The Bishop of Ripon, like myself, was born in the year 1841, and, like myself, was proud to belong to that fine "vintage."
I am not likely to forget a dinner-party hegave at his home in the Abbey Cloisters in 1916 to a select band of "75's," or "soixante-quinzes," as he called us.
The company included the Bishop of Chichester (Dr. Ridgeway), Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell, Admiral Fisher, Lord Sanderson, Sir Frank Lascelles, Sir Walter Parratt, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace and myself. The late Lord Cromer was invited, but was prevented by illness from being present. Our host had not only prepared for us a delightful evening, but had composed some appropriate verses for the occasion, of which each guest was presented with a copy. This is how they ran:
"1841-1916
"The Fairies stood and watched the years'Till forth came Forty-one,The Fairies smiled and then they gaveTheir kiss to Forty-one.The vintage ripened well and good,That year must ever famous be,Because it brought forth you and me,The men of Forty-one.
"The Fairies watch where kisses goIn hope that they survive;Lo! great in arms by land[1] and sea[2]Their sons in valour thrive;In Russian lore[3], in minstrelsy[4],In mock[5] and true[6] diplomacy,Till brave in toil they came to beThe men of Seventy-five.
"Great William said 'Ripeness is all,'And we are Seventy-five,Old dogs are more than lions dead,And we are still alive!We need not fear age or mischance,In good we may and will advance,Likesoixante-quinzesin war-tossed FranceOur guns are good at Seventy-five."
[1] Lord Grenfell.[2] Lord Fisher.[3] Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace.[4] Sir Walter Parratt.[5] Sir Squire Bancroft.[6] Sir Frank Lascelles.
The good Bishop did not live to see the return of Peace which followed the triumphant victory of thesoixante-quinzesand their Allies. In the month before the Armistice was declared, he was laid in his grave. But he had not forgotten the happy gathering of 1916, as is proved by the following treasured letter, which I received from his son, Major Boyd-Carpenter:
"6 LITTLE CLOISTERS,"WESTMINSTER,"October26, 1918.
"DEAR SIR SQUIRE BANCROFT,
"Shortly before my father's death he asked that 'a message of greeting be sent to all the 77's.' As you were one of thosewho joined him at the gathering he always remembered with such pleasure, I am sending you this, his message.
"Believe me,"Yours sincerely,"A. BOYD-CARPENTER."
More recently we lost another honoured friend in that remarkable and distinguished man, Dr. Wace, the Dean of Canterbury. When we had a home by Folkestone he was often our guest, while we have enjoyed the hospitality of himself and Mrs. Wace at the Deanery. Their kindness at all times to my wife is a happy remembrance. The Dean loved a good story: he told many and was an appreciative listener.
I always read the powerful letters which he wrote toThe Times, and could not but admire the strenuous blows he dealt with dauntless courage on matters which were too profound for the likes of me. Shortly before his lamented death I met the Dean at the Athenæum and, during our talk, had more than one proof of the undiminished power of his great memory.
A disreputable trio
As an end to this chapter I quote the most startling words I ever heard from a pulpit, uttered by a prominent dignitary of the Church,in referring to the first chapter of Genesis, which had been the lesson of the day: "Adam was a cad; Eve, I am afraid, was no better than she should be; and for my part, I have long since regarded the silent serpent as the most respectable of a disreputable trio."
"For pity is the virtue of the law,And none but tyrants use it cruelly."
There is a sort of affinity between the bar and the stage: actors are attached to lawyers because lawyers are attached to actors; at least that has been my experience—my wife and I were rich in their friendship from very early days.
I have often thought there is a strong link between our callings. The feelings of the distinguished counsel when he goes into court, with all the anxious weight upon his mind, with all his grave responsibility, cannot be unlike the feelings of the great actor on a "first night," when his fame may be in peril.
I was once, when a child, taken to the House of Lords by my grandfather; he pointed out to me the venerable Lord Brougham, who was sitting in judgment with other Law Lords. I remember that he wore shepherd's plaid trousers, also his nose, the famous nose whichwas immortalised by Dicky Doyle on the mask which is being dragged along the lower part of the title page ofPunch.
Cockburn, L. C. J.
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn was the first great man we knew; our meeting was at dinner, when we were young, at the house of Henry Fothergill Chorley, a worshipper of Dickens and a prominent musical critic of those days; two of the guests were "Mamie" Dickens, the elder daughter of the great novelist, and Arthur Sullivan, then quite young and a protégé of our host.
I have never forgotten the feeling of awe which came over me when the butler announced, "The Lord Chief Justice of England." I always thought he looked less like a lawyer than an admiral, or the skipper of his own beloved yacht, theSybil. My wife had the good fortune to be placed next to the Lord Chief. She had the gift of manners, and was at home in any surroundings. He took a great fancy to her, and we enjoyed the charm of his friendship for about ten years, until the end of his career. In those days I thought his was the most attractive male voice I ever listened to, whether on the Bench or in a room—even during the lengthy summing-up of the Tichborne trial it never grew monotonous—although I admit that, nowadays, the voices of JohnstonForbes-Robertson and Henry Ainley could run it very close.
Let me add that the two most attractive female voices I have listened to were owned by women widely apart in rank and station: one belonged to Queen Victoria, the other to my wife, and both voices were preserved unto old age. It is pleasant to have this opinion confirmed by no less a person than Ellen Terry, who wrote of my wife "such averypretty voice—one of the most silvery voices I have ever heard from any woman except the late Queen Victoria, whose voice was like a silver stream flowing over golden stones."
The Lord Chief was a perfect host, well described as having the vivacity of youth tempered by the wisdom of age.
He also adored music: it was almost certain you would meet its professors at his house, and I recall memories of Madame Schumann, Joachim and Piatti. During a short time when my wife was not acting, her delight was great at being taken by him to theMonday Pops. Among his other accomplishments was an intimate acquaintance with languages: his French was as near perfection as a foreigner could get to.
"Justice is blind"
On one occasion when we had asked Sir Alexander Cockburn to dine with us, my wifetook George Critchett, the eminent ophthalmic surgeon and father of our lost friend, Sir Anderson, to him, saying: "Let me present Mr. Critchett to you, Lord Chief; as Justice is said to be blind, you may find his services useful." On another, in reply to a similar invitation, he wrote that he was just starting for Geneva to preside at the Alabama Conference, and wished that troublesome vessel had gone to the bottom of the sea the day she was launched. Soon afterwards, at the close of our annual Swiss holiday, we passed through Geneva just at the time the Alabama claims were settled there, and paid our respects to the Lord Chief at the old Hôtel des Bergues, to the sound of guns firing and the glory of flags flying.
