Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

ma

to of babes by Messe vich prodased & expal effect. While Gamik Ila eselly is chai, Weng, w rifened back, tres by degrees to crop him, partly from feelings of respect, but partly, toc, that he may now and then steal a comparison when Garrick is not locking Him in the face. When Archer, at length, in his easy way, crosses his lege, Semb attempts to do the same, and, at last, but not without some assistance from the hands, he happily accomplishes this feat. All this is done with eyes either fixed or looking stealthy comparison. At last, when Archer begins to stroke his splendid silk stockinged legs, Weston almost instinctively imitates the action over his miserable red worsted stockings, but immediately after collapses in his chair, and with a feeling of humility that calls forth one's pity, quietly gathers his green apron over all. In this scene, Weston, with his natural expression of stupidity, his simple, restless looks, (which gain not a little from the unaffected husky tone of his voice,) almost has the advantage of Garrick, and that is saying a great deal."

QUICK, who made his first appearance in London at the Haymarket in 1767, as one of the pupils in Foote's "Orators," was the favourite actor of George III. The King was so delighted with his

QUICK AND O'BRIEN.

289

conversation that he would frequently send for him to Buckingham Palace. He realized a comfortable fortune, and resigned his engagement at Drury Lane in 1799, because he was called upon to act more than three times a week. He returned to the stage, however, in 1801, to play Isaac in the revival of Sheridan's "Duenna," and again in 1809 for the same part at the Lyceum. His last appearance was in 1813, as Don Pedro in "The Wonder;" but he did not die until 1831, being then eighty-three years old. He once played Richard III. for his benefit. Taylor says, "He supported the part with good sense and judgment throughout, but the peculiarity of his voice occasionally broke forth with such comic effect, that the audience, with all their respect for his talents and character, could not help giving way to ludicrous emotions."

"In all Shakespeare's clowns," says Boaden, "he freely executed the conceptions of his great author, and said no more than was set down for him. His Dogberry may be said to have been as perfect a personation as any representation even by Garrick himself." He was a famous Tony Lumpkin and Justice Woodcock ("Love in a Village,") and particularly excellent in misers.

WILLIAM O'BRIEN was a handsome, dashing actor of comedy gentlemen, who, in 1764, married Lady Susan Strangeways, a daughter of the Earl of

VOL. I.

U

Ilchester. It was a runaway match, of course, and celebrated at St. Paul's, Covent Garden; as the happy couple quitted the church by one door, the angry father entered by the other, but too late to stop the ceremony. O'Brien, however, although only the son of a Dublin dancing-master, was of a good old Irish family, and my lord, wisely making the best of a bad job, took him off the stage and procured him an appointment in the West Indies. He afterwards obtained for him the post of ReceiverGeneral of Dorsetshire, which office the "Biographia Dramatica" informs us he still held, although at a very advanced age, in 1812.

Several excellent actors of this period remain unnamed, but as there is nothing interesting to be told about them, we will pass on to a famous group.

CHAPTER VI.

66

[ocr errors]

THE ORIGINAL ACTORS OF THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL."

Smith, the Charles Surface-Tom King, the Sir Peter Teazle "Plausible Jack Palmer," the Joseph Surface-Anecdotes of his Impudent Mendacity-His Strange Death-Yates, the Sir Oliver-Died of Stewed Eels-Baddeley, the Moses-His Bequests-Parsons, the Crabtree A Romantic MarriageDodd, the Sir Benjamin Backbite-Farren-Lamash-Packer, the Careless-Trip-Snake.

"SMITH, the genteel, the airy, and the smart,'

[ocr errors]

as Churchill styles him, was a famous light comedian and an indifferent tragedian; he would be little remembered now had he not been the original Charles Surface, for Sheridan's brilliant comedy seems to have given a species of immortality to all its original representatives. Although only the son of a wholesale grocer in the city, he was sent to Eton and afterwards to Cambridge. But he quitted College rather hastily, to avoid expulsion on account of an insult he offered to one of the proctors, came up to London, turned his

thoughts to the stage, took lessons of Spranger Barry, and made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre on January 1st, 1753, as Theodosius, in Lee's tragedy of that name. And at Covent Garden he remained-only twice accepting a provincial engagement, at Bristol and Dublin— until 1774, when he went to Drury Lane. There he had the honour of occasionally alternating Richard and Hamlet with Garrick. "My utmost ambition, as an actor, was to be thought worthy to hold up his train. I can never speak of him but with idolatry," he used to say, when referring to that time. He was Mrs. Siddon's first Macbeth, in London. Boaden says, he had but one manner for tragedy, whether he was playing Richard or Hamlet. But his verve and gentlemanly bearing carried him through a world of emotion without exciting a tear, and you were some way satisfied, though not much moved. He seems to have belonged rather to the pre-Garrick school than to have imitated the great master. In comedy he was altogether admirable, a fine figure, a handsome face, the air of a gentleman, full of dash, life, gallantry, and manliness. He used to boast that during all the years he was upon the stage, he never blackened his face, never played in a farce, and never ascended through a trap door. His first wife, whom he married soon after taking to the stage, was a daughter of Lord Hinchbrook; she died in 1762, and he then married a

« AnteriorContinuar »