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Mr. Dickens Goes to
The Play

Alexander Woollcott

Illustrated

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London

Ube TknicUerbocfter ipress
1922

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A 4

Alexander Woollcott

Made in the United States of America

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To
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

My dear Kate Douglas Wiggin:

Surely it is unnecessary to explain why, of all the
books I might possibly provoke, this one must needs
especially be dedicated to you — you who rode with Mr.
Dickens to Portland long ago and told him why you
liked "David Copperfield" best of all and what parts of
his novels were rather dull and why your yellow dog
was named Pip and how your other dog (who had
fought with Pip in your garden) was, inevitably, named
Mr. Pocket.

Nor need there be any explaining of a Dickens book
compiled by one who was brought up on his stories.
Without them I should hardly have had the key to all
that my grandfather and my mother were wont to say
across the head of this young Brooks of Sheffield. One
of the last memories I have of my grandfather is of an
autocrat of nearly ninety years, sitting fiercely on the
vine-hung verandah of his old house down in Jersey.
In his declining years he had relinquished little by little
the supervision of his farm and his factory. But he
still kept an eye on those hollyhocks of his. And no
sooner did he suspect the roaming chickens of having
designs on them, than up would go his cane in the

vi To Kate Douglas Wiggin

fashion of a war-club and down the steps he would
charge, roaring as he went (to summon aid from what-
ever stray grandchildren might be within earshot):
"Janet, Donkeys!"

But I should, perhaps, tell how this fresh gathering
of the Dickens material came about. It really happened
last Christmas Eve; when, in the early afternoon, I
encountered on Fifth Avenue the redoubtable J. M.
Kerrigan of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Kerrigan
always has to stop and think when you ask him what
country he is in and he has a delightful way of never
being committed to any destination. Therefore he
was all in readiness when I suggested that we make the
round of the studios, he to sing Christmas Waits for our
drinks. He sang many old snatches that afternoon.

So it was twilight when, in high good humor, we
reached my quarters at last, where I went to work on
the tying up of some Christmas parcels and Kerrigan,
infected by the spirit of the day, groped instinctively
for my set of Dickens on the darkened shelves. I have
an indistinct recollection that I caught him looking
disappointedly for Micawber in ' ' Dombey and Son ." I
remember for sure that just when I was lording it over
the fellow because he had never made the acquaintance
of my friend, Mr. Wopsle, he countered by introducing
me to Dullborough Town, which, in all its charm and
prophetic humor, had escaped me until that day. Said
Kerrigan :

To Kate Douglas Wiggin vii

"Isn't it a cruel pity that all this Dickens talk and
streeleen on the theatre is not caught up in one volume
where a man could be finding it of a fine Christmas
afternoon?"

Some days later, I poked about in the library in quest
of such a book and there was none. So here it is. I
hand it to you, knowing you will find pleasure in it,
because so many parts of it are beautiful.

I remember, after a matinee of "Justice" in which the
audience's interest in Mr. Barrymore's performance had
been shared by an equally striking and much more
emotional performance in the proscenium box by an
actress of note, Barry more vowed he had never dared
dream he would one day star with her in New York.
And I rather suspect Mr. Dickens never guessed he
would one day write a book in collaboration with
Your obedient servant,

Alexander Woollcott.

New York, 1922

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Immortals ....... 3

The Thwarted Actor . . . . .12

The Stage in Dickens's Letters ... 33

I, The Macready Letters .... 37

IL Miscellaneous Letters .... 57

The Stage in Dickens's Novels ... 83

The Vincent Crummles Company . . . 133

The Dramatizations of Dickens . , . 223

Sleight of Hand ...... 237

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE

Dickens in Full Make-Up . Frontispiece

(From the Shaw Collection)

Sir Henry Irving as Jingle .... 6

Charles Dickins (1839) 12

(Outline of the Painting by Maclise)

Dickens as Playwright . . . . .16

(From the Shaw Collection)

Dickens as Stage Manager .... 20

(From the Manuscript in the Widener Library. Harvard
University)

Relic of Dickens the Stage Manager . . 22

(From the Widener Library, Harvard University)

Macready as Alfred Evelyn . . . .46

A Dramatization of "A Tale of Two Cities" at

the Lyceum Theatre, London, 1860 . 224

(From the Shaw Collection)

The Second Presentation of "Pickwick Club,"

Royal City of London Theatre, March 28,

1837. This Rare Bill Advertises the Second

Performances of the Second Version of the

"Pickwick Papers," the First Version being

THAT OF William Leman Rede at the Adelphi

in October, 1836 230

(From the collection of Milton J. Stone, President of the
Boston Branch of the "Dickens Fellowship")

Boz's Juba Showbill ..... 234

Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

THE IMMORTALS

IN the writings of the younger critics and in the small
talk of the younger playwrights, there is evidence
from time to time of a notion that the theatre of today
is something quite apart from the theatre of our grand-
fathers. You will hear them speaking of the old days
with a wondering pity, as of a remote and rather fabu-
lous time and quite as though Ibsen had definitely
and finally exorcised some grotesque spirit from the
playhouse. It is true that the slamming of Nora's
door jarred the house and startled a thousand drowsy
fellows into a new wakefulness, but, as with the fleeing
Peter Pan when the nursery window was nipped shut
after him, so here too, perhaps, something was left
behind.

When a younger worker in the theatre is caught red-
handed in the act of speaking of naturalism as something
invented in the spring of 1896 it is well to take him aside
and reread him Hamlet's advice to the players. And it
is well occasionally to take all of them by the scruffs of
their necks and set them down at the feet of that Eng-

4 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

lishman who wrote of the theatre of tener and with more
insight than any one else of his century or ours.

Turn to his pages and find again how changeless the
theatre is. Somehow within its gates time and place
lose something of their force. The American adrift in
the streets of Paris or Vienna may be conscious of an
alien world jostling all around him, but once he crosses
the theatre's threshold, he sniffs a familiar aroma and
hears a familiar overtone which tell him that here at
last is something akin to what he had known back home.
Like the gypsies, the people of the stage really know no
country, nor can it ever be said of any one of them that
he belongs to this decade or that. They all stand a little
apart, unfused with the life of the community surround-
ing them, untouched by the passing years, ageless while
the world grows old and tired.

That is why the mummers of Dickens are, in some
ways, more vivid and more contemporary than any of
his people. Mrs. Gamp, Sam Weller, Uriah Heep, even
Trabb's boy, may be receding ever so slowly toward the
horizon of the quaint and the half-believable. But not
Miss Henrietta Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane, "the only sylph who could stand upon one leg
and play the tambourine on her other knee, like a
sylph." Not Mr. Wopsle of London and Elsinore.
That is why as his motley pageant swaggers by — fading
ingenues, embittered translators, wily bill-posters,
despondent critics, soiled supernumeraries and all —

The Immortals 5

it is easy for you to remember some perfect counterpart
of each and every one encountered the day before on
Broadway or the Strand.

Indeed, if some fatuous publisher were ever to order
a revision of Dickens in order to bring his tales of the
theatre up to date, what could one add? And what
could one leave out? Not thrice-gifted Snevellicci's
scrap-book of press notices, accidentally left lying
around to catch the eye of her handsome caller. Not
(while the memory of wartime pilfering is with us yet)
the producer who enriched his repertoire by translating
pieces from the foreign stage, renaming them and pre-
tending blandly that they were creatures of his own
teeming brain.

Not the Crummleses, bless them — neither the per-
manently arrested girlishness of Miss Ninetta of that
tribe, nor the fire and the glint that were in each
Crummies eye when word spread backstage from the
stalls that a London manager was out front, the dread
London manager, who was seen to smile broadly at the
antics indulged in by some paltry comedian during Mrs.
Crummles's biggest scene. Can't you picture the black
look Mr. Crummies gave the wretched offender then
and there and the week's notice he gave him as soon as
the curtain was down?

It is preposterous to suggest of Mrs. Crummies that
she has passed away. A deathless lady, she, and one
of a throng of immortals. That complete Dickensian,

6 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

G. K. Chesterton, has spoken of Dickens as the last of
the great mythologists, one who sent out into the world
a troupe of fairies, fairies like Sam Weller and Mr. Pick-
wick, fairies because you cannot, by any feat of the
imagination, think of them as having died. If you go
in the right spirit any night now to an inn at some Eng-
lish crossroads, says Chesterton, and sit you down over
a mug of ale, as like as not the door will swing wide and
in will come Mr. Pickwick, spectacles, neckerchief,
gaiters and all. And any visitor to New York, loitering
along Forty-fourth Street on any pleasant afternoon, is
only too likely to encounter Mrs. Crummies out for the
air — Mrs. Crummies treading the pavement as if she
were going to immediate execution, with an animating
consciousness of innocence and that heroic fortitude
which virtue alone inspires.

Dear Mrs. Crummies. Her husband saw her first
standing upon her head on the butt-end of a spear,
surrounded with blazing fireworks. *'Such grace!"
he used to say afterwards, "Coupled with such dignity!
I adored her from that moment."

And all of us have met that changeless camp follower
— Mr. Waldengarver's dresser, the one who could see the
performance of "Hamlet" only in terms of his own part
in it, and who, watching from the wings during the mur-
der of Polonius, felt that his star might have made more
of his stockings. "You're out in your reading of Ham-
let, Mr. Waldengarver, when you get your legs in profile."

Sir Henry Irving as "Jingle"

The Immortals 7

Memories of countless rag-tag-and-bobtail produc-
tions in our own time are stirred by that performance
of "Hamlet."

On our arrival in Denmark [said Pip], we found the King
and Queen of that country elevated in two armchairs on a
kitchen table holding a court. The whole of the Danish
nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble boy in
the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable
Peer with a dirty face, who seemed to have risen from the
people late in life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in
its hair and a pair of white silk legs, and presenting on the
whole a feminine appearance. My gifted townsman stood
gloomily apart and I could have wished that his curls and
forehead had been more probable.

And there is something quite painfully reminiscent
about that after-theatre supper when Pip and Herbert
took the aforesaid fellow-townsman out for cakes and
ale, and, until 2 in the morning, listened (for lack of a
chance to get a word in edgewise) to an account of the
Waldengarver success and a development of the Walden-
garver plans.

I forget in detail what they were [Pip said afterward],
but I have a general recollection that he was to begin by
reviving the Drama and to end with crushing it; inasmuch
as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and without a
chance or hope.

Reminiscent, too, of something within the experience
of all of us is David's jarring drop to the gray, gritty
hubbub of the streets, a descent which is part of the

8 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

aftermath of every true adventure at the play. And
Dickens's own memories of the theatre in Dullborough
Town, where he went as a small boy and where he
learned as from a page of English history how the wicked
King Richard slept in wartime on a sofa much too small for
him and how fearfully his conscience troubled his boots.

Above all, the theatre of today can hardly disown the
play ordered by Mr. Crummies to be written around
the new pump and washtubs he had just acquired for
his company.

Nor Nicholas's wonderment as to how he could
introduce a pas de deux for Folair and the Phenomenon
in the scene where Folair as the attached servant is
turned out of doors with the wife and child, goes with
them into poor lodgings and refuses to take any wages.
The neophyte adaptor could not for the life of him see
how a dance could be managed.

" Why, isn't it obvious? " reasoned Mr. Lenville. " Gad-
zooks, who can help seeing the way to do it.? — you astonish
me! You get the distressed lady, and the little child, and
the attached servant, into the poor lodgings, don't you? —
Well, look here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair, and
buries her face in her pocket-handkerchief — ' What makes
you weep, mama? ' says the child. ' Don't weep, mama, or
you'll make me weep too ! ' — ' And me !' says the faithful
servant, rubbing his eyes with his arm. ' What can we do
to raise your spirits, dear mama?' says the little child.
'Aye, what can we do?' says the faithful servant. 'Oh,
Pierre!' says the distressed lady; ' would that I could shake
off these painful thoughts!' — 'Try, ma'am, try,' says the

The Immortals 9

faithful servant; 'rouse yourself, ma'am; be umused.' — 'I
will,' says the lady, ' I will learn to suffer with fortitude.
Do you remember that dance, my honest friend, which, in
happier days you practiced with this sweet angel? It never
failed to calm my spirits then. Oh ! let me see it once again
before I die ! ' — There it is — cue for the band, before I die, —
and off they go. That's the regular thing; isn't it.
Tommy?"

" That's it," replied Mr. Folair. " The distressed lady,
overpowered by old recollections, faints at the end of the
dance, and you close in with a picture."

How that little ninety-year-old twinge of dramatic
criticism does keep bobbing up in the present-day ob-
servations! As when Mr. Zangwill, contemplating a
comedy about a serio-comic governess, designed a
heroine with a tendency to stop short (right in the
dining room or on the street or anywhere) and give
imitations. You see, he had written the piece in the
hope that Cissie Loftus would play the leading role.
Or, when Ethel Watts Mumford wrote a comedy about
a little exile returning to America from a Continental
school, where, among other accomplishments, she had
developed some skill at toe dancing. Back home in a
great, austere mansion on Long Island, whenever she
felt blue, an orchestra would pipe up providentially in
the next room and she (shod, as it happened, in ballet
shoes) would cheer herself up by a good, heart-warming
pas seul. That was in a play called "Just Herself,"
written, or at least rewritten, for Lydia Lopokova.

lo Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

And then there is that story they tell of the English
comedy, wherein the distressed heroine, having fled for
some reason to Buenos Aires and been pursued there by
a lecherous and importunate bandit, finally called out:
"Nay, sir, I cannot yield to your desires, but instead I
will try to give you my impression of Miss Edna May in
*The Belle of New York.'"

And then there are the Curdles, who are with us yet.

"It's not as if the theatre was in its high and palmy
days," said Mrs. Curdle a century ago. "The drama
is gone, perfectly gone."

"As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's vision,"
said Mr. Curdle, "and a realization of human intellect-
uality, guilding with refulgent light our dreamy
moments, and laying open a new and magic world before
the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone."

Who will deny that Mr. Curdle is writing dramatic
criticism here or in England today and that Mrs. Curdle
is a member of the Drama League? But, there, that
shelf of Dickens bristles with texts for every writer on
the theatre. Poke your nose into any one of half a
dozen volumes and find again how essentially change-
less the theatre is. Read Mr. Dickens and rediscover,
if you will, its Peter Pantheism. And your own.

In the pages that follow, then, are assembled for your
convenience most of what he wrote about the theatre
in his books and much of what he wrote in his letters —
together with some stray clippings from fugitive papers

The Immortals n

and a sample of his playwriting for your amusement.
Also an account of the plays which, to his great pain,
they made from his novels and some study of the sup-
pressed actor in him which kept cropping out to upset
his orderly life and distress his orderly friends. It is the
theatre of his day and ours, recorded from the stalls,
from the pit, from the wings and from what he himself
once called "the yellow eye of an actor." Implicit in
that record is some of the best dramatic criticism in the
language.

THE THWARTED ACTOR

pHARLES DICKENS was the most successful and
immeasurably the most far-reaching writer born
of modern England. From his own country in his own
day and from readers in scattered lands the world
around came an instant and heart-warming response
to his genius which has been matched in the experience
of no other writer. That response was not only imme-
diate but personal and affectionate to a degree that only
Kipling has since approached and then only under
special circumstances and for but a little while. It was
an interested affection that swirled and billowed around
Dickens all his days on earth and filled those days
with a sort of festive hubbub that was most dear to
him.

And yet he was never quite happy in his work. He
was the most fecund and rewarded of novelists, but it
did not content him to be a novelist. There was that
in him which could not be satisfied by a writer's career
at all. It is impossible to explore far in the half-
shrouded byways of Dickens without surprising again
and again this secret of his heart — that he wanted to be

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Charles Dickens (1839)
(Outline of the Painting by Maclise)

The Thwarted Actor 13

an actor. Of course he himself used to speak lightly
and a little sheepishly of his youthful aspirations for the
stage, as of something boyish and amusing enough when
viewed in kindly retrospect. Yet these aspirations, or
rather the sources of them, never really left him and
that they were fermenting away inside him always is
readable between the lines even of that eminently dis-
creet but only half -comprehending man Friday of his —
John Forster.

It would have been idle to expostulate with him that
he could and did reach a far wider audience than any
actor might aspire to. It would have been idle to point
out how all over England and America and Australia,
readers of his, great folk and mean folk, queens and
miners and scrubwomen and doctors of philosophy,
were laughing and weeping at the promptings of his
written word. He knew that well enough. He knew
it. But he did not feel it. He did not hear them
laugh, did not see them cry. All the genius poured into
"Copperfield" or the tale of Tiny Tim could not bring
him the warm, human satisfaction of visible and audible
appreciation which was his friend Macready's nightly
portion, that really precious reward which only in their
more toplofty moments do the actors affect to disprize
as when the late Lawrence Barrett, sighing with the
extra profundity of a bogus melancholy, would murmur:
*'What are we poor players but sculptors whose lot it is
night after night to carve statues in snow. "

14 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Had Dickens lived in the twentieth century, the
Freudians, taking one shrewd, amused, infuriatingly
perspicacious look at him, would have analyzed him on
the spot. They would have noted his clumsy efforts at
playwriting, his adoration of Macready, his wistful
loiterings at the stage-door, of which the faint, unmis-
takable aroma was ever the breath of his nostrils, and
his disarming readiness to laugh and cry at the most
ordinary of performances in any theatre. They would
have noted his pantomimic gyrations when in the
throes of composition. They would have known that
the young novelist who walked the night-mantled
streets of Paris in an agony of sympathy for the dying
Paul Dombey was a sidetracked actor. They would
have noted his own incongruous capacity for self-pity,
his grotesque sensitiveness to the most piddling of
criticism, his comically transparent excuses for appear-
ing in amateur dramatics, his gallant and undeniably
Thespian appearance and his flamboyant raiment,
geranium in the buttonhole, brilliantine on the hair,
rings on the fingers and all, which distressed his sedate
friends but satisfied something within him. They
would have noted all these things and published in some
obscure journal an article written to demonstrate that
Mr. Dickens was suffering from an exhibition complex.
This would have maddened him. He would have
dictated sixteen furious letters demanding retraction,
growing the redder in the face as he paced the floor

The Thwarted Actor 15

because he would have known that it was all quite true.
That half-smothered desire gnawed at him through all
the years of his growth until at last it found an outlet
which brought him peace.

Charles Dickens's dealings with the established pro-
fessional theatre were irregular, apprehensive and
finally vanquishing, except, of course, that he went
a-playgoing in whatever town he visited, whether or
not he knew the language and whether or not the bills
held forth the slightest promise of something worth a
whole evening of a lucid adult's leisure. Even in the
days when he was working at that blacking-factory, and
earning six shillings a week, you would have seen him in
his white hat, little jacket and corduroy trousers, march-
ing up to the ticket booth of some show-van that lay
temptingly across his homeward path and boldly
planking down some considerable fraction of his income
for an hour of contraband entertainment.

Earlier even than that began the itch to write for the
stage, for the first works of his pen were tragedies
written for performance at home in a nursery packed
to the doors with children dragged in from the neighbor-
hood to listen to him. " Misnar, or the Sultan of India,"
now unhappily lost to posterity, was one of these. It
was an itch that troubled him off and on for many
years, finding expression in several comedies and bur-
lettas, some of which were produced with moderate
success in the days before his name had a little magic

1 6 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

for the summoning of an audience. Specifically, these
were a two-act burletta called "The Strange Gentle-
man"; a comic opera libretto called "The Village
Coquettes"; a one-act burletta entitled "Is She His
Wife? Or, Something Singular"; a short farce, "The
Lamplighter"; another (written with Mark Lemon)
called "Mr. Nightingale's Diary" and a five-act drama-
tization of "No Thoroughfare" which he and Wilkie
Collins managed between them. Today none of them
has any existence in the theatre and none of them has
any interest for the Dickensian, except as a curiosity.
It should be remembered, however, that they were
written in what were the dark days of the English
theatre, despite all the glamor lent to those days by
the backward glances of George Henry Lewes when, in
the fifties, he was, like most dramatic critics before his
time and after, earnestly engaged in lamenting the
decline of the drama. In that period, Dickens wrote
several plays that are now dead. But then no other
Englishman in that period wrote a play which is now
alive.

That he never succeeded in writing a play which
could serve his beloved Macready was a genuine and
unassuaged disappointment to him. His reverence for
that towering figure of the English stage was a thing
which time and his own surpassing success never
tarnished. To Macready he dedicated "Nicholas
Nickleby." And for Macready 's eyes he poured out

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GiilLi y l.s, iid- -Second f^sica hi.

Dickens as Playwright
(From the Shaw Collection)

The Thwarted Actor 17

letters a little warmer in their aflFection than any others
which his hospitable heart dictated. I suspect that this
chafed Forster just a little and that he was more than a
little exasperated by his knowledge that his hero's
thoughts followed Macready around the world because
Macready represented an achievement that Dickens
half-consciously envied.

That Dickens was a natural-born leading man, no
one could doubt who has studied the portraits of him,
especially the winning Maclise study which caught him
in the beauty and but half-conquered diffidence of his
youth, the portrait which Thackeray found so amazing
a likeness, "the real identical man Dickens, the inward
as well as the outward of him." There, visible enough,
were genteel comedy in the walk and manner, juvenile
tragedy in the eye and touch-and-go farce in the laugh.

And that Dickens had made one direct bid for a place
in the ranks at Covent Garden is a matter of record.
Years afterwards, he harked back for Forster 's benefit
to that attempt :

I wrote to Bartley, who was stage-manager, and told
him how young I was, and exactly what I thought I could
do; and that I believed I had a strong perception of char-
acter and oddity, and a natural power of reproducing in my
own person what I observed in others. This was at the time
when I was at Doctors'-commons as a shorthand writer for
the proctors. And I recollect I wrote the letter from a little
oflBce I had there, where the answer came also. There must
have been something in my letter that struck the authorities,

i8 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

for Bartley wrote me almost immediately to say they were
busy getting up the Hunchback (so they were) but that they
would communicate with me again, in a fortnight. Punc-
tual to the time another letter came, with an appointment
to do anything of Mathew's I pleased before him and
Charles Kemble, on a certain day at the theatre. My sister
Fanny was in the secret, and was to go with me to play the
songs. I was laid up when the day came, with a terrible
bad cold and an inflammation of the face; the beginning, by
the bye, of that annoyance in one ear to which I am subject
to this day. I wrote to say so and added that I would re-
sume my application next season. I made a great splash in
the gallery soon afterwards; the Chronicle opened to me; I
had a distinction in the little world of the newspaper,
which made one like it; began to write; didn't want money;
had never thought of the stage but as a means of getting it;
gradually left off turning my thoughts that way, and never
resumed the idea. I never told you this, did I? See how
near I may have been to another sort of life.

Years later, when he was reading an ignominiously
rejected farce by Bartley, he thought he detected some
struggling recognition and connection stirring up within
the subconsciousness of that manager. "But,'* he
added cheerfully, *'it may have been only his doubts of
that humorous composition."

When in the letter just quoted, Dickens said that he
had never thought of the stage except as a means of
getting money, he was saying what, by every evidence
furnished in the acts and works of his life, we know was
flagrantly untrue. And furthermore who cannot see
that he was saying it because it was not true.f* And

The Thwarted Actor 19

knowing all he did know of Dickens's theatrical impulses,
the bland Forster still had the hardihood to say that
Dickens, in his rebellion against the labor and penury
which were the lot of a law court-reporter, had at-
tempted to escape that drudgery "even" in the direc-
tion of the stage. That word "even" crept into that
sentence, from the same deprecatory impulse which
later bade Forster describe Dickens's outbursts of
amateur dramatics as "Splendid Stroking."

It wasn't a very good living [Dickens himself observed of
the reportorial work] (though not a very bad one) and was
wearily uncertain; which made me think of the Theatre in
quite a business-like way. I went to some theatre every
night, with very few exceptions, for at least three years;
really studying the bills first, and going to where there was
the best acting; and always to see Mathews whenever he
played. I practised immensely (even such things as walking
in and out, and sitting down in a chair) : often four, five, six
heurs a day; shut up in my own room or walking about in
th« fields. I prescribed to myself, too, a sort of Hamilton-
ian system for learning parts; and learnt a great number. I
haven't even lost the habit now, for I knew my Canadian
ps.rts Immediately, though they were new to me. I must
have done a great deal : for, just as Macready found me out,
they used to challenge me at Braham's; and Yates, who was
knowing enough in those things, wasn't to be parried at all.

All of which is quoted at length, less for the specific
information it adds, than to ask if it does not suggest
something untold, some color for the legend that, at an
unchronicled time and place, Dickens did vanish into

20 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the personnel of a stock company and try his luck as an
actor. Of course that legend took on the accent of
certainty in the minds of those players at Portsmouth
who, after "Nicholas Nickleby," suspected that the
world was laughing at them and who would have it
that this Dickens came down there as a would-be-actor
and made a sorry mess of it. There is, of course, the
specific tradition that he went on unannounced one
night during the run of his own piece, *'The Strange
Gentleman."

But it was rather as an amateur that these instincts
of his found their earlier outlet. He never missed a
chance at such indulgence, organizing special companies,
pretending to be a little bored by them and ending
always by directing them himself and attending fever-
ishly to the smallest detail of back-stage management.
It was a part of him to plunge with passionate earnest-
ness into these exhausting enterprises, glowering at the
more trivial associates who could not, by mere per-
suasion, be led into taking seriously the exactions of
rehearsal and the true agony of performance.

Note the fine and familiar mixture of relish and ex-
asperation in this mid-rehearsal scrawl to the amused
Macready. "I never in my life saw a place in such a
state or had to do with such an utterly careless and
unbusiness-Iike set of dogs as my fellow-actors." He
excepted two, but not Forster, who was engrossed in the
role of Kitely. "So far as he is concerned," Dickens

3n lirmrmbrancr ov riii: lai'k mr. douglas jerroi.d.

COMMIITKES "H'Ri;, OAl.LEHY OF ILLUSTHATl'JN.
KEOKST STKKET. *

^ - ... *

^A-.-^ Sl^a^C.

/ X

-^^■-^ J.. -^-^ <c^ /^y^^/i^ cc^U^^i^^

Dickens as Stage-Manager

(From the Manuscript in the Widener Library, Harvard College)

The Thwarted Actor 21

added sourly, "there is nothing in the world but Kitely
— there is no world at all; only a something in its place
that begins with a K and ends with a Y" — a minor note
which does not, by the way, find place in Forster's
biography, nor did Mamie Dickens and Georgina
Hogarth think it nice to print it in their collection of
their father's letters.

It was Dickens who would draw up the rules against
talking in the wings, Dickens who blasted the negligent
in memorizing, Dickens who wrote out with his own
hand the calls and music cues and property lists. Stray
leaves from this old book of his life are treasured now
in the manuscript collections of the world.

To embark from time to time on such undertakings,
he had, of course, to down the questionings in his own
mind, the fretting of his anxious publishers and the
disconcerting suspicions of his friends, who knew well
enough what old impulses he was obeying. Above all,
he had to trump up some excuse for publication. For
it is not given to the Anglo-Saxon to be able to say
frankly : " It is my desire to get up on a lighted platform
and make an exhibition of myself, but I cannot do it in
a vacuum. I need someone to watch me. Please come
and watch me." I remember how, in my Sophomore
days at Hamilton College, we organized a dramatic
club, engaged a theatre and then were assailed with
misgivings which overhung us like a depressing cloud
until we hit upon the happy notion of giving our per-

22 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

formance for the benefit of some local work, it mattered
not what. There we were, quite unconsciously invent-
ing out of our own needs, an old thing — a familiar thing
to Dickens, certainly, who, for his adventures on the
boards, always managed to contrive some plausible
cause outside the desires of his own heart. Even when
he worked up a monster benefit for poor Leigh Hunt and
was bereft of his cause by an unexpected eleventh-hour
pension for that gratified beneficiary, he was only
momentarily baflfled.

How good an actor he was, it is diflBcult to tell from
the written criticism. ''Assumption," he wrote, *'has
charms for me so delightful — I hardly know for how
many wild reasons — that I feel a loss of, Oh, I can't say
what exquisite foolery, when I lose a chance of being
someone not in the remotest degree like myself." (It
is, perhaps, worth noting that he invariably used the
word "assumption" to cover all activity of disguise or
impersonation. This parenthesis is a cross-reference to
the phrase, "the Datchery assumption" in his own com-
ment on "Edwin Drood" and is tucked in here for the
benefit of the Edwin Druids.) Leigh Hunt wrote that
Dickens's Bobadil (in Jonson's "Every Man in His
Humor") had " a spirit in it of intelligent apprehension
beyond anything the existing stage has known." But
Hunt's partiality might well have been challenged.
And Victoria, who worked up a considerable trepidation
over his performance of Wardour in Wilkie Collins 's

<7ZC.

I 4' '^*-6. ^ . . J

Relic of Dickens, the Stage-Manager
(From the Widener Library, Harvard College)

The Thwarted Actor 23

"The Frozen Deep," declared that no professional ac-
tor then living could have matched him. But somehow
one distrusts Her Majesty's aesthetic judgments. How-
ever, it is not a bad guess that Dickens was an excellent
actor, eloquent, picturesque, moving. And it is my
own that had not chance otherwise canalized his great
genius, he would have been the overtowering actor of
Nineteenth Century England. Which would have been
a pity.

But the final and only satisfying outlet for all these
impulses was found by another means. That means
was foreshadowed in his early craving to read his manu-
scripts aloud. He took a genuine enough interest, in all
conscience, in the sales of his stories as their serial parts
appeared, and the rise and fall of those sales was a sure
barometer to his spirits. But he wrote not with any
such vague and impersonal audience in mind. He wrote
for the friend he was going to corner and read his piece
to. It was, let us say, Macready's laughter or Macready's
tears he hoped to invoke. Indeed, all of this aspect of
Charles Dickens lies back of a single sentence he once
wrote as a postscript to a letter dispatched from Lon-
don to his wife at the time when the ** Christmas Carol "
was still in manuscript. "If," he said, "you had seen
Macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying
on the sofa as I read, you would have felt, as I did, what
a thing it is to have power."

An incident that attended the issue of "The Chimes"

24 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

is most revealing. In the midst of a long, self-imposed
exile on the Continent, he had written that less-per-
sistent of his Christmas stories and, shipping the manu-
script on to London, was trusting to Forster's fidelity
to revise the proof.

It was on the eve of publication — early in the Winter
of 1844-1845 — that he suddenly announced a clandes-
tine trip to London, a flying-trip, that was to be im-
parted only to his cronies and which was to last only a
week. Of course Forster wrote back that it would tire
him out, that it would cost too much, that it could not
possibly be kept secret, etc., etc. And, of course,
Dickens paid no attention.

I am still in the same mind about coming to London
[he replied]. Not because the proofs concern me at all
(I should be an ass as well as a thankless vagabond if they
did) but because of that unspeakable restless something
which would render it almost as impossible for me to re-
main here and not see the thing complete, as it would be
for a full balloon, left to itself, not to go up.

And later in the same letter out plumped the whole
truth.

Shall I confess to you, I particularly want Carlyle above all
to see it before the rest of the world, when it is done; and
I should like to inflict the little story on him and on dear old
gallant Macready with my own lips, and to have Stanny
and the other Mac sitting by. Now, if you was a real gent,
you'd get up a little circle for me, one wet evening, when I
come to town: and would say: "My boy (Sir, you will have

The Thwarted Actor 25

the goodness to leave those books alone and to go down-
stairs — What the Devil are you doing? And mind, sir,
I can see nobody — Do you hear? Nobody. I am particu-
larly engaged with a young gentleman from Asia) — My
boy, would you give us that little Christmas book (a little
Christmas book of Dickens's, Macready, which I'm anxious
you should hear); and don't slur it, now, or be too fast,
Dickens, please." — I say, if you was a real gent, something
to this efiFect might happen. I shall be under sailing orders
the moment I have finished. And I shall produce myself
(please God) in London on the very day you name. For one
week : to the hour.

And so it came to pass.

From that reading of "The Chimes" came many things.
The transition from private readings to public readings
given for charity, and thence to public readings given
for the lining of his own bottomless purse, was gradual
but inevitable. Forster saw it coming and in a sort of
panic amassed all the arguments against so undignified
a procedure and so wearing an undertaking. He was
careful that Dickens should hear of the distinguished
ladies who labored "under the impression that it was
to lead to the stage ( ! ." The scandalized italics and the
exclamation points (both of them) are Forster's. Fors-
ter has recorded his own opposition in these words:

It was a substitution of lower for higher aims; a change to
commonplace from more elevated pursuits; and it had so
much of the character of a public exhibition for money as
to raise, in the question of respect for his caUing as a writer,
a question also of respect for himself as a gentleman.

26 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

But do you quite consider that the public exhibition of
oneself takes place equally, whosoever may get the money?
[Dickens replied]. And have you any idea that at this
moment — this very time — half the public at least supposes
me to be paid? My dear F., out of the twenty or five-and-
twenty letters a week that I get about Readings, twenty
will ask at what price, or on what terms, it can be done. The
only exceptions, in truth, are when the correspondent is a
clergyman, or a banker, or the member for the place in
question.

So it went back and forth, all the friends deploring
this new misconduct of his, Dickens himself inwardly
determined to go through with it. He reared a hundred
specious excusete. He laid his intentions to make an
exhibition of himself to the widest miscellany of causes.
To the melancholy of his home (from which his dis-
carded wife had just moved out for good and all), to
the numerical strength of his children, which could
hardly be denied. He would sign a contract for each
new course of readings, protesting all the while that the
work was torment to him, that he longed to stay by his
own fireside, that nothing but need of money could in-
duce him to go and so forth and so forth, with never a
single mention of the real reason which skulked always
in the background, and is visible there even to this day.
But the letters he wrote home from his journeys shone
with a new content. There was his public all about him,
within sight of his own eyes, within touch of his own
hands. The sense of them crowding the halls to suf-

The Thwarted Actor 2^

focation and hanging breathless on his performances
warmed his heart as nothing had ever warmed it.

When the boots at Morrison's heard that his Irish
hall was packed, he cried, "The Lard be praised for the
honor o' Dooblin." When a woman approached him in
York, it would be to say, "Mr. Dickens, will you let me
touch the hand that has filled my house with friends.''"
How he loved it ! He might write in advance that only
the hope of gain that would make him "more inde-
pendent of the worst," could make him face the travel
and exertion and absence — that a journej^ overseas
would be "penance and misery." But, from overseas,
he could not help writing, proudly, defensively, reveal-
ingly:

I have now read in New York City to 40,000 people and
am quite as well known in the streets there as I am in Lon-
don. People will turn back, turn again and face me, and
have a look at me, or will say to one another "look here,
Dickens coming." But no one ever stops me or addresses
me. Sitting reading in the carriage outside the New York
post-office while one of the staff was stamping the letters
inside, I became conscious that a few people who had been
looking at the turn-out had discovered me within. On
my peeping out good-humoredly, one of them (I should say
a merchant's book-keeper) stepped up to the door, took off
his hat, and said in a frank way: "Mr. Dickegs, I should
very much like to have the honor of shaking hands with
you" and, that done, presented two others. Nothing could
be more quiet or less intrusive. In the railway cars, if I
see anybody who clearly wants to speak to me, I usually

28 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

anticipate the wish by speaking myself. If I am standing on
the brake outside (to avoid the intolerable stove) people
getting down will say with a smile: "As I am taking my
departure, Mr. Dickens, and can't trouble you for more than
a moment, I should like to take you by the hand, sir." And
so we shake hands and go our ways.

The interminable lines at his box-offices, the queue that
slept all night on the street in Brooklyn, for instance,
gave him a joy that had nothing whatever to do with
the dollars they were waiting to deposit to his account.

The career that really began with the reading of "The
Chimes" to the little circle in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
brought him in huge sums of money and reestablished
his friendship with America. Doubtless, it measurably
shortened his days on earth but it satisfied at last the
thing within him which had remained unsatisfied ever
since that broken appointment between the debonair
young reporter and the manager of Covent Garden long
before.

They were not quite like anything the world had seen
before or anything the world has seen since — those
readings, which, literally, were not readings at all. A
little like some courtyard or hearth-side performances
of the old jongleurs, perhaps, and more than a little
like the latter-day appearances of Ruth Draper, who, as
Dickens could, can by virtue of her own vivid self and
her extraordinary mimetic gift, crowd an empty,
sceneless stage with a host of her own imagining. But

The Thwarted Actor 29

about them the half-admiring, half-grudging Carlyle
shall say the last word here, Carlyle who, under date
of April 29, 1863, made this report:

I had to go yesterday to Dickens's Reading, 8 p.m.,
Hanover Rooms, to the complete upsetting of my evening
habitudes and spiritual composure. Dickens does do it
capitally, such as it is; acts better than any Macready in the
world; a whole tragic, comic, heroic theatre visible perform-
ing under one hat, and keeping us laughing — in a sorry way
some of us thought — the whole night. He is a good creature
too, and makes fifty or sixty pounds by each of these
readings.

The Stage in Dickens's Letters

THE STAGE IN DICKENS'S
LETTERS

npHE letters and portions of letters which follow
have been chosen from the great volume of
Dickens's correspondence, most of which has, at one
time or another, been published or partly published.
First, in this arrangement of them, come selections from
his letter's to Macready, offered here not merely because
they are abuzz with his interest in the theatre but be-
cause they reveal again and again the object of his
greatest affection among the men whom he came to
know.

It has been necessary to go back of the familiar re-
cord in the official family edition of his letters and in the
often cryptic pages of Forster's biographj\ When
Mamie Dickens and Georgina Hogarth (his eldest
daughter and his sister-in-law) edited their great man's
abundant correspondence, there were many passages
and often whole letters which were omitted out of dis-
cretion, out of timidity, or out of consideration for
Dickens's reputation for refined and amiable speech.
For example, in a familiar letter written to Macready
on November 1, 1854, and touching on a civilian phe-

3 33

34 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

nomenon of the Crimean War quite recognizable to
anyone who was ahve in the years from 1914 to 1918,
you will read this delightful paragraph:

" is getting a little too fat, but appears to be

troubled by the great responsibility of directing the whole
war. He doesn't seem to be quite clear that he has got
the ships into the exact order he intended, on the sea
point of attack at Sebastopol." But it is when you go
to the letter itself in the manuscript vault of the Mor-
gan Library in New York that you find why the name
was omitted. It was omitted because the name was
Forster.

It is not so easy to see why the woman referred to in
another letter as "a very bad actress" should have been
veiled for posterity. It was Ristori. Occasionally, the
consideration shown was rather for Dickens himself,
as where they changed his "bawdy" to "beastly" and,
in the same letter — the 1841 Macready letter given here
— they omitted bodily the penultimate paragraph.
And of course such a letter as the one given here under
the presumptive date of 1840 would find no place at all
among the oflScial memorials. The omissions are sup-
plied for these pages from the originals which the late
Pierpont Morgan collected.

The other letters added are a miscellany of informal
dramatic criticism which he would broadcast after any
trip to the threatre at home or abroad.

I. The Macready Letters

I. THE MACREADY LETTERS

THE ASPIRING PLAYWRIGHT

Doughty Street, 1838.

I have not seen you for the past week, because I hoped
when we next met to bring "The LampHghter" in my hand.
It would have been finished by this time, but I found my-
self compelled to set to work first at the "Nickleby," on
which I am at present engaged, and which I regret to say —
after my close and arduous application last month — I find
I cannot write as quickly as usual. I must finish it, at
latest, by the 24th (a doubtful comfort!), and the instant
I have done so I will apply myself to the farce. I am afraid
to name any particular day, but I pledge myself that you
shall have it this month, and you may calculate on that
promise. I send you with this a copy of a farce I wrote for
Harley when he left Drury Lane, and in which he acted for
some seventy nights. It is the best thing he does. It is
barely possible you may like to try it. Any local or tempo-
rary allusions could be easily altered.

