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ment to make a stand. Once, I remember, he announced he had found a man to replace the pane of the stained window; which, as it was he that managed all the business, was a thing clearly within his attributions. But to the Master's fanciers, that pane was like a relic; and on the first word of any change, the blood flew to Mrs. Henry's face.

"I wonder at you!" she cried.

"I wonder at myself," says Mr. Henry, with more of bitterness than I had ever heard him to express.

Thereupon my old lord stepped in with his smooth talk, so that before the meal was at an end all seemed forgotten; only that, after dinner, when the pair had withdrawn as usual to the chimneyside, we could see her weeping with her head upon his knee. Mr. Henry kept up the talk with me upon some topic of the estates-he could speak of little else but business, and was never the best of company; but he kept it up that day with more continuity, his eye straying ever and again to the chimney and his voice changing to another key, but without check of delivery. The pane, however, was not replaced; and I believe he counted it a great defeat.

Whether he was stout enough or no, God knows he was kind enough. Mrs. Henry had a manner of condescension with him, such as (in a wife) would have

pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he took it like a favor. She held him at the staff's end; forgot and then remembered and unbent to him, as we do to children; burthened him with cold kindness; reproved him with a change of color and a bitten lip, like one shamed by his disgrace: ordered him with a look of the eye, when she was off her guard; when she was on the watch, pleaded with him for the most natural attentions as though they were unheard of favors. And to all this, he replied with the most unwearied service; loving, as folk say, the very ground she trod on, and carrying that love in his eyes as bright as a lamp. When Miss Katharine was to be born, nothing would serve but he must stay in the room behind the head of the bed. There he sat, as white (they tell me) as a sheet and the sweat dropping from his brow; and the handkerchief he had in his hand was crushed into a little ball no bigger than a musket bullet. Nor could he bear the sight of Miss Katharine for many a day; indeed I doubt if he was ever what he should have been to my young lady; for the which want of natural feeling, he was loudly blamed.

Such was the state of this family down to the 7th April, 1749, when there befell the first of that series of events which were to break so many hearts and lose so many lives.

(To be continued.)

THE STORM.

By Zoe Dana Underhill.

WESTWARD the black clouds part and lighten:
The sun breaks forth, the storm is o'er;
Yet the vexed billows writhe and whiten,
The breakers thunder on the shore.

And thou, Oh foolish heart! art throbbing
To the old griefs of long ago;
Like waves, still wrestling, raving, sobbing,
Though the spent winds have ceased to blow.

MEMORIES OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.

By Lester Wallack.

SECOND PAPER.

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JOW singularly prejudiced the old managers were against anything like an innovation! It was thought an extraordinary thing when Garrick first put on a pair of Elizabethan trunks for Richard III. He played Macbeth in a square-cut scarlet coat, the costume of an English general, and a regulation wig with a pigtail of his own period, while Mrs. Pritchard, who played Lady Macbeth, wore an enormous hoop. Garrick desired very much to wear a Scotch tartan and kilt, and a plaid, with bare legs, the traditional Highland costume; but this was in the days of the Pretender, when no one was allowed to show a plaid in the streets of London. After Garrick had brought in a great deal of wise reform in the way of dress there was a lull again, and no one dared to do anything new. Many generations later my father was cast for the part of Tressel, in Cibber's version of "Richard III." Tressel is the youthful messenger who conveys to King Henry VI. the news of the murder of his son after the battle of Tewksbury. My father, a young, ambitious actor, came on with the feather hanging from his cap, all wet, his hair dishevelled, one boot torn nearly off, one spur broken, the other gone entirely, his gauntlet stained with blood, and his sword snapped in twain; at which old Wewitzer, who was the manager, and had been a manager before my father was born, was perfectly shocked. It was too late to do anything then, but the next morning Wewitzer sent for him to come to his office, and addressed him thus: "Young man, how do you ever hope to get on in your profession by deliberately breaking all precedent? What will become of the profession if mere boys are allowed to take these liberties? Why, sir, you

should have entered in a suit of decent black, with silk stockings on, and with a white handkerchief in your hand." "What! after defeat and flight from battle?" interrupted my father. "That had nothing at all to do with it," was the reply. "The proprieties! sir, the proprieties!"

