Part 49

At this time, "the little clown's" full-dress was embroidered coat and breeches, silk stockings, paste buckles, and cocked-hat; and a guinea in his pocket, which he one day gave to a distressed woman, for which act his father gave him a caning (though not till five months after), which he remembered as long as he lived. Old Grimaldi died in 1788, leaving 1,500l., but the executor becoming bankrupt, the two sons lost the whole of their fortune. Joe stuck to the stage, and at Drury Lane Mr. Sheridan raised his salary, unasked, to 1l. a-week. His leisure was now passed in breeding pigeons and collecting insects; of the latter he had a cabinet of 4,000 specimens. He now removed with his mother to Pentonville, where the house is to this day pointed out in Penton Place. About this time, early one morning, Joe found near the Tower of London a purse of gold coin and a bundle of Bank-notes, which, on his way home, he sat down to count upon the spot where now stands the Eagle Tavern, in the City Road. There were 380 guineas and 200l. in notes, making in the whole 599l. Grimaldi repeatedly advertised in the daily newspapers the finding of the money, but he never heard a syllable regarding the treasure he had so singularly acquired. His maternal grandfather, it appears, once left a purse of gold, nearly 400l., upon a post near the Royal Exchange, and found it there untouched after the lapse of nearly an hour.

Joe Grimaldi appeared, as usual, at Sadler's Wells in 1788, but at this time his salary of fifteen shillings a-week was reduced to three, on which pittance he remained for three years, making himself generally useful: in 1794, he had grown so popular at Sadler's Wells, that his salary had risen from three shillings to four pounds. In 1800, Joe married Miss Maria Hughes, eldest daughter of a proprietor and the resident manager of Sadler's Wells: she died in the same year, and was interred in the grave-yard of St. James's, Clerkenwell, where the following was inscribed on a tablet at her request:--

"Earth walks on earth like glittering gold; Earth says to earth we are but mould; Earth builds on earth castles and towers; Earth says to earth all shall be ours."

On Monday, March 17th, 1828, Grimaldi took his farewell benefit at Sadler's Wells, when he delivered an address, and the whole concluded "with a brilliant display of fireworks, expressive of Grimaldi's thanks." He, however, played a short time in 1832, and then quitted the Wells finally. After this premature retirement from the stage, poor Joe lived at No. 33, Southampton Street, Pentonville, in a house which was furnished for him by his friends. At this time he frequented the coffee-room of the Marquis of Cornwallis tavern, the proprietor of which, considering his infirmity, or the loss of the use of his lower extremity, used to fetch him on his back, and take him home in the same manner. On May 31st, 1837, he was thus brought to the coffee-room and seemed quite exhilarated, his conversation, and humour, and anecdotes smacking of the vivacity of former years. He was carried home as usual; he retired to rest, and next morning was found dead in his bed. On June 5th, he was buried in the ground of St. James's Chapel, Pentonville, next to the grave of his friend, Charles Dibdin: his grave-stone states his age at fifty-eight years.

Thomas Hood wrote this touching "Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, senior," upon his retirement:--

"Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage To toddle down the hill of life, And taste the flannell'd ease of age Apart from pantomimic strife. 'Retir'd' (for Young would call it so)-- 'The world shut out'--in Pleasant Row.

"And hast thou really washt at last, From each white cheek the red half-moon? And all thy public clownship cast, To play the private pantaloon? All youth--all ages--yet to be, Shall have a heavy miss of thee.

"Thou didst not preach to make us wise-- Thou hadst no finger in our schooling-- Thou didst not lure us to the skies; Thy simple, simple trade was--Fooling! And yet, Heav'n knows! we could--we can Much 'better spare a better man!'

* * * * *

"But Joseph--everybody's Joe-- Is gone; and grieve I will and must! As Hamlet did for Yorick, so Will I for thee (though not yet dust): And talk as he did when he missed The kissing crust, that he had kiss'd!

"Ah, where is now thy rolling head! Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes, (As old Catullus would have said), Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd pies-- Enormous hunger--monstrous drowth! Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth!

"Ah! where thy ears so often cuff'd! Thy funny, flapping, filching hands! Thy partridge body always stuff'd With waifs and strays and contrabands! Thy foot, like Berkeley's Foote--for why? 'Twas often made to wipe an eye.

"Ah, where thy legs--that witty pair? For 'great wits jump'--and so did they! Lord! how they leap'd in lamp-light air! Caper'd and bounced, and strode away. That years should tame the legs, alack! I've seen spring through an almanack!

* * * * *

"For who, like thee, could ever stride Some dozen paces to the mile! The motley, medley coach provide; Or, like Joe Frankenstein, compile The vegetable man complete! A proper Covent Garden feat.

"Oh, who, like thee, could ever drink, Or eat, swill, swallow--bolt, and choke! Nod, weep, and hiccup--sneeze, and wink! Thy very yawn was quite a joke! Though Joseph junior acts not ill, 'There's no Fool like the old Fool' still!

"Joseph, farewell! dear, funny Joe! We met with mirth--we part in pain! For many a long, long year must go Ere fun can see thy like again; For Nature does not keep great stores Of perfect clowns--that are not boors!"

Munden's Last Performance.

