Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 3 of 3)

In that last year his younger brother Charles had attained, had perhaps rather passed, the zenith of a reputation of which his early attempts gave no promise whatever. Hard work alone made a player of him. He could not have been a post-office clerk long after he left the Roman Catholic College at Douay, for he was but seventeen when he first acted, at Sheffield, in 1792, Orlando, in "As You Like It." He began with Shakspeare, and he ended with him; his farewell being in Benedick, at Covent Garden, in 1836. On both occasions he played the part of a lover, and at the end of forty years he probably played it with more grace, tenderness, ardour, and spirit, than when he began.

There was much judgment in selecting Malcolm for his first appearance in London on the 21st of April 1794, on the opening of New Drury Lane Theatre, the house built by Holland, and burnt in 1809, – to the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. He had little in his favour but good intentions. He was awkward in action, weak in voice, and ungraceful in deportment. All these defects he corrected, except the weakness of voice, which he never got over. It did not arise from the asthmatic cough which so often distressed his brother, but from simple debility of the organ, and this weakness always marred parts in which he was called upon for the expression of energetic passion.

Gradually, Charles Kemble became one of the most graceful and refined of actors. He was enabled to seize on a domain of comedy which his brother and sister could never enter with safety to their fame. In his hands, secondary parts soon assumed a more than ordinary importance from the finish with which he acted them. His Laertes was as carefully played as Hamlet, and there was no other Cassio but his while he lived, nor any Faulconbridge then, or since, that could compare with his; and in Macduff, Charles Kemble had no rival. Rae's Edgar was considered one of that gentleman's most effective parts, but Charles Kemble may be said to have superseded him in it. In the tender or witty lover, the heroic soldier, and the rake, who is nevertheless a gentleman, he was the most distinguished player of his time. Of all the characters he originated, that of Guido, in Barry Cornwall's "Mirandola," was, perhaps, his most successful essay: it was certainly among the most popular of his performances during the run of that play. I find his Jaffier, indeed, praised as being superior to that of any contemporary; but whatever be the character he represented, I also find critics occasionally complaining of a certain languor, and now and then a partial loss of voice, after it had been much exercised, which interfered with the completeness of the representation. Sheridan always thought well of him, particularly after his performance of Alonzo in "Pizarro;" the grateful author used to address him as "my Alonzo!"

Charles Kemble's Hamlet was as fine in conception but inferior in execution to his brother's. Such, at least, as I am credibly informed, was the judgment delivered by Mrs. Siddons. That it was finely conceived, yet weaker in every point than Young's, I can well remember. In tragic parts there was a certain measured, however musical enunciation, of which Charles Kemble never got rid, and in the play of the features, the actor, and not the man represented, was ever present. This was particularly the case in Hamlet, in which his assumed seriousness rendered his long face so much longer in appearance than ordinary, that in the rebuke to his mother his eyebrows seemed to go up into his hair, and his chin down into his waistcoat.

That his voice ill-fitted him for passionate, tragic heroes they will recollect who can recall to mind his Pierre and that of Young! Charles Kemble looked the part to perfection, and dressed it with the taste of a gentleman and an artist. Nothing could be finer, more gallant, more easy and graceful, than his entry; but he had scarcely got through "How fares the honest partner of my heart?" than the pipe raised a smile; it was so unlike the full, round, hearty, resonant tone in which Young put the query, and indeed played the part.

Nor was Charles Kemble invariably successful in all the comic parts he assumed. His Falstaff I would willingly forget. It was a mistake. When Ward, as the Prince, exclaimed "Peace, chewet, peace!" the command seemed very well timed. But his Mercutio! In that he walked, spoke, looked, fought, and died like a gentleman. Some of his predecessors dressed and acted it as if this kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo had been a low-bred, yet humorous fellow, cousin to the lacqueys, Abraham and Peter; but Charles Kemble was as truly Shakspeare's Mercutio as ever Macklin was Shakspeare's Jew. In comedy of another degree; in Young Mirabel, for instance, in the "Inconstant," he was unequalled by any living actor. Indeed his spirits here sometimes overcame his judgment; as in the last scene, when he is saved by the arrival of the "Red Burgundy," he leaped into the air like a man who is shot, and snapping his fingers, danced about the stage in a very ecstasy of delirium, too great, I thought, for a brave young fellow extricated from an awful scrape. But, whatever may be the worth of such thought, it is certain that in his Mirabel the delighted audience saw no fault; and who ever did in his Benedick?

