J. H. Allen the Emilia. 
 On March 1 Mr. and Mrs. Davenport began an 
 engagement at Burton's Theatre in "Hamlet," and 
 in the course of their season there they took part 
 in a number of new productions. On the 4th of 
 March a melodrama entitled "A Struggle for 
 Gold" was brought out, with the Davenports as 
 Richard Wilder and Marian; and on the 16th of 
 the same month "some very good acting was 
 wasted on an absurd piece" x called "The Mor- 
 1 Ireland's "Records of the New York Stage," vol. ii. 
 
mons.' , The cast included Mr. Davenport as 
 Markham, Charles Fisher as Brigham Young, 
 Mark Smith as Perley Pratt, W. E. Burton as 
 Noggs, Dan Setchell as Jake, Mrs. Davenport as 
 Lucy, and Ada Clifton as Mary. Their season 
 ended at this house on April 3, and, going di- 
 rectly to the Boston Theatre, Mr. Davenport 
 played there in opposite parts to Joseph Proc- 
 tor in "Julius Caesar," "Damon and Pythias/' 
 "Othello," and other classic plays. On the last day 
 of the following May, at the same house, he began 
 an engagement in leading roles with Charlotte 
 Cushman, who had been residing in Europe and 
 on this occasion made her first public appearance 
 in her native city for many years. The opening 
 play was Shakspere's "King Henry VIII," and its 
 cast a notable one : 
 
 King Henry VIII John Gilbert. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Duke of Buckingham . . . ' . . George C. Boniface. 
 
 Lord Sands Dan Setchell. 
 
 Cromwell I* R. Shewell. 
 
 Queen Katherine Charlotte Cushman. 
 
 Anne Boleyn Mary Devlin. 
 
 Patience Mrs. John Gilbert. 
 
 "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet," "Guy Manner- 
 
 ing," "The Stranger," "The Honeymoon," "The 
 
 Actress of Padua," and "She Stoops to Conquer" 
 
 followed during the engagement, which lasted a 
 
 11 
 
82 
 
 <£btoarb Hoomte SDatoenport 
 
 fortnight, and when Miss Cushman began her 
 New York engagement at Niblo's Garden on the 
 2 1 st of June Mr. Davenport continued in her sup- 
 port. The season opened, as in Boston, with 
 "King Henry VIII," and on the second night Miss 
 Cushman played Romeo to the Juliet of Miss Mary 
 Devlin and the Mercutio of Mr. Davenport. Miss 
 Devlin, who later became the wife of Edwin Booth 
 and died after a few brief years of wedded happi- 
 ness, had only recently made her debut as a pro- 
 fessional actress. The notable performance of the 
 brief season there was that of "The School for 
 Scandal," with Miss Cushman as Lady Teazle, 
 Mr. Davenport as Charles Surface, Henry Placide 
 as Sir Peter Teazle, John Gilbert as Sir Oliver 
 Surface, John Brougham as Sir Benjamin Back- 
 bite, William R. Blake as Crab tree, and Miss Mary 
 Devlin as Maria. On the final night of the en- 
 gagement Mr. Davenport played Macbeth to Miss 
 Cushman's Lady Macbeth. At the close of the per- 
 formance Miss Cushman was led before the cur- 
 tain by Mr. Davenport and announced her inten- 
 tion to leave the country for a two years' rest in 
 Europe, and never to return to the stage unless 
 adverse fortune compelled. Luckily for the Ameri- 
 can stage, fortune did not favor Miss Cushman 
 while she was in Europe, and the theatre-goers of 
 her native country saw her in her famous char- 
 acters many times after her return. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOR a time at least the wanderings of the Dav- 
 enports were over. Henceforth they were to 
 spend several years in Boston. In the summer of 
 1858 Mr. Davenport accepted an offer to become 
 leading man of the stock company at the Boston 
 Theatre, and on September 13 he began, with his 
 wife, an entire season there, under the manage- 
 ment of Thomas Barry. 
 
 The company included Edwin Adams, George 
 Holland, Dan Setchell, John H. Selwyn, Mary 
 Devlin, Charlotte Crampton, and Josephine Orton, 
 and a series of successful dramatic performances 
 filled the time until December 9. On that date 
 the drama gave way to opera, which lasted until 
 the 6th of January. On February 23 Mr. Barry 
 took his company, headed by Mr. and Mrs. Daven- 
 port, to the Howard Athenaeum, opening there in 
 "Our American Cousin," and following that play 
 until the 5th of April with a series of popular at- 
 tractions. The return of the company to the Bos- 
 ton Theatre was signalized by a production of 
 "The Corsican Brothers," in which Mr. Daven- 
 port played the dual title role, and by a spectacular 
 S3 
 
8 4 311 25ioetapl)p of 
 
 entertainment known as "The Cataract of the 
 Ganges." 
 
 Many years later his daughter Fanny was play- 
 ing an engagement at the same house, and in con- 
 versation at the rehearsal hour chatted entertain- 
 ingly of her childhood days, and of this very 
 production. 
 
 I always feel particularly at home in Mr. Tompkins's 
 theatre, for upon this stage my father and mother passed 
 many seasons in their theatrical career. And I Ve 
 played here many times, too, as a tot, child, and woman. 
 Father first played a starring engagement here in the fif- 
 ties, and I remember how big this stage looked to me in 
 comparison with that of the Howard Athenaeum and 
 Boston Museum, where I had been as a child in arms — 
 and I was a pretty big child too, I remember. Right 
 here, where you see this big trap-door, was the opening 
 used years ago in "The Cataract of the Ganges" for the 
 entrance of Mokarah and Zerlina in a chariot drawn by 
 eight horses, four abreast. A flight of steps ran up from 
 below, and up this incline the steeds and their burden 
 were rushed on the stage. 
 
 Whenever I saw that chariot safely in sight I always 
 felt happy. Why? Oh, I forgot to tell you that father 
 and mother played those two passengers at one of the 
 revivals, and mother used to dread that part of the per- 
 formance, for it was extremely dangerous. I remember 
 she once told us that the heads of the first row of horses 
 were about at the middle of the staircase and facing to- 
 wards the stage left. The space was very small, and 
 there was no chance to start straight up the steps. When 
 the word was given to go, the men stationed at the sides 
 whipped up the nags, the driver yanked them around to 
 the right, the two occupants held on tight, bumpy-ty- 
 
<£btoar& Jioomig SDatoenport 8 s 
 
 bump went the wheels, jumpy-ty-jump went the horses, 
 and neither she nor father breathed until they were fac- 
 ing the audience, with the chariot at a standstill. 
 
 If father had n't been in the vehicle, mother would n't 
 have taken that ride for anything. A funny episode in 
 the same piece was the fight, in front of the cataract of 
 real water, between Mokarah and an English officer, 
 which we always called the "damp duel," for the water 
 was generally inclined to run over onto the stage; and 
 as father was the one slain in the battle, his usual re- 
 mark — unheard by the audience, of course — was, "Now 
 for another bath at Tompkins's expense." Mother tried 
 to get father to play this scene in rubber boots, but he 
 would n't. 
 
 At the close of the season at the Boston Theatre, 
 Mr. Davenport went to New York and appeared at 
 Niblo's Garden as Damon, Brutus, and other per- 
 sonages of the classic drama. 
 
 On the 29th of August, 1859, Mr. Davenport 
 became lessee and sole manager of the Howard 
 Athenaeum. The house was badly in need of reno- 
 vation and alteration, and wanted many appliances 
 necessary to the perfect running of a well-ordered 
 theatre. The new manager at once proceeded 
 with the task of putting the theatre in thorough 
 order. It was painted, frescoed, carpeted, and 
 seated anew, the scene-dock was restocked, and a 
 new and modern stage equipment supplied. When 
 the house was reopened to the public, Mr. Daven- 
 port had expended over ten thousand dollars upon 
 it. But the result proved that the ambitious man- 
 
86 % 2&iogra#)p of 
 
 ager was mistaken in his confidence in the public. 
 The theatre was opened auspiciously under Mr. 
 Davenport's personal business direction, and with 
 the manager himself at the head of his stock com- 
 pany. The stars who appeared during the first 
 season were Mrs. Farren, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. 
 Florence, Matilda Heron, Maggie Mitchell, Mrs. 
 Barrow, Julia Dean Hayne, Mr. and Mrs. James 
 W. Wallack, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, 
 Edwin Adams, John Brougham, and Edwin Booth. 
 During John Brougham's engagement the bur- 
 lesque of "Pocahontas" was a feature of the pro- 
 grammes, and created a great sensation, Brougham 
 appearing as Powhatan and Davenport as Captain 
 John Smith. The season showed to the utmost 
 Mr. Davenport's versatility in tragedy, comedy, 
 farce, and burlesque. On one occasion a leading 
 actor was cast for a prominent part in a burlesque 
 wherein he had to sing a topical song, but, as ac- 
 tors are wont to do once in a while, he failed to 
 arrive on time. Davenport made no fuss about 
 the matter, but calmly donned the missing actor's 
 costume and went through the part, topical song 
 and all, without any difficulty. During Edwin 
 Booth's engagement he played Othello to his Iago, 
 and Iago to his Othello; and the exigencies of the 
 cast demanding on a certain evening his assump- 
 tion of the Ghost, he went through that part with 
 all the consummate power of which he was a mas- 
 ter. When "Our American Cousin" was performed 
 
<£btoarb ftoomi£ SDatomport 8 7 
 
 he would play Dundreary on one evening to the 
 Asa Trenchard of Chanfrau, and on the following 
 evening the two actors would exchange characters. 
 The season closed July 9, i860, with a testimonial 
 to Mr. Davenport. 
 
 The second season of his management of the 
 Howard Athenaeum began August 13, i860, and 
 the third and final season started September 12, 
 1 86 1, and closed definitely in November. Finan- 
 cially his enterprise had been a failure. It had 
 been Mr. Davenport's hope that the public would 
 support the drama provided for them in a theatre 
 conducted on a liberal and artistic scale, and that 
 the Howard Athenaeum would become the lead- 
 ing play-house in Boston. To this end he ex- 
 pended money lavishly and engaged a company 
 comprising such well-known players as John Mc- 
 Cullough, Lawrence Barrett, Charles Barron, 
 Frank E. Aiken, William J. LeMoyne, Frank Har- 
 denbergh, Annie Clarke, and Josephine Orton. 
 But his policy failed of success, and within a cou- 
 ple of months after the beginning of his third 
 season he disposed of his lease to a firm of circus 
 managers. 
 
 The Davenport- Wallack combination then came 
 into being. With Mr. and Mrs. James W. Wal- J 
 lack, Jr., Mr. Davenport joined his forces, opening 
 in New York at the Winter Garden, and playing 
 later in Philadelphia and Boston. Their opening 
 bill in New York, on the 7th of January, 1862, was 
 
88 % 2&iogtapl)p of 
 
 "The School for Scandal," with Davenport as 
 Backbite, Wallack as Joseph Surface, Mark Smith 
 as Sir Peter Teazle, Wheatley as Charles Surface, 
 and Thomas Placide as Crabtree. During this en- 
 gagement Mr. Davenport played Hamlet, Othello, 
 and Brutus. Early in 1862 the organization made 
 a Western tour, the repertory including, in addition 
 to the Shaksperian list, such plays as "The Iron 
 Mask," "Still Waters Run Deep," "How She 
 Loves Him," "King of the Commons," "The Ri- 
 vals," and "The School for Scandal." The tour 
 > was everywhere successful, and the company re- 
 ceived warm praise from press and public. On 
 the return East, they reappeared at Niblo's Garden 
 in New York, the company then comprising Wil- 
 liam Wheatley, Thomas Placide, Mrs. Gladstane, 
 and Mrs. Skerrett. From New York they went 
 to Boston, and it was while playing there that Mr. 
 Wallack withdrew from the company and John E. 
 Owens succeeded Thomas Placide as leading co- 
 median. 
 
 The first half of the season of 1862-63 was 
 spent by Mr. Davenport in Philadelphia at the 
 Walnut Street Theatre, following that engage- 
 ment with a reading tour through the New Eng- 
 land States, accompanied by Mrs. Davenport. As 
 a reader Mr. Davenport was distinctly successful. 
 His peculiar and perfect grace, the commanding 
 dignity of his presence, his rich, mellow voice, the 
 natural and varied expression of his countenance, 
 
<£btoart> 3toomi£ SDatoenport 8 9 
 
 all combined to compel public admiration of his 
 genius as a reader. Nor was Mrs. Davenport less 
 a favorite than her husband. 
 
 In the spring of 1863 the Davenport- Wal lack 
 combination was reorganized, and their tours con- 
 tinued through the following season of 1863-64. 
 During the summer of 1864 the traveling career of 
 the combination was interrupted by the engage- 
 ment of both the Davenports and the Wallacks as 
 leading members of H. C. Jarrett's stock company 
 at the Boston Theatre. The opening came on Au- 
 gust 23, the bill comprising "The Lady of the Lake" 
 and "The Rough Diamond." In the winter a 
 dramatic version of "Enoch Arden" was produced, 
 with Davenport as Philip Ray, Wallack in the title 
 role, and Rose Ey tinge as Annie Lee; and in the 
 spring "Oliver Twist" was given, with Davenport 
 as Bill Sikes, Wallack as Fagin, and Lucille West- 
 ern as Nancy Sikes. Mr. Davenport felt the in- 
 tense brutality of Bill Sikes so keenly that it was 
 always something like torture for him to act the 
 character, but to the public his impersonation was 
 nevertheless matchless. "He could play Bill Sikes" 
 it was said, "in a way to make Dickens shiver, and 
 then play Fagin better than J. W. Wallack, which 
 is saying a great deal." In the spring of 1865 the 
 new Tremont Theatre in Boston, a small play- 
 house on the site of the present Studio Building, 
 was for a brief period under the joint management 
 of Davenport and Wallack, both managers holding 
 12 
 
9° 21 2&iograpI)p of 
 
 the principal roles in all their productions. Their 
 last performance there was given on the afternoon 
 of May 13, the play being "Still Waters Run 
 Deep." 
 
 In the following season of 1865-66 Mr. Daven- 
 port and Mr. Wallack played occasional engage- 
 ments together, the season closing in June at the 
 Boston Theatre. "Oliver Twist" was still in their 
 repertory, and "East Lynne" was also played, with 
 Lucille Western in the dual role of Lady Isabel 
 Vane and Madame Vine, and Mr. Davenport as 
 Sir Francis Levison. The following month Mr. 
 Davenport organized a company to play in the 
 leading theatres throughout New England, but 
 its career was brief on account of his having ac- 
 cepted an engagement to act as leading man and 
 stage director of the stock company at the Con- 
 tinental Theatre in Boston. On August 13 "St. 
 Marc" was given, followed by the familiar plays 
 in Mr. Davenport's repertory. The company in- 
 cluded W.H. Smith, McKee Rankin, Kitty Blanch- 
 ard, Louisa Myers, and Fanny Davenport, then at 
 the beginning of her successful stage career. In 
 December Mr. Davenport withdrew from the com- 
 pany and began a starring tour at the Broadway 
 Theatre, New York, in "Damon and Pythias," 
 * "St. Marc," "Hamlet," "Black-eyed Susan," 
 "Wild Oats," and other familiar plays. In Feb- 
 ruary he appeared at the Howard Athenaeum in a 
 new and unsatisfactory piece called "Christopher 
 
<£btoarb Xoomte 2Datontport 9 1 
 
 Columbus," and late in the same month he began 
 a Western tour which started in Philadelphia and 
 continued until the middle of May, when he came 
 East to revive the Davenport- Wallack combina- 
 tion for a brief season. Midway in the following 
 season, after a tour through some of the Western 
 cities, he again joined Mr. Wallack, the company 
 disbanding after a tour of a month or so in "Oliver 
 Twist" and other plays. 
 
 In the early spring of 1868 Mr. Davenport 
 started with his wife for California. In those 
 days the popular mode of travel to the Pacific 
 coast was by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and 
 this was the route they chose. Always a long and 
 tedious journey at best, Mr. and Mrs. Davenport 
 had a particularly uncomfortable experience. The 
 steamship by which they sailed from New York 
 had eleven hundred passengers, and that from 
 Panama to San Francisco was registered to carry 
 only nine hundred souls. But, in spite of the in- 
 conveniences of the trip, they finally reached the 
 Golden Gate but little the worse for it. They were 
 under engagement to appear at the Metropolitan 
 Theatre at the close of Mrs. D. P. Bowers's sea- 
 son, and on the opening night Mr. Davenport of- 
 fered his familiar interpretation of Hamlet — fa- 
 miliar at least to Eastern playgoers. To those of 
 the West it was entirely unknown, and appears 
 not to have been appreciated by the San Francisco 
 public at its full value. "Hamlet" was succeeded 
 
9 2 % 2&iograi% of 
 
 by "Richelieu," "Damon and Pythias," "Wild 
 Oats," "St. Marc," and "A New Way to Pay Old 
 Debts," and of these plays the last mentioned ap- 
 pears to have been the most warmly received. 
 The general tone of criticism, however, seems to 
 have been adverse to Mr. Davenport, chiefly be- 
 cause he lacked the physical power and animal 
 magnetism which the restless Californians were 
 accustomed to consider the sole attributes of ef- 
 fective acting. The season was announced to close 
 early in July, and the Davenports had made all ar- 
 rangements to leave San Francisco on the 14th of 
 that month. Their departure, however, was de- 
 layed by the receipt of the following letter : 
 
 Saturday, July 11, 1868, 8 a.m. Mr. and Mrs. E. L. 
 Davenport: Several of your friends and admirers have 
 just learned, with great surprise and still greater regret, 
 that it is your intention to leave San Francisco on the 
 steamer of the 14th inst. Can you not be persuaded to 
 reconsider the determination and defer your departure 
 for a while, in order to give us an opportunity to express 
 our regard and estimation of you, both in your social and 
 professional position, in the shape of a "Farewell Tes- 
 timonial"? If we are so fortunate as to receive a favor- 
 able reply, and your arrangements will permit, we will 
 at once proceed to take such measures as are necessary 
 for the purpose, and we have every reason to believe 
 that, seconded by an enlightened public, the result must 
 prove as favorable and advantageous to you as it will 
 surely be pleasurable to us. Your early reply will oblige. 
 
 The request was complied with, and the testi- 
 monial performance was given on the 20th of July. 
 
MR. DAVENPORT AS RICHELIEU. 
 
* l t,* * 
 
 1 . I 
 
 1 . ' . I 
 
€btoarb Stoonug SDatompott 93 
 
 Prior to leaving for the East, Mr. and Mrs. Dav- 
 enport gave, in response to invitation, a series of 
 "Evenings with the Poets," consisting of dramatic 
 and humorous readings, which were very success- 
 ful. One of their programmes is interesting from 
 the standpoint of versatility, if from none other: 
 
 Part I 
 
 1. The Execution. (A Tale of Lon- 
 
 don Life) Ingoldsby Legends. 
 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
 2. The Young Grayhead Blackwood. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport 
 
 3. The Wonderful One Hoss Shay . O. W. Holmes. 
 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
 4. A Caudle Lecture Jerrold. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport 
 
 5. The River — "Cold, black, deep" . Fonblanque. 
 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
 6. Murder Scene from Macbeth . . 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Davenport 
 
 Part II 
 
 1. Mona's Waters; or, The Widow's 
 
 Son Anon. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport 
 
 2. The Good Time Past Anon. 
 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
94 31 9&iogtapftp of 
 
 3. Widow Bedott's Epistle to Elder 
 
 Sniffles 
 
 Mrs. Davenport 
 
 4. Sketch from Pickwick Papers. 
 
 (Lady with Yellow Curl Papers) Dickens. 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
 5. The Bells E. A. Poe. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport 
 
 6. The Town Meeting. (Introduc- 
 
 ing eleven Characters) . . . . N. O. Body. 
 Mr. Davenport 
 
 The final reading was given by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Davenport on the 13th of August, and on the 17th 
 they left for New York by the overland route. 
 Stopping on the way at Salt Lake City, Mr. Dav- 
 enport appeared as Richelieu, supported by Miss 
 Annetta Ince as Julie de Mortemar, and also in 
 Hamlet and some of his other more important 
 roles. On the 7th of September they left for New 
 York, which was reached about the middle of the 
 month, after brief stops in Omaha and Chicago. 
 A tour was begun at the Park Theatre in Brook- 
 lyn on the 28th of September, and on the 19th of 
 the following month the Walnut Street Theatre 
 in Philadelphia was visited. During the first week 
 of the engagement the audiences were small and 
 unresponsive, presumably owing to the superior 
 attractions of the sprightly Lotta, who was then 
 
<£btoatb Hoomi£ SDatoenport 95 
 
 playing at the Arch Street Theatre and filling that 
 house to the doors. For his second week, Mr. Dav- 
 enport offered a five-act sensational drama, written 
 especially for him and entitled, "F; or, Branded." 
 In this play he assumed four characters, viz. : Duke 
 Tyrrell, a gipsy ; Felix Reybauld, a spy ; Montani, 
 an Italian refugee ; and Hector de Riviers,z French 
 lancer. The style and characters of this play were 
 alike objectionable to Mr. Davenport, but both' 
 the star and the management were compelled to 
 succumb to the public appreciation of it. The audi- 
 ences immediately doubled in numbers, and, to 
 quote Mr. Davenport's own opinion, "it was the 
 triumph of matter over mind." This play was fol- 
 lowed by melodramatic versions of Cooper's "The 
 Pilot," with Mr. Davenport as Long Tom Coffin, 
 and Scott's "Rob Roy." A New England tour 
 followed until March, 1869, when Mr. Davenport 
 was engaged to act Prosper o in an elaborate revival 
 of "The Tempest" at the Grand Opera House in 
 New York. The cast included Frank Mayo, Wil- 
 liam Davidge, Miss Blanche Grey, and the Mor- 
 lacchi ballet troupe, the season continuing until 
 the 15th of May, Mr. Davenport giving place to 
 Neil Warner during the final week of the run. On 
 the 24th he opened at the Walnut Street Theatre 
 in Philadelphia in "St. Marc," and on the 28th a 
 performance of "London Assurance" was given 
 for his benefit, with himself as Dazzle, George 
 Vining Bowers as Mark Meddle, Fred Maeder as 
 
96 €btoat& Hoomig SDatoenport 
 
 Dolly Spanker, Anna Graham as Lady Gay Span- 
 ker, and Fanny Davenport as Grace Harkaway. 
 During the summer Mr. Davenport played in vari- 
 ous places, closing at Selwyn's Theatre in Boston 
 on the 7th of August in "Faint Heart Ne'er Won 
 Fair Lady" and "Black-eyed Susan." 
 
MISS FANNIE DAVENPORT. 
 
1 ' t t ( 
 
 1 • • , •■ 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ON the 1 6th of August, 1869, Mr. Davenport 
 became a member of Augustin Daly's stock 
 company at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, 
 his name heading the distinguished list of actors 
 engaged by Mr. Daly for the inauguration of his 
 first season at the little house in Twenty-fourth 
 Street. The company, as announced on the first- 
 night play-bill, stood as follows : 
 
 Mr. E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Mr. George Clarke. 
 
 " D. H. Harkins. 
 
 
 ' J. B. Polk. 
 
 " George Holland. 
 
 
 ' W. Davidge. 
 
 " James Lewis. 
 
 
 ' H. Ryner. 
 
 " T. F. Egbert. 
 
 
 ' George Jordan, Jr 
 
 " W. Beekman. 
 
 
 ' J. M. Cooke. 
 
 " F. Chapman. 
 
 
 1 Pierce. 
 
 " H. Stewart. 
 
 " Peck. 
 
 " Neville. 
 
 Mrs. F. S. Chanfrau. 
 
 Mrs. Clara Jennings. 
 
 Miss Marie Longmore. 
 
 Miss Agnes Ethel. 
 
 " Emilie Keuhle. 
 
 " Fanny Davenport. 
 
 Mrs. Marie Wilkins. 
 
 Mrs. G. H. Gilbert. 
 
 Miss Emily Lewis. 
 
 Miss Lena Edwin. 
 
 " Rowland. 
 
 " E. Ames. 
 
 Misses Tyson. 
 
 " Norwood. 
 
 M 
 
 iss Almy. 
 
 13 
 
 97 
 
9 8 % 2&io0rapJ)p of 
 
 And in the cast of the opening production, T. W. 
 Robertson's comedy "Play," Mr. Davenport's name 
 again stands at the head : 
 
 The Hon. Bruce Fanquehere . . Mr. E. L. Davenport. 
 
 George Clarke. 
 W. Davidge. 
 W. Beekman. 
 J. B. Polk. 
 George Holland. 
 H. Ryner. 
 
 Chevalier Browne 
 
 The Hauptmann von Stockstadt - 
 The Graf von Staufenberg . . 
 
 Frank Price 
 
 Mr. Bodmin Todder 
 
 The Croupier 
 
 Amanda Mrs. Clara Jennings. 
 
 Rosie Miss Agnes Ethel. 
 
 Mrs. Kinpeck Mrs. G. H. Gilbert. 
 
 The Flower Girl Miss Emily Lewis. 
 
 "Play" remained the bill at the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre for three weeks, Miss Fanny Davenport 
 replacing Miss Agnes Ethel as Rosie Fanquehere 
 some time before the end of the run. 
 
 Of Mr. Davenport's brief experience under Au- 
 gustin Daly's management, Edward A. Dithmar 
 has written as follows in his "Memories of Daly's 
 Theatres" : 
 
 I have a vivid remembrance of that performance — of 
 George Clarke's velvet coat, fascinating whiskers, and 
 polished villainy in the part of Chevalier Browne; of Mrs. 
 Gilbert, as Widow Kinpeck, following George Holland, 
 as rich Bodmin Todder, about the pump-room grounds 
 and the ruins of das alte Schloss; of dainty Agnes Ethel, 
 as Rosie Fanquehere, flirting with Mr. Polk as the stupid 
 British young man. Edward L. Davenport, who was in 
 
€btoatb Stoomi^ 2Datoent>otk 99 
 
 the company the first half of the first season, was rather 
 out of his element in this trifling modern play. I remem- 
 ber well that his simulation of the languid manner of 
 the Honorable Bruce Fanquehere suggested to me that 
 the elegant, if reprehensible, idler worked very hard at 
 his dawdling. But the splendid presence and personal 
 force of Davenport were always valuable, even when his 
 eloquence was held in check. 
 