Believe me that I only feel gratified and flattered by your
inquiry after the farce, and that if I had as much time as I
have inclination, I would write on and on and on, farce after
farce and comedy after comedy, until I wrote you something
that would run. You do me justice when you give me credit
for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and

38 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

strong and warm interest in you personally and your great
undertaking, you cannot fathom nor express.
Believe me, my dear Macready,

Ever faithfully yours,

Charles Dickens.
P.S. For Heaven's sake don't fancy that I hold "The
Strange Gentleman" in any estimation or have a wish upon
the subject.

THE DISCOURAGED PLAYWRIGHT

48 Doughty Street, 1838.

I can have but one opinion on the subject — withdraw the
farce at once, by all means.

I perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most
heartily and cordially for your kind and manly conduct,
which is only what I should have expected from you;
though, under such circumstances, I sincerely believe there
are few but you — if any — who would have adopted it.

Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappoint-
ment connected with this matter but that arising from the
not having been able to be of some use to you. And trust
me that if the opportunity should ever arrive, my ardour
will only be increased — not damped — by the result of this
experiment.

A DEDICATION

Broadbtairs, 1839.

Let me prefix to the last number of " Nickleby," and to the
book, a duplicate of the leaf which I now send you. Believe
me that there will be no leaf in the volume which will afford
me in times to come more true pleasure and gratification,
than that in which I have written your name as foremost
amongst those of the friends whom I love and honour. Believe
me, there will be no one line in it conveying a more honest truth

The Macready Letters 39

or a more sincere feeling than that which describes its dedi-
cation to you as a slight token of my admiration and regard.

So let me tell the world by this frail record that I was a
friend of yours, and interested to no ordinary extent in your
proceedings at that interesting time when you showed them
such noble truths in such noble forms, and gave me a new
interest in, and associations with, the labours of so many
months,

I write to you very hastily and crudely, for I have been
very hard at work, having only finished to-day, and my
head spins yet. But you know what I mean. I am then
always.

Believe me, my dear Macready,

Faithfully yours,

Charles Dickens.

P.S.— (Proof of Dedication enclosed): "To W. C.
Macready, Esq., the following pages are inscribed, as a slight
token of admiration and regard, by his friend, the Author."

WITH A COPY OF "NICHOLAS NICKLEBY"

Doughty Stheet, 1839.

The book, the whole book, and nothing but the book (ex-
cept the binding, which is an important item), has arrived at
last, and is forwarded herewith. The red represents my
blushes at its gorgeous dress; the gilding, all those bright
professions which I do not make to you; and the book itself,
my whole heart for twenty months, which should be yours
for so short a term, as you have it always.

WHEREIN MR. FORSTER APPEARS TO HAVE MADE A SCENE

Monday, August 17th (probably 18-10)

What can I say to you about last night! Frankly,
nothing. Nothing can enhance the estimation in which I
hold you, or the affectionate and sincere attachment I bear

40 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

towards you, my dear friend — and not even your manly
and generous interposition can make me eloquent upon a
subject on which I feel so deeply and singly.

I am very much grieved, and yet I am not penitent and
cannot be, reason with myself as I will. With all the
regard I have for Forster, and with all the close friendship
between us, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that we do not
quarrel with other men; and the more I think of it, the more
I feel confident in the belief that there is no man, alive or
dead, who tries his friends as he does. I declare to you
solemnly, that when I think of his manner (far worse than
his matter) I turn burning hot and am ashamed and in a
manner degraded to have been the subject of it.

I have found the soul of goodness in this evil thing at all
events, and when I think of all you said and did, I would not
recall (if I had the power) one atom of my passion and im-
temperance, which carried with it a breath of yours.

THE PROMISE OF APPLAUSE

Devonshire Terrace, Tuesday, November 23d.

My dear Macready,

Please be an out and out villain tonight.

Faithfully yours always,
Charles Dickens.

MR. DICKENS LETS OFF STEAM

Broadstairs, 1841.

I must thank you most heartily and cordially, for your
kind note relative to poor Overs. I can't tell you how glad
I am to know that he thoroughly deserves such kindness.

What a good fellow Elliotson is. He kept him in his room
a whole hour, and has gone into his case as if he were Prince
Albert; laying down all manner of elaborate projects and
determining to leave his friend Wood in town when he him-

The Macready Letters 41

self goes away, on purpose to attend to him. Then he
writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he
can't go back to his old work, for that requires muscular
exertion (and muscular exertion he mustn't make). What
are we to do with him? He says: " Here's five pounds for
the present."

I declare before God that I could almost bear the Jones's
for five years out of the pleasure I feel in knowing such
things, and when I think that every dirty speck upon the
fair face of the Almighty's creation, who writes in a filthy,
bawdy newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who has
been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts it in
the editorial "We," once a week; every vagabond that an
honest man's gorge must rise at; every live emetic in that
noxious drug-shop the press, can have his fling at such men
and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I grow so vicious
that, with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib down,
and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache.

How Abraham must be smoothing his etherial robes to
make a warm place in his bosom for the Protestant cham-
pions of this time! What joy in Holy Heaven when the
angels look down on Sunday mornings and read in bright
blue letters that Mr. Westmacott takes their part ! Fancy
the Standard, and the Morning Post, the Age, the Argus
and the Times all on the side of Christ. Celestial Host!

I have put myself out of sorts for the day and shall go
and walk unless the direction of this sets me up again. On
second thoughts, I think it will.

SPEAKING OF NATURALISM

Devonshire Terrace, 1842.

You pass this house every day on your way to or from
the theatre. I wish you would call once as you go by, and
soon, that you may have plenty of time to deliberate on

42 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

what I wish to suggest to you. The more I think of Mars-
ton's play, the more sure I feel that a prologue to the pur-
pose would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of
any ticklish point on the first night. Now I have an idea
(not easily explainable in writing but told in five words),
that would take the prologue out of the conventional dress
of prologues, quite. Get the curtain up with a dash, and
begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. If on considera-
tion, you should think with me, I will write the prologue.

PROLOGUE

To Mr. Marston's Plat of "The Patrician's Daughter."

No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright
Dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night;
No trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire
Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre;
Enough for him, if in his lowly strain
He wakes one household echo not in vain;
Enough for him, if in his boldest word
The beating heart of man be dimly heard.

Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh
Through charmed gardens, all who hearing die;
Its solemn music he does not pursue
To distant ages out of human view;
Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime
In the dead caverns on the shore of Time;
But musing with a calm and steady gaze
Before the crackling flames of living days.
He hears it whisper through the busy roar
Of what shall be and what has been before.
Awake the Present! shall no scene display
The tragic passion of the passing day?
Is it with Man, as with some meaner things.
That out of death his single purpose springs?
Can his eventful life no moral teach
Until he be, for aye, beyond its reach?
Obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade,
Dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade?
Awake the Present! Though the steel-clad age

The Macready Letters 43

Find life alone within its storied page.

Iron is worn, at heart, by many still —

The tyrant Custom binds the serf-like will;

If the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone.

These later days have tortures of their own;

The guiltless writhe, while Guilt is stretched in sleep.

And Virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep.

Awake the Present! what the Past has sown

Be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown!

How pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong.

Read in the volume Truth has held so long.

Assured that where life's flowers freshest blow.

The sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow.

How social usage has the pow'r to change

Good thoughts to evil; in its highest range

To cramp vhe noble soul, and turn to ruth

The kindling impulse of our glorious youth.

Crushing the spirit in its house of clay.

Learn from the lessons of the present day.

Not light its import and not poor its mien;

Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene.

TO MACREADY IN AMERICA

Devonshire Terrace, 1844.

You know all the news, and you know I love you; so
I no more know why I write than I do why I "come round"
after the play to shake hands with you in your dressing
room. I say come, as if you were at this present moment
the lessee of Drury Lane, and had — with a long face on one
hand, — elaborately explaining that everything in creation is
a joint-stock company on the other, inimitable B. by the

fire, in conversation with . Well-a-day! I see it all, and

smell that extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar
to a theatre, which bursts upon me when I swing open the
little door in the hall, accompanies me as I meet perspiring
supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two
steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance P. S.
as I wind, and escorts me safely into your presence, where I

44 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

find you unwinding something slowly round and round your
chest, which is so long that no man can see the end of it.

Oh that you had been at Clarence Terrace on Nina's
birthday! Good God, how we missed you, talked of you,
drank your health, and wondered what you were doing!
Perhaps you are Falkland enough (I swear I suspect you of
it) to feel rather sore — just a little bit, you know, the merest
trifle in the world — on hearing that Mrs. Macready looked
brilliant, blooming, young, and handsome, and that she
danced a country dance with the writer hereof (Acres to
your Falkland) in a thorough spirit of becoming good hu-
mour and enjoyment. Now you don't like to be told that?
Nor do you quite like to hear that Forster and I conjured
bravely; that a plum-pudding was produced from an empty
saucepan, held over a blazing fire kindled in Stanfield's hat
without damage to the lining; that a box of bran was
changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my god-
child's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and
clapping of hands that you might have heard it (and I dare-
say did) in America; that three half-crowns being taken from
Major Burns and put into a tumbler glass before his eyes,
did then and there give jingling answers to the questions
asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what
you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole
assembly. Neither do you quite like to be told that we are
going to do it again next Saturday, with the addition of
demoniacal dresses from the masquerade shop; nor that
Mrs. Macready, for her gallant bearing always, and her best
sort of best affection, is the best creature I know. Never
mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions.

My dear Macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be
thought of. I have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in
giving you my most strenuous and decided advice against it.
Looking only to its effect at home, I am immovable in my
conviction that the impression it would produce would be

The Macready Letters 45

one of failure, and reduction of yourself to the level of those
who do the like here. To us who know the Boston names
and honour them, and who know Boston and like it (Bos-
ton is what I would have the whole United States to be),
the Boston requisition would be a valuable document, of
which you and your friends might be proud. But those
names are perfectly unknown to the public here, and would
produce not the least effect. The only thing known to the
public here is, that they ask (when I say "they" I mean the
people) everybody to lecture. It is one of the things I
ridiculed in "Chuzzlewit." Lecture you, and you fall into the
roll of Lardners, Vandenhoffs, Eltons, Knowleses, Bucking-
hams. You are off your pedestal, have flung away your glass
slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into a seedy old
pumpkin. I am quite sure of it, and cannot express my
strong conviction in language of sufficient force.

"Puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. The nation is a
miserable Sinbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul,
old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and pro-
claim to the four winds for repetition here, that they don't
heed their ignorant and brutal papers, as if the papers could
exist if they didn't heed them ! Let any two of these vaga-
bonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads to
make you an object of attack, or to direct the general at-
tention elsewhere, and what avail those wonderful images of
passion which you have been all your life perfecting !

I have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-
beloved Golden, a little book I published on the 17th of
December, and which has been a most prodigious success —
the greatest, I think, I have ever achieved. It pleases me
to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two, and
I long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning. Do
they allow you to be quiet, by-the-way? "Some of our
most fashionable people, sir," denounced me awfully for
liking to be alone sometimes.

46 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Now that we have turned Christmas, I feel as if your face
were directed homewards, Macready. The downhill part of
the road is before us now, and we shall travel on to mid-
summer at a dashing pace; and please Heaven, I will be at
Liverpool when you come steaming up the Mersey, with
that red funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your
heart much fuller than your trunks, though something
lighter! If I be not the first Englishman to shake hands
with you on English ground, the man who gets before me
will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put his
best leg foremost. So I warn Forster to keep in the rear, or
he'll be blown.

WHILE REHEARSING A JONSON COMEDY

Devonshire Terrace, 1845.

Between you and me and that post which is in everybody's
confidence I don't think it's a very good part and I think the
comedy anything but a very good play. It is such a damned
thing to have all the people perpetually coming on to say
their part without any action to bring 'em in, or to take 'em
out, or keep 'em going.

FROM ONE DANDY TO ANOTHER

Devonshire Terrace, 1845.

You once — only once — gave the world assurance of a
waistcoat. You wore it, sir, I think, in "Money." It was
a remarkable and precious waistcoat, wherein certain
broad stripes of blue or purple disported themselves as by a
combination of extraordinary circumstances, too happy to
occur again. I have seen it on your manly chest in private
life. I saw it, sir, I think, the other day in the cold light of
morning — with feelings easier to be imagined than described.
Mr. Macready, sir, are you a father? If so, lend me that

ALFRED EVELYN.. IN "MONEY".

l,„am 't/iA./tr.. m-W-nl I ■ *'M- /.tit .""' *

Macready as Alfred Evelyn

The Macready Letters 47

waistcoat for five minutes. I am bidden to a wedding

(where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, I find (how

should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. Let me show it to

him as a sample of tastes and wishes; and — ha, ha, ha, ha! —

eclipse the bridegroom!

I will send a trusty messenger at half -past nine precisely,

in the morning. He is sworn to secrecy. He durst not for

his life betray us, or swells in ambuscade would have the

waistcoat at the cost of his heart's blood.

Thine,

The Unwaistcoated One.

TO OLD PARR

Devonshire Terrace, 1847.

I am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a crisis
in it; but I can't fall to work without saying, in so many
words, that I feel all words insufficient to tell you what I
think of you after a night like last night. The multitude of
new tokens by which I know you for a great man, the
swelling within me of my love for you, the pride I have in
you, the majestic reflection I see in you of all the passions
and affections that make up our mystery, throw me into a
strange kind of transport that has no expression but in a
mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth and fervency,
is worthy of its subject.

What is this to say! Nothing, God knows, and yet I
cannot leave it unsaid.

Ever affectionately yours,

Charles Dickens.

P. S. — I never saw you more gallant and free than in the
gallant and free scenes last night. It was perfectly captivat-
ing to behold you. However, it shall not interfere with my
determination to address you as Old Parr in all future
time.

48 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

TO MRS. MACREADY AFTER THE MACREADY-FORREST
RIOTS IN ASTOR PLACE

Devonshire Terrace, 1849.

When I came home to dinner yesterday afternoon, I found
an American paper from Macready. In the first transports
of my unbounded indignation, I was coming up to you : but
I thought, on cooler reflection, that there was no reason why
I should worry you, in the joyful prospect of his immediate
return, with my feelings anent the New Yorkers.

But this I must say — that the scene astounds even me.
I know perfectly well that many things may take place in
the first city of the United States which could not possibly
occur in a remote nook of any other country in the world,
but the bestiality of the business, and the incredible base-
ness of that public opinion to which Mr. Clarke (whoever he
is) deferred when he apologized for his engagement, I regard
as a positive calamity to the rational freedom of men. To
Macready it signifies nothing except that it takes him out of
that damnable jumble (you'll excuse me) of false pretensions
and humbugs, a week or so sooner. And that's a good thing
for all of us.

It strikes me that we ought to have a dinner to him here —
just large enough for the proceedings to be made public and
no larger — in which this thing should be properly noticed
and a reasonable expression of gentlemanly disgust given
vent to.

AN ACTOR'S PORTION

Devonshire Terrace, 1851.

I cannot forbear a word about last night. I think I have
told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when I was
a mere boy, I was one of your faithful and devoted ad-
herents in the pit; I believe as true a member of that true
host of followers as it has ever boasted. As I improved my-

The Macready Letters 49

self and was improved by favouring circumstances in mind
and fortune, I only became the more earnest (if it were
possible) in my study of you. No light portion of my life
arose before me when the quiet vision to which I am be-
holden, in I don't know how great a degree, or for how
much — who does? — faded so nobly from my bodily eyes
last night. And if I were to try to tell you what I felt — of
regret for its being past for ever, and of joy in the thought
that you could have taken your leave of me but in God's own
time — I should only blot this paper with some drops that
would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint expression
to very strong emotions.

Chateau des Moulineaux, Boulogne, 1853.

We are living in a beautiful little country place here,
where I have been hard at work ever since I came, and am
now (after an interval of a week's rest) going to work again
to finish " Bleak House." Kate and Georgina look forward,
I assure you, to their Sherborne visit, when I — a mere for-
lorn wanderer — shall be roaming over the Alps into Italy.
I saw "The Midsummer Night's Dream" of the Opera
Comique, done here (very well) last night. The way in
which a poet named Willyim Shay Kes Peer gets drunk in
company with Sir John Foil Stayffe, fights with a noble
knight, Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid of honour
you may have read of in history, called Mees Oleevia),
and promises not to do so any more on observing symptoms
of love for him in the Queen of England, is very remarkable.
Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable dis-
guise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three
broad, following him into taverns and worse places, and
enquiring of persons of doubtful reputation for "the sublime
Williams," was inexpressibly ridiculous. And yet the non-
sense was done with a sense quite admirable.

50 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

AFTER THE COVENT GARDEN FIRE

49 Champs Elts^es, Paris, 1856.

You should have seen the ruins of Covent Garden Thea-
tre! I went in the moment I got to London — four days
after the fire. Although the audience part and the stage
were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a piece
of wood half the size of a lucifer match for the eye to rest on,
though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted
iron lying on a great black desert, the theatre still looked so
wonderfully like its old self grown gigantic that I never saw
so strange a sight. The wall dividing the front from the
stage still remained, and the iron pass-doors stood ajar in
an impossible and inaccessible frame. The arches that sup-
ported the stage were there, and the arches that supported
the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like
a Titanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the
roots, twisted, and flung down there; this was the great
chandelier. Gye had kept the men's wardrobe at the top of
the house over the great entrance staircase; when the roof
fell in it came down bodily, and all that part of the ruins was
like an old Babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating the
black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that I could
make out the clothes in the "Trovatore."

I should run on for a couple of hours if I had to describe
the spectacle as I saw it, wherefore I will immediately
muzzle myself. All Parisian novelties you shall see and
hear for yourself.

ON MACREADY'S REMARRIAGE

Tavistock House, 1860.

I am heartily glad (and not much surprised) to get your
letter. You knew that my confidence in you was great as
my love for you, and I am thoroughly persuaded that you
are right. It is inexpressibly delightful and interesting to

The Macready Letters 51

me, to picture you in a new life and movement and hope
and pleasure about you. This feeling springs up in me for
your sake, and for the sake of your children, too. More-
over, I do not believe that a heart like yours was made to
hold so large a waste-place as there has been in it. And this
consideration, as one in the eternal nature of things, I put
first of all.

God bless you, and God bless the object of your choice!
Your letter came with the sunshine of the Spring morning,
and shone in my heart quite as naturally and cheerily. I
have been to Gad's Hill and back, since I received it, and
everything has looked the fresher for it in my sight.

Ever, my dear friend.

Your most affectionate,

Charles Dickens.

Aha ! — w^hat do you say now to those noble remarks I was
making at Forster's the other day, about the stout English-
men all over the world who are always young? I feel a
grin of intolerable (except to me) self-complacency mantle
all over me as I think of my wisdom.

Office of "All the Year Round," 1863.

I have just come back from Paris, where the readings —
"Copperfield," "Dombey" and "Trial," and "Carol" and
"Trial" — have made a sensation which modesty (my na-
tural modesty) renders it impossible for me to describe. You
know what a noble audience the Paris audience is? They
were at their very noblest with me.

I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from
Georgy that you were ill. But when I came home at night,
she showed me Katie's letter, and that set me up again.
Ah, you have the best of companions and nurses, and can
afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being so
brought through it. But don't do it again yet awhile for
all that.

52 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. He
looks just as of yore.

Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in
the days of the Regency. Madame Viardot in the " Orphee,"
most splendid. An opera of "Faust," a very sad and noble
rendering of that sad and noble story. Stage management
remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical, effects
of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles
surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Mar-
guerite by a pale blue mournful light. The two never
blending. After Marguerite has taken the jewels placed in
her way in the garden, a weird evening draws on, and the
bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees
droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows
overhang her chamber window, which was innocently bright
and gay at first. I couldn't bear it, and gave in completely.

Fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a pic-
turesque French drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small part
in it, perfectly charming. You may remember her making a
noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in "The Courier of
Lyons "? She has a tender love-scene in this piece, which is
a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw her do it about
three in the morning of the day when the theatre opened,
surrounded by shavings and carpenters, and (of course)
with that inevitable hammer going; and I told Fechter:
"That is the very best piece of womanly tenderness I have
ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no audience can
miss it." It is a comfort to add that it was instantly seized
upon, and is much talked of.

Stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly
picked up, and is really rosy and jovial again. Going to see
him when he was very despondent, I told him the story of
Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal) with appropriate action;
fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying the bed-
stead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This so

The Macready Letters 53

kindled his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the
corner on the spot.

With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still my
heart!) Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too atten-
tive at school, I hope?), and the personally-unknown young
Parr,

Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate,

Charles Dickens.

NIBLO'S GARDEN

Springfield, Mass., 1868.

To pass from Boston personal to New York theatrical, I
will mention here that one of the proprietors of my New
York hotel is one of the proprietors of Niblo's, and the most
active. Consequently I have seen the "Black Crook" and
the " White Fawn," in majesty, from an armchair in the first
entrance, P. S., more than once. Of these astonishing
dramas, I beg to report (seriously) that I have found no
human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea what
they are about (upon my honour, my dearest Macready!),
and that having some amiable small talk with a neat little
Spanish woman, who is the premiere danseuse, I asked her,
in joke, to let me measure her skirt wdth my dress glove.
Holding the glove by the tip of the forefinger, I found the
skirt to be just three gloves long and yet its length was much
in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies, whom
the carpenters were at that moment getting into their
places for a transformation scene, on revolving columns, on
wires and "travellers" in iron cradles, up in the flies, down
in the cellars, on every description of float that Wilmot,
gone distracted, could imagine!

II. Miscellaneous Letters

11. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS

After "The Village Coquettes"

To John Hullah. 1836.

Have you seen The Examiner? It is rather depreciatory
of the opera; but, like all inveterate critiques against
Braham, so well done that I cannot help laughing at it, for
the life and soul of me. I have seen The Sunday Times,
The Dispatch, and The Satirist, all of which blow their critic
trumpets against unhappy me most lustily. Either I must
have grievously awakened the ire of all the "adaptors"
and their friends, or the drama must be decidedly bad. I
haven't made up my mind yet which of the two is the fact.

The Exorbitant Dramatist

To J. P. Barley. 1837.

I have considered the terms on which I could afford just
now to sell Mr. Braham the acting copyright in London of an
entirely new piece for the St. James's Theatre; and I could
not sit down to write one in a single act of about one hour
long, under a hundred pounds. For a new piece in two acts,
a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum I should re-
quire.

I do not know whether, with reference to arrangements
that were made with any other writers, this may, or may
not, appear a large item. I state it merely with regard to
the value of my own time and writings at this moment.

58 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

The Old Furor

To Professor Felton. Montreal, 18^2.

I would give something .... if you could stumble
into that very dark and dusty theatre in the day-time (at
any minute between twelve and three), and see me with my
coat off, the stage manager and universal director, urging
impracticable ladies and impossible gentlemen on to the very
confines of insanity, shouting and driving about, in my own
person, to an extent which would justify any philanthropic
stranger in clapping me into a strait-waistcoat without
further inquiry, endeavouring to goad H. into some dim and
faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and struggling
in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and inex-
tricable entanglement of speech and action as you would
grow giddy in contemplating. . . . This kind of volun-
tary hard labour used to be my great delight. The furor
has come upon me again, and I begin to be once more of
opinion that nature intended me for the lessee of a national
theatre, and that pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a manager.

An Unborn Play

To Douglas J err old. Devonshire Terrace, 18^3.

Yes, you have anticipated my occupation. Chuzzlewit
be hanged — high comedy and five hundred pounds are the
only matters I can think of. I call it "The One Thing
Needful; or, the Part is Better than the Whole." Here are
the characters:

Old Febrile Mr. Farren

Young Febrile (his son) Mr. Howe

Jack Hessians (his friend) Mr. W. Lacy

Chalks (a landlord) Mr. Gough

Hon. Harry Staggers Mr. Mellon

Sir Thomas Tip Mr. BucJcstone

Miscellaneous Letters 59

Swig Mr. Webster

The Duke of Leeds Mr. Coutts

Sir Smiven Growler Mr. Macready

SERVANTS, GAMBLERS, visitors, etc.

Mrs. Febrile Mrs. Glover

Lady Tip Mrs. Humby

Mrs, Sour Mrs. Clifford

Fanny Miss A . Smith

One scene, where Old Febrile tickles Lady Tip in the ribs,
and afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his
stick before, and his eye on the pit, I expect will bring the
house down. There is also another point — where old Fe-
brile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to Swig, rises and
says, "And now, Mr. Swig, tell me, have I acted well?"
and Swig says, " Well, Mr. Febrile, have you ever acted ill.'' "
which will carry off the piece.

I walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre
every night, and peep in at the green-room window, thinking
of the time when "Dick-ens" will be called for by excited
hundreds, and won't come — till Mr. Webster (half Swig and
half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room, and quell-
ing the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard if he be
in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept the
congratulations of the audience and indulge them with a
sight of the man who had got five hundred pounds in money,
and it's impossible to say how much in laurels. Then I
shall come forward and bow, once, twice, thrice —
roars of approbation. Barvyo! brarvo! Hooray!
hoorar! hooroar! — one cheer more — and asking Webster
home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship for that
public-spirited individual, which Talfourd (the vice) will
echo with all his heart and soul, and with tears in his eyes,
adding in a perfectly audible voice, and in the same breath.

6o Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play-
that "he's a very wretched creature, but better than Ma-
cready any way, for he wouldn't play Ion when it was given
to him." After which he will propose said Macready's
health in terms of red-hot eloquency.

I am always, my dear Jerrold, faithfully your friend,

The Congreve of the 19th Century.
(Which I mean to be called in the Sunday papers.)
P. S. — I shall dedicate it to Webster, beginning:
"My dear Sir — When you first proposed to stimulate
the slumbering dramatic talent of England, I assure you I
had not the least idea, etc., etc., etc."

England on the French Stage

To Forster. 18Jf7.

"Clarissa Harlowe" is still the rage. There are some
things in it rather calculated to astonish the ghost of Rich-
ardson, but Clarissa is very admirably played (by Rose
Cheri), and dies better than the original, to my thinking;
but Richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never
seems to me to take his top-boots off, whatever he does.
Several pieces are in course of representation, involving rare
portraits of the English. In one, a servant, called "Tom
Bob," who wears a particularly English waistcoat, trimmed
with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very good
things indeed. In another, a Prime Minister of England,
who has ruined himself by railway speculations, hits off
some of our national characteristics very happily, frequently
making incidental mention of " Vishmingster," "Regeen
Street," and other places with which you are well ac-
quainted. "Sir Fakson" is one of the characters in another
play — "English to the Core"; and I saw a Lord Mayor of
London at one of the small theatres the other night, looking
uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's waistcoat, the

Miscellaneous Letters 6i

Order of the Garter, and a very low-crowned, broad-
brimmed hat, not unhke a dustman.

At the Opera in Rome
To Forster. Rome, 1853.

All the seats are numbered arm-chairs, and you buy your
number at the pay-place, and go to it with the easiest direc-
tion on the ticket itself. We were early, and the four places
of the Americans were on the next row behind us — all
together. After looking about for some time, and seeing
the greater part of the seats empty (because the audienc^
generally wait in a cafFe which is part of the theatre),
one of them said, "Waal I dunno — I expect we ain't no caU
to set so nigh to one another neither — will you scatter
Kernel, will you scatter sir?" — Upon this the Kernel "scat-
tered " some twenty benches off; and they distributed them-
selves (for no earthly reason apparently but to get rid of
one another) all over the pit. As soon as the overture began,
in came the audience in a mass. Then the people who had
got numbers into which they had "scattered" had to get out
of them; and as they understood nothing that was said to
them, and could make no reply but "A-mericani," you may
imagine the number of cocked hats it took to dislodge them.
At last they were all back into their right places, except one.
About an hour afterwards when Moses ("Moses in Egypt" was
the opera) was invoking the darkness, and there was a dead
silence all over the house, unwonted sounds of disturbance
broke out from a distant corner of the pit, and here and
there a beard got up to look. "What is it now, sir?" said
one of the Americans to another; — "some person seems to
be getting along, again streem." "Waal sir," he replied,
"I dunno. But I expect 'tis the Kernel sir, a holden on."
So it was. The Kernel was ignominiously escorted back to
his right place, not in the least disconcerted, and in per-
fectly good spirits and temper. The opera was excellently

62 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

done, and the price of the stalls one and threepence English.
At Milan, on the other hand, the Scala was fallen from its old
estate, dirty, gloomy, dull, and the performance execrable.

Marionettes

To Forster. Rome, 1853.

It was a wet night, and there was no audience, but a
party of French oflBcers and ourselves. We all sat together.
I never saw anything more amazing than the performance —
altogether only an hour long, but managed by as many as
ten people, for we saw them all go behind, at the ringing of a
bell. The saving of a young lady by a good fairy from the
machinations of an enchanter, coupled with the comic busi-
ness of her servant Pulcinella (the Roman Punch) formed
the plot of the first piece. A scolding old peasant woman,
who always leaned forward to scold and put her hands in the
pockets of her apron, was incredibly natural. Pulcinella,
so airy, so merry, so life-like, so graceful, he was irresistible.
To see him carrying an umbrella over his mistress's head in
a storm, talking to a prodigious giant whom he met in the
forest, and going to bed with a pony, were things never to
be forgotten. And so delicate are the hands of the people
who move them, that every puppet was an Italian, and did
exactly what an Italian does. If he pointed at any object,
if he saluted anybody, if he laughed, if he cried, he did it as
never Englishman did it since Britain first at Heaven's com-
mand arose — arose — arose, &c. There was a ballet after-
wards, on the same scale, and we came away really quite
enchanted with the delicate drollery of the thing. French
more than ditto.

A French Conjuror

To Forster. Boulogne, 1851^.

You are to observe that he was with the company, not in
the least removed from them; and that we occupied the

Miscellaneous Letters 63

front row. He brought in some writing paper with hira
when he entered, and a black-lead pencil; and he wrote some
words on half-sheets of paper. One of these half-sheets he
folded into two, and gave to Catherine to hold. Madame,
he says aloud, will you think of any class of objects? I have
done so, — Of what class, Madame? Animals. Will you
think of a particular animal, Madame? I have done so, —
Of what animal? The Lion. — Will you think of another
class of objects, Madame? I have done so. — Of what class?
Flowers. — The particular flower? The Rose. — Will you
open the paper you hold in your hand. She opened it, and
there was neatly and plainly written in pencil. — the lion.
THE ROSE. Nothing whatever had led up to these words,
and they were the most distant conceivable from Catherine's
thought when she entered the room. He had several com-
mon school-slates about a foot square. He took one of them
to a field-officer from the camp, decore and what not, who
sat about six from us, with a grave, saturnine friend next
him. My General, says he, will you write a name on this
slate, after your friend has done so? Don't show it to me.
The friend wrote a name, and the General wrote a name.
The conjuror took the slate rapidly from the officer, threw
it violently down on the ground with its written side to the
floor and asked the officer to put his foot upon it, and keep
it there: which he did. The conjuror considered for about
a minute, looking devilish hard at the General. — My Gen-
eral, says he, your friend wrote Dagobert, upon the slate
under your foot. The friend admits it. — And you, my
General, wrote Nicholas. General admits it, and everybody
laughs and applauds. — My General, will you excuse me, if
I change that name into a name expressive of the power of
a great nation, which in happy alliance with the gallantry
and spirit of France will shake that name to its centre?
Certainly I will excuse it. — My General, take up the slate
and read. General reads: Dagobert, Victoria. The first

64 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

in his friend's writing; the second in a new hand. I never
saw anything in the least like this; or at all approaching to
the absolute certainty, the familiarity, quickness, absence
of all machinery, and actual face-to-face, hand-to-hand
fairness between the conjuror and the audience, with which
it was done. I have not the slighest idea of the secret. —
Once more.

He was blinded with several table napkins, and then a
great cloth was bodily thrown over them and his head too,
so that his voice sounded as it he were under a bed. Per-
haps half a dozen dates were written on a slate. He takes
the slate in his hand, and throws it violently down on the
floor, as before, remains silent a minute, seems to become
agitated and bursts out thus: "What is this I see? A great
city, but of narrow streets and old-fashioned houses, many
of which are of wood, resolving itself into ruins! How is
it falling into ruins? Hark! I hear the crackling of a great
conflagration, and looking up, I behold a vast cloud of flame,
and smoke. The ground is covered with hot cinders too,
and people are flying into the fields and endeavouring to
save their goods. This great fire, this great wind, this roar-
ing noise! This is the great fire of London, and the first
date upon the slate must be one, six, six, six, — the year in
which it happened!" And so on with all the other dates.
There !

A Friendly Critic

To John Saunders. Tavistock House, 185^..

I have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt
of your obliging communication. Allow me to thank you for
it, in the first place, with great cordiality.

Although I cannot say that I came without any preposses-
sions to the perusal of your play (for I had favourable in-
clinings towards it before I began), I can say that I read it

Miscellaneous Letters 65

with the closest attention, and that it inspired me with a
strong interest, and a genuine and high admiration. The
parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of your
task appear to me those in which you shine most. I would
particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking
example of this. The delicacy and beauty of her redemption
from her weak, rash lover, are very far indeed beyond the
range of any ordinary dramatist, and display the true
poetical strength.

As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing the
child of your fancy on his stage, I will venture to point out
to you not only what I take to be very dangerous portions of
"Love's Martyrdom" as it stands, for presentation on the
stage, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps will speedily
regard in that light when he sees it before him in the persons
of live men and women on the wooden boards. Knowing
him, I think he will be then as violently discouraged as he is
now generously exalted; and it may be useful to you to be
prepared for the consideration of those passages.

I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the
play of modern times best known to an audience proceeds
upon the main idea of this, namely, that there was a hunch-
back who, because of his deformity, mistrusted himself.
But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the balance
is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most
carefully trimmed. The incident of the ring is an insignifi-
cant one to look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to
convey to an audience, and the least thing will make it
ludicrous. If it be so well done by Mr. Phelps himself as to
be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable. If it be
either, it will be perilous, and doubly so, because you revert
to it. The quarrel scene between the two brothers in the
third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion
and impetuosity — which can alone bear out Franklyn,
before the bodily eyes of a great concourse of spectators,

66 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

in plunging at the life of his own brother — is lost. That the
two should be parted, and that Franklyn should again drive
at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a state of
things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong
direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the
man you leave unhappy. I would on no account allow the
artist to appear attended by that picture more than once.
All the most sudden inconstancy of Clarence I would soften
down. Margaret must act much better than any actress I
have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places; there-
fore, I think she needs compression too.

All this applies solely to the theatre. If you ever revise
the sheets for readers, will you note in the margin the broken
laughter and the appeals to the Deity.? If, on summing
them up, you find you want them all, I would leave them
as they stand by all means. If not, I would blot accordingly.

It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by
anticipating what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover — or
what, if ever he should pass it, I have a strong conviction
the audience will find out — that I have ventured on these
few hints. Your concurrence with them generally, on re-
consideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands,
cannot in the least afiPect my interest in your success. On
the other hand, I have a perfect confidence in your not tak-
ing my misgivings ill ; they arise out of my sincere desire for
the triumph of your work.

On Goldsmith

To de Cerjat. Tavistock House, 1855.

Let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high dis-
tinction, two comedies, both Goldsmith's — "She Stoops to
Conquer" and "The Good-natured Man." Both are so
admirable and so delightfully written that they read wonder-
fully. A friend of mine, Forster, who wrote "The Life of

Miscellaneous Letters 67

Goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me to
read to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of Gold-
smith's." I fell upon "She Stoops to Conquer," and we
enjoyed it with that wonderful intensity, that I believe he
began to get better in the first scene, and was all right again
in the fifth act.

An Englishman Abroad
To Miss Hogarth. Paris, 1855.

The theatres are not particularly good, but I have seen
Lemaitre act in the most wonderful and astounding man-
ner. I am afraid we must go to the Opera Comique on
Sunday. To-morrow we dine with Regnier, and to-day with
the Oliffes.

"La Joie fait Peur," at the Frangais, delighted me. Ex-
quisitely played and beautifully imagined altogether.
Last night we went to the Porte St. Martin to see a piece
(English subject) called "Jane Osborne," which the char-
acters pronounce " Ja Nosbornne." The seducer was Lord
Nottingham. The comic Englishwoman's name (she kept
lodgings and was a very bad character) was Missees Christ-
mas. She had begun to get into great difficulties with a
gentleman of the name of Meestair Cornhill, when we were
obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the intoler-
able stench of the place. The whole theatre must be stand-
ing over some vast cess-pool. It was so alarming that I
instantly rushed into a cafe and had brandy.

My ear has gradually become so accustomed to French,
that I understand the people at the theatres (for the first
time) with perfect ease and satisfaction. I walked about
with Regnier for an hour and a half yesterday, and received
many compliments on my angelic manner of speaking the
celestial language. There is a winter Franconi's now, high
up on the Boulevards, just like the round theatre on the
Champs Ely sees, and as bright and beautiful. A clown

68 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

from Astley's is all in high favour there at present. He
talks slang English (being evidently an idiot), as if he felt
a perfect confidence that everybody understands him. His
name is Boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with
cries for Boz Zwillll! Boz Zweellll! Boz Zwuallll! etc.,
etc., etc., etc.

On Frederic Lemaitre

To Forster. Paris, 1855.

Incomparably the finest acting I ever saw, I saw last
night at the Ambigu. They have revived that old piece,
once immensely popular in London under the name of
THIRTY YEARS OF A gambler's LIFE. Old Lcmattrc plays
his famous character, and never did I see anything in art,
so exaltedly horrible and awefull. In the earlier acts he was
so well made up, and so light and active that he really looked
sufficiently young. But in the last two, when he had grown
old and miserable, he did the finest things, I really believe,
that are within the power of acting. Two or three times, a
great cry of horror went all round the house. When he met,
in the inn-yard, the traveller whom he murders, and first
saw his money, the manner in which the crime came into
his head — and eyes — was as truthful as it was terrific.
This traveller, being a good fellow, gives him wine. You
should see the dim remembrance of his better days that
comes over him as he takes the glass, and in a strange, dazed
way makes as if he were going to touch the other man's, or
do some airy thing with it; and then stops and flings the
contents down his hot throat, as if he were pouring it into
a limekiln. But this was nothing to what follows after he
has done the murder, and comes home, with a basket of
provisions, a ragged pocket full of money, and badly-washed
bloody right hand — which his little girl finds out. After the
child asked him if he had hurt his hand, his going aside,
turning himself round, and looking over all his clothes for

Miscellaneous Letters 69

spots, was so inexpressibly dreadful that it really scared
one. He called for wine, and the sickness that came upon
him when he saw the colour, was one of the things that
brought out the curious cry I have spoken of, from the au-
dience. Then he fell into a sort of bloodly mist, and went on
to the end groping about, with no mind for anything, ex-
cept making his fortune by staking this money, and a faint
dull kind of love for the child. It is quite impossible to satis-
fy one's-self by saying enough of this magnificent perform-
ance. I have never seen him come near its finest points,
in anything else. He said two things in a way that alone
would put him far apart from all other actors. One to his
wife, when he has exultingly shewn her the money and she
has asked him how he got it — "I found it" — and the other
to his old companion and tempter, when he was charged by
him with having killed that traveller, and suddenly went
headlong mad and took him by the throat and howled out,
"It wasn't I who murdered him — it was 'Misery!'" And
such a dress; such a face; and above all, such an extraordi-
nary guilty wicked thing as he made of a knotted branch of a
tree which was his walking-stick, from the moment when
the idea of the murder came into his head! I could write
pages about him. It is an impression quite ineffaceable.
He got half-boastful of that walking-staff to himself, and
half-afraid of it; and didn't know whether to be grimly
pleased that it had the jagged end, or to hate it and be
horrified at it. He sat at a little table in the inn-yard,
drinking with the traveller; and this horrible stick got
between them like the Devil, while he counted on his fingers
the uses he could put the money to.