This simply goes to show how difficult it was to introduce anything new in the matter of acting or costume. Some of the papers spoke very highly of the innovation, and the audience was satisfied, if the management was not.

Elliston was another early manager of my father's. He was a man whose pomposity and majesty in private life were absolutely amazing, but he was a great actor for all that, and an intelligent manager. For example: George IV. was a most theatrical man in all he did, and when his coronation took place he dressed all his courtiers, and everybody about him in peculiarly dramatic costumes-dresses of Queen Elizabeth's time. It was all slashed trunks and side cloaks, etc. Of course the dukes, earls, and barons were particularly disgusted at the way they had to exhibit themselves, and as soon as the coronation ceremonies were over these things were thrown aside and sold, and Elliston bought an enormous number of them. He was then the lessee of the Surrey Theatre, where he got up a great pageant and presented "The Coronation of George IV." He had a platform made in the middle of the pit, and in one scene he strutted down among the audience in the royal robes; at which, with some good-natured chaff, there was a tremendous round of applause. For the moment Elliston became so excited that he imagined he was really the King himself, and spreading out his arms he said, amid dead silence: "Bless you, my people!"

In his later years the habit of drinking became so confirmed that when he

was advertised to appear, the public, as in the case of the elder Kean, was never sure whether it was to see him or not. In one season, when my father was stagemanager of Drury Lane, Elliston was announced to play Falstaff in "Henry IV.," Macready being cast for Hotspur and my father for the Prince of Wales. The anxiety to see the performance was great, not only among habitual theatregoers, but in the profession itself, and Macready, at his own request, had a chair on the stage to watch Elliston's rehearsals. He was highly delighted with what he saw; and he believed, with others, that Elliston was the most perfect Falstaff that ever lived. Even in his feeble and intemperate old age he played it magnificently. On this particular occasion, in the scene of the combat between Hotspur and the Prince of Wales, while Falstaff is encouraging the Prince, Douglas enters, fights with Falstaff, and leaves him as if dead upon the field. When he is gone Falstaff, looking around to see that he is perfectly safe, and that no one is by, gets up, sees Percy slain, and cries: "I am afraid of this gunpowder Piercy, though he be dead," and stabs the body again in the thigh. The speech ends with the words: "Meantime, with this new wound in your thigh, do thou come along with me.' Then there is a great deal of "comic business," in which he tries to get Percy on his back to carry him in to the King, pretending to have killed him himself. When the Falstaff of the evening came to this he made one or two ineffectual efforts to get up; and the consequence was that the scene of his attempt to lift Percy and carry him off went for nothing. There they were, Percy dead and Elliston dead-drunk. My father, appreciating all this from behind the scenes, went on, and improvised some Shakespearian lines, adding to the familiar "Farewell, I could have better spared a better man "Meantime do thou, Jack, come along with me;" and hoisting Elliston on his back he carried him off the stage amidst the wildest applause. It appeared a tremendous feat of strength, the audience forgetting for the moment that Falstaff was not so heavy as he looked. All the ill-temper caused by his drunkenness

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Poor Elliston at last was so overcome with the gout that he could not act at all. He was then lessee of Drury Lane, and my father was his stage-manager, appearing in Elliston's old parts, Captain Absolute, Charles Surface, and the like. At that time there was no zoological garden in London, but there was a place, called Exeter Change, in which were kept a lot of monkeys and parrots, a few wild animals, some lions (particularly the lion Wallace who fought the six bull dogs), and, if not the first, very nearly the first elephant that was ever exhibited alive in England. They did not know as much about taking care of animals then as they do now, and this elephant went mad, and became so dangerous that it was feared he would break out of his cage and do bodily damage to his keepers and the public, and it was determined he should be killed. A dozen men were sent from the barracks of the Foot Guards, who fired five or six volleys into the poor beast before they finished him. At that time "The Belle's Stratagem was being played, with my father as Doricourt, one of Elliston's great parts. Elliston was in the habit of going to the theatre every night, particularly if one of his own celebrated characters was performed, and being wheeled down to the prompter's place in an invalid's chair, he would sit and watch all that was going on. In the mad scene in "The Belle's Stratagem " Doricourt, who is feigning insanity, has a little extravagant "business," and, at a certain exit, he utters some wildly absurd nonsense such as "Bring me a pigeon pie of snakes!" On the night in question, when the town talked of nothing but the great brute who had been killed by the soldiers the day before, my father on his exit after the mad scene shouted: "Bring me a pickled elephant!" to the delight of the easily pleased house, but to the disgust of the sensitive Elliston, who, shaking his gouty fist at him, cried: "Damn it, you lucky rascal, they never killed an elephant for me when I played Doricourt!"