 He was rather more at home in the second play, 
 "Dreams," also by Robertson, which was first done at 
 the Gaiety Theatre, London, in March, 1869, and under 
 its sub-title, "My Lady Clara," was performed in Boston 
 the same month. "Dreams" was founded on a short story 
 in a collection of tales called "A Bunch of Keys." It 
 was one of Robertson's earliest plays, and was altered 
 several times. In London Alfred Wigan "doubled" the 
 parts of the elder Von Harfthal and Rudolph, played at 
 the Fifth Avenue by Davenport and Clarke, and Madge 
 Robertson (Mrs. Kendal) appeared as the heroine, that 
 being the only one of her brother's plays in which she 
 ever acted. The play passed through the hands of Mr. 
 Boucicault before it was produced by Mr. Daly. Its 
 story was the very, very old one of the slighted love of a 
 poor young man for a rich young woman. James Lewis 
 made his first appearance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in 
 it as John Hibbs, a comic British bagman, who was the 
 good genius of the piece and the friend of all the other 
 personages. 
 
 Davenport was seen thereafter as Sir Harcourt Court- 
 ly, Lagadere, Don Ccesar de Bazan (when his daugh- 
 ter Fanny played Lazarillo), Sir William Dorillon in 
 "Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are," and Sir 
 Giles Overreach in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts." 
 This last-named part was one inseparably associated with 
 his fame. The picture he presented as the protagonist, 
 in this play of Massinger, of sordid avarice and malig- 
 
91 2&io0tapl)p of 
 
 nant spite was incomparably vivid and impressive. No 
 other actor, after the elder Booth, could play Sir Giles 
 as well as he, and I doubt if he ever played it better than 
 he did at the little theatre on West Twenty-fourth Street. 
 He was less at ease as the venerable but love-smitten 
 country gentleman who served as hero in Andrew Halli- 
 day's domestic drama called "Daddy Gray." He played 
 that part as if he was not quite in sympathy with it. On 
 the whole, I think that Davenport was rather too large a 
 figure for Mr. Daly's pretty little stage. His was the 
 broad manner of tragedy and the higher kind of romantic 
 drama. But his presence as a member of the company 
 undoubtedly helped the theatre in the beginning. 
 
 To Mr. Dithmar's verdict may be added Lau- 
 rence Hutton's opinion that "Mr. Davenport's Sir 
 Giles, in Massinger's celebrated comedy, was un- 
 questionably the finest piece of acting this house 
 has seen." 
 
 On several later occasions Mr. Davenport ap- 
 peared on Mr. Daly's stage, thrice taking part in 
 performances for the benefit of his daughter Fanny. 
 The first occasion of this sort was on June 5, 1871, 
 as Sir Harcourt Courtly, in "London Assurance," 
 with Miss Davenport as Lady Gay Spanker; the 
 second was on May 24, 1876, as Jaques in "As 
 You Like It," with Miss Davenport as Rosalind; 
 the third was on May 26, 1877, as Master Walter 
 in "The Hunchback," with Miss Davenport as 
 Helen, Adelaide Neilson as Julia, Charles Coghlan 
 as Sir Thomas Clifford, and Eben Plympton as 
 Modus. He had also, in December, 1874, and 
 
4H»toarb £ootm£ SDatoiport; i '•; *°V 
 
 . i — t — , — , > )n ji 
 
 January, 1875, given a series of special perform- 
 ances of "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," "The 
 Honeymoon," and "The Merchant of Venice" at 
 the Fifth Avenue Theatre, supported by the mem- 
 bers of Mr. Daly's company. 
 
 After leaving the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Mr. 
 Davenport appeared in Washington, Pittsburg, 
 Brooklyn, and elsewhere almost continuously 
 throughout the spring and summer. Beginning on 
 the 1st of June, 1870, he played a successful en- 
 gagement at Selwyn's Theatre, Boston, in "Enoch 
 Arden," the cast being a notably excellent one : 
 
 Enoch Arden E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Philip Ray H. F. Daly. 
 
 Reuben Harry Pearson. 
 
 Captain Sterling H. L. Bascomb. 
 
 Boatswain J. B. Bradford. 
 
 Walter Arden . Mrs. T. M. Hunter. 
 
 Peter Lane T. H. Burns. 
 
 Mayor C. Stedman. 
 
 Annie Lee Mrs. E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Miriam Lane Miss Mary Wells. 
 
 Esther Arden ....... " Mary Cary. 
 
 In the fall Mr. Davenport played engagements 
 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the Hol- 
 liday Street Theatre in Baltimore, and Niblo's 
 Garden in New York, where he acted important 
 roles in support of Mrs. Scott-Siddons, the lead- 
 ing juvenile characters being assumed by Walter 
 Montgomery. On Monday evening, the 12th of 
 
io* % 2&iogra#)p of 
 
 
 
 December, he undertook the management of the 
 Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, offering 
 "As You Like It" as the opening performance. 
 This was followed by "The Hunchback," with 
 Mrs. Scott-Siddons as Julia, and further produc- 
 tions included "The Lady of Lyons," "The Stran- 
 ger," and "The Honeymoon." Miss Fanny Dav- 
 enport was one of the principal stars of the season, 
 which closed very satisfactorily in June with a 
 benefit performance to the manager. 
 
 Midway in this season, on the 21st of January, 
 he went over to New York, and there gave one 
 act of "Hamlet" for the famous Holland benefit 
 at the Academy of Music, Miss Agnes Ethel being 
 his Ophelia. Of this performance Laurence Hut- 
 ton said that "the audience, as large as the great 
 house would hold, was the only audience to 
 which Mr. Davenport played Hamlet in many 
 years that was at all worthy of the actor or his 
 part." 
 
 He then played for a brief period at the Globe 
 Theatre in Boston, appearing, among other char- 
 acters, as St. Marc, with Charles R. Thorne, Jr., 
 and Josephine Orton in his support. Through 
 the summer of 1871 he took a much needed rest 
 at his home in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and in 
 August he resumed his professional duties by be- 
 ginning a brief tour at St. John, N. B. His sec- 
 ond season at the Chestnut Street Theatre opened 
 September 4, the company including, besides the 
 
€btoarb Hoomig SDabenport io 3 
 
 Davenports, Miss Phyllis Glover, Miss Lily Dav- 
 enport, Robert Craig, and Charles R. Thorne, Jr. 
 On Monday, September 18, a season of old English 
 comedy began. The theatre steadily maintained its 
 hold upon the public under Mr. Davenport's man- 
 agement. In April, 1872, Charlotte Cushman ap- 
 peared there, and a production of "Macbeth" was 
 arranged wherein Mr. Davenport and the star were 
 to assume the leading roles. But Mr. Davenport 
 was taken suddenly ill, and Mr. Couldock replaced 
 him. Later, however, for his benefit, the original 
 plan was carried out. The season closed on the 
 1st of June. After spending a portion of the sum- 
 mer at Minnequa Springs, Mr. and Mrs. Daven- 
 port returned to Philadelphia, and the third season 
 of the Chestnut Street Theatre under Mr. Daven- 
 port's management began on September 14 with 
 a production of Augustin Daly's "Horizon." The 
 company comprised the Davenports, Charles 
 Wheatleigh, Harry Josephs, Edward P. Wilks, Lily 
 Davenport, Louisa and Mary Morse, and Fanny 
 Jacobs, with the stage under the direction of John 
 H. Selwyn. On Saturday evening, November 9, 
 Mr. Davenport made his "first appearance of the 
 season," playing Sir Giles Overreach to a large 
 audience. A cycle of Mr. Davenport's most popular 
 characters followed, and in December the company 
 began a tour through Pennsylvania, returning 
 to the Chestnut Street Theatre in March, 1873. 
 In May an extravaganza adapted by Mr. Daven- 
 
 / 
 
io4 31 25togtapj)p of 
 
 port and entitled "The Centennial; or, What We 
 Expect in 1876" was produced. 
 
 Edwin Forrest died in December, 1872. At a 
 meeting of actors held in the Walnut Street Thea- 
 tre on the 14th to take action upon the death of 
 the tragedian, Mr. Davenport seconded a motion 
 proposed by Lewis Morrison that all members of 
 the profession able to do so should attend the 
 funeral and wear badges of mourning. He was 
 also appointed member of a committee to draft an 
 appropriate set of resolutions in memory of the 
 great actor. As always, Mr. Davenport was not 
 backward in bearing public as well as private tes- 
 timony to the greatness of Forrest's powers as an 
 actor. It was only with the man — or rather with 
 his unlovable temperament — that he could not 
 agree. We have already quoted two of Forrest's 
 biographers. The third, James Rees, pays an 
 equally warm tribute to Mr. Davenport : 
 
 Now that the actor master of the art is gone, who will 
 rule the stage and sustain its classic characters? Not 
 Edwin Booth; he has not the physical or mental ca- 
 pacity. Who can now take the lead in the rank of 
 actor? Who assume the sceptre? Who wear the crown? 
 There is one man, and the only man who, if he knew 
 his own worth as we know and appreciate it, whose 
 name should now become the synonym of Edwin Forrest, 
 and that man is E. L. Davenport, the best living actor 
 on the stage. 1 
 
 1 "The Life of Edwin Forrest." By James Rees. 
 
<£btoar& floomi£ SDatoenport io 5 
 
 Of course this prophecy is sadly unjust in its 
 references to Edwin Booth, who had both the phys- 
 ical and mental capacity to sustain classic charac- 
 ters. Edwin Booth was a much younger man than 
 E. L. Davenport, and he was content to act and 
 to excel alone in a single line of characters. To 
 his preeminence, Mr. Davenport, had he lived, 
 would have been the first to bear the tribute of an 
 older to a younger actor. Booth himself had a per- 
 sonal regard for Mr. Davenport, and they had upon 
 rare occasions played together, usually as Othello 
 and Iago. As the Hamlet of the American stage, 
 Booth was unquestionably Davenport's successor. 
 
 Not long after Forrest's death, Mr. Davenport's 
 brother called upon James Oakes to make arrange- 
 ments for securing the rights to "Metamora." In 
 the course of the conversation Mr. Oakes re- 
 marked : "The last time I was in Philadelphia be- 
 fore the old man's [Forrest's] death, we were in 
 the library one day, after dinner, and the conver- 
 sation turned upon actors, although that was a 
 subject Forrest cared but little to discuss. After 
 some general remarks, he said : 'Well, Oakes, they 
 may say what they please, although Davenport 
 and I have n't spoken for years, he is the best actor 
 on the American stage.' " 
 
 In the course of his life of Edwin Booth, Wil- 
 liam Winter discusses the personality and art of a 
 number of Booth's most prominent contemporaries. 
 He says of Mr. Davenport : 
 14 
 
io6 % 2ftogra#jp of 
 
 Davenport was an actor of extraordinary versatility. 
 I have seen him act, in one evening, Shakspere's Brutus 
 and Roaring Ralph Stackpole in the Indian play of "The 
 Jibbinainosay." He was massive and weird in Macbeth. 
 His Duke Aranza, in "The Honeymoon," was peerless. 
 His UArtagnan and St. Marc were authentic types of 
 nobility, freely and broadly exhibited under the varying 
 lights of humor and pathos. His Sir Giles Overreach 
 was a sinister and grisly embodiment of worldly craft 
 and insensate villany. His Othello was, in construction, 
 as nearly perfect as it is possible for a work of art to be. 
 Mind, grace, force, variety, and occasional flashes of fire 
 were characteristic of Davenport's acting. It was defi- 
 cient in soul. His nature was not spiritual, and hence 
 his otherwise excellent Hamlet was as metallic as the 
 rapier that he carried; but it had distinct purpose and 
 definite and adequate execution. He was proud, and 
 justly so, of his performance of Sir Giles Overreach, and 
 he often expressed the intention of making a specialty of 
 that character. He told me that it would one day become 
 as popular in his hands as Rip Van Winkle had become 
 in those of Jefferson. He forgot that Sir Giles is abhor- 
 rent to the human heart, and accordingly that the better 
 it is acted the more it will be disliked, and the more it 
 is disliked the more it will be avoided. People can be 
 startled, once and again, by a superb exhibition of bril- 
 liant wickedness and horror, but they cannot be charmed 
 by it. There is, to be sure, fascination in evil, and this 
 sometimes is beautiful and potent. But it does not strike 
 deep, and it does not endure. Humanity fears a monster 
 the moment it realizes its presence, and what it fears it 
 soon hates. The safety of the actor who embodies Sir Giles, 
 Richard the Third, and Pescara is that his hearers do not 
 apprehend his work as a fact. They see it as an illusion, 
 and what they admire is the skill with which he converts 
 a man into a fiend. Awful strifes of passion and awful 
 
<£btoarb Eoomig SDabmport io 7 
 
 depths of iniquity and suffering are suggestively laid open 
 to their view by his art, and he therefore shines out as 
 a wonderful, dreadful sorcerer. But the honors he wears 
 are only for a day if he stops at that order of achieve- 
 ment and does nothing to captivate affectionate sympathy. 
 Davenport went to his grave unsatisfied in his ambition 
 as to Sir Giles. Everybody admired it, and everybody 
 refrained as much as possible from seeing it. Davenport, 
 however, was a rare actor, and to see him as William 
 in "Black-eyed Susan" was to see acting of a high order. 
 When he went to England with Mrs. Mowatt, playing 
 Claude Melnotte and kindred parts, the eccentric Knowles, 
 of Manchester, said to him, after the first performance 
 in that city, "You are the star — not Mrs. Mowatt," and 
 Knowles straightaway commanded that Davenport's name 
 should be starred in the bill. Wherever he went he was 
 admired; and yet, heedless of intrinsic royalty, he missed 
 the sceptre that at one time it seemed destined he should 
 wield. 1 
 
 On Saturday evening, September 13, 1873, the 
 Chestnut Street Theatre opened for the fourth sea- 
 son under Mr. Davenport's management with a 
 performance of Bulwer's "Money." Early in No- 
 vember the company again went on the road, ap- 
 pearing in the principal towns of Pennsylvania and 
 Delaware, but the return to Philadelphia was made 
 less than a month later. Beginning on the 8th of 
 December with Shy lock, Mr. Davenport gave a 
 series of farewell performances at the Chestnut 
 Street Theatre, terminating his connection with 
 
 1 u 
 
 The Life and Art of Edwin Booth." By William 
 Winter. New York, 1894. Pages 147 et seq. 
 
io8 <£btoar& itoomig SDatoenport 
 
 that house near the end of the year 1873. The en- 
 terprise as a whole had been hardly more satisfac- 
 tory than the venture at the Howard Athenaeum, 
 and Mr. Davenport retired from theatrical man- 
 agement wise in experience though not rich in 
 pocket. His closing performances were Shylock, 
 Othello, Richelieu, and Don Ccesar de Bazan. 
 Late in December he appeared in New York at 
 Wood's Museum as Rover in "Wild Oats," and 
 other characters. 
 
