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stands high in his good opinion, which is a strong presumptive proof, notwithstanding Shakespeare, the better to conceal his object, describes the death of Sir David Gam, that he intended David Llewellyn by his portrait of the testy Welshman, for there was no other person of that country in the English army, who could have been supposed to be upon such terms of familiarity with the King." It is singular that the descendants of the Welsh knight subsequently dropped the proud old name with more I's in it than syllables, and adopted the monosyllabic soubriquet. Squinting David, who fought so well at Agincourt, would have knocked down any man who would have dared to address him personally as "Gam," that is, "game," or "cock-eyed." His posterity proved less susceptible; and Mr. Jones says of them, in a burst of melancholy over fallen greatness: "At different periods between the years 1550 and 1700, I have seen the descendants of the hero of Agincourt (who lived like a wolf and died like a lion) in the possession of every acre of ground in the county of Brecon; at the commencement of the eighteenth century, I find one of them common bellman of the town of Brecknock, and before the conclusion, two others, supported by the inhabitants of the parish where they reside; and even the name of Gam is, in the legitimate line, extinct." Mr. Jones might have comforted himself by remembering that as the Gams went out, the Kembles cames in, and that the illustrious Sarah dignified by her birth the garret of that "Shoulder of Mutton" public-house, which stood in the street where chivalrous but squinting Davy had slain his cousin with the unpronounceable

name.

John Kemble occasionally took some unwarrantable liberties with Shakespeare. When he produced the "Merry Wives of Windsor" at Covent Garden, in April, 1804 (in which he played Ford to Cooke's Falstaff), he deprived Sir Hugh Evans of his knightly title, out of sheer ignorance, or culpable carelessness. Blanchard was announced for "Hugh Evans," without the Sir. Hawkins, quoting Fuller, says that "anciently in England, there were more Sirs than Knights ;" and as I have noticed in another page, the monosyllabic Sir was common to both clergymen and knights. To the first, however, only by courtesy, when they had attained their degree of B. A. In a "New Trick to cheat the

Devil," Anne says to her sire, "Nay, sir;" to which the father replies

"Sir me no sirs! I am no knight nor churchman."

But John Kemble was complimentary to Shakespeare, compared with poor Frederick Reynolds, who turned the "Merry Wives of Windsor into an opera, in 1824; and although Dowton did not sing Falstaff, as Lablache subsequently did, the two wives, represented by Miss Stephens and Miss Cubitt, warbled, instead of being merry in prose, and gave popularity to "I know a bank." At the best, Fenton is but an indifferent part, but Braham was made to render it one marked especially by nonsense. Greenwood had painted a scene representing Windsor under a glowing summer sky, under which Fenton (Braham) entered, and remarked, very like Shakespeare: "How I love this spot where dear Anne Page has often met me and confessed her love! Ha! I think the sky is overcast- -the wind, too, blows like an approaching storm. Well, let it blow on! I am prepared to brave its fury." Whereupon the orchestra commenced the symphony, and Mr. Braham took a turn up the stage, according to the then approved plan, before he commenced his famous air of "Blow, blow, thou winter wind!" And the fun-anent Falstaff and the Fords was kept waiting for nonsense like this!

While on the subject of the chivalrous originals of the mock knights of the Stage, I may be permitted to mention here, that Jonson's Bobadil was popularly said to have been named after, if not founded upon, a knight in the army of the Duke of Alva, engaged in subduing the Netherlands beneath the despotism of Philip II. According to Strada, after the victory at Giesen, near Mons, in 1570, Alva sent Captain Bobadilla to Spain, to inform Philip of the triumph to his arms. “The ostentation of the message, and still more of the person who bore it, was the origin of the name being applied to any vain-glorious boaster." The Bobadilla family was an illustrious one, and can hardly be supposed to have furnished a member who, in any wise, resembles Jonson's swashbuckler. On the other hand, there was Boabdil, the last sultan of Granada, who had indeed borne himself lustily, in his early days, in the field, but who at last cried like a child at losing that Granada

which he was not man enough to defend. But it would be injustice even to the son of Muley Abel Hassan, to imagine that Jonson only took his name to distinguish therewith the knight of huge words and weapons who lodged with Oliver Cob the Waterbearer.

