1793-1808. HIS MOTHER'S DEATH-EPITAPH.

13

was gone away for a little, and that I could not see her that night. The night was one of thoughtless rest to me; but the morning brought with it tidings of an event that has been ever since a memory of sorrow to me. That mother whom I had so longed to see, so dear, so precious, was gone indeed. My father informed me that she had died the day before my return. I had the mournful comfort of looking on her in her placid sleep, and through succeeding years that image of tranquillity and love has not left me. It was a house of mourning in which my holidays were spent. I followed her to the grave, which I have often, always in passing through Sheffield, remembered and revisited. In a newspaper of that period these lines were published shortly after her death:

"The following impromptu will not be deemed inappropriate, as it is written from the heart, in the full force of its feelings, by one who knew her well, and who faithfully declares that however deficient it may be in poetical merit he has not deviated in a single line from the rigid maxim of 'De mortuis nil nisi verum.'

"EPITAPH

"ON MRS. MACREADY, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE 3rd of

"If 'tis decreed the virtuous and the just

Shall rise to bliss triumphant from the dust,
And human forms shall from this dross refine
To join the ethereal host in forms divine,
Then shall those dear corporeal remains,
Which now the cold and silent grave contains,
Once more embrace that soul, which heaven approved
(Though sharply chastened as it dearly loved),
That mind, where virtue fixed her seated reign,
Yet probed its votary with disease and pain;
That head, which framed no base insidious wile,
Friend to deceive or enemy beguile;

That hand, whose frugal and domestic care

Still saved a surplus for the poor to share;

That heart, which self-indulgence oft withstood

T enjoy the luxury of doing good.'

That soul, that mind, that head, that hand and heart,

Then re-united, never more to part,

All glorious rising, shall enraptured sing,

'Where, Grave, thy victory? Where, Death, thy sting?"

And those, her nearest and her dearest, left,

Of their most valued friend on earth bereft

If haply left to shape their future lives
By the best mother and the best of wives,
Tracing her footsteps through this world of cares,
And making her revered example theirs,
When they have 'shuffled off this mortal coil,'
And passed life's rugged pilgrimage and toil,
Shall to her blessed abode then wing their way,
And, spurning the grim tyrant's ended sway,

Share her bright crown in realms of endless day."

My return to Rugby soon began to make me, as it were, more acclimated to its atmosphere, and I now began my rapid rush through the school. One amusement of the bigger boys was in getting up plays, which were acted to their school-fellows in one of the boarding-houses, Bucknill's. They were very fairly done, only that it was necessary at the end of every scene to drop the curtain in order to change one for another. In the course of time these plays were removed to a sort of hall at the Schoolhouse called the "Over School," the reading and sitting-room of the School-house fifth and sixth form boys. It opened into a large bed-room, which went by the name of "Paradise," with nine beds appropriated to the head boys, and was very convenient to the actors for dressing and undressing. The actors in these plays made application through me to my father for the loan of books, and afterwards for dresses, with which, to their great delight, he readily furnished them. In grateful testimony they considered themselves obliged to give me, although in the Under School, parts in their performances, and my theatrical career at Rugby was begun as prompter-a distinguished post for an Under School boy; and I ran through the characters of Dame Ashfield in Speed the Plough,' Mrs. Brulgruddery in 'John Bull,' the Jew in Dibdin's 'School for Prejudice,' and Briefwit in the farce of Weathercock.'

When Dr. Inglis retired from the head-mastership, to be succeeded by Dr. Wooll, I had made some progress in the school, having reached the fifth form. I recollect one day, when playing at foot-ball in the school close, Dr. Inglis was walking on the gravel walk that surrounds it. He called me to him, and desiring me to "keep on my hat," continued his walk with me by his side. He inquired of me what my father designed for me. I told him that I was intended for the law. He continued: "Have you not thought of your father's profession?"

1793-1808.

"No, sir."

THE YOUNG ROSCIUS.

15

"Should you not like it?"

"No, sir, I should wish to go to the bar."

"Are you quite certain you should not wish to go on the stage ?"

Quite certain, sir; I very much dislike it, and the thought of it."

"Well," he added, “I am glad of it. But if you had had any thoughts that way I should have wished to give you some advice, which I am glad to believe is now unnecessary."