E. L. DAVENPORT, 1874. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 EARLY in January, 1874, Mr. Davenport made 
 arrangements with Alexander Calhoun for a 
 tour of the New England circuit, as the lesser the- 
 atrical towns of that section of the country are 
 termed in theatrical parlance. He preceded this 
 tour with a week of his favorite impersonations 
 at Albany. The attendance there was large and 
 the enthusiasm remarkable. 
 
 On the 26th he began his New England tour at 
 the Providence Opera House, his reappearance 
 there after an absence of several years being re- 
 ceived with hearty approval. After playing in all 
 the other leading towns of New England, a brief 
 Southern tour began at Richmond on the 23d of 
 February. Late in March a return to Albany was 
 made, and on Monday evening, April 13, sup- 
 ported by Mrs. Davenport, he was warmly re- 
 ceived at Wood's Museum, in New York, in the 
 character of St. Marc. This play was repeated 
 the following evening, and "Oliver Twist," "A 
 New Way to Pay Old Debts/' and "Macbeth" 
 filled out the week. Thereafter almost continu- 
 ously Mr. Davenport and his wife toured in their 
 repertory of standard plays. 
 109 
 
110 % 2Mograpl)p of 
 
 A letter written by Mr. Davenport to his friend 
 Morrell, the New York publisher, under date of 
 August 10, 1874, gives an excellent insight into 
 his ambitions and feelings at that period. It was 
 written from his home in Canton, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Yours of July 30 was duly received. Well, I confess 
 I did not award you any prize for your faithful corre- 
 spondence. However, I presumed you had enough else 
 to think of. I believe I have had one or two papers from 
 you, for which thanks. I was really worked too hard, 
 •and had I persisted another week, I fear I would have 
 impaired my health beyond a speedy or safe recovery. 
 However, I am now just as good as new, and hope to be 
 able to run my race with the worst of 'em. I do really 
 think I must have a heap of vitality, or I could not go 
 through all I am called upon to perform, and I guess 
 there 's something in me yet. I was not over impressed 
 with the success of the benefit. The returns to me made 
 were $484, of which I received one half. I believe the storm 
 did more havoc than W.'s Museum, for if folks want to 
 see a thing or a person, they '11 go if they have got the 
 dimes. Of course it would be far better for any legiti- 
 mate actor to be in a regular theatre, but am certain no 
 other theatre company would have taken more pains (of 
 the scenery and appointments I say nothing). If I were 
 indeed "the ablest representative of the Legitimate Drama 
 living" I fancy some manager who charges more would 
 want me, but No. They all turn a deaf ear to applica- 
 tions, and the general reply is ( 'a devilish good actor, but 
 don't draw." My dear fellow, we are obliged to take 
 75 cents when we can't get a dollar, and if the manager 
 who opens his doors at 75 can afford to receive and 
 pay the star better than the $1 fellows, why then that 
 settles it. Excuse my profanity, but I do think it a 
 
€&toarti 2loomi0 2Datoenj>ork 
 
 d d shame that I am thus compelled to be banished 
 
 from the regular theatres, but I will play in New York 
 willy-nilly as often as I can. I wish I could have seen 
 Fanny's Nancy. I know she 's a fine artist, and must 
 have done it well. As for all Mrs. D. and the beneficiary 
 did for you, it was a pleasure. We were pleased to see 
 your enthusiasm and natural love for the art, and I took 
 much pleasure in giving you the chance your heart 
 yearned so hungrily for. You were a success, bona fide 
 and no mistake. The only error you committed was in 
 returning those 25 cents. Why, sir, those who purchased 
 felt a dollar's worth and should have lived on and died 
 in the belief of having paid it. You should have pock- 
 eted the insult, and handed it to the sufferer for whom 
 the benefit was put up. I do think some of these days, 
 probably when I feel like retiring, I could enjoy a testi- 
 monial rightly gotten up in New York, Boston, and 
 Philadelphia, which would place a nice little bank ac- 
 count in my hands. Permit me to congratulate you and 
 Mrs. Morrell on the addition to the family, but please 
 don't name it after the unlucky wight E. L. It will do 
 no good, and I believe (almost) there is a spite some- 
 where in fate against E. L. and all he does or deals with, 
 or why is this thusly? A conundrum. Guess it. I am 
 glad to know the picture is working its way. Did you 
 send one to Ford of Opera House, Baltimore? You 
 ought. Also to Mr. Laffan of the Baltimore "Bulletin." 
 I play there in November 2 weeks. I do play in N. Y. 
 this fall, and when you see it announced you '11 know it. 
 Niblo's wanted me, but I was afraid of it. Daly offered 
 me two weeks at two different parts of season, to get up 
 Sir Giles and Shylock for me, but I do not think it would 
 be policy for me to let my name down again in N. Y., 
 
 and I had better reign in H than serve in H n. 
 
 Besides, the pay is better, and again to act at D.'s place 
 much has to be sacrificed to upholstery and furniture. I 
 
112 
 
 511 25io0tapl)p of 
 
 know the first blood drawn at old Fifth Avenue was by 
 Sir Giles, and yet several of my scenes were crowded 
 down within 3 feet of footlights to give an opportunity 
 to set a good scene behind. However, I shall have a 
 good chance to do some of the characters I have seldom 
 done in N. Y., and Richelieu and Virginius never. It 
 will be a legitimate (strictly) term, and I hope it will do 
 well. You ask why I was not the man for Miss Cush- 
 man instead of G. V. Why, I am an American, and 
 consequently cannot act, and my terms are not high 
 enough. I am going to try and speak Hamlet in Choc- 
 taw. Won't that be a novelty? Mr. Oakes is a brick. 
 He liked my picture because it looked like Sir G. Over- 
 reach and not E. L. D. Mrs. D. desires her kind regards 
 to you and Mrs. Morrell; also sends a kiss to the 
 B-A-B-E-E. Tell Mrs. M. with my compliments I hope 
 it will live long and happily to bless her and you. I have 
 found Stephen's address (only yesterday). Oh, but he 's 
 a good man and true. And so, till we meet, au revoir and 
 believe me, Yours very sincerely, 
 
 E. L. Davenport. 
 
 In the summer of 1875 he played a special en- 
 gagement at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston, 
 "his first appearance in four years," so the an- 
 nouncements read. The plays he presented were 
 "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," "Jack Cade," 
 "St. Marc," and "Richelieu." On August 30 he 
 went to the Grand Opera House in New York, 
 opening as Hamlet on the same evening that sig- 
 nalized Barry Sullivan's appearance at Booth's 
 Theatre in the same character. "The comparison 
 invited by the presentation of these rival Hamlets 
 
<£Dtoarb &oomi£ SDatoenport « j 3 
 
 was not favorable to the Irish tragedian," says 
 Laurence Hutton. "Mr. Sullivan has had great 
 experience on the British stage, and is skilled in 
 his profession, but his Hamlet is melodramatic, 
 harsh at times, occasionally overacted, and in all 
 respects totally different from the quiet, tender 
 Hamlet of Mr. Davenport. Hamlet was not Mr. 
 Davenport's greatest part, as it is not the greatest 
 part of many of the great Hamlets of the present ; 
 nevertheless, it was a singularly complete concep- 
 tion of the character, scholarly, finished, and pro- 
 found. The Hamlet of E. L. Davenport was never 
 so popular as it should have been,\nor was MB 
 Davenport himself properly appreciated as an actorl 
 during the last years of his life. He was out of J 
 the fashion so long that until a far-sighted man- 
 agement engaged him to play the part of Bru- 
 tus during the famous run of ' Julius Caesar' at 
 Booth's Theatre in 1875-76, he was only known 
 to the younger generation of theatre-goers, when 
 known at all, as Miss Fanny Davenport's father l\ 
 That Davenport at the close of his long career 
 should have been banished to the Grand Opera 
 House and to Wood's Museum in upper Broadway 
 is a stronger argument in favor of the alleged de- 
 generacy of the drama in this country than the 
 unhealthy popularity of the emotional plays from 
 the French, or the wonderful success of what is 
 called the variety show style of entertainment, un- 
 known to our stage before the war." 
 15 
 
n4 % 2&O0tapl)p of 
 
 On December 2J, 1875, came the elaborate re- 
 vival of "Julius Caesar" referred to by Mr. Hut- 
 ton. It took place at Booth's Theatre, with Mr. 
 Davenport as Brutus, Lawrence Barrett as Cassius, 
 F. C. Bangs as Mark Antony, Milnes Levick as 
 Ccesar, Edmund Collier as Octavius, Mary Wells 
 as Portia, Rosa Rand as Calphurnia, and Helen 
 Morant as Lucius. "In the quarrel scene," re- 
 marked a theatre-goer, "Davenport looked like 
 some grand St. Bernard listening to the snarling 
 of Cassius — Barrett." The run lasted until April 
 1, 1876, and "Julius Caesar" was presented nightly 
 to large audiences. Public interest in the produc- 
 tion was something unprecedented. On Wednes- 
 day afternoon, March 22, Mr. Davenport was 
 tendered a complimentary benefit, the affair being 
 made especially interesting by the presentation to 
 him of a suit of Roman armor, valued at five hun- 
 dred dollars. At the end of the New York season 
 "Julius Caesar," with its "star cast," was per- 
 formed in Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Wash- 
 ington, Albany, Providence, and other Eastern 
 cities. In the fall the company, still with Mr. 
 Davenport as Brutus and Lawrence Barrett as 
 Cassius, began a Western tour which continued 
 several months, and finally ended on the New Eng- 
 land circuit. In this revival he played Brutus 
 two hundred and twenty-two times, and traveled 
 many thousands of miles. Questioned at the end 
 
MR. DAVENPORT AS BRUTUS. 
 
<£btoarb ftoomig SDabenpott * *5 
 
 of the tour as to whether he had not wearied of 
 the role, he replied: 
 
 "No, I never enjoyed Brutus more nor felt more 
 in the spirit of it than the last night I played it. 
 I was accustomed, when not on the stage, to leave 
 the door of my dressing-room open, so that I 
 might hear the noble words of the play. I did 
 not go on to see it — I have seen it so often — but 
 there is something about that play that I never 
 tired of." Of Barrett's Cassius he spoke in the 
 highest terms, but of all Antonys he considered the 
 Antony of Walter Montgomery (who played that 
 role to Davenport's Brutus and Barrett's Cassius 
 as early as 1867) by far the best he had ever 
 witnessed. To a question as to his favorite role, 
 he replied, "Othello." In answer to an exclama- 
 tion of surprise, he explained that Othello has the 
 sympathy of the audience — they hate Iago, they 
 pity Othello. He added — and this is significant, 
 in view of the opinion of William Winter quoted 
 on page 106 — that he had "a kindly liking for that 
 miserable Sir Giles Overreach — Sir Giles has not 
 a single virtue." "Why, then, do you act the 
 role?" was asked. "Because of his tremendous 
 power and passion," he replied. "My acting in it 
 was originally an accident. I was playing at Wal- 
 lack's, and talking over with the younger Wallack 
 the characters in which I should appear. He ob- 
 jected to one after another, mainly on the ground 
 
n6 31 25iograptjp of 
 
 that they were his father's roles, till finally I ex- 
 claimed: 'There 's that devilish Sir Giles!' 'Ah, 
 that 's just the thing/ he replied. I played it, 
 and it has been one of my favorite parts ever 
 since." 
 
 A conversation which happened at this period 
 is thus narrated by one of Mr. Davenport's ac- 
 quaintances : 
 
 The first time I ever saw "Ned" Davenport was in the 
 Parker House at the close of the great engagement of 
 Jarrett and Palmer's "Julius Caesar" production at the 
 Boston Theatre. "What do you think, boys," he ex- 
 claimed. "I had the meanest insult offered me to-night 
 that I ever received in my life!" 
 
 "What was that?" exclaimed a chorus of voices. 
 
 "Why, Lawrence Barrett came to me after the matinee 
 and said he was going out next season in some Scotch 
 play — 'The Man o' — something, I can't remember what — 
 and said he had just the part in it for me, and offered 
 me an engagement." 
 
 "What did you say?" asked somebody, when the laugh- 
 ter had subsided. % 
 
 "What did I say !" exclaimed Davenport. "I told Larryi 
 I was a full-fledged actor before he became an earthly 
 affliction, and I 'd break stone for a dollar a day before 
 I 'd support Lawrence Barrett!" 
 
 Ah! Who can forget that production of "Julius Cae- 
 sar" ? Who can forget Davenport's Brutus, Levick's C(£- • 
 sar, Barrett's Cassius, or Bangs's Mark Antony? Some- 
 how, Davenport and I took to one another, and thence- 
 forth we were very intimate. I cannot betray confidences 
 spoken to me, but I can still see the tear trembling in the 
 kindly eye, and I can still hear the tremor in the rich, 
 
(gbtoarb ttoomi£ SDabenporrt i « i 
 
 melodious voice; but that was between us, and concerns 
 no one else. 
 
