This book is DUE on the last date stamped below MAY 2 5 192? BEC l 193, ^ N? ' 957 *tCEIVED AM 7-4 Form L-9-15»i-10,'25 :c n 1965 ., THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. VOL. I. t /(. /on//?*/ a* , /,// / THE LIFE OK MRS. JORDAN; INCMfUINO ORIGINAL PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE, AND NUMEROUS ANECDOTES OF HER CONTEMPORARIES. By JAMES BOADEN, Esq. AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF KEMBLK, 8fc, Haste thee, nymph, an.l bring with thee Jest and youthful Jom.itv ; Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And I.ai'gktki! holding both his sides. " I.'Ai.i.ku it < IV TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: EDWARD BULL, HOLLES STREET. 1831. a it *■ • • ' ,*• ••• • * e • • • • • 6 * ' ■■> • • «« , * ^ ■: :•: i . • * . • • • • • »' Ouniiell and Shearman, 13, Salisbury Square. 2 ^7 PREFACE. Prefaces are seldom honoured with much atten- tion. They are commonly passed over until curiosity is completely gratified by the contents of the work. But a few lines, in which an author must speak of himself, may, at a moment of leisure, attract the reader's notice ; and certainly should never detain it »\2 l\ v long. I have merely to lay before him the reasons that induced me to compose the work now published. From the death of Mrs. Jordan up to the year 1824, inclusive, a sort of sullen and interrupted an- noyance occasionally recalled the j^blic mind to the disappointment as to Mrs. Jordan's circum- stances ; and the injury sustained by her credi- tors, and some members of her Family. Having had the pleasure of Mrs. Jordan's personal acquaint- ance for some years, and having paid unwearied at- tention to her professional exertions from their very vol. i. b 11 PREFACE. commencement in London, it ivas not, perhaps, too extravagant a thought, that I might construct a nar- rative, not without attraction of two hinds : — that should exhibit a more perfect picture of her than had been given while she occupied the stage, and a truer representation of her private life, than other writers had yet been enabled to supply. As to the stage on which she acted, I had long been conversant with its history — the inquiries essential to my Life of Mr. Kemble, had extended beyond himself ; and the results were either present to my mind, or were of easy reference, in the great mass of theatrical documents around me. As to her last moments, Sir Jonah Barrington, in a work published in 1827, had given such intelligence as he obtained upon the spot; and spoken with reserve on some other points of her history, hardly less interesting. Certain private friends, for whom I entertain entire respect, here offered lo my use a very interesting portion of Mrs. Jordan's correspondence ; throwing a steady light upon the most momentous incidents in her private life. As they were emi- PREFACE. Ill nenthj calculated to nettle, by their authority, even) thing that had been questioned, and shewed her candour and affection equal at least to the warmest wishes of her friends, I accepted them ivith pride and pleasure. Permitted to use the very documents themselves, I have printed them exactly from the originals in her own hand-writing ; they are un- studied compositions, but they all sprung warm from the heart, and, like her acting, speak its true and impassioned language. Her acting, indeed, ivas heart in action ; and its pulsations vibrated to the extremities of its thea- trical habitation. The fault of the great bulk of her imitators, or contemporaries, ivas, that they never seemed under the actual influence of a pas- sion, but to play from the recollection of it. They described the sensations : the vice of French Tra- gedy. But this is not the place for disquisition — I therefore refer the reader to my work for every satisfaction of this sort ; and conclude with a hope, that what I have executed with great zeal and un- wearied application, may be fortunate enough to !) 2 IV PREFACE. amuse his leisure, and place Mrs. Jordan herself, and Persons connected with her in life, in the true relative positions, either as to the present age or posterity. J. B. 60, Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, November, 1830. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. I. What is to be expected in these Memoirs — Mrs. Jordan's fa- mily theatrical — Irregularity commonly progressive — Mrs. Bland — her story — her husband — her sisters — Ryder first employs the talent of Miss Francis — Daly's Duenna — Sketch of his character as a man and a manager — Lieutenant Charles Doyne proposes marriage to Miss Francis — After some deli- beration his proposals are declined ; by whose advice in par- ticular — Ireland a good school of acting — Mrs. Abington — Miss Francis as an actress, and her own notion of her powers — compared with Mrs. Abington p. 1 CHAP. II. Miss Francis arrives at Leeds in July, 1782 — Her interview with Tate Wilkinson — His determination in her favour — Her first appearance was in tragedy, in the part of Calista — her reception — the Greenwood Laddie, and its effect — Tate prophesies that she will reach the summit — Change of name at York, the choice of one on that occasion — Her aunt, Miss Phillips, dangerously ill at York, makes her niece her heir — VI CONTENTS. The application of Mrs. Jordan when a young actress — Mr. William Smith sees her in the race week — She acted Rut- land and the Romp hefore him — Interests himself warmly about her — She acts Arionelli — Mr. Knight — Lady Leake — Swan, the critic, teaches Mrs. Jordan Zara — Sheffield, an alarm — The Duke of Norfolk — Mrs. Jordan's rivals — Mrs. Smith, and her march extraordinary p. 22 CHAP. III. The year 1783 — Mrs. Jordan's amazing popularity in the cha- racter of William, in Rosina — Mrs. Brooke the authoress — Her husband, curate to Wilkinson's father at the Savoy — The King's chaplain transported — Garrick's officious meddling — Mrs. Baddeleyat York — A lesson to our heroine of negative instruction — Mrs. Mills Fawcett's first wife an example of application to her — The art of mortifying a scenic rival — Mrs. Ward, a great professor — Mrs. Brown, the wife of Har- lequin Brown, her Country Girl — Miss Wilkinson, afterwards Mrs. Mountain — Season of 1785, the last of Mrs. Jordan as a member of the York company — An instance of her caprice — Sees Mrs. Yates as Margaret of Anjou — Dick Yates's opinion of Mrs. Jordan — Mrs. Siddons also for rustication — Mrs. Robinson, the prophetess — Takes leave of Yorkshire in the Poor Soldier, to proceed to London p. 45 CHAP. IV. The ascendancy of Mrs. Sidilgns — Struggle of Covent Garden — Mrs. Abington — Mr. Henderson — Miss Farren compared CONTENTS. Vll with the former Abington — The hopes entertained that the Country Girl might revive the train of Comedy — Within and without door talk of her — Her first appearance, on the 1 8th of October, 1785 — Mrs. Inchbald's opinion of her — Fulness and comic richness of tone not provincialism — Ex- cited unbounded laughter — Her male figure — Her letter scene — About nineteen, the age of Miss Peggy — Hender- son — Mr. Harris — Mrs. Inchbald — Her stepson and Mrs. Jordan — Her Viola, in Twelfth Night, particularly examined — Barbarous curtailments of the play — Viola succeeded by Imogen — Mrs. Clive dies — Compared, in some points, with Mrs. Jordan— The Heiress had no part for Mrs. Jordan— She would and she would not, her Hypolita — The Irish Widow, on her benefit night — Now, certainly, the great support of the theatre p. 65 CHAP. V. In the recess thinks of her old friends in Yorkshire — Differ- ence of nine months — Odd conjecture — Mrs. Robinson the Prophetess — Return to Leeds of Mrs. Jordan on the night of that lady's benefit — Acts a single night, now dividing the house — Mrs. Jordan at Edinburgh — The Belle's Stratagem — Her own epilogue, its point — Death of Mrs. Baddeley at this juncture — Mrs^ Jordan succeeds Mrs. Siddons at Hull and Wakefield — General Burgoyne translates Richard Cozur de Lion for Drury, in 178G, and Mrs. Jordan accepts Ma- tilda — Death of Princess Amelia closes the theatres — H. R. H.'s clock, by Tompion — The royal vault — A friend of the x\uthor's passes tbe night in it — His feelings compared with Vlll CONTENTS. Juliet's imagination — Dodsley's Cleonc, and Mrs. Siddons — Love for Love, and the Miss Prue of Jordan — Congreve and his prefennents — Mrs. Jordan's Roxalana . . . p. 86 CHAP. VI. King's management — Mrs. Jordan in the summer of 1787 — Miss Farren too in Yorkshire, distinguishes Fawcett, since a truly original actor — Kemble alters the Pilgrim for Mrs. Jordan — Her Juletta — The character describes itself — Beautiful passages — Madness exhibited frequently on the stage — The New Peerage — Old Macklin remembered when he had forgotten Shylock — Interesting appeal of the veteran — New plays by Miss Lee and Captain Jephson — Smith did not act much with Mrs Jordan — His last benefit — Anecdote of him when at Eton — His intimacy with Garrick — His comedy — Lewis and Bensley compared with him as gentle- men — Abington and Farren — Palmer returns to his Viola — Mrs. Jordan's Sir Harry Wildair — Theatrical Politics — King's abdication p. 108 CHAP. VIT. Kemble's management from October 1788 — The Panel, for Mrs. Jordan — Beatrice and her gown — Her performance in the Confederacy — Her Rosalind somewhat divides the town — Whether the sprightliness or the sensibility should predomi- nate ? — Perhaps the truer Rosalind, if Shakspeare were to decide — Her Nell, in the Devil to Pay — Moody, in Jobson — Mrs. Joi dan's opinion of her own art — Her aspiration after CONTENTS. 1X the fine lady — Mr. Cumberland writes for Mrs. Jordan — His comedy of the Impostors, a hurried composition, while writing Calvary — The Farm House, Mrs. Jordan's Country Lass — In the summer of 1789, Edwin engaged her at Rich- mond — The King's illness, commenced at Cheltenham, when Mrs. Jordan was there — The question of the Regency — Display of Burke — His vehement dexterity — King's reco- very, sympathy of the Stage — Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox — The Drawing-room — The Opera- house destroyed by fire — The French Revolution . p. 138 CKAP. VIII. The summer of 1789 — Tate Wilkinson's benefit at Leeds, Mrs. Jordan arrives to act for him — The Yorkshire prudery — Mrs. Jordan at Harrowgate on her way to join Mr. Jackson at Edinburgh — Mrs. Siddons at York — Mary, Queen of Scots — Mrs. Fawcett's compliment to her — Mrs. Siddons prefers to act in London, and why — Mrs. Jordan and Miss Farren in the same places — The Prince of Wales — Miss Catley's death — The Two Gentlemen of Verona idly revived — Mrs. Jordan's first appearance at Drury Lane this season, so late as February, I 790 — Mr. Kemble engages her brother, Bland — He acts Sebastian to her Viola — Mrs. Behn's Rover altered by Mr. Kemble — Jordan and Woffington in Hellena, — Young Bannister — His character through life — Morris's Adventurers — Mrs. Jordan's Little Pickle — The Spoil' d Child called her own, perhaps Bickerstaff's — The Intriguing Cham- bermaid — Better late than Never — Mrs. Jordan the heroine X CONTENTS. — Munden comes to town from Chester — Mrs. Jordan plays Celia in the Humorous Lieutenant of Fletcher — Beauties of that character — Her alarming Epilogue by Harry Bunbury — Summer of 1791, a journey to York — Kemble vice Jordan. p. 163 CHAP. IX. Dr. Woolcot does justice to Mrs. Jordan — The Drury Lane company remove to the Opera House — The opening laugh at their difficulties — Additional prices carried — Fawcett's arrival in London, with his wife — Both engaged by Mr. Harris — Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Kemble — The press accuses the actress of deserting her duty — Proof to the contrary — The declared admiration of a Royal Duke — Mrs. Jordan's family — Mr. Ford made pleas for attacking her — She ap- peals to the public by letter — Finding that she was, not- withstanding, still persecuted, she addresses the audience in person, and remains absolute mistress of the field — Cytnon revived with great splendour — The beauty of the cast — Kelly's hospitality and his guests — The Village Coquette, for Mrs. Jordan's night — Richardson's Fugitive acted by her — Miss Herbert, in that comedy, Miss Farren, — Mrs. Sheridan dies, commemorated by genius — Her epitaph — Sir Joshua Reynolds, what he thought and said of Mrs. Jordan — Regret that she never sat to him — Brings out a play called Anna, against the opinion of Kemble — Fate of her novelty — Of Mrs. Sidxlons's — Of Miss Farren' s — Mrs. Jordan in Lady Restless — Cumberland's Armourer — Reynolds's How to grow Rich p. 199 CONTENTS. XI CHAP. X. History of Drury Lane Theatres — Their origin in the cockpit, a little before the retirement of Shakspeare — Destroyed by a mob in 1G17 — The Phoenix built in the same spot — Its preservation in the Great Rebellion — Rhodes, the bookseller, and his two apprentices, Betterton and Kynaston — Obtains a licence first for the Phoenix, and then joins D'Avenant in Lincoln's Inn Fields — A new theatre erected by Killigrew in Drury Lane — Opened in 1 6G2 ; burnt nine years after- wards — A church brief granted on this calamity — Sir Chris- topher Wren builds once more upon the old spot — The advantages of his plan, displayed by Colley Cibber — Apo- logy for its plainness in a prologue and epilogue by the great Dryden, spoken at its opening in I 674 — Union of the two companies in Drury Lane Theatre : — Christopher Rich patentee — Silenced by the Chamberlain — Patents dormant — Sir Richard Steele's licence to himself, Wilks, Booth, and Cibber — Mr. Highmore — Mr. Fleetwood — The illustrious Garrick becomes purchaser with Mr. Lacy — Twenty years' splendor of Old Drury — On the great actor's retirement, Sheridan succeeds him — At length the house is taken down — Author's regard for it, and personal acquaintance with its merits and its defects — Presages on its fall ... p. 233 CHAP. XI. The Grand National Theatre — Description of it — Opening with sacred music — First play acted on the 21st of April — Inno- Xll CONTENTS. vations of Mr. Kemble in Macbeth — The bell — The dagger — The Ghost of Banquo — Musical Witches — Charles Kem- ble — Securities from fire — Reservoir — Iron curtain — Mere tricks — The vanity of speculative science — Mrs. Jordan not employed — Kemble — Miss Farren do the honours — Fitz- patrick — G. Colman — Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the Jew — The gratitude of Israel — Kemble's Lodoiska — Three/«ra?s three days together — Mrs. Jordan acts for the widows and orphans made on the 1st of June — Three farces again, and for four days — Harris versus Kemble — In the summer, John Bannister at Liverpool — Winter of 1794-5 — Mrs. Daven- port — A shilling gallery put up — Emilia Galotti at Drury — Nobody — Mrs. Jordan's fright — The Rage — The ) Tedding Day of Mrs. Inchbald — Mrs. Jordan's portrait seen again by the author, forty years after it was painted — Her Helena — Measure for Measure — Miss Mellon — Mrs. Coutts — The Duchess — Miss Arne — Alexander the Great, a ballet. p. 250 CHAP. XII. The death of Parsons — His peculiar merits — Holland and Pow- ell — Spouting Clubs — Political Orators — Parsons and the Lion — The Wheel of Fortune — Madame D'Arblay — Jerning- ham's JVelsh Heiress, Mrs. Jordan in Plinlimmon — Drury attacking its own splendors — Chaos umpire in the concern — Seven Ages for Mrs. Siddons — First Love, by Cumberland; Sabina Rosny, Mrs. Jordan — Her enchanting effect — Some pleasing recollections — Cumberland's opinion of her — Na- ture to be upheld by Mrs. Jordan — Winter of 1795-6 — The CONTENTS. Xllt Dependent— The Rival Queens— Kemble in Alexander- Mrs. Jordan confined — Miss Decamp in Columbine — Mrs. Jordan in Fidelia, her power upon Mr. Kemble — His sense of her acting in the Plain Dealer — Gives it to the Author in the words of Sterne — The Iron Chest, and its failure — She- ridan wished Mrs. Jordan in that play — Vortigcrn has that advantage, she acts Flavia — Ireland — Chatterton — Queen Elizabeth, her little attention to players — Mrs. Jordan speaks Merry's Epilogue — Poor Benson's death — Mrs. Jor- dan does every thing for his family p. 280 CHAP. XIII. Mr. Colman and the re-opening of his Iron Chest — Season of 1796-7 — The losses of Drury; Parsons, Dodd — The latter excellent in Old Winterton — Contrasted with Fawcetl — Wroughton appointed stage manager — Mrs. Jordan and her salary — Ballet — Miss Parissot and the Triumph of Love — Madame Hilligsberg, an Atalanta in running — Dowton re- commended by Cumberland — An admirer before of Mr. Henderson — Garrick's prejudice — Deficiencies of the com- pany — Revivals — Jephson's Conspiracy — The force of ri- dicule — Miss Farren contumacious — New comedy post- poned — Miss Farren's return, and triumph — Play destroyed — The Shipwreck — The Operatic Honeymoon — Friend in Need — New Imogen — Miss Farren's retirement to a coronet — Mrs. Pope's death and character — The Author becomes ac- quainted with Mrs. Jordan — In the distress of Drury Lane house, Revnolds writes for Mrs, Jordan — Cumberland's be- XIV CONTENTS. haviour at the exhibition of the Will — Mrs. Jordan's Albina, and her Seven Ages of Woman — Dido, and My Night Gown and Slippers — Prince Hoare at Covent Garden — The Tatlers, by Dr. Hoadly — Miss Mansell — Fanny Alworthy — The bene- fit of Mrs. Siddons on the wedding day of Miss Farren — Her uncommon selection — Fatal Curiosity — Wedding Day — Deuce is in Him — Mrs. Jordan's aid — Cumberland's Last of the Family — Mrs. Jordan acts at Covent Garden for Mr. Haymes — and also for the Widows and Orphans on the Vic- tory of Feb. the 14th. — A full contrast to the selfish of her profession p. 302 CHAP. XIV. Death of Charles Macklin — His works collected bv Murphy — Mrs. Jordan's kind subscription — " The Jew that Shakspeare drew" — Interpreted by Sir Joseph Mawbey — Dryden's CEdipus — Lines in, applied to Macklin — their beauty — Lord Mansfield's regard for Macklin — Note — His Lordship's opi- nion on the French Revolution — The Heir at Law — "Filthy Dowlas" — Italian Monk, at the Summer theatre — Mrs. Jordan visits Richmond and Margate — Sees Mrs. Abington in Beatrice — Her excellence in the character — Miss Better- ton, since Mrs. Glover — The chasm at Drury — How Miss Farren was to be replaced — Miss Humphreys in Lady Emily — Miss Biggs in the Irish Widow — Miss Decamp a lover in the Chimney Corner — Mrs. Jordan in Sir Edward Bloomley — Defects of Cheap Living — Jordan rather restive — again quite the Duchess — her happy illustration of that CONTENTS. XV title — Mrs. Crawford's idle return — Lord Duncan's victory — Mrs. Jordan acts for the sufferers — Something fine — Kemble acts Hotspur — How to cast First Part of Henry TV. — The Castle Spectre — Mrs. Jordan in Angela — Mrs. Powell in the ghost — Beautiful effect produced — Jomelli and his music — Attwood uses it in the choir — Kemble acts Percy, and jumps himself into fame — The black-guards of that character — The author's coxcombry — his anachronisms of language and dress — Amazing success of this play — Col- man's Bluebeard — Horrible boggling of the ponderous ma- chinery — Merit of Miss Decamp in Irene — Kotzebue's Stranger — Schiller — O'Keefe tries a comedy for Mrs. Jor- dan, She's Eloped ; a failure — Smith for one night in Charles Surface — John Palmer's death in the summer of 1798 — Effects of it in the theatre — Mrs. Jordan at Rich- mond p. 331 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. CHAPTER I. What is to be expected in these Memoirs — Mrs. Jordan's fa- mily theatrical — Irregularity commonly progressive — Mrs. Bland — her story — her husband — her sisters — Ryder first employs the talent of Miss Francis — Daly's Duenna — Sketch of his character as a man and a manager — Lieutenant Charles Doyne proposes marriage to Miss Francis — After some deli- beration his proposals are declined ; by whose advice in par- ticular — Ireland a good school of acting — Mrs. Abington — Miss Francis as an actress, and her own notion of her powers — compared with Mrs. Abington. The lady of whom I have undertaken the biogra- phy, unquestionably demands such a tribute from the country which she adorned with her talents: VOL. I. B 2 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. and from me particularly, who discharge but a debt to the muse of Comedy, after having cele- brated the two principal favourites of her serious sister. I assure the reader, that this allusion to any pre- vious works of mine arises from no feeling of va- nity; but that he may, from them at least, infer the temper, with which the present work will be written ; and rely upon every becoming delicacy in treating the subject. I see the delightful and much-lamented mother affectionately honoured in her children ; and, not in the least depending upon her merits, I know that they will justify even higher favour (if higher can be shown,) by pro- gressive merits of their own. This declaration is equally removed, I trust, from servility and rude- ness ; it is the necessary prelude to what must be an impartial narrative, executed in the tone of sin- cere, yet gentlemanly freedom. But there would be little interest in such a com- position, if the variety of its incidents were to be coloured by any remarkable elevation of its sub- ject ; it. is the diversity of her lot that must ren- der the Life of Mrs. Jordan valuable to the moral- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 6 ist, and of conspicuous importance to the public in general ; — the whole of it justifies the following brief, but unequal summary. She began life in the midst of difficulty and ambiguity ; — by her own genius attained all the honours of her profes- sion, and the envy, which, like the shadow, threw them fuller upon the eye ; — she lived for a series of years in the bosom of a beloved family, with every accompaniment of splendour ; and expired in a foreign land,, at a distance from all that she loved ; and overwhelmed by disasters, to which she could see no termination but the grave. The mother of Mrs. Jordan was one of three sisters of a Welsh family of the name of Phillips. Their father, I believe, to have been in orders ; but there is little promotion among the Welsh clergy ; the scanty provision he could make for his family induced his three daughters to go upon the stage ; and we know from unquestionable authority, that they were all respectable in the profession. Miss Grace Phillips yielded to the addresses of a Mr. Bland, and she went to Ireland along with him, where they were married by a Catholic priest. I. presume she continued her profession without b 2 4 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. interruption ; for her husband was a minor, and his father being little disposed to sanction his youthful ardour, and, as a civilian, entirely master of his ground, procured the marriage to be an- nulled, as one contracted in nonage, and void, from the want of parental consent. I venture, in opposition to the usual statements, to throw the birth of Mrs. Jordan as far back as the year 1762, because T well remember hearing her age stated to have been sixteen in the year 1778, when an old military friend, then on the recruiting service at Cork, saw her there, in the company of which Daly was the manager, who had brought her out the year before. In this un- fortunate condition of her parents, Mrs. Jordan was born in the neighbourhood of Waterford, about the year 1762, and was christened, I sup- pose, Dorothy, though, somewhat romantically, she signed herself, commonly, Dora, when she wrote more than the initial D. of the name. Irregularity of any kind is commonly progres- sive, and seldom prosperous. The misfortunes of Mrs. Jordan may be said to have commenced at her very birth, and the hue then impressed upon THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 5 her fate, continued to tinge it to its close ; there was an ambiguity in her situation, always pro- ductive of annoyance ; and the cultivation and the practice of many virtues, were not always thought to balance the admitted dispensation with some of the forms of life. To the relations of her husband Mrs. Bland generally seemed to consider herself under a sort of vassalage. She probably expected, that her chil- dren might receive benefit by her attention to their feelings ; and the stage-name borne by her daughter was therefore Francis, except when some irritation, usually transient, made her try at least to mortify them by the use of that of Bland. It is obvious, from the accounts of Wilkinson and Hitchcock, that the three sisters, whom I have already alluded to, were well educated and ac- complished women ; and that they were persons of " gentle blood" may reasonably be supposed an advantage in theatrical life : to the higher orders it is a favourite apology — I have observed, that the players whom they patronise are "persons of a re- spectable family;" and pleasure itself must be re- gulated by pride. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. The studies of the stage, it may here be observ- ed, constitute a better education than is commonly derived from the schools. What other ladies have under their command, constantly encamped, such " an army of good words" as our actresses? Who, besides them, are so stored with every variety of neat and polished thought? Who else can have equal self-possession, equal address; and above all, who ever approach them in distinct articulation, in voluble or impressive delivery? So great are these advantages, that they have kept very powerful ac- tresses in high reputation for their wit, who could scarcely read their parts ; and never acquired the orthography, in which they were all of them printed. We shall not therefore be surprised, that without the possibility of her receiving an expensive educa- tion, which her embarrassed parents could not af- ford, Mrs. Jordan acquired, almost domestically, a very correct diction in her native language, and the power of composing agreeably, in either prose or verse, with little premeditation. When at length it was determined, that she also, with the family bias, should appear upon the stage, Mr. Ryder entrusted THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. / to her the slight part of Phebe in As You Like it; quite unconscious of the real union that would one day take place between her representative and the poet's Rosalind : — " I'll marry you, if ever I marry woman; And I'll be married to-morrow." As You Like it. The popularity of Mr. Ryder^ as a manager and actor in Dublin, was great and well merited. As a gentleman he was in truth highly cultivated, and his daughter studied the classics, and translated elegantly from the Latin poets. Some of her writ- ings I very recently perused with pleasure. Ryder's company was at the time strong, and he could therefore allot no important, perhaps adequate, business to our young aspirant. His rival Daly had more in his power, or promised more ; and the celebrated opera of the Duenna being pirated, and called the Governess, with the characters re- versed, Miss Francis assumed the male attire in the character of Lopez. She also acted the Romp in the farce so called, and Tomboy sat better upon her than Lopez ; and the Master of Horse in Ire- land, Capt. Jephson's tragedy of the Count of Nar- 8 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. bonne bc'ng acted at both theatres, Daly gave Miss Francis the interesting part of Adelaide ; and she became attractive as an actress in her sixteenth year. Daly now took her with him to Cork, and here we have some accurate recollections of her by the friend to whom I before alluded, the publication of whose memoirs during the progress of the present work gives me the opportunity of inserting in her life a sketch so lively and authentic. See Mr. P. L. Gordon's Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 341. " She had met with great applause, especially in the farce of the Romp ; and Heaphy, the manager of the Cork theatre, engaged her at twenty shillings per week, along with her father, who was employed as a scene-shifter. The young lady was at this time in her seventeenth year, and though not a regular beauty, she was universally admired, and proved a great attraction. On this account the manager gave her a benefit, but for want of patro- nage, it proved a complete failure, the expenses of the house being more than her receipts. A party of young men, at the head of which was a Mr. Smith, a banker's clerk, were desirous that their THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 9 favourite should have another benefit, and they called lustily for Heaphy to come on the stage, but he would not appear. The young Pats were, how- ever, determined to carry their point, and being joined by the pit, they proceeded to tear up the benches, and to attack the orchestra, who, to drown the clamour, had begun fiddling. This was alarming, and the acting manager, O'Keefe, Hea- phy 's son-in-law, at length judged it prudent to make his appearance, when a spokesman delivered, in an appropriate harangue, the desire of the au- dience that Miss Phillips should have a free benefit. — O'Keefe remonstrated, stating that the season had been unprofitable to the manager ; but this excuse was not admitted, and he was compelled to yield to the wishes of the public — alias a score of wild bucks, of which I made one. " The benefit was fixed for an early evening and our debutante had an audience that produced above forty pounds ; an immense sum in her eyes, we may easily suppose, as it was probably the first money she ever had. Her popularity increased before the season closed. Henderson and I met at a supper party, to which Miss Phillips had also 10 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. been invited. This celebrated actor complimented her in the most nattering manner on her talents, advising her to study her profession, and to assume a higher walk in comedy, than playing Romps ; and success, he said, would be certain. On her return to Dublin, her salary was raised to three guineas a week." — From Pryse Gordon's Per- sonal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 341. Mrs. Daly, the once celebrated Miss Barsanti, it should here be observed, was extremely tenacious as to the characters to which she had the prescrip- tive right of excellence, as well as situation. She might be the more tenacious, as her husband's at- tentions were not confined by his vow, and his own admiration always accompanied, if it did not pre- cede, that of the public for every lady of merit in his company. Richard Daly, Esq., Patentee of the Dublin The- atre, was born in the county Galway, and educated at Trinity College ; as a preparation for the course he intended to run through life, he had fought six- teen duels in two years, three with- the small-sword, and thirteen with pistols ; and he, I suppose, ima- gined, like Macbeth, with equal confidence and more THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 11 truth, that he hore a " charmed life ;" for he had jrone through the said sixteen trials of his nerve without a single wound or scratch of much conse- quence. He therefore used to provoke such meet- ings on any usual and even uncertain grounds, and entered the field in pea-green, embroidered and ruf- fled and curled, as if he had been to hold up a very different ball, and gallantly presented his full front, conspicuously finished with an elegant brooch, quite regardless how soon the labours of the toilet " might soil their honours in the dust." Daly, in person, was remarkably handsome, and his features would have been agreeable but for an inveterate and most distressing squint, the consciousness of which might keep his courage eternally upon the look out for provocation ; and not seldom, from surprise alone, afford him an opportunity for this his favourite di- version. Like Wilkes, he must have been a very unwelcome adversary to meet with the sword, be- cause the eye told the opposite party nothing of his intentions. Mr. Daly's gallantry was equal at least to his courage, and the latter was often necessary to defend him in the unbridled indulgence that through life he permitted to the former. He was said to be 12 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. / the general lover in his theatrical company ; and, I presume, the resistance of the fair to a manager may be somewhat modified by the danger of offending one, who has the power to appoint them to parts, either striking or otherwise ; and who must not be irritated, if he cannot be obliged. It has been said, too, that any of his subjects risked a great deal by an escape from either his love or his tyranny ; for he would put his bond in force upon the refractory, and condemn to a hopeless imprisonment those who, from virtue or disgust, had determined to disappoint him. It has been asserted that he teased Miss Francis with his addresses, and that, upon her resistance and desertion of his theatre, he actually sued for the penalty on her article, and that it was paid for her by the benevolence of a stranger. Such a conduct is in violent opposition to another report, that he had been a favoured lover of the young lady. Upon the subject of her early admirers, there is one story, which exists upon an authority above dispute ; namely, that of the personal friend of the lover. This, therefore, I shall here introduce, and, in the words of the writer, Sir Jonah Barrington. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 13 " The company then proceeded to perform in the provinces, and at Waterford occurred the first grave incident in the life of Mrs. Jordan. Lieutenant Charles Doyne, of the third regiment of heavy horse, (Greens,) was then quartered in that city ; and, struck with the naivete and almost irresistible at- tractions of the young performer, his heart yielded, and he became seriously and honourably attached to her. Lieutenant Doyne was not handsome, but he was a gentleman and a worthy man, and had been my friend and companion some years at the University. I knew him, intimately, and he in- trusted me with his passion. Miss Francis's mo- ther was then alive, and sedulously attended her. Full of ardour and thoughtlessness myself, I advised him, if he could win the young lady, to marry her, adding, that, no doubt, fortune must smile on so disinterested a union. Her mother, however, was of a different opinion ; and as she had no fortune but her talent, the exercise of which was to be re- linquished with the name of Francis, it became a matter of serious consideration from what source they were to draw their support, with the proba- bility, too, of a family. His commission was alto- 14 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. gether inadequate, and his private fortune very small. This obstacle, in short, was insurmount- able. Mrs. Francis anticipating the future celebrity of her child, and unwilling to extinguish in obscurity all chance of fame and fortune by means of the pro- fession she had adopted, worked upon her daughter to decline the proposal. The treaty, accordingly, ended, and Lieutenant Doyne appeared to me for a little time, almost inconsolable. Miss Francis, accompanied by her mother, soon after, went over to England, and, for nearly twenty years, I never saw that unrivalled performer. " Mr. Owenson, the father of Lady Morgan, took a warm interest in the welfare of Miss Fran- cis, and was the principal adviser of her mother in rejecting Mr. Doyne's addresses." He was an ac- tor who excelled in the performance of Irish cha- racters, discriminated from Johnstone by a very inferior power, as a singer, and never elevating them to so gentlemanly a rank as they enjoyed in the hands of that masterly performer. Among the obvious reasons which appear to have broken off the union we are speaking of, those that respect the advantage of the whole family were THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 15 probably least urged, and yet most felt. They had got what their own knowledge of acting told them was a treasure, if it could be applied. An ordinary marriage, and a consequent retirement from the stage, was burying it from all use, either to herself or others. Besides this, Mrs. Bland had herself seen, that passion, though strong enough to brave the present for its object, shrinks at the weary test of the future. A sense of disparity which the re- lations feel from the first, is felt at length by the husband himself. Every succeeding year weakens the attachment, and strengthens the objections to it. The parties are separated, and the wife deserted is thrown upon a provision, with pain either de- manded or satisfied ; while the talent, kindled in youth, and then fanned into independence by the public breath, is to be revived in maturity from a long slumber, and perhaps never to regain the blaze at which it was quenched, much less the volume of splendour which its uninterrupted progress might have reached. There were other reasons which might weigh with Miss Francis, and which will suggest them- selves to the mind of everv reader : Lieutenant 16 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Doyne had no personal advantages ; his rank in the army was inconsiderable ; and his private for- tune slender, which, translated from the idiom of the sister island, is, perhaps, little or nothing. How far she had entangled herself with Daly, and by what ill-considered engagements he might pre- tend to detain her, are now of little moment, though at the time decisive of her fate. She directed her course to England. — But before we shew our fair wanderer upon her new stage, it may be proper to inquire what facilities the kingdom she quitted afforded for the attainment of histrionic excel- lence. Ireland, as a school for a young actress, had been long rendered of first-rate importance by the brilliant career of Mrs. Abington, who acted at both the Dublin theatres, and unquestionably pos- sessed very peculiar and hitherto unapproached talent. She, I think, took more entire possession of the stage, than any actress I have seen ; there was, however, no assumption in her dignity ; she was a lawful and graceful sovereign, who exerted her full power, and enjoyed her established prerogatives. The ladies of her day wore the hoop and its con- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 17 comitant train. The Spectator's exercise of the fan was really no play of fancy. Shall I say that I have never seen it in a hand so dexterous as that of Mrs. Abington ? She was a woman of great applica- tion ; to speak as she did, required more thought than usually attends female study. Far the greater part of the sex rely upon an intuition which seldom misleads them ; such discernment as it gives, be- comes habitual and is commonly sufficient, or suf- ficient for common purposes. But common-place was not the station of Abington. She was always be- yond the surface ; untwisted all the chains which bind ideas together ; and seized upon the exact cadence and emphasis by which the point of the dialogue is enforced. Her voice was of a high pitch, and not very powerful. Her management of it alone made it an organ ; yet this was so perfect that we some- times converted the mere effect into a cause, and supposed it was the sharpness of the tone that had conveyed the sting. Yet, her figure considered, her voice rather sounded inadequate ; its articula- tion, however, gave both strength and smartness to it, though it could not give sweetness. You heard her well, and without difficulty ; and it is the first vol. i. c 18 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. duty of a public speaker to be audible and intelli- gible. Her deportment is not so easily described ; more womanly than Farren ; fuller, yet not heavy, like Younge, and far beyond even the conception of modern fine ladies, Mrs. Abington remains in me- mory as a thing for chance to restore to us, rather than design ; and revive our polite comedy at the same time. Miss Francis, with her natural good sense could not fail to discover that she had undertaken no slight enterprise. The speaking voice, it is true, soon makes its way, and the possessor of nature's music perceives the spell that it has breathed around. To be listened to without a sign of wea- riness — to dress by a few words of slight import- ance every countenance in smiles — to see even ha- bitual cunning desert the worldly, and gravity the thoughtful — such are the tributes uniformly paid to a melodious utterance. The young actress would be aware also of the perfect symmetry of her form, and though below the majestic and above the common, might consider herself seated as it were about the centre of humanity, and reaching far in- deed into the rival realms of feeling and humour. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 19 Miss Francis never effused herself much in talk, she had no amhition after the voluble and the wit- ty. I know not that she would have been much distinguished, had chance diverted her from the stage ; yet I think I know that she could not have been happy, without the exercise of her theatric talent ; and that she was seeking the only medium that could display the unbounded humour, the whim, the sportiveness of her own nature on the one hand, or the persuasive reason and unaffected sensibility that gave a sterling value to the lighter parts of her composition on the other. She never gave herself the credit of much study, and the truth was that, except as to mere words, her studies lay little in books ; with her eye and ear she would become insensibly learned : — all the peculiarities of action and the whole gamut of tone were speedily acquired; the general notion of a cha- racter once settled, she called upon nature, within her own bosom, to fill up the outline, and the mighty parent stored it with richer materials than ever fancy could devise ; except it was the fancy that embodied Falstaff, a part so made out, that every speech is a lesson as to the mode of its de- c 2 20 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORbAN. livery, and to understand whose language tho- roughly, is to be himself. I have named these two great women together, though they had not the slightest resemhlance, even when viewed in the same characters. When Mrs. Abington changed her higher range of cha- racters for the cast of Mrs. Jordan in comedy, she always reminded you of the sphere she dropped from ; there was no little high life below stairs. Mrs. Jordan was the genuine thing itself — and that she imitated at all, never obtruded itself for a moment upon her audience. There was a hearti- ness in her enjoyment, a sincerity in her laugh, that sunk the actress in the woman ; she seemed only to exhibit herself, and her own wild fancies, and utter the impromptus of the moment. The reader will perhaps ask here, whether this was at all borne out by the fact ; and whether Mrs. Jordan's natural character any way resembled this stage impression of her ? The answer, as far as I had means to estimate her, is — not in the least. She needed to touch the boards of the theatre, to draw from her what delighted equally all ranks and ages of either sex — about whose pre- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 21 eminence there never was the slightest dispute, and if this charm of hers yielded to tragedy theirs* place, it was only because the miseries of life take deeper hold of the mind than its enjoyments ; and history, epic poetry, tragedy, the romance of real life, and romance itself, confirm us in our gloomy preference. We neglect our best teacher, Gratiano, and say, like his companions in the play, that he speaks " an infinite deal of nothing." It is much easier to say this, than to answer the following queries. " Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire, cut in alabaster ? Sleep when he wakes — and creep into the jaundice By being peevish ? — Let me play the fool ; — With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come ; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans." At all events, such a man looks only at what is real in misfortune — his temper keeps him from all anticipation before it arrives, and exaggeration after ; — he removes melancholy from his mind as speedily as he can ; and places it, for ever, beyond the reach of a darker but kindred spirit, misan- thropy. 22 CHAPTER II, Miss Francis arrives at Leeds in July, 1782 — Her interview with Tate Wilkinson — His determination in her favour — Her first appearance was in tragedy, in the part of Calista — her reception — the Greenwood Laddie, and its effect — Tate prophesies that she will reach the summit — Change of name at York, the choice of one on that occasion — Her aunt, Miss Phillips, dangerously ill at York, makes her niece her heir — The application of Mrs. Jordan when a young actress — Mr. William Smith sees her in the race week — She acted Rut- land and the Romp hefore him — Interests himself warmly ahout her — She acts Arionelli — Mr. Knight — Lady Leake — Swan, the critic, teaches Mrs. Jordan Zara — Sheffield, an alarm — The Duke of Norfolk — Mrs. Jordan's rivals — Mrs. Smith, and her march extraordinary. It was early in the month of July, 1782, that Tate Wilkinson, manager of the York company, then at Leeds, was informed that Miss Francis, with her mother, brother, and sister, were arrived, and requested to see him at his earliest convenience. That worthy man immediately visited them at their THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 23 inn ; and found, in Mrs. Bland, the mother, his own Desdemona, at Dublin, in the year 1758, when he acted Othello, and, indeed, almost every thing. She was at that time Miss Grace Phillips. The party was fatigued with the journey, and the first glance of the manager sufficed to ac- quaint him with their indifferent circumstances. The mother had an introduction, which, like that of brother soldiers, is always strong ; she had served with Mr. Wilkinson in the campaigns of their youth ; and it was not unlikely, that the young lady inherited some theatrical talent, as the quality of the soil she sprang from. However, he asked her laconically, whether her line was tragedy, comedy, or opera ? To which, in one word, she answered, " all." When telling her story afterwards, she always said, at this point of it — " Sir, in my life, I never saw an elderly gentleman more astonished !" Mrs. Bland now found herself at full liberty to dilate upon her daughter's merits ; and, fond as she al- ways was of her, it is possible that even a mother's fondness did not overrate them. Upon the virtues of her heart, she was copious with equal reason — 24 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. She was a girl of nineteen, and the whole family depended upon her. The most benevolent man is often obliged to shape his kindness by his interest. Before Mr. Wilkinson opened a negociation, it became neces- sary for him to reflect a little ; and he withdrew accordingly to another room for a few minutes, to decide whether he should give the common nega- tive, that his company was too full at present ; or enter upon the business with that friendly conces- sion, that left the terms of the engagement alone to be adjusted. It is not too much praise here to say that his heart determined him. On his re- entering the room, which he soon did, his smile told the adventurers they were likely to gain some provision, however trifling, and a friend who was to be secured by zeal and attention to the concern in which he was engaged. But the heroine, at that time, exhibited not a vestige of her comic powers, either in feature or manner. On the contrary, like the player in Hamlet, she had, with a slight parody, " Tears in her eyes, dejection in her aspect, A broken voice, and her whole function suited With forms to her distress." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 25 When Wilkinson besought her to favour him with the usual " taste of her quality," a passionate speech — the languor that sat upon her frame, pro- nounced her just then to be incapable of any as- sumed passion. She wished to merit an engage- ment by a fair trial on the boards, and the ma- nager assented to this, the fairest of all proposi- tions. Their considerate friend now ordered a bottle of Madeira to be brought in, and the friendly charm soon revived the spirits of the travellers, who chatted gaily upon the subject of the Irish stage, and the general news of that kingdom, till at length the manager espied a favourable opportu- nity of repeating his request for the speech, which was to decide in some degree his opinion of her value ; and the interesting woman spoke for him a few lines of Calista, which they settled she was to act on the Thursday following, with Lucy, in the Virgin Unmasked. The exquisite and plaintive me- lody of her voice, the distinctness of her articula- tion, the truth and nature that looked through her, affected the experienced actor deeply ! his internal delight could only be balanced by his hopes ; and he poured out his praise and his congratulation 26 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. in no measured language. As is usual on such occasions, the modest actress replied that, "if she could but please her manager, she should be satis- fied ; and that, should she achieve the public favour, he should ever find her grateful for the aid he had afforded to her necessity." If the heart speaks too much on these occasions, it is cruel to arrest its triumph by a suspicion dishonourable to our na- ture ; Tate acknowledged a sudden ' ' impulse of regard," and the parties separated with mutual good wishes, and expressions of entire confidence in the result. It was on the 11th of July, 178 2, that, under the name of Francis, (for her mother desired the manager to cancel that of Bland, inserted in the play-bills,) she was put up, for the first time, at Leeds, in the character of Calista ; but greatly to the manager's surprise, Mrs. Bland had desired he would announce that, after the play, Miss Francis would sing the song of the Greenwood Laddie. As we have said, Wilkinson had detected no symp- toms of comedy in the heroine of the evening ; but he did them the credit to believe, that they knew well what they were doing, and so merely threw THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 27 out an incantation, which had previously been found irresistible. The manager of a country circuit, like that of York, is a person of no little importance ; and, if he be a man accomplished like Tate Wilkinson, is likely to stand well with all the principal gentry in the great towns which he visits. Literature natu- rally allies itself to the stage ; and what lover of letters would be insensible to the social claims of one who had not only himself represented the whole range of dramatic character, but, as a mimic, was also the representative of theatric life ; who could bring before them Garrick and Foote, and even Woffington and Pritchard, and a long et cetera of both sexes ; and was of all humours, that had shewn themselves humours for near half a century. It is not to be doubted that, on the present occa- sion, Tate would fairly relate to the patrons of the play-house, all that he had himself felt of the charm about the young actress ; and that for the double object of affording her suitable minds to impress, and of deriving himself the means of holding to- gether a numerous company, popular only by the quality and variety of its attractions. Her rehearsals 28 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. had elevated his hopes to the tone of prophecy, and he ventured to say, that Miss Francis would be at the very head of the profession. Yet Cibber, it is probable, lingered about his heart, as she had done about his master, Garrick's ; and of comedy, for the present, there was no question. She was heard through the play with the greatest attention and sympathy, and the manager began to tremble at the absurdity, as he reasonably thought it, of Calista arising from the dead, and rushing before an audience in their tears, to sing a ballad in the pastoral style, which nobody called for or cared about. — But on she jumped, with her elastic spring, and a smile that nature's own cunning hand had moulded, in a frock and a little mob-cap, and her curls, as she wore them all her life ; and she sang her ballad so enchantingly, as to fascinate her hearers, and convince the manager that every charm had not been exhausted by past times, nor all of them numbered ; for the volunteer unaccompanied ballad of Mrs. Jordan was peculiar to her, and charmed only by her voice and manner. Leeds, though a manufacturing town, and strongly addict- ed to the interests of trade, was, at the call of the THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 29 charmer, induced to crowd her benefit on the fifth of August ; and that being over, the troop were seen in full march for York, where Wilkinson had ordered his new acquisition to be announced as Calista, by the name of Francis. But the only female name unsusceptible of change, is the baptismal. The swr-name is one above confinement, and variable with the condition of the bearer. Upon the arrival of the ladies at York, the manager received a note from Mrs. Bland, stating that, for very particular reasons, which would be explained, the name of Francis must be changed, and some other adopted. Wil- kinson naturally proposed Bland, to which she had a natural title, but the actress now wrote to him " that his wish, as to the insertion of Bland, could not be complied with, as that name in the prints might probably much injure her in the opinion of her father's relations." I chuse to cite, on this oc- casion, the manager's own words, because I believe them to be sincere, and find them marked with a propriety that will not escape admiration. — " So," says he, " on our meeting, and the matter being explained, there appeared obvious and pressing rea- 30 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sons for a change of name, and that of Mrs. Jordan was adopted." What Wilkinson deliberately writes may be depended on. — In conversation, he used to claim the honour of having been her godfather on this occasion, and, as the son of a clergyman, indulged himself with an allusion to the " Jordan," which she had luckily passed, whatever badge of her former slavery she might still carry about her ; and she gratefully bore the name on this pious recommen- dation. As to the Mrs. now assumed, it was a shield that protected the wearer from all frivolous suitors ; and here I shall drop the subject, though her manager lingers about it. The Jordan is a name sufficiently devoted to fame ; and though, at one time, in York itself, the ford was used instead of the river; yet her fame, as an actress, may flow on by that appellation alone, as long as her exist- ence is remembered. But the reader must be made acquainted with the reason which produced this new decision as to name, on the arrival at York, which had, indeed, be- fore been attended with some difficulty. The fact was, that her aunt, Miss Phillips, who had also been an actress in the York company, and was now lying THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 31 dangerously ill, had that last infirmity of the Welsh mind, a high value for the families to which she claimed alliance. She had earnestly entreated to see her sister, Mrs. Bland, and to welcome her niece, whom she pronounced to be already an ho- nour to the stock from which she derived alike her theatrical and lineal honours ; and as this near re- lation was at the point of death, and destined a very enviable wardrobe as a legacy to her beloved niece, upon the payment of a slight equity of re- demption, both prudence and affection concurred in allowing the last wish of an aunt who felt her interest so strongly. Miss Phillips is said to have considered herself the greatest actress that had ever appeared, and she had the opinion to herself. Her niece has been generally considered unrivalled in her particular walk, but it was a pretension which I believe she never uttered, if she for a moment be- lieved it to be just. Within a week after this transaction, the aunt died, and Mrs. Jordan pur- sued her profession, though she did not exactly tread in her steps. Her aunt had been an indo- lent actress ; our heroine, on the contrary, was then so indefatigable in her application, that she stu- 32 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. died a new character and played it between day and day. And when we consider that stage business in the provincial towns is commonly thus hurried, and yet that the seeds are there sown, whose maturity is so rich a feast to us in London ; we may well admit that no profession is more laborious, that in none are brighter powers displayed, and that memory is there cultivated to an extent of copiousness and accuracy, of which no equal examples can be found. To all these qualities must be added the tact by which character is discerned, and embo- died and preserved in perfect consistency w T ith the poet's outline, filled up by the expression, the ges- ture, the eye, the gait, to which the actor accom- modates unfailingly his mental and personal ha- bits during the exhibition. What is technically called the business of a part, may be learned from some member of the company who has seen it played. But still much must be left to the indi- vidual who assumes the character ; and they who have attended, with any candour, performances out of the metropolis, must, on the whole, be aston- ished at their relative perfection. The race week at York brings many visitors to THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 33 the theatre who cannot be expected there on less excitement. Among such amateurs of the turf and the boards, was to be numbered Mr. William Smith, the admired actor of Drury Lane theatre. Mrs. Jordan had the pleasure of acting Rutland before that gentleman, and she followed her seri- ous interest by the performance of Priscilla Tom- boy in the Romp, which she had acted in Dublin the year before, and in which she continued to de- light as long as figure permitted her to retain the character. Smith was a warm-hearted and gentlemanly man, and when strongly impressed by merit did not content himself with his per- sonal gratification ; but both spoke and wrote of the subject with every wish to serve ; and in the case of Mrs. Jordan, fortunately, with the power. Smith felicitated the manager, and attended every performance of the actress while he stayed in York, and Wilkinson became somewhat alarmed lest he should lose his charmer through this enthu- siasm ; however, he had taken care to make her sign an article before they quitted Leeds, and the forfeiture of a theatrical article, reader, is attended by a penal condition not very soluble to a rival vol. i. D 34 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. manager, and quite destructive to an unaided ac- tress. At York Mrs. Jordan assumed the part of Ari- onelli, in the Son-in-law, and played it with laugh- able effect ; but I own I can hardly conceive an exhibition more incongruous — for what is the point burlesqued ? That a male in the Italian Opera sings with a voice that resembles in its upper tones that of a female ; — and the more of a Hercules the actor's form displays, the more risible will be the shrill effeminacy of his voice. In old Bannister this contrast was perfect. But, place a female in Arionelli, and all contrast is at an end; — dress her how you will, the spectator sees that it is a woman ; and for a woman to sing soprano is natural, and can excite no laughter. If it be the Italian style only that she burlesques, the laugh is merely the laugh of ignorance : if it be the figure and the fo- reign utterance — the first cannot be assumed, and the latter ends with the first speech. There is one point, to be sure, in the dialogue, that suits alike the character of Arionelli and his female represen- tative. As to marrying the old man's daughter, they may either of them declare, " it is quite out THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 35 of my way." The favourite, either in the theatre or on the course, is apt to engross the attention. To give Mrs. Jordan Arionelli offended the actor who had before represented it, and Mr. Wilkin- son lost the services of a deserving man, a Mr. Tyler, on this occasion. Something was expected from Knight, our old favourite, who had come from Edinburgh, into the York company, to support the gay and sparkling characters of the drama, and he had Lothario assigned to him, that he might act with the Jordan in the Fail' Penitent. How he should fail in it so entirely as he did, I can with difficulty conceive : his figure admirably suited the part ; he was an actor, who weighed every thing he uttered critically all his life ; indeed the sagacious mana- ger ventured to recommend any other profession in the world to him, rather than the stage. The actor was too firmly upon his centre to be over- thrown by this shock, rude as it was. He had " that within, which passeth show," and smiled at the manager's injunction and his fears ; from the latter of which Mr. Knight soon recovered his friend Tate by some admirable performances, till at d 2 36 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. length he gained at Bath a very high and merited reputation. In the midst of this career of Mrs. Jordan, her attention, for a moment only, was called to the debut of a Lady Leake, who, from " a train of unavoidable misfortunes," had sought the refuge of a theatre, as her husband had been compelled to accept that of the King's Bench. A " rag of quality" has a stage attraction to the little great — they delight their own vanity in the exercise of their compassion, and support the manager, though they never can the actress. This lady had not soared indecently with her inexperienced wings ; she le- velled but at Amelia, in Colman's English Mer- chant; but, after all, the policy may be questioned that seeks to make impression where no impression can be made. In a part, powerfully written, a character boldly drawn, the novice is supported, in some degree, by the dress she wears. In the boyish declamations of our schools, you will admire the nervous beauties they deliver, however limited their powers of delivery may be ; and the speaker has some share, at least, in the applause excited. Give THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 37 a boy mediocrity to dole out, and you are sure to yawn, if you do not sleep, and his relations will clap the only hands at his exit. At rehearsal, in the morning, this lady's voice seemed to fill the empty region like a bell, as she exclaimed trium- phantly to the manager — but the bell was muffled in the evening, and its faint efforts disturbed no ear in the front of the theatre. The audience allowed their pity to silence their censure, and Lady Leake courted her fortune where we sincerely hope that she was kinder. In addition to the chance of some rival's dis- turbing her ascendancy, Mrs. Jordan needed all the friendship of her manager to protect her from the ill-will of the community. Some of his kindness to her, the patentee has not allowed to depend for its fame upon her own recollection, and of one piece, his recital may provoke the risibility of the reader. " I introduced her," says Tate, " to our critic, Mr. Cornelius Swan,* of York, who said, * Swan had the very demon of tuition in him. On a re- port, in the decline of his life, that Garrick was about to re- sume the part of Othello, he teased him with his remarks upon 38 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. he would teach her to act. And when Mrs. Jordan was ill, he was admitted to the little bed-chamber, where, by the side of the bed, with Mrs. Bland's old red cloak round his neck, he would sit and in- the play, at immeasurable length; and the manager transferred them to George Steevens, who, as Shakspeare's editor, thought, at first, there might he something in the labours of Cornelius, and that he might better regulate the stage directions in the play, by any reasonable notions upon the subject of the terrible end of Desdemona. But the Swan of York and the Ouse was, at length, deemed to have little in common with that of Strat- ford and the Avon ; and the page of Shakspeare was not al- lowed to boast the improvements of Cornelius Swan. Not that Steevens was at all sullen to the claims of our metropolitical city upon Shakspeare ; for, I remember, he used to carry Harry Rowe's Macbeth in his pocket ; and, sometimes, when any dif- ference between himself and Malone upon a probable reading of the text was mentioned, he would say, with that glance of miscbief, which was so peculiar to him, " Now, sir, Harry Rowe, the trumpeter, decides the point with infinitely less trouble !" It is needless to add, that Mr. Garrick, during the latter part of his career, dropt the part of Othello altogether. The complexion of the noble Moor lessened the brilliant efficacy of his eye. Take from the snake its power of fascination, and its prey is gone. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 39 struct his pupil, in Hill's character of Zara. " You must revive that tragedy Wilkinson," said he, " for I have given the Jordan but three lessons, and she is so adroit at receiving my instructions, that I declare she repeats the character as well as Mrs. Cibber ever did : nay, let me do the Jordan justice, for I do not exceed, when with truth I de- clare, Jordan speaks it as well as I could myself.''' Cornelius, in his fondness, adopted her as his child, but, at his death, he did not leave her a shilling. In the usual order of the circuit, Wakefield and Doncaster enjoyed the excellence of the new actress, and confident in her strength, the manager thought that Sheffield itself might merit an invasion from the troop, though, of late, that town had shewn an almost ruinous indifference to theatrical amuse- ment. But that experiment may be sufficient for danger, which yields no profit. Mrs. Jordan, at Sheffield, was placed in peril of her life. The oc- casion was this. Pilon had brought out at Drury Lane theatre, in May, 1782, an opera called the Fair American. From this opera, his misfortunes were to be dated. Carter, his composer, sued him 40 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. for his charge for very indifferent music — the poor author had no profits himself from the theatre, and was obliged to abscond. As the last novelty that had succeeded, though not brilliantly, the York manager procured a copy of it, and it was acted at Sheffield, on the 18th of October, 1782. The scene dis- covered Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Knight sitting at tea, as Chambermaid and Footman, and the audience were enjoying their humour, when, on a sudden, without the slightest warning, what is technically called a curtain, with its ponderous wooden roller, fell from the roof of the theatre at their feet ; had they been a few inches more forward on the stage, or had they been advancing from their seats to- wards the front, one or both of them might have been crushed to death, and the stage of Garrick never have witnessed an attraction in comedy equal to his own. The fine lady, in comedy, of the York company, at this time, was Mrs. Smith, an actress of great diligence and merit ; in all other respects, the very opposite to poor Jordan, as she was well connected, in very comfortable circumstances, happy in her THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 41 husband and her friends, and in possession of the most valuable line of business in the theatre. This lady expected, at the end of September, an increase to her family, and the great object of her thoughts was to make the periods before and after her confinement, as short as possible, that her rival might not appear, or, at least, not be seen often in any of the characters that she considered her own ; such as Emmeline, Lady Racket, Lady Bell, Lady Teazle, Lady Alton, Indiana, and others in that cast. She, therefore, rendered the virgin purity of some of them rather questionable to the eye, and was admonished by the manager to with- draw, since the quick study of Mrs. Jordan could at any time supply her place at a day's notice, and it was, therefore, idle to inconvenience herself in her present situation. Her confinement took place on the 2nd of October, in a remarkably wet sea- son ; and on the 13th, the march of the troop was to take place from Doncaster to Sheffield. In her impatience to act, soon after her delivery, in a damp garden, she absolutely began to exercise her- self daily, in order that she might be able to per- form the journey of eighteen miles to Sheffield. 42 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN, She performed the journey it is true, but the result of her folly was a lameness in the hip, which for some time threatened serious consequences. Lame as she was, however, rather than submit to Mrs. Jordan's performing her part of Fanny, in the Clandestine Marriage, she determined to hobble through it herself, though really as crippled as Lord Ogleby seemed, and absolutely rendered her- self incapable, by it, of all exertion, from the end of October to the middle of December. It was at Sheffield, that the late amiable Duke of Norfolk commenced an admiration of Mrs. Jordan, which continued through life : he was an honourable and useful friend, on many occasions, in her theatrical progress. Some patronage she had at her benefit, but neither she nor her manager could boast of their profits, though the river Don converted all their iron into gold for the industrious dwellers upon its banks. And thus it was, that employed, but not supported, the company left Sheffield for Kingston-upon-Hull. Although the prefix of Mrs. to her name might have been thought a sufficient apology for the in- disposition which confined her to her apartments THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 43 at Hull till the month of December, yet her success had been so great, and the mortification of her stage sisters so complete, that they availed them- selves of all the artifices of insinuation to lower her attraction with the lady patronesses of Hull ; and represented her moral character to be such as to render her unworthy of their notice. The affected regret that, with talents like hers, there should be so much to reprove in her conduct — " The shrug — the hum — the ha — those petty brands That calumny cloth use," worked their way so effectually, that, in spite of the applause which had run before her, she was but coolly received on the evening after the Christmas festival, when she acted her admired Calista, and followed it by the famous Highland Laddie. There was a cold and sarcastic application of the charac- ter of the heroine to the performer, among the ladies, which chilled the actress, and rendered the scene languid ; so little harmony had these ungra- cious beings retained about them, that any thing like hilarity offended their prejudice, and Mrs. Jordan was absolutely that night hissed in her song, 44 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. which had previously received the most unfailing applause. Her own good sense, and the advice of her ju- dicious and friendly manager, led her to bear up against this temporary displeasure ; and when it was fully made known, that her manners were as decorous, as her diligence was extraordinary ; and that scandal, at all events, could not deny her pro- fessional power to delight, the town at last gave up a scrutiny, that they had no great right to institute into the private history of this popular representa- tive ; and their smiling presence, on common nights, not being withdrawn at her benefit, the mutual good understanding produced mutual advantage ; for the actress's talents improved with her circumstances. Thus at length happily established in her profes- sion, and looking now forward with some confi- dence to the ability of supporting the family so dear to her, closed the year 1782 — Mrs. Jordan's first season in the York company. 45 CHAPTER III. The year 1783 — Mrs. Jordan's amazing popularity in the cha- racter of "William, in Rosina — Mrs. Brooke the authoress — Her husband, curate to Wilkinson's father at the Savoy — The King's chaplain transported — Garrick's officious meddling — Mrs. Baddeley at York — A lesson to our heroine of negative instruction — Mrs. Mills Fawcett's first wife an example of application to her — The art of mortifying a scenic rival — Mrs. Ward, a great professor — Mrs. Brown, the wife of Har- lequin Brown, her Country Girl — Miss Wilkinson, afterwards Mrs. Mountain — Season of 1785, the last of Mrs. Jordan as a member of the York company — An instance of her caprice — Sees Mrs. Yates as Margaret of Anjou — Dick Yates's opinion of Mrs. Jordan — Mrs. Siddons also for rustication — Mrs. Robinson, the prophetess — Takes leave of Yorkshire in the Poor Soldier, to proceed to London. The year 1783 added to Mrs. Jordan's range of characters one which was applauded and followed with enthusiasm. It was no other than the part of William in Mrs. Brooke's unaffected rustic opera 46 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. called Rosina. The neatness of her figure in the male attire was for years remarkable ; but the at- traction after all is purely feminine, and the display of female, not male perfections. Did the lady really look like a man, the coarse androgynus would be hooted from the stage. Mrs. Brooke was truly an ingenious woman and an excellent novelist. Her husband had been the curate of Wilkinson's father at the Savoy ; and the imagined exemption of that place from the oper- ation of the marriage act actually exposed the King's chaplain to transportation. The anguish of an in- nocent but wounded spirit precipitated his end ; the government of that time persisting in the sacrifice of the venerable victim, who, contrary to law, had presumed to unite the willing in the holy bands of matrimony, without the publication of banns, or the shorter permission of Doctors Commons. Mrs. Wilkinson in vain placed a petition in the hand of George the Second. Not the slightest notice what- ever was taken of it. But it was odd enough that this catastrophe was brought on by the officious meddling of David Garrick, on the occasion of Vernon's marrying Miss Poitier. Such recollections THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 47 rendered Rosina an object of great interest to Tate Wilkinson, and he got it up with his utmost ability. It was during the spring meeting at York this year that Mrs. Jordan had one of those early lessons, which are hardly to be remembered without shud- dering. I allude to the appearance there of the beautiful Mrs. Baddeley. At her arrival she im- pressed her audiences in the most favourable man- ner. In opera she performed Clarissa, Polly, and Rosetta ; and Imogen in the play of Cijmbeline, in which her beautiful countenance used to excite the greatest interest. Among her peculiarities was an immoderate addiction to laudanum, which has the power of bestowing a momentary vivacity subsiding into an oblivion of care, succeeded by a wretched- ness which itself alone can remove : the patient thus lives a course of mental delusion, neither his pleasures nor his pains being the fair effects of cir- cumstances, and the charmed life bearing a fatality about it infinitely more dreadful than the natural lot from which it has escaped. It may reasonably be supposed that on the night of her benefit she sought the doubtful aid in question, but it proved a treacherous ally. She was unfortunately lame at 48 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the time, and intoxicated to stupidity by the fumes of the opiate she had swallowed. The worst of it was, that, the habit not being generally known, the stupefaction was attributed to drunkenness, and a disgust taken, which is seldom, or rather never quite removed. The sequel of this unfortunate's existence may be worth a second paragraph. She soon became idle, disordered, unsteady, and of no value in the theatre — dropped into contempt and neglect, and was plundered of the little she had, by one of those attached friends which indolence is happy to find, and of which it is invariably the prey. Mrs. Baddeley had at one time her carriage, and every voluptuous accompaniment that a mere sensualist can enjoy : but her wealth mouldered away, insen- sibly and unaccountably ; and she died at Edinburgh shortly after, in the most squalid poverty and dis- ease, in a state of mental horror which perhaps opium only is able to inflict upon us. To the last she was supported by the charity of the profession, always awake to a sister's claim ; though on this occasion, with the dreadful reflection, that either, as to herself or society, it would have been better THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 49 if her release had earlier arrived. — By which, in truth, the one had escaped much inconceivable tor- ment, and the other the burthen of a hopeless benevolence. Whoever has attentively observed and considered the life of an actress, may often wonder that the long repetition of even the most finished characters does not diminish the power of the charmer ; or if he does not look at it in this way, come to a not very favourable decision, that the whole is quite mechanical, and that, like a time-piece in order, the performance of one day is exactly similar to that of another, equally regular as to the whole, and equally striking in the proper situations. But there is, in the smoothest passage through a theatre, sufficient to ruffle the temper, to annoy the self-love, to ex- cite the jealousy or the dread of the coldest tem- peraments. Every such incident renovates the charm, by stimulating the exertion ; and they can- not forget the public until they forget themselves. But to return. The lesson of Mrs. Baddeley was a •' negative instruction" to our young ac- tress ; she had another of a very different kind, in the person of Mrs. Mills, subsequently Mrs. John VOL. I. E 50 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Fawcett. This lady had a zeal, an application, a versatility, perhaps unequalled in the profession ; her value was invaluable. She seemed to be in- formed by one master principle only, the prosperity of the company. She was the steady lever of the daily work, she was the prop on any emergency, and her kindness was equal to her fidelity. To the manager her services were bound; but, he consenting, she would study any novelty, deprive herself even of needful rest, to serve the benefit of any brother or sister in the community. At the death of her first husband, a valuable actor, Mrs. Mills became united to Mr. Fawcett, and main- tained her honourable estimation to the lamented period of her death in 1797- Thus, with Cato, the Jordan might be said to be " doubly armed" as an actress. " Her death, her life, her bane and antidote, Were both before her. This in a moment brings her to an end ; While that informs her she shall never die." The desire to see this charming woman in Wil- liam continued, and the Poor Soldier being got up THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 51 in the spring of 1784, she was by acclamation saluted the Patrick of the piece, and it was pro- nounced to be unapproachable, let who would con- test the palm with her. There was another lesson taught our excellent actress by the York company — the art of mortifying a rival. This art was practised in its highest per- fection, by a Mrs. Ward, a competitor with the Jordan in the male attire, and remarkably fond of the display. This lady's husband was in the band, and therefore, we must presume, fully permitted the exhibition of his wife's charms, since it took place nightly in his own presence. This lady was at the head of a band of malignants, who were ac- customed to take their seats at the stage-doors while Mrs. Jordan was acting, and, by every de- scription of annoyance, try at least to lessen her power by disturbing her self-possession. They persevered in this cruelty so long, that at last the ingenuity of the persecuted taught her a very deli- cate "measure of revenge." She would, with little aid from the imagination, frequently go upon the stage, with her eyelids irritated, and the tear-drop starting from them, as though ill, or recently e 2 52 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. affected by injury. This became noticed by the audience, and begat inquiry, whether their favourite was indisposed, or any thing had offended her? She took care that several friends should be ready with the proper answer to the query, and thus the ungenerous treatment recoiled upon the heads of her enemies. There was a law, to be sure, in the York theatre, as well as others, to prevent any such occupancy of the stage-doors ; but there are subjects too mighty for any theatrical laws, and the manager made assurance doubly sure by calling in the aid of a padlock whenever the doors were not essential to the stage business. Thus he chastised the malignity of the invaders, and the punishment was not the less felt for not being personally adminis- tered. Any individual, to whom the cause was hinted, could say — " It may be so. I won't as- sert that no member of the company might disturb Mrs. Jordan ; but, for my own part, I never sat at the door, but from the fair curiosity to see how she would act in particular situations, and consider the points she made for my own improvement ; and this, madam, my own husband commanded me to do." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 35 Although the character of Mrs. Jordan's acting was truly personal, by which I mean that in every part she played, she infused herself more com- pletely than any other actress has done, yet still she did not deny her performance the benefit of what other minds had thrown out, and very wil- lingly adopted the points of other artists, when they naturally combined with her own. There was an actress in the company, of great comic power, though very unequal in her performances ; she was the wife of Brown, who, in the years 1786 and 1787, became the Harlequin of Covent Garden Theatre. Mrs. Brown, in her range of performances, acted the Country Girl ; a character, which, however it happened, until then, had never attracted the parti- cular attention of Mrs. Jordan. Our heroine paid her the compliment of seeing, and deeply consider- ing this performance ; she noticed the business of the part, and in the sallies of a performer, then by no means young, saw the ground she determined herself to occupy, with more seasonable graces, and more truly girlish hilarity and whim. It was hence said, that Mrs. Brown taught her to play the part, but this was by no means the case ; for at that time, as 54 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. it proved in town shortly after, the pre-eminence of Mrs. Jordan was admitted by all — her elastic spring, her peculiarly artless action, her laugh, and the rich tones of her articulate voice, were at all times peculiar and triumphant. About this time, an incident occurred, to which the heart and memory of Jordan, were feelingly alive. A young lady, not more than fifteen, at- tracted perhaps by the name of the manager, which was then her own, applied to Tate Wilkinson for an engagement. She had her parents with her, who depended upon her for their subsistence ; her musical talent was even then considerable, her figure small, but extremely neat, her features beau- tiful and interesting. My readers will have no difficulty in admitting all this, and more, when I tell them the young lady became the late Mrs. Mountain, of Covent Garden theatre. Wilkinson thought himself so circumstanced at this juncture, that, with some lingering compunction for doing so, he brought himself to decline the engagement ; she was at liberty, it was true, to volunteer her talents for any of the company, who might accept her aid. For one benefit, she acted the Maid of the Mill, and THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 55 fought her way through the popular lecture on heads, by George Alexander Stevens. This made a little noise in the stage circle, and Mr. Inchbald, the son-in-law of the famous Mrs. Inchbald, thought it worth while to make her a handsome offer, to act Rosetta, in Love in a Village, on his benefit night, which was the 3d of December, 1784. Her impression in this character, determined the manager, and he engaged her ; though it lost him the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. Powell, since at the Norwich theatre. She played for her name-sake, the manager's night, Stella, in Robin Hood, on the 21st; and needing some present relief, he gra- ciously proposed a benefit to her, which was most thankfully accepted, and, on the 31st of December, Lionel and Clarissa was performed ; Colonel Old- boy by the manager, Clarissa by Miss Wilkinson, first studied on that occasion, and (what may not be done with benevolence working at the root?) Lionel by the charmer Jordan, who came forward with the warmth of a true sister, and imparted to the character of Lionel, a feature of which its male representatives, for the most part, have seldom known the value, or have been unable to attain, its 56 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sensible utterance. Here, as in her own case, Mrs. Jordan happily saw an interesting young lady pa- tronized equally for her filial affection and her ta- lents : the opera was admired, and the famous Lecture on Heads rapturously applauded. C'est le premier pas qui coute : Miss Wilkinson had now a smooth road under her feet, and always spoke with pleasure, of the kind aid which Mrs. Jordan had rendered, at a time when it was almost vital to her- self and her family. The metropolis puts the seal upon stage merits, and a town engagement has a steady comfort and respectability, infinitely prefer- able to the hurry and fatigue of provincial business ; but actors are always fond of detailing their early adventures, and perhaps the various conditions of human occupation, does not afford one so abound- ing in the essentials of a good story, as the life of a country comedian. The season of 1785 was the last that Mrs. Jor- dan acted as a member of Wilkinson's company. It is a singular circumstance that she should have omitted to practise the usual address which leaves regret behind departure. I presume that she heard occasionally from Smith on the subject of a town THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 57 engagement, though her removal to Drury Lane theatre was not finally settled till the autumn of that year. There is a restlessness that precedes any material change of our condition, that breaks up our harmony with the existing relations of life. Mrs. Jordan, in the opinion of her manager, was now grown careless and indifferent — her desire to oblige diminished,, her self-will increased, and she was capricious enough to excuse herself from obey- ing some calls upon her, which she shewed herself equally able and unwilling to gratify. He gives an instance, which we shall not shun, because censur- able. For the benefit of Mr. Mills, March 15, 1785, she was announced in the bills, to sing a song from Summer's amusement, at the end of the third act of Cymbeline, and to act after the play the favourite character of Patrick in the Poo?' Soldiery and sing the songs of the piece in course. But she absolutely refused to come on between the acts of Cymbeline merely to warble a ballad, and, whoever was disappointed, or whatever might be the result, announced her determination to persist — nothing in the world should alter her. She was indisposed, and would not do it. With this mood 58 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. of hers it was not likely that either manager or audience should concur. Had she been really ill, her course should have been to stay at home, and let an apology be made for her ; this, however distressing to the actor, whom it would compel to disappoint his patrons, if really true, must be borne; but to chuse what she would do against the posi- tive pledge of the play-bill was a sort of treason- able rebellion, to be subdued by force and arms. She came to the house, and sullenly dressed her- self at once for Patrick. She came early enough to hear, for it was impossible to enjoy, the gather- ing and the bursting of the storm. Mills came on the stage to address the house ; but what could he say against that special bond, the play-bill? The audience would hear nothing but the song from Mrs. Jordan ; so, at last, on she came, very pale, fainting against the frontispiece in the dress of the Poor Soldier himself; and thus suited and very much out of sorts, was constrained to warble " In the prattling hours of youth," composed by Dr. Arnold, and very pleasing ; the words perhaps have no great meaning in them, for the joint authors of the opera were Miles and Miles Peter Andrews. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 59 The manager suggests that the audience, perhaps, might not have conquered, had the actress taken her henefit; as that was yet to come, " her pover- ty, but not her will consented," and they were obeyed, but not gratified. Illness cannot be soon dismissed, whether real or fancied, in the face of the public. On Tuesday, April 26, 1785, Mrs. Jordan had an opportunity of seeing that great actress, Mrs. Yates, in her favourite Margaret of Anjou, in Franklin's Earl of Warwick. This was her last public appearance but one, in the following June, when she acted for the imbecile Bellamy, once the rival of Cibber herself. The farce after the tra- gedy was Cymon, thus cast : Sylvia, Miss Wilkin- son ; Fatima, Mrs. Jordan ; Dorcas, Mrs. Brown. One should have expected, from such an actor as Richard Yates, something like a sound judgment in his own art, but he thus spoke of the fair trine. Miss Wilkinson, very pleasing and promising — Mrs. Brown, the height of excellence — Mrs. Jordan, merely a piece of theatrical mediocrity. But T am apt to think she might not chuse to exert herself. 60 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Indeed her benefit at Leeds was very thinly attended on the 25th of July, though her Imogen had al- ways been a favourite ; and she added the Fair American, an opera by Pilon, which was thought attractive. The same people, when she had visited London, crowded the same seats to suffocation. What had changed, more than the circumstances of the actress ? A good deal of prophecy was sported on her intended journey to London. One of her ri- vals, in male costume, told the manager that, " when he had lost his great treasure, (the term he was fond of applying to the Jordan,) it would soon be turned back upon his hands, and it would be glad to come, if he would accept it." The retort courteous was addressed to the same manager, for her daughter, by Mrs. Bland, who being seated at the stage-door, while Mrs. Robinson was on the stage, " begged, as an act of kindness, that he would inform her, when ' that fright'' had done speaking and acting, for it was so horrid she could not look at her." Now the fact really was that this "fright" was a very pretty woman, some- what refined in her manners and utterance, and so THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 61 peculiarly neat in her attire, that it was a common compliment to say that the Graces attended her toilet. Mrs. Siddons herself saw Mrs. Jordan at York, in the month of August, 1785, and seemed to think (hy which I suppose Tate implies said,) that " she was hetter where she was, than to venture on the London hoards." Alas ! she did not sus- pect, how soon the " unthought of" Country Girl would even number carriages with her in the long procession to Drury Lane theatre. William Woodfall, it may be observed, gave the same advice to Mrs. Siddons, that she should keep to small theatres in the country, where she could be heard, she was too weak for the London stages. This indeed at the time was the fact ; but let me add, in behalf of the great genius of tragedy, that, had the Cumaean Sybil herself announced the more than rival progress of the boy Betty, she would have been credited, perhaps, by the Muse of neither tragedy nor comedy, though such a poet as Virgil had added to her ravings the charms of immortal verse. 62 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer cloud, Without our special wonder ?" Her last performance as a member of the com- pany was at Wakefield, on Friday, Sept. 9, 1785, in the favourite Poor Soldier, from which place she set off for London with no great cheer of mind, for she was never sanguine, nor did the long experience of her popularity ever completely divest her of alarm. Some confidence she might place in Mr. Smith's judgment, but then to act the second parts in tragedy to the towering grandeur and deliberate style of Mrs. Siddons could not be contemplated without dismay. As to the salary, the preliminary condition went no farther than four pounds per week, and if it stopt there, her change of place was no advantage ; since her circumstances could not improve. The town stamp to be sure gave a cur- rency, but then the weight was to be considered, and the fashion to be verified. If her first article was not soon cancelled, it (to use Mrs. Robinson's neuter pronoun) would be glad to get back again to York and find its former station unoccupied. But THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. C) •■> something, in all these cases, must be risked. The state of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden com- panies is extremely well known, in our country theatres, from the circulation of our newspapers ; in addition, the managers of such concerns are in correspondence continually with some town friends, who inform them of every thing material to their in- terest. After much reflection, Mrs. Jordan thought she saw a line open to her, of the youthful and tender in tragedy or Shakspearian comedy, with the whole class of romps either in the middle comedy or the modern farce ; she there resolved to make her mark, not perhaps because she absolutely thought it best suited her own powers, for this it is probable she never was fully convinced of, but be- cause there she would interfere no otherwise with Mrs. Siddons, or Miss Farren, or Miss Pope, than as popularity might so far divide with those ladies the honours of public patronage, and the smiles of a successful management. To the policy, perhaps propriety, of this decision, on many accounts, neither Sheridan nor King offered any objection ; and it removed all such enmity as might be expected from invading the business of any other established fa- 64 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. vourite. With her patron Smith she was not likely to act much, unless she came into tragedy ; as the gentleman in comedy, he was most frequently at the side of Miss Farren, and unquestionably the most accomplished man with whom she ever played; for Palmer was never perfectly the gay honourable man of the world, however plausible, insinuating, and graceful in display ; and such qualities on the stage, as in life itself, are rather the means by which the designing succeed, than the manifestations of the truly valuable in human character. Let the reader conceive these two actors to have exchanged characters as the Charles and Joseph of the School for Scandal. 65 CHAPTER IV. The ascendancy of Mrs. Siddons — Struggle of Covent Garden — Mrs. Abington — Mr. Henderson — Miss Farren compared with the former Abington — The hopes entertained that the Country Girl might revive the train of Comedy — Within and without door talk of her — Her first appearance, on the 1 8th of October, 1785 — Mrs. Inchbald's opinion of her — Fulness and comic richness of tone not provincialism — Ex- cited unbounded laughter — Her male figure — Her letter scene — About nineteen, the age of Miss Peggy — Hender- son — Mr. Harris — Mrs. Inchbald — Her stepson and Mrs. Jordan — Her Viola, in Twelfth Night, particularly examined — Barbarous curtailments of the play — Viola succeeded by Imogen — Mrs. Clive dies — Compared, in some points, with Mrs. Jordan — The Heiress had no part for Mrs. Jordan — She would and she would not, her Hypolita — The Irish Widow, on her benefit night — Now, certainly, the great support of the theatre. The success of Mrs. Siddons had been too daz- zling not to excite envy in the profession. If there could be any competition with her excellence, it was in the recollection of the dead rather than the VOL. I. F 66 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. performances of the living that it was to be found. Mrs. Siddons too maintained a distance in her man- ners that irritated the self-love of those with whom she mixed in the business of the stage ; and she was supposed to shew rather strongly the conscious- ness of living familiarly with the higher orders. She had in fact monopolized their attention and their patronage. Her nights of performance alone were well attended, and she had two benefits each season, for which every thing fashionable reserved itself; and the benefits of others, if she did not act for them, were reduced nearly to the actor's private connexion, and many were disappointed in their little circles, by an apology that ended with " You know we must go on Mrs. Siddons 's night ; and we then leave town directly." Indeed the very performances of the stage had little attention in which the great actress did not appear ; and the farces after her tragedy were acted with slender effect, and to audiences diminished to half their number — the genteeler portion for the most part quitting the theatre when the tragedy ended, that the impression she had made might re- main undisturbed. The delicate and feeling, after the agony they had endured, were commonly as THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 6/ much exhausted by their sympathy, as the actress had been by her exertions ; and they really were unable to enjoy the ensuing pleasantry, which five minutes and a green curtain only divided from their sorrows. By going, they secured the privilege too of talking solely of the fashionable idol, and were content to be listened too simply as talking about her who interested every body, and whom all were solicitous to be thought to know. For a time it may be supposed the other theatre struggled against the stream. Mrs. Abington had some claims upon fashionable life, whose taste she had formerly led — and with the aid of Henderson revived the charm that had attended the wit and the perverse court- ship of Benedick and Beatrice. But she had past her meridian ; and although I am perfectly satisfied that Miss Farren, in comedy, never approached her nearer than Mrs. Esten did Mrs. Siddons, in tra- gedy — that she never took her ground, as one may say, in a style of such absolute authority ; yet the beauty of her countenance, and at least lady-like appearance of her figure and manners, the sense that constantly proceeded from her, and the refined style of her utterance, her youth, and fashionable f 2 68 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. connexion, at length established her in the cast of genteel and sentimental comedy ; and I found the younger part of the critical world little aware how much Lady Teazle lost in being transferred to Miss Farren. But all this made no eclat ; it did not in- jure one feather in the crest of the tragic queen. Something, that, if it did not destroy, at least di- vided with her, the public attention, was the daily hope of the troop, who found themselves nothing in her presence ; and every eye was turned to the Country Girl, who might put matters upon a foot- ing nearer equality, and, by establishing herself, revive the public recollection that such men as King, Smith, Palmer, Parsons, Dodd, and Bannis- ter, merited to be at least not totally deserted, and were not, perhaps, without important claims among those who promote the happiness of the human race. But, whatever the rehearsals on the stage of Drury might have shewn of the new actress, the without-door world, I remember, was not very much assailed : the puff preliminary had not been greatly resorted to, and the common inquiries produced the usual answer:: of discretion. — " I think she is clever. — One thing I can tell you, she is like THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 69 nothing you have been used to. Her laugh is good ! but then she is, or seems to be very nervous. We shall see. But I am sure we want something." At length, on Tuesday, the 18th of October, 1785, the curtain drew up to the Country Girl of Mrs. Jordan. This was a very judicious alteration by Garrick, (with perhaps some regard to Lee's,) from the Country Wife of Wycherley, One is as- tonished in referring to the original in that poet's volume, to see the impurities which encrusted it ; and that any man, capable of all that is sufficient for comic effect in it, should have so bad a taste as to pollute either his mind or his paper with the vile bestialities stuck about the business, an 1 really impeding the action. There is little now to offend even the scrupulous, and the comedy is extremely lively when a Peggy, the author's Pinchwife, can be found. Mrs. Inchbald knew her in the York company, and records of her, that " she came to town with no report in her favour, to elevate her above a very moderate salary (four pounds), or to attract more than a very moderate house when she appeared. But here moderation stopped. She at once dis- played such consummate art, with such bewitching 70 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. nature — such excellent sense, and such innocent simplicity — that her auditors were boundless in their plaudits, and so warm in her praises, when they left the theatre, that their friends at home would not give credit to the extent of their eulogiums." Nothing can be more exactly true than this re- port. I agree also with that lady in the melody of her voice; but in the remark that " her pro- nunciation was imperfect " I cannot concur. " Most of her words were uttered with a kind of provincial dialect." It was not of that description at all. It was a principle of giving to certain words a ful- ness and comic richness, which rendered them more truly representatives of the ideas they stood for ; it was expressing all the juice from the grape of the laughing vine. To instance once for all. She knew the importance attached to a best gown. Let the reader recollect the full volume of sound which she threw into those words, and he will understand me. It was not provincial dialect — it was humour- ous delivery : and, as a charm, only inferior to her laugh. Again, " but I don't" — " liv&n'f'— " Bud" — " Grum," and a hundred others, to which she communicated such blurt significance, such whim- sical cadence, as shewed she Was the great mistress THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 71 of comic utterance, and aware of all the infinite varieties which modify the effects of the human voice. Henderson had the same sort of talent without the perfect voice. It was best displayed in his reading. A reflection upon this hint will shew what a narrow, imperfect, and even delusive record printing must needs be, of what in living speech accompanied the utterance of the mere words. Such was Mrs. Jordan when she burst upon the metropolis, in the year 1785. Perhaps no actress ever excited so much laughter. The low comedian has a hundred resorts by which risibility may be produced. In addition to a ludicrous cast of fea- tures, he may resort, if he chooses, to the buf- foonery of the fair ; he may dress himself ridicu- lously ; he may border even upon indecency in his action, and be at least a general hint of double en- tendre, to those whose minds are equally impure. But the actress has nothing beyond the mere words she utters, but what is drawn from her own hi- larity, and the expression of features, which never submit to exaggeration. She cannot pass by the claims of her sex, and self-love will preserve her from any willing diminution of her personal beauty. How exactly had this child of nature calculated 72 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. her efficacy, that no intention on her part was ever missed, and, from first to last, the audi- ence responded uniformly in an astonishment of delight. In the third act they more clearly saw what gave the elasticity to her step. She is made to assume the male attire ; and the great painter of the age pronounced her figure the neatest and most perfect in symmetry that he had ever seen. This distinction remained with her a long time, notwith- standing the many family encroachments upon the public pleasure. But her fertility as an actress was at its height in the letter scene, perhaps the most perfect of all her efforts, and the best jeu de theatre known, without mechanism. The very pen and ink were made to express the rustic petulance of the writer of the first epistle, and the eager delight that com- posed the second which was to be dispatched in- stead of it to her lover. King was her Moody upon this occasion, but I thought Wroughton afterwards gave more effect to the intimidation. He had a vast deal of truth in his comedy, and concealed every appearance of the actor's art. There was a seeming coincidence in the ages of the actress and the character she played. The play THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 73 concludes with some rhymes, no great achieve- ment, it is true ; I suppose them Garrick's ; in which Miss Peggy apologizes for deserting her Bud. " I've reasons will convince you all, and strong ones ; Except old folks, who hanker after young ones : Bud was so passionate, and grown so thrifty, 'Twas a sad life : — and then he was near fifty ! — I'm but nineteen." Perhaps Mrs. Jordan looked rather more, not in her action, which was juvenile to the last, but the comic maturity of her expression seemed to an- nounce a longer experience of life and of the stage than could have been attained at nineteen. She retired that night from the theatre, happy to the extent of her wishes, and satisfied that she would not long be rated on the treasurer's books at four pounds per week. Smith congratulated with her very sincerely. He had bestowed upon the theatre, which he loved, a new and a powerful magnet, able to attract on the off nights of Mrs. Siddons, and even strengthen those of tragedy ; which, with no greater force than Cumberland evinced in the Car- melite, began to need something auxiliary. Henderson was now acting the Roman Father at the other house, in which he made wonderful effect. 74 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. He had seen Mrs. Jordan in Ireland and at York, and was fully satisfied of her great merit ; but Mr. Harris did not feel it, or was on the opposition side of the house ; he said she would be an excellent Filch ; and here he prophesied, for she stole away the hearts of the town, and tried all his skill as a manager, great as it confessedly was. The Country Girl was repeated on the third night of performance at Drury Lane, that is Bra- ganza and Measure for Measure only intervening j so that they allowed her till the Monday of the fol- lowing week, when the two houses commenced acting together for the season, and she had the honour of dividing the town that evening with Henderson, who repeated his Roman Father, with Mrs. Inchbald's amusing farce of Appearance is against them. The sudden passage of this lady's muse, from neglect to managerial welcome — the talent and the specimens remaining exactly the same during the opposite sentences, shews how little real judgment enters into such decisions. The success of a Mogul Tale, a farcical extravaganza, founded on the balloon mania, and unworthy of the press, at length rendered Mr. Harris and Mr. Colman alike willing to afford her a clear stage for THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 75 her talents as a writer. As an actress she had been some time in the Covent Garden company. Her beauty had suggested her as a successor to Mrs. Hartley ; but she never could absolutely clear her utterance from the effects of an impediment, which has given rise to some amusing stories among the minor wits of the theatre. Mrs. Jordan was said to have discovered some partiality to this lady's stepson by Mr. Inchbald's first wife. The humble Nell, of the York stage, had not the necessary weight in the balance to deter- mine the gentleman. After her town experiment, he began to estimate her value by the popular standard, and brought himself to make proposals, which w r ere seriously declined. He might have been honoured, had his delicacy forbad him to en- tertain any notion of a union, circumstanced as the young lady was ; but when he could teach his principle to give way to his interest, he merited the rejection of his temptation for a weightier. The mention of Mrs. Inchbald introduced this anec- dote before its actual period ; but if the lady's turn to refuse was subsequent to our present date, the gentleman's took place before it ; and it may, 76 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. as well, therefore, stand where we have been led by any thread to work it into the narrative. On the 28th of the month, Mrs. Jordan acted Peggy a third time, and her bark might be said to have safely landed her. She now was persuaded to indulge the town with a steadier gaze at her male figure, and chose the part of Viola in Shakspeare's Twelfth Night, a character of infinite delicacy and enchanting eloquence ; one, in a word, where the great poet exhibits a sensibility so truly feminine, that in his world of wonders it has scarcely yet excited sufficient critical praise. We were now to make the experiment how her " provincial dialect*' would be borne in the music of verse, such as even Shakspeare has seldom written. " It was all well enough," said the venerable stagers, " while she could romp it away with a jump and a laugh ; but what will they say to her in the loving and beloved Viola, who acts so tenderly and ' speaks so masterly ' all the science of the passion, in words that ' echo truly' all its best feelings ?" What ! why, that the mere melody of her utterance brought tears into the eyes, and that passion had never had so modest and enchanting an interpreter. In a THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 77 word, it was Nature herself shewing us the heart of her own mystery, and at the same time throwing out a proud defiance to Art to approach it for a moment. She long continued to delight the town with her Viola, which she thus acted for the first time on the 11th of November, 1785. English audiences seldom know more of a play than is spoken from the stage, and the modern collection of English plays contains no more than the mutilators of the drama think proper to pre- serve of the author's text. I perceive in the pas- sage above, that I have indulged in a favourite practice of throwing into a sentence some of the inimitable language of the poet, and usually in the play under consideration. The happy possessors of these stage copies have never either seen or heard the expressions so introduced, and I shall give a just notion of the injury done to our great poet by quoting the sentences connected with the lovely character of Viola. In the third scene of the second act, the Duke (Viola being present as Cesario) calls to his musicians to play the tune of an " old and antique song," which had given more relief to his passion, " Than the light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times." 78 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. He follows its repetition by this question to the vouth at his side. J " Duke. How dost thou like tins tune ? Vio. It gives a very echo to the seat Where love is thron'd. Duke. Thou dost speak masterly." The player who dismissed this short passage, in the language of Othello — " Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe." And that, as it should seem, merely to relieve the gentlemen in the orchestra from the trouble of play- ing a few bars of pathetic and appropriate music. " Who would not laugh, if such a man there be ? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?" In the original play, Feste, the jester, is brought in to sing the song, and his appearance draws another beautiful remark from the Duke to his young fa- vourite. " Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it : it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 79 And then follows the song written by Shakspeare, " Come away, come away, death," which wandered about the pendulous world a long while, until at last Kelly and Crouch bound it fast to the Pizarro of Sheridan and Kotzebue ; but the notes of the musician echoing too faithfully the burthen of those feeble words " come away," the whole appeared too light for the occasion. It is in this scene too, that the tender poet has given us the fine picture of a hopeless passion pining in thought, and gracing a rooted grief with the faint smile, which Patience for ever wears upon some monument to the dead. Retaining this point for Viola, the wretched taste alluded to, cut away all the essential preparation for such a thing, and marred the exquisite address of the poet. But enough. In the great variety of the character, with the Duke, Olivia, and the drunken assailants, Mrs. Jor- dan found ample field for her powers ; and she long continued to delight the town in Viola, which she thus acted for the first time at Drury Lane theatre, on the 11th of November, 1785. Viola is but the comedy of Imogen in Cymbeline, 80 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. and the one part seemed to be the step to the other, which Mrs. Jordan indeed acted on the 21st. The truth however was, that Mrs. Siddons had invested tragedy so completely with her own requisites, that it was only in the male habit that Mrs. Jordan seemed the true and perfect Imogen. She had not the natural dignity of the wife of Posthumus. She could not burst upon the insolent Jachimo in the terrors of offended virtue. She could not wear the lightnings of scorn in her countenance. She hardly seemed out of personal danger ; whereas, Imogen could only be shocked by the impurity of sugges- tion, and knew her virtue no less than her rank, secured her from a profane touch, let who might be the audacious libertine in her presence. It never was a favourite performance, and we were rejoiced when she found another Romp in the Miss Hoyden of the Trip to Scarborough, which she acted on the 9th of January, 1786. There are certain coincidences in the things of this world that force themselves on our minds, as if they were bound by some relation of design. On the 6th of December, 1785, the only comic actress, who could be named with Mrs. Jordan, died. We THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 81 allude to the great Catherine Clive, who then ex- pired at her cottage near Walpole's Gothic play- thing called Strawberry Hill ; but not till she had heard, from the best authority, that the Nell, which had established her own reputation, in the year 1731, would at length find a second representative, equally favoured by nature with herself ; and who resembled her also in the brilliant attraction which she gave to the male habit. The second actress, like the first, had at once doubled her salary by her enchanting naivete ' ; and if Cibber, the great au- thor of the Careless Husband, had done this piece of justice to the original Nell, Sheridan, the not less great, though less fertile author of the School for Scandal, conferred the same benefit upon her successor. Clive, though she tried composition, had never mastered the elements of language, and she spelled most audaciously. Jordan, though she left the drama to authors by profession, wrote an occasional address as smartly as any of them ; and her letters were always distinguished for a pointed accuracy, and great marks of sound judgment. The Country Girl had begun to excite rather va- luable notice, when she was met in her career rather vol. 1. g 82 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. unpropitiously, by a new comedy of first rate merit, in which she had no part, all the characters being distributed among the old established actors of the Drury Lane company. I allude to Burgoyne's Heiress, first acted on the 14th of January, 1786. When I say unpropitiously, I do not mean to imply any designed injury ; there was no character in the comedy that would at all have suited Mrs. Jordan's powers. Lady Emily was, in fact, a complimentary sketch of Miss Farren herself. Miss Alscrip looked absolutely like another sketch of Miss Pope, though certainly not complimentary. Miss Alton suited the beauty of Mrs. Crouch, and Blandish's sister parasite, like himself, appeared only to be detested. The Christmas pantomime of Hurly Burly was the running afterpiece ; so that she was not frequently before the public eye, for her farces hitherto were only the Romp and the Virgin Unmasked. The confinement of Mrs. Siddons took place on the 28 th of December, so that she did not return to the stage till early in February. I observed then, however, that they did not use Mrs. Jordan after the tragedies : the great actress could fill the houses herself. The Heiress, however, was indebted to THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 83 her for support; the latter account would have been very thin without her. At length, King put into rehearsal the comedy of She would and she would not, it is but fair to presume, that he might have the pleasure of exhi- biting Mrs. Jordan, in the famous Hypolita, a cha- racter of nearly unequalled bustle, and involved in comic business, so complicated and ingenious, as it is hardly possible could have occurred to any wit, who was not by profession an actor ; and it is but fair to Colley Cibber to add, to no actor who was not a wit. There is wit, be it remembered, in situ- ation, in readiness, in extrication, involution ; the making deliverance renew perplexity, and perplexity itself generate relief. When certain critics have denied wit to this comedy, they seem to have li- mitted the term to a mere jeu de mot. But what- ever be the predominant quality of Cibber, it is not exhausted by his brilliant heroine ; for Trappanti is fully equal to Hypolita. "To serve thyself, my cousin," might as fairly have been said to King at least as Buckingham, on this occasion ; for Trap- panti was the character by nature best fitted to his face of brass. He played it inimitably well to be g 2 84 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sure, and Parsons and Miss Pope sustained Don Manuel and Villetta. Yet these consummate artists could, by a favourite critic, be merely said to be little inferior to the darling of nature in her twenty- fourth year. It was first acted on the 27 th of March, and continued a stock play while Mrs. Jordan re- mained in the company. The whigs of that day had a very strong personal attachment in their politics : they loved the prin- ciples, sometimes for the men, and the men fre- quently for the principles. Burgoyne being at- tached to the Earl of Derby, they supported ar- dently the Heiress and Miss Farren ; but they were not insensible to the claims of Mrs. Jordan, and on the night of her benefit, when she repeated Hypolita, and played the Irish Widow for the first time, such an audience was collected as had been very seldom seen, and the whig club made her a very handsome present, as a tribute to her merit. She was now certainly the great support of the theatre ; she frequently acted in play and farce on the same night, and for three months together, hardly had more than one day's interval in the week. The managers had tripled her original sa- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 85 lary, and gave her two benefits in the season ; an innovation first made for Mrs. Siddons, and very idly made. Comedy had now decidedly taken the ascendancy. Tragedy had been worn down by endless repetition ; and the taste of King, the ma- nager, did not lead him to the buskin. There was no serious muse to invoke among us ; and Mrs. Siddons was reduced to revive the feeble tragedy of Percy, to act Elwina, when she had nothing like novelty to give us. She even verged towards comedy, in her struggle for attraction ; and played her original trial part of Portia, with King, for Shylock ; for Kemble seemed now an excrescence in the company. There was in fact no effort made but by Mrs. Jordan, who, at the end of the season, left them for the country, to receive the homage of old friends, and the solicitations of new ones ; and take the current when it served, as it was impelled by the breath of praise, and left in its course a precious deposit of pure gold for her to gather. 86 CHAPTER V. In the recess thinks of her old friends in Yorkshire — Differ- ence of nine months — Odd conjuncture — Mrs. Robinson the Prophetess — Return to Leeds of Mrs. Jordan on the night of that lady's benefit — Acts a single night, now dividing the house — Mrs. Jordan at Edinburgh — The Belle s Stratagem — Her own epilogue, its point — Death of Mrs. Baddeley at this juncture — Mrs. Jordan succeeds Mrs. Siddons at Hull and Wakefield — General Burgoyne translates Richard Cceur de Lion for Drury, in 1786, and Mrs. Jordan accepts Ma- tilda — Death of Princess Amelia closes the theatres — H. R. H.'s clock, by Tompion — The royal vault — A friend of the Author's passes the night in it — His feelings compared with Juliet's imagination — Dodsley's Cleone, and Mrs. Siddons— Love for Love, and the Miss Prue of Jordan — Congreve and his preferments — Mrs. Jordan's Roxalana. A change of condition so striking was calculated to try the firmest temper. Mrs. Jordan, certainly, was no stoic, and she would at any time have dis- dained to affect an indifference which she did not feel. All that was woman about her anticipated THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 87 her reception by the manager and the performers at Leeds, which she had so recently quitted, and the enjoyment of the first salary of one pound, ele- ven shillings and sixpence per week. She had now to consider in her carriage, on the supposition that Wilkinson might entreat her to play, with what terms she would condescend to be satisfied, now she had passed the assay in the metropolis, the metal being, to a scruple, precisely of the same value before the journey to London. The " whirligig of time brings his revenges." Mrs. Robinson, the prophetess, had, like other false prophets, lived down her presumed wisdom. She had sneered at the expedition of Jordan, and pronounced her failure in town, and speedy wish to be again welcome at her old quarters. The Lon- don newspapers had since afforded her sufficient mortification. The^rs^ salary, two benefits, and immense presents, lavished upon a hated rival, were even at a distance barely to be endured. This un- happy lady, " whose doom reserved her to more wrath," on the 16th of June, 1786, was to take her benefit at Leeds. She was to act Horatia in the Roman Father, which the genius of Henderson 88 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. had rendered popular, though it hastened his death, and had put up the Irish Widow for her farce, because Mrs. Jordan had selected it for her benefit in London. It announced as plainly as words could speak it, " Well ! Leeds also has her Widow Brady, though the courtiers bear away the honours of the Tournament" On this 16th of June, a Friday! Mrs. Jordan, attended by her mother and her sister, arrived in the town of Leeds, and, after dinner, made their appearance in an upper box at the theatre. It was the benefit of the very "fright" whom poor Mrs. Bland could neither bear to hear or see ; and what I am afraid the old lady bore without much unea- siness, the house was far from being a good one. An absence of only nine months, with an audience so stationary as that of Leeds, was not likely to erase the features of Jordan from their memory, and she most certainly did not succeed, if she tried to keep herself concealed. But I do not imagine for a moment that the child of nature had so much art about her. I am sure she had an honest joy in the buzz that turned every eye up to the balcony box ; and, during the farce, she came down behind the scenes, and made her compli- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 89 ments very gracefully to her former associates in the green-room. No people do these things so well as players — they are accustomed to assume every variety of manner, and, if, like others, occa- sionally insincere, they are never clumsy hypocrites. After having thus made herself free behind the curtain, she walked forward to the very edge of the wing, and, leaning with a fashionable air on her sister, observed the rival Widow Brady, and was fully observed by the audience herself. Tate makes himself very merry by glancing looks of de- fiance between the two ladies, which I dare say they were discreet enough to keep to themselves, But Tate seems to enjoy the mortification likely to be felt by Mrs. Robinson, and perhaps fancied only some contempt in the great woman because the. humbler artist had disobliged him. It was now the turn of Mrs. Jordan to be soli- cited, and she consented to act a single night, di- viding the receipt with the manager after a deduc- tion of fifteen pounds. To this he submitted, though he did not expect any great profit to either party ; for he remembered that the Leeds people had enjoyed or neglected her for four summers in 90 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. succession, and not distinguished her parting bene- fit by any great patronage. But the fashion had operated a mighty change in her favour, and the good gentry of Leeds now longed most passionate- ly to see the actress of whom they had so recently been weary. She was announced to act the Coun- try Girl and the Romp on the 21st, and the house overflowed before the play began. The demand for places was so extraordinary, that seven rows of the pit were laid into the boxes. Both play and farce, it should be observed, by her town success in the heroines had been worn to the felt by the country hoydens ; but she was no longer her mere self, but the minion of rank and taste, and Lon- don. The Siddons succeeded her upon the York circuit the month following, and Mrs. Jordan went to the north to fulfil her various engagements. At Edinburgh she ventured to speak of the only rival she could have, but it was not with Pope's humi- lity to Bolingbroke. " Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph and partake the gale?" There seems to be a sly hint at the despotism of the turban, that bears no brother near the throne. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 91 As to Yorkshire, however, Mrs. Siddons became the absolute sovereign. The rage with which she was followed had no parallel ; and if the metropo- litical chair was not devoted by a salique law to the male sex, and it had been to be filled by the votes of the natives, it is probable that she might have carried the election. Mrs. Jordan took for her benefit Mrs. Cowley's Belle's Stratagem ; and after a very charming per- formance of Letitia Hardy, came forward to ad- dress her accomplished friends in the northern Athens. Later in life she used to hesitate in the employment of her poetical talent — now, however, in her gaiete du cceur, she wrote as well as spoke the following lines, which have at least one spark- ling and original point — but she became a fixed star. " mrs. Jordan's address to the audience of edinburgh, On Monday, Aug. 6th, 1786. " Presumption 'tis, in learning's seat, For me the Muses to entreat ; Yet, bold as the attempt may be, I'll mount the steed of poesy ; 92 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. And as my Pegasus is small, If stumbling, I've not far to fall. Hear then, ye Nine ! the boon I ask, While (throwing off the comic mask) With gratitude I here confess How much you've heighten' d my success. By sealing thus my sentence now, You've heap'd new laurels on my brow ; Nor is the Northern sprig less green Than that which in the South was seen; For though your sun may colder be, Your hearts I've found as warm for me. One wreath I only gain'd before, But your kind candour gives me more ; And, like your union, both combine To make the garland brighter shine. 'Tis true such planets sparkled here, As made me tremble to appear; — A twinkling star, just come in sight, Which, tow'rds the Pole, might give no light! Melpomene has made such work, Reigning despotic like the Turk, I fear'd Thalia had no chance Her laughing standard to advance : But yet, her youngest Ensign, I THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 93 Took courage, was resolv'd to try, And stand the hazard of the die. Since then the vent'rous game I've tried, With Nature only for my guide, The betts, if fairly won, I'll take, Nor wish to make it my last stake." The good people at Edinburgh, we thus see, permitted Mrs. Jordan to shew her own wit. But those of Glasgow, when it came to their turn to welcome the great actress, presented her with a gold medal, and an inscription not badly turned. It was transmitted with a single line of admiration and jealousy. " To Mrs. Jordan. " Madam, " Accept this trifle from the Glasgow au- dience, who are as great admirers of genius as the critics of Edinburgh." On one side of the medal is the Glasgow arms, which are a tree, &c. ; on the other side a feather, with the following inscription : — " Bays from our tree you could not gather, No branch of it deserves that name ; So take it all, call it a. feather, And place it in your cap of fame." 94 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. While this charming woman was on her way to Edinburgh, rejoicing in her strength, the scene closed on the unfortunate Mrs. Baddeley, at her lodgings there in Shakspeare square on the 1st of July. She had originally appeared in Ophelia, and Mr. Garrick, whose judgment in his own art will not be questioned, pronounced her delightful. She communicated a charm to the " adorable Fanny" in the Clandestine Marriage, and ZofTani painted her, with King and her husband, in that play, at the command of George III. They who now look at the words and the music of the Jubilee, may exhibit a smile of incredulity to hear, that the bal- lad of" Sweet Willy O," as given by her, was irre- sistible, and drew crowds to the theatre. But with whatever charms of beauty or pathos she was graced, she was self-devoted to poverty and dis- ease. Extraordinary beauty on the stage com- monly seals the fate of the victim : the moral restraints there are worn so slightly that they drop at the breath of adulation, and the public amusement becomes the public prey. Disappoint- ments now awaken an unavailing regret ; reflection must be silenced by some anodyne, or distraction THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 95 ensues ; but the temporary friend soon changes his character, and consummates the misery he was called in to avert. Mrs. Baddeley died in her forty-second year. I have a little anticipated this close when speaking of her at York, on the first appearance there of Mrs. Jordan ; but in the order of time, it came again before me, with her own idea strongly im- pressed upon my memory, and I have dismissed her with tender pity for her fate, and gratitude for the pleasure derived in my youth from her talents. Returning to her engagement at Drury Lane, Mrs. Jordan was invited to try at least to dispel some of the gloom with which the tragic queen had cover- ed the land; the "laughing standard" might be reared bv her, but was then certainly not followed. The receipts at Hull and Wakefield were mere apologies for the inhabitants, who generally were too much distressed to go abroad on trivial occa- sions. In this position the gay actress thought ardently of the capital, where no such disparity in their attractions existed, and where her merits were appreciated by all ranks. Upon her arrival, she did not discover any very 96 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. great preparation of the manager for a brilliant sea- son. General Burgoyne, on the success of 'his Heiress, might reasonably continue his dramatic pursuits ; and the vast popularity of Sedaine's Richard Coeur de Lion, in Paris, graced, or rather informed by the divine music of Gretry, set both of our theatres to work to prepare it for the English stage. Macnally undertook it for Mr. Harris, and Bur- goyne for Sheridan. The latter, with great hap- piness, introduced Richard's Queen, in the si- tuation of Blondel, and Mrs. Jordan accepted the part of Matilda ; while the majestic figure of Kemble was seen by the audience taking his me- lancholy exercise in the prison of Leopold, Duke of Austria, whose resentment of an insult offered to him by Richard, at the siege of Acre, led him to load his unhappy captive with irons, and demand an enormous sum for his ransom. Perhaps, no production ever had more effect than the Richard of Drury Lane ; and so fascinating was its ensemble, that no alteration, made afterwards, in the cast was felt otherwise than as an injury ; and more voice or more science in the principals only told the opera intruders that there was a truth and a grace beyond THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 97 their reach, and that if you did not touch the heart here, you did nothing.* This entertainment was Drought out on the 24th of Octoher, after the Winter's Tale, and was re- peated every evening, till the 1st of November, when the two theatres were closed, on account of the death of the King's aunt, the Princess Amelia. The etiquette of that period kept the people with- out amusement, and the actors without bread, twelve days ; an intolerable grievance, and totally uncalled for. In some cases of royal demise, when a prince, the hope of succession, in the flower of his age, is cut off, the public suffer; and the willing respect paid to the reigning family, is ac- companied by a personal grief, almost uniformly felt: — but even then, all privation, as to income, should be prevented ; they who are not allowed to work for themselves, should be compensated by the state. The humanity and real wisdom of the pre- * " 'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake, The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake ! But where the force of energy is found, When the sense rises on the wings of sound." Collins, p. 96. VOL. I. H 98 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sent reign, has abridged the interval as much as possible, an- -larked the respect with any charac- ter rather than sufferance. The Princess had left a very considerable sum, indeed, with reversions of annuities, a splendid for- tune, to Prince Charles Hesse. But as she men- tioned nothing of mourning to her household, a petition, in form, was presented to Lord Besbo- rough. That nobleman thought the request fit to be indulged, but he was opposed in it. What notion he might entertain of the illustrious legatee, I can- not say ; but he declared that if the Prince refused to discharge the bills, he would pay the expense out of his own pocket. The Princess herself, dis- played great affection, and very minute attention, to all the individuals of her establishment, from the Ladies of her Bed-chamber and the two Ladies Waldegrave, to whom thousands were given, down to the menial servants of her stables and her kitchen, to whom a year's wages were bequeathed. She had forgotten a few old pensioners upon her bounty, retired from her service, or who had suf- fered by casualty ; but there could be no difficulty in the legatee's decision, that her Royal Highness in- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 99 tended to support them for their lives rather than her own, and bequeathed as much o" t mind along with her money, as could transmigrate to her fa- voured relation. The Royal Family has been remarked for a lin- gular attention to the distribution of time. I should like to know the present state of the curious clock, the master-piece of Tompion, on which he put the price of 600/., when he made it for the Duke of Cumberland, from whom it came to his sister, x\melia. On Saturday, November 1 1 , her Royal High- ness being what was called privately interred in the royal vault of King Henry the Seventh's chapel, at Westminster, the theatres opened again on the Monday following. Before we suffer the royal vault, however, to close upon the Princess Amelia, we claim the pri- vilege of age, to tell an actual occurrence which happened to a particular friend. While the work- men were busy in preparing for the interment, which was soon to take place, a gentleman, from curiosity, had procured a taper, and gone down into this venerable cemetery. His design was to h 2 100 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. let " contemplation," as Milton says, " have her fill," while, at intervals, he carefully copied in his note-book, some of the inscriptions upon the splen- did coffins around him. Time had passed away unheeded by the antiquary, and night had been closing fast upon one of the brief days of Novem- ber. His eye, at length, was caught by some per- son moving at a distance in the vault ; by his taper, he saw a fellow, in the coat of a soldier, attempting to wrench away a silver plate from one of the cof- fins. He called out, in an angry tone, to the man, who ran away, in fear of being punished for the robbery he had intended. Our friend thought it better not to pursue the wretch, but composing his nerves a little, sat down to copy the inscription, which is placed upon the coffin of the Duke of Cumberland ; while thus engaged, the trap-door of the vault fell over his head, at a distance ; and, in a short time, all his sensibility was roused, by hearing the outer gate of the Abbey itself ring upon its hinges, the bolts secured, and the key turning in the wards of the lock. His first impression was, that he had a long night to pass among the dead ; his wasting taper now began to tell him that he THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 101 would soon, moreover, be in total darkness. Hor- ror, in spite of philosophy, was creeping fast upon his aching sense, and, at length, the last glimmer expired, and he sat, motionless, in the gloomy silence of the grave. He became incapable of thought — he was breathing a heavy and noisome atmosphere — the night was chill and damp, but he remained through it in a waking stupor, a sort of living death, as it respected either memory or reason. When, at last, the vault was opened, and daylight visited the aperture, he made his way carefully to the steps, and passed up them, and through the cathedral, inattentive to all the objects about him. By a kind of instinct, he took the way to his own house, in a distant part of the town. But the fancy had been too much excited for safety, and an alarming fever succeeded the adventure, from which the friendly skill of Dr. Austen, in about six weeks, recovered him. He was a very intimate friend of Henderson's, and told me the story himself. It is impossible not to remember the almost parallel si- tuation of Juliet, in the monument of the Capulets, and a finer passage cannot be found in the descrip- tive poetry of any nation. In order to keep our 102 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. great poet's philosophy safe from objection in the comparison, it will be remembered that the perceived gradations settle in stupor, and that the sudden shock causes distraction. " How, if when I 'm laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Comes to redeem me ? — there's a fearful point ! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foid mouth no healthsome air breathes in ? Or if I live, is it not very like, The horrible conceit of death and night ? Together with the terror of the place, — As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, Where, for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packt ; Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies festering in his shroud ; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort — Alack ! alack ! shall I not be distraught, Invironed with all these hideous fears ; And madly play with my forefathers' joints, And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud ? And in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ?" I know that, removed from the scene, and fairly estimating the danger, the reason of man can con- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 103 fine itself to the merely disagreeable in the picture ; but the uncertainty as to one portion of ourselves, the ignorance of the nursery, and the condition of our nerves, would keep the bravest of us, I believe, from coveting such an experiment. Among the efforts made to keep up the attraction of tragedy at Drury Lane theatre, was the revival of Dodsley's Cleone ion Mrs. Siddons. She could sup- port it only two nights, but the critics assigned a wonderful reason indeed for its failure, namely, " that the refined feelings of the present times affect to re- volt at tragedies where insipidity does not prevail." Surely it was not by their insipidity that Isabella and Shore and Calista and Belvidera had been rendered of late so popular among us. A better reason might be, that it was truly distressing to see Mrs. Siddons in the agonies of Cleone only a little month before her own confinement. If there be anything whatever in stage exertion, Cleone was quite enough, one would think, to destroy her. Or were the very boards of Garrick's theatre bound to confirm his judgment of the play in question, which he originally refused '? Mrs. Jordan was more fortunate than her great 104 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. rival — the getting up of Love for Love afforded her, in Miss Prue, a character exactly suitable to her style of acting, and which kept its hold upon the public mind. The first scene, where she enters with Tattle to Mrs. Foresight and her sister, was inimit- ably natural. The scents, of which the beau had been so liberal ; the half check upon the too plain words which she blurted out with gay simplicity ; and afterwards the apt scholar and the catechism of love, and the confirmation of its doctrines, were rich comedy indeed, for she had genius enough to keep it from offending. The courtship with Ben, with the sweet savours of Tattle all the time in her nostrils, afforded a striking contrast — the sullen aversion of her look — the " I a'n't deaf,"'' with her skilful utterance of the word — the consolatory " I'm too big to be whipped," — her abuse of the " sea calf" — and the " tar barrel," — and the passion of tears, — were all truth itself. Miss Prue has only one more scene, the first of the fifth act, where she exclaims,, with indignation — " What ! must I go to bed to nurse again, and be a child as long as she's an old woman? — Indeed, but I won't." The last word, as she contrived to utter it, and the " fiddle THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 105 of a rod ! I'll have a husband," with the hint as to " Robin the butler," naturally enough produce the locking up of the young lady ; whom the author unfortunately has left under lock and key, and neither involved in the catastrophe nor called in at the conclusion of the play. Notwithstanding the eternal wit of Congreve's comedies, which is not approached even by Sheri- dan, it is not true that they have no real character. The present play abounds in characters admirably discriminated and preserved. Foresight and Sir Sampson Legend are perfectly in nature ; so is Ben, though the lingo of the forecastle may vary from time to time ; but he has the true mind of a sailor, and " another trip" is his only remedy for disappointment. A sailor too always uses the terms of his profession, to which he is more heartily attached than any other man ; and among his od- dities, is more metaphorical in his brief vocabulary, than all the rhetoricians or even poets of the com- munity. Love for Love w r as first acted on the night of opening of the new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Hamlet considered himself entitled to a whole share 106 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. among the players, for a few lines inserted into the play before his uncle. Congreve received that com- pliment on writing Love for Love ; a whole share in the concern, for a single play per year. It is fatal to withdraw from an author the stimulus of necessity ; the author of four such comedies as Congreve's, could easily persuade himself that he had done enough for fame. Plunging a wit into the pipe-office, or making him a licenser of either coaches or wine, is like marrying an actress, and taking her from the stage ; the parties are no better than others in the new situations ; to ex- tend their attraction, and therefore happiness, they should be left to exert their genius in its proper sphere. To reward utility, without abridging it, is a problem of difficult solution. We may be apt to think such a poet disgraced by his prefer- ments. Congreve, however, did not wish to be considered as an author, yet it is only as an author that he enjoys a name among the illustrious of his country. Dr. Johnson has said of Congreve, " that he was an original writer, who borrowed neither the mo- dels of his plot, nor the manner of his dialogue." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 107 A mind so perspicacious as the doctor's, had he been acquainted with the writings of Ben Jonson, could not have failed to discern innumerable points of similitude between them ; as to the personages of the drama, and the manner of the dialogue. The great Lord Camden was fond of displaying them. On the 15th of February,, Mrs. Jordan assumed the character of Roxalana, in the Sultan, for the first time. She had, like Mrs. Abington, skill enough to keep such a trifle as this from becoming contemptible. On the 12th of March, Mr. Hol- croft produced at Drury Lane a new comedy called Seduction, but he made no use of the talents of Mrs. Jordan. Like Mrs. Siddons herself, she seems to have been considered as devoted to the writings only of men of genius. 108 CHAPTER VI. King's management — Mrs. Jordan in the summer of 1787 — Miss Farren too in Yorkshire, distinguishes Fawcett, since a truly original actor — Kemble alters the Pilgrim for Mrs. Jordan — Her Juletta — The character describes itself — Beautiful passages — Madness exhibited frequently on the stage — The New Peerage — Old Macklin remembered when he had forgotten Shylock — Interesting appeal of the veteran — New plays by Miss Lee and Captain Jephson — Smith did not act much with Mrs Jordan — His last benefit — Anecdote of him when at Eton — His intimacy with Garrick — His comedy — Lewis and Bensley compared with him as gentle- men — Abington and Farren — Palmer returns to his Viola — Mrs. Jordan's Sir Harry Wildair — Theatrical Politics — King's abdication. It must be admitted that no theatre ever displayed so little management as that of Drury under King, from the time of Mrs. Jordan's first appearance. He had received two such accessions as no other period is ever likely to produce, and he contented himself with wearing them down. The stock plays THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 109 of a theatre are excellent things, we know ; but an endless repetition of them will thin the most ju- dicious audiences. Nothing could be done for Mrs. Siddons, as to original composition ; and for Jordan, whose sphere was less poetical, (though within the limits of Viola and the Country Girl, there was all the comic world of delicate feeling, poignant humour, and youthful simplicity,) nothing was attempted. I dare say Sheridan, in his vision- ary schemes, meditated to write for her ; and the reverence at the playhouse for his powers might tend to discourage those, who, humbler in their pretensions, were more certain in their perform- ances. The politics, too, that really engrossed the great wit, sometimes were adverse to the humbler. Burgoyne was of the whig party ; and Holcroft, however occasionally beyond their standard, was at all times in opposition. The theatre was never really and truly thrown open to such talent as there was among us. Sheridan would undertake every thing, and do nothing. There was a committee of proprietors who only attended to the economy of the wardrobe ; and they could not be tempted by all the eloquence of Tom King to venture the 110 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. smallest outlay without the consent of Mr. Sheridan, who was always too busy either to give it or refuse it. Thus it was that Harris, at the other house, beat them, with all the cards absolutely in their hands. The northern circuit, during the summer of 1787, again attracted Mrs. Jordan, and her three nights at Leeds were brilliantly attended ; she acted Rosalind with Roxalana, Hypolita with Miss Lucy, Viola with Miss Hoyden. His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, her early patron and steady friend, sup- ported her nobly on the night of her benefit. She could not stay longer with Tate Wilkinson, but assured him that her successor from Drury Lane, Miss Barnes, was a diamond of the first water. That lady made her first impression in Juliet, to the Romeo of Mr. Fawcett ; but the expression of the garden scene, " Hist! Romeo, Hist!" was a piece of information, as well as a signal, for the audience literally hissed the young Juliet to a degree that precluded any repetition of the offence. Tate always considered Mrs. Jordan to have amused herself on the above occasion ; for she was not easily deceived as to the requisites for her profes- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 1]] sion. Miss Barnes, thus forced from her Romeo Fawcett, married out of the house of Montague, and in private life remained inoffensive and respec- tahle. Leaving our sportive mischief to her harvest in Scotland, she was not likely to hear with indif- ference, that her comic competitor, Miss Farren, who rarely stirred from London, had this summer Colman's permission to play for the benefit of her sister Margaret, afterwards Mrs. Knight. She achieved the great distinction of three rows of the pit laid into the boxes ; and for the good people of Yorkshire, at York and Hull, acted Lady Paragon, Lady Townley, Lady Teazle, Mrs. Oakley, Widow Belmour, Charlotte, in the Hypocrite, Mrs. Sullen, and Violante ; attended in after-pieces, by her Maria in the Citizen, Miss Tittup in Bon Ton, and a character, in which she always delighted me, Emmeline in Dry den's Masque of King Arthur. The chain of cause and effect has its striking exemplification upon the real life of the stage. Miss Farren 's Violante absolutely tended to direct our excellent Fawcett to the right course for him as an actor. He was so disposed himself to tra- gedy, that when he could be moved to personate 112 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the fine gentlemen in comedy, they were usually a very serious business of more weight than bright- ness. But he was on the night of her Violante induced to accept Colonel Britton, with, I believe a preference for Don Felix, and the great actress pronounced him a very promising young actor. Thus his comic impression gained strength. He played Peeping Tom for his benefit at Hull, so as to astonish those who had seen his tragedy, and at last he became a great, original, masterly come- dian ; always natural, and extremely powerful. He has recently retired from the stage into private life ; what he was as an actor may be estimated with great accuracy by seeing Harley of Drury Lane theatre. It has been said that Jones reminds us of Lewis, and it was truly said : he is a trans- lation into a less brilliant language, yet accurately rendered ; but as to Fawcett, Harley is not only like, but the same thing ; as though the veteran had been driven back upon his early days with all the confidence and vigour of his maturity antici- pated. This must be understood of the bustle about both. Whether, at a distant time, Harley may ever equal his predecessor in characters of THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 113 advanced life and rustic, or at any rate, not refined feeling, remains a question. His buoyancy is every thing at present. The modern rage for music demands that our comic men should have much of the Italian Buffo ; and it has introduced a sort of rigmarol extravaganza, of little meaning hut amaz- ing rapidity. Mr. Fawcett's second wife was an expert musician, and she disciplined him admirably on these occasions ; though his own father was a singer and a pupil of Tom Arne's. The winter season of 1787-8 had the advantage of Kemble's studies, and they led him to a cha- racter that seemed expressly contrived for Mrs. Jordan — that of Juletta, in the Pilgrim of Fletcher. That the fable is somewhat fantastic, will be readily admitted, but at the same time it must be confessed that the incidents are singularly entertaining. The author makes Juletta delineate herself, and the pas- sage will shew the great variety with which he had decorated his favourite character, and the scope it afforded to the infinite humour of Mrs. Jordan. " Jul. I am a little foot boy, That walk o'nights, and fright old gentlemen ; Make 'em lose hats and cloaks. VOL. I. i 114 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Alph. And horsee too. Jul. Sometimes I do, sir, teach 'em the way through ditches, And how to hreak their worships' shins and noses, Against old broken stiles and stumps. Alph. A fine art! I feel it in my bones yet. Jul. I'm a drum, sir — A drum at midnight ; ran, tan, tan, tan, tan, sir ! Do you take me for Juletta ? — I'm a page, sir, That brought a letter from the Duke of Medina, To have one Signor Alphonso (just such another As your old worship,) worm'd for running mad, sir ; Alas ! you are mistaken. Alph. Thou'rt the devil, And so thou hast us'd me. Jul. I am any thing ; An old woman, that tells fortunes — frights good people, And sends them to Segovia, for their [souls' sake] . I am strange airs, and excellent sweet voices ; I'm anything to do my mistress good, believe me. She now recover'd, and her wishes crown'd, I am Juletta again. Pray, sir, forgive me." Perhaps this will be thought the finest viva voce delineation of a character existing : Ben Jonson has a similar exposition in his Brainworm ; but I always thought the boast of Every Man in his Hu- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 115 mow, heavy and barely credible. Juletta is as light as Ariel, and as sportive as Puck. The soul of the poet Fletcher was exquisitely tempered, and he has even a woman's fondness for the tender virtues. Among them he touches fide- lity with a peculiar fondness : the reader should refer to the passage, where Bellario is questioned, as to Arethusa, in Philaster. There is a beautiful counterpart in this character of Juletta, which, equally firm as to the main point of trust, breaks away into a strain of comic sarcasm, that lost nothing in coming through the melodious organ of Mrs. Jordan. " Jul. If I did know, and her trust lay upon me, Not all your angers, nor your flatteries, Should make me speak ; hut having no more interest Than I may well deliver to the air, I'll tell you what I know, and tell it liberally ; I think she's gone, because we cannot find her ; I think she's weary of your tyranny, And therefore gone ; may-be she is in love ; May-be in love where vou shew no great liking : And therefore gone." These old comedies, it is true, needed a good i 2 116 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. deal of weeding, but Kemble, after Vanburgh, had left the Pilgrim pure enough in all conscience. The charm of their easy verse, so near the cadence of good conversation, so pointed, and yet so musi- cal, will always plead for their revival, as much for the language, as the invention and character with which they abound. A fashion obtained in the time of Fletcher, of which humanity then did not feel ashamed — I allude to the practice of exposing what should be the sacred mysteries of madness to the derision of a public audience. The inside of a bedlam, in a variety of tragedies and comedies, was emptied out upon the stage, and, I fear, afforded a thoughtless enjoyment, unmixed with the just hor- ror which belongs to such a profanation. Creatures of all conditions, in all the fantastic disarray of their disturbed senses, succeeded each other upon the stage, or entered into contests of delusion and prejudice with each other in a crowd — " Whilst they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, But boast themselves more comely than before." Comus. The Pilgrim has some scenes of this kind • but THE LIFE OP MRS. JORDAN. 117 the most powerful are those which, with a full knowledge of their tendency, the ingenious cruelty of her brothers assembles before the Duchess of Malfy ; the great master- work of Webster, a tragic writer equal to everything but Shakspeare. Again we had a new comedy, from the pen of Harriet Lee, which appeared on the 10th of No- vember, and Mrs. Jordan had no part assigned to her ; it was called The New Peerage; or, our Eyes may deceive us. King and Miss Farren had all that was striking in it. Mrs. Crouch having spoke herself into favour, in the Heiress, had another Miss allotted her, called Sophia Harley. The New Peerage has long since disappeared, and, perhaps, does not merit to take rank among the established nobility of the drama. The great excellence of the veteran Macklin, drew considerable audiences, whenever he appeared, at Covent Garden theatre, and he had been an- nounced to perform his own Shylock, on the 10th of January, 1788, at the extraordinary age of eighty- nine. I went there to compare his performance with that of my friend Henderson, whose loss T even still regret ; and with some anxiety and much 118 THE LIFE OF .MRS. JORDAN. veneration, secured a station in the pit, which none but the young should scuffle about, for it was much contested : you just saw the foot of the actor ; and thus had his full expression and whole figure bearing upon your eye ; and I most seriously assure the modish frequenter of the side- boxes or stage-box, that if he never occupied that station, he never saw what was delicate and exact, and discriminative, and I was going to add sublime, in acting. There, and thus anxiously, Garrick had been watched even to agony; — and in Shylock, at least, and Sir Pertinax, Macklin was a Garrick. It was a little before my personal introduction to Macklin ; but I would not, at that time, miss a re- petition of his triumph in the Jew. Who would not decorate the chambers of memory with por- traits thus painted by the great masters, in living colours, and all the truth of nature ? Macklin got through the first act with spirit and vigour, and, except to a very verbal critic, without material imperfection. In the second, he became confused, and sensible of his confusion. With his usual manliness, and waiting for no admonition from others, he advanced to the front of the stage, THE LITE OF MRS. JORDAN. 119 and with a solemnity in his manner, that became extremely touching, thus addressed his audience : — " Ladies and Gentlemen, " Within these very few hours, I have been " seized with a terror of mind I never in my life " felt before ; — it has totally destroyed my cor- " poreal as well as mental faculties. I must, there- " fore, request your patience this night — a request, 11 which an old man of eighty-nine years of age " may hope is not unreasonable. Should it be grant- " ed, unless my health shall be entirely re-establish- " ed, you may depend upon it, this will be the last " night of my ever appearing before you in so (< ridiculous a situation 1 1 Thus dignified, even in his wreck, was that great man, whom Pope had immortalized by a compli- ment, and whose humanity Lord Mansfield had pronounced to be at least equal to his skill as an actor. He recovered with the generous applause of the audience, and got through the play by great attention from the prompter and his assistant. It was now said that Leveredge had sung upon the 120 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. stage at the still greater age of ninety-six, an effort, though unusual, not exciting much surprise. Mu- sic is of easy recollection : tunes may be said to haunt the memory, and the first bar leads through the whole melody with great accuracy ; but a thou- sand lines of pointed verse, intersected with cues, and accompanied with stage business, with pas- sions to be assumed, and interest to be enforced, may, at times, startle the coolest brain, and agitate the most practised speaker. Among reasonable expectations, it might have been presumed that a new tragedy, by Jephson, would have aided, or been aided by, the great tragic strength of Drury Lane Theatre ; but it was cut short in the commencement of its career by Kem- ble's illness ; and, the next season, was never heard of until the 11th of December, when Wroughton supported the character which Palmer had given up for his Royalty management. The injury done to this beautiful effort, by interruptions of many kinds, required a philosophy at least on a par with the author's poetry. Although Smith had the full merit of bringing Mrs. Jordan to Drury Lane theatre, and enjoyed THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 121 her popularity for a variety of reasons, he yet, as an actor, was not in the least strengthened by her talents — they did not act in the same pieces. There can be no doubt that Smith's retirement was has- tened by the predominance of Mrs. Siddons and her brother. The usage of the theatre did not al- low such an actor as Smith to be divested of the business he had been engaged to sustain ; and Mr. Kemble had at least calmness enough not to ex- press any impatience for the tragic sceptre, which he was sure to receive at no distant day. On the 10th of March, 1788, Smith took his last benefit, and himself acted Macbeth to the Lady of Mrs. Siddons, Kemble performing Macduff, and dispatching his great rival from the mimic world. He spoke an address, in which he announced his retirement to a country life, and the sports of the field and the turf, to which he had through life been always strongly addicted. The habit of acting in our great towns during the race weeks, has given to our actors, pretty generally, a love for the course, and many of them pique themselves upon never missing such things. Kemble is the only great actor who never talked to me of a " gallop after the 122 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. hounds," and it was not till late in life that he be- came a horseman. There was " further compliment of leave-taking" between Smith and the public, on the 10th of June, when he acted the last time for the property. He had been five and thirty years before the town, and had kept up a friendly intercourse with Garrick, whom he sometimes irritated, always reverenced, and constantly studied. They both loved money, and disputed, even to separation, about pounds or guineas, in the weekly salary. Smith had been educated at college,* and lived in the best society ; his correspondence with his great master is fre- quently graced by quotations from Ovid and Virgil; * While Smith was at Eton, Dr. Sumner came suddenly upon the scholars at their play, and the troop took flight, calling out — "Away! here's Sumner." Smith not chusing to run, was thus addressed by the Doctor : "Is that a proper mode of mentioning me ? ' Here's Sumner coming ! ' Surely, it be- came you to say Doctor Sumner.' ' Smith, very submissively, disclaimed the remotest notion of disrespect, and added, as a scholar, the classical vindication of the abruptness complained of. " When the Romans saw Caesar approaching, they did not sav, here comes Impekator Caesar, but, Ca?sar comes." THIS LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 123 and Catullus and Mrs. Hartley concur in remind- ing the manager of his own attachment to Mrs. WofHngton. He would often beg from Mr. Gar- rick, an hour's attention to his rehearsals, but I never could see that he had profited by the teacher, for his tragedy was uniformly hard and unvaried, whereas the very vital principle of Roscius was point, and he could no more endure a character set to one tune, than he coidd bear the slightest inat- tention to the stage business. Smith's heroes in tragedy, all, more or less, reminded you of Baja- zet — it was the tyrant's vein that he breathed ; he looked upon tragedy to be something abstract, to which all character was to bend ; so that he had but one manner for Richard and Hamlet. But his nerve and gentlemanly bearing carried him through a world of emotion without exciting a tear, and you were some way satisfied, though " not much moved." In comedy, his manliness was the chief feature, yet it was combined with pleasantry, so perfectly well-bred, that I am unable to name any other actors who have approached him. If they had the pleasantry, they wanted the manliness ; where there was man enough about them, either 124 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the pleasantry was wanting, or the manliness checked the pleasantry. Lewis had the pleasantry, but carried to riot, and the manliness, though swelling up to the braggart. Bensley and Aikin were both manly ; but for pleasantry, alas ! it be- came satire in passing their lips. I never laughed with Bensley but once, and then he represented Mal- volio, in which, I thought him perfection. Bensley had been a soldier, yet his stage walk eternally reminded you of the " one, two, three, hop," of the dancing-master ; this scientific progress of legs, in yellow stockings, most villainously cross-gar- tered, with a horrible laugh of ugly conceit to top the whole, rendered him Shakspeare's Malvolio at all points. Mrs. Jordan had now an opportunity of seeing at Covent Garden the great actress of her early days in Ireland, to whom her mother had acted the first Constantia in the Chances, and whom the best judges had pronounced to be the greatest mistress of her art. But the only fine lady of comedy was now grown lusty ; and her humour, like the gaiety of the mature at a festival, was endured rather than enjoyed, because there had been a day when it was THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 125 more suited to the person. The Romp saw, how- ever, what the style had been in its meridian, and that it by no means suited her own powers ; nature had done at least as much for one as art had done for the other ; and who, beside, was ever great by imitation ? Yet she thought she saw enough, if she herself should ever assume the fashionable fair, to keep her quite clear of the mincing manner of Miss Farren, who, in Lady Teazle, was absolutely made to laugh at her own mode of utterance ; in other words, exemplify the ridicule by the natural manner as much as the mimicry. The business of the Royalty theatre having been settled by the interest of the winter patentees, Mrs. Jordan was benefitted in her Viola, by the return of the penitent Palmer to Drury and Sir Toby. I have, in " The Life of Kemble," told the tale of his " insidious humility," and, therefore, will not repeat it here ; but barely state, that on the meet- ing between Sheridan and himself, Palmer addressed him so exactly in the style of Joseph Surface, that the witty author stopped him by exclaiming — " Why, Jack, you forget 1 wrote it." Satisfied with his ioke, he added three pounds per week to 126 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the salary of the wanderer. As far as the public is concerned, patent rights are justifiable, when, by the engagement of responsible persons, they pro- duce a perfect and becoming amusement for the world about them. But whenever new worlds start up at a great distance, they have an equal right to be amused, and within their own neighbourhoods. The population should be the measure, and not the patentees. It was on Friday, the 2nd of May, 1788, that Mrs. Jordan, for her own benefit, challenged the fame of Mrs. Wofnngton, in the unequalled gaiety of Farquhar's Sir Harry Wildair. When Cibber wrote his sprightly comedy of She ivould and she would not, in the year 1703, he made his Hypolita assume the male disguise, and be as like as he could make her to Sir Harry Wildair, in the Constant Cou- j)le, which had appeared at the same theatre, Drury Lane, three years before. The character of Sir Harry has the advantage in point of dialogue. The talent of Farquhar, for comedy, was astonishing. The timidity which forbad him to act himself, never mo- derated in the least his conceptions for others, and he placed his actors, at every step they took, upon THE LIFE OF MllS. JORDAN. 