Happy in his successes, he was thrice happy in his pretty and accomplished wife. Maria Theresa Decamp was one year his junior; and, like himself, was born in the purple. Miss Decamp's real name is said to have been De Fleury. She was a Viennese by birth. Her family belonged to the ballet and the orchestra, and she herself, at six years of age, was dancing Cupid in Noverre's ballets at the London Opera House; and, ultimately, was a leading, very young lady in those at the Circus, now the Royal Surrey. From the sawdust of the Transpontine Theatre she was transferred, on the recommendation of the Prince of Wales, it is said, to figure in similar pieces, at Colman's house in the Haymarket.

She was reserved, however, for better things than this: but Miss De Camp was not to attain them without study; she had to learn English – to speak and to read it; music, and other accomplishments. By a genius all this may be speedily effected; and Miss De Camp, in the season of 1786-87, appeared at Drury Lane as Julie, in "Richard Cœur de Lion," her future brother-in-law playing the King. At this time she was scarcely in her teens; but she was full of such promise, that she bade adieu for ever to ballet and the sawdust of the Royal Circus, and henceforth, and for upwards of thirty years, belonged to the regular drama. A score of years was to elapse before she was to change her name; but long previously she had made that first name distinguished in theatrical annals. She had exhibited unusual merit in singing and acting Macheath to the Polly of Charles Bannister, and the Lucy of Johnstone; and she created characters with which her name is closely associated in the memory of playgoers or playreaders. She was the original Floranthe in the "Mountaineers," Judith in the "Iron Chest," Irene in "Bluebeard," Maria in "Of Age To-morrow," Theodore in "Deaf and Dumb," Lady Julia in "Personation," Arinette in "Youth, Love, and Folly," Variella in the "Weathercock," and Morgiana in the "Forty Thieves."

And while the glory she derived from this last performance was still at its brightest, Miss De Camp in 1806 married Mr. Charles Kemble – some rather tempestuous wooing, for so tender and gallant a stage-lover, but for which he rendered public apology, not impeding the match.73 In the year of her marriage Mrs. C. Kemble joined the Covent Garden Company, and on making her appearance as Maria in the "Citizen," she was congratulated, on the part of the audience, by three distinct rounds of applause. Between this period and 1819, when she withdrew from the stage, she created two parts in which she has had no successor, Edmund in the "Blind Boy," and Lady Elizabeth Freelove in "A Day after the Wedding;" and, in the last year of her acting, Madge Wildfire in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian."

Ten years later, Mrs. Charles Kemble returned to the stage (October 5, 1829), to do for her daughter what Mrs. Pritchard, on a like occasion, had done for her's – namely, as Lady Capulet, introduce the young débutante as Juliet. This one service rendered, Mrs. Charles Kemble finally withdrew.

She had a pleasant voice; charming, but not powerful in her early days, as a vocalist. In sprightly parts, in genteel comedy, in all chambermaids, in melodramatic characters, especially where pantomimic action was needed, she was excellent. Genest, who must have known her well, remarks, that "no person understood the business of the stage better; no person had more industry; at one time she almost lived in Drury Lane Theatre. The reason of her not being engaged after 1819 is said to have been that she wanted to play the young parts, for which her time of life, and her figure (for she had grown fat), had disqualified her; whereas if she would have been contented to have played Mrs. Oakly, Mrs. Candour, Flippanta, and many other characters of importance, which were not unsuitable to her personal appearance, it would have been greatly to her own advantage, and to the satisfaction of the public."

Charles remained on the stage till December 1836, but he returned for a few nights, a year or two later, when he went through a series of his most celebrated parts, for the especial gratification of the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, and for the gratification of the public generally. Occasionally he reappeared as a "Reader," in which vocation, his refined taste, his judgment, and his graceful, though not powerful elocution, were manifest to the last.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kemble added something to our dramatic literature; the lady's contribution to which, "A Day after the Wedding," still affords entertainment whenever it is performed. Her other piece, "First Faults," is now forgotten. Charles Kemble's additions to the literature of the stage, comprise the "Point of Honour," "Plot and Counterplot," and the "Wanderer;" the first two being translations from the French, and the third from the German.

In his later days Charles Kemble was afflicted with deafness, so complete that he could not hear the pealing thunder, but could fancy it was in the air; for, as he once remarked amid the crash, "I feel it in my knees!" It was, perhaps, this affliction which occasionally gave him that look of fixed melancholy which he occasionally wore. Of anecdotes of his later time, there are few known to me of any interest, except the following, which I cull from the Athenæum. It is in reference to his son, Mr. J. M. Kemble's Lectures at Cambridge, On the History of the English Language, which were unsuccessful. "After making a good deal to do about them," says the correspondent of the Athenæum, "he obtained the use of the Divinity School to lecture in, and it was pretty well crowded at the first lecture; but the lecture itself was such a sickener, and so unintelligible, that at the second, myself, and I think two others, formed the whole audience. The appearance was so absurdly ridiculous in the large room, that Kemble gave notice, in announcing the day of his third lecture, that in future he should deliver them at his own private apartments. Meanwhile his father, Charles Kemble, the actor, came to see him, and on the day fixed for the third lecture, nobody was there to hear him but his said father and I; upon which, when we had waited in vain nearly an hour for an increase of audience, I moved, and his father seconded the proposal, that instead of inflicting the lecture upon us two, the lecturer should send into Trinity College buttery, as it was then the hour it was open, and procure a quantity of ale and cheese, for the excellence of both which Trinity College was celebrated, and with the aid of these we passed the afternoon. Such was the end of Kemble's lectures."

Rogers has left in his Table Talk some record of the Kembles, which, as coming from an eye and ear witness, may find admission here. From this we learn that Mrs. Siddons, to whom he had been telling an anecdote showing that, when Lawrence gained a medal at the Society of Arts, his brothers and sisters were jealous of him, remarked: – "Alas! after I became celebrated, none of my sisters loved me as they did before!" And then, when a grand public dinner was given to John Kemble on his quitting the stage, the great actress said to the poet, "Well, perhaps, in the next world women will be more valued than they are in this." "She alluded," says Rogers, "to the comparatively little sensation which had been produced by her own retirement from the boards; and, doubtless, she was a far, far greater performer than John Kemble."

When young, she had superseded Mrs. Crawford (Barry), then in her old age, and she rejoiced in being rid of so able a rival; but when other competitors crossed her own path, Mrs. Siddons rather unfairly remarked that the public were fond of setting up new idols, in order to mortify their old favourites. She had herself, she said, been three times threatened with eclipse; first, by means of Miss Brunton (afterwards Lady Craven); next, by means of Miss Smith (Mrs. Bartley); and, lastly, by means of Miss O'Neill – "nevertheless," she is reported to have said, "I am not yet extinguished." She then stood, however, with regard to Miss O'Neill exactly as Mrs. Crawford (Barry) had stood with respect to herself – the younger actress carried away the hearts, the older lived respected in the memories of the audience. But over audiences, Mrs. Siddons had, in her day, deservedly reigned supreme; and that should have been enough of greatness achieved by one whom Combe remembered to have seen, "when a very young woman, standing by the side of her father's stage, and knocking a pair of snuffers against a candlestick, to imitate the sound of a windmill during the representation of some harlequinade."

When she had departed from the scene of her glory, the remembrance of that glory did not suffice her. When Rogers was sitting with her, of an afternoon, she would say, "Oh, dear! this is the time I used to be thinking of going to the theatre; first came the pleasure of dressing for my part; and then the pleasure of acting it; but that is all over now." This was not vanity, but the natural wail of an active spirit forced to be at rest. There was less dignity in the retirement of John Kemble, if what Rogers tells us be true, that "when Kemble was living at Lausanne, he was jealous of Mont Blanc; and he disliked to hear people always asking, 'How does Mont Blanc look this morning?'"

The two greatest rivalries that John Kemble had to endure, before the final one, in which Kean triumphed, emanated from two very different persons – George Frederick Cooke and Master Betty. The success of both marks periods in stage history, and demands brief notice here.

CHAPTER IX

GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE

About the time when Garrick was reluctantly bidding farewell to his home on the stage, at Drury Lane, a hopeful youth, of twenty years of age, born no one can well tell where, but it is said, in a barrack, of an English sergeant and a Scottish mother, was making his first grasp at the dramatic laurel, in the little town of Brentford.