This delightful friendship was broken suddenly. It was in the year we opened our newly rebuilt Haymarket Theatre, which he greatly admired, that after presiding over an intricate case in Westminster Hall, the Lord Chief left the haunts of justice and the "law's delay" for the last time. He dismissed his smart little brougham and walked home to Hertford Street. During the night came a fatal attack ofangina pectoris.
When I was a struggling country actor in Liverpool, so far back as 1864, I made the acquaintance of a struggling barrister on theNorthern Circuit. His name was Charles Russell, and he, too, became Lord Chief Justice of England. I enjoyed his friendship until his death. His personality was both dominating and downright. You could not be in a room with him and not be conscious of his presence. No man more firmly said what he meant and meant what he said, while his Irish tongue was ever ready with the apt bright answer, as, for instance, when, asked the severest sentence for bigamy, he answered: "Two mothers-in-law!" He was a relentless cross-examiner, and though sometimes a sharp antagonist was always a friend. There was no littleness about him, and he had no use for a fool.
Russell, L. C. J.
When I started my hospital "readings," I made a point of avoiding any suggestion of "creed," and arranged two recitals on behalf of Jewish and Roman Catholic institutions: at the former the Chief Rabbi presided, at the latter Cardinal Vaughan promised to do so, but was prevented by sudden illness: his place was taken by the Lord Chief Justice. Soon afterwards I was asked to serve a cause which was pronouncedly Protestant. In talking over who was to be invited to preside, I found the committee very desirous that Lord Russell should be approached. I pointed out that he, being a fervent Roman Catholic,could hardly be expected to comply, adding that he had only quite recently presided at a "reading" of the same story which I had given for the benefit of Catholics. The committee, however, said they could but be refused, and made their request. Lord Russell replied that I had gone out of my way to help a charity of his Faith, and that he would gladly do the same for me. The generous speech he made on the occasion was a warm tribute to the Reverend William Rogers—known widely as "Hang Theology Rogers." I cherish the remembrance of many acts of kindness shown to me and mine by Lord Russell of Killowen, but not one of them touched me more than that I have just related.
He was an ardent playgoer, with an intimate knowledge of Shakespeare, and rarely missed first nights, or when a play of one of his many friends was produced. He loved a game—of cards or otherwise—and I have seen him at Monte Carlo writhe because his exalted position robbed him of the pleasure of a "flutter" attrente-et-quarante. He was a real sportsman and a member of the Jockey Club.
I was greatly struck by a tribute the Lord Chief paid to an old guest, a host and true friend of mine for many years, the late Sir George Lewis. It was at the close of theParnell trial, when he spoke to this effect: "The most remarkable attribute in George Lewis is not his great knowledge of the law, not his unrivalled skill in conducting difficult cases, not his wonderful tact, not his genius for compromise. They are all beaten by his courage."
At a banquet given to Irving on his return from one of his tours in the United States, I was seated next to Lord Russell, who, half-way through the dinner, suddenly said to me: "I have to propose Irving's health. What shall I say?" I replied that no one could answer the question so well as himself. However, the Chief persisted, with that well-remembered, imperious manner of his, "Come, come, my friend, you must have done it often: tell me what I am to say." I recalled an occasion when I had proposed Irving's health, and said that I spoke of him as possessing "the strength of a man, the sweetness of a woman, and the simplicity of a child." Lord Russell turned to me with the question, "How about the wisdom of a serpent? I could not have left that out."
Alverstone, L. C. J.
Lord Alverstone, so long known as "Dick" Webster, who succeeded Russell, was Attorney-General, Master of the Rolls, and Lord Chief Justice, all in the same year. It was as Attorney-General that Webster dined withme, and I paid a pleasant visit in his company to the Isle of Wight (which he represented in the House of Commons) to do him a small service.
I have always understood that he was a great worker: one of the gang, like Francis Jeune and Rufus Isaacs, who could light a fire and brew tea at any ghastly hour a.m.
Soon after he became Lord Chief, Alverstone presided at the Annual Dinner of the Actors' Benevolent Fund. He made an eloquent appeal on its behalf and generously headed the list of subscriptions. This was not the only instance of the real interest he took in the drama, being of great service when the old Covent Garden Theatre Fund came to an end.
He was no mean athlete, and fond of all sports; also a capital singer—a conspicuous figure for many years in the choir of the church in the Kensington High Street.
I have had the privilege to know, but not to act as their host, all the eminent lawyers who have held the office of Lord Chief Justice of England since the Cockburn days: Coleridge, Reading, Trevethin and Hewart.
The late Lord Esher, Master of the Rolls, my wife and I had the pleasure to know well and to delight in his friendship and hospitality. My acquaintance began when the Courts wereheld in Westminster Hall, and I was foreman of a jury before "Mr. Justice Brett," in an interesting case, but troublesome to me, as it kept me from important rehearsals.
In a New Year letter to my wife he addressed her as:
"DEAR FRIEND,—You are a very perplexing person to write to. If I say 'Dear old friend' it won't do in every sense: because, although you are an old friend, you are in looks and ways a young woman. If I say 'Dear little friend,' it is a term of endearment—but you are a very great person. However, I begin by wishing you both a very happy year. If it is as prosperous as your goodness deserves I can wish you in that respect no more. I cannot tell you how I chafed under not being able to see you inMoney; but in the mornings I was in Court, and in the evenings did not venture out! Vile old age!! Lady Esher went to see you, and told me she had never seen anything more charming than you. With that I stop. My love to you both. Believe me always a very true admirer and very truly yours."
Of all the judges I have known I think the imposing presence of Lord Hannen on the Bench was second to none. His dignity appealed to me enormously when, through the kindnessof the Bar, I attended some of the sittings of the Parnell Commission. I remember my wife saying to him at our table, when he was President of the Divorce Court, that he seemed to her to pass too much of his life in separating united couples. His answer was that he passed much more of it in wondering why the couples had ever wished to be joined together.
James of Hereford
I never knew much of Lord James of Hereford, but saw a good deal in early days of Mr. Henry James, a successful self-made barrister who had just taken silk, and was on the way to the great position he reached.
He was one of a little coterie which included Lord Anglesey, ("P."), Millais, Merewether, Q.C., Hare, "Willie" Mathews, one or two others, and myself, who played, with great zest, an old-fashioned card game—four-handed cribbage.
James was made Attorney-General, refused the Lord Chancellorship, and became a Peer.
I remember his once saying: "Fame has no Present; Popularity no Future."
One of our early legal friends was Baron Huddleston. When we first met he was known as "the buck of the Bar," and always pleaded as Counsel in black kid gloves. We owed to him and "Lady 'Di'" many happy visits indelightful company to the Grange at Ascot. He had his vanities, and gloried in being written and spoken of as "The Last of the Barons."