127 the very verge of danger. Wilks was the original performer of this jubilee of youthful fashion ; and it requires the very highest captivations to render it bearable. When Woffington took it up, she did what she was not aware of, namely, that the audi- ence permitted the actress to purify the character, and enjoyed the language from a woman, which might have disgusted from a man speaking before women — as I have heard spoiled children com- mended, for what would, a few years after, shut them out of the room if they ventured so far. No, Mrs. Woffington, in spite of Quin's joke, upon your supposing that " half the house took you for a man," — I am convinced that no creature there supposed it for a moment: it was the travesty, seen throughout, that really constituted the charm of your performance, and rendered it not only gay, but innocent. And thus it was with Mrs. Jordan, who, however beautiful in her figure, stood con- fessed a perfect and decided woman ; and courted, and intrigued, and quarrelled, and cudgelled, in whimsical imitation of the ruder man. I remember her well on this night of laughter, charmingly dressed and provokingly at ease, in 128 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. situations, which, unaided by wine, few men view without embarrassment. Accordingly, no doubt, either Wilks or Lewis was the more perfect repre- sentative of Wildair ; but neither of them afforded such delight as the two female rakes, who were loved for their own sakes, while laughed at for ours. I need only notice the shouts of applause that fol- lowed Mrs. Jordan's dilemma, and exit in the fifth act. " Here I am brought to a very pretty dilemma. I must commit murder, or commit matrimony ; which is the best now ? a licence from Doctors Commons, or a sentence from the Old Bailey ? — If I kill my man, the law hangs me ; if I marry my woman, I shall hang myself — but, damn it, cowards dare fight ; I'll marry, that's the most daring action of the two." — [Exit.] There was something in Mrs. Jordan which was fairly unaccountable. She was nervous in the theatre, and even at the wing before she came on ; — once before the audience, she could do any thing. As the leading male of the comedy, at its close, she resolved to do all the honours. She stepped be- fore the curtain to the lamps, and gave out the play THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 129 for the next night ; she then announced, with great impression, the play of All for Love, for the Mon- day, and, with deliberate respect, pronounced the words, " being for the benefit of Mistress Siddons." It took the audience by surprise ; but they felt the kindness soon, and applauded it, when, without making Peggy's mistake in her male attire, she bowed profoundly, and hurried up to her dressing- room, to prepare for Matilda, in Richard Coeur de Lion. Before we are called away from the Constant Couple, it may be proper to notice the remark of Steele in the Tatler upon its dialogue. It occurs in No. 19 of those papers. " This performance is the greatest instance we can have of the irresistible force of proper action. The dialogue in itself has something too low to bear a criticism upon it ; but Mr. Wilks enters into the part with so much skill, that the gallantry, the youth, and gaiety of a young man of plentiful for- tune is looked upon with as much indulgence on the stage as in real life, without any of those in- termixtures of wit and humour which usually pre- VOL. I. K 130 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. possess us in favour of such characters in other plays." The above passage is a proof how inconsiderate- ly men of genius sometimes write, to serve a parti- cular purpose. Here Wilks was to carry the whole play upon his back, and the creator of the charac- ter he acted was to be a nullity in his own work. " The dialogue in itself has something too low to bear criticism." It is the language, however, the only language, by which Wilks was to convey the gallantry and gaiety, which we will admit, sat ad- mirably well upon that graceful man. The dia- logue loiv, indeed ! All the characters are not Bevils, but they have conversation language suited to their qualities and purposes. " Bear criticism!" Did Steele read what he has written ? What did his friend Addison think of the slip-slop which fol- lows ? " The gallantry, the youth and gaiety of a young man" — and these qualities " is looked upon," and " Mr. Wilks enters into the part" — What part ? and how far are we to try back for the ante- cedent? But all this is carelessness, it will be said : — the critic, who is unjust in his censures, THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 131 should at least be correct in his language. " With- out intermixtures of wit and humour" the play may be ; for these are not infusions into the composi- tion, but the characteristics of it. To quote in- stances would be to transcribe whole scenes. I am unacquainted with a writer of domestic co- medy entitled to higher praise than Farquhar may claim from his countrymen — and even now, do but act his plays with the respectable talent that still may be collected among us, and Congreve himself, in spite of his elaborate wit, will have no chance with him. Mrs. Jordan did not, in the mode of great ac- tresses, desert the theatre the moment she had secured her benefit ; she acted with them in both play and farce, on the 13th of June, the last night of the season. The King, accompanied by his family, this sum- mer paid a visit to Cheltenham. He very fre- quently rode out in the wet, and probably here ori- ginated that tendency to fever that was soon after to alarm the nation, and originate the question as to the regency, so furiously contested, and so tri- umphantly carried by Mr. Pitt. k 2 132 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Mrs. Jordan arrived there during the stay of their Majesties, and was hardly less welcome to her host of admirers at Cheltenham. In the re- cess I shall examine how our great comedian was likely to be affected by the schism in Drury Lane theatre. As far as she could feel interested about the management, it may be supposed that her wishes pointed to a comic rather than a serious management of the concern ; but King, from long habit, was more attached to Miss Farren than herself; and indeed her performance of the fine lady, however inferior, critically speaking, to what Mrs. Abington had been, was both nearer to the fashionable woman of her day, and greatly superior to any thing that could be found in either town or country. Lord Derby and the party too supported her with no barren admiration ; and she might, therefore, be an object of particular favour with the manager, from interest as well as habit, perhaps also preference. The style of King was always hard, precise, and pointed — he converted every thing into epigram, and certainly never himself yielded to luxuriant fancy, in the manner of Jordan, one of whose laughs would disconcert the most laboured THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 133 efforts of sententious delivery. The old school, as they called themselves, kept together by choice; for Bannister, in fact, as little resembled them as Jordan ; and she would have been better with the comic actors, of whom Munden was the head than any other, as sharing with her in the full flow of voluptuous humour. Mrs. Jordan would be likely now to know some of the secrets of the prison house. She saw that the retirement of Smith strengthened Mr. Kemble so materially that the concern mainly depended upon him ; and the patentees might secretly smile at the petulance of King, who attached too much importance to his ministry, and might have been satisfied with the mere stage management, which, in truth, was the extent of his competence. They bore with his threats of abdication through the summer, sounding Mr. Kemble as to the power that he would expect in the situation, if he accept- ed it ; and the recess passed away in talking idly, and doing nothing for the ensuing season. At length King, seeing that the die was cast, chose to desert the standard and appeal to the public ; a very unwise measure, and intended to do mischief. 134 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. The newspapers had got their lesson, and, on the hint from the property, attacked King, then at the distance of two hundred miles from London. They affected to regret his loss as an actor, but as a ma- nager they thought neither the proprietors nor the public could lament his absence. He turns these points very neatly in his favour, by a reply, such as he used of old to venture to his friend Garrick, when they differed. " This paragraph," he writes, " I cannot but consider as highly complimentary ; for it gives me positive commendation in the line I undertook to fill, and only obliquely censures me for not making the most of a character with which I have never been entrusted." The newspapers boldly accused him of demand- ing, beyond his salary, a thousand pounds a year for managing for the seven next years. King gets rid of this by saying that " the quantum of money had never been an object of dispute." His com- plaints, he affirms, rested chiefly on the undefined office in which he had found himself; which sub- jected him to be called to account by authors for not acting pieces which he had never heard of; — THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 135 for not encouraging performers with whom he had no power to treat ; and for the want of novelty which it was no part of his province to provide. He becomes pleasant as he proceeds: " Should any one, upon hearing this, ask me, ' what vms my post at Drury Lane, and, if I was not manager, who was?' 1 should be forced to answer, like my friend Atall, in the comedy — to the first, / don't know — and to the last, / can't tell — I can only once more positively assert that I was not manager; for I had not the power by any agreement, nor indeed had I the wish, to approve, or reject, any new dramatic work; the liberty of engaging, en- couraging, or discharging any one performer, — nor sufficient authority to command the cleaning of a coat, or adding, by way of decoration, a yard of copper lace ; both of which, it must be allowed, were often much wanted," This explanation of King's produced some ef- fect. Kemble being announced as manager, the town friends of King attacked him for accepting the trust upon humiliating conditions. Kemble was, to be sure, the last man in the world to be 136 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. suspected of doing so — for he certainly felt his own value, and at all times firmly asserted it. Though the writer of the accusation was that villain Ano- nymous, Kemble informed the public, rather than his assailant, " that no humiliation degraded his services to those who did him the honour to employ him ; and that the power entrusted to him was per- fectly satisfactory to his own feelings, and entirely adequate to the liberal encouragement of poets, of performers, and to the conduct of the whole busi- ness of the theatre." As it is usual in such cases, the politicians of the play-house split into parties. The one set looked upon the appointment as the herald of re- viving sense ; the other, as the devotion of the whole stage to the interests of the house of Kemble. But the truth was, his system of management was precisely that of Garrick, with a greater desire to see strength every where. He thought more of the ivhole than his great predecessor, whether from mo- desty or judgment. Garrick, knowing himself to be the Pit diamond, surrounded himself with foiL Kemble, less dazzling, formed a cluster of kindred THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 137 value about him. His scheme of management was a good play and farce, well sorted, and strict regu- larity in every part of the concern. Yet, from the first hour of his management, I can, of my own knowledge, assert, that he did nothing without the permission of Mr. Sheridan. 138 CHAPTER VTI. Kemble's management from October 1788 — The Panel, for Mrs. Jordan — Beatrice and her gown — Her performance in the Confederacy — Her Rosalind somewhat divides the town — Whether the sprightliness or the sensibility should predomi- nate ? — Perhaps the truer Rosalind, if Shakspeare were to decide — Her Nell, in the Devil to Pay — Moody, in Jobson — Mrs. Jordan's opinion of her own art — Her aspiration after the fine lady — Mr. Cumberland writes for Mrs. Jordan — His comedy of the Impostors, a hurried composition, while writing Calvary — The Farm House, Mrs. Jordan's Country Lass — In the summer of 1789, Edwin engaged her at Rich- mond — The King's illness, commenced at Cheltenham, when Mrs. Jordan was there — The question of the Regency — Display of Burke — His vehement dexterity — King's reco- very, sympathy of the Stage — Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox — The Drawing-room — The Opera- house destroyed by fire — The French Revolution. The season of 1788-9 commenced in the usual way, the routine of the last season. Through the whole month of October Mrs. Jordan had very little rest; and performed in both pieces with untiring THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 13(i zeal and great attraction. Kemble had not been inattentive to her, for he had found time to make a capital addition to her stock of after-pieces, by- cutting down a comedy of BickerstafFs, (taken from Calderon,) and called by him, 'Tis well it's no Worse. Kemble named his farce, however, the Panel, and I believe he was right ; for the spec- tators love to be in the secret, while the actors are in the dark, and really enjoy a trick the more be- cause it is none to them. Whoever heard Mrs. Jordan in Beatrice, reiterating her charge upon La- zarillo, that " he certainly stole her gown," in this farce, had a lesson of comic utterance which he would never either forget or equal. Vanbrugh's Confederacy, also, was to receive a Corinna fully equal to any representative of the character since the year 1705. Her Rosalind, in As You Like it, for her benefit, somewhat divided the town, and the lovers of the sentimental and the humorous were arranged under the standards of Siddons and Jor- dan. It seemed to me that your mood determined the preference at the time. If we refer ourselves to Shakspeare, who, in all reason, ought to deter- mine on a matter so entirely his own, perhaps Ro- 140 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. salind ought to excite laughter. She seems a being of such natural sprightliness, that it is hardly an effort for her to put down every thing by her wit. She assumes the style of a saucy forester, and the dress of a boy, forest-born ; but the will cannot give the power for the occasion, in the degree she possesses of it : — think of such an impromptu, for example, as the costume of a lover — the different paces of time — her dissection of Jaques, and de- claration, as it seems, of her real, not assumed, advice: " I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad, and to travel for it too." Then, again, the broad sally upon the tardy Orlando — " Break an hour's promise in love ? he that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thou- sandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him, that Cupid hath clapt him o' th' shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole." Think too, of the snail, his jointure and his des- tiny. But the natural buoyancy of Rosalind is in- cessant, and her wit inexhaustible. She "met the banished Duke, her father, yesterday, and had much TItEL LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 141 question with him." — Do his losses, his sufferings, the very circumstance of his not detecting her, at all soften her mind ? No ; she is able to divert her- self even at such a moment. " He ask'd me of what parentage I was; I told him of as good as he; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?" Beside, therefore, the adaptation of her figure to the moonish youth, I can have no doubt that her peculiar animal spirits rendered her the truer Rosa- lind. She sometimes rather carried a "fore-hand shaft" too home perhaps ; but acting should not be moulded to the sickly appetite: to excite the honest sincere, hearty laugh of the healthful, is the ge- nuine praise, and should be the aim of the true co- median. We should remember too, that to render all this comic power its very fullest effect, she acted upon a stage of very moderate compass, and in a theatre that would not hold more than 350/., place your audience ever so close to each other — that she was at the time not more than two and twenty, of great activity and neatness, and really the darling of the public. To speak of her Nell, in the Devil to Pay, which she acted after Rosalind, is unneces- 142 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sary ; those who have seen it will laugh at the very word ; those who have not may rest satisfied that every succeeding performer of the part will pre- serve some of her naivete, with such powers as they can bring to the competition. There was a dry sluggish determination about Moody, that rendered his strap very efficient. His manner was peculiar, but he was a valuable actor, and most respectable man. It is whimsical in such an actress as Mrs. Jordan, to long for the honours of polite comedy ; and con- tent herself with a titter among the spectators, in- stead of the convulsive roar of laughter that fol- lowed the genuine workings of nature within her. The secret of her charm, as she told a friend, was that, "when she had mastered the language of a part, she said to Dame Nature, my head, hands, feet, and every member about me, are at your com- mandment," and the bountiful goddess gave her no farther trouble with the business. But the fine lady is a being of art, and I suppose must be left to the mode which fashioned her. I should have devoted all the Lady Bells to Miss Farren, with- out a wish for the flutter of the fan, or the agony THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 143 of the drawing-room curtesy ; but it was her foible, and managers took care that she should not stretch such pretensions too far. I will admit that it may cross the deliberation of an actress, that a time will arrive, when age, or perhaps, still more un- luckily, figure, may somewhat clash with the per- formance of the Romp ; and that the importance can only be kept by varying the business of the scene. But I think it rarely happens that equal celebrity is gained in a second line. The excel- lence that captivates at first, takes so strong a hold, that even the character she first appeared in, is preferred to every other, even to the very last of the actress. Clive said that the town would pre- fer Garrick and herself, at eighty, to all the youth of the theatre. I believe they justified her opinion of their good taste. I have hitherto lamented that no one, with pow- ers adequate to the task, had undertaken to write for Mrs. Jordan ; and I drew the limits, I think, accurately, (and they were sufficiently extensive) within which an author of genius would be sure to meet with the happiest aid from her talents. Mr. Cumberland was unquestionably a writer of 144 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. great powers ; but he was unfortunately too soon satisfied with his easy conceptions, and too little careful to keep the species of his different compo- sitions distinct. He thus imposed a double diffi- culty upon his muse, and one work was unavoid- ably injurious to the other. He wrote a novel and a comedy together; and recruited his exhausted spirits by dreaming of an epic poem. He amused himself with such trifles at a watering place ; and could not be astonished if they partook of the idle air of such resorts, and like their other amuse- ments, were things to be forgotten. But a drama- tic mind will always do something. Cumberland did not try to produce a School for Scandal : — " For though the poet's matter nature be, His art must give the fashion. And, that he, Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muse's anvil." However, he had devoted a few days to the com- position of two female characters in full contrast, and these he destined for Mrs. Jordan and Miss Pope, who were to be assailed by two adventurers, called, instead of Aimwell and Archer, Lord Janus • THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 145 and Polycarp. The latter, I presume, so styled, as fruitful in stratagems. Miss Pope as the Deborah Sapient had all the novel attributes of antiquated virginity to fancy; for in her own person she had none of them, but she feigned the thing she was not, and disputed the palm of fine acting with Jordan, who, as Miss Eleanor, pretended the sim- plicity that she was far above, and displayed both sense and sensibility of no common sort. Cumber- land here committed an error in which he had many to participate, even " The greatest and the best of all the train, " Shakspeare." Like the Merchant of Venice, the Impostors ended in the fourth act, and the fifth was made up of such matter as the different fertility of the two poets could supply ; in Shakspeare by the two rings of Portia and Nerissa, and in Cumberland by inci- dents, also anticipated by the audience, but loaded by useless talk, and not like the hors tVceuvre of Shakspeare, sportive, fanciful, and diverting. The epilogue was in better taste, and did not spare even the author, for the following couplets often applied to him. VOL. I. L 146 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " But what is one poor puff of his own making When all around him the wild waves are breaking ? Plung'd in the gulf, like Ceyx, still he raves, Murmuring his own applause beneath the waves.* The conclusion was personal as to the speaker, and enumerated her wide range of utility very plea- santly and pertinently. " For me, tho' poets various arts employ To make me wife, maid, widow, man, and boy ; Yet all this while there's but one thing in nature I truly aim to be — your faithful creature : Here I'm at home ; this is my natural part ; This character flows freely from my heart." Mrs. Jordan acted beautifully in this comedy, but it was too weak to be long lived. After the first night it waited till the 4th of February for the second, and closed its career on the sixth, when neither author nor manager expected further profit from it. As this author seldom suspected the real cause of his failure, he might not be quite content with what satisfied every body else. It is certain that he only once mentions Mrs. Jordan in his rae- * " Nominal Halcyonen, ipsisque immurmurat undis." Met am. xi. 5G7. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 147 moirs, and merely names the play in his progress to Calvary. Mr. Kemble again employed his pruning knife for Mrs. Jordan, and cut down the old Country Lasses of Charles Johnson, to an entertainment in two acts, called the Farm House. Her Aura was extremely diverting, and the farce augmented the stock-list of very attractive afterpieces at Drury Lane theatre. In the summer Edwin opened the Richmond theatre, and announced Mrs. Jordan in an occa^ sional prologue, of which the poetry was not ex- traordinary, but it describes plainly enough the po^ pularity of the charmer, and, therefore, a few lines of it may be pardoned for one accuracy — I don't mean that of rhyme. " My next vast merit I must have a word on, Ecod! d'ye know — I've got you Mistress Jordam" And then he notices her leg, her ankle, foot, and promises the girls " a kiss of Sir Harry !" When I read the fishy exclamation which is printed in italics, I wonder that the licenser of George the Third should have had no sense of the pro- L 2 148 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. faneness which his more solemn successor, the author of Broad Grins, would now surely blot, in virtue of his oath. He actually struck out that positive truism Cod's fish, in a modern farce ; I suppose upon the authority of Hamlet. " All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down." But he owes the world nothing, on the score of pleasantry, at all events. The long and melancholy illness of the King, which originated, most probably, at Cheltenham, hung heavily upon the theatres for the greater part of the season. The stage, however, would not, in Johnson's language, " echo back the public voice ;" and could not much mitigate the public grief. I feel little disposition to enter into the angry dis- cussions, in parliament, upon the subject of the Regency, but a few points in the controversy, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, claim to be remem- bered for their neatness, when the grave has si- lenced the angry feelings of genius which produced them. Mr. Burke took the lead in such effusions. " He had heard of an idea entertained of divine right in the house of Stuart, but he had considered THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 149 it long exploded ; but of late it had returned un- expectedly upon us ; Lord Chandos having termed the Chancellor of the Exchequer a Heaven-born Minister. The right was, therefore, renewed upon earth, and only transferred from a King to a Mi- nister." In the same debate, being called to order by Mr. Pitt, and the intemperance of his language being sarcastically reproved, — he happily retorted, " That if he had expressed himself in the language of passion, it arose, not from a hastiness of temper, but from a deep consideration of the subject — he was pursuing the game of ambition itself, and, therefore, it was not unnatural to be a little ele- vated." Upon another occasion he used language that seemed indecorous, whatever might be thought of the proposition it laid down. He said — " The Almighty had been pleased to smite the Sovereign with his hand — he had hurled him from the throne, and put him in the condition of the meanest pea- sant in the country." The Marquis of Graham called him to order, and was about to move that his words be taken down, when Burke interrupted 150 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. him by a sentence, that at once softened the inde- corum, and fired his envenomed arrow into the bo- som of the House itself. ' ' The lamented situation of the Sovereign was not the act of the House, but the will of the Divinity ! but depriving his blood, the Prince of Wales, from the full inheritance of his authority, was an act of that House." How exactly did Burke, in his own person, ex- emplify the course he himself had ascribed to Ju- nius. " He has carried away our royal eagle in his pounces, and dashed him against a rock ; but while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both houses of parliament ; yes, he did make you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage." It did not suit Mr. Burke to see that the present question was of a trust, not an inheritance ; and they who entrust are the only judges of the quan- tum of power they may choose to delegate — all limitation implies unwillingness to trust beyond the absolute necessity of the case. We do not make laws to insult our imperfect nature, but to restrain THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 151 it against possible error or guilt. They who sup- pose Pitt would have been more complaisant, had his office been secure, do not know the man. His father, in such a case, might have bowed to a re- gent ; the son, less impetuous, was more indepen- dent ; he was a calmer spirit of equal pride. It is impossible, in going through the business of a theatre for any time, to be insensible to the greater interests without. All that I can hope is, that the diversification afforded by such topics oc- casionally, or some points of taste, or personality in the anecdotes, may atone for the digressions, if they be such. The recovery of the King from his alarming in- disposition had literally rendered the country, if not wild, extremely elevated in their joy, and a series of drawing-rooms and public entertainments, given by the foreign ministers and the members of the Royal Family, at which their Majesties were pre- sent, testified amply that the recovery was no simu- lated appearance, but an absolute fact ; and I cannot doubt that the late furious conduct of the Oppo- sition, so little governed by the doctrines which they had long upheld, had rendered them unpopular 152 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. to a degree beyond even the expectations of the minister, whose conduct had elevated him in the esteem of his royal master ; contrary to the pre- dictions of the supporters of the Prince's claims to a virtual inheritance of the royal powers. While matters were in this state, an occurrence happened which threw a damp, in some measure, upon the brilliant pleasures of the time. On the field-day of the Coldstream regiment of Guards, the 15th of May, the Hon. Col. Lennox addressed himself (I cannot but think improperly) to his Colonel, H. R. H. the Duke of York, requesting to know whether his Royal Highness had said, " that he (Col. Lennox) had put up with language unfit for any gentleman to bear ?" The Duke, of course, at such a time, made no answer to the question, but ordered the Colonel to his post. As soon* as the field-day was over, his Royal High- ness desired the attendance of all the Officers in the orderly-room, where he called upon Col. L. to state his complaint. When he had done so, the Duke acknowledged that he had heard impro- per language had been put up with by the Colo- nel ; the precise words he declined to repeat, and THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 153 upon being pressed as to the author, the Duke said, " Colonel Lennox might consider him as an officer of the regiment, and call upon him whenever he pleased." This opinion, the Duke said, he had himself heard given by a member at Daubigny's club, whom, however, he would not name, and Colonel Lennox wrote individually to all the members of the club, and obtained no satisfactory answer. This, conse- quently, made the matter the Duke's own, who willingly consented to give the satisfaction de- manded on the part of the Colonel ; and a meeting took place between the parties on the 26th, at Wimbledon, a convenient distance, and one re- sorted to by the higher class of disputants ; Lord Rawdon was the Duke's second, Lord Winchilsea Col. Lennox's. It ended in a shot from the Colo- nel, which struck the Duke's curl, who, declining to return the fire, the matter dropped ; his Royal Highness refusing to give any other sort of satis- faction, or admitting even that he now considered either the honour or the courage of the Colonel established. The truth is, that, as to personal bravery, there could not be a question. Lennox 154 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. was a good-tempered, careless man, and might not go to a club-room with a porcupine's fretfulness about him, and his quills ready to challenge every smile in his company. But I consider the affair at Wimbledon, how T ever impolitic, because the danger as to the parties was unequal, to have been one of the bravest things in the world. Had the ball taken effect one inch from its course, Lennox could not have lived in this country the remainder of his existence. My friend Reynolds, in his very entertaining life, tells us that on the very morning of the duel, being at Lord's Cricket Ground, he saw, cricketvlly speaking, " standing out" in the Long Field, Lord Winchilsea and Colonel Lennox, both of whom seemed wholly occupied by their game. Lord Winchilsea must have retired from this plea- santer field, to pen the account of the duel in con- cert with Lord Rawdon, for it was inserted next day in the newspapers. But Colonel Lennox did not abstain from any of his usual habits on account of his difference with royalty, and I do his Royal Highness the Duke the justice to say, that he per- sonally took no kind of exception at his doing so. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 155 He readily consented to any thing that might relieve Colonel Lennox from his present embar- rassing situation. Accordingly, after a military convention of the Coldstream, in the orderly-room, and a deliberation of two days, the officers came to the following decision. " It is the opinion of the regiment, that, subsequent to the 15th of May, Lieutenant-Colonel Lennox has behaved with cou- rage ; but from the peculiarity of the circum- stances, not with judgment." His judgment may, perhaps, be still more ques- tionable on the following point. On the 4th of June, the King's birthday, he absolutely presented himself at court, and stood up with Lady Catha- rine Barnard. The Prince of Wales did not see this until he and his partner, the Princess Royal, came to Mr. Lennox's place in the dance, when, struck with the incongruity, he took the Princess's hand just as she was about to be turned by Mr. Lennox, and led her to the bottom of the dance. The Duke of York and the Princess Augusta came next, and they turned the Colonel without tl^e least particularity or exception The 156 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Duke of Clarence and the Princess Elizabeth came next, and his Highness followed the example of the Prince of Wales. The dance proceeded, however, and Colonel Lennox and his lovely partner danced down ; when they came to the Prince and Princess, his Royal Highness took his sister, and led her to her chair hy the Queen. Her Majesty, addressing herself to the Prince of Wales, said, " You seem heated, sir, and tired." "I am heated and tired, madam, said the Prince, " not with the dance, but tired of dancing in such com- pany." " Then, sir," said the Queen, " it will be better for me to withdraw, and put an end to the ball." " It certainly will be so," replied the Prince, "for I never will countenance insults given to my family, however they may be treated by others." At the end of the dance, accordingly, her Majesty and the Princesses withdrew, and the ball concluded. The Prince, with his natural gallantry, explained to Lady Catharine Barnard the reason of his conduct, and assured her Ladyship that it gave him much pain to have been under the necessity of acting in a manner TH2 LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 157 that might subject a lady to a moment's embar- rassment. Thus, with a single country-dance, ended the ball at St. James's on his Majesty's birthday, from which he had determined so wisely to be absent ; and thus, in the language of Voltaire, toute fut consterne' dans le plus agreable des chateaux pos- sibles. The Opera House had been designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, and was finished in the year 1706. Its success, at first, was so very equivocal, that when Nicolini and Valentina were sent for from Italy, the following classical epigram was levelled at the concern. " To emulate Amphion's praise, Two Latian heroes come, A sinking theatre to raise, And prop Van's tottering dome. But how this last should come to pass, Must still remain unknown, Since these poor gentlemen, alas ! Bring neither brick nor stone." I was coming across the Park from Pimlico, on 15S THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. on the night of the 17th of June, when, upon turn- ing the corner of the Queen's house, this dreadful conflagration burst upon my eye — it seemed as if the long lines of trees in the Mall were waving in an atmosphere of flame. The fire appears to have commenced in the roof, and the demonstration to have taken place rather earlier than the incendiary had calculated. The dancers had been rehearsing a ballet upon the stage that evening, and sparks of fire fell upon their heads, and in great terror they effected their escape. Madame Ravelli was with great difficulty saved by a fireman. Madame Gui- mard lost a slipper, but her feet, as they ever did, bore her safely. There never was the least doubt in the world, that the malignity of some foreign miscreant had systematically effected the destruction of the build- ing : the whole roof was in combustion at one mo- ment — a cloud of heavy smoke, for a few seconds, hung over the building, succeeded by a volume of flames, so fierce that they were felt in St. James's Square, and so bright that you might have read by them as at noon day. A very excellent artist, who THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 159 had been many years connected with the Opera House, told me that Carnevale, upon his death-bed, revealed the name of the incendiary. As was customary in those days, the Bridewell boys served their great engine with the vigour of youth and the calm sagacity of veterans. Burke might have come out of Carlton House ; he was standing before it, and anxiously directing the at- tention of the firemen to its preservation. Mr. Vanbrugh, a descendant of Sir John, was in the greatest peril of all the sufferers — he had an annu- ity of eight hundred pounds, secured upon the building. Some houses in Market Lane, the usual rubbish about a theatre, were destroyed along with the Opera House. The stables of the White- horse Inn also were a prey to the flames ; and at the back of the ruin, the fire was burning even fiercely, though low, at twelve o'clock the next day. The books of the theatre were saved, so was the chest, in which there was about eight hundred pounds ; and this was nearly all that was preserved. Never was devastation more complete. However, Novosielsky erected, upon the old 160 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. site, a theatre really suited to the object, ad- mirably calculated for sound ; and afforded that magnificent refuge to the Drury Lane company, which perhaps, disposed both our managers to erect playhouses which were fit for nothing but operas. But we were fallen upon days in which such a mischief as the above was a trifle, injuring a few individuals at most, and reparable by their own ingenuity and enterprise, with the ready benevolence of those who have charity far beyond their plea- sures. France now began to wear an appear- ance, which, to the intelligent, indicated a con- vulsion transcending all that fiction had ever ima- srined : — e " More than history could pattern, though devis'd, And play'd, to take spectators." The affliction and recovery of our own monarch, were rapidly followed by the insult, the degrada- tion, the captivity, and the sacrifice of his great rival ; and the stage, which had poured out its song of triumph on the first theme, was soon to THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 161 display its puny imitation of the terrors and vic- tories of the second — to discover freedom in the excesses of a hired rabble, and the regeneration of the human race in a government without balance, in which parties immolated each other in succession ; and any opinions held beyond the ascendant of the hour, exposed the venerable and the wise, the vir- tuous and the beautiful, to the pike of the assassin, or the equally thirsty axe of the guillotine. Such exhibitions of the stage require tact rather than talent ; the writers keep up the madness of the hour, and are hardly named when it is past. Any attempt at composition would be ridiculous, and useless if it were made ; happier in one thing than the events they celebrate, that the dramas may be forgotten with pleasure, and the subjects of them are held in constant and painful remem- brance. # * After all the horrible excesses of the revolutionary mania had passed away, and the vast talents of Buonaparte had re- duced the discordant elements to subjection ; when the Bour- bons had revisited and occupied their ancient throne, and a charter had been consecrated, which seemingly established them for ages ; a childish invasion of representative rights and VOL. I. M 162 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the freedom of the press, has driven Charles the Tenth and his family once more into exile, and stained his brief annals with the blood of his people, unnecessarily and wantonly shed. But Napoleon had pardoned the Polignacs, who were in his power ! August, 1830. 163 CHAPTER VIII. The summer of 17S9 — Tate Wilkinson's benefit at Leeds, Mrs. Jordan arrives to act for him — The Yorkshire prudery — Mrs. Jordan at Harrowgate on her way to join Mr. Jackson at Edinburgh — Mrs. Siddons at York — Mary, Queen of Scots — Mrs. Fawcett's compliment to her — Mrs. Siddons prefers to act in London, and why — Mrs. Jordan and Miss Farren in the same places — The Prince of Wales — Miss Catley's death — The Two Gentlemen of Verona idly revived — Mrs. Jordan's first appearance at Drury Lane this season, so late as February, I 790 — Mr. Kemble engages her brother, Bland — He acts Sebastian to her Viola — Mrs. Behn's Rover altered by Mr. Kemble — Jordan and Woffington in Hellena — Young Bannister — His character through life — Morris's Adventurers — Mrs. Jordan's Little Pickle — The Spoil 7/ Child called her own, perhaps Bickcrstaff's — The Intriguing Cham- bermaid — Better late than Never — Mrs. Jordan the heroine — Munden comes to town from Chester — Mrs. Jordan plays Celia in the Humorous Lieutenant of Fletcher — Beauties of that character — Her alarming Epilogue by Harry Bunbury — Summer of 1791, a journey to York — Kemble vice Jordan. Mrs. Jordan, in the summer of 1789, took her usual northern tour ; and her old manager, Tate Wilkinson, having been crippled by accident, re- ceived a letter from her, to tell him that she would m 2 164 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. act at Leeds for his benefit, and appointing the play and farce. We are here furnished with a lively instance of her power of sustaining fatigue. The night fixed upon was Monday, the 6th of July, and at two o'clock of that day Mrs. Jordan was not arrived. The manager in distress had put off his benefit until the Wednesday; but at half-past four on the Monday, she sent him word that she was just arrived, and ready to act Sir Harry Wildair and Nell on that very evening, and was quite astonished to see the play changed. She had come post from London, and was in the family- way very obviously ; — the play not having been done at the theatre a long time, needed rehearsal. She told Tate, that if she did not act that night she could not play at all, for she was on the wing to Edin- burgh, with a 500Z. penalty to pay, if she did not arrive at the appointed time. By great persuasion she consented to stay till the Wednesday, but when he hinted at the gratis performance, she said that was now quite out of the question, her time was too valuable just then; if she staid she should be put to great inconvenience, and must have thirty guineas. However she agreed to accept THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 165 twenty, and stay the two days for her old friend; and on Wednesday astonished the precise ladies of Leeds with Sir Harry Wildair and his gallantries. The manager fancied the applause not so violent as she had been accustomed to in London, and sup- posed that the country ladies did not think Sir Harry's chastity improved by a female representa- tive. This fact I have already presumed to doubt; and as to the applause, the payment of twenty gui- neas, unwillingly, might make a lame man, with a doctor and apothecary at his elbow, turn a deaf ear to it. Nell, at all events, had none of Farquhar's freedom to restrain the thunder of applause. It is dangerous to begin the habit of resting on a jour- ney, for upon leaving Leeds she reached Harrow- gate, only fourteen miles off, when a subscription purse from the company at the different hotels so strongly tempted her, that she agreed to recruit herself there for three or four days, and diversify the amusements of the devotees to sulphurated springs. But the penalty, which she had awaked at Leeds to operate upon Tate Wilkinson, was brought still nearer enforcement by her stay at Harrovvgate; and, on her arrival at Edinburgh, she 166 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. found Jackson seriously offended and disposed to litigation. When Mrs. Siddons was at York this summer, she put up for her benefit her friend St. John's tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots, which the sympa- thy of all ranks, rather than any genius in the play, rendered endurable. I mention it to notice a circumstance honourable to the taste and feeling of the first Mrs. Fawcett, a lady of great merit. The manager sent her the part of Elizabeth to study — her reply was remarkable : she said, " she would willingly incur the forfeit rather than act a character which she judged so ill-drawn;* and * I do not know whether Mrs. F. went historically to work in her objections, or whether she looked at the part of Eliza- beth merely as an actress. But St. John makes the death of Mary proceed immediately from the St. Bartholomew, an event at tliirteen years distance. Sir Amias Paulet too is exhibited as a savage gaoler in the play ; but his noble letter to Walsing- ham quite passed over. " I have great grief and bitterness of mind, that I have liven," says he, " to see this unhappy day, in the which I am required, by direction from my most gracious sovereign, to do an act, which God and the law forbiddeth." Evidently an order to make away with his royal prisoner. I THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 167 under any other actress than Mrs. Siddons, she would never consent to do it." Anything that could more happily mark that, with that great woman, all competition was out of the question, will not easily be found. With any other actress some equality in the parts might be a thing of con- sideration. As we have been led to mention Mrs. Siddons and the performance by her of the leading charac- ters in tragedy, let me just notice the preference she felt for London, and the reason for it. She explained herself thus to her friend, the York ma- suppose the hypocrite had provided for her own " clearance," like Macbeth, and had not the slightest fear of seeing the spirit of her murdered victim at any banquet given for her supposed success. Sir Dru Drury, though not named in the command, put his name to the reply. At the dreadful St. Bartholomew, the wretched Charles the Ninth was told by the governor of a fortress — " Sire I have communicated your orders to the gar- rison under my command ; I find in it many loyal subjects and brave soldiers, but not one executioner." I will not sully the humanity of our two countrymen by saying that they might con- ceive as much danger to reside in the compliance as resistance. This poor Davison the secretary experienced to his ruin. 168 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. nager. " Acting Isabella for instance," said she, " out of London is double the fatigue. There the loud and long applause, at the great points and striking situations, invigorated the system — the time it occupied recruited the breath and nerve. A cold, respectful, hard audience chills and deadens an actress, and throws her back upon herself; whereas the warmth of approbation confirms her in the character, and she kindles with the enthu- siasm she feels around her." Mrs. Jordan said the same thing of her York- shire audiences ; and, at one time, declared she never would act again among them. The courtly- style of Miss Farren suited them better : Lady Mil- ner used to sport the friend she so highly esteemed in the stage-box ; and she was this summer in the very highest vogue, for the Prince of Wales pa- tronised her ; and the effect of his decided taste made her receipts almost, for a few nights, emulate those of Mrs. Siddons herself, the greatest theatri- cal favourite that the country had ever known. The family of Catley coming from Yorkshire, I am reminded of the decease of a favourite of that name, the celebrated Anne Catley, whom I could THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 169 only know, when a visible decline was sapping the vital power, that bore her once triumphantly above all humorous singers. Miss Catley, was, I think, married to General Lascelles, and left a large family by him, four sons and four daughters — however her will was signed Anne Cateley, and was written entirely in her own hand. The good sense that she unquestion- ably possessed, appears eminently in the final settlement of her property. She makes General Francis Lascelles sole executor, and bequeaths him ten pounds for a mourning ring. The eldest of her four daughters at the time of her decease, was to have her wearing apparel, watch, trinkets, &c. as a distinction — in all other respects, the four sons and four daughters were to have equal shares at the age of twenty-one years ; and, until then, their shares were to be invested in the funds, and considered, as to the interest, applicable to their education. She had bought the house in which she died at Ealing for the daughters, and, as far as a provident parent could do, established them re- spectably. The probate called her property 5,000/. but this was far from being the whole of it. 170 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. There was in her personal character a good deal of the careless boldness of Woffington; like her too she was extremely handsome, and her eye and mouth had a peculiar expression of archness. She aimed at the almost manly frankness of speech, and acted as one superior to censure, when she raised the wonder of prudery. Catley had an understand- ing too sound to vindicate the indiscretions of her youth ; but her follies did not long survive that pe- riod, and she amply atoned in her maturity for the scandal she had excited formerly in society. There was a graceful propriety in her domestic concerns. She was never profuse, and could therefore be li- beral in all her arrangements. In her youth she had been acquainted with difficulties, and the les- son was ever present to her mind. Her ear was always open to the unhappy, and her hand was enabled by economy, to spare no scanty relief to strangers, without invading the provision she had destined for her family. In the great relations of life as a daughter, wife, mother, and friend, she was, on principle, steady and exemplary. Her com- plaint, a pulmonary consumption, had wasted her to a shade, anl it had lingered beyond the usual THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 171 term of that baneful, yet flattering pest. She was but forty-four at the time of her decease. There were many points of similarity between Mrs. Jor- dan and Miss Catley ; not that the former ever possessed the nerve or the prudence of the latter. I am sure that I seldom feel inclined to revoke at the suit of Shakspeare ; but I never could un- derstand Kemble's reason for evoking the Two Gen- tlemen of Verona from oblivion, in the month of January, 1790. If, in the administration of Garrick, with Holland and O'Brien, King and Yates, Miss Bride and Mrs. Yates, nothing came of this drama- tic nothing, what was to be expected from Wrough- ton and Barrymore, Bannister and Dodd, Mrs. Kemble and Mrs.Goodall? It has hardly sufficient interest for an Opera; for the soliloquy of Launce, coming on with his dog Crab to talk to the au- dience, is in the very lowest style of the booth, and surely never excited any considerable laughter. There is a prettiness in parts of the dialogue with- out nerve, hints of scenes that should have been elaborated by the poet, and of characters to which he afterwards added that giant strength which, 172 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. either in tragedy or comedy, he alone could infuse into dramatic nature. Mrs. Jordan did not appear this season at Drury Lane, until the 8th of February, 1790; so that in fact neither in tragedy nor comedy, could the ma- nager avail himself of his greatest force. He acted himself in a few monodramas, such as Henry the Fifth; and the happy start of the Storaces in opera, with Cobb and Prince Hoare, to furnish dialogue and point to the counterpoint of the composer, kept him alive until his comic muse returned, which he had at length the pleasure to see ; and the Country Girl in charming health, took her usual hold of the fashionable visitors and the public in general. To oblige Mrs. Jordan, Kemble found or made a situation for her brother, Mr. Bland, and he acted Sebastian, in Twelfth Night, to her Viola, combi- ning their natural with stage relationship. Per- haps he was personally more like her than a stran- ger to her blood ; and as in his figure he did not tower above the disguised sister, the mistake of one for the other, less offended the spectator's eye. But it was not in this family that the males shared THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 173 the genius of the females — that proud distinction, the " bountiful blind woman" reserved for the Kembles. On the 8th of March, Kemble revived Mrs. Behn's comedy of the Rover, which he called Love in many Masks, a confused and uninviting title ; but he had Mrs. Jordan for the successor of Woffington, in the part of Hellena, and Wilmore he acted him- self. Blunt, which had been performed by Shuter, lost nothing by being trusted to the whim of Ban- nister, an actor who now had established himself as the youthful eccentric of the middle comedy, and the hero of the eccentric farce ; the male coun- terpart of the Romp in her gaiety, and still more to his honour, her only rival in the expression of feeling that did not character as tragic. Men, when made up of whim, like Bannister, commonly fly out of the course, and, however di- verting in their humour, secure every thing but re- spect from the world whom they cheer. But, from my first knowledge of Bannister to the present hour, he made his prudence a guard over his festi- vity ; and though no man was ever more solicited in social life, his amusement neither disturbed his 174 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. business nor deranged his circumstances : he could always dispense the liberal aid which he did not need ; and never drew on himself, in a single in- stance, that I remember, the displeasure of the public. Being his contemporary through no tri- vial series of years, I remember him in tragedy ; and am not sorry that he put off the buskin early in his career. Unless the power in tragedy is tran- scendant, excellence in comedy renders it question- able, and often, from some unlucky recollections, ridiculous. When the actor attains the wonderful in both, his universality enlarges his honours. The genius of John Bannister met with a congenial author in Mr. Prince Hoare, who may perhaps, as a farce writer, be said to have best suited his ta- lent. But this palm is powerfully contested by very able men. Yet whatever contest may exist among the writers of farce, there is none whatever, where Bannister is concerned, among the perform- ers. I have seen no actor at all near him where he was fully himself. On the 18th of this month, Mr. Morris, then I believe at college, had a farce at Drury Lane, call- ed the Adventurers. Peregrine was the part de- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 175 signed for Bannister ; but Sir Peregrine, a man uniformly unlucky, was given by Suett in a style that carried the competition in his favour. This author became a Master in Chancery, with " his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries ;" but alas, the profession of literature should be lucrative for more than two in an age, for any man of talents to follow their bent, and forsake the substantial for the tempting and perhaps the delusive, but certainly never the permanent. For her benefit this season, Mrs. Jordan, after the Belle's Stratagem, presented a farce called the Spoil'd Child, and her Little Pickle took its run among the romps of both sexes, which her immor- tal youth long continued to supply with the frolic of the pinafore and the tucker. Pickle was ascri- bed to Mrs. Jordan herself, then to Mr. Ford, whose Little Pickle was still younger, we know. The truth is, I suppose, the exile Bickerstaff, whose Sultan had been kept alive by Mrs. Jordan, still tried occasionally to be received under cover ; and that the Spoil'd Child might yet contribute to the support of its parent. 