1817-18. SONNET BY BARRY CORNWALL. 163 beyond the names of the characters of Diana Vernon and Francis Osbaldistone. Liston in Baillie Jarvie was humorous in the extreme, Tokely in the Dougal Creature was a wonderful savage, and Blanchard was dry and precise as Mr. Owen himself. Rob Roy was cast to me, and, though not the lofty tragedy to which I aspired, was yet welcome to me for the humour, pathos, and passion that gleam throughout it and diversify its scenes, and for the rude heroism that elevates and gives something of a poetical character to the Highland cateran. I studied it from the original, and enjoyed my full share of the success the drama obtained. The effect of the performance was soon felt by me in the manifest growth of public favour. Latterly there had been a disposition to identify my powers, which were not denied, with the representation only of the worst passions, and it was to this character I was first indebted for the opportunity of breaking the malignant charm that seemed to weigh upon me and contract my sphere of action. If what my eulogists called "my genius" could not yet "walk abroad in its own majesty," it could at least peep out, and give signs of something more akin to humanity than was believed of it. In the course of time some testimonies of the effect of this performance reached me, and I can well remember the stimulus my hopes received from the opinion expressed by a poet distinguished and popular as Barry Cornwall was, who, next year, published in the Literary Gazette the following 'Sonnet, written after seeing Mr. Macready in Rob Roy.' "Macready, thou hast pleased me much: till now I did not think thou hadst that livelier vein, There is a buoyant air, a passionate tone That breathes about thee, and lights up thine eye It is the bursting of a good seed, sown The sympathy this character awakened was still more strongly stamped upon my memory by a singular occurrence of a little later date, which may well find its place here. The post one morning brought me a letter, of which the following is a transcript: "SIR,-A person who witnessed on the evening of the 11th inst. your portraiture of the noble and romantic Scottish chieftain Rob Roy cannot withstand the impulse that leads him to transmit to you a few lines, which he would fain have you consider as the involuntary effect of unfeigned admiration of your powers, and not sent under the presumptuous pretension of being a tribute worthy of them. "12th June. "I am, Sir, yours, “With much gratitude and admiration, "SONNET "C. D. To Mr. Macready on seeing him at Covent Garden Theatre in the character of Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell. "Macready, thou who know'st with magic art To pierce the inmost chambers of the breast, That one whose brain was dry,-whose dearest rest Oh, could Fate bring thee to his withered bowers, And flattering visions rise of happier hours." It was not likely that an address in so grave a strain, bearing every semblance of truth and soberness in the description of the writer's mental suffering, should fail to touch me. My interest was excited, my curiosity aroused. How relief could be administered to a real ill by the mere "cunning of the scene" was a problem to me, and as months passed away I had ceased to expect any elucidation of the mystery; when a volume of poems was brought to me with a letter from the author, Charles Lloyd, recalling to me the sonnet addressed to me, and requesting my acceptance of the book just published. I was thus aware that it was the translator of Alfieri, the author of several original works, and the friend of Charles 1817-18. LLOYD AND THE LAMBS. 165 Lamb, who had been my anonymous correspondent. A friendship, which lasted through his life, speedily grew out of the acquaintance which this compliment induced. I was a frequent visitor at his lodgings, spending many evenings in delightful intercourse with him and his most amiable and accomplished wife. Under his roof I first became acquainted with Lamb, and that sister to whom his brotherly devotion made his life one course of self-denying heroism. She was most intelligent and gentle in manners. Here, too, took place my introduction to Talfourd, who has so eloquently told the story of their woes. It was from Lloyd himself that I received the melancholy account of his sufferings. For upwards of four years he had been afflicted with a most extraordinary malady, a torpor of feeling, and, as it were, a numbness of his faculties, that all the medical advice to which he had resorted had been unable to relax or to dispel. He was impenetrable to the efforts of skill or the blandishments of affection. All intellectual pursuits had been discontinued, and, as his sonnet intimates, life itself had become wearisome. By some inexplicable chance he strayed one night, he scarce knew why, into the pit of Covent Garden Theatre, where the drama of 'Rob Roy' was