I was dining with Arnold Morley, at one time Postmaster General, after Huddleston's funeral, when I "put my foot in it" more painfully than ever in my life. The little company comprised: John Morley, Herbert Gardner, afterwards Lord Burghclere, Sir Charles Dilke, George Lewis, Henry Labouchere, and one other man whose name I forget. During dinner Lewis said: "Oh! Bancroft, I saw by an evening paper that you were among Huddleston's friends to-day, tell us about his cremation; what is it really like?" Without thought I let myself go and replied that when the coffin disappeared from view Henry James (Lord James of Hereford) asked Sir Henry Thompson, the pioneer and President of the new movement, if we could see any more. Accompanied by Lord Falkland, we entered the inner compartment, so I described what we there saw, it being remembered that cremation was then in its infancy, adding that I revolted against the idea of consigning the remains of a loved one to such a fate. As I spoke my eyes fell upon Sir Charles Dilke, and I was conscious that his late wife had beenso treated. It did not need the leer on Labouchere's face to tell me so.
St. Helier and Holker
Lord St. Helier, who became President of the Divorce Court, was also a kind friend of long standing. My wife and I first met him as Francis Jeune, when he was just foreshadowing his successful career, at the house of Lady St. Helier, Mrs. John Stanley then, and soon afterwards we passed them in a carriage on the St. Gothard Pass—before the days of its wonderful railway—when they were on their honeymoon. He was a great authority on ritualistic and ecclesiastical law generally and always a tremendous worker. He had charming manners and was never ruffled—not even when he committed a duchess to gaol. We enjoyed their hospitality in London and at Arlington Manor. I have only one little objection to offer—I cannot help a feeling of resentment against a judge, or, in fact, any barrister, having a moustache and beard. It is not fair to the wig.
A dear friend of far-away days was Lord Justice Holker ("Sleepy Jack"). I knew him first in my old Liverpool apprenticeship when he was leader of the Northern Circuit and its legal giants. I saw him once at the Assizes there stop a case for some minutes after whispering to his clerk, who hurriedly left the court,and returned with Holker's snuff-box, which had been left in the robing-room.
Later on he had a place in Yorkshire where he had happy shooting-parties for his friends, but nothing would induce him to fire a gun himself.
Another legal friend and welcome guest was Lord Justice Mathew, who told us a pretty story of his witty fellow-countryman, Father Healy.
A young Englishwoman, who was his companion at a dinner party, asked him, as there was no mistletoe in Ireland, what the girls and boys did at Christmas-time without it. "Ah, if it's kissing you mean," the old priest answered, "they do itunder therose!"
Mathew had a witty tongue of his own. No doubt, it will be remembered by his legal friends that at the time Herschell was Lord Chancellor, Arthur Cohen, a distinguished Q.C., quite looked to be appointed to a puisne judgeship, which he did not get. When Mathew heard of Cohen's resentment, he expressed surprise that his learned friend expected anything else from Herschell but a Passover.
Serjeant Ballantine
I made acquaintance in my early professional days with Serjeant Ballantine, always a pleasant and amusing companion, with agreat love of the theatre. Throughout his life he was very Bohemian in his tastes and habits. I remember him first at Evans's, a music-hall of those days, in Covent Garden—it stood where prize-fights now take place at the National Sporting Club—where there was a noted choir of boys, and where "Paddy Green," the manager, squeezed hot potatoes from their jackets with his napkin for favoured guests.
Ballantine devoted himself entirely to criminal cases. He was a great cross-examiner, but he found his equal in Serjeant Parry, who had masterly power over a jury. Another of his rivals was the distinguished advocate, Henry Hawkins, afterwards Lord Brampton, who was known to be as rich as Ballantine was poor. In a robing-room on one occasion Ballantine asked Hawkins what he was going to do with all his money, adding that when he died he could not take it with him, and that even if he could he feared it would melt.
Ballantine defended the impostor Arthur Orton, the "Claimant," in the first Tichborne trial and professed belief in the genuineness of that rascal. Later he was retained for the defence of the Gaekwar of Baroda in India. He received for his services the largest fee thenknown, but he lost the bulk of it at Monte Carlo on his way home.
When I became acquainted with Frank Lockwood he was a young actor at a seaside theatre. He did not, in the judgment of his comrades, show much promise and wisely abandoned the stage as a career. I next met him as a rising barrister at the house of the Kendals, with whom he was on terms of close friendship, as he soon became with my wife and me.
Lockwood was a brilliant caricaturist. His company was always a delight. I remember an evening when he sat by me at dinner after he had fought many a hard battle, and I asked if he were offered a judgeship would he accept it. In a moment he answered, no; he loved the fight too much. Soon afterwards, however, he had changed his mind, longed for relief from the struggle and sighed for peace. It was not to be. His health suddenly broke down, his strength was failing, and he had to give in.
Frank Lockwood was a popular leader at the Bar, a genial Member in the House, a perfect host, a welcome guest, a delightful companion, a staunch friend.
Montagu Williams
The career of Montagu Williams was the most varied of any man I have known. Bothhis father and his grandfather were barristers. After he left Eton, Montagu was for a time a schoolmaster; then fired, I suppose, by the outbreak of the Crimean War, he entered the Army. After peace was declared he resigned his commission and became a member of a theatrical touring company with a well-known amateur of those days, Captain Disney Roebuck. Next, on the advice, I believe, of his godfather, Montagu Chambers, he resolved to go to the Bar. During his studies he wrote for the Press, including Dickens'sHousehold Words. He also wrote plays, chiefly in collaboration with his old friend and school companion at Eton, Frank Burnand. The best of them wasThe Isle of St. Tropez, a really good drama, in which Alfred Wigan played.
From the time Montagu was called by the Inner Temple there were few important criminal cases in which he did not take a part—and very quickly a prominent one. His great knowledge of every side of life and quick grasp of things resulted in a large practice, and he defended more scoundrels than any man of his day. Later on, he was grievously afflicted by throat mischief, which ended in the saving of his life at the cost of his voice, through a serious operation; he could afterwards only speak in a whisper. He was, however,appointed a London police magistrate, in which work he again distinguished himself, and soon became known as "the poor man's beak."
It was during the theatrical episode in his varied career that he came across, and married, Louise, a daughter of two prominent and respected early Victorian players, Mr. and Mrs. Keeley, whom I remember seeing act so long ago as 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, when Robert Keeley was the partner of Charles Kean at the old Princess's Theatre.
Louise Williams was gifted with a sweet voice and sang with charm. I still seem to hear her exquisite rendering of Edgar Allan Poe's words, which I can trust my memory to recall:
"And neither the angels in Heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee."
