outrage on law and order.* They should assert their rights firmly. A theatrical community is never slack to accept an invitation of such a kind. There is an excitement with a security and immunity, not to be found so cheaply anywhere else. "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" was being played, with some alterations by Victor, and had reached its tenth night, when it was to be performed for the benefit of the author. When the curtain rose, the uproar burst forth. The house was packed with the conspirators, and the notoriously wan face of Mr. Fitzpatrick was seen in the boxes. In a moment he was haranguing them. Beside him was his aide-de-camp, the Cheapside haberdasher. With fierce and excited language he told them, it was now their time to fix the price, and exhorted them not to submit to the imposition. The confusion brought out the manager, who was received with yells and uproar. They would not give him a hearing. Yet he was prepared with a reasonable case. He would have shown them how the expenses had mounted from sixty to ninety pounds a-night, though this was hardly the point involved. But in truth he was wrong, or had The tone of this document is very insolent, and it must have come from Fitzpatrick. "Permit me to rouse your indignation," it said, "by reminding you that formerly we could see, for four shillings, a play performed by Booth, Wilks, Dogget, Norris, Johnson, Oldfield, and Porter, and are now obliged to pay five shillings for half a play, performed by Garrick, Holland, O'Brien, Packer, &c. Perhaps our lord and master will require opera prices." It then invited all to attend the playhouse, and demand an explanation. The reason, it added, for addressing the town in this manner was, that all communication with the public, through the channel of the newspapers, was cut off through the influence of one of the theatrical managers. I have discovered in an old magazine a copy of the "pay list" of Drury Lane, of only two years later. There were a hundred performers on the books, and the total amounted to within a few shillings of the sum Garrick had named. The salaries are good for those days. Garrick had 27. 15s. 6d. a night; Yates and wife, 37. 6s. 8d.; Palmer and wife, 27.; King, 11. 6s. 8d.; raised a wrong issue. For "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" had been played before, with its alterations, and was not, in that sense, a new piece. He was just allowed to say, that all should be explained in the newspapers of the following day, and was summarily driven off, then the rioters proceeded to the next regular step, in theatrical dissatisfaction. They fell on the theatre and its fittings, broke up the lustres and girandoles, and Moody, the popular actor of Irishmen, snatched a light from a ruffian who was in the act of firing the theatre. After this destruction of property, the curtain was let down, the money actually returned to the rioters, and the house cleared. The following morning, in the journal he was supposed to influence, appeared a short notice, promising an answer-stating that he believed what they had done was no innovation. This temperate appeal had no effect. That night the house was crammed to the ceiling. At the "third music," the audience furiously interrupted, demanded "Britons Strike Home,” and "The Roast Beef of Old England." They were gratified with these tunes. Then Holland came out to speak the prologue, but was hissed off. This looked ominous, when suddenly Garrick himself appeared, and confronted that hostile audience, literally packed with his enemies. The uproar that greeted him could not be described. It was noted that the fine face betrayed mortification, anger, and humiliation. Some voices roared, "Hear him!" others, "Hear Parsons, 6s. 8d.; Mrs. Cibber, 27. 10s.; Mrs. Pritchard, 27. 6s. 8d.; Mrs. Clive, 17. 15s.; Miss Pope, 12s. 4d. ; the Italian dancers, 17., and 17. 3s. 4d.; the "Fund," 17. 15s.; and the nightly charity, 3s. 8d. There is rather a "bill of costs'" air about these charges. the pit!" Suddenly the pale-faced Fitzpatrick, his henchman, Burke, by his side, stood up, and there was silence. He called out; "Will you, or will you not, charge half-price for every piece, except a pantomime?" The humiliated manager wished to explain, but his enemy called on him to say yes or no. He again attempted to make a statement, but was drowned in fresh yells. Then, in a tone of agony and impatience, he called out "Yes!"* This submission was against his own judgment, but he was persuaded by the cautious Lacy. The house was taken by surprise; but a victim they were determined to have. Ackman, a humble player, who had displeased them the night before, was ordered to come out and beg pardon. He did so. Then Moody was called for, and required to beg pardon on his knees, for what he had done the previous night. This strange demand he met in burlesque way, by saying, in the tone of one of his stage Irishmen, "that he was very sorry he had offended them, by saving their lives." This trifling only infuriated them, and the cry was "Down on your knees!" Moody boldly said, "By God, I will not," and walked off the stage. Though Garrick embraced him and applauded his spirit, still, to save his theatre, he had to engage that Moody should not play any more, until they gave permission; but he assured Moody in private, that his salary should go on. Flushed with their triumph, they repaired to Covent Garden, where they pursued exactly the same course; but Beard, one of the patentees, with more spirit, * This is from a curious newspaper cutting.-Bullock Col. declined to agree to their demands. His theatre was accordingly sacked; but he was able to secure some of the rioters, and bring them before the Chief Justice. Meanwhile Moody, with good spirit, presented himself at Fitzpatrick's chambers, and demanded satisfaction for these injuries. The natural pusillanimity of the beau was said to have shown itself; he shuffled, turned pale, proposed an amende, and actually agreed to bring about a reconciliation between the actor and the public. He was said also to have written an abject apology to the manager. There was to be a greater humiliation when the rioters were brought to Lord Mansfield's house, he was obliged to attend also.* His unnaturally pale cheek was seen to turn yet paler, as the Chief Justice administered to him a stern rebuke, saying that if a life had chanced to have been lost in the fray, he would have been held responsible. With judicious wisdom he allowed the matter to be accommodated, and after a wholesome warning allowed all to go; but he told Fitzpatrick that he was astonished to see one, who looked like a gentleman, mixed up in such an affair. The history of theatrical riots would make a curious narrative, and not the least curious feature would be the almost invariable leadership of persons of condition. From Garrick, too, came one more stroke at the unlucky Fribble. The manager found another opening for his incorrigible taste for comic rhymes, a turn that was the result of his "fussiness" and belief, that the town was engrossed with everything that concerned him. This, too, led him into the questionable step of Murphy says that he was brought there as one of the rioters; Davies's account is, that he merely attended. puffing himself a little, as it were to carry out the fiction that the piece was by another hand. There now appeared a ludicrous parody on Dryden's famous Ode, a favourite shape of humour; hardly so now, as, it is to be feared, there is no such popular familiarity with the Ode, as would make a burlesque of it intelligible. It was called "Fitzgig's Triumph, or the Power of Riot." "Twas at the rabble rout, when Mima won, The blustering ruffian sate On his audacious throne. His noisy peers were placed around, The blarneying Burky by his side." Then was described Garrick's appeal. "He runs with rapid skill through elocution's bounds." Shakspeare had, indeed, here stamped an image of himself-a Garrick for the world "The sons of taste admire the lofty sound, A present Shakspeare, hark, they shout around." |