■s'^ ^^C^ r^ »■ c: O 33 -•drjikici/rrnr ^//- > ««r-fM>« r*.t . . . c ^ i linK » 1M> ■^,. ^ - w\(^ t wrri r--^ ■% &^' % >iL '^ ll— r-> ^^ '-- \Cj~-' -n c — r O io-. v ?3 A\ % .^ % ^\ '^ .>.■' ^r. ;l =6 c. .^, >. ^x. AV .^^ :i' % t V-M-> ■ ^ 1^ d 1 ^^ ^.'.u .'Ujira^' .?r ,'V'. *ur'iiiin/rDr#^ ■inc Ai, Uuj^ ^v. << c- J i i Jl» I J\J I - J VJ J J \ I I t ( I J '. ■■ ' EDMUND YATES: lis Slccottcctions and (IH-pfiienrrs. LOXDOX : EOBSOX AXD SOXS, TKIXTERS, PANGEAS ROAD, N.W] Mr^Prmii^esv i^MmrSSS^ i 6- OMEJDIAjr. EDMUND YATES: ifxs ttccollcctions an& (gxpcncncc0. " Much have I seen and known : cities of men And manners, climates, coimcils, governments, And drunk delight of battle with mj^ peers," Tennyson's Ulysses. WORK: 1847-1870. IN TWO VOLUMES :— VOL. I. THIRD EDITION, LONDON": RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, DutltsfierB in ©rUtnarB lo fitr fHajestg ttie (Queen. 1884. \AU rights reserved.] 3 2^<^. TO MY WIFE: MY CONSTANT COMPANION, MY WISEST COUNSELLOR, MY BEST FRIEND : mm Sooli IS DEDICATED. 'J 122^949 PKEFACE. This book is the product of a good memory, a collection of interesting letters from well-known persons, partly inherited, partly formed by myself, and a few diaries, kept m a vague and desultory fashion. Whether it was or was not worth writing will soon be known : I thought it was, and if any account of my life was ever to be written, I knew that no one could write it so well as myself. Nor, as it seems to me, is there any reason why its publication should be posthumous. I have said in it nothing of which I am ashamed ; I do not think I have said any harsh thing of any person, ali\e or dead ; I am certain that I have not said such a thing consciously. I may add, perhaps, that, so far as I am person- ally concerned, the period at which this book appears is not inappropriate. My London life — though not. viii PREFACE. indeed, my London interests — comes practically to a 1 close with the completion of this record of half a century. I have much to be thankful for, and little or nothing of which to complain; but Nature has warned me that I shall be wise for the future to shun the exhausting ordeal of London, though I hope still to keep all necessary touch of the life of ! the Great City. EDMUND YATES. Brujiiton, October 1884. I CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 1831. Birth — Father's family — Dr. Yates — Uncles — My father: at Charter- house ; in the Commissariat ; amateur acting ; meeting with the elder Mathews ; his imitations ; personal appearance ; his portraits — iMy father as an actor — He goes into partnership with Terry — Sir Walter Scott's letter of advice— My mother: her family; her portrait ; Charles Dickens's admiration and regard for her — My christening : letter from Theodore Hook ; mj'^ godfathers ; Hook's joke — Our place of residence — The Adclphi Theatre — Adelphi dramas — Adaptations of Dickens's books; John Forster thereon; Charles Dickens on Nicldehy at the Adelphi ; Dickens proposes to dramatise Oliver Twist — 0. Smith — My father's correspondents, Dr. Maginn, Edmund Kean, Miss Jane Porter, Miss Mitford, Count d'Orsay, Miss Pardoe — A child's recollections : the elder Mathews, Theodore Hook, Lord A. Paget, the Giant, The Onome Fly, James and Horace Smith, Ainsworth, Bunn, Braham, three charming actresses — The Duke of Wellington — O'Connell — Liston — Visitors at the Adelphi house ..... pp, 1-27 CHAPTER II. YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 1836—1847. My first teacher — My grandmother — An unprofitable engagement — Struggle for novelty — Sam Warren — Buckstone's dramas — Buck- stone's prices — Fees paid nowadays — My preparatory school — CONTENTS. Prejudice against actors — The Church and the Stage — Boys' thirst — My grandfather : happy days with him — Low tastes — Newspapers of those days — Spring-heeled Jack — Noble escapades — Notorious murderers — Story-telling — Snuffers, rushlights, and tinder-boxes — Uniforms of police, private soldiers, and postmen — Fashionable costume of the period — Vanished ! — Cabs, omnibuses, and stage- coaches — Why shave ? — Chimney - sweeps — Changes in London streets — Tlie Farringdon range and mountain pass — Ichabod — I go to Highgate School — AVhere I "board" — A great charactei' — My father's last illness ; " the ruling passion " — Mr. Macready's letter — My father's death ; his funeral ; newspaper comments ; his character — Ptesting — " Robsperry " — An old-fashioned pedagogue — My studies — My schoolfellows — Charles Lamb's book — T. E. Gaha- gan — Other schoolfellows — Prize-day — What will become of me ? — To go to Germany — We start ; en voyage — At Diisseldorf — How I learned German — The artists — Freedom — Progress — English settlers — No Christmas dinner — American settlers — The Kiieipe — A practical joke — Lord Clanricarde's Idndness — I begin life in earnest ......... p/?. 28-82 CHAPTEE III. EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 1847—1855. Small, but certain — Happy days at St. Martin's — ^Ij first appearance — The Chief Clerk — No fun now — A practical joker — The bananas — A wonderful cure — " Reported " — Rowland Hill — A cure for excessive animal spirits — My omnibus — A dangerous accomplish- ment — John Strange Baker : what he taught me — James Kenney — Colonel Maberly : his peculiarities ; how he transacted business — Storm-warnings — " Are ye Williams ?" — Assisting the surveyor — Deserting my post — Lord Clanricarde's kindness — Introducing the P.M.G. — " The bo'sun" — Lord Hartington — A tyrannical old gentle- man — A disagreeable job — The confidential butler — " Old Ben Stanley " — The turning of the worm — I show fight— Sir Rowland's sympathy — Good for the messenger — " In charge :" the journey ; the two courriers; on board; the voyage — Lord Lyons — TroUope's letter-— To Cairo — An Egyptian fair — Egyptian convicts — Lights of the harem — I arrive at Shepherd's — A restless night — Homeward CONTENTS. xi bound — To Hamburg — 111 — Genial Mx. Tilley— Luncheons — Chop- houses — Gratitude " to scale " — City refectories — "Alton alehouses" — Penny steamboats — Popular notions of our work — Small salaries — Sympathetic Colonel Maberly — Nearly lost to England 1 — The Commission of Inquiiy ...... pp. 83-12G CHAPTEE IV. THE AMUSEMENTS OF MY YOUTH. 1847—1852. In the Alpha Koad— Mr. Edmund Byng: his liking for me; liis dinners — " Jim " Macdonald — John Cooper — The cabman's triumph — The Baron — ^Vlmack's — Dancing diversions — The Adelaide Gal- lery—The Polyteclinic— Laurent's Casino— The Holborn Casino— Mott's and Weippert's — Yauxliall Gardens : amusements there ; too dear — Cremome — The Coliseum — A small audience — The Cyclorama — The Diorama — " The Overland Pioute " — Burford's Panoramas — The Chinese junk — Celebrities in the Park: Lady Blessington; D'Orsay; Louis Napoleon; Beauties and beaux — Park riders — Park wliips — Social and political celebrities — Eating-houses — Foreign restaurants— Berthollini's — " Slap-bangs " — City taverns — "West End restaurants — A revelation — " Sunpson's " — Imitations — Fish dinners — Greenwich dinners — Richmond dinners — Supper- houses — Oyster - liouses — Night - houses — The Bhie Posts — Bob Croft's — Gambling - houses — French hazard — Song - and - supper taverns- The Coal Hole— The Cider CeUars— The "Back ffitchen" — Pvoss: his song of "Sam Hall "—Evans's— " Paddy " Green — A change for tlie better — Tlie annexe — The Garrick's Head — The Judge and Jury— Equestrianism — Rowing— Sparring pp. 127-174 CHAPTEE V. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 1847—1852. Number of theatres in '47— Her Majesty's : saved by Mdlle. Lind — Mdlle. Lind's debut : the struggle for the gallery ; nearly crushed— A state performance — Mdlle, Ijind's success — The ballet — Royal Itahan Opera: Lucrezui ]i<)r(jia—V>vim\ii operas— Jullien— Pro- xii CONTENTS. menade Concerts — Bah masques — Jullien's season of English opera — Debut of Mr. Sims Reeves — Drury Lane— Mr. James Anderson's management — Mr. E, T. Smith's reyime — The Munte Crista row — The Haymarket — Mrs. Nisbett — My introduction to her — Comedies — ^James Wallack — The Lyceum — Dickens dramatised — Burlesque — The Vestris reyime — My first appearance in pubhc — Planche's extravaganzas — Charles Mathews — Mr. Maddox : his stock author ; his revenge — The Princess's — Mrs. Fanny Ivemble Butler — Stars at the Princess's — Charles Kerrison Sala : Macready's hatred of him ; Cardinal Campeius — The Adelphi — Wright : his comic powers — Paul Bedford — Half-price — Buckstone's dramas — ]\Iadame Celeste — Adelphi farces — The green-room— The Olympic— G. V. Brooke : his success; his death — Leigh Murray — Mrs. Stirling — Lysander Thompson— Mr. Walter Watts: his frauds; his suicide — The St. James's — Lemaitre — Boufie — C. L. Kenney — Rachel — Old William Farren — Mrs. Glover— Mr. George Bennett — Mrs. Mowatt — The Admiral Criahton — Mr. Shepherd's delicacy . pp. 175-212 CHAPTER YI. THE INFLUENCE OF "PENDENNIS." 1851—1853. My mother's disappointment — Government service not incompatible with literary career — Desultory reading— What " the dear Bishop " would have said to it — I study Macaulay — And Household Words — The Man in the Moon — The theatrical critics — Longings for fame, and mone}- — I read Pendennis — My fate is sealed — Mere business aptitude not enough — Composition in church — " My dear braithren" — Poem in progress : Mr. Ainsworth accepts it ; the proof; the piinter — Ha ! ha !— Indignation at delay— Albert Smith — Dinner at Horace Twiss's — My talk with Albert Smith— We swear friend- ship — Mont Blanc entertainment — Albert Smith's appearance ; his home ; contents of his study — Arthur Smith : his original fun — J. H. Robins : his imitations — The Keeleys — Actors in Brompton — J. L. O'Beirne — My first engagement — The Court Journal — Pen- dennis at la'st ! — The Fielding Club : members ; a delightful resort — Opening of " Mont Blanc " — Visit to Paris— The Dame aux Camelias — The Keepsahe — The Illustrated London News — My mi. 213-247 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTEE VII. EAELY MARRIED LIFE. 1853—1857. A new berth offered : declined — I become a householder : the " grounds ;" the premises ; our mennge — Sunday excursions — Mrs. Milner Gib- son's receptions — Judge Talfourd's hospitality — Fresh gi-ound — My first bo^ok : critical opinions — I call on Dickens : his personal appearance ; his kind reception of me ; first letter from him — My eldest son's birth and christening — Gruikshank's Magazine — My ideal picture of Frank Smedley : the reaUtj' — Frank Smedley's characteristics — Cruikshank and Smedlej' — The magic wheel — Mirth and Metre — Mr. J. R. Robinson — Doughty Street wortliies — Our Doughty Street house : drawbacks ; a dull locality — Angus R«ach — An amateur pantomime ; repeated before her Majesty ; dis- position of funds raised — The Illustrated Times — Mr. H. Vizetelly — Personal journalism — " The Lounger at the Clubs " — Amateur performance at Tavistock House — Birth of twin sons : Thackeray's letter of congratulation — ^Madame Sala — Dickens to be godfather — Dinner to Thackeray — Shirley Brooks : his cleverness and deter- mination ; attack on the Whitefriars stronghold ; its success — Brooks's value to Punch — " Slumming " with Dickens — An attempt at a novel — The Inverness Courier — Am appointed dramatic critic for the Daily News : an enjoyable position — Some of the DN. staff — First appearance in Household Words — Our Miscellany — My first farce — Mr. J. L. Toole — Another farce — Mrs. Bancroft — A come- dietta — Miss Ellen Terry — Douglas Jerrold : unpublished jeux de mots ; last time of seeing liim ; his death ; his funeral — For the Jerrold fund — Among tlie editors — Bedford's brother — " Sundays out " — Among the artists— Mr. J. M. Levy , . pp. 248-298 CHAPTEE VIII. EARLY EDITORSHIPS. 1855—1858. British Bohemia : Thackeray's description of it ; an outsider ; my introduction to it; "It's an ill wind," &c. — Mr. Ligram — My doubts — Mark Lemon — I consult Albert Smith — Edward Draper — Godfrev Turner — F. I. Scudamore — W. P. Hale — E. L. Blanchard xiv CONTENTS. — John Oxenforcl: liis genius; why he "let people clown easily;" irresponsibility ; where his real genius comes out — Mr. G, A. Sala : my first sight of him — The Brothers Brough— " Literary men " — Robert Brough's start in life : at Liverpool ; his character ; his Radicalism ; a remarkable production, Somjs of the Governing Classes — WiUiam Brough — Artists of the staff — The Comic Times : short-lived — Our Almanack — Alnaschar — Mark Lemon's device — The basket of eggs falls ! — Death of the C. T. — Determination — Search for a capitalist — The Train is started — An erratic brother : what is to be done ? — Robert Brough fills the breach — Contents of No. 1 — The Idler — James Hannay — " Idlers " — Literary amenities — Mr. Sala in Paris : his work for The Train ; his journey to St. Petersburg — Newspaper criticism on No. 1 — Later contributors — Mr. John HoUingshead — Mr. Moy Thomas— Thackeray on one of our artists — TJie Train stops — Poor PiUicoddy. . pp. 299-338 EDMUND YATES: IJis JlccoKcctions unb 6vpcncnas. CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 1831. 1 WAS born on the 3rd July 1831, in a street called, Ehtb, I believe, Howard Place, off the Calton Hill, Edin- burgh. The fact that my ])irtli took place in Scot- land, or indeed anywhere out of London, W'hcre my parents habitually resided, was accidental. It Avas indeed due to the circumstance that my mother was accompanying my father, who was engaged on a 2:)ro- fessional tour, and that I arrived in this world some little time before I w'as expected. My father and my mother belonijed to the tliea- f^'^l'f'''^ •' *' " family. trical profession. The former, Erederick Henry Yates, v/as born on the 4th February 1797, tlie youngest son of Thomas Yates, a wdiolesale tobacco manufacturer, Avho lived in Russell Square, and had a warehouse in Thames Street. Of my father's three brothers, the VOL. I. B PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. eldest, Thomas, studied medicine successfully, was accounted very learned and prosperous, and lived for many years at 57 Regency Square, Brighton, esteemed as one of the wisest and most trustworthy of the immerous physicians who in the first half of the century aided in establishing the reputation of that growing Dr. Vaio.-, Avatering-placc. There are Brightonians yet alive who talk to me of my uncle Dr. Yates, remembering him with his white hair, snowv shirt-frill. Hessian boots or black gaiters, long black coat and gold-headed cane ; a man of importance in the town, senior physician to the Sussex County Hospital, and principal medical atten- dant on Harriet Duchess of St. Albans, wlio visited Brighton frequently in those days, driving along the Kino's Road in state, or walkins; on the Steine with her coffee-coloured pugs. He was the sternest-look- ing and the kindest-hearted of men, to me was always prodigal of good advice and half-sovereigns, and must have had a large practice, for he lived in good style; and one of my childish recollections is hearing my aunt say that " she never bought black silk for aprons, ibr the doctor went to so many funerals, and always brought away his silk scarf and hatband." The other iTiic'.f.<. brothers, Walter and Charles, neither of whom I ever saw, were in the military service of the Honourable East India Com pan}'. The former lived to be a brigadier-general ; the latter, known in the army as "Kemindine" Yates, from his gallant defence of PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. some pass of that name, died a major, coDiparatively vouno'. My father, the youngest of the family — lie had My father two sisters, to one of whom I shall have afterwards to referT-received his rudimentary education at a preparatery school at Winchmore Hill, where he met John Reeve, subsequently his actor-colleague, then a tiny boy. His second school was the Charterhouse, where he liad Dr. Ttaine, and later on Dr. Ivussell, known as "Paw" Russell from his enormous hands, for his head-masters, and Henry Plavelock, the future saviour of India, for his contemporary and friend. He always spoke pleasantlv of his school-davs. My friend, At cikm-- the late Mr. AV. P. Hale, son of Archdeacon Hale, Master of the Charterhouse, told me that when a schoolboy lie once addressed a letter to my father at the Adelphi Theatre, asking him, on the plea of liis having for- merly been a Carthusian, for some free admissions to the i)lay. These came by the next post, enclosed in ;i lialf-sheet of paper, on which was written, " Floreat jL'ternum Carthusiaiia domus. — F. H. Y." On leaving scliool my father obtained an ai)i)oint- ^" ♦'"" ment in tlie Commissariat De])artment, and was sent ^"'''='*- out to the army then fighting under the Duke of U'cllington in the Peninsula. T have always under- stood that he was present at the battle of AVaterloo, though of this I liave no direct ])roof; but lie was ce'.tainlv on (hit\' with tlie aniiv of occiipntioi) IH- PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. Amateur acting. at Valenciennes, in November of the AVaterloo year, for the late Dr. Quin and the late Lord William Pitt Lennox have frequently spoken to me of his being there with them, a most delightful comrade. It was there that he first gave evidence of the possession of any histrionic ability, and his adoption of the stage as a profession had its origin doubtless in the success which attended his amateur perform- ances with his military friends. His determination to make some practical use of his talents was arrived at in a somewhat curious way. Invited to a fancy-dress ball, he went as " Somno, the sleep-walker," a character then being played by Charles Mathews the elder, in which the great mimic intro- duced his celebrated imitations. To mv father's sur- kl'^with' V^'^^^-f Mathews appeared among the guests ; but, Mathews nothing daunted, the young man sustained his im- personation, and, on being requested, gave his own imitations of the actors usually imitated by Mathews, winding up with one of Mathews himself The great actor was so struck by the ability — and possibly by the impudence — of the amateur, that he requested to be introduced, and begged my father to call on him the next day. At this interview he inquired about his young friend's profession and prospects, and most strongly urged him to take to the stage. " Commissary !" testily repeated the comedian, after my father had named his avocation, "commissary! PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. dromedary ! Carrying about other people's provisions and getting none yourself! Feeding fat soldiers and dying of starvation ! Ko, no ; give it up, young man, and let your real talents find tlieir proper channel." My father took the advice thus warmly urged upon him, and^made his first appearance as a professional actor in the year 1817. The conference was described by my father in one of his entertainments, and afforded scope for the introduction of a very effective and not illegitimate " o^o'" -^^ "^^^^ \\o\\' ]\[athews complimented him on his ])erformance, and especially on liis imitations. His imi- ^ ' ^ " ^ tations. '• They were excellent, excellent— except one ! You can't imitate me! " As my father repeated the words he raised his shoulder, twisted his mouth, and limped up and down the stage, the very double of Mathews. It was a wonderful ])iece of mimicry, and always brought down the house. In the following year (1818) he made his dcbui in London at Covent Garden, appearing as lago to the Othello of Charles Young, the Cassio of Charles Kemble, and the Desdemona of Miss O'Neil. He told my mother with great glee in after years that one of the newspapers, criticising his first a]>pear- iii.s per- ancc, described him as "a small man of Jewish pearance. aspect, by no means pleasing." Whether the critic was right can be judged by the portrait prefixed to tliis volume. JJesides a fidl-length water-colour PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. sketch by Deighton in my possession, there are three portraits of my father which I know. The original of the frontispiece is by Lonsdale, in the Garrick Hispor- du]3 gallery; another, by Ambrose, belongs to me; while the third is the property of my friend ]\Ir. J. C\ Parkinson, and was acquired by him in rather an odd way. It had originally belonged to "Paddy" Green, forming one of the theatrical collection on the walls of Evans's, and was included in the sale of that col- lection at Christie's. Mr. Parkinson had noted the picture in the catalogue, and, being one of my most intimate friends, desired to buy it. He accordingly attended the sale, bought three other lots, but before the "Frederick Yates" was put up he was called away by a telegram. When he returned, the portrait had been sold. A year or two al'terwards another thea- trical collection, that of Lacy, the dramatic publisher in the Strand, came to the hammer at Christie's. Again Mr. Parkinson was present ; again he saw in the catalogue " Portrait of Fred. Yates," which even- tually he bid for and bought. AVhen he got it home, he found, from a label on the back, that it was the same portrait which he had previously missed, and which Lacy had secured during his temporary absence. Myfnther I may Say here that from persons wdio knew him kctor. well and who had seen him often, Charles Dickens and many celebrated actors among them, I have heard the highest praise of my father's histrionic powers. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. Notably of his versatility: he played no part badly, and he could play more parts and more diverse parts than most of his comrades. He was the " stock" lago of Covent Garden while enfra2:ed there, and was reckoned to play it specially well; he was a wonderful Jew^ an excellent Frenchman, an impassioned lover, and excelled equally as a cool dandy or a reckless dare- devil. As a proof of this versatility, I note that his second appearance at Covent Garden was as Falstaff, on which occasion ^lacready played Hotspur for the first time. Dickens, writing to me after seeing Henry Irving, in his early days, as Rawdon Scudamore, in Hunted Down, says: " He reminded me very much of your father." Dickens also thought Fechter very like my father in many respects. Of Dickens's general opinion of the acting of my father and my mother we shall see more further on. In 18:^5 he went into management on his own account, taking the Adelphi Theatre, with which his name was afterwards so lar^jely identified, in con- „ o J ' He ^oi'^ junction with Daniel Terry, a clever actor, but who J"*". ''.•'"'■ is now best known, if known at all, by his having?,!'*'!^ been honoured with the friendship of Sir Walter Scott. Although great success was achieved by the dramatisation of popular novels, such as The FhjiiKj DutcJtman and Fenimore Cooper's Pilot, neither of the partners was a good business man, and the speculation ended in a large loss, Terry's PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. share of which was j)aicl by Scott, who was his surety. I find among my father's papers the fol- lowing admirable letter from Sir Walter. It has never before been published, and it proves, as Lock- hart points out in the famous Life., how very much easier it was for Scott to give excellent advice than to practise what lie preached. " 3 Walter Street, 17 January [no )'ear]. My dear Terry, — I duly received your letter, but am a little alarmed at the subject. My good fellow, you will have hard swimming, though wind and tide be with you, con- sidering the large sums which you have to pay up, and that any check which may occupy a great share of your funds may make that hopeful undertaking precarious. I doubt greatly whether the Paris undertaking can succeed. Sir Wal- "^^^ frencli i^ic) have shown a disinclination to English actors ; ter's letter and for the British, they are, generally speaking, persons who care little about their own country or language while they sojourn in a foreign country. There are about twenty-five or thirty theatres in Paris already, and I fear it would be a very rash speculation to erect or open another. I have no doubt you have taken better advice than mine ; hut having undertaken one good adventtire, chiefly on credit, I think you should pause before being too sangume in undertaking another. After all, if you do determine on this, I will send you an introduction to the secretary of our Ambassador ; but I would have you reflect seriously that there is no royal road to riches any more than to wisdom, and that ' Catch is a good dog, but Holdfast a better.' Your fine family ought to make you cautious. If you can clear the Adelphi, you will establish their future ; but a failure which might be brought about by an outlay of capital elsewhere would be an irremediable mis- fortune, anything short of absolute certainty of success (sic). I am sure you will not suppose that I would knowingly dissuade you from any beneficial plan for securing or hastening PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. your advancement in life. But I must say, with General Tom Thumb, ' Iving Arthur, beware !' Many a thing good in itself becomes ruinous to individuals tvho have not provided the funds necessary : and a London and Paris theatre sounds very like playing for a gammon, which may be the noblest, but is seldom the wisest game. Kind love to Mrs. Terry. I write in haste, so make allowance for errors of expression. — Yours truly, f "Wal,tek Scott." Readers of Lockliart will see how exactly Terry and Scott were runninf]^ on parallel lines. After Terry's retirement in 1828, my father was joined in manao-ement bv liis friend and tutor Charles Mathews, and the palmy days of the Adelphi com- menced then and there. Four years previously Frederick Yates had mar- ried Miss Elizabeth lirunton, a youn"; actress holdino; ^'>', a good position at Covent Garden, and coming from a well-known theatrical fiimily. Her grandfiither, John Brunton, and, after him, her lather, also John Brunton, had for very many years had the manage- ment of what was known in theatrical parlance as "the ^N^orfolk circuit," — a nuiid^er of towns in the eastern counties, with Norwich for their principal centre; her aunt, Miss Louisa Brunton, a handsome "'''' and clever actress, was married in 1807 to the seventh Earl of Craven; and her uncle, Richard Brunton, was in the army, was present at Waterloo, and died colonel of the 18th Hussars, then Li^-ht Dra^-oons. A miniature of my mother in her youtli, painted by Stunij) of Cork Street, admirably reproduced in lo PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. '■er this volume, shows her as a lovely fifirl ; but in portrait. ' ^ o ' my recollection of the last half— thirty years— of her life, her charm lay rather in the softness and sweet- ness of her expression than in regularity of feature. Her e3^es were blue and rather hard, her complexion was dark ; but her mouth, furnished with beautiful teeth, was singularly winning, her laugh infectious, and her voice one of the sweetest ever heard. In 1858, years after she had retired from the stage, Charles Dickens wrote to her in reference to her coming to one of his Readings : " Whenever you can come, your presence will give me a new inter- est in that eveninix. No one alive can have more ciiarics delio-htful associations with the lightest sound of Dickens's " ^ iuimiia- your voicc tliau I liavc ; and to o;ive you a tiouand '' ^ i c> j vegani minutc's interest and pleasure, in acknowledgment fr>.. I.e.. i- ' O of the uncountable liours of happiness }'ou gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify my heart." And again, after her death in 1860, Dickens wrote to me : " You know what a loving and faithful remembrance I always had of your mother as a part of my youth, no more capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. To the last, I never could hear her voice without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful part of my own youth, and the dream that we are all dreaming seems to darken." She was tor lier. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. ii an excellent " all-round " actress, and raised the heroines of melodrama, or "domestic" drama, into a specialty, playing the characters with genuine pathos wholly unaccompanied by exaggeration. In her pri- vate Ufe she was one of the best of women, truly and unaffectedly pious, cheerful, and charitable; a loving, forgiving, and long-suffering wife, a most self-sacri- ficing and devoted mother. I do not know the date of my christening, but the record is in the registry of Brompton Church, and the ceremony was performed by tlie Rev. Thomas ^g,^'j|;li'"'*'" Speidell, rector of Crick in ^Northamptonshire, a friend of Charles Matliews and Theodore Hook. The latter, wlio was intimate witli mv father — I can per- 7 ^ X. fectly recollect seeing liim at our house — was present at some little festivity on the occasion, as I have in my possession the following note to my mother : " Fulham, Monday. My dear Mrs. Yates, — Your invitation foi the '20th is so very agreable {sic) to me that, unhke your Victorine,''= I'll not ' sleep upon it,' but say. Yes, with all my heart, at once. I j ^^^.j. ' have a great fancy for making Christians, and have already from twice this year assisted at similar ceremonies. That our ^[,,(,1^ excellent friend Speidell is to be officiating minister on the occasion makes the affair more agreable (sic). — Believe me, with sincere regard to Monsieur Frcderique _^jt'r''''- Morgan, Mrs. Norton, Miss Pardoe, L. E. L,, Lady l)lessington, George Colman, Rev. G. Croly, Ilaynes l>ayly, Sheridan Knowles, Maginn, Sam AVarren, Theodore Hook, Thomas Hood, I>ar]iam, TaKburd, Moore, Liittrell, James and Horace Smith, Edmund Kean, Charles Kemble, Macready, H.R.II. the Duke of Sussex (witli a present of a gold snuff-box), Count ' d'Orsay, Lords Chesterfield, Clanricarde, Adolphus 20 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. Fitzclarence, Fitzhardinge, Castlereagh, &c., all ex- pressing their thanks for gratification received or expected at his hands. Here is Dr. Maginn's note, sent with a pear : "A Pear fresh gathered from Nelson's pear-tree presents its compliments to Mrs. Yates. j^)^ Though not inviting to the eye, Magiua. Take me as plucked from off the tree Planted by him whose battle-cry Was herald still of Victory. Fit offering therefore, as I ween, For her who is the Victorine." Kean's letter is very characteristic : "January 4, 1831. Dear Yates, — Can I have my usual box to-night? I stay Kdimind iu London but a couple of days, and it will be an indulgence. I detest mixing with the canaille. I like the j^ublic^s money, hut despise them. — Yours truly, Edmund I\^an." Kean. Miss Jane Porter, possibly not much read by the present generation, but greatly admired by Scott and loved by our fothers and mothers for her Thaddeus of Warsaw and Scottish Chiefs, wants " an engagement lor a person in whom I am greatly interested. She was a leading comic actress in a small but respectable Miss Jane company, which used to come annually to Thames I'orter. Ditton (!),and perform there during five or six years of our residence in the neighbourhood. My venerable mother, and other most excellent heads of the families about, always patronised the company because of the Worthiness of character as individuals." Miss Porter's PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 21. description of her protegee's personal appearance i^< delightful : " She is now a middle-aged woman, of a slight airy form, a quick and pleasing countenance, though not handsome, a pleasant and clear voice and genteel enunciation. She would be capable to under- take j^U old or elderly female characters in comedy, or, indeed, from the still juvenile ap^jearance of her figure and lively countenance, chambermaids and the like would not come amiss to her. She could also lead choruses of peasantry, &c." Miss Mitford asks : " What would be the remunera- '^f''^'' Mitford. tion for a drama such as you wish? .... Supposing we agree as to terms, would the enclosed Incendiary- story answer for the serious part of a piece ? I tliink it wonlfl : that is to sav, I think it miHit admit of some good scenes for Mrs. Yates, whom I have never had the pleasure of seeing })erform, but who is said by every one to be a most sweet, affecting, and natural actress I saw a i)art of the Wreck Ashore at Heading, but could not sit it out. I was so terribly nervous tliat the motion of tlie latch and Grampus's fiice tlirough tlie window seemed to me like actual housebreaking, of whieli I liave great dread. I havi; an equal aversion to guns and explosions of all kinds, wliich ma}' account for my never liaving been to any small tlieatre except the Haymarket." Every one seems to have had what the Americans count call " an axe to grind." Count d'Orsay writes : " J'ai * "^^" I'arddt^ 2 2 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. iiii melodrame en deux actes a vous ofFrir, ecrit par un des mes amis: I'liistoire est tiree d'un ouvrage de (ireorge Sand, un des meilleurs auteurs Fran9ais de notre epoque : c'est intitule Z' Uscocco. Les caracteres .sont bien adaptes a la reunion des bons acteurs que vous possedez a 1' Adelphi ; et si vous pensez que cela ])uisse vous convenir je vous enverrai le manu- scrit." MiH.< Miss Pardoe writes, offering to translate a play which has just been produced in Paris by Mdlle. Mars, and which is exactly suited to my mother's style: •* I am certain that in the role of Mdlle. Mars you will turn all the heads in London, as she turned all those in Paris." The piece was called Louise de Lignerolles^ and was, I fancy, played at the Adelphi. Another play by Miss Pardoe, which I recollect seeing, was called Agnes St. Aubij?i, the Wife of Two Husbands. I think my friend Mr. Dion Boucicault must have seen this piece before writing Hunted Down. My memories of that queer little private house over the theatre, and the visitors to its drawing- room, from the window of Avliich I saw the Guards — [ think in white fatigue-jackets — marching through the Strand on their way to embarkation for Canada in 1837, and Avas shown the reflection of the flames of the burning Poyal Exchange in the following year, .vi;.thew.s, are very clear. I remember the elder Mathews, a A cViild,- Itons. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 23 "wizen dark man, with one liio^h shoulder, a distorted mouth, a knie leg, and an irritahle manner. He took little notice of me save on one occasion, when a pet little black dog, which always accompanied liim, sprang up and bit me on the cheek, and then nothing could exceed his remorseful interest. I remember Theodore Hook, bald and bluff, o^iven, it Theodore \ . Hook. was understood, to bumptiousness and swagger in some houses, but always pleasant in ours. He never needed pressing, but would sing his im])romptu songs and cut liis jokes with boyish glee. One of these, and a hitlierto unpublished one, I. think, my mother used to tell. A few friends were seated round our dinner-table when a certain Mr, Rosenheofen called to see my father. He looked into the room, but, seeing the company, withdrew at once. " There, Hook," said a great friend of his, W. S. Streatfield, " you couldn't make a rhyme to that man's name !" " Couldn't I ?" said Hook ; and with scarce a moment's delay, he called out : " Mr. EosenhCgen ! Pop your nose in again !" Hook, however, must have been a desperate snob, and the sketch of him as Wagg, in Pcndennis^ would not seem to be over-coloured. One day at a diimer-part}' at tlie Adclplii, my mother over- heard him say to his neighbour, " I wonder whether they've iced the claret ?" She at once addressed him 2 4 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. laughingly, " Don't be afraid, Mr. Hook ; Mr. Hodg- son's butler has charo-e of the wine !" Mr. Hodo-son "was one of Hook's " patrons," and a friend in many ways, so Hook collapsed. Lord A. J remember my o-ood friend Lord Alfred Pao:et, Paget. -' ^ * ' then a very young man, standing, measuring heights, back to back with M. Bihin, tallest, best-natured, and The giant, stupidcst of Belgian giants, then })laying an engage- ment at tlie theatre. I remember wandering into the room and shriekin2: with terror at seeino- a sin- gular creature creeping over the chairs and tables with wondrous agility. This was a ]\Ir. Harvey Leach, professionally known as Signor Hervio Nano, a dwarf, or rather a truncated being, with handsome head, fine torso, immense muscular strenoth in the arms, and no legs to speak of Lie played in a piece riiP, called The Gnome Fly^ in which, made up as a fly, he j-ifl" crawled over the proscenium, and, I think, journeyed on Avires from the gallery to the stage. I remember James and Ji^Hics Smith, witli an ivory-haudlcd crutch-stick, and smUh.^ his brother Horace, coming to read the dramatic ver- sion of his novel, Jane Loinax, which he had prepared Ainsworth for my mother. Ainsworth, then a singularly hand- some man of the D'Orsay order, Avas a frequent visitor in the Jack Sheppard days, and Alfred Bunn, Crowquill. I can also remember Alfred Bunn, and always thought that Thackeray must have sketched the portrait of Mr. Dolphin, the manager, which PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 25 appears in Pendennis^ from him * John Braham, a Bi-aimm. very small Jewish man in a black wig, I remember as a visitor ; and I have seen Miss Romer, the original " Bohemian Girl," there. I have heard ^Irs. Honey — a very lovely woman— ]\Irs. Waylett, ^1^^^^ and Mrs. Keeley "trying over" their songs at the acJ-essrs! little piano. Walking with my father in the neighbom-hood of the Houses of Parliament, he was spoken to, on the same afternoon, by the great Duke of AVelling- Duke of Welling- ton and Daniel O'Connell. He bade me remem- ton. ber the circumstance when I " grew up." Tlie appearance of each of these men— the Duke witli his buttoned bkie coat, wdiitc duck trousers, and hir-li stock with a l)uckle showino- at the back of his neck; and O'Connell, witli a round, good-humoured, O'Couneii. thorouglily Irisli face, and a springy jaunty walk — is perfectly vivid in my memory. Mr. George Jones, Jv.A., a ])ainter of battle-pieces, &c., who died some ■•' Here is a characteristic letter from Bunn to my father : "My dear Fred, — With taste and judgment 'both strong against the deed,' I have resolved on coming down to the blackguard level to-morrow, and the wonders of old Drury Lane, the glories of its pageantries, the splendour of its deco- rations, aristocracy, dancers, foreigners, &c., are all going, going for the small sum of 4s. to the boxes, 2s. to the pit, and Is. to the gallery. To Mr. Garrick, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. John Kemble, Mr. Kean, et hoc genus omne, I cry, ' Thou canst not say I did it.' — Ever thine, A. Bunn." 26 PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. years ago, specially prided himself on his resem- blance to the Duke of Wellington, and used to " dress up to the character." Some one mentioned the like- ness to the Duke, and added, " It must be great, for people in the street often sjDcak to him for your Grace." "Very strano^e," muttered the OTeat man; " no one ever spoke to me for Mr, Jones !" Connected Avith the Adelphi house are my recol- Listou. lections of Liston, with his face like a grotesque mask, pendulous cheeks, snub nose, and fishy eyes — a very dull man, as he seemed to me; of George Kodwell, the composer of much beautiful music, but who gained his barrel-organ celebrity by " Jolly ^ose" and "Nix my dolly, pals," tAVO songs in Jack Sheppard ; of M. Sola, a strange blear-eyed old foreigner, in some way connected with music, but who was principally engaged in selling bargains of all kinds to his friends. He sold a watch to my mother, with the curious recommendation, " He ver' good vatch: ^-ou vear him two year, and then sell him again." And I can distinctly recollect meeting him in the Strand vainly trying to conceal a full- sized drawino--room lookino;-o'lass under the folds of his scanty blue cloak. To us would come across, from the house on Adelphi Terrace, Miss Maria B. Hawes, then in Visitors ^ ^ r, ^ (^ ^ • • at the the nrst nush oi her success as an oratorio singer; Adelphi i ^ i ^ rn -r> • iiousc. and from her i)retty cottage ornee, The Rosery, m PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 27 Old Brompton — now pulled down, and with a row of stucco • houses standmg "where once the garden smiled" — would arrive my earliest literary friend, Mrs. S. C. Hall, bringing for my delectation a copy of^lier annual. The Juvenile Budget, in which she and, Mrs. Hofland, Miss Pardoe and Miss Jews- bury, wrote most charming stories for children. To a hurried consultation would come Charles Tomkins and Tom Pitt, the scene-painters, in their canvas clothes, splashed with dabs of colour; or Gallott the prompter; or Sam Lover, with a ballad for Mrs. Fitzwilliam or Miss Fortescue, now Lady Gardner, on whose performance of Barnaby Budge Dickens used "to dwell with a thorough liking;" or Edmund Byng, my eccentric godfather ; or Lord Clanricarde, who in after years proved in the kindest and hand- somest manner that he had not forgotten the old days of fun and frolic in " the little Adelphi." CHAPTER II. YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 1836—1847. It was in the " old Adelplii house," as we used to call it, the private portion of the theatre-premises, No. 411 Strand, that I received the elementary portion of my education, being taught "my letters" by my aunt. Miss Eliza Yates, my father's unmarried sister, who lived with us, and in wliom I found my chief playmate and companion. AVhat Avitli incessant acting and very frequent rehearsals — for the " runs " of pieces, now so common, were absolutely unknown in those days, and the entertainment was constantly changed — my mother had in a great measure to delegate her household and maternal duties to her sister-in-law, who fulfilled them with much affec- My first tionatc dcvotiou. My " aunt Eliza " is associated with my earliest recollections ; under her sujDcrvision I learned my aljDhabet from a collection of large capital letters, furnished by the printer of the theatre, and spread out on the floor, where I lay. When I had arrived at the dignity of spelling, I used to check my newly -acquired accomphshment by endeavouring to read the words on the omnibuses, which j^assed YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 29 the window in such numbers; my great desire, as well as that of my kind instructress, being that I should acquit myself well in the eyes of my grand- ^otf/e'l"''" mother, a rather severe old lady, who was also a resident - member of the family. My recollections of her are 6f the faintest ; but I have an idea that she rather sat upon the little household, that she was in the position of one who had seen better days, and that she despised the theatre, while living on its pro- ceeds. I remember, too, that frequent card- parties had to be given for her amusement, and that she did not scruple to express her astonishment and dis- pleasure at the singular conduct of my father and mother, who, coming in utterly exhausted from their work, preferred going to rest to taking a " hand at cards " with the old lady's friends. There was, in truth, but little chance of rest for my father in those days, and there can be no doubt that his early death was mainly attributable to the perpetual work, worry, and excitement in whicli liis life was passed. To be foremost in tlie race, to beat liis compeers in the production of any novelty, was his great object, and many a time had he to pay for his rashness and want of deliberation. On one occa- sion a rumour reached London that a great success had been achieved in Paris by the performance of a set of Hindoo dancers, called Lcs Bayaderes^ who were supposed to be priestesses of a certain sect; and 30 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. the London theatrical managers were at once on the An unpro- qui vwe to sccure the new attraction. Three of them fitable en- Kageraent. — Laportc, of the Itahan Opera ; Alfred Biinn, of Driiry Lane ; and my father — set out for Paris miicli about the same time. It was (iZ/^V/t'^zce- travelling or jDosting in those days, and the man with the loosest purse-strings went the fastest. My father had con- cluded his arrangement with the Bayaderes before his brother managers arrived in Paris. Shortly after- wards, the Hindoo priestesses appeared at the Adelphi. They Avere utterly uninteresting, wholly unattractive. My father lost 2000/. by the speculation ; and in the family they were known as the " Buy-em-dears" ever after, struggle Novelty was imperative, no matter what shape novelty, it might take. I have already mentioned Bihin the giant and Harvey Leach the dwarf, but have said nothing of the " real water," which at one time was contained in an enormous tank under the flooring of the stage, and, like Mr. Crummles's pump and tub, had a drama written for it: Die Hexen am PJiein (The AVitches of the Ehine), a medireval romantic play, in the course of which the hero plunged into the tank, and swam about in sight of the audience. Possibly in connection with the tank of real water, and certainly in search of novelty, my father seems to have offered an engagement to Grace Darhns; of the Lon^'stone lio-lithouse, the YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 31 heroine of the wreck of the Forfarshire, as a letter from her, amongst his papers, thanks him for his proposals, which she is compelled to decline, as accept- ance would be against the wishes of the Duke of Northumberland and the " ladies and o:entlemen " who have subscribed to purchase her "a comfortable annuity." Another proof of my father's readiness to seize on popular topics is to be found in his production of a version of Ten Thousand a Yeai^ a novel then creating considerable sensation, dramatised by its author, Samuel Warren, Q.C., Irom whom there is Sam .... Warren. a very characteristic letter, mentioning that " not- withstanding his engagement in three most important cases at Westminster," he hopes to be in time for rehearsal. ]jut there is no doubt that the