I can recall no man who enjoyed more universal popularity than Douglas Straight; it began at Harrow and followed him throughout his life. He never allowed his interests to become cramped: they embraced the law, politics, journalism, sport, the drama and society. He began as a journalist, wasConservative M.P. for Shrewsbury, and had a successful career at the Bar, which ended in a judgeship of the High Court in India.
He had great social gifts, nowhere better proved than by my friend Pett Ridge, who tells a story of his popularity with the fair sex, that twelve ladies agreed to give a dinner at a fashionable restaurant, the novelty on the occasion being that each of them was to be responsible for one male guest. The whole dozen invited Douglas!
"Willie" Mathews
I lost a close and affectionate friend in Charles Mathews, the Public Prosecutor, whom I first knew in the sixties, when he was a little chap at Eton and wore a turn-down collar. My next remembrance of him is as the "baby" member of the Garrick Club, where, from the date of his election, he was beloved. In those days "Willie" Mathews was "devil" to Montagu Williams and working hard in his company and that of Douglas Straight at the criminal bar, the scene of many triumphs in his successful career. He waspersona gratawherever he went, and in widely different circles, from Balmoral to Bohemia.
Charles Gill was another old friend. We saw more of him at his beloved Birchington than in London. He was known in his Kentish home as "The Mayor"—so christened, Ithink, by his neighbour, that modern Colossus who seems to be always striding between New York and Leicester Square, the successful and erratic Frederick Lonsdale.
Gill was closely associated in early days with Straight and Mathews; later in his brilliant career there was scarcely a sensational criminal trial in which he did not play a leading part.
A very wise member of his profession only lately said that were any friend of his in a difficulty that called for unerring judgment and delicacy of handling his best advice would be: "Consult Charles Gill."
"So famous, so excellent in Art."
Painting
It is many years since, as my wife and I were leaving the Savoy Theatre at the close of an afternoon performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, we were shocked by a newsboy shouting "Death of Lord Leighton." We made Frederic Leighton's acquaintance in the green-room of our theatre. Soon afterwards we dined at his beautiful house in Kensington. In its neighbourhood there was a nest of his comrades in art, including Val Prinsep, Luke Fildes and Marcus Stone. We were friends for years: he did me the honour to propose me at the Athenæum, but did not live to see me elected. He was a remarkable and gifted man—an Admirable Crichton—painter, sculptor, linguist—as well as an eloquent, if a somewhat florid, speaker, and an admirable man of affairs, besides, as we actors say, having a perfect appearance for his part. Was it not Thackeray who told him once that Millaiswas the only man with a chance against him for the Presidency of the Royal Academy?
His beautiful art was best illustrated in his early days, I always thought, byThe Slingerand the sculptured figure of an athlete struggling with a python. I also remember well his life-like portrait of the famous explorer, Sir Richard Burton.
Millais
In many respects a total contrast to Leighton was the successor to his great office, John Everett Millais. I was fortunate in his acquaintance at the Garrick Club when I was elected as a member fifty-six years ago. Millais loved the club and cared but little for any other.
Although looked upon as a Jerseyman, he chanced to be born at Southampton, and I remember being told by a man—who was for many years prompter under our management—that he had seen Millais, as a very small boy, sprawling upon the stage of the Southampton theatre and drawing with a piece of chalk things that had form and shape.
I don't know when he first came into fame and astounded the world by the wonderful children of his brush and brain. Beautiful things teem through the memory. I see the little creature, on a church bench, listening toThe First Sermon; a work of infinite pathoscalledThe Blind Girl; Walter Raleigh on the shingly shore, clutching his knees and absorbing the yarns of an old sea-dog; the two nuns digging a grave for a comrade inThe Vale of Rest; those well-known masterpieces,The Princes in the Tower,The Black BrunswickerandThe Order of Release. And then the gallery of portraits—Tennyson, Newman, Gladstone, Bright and the unfinished Disraeli. Others also crowd upon remembrance: those of my comrades, Henry Irving and John Hare—not, in my judgment, among his best examples,—of Arthur Sullivan—one of the very best,—and the great surgeon, Henry Thompson, which, like the striking portrait of Mr. Wertheimer by Sargent, as you look at it, seems that it might speak. I see also the beautiful portraits of Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Jopling Rowe, but, alas! not one of my wife. I offered Millais a large sum to paint one of her for me, but he declined, for two reasons; he said that he could not bring himself to accept money from a brother artist, and that he should fail, as the face would change while his eyes turned even for a moment to the palette. One word to recall his masterly landscapes,Chill October, and, if I remember their attractive titles,The Fringe of the MoorandThe Sound of Many Waters. Never in any man's work wasrefinement more closely merged with art. I see a fine photograph of him daily, if in London, with an autograph in the corner, briefly accepting an invitation to dinner in these words: "I'm your man." I looked down upon his handsome features, as he was fading away from life, and kissed him.
Poynter
Edward Poynter succeeded to the President's chair, which had only been occupied by Millais briefly. It was during his reign that I had the honour at the Royal Academy Banquet to respond for the Drama: the toast had only once been proposed before, when Irving replied. It was a difficult task, and the greatness of the audience impressed me with my own littleness. Wisely, I am sure, I limited myself to five minutes only, and venture to give an extract from what I said:
"I was not unmindful that the proposal of this toast at that great banquet was a mark of respect to the stage which could only make the stage the more respect itself. I could not speak in that room—surrounded as I was by the rulers in that fairyland—without some attempt, however faint, to say that my admiration of the beautiful art, so splendidly illustrated year by year upon those walls, was as true as my love for the living pictures we players tried to paint. Our pictures, alas!died early, for the greatest actor's work must be a passing triumph; it was not cut in marble, nor did it live on canvas, but could only owe its fame to written records and traditions. Vast wealth might keep for us, and for the ages yet to come, the undying splendour of a Reynolds or a Millais, but no sum could buy one single echo of the voice of Sarah Siddons. The drama was the most winning, fascinating, alluring thing that ever was conceived for the recreation of mankind. As England could claim to be the parent of the drama in Europe, so could she claim to be the mother of the greatest dramatist the world had owned, whose mighty genius left all art in debt that never could be paid, and whose works alone would make the stage eternal."
The pictures by Poynter which live clearest in my memory are hisCatapultandVisit to Æsculapius. Concerning the latter work a story "went the rounds"—possibly as untrue as many another—that two beautiful sisters were as flattered by the eminent painter's wish to make drawings of their heads as they were horrified to find them reproduced upon bodies of well-known models in the nude.
Poynter painted a portrait of himself for the Uffizi Gallery as Millais did. There is anadmirable copy of this portrait in his beloved Garrick.