176 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. I touch only upon the new performances of Mrs. Jordan , the routine is already known. It is true that new study and a number of rehearsals may be fatiguing to an actress, who has to act five out of six nights, through a winter season ; but it may be observed that though the audiences are changed, the parts remain the same, and it is impossible for them not to tire the performer upon endless repe- tition ; so that, however burthened, it is usual to wish — not that the weight may be lessened or the duty abridged, but that the quality of the burthen may be a little altered. In the season of 1790-1, the Intriguing Chambermaid of Henry Fielding, which he had dedicated to Mrs. Clive, was revived for Mrs. Jordan, and produced the most laughable effects. We may imagine that Mr. Kemble looked carefully over the dialogue. Palmer distinguished himself in the character of the drunken colonel, and with Mrs. Jordan merited less disputable mat- ter — the farce was not a general favourite. On the 17th of November, 1790, Miles Peter Andrews, who had a lively ambition for comic fame, produced a comedy, written by himself, Rey- nolds, and Topham, but what was remarkable in THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 177 the composition, was its being without the smallest attempt at novelty. Mrs. Jordan, who performed the heroine in various disguises, ruins the circum- stances of Mr. Kemble, Saville, whom she intends to marry. There is an under-plot of a Sir Charles Chouce and the Flurries, and a Mr. Pallet, the painter, and a Litigamus for Bannister, jun. It was a thing of shreds and patches, and one of the parties had only to shake off his associates and trust entirely to himself, earnestly and assiduously, to become a dramatist, who is likely to excite laughter for more than a century. Better late than Never was not strong enough to run. It was kindly contrasted in its course by the School for Scandal, and the Rivals ; by which a manager might seem to be more solicitous for his own popularity than the success of the new candidate. Besides that not to run a new play, is, in fact, to tell the town that you cannot depend upon it ; they will take you at your word without difficulty. The death of this play, like that of the Iron Chest subsequently, was caused by Dodd, who always bestowed the whole tediousness of his author upon the audience — whereas your judicious player is alive to all the VOL. I. N 178 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. impressions he makes in the house, and cuts his matter short before it becomes insupportable. The Epilogue contrasted the beau of former times with his slang brother of the present ; and Mrs. Jordan raised a laugh of complaisance to herself in the lat- ter mistake of the modern lounger ; for he was a true critic in calling Macbeth an opera. " 'Zounds, be a little calmer ! " Who's that — the Jordan ? — No, you fool — R. Palmer." Although the more immediate subject of the work leads me to Drury Lane theatre in preference, yet I willingly enter the rival house to comme- morate the first appearance of such an actor as Munden. He came from Chester, avowedly to take the business of Edwin, though he more re- sembled Shuter in the broad voluptuous style of his comedy. On the 2nd of December, 1790, he acted Sir Francis Gripe, in the Miser, and Jemmy Jumps, in the Farmer. He had not the sly per- sonal humour of Edwin, who never made you think of acting at all ; Munden, by his evident en- joyment of the effect he produced, and his reiterated efforts to make that effect as fervid as he wished THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. I 79 it, shewed you his own conviction that he had ela- borately studied all that he was doing, that he knew his conceptions to be just, and that he exe- cuted them correctly, and, therefore, demanded his reward in the enjoyment of the audience. He was a slow actor for the most part, and not the most accommodating in his style to his brethren on the stage — it was very difficult to confine him ; he came up close to the lamps, and, sideways, edged himself from one end of them to the other ; painted always remarkably high for distant effect ; and made his first and last appeal to the gods ! He was, like Ned Shuter, called, familiarly, Joe, all over the house ; and, more than any actor of his time, devoted himself not only to business, but the profits of it. He accumulated a handsome fortune in the profession, and has a robust old age to in- dulge in the notions only of acting again. The benefit play of an actress is, at least, an opportunity of putting the town in possession of her own opinion of herself, and is, therefore, com- monly seized for the purpose of extending the per- former's claims. She can then invade the line of a rival, and correct the, perhaps, obstinate preju- n 2 ' o SO THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. dice of a manager. She may open new sources of personal admiration — she may, in a word, make a benefit, the ingredients of which are known only to herself. On the 22nd of March, Mrs. Jordan availed herself of this seasonable privilege, and revived, as Woffington did, the Humorous Lieutenant of Fletcher, that she might act his Celia, who now gave name to the play, which was called the Greek Slave; or, the School for Cowards. The play be- ing but little known, I think it may be proper to notice the features of the character she acted. Ce- lia is beloved by the King's son, Demetrius, and attached to him on the score of his valiant pro- perties. Uneasy at an absence from him longer than usual, she arrives at court, unknown to the attendants, and is courteously saluted by Demetrius, to their astonishment, which makes them cluster round her in the usual manner, and she beautifully exclaims, — " How these flies play i'the sunshine." At a future interview between them, the Prince's honour calling him to the field, he reluctantly quits THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 181 his adored mistress, who now strengthens his re- solution, and there occurs a fine point for the actress : — " Dem. I must have one farewell more. Cel. No ! the drums beat — Not a hand more." She is tempted to become the King's concubine, and displays her virtue and her wit in passages of equal point and beauty. The King, himself, acting his own reverend pander, and calling himself a soldier, is thus saluted by her : — " Cel. Oh, wretched man, below the state of pity! Canst thou forget, thou wert begot in honour ? A free companion for a King ! — a Soldier ! Whose nobleness dare feel no want but enemies ? Canst thou forget this, and decline so wretchedly ! Feed on the scum of sin ? — Fling thy eword from thee ? Dishonour to the noble name that nurs'd thee." The monarch now reveals himself in one line, of uncommon expression : — " Ant. Why, then, I am a King, and mine own speaker." Mark the truly dramatic reply of Celia, and esti- mate its value to such an actress : — - 182 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Cel. And I, as free as you, mine own disposer. There, take your jewels ; let 'em give them lustres That have dark lives and souk ; wear them yourself, sir. After the villainy of ordering a potion to be given to her, the royal seducer sees her, like Ham- let, come in reading, and, like Polonius, he draws its application upon himself: — " Cel. I'm reading, sir, of a short treatise here, That's called the Vanity of Lust : has your Grace seen it? He says here, that an old man's loose desire Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wonder'd at ; Which when they gather'd sticks and laid upon't, And blew and blew, turn'dtail, and went out presently. And, in another place, he calls their loves Faint smells of dying flowers, carrying no comforts." She proceeds to complete her argument, and makes a convert of her old admirer. Demetrius not doing justice to her virtues, but believing that she has yielded to temptation, she quarrels with him, and is only, at length, reconciled to the man she loves, when she is discovered to have rank as well as virtue, to make her his equal. THE LIFE OF iMRS. JORDAN. 183 There was something about Mrs. Jordan exceed- ingly romantic, and that made her find what was congenial in the princely connexion of Celia. She loved to indulge this tendency of her mind, and was fond of the splendour of dress, though it added nothing to her personal attraction. She was the relaxation of dignity rather than state ; and, what- ever she might think, wore the trappings of tra- gedy without any of their usual effect upon the senses. The real name of the character called Celia, in the present play, is printed, by the editors, Evanthe and Enanthe — the first, having a decided mean- ing,* 1 should prefer ; and it is sufficiently discri- minated from the same poet's Evadne, the wife of Amintor, in the Maid's Tragedy. Seward says, admirably well, upon such plays as the present, — " We could almost wish the readers to drop the expectation of the events, to attend with more care to the beauty and energy of the sentiments, diction, passions, and characters.'' And, I may add, whatever change may take place in the * Evay0/?s — Flourishing in beauty. 184 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. manners of different times, and the taste of expres- sion ; yet, if our plays are to boast of poetry at all, our style must settle in the just medium of Fletcher. The divinity of Shakspeare, if it could be approached, cannot be sustained, and had better, therefore, remain unattempted by his countrymen, who, by aping his grandiloquence, will easily be- come turgid, but never sublime. Mrs. Jordan, after the play, spoke a very alarm- ing Epilogue, written purposely for her, by Harry Bunbury. But the reader will judge for himself as to the startling expressions ; it was full of poli- tical allusions. " How strange! methinks I hear a critic say; What she, the serious heroine of a play ! The manager his want of sense evinces, To pitch on Hoydens for the love of Princes ! To trick out Chambermaids in awkward pomp — Horrid ! to make a Princess of a Romp. " ' Depend upon't,' replies indulgent John, ' Some d d good-natur'd friend has set her on.' ' Poh,' says old Surly, ' I shall now expect To see Jack Pudding treated with respect ; Cobblers in curricles alarm the Strand, Or my Lord Chancellor drive six in hand.' THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 185 " But I've a precedent — can quote the book — Czar Peter made an Empress of a Cook. There — now you're dumb, sir, — nothing left to say ; Why, changing is the fashion of the day — Far wilder changes Paris can display. There Monsieur Boickit leaves — ha ! ha ! — the dance, To read Ma'mselle a lecture on finance. The nation's debts — each hairdresser can state 'em, And Friz in ways and means with hard-pomatum : Beaux lay down lap-dogs to take up the pen, And patriot Misses urge the rights of men : Squat o'er their coals, sage fish-women debate, Dealing at once in politics and skate ; And shrewdly mixing to each taste the dish, With fresh and stale — philosophy and fish. " If such odd changes you can gravely see, Why not allow a transient change in me ? The charms that mh-th despotic makes to-night, In grief may shine more eminently bright — More killing still the gaudy Miss be seen, Black as a crow — all love and bombasin. " Sav, mv fair friends, what change has more success In catching lovers, than a change of dress ? Caps, hats, and bonnets, Fashion's pack of hounds, Each in its turn the trembling wretch surrounds ; One day you wound him with a civic crown ; Another — with a tucker knock him down : ]M) THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. In cruel pink to-night your game pursue, To-morrow pommel him in black and blue. Now in a turque — now en chemise assail him ; 'Till the poor devil flounders, — and you nail him. " If I my frock have chang'd with some success, And gain'd admirers in this regal dress ; If faithful Celia should your favour prove ; If pleas' d you listen to her constant love, — If tir'd with laugh, a sigh of pity ease you ; I'll be a very weathercock to please you ; — The grave, the gay, alternately pursue, Fix'd but in this — my gratitude to You." Methinks I hear some female reader now ex- claim, " What, sir, and did your admired heroine (for all authors admire their heroines, at least for a time) — What ! and did Mr. Bunbury write, and Mrs. Jordan speak such a line as this in the face of the Public ?— " To pitch on Hoydens for the love of Princes i" A thing so personal, so ready of application, and so sure of being made by either man or woman who lived within the sound of rumour. My answer must be — " Pray, madam, pay a little THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 187 regard to chronology, and suspect any thing rather than a want of good taste in the Jordan : I can assure you, on my personal knowledge, that I have no such instances to record; and that you will be convinced of my sincerity, if you will honour me with your company into Yorkshire the very ensuing summer ; you will see, too, her attendant on that occasion, and know a great deal of stage matters two hundred miles from London. For the ' love of princes' you must wait awhile, and you will not be robbed of your ingenious application." Her friend, Harry Bunbury, had very faithfully attended as her laureate this year ; for when she finished her favourite engagement at Richmond, a neighbour- hood dear to her for a great portion of her life, he again exerted his sportive muse in a farewell, which recapitulated all her achievements, and expressed, with much effect, the reasonable acknowledgments of the kindness she had received. The incessant application to the duties of a pro- fession, which is considered mere play by those who never tried it, and its late hours and alternations of warm and chilling atmosphere, had at length made Mrs. Jordan seriously ill ; she spat blood 1S8 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. very frequently, and seemed in a progressive state of exhaustion, that might terminate in decline, if she did not spare herself all unnecessary fatigue. Mrs. Jordan had not been at York for some years, and her friend Wilkinson had engaged her on the same terms as he had given to Mrs. Siddons and to Miss Farren. As she played on shares, her interest and the manager's were the same. She was to have a clear benefit on the Saturday in the assize week, and during that following, in which the musical festival occurred, she was to act one night conditionally, to be fixed by the manager. In the usual important style, he announced her for the six nights in the summer assize week, and adver- tized her in advance to commence her course with the Country Girl, and Nell in the Devil to Pay. When he arrived at York, he found Mrs. Jordan there, accompanied by Mr. Ford (afterwards Sir Richard), and she refused Nell, because after Miss Peggy, another rather active character, with a song always encored at the end of it, it was really more than she could undertake, the following days con- sidered. It is always dangerous to check a country manager in the career of his management — accord- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 189 ingly, disappointed of the magical Nell and her song, the ladies of York did not think the Country Girl sufficiently attractive ; the house was not crowded, and there was no half-price, though Fawcett was admitted to be strong as Gregory in the Mock Doctor. The miserable affectation of thinking the Country Girl too vulgar for the refined taste of York, made Jordan literally lose her temper ; and she told the manager that, if the audience had possessed " or soul or sense" she would have introduced a song. Tate begged that she would do so still to oblige him, and she consented. It was one written by a most amiable and even learned young lady, a daughter of Ryder the comedian. The effect produced was quite rapturous — the whole theatre was one voice and one ivill on the occasion, (if the soul or sense might be ques- tioned,) and they encored the singer most alarm- ingly ; but their applause did not outlive the song. Peggy was resigned to the ladies of London ; and their preference of her was unshaken to the last. As the audience became frigid, the Jordan grew sullen. On the day following she had recruited from her journey, and acted Miss Hoyden in the 190 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Trip to Scarborough , which was received brilliantly, and the adorable Nell. The audience did her full justice, and she was in the happiest vein, and supped with her jovial manager. The next per- formance was the Belle's Stratagem, with the SpoiVd Child. Here again the ladies played the critic, and decided that fashionable existence was quite out of her line, and the manager confesses that the receipt was shameful to a degree — the Pickle was admitted to be excellent. On the Thursday she performed Rosalind ; here again her critics pre- ferred the delicate languor of Mrs. Esten, and our child of humour could not smother her contempt for them. In her anger, she spared neither per- formers nor spectators ; and what she had said of the latter, was, with industrious malignity, circulated through the city ; so that on the Friday, when she came on in Sylvia, in the Recruiting Officer, she shewed a determination to walk through the part, and the audience became as indifferent as herself : the receipt of the night was but twenty-five pounds. The Saturday was her own night — Hypolita and Miss Hoyden. Her house was not what she ex- pected, and she was here deficient in the respect of THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 191 policy ; besides, the good will of those who came was unquestionable, and should have been acknow- ledged ; they should not have been slighted for the sake of others who chose to stay away. As early as the second act of the play, she sent the manager word that she would not play on the York stage again ; though he had distributed bills for her per- forming on Monday, the 15th of August, Lady Bell in Know your own Mind, and Little Pickle. So that we see Tate was desirous to enlarge the en- gagement, though so little satisfied with the houses — but as the reader will remember, the manager had the appointment still of one night in the festival week, whether she enlarged her term with him or not, and he had fixed this for the Wednesday fol- lowing. Mr. Ford and she were to dine with Wilkinson on the Sunday. On the Saturday night, Ford writes an excuse as to the dinner ; a decline of the engagement to act further at York ; but a readiness as to the festival night, on next Wednes- day, or any other he might appoint. " Mrs. Ford, feeling herself unwell, was desirous of passing a day or two in the country." In this dilemma, giving up the Jordan as to further service, Tate be- 192 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. thought himself of my ever-regretted Mr. Kemble, who, in the mayoralty of his friend Wilson, was reposing himself very tranquilly at the Mansion House, and " letting the world slide " in his easy indifference. The truth was, he ought, for his own interest, to have been at Liverpool ; but he made his health the plea for stopping that call upon him, and honoured his friend's mayoralty by partaking his hospitalities until the time arrived for joining his brother Stephen at Newcastle, and giving him a lift in his season. Late as it was, Tate posted to the Mansion House, and found Kemble preparing for bed ; but a matter of business led him to order a bottle for his old manager, and they talked away the little hours, though nothing was then con- cluded. However, on the Sunday, in pursuance of the invitation now made him to act in York, he called upon Mrs. Jordan, and, in fact, settled with her that she should take his place with his brother Stephen at Newcastle in the assize week, on the 22nd of August, and he would occupy hers at York with Wilkinson. Mr. Kemble brought the mayor along with him, and proposed the terms on which alone he would act : — -first, that if Mrs. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 193 Jordan acted on the Wednesday night, he would not act at all ; he would supply her place then also, and have the thirty guineas that she was to receive if she played. Wilkinson told him it was pounds, not guineas, that he gave, as Mrs. Siddons had so been paid, and Miss Fan-en also. Here the mayor was against him ; he would have it guineas, and he carried that point. Now then the manager had only to settle the Wednesday night with Mrs. Jordan, and accordingly his messenger found her at Castle Howard, in the right humour to pay him thirty pounds rather than even act on the single night, which he now fixed for Tuesday (not Wednes- day) the 16th of August. The answer was brief, and what the manager wished. The signature causes me to preserve it. " Sir, " I agree with pleasure to your proposal " of giving you thirty pounds rather than ever " perform in York. I shall return to-morrow and " settle the balance of the account. I am, Sir, " Your obliged, humble Servant, « D. Ford." VOL. I. O 194 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. On receiving this answer, all things seemed to be adjusted. Giving up Monday night, he put up, with his full consent, Mr. Kemble for Othello on the Tuesday ; and the name of Kemble, in York, always popular in that city, went up in the same proportion as that of the Jordan went down. That lady arrived on the Monday noon, and most ho- nourably paid her forfeit of thirty pounds. It was not a pleasant thing, but under the circumstances a right one — her fame, as an actress, demanded the sacrifice — to vise her own phrase, it was " death to play on to such a milk and water and spiritless audience." But, however successfully the day com- menced for Tate, it was not over — Mr. and Mrs. Kemble dined with him. To his utter dismay, Kemble said, as soon as they were left alone, that, " without any impeachment of their friendship, as he trusted, he was bound to tell him, that he had reflected on the engagement he had made, which his understanding told him was a very foolish one, and that he would act on shares on the Tuesday, or not play at all ; for unless he got 1 60/. in the week, it was not worth his while to play there." The parties separated equally obstinate, and Kemble THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 195 went to the music-rooms, which were, on that night, assailed by the most dreadful hurricane, at- tended by vivid flashes of lightning ; and the sub- lime Chorus from Handel, " He gave them hail- stones for rain," was awfully verified from without. I never knew a man so insensible to alarms of any kind as Kemble — he pursued a purpose, or a train of thought, calmly, in situations where other men are forced from their poise ; and now, upon being told, at intervals, by the people about him, how happy they were that he was to act to-morrow, he very coolly replied, that, " he did not think he should have that pleasure." The heat in the room was excessive ; the whole neighbourhood seemed in flames ; Mara, Kelly, Crouch, and Harrison, went through the entertainments, and the ladies sat to hear them to the end ; but it was a night of unex- ampled terror. However, as Kemble would have said, such casualties had nothing to do with his bargain, in a thing of which nature, he resembled his own Hotspur, so as to " cavil on the ninth part of a hair." Tuesday morning came, says Tate, the bills were printed, the rehearsal called, the performers o 2 196 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. waiting, and no Mr. Kemble. At length the mayor became uneasy, poor Mrs. Kemble was in tears, " Kemble was fast asleep, and had given orders not to disturb him." At length he wrote a line to express his surprise to find his name in the bills, and to repeat that he certainly would not act unless the manager was kind enough to rectify the mistake he had made. That excellent man, Mr. Wilson, at last hit upon a medium between the contending parties, and about one o'clock was au- thorized to write the two lines following. " Mr Kemble agrees. "T. Wilson. " He will be ready to rehearse at two o'clock." He went to the theatre, at the time, in perfect good humour, and, as if nothing discordant had happened ; perhaps remembered Mrs. Jordan's spleen, for he said, " the audience should see that he would take pains, whether the applause was profuse or not." He had a very crowded house, and Mrs. Jordan herself among his audience, lis- tening to the applause, which was not the less THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 197 bountiful on account of the displeasure she had excited. On the Wednesday, she set off on the Newcastle expedition, where she met with fresh mortifications, leaving Kemble to draw that night, 109/. 19s. 6d. to his Hamlet, the part in which he was most distinguished, and, indeed, unapproached. His Macbeth, on the Thursday, was also greatly admired — Lord Hastings, Petruchio, and Collins's Ode, bringing but a thin house, on account of the attraction at the Assembly Rooms on the Friday ; the actor was weak, in spite of his system — how- ever, on the Saturday, the weary sun (for he must have been weary this week) made a brilliant set in Zanga, and his share of the receipt of the week, taken at the door, was close upon 150Z. — but pre- sents he unquestionably had. As to poor Mrs. Jordan, she had never seen such an assize-week. The arrangement with her ma- nager, Mr. Kemble, had left the advantage entirely on his side. As was usual with such stars, she had taken the management upon herself at Newcastle, made the proper communications to the news- papers, and announced her Country Girl and Nell for Monday, the 22nd of August. Stephen Kern- 198 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. ble's company were at Lancaster, and well enough prepared for his brother's exhibition ; but the change which was announced, found them utterly unpro- vided for their female general, and they, therefore, took the resolution not to march to Newcastle at all. The commander-in-chief, without an army, talked of bringing her action, and " doing she knew not what" — but the best thing she now could do, was to think steadily of home, and of the steadiest of all her friends, a London audience. She had, in fact, lost her summer, and was not entirely with- out blame for losing her temper where it was her interest to preserve it. 199 CHAPTER IX. Dr. Woolcot does justice to Mrs. Jordan — The Drury Lane company remove to the Opera House — The opening laugh at their difficulties — Additional prices carried — Fawcett's arrival in London, with his wife — Both engaged hy Mr. Harris — Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Kemhle — The press accuses the actress of deserting her duty — Proof to the contrary — The declared admiration of a Royal Duke — Mrs. Jordan's family — Mr. Ford made pleas for attacking her — She ap- peals to the public by letter — Finding that she was, not- withstanding, still persecuted, she addresses the audience in person, and remains absolute mistress of the field — Cymon revived with great splendour — The beauty of the cast — Kelly's hospitality and his guests — The Village Coquette, for Mrs. Jordan's night — Richardson's Fugitive acted by her — Miss Herbert, in that comedy, Miss Farren — Mrs. Sheridan dies, commemorated by genius — Her epitaph — Sir Joshua Reynolds, what he thought and said of Mrs. Jordan — Regret that she never sat to him — Brings out a play called Anna, against the opinion of Kemble — Fate of her novelty — Of Mrs. Siddons's — Of Miss Farren's — Mrs. Jordan in Lady Restless — Cumberland's Armourer — Reynolds's How to grow Rich. We shall treat the memory of Mrs. Jordan as we always did her person ; when she had at all suffered, as on the late occasion, we were happy to restore 200 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the equilibrium of her mind, by telling her any thing of a soothing and respectful nature. The late Dr. Woolcot greatly admired Mrs. Jordan ; and though he willingly admitted the excellence of Mrs. Clive, yet thought that the following inscription to her, in an obscure part of her garden, merited some illustration, in justice to the modern Thalia. Horace Walpole's point is thus conveyed : " Here liv'd the laughter-loving dame — A matchless actress, Clive her name ; The Comic Muse with her retir'd, And shed a tear when she expir'd." Peter Pindar replies to the Horace, of Straw- berry Hill, not Rome — " Truth and thy trumpet seem not to agree ; Know Comedy is hearty — all alive — The sprightly lass no more expir'd with Clive, Than Dame Humility will die with thee." The venerable theatre of Garrick having been condemned to demolition, and the proprietors ex- tending their views to some lofty speculation which was to leave them no competitors among the in- telligent classes, Mr. Holland prepared the design THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 201 of a magnificent pavillion for their approbation ; and although it never was entirely completed, enough was done to excite the horror of the fana- tical part of the community. Burke's hatred of Mr. Sheridan made him prompt them with the notion that it emulated the temples of religion. But, for the present, we have only ruins before us. The Drury Lane company, in the season of 1791-2, removed to the Opera House on the 22nd of September, and they carried a slight increase of the prices of admission, which now became six shillings to the boxes, and three shillings and six- pence to the pit. Indeed, the splendid situation in which they placed their friends, seemed to call for a small advance with propriety. Of all things that could be named, an Italian Opera House was least suited to English play and farce, demanding a constant succession of scenes called flats, run on suddenly for the frequent changes of place, and the small-sized scenes of Old Drury, were, with much difficulty, applied to the grand void devoted to the groups of the French ballet. Cobb, though, as a comic writer, he could not rank with Sheridan, had now proved himself a very 202 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN, val liable ally to the theatre, for the Haunted Tower had brought very excellent houses ; he wrote a prelude for the opening of the season, which ex- cited risibility as soon as it was fairly heard, which it was not on the first night. The jokes are some- times a little forced, but they are ingenious always, and often neat. The transport of the scenery from poor Old Drury, could not escape him — the ocean was washed away by a shower of rain — and the clouds were obliged to be carried under an umbrella. The triumphal car of Alexander was shattered to pieces by a hackney-coach, at the corner of St. Martin's Lane — and the coachman persisted that he was on his right-side of the way, and that Alex- ander, if he pleased, might take his number. Among the actors, some changes are in operation — Parsons now wants to play tragedy, that he may be heard, and Wewitzer, a critical maitre de ballet, who chatters about Demosthenes, and says that, ac- tion is all, undertakes to reform that of Hamlet, for instance, altogether. He makes Parsons ad- dress the Ghost — a circumstance of itself enough to make any man give up the yhost with laughter, and corrects the start of astonishment and terror THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 203 as idle and indecorous, since he came to the plat- form expecting to see it, and knew the royal shade to be his father. He decides, therefore, upon the propriety of bowing with filial reverence and love, which we may suppose the paternal phantom to return with more solemnity, and the affecting grace of his time of life. Mrs. Jordan's brother, Bland, came on as an opera singer, and maintained the rights of the Ita- lian stage. He at length withdrew with the critic before mentioned, declaring that dancing and the opera should always go together in contempt of sense and nature. This, however it might suit John Bull, was outrageous everyway, and little becoming the houseless, who had there found a home — it re- sembled the gratitude of Drury Lane itself, whose graceless sons no sooner get shelter in their scrapes, than they give the dwelling a bad character. After a very spirited performance of the Haunted Tower Mrs. Jordan's Beatrice in the Panel put the audience in high good humour. She ran over the ground easily and without seeming annoyed by it, but it made the exits and entrances comparatively tardy and flat — some of the actors considered it .1 • 204 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. a death-blow ; but to what will not use at length reconcile us ? However we were drawn by that stage into a fondness for spectacle, which we could gra- tify, sooner than a demand for sense ; and at length the people themselves preferred the great theatre to the little one. As I attended the first appearance of Mr. Mun- den before a London audience, so I cannot pay a less compliment to a gentleman, who was in the York company with Mrs. Jordan, and who like Munden came to supply the loss of Edwin ; I mean Mr. John Fawcett, who was something nearer to Edwin, but, as well as his competitor, was an actor of great and original powers. If, however, the supplying Edwin had been put up as the stage prize to be disputed, I think the two great compe- titors were Fawcett and Bannister. As to the parts really played by Edwin, Bannister, I believe, acted more of them, and, perhaps, was nearer to him ; but the Pangloss of Fawcett was quite equal to any thing ever done by that great comedian, who would have desired to live again, purely to act such a superior Lingo. Mr. Fawcett made the bow, which commenced a series of near forty years at THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 205 the same theatre, on the 22nd September, 1791, in the part of Caleb in He would be a Soldier. He was greatly applauded, and his wife, of whose me- rits I have already spoken, appeared on the 3rd of October following, in the part of Nottingham in the Earl of Essex. As her husband in tragedy did not get beyond Kent in King Lear, so his wife seemed to settle about Emilia in Othello, a part in which she was loudly applauded. She was a good, because a sensible second in tragedy ; but I ought to explain, that I mean no more than second rate by the term, supposing characters to rank accord- ing to their splendour or impression ; and h ex- plain further by saying, that Hermione and Andro- mache, Zara and Almeria, Shore and Alicia, are equally first-rate characters, and require equal talent in the actress, who has usually performed either alternately, when the theatre contained a rival. Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Yates, and Miss Younge, were rivals to each other. In every thing fortunate, Mrs. Siddons never had a rival on the same stage with her ; so that the attention to her was undi- vided, and her excellence undisputed. I am apt to think that the unfortunate trip to 206 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Newcastle might disturb in some measure the har- mony between Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Kemble. He certainly used to complain occasionally of that lady; and what proceeds from a manager, soon finds its way into the public journals. However as to her public duty it would be difficult to find a con- siderable actress in either theatre, who had laboured so very assiduously as herself. She had played twenty-four nights in two months, and very fre- quently two parts in the same night ; and when the management had no other attraction she was put up three nights together without novelty to help her. If in such a course of duty indisposition some- times caused an apology to be made, there was ob- viously a reasonable ground for it, without resort- ing to either caprice, or her private arrangements, with which the public amusement was by no means connected. In spite of the above matter of fact, it was now insinuated that she was able to play, if she chose ; and another position equally kind, that not being absolutely confined to her room, if she ventured abroad at all, she ought to act at night, however languid she might be ; and, not consider- ing that, though it was necessary to take the air, THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 207 it was not advisable to take the night air, after great exertion in a weak state. But a circumstance had occurred, which was now generally known, I mean the declared admiration of a Royal Duke for this delightful actress, and a wish for her society permanently, on such terms as his peculiar situa- tion alone permitted. He invaded no man's abso- lute rights — he did not descend to corrupt or de- base. Not considering himself entirely a creature of the state, he had presumed to avow an affection for a woman of the most fascinating description ; and his yet unsullied honour was the pledge, that the fruits, if any, of such an union, should be con- sidered most sacredly as his — that he took the duties of a father along with the natural relation. We were now in the ferment of the French revolu- tion, and it became a crime in the eyes of no small part of the public that Mrs. Jordan had listened to a prince. In spite of his services as a naval officer, and the frank, cordial manners, which were not more the characteristics of his profession than of his own nature, the noble seaman was neither well treated by the government, nor did his popularity 208 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. at all compensate a very niggardly establishment.* On a sudden writers in the daily papers became most anxiously solicitous about Mrs. Jordan's family; (as if it had not at all times been the " precious jewel of her soul"). " What in the new connexion, became of Mrs. Jordan's family ?" Mr. Ford was elevated by some persons into an injured and deserted man ; they neither knew him, nor his privity to the advances made by the noble suitor. They had never seen him at the wing of the thea- * The union of the three royal brothers on the question of the regency, as it distinctly menaced the minister, so it did not greatly please the personage most interested in the question. I understood from high authority indeed, that His Majesty thoroughly approved of the measures adopted by Mr. Pitt. It was remarked that this question completely changed the feel- ings of the two great parties. The Whigs were now for in- herent indivisible sovereignty, and the Tories advocates for the power of Parliament. The former disdaining any limita- tion of an Heir ; the latter considering that very circumstance as exciting peculiar vigilance — looking upon it, of course, as an abstract question — and, to a man, admitting that, if any indivi- dual could be regent without condition and limitation, . the Prince of Wales was the person. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 209 trc, and thrown their eves, as he must have done, to the private boxes. Mrs. Jordan was not a woman to hoodwink herself in any of her actions — she knew the sanctions of law and religion as well as any body, and their value — this implies that she did not view them with indifference. And had Mr. Ford, as she proposed to him, taken that one step/ar^er, which the Duke could not take, the treatv with the latter would have ended at the moment. Finding herself thus annoyed at her very break- fast table, she resolved not to sit unmoved, but let the public know her own feeling as a woman, while she vindicated her conduct as an actress. The following letter from her accordingly appeared in all the public prints. It was dated from the Treasury, by which must be meant the treasury of the theatre. " Treasury Office, November 30, 1790. " Sir, " I have submitted in silence to the un- provoked and unmanly abuse which, for some time past, has been directed against me ; because VOL. i. p 210 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. it has related to subjects about which the public could not be interested ; but to an attack upon my conduct in my profession, and the charge of want of respect and gratitude to the public, I think it my duty to reply. " Nothing can be more cruel and unfounded than the insinuation, that I absented myself from the theatre, on Saturday last, from any other cause than real inability, from illness, to sustain my part in the entertainment. I have ever been ready and proud to exert myself, to the utmost of my strength, to fulfil my engagements with the theatre, and to manifest my respect for the audience ; and no per- son can be more grateful for the indulgence and applause with which I have been constantly honour- ed. I would not obtrude upon the public an allu- sion to anything that does not relate to my profes- sion, in which alone T may, without presumption, say, I am accountable to them ; but thus called on, in the present instance, there can be no impropriety in my answerin g those who have so ungenerously attacked me, ' that, if they could drive me from that profession, they would take from me the only income I have, or mean to possess, the whole THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 211 earnings of which, upon the past, and one-half for the future, I have already settled upon my chil- dren.' Unjustly and cruelly traduced as I have been upon this subject, I trust that this short de- claration will not be deemed impertinent ; and for the rest, I appeal, with confidence, to the justice and generosity of the public. " I am, Sir, " Your obedient servant, " Dor. Jordan." I have not preserved any of the ill-natured sneers at this clear and candid explanation. It had not (perhaps, a vain attempt,) satisfied every body, and, I really now forget, whether she or Mrs. Crouch, in the interim, was the Matildarof Richard Cwur de Lion; but, on the 10th of December, when she came on as Roxalana, in the Sultan, it was obvious, that a decided displeasure was or- ganized against her, and she had nerve enough to advance intrepidly to the front, with no affected ignorance of their meaning, and properly confining herself to her theatrical duties, thus addressed them : — p 2 212 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Ladies and Gentlemen, ' ' I should conceive myself utterly unworthy of your favour, if the slightest mark of public dis- approbation did not affect me very sensibly. " Since I have had the honour and the happi- ness to strive here to please you, it has been my constant endeavour, by unremitting assiduity, to merit your approbation. I beg leave to assure you, upon my honour, that I have never absented myself one minute from the duties of my profes- sion, but from real indisposition. Thus having invariably acted, I do consider myself under the public protection." This was exactly the way to treat them. The manner was extremely good ; the little hardship that sat upon her brow, and, like a cloud, kept back the comic smile that but waited their cheer, to burst forth — the graceful obeisance, that followed her complete triumph, (for it was complete,) and the mode in which she resumed her task to delight, after she had personally suffered pain, — as she trusted them all to nature, so that steady friend did not fail her in the least. There was nothing THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 213 in the Sultan, certainly, that came near the effect of the address. I was present, I remember, and enjoyed it as much as I had done Mrs. Siddons's more solemn vindication as to Brereton's benefit. The revival of Garrick's Cymon, with great splen- dour, was an affair of Kelly's, who, certainly, could do a great deal in the spurring up Sheridan to ex- ertion. But now he might fill his theatre with the personal admirers only of the female cast of it ; e. g. Sylvia, Miss Hagley. Urganda, .... Mrs. Crouch. Fatima, Mrs. Jordan. Phebe, Miss Decamp. Daphne Mrs. Bland. Dorcas Dicky Suett. Tt is, without the old lady, an instance, which is rarely met with, of captivations of great variety, combined very skilfully, and almost rendering the Cymon of the former manager worthy of the crowds that followed it. Bannister, jun. had more effect in Linco than Dodd ; Parsons retained his old part, Dorus ; Kelly looked Cymon exactly ; and as to jour Damon and Daemon, by Dignum and Sedge- 214 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. wick, in musical merit, and the demerit of their acting, there was not a pin to choose between them. Old Bannister, too, was excellent, either as Merlin or his master. After this gay spectacle, there was a supper at Kelly's, at which, in the French phrase, I assisted, and Sheridan joined us, with Richardson and Ford. Mrs. Crouch sat at the head of the table, and pledged the success, to which she had so much contributed, in the only wine she drank, Port. Kelly lived hospitably and with little ceremony, and gave his song and his claret with equal readiness, and, at that time, they were equally good. Mrs. Jordan, this season, was not what might be called strong at her benefit, for her play was the Country Girl, and the farce, a rather hasty thing, from the French of M. Simon, called the Village Coquette. It afforded Mrs. Jordan the necessary field for the display of her talents, and some clever scenery had been got up on the introduction of a rural breakfast, in imitation of Mrs. Hobart's Festino, at Sans Souci. But nothing more came of the farce, the management not choosing to adopt it. Mr. Richardson, the friend and constant com- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 215 panion of Sheridan, at length brought out a comedy at Drury Lane, called the Fugitive, and the adven- tures of the heroine, exhibited the person of Mrs. Jordan, rather than her peculiar merits as an actress. She elopes with a lover, whose joy has incapaci- tated him from conducting his mistress in safety ; she falls into a variety of snares, and keeps up a steady hue and cry after her till the last act, when the usual reconciliations produce the usual close. Miss Herbert, a character for the nonce, not, per- haps, the most natural in the world, from mere sympathy with the Fugitive, feigns, herself, a pas- sion for Lord Dartford, simply to take him out of Julia Wingrove's way ; reasons with her brother, whom she loves, and is the best friend in the world to her, and, through the whole comedy, never speaks a single word to this object of her solici- tude. Like the great majority of English play- writers, Mr. Richardson has no organization of his materials, and no originality in his incidents — he conceives character, but merely as vehicles for the author's sentiments. Of his Admiral, I have spoken in another place, and shall here, therefore, merely notice a generous and pointed sentence, which he 216 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. has put into the mouth of Miss Herbert. Young Wingrove, when urged to excuse his sister's disobe- dience as similar only to his own, ventures to reply, " My sister, ma'am, is a woman !" The sarcasm of Miss Herbert is thus expressed : — *' Miss Herb. My sister, ma'am, is a woman ! that is, my sister is an interdicted being — disinherited by nature of her common bounties — a creature, with regard to whom engage- ments lose their faith, and contracts their obligations. In your fictitious characters, as lovers, you endeavour to make us be- lieve that we are exalted above human weaknesses; but, in your real characters, as men, you more honestly demonstrate to us, that you place us even below your own level, and deny us the equal truth and justice that belongs alike to all intelli- gent beings." Richardson, like Sheridan, got his love of point- ed sentences from Junius, whose tune was con- nually in their ears. Had Sheridan tome a very few years earlier into the world, he would have been a capital competitor in the list of candidates for the honour of writing the letters signed by that name — but at fifteen, the thing was impossible. On the 28th of June, of the present year, Sheri- dan mef with a loss, that in spite of his careless THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 217 habits hung heavily upon his mind for years ; the death of his first wife, the eldest daughter of Mrs. Linley, of Bath. She had married Mr. Sheridan on the 24th of April, 1773, and his ardour as a lover was quite commensurate with the personal, mental, and vocal captivations of the lady. He had sighed for her, fought for her, wrote for her, and but for the distracting solicitations of party, ambition, and the theatre, might have mingled his own genius with hers in a retirement sufficient alike for happiness and respectability ; a delicate frame might have been spared many annoyances to which it was subjected, and she might have long been continued to society and her family. She died at the Hotwells, Bristol, of a deep decline, and excited the sorrow of every Muse. That of Dr. Harrington, in a language devoted to distinguished inscription, supplied the following epitaph : " In obitum Dom. Eliz. Sheridan, Forma, voce, atque ingenio, Inter ornatas ornatissimcc, Ab imo amorcs ita suspirat amicus. 