1826.]

RICHMOND THEATRE.

having once attracted the attention of a distinguished man. And who so distinguished, so invested with charm for a girl's imagination, as the tragic hero of the day?

I cannot remember if the house into which I saw him go was the small house attached to the Richmond theatre, which I have heard belonged to him at the time of his death, and in which he died. With that little house are linked remembrances of mine very deep and lasting. In the parlour I dressed, not many years afterwards, for the part of Juliet, to make my first appearance on the stage. How this came about was somewhat singular. We were, as usual, in our summer quarters at Richmond. At this time a Mr Willis Jones was the lessee of the little theatre: he was, it was said, a gentleman of independent fortune, who had a great desire to be something more than an amateur actor. The performances took place about twice or thrice a-week. The stage-door of the theatre was always open, and on the off days of performance we sometimes stole in and stood upon that, to me, weirdly mysterious place, the stage, looking into the gloom of the vacant pit and boxes. How full of mystery it all seemed! so dim, so impenetrable! One hot afternoon my sister and myself, finding it yet too sunny to walk down to the river-we had to pass the theatre on the way-took refuge in the dark cool place to rest awhile. On the stage was a flight of steps, and a balcony, left standing no doubt after rehearsal, or prepared for that of the next day. After sitting on the steps for a while, my sister exclaimed, "Why, this might do for Romeo and Juliet's balcony! Go up, birdie, and I will be your Romeo." Upon which, amid much laughter, and with no little stumbling over the words, we went through the balcony scene, I being prompter; for in the lonely days by the sea-shore, of which I have spoken, with only the great dog of the house as my companion, I had, almost unconsciously, learned by heart all the scenes in which my favourite heroines figured.

My sister and I went away to the river, leaving the shadowy gloom of the stage empty as we had found it. To our surprise and consternation we learned, some little time after, that there had been a listener. When our friends arrived some days later, the lessee told them that, having occasion to go from the dwelling-house to his private box, he had heard voices, listened, and remained during the time of our merry rehearsal. He spoke in such warm terms of the Juliet's voice, its adaptability to the character, her figure,-I was tall for my age, and so forth, that in the end he prevailed upon my friends to let me make a trial on his stage. To this, at my then very tender age, they were loath to consent. But I was to be announced simply as a young lady,-her first appearance. At the worst, a failure would not matter; and, at any rate, the experiment would show whether I had gifts or not in that direction. Thus did a little frolic prove to be the turning-point of my life.

No words so well as her own can recount the incidents of this tentative essay of the impersonation of what was to prove one of the greatest triumphs of her future career.

8

TRIAL APPEARANCES

[1833.

It was a summer evening, and the room was given me to dress in, which, I was told, had been Mr Kean's parlour and dressing-room. There was a glass case there in which were preserved as relics several articles of his toilet, brushes and things of that kind. How these brought to my mind that interview-the frail figure which seemed buried in furs, the large eyes so intense in their lustre, the dark hair straggling over the forehead, the voice coming from so far away, and the kind quaint manner! I could now see how he had humoured the shy child by pretending ignorance, in order to draw forth her opinions and explanations. It was very sweet to look back upon, and I could almost believe that his spirit was there in sympathy with mine; had not his parting words to me been—a God-speed? Very wisely, no one had ever mentioned in my hearing the word "stage-fright." I had thought of the performance only as another rehearsal, with the difference that it was at night and not by day, and with the great additional pleasure of wearing a new dress of white satin, which was so soft and exquisite to the touch, and-oh the dignity of this!-with a small train to it. It had no ornament, not even a flower; for when I heard that I must not wear real flowers, for fear of their dropping on the stage and some one slipping upon them, I would not have any others. As the time for the play to begin approached, and I heard the instruments tuning, and a voice cry out that "the overture was on," I felt a most unaccountable sensation stealing over me. This feeling grew and grew until it nearly overcame me. I saw my mother looking very anxiously at me, and I could not hide from myself that I felt good for nothing. I begged her to leave me to myself for a few minutes. At first she did not gather what was in my mind, and tried to rally my courage; but again I begged to be left, for I knew well that when alone I could more freely seek the help which all so suddenly I seemed to need more than I ever could have guessed. My wish was granted. They did not return to me until I was wanted for the stage. I remember being asked if I had left anything behind, when I turned to give a last look at the relics in the glass case. It was a sort of farewell-a feeling as if life were ending.

to me.