success which attended the Httle Adelphi Theatre in those days was the adaptability of its company for developing its " great speciality," melodrama, and more espe- cially of the " Adelphi drama," which was com- pounded by Buck stone out of ingredients some of which were original, hut most derived from ])ieccs of the Ambi<2:u or tlie Porte St. Martin. Chief in interest and attraction among these were Victorine i^ncic- stone's and The Wreck Asliore. Victor i?ie was the first of dramas, those pieces in which a large portion of tlie action occurs during a dream, and which — modern pki-y- 32 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. goers will remember Uncle Dick's Darling as an example — have always been successful. But of all melodramas which I have seen, The Wreck Ashore bears away the palm. There was one scene, where two frightened sisters, played by my mother and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, in a lonely cottage on the marshes, see the latch of the door slowly lifted, where the absorbing interest was positively painful. The Bake and his Pupil* Henriette the Forsaken^ Isabel^ or * The Bake and his Pupil was before my theatre-going time ; but I had heard the name when a child, and it was brought to my mind many years afterwards, in a very singular way. I was going to dine with Charles Mathews in the early spring of 1869, and was making my way from the Gloucester Eoad Station, where I had alighted, and which had not been long opened, across a new and unformed district, as a short cut to Pelham Crescent, where 0. J. M. resided, when I saw a man pacing up and down before a small tavern. He was muttering aloud ; and as I came upon him I distinctly heard him pro- nounce the nanie " Fredei'ick Yates." I stopped, and asked him what name he had mentioned. He at once repeated " Frederick Yates ;" then added, "the cleverest actor I ever saw, sir ! By far the cleverest ! You never saw him, sir ; you're too young ! But at the Adelphi Theatre, in The Bake and his Pupil, to see him act, to hear him repeat ' The Baron Somebody with his hump, and the Baroness Somebody a frump,' it was magnificent !" A little further conversation proved that the poor fellow was a lunatic. He enlarged upon the subject of his wrongs, specially his having been in- carcerated, and would not revert to the theatre. But it was a most wonderful thing that I, who alone of all living people would have had the sHghtest interest in Frederick Yates, should have been passing as he uttered the name. I told the story the next day to Dickens, who was very much struck by the coincidence, and used frequently to refer to it. YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 33 Woman^s Life, were all of the same category, and written by the same author, whose most successful work of all, The Green Bushes, was not produced until ten years later, and for quite a different group of actors. In connection with this subject, it will be inter- esting to note the extraordinary difference between the prices reaUsed by dramatic authors for their work in the present day and fifty years ago. I make the following; extract from a letter of Buck- stone's to my father: " As we have had no decided arrangement about The Rake, and as whatever terms we can agree upon about that piece will influence my future doino-s, I wish to state a few matters for vou to think about : 50/. was mentioned by you for it, Buck- stone'B and afterwards an additional 10/. for securin"' thepncee. acting copyright in the provinces for twelve months. I was allowed 60/. for Ilenriette, and really, with the prices I can now command, I am working at a very low rate in letting you have three-act dramas at that sum. For a successful three-act play you ought, I think, to afford me 70/., such sum securing to you the sole acting right for ever in London, and to you alone for one year, or, say, to the 1st October follow- ing its production." And in another letter, in 1839: " I will do your piece for the opening, and a new three-act drama for Mrs. Yates, company, and self, for my old terms for the pair, viz. two seventies. I VOL. I. D 34 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. really cannot say less. I now get 100/. for a three- act piece, when it only runs a few nights. I bring out a full three-act comedy at the Haymarket imme- diately on the close of Covent Garden, and am now cogitating a farce for Power and myself." So Ave see that at his increased rates Buckstone received 70/. for a three-act drama, and 10/. for the provincial rights for twelve months. ISTow I have been furnished by a worthy friend of mme, a writer of melo- drama of the present day, whose name, for obvious Fees paid reasons, I shall not mention, with a return of the fees nowadays. - ^ o • i \ ' \^ x. which he has received tor one piece aione, wnicn at the time of writing are within 150/. of a total of ten thousand pounds., and which are still rolhng in at the rate of 100/. a week ! Tn this return, America, . really unknown in earlier days as a money-j)roducer for the English dramatist, figures for 800/. more than London; the provinces, valued by Buckstone at a 10/. note, yield nearly 3000/. ; while Australia, at that time chiefly known as a receptacle for convicts, yields more than double the amount origmally paid by my father for the whole acting copyright. Buckstone's mention of Power in his letter reminds me that I once accompanied my father when he went to call on Tyrone Power on some business matter, and that when in Liverpool, durmg our holidays, we went over the President, the American steamer, which was ulti- mately lost, with Power on board. I remember a VO UTH AND ED UCA TION. 35 line ill a newspaper of the day : " America lias lost her President, and England her Power." I do not suppose I could have been more than five My pre- , , . , paratory years old, when it was determined to send me to a school. jDreparatory school at Highgate, which was strongly recommended by my godfather, Mr. Hodgson, whose nephews had been pupils there. It was kept by an English lady, married to a German merchant named Kieckhofer, which, I need scarcely say, in boys' mouths at once became " Kickover ;" and to her house I was taken one afternoon by my aunt Eliza, in a hackney- coach, amongst the mouldy straw at the bottom of which — and which even now I seem to smell — I cast myself down on our journey up Highgate Hill, and implored to be taken home. A stately but kindly lady was Mrs. Kieckhofer, presiding over an admir- ably-kept school ; and a jolly old German was " old Kick," her liusband, who would call me into his dressing-room and give me pears or rose-lozenges, and talk to me of my father, and specially of my mother — the sweetest woman that ever lived. Do you remember in Nicholas NicMchy where the newly-arrived little boy is sitting on his play-box? " 'That's Belling,' said Mr. Squeers. ' He's a Taunton boy, he is.' ' Is he, indeed ?' said Mr. Snawley, lookinfj at him as thoi(f/h he were a natural curiosity.''^ I have so often thought of this passage in later life, when reflecting on my own early school-days. From the 36 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. earliest I was always regarded as a natural curiosity. It is, of course, very different now, when Tliespis Major is the captam of the boats at Eton, and Tommy Roscius plays in the Harrow Eleven : but in those Prejudice days actors, if not a proscribed race, were very seldom against actors. met with out of such literary or flist-fashionable circles as were brought more immediately into con- nection with them ; and then* children were not likely to be found at any upper or middle-class school. To a previous generation belongs the story of the alarmed village through which ran the cry, " The lakers [actors] are coming! take the linen off the hedge!" for fear it should be stolen. And I have heard my grandfather mention his father being followed by an excited crowd through the streets of Newcastle with the cry, "Play-actor! play-actor! Smash his head agen the wall !" Such amenities as these were out of date ; but actors were so seldom seen off the stage as to make any of their belongings special objects of half-comical, half-compassionate interest ; and to this minute I can see the nudsfe cfiven, and hear the whispered " son of" — " Adelphi," as I was pointed out to the friends of other boys who had come to see them. Most of these people — one of the first of them was old Mr. Gillman the surgeon, the friend of Coleridge, who died at Highgate in his house — most of these people seemed pleased at the idea of looking at such an exceptional little personage, and VO UTH A ND ED UCA TION. 3 7 spoke a few kiiicl words to me; but others would rather recoil, as thouudi the taint of the stao^e mio;ht be contagious. In this place I may mention, as The 1 • Churcli characteristic of the times, that a well-known clergy- and the stage. man, the Rev. Henry Blunt — whose work on the " Pentateuch" still survives, and Avho was an ultimate friend as well as a patient of my uncle. Dr. Yates — declined to meet my father and mother on account of the wickedness of their calling. I was for four years at Mrs. Kieckhofer's prepara- tory school, where, I think, all things considered, I must have been tolerably- happy, and wlicre I cer- tainly picked up a fair grounding of education. The disagreeables which remain in my mind M-ere con- nected with tlie sraallness of the playground and tlie length of the walks : a long file of boys, two and two, perambulating the country in the hot summer's after- noons, baked by the sun and mad with thirst. Often Boys' . . thirst. and often on those occasions have I, lagging behind on some pretext, furtively lapped the water from the horse-trough in front of a tavern door, to the horror of the poor lady- attendant who had us in charge. Our guardians and instructors at Mrs. Kieckhofer's, with the exceptions of the writing-master and the drill-sergeant, were all ladies; even our dancing was acquired under female tuition, our teacher being a nice Ijrisk old lady — a Miss Dennet, who, with her sisters, had once belonged to "His Mnjesty's Theatre," 38 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. and who, I think, made a special favourite of me in consequence of my connection with " the profession." Pleasantest amono; these recollections are those of the " Saturday till Monday " hohdays, spent with my My grand- i^aternal grandfather, John Brunton, to whom I have before made allusion, A retired actor, livmg on a small pension allowed him by his sister, Lady Craven, he had not the faintest trace of liis former caUing, but more resembled a hearty old veteran of the Navy, for Avliich profession he had always had a love, and in which two of his sons had distmguished themselves, one having been second lieutenant of the Hecla in Sir Edward Parry's Arctic Expedition. Sedulously attended by an unmarried daughter, the old gentle- man was perfectly happy m his little cottage at Kentish Town — then one of the prettiest and most rural suburbs, and very conveniently situated near Happy Hio^hfi-ate — eno;ao;ed in the cultivation of his warden, days with o & o n t:, ^ Mm. where he had a specialty for dahlias; in readmg liis newspaper, and in holding his own against a few neighbours at whist or cribbao;e. To me he was the kindest and most indulgent of men ; the cheeriest, jolliest, most lovable of friends. He was full of wonderful stories, he had the heartiest laugh, he smoked a churchwarden pij^e — in itself a laxity of morals which commanded my highest childish admira- tion. We dined early — two o'clock — in Kentish Town, VO UTH A ND ED UCA TION. 3 9 and had the most delio;htful hot suj)pers at nine ; suppers of sprats, or kidneys, or tripe and onions, with foaming porter and hot grog afterwards — grog which I used to sip in a teaspoon from the old gentleman's tumbler as I sat on his knee. Years Low afterwards, when I might have been of the mature age of twelve, at a Christmas gathering at our house there was some talk about Avhat were the strono-est or the pleasantest "nightcaps;" and I frightened most of the company by giving my vote for gin. "Gin, sir!" exclaimed an old maiden lady — my god- mother; " what a horrible idea! and from a child, too! Where did you ever taste gin?" The old gentleman was present; but even in those days I had some savoir faire. I saw the appealing look on liis face, and somehow got out of the difficulty. In the long summer evenings, and when his rheu- matism permitted, my grandfather and I, accompanied by his terrier " Vic," would walk across the fields to Copeijhagen House — a kind of tea-gardens situated somewhere near Pentonville — or further afield to the Hornsey Sluice-house, a similar resort, which liad, I fancy, some connection with the New River, and stood somewhere in the locality of the present Finsbury Park. Both these places have long since been taken down. In the Kentish Town cottage I made my first acquaintance with the journals of my native land. 40 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. There was no penny press in those days, and the finances of the grand-paternal establishment were not in the condition to afford a high-priced daily paper. The old gentleman used to console himself with the Morning Advertiser, which was " lent " from the adjacent Tally-ho tavern, and came round with the News- early dinner-beer. But my newspaper-readinf]: was papers j l l cd of those confined to Sundays, when I devoted myself to the days. ^ ? . J Sunday Times and the IVecJdi/ Dispatch. I suppose the latter Avas at the height of its fame just then ; but the political letters of "Publicola" and "Grac- chus " had naturally no attraction for me, and I was far more taken with the glimpses of life revealed in the fashionable novels of Lady Blessington, instal- ments of which were published by the Sunday Times. I have a recollection, too, of seeing that notorious journal, the Satirist, at Kentish Town, and of having read fi-om it an account of a duel between Lord Castlereagh and the husband of Madame Grisi, the opera-singer, whose name has escaped me. The editor of this journal, one Barnard Gregory, a clever man, but a desperate scoundrel, afterwards attempted to appear on the stage as Hamlet, but was hissed off by the audience, not on account of his histrionic shortcomings, but of his private character. A strange medley of reminiscences of the events which happened in my youth remains in my mind, incongruous and disjointed, and of so diverse a YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 41 character that I often wonder how I heard of them. The marriage of the Queen and Prince Albert I recol- lect well ; and remember the windows of the stationers' shops at Highgate filled with a mild pictorial joke, " The Windsor Pear " — a representation of a fine specimen of the fruit, with what theatrical people would call a " practical " rind, which, being lifted, discovered portraits of the Queen and Prince inside. In the same shops the portrait of Cocking, an aero- naut, who was killed attempting to descend in a para- chute. Almost my earliest terror was excited by the narrative of the adventures of " Sprino^-heeled Jack " Sprins- ^ ^ heeled — a ghost which had been playing up its pranks, J'^ck. springing on to the backs of women and nearly frightening them to death, and the scene of whose adventures some of the narrators, knowinii^ the advantao-e of local colour, had laid in Hiii-h^-ate. I believe there Avas no foundation for this statement, though it caused a perfect panic among the Httle boys at Mrs. Kieckhofer's ; and it certainly was not borne out by another contemporary rumour that the real perpetrator of the practical joke was the ]Marquis of AVaterford, who was not likely to choose that quiet, and very inaccessible, suburb as the place for liis niglitly exploits. But at that time Lord AYaterford occupied a remarkaljle position in the public eye as a daring and dangerous practical joker, and every unex- 42 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. plained exploit was accredited to him. He was, it was said, rather more than eccentric — the result of a crack on the head which he had received Noble from a morqenstern, the heavy club with which the escapades. ^ ' '' Stockholm watchmen were armed, while carrymg on his nocturnal vagaries in the Swedish capital. He had, it was said, sworn that he would catch and shave Mr. Muntz, the member for Birmingham, the only Englishman in those days Avho wore a large beard. Mr. Muntz, on hearing of tliis threat, bought a huge stick, without which he was never seen in public. The Earl of Cardigan was another nobleman whose personality was much impressed on my child- hood, owing to the notoriety which he obtained in consequence of his quarrels with his brother officers, and the duels arising therefrom. He would seem to have been a man of violent temper and offensive hauteur ; but he was an intimate friend of my great- uncle, Colonel Brunton, who had brought him to our house, and consequently I was his sworn and only champion at the school. Another theme of discus- sion amongst us children was the adventures of the " boy Jones " — a lad who was found secreted under a sofa in Buckingham Palace, and whose real reason for being there, unless it was mere childish curiosit}^, could never be discovered. Murders, too ! How Ave would lie trembling in our little beds as we talked them over ! The dread- YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 43 fill Greenacre, who cut up the body of his victim, Notorious carrying the head wrapped up in a handkerchief on his knees in the omnibus, and who was sup- posed to have nearly fainted with fright when, on askmg the conductor the fare, the man rephed, " Sixpence a head P' — at least, so ran the story; the horrible Daniel Good, avIio had special interest for me from liis being a coachman at Roehampton, Avhere we had friends; and above all, the monster Cour- voisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered his master, Lord William Russell, whose atrocities are im- pressed upon me from my having heard them much discussed, more particularly the style of defence adopted by his counsel, Charles Philips, at the house of Mr. Clarke, senior partner of my father's solicitors, Messrs. Clarke, Firmore, & Fladgate, of Craven Street, Strand, Avho resided on liighgate Hill, and with whom I often spent the Sunday afternoons. ]\Ir. Clarke, who was afterwards solicitor to the Ordnance Office, was a man very well known m legal circles, and entertained largely ; he and his family were very kind to me, and I used hugely to enjoy listening to the talk of the guests, with whom the house Avas filled. Tlie EgUnton tournament, in which J^ouis Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of the French, took part; the Chartist riots at Newport, headed by Frost and AVilHams; and the frightful accident on the Paris and Versailles Railway, when all the passengers in a 44 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. long train were burned to death, the doors on both sides of the carriages being locked, so that escape was impossible, are all well-remembered events, story- Even in those my juvenile days I was a kind of news -provider for my schoolmates, and my return from a casual visit home, or to my grandfather's, were days looked forward to by them, as I was sure to brino; back some stories which I had heard or read. I was an easrer devourer of all kinds of literature from my earliest years, and used to read, stretched on the hearthrug, with my book between my elbows, on which I rested, or at night curled up in a chair, with a candle and the snuiFer-tray in close proximity. The casual mention of the snufFer-tray, an article tJnuffers, -^ rush- never seen by modern readers, brink's to my mind a lights, and "^ jo./ tinder- thousand and one chano'es in thing's, manners, and boxes. o "^ ' ' customs between the present time and the days of my childhood, forty years ago, which will properly find mention in this chapter. In those days, though there was gas in the streets and shops, and wax- candles for the 2;reat ones of the earth, those who could not afford such luxuries were compelled to seek their illumination in tallow-candles, which required snuffins: — i.e. the removal of their burnt wicks — about every quarter of an hour. " Require no snuffing," was the boast in the advertisement of the Palmer's composite candles, which were the first improvement, YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 45 and one variety of which was, I rememher, burned in a lamp, forced down on a spring mto a socket, and liable to shoot out hke a rocket. Mention of Palmer's name remmds me that there were no so-called " night- lights,'-' only a long " farthing rushlight," set up in the mi'ddle of a huge tin lighthouse perforated with round holes, the reflection of which on the walls and ceiling was ghostly in the extreme ; no lucifers, but a round tinder-box, with a flint, and a bit of steel on which to strike it, and a bundle of long sulphur- tipped shps of wood called matches. The lucifer, or Congrcve match as it was called, as originally produced, was ignited by friction on sandpaper, and had a very unj^leasant smell. In those days the "new Police," as they were still called — for they had not long been invented by Sir Robert Peel in suj)ersession of the old watchmen — were very different in appearance from our present guardians. They wore swallow-tail uniforms ^ ^ " CI police, blue coats, with brio'ht metal buttons, and, in private ' o ' ' soldiers, summer, white duck trousers and white P>crlin ^"'ipost- ' tup.n. gloves. In lieu of helmet they had an ordinary chimney-pot hat, only of extra strength and stiffness, and with a glazed oilskin top. Their rivals in the afixictions of domestic servants, the Household troojis, were also very differently costumed : in place of the tunic they wore a scarlet swallow-tail, with ridiculous worsted epaulettes, a huge stock under the cliin, men. 46 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. white ducks, and a bearskin shako ahnost twice the height of that now carried. Neither policeman nor private soldier was permitted to grow moustache or beard. The " General," or country, postman wore a scarlet swallow-tail coat; the " twopenny," or London district, man a blue uniform ; a collection for the night mails was made at five p.m., by men who paraded the streets each armed with a bell, which he rang lustily; and many of the despatches of letters from the head-othce, then in Lombard Street, to the various sub-offices were made by horse-post, the letters being enclosed in leather valises, which Avere strapped behind the post-boys. The dress of the men and women of that time can be studied in the illustrations to Nicholas Nichlehji and other contemporary publications : "dandies" wore high-collared coats and roll-collared Fashion- waistcoats, sliort in the waist; round their necks oV\|p COS" tumeof were high stiff stocks, with "an avalanche of satin" the period. falling over the chest, and ornamented with a large and a small pin connected with a thin chain ; and high sharp-pointed — almost Gladstonian — shirt- collars. No gentleman could wear anything in the daytime but Wellington boots, high up the leg, over which the trousers fitted tightly, covering most of the foot, and secured underneath by a broad strap. The great-coats of those days were no misnomers. They were really enormous garments, adorned with YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 47 several capes and deep pockets ; they were Chester- fields, Petershams, Taglionis, Sylphides; and well I recollect some splendid drivmg-coats, ornamented with enormous mother-o'-pearl buttons as big as crown-pieces, with pictures on them of mail-coaches going full speed, which were exhibited to admiring crowds in the tailor's window in Res^ent Street. Afterwards came the neat paletot, the blanket-Uke poncho, the blue pilot, and the comfortable Inverness. Some old gentlemen wore cloaks, too, in my youth ; and I have a dim recollection of one kind, properly, I believe, called roquelaure, but known to the London public as a " rockelow." Other personages of the streets, common in those days, have long since disappeared : the dustman, Vanished i with his call "Dust 0!" and his ever -ringing bell; the " buy-a-broom " girl, with her Dutch garb and jodling voice; the thin Turk, turban-topped, and vending rhubarb from a tray suspended from his neck; the Jew ])oys who hung about the coach-offices, with their nets of lemons or oranges, and were closely elbowed by the peripatetic cutler, the blades of whose knives were always open, and constantly being polished and sharpened on a tattered leather glove. Gone is the three-hatted, bag-bearing Jew, with his never-ceasing cry of " Old clo', clo' !" gone are the Quakers — the men broad-brimmed, shovel-hatted, stiff-collared, and gaitcred ; the women 48 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. generally pretty, with hideous bonnets and pretty dove- coloured raiment. Well do I recollect the introduction, simultane- ously, I imagine, of the hansom cab — then called " patent- safety " — and the four-wheeler. Before them we had the lumbering musty pair-horse hackney- coach, which was the decayed and disused " chariot " of former greatness, or the two-wheeled cabriolet — a dangerous vehicle, with a hood for the fare, and a tmy perch by his side for the driver, and which is to be seen in the illustrations to Pickwick, where Mr. Jingle first appears on the scene. People nowadays w411 smile to hear that for years after their introduc- tion it was considered "fast "to ride in a hansom, and its use w^as tabooed to ladies. There were omnibuses, but nothing like the present commodious vehicles ; narrow, cramped, with a seat across the end, with flat roof, and no " knifeboard '' accommodation outside. In those early days of railways the carriages had not attained their present amount of comfort: the first-class was, of course, an immense improve- ment on the cramped and stufty mail-coach ; but the second-class had no linings or cushions; and the Cabs, third-class was little better than a cattle-truck. Of and stage- the mail-coaclics themselves I have not much recol- coaches. . lection, though, as the " Great North Koad '' lay through Highgate, I must have seen them very often. But I well remember the Brighton coaches, and my YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 49 astonishment at my father shaking hands with the coachman, who was Sir Yincent Cotton; and the laughter at my godfather, Edmund Byng, when he told us that, passing by the ATliite Horse Cellar, a coachman had familiarly tapped him on the shoulder with his whip, and, looking up in a rage, he had recognised liis "rascally nephew, Edward Thynne." Clean-shaven flices were uncommon ; a ^d^x! of "mutton-chop" whiskers was de rigiieur ; but a " pair of mustachios,"as they were called, was never seen, save ^by on a cavalry officer, a dancmg-master, or a " snob," ^ ^^*^' and the cultivation of a beard Avas wholly confined to foreigners.* In those days it was no uncommon sight, on looking up at the cry of " Sweep !" to see a sooty imp protruding from a chimney-pot, and waving his brush. This Avas the veritable " climbing-boy," who was popularly supposed to be the slave of a tyrannical master, whose ascent of a difficult cliimney chimuey was said to be hastened by the burning straw in the ■•'• In 1850, when Albert Smith had just returned from his Nile trip and his month at Constantinople, with a flowing beard, he was a candidate for the Garrick Club. It was unofficially notified to him from the committee that his beard was most objectionable. A. S. distinctly refused to be terrorised into shaving, but declared he would have no objec- tion to modify the hirsute adornment after his election. The " beard movement," as it was called, by which we got rid of the imperative necessity for the appalling razor, did not take place until after the Crimean War. It was immensely assisted by an article in Household Words, entitled " Why Shave?" VOL. I. E 50 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. grate beneath; who wore a brass plate, with his master's nanie and address, on the front of his cap; who danced in the streets on ]\Iay Day in company with Jack-in- the-Green, " my lord," and the girl who rattled the ladle as a suggestion for donations; and who — the little sooty imp — was, in all our childish minds, the hero of the story in which the tu-ed- out little sweep lay down on the bed in Montagu House, and being found there, was recognised as the child who had been stolen thence some years previously. Changes What a change in the aspect of the streets of streets. London since those days ! Gone is the colonnade over the shojDS in the Quadrant, which extended from the County Fire Office to Glasshouse Street, which was taken down, partly to give more light to the shop- keepers, but mainly at the pertinacious insistance of one of them, a stationer named Dolby, wdio denounced the covered way as affording a retreat for " dissolute persons." Poor "dissolute persons," ever hunted into the hard cold streets ! Gone is the Rookery, a conglomeration of slums and alleys in the heart of St. Giles's, a resort of really desperate characters, which was pulled down and smashed up when New Oxford Street was made. Before that, all the vehicular traffic, and every pedestrian who did not care to run the risk of being mobbed and hustled, turned off to the rio-ht on reachino; the commencement of Totten- YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 51 ham Court Eoad, where stands Meux's Brewery, and, makmg a considerable detour^ passmg St. Giles's Church, and through Broad Street, Bloomsbury, came out into Holborn just by the top of Drury Lane. That was the re^'ular north-western route to the City 'when I first went there in '47, and now it is almost a desert. Gone are Holborn Hill, and Snow Hill, and Skinner Street, the mountain-pass of theiheFar- , . ringdon great Farrmgdon range, done away with by the i-ange and mountaia great engineermg triumph of the Holborn Viaduct, pass. The L.C.C. or London Conveyance Company, which owned many omnibuses in those days, used to have a man stationed at the top of Holborn Hill to jerk the skid under the wheels of the omnibuses, and another at the bottom to jerk it off; and in bad weather these poor wretches were scarcely recognisable as human beings from their incrustations of mud. On Snow Hill was the Saracen's Head, where Mr. Squeers used to put up. Gone is Smithfield, with its very wide open pens and cattle-hutches ; and gone with it is a good deal of the scandal of driving the wretched beasts through th3 streets, and whacking and torturing them in the most dreadful fashion. Enormous hordes of cattle for Smithfield Monday market, then — not as now, sent up by rail, but driven long and tedious journeys — used to arrive at Higligate on the Satur- day, and pass the Sunday in the fields let out for the 52 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. purpose. Gone is Cranbourn Alley, the home of the bonnet-makers, and Leicester Square such as I first ichabod 1 remember it — a howling wilderness, with broken rail- ings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination ; then covered over by the hideous build- ing for Mr. Wyld's great Globe; and lastly in its present pretty and cheerful condition. Gone is plea- sant Brompton, transformed into South Kensington, and now absorbing dear Old Brompton, with its broad acres of market-garden, its green lanes, pretty cottages, and general rurality. And gone, too, is a bevy of terraces and streets and places, rejoicing in the generic name of " Upper Eaton," and situate between Grosvenor Place and the A'^ictoria Station. The mamificent Grosvenor Gardens stand on the site which they occupied — cheery homes of the St. George's medical students, always redolent of pipes and beer. When I had achieved the age of nine it was con- sidered that I had sufficiently drained the Pierian spring, as supplied by Mrs. Kieckhofer, and that I should be removed to some establishment where a better quality of the article was on tap. My father had a strong wish that my ultimate destination should be Holy Orders, and that I should at once go to his old school, Charterhouse, and thence to Oxford. But there were many difficulties of various kmds against taking even the first step in that direction; YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 53 and, after some discussion, it was decided that I should be sent to Sir Eoger Cholmeley's Foundation School at Highgate, now known as Highgate School, i^oto an endowed foundation of Elizabeth's reign, which, School! ^ after a lono^ unacknowledo;ed existence, was beain- ning to prosper under its newly-appointed head- master, the Reverend John Bradley Dyne, of AYad- ham College, Oxford, It was, of course, a " day school,'' and, though boarders were received at one or two of the masters' houses, it was arranged that I should go to live with some friends of Mrs. Kieck- hofer, resident in Highgate, who had just ftillen into financial trouble, and who proposed thus to increase their means. They were singularly nice people — I will call .y''®^^,'',, them Stone — and exceptionally unfitted for the duties which they had taken upon themselves. It was all ^'ery well when I was their only boarder; and, being constantly either at school or in the playing- fields with their eldest son, a lad of my own age, I made little difference in their arrang<;ments. But when their ambition increased, and they took more boarders, and removed from their pretty little villa to a huge ramshackle house in the village, in which they had only a little oasis of decent furniture and appoint- ments in a desert of schoolroom and playroom, and bare floors and forms and tressel deal tables, where they could seldom escape from the perpetual noise 54 yO UTH A ND ED UCA TION. and racket and discomfort of a dozen strong, hot, sturdy boys, with all the selfishness, insensibility, and obstinacy which characterise the race, they must have thought their money hardly earned indeed. Mrs. Stone was a charming little woman, fairly young, pretty, accomplished, ladylike; she used to work like a slave, and we scoundrel boys used to tyrannise over her like Turks, find out her Aveak points — which were, of course, her children — and attack her through them, worry her life almost out of her, and she never repmed. I am not sure that, with all her gentle kind- ness, she was as much liked by most of the boys as her husband ; I know that with me he was the greater favourite. This was because, even with the difference in our ages, Ave had many tastes in common : he often said I Avas more like him in my ideas than his OAvn son, Avho Avas a studious, practical, earnest fellow, and Avho now holds one of the most important commercial positions in Lon- don. Mr. Stone Avas a bit of a Bohemian and a ii^'*^^t r gi'^^^ character ; and I suppose, even in those days, character study had a fascination for me. He was a young man still — only a little OA^er thirty, I should say ; but Ave ncA'^er could clearly make out what had been his preA^ous career. He never actually said it, but he certainly insinuated that he had been a cavalry officer, in some regiment of Dragoon Guards, we VO UTH A ND ED UCA TION. 5 5 thought ; a sword and sabretache were suspended on the wall of his dressing-room ; an Army List and a handsome book of coloured plates of the uniforms of the different regiments were among his treasures; and he had a habit of throwino; himself into a fencins^ attitude, and delivering himself of a " pass " with his stick at any post or tree we might meet with. And yet my firm belief is that he had not the faintest connection with the army, but had been a clerk to his father, who had failed as a banker. But, for an eager enthusiastic boy, he Avas the most delightful of friends. He was the bright side of Micawber, the constant anticipation of something good about to " turn up ;" he was full of good stories — not merely anecdotes and jokes, though he had a supply of those, but long dramatic stories, which he told admirably. He was a believer in ghosts, about which he had innumerable legends. Best of all, he was the first who told me of Walter Scott and Dickens, lending me the treasured volumes, and sometimes reading out whole scenes of Pickwick^ interrupting himself with his convulsions of hearty laughter. When I was withm a fortnight of my eleventh birthday, I experienced my first genuine grief — the death of my father. I do not know whether he was constitutionally consumptive — there were stories that he had been internally injured by an elephant which had been exhibited m some piece at the Adelphi, and 56 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. into whose den he had rashly ventured ; but the fact remains that, some five years previously, while play- ino' Bohert Macaire, he had broken a blood-vessel. He was so ill that his life Avas despaired of; and even on his convalescence he was warned that he ouo-ht never to act ao\ain. Such a warnino; to such a man was, of course, absurd ; his natural energ}', not to say u'ritabilit}", rendered it impossible to abide by any rules he might prescribe for himself; and, moreover, his means of existence depended on his exertions. He resumed the exercise of his profession as soon as he thought he could do so with comparative safety. In the winter of '41-12, while playmg at the Adelphi in Agnes St. Auhjn^ he agam ruptured a vessel, but recovered sufficiently to play till the end of the season. Immediatelv at its close, on the nitrht before father's Passion Week, mv father and mother, with AYrisrht, last ' •/ ' o 7 illness. Paul Bedford, and one or two more of the company, started to play an engagement in Dublin. My father suffered considerablv durmg; the vovao'e, but rallied on reaching the shore. On the Saturday before Easter Sunday ha was rehearsing Lord Skincleei^ in Jerrold's Bubbles of the Day-, when he suddenly felt ill, and, putting his handkerchief to his mouth, found he had ruptured another vessel, and Avas spittmg blood. With great presence of mind, he avoided givmg any alarm to my mother, who was on the sta:ate, where their father then lived, and both were friends of mine. On Richard Bethell's dun-coloured pony I had my first experi- ence of equitation. Mr. Bethell had been acquainted with our head-master since their college-days. They were both Wadham men, and we boys were much interested in the career of the great lawyer, and hunted for his name m the newspaper reports of the courts. I can see him now, in his pew in the church, which directly fronted ours, bald-headed, with well- cut features and a general air of distinction, and I can hear the mincing tones, " Rich-ard, my dee-ah !' in which I often heard him address his son. Closer in my intimacy was Thomas Keith, now Accountant of the India Ofiice, whose father and uncle at that time held good positions in its forerunner, the old East Lidia House in Leadenhall Street. My friend's uncle, the elder of the brothers, who was for a long time the head of his ofiice, had in his early da}'s YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 67 been a fellow-clerk with Charles Lamb, of Avhoui'; he would tell ii'ood stories. I remember also his show- , . ~ (Jharles inc: me a book which had been driven him by Latnb, i'^"/^''* with a very Lamb-like inscription. It was a Tahth of Interc.'yt, and on the fly-leaf was written, " AVilliam Thoma^ Keith, from Charles Lamb. In this book, unlike most others, the farther you progress the more the mterest increases." '^ More intimate still, my close chum, such' as every schoolboy worth anything must have, was Theodore Emilius Gahagan, of an Irish family well t. e. known in Anglo-Indian military life. A bright ' charming fellow, very clever, with a real a])}:)rcT ciation of the ludicrous, and wonderfully funny him- self, a capital drauglitsman, a clever caricaturist, with a knack of verse-writing and an earl}' inchnation; to literature. He and I were inseparable at school and in the holida\'s. When we left Iiii>'hii:atc — we cnterisd and left the school on the same day — he Avent to Addiscombe, then tlie military training-school for the lI.E.I.C.S., wdicnce, taking the highest lionours, ,he passed into the Engineers. He was wounded in the l)urmese War of 1852, and died some ^^ears after- wards in India of dysentery. Otlier schoolfellows and friends of mine at High- oui.v gate were u. 11. lod-ileatly, well known 111 l^ondon ioiio\v«^. society; Charles Marshall GrifHth, Q.C. ; Thomas Wiiraker, LL.D. of Cambridge; J. Cotter Morrison; 68 VO UTH A ND ED UCA TION. B. B. Rogers, the translator of Aristophanes ; Richard Goodhall Smith, formerly Librarian of the Middle Temple; and Colonel J. F. D. Donnelly, of the South Kensington Museum. Philip Worsley, known for his admirable translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, was also at Highgate, but immediately after my time. Our yearly examinations were conducted by Dr. Russell, Avho had been my father's head-master at I'lize-day, Chartcrhouse ; and our prizes were distributed on speech-day by the Bishop of London — not the present Bishop, who was at that time incumbent of Muswell Hil], a neighbouring parish, but the great Charles James Blomfield, a fine handsome man, whom I recollect seeing in the pulpit, shorn indeed of his episcopal wig, for those monstrosities had just been given up, but decked out by an enormous pair of lawn sleeves. The Duke of St. Albans, who lived then on Highgate Hill, at Holly Lodge, now occupied by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, "svas another speech- day visitor, and an unfliiling sleeper during the greater portion of the entertainment. At this period of my life the important question of what I was to do in the way of earning my living had been pretty well left to take care of itself. My mother's income, independent of her profession, was lamentably small. It was her greatest wish, and mine too, that she should retire as soon as possible from the stage, where, no longer a young woman nor YOUTH AND EDUCATION. a manager's wife, she found her position each year less tolerable ; and it was plainly impossible for her to make me the allowance necessary for my main- tenance at college, even if I had had the smallest inclin9,tion to go there. The idea of the Church had not been mooted for years ; but I think my mother would have been very pleased could she have seen her Avay to insure my proper preparation for the Bar. This, however, even if it had not involved a Univer- Whatwill sity career, would ha^'e been impossible. Prudent Lecome / ^ of me? friends, who knew the narrowness of our means, wisely insisted that I ought, instead of spending money, to be put to earning it as soon as possible, and that efforts should be made to obtain for me a nomination to a Government clerkship — appointments which in those happy days went, like kissing, by favour, and needed no superlative talent to win them from a struggling host of competitors. But I was only fifteen, full young to thiuk of being settled for hfe, and sixteen was the lowest age at which one could enter the Government service ; so, to my great delight, my mother determined that I should at once leave llighgate, and have a year's instruction \\\ German and French, to be ac(juired in their respective countries. Her wisdom was approved by the friends wliom she consulted, and in the summer of '46 I bade farewell to Pli'ht Enoiisli in several families, and more than half supported the liousehold by her exer- tions ; and a son, a kind good fellow — half-Bohemian, half-sportsman, whole idler — with whom I used to ofo out wild-duck shootino*. There was a charmino- English family named Lindo— a father and mother, two daughters, and a son Philip, an artist, my great chum, in whose atelier I used to spend half my time, and Avith whom 1 used to ride in the afternoon — for my indulgent mother allowed me the use of a horse. Perhaps of them all I was most constantly asso- ciated with the family of a retired captain in the navy, an Irish gentleman of good birth, with a hospitable wife, two stalwart sons, and a remarkably pretty and charmmg daughter-in-law. One of the hearty laughs which memory can even now evoke is in connection with these worthy people. I was to spend the whole of Christmas Day in their company, and we were to YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 77 have the conventional beef and pudding for dinner — mainly, I believe, out of kindness to me; for the day, I think, is not much of a festival among the Irish of the north. We had all been to service in the Lutheran church, which was occasionally lent to us, listeninof to the ministrations of a nomadic divine who had pitched his tent among us for a few days, and who ostentatiously exhibited a soup-plate with a napkin, on which lay a thaler and a half as a decoy at the church-door; and when we reached home the house was tightly closed, and no knocking or ringing could procure admission. At length, when the police were about to be sent for, the door was opened by the cook, red-faced and a^-itated, who announced that thieves had been in the house during our absence, and that evervthinor was stolen. There was nothinn; ^^ . , J ^ o Christmas very comic in this, especially to a very hungry '^i"»<^'- youth; but the joke lay in the facial and verbal expressions of dear old ]\Irs. Trotter, who, it must be premised, knew very little German, and to whom the excited servant (doubtless the culprit) addressed her- self, witli tlic words, " madame, madame, ein Dieb ist im Ilaus gewescn !" (A thief has been in tlic house!) "Ah!" said the old lady slowly, and smiling; then, turning to us — " A Dkb ! And hwat's a Dieb ?" Wlicn she was told, the explosion was terrific. There were some half-dozen Americans livii)i2: at American ■^ settlers. DUsseldorf at that time, among whom I remember a 78 YOUTH AND EDUCATION. very handsome couple named Woodville, the husband a pamter, and father of Mr. R. Caton Wood^'ille, who contributes such spu'ited sketches to our illustrated journals, and who has made a great mark ^vith more ambitious work; and a strange fellow named Fink, who had lived a long time among the Indians, and who at the Schwimm-Schule on the Ivhine — made \i\ railing off a portion of the river — showed us some extraordinary feats in diving and remaining under water. Shooting — we got large red-legged partridges, hares, and wild-duck in abundance — riding; skating under the pleasantest circumstances, under a bright sun or moon, and on the firmest and most unyielding- ice; and louno;in2i: and chaffino" at the ateliers of painter-comrades, I managed to most agreeably while away the day; and at night there were occasionally informal receptions at the houses of Englisli or German friends, and always the Kneipc. Come in with me and look at the curious scene — at least, as much of it as you can distinguish through the tobacco-smoke up-curling from every mouth: it is as fresh in my mind as it was in my sight more than five-and-thu'ty years ago. The A room, long, low, and dingy, with tables ""^'' running down the centre and sides; wooden settles, and other furniture of the commonest description; undecorated, save by chalk caricatures of the mem- YOUTH AND EDUCATION. 