 "I '11 tell you how it was," he said once, when I re- 
 marked how unsuccessful financially his life had been. "I 
 remember once going to New York to play at the Winter 
 Garden. I took a suite of rooms, as was my custom, at 
 the Sturtevant House. The price was one hundred dol- 
 lars a week. I started out to find my old friend Frank 
 Chanfrau. At the theatre where he was playing they di- 
 rected me to a certain boarding-house, and there I found 
 the great comedian in a seven-by-nine room, for which he 
 paid, with board, eight dollars a week. He is a rich 
 man, and I — " 
 
 The public would not have Davenport in "St. Marc," 
 and his Sir Giles no longer pleased. The nation went 
 crazy over Edwin Booth's Hamlet. 
 
 "What do you think of Booth's Hamlet?" I once asked 
 him. 
 
 "If James E. Murdoch had never lived," he replied, 
 " 'Ned' Booth would be the finest reader of Shakspere the 
 world has ever seen. There it ends. He is not a great 
 actor; but his reading of the text is divine." 
 
 When James W. Wallack the younger died — the man 
 with whom Davenport was like a Siamese twin — and 
 Lucille Western passed away, he seemed to feel he was 
 left alone. The Davenport- Wallack combination severed, 
 he never felt he had the same hold on the public. He 
 went to Boston, to New York, to Philadelphia, to Chi- 
 cago, and it was everywhere the same — bad business. 
 
 "Why is it?" he used to exclaim. "In Heaven's name, 
 why is it ? Can't I act any more ? Am I no good ? Have 
 I outlived my usefulness? Is it time for me to retire? 
 Would to Heaven I could retire! Ugh! This cursed 
 gout will retire me before long. 
 
 "I sometimes wonder what things are coming to," he 
 continued. "Great Caesar ! How the business is cut up ! 
 
1x8 21 2&togta#)p of 
 
 ^There are no actors any more. There are pantomimists, 
 and walking gentlemen, and juveniles, and what-nots, but 
 no actors." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked. 
 
 "No actors. No nine changes of bill a week; no mas- 
 tery of a new part in forty-eight hours; no rehearsals 
 every day; no bills to show a man's versatility. Why, 
 I 've played an act from 'Hamlet/ one from 'Black-eyed 
 Susan/ and sung 'A Yankee Ship and a Yankee Crew/ 
 and danced a hornpipe, and wound up with a nigger part 
 all in one night. Is there any one you know of to-day 
 who can do that?" 
 
 On Monday evening, December 4, 1876, Law- 
 rence Barrett began a season at Booth's Theatre, 
 New York, in the title character of "King Lear," 
 Mr. Davenport being especially engaged for the 
 part of Edgar. The cast was as follows : 
 
 Lear Lawrence Barrett. 
 
 Edmund Fred. B. Warde. 
 
 Earl of Kent William E. Sheridan. 
 
 Duke of Cornwall . . . . E. K. Collier. 
 
 Duke of Albany Harry Langdon. 
 
 King of France Louis F. Barrett. 
 
 Duke of Burgundy .... George W. Wessells. 
 Earl of Gloucester .... Henry Weaver. 
 Old Man, Tenant to Glou- 
 cester W. W. Graham. 
 
 Physician to King Lear . . W. Aytoun. 
 
 The Fool William Seymour. 
 
 Edgar E. L. Davenport. 
 
 Goneril Miss Gertrude Kellogg. 
 
 Regan " Dora Goldthwaite. 
 
 Cordelia " Stella Boniface. 
 
<£btoar& Hoomi£ SDatoengott * J 9 
 
 The tragedy was produced under the stage di- 
 rection of William Seymour, who five years later 
 married Mr. Davenport's daughter May. The 
 part of Edgar was played by Mr. Davenport onr\ 
 a few times, and on December 9 he left the com-\ 
 pany, and was succeeded by Frederick Warde. To I 
 play even Edgar to another and younger actor's » 
 King Lear was apparently too much for his proud * 
 spirit. 
 
 The acquaintance already quoted saw Mr. Dav- 
 enport only a few months before his death. He 
 says: 
 
 I paid him a visit at Nahant, where he was nursing his 
 gouty limb and getting ready to make a tour under the 
 management of John Stetson in "Dan'l Druce." I al- 
 ways hated that piece. I believe it was Davenport's death- 
 knell. He said it was a beautiful story, but a wretched 
 play. But I always thought that was the gout talking. 
 He went out in it. I was with him in Chelsea when he 
 played to about a dozen people. He was in such pain 
 he could barely move, but he never gave a finer perform- 
 ance in his life. Atkins Lawrence will bear me out in 
 this. I remember he was in the bill. Then he got dis- 
 gusted, swore he 'd play no more, gave his dresses to 
 Horace Lewis, 1 and went home to die. There is no doubt 
 in my mind, judging from the last talk I had with Dav- 
 enport, that he knew his time had come. We were in 
 the Parker House one evening, when William Warren 
 came in. 
 
 1 This statement is inaccurate. The costumes were 
 given to Joseph Proctor, from whom Mr. Lewis secured 
 them for his revival of "Dan'l Druce." 
 
120 % 25iograpl)p of 
 
 "Ah, Warren!" exclaimed Davenport, rising and greet- 
 ing the comedian with the courtly grace for which he was 
 distinguished, "you 're just in time to join us. What 
 shall it be?" 
 
 Mr. Warren took a seat at the table, adjusted his gold 
 eye-glasses, looked quizzically at Davenport, and said : 
 
 "Ned, I believe you and Forrest were not good friends ?" 
 
 "No, we were not. Why do you ask?" 
 
 "Because this is the anniversary of his death, and I was 
 going to propose a toast in silence." 
 
 "Let it be so, sir," replied Davenport, catching the sen- 
 timent of the comedian. 
 
 The glasses were raised, and Mr. Warren said slowly: 
 
 "Here 's to the memory of a great actor, a grand soul, 
 a good fellow." 
 
 "Amen!" murmured Davenport. 
 
 Then Davenport leaned across the table, and, looking 
 Mr. Warren steadily in the face, said, with a tremor in 
 his voice : "My dear sir, you and I are pretty close to the 
 tag. It will not be long before the Great Prompter will 
 ring down the curtain upon our little act. What a life 
 yours has been!" 
 
 Mr. Warren looked up and caught Davenport's eye, in 
 which a tear glistened. 
 
 "My life?" 
 
 "Yes, yours. Beloved of the people of this city, cher- 
 ished by every man, woman, and child in it, rich in fame, 
 in wealth — what more could the world have possibly 
 done for you, sir?" 
 
 A smile passed over the smooth, waxen face of the 
 comedian, as he leaned back in his chair and tipped his 
 high hat on one side of his head in his inimitable fashion. 
 
 "And with all that, Ned, you have more to be grateful 
 for than I." 
 
 Davenport shook his head wearily. 
 
 "When I go," continued the old comedian, "my name 
 
<£btoarb Eoomig SDatoenport 
 
 121 
 
 goes with me. I am the last of my race. There are no 
 more Metamoras of my tribe. But you leave your name 
 to the custody of children who will wreathe it with glory." 
 
 Davenport's eyes were filled with tears. So were War- 
 ren's. 
 
 \"I often go back," said Davenport, "to the days when 
 II remember you as a young man, when Forrest was in 
 his prime, when Wyzeman Marshall was young, when 
 Booth was a boy, and when I began my career. 'How 
 the old time comes o'er me!' as Claude Melnotte says. 
 Then it seemed impossible that we would grow old. But 
 now it is a painful reality." j 
 
 "They were giants in those days," muttered Warren, 
 abstractedly. "Murdoch, Forrest, the elder Booth, Bur- 
 ton, Brougham, Cushman, Celeste, Couldock; ah, Ned, 
 we shall not look upon their like again." 
 
 As we walked out of the room, loiterers nudged each 
 other and whispered: "That 's old Warren; that 's Ned 
 Davenport." * 
 
 1 "Boston Evening Transcript," November 8, 1894. 
 
 16 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE great actor's busy life was drawing slowly 
 to a close. For years he had been suffering, 
 and although compelled frequently to retire for 
 brief periods, he returned to his work with an in- 
 defatigable energy and a renewed zest. He had 
 become painfully lame. His shoulders stooped, 
 his eye had lost some degree of its penetrating lus- 
 tre, his heroic figure had shrunken in stature, but 
 he was always cheery, jovial, hearty, and forgetful 
 of the ills of the moment. 
 
 The final effort of his career was about to be 
 made. Attracted by the dramatic fervor and pathos 
 of W. S. Gilbert's "Dan'l Druce," a play based in 
 some portions upon George Eliot's "Silas Marner," 
 he determined to act its title character, and on Jan- 
 uary 8, 1877, appeared therein at the Walnut Street 
 Theatre, Philadelphia. The public immediately 
 welcomed its favorite actor, and the play at once 
 became popular. The supporting cast included 
 Geraldine Maye as Dorothy, Charles Walcot as Sir 
 Jasper Coombe, Atkins Lawrence as Geoffrey Wyn- 
 ward, and George W. Howard as Reuben Haines. 
 The engagement at the Walnut Street Theatre con- 
 122 
 
€btoarb 3loomi£ SDatoenport i2 3 
 
 tinued two weeks, and then Mr. Davenport began 
 a tour through Pennsylvania and New York. 
 While at the Park Theatre, Brooklyn, in March, 
 Mr. Davenport's illness compelled him to relin- 
 quish the title role to H. A. Weaver for a few per- 
 formances. On Monday evening, March 5, Mr. 
 Davenport was able to appear at the opening of 
 the Boston engagement at the Howard Athenaeum, 
 and, under the management of John Stetson, he 
 continued at the head of his company until his 
 illness became so acute that he was obliged to go 
 to his home at Canton, Pennsylvania. The story 
 of these last professional days is interestingly told 
 by the member of his company already referred to, 
 Henry A. Weaver. 
 
 The last part the great actor, E. L. Davenport, ap- 
 peared in was "Dan'l Druce." Notwithstanding the mer- 
 its of this beautiful drama, it was not a success in Lon- 
 don, although that fine actor, Hermann Vezin, created the 
 leading character, and it was a signal failure at Booth's 
 Theatre, with Lawrence Barrett in the part. But when 
 Mr. Davenport added the piece to his repertory, there 
 seemed to be every indication it was about to receive that 
 recognition from the public its great merits deserved. 
 Certainly no finer interpretation of the character could 
 have been desired than that given by E. L. Davenport. 
 He played "Dan'l Druce" to crowded houses at the Wal- 
 nut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. After this engagement 
 he was taken ill, and I played a week of one-night stands 
 in Pennsylvania, appearing as Dan'l Druce in his stead. 
 He being still too ill to appear at Colonel Sinn's Park 
 Theatre, Brooklyn, I filled out the eight performances 
 
i2 4 % 2&togra#)p of 
 
 there. He was able to appear the following week in 
 Boston, and the character of Sir Jasper Coombe was 
 given to me, so that I should travel with him and be 
 ready in case of need to take his place, for he did not 
 seem to be thoroughly restored to health. He played in 
 Boston one week, then a week of one-night stands in 
 New England, a week at Ford's Theatre, Baltimore, and 
 then a week at the National Theatre, Washington, where 
 he appeared for the last time on any stage one Saturday 
 night in April, 1877. 
 
 E. L. Davenport was one of the most genial and patient 
 of men. I have seen him, during the long run of "Julius 
 Caesar" at Booth's Theatre, when he was suffering so 
 from rheumatism in one of his hands that he could not 
 bear any one to touch it, and yet he would be all life 
 and gaiety, with a good word and a pleasant smile for 
 every one around him. His kind and amiable disposi- 
 tion endeared him to his associates, while his great abili- 
 ties as an actor won their unbounded admiration. During 
 the engagement in Washington he seemed to be thor- 
 oughly restored to health, and when he came to the mat- 
 inee on Saturday he said he felt like a boy of nineteen, 
 and was in exuberant spirits all the afternoon. At night 
 he complained of feeling a little tired, but, notwithstand- 
 ing the part of Dan'l Druce is an exacting one, neither he 
 nor the company feared any serious results. On the Mon- 
 day morning, however, as we were assembled at the depot, 
 preparatory to departing for Cumberland, Maryland, our 
 manager received a note from Mr. Davenport, saying that 
 he did not feel well enough to play that night, but would 
 join us as soon as he was able to do so. 
 
 We all felt sad at having to proceed without Mr. Dav- 
 enport, and sadder still when we received the intelligence 
 that he had been removed to his home at Canton, Penn- 
 sylvania, and that his recovery was doubtful. There were 
 but two weeks more of the season, which ended at the 
 
€btoarfc 3loomi£ SDatoenport * 2 s 
 
 Grand Opera House, Cincinnati. This the company com- 
 pleted. A little time after this Mr. Davenport rallied, 
 and seemed to be on the highroad to health again; he 
 had so far improved that he made arrangements to appear 
 at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, for one week 
 in "Dan'l Druce." The bills were out, and there was a 
 heavy demand for seats, but on the date of the perform- 
 ance there came another attack which precluded the pos- 
 sibility of his appearing. A short time after this his dis- 
 ease seemed to take a favorable turn, and his recovery 
 was looked forward to as almost assured, and this time 
 it was expected that he would make his reappearance as 
 Master Walter for his daughter Fanny's benefit at the 
 Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York. But alas ! these hopes 
 were delusive. A third attack proved fatal, and robbed 
 the American stage of one of its brightest ornaments. 
 
