1811-12. MRS. JORDAN. 63 combined in Mrs. Jordan. With a spirit of fun, that would have out-laughed Puck himself, there was a discrimination, an identity with her character, an artistic arrangement of the scene that made all appear spontaneous and accidental, though elaborated with the greatest care. Her voice was one of the most melodious I ever heard, which she could vary by certain bass tones, that would have disturbed the gravity of a hermit; and who that once heard that laugh of hers could ever forget it? The words of Milman would have applied well to her—“Oh, the words laughed on her lips!" Mrs. Nesbitt, the charming actress of a later day, had a fascinating power in the sweetlyringing notes of her hearty mirth, but Mrs. Jordan's laugh was so rich, so apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self-enjoying, as to be at all times irresistible. Its contagious power would have broken down the conventional serenity of Lord Chesterfield himself. Our first play was 'The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret,' by Mrs. Centlivre, in which she was the Violante. I had to prepare to meet this unrivalled artist in the part of Don Felix. This was a trial to me; for I have always felt something like an instinctive reverence for genius, in whatsoever range of art or science it may have developed itself. It is in Macklin's clever comedy of The Man of the World,' that Sir Pertinax Macsycophant observes, "I never in my life could. stand straight in the presence of a great man. I always bowed and bowed," &c. That flexibility of spine before men whom wealth or title makes great to the eyes of many, I have never felt but in the presence of those endowed by nature with that mental superiority which shines out in true genius; I have always laboured under the sense of my own comparative littleness, and for a time been oppressed with the idea of my inability to cope with them. I went to work therefore with my usual resolution to do my best with my part, but not without misgivings. At rehearsal I remarked, as I watched this charming actress intently through her first scene, how minute and how particular her directions were; nor would she be satisfied, till by repetition she had seen the business executed exactly to her wish. The moving picture, the very life of the scene was perfect in her mind, and she transferred it in all its earnestness to every movement on the stage. When the cue for my entrance as Felix was given, it was not without embarrassment that my few first words were spoken; but her good-nature soon relieved me, for when I expressed the love that wrestled with a suspicious temper in the words, "True love has many fears, and fear as many eyes as fame; yet sure-I think-they see no fault in thee!" she paused, apparently in a sort of surprise, and with great and grave emphasis, said, "Very well indeed, sir!" This gave me again my perfect self-possession, and I was able to attend to all her remarks and treasure up the points, in which she gave greater prominence to the text. I have seen many Violantes since, but where was there one, who could, like her, excite the bursts of rapture in an audience, when she recovered from the deadly agony into which her fears of discovery had thrown her, and prepared herself for her triumph over her jealous lover? The mode in which she taught the Flora to act her parts was a lesson to make an actress. The trite quotation laudator temporis acti is equally thrown, as an accusation or a sneer, in the teeth of those who dwell upon the memory of what no longer exists. But it is not alone upon the strength of my single judgment that I set so high a value on the art which these gifted individuals displayed; the effect they produced on their audiences was such as succeeding aspirants have never been able to excel. Mrs. Jordan's engagement was finished by the 'Belle's Stratagem,' in which she acted Letitia Hardy. The new Drury Lane Theatre was opened October 10th, 1812, with Lord Byron's address, which he had been solicited by the Committee, dissatisfied with those sent in for competition, to write; and upon the heels of this came forth the Rejected Addresses' of James and Horace Smith, to make a laugh wherever a page of the work was opened. The Leicester season gave me practice, and added to my experience without any particular event to stamp it on my memory. At Newcastle the theatre was opened by Mrs. Jordan before my arrival there, and I do not recollect what were her characters. My attention was given to the revival of Shakespeare's 'King Richard II.'; a play of the performance of which there is no record since Shakespeare's time, with due omissions. I had prepared it for representation, and it was produced with all the scenic effect that the limits of the theatre would admit of. It 1811-12. REPRODUCTION OF RICHARD II. 65 was a complete success, and proved the attraction of the season; but though applauded in the acting, it has not kept the stage; and it has often excited the wonder of Shakespearean critics, that it should have lain so long neglected and still should enjoy so little popularity. The passion of its language and the beauty of its poetry (considered apart from effect in representation) have dazzled its readers, and blinded them to the absence of any marked idiosyncrasy in the persons of the drama, and to the want of strong purpose in any of them. Not one does anything to cause a result. All seem floated along on the tides of circumstance. Nothing has its source in premeditation. Richard's acts are those of idle, almost childish, levity, wanton caprice, or unreflecting injustice. He is alternately confidently boastful and pusillanimously despondent. His extravagant persuasions of kingly inviolability, and of heavenly interposition in his behalf, meet with no response in the sympathies of an audience. His grief is that of a spoiled, passionate boy; but the language in which it is expressed is in the loftiest strain of poetry and passion. Bolingbroke, by the