79 bers, some by tbemselves and by eacb other, and admirably portraying the pecuharities of all. Listen to the awful noise — the shouting, screeching, joking, blaspheming uproar, that begins with sunset, and with many ends not until drunkenness has taken away die possibility of further altercation. Their fun is mostly of a quiet, decorous, and, truth to tell, somewhat dull and heavy kind, though it sometimes breaks out into ribaldry and riot. Tlie life is quite amusing while you are leading it, while you are going- through the regular routine of it; but when you have left it for a time — when the spell, whatever it may have been, is broken — you look back witli astonish- ment to think you could have ever passed through such a phase of existence. Tliere was a good deal of childish nonsense indulears of my life were passed in the Government employ. Looking at what has happened since, I feel that I mig'ht very possibly have employed this time far more profitably. There were several occasions on wlii(;h, had I chosen to give up the small certainty, I could have obtained vahiabU' -^im.iIi. imt •••^■t;iiii. literary and journalistic appointments, the holding of wliich was incompatible with inv daily attendance at St. ^[artin's-le-Grand. The double work was heavv, and not unfrequently harassing. On the other hand, the routine ui' a public office, ijj which certain things bave necessarily to be done at certain stated times, gave me business habits and appreciation of the neces- sity of punctuality, which have been of great value to i:i(' in my other career. \ ;nii bv no means sure that the chani>e in the work, from the dr\ official ivords of facts to the 84 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OEFICE. light essay or fanciful feuilleton^ did not enable me to get through more work than if all the hours of labour had been devoted to one kind of sub- ject. And I am quite sure that, though the pay was small, and the work not particularly congenial ; though I was generally poor and always anxious; though my health was not very good, and my cares were perpetually increasmg, I extracted as much Happy happiness out of my position as was possible — more, days at St. n . Martin's, probably, than I could have found in most other stations in life, where the responsiljility would have been greater. I grumbled at my lot, as we all do ; but I know that I never returned from my annual holiday without a half-pleasurable sensation at being back. My animal spirits were excellent. I was, I am pleased to think, very popular witli most of my comrades ; and the authorities, if not entirely in sym- pathy with some of my eccentricities, were, on the whole, indulgent, and inclined not to see anything that was not specially brought under their notice. In my earliest official days, I formed one or two intimate friendships, which exist to the present hour, having never known a shadow. And generally in the course of every two or three months I find my way to St. Martin's — not, however, to the buildmg in which my time was j)assed; that has been given up entirely to those engaged in letter- sorting, &c. — and have a chat with old colleagues over old times. EARL V DA YS IN THE POST OFFICE. 85 A superstitious person might possibly have thought it an unfavourable omen for mv future career that the pole of the omnibus on which I journeyed into the City broke as we were descending what m those days was a very steep hill between Hatton Garden and Farringdon Street, and that we nearly were upset; but one is not superstitious at sixteen, and I was only a little nervous when I presented myself at the My first appear- lobby of the Secretary's office. My godfather, Edmund ance. Byng, had mentioned my appointment to two young fellows of his acquaintance who were in the office, and they speedily introduced themselves to me and set me at my ease. There was no examination in those days; [ had not even to write from dictation, or do a rule- of-three sum, as had Anthon}- Trollope thirteen years before. After a few days' probation in tlie Ivcgistry, where the receipt and disposal of the \arious comnuuiica- tions addressed to the department were recorded ill huge ledgers, I was placed in the money-order dei)artment of the Secretary's office — i.e. where the correspondence relating to money-orders with the })ublic and the postmasters was carried 011 ; and there I remained about two years. Two years of almost unalloyed official happiness ! AVe were about twelve or fifteen clerks altogether, dispersed m tlu'ce or four rooms. Our principal was a bahl-headed middkvaged man, given to taking sjuifF and imljibiug a cheap 86 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. ]\Iarsala — a man full of strange oaths witliout any modern instances, but of a kindly nature, and dis- posed to make allowance for youth. There were three or four fellows not much older than mA\'^elf, and we were always tellins; the most ridiculous stories and playing the wildest pranks. Our room had a The (Jiiief ^looi* o^ communication with that of the Chief Clerk, ' ^^ ' an old gentleman who had tlie reputation of being a little thick and cloudy after luncheon. One day some of the fellows, while larking, u]).-et a huge screen, which fell with a resounding bang, I had had nothing to do with it, l)ut was advancing to pick up the screen, Avlicn the Chief Clerk entered, flushed with lunch and raixe. " AVhat tlie devil's tliis row?" he called out; then, seeing me — he had scarcely ever noticed me before — he graciously said, " 0, it's you, is it, sir? Please recollect you're not now on the boards of the Adelphi !" Again the old reproach of the schooldays cropping up ! It seemed as if it were never to be jxot rid of! No fun I ^ni sure, from all I hear, that the young gentle- men by wdiom the Secretary's office is now junior- officered, and A\ho are mostly, I believe, graduates of the Universities or scions of the aristocracy, would scarcely believe the details of the audacious fun which used to be perpetrated by their ^^I'edecessors just before the year 1850, so T will relate one or two special instances. now EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 87 My great chum iii those days was a man about ten years older than myself, whom, for distinction's sake, I will call Pitt, and who was the most audacious l^ractical joker I have ever met. He had the most a pmcti- , . -, , (, , . J c;il joker. charmmg manners and the most perfect sang-jroid ; nothmg ever upset his balance, and he could perpe- trate the most darino; hoax Avithout altermii" a muscle of his face. Two of his exploits I remember well. At the corner of one of the streets runnini;' from the Strand to the river, near St, Clary's Church, was a well-known Italian warehouse. One day, as Pitt and I were walking westward after office-hours, we saw lianging at the sho])-door a bundle of bananas, with an inscription, '' The last bananas we shall receive xiie 1 1 banana!*. this season." Pitt stopped and read the placard. " That is very curious," he said, " and must be in- quired into!" I followed him up the shop, a long low addition to the original house, until we reached the counter at the far end, where two or three shopmen were busy serving customers. " Could I speak to Mr. ?" asked Pitt, mentioning the name he had read on the shop-door, and speaking with the greatest earnestness. " ?Ie's in, sir, but he's having his tea; but if you particularly want liim, PU call him." " Thank vou, I do want a word witli liim." The ])roprietor came out ofliis ])arlour, wi])iiig liis mouth, and, rounding the counter, was immediately laid hold of by Pitt, who took him by tlie elbow and leuns])y-like voice; "whose are those?" I meekly acknowledged the proprietorship. I d(-> not know what punishment Lord Hardvvicke would ]iave decreed me for the inexpiable offence of drmking beer, for Colonel Maberly hurried him awa}'. In tlie next room they were not so fortunate. There one of the men was so absorbed in his Times that he had not heard the entrance of the Secretary and the new cliief, but, with his back to the door, sat immersed in his reading. Tlie wily Bo'sun marked this at once, and, stealing up behind the preoccupied man, gave liini a dig in the ribs, exclaiming, " lluUo, you sir, if you can find time to read the newspaper, we can spare a clerk ! " 104 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. AYitli only one other of the Postmasters-General — Lord Stanley of Alderley — was I ever brought mto contact, though toAvards the close of my official career I was treated with kmdness and consideration by Lord Lord Hartington, at a time when I required both. I had ton, '°^' iiot; nor have I, any personal acquamtance with Lord Hartington, but I desire to place on record my appre- ciation of his friendliness. Lord Hartinu'ton has, I believe, a character for hauteur and want of sym- pathy; but his interest in the service and his impar- tiality won him great respect in the Post Office; whereas his predecessor. Lord Stanle}^ of Alderley, known as a bon-vivant and a joker, " old Ben Stanley '' among his friends, was heartily detested by most of the officials whose ill-luck it was to have to see him. Tliat he was cross-grained and tyrannical, and sting}' to the letter-carriers and messengers, I knew from his treatment of official matters ; that A tyran- he was insolcnt and overbearing to his subordinates gentleman I had heard, but little thought I should ever have any personal experience of the fact. One da}', however, I was sent for by Sir Rowland Hill. I was at that time the head of the Missing Letter branch, and as such it had devolved on me to carry out a pet scheme of Sir Rowland's — the reduction of the fee for registering letters from six- pence to fourpence, by which it was hoped that, as the opportunities for obtaining almost certain security EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 105 were made cheaper, the chance enclosure of coins and valuables would be proportionately diminished. The measure had taken many months' close atten- tion to elaborate, but at last it had been worked out in every detail, had received the sanction of the Trea- sury, 'and only required the Postmaster-General's signature to a certam deed to become law. This deed had been prepared and forwarded to Lord Stanley, and we were awaitino; its return. Obeyino; his sum- mons, I found my chief rather anxious. " I am afraid I have ratlier a disagreeable job for Adis- you, Yates !" was his salutation. job. " Indeed, sir?" " Ye — es. In connection with the registration- fee. The papers are with the Postmaster-General, are they not? I've just been told by the solicitor, Mr. Ashurst, that it is absolutely necessary his lord- ship's signature should 1)e attached to tlie warrant before twelve o'clock to-night, or the whole thing will lapse as informal, and all our trouble will be lost. It will be necessary, therefore, that some one sliould see his lordship at once, explam the matter to liiiii, and get his signature. Now you are the only person in the office wlio understands all about tlie question, and therefore you must go." " Very well, sir. Can you tell me where I am likely to find Lord Stanley?" "Yes; that's just tlie point. I understand that io6 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. Lord Stanley is at N^ewmarket Races, with — with rather a fast party of friends. You'll have to go to him there." This was horrible. To have to drag an irritable elderly nobleman away from his fun — bother him about business ! " Dear me, sir," I said, " that is a disagreeable job, indeed!" "Yes," he said ; adding instantly in his peculiar hard manner, " but you'll have to do it. I don't exactly remember the name of the house or hotel where Lord Stanley is staying, l)ut you'll get that from his confidential butler in Dover Street. So be off as quickly as you can, and be sure to get the signature before midnight. Here is a letter of intro- duction for you to present to Lc:"d Stanley, in which I have told him who you are. Good-day !" Sir Eowland nodded me my dismissal, and, though I detested the mission, there was nothing for me to do but to go. I drove off in a cab to Dover Street, was admitted by a footman, saw The con- ^^^^ Confidential butler, and learned from him that butler? Lord Stanley had just arrived from Newmarket, and was at that moment actually in the library. I gave the man Sir Rowland's letter of introduc- tion, and m a few moments was bidden to follow him. I can see that room and the scene which occurred EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 107 perfectly, plainly, at the present moment. Standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the fireplace, and facing me as I entered, was a thickset elderly man «oid Ben of middle height. On the table close by him was a ^"^ ^^' yellow -paper-covered French novel Avliich he had evidently just thrown down, and on a further table were three or four of the heavy leather pouches in which official documents were forwarded to the Post- master-General. As the butler closed the door behind me, I made the gentleman a bow, of which he took not the smallest notice. He did not offer me a seat, so I remained standing, plante-la. " What do you want ?" was his gracious query. " I have come* about the reduction of the regis- tration-fee, my lord. I thought Sir Ivowland Hill had explained in his letter. It is necessary that your lordship's signature — " " Yes, yes, I know all about that," he interrupted. " I have signed the damned thing !" going to one of the official pouches, and rummaging in it. " It's here somewhere — no, that's not it. I can't find it ; Ijut I know I've signed it. Look here, have you got a cab outside?" " Yes, my lord." "Then," pointing to them, "just take these pouches back to the Office ; you'll find it when you get tliere." io8 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. It was just too much. I am of a hot temj^er, and I boiled over. The turn- "What!" I Cried, in a tone that made my friend worm. ^ jump again. "What! do you expect me to carry those bags to the cab ? If you want that done, ring the beU and tell your servant to do it. I'm not your servant, and I won't carry bags for you or any man in London!'' He looked petrified ; but he rang the bell. " What's your name, sir ?" he asked. " My name is Yates, my lord," I replied. " I don't like your manner, sir,'' said he. " And I don't like yours, my lord," I rattled out. " I came here, properly mtroduced by the Secretary; I made you a salutation, which you had not the pohteness to return; you have never asked me to take a seat — " " Wasn't I standing myself?" he interpolated. " That is no affair of mine. Your business as a gentleman was to ask me to be seated. And now you thmk I am going to do your servant's work !" Here the servant entered the room, and was ordered by his master to carry off the bags. I was preparing to follow him, when Lord Stanley said, "You shall hear more of this, sir!" I show " Whenever you please, my lord ; I shall be quite ready !" and off I went. I was desperately upset, and I suppose I showed EARL V DA YS IN THE POST OFFICE. 109 it ; for Avlien I arrived at the Office I made straight for Sir Rowland's room. His face, on seeing me, expressed more astonishment and concern than I had ever seen there. " AYhat, hack so soon !" he said. " Why, what's the matter with you, my good fellow ? You're trem- bling, and — tell me, what has happened ?" I told him shortly. The old gentleman was greatly excited, and very sympathetic. He rose from his seat, and laid his hand on my shoulder. " I'm ver}' sorry you've been exposed to this, ^^^ ^now- Yates,'' he said ; " but you mustn't mind. He's a gvmpathv. damned rude fellow ; he's been very rude to me before now. Don't you be afraid of his threats; I'll take care of that. And he will think better of what he said when he's a little cooler. Depend upon it, you'll hear no more of it." I did not hear any more of it in tlie way T antici- Good pated. j>ut the story got wmd, and another one was messenger speedily improvised to tlie effect that Lord Stanley had been so frightened by my display of independence that the next time one of tlie messengers was sent to him with some official ])apcrs, he rushed at the aston- ished man, seized him warmly by the hand, and insisted on his stopping to luncheon. To my being able to converse in French and German 1 owed, during my hfe in the Post Office, 110 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. several delightful special trips — one to Hamburg, to ascertain how quickly the mails could be conveyed thither by a certain route ; one to Brmdisi, when, in consequence of the outbreak of the Franco-German War, and the consequent danger of continuing our Indian mail service from Marseilles, I had the honour '■ In of pioneermg the route over the Brenner, and thence to Brindisi, which was followed until the completion of the Mont Cenis tunnel. My first special journey, however — first and most important — was merely due to my position in the Secretary's office. It was in the year 1858, and the terrible Indian ]\Iutiny was at its height. Submarine telegraphy was in its infancy then, and the number of letters passing between this country and India was so enormously increased that supi^lementary mails were continually being despatched. The ordinary Indian mail, made up in air-tight cases, was always sent in charge of special officers appointed for the purpose, and dis- charging no other duty than that of travelling, with the mails in their custody, from London to Mar- seilles, and from Marseilles, on board one of the steamers of the P. and 0. Company, to Alexandria, where the charge was transferred to the officers of the Indian Post Office, who had travelled so far, bring- ing the homeward letters. No mails were despatched without an officer in charge; so during the Mutiny the supplementary mails were sent in care of some of EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. in US junior clerks of the Secretary's office, who were clehghted to get the cliance of the change. As soon as I heard when my turn was likely to come, I wrote to Anthony TroUope — who had been sent out to Egypt on a special mission from the General Post Office — telling him I was coming, and asking him to look out for me. I started from rp]^^ the London Bridge Station of the South-Eastern ^'''''™^^'- Railway (there was no Charing Cross Station in those days) one wild night in tlie beginnmg of March 1858, with seventy-six boxes or cases of letters in my care. These boxes were counted at Dover, counted on board the boat, counted again on landinsr at Calais — I in a mortal frij^ht on each occasion — and counted at the gave of Calais, where they were deposited in a huge fourgon., one end of which was fitted up like a little room, with shelves, a lamp, and t^vo huge fauteuils — one for me, M. le Courrier Anglais (for such designation I at Tiie two once received), and the other for my confrere^ M. le Courrier Fran^ais, by whom I was joined ; sucli a pleasant fellow, I remember, and sucli a raconteur ! As we started he ])ut himself bodily — legs, feet, and all — into an enormous bag lined with sheepskin, which he h)oped round liis neck, lit a pipe, flung liimself on the fauteuU, and began to talk. I can still smell the saucisson de Lyon and the fromage de Brie^ still taste the sound red wine, Avhicli coumcrx. 112 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. his wife brought him at the Gave du Nord in PariSy just before we rattled over the stones with our boxes to the Marseilles railway, and which he generously shared with me ; thereby, I verily believe, saving my life, as I was famished, and we had not an instant allowed us to get out and procure food. The weather was bitterly cold throughout the journey ; and when we arrived at Marseilles the people were thronging the streets, looking at the thicklj'-falling snow, a sight which had not been seen for years. I bade adieu to my travelling companion, and got my boxes On board. Safely on board the P. and 0. steamer Euxine, com- manded by one of the best and noblest fellows that ever breathed. Captain Thomas Black, with whom I then and there commenced an intimate friendship, which lasted for twenty years, and Avas only ter- minated by his death in 1879. The That delightful trip will always remain vividly impressed on my memory, for in it not merely did I see scenes and j^laces which I had longed to visit, but I enjoyed, for the first time for several years, a sense of perfect rest and repose, a freedom from the receipt of letters and calls upon my time. I can perfectly call to mind at the present moment the keen sense of enjoyment in lying outstretched on the deck in the lovely weather, my first reahsation of Tennyson's " blue unclouded," with the knowledge that there was no need to hurry to the Office, no accursed " attend- EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE, 113 ance-book " to sign, no theatre to visit, no subsequent criticism to write. AYe had twelve hours for coaling at Malta, which I spent with a former colleague, the Postmaster-General of the island, through whom I had th^ honour of an introduction to Admiral Lord Lord Lyons, > father of the present diplomatist, who was Lyous. then in command of the Mediterranean Squadron, and whose personal appearance struck me as so remarkaljly resembling the pictures of Nelson, whom he so worthily emulated ; and, after a further delight- ful voyage of three days, arrived at Alexandria, where I made over mv troublesome cliaro;e of mail- boxes to the agent, and found I had two or three da}'s at my disposal before the homeward mails were likely to arrive. I had expected to find Anthony Trollope here, but the following characteristic letter was handed to me : " Alexandria, 11 March 1858. My dear Yates, — It is matter of j^reat regret to mc that I Trol'ope's . 00 letter should miss you. But were I to stay now I should lose my only opportunity of going to Jerusalem. I had hoped to have got there and back before you came out, and it has been impossible for me to start till to-day. I shall probably still see you on 22nd. At Cairo see (above all) the newly-opened catacombs of Sakhara — by taking a horse and mounted guide you may see that and the Pyramids of Ghizeh in one day. Hear the howling dervishes of Cairo at one on Friday. They howl but once a week. Go to the citadel of Cairo, and mosque of Sultan Hassan. See, also, the tombs of the Caliphs. Heliopohs is a humbug, so also is the petrified forest. At VOL. I. I 114 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. Alexandria see the new Greek church they have just excavated. Go to the Oriental Hotel at Alexandria, and Shepherd's at Cairo. — Yours ever, Anthony Trollope." The mail- agent warned me that my time in the East was hkely to be very short ; so, on his advice, To Cairo, ^^^r a cursory glance at Alexandria, I hurried off by rail to Cairo. The journey, which, I see, is now per- formed in five or six hours, then took the whole day ; and we were even an extra time in getting through it, as in those days, there being only one line of rails, our train was shunted at Tantah to enable a train An Etryp- Containing the Pasha's troops to pass by. But the time there employed was not wasted ; for a fair was o-oinof on at Tantah, in which I found a strange epitome of Egyptian hfe, even to the incident of the Bedouin bringing in his horse for sale, as related in Mrs. Norton's charming verse. The Bedouin in this instance, however, seemed to be a remarkably 'cute customer, not unversed in the mysteries of "coping" and " chaunting," and with altogether more of the London mews than of the Libyan desert about him. There was a Punch, too, and a buffoon who danced, and another Avho told stories, and was surrounded by a rapt and eager audience, quite a reminiscence of the Arabian Niqlits. At Tantah, too, I saw a band of Egyptian "^ ' ' convicts, convicts, horriblc-lookiug ruffians, many of them grievously afflicted with oj^hthalmia, handcuffed and EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 115 leg-ironed, and linked together by a long chain passing over their shoulders. They growled and cursed freely as they passed us ; but the guards in charge prodded them pleasantly with their muskets, and drove them on. There, too, did we find drawn up on the siding three large green saloon-carriages, in which were, Ave were told, some members of the Pasha's harem. Up and down in front of these velii- Lights cles paced some very hideous black slaves — Arabian harem. Nights again ! — wlio scowled on any one daring to approach, and motioned the would-be intruders away. But a fellow-passenger jind I stole to the back of the carriages, while tlie Pasha's troop-train was passing in front, and tlie guardians' attention was thus engaged, and were rewarded for our temerity by a momentary glimpse of a pair of lustrous eyes and a white yaslimak. It was ni"ht when we readied Cairo; the station was a long way from the town ; and T made a triumphal entry on a donke}', followed by its driver, and preceded by a boy witli a torch, both boys yelling at the top of their voices. I was deposited at the door of Shepherd's Hotel, where my arrival Avasi arrive fit Siiep- sufficiently ignominious ; for the sudden cessation of herd's. the donkey's gallop sent me flying over his head, to the great delight of several of John Company's officers, military and civil, who were congregated in the veran- dah. Shepherd's Avas full — i am told it always is, CA'cn in its present enlarged and improA'cd form — it Avas ii6 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE, crammed that night, and I was about to be turned away. But on my making an emphatic representa- tion to Mr. Shepherd, and mentioning the name of Albert Smith, who had done the hotel good service in Jiis " Month at Constantinople," I was told I might, if I chose, take possession of a large sofa, which stood in a corner of the coffee-room. I was too thankful even for this accommodation ; and after a meal I laid myself down without undressing. The room was quite dark, and I had not been long asleep when a man, whom I made out to be a French waiter, and who was rather drunk, plumped himself down by my A restless sidc. Him I kicked into the middle of the room, and heard no more of; but I was again awakened later by a fresh visitor, in the shape of a huge dog, who had evidently been accustomed to pass the night there, and with whom I shared my couch. Home- When I woke I found the homeward-bound mails bound, had been telegraphed as having left Suez, so that my visit to Cairo was considerably abbreviated. Of the Pyramids I may say, vidi tantuin : I actually saw them in the distance from the top of the citadel, and that was all. I rejoined the old Euxine at Alexandria, made my return journey across France much as I had come, and was home in London within three weeks of having quitted it, which in those days Avas considered good travelling. A couple of articles descriptive of my journey, under the title " In Charge," EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 117 appeared in one of tlie early numbers of All the Year Round. My other official trips had no incidents particu- larly worthy of record, though in connection with my run to, Hamburg and back occurred one of those rp^ ^^^^ amenities of official life wliich it is as well to preserve. ^"^'^* The journey, which was undertaken at the express desire of Mr. Frederick Hill, the Assistant Secretary, was made in the month of January, in exceptionally severe and trying weather, the Elbe being frozen over ; my instructions being to prove in how little time the out-and-home journey could be accomplished. I took but a very few liours' rest before starting on my return. The consequence was that on my arrival at home I w^as completely knocked up. I had signs xn. of erysipelas on my forehead, desperate pains and numbness in mv head, and a thorouji'li all-overish sense of illness. I got to bed at once, and sent for my old friend ]\Ir. Skey of Bartliolomew's, who pro- nounced me suffering under a complete cliill, with serious complications in tlie future, unless I suc- cumbed at once. I was anxious to make my report, and to give personal explanation of the results of my journey ; but the doctor insisted on my remaining in bed, and wrote a certificate of my state, wliich I forwarded to the Office, asking for indulgence for two or three days. I do not know whether the certificate ii8 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. Avas couched in professional, and consequently appa- rent!}' pompous, terms, which grated upon the simple susceptibilities of the Secretary, Mr. Tilley ; whether Mr. Tilley. \^q was annoyed at my having been employed by one of the Hills, with whom he was always at variance ; or whether it was the natural benevolence and geni- ality of the man, which caused him to send me the following reply to my application : " Sir, — In reply to your letter of yesterday's date, I have to inform you that, a& it appears you have a headache, leave of absence for two days has been granted you. — Your obedient servant, John Tilley." This was my return for having faithfully per- formed a service which did not lie withm my ordinary duty, and in the discharge of which I had been nearl}' frozen to death and narrowly escaj^ed rheumatic fever ! But no cynical insults from a Tilley, or any other grim humourist, rankled long in those days of youth and generally good condition, and, despite Rowland Hill's warnmg, wonderful animal spirits. The lun- Lun- cheon-time alone was fruitful of delio-hts. When I cheons. ° first jomed the service the luncheons were procured from neighbouring taverns ; but Colonel Maberly's sense of the fitness of things was annoyed by encountering strange persons wandering through the lobbies, balancmg tm-covered dishes and bearing foaming j^ewter-pots. Rumours were current of liis EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 119 havmo' been seen wavino; his arms and "liishing" back a stalwart potman, who, not knowmg his adversary, cledined to budge. Anyhow, these gentry were refused farther admission, and a quarter of an hour • — a marvellous!}' elastic cjuarter of an hour — was allowed us in which to go and 2:»rocure luncheon at a neio;hbourino- restaurant. There were j)lent}' of these to choose from. For Chop- houses, the aristocratic and the well-to-do there was Dolly's Chop House, up a little court out of Newgate Street : a wonderful old room, heavy-panelled, dark, dingy, with a female portrait whicli we always understood to be ^' Dolly" on the walls; with a liead waiter in a limp wliite neckcloth, with a ])ale face and sleek black hair, who on Sundays was a verger at St. Paul's ; but with good joints, and steaks and chops and soups served in a heavy old-fashioned manner at a stiff old-fashioned I^rice. Almost equally grand, but conforming more to modern notions, was the Cathedral Hotel at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, where there was a wonderful waiter with a graduated scale of gratitude, on whicli we were always experimenting and imi- tating. Thus, for the donation of a penny, he, loolvijig Gratitude uncomfortable, would mutter, " Thenk, sir;" for two- pence he would audibly remark, "Thank yct^, sir;" for tlirecpence he would make a grand bow, and say, "Thank you^ sir; I'm 'Ijlaiged to you." He never 120 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. varied his programme, though we often tried him.. Only last year I saw him, very httle changed, walking on the esplanade at Worthing, and looking at the. sea as though he regarded it rather as a penny cus- tomer. At the Cathedral, too, was an old gentleman, a regular liabitue^ who, as I am afraid he was, a liadical, delighted in the perpetration of one mild joke. He would secure the Morning Herald., the Tory organ of those days, and when he had perused it would hand the paper to his opposite neigh- bour with a how, and the observation, " "Would you like to read any hes, sir?" City re- We impecunious juniors, however, ventured sel- dom into these expensive estabhshments. For u& there were cheaper refectories, two of which achieved great celebrity in their day : Balls's Alamode Beef House in Butcher Hall Lane — I belie\'e Butcher Hall Lane has disappeared in the City improve- ments, but it used to run at right angles with Newgate Street, near the eastern end of Christ's Hospital — where was to be obtained a most dehcious " portion " of stewed beef done up in a sticky, coagu- lated, glutinous gravy of surpassing richness ; and Wilhams's Boiled Beef House in the Old Bailey, whicli was well known throughout London, and where I have often seen the great Old Bailey advo- cates of those days, Messrs. Clarkson and Bodkin, discussing their " fourpenny plates." Wilhams's was fectories. EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 121 a place to be "done" by any one coming up for the London sights ; and there were always plenty of country squu'es and farmers, and occasionally foreigners, to be found there, though the latter did not seejn to be much impressed with the excel- lence of the cuisine. In those days, too, we used to lunch at places which seem entirely to have disappeared. The " Crowley's Alton Alehouse " is not so frequently met "Alton with as it was thirty years ago. The "alehouses" were, houses." in fact, small shops fitted with a beer-engine and a counter; they had been estabUshed b}' Mr. Crowley, a brewer of Alton, on -finding the difficulty of procur- ing ordinary public-houses for tlie sale of his beer ; and at them was sold nothing but beer, ham sandwiches, bread and cheese, but all of tlie very best. They were enormously popular with }'oung men who did not particularly care about hanging round the bars of taverns, .and did an enormous trade ; but that was in the pr£G- Spiers & Pond days ; and, I am Ijound to say, all the facilities for obtaining refreshments, and gene- rally speaking the refreshments themselves, have enor- mously improved since then. There was also another luncheon-house which we used to frequent on Addle Hill — not a bad name for the Doctors' Commons of those days, in which it was situate — and on our way whence we would look in at " the Commons," where the bench, bar, and general arrangement were supplied 122 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. at that time by a family of the name of Fust — look in with additional interest, aroused by the associations of the place with .David Copijerfield, then in course of j)ubhcation. I knew Doctors' Commons, too, as a short cut to the river, by Paul's Chain to Paul's Wharf, and Penny tliencc by penny steamboat to Hungerford Bridge boats. (long since pulled down and carted off bodily to CHfton by Bristol, where it spans the Avon) ; by halfpenny steamboat at one time, for in the fury of competition three, the Ant, Bee, and Cricket, were started at that price, but the last-named blew up — it was proved at the inquest that the stoker tied down the safety-valves with strings to increase the speed — at a time when it was loaded with business-men commg into the City; and the news, being received at the Post Office, caused the eager inquiry from one of our rascals, " Any seniors on board?" It was a somewhat grim jest, but we were like the midshipmen who drank the toast, " A bloody war or a sickly season." We were wretchedly paid, and . promotion was desperately slow. When I first entered the service the Post Office was one of the worst paid of the public departments and one of Popular the lowest in rank. There seemed to be a general notions of r* • i i i n • i • i our work, acceptance ot idea that the duties there were entu^ely confined to sorting letters; and I have often been seriously asked by my friends of the outer world EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 123 whether I had noticed such and such a letter in the course of its transmission. So far as the Secre- tary's office was concerned, all the letter- sorting, &c., might have heen a hundred miles off for what we saw of it; but the public — for as all nations were Oentiles to the Jews, so, to an official, all non- officials are "the public" — the public never seemed to give any heed to the huge amount of ability, j^atience, experience, and technical knowledge requu-ed to insure the prompt and proper transmission of their mails; the postal intercourse with foreign countries and the colonies; the contracts with the great ocean steam-companies ; the discipline of the enormous staff witli its representatives in every city, town, and village of the United Kingdom; and a hundred other minor details, any friction in the working of which might have thrown a huge portion of the machine out of gear, and caused indescribable confusion amongst the gi'eat commercial circles. All this work was done in the Secretary's office, smaii the staff of Avhich then numbered about fifty men, all told, who were paid according to the following rate. On entering the service a salary of 90/. a year; no increase for three years, when the j)ay was made 110/.; no increase for another three years, when it was raised to 140/, ; but this involved admission into the body of " clerks in waiting," who took it in turn to sleep at the office, and had to pay for the meals 124 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. consumed there without any extra allowance. In this, the " assistant," class the salaries advanced by 10^, a year until they reached the sum of 260/. a year, where they stopped. So that unless he managed to get, through a death-vacancy, into the senior class, which was limited in number, where the salaries commenced at 350/. and advanced to 500/., a man after twenty -five years' service would receive 260/. a year, and might never get beyond it. In those days, too, a deduction was made for " superannuation allow- ance" — that is to say, we were mulcted in a contri- bution to future pensions, which we might or might not receive. Thus, when I was supposed to be getting 90/. a year, my quarterly receipt was 21/. 18.s. 9c?. This cruel tax was afterwards abolished, mamly throu2:li the influence of Mr. Disraeli. It was desperately poor pay, and various efforts had been made to obtam an improved scale, but without eflect. Esprit de corps, so far as in any way assisting his official inferiors, w^as wholly lack- ing in Colonel Maberly's composition. I recollect mentioning, j^arenthetically, to him once that I had been up nearly all the night in connection with some of the clerks' -in-waiting duties. " Well, my Sympa- good fellow, you'rc paid for it !" was his sympathetic Colonel remark. Thus the Colonel, having just arrived at " ^^^* eleven o'clock, munching his breakfast in easy com- fort — the Colonel with his 1500/. a }'ear salary, his EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. 125 half-pay, liis Irish rents and private fortune — to me, th'ed out, blind with want of sleep, and passing rich on a hundred and forty pounds a year ! Just about this time — i.e. soon after I reached the Nearly lost to "assistant" class — the Postmaster-General of Malta England ! died or resigned, and the appointment being in the gift of our Postmaster-General, with a salary of 500^. a year, at that time, to me, an mcome beyond the dreams of avarice, I applied for it. Colonel Maberly good-naturedly agreed to recommend me for the vacant berth, which I believe I should have obtained, when news came that our last petition for a revision of salaries had been favourably received, and that a Treasury commission would be appointed to inquire into our grievances. This news materially altered my plans. T had already doul)ted the wisdom of my course in ex- changing the delights of London life, even in poverty, for such an existence as Malta could offer, and I determined to hang on and hope for better times. I accordingly waited on the Colonel, and told him I wished to withdraw my application. "What for?" " Because, sir, I hear there is a chance of improve- ment here. They say that we are to have a Com- The Com- mission of mission of Inquiry." "A commission!" he cried Muivy. testily. " ^ly good fellow, do you know what a com- mission is? A commission is an official machine for cutting down salaries!" However, to my own sub- 126 EARLY DAYS IN THE POST OFFICE. sequent delight, I persisted, my application was Avith- drawn, and another appointment made to Malta. The commission, consisting of Sir StaiFord Northcote, Lord Elcho (now Earl Wemyss), and a Treasury official, commenced their labours, which extended over many months, with results startling to us. We got a very much improved scale of pay; what was called, m delightful officialese, "the double Secretariat" was abolished ; Colonel Maberly was made an extra Com- missioner of Audit, with his existing salary ; and Rowland Hill was appomted sole Secretary to the Post Office. CHAPTER IV. THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 1847—1852. ^ At the time of my joming the Post Office service my mother was living, as she had been for some years previously, at No. 12 Alpha Road, a thorouglifhre in the wliich, with its extension of Church Street, connects uoit. that portion of the Regent's Park lying between Clarence and Hanover Gates with the Edo-ware Road. I am afraid from what I see that of late years it has somewhat deteriorated, but in those days it was a very pretty place. The houses had large gardens, and the respectability of the locality was unimpeachable, my kind old friend, Mr. Thomas Harrison, Commissioner of Inland Revenue, and the family of the late Mr. Serjeant Bompas being our immediate neighbours. Our house was a cosy and comfortable one, and had nearly an acre of garden, Avhich I need scarcely say has now been built over, but wliich then, despite the London " smuts," produced a fair crop of flowers, and was always green and pleasant to look upon. The one drawback, so far as I was concerned, was the distance 128 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. from the centre of London and from all places of amusement. There was a o-ood omnibus service to the Post Office, and the ride in the early morning was pleasant enough; but returning home from some festivity late at night, I constantly wished Fate had caused my mother to pitch her tent in some less remote district. For I began to dine out, to go into societ}', and generally to enjoy myself, almost imme- diately after my return to the maternal nest, greatly to my mother's amazement, and a little, I fear, to her sorrow, though she Avas certainly proud of the Avay in Avhich I was " taken up." The nine or ten months' absence had done wonders. I left her a gauche schoolboy ; I returned a young man, not encumbered with an excess of bashfulness, with plenty to say for myself, and with a strong deter- mination to get on in the world. Mr. One of the earliest and most efficient promoters Edmund Byng. of this dcsirc on my part was my godfather, the Hon. Edmund Byng, of whom I have already made casual mention, then nearly seventy, a bachelor, living at No. 10 Clarges Street, and one of the most eccentric of human beings. He w^as a very handsome and particularly distinguished - looking old gentleman, wdth fresh complexion and well-cut features, but suffering greatly from an affection ot the eyes, which compelled the wearing of coloured glasses. Until very late in life he never wore THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 129 a ofreat-coat, but was always dressed in a dark- blue tail-coat with plain flat gold buttons, brown trousers rather tight, brown gaiters, and shoes. His hat was always a very bad one, and he was never ■seen in, the street without a large gingham umbrella, which he carried horizontallv tucked under his arm, and which was always coming into violent contact with animate and inanimate objects. His friends used to say that his defective eyesight never precluded his recognising the difference between a pretty and an ugly woman, and his great predilection for beauty, which had lieen a feature in his youth, was one of the few disagreeable characteristics of his old age. He was very clever, Avell read — his knowledge of Shake- speare was extraordinary — a confirmed cynic, with, as is so often the case, a great deal of practical benevolence, but full of that bitter satirical humour which is so captivating to youth, and in which, wholly unchecked and outspoken as it was in my old friend, I used to revel. He was known to all sorts and conditions of men, and deli fj^h ted in o-atheriuo- those most likely to be diametrically opposed in their views at his table, and egging them on to argument, which, on occasion, would wax toleral)ly warm. He had been in liis youth very fond of the theatre, and his was one of tlie very few houses in those days where actors were invited. The old gentleman took a great fancy to me, for mW"^ VOL. I. K 130 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. invited me two or three times a week to his table, where he always placed me ojDposite to him — a rather trying position for a lad of seventeen, where the guests were nearly all distinguished men — and was always pleased if, after leaving my office, I would call for him, and give him my arm for a tour of visits or card-leaving. He was a somewhat trying com- panion on such occasions, for his outspokenness and irritability were excessive. I recollect takmg him one day to the door of a very great house, and knocking. " Her Grace at home?" asked Mr. Byng. " Her Grace has gone to Chiswdck, sir," replied the hall-porter. " What the devil do 3'ou mean, sir," burst out the old gentleman, " b}^ telling me your mistress's move- ments ! I don't want to know them I I asked if she w^ere at home, and all I wanted was a plain answer to that question." Then, w^ith a thump of his umbrella on the doorstep, he pulled me aw^ay, and we left the man gazing after us, petrified with amazement. His ' The dinners in Clarges Street were very plain and dinners. _ ."