Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 268, August 11, 1827», sayfa 4

London Weekly Review.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

DRAFTS ON LA FITTE

COOKE

Only upon one occasion did Cooke deviate from his resolution of not apologizing to a provincial assembly, and that was at Liverpool. A previous breach of decorum was visited one night by the fury of an offended audience; confusion was at its height; the people were the actors, and Cooke the audience: yet the sturdy tragedian remained callous to the bursts of indignation which were heard around him, until destruction became the order of the day; lamps lighted on the stage; benches betokened mobility; pedal applications were made forté to the piano; basely violated was the repository of the base viol; and the property of poor Knight the manager gave every sign of that being its last appearance. What popular rage had failed to produce, consideration for the fortunes of his friend effected. At his entreaties, the Caledonian was induced to advance to the front of the stage (never was there a more moving scene than that before it); silence was obtained, and he condescended to express his sorrow for the state in which some nights previously he had presented himself: adding, "that he never before felt so keenly the degradation of his situation." Equivocal as was the mode of extenuation, the audience allied to Mersey accorded the mercy it possessed, and was or appeared to be, satisfied; but not so the actor, and he as fully as instantly avenged what he deemed his misplaced submission. As he concluded his address, he turned to the gratified but yet trembling manager, and (in allusion to the large share in the slave-trade then imputed to Liverpool) with that peculiarity of undertone he possessed, which could be distinctly heard throughout the largest theatre although pronounced as a whisper, exclaimed, "There's not a stone in the walls of Liverpool which has not been cemented by the bluid of Africans." Then, casting one of his Shylock glances of hatred and contempt on the mute and astounded audience, majestically left the stage.

On the first night of his performance at the Boston theatre, Richard was the part he had adopted; and so strongly had he fortified himself for the kingly task, that he deemed himself the very monarch he was destined to enact. The theatre was crowded in every part: expectation was on tiptoe: anticipation as to his person, voice, and manner, was announced by the sibilating "I guess" heard around, and "pretty considerable" agitation prevailed. The orchestra had begun and ceased, unheeded or unheard; nor could one of Sir Thomas Lethbridge's best cut and dried have produced less effect amongst the "irreclaimables." The curtain rose, and amidst thundering plaudits the welcome stranger advanced, in angles, to the front of the stage, and, as Sir Pertinax has it, "booed and booed and booed;" but greeting could not endure for ever: well justified curiosity assumed its station, and at length silence, almost breathless silence, reigned around, such as attended Irving in his Zoar, or Canning when he lately produced his budget. The hospitable clamour was over; but instead of "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York" being given, Cooke, in a respectful but decided tone, requested that "God save the King" might be played by the orchestra prior to the commencement of the play. The proposal at first but excited mockery and laughter, which, however, gave way to far different feelings, on Cooke firmly and composedly declaring, that, until his request was complied with, he was determined not to proceed; and, should it be absolutely refused, he was resolved to retire. The fury of the Bostonians was at its height: menace, accompanied by every vituperative epithet rage could suggest, was lavished on the actor; but he kept his station, calm and secure as his own native island set in the stormy seas, until anger gradually subsided through very weariness; and every effort having been ineffectually used to wean "the tyrant" from his purpose, the political antipathies of the audience began to yield to their theatrical taste; and, after much argument and delay, the unpalatable demand was reluctantly assented to. Cooke, however, whose nature it was, when opposed, only to become more exigent, was not himself appeased; for, as the notes "unpleasing to a Yankee ear" were sounded, with a majestic wave of his hand he silenced the unwilling music, and, "Standing, if you please," was as dictatorially as fearlessly pronounced, to the consternation of the audience. So much had, however, already been accorded, that it was not deemed matter of much moment to concede the rest: and however ungracefully the attitude of respect was assumed, the national hymn was performed amidst grimace and muttering; Cooke beating time with his foot,—nodding significantly and satisfactorily at "Confound their politics;" and occasionally taking a pinch of snuff, as, in his royal robes, he triumphantly contemplated the astonished and indignant audience. It ended:—"Richard was himself again," and "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer" was given with equal emphasis, feeling, and effect.

At the time that greater performer, the elephant, made his appearance on the boards, his own board became a subject of no trifling consideration with the managers, particularly as the African had taken a predilection for rum, which the new actor used to quaff with extraordinary zest. On one occasion Cooke was missing from a morning rehearsal, and all had been some time in waiting for the tragedian, when the messenger whom Kerable despatched in search of him, returned grinning to the green-room. "Where is Mr. Cooke, sir?" demanded Kemble. "He is below breakfasting with the elephant, sir!" was the reply.