I was never really intimate with Alma Tadema, although I knew him for many years, beginning with the time when he lived in Regent's Park. Owing to an explosion of gunpowder on the canal there, if my memory is accurate, his house was wrecked and he went to live in the Grove End Road, in a house formerly occupied by Tissot, a French artist, who had quite a vogue for a time. Tadema translated the house into "a thing of beauty and a joy for ever," where he entertained a great artistic company, worthy to be surrounded by theRoses of Heliogabalus.
I owe the following painful and remarkable story to my friend Aston Webb, lately President of the Royal Academy; it was told to him and others by Tadema. A young woman, an American, the daughter of parents of wealth and position, was the cause of great anxiety to her father and mother, to her intimate friends, and to her doctor, on the score of health, which puzzled all concerned, and became a mystery which no one seemed able to unravel. At last the doctor was driven to advise a year's absence from home and its surroundings by a trip to Europe, to be spent where and how the girl might wish, in the companionship of afemale friend—she had no sisters, and the parents could not leave their own country at the time.
Sargent
The patient went first to London and enjoyed her stay there. During it, she conceived a strong wish to be painted by her eminent fellow-countryman, Sargent, the magician who reveals unknowingly what have been hidden mysteries. The portrait when finished was highly thought of and presently despatched to the parents of the sitter, while she went her way to Switzerland and Italy. The great artist's work delighted the father and mother. An "at home" was arranged that their many friends might share their admiration. All of this took place; among the invited guests being the friendly doctor who had been so puzzled by the condition of his patient. I will come briefly to the sad sequel. The doctor gazed at the portrait long and earnestly: he left the house perturbed and saddened. On the following day he sought an interview with the father, told him that Sargent had revealed to him, beyond doubt, what he had failed to discover himself. Put briefly, the poor girl afterwards died in a madhouse. When Tadema had finished his story, Abbey, who was also present, quietly remarked: "All too true. I could tell you the names of those concerned."
The painter who ran dear Millais close in my appreciation, and who has given me, if I bare my heart and tell the naked truth, greater pleasure than any other painter, was Orchardson; the fact that his work is so dramatic being, I suppose, the reason. His two phases of theMariage de Convenancewere gems. I don't know whether Act I surpassed Act II, or if the verdict was the other way. The gloriousQueen of the Swords,The Challenge,Hard Hit,The Young Duke,Napoleon in the Bellerophon,The First Cloud, with their exquisite colourings, the secret of which never seems to have been divulged; and still one other, so delicate in conception, so perfect in its pathos,Her Mother's Voice. What a story! How simply told!
Edwin Abbey was also a painter who appealed strongly to me; again, because he was dramatic. HisRichard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne, I always looked upon with admiration. The splendour of its colouring is lost to me, for I see it now onlyen gravure. Nor can hisHamletandKing Learbe forgotten, while his decorative work was magnificent and will preserve his fame. He had great charm as host and guest.
I travel back to the far-off days when W. P. Frith, an old friend, was the popular Academicianof his time; his pictures of theDerby DayandRamsgate Sandshaving to be "railed in" at the Annual Exhibition, which was then held in the National Gallery, to protect them from the crowd.
Frith, I remember, was struck with the beauty of our production of theSchool for Scandal, which he highly praised. In its acting and historical accuracy he said it was like the last edition of a grand book, the handsomest and the best. He fell in love with the minuet, and said it took him back to the days of his great-grandmother. The minuet, which was introduced at Lady Sneerwell's "rout," was the brilliant idea of my wife: it was danced by two couples in a crowded room of guests. I have since seen it danced by a crowd to an otherwise empty stage.
I look back with interest to pleasant times spent in the company of Hubert Herkomer, that "jack-of-all-trades and master of many." His versatility was bewildering. Tools of every kind and shape seemed to be playthings in his hands; he grasped them with firmness and used them with skill; painting, engraving, etching, and all sorts of metal work alike came easily to him; he played the piano and the zither, composed and wrote, and was, in a way, a pioneer of film work. His shoalsof portraits were amazing, and his fame might rest enduringly upon his painting ofThe Last Muster.
Briton Rivière was for many years our friend. We met first in the Engadine. He was, in my opinion, a great artist, and has crowded my memory with his works. I think often of those speaking dogs inThe Vacant Chair,SympathyandCharity, as I do ofCircewith the amorous pigs, and the majesticDanielfacing the lions in their den.
I have always understood that Rivière was within an ace of being elected President when Millais died.
In early Bohemian days, Henry Stacey Marks, long before he had blossomed into a Royal Academician, was an amusing and pleasant friend. Years afterwards I bought, at Christie's, the attractive panels of theSeven Ages of Manwhich he had painted for Birket Foster. They were well-beloved companions until a changed life came to me; they now adorn the walls of the Green Room Club.
Val and Marcus
Another R.A. and old friend was Val Prinsep, whose burly form looms from distant days, which his name recalls. It is easy to believe that he was the original "Taffy" in George du Maurier'sTrilby. I have a remembrance of him in the sketch he made for his paintingThe Minuet, which was inspired by our introduction of the dance intoThe School for Scandal, again in its turn reproduced in our act-drop at the Haymarket Theatre. On his return to England after painting the Great Durbar, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, he gave my wife a handsome native bracelet, which, as a souvenir of her, I passed on a little while ago to Marie Löhr, who married Val's son, Anthony.
"Val" left many dear friends behind him, with happy recollections of his worth.
Recently another friend of long standing, Marcus Stone, left us. He once told me an interesting incident of his childhood, a link with the past, when he was kissed by a very old and well-known man named Pickersgill, the engraver, who begged him, impressively, always to remember that he had been kissed by a man who once was kissed by Dr. Johnson. It is odd to remember, in these days of petrol, that Johnson said there were few keener pleasures in life than being whirled along in a post-chaise, in the company of a pretty lady, at the average speed of ten miles an hour.
Stone owed much to his early, almost boyish, friendship with Dickens, who engaged him to illustrate the book he was then writing, thereby made him known to eminent men,and altogether helped his career greatly. He was a good talker, and he read more books in a week than I do in a year: he also had what are called good looks and a distinguished bearing. Was it not written of him:
"Marcus Apollo Belvedere Stone,Stands there erect, in all his glory shone."
Sculpture
In the hope that I have not been tiresome, I will close my remembrances of Academicians with the names of two sculptors: one, whom we knew with some intimacy, was Edgar Boehm. He chanced to be our guest on the evening when his baronetcy was "in his pocket," to be announced to his large circle of friends on the following morning.