The few other Stage Knights whom I have to name, I will introduce them to the reader in the next chapter.

STAGE KNIGHTS.

"The stage and actors are not so contemptful
As every innovating puritan,

And ignorant swearer, out of jealous envy,
Would have the world imagine.'

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

THE Commonwealth had no admiration for the stage, and no toleration for actors. When theatricals looked up again, the stage took its revenge, and seldom represented a puritan who was not a knave. There is an instance of this in the old play, entitled "The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street." "Wilt steal me thy master's chain?" quoth Captain Idle to Nicholas St. Antlings, the puritan serving-man. "Steal my master's chain!" quoth Nicholas; no, it shall ne'er be said that Nicholas St. Antlings committed bird-lime. Anything else that I can do,” adds the casuist in a serge jerkin, "had it been to rob, I would ha' done it; but I must not steal, that's the word, the literal, Thou shalt not steal; and wish me to steal then?" "No, faith," answers Pye

would you board, the scholar; "that were too much;-but wilt thou nim it from him?" To which honest St. Nicholas, so anxious to observe the letter of the law, so careless about its spirit, remarks, with alacrity, "That, I will!"

I have said in another page, that ridicule was especially showered down upon some of those whom Oliver delighted to honor. As late as the era of Sir George Etherege, we find "one of Oliver's knights" figuring as the buffoon of that delicate gentleman's comedy, "The Comical Revenge." It is hardly creditable to the times, or to the prevailing taste, that the theatre in Lincoln's-inn Fields cleared one thousand pounds, in less than a month, by this comedy; and that the company gained more reputation by it, than by any

preceding piece represented on the same stage. The plot is soon told. Two very fine and not very profligate gentlemen, Lord Beaufort and Colonel Bruce, are in love with a tolerably-refined lady, Graciana. The lord wins the lady, and the philosophical soldier accepts a certain Aurelia, who has the singular merit of being in love with the Colonel. The under-plot has "Oliver's knight" for its hero. The latter is a Sir Nicholas Cully who is cheated out of a promissory note for one thousand pounds, by two gentlemen-sharpers, Wheadle and Palmer. Sir Nicholas is partly saved by the gay, rather than moral, Sir Frederick Frolick. The latter recovers the note, but he passes off his mistress on Sir Nicholas as his sister, and induces him to marry her. The only difference between the sharpers and the "Knight baronet,” Sir Frederick, is this:Wheadle had dressed up his mistress, Grace, as as Widow Rich; and Sir Nicholas had engaged to marry her, under certain penalties, forced on him by Wheadle and his friend. Sir Frederick, at the conclusion, marries the Widow, to oblige a lady who is fond of him, and the curtain falls upon the customary indecent jokes, and the following uneasy and metrical maxim :—

"On what small accidents depends our Fate,

While Chance, not Prudence, makes us fortunate."

What the two Bettertons made of Lord Beaufort and Graciana, I do not pretend to say, but Nokes is said to have been “screamingly farcical," to adopt an equivalent modern phrase, in Sir Nichlas Cully. His successor, Norris, fell short of the great original in broad humor, but Nokes himself was surpassed by Dogget, who played "Oliver's Knight" with all the comic effect which he imparted to the then low comedy part of Shylock. It is inexplicable to me how any actor would ever have extracted a laugh from the audience at anything he had to say, or chose to do, when enacting the "Cavalier of the Commonwealth." There is not a humorous speech, nor a witty remark, nor a comic situation for the knight to profit by. In 1664, however, people could laugh heartily at seeing one of the Protector's knights swindled, and beaten on the stage. The knight is represented as a thirsty drunkard, "all the drier for the last night's wetting," with a more eager desire to attack the ladies of cavaliers than cavaliers themselves, and no re

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