At "Orestes"
To Forster. Paris, 1855.

Nothing have I ever seen so weighty and so ridiculous.
If I had not already learnt to tremble at the sight of classic

70 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

drapery on the human form, I should have plumbed the ut-
most depths of terrified boredom in this achievement. The
chorus is not preserved otherwise than that bits of it are
taken out for characters to speak. It is really so bad as to
be almost good. Some of the Frenchified classical anguish
struck me as so unspeakably ridiculous that it puts me on
the broad grin as I write.

Next week we are to have at the Ambigu "Paradise Lost,"
with the murder of Abel and the Deluge. The wildest
rumours are afloat as to the undressing of our first parents.

At "Paradise Lost"

To Forster. Paris, 1855.

We were rung in (out of the cafe below the Ambigu) at
8, and the play was over at half -past 1 ; the waits between
the acts being very much longer than the acts themselves.
The house was crammed to excess in every part, and the
galleries awful with Blouses, who again during the whole of
the waits, beat with the regularity of military drums the
revolutionary tune of famous memory — Ca Ira! The play
is a compound of "Paradise Lost" and Byron's "Cain" and
some of the controversies between the archangel and the
devil, when the celestial power argues with the infernal in con-
versational French, as "Eh bien! Satan, crois-tu done que
notre Seigneur t'aurait expose aux tourments que t'endures
a present sans avoir prevu, &c. &c." are very ridiculous.
All the supernatural personages are alarmingly natural (as
theatre nature goes), and walk about in the stupidest way.
Which has occasioned Collins and myself to institute a per-
quisition whether the French ever have shown any kind of
idea of the supernatural; and to decide this rather in the
negative. The people are very well dressed, and Eve very
modestly. All Paris and the provinces had been ransacked
for a woman who had brown hair that would fall to the

Miscellaneous Letters 7i

calfs of her legs — and she was found at last — at the Odeon,
There was nothing attractive until the 4th act, when there
was a pretty good scene of the children of Cain dancing in,
and desecrating a temple while Abel and his family were
hammering hard at the Ark, outside, in all the pauses of the
revel. The Deluge in the fifth act was up to about the mark
of a drowning scene at the Adelphi; but it had one new
feature. When the rain ceased, and the Ark drove in on the
great expanse of water, then lying waveless as the mists
cleared and the sun broke out, numbers of bodies drifted up
and down. These were all real men and boys, each sepa-
rate, on a new kind of horizontal float. They looked horrible
and real. Altogether, a really dull business; but I dare say
it will go for a long while.

When Playwriting was a Game of Tag

To Forster. Paris, 1855.

As I have no news I may as well tell you about the tag
that I thought so pretty to the MSmoires du Diable; in
which piece by the way, there is a most admirable part,
most admirably played, in which a man says merely "Yes"
or "No" all through the piece, until the last scene. A cer-
tain M. Robin has got hold of the papers of a deceased
lawyer, concerning a certain estate which has been swindled
away from its rightful owner, a Baron's widow, into other
hands. They disclose so much roguery that he binds them
up into a volume lettered Memoir es du Diable. The
knowledge he derives from these papers not only enables
him to unmask the hypocrites all through the piece (in an
excellent manner), but induces him to propose to the
Baroness that if he restores to her her estate and good
name — for even her marriage to the deceased Baron is
denied — she shall give him her daughter in marriage. The
daughter herself, on hearing the offer, accepts it; and a part

72 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

of the plot is her going to a masked ball to which he goes as
the Devil, to see how she like him (when she finds, of course,
that she likes him very much). The country people
about the Chateau in dispute, suppose him to be really the
Devil, because of his strange knowledge, and his strange
comings and goings; and he, being with this girl in one of its
old rooms, in the beginning of the 3d act shows her a little
coffer on the table with a bell in it. "They suppose," he
tells her, "that whenever this bell is rung, I appear and
obey the summons. Very ignorant, isn't it.'* But, if you
ever want me particularly — very particularly — ring the little
bell and try." The plot proceeds to its development. The
wrongdoers are exposed; and the missing document, prov-
ing the marriage, is found; everything is finished; they are
all on the stage; and M. Robin hands 'he paper to the
Baroness. "You are reinstated in your rights, Madame;
you are happy; I will not hold you to a compact made when
you didn't know me; I release you and your fair daughter;
the pleasure of doing what I have done is my sufficient re-
ward; I kiss your hand and take my leave. Farewell!"
He backs himself courteously out ; the piece seems concluded,
everybody wonders, the girl (little Mdlle. Luther) stands
amazed; when she suddenly remembers the little bell. In
the prettiest way possible, she runs to the coffer on the
table, takes out the little bell, rings it, and he comes rushing
back and folds her to his heart. I never saw a prettier thing
in my life. It made me laugh in that most delightful of
ways with the tears in my eyes; so that I can never forget it,
and must go and see it again.

RisTORi AS "Medea"

To Forster. Paris, 1855.

In the day entertainments and little melodrama theatres
of Italy, I have seen the same thing fifty times, only not at
once so conventional and so exaggerated. The papers have

Miscellaneous Letters 73

all been in fits respecting the sublimity of the performance,
and the genuineness of the applause — particularly of the
bouquets; which were thrown on at the most preposterous
times in the midst of agonizing scenes, so that the characters
had to pick their way among them, and a certain stout gentle-
man who played King Creon was obliged to keep a wary
eye all night on the proscenium boxes, and dodge them
as they came down. How Scribe who dined here next day
(and who follows on the Ristori side, being offended, as every-
body has been, by the insolence of Rachel), could not resist
the temptation of telling us that, going round at the end
of the first act to offer his congratulations, he met all the
bouquets coming back in men's arms to be thrown on again
in the second act, . . . By the bye, I see a fine actor
lost in Scribe, In all his pieces he has everything done in his
own way; and on that same night he was showing what
Rachel did not do, and wouldn't do, in the last scene of
Adrienne Lecouvreur, with extraordinary force and intens-
ity.

Long before "Secret Service"

To Mark Lemon. Paris, 1856.

In a piece at the Ambigu, called the "Rentree a Paris," a
mere scene in honour of the return of the troops from the
Crimea the other day, there is a novelty which I think it
worth letting you know of, as it is easily available either
for a serious or a comic interest — the introduction of a
supposed electric telegraph. The scene is the railway term-
inus at Paris, with the electric telegraph-office on the
prompt side, and the clerks with their backs to the audience
— much more real than if they were, as they infallibly would
be, staring about the house — working the needles; and the
little bell perpetually ringing. There are assembled to
greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined
elements of interest — old veteran fathers, young children,

74 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

agonized mothers, sisters and brothers, girl lovers — each
impatient to know of his or her own object of solicitude.
Enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy for all,
who says: "My friends, I am one of you. My brother has
no commission yet. He is a common soldier. I wait for
him as well as all brothers and sisters here wait for their
brothers. Tell me whom you are expecting." Then they
all tell him. Then he goes into the telegraph-office, and
sends a message down the line to know how long the troops
will be. Bell rings. Answer handed out on slip of paper.
" Delay on the line. Troops will not arrive for a quarter of
an hour." General disappointment. "But w^e have this
brave electric telegraph, my friends," says the marquis.
"Give me your little messages, and I'll send them off."
General rush round the marquis. Exclamations: "How's
Henri?" "My love to Georges"; "Has Guillaume forgotten
EUse?" "Is my son wounded?" "Is my brother pro-
moted?" etc., etc. Marquis composes tumult. Sends mes-
sage — such a regiment, such a company — "Elise's love to
Georges." Little bell rings, slip of paper handed out —
"Georges in ten minutes will embrace his Elise. Sends her
a thousand kisses." Marquis sends message — such a regi-
ment, such a company — "Is my son wounded?" Little
bell rings. Slip of paper handed out — "No. He has not
yet upon him those marks of bravery in the glorious service
of his country which his dear old father bears" (father being
lamed and invalided). Last of all the widowed mother.
Marquis sends message — such a regiment, such a company
— "Is my only son safe?" Little bell rings. Slip of paper
handed out — "He was first upon the heights of Alma."
General cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper
handed out. "He was made a sergeant at Inkermann."
Another cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper
handed out. " He was made colour-sergeant at Sebastopol."
Another cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper

Miscellaneous Letters 75

handed out. "He was the first man who leaped with the
French banner on the Malakhoff tower." Tremendous
cheer. Bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out.
"But he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and —
Troops have proceeded. Will arrive in half a minute after
this." Mother abandons all hope; general commiseration;
troops rush in, down a platform; son only wounded, and
embraces her.

As I have said, and as you will see, this is available for any
purpose. But done with equal distinction and rapidity,
it is a tremendous effect, and got by the simplest means in
the world. There is nothing in the piece, but it was im-
possible not to be moved and excited by the telegraph part
of it.

A Contretemps at Covent Garden
To Mary Boyle. Office of "All the Year Round," 1860.

I pass my time here (I am staying here alone) in working,
taking physic, and taking a stall at a theatre every night.
On Boxing Night I was at Covent Garden. A dull panto-
mime was "worked" (as we say) better than I ever saw a
heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and
without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense
stage fell over on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight
behind! There never was such a business; about sixty
people who were on the stage being extinguished in the most
remarkable manner. Not a soul was hurt. In the uproar,
some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of
which the clown had been drinking when the accident
happened), and stood it on the cushion of the lowest pro-
scenium box, P. S., beside a lady and gentleman, who were
dreadfully ashamed of it. The moment the house knew that
nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to
this gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and
gentleman trying to hide behind it), and roared with laugh-

76 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

ter. When a modest footman came from behind the curtain
to clear it, and took it up in his arms Hke a Brobdingnagian
baby we all laughed more than ever we had laughed in our
lives. I don't know why.

We have had a fire here, but our people put it out before
the parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator,
with the beadle in it, like an imbecile baby. Popular opin-
ion, disappointed in the fire having been put out, snow-
balled the beadle. God bless it!

Over the way at the Lyceum, there is a very fair Christ-
mas piece, with one or two uncommonly well-done nigger
songs — one remarkably gay and mad, done in the finale to
a scene. Also a very nice transformation, though I don't
know what it means.

The poor actors waylay me in Bow Street to represent
their necessities ; and I often see one cut down a court when
he beholds me coming, cut round Drury Lane to face me,
and come up towards me near this door in the freshest and
most accidental way, as if I was the last person he expected
to see on the surface of this globe. The other day there thus
appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in
the air) one aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps
under his arm. He said he thought if he could get down to
somewhere (I think it was Newcastle), he would get "taken
on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon being "a stick,
sir — a mere muff." I observed that I was sorry times were
so bad with him. '*Mr. Dickens, you know our profession,
sir — no one knows it better, sir — there is no right feeling in
it. I was Harlequin on your own circuit, sir, for five-and-
thirty years, and was displaced by a boy, sir! — a boy!"

An Old Problem

To Bulwer-Lytton. Gad's Hill 1862.

I have considered your questions, and here follow my
replies.

Miscellaneous Letters 77

1. I think you undoubtedly have the right to forbid the
turning of your play into an opera.

2. I do not think the production of such an opera in the
slightest degree likely to injure the play or to render it a
less valuable property than it is now. If it could have any
effect on so standard and popular a work as "The Lady of
Lyons," the effect would, in my judgment, be beneficial.
But I believe the play to be high above any such influence.

3. Assuming you do consent to the adaptation, in a
desire to oblige Oxenford, I would not recommend your
asking any pecuniary compensation. This for two reasons:
firstly, because the compensation could only be small at the
best; secondly, because your taking it would associate you
(unreasonably, but not the less assuredly) with the opera.

The only objection I descry is purely one of feeling.
Pauline trotting about in front of the float, invoking the
orchestra with a limp pocket-handkerchief, is a notion that
makes goose-flesh of my back. Also a yelping tenor going
away to the wars in a scena half-an-hour long is painful to
contemplate. Damas, too, as a bass, with a grizzled bald
head, blatantly bellowing about

Years long ago.

When the sound of the drum
First made his blood glow

With a rum ti tum tum —

rather sticks in my throat; but there really seems to me to
be no other objections if you can get over this.

On Historical Plays
To Charles Fechier. Paris, 1862.

I have read "The White Rose" attentively, and think it
an extremely good play. It is vigorously written with a
great knowledge of the stage, and presents many striking
situations. I think the close particularly fine, impressive,
bold, and new.

78 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

But I greatly doubt the expediency of your doing any
historical play early in your management. By the words
"historical play," I mean a play founded on any incident in
English history. Our public are accustomed to associate
historical plays \\'ith Shakespeare. In any other hands, I
believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms.
What you want is something with an interest of a more
domestic and general nature — an interest as romantic as you
please, but having a more general and wider response than a
disputed succession to the throne can have for Englishmen
at this time of day. Such interest culminated in the last
Stuart, and has worn itself out. It would be uphill work to
evoke an interest in Perkin Warbeck.

I do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear
is that these people would be looked upon as mere abstrac-
tions and would have but a cold welcome in consequence
and would not lay hold of your audience. Now, when you
have laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them
to your theatre, you may produce "The White Rose," with
far greater justice to the author, and to the manager also.
Wait. Feel your way. Perkin Warbeck is too far removed
from analogy with the sympathies and lives of the people
for a beginning .

The Playreader

To Forster. London, 1864-

I have been cautioning Fechter about the play whereof
he gave the plot and scenes to B; and out of which I have
struck some enormities, my account of which will (I think)
amuse you. It has one of the best first acts I ever saw; but
if he can do much with the last two, not to say three, there
are resources in his art that / know nothing about. When
I went over the play this day week, he was at least 20 min-
utes, in a boat, in the last scene, discussing with another
gentleman (also in the boat) whether he should kill him or

Miscellaneous Letters 79

not; after which the gentleman dived overboard and swam
for it. Also, in the most important and dangerous parts of
the play, there was a young person of the name of Pickles
who was constantly being mentioned by name, in conjunc-
tion with the powers of light or darkness; as " Great Heaven !
Pickles?"— "By Hell, 'tis Pickles!"— "Pickles? a thousand
Devils ! "— " Distraction ! Pickles? "

Again the Playreader

To Charles Fechter, Gad's Hilh 1866,

This morning I received the play to the end of the tele-
graph scene, and I have since read it twice.

I clearly see the ground of Mr. Boucicault's two objec-
tions; but I do not see their force.

First, as to the writing. If the characters did not speak
in a terse and homely way, their idea and language would be
inconsistent with their dress and station, and they would
lose, as characters, before the audience. The dialogue
seems to be exactly what is wanted. Its simplicity (par-
ticularly in Mr. Boucicault's part) is often very effective;
and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose
ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people.

Secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. I
really do not see how more of it could be got into the story,
and I think Mr. Boucicault underrates the pleasant effect of
his own part. The very notion of a sailor, whose life is not
among those little courts and streets, and whose business
does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the
four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. I am
quite confident of its being an immense relief to the audience
when they see the sailor before them, with an entirely differ-
ent bearing, action, dress, complexion even, from the rest
of the men. I would make him the freshest and airiest sailor
that ever was seen; and through him I can distinctly see my
way out of "the Black Country" into clearer air. (I speak

8o Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

as one of the audience, mind.) I should like something of
this contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the
sailor and the Jew, in the second scene of the second act.
Again, I feel Widdicomb's part (which is charming, and
ought to make the whole house cry) most agreeable and
welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of
mere comicality.

It is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a mas-
ter's hand. Its closeness and movement are quite surprising.
Its construction is admirable. I have the strongest belief
in its making a great success. But I must add this proviso :
I never saw a play so dangerously depending in critical
places on strict natural propriety in the manner and perfec-
tion in the shaping of the small parts. Those small parts
cannot take the play up, but they can let it down. I would
not leave a hair on the head of one of them to the chance of
the first night, but I would see, to the minutest particular,
the make-up of every one of them at a night rehearsal.

Of course you are free to show this note to Mr. Bouci-
cault, and I suppose you will do so; let me throw out this
suggestion to him and you. Might it not ease the way with
the Lord Chamberlain's Office, and still more with the
audience, when there are Manchester champions in it, if
instead of "Manchester" you used a fictitious name?
When I did "Hard Times" I called the scene CoketowTi.
Everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spin
ning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town.

The Stage in Dickens's Novels

THE STAGE IN DICKENS'S
NOVELS

Astley's

WE never see any very large, staring, black Roman
capitals, in a book, or shop-window, or placarded
on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind*
an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we
were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We
almost fancy we see the pin's point following the letter, to
impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagina-
tion; and wince involuntarily, as we remember the hard
knuckles with which the reverend old lady who instilled
into our mind the first principles of education for ninepence
per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke
our juvenile head occasionally, by way of adjusting the
confusion of ideas in which we were generally involved.
The same kind of feeling pursues us in many other instances,
but there is no place which recalls so strongly our recollec-
tions of childhood as Astley's. It was not a "Royal Am-
phitheatre" in those days, nor had Ducrow arisen to shed
the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of
the circus; but the whole character of the place was the
same, the pieces were the same, the clown's jokes were the
same, the riding-masters were equally grand, the comic
performers equally witty, the tragedians equally hoarse,
and the " highly -trained chargers" equally spirited. Astley's
has altered for the better — we have changed for the worse.

84 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Our histrionic taste is gone, and with shame we confess, that
we are far more delighted and amused with the audience,
than with the pageantry we once so highly appreciated.

We like to watch a regular Astley's party in the Easter or
Midsummer holidays — pa and ma, and nine or ten children,
varying from five foot six to two foot eleven : from fourteen
years of age to four. We had just taken our seat in one of
the boxes, in the centre of the house, the other night, when
the next was occupied by just such a party as we should
have attempted to describe, had we depicted our beau ideal
of a group of Astley's visitors.

First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl,
who, in pursuance of pa's directions, issued in a very audible
voice from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two
more little girls were ushered in by a young lady, evidently
the governess. Then came three more little boys, dressed
like the first, in blue jackets and trousers, with lay-down
shirt-collars: then a child in a braided frock, and high state
of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened to their
utmost width, was lifted over the seats — a process which
occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs — then
came ma and pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of fourteen
years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he did not
belong to the family.

The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls
off the little girls, and adjusting the bows which ornamented
their hair; then it was providentially discovered that one of
the little boys was seated behind a pillar and could not see,
so the governess was stuck behind the pillar, and the boy
lifted into her place. Then pa drilled the boys, and directed
the stowing away of their pocket-handkerchiefs, and ma
having first nodded and winked to the governess to pull the
girls' frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to
review the little troop — an inspection which appeared to
terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked with

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 85

a complacent air at pa, who was standing up at the further
end of the seat. Pa returned the glance, and blew his nose
very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from
behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch ma's eye, with a
look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family.
Then two of the little boys who had been discussing the
point whether Astley's was more than twice as large as
Drury Lane, agreed to refer it to "George" for his decision;
at which "George," who was no other than the young
gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remon-
strated in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of
having his name repeated in so loud a voice at a public
place, on which all the children laughed very heartily, and
one of the little boys wound up by expressing his opinion,
that "George began to think himself quite a man now,"
whereupon both pa and ma laughed too; and George (who
carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered
that "William always was encouraged in his impertinence";
and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the
whole evening.

The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no
bounds. Pa was clearly interested too, although he very
unsuccessfully endeavoured to look as if he wasn't. As for
ma, she was perfectly overcome by the drollery of the prin-
cipal comedian, and laughed till every one of the immense
bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess
peeped out from behind the pillar again, and whenever she
could catch ma's eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth,
and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of
laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid armour
vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the little
boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow w^ho
was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carry-
ing on a child's flirtation, the whole evening, with a small
coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model of

86 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

her mamma on a reduced scale; and who, in common with
the other Httle girls (who, generally speaking, have even
more coquettishness about them than much older ones),
looked very properly shocked, when the knight's squire
kissed the princess's confidential chambermaid.

When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children
were more delighted than ever; and the wish to see what was
going forward, completely conquering pa's dignity, he stood
up in the box, and applauded as loudly as any of them.
Between each feat of horsemanship, the governess leant
across to ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children
on that which had preceded : and ma, in the openness of her
heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop, and the
governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind
her pillar again with a brighter countenance: and the whole
party seemed quite happy, except the exquisite in the back
of the box, who, being too grand to take any interest in the
children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by any-
body else, occupied himself, from time to time, in rubbing
the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was com-
pletely alone in his glory.

We defy any one who has been to Astley's two or three
times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the per-
severance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated
night after night, and season after season, not to be amused
with one part of the performances at least — we mean the
scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that when the
hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain drawn
up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment
from the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the saw-
dust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete
circle, we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child
present; and actually join in the laugh which follows the
clown's shrill shout of "Here we are!" just for old acquaint-
ance' sake. Nor can we quite divest ourself of our old feel-

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 87

ing of reverence for the riding-master, who follows the clown
with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with
graceful dignity. He is none of your second-rate riding-
masters in nankeen dressing-gowns, with brown frogs, but
the regular gentleman-attendant on the principal riders,
who always wears a military uniform with a table-cloth
inside the breast of the coat, in which costume he forcibly
reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting. He is — but why
should we attempt to describe that of which no description
can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man,
and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful
demeanour, stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their
jealousy considered it, and the splendid head of black
hair, parted high on the forehead, to impart to the counte-
nance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy.
His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his
noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a
little badinage; and the striking recollection of his own
dignity, with which he exclaims, "Now, sir, if you please,
inquire for Miss Woolford, sir," can never be forgotten.
The graceful air, too, with which he introduces Miss Wool-
ford into the arena, and, after assisting her to the saddle,
follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to
create a deep impression in the bosom of every female
servant present.

When Miss Woolford, and the horse and the orchestra, all
stop together to take breath he urbanely takes part in some
such dialogue as the following (commenced by the clown) :
"I say, sir!" — "Well, sir?" (it's always conducted in the
politest manner) — "Did you ever happen to hear I was in
the army, sir?" — "No, sir." — "Oh, yes, sir — I can go
through my exercise, sir." — "Indeed, sir!" — "Shall I do it
now, sir?" — "If you please, sir; come, sir — make haste"
(a cut with the long whip, and "Ha' done now — I don't
like it," from the clown). Here the clown throws himself on

88 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic con-
vulsions, doubling himself up, and untying himself again,
and making himself look very like a man in the most hope-
less extreme of human agony, to the vociferous delight of the
gallery, until he is interrupted by a second cut from the
long whip, and a request to see "what Miss Woolford's
stopping for?" On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the
gallery, he exclaims, "Now, Miss Woolford, what can I
come for to go, for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to
do for you, ma'am?" On the lady's announcing with a
sweet smile that she wants the two flags, they are, with
sundry grimaces, procured and handed up; the clown
facetiously observing after the performance of the latter
ceremony — "He he, oh! I say, sir. Miss Woolford knows
me; she smiled at me." Another cut from the whip, a burst
from the orchestra, a start from the horse, and round goes
Miss Woolford again on her graceful performance, to the
delight of every member of the audience, young or old. The
next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the
only additional fun being that of the clown making ludicrous
grimaces at the riding-master every time his back is turned;
and finally quitting the circle by jumping over his head,
having previously directed his attention another way.

Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who
hang about the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the
day-time? You will rarely pass one of these entrances
without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on
the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour
swagger, and a kind of conscious air peculiar to people of
this description. They always seem to think they are ex-
hibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young
fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green
trousers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt, as
ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the
white hat of the summer-before-last as knowingly over his

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 89

right eye, as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the
dirty white BerUn gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief
stuck in the bosom of his threadbare coat. Is it possible to
see him for an instant, and not come to the conclusion that
he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout, clean
collar, and white trousers, for half an hour, and then shrinks
into his worn-out scanty clothes: who has to boast night
after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful con-
sciousness of a pound a week and his boots to find; to talk
of his father's mansion in the country, with a dreary recol-
lection of his own two-pair back, in the New Cut; and to be
envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress,
remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is in
the family way, and out of an engagement?

Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a
very long face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knock-
ing that part of his boot which once had a heel, with an ash
stick. He is the man who does the heavy busmess, such as
prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so
forth.

By the way, talking of fathers, w^e should very much like
to see some piece in which all the dramatis personse were
orphans. Fathers are invariably great nuisances on the
stage, and always have to give the hero or heroine a long
explanation of what was done before the curtain rose, usu-
ally commencing with "It is now nineteen years, my dear
child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain's voice
falters) confided you to my charge. You were then an
infant," &c., &c. Or else they have to discover, all of a
sudden, that somebody whom they have been in constant
communication with, during three long acts, without the
slightest supicion, is their own child, in which case they
exclaim, "Ah! what do I see? This bracelet! That smile!
These documents ! Those eyes ! Can I believe my senses? —
It must be!— Yes— it is, it is my child!"— "My father!"

90 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

exclaims the child ; and they fall into each other's arms, and
look over each other's shoulders, and the audience give
three rounds of applause.

To return from this digression, we were about to say that
these are the sort of people whom you see talking, and
attitudinising, outside the stage-doors of our minor theatres.
At Astley's they are always more numerous than at any
other place. There is generally a groom or two, sitting on
the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men
in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about,
and carrying, perhaps, under one arm, a pair of stage shoes
badly wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years
ago we used to stand looking, open-mouthed, at these men,
with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very recollection
of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing.
We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance,
in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs,
who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes
at night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial
flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we
beheld by day.

We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors
we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise
of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with the
"dirty swell," the comic singer with the public-house
chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and
distress; but these other men are mysterious beings, never
seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods
and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can
scarcely be classed among them, who ever knew a rider at
Astley's, or saw him but on horseback? Can our friend in
the military uniform, ever appear in threadbare attire, or
descend to the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-
day life? Impossible! We cannot — we will not — believe it.

From "Sketches by Boz."

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 91

Private Theatres

"richard the third. — duke of glo'ster, 2z; earl of
richmond, 1/.; duke of buckingham, 156'.; catesby, 12s.;

TRESSEL, lOs. Qd.; LORD STANLEY, 5s.; LORD MAYOR OF
LONDON, 25. 6d."

Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentle-
men's dressing-room, or the green-room (where there is any),
at a private theatre; and such are the sums extracted from
the shop-till, or overcharged in the office expenditure, by the
donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to
exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the
stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to
the scope afforded by the character for the display of their
imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Glo'ster is well
worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself; he must
wear a real sword, and what is better still, he must draw it
several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies
alone are well worth fifteen shillings ; then there is the stab-
bing King Henry — decidedly cheap at three-and-sixpence,
that's eighteen-and-sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers —
say eighteen-pence, though it's worth much more — that's a
pound. Then the love scene with Lady Ann, and the bustle
of the fourth act can't be dear at ten shillings more — that's
only one pound ten, including the "off with his head!" —
which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very
easy to do — "Orf with his ed" (very quick and loud; —
then slow and sneeringly) — "So much for Bu-u-u-ucking-
ham!" Lay the emphasis on the "uck;" get yourself gradu-
ally into a corner, and work with your right hand, while
you're saying it, as if you were feeling your way, and it's
sure to do. The tent scene is confessedly worth half-a-
sovereign, and so you have the fight in, gratis, and every-
body knows what an effect may be produced by a good com-
bat. One — two — three — four — over; then, one — two — three

92 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

— four — under; then thrust; then dodge and slide about;
then fall down on one knee; then fight upon it, and then get
up again and stagger. You may keep on doing this, as long
as it seems to take — say ten minutes — and then fall down
(backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself),
and die game: nothing like it for producing an effect. They
always do it at Astley's and Sadler's Wells, and if they don't
know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does?
A small child, or a female in white, increases the interest of a
combat materially — indeed, we are not aware that a regular
legitimate terrific broadsword combat could be done with-
out ; but it would be rather difficult, and somewhat unusual,
to introduce this effect in the last scene of Richard the Third,
so the only thing to be done is, just to make the best of a bad
bargain, and be as long as possible fighting it out.

The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys,
low copying-clerks in attorneys' offices, capacious-headed
youths from city counting-houses, Jews whose business, as
lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur
stage, shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters'
money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vaga-
bonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-
scene-painter, a low coffee-house-keeper, a disappointed
eighth-rate actor, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated
bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine Street,
Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray's
Inn Lane, or the vicinity of Sadler's Wells; or it may, per-
haps, form the chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the
Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge.

The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and
it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of
society; the audiences are necessarily of much the same
character as the performers, who receive, in return for their
contributions to the management, tickets to the amount of
the money they pay.

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 93

All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest,
constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood.
Each of them has an audience exclusively its own; and at
any you will see dropping into the pit at half-price, or swag-
gering into the back of a box, if the price of admission be a
reduced one, divers boys of from fifteen to twenty-one years
of age, who throw back their coat and turn up their wrist-
bands, after the portraits of Count D'Orsay, hum tunes and
whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the
people near them, that they are not at all anxious to have it
up again, and speak familiarly of the inferior performers as
Bill Such-a-one, and Ned So-and-so, or tell each other how a
new piece called The Unknown Bandit of the Invisible
Cavern, is in rehearsal ; how Mister Palmer is to play The
Unknown Bandit; how Charley Scarton is to take the part
of an English sailor, and fight a broadsword combat with
six unknown bandits, at one and the same time (one theatri-
cal sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least) ; how
Mister Palmer and Charley Scarton are to go through a
double hornpipe in fetters in the second act; how the inte-
rior of the invisible cavern is to occupy the whole extent of
the stage; and other town-surprising theatrical announce-
ments. These gentlemen are the amateurs — the Richards,
Shylocks, Beverleys, and Othellos — the Young Dorntons,
Rovers, Captain Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces — of a
private theatre.

See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatri-
cal coffee-shop ! They are the kings of the place, supposing
no real performers to be present; and roll about, hats on one
side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they had actually come into
possession of eighteen shillings a week, and a share of a
ticket night. If one of them does but know an Astley's
supernumerary he is a happy fellow. The mingled air of
envy and admiration with which his companions will regard
him, as he converses familiarly with some mouldy-looking

94 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

man in a fancy neckerchief, whose partially corked eye-
brows, and half -rouged face, testify to the fact of his having
just left the stage or the circle, sufficiently shows in what
high admiration these public characters are held.

With the double view of guarding against the discovery of
friends or employers, and enhancing the interest of an as-
sumed character, by attaching a high-sounding name to its
representative, these geniuses assume fictitious names,
which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a
private theatre. Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley,
Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the
humblest; and the less imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker,
Thomson, Barker, Solomons, &c. are completely laid aside.
There is something imposing in this, and it is an excellent
apology for shabbiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded
coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trousers —
nay, even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances
are very uncommon among the members of the corps
dramatique) , may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and
to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. Then it
prevents any troublesome inquiries or explanations about
employment and pursuits; everybody is a gentleman at
large for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleas-
ant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must
occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies (God bless
them), they are quite above any formal absurdities; the
mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a
sufficient introduction to their society — for of course they
know that none but strictly respectable persons would be
admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting
engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager,
no doubt; and as to the manager, he is all affability when he
knows you well, — or, in other words, when he has pocketed
your money once, and entertains confident hopes of doing
so again.

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 95

A quarter before eight — there will be a full house to-night
— six parties in the boxes, already; four little boys and a
woman in the pit; and two fiddles and a flute in the orches-
tra who have got through five overtures since seven o'clock
(the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances),
and have just begun the sixth. There will be plenty of it,
though, when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to
last six hours at least.

That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown
coat and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the
O. P. side, is Mr. Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His
line is genteel comedy — his father's, coal and potato. He
does Alfred Highflier in the last piece, and very well he'll do
it — at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite
box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters
of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of the
night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and
gentlemanly, each member of the party, with his feet cocked
upon the cushion in front of the box ! They let them do these
things here, upon the same humane principle which permits
poor people's children to knock double knocks at the door
of an empty house — because they can't do it anywhere else.
The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass
ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the pro-
prietor — opulent country managers, as he confidentially
informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain
— opulent country managers looking out for recruits; a
representation which Mr. Nathan, the dresser, who is in the
manager's interest, and has just arrived with the costumes,
offers to confirm upon oath if required — corroborative
evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls be-
lieve it at once.

The stout Jewess who has just entered is the mother of
the pale bony little girl, with the necklace of blue glass beads,
sitting by her; she is being brought up to "the profession."

96 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Pantomime is to be her line, and she is coming out to-night,
in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside
Mr. St. JuHen, whose white face is so deeply seared with the
small-pox, and whose dirty shirt-front is inlaid with open-
work, and embossed with coral studs like ladybirds, is the
low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The
remainder of the audience — a tolerably numerous one by
this time — are a motley group of dupes and blackguards.

The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the
wicks of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes
are being turned up, and the additional light thus afforded
serves to show the presence of dirt, and absence of paint,
which forms a prominent feature in the audience part of the
house. As these preparations, however, announce the
speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep "be-
hind," previous to the ringing-up.

The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither
especially clean nor too brilliantly lighted ; and the absence
of any flooring, together with the damp mildewy smell
which pervades the place, does not conduce in any great
degree to their comfortable appearance. Don't fall over
this plate basket — it's one of the "properties" — the caldron
for the witches' cave; and the three uncouth-looking figures,
with broken clothes-props in their hands, who are drinking
gin-and-water out of a pint pot, are the weird sisters. This
miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces placed at
lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room,
common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole
in the ceiling is the trap-door of the stage above. You will
observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that
support the boards, and tastefully hung with cobwebs.

The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their
own clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the
wooden dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff -shop-
looking figure, in front of the glass, is Banquo; and the young

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 97

lady with the Hberal display of legs, who is kindly painting
his face with a hare's foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large
woman, who is consulting the stage directions in Cumber-
land's edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night;
she is always selected to play the part, because she is tall
and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons — at a con-
siderable distance. That stupid-looking milksop, with light
hair and bow legs — a kind of man whom you can warrant
town-made — is fresh caught; he plays Malcolm to-night,
just to accustom himself to an audience. He will get on
better by degrees; he will play Othello in a month, and in a
month more, will very probably be apprehended on a charge
of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is
talking so earnestly, is dressed for the "gentlewoman."
It is her first appearance, too — in that character. The boy
of fourteen who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap
and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland; and the two
dirty men with the corked countenances, in very old green
tunics, and dirty drab boots, are the "army."

"Look sharp below there, gents," exclaims the dresser, a
red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the
trap, "they're a-going to ring up. The flute says he'll be
blowed if he plays any more, and they're getting precious
noisy in front." A general rush immediately takes place to
the half-dozen little steep steps leading to the stage, and the
heterogeneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes,
in breathless anxiety and motley confusion.

"Now," cries the manager, consulting the written list
which hangs behind the first P. S. wing, "Scene 1, open
country — lamps down — thunder and lightning — all ready.
White?" [This is addressed to one of the army.] "All
ready." — " Very well. Scene 2, front chamber. Is the front
chamber down?"— "Yes."— "Very well."— "Jones" [to the
other army who is up in the flies]. "Hallo!" — "Wind up
the open country when we ring up." — "I'll take care." —
f

98 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"Scene 3, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge
ready. White? Got the tressels there?"— "All right."

"Very well. Clear the stage," cries the manager, hastily
packing every member of the company into the little space
there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and
another. "Places, places. Now then. Witches — Duncan —
Malcolm — bleeding officer — where's the bleeding officer? " —
"Here!" replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for
the character. "Get ready, then; now. White, ring the
second music-bell." The actors who are to be discovered
are hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be dis-
covered place themselves, in their anxiety to peep at the
house, just where the audience can see them. The bell rings,
and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, plays
three distinct chords. The bell rings — the tragedy (!)
opens — and our description closes.

From "Sketches by Boz."

Mrs. Joseph Porter

Most extensive were the preparations at Rose Villa, Clap-
ham Rise, in the occupation of Mr. Gattleton (a stock-
broker in especially comfortable circumstances), and great
was the anxiety of Mr. Gattleton's interesting family, as
the day fixed for the representation of the Private Play
which had been "many months in preparation,"approached.
The whole family was infected with the mania for Private
Theatricals; the house, usually so clean and tidy, was, to
use Mr. Gattleton's expressive description, "regularly
turned out o' windows;" the large dining-room, dismantled
of its furniture and ornaments, presented a strange jumble
of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and
lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and various
other messes in theatrical slang included under the com-
prehensive name of "properties." The bedrooms were

The Stage in Dickens*s Novels 99

crowded with scenery, the kitchen was occupied by car-
penters. Rehearsals took place every other night in the
drawing-room, and every sofa in the house was more or less
damaged by the perseverance and spirit with which Mr.
Sempronius Gattleton, and Miss Lucina, rehearsed the
smothering scene in "Othello" — it having been determined
that that tragedy should form the first portion of the even-
ing's entertainments.

"When we're a leetle more perfect, I think it will go ad-
mirably," said Mr. Sempronius, addressing his corps dra-
maiique, at the conclusion of the hundred and fiftieth
rehearsal. In consideration of his sustaining the trifling in-
convenience of bearing all the expenses of the play, Mr, Sem-
pronius hadbeen, in the most handsome manner, unanimously
elected stage-manager. "Evans," continued Mr. Gattleton
the younger, addressing a tall, thin, pale young gentleman,
with extensive whiskers — " Evans, you play Roderigo beauti-
fully."

"Beautifully," echoed the three Miss Gattletons; for Mr.
Evans was pronounced by all his lady friends to be "quite
a dear." He looked so interesting, and had such lovely
whiskers: to say nothing of his talent for writing verses in
albums and playing the flute ! Roderigo simpered and bowed.

"But I think," added the manager, "you are hardly per-
fect in the — fall — in the fencing-scene, where you are — you
understand.''"

"It's very difficult," said Mr. Evans, thoughtfully; "I've
fallen about a good deal in our counting-house lately, for
practice, only I find it hurts one so. Being obliged to fall
backward you see, it bruises one's head a good deal."

"But you must take care you don't knock a wing down,'*
said Mr. Gattleton, the elder, who had been appointed
prompter, and who took as much interest in the play as the
youngest of the company. "The stage is very narrow, you
know."

100 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"Oh! don't be afraid," said Mr. Evans, with a very self-
satisfied air: "I shall fall with my head 'off,' and then I
can't do any harm."

"But, egad," said the manager, rubbing his hands, "we
shall make a decided hit in 'Masaniello.' Harleigh sings
that music admirably."

Everybody echoed the sentiment. Mr. Harleigh smiled,
and looked foolish — not an unusual thing with him —
hummed "Behold how brightly breaks the morning," and
blushed as red as the fisherman's nightcap he was trying on.

"Let's see," resumed the manager, telling the number on
his fingers, "we shall have three dancing female peasants,
besides Fenella and four fishermen. Then, there's our man
Tom; he can have a pair of ducks of mine, and a check shirt
of Bob's, and a red nightcap, and he'll do for another — that's
five. In the choruses, of course, we can sing at the sides;
and in the market-scene we can walk about in cloaks and
things. When the revolt takes place, Tom must keep rush-
ing in on one side and out on the other, with a pickaxe, as
fast as he can. The effect will be electrical; it will look ex-
actly as if there were an immense number of 'em. And in
the eruption-scene we must burn the red fire, and upset the
tea-trays, and make all sorts of noises — and it's sure to do."