There was a beautiful work of his on the staircase landing of the house Millais built for himself in Kensington. His fame rests chiefly, I suppose, on the statue of Carlyle, near to his Chelsea home; on the tomb of Dean Stanley; and the statue of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner, which replaced the old one, now at Aldershot, that I was taken as a child to see when it was erected—an earlier remembrance than that I retain of the Iron Duke's funeral.
I always remember an evening as Boehm's guest, when a lady whom I had taken down todinner, in answer to an opinion I timidly expressed that it was just possible she might be on the verge of "spoiling" her two boys, who chanced to be at Eton with my son, turned upon me with the amazing question: "Do you think I can ever sufficiently apologise to them for my share in bringing them into this world?"
Boehm and Onslow Ford
Boehm's end was distressing. He was a great Court favourite, and one afternoon, in his studio, told his man that he expected a visit from the Princess Louise, and that Her Royal Highness, with her lady, was to be conducted to the studio at once. When taken there, on the door being opened, they found Boehm, who had sunk upon the floor from a sudden heart attack, unconscious and just breathing; he passed away in a few minutes.
Onslow Ford, another friend of ours, was as well known for his personal charm as for the refinement of his work. He was beloved by his brother Academicians, the features of several of whom he has immortalised in marble, and by a large circle of friends. One of his best achievements is the seated figure of Henry Irving, now in the Guildhall Picture Gallery; while the Christopher Marlowe memorial at Canterbury, the Shelley memorial in University College, Oxford, and the greatstatue of Gordon, mounted on a camel, at Chatham, will make his fame secure.
Another sculptor whose friendship we enjoyed was the late Count Gleichen, who regarded his art as far more than a recreation; and his statue of King Alfred at Wantage is the work of no mere amateur. We found it an interesting experience to sit to him for the two portrait busts which are now in the Garrick Club. The sittings in his studio at St. James's Palace were often enlivened by visits from well-known people of many kinds, which I hope did not detract from the merit of the sculptor's work.
I dare not try the patience of my readers by attempting at any length to write of that rebellious, capricious, tempestuous, and captivating genius "Jimmy" Whistler.
After welcoming him as our amusing and interesting guest, my wife and I were bidden to one of his historic luncheons at the White House, which then stood quite alone in Chelsea by the river. We had excellent company and ate buckwheat cakes, cooked by himself.
His despotic value of himself was exalted and could not be excelled: nothing shook it. The rapier and the bludgeon were alike his weapons of either attack or defence.
I believe his portrait of Irving as KingPhilip has varied in different markets from bids of a few pounds to some thousands.
"Punch"
Sir John Tenniel was an old friend and guest. His remarkable connection withPunchextended over fifty years. During this marvellous record he contributed between two and three thousand cartoons to its pages. The most famous of this vast collection was, perhaps,Dropping the Pilot, which showed Bismarck leaving the Ship of State, while his new chief, who was to wreck Europe, looked superciliously down on him.
I was present at a banquet given in his honour upon his retirement. The company gathered was exceptional and was presided over by Mr. Balfour, as he then was. When Tenniel rose to return his thanks, the demonstration was too much for the old man; he was unable to speak, and resumed his seat in tears. As the chairman said at once, no expression of thanks could have been more eloquent.
We knew George du Maurier for many years: I wish it had been more intimately. After his early days in Paris and his familiarity with the Quartier Latin, his connection withPunchbegan, ten years later than Tenniel's. Soon afterwards he succeeded to Leach's prominent position and earned his world-widefame, which was not lessened by his novels,Peter IbbetsonandTrilby.
I should have loved to hear him say at one of the weeklyPunchdinners, as the man who told me did: "Fellows will write to me asdeMaurier; I wish they'd give the devil his du."
Painting
One of du Maurier's closest friends was that fascinating man Canon Ainger, Master of the Temple, with whom I had only a slight acquaintance. They met constantly, almost daily, in their beloved Hampstead, and indeed haunted its Heath: du Maurier was at home in Bohemia; Ainger had never stood upon its soil; while their widely separated religious views never hurt their friendship. "A strange world, my masters."
He loved the stage. Would he had lived to see the position of its leader in England, to-day, achieved by his son Gerald!
"Sammy," as Linley Sambourne was affectionately called by his intimates, will complete my trio ofPunchdraughtsmen.
He was an amusing little creature, always very horsey in get up. I have his gift of the first drawing from his pencil which appeared inPunch, so long ago as 1867, when he was but twenty-two; it is a droll little sketch of George Honey as Eccles, John Hare as Sam Gerridge,and myself as Captain Hawtree inCaste. He told me that it was drawn from memory, after visits to the pit when Robertson's comedy was at the height of its first success.
I recall an amusing incident which occurred at a fancy-dress ball, largely attended by the artistic and "Bohemian" world. "Sammy" appeared, admirably appointed and dressed, as a little fat Dutchman. He was cheerily greeted by Gilbert, who ran against him with the words: "One Dutch of Sambourne makes the whole world grin."
Pellegrini
I must write a few lines in memory of the prince of caricaturists, Carlo Pellegrini. We knew him throughout his career and always enjoyed his company. On one evening when he gave it to us, on being announced, he kissed my wife's hand and uttered some compliment in Italian; she immediately, in a spirit of fun, rapidly recited an old and rather long "proverb" in his language, which she had learned by heart, as a child—it being her sole acquaintance with Italian—the little man's expression of amazement was a study.
She played the same trick, with still greater effect, on the stage of the Scala Theatre at Milan which we went over with a party of friends, when Arthur Cecil asked her to address an imaginary audience.
Music
I sat to Pellegrini once, when he began to paint portraits seriously—the idea was soon abandoned.—With regard to mine he wrote: "I have sent yourfac simileto the Grosvenor: I hope you will be well hanged."
I saw the "Pelican"—as Pellegrini was called by his friends—in his last illness at his rooms in Mortimer Street. Shortly before the peaceful end he said pathetically to his faithful servant: "Wil-li-am, put me on clean shirt—I die clean."
I hardly regarded my old friend Leslie Ward as a caricaturist; his clever drawings were, to my mind, portraits—humorously, but gently, exaggerated. They were mainly the result of sittings. Pellegrini's work was produced from memory.
Leslie Ward was the son of distinguished painters; his sister Beatrice shared their art, as I can testify by a valued possession, a very charming drawing of my wife.
Arthur Sullivan
The brilliant composer and musician, Arthur Sullivan, was our much-loved friend for thirty years. We first knew him about the time he and W. S. Gilbert were made known to each other by Frederic Clay. His great career began, like many others, very simply, for he was one of the "Children of the Chapel Royal," as they are still called, before his more seriousstudies began at the Royal Academy of Music and at Leipzig. He returned with his music toThe Tempest, to be followed byThe Light of the World.