With the exception of a passing appearance at the Haymarket, for a benefit, in 1778, as Castalio, – when London was recognising in Henderson the true successor of Garrick – the town knew nothing of this ambitious youth for more than twenty years; then he came to Covent Garden to dethrone John Kemble; and he disquieted that actor for awhile. In ten years more, his English race was done, and while Kemble was beginning the splendid evening of his career, Cooke passed over to America, prematurely ending his course, in disgrace and ruin, and occupying a grave which a civilised Yankee speedily dishonoured.

If Cooke was an Irishman, it was by accident. He was certainly educated in England; and he early acquired, by reading Otway and seeing Vanbrugh, a taste for the drama. In school theatricals, he made his Horatio outshine the Hamlet of the night; and his Lucia, – though the boy cried at having to play a part in petticoats,74– win more applause than his schoolfellow's Cato. School-time over, the wayward boy went to sea, and came back with small liking for the vocation; turned to "business," only to turn from it in disgust; inherited some property, and swiftly spent it; and then we find him in that inn-yard at Brentford, enrolled among strollers, and playing Dumont in "Jane Shore," to the great delight of the upper servants from Kew, Gunnersbury, and parts adjacent, sent thither to represent their masters, who had not the "particular desire" to see the play, for which the bills gave them credit.

The murmur of London approval, awarded to his Castalio, was the delicious magic which drew him for ever within the charmed circle of the actors, and George Frederick passed through all the heavy trials through which most of the vocation have to pass. He strolled through villages, thence to provincial towns, and I think, when in 1786, he played Baldwin to the Isabella of Mrs. Siddons, that lady must have been compelled, perhaps was willing, to confess, that there was a dramatic genius who, at least, approached the excellence of her brother.

From York, after much more probation, Cooke went over to Dublin, where he acted well, drank hard, and lost himself, in one of his wild fits, by enlisting. Fancy the proud and maddened George Frederick doing barrack scullery-work, and worse! – he who had played the Moor in presence of a vice-regal court! If his friends had not purchased his discharge, Miss Campion would certainly soon have heard that her Othello had hanged himself. The genius who would not be a soldier, though born in a barrack, found an asylum in the Manchester theatre; and subsequently Dublin welcomed him back to its well-trod stage. There, he and John Kemble met for the first time.

John took the lead, George Frederick played, – I can hardly call them secondary parts, for Booth had acted some of them to Betterton, Garrick to Sheridan, and one great performer to another, – such parts, in fact, as Ghost to Kemble's Hamlet, Henry to his Richard, Edmund to his Lear, and a similar disposition of characters. What Kemble then thought of his acting, I cannot say, but he complained of being disturbed by Mr. Cooke's tipsily defective memory. George Frederick was stirred to anger and prophecy. "I won't have your faults fathered upon me," he cried; "and hark ye, Black Jack, – hang me if I don't make you tremble in your pumps one day yet."

He kept his word. On the 31st of October 1801,75 he acted Richard, at Covent Garden, to the Henry of Murray, the Richmond of Pope, the Queen of Miss Chapman, and the Lady Anne of Mrs. Litchfield; – and Kemble was present to see how Cooke would realise his promise. Kemble had played Richard himself that season at Drury Lane, to the Richmond of his brother Charles, – Henry, Wroughton; Queen, Mrs. Powell; Lady Anne, Miss Biggs. I fancy he was satisfied that in the new and well-trained actor there was a dangerous rival. Kemble acted Shylock and one or two other characters against him. They stood opposed in some degree as Quin and Garrick were, at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, in 1742-43. In that season, Garrick played Richard eleven times.76 In Cooke's first season at the Garden, he acted the same part double the number of times. Shylock, Iago, and Kitely, he acted each ten times. Macbeth, seven; Sir Giles Overreach, five; the Stranger, twice; and Sir Archy Macsarcasm, several times.

Of his first reception in Richard, Cooke speaks, as being flattering, encouraging, indulgent, and warm, throughout the play and at the conclusion. Cooke was not blinded by this triumphant season. Long after he said, when referring to having played with and also against John Kemble: "He is an actor. He is my superior, though they did not think so in London. I acknowledge it!" Having made Black Jack "tremble in his pumps," Cooke honestly acknowledged, in homely phrase, that he could not stand in Kemble's shoes.