"Sure! sure!" cried all the performers und voce — and
away hurried Mr. Sempronius Gattleton to wash the burnt
cork off his face, and superintend the "setting up" of some
of the amateur-painted, but never-sufficiently-to-be-ad-
mired, scenery.

Mrs. Gattleton was a kind, good-tempered, vulgar soul,
exceedingly fond of her husband and children, and entertain-
ing only three dislikes. In the first place, she had a natural
antipathy to anybody else's unmarried daughters; in the
second, she was in bodily fear of anything in the shape of
ridicule; lastly — almost a necessary consequence of this
feeling — she regarded, with feelings of the utmost horror, one

The Stage in Dickens's Novels loi

Mrs. Joseph Porter, over the way. However, the good
folks of Clapham and its vicinity stood very niuch in
awe of scandal and sarcasm; and thus Mrs. Joseph Porter
was courted, and flattered, and caressed, and invited, for
much the same reason that induces a poor author, without
a farthing in his pocket, to behave with extraordinary civiUty
to a twopenny postman.

"Never mind, ma," said Miss Emma Porter, in colloquy
with her respected relative, and trying to look unconcerned,
"if they had invited me, you know that neither you nor
pa would have allowed me to take part in such an ex-
hibition."

"Just what I should have thought from your high sense of
propriety," returned the mother. " I am glad to see, Emma,
you know how to designate the proceeding." Miss P., by-
the-bye, had only the week before made "an exhibition" of
herself for four days, behind a counter at a fancy fair, to all
and every of her Majesty's liege subjects who were disposed
to pay a shilling each for the privilege of seeing some four
dozen girls flirting with strangers, and playing at shop.

"There!" said Mrs. Porter, looking out of window; "there
are two rounds of beef and a ham going in — clearly for sand-
wiches; and Thomas, the pastry-cook, says, there have been
twelve dozen tarts ordered, besides blanc-mange and jellies.
Upon my word! think of the Gattletons in fancy dresses,
too!"

"Oh, it's too ridiculous!" said Miss Porter, hysterically.

"I'll manage to put them a little out of conceit with the
business, however," said Mrs. Porter, and out she went on
her charitable errand.

"Well, my dear Mrs. Gattleton," said Mrs. Joseph Por-
ter, after they had been closeted for some time, and when,
by dint of indefatigable pumping, she had managed to ex-
tract all the news about the play, "well, my dear, people
may say what they please; indeed we know they will, for

102 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

some folks are so ill-natured. Ah, my dear Miss Lucina,
how d'ye do? I was just telling your mamma that I have
heard it said that "

"What?"

"Mrs. Porter is alluding to the play, my dear," said Mrs.
Gattleton; "she was, I am sorry to say, just informing me
that "

"Oh, now pray don't mention it," interrupted Mrs.
Porter; "it's most absurd — quite as absurd as young What's-
his-name saying he wondered how Miss Carolina, with such
a foot and ankle, could have the vanity to play Fenella."

"Highly impertinent, whoever said it," said Mrs. Gattle-
ton, bridling up.

"Certainly, my dear," chimed in the delighted Mrs.
Porter; "most undoubtedly! Because, as I said, if Miss
Carolina does play Fenella, it doesn't follow, as a matter of
course, that she should think she has a pretty foot; — and
then — such puppies as these young men are — he had the
impudence to say, that "

How far the amiable Mrs. Porter might have succeeded in
her pleasant purpose, it is impossible to say, had not the
entrance of Mr. Thomas Balderstone, Mrs. Gattleton's
brother, familiarly called in the family "Uncle Tom,"
changed the course of conversation, and suggested to her
mind an excellent plan of operation on the evening of the
play.

Uncle Tom was very rich, and exceedingly fond of his
nephews and nieces : as a matter of course, therefore, he was
an object of great importance in his own family. He was
one of the best-hearted men in existence: always in a good
temper, and always talking. It was his boast that he wore
top-boots on all occasions, and had never worn a black silk
neckerchief; and it was his pride that he remembered all the
principal plays of Shakespeare from beginning to end — and
so he did. The result of this parrot-like accomplishment

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 103

was, that he was not only perpetually quoting himself, but
that he could never sit by, and hear a misquotation from the
"Swan of Avon" without setting the unfortunate delin-
quent right. He was also something of a wag; never missed
an opportunity of saying what he considered a good thing,
and invariably laughed until he cried at anything that ap-
peared to him mirth moving or ridiculous.

" Well, girls ! " said Uncle Tom, after the preparatory cere-
mony of kissing and how-d'ye-do-ing had been gone through
— "how d'ye get on? Know your parts, eh? — Lucina, my
dear, act ii., scene 1 — place, left — cue — 'Unknown fate,' —
What's next, eh? — Go on — 'The Heavens '"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Lucina, "I recollect

The heavens forbid
But that our loves and comforts should increase
Even as our days do grow!

"Make a pause here and there," said the old gentleman,
who was a great critic. "'But that our loves and comforts
should increase' — emphasis on the last syllable, 'crease,' —
loud again, *as our days do grow;' emphasis on days. That's
the way, my dear; trust to your uncle for emphasis. Ah!
Sem, my boy, how are you?"

"Very well, thankee, uncle," returned Mr. Sempronius,
who had just appeared looking something like a ringdove
with a small circle round each eye: the result of his constant
corking, "Of course we see you on Thursday."

"Of course, of course, my dear boy."

"What a pity it is your nephew didn't think of making
you prompter, Mr. Balderstone ! " whispered Mrs. Joseph
Porter, "you would have been invaluable."

"Well, I flatter myself, I should have been tolerably up to
the thing," responded Uncle Tom.

"I must bespeak sitting next you on the night," resumed
Mrs. Porter; "and then, if our dear young friends here

104 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

should be at all wrong, you will be able to enlighten
me. I shall be so interested."

"I am sure I shall be most happy to give you any assist-
ance in my power."

"Mind, it's a bargain."

"Certainly."

"I don't know how it is," said Mrs. Gattleton to her
daughters, as they were sitting round the fire in the evening,
looking over their parts, "but I really very much wish Mrs.
Joseph Porter wasn't coming on Thursday. I am sure she's
scheming something."

"She can't make us ridiculous, however," observed Mr.
Sempronius Gattleton, haughtily.

The long-looked-f or Thursday arrived in due course, and
brought with it, as Mr. Gattleton, senior, philosophically
observed, "no disappointments, to speak of." True, it was
yet a matter of doubt whether Cassio would be enabled to
get into the dress which had been sent for him from the
masquerade warehouse. It was equally uncertain whether
the principal female singer would be sufficiently recovered
from the influenza to make her appearance; Mr. Harleigh,
the Masaniello of the night, was hoarse, and rather unwell,
iji consequence of the great quantity of lemon and sugar-
candy he had eaten to improve his voice; and two flutes and
a violoncello had pleaded severe colds. What of that? the
audience were all coming. Everybody knew his part; the
dresses were covered with tinsel and spangles; the white
plumes looked beautiful; Mr. Evans had practised falling
until he was bruised from head to foot and quite perfect;
lago was sure that, in the stabbing-scene, he should make "a
decided hit." A self-taught deaf gentleman, who had kindly
offered to bring his flute, would be a most valuable addition
to the orchestra; Miss Jenkins's talent for the piano was too
well known to be doubted for an instant ; Mr. Cape had prac-
tised the violin accompaniment with her frequently; and

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 105

Mr. Brown, who had kindly undertaken, at a few hours'
notice, to bring his violoncello, would, no doubt, manage
extremely well.

Seven o'clock came, and so did the audience; all the rank
and fashion of Clapham and its vicinity was fast filling the
theatre. There were the Smiths, the Gubbinses, the Nixons,
the Dixons, the Hicksons, people with all sorts of names,
two aldermen, a sheriff in perspective. Sir Thomas Glumper
(who had been knighted in the last reign for carrying up an
address on somebody's escaping from nothing); and last,
not least, there were Mrs. Joseph Porter and Uncle Tom,
seated in the centre of the third row from the stage; Mrs.
P. amusing Uncle Tom with all sorts of stories, and Uncle
Tom amusing every one else by laughing most immoder-
ately.

Ting, ting, ting ! went the prompter's bell at eight oclock
precisely, and dash went the orchestra into the overture to
"The Men of Prometheus." The pianoforte player ham-
mered away with laudable perseverance; and the violoncello,
which struck in at intervals, "sounded very well, consider-
ing." The unfortunate individual, however, who had under-
taken to play the flute accompaniment "at sight," found,
from fatal experience, the perfect truth of the old adage,
"out of sight, out of mind;" for being very near-sighted,
and being placed at a considerable distance from his music-
book, all he had an opportunity of doing was to play a bar
now and then in the wrong place, and put the other per-
formers out. It is, however, but justice to Mr. Brown to say
that he did this to admiration. The overture, in fact, was not
unlike a race between the different instruments; the piano
came in first by several bars, and the violoncello next, quite
distancing the poor flute; for the deaf gentleman ioo-too'd
away, quite unconscious that he was at all wrong, until
apprised, by the applause of the audience, that the overture
was concluded. A considerable bustle and shuffling of feet

io6 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

was then heard upon the stage, accompanied by whispers
of "Here's a pretty go! — what's to be done?" &c. The
audience applauded again, by way of raising the spirits of
the performers; and then Mr. Sempronius desired the
prompter, in a very audible voice, to "clear the stage, and
ring up."

Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. Everybody sat
down; the curtain shook; rose suflBciently high to display
several pair of yellow boots paddling about; and there
remained.

Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. The curtain was
violently convulsed, but rose no higher; the audience tit-
tered; Mrs. Porter looked at Uncle Tom; Uncle Tom looked
at everybody, rubbing his hands, and laughing with perfect
rapture. After as much ringing with the little bell as a
muflBng boy would make in going down a tolerably long
street, and a vast deal of whispering, hammering, and calling
for nails and cord, the curtain at length rose, and discovered
Mr. Sempronius Gattleton solus, and decked for Othello.
After three distinct rounds of applause, during which Mr.
Sempronius applied his right hand to his left breast, and
bowed in the most approved manner, the manager advanced
and said;

"Ladies and Gentlemen — I assure you it is with sincere
regret, that I regret to be compelled to inform you, that lago
who was to have played Mr. Wilson — I beg your pardon.
Ladies and Gentlemen, but I am naturally somewhat
agitated (applause) — I mean, Mr. Wilson, who was to have
played lago, is — that is, has been — or, in other words. La-
dies and Gentlemen, the fact is, that I have just received a
note, in which I am informed that lago is unavoidably
detained at the Post Office this evening. Under these cir-
cumstances, I trust — a — a — amateur performance — a —
another gentleman undertaken to read the part — request
indulgence for a short time — courtesy and kindness of a

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 107

British audience." Overwhelming applause. Exit Mr.
Sempronius Gattleton, and curtain falls.

The audience were, of course, exceedingly good-hum-
oured; the whole business was a joke; and accordingly they
waited for an hour with the utmost patience, being enlivened
by an interlude of rout-cakes and lemonade. It appeared
by Mr. Sempronius's subsequent explanation, that the
delay would not have been so great, had it not so happened
that when the substitute lago had finished dressing, and
just as the play was on the point of commencing, the original
lago unexpectedly arrived. The former was therefore com-
pelled to undress, and the latter to dress for his part; which,
as he found some dijSBculty in getting into his clothes, oc-
cupied no inconsiderable time. At last, the tragedy began
in real earnest. It went off well enough, until the third
scene of the first act, in which Othello addresses the Senate:
the only remarkable circumstance being, that as lago could
not get on any of the stage boots, in consequence of his
feet being violently swelled with the heat and excitement,
he was under the necessity of playing the part in a pair of
Wellingtons, which contrasted rather oddly with his richly
embroidered pantaloons. When Othello started with his
address to the Senate (whose dignity was represented by the
Duke, a carpenter, two men engaged on the recommenda-
tion of the gardener, and a boy), Mrs. Porter found the
opportunity she so anxiously sought.

Mr. Sempronius proceeded:

"'Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors.
My very noble and approv'd good masters.
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; — rude am I in my speech '"

"Is that right?" whispered Mrs. Porter to Uncle Tom.

"No."

"Tell him so, then."

io8 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"I will. Sem!" called out Uncle Tom, "that's wrong,
my boy."

"What's wrong, uncle?" demanded Othello ^ quite for-
getting the dignity of his situation.

" You've left out something. ' True I have married ' '*

"Ah, ah!" said Mr, Sempronius, endeavouring to hide his
confusion as much and as ineffectually as the audience at-
tempted to conceal their half-suppressed tittering, by cough-
ing with extraordinary violence

"'true I have married her; —

The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent; no more.'"

{Aside) Why don't you prompt, father?"

"Because I've mislaid my spectacles," said poor Mr»
Gattleton, almost dead with the heat and bustle.

"There, now it's 'rude am I,'" said Uncle Tom.

"Yes, I know it is," returned the unfortunate manager,
proceeding with his part.

It would be useless and tiresome to quote the number of
instances in which Uncle Tom, now completely in his ele-
ment, and instigated by the mischievous Mrs. Porter, cor-
rected the mistakes of the performers; suffice it to say that,
having mounted his hobby, nothing could induce him to dis-
mount; so, during the whole remainder of the play, he per-
formed a kind of running accompaniment, by muttering
everybody's part as it was being delivered, in an under-tone.
The audience were highly amused, Mrs. Porter delighted,
the performers embarrassed; Uncle Tom never was better
pleased in all his life; and Uncle Tom's nephews and nieces
had never, although the declared heirs to his large property,
so heartily wished him gathered to his fathers as on that
memorable occasion.

From "Sketches by Boz.**

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 109

David Copperfield Goes to the Play

1. At Covent Garden

Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I
infer that poisoning is not always disagreeable in some
stages of the process), I resolved to go to the play. It was
Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; and there, from the
back of a centre box, I saw Julius Ctesar and the new Pan-
tomine. To have all those noble Romans alive before me,
and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of
being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a
most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled reality
and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the
poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth
stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, was
so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of de-
light that when I came out into the rainy street, at twelve
o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where
I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling,
splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-
jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world.

2. Another Night

Somebody said to me, "Let us go to the theatre, Copper-
field!" There was no bedroom before me, but again the
jingling table covered with glasses; the lamp; Grainger on
my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth op-
posite — all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The
theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along! But
they must excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and turned
the lamp off — in case of fire.

Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone.
I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth,
laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went

no Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

down-stairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, some-
body fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was
Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding
myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there
might be some foundation for it.

A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in
the streets ! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet.
I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-
post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced
from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I
hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, "You are all
right, Copperfield, are you not?" and I told him, "Never-
berrer."

A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole place, looked out of the
fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one
of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful
(as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take
the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we were very
high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit,
that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was
crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too,
looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there
were people upon it, talking about something or other, but
not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance of bright
lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in
the boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole build-
ing looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted
itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to
steady it.

On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to
the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman loung-
ing, full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand,
passes before my view, and also my own figure at full length
in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes,
and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people

The Stage in Dickens's Novels m

about me crying "Silence" to somebody, and ladies casting
indignant glances at me, and — what! yes! — Agnes, sitting
on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and
gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know, I see her face
now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its indelible
look of regret and wonder turned upon me.

"Agnes!" I said, thickly, " Lorblessmer ! Agnes!"

"Hush ! Pray ! " she answered, I could not conceive why.
"You disturb the company. Look at the stage!"

I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something
of what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at
her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner,
and put her gloved hand to her forehead.

"Agnes!" I said. "I'm afraid you'renorwell."

"Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood," she returned.
"Listen ! Are you going away soon? "

"Amigoarawaysoo?" I repeated.

"Yes."

I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to
wait, to hand her down-stairs. I suppose I expressed it,
somehow; for, after she had looked at me attentively for a
little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low
tone :

"I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very
earnest in it. Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and
ask your friends to take you home."

She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I
was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short
"Goori!" (which I intended for "Good night") got up and
went away. They followed, and I stepped at once out of the
box-door into my bedroom, where Steerforth was with
me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling
him that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring
the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine.

From "David Copperfield."

112 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Frederick Dorrit in the Orchestra Pit

The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows,
with their little strip of sky, might have been the point of
his better fortunes, from which he had descended until he
had gradually sunk down below there to the bottom. He
had been in that place six nights a week for many years,
but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his
music-book, and was confidently believed to have never
seen a play. There were legends in the place that he had
not so much as known the popular heroes and heroines by
sight, and that the low comedian had "mugged" at him in
his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown
no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke that
he was dead without being aware of it, and the frequenters
of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day,
and Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him
a few times with pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and
he had always responded to this attention with a momen-
tary waking-up of manner that had the pale phantom of a
gentleman in it; beyond this he never, on any occasion,
had any other part in what was going on than the part
written out for the clarionet : in private life, where there was
no part for the clarionet, he had no part at all.

From "Little Dorrit."

The Waldengarver

This is the tale told by Pip who had known the Wal-
dengarver when, under the humbler name of Wopsle,
he was clerk of the church back home. Pip had at-
tended for a time a village school somewhat vaguely
conducted by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt. The Mr. Wopsle

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 113

of those days, had, in addition to a Roman nose and a
large, shining, bald forehead, "a deep voice which he
was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was understood
among his acquaintance that if you could only give him
his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he
himself confessed that if the Church was 'thrown
open,' meaning to competition, he would not despair
of making his mark in it. The church not being
'thrown open,' he was, as I have said, our clerk. But
he punished the Amens tremendously; and when he
gave out the Psalm — always giving the whole verse —
he looked all around the church first, as much as to
say: 'You have heard our friend overhead; oblige me
with your opinion of this style.' " Now, lifted by his
great expectations, Pip is in London learning to be a
gentleman, and on him, much embarrassed, calls his
dear Joe Gargery, the blacksmith — awkward, patient,
gentle Joe, who, inexplicably, has come up to London
in company with Mr. Wopsle.

1 — The Most Melancholy Dane of All

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at
eight on Tuesday morning in the hall (it was two feet
square, as charged for floorcloth), and Herbert suggested
certain things for breakfast that he thought Joe would like.
While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being so interested
and considerate, I had an odd half -provoked sense of sus-
picion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he
wouldn't have been quite so brisk about it.

However, I came into town on the Monday night to be

114 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

ready for Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and caused
the sitting-room and breakfast-table to assume their most
splendid appearance. Unfortunately the morning was
drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact
that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window,
like some weak giant of a Sweep.

As the time approached I should have liked to run away,
but the Avenger pursuant to orders was in the hall, and
presently I heard Joe, on the staircase. I knew it was Joe,
by his clumsy manner of coming up-stairs — his state boots
being always too big for him — and by the time it took
him to read the names on the other floors in the course of
his ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I
could hear his finger tracing over the painted letters of my
name, and I afterwards distinctly heard his breathing in
at the keyhole. Finally he gave a faint single rap, and
Pepper — such was the compromising name of the avenging
boy — announced "Mr. Gargery!" I thought he never
would have done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone
out to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in.

"Joe, how are you, Joe? "

"Pip, how AIR you, Pip?"

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and
his hat put down on the floor between us, he caught both
my hands and worked them straight up and down, as if I
had been the last-patented Pump.

"I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat."

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a
bird's-nest with eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with
that piece of property, and persisted in standing talking over
it in a most uncomfortable way.

"Which you have that growed," said Joe, "and that
swelled, and that gentle-folked"; Joe considered a little
before he discovered this word; "as, to be sure, you are a
honour to your king and country."

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 115

"And you, Joe, look wonderfully well."

"Thank God," said Joe, "I'm ekerval to most. And
your sister, she's no worse than she were. And Biddy,
she's ever right and ready. And all friends is no backerder,
if not no forarder. 'Ceptin' Wopsle: he's had a drop."

All this time (still with both hands taking great care of
the bird's-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the
room, and round and round the flowered pattern of my
dressing-gown.

"Had a drop, Joe?"

"Why, yes," said Joe, lowering his voice, "he's left the
Church and went into the playacting. Which the playacting
have likewise brought him to London along with me. And
his wish were," said Joe, getting the bird's-nest under his
left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an egg with his
right; "if no offence, as I would 'and you that."

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled
playbill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the
first appearance, in that very week, of "the celebrated Pro-
vincial Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique perform-
ance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard has
lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic
circles."

"Were you at this performance, Joe.''" I inquired.

"I were," said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.

"Was there a great sensation?"

"Why," said Joe, "yes, there certainly were a peck of
orange-peel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though
I put it to yourself, sir, whether it were calc'lated to keep
a man up to his work with a good hart, to be continiwally
cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with 'Amen!' A
man may have had a misfortun' and been in the Church,"
said Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling
tone, "but that is no reason why you should put him out
at such a time. Which I meantersay, if the ghost of a man's

ii6 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

own father cannot be allowed to claim his attention, what
can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning 'at is unfortunately
made so small as that the weight of the black feathers brings
it off, try to keep it on how you may."

As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a
diflBcult vision to realise this same Capital sometimes was,
1 put my hands in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in
one of them attracted my attention. I opened it and found
it to be the playbill I had received from Joe, relative to the
celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. "And
bless my heart," I involuntarily added aloud/'it's to-night!"

This changed the subject in an instant, and made us
hurriedly resolve to go to the play. So, when I had pledged
myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart
by all practicable and impracticable means, and when Her-
bert had told me that his affianced already knew me by
reputation, and that I should be presented to her, and when
we had warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence,
we blew out our candles, made up our fire, locked our door,
and issued forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark.

On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen
of that country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-
table, holding a Court. The whole of the Danish nobility
were in attendance; consisting of a noble boy in the wash-
leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with
a dirty face, who seemed to have risen from the people late
in life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and
a pair of white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a femi-
nine appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart,
with folded arms, and I could have wished that his curls and
forehead had been more probable.

Several curious little circumstances transpired as the
action proceeded. The late king of the country not only

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 117

appeared to have been troubled with a cough at the time
of his decease, but to have taken it with him to the tomb,
and to have brought it back. The royal phantom also
carried a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which
it had the appearance of occasionally referring, and that,
too, with an air of anxiety and a tendency to lose the place
of reference which were suggestive of a state of mortality.
It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being ad-
vised by the gallery to "turn over!" — a recommendation
which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of
this majestic spirit that whereas it always appeared with an
air of having been out a long time and walked an immense
distance, it perceptibly came from a closely contiguous
wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively.
The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no
doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public to
have too much brass about her; her chin being attached to
her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a
gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another,
and each of her arms by another, so that she was openly
mentioned as "the kettledrum." The noble boy in the
ancestral boots, was inconsistent; representing himself, as it
were in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a
gravedigger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost im-
portance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority
of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the
finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a want
of toleration for him, and even — on his being detected in
holy orders, and declining to perform the funeral service —
to the general indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly,
Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when,
in course of time, she had taken off her white muslin scarf,
folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who had been long
cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the front
row of the gallery, growled, "Now the baby's put to bed,

ii8 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

let's have supper ! " Which, to say the least of it, was out of
keeping.

Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents ac-
cumulated with playful effect. Whenever that undecided
Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt, the public
helped him out with it. As for example; on the question
whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes,
and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said "toss
up for it;" and quite a Debating Society arose. When he
asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between
earth and heaven, he was encouraged with loud cries of
"Hear, hear!" When he appeared with his stocking dis-
ordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one
very neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got
up with a flat iron), a conversation took place in the gallery
respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it was occa-
sioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking
the recorders — very like a little black flute that had just
been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door —
he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When
he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky
man said, "And don't you do it, neither; you're a deal worse
than him!" And I grieve to add that peals of laughter
greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions.

But his greatest trials were in the churchyard : which had
the appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small
ecclesiastical wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate
on the other. Mr. Wopsle, in a comprehensive black cloak,
being descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger
was admonished in a friendly way, "Look out! Here's the
undertaker a coming, to see how you're getting on with your
work!" I believe it is well known in a constitutional coun-
try that Mr. Wopsle could not possibly have returned the
skull, after moralising over it, without dusting his fingers on
a white napkin taken from his breast; but even that inno-

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 119

cent and indispensable action did not pass without the
comment "Wai-ter!" The arrival of the body for inter-
ment (in an empty black box with the lid tumbling open),
was the signal for a general joy which was much enhanced
by the discovery, among the bearers, of an individual obnox-
ious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle
through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the or-
chestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he had
tumbled the king off the kitchen-table, and had died by
inches from the ankles upward.

We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to ap-
plaud Mr. Wopsle; but they were too hopeless to be per-
sisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for him, but
laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite
of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll; and yet
I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly
fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution — not for old associations' sake,
I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary,
very up-hill and down-hill, and very unlike any way in which
any man in any natural circumstances of life or death
ever expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy
was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said to
Herbert, "Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him."

We made all the haste we could down-stairs, but we were
not quick enough either. Standing at the door was a
Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow,
who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we
came up with him:

"Mr. Pip and friend?"

Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.

"Mr. Waldengarver," said the man, "would be glad
to have the honour."

"Waldengarver?" I repeated — when Herbert murmured
in my ear, "Probably Wopsle."

"Oh!" said L "Yes. Shall we follow you?"

120 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"A few steps, please." When we were in a side alley,
he turned and asked, "How do you think he looked? — /
dressed him."

I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral;
with the addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging
round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had given him the
appearance of being insured in some extraordinary Fire
Office. But I said he had looked very nice.

"When he come to the grave," said our conductor, "he
showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing,
it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen's
apartment, he might have made more of his stockings."

I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty
swing door, into a sort of hot packing-case immediately
behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle was divesting himself of his
Danish garments, and here there was just room for us to
look at him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the
packing-case door, or lid, wide open.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wopsle, "I am proud to see you.
I hope, Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had
the happiness to know you in former times, and the Drama
has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on
the noble and the affluent."

Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspira-
tion, was trying to get himself out of his princely sables.

"Skin the stockings off, Mr. Waldengarver," said the
owner of that property, "or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em,
and you'll bust five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never
was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your
chair now, and leave 'em to me."

With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his
victim; who, on the first stocking coming off, would cer-
tainly have fallen over backward with his chair, but for
there being no room to fall anyhow.

I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play.

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 121

But then, Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently,
and said:

" Gentlemen, how did it seem to you to go, in front? "

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me),
"capitally." So I said "capitally."

"How did you like my reading of the character, gentle-
men?" said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with
patronage

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), "massive
and concrete." So I said boldly, as if I had originated it,
and must beg to insist upon it, "massive and concrete."

"I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen," said
Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his
being ground against the wall at the time, and holding on
by the seat of the chair.

"But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver," said
the man who was on his knees, "in which you're out in your
reading. Now mind! I don't care who says contrary; I
tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet when
you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed,
made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I
got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and
then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front,
sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought
him into profile, I called out, 'I don't see no wafers!' And
at night his reading was lovely."

Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say "a
faithful dependent — I overlook his folly;" and then said
aloud, "My view is a little too classic and thoughtful for
them here; but they will improve, they will improve."

Herbert and I said together. Oh, no doubt they would
improve.

"Did you observe, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver,
"that there was a man in the gallery who endeavoured to
cast derision on the service — I mean, the representation?"

122 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed
such a man. I added, "He was drunk, no doubt."

"Oh, dear no, sir," said Mr. Wopsle, "not drunk. His
employer would see to that, sir. His employer would not
allow him to be drunk."

"You know his employer?" said I.

Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; per-
forming both ceremonies very slowly. "You must have
observed, gentlemen," said he, "an ignorant and blatant
ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance expressive of
low malignity, who went through — I will not say sustained
— the role (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius
King of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such
is the profession!"

Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been
more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was
so sorry for him as it was, that I took the opportunity of
his turning round to have his braces put on — which jostled
us out at the doorway — to ask Herbert what he thought of
having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it
would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he
went to Barnard's with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we
did our best for him, and he sat until two o'clock in the
morning, reviewing his success and developing his plans.
I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general
recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama,
and to end with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would
leave it utterly bereft and without a chance or hope.

2 — The Decline of the Drama

I dined long afterwards at what Herbert and I used to
call a Geographical chop-house — where there were maps of
the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard of the table-
cloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives — to

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 123

this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the
Lord Mayor's dominions which is not Geographical — and
wore out the time in dozing over crumbs, staring at gas,
and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By-and-by, I roused
myself and went to the play.

There, I found a virtuous boatswain in his Majesty's
service — a most excellent man, though I could have wished
his trousers not quite so tight in some places and not quite
so loose in others — who knocked all the little men's hats
over their eyes, though he was very generous and brave, and
who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he
was very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket,
hke a pudding in the cloth, and on that property married a
young person in bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the
whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last
Census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and
shake everybody else's, and sing, "Fill, fill!" A certain
dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do
anything else that was proposed to him, and whose heart
was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his
figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind
into difficulties; which was so effectually done (the Swab
family having considerable political influence) that it took
half the evening to set things right, and then it was only
brought about through an honest little grocer with a white
hat, black gaiters, and red nose, getting into a clock, with a
gridiron, and listening, and coming out, and knocking every-
body down from behind with the gridiron whom he couldn't
confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr.
Wopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in
with a star and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great
power direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs
were all to go to prison on the spot, and that he had brought
the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight acknowledg-
ment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for

124 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and
then cheering up and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your
Honour, solicited permission to take him by the fin. Mr.
Wopsle conceding his fin with a gracious dignity, was im-
mediately shoved into a dusty corner while everybody
danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the
public with a discontented eye, became aware of me.

The second piece was the last new grand comic Christ-
mas pantomime, in the first scene of which it pained me to
suspect that I detected Mr. Wopsle, with red worsted legs
under a highly magnified phosphoric countenance and a
shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged in the
manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying
great cowardice when his gigantic master came home
(very hoarse) to dinner. But he presently presented him-
self under worthier circumstances; for, the Genius of Youth-
ful Love being in want of assistance — on account of the
parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the
choice of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the
object in a flour sack out of the first-floor window — sum-
moned a sententious Enchanter; and he, coming up from
the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an apparently violent
journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned hat,
with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The
business of this enchanter on earth, being principally to be
butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various
colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands.

From "Great Expectations."

DULLBOROUGH ToWN

It lately happened that I found myself rambling about the
scenes among which my earliest days were passed; scenes
from which I departed when I was a child, and which I
did not revisit until I was a man. This is no uncommon

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 125

chance, but one that befalls some of us any day; perhaps it
may not be quite uninteresting to compare notes with the
reader respecting an experience so familiar and a journey
so uncommercial.

I call my boyhood's home (and I feel like a Tenor in an
English Opera when I mention it) Dullborough. Most of us
come from Dullborough who come from a country town.

The Theatre was in existence, I found, on asking the fish-
monger, who had a compact show of stock in his window,
consisting of a sole and a quart of shrimps — and I resolved
to comfort my mind by going to look at it. Richard the
Third, in a very uncomfortable cloak, had first appeared to
me there, and had made my heart leap with terror by back-
ing up against the stage-box in which I was posted, while
struggling for life against the virtuous Richmond. It was
within those walls that I had learnt as from a page of English
history, how that wicked King slept in war-time on a sofa
much too short for him, and how fearfully his conscience
troubled his boots. There, too, had I first seen the funny
countryman, but countryman of noble principles, in a flow-
ered waistcoat, crunch up his little hat and throw it on the
ground, and pull off his coat, saying, "Dom thee, squire,
coom on with thy fistes then!" At which the lovely young
woman who kept company with him (and who went out
gleaning, in a narrow white muslin apron with five beautiful
bars of five different-coloured ribbons across it) was so
frightened for his sake, that she fainted away. Many won-
drous secrets of Nature had I come to the knowledge of in
that sanctuary : of which not the least terrific were, that the
witches in Macbeth bore an awful resemblance to the Thanes
and other proper inhabitants of Scotland; and that the good
King Duncan couldn't rest in his grave, but was constantly
coming out of it and calling himself somebody else. To the
Theatre, therefore, I repaired for consolation. But I found
very little, for it was in a bad and declining way. A dealer

126 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

in wine and bottled beer had already squeezed his trade into
the box-oflSce, and the theatrical money was taken — when it
came — in a kind of meat-safe in the passage. The dealer in
wine and bottled beer must have insinuated himself under
the stage too; for he announced that he had various de-
scriptions of alcoholic drinks "in the wood," and there was
no possible stowage for the wood anywhere else. Evidently,
he was by degrees eating the establishment away to the core,
and would soon have sole possession of it. It was To Let,
and hopelessly so, for its old purposes; and there had been
no entertainment within its walls for a long time except a
Panorama; and even that had been announced as "pleas-
ingly instructive," and I know too well the fatal meaning
and the leaden import of those terrible expressions. No,
there was no comfort in the Theatre. It was mysteriously
gone, like my own youth. Unlike my own youth, it might
be coming back some day; but there was little promise of it.

From "The Uncommercial Traveller."

In the French-Flemish Country

"It is neither a bold nor a diversified country," said I to
myself, "this country which is three-quarters Flemish, and
a quarter French; yet it has its attractions too. Though
great lines of railway traverse it, the trains leave it behind,
and go puffing off to Paris and the South, to Belgium and
Germany, to the Northern Sea-Coast of France, and to
England, and merely smoke it a little in passing. Then I
don't know it, and that is a good reason for being here; and
I can't pronounce half the long queer names I see inscribed
over the shops, and that is another good reason for being
here, since I surely ought to learn how." In short, I was
"here," and I wanted an excuse for not going away from
here, and I made it to my satisfaction, and stayed here.

What part in my decision was borne by Monsieur P.

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 127

Salcy, is of no moment, though I own to encountering that
gentleman's name on a red bill on the wall, before I made up
my mind. Monsieur P. Salcy, "par permission de M. le
Maire," had established his theatre in the whitewashed
Hotel de Ville, on the steps of which illustrious edifice I
stood. And Monsieur P. Salcy, privileged director of such
theatre, situate in "the first theatrical arrondissement of the
department of the North," invited French-Flemish mankind
to come and partake of the intellectual banquet provided by
his family of dramatic artists, fifteen subjects in number.
"La Famille P. Salcy, composee d'artistes dramatiques, au
nombre de 15 sujets."

There was a Fair besides. The double persuasion being
irresistible, and my sponge being left behind at the last
Hotel, I made the tour of the little town to buy another.
In the small sunny shops — mercers, opticians, and druggist-
grocers, with here and there an emporium of religious images
— the gravest of old spectacled Flemish husbands and wives
sat contemplating one another across bare counters, while
the wasps, who seemed to have taken military possession of
the town, and to have placed it under wasp-martial law,
executed warlike manoeuvres in the windows. Other shops
the wasps had entirely to themselves, and nobody cared and
nobody came when I beat with a five-franc piece upon the
board of custom. What I sought was no more to be found
than if I had sought a nugget of Calif ornian gold : so I went,
spongeless, to pass the evening with the Family P. Salcy.

The members of the Family P. Salcy were so fat and so
like one another — fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles,
and aunts — that I think the local audience were much con-
fused about the plot of the piece under representation, and
to the last expected that everybody must turn out to be
the long-lost relative of everybody else. The Theatre was
established on the top story of the Hotel de Ville, and was
approached by a long bare staircase, whereon, in an airy

128 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

situation, one of the P. Salcy Family — a stout gentleman
imperfectly repressed by a belt — took the money. This
occasioned the greatest excitement of the evening; for, no
sooner did the curtain rise on the introductory Vaudeville,
and reveal in the person of the young lover (singing a very
short song with his eyebrows) apparently the very same
identical stout gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt,
than everybody rushed out to the paying-place, to ascertain
whether he could possibly have put on that dress-coat, that
clear complexion, and those arched black vocal eyebrows, in
so short a space of time. It then became manifest that this
was another stout gentleman imperfectly repressed by a
belt: to whom, before the spectators had recovered their
presence of mind, entered a third stout gentleman imper-
fectly repressed by a belt, exactly like him. These two
"subjects," making with the money-taker three of the an-
nounced fifteen, fell into conversation touching a charming
young widow; who, presently appearing, proved to be a
stout lady altogether irrepressible by any means — quite a
parallel case to the American Negro — fourth of the fifteen
subjects, and sister of the fifth who presided over the check-
department. In good time the whole of the fifteen subjects
were dramatically presented, and we had the inevitable
Ma Mere, Ma Mere! and also the inevitable malediction
d'un pere, and likewise the inevitable Marquis, and also the
inevitable provincial young man, weak-minded but faithful,
who followed Julie to Paris, and cried and laughed and
choked all at once. The story was wrought out with the
help of a virtuous spinning-wheel in the beginning, a vicious
set of diamonds in the middle, and a rheumatic blessing
(which arrived by post) from Ma Mere towards the end;
the whole resulting in a small sword in the body of one of the
stout gentlemen imperfectly repressed by a belt, fifty thou-
sand francs per annum and a decoration to the other stout
gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt, and an assurance

The Stage in Dickens's Novels 129

from everybody to the provincial young man that if he were
not supremely happy — which he seemed to have no reason
whatever for being — he ought to be. This afforded him a
final opportunity of crying and laughing and choking all at
once, and sent the audience home sentimentally delighted.
Audience more attentive and better behaved there could not
possibly be, though the places of second rank in the Theatre
of the Family P. Salcy were sixpence each in English money,
and the places of first rank a shilling. How the fifteen sub-
jects ever got so fat upon it, the kind Heavens know.

From "The Uncommercial Traveller."

In an Empty Theatre

Between the bridge and the two great theatres, there was
but the distance of a few hundred paces, so the theatres came
next. Grim and black within, at night, those great dry
Wells, and lonesome to imagine, with the rows of faces faded
out, the lights extinguished, and the seats all empty. One
would think that nothing in them knew itself at such a time
but Yorick's skull. In one of my night walks, as the church
steeples were shaking the March winds and rain with strokes
of Four, I passed the outer boundary of one of these great
deserts, and entered it. With a dim lantern in my hand, I
groped my well-known way to the stage and looked over the
orchestra — which was like a great grave dug for a time of
pestilence — into the void beyond. A dismal cavern of an
immense aspect, with the chandelier gone dead like every-
thing else, and nothing visible through mist and fog and
space, but tiers of winding-sheets. The ground at my feet
where, when last there, I had seen the peasantry of Naples
dancing among the vines, reckless of the burning mountain
which threatened to overwhelm them, was now in possession
of a strong serpent of engine-hose, watchfully lying in wait
for the serpent Fire, and ready to fly at it if it showed its
9

130 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

forked tongue. A ghost of a watchman, carrying a faint
corpse candle, haunted the distant upper gallery and flitted
away. Retiring within the proscenium, and holding my
light above my head towards the rolled-up curtain — green
no more, but black as ebony — my sight lost itself in a gloomy
vault, showing faint indications in it of a shipwreck of can-
vas and cordage. Methought I felt much as a diver might,
at the bottom of the sea.

From "The Uncommercial Traveller."

The Vincent Crummies Company

131

THE VINCENT CRUMMLES
COMPANY

1. — THE COMPANY OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES, AND HIS
AFFAIRS DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL

AS Mr. Crummies had a strange four-legged animal in the
inn stables, which he called a pony, and a vehicle of
unknown design, on which he bestowed the appellation of
four-wheeled phaeton, Nicholas proceeded on his journey
next morning with greater ease than he had expected: the
manager and himself occupying the front seat: and the
Master Crummleses and Smike being packed together be-
hind, in company with a wicker basket defended from wet
by a stout oilskin, in which were the broad-swords, pistols,
pigtails, nautical costumes, and other professional necessaries
of the aforesaid young gentlemen.

The pony took his time upon the road, and — possibly in
consequence of his theatrical education — evinced, every now
and then, a strong inchnation to lie down. However, Mr.
Vincent Crummies kept him up pretty well, by jerking the
rein, and plying the whip; and when these means failed
and the animal came to a stand, the elder Master Crummies
got out and kicked him. By dint of these encouragements,
he was persuaded to move from time to time, and they
jogged on (as Mr. Crummies truly observed) very comfort-
ably for all parties.