His wonderful partnership with Gilbert has given joy to every land. It is said that the success ofH.M.S. Pinaforewas so amazing in America that 100,000 barrel-organs were specially constructed to play nothing else.
I recall a happy gathering of friends at Pontresina. Sullivan was one of them, and his old mother was with him: his devotion to her revealed a beautiful side of his affectionate nature.
A different meeting was when my wife and I met him one morning in the rooms at Monte Carlo. It was settled that we should have lunch together at the Café de Paris, which they went away to order, leaving me, unfortunately, at my own request, to join them in a few minutes. When I did so, my face must have told the sad story of those few minutes, as Arthur called out, cheerily: "Come along, B; this way to the cemetery."
He had a peculiarly entrancing personality: he lived a happy but not a long life, laden with honours.
When I had the sad privilege of being one of the pall-bearers at his funeral I was asimpressed as I was pleased to see the blinds of the Athenæum drawn as we passed on our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, where, I have always understood, he was laid to rest by the wish of Queen Victoria.
Music had to bear three heavy blows, dealt within a few days, when Charles Stanford, with his keen sense of humour, Walter Parratt, with his winning personality, and Frederick Bridge, with his ever-ready stories of killing fish, left us. I knew them all, but Parratt was never my guest. He had no London home. We met pleasantly sometimes at the Athenæum, and my nearest link with him was that of having been born in the same year. Bridge and I received our knighthoods together. I have happy recollections of a stay at Harrogate when Stanford was also there. Although he lived so many years in London, he seemed to me to have left Dublin only recently; but what lingers most firmly in my mind in regard to him, is the majestic march he composed for Irving when Tennyson's playBecketwas produced at the Lyceum. The last time I listened to its strains was at his own funeral service in the Abbey.
Frederic Clay
The name of another old musical friend, Frederic Clay, must be remembered, for it was in his company that I met Gounod. Idined with Clay when he lived with his father, who was the friend of Lord Beaconsfield, and known as the finest whist-player in London. I once saw the old gentleman in the cardroom of the Garrick, where he distinguished himself by revoking.
Frederic Clay's career was checked by a long and distressing illness. His fame will live in the remembrance of his melodies: "She wandered down the Mountain Side," "The Sands of Dee," and, above all, by the ever-enduring "I'll sing thee songs of Araby."
"Think of the achievements of a great writer—a great poet—their works embrace the past, the present, and the future: their fame is for ever growing through the gifts they have made to the dead: the pleasure they have still the power to bestow upon the living: and the delight of bequeathing their wealth to unknown ages while their language lives."
Browning
The most prominent man of letters known to my wife and to me was Robert Browning, who looked as unlike the conventional idea of a poet as I resemble a sweep; his appearance seemed to me a better "make-up" for a family physician or legal adviser.
Many years ago my wife and I were present at the wedding of an old friend's daughter and afterwards at the reception. On entering the drawing-room, which had heavy blinds and was rather sombre, my wife mistook an elderly and bearded guest for the host, went behind him, turned his head round, and, as she thought, kissed her congratulations to the bride's father. The recipient of the mistaken salute proved to be Browning, who avowed thatwhenever and wherever he met my wife he was to be treated in the same way. The ceremony was afterwards always gone through, and more than once in the open street.
When he first dined with us he was made happy in finding a bottle of port by his hand, that he might help himself and not be offered other wines. I remember a story he told us of Longfellow when he visited England. The two poets were driving in a hansom, and a heavy shower suddenly came on. Longfellow insisted upon thrusting his umbrella through the trap in the roof of the cab that the driver might protect himself from the rain, which he did.
At a dinner given at the old Star and Garter, Richmond, Browning met my wife on the terrace with an impromptu, hurriedly scrawled on a menu, which I may give imperfectly:
"Her advent was not hailed with shouts,Nor banners, garlands, cymbals, drums;The trees breathed gently sighs of love,And whispered softly, 'Hush! she comes!'"
In the last letter my wife received from him he wrote: "I heartily wish I had been privileged to begin feeling twenty years ago what I feel now, and I shall make what amends are in my power, by feeling so as long as I live."
I was in the Abbey on the cheerless, foggy, December day, when Browning joined the "Poets" in their "Corner."
I had the honour of enjoying the friendship of that distinguished man of letters, Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton. He once told me a story worth repeating. He was in search of a piece of furniture. On entering a dealer's shop in Wardour Street, he caught sight of the portrait of an admiral, apparently of the last century, and of this he asked the price. "Ten pounds," was the answer. Lord Houghton offered five; the dealer was obdurate. The article wanted was sought for, found and bargained for. On going away Lord Houghton returned to the price of the admiral's portrait. At last the dealer said: "Well, my lord, and to your lordship only, seven pound ten"; but his customer would not go beyond his offer of a fiver, and there was an end of the matter.
Soon afterwards, visiting a neighbour in Yorkshire, Lord Houghton recognised the portrait of the admiral hanging in the dining-room, and said: "Hallo! who's that? What have you got there? Something new?" "Yes," replied the friend; "he was a well-known admiral in his day—fought with Nelson—good bit of work too—recently bequeathed to us—an ancestor of my wife's." "Ah, was he?" said Lord Houghton. "Six weeks ago he was within two pound ten of becoming one of mine!"
Henry James
Once, at a dinner party we gave, a scrupulously clean-shaven guest was announced, whose name neither host nor hostess had caught. He shook hands gaily with us both, and as he moved away to another couple, whom he evidently knew, I gathered from the expression of my wife's face that she, like myself, had no idea of his identity. A bachelor friend who was next announced, after speaking familiarly with the puzzling stranger, came back to me and said, happily in the hearing of my wife: "Do you like Henry James's appearance better with or without his beard?" The mystery was solved. That sort of transformation seems hardly fair.
I beg to be forgiven if I quote a few words from Henry James, written inThe Middle Years: "How can I think of the 'run' of the more successful of Mr. Robertson's comedies at the 'dear little old' Prince of Wales's Theatre, by Tottenham Court Road, as anything less than one of the wonders of our age?"
Some ten years ago, James became a British subject—many people, I dare say, have thought him to have always been one—and in returnEngland rightly bestowed upon him the Order of Merit.
Even at the end, when telling a friend of the pain he suffered in his fatal illness, he was gay, and said of death, that he felt the distinguished thing had come to him at last. Much the same thought doubtless crossed the mind of Charles Frohman, the theatrical manager, when he went down on board theLusitania. He turned to his companion with the words, borrowed fromPeter Pan: "Now for the great adventure." Courage is expressed in many wonderful ways.