In the year 1824, one of Charles Lamb's last ties to the theatre, as a scene of present enjoyment, was severed. Munden, the rich peculiarities of whose acting he has embalmed in one of the choicest Essays of Elia, quitted the stage in the mellowness of his powers. His relish for Munden's acting was almost a new sense: he did not compare him with the old comedians, as having common qualities with them, but regarded them as altogether of a different and original style. On the last night of his appearance, Lamb was very desirous to attend, but every place in the boxes had long been secured; and Charles was not strong enough to stand the tremendous rush, by enduring which, alone, he could hope to obtain a place in the pit; when Munden's gratitude for his exquisite praise anticipated his wish, by providing for him and Miss Lamb places in a corner of the orchestra, close to the stage. The play of the Poor Gentleman, in which Munden performed Sir Robert Bramble, had concluded and the audience were impatiently waiting for the farce, in which the great comedian was to delight them for the last time, when Lamb might be seen in a very novel position. In his hand, directly beneath the line of stage-lights glistened a huge pewter-pot, which he was draining; while the broad face of old Munden was seen thrust out from the door by which the musicians enter, watching the close of the draught, when he might receive and hide the portentous beaker from the gaze of the admiring neighbours. Some unknown benefactor had sent four pots of stout to keep up the veteran's heart during his last trial; and not able to drink them all, he bethought him of Lamb, and without considering the wonder which would be excited in the brilliant crowd who surrounded him, conveyed himself the cordial chalice to Lamb's parched lips. At the end of the same farce, Munden found himself unable to deliver from memory a short and elegant address which one of his sons had written for him; but provided against accidents, took it from his pocket, wiped his eyes, put on his spectacles, read it, and made his last bow. This was, perhaps, the last night when Lamb took a hearty interest in the present business scene.

Talfourd's Letters of Charles Lamb.

Munden appears to have first imbibed a taste for the stage in his admiration of the genius of Garrick. He had seen more of Garrick's acting than any of his contemporaries in 1820, Quick and Bannister excepted. Munden's style of acting was exuberant with humour. His face was all changeful nature: his eye glistened and rolled, and lit up alternately every corner of his laughing face: "then the eternal tortuosities of his nose, and the alarming descent of his chin, contrasted, as it eternally was, with the portentous rise of his eyebrows."

Oddities of Dowton.

William Dowton took his farewell benefit at the Opera House, on June 8th, 1840; he was then in his seventy-ninth year--the only actor, except Macklin, who continued to wear his harness to such an advanced period. For nearly half a century he had enjoyed a first-class reputation, but it was found that, when extreme old age came upon him, he had saved no money. With the amount produced by the above benefit was purchased for him an annuity for a given number of years, on which he subsisted in ease and comfort; but, to the surprise of every one, by dint of regular habits and an iron constitution, he outlived the calculated time, and there was danger that he might be reduced to penury. He died in 1849.

Dowton, in 1836, visited the United States; but he was far too advanced in life to attract attention or draw money. He came back almost as poor as he went, but with a change in his political opinions. He entered the land of freedom a furious republican--he returned from it an ultra-Tory. He was constitutionally discontented, captious, and fretful; but, at the same time, warm-hearted and generous. His oddities were very amusing to those who were intimate with him. He would sit for hours in his dressing-room arranging and contemplating his wigs, those important accessories to his stage make-up. One of his peculiar mannerisms was never to play a part without turning his wig. When he acted Dr. Pangloss, a bet was made that there he would find his favourite manœuvre impracticable. He managed it, nevertheless. When Kenrick, the faithful old Irish servant, comes in exultingly, in the last scene, to announce the long-lost Henry Moreland, he was instructed to run against Dr. Pangloss, who thus obtained the desired opportunity of disarranging his head-gear.

Dowton undervalued Edmund Kean, whose merit he never could be induced to acknowledge. When the vase was presented to that great actor, he refused to subscribe, saying, "You may cup Mr. Kean, if you please, but you sha'n't bleed me." He said, too, the cup should be given to Joe Munden for his performance of Marall. Amongst other eccentricities, Dowton fancied (a delusion common to comedians) that he could play tragedy, and never rested until he obtained an opportunity of showing the town that Edmund Kean knew nothing of Shylock. But the experiment was, as might have been expected, a total failure. The great point of novelty consisted in having a number of Jews in court, to represent his friends and partisans, during the trial scene; and in their arms he fainted, when told he was, per force, to become a Christian. The audience laughed outright, as a commentary on the actor's conception. Once he exhibited, privately, to Mr. J. W. Cole, the last scene of Sir Giles Overreach, according to his idea of the author's meaning, and a very mirthful tragedy it proved. He had a strange inverted idea that Massinger intended Sir Giles for a comic character. He also fancied that he could play Lord Ogleby, when nature, with her own hand, had daguerreotyped him for Mr. Sterling. Such are the vagaries of genius, which are equally mournful and unaccountable.

Liston in Tragedy.

Play-goers of the present century narrate the early seriousness of Liston, the comedian, and his subsequent turn for tragedy; which may have suggested the apocryphal biography of the actor stated to be by Charles Lamb, whence the following is abridged:--

Liston was lineally descended from Johan de L'Estonne, who came over with the Norman William, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. The more immediate ancestors of Mr. Liston were Puritans, and his father, Habakkuk, was an Anabaptist minister. At the age of nine, young Liston was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Goodenough, whose decease was attended with these awful circumstances. It seems that the old gentleman and his pupil had been walking out together, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three-quarters of a mile west of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look down upon a chasm, where a mining shaft had been lately sunk, but soon after abandoned. The old clergyman, leaning over, either with incaution or sudden giddiness (probably a mixture of both), instantly lost his footing, and, to use Mr. Liston's phrase, disappeared, and was doubtless broken into a thousand pieces. The sound of his head &c., dashing successively upon the projecting masses of the chasm had such an effect upon the youth Liston, that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many years after his recovery, he was not once seen so much as to smile.