"He's a good pony at bottom," said Mr. Crummies,
turning to Nicholas.

133

134 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not
at top, seeing that his coat was of the roughest and most
ill-favoured kind. So Nicholas merely observed that he
shouldn't wonder if he was,

"Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone," said
Mr. Crummies, flicking him skilfully on the eyelid for old
acquaintance' sake. "He is quite one of us. His mother
was on the stage."

"Was she?" rejoined Nicholas.

"She ate apple-pie at a circus for upwards of fourteen
years," said the manager; "fired pistols, and went to bed
in a nightcap; and, in short, took the low comedy entirely.
His father was a dancer."

"Was he at all distinguished?"

"Not very," said the manager. "He was rather a low
sort of pony. The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out
by the day, and he never quite got over his old habits. He
was clever in melodrama too, but too broad — too broad.
When the mother died, he took the port-wine business."

"The port-wine business!" cried Nicholas.

"Drinking port-wine with the clown," said the manager;
"but he was greedy, and one night bit off the bowl of the
glass, and choked himself, so his vulgarity was the death of
him at last."

The descendant of this ill-starred animal requiring in-
creased attention from Mr. Crummies as he progressed in
his day's work, that gentleman had very little time for con-
versation. Nicholas was thus left at leisure to entertain
himself with his own thoughts, until they arrived at the
drawbridge at Portsmouth, when Mr. Crummies pulled up.

"We'll get down here," said the manager, "and the boys
will take him round to the stable, and call at my lodgings
with the luggage. You had better let yours be taken there
for the present."

Thanking Mr. Vincent Crummies for his obliging oflfer,

The Vincent Crummies Company 135

Nicholas jumped out, and, giving Smike his arm, accom-
panied the manager up High Street on their way to the
theatre; feeUng nervous and uncomfortable enough at the
prospect of an immediate introduction to a scene so new
to him.

They passed a great many bills, pasted against the walls
and displayed in windows, wherein the names of Mr. Vin-
cent Crummies, and Miss Crummies, were printed in very
large letters, and everything else in very small ones; and,
turning at length into an entry, in which was a strong smell
of orange-peel and lamp-oil, with an under-current of saw-
dust, groped their way through a dark passage, and, de-
scending a step or two, threaded a little maze of canvas
screens and paint-pots, and emerged upon the stage of the
Portsmouth Theatre.

"Here we are," said Mr. Crummies.

It was not very light, but Nicholas found himself close to
the first entrance on the prompt side, among bare walls,
dusty scenes, mildewed clouds, heavily daubed draperies,
and dirty floors. He looked about him; ceiling, pit, boxes,
gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of every kind, —
all looked coarse, cold, gloomy, and wretched.

"Is this a theatre?" whispered Smike, in amazement,
"I thought is was a blaze of light and finery."

"Why, so it is," replied Nicholas, hardly less surprised;
"but not by day, Smike — not by day."

The manager's voice recalled him from a more careful
inspection of the building, to the opposite side of the pro-
scenium, where, at a small mahogany table with rickety
legs and of an oblong shape, sat a stout, portly female,
apparently between forty and fifty, in a tarnished silk cloak,
with her bonnet dangling by the strings in her hand, and
her hair (of which she had a great quantity) braided in a
large festoon over each temple.

"Mr. Johnson," said the manager (for Nicholas had given

136 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the name which Newman Noggs had bestowed upon him in
his conversation with Mrs. Kenwigs), "let me introduce
Mrs. Vincent Crummies."

"I am glad to see you, sir," said Mrs. Vincent Crummies,
in a sepulchral voice. "I am very glad to see you, and still
more happy to hail you as a promising member of our corps."

The lady shook Nicholas by the hand as she addressed
him in these terms; he saw it was a large one, but had
not expected quite such an iron grip as that with which she
honoured him.

"And this," said the lady, crossing to Smike, as tragic
actresses cross when they obey a stage direction, "and this
is the other. You too, are welcome, sir."

"He'll do, I think, my dear?" said the manager, taking
a pinch of snuff.

"He is admirable," replied the lady. "An acquisition,
indeed."

As Mrs. Vincent Crummies recrossed back to the table,
there bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet,
a little girl in a dirty white frock with tucks up to the knees,
short trousers, sandaled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze
bonnet, green veil and curl papers; who turned a pirouette,
cut twice in the air, turned another pirouette, then, looking
off at the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to
within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful
attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of
buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering
his teeth, fiercely brandished a walking-stick.

"They are going through the Indian Savage and the
Maiden," said Mrs. Crummies.

"Oh!" said the manager, "the little ballet interlude.
Very good, go on. A little this way, if you please, Mr.
Johnson. That'll do. Now!"

The manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed,
and the savage, becoming ferocious, made a slide towards

The Vincent Crummies Company 137

the maiden; but the maiden avoided him in six twirls, and
came down, at the end of the last one, upon the very points
of her toes. This seemed to make some impression upon
the savage; for, after a little more ferocity and chasing of
the maiden into corners, he began to relent, and stroked
his face several times with his right thumb and four fingers,
thereby intimating that he was struck with admiration of
the maiden's beauty. Acting upon the impulse of this
passion, he (the savage) began to hit himself severe thumps
in the chest, and to exhibit other indications of being
desperately in love, which being rather a prosy proceeding,
was very likely the cause of the maiden's falling asleep;
whether it was or no, asleep she did fall, sound as a church,
on a sloping bank, and the savage perceiving it, leant his
left ear on his left hand, and nodded sideways, to intimate
to all whom it might concern that she was asleep, and no
shamming. Being left to himself, the savage had a dance,
all alone. Just as he left off, the maiden woke up, rubbed
her eyes, got off the bank, and had a dance all alone too —
such a dance that the savage looked on in ecstasy all the
while, and when it was done, plucked from a neighbouring
tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small pickled
cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first wouldn't
have it, but on the savage shedding tears relented. Then
the savage jumped for joy; then the maiden jumped for
rapture at the sweet smell of the pickled cabbage. Then
the savage and the maiden danced violently together, and,
finally, the savage dropped down on one knee, and the
maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus con-
cluding the ballet, and leaving the spectators in a state of
pleasing uncertainty, whether she would ultimately marry
the savage, or return to her friends.

"Very well indeed," said Mr. Crummies; "bravo!"
"Bravo!" cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of
everything. "Beautiful!"

138 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"This, sir," said Mr. Vincent Crummies, bringing the
maiden forward, "this is the infant phenomenon — Miss
Ninetta Crummies."

"Your daughter?" inquired Nicholas.

"My daughter — my daughter," replied Mr. Vincent
Crummies; "the idol of every place we go into, sir. We
have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the
nobility and gentry of almost every town in England."

"I am not surprised at that," said Nicholas; "she must
be quite a natural genius."

"Quite a !" Mr. Crummies stopped: language was

not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon.
"I'll tell you what, sir," he said; "the talent of this child is
not to be imagined. She must be seen, sir — seen — to be
ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother, my
dear."

"May I ask how old she is?" inquired Nicholas.

"You may, sir," replied Mr. Crummies, looking steadily
in his questioner's face, as some men do when they have
doubts about being implicitly believed in what they are
going to say. "She is ten years of age, sir."

"Not more?"

*'Not a day."

"Dear me!" said Nicholas, "it's extraordinary."

It was; for the infant phenomenon, though of short
stature, had a comparatively aged countenance, and had
moreover been precisely the same age — not perhaps to the
full extent of the memory of the oldest inhabitant, but
certainly for five good years. But she had been kept up
late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin-
and-water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and
perhaps this system of training had produced in the infant
phenomenon these additional phenomena.

While this short dialogue was going on, the gentleman
who had enacted the savage, came up, with his walking

The Vincent Crummies Company 139

shoes on his feet, and his sHppers in his hand, to within a
few paces, as if desirous to join in the conversation. Deem-
ing this a good opportunity, he put in his word.

"Talent there, sir!" said the savage, nodding towards
Miss Crummies.

Nicholas assented.

"Ah!" said the actor, setting his teeth together, and
drawing in his breath with a hissing sound, "she oughtn't
to be in the provinces, she oughtn't."

"What do you mean?" asked the manager.

"I mean to say," replied the other, warmly, "that she is
too good for country boards, and that she ought to be in one
of the large houses in London, or nowhere; and I tell you
more, without mincing the matter, that if it wasn't for envy
and jealousy in some quarter that you know of, she would
be. Perhaps you'll introduce me here, Mr. Crummies."

"Mr. Folair," said the manager, presenting him to
Nicholas.

"Happy to know you, sir." Mr. Folair touched the brim
of his hat with his forefinger, and then shook hands. "A
recruit, sir, I understand.'*"

"Did you ever see such a set-out as that?" whispered the
actor, drawing him away, as Crummies left them to speak
to his wife.

"As what?"

Mr. Folair made a funny face from his pantomime col-
lection, and pointed over his shoulder.

"You don't mean the infant phenomenon?"

"Infant humbug, sir," replied Mr. Folair. "There isn't
a female child of common sharpness in a charity school, that
couldn't do better than that. She may thank her stars she
was born a manager's daughter."

"You seem to take it to heart," observed Nicholas, with a
smile.

"Yes, by Jove, and well I may," said Mr. Folair, drawing

140 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

his arm through his, and walking him up and down the
stage. "Isn't it enough to make a man crusty to see that
little sprawler put up in the best business every night, and
actually keeping money out of the house, by being forced
down the people's throats, while other people are passed
over? Isn't it extraordinary to see a man's confounded
family conceit blinding him, even to his own interest? Why
I know of fifteen and sixpence that came to Southampton
one night last month, to see me dance the Highland Fling;
and what's the consequence? I've never been put up in it
since — never once — while the 'infant phenomenon' has
been grinning through artificial flowers at five people and a
baby in the pit, and two boys in the gallery, every night."

"If I may judge from what I have seen of you," said
Nicholas, "you must be a valuable member of thecompany."

"Oh!" replied Mr. Folair, beating his slippers together,
to knock the dust out; "I can come it pretty well — nobody
better perhaps, in my own line — but having such business
as one gets here, is like putting lead on one's feet instead of
chalk, and dancing in fetters without the credit of it.
Holloa, old fellow, how are you?"

The gentleman addressed in these latter words, was a
dark-complexioned man, inclining indeed to sallow, with
long thick black hair, and very evident indications (al-
though he was close shaved) of a stiff beard, and whiskers of
the same deep shade. His age did not appear to exceed
thirty, though many at first sight would have considered
him much older, as his face was long, and very pale, from
the constant application of stage paint. He wore a checked
shirt, an old green coat with new gilt buttons, a necker-
chief of broad red and green stripes, and full blue trousers;
he carried, too, a common ash walking-stick, apparently
more for show than use, as he flourished it about, with the
hooked end downwards, except when he raised it for a few
seconds, and throwing himself into a fencing attitude, made a

The Vincent Crummies Company 141

pass or two at the side-scenes, or at any other object,
animate or inanimate, that chanced to afford him a pretty
good mark at the moment.

"Well, Tommy," said this gentleman, making a thrust
at his friend, who parried it dexterously with his slipper,
"what's the news?"

"A new appearance, that's all," replied Mr. Folair,
looking at Nicholas.

"Do the honours, Tommy, do the honours," said the
other gentleman, tapping him reproachfully on the crown of
the hat with his stick.

"This is Mr. Lenville, who does our first tragedy, Mr.
Johnson," said the pantomimist.

" Except when old bricks and mortar takes it into his
head to do it himself, you should add. Tommy," remarked
Mr. Lenville. "You know who bricks and mortar is, I sup-
pose, sir?'

"I do not, indeed," replied Nicholas.

"We call Crummies that, because his style of acting is
rather in the heavy and ponderous way," said Mr. Lenville.
"I mustn't be cracking jokes though, for I've got a part of
twelve lengths here, which I must be up in to-morrow night,
and I haven't had time to look at it yet; I'm a confounded
quick study, that's one comfort."

Consoling himself with this reflection, Mr. Lenville drew
from his coat-pocket a greasy and crumpled manuscript,
and, having made another pass at his friend, proceeded to
walk to and fro conning it to himself and indulging occasion-
ally in such appropriate action as his imagination and the
text suggested.

A pretty general muster of the company had by this time
taken place; for besides Mr. Lenville and his friend Tommy,
there were present, a slim young gentleman with weak eyes,
who played the low-spirited lovers and sang tenor songs,
and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic countryman

142 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

— a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face and
staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the infant
phenomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the
last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous
old men; and paying especial court to Mrs. Crummies was
another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who
played the irascible old men — those funny fellows who have
nephews in the army, and perpetually run about with thick
sticks to compel them to marry heiresses. Besides these,
there was a roving-looking person in a rough great-coat,
who strode up and down in front of the lamps, flourishing a
dress-cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great
vivacity for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was
not quite so young as he had been, and his figure was rather
running to seed, but there was an air of exaggerated gentil-
ity about him, which bespoke the hero of swaggering
comedy. There was, also, a little group of three or four
young men, with lantern jaws and thick eyebrows, who were
conversing in one corner; but they seemed to be of second-
ary importance, and laughed and talked together without
attracting any attention.

The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves
round the rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss
Snevellicci — who could do anything, from a medley dance
to Lady Macbeth, and also always played some part in blue
silk knee-smalls at her benefit — glancing, from the depths
of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and affecting
to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting story to her
friend Miss Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was
making up a ruff in the most natural manner possible.
There was Miss Belvawney — who seldom aspired to speak-
ing parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose,
to stand with one leg bent, and contemplate the audience,
or to go in and out after Mr. Crummies in stately tragedy —
twisting up the ringlets of the beautiful Miss Bravassa, who

The Vincent Crummies Company 143

had once had her likeness taken "in character" by an en-
graver's apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up for
sale in the pastry-cook's window, and the greengrocer's, and
at the circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the
announce bills came out for her annual night. There was
Mrs. Lenville, in a very limp bonnet and veil, decidedly in
that way in which she would wish to be if she truly loved
Mr. Lenville; there was Miss Gazingi, with an imitation
ermine boa tied in a loose knot round her neck, flogging Mr.
Crummies, junior, with both ends, in fun. Lastly, there
was Mrs. Grudden in a brown cloth pelisse and a beaver
bonnet who assisted Mrs. Crummies in her domestic affairs
and took money at the doors, and dressed the ladies, and
swept the house, and held the prompt book when everybody
else was on for the last scene, and acted any kind of part on
any emergency without ever learning it, and was put down
in the bills under any name or names whatever, that
occurred to Mr. Crummies as looking well in print.

Mr. Folair having obligingly confided these particulars to
Nicholas, left him to mingle with his fellows; the work of
personal introduction was completed by Mr. Vincent
Crummies, who publicly heralded the new actor as a prodigy
of genius and learning.

"I beg your pardon," said Miss Snevellicci, sidling
towards Nicholas, "but did you ever play at Canterbury?"

"I never did," replied Nicholas.

"I recollect meeting a gentleman at Canterbury," said
Miss Snevellicci, "only for a few moments, for I was leaving
the company as he joined it, so like you that I felt almost
certain it was the samej'

"I see you now, for the first time," rejoined Nicholas
with all due gallantry. " I am sure I never saw you before;
I couldn't have forgotten it."

"Oh, I'm sure — it's very flattering of you to say so,'*
retorted Miss Snevellicci with a graceful bend. "Now I

144 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

look at you again, I see that the gentleman at Canterbury
hadn't the same eyes as you — you'll think nic very foolish
for taking notice of such things, won't you?"

"Not at all," said Nicholas. "How can I feel otherwise
than flattered by your notice in any way?"

"Oh! you men are such vain creatures!" cried Miss
Snevellicci. Whereupon, she became charmingly confused,
and, pulling out her pocket-handkerchief from a faded pink
silk reticule with a gilt clasp, called to Miss Ledrook —

"Led, my dear," said Miss Snevellicci.

"Well, what is the matter?" said Miss Ledrook.

"It's not the same."

"Not the same what?"

"Canterbury — you know what I mean. Come here! I
want to speak to you."

But Miss Ledrook wouldn't come to Miss Snevellicci, so
Miss Snevellicci was obliged to go to Miss Ledrook, which
she did, in a skipping manner that was quite fascinating;
and Miss Ledrook evidently joked Miss Snevellicci about
being struck with Nicholas ; for, after some playful whisper-
ing. Miss Snevellicci hit Miss Ledrook very hard on the
backs of her hands, and retired up, in a state of pleasing
confusion.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Vincent Crummies,
who had been writing on a piece of paper "we'll call the
Mortal Struggle to-morrow at ten; everybody for the pro-
cession. Intrigue, and Ways and Means, you're all up in,
so we shall only want one rehearsal. Everybody at ten, if
you please."

"Everybody at ten," repeated Mrs. Grudden, looking
about her.

"On Monday morning we shall read a new piece," said
Mr. Crummies; "the name's not known yet, but every-
body will have a good part. Mr. Johnson will take care
of that."

The Vincent Crummies Company 145

"Hallo!" said Nicholas, starting, "I "

"On Monday morning," repeated Mr. Crummies, raising
his voice, to drown the unfortunate Mr. Johnson's remon-
strance; "that'll do, ladies and gentlemen."

The ladies and gentlemen required no second notice to
quit; and, in a few minutes, the theatre was deserted, save
by the Crummies family, Nicholas, and Smike.

"Upon my word," said Nicholas, taking the manager
aside, "I don't think I can be ready by Monday."

"Pooh, pooh," replied Mr. Crummies.

"But really I can't," returned Nicholas; "my invention
is not accustomed to these demands, or possibly I might
produce "

"Invention! what the devil's that got to do with it!"
cried the manager, hastily.

"Everything, my dear sir."

"Nothing, my dear sir," retorted the manager, with
evident impatience. "Do you understand French?"

"Perfectly well."

"Very good," said the manager, opening the table-
drawer, and giving a roll of paper from it to Nicholas.
" There ! Just turn that into English, and put your name on
the title-page. Damn me," said Mr. Crummies, angrily,
"if I haven't often said that I wouldn't have a man or
woman in my company that wasn't master of the language,
so that they might learn it from the original, and play it in
English, and save all this trouble and expense."

Nicholas smiled and pocketed the play.

"What are you going to do about your lodgings?" said
Mr. Crummies.

Nicholas could not help thinking that, for the first week,
it would be an uncommon convenience to have a turn-up
bedstead in the pit, but he merely remarked that he had
not turned his thoughts that way.

"Come home with me then," said Mr. Crummies, "and
10

146 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

my boys shall go with you after dinner, and show you the
most likely place."

The offer was not to be refused; Nicholas and Mr.
Crummies gave Mrs. Crummies an arm each, and walked
up the street in stately array. Smike, the boys, and the
phenomenon, went home by a shorter cut, and Mrs.
Grudden remained behind to take some cold Irish stew and
a pint of porter in the box-office.

Mrs. Crummies trod the pavement as if she were going
to immediate execution with an animating consciousness of
innocence, and that heroic fortitude which virtue alone in-
spires. Mr. Crummies, on the other hand, assumed the
look and gait of a hardened despot; but they both attracted
some notice from many of the passers-by, and when they
heard a whisper of " Mr. and Mrs. Crummies ! " or saw a little
boy run back to stare them in the face, the severe expression
of their countenances relaxed, for they felt it was popularity.

Mr. Crummies lived in Saint Thomas's Street, at the
house of one Bulph, a pilot, who sported a boat-green door,
with window-frames of the same colour, and had the little
finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantel-shelf, with
other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed also a
brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all
very bright and shining ; and had a mast, with a vane on the
top of it, in his back yard.

"You are welcome," said Mrs. Crummies, turning round
to Nicholas when they reached the bow-windowed front
room on the first floor.

Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was un-
feignedly glad to see the cloth laid.

"We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,"
said Mrs. Crummies, in the same charnel-house voice; "but
such as our dinner is, we beg you to partake of it."

"You are very good," replied Nicholas, "I shall do it
ample justice."

The Vincent Crummies Company i47

"Vincent," said Mrs. Crummies, "what is the hour?"

"Five minutes past dinner-time," said Mr. Crummies.

Mrs. Crummies rang the bell. "Let the mutton and
onion sauce appear."

The slave who attended upon Mr. Bulph's lodgers, dis-
appeared, and after a short interval re-appeared with the
festive banquet. Nicholas and the infant phenomenon
opposed each other at the pembroke-table, and Smike and
the Master Crummleses dined on the sofa bedstead.

"Are they very theatrical people here?" asked Nicholas.

"No," replied Mr. Crummies, shaking his head, "far
from it — far from it."

"I pity them," observed Mrs. Crummies.

"So do I," said Nicholas; "if they have no relish for
theatrical entertainments, properly conducted."

"Then they have none, sir," rejoined Mr. Crummies.
"To the infant's benefit, last year, on which occasion she
repeated three of her most popular characters, and also
appeared in the Fairy Porcupine, as originally performed by
her, there was a house of no more than four pound twelve."

"Is it possible?" cried Nicholas.

"And two pound of that was trust, pa," said the phenom-
enon.

"And two pound of that was trust," repeated Mr.
Crummies. "Mrs. Crummies herself has played to mere
handfuls."

"But they are always a taking audience, Vincent," said
the manager's wife.

"Most audiences are, when they have good acting — real
good acting — the regular thing," replied Mr. Crummies,
forcibly.

'Do you give lesssons, ma'am?" inquired Nicholas.
1 do," said Mrs. Crummies.

"There is no teaching here, I suppose?"

"There has been," said Mrs. Crummies. "I have ra-

te '

148 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

ceived pupils here, I imparted tuition to the daughter of a
dealer in ships' provision; but it afterwards appeared that
she was insane when she first came to me. It was very
extraordinary that she should come, under such circum-
stances."

Not feeling quite so sure of that, Nicholas thought it best
to hold his peace.

"Let me see," said the manager cogitating after dinner.
"Would you like some nice little part with the infant?"

"You are very good," replied Nicholas hastily; "but I
think perhaps it would be better if I had somebody of my
own size at first, in case I should turn out awkward. I
should feel more at home perhaps."

"True," said the manager. "Perhaps you would. And
you could play up to the infant, in time, you know."

"Certainly," replied Nicholas: devoutly hoping that it
would be a very long time before he was honoured with this
distinction.

"Then I'll tell you what we'll do," said Mr. Crummies.
"You shall study Romeo when you've done that piece —
don't forget to throw the pump and tubs in by-the-bye —
Juliet Miss Snevellicci, old Grudden the nurse. — Yes, that'll
do very well. Rover too; — you might get up Rover while
you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler. You
can easily knock them off; one part helps the other so much.
Here they are, cues and all."

With these hasty general directions Mr. Crummies thrust
a number of little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas,
and bidding his eldest son go with him and show where
lodgings were to be had, shook him by the hand, and wished
him good night.

There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in
Portsmouth, and no difficulty in finding some that are pro-
portionate to very slender finances; but the former were too
good, and the latter too bad, and they went into so many

The Vincent Crummies Company 149

houses, and came out unsuited, that Nicholas seriously
began to think he should be obliged to ask permission to
spend the night in the theatre, after all.

Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small
rooms up three pair of stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder,
at a tobacconist's shop, on the Common Hard: a dirty
street leading down to the dockyard. These Nicholas
engaged, only too happy to have escaped any request for
payment of a week's rent beforehand.

"There! Lay down our personal property, Smike," he
said, after showing young Crummies downstairs. "We
have fallen upon strange times, and Heaven only knows the
end of them; but I am tired with the events of these three
days and will postpone reflection till to-morrow — if I can."

2. — OF THE GREAT BESPEAK FOR MISS SNEVELLICCI, AND THE
FIRST APPEARANCE OF NICHOLAS UPON ANY STAGE

Nicholas was up betimes in the morning; but he had
scarcely begun to dress, notwithstanding, when he heard
footsteps ascending the stairs, and was presently saluted by
the voices of Mr. Folair the pantomimist, and Mr. Lenville
the tragedian.

"House, house, house!" cried Mr. Folair.

"What, ho! within there!" said Mr. Lenville, in a deep
voice.

Confound these fellows! thought Nicholas; they have
come to breakfast, I suppose. "I'll open the door directly,
if you'll wait an instant."

The gentlemen entreated him not to hurry himself; and,
to beguile the interval had a fencing-bout with their
walking-sticks on the very small landing-place: to the
unspeakable discomposure of all the other lodgers down-
stairs.

"Here, come in," said Nicholas, when he had completed

150 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

his toilet. "In the name of all that's horrible, don't make
that noise outside."

"An uncommon snug little box this," said Mr. Lenville,
stepping into the front room, and taking his hat off, before
he could get in at all. "Pernicious snug."

"For a man at all particular in such matters, it might be
a trifle too snug," said Nicholas; "for, although it is, un-
doubtedly, a great convenience to be able to reach anything
you want from the ceiling or the floor, or either side of the
room, without having to move from your chair, still these
advantages can only be had in an apartment of the most
limited size."

"It isn't a bit too confined for a single man," returned
Mr, Lenville. "That reminds me, — my wife, Mr. John-
son, — I hope she'll have some good part in this piece of
yours.''

"I glanced at the French copy last night," said Nicholas.
"It looks very good, I think."

"What do you mean to do for me, old fellow?" asked Mr.
Lenville, poking the struggling fire with his walking-stick,
and afterwards wiping it on the skirt of his coat. "Any-
thing in the gruff and grumble way?"

"You turn your wife and child out of doors," said
Nicholas; "and in a fit of rage and jealousy, stab your eldest
son in the library."

"Do I though!" exclaimed Mr. Lenville. "That's very
good business."

"After which," said Nicholas, "you are troubled with
remorse till the last act and then you make up your mind
to destroy yourself. But, just as you are raising the pistol
to your head, a clock strikes — ten."

"I see," cried Mr. Lenville. "Very good."

"You pause," said Nicholas; "you recollect to have heard
a clock strike ten in your infancy. The pistol falls from
your hand — you are overcome — you burst into tears, and

The Vincent Crummies Company 151

become a virtuous and exemplary character for ever after-
wards."

"Capital!" said Mr. Lenville: "that's a sure card, a sure
card. Get the curtain down with a touch of nature like
that — and it'll be a triumphant success."

"Is there anything good for me?" inquired Mr. Folair,
anxiously.

"Let me see," said Nicholas. "You play the faithful
and attached servant; you are turned out of doors with the
wife and child."

"Always coupled with that infernal phenomenon,"
sighed Mr. Folair; "and we go into poor lodgings, where
I won't take any wages, and talk sentiment, I suppose?"

"Why — ^yes," replied Nicholas: "that is the course of the
piece."

"I must have a dance of some kind, you know," said Mr.
Folair. "You'll have to introduce one for the phenomenon,
so you'd better make a pas de deux, and save time."

"There's nothing easier than that," said Mr. Lenville,
observing the disturbed looks of the young dramatist.

"Upon my word I don't see how it's to be done," rejoined
Nicholas.

"Why, isn't it obvious?" reasoned Mr. Lenville. "Gad-
zooks, who can help seeing the way to do it? — you astonish
me! You get the distressed lady, and the little child, and
the attached servant, into the poor lodgings, don't you?
— Well, look here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair
and buries her face in her pocket-handkerchief — 'What
makes you weep, mama?' says the child. 'Don't weep
mama, or you'll make me weep too !' — ' And me ! ' says the
faithful servant, rubbing his eyes with his arm. ' What can
we do to raise your spirits, dear mama?' says the little
child. 'Aye, what can we do?' says the faithful servant.
'Oh, Pierre!' says the distressed lady; 'would that I could
shake off these painful thoughts.' — 'Try, ma'am, try,' says

152 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the faithful servant; 'rouse yourself, ma'am; be amused.* —
'I will,' says the lady, 'I will learn to suffer with fortitude.
Do you remember that dance, my honest friend, which, in
happier days, you practised with this sweet angel? It never
failed to calm my spirits then. Oh ! let me see it once again
before I die ! ' — There it is — cue for the band, before I die, —
and off they go. That's the regular thing : isn't it, Tommy? "

"That's it," replied Mr. Folair. "The distressed lady,
overpowered by old recollections, faints at the end of the
dance, and you close in with a picture."

ProlBting by these and other lessons, which were the result
of the personal experience of the two actors, Nicholas will-
ingly gave them the best breakfast he could, and, when he
at length got rid of them, applied himself to his task : by no
means displeased to find that it was so much easier than he
had at first supposed. He worked very hard all day, and
did not leave his room until the evening, when he went
down to the theatre, whither Smike had repaired before him
to go on with another gentleman as a general rebellion.

Here all the people were so much changed, that he scarcely
knew them. False hair, false colour, false calves, false
muscles — they had become different beings. Mr. Lenville
was a blooming warrior of most exquisite proportions; Mr.
Crummies, his large face shaded by a profusion of black
hair, a Highland outlaw of most majestic bearing; one of
the old gentlemen a gaoler, and the other a venerable
patriarch; the comic countryman, a fighting-man of great
valour, relieved by a touch of humour; each of the Master
Crummies a prince in his own right; and the low-spirited
lover, a desponding captive. There was a gorgeous ban-
quet ready spread for the third act, consisting of two paste-
board vases, one plate of biscuits, a black bottle and a
vinegar cruet ; and, in short, everything was on a scale of the
utmost splendour and preparation.

Nicholas was standing with his back to the curtain, now

The Vincent Crummies Company 153

contemi)lating the first scene, which was a Gothic archway,
about two feet shorter than Mr. Crummies, through which
that gentleman was to make his first entrance, and now
listening to a couple of people who were cracking nuts in
the gallery, wondering whether they made the whole audi-
ence, when the manager himself walked familiarly up and
accosted him.

"Been in front to-night?" said Mr. Crummies.

"No," replied Nicholas, "not yet. I am going to see the

play."

"We've had a pretty good Let," said Mr. Crummies.
"Four front places in the centre, and the whole of the
stage-box."

"Oh, indeed!" said Nicholas; "a family, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Crummies, "yes. It's an affecting
thing. There are six children and they never come unless
the phenomenon plays."

It would have been difficult for any party, family or
otherwise, to have visited the theatre on a night when the
phenomenon did not play, inasmuch as she always sustained
one, and not uncommonly two or three characters, every
night; but Nicholas, sympathising with the feelings of a
father, refrained from hinting at this trifling circumstance,
and Mr. Crummies continued to talk, uninterrupted by him.

"Six," said that gentleman; "Pa and Ma eight, aunt
nine, governess ten, grandfather and grandmother twelve.
Then, there's the footman, who stands outside, with a bag
of oranges and a jug of toast-and-water, and sees the play
for nothing through the little pane of glass in the box-door —
it's cheap at a guinea; they gain by taking a box."

"I wonder you allow so many," observed Nicholas.

"There's no help for it," replied Mr. Crummies; "it's
always expected in the country. If there are six children,
six people come to hold them in their laps. A family-box
carries double always. Ring in the orchestra, Grudden!"

154 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

That useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly
afterwards the tuning of three fiddles was heard. Which
process having been protracted as long as it was supposed
that the patience of the audience could possibly bear it, was
put a stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, being the
signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra playing a variety
of popular airs, with involuntary variations.

If Nicholas had been astonished at the alteration for the
better which the gentlemen displayed, the transformation of
thd ladies was still more extraordinary. When, from a snug
corner of the manager's box, he beheld Miss Snevellicci in all
the glories of white muslin with a golden hem, and Mrs.
Crummies in all the dignity of the outlaw's wife, and Miss
Bravassa in all the sweetness of Miss Snevellicci 's con-
fidential friend, and Miss Belvawney in the white silks of
a page doing duty everywhere, and swearing to live and die
in the service of everybody, he could scarcely contain his ad-
miration, which testified itself in great applause, and the
closest possible attention to the business of the scene. The
plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular
age, people, or country, and was perhaps the most delightful
on that account, as nobody's previous information could
afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come
of it. An outlaw had been very successful in doing some-
thing somewhere, and came home, in triumph, to the sound
of shouts and fiddles, to greet his wife — a lady of masculine
mind, who talked a good deal about her father's bones,
which it seemed were unburied, though whether from a pecu-
liar taste on the part of the old gentleman himself, or the
reprehensible neglect of his relations, did not appear. The
outlaw's wife was, somehow or other, mixed up with a patri-
arch, living in a castle a long way off, and this patriarch
was the father of several of the characters, but he didn't
exactly know which, and was uncertain whether he had
brought up the right ones in his castle, or the wrong ones;

The Vincent Crummies Company 155

he rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy,
relieved his mind with a banquet during which solemnity
somebody in a cloak said "Beware!" which somebody was
known by nobody (except the audience) to be the outlaw
himself, who had come there, for reasons unexplained, but
possibly with an eye to the spoons. There was an agreeable
little surprise in the way of certain love passages between
the desponding captive and Miss Snevellicci, and the comic
fighting-man and Miss Bravassa; besides which, Mr. Len-
ville had several very tragic scenes in the dark, while on
throat-cutting expeditions, which were all baffled by the
skill and bravery of the comic fighting-man (who overheard
whatever was said all through the piece) and the intrepidity
of Miss Snevellicci, who adopted tights, and therein re-
paired to the prison of her captive lover, with a small basket
of refreshments and a dark lantern. At last, it came out
that the patriarch was the man who had treated the bones
of the outlaw's father-in-law with so much disrespect, for
which cause and reason the outlaw's wife repaired to his
castle to kill him, and so got into a dark room, where, after
a good deal of groping in the dark, everybody got hold of
everybody else, and took them for somebody besides, which
occasioned a vast quantity of confusion, with some pistol-
ling, loss of life, and torchlight; after which, the patriarch
came forward, and observing, with a knowing look, that
he knew all about his children now, and would tell them
when they got inside, said that there could not be a more
appropriate occasion for marrying the young people than
that; and therefore he joined their hands, with the full con-
sent of the indefatigable page, who (being the only other
person surviving) pointed with his cap into the clouds, and
his right hand to the ground; thereby invoking a blessing
and giving the cue for the curtain to come down, which it
did, amidst general applause.

"What did you think of that?" asked Mr. Crummies,

156 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

when Nicholas went round to the stage again. Mr.
Crummies was very red and hot, for your outlaws are
desperate fellows to shout.

"I think it was very capital indeed," replied Nicholas;
"Miss Snevellicci in particular was uncommonly good."

"She's a genius," said Mr. Crummies; "quite a genius,
that girl. By-the-bye, I've been thinking of bringing out
that piece of yours on her bespeak night."

"When?" asked Nicholas.

"The night of her bespeak. Her benefit night, when her
friends and patrons bespeak the play," said Mr. Crummies.

"Oh! I understand," replied Nicholas.

"You see," said Mr. Crummies, "it's sure to go, on such
an occasion, and even if it should not work up quite as well
as we expect, why it will be her risk, you know, and not
ours."

"Yours, you mean," said Nicholas.

"I said mine, didn't I?" returned Mr. Crummies. "Next
Monday week. What do you say? You'll have done it,
and are sure to be up in the lover's part, long before that
time."

"I don't know about 'long before,'" replied Nicholas;
"but hy that time I think I can undertake to be ready."

"Very good," pursued Mr. Crummies, "then we'll call
that settled. Now, I want to ask you something else.
There's a little — what shall I call it — a little canvassing
takes place on these occasions."

"Among the patrons, I suppose?" said Nicholas.

"Among the patrons; and the fact is, that Snevellicci has
had so many bespeaks in this place, that she wants an at-
traction. She had a bespeak when her mother-in-law died,
and a bespeak when her uncle died; and Mrs. Crummies and
myself have had bespeaks on the anniversary of the phenom-
enon's birthday, and our wedding-day, and occasions of
that description, so that, in fact, there's some diflBculty in

The Vincent Crummies Company i57

getting a good one. Now, won't you help this poor girl,
Mr. Johnson?" said Crummies, sitting himself down on a
drum, and taking a great pinch of snuff, as he looked him
steadily in the face.

"How do you mean?" rejoined Nicholas.

"Don't you think you could spare half-an-hour to-mor-
row morning, to call with her at the houses of one or two of
the principal people?" murmured the manager in a per-
suasive tone.

"Oh dear me," said Nicholas, with an air of very strong
objection, "I shouldn't like to do that."

"The infant will accompany her," said Mr. Crummies,
"The moment it was suggested to me, I gave permission for
the infant to go. There will not be the smallest impropriety
— Miss Snevellicci, sir, is the very soul of honour. It would
be of material service — the gentleman from London — au-
thor of the new piece — actor in the new piece — first appear-
ance on any boards — it would lead to a great bespeak,
Mr. Johnson."

"I am very sorry to throw a damp upon the prospects of
anybody, and more especially a lady," replied Nicholas;
"but really I must decidedly object to making one of the
canvassing party."

"What does Mr. Johnson say, Vincent?" inquired a voice
close to his ear; and, looking round, he found Mrs. Crummies
and Miss Snevellicci herself standing behind him.

"He has some objection, my dear," replied Mr.
Crummies, looking at Nicholas.

"Objection!" exclaimed Mrs. Crummies. "Can it be
possible?"

"Oh, I hope not!" cried Miss Snevellicci. "You surely
are not so cruel — oh, dear me!^ — Well I — to think of that
now, after all one's looking forward to it!"

"Mr. Johnson will not persist, my dear," said Mrs.
Crummies. "Think better of him than to suppose it.

158 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Gallantry, humanity, all the best feelings of his nature,
must be enlisted in this interesting cause."

"Which moves even a manager," said Mr. Crummies,
smiling.

"And a manager's wife," added Mrs. Crummies, in her
accustomed tragedy tones. "Come, come, you will relent,
I know you will."

"It is not in my nature," said Nicholas, moved by these
appeals, "to resist any entreaty, unless it is to do something
positively wrong; and, beyond a feeling of pride, I know
nothing which should prevent my doing this. I know
nobody here, and nobody knows me. So be it then. I
yield."

Miss Snevellicci was at once overwhelmed with blushes
and expressions of gratitude, of which latter commodity
neither Mr. nor Mrs. Crummies was by any means sparing.
It was arranged that Nicholas should call upon her, at her
lodgings, at eleven next morning, and soon after they
parted : he to return home to his authorship : Miss Snevellicci
to dress for the after-piece: and the disinterested manager
and his wife to discuss the probable gains of the forthcoming
bespeak, of which they were to have two-thirds of the profits
by solemn treaty of agreement.

At the stipulated hour next morning, Nicholas repaired to
the lodgings of Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place
called Lombard Street, at the house of a tailor. A strong
smell of ironing pervaded the little passage; and the tailor's
daughter, who opened the door, appeared in that flutter of
spirits which is so often attendant upon the periodical
getting up of a family's linen.

"Miss Snevellicci lives here, I believe?" said Nicholas,
when the door was opened.

The tailor's daughter replied in the aflBrmative.

"Will you have the goodness to let her know that Mr.
Johnson is here?" said Nicholas.

The Vincent Crummies Company 159

"Oh, if you please, you're to come upstairs," replied the
tailor's daughter, with a smile.

Nicholas followed the young lady, and was shown into a
small apartment on the first floor, communicating with a
back room; in which, as he judged from a certain half-
subdued clinking sound, as of cups and saucers. Miss
Snevellicci was then taking her breakfast in bed.

" You're to wait, if you please," said the tailor's daughter,
after a short period of absence, during which the clinking in
the back room had ceased, and had been succeeded by
whispering — "She won't be long."

As she spoke she pulled up the window-blind, and having
by this means (as she thought) diverted Mr. Johnson's at-
tention from the room to the street, caught up some articles
which were airing on the fender, and had very much the
appearance of stockings, and darted off.