 During the summer months of 1877 Mr. Dav- 
 enport sought rest for a time at Nahant, and then 
 went to his home at Canton, Pennsylvania. From 
 time to time his recovery seemed probable, but the 
 disease finally reached a critical stage, and he died 
 on the first day of September. All the members of 
 his family were at Canton during the last days 
 of his life, except his two youngest daughters, 
 Blanche and May. The former was residing 
 abroad, and the latter was on her way home from 
 Europe. The remains were taken to New York, 
 and the services were held from the Fourth Uni- 
 versalist Church, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth 
 Street, the pastor of which was the Rev. Edwin H. 
 Chapin, friend of Davenport's boyhood days. The 
 pall-bearers were Chief- Justice Daly, Judge Brady, 
 
i26 <£&toarfc ftoomi^ 2Datoenport 
 
 George K. Goodwin, John W. Forney, Edward D. 
 Stephens, Frank Mayo, Henry C. Jarrett, and 
 Augustin Daly. Many members of the dramatic 
 profession were present. Dr. Chapin's concluding 
 words were: "I have known the deceased actor 
 well, particularly in the younger days of my life. 
 I have always known him to be worthy of love and 
 respect. He was faithful in his profession. He 
 studied his art conscientiously, and achieved a no- 
 ble fame and reputation. The presence of the 
 public here to-day is a tribute to his talents and his 
 worth and purity as a gentleman. The public 
 gives its honorable tribute, but there remains the 
 pang in the hearts of his family." 
 
 The remains of the great actor were deposited in 
 the receiving vault at Woodlawn Cemetery, and 
 some time later were taken to Boston, where they 
 now rest in the beautiful Forest Hills Cemetery. 
 The tombstone bears this inscription : "Our Father 
 who art in Heaven. E. L. Davenport. Born No- 
 vember 15, 181 5. Died September 1, 1877." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN the preceding pages frequent mention has 
 been made of Mrs. Davenport, who from the 
 time of her marriage in London until her hus- 
 band's final days on the stage was almost continu- 
 ously his professional comrade. It remains merely 
 for this chronicle to mention the few noteworthy 
 facts in her life hitherto unrelated. She was born 
 in London on July 16, 1829, and was the daughter 
 of Frederick Vining, at the time of her birth man- 
 ager of the Haymarket Theatre. Her mother was 
 the daughter of John Johnstone, the Irish come- 
 dian, and another daughter of that actor became 
 the wife of the elder James W. Wallack and the 
 mother of Lester Wallack, whose name at his 
 christening was John Johnstone Wallack, in honor 
 of his grandfather. Mrs. Davenport and Lester 
 Wallack were therefore own cousins. Her stage 
 career dates from her babyhood, as she made her 
 first appearance, at the age of three, in some play 
 of the period requiring the services of an infant. 
 After a precocious childhood, passed in close asso- 
 ciation with the stage and its people, and a few 
 years spent in studying at a boarding-school, she 
 127 
 
i28 % 25io0tapl)p of 
 
 made her debut in 1847 at tne Haymarket Thea- 
 tre, London, as Juliet, to the Romeo of Gustavus 
 Vaughan Brooke and the Mercutio of her father. 
 She continued to play leading roles at the Hay- 
 market, Drury Lane, and other London theatres, 
 in association with Charles Kean, Macready, and 
 many of their contemporaries. 
 
 On January 8, 1849, sne was married to Mr. 
 Davenport, and the story of her life is thenceforth 
 one with that of her husband. She made her first 
 appearance in America at the old Broadway Thea- 
 tre, New York, as Margaret Elmore in "Love's 
 Sacrifice," on March 2, 1855, and for the twenty 
 years following was his inseparable companion. 
 After his death she played occasional engagements 
 here and there, her final public appearance being 
 made on April 7, 1890, at the Globe Theatre in 
 Boston, when she played Lady Macbeth to the 
 Macbeth of Joseph Proctor for the benefit of the 
 Vincent Fund. She died at the family homestead 
 in Canton, Pennsylvania, July 20, 1891. 
 
 Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Dav- 
 enport. Two, Edward Loomis and Adele, died in 
 childhood. The remaining seven adopted the pro- 
 fession of their parents. 
 
 Fanny Lily Gypsy Davenport, the oldest and 
 best-known, was born in London, in a house oppo- 
 site the British Museum, on April 10, 1850. Her 
 first appearance on the stage was made in early 
 childhood, and thenceforth she was continuously 
 and conspicuously before the public for nearly 
 
MRS. E. L. DAVENPORT. 
 

<£btoarb ttoonu£ SDatoenport i2 9 
 
 forty years. She was one of the original members 
 of Augustin Daly's company at the Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre, where her triumphs were numerous and 
 notable. Her first appearance there was made as 
 Rosie Fanquehere in Robertson's "Play." In 
 1878 she became a star, and her success in Shak- 
 sperian comedy, in modern drama, and especially 
 in the melodramas of Sardou is a part of the his- 
 tory of the American stage. In the spring of 
 1898, while starring in "A Soldier of France," a 
 production upon which she had spent much time 
 and energy, she was compelled to abandon her 
 tour, and continued ill health necessitated her re- 
 tirement from the stage. She was taken to Bos- 
 ton, and finally to her home at South Duxbury, 
 Massachusetts, where she died on September 26, 
 1898. 
 
 Blanche Maria Davenport was born in London 
 on July 11, 1 85 1. She was educated in the public 
 schools of Boston and at the Convent of Notre 
 Dame. In 1867 she played at the Boston Mu- 
 seum. In 1869 she went to Milan to study sing- 
 ing, and remained abroad six years. On her re- 
 turn she sang in grand opera for several seasons 
 under the management of Maurice Strakosch and 
 others. She is now living in retirement at Can- 
 ton, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Lily Vining Davenport was born in Glasgow on 
 November 2, 1853. During her father's manage- 
 ment of the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadel- 
 phia she appeared in important characters. Re- 
 17 
 
x 3° 51 25iogtapl)p of 
 
 ( 
 
 tiring from the stage, she married Mr. Frost 
 Thorne of New York. She died in Philadelphia 
 on January 13, 1878. 
 
 May Davenport was born in Boston on July 21, 
 1856, and appeared upon the stage of the Chestnut 
 Street Theatre in Philadelphia during her father's 
 management of that house. In 1879 sne became 
 a member of the stock company at the Boston Mu- 
 seum, making her debut there on August 26 as 
 Anna Ivanowna in "The Danicheffs." In 1881 
 she played in the company of her sister Fanny, 
 retiring from the stage in January of the following 
 year, upon her marriage with Mr. William Sey- 
 mour, the well-known stage director. Since then 
 she has appeared only occasionally in public. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Seymour have five children, and their 
 summer home is at South Duxbury, Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 Florence Cecilia Davenport was born on June 16, 
 1858, and appeared on the stage for a brief period. 
 She now resides in Philadelphia. 
 
 Edgar Longfellow Davenport was born in Rox- 
 bury, Massachusetts, on February 7, 1862. He 
 appeared on the stage as a child in "Pizarro," 
 "Damon and Pythias," and other plays, but did not 
 become a professional actor until after his father's 
 death. He has played at the Walnut Street Thea- 
 tre in Philadelphia, as a member of his sister 
 Fanny's company, as leading juvenile at the Bos- 
 ton Museum, and in many traveling organizations. 
 
<£&toarfc 3toomi£ J3Datomport *$* 
 
 During the season of 1 900-1 901 he supported 
 Viola Allen as Cardinal Luis de Torres in "In the 
 Palace of the King." He bears a striking resem- 
 blance to his father. 
 
 Harry George Bryant Davenport, known on the 
 stage as Harry Davenport, was born in New York 
 on January 19, 1866. He acted while a child, and 
 took part in one of the juvenile productions of 
 "H. M. S. Pinafore/' In recent years he has ap- 
 peared almost exclusively as a leading member of 
 musical comedy companies. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Mrs., 52 
 
 Academy of Music, New 
 York, 67, 102 
 
 Academy of Music, Phila- 
 delphia, 101 
 
 Actress of Padua, The, 81 
 
 Adams, Edwin, 73, 83, 86 
 
 Addams, John P., 7 
 
 Aiken, Frank E., 87 
 
 Albany, 13, 74, 109, 114 
 
 Alexander's Feast, 6 
 
 Alger, Rev. William R., 68 
 
 Allen, Mrs. J. H., 80 
 
 Allen, Viola, 131 
 
 Almy, Miss, 97 
 
 Ames, Miss E., 97 
 
 Anderson, James, 29 
 
 Andrews, A., 19 
 
 Apostate, The, 106 
 
 Arch Street Theatre, Phila- 
 delphia, 41, 95 
 
 Archer, William, 36 
 
 Armand, 18, 19, 26, 30, 31, 
 
 35 
 Astor Place Riots, 71 
 As You Like It, 25, 61, 100, 
 
 102 
 Aytoun, W., 118 
 
 Baltimore, 57, 76, 101, ill, 
 124 
 Ford's Theatre, 124 
 Holliday Street Theatre, 
 101, III 
 Bangs, F. C, 114, 116 
 Bannister, N. H., 11 
 Barrett, George H., 8 
 
 Barrett, Lawrence, 68, 87, 
 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 
 123 
 
 Barrett, Louis F, 118 
 
 Barron, Charles, 87 
 
 Barrow, Julia Bennett, 57,86 
 
 Barry, Thomas, 19, 57, 77, 
 
 83 
 Bascomb, H. L., 101 
 Beekman, W., 97, 98 
 Belton, Mr., 28 
 Ben the Boatswain, 11 
 Bernard, Bayle, 46 
 Black-eyed Susan, 4, 32, 39, 
 
 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 52, S3, 
 
 54, 55, 56, 58, 61, 74, 75, 
 
 90, 96, 107, 118 
 Blake, W. R., 72, 81 
 Blake, Mrs. W. R., 42, 76 
 Blanchard, E. L., 45 
 Blanchard, Kitty, 90 
 Bohemian Girl, The, 12 
 Boker, George H., 61, 76 
 Boniface, George C., 82 
 Boniface, Stella, 118 
 Booth, Edwin, 71, 80, 82, 86, 
 
 104, 105, 107, 117 
 Booth, J. B„ 8, 9, 68, 69, 71, 
 
 100, 121 
 Booth, J. B., Jr., 11 
 Booths, The, 5 
 Booth's Theatre, New York, 
 
 112, 113, 114, 118 
 Boots at the Swan, 58 
 Boston, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 19, 
 
 57, 58, 59, 7i, 76, 77, 81, 
 
 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 
 
 i35 
 
136 
 
 Sinter- 
 
 90, 96, IOI, 102, 108, III, 
 112, 114, Il6, 117, 123, 
 124, 126, 128, 129, 130 
 
 Boston Museum, 58, 84, 
 
 129, 130 
 Boston Theatre, 57, 58, 
 81, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90, 116 
 Continental Theatre, 90 
 Globe Theatre, 102, 128 
 Howard Athenaeum, 83, 
 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 108, 
 112, 123 
 National Theatre, 77 
 Selwyn's Theatre, 96, 101 
 Tremont Theatre, 8, 10, 
 89 
 Boston Museum, Boston, 58, 
 
 84, 129, 130 
 Boston Theatre, Boston, 57, 
 58, 81, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90, 
 116 
 Boucicault, Dion, 73, 77, 99 
 Bowers, Mrs. D. P., 91 
 Bowers, George Vining, 95 
 Bowery Amphitheatre, New 
 
 York, 12 
 Bowery Theatre, New York, 
 
 11, 12, 78, 79 
 Bradford, J, B., 101 
 Brady, Judge, 125 
 Brick Circus, Providence, 8 
 Bride of Lammermoor, The, 
 
 .58 
 Brighton, England, 28 
 Broadway Theatre, New 
 York, 48, 52, 56, 59, 60, 
 61, 66, 67, 75, 76, 79, 80, 
 90, 128 
 Brooke, Gustavus Vaughan, 
 24, 25, 27, 31, 35, 45, 46, 
 128 
 Brooklyn, 55, 94, 101, 114, 
 123 
 Park Theatre, 94, 123 
 
 Brougham, John, 72, 78, 79, 
 
 81, 86, 121 
 Browne, George F., 8 
 Brutus, 11, 13, 44, 57, 58, 85, 
 
 88 
 Buckland, Kate Horn, 19, 76 
 Buckstone, J. B., 40, 43 
 Buffalo, 15, 74 
 Bulwer, 107 
 Bunch of Keys, A, 99 
 Burns, T. H., 101 
 Burton, William E., 72, 77, 
 
 78,81 
 Burton's Theatre, New 
 
 York, 75, 7&, 77, 78, 80, 
 
 81 
 
 Calaynos, 61 
 
 Calhoun, Alexander, 109 
 
 Canton, Pennsylvania, no, 
 
 123, 124, 125, 128 
 Cary, Mary, 101 
 Cataract of the Ganges, The, 
 
 84 
 Celeste, Mme., 121 
 Centennial, The, 104 
 Chambers Street Theatre, 
 
 New York, 79 
 Chanfrau, F. S., 12, 87, 117 
 Chanfrau, Mrs. F. S., 97 
 Chapin, Rev. Edwin H., 7, 
 
 125, 126 
 Chapman, F., 97 
 Chapman, Mr., 76 
 Charity's Love, 61, 78 
 Charles II, 12 
 