^ , simple, but very good in their way. Potatoes of ex- traordinary size and excellence were always served in their "jackets " and in a huge wooden bowl ; f)oi't and sherry were the only whines ; and most of the decanters had their necks filed, the "lip" having been knocked off. The guests varied, but among the most regular were Lord John Fitzroy, a very high-bred looking old gentleman, a great wdiist-jDlayer, and reminding THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 131 one altogether of a Tliackerajan creation; the late Lord Torrington; John AYoodford, of the F.O.; Dr. Dickson, author of Fallacies of the Faculty; Mr. Loaden, a smart solicitor in large practice ; my colleague, George Harrison; another colleague, Haughton Forrest, a connection of the host ; the Hon. and Rev. Fitzroy Stanhope; and John Cooper, the actor. The Earl of Scarborough, Lord Gardner ; Horace Pitt, afterwards Lord Kivers ; Sir William de Bathe ; Mr. Xorton, the police magistrate ; " Billy " Bennett, actor, and father of Miss Julia Bennett; Planche, Charles Dance, and Robert Keeley came occasionally. There, too, I met for the first time the Hon. "Jim" Mac- " Jim " Macdonald. He arrived, I remember, after donaid we were all seated at table, and this, I suppose, annoyed the old gentleman; for when Colonel ]\Iac- donald, as he was then, in his airy manner, said, " How d'ye do, Byng? sorry I'm late!" and proffered his hand, our host said, "Sit down, sir! I never shake hot hands ! get on with your dinner." Colonel ]\Iacdonald smiled and took his seat ; but later on, ^h\ Byng asking liim if he liked the particular dish he was eating, he said it was " very good.'' " God bless my soul, sir," cried Byng, " what do you mean by tliat ? Of course it's good, sir ; everything that comes to this tuljle is good. What I asked you was whether you liked it!" 132 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. Mr. Byng was also always very much "down" John upon John Cooper, a tragedian of the old school, Cooper. . T T n /^ jDompous, solemn, pretentious, and dull. Cooper was a bit of a miser, and Byng was always de- lighted when the exercise of this niggardly spirit brought the actor to grief. On one occasion, a close summer's evening, when Cooper was expected to dinner, a violent rain-storm came on, and Mr. Byng confided to me his joy that Cooper, who lived in St. James's Place and generally walked across, would be compelled to take a cab. Presently a cab stopped at the door, and Cooper's sonorous voice was heard from the mside, bidding the cabman to knock at the door. " Not I," said the driver, calmly remaining on his cabman's box. "What do you mean?" asked Cooper; "I have paid you your fare already." " Fare!'' growled the man, still enthroned; "you give me a shillin' when you got in: that was for drivin' of you, not for knockin'; get out and knock yourself!" And the man remaining obdurate, Cooper had to get out in the pouring rain and knock at the door, which the servant, acting under his delighted master's instructions, did not hurry himself to open. The The most reg-ular habitue of Claro-es Street, how- Baron. ^ . ever, was a very old German gentleman, a certain Baron de — really, I suppose, von — Feihtzer, a bent, shrunken, wizened old fellow, over eighty years of age, who THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 133 had, according to the generally received legend, been a page to Frederick the Great, but who M^as only known to us as Mr. Byng's principal butt and toady. Notwithstanding his age, he had an enormous appe- tite, which he used to indulge without stint, his host observing him from time to time, and keeping up a running commentary on his proceedings, which was intended to be sotto I'oce, but which w^as distinctly audible round the delighted table. " Look at him, filling his baronial stomach ! God bless my soul, w^as there ever seen anything like it ! why, he eats more at one meal than I do in a month ! Look at him putting it away !" And the olDJect of his remarks, who knew perfectly what was going on, would look slyly up from his plate, and, without discontinuing operations, chuckle and say, " Ja, der Byng ! der is fonny man!" and take no further heed. The Baron lived in lodgings over a celebrated baker's in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden — the shop is still there — and from tune to time we, who, I suppose, must have been considered our patron's henchmen, were expected, after a heavy dinner in Charges Street, to go off with Mr. l^yng in a body to the J>aron's lodgings in Covent Garden, where a large and thoroughly P)ritish supper of oysters, lobsters, and cold beef was awaiting us, which we were expected to eat. In deference to Mr. Byng's wishes, we used to struggle hard to swallow something, Ijut he always declared that as soon as 134 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. we were gone the old Baron would set to and clear the hoard. I owed a great deal to the kindness of my eccentric old godfather, at whose house and through whom I made many useful acquaintances at that time. He did not go to Court, owing to some slight in connection with a dispute in which his intimate friend, Sir John Conroy, was involved, and it was always understood that he had had the temerity to refuse a Royal invitation, A\^hich is, of course, a Royal command; but he was remembered by many great ladies, and through one of them, a patroness Aimack's. of Almack's, he obtained for me a card for one of the last balls of that expiring institution of exclusiveness, which was then held in Willis's Rooms. I did not know more than two people in the place, and passed a miserably dull evening; but I was accounted re- markably lucky to have obtained such an entree^ and rather fancied myself accordingly. Edmund Byng, who must not be confounded with his brother Frederick, well known as "Poodle" Byng, with whom he had little in common, died at an advanced age in 1854 or 'hb. I went occasionally to dinner-parties and frequently to balls in my early days, when the deux-temjys valse had just been imported into England, and we used to dance it to the inspiriting strains of Jullien's or Weippert's band; but I am afraid my real amuse- THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 135 inents were of a less sober and more Bohemian character. Dancing was just then commencim^ to be Dancing diversions recognised in England as a national pursuit. The j)ubhc balls of former days had been confined to the dreary^ "assemblies" of provincial towns, and in London there was nothing of the kind in winter ; while in summer, Yauxhall, the ancient and grievously overrated, and Cremorne Gardens, the creation of which as a place of amusement out of the old finely timbered pleasaunce I can well remember, were our al fresco resorts. But in the year 184G, while I was in Germany, I had information from friends that one Emile Laurent, a Frenchman, had taken the old Adelaide Gallery, converted it into a paradise, and called it the Casino. The Adelaide Gallery, which was situated at The the northern, or St. ^lartin's Church, end of the Gallery. Lowther Arcade (where as a child I used to eat buns at Miss Ehrhardt the confectioner's, and buy toys of John l>inge, who combined toy-selling in the daytime with theatrical singing at niglit, and who was called " The Sin^^inii; Mouse," owini>' to the smallness of his sweet tenor voice), was started as a science " show." Its principal attractions were Perkins's steam-"^un, which discliarrighton — coming to the Ilolborn establishment full of plea- surable anticipation; and I remember, as soon as I had seen and — well, smelt the Avater into which I proposed plunging, putting on my jacket again, and sacrificing the shilling which I had paid for my bath. 138 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. Later, the dirty water was drained oif, the shabby dressing-boxes done away with, the bath covered with a flooring of springy boards, and the whole place painted and renovated, and an excellent band, under the direction of a Mr. Parker (who maintained his position for years), engaged. There, too, as principal master of the ceremonies, was a curious old fellow called Gourriet, who, Avith Signor Yenafra — who used to spend his days at Davis's, the tobacconist's in the Quadrant — had for years been one of the leading hallerinos at Her Majesty's Theatre, and whose rapt enthusiasm in beating time to the music, or panto- mimic extravagance in soothing any little dispute, was equally delicious. The Holborn Casmo was a much quieter place of resort than its rival, and was frequented by a different class: there was some element of respectability among its female visitors, while among the men the genus " swell," which pre- dominated at the other place, was here almost entirely absent, the ordinary attendants being young fellows from the neighbourmg Inns of Court, medical stu- dents, Government clerks, with a sprinkling of the shopocracy. There were one or two other and superior Mott'saud ^ Weippert's templcs of Tcrpsicliore — the Portland Rooms, gene- ' rally known as " Mott's," from the proprietary, Mr. and Mrs. Mott, who had some connection with the ballet department of the Opera, and where, in THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH, 139 consequence, one generally found some pretty mem." bers of the corps among the dancers. The rooms were in what was then called Foley Place — a broad thoroughfare opposite the chapel in Great Portland Street— :the admission-fee was half-a-crown, and there was a foir five-shilling supper, served in an oddly- shaped low-ceilinged room like the cabin of a sliij). To shout "Pol-kar!" after the manner of Mr. Frere, the M.C. of the Portland Rooms, was in those days a very humorous performance. More aristocratic, but nothing like so jDopular, was " AVeii3pert's," a weekly reunion held at the Princess's Concert-rooms, at the back of the Princess's Theatre, where dancing was carried on from late till early hours, to the music of Weippert's at that time celebrated band. Travelling by the South- Western Railway, I often vauxhaii look out, in passing the Vauxhaii Station, at a large ^^^''^''"''• square brick house, the sole landmark of the famous Yauxhall Gardens, long since covered with houses. This individual house was the residence of Mr. War- dell, the lessee of the Gardens, and the square space in front of it used to be filled all night with cabs waiting for hire. The palmy days of Vauxhaii were, of course, long before my time, when Simpson, the renowned master of the ceremonies, flourished, and Jos Sedley got drunk on rack -punch, and large parties of the highest aristocracy visited the place, and supped in the queer little arbours and sup2)er- I40 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. boxes with which it was dotted. The arl30urs and supper-boxes were there in my time, and facing the pay-place was a great sticking-plaster transparency of Simpson executing his celebrated bow, and with the words, " Welcome to the Royal Property !" in a ribbon surrounding his head ; but the aristocracy had deserted it, and no wonder. Amuse- ^^ ^"^^ ^ ^^^^J gli^stly placc : of actual garden there? there was no sign; long covered arcades, gravel- strewn and lit with little coloured oil-lamps ; an open-air orchestra, the front covered with a huge shell-shaped sounding-board, under which thev^inger stood ; a few plaster statues dotted here and there ; a hermit in a false beard, dwelling in a " property " cave, who told fortunes; a built-up scene in "pro- file '' on the firework ground, representing some- times Vesuvius, sometimes a town to be bombarded (the " Siege of Acre " was, I recollect, popular at one time), but always utilised for firework pur- poses. One year it was, I recollect, the Piazza of St. Mark at Venice ; and an acrobat, calling himself Joel II Diavolo, made a " terrific descent " from the top of the Campanile, coming head-first down a wire surrounded by blazing fireworks, and with squibs and crackers in his cap and heels. In our uncertain climate an open-air place of entertainment must always be a doubtful speculation, and vast sums of money were lost in Vauxhall, though Mr. Gye, afterwards THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 141 impresario of the Royal Italian Opera, was said to have made it pay. The liveliest time of the Gardens in my recollection was when its chief attraction was a circus, with Madame Caroline, who first introduced into England the ordinary habit-and-hat riding now so popular as the liaute ecole, and Auriol, the prince of French clowns, whose merry self-satisfied cry of "Houp-la!" is a household word in ring-matters to the present day. But certainly during my recollection Yauxhall Gardens was never a popular place of recreation. The charo^e for admission was hio-h — seldom less Too dear, than lialf-a- crown — and the journey there was long, difficult, and exj^ensive ; for, to add to the cab-fare, which was large, there was the bridge-toll and a turnpike — together ninepence. The refresh- ments partaken of by the "quality" — the skinny fowls, transparent ham, oleaginous salad, the cham- pagne and rack-punch — were, of course, also enor- mously dear; but there was a sly spot at the l)ack of the orchestra, where were dispensed to the knowing ones huge healthy sandwiches and foaming stout served in earthenware tankards, the pleasant memory of Avhicli abides by me yet. It may therefore be readily imagined that the impecunious youth of the period, among wliom I was numbered, were much more in favour of Cremorne, which was opened as a public garden just about this time, and which, in 142 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. comparison with Yauxhall, at least was cheap and cheery. Cremorne. The gardens were large and well laid out ; some, of the grand old trees had been left standing, and afforded pleasant relief to the town eyes • which had been starmg all day at brick and stucco, while their murmuring rustle was pleasant to the ears aching with the echo of city traffic. There were plenty of amusements — a circular dancing platform, with a capital band in a large kiosk in the middle; a lot oi jenx innocens^ such as you find at a French fair; once a week a balloon ascent, and a very good firework display. The admission-fee was one shilling; there was a hot dinner for half-a-crown, a cold supper for. the same money ; and it was not considered necessary, as at Vauxhall, to go in for expense; on the contrary, beer flowed freely: and it was about this time, I think, and at Cremorne, that the insidi- ous "long"' drinks — soda and "something" — now so 2)opular, first made their appearance. Occasionally there were big banquets organised by certain "swells," and held there, when there would be heavy drinking, and sometimes a row — on Derby night, once, when there was a free fight, which lasted for hours, involv- ing the complete smash of everything smashable ; and I mind me of another occasion, when a o-io-antic Irishman, now a popular M.P., sent scores of waiters flying by the force of his own unaided fists. But, on THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 143 the whole, the place was well and quietly conducted, and five minutes after the bell for closing rang — just before midnio-ht — the o-ardens were deserted. There was a general rush for the omnibuses and cabs, which were in^ great demand, and for one or two seasons there wae a steamboat which left the adjacent Cadogan pier at the close of the entertainment, and carried passengers to Hungerford Bridge, and which was very popular. I have mentioned the Adelaide Gallery and the Polytechnic Institution, and there were many other exhibition-places eminently respectable and popular in my youthful days, which have since been done away with, and the very names of which are now scarcely heard. Foremost of these was the Coliseum, r^^^ on the east side of the Regent's Park, covering the space ^ '•''^"'"■ now occupied, I should say, by Cambridge Gate to the front and Coliseum Terrace to the rear — an enor- mous polygon, a hundred and twenty-six feet in diameter, and over a hundred feet high, built from the designs of Decimus Burton, whose best-known work nowadays is the Marble Arch. The industrious John Timbs, in his Curiosities of London^ tells us that the Coliseum — or Colosseum, as he spells it — was so called from its colossal size, and not from any supposed resemblance to its namesake in Rome. T>ut this spoils the story of the not too cultured cornet in the Blues, who from Rome wrote to his 144 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. friend, "I see they've got a Coliseum here, too; but it is not in such good repair as that one near our Albany Street Barracks." I remember it well— my father, in partnership with John lU-aham, once owned it, to his sorrow — with its wonderful panoramas of London by day and London by night, best things of the kind until eclipsed by the " Siege of Paris " in the Champs Ely sees; its glyptotheca, full of plaster casts ; its Swiss chalet, with a real waterfall, and a melancholy old eagle flopping about its " property " rocks ; its stalactite cavern, prepared by Bradwell and Telliin; and its sham ruins near the desolate portico.* In a small dark tank in the interior of the building I once skated on some artificial ice; and there was a lecture- theatre, in which I found myself, just before the final doom of tlie establishment (I had come in for shelter from a rain-storm), one of an A small audience of three listening to an entertainment given by a little gentleman, who was nothing daunted by the paucity of his appreciators, and who sang and danced away as if we had been three thousand. This plucky neophyte, then very young, has since deve- loped into that excellent actor, j\Ir. Edward Righton. To the Coliseum, some years before its final fall, * The gallery from which the vast panoramas of London were inspected was reached by a spiral staircase, and also by the "ascending room," the precursor of the "lifts," "elevators," and " ascenseurs," now to be found in every European and American hotel. ' audience. THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 145 was added the Cyclorama — an extraordinarily real- The istic representation of the earthquake of Lisbon. The rama. manner in which the earth heaved and was rent, the buildings toppled over, and the sea rose, was most cleverly contrived, and had a most terrifying effect upon the spectators ; frightful rumblings, proceeding apparently from under your feet, increased the horror, which was anythmg but diminished by accompany- ing musical performances on that awful instrument, the apollonicon. Never was better value in fright given for money. The Diorama, on the east side of The Diorama. Park Square, Regent's Park (a chapel now stands on its site), was memorable from the fact that the room in which the spectator of the picture sat was made to revolve at intervals, so that the two scenes of which the exhibition consisted were brous^ht into view with- out persons quitting their seats. But far the best of all these panoramic shows was the series exhibited at the Old Gallery of Illustration in Waterloo Place, called "The Over- "The -P, „ '11 • • Overland land Route, and representnig all the principal Route." places between Southampton and Calcutta. This was the work of those admirable scene - painters, Thomas Grieve and William Telbin, and was executed in their painting-rooms in Charles Street, Drury Lane, a notorious thieves' quarter. The human figures were by Absolon, the animals by Herring and Harrison Weir. Such a combination of excellence had never VOL. I. L 146 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. been seen, and a clear, concise, and most pleasantly delivered descriptive comment on the passing scene by Mr. Stocqueler, an author and journalist of the day, enhanced the success, which was tremendous. In those days, too, there was always to be found on Burford's the north side of Leicester Square a clever panorama ramas, of somc beautiful European scenery, painted, or at least owned, by a gentleman named Burford, of whom it w^as said that he could never be an orphan, as he was never without a pa-nor-a-ma. Also among daylight and respectable places of amusement of my youth were the Chinese Exhiljition at the St. George's Gallery, Hyde Park, on the site where the "tap" of the Alexandra Hotel now is — an extraordinary collec- tion of the details of Chinese life, with some admirable wax figures representing the different ranks and classes (a diorama of the Holy Land, a visit to which had a great effect on my life, as will be subsequently shown, was afterwards exhibited here), and the Chinese „, j^^iik; "^ veritable Chinese vessel, manned by a Chinese ^^T*^^^ crew, " without," as Dickens said, " a profile amongst the lot," which sailed from Hono-'Kono; and anchored in the Thames off gloomy Babylon. One of the petty officers of this junk, presenting hmiself at the ceremonial of the opening of the Great Exhibition in '51, with pigtail and national costume, and being mistaken for a grandee, was received with the greatest honour, and had one of the best places in the show. THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 147 Walking in the Park and perambulating the leading AYest End thoroughfares was a cheap and never-failing source of amusement to me in my youth. I soon learned to recomiise the celebrities Ceiebri- ° ties in the of the 'day of all kinds, and I generally had as ^'ark. companion some one who had served as a flaneur much longer than myself, and who enabled me to add to my list of acquaintance by sight. In those days the fashionable drive and promenade were along the north side of the Serpentine — just previously they had been from the Marble Arch to Apsley Plouse — and there were as many carriages on Sundays as on any other day — perhaps more. I can well remember Lady j .^^j Blessington, a fair, fat, middle-aged woman, in a big ton!'^'"^" heavy swino^ino; chariot, c:listeninof — the chariot, not her ladyship — with varnish, and profusely emblazoned with heraldry, and with two enormous footmen, cane- carrying, powder-headed, and silk-stockinged, hanging on behind.* One of the Misses Power, her nieces, and remarkably pretty girls, generally accompanied her ladyship. * The late John Heneage Jesse, " Jack Jesse " to his inti- mates, the well-known author, had an aversion, amounting to a positive 'phobia, for the British Jeames. He has been known to stand in St. James's Street on a Drawing-room day, at the edge of the kerb, and with the end of his stick, which he dipped into the road-puddle, daub the immaculate stockings of the passing flunkeys, who, as he well knew, dare not move from their stations, accompanying the act with much oppro- brious language. 148 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. There, in a hooded cabriolet, the fashionable vehicle for men -about -town, with an enormous- champing horse, and the trimmest of tiny grooms — " tigers," as they were called — half standing on the footboard behind, half swinging in the air, DOrsay. clinging on to the straps, would be Count d'Orsay, with clear-cut features and raven hair, the king of the dandies, the cynosure of all eyes, the greatest " swell " of the day. He was an admirable whip — he is re- ported on one occasion, by infinite spirit and dash, to have cut the wheel off a brcAver's dray which was bearing down upon his light carriage, and to have spoken of it afterwards as " the triumph of mind over matter '' — and always drove in faultless white kid gloves, with his shirt- wristbands turned back over his coat-cuifs, and his whole " turn-out" was perfection. By Louis his side was occasionally seen Prince Louis Kapoleon, an exile too, after his escape from Ham, residing in lodgings in King Street, St. James's — he pointed out the house to the Empress Eugenie when, as Emperor of the French, on his visit to Queen Victoria, he drove by it. He was a constant visitor of Lady Blessington's at Gore House. Albert Smith, in later years, used to say he wondered whether, if he called at the Tuileries, the Emperor would pay him " that eighteenpence,'^ the sum which one night at Gore House he borrowed from A. S. to pay a cabman. There were no photographs in the shop-windows THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 149 in those clays, but the lithographed likenesses of beauties appearing in Albums and Keepsakes, and dear to Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling, enabled us to recoo-nise some of the ladies we saw in their carriages or oj^era-boxes. The Duchess of Suther- Beauties land, ]\Iistress of the Robes to the Queen, was then in the fidl splendour of her matronly beauty ; the Duchess of AYellington, Lady Constance Leveson- Gower, afterwards Duchess of Westminster, Lady Clementina Villiers, and her sister Ladv Adela Ibbet- son. Lady Otway, Mrs. Norton, Lady Dufferin, Lady Pollington, Lady DufF-Gordon, were amongst the best known and the most renowned. There were handsome men in those days : Horace Pitt, afterwards beaux. Lord Rivers ; Cecil Forester, now Lord Forester ; Manners Sutton, afterwards Lord Canterbury ; Lincoln Stanhope ; a knot of guardsmen — Henry de Bathe, Charles vSeymour, Cuthbert Ellison, " Jeny " Mey- rick, " Hippy " Damer, Henry Otway, Henry Collingwood Ibl)etson, and his brother Captain Charles. Amon"; the Park riders — a reiiimental band played twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, in Kensington Gardens, close by the Magazine, where the people promenaded, and the equestrians formed in a lonj^ line, with their horses' heads facino- the sunken wall — I rememljcr Lord Cantilupe, a tremendous paik swell, always lounging about and half- reclining on his horse's back, as he was inimitably portrayed by Doyle; 150 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. Matthew Higgins, "Jacob Omnium,'' an enormous man, gray-whiskered, stern-featured, but with soft eyes, rid- ing an enormous horse ; Lord Palmerston; the Duke of Wellington, acknowledging all salutations with his lifted forefinger, and closely attended by his groom ; Dr. Billing, on an old white nag ; Frank Grant, afterwards P.R.A.; Lord Cardigan, very stiff in the saddle ; Lord Lucan, looking pretty much as he does now ; Sir Bel- lingham Graham, a mighty hunter; and Jim Mason, the steeplechase-rider, whose seat and hands surely have never been surpassed. Coaching was at its lowest ebb just then, and though I suppose the Four-in-Hand Club actually existed, I have only a remembrance of one "drag" which went about London, driven by a common- looking man, of whom the legend ran that he had been a butcher, and had money left him by his wife on condition of drivmg so many miles daily. But there were plenty of vehicular notabilities in the Park : the Hon. and Rev. Fitzroy Stanhope, whips. easiest and most courteous of divines, m the four- ' wheeled trap called after his name ; Lord Clanri- carde, in a hooded phaeton with one horse, but that one a wonder; Lord Huntingtower, in a great banging, rattling mail-phaeton; Mr. Tod-Heatley, in the first private hansom cab ever seen in London. Gigs are now relegated to country doctors' use. Tilburys, with a spring behind ; britskas, with a back Park THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 151 seat called a "rumble "for servants; chariots, with cane-bearing footmen, have all disappeared ; and broughams, dog-carts, T-carts, and victorias have come in their place. In those days smoking in the street was an unpardonable solecism ; a lady driving a ponywould have been considered to have unsexed herself, while the man seated by her side and passively allowing her to drive would have been voted a milk- sop and a molly. Sir George "Womb well and Lord Adolphus Fitz- ^q^'JIJ.^/^^ clarence were social celebrities of those times : the ^<^^^^^^' Damon and Pythias of clubland, they were scarcely ever seen apart. Constant companionship seemed to have made them alike — two red-faced, cheery, kindly, bell-hatted, frock-coated, wide-trousered old boys. A stroll in Parliament Street in the after- noon would always produce its crop of political celebrities : Sir Robert Peel, a demure-looking man, in a white waistcoat ; Lord John Russell, very small, with too much hat and an unpleasant curl of the lip ; Lord Elphinstone, very good-looking; Mr. Cobden, very common-looking ; the Marquis of Lansdowne, a venerable personage; Mr. A. PL Layard, then just becoming known as the discoverer of Nineveh ; a wild- eyed, thin, gesticulating creature, Chisholm Anstey, who impeached Lord Palmerston; and the eccentric Colonel Sibthorp. These were prominent persons whom 1 remember; but the introduction of })hoto- 152 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. grapliy and the publication of portraits and caricatures by the ilhistrated journals have given notoriety to a vast number of persons who thirty years ago would have remained unknown. Eating. Few places are more changed, and changed for the better, in the period of my memory, than the dining- rooms and restaurants of London. In the days of my early youth there was, I suppose, scarcely a capital city in Europe so badly provided with eating- houses as ours ; not numerically, for there were plenty of them, but the quality was all round bad. And this was not for lack of custom, or of customers of an appreciative kind; for, as I shall have occasion to point out, there were comparatively few clubs at that time, and those wdiich were in existence had not nearly so many members, nor were nearly so much frequented, for dining purposes at least, as they now are. There was not, it is true, in any class so much money to spend as there is now: young men who to-day sit down to soup, fish, entrees — then called " made dishes " — a roast, a bird, a sweet, a savoury, and a l^ottle of claret, would then have been content with a slice off the joint, a bit of cheese, and a pint of beer ; but everything was fifty per cent cheaper in those times, and there was an ample profit on what was supplied. The improvement, as I shall show, came in suddenly. There were no Spiers & Pond, and THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 153 of course none of the excellent establishments owned by them; no St. James's Hall, Cafe Royal, Monico's, Gatti's, Bristol or Continental restaurants, scarcely one of the now fashionable dining-houses. Verrey's was in existence, to be sure, but it was regarded as a " Frenchified " place, and was very little patronised by the young men of the day, though it had a good foreign connection. Dubourg's, in the Haymarket, opposite the theatre, was in the same category, though more patronised for suppers. The Cafe de 1' Europe, next door to the Haymarket Theatre, originally started by Henry Hemming, who had been ieune 'premier at the Adelphi, was, not- withstanding its foreign name, a purely English house, as far as its cooking was concerned. All these places, however, were far beyond the means of me and my friends. If we wanted foreign fare fe*J[^If" — and truth to tell, in those days of youth and health, "'^^^" and vast appetite and little money, we were not much given to it — we would go to Rouget's in Castle Street, Leicester Square; or to Giraudier's in the Haymarket; or, best of all, to Berthollini's in St. Martin's l*lace, I think it was called — a narrow thor(jughfare at the back of Pall Mall ]*]ast. A wonderful man Berthollini : a tall thin Italian in a I'erthoi- liui's. black wig — there was a current report that many of the dishes were made out of his old wigs and boots; but this was only the perversion by the ribalds of the " Slap- bnnss.' 154 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. statement of his supporters, that the flavouring was so excellent that the basis of the dish was immaterial — who superintended everything himself and was ubiquitous ; now flying to the kitchen, now uncork- ing the wine, now pointing with his long skinny fore- finger to specially lovely pieces in the dish. There was a story that some rash man once asked to be allowed to inspect the kitchen, and that Berthollini had a fit in consequence. I have no doubt that the culinary preparations were mysterious; but they were well flavoured, highly seasoned, and mucli relished by us. They, and the pint of Chablis or claret — all red wine which was not port was claret in those days — were a pleasant change from the eternal joint, the never-to-be-avoided chop or steak, to which the tavern-diner was then condemned. The " Slap-bang" — so called from the rate at which its meal was devoured, or from the easy manners of those who served it — Avas, in truth, not a very appetising place : it is admirably described in Bleak House, where Mr. Guppy entertains the hungry Jobling and the pre- ternaturally-knowing Smallweed. At " Slap-bangs " napkins were unknown; the forks were steel-pronged, the spoons battered and worn, the tablecloths ring- stained with pewter pots and blotched with old gravy and bygone mustard. The room was partitioned off into " boxes," w^ith hard and narrow seats, and a nar- row slip of tress el- table between them : attendance was THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 155 given sometimes by females, fat and bouncing, like the "Polly" of Mr. Guppy's banquet; or dirty and slatternly; or by men in the shiniest and greasiest of black suits. I used frequently to dine at Izant's in Bucklersbury, where indeed everything Avas well done, mainly for the pleasure of being quit of these wretches, and being waited on by men dressed in whole- some clean linen blouses. In the City, Tom's, Joe's, and Baker's ; Dolly's city Chop-house, the Daniel Lambert on Ludgate Hill, the Cheshire Cheese, the Cock, the Rainbow, Dick's, Anderton's — all in Fleet Street — the Mitre in Fetter Lane, the Southampton in Southampton Buildings, Eudkin's Salutation Tavern in N^ewgate Street, and a house in Brownlow Street, Holborn, Avhere wonder- ful Burton ale was on draught, were much fre- quented. More westerlv places were Short's, the well-known West End '' ^ restaiir- wine-shop in the Strand, where at that time dinners were '"^i^ts. served in the uj)per rooms ; its neighbour, the Edin- burgh Castle; Campbell's Scotch Stores in Duke Street, Regent Street, where Mr. ]>lanchard, the founder of the celebrated Restaurant Bkxnchard, learned liis busi- ness ; Sinclair's Scotch Stores in Oxford Circus ; and the American Stores near the Princess's Theatre: there were also some "Shades" under avIi at is now the Empire Theatre, and what I have known vari- ously as Miss Linwood's needlework exhibition, the 156 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. Walhalla for poses plastiques, Saville House for athletic shows, &c. &c. In these underground "Shades" a fair dinner at eighteenpence a head could be had in cleanliness and quiet; and Albert and Arthur Smith and I used frequently to dine there while the Mont Blanc entertainment was in embryo, and discuss its chances of success. I well remember the excitement with which we young fellows about town received the rumour that a dining-place would shortly be opened where things would be done as at the clubs, and the eagerness with which we tested its truth. This, which was the pioneer of improvement, was the Grand Divan Re- A reveia- staurant, or, as it was better known, " Simpson's," in the Strand. The name of Simpson was at that time a power in the hotel and restaurant world. There were two brothers, one of whom had the well-known fish ordinary at Billingsgate — a tremendous repast for eighteenpence, where the water stood on the table in old hock bottles, where everything was of the best, and where, after the cloth had been removed, there was much smoking of long pipes and drinkino- of otoo's. The other brother at that time owned the Albion, opposite Drury Lane Theatre, princijjally in vogue as a supper-house ; and was afterwards the lessee of Cremorne Gardens. Rumour, for once, liad not exaggerated ; the whole thing was a revolution and a revelation. Large tables and com- THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 157 fortable chairs in place of the boxes and benches ; " simp- sou's." abundance of clean linen tablecloths and napkins; plated forks and spoons; electro-plated tankards instead of pewter pots; finger-giasses ; the joint wheeled to vour side, and carved by a beino- in white c'ap and jacket; a choice of cheeses, pulled bread, and a properly made-out bill : all these were w^ondrous and acceptable innovations. The edibles and potables w^ere all of first quality ; the rooms w^ere lar^e and well ventilated : the attendants w^ere clean, civil, and quick ; and the superintendence of " Charles " — formerly of the Albion, but who had now blos- somed into !Mr. Daws — was universal. Of course every well-conducted restaurant nowadays is con- ducted on these principles — " all can grow the flower now, for all have got the seed;" but the honour of originating the new^ style belongs to Simpson. A want of a similar establishment at the West End was speedily supplied by the conversion of the fine building in St. James's Street — which, originally Crock- ford's Club, had been utilised as a dancing-shop and a lmitation& picture-exhibition — into the AVellington Restaurant, wliich, carried out on Simpson's model, flourished for a time. The rent, liowever, was so enormous as to swallow up all the profits, and the concern was abandoned. Simpson's also served as the proto- type for a more easterly imitator: Messrs. Sawyer & Strange, great refreshment contractors of that 158 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. day, started the " London dinner " in the upper floors of the house in Fleet Street, the corner of Chancery Lane, and for some time were successful. FUh Fish dinners at Greenwich and Blackwall were, I dinners. , . , . thnik, more in vogue then than they are now ; indeed, the latter place, where Lovegrove's, the Brunswick, and the Artichoke flourished, is quite extinct as a dining- place. It was, I recollect, at Lovegrove's that the directors of the then existing General Screw Steam Shipping Company — of which Mr, J. Lyster O'Beirne was secretary — gave, after the launch of one of their vessels from Itolt & Mare's yard, a great lunch, at which Shirley Brooks was present, and which he utilised for descriptive purposes in the opening chapter of " Miss Violet and her Off'ers," his first con- tribution to Fundi. The only Greenwich house of that day now remaining is the Trafalgar, little altered since it was owned by Mr. Hart, whose rival — Mr. Quartermaine, ^vho established the present Ship — then conducted the Crown and Sceptre, now extinct or very much diminished. Green- Li tliosc days there were two smaller fish-dinner dinners, houscs at Greenwich called, I think, the Yacht and the Ship Torbay. In those days people drove to Greenwich — the rail was comparatively little used by the luxurious — and every summer evening, and especially on a Sunday, there would be a serried phalanx of fifty or sixty horseless carriages, drags, THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 159 barouches, cabriolets, broughams, and hansoms out- side the principal hotels. The laying of the tram- rails on the principal roads put an end to all possibilities of pleasant driving: the charioteers and owners -of private vehicles declined to submit them to tlie ' unavoidable twists and wrenchings ; and the result to the Greenwich tavern-keepers is, it is said, a loss of seven thousand a year. Richmond, as a dining-plaoe, occupied then much the same position as now. The view was always better than the dinner. Richmond '' dinners. The old Star and Garter, since burned down, was a much more modest hostelry than the enormous edifice which stands on its site, and competed for custom with the Castle, recently closed. The Roe- buck and the Talbot were as they now are ; and at Hampton Court, beside the still existent Mitre and Greyhound at either end of the gardens, there was a famous hotel not far from the river called the Toy. Toton's — afterwards AVilcox's — at Mortlake, the Swan at Staines, the Bells of Ouseley, the Cricketers at Chertsey, were well known to the comparatively feAV men who took interest in the river; while beloAV bridge AYaite's Hotel at Gravesend was largely ])atronised by eastward-bound passengers who joined A\\\) there. Those were the days of supper, for at that time a beneficent Legislature had not ordained that, at a certain hour, no matter how soberly we may be i6o THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. enjoying ourselves in a house of public entertain- ment, we were to be turned into the streets. There were many houses which combined a supper Avith a Supper- dinner business ; there were some which only took houses. ' '> down their shutters when ordinary hard-working^ people were going to bed. Among the former were the oyster-shops — Quinn's in the Haymarket ; Scott's, facino; that broad-awake thorouo:hfare : a little house (name forgotten) in Ryder Street — not AVilton, who closed at twelve ; Godwin's, with the celebrated Charlotte as its attendant Hebe, in the Strand near St. Mary's Church. Godwin's was occasionally patron- ised by journalists and senators who lived in the Temple precincts : the beaming face of Morgan John O'Connell was frequently to be seen there; and Douoflas Jerrold would sometimes look in. Charlotte was supposed to be one of the few who had ever silenced the great wit : he had been asking for some time for a glass of brandy-and-water ; and when at length Charlotte placed before him the steaming jorum, she said, " There it is, you troublesome little man ; mind you don't fall into it and drown your- self." Jerrold, who was very sensitive to any remarks upon his small and bent figure, collapsed. Oyster- Other famous oyster-houses of that day, as they houses. /. 