being acted. He became absorbed in the interest of Scott's romantic story, and, in the scene where the outlawed chief dashes away the tears from his eyes, poor Lloyd felt his own fast trickling down his cheeks. The rock was struck, and the gushing stream was a new spring of life to him. So he felt it, and testified to me, as the instrument of his restoration, the most affectionate regard. But some lines of his own, extracted from a poem addressed to me some time after as "expressive of the gratitude of the author," will describe his previous state of mind and the revolution it underwent more faithfully than any words of mine: “TO W. C. MACREADY, ESQ. “Whence is that unaccustomed gush, which steals The spell that wrought this miracle reveals The visions of romance, and dear appeals To dreams, from loftiest forms of thine, O Nature, learned! "This potent spell was sped in its deep aim By transcendental powers! and thus I wept The Muse from voiceless trance, in which she long had slept. "Four years had slept on in unbroken trance New thoughts came o'er me, wishes, feelings new— Beamed forth with healthier colours to my view, And all assumed a kindlier countenance, Light from new loopholes gleamed, and the cheered mind peeped through. "Now, whom beneath the providence of heaven A God above, can name of cause be given To that not straightway issuing from His throne) That numbed my heart-strings, by thy suasive tone, Gifted Macready! May I be forgiven Thus to thee rendering back with gratitude thine own ?” I heard with deep regret of his death some years after in Paris, whither he had removed, and where the cloud had again settled on his mind. The favour with which my personation of Rob Roy was received revived my hopes and encouraged me to believe that with the patient resolve to "bide my time," that time would come, and the place I claimed would be accorded to me. The prospect of such an issue seemed to brighten before me with each new subject submitted to me. In my friend Sheil's tragedy of 'Balamira, or the Fall of Tunis,' produced April 22nd (1818) and supported by Young, Charles Kemble, Miss O'Neill, Terry, and myself, the character entrusted to me, Sinano, a Venetian noble turned renegade under the name of Amurath, was considered the most effective in the play. The Morning Herald made use, in criticising the performance, of the expression, "Mr. Macready in the part of Amurath has made a giant stride in his profession," and Sheil borrowed the phrase in the 1817-18. THE CASTLE OF PALUZZI. 167 acknowledgment of his obligations to the actors prefixed to the published work.* About this time the affairs of my poor host, Dr. Barber, were so embarrassed that it became necessary to change my abode; and I prudently took less expensive lodgings in Foley Place, where out of my weekly salary I saved sufficient to discharge half my debt to Jeston before the end of the season, and before the summer's close I paid the remainder, accompanying the liquidation with a handsome piece of plate, in lieu of interest. It might have been expected that my professional successes would have procured me exemption from any further drudgery in melodramatic after-pieces, in which I felt my appearance a degradation; but the lees of the distasteful cup were to be drained in a piece called the 'Castle of Paluzzi, or the Extorted Oath,' May 27th (1818), founded on one of the causes célèbres which had lately been one of the current subjects of conversation, the murder of Fualdes, and the conviction of the assassins by the evidence of Madame Manson, "qu'un hasard fort extraordinaire avait rendu témoin du crime chez la femme Bancal," who kept a house of ill-fame. Terry had a part in the piece, and one night when, standing at the side-scene, I was inveighing against the taste and policy of compelling us to expend our talents on such rubbish, in his brusque way he ejaculated, “Why the d then do you take such pains for its success?" I had no answer to give. Having taken the part, it was due to the author, the management, and myself, to present it to the best advantage. The season was now approaching its close. Miss O'Neill selected for her benefit, June 2nd, Home's tragedy of 'Douglas,' in which, as Lady Randolph, she ventured unadvisedly on a character unsuited alike to her juvenile appearance and her style of acting. Charles Kemble acted Douglas very gallantly. Young was very good in Old Norval, and I had every reason to be satisfied with the revival of the play from the credit I obtained in the part of Glenalvon. For Young's benefit, June 5th, as *From the Times.-"The characters are well sustained, and that of Amurath in particular is marked by some touches of scorn and hatred which display the hand of a master. Macready quite surpassed himself in the cool, remorseless villain regarding his victim with the smile of a demon; we could never have believed him so effective." |