 Chelsea, Massachusetts, 119 
 Chestnut Street Theatre, 
 
 Philadelphia, 102, 103, 
 
 107, 129, 130 
 Chicago, 76, 94, 117 
 Chippendale, William H., 12 
 Christopher Columbus, 90, 
 
 9i 
 
3[ntie^ 
 
 *37 
 
 Cincinnati, 18, 57, 66, 125 
 Grand Opera House, 125 
 
 Clarke, Annie, 87 
 
 Clarke, Con., 78 
 
 Clarke, George, 97, 98, 99 
 
 Clay, Henry, 16, 17 
 
 Clifton, Ada, 81 
 
 Coghlan, Charles, 100 
 
 Collier, Edmund, 114, 118 
 
 Compton, Henry, 23, 27, 28 
 
 Conner, Edmon S., 42 
 
 Conrad, Robert T., 66, 67, 
 69 
 
 Continental Theatre, Bos- 
 ton, 90 
 
 Conway, F. B., 52 
 
 Conway, Mr., 27 
 
 Cooke, G., 28 
 
 .Cooke, George Frederick, 9, 
 
 S3 
 Cooke, J. M., 97 
 Cooke, T. P., 34, 40, 41, 43, 
 
 53 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, 95 
 Cooper, Mr., 23 
 Corsican Brothers, The, 44, 
 
 83 
 Couldock, C. W., 103, 121 
 Covent Garden, London, 41 
 Cowell, S., 23 
 Cowell, William, 57 
 Craig, Robert, 103 
 Crampton, Charlotte, 83 
 Crisp, W. H., 12 
 Cumberland, Maryland, 124 
 Cushman, Charlotte, 5, 30, 
 
 72, 81, 82, 103, 112, 121 
 Cymbeline, 27, 37 
 
 Daddy Gray, 100 
 
 Daly, Augustin, 97, 98, 99, 
 
 100, 101, 103, in, 126, 
 
 129 
 Daly, Charles P., 125 
 
 18 
 
 Daly, H. F., 57, 101 
 Damon and Pythias, 67, 68, 
 
 81, 85, 90, 92, 130 
 Danicheifs, The, 130 
 Dan' I Druce, 119, 122, 123, 
 
 124, 125 
 Davenport, Adele, 128 
 Davenport, Adolphus H., 80 
 Davenport, Asher, 5 
 Davenport, Blanche Maria, 
 
 125, 129 
 
 Davenport, Edgar Longfel- 
 low, 130, 131 
 
 Davenport, Mrs. Edward 
 Loomis, 27, 28, 31, 44, 
 46, 59, 60, 61, 74, 77, 78, 
 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 88, 
 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 101, 
 109, in, 127, 128 
 
 Davenport, Edward Loomis, 
 Jr., 128 
 
 Davenport, Fanny Lily Gyp- 
 sy, 80, 90, 96, 97, 98, 99, 
 100, 102, 113, 125, 128, 
 129, 130 
 
 Davenport, Florence Ce- 
 cilia, 130 
 
 Davenport, Harry G. B., 131 
 
 Davenport, Lily Vining, 103, 
 129 
 
 Davenport, May, 119, 125, 
 130 
 
 Davenport, N. T., 57 
 
 Davidge, William, 52, 95, 97, 
 98 
 
 Dean, Julia, 72, 86 
 
 Denin, Susan, 19 
 
 De Soto; or, the Hero of 
 the Mississippi, 79, 80 
 
 Devlin, Mary, 81, 82, 83 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 43, 89, 94 
 
 Dithmar, Edward A., 97, 98, 
 
 99 
 Don Ccesar de Bazan, 99, 108 
 
i38 
 
 3(n&ejt. 
 
 Doughterty, Mr., 19 
 
 Douglas, 10 
 
 Dreams, 99 
 
 Drury Lane, London, 38, 41, 
 
 44, 45, 52, 60, 128 
 Dublin, 44 
 
 Duke's Motto, The, 99 
 Dunn, Mr., 78 
 
 Ford's Theatre, Baltimore, 
 
 124 
 Forney, John W., 126 
 Forrest, Edwin, 5, 7, 10, 19, 
 51, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 
 73, 77, 104, 120, 121 
 Forrester, Mr., 57 
 Francesco da Rimini, 76 
 
 East Lynne, 90 
 Edinburgh, 44 
 Edwin, Miss Lena, 97 
 Egbert, T. F., 97 
 Egyptian; or, the Fall of 
 
 Palmyra, The, 59 
 Eliot, George, 122 
 Elliston, R. W., 40, 41 
 Enoch Arden, 89, 101 
 Ethel, Agnes, 97, 98, 102 
 Everybody's Mess, 11 
 Exchange Coffee House, 
 
 Boston, 7 
 Eytinge, Rose, 89 
 Eytinge, Sol, 76, 80 
 
 F; or, Branded, 95 
 
 Faint Heart Ne'er Won 
 
 Fair Lady, 96 
 Farren, Mrs., 86 
 Fashion, 31 
 Faucit, Helen, 30, 46 
 Fazio, 15 
 Fenno, Mr., 76 
 Fifth Avenue Theatre, New 
 
 York, 97, 98, 99, 100, 
 
 101, 112, 125, 129 
 Fisher, Charles, 23, 76, 78, 
 
 81 
 Florence, William J., 73, 86 
 Florence, Mrs. William J., 
 
 86 
 Fonblanque, 93 
 Ford, John T., in 
 
 Gaiety Theatre, London, 99 
 
 Gallagher, Mr., 52 
 
 Genevieve; or, the Reign of 
 Terror, 77, 78 
 
 Gilbert, Mrs. G. H., 97, 98 
 
 Gilbert, John, 57, 72, 81, 82 
 
 Gilbert, Mrs. John, 81 
 
 Gilbert, W. S., 122 
 
 Gladstane, Mrs., 88 
 
 Glasgow, 44, 129 
 
 Globe Theatre, Boston, 102, 
 128 
 
 Glover, Phyllis, 103 
 
 Gold, 44, 45 
 
 Golden Farmer, The, n 
 
 Goldthwaite, Dora, 118 
 
 Goodwin, George K., 126 
 
 Gougenheim, Josie, 52 
 
 Gouldson, Mr., 57 
 
 Graham, Anna, 96 
 
 Graham, W. W., 118 
 
 Grand Opera House, Cin- 
 cinnati, 125 
 
 Grand Opera House, New 
 York, 95, 112, 113 
 
 Grant, Gen. U. S., 70 
 
 Grattan, Mrs. H. P., 57 
 
 Grey, Blanche, 95 
 
 Grosvenor, J., 52 
 
 Hackett, J. H., 46, 72 
 Haines, Mr., 28 
 Halliday, Andrew, 100 
 Hamblin, Thomas S., n 
 
3[n&a% 
 
 J39 
 
 Hamlet, 6, 38, 43, 57, 59, 61, 
 62, 63, 77, 78, 80, 88, 90, 
 91, 94, 102, 105, 106, 112, 
 113, 117, 118 
 
 Harcourt, Mr., 57 
 
 Hardenbergh, Frank, 87 
 
 Harding, Emma, 75 
 
 Harkins, D. H., 97 
 
 Harris, A., 23 
 
 Hartford, Connecticut, 6 
 
 Haymarket Theatre, Lon- 
 don, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 
 44, 75, 127, 128 
 
 Hayne, Julia Dean, 72, 86 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 9 
 
 Heir-at-Law, The, 72 
 
 Henderson, John, 9 
 
 Henry, Mr., 23 
 
 Heron, Matilda, 72, 86 
 
 He's Not Amiss, 11 
 
 Hield, Mr., 19 
 
 Hill, T., 23 
 
 Hoey, Mrs. John, 80 
 
 Holland, George, 83, 97, 98, 
 102 
 
 Holliday Street Theatre, 
 Baltimore, 101 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 93 
 
 Holmes, Mr., 57 
 
 Honeymoon, The, 58, 77, 81, 
 
 101, 102, 106 
 H oris on, 103 
 Horn, Kate, 19, 76 
 How She Loves Him, 88 
 Howard, George W., 122 
 Howard, J., 28 
 
 Howard Athenaeum, Bos- 
 ton, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 
 90, 108, 112, 123 
 
 Howe, J. B., 57, 78 
 
 Hunchback, The, 22, 23, 100, 
 
 102, 125 
 
 Hunt, Mrs. Henry, 13 
 Hunter, Mrs. T. M., 101 
 
 Hutton, Laurence, 16, 52, 
 78, 100, 102, 113, 114 
 
 Ince, Annetta, 94 
 
 Ingersoll, David, 8 
 
 In the Palace of the King, 
 
 131 
 Ireland, Joseph N., 10, 80 
 It Is Never Too Late to 
 
 Mend, 45 
 Ivanhoe, 12 
 
 Jack Cade, 67, 69, 112 
 
 Jacobs, Fanny, 103 
 
 Jarrett, Henry C., 80, 89, 
 
 116, 126 
 Jefferson, Joseph, 72, 73, 
 
 106 
 Jeffersons, The, 5, 72 
 Jennings, Mrs. Clara, 97, 98 
 Jerrold, Blanchard, 41 
 Jerrold, Douglas, 40, 41, 42, 
 
 43, .53, 93 
 Jibbinainosay, The, 106 
 Joannes, The Count, 13 
 Johnson, G., 57 
 Johnson, G. W., 57 
 Johnson, S. D., 57 
 Johnstone, John, 127 
 Jones, George, 13 
 Jones, Mrs. Melinda, 12, 13 
 Jordan, George, Jr., 97 
 Josephs, Harry, 103 
 Julius Ccesar, 37, 38, 43, 80, 
 
 81, 106, 113, 114, 116, 
 
 124 
 
 Kean, Charles, 78, 128 
 Kean, Edmund, 9, 68, 69 
 Keene, Laura, 72 
 Kellogg, Gertrude, 118 
 Kemble, Charles, 47 
 Kemble, John Philip, 9 
 
140 
 
 Sfnbejr* 
 
 Kendal, Mrs., 99 
 Keuhle, Emilie, 97 
 King Henry IV, 72 
 King Henry VIII, 38, 81, 82 
 King John, 38, 47, 78, 79 
 King Lear, 38, 118, 119 
 King of the Commons, 88 
 King Richard III, 57, 58, 
 
 01, 63, 64, 65, 76, 80, 106 
 Kinloch, Mr., 28 
 Knowles, James Sheridan, 
 
 19, 27 
 Knowles, Mr., 107 
 
 Lady of Lyons, The, 12, 13, 
 21, 24, 35, 44, 51, 57, 
 107, 121 
 
 Lady of the Lake, The, 89 
 
 Laffan, Mr., in 
 
 Lanergan, J. W., 76 
 
 Langdon, Harry, 118 
 
 Last of 1001 Nights, The, 12 
 
 Lawrence, Atkins, 119, 122 
 
 Leffingwell, M. W., 52, 56 
 
 Lemon, Mark, 43 
 
 LeMoyne, William J., 87 
 
 Lend Me Five Shillings, 72 
 
 Levick, Milnes, 114, 116 
 
 Lewes, George Henry, 31 
 
 Lewis, Emily, 97, 98 
 
 Lewis, Horace, 119 
 
 Lewis, James, 97, 99 
 
 Lion Theatre, Providence, 8 
 
 Liverpool, 19, 75 
 Theatre Royal, 75 
 
 London, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 
 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 
 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 52, 
 60, 75, 78, 99, 127, 128, 
 129 
 Covent Garden, 41 
 Dntry Lane, 38, 41, 44, 45, 
 
 52, 60, 128 
 Gaiety Theatre, 99 
 
 London, Haymarket Thea- 
 tre, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 
 44, 75, 127, 128 
 Marylebone Theatre, 25, 
 
 26, 27, 29, 32, 34 
 Olympic Theatre, 24, 27, 
 
 32, 34 
 Princess's Theatre, 22, 24, 
 
 78 
 Surrey Theatre, 39, 40, 41 
 
 London Assurance, 95, 99, 
 100 
 
 Longmore, Marie, 97 
 
 Lords of Ellingham, The, 
 24, 25 
 
 Lotta, 94 
 
 Louisville, 16 
 
 Love, 19, 27 
 
 Love and Loyalty, 61 
 
 Love Chase, The, 12 
 
 Love's Sacrifice, 59, 60, 61, 
 128 
 
 Lovell, Mr., 6 
 
 Lynn, Massachusetts, 7 
 
 Lyster, Mr., 57 
 
 Macbeth, 26, 39, 43, 44, 81, 
 82, 93, 103, 109, 128 
 
 McCullough, John, 87 
 
 Macready, 18, 29, 36, 37, 38, 
 39, 128 
 
 Mile. d'Angerville, in 
 
 Maeder, Fred, 95 
 
 Manchester, England, 21, 22, 
 107 
 Theatre Royal, 21 
 
 Manners, Josephine, 75, 76 
 
 Man 0' Airlie, The, 116 
 
 Marshall, Wyzeman, 121 
 
 Marshall, Miss, 28 
 
 Marshalls, The, 75 
 
 Marylebone Theatre, Lon- 
 don, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 
 34 
 
Sinter* 
 
 141 
 
 Massinger, Thomas, 9, 99, 
 
 100 
 Maye, Geraldine, 122 
 Mayo, Frank, 73, 95, 126 
 Mears, Miss, 28 
 Merchant of Venice, The, 
 
 38, 44, 55, 61, 101, 107, 
 
 108, in 
 Metamora, 105 
 Metropolitan Theatre, San 
 
 Francisco, 91 
 Milan, 129 
 
 Miles, George H., 79, 80 
 Military Manoeuvres, n 
 Minnequa Springs, Pennsyl- 
 vania, 103 
 Mitchell, Maggie, 86 
 Money, 107 
 