My sister, to give me comfort, was to be the Lady Capulet. Poor darling! she was so agitated that they could hardly persuade her to appear on the scene; and when the nurse had called out for the "lamb," the "ladybird," the Juliet rushed straight into her mother's arms. never to be lured from them again during the scene by all the cajolings of the nurse. How the lights perplexed me! All seemed so different! I could see faces so close It was well I could see one whose agitation was apparent to me on the instant. I felt I must try to please him, this dear friend of all my young life, my constant helper and instructor, who, though he was no blood relative, always called me "his child." He it was who taught me much of what I learned, after my delicate health took me from school and sent me to the sea-shore, and to him and him only could I confide, with the assurance of perfect sympathy, all my devotion for the heroines of Shakespeare. He taught me the value of the different metres in blank verse and in rhyme, as I recited to him many of Milton's poems, the "Lycidas," large portions of "Paradise Lost," and Byron's "Darkness," which I knew by heart. He

1833.]

AT RICHMOND THEATRE.

made me understand the value of words, nay, of every letter of every word, for the purposes of declamation. Nothing was to be slighted. This true friend—a man of varied and large acquirements, a humorist, too, and a wit --never refused, although most delicate in health, to give me largely of his time. How grateful I was, and am to him! His death, which happened far too soon for my advantage-though not for his, it released him from a life of constant pain-robbed me of my first and truest guide and friend. It was his face I saw. Should his "child," his darling, give him paindisappointment? No! Gradually he and Juliet filled my mind, and I went on swimmingly, until the fourth act.

Here, with all the ardour and all the ignorance of a novice, I took no heed that the phial for the sleeping potion, which Friar Laurence had given me, was of glass, but kept it tightly in my hand, as though it were a real deliverance from a dreaded fate which it was to effect for me, through the long impassioned scene that follows. When the time came to drink the potion, there was none; for the phial had been crushed in my hand, the fragments of glass were eating their way into the tender palm, and the blood was trickling down in a little stream over my pretty dress. This had been for some time apparent to the audience, but the Juliet knew nothing of it, and felt nothing, until the red stream arrested her attention. Excited as I already was, this was too much for me; and having always had a sickening horror of the bare sight or even talk of blood, poor Juliet grew faint, and went staggering towards the bed, on which she really fainted. I remember nothing of the end of the play, beyond seeing many kind people in my dressing-room, and wondering what this meant. Our good family doctor from London was among the audience, and bound up the wounded hand. This never occurred again, because they ever afterwards gave me a wooden phial. But oh, my dress !-my first waking thought. I was inconsolable, until told that the injured part could be renewed.

So much for my first Juliet! I repeated the character several times in the same little theatre-each time trying to make it more like what I thought would satisfy my dear master. I sought no other praise.

On the last occasion he was there. When I saw him at the end of the

play I was sure something was wrong. He was very silent, and when I begged to have his opinion, whatever it might be, he told me I had not improved, that I had disappointed him. I was not in the character throughout, and he feared I had not the true artistic power to lose myself in the being of another. Oh the pain this caused me! The wound is even now only scarred over. I would not let him see my grief, but I knew no sleep that night for weeping. My generous sweet sister thought I had been cruelly treated, and tried to comfort me and heal my wounds, but they were far too deep for that.