Kemble, however, was not superior to Cooke in all his range of characters. In the very first season of their opposition, after an obstinate struggle, Kemble gave up Richard, but in Macbeth he remained unapproachable by Cooke, who, in his turn, set all competition at defiance in his Iago, in which, says Dunlap, "the quickness of his action, and the strong natural expression of feeling, which were so peculiarly his own, identified him with the character." In Kitely, his remembrance of Garrick confessedly served him well. In Sir Giles, he excelled Kemble; but the Stranger was speedily given up by Cooke, and it remained one of his rival's glories to the last.

Cooke's general success, the position he had attained, and the prospect before him, steadied his mind, strengthened his good purposes, made him master of himself under a healthy stimulus, careful of his reputation, and strict in performing his duties. I record this, as his previous biographers have registered the character. Consequently, on the night he was announced to appear, to open his second season of anticipated triumph – September 14th, 1801 – as Richard, a crowded audience had collected about the doors, to welcome him, as early as four o'clock. At that hour no one could tell where he was, and a bill was issued, stating that it was apprehended some accident had happened to Mr. Cooke; and the play was changed to "Lovers' Vows." In five weeks the truant turned up, played magnificently, and was forgiven.

During his truant time, young Henry Siddons made his first appearance at Covent Garden. He played Herman in a dull new comedy, "Integrity," and Hamlet; but the Charter-house student would have done better if he had accepted the vocation to which his mother would have called him – the Church. Henry Siddons acted Alonzo to Cooke's Zanga, Hotspur to Cooke's Falstaff, and Ford to the other's Sir John, in the "Merry Wives." Cooke's criticism on his own performance was, that having acted all the Falstaffs, he had never been able to please himself, or to come up to his own ideas in any of them. His great failure was Hamlet, in which even young Siddons excelled him, but a triumph which compensated for any such failures, and for numerous offences given to the audience – made victims of his "sudden indispositions" – was found in Sir Pertinax, in which, even by those who remembered Macklin, he was held to have fully equalled the great and venerable original.

In the season of 1802, Cooke's indispositions became more frequently sudden, and lasted longer. On the days of his acting nights, his manager was accustomed to entertain him, supervise his supply of liquor, and carry him to the theatre; but George Frederick often escaped, and could not be traced. In many old characters he sustained his high reputation, but his Hamlet and Cato only added to that of Kemble. Perhaps his Peregrine, in "John Bull," of which he was the original representative, would have been a more finished performance but for – not the actor, but the author's indiscretion. "We got 'John Bull' from Colman," said Cooke to Dunlap, "act by act, as he wanted money, but the last act did not come, and Harris refused to make any further advances. At last necessity drove Colman to make a finish, and he wrote the fifth act, in one night, on separate pieces of paper. As he filled one piece after the other, he threw them on the floor, and, finishing his liquor, went to bed. Harris, who impatiently expected the dénouement of the play, according to promise, sent Fawcett to Colman, whom he found in bed. By his direction Fawcett picked up the scraps, and brought them to the theatre."

In the season of 1803-4, when Kemble became part proprietor and acting manager at Covent Garden, he played in several pieces with Cooke. They were thus brought into direct contrast. Kemble acted Richmond to Cooke's Richard; Old Norval to his Glenalvon; Rolla to his Pizarro; Beverley to his Stukely; Horatio to his Sciolto – Charles Kemble playing Lothario, and Mrs. Siddons, Calista, – such a cast as the "Fair Penitent" had not had for many years! John Kemble further played Jaffier to Cooke's Pierre; Antonio to his Shylock; the Duke, in "Measure for Measure," to his Angelo; Macbeth, with George Frederick for Macduff; Henry IV. to Cooke's Falstaff; Othello to his Iago; King John, with Cooke as Hubert, and Charles Kemble as Faulconbridge – Mrs. Siddons being, of course, the Constance; Kemble also played Ford to Cooke's Falstaff, and Hamlet to Cooke's Ghost; and, in a subsequent season, Posthumus to his Iachimo, with some other parts, which must have recalled the old excitement of the times of Garrick and Quin, but that audiences were going mad about Master Betty, to the Rolla of which little and, no doubt, clever gentleman, George Frederick, needy and careless, was compelled to play Pizarro!