I have mentioned my first meeting at the elder Boucicault's with Charles Reade, author ofThe Cloister and the Hearth. As a man of letters, his name is entitled to be enrolled among the giants of his day. Friendship with him began at the Garrick Club, where I have seen him at a whist table with Anthony Trollope and Charles Lever, playing in the same rubber. It ripened rapidly when we producedMasks and Faces, over which my wife and I had many a fight in getting him to agree to some important changes we wished to make. We won the day, and the old book was done with for all time. I will quote from a superb description, written with the insight of a gifted woman, Ellen Terry: "Dear,kind, unjust, generous, cautious, impulsive, passionate, gentle Charles Reade! who combined so many qualities, far asunder as the poles. He was placid and turbulent, yet always majestic. He was inexplicable and entirely lovable—a stupid old dear, and as wise as Solomon! He seemed guileless, and yet had moments of suspicion and craftiness worthy of the serpent."
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins was another Victorian novelist of high repute, whose books would give great pleasure to modern readers if they sampledThe Woman in White,Armadale, orThe Moonstone, and left themselves in debt to such creations as Count Fosco, Margaret Vanstone, Mercy Merrick, and many more. We knew him well, and sided with his view of the well-known unfortunate episode in the early history of the Garrick Club which resulted in the expulsion of Edmund Yates, through his youthful indiscretion in writing of Thackeray in a way that so great a giant could have afforded to ignore.
At the most, he might have called for an apology—which was offered but declined. "Wilkie" stood by Dickens in the defence of Yates, and they resigned their membership together.
For years Collins was a confirmed opiumtaker and a slave to the drug. He once left the Engadine, in its primitive days, and found himself, to his horror, without any. He and an intimate friend, who happily spoke German like a native, were travelling together: they represented themselves to be doctors and so obtained from chemists at Coire, and afterwards at Basle, the maximum supply the Swiss law allowed, and so reached Paris without the catastrophe Collins described in alarming words.
At my table, Wilkie Collins, George Critchett, who had left general practice and become an eye specialist, and Sir William Fergusson, the eminent Victorian surgeon, were present together. Critchett told Sir William that Collins had confided to him what was the dose of laudanum he then took every night, and had his permission to ask Sir William if it was not more than enough to prevent any ordinary person from awaking. Fergusson replied that the dose of opium named would suffice to kill the twelve men who sat round the table.
T. W. Robertson
It is impossible for me not to recall, however briefly, from the shadowy past the name of T. W. Robertson, whose empty chair was left vacant more than fifty years ago. He was the first of my friends to speak and write to me as"B." There are few to whom the once-famous name of Tom Robertson now has full meaning, although his comedies made so deep a mark in their day and so largely influenced the future of the stage. Time has not lessened my remembrance of the charm with which he read his comedies; a melody sung sweetly in the long-ago. My wife was always very proud that he dedicated to her the best of them, his masterpiece,Caste.
I look back with sorrow at the small reward he received from them, and the brief time he enjoyed their fame. The fees paid to dramatic authors were miserably poor in those days, although we advanced them materially, added to which, there was no copyright for foreign authors in America. Expert shorthand writers were cunningly scattered in different parts of our theatre on successive nights, until the text of Robertson's principal comedies was completely taken down, and they were played throughout the United States without a dollar being sent to the author. No wonder that Robertson was sarcastic and bitter.
The unusual compliment of closing our theatre when he died was, I fear, but a small set-off against the pain he must have endured before he once said to me: "My dear B, I have often dined on my pipe."
Edmund Yates
Edmund Yates was an old friend. He knew my wife in her girlhood, and I first met him at Epsom on the historic day, in 1867, that Hermit won the Derby in a snowstorm. My mention of that incident reminds me that, years afterwards, at a public sale, among effects which had belonged to Mr. Baird—known on the turf as "Mr. Abingdon"—I came across a letter-case made from the coat of Hermit, and so inscribed on a silver shield. I bought it, that I might have the pleasure of giving it, on the thirtieth anniversary of the race, to Mr. Henry Chaplin, as he then was, the great horse's owner. Yates at that time held a position in the General Post Office and told me, soon afterwards, that he made an early marriage upon a small income and was handicapped for many a long year by a domestic calamity—the birth of three sons in eleven months.
Yates was an admirable after-dinner speaker and story-teller, a power which doubtless owed something to inheritance, both his parents having held prominent positions on the stage. At one dinner party, Edmund Yates, Dion Boucicault and George Augustus Sala, all being present, were asked in turn if they regretted and repented of any "backslidings" they had to answer for. Boucicault at oncesaid he was sorry for his sins; Sala admitted that he hoped some day to be sorry; Yates, after a pause, smote the table and muttered "No." He was a fierce fighter.
A mutual friend was rather severely caricatured inVanity Fair. I asked Yates what he thought the original would say about it. "Say, my dear B.? He'llsayhe thinks it delightful, but will go upstairs to his bedroom, lock the door, and rub his head in the hearthrug." When his trouble came, as it did soon afterwards, I wonder what his own conduct was.
His tragic end was connected with the revival of a comedy in which my wife appeared for her old friend John Hare, at the Garrick Theatre. Yates was seated in the centre of the stalls, and throughout my wife's performance had laughed and applauded heartily. At its close, when she was loudly called for by the audience, he gave her his last smile, turned to his neighbour and said: "The old brigade, the old brigade—it will take a deal to beat it!" He stooped for his hat, fell forward in a fit, and never recovered consciousness. "How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry!"
W. S. Gilbert
I made the acquaintance of W. S. Gilbert during the year I spent in Liverpool; he had just been "called" and was a briefless barristeron the Northern Circuit. Having failed to become attached to the staff of Punch, he was already a contributor to a comic journal calledFun, in which hisBab Balladsfirst appeared. Soon afterwards he began to write for the theatre.The Palace of TruthandPygmalion and Galateaboth had great success at the old Haymarket; the latter was perhaps a starting point in the brilliant career of Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendal).
He will, of course, be best remembered through the enduring success of the comic operas he wrote in conjunction with Arthur Sullivan, the most memorable of artistic partnerships.
What humorous things he was constantly uttering! I will endeavour to repeat one or two which may not have been heard. When the beautiful Scala Theatre was built on the site of our old Prince of Wales's, my wife was appropriately invited to perform the opening ceremony. At the end of the pretty speech she made, Gilbert joined her on the stage, and said he had been to the back of the dress circle, where he heard every word of it; adding that the voice was as beautiful as ever and that, if she continued to take pains and work hard, she might be sure of having a great careerbehindher.
Talking with a Mr. Such Granville, who wason the stage and said to Gilbert: "My name is Such, but I act as Granville," he at once replied: "I wish your name were Granville and you'd act as such."