1 . x 1 • 1 o 1 T^' 1 are of this, were Lynn s m the htrand, rimm's in the Poultry, and Sweeting's in Chenpside; but they were all closed at night. Restaurants where THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. i6i the presence of ladies at supper was encouraged rather than objected to were the Cafe de 1' Europe, in the large room at the back (the front room, entered immediately from the street, was reserved for gentle- men, and will be mentioned elsewhere), and Dubourg's, already mentioned, the proprietor of which — a fat elderly Frenchman, his portly presence much girt with gold watch-chain — was a constant attendant at the Opera, and was well known to the roues of the day. Then there were the res^ular " nio^ht-houscs," the Night- ^ ^ ^ ^ ' ^ houses. company and the doings at which were, I imagine, equivalent to those at " The Finish," as depicted in the career of Tom and Jerry by George Cruik- shank. There were manv ; but the two best known and most frequented were the Blue Posts and " Bob Croft's." The Blue Posts — not to be confounded with tlie ^'^^ ^"^^^ Posts. well-known tavern of the same name in Cork Street — in the lower portion of the Haymarket, was, I suppose, an ordinary public-house, though it never struck any of its frequenters to regard it in that light. For a vast number of people it was the regular place of adjourn- ment on the closinf]:: of the theatres and the dancinii:- halls. At midnight the passage from the outside door, the large space in front of the bar, the stairs leading to the u})per rooms, the upper rooms them- selves, were closely packed by a dense mass of men and women, through wliich no man but one could V(JL. I. M i62 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. have forced his way. Tliis was a waiter, a great favourite, owing to his imperturbable good-humour, and well known from his peculiar cry of " Mind the sauce, please ! mind the sauce and the gravy !" with which he, heavily laden with supper-trays, Avould steer his way through the throng. The house, taken for what it was, was exceedingly well conducted; and though the conversation might have been more choice and more subdued, any rowdyism was at once put down. This was, in a measure, due to the respect felt by the regular frequenters for the landlord and landlady, an old Scotch couple named Dick, shrewd and busmess-like, but withal kincll}^, quiet, respect- able j)eople, who did many a good turn to some of their customers when out of luck. They lived at Hampstead, going up there in the early morning, coming down into London late at night ; and I often thought of the strange contrast between their daylight existence, among their flowers and birds, in fresh air and perfect quiet, and the thick atmosphere reeking with spirits and tobacco, the roar and din and confusion of the strange company in which their nights were passed. " Bob Croft's '' was a much later house, and one of a Bob ^ different stamj), though he too lived in the daytime in the country, in a pretty cottage at Kingston Hill. He was a burly, red-faced, jolly-looking fellow, in a white waistcoat, not without humour of a very broad kind, THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 163 and famous for much undiluted repartee. When the balloon in wliich Albert Smith and others ascended from Vauxhall came to grief, and Albert was spilt into the road, he was picked up by Croft, who used to narrate the story as a strange meeting of two cele- brated , characters. Bob Croft's daughter married a baronet, and afterwards appeared with fair success on the stage. Although the palmy days of public gambling were over, there were several private, very private, estab- Gambiing- lishments at which the interesting games of roulette and French hazard were nightly played, and where the stakes varied from a five-pound note to a humble half- crown. The Berkeley in Albemarle Street ; and Lyley's ; Morris's in Jermyn Street, over a bootmaker's shop; " Goody " Levy's — the gentleman who came to grief over the Running Rein case — in Panton Street : these and several others flourished at the time, prototypes of " The Little Nick," where readers of Pendennis will remember Sir Francis Clavering wooed fickle i Fortune. The modus operandi was pretty much the same everywhere. You 2:)ulled a bright-knobbed bell, which responded with a single mufiled clang, and the door was opened silently by a speechless man who closed it quickly behind you. Confronting you was another door, generally sheeted with iron covered with green baize : in its centre a small glazed aperture, througli which the visitor, in his temporary quaran- 1 64 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. tine, was closely scrutinised. If the survey was unsatisfactory — if, that is to say, he looked like a spy or a stranger merely prompted by curiosity — he was. bidden to be off, and in case of need he was thrust out by the strong and silent porter. If he were known, or " looked all right," the door was opened, and the visitor passed up richly-carpeted stairs into the first floor. The front room Avas set apart for play : a long table covered with a green cloth, divided by tightly stretched pieces of string into the spaces for the " in '' and the '' out" — the game being hazard — and a few chairs for the players ; the croupiers, each armed with a hooked stick, instead of the usual rake, for the collection of the money, faced each other in the middle of the table; the shutters Avere closed, and thick curtains were drawn. The back room was given up to a substantial supper of cold chickens, joints, salads, &c., which with sherry, brandy, &c., was provided gratis. In the places I have named the play, taken for what it was, was perfectly fair, so that there was no occasion for the presence of sham players, " bonnets,'' as they are called, who act as decoys; the company was mostly composed of men-about-town, the majority of them middle-aged, with occasionally a lawyer, a West End tradesman, and almost invariably a well-known usurer, who came there, however, to play, not to ply his trade. THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 165 Money was lost and won without display of excitement : I never saw anything approaching a ^' scene" in a London gaming-house. The greatest French excitement was once, when about 2 a.m., in the middle of play, after a sharp whistle outside which caused the croupiers at once to cut and clear away the strings dividing the table, and to cover it with a white cloth, swallowing, as some said, the dice — at all events, instantly hiding them — we heard a tremendous crash below, and found the police were breaking down the iron door with sledge-hammers. The scene was very like that so cleverly portrayed in Artful Cards : when the inspector and his men entered, they found a few gentlemen peacefully supping, smoking, and chatting. AYe had to give our names and addresses, but never heard any more of it. The most popular places of resort for such young son"--nnd- men as kept late hours were, however, the sup[)cr-and- taiTm-. singing taverns, which were always respectably con- ducted, though in my early days there was an element of ribaldry in the amusement provided whicli was afterwards sup]:)ressed. The best known of these were the Coal Hole, the Cider Cellars, and Evans's. The Coai The Coal Hole was in a court out of the Strand, near the Cigar Divan, Fountain Court I tliiuk it is called. It has long since been appropriated to other purposes, and is now the Occidtnital Tavern. The landlord was one John Ithodes, a burly fellow with a bass 1 66 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. voice, who sat at the head of the singers' table and joined in the glees, which were sung without instru- mental accompaniment. From my recollection of Rhodes and his room, I imagine that he was Hoskins, the landlord of the Cave of Harmony, where Costigan sang- the outrao:eous sono; which caused Colonel New- come to rate the company. It is certain that " little Nadab, the improvisatore," of whom Thackeray speaks, was a certain Mr. Sloman, who called himself " the only English improvisatore," who used to sing at the Coal Hole, and the outpourmgs of whose im- j)rovisations were remarkably like the specimens, given in The Newcom.es. Only, in my time at least, the singing at the Coal Hole was confined to jDro- fessionals, and no visitor would have been allowed to volunteer a song, as did the Colonel. The celebri- ties of the place were Rhodes himself; a young fellow called Cave — the first, I believe, to introduce to England the American banjo as an accompaniment for the voice ; and a dreadful old creature called Joe AVells, who used to sing most disgusting ditties. The Coal Hole never had the reputation or the position of either of its rivals, and was the first to succumb to the alteration in public taste. The Cider The Cider Cellars, next to the stage -door of Cellars. ^^ Adclplu in Maiden Lane, now converted inta a Jewish synagogue, had deservedly a far wider renown. It was described, under its own name, THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 167 by Albert Smith in the Medical Student and Mr. Ledbury^ and was the prototype of the Back Kit- chen, immortahsed in Pendennis. Thus Thackeray chronicles its company : " Healthy country trades- men and farmers in London for their business came ,and recreated themselves with the jolly singing and suppers of the Back Kitchen; squads The " Back of young apprentices and assistants — the shutters Kitchen." being closed over the scene of their labours — came hither, for fresh air doubtless; rakish young medical students, gallant, dashing, what is called loudly dressed, and, must it be owned ? somewhat dirty, came here, smoking and drinking and vigor- ously applauding the songs ; young University bucks Avere to be found here too, with that indescribable simper which is only learned at the knees of Alma Mater ; and handsome young guardsmen, and florid Imcks from the St. James's Street clubs; nay, senators — English and Irish — and even members of the House of Peers." Thackeray goes on to say that all these sorts and conditions of men asseml^led to hear a bass singer named Hodgen, who had made an immense hit with his song of the " Body-snatcher.'' The singer from whom Hodgen was drawn was a man named Ross, and the song which he sang and which had ross. the enormous success which Thackeray describes was called " Sam Hall," the chant of a murderous chimney- sweep of that name just before his execution. It was 1 68 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. a good bit of realistic acting : the man, made up with a ghastly face, delivered it sitting across a chair, and there was a horrible anathematising refrain. The effect produced was tremendous, and for months and His song months, at the hour when it was known that " Sam of " Sam ' Hall." Hall " would be sung, there was no standing-place in the Cider Cellars. When I first knew the place its landlord was William Rhodes, brother of the Coal Hole proprietor; but he died before the "Sam Hall" mania, and the person who profited by that was his widow, a clever managing woman, who conducted the general business with great success. The entertainment provided was of the same class as at the Coal Hole : in the early daj^s I remember a comic singer named Pennikett, another named Labern ; later on, a man named Moody, who sang well and gave excellent imitations. But of all these places the most celebrated, undoubtedly, in its time, and the most likely to be Evans's, remembered hereafter, was Evans's, at the western corner of the Covent Garden Piazza, under the build- ing which was then an hotel and is now the New Club. This room, as well as the Coal Hole, has figured as the " Cave of Harmony '' in Thackeray's writings ; to it little Grigg conducts Mr. Spec — " So we went through the Piazza, and down the steps of that welhremembered place of conviviality " — in the course of their " night's pleasure," and there they encounter THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 169 Bardolph of Brasenose. " Evans's late Joy's '' was the unmtentionally punning inscription on the lamp when I first knew it; but even then Evans had departed, and the presiding spirit was John, better known as " Paddy," Green — a worthy fellow, who had "Paddy" •;' . Green. been [), chorus-singer at the Adelphi, and whose courtesy and good temper won him vast popularity. For the first few years of my acquaintance with it the concert-room was small and low-pitched, with a bit added on at risfht ano^les at its extreme end. But even then it had a good reputation for music. John Binge the tenor, S. A. Jones the basso, the host himself, were well known as singers ; Herr von Joel — a queer old German, who sang Codling ditties, played tunes on what he called a " vokingshteeck," and gave capital imitations of the birds and beasts of a farmyard — was a great attraction ; while the comic element, as supplied by Sharp and Sam Cowell, was unapj^roach- able elsewhere. Xo man in my recollection, as a broadly comic vocalist, has been such a favourite as was J. AV. Sharp : at Vauxhall and Cremorne in the summer, at public dinners in the winter, and at Evans's always, he was fully employed. But he fell into bad ways, took to drinking, lost his engagements, and was finally found dead from starvation on a country road. Cowell Avas an actor as well as a singer, and had a certain amount of success on the stage. lyo THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. It was in this small room that Bardolph of Brasenose signalled his desire for more drink by whack-whacking with the pewter noggin, and that Thackeray heard the sentimental and the j^iratical ballad which he parodied so deliciously. After a A change time a change took place in the style of enter- bttter? tainment: all ribald songs— and often Evans's had been quite as profane as its rivals — were stopped for ever, and the choruses were sung by trained young lads, whose sweet fresh voices were heard with charming eifect in the old glees and madrigals. The little room was too small for the audience; it was pulled down, and a vast concert-room built on its site, with a stage where the singers stood, and an annexe — a comfortable kind of hall, hung with theatrical portraits, &c. — where conversation could be carried on, and it was by no means necessary to listen to the music. The public thronged to the concert-room — there was a ]3rivate supper-room in the gallery, looking down on the hall through a grille.^ where ladies could hear the songs and could see without being seen — and The the annexe became, and continued for several years, a popular resort for men-about-town. Thackeray was constantly there; Serjeant Mur23hy, Serjeant Ballantine, Jerrold, Lionel Lawson ; sometimes Sala, Hannay, and some of the younger men ; Albert and Arthur Smith, fresh from the " Show;'' Horace annexe. • THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 171 Mayhew, very occasionally Leech. Chops and potatoes — never to be equalled — were the ordmary supper ; as Mrs. Prig says, " the drinks was all good ;" and some of the smartest talk in London was to be heard at Evans's about the years '08 to '60, when the old night elubs had ceased to be, and the present ones had not been thought of. Through concert-room and annexe Paddy Green wandered, snuff-box in hand, God- blessing his " dear boys " — i.e. every one to whom he spoke — and getting more and more maudlin as the night wore on. He prospered for many years and ought to have made a fortune ; but he did not, and the introduction of music-halls, where women formed the larger portion of the audience, was the signal for his downfall. One other place of public entertaimnent, though neither singing nor supper house, must be men- ^j^^^ tioned here. The Garrick's Head was a large HeaS^'^'^ tavern in Bow Street, facing Covent Garden Theatre; its landlord was one Renton Nicholson, a clever, versatile, wholly unprincipled fellow, who had been connected with the turf, connected with the stage, had owned and edited an atrociously blackguard weekly journal called The Town^ and at the Garrick's Head had instituted a new kind of dramatic per- formance, in which he played the principal character. The entertainment was called " The Judge and Jury The Judge Society," and was a parody on the proceedings in 172 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. those law-courts where actions of a certain character were tried; was presided over by Mcholson himself as the Lord Chief Justice, in full wig and gown; the case being argued out by persons dressed as, and in some instances giving also imitations of, leadino' barristers, and the witnesses beino- actors of more or less versatility and mimetic abihty. The whole affair was written and arranged by Nicholson, who deported himself on the bench with the most solemn gravity, the contrast between which and his invariable speech on taking his seat — " Usher ! get me a cigar and a little brandy-and-water " — was the siiiiial for the first lauirh. The entertainment was undoubtedly clever, but was so full of grossness and indecency, expressed and implied, as to render it wholly disgusting. In the window of the ta^^ern was a large painting representing the mock trial, with Nicholson on the bench, and all the celebrities of the day ranged round the room : underneath this picture ■ was a set of verses, supposed to have been written in honour of the place by Tom Moore, and beginning, as I recollect: " 0, where can you better enjoy your late glasses Than under that fane, where the genius of wit Illumines each grain of our sand as it passes?" &c. Amono; the amusements of my youth I must not tnamsm. forget my athletic exercises, from which I derived so much benefit and delight. I first rode in Rotten THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 173 Row — having made previous experiments at Brighton — in the year 1849, on a horse hired for the season from Peter Howden, job-master, of York Terrace Mews; the yard is there still, though Peter's last job — a black one — was long since done. With very little intermission, I have ridden there every succeed- ing year up to the present. I began rowing on the Thames in the year 1847, and continued the practice, Rowing. off and on, until the year 1878, when I changed my skiff into a steam-launch. In the early days I and two Post Office colleagues had a randan gig built for us by Searle of Putney, where, under the charge of the head man, Miller, we used to keep her. Our usual evening's pull was up to Richmond — if we had time — and back to the AVhite Hart at Mortlake, kept by old Toton, where we had supper off ham and eggs and shandy-gaff. I was also exceedingly fond of sparring, which gpari-jn-r I learned first from old IsTat Langham, in an empty room of a tavern in the Strand, where the barracks of the Commissionaires now are, and afterwards from young Alec Keene, a mighty pretty fighter. I never had much science, but being strong and very long in the reach, and being able to take a good amount of " punishment," I was rather an awkward customer. Years after I had given up the gloves, I was looking on at a wrestling exhibition in Leicester Square, and was thinking how savagely it 174 THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. was conducted, and what friglitful concussions the thrown men received, when I felt my arm touched by- Alec Keene, whom I had not seen for ages, but who said, with a smile, " You and I used to knock each other about at one time, Mr. Yates, but I don't think we could either of us have stood much of this !" Number of theatres CHAPTER Y. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 1847—1852. The number of theatres in London in the present year of grace is, according to that excellent authority If^T^j'^ on all dramatic matters, the Era Almanack^ thirty - seven ; in the year 1847 it was thirteen, including Her Majesty's and Covent Garden, which Avere both devoted to Italian opera, and the St. James's, where, during the brief season in which it was open, French plays were performed by French jjlayers. In this number I reckon the transpontine Surrey and Victoria, and the suljurban Sadler's Wells, but not the far-eastward Pavilion, nor the Grecian and Britannia, which, though in existence, called them- selves, in those days, "Saloons;" indeed, the former was then still known as the Eagle Tavern. The theatres of which I speak were Her Majesty's, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket, Lyceum, Princess's, Adelrhi, Olympic, St. James's, Sad- ler's AYells, Marylebone, Surrey, Victoria; and of these, according to my knowledge of them, I pro- pose to speak in detail. 176 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. Her To Her Majesty's I had already been introduced " in my schoolboy days by the kindly daughter of Mr. Williams, a friend of my mother's, and a partner in Cockburn's Bank, at the corner of Whitehall Place, where she kept her bank account. This worthy lady, herself passionately fond of music, imagined every one else must be in a similar condition ; but though I was glad enough to accompany her, the chief attractions to me then were the lights and the company ; later on, the charms of the halUt asserted their sway. The opening of the season of '47 at Her Majesty's was exceptionally dull ; the great feud between Mr. Lumley, the lessee, and his conductor, Signor Costa, and principal singers, Madame Grisi and Signor Mario, had been followed by the secession of the best part of the troupe^ and the conversion of CovENT Garden Theatre into an opera-house, mider the management of Messrs. Delafield and Gye. " Bones," boxes, and general admissions were to be had for the asking at Her Majesty's, until the Saved by appearance — long heralded and eagerly expected — of Lind!' IMdlle. Jenny Lind, in the early days of May, had an immediate effect in not merely restoring the failing fortunes of the theatre, but brought with it an amount of pecuniary success hitherto unknown. I do not know how I could have received a hint of the importance of that debut ^ for I certainly was not in any musical circle — I suppose I derived my THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. i-j^ impression from the general talk ; but it is certain that I made up my mind to be present on the nio-ht when Mdlle. Jenny Lind should make her first bow to the ^!"'' =* •^ (leout. English public, and equally certain that I carried out my intention. Every retainable seat had been retained for weeks ; that made no difference to me — even a place in the pit was beyond my small means; but I was young and strong and active, and at a few minutes before noon on Tuesday, the 4th May, I took my place among twenty persons then gathered round the gallery-door of the opera-house in the Haymarket. The twenty soon swelled into two hundred, into five hundred, into uncountable numbers; and tliere we stood, swaying hither and thither, joking, chaff- ing, panting, groaning, until the doors were opened at seven p.m., and away we went with a rush, gie for tiie I had brought some sandwiches and a pocket-flask with me, and was in good condition luckily ; for anything like that crowd I have never experienced. There were women amongst us, and just as I neared the door I heard a feeble whisper in my oar, "For God's sake, lielp me! I'm fainting!" I could not move my arms, which were pinioned to my sides, but I turned my head as best I could, and said, " Catch hold of me, and I'll pull you up." The woman — I never saw her face — put her arms round my waist — I had a waist in those days — and, thus burdened, I struggled on. I reached and mounted VOL. I. N lyS THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. the staircase; I put my hand, with the exact admis- sion-money in it, mto the hole in the pay-box, whence at first it was swept out, with a score other hands, Nearly by the maddened money-taker; but I succeeded: I crushed. got my pass-check, and, still burdened, I fought to the top of the staircase, where my check was de- manded. It was then discovered that my unfortunate passenger had not paid her money, and had received no check. She released me; she was refused admit- tance, and was literally carried off on the human tide. I heard no more of her. When I reached my goal — the third row in the gallery — I sat down there, per- spiring and exhausted, and, following the example of all round me, I took oiF my coat. The first notes of the overture to Robert le Diahle found the gallery in its shirt-sleeves ; but we were clothed and in our right minds before the opera began. The next time I heard Mdlle. Lind was from the same coign of vantage, about a month later, on her first appearance in Norma ^ and, as this performance A state ^r^g attended by the Queen in state, I had equal perform- j ^ •» -i difficulty in getting in. This was the first pageant I had ever beheld, and I perfectly remember the gorgeous appearance of the Eoyal box, with the Beef- eaters on the stage below. The performance itself was unquesti(^iably a failure: the adherents of the theatre tried to talk about a "new reading" of the character of the Druidical priestess ; but the public ance. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 179 would have none of it; and it was generally allowed that Grisi's ISTorma remained untouched. Of Mdlle. Jenny Lind's extraordinary and un- Mdiie. equalled success here and in America, of her quarrel success. with j^Ir. Bunn, of her domestic virtues and social triumphs, there is no need to say more in these pages. She had two admirable supporters in the sweet-voiced Gardoni and the splendid Lablache ; but, with two exceptions, the operatic troivpe was weak. It was to his hallct that j\Ir. Lumlev looked for his principal attraction, independently of Jenny Lmd. And well he might ; for surely neither before nor since was that style of entertainment brought to such a pitch of perfection. I have seen the famous j^as (ilay swallowed up in the enormous stage, played engagements here under the management 1 86 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. Mr. E. T. of Mr. E. T. Smith : a strange person, said to have Ttgime. been originally a policeman, a shrewd, uneducated, good-natured vulgarian, of a dreadful back-slapping, ^ Christian-name calling familiarity, who in his time entered on theatrical lesseeship on a large and varied scale. The days when Halliday was the stock author of the house ; the production of The Great City, partly plagiarised from Great Expectations; Amy Rohsart and dramatic versions of the Waverley novels, in which the lovely Adelaide ISTeilson was the great attraction: successive seasons of Italian opera: the Chatterton dynasty: finally, after the "marvellous boy" had "perished in his pride," the advent of Mr. Augustus Harris, who seems to be more capable or more fortunate than any of his predecessors. The Monte ^ forgot to mention the great Monte Cristo row, .^r*"" which occurred at Drury Lane in the summer of 1848, and at which I was present. The troupe of the Theatre Historique from Paris were announced for a short series of performances, but on the opening night a band of opponents took possession of the pit, and prevented a syllable being heard throughout the evenmg. The riot was renewed the next night, and one of the leaders of the malcontents beins^ arrested proved to be Sam Cowell, an actor and comic singer already mentioned. There was a good deal of free fio'htino;', and as one of the incidents I remember a huge strawberry pottle being hurled at Albert Smith, who had just issued a sixpenny book called A Pottle row. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 187 of Straicherries^ and who was conspicuously active on the side of the Frenchmen. My experience of good acting and sound English comedy is more due to the Haymaeket than to any The Hay- other theatre. As a boy I had seen there London Assurafice, Old Heads and Young Hearts^ Time Works Wonders, Bubbles of the Day, and Money, played by old William Farren, Strickland, David Rees, James Vining, "Walter Lacy, Webster, Charles Mathews, Harley, James Anderson, and Macready; Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Nisbett, Miss P. Horton, and Madame Vestris. On my return to England in 1847, Mr. Webster, the lessee, very kindly placed my name on his free list, and for years I went to his theatre once or tvdcQ a week. N^ot to the dress-circle, though : there was no entrance money to be paid, but for a seat in the dress or upper circle I should have had to tip a box-keeper, and I could not afford that. So I used to scurry up the stairs to the "slips," in those days a row of seats on either side the house on the gallery level, and from the slips of the old Haymarket Theatre, before the Bancroft renovation, I have seen some of the finest acting of my day. Comedies, for instance : Mrs. Nisbett as Constance Mrs. nis- bett. in The Love Chase, with Webster as Wildrake, and Mrs. Glover as AVidow Green. This was on the occa- sion of Mrs. Nisbett's return to the stage, after the death of her second husband. Sir William Boothby. She was a very lovely woman of the ripe-peach style, large 1 88 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. eyes and pouting lips. One night, about this time, ,, . , I went behind the scenes, and was presented to her My mtro- ' ^ duction to j^y j-^^y mother, " Lady Boothby, this is my boy !" " How wonderfully like his father !" and her ladyship inclined her lovely face and gave me a kiss. " Lucky fellow," said Webster, who was standing by; "you'll remember in after years that you've kissed Mrs. Msbett !" " I've forgotten it already," I said, lifting up my face for a reminder. Mrs. Nisbett laughed and acceded; and AYebster, turning to her so that my mother could not hear, muttered, ^''Very like his father." Farces, with the inimitable and yet perpetually imitated Buckstone as their hero. Lend Me Five Shillings, with Mrs. L. S. Buckingham, the dashing creature for whose cab Buckstone could not find the fare, and Tilbury, the old gentleman from whom he wished to borrow it, and who " tJiought he had change for a 100,000/. note ;" Spring Gardens, To Paris and Back, and a host of others. There I first saw the Charles Keans in The Wife's Secret, one of the best acting plays of modern Comedies, days, with Webster as the steward and Mrs. Keeley as the waiting-maid; in a most preposterous piece called Xeap Year, in which Kean, the hero, to win his love, disguised himself as a footman in livery, and spouted Coleridge's "Genevieve;" and in Shakespeare. Webster, the manager, was the hero of The Roused Lion, in which a heau of the old THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 189 school, roused into competition with a coxcomb of the new, exhibits in every point his superiority; of Lavater; and of The Serious Family^ a rendering of Le Mari a la Campagne^ which afterwards served Mr. Burnand as the groundwork of his Colonel. The wife, in this piece, was played by Miss Reynolds, one of the most delightful actresses of our time, whether in comedy or, teste The Invisible Prince, in burlesque. The Irish Major in The Serious Family was the famous James Wallack, in his day untouchable ^^^?^ , ' -^ Wallack. as a romantic actor, handsome, gallant, dashing, almost an English Fechter, without the fascinating earnestness in love-making, but with a strong dash of humour, which Fechter, on the stage, never showed. Wallack's Don Ca3sar de Bazan was a splendid per- formance, so was his Brigand, and his Rover in Wild Oats. I have seen him attempt Othello with Ijut a small amount of success, but he was a fair lago and a most admirable Benedick. Then there were the delightful Keeleys, with their combined efforts in such farces as Dearest Elizabeth and the Pas de Fascination, and Keeley's stolid comi- cality in such burlesques as The Sphinx and Cama- ralzaman, in which he had the assistance of Miss Reynolds's sweet voice and charming presence, and Mr. James Bland's magnificent pomposity. An actor of Irish characters named Hudson, gentlemanly, but of somewhat thin humour, was a light of the Hay- market in those days. igo THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA YS. The ]\fy earliest recollection of the Lyceum is under Lyceum. '' the management of the Keeleys, when with their daughter Miss Mary Keeley, Miss Louisa Fairbrother (Mrs. Fitzgeorge), Miss Woolgar, Messrs. Emery, "Wigan, Frank Matthews, Leigh Murray, Oxberry, and Collier. Those were the days of the drama- Dickens tisation of Dickens's books : Martin Chuzzlewit. with drama- tised. Keeley as Mrs. Gamp and his wife as Bailey, F. Matthews a wonderful Pecksniff, Emery an excellent Jonas; The Cricket on the Hearth^ with Mrs. Keeley as Dot, Keeley as Caleb Plummer, Emery as Peery- bingle, and Mary Keeley's dehut as Bertha; of the Burlesque, sparkling burlcsqucs concocted by Albert Smith and Tom Taylor, while Charles Kenney would sit by and occasionally throw in a joke or a suggestion: Aladdin, where Keeley played the magician, and imparted such peculiar emphasis to the line, "Yes! here's the place, and there's the blasted cedar !"' as to bring down the house ; Mi Baba, with Miss Fairbrother as the leader of the Forty Thieves; Valentine and Orson, Mrs. Keeley as the Knight, her husband the AYild Man; and others. Shirley Brooks won his dramatic spurs here with an excellent melodrama, Tlie Creole — the hero finely played by Emery, a most excellent actor, never sufficiently appreciated — and a novel and sparkling farce, The Wigwam. AVhen my regular playgoing days began, the Ly- The CEUM had passcd into the hands of Charles Mathews reriimc. and Madame Vestris, who had a brilliant reign there. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 191 Their opening pieces fell flat, but within a few weeks two new farces were produced which filled the house and have proved perennial favourites: they were Box and Cox and The Hough Diamond. Buckstone and Harley were the original printer and hotter ; but though every comedian for the last thirty-five years has played the farce, I have never seen so thoroughly artistic a conception of Box as that of Charles Mathews, who took the part when Harley left the theatre. Mrs. Fitzwilliam's Margery, in The Hough Diamond., has never been surpassed. Shirley Brooks was also successful here with a smart one-act comedy called Anything for a Change^ with Charles Mathews and a Miss "Polly" Marshall, who played a servant-girl inimitably. And when my mother joined the company m 1848 there was a capital revival of The Critic., with her as Tilburina, Charles Mathews, Frank Matthews, Selby, Roxby, and F. Cooke. A farce called An Appeal to the Public was memorable to me, as in it I made my first appear- appear- ance in ance on any stage. A crowd was gathered under public. an archway in supposed shelter from rain : one night I "went on" and stood among the peopje; but Charles Mathews spying mc, rushed up, exclaiming, "What! young Mr. Yates!'' dragged me to the footlights, hoped T had not got wet, and dismissed me. This was tlie time when Planche, staunchest supporter of Madame Vestris, and founder of her 192 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. fortunes in her early managerial career at the Oly^sipic, again came to her help, and produced a pianch^'s scrics of cxtravagauzas, the most noteworthy of ganzas. wliicli wcrc The King of the Feacoch and The Island of Jewels. These, with the scenery painted by William Beverly, then new to London and in the plenitude of his power, and admirably acted, proved highly attractive. They served to introduce two vouno" actresses to the London stao-e, Miss Julia St. George and Miss Kathleen Fitzwilliam. Both were successful, but Miss Fitzwilliam, daughter of an old public favourite, achieved quite an extraordinary success by her charming manner and most effective singing: she certainly did not "lag superfluous," as in the height of her triumph she married, and retired from the ])oards. Charles Tlicsc, too, werc the times of Charles ]\Iathews's greatest successes : The Day of RecJconing^ in which he for the first time attempted a serious character, the second being when he played in the drama- tised version of my novel. Black Sheep ; Blanchard Jerrold's admirable piece. Cool as a Cucumber^ which, done into French, as L' Anglais Timide^ was afterwards played by Mathews in Paris ; and, best of all. The Game of Specidation, adapted by G. H. Lewes, under the name of Slingsby Laurence, from Mercadet^ possibly the most suitable character ever written for Charles Mathews, and in the acting of Mathews. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 193 which lie absolutely revelled. ]\Iuch was expected from a drama which followed, The Chain of Events ; but it was not successful, proviiii^, as Douglas Jerrold said of it, " a door-chain, to keep people out of the house!" The, Princess's, at the time when I first knew it, and for many years after, was under the management of a Hebrew gentleman, whose name appeared at the head of his playbills as J. M. Maddox, and whose short stout figure and very marked features, with a cigar always protruding from under his prominent nose, was a constant source of delight to the caricaturists. His real cognomen was, I imagine, Medex — at least that was the name painted over a tobacconist's shop immediately facing the theatre, which was avowedly kept by the lessee's brother, and there, seated on a tub or lounging against the counter, Mr. Maddox m,. ji„j. was constantly:to be found. And not merely to the ^^^' caricaturist, but to the anecdote-monger, was the Hebrew impresario of much service. Stories of his wonderful fertility of resource in saving money were rife in theatrical circles. Amomi; other thinirs, it was said that' all the lighter pieces produced at the Princess's were the work of a jobbing author, hj, ,tork who was kept on the premises — some said chained '^^ ' "'' l)y the leg to liis desk — who for a small salary was compelled to produce two French translations weekly. Some of the stories were introduced by VOL. I. O 194 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. Albert Smith into one of his novels, in which Macldox His re- fio;ured \ and the manaa:er took his reven2:e by ffetting- the jobbing author to write a parody, satirising his assailant as " The Fine Young Modern Dramatist." It was rather smartly done, as may be judged from the one verse which lives in my memory : "'Albata' Smith they've christened him, for wicked wags have said That as Albata now is used for silver plate instead, So he has stolen the genuine wit that's found in Dickens' head. And for it substituted his own literary lead — Like a fine young modern dramatist, All of the present time." All were theatrical fish that came to ■\lr. Maddox's net : opera, farce, tragedy, comedy, ballet, and panto- mime, he tried them all. On my earliest visit to the The Prin- Pkincess's I saw a little oi3era called The Barcarole^ cess's. with a very sweet tenor named Allen, a well-known baritone, Leffler, and a man named AValton, whom I have never heard of since, but who remains in my memory from an odd trick of twiddling his thumbs, and the manner in which he repeated a name, " Cafferini." I saw soon after, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. " ' ' Fanny j-^^^y knowu as Mrs. Fanny Kemble, as Julia in Kemble "> Butler. rjiy Hunchback, and conceived, rightly or wrongly, a dislike to her acting. Here, too, I had my one remembered experience of Macready — I know my father took me as a child to Covent Garden' to see Macbeth, but that is wholly indistinct — as Othello, THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 195 but I was not much impressed. Miss Cushman, whom I was to meet twenty-five years later in America, was the Emilia, and every one was talking of the extraordinary resemblance in face, voice, and mamier between the two. Mr. Maddox relied greatly on the' attraction of operas in English, and brought . out several stars of a certain magnitude : a Mdlle. ^^^^^ ^^ Nau was the first prima donna of my recollection; p^'j^^^ggg-g but there were also the charming Madame Anna Thillon, whose performance in the Croicn Diamonds . created a furore about this time, and young Miss Louisa Pyne, then a debutante. Mr. Harrison, after- wards to be associated with her in operatic manage- ment, and ]\rr. and ]\Irs. Weiss were stars amono; the company. Charles Mathews and his wife, Keeley • and his Avife, and Alfred AVic^an were occasional visitors in those times to the Pkixcess's, which, for its pantomime season, had the advantage of an extremely agile — but to me wholly unhumorous — clown, named Flexmore, who, with his wife, ]\Idlle. Auriol, daughter of another famous clown, proved highly attractive. And here, too, under the Maddox reaime, was Charles ' ' ^ _ J 1 Ken-ison a very strange man, Charles Kerrison Sala, brother Saia. of the author, largely endowed with the family talent, and with more than an average supply of the family eccentricity. One of liis peculiarities, and one which lie carried out with the strictest rigour. 196 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. was never to be seen in public without a flower in his button-hole ; winter or summer, night or day, there was the flower, valuable or valueless, but always present. To the general public he was little known, though, under his theatrical name of Wynn, he achieved a certain amount of success at the Princess's ; but his quaint fancy and keen perception of the ludicrous were highly esteemed by his friends. He wrote a queer rambling poem called " The Fish," which was full of sparkling incongruity. But it is as the hero of two or three stock satirical anecdotes that his memory will proljal^ly survive. One of these may be narrated. For some reason or other, Sala (Wynn) Mac- was most objectionable to Macready. Possibly want ready's • i i r- t hatred of of revereucc had somethmo; to do with the leeung ; .jum, but the fact was that the great tragedian detested the eccentric actor. When at rehearsals Wynn appeared on the stage, Macready's eyes were tightly closed until he disappeared, when he would ask the prompter, "Has it gone?'' Now, it happened that on the revival of Shakespeare's Henry VIII., with ]\Iacready Cardinal as Cardinal Wolsey, the part of Cardinal Campeius Campeiiis . was allotted to Mr. Wynn. It had been repre- sented to the manager that Mr. Macready's costume would be correct and splendid, more especially as regards some magniflcent point-lace which he in- tended wearing, and it had been suggested that some- thino: extra should be done to make the other Cardinal THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 197 respectable. But Mr. Maddox thought some old scarlet robes fudged up from the wardrobe would suffice ; and as to pomt-lace, silver tissue-paper, deftly snipped and sewn on, would have much the same appearance when viewed from a distance. At the dress rehearsal Macready, enthroned in a chair of state, had the various characters to pass before him : he bore all calmly until, clad in the scarlet robes bordered by silver tissue-paper, and wearing an enormous red hat, Wynn approached. Then, clutching both arms of his chair and closing his eyes, the great tragedian gasped out, " Mother Ship ton, by !" Of course I was on the free list at the ADELrm, iheAdei- where I not merely had the right of entree^ but generally managed to get passed into one of the small lo\N' private boxes immediately above the orchestra — I am speaking of the old house — where my presence frequently produced, to my intense delight, a more or less apposite remark from Wright, the low comedian, wright. The low comedian, indeed, for never have I seen such a laughter-compelling creature: face, figure, manner, were irresistible ; without uttering a word he would, across the footlights, give the audience a confidential wink, and send them into convulsions. In words and actions he was broad, sometimes to the verge of indecency, and to this baseness he was encouraged by a hirge portion of the audience ; but when he chose 198 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. there was no more genuinely and legitimately comic artist. He was essentially an Adelphi actor : made no mark before he came there, subsided into nothing- ness after he left. Wright first joined the Adelphi company in my father's management, played Dick Swiveller in the Curiosity Shop, Shotbolt the gaoler in Jack Sheppard, and gradually worked himself into prominence ; but it was not until after my father's death, and under IMr. Webster's rule, that he assumed the position which he held so long. For many years he was the undoubted attraction to the theatre, and was paid and treated accordingly. Never have I heard such laughter as that which he evoked, never have I seen people so completely collapsed and ex- hausted by the mere effect of their mirth. In some of Wright's scenes in The Green Bushes I have fallen His comic ^^^Ipless, spiuelcss, across the front of the box, almost powers. g^^|, ^.^^j-^ laughter. In this drama and The Flowers of the Forest, in his broad farces. Did you ever Send your Wife to Caniherwellf How to Settle Accounts ivith your Laundress, and others of that calibre, he was riotously, preposterously, madly absurd ; but there were other pieces I shall have to speak of, wherein he played with all the subtle resources of which the art is capable, and where it would have Ijcen impossible to have exceeded the real merit of his impersonation. Unlike his dramatic rivals, Keeley and Buck- THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 199 stone, both of whom were men of natural smart- ness and cleverness enhanced by education, Wright, save in his profession, was stupid, coarse, ignorant, and essentially common; undoubtedly, too, he was most at his ease when the scene admitted and the aucUence permitted his display of his coarseness and commonness on the stage; but he could rise to great artistic heights. Constantly associated with him on the stage, half-feeder, half-butt, was Mr. Paul Bedford, always in my time a big, jovial, red-faced, \^^\ ^^^' mellow-voiced, brainless comedian, but whom my mother remembered as a good-looking young man, a sweet tenor singer. Paul Bedford's size and rotun- dity, his odd utterances of slang sayings, his stolid imperviousness to the impertinence with which in the due course of all the dramas he was assailed by Wright, made him a favourite with the Adelphi ])ublic, and gave him a raison cCetre. Had he lived later he would have been well placed in a music-hall, on the platform or in the chair. He had not the slightest claim to be considered an actor, played every part in exactly the same fashion, had not the faintest notion of impersonation, and was fundamen- tally stupid and ignorant. But in his earlier days he sang " Jolly Nose," and in later years he said " I believe you, my boy !" and these accomplishments, with his reputed jolHty, his social reputation for fall-flavoured anecdotes, and his position as Wright's 200 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. professional butt, carried liim successfully through a lono' life. The entertainment provided at the Adelphi scarcely ever varied : it commenced at seven o'clock with a melodrama in three acts, which was over be- fore ten, after which there were ,a couple of farces.. About nine, or as soon after as could be managed without too much disturbing the performance, the "half-price" was admitted — that is to say, a consider- able reduction was accepted in the entrance-fee to the Jiaif- boxes and jDit. In small theatres the half-price was a very important consideration to the management ; for money was not so rife in those days, and there were numberless young men who, while they would have been Ijored by spending the entire evening in the theatre, and would have grudged a large disburse- ment for a comparatively short amusement, were will- ing to pay the reduced price ; so that though the drama was the staple portion of the entertainment^ the supplementary farces were no mere affairs to fill UJ1 the bill, but had their own value and their own Buck- audience. The two most successful dramas of that dramas, tuuc wcrc Tkc Grccn Bu&Ucs and Tlie Floioers of the Forest, and both were written by Buckstone, who had succeeded so well in suiting my father and his Adelphi company with dramas similar in style. Of that company there still remained, in 18-17, Mrs. Fitz- william, my mother, Wright, P. Bedford, 0. Smithy THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA YS. 201 and Cullenford, the original Ralph Nickleby. They were supplemented by Miss Woolgar, a most charm- ing and fascinating young lady, who soon became a great favourite ; Charles Selby, a better dramatist than actor;. Hughes, who was said to have somewhat resembled my father in his style ; Lambert, " first old man;" Munyard, a very excellent second low comedian, who died young; Miss Ellen Chaplin; and Miss Emma Harding, who somewhat recently returned to London after a long absence in America, appearing as a spiritualistic medium. Mr. Webster, busied as manai>'er and actor at 7 O the Haymarket, had not much time to give to his new property ; so he had installed Madame Madame Celeste as his stajxc-directress, while what is known in theatrical parlance as " the front of the house " — i.e. supervision of tlie box-office, money-takers, check-takers, playbills, treasury, &c. — was confided to my father's old friend and my guardian, ]\Ir. Charles Manby, who, though entirely unconnected by birth and position — he was secretary of the Institute of Civil Engineers — witli theatrical matters, seems to have always been mixed u]i in them. Celeste Elliott, poi)alarly known as Madame Celeste, was a very extraordinary woman. IJorn in France, sent to America, married there, when quite young, to a man named Elliott — she arrived in this coun- try a pantomimist and dancer l)y profession; and 202 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. played in a piece, in whicli she had no word to utter, called Tlu French Spy. To the day of her death, only a year or two ago, her English was not merely broken, it was smashed into fragments ; but by mere force of will and great popularity she for years caused herself to be accepted as an English- speaking actress, and to play the heroines in a London theatre. Early in life she obtained a great influence over Benjamin Webster, which, during all the long years of its duration, was never exercised, I believe, save for his good. Full of natural energy and resource, full of French excitement and elan^ know- ing all the " inside life " of her profession as one who has lived in it from childhood only can, of indomit- able will and untiring working-power, she made a most admirable head of the Adelphi establishment, which, under her direction, flourished abundantly. Adelphi Besides the Buckstone dramas which I have mentioned, " a real Adelphi success," as it used to be called on the bills, was achieved by Title Deeds, a play written by Mr. U. B. Peake, who had scored previous successes, and of whom Shirley Brooks used to tell a ridiculous Jio?i sequitur story : " Who do you say is the author of this farce?" asked an elderly playgoer ; " Dicky Peake ? Damned nonsense ! he couldn't write a farce ! / kneiv his father r — by The Harvest Home and The Hop-pickers, by Mr. Parry; and by a version of the Closerie des Genets, called The fnrces. THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 203 Willow Copse, in which ]\Ir. Webster played with great effect. The extraordinarily attractive farces of Did you ever Send your Wife to Camberwell f How to Settle Accounts with your Laundress, &c., were the work of J. Stirling Coyne, an indefatigable Irishman, who, by the aid of a French dictionary, and a know- ledge of the requirements of the stage and the tastes of a London audience, for a series of j'ears provided managers with dramatic wares, more or less good, but nearly always popular. His broad farces, full of quaint verbal and practical jokes, were, taken for Avhat they Avere, very amusing. Better and higher Avork was done by Mark Lemon in Domestic Economy and The School for Tigers, in each of which farces Wright was provided with a fresh, thoughtful, natural bit of character, worked out by him with inimitable result. On these two farces, and another called Who Lives at Number Nine f and on his performance of Paul Pry, AYright's fame as a genuine comic actor will rest. Will rest, I say, forgetting that he is already forgotten ! In those days the little Adelpiii was a popular and well-managed resort, its company was united, and there was a good deal of quiet fun and pleasant talk in the small and dinofV ffreen-room, , lumg romid with portraits of the princi2)al members. ^■^°'"- To me it was fairyland, and the memory of it is yet fresh in my mind. I think it was to the old OLY.