As there were not many objects of interest outside the
window Nicholas looked about the room with more curiosity
than he might otherwise have bestowed upon it. On the
sofa lay an old guitar, several thumbed pieces of music, and
a scattered litter of curl-papers: together with a confused
heap of play-bills, and a pair of soiled white satin shoes with
large blue rosettes. Hanging over the back of a chair was
a half -finished muslin apron with little pockets ornamented
with red ribbons, such as waiting-women wear on the stage,
and (by consequence) are never seen with anywhere else.
In one corner stood the diminutive pair of top-boots in
which Miss Snevellicci was accustomed to enact the little
jockey, and, folded on a chair hard by, was a small parcel
which bore a very suspicious resemblance to the companion
smalls.

But the most interesting object of all, was, perhaps, the
open scrap-book, displayed in the midst of some theatrical
duodecimos that were strewn upon the table; and pasted
into which scrap-book were various critical notices of Miss

i6o Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Snevellicci's acting, extracted from different provincial
journals, together with one poetic address in her honour
commencing —

Sing, God of Love, and tell me in what dearth
Thrice-gifted Snevellicci came on earth,
To thrill us with her smile, her tear, her eye.
Sing, God of Love, and tell me quickly why.

Besides this effusion, there were innumerable complimentary
allusions, also extracted from newspapers, such as — "We
observe from an advertisement in another part of our paper
of to-day, that the charming and highly-talented Miss
Snevellicci takes her benefit on Wednesday, for which occa-
sion she has put forth a bill of fare that might kindle exhila-
ration in the breast of a misanthrope. In the confidence
that our fellow-townsmen have not lost that high apprecia-
tion of public utility and private worth for which they have
long been so pre-eminently distinguished, we predict that
this charming actress will be greeted with a bumper." "To
Correspondents. — J. S. is misinformed when he supposes
that the highly-gifted and beautiful Miss Snevellicci,
nightly captivating all hearts at our pretty and commodi-
ous little theatre, is not the same lady to whom the young
gentleman of immense fortune, residing within a hundred
miles of the good city of York, lately made honourable
proposals. We have reason to know that Miss Snevellicci
is the lady who was implicated in that mysterious and
romantic affair, and whose conduct on that occasion did no
less honour to her head and heart, than do her histrionic
triumphs to her brilliant genius." A copious assortment
of such paragraphs as these, with long bills of benefits all
ending with "Come Early," in large capitals, formed the
principal contents of Miss Snevellicci's scrap-book.

Nicholas had read a great many of these scraps, and was
absorbed in a circumstantial and melancholy account of the

The Vincent Crummies Company i6i

train of events which had led to Miss SneveUicci's spraining
her ankle by slipping on a piece of orange-peel flung by a
monster in human form (so the paper said), upon the stage
at Winchester, — when the young lady herself, attired in the
coal-scuttle bonnet and walking-dress complete, tripped into
the room with a thousand apologies for having detained him
so long after the appointed time.

"But really," said Miss Snevellicci, "my darling Led,
who lives with me here, was taken so very ill in the night
that I thought she would have expired in my arms."

"Such a fate is almost to be envied," returned Nicholas
"but I am very sorry to hear it nevertheless."

"What a creature you are to flatter!" said Miss Snevel-
licci, buttoning her glove in much confusion.

"If it be flattery to admire your charms and accomplish-
ments," rejoined Nicholas, laying his hand upon the scrap-
book, "you have better specimens of it here."

"Oh you cruel creature, to read such things as those!
I'm almost ashamed to look you in the face afterwards,
positively I am," said Miss SnevelHcci, seizing the book and
putting it away in a closet. "How careless of Led! How
could she be so naughty!"

"I thought you had kindly left it here, on purpose for me
to read," said Nicholas. And really it did seem possible.

"I wouldn't have had you see it for the world!" rejoined
Miss Snevellicci. "I never was so vexed — never! But
she is such a careless thing, there's no trusting her."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance
of the phenomenon, who had discreetly remained in the bed-
room up to this moment, and now presented herself, with
much grace and lightness, bearing in her hand a very little
green parasol with a broad fringe border, and no handle.
After a few words of course, they saUied into the street.

The phenomenon was rather a troublesome companion,
for first the right sandal came down, and then the left.

i62 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

and these mischances being repaired, one leg of the little
white trousers was discovered to be longer than the other;
besides these accidents, the green parasol was dropped
down an iron grating, and only fished up again, with great
difficulty and by dint of much exertion. However, it was
impossible to scold her, as she was the manager's daughter,
so Nicholas took it all in perfect good humour, and walked
on, with Miss Snevellicci, arm in arm on one side, and the
offending infant on the other.

The first house to which they bent their steps, was situ-
ated in a terrace of respectable appearance. Miss Snevel-
licci's modest double-knock was answered by a foot-boy,
who, in reply to her inquiry whether Mrs. Curdle was at
home, opened his eyes very wide, grinned very much, and
said he didn't know, but he'd inquire. With this, he showed
them into a parlour where he kept them waiting, until the
two women-servants had repaired thither, under false pre-
tences, to see the play-actors; and having compared notes
with them in the passage, and joined in a vast quantity of
whispering and giggling, he at length went upstairs with
Miss Snevellicci's name.

Now, Mrs. Curdle was supposed, by those who were best
informed on such points, to possess quite the London taste
in matters relating to literature and the drama; and as to
Mr. Curdle, he had written a pamphlet of sixty-four pages,
post octavo, on the character of the Nurse's deceased hus-
band in Romeo and Juliet, with an inquiry whether he
really had been a "merry man" in his lifetime, or whether it
was merely his widow's affectionate partiality that induced
her so to report him. He had likewise proved, that by alter-
ing the received mode of punctuation, any one of Shake-
speare's plays could be made quite different, and the sense
completely changed; it is needless to say, therefore, that he
was a great critic, and a very profound and most original
thinker.

The Vincent Crummies Company 163

"Well, Miss Snevellicci," said Mrs. Curdle, entering the
parlour, "and how do you do?"

Miss Snevellicci made a graceful obeisance, and hoped
Mrs. Curdle was well, as also Mr. Curdle, who at the same
time appeared. Mrs. Curdle was dressed in a morning
wrapper, with a little cap stuck upon the top of her head.
Mr. Curdle wore a loose robe on his back, and his right
fore-finger on his forehead after the portraits of Sterne, to
whom somebody or other had once said he bore a striking
resemblance.

"I ventured to call, for the purpose of asking whether
you would put your name to my bespeak, ma'am," said
Miss Snevellicci, producing documents.

"Oh! I really don't know what to say," replied Mrs.
Curdle. "It's not as if the theatre was in its high and
palmy days — you needn't stand. Miss Snevelhcci — the
drama is gone, perfectly gone."

"As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions and
a realization of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent
light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic
world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly
gone," said Mr. Curdle.

"What man is there, now living, who can present before
us all those changing and prismatic colours with which
the character of Hamlet is invested?" exclaimed Mrs.
Curdle.

"What man indeed — upon the stage," said Mr. Curdle,
with a small reservation in favour of himself. "Hamlet!
Pooh! ridiculous! Hamlet is gone, perfectly gone."

Quite overcome by these dismal reflections, Mr. and Mrs.
Curdle sighed, and sat for some short time without speak-
ing. At length, the lady, turning to Miss Snevellicci,
inquired what play she proposed to have.

"Quite a new one," said Miss Snevellicci, "of which this
gentleman is the author, and in which he plays; being his

1 64 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

first appearance on any stage. Mr. Johnson is the gentle-

man's name."

"I hope you have preserved the unities, sir?" said Mr.
Curdle.

"The original piece is a French one," said Nicholas.
"There is abundance of incident, sprightly dialogue,
strongly-marked character "

" — All unavailing without a strict observance of the
unities, sir," returned Mr. Curdle. "The unities of the
drama, before everything."

"Might I ask you," said Nicholas, hesitating between
the respect he ought to assume, and his love of the whimsi-
cal, "might I ask you what the unities are?"

Mr. Curdle coughed and considered. "The unities,
sir," he said, "are a completeness — a kind of a universal
dovetailedness with regard to place and time — a sort of a
general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an
expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far
as I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and
I have read much upon the subject, and thought much. I
find, running through the performances of this child," said
Mr. Curdle, turning to the phenomenon, "a unity of feeling,
a breadth, a light and shade, a warmth of colouring, a tone,
a harmony, a glow, an artistical development of original
conceptions, which I look for, in vain, among older per-
formers. I don't know whether I make myself under-
stood?"

"Perfectly," replied Nicholas.

"Just so," said Mr. Curdle, pulling up his neckcloth.
"That is my definition of the unities of the drama."

Mrs. Curdle had sat listening to this lucid explanation
with great complacency. It being finished, she inquired
what Mr. Curdle thought, about putting down their names.

"I don't know, my dear; upon my word I don't know,''
said Mr. Curdle. "If we do, it must be distinctly under-

The Vincent Crummies Company 165

stood that we do not pledge ourselves to the quality of the
performances. Let it go forth to the world, that we do not
give them the sanction of our names, but that we confer
the distinction merely upon Miss Snevellicci. That being
clearly stated, I take it to be, as it were, a duty, that we
should extend our patronage to a degraded stage, even
for the sake of the associations with which it is entwined.
Have you got tw^o-and-sixpence for half-a-crown, Miss
Snevellicci?" said Mr. Curdle, turning over four of those
pieces of money.

Miss Snevellicci felt in all the corners of the pink reticule,
but there was nothing in any of them. Nicholas murmured
a jest about his being an author, and thought it best not to
go through the form of feeling in his own pockets at all.

"Let me see," said Mr. Curdle; "twice four's eight — four
shillings a-piece to the boxes, Miss Snevellicci, is exceedingly
dear in the present state of drama — three half-crowns is
seven-and-six; we shall not differ about sixpence, I sup-
pose? Sixpence will not part us, Miss Snevellicci?"

Poor Miss Snevellicci took the three half-crowns, with
many smiles and bends, and Mrs. Curdle, adding several
supplementary directions relative to keeping the places for
them, and dusting the seat, and sending two clean bills as
soon as they came out, rang the bell, as a signal for breaking
up the conference.

"Odd people those," said Nicholas, when they got clear
of the house.

"I assure you," said Miss Snevellicci, taking his arm,
"that I think myself very lucky they did not owe all the
money instead of being sixpence short. Now, if you were
to succeed, they would give people to understand that they
had always patronised you; and if you were to fail, they
would have been quite certain of that from the very
beginning."

At the next house they visited they were in great glory;

1 66 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

for, there, resided the six children who were so enraptured
with the public actions of the phenomenon, and who, being
called down from the nursery to be treated with a private
view of that young lady, proceeded to poke their fingers into
her eyes, and tread upon her toes, and show her many other
little attentions peculiar to their time of life.

"I shall certainly persuade Mr. Borum to take a private
box," said the lady of the house, after a most gracious recep-
tion. "I shall only take two of the children, and will make
up the rest of the party, of gentlemen — your admirers. Miss
Snevellicci. Augustus, you naughty boy, leave the little
girl alone."

This was addressed to a young gentleman who was pinch-
ing the phenomenon behind, apparently with a view of
ascertaining whether she was real.

"I am sure you must be very tired," said the mama,
turning to Miss Snevellicci. ''I cannot think of allowing
you to go, without first taking a glass of wine. Fie, Char-
lotte, I am ashamed of you ! Miss Lane, my dear, pray see
to the children."

Miss Lane was 'he governess, and this entreaty was
rendered necessary by the abrupt behaviour of the youngest
Miss Borum, who, having filched the phenomenon's little
green parasol, was now carrying it bodily off, while the dis-
tracted infant looked helplessly on.

"I am sure, where you ever learnt to act as you do," said
good-natured Mrs. Borum, turning again to Miss Snevel-
licci, "I cannot understand (Emma, don't stare so); laugh-
ing in one piece, and crying in the next, and so natural in all
— oh, dear!"

"I am very happy to hear you express so favourable an
opinion." said Miss Snevellicci. "It's quite delightful to
think you like it."

"Like it!" cried Mrs, Borum. "Who can help liking it!
I would go to the play, twice a week if I could : I dote upon

The Vincent Crummies Company 167

it. Only you're too aflPecting sometimes. You do put me
in such a state; into such fits of crying! Goodness gracious
me, Miss Lane, how can you let them torment that poor
child so!"

The phenomenon was really in a fair way of being torn
limb from limb; for two strong little boys, one holding on
by each of her hands were dragging her in different direc-
tions as a trial of strength. However, Miss Lane (who had
herself been too much occupied in contemplating the grown-
up actors, to pay the necessary attention to these proceed-
ings) rescued the unhappy infant at this juncture, who,
being recruited with a glass of wine, was shortly afterwards
taken away by her friends, after sustaining no more serious
damage than a flattening of the pink gauze bonnet, and a
rather extensive creasing of the white frock and trousers.

It was a trying morning ; for there were a great many calls
to make, and everybody wanted a different thing. Some
wanted tragedies, and others comedies; some objected to
dancing; some wanted scarcely anything else. Some
thought the comic singer decidedly low, and others hoped he
would have more to do than he usually had. Some people
wouldn't promise to go, because other people wouldn't
promise to go; and other people wouldn't go at all, because
other people went. At length, and by little and little,
omitting something in this place, and adding something in
that, Miss Snevellicci pledged herself to a bill of fare which
was comprehensive enough, if it had no other merit (it in-
cluded among other trifles, four pieces, divers songs, a few
combats, and several dances); and they returned home,
pretty well exhausted with the business of the day.

Nicholas worked away at the piece, which was speedily
put into rehearsal, and then worked away at his own part,
which he studied with great perseverance and acted — as the
whole company said — to perfection. And at length the
great day arrived. The crier was sent round, in the morn-

i68 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

ing, to proclaim the entertainments with sound of bells in all
the thoroughfares; and extra bills of three feet long by nine
inches wide, were dispersed in all directions, flung down all
the areas, thrust under all the knockers, and developed in all
the shops. They were placarded on all the walls too, though
not with complete success, for an illiterate person having
undertaken this office during the indisposition of the regular
bill-sticker, a part were posted sideways, and the remainder
upside down.

At half -past five, there was a rush of four people to the
gallery-door; at a quarter before six, there were at least a
dozen; at six o'clock the kicks were terrific; and when the
elder Master Crummies opened the door, he was obliged to
run behind it for his life. Fifteen shillings were taken by
Mrs. Grudden in the first ten minutes.

Behind the scenes, the same unwonted excitement pre-
vailed. Miss Snevellicci was in such a perspiration that the
paint would scarcely stay on her face. Mrs. Crummies was
so nervous that she could hardly remember her part. Miss
Bravassa's ringlets came out of curl with the heat and
anxiety; even Mr. Crummies himself kept peeping through
the hole in the curtain, and running back, every now and
then, to announce that another man had come into the pit.

At last, the orchestra left off, and the curtain rose upon
the new piece. The first scene, in which there was nobody
particular, passed off calmly enough, but when Miss Snevel-
licci went on in the second, accompanied by the phenom-
enon as child, what a roar of applause broke out! The
people in the Borum box rose as one man, waving their hats
and handkerchiefs, and uttering shouts of " Bravo ! " Mrs.
Borum and the governess cast wreaths upon the stage, of
which, some fluttered into the lamps, and one crowned the
temples of a fat gentleman in the pit, who, looking eagerly
towards the scene, remained unconscious of the honour; the
tailor and his family kicked at the panels of the upper boxes

The Vincent Crummies Company 169

till they threatened to come out altogether; the very ginger-
beer boy remained transfixed in the centre of the house;
a young officer, supposed to entertain a passion for Miss
Snevellicci, stuck his glass in his eye as though to hide a
tear. Again and again Miss Snevellicci curtseyed lower and
lower, and again and again the applause came down, louder
and louder. At length, when the phenomenon picked up
one of the smoking wreaths and put it on, sideways, over
Miss Snevellicci's eye, it reached its climax, and the play
proceeded.

But when Nicholas came on for his crack scene with Mrs.
Crummies, what a clapping of hands there was! When
Mrs. Crummies (who was his unworthy mother) sneered,
and called him "presumptuous boy," and he defied her,
what a tumult of applause came on! When he quarrelled
with the other gentleman about the young lady, and pro-
ducing a case of pistols, said, that if he was a gentleman,
he would fight him in that drawing-room, until the furniture
was sprinkled with the blood of one, if not of two — how
boxes, pit, and gallery, joined in one most vigorous cheer!
When he called his mother names, because she wouldn't
give up the young lady's property, and she relenting, caused
him to relent likewise, and fall down on one knee and ask
her blessing, how the ladies in the audience sobbed! When
he was hid behind the curtain in the dark, and the wicked
relation poked a sharp sword in every direction, save where
his legs were plainly visible, what a thrill of anxious fear
ran through the house ! His air, his figure, his walk, his
look, everything he said or did, was the subject of com-
mendation. There was a round of applause every time he
spoke. And when, at last, in the pump-and-tub scene,
Mrs. Grudden lighted the blue fire, and all the unemployed
members of the company came in, and tumbled down in
various directions — not because that had anything to do
with the plot, but in order to finish off with a tableau — the

I70 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

audience (who had by this time increased considerably)
gave vent to such a shout of enthusiasm, as had not been
heard in those walls for many and many a day.

In short, the success both of new piece and new actor was
complete, and when Miss Snevellicci was called for at the
end of the play, Nicholas led her on and divided the
applause.

3. — CONCERNING A YOUNG LADY FROM LONDON., WHO JOINS
THE COMPANY, AND AN ELDERLY ADMIRER WHO FOLLOWS
IN HER train; with AN AFFECTING CEREMONY CONSE-
QUENT ON THEIR ARRIVAL

The new piece being a decided hit, was announced for
every evening of performance until further notice, and the
evenings when the theatre was closed, were reduced from
three in the week to two. Nor were these the only tokens
of extraordinary success; for, on the succeeding Saturday,
Nicholas received, by favour of the indefatigable Mrs.
Grudden, no less a sum than thirty shillings; besides which
substantial reward, he enjoyed considerable fame and
honour: having a presentation copy of Mr. Curdle's pam-
phlet forwarded to the theatre, with that gentleman's own
autograph (in itself an inestimable treasure) on the fly-leaf,
accompanied with a note containing many expressions of
approval, and unsolicited assurance that Mr. Curdle would
be very happy to read Shakespeare to him for three hours
every morning before breakfast during his stay in the
town.

"I've got another novelty, Johnson," said Mr. Crummies
one morning in great glee.

"What's that?" rejoined Nicholas. "The pony?"

"No, no, we never come to the pony till everything else
has failed," said Mr. Crummies. "I don't think we shall
come to the pony at all, this season. No, no, not the pony."

"A boy phenomenon, perhaps?" suggested Nicholas.

The Vincent Crummies Company 171

<<f

'There is only one phenomenon, sir," replied Mr.
Crummies impressively, "and that's a girl."

"Very true," said Nicholas. "I beg your pardon. Then
I don't know what it is, I am sure."

"What should you say to a young lady from London?"
inquired Mr. Crummies. "Miss So-and-so, of the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane?"

"I should say she would look very well in the bills," said
Nicholas.

"You're about right there," said Mr. Crummies; "and
if you had said she would look very well upon the stage too,
you wouldn't have been far out. Look here; what do you
think of this?"

With this inquiry Mr. Crummies unfolded a red poster,
and a blue poster, and a yellow poster, at the top of each of
which public notification was inscribed in enormous char-
acters "First appearance of the unrivalled Miss Petowker
of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane!"

"Dear me!" said Nicholas, "I know that lady."

"Then you are acquainted with as much talent as was
ever compressed into one young person's body," retorted
Mr. Crummies, rolling up the bills again; "that is, talent
of a certain sort — of a certain sort. 'The Blood Drinker,'"
added Mr. Crummies with a prophetic sigh, "*The Blood
Drinker' will die with that girl; and she's the only sylph
/ ever saw, who could stand upon one leg, and play the
tambourine on her other knee, like a sylph."

"When does she come down," asked Nicholas.

"We expect her to-day," replied Mr. Crummies. "She
is an old friend of Mrs. Crummles's. Mrs. Crummies saw
what she could do — always knew it from the first. She
taught her, indeed, nearly all she knows. Mrs. Crummies
was the original Blood Drinker."

"Was she, indeed?"

"Yes. She was obliged to give it up though."

172 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"Did it disagree with her?" asked Nicholas.

"Not so much with her, as with her audiences," repHed
Mr. Crummies. "Nobody could stand it. It was too
tremendous. You don't quite know what Mrs. Crummies
is, yet."

Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did.

"No, no, you don't," said Mr. Crummies; "you don't,
indeed. 7 don't, and that's a fact. I don't think her
country will, till she is dead. Some new proof of talent
bursts from that astonishing woman every year of her life.
Look at her, mother of six children, three of 'em alive, and
all upon the stage!"

"Extraordinary!" cried Nicholas.

"Ah! extraordinary indeed," rejoined Mr. Crummies,
taking a complacent pinch of snuff, and shaking his head
gravely. " I pledge you my professional word I didn't even
know she could dance, till her last benefit, and then she
played Juliet, and Helen Macgregor, and did the skipping-
rope hornpipe between the pieces. The very first time I
saw that admirable woman, Johnson," said Mr. Crummies,
drawing a little nearer, and speaking in the tone of confi-
dential friendship, "she stood upon her head on the butt-end
of a spear, surrounded with blazing fireworks."

"You astonish me!" said Nicholas.

"She astonished me!" returned Mr. Crummies, with a
very serious countenance. "Such grace, coupled with such
dignity! I adored her from that moment!"

The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an
abrupt termination to Mr. Crummles's eulogium. Almost
immediately afterwards. Master Percy Crummies entered
with a letter, which had arrived by the General Post, and
was directed to his gracious mother; at sight of the super-
scription whereof, Mrs. Crummies exclaimed, "From
Henrietta Petowker, I do declare!" and instantly became
absorbed in the contents.

The Vincent Crummies Company 173

"Is it ?" inquired Mr. Crummies, hesitating

"Oh, yes, it's all right," replied Mrs. Crummies, antici-
pating the question. " What an excellent thing for her, to
be sure!"

"It's the best thing altogether, that I ever heard of, I
think," said Mr. Crummies; and then Mr. Crummies, ]\[rs.
Crummies, and Master Percy Crummies, all fell to laughing
violently. Nicholas left them to enjoy their mirth together,
and walked to his lodgings: wondering very much what
mystery connected with Miss Petowker could provoke such
merriment, and pondering still more on the extreme sur-
prise with which that lady would regard his sudden enlist-
ment in a profession of which she was such a distinguished
and brilliant ornament.

But in this latter respect he was mistaken; for — whether
Mr. Vincent Crummies had paved the way or Miss
Petowker had some special reason for treating him with
even more than her usual amiability — their meeting at the
theatre next day was more like that of two dear friends who
had been inseparable from infancy, than a recognition pass-
ing between a lady and gentleman who had only met some
half dozen times, and then by mere chance. Nay, Miss
Petowker even whispered that she had wholly dropped the
Kenwigses in her conversations with the manager's family,
and had represented herself as having encountered Mr.
Johnson in the very first and most fashionable circles; and
on Nicholas receiving this intelligence with unfeigned
surprise, she added, with a sweet glance, that she had
a claim on his good nature now, and might tax it before
long.

Nicholas had the honour of playing in a slight piece with
Miss Petowker that night, and could not but observe that
the warmth of her reception was mainly attributable to
a most persevering umbrella in the upper boxes; he saw,
too, that the enchanting actress cast many sweet looks

174 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

towards the quarter whence these sounds proceeded; and
that every time she did so, the umbrella broke out afresh.
Once, he thought that a peculiarly shaped hat in the same
corner was not wholly unknown to him; but, being occupied
with his share of the stage business, he bestowed no great
attention upon this circumstance, and it had quite vanished
from his memory by the time he reached home.

He had just sat down to supper with Smike, when one
of the people of the house came outside the door, and
announced that a gentleman below stairs wished to speak to
Mr. Johnson.

"Well, if he does, you must tell him to come up; that's
all I know," replied Nicholas. " One of our hungry brethren,
I suppose, Smike."

His fellow-lodger looked at the cold meat in silent calcu-
lation of the quantity that would be left for dinner next day,
and put back a slice he had cut for himself, in order that
the visitor's encroachments might be less formidable in their
efiFects.

"It is not anybody who has been here before," said
Nicholas, "for he is tumbling up every stair. Come in,
come in. In the name of wonder! Mr. Lillyvick?"

It was, indeed, the collector of water-rates who, regarding
Nicholas, with a fixed look and immovable countenance,
shook hands with most portentous solemnity, and sat him-
self down in a seat by the chimney-corner.

"Why, when did you come here?" asked Nicholas.

"This morning, sir," replied Mr. Lillyvick.

"Oh! I see; then you were at the theatre to-night, and it
was your umb "

"This umbrella," said Mr. Lillyvick, producing a fat
green cotton one with a battered ferrule. "What did you
think of that performance?"

"So far as I could judge, being on the stage," replied
Nicholas, "I thought it very agreeable."

The Vincent Crummies Company 175

"Agreeable!" cried the collector. "I mean to say, sir,
that it was delicious."

Mr. Lillyvick bent forward to pronounce the last word
with greater emphasis; and having done so, drew himself
up, and frowned and nodded a great many times.

"I say, delicious," repeated Mr. Lillyvick. "Absorbing,
fairy-like, toomultuous," and again Mr. Lillyvick drew
himself up, and again he frowned and nodded.

"Ah!" said Nicholas, a little surprised at these symptoms
of ecstatic approbation. "Yes, she is a clever girl."

"She is a divinity," returned Mr. Lillyvick, giving a
collector's double knock on the ground with the umbrella
before-mentioned. "I have known divine actresses before
now, sir; I used to collect — at least I used to call for — and
very often call for — the water-rate at the house of a divine
actress, who lived in my beat for upwards of four years, but
never — no, never, sir — of all divine creatures, actresses or no
actresses, did I see a diviner one than is Henrietta
Petowker."

Nicholas had much ado to prevent himself from laughing;
not trusting himself to speak, he merely nodded in accord-
ance with Mr. Lillyvick's nods, and remained silent.

"Let me speak a word with you in private," said Mr.
Lillyvick.

Nicholas looked good-humouredly at Smike, who, taking
the hint, disappeared.

"A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir," said Mr. Lilly-
vick.

"Is he?" asked Nicholas.

"He is," rejoined the collector. "I have lived in the
world for nigh sixty year, and I ought to know what

• J. • 99

it IS.

"You ought to know, certainly," thought Nicholas; "but
whether you do or not, is another question."

"If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of

176 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

money," said Mr. Lillyvick, "his sisters and brothers, and
nephews and nieces, look to that money, and not to him;
even if, by being a pubhc character, he is the head of the
family, or, as it may be, the main from which all the other
little branches are turned on, they still wish him dead all the
while, and get low-spirited every time they see him looking
in good health, because they want to come into his little
property. You see that?"

"Oh, yes," replied Nicholas: "it's very true, no doubt."

"The great reason for not being married," resumed Mr.
Lillyvick, "is the expense; that's what's kept me off, or
else — Lord!" said Mr. Lillyvick, snapping his fingers, "I
might have had fifty women."

"Fine women?" asked Nicholas.

"Fine women, sir!" replied the collector; "aye! not so
fine as Henrietta Petowker, for she is an uncommon speci-
men, but such women as don't fall into every man's way,
I can tell you. Now suppose a man can get a fortune in
a wife instead of with her — eh?"

"Why, then, he's a lucky fellow," replied Nicholas.

"That's what I say," retorted the collector, patting him
benignantly on the side of the head with his umbrella;
"just what I say. Henrietta Petowker, the talented
Henrietta Petowker, has a fortune in herself, and I am
going to "

"To make her Mrs. Lillyvick?" suggested Nicholas.

"No, sir, not to make her Mrs. Lillyvick," replied the
collector. "Actresses, sir, always keep their maiden names
— that's the regular thing — but I'm going to marry her;
and the day after to-morrow, too."

"I congratulate you, sir," said Nicholas.

"Thank you, sir," replied the collector, buttoning his
waistcoat. "I shall draw her salary, of course, and I hope
after all that it's nearly as cheap to keep two as it is to keep
one; that's a consolation."

The Vincent Crummies Company 177

"Surely you don't want any consolation at such a
moment?" observed Nicholas.

"No," replied Mr. Lilly vick, shaking his head nervously:
"no — of course not."

"But how come you both here, if you're going to be
married, Mr. Lillyvick?" asked Nicholas.

"Why, that's what I came to explain to you," replied the
collector of water-rates. "The fact is, we have thought it
best to keep it secret from the family."

" Family ! " said Nicholas. " What family? "

"The Kenwigses of course," rejoined Mr. Lillyvick. "If
my niece and the children had known a word about it before
I came away, they'd have gone into fits at my feet, and
never have come out of 'em till I took an oath not to marry
anybody. Or they'd have got out a commission of lunacy,
or some dreadful thing," said the collector, quite trembling
as he spoke.

"To be sure," said Nicholas. "Yes; they would have
been jealous, no doubt."

"To prevent which," said Mr. Lillyvick, "Henrietta
Petowker (it was settled between us) should come down here
to her friends, the Crummleses, under pretence of this en-
gagement and I should go down to Guildford the day before,
and join her on the coach there; which I did, and we came
down from Guildford yesterday together. Now, for fear
you should be writing to Mr. Noggs, and might say any-
thing about us we have thought it best to let you into the
secret. We shall be married from the Crummleses' lodg-
ings, and shall be delighted to see you — either before church
or at breakfast-time, which you like. It won't be expensive,
you know," said the collector, highly anxious to prevent
any misunderstanding on this point; "just muflSns and
coffee, with perhaps a shrimp or something of that sort for a
relish, you know."

"Yes, yes, I understand," replied Nicholas. "Oh, I shall

178 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

be most happy to come; it will give me the greatest pleasure.
Where's the lady stopping? With Mrs. Crummies?"

"Why, no," said the collector; "they couldn't very well
dispose of her at night, and so she is staying with an ac-
quaintance of hers, and another young lady; they both
belong to the theatre."

"Miss Snevellicci, I suppose?" said Nicholas.

"Yes, that's the name."

"And they'll be bridesmaids, I presume?" said Nicholas,

"Why," said the collector, with a rueful face, "they will
have four bridesmaids; I'm afraid they'll make it rather
theatrical."

"Oh no, not at all," replied Nicholas, with an awkward
attempt to convert a laugh into a cough. "Who may the
four be? Miss Snevellicci of course — Miss Ledrook "

"The — the phenomenon," groaned the collector.

"Ha, ha!" cried Nicholas. "I beg your pardon, I don't
know what I'm laughing at — yes, that'll be very pretty —
the phenomenon — who else?"

"Some young woman or other," replied the collector,
rising; "some other friend of Henrietta Petowker's. Well,
you'll be careful not to say anything about it, will you?"

"You may safely depend upon me," replied Nicholas.
"Won't you take anything to eat or drink?"

"No," said the collector; "I haven't any appetite. I
should think it was a very pleasant life, the married one, eh? "

"I have not the least doubt of it," rejoined Nicholas.

"Yes," said the collector; "certainly. Oh yes. No
doubt. Good night."

With these words, Mr. Lillyvick, whose manner had
exhibited through the whole of this interview a most extra-
ordinary compound of precipitation, hesitation, confidence
and doubt, fondness, misgiving, meanness, and self-import-
ance, turned his back upon the room, and left Nicholas to
enjoy a laugh by himself if he felt so disposed.

The Vincent Crummies Company 179

Without stopping to inquire whether the intervening day
appeared to Nicholas to consist of the usual number of
hours of the ordinary length, it may be remarked that, to the
parties more directly interested in the forthcoming cere-
mony, it passed with great rapidity, insomuch that when
Miss Petowker awoke on the succeeding morning in the
chamber of Miss Snevellicci, she declared that nothing should
ever persuade her that that really was the day which was to
behold a change in her condition.

"I never will believe it," said Miss Petowker; "I cannot
really. It's of no use talking, I never can make up my mind
to go through with such a trial!"

On hearing this, Miss Snevellicci, and Miss Ledrook, who
knew perfectly well that their fair friend's mind had been
made up for three or four years, at any period of which time
she would have cheerfully undergone the desperate trial now
approaching if she could have found any eligible gentleman
disposed for the venture, began to preach comfort and firm-
ness, and to say how very proud she ought to feel that it
was in her power to confer lasting bliss on a deserving ob-
ject, and how necessary it was for the happiness of mankind
in general that women should possess fortitude and resigna-
tion on such occasions; and that although for their parts
they held true happiness to consist in a single life, which
they would not willingly exchange — no, not for any worldly
consideration — still (thank Heaven), if ever the time
should come, they hoped they knew their duty too well to
repine, but would the rather submit with meekness and
humility of spirit to a fate for which Providence had clearly
designed them with a view to the contentment and reward
of their fellow-creatures.

"I might feel it was a great blow," said Miss Snevellicci,
"to break up old associations and what-do-you-callems of
that kind, but I would submit, my dear, I would indeed."

"So would I," said Miss Ledrook; "I would rather court

i8o Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the yoke than shun it. I have broken hearts before now,
and I'm very sorry for it. It's a terrible thing to reflect
upon."

"It is indeed," said Miss SneveUicci. "Now Led, my
dear, we must positively get her ready, or we shall be too
late, we shall indeed."

This pious reasoning, and perhaps the fear of being too
late, supported the bride through the ceremony of robing,
after which, strong tea and brandy were administered in
alternate doses as a means of strengthening her feeble limbs
and causing her to walk steadier.

"How do you feel now, my love?" inquired Miss
SneveUicci.

"Oh Lillyvick!" cried the bride. "If you knew what I
am undergoing for you!"

"Of course he knows it, love, and will never forget it,"
said Miss Ledrook.

"Do you think he won't?" cried Miss Petowker, really
showing great capability for the stage. "Oh, do you think
he won't? Do you think Lillyvick will always remember it
— always, always, always?"

There is no knowing in what this burst of feeling might
have ended, if Miss SneveUicci had not at that moment
proclaimed the arrival of the fly, which so astounded the
bride that she shook off divers alarming symptoms which
were coming on very strong, and running to the glass ad-
justed her dress, and calmly declared that she was ready
for the sacrifice.

She was accordingly supported into the coach and there
"kept up" (as Miss SneveUicci said) with perpetual sniffs
of sal volatile and sips of brandy and other gentle stimulants,
until they reached the manager's door, which was already
opened by the two Master Crummleses, who wore white
cockades, and were decorated with the choicest and most
resplendent waistcoats in the theatrical wardrobe. By the

The Vincent Crummies Company i8i

combined exertions of these young gentlemen and the
bridesmaids, assisted by the coachman, Miss Petowker was
at length supported in a condition of much exhaustion to
the first floor, where she no sooner encountered the youthful
bridegroom than she fainted with great decorum.

"Henrietta Petowker!" said the collector; "cheer up, my
lovely one."

Miss Petowker grasped the collector's hand, but emotion
choked her utterance.

"Is the sight of me so dreadful, Henrietta Petowker?"
said the collector.

"Oh no, no, no" rejoined the bride; "but all the friends,
the darling friends, of my youthful days — to leave them all
— it is such a shock!"

With such expressions of sorrow. Miss Petowker went on
to enumerate the dear friends of her youthful days one by
one, and to call upon such of them as were present to come
and embrace her. This done, she remembered that Mrs.
Crummies had been more than a mother to her, and after
that, that Mr. Crummies had been more than a father to
her, and after that, that the Master Crummleses and Miss
Ninetta Crummies had been more than brothers and sisters
to her. These various remembrances being each accom-
panied with a series of hugs, occupied a long time, and they
were obliged to drive to church very fast, for fear they
should be too late.

The procession consisted of two flys ; in the first of which
were MissBravassa (thefourth bridesmaid), Mrs. Crummies,
the collector, and Mr. Folair, who had been chosen as his
second on the occasion. In the other were the bride, Mr.
Crummies, Miss Snevellicci, Miss Ledrook, and the phenom-
enon. The costumes were beautiful. The bridesmaids
were quite covered with artificial flowers, and the phenom-
enon, in particular, was rendered almost invisible by the
portable arbour in which she was enshrined. Miss Ledrook,

1 82 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

who was of a romantic turn, wore in her breast the minia-
ture of some field-officer unknown, which she had purchased,
a great bargain, not very long before; the other ladies dis-
played several dazzling articles of imitative jewellery, almost
equal to real; and Mrs. Crummies came out in a stern and
gloomy majesty, which attracted the admiration of all
beholders.

But, perhaps the appearance of Mr. Crummies was more
striking and appropriate than that of any member of the
party. This gentleman, who personated the bride's father,
had, in pursuance of a happy and original conception,
"made up" for the part by arraying himself in a theatrical
wig, of a style and pattern commonly known as a brown
George, and moreover assuming a snuff-coloured suit, of the
previous century, with grey silk stockings, and buckles to
his shoes. The better to support his assumed character he
had determined to be greatly overcome, and, consequently,
when they entered the church, the sobs of the affectionate
parent were so heartrending that the pew-opener suggested
the propriety of his retiring to the vestry, and comforting
himself with a glass of water before the ceremony began.

The procession up the aisle was beautiful. The bride,
with the four bridesmaids, forming a group previously ar-
ranged and rehearsed; the collector, followed by his second,
imitating his walk and gestures, to the indescribable amuse-
ment of some theatrical friends in the gallery; Mr.
Crummies, with an infirm and feeble gait; Mrs, Crummies
advancing with that stage walk, which consists of a stride
and a stop alternately; it was the completest thing ever
witnessed. The ceremony was very quickly disposed of,
and all parties present having signed the register (for which
purpose, when it came to his turn, Mr. Crummies carefully
wiped and put on an immense pair of spectacles), they went
back to breakfast in high spirits. And here they found
Nicholas awaiting their arrival.

The Vincent Crummies Company 183

"Now then," said Crummies, who had been assisting Mrs.
Grudden in the preparations, which were on a more exten-
sive scale than was quite agreeable to the collector. " Break-
fast, breakfast."

No second invitation was required. The company
crowded and squeezed themselves at the table as well as they
could, and fell to, immediately : Miss Petowker blushing
very much when anybody was looking and eating very much
when anybody was 7iot looking; and Mr. Lilly vick going to
work as though with the cool resolve, that since the good
things must be paid for by him, he would leave as little as
possible for the Crummleses to eat up afterwards.

"It's very soon done, sir, isn't it?" inquired Mr. Folair
of the collector, leaning over the table to address him.

"What is soon done, sir.'" returned Mr. Lilly vick.

"The tying up, the fixing oneself with a wife," replied
Mr. Folair. "It don't take long, does it?"

" No, sir," replied Mr. Lilly vick, colouring. " It does not
take long. And what then, sir?"

"Oh! nothing," said the actor. "It don't take a man
long to hang himself, either, eh? Ha, ha!"

Mr. Lillyvick laid down his knife and fork and looked
round the table with indignant astonishment.

"To hang himself!" repeated Mr. Lillyvick.

A profound silence came upon all, for Mr. Lillyvick was
dignified beyond expression.

"To hang himself!" cried Mr. Lillyvick again. "Is any
parallel attempted to be drawn in this company between
matrimony and hanging?"

"The noose, you know," said Mr. Folair, a little crest-
fallen.

"The noose, sir?" retorted Mr. Lillyvick. "Does any
man dare to speak to me of a noose, and Henrietta Pe "

"Lillyvick," suggested Mr. Crummies.

" — and Henrietta Lillyvick in the same breath?" said

i84 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

the collector. "In this house, in the presence of Mr. and
Mrs. Crummies, who have brought up a talented and virtu-
ous family, to be blessings and phenomenons, and what not,
are we to hear talk of nooses?"

