FullReads

At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old Drury–Garrick’s Drury–all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies’s) at the corner of Featherstone-building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at Bath–the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge.–From either of these connexions it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure–and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley’s easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years’ nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre–and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan’s familiarity–or supposed familiarity–was better to my godfather than money.

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman’s lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa–but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro–in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicized, into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew’s has to bestow.

He is dead–and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans!–slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own–situate near the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!–with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door–not that which is left–but between that and an inner door in shelter–O when shall I be such an expectant again!–with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play;”–chase pro chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed–the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe’s Shakspeare–the tent scene with Diomede–and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.–The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling–a homely fancy–but I judged it to be sugar-candy–yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!–The orchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again–and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up–I was not past six years old–and the play was Artaxerxes!