218 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Ehcu ! eheu ! lugeant mortales ! Eja, vero gaudeant coelestes ! Dulces ad amplexus Socians jam citharse melos, Redit pergrata, En ! iterum soror ; Suaviusque nil manet Hosannis. TRANSLATION. " Sure every beauty, every grace Which other females share, Adorn'd thy mind, thy voice, thy face, Thou fairest of the fair ! Amidst the general distress, O let a friend his grief express ! Mourn, mourn your loss, ye mortals, mourn — Rejoice, ye Heavenly quire ! To your embraces see return A sister, with her social lyre ; Eliza now resumes her seat, And makes your harmony complete." She is perpetuated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a picture beyond any praise of mine — an exquisite likeness of her person, and combining all the poetry THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 219 of art with the richest treasures of the pallet. Mr. Burke, who enjoyed above other men, the power of happy expression, said of his friend's portraits — " that they remind the spectator of the invention of history, and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits, he appeared, not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere." The remains of Mrs. Sheridan rest in the cathe- dral of Wells, in the same vault with those of her beloved sister, Mrs. Tickell, who by a few years preceded her. Of the gifted family of Linley, it may truly be said, in the exquisite lines of Thom- son, — " As those we love decay, we die in part, String after string is sever'd from the heart ; 'Till loosen'd life, at last but breathing clay, Without one pang, is glad to fall away." We had recently lost, also, the great painter we have just mentioned ; and, among all the admirers of Mrs. Jordan, he was the most fervent. They indeed worshipped at the same altar, and Nature was the incessant study of them both. The painter and the actress were alike offended by affectation and 220 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. false action. Sir Joshua studied children with the greatest care, when they imagined themselves un- observed, and could permit to every part of the frame its unrestrained genuine motion. He was quite enchanted, therefore, with a being, who, like Jordan, ran upon the stage as a play -ground, and laughed from sincere wildness of delight. He said " she vastly exceeded every thing that he had seen, and really was what others only affected to be." The friend to whom he thus expressed himself had but just arrived in town, and, struck by his enthu- siasm, said to him, — " What ! sir, greater than your friend, Mrs. Abington ?" " Yes, sir," said Sir Joshua, " greater than Mrs. Abington, where- ever she challenges comparison." " Well," re- joined his friend, " at all events you must not for- get the more extended range of Mrs. Abington — her fine lady." " I do not forget the fine lady of Mrs. Abington, it is never to be forgotten. I spoke of the two actresses where they challenged com- parison ; but as to more extensive range, I do not know that you can make out your point ; for, opposed to these fashionable ladies, you have the fashionable men of Mrs. Jordan, and the women THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 221 who would pass for men, whether Wildairs or Hy- politas, in comedy, and the tender and exquisite Viola of Shakspeare, where she combines feeling with sportive effect, and does as much by the music of her melancholy as the music of her laugh." His friend told me that he took Sir Joshua's re- commendation, and hastened to become acquainted with the great comedian, who assumed full posses- sion of his heart, and her impression is little weak- ened at the present hour. I enquired now, more particularly, whether she had ever sat to Sir Joshua, or he had made any sketch of her ? He told me decidedly not ; and therefore we must be indebted to Romney for preserving her likeness, with an action full of sprightliness and grace, and that sufficiently early in her career, to want nothing as to the ex- terior of the Country Girl ; for, as to the interior, the actress did not yield much to time, and the mind and the laugh of her teens seemed always at her command. Mrs. Jordan in the autumn of 1792, was com- pelled to unwilling retirement from her professional duties. She miscarried on the 6th of August, at Petersham, of a daughter, being at the time far ad- 222 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. vanced in her pregnancy. It was in the month of September following that she came to the play at Richmond, to see Mrs. Litchfield, then a young actress, perform the part of Julia, in the Surrender of Calais. She was so pleased with that lady's fine voice and spirited manner, that she applauded her vehemently ; indeed, so unguardedly, as to break the gold chain, to which, a royal portrait was sus- pended, and cause it to fall upon the stage from the box just over it. She did not appear in the season of 1792-3, until the 25th of February, in the Oratorio period ; and then she carried her point against Kemble, and brought out a new co- medy, called Anna, which the manager considered to be an outrageous insult to his authority. It was said to be written by a Miss Cuthbertson, with a few touches from Jordan's own pen. I never knew decidedly, that the play was rightly fathered upon either lady; the Jordan, however, evidently brought it forth. Disputes ran very high about this play. Mrs. Jordan called for novelty — Kemble thought that she, like himself, and his sister, should be contented with the sterling drama, by which they had acquired their reputations ; and that the no- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 223 velty should, only as entertainment, hold up the train. He threatened to resign his office, if that play was done: it was only done once, and thus the great disputants hoth triumphed — how far the reported displeasure of Kemhle contributed to the fate of the play, may he a question ; I should not he disposed to carry in this way, a point against him, or a slighter man, who was a manager. The only thing I should have considered in Mrs. Jordan's situation, was, how the play was written. — There is not the slightest novelty in Anna. There is an amorous old dowager, and the more season- able passion of two young ladies — hut the whole family are Touchwood's. There was the old dis- guise for Mrs. Jordan's figure, and the charm which admitted of no disguise, a musical call upon her voice. To excite her lover's jealousy, she in the male hahit sings a love song to herself, under her own window, and is, by the usual clear-sighted lover of the stage, immediately taken for a dange- rous rival, and a challenge, and its consequence, a meeting, follow, as tilings of course ; they rush not on, but into each other's arms, and a most ge- nerous brother (things fancied every day) makes 224 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. a handsome provision for both parties. There is a Miss Harcourt in Anna, perhaps because there was a Miss Herbert in the Fugitive; and Mrs. Powell was charged with the former lady, as Miss Farren had been with the latter. Mrs. Jordan spoke an Epilogue of a very ponderous nature on the subject of novelty, which should seem to have had some newspaper origin, as may be seen by its only points. " Posts against Heralds wage their paper war — The Sun just rising, and the falling Star." And again a few lines on — " The IVorld and Times are grown as dull as Posts." The town, however, were delighted to see their gay comedian returned to them after a severe ill- ness ; and she soon reconciled herself to her old parts, since newer could not be found for her. Mrs. Siddons's turn for novelty next came on, and the subject was Ariadne. Murphy had kept this tragedy long by him, and even printed it be- fore it was acted. Like most French tragedy, it was cold and weak, declamatory and measured in ils effects, and better suited to the form and style THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 225 of Mrs. Yates, than those of Mrs. Siddons, who was rather Roman than Grecian, like her brother. When we read of the astonishing impression made hy the French actresses, La Champmele, Le Couv- reur, Dumesnil, Clairon, and some few others, we must always recollect the manner in which they warm those tirades of description, or metaphysical analyses, that unfold a passion, rather than present it in operation. We are not fond of fifty lines to- gether, even when they are Shakspcare's; and have little delight in the sonorous modulations of mere eloquence. We know nothing of heathen mytho- logy, in its great influence ; and the incestuous Phe'dre would in vain mention the goddess of heau- ty to our ears, as the inspirer of her passion. I am serious in asserting that the following lines could never excite the cries of rapture in a British theatre, that they have so constantly produced in the theatre Francais: whether from vanity or taste, the French are the modern Athenians. It is the sister of Ariadne who speaks. " Je respirois, Oenone, et depuis son absence, Mes jours moins agites couloicnt dans l'innocence. Soumise a mon epoux, et cachant mes ennuis, VOL. I. Q 2^6 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. De son fatal hymen je cultivois les fruits ; Vaines precautions ! cruelle destinee ! Par mon epoux lui-meme a Trezene amenee, J'ai revu l'ennemi que j'avois eloigne ; Ma blessure trop vive aussi-tot a saigne ; Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachee, C'est Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee." Phe'dre, by Racine. This shameless passion of maturity would excite laughter among us ; and the more heroic the form of the speaker, the less should we excuse it. Such a passion could only be borne, if at all, in the me- lancholy garb of penitence, hardly announced to be intelligible to the hearer, and succeeded by unap- peasable despair ! I run over the close in such En- glish as occurs at the moment : O vain precautions ! cruel destiny ! Theseus, my husband, brings him to Trezene, Once more, I view the foe I had remov'd ; Again gush'd from my wound its crimson flood ; No longer now a smother d ardour beat, But Venus fir'd my veins, and revell'd in her prey. But the Rival Sisters had nothing of this bril- liant kind. I never thought Mrs. Siddons herself THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 227 in very modern tragedy. She was best where she had to strive against the fame of other performers — to weigh their different notions, and determine on her own judgment, which, out of many, was the true manner. She acted Ariadne, I think, six times. Miss Farren, the third great moving power in the theatre, had a new character, though under False Colours ; for such was the name of a five act comedy, written by Mr. Morris, a gentleman and a scholar; and a Templar, which was long but an- other term for a wit. He, perhaps, wrote rather too rapidly for duration; but he lived his nine nights, and then yielded up the field to other ad- venturers of no greater force. Mrs. Jordan, on her benefit night, indulged her- self and her friends with a performance of Lady Restless, in Murphy's All in the Wrong— and the Devil to Pay, for her farce. In Nell there could be no difference of opinion. In Lady Restless, and parts of that rank, I never could think her supe- rior to other women. Milton, in his Comus, has a very happy expression upon a very different occa- Q2 228 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. sion. He says that the earth, if we were uniformly temperate, would " Be strangled with her waste fertility." I always thought this the case with the beautiful form of Mrs. Jordan, when enveloped in the gar- ments of a woman of fashion — a train, except of admirers, was a thing she had no skill in mana- ging. Alert in every action, she kicked it hastily out of her way. — She had not the height that may properly be said to command such an appendage — it wanted balance accordingly. The endeavour to give this by lofty feathers, always fails. The face, which should be every thing, is lost under the wa- ving plumage, supported by its cushion of powder- ed hair. I am no great admirer of Revolutions, but that of France referred our ladies happily to the statues of the Greeks, rather than the drest dolls of the milliners ; and for many years they bore some evidences of the real human figure about them. They have now gone to the times of Queen Elizabeth for sleeves, which, by their enormous swell and the slender bone at the bottom of them, put all definement of their arms out of the ques- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 22 ( J tion ; and the ingenious artist, who represents hu- man figures by coal-skuttles and gridirons, sauce- pans, horse-combs and extinguishers, might ex- press the outward sign of the female arm by a stick with a bladder tied to the end of it. But we see renewal even in change itself. Cumberland, as a man of letters, far exceeded all his dramatic cotemporaries. His origin, the great fame of his ancestors, his advantages as to education ; and to do him justice, an application that yielded only to that of Dr. Watson, at Col- lege, had placed him in no mean rank as a scholar; and he had a readiness in the application of his power, that somewhat justified Dr. Johnson's the- ory, that a man can walk as well to the East as to the West. How well he may walk,, depends upon his training, and the original make and muscle of the limb. Critic, essayist, dramatist, novelist, po- lemic, and, as a poet, tragic, comic, and epic, he ex- hausted all the literary adjectived nouns, or nouns adjective in ic or ist ; and this universality has failed to attain the first rank, let alone the first place, in any thing. His quantity was prodigious, and he threw his pieces up like mushrooms, in a. 230 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. few hours. His language was always perspicuous, usually delicate and neat, sometimes pointed and brilliant. He wrote for either theatre, and in the present year, 1793, he had constructed for Co vent Garden, an opera on the subject of Wat Tyler. This the aspen nerve of my old friend the licenser, Mr. Larpent, unwilling to alarm the civic chair by any call for an exertion of the mace in a new rebel- lion, proscribed with that official fiat, which is ex- purgatory in literature, Heaven knows ! any thing but classical. In cutting out the treason, Cumber- land, oddly enough, says he cut out all the comedy; and thus joined himself to those who have nothing good in their pieces but what is objectionable. In- stead of the Tyler, we have an armourer, called Furnace, who furnishes out the business of the play by hammering professionally one Bluster on the head, who was attempting to carry off another Rosamond, for the Earl of Suffolk, in the days of Richard the Second. Cumberland's armourer lived three days, and then gave way, as he said truly, to fashionable le- vities. But he was hurt still more on the 18th of the same month, of April, by the brilliant success THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 231 of Reynolds in his third comedy, called, with great propriety, How to grow Rich. The dreamers of the old school seem to have settled their notion of what they called legitimate comedy, somewhere about the Conscious Lovers ; they were to be regu- lated by a receipt, and made like other stale and tiresome amusements, as they had ever been in the days of yore. To " eye nature's walks, to shoot folly as it flies," to present to the audience of the modern stage any thing seen in modern life, was somehow or other converted into a crime by these critical playwrights, and the most amusing, if not most instructive of modern authors, has literally been persecuted for painting accurately what he saw before him. The " Terence of England," forsooth ! the " mender of hearts" was excessively illiberal through life ; and affected to think my ingenious and pleasant friend a mere idler of the garden ; who under the awful roof of Drury, would be hoot- ed ignominiously from the stage. But in reference to the present play, where could a comic satirist find more legitimate prey (if that is the word) than the infamous Faro banks, that were now exciting the avarice and racking the nerves of what should 232 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. be the purest, as it is certainly the fairest part of the creation ? What more morally in harmony, than the gibbeting a scoundrel bailiff to infamy, who opened his luxurious retirements to profligate gamblers, and taught the dishonest of high life how the defiance of injured creditors and splendid ac- commodation might be enjoyed together? As to Mr. Lewis and his padded Epilogue, I can only say that I never heard such roars of laughter in a theatre ; and the notion, though hazardous, was lucky : but it was safe by what had prepared its way ; the temper of the house had been worked up to it. Had it followed a dull comedy, Lewis must have kept the pad in his pocket — to have but named it, might have been fatal. It was encored like a favourite air, " Pray Goody," by Sinclair, or any other vocalist equally sweet and natural, if there be one. Aye, and a third time ! but that ex- ceeded Mr. Lewis's complaisance, and the pad car- ried him off, or he the pad, in measureless content. I really was almost as happy as the author. 233 CHAPTER X. History of Drury Lane Theatres — Their origin in the cockpit, a little before the retirement of Shakspeare — Destroyed by a mob in 1G17 — The Phoenix built in the same spot — Its preservation in the Great Rebellion — Rhodes, the bookseller, and his two apprentices, Betterton and Kynaston — Obtains a licence first for the Phcenix, and then joins D'Avenant in Lincoln's Inn Fields — A new theatre erected by Killigrew in Drury Lane — Opened in 1 662 ; burnt nine years after- wards — A church brief granted on this calamity — Sir Chris- topher Wren builds once more upon the old spot — The advantages of his plan, displayed by Colley Cibber — Apo- logy for its plainness in a prologue and epilogue by the great Dryden, spoken at its opening in 1674 — Union of the two companies in Drury Lane Theatre — Christopher Rich patentee — Silenced by the Chamberlain — Patents dormant — Sir Richard Steele's licence to himself, Wilks, Booth, and Cibber— Mr. Highmore — Mr. Fleetwood— The illustrious Garrick becomes purchaser with Mr. Lacy — Twenty years' splendor of Old Drury— On the great actor's retirement, Sheridan succeeds him — At length the house is taken down — Author's regard for it, and personal acquaintance with its merits and its defects — Presages on its fall. The Drury Lane company acted under the ma- nagement of Mr. Colman at the Little Theatre from the beginning of the season 1793-4 until their own 234 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. theatre was ready for them. It looked a mere con- tinuation of a summer season, and merits no par- ticular survey. Until therefore we have Mr. Hol- land's splendid palace to walk into, we shall fill what may be called the vacant space, by enquiring what theatres or playhouses ever stood upon or near the site of the late theatre of Drury Lane. The reader will not be surprised to find a cock- pit produce a playhouse — to cut off a segment of the circle, and apply a scaffolding of some depth as well as width provides easily in the day-time for both spectators and performers. The cock-pit was present to the mind of Shakspeare, when he opened the warlike play of Henry the Fifth. " Can this cock-pit hold The vasty fields of France ?" But Shakspeare's playhouses were the Globe, a summer, and the Blackfriars, a winter quarters. The cock-pit in Drury Lane dates somewhere about the period of his retirement from the scene, for in 1617 it was destroyed by the rabble though newly erected, and all its apparatus along with the build- ing. The new edifice on the same spot was called THE LIFE OF MRS. J011DAW 235 the Phoenix, which fabulous bird it bore in front for a sign, and thus pointed to a conflagration, as well as a renewal. It stood opposite the Castle tavern, and weathered the great rebellion as to its exterior, though the Saints were far too pure, to allow a representation within of the tragedies of any other age. The actors there, while we had a stage, were called the Queen's servants in the reign of James the First until Queen Anne died in 1619. They then became the Lady Elizabeth's; and when Charles the First married Henrietta of France, they were styled the Queen's servants again. It is prob- able that Sir William D'Avenant some time before the Restoration, both at the Phoenix and within the city walls, invited those who had not totally been canted out of all rational enjoyment, to some mixed species of entertainment. But, with the actual return of the king, all restraint being re- moved, Rhodes, a bookseller, who had conducted the wardrobe of the Blackfriars during the long reign of Fletcher, and had kept his fondness alive through the dreary interval, fitted up the cock-pit once more, and got together a company, some of 236 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. whom he had contributed, it is probable, to form, for Betterton and Kynaston had been his appren- tices. Rhodes, when Betterton was bound to him, lived near Charing Cross, and it is fairly presum- able that, his former station in the playhouse, and his congenial business, led him to preserve much stage literature from destruction ; so that when at length a complete collection was attempted, the stores of Rhodes would supply the Herringman's with the quarto plays, which he had so frequently dressed from the wardrobe he superintended. One can hardly forbear to imagine the ardour of our two youths, invading the repose of these silent plays, and at a favourable season drawing from their good-humoured master some notions as to the various talents, by which so much genius was illustrated. In 1659, when Rhodes got his licence, Betterton was out of his time as a bookseller ; but a hint from his old master brought him again into his service ; and he could not have met with a better guide as to the business of the stage. Bet- terton applied himself to the works of Fletcher with uncommon ardour, and was speedily followed as the genuine successor of the heroes of the Black- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 237 friars in his Loyal Subject, Wild-yoosc Chase, Spa- nish Curate, and the immense variety which he had composed. When D'Avenant and Killigrew obtained their two patents, Rhodes thought it idle to stand out upon his licence at the Phoenix, and his company joined that, with which D'Avenant opened the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, under the style of the Duke's servants. The superior title followed the patent of Killigrew, the King's servants ; and they at first acted in a house situated near Clare market. However, finding this building ill adapted to the purposes of playing, they resolved to return to the old spot, and erected a new and convenient theatre in Drury Lane. It was opened on the 8th of April, 1662. But theatres have been combust- ible from their origin, and this new and sumptuous building was totally consumed in the month of January, 1671-2. So rapid and fierce was the con- flagration, that between fifty and sixty adjacent houses were either burnt or blown up.* We have * The union of church and king is usual, perhaps indisso- luble , but that of church and theatre little to be looked for in 238 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. so far benefited by experience, that the adjacent buildings now suffer less by the destruction of our theatres, though their condemnation to the flames seems to be almost a patent right, and a danger attached to the privilege. The proprietors were not discouraged as to the seat of the Muses, and determined, with all the care they could take, to rebuild on the ancient spot. They consulted Sir Christopher Wren upon the subject, and put themselves with full confidence in the hands of that great man. He produced a plan, which combined every advantage to both actor and spectator, and was deliberately approved and adopted by men of the soundest judgment. The any age. A brief, however, was actually read through the kingdom for the benefit of our stage sufferers — The register of Symonsbury, in the county of Dorset, has the following liberal entry: — " Ann. 1673, April 27th. Collected by brief, for the Theatre Royal in London, being burnt, the sum of Two Shil- lings. John Way, Curate. James Morey, rey, ^ EAL, S Churchwardens." George Seai THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 239 king himself, by command, had sanctioned tin- plain, unornamented style of the building ; and the rule that pleasure, as we advance in intellect, pro- ceeds from the eye to the ear, seemed to have dic- tated all the internal arrangements of the architect. Cibber, who knew it in its perfection, before avarice had spoiled it, thus contrasts its appearance forty years before the time in which he was then writ- ing. " The area or platform of the old stage pro- jected about four feet forwarder in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit ; the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters ; in the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. Where the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two addi- tional side wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a double effect in their lofti- ness and magnificence. By this original form the usual station of the actors in almost every scene was advanced at least ten feet nearer to the au- dience than they now can be ; because, not only from the stage's being shortened in front, but like- wise from the additional interposition of those 240 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. stage boxes, the actors (in respect of the spectators that fill them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they used to be ; but when the actors were in possession of that for- warder space to advance upon, the voice was then more in the center of the house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or difficulty in hearing what fell from the weakest utterance ; all objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense ; every painted scene was stronger ; every grand scene and dance more extended ; every rich or fine coloured habit had a more lively lustre ; nor was the minutest motion of a feature (properly chang- ing with the passion or humour it suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of too great a distance : and how valuable an advantage the facility of hearing distinctly is to every well- acted scene, every common spectator is a judge : a voice scarce raised above the tone of a whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or jealousy suppressed, often have as much concern with the heart as the clamorous passions ; and when on any of these occasions such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the differ- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 241 ence from the great or little satisfaction received from them." This great man (for the reader must pardon, on this occasion, my utter contempt for Pope's injus- tice) well understood the subject, and spoke as an actor who had personally felt the happy effects re- sulting from Wren's original plan. The royal in- junction was, probably, in exact conformity with the taste of the architect, who said with Shylock, " Let not the glare of shallow foppery enter My sober dwelling." D'Avenant, with the second patent, had at length settled in Dorset Gardens, and was turned by na- ture to decoration. The " true state of man" seemed to him bare and wretched ; he loaded build- ing with ornament, covered the stage with tawdry procession and new invented machinery ; imagined even the full fables of Shakspeare's age deficient in effect : clapt two plays together, and re-wrote pas- sages that should have been more particularly sa- cred to him as the godson of Shakspeare ; " and, if the rest be true which which we have heard," this degener Neoptolemus became the decided VOL. I. R 242 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. enemy of simplicity and genuine nature in the drama — " Teem'd with new monsters, which the modest earth Had to the marbled mansion, all above, Never presented." In this course of its patent rival, the new theatre in Drury Lane opened on the 26th of March, 1674, and to their disgrace apologised for the plainness which was their real excellence. They even pleaded the royal order as extenuation, and shewed their envy by adverting to the encourage- ment which the public, as they admitted, had be- stowed upon the scenery and decorations of the other house. Not contented with the authority of the throne, they procured the Patriarch of Poetry to state their case for them, and a few extracts from Dryden's Prologue on the occasion, will shew what the plain- ness was of which they complained. " A plain-built house, after so long a stay, Will send you half unsatisfied away ; When, fall'n from your expected pomp, you find, A bare convenience only is design'd ; You, who each day can theatres behold, THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 243 Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold, Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we fear ; And for the homely room disdain the cheer. ***** " For fame and honour we no longer strive, We yield in both, and only beg to live : Yet, if some pride, with want, may be allow'd, We, in our plainness, may be justly proud — Our Royal Master will'd it should be so. ***** " While scenes, machines, and empty Operas reign, And for the pencil you the pen disdain : Tis to be fear'd— That, as a Fire the former House o'erthrew, Machines and Tempests will destroy the new." Dryden, luckless Dryden, here for his price at- tacked himself. He and D'Avenant absolutely wrote and contrived this Tempest, which was then acting at Dorset Gardens. The new House had, however, some merits, and Dryden's Epilogue shall tell us what they were. " Our House relieves the ladies from the frights Of ill-pav'd streets, and long dark winter nights. The Flanders horses, from a cold, bleak road, Where bears, in furs, dare scarcely look abroad." R 2 '244 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. However, he has one capital hit at the Dorset Garden Minerva. That theatre was adorned with the portraits of all our great Poets, a matchless decoration ! " Though in their house the Poets' heads appear, We hope we may presume their wits are here." I should like, as a matter of curiosity, to know, under D'Avenant's eye, what likeness of Shaks- peare his theatre exhibited. There was not, in this great city, at that time, sufficient encouragement to support two Patent Theatres, which, after a few years' struggle, united the two companies under the roof of Wren's the- atre. After sundry changes, both patents came into the possession of Christopher Rich ; but on his misconduct in the management, the Chamber- lain silenced him in the year 1709; from which time the Drury Lane company ceased to act under the authority of either Killigrew or D'Avenant's patents. But in the first year of the reign of George I., a license was granted to Sir Richard Steele, for his life, and, three years afterwards, to establish a company under the management of himself, Wilkes, Booth, and Cibber. From this THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 245 period may be dated the vast ascendancy of Dnuy Lane theatre. The death of the two former pro- prietors, and the secession of the two latter, how- ever, shook the concern to its centre, and the property passed into the hands of Mr. Highmore, who ruined himself in the speculation. The thea- tre was now bought by Mr. Fleetwood, another architect of ruin. But the brightest star in the theatrical firmament soon became stationary over Old Drury, and, in 1747, Mr. Garrick's amazing talent, and Mr. Lacy's care, commenced a period, the most brilliant which ever occurred in stage- management, and of which the providence was equally conspicuous with the genius. The twen- tieth year beheld the setting of the great luminary we have mentioned, and the theatre enjoyed the promise of a new but somewhat different splendor — Mr. Sheridan, in 1776, became proprietor of the concern ; for of his partners it is unnecessary to speak. His eccentric, brilliant, but yet unsteady course, if it satisfied himself, was little calculated to emulate the management of Garrick — as a statesman, he lived without office, and with only the fame of eloquence ; — as a poet, he depended upon 246 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the display made in his youth, and which his most pressing and vital interest could not induce him to repeat ; he had even the powers of a man of busi- ness, but he exerted them too seldom to have much efficacy in his concerns. Where Garrick amassed a splendid fortune, Sheridan accumulated nothing but debt; and he sealed his fate by the encum- brances which the building of a National Theatre, upon a vast scale, necessarily fastened upon the concern. After shewing the succession to the property, there are yet a few particulars to notice as to the Old Drury. After standing near 120 years, it was at last taken down. The complaint of Cibber re- garded the position of the stage. He does not charge the alterations with any thing beyond trying to contain a greater number of spectators. It is rare, I think, for a house to change its whole cha- racter in its alterations. Garrick received it a plain theatre, and the Adamses, by their improve- ments, certainly did not greatly decorate it. To the last, for I can bring it very accurately to my mind's eye, it was a plain theatre as to its interior. It had the common defect of all our theatres, except THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 247 the Opera House, namely, that the pit doors of en- trance were close to the orchestra, and, as they did not choose to leave the most valuable part of the house without its complement, and there was no mode of forcing the people who sat at a distance to inconvenience themselves, the door-keepers, by the box-screw, kept winding in their late arrivals ; and the pressure into the mass close to it, already ill at ease, and dreading a new attack every mo- ment from a rushing current of cold air, which ushered in the stranger, occasioned Jits among the women, and fights among the men, while the stage and the boxes alike suspended every other amuse- ment, but looking on, till silence was restored. Over this " perturbed spirit" I have seen the solemn countenance of Kemble bent with calm attention ; and the assumed sympathy of Palmer bow with graceful ambiguity. Mrs. Sicldons had somewhat more difficulty, for she could not be sure always whether the disturbance arose from the desire to see her, or the hysteric results of that painful pleasure. Miss Farren, on these occasions, relaxed the lovely smile which usually sat upon her 248 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. features, and looked among her fashionable friends for pity that she should be so annoyed. Mrs. Jordan saw it with the eyes of the character she most commonly performed, and at the first symp- tom of composure below, started off into the sprightly action, and the unfailing laugh which she had only to will, and they obeyed. It was into this theatre that Garrick introduced the French improvement of the trap or floating- light in front of the stage ; screened from the spec- tators, and reflected upon the actor. Undoubtedly it alters the course of nature, and casts shadow up- ward — it displays the hollows which expression would wish to soften, and so far is decidedly un- picturesque. But no artist has yet been able to throw sufficient light downwards, and not lengthen the shadows beyond the proper measure ; and the glittering chandelier, when lowered, is always wished away by those seated above ; so that we are likely to remain as we are in the illumination of our theatres. The parting with Old Drury was a subject of real grievance to many of its steady frequenters — THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 249 they looked upon its limits as hallowed, and its form as prescriptive ; they shrunk from the ap- proaches of opera and spectacle. They said it was the naturalization of foreign habits, which would debase, if they did not destroy, the plain substanc of our Native Tragedy and Comedy. •250 CHAPTER XI. The Grand National Theatre — Description of it — Opening with sacred music — First play acted on the 21st of April — Inno- vations of Mr. Kemhle in Macbeth — The bell — The dagger — The Ghost of Banquo — Musical Witches — Charles Kem- ble — Securities from fire — Reservoir — Iron curtain — Mere tricks — The vanity of speculative science — Mrs. Jordan not employed — Kemble — Miss Farren do the honours — Fitz- patrick — G. Colman — Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the Jew — The gratitude of Israel — Kemble's Lodoiska — Threefarces three days together — Mrs. Jordan acts for the widows and orphans made on the 1st of June — Three farces again, and for four days — Harris versus Kemble — In the summer, John Bannister at Liverpool — Winter of 1794-5 — Mrs. Daven- port — A shilling gallery put up — Emilia Galotti at Drury — Nobody — Mrs. Jordan's fright — The Rage — The IVedding Day of Mrs. Inchbald — Mrs. Jordan's portrait seen again by the author, forty years after it was painted — Her Helena — Measure for Measure — Miss Mellon — Mrs. Coutts — The Duchess — Miss Arne — Alexander the Great, a ballet. The architect of the Grand National Theatre, lan- guage suited to the revolutionary ideas then pre- vailing, had entirely, here, given up the plan on which he had constructed the Theatre Royal, Covent THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 251 Garden, which displayed, internally, a sort of Dutch bulge to its tiers of boxes, not unlike the marine style of that solid people. He aimed at the substantial where his space was confined, and at the light and lofty, where he had no limitations but his own feeling. Looking to the long-esta- blished characters of the two companies, one might have expected him to reverse such an arrangement, and bestow his levity on Mr. Harris. However, the facts admit of no question ; they have both ex- perienced the same fate — not a vestige of either theatre remains. The new Drury had very little frontage to its boxes, and the divisions between them were only shoulder high, so that there was no difficulty in being seen or seeing. The covings of the upper tier were lofty arches of the pointed order. There were eight private boxes on the stage, and eight dull and inconvenient slips, also called private, on each side of the pit. It was, at times, difficult to keep the standers in the pit from trespassing on their fronts ; and their hats, and, sometimes, great coats, on a wet evening, made the secluded gentry doubtful whether they could enjoy their pri- 252 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. vilege unmolested. The tiers were not left with- out some seeming support, and the most delicate candelabra of cast iron, fluted, and silver lackered, resting on the most elegant feet, at intervals, satis- fied both the fancy and the eye. Well relieved ca- meos, by Rebecca, ornamented the fronts of the boxes — the designs which, however, could not be inspected, were from Ovid. The four tiers of boxes, light as they seemed, would absolutely con- tain 1,828 persons ; the pit 800 ; the two shilling gallery 675 ; and the shilling summit, or Olympus, 308 ; making a grand total of 3,61 1 persons, who, if they all paid, sent no less a sum than 826/. 6s. into the treasury, for one night's amusement. I hesitate not to say, that there was comfort in every part of this theatre. Mr. Holland had not crippled his gallery friends by any necessity for stooping, that they might see. The beautiful dome, over the pit, was positively at the height of fifty-six feet and a half from its floor. The pit, itself, had twenty-five seats, and its depth, from the orchestra, was fifty-four feet ; its width, from side-box to side-box, forty-six feet. The curtain, on the stage, measured a space of forty-three feet, and its height THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 2*)'.) was thirty-eight feet. All this gives an impression of vastness, which was never felt inside ; and there was a peculiarity ahout this edifice, that took away the chilling effect, when suhjected, sometimes, to a thin audience ; a few persons could seem to peo- ple the structure. The exterior of this theatre was never completed. To put the house in a condition to admit the puhlic, was the one thing needful ; what remained, could be revived from time to time, as a subject of conversation, and dropt when it had answered the purpose of a " note of preparation," for the an- nual opening. But, indeed, to give room for the whole design, the neighbourhood ought to have been changed, and the street thrown back to the north, and the miserable courts to the south swept away. To the west only is there even tolerably free access for carriages. After a reasonable course of sacred music in Lent, always improper as amusement, this theatre, on the 21st of April, opened for its legitimate objects, and the great object of Kemble's policy, as well as taste, the representation of Shakspeare's tragedies, and the sterling comedies of every age, produced 254 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. with suitable care and improvements, and followed by entertainments, which should not disgrace them. He thus established Mrs. Siddons and himself in full scenic sovereignty, and if circumstances should ever provoke him to throw up the management, a thing not beyond probability, the more desirable, because less responsible predominance, as to the staple of the theatre, remained in Mr. Kemble and his family. The present stage required scenery, certainly, thirty-four feet in height, and about forty-two feet in width, so that an entire suite of new scenes was essential on great occasions, though where display was not material, the old pieced flats might be run on still, and the huge gaps between them and the wings, filled up by any other scenes drawn forward, merely " to keep the wind away." Dress, too, was now become a matter of no slight moment ; the costume was to be accurate, which was not expensive, and the materials were to be genuine, not imitative, which certainly was ex- pensive, and very heavily so. Mr. Kemble had studied Macbeth for the occasion, as though the play had never been done before. As to the thane of Glamis, he set at nought the prescriptive manner of THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 255 Garrick and others, along with his dress, and merely enquired of the poet, and, no doubt, fan- cied him to whisper to his slumbers, how he would now direct his sublimest effort to be performed. The first innovation, of any moment, was in the soliloquy preceding the murder. Here, he altered two points ; one of action, and the other of stage direction. Macbeth is on the stage,, a servant at- tending with a torch : " Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed." and the servant goes out to do so. Now, this ap- pears to have been a signal previously agreed upon, at the hearing which, Macbeth was to know that his undaunted partner had prepared every thing for his hand; and the bell's ringing, would excite no other attention, the servant having been told that it was to announce the spiced cup, taken always the last thing before retiring for the night. Mac- beth knew that he was to dispatch Duncan with the daggers of his very attendants, and his Lady had placed them before him, when he entered the royal apartment. This was working, naturally, 256 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. upon Macbeth's imagination, while he remains ivaiting the signal agreed upon. Hear what he fancies : — " Macb. Is this a dagger, which I see before me, The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." He anxiously questions the nature of that, which eludes his grasp, and yet waves before his eye : — " I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use." Mr. Kemble here drew, half-way out of the scab- bard, the sivord he wore ; not the dagger, which was more constantly the companion of a chieftain's person. He would not see that " this" was this dagger; and that, though " such an instrument he was to use," it did not follow it was to be his own; which, at the moment, was only drawn to contrast corporeity with mere form. After satisfying himself that the bloody business alone had thus deceived his sight, Macbeth falls into the accompanying terrors THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 257 of "night and silence;" and, at length, " a bell rings " as we are told, in the only original copy of the play — and he, himself, adds, " the bell invites me" Mr. Kemble found, in the raving slumbers of Lady Macbeth, the words — " One, two — why, then, 'tis time to do it ;" — upon which, he took the clock for the warning, and adopted it, as a more striking signal, and begetting a more awful atten- tion in the audience. He was here decidedly wrong ; no signal could be adopted between them, of which Lady Macbeth had not the absolute com- mand; and though the time for doing the deed, might be about two of the clock, the " moment of it" depended upon complete readiness, which could not be announced till it was perceived. The old manner of doing this is, therefore, right. For, when " Time, with his hours, should strike two," who can tell what might have occurred? The ominous owl might have excited, at least, Dun- can's attention, who seems not to have been drug- ged, like his servile attendants : — the rocking earth had aroused some of the guests, and the falling chimnies, Lennox and others. Lady Macbeth was to be sure of no impediment in the royal apart- vol. i. s 258 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. merit, and to make the signal only on such a cer- tainty ; nay, with all her care, Macbeth, as he approached, heard two of the attendants " wake each other," and stood " listening their fear," until sleep again befriended the murderer. The other point did not rest solely on Mr. Kem- ble's authority. Lloyd, the poet, in 1761, in his Actor, that dawn of the Rosciad, thus reproves the old practice of placing Banquo in the seat of Macbeth : — " When chilling horrors shake the affrighted king, And guilt torments him with her scorpion sting ; When keenest feelings at his bosom pull, And fancy tells him that the seat is full ; Why need the ghost usurp the monarch's place, To frighten children with his mealy face ? The king alone should form the phantom there, And talk and tremble at the vacant chair." I have already said that I have nothing to do with the ridiculous mode of scenic effect. The only question is what Shakspeare himself intended, and how, without the disappearance and return of the phantom, we are to reconcile the almost mo- mentary alarm of Macbeth a second time, when he THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 259 had expelled the intruder, and, being gone, found himself again a man? When his reason and his courage have once triumphed over vacancy, how can fancy so soon re-people the void ? If the an- swer be, that preternatural power alarms the ima- gination here, it may as well amaze the faculty of eyes and ears ; but the spectators have no means but sight, of judging what is fancied by the starting murderer. In the present case, he might fancy Duncan in the regal seat, even more naturally than Banquo. But the poet's own direction ought for ever to silence all doubt : " Enter the ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth' s place." Folio, 1623. When he has laid his perturbation to an infirmity to which he had long been subject, and recovering heart, orders some wine to be filled, that he may drink his wishes for Banquo's presence and the general joy ; our genuine play again marks the en- trance and the place — thus, Enter Ghost. We have nothing to do with the philosophy of the question, whatever it may be ; but ought to give absolute visible appearance, at least to an age that s 2 260 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. did not doubt the possibility of it. The imagina- tion here is in the poet, not the character. There were sundry other novelties, perhaps re- vivals, as to the witches and their incantations ; indeed the noble firmness and compactness of the action was dreadfully broken and attenuated by the vast crowds of witches and spirits that filled the stage, and thundered in the ear a music of dire potency. The auxiliary injured the principal, and Matthew Locke became the rival of his master. Mere speech, however masterly, is weak upon the ear after the noise (call it harmony if you will) of a full orchestra, and perhaps fifty voices, with diffi- culty kept together in tolerable time and tune. But with great readiness I submit to that public decision, which has declared this play, so furnished, the most attractive of all dramatic representations. T have already noticed the musical junto, which, by a continual intercourse with Sheridan, consti- tuted no inferior power to that of the manager ; and so much outlay could not perhaps have been obtained for tragedy, unless it had embraced the strong plea of combination, and employed the singers of the theatre. On every other occasion, the efforts THE LIKE OF MRS. JORDAN. 261 were commonly made for opera, now growing into a passion among us, fatal to the genuine produce of our drama. It was on this night that Charles Kemble, hap- pily rescued from the Post-office, commenced in the trivial part of Malcolm his profession of an actor. He had the same preparation as his brother, a classical education ; and though he shares the personal advantages of his family, seems to act fairly from himself. Not so naturally gifted for tragedy as his great brother, he is excellent in many first-rate characters of the serious muse ; and, in comedy, he assumes a rank between the de- liberate, studied politeness of Palmer, and the rattling caricature of a gentleman which sat so delightfully upon Lewis. We have still something more to say as to the new theatre. The not distant destruction of the Opera House by fire, had excited the attention of scientific men to the subject ; and as they could not do much in the way of prevention, since it is and will be the " property of fire to burn," they ex- hausted themselves, in case of accident, in modes by which the flames might be locally extinguished, 262 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. and the audience, in the mean time, cut off from the stage ; and, in perfect safety, either wait the result, or quietly and without precipitation walk out of the theatre. But the mistake in all these structures is the communication of the boxes them- selves with the stage, and the vent afforded by the circling passages of the respective tiers. These should certainly be cut off by division-walls to the very roof, reaching from the external walls of the theatre to the frontispiece, and a strong division be also made in the very roof itself, so that the whole roof could never be on fire, nor all of it fall in at the same time. An iron curtain to drop down, and a reservoir, with pipes to play on, in all the passages, were tricks to amuse children in such matters. While the audience is in a theatre, and all is stir and vigilance in the building, all the popular danger is from themselves. Give them plenty of exits, and you do all you can do ; — but carelessness, either by day or night, in the work- men or watchmen of a playhouse, are the true things to guard against. Here to care nothing about expense, is salvation to the concern. However, something to excite talk and curiosity THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 263 merely, may be excused ; I mean if we should even be of opinion that such men as Sheridan, and Hol- land, and Kemble, had reallv slender faith in any of the inventions that time so severely tried and found wanting. Mrs. Jordan had no share in the opening of the new house, so that Kemble and Miss Farren did the honours of the house-warming. A Whig prologue, written by Fitzpatrick, talked a long while about the French Revolution, and at length brought out that this building was reared in honour to somebody, and was " The silent tribute of surviving woe." Ten lines further on, the silence or the secret ended, and it came broadly before us in the " glories of Shakspeare's Scene." At that word the au- dience used their hands, and Mr. Kemble made his bow. Miss Farren had another sort of task. George Colman wrote a pleasant account of all the overdoings he so much despised ; and he was both pointed and intelligible. Miss Farren, though a weak speaker of rhyme and poetry at all times, exerted herself on this brilliant occasion, and was loudly cheered. He will really dispute the point 264 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. with me, but except as to Terence, I prefer his dramatic works to his father's — Mr. Colman, the younger, has the stronger mind. Macbeth was repeated on the four following nights, and yet twice more before the end of the month, and on the 2nd, 5th, and 7th of May. On the 8th Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the Jew was acted for the first time, of which Bannister, jun. was the benevolent Israelite. "I am ashamed to say (Mr. C. writes,) with what rapidity I dispatched that hasty composition." He shewed it to Ban- nister act by act as he wrote it. Indeed, to my old friend, it was a treasure just then, because it gave him the lead in a successful play, and pre- vented him from being smothered by the tragedies of Shakspeare, or confined to farce. When Charles Surface was ill (says Sheridan) the Jews put up prayers for him in the synagogue — and some such tributary unexpensive acknowledgments might now have been made by the Goldsmids and the Solo- mons to Mr. Cumberland. Of any thing more solid, they have hardly been accused. They have never much encouraged the theatres, except from a love of music ; and then the singers were Jews — THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 265 Leoni and Braham. Mr. Cumberland deplores the " ridicule and contempt" with which they had been treated on the stage, till Sheva, as 1 presume he thought, did them justice. Their character is retrievable when Sheva is not extraordinary among them ; in the meantime, they who worship mam- mon so exclusively, may pass through a fire of wit to their " grim idol," without any severe morti- fication. On the 9th of June, Mr. Kemble brought out an afterpiece with music, which he had himself translated from the French, called Lodoiska. There was the usual love incident for Kelly and Crouch, and a band of Tartars with Barrymore at their head, who profited greatly by the marching orders which the manager knew so well how to carry, by doing the business himself before them. He got every body readily to act parts in it, and in dress, and scenery, and music, it was a perfect, spirited thing. Cumberland, now all acquiescence, cut away an act from his Natural Son ; and this four- act play and an entertainment were then thought sufficient amusement for the evening. The want of Mrs. Jordan began now to be felt — Mrs. Siddons 266 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. had not acted after the first week of June, and Kemble's management the three last days of the month was disgraced by three farces, which I pre- serve as the severest degradation that the great national theatre could feel. 27th. The Children in the Wood — Bon Ton — Lodoiska. 28th. The Liar — Lodoiska — My Grandmother. 30th. The Children in the Wood — High Life Below — Lodoiska. The 2nd of July was devoted to the benefit of the widows and children of the brave men who perished in Lord Howe's victory of the 1st of June. Mrs. Jor- dan, with the hearty consent of her illustrious naval admirer, volunteered her only performance of the Country Girl that season ; Cobb, one of the readiest and most ingenious men that I have ever known in theatres, ran together a sort of second part of No Song no Supper, very eagerly taken by the house, which distinguished itself this evening by a sea- fight, that shewed all the capabilities of the stage as to scenery and machinery. The spectators coughed and enjoyed the powder. Richardson wrote a very beautiful prologue for the night, and Kemble spoke THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 267 it. On another occasion, and why not on this ? the couplet which follows I have marked as trans- cendently fortunate. " Glory itself at such a shrine may bow, And what is glory but a name for Howe ?" On the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th of the month, the town accepted of three farces as above, the First of June concluding each evening's entertainment. The following season had at least a better esti- mate to guide it of the real force necessary in a company ; some of the gas had escaped, and the grand machine was brought nearer to the earth. Besides, Covent Garden theatre had closed early in June, to have time for her projected alterations ; for the New Drury appeared so captivating, that nothing but change had any chance with it, and Mr. Harris was not a man to be easily frightened, nor to slumber in a false security. He knew his rival thoroughly, and with all his Herculean strength, ventured to predict that he should beat him, though he possessed the Siddons, the Farren, and the Jordan. In the summer of 1794, the Havmarket theatre 268 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " lost half its soul " — John Bannister went to Liver- pool, and Charles Kemble and Fawcett together supported his share of serious and comic business. The author of No Song no Supper wrote an occa- sional address for Bannister, which enumerated all the parts in which he was celebrated, and to assist frail memory , I will here run them over : Lenitive — Walter — Sheva — Robin — Trudge — Scout — Ja- cob — Philpot — Gradus — Vapour. But such a list is itself a proud testimony of the actor's merit. He was, in fact, the inspiring genius of our farce writers. Liverpool did him full justice, and they were no mean judges there of good acting. Colman, this summer, was furiously attacked for playing three farces nightly at his theatre ; now, the fact is, that summer amusement, like summer clothing, should never be heavy ; and there such arrangements were more than excusable ; they were, in some sort, preferable. At the winter theatres, with their extensive companies, such trifling should vacate the patent. But the New Drury at that time stood remarkably well with the daily press. On the 24th of September, 1794, Mrs. Daven- port, an actress of infinite talent, made her first THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 269 appearance at Covent Garden theatre, in which she acted six and thirty years. She came to Lon- don as a substitute for Mrs. Webb ; but the sub- stitute, like the soldier so called in the militia, was infinitely more fit for the duty than the overgrown original had ever been. She had a very acute per- ception of comic humour, and a strength and earnestness that always carried the dialogue home. Her debut was in the Mrs. Hardcastle of She Stoops to Conquer. Quick, among our actors, seemed her natural counterpart. I believe this lady in her long professional career, gave less trouble than had ever been remarked, to either manager, actor, or author — she loved her business, and did it well and cheerfully. While thus remembering the new actress at the rival house, I must not forget the new face which the theatre itself now wore. The original deficiency of a one-shilling gallery was only to be palliated, not cured ; part of the pit ceiling was cut away, to allow of a slope view of the stage ; and the manager persuaded himself to think all well ; but as to his galleries, he was greatly inferior to his wiser rival. He had, however, given to his boxes an appearance of solid richness — his 270 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. linings, and cappings, and gilding, and ornaments were good ; and every tiling done that could be done, within the old walls, and under the old roof. His judicious adoption of temporary light comedy, with such writers as O'Keefe, Holcroft, Reynolds, and afterwards Morton, brought him great profits. The Drury Lane season of 1794-5 commenced rather inauspiciously. I cannot, at this distance, recollect whose translation Mr. Kemble used of Lessing's Emilia Galotti ; but it was acted only four times, and exhibited Mrs. Siddons in a new character to little purpose. Cumberland wrote a prologue to it, and Colman an epilogue, neither of them in danger of preservation, unless the follow- ing argument for the King's humanity, which did not need one, be destined to rival the Oxonian pleasantry of Dr. Johnson.* * " Who drives fat oxen, should himself he fat." As to the king's humanity, I find it questioned by the Whig critic in such matters, Coke of Norfolk ; on whose authority history is to style that excellent man " the worst who ever sat upon a throne," and meriting the title of the " bloody king." His hearers, it appears, hooted the critic down ; perhaps an- other sort of prostration might have been preferable. — Oct. 1 830. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 271 " Is he to ruin others' children prone, Who has — so many children of his own r" Mrs. Robinson, this season, added to the failures of the commencement, a two-act comedy called Nobody. An actress formerly herself, she had influence enough to bring the following ladies to- gether in so mere a trifle. I remember the delight she expressed at Mrs. Jordan's heading the list, followed by Mrs. Goodall, Miss Pope, Miss Collins, Miss Heard, and Miss Decamp. I cannot detail the incidents, but I know well that to have great names for trivial business is certain death to any author. The spectators soon see that the per- formers are discontented in their situations, and if they condescend to them in mere kindness, it is the unkindest thing they can do. The audience soon avenge their complaisance upon the writer of the piece; what he courted for his support shrinks from the voluntary task, and he falls, good easy man, from his confidence in hollow professions. Our dear Mrs. Jordan had powers of kindness equal to her other gifts ; but she was not made for a storm ; and grew pitiably nervous if the house shewed marks of displeasure and contest, which 272 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. they liberally or illiberally did in abundance on the present occasion. One might have supposed Mrs. Robinson prescient of her fate, by her epilogue — for Mrs. Jordan hurried on to address the audience in the words following, " half dead and scarce recovered from my fright." Recovered ! she was so far from being recovered, that she only repeated twenty lines out of the epilogue, that had no con- nexion with each other ; and the authoress was in- dignant with manager, actress, proprietor, and even the public, for not embalming Nobody. It had a prologue as well as an epilogue, for mere verse cost her nothing. The piece was tried again, but " who can revive the dead ?" Mrs. Robinson was a good deal connected with newspapers ; and as her lameness confined her to the chair when at home, she was constantly writing, and tolerably free in her remarks. This always operates mischievously upon the mind of an actor, who is quite sure that the writer turned dramatist will visit failure upon any thing rather than his piece — that in fact had passed his tribunal before. While this novelty was thus vainly, perhaps not seriously, tried at Drury — Mr. Harris brought out THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 273 another comedy, by Reynolds, which gave a name to its own success, the Rage. Their houses were much richer than was ever expected by the manager of Drury Lane. However, Mrs. Inchbald, almost wedded to Covent Garden, now wrote a farce for Mrs. Jordan, in which I saw her with infinite plea- sure. It followed Emilia Galotti, on the 1st of November, 1794, and was called the Wedding Day. The scenes between Sir Adam Contest (King) and Lady Contest (Mrs. Jordan) display some of the most pointed language in the drama, and Mrs. Inchbald fashioned every line to her peculiar man- ner of utterance. The interest was in a first wife's unexpected return on the very day that her old man had again united himself to a girl of eighteen. The new couple were of the Teazle family, well lowered to farce. It was in this piece that Mrs. Jordan in- troduced one of the wonders of her ballad style, In the Dead of the Night, and Cupid knocked at the window, very successfully, of every creature who heard her sing it. It was almost as powerful as the Andromeda of Euripides, at Abdera — .every man almost spoke, however, not Iambics, but Ana- paests — VOL. I. T 274 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Cupid knock'd at my window, disturbing my rest." " In every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet me- lody, which drops from it whether it will or no — nothing but Cupid, Cupid ! The whole city, like the heart of one man, opened itself to Love." I think one of our occult sages once wrote a book called Natural Magic; this lady had, by heart, the whole volume. The melody of her voice cannot be revived ; — but I, this very morning, had her person and action brought truly before me by a deliberate inspection of the portrait, which the admirable Romney painted of her in the Coun- try Girl. It is very properly in the possession of Colonel Fitzclarence, and he may well be proud of such a treasure. There is rather more back than we should now shew in lady portraits, but it is perfect as to likeness, and just as naive as it was proper to exhibit her on canvas, where the expres- sion cannot change. It is a figure so delightful altogether, that Benedick only can express the feel- ing it excites — " I will live in thy eye?, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy heart." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 275 " Pray, sir," said a young lady to me, " was Mrs. Jordan critically handsome ?" My answer was the absolute truth — " Dear madam, had you seen her as I did, the question would never have occurred to you !" On the 12th of December, Mr. Kemble revived AlVs Well that Ends Well, by Shakspeare, and acted Bertram himself, but too ill to do any thing. Mrs. Jordan had here the trouble of studying He- lena, and curing the King (Mr. Bensley) of a ri- diculous disorder, and for a single night's perform- ance. There is but one scene that can act upon a large stage, that of Parolles and his drum, with which Bannister made some amusement — au reste there was the beauty of Miss Miller promoted from the chorusses, and Mrs. Powell for the venerable Countess, who detects the passion of Helena for her son — but not a hand was raised in their favour — so that All was not well — and could not end well, for it was not repeated. Opera now took its turn, and the indefatigable Cobb brought out his Cherokee, with all the splendors of scenery, dress, and decoration, now squandered in all directions, to the amazement of poor King, who could not T 2 276 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. command a few yards of copper-lace in his ma- nagement. Kemble put his brother Charles through all the ranks of the profession — here he was a friendly Indian, and coppered his skin, like the great Barrymore, and Messrs. Sedgwick and Caul- field and Phillimore. How often must he have wished himself in the post office ! " Uno avulso non deficit alter." Not at all hurt by the fall of All's Well, on the 30th of December Kemble revived Measure for Measure, with Mrs. Siddons in the towering virtue of Isabella, and himself in the Duke ; it remained on the stage a perpetuity, finely acted throughout. On the 31st of January, 1795, under the ma- nagement of Mr. Kemble, Miss Mellon, the future Mrs. Coutts, and the present Duchess of St. Al- ban's (for such fortune may well render a man's style giddy,) acted Lydia Languish, in the Rivals, and obtained an engagement, as an intended double for Mrs. Jordan. Miss Farren had Mrs. Goodall in the same secondary station, and Bannister, jun. now obtained a locum tenens in Capt. Wathen, who had long figured in private theatricals. But Miss Mellon must not be passed over so lightly. The THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 277 public do not generally know that Coutts was not the first banker who had distinguished this young actress. While she was in Stanton's company, Mr. Wright, a banker at Stafford, shewed her great attention ; and it was creditable as well as valuable, for his wife and daughters concurred in protecting her. It was there that the Member, Sheridan, saw her, and he might strengthen himself abroad and at home, by giving her an immediate engage- ment at Drury Lane. He saw her in two of Mrs. Jordan's most favourite characters, Rosalind and the Romp. She was certainly above mediocrity as an actress, though I used to think too careless to do all she might have done. Her figure was elegant in those days, and there was a rather comic ex- pression in her countenance. Had Jordan never appeared, she might have reached the first rank, and been contented with her station in a theatre ; few, in any kind of miscarriage, have received such ample consolation. Chance, itself, once contri- buted a prize of ten thousand pounds to this minion of " Fortune's Frolic." I think there seems to have been a good deal of sagacity in her conduct : she saw her object with that singleness which is 278 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. necessary to all great success, and made her very disposition itself a herald to her elevation. I never thought her one of those who " Plan secret good, and blush to find it fame." But a little ostentation may be pardoned in our imperfect virtue. The name of Arne is dear to all who love music ; and great hopes were entertained that the doctor's grand-daughter would augment as a singer the fa- mily honours — but her voice proved too weak for so large a theatre. Her conception of Polly was no doubt traditional ; Mrs. Gibber having played the character divinely. On the 11th of February, M. D'Egville brought out his grand pantomime ballet of Alexander the Great, or the Conquest of Persia. He here exhi- bited the general incidents of that conqueror's pro- gress; his difficulties in surmounting the apprehen- sions and reluctance of his army — his Amazonian alliance — his furious impetuosity at the storming of Gaza — the battle of Arbela — his treatment of Darius and his family — his triumphant entrance into Babylon, and marriage with Statira. Gran- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 279 deur and magnificence, splendid scenery, graceful, energetic, expressive action, characterise this ballet throughout. I anticipate the reader's mistake, who may sup- pose me to have been recording a triumph at the Opera House. This performance was at the New Drury, and designed to show all the capabilities of that vast concern. It already rivalled the Ita- lian Opera itself, by its possession of the two Sto- races, Kelly, Crouch, Mrs. Bland and Dr. Arnold's pupil, Miss Leake ; and now Ballet was added to their attractions, and they defied every thing like competition. For three months together this beau- tiful exhibition astonished and delighted the public. 280 CHAPTER XII. The death of Parsons — His peculiar merits — Holland and Pow- ell — Spouting Clubs — Political Orators — Parsons and the Lion — The JVheel of Fortune — Madame D'Arblay — Jerning- ham's Welsh Heiress, Mrs. Jordan in Plinlimmon — Drury attacking its own splendors — Chaos umpire in the concern — Seven Ages for Mrs. Siddons — First Love, by Cumberland; Sabina Rosny, Mrs. Jordan — Her enchanting effect — Some pleasing recollections — Cumberland's opinion of her— Na- ture to be upheld by Mrs. Jordan — Winter of 1795-6 — The Dependent — The Rival Queens — Kemble in Alexander — Mrs. Jordan confined — Miss Decamp in Columbine — Mrs. Jordan in Fidelia, her power upon Mr. Kemble — His sense her acting in the Plain Dealer — Gives it to the author in the words of Sterne — The Iron Chest, and its failure — She- ridan wished Mrs. Jordan in that play — Vortigern has that advantage, she acts Flavia — Ireland — Chatterton — Queen Elizabeth, her little attention to players — Mrs. Jordan speaks Merry's Epilogue— Poor Benson's death — Mrs. Jor- dan does every thing for his family. The stage had just now sustained a loss, which al- most palsied comedy in the old humourists of her train. I allude to the death of Parsons on the THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 281 3rd of February, 1795, in the middle of the season. He had acted his inimitable Sir Fretful Plagiary on the 19th of January, with his usual effect, though suffering perceptibly at the time from the asthma, which had long tormented him. He told me that usquebaugh relieved him, but it quieted the irrita- tion by slow destruction ; and he was almost a sha- dow when he died. Nothing can be more true than the ungrateful remark, that, whatever be the talent, the real or the mimic world can at least jog on without it. In the case of Parsons, I can hardly now convince myself that his place has ever been supplied. I read over the parts which he made his own — Corbaccio — Foresight — Money- trap — Don Manuel — Skirmish — Davy — Crabtree — Doiley — Sir Fretful Plagiary — Alscrip. I find that they still are acted, and rejoice that I have been mistaken. Parsons was born in the year 1736, and had just completed his fifty-ninth year, when he quitted the scene. He was educated at St. Paul's, and intended to be an architect, but the life of his building, to use Shakspeare's language, was stolen by such assassins of business as Holland and Pow- ell, who cast the rough honesty of Parsons in Kent, 282 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. and figured away themselves in Mad Tom and Lear. However, when they came from the spouting club to the Little Theatre in 1756, the adage was verified as to Parsons — " Thus safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall." He retained his original Kent — but his friend Powell dropt from Lear to the Bastard, to rise again in good time, to the elevation of the club. The very memory of a spouting club is almost dead among us. But it was by no means a useless assemblage, either as to probation or amusement. In our youth we have visited several, and do not think that either business or morals suffered so much by them, as by the more stylish amusements of the present day. And if the large rooms in houses of public entertainment are to be occupied by orators, — rather than hear the Thelwail's, the Gale Jones's, the Cobbett's and the Hunt's, with the noisy company they collect about them, our choice is made ; let us have the quiet refreshment " that cheers but not inebriates," and listen to even attempts, that give voice and action to the lofty sense, or intense passion of Shakspeare and Otway! THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 283 Any thing but this eternal destruction of the poor world's peace, by the enforcement of speculative rights, never to be limited, and always contested. We beg pardon of the great actor's memory, and return to celebrate his steady allegiance to a the- atre royal. — He never could be tempted to quit the standard of his master Garrick, and he passed as an heir-loom into the possession of Sheridan. Ar- chitecture had made Parsons at least a draughts- man ; and I have seen some attempts in oil, not contemptible, from his pencil. Let me bear witness to his rich and singular power of telling a story. One of his best has been versified by a very dear old friend, and called, " Parsons the Actor and the Lion ;" and it is done as well as a very humorous pen can do it — but the face of the actor must be wanting — the manner of him, whose toe had touch- ed a lion at the bed's foot — the shaggy mane — the verification of the fact — the agony of suspense — the knocks that might wake the savage to their distraction — all this should be seen and heard — but the reader may enjoy his share of the event by turning to p. 180, in the 2nd volume of Mr. Tay- lor's Poems. 284 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. The order of time leads me, through losses that cannot be repaired, and gains that are soon ex- hausted, to the production, by Mr. Kemble, of a play by Cumberland, that is still popular, I mean his Wheel of Fortune ; acted a first time, on the 28th of February, 1795. It has a remarkable si- milarity to Kotzebue's Stranger, of which he might have heard some account, for, I believe, he did not read German. He seems merely to have used the hero ; for Cumberland's lady is the wife of Penrud- dock's false friend. The deep penitence of Mrs. Haller is a striking feature in the German, which is weakness itself, as hinted only, in the Woodville family. — But Cumberland has a masterly improve- ment, where he makes Penruddock unfold his wretchedness to the son of the very man who had destroyed him by treachery. Kemble played this character so as never to be forgotten — he had work- ed it into his heart, as if he believed it part of his own personal history — he kindled so in his course, that, when he stated who had betrayed him to his brother Charles, who acted Henry Woodville, that gentleman, for an instant, was, as an actor, thrown off his poise, and rendered motionless with agony. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 285 He told me this himself, and that the frequent re- hearsals had no power whatever to prepare him for the terrific energy of the disclosure before the au- dience. In the Wheel of Fortune Miss Farren acted Lady Tempest, one of those elegant sketches of her sex, that you may call by any name, very agreeable but not striking. Mr. Cumberland next determined to work for Mrs. Jordan, and the same season, on the 1 2th of May, produced his First Love. Madame D'Arblay tried a tragedy called Eclwy and Elgiva, of which Mr, Kemble had no opinion, though he and his sister played in it ; and Mr. Jerningham, a very amiable man, and a poet of some fashion, procured his Welsh Heiress one night's hearing; and the magic of Plinlimmon, for such was the mountainous appellation Mrs. Jordan stood under, " bowed its cloud-capt head." The characters of this play seemed to have been sug- gested by some of the ancient mysteries and mora- lities ; for instance, there were in one comedy, Fashion, Classical Frenzy, Fancy, and Conscience — males, performed by Barrymore, Bannister, jun. R. Palmer, and Suett. 286 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Barrymore, not well at home in Fashion, could not learn the prologue, and it was read in this per- fect theatre ; and, as if the powers of the state were in disunion, the epilogue, by Field Marshal Con- way, was permitted to attack the entry of Alexander into Babylon and the Amazonian Nudes ; though Harris, at the other house, was beggaring himself to rival its splendor, by getting up Noverre's Peleus and Thetis, in the Court of Edward the Third. Chaos was come again, and Kemble ought to have resigned at once. Even Mrs. Siddons, in the dig- nity of form and the power of expression, able to have quelled the impostor Mahomet, assumed the juvenile Palmyra for her benefit, and acted the Em- meline of Dry den's Arthur after it ; and Sam. Rogers, Esq. wrote an address which would have suited Jordan # or Farren to a tag, but rendered such a woman as Siddons insipid. Lady Macbeth * This notion of the author's appears to have had full coun- tenance from Mr. Rogers himself, who, in April, 1797, gave it to Reynolds for an epilogue to his comedy of the Will, and it was then really spoken by Mrs. Jordan. Reynolds added, on the change of speaker, some breadth to the fun, for which the gay actress thought herself obliged to him, THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 287 and Volumnia, for " she cannot lay aside what grows to her " talking of a time " When the red coral rings its silver hells." A sort of Seven Ages of woman, written with some neatness, but requiring much curtailment, for it was eighty-six lines. This was on the 27th of April, and on the 2nd of May, poor Mrs. Powell, out of her wits for attraction to her night, ap- peared in Young Norval. But these " fierce vani- ties" disposed of, on the 1 2th of May First Love was acted at the theatre so trifled with, and dis- played the skill of the veteran, good taste, and elegant diction. Two such comedies in one season are among the rarities of dramatic fertility. But Mrs. Jordan here made a beautiful display of her- self. It was in a character called Sabina Rosny, whose noble parents had perished in the French Revolution, and who, alone, and unprotected, had effected her escape to Italy. There, an English lord, in her own language, " basely betrayed her by a pretended marriage." Hear Mrs. Jordan ut- ter the following — 288 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Wliat can I say or do ? Shall a poor alien like me, con- tend with power like his ? Your laws will not redress me ; my religion is not his religion : I know not who is that Italian monk that married us — I know not where to find him ; or, if I could, what then ? My lord would little care for that." This is part of a lovely scene between Sabina and Lady Ruby, (Miss Farren,) the first of the 4th act. I have seldom seen Miss Farren to more advantage : — substantially, Lady Ruby is another Lady Emily Gayville, and Sabina is a more inte- resting Miss Alton. The offending Lord Sensitive has still a large fund of slumbering honour about him, that a suggestion will startle into atonement. — Lady Ruby's probe is keen enough to wake the dead — His Lordship's journey to Padua is spared by a delighted sylph at his elbow, whose generous apology for her husband's error, threw every body into tears. " Sabina — I know not how to call it an offence, for what am I ? — My fortune nothing, my nobility a shadow — a heart to ho- nour you, is all that I can boast. How then, can I be angry, if, when returned to your own happy country, where so many fairer ladies courted your attention, you forgot poor humble, lost Sabina." THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 289 A rival dramatist has noticed the great defi- ciency of comedy in this play. I know not, without being extraneous or violent, how it could have been supplied. The reader of First Love will hardly fail to find, with a favourite poet, — " The broadest laugh unfeeling Folly wears, Less pleasing far, than Virtue's very tears." What little humour the author could afford us, was in safe hands. Bannister, jun. had a gene- rous young seaman, and played it with great spirit. Suett, who acted Billy Bustler, was a nervous, but therefore, safe actor — he always kept the line, and felt the temper of the house. The Wrangler of Miss Pope was the portrait of too large a portion of fashionable women. King, Palmer, andWrough- ton were well suited, and the piece did great ser- vice to the theatre. Upon the subject of First Love, Mr. Cumberland thus expresses himself. "When two such exqui- site actresses conspired to support me, I will not be so vain as to presume I could have stood with- out their help." — -Mem. vol. ii. p. 281. vol. i. u 290 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN, But he has still more strongly marked his admi- ration of our Euphrosyne, in a true and melan- choly revision of our stage improvements. These are his words — " If nature can hardly be upheld by Mrs. Jordan., or Shakspeare by Mr. Kemble, what author in his senses will attempt a comedy more legitimate than the Forty Thieves, or a tra- gedy more serious than Tom Thumb ?." — Mem. Supplement. The opening of Drury Lane theatre for the win- ter of 1795-6, announced the complete triumph of Cumberland's muse. He had already occupied seven nights by the three last comedies produced, when, on the 20th of October, he inconsiderately launch- ed a fourth, called the Dependant, of which, the name, I think, only remains. This was at once withdrawn by the manager — and properly. Besides the fair attraction of D'Egville's grand ballet, Mr. Kemble thought himself bound to turn its decoration to account in the representation of Lee's tragedy of the Rival Queens — he, himself, how performing the part of Alexander. Such an exhibition had never been witnessed in this coun- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 291 try. It was first displayed on the 23rd of Novem- ber, and repeated as eften as he could sustain the personal fatigue. The female reader will thank me for telling her, that Mrs. Siddons at last played Roxana without powder, and it was found that her dark hair added lustre, and even youth, to her striking features. The ladies now frequently dressed their hair a la Grecque ; perhaps the only tasteful fashion intro- duced by the French reformers. Mrs. Jordan, early in the year 1796, suffered a miscarriage, which kept her from theatrical duty about a month. She was naturally attacked by the malignant scribblers in another interest, as re- fusing about 150/. during her absence, from ca- price ! The fact is, that her re-appearance was re- gulated entirely by Dr. Warren. In the meantime Miss Decamp's Columbine filled the twenty houses to the roof. On the 27th of February, 1796, Mr. Kemble re- vived Wycherley's Plain Dealer, and played Manly to Mrs. Jordan's Fidelia. From their different lines, he but seldom had acted with her. He now met the charmer in one of the most winning cha- u 2 292 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. racters in our drama, and she quite subdued him.* He told me that she was absolutely irresistible, and I am sure he thought what he said : there had been a good deal of contest occasionally between them, and he was sometimes accused of not sufficiently studying or promoting her interest. Miss Farren often disputed points of management with him ; and he had great difficulty to keep the steady course which his own judgment had settled. I freely ad- mit that he had done more for Mrs. Jordan in the way of revival and alteration, than for any other actress, if you even name his sister, Mrs. Siddons. March the 12th, witnessed the first appearance of the Iron Chest, by Mr. Colman. Sheridan wish- ed Mrs. Jordan to take the part of Helen, which seemed little calculated for Miss Farren. I have * What he said to me upon the occasion, will be rightly understood. He used the language of Yorick, when he was no jester. " It may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid heart, — I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though it was in the open street, without blushing." Kemble could repeat the S-entimental Journey from beginning to end — he used to recite from Sterne on the stage, when he was a young man. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 293 spoken more than enough already, about this dra- ma, and as Mrs. Jordan had nothing to do with it, there is no reason why I should prolong the discussion it occasioned. Sir Edward Mortimer has been a favourite part for Elliston, Young, and Kean. I forget whether Mr. Macready's "elec- tion" has seized it also for his. Kean has a phy- sical defect, which looks quite in keeping with the gradual decay of Sir Edward ; and an energy, which bursts like lightning from a gloomy sky, and dis- plays the mental agonies of this honourable mur- derer. I should think he must be the best of them. Kemble did not play it at all. The Iron Chest, w r hen opened in public, having presented nothing but the knife of its owner, to convict him of murder ; we are next to examine the produce of an old trunk, from which the play of Vortigern w T as extracted, to prove the possessor an impostor. Upon the decided failure of the for- mer play, the property, rather than the manager of Drury, announced the tragedy called Vortigern, to be in preparation ; and on the 2nd of April, (to avoid the omen of folly), sanctioned by Sheridan, whose irreverence on the occasion 1 heard, it had 294 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. a trial, whether written by Shakspeare, or young Ireland. Mrs. Siddons had excused herself from acting the part assigned to her, which devolved in course upon Mrs. Powell. Sheridan had no great opinion of Mrs. Jordan in tragedy, but he well knew the value of her name, and she accepted the character of Flavia. In compliment, therefore, to her, I shall add something to what I have elsewhere written on the subject. The complexion and ex- tent of the fabrication seem to have followed the recent one by Chatterton ; and the happy reposi- tory they had both chosen, gave to each youth the power of imputing to antiquity all that they were skilful enough to compose ; with this advantage in favour of Chatterton, that, what he attributed to Rowley, could be compared with no acknowledged writings of his ; and if the fabricator could but keep to the history, the manners, the diction and the metre of his presumed original, it would be, perhaps, impossible to detect him completely. As to young Ireland, he exposed himself unnecessarily to a further test, namely, whether a play attributed by him to Shakspeare, was good enough to be ad- ded to his accredited compositions ? When young THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 295 Ireland acknowledged the whole of the discovered MSS. to be his own, no part of their contents was superior to even the spontaneous effusions of his pen. The poems of Rowley, though evident fabrications, and produced by Chatterton to the credulous of Bristol, are, in point of genius, so in- finitely beyond his acknowledged writings, that there are many able judges of the subject, who ut- terly disbelieve that he was the real author, whe- ther they are Rowley's or not. There was something in the story of Chatterton, peculiarly seducing to a young man of a poetical cast of mind ; and with a very little more Shak- spearian lore, he might have defied his critics, and the worst play he could have produced, have been thought at least as good as Titus Andronicus, which Shakspeare's own partners delivered to the world as his. But a single anachronism destroyed him. To show this clearly : in the letter to the poet, from the Queen, commanding him to be at Hamp- towne with his best players, on a certain day, as the Earl of Leicester would be with her, it is at once apparent that our poet was at the head of no company of comedians, when Leicester could be 296 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. with her Majesty ; for he had not written a single play, at any such period. Neither, in fact, was Elizaheth an encourager of the stage. See her let- ter written at this time to Secretary Walsingham, which I copied from the original, in the British Museum, Ayscough's Catalogue. " THE QUEEN TO SECRETARY WALSINGHAM. "January 25, 1586. " The daily abuse of stage playes is such an of- fence to the godlye, and so grete a hindrance to the gospel, as the Papists do exceedingly rejoice at the blemish thereof, and not without cause. For every day in the week the Players' bills are set up in sundry places of the city, some in the name of Her Majesty's men, some th' Erie of Leicester's, some th' Erie of Oxford's, the Lord Admiral's, and divers others — so that when the bells toll to the Lecturers the trumpettes sound to the Stagers. The Play-houses are pestered when the churches are naked. At the one it is not possible to get a place, at the other void seats are plenty. — It is a woful sight to see two hundred proude players jet in their silkes, where five hundred poore people THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 297 starve in the stretes. But if this mischife must be tolerated, let every stage in London pay a weekly pension to the poore, that, ex hoc malo proveniat aliquod bonurn. But it were rather to be wished that players might be used as Apollo did laughing, semel in anno" After reading this, let us only reflect upon the ignorance that could make this royal precisian write to a player, and begin her letter with the fa- miliar " Dear William," of intimacy. I will do Mrs. Jordan the justice to say, that she acted her character of Flavia, bond fide, with ex- quisite simplicity ; and very properly did not affect to play the critic, which is in fact decided trea- chery, where you have liberty to reject the part you play. This conduct could not be expected from the male part of the cast, nor was it found about them ; — they knew Mr. Kemble's opinion as to the play, and acted quite up to it. Phillimore, in Horsa, would have damned Shakspeare himself. The prologue and epilogue w T ere written by two out and out men, Sir James Bland Burgess and Robert Merry. The former poet commenced thus : — read by Whitfield — 298 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " No common cause your verdict now demands, Before the court immortal Shakspeare stands." Merry was more flowery, of course, and he had Mrs. Jordan to speak his lines — " Then do not frown, but give due share of praise, Nor rend from Shakspeare's tomb the sacred bays, The scatter'd fiow'rs he left, benignly save ! Posthumous fiow'rs — the garland of the grave !" She then proceeded to apply his many-coloured characters to the audience ; and, though extremely frightened at the dreadful noise in the court, did the poet's pleasant appeal as much justice as their indignation allowed on the occasion. The manager, now in earnest, acted a tragedy by Miss Lee, called Almeyda — it is a Moorish fable sufficiently regular, poetically and even pathetically written ; but Kemble and Siddons could not keep the play alive longer than four nights — such is the destructive effect of burlesque, when it precedes even respectable composition. This was on the 20th of April ; and on the 30th, Hoare's opera of Mahmoud, in which Kemble strengthened the piece by playing Mahmoud, with Braham, from the Royalty, and avast musical strength, supported the THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 299 fame of Storace, as a composer, who had just dropped into the grave. Mr. Hoare presented Mrs. Siddons with a tra- gedy, called Julia, for her benefit, on the 2nd of May ; and, on the 6th, Mr. Bensley, after playing Evander, took his leave of the public. There was a refined gentlemanly scholarship in all he did, and a soldierly deportment, which we have never seen in his station since he quitted it. Mrs. Jordan, on the 9th of June, performed Letitia Hardy and Rox- alana, for the benefit of the widow and children of poor Benson, a valuable man, who was accidentally taken from them by a brain fever — he threw him- self from the top of his house in Bridges-street. Benson had the misfortune to act Hengist, in the famous Vortigem, and, with his yoke-fellow, Horsa, received some of the favours bestowed by the audience upon such stupid invaders ; and it was feared that sounds so unusual to his ears, had rung in them much longer than in reason they should have done. Benson was an extremely mo- dest, useful man, distinguished for what actors call a quick study, whom a few hours, at a slight warn- 300 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. ing, enabled to supply the place of any second or third rate absentee in the company. On the night of his benefit, Mrs. Jordan spoke an address, which the ready muse of Mr. Taylor supplied ; it expatiated upon the charitable institu- tions of the country ; and as the house was really crowded to the roof; there was little occasion to do more than compliment so useful a benevolence; it thus concluded : " When every eye the plaintive story tells, And every heart with liberal pity swells, Let not the officious muse a theme prolong 1 , That melts, yet animates this generous throng." The zeal of Mrs. Jordan, on this occasion, properly rendered her reception enthusiastic through the evening — play, farce, address ! What all her- self in this company of splendid talent ? — no com- petition ? — yes ; Mr. Lewis, of the other house, vo- lunteered his Doricourt, or the play could not have been done. Mrs. Jordan amused herself this summer with acting at the Richmond theatre. That of Drury Lane was going to destruction with all the celerity THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 301 that could be expected. Kemble had resigned, as King had done before him — Miss Farren threatened retirement altogether. Such was the fate of the Grand National Theatre, under the auspices of the most brilliant genius of his time. 302 CHAPTER XIII. Mr. Colman and the re-opening of his Iron Chest — Season of 1796-7— The losses of Drury; Parsons, Dodd— The latter excellent in Old Winterton — Contrasted with Fawcett — Wroughton appointed stage manager — Mrs. Jordan and her salary — Ballet — Miss Parissot and the Triumph of Love — Madame Hilligsberg, an Atalanta in running — Dowton re- commended bv Cumberland — An admirer before of Mr. Henderson — Garrick's prejudice — Deficiencies of the com- pany — Revivals — Jephson's Conspiracy — The force of ri- dicule — Miss Farren contumacious — New comedy post- poned — Miss Farren's return and triumph — Play destroyed — The Shipwreck — The Operatic Honeymoon — Friend in Need — New Imogen — Miss Farren's retirement to a coronet — Mrs. Pope's death and character — The Author becomes ac- quainted with Mrs. Jordan — In the distress of Drury Lane house, Reynolds writes for Mrs. Jordan — Cumberland's be- haviour at the exhibition of the Will — Mrs. Jordan's Albina, and her Seven Ages of Woman — Dido, and My Night Gown and Slippers — Prince Hoare at Covent Garden — The Tatlers, by Dr. Hoadly — Miss Mansell — Fanny Alworthy — The bene- fit of Mrs. Siddons on the wedding day of Miss Farren — Her uncommon selection — Fatal Curiosity — Wedding Day — Deuce is in Him — Mrs. Jordan's aid — Cumberland's Last of THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 303 the Family — Mrs. Jordan acts at Covent Garden for Mr. Haymes — and also for the Widows and Orphans on the Vic- tory of Feb. the 14th. — A full contrast to the selfish of her profession. The summer season of 1796 at the Haymarket was devoted by Mr. Colman to the revival of his own fame, which suffered a severe wound at the great theatre, that could only be medicated by a more successful treatment at the small one. The Bath theatre on many occasions had the praise of supplying, like its waters, to the salubrity of the metropolis. On the disaster attending his Iron Chest, Mr. Colman looked round him for the means of ensuring its triumph at the Haymarket, and he heard enough of Elliston, then a young man, as to his energy and powers of voice, to think that he might chance to receive in him the peculiar aid he required. He tried him first in Octavian, and in mil confi- dence of his talent, Elliston chose to act Vapour after it, in the farce of My Grandmother. Every support that could be given to the new performer on this trial was given ; it is, however, but justice to acknowledge that he- exceeded all late advcn- 304 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. hirers in promise, and much as he has done in the profession, I confess I think the 25th of June, 1796, augured a great deal more. His countenance was not such an index as Kemble's, and he could not assume the languor of disappointed love. In the picturesque forms of the character he, and all men, were thrown to an immeasurable distance by Kem- ble, who had a person that far transcended compe- tition. Mr. Elliston repeated Octavian on the 28th, and on the 1st of July ; and the experiment having completely answered, Mr. Colman turned his atten- tion at once to Sir Edward Mortimer, and gave the docile tragedian the full advantage of the author's instructions. Elliston, to use his own phrase to me, had tried with the great actor " the strength of his youth" in Octavian. In Sir Edward he had nothing to fear ; if he raised the character, he had every thing to hope, from his manager's gratitude, and the comparison that would be made by the public. At length, on the 29th of August, after rehearsals carefully attended, and all tediousness in the dialogue and action pared away, the Iron Chest was produced at the Little Theatre, and received THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 305 with sufficient applause. It was acted thirteen times in the remainder of the short Haymarket season. Among the summer attractions Cumberland pro- duced a Spanish incident called Don Pedro, with the cognomen II Diabolo, and Palmer might have fancied himself once more at the Royalty ; but it did not outlive its third night, and was not above the ordinary sale-work of the stage, without its all- atoning machinery, scenes, and splendid decorations. The opening of Drury Lane season 1796-7, un- der an inefficient direction and a discontented com- pany, had yet other difficulties, the infliction of time. When Garrick quitted the stage Mrs. Clive amused herself with anticipating the failure of his puppets, when the master hand no longer pulled the wires. She ascribed to his instruction all that was good upon his stage, and, left to themselves, she thought the best of them but sorry artists. But the momentum which he had given to his company had been powerful, and in the right direction ; and as there was little to oppose them, they kept their individual course correctly, and preserved the har- mony of the system on which they depended. VOL. I. X 30G THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Death, however, was gradually diminishing the group — Parsons was gone, and Dodd was now to follow him ; an event which threw a gloom over the assembled company, and even delayed the open- ing till the 20th of September. If large theatres were of detriment to fine acting, a fact which I for one do not question, since they have even demanded extravagance in the three articles of action, expres- sion, and utterance — perhaps to no one comedian could they be more fatal than to Dodd. This ex- cellent actor had a weak voice, but as he managed it on the stage of his great master, it was quite ade- quate to a cast of petit-mattres, a sort of thin es- sences, whom a gale too violent, or a noise too obstreperous, would seem to annihilate. Nor was he confined to the coxcomb, whose wit almost redeemed his effeminacy ; he was the para- gon representative of all fatuity ; from the Town- gull, or Master Stephen, two originals of Ben Jon- son's Every Man in his Humour, with Master Slen- der, Roderigo, and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek by Shakspeare, through all the comic varieties, for they are no more, in the genus, that Congreve and his successors have struggled to impart to their co- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 307 pies. I say the genus, for it has many species ; and the Sir Benjamin Backbite of Sheridan belongs to the Master Matthew of Jonson, however crossed in the breeding. It was mortifying I have no doubt to Dodd, to be the point of censure in the dismal Iron Chest. It is for the author to judge how far he may choose to venture the exhibition of second childhood, which can neither amuse nor be laughed at ; but never did I see more perfect acting than the Old Adam Winterton of Dodd. Fawcett, who suc- ceeded him, forced out effect by a shrill strong tone of voice, and an occasional testiness ; but he was not aged, nor smooth in the part. A kindred objection applied to Elliston in Sir Edward, when contrasted with Kemble — the first only acted his passions, and the latter only his infirmities. Mr. Dodd had none of the restless ambition of our pre- sent actors ; he remained at Drury, from his first establishment there under Garrick, till the 17 th of September, 1796, on which day he died. His great passion was to collect the early editions of our plays, which he began when they could be bought by something below a duke's fortune ; and x 2 308 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. his collection at its dispersion more than tripled its original cost. Mr. Wroughton was now appointed stage mana- ger of the theatre, and he was too well acquainted with the concern to deceive himself as to what he undertook. Sheridan promised to write himself again ; and it was very apparent if he did not, that the concern would not much longer be able to hold out. The salaries were not paid up, whatever suc- cess had attended the magnificent displays in the management of Kemble. Indeed, so little did Mr. Harris fear the National Theatre, that he only thought of making his own hold as much money as he could draw from the public ; and liberal treat- ment of authors, and absolute mercantile punctu- ality, made him secure of all offers from writers, who were not so absolutely independent as to con- sider theatrical profits below their attention. Mrs. Jordan I believe got her money pretty re- gularly. As to any other attractions in the theatre they might be said to consume part, if not the greater part of their receipts, by the lavish decora- tions with which they were got up. Our inimitable comedian required nothing of the sort. Give her a THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 309 good comedy and a pleasant farce, a little novelty and fair play, and she could laugh her way through a season. She had a powerful friend, moreover, who would not allow her to be trifled with ; a sort of friendship which secured for the noble patron the steady aversion, which in a certain quarter was always manifested at the very sound of his name. A good deal of this sort of irritation I have myself witnessed at times ; and when all policy had by a jury of good fellows been long " found drowned." Enough has been said to discover the author's opinion of the splendid outrage committed by the new scheme of things upon the spot on which Drury Lane playhouse had once stood ; the heads of the concern had been turned in the Haymarket, and turned towards ballet. In consequence, a lovely stage-figure, Mademoiselle Parissot, who seemed to have studied her grace from the floating spirits of the air in picture, was engaged to move through an operatical ballet, and commenced her progress on the 1st of October ; it was called the Triumph of Love. The time was gone by for objection ; and though a few sturdy critics, who had yet heard of Gar- 310 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. rick's engagement of Noverre, cried out most pite- ously as to the anomaly now committed, the fair Jmigrante continued to astonish the public in ge- neral, and a little amuse our anatomists, with a command over the joints, which had hitherto been supposed attainable only to the early education of the tumbler. The line of her figure, from the finger of the right hand to the toe of the left foot, was a sweep absolutely astonishing ; and though now the graceful trick is generally performed in ballet, yet, at the time we are speaking of, dancing was cer- tainly more strictly a science, and either the jumper or the attitudinarian undervalued by the masters of the art. Madame Hilligsberg had been allowed to break through the grand rule of steps for musical notes, and absolutely run away from the accom- paniment of the orchestra ; and so as she did but run, she had the wit that Atalanta wanted, and kicked the golden apple triumphantly before her. " Dum talia secum Exigit Hippomenes; passu volat alite virgo. Tamen ille decoram Miratur magis : et cursus facit ipse decoram." Me I am. x. 586. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 311 " Thus he : — the virgin flies with winged pace, And seems more heauteous from the breathing race." Mr. Cumberland was himself an admired drama- tic reader, and an excellent judge of acting. But he was not a man to interfere with the management of a theatre, or to give his opinion unsolicited. When Mr. Dowton applied toWroughton, the ma- nager, he referred that gentleman to Mr. Cumber- land, as to a person whom he had the pleasure to know ; and this becomes peculiarly essential in the narrative, because it would otherwise seem an un- grateful return of Cumberland to Bannister, who had first established his Jew, to bring up to town himself another performer of the character, as if dis- satisfied with the original Sheva, and only anxious to shew, himself, by a still better light, which he had at length discovered. Whereas the truth was, that Dowton, hearing of Elliston's success in the part, was anxious to measure his strength with that gentleman ; and Mr. Cumberland came up to town with him ; merely, as I have said, to accredit, by his friendly countenance, a deserving man and most excellent actor. He performed Sheva on the 312 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 1 1 th of October, and remained unrivalled in the Jew, at least " that Cumberland drew." This vindication of Mr. Cumberland from an aspersion as to one act of his dramatic life, reminds me of another, in which he shewed his judgment alike and his sincerity. Garrick had desired him to attend to the performances of Henderson, and report what he thought of him, which he did with great frankness ; and, indeed, he seemed to alarm the great actor by the equality he found, mentally at least, in the operations of the two performers. Henderson always considered himself ungenerously obstructed by Garrick ; and Mr. Cumberland has left on record his own deliberate opinion, that he thought rightly. " After a languishing negocia- tion, which got at length into other hands than mine, Garrick made the transfer of his property in the theatre without the name of Henderson upon the roll of his performers. Truth obliges me to say, that the negociation, in all its parts and pas- sages, was not creditable to Mr. Garrick." To return to Mr. Dowton. In one respect he resembled Parsons, whose place was still to be sup- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 313 plied ; he had been liberally educated for the pro- fession of an architect, and was, like him, seduced by private acting. But in acting he was of a very different school ; the chastest and therefore the best. He was not disposed, like Munden, to resort to occasional grimace, but made his aim legiti- mately at character in the drama, and filled up any perfect outline from an author, with all the vitality that could be expected from the consummate artist. Among his other excellences, he is a great master of dialect, and preserves it without the slightest mixture even in the vehemence of passion, when any mode assumed by the tongue is in most danger of being lost in the personal feeling of the actor. As to utility in the theatre, he was nearer to King than Parsons ; and sensible speaking made the great charm of his comedy ; with a kindly paternal warmth that glowed through the oddities of exte- rior whim. It was a melancholy thing to see the supple- ments sought to the school of Garrick. They could not get even a Foigard in the Stratagem without exciting an exclamation of " think of Moody !" They were at least puzzled for a Young 314 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Norval, in Douglas, a play essential to Mrs. Sid- dons. And a Charles in the School for Scandal, because neither the interests of the property, nor the literary character of Sheridan, could permit the play to sleep. Kemble, manager or not, was al- ways ready for a revival, and in the Edward and Eleonora of Thomson, he but waked the dead for a single night ; though Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Powell, and himself and Palmer, did all that their skill could accomplish, to excite the unwilling tenants of the tomb. We hardly think the en- chanting author of the Seasons coidd thank him for so disturbing his tragedy. " Long on these mouldering bones have beat, The winter's snow, the summers heat : Unwilling, I my lips unclose ; Leave me, leave me to repose." On the 15th of November the same performers tried a tragedy, by Jephson, upon the subject of the hackneyed Clemenza di Tito, by Metastasio, called the Conspiracy, but it was detected fully in three nights, and humanely banished. On the 29th of the same month, an attempt was THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 315 made to see if a new comedy, from Holcroft, could do any thing for the theatre, under political ma- nagement. It was called the Force of Ridicule ; not a bad title, though lost upon the concern. The usual time of commencing passed over, and the prologue not appearing to be addressed, the drowsy orchestra, having renewed again and again the usual symphonies of Handel, and Shaw having laid down his fiddle in despair — at length Mr. Palmer, a countenance of alarm and concern as- sumed for the nonce, told them that " owing to some unforeseen accident, Miss Farren had not come to the theatre, (the very chronometer of the house !) but that a messenger had been dispatched, to know the reason of her absence, and the pro- prietors humbly hoped the audience would indulge them for a few minutes till the messenger re- turned." About seven o'clock, back came Palmer again, au desespoir, that Miss Farren was " too 27/ to leave her room," but that the audience, who had heard nothing for three long hours, but the fruit- woraen and the fiddlers, might take either their money at the doors, or Mrs. Siddons in Isabella ; and, accordingly, some of them did one thing and 316 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. some the other ; while the cause of this confusion was whispered differently. The real fact, however, was, that Miss Farren knew her duty too well to dispute about fringe in a new character ; she would have used some of her own : — but finding there was but one chance of getting a considerable sum of arrears in her salary, she had seized upon the new comedy as an occasion to give the proprietors notice, that, " if she did not receive her money she would not leave her house ;" and accordingly she kept her word better than they did theirs, and the play stood over till the 6th of December. On that day poor Holcroft and his Force of Ridicule went for nothing in the attraction. Miss Farren was to appear ! — and the mighty public, always satisfied at last with some unmeaning apo- logy, assembled in great force, to shew displeasure where it was not due, and wound a lady's delicacy, who had already been robbed of her property. As soon as she was seen upon the stage, the storm began to rage, and though the hands might be said to put down the hisses, she thought it best became her to retire ; but determined not to ask indulgence where she acknowledged no offence, she begged THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 317 Wroughton to go on, and he managed the matter to a nicety, for he besought the audience, in the name of Miss Farren, to pardon the proprietors; and Wroughton loved the truth, and always spoke it, when he had heard it. It is a vara avis in apologies. " If there has been any appearance of disrespect to the public in the disappointment of Tuesday last, I can take upon me, on the part of the proprietors, to express the greatest regret for it ; and to add, from myself as manager, as well as for Miss Farren, that, under the present circumstances, I hope you will pardon the error." Up to the clouds (of course theatrical) went at once insulted beauty, and the play was luckily before the audience, on which all the missiles brought with them were im- patiently discharged. The play was with difficulty heard throughout, and thus the error of husbands, in not sufficiently regarding their wives, was not, as Mr. Sneer's friend projected, shamed away by the " mere force of ridicule." The next piece they brought out was musical, and called the Shipwreck ; however, upon the coast of Drury, such a thing was sincerely welcome, and 318 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the owners, Doctor Arnold and his son, were not inhospitably treated by the natives. We confess ourselves in some instances attracted, as one of our poets has it, by the " whistlings of a name," and that of Linley was peculiarly pleasant to our ears ; but to Mr. Sheridan it should have still more powerfully appealed. William Linley had com- posed an opera called the Honey Moon, which literally failed from the weakness of its dialogue. When he brought out the poetical offspring of his relation, he might have been at the trouble to see that it was strong enough to keep its feet. Could he, at all events, be indifferent to the long proces- sion of failures that were convincing the town of his theatre's being devoted to ruin ? A very power- ful man was at length started against, and might have been the support of his theatre. I allude to Morton, whose Children in the Wood could not have been acted so often by his company, without attracting his notice. The Cure for the Heart Ache has literally been a fortune to every theatre in these kingdoms ; it was brought out by Mr. Harris on the 10th of January, 1797- Mr. Prince Hoare supplied a Friend in Need, a THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 319 musical entertainment of very peculiar interest, on the 9th of February. He was a sure and steady ally to Drury Lane theatre. And on the 6th of March, a sister of Lady Beechey's, named Wor- thington, appeared in the character of Imogen. Her terrors, however, were insurmountable. A new ballet, and a revival of the First of June, on the same evening, looked somewhat reviving, but a stroke, as of death, was at hand, the sudden an- nouncement of Miss Farren's retirement from the stage and elevation to a coronet.* The former event took place on the 8th of April, 1797, after the performance of Lady Teazle. Instead of the usual rhymes at the end of the play, the whole of the dramatis persorue remaining in their stations, Mr. Wroughton advanced and addressed to the audience the following person- * A slight suspicion may here arise, whether the determined conduct at the Force of Ridicule was not an anticipation of this event, and that it would be better to obtain all arrears from the theatre, as Miss Farren, than leave them for subsequent adjustment between a noble Earl and Mr. Sheridan the poli- tician. 320 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. alities as to Miss Farren, for them to ratify, if they approved them. " But ah ! this night, adieu the mirthful mien, When Mirth's lov'd favourite quits the mimic scene ! [Looking towards Miss Farren, who stood supported by King and Miss Miller,] Startled Thalia would assent refuse, But Truth and Virtue sued and won the Muse." I cannot but think this too strongly, however truly put, the lady being herself present. He then spoke her acknowledgments, which she declined doing for herself, and then the Countess elect ad- vanced, and curtsied to the right, the left, and the front, as is usual upon occasions of high stage ceremonial. The late Countess died on the 14th of March, having just completed her forty-fourth year ; and, as respect was not pretended where it was not felt, the second marriage took place on the 1st of May following, and the stage lost its only woman of fashion. I say its only woman of fashion, be- cause the disposer even of coronets, the " insatiate archer" himself, had espoused the other just, but more solid representative of stylish females, Mrs. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 321 Pope, on the loth of March, in the fifty-second year of her age. I shall consider her as a daughter of Garrick's theatre, because there she acquired all the resources of her art ; and they constituted her the most general actress that the stage had ever seen. I can, with perfect truth, say, that in tragedy, as well as comedy, there were characters of which she was the most perfect representative. Had she possessed such a face as that of Mrs. Siddons, there might have been more ; but then, some of her sprightly comedy would have been awed down, and she might on the whole have been less distinguished. In the days of Yates and Barry, she established herself by unwearied diligence ; and though always weak in point of chest, endured a continuance of exertion that was certainly too much for her strength. She was the universal favourite of her profession, and in private life affectionately honour- ed by all who were worthy of her society. Her manners were singularly fascinating, as a happy compound of elegance, cordiality, and fine temper. In my first play I had the happiness of her power- ful aid, and it led naturally to a friendly intercourse, VOL. I. Y 322 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. which I valued as I ought — for I still regret her loss. Mrs. Jordan, about this time, without ceremony, introduced herself to me, and as she wished my opinion upon some professional points, as these occurred she referred to me by letter, and I gave them the best consideration in my power. I visited her, and saw her young family about her. It was natural she should speak of the few oppor- tunities afforded by the present management for distinguishing herself, and the retirement of Miss Farren led her to think of extending her range of characters. She differed radically with that lady as to Lady Teazle, and if it be a consistent charac- ter, she was probably right ; but the only finely drawn and masterly personage in the comedy is Joseph Surface, and it was acted by the late John Palmer so as to throw every other part into the shade. I can safely add that his smooth hypocrite is still unapproached, and will probably remain so. Wroughton, as an old Covent Garden actor, was personally acquainted with both Morton and Rey- nolds, and the latter gentleman found it convenient THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 323 to tender through him a comedy to Drury Lane theatre. He was too good a judge of the effective to pass over Mrs. Jordan, and she willingly accepted the part designed for her. The author himself has given a whimsical account of the effect of his in- trusion upon the sacred boards of Drury Lane theatre ; and he is borne out by the contempt which the concern at all times affected for the writers, and more sometimes than the writers of the rival house. Yet surely, if they reflected at all, there was nothing very despicable in a writer who who could attract crowded houses for thirty nights together ; nor was the great national theatre so exclusively devoted to the legitimate drama, as not to have admitted from time to time much indif- ferent composition, and unfortunately too, as irre- gular as it was dull. On the 19th of April, the great experiment was made by the performance of the comedy of the Will. Cumberland had planted himself in the orchestra to watch the effect, and really anticipating a triumph which he never enjoyed. At the first displeasure expressed by the audience, he left his seat, hurried round to the green-room, begged y 2 324 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Wroughton to introduce him to the author, and at once impertinently addressed him thus — " Let this, young gentleman, be a lesson to you." Wrough- ton felt becoming indignation at the veteran's use of the introduction he had given him. Cumber- land hurried back to his station, and soon had reason to think the author not quite so young in the profession as he had supposed him. The Will, like many of Cumberland's own co- medies, was a novel dramatized ; I do not mean a novel, existing as such, turned into a play, but the same kind of incidents, and in equal plenty, as might have informed, with bustle, the usual three volumes allotted by the great writers of the day to their romances of real life. Accordingly, it would take three full pages to give even an outline of the plot. As Sheridan's screen-scene, in the School for Scandal, had been conceived from the work in which he found his Charles and Joseph, so Rey- nolds had imagined he might use the discovery of the philosopher Square, in the garret of Molly Segrim ; and accordingly concealed Sir Solomon Cynic in a recess among some straw, and a curtain is drawn before him, which Dolly Rustic tries to THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 325 secure by running his cane sword into it to keep it close. The weapon is snatched out by Howard to chastise Albina in the disguise of a young midship- man, and the Cynic is discovered with very laugh- able effect. There is more humour still, for we have a haunted room, and the terrors of an old maid ; and Albina (Mrs. Jordan) engaged with every body, and animating the whole, as much by her generosity and justice, as her eccentric humour and invention. Nothing could be less equivocal than the success of the piece ; and Mrs. Jordan had at length got a new character, which was likely to keep the trea- sury of the theatre open to the performers for some time to come. It was after this comedy that Mrs. Jordan spoke the Seven Ages of Memory Rogers ; to which Andrews, I think it was, added some ri- sible novelties for effect. It was now evidently in the right mouth, and was a great favourite accord- ingly. The 28th of April was the first interruption given to the Will in its run — being the benefit night of John Palmer. He revived a tragedy, writ- ten by Read, the rope-maker, called the Queen of 326 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Carthage. It had been acted in 1767, also for a benefit, and was then performed by Powell, Hol- land, Bensley, and Mrs. Yates. To which, longo intervatto, were now opposed Barrymore, Palmer, Caulfield, and Mrs. Siddons. Again, the house did not adopt the play, though applauded. I wish the publication had not been suppressed, that I might have contrasted the manners of the two Didos. How Reed may have written the play, I can barely surmise ; but supposing it tolerable, I should fancy Yates was nearer the classical, or rather French standard. Palmer could only be an Eneas in Car- nival time. After the play, Palmer, who was fond of recitation, indulged the audience with a repeti- ion of Mr. Colman's Night Gown and Slippers ; but the decorum of a public assembly was insulted by their ludicrous descriptions, and the actor received a sensible rebuke with suitable acquiescence. Few authors have been of more essential service to the theatre than Mr. Prince Hoare. His farces have stood the test of time, and are likely to last as long as we either act or sing. Upon Revnolds's reception at Drury Lane, the beginning of the year, he at once crossed over to Covent Garden, with a THE LIKE OF MRS. JORDAN. 327 comic opera, called the Italian Villagers. The cri- tics said it had some resemblance to As You Like it. If it had, it is the only piece that ever had it ; for, of all the efforts of the mighty author, that is per- haps the most delightful ; exhibiting rural manners that are neither affected nor clownish, neither Ar- cadian nor Spenserian. With lessons intermixed, by which the wisest maybe improved, and the most saturnine diverted. As to the fable of my friend Hoare, I will not mar a curious tale by telling it"; nor say more of his opera, than that Quick, Mun- den, and Knight had very entertaining characters, and played them well, for the six scattered nights allotted to the piece. The Tatlers, a comedy, by the late Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, was acted for a single night here on the 29th of April, and the character of Fanny Alworthy was performed by Miss Mansel, the future Mrs. Reynolds. But the essence of the subject had been long extracted, and the audience grew weary of what might have delighted them about the time when it was written by the doctor. The next interruption given to the Will, was, by the benefit of Mrs. Siddons, on the 1st of May, 328 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. intended to be the wedding-day of Miss Farren, and the entertainments of the bill were selected with reference to that event. Mrs. Piozzi, it was whispered, had written an address for Mrs. Sid- dons, to wind up the whole, and compliment the noble pair by some apposite allusions to the titles of the pieces selected. " To anticipate ill, it was said, were but a Fatal Curiosity." This was the play. " Each kindest wish waits on her Wedding- day." This was the farce. There was a third piece, which completed the nuptial allusions, thus alluded to — " If 'tis not happy, why The Deuce is in 'em." But all this ingenuity excited a laugh in the wrong place, for, as our readers remember, the sub- ject of Mrs. Inchbald's Wedding-day was an old man of rank marrying a young woman, and the return of his first wife, before the day was over ; and Colman's Deuce is in Him, is the ridicule of platonic love. There could be no doubt, that the two ladies had nothing but serious compliment in their thoughts ; but if the waggery of Sheridan had designed to remind the lady of the Force of Ridi- cule, which she had deserted so lately, he could THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 329 not have found materials more exactly suited to his purpose. As to Mrs. Jordan, she laughed her way through Lady Contest, with infinite glee ; her only comic rival had been promoted out of her way, and left her, in every comedy, the positive choice of the cha- racter she should play ; and accordingly she con- siderably extended her range by occasional adop- tions of the woman of fashion ; but nature had fixed her to unbounded hilarity and deep sensibility; and the goddess seemed to desert her, when she assumed such characters as were produced by fa- shion rather than herself. Mr. Cumberland's extraordinary behaviour to Reynolds was soon accounted for ; he had a new comedy himself in preparation, called the Last of the Family. Mrs. Jordan was the heroine ; who is the daughter of a man fond of his name, and de- termined to impose it on his son-in-law. This na- turally fixes her affections upon a nameless youth employed to write the family history. Her love for the unknown youth speedily dismisses him from his task, and his mistress feigns distraction to get him back again. He turns out to be her 330 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. first cousin, the son of her father's brother, and consequently has no name to adopt. It lasted six nights. Mrs. Jordan closed the Covent Garden season, by acting Peggy and Nell, most kindly, for the be- nefit of Mr. Haymes ; and repeated the Country Girl, for the widows and orphans of February 14th, the day of Lord St. Vincent's glorious victory. She addressed now, every creature that needed help, in the language of Horatio, to the ghost of Hamlet's father. " If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do ease, and grace to me, — Speak to me." In short, she was a full and perfect contrast to those, whose sendee was always to be paid, though exerted even for a relation. 331 CHAPTER XIV. Death of Charles Macklin — His works collected by Murphy — Mrs. Jordan's kind subscription — "The Jew that Shakspeare drew" — Interpreted by Sir Joseph Mawbey — Dryden's (Edipits — Lines in, applied to Macklin — their beauty — Lord Mansfield's regard for Macklin — Note — His Lordship's opi- nion on the French Revolution — The Heir at Law — " Filthy Dowlas" — Italian Monk, at the Summer theatre — Mrs. Jordan visits Richmond and Margate — Sees Mrs. Abington in Beatrice — Her excellence in the character — Miss Better- ton, since Mrs. Glover — The chasm at Drury — How Miss Farren was to be replaced — Miss Humphreys in Lady Emily — Miss Biggs in the Irish Widow — Miss Decamp a lover in the Chimney Corner — Mrs. Jordan in Sir Edward Bloomley — Defects of Cheap Living — Jordan rather restive — again quite the Duchess — her happy illustration of that title — Mrs. Crawford's idle return — Lord Duncan's victory — Mrs. Jordan acts for the sufferers — Something fine — Kemble acts Hotspur — How to cast First Part of Henry IV. — The Castle Spectre — Mrs. Jordan in Angela — Mrs. Powell in the ghost — Beautiful effect produced — Jomelli and his music — Attwood uses it in the choir — Kemble acts Percy, and jumps himself into fame — The black-guards of that character — The author's coxcombrv — his anachronisms? 332 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. of language and dress — Amazing success of this play — Col- man's Bluebeard — Horrible boggling of the ponderous ma- chinery — Merit of Miss Decamp in Irene — Kotzebue's Stranger — Schiller — O'Keefe tries a comedy for Mrs. Jor- dan, She's Eloped ; a failure — Smith for one night in Charles Surface — John Palmer's death in the summer of 1798 — Effects of it in the theatre — Mrs. Jordan at Rich- mond. On the 11th of July, 1797, died the long cele- brated Charles Macklin, and it maybe said the stage lost its father in more senses than that of senility. He attained the great age of ninety-seven years, and was honoured equally for his talents and his virtues. It was late in his life when I first saw him act ; but I am bound to say, that, in what he did, he was a model, not only of manly force, but critical acuteness. He lived at a time when John- son had made it a fashion for the old to be dog- matical, and Macklin availed himself fully of his privilege. The decline of life had been rendered comfortable by the subscription to his works, edited by Arthur Murphy. Mrs. Jordan sent him ten pounds on this occasion. He died, where he had long lived, in Tavistock Row, Covent Garden — he had a metropolitan constitution, and loved THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 333 London sincerely — the verge of the old convent used to be an actor's sanctuary. We have all heard of the distich, called an im- promptu, of the poet Pope's. " This is the Jew, That Shakspeare drew." But few of us, I believe, ever conceived their meaning: to be doubtful. It was a " nice discern- ment between good and ill" as B. Jonson speaks, that led Sir Joseph Mawbey to think, what he expresses so ingenuously in a letter before me. " In applying the couplet, I was led to suppose, improperly, that his own mind and not the assumed character described the man." When he gets right even, the baronet's expression does not become much clearer. Why then, the assumed character did describe the man, and that (Shylock's) was a bad one. Which he now would not say. The application of Dry den's lines in CEdipus to Charles Macklin is so just and elegant, that the reader may be glad to read them once more, even if they live in his memory. The intense school of poetry, believe me, has not surpast them. 334 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. " Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like Autumn-fruit that mellow'd long, Ev'n wonder' d at, because he dropt no sooner. Fate seem'd to wind him up for four score years, Yet freely ran he on ten winters more ; Till, like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life, at last, stood still." The student in expressive harmony will find the last line, in particular, possessed of imitative exact- ness even astonishing. The slight suspensive pause before and after the words at last, will render the closing foot of the verse immoveable. All the passages of Macklin's life had a degree of mysterv about them which rarely attends a man so honourable as he undoubtedly was. As a num- ber of his mystifications happened when he cer- tainly had no failure of memory, he must have amused himself with the silly curiosity around him, and invented circumstances for the occasion. He was in his thirty-fourth year before he appeared upon the London stage ; acted his twenty years, and retired from it, as far back as the year 1753. He then seems to have recovered the strength he had lost, and the powers of his mind enabled him to give perfection to his master-work, called the THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 335 Man of the World. Its dialogue is distinguished by an almost political point and force, and the cha- racter of Sir Archy Mac Sarcasm received from the performance of its author a perfection which has not attended any other dramatic representation in my remembrance. Compared with Macklin, Cooke was noisy and vulgar — he could not bow ; he had no " insidious humility" to make a show with ; — it was effective ; but that was all. Macklin was " the true and perfect image of life indeed." His wife and daughter were ornaments of the stage also ; and Garrick was often indebted to the volunteer kindness of Miss Macklin for a heroine, when his own ladies chose to be too ill to appear on a weak night. I am little disposed certainly to compliment the present at the expense of the past ; but I am compelled to say that, however inferior in some points to their great predecessors, the actresses of the modern stage at least do their duty steadily to the managers and the public. He is buried in the same vault with an only son in the Church- yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and was at- tended to his grave by Mr. Hull and Mr. Munden, 336 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. the treasurer, and other officers of the theatre, and a few private friends. It is hardly extraneous to the subject of the theatre, to notice that the great Lord Mansfield preceded Macklin by a few months, and expired at the venerable age of eighty-nine years. When Macklin had brought his enemies to his feet, and refused the damages which the jury had awarded to him, that illustrious man said to him, "Mr. Macklin, you never acted better in your life." It was a compliment to make a man proud.* * I beg the reader's indulgence, while I return to Lord Mansfield for a few moments. We live in a period that may be called exclusively the commercial, or the monied age ; the dependance, that cherished all the virtues by binding men to each other, is at an end ; every man now thinks and acts, as Coriolanus says — " As if a man were author of himself, And knew no other kin." At such a time, when revolutions are again menacing the repose of the world, the opinion of Lord Mansfield, given to his friend Dr. Turton, on the French nation about 1792, merits the deliberate attention of those who think. " Mv THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 33? The Summer of 1797 was distinguished by, per- haps, the best comedy of the younger Colman, the Heir at Law, a play entirely suggested by a short colloquy between Sir John Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly, the substitution of "Dowlas! filthy " My dear Turton,— How can any two reasonable men think differently on the subject ? A nation, which, for more than twelve centuries, has made a conspicuous figure in the annals of Europe : a nation where the polite arts first flourished in the northern hemisphere, and found an asylum against the bar- barous incursions of the Goths and Vandals : a nation, whose philosophers and men of science cherished and improved civi- lization, and grafted on the feudal system, the best of all systems, their laws respecting the descents and various modi- fications of territorial property! To think that a nation like this should not, in the course of so many centuries, have learned something worth preserving — should not, in the course of so many centuries, have hit upon some little code of laws, or a few principles sufficient to form one. Idiots ! who, instead of retaining what was valuable, sound, and energetic in their constitution, have at once sunk into barbarity, lost sight of first principles, and brought forward a farrago of laws fit for Botany Bay ! It is enough to fill the mind with astonishment and abhorrence ! A constitution like this may survive that of an old man ; but nothing less than a miracle can protect and transmit it down to posterity. VOL. I. Z 338 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. dowlas ! for Holland of eight shillings an ell ;" Daniel Dowlas, the chandler, for the real Lord Duberly. The Dowlasses, and their household refiner, Dr. Pangloss, excited, and will always excite, the hearty laugh of genuine comedy, when the sickly sentiment, which had long, and perhaps of necessity , usurped its place, shall be buried in oblivion. I must be of opinion that genuine laughable comedy is the most difficult of all com- positions ; I mean, in course, on this side of extravagance. Both Suett and Fawcett were un- rivalled. On the subject of my own, or, in honest truth, Mrs. Radcliff's Italian Monk, brought out in the same season, I shall say nothing ; but that it was well received, and did, I believe, service to the theatre. I am sure the liberal payment of Mr. Colman was of great service to me. It was one- third of nine nights, after expenses. Mrs. Jordan passed the present summer between Richmond and Margate. The opening season of Covent Garden, or winter of 1797-8, afforded her an opportunity of again seeing Mrs. Abington, to whom her mother had acted the first Constantia THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 33 ( J formerly, upon the Irish stage. She returned to Mr. Harris after an absence of six years, and I saw her performance of Beatrice, which, in point of skill, was equal to the efforts of her best time ; but she had enlarged her figure, and her face too, by time, and could perhaps fascinate no one, without the aid of recollection on his part. She was no longer the " glass of fashion," that she had once been ; the modern costume a la Grecque did not suit her ; she was now a matronly Beatrice ; but, while alive, the character clung to her closely, and, in the year 1815, sunk into the grave along with her : I will not say never to return, though that is extremely probable ; unless indeed, it should be decorated with the harmonies of some future Bishop, and Much Ado about Nothing , convert this comedy, like many others, into an opera, to save a sinking theatre. Which the spirit of good taste (if such a spirit there be) , in mercy to the fame of Shakspeare avert ! Previous to her appearance, which was on the 6th of October, Murray spoke an address written by Mr. Colman, which referred to the school of Garrick, and the nature to which it professed to z 2 340 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. adhere ; but sure, as it happened in the case of Shakspeare himself, so well remembered by B. Jonson — " Thy art, My gentle Garrick, must sustain a part." This art, it is true, always tended to make the imitation of nature more perfect, by the filling up of numberless chasms, which mere language must always leave to the actor, in the most finished cha- racter ever drawn by a dramatic poet. The coincidences of life are many, and often singular. At the very time that Mrs. Abington was evincing to us what her powers had been, by what they still were, Mr. Harris displayed, in the person of Miss Betterton from the Bath theatre, the only actress who ever, in the slightest degree, resembled her. Then, however, she was con- sidered as a tragedian, which naturally she was not, and acted Elwina in the Percy of Miss More. She was an early proficient in the studies of her profession, and possessed a sound and critical understanding. This young lady is now Mrs. Glover, the ablest actress in existence. But we THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 341 have the misfortune to live in a girlish age, and womanhood is a disqualification. Things in their nonage, like the boys that " aiery of children," that so annoyed Shakspeare, and then berattled the common stage, now possess it merely. A true genius, however, is welcome at whatever age ; but then, as a glorious exception, let the due honours unaccompanied invest her only. At Drury Lane theatre, they were looking to supply a fearful chasm indeed : that left by Miss Farren in the Heiress. As far as figure went, Miss Humphreys, whom I always looked upon as a Jewess, might represent Lady Emily Gayville, or any other lady of fashionable exterior ; but the broken irregularity, always visible in the features of the fairest daughter of Israel, destroyed her beauty while she was speaking — she was only a fine woman, while acting the silent one. Miss Biggs, from the Bath stage, succeeded her on the 17th of October, and on the whole pos- sessed most requisites for the situation. Miss Farren did not wear the male habit — Miss Biggs wore it with ease to herself, and yet without ef- frontery. She acted the Irish Widow with great 342 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. spirit, and received the highest encouragement. For the most part, I like the assumption of the male attire, better than the adoption of the sex. Miss Decamp had become a lover in a farce by Walsh Porter, called the Chimney Corner; and Mrs. Jordan was next to be received as a young and dissipated baronet, called Sir Edward Bloomley, in the comedy called Cheap Living, by which Reynolds, now a denizen of Drury, followed his Will on the 21st of October. As the fable of the Will was a volume itself, so Cheap Living had no story to tell. Charles Wood- land, having rescued Miss Bloomley from robbers, has the passport of gratitude to her affections, and robs her of her honour. Neither of the lovers, however, are happy without the tardy reparation of religion. Sir Edward Bloomley preserves Charles Woodland from being disinherited, and a man, called Sponge, eats and drinks his way through the piece, and by this cheap living gives a title to the play, in which he has nothing else to do. So that the efficient characters in the piece are neither of them principals, and are there only to display the meanness of the one, and the cunning, vicious pre- THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 343 maturity of the other. It was merely a pair of lovers, to supply a decided attachment of two of the performers — a frolic for Mrs. Jordan and a bustle for Bannister ; with two hypocrites to the tune of Palmer and Miss Pope, with a slight net- work only to keep the odd fish together. All im- moral dishonest persons. If Cumberland had walked up now to him out of the orchestra, the indignant " mender of hearts" had been justified. The truth was, it w r as a very hasty " Margate excursion" of the author, and wanted much of his usual adroitness. Mrs. Jordan did not like her character, and seemed disposed at one time to decline it altogether. Wroughton's friendship for the author, or anxiety for the theatre, made him notice her discontent at rehearsal with some sharpness. " Why, you are grand, Madam — quite the Duchess again, this morning." — " Very likely," replied Mrs. Jordan, " for you are not the first person, this very day, who has condescended to honour me ironically with the title." Then, without the slightest pique (says Reynolds himself), and with all her characteristic humour, she told us, that having that morning discharged her Irish cook 344 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. for impertinence, when she paid her the wages due to her, the indignant daughter of St. Patrick showed her a shilling, and banging it down upon the table, exclaimed,— " Arrah now, honey, with this thirteener, won't I sit in the gallery ? — and won't your Royal Grace give me a curtsy ? — and won't I give your Royal Highness & howl, and a hiss into the bar- gain?" The word condescended, used by Mrs. Jordan, while it levelled the manager with her cook, amply corrected his very unpolite behaviour, and intro- duced her story in the true way. It may be ob- served here, that the lower class of the Irish have more humour in their anger, than those of any other nation under the sun. How few, in the profession of the stage, know the true period for retiring from it ; or, if they do, find it convenient to retire. This reflection is extorted from me by the return of Mrs. Crawford in the character of Lady Randolph, with Harry Johnston for herNorval, on the 23rd of the month, at Covent Garden theatre. It was an appearance for the benefit alone of Mrs. Siddons, and left her THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 345 the palm, which the memory of some, and the inclination of more, up to that moment denied her. The sufferers in Lord Duncan's glorious action on the coast of Holland, left their relatives to the benevolence of their countrymen, and the theatres became receivers of their bounty in the disguise of their pleasure. Mrs. Jordan acted for them ; thus adding the deed to the Will, followed by the Prize. Cumberland contributed an address, which was spoken by Wroughton , not perhaps quite equal to that of Richardson for Howe ; indeed, one couplet seemed completely della Cruscan, or the muse of Rob. Merry : — " In the mid-watch, night's melancholy noon, Humming their ditty to the pale -fac'd moon." But on such occasions something fine is always expected ; and we must attend to the warning only of Lady Macbeth — " Think of this, good peers, but as a trick of custom." Kemble had been kept from acting Hotspur, in London, by the want of a FalstafT. A Mr. Longley, on the 25th of November, afforded him an oppor- 346 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. tunity of shewing us the hero of the North ; but the candidate for the honours of Falstaff, could not decline " the word honour" on his examination, and was put aside. Drury Lane offered a Mr. Archer, moreover, in the character of Shylock, with about equal miscarriage. Such trifling in the National Theatre was monstrous. If the reader will allow me to cast the First Part of Henry IV. from the two companies, he will see how a play should be acted. The King, Bensley — the Prince, Lewis — Hotspur, Kemble — Glendower, Digges — Poins, C. Kemble — Bardolph, Moody — Falstaff, Hender- son — and Mistress Quickly, Mrs. Davenport — and I hope, as Peter Quince says, here is a play fitted ! But at one time, you Cuckoo? No, not any one time, I entirely believe. Matthew George Lewis, the son of the Deputy Se- cretary at War, has been familiarly, perhaps compli- mentarily, called Monk Lewis, from a Romance writ- ten by him, of which the genius and the indecorum are about equal. He was a scholar, fashionable in his connexions, fond of the theatre, and more than a melo -dramatic writer, though wedded to such stage effects, and skilful in producing them. He brought THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. .'H 7 out, on the 14th of December, a dramatic romance called the Castle Spectre, a piece really of one scene, but that so astonishingly beautiful, that it drew crowds to the theatre, and very nearly re- stored the house of Sheridan. The secret of this spectre was extremely well kept ; the bill of the day gave not a glimpse of light beyond the mere title ; and the actors in the piece answered to all kind enquirers as to who the spectre was, or by whom represented — " You'll see." The set scene, in this theatre, had an oratory with a perforated door of pure Gothic, over which was a window of rich tracery, and Mrs. Jordan, who played Angela, being on the stage, a brilliant illumination sud- denly took place, and the doors of the oratory opened — the light was perfectly celestial, and a majestic and lovely, but melancholy image stood before us ; at this moment, in a low but sweet and thrilling harmony, the band played the strain of Jomelli's Chaconne, in his celebrated overture, in three flats. Every hearer exclaimed, " This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owns." 348 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. And the figure began slowly to advance ; it was the spirit of Angela's mother, Mrs. Powell, in all her beauty, with long sweeping envelopments of muslin attached to the wrist ; and picture assuredly has never approached the eifect, though it may have suggested it. Mrs. Jordan cowered down mo- tionless with terror, and Mrs. Powell bent over her prostrate duty, in maternal benediction : in a few minutes she entered the oratory again, the doors closed, and darkness once more enveloped the heroine and the scene. As to the strain from Jomelli, its quality may be gathered from one circumstance. My friend At- wood, who, as a composer, needs no praise of mine, converted it to the choir service ; and I myself heard him play it as the response in the litany, to the deep murmur of the organ in St. Paul's ca- thedral ; and also in the King's chapel at Windsor, and I am sure his master, Mozart, would have ap- plauded his taste. I borrow from myself what I have before written as to my friend Kemble in the present play. " There was one remarkable point of character in Mr. Kemble ; that, out of the management, and THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 349 where responsibility was upon others, he was the gentlest of all great actors — he would do any thing." So that when lie was cast into Percy, in the present piece, a sort of harlequin hero, who gets into his enemy's castle after his columbine, Angela, he had to climb from a sofa to a gothic window, and, being alarmed by the stirring of his black guards, he has to fall from the height flat again at his length upon the said sofa, and seem asleep, as they had before seen him. This he did as boldly and suddenly as if he had been shot. When people complimented him upon his unsus- pected agility, " nay," he used to say, " gentle- men, Mr. Boaden has exceeded all compliment upon this feat of mine, for he counselled me from Mac- beth, to " Jump the life to come." But it was melancholy to see the abuse of such talents. It is only in a barn, that the cato of a company should be allowed to risk his neck. The term black guards, used above, alludes to the African servants in the play. As a disgusting flippancy was now become the 350 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. established characteristic of a preface, the author thus vindicates the colour he has given to these guards of Percy. " I thought it would give a pleasing variety to the characters if I made my ser- vants black ; and could I have produced the same effect by making my heroine blue, blue I should have made her." Thus, happily remembering one of the associations of language used to describe a bruise, black and blue. This principle of thinking only of effect, seems to have coloured his dialogue also ; for, before the fifteenth century, we have the following anachronisms — " a sheet of fools- cap" — " kissing and smuggling'''' — " an overgrown turtle''' — " I heard the guitar" — " plain cherry - brandy" — " Saib advances a sofa." His dresses also were fashioned for effect alone, and the fool of the play was red on one side, and white on the other — with a " cocked hat," — a " ruffled shirt" — " short breeches," and " silk stockings." The reader sees what a narrow escape Mrs. Jordan had from a " blue skin ;" of which the effect would have been far from celestial ; which was not the case as to her dress, which was the picturesque angelic. Enough of the antiquary. THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 35) The Castle Spectre was acted forty- six times, between the 14th of December, 1797, and the close of the season, in June. Lewis, aware of his ser- vices, in a dispute with Sheridan once, offered to bet him all the money his play had brought into the treasury. " No," replied the wit, " I can't afford to do that ; but' I'll bet you all it is worth" Wit is seldom so just a measure of obligation as arithmetic. Sheridan should never have attacked Lewis in Westminster-Hall, for merely endeavour- ing to obtain the money due to him. Nor should Colman have fallen foul of the ponderous ma- chinery, processions, and castles, and elephants, of the great theatre, if he himself ever intended to employ, and even extend, the costly pageantry. This, however, he did on the 16th of January, 1798, by the production of the well known grand spectacle called Blue Beard, which Mrs. Jordan staid to see, after acting the Country Girl. Every thing worked ill. The grand cavalcade in the mountains, seen for half an hour to the same march, (a very fine one,) with the small elephants, needing the Gulliver-like aid of the scene-shifter, to get them through the defiles — and the horrible 352 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. boggling at the destruction of Abomelique, merited almost a second preface from the author of the Iron Chest. But upon the whole, it was performed so well, and was so truly splendid, that it has never been surpassed in my remembrance. If I were to select the most prominent merit it had, I should clearly name the sister of the heroine, Irene, by Miss Decamp, who looked, and acted, and sang, in such a way as to prove herself the first melo-dramatic actress that had been seen among us. It ran on just like the Castle Spectre, and must have produced immense receipts, attended, it is true, with no slight expense of dresses, decora- tions, and supernumeraries. Mrs. Jordan now really played every night, for when the Castle Spectre was not performed, the Country Girl, or the Confederacy called her out, or she supported the Will, which out-lived Cheap Liv- ing by many a season. However, a little relief was promised, and given, by the production of Kotzebue's Stranger on the 24th of March, 1798 ; and Sheridan himself had been induced by his new ally, Mr. Grubb, to read and improve the trans- lated play, as Mr. Thompson delivered it. He THE LIFE OF .MRS. JORDAN. 353 wrote the song which Mrs. Bland sang in the Stranger's hearing, and which echoed the exact feelings of his own wife, to a tune which was fami- liar to his ear. I have done with the controversy about this play ; for what signifies the reasoning where every heart is touched, and every eye is suf- fused with tears. Reynolds has ludicrously quar- relled with Mrs. Haller for giving away the old six- and-twenty hock. She conceived no wine too good for the weak and miserable. O ! these writers of comedy ! T wonder the following stage direction escaped him — "The Baron stands opposite to Mrs. Haller, and from time to time casts a glance at her, in which his heart is swimming." Kemble told me, that in the Stranger he should throw his Penruddock into the shade, and I hardly believed that possible ; but Kotzebue had a power infinitely beyond Cumberland ; and the sudden meeting of the Stranger and Mrs. Haller, the con- clusion of the fourth act, and the last scene of the play, are among the most exquisite things of any stage. I am not a German critic, and cannot tell whether his style be equal to that of Schiller ; but vol. i. 2 a 354 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. I suspect it is not. Yet the plays of Schiller have little pathos, though they have a wild, irregular greatness, that claims a relation to Shakspeare. Let me say, that Mr. Kemble here showed himself in the highest power of his art, and, if possible, extended his reputation. Mrs. Siddons had not equal metal to work, but she fashioned it with great skill, and excited the sobs of her fair hearers in abundance. On the 19th of May O'Keefe tried the effect, at Drury Lane, of a comedy he had written for Mrs. Jordan. It was called She's Eloped, — a very bad title, containing an equivocal contraction, and an injudicious discovery. Poor man, he was then for the only time led into the Green-room by Mrs. Powell, and decided against the prologue to his play, in which Cumberland, I think it was, talked of Homer and his poverty, and his blindness ; and the proud pang of a wounded spirit came over him. Mrs. Jordan, however, could not preserve the co- medy, though she acted Arabel, and spoke an epi- logue written by M. G. Lewis. O'Keefe has these allusions to his play and Mrs. Jordan : lllK LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 355 " For She's Eloped, her gentle heart much griev'd: That jilt, call'd Fortune, ceas'd to use me well. My comic efforts were but ill receiv'd ; With Dora tho' she came, frowns greet my Arabel." The night preceding Smith came to town, to act Charles, in the School for Scandal, for his old friend King's benefit. He now, as to Mrs. Jordan, saw his prophe'tie accomplle. She was at the summit of the profession, and to the theatre, which he loved, invaluable. His discernment in this case may atone for his absurd puffing of the young Roscius ; but Smith did not love John Kemble. The summer of 1798 was rendered remarkable in the history of the stage, by the death of that great comedian, my friend, John Palmer. This happened to him while acting the character of the Stranger ; and he was struck down in that agoniz- ing scene in the fourth act, between himself and Whitfield, who performed Baron Steinfort, when about to answer his enquiry after the former's chil- dren. The words he tried in vain to articulate were these, " Stra. I left them at a small town hard by." But this was so little calculated for effect, that 2 a 2 356 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. still keeping to the Baron as the person replied to, Palmer was reported to have said to him, " O God, God ! there is another, and a better world." But the Saints, who spread this precious falsehood, were not quite wide of their aim ; for they thus appear in the second act (not the fourth) and are not spoken to Steinfort, even there, but to the Stranger's servant, Francis : " Stra. Have you forgotten what the old man said this morn- ing? ' There is another and a better world !' ' So that poor Palmer's dramatic life was two acts longer, at least, than these gloomy owls screamed it to have been. The play itself was printed at Liverpool upon Palmer's death ; and the chief pur- chasers were the serious persons of the evangelic persuasion, who more than insinuated that the calamity befallen the theatre was a judgment on profaneness, and used the play itself as a text to sentence the players to perdition. The truth is, that Palmer had recently lost his wife and a favourite child, and the man's distress, meeting with matter so congenial in his profession, THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. 357 excited a convulsive spasm, that ended him in a moment. Messrs. Hamerton, Callan, and Mara, were the persons who conveyed the lifeless body from the stage into the Green-room, and every effort of medical skill was employed for the space of an hour in vain. The announcement then made by the faculty excited the heavy sighs of the men, and the piercing shrieks of the women. The im- pression was so terrific behind the curtain, that, when Mr. Aickin, the manager, came forward to announce the result to the audience, his remarkably manly nerve was so completely overpowered by his horror, that he withdrew, unable to articulate a single syllable ; and they had to learn Mr. Palmer's fate from Incledon, scarcely less agitated than Mr. Aickin. Mr. Garrick had slighted Palmer in his outset, and said that he never would make an actor ; how- ever, this judgment he lived to reverse. I can rea- dily believe that Palmer, as a stripling, might have promised nothing but a showy figure at his matu- rity. He was an actor made by time and practice ; not a genius like Henderson, who must at once be 358 THE LIFE OF MRS. JORDAN. Hamlet, and Benedick, and Richard, and Falstaff, or nothing. I do not think Mrs. Jordan acted any where this summer hut at Richmond ; for which there appeared, indeed, to be sufficient family reasons. ILLUSTRATIONS. i. " Along with her father, who was employed as a scene- shifter."—?. 8. By this it should seem, that Mr. Bland was then far from deserting his family, whatever had been done by the civilian, his father, as to annulling his marriage. He had not then made his peace with law, by a violation of the gospel. I observe, contrary to other early acquaintance, that Mr. Gordon calls our heroine Miss Phillips ; that is, by her mother's maiden name ; and at Cork she might not be known by any -other ; but at Dublin she was called Miss Francis, which she seems only to have dropt, for the graver style of Mrs. Jordan, on very weighty grounds. II. " How far she had entangled herself with Daly, &c." — p. 16. On this subject I would not be unnecessarily plain. One who knew him well, points out the course pursued by this bad man. " It was the practice of this hollow sensualist, to ad- 360 ILLUSTRATIONS. vance money to those ladies he had a design upon, and then se- cond his attempts with an arrest for debt. He had often re- course to brutal violence. Even now, when that weak villain's bones have returned to the corruption that best befitted them, we could find it in our hearts to call them from the grave, to be burnt as a sacrifice' to offended decency ; and in saying this, we arrogate no peculiar virtue to ourselves : we do not mean to condemn, in one sweeping clause, the race called {falsely called) men of pleasure ; but let them fight their battles fairly, at all events, and not win by meanness, (or violence, should be added) that which should be gained by favour." — Memoir of Mrs. Jordan, by the Comedian, Oxberry. He might have alluded to the actual perpetration of violence the most brutal, in one particular instance, the scene of which, (like the field of the forty steps,) is still pointed out with strong shudders, near Limerick, as having sullied a spirit every way amiable ; and fixed its fate in life, far, far indeed, below the level of either its genius or its virtues. It will here be asked, why were not the violated laws ap- pealed to, and the ruffian gibbeted for his atrocity ? The answer must be, that the Irish gentleman of 1782 considered himself beyond their reach. His victim was young, and poor, and em- barrassed with the parents who should have protected her. Who would have believed in the virtuous resistance of an ac- tress ? I will proceed no further. ILLUSTRATIONS. 361 III. Origin of Mrs. Jordan's Namb. From Bernard's Recollections of the Stcuje. Vol. i. p. 234. 1782. " Dr. Davies was the means of my becoming acquainted with several families in Cork, with whom I spent many plea- sant evenings. Among these was a Mr. Morgan, who had a lovely little girl under his protection, of great musical promise, that used to sing a song about her love for ' Ti-mo-tby,' with so much comic effect, that I was led to enquire its origin. I was informed, that she had learnt it from a lady of the name of Francis, who visited the Cork theatre the summer previous. This Miss Francis was Mrs. Jordan; who, quarrelling with Daly, went off to York, where she assumed her other name. As I had never heard that Miss Bland was married, I after- wards enquired of Wilkinson the cause, and he replied, ' her name ? — why, God bless you, my boy ! I gave her that name, — I was her sponsor.' 'You !' — ' Yes : when she thought of going to London, she thought Miss sounded insignificant, so she asked me to advise her a name. — Why, said I, my dear, you have crossed the water, so I'll call you Jordan ; and, by the memory of Sam ! if she didn't take my joke in earnest, and call herself Mrs. Jordan ever since.' This was Tate's story; but as it was told in his usuallv ambiguous way, mv reader mav at- tach what credence to it he pleases." The baptism had no reference whatever to London. Mrs. Jordan was three years with Tate Wilkinson, before she quitted him for Drurv Lane theatre. There was another reason than 362 ILLUSTRATIONS. insignificance for the change, which the reader is already ac- quainted with. IV. Mrs. Jordan. There are many anecdotes on record of this charming ac- tress, which prove her to have possessed a heart ever ready to sympathize with the distresses of her fellow-creatures, " and a hand open as day to melting charity." " During her short stay at Chester, where she had been per- forming, her washerwoman, a widow, with three small chil- dren, was, by a merciless creditor, thrown into prison : a small debt of about forty shillings had been increased in a short time, by law expences, to eight pounds. As soon as Mrs. Jordan heard of the circumstance, she sent for the attorney, paid him the demand, and observed, with as much severity as her good- natured countenance could assume, ' You lawyers are certainly infernal spirits, allowed on earth to make poor mortals misera- ble.' The attorney, however, pocketed the affront, and with a low bow made his exit. " On the afternoon of the same day the poor woman was li- berated; as Mrs. Jordan was taking her usual walk, with her servant, the widow, with her children, followed her, and just as she had taken shelter from a shower of rain, in a kind of porch, dropped on her knees, and with much grateful emotion, exclaimed, ' God for ever bless you, madam ! you have saved me and my poor children from ruin.' The children, beholding ILLUSTRATIONS. 363 their mother's tears, added, by their cries, to the affecting scene, which a sensitive mind could not behold, but with strong feelings of sympathy. The natural liveliness of Mrs. Jordan's disposition was not easily damped by sorrowful scenes : how- ever, although she strove to hide it, the tear of feeling stole down her cheek, and stooping to kiss the children, she slipped a pound note into the mother's hand, and in her usual playful manner, replied, l There, there ; now it's all over ; go, good woman, God bless you ! don't say another word.' " The grateful creature would have replied, but her benefac- tress insisted on her silence and departure. ' ' It happened, that another person had taken shelter under the porch, and witnessed the whole of this interesting scene, who, as soon as Mrs. Jordan observed him, came forward, and he, holding out his hand, exclaimed, with a deep sigh, ' Lady, pardon the freedom of a stranger ; but would to the Lord, the world were all like thee !' The figure of this man bespoke his calling; his countenance was pale; and a suit of sable, rather the worse for wear, covered his tall and spare person. The pe- netrating eye of Thalia's favourite votary soon developed his character and profession, and, with her wonted good humour, retreating a few paces, she replied, ' No, I won't shake hands with you.' — ' Why ?' — ' Because you are a methodist preacher ; and when you know who I am, you'll send me to the devil !' — ' The Lord forbid ! I am, as you say, a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who tells us to clothe the naked, feed the hun- gry, and relieve the distressed ; and do you think I can behold a sister fulfil the commands of my Great Master, without feel- ing that spiritual attachment, which leads me to break through 364 ILLUSTRATIONS. worldly customs, and offer you the hand of friendship and bro- therly love ?' ' Well, well, you are a good old soul, I dare say ; ■ — but — I — I don't like fanatics ; and you'll not like me, when I tell you who I am.' — ' I hope I shall.'—' Well, then, I tell you, I am a player.' The preacher sighed. ' Yes, I am a player ; and you must have heard of me. Mrs. Jordan is my name.' After a short pause — he again extended his hand, and with a complaisant countenance, replied, ' The Lord bless thee, whoever thou art ; His goodness is unlimited ; He has bestowed on thee a large portion of his spirit ; and as to thy calling, if thy soid upbraid thee not, the Lord forbid that I should.' "Thus reconciled, and the rain having abated, they left the porch together : the offer of his arm was accepted ; and the Female Roscius of Comedy, and the disciple of John Wesley, proceeded, arm in arm, to the door of Mrs. Jordan's dwelling. At parting, the preacher shook hands with her, saying, ' Fare thee well, Sister ; I know not what the principles of people of thy calling may be ; — thou art the first I ever conversed with ; but if their benevolent practices equal thine, I hope and trust, at the great day, the Almighty God will say to each — Thy sins are forgiven thee.' " Illustration as to Hamlet, the Dane. The attempt of Mr. Smith to reform poor Cooke's habits, and his ansiver — its fatal mistake in calculation. ■ " Bury, April 27, 1801. " Dear Sir, " Depending on the assurances you gave me in your letter, with which you favoured me, I ventured to pledge my- ILLUSTRATION'S. 36.J self for your conduct to various friends ; amongst which were Mr. Coutts, (who tells me he has seen you,) Lord and Lady Guildford, and many others of consequence. " I have heard, with real pleasure, of your success — with real concern of your indiscretions. " My dear Cooke, consider, seriously consider, what you have at stake — fame ! fortune ! comfort and esteem ! Consider the patronage and applause which the public have shown, and are inclined to show you. To insult them, is shameful ingrati- tude ; — to degrade yourself by intemperance, is madness. You owe the public much ; pay it as a man, as a gentleman, by good manners, by respect and gratitude. Have some regard, too, to the character of an actor of the first rate, and do not disgrace the Drama. " I have said enough, either to offend, or rouse you from your distemperature ; but must recommend Anthony's speech in All for Love, to your frequent contemplation : — " Tho' Fortune did not come smiling to your youth, Yet purpled greatness meets your ripen'd years," &c. " The privilege of age, love for the reputation of the actor, and honour of the Drama, I offer in excuse for this liberty ; and you are bound to admit it : and I trust you will at the same time, believe me, " Your very sincere friend, " And well-wisher, " Wm. Smith." " Mr. Cooke, " Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, " London." 36(> ILLUSTRATIONS. " London, Jan. 11, 1802. " Sir, " Mr. Incledon, who brought me your most inestima- ble favour, thought he should revisit Suffolk at Christmas. He is now at Bath. "I well remember you, and am highly gratified to be re- membered by you. " Thanks for your caution. What neither the remonstrance of friends, or common prudence, or common sense, could have effected, your kind and friendly epistle has done. " A certain monthly publication has said, ' he neither bor- rows from living or dead ;' they are mistaken : I remember two Kitelys, (a character they have received me well in,) one is in elysmm ;* the other long may he be permitted to remain on this side. " If I could frame words, I would finish my letter with them ; I can only say, I am, with every respect, " Sir, your most obedient, "And most humble sen-ant, " Gko. Fred. Cooke." " To W, Smith, Esq., " Bury St. Edmunds." The following verses were written by Mrs. Jordan shortly after the decease of her beloved mother, to whose wants it had ever been the highest gratification of her life to attend. The * The late Mr. Garrick. ILLUSTRATIONS. 36? lines exhibit, in a most beautiful manner, the grief and filial devotion of the writer, and the poetry is not unworthy of the sentiments. " ON THE DEATH OF A MOTHER. " Be ready, Reader, if thou hast a tear, Nor blush if sympathy bestows it here ! For a lost mother, hear a daughter's moan, Catch the sad sounds, and learn like her to groan ; Yet, e'en those groans, sad echoes all to mine, Must prove faint offerings at so dear a shrine. If feebler these, how feebler far must be The tribute to be paid by Poesy ! The bleeding heart, that's whelm'd with real woe, Aflofto no flowVc near Hplicon that grow ; Sobs and swoln sighs ill suit smooth-number'd lays,- The tear that waters cypress, drowns the bays. " Hard, then, must be the task, in mournful verse, The praise of a lost parent to rehearse. Mild suffering saint, exemplary through life, A tender mother, and a patient wife ; Whose firm fidelity no wrongs could shake, While curb'd resentment was forbid to speak. Thus, silent anguish mark'd her for her own. And comfort, coming late, was barely known , 368 ILLUSTRATIONS. It, like a shadow, smil'd, and slipp'd away, For, churlish Death refused to let it stay ; A two-fold dart he levell'd, to destroy, At once, both mother's life and daughter's joy. Better a double summons had been giv'n, To wipe our sorrow's score, and make all ev'n, By kindly calling both at once to Heav'n !" END OF VOL. I. Gunnell and Shearman, 13, Salisbury Square. I I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. HP « tU .ow- ..) UN 1 » 1988 Form L9-Series 444 sff saT.iai.'-r.'T iu.io j ^RN BR 3 1158 6 ■ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 411 609 1