concurrence of events beyond his calculation, is raised to the throne. We perceive character in him in his own description of himself in the First Part of King Henry IV.,' but in his entrances and exits through this play there is nothing to distinguish him : so by York's touching picture of the degraded Richard's humiliating entry into London our feelings are more deeply interested than by all the fretful wailings, reproaches, and denunciations, eloquent and earnest as they are, of the deposed King. York is a good, easy man, yielding to every impulse, bending to every breeze that blows. Aumerle is a courtier and conspirator, unmarked by any peculiarity of concerted plan or urgent motive. In all the greater plays of Shakespeare purpose and will, the general foundations of character, are the engines which set action at work. In King Richard II.' we look for these in vain. Macbeth, Othello, Iago, Hamlet, Richard III., &c., both think and do; but Richard II., Bolingbroke, York, and the rest, though they talk so well, do little else than talk, nor can all the charm of composition redeem, in a dramatic point of view, the weakness resulting from this accident in a play's construction. In none of his personations did the late Edmund Kean display more masterly elocution than in the third act of VOL. I. F 'Richard II. ;' but the admiration he excited could not maintain a place for the work in the list of acting plays among the favourite dramas of Shakespeare. My other new characters this season were Dorax in an adaptation by Reynolds of Dryden's Don Sebastian,' Oroonoko in Southern's affecting tragedy of that name, King Richard III., and Mark Antony in Shakespeare's' Antony and Cleopatra.' My attempt in Richard was received with approbation, though my figure was unsuited to the part; an objection I have always felt, even when borne along by the fervent applause of the audience. A humped-back tall man is not in nature, and I felt myself contradicting in my appearance the words Shakespeare had given me to speak, an interference with that persuasion of reality under which, to be master of his audience, every actor should endeavour to bring himself. My aim in the study and presentation of a character has been always identical with that of the German actor Schroeder, who, in reply to the encomiums of his admirers on some particular passage or scene, would impatiently exclaim, "Ai-je bien joué le rôle? Ai-je été le personnage ?" My remembrance, too, of George Frederic Cooke, whose peculiarities added so much to the effect of his performance, served to detract from my confidence in assuming the crookedback tyrant. Cooke's varieties of tone seemed limited to a loud harsh croak descending to the lowest audible murmur; but there was such significance in each inflexion, look, and gesture, and such impressive earnestness in his whole bearing, that he compelled your attention and interest. He was the Richard of his day; and in Shylock, Iago, Sir Archy Macsarcasm, and Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, he defied competition. His popularity far excelled that of Kemble; but he became the very slave of intemperance, remaining at times for days together in a state of debauch. His habits of inebriety subjected him frequently to the signal disapprobation of his audience, upon whom he would sometimes retort with more vehemence than delicacy. It is reported of him, that on one occasion, when a young officer in the stage-box made himself conspicuous in interrupting the play, Cooke went close up to him, and in his distinctly audible pianissimo addressed him: "Dn you, sir! You are an ensign? Sir, the King (God 1811-12. ANECDOTES OF G. F. COOKE. 67 bless him) can make any fool an officer, but it is only the great God Almighty that can make an actor!" At another time, in Liverpool, when scarcely able to go through his part, the audience most justly manifested their indignation; he stopped, and addressed to them this insolent affront: "Your applause or your disapproval are indifferent to me: there's not one brick upon another in your town, that is not cemented with a fellowcreature's blood!" alluding to the African Slave Trade, then principally carried on in Liverpool ships. His face was only expressive of the sterner emotions, of which a whimsical evidence was afforded one evening, when, something the worse for wine or spirits he had drunk, he volunteered to exhibit to a young man sitting opposite to him the various passions of the human heart in the successive changes of his countenance. Accordingly, having fixed his features, he triumphantly asked his admirer, "Now, sir, what passion is that?" The young gentleman with complacent confidence replied, "That is revenge, Mr. Cooke." "You lie, sir; it's love!" was Cooke's abrupt rejoinder. But, when in possession of himself, his manners were most pleasing and his address most gentlemanly. Two of my schoolfellows, Henry and William Hanmer, sons of Sir Thomas Hanmer, in returning from the holidays to Rugby, supped one evening with my father after the play, in which Cooke had been acting. Cooke was of the party. Henry Hanmer, then a young man, subsequently a Colonel in the Guards, was quite charmed with his mild and agreeable manners and his interesting conversation. As of many others, it used to be said of him, that he was no one's enemy but his own; a shallow compliment, flattering the easiness of his disposition at the expense of more solid and indispensable qualities. The part of Mark Antony was announced for my own "benefit," and signalised by an extraordinary occurrence. The partiality that was invariably manifested towards me in Newcastle, where I was to my latest appearance spoken of as William Macready or Mr. William, never failed to display itself on the occasion of my "benefit nights." Every place in the boxes had been taken some days before; and from the demand. for tickets, an overflowing house was, as usual, looked for. But on the morning of the day, the box-keeper, with a very rueful |