\iric that I Avas 204 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. The oiym- taken as a child by my father to see a strange man named George Wild in a strange piece called The Artful Dodge. It was either there or at the Queen's, a dingy place off Tottenham Court Road, where, long before it was metamorphosed by Miss Marie Wilton into the Prixce of Wales's, I saw, in company with Dickens, a piece in which the First Xapoleon reviewed the French army, consisting of three dirty youths and a vivandiere, who, on the general's approach, pre- sented arms, and saluted him with " Vive Emproo !" Certainly, I have no remembrance of the Olympic in its palmy days of Vestris and Planche : my first regular recollection is of going there to the pit, to see a man who had taken the town by storm as Othello. G-V. Gustavus Yauixhan Brooke was his name, and he Brooke. ^ remains in my memory as the best representative of the character I have ever seen : manly, soldierly, with all Salvini's gallantry and pathos, without a His sue- suGfo'estion of Salvini's repulsive violence, with a cess. ^^ ^ , ' . voice now capable of the softest modulation in love or pity, now trumpet - toned in command — such was G. \ . Brooke Avhen I first saw him. He soon dropped away, poor felloAv ! — became a heavy drinker, of stout and porter mostly, and lost his gallant bear- ing, and his voice grew thick and muddy; and, though he played for years afterwards — he went down His death, {^i the Loudon, a ship ^^'hich foundered in the Bay of Biscay on her way to Australia, and when last seen, THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA YS. 205 after most strenuous exertions at the pumps, was leaning over the bulwarks, calmly awaiting his com- ing doom — he was virtually a lost man in his first season. Soon after his appearance I took my mother to see him, and she, with all her experience, was very much impressed by his powers. As for me, I was infatuated, haunted the theatre, and saw Brooke in nil his characters — saw him in Sir Giles Overreach, where, in the last act, he was splendid ; saw him in Hamlet, where, throughout, he must have been very l)ad. I am not quite certain as to the way in Avhicli Othello was cast, but I think Stuart, known as the " cao'ed lion," a fine old-crusted actor, full of mouth- ings and conventionalisms, was the lago, and Stuart's dauo'hter the Desdemona ; and I have an idea of having seen Miss Glyn, afterwards a ccleljrated tragic actress, as Emilia. Leigh Murray was, I suppose, j^eigh the Cassio: I know he was in the company, for he "^^^^' often used to talk to me of Brooke and bemoan his failings, witli little idea, poor fellow! that he himself, a few years after, would liiU into a worse state. Later on was produced a play called The Headsman., in which Leigh Murray played the jeime ^9?'^??i2e?', and first attracted to himself the admiring attention of the pul)lic. It was from the pit of the old Olympic, entrance to which I had cheerfully purchased for eightccnpencc, that I became desperately enamoured 2o6 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. stSin- ^^ ^^^'^' Stirling, whose acquaintance I did not make for many years after, but whom 1 then worshipped with all the loyal devotion of seventeen. She was charming in everything ; l^ut in a little piece called Time Tries All, in which Leigh Murray also appeared, and where she spoke a smart epilogue, which I always used to consider specially addressed to me, she was more than delightful. In The Eton Boy, also with Leigh Murray, and with the mirthful addition of Compton, driest of comedians, in Cousin Cherry, and in many another little drama of that day, she won my youthful heart, which she has, naturally, retained ever since. At the old OlYxMPIc I saw a very clever man, Thompson ^^^^"^^^ Lysander Thompson, in a kind of character— a rustic full-flavoured Englishman, e.g. Tyke in The School of Beform, such as was played by the elder Emery — that was very popular early in the century, but which has quite died out. I imagine Mr. Lysander Thompson was practically its last exponent. I saw him play Zekiel Homespun in The Ileir-at-Law, but cannot remember one other person in the cast. But I perfectly well recollect the destruction by hre of the old theatre and the opening of the new one ; for by that time, 1849, I was a member of the Garrick Club, and moving in " theatrical circles." The fire took place on the night when a small actor named Bender was about to take his benefit; and the new house, THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA YS. 207 then thought remarkably pretty and commodious, was ojDened on one of the last nights of the year with a very strong company, among them Frank Matthews, Alfred Wigan, Compton, Meadows, Ryder, Mrs, Seymour, ^Irs. A. Wigan, Mrs. Mowatt, Mr. Davenport, and Miss M. Oliver. The three last- mentioned artists came from the Marylebone, where they had been playing under the management of Mr. Walter Watts, under whose auspices the new OLYiAinc had been built, and was to be managed. Who was Mr. Walter Watts ? Personally, a cheery, Mr. w.-ii- light-whiskered, pleasant little man, of convivial and champagne-supper-giving tendencies. What was he? Actors in those days were, as a rule, not ver}" clear about business matters : they knew he was not an actor ; they thought he was " something in the Cit}^" He was an excellent paymaster, very hospitable to all authors and critics, drove in a handsome broufdiam, and made elegant presents to the " leading ladies," whom he admired. " Something in the City," it was opined, must be a good l)erth. The position which AValter AVatts really occupied in the City was that of a clerk in the Globe Insurance Office at a comparatively small salary, and the money on which he had lived in luxury and carried out his theatrical speculations was obtained by fraud. IJy ingenious Hi6 frauds alterations in the pass-books and ledgers, aided, one would imagine, by gross carelessness on the part of 2o8 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA VS. responsible officials, AYatts, when discovered and arrested in April 1850, had robbed his employers of upwards of 70,000/. There was some technical legal difficulty in framing the indictment against him, and he was actually convicted of stealing " a piece of paper." A point of law was reserved, but after- wards given against him ; he was sentenced to ten years' transportation, but committed suicide the same His nio'ht l)v hano-ino- himself to the o-ratino; of his cell. suicide. n f^ ^ 1 T> 1 111 He was the precursor oi hobson and ivedpath, both of whom swindled in a somewhat similar way, and on a similar gigantic scale. In my early recollection the St. James's was in The the occupation of Mr. John Mitchell, the Bond Street St. James's ^ - , , , . „ librarian, and was devoted to the production ot French plays by French actors. Through the inter- est of my guardian, Charles Manby, I had the entree of the house, and constantly availed myself of the privilege. There I saw with special interest — for I had heard of a certain resemblance between him and my father— Frederic Lemaitre, even then no longer young, but full of vivacity, and fire, with his high- pitched voice and odd distorted mouth, deeply impressive in Le Docteur Noir, delightfully comic in Lemaitre. BAubmje des Adrets. I have seen Lemaitre in some of his best characters— in the Trente Ans de la Vie d'un Joueur, where his wonderful performance forms the sulyect of one of Dickens's letters ; years after- THE DRAMA IN THOSE DA VS. 209 wards in Paillasse, a personation of great pathos ; and in Buy Bias, where his age and physical disad- vantages were counterbalanced by his genius. There, too, I saw Kegnier, the first comedian of the Theatre Fran^ais; and Lafont, who lived to be a great age, and looked and played inimitably to the last; and fascinating Mdlle. Rose Cheri, and Bouife, a kind of Boufiee. refined AVright, in the Gamin de Pari'i. At the St. Jamks's I first became intimate witli the late Charles Lamb Kenney, who in those days was assistino; John c. l. . .... . Kenney. Oxenford in the dramatic criticism of the Times, and who used to give me a seat in his box, where I passed the evening listening to his remarks on the play, and envying the lucky mortal who had sufficient talent to write in a newspaper! Jt was from the Times box that I first saw llachel, by far the finest actress I Hachei. have ever seen. Her Camille in Les Horaces, her Phedre, her Adricnne Lecouvreur, are as fresh in jny memory as when I first saw them ; and tliere was another play — was it called Valerie ? — in wliich she sustained a double character. They talked of Ristori ; they talk of Sarah Beridiardt: I have seen them both in their best roles, but, to my mind, neither one nor the other is to be compared to Rachel. ]\Iy first visit to the Strand was in very early days, when it was called " Punch's Playhouse," and the Keeleys were acting tliere; l>ut beyond those facts T have no recollection of it. What I first VOL. I. P 2IO THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. clearly remember in comiectioii with the little theatre is a dramatic version of Martin Chuzzleicit^ with a clever jolly-looking man named H. Hall, who " doubled " the characters of Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp, and one Roberts, who made an excellent Tigg. Then I knew no more of it until it was in the hands Old William of old William Farren, who, as an actor of old men, Farren. I have never seen surpassed on any stage. He had Mts. an excellent company — Mrs. Glover, who enjoyed Glover. i i • r« i i in- great celebrity as an actress oi old women ; Mrs. Stirling, Compton, and Leigh Murray. For them Mark Lemon wrote an admirable drama called Hearts are Trumps, in which all were very "w^ell suited, and where Leigh Murray, who played an aristocratic villain, for the first time dared to repre- sent a comparatively young man with gray hair, being made up, in fact, after the well-known " Jim " Macdonald. A version of The Vicar of Wahefield was also very successful ; and a little comedy called Poor Cousin Walter was, I think, one of the earliest dramatic productions of my old friend Palgrave Sim])son. I am afraid my youthful admiration of Shake- speare and the legitimate drama was not sufficiently strong to carry me often to the remote regions of Sadler's AVells, a theatre which the pluck and energy of worthy ]\Ir. Phelps had rescued from the lowest condition of a " penny gaff",'' ^i^^ where the THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. 211 best plays were then presented in a fitting manner; but I well recollect seeing a performance of The Tempest, in which I was struck not so much by the manager's Prospero as by the Caliban of ]\Ir. George Mr. . . . . George Bennett, which remains on my mind as a very grim Bennet fantasti'C impersonation. Xor did I much affect the Maryleboxe while under j\frs. Warner's management, though I once went there to see the Winter'' s Tale. Later on, when the theatre passed into the hands of the peccant AYatts, who leased it before he took the OLYMric, I was a more frequent visitor. For there was first introduced to an English public the fas- cinating ]\[rs. Anna Cora iMowatt, an American Mrs. 1 , ,1 , . Mowatt. actress, who was also a poetess and a very charmnig woman. With her was her compatriot, ]\Ir. E. L. Davenport, who not merely played Shakespearean and other heroes, but actually dared to appear as a British sailor — William in Black-eyed Siisan.^ a cha- racter created by the great " Tippy " Cooke. Mrs. Mowatt and j\Ir. Davenport were very popular, both here and at the Olympic. My reminiscences of the Surrey are a little mixed. I went there first when my father was playing a sliort summer engagement under Mr. Davidge's management. And iny mother, in later years, used to speak of another engagement wliicli they played at the Surrey, under the auspices of a Mr. Levi. This gentleman, it seems, one day asked 2T2 THE DRAMA IN THOSE DAYS. my father what piece he proposed to produce next, and my father mentioning The Admirable Crichton, a version of A ins worth's novel, which had been suc- cessful at the Adelpiii, Mr. Levi said, " That's a '■i^if capital notion, The Admiral C rich ton ; and we've Ci-iehton. something in the wardrobe that'll just do for it ! Jones, step up to the wardrobe, and fetch that admiral's uniform I bouo-ht last week!" When I visited the Surket as a young man it was under the joint management of Mr. Shepherd and Miss Vincent, " the acknowledged heroine of domestic drama," as she used to l^e called in the bills, a lady whose great part was Susan Hopley, a virtuous servant-maid. On my being presented as the son of the late, &c., to vi-.r^^^' ^^^' Shepherd, that gentleman aifably remarked, " 0, :e head, lar2;e ])odv, short ^^J!!:!"' lecfs ; lonef hair, lonir reddish-brown beard and mous- tache, small keen deep-set gray eyes, good aquiline nose, small hands and feet ; always badly dressed : when at home at work, he wore a short ))lue 11 is lu.me. blouse, such as is to be seen on all the Swiss peasants, and an old pair of trousers ; in the street he was given to gaudy neckerchiefs, and Jiad a festoon of '"charms" danMiniif from his watch- chain. He lived at No. 12 Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, the drawing-room floor of which, and several of the bedrooms, were at the service of his parents, one aunt, and a sister, Avho were entirely dependent on him, and to whom lie behaved with constant afl'ection and liberality, while the ground- floor he kept to himself The front dining-room was, save on the occasion of his not infrequent supper- 228 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. parties, but little used. The back-room was his sanctum, where he worked at a small carved-oak davenport, the facsimile of which has been in my possession for years. The room was lined with books, which also covered the floor, together with proof- sheets, prints, playbills, bits of tapestry or silk-stuff, Contents and all kinds of literary litter. On the wall were an of his . ,. study. old clock which did not go, a water-colour picture ot the Marquise de Brinvilliers hesitating between dagger or poison ; on the door a framed engraving, after Horace Vernet, of the ghostly horseman in Biirger's Lenore, a ballad which Albert translated very successfully; one of the windows was fitted with an aquarium, a novelty in those days; on the broad mantelpiece, hung with foded stuff, was a figure of a Swiss peasant with a clock-fiice in his waistcoat; all kinds of small Swiss carved toys, Turkish slippers, Egyptian small idols, Danton's statuettes of Kubini and Lablache, Venetian glasses, goblets, and flagons — rare then, in the pros- Sal viati period— a lady's black silk mask with a lace fall, an Italian stiletto, and an old Roman lamp. On a small table, under a glass shade, was a pair of female hands, beautifully modelled in wax, the orio-inals beino; ]^ady Blessington's. In an old oak armoire, besides all kinds of rubbish, was a bottle of sherry, which was constantly being produced with the short invitation, "Have a drink?" one of the Venetian glasses being brought down for the purpose^ THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 229 and duly wiped on the host's blouse or a convenient duster. In a case in the hall stood a skeleton, a memento of Albert's student-days at the Middlesex Hospital, which I have seen, after old Pagan fashion, propped in a chair at the supper-table, with a chaplet of flowers round its skull. I liave never met any man more thorough in his whole character, certainly no one more thorouo-h in Ids likes and dislikes, than Albert Smith: from the moment he " took me up " he presented me, with glowing credentials, to his immediate set, and I was at once cordially received by them. Most prominent amon^: them was his vounger brother Arthur, a man Arthur full of cleverness of a quaint kind, of a remarkably sweet disposition and winning manner, and of, as was about to be proved, singular aj^titude for l)usiness. He, too, had been a medical student, but up to this period had made no particular mark in life, the only incident in his career worth mention having been his marriage with an heiress; but he rose with the opportunity, and in the organisation of all the l)efore-the-curtain arrangements of the Egyptian Hall undertaking — the most important provision for money-taking, check-taking, money-})ayments, bill- posting, advertising, the comfort of the audience, everything, in fact, save the actual delivery of the lecture and songs— he developed a special ability which I have never seen equalled. Albert Smith was never 230 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. tired of acknowledging that a very large proportion of the extraordinary success attending his nine years' tenancy of the Egyptian Hall was due to his brother's unremitting care and attention; and Dickens, tlie first and second series of whose public readings he planned and superintended, had equal faith in his business talent, as well as a deep personal regard for him. " As for poor Arthur Smith," Dickens wrote to Forster, immediately after A. S.'s death in '61, "it is as if my right arm were gone." Arthur was by no means '* literary," had read very little and written nothing; but he had keen „. . observation and Avas very suo:o;estive. Much of HiB on- ') <-& ginai fun. Albert's successful fun had its origin in Arthur's droll ideas, and Albert used to say that Arthur's riddle, " What is marmalade ?" tlie answer beino; a quotation from the description on the pot, " An excellent substitute for butter at breakfast," was entitled to rank amonof the best conundrums of the day. Arthur lived w^ith his brother in Percy Street, and Avas with him almost every hour of the day ; he received me at once into his regard, and thenceforth I was almost as intimate with him as with Albert. Just at this time 1 used to join them after leaving my office, generally finding them among the scaffolding and Avhitewash of the Egyptian Hall, then under process of alteration ; then we would THE INFLUENCE OF PEN DENNIS. 231 adjourn to some cheap and quiet place for dinner, and spend the rest of the evening together. Prominent among the intimates of both the brothers at that time was Joseph liuhne Robins, j. h. known to every one as " Joe Robins," also a quaint humourist, and in many respects a very entertaining fellow. Robins, who was a nephew of the well- known auctioneer, had been a fellow-student wi'h Albert at the ^liddlesex Hospital, had accompanied him on his trip to the East, and on his return had become assistant to Dr. Beaman, of Covent Garden, whose daughter he afterwards married. One of his stories of this experience was that, it being con- sidered riixht he should attend the funeral of an infant patient, he was walking up the churchyard of St. Paul's, his face in his handkerchief, when a boy Avho recognised him called out, " Who poisoned thebabby?" and created much scandal. Coming into a legacy shortly after, Robins abandoned medicine, and put his money into a Manchester warehouse in the City; l)ut he knew nothing of lousiness, and soon lost his all. He then went on the stas-e, but the extraordinarily humorous })erception and ex- pression which characterised him in private deserted him completely in public, and he made little or no mark. lie died a few years since, after a long illness. At his best he was one of the funniest men I have 232 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. ever seen. He had a comic face with pendulous cheeks, and a stout figure, knew music, could sing lairly, and imitate excellently. He had several little scenes of his own arrangement, lasting two minutes, His inii- ^vl^cll were infinitely divertino* : he would imitate an approaching train, the puffing of the engine, its going under an arch, its stopping — " Wolverton ! Wolver- ton!" the descent of a passenger, the rush to the refreshment-room, demand of a cup of tea, agony at its heat, blowing it frantically, ringing of bell, whistle of enoine, tea-consumer left behind ! He would imi- tate the marching off of the band after trooping the colours, the tunino- of the mstruments in a theatrical orchestra and the remarks of the performers, an operatic scene between soprano, tenor, and bass, the feeding of the animals at the Zoo, rocket-time at Vauxhall, and a hundred other things. One of his favourite jokes was to rattle an enormous chain on the street-door in Percy Street, throwing it down and exclaiming melodramatically, " Friends to the prisoner!" He was thoroughly versed in the mys- teries of pantomime lore, and it was to this, and to his personal cpialifications, that he owed his selection to play Clown in the Amateur Pantomime, of which more anon. ,^,jj^. AVith the Keeley family — Mr. and Mrs. Keeley Keeieys. ^^^^ their two daughters, Mary and Louise — Albert Smith had a long - existent friendship. He had THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 233 written inlays and burlesques for the Lyceum when under their management, and the elder daughter, who afterwards became his wife, had made her debut in his version of The Cricket on the Hearth. For Robert Keeley's natural wit and shrewdness, and for hi^ artistic impersonations, he had great admira- \ /. tion. I was speedily presented to the Keeleys — Mrs. Keeley had, of course, known me as a child — was made free of their house, and received from them constant kindness. They lived at that time at N'o. 19 Brompton Square, in that region which was once the chosen spot for theatrical tents to be pitched. Farrens, Keeleys, Buckstones, Wio^ans, and Miss t:^^^"^^ '^^ ' "^ ' ' o ' Brompton Faucit have I known in Brompton Square; Planch^ in ^lichael's Grove; T. P. Cooke in Thurloe Square; Charles ]\Iathews and ]\Iadame Vestris in Gore Lodge, Fulliam; John Reeve and G. H. Rodwell in Bromp- ton Row; Wriglit in Chelsea; ]\Iiss Woolgar — where she still lives — in the Vale, Chelsea. The omni- buses Avere filled with actors, and footlight celebrities were common as Ijlackberries. Not many of them were to be met at the Keeleys', however, whose " con- nection " was strictly a ])rivate one, composed of many pleasant elements, young and (jld, whicli were generally brought together on a Sunday ex'cning. In tlie week there was no time for festivity at No. 10, for reliearsals in the morning and acting at night kept the Keeleys constantly engaged, while 234 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. the afternoon was rigidly devoted to purposes of rest, all callers being tabooed. Another friend of Albert Smith's to whom I was presented, and who was good enough to admit me to an intimacy which was greatly to my advan- .1. L. tage, was James Lyster O'Beirne, an Irishman but recently arrived in London, connected with the law and the press, and secretary of a public company. To Mr. O'Beirne I owe absolutely my first introduction to the public, my first actual acquaintance with the delightful mysteries of a print- ing-office, my first apprenticeship to journalism. Thus it came about : after readini>' some verses of mine, a little skit that had especial interest to him and Albert ^Smith, Mr. O'Beirne informed me that, amongst other press work, he edited the Court Journal^ then the property of Mr. AV. Thomas, a well-known newsagent in Catherine Street, Strand, and that, if I chose, he could, he thought, get me " on " to that organ. I need not say I accepted the My first Q^gj. y^\\\^ deliirht. I saw jMr. Thomas, and I was engage- cr' ' inetit. engaged at a salary of 1/. a week, very irregularly paid — hear this, all ye budding journalists ! — to con- tribute regular dramatic criticisms, occasional poems, and anything else I liked to send in. My first poem — I have it before me at the present writing, duly cut out, and pasted in a book by my mother's proud Journal, carc — was published in the Court Journal of the 6th THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 235 March 1852, verses " On the Death of Thomas Moore," an event which had happened at the end of the previous month. So I was Pendennis at Last ! with my entree PcnJennis at last ! to the theatres, and my power of saying what T hked f^hout tliem, and my dehghtful visits to the printing-office, and my proofs, and my colloquies with mv colleaji'ue, Mr. Lumlev, now and for many years proprietor and editor of the C. /., the circula- tion and influence of which he has enormously ex- tended, rjames O'Beirne was very kind to me. I had the run of his chambers at the corner of King Street and St. James's Street, now a club, and the advantage of his advice and experience. Just about this time, too — the spring of 1852 — The Field- was established the oriii'inal Ficldinii; Club, of which I '"'" ' " ' was a constant attendant, and where I spent many happy hours and made many pleasant and useful acquaintances. It had a predecessor in the C.C.C., oi* Cider Cellar Club, held at the tavern of that name, in a room at the bottom of the stairs on the riirht, immediately facing the bar. I was there once oi- twice as a visitor, but was not a member : it was, in fact, before my time. The establishment of a night club — the "Fielding" Avas the name selected by Thackeray, to whom the choice of title was delegated — was decided on in consequence of the impossi- bility of getting su])per at the Garrick, or, indeed, of 236 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. infusing anything like liveliness into that temple, after midnight. It was doubtless unreasonable to expect that the necessarily small staff of a small club should be ready both for day and night duties ; but the want of such a place of resort had long been experienced, and it was determined it should be supplied in the best way possible. " Offley's," a famous tavern of former times, situate in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, had fallen upon evil days, its custom was gone, its name almost forgotten ; the position for our purpose was most desirable, and the premises were secured for the Fielding. I shall best o-ive an idea of the members of this once flimous club by quoting from a descriptive poem, written by Albert Smith, with a little of my collaboration, about the winter of '52. It was evoked by a little joke amongst ourselves at the expense of one of our members, wdiicli need not be recalled : There was high festival that night within Saint Offley's Hall (For so they term a place where sons of night hold festival) ; There was Sir Armytage ^ of race ; and Archy - on the go (He never stays long anywhere), and Albert ^ of the " show." • Sir George Armytage, Bart., of Kirklees Hall, Yorks, and Cambridge Square, well known in social, turf, and theatrical circles ; one of my oldest and kindest friends, and almost the only survivor, save the principals, of those present at my wedding. 2 Andrew Arcedeckne, a quaint kind-hearted oddity, of whom I shall often have to speak. He was the original of Foker in Fcndcnnu. Bead. » Albert Smith. The Egyptian Hall entertainment was always spoken of by us as " the show." Dead. THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 237 II. J. W. D.'* vras there, so great in operatic myth, And using the club note-paper was Arthur, known as "Smith;" 5 And with the Maelstrom's wind-borne spray still glistening in his hair, The bold Norwegian fisherman, great Pleasant," took his chair. III. And Dan," who cried in quick, sharp tones, that never seemed to stop, "Here! waiter! when the di\-il are ye going to bring my chop?" And gentle Jim,^ who tends the Screws, up fifty pairs of stairs. And Collingwood,^ who never goes to bed but unawares. IV. There was the gallant Henry, ^^ and bold Brownlow ^^ stand- ing by. Deep in a talk with the great Mons.^- of Wagner and of Gye, * J. W. Davison, for ninny years chief musical critic of the Times. * Arthur Smith, Albert's brother. Dead. « Sir Charles Taylor, Bart., of Hollycombe, and King Street, St. James'p, ■who alwp.)'S rented a salmon-fishing in Norway. Called " Old rieasant." from his invariable cynicism. Anthony Trolloi)e has veil described him : "• A mau rough of tongue, brusque in his manner.s, odious to those who (ii.-Iike him, somewhat inclined to tyranny, he is the prince of friends, honest as tlie sun, and as ojien-handod as Charity itself." This, by the way, is an e.xceileiit description of the writer, TroUope himself. Dead. ' Daniel O'Connell, youngest eon of the ''Liberator," then M.l*. for Tralee, now a Special Commissioner of Income-tax. » James Lystcr O'lieirne, the secretary of the General Screw Steam Ship- ping Company ; frequently mentioned in these volumes. » Henry Collingwood Ibbetson, a great friend of mine, and one of the gentlest and kindest of human beings. Dead, "> Sir Henry Percival de Bathe, Bart., then Captain de Bathe, of the Scots rusilier Guards. " Colonel Brownlow Knox, of the Scots Fusilier Guards, and M.P. for Marlow. He was pecuniarily interested at that time in the fortunes of the ncwly-f^stablished Koyal Italian Opera. Dead. ''■' Mons. Jullien. See ante. Dead. 238 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. And good old Mac ^^ — fair Strasburg's pride — who everybody knows, And Vivian ^* of the flowing locks — so difierent to Joe's ! ^^ V. There were four Williams there. First, he with voice of deepest might, i" Who says, " I'll tell you what it is " (and William tells you right) ; And he of Willow-pattern fame,^" who ne'er was known to shout ; And he the leading journal's pet — terror of Ingram's trout. ^^ VI. And he, again, the bright-hued Artist-king of Fairyland •}'^ And with him was good brother Bob,^° just come up from the Strand ; And Walter -' the Enthusiastic spoke, with figures rare, To FOW " of the " bright water jug "—he didn't use it there. '5 Tom Macdonald. formerly of the Morning Chronicle, then secretary to the Canada Trust and Loan Company. The reference to StrHsburg I have forgotten. A line in Thackeray's Ballad of Bouillahalssc, "And laughing Tom is laughing yet," referred to T. M. Dead. " George Henry Lewes, at that time writing as " Vivian " in the Leader. Dead. '* J. M. Langford, Messrs. Blackwood's London representative. Dead. IS William Bullaud, son of Mr. Justice Bolland, a bitr, heavy, handsome man, of much peculiar humour. He ahvaj-^s spoke of himse'f as " William." He was the original of Fred Bayham in 'Jlie Neiocomcs ; and I ventured to reproduce him as William Bowker in Land at Last. Dead. " William P. Hale, part-author with Frank Talfourd of the burlesque The ^^ illoto Pattern Plate. Often mentioned herein. He was a very loud talker. Dead. " William Howard Russell, LL.D., the doyen of special correspondents. This was before he won his spurs in the Crimea; and then he was only known as a very clever graphic reporter and amusing Irish humourist. He was a great fisherman, and had the run of some water belonging to Mr, Higram, JLP. '=• William Beverly. 2" Rolit-rt Roxby, then acting at the Lyceum. Dead. 2' Walter Lacy, the evergreen dealer in tropes and metaphors. ^ F. 0. Ward, familiarly known as Fow. A very brilliant man, leader- writer on the Time.t, and a pioneer of sanitary reform. The " bright water- jug" was one of his special hobbies. Dead. THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 239 VII. And Tom, whose pointer^ pen supplies the Stage and Board of Health,23 And Peter,2^ from whose handbook mines great Murray draws much wealth ; And Frank,-5 who made an awful pun, the whiles his grog he drank, As Charley-*^ told how Kean that day had called Mm also " frank." VIII. And Cuthbert of the ringlets came -'" (his namesake was not there. With certain " cheerful snobs " that day he tasted City fare) ;-^ And stout Sir Evan ^'J shook his sides ; with him the culprit's friend. Who saves " the prisoner at the bar " from many an awkward end.^^o IX. And " handsome Jack," to whose dear girls and swells his life Punch owes ;^^ And Leigh, the sole jcune 'premier that our stage at present knows ■;•- ^' Tom Taylor, secretary of what was then the Board of Health, afterwards the Local Government Office. Dead. ^* Peter Cutminj^ham, F.S.A., author of the Handbook of London,kidwell and the Hon. AV. Grey of the Foreign Office, the latter attache at Stockholm; ]\Iorgan John O'Connell, nephew of the Liberator and M.P. for Kerry; John E. Jones, an excellent sculptor and Irish humourist ; John C. Deane, who held some posi- tion in regard to Great Exhil)itions generally, and who sang divinely; Luard, a clever artist, who died young; G. L. Hall, also an artist; J. C. O'Dowd, now Deputy Judge-Advocate-General, at that time assistant-editor of the Globe, then a Liberal organ ; and Captains Charles Seymour and Augustus (Jerry) Meyrick of the Scots Fusiliers. There must have been some peculiar attrac- a deiight- tion about the place and its associations, for I do not thiiik I ever saw men work so heartily to achieve a success for anything of the kind as did its mendjers. For tlie first cigliteen months of its existence, save, of course, during the autmnn vaca- tion, one was sure of findini'- a OTtherinn: tlicre of a night, small perhaps, l)ut always attractive; and it " Of course, Thackeray. Bead, VOL. I. R 2 42 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. was eminently a place in which men cast aside their ordinary work-a-day shell. There Avas very little singing, and recitations, which are now so common, would not have been endured for an instant; but there w^as abundance of good talk, both general con- versation and private chat. I well recollect coming in late one night, when Charles Kenney and George Henry Lewes were the only occupants of the room. They were chatting over the fire, literally " playing at" — as children say — being French* peasants, and discussmg the prospects of an apocryphal vintage in a Burgundy pa!f6>Z5. Occasionally there would be a field-night, when a mock-trial would be improvised, or some rare story- telhng ; but there was quite enough amusement to make me a regular nightly visitor, and it was not, I fear, till one a.m. that what we used to call the " N'orth- Western Mail " was ready for departure : said North- AVestern Mail being a four-wheel cab, Avhich first deposited Albert and Arthur in Percy Street, dropped me in Gloucester Place, and concluded its journey by leaving Sir George Armytage in Cambridge Square. The " Mont Blanc " entertainment was produced Open in Of of "Mont at the Eo'Yptian Hall on the 15th March 1852, with Blanc." ^"^ ^ an amount of success which was totally unexpected. Since the days of Mathews and my fiither the mono- polylogue had fallen into desuetude, and though an attempt at resuscitation of it had been made by a THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 243 Mr. Wooclin, with a performance which he called his Carpet-hag and Sketch-book, his claim to success lay rather in the rapidity of his costume-changes than in the excellence of his impersonation. Albert Smith's appeal' to the public was made from a totally ditfer- ent stfindpoint. He had a good circulating-library renown as a novelist, Ledbury and Cliristoplier Tadpole having been Avidcly read ; his songs for John Parry had introduced him to another section of the public; while his latest productions — shilling " Social Zoologies," a natural history of The Gent, then of The Ballet-girl, and then of The Flirt — had achieved vast popularity, so much so, indeed, that his publisher, worthy ]\Ir. ])Ogue, who had paid him 10/. for The Gent, a few months after gave him 100/. for The Flirt. He was poj^ular in literary and theatrical circles, and the ascent had been much talked of in " society," one of his colleagues in the adventure havinir been the Hon. Lionel Sackville AVcst, who is now our Minister at AVashington. Tlien the whole tone of the performance was good, pleasantly and conversationally given as a kind of one-sided chat; the painted views by William Beverly were admir- able ; and lastly, the comfort of the audience had been thoroughly attended to. They sat on good chairs in a room well carpeted and curtained, charmingly • decorated, and properly ventilated; and there were no " harpies," as Albert used to call them, catching Paris. 244 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. at fees for cloaks, programmes, or what-not. The abolition of fees to attendants, now so general, was introduced by Albert Smith. Shortly after I had seen this success well assured, and had shared in some of the festivities with which Visit to it was celebrated, I started with Mr. O'Beirne for a ten days' holiday in Paris. AVe put up at the then existing, but since destroyed, Hotel des Princes in the Rue Kichelieu, and had what may emphatically be called " a good time." There we were joined by Tom Macdonald, who knew his Paris fi-om the old Thackeray days. The famous house in " the New Street of the Little Fields " had indeed vanished, but there were others famous then, but which now exist no longer, and of them we made frequent trial. Amono; them were the old Cafe de Paris on the Italian Boulevard ; and Phihppe's in the Rue Mont- orgueil, with his wufs hronilles aiix triiffes ; and his next-door neighbour, the Rochers de Cancale ; and Brebant's — though that is, of course, still going — where we met some journalists, one of whom nearly made me faint with delight by alluding to me as . " Monsieur notre confrere." There was a Closerie des Lilas in those days, and a garden at Asnieres, the spring opening of which we attended, and joined in a persistent chorus of "Des lamp-i-ons!" lasting for hours, because the promised illuminations were not forthcoming. THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 245 But what remains freshest in my mind in con- nection with that Paris visit is going to see the Dame aux Camelias^ wliich had been produced The i)awr three months before, and was then in the full SI ^"'"'' tide of its success at the Vaudeville, with Fechter and Madame Doche in the principal characters. I read somewhere, a few days ago, that this is a very dull and stupid old play, and I daresay it may be ; but I know when I first saw it I was more moved than I ever had been by a theatrical performance. I was not twenty-one then, and the sad fortunes of a consumptive lorctte were more likely to interest me than they would now ; and, again, such realistic act- ing, as exhibited ])oth by the man and woman, I had never seen. I can see Doche standing before the fireplace, achevant la toilette de ses angles, and listening Avitli delight to Armand's narration of his visits of inquiry during her illness; I can see Fechter in the ballroom scene gUding to her side, and pleading, " Marguerite, j'ai la fievre !" I can see him as the act- drop falls flinging the bank-notes before her, and hear his bitter cry, " J'ai paye cette femme!" My companions w^re equally impressed, and we strode out of the theatre in silence, each occupied with his own reflections. So that we were not Ijcst pleased when an acquaintance, a chattering Englishman, tacked himself on to us, and, first exclaiming that he " didn't think much of it," wanted to know what that fellow was doing when he threw the money 246 THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. about, as " he spoke so infernally quick, I could not make out what he said." I continued my contributions to the Court Journal with perfect regularity and great pleasure to myself during the year, before the end of which I had launched out on to other literary seas. After the death of Lady Blessington, the annual which she had estab- lished, the Keepsahe^ was brought out by her niece, The the lovely and accomplished Miss Marguerite Power, er.pmic: ^^^^^ ^^^^ _^i^ friendship's sake, was supported by the leaders among the old Gore House set. Tennyson, Thackeray, and Bulwer Lytton contributed to the first number published under her editorship, so that, though there was no honorarium, it may be imagined I was tolerably proud when an Ingoldsby poem of mine was accepted by Miss Power, to whom I had been presented by Albert Smith, and I found myself in the Keepsake for '53, in company with Thackeray, Monckton Milnes, Barry Cornwall, Landor, Chorley, and other well-known names. Kindly Angus Reach selected the poem for a few hearty encouraging words in his review of the annual in i\\Q, Morning Chronicle; and thoughtful Shirley Brooks, who had seen the notice in proof at the Chronicle office, told me of it at a supper at Keeley's, and bade me look out for it next day. That was the first time any work of mine was noticed by the pre.'s. To the kindness of Albert t.raied bmitli i also owcd an introduction to Mr. John JVnvx. Timbs, then sub-editing the Illustrated London News, THE INFLUENCE OF PENDENNIS. 