 Montague, Emmeline, 23 
 Montgomery, Walter, 101, 
 
 115 
 Morant, Helen, 114 
 Morlacchi Ballet Troupe, 95 
 Mormons, The, 80, 81 
 Morning Call, A, 61 
 Morrell, T. H., no, 111,112 
 Morrell, Mrs. T. H., in, 
 
 112 
 Morris, Mr., 28 
 Morrison, Lewis, 104 
 Morrison, Mr., 28 
 Morse, Louisa, 103 
 Morse, Mary, 103 
 Mowatt, Anna Cora, 12, 14, 
 
 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 
 
 23, 25, 26, 30, 31, 34, 35, 
 
 107 
 Mowatt, Mr., 15, 17, 18, 35 
 Much Ado about Nothing, 
 
 6, 15, 23, 31, 38, 47, 57, 
 
 61 
 Muckwell, Mr., 23 
 Murdoch, James E., 30, 61, 
 
 72, 117, 121 
 
 18* 
 
 Myers, Louisa, 90 
 My Lady Clara, 99 
 
 Nagle, Mrs., 76 
 
 Nahant, Massachusetts, 119, 
 
 125 
 Nan the Good for Nothing, 
 
 .43 
 National Theatre, Boston, 
 
 77 
 
 National Theatre, Washing- 
 ton, 124 
 
 Neilson, Adelaide, 100 
 
 Neville, Mr., 97 
 
 New Bedford, 9 
 
 New Haven, 5 
 
 New Way to Pay Old Debts, 
 A, 6, 8, 9, 61, 68, 74, 92, 
 99, 100, 101, 103, 106, 
 107, 109, in, 112, 115, 
 116 
 
 New York, 10, 11, 12, 15, 
 18, 19, 35, 46, 48, 53, 57, 
 59, 60, 61, 66, 67, 71, 75, 
 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 85, 
 87, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 
 101, 102, 108, 109, no, 
 in, 112, 113, 114, 115, 
 117, 118, 124, 125, 128, 
 129, 130, 131 
 Academy of Music, 67, 
 
 102 
 Booth's Theatre, 112, 113, 
 
 114, 118, 124 
 Bowery Amphitheatre, 12 
 Bowery Theatre, 11, 12, 
 
 78, 79 
 Broadway Theatre, 46, 52, 
 56, 59, 60, 61, 66, 67, 75, 
 
 76, 79, 80, 90, 128 
 Burton's Theatre, 75, 76, 
 
 77, 78, 80, 81 
 Chambers Street Theatre, 
 
 79 
 
142 
 
 3[nbejt, 
 
 New York, Fifth Avenue 
 Theatre, 97, 98, 99, 100, 
 101, 112, 125, 129 
 Grand Opera House, 95, 
 
 112, 113 
 Niblo's Garden, 12, 35, 82, 
 
 85, 88, 101, in 
 Niblo's Theatre, 11 
 Park Theatre, 15, 19, 76 
 Wallack's Theatre, 75, 80 
 Winter Garden, 80, 87, 117 
 Wood's Museum, 53, 108, 
 109, no, 113 
 Niblo's Garden, New York, 
 12, 35, 82, 85, 88, 101, 
 in 
 Niblo's Theatre, New York, 
 
 n 
 Nesbitt, Mrs., 30 
 Noble Heart, A, 31, 58 
 Norton, Mr., 23 
 Norwood, Miss, 97 
 
 Oakes, James, 77, 105, 112 
 Old Heads and Young 
 
 Hearts, n 
 Oliver Twist, 89, 90, 91, 109 
 Olympic Theatre, London, 
 
 24, 27, 32, 34 
 Omaha, 94 
 
 Orton, Josephine, 83, 87, 102 
 Othello, 4, 6, 24, 25, 26, 31, 
 
 34, 37, 38, 42, 45, 47, 49, 
 
 57, 58, 59, 61, 65, 66, 68, 
 
 80, 81, 86, 88, 105, 106, 
 
 108, 115 
 Our American Cousin, 72, 
 
 83, 86, 87 
 Oxenford, John, 27 
 Owens, John E., 88 
 
 Palmer, Henry D., 116 
 Palmer, Mr., 23 
 
 Park Theatre, Brooklyn, 94, 
 
 123 
 Park Theatre, New York, 
 
 15, 19, 76 
 Paul, Howard, 42 
 Pauncefort, George, 57 
 Payne, John Howard, n, 58 
 Pearson, Harry, 101 
 Peck, Mr., 97 
 Phelps, H. P., 13 
 Phelps, Samuel, 36, 61 
 Philadelphia, 10, 42, 57, 60, 
 
 76, 87, 88, 91, 94, 95, 
 
 101, 102, 103, 107, 114, 
 117, 122, 123, 125, 129, 
 130 
 
 Academy of Music, 101 
 Arch Street Theatre, 41, 
 
 95 
 Chestnut Street Theatre, 
 
 102, 103, 104, 107, 129, 
 130 
 
 Walnut Street Theatre, 
 10, 76, 88, 94, 95, 104, 
 122, 123, 125, 130 
 
 Pierce, Mr., 97 
 
 Pilot, The, 40, 95 
 
 Pinafore, 131 
 
 Pittman, T. W., 12 
 
 Pittsburg, 101 
 
 Pisarro, 130 
 
 Placide, Henry, 72, 78, 82 
 
 Placide, Thomas, 88 
 
 Play, 98, 99, 129 
 
 Plympton, Eben, 100 
 
 Pocahontas, 86 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 94 
 
 Polk, J. B., 97, 98 
 
 Ponisi, Mme., 52, 53, 59, 76 
 
 Poor Scholar, The, 77 
 
 Pope, Mrs. Coleman, 30 
 
 Princess's Theatre, London, 
 22, 24, 78 
 
 Proctor, Joseph, 81, 119, 128 
 
Snter* 
 
 J 43 
 
 Providence, Rhode Island, 
 8, 14, 61, 109, 114 
 Brick Circus, 8 
 Lion Theatre, 8 
 Putnam; or, the Iron Son 
 of 76, 11 
 
 Rand, Rosa, 114 
 Rankin, McKee, 90 
 Rankin, Mrs. McKee, 90 
 Raymond, John T., j$ 
 Reade, Charles, 44, 45 
 Reade, Charles L., 45 
 Reade, Rev. Compton, 45 
 Rees, James, 104 
 Reignolds, Kate, 78, 79 
 Richelieu, 10, 38, 92, 94, 108, 
 
 112 
 Richmond, Virginia, 35, 109 
 Rip Van Winkle, 22, 106 
 Ritchie, William R, 35 
 Rivals, The, 72, 88 
 Robertson, T. W., 98, 99, 
 
 129 
 Robin Hood, 11 
 Rob Roy, 95 
 Robson, Stuart, 73 
 Robson, William, 61 
 Romeo and Juliet, 15, 16, 
 
 27, 47, 61, 81, 82, 128 
 Rough Diamond, The, 89 
 Rowland, Miss, 97 
 Roxbury, Massachusetts, 
 
 102, 130 
 Ryder, Mr., 28 
 Ryner, H., 97, 98 
 
 St. John, New Brunswick, 
 
 102 
 St. Louis, Missouri, 57 
 St. Marc, 52, 53, 54, 58, 90, 
 
 92, 95, 102, 106, 109, 112, 
 
 117 
 St. Ybars, Latour de, 27 
 
 Salt Lake City, 94 
 Salvini, Tommaso, 63 
 San Francisco, 3, 91, 92 
 
 Metropolitan Theatre, 91 
 Sardou, Victorien, 129 
 Sargent, Epes, 27 
 Scalp Hunters, The, 74 
 Scharf, Mr., 28 
 School for Scandal, 77, 80, 
 
 82, 88 
 Scott, John R., 11, 12 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 95 
 Scott-Siddons, Mrs., 101, 
 
 102 
 Sefton, John, 11 
 Selwyn, John H., 83, 103 
 Selwyn's Theatre, Boston, 
 
 96, 101 
 Serle, J. D., 26 
 Setchell, Dan, 78, 81, 83 
 Seymour, James, 52 
 Seymour, William, 118, 119, 
 
 130 
 Seymour, Mrs., 27, 28 
 Shadow on the Wall, The, 
 
 26 
 Shakspere, 30, 74, 76, 78, 79, 
 
 88, 129 
 Sheridan, William E., 118 
 She Stoops to Conquer, 81 
 Shewell, L. R., 81 
 Silas Marner, 122 
 Sinn, William E., 123 
 Skerrett, Mrs., 88 
 Sleeping Beauty, The, 12 
 Smith, Albert, 28 
 Smith, E. T., 45 
 Smith, Mark, 78, 81, 88 
 Smith, W. H., 90 
 Soldier of France, A, 129 
 Sothern, E. A., 73 
 South Duxbury, Massachu- 
 setts, 129, 130 
 Spicer, Henry, 24, 27 
 
i 4 4 
 
 S(nbejt- 
 
 Stacy, Mr., 23 
 
 Stanton, Mr., 28 
 
 Stedman, C, 101 
 
 Stephens, Edward D., 126 
 
 Stetson, John, 119, 123 
 
 Stewart, H., 97 
 
 Still Waters Run Deep, 88, 
 
 90 
 Stirling, Edward, 44, 45 
 Strakosch, Maurice, 129 
 Stranger, The, 57, 58, 81, 
 
 102 
 Struggle for Gold, A, 80 
 Sullivan, Barry, 35, 112, 113 
 Surrey Theatre, London, 39, 
 
 40, 41 
 
 Tempest, The, 76, 77, 95 
 Thackeray, W. M., 43 
 Theatre Royal, Liverpool, 75 
 Theatre Royal, Manchester, 
 
 21 
 Thorne, Charles R., Jr., 73, 
 
 102, 103 
 Thorne, Frost, 130 
 Three Guardsmen, The, 106 
 Tremont Theatre, Boston, 8, 
 
 10, 89 
 Twelfth Night, 27, 31 
 Twickenham, England, 35 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
 
 28, 31 . 
 Tyrrell, Miss, 30 
 Tyson, The Misses, 97 
 
 Vandenhoff, George, 36, 37, 
 
 112 
 Velasco, 2.7 
 Venice Preserved, 47 
 Vernon, Mrs., 19 
 Vezin, Hermann, 123 
 Vicksburg, Mississippi, 16 
 Vining, Fanny. See Mrs. 
 
 E. L. Davenport 
 
 Vining, Frederick, 127, 128 
 Vining, James, 23 
 Virginie, 27 
 Virginius, 34, 38, 58, 112 
 
 Walcot, Charles, 122 
 Wallack, Fanny, 72 
 Wallack, Henry, 71 
 Wallack, James W, Jr., 36, 
 
 71, 72, 80, 86, 87, 88, 89, 
 
 90, 91, us, 117 
 Wallack, Mrs. James W., 
 
 Jr., 86, 87 
 Wallack, James W., Sr., 67, 
 
 71,80 
 Wallack, Julia, 72 
 Wallack, Lester, 71, 127 
 Wallack's Theatre, New 
 
 York, 75, 80, 115 
 Wallis, Miss, 52 
 Walnut Street Theatre, 
 
 Philadelphia, 10, 76, 88, 
 
 94, 95, 104, 122, 123, 
 
 125, 130 
 Warde, Fred. B., 118, 119 
 Warner, Neil, 95 
 Warren, William, 72, 119, 
 
 120, 121 
 Warren, Mrs., 76 
 Washington, D. C, 76, 101, 
 
 114, 124 
 National Theatre, 124 
 Watts, Walter, 32, 33 
 Weaver, Henry, 118, 123, 
 
 124, 125 
 Webster, Benjamin, 42 
 Wells, Mary, 101, 114 
 Wessells, George W., 118 
 Western, Lucille, 89, 90, 117 
 Wheatleigh, Charles, 30, 103 
 Wheatley, William, 78, 88 
 Whiting, David, 76, 78 
 Wife, The, 15, 51 
 Wigan, Alfred, 27, 99 
 
Sfn&ejr* 
 
 hs 
 
 Wild Oats, 90, 92, 108 
 Wilkins, John H., 52 
 Wilkins, Marie, 97 
 Wilks, Edward P., 103 
 William Tell, 58, 59 
 Williams, Barney, 86 
 Williams, Mrs. Barney, 86 
 Wi.nslow, Mrs. Erving(Kate 
 
 Reignolds), 78, 79 
 Winter, William, 105, 106, 
 
 107, 114 
 Winter Garden, New York, 
 
 80,87, ii7 
 
 Witch Wife, The, 27, 77 
 Wives as They Were and 
 
 Maids as They Are, 99 
 Wizard of the Wave, The, 
 
 12 
 Wood, John, 57 
 Wood's Museum, New York, 
 
 53, 108, 109, no, 113 
 Wynn, Mr., 23 
 
 Yates, Edmund, 33, 34 
 Younge, Mr., 28 
 
r 
 
 * 
 
J 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 wt 
 
 SWI14195! 
 
 4} to'56BC? 
 FEB2 6t958rff 
 
 «*** 
 
 23Aug'61L7 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 AUG 9 161 
 
 JP.N 
 
 >(B7146sl 
 
 10Jan'62GP# ' 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 JAN 3 1962 
 
 ****** 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 JAN 19 "64-2 PM 
 
 ^e ; t5 c LD 
 
 ! 5^966 82 
 REC'D LD 
 
 AN 1 3 '66 -2 PI 
 
^C 104369 
 
 I \rrr0 ^ 
 Ell 
 
 
 f THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
' }