I held him in great respect, and liked him very much, stern and inaccessible as he seemed to all of us. During his term of office the subject of the French invasion engrossed all thoughts, and monopolised conversation. The whole country was armed, drilled, and well accoutred, and Rugby furnished its two companies of well-equipped, well-marshalled volunteers. The elder boys had their blue coats cuffed and collared with scarlet, and exercised after school-hours with heavy wooden broad-swords. Nothing was talked of but Bonaparte and invasion. Suddenly a wonderful boy, a miracle of beauty, grace, and genius, who had acted in Belfast and Edinburgh, became the theme of all discourse. My father had brought him to England, and his first engagement was at Birmingham, where crowded houses applauded his surprising powers to the very echo. In London, at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres, throughout the whole country," the young Roscius' became a rage, and in the furore of public admiration the invasion ceased to be spoken of. He acted two nights at Leicester, and on a half-holiday, my cousin Birch having sent a note to excuse me and his eldest son from the afternoon's callings-over, at my father's request Tom Birch and myself were smuggled into a chaise, and reached Leicester in time for the play-Richard III.' The house was crowded. John Kemble and H. Harris, son of the Patentee of Covent Garden, sat in the stage box immediately behind us. I remember John Kemble's hankerchief strongly scented of lavender, and his observation, in a very compassionate tone, "Poor boy! he is very hoarse." I could form little judgment of the performance, which excited universal enthusiasm, and in the tempest of which we were of course borne along. In subsequent engage

"

ments with my father we became playfellows, and off the stage W. H. West Betty was a boy with boys, as full of spirits, fun, and mischief as any of his companions, though caressed, fondled, and idolised by peeresses, and actually besieged for a mere glimpse of him by crowds at his hotel door. An instance of the "madness that ruled the hour" was given at Dunchurch, where he stopped to dine and sleep, being prevented from acting at Coventry in Passion Week by Cornwallis, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. One of the leading families in the county, who were on their way to Coventry to see him, were stopped by the news at Dunchurch. The lady begged and entreated the landlord to get her a sight of "the young Roscius." She would "give anything." The landlord, unwilling to disoblige his patrons, suggested that there was but one way in which her wish could be gratified: "Mr. and Mrs. Betty and their son were just going to dinner, and if she chose to carry in one of the dishes she could see him, but there was no other way." The lady, very grateful in her acknowledgments, took the dish, and made one of the waiters at table. I mention this as one among the numerous anecdotes of his popularity. The Prince of Wales made him handsome presents, and in short he engrossed all tongues. After the play at Leicester Tom Birch and myself got into our chaise, and travelling through the night, reached Rugby in good time for "first lesson" in the morning.*

It has been said, and I believe it, that if the humblest in the social scale were to note down accurately the events of his life, the impressions he had received, and the real motives that actuated him in all he might have done, the narration would convey instruction, if not entertainment. This rough draft of the incidents of my life may never go beyond the circle of my own family, but in remarking the cause of those errors, which will be found to abound in it, whether originating in myself, induced by culpable example, or resulting from mistaken instruction, lessons may be learned and experience obtained that may serve as beacons to those I love and leave behind me, and which may prove, as I pray to God they may, in some slight degree expiatory of the faults here registered. With this purpose in

*The "Young Roscius" survived Macready, and died in London 24th August, 1874, in his 83rd year.—ED.

1793-1808.

UNJUSTLY PUNISHED.

17

view I have, after some deliberation, resolved not to omit even those trifling circumstances of my boyhood to which may be traced some of the delinquencies of my maturer life. "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day," and in the misfortune of that temper which through life has been the cause of my greatest unhappiness, and with which I have struggled so repeatedly, I see in its early outbreaks the prognostics of those ebullitions of passion that have so frequently caused me great suffering, and have brought with them deep repentance. But none deceive us so much as we ourselves, and with all my earnest resolves, I may very possibly, though undesignedly, in relation colour facts in tenderness to my own portion of blame, or view in the light of prejudice the conduct of others engaged with me. Let me hope that I shall hold to that severe rule of truth which I have always laboured to inculcate in you, my dear children.

The rapidity of my onward course in the school was unchecked; but the spirit with which I worked at my advancement became darkened by an occurrence that reduced me to a level which I had gloried in feeling myself above. The question has been long disputed of the effect produced on boys by corporal punishment. How far it may be necessary where minds are insensible to better influences, I cannot say; but where emulation exists, and the ambition that must pre-suppose a dread and horror of disgrace glows in a youthful breast, I am confident the degradation of corporal punishment may not unfrequently excite a feeling of desperate recklessness, bring about the subversion of all better principles, and break down a barrier against evil that may possibly never be re-established.

In the expression of this opinion I am not going to offer any palliation of my own misdoings, but to recall the facts as they occurred. I had reached the top of the lower fourth form without the disgrace of corporal punishment, and it was thought by the boys around me, and it was one hope of my ambition, that I should pass through the school unscathed personally or morally by this degrading infliction. One morning the news current in the boy's hall at our boarding-house (my cousin Birch's) was the "great fun" of the preceding evening, when a boy, half a fool, of the name of J, had been made drunk by and, with the Hall beer, and had exhibited

VOL. 1.