356 LAMB AT THE PLAY loonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape and grin, in stone, around the inside of the old round church (my church) of the Templars. 'I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven years (for at school all playgoing was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes' evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all Was nourished I could not tell how. I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reverence was gone! The green curtain was no longer a veil drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present a "royal ghost", but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights-the orchestra lights-came up, a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell, which had been like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at, which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries-of six short twelvemonths-had wrought in me. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance, to me, of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations '.ELIA, p. 221. [Wych Street (p. 301) disappeared in connection with the improvements of 1905. Leicester House (p. 306) was not in the Strand; but on the north side of Leicester Fields. The Duke of Buckingham's newly invented sedan ' (p. 311) was one of three which had been presented to Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I) by the Spanish Prime Minister, Olivares. Doll Common' (p. 316) was Mrs. Corey, who acted that part in Ben Jonson's Alchemist. Love in a Maze (p. 319) was by Shirley. Evelyn's Memoirs (p. 329)-as far as Hunt quotes them-only prove that Nell Gwyn had a garden looking on the Mall. It was in Pall Mall (south side) that she died. Her connexion with the building of 'Chelsea Hospital' (p. 330) is not confirmed. The tradition as to 'Narcissa' (p. 339) may be only a recollection of Steele's Lady Brumpton in The Funeral, 1701,-in which Mrs. Oldfield also had a part. Lady B. tells her maid not to bury her in flannel, as it would not become her. According to Boswell, Johnson at Lichfield (p. 351) tossed both man and chair from the side-scenes into the pit (Birkbeck Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii. 299). The best theatrical critic' (p. 353) died December 27, 1834, before which date this chapter must consequently have been written. The extract is from Lamb's My First Play', published in the London Magazine for December, 1821.] CHAPTER VIII COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED, AND LEICESTER SQUARE Bow Street once the Bond Street of London-Fashions at that time-Infamous frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and othersWycherley and the Countess of Drogheda-Tonson the Bookseller-Fielding-Russell Street-Dryden beaten by hired ruffians in Rose Street-His Presidency at Will's Coffee-House -Character of that Place-Addison and Button's CoffeeHouse-Pope, Philips, and Garth-Armstrong-Boswell's introduction to Johnson-The Hummums-Ghost Story there -Covent Garden-The Church-Car, Earl of SomersetButler, Southerne, Estcourt, Sir Robert Strange-MacklinCurious Dialogue with him when past a century-Dr. Walcot -Covent Garden Market-Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and Miss Ray-Henrietta Street-Mrs. Clive-James Street -Partridge, the almanac-maker-Mysterious lady-King Street Arne and his Father-The four Indian KingsSouthampton Row-Maiden Lane-Voltaire-Long Acre and its Mug-Houses-Prior's resort there-Newport Street St. Martin's Lane, and Leicester Square-Sir Joshua ReynoldsHogarth-Sir Isaac Newton. Bow STREET was once the Bond Street of London. Mrs. Bracegirdle began an epilogue of Dryden's with saying I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow-street beaux; Sir Walter Scott says, in a note on the passage, 'With a slight alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written Bond Street beaux. A billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than flattering '.1 Mrs. Bracegirdle spoke this epilogue at Drury Lane. There was no Covent Garden Theatre then. People of 1 Scott's Dryden, vol. viii. p. 178. fashion occupied the houses in Bow Street, and mantuas floated up and down the pavement. This was towards the end of the Stuarts' reign, and the beginning of the next century-the times of Dryden, Wycherley, and the Spectator. The beau of Charles's time is well known. He wore, when in full flower, a peruke to imitate the flowing locks of youth, a Spanish hat, clothes of slashed silk or velvet, the slashes tied with ribands, a coat resembling a vest rather than the modern coat, and silk stockings, with roses in his shoes. The Spanish was afterwards changed for the cocked hat, the flowing peruke for one more compact; the coat began to stiffen into the modern shape, and when in full dress, the beau wore his hat under his arm. His grimaces have been described by Dryden : His various modes from various fathers follow; One of these perukes would sometimes cost forty or fifty pounds. The fair sex at this time waxed and waned through all the varieties of dishabilles, hooppetticoats, and stomachers. We must not enter upon this boundless sphere, especially as we have to treat upon it from time to time. We shall content ourselves with describing a set of lady's clothes, advertised as stolen in the year 1709, .and which would appear to have belonged to a belle resolved to strike even Bow Street with astonishment. They consisted of 'a black silk petticoat, with a red-and-white calico border; cherry-coloured stays, trimmed with blue and silver; a red and dove-coloured damask gown, flowered with large trees; a yellow satin apron, trimmed with white 1 In the prologue to Etherege's play of The Man of Mode. Scott's Dryden, vol. x. p. 340. Persian; muslin head-cloths, with crow-foot edging; double ruffles with fine edging; a black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood!' I It is probable, however, the lady did not wear all these colours at once. A tavern in Bow Street, the Cock, became notorious for a frolic of Sir Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and others, frequently mentioned in the biographies, but too disgusting to be told. There was an account of it in Pepys's manuscript, but it was obliged to be omitted in the printing. Anthony à Wood found it out, and first gave it to the public. It was not commonly dissolute, there was a filthiness in it, which would have been incredible if told of any other period than that of the fine gentlemen of the court of Charles. What can be repeated has been told by Johnson in his life of Sackville, Lord Dorset. Opposite this tavern lived Wycherley, with his wife, the Countess of Drogheda. Charles paid him a visit there, before Wycherley knew the lady; and showed him a kindness which his marriage is said to have interrupted. The story begins and ends with Bow Street, and, as far as concerns the lady, is curious. Mr. Wycherley', says the biographer, 'happened to be ill of a fever at his lodgings in Bow Street, Covent Garden: during his sickness, the King did him the honour of a visit: when, finding his fever indeed abated, but his body extremely weakened, and his spirits miserably shattered, he commanded him to take a journey to the south of France, believing that nothing could contribute more to the restoring his former state of health than the gentle air of Montpelier during the winter season: at the same time, the King assured him, that as soon as he was able to undertake the journey, he would order five hundred pounds to be paid him to defray the expenses of it. 'Mr. Wycherley accordingly went to France, and returned to England the latter end of the spring following, with his health entirely restored. The King received him with the utmost marks of esteem, and shortly after told him he had a son, who he resolved should be educated like the son of a king, and that he could make choice of no man so proper to be his governor as Mr. Wycherley; and that, for this service, he should have fifteen 1 Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 317. |