"Folair," said Mr. Crummies, deeming it a matter of
decency to be affected by this allusion to himself and
partner, "I'm astonished at you."

"What are you going on in this way at me for?" urged
the unfortunate actor. "What have I done?"

"Done, sir!" cried Mr. Lilly vick, "aimed a blow at the
whole framework of society "

"And the best and tenderest feelings," added Crummies,
relapsing into the old man.

"And the highest and most estimable of social ties," said
the collector. " Noose ! As if one was caught, trapped into
the married state, pinned by the leg, instead of going into it
of one's own accord and glorying in the act!"

"I didn't mean to make it out, that you were caught and
trapped, and pinned by the leg," replied the actor. "I'm
sorry for it; I can't say any more."

"So you ought to be, sir," returned Mr. Lilly vick; "and
I am glad to hear that you have enough of feeling left to
be so."

The quarrel appearing to terminate with this reply, Mrs.
Lilly vick considered that the fittest occasion (the attention
of the company being no longer distracted) to burst into
tears, and require the assistance of all four bridesmaids,
which was immediately rendered, though not without some
confusion, for the room being small and the table-cloth long,
a whole detachment of plates were swept off the board at the
very first move. Regardless of this circumstance, however,
Mrs. Lillyvick refused to be comforted until the belligerents
had passed their words that the dispute should be carried no
further, which, after a suflBcient show of reluctance, they
did, and from that time Mr. Folair sat in moody silence.

The Vincent Crummies Company 185

contenting himself with pinching Nicholas's leg when any-
thing was said, and so expressing his contempt both for the
speaker and the sentiments to which he gave utterance.

There were a great number of speeches made; some by
Nicholas, and some by Crummies, and some by the col-
lector; two by the Master Crummleses in returning thanks
for themselves, and one by the phenomenon on behalf of the
bridesmaids, at which Mrs. Crummies shed tears. There
was some singing, too, from Miss Ledrook and Miss
Bravassa, and very likely there might have been more, if
the fly-driver, who stopped to drive the happy pair to the
spot where they proposed to take steamboat to Ryde, had
not sent in a peremptory message intimating, that if they
didn't come directly he should infallibly demand eighteen-
pence over and above his agreement.

This desperate threat effectually broke up the party.
After a most pathetic leave-taking, Mr. Lillyvick and his
bride departed for Ryde where they were to spend the next
two days in profound retirement, and whither they were
accompanied by the infant, who had been appointed
travelling bridesmaid on Mr. Lilly vick's express stipulation:
as the steamboat people, deceived by her size, would (he
had previously ascertained) transport her at half-price.

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF NICHOLAS, AND CERTAIN INTERNAL
DIVISIONS IN THE COMPANY OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES

The unexpected success and favour with which his ex-
periment at Portsmouth had been received, induced Mr.
Crummies to prolong his stay in that town for a fortnight
beyond the period he had originally assigned for the dura-
tion of his visit, during which time Nicholas personated a
vast variety of characters with undiminished success and
attracted so many people to the theatre who had never
been seen there before, that a benefit was considered by the

1 86 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

manager a very promising speculation. Nicholas assent-
ing to the terms proposed, the benefit was had, and by it
he realized no less a sum than twenty pounds.

"You are out of spirits," said Smike, on the following
night.

"Not I!" rejoined Nicholas, with assumed gaiety, for the
confession would have made the boy miserable all night;
"I was thinking about my sister, Smike,"

"Sister!"

"Aye."

"Is she like you?" inquired Smike.

"Why, so they say," replied Nicholas, laughing, "only a
great deal handsomer."

"She must be very beautiful," said Smike, after thinking
a little while with his hands folded together, and his eyes
bent upon his friend.

"Anybody who didn't know you as well as I do, my dear
fellow, would say you were an accomplished courtier," said
Nicholas.

"I don't even know what that is," replied Smike, shaking
his head. "Shall I ever see your sister.'*"

"To be sure," cried Nicholas; "we shall all be together
one of these days — when we are rich, Smike."

"How is it that you, who are so kind and good to me,
have nobody to be kind to you?" asked Smike. "I cannot
make that out."

"Why, it is a long story," replied Nicholas, "and one you
would have some difficulty in comprehending, I fear. I
have an enemy — you understand what that is?"

"Oh, yes, I understand that," said Smike.

" Well, it is owing to him," returned Nicholas. "He is rich,
and not so easily punished as your old enemy, Mr. Squeers.
He is my uncle, but he is a villain, and has done me wrong."

"Has he though? " asked Smike, bending eagerly forward.
"What is his name? Tell me his name."

The Vincent Crummies Company 187

"Ralph— Ralph Nickleby."

"Ralph Nickleby," repeated Smike. "Ralph. I'll get
that name by heart."

He had muttered it over to himself some twenty times,
when a loud knock at the door disturbed him from his occu-
pation. Before he could open it, Mr. Folair, the panto-
mimist, thrust in his head.

Mr. Folair's head was usually decorated with a very
round hat, usually high in the crown, and curled up quite
tight in the brim. On the present occasion he wore it very
much on one side, with the back part forward in consequence
of its being the least rusty; round his neck he wore a flaming
red worsted comforter, whereof the straggling ends peeped
out beneath his threadbare Newmarket coat, which was
tight and buttoned all the way up. He carried in his hand
one very dirty glove, and a cheap dress cane with a glass
handle; in short, his whole appearance was unusually dash-
ing, and demonstrated a far more scrupulous attention to
his toilet, than he was in the habit of bestowing upon it.

"Good evening, sir," said Mr. Folair, taking off the tall
hat, and running his fingers through his hair. "I bring a
communication. Hem!"

"From whom and what about?" inquired Nicholas.
"You are unusually mysterious to-night."

"Cold, perhaps," returned Mr. Folair; "cold, perhaps.
That is the fault of my position — not of myself, Mr. John-
son. My position as a mutual friend requires it, sir." Mr.
Folair paused with a most impressive look, and diving into
the hat before noticed, drew from thence a small piece of
whity-brown paper curiously folded, whence he brought
forth a note which it had served to keep clean, and handing
it over to Nicholas, said

"Have the goodness to read that, sir."

Nicholas, in a state of much amazement, took the note
and broke the seal, glancing at Mr. Folair as he did so, who,

1 88 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play-
knitting his brow and pursing up his mouth with great
dignity, was sitting with his eyes steadily fixed upon the
ceiHng.

It was directed to blank Johnson, Esq., by favour of
Augustus Folair, Esq., and the astonishment of Nicholas
was in no degree lessened, when he found it to be couched
in the following laconic terms: —

" Mr. Lenville presents his kind regards to Mr. Johnson,
and will feel obliged if he will inform him at what hour
to-morrow morning it will be most convenient to him to
meet Mr. L. at the Theatre, for the purpose of having his
nose pulled in the presence of the company.

" Mr. Lenville requests Mr. Johnson not to neglect mak-
ing an appointment, as he has invited two or three profes-
sional friends to witness the ceremony, and cannot
disappoint them upon any account whatever.

*' Portsmouth, Tuesday night.''

Indignant as he was at this impertinence, there was
something so exquisitely absurd in such a cartel of defiance,
that Nicholas was obliged to bite his lip and read the note
over two or three times before he could muster suflBcient
gravity and sternness to address the hostile messenger, who
had not taken his eyes from the ceiling, nor altered the
expression of his face in the slightest degree.

"Do you know the contents of this note, sir?" he asked,
at length.

"Yes," rejoined Mr. Folair, looking round for an instant,
and immediately carrying his eyes back again to the ceiling.

"And how dare you bring it here, sir?" asked Nicholas,
tearing it into very little pieces, and jerking it in a shower
towards the messenger. "Had you no fear of being kicked
downstairs, sir?"

Mr. Folair turned his head — now ornamented with

The Vincent Crummies Company 189

several fragments of the note — towards Nicholas, and with
the same imperturbable dignity, briefly replied, "No."

"Then," said Nicholas, taking up the tall hat and tossing
it towards the door, "you had better follow that article of
your dress, sir, or you may find youself very disagreeably
deceived, and that within a dozen seconds."

"I say, Johnson," remonstrated Mr. Folair, suddenly
losing all his dignity, "none of that, you know. No tricks
with a gentleman's wardrobe."

"Leave the room," returned Nicholas. "How could you
presume to come here on such an errand, you scoundrel?"

"Pooh! pooh!" said Mr. Folair, unwinding his comforter,
and gradually getting himself out of it. "There — that's
enough."

"Enough!" cried Nicholas, advancing towards him.
"Take yourself off, sir."

"Pooh! pooh! I tell you," returned Mr. Folair, waving
his hand in deprecation of any further wrath; "I wasn't in
earnest. I only brought it in joke."

"You had better be careful how you indulge in such jokes
again," said Nicholas, "or you may find an allusion to pull-
ing noses rather a dangerous reminder for the subject of
your facetiousness. Was it written in joke, too, pray.''"

"No, no, that's the best of it," returned the actor; "right
down earnest — honour bright."

Nicholas could not repress a smile at the odd figure before
him, which, at all times more calculated to provoke mirth
than anger, was especially so at that moment, when with
one knee upon the ground, Mr. Folair twirled his old hat
round upon his hand, and affected the extremest agony lest
any of the nap should have been knocked off — an ornament
which it is almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted for
many months.

"Come, sir," said Nicholas, laughing in spite of himself.
"Have the goodness to explain."

190 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"Why, I'll tell you how it is," said Mr. Folair, sitting
himself down in a chair with great coolness. "Since you
came here Lenville has done nothing but second business,
and, instead of having a reception every night as he
used to have, they have let him come on as if he was
nobody."

"What do you mean by a reception?" asked Nicholas.

"Jupiter!" exclaimed Mr. Folair, "what an unsophisti-
cated shepherd you are, Johnson ! Why, applause from the
house when you first come on. So he has gone on night
after night, never getting a hand, and you getting a couple
of rounds at least, and sometimes three, till at length he got
quite desperate, and had half a mind last night to play
Tybalt with a real sword, and pink you — not dangerously,
but just enough to lay you up for a month or two."

"Very considerate," remarked Nicholas.

"Yes, I think it was, under the circumstances; his pro-
fessional reputation being at stake," said Mr, Folair, quite
seriously. "But his heart failed him, and he cast about for
some other way of annoying you, and making himself popu-
lar at the same time — for that's the point. Notoriety,
notoriety, is the thing. Bless you, if he had pinked you,"
said Mr. Folair, stopping to make a calculation in his mind,
"it would have been worth — ah, it would have been worth
eight to ten shillings a week to him. All the town would
have come to see the actor who nearly killed a man by mis-
take; I shouldn't wonder if it had got him an engagement
in London. However, he was obliged to try some other
mode of getting popular, and this one occurred to him. It's
a clever idea, really. If you had shown the white feather,
and let him pull your nose, he'd have got it into the paper;
if you had sworn the peace Against him, it would have been
in the paper too, and he'd have been just as much talked
about as you — don't you see?"

"Oh certainly," rejoined Nicholas; "but suppose I were

The Vincent Crummies Company 191

to turn the tables, and pull his nose, what then? Would
that make his fortune?"

"Why, I don't think it would," replied Mr. Folair,
scratching his head, "because there wouldn't be any
romance about it, and he wouldn't be favourably known.
To tell you the truth though, he didn't calculate much upon
that, for you're always so mild spoken, and are so popular
among the women, that we didn't suspect you of showing
fight. If you did, however, he has a way of getting out
of it easily, depend upon that."

"Has he?" rejoined Nicholas. "We will try to-morrow
morning. In the meantime, you can give whatever account
of our interview you like best. Good night."

As Mr. Folair was pretty well known among his fellow-
actors for a man who delighted in mischief, and was by no
means scrupulous, Nicholas had not much doubt but that
he had secretly prompted the tragedian in the course he had
taken, and, moreover, that he would have carried his mission
with a very high hand if he had not been disconcerted by
the very unexpected demonstrations with which it had been
received. It was not worth his while to be serious with him,
however, so he dismissed the pantomimist, with a gentle
hint that if he offended again it would be under the penalty
of a broken head; and Mr. Folair, taking the caution in
exceedingly good part, walked away to confer with his
principal, and give such an account of his proceedings as he
might think best calculated to carry on the joke.

He had no doubt reported that Nicholas was in a state of
extreme bodily fear; for when that young gentleman walked
with much deliberation down to the theatre next morning
at the usual hour, he found all the company assembled in
evident expectation, and Mr. Lenville, with his severest
stage face, sitting majestically on a table, whistling defiance.

Now the ladies were on the side of Nicholas, and the
gentlemen (being jealous) were on the side of the disap-

192 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

pointed tragedian; so that the latter formed a little group
about the redoubtable Mr. Lenville, and the former looked
on at a little distance in some trepidation and anxiety. On
Nicholas stopping to salute them, Mr, Lenville laughed a
scornful laugh, and made some general remark touching the
natural history of puppies.

"Oh! said Nicholas, looking quietly round, "are you
there?"

"Slave!" returned Mr. Lenville, flourishing his right arm,
and approaching Nicholas with a theatrical stride. But
somehow he appeared just at that moment a little startled,
as if Nicholas did not look quite so frightened as he had
expected, and came all at once to an awkward halt, at
which the assembled ladies burst into a shrill laugh.

"Object of my scorn and hatred!" said Mr. Lenville, "I
hold ye in contempt."

Nicholas laughed in very unexpected enjoyment of this
performance; and the ladies, by way of encouragement,
laughed louder than before; whereat Mr. Lenville assumed
his bitterest smile, and expressed his opinion that they were
"minions."

"But they shall not protect ye!" said the tragedian,
taking an upward look at Nicholas, beginning at his boots
and ending at the crown of his head, and then a downward
one, beginning at the crown of his head, and ending at his
boots — which two looks, as everybody knows, express
defiance on the stage. "They shall not protect ye — boy!"

Thus speaking, Mr. Lenville folded his arms, and treated
Nicholas to that expression of face with which, in melo-
dramatic performances, he was in the habit of regarding
the tyrannical kings when they said, "Away with him to the
deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat;" and which,
accompanied with a little jingling of fetters, had been
known to produce great effects in its time.

Whether it was absence of the fetters or not, it made

The Vincent Crummies Company 193

no very deep impression on Mr. Lenville's adversary, how-
ever, but rather seemed to increase the good humour ex-
pressed in his countenance; in which stage of the contest,
one or two gentlemen, who had come out expressly to wit-
ness the pulling of Nicholas's nose, grew impatient, murmur-
ing that if it were to be done at all it had better be done at
once, and that if Mr. Lenville didn't mean to do it he had
better say so and not keep them waiting there. Thus urged
the tragedian adjusted the cuff of his right coat sleeve for
the performance of the operation, and walked in a very
stately manner up to Nicholas, who sufiFered him to approach
to within the requisite distance, and then, without the
smallest discomposure, knocked him down.

Before the discomfited tragedian could raise his head
from the boards, Mrs, Lenville (who, as has been before
hinted, was in an interesting state) rushed from the rear
rank of ladies, and uttering a piercing scream threw herself
upon the body.

"Do you see this, monster? Do you see this?'' cried Mr.
Len\'ille, sitting up, and pointing to his prostrate lady, who
was holding him very tight round the waist.

"Come," said Nicholas, nodding his head, "apologize for
the insolent note you wrote to me last night, and waste no
more time in talking."

"Never!" cried Mr. Lenville.

"Yes — yes — yes!" screamed his wife. "For my sake —
for mine, Lenville — forego all idle forms, unless you would
see me a blighted corse at your feet."

"This is affecting!" said Mr. Lenville, looking round
him, and drawing the back of his hand across his eyes.
"The ties of nature are strong. The weak husband and
the father — the father that is yet to be — relents. I
apologize."

"Humbly and submissively?" said Nicholas.

"Humbly and submissively," returned the tragedian,

194 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

scowling upwards. "But only to save her, — for a time will
come "

"Very good," said Nicholas; "I hope Mrs. Lenville may
have a good one; and when it does come, and you are a
father, you shall retract it if you have the courage. There.
Be careful, sir, to what lengths your jealousy carries you
another time; and be careful, also, before you venture too
far, to ascertain your rival's temper." With this parting
advice Nicholas picked up Mr. Lenville's ash stick which
had flown out of his hand, and breaking it in half, threw him
the pieces and withdrew.

The profoundest deference was paid to Nicholas that
night and the people who had been most anxious to have
his nose pulled in the morning, embraced occasions of taking
him aside, and telling him with great feeling, how very
friendly they took it that he should have treated that Len-
ville so properly, who was a most unbearable fellow, and on
whom they had all by a remarkable coincidence at one time
or other contemplated the infliction of condign punishment,
which they had only been restrained from administering
by considerations of mercy; indeed, to judge from the invari-
able termination of all these stories, there never was such
a charitable and kind-hearted set of people as the male
members of Mr. Crummles's company.

Nicholas bore his triumph, as he had his success in the
little world of the theatre, with the utmost moderation and
good humour. The crestfallen Mr. Lenville made an expir-
ing effort to obtain revenge by sending a boy into the gallery
to hiss, but he fell a sacrifice to popular indignation, and
was promptly turned out without having his money back.

"Well, Smike," said Nicholas when the first piece was
over, and he had almost finished dressing to go home, "is
there any letter yet?"

"Yes," replied Smike, "I got this one from the post-
office."

The Vincent Crummies Company 195

"From Newman Noggs," said Nicholas, casting his eye
upon the cramped direction; "it's no easy matter to make
his writing out. Let me see — let me see."

By dint of poring over the letter for half an hour, he con-
trived to make himself master of the contents, which were
certainly not of a nature to set his mind at ease. Newman
took upon himself to send back the ten pounds, observing
that he had ascertained that neither Mrs. Nickleby nor Kate
was in actual want of money at the moment, and that a time
might shortly come when Nicholas might want it more. He
entreated him not to be alarmed at what he was about to
say; — there was no bad news — they were in good health —
but he thought circumstances might occur, or were occur-
ring, which would render it absolutely necessary that Kate
should have her brother's protection, and if so, Newman
said, he would write to him to that effect, either by the next
post or the next but one.

Nicholas read this passage very often and the more he
thought of it the more he began to fear some treachery upon
the part of Ralph. Once or twice he felt tempted to repair
to London at all hazards without an hour's delay, but a little
reflection assured him that if such a step were necessary,
Newman would have spoken out and told him so at once.

"At all events I should prepare them here for the pos-
sibility of my going away suddenly," said Nicholas; "I
should lose no time in doing that." As the thought occurred
to him, he took up his hat and hurried to the green-room.

"Well, Mr. Johnson," said Mrs. Crummies, who was
seated there in full regal costume, with the phenomenon as
the Maiden in her maternal arms, "next week for Ryde,
then for Winchester, then for "

"I have some reason to fear," interrupted Nicholas, "that
before you leave here my career with you will have closed."

"Closed!" cried Mrs. Crummies, raising her hands in
astonishment.

196 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

"Closed!" cried Miss Snevellicci, trembling so much in
her tights that she actually laid her hand upon the shoulder
of the manageress for support.

"Why, he don't mean to say he's going!" exclaimed Mrs.
Grudden, making her way towards Mrs. Crummies.
"Hoity toity! Nonsense."

The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and
moreover excitable, raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney
and Miss Bravassa actually shed tears. Even the male per-
formers stopped in their conversation, and echoed the word
"Going!" although some among them (and they had been
the loudest in their congratulations that day) winked at
each other as though they would not be sorry to lose such a
favoured rival; an opinion, indeed, which the honest Mr.
Folair, who was ready dressed for the savage, openly stated
in so many words to a demon with whom he was sharing
a pot of porter.

Nicholas briefly said that he feared it would be so, al-
though he could not yet speak with any degree of certainty ;
and getting away as soon as he could, went home to con
Newman's letter once more, and speculate upon it afresh.

How trifling all that had been occupying his time and
thoughts for many weeks seemed to him during that sleep-
less night, and how constantly and incessantly present to
his imagination was the one idea that Kate in the midst of
some great trouble and distress might even then be looking
— and vainly too — for him!

4. — FESTIVITIES ARE HELD IN HONOUR OF NICHOLAS, WHO
SUDDENLY WITHDRAWS HIMSELF FROM THE SOCIETY
OF MR. VINCENT CRUMMLES AND HIS THEATRICAL
COMPANIONS

Mr. Vincent Crummies was no sooner acquainted with
the public announcement which Nicholas had made relative

The Vincent Crummies Company 197

to the probability of his shortly ceasing to be a member of
the company, than he evinced many tokens of grief and
consternation; and, in the extremity of his despair, even held
out certain vague promises of a speedy improvement not
only in the amount of his regular salary, but also in the con-
tingent emoluments appertaining to his authorship. Find-
ing Nicholas bent upon quitting the society (for he had now
determined that, even if no further tidings came from New-
man, he would, at all hazards, ease his mind by repairing
to London and ascertaining the exact position of his sister)
Mr. Crummies was fain to content himself by calculating
the chances of his coming back again, and taking prompt
and energetic measures to make the most of him before he
went awav.

"Let me see," said Mr. Crummies, taking off his outlaw's
wig, the better to arrive at a cool-headed view of the whole
case. "Let me see. This is Wednesday night. We'll
have posters out the first thing in the morning, announcing
positively your last appearance for to-morrow."

"But perhaps it may not be my last appearance, you
know," said Nicholas. "Unless I am summoned away, I
should be sorry to inconvenience you by leaving before the
end of the week."

"So much the better," returned Mr. Crummies. "We
can have positively your last appearance, on Thursday —
re-engagement for one night more, on Friday — and, yielding
to the wishes of numerous influential patrons, w^ho were
disappointed in obtaining seats, on Saturday. That ought
to bring three very decent houses."

"Then I am to make three last appearances, am I?"
inquired Nicholas, smiling.

"Yes," rejoined the manager, scratching his head with an
air of some vexation; "three is not enough, and it's very
bungling and irregular not to have more, but if we can't
help it we can't, so there's no use in talking. A novelty

198 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

would be very desirable. You couldn't sing a comic song on
the pony's back, could you?"

"No," replied Nicholas, "I couldn't indeed."

"It has drawn money before now," said Mr. Crummies
with a look of disappointment. "What do you think of a
brilliant display of fireworks?"

"That it would be rather expensive," replied Nicholas,
drily.

" Eighteenpence would do it," said Mr. Crummies. " You
on the top of a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an
attitude; 'Farewell' on a transparency behind; and nine
people at the wings with a squib in each hand — all the dozen
and a half going off at once — it would be very grand — awful
from the front, quite awful."

As Nicholas appeared by no means impressed with the
solemnity of the proposed effect, but, on the contrary,
received the proposition in a most irreverent manner, and
laughed at it very heartily, Mr. Crummies abandoned the
project in its birth, and gloomily observed that they must
make up the best bill they could with combats and hornpipes,
and so stick to the legitimate drama.

For the purpose of carrying this object into instant execu-
tion, the manager at once repaired to a small dressing-room,
adjacent, where Mrs. Crummies was then occupied in ex-
changing the habiliments of a melodramatic empress for the
ordinary attire of matrons in the nineteenth century. And
with the assistance of this lady, and the accomphshed
Mrs. Grudden (who had quite a genius for making out bills,
being a great hand at throwing in the notes of admiration,
and knowing from long experience exactly where the largest
capitals ought to go), he seriously applied himself to the
composition of the poster.

"Heigho!" sighed Nicholas, as he threw himself back in
the prompter's chair, after telegraphing the needful direc-
tions to Smike, who had been playing a meagre tailor in the

The Vincent Crummies Company 199

interlude, with one skirt to his coat, and a httle pocket
handkerchief with a large hole in it, and woollen night
cap, and a red nose, and other distinctive marks pecul-
iar to tailors on the stage. "Heigho! I wish all this were
over."

"Over, Mr. Johnson!" repeated a female voice behind
him, in a kind of plaintive surprise.

"It was an ungallant speech, certainly," said Nicholas,
looking up to see who the speaker was, and recognising Miss
Snevellicci. " I would not have made it if I had known you
had been within hearing."

"What a dear that Mr. Digby is!" said Miss Snevellicci,
as the tailor went off on the opposite side, at the end of the
piece, with great applause. (Smike's theatrical name was
Digby.)

"I'll tell him presently, for his gratification, that you said
so," returned Nicholas.

"Oh you naughty thing!" rejoined Miss Snevellicci. "I
don't know though, that I should much mind his knowing
my opinion of him; with some other people, indeed, it

might be " Here Miss Snevellicci stopped, as though

waiting to be questioned, but no questioning came, for
Nicholas was thinking about more serious matters.

"How kind it is of you," resumed Miss Snevellicci, after a
short silence, "to sit waiting here for him night after night,
night after night, no matter how tired you are; and taking
so much pains with him, and doing it all with as much de-
light and readiness as if you were coining gold by it!"

"He well deserves all the kindness I can show him, and a
great deal more," said Nicholas. "He is the most grateful,
single-hearted, affectionate creature, that ever breathed."

"So odd, too," remarked Miss Snevellicci, "isn't he?"

"God help him, and those who have made him so; he is
indeed," rejoined Nicholas, shaking his head.

"He is such a devilish close chap," said Mr. Folair, who

200 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

had come up a little before, and now joined in the conversa-
tion. "Nobody can ever get anything out of him."

"What should they get out of him?" asked Nicholas,
turning round with some abruptness.

"Zooks! what a fire-eater you are, Johnson!" returned
Mr. Folair, pulling up the heel of his dancing shoe. "I'm
only talking of the natural curiosity of the people here, to
know what he has been about all his life."

"Poor fellow! it is pretty plain, I should think, that he
has not the intellect to have been about anything of much
importance to them or anybody else," said Nicholas.

"Ay," rejoined the actor, contemplating the effect of his
face in a lamp reflector, "but that involves the whole
question, you know."

"What question?" asked Nicholas.

"Why, the who he is and what he is, and how you two,
who are so different, came to be such close companions,"
replied Mr. Folair, delighted with the opportunity of saying
something disagreeable. "That's in everybody's mouth."

"The 'everybody' of the theatre, I suppose?" said
Nicholas, contemptuously.

"In it and out of it too," replied the actor. "Why, you
know, Lenville says "

"I thought I had silenced him effectually," interrupted
Nicholas, reddening.

"Perhaps you have," rejoined the immovable Mr. Folair;
"if you have, he said this before he was silenced: Lenville
says that you're a regular stick of an actor, and that it's
only the mystery about you that has caused you to go down
with the people here, and that Crummies keeps it up for his
own sake; though Lenville says he don't believe there's any-
thing at all in it, except your having got into a scrape and
run away from somewhere, for doing something or other."

"Oh!" said Nicholas, forcing a smile.

"That's a part of what he says," added Mr. Folair. "I

The Vincent Crummies Company 201

mention it as the friend of both parties, and in strict con-
fidence. / don't agree with him, you know. He says he
takes Digby to be more knave than fool; and old Fluggers,
who does the heavy business you know, he says that when he
delivered messages at Covent Garden the season before
last, there used to be a pickpocket hovering about the
coach-stand who had exactly the face of Digby; though
as he very properly says, Digby may not be the same, but
only his brother, or some near relation."

"Oh!" cried Nicholas again.

"Yes," said Mr. Folair, with undisturbed calmness,
"that's what they say. I thought I'd tell you, because
really you ought to know. Oh ! here's this blessed phenom-
enon at last. Ugh, you little imposition, I should like to
— quite ready, my darling, — humbug — Ring up, Mrs. G.,
and let the favourite wake 'em!"

Uttering in a loud voice such of the latter allusions as
were complimentary to the unconscious phenomenon, and
giving the rest in a confidential "aside" to Nicholas, Mr.
Folair followed the ascent of the curtain with his eyes, re-
garded with a sneer the reception of Miss Crummies as the
Maiden, and, falling back a step or two to advance with the
better effect, uttered a preliminary howl, and "went on"
chattering his teeth and brandishing his tin tomahawk as
the Indian Savage.

"So these are some of the stories they invent about us,
and bandy from mouth to mouth!" thought Nicholas. "If
a man would commit an inexpiable offence against any
society, large or small, let him be successful. They will
forgive him any crime but that."

"You surely don't mind what that malicious creature
says, Mr. Johnson?" observed Miss Snevellicci in her most
winning tones.

"Not I," replied Nicholas, "If I were going to remain
here, I might think it worth my while to embroil myself.

202 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

As it is, let them talk till they are hoarse. But here,"
added Nicholas, as Smike approached, "here comes the
subject of a portion of their good-nature, so let he and I say
good night together."

" No, I will not let either of you say anything of the kind,"
returned Miss Snevellicci. "You must come home and see
mama, who only came to Portsmouth to-day, and is dying
to behold you. Led, my dear, persuade Mr. Johnson."

"Oh, I'm sure," returned Miss Ledrook, with consider-
able vivacity, "if you can't persuade him — " Miss Ledrook
said no more, but intimated, by a dexterous playfulness,
that if Miss Snevellicci couldn't persuade him, nobody
could.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lilly vick have taken lodgings in our
house, and share our sitting-room for the present," said
Miss Snevellicci. "Won't that induce you?"

"Surely," returned Nicholas, "I can require no possible
inducement beyond your invitation."

"Oh no! I dare say," rejoined Miss Snevellicci. And
Miss Ledrook said, "Upon my word!" Upon which Miss
Snevellicci said that Miss Ledrook was a giddy thing;
and Miss Ledrook said that Miss Snevellicci needn't colour
up quite so much; and Miss Snevellicci beat Miss Ledrook,
and Miss Ledrook beat Miss Snevellicci.

"Come," said Miss Ledrook, "it's high time we were
there, or we shall have poor Mrs. Snevelhcci thinking that
you have run away with her daughter, Mr. Johnson; and
then we should have a pretty to-do."

"My dear Led," remonstrated Miss Snevellicci, "how you
do talk!"

Miss Ledrook made no answer, but taking Smike's arm
in hers, left her friend and Nicholas to follow at their
pleasure ; which it pleased them, or rather pleased Nicholas,
who had no great fancy for a tete-a-tete under the circum-
stances, to do at once.

The Vincent Crummies Company 203

There were not wanting matters of conversation when they
reached the street, for it turned out that Miss SneveUicci
had a small basket to carry home, and Miss Ledrook a small
bandbox, both containing such minor articles of theatrical
costume as the lady performers usually carried to and fro
every evening. Nicholas would insist upon carrying the
basket, and Miss SneveUicci would insist upon carrying it
herself, which gave rise to a struggle , in which Nicholas
captured the basket and the bandbox likewise. Then
Nicholas said, that he wondered what could possibly be
inside the basket, and attempted to peep in, whereat Miss
SneveUicci screamed, and declared that if she thought he
had seen, she was sure she should faint away. This declara-
tion was followed by a similar attempt on the bandbox,
and similar demonstrations on the part of Miss Ledrook,
and then both ladies vowed that they wouldn't move a step
further until Nicholas had promised that he wouldn't offer
to peep again. At last Nicholas pledged himself to betray
no further curiosity, and they walked on: both ladies gig-
gling very much, and declaring that they never had seen
such a wicked creature in all their born days — never.

Lightening the way with such pleasantry as this, they
arrived at the tailor's house in no time; and here they made
quite a little party, there being present besides Mr. Lilly-
vick and Mrs. Lillyvick, not only Miss Snevellicci's mama,
but her papa also. And an uncommonly fine man Miss
Snevellicci's papa was, with a hook nose, and white fore-
head, and curly black hair, and high cheek bones, and alto-
gether quite a handsome face, only a little pimply as though
with drinking. He had a very broad chest had Miss Snevel-
licci's papa, and he wore a threadbare blue dress coat
buttoned with gilt buttons tight across it; and he no sooner
saw Nicholas come into the room, than he whipped the two
forefingers of his right hand in between the two centre
buttons, and sticking his other arm gracefully a-kimbo.

204 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

seemed to say, "Now, here I am, my buck, and what have
you got to say to me?"

Such was, and in such an attitude sat. Miss SnevelHcci's
papa, who had been in the profession ever since he had first
played the ten-year-old imps in the Christmas pantomimes;
who could sing a little, dance a little, fence a little, act a
fittle, and do everything a little, but not much; who had
been sometimes in the ballet, and sometimes in the chorus,
at every theatre in London; who was always selected in
virtue of his figure to play the military visitors and the
speechless noblemen; who always wore a smart dress, and
came on arm-in-arm with a smart lady in short petticoats, —
and always did it too with such an air that people in the pit
had been several times known to cry out "Bravo!" under
the impression that he was somebody. Such was Miss
SnevelHcci's papa, upon whom some envious persons cast
the imputation that he occasionally beat Miss SnevelHcci's
mama, who was still a dancer, with a neat little figure and
some remains of good looks, and who now sat, as she danced,
— being rather too old for the full glare of the footlights, —
in the background.

To these good people Nicholas was presented with much
formality. The introduction being completed. Miss Snevel-
Hcci's papa (who was scented with rum and water) said that
he was delighted to make the acquaintance of a gentleman
so highly talented; and furthermore remarked, that there
hadn't been such a hit made — no, not since the first appear-
ance of his friend Mr. Glavormelly, at the Coburg.

"You have seen him, sir?" said Miss SnevelHcci's papa.

"No, really I never did," replied Nicholas.

"You never saw my friend Glavormelly, sir!" said Miss
SneveHicci's papa. "Then you have never seen acting yet.
If he had lived "

"Oh, he is dead, is he?" interrupted Nicholas,

"He is," said Mr. SneveHicci, "but he isn't in West-

The Vincent Crummies Company 205

minster Abbey, more's the shame. He was a . Well,

no matter. He is gone to that bourne from whence no
traveller returns. I hope he is appreciated there."

So saying. Miss Snevellicci's papa rubbed the tip of his
nose with a very yellow silk handkerchief, and gave the
company to understand that these recollections overcame
him.

•'Well Mr. Lilly vick," said Nicholas, "and how are
you?"

"Quite well, sir," replied the collector. "There is
nothing like the married state, sir, depend upon it."

"Indeed?" said Nicholas, laughing.

"Nothing like it, sir," replied Mr. Lilly vick solemnly.
"How do you think?" whispered the collector, drawing
him aside, "How do you think she looks to-night?"

"As handsome as ever," replied Nicholas, glancing at
the late Miss Petowker.

"Why, there's a air about her, sir," whispered the col-
lector, "that I never saw in anybody. Look at her, now
she moves to put the kettle on. There! Isn't it fascination,
sir.''

"You're a lucky man," said Nicholas.

"Ha, ha, ha!" rejoined the collector. "No. Do you
think I am though, eh? Perhaps I may be, perhaps I may
be. I say, I couldn't have done much better if I had been
a young man, could I? You couldn't have done much bet-
ter yourself, could you — eh — could you?" With such
inquiries, and many more such, Mr. Lillyvick jerked his
elbow into Nicholas's side, and chuckled till his face became
quite purple in the attempt to keep down his satisfaction.

Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the
public were informed, in all the colours of the rainbow, and
in letters afflicted with every possible variation of spinal
deformity, how that Mr. Johnson would have the honour of
making his last appearance that evening, and how that an

2o6 Mr. Dicke ns Goes to the Play

early application for places was requested, in consequence of
the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances.
It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long
since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless en-
deavour to attract people to a theatre unless they can be
first brought to believe that they will never get into it.

Nicholas was somewhat at a loss, on entering the theatre
at night, to account for the unusual perturbation and excite-
ment visible in the countenances of all the company, but he
was not long in doubt as to the cause, for before he could
make any inquiry respecting it Mr. Crummies approached,
and in an agitated tone of voice, informed him that there
was a London manager in the boxes.

"It's the phenomenon, depend upon it, sir," said
Crummies, dragging Nicholas to the little hole in the cur-
tain that he might look through at the London manager.
"I have not the smallest doubt it's the fame of the phe-
nomenon — that's the man: him in the great-coat and no
shirt-collar. She shall have ten pound a-week, Johnson;
she shall not appear on the London boards for a farthing
less. They shan't engage her either, unless they engage
Mrs. Crummies too — twenty pound a-week for the pair; or
I'll tell you what, I'll throw in myself and the two boys, and
they shall have the family for thirty. I can't say fairer
than that. They must take us all, if none of us will go
without the others. That's the way some of the London
people do, and it always answers. Thirty pound a-week.
It's too cheap, Johnson. It's dirt cheap."

Nicholas replied, that it certainly was; and Mr. Vincent
Crummies taking several huge pinches of snuff to compose
his feelings, hurried away to tell Mrs. Crummies that he had
quite settled the only terms that could be accepted, and had
resolved not to abate one single farthing.

When everybody was dressed and the curtain went up,
the excitement occasioned by the presence of the London

The Vincent Crummies Company 207

manager increased a thousand-fold. E.verybody happened
to know that the London manager had come down specially
to witness his or her own performance, and all were in a flut-
ter of anxiety and expectation. Some of those who were
not on in the first scene, hurried to the wings, and there
stretched their necks to have a peep at him; others stole up
into the two little private boxes over the stage-doors, and
from that position reconnoitred the London manager. Once
the London manager was seen to smile. He smiled at the
comic countryman's pretending to catch a blue-bottle, while
Mrs. Crummies was making her greatest effect. "Very
good, my fine fellow," said Mr. Crummies, shaking his fist
at the comic countryman when he came off, "you leave this
company next Saturday night."

In the same way, everybody who was on the stage beheld
no audience but one individual; everybody played to the
London manager. When Mr. Lenville in a sudden burst of
passion called the emperor a miscreant, and then biting his
glove, said, "But I must dissemble," instead of looking
gloomily at the boards and so waiting for his cue, as is
proper in such cases, he kept his eye fixed upon the London
manager. When Miss Bravassa sang her song at her lover,
who according to custom stood ready to shake hands with
her between the verses, they looked, not at each other but
at the London manager. Mr. Crummies died point blank
at him; and when the two guards came in to take the body
off after a very hard death, it was seen to open its eyes and
glance at the London manager. At length the London
manager was discovered to be asleep, and shortly after that
he woke up and went away, whereupon all the company fell
foul of the unhappy comic countryman, declaring that his
buffoonery was the sole cause; and Mr. Crummies said, that
he had put up with it a long time, but that he really couldn't
stand it any longer, and therefore would feel obliged by his
looking out for another engagement.

208 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

All this was the occasion of much amusement to Nicholas,
whose only feeling upon the subject was one of sincere
satisfaction that the great man went away before he
appeared. He went through his part in the two last pieces
as briskly as he could, and having been received with
unbounded favour and unprecedented applause — so said
the bills for next day, which had been printed an hour or
two before — he took Smike's arm and walked home to bed.

With the post next morning came a letter from Newman
Noggs, very inky, very short, very dirty, very small, and
very mysterious, urging Nicholas to return to London
instantly; not to lose an instant; to be there at night if
possible.

"I will," said Nicholas, "Heaven knows I have re-
mained here for the best, and sorely against my own will;
but even now I may have dallied too long. What can have
happened? Smike, my good fellow, here — take my purse.
Put our things together, and pay what little debts we owe —
quick, and we shall be in time for the morning coach. I will
only tell them that we are going, and will return to you
immediately."

So saying, he took his hat, and hurrying away to the
lodgings of Mr. Crummies, applied his hand to the knocker
with such hearty good-will, that he awakened that gentle-
man, who was still in bed, and caused Mr. Bulph the pilot
to take his morning's pipe very nearly out of his mouth in
the extremity of his surprise.

The door being opened, Nicholas ran upstairs without
any ceremony, and bursting into the darkened sitting-
room on the one-pair front, found that the two Master
Crummleses had sprung out of the sofa-bedstead and were
putting on their clothes with great rapidity, under the im-
pression that it was the middle of the night, and the next
house was on fire.