247 who, in his turn, presented me to his chief. Dr. Charles Mackay, with the result that, when the next Christmas number of the /. L. N. was being: thouo-ht of, two proofs of cuts were forwarded to me, with a request that I would " write up " some verses applic- able to ,tliem, w^hich, of course, I did, and for which I was very well paid. For several years I wrote verses and stories for the Christmas Illustrated. With the exception of the usual childhood's mala- dies — measles, scarlet-fever, &c. — I enjoyed very fair health up to this point; but in the very early days of 1 . , appouitment ol secretary to an insurance office m the City, which had just become vacant. This offer, after Declined. ^^^^^ Consideration, I declined. I should not have been fitted for the place ; and though the salary would have been more than what I was actually receiving at the Post Office, there were no prospective advantages, while I should ha\'e had no chance of jDursuing my literary calling, from which I hoped to derive both pleasure and profit. When my wife and I returned to town, we took up our abode in a small house where for the past year or two I had lived with my mother, who, with that perfect unselfishness that characterised her life, made it over to us, and agreed to pay the rent. Her inten- tion Avas to spend some time in the country, and EARL Y MARRIED LIFE. 249 before we came back she had ah-eady settled herself for the summer at Henfield, a village in Sussex, near Hurstpierpoint. Our house was in what was then called Gloucester i become Place, Xew Eoad, at unmediate right angles to, but Liderr having notliing in common with, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, a far grander locality. The New Road has smce been subdivided into Marylebone and Euston Roads, but then it was the New Road, stretch- ing from Paddington to Islington, and our house was about a mile from the Paddington end. It was small, but so was the rent, sixty pounds a year, and it was quite large enough for my wife and me and our two servants. It had a little garden in front, between it Tiie '■grounds'' and the road, with a straio^ht hnc of flao-stones leadino- direct from the gate to the doorsteps, and bits of flower-beds (in which nothing ever grew) intersected by little gravel-paths about a foot wide. This garden was a source of great delight to my humorous friends. Albert Smith would be seen carefully putting one foot before tlic other, in order that he miglit not stcj) off the path, and, after wandering in and out between the little beds, would feimi excessive fatiirue on his arrival at the house, declaring he had been " lost in the shruljbery ;'' Arthur would suggest that we should liave a guide on the spot to show visitors the nearest way; while Collingwood Ibbetson hoped we intended giving some outdoor fetes in the sunnner, assuring 250 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. premises. US that the "band of the Life Guards would look splendid on that," pointing to a bit of tarf about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. When the street-door was opened wide back, it entirely absorbed the hall, and we could not get out of the dining-room door; but then we could, of course, always pass out through tlie " study," a little room like a cistern, which just lield my desk and one chair, ■fhe There was a very small yard at the back, opening on to a set of stables which had their real entrance in the mews ; but we were compelled to cover all our back windows with putty, imitative of ground-glass, on which we stuck cut-out paper designs of birds and flowers, as these looked directly on the rooms over the stables, inhabited by a coachman and his family ; and the sight of a stalwart man at the opposite window, shaving himself in very dingy shirt-sleeves, within a few feet of your nose, was not wholly agree- able. AVe were rather stifled in the up-stairs rooms, owing to low ceilings and a diffidence we felt as to opening the windows; for the Xew Road was a dusty thoroughfare, and the immediate vicinity of a cab- stand, though handy on some occasions, lets one into rather a larger knowledge of the stock of expletives with Avhich the English language abounds than is good for polite ears. But when we knew that the coachman was out, we used to open the back windows and grow very enthusiastic over " fresh air from EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 251 Hampstead and Highgate," which, nevertheless, always seemed to me to have a somewhat stably twang. However, we were very happy in that little house, and neither we nor our friends took much heed of its smallness or lack of conveniences. Our menage was our humble enough, and our " good plain cook " was not always to be trusted. I recollect one day, when a boiled leg of mutton had made its appearance in a very " gory" state, Albert went down into the kitchen, and with his own hands prepared an excellent broil. I could not afford good Avine, and would not give bad ; but there was an ever-flowinu' barrel of Romford ale, and some Irish whisky, which I procured through. ]\Iayne Keid — '• J>ushmills " was its name — which Avas higlily esteemed. All my old Fielding friends — the Smiths, Ibbetson, Sir George Armytage, AV. H. Kussell, " Boldcro " Goodlake, Peter Cunningham, W. P. Hale, O'Beirne, and T. K. Holmes — Avould look in from time to time; as also Mayne Reid ; AV. A/V. Fenn, avIio had known me years before ; AVilliam Coxon, of the 13th Hussars, brother of one of my colleagues at the Post Office ; and Herbert Harring- ton, Avith Avhom I afterwards coHaborated in dramatic work. AA^e Avent out a good deal; there were frequent suddenly improvised suppers at Albert's rooms, or dinners at Verrey's. Sundays we almost invariably spent in the comi)any of the Keeleys, either dining at 252 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. their house at Brompton Square, or joming with them in some excursion to Richmond, Hampton, Thames Sunday Dittou, &.Q. Wc had somc dehghtful Sundays at excursions ^ i i i • Albert's cottage at bhertsey, whither we would drive on a private omnibus or coach, and dine in a tent in the garden. One large party there I remember, at which it had been whispered Kossuth, then in England, would be present, and there was great disappointment at his non-arrival. In the middle of dinner, however, there was a great stir, and Albert, making his way throuoii the tent, returned with the distino-uished Hungarian. It was, in reality, Tom Taylor, who, admirably disguised with slouched hat and beard — at that time T. T. was clean shaven — delivered a most wonderful composite speech, a few real German words mixed up with much English, pronounced like and sounding like German, to the general delight. We spent a few delightful days with Ibbetson, who had taken a cottage at Hampton Wick ; and used to run down to Brighton, to a cheap little lodging we had found there, Avhenever we could spare the time and the monev. Mrs. One of our earliest and kindest friends was GiVsoiVs Mrs. Milner Gibson, who never had a reception without sending us a card. A genuine instinct of hospitality, an innate good feeling, the pleasure that arises from giving pleasure to others, the happiness of seeing those around her happy, w^ere the sole end and EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 253 aim of the lady who presided over the miscellaneous company that used to meet together in the corner house of Wilton Crescent. Louis Blanc, Mazzini, Sir Alexander Cockburn, Huddleston, Q.C. ; Phinn, Q.C. ; Planche, Mr. and Mrs. Torrens, Sir Charles and Lady Eastlake, Thackeray, Monckton Milnes, Doyle, Albert and Arthur Smith, Landseer and Leech, Swinton, the Charles Keans, Mrs. Sartoris, Costa, Benedict, Leighton, the Henry Reeves, Pigott, Halle, Biletta, Palgrave Simpson, Chorley, the Alfred AVigans, Mrs. Proctor, Mrs. Dickens — these, together with a troo]) of Irishmen, Radical members of Parliament, and foreign exiles, were representative guests. It was no mere affair of small-talk, ices, and lemonade. A substantial supper was a feature of the evening, and the foreigners had a pleasant way of rushing down directly that meal was served and sweeping the table. It was here that Leech, returning flushed from an encounter with tlie linkman, told me laughingly he would not have minded if " Mr. Leech's carriage " had been called, but that the fellow would roar out " The keb from Nottin' '111 !" Another house where we were made very welcome jud^'e . ii-T-» no 1 Talfoiird's was Mr. Justice lalfourd's, m Kusseil square, where hospi- thc company was pretty much the same, with fewer foreigners and more Bar, and where- the kindly host, with short-crop]ied, iron-gray hair and beaming face, would ask his friends, and specially any strangers, ground. 254 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. to "do liim the pleasure of dwinking a glass of wine with him," from the dumpy little Steinwein flagon he held in his hand. Meanwhile, I was not idle. I continued my regular work for the Court Journal and wrote a few dramatic criticisms for the Leader^ a brilliant but not very long-lived journal, which my friend Pigott owned, and to which George Henry Lewes, E. M. Whitty, j^resh and other clever men contributed. I had also found my way into several periodicals, notably into Bentley's Miscellany^ in which appeared my first tale-essay, " My New Year's Eve.'' I was much pleased at this, for Bentlcys Miscellany had been portion of my earliest readino:, almost as a child ; and when I first went to the Post Office I used to lunch at a coff'ee-shop, long- since pulled down, in the first floor of which there was a large collection of greasy well-thumbed Miscellany volumes, which were my delight. . Mr. Bentley, to whom I was introduced by Albert Smith, took two or three of my articles, and as many more appeared in Chambers's Journal, then, I think, under the editor- ship of Leitch Ritchie. I Avas very anxious that these sketches should book. appear as a book, and when I thought I had suffi- cient material, I went, with an introduction from Albert, to Mr. Bogue, the publisher, at 86 Fleet Street, and asked him if he would undertake the little volume. Mr. Bogue received me very pleasantly : I My first EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 255 little thought while chatting with him in his office at the back of the shop that, on that very spot exactly twenty years later, the first numbers of The World would be pubUshecl. I left the "copy" with Mr. Bogue, and w^hen I next saw him he told me he was willin'o; to undertake the venture at his own risk ; as I was almost utterly unknown, he could not give me anything for it, but he would produce it in such a way that it would be useful as an advertisement for me. To this I agreed, and he proved as good as his word: "J/?/ Haunts^ and their Frequenters^ by Edmund li. Yates," dedicated to his " earliest and kindest literary friend, Albert Smith," appeared in July 1854, well printed on good paper, and, for an illustration on the cover, a somewhat fancy portrait of the author, seated at his oak davenport, drawn by my old friend, II. G. Iline, who has since w^on a very high position amongst water-colour artists. The little ])ook was kindly received by the criticivi press : the grave Athenceurn said, " There is more "p^"^*^""" bone in this contribution to shilUnir liu'lit literature than we usually recognise. Some of the sketches are amusing, and neatly finished off; " the Atlas^ then extant, and edited by Robert Bell, found it "a lively sketch of the life of a gay man in town, written in a more gentlemanly tone than is usual in such works ;" and the Era, the Weekly Dispatch, and, of course, the Court Journal, had all something 256 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. pleasant to say. I could never learn anything about the sale from Mr. Bogue, save that he " didn't complain," so I imagine he recouped himself for the outlay. That same year '54 was memorable to me in many ways. In it I made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, There was no one in the world for whom I had so much admiration, or whom I so longed to know. I had no special object in calling upon him, certainly not the idea of getting him to take my work, for I perfectly allowed that that was not up to the HouseJiold Words standard ; but I thought he Avould receive me kindly, for my name's sake, and he 1 call on f^icl- I called at Tavistock House, gave in my card, Dickens. ^^_^^ ^^g ushered into the drawing-room — a huge room at the back of the house. After a few minutes a lady entered, Miss Hogarth, Dickens's sister-in-law, and, in his own words, " the best and truest friend man ever had." She greeted me most pleasantly, with a winning smile, and told me that Mr. Dickens was busily engaged on work Avhich he could not leave at that moment ; but that if I was, as he sup- posed, the son of Mr. Frederick Yates, formerly of the Adelphi, he would be delighted to see me on the next Sunday, at two o'clock. Of course I gratefully accepted this appointment, and went away. Be sure I was punctual on Sunday, when I was ushered straight into the presence of the great man, and found EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 257 him sitting at his desk in the window of the front room on the first floor, lookino- on to the little enclosure in which the house stood. He rose to sfreet o me, took my hand in his hearty grip, and placed me in a chair opposite to his. There were no photographs of celebrities to be purchased in those days, and I had formed my idea of Dickens's personal appearance from the portrait of His per- him, by Maclise, prefixed to Nidiehij : the soft and pearance. delicate face, with the long hair, the immense stock, and the hio;h-collared waistcoat. He was nothino; like that. Indeed, my mother, who saw him shortly after this, and who had not met him for fifteen years, declared she should not have recognised him, for, save his eyes, there was no trace of the original Dickens about him. His hair, though worn still somewhat long, was beginning to be sparse; his cheeks were shaved ; he had a moustache and a " door-knocker '' beard encircling his mouth and chin. His eyes were wonderfully bright and piercing, with a keen, eager outlook ; his bearing hearty and somewhat aggressive. He wore, on that occasion, a loose jacket and wide trousers, and sat back in his chair, with one leg under him and his hand in his pocket, very much as in Frith's portrait. " Good God, how like your father !" "is ^'nd •^ '' reception were his first words. Then he proceeded to talk of'^f i^'^-'' his old recollections of the Adel[)hi, his great admira- tion for my mother ; told me the news of my father's VOL. I. s 258 EARL V MARRIED LIFE. death was part of the budget brought out by the Liverpool pilot, on his return from America ; asked me of my mother, of myself, my position and prospects, all in the kindest way. He was off that week with his family to spend the summer at Boulogne, and hoped they should see me on their return. I asked him about Broadstairs, where I had an idea of going for a little holiday, and he praised the place warmly. I do not think I mentioned my literary aspirations to him, save, perhaps, in a very casual way ; but I must very soon after have sent him My Haunts, for the following, his first letter to me, alludes to its receijDt : " Boulogne, Thirtieth July 1854. Firstletter ^Y <^6^^ ^^^j — ^ \iQ;ve brought your book away, with other from him. pleasant gifts of that nature, to read under a haystack here. If I delay thanking you for it any longer, I am afraid you may think either that I have not got it, or that I don't care for it. As either mistake would be really painful to me, I send this small parcel of thanks to London in a liousehold Words packet, and beg to express a hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you under my London haystack (metaphorical for ceiling) when I return home for the winter ; and, in the mean time, I hope you may like Broadstairs half as well as I do. Very faithfully yours, Chaeles Dickens." The first time we met after this was, however, , under my "haystack, metaphorical for ceiling." On and chri? ^^^ ^^^^^ Octobcr, this year '54, my eldest son, Fre- tening. clerick Henry Albert, was born ; and at a little dinner, given in honour of the christening, towards the end EARLY MARRIED LIFE. . 259 of the following month, Dickens honoured us with his company, and was most delightful. My mother and the two godfathers — Albert Smith and Mr. AYil- kinson, my father-in-law — were also present. Ill the early autumn I was asked by Mr. Bogue to call in Fleet Street " on a matter of business," which proved to be a desire to secure my services and cooperation in the establishment of a projected new magazine, to be published by Bogue, to be called Cruikshanlc s Magazine^ to be illustrated by the Cruih- . sJiank',1 celebrated artist, and to be edited by Mr. Smedley, Magazine. " whom, of course, I knew." I had never heard of Mr. Smedley, and it was not until Bogue mentioned him as the author of Frank Fairlegli that I knew of whom he spoke. AYith that, and other novels from the same pen, full of life and " go," hunting and racing scenes, and strange adventures, I had a casual acquaintance; but I had never seen the author, never met an}' one who knew him. So I took a letter of introduction from Mr. Bogue, and .went off at once to Jermyn Street, where Mr. Smedley lived, in the aspiring frame of mmd befitting one about to enlist as a light free-lance under a new chief. As I rode up in the cab, I was picturing to My ideal picture of myself the man with whom I was about to become Frank '' _ _ Smedley. acquainted; and as I now write, those thoughts recur to me exactly as they passed through my mind. I liave laughed over them so often ^vith him who was The 260 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. their subject, that there is no wonder at their remain- ing fixed on my memory. I figured to myself a tall, strongly-built man, of about forty years of age, bald, with a fringe of hair, large breezy whiskers, strong bony hands, and general muscular develop- ment, rather " horsey " in his dress and talk and manner. I expected that his tone would be rather brusque^ and that I might prol3ably be unable to attain his required standard of " knowingness " in matters relatino- to the field and the road. I sent in my letter, and I was ushered into reality. ^]-^g presence of a gentleman, whom, even in the dim light of a shaded lamp standing on the table by his elbow, I could tell to be suffering' under some mal- formation, as he sat in his wheel-chair — a little man, with a peculiar, clever face; piercing eyes, never moving from the person he was addressing; a manner beginning in earnestness, and then straying into banter; a voice beginning in harshness, and modu- lating into pleasantest cadence; a bearing which, although, in its endeavour to be thoroughly inde- pendent, it almost verged on the repulsive, was, notwithstandmg, indefinably attractive. I was so astonished at finding such a difference in what I had expected, that, as I have since thought, my answers to his sliort and pertinent questions must liave been vague and unsatisfactory. At all events, I recollect that my new acquaintance's tone became EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 261 slightly sarcastic, which recalled me to myself; that I endeavoured to answer him as best I could ; that his manner then changed ; and that on that, the first day of our acquaintance, we formed an intimate friendship, wliich continued until the latest hour of his life.' I think that this kindness of heart, veiled occa- Frank sionally under an affectation of calculating worldliness character- of mind, and a little cynicism very badly sustamed, was the ruling spirit of his life. He was never happy save when doing a kindness to some one — never pleased save Avhen he had some little pet scheme of beneficence, which he would bring out as though he Avere ashamed of it; while his quivering lips and brimming eyes belied the assumed roughness of his voice and manner. He was soft-hearted to a degree; and his physical malady had kept his intercourse Avitli the world so restricted, that while his min ccllanij. imsceUany, a collection of prose and verse sketches, contributed by Robert Brough and myself to various magazines, Avith a cover, on which the authors were admirably caricatured by C. H. Bennett. My first essay in dramatic writing, in collabora- tion with a Post Office friend named Harrino-ton, was a riotous and ridiculous, but at the same time an exceedmgly funnv, farce called A Night at Nottinq My fust farce. Hill, the theme being the burglaries at the time pre- valent in tliat suburb, which was produced at the Adelphi in the early days of January 1857. Har- rington, wlio had been a professional actor, was well up to the requirements of the stage, and we scored a distinct success. Wright, as an alderman, terrified at the notion of having his house broken into, was exceedingly comic, and he was Avell seconded by Paul Bedford as a Life Guardsman, hired to protect the premises. The press were heartily unanimous in their reception of this trifle, which had a run of over a hundred nights. Emboldened by our success, my partner and I at once went to work on another farce, VOL. I. u 290 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. Mr J L ^^^^^^^ ^^ T^^{\. to Mr. J. L. Toole, whose acquaintance Toole. J \^r^^ made a year or two before, when I went with Albert Smith to the Walworth Institution, and heard Mr. Toole, then an amateur, give a very funny enter- tainment. He had now made his mark as a pro- fessional comedian, and was playing at the Lyceum, under the management of Mr. Charles Dillon. Another ^^1'- Toole received our farce very favourably, and aice. recommended it to his manager, by whom it was ac- cepted. It was called My Friend from Leatherliead, and Avas produced on the 23rd February 1857, with Mr. Toole as the hero, while a small part of a lady's- maid was made conspicuous by the excellent way in ,, which it was filled by Miss M. Wilton — now Mrs. Ban- Mrs. •/ Bancroft, ^^q^^^ AYlicn I saw, ucxt momiug, that Oxenford had given us a notice of full half a column in the Times, I had no doubt of our success. Durino; the next few years, always m conjunction with Harrington, A comedi- 1 wrote several successful farces: a comedietta, called If the Cap Fits, the last piece produced by Mr. Charles Kean in his manaofement of the Princess's, was of a different genre, of neater construction, and more polished dialogue. It was admirably acted by, among others, Mr. Frank Matthews, Mr. Walter Miss Ellen Lacy, and — Miss Ellen Terry, soon after she entered the profession : she played a juvenile groom, a " tiger," with great spirit and vivacity. One of the " enter- tainments " given at the Gallery of Illustration, about EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 291 tliis time, by Mr. and Mrs. German Reed, was also from my pen. Early in June this year ('57) England lost one Douglas of her wittiest sons — Dou^ias Jerrold. Thouo-h never, intimate with liim, T had often been in his company, and had heard him flash forth the biting- epigram and quick repartee for which in our day he has had no rival. A small delicately-formed bent man, with long gray hair combed back from his forehead, witli gray eyes deep set under penthouse brows, and a way, just as the inspiration seized him, of dangling a double eyeglass, which hung round his neck b}- a broad black ribbon : a kindly man for all his bitter tongue, replying most courteously to a complaint against one of his staff, which I brought before him years ago, and taking care that justice was done : soft and easy with women and children. Years before, I had been one of a party which had escorted him, after the successful production of one of his comedies — The Catspaw^ I think — to the Bed- ford Hotel in Covent Garden, Avliere supper was pre- pared. Jerrold was flushed witli triumph; but his bodily strength was small, and he hung on to my unpub- arm. As we went up New Street, we met two or |]^^J^^^^'"*' three drunken roysterers, one of whom, after tum- bling up against me, apologised, and asked " the way to the Judge and Jury," a popular entertainment of the day. Instantly Jerrold bent forward and 292 EARL V MARRIED LIFE. addressed him : " Straight on, young man. Continue in the path you're now ^Dursuing, and you can't fliil to come to them!" It was to Peter Cunningham, mentioning his fondness for calves' feet, that Jerrold said, "Extremes meet;" to Mrs. Alfred Wigan, ex- pressing her fear that her hair had heen turned gray by the application of some strong stimulant, he said, " I know — essence of thyme !" He Avas brought to the Fielding Club once as a guest, and was sitting there when the door opened, and All^ert Smith appeared. "Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains!" cried some one, in would-be facetious salutation. " Yes," said Jerrold, " and Albert ' half-crowned him long ago In the spring of the year in which Jerrold died, Mr. Benjamin Webster had a pleasant gathering of friends at his quaint old house by Kennington Church, to celebrate the birthday of his daughter. Jer- rold was there, playing whist; in the adjoining room they were dancing. Touching him on the shoulder, I asked, " Who is that man, Jerrold, there, dancing with Mrs. Jerrold ?" He looked round for an instant, through the open door. " God knows, my dear boy !" he replied : " some member of the Humane Society, I Last time i^uppose!" The last time I saw him was little more o^^seeing ^^^ ^ wcck before his death, at a Sunday Greenwich dinner, given by AY. H. Russell, at which Dickens, Delane, Mowbray Morris, Albert and Arthur Smith, EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 293 and many others were present. Jerrold, who looked very ill, and told me he was having his house done up, and was " jDoisoned by the paint," had been brought down by Dickens in the steamer. He was very piano, and I heard him attempt only one joke : when Russell asked Albert Smith to ring the bell for din- ner, Jerrold said, " Yes, Albert, why don't you ring- that bell(e) ?" in allusion to rumours then rife of an engagement between A. S. and Miss Keeley, whom he afterwards married. Jerrold went away early, •^ -^ ' His death . took to his bed, and died on the Monday week. On the morning of the funeral I had a letter from Dickens, asking me to dine at the Garrick, as he wanted to talk to me on a matter of business. I Jen-oid's fuiieral. went, and found Albert and Arthur Smith of the party. They had all been to the ceremony at Nor- wood in the morning, and Dickens spoke very strongly of the fuss and flourish A\itli which it had been conducted. The mourners, it seemed, wore bands of crape with the initials " D. J." round their arms, and there was a funeral-car, of which Dickens declared he heard one old woman in the crowd say to another that it was "just like tlic late Dook o' AVellinton's." After dinner we had pens, ink, and paper, and Dickens unfolded his scheme, whicli was to raise a fund for the benefit of Jerrold's widow and family. It was to be done in the most delicate manner. 2 94 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. For the '^^^ ^ would assist. Tliackeray would lecture, so f^ll^ ^^o^iltl W. H. Russell ; Dickens would give a read- ing; there would be a performance of Black-Eyed Susan at the Adelj^hi, with the veteran T. P. Cooke in his original character ; a performance of the Dickens troupe of amateurs in The Frozen Deep^ &c. One great point was to let the public know what was intended instantlv, whilst Jerrold's death was fresh in their minds ; another, not to spend too much money in advertising. With the view of combining these desiderata^ Dickens drew up a short memo- randum for the committee, Avhich he asked me to take round that night to the editors of the prin- cipal journals, requesting them to publish it in the mornins;, with a few introductorv lines of their own. I had some curious experiences that evening. I the editors first went to the Morm7ig Post, where I found Mr. (now Sir) Algernon Borthwick in evening clothes, with a smart smoking-jacket substituted for his dress- coat, a courteous gentleman, polished to his finger- tips. Thence to the Morning Clironide in the Strand, opposite Somerset House, where, at the top of a flight of dirty stairs, in a typical newspaper-room, was the then editor — genial, jovial, handsome Thomas Little- ton Holt, otherwise known as "Raggedy Holt" — in his shirt-sleeves, and with a foaming porter-pot before him. Next, to the Daily Telegraph, then in its EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 295 infancy, a very modest establishment in the bend of the Strand, by St. Clement's Church, now pulled down, where I was, of course, kindly received by my friend ]\Ir. J. M. Ley3^ At the Advertiser ]\Ir. James Grant would do all he was asked, save write the introductory lines, Avhich he insisted on my doing then and there; and at the Times I saw Mr. Delane, who came out to me when he read Dickens's letter, though his presence at the office had been steadfastly denied. The programme was carried out, in its entirety, with great success, the sum raised being, I think, over two thousand pounds. Thackeray's lecture was on " Weekday Preachers," in which he made special and admirable reference to Jerrold ; and I have a remembrance of Dickens in connection with the per- formance of Black Eyed Susan at the Adelphi, which always makes me laugh. The part of the Admiral, who presides over the court-martial by which the hero William is condemned to death, was played by Bedford's a stolid-faced creature, a brother of Paul I^edford's. ™*^^'"- Dickens said to me at supper that night, " I had a strong idea that Bedford's brother meant to acquit William, and that all the rest of the play would go to the devil !" As may be readily imagined, I had not very much leisure in the midst of all this employment, but such "Sunday* out." as I had was always pleasantly passed. Sundays 296 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. with US were always " Sundays out" — at Skindle'sy at that time a dehghtfully quiet place, with no lawn, no river-rooms, no neighbouring Guards' Club ; at Thames Ditton ; at Richmond ; at the Swan at Stames ; at Laker's Hotel at Redhill — sometimes my wife and I alone, oftensr with the Keeleys and Albert and a party. On Friday nights' there was always a gathering in Gower Street, at the house the artists, of Abraham Solomon, who had just made a hit with his jDicture "Waiting for the Verdict," where would be Millais with his "Huguenot" success upon him, young and handsome, as in the medallion which Alexander ]\Iunro had just completed of him ; and Frith, putting the finishmg touches to his " Derby Day " ; Frank Stone, Augustus Egg, and Sant; Dutton Cook, undecided whether to take to pen or pencil as his means of living ; Ernest Hart, whose sister Solomon afterwards married ; and William Fenn. A quietly Bohemian evening : a little dancing, a few games of "tonneau," a capital supper with a specialty of cold fish, then cigars, and singing by Frank Topham or Desanges, and imitations by Dillon Croker, "and so home." Gatherino's on a larjxer scale at ]\Ir. Gambart's, the princely picture- dealer, first in Berners Street, afterwards in the Regent's Park ; dances at ]\Ir. Jacob Bell's, admirably superintended by the host's alter ego., Mr. "Tom" Hills; frequent festivity in connec- EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 297 tion with the ]\Iont Blanc entertainment;* and a general " good time." Prominent amongst the houses to which Ave went most frequently, and where we were most heartily welcomed, was that of our neighbour in Doughty Street,' Mr. J. M. Levy, who had just acquired the Mr. j. m. Daily Telegraph property, and was concentrating on ^^^' it all his zeal, acumen, and experience to make his venture a success. He was ably seconded by his son Edward, who at that time wrote tlie dramatic criti- cisms amongst other work, and was consequently my constant companion at the theatre. The Sunday '■•' There was always a large gathering at the Egyptian Hall on the night preceding a change in the form of enter- tainment. There was a liberal supply of champagne ; Mr. Eule, the well-known ecailler of Maiden Lane, and his sons, presided over a long counter, and served out oysters and bread and butter ; and hot baked potatoes were dispensed by a man described in the programme as " Tatur Khan." The style of invitation was always peculiar. I annex one, lithographed on thin paper, in passport form, which was issued to all intended guests in '55 : " We, Albert Smith, one of Her Britannic Majesty's repre- sentatives on the summit of Mont Blanc, Knight of the most noble order of the Grands Mulcts, Baron Galignani of Picca- dilly, Knight of the Grand Crossing from Burlington Arcade to the Egyptian Hall, Member of the Society for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge, Secretary for his own Affairs, &c. &c. " Eequest and require, in the name of His Majesty the Monarch of Mountains, all those whom it may concern, more especially the Police on the Piccadilly Frontier, to allow to pass freely in at the street-door of the Egyptian Hall, and up-stairs to the Mont Blanc Eoom, on the evening 298 EARLY MARRIED LIFE. night reunions at Mr. Levy's are among my plea- santest reminiscences ; but there was no time at which we Avere not received and treated as part of the family. It is always agreeable to me to think that I was enabled, incidentally, to do my friends real service by introducing to them two gentlemen, Mr. G. xV. Sala and the Hon. F. Lawley, who have greatly contributed to the enormous success which the Daily Telegraplt has attained. The next year, 1858, was one of vast importance to me. of Saturday, Dec. 1, 1855, at 8 p.m., and to afford him every assistance in the way of oysters, stout, champagne, soda and brandy, and other aid of which he may stand in need. " Given at the Box-ofhce, Piccadilly, 28th day of Novem- ber 1855. Albert Smith. " God save the Queen ! " Vu au hureau de la Salle. Bon 2^07ir entrcr Piccadilly, 2Mr I' Arcade de Burlington. Tbuefitt. " Samedi, 1st December 1855. " Viseed for the Garrick and Fielding Clubs, the Vaults below the Houses of Parliament, Truefitt's Hair-cutting Saloon, the Glacier de Gunter, Jullien's, Laurent's, the Cafe de I'Europe, Pratt's, Limnier's, and all other places on the Ehine, between Eule's Marine Museum, or Appetising Aqua- rium, and the Jolly Grenadier public-house, No. 1 Ellison Square, Pall Mall, South Sebastopol. Kule. ^^ Notice. — By the recent police enactments regulating large assemblies in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, this passport must be considered as available for one person only, and does not include the ' friend ' who has always been dining with the bearer." CHAPTER YIIl. EAKLY EDITORSHIPS. 1855—1858. It was in the summer of 1855, when I was twenty- four, and had been married about a couple of years, that I made my first acquaintance with the denizens of British Bohemia — tliat I became initiated into the mysteries of our equivalent for that vie de Boheme wdiich half a century ago, despite its uncertainty, its poverty, and in many cases its misery, had, in its Avild and picturesque freedom from conventionality, sufficient attraction to captivate a large section of the young men of Paris, and which found its brilliant liistorian in the unfortunate Henri ]\Iiirger. Our British Bohemia, as it existed in tlie days of which 1 ^ .,. , am writino; — I am doubtful whether it exists at all i^obenua. now — differed in many respects from that fanciful territory inhabited by Schaunard and his comrades. It was less picturesque, it was more practical and commonplace, perhaps a trifle more vulgar; but its denizens had this in common with their French pro- totypes — that tliey were young, gifted, and reckless ; tliat they worked only by fits and starts, and never except under the pressure of necessity ; that they 300 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. were sometimes at the height of happiness, sometimes in the depths of despair, but that ordinarily they 23assed their hves " Little caring what might come ; Coffee-milling care and sorrow with a nose-adapted thumb ;" and that — greatest item of resembhmce — they had a thorough contempt for the dress, usages, and man- ners of ordinar}'^ middle-class civilisation. The word " Philistine," with its now accepted signification, had not been invented by Mr. Matthew Arnold in those days ; but the class which it represents existed, of course, and was the object of general loathing and contempt on the part of the Bohemians. Thacke- British Bohemia, as it was then, has been most scriptiou admirably described by Thackera}' in Pliilij) ; " A plea- sant land, not fenced with drab stucco like Belgravia or Tyburnia : not guarded by a large standing army of footmen : not echoing with noble chariots, not replete with polite chintz drawing-rooms and neat tea-tables ; a land over which hangs an endless fog, occasioned by much tobacco : a land of chambers, billiard-rooms, and oyster- suppers : a land of song : a land where soda- water flows freely in the morning : a land of tin dish- covers from taverns and foaming jDorter : a land of lotos-eating (with lots of cayenne pepper), of pulls on the river, of delicious reading of novels, magazines, and saunterings in many studios : a land where all men call each other by their Christian names ; where EARLY EDITORSHIPS. 301 most are poor, where almost all are young, and where, if a few oldsters enter, it is l^ecause they have pre- served more tenderly and carefully than others their youthful spu'its and the delightful capacity to be idle. " I have lost my way to Bohemia now," adds the philo- sopher,Mvriting in the enjoyment of fame and riches; but, he adds with a tender regret, " but it is certain that Prague is the most picturesque city in the world." From the circumstances of my life — my early marriage, the regular habits formed by, and neces- sary for, my holding my appointment in the Post Office, and from a certain distaste for a good deal of what formed an integi'al portion of the career — I was never a real Bohemian. But when my lot was cast An out- sider. among them, and when they saw that, though not " to the manner born," I had many tastes and pur- suits in common witli theirs, I gradually won my way into their regard, and formed many close friend- ships, some of wliicli happily exist to this day, Avhile others are among the pleasantest memories of my life. How it was that I first made acquaintance with My iutro- Bohemia happened thus. I have already mentioned toit.'°" my early essay in verse- writing for the Illustrated London Neics. The connection thus commenced had been extended by my receiving from time to time proofs of wood-engravings, for which I was desired 302 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. to furnish appropriate descriptive letterpress. One day I had a note from Dr. Charles Mackay, then editor of the Illustrated London News, wishing to see me. I called in the afternoon, expecting to get one of the usual little commissions ; but when I found him sitting with his trusty assistant, Mr. John Timbs, the well-known book-compiler, I soon perceived from his manner that he had something more important ,,_,, to communicate. What he said, in fact, was that " It's an ' ' ^c^^"^^'" there had been a dispute between ]\Ir. Ingram, our proprietor, and Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the printers, over some trade matter ; that the quarrel had rapidly assumed large proportions ; and that Mr. Ingram had determined not merely to put an end to all business relations between himself and the White- friars firm, but to carry the war into the enemy's country by starting at once a comic paper as a rival to Punch. He had talked the question out with Dr. Mackay, who, recognising, as he was good enough to say, some brightness and freshness in my work, had kindly recommended me as the editor. The pecuniary arrangements would be very liberal. Would I under- take the position ? Of course, I accepted at once — in those days I would have undertaken to edit the Times or the Quarterhi Reinew if I had had the offer — and I Mr. '^ Ingram, ^^s taken off to be introduced to Mr. Ingram, and hear more of the details of the scheme. I EARL Y EDITORSHIPS. 303 found him a little man, with bright eyes, sharp features, and decided manner; he was dressed in ill- fitting clothes, and had a white bea^'er hat with very- long nap, like a country farmer. He was rather uncouth, very brusque, and Avithout much claim to education ; but he was an excellent man of business, and to me always liberal, kind, and encouraging. He shook hands with me, heard what I had to say, offered me a salary which was good, and which I thought princely, told me the names of the printers, where to present my accounts, and left the engagement of staff and artists and the entire management in my hands. Only two things he stipulated for — that the name of the paper should be the Comic Times, and that its price should be one penn}\ These were very im- portant items ; I ventured to say — with great internal My doubts annoyance at being compelled so soon to differ from my proprietor's views — that to issue a journal with the label of being professedly comic attached to it was a sure way to provoke criticism ; while in regard to the price, the experiment of cheap journalism was in its earliest infancy, the Daily Telegraph having only been launclied a few weeks previously ; and I pointed out that it would be higlily difficult to obtain the confidence of ad\'ertisers for a new and low- priced venture. But Mr. Ingram on these two points was inflexible, and of course I had to give way. It was a difficult position for me, with a very 304 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. limited experience of journalism, and no experience at all of editing, and with the thorough knowledge that whatever I might do would be severely criticised by the hundreds of men who would think, and not without reason, that they ought to be in my place. Mr. Ingram, in our short conversation, had expressed his hope, and almost his expectation, that we should soon rival "old Poonch;'' and Punch was at its very best in those days, with the reflection of Thackeray still on it, with Leech never more bright or more indus- trious, with Shirley Brooks doing his very utmost — and there has never been so good an all-round writer for a comic journal — to prove how wrong the Punch staff had been to keep him so long out of their close borough, and how right they were to have let him in Mark at last ; and, worst of all for me, with j\Iark Lemon Lemon. „ . ,. tvt i t lor its editor. JNot that Lemon was m any w^ay a brilliant or even a suo-o^estive man ; but he had had long practice in editing and long experience of his contributors — knew wdiat each man did best, and how most easily to get him to do it. While, under the cloak of corpulent good-nature and jollity, he was exceedingly crafty and ruse., as the head man of Messrs. Bradbury & Evans he would naturally depre- ciate the work in the Comic Times ; and, as the private secretary of Mr. Ingram— a position which he then held — he would have every opportunity of doing so in a very important quarter. However, I had EARL Y EDITORSHIPS. 305 embarked on my enterprise, and was determined to carry it through ; so I went off at once to get advice, and, if possible, assistance, from Albert Smith. I found him, as usual, in his foreign blue blouse, i consult pottering about in his sanctum in Percy Street, than smith. which 'there never was such another room for the collection of extraordinary valueless curiosities, prints, pictures, plaster-casts, and quasi-artistic rubbish of every possible description, thickly overlaid with dust. He was delio^hted at the chance of mv gettino; work and money, and, while declaring it impossible he could himself write — for the Mont Blanc entertain- ment was then at the hciglit of its popularity, and absorbed all his attention — he discussed the matter with me ; and before I left him we had jotted down the names of several men — some accjuaintances, some stranjxers — out of whom the staff was to be formed. Ci One of the first of these names was that ofg^^^j^j.^^ Edward Draper, a solicitor in AYestminster, who was ^^^p^''- Albert's legal adviser, and avIio is happily still living. A man with a vast amount of dry humour, which found its vent now in prose, now in verse, now in rough, but exceedingly ludicrous, sketches on wood — a practical man, sure to be ready with his " copy '' in due time, and certain never to write anything action- able. Mr. Draper was a most desirable contributor, and has been through my life a valued friend. He Godfrey introduced Godfrey Turner, at that time acting as Turner. VOL. I. X 3o6 EARL V EDITORSHIPS. sub-editor of the JoJm Bull, whose real literary status has never, as I venture to think, been properly recog- nised. Of my own personal friends I named Frank Scudamore, W. P. Hale, and John Oxenford. F.L Scud- F. I. Scudamore, afterwards so well known for his management of the Government Telegraphs, for which he obtained a C.B.-ship, was at that time a fellow-clerk of mine in the General Post Office. Some years my senior, he had already attracted my admiration by my knowledge of the fact that he was already an accepted contributor to Punch, many most admirable sets of verses from his pen having appeared therein. I shall have other opportunities of mentioning Mr. Scuda- more, but I may here place on record my opinion that of all the men I have known in my long experience, there was scarcely one to beat liim. His powers of organisation at tlie height of his career were confessedly wonderful, he was a sound classical scholar, Avrote by fiir the best "light" verse of any man living, was a most eff'ective speaker, and had the keenest sense of humour. His versatility was marvel- lous ; he could persuade a Chancellor of the Exche- quer into disbursing millions, and turn out a political parody with a lilting refrain which would be quoted throughout the provincial press. W.P.Hale William Palmer Hale, known to every one as " Billy " Hale, was the eldest son of the Arch- deacon of London, educated at Charterhouse and EARL V EDITORSHIPS. 307 Oxford, and a member of the Bar. ]\Iy old friend Thomas Knox Holmes, who occasionally gave Hale work before parliamentary committees, always main- tained that it was exceedingly well done ; but Billy's taste was more for literature than law, and, after he had obtained a fair amount of success by writing burlesques in collaboration with Frank Tal- fourd (the judge's eldest son), one of which. The Willow Pattern Plate, made a great mark in the €arly Swanborough Strand days, he did not much trouble the Courts. He was a great beer-drinker, and, though the story has been told of others, it was of him Thackeray said, and said to me, " Good Billy Hale, take him for lialfand-half, we ne'er sliall look upon his like ao-ain!" E. L. Blanchard, the well- K- t^- ^ _ " ^ ^ ' Blanchard known critic and dramatic writer, was introduced to me by Albert Smith, and proved a valuable member of our crew. My acquaintance with John Oxenford, begun j^j^^ some year or two previously, had speedily ripened into intimate ft'iendship; for though he was nearly twenty years my senior, a strong and original thinker on many abstruse subjects, and perhaps of all English- men then living the deepest read in German literature and philosophy, he was full of the most delightful humour, and had the animal spirits of a boy. His hair was snow-white in those days, though lie was not more than forty- three ; but his dark eyes under his o 08 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. grizzled brows were full of fire and fiin. Xo man had greater horror of an mipostor, or of the shghtest attempt at the assumption of swagger ; but where he took a hking he attached himself firmly, and was the sweetest, the most delightful companion. No one ever wore his learning so lightly, or conveyed it so unconsciously and unpretendingly ; no man so thoroughly equipped with vast stores of erudition ever passed through a long life known to the many only as the lightest literary sharp-shooter. By the general public, or I may say by only that portion of it which takes an interest in theatrical mat- ters, he was known as the dramatic critic of the Times; but in those columns, although to readers between the lines there was constant evidence of keen analysis and subtle humour, the great intellectual powers of the man were never to be recognised. Why, he told His genius me morc than once, in long delightful chats in tavern parlours, where he would sit with me alone, over a clay "churchwarden'' j^ipe and a pot of ale, and beguile hour after hour with his fancies, delivered in jerky sentences, in a rumbling monotone. When he first took up dramatic criticism for the Times — his first employment on the paper had been in the ofiSice of its then City editor, Mr. Alsager, a relation of his wh he — ^^^ wrote unreservedly his opinion not merely of ''e dowii ^^^^ P^^y under notice, but of the actors. One of easily." these, being somewhat sharply criticised, appealed in a EARL V EDITORSHIPS. 