It was too much for Cooke, after having so frequently disappointed full houses, to be obliged to play to an empty theatre. It was like playing whist with dummy. However, towards the close of the O. P. war, (which, by the way, excited more the attention of the Parisians than the national contest in which we were engaged,) the public had adopted the plan of never commencing operations until half-price, to the injury of the manager's purse. It was during the earlier acts of "The Man of the World," that Cooke, in performing to "a beggarly account of empty boxes," was addressed by one of the actors, in accordance with the scene, in a whisper; when the elevated comedian, casting a glance around, bitterly observed, "Speak out: there need be no secret. No one hears us." Poor Cooke could not plead in excuse what an actor did on being hissed for too sober a representation of a drunken part, "Ladies and gentlemen, I beg your pardon: but it is really the first time I ever was intoxicated."

His death was in singular accordance with his taste through life. He sought the banks of the Brandywine, and whether it were that the composition of its stream so little responded to its title as to prey upon his spirits, or from some other cause, there he "drank his last."

DICKEY SUETT

I met with him once in a house situated on the very confines of Beef and Law; on the line of demarcation between the theatres and Lincoln's Inn; a sort of debateable ground between the spouters and ranters of the stage, and the eaters of commons, by either of which party it was frequented. Around a large table in the parlour sat a motley group. There were ragged wits, well-dressed students, new-fledged actors, a hackney writer or so, an Irish barrister named Shuter, a Scotch reporter, and a hodge-podge of most discordant materials congregated under the amalgamating power of Suett, who seemed, by the incongruity of his dress and diversified manner, to have studied the various tastes of those he swayed, and to be the comprehensive representative of each of the strange beings he looked upon, with all of whom he would occasionally identify himself with so much ease, that it were hard to say whether it was the result of labour or of tact, of calculation, or the mere impulse of mother-wit. The ropes of his face, when drawn taught, peculiarly commanded the attention of the Caledonian, while the sly and humorous glance of his half-shut eye was acknowledged by the Hibernian to whom it was addressed; the snow drift of powder which lay in patches on his long, straight hair, agreed with the taste of his dramatic nursling; the far-extended cambric of white frill imposed upon the students, while the unseemly rents in his coat at once compensated to the wits for what there might be of gaudy or gay in his outward man. We were received with equal courtesy and ceremony by the president; and were just seated, when a ballet-dancer of Drury-lane entered. As he was a Frenchman, it became a question of national politeness: and Dicky chestered him to his dexter! and, as was befitting, condescended to address him. "I am proud, sir," said Suett, with the formality of Black Rod himself, "to do the honours of my country to the representative of a nation which held my master Garrick in peculiar respect. He was a great actor, sir; a wonderful man! Your Lekain, or any other Cain, could not come up to him, for he was Able, Pardon the pun. Oh, la!—but he was vain, sir; vain as a peacock; it could not be of his person. Had he been, as Richard has it, 'a marvellous proper man' like myself, one might have said something. He used to say, I was too lean for Suett. Oh, dear. A votre santé, Monsieur, happy to see you on this side the Channel. Never been to France yet, although in the Straits great part of my life, and not unfrequently half seas over.—Well, sir, to return to Garrick. There was that man 'frae the north,' who wrote the History of England and Roderick Random,—the latter a true story, they say;—he who challenged Campbell the barrister, for calling him names, To bias the cause. Well, sir, Davy refused one of his farces; but the wily Caledonian pocketed the affront, in coolly observing, 'that he had nearly completed another volume of his history, and hoped he might be permitted to name the British Roscius, the pride of his country, and all that sort of thing.' It was a palpable hit, sir—the thing was settled—the manager managed; and Smelfungus retired, without his manuscript, half sorry he had not added another scene to his farce. Well, sir, the story got wind, and some days after Davy dined with a lawyer who had interested himself vainly for a friend's comedy with him, when, in the course of conversation, the barrister observed to Davy, before a large company, that he had nearly compiled another volume of The Statutes at large (would they were all at large), and hoped he might be permitted to name the British Roscius, the pride of his country. There was a roar at the expense of Garrick. 'The galled jade' winced terribly:—he was touchy as tinder, sir:—never was Digest so ill-digested.'"

It was when the meteor-like popularity of little Betty was at its height that poor Suett fell ill, at what he termed his town residence (a second-floor in a low street), and the pigmy Roscius, having eaten too much fruit, kept all London in intense agony for his fate at the same moment. Bulletins were exhibited in Southampton-row several times a-day, signed by numerous physicians. Had he died, how posterity would have been befooled! Suett was then actually dying, yet would he have his joke, and his last moments were cheered by the horse-laugh of the rabble assembled to spell the bulletin suspended to "the second-floor bell," attested by the mark of the old woman who attended him. "You shall be buried in Saint Paul's," said a friend. "Oh, la!" was the dying ejaculation of the comedian.

New Monthly Magazine.