Before he could undeceive them Mr. Crummies came

The Vincent Crummies Company 209

down in a flannel-gown and night-cap; and to him Nicholas
briefly explained that circumstances had occurred which
rendered it necessary for him to repair to London im-
mediately.

"So good bye," said Nicholas; "good bye, good bye."

He was half-way downstairs before Mr. Crummies had
sufficiently recovered his surprise to gasp out something
about the posters.

" I can't help it," replied Nicholas, " Set whatever I may
have earned this week against them, or if that will not repay
you, say at once what will. Quick, quick."

" We'll cry quits about that," returned Crummies. " But
can't we have one last night more?"

"Not an hour — not a minute," replied Nicholas, im-
patiently.

"Won't you stop to say something to Mrs. Crummies.'^"
asked the manager, following him down to the door.

"I couldn't stop if it were to prolong my life a score of
years," rejoined Nicholas. "Here, take my hand, and
with it my hearty thanks. — Oh! that I should have been
fooling here!"

Accompanying these words with an impatient stamp on
the ground, he tore himself from the manager's detaining
grasp, and darting rapidly down the street was out of sight
in an instant.

"Dear me, dear me," said Mr. Crummies, looking wist-
fully towards the point at which he had just disappeared;
"if he only acted like that, what a deal of money he'd draw!
He should have kept upon this circuit; he'd have been very
useful to me. But he don't know what's good for him. He
is an impetuous youth. Young men are rash, very rash."

Mr. Crummies being in a moralising mood, might possibly
have moralised for some minutes longer if he had not
mechanically put his hand towards his waistcoat pocket,
where he was accustomed to keep his snufiF. The absence

210 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

of any pocket at all in the usual direction, suddenly recalled
to his recollection the fact that he had no waistcoat on; and
this leading him to a contemplation of the extreme scanti-
ness of his attire, he shut the door abruptly, and retired
upstairs with great precipitation.

Smike had made good speed while Nicholas was absent,
and with his help everything was soon ready for their de-
parture. They scarcely stopped to take a morsel of break-
fast, and in less than half an hour arrived at the coach-office :
quite out of breath with the haste they had made to reach
it in time. There were yet a few minutes to spare, so, hav-
ing secured the places, Nicholas hurried into a slopseller's
hard by, and bought Smike a great-coat. It would have
been rather large for a substantial yeoman, but the shopman
averring (and with considerable truth) that it was a most
uncommon fit, Nicholas would have purchased it in his
impatience if it had been twice the size.

As they hurried up to the coach, which was now in the
open street and all ready for starting, Nicholas was not
a little astonished to find himself suddenly clutched in a
close and violent embrace, which nearly took him oiff his
legs; nor was his amazement at all lessened by hearing the
voice of Mr. Crummies exclaim, "It is he — my friend, my
friend!"

"Bless my heart," cried Nicholas, struggling in the
manager's arms, "what are you about.-^"

The manager made no reply, but strained him to his
breast again, exclaiming as he did so, "Farewell, my noble,
my lion-hearted boy!"

In fact, Mr. Crummies, who could never lose any oppor-
tunity for professional display, had turned out for the
express purpose of taking a public farewell of Nicholas; and
to render it the more imposing, he was now, to that young
gentleman's most profound annoyance, inflicting upon him
a rapid succession of stage embraces, which, as everybody

The Vincent Crummies Company 211

knows, are performed by the embracer's laying his or her
chin on the shoulder of the object of affection, and looking
over it. This Mr. Crummies did in the highest style of
melodrama, pouring forth at the same time all the most
dismal forms of farewell he could think of, out of the stock
pieces. Nor was this all, for the elder Master Crummies
was going through a similar ceremony with Smike; while
Master Percy Crummies, with a very little second-hand
camlet-cloak, worn theatrically over his left shoulder, stood
by, in the attitude of an attendant officer, waiting to convey
the two victims to the scaffold.

The lookers-on laughed very heartily, and as it was as
well to put a good face upon the matter, Nicholas laughed
too when he had succeeded in disengaging himself; and
rescuing the astonished Smike, climbed up to the coach
roof after him, and kissed his hand in honour of the absent
Mrs. Crummies as they rolled away.

5 LONG AFTERWARDS

Long afterwards Nicholas found himself poring with the
utmost interest over a large play-bill hanging outside a
Minor Theatre which he had to pass on his way home, and
reading a list of the actors and actresses who had promised
to do honour to some approaching benefit, with as much
gravity as if it had been a catalogue of the names of those
ladies and gentlemen who stood highest upon the Book of
Fate, and he had been looking anxiously for his own. He
glanced at the top of the bill, with a smile at his own dull-
ness, as he prepared to resume his walk, and there saw an-
nounced, in large letters, with a large space between each
of them, "Positively the last appearance of Mr. Vincent
Crummies of Provincial Celebrity!!!"

"Nonsense!" said Nicholas, turning back again. "It
can't be."

212 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

But there it was. In one line by itself was an announce-
ment of the first night of a new melodrama; in another line
by itself was an announcement of the last six nights of an
old one; a third line was devoted to the re-engagement of
the unrivalled African Knife-swallower, who had kindly
suffered himself to be prevailed upon to forego his country
engagements for one week longer; a fourth line announced
that Mr. Snittle Timberry, having recovered from his last
severe indisposition, would have the honour of appearing
that evening; a fifth line said that there were "Cheers,
Tears, and Laughter!" every night; a sixth, that that was
positively the last appearance of Mr. Vincent Crummies of
Provincial Celebrity.

"Surely it must be the same man," thought Nicholas.
"There can't be two Vincent Crummleses."

The better to settle this question he referred to the bill
again, and finding that there was a Baron in the first piece,
and that Roberto (his son) was enacted by one Master
Crummies, and Spaletro (his nephew) by one Master Percy
Crummies — their last appearances — and that, incidental to
that piece, was a characteristic dance by the characters, and
a Castanet pas seul by the Infant Phenomenon — her last
appearance — he no longer entertained any doubt; and pre-
senting himself at the stage door, and sending in a scrap of
paper with "Mr. Johnson" written thereon in pencil, was
presently conducted by a Robber with a very large belt and
buckle round his waist, and very large leather gauntlets on
his hands, into the presence of his former manager.

Mr. Crummies was unfeignedly glad to see him, and
starting up from before a small dressing-glass, with one
very bushy eyebrow stuck on crooked over his left eye, and
the fellow eyebrow and the calf of one of his legs in his hand,
embraced him cordially; at the same time observing, that it
would do Mrs. Crummles's heart good to bid him good-bye
before they went.

The Vincent Crummies Company 213

"You were always a favourite of hers, Johnson," said
Crummies, "always were from the first. I was quite easy
in my mind about you from that first day you dined with
us. One that Mrs. Crummies took a fancy to was sure to
turn out right. Ah! Johnson, what a woman that is!"

"I am sincerely obliged to her for her kindness in this and
all other respects," said Nicholas. "But where are you
going, that you talk about bidding good-bye.?"

"Haven't you seen it in the papers?" said Crummies,
with some dignity.

"No," replied Nicholas.

"I wonder at that," said the manager. "It was among
the varieties. I had the paragraph here somewhere — but I
don't know — oh, yes, here it is."

So saying, Mr. Crummies, after pretending that he
thought he must have lost it, produced a square inch of
newspaper from the pocket of the pantaloons he wore in
private life (which, together with the plain clothes of several
other gentlemen, lay scattered about on a kind of dresser in
the room), and gave it to Nicholas to read:

"The talented Vincent Crummies, long favourably
known to fame as a country manager and actor of no ordi-
nary pretensions, is about to cross the Atlantic on an
histrionic expedition. Crummies is to be accompanied, we
hear, by his lady and gifted family. We know no man
superior to Crummies in his particular line of character, or
one who, whether as a public or private individual, could
carry with him the best wishes of a larger circle of friends.
Crummies is certain to succeed."

"Here's another bit," said Mr. Crummies, handing over a
still smaller scrap. "This is from the notices to correspon-
dents, this one."

Nicholas read it aloud. " * Philo-Dramaticus. Crummies,
the country manager and actor, cannot be more than forty-
three, or forty-four years of age. Crummies is not a Prus-

214 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

sian, having been born at Chelsea.' Humph!" said
Nicholas, "that's an odd paragraph."

"Very," returned Crummies, scratching the side of his
nose, and looking at Nicholas with an assumption of great
unconcern. "I can't think who puts these things in. I
didn't."

Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr. Crummies shook
his head twice or thrice with profound gravity, and remark-
ing, that he could not for the life of him imagine how the
newspapers found out the things they did, folded up the
extracts and put them in his pocket again.

"I am astonished to hear this news," said Nicholas.
" Going to America ! You had no such thing in contempla-
tion when I was with you."

"No," rephed Crummies, "I hadn't then. The fact is,
that Mrs. Crummies — most extraordinary woman, Johnson."
Here he broke off and whispered something in his ear.

"Oh!" said Nicholas, smiling. "The prospect of an
addition to your family?"

"The seventh addition, Johnson," returned Mr.
Crummies, solemnly. "I thought such a child as the
Phenomenon must have been a closer; but it seems we are
to have another. She is a very remarkable woman."

"I congratulate you," said Nicholas, "and I hope this
may prove a phenomenon too."

"Why, it's pretty sure to be something uncommon, I
suppose," rejoined Mr. Crummies. "The talent of the
other three is principally in combat and serious pantomime.
I should like this one to have a turn for juvenile tragedy; I
understand they want something of that sort in America
very much. However, we must take it as it comes. Per-
haps it may have a genius for the tight-rope. It may have
any sort of genius, in short, if it takes after its mother,
Johnson, for she is a universal genius; but, whatever its
genius is, that genius shall be developed."

The Vincent Crummies Company 215

Expressing himself after these terms, Mr. Crummies put
on his other eyebrow, and the calves of his legs, and then
put on his legs, which were of a yellowish flesh-colour, and
rather soiled about the knees, from frequent going down
upon those joints, in curses, prayers, last struggles, and
other strong passages.

While the ex-manager completed his toilet, he informed
Nicholas that as he should have a fair start in America,
from the proceeds of a tolerably good engagement which he
had been fortunate enough to obtain, and as he and Mrs
Crummies could scarcely hope to act for ever (not being
immortal, except in the breath of Fame and in a figurative
sense), he had made up his mind to settle there permanently,
in the hope of acquiring some land of his own which would
support them in their old age, and which they could after-
wards bequeath to their children. Nicholas, having highly
commended this resolution, Mr. Crummies went on to im-
part such further intelligence relative to their mutual
friends as he thought might prove interesting; informing
Nicholas, among other things, that Miss Snevellicci was
happily married to an affluent young wax-chandler who had
supplied the theatre with candles, and that Mr. Lillyvick
didn't dare to say his soul was his own, such was the tyran-
nical sway of Mrs. Lillyvick, who reigned paramount and
supreme.

Nicholas responded to this confidence on the part of Mr.
Crummies, by confiding to him his own name, situation,
and prospects, and informing him in as few general words as
he could, of the circumstances which had led to their first
acquaintance. After congratulating him with great hearti-
ness on the improved state of his fortunes, Mr. Crummies
gave him to understand that next morning he and his were
to start for Liverpool, where the vessel lay which was to
carry them from the shores of England, and that if Nicholas
wished to take a last adieu of Mrs. Crummies, he must

2i6 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

repair with him that night to a farewell-supper, given in
honour of the family at a neighbouring tavern; at which
Mr. Snittle Timberry would preside while the honours of
the vice-chair would be sustained by the African Swallower.

The room being by this time very warm and somewhat
crowded, in consequence of the influx of four gentlemen who
had just killed each other in the piece under representation,
Nicholas accepted the invitation, and promised to return at
the conclusion of the performances; preferring the cool air
and twilight out of doors to the mingled perfume of gas,
orange-peel, and gunpowder, which pervaded the hot and
glaring theatre.

He availed himself of this interval to buy a silver snuff-
box — the best his funds would afford — as a token of remem-
brance for Mr. Crummies, and having purchased besides a
pair of earrings for Mrs. Crummies, a necklace for the
Phenomenon, and a flaming shirt-pin for each of the young
gentlemen, he refreshed himself with a walk, and returning
a little after the appointed time, found the lights out, the
theatre empty, the curtain raised for the night, and Mr.
Crummies walking up and down the stage expecting his
arrival.

"Timberry won't be long," said Mr. Crummies. "He
played the audience out to-night. He does a faithful black
in the last piece, and it takes him a little longer to wash
himself."

"A very unpleasant line of character, I should think?"
said Nicholas.

"No, I don't know," replied Mr. Crummies; "it comes off
easily enough, and there's only the face and neck. We had
a first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he
played Othello, used to black himself all over. But that's
feeling a part and going into it as if you meant it; it isn't
usual; more's the pity."

Mr. Snittle Timberry now appeared, arm in arm with the

The Vincent Crummies Company 217

African Swallower, and, being introduced to Nicholas, raised
his hat half-a-foot, and said he was proud to know him.
The Swallower said the same, and looked and spoke remark-
ably like an Irishman.

"I see by the bills that you have been ill, sir," said
Nicholas to Mr. Timberry . " I hope you are none the worse
for your exertions to-night?"

Mr. Timberry, in reply, shook his head with a gloomy air,
tapped his chest several times with great significancy, and
drawing his cloak more closely about him, said, "But no
matter, no matter. Come!"

It is observable that when people upon the stage are in
any strait involving the very last extremity of weakness and
exhaustion, they invariably perform feats of strength re-
quiring great ingenuity and muscular power. Thus, a
wounded prince or bandit-chief, who is bleeding to death
and too faint to move, except to the softest music (and then
only upon his hands and knees), shall be seen to approach a
cottage door for aid, in such a series of writhings and twist-
ings, and with such curlings up of the legs, and such rollings
over and over, and such gettings up and tumblings down
again, as could never be achieved save by a very strong man
skilled in posture-making. And so natural did this sort of
performance come to Mr. Snittle Timberry, that on their
way out of the theatre and towards the tavern where the
supper was to be holden, he testified the severity of his re-
cent indisposition and its wasting effects upon the nervous
system, by a series of gymnastic performances which were
the admiration of all witnesses.

"Why, this is indeed a joy I had not looked for!" said
Mrs, Crummies, when Nicholas was presented.

"Nor I," replied Nicholas. "It is by a mere chance that
I have this opportunity of seeing you, although I would
have made a great exertion to have availed myself of it."

"Here is one whom you know," said Mrs. Crummies,

2i8 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

thrusting forward the Phenomenon in a blue gauze frock,
extensively flounced, and trousers of the same; "and here
another — and another," presenting the Masters Crummies.
"And how is your friend, the faithful Digby?"

"Digby!" said Nicholas, forgetting at the instant that
this had been Smike's theatrical name. "Oh, yes. He's
quite — what am I saying? — he is very far from well."

"How!" exclaimed Mrs. Crummies, with a tragic recoil.

"I fear," said Nicholas, shaking his head, and making an
attempt to smile, "that your better-half would be more
struck with him now, than ever."

"What mean you?" rejoined Mrs. Crummies, in her most
popular manner. "Whence comes this altered tone?"

"I mean that a dastardly enemy of mine has struck at
me through him, and that while he thinks to torture me, he

inflicts on him such agonies of terror and suspense as

You will excuse me, I am sure," said Nicholas, checking
himself. "I should never speak of this, and never do,
except to those who know the facts, but for a moment I
forgot myself."

With this hasty apology Nicholas stooped down to salute
the Phenomenon, and changed the subject ; inwardly cursing
his precipitation, and very much wondering what Mrs.
Crummies must think of so sudden an explosion.

The lady seemed to think very little about it, for the
supper being by this time on table, she gave her hand to
Nicholas and repaired with a stately step to the left hand of
Mr. Snittle Timberry. Nicholas had the honour to support
her, and Mr. Crummies was placed upon the chairman's
right; the Phenomenon and the Masters Crummies sustained
the vice.

The company amounted in number to some twenty-five
or thirty, being composed of such members of the theatrical
profession, then engaged or disengaged in London, as were
numbered among the most intimate friends of Mr. and Mrs.

The Vincent Crummies Company 219

Crummies. The ladies and gentlemen were pretty equally
balanced; the expenses of the entertainment being defrayed
by the latter, each of whom had the privilege of inviting one
of the former as his guest.

The Dramatizations of Dickens

221

THE DRAMATIZATIONS OF
DICKENS

DE CAUSE of his great throng of tempting charac-
ters and because scene after scene in his tales is
a-tingle with the electricity of the dramatic, the novels
of Dickens have ever been prey to the ready playwright.

Just as no player worth his salt can follow Fagin or
Jingle or Sydney Carton through the pages of the books
without itching to embody them on the stage, so no
dramatist can read such scenes as the interrupted
Christmas dinner at Joe Gargery's or the tantalizing
dialogue between Eugene Wrayburn and Bradley
Headstone without feeling a strong impulse to put them
immediately into play form.

Comedies and melodramas and operettas have been
fashioned more or less faithfully from the Dickens
stories for the theatre of every country under the sun
and I have seen in one place or another a record of a
dramatization of every tale he ever told, save only
"Hunted Down."

John O'Toole as the Artful Dodger, Irving as Sikes

223

224 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

and as Jingle, Jennie Lee as Joe, Tree as Fagin and as
John Jasper, Janauschek as Lady Dedlock, Lotta as the
Marchioness, Jefferson as Newman Noggs, W. J. Flor-
ence as Cuttle — these were famous performances.

Playgoers in America since 1900 might have seen the
stage version of "A Tale of Two Cities" which was called
"The Only Way" and which enlisted the services of
Henry Miller as Carton; Louis N. Parker's arrange-
ment of Copperfield, which he called "The Highway of
Life" and which had a brief and painful career at
Wallack's (the late Sir Herbert Tree played this in
London, doubling energetically as Peggotty and Mi-
cawber); a production in the grand manner of "Oliver
Twist," with Nat Goodwin as Fagin, Constance Collier
as Nancy, Lyn Harding as Bill, and Marie Doro, very
plaintive and feminine, as Oliver; Joseph Jefferson as
Caleb Plummer in a dramatization of "The Cricket on
the Hearth," which served him for many seasons; Lulu
Glaser as Dolly in "Dolly Varden," a pretty comic
opera made out of patches of "Barnaby Rudge," and,
in a musical show, none other than De Wolf Hopper try-
ing vainly to disguise his height and aspect behind the
spectacles and gaiters of Mr. Pickwick.

These, at least, I myself came across without looking
for them. Quite the contrary. Of an attempt to
search the records for a complete list of all the Dick-
ens plays, I am innocent. S. J. Adair Fitzgerald in his
book on Dickens and the stage has done that somewhat

MADAME CEJLES'TEAwMABAMnKUIBPRAGE.

PUiiiAtci i JoLdby A.PARK . i^y Leonard I'^ .TaberiLacU WaLk.

A Dramatization of "A Tale of Two Cities," at the Lyceum Theatre,

London, i860

(From the Shaw Collection)

The Dramatizations of Dickens 225

ungrateful task quite sufficiently for all i,ime. Such a
search does, to be sure, take on the nature of a game of
hide-and-seek, so completely do some of the dramatiza-
tions lurk behind the new titles which the adaptors, for
one reason or another, would be pretty sure to give
them.

Most of us would recognize "Bleak House" in "Move
On: or the Crossing Sweeper" and in "Jo, the Waif:
or the Mystery of Chesney Wood." But would we be
quite so sure of "Chesney Wold," in which Janauschek
doubled with great gusto as Lady Dedlock and Hor-
tense? Most of us would recognize " The Golden Dust-
man," but how many would suspect "Hard Times" of
having inspired "Under the Earth: or Sons of Toil".'^
The game grows more difficult when you go abroad and
must retain an unfamiliar association through transla-
tion into another tongue. Of course it took no great
penetration to detect the origins of the play called
"Klein Dorrit," which was running in Berlin in 1906,
but I vow I went to "Le Grillon du Foyer" at the Odeon
during the war, knowing quite well what "grillon"
meant and what "foyer," and yet without suspecting,
until the first-act was half unfolded, that I was seeing
my old friend Caleb Plummer again, Caleb listening
fondly to a cricket that was played in the fireplace by
an oboe, with its song written especially for the purpose
by Massenet. Most of us would recognize "Little
Em'ly" or "Lost Em'ly," but who would look for

226 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Peggotty in a play called "The Deal Boatman"? And
who is a good enough Dickensian to detect at once the
novel dramatized in "Born with a Caul"?

Really, the explanation of all the Dickens plays lies in
the implications of that title. You trace it, of course, to
that second page in the first chapter of "David Copper-
field" where the story runs as follows:

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in
the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether
sea-going people were short of money about that time, or
were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don't
know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding,
and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-
broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the
balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from
drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the adver-
tisement was withdrawn as a dead loss — for as to sherry,
my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then —
and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle
down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-
crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was
present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncom-
fortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed
of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old
lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced
from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and
twopence halfpenny short — as it took an immense time and
a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any
effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remem-
bered as remarkable down there, that she was never
drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I
have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast
that she never had been on the water in her life, except

The Dramatizations of Dickens 22-]

upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was ex-
tremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation
at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the pre-
sumption to go "meandering" about the world. It was in
vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps
included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She
always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinc-
tive knowledge of the strength of her objection : "Let us
have no meandering."

Of the quality and abundance of Dickens's genius
there is, in all the books, no better exhibit than that one
paragraph, not merely because the deathless character
which it presents is in herself a delightful acquaintance,
but because his capacity to create such characters was
so limitless that he could afford to cast her off casually.
She is never named. She enters a great novel on its
second page, makes her exit on the same page, and is
never heard of again. And it is that capacity which
lends the greatest regret to the fact that Dickens never
did try hard enough to shift from his habitual medium
to the dramatic form, for he had the kind of gift at
creation of human beings which is inseparable from the
dramatic form and which separates the great play-
wrights like ^schylus and Shakespeare and Ibsen from
the lesser playwrights of each renaissance of the theatre.

Dickens, as has been said, did try his hand at play-
writing and even thought, at times, of doing his own
dramatizations. He had a finger, though not the con-
trolling one, in the "No Thoroughfare" play, of which

228 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

Wilkie Collins wrote the major part and which was pre-
sented by Fechtef at the Adelphi in London while
Dickens was in America on his second visit. The play
had gone off the boards by the time he returned, so
that he had to go to Paris to see it under the title of
"L'Abime." Long before that, he had been quite
pathetically eager to be permitted to dramatize his own
"Ohver Twist." Under date of October, 1838, he was
writing confidently to Frederick Yates, the actor-
manager, as follows:

Supposing we arrange preliminaries for our mutual sat-
isfaction I propose to dramatize "Oliver Twist" for the first
night of next season. I have never seen Mrs. Honner, but
from the mere circumstance of her being a Mrs., I should
say at once that she was "a many sizes too big" for Oliver
Twist. If it be played by a female it should be a very sharp
girl of 13 or 14, or the character would be an absurdity.
I don't see any possibility of any other house doing it be-
fore your next opening night. If they do, it must be done
in a very extraordinary manner, as the story, unlike that of
"Pickwick," is an involved and complicated one. I am
quite certain that no one can have heard what I am going
to do with the different characters in the end, inasmuch as,
at present, I don't quite know myself. So we are tolerably
safe on that head. I am quite certain that your name as the
Jew and mine as the author would knock any other attempt
quite out of the field.

In the same year, a notation in Macready's Diary
reads as follows :

"Forster and Dickens called and I told them of the

The Dramatizations of Dickens 229

utter impossibility of 'Oliver Twist' for any dramatic
purpose."

The memory of which disappointment was probably
burning Dickens's ears that night a little later when he
and Forster did go to see "Oliver Twist" at the Surrey-
theatre, a dramatization so painful to the father of that
workhouse child that, as Forster tells, "in the middle
of the first scene he laid him down upon the floor in a
corner of the box and never rose from it until the drop-
scene fell."

Indeed, he witnessed or heard of all such stage ver-
sions with mingled emotions, an enormous curiosity as
to how it had been managed, an intense anguish when
the impersonations departed absurdly from the por-
traits he had painted, and a genuine and undying exas-
peration because, under the loose laws of the day, he
could never deflect any of the royalties or profits into
his own coffers. Against the pirates who swarmed
aboard each book of his as soon as it had appeared (or
even while it was in the process of appearing) he lay
about him with a bludgeon all his days and always
without the slightest effect on the pirates or on the
laws which permitted them to live at his expense. In
the middle of the farewell supper to Vincent Crummies,
he could not resist pausing and bidding Nicholas, of all
people, get up and speak his mind on this, a subject
which could not, by the widest stretch of the imagina-
tion, be supposed to interest Nicholas.

230 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

This blast, seemingly, was aimed at a pot-boiling
playwright named William MoncriefF, whose three-act
adaptation called "Sam Weller; or, the Pickwickians"
was running in the Strand with a final scene showing
Sam and Mr. Pickwick at the Coronation of Victoria.
It was accompanied by a complacent "Advertisement"
in which Moncrieff said :

Some injudicious friends of Mr. Dickens, among his breth-
ren of the Press (preserve me from such friends say I — of
course I do not allude to the manly, fair-dealing, daily
Press, to which I am under the greatest obligations) have
chosen to display much soreness at the complete manner in
which I have triumphed over all the difficulties I had to
encounter in my undertaking. Every wretched mongrel
can, I am aware, dramatize the "Pickwick Papers" now that
I have shown them how, by closely copying all I have done;
as is the case with a low minor theatre, in the purlieus of
London — once respectable; but even the original author
will admit that he had never contemplated his matter could
have been so compressed, and his incidents put in so con-
nected a form, as they assume in "Sam Weller"! — a char-
acter, by the by, which I should think was only an after-
conception of its creator, and formed no part of his original
projection. Mr. Dickens has, by far, too much genius, to
nourish any of the petty feelings evinced by his fostering
friends! whose articles, being those of the "high, intellec-
tual" Sunday-school of criticism, are greatly too genteel and
abstruse for every-day reading, but must be kept for Lord's-
day examination only ! Why these gentry should object to
my having dramatised Mr. Dickens, I cannot conceive. Sir
Walter Scott, a name, I humbly submit, of sufficient merit
to be mentioned in the same page with the writer of the
"Pickwick Club," always looked upon Mr. Pocock's and

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The Dramatizations of Dickens 231

Mr. Terry's stage versions of those immortal fictions, "Rob
Roy"and"Ivanhoe,"rather as a compliment than otherwise;
and I had undoubted precedent for what I did in the in-
stance of the first dramatic wTiter of all time — Shakespeare!
who has scarcely a play that is not founded on some previous
drama, history, chronicle, popular tale, or story. What then
means the twaddle of these "high intellectuals" in so pathet-
ically condoling with Mr. Dickens, on the penalties he pays
for his popularity in being put on the stage? Let these
"high intellectuals" speak to Mr. Dickens's publishers, and
they will learn it has rendered them, by increasing their sale,
the most fortunate of Chapmen and dealers! It is wasting
time to show the absurdity of these addle-pated persons,
for their "blow hot and blow cold" articles are as incompre-
hensible to themselves as they are to everybody else. In
one of them, I am, first of all, abused for having sacrilegious-
ly meddled with any of Mr. Dickens's matter; and then
abused for not having meddled with it enough. The reader
is told that everybody is pleased with my piece; and is then
informed that nobody should be pleased with it. Two or
three low scenes between Sam and his father, taken from
the original work, are lauded as "written in a fine spirit of
humanity"; while some rather polite dialogues, that I have
introduced, between the ladies, are blackguarded by this
"high intellectual" as vulgar.

As soon as the number of "Nicholas" containing
the Crummies dinner and the Dickens explosion was on
the streets, the new^spapers were all pointing slyly at
Moncrieff who immediately retorted in a long and furi-
ous proclamation, in which he issued this defi:

Let Mr. Dickens — and he has five months before him —
set his wits to work again and finish his" Nicholas Nickleby"

232 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

better than I have done, and I shall sink into the primitive
mire, from which I have, for the moment, attempted to
emerge by catching at the hem of his garment.

And then, growing angrier and angrier because Dick-
ens had quoted one of his agreements to write seven
melodramas for five pounds, Moncrieff continued to put
the shoe on as follows:

Great as his talents are, he is not to fancy himself "Sir
Oracle," and think that when he speaks no dog should
"bark"; he should not attempt to "bestride us like a
Colossus," and grumble that we "poor petty mortals should
seek to creep between his legs." With all possible good feel-
ing, I would beg to hint to Mr. Dickens that the depreciating
the talents of another is but a shallow and envious way of
attempting to raise one's own — that the calling the offend-
ing party a thief, sneering at his pecuniary circumstances
and indulging in empty boasts of tavern treats are weapons
of offence usually resorted to only by the very lowest orders.
Nothing is more easy than to be ill-natured. I confess I
write for my living, and it is no discredit to Mr. Dickens to
say that those who know him best are aware he is as much
indebted to his pen for the dinner of the day as I can possibly
be. With respect to the "six hundred generations''' through
which Mr. Dickens expects his "pedestal should remain un-
shaken in the Temple of Fame," I can assure him I have
never anticipated that any credit I might derive from
dramatising Nicholas Nickleby would more than endure
beyond as many days. Having himself unsuccessfully tried
the Drama, there is some excuse for Mr. Dickens's petulance
towards its professors; but it is somewhat illiberal and
ungrateful that, being indebted to the stage for so many
of his best characters — Sam Weller, from Beazley's

The Dramatizations of Dickens 233

"Boarding House," for example — he should deny it a
few in return.

All of which hot interchange is worth going over now
if only to remind ourselves that it derives its grotesque
one-sidedness largely from our present perspective, our
knowledge of the stature of Dickens and of the insig-
nificance of his opponent. Would not some of us, at the
time, have watched with amusement from the sidelines
and, as like as not, thought that Moncrieff rather had
him there and there and there .'* On such incapacity to
judge men and matters at close range, the Moncrieffs
flourish, and their heirs even unto the Dr. Cooks and the
Hohenzollerns of our own day.

Thirty years later, Dickens was still suffering. He
had gone to America with the manuscript of the "No
Thoroughfare" dramatization tucked under his arm
and the incorrigible hope that he could arrange for its
production here before the local pirates bestirred them-
selves. But exactly ten days after the first number of
"No Thoroughfare" as a story had reached the Port of
Boston, behold a stage version unfolded, with mingled
talents for theft and prophecy, at a local theatre, of
which the playbill, visible now in the Shaw Collection
at the library in Harvard College, blandly boasted of
the enterprise of the management in serving its public
so quickly. Dickens wrote at once to Collins:

Pirates are producing their own wretched versions in all
directions, thus (as Wills would say) anticipating and

234 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

glutting "the market." I registered our play as the prop-
erty of Ticknor and Fields, American citizens. But, be-
sides that the law on the point is extremely doubtful, the
manager of the Museum Theatre, Boston, instantly an-
nounced his version (you may suppose what it is and how
it is done, when I tell you that it was playing within ten
days of the arrival of the Christmas number). Thereupon
Ticknor and Fields gave him notice that he mustn't play it.
Of course he knew very well that if an injunction were ap-
plied for against him, there would be an immediate howl
against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it.
Then the whole host of pirates rushed in and it is being done,
in some mangled form or other, everywhere.

And later he wrote to Fechter: "WTiy should they
pay for the piece as you play it, when all they want is my
name, and they can get that for nothing?"

The most extreme use of that name which I have
found is in another playbill at Harvard College which
contains the items shown opposite:

But probably the most curious freaks in the whole
museum of the Dickensians are the dramatization of
"Nicholas Nickleby," reported by Thackeray in an
article in Fraser's Magazine for 1842 and another of
"David Copperfield," described by B. W. Matz, in a
playbill sent him from Winnipeg in 1906,

Thackeray was full of laughter after seeing at the
Ambigu-Comique in Paris a Neekolass Neeklbee, un-
folded at a school called "le Paradis des Enfans" in
"le Yorksheer." It will be noted that John Browdie,
described as a "drover," gives lessons on the clarionet

W. 15.1

^ftiitburati 9l^rl|it)i Cliratrr.

IN. 89.

*y Ta cmMHttr—pMiiftinj tainiiinfltfcatta»TwL»tin«fcM«tu>erwftBMtiiini nf im miii» n iii»j m imi_ j._t.^

^Thursday, August 30, and Saturday, September 1, lOkQ.

LAST NICHT BUT TWO OF THE PRESENT SEASON ! !

4th ]Vi^ht of the Celebrated Serenaders from St James* Theatre, London,

G.W.PELL, IT.F.BRIG6S,

The Original ' Bones/ of St James* Theatre.

The best Banjo Player In the World, and

WHO ARE ENGAGED FOR POSITIVELY SIX MGHTS OXLY.

BOZTS JOBA. the Hero of CharlM XMckena' " A.inertcan Notes," and the only Touth of Colour ever before
the FubUc. He la thus described by Charles Dlckeas in his "American Notes for General Circulation."—

" — SuddenlT the Ihclv liero i1i«1ict in to the rescue. Iiwtantlv the fi.liller <»rin9 and t'oes nv it tixilh «nil nail :— There 1« new energy m
llic Umhnurine — new lBu;;htiT in the danceri — new bri{;bllineM in the very c.inrfles. Sin:.'le Shutfl^ ilouhle shullle. cut and lun* cut ; anap-
fvin); hitfinfrrra. roHinc hij eyes turning; in his knees, pmenlin^ the backs ot his lep in front, !i|>ininng abnit on hii toes anil heels like no
ihin/ hut the nian'a finu-eri on the tambourine : daniing with two left lees, l»o ri:;ht leifs. two wooden ii-gs. two wire V-'i*. nv.i iiprinf; legf.
all torts of legs ami no le),r,_Hhai is thi« to bim » AtH in what walk of liti-. or d.imc of life, does inin ever gel such sliinnUtio;; applauae as
Thunder* about bim, when, after having danced hit partner otTher li»e',»nd hiniM-lftoo, he finisliciibv calling for Miinething to driiik, with the
rDtckle Ufa million counterfeit .lim irons in one inimitable sound. '

■•:v<>r> l»Ad.v NliniiKI CO nnd «eo U%vm.— Tlm€>». niMo.— T»» ^nnaif*-r.

At the end of the F.r>t .\ct of -The School for Diplomacy.- .M.>srs I'l.l.l.. Jl HA. nn.I liKlGUS *M ^mvc the IIK.-T

I'.MlTr.f dicir

AMERICAN

SONO, (New.) - " "Walk along, John,"

REFRAIN. - " Poor Old Ned,"

SONG. - - " Negro's Courtship."

SOLO & CHORUS. (New,) " Stop Dat Knocking," - nw, o -w T»Ek.T.

SOLO. - - (on the Bones,) - - Mr O. W. FKLL

f^L^^ Festival Ociri,ce''Original''BOZ'SJUBA.
§3^ Plantation JDance— Original" BOX'S Jy^^;^

BOZ'S JUBA.

Mr G. Vr. PKLL.

Mr T. F. BRIG08.

JUBA Si Company.
- ^l^j

\ri<M' 4li<' Olio. lh«> %«'«on<i An of lln* «oiimmI>.

liUcy Long, In Character, (Original,) Boz's JUBA.

Boz's Juba Showbill

The Dramatizations of Dickens 235

at the school and that the play becomes unduly con-
cerned with Smike (pronounced Smeek). Smeek, hav-
ing been discovered to be the heir to the nearby Claren-
don estates, is hidden in the Cadger's Cavern a thou-
sand feet below the Thames, is rescued by Neekolass and
ultimately becomes Lord Smeek.

The discovery by Matz is that a play called "What
Women W^ill Do," by one Harry Jackson, contained the
following cast of characters : " Wilkins Micawber, Daniel
Peggotty, Hiram Peggotty, Uriah Heep, James Steer-
forth, David Copperfield, Sheriff Dudley, Em'ly, Rosa
Dartle, Mrs. Peggotty, Mrs. Micawber and Wilkins
Micawber, Jr." And the program further reveals that
one scene — a touch that would have brightened the eye
of Crummies himself — was laid in "Em'ly's Apartment
in Paris."

These, no doubt, were the worst of them. But surely
in the best of them there was something lacking — a
falling short that would have made not Mr. Dickens
alone but all of us want to lie down on the floor in the
corner of the box. They could make a play out of the
unended tale of "Edwin Drood," and indeed, in the one
they did make, they contrived (rather in the manner of
a fellow lifting himself by his own bootstraps) to prove
that Edwin was not murdered after all. They could
make a dozen plays out of the drama that is in that
rushing, sunlit stream of life which he called "David
Copperfield." But at best the maker of such drama-

236 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

tizations is ever a little too much like one who comes
beaming from the shore with a pailful of salt water
and cries out in the streets: "Behold my version of the
Atlantic."

SLEIGHT OF HAND

Dickens, who was no mean conjuror, writes his own
playbill.

The Unparalleled Necromancer Rhia Rhama Rhoos,
educated cabalistically in the Orange Groves of Salamanca
and the Ocean Caves of Alum Bay.

THE LEAPING CARD WONDER

Two cards being drawn from the pack by one of the
company, and placed, with the pack, in the Necromancer's
box, will leap forth at the command of any lady of not less
than eighty years of age.

i^*if. This wonder is the result of nine years' seclusion in the
mines of Russia.

THE PYRAMID WONDER

A shilling being lent to the Necromancer by any gentle-
man of not less than twelve months, or more than one
hundred years, of age, and carefully marked by the said
gentleman, will disappear from within a brazen box, at the
word of command, and pass through the hearts of an in-
finity of boxes, which will afterwards build themselves into
pyramids and sink into a small mahogany box, at the
Necromancer's bidding.

237

238 Mr. Dickens Goes to the Play

*
* *

Five thousand guineas were paid for the acquisition
of this wonder, to a Chinese Mandarin, who died of grief
immediately after parting with his secret.

THE CONFLAGRATION WONDER

A card being drawn from the pack by any lady, not under
a direct and positive promise of marriage, will be immedi-
ately named by the Necromancer, destroyed by fire, and
reproduced from its own ashes.

:^,*<^ An annuity of one thousand pounds has been offered
to the Necromancer by the directors of the Sun Fire Office for
the secret of this wonder — and refused! ! !

THE LOAF OF BREAD WONDER

The watch of a truly prepossessing lady of any age,
single or married, being locked by the Necromancer in a
strong box, will fly at the word of command from within
that box into the heart of an ordinary half-quartern loaf,
whence it shall be cut out in the presence of the whole com-
pany, whose cries of astonishment will be audible at a
distance of some miles.

THE TRAVELLING DOLL WONDER

The travelling doll is composed of solid wood through-
out, but, by putting on a travelling dress of the sim-
plest construction, becomes invisible, performs enormous
journeys in half a minute, and passes from visibility to
invisibility with an expedition so astonishing that no eyes
can follow its transformations.

:^*:^ The Necromancer* s attendant usually faints on behold-
ing this wonder, and is only to be revived by the administration
of brandy and water.

Sleight of Hand 239

THE PUDDING WONDER

The company having agreed among themselves to offer
to the Necromancer, by way of loan, the hat of any gentle-
man whose head has arrived at maturity of size, the
Necromancer, without removing that hat for an instant
from before the eyes of the delighted company, will light a
fire in it, make a plum-pudding in his magic saucepan, boil
it over the said fire, produce it in two minutes thoroughly
done, cut it, and dispense it in portions to the whole com-
pany, for their consumption then and there; returning the
hat at last, wholly uninjured by fire, to its lawful owner.

^*:^, The extreme liberality of this wonder awakening the
jealousy of the beneficent Austrian Government, when ex-
hibited in Milan, the Necromancer had the honour to be
seized, and confined for five years in the fortress of that city.

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

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