309 strong letter to the editor, which Mr. Delane showed to John Oxenford. " I have no doubt you were per- fectly right in all }'ou wrote," said the great editor to the embryo critic ; " but that is not the question. The real fact is that these matters are of far too small, importance to become subjects for discussion. Whether a play is good or bad, whether a man acts well or ill, is of very little consequence to the great body of our readers, and I could not think of letting the paper become the field for argument on the point. So in future, you understand, my good fellow, write your notices so as much as possible to avoid these sort of letters being addressed to the office. You understand ?" Oxenford understood ; and in that interview- the Times editor voluntarily threw away the chance of being supplied with dramatic criticism as keen in its perspicacity as llazlitt's, as delightlul in its geniality as Lamb's. An acutely conscientious man would, under the circumstances, have declined the task ; l)ut Oxenford, though never pressed by poverty — his father, with whom he lived until within the last ten years of his life, was a well-to-do mer- cliant, M'itli a house in John Street, Bedford Ikow — knew the value of money; his position as theatrical censor of the Times, tliougli poorly paid (liis salary was only five pounds a week), gave him great weiglit witli managers, and it must be recollected he was dramatist 3 1 o EARLY EDITORSHIPS. irrespon- ^^ ^^ ^^ ci'itic. Finally, he was glad to be relieved eibihty. fj-Q^^ \\^^ responsibility and the hard work which thoughtful criticism would have entailed ; glad to be spared the necessity of wounding the feelings of any of those with whom he lived on intimate terms ; glad to be spared time and brain-power for other and more remunerative work. Thenceforward his Times notices, written on the principle of being pleasant all round, were amusing essays, in which the learning of the writer was sometimes apparent, and Avhere, to the initiated, a delightful humour was always cropping up ; but they were not criticisms such as Oxenford could have written had he been permitted, or such as he frequently orally delivered to two or three appre- ciative friends. "Where his The outcome of John Oxenford's large store of real genius -,. ' ^ ^ o -i- i t ■^ comes out. reading is to be lound in cyciopasdias and reviews, in his rendering of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe ^1 in his translation of Friedrich Jacob's Hellas^ his work for Bohn's Standard Library, his- articles on Moliere and other biographical papers in Knight's Penny Cydopcedia and the Westminster Review. The charm of his fancy illumines scores of songs, original and translated ; the delicate flavour of his humour still preserves from decay a dozen come- diettas and farces, one of which, Twice Killed^ after being translated into French as an operetta, under the title Bonsoir^ Signor Pantalon^ was retranslated, EARLY EDITORSHIPS. 311 and made its appearance in operatic garb on the Eno^lish stao-e. " And be sure you get Sala and the Broughs," were Albert Smith's last words as he followed me to the door. W^. George Augustus Sala, Avho has from time ^^^^ q_ ^^ to time been my honoured comrade and colleague ^^* through the whole of my hterary career, is happily ahve and well, having obtained the universal recogni- tion of his abilities, having reached the topmost rung of the ladder of journalism, having, in fine, achieved the success wliichwe, his youthful fellow-labourers, always predicted for him. His appearance in the narrative of these desultory reminiscences will be frequent, as we have had so man}' enterprises in common ; but at the time of which I am writing I had only seen him once, at the Fieldino; Club, Avhither , „ -> ' ^ ' My first he had been brought from Rule's oyster-shop, where ^\g*^* ^^ he was supping, to be presented to the Duke of Sutherland, then Marquis of Stafford, and some of his friends, who were loud in praise of an American story, " Colonel Quagg's Conversion," which had just appeared in HousclLuld Words. Who could have written it? was the question; which was speedily solved by Albert Smith, who declared he had just left the author, and went away, returning in triumph with a slim modest young fellow, about six-and- twenty years of age. It would be impertinence in 312 EARLY EDITORSHIPS . me to speak of Mr. Sala's life-work, lying immediately before the world as most of it is ; but I may be perhaps permitted to say that in the volumes of Household Wo7xIs from '53 to '56 are to be found essays which not merely the author of Paris Herself Again and America Revisited has never surpassed, but which Goldsmith or Lamb might have been proud to father. Like Thackeray, Mr. Sala has "long since lost his way to Bohemia," though in my time at least that picturesque country has never had so famous a denizen, unless it were the }'ounger of the once famous Brothers Brough, Robert Barnabas Brough. The " Bill " and " Bob " to their friends, in the " land Brough. where men call each other by their Christian names," or " clean Brough and clever Brouo;h " the sarcastic but well-fitting distinction drawn between them by a cynical acquaintance; for William the methodical was neat and wholesome, with fresh complexion and trim beard and decent clothes, and Robert the bril- liant was sallow and sickly, poor fellow, and wholly careless of his personal appearance — the Brothers Brough, in fine, were the sons of a man engaged in commerce, of whom they always spoke with much affection, and who gave them a plain English educa- tion. On this somewhat slender foundation both of them, in later life, raised a fair superstructure of learning. Both acquired French, and Bob had added a certain amount of German and Spanish to his store. EA RL V EDITORSHIPS. 3 1 3 All this to his credit ; for while he was a scholar, he was a producer; while he Avas grinding away at his Ollendorff, he was thinking out his article, or plan- ning his piece, or racking his weary brain for jokes for his forthcoming burlesque. Tli,e gentlemen who just about this time were " Literary establishino^ a new school of critical literature were constantly either savagely ferocious or bitterly sar- castic with professional literary men — persons, that is to say, who lived by tlie product of their pens, who in most cases had not had the advantage of that University education in which their detractors gloried, and which enabled them to turn the Ode to Thaliarchus into halting English verse, or to imbue with a few classical ahusions their fierce political essay or flippant critical review. And, save that he was endowed with more and finer brains than tlie averaw run of liuniaiiitv, Iiobert Brouffh was the exact type of the class thus bitterly reviled. Spurning the life of commercial drudgery to which he was originally destined, he commenced on his own account at a very early age, and awoke the echoes of his dull prosaic native town with the cracking of his witty whip. Tlie Liverpool Lion was a new feature in the Robert Brough's annals of the Mersey's pride. The merchant-princes, ^tmt iu the brokers, the shipping-agents, the great outfitters, and the rest of them had gone through life without much 3 1 4 EARL Y EDITORSHIPS. conception of fun. They looked through the pages of Punch, perhaps, while digesting their heavy midday meal, and smiled at Leech's glorious cartoons, while understanding little about them. But here was a revelation of wild humour brought into their very midst; here were caricatures which every one recog- nised, allusions which all understood. Leech's por- trait of Lord Palmerston, whom they had never seen, was not to be compared to the Lioii's likeness of the . Recorder; and no joke in ancient or modern times could compete with the manner in which the Chair- man of the Brokers' Association was "taken oiF" in that song to the tune of the " King of the Cannibal Islands." Those who wish to inform themselves of the manner of Robert Brough's early life-work should read his novel, Marston Lynch, of which the author is the hero. I say early life-work ; but it was all, in fact, early At Liver- enouo;h, for he was but five or six and thirty when pool. ^ ' •^ he died. But in the Liverpool Lion is to be seen the germ of most of what distinguished his later writings — the bright wit, the strange quaint fancy, the readi- ness to seize upon topics of the hour, and present them in the quaintest garb : the exquisite pathos was not there, nor the bitter savagery, though gleams of this last were not wanting. I have often wondered what gave Robert Brough that deep vindictive hatred of wealth and rank and respectability which permeated his life, and which so EARL V EDITORSHIPS. 315 surprised me, who had been bred up in a mild Con- servatism. It was probably innate; it was certainly engrained. It was Largely increased by poverty, by character, ill-health, by an ill-regulated life, by an ever-present conviction that there lay in him power to produce work pf very superior quality to that already pub- lished — power which was nullified by his own weakness of will. His was the poetic temperament, sensitive, nervous, irritable; liis too the craving after ignoble sources of alleviation in times of mental dej)ression, • and the impossibility of resisting temptation, come in what form it mi^^ht.^ He was a Radical, a Kepublican even, but some- ' ^ '- His Radi- thing— partly his gentle nature, and doubtless greatly caiism. his wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous— kept him from cmulatino; the literary achievements of the political contributors to the cheap Sunday press. His was not the coarse many- syllabled fustian of a " Pub- licola" or a "Gracchus," produced according to the laws of demand and supply, and })aid for by a weekly wage. Kobert Brough's was the real fierce hatred '•' On his twenty-ninth birthday he wrote me a letter, commencing, " I'm twenty-nine ! I'm twenty-nine ! I've drank too much of beer and wine ; I've had too much of love and strife ; I've given a kiss to Johnson's wife,^ And sent a lying note to mine — I'm twenty-nine ! I'm twenty-nine ! ' Strictly true, but the name is not Johnson. — E, 13, B," 3 1 6 EA RL V EDITORSHIPS. welling ujD from an embittererl soul, and finding its vent in verse. Here is the mot de Venigme : " There is a word in the English tongue, Where I'd rather it were not ; For shams and hes from it have sprung, And heartburns fierce and hot : 'Tis a tawdry cloak for a dirty soul : 'Tis a sanctuary base, Where the fool and the knave themselves may save From justice and disgrace : 'Tis a curse to the land, deny it who can. That self-same boast, ' I'm a gentleman.' " That is the opening of a poem contained in a little thin volume called Songs of the Governing Classes^ by Robert Brough, published in 1855, the year of which A remark- ^ ^^^ Writing, by Yizctelly. It had scarcely any sale, dud;ion!" ^^'^^ ^i^s been unprocurable for many years. From the freedom of its speech, the vigour of its thought, and the polish of its workmanship, it was a very remarkable production ; but neither its sentiments nor its statements would bear analysis, and its teachings were dansrerous and uncalled for. It o'oes on : o o " You may leave your wife, with her children six, In a ditch to starve and pine, And another man's take, in a palace rich, With jewels and gold to shine ; You may flog your horse or your dog to death ; You may shoot, in a fit of rage, A helpless groom, and an easy doom You'll ineet from the jury sage : ' There's been provocation — deny it who can ? For we see at a glance he's a gentleman !' " In his preface he says that, being only known as "a EA RL Y EDITORSHIPS. 3 1 7 profane jester and a satirist '' (as Ruskin said of Sal- vator Rosa), the public may refuse to take him au serieux ; he admits that he has certainly made jokes for a livelihood, just as he should have made boots, if brought up to the business, and seeing no harm or diso^race in either callino;. But he does not see that he is thereby disqualified fi'om giving serious utter- ance to his feelings on vital questions, as well as his neighbours. "The feeling, of which the following g^^^^^^ ilngt Iwllads are the faint echo and imperfect expression, is %ovvrni a deeply-rooted belief that to the institution of aris- tocracy in this country (not merely to its undue pre- ponderance, but to its absolute exi.stence) is mainly attributable all the political injustice, and more es- pecially the grovelling moral debasement, we have to deplore.'' Limned by such an artist, it can be readily imagined that the " Portraits " of the aristocracy, Avith which the volume commenced, were not too flattering. The first, " The Marquis de Carabas," a fancy one, is tlius sketched : *' Look at his skin — at fourscore years How fresh it gleams and fair ! He never tasted ill-dressed food, Or breathed in tainted air. The noble blood flows through his veins Still, with a healthful pink. His brow scarce wrinkled ! Broivs keep so That have not got to think. Chapeau has ! Chapeau bas I Gloire au Marquis de Carabas !" 3 1 8 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. And ao^ain : " They've got him in — he's gone to vote Your rights and mine away : Perchance our Hves, should men be scarce, To fight his cause for pay. We are his slaves ! he owns our lands, Our woods, our seas, our skies : He'd have us shot like vicious dogs. Should w^e in murmuring rise ! Chapeau has !" &c. William His elder brother, William, was very differently ° ' constituted. He had been, early in life, apprenticed to a printer, and there was always about him a business- like manner, and an appreciation of the punctuality and good faith necessary for business relations. Among his Bohemian friends he was remarkable for his neat and dapper appearance. Bob once declared him to be the "sort of man they would put on a jury;" and wdiile not stinting liimself in conviviality, he was pro- bably more mindful of the morrow and its require- ments than most of his comrades. These qualifica- tions, and, above all, his practical knowledge of printing, power of roughly estimating what so much "copy" would "make" when set up in type, made him very useful to a neoph^'te like m}'self, and I speedily established him as my sub- editor. The writers named constituted, I think, the lite- rary staff, though we had occasional assistance from Albert Smith, Sutherland Edwards (now well known as critic, correspondent, and valuable authority on EARL V EDITORSHIPS. 3^9 musical matters), and John V. Bridgeman. There always has been, and there certainly was in those early days, a difficulty in finding suital3le artists for a comic publication. As my stock contributors, Artists of I was Ijicky in obtaining the services of Charles H. Bennett^, then in the commencement of his career, whose undeniable talent was afterwards recognised by his engagement on Punch ; and William McConnell, a young man who was just making his mark in illus- tratino- the shillino; books then comino; into Y02:ue. Later on he obtained great praise for his clever out- line illustrations of Mr. Sala's Twice Bound the Clock. Mr. Newman and Mr. Henning occasionally sent sketches, and subsecjuently Sala and Robert Brough added to the piquancy of certain of theh^ articles by rough but very humorous wood-drawings. The first number of the Comic Times was dated _ The Saturday, Auo-ust 11, 1855, and was, like all first ^'.""''' J T n ? 5 ? Him ex. numl3ers, but a poor sample of what the periodical afterwards became. I do not recof!:nise Bobert Brouo;h's hand in it, from first to last; but Sala commenced a series of papers called " The Hermit in the Box ; being the Experiences of Silas Bulgrummer, Stage-Door- keeper," whicli ran through several numbers, and are full of close observation and quaint fancy. There was some mild punning by William Brough, some recon- dite humour of John Oxenford's, some poetry by Hale, and a clever opening address in delightful rhyme by 3 20 EARL V EDITORSHIPS. Frank Scudamore. In the second number Robert Brough commenced " The Barlow Papers," which were the success of the publication. " Billy Barlow," the hero of a comic sons: tlien in the heio;ht of its popularity, became a contributor in Brough' s person, and wrote on every kind of current topic in every kind of verse, but never proceeding for long without some harking back to the refrain of the original comic song. Here Brough's sardonic humour had full play. Being wholly unfettered by his subject or its treat- ment, he could give it those little "tavern-touches'^ in which his soul delighted; and the result was that " William Barlow," whose adventures were speedily illustrated by their author, became a popular favourite. Short- This my first bantling had a short but merry career of three months ; merry, that is to say, for its editor and contributors, though I doubt if Mr. Ingram saw much fun in his venture. He never grumbled, and his cheques were furnished with ^praiseworthy regularity ; but he could not but have been dissatisfied with the result of his experiment. We all worked very hard ; but the circulation, though it gradually rose, never came to anything like paying point. Its business management was bad; it was never properly advertised or quoted; it was liated at the Illustrated Neivs office as an interloper; and it was systematically decried and cold-shouldered by Mark Lemon, who, as I have said, was Mr. Ingram's lived EARLY EDITORSHIPS. private secretary, and who, having with unctuous adroitness healed the breach between his master and his other employers, Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, determmed that our poor little effort shoidd be stamped out at once. The method wliich he adopted for accomplishing his purpose was so characteristic and so comic that even at this distance of time I am amused on recall- ing it. It was late in Xovember, and we had just published a Comic Times Almanack for the coming- year, on which I prided myself considerably. Ever}' ^tJI^^nack one had done his best, and the result was reallv funny and amusing. So the public seemed to think, for they bought the Almanack with an avidit}' which they had never shown for the ordinary issue. The worthy cashier, Mr. Plummer, wlio audited my accounts, and whose manner towards me hitherto would have been severe in his loyalty to ]\Ir. Ingram, had it not been softened by a little feeling of pity and personal regard for myself, at last smiled and congratulated me. It was very good indeed, he said; and with that spirit of partisanship whicli is always to be found in all persons however remotely con- nected with the inside or outside of literary produc- tion, he added, chuckling, " And they won't like it at Whitefriars." In this remark Mr. Plummer showed his business aptitude: by "Whitefriars" in those days we used to indicate the Punch office, which was VOL. I. Y 32 2 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. there situate ; and by the " Punch people " — Messrs. Bradbury & Evans ("B, & E."), its proprietors, Mark Lemon, its editor, and the staff in general — our Almauack was thought so dangerously good that it was felt the time had arrived when we must be put an end to. All this I learned long afterwards from one of the band, but at that moment I had no idea save that of utilising the temporary success we had gained. I would persuade Mr. Ingram into adver- tising the paper ; I would get the business manage- ment put on a l^etter system ; I would do this and that and the other; and no happier or more many- Ainaschar planned Alnaschar ever M^alked down the Strand and into Milford House, where I found Mr. Ingram, with the baleful shadow of the corpulent Lemon looming large behind him. The day was Saturday, and thouo'h at that time there was no regular half- holiday, it was customary to " knock off work " a little earlier than usual. Mr. Ingram, in the large fluffy hat and the large-patterned silk caclie-nez so familiar to his friends, was on the point of starting off for Brighton, so he hurriedly said : but he wanted to see me "very partick'lar, very partick'lar indeed ;" could I not breakfast with him at the New Ship Inn at Brighton the next morning ? I saw my way to a little outing, combining busi- ness with pleasure, and agi^eed to be with him at EARL Y EDITORSHIPS. 323 10 A.M. Accordingly that evening my wife and I went down to Brighton to some cheap lodgings in Camelford Street which we were in the habit of fre- quenting. I told her she would have to breakfast alone, -as I was engaged to Mr. Ingram ; and on Sunday" morning, after a lovely swim at Brill's Baths, I presented myself at the iSTew Ship. Mr. Ingram's room was on the first floor, I was told. I went up, knocked, and had the door promptly opened to me by Mark Lemon ! He smiled Mark , Till- 11 I'l* Lemon's expansively, rubbed ms own hands, and seized mine, device. Over his broad shoulders I could see the room, the table laid for an excellent meal, Ino-ram with "shinino^ morning face " and in his Sunday clothes, and two ladies in whom I recoo-nised Mrs. Ino;ram and Mrs. Lemon. Mark tried to bar the entrance with his portly person, but I pushed past him : I shook hands with Ingram, I bowed to the ladies; then Lemon caught me again, he seized my hand, he shook it, he shook it as we progressed all round the room ; he never left off shaking it, and gently propelling me, until he had shaken me out on to the landing and shut the door between us. I saw the hopeless impossibility of seeking an inter- view with my proprietor under such circumstances, ^^.f^p and turned ruefully back to my little lodgings in search of l)rcakfast. It seems scarcely credible tliat I can have Ijcen routed after such a fashion, but this is an exact statement of they facts as the occurred. It 324 EARLY EDITORSHIPS. must be remembered that Lemon was an old stager with considerable influence over Mr. Ingram, and that I was a very young man with no influence at all, and the chances of the contest being so unequal I thought justified me in thus readily accepting my defeat.* At all events, defeated I was, and I was soon made to learn it. On the Tuesday morning I received a letter from Mr. Plummer, very business- like but not uncourteous, informing me that Mr. Ingram had " had enough " of the Comic Times., and desiring me to bring the existence of that periodical to a close as speedily as possible. It did not require much winding up, poor little leaflet ! Another number — there were only sixteen in all — finished it up, and STc^ r ^^^^ ^^'''^^ ^^ ^^y literary progeny died with scarcely a struo:o;le. But, though the publication had come to an untimely end, its creators and contributors remained, full of life and hope. During the four months in which we had been thrown together a great feeling of natural liking had sprung up amongst us ; the weekly symposia, held in the tavern parlour where the con- tents of the coming number had been arranged, had * I have little doubt now, on thinking over the matter, that Mr. Ingram had fully made up his mind to discontinue the issue of the paper, and that Lemon's quaint strategy merely relieved his patron of the trouble of breaking the news to me. EARL V EDITORSHIPS. 325 • proved most delightful reunions ; and there was a uni- versal feelino; of reo-ret that they should be discon- ^ , <-> c> J Deter- tinued. Of course there was no actual reason for the ^^i'^^tion. cessation ; for though the literary preparation of the Comic ^ Times involved delicious suppers and hot grogs )%y. A3 HISTORICAL WORKS. The History of Greece, From the earliest times to the overthrow of the Persians at Salamis and Plata^a. From the German of Professor Max Duncker, by S. F. Alleyne. In demy 8vo. (Uniform in size with ' The History of Antiquity.') Vol. I. is now ready, price 15^. i z , The History of Rome, From the EarHest Times to the Period of its Decline. By Professor Theodor Mommsen. Translated (with the Author's sanction, and Addi- tions) by the Rev. P. W. Dickson. With an Introduction by Dr. Schmitz. The POPULAR EDITION in Four Vols, crown 8vo. ;^2. 6s. 6d.; or sold separately — Vols, I. and II., 21s. ; Vol. III., loj'. 6d. ; Vol. IV., with Index, 1 5.f. I A 3* Also, a LIBRARY EDITION, in Four Vols, demy 8vo. 75^. These Volumes not sold separately. o s i ' A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. 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The author has done his work diligently and conscientiously. We express our sense of the value of this work. We heartily like the general spirit, ^nd are sure that the author has bestowed upon his work a loving labour, with an earnest desire to find out the truth. To the general reader it will convey much information in a very pleasant form ; to the student it will give the means of tilling up the outlines of Church history with life and colour.' — Quarterly Review. 'The work of a powerful mind, and of a noble and generous temper." — Guardian. Vol. I. Anglo-Saxon Period, 597-1070. — Augustine, Laurentius, Mellitus, Justus, Honorius, Deusdedit, Theodorus, Brihtwald, Tatwine, Nothelm, Cuthbert, Bregwin, Jaenbert, Ethelhard, Wulfred, Feologild, Ceolonoth, Ethelred, Pleg- mund, Athelm, Wulfhelm, Odo, Dunstan, Ethelgar, Siric, Elfric, Elphege, Limig, Ethelnoth, Eadsige, Robert, Stigand. 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BENTLEY'S FAVOURITE NOVELS—AN OCEAN FREE LANCE. 6s. 4 B I 'The author eompeN us to speak of his e-enruj, as the only word that fitly describes the quality that makes his romances of the sea both in form and in spirit second t" rorif thnt hav« «ver been written at any rate. The merchant service ii no igDg«r without it* Homar.' — Ulobb. 36 FICTION. By Miss Jessie FothergilL BENTLEY'S FAVOURITE NOVELS.— The FIRST VIOLIN, With an Etching from Calderon. 6s. i b i* 'The story is extremely interesting from the first page to the last. It is a long time since we have met with anything so exquisitely touching as the description of Eugen's life with his friend Helfen. It is an idyll of the purest and noblest simplicity.' — Standard. ' A story of strong and deep interest, written by a vigorous and cultured writer. To such as have musical sympathies an added pleasure and delight will be given to what, judged by ordinary literary standards, is a novel of real excellence.' — Dundee Advertiser. BENTLEY'S FAVOURITE NOVELS.— PROBATION. With an Etching from Collier. 6s. i z it 'Altogether "Probation" is the most interesting novel we have read for some time. We closed the book with very real regret, and a feeling of the truest admiration for the power which directed and the spirit which inspired the WTiter, and with determination, moreover, to make the acquaintance of her other stories.' — Spectator. BENTLEY'S FAVOURITE NOVELS.— THE WELLFIELDS. 6s. I z it 'The talent shown by Miss Fothergill in her earliest ventures held out a promise of future excellence, which is to a verj' great extent realised in her latest effort, "The Wellfields." The authoress has produced a most attractive novel, and one for which it is easy to predict a deser- vedly large share of popularity.' — Whitehall Review. 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Crown 8vo. 5^. 2 s a* A VERY SIMPLE STORY and WILD MIKE. Sm. or. 2s. 6d. 6 s a» HERBERT MANNERS, and The TOWN CRIER &c. In small crown 8vo. 2J. 6d. 6b * THE BLUE VEIL. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 55. FICTION. The Works of Thomas Love Peacock. The Collected Edition, including his Novels, Fugitive Pieces, Poems, Criticisms, &c. Edited by Sir Henry -Cole, K.C.B. With Preface by Lord Houghton, and a Biographical Sketch by his Grand-daughter. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. with Portrait, 31J. 6(/. 2 b ^ ' His fine wit Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it ; A strain too learned for a shallow age, Too wise for selfish bigots ; let his page, Which charms the chosen spirits of ihe time Fold itself up for a serener clime Of years to come, and find its recompense In that just expectation.' — Shblley. Past Hours. By the late Adelaide Sartoris (nJe Kemble). Edited with a Preface by her Daughter, Mrs. Gordon. In two volumes, small crown 8vo. izs. 2 b i Pastorals of France. A Last Love at Pornic — Yvonne of Croisic— The Four Belli of Chaitres. By Frederick Wedmore. In large crown 8vo. js. 6d. 2 !• 1 'In their simplicity, their tenderness, their truthfulness to the remote life they pictuie, "Pastorals of France" are almost perfect.' — Sfectatok. 'Of singular quaintness and beauty.' — Contemporakv Review. ' Very pathetic and exquisitely told.'— The World. ' Once More ' — The Short Stories of Lady Margaret Majendie, Reprinted from 'Blackwood ' and ' Temple Bar.' In i vol. crown 8vo. (is. 4 p He would he a Soldier. By R. Mounteney Jephson, Author of 'The Girl he left beliind him,' &c. Third Edition. In crown 8vo. with 4 Illustrations, 3^. 6d. 233* 'A more amusing military novelette we have not read for some time.' — Tmj AtheNvEOM. 'A clever, rollicking sketch, which will be as popular as " Verdant Green."' — The \Vopi,i>. Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor. By the Author of ' Ilogan, M.P.' Sixth Edition. In small crown 8vo. \S. S 1 !• ' In this seemingly unworthy subject the author finds scope for a pathos th.it is almost thrilling in its unstudied intensity. — Scotsman. ' We can honestly say that no work of fiction that we have seen for a long time has such splendid humour and deep pathos as tliis little shilling book.' — Spectator. Twelve Wonderful Tales By W. Knox Wihram, Author of 'The Ju.stices' Note-book.' New Edition, with Fionti.ipiece. In crown 8vo. ^s, 4 si 40 FICTION. ' An edition which all lovers of this delightful authoress should hasten to place upon their shelves.' — St. James's Gazette. A SPECIAL EDITION OF JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS (THE STEVENTON EDITION.) To meet a desire sometimes expressed for a superior edition of these Works, a small mimber of copies have been xvorked upon Dickinson's hand-made paper, in a special ink, by Messrs. Spottiswoode 6- Co., and chastely botind in white cloth by Messrs. Burn. These copies are sold i?t sets only, in six volumes, large crown Svo. at the published price of ^^s. Only a fau sets now reinain. ' In his ' Steventon edition' of Jane Austen's novels, Mr. Bentley — though he prints in tha now fashionable brown ink on old-fashioned paper, and binds quaintly — avoids the discomfort of recent 'Jitions de luxe so humorously pointed out by Mr. du Maurier in Punch. The new edition can oe easily held in the hand, and is meant for frequent use and reference rather than for mere ihow.' — The World. Kg" Messrs. BENTLEY'S are the ONLY COMPLETE EDITIONS of Miss Austen's Works. Volume I. SE^E AND SENSIBILITY. Volume II. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Volume III. MANSFIELD PARK. Volume IV. EMMA. Volume V. NORTHANGER ABBEY, and PERSUASION. Volume VI. LADY SUSAN, THE WATSONS, &c. {With a Memoir and Portrait of the Authoress.) •All the greatest writers of fiction are pure of the sin of writing to a text — Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott, Jane Austen ; and are not these precisely the writers who do most good as well as give most pleasure?' — Marv Russell Mitford. *,„* See also page 33. RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET Publishers In Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen . FICTION. 41 A NEW LIBRARY EDITION OF MISS FERRIER'S NOVELS. (THE EDINBURGH EDITION.) In Bis ■Volumes small crown 8vo. , i it The Sel 30J. , or separately as under : — MARRIAGE 2 Vols. 10s. THE .INHERITANCE . . . 2 Vols. 10s. DESTINY 2 Vols. 10s. This Edition is printed from the Original Edition as annotated by the Author, of whom a short Memoir is prefixed in ' Marriage. ' ' Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature.' — Sir Walter Scott. 'Miss Ferrier's novels aie all thick set with specimens of sagacity, happy traits of nature, flashes of genuine satire, easy humour, sterling good sense, and above all — (Jod only knows where she picked it up — mature and perfect knowledge of the world.' — NocTES Ambrosian/e. ' Miss Ferrier is a Scotch Miss Edgewonh — of a lively practical penetrating cast of mind, skilful in depicting character and seizing upon natural peculiarities, caustic in her wit and humour, with a quick sense of the ridiculous, and desirous of inculcating sound morality and attention to the courtesies and charities of life. The general strain of her writings relates to the foibles and oddities of mankind, and no one has drawn them with greater breadth of humour or effect. Her scenes often resemble the style of our best old comedies, and she may boast, like [''oote, of adding many new and original characters to the stock of our comic literature.' — Chambers. ' I retire from the field, conscious there remains behind not only a large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in. More than one writer has of late displayed talents of this description, and if the present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a brother, or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention in particular the author of the very lively work entitled " Marriage."' — Sir Walter Scott. 'I assure you I think it (" Marriage ") without exception the cleverest thing that ever was written, and in wit far surpassing Fielding.' — Lady Charlotte Bury. ' On Wednesday I dined in company with Sir Walter Scott, and he spoke of the work ("The Inheritance ") iQ the very highest terms. 1 do not always set the highest value on the baronet's favourable opinion of a book, because he has so much kindness of feeling towards every one, but in this case he spoke .so much cok amore, and entered so completely, and at such length to me, into the spirit of the book and of the characters, that showed me at once the impression it had made upon him. Every one I have met who has seen the book gives the same praise of it.' — John B.-ackwood. ' On the day of the dissolution of Parliament, and in the critical hours between twelve and three, I was employed in reading part of the second volume of "Destiny." My mind was so completely occui)ied on your colony in Argyleshire, that I did not throw away a thought on kings or parliaments, and was not moved by the general curiosity to stir abroad until I had finished your volume. It would have been nothing if you had so .-'gitated a youth of genius and susceptibility, prone to literary enthusiasm, but such a victory over an old hack is perhaps worthy of your notice.' — Mackintosh (to Miss Ferrier). ' I am unable to return you adequate thanks for being the cause of my reading " Destiny." I have done this (and all with me) with deliglit, from the interest and admiration at the whole composition, the novelty and excitement of its plan, the exquisite and thrilling manner of its dis- closure, the absence of all flat and heavy intervals, the conception and support of the characters, the sound and salutary moral that pervades it all — these make me love and honour its valuabi* authoress, and lament that I am not in the number of her acquaintance.'— Granville Pknn. To be obtained of all Booksellers. RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 43 FICTION. Recent IVorks of Fiction, IN LIBRARY FORM. Susan Drummond. By Mrs. J. H. RiuDELL, Author of ' George Geith of Fen Court,' &c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 3ii. td. Thirlby Hall By W. E. NoRRis, Author of 'Matrimony,' S:c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31^. td. Ill The Knave of Hearts. By Mrs. A. M. DiEHL, Author of ' Eve Lester,' &c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31^. td. IV In London Town. By Kathe- RiNE Lee, Author of ' .\ Western Wild- flower,' &c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 3ijf. isd. Not Like other Girls. By Rosa Nouchette Orey, Author of ' Wooed and Married, '&c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 3 1 J. td. VI The Dailies of Sodden Fen. By the Author of ' Four Crotchets to a Bar.' In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31^. dd. VII An Open Foe. By Adeline Sargeant, Author of ' Beyond Recall,' &c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31J. td. VIII Torwood's Trust. By Eve- lyn Everett-Green. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 3ii. iid. IX Godfrey Helstone. By Geor- GiANA M. Craik, Author of 'Two Women,' &c. In 3 vols, crown 8vo. ^is. td. X Point Blank. By Pamela Sneyd, Author of 'Jack Urquhart's Daughter.' 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By Jessie Fothergill, Author of 'The First Violin,' &c. In 3 vols, crown Svo. 31^. td. XXI Between the Heather and the Northern Sea. By Mary Linskill, Author of 'Tales of the North Riding." In 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31^. td. Between the Acts. By C. H. D. Stocker. In 3 vols, crown Svo. 31.?. td. Venetia's Lovers. By Leslie Keith, Author of "Alasnam's Lady,' &c. In 3 vols, crown Svo. ^is.td. RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, rublishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. FICTION. 43 BENTLEY'S EMPIRE LIBRARY. The price of each volume is Half-a-Crown, bound in cloth. The following Volumes are noav published, and can be obtained separately at every Bookseller'' s : — By HELEN MATHERS. The Land o' the Leal. 6 B «• By FLORENCE MONTGOMERY. A Very Simple Story, and Wild Mike. gg^, III By Mrs. ALEXANDER. Ralph Wilton's Weird. By Mrs. EDWARDES. A Blue Stocking. e^,. By HELEN MATHERS. As He Comes Up the Stairs, e,^. By WILKIE COLLINS. A Rogue's Life. es,. VII By A GERMAN PRIEST. A Victim of the Falk Laws, 6^,. By Mrs. EDWARDES. A Vagabond Heroine. ck^* By Mrs. G. W. GODFREY. My Queen. 6„,. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. Archibald Malmaison. By RHODA BROUGHTOn! Twilight Stories. By CHARLES DICKENS.""' The Mudfog Papers, &c. By FLORENCE MONTGo'mERY. Herbert Manners, and other Stories. By JESSIE FOTHERGILL. ""'^ Made or Marred. XV. By JESSIE FOTHERGILL. One of Three. ^ ,:,t 6 2< 6 P »♦ 6 B 2» 6 • 3* 44 PERIODICALS. No. No. {See also back page.) The Temple Bar Magazine. (With which is incorporated ' Bentley's Miscellany.') Demy 8vo. 144 pages, monthly, of all Booksellers, price One Shilling. ^„ s ^ One can never help enjoying "Temple Bar.'" — Guardian. ' Who does not welcome "Temple Bar"?' — ^John Bull. The Back Numbers (with the following exceptions) can also be obtained, price One Shilling each. Numbers Out of Print : No. 26, January 1863 ,, 37, December 1863 ,, 38, January 1864 ,, 61, December 1865 ,, 63, Februai-y 1S66 ,, 74, January 1867 ,, 97, December 1 868 ,, no, Januar}' 1870 ,, 133, December 1 87 1 „ 134, January 1872 and Nos. 267 for February 1883 and 278 for January 1884. The Volumes (three in each year) can be olitamed, with exception of Vols. 3. 4. 5. 6, 7, 10, 16, 25, 37, 38, 43, 63, 64, and 67. Each Volume, 5J-. &/. Cases for binding the Volumes can be had, price \s. each. To Correspondents. — All M.SS. must be addressed, post-paid, to the EDITOR of Temple Bar, 8 New Burlington Street, London, W. E^^ery MS. should bear the Name and Address of the Writer (not necessarily for publication), and be accompanied by postage stamps for its return in case of non-acceptance. Every care will be taken, but the Editor or the Publishers cannot be responsible for any Articles accidentally lost. 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To Advertisers. — All communications respecting Advertisements and Bills should be forwarded by the 17th of the mon.h to Mr. Ratcliffe, Advertising Manager, 8 George Yard, Lombard Street, London, E.C. 1, December i860 2, January 186 I 3, February 1861 9, August 1 86 1 12, November 1861 13, December 1861 14, January 1862 20, July 1862 23, October 1862 25, December 1862 146, January 1873 148, March 1873 149, April 1873 156, November 1873 168, November 1874 169, December 1874 170, January 1875 251, October 18S1 254, January 1S82 266, January, 1883 'The Temple Bar Magazine ' will be published at One p.m. on the undermen- tioned days, unless unforeseen circumstances arise to cause any alteration : — 1885. Wednesday, January 28 Tuesday, July 28 W'ednesday, February 25 Friday, March 27 Monday, April 27 Thursday, May 21 Friday, June 26 Thursday, August 27 Friday, September 25 Wednesday, October 28 Thursday, November 26 Monday, December 21 and copies can be obtained by the public on the following day. The Volumes for 1885 are Nos. 73, 74, and 75. PERIODICALS. 45 THE ARGOSY MAGAZINE. Edited by Mrs. Henry Wood, Month!}' of all Booksellers, 6a?'. (the December number, u.). The Midsum- mer number, dd. The Back Numbers, with exception of the undermentioned, which are out of print, can be obtained at the same price : — • Nos. I to 24, December 1865 to November 1867 No. 51, February, 1 8 70 „ 65, April 1 87 1 ,, 71, October 1871 No. 88, March 1873 ,, 97, December 1873 ,, 135, February 1877 „ 143, October 1877 No. 74, January 1872 ,, 75, February 1872 ,, 83, October 1872 The VoIumes (of which there are two in each year) can be obtained, price t^s. each, with exception of Vols i, 2 (for 1866), 3, 4 (for 1867), 7 (in 1869), 9 (in 1870), II, 12 ( for 1871), 13, 14 (for 1872), 15, 16 (for 1873), anJ 24 (in 1877), which are out of print. Cases for binding the Volumes can be had, price \s. 6d. each. To Correspondents. — All MSS. and Communications must be addressed to the SUB-EDITOR of The Argosy, 8 New Burlington Street, W. From the large number of Articles received, it is impossible to return them unless accompanied by stamps. The Publishers cannot be responsible for Articles accidentally lost. 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Yearly Cases for binding the Statements can be had, price is. 6d. each. s 1 r The Slatements are published about the i^th of the month they are dated. See also page 23. 46 miscellajXEo us. FOREIGN MONEY The following Table has been prepared for the p qnvenience of persons residing in this Catalogue will be found here, but the cost of carriage or England, n Australia, New Zealand, South Africa •0 c -5- Canada, United States, Mexico France, Bel- gium, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Algeria Austria Holland, Dutch East Indies Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland Portugal, Madeira Russia s. d. »-. a. doh. c. fr. c* '■m./>/. yi. kr. Jl. c. k. e. in. r. r. c. I O 0. 10 0.24 1.25 1. 00 0.38 0.61 0.91 0.230 I 6 0.15 0.36 1.88 1.50 0.56 0.92 1.36 0-345 2 O 1.04 0.48 2.50 2.00 I-I5 1.22 1. 81 0.460 2 6 1.08 0.60 313 2.50 1-34 J-53 2.27 0.575 ^ 3 o 1-13 0.72 3-75 3.00 1-53 1-83 2.72 0*690 5s 3 6 2.02 0.84 4.38 3-50 2. II 2.14 3.18 0.805 4 o 2.07 0.96 5.00 4.00 2.30 2.44 3-63 0.920 4 6 2.12 1.08 5-63 4-5° 2.49 2-74 4.08 1-035 (3 5 o 3.01 1.20 6.25 5.00 3.08 3-04 4-54 1. 150 5 6 3.06 1.32 6.88 5-50 3.26 3-35 4.99 1.265 <3 6 o 3-II 1.44 7-5° 6.00 3-45 3-65 5-45 1.380 7 6 8 o 4.09 4.14 1.80 1.92 9-38 10.00 7-50 8.00 4.41 5.00 4-56 4-87 6.81 7.26 1-725 1.840 propor. variati 9 o 5.08 2.16 11.25 9.00 5-38 5-48 8.17 2.070 1^ lO O 6.02 2.40 12.50 10.00 6.15 6.08 9.08 2.300 lo 6 6.07 2.52 ^Z-^2> 10.50 6-34 6.38 9-53 2.415 5i 12 O 7-05 2.88 15.00 12.00 7-30 7-30 10.89 2.760 3 12 6 7.10 3.00 15-63 12.50 7-49 7.60 11-34 2-875 1- 14 8.09 3-36 17-50 14.00 8-45 8-52 12.71 3.200 15 9.02 3.60 i8.7i 15.00 9-23 9.12 13.61 3-430 t6 9.12 3-84 20.00 16.00 10.00 9-73 14.52 3.660 17 G 10. II 4.20 21.88 17-50 10.56- 10.65 14.98 4-005 '18 11.00 4-32 22.50 18.00 II. 15 10.95 16.34 4.120 20 12.03 4.80 25.00 20.00 12.30 12.16 18.15 4-570 21 12.13 5-04 26.25 1 21.00 { 13.08 12.77 18.60 4.S0O ' ISfiJT. E. — TJi e accuracy of th e above Tables is not guaranteed, and • In Italy. It rt and tent esimi, and n Spain pt utas and ct mteiitnft MISCELLANEOUS. 47 CONVERSION TABLE. abroad when remitting to an English bookseller. The equivalent of all postage would have to be added or allowed for in each instance. prices England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa i C ■ 15 C r. a. Canada United Slates, Mexico France, Bel- gium, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Algeria ' c • s Austria Holland, Dutch East Indies Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland -it .2 3 ! d. » _ doh. c. fr. c.»'- m. // /7. kr. fl. c. ' k. 0. w. r. r. c. 22 6 13.12 5-40 •28.13 22.56 14.04 13.69 20.42 5-145 24 14.10 5-76 30.00 24.00 15.00 14.60 ai.78 5-520 25 15.04 6.00 31-25 25.00 15-38 15.20 22.69 5-750 26 15-14 6.24 32-50 26.00 16.15 15.81 23.60 5.960 ^ 27 6 16.13 6.60 34-38 27.50 17. II 16.73 24.96 6.305 28 17.02 6.72 35-00 28.00 17.30 17.04 25-41 6.400 5^ 30 18.04 7.20 37-50 30.00 18.46 18.24 27.22 6.860 31 6 19.03 7-56 39-38 31-50 19.42 19.16 28.59 7-205 <3 32 19.08 7.68 40.00 32.00 20.00 19.46 29.04 7.320 35 21.06 8.40 43-75 35-00 21-53 21.30 31-77 8.010 ^ fe 36 21.15 8.64 45.00 36.00 22.30 21.90 32.67 8.240 40 42 24.07 25.10 9.60 10.08 50.00 52-50 40.00 42.00 25.00 26.17 24.32 25-54 36.30 38.11 9.140 9.600 5^ -a 45 27.08 10.80 56-25 45.00 2S.10 27.38 40.84 10.290 48 29.05 11.52 60.00 48.00 30.00 29.20 43-56 11.040 s-l 50 30.08 12.00 62.50 50.00 31.16 30.40 45-36 11.500 52 6 32.00 12.60 65-63 52-50 32.50 31-93 47-65 12.015 60 36.10 14.40 75.00 60.00 37-32 36.48 54-45 13.710 63 38.07 15.12 78.75 63.00 39-25 38.31 57-18 14.400 70 42.12 16.80 87.50 70.00 43-46 42.60 63-52 16.000 75 45.12 1 8. 00 93-75 75.00 46.55 45.60 68.05 17.150 .1^ •>* 84 51.04 20.16 105.00 84.00 52-34 51.08 76.23 19.200 1 90 55-00 21.60 112.50 90.00 56.20 54-76 81.67 20.580 100 6r.oi 24.00 125.00 xoo.oo 62.32 60.80 90-75 22.850 105 64.02 25.20 131-25 105.00 65.40 63.86 95-30 24.000 constatjtiy take place through the fluctuations of Exchange. but rnrtirnlly 0/ tie tame value a.t t/te/i^'uren sftomn abmie. 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