My father was still stage-manager of Drury Lane in 1827, when Edmund

Kean withdrew his allegiance from that house to Covent Garden, to the great indignation of Stephen Price, the lessee. Kean had placed his son Charles at Eton, and was bringing him up for the Army, or the Church, or some swell profession, and Price was determined, knowing the boy had a tremendous predilection for the theatre, that he would stick a thorn in Edmund Kean's side. Consequently he sent my father down to Eton to see the lad; and the result was that he was brought up from school and persuaded to go upon the stage by Price, who had succeeded in arousing his ambition; and as at that time the elder Kean was treating his wife very badly, Charles of course was less inclined to obey his father. When the advertisements came out that Kean's son was going to appear at Drury Lane Theatre, the sensation with the public was something enormous, the simple announcement affecting Kean's houses at Covent Garden. The lad came out as Young Norval in Home's tragedy of "Douglas," and my father played Glenal von. He dressed Kean and absolutely "shoved " him upon the stage, for he was very nervous; but he played that night to a tremendous house and to a great reception. Of course it was a very crude performance, and the endeavor to imitate his father in all the passionate scenes was palpable throughout. For a few nights the curiosity of the town crowded the house, but the excitement did not continue, and he went to the provinces with varying success.

Charles was always devoted to his mother. She travelled about with him in his early days, after his father's death, and when he was between twenty-five and thirty years of age; and he worked hard to make a mere living for the two. During his visits to Brighton he was a frequent guest at my father's house, where he was sincerely liked. On one occasion it chanced that the Duchess of St. Albans was at Brighton while he was playing an engagement there. Moved by an affectionate feeling for the father, with whom, when Miss Mellon, she had often acted, she went to the theatre to see the son; and from the moment she saw Charles his fortune

was made. She said: "This young man shall go to the top of the tree," and he did. Her influence in Brighton was all-powerful. Her tradespeople with their families filled the pit, and their working people filled the galleries. She made parties for him, and even sent the Duke himself to call for him at the Ship Hotel, where he was staying. The Duchess was the queen of fashion, and of course Kean at once became popular. This led to his reappearance in London. I remember being in Kean's dressing-room in Brighton when Bunn came in to conclude this London engagement. Bunn said: "Don't be alarmed, your success is certain. Your 'Is't the King?' in 'Hamlet' is what will bring them." When Bunn went out, Kean, who was the most suspicious fellow I ever saw, said: "Is that man serious, is that man sincere?" I don't think that in those days he had faith in anybody except Cole, his biographer.

He subsequently became very intimate with the St. Albans family, which included the niece, Miss Burdett-Coutts; and when the Duchess died, the story went around that Kean would have no difficulty in winning the hand of the great heiress. Miss Ellen Tree, who was acting with him, according to rumor had been in love with him for years. He came into the theatre one night and said, abruptly: "Ellen, if you wish to marry me, to-morrow or never!" was in a white heat of passion, and the story was that he had just received a flat rejection from Miss Burdett-Coutts. Kean and Miss Tree were married the very next day, and on that night, by a curious coincidence, they acted in "The Honeymoon" together. This story was current at the time; I give it as I heard it, but cannot vouch for its absolute truth.

He

Douglas Jerrold was a great enemy of Charles Kean; there was some feud between them, what, I do not know, but he never could endure Charles and invariably spoke of him as "the son of his father." Macready, who admired the genius of the elder Kean, would not have the younger at any price, and used to refer to him before his London appearance as "that young man who goes about the country."

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Lester Wallack and his Grand-daughter; at his Country Home, Stamford, Conn., July, 1888.

VOL. IV.-62

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