Next day my dear friend was deeply pained to see that I had taken his censure so sorely to heart, and had forgotten how, here and there, it had been tempered with approbation. After some talk with my mother, it was decided that Juliet and all other heroines were for me to pass once more into "the sphere of dream." I was quietly to forget them and return to my studies. My friend confessed that he had expected too much from my

10

MR PERCIVAL FARREN.

[1834.

tender years-that an English girl of the age which Shakespeare assigns to Juliet was in every respect a different creature. Development must come later; I certainly was never a precocious child. So until I appeared about three years later on the London stage, my life was very studious and very quiet.

The friend here alluded to was Mr Percival Farren, brother of the celebrated comedian William Farren. He had himself been an actor, but for some years had been compelled by severe attacks of asthma to quit the stage. "He saw and helped me," she writes, "in every other character I acted until his too-early death (in 1843), which was the first great sorrow of my life;" and she never spoke of him but in terms of the warmest gratitude and affection. There can be no doubt that it was a matter of conscience with him to speak to his favourite in all sincerity what he thought of her first performances, and even perhaps more dispraisingly than he really felt. He had expected too much of her immature powers. Much had still to be learned and felt before she could rise to the high level which he had marked for her and believed she could attain. He would hear of no half successes, and it was for her good to be thus early taught the lesson, which she set before herself through life, that triumph in art is never to be lightly won, but must be reached and maintained by lifelong aspiration and endeavour. His severe judgment upon these early efforts was not, however, generally shared. The Richmond performances became widely talked about in the theatrical world, and in such a way as to encourage his pupil in cherishing the ambition to make the stage the arena on which she was to find expression for the poetic emotions that were stirring in her own heart. Accordingly, while completing the studies for her general education, and particularly in music and the cultivation of a rich mezzo-soprano voice, she prepared herself, under the tutelage of her "guide, philosopher, and friend," for the performance of the characters which in those days were regarded as the equipment for a leading actress.

A period of upwards of two years, "spent in quiet study, had widened my views," she writes, "about many things, Juliet included. Still I remained true to my first love, and when it was decided that I should submit myself to the dread ordeal of a

1836.]

APPEARANCE AT COVENT GARDEN.

11

London audience, to ascertain whether I possessed the qualities to justify my friends in allowing me to adopt the stage as a profession, I selected Juliet for my first appearance." Charles Kemble, who was then at Covent Garden taking leave of the stage, attended, unknown to the débutante, during the rehearsals, and upon his judgment and that of one or two others the manager was to decide whether, having no experience in the actor's art, she was fit to make an appearance before a London audience. The judgment was favourable, and Mr Kemble agreed to appear on the occasion as Mercutio. "How sympathetic," she writes, "and courteous, and encouraging he was! He, to use his own words, was making his final bow to his art, as I my first curtsey." In the young timid girl it is evident that he saw the promise of a great future.

The terrible anxieties of a young girl, on the eve of a first appearance, before the most critical of audiences, upon the stage of the great Covent Garden Theatre, were greatly aggravated on its being found at the last moment that no actor could be had who was young enough to play Romeo to her Juliet, and that the play must be changed. Accordingly, the announcement in the playbills of 29th December 1835 that "on Tuesday the 5th of January will be acted Romeo and Juliet, the part of Juliet by a young lady, her first appearance," was followed on the 31st by an intimation that "on Tuesday, January 5th, will be acted Sheridan Knowles's play of The Hunchback, the part of Julia by Miss Helen Faucit, her first appearance."

The most experienced actress would have been put to a severe trial by so sudden a call upon her resources. What must it have been to a novice, who was thus unexpectedly compelled to throw herself into all the fluctuating moods and violent emotions of Knowles's heroine, at the moment when she was looking forward to the hope of realising her long-cherished dream of Shakespeare's Juliet, at a performance on the success of which her after-life would depend! "I was almost heartbroken," she writes in 1881; "and how much this added to the terrible tension of feeling with which I approached the trial, none but myself can ever know." But the characteristic courage, which never would suffer itself to be conquered by difficulties, did not fail her upon this occasion.