CHAPTER II.

YOUTH AND EDUCATION.

Ir was in the "old Adelphi house," as we used to call it, the private portion of the theatre-premises, No. 411 Strand, that I received the elementary portion of my education, being taught "my letters" by my aunt, Miss Eliza Yates, my father's unmarried sister, who lived with us, and in whom I found my chief playmate and companion. What with incessant acting and very frequent rehearsals -for the "runs" of pieces, now so common, were absolutely unknown in those days, and the entertainment was constantly changed-my mother had in a great measure to delegate her household and maternal duties to her sister-in-law, who fulfilled them with much affectionate devotion. My "aunt Eliza " is associated with my earliest recollections; under her supervision I learned my alphabet from a collection of large capital letters furnished by the printer of the theatre, and spread out on the floor, where I lay. When I had arrived at the dignity of spelling, I used to check my newly-acquired accomplishment by endeavoring to read the words on the omnibuses which passed the window in such numbers; my great desire, as well as that of my kind instructress, being that I should acquit myself well in the eyes of my grandmother, a rather severe old lady, who was also a resident member of the family. My recollections of her are of the faintest; but I have an idea that she rather sat upon the little household, that she was in the position of one who had seen better days, and that she despised the theatre, while living on its proceeds. I remember, too, that frequent cardparties had to be given for her amusement, and that she did not scruple to express her astonishment and displeasure at the singular conduct of my father and mother, who,

coming in utterly exhausted from their work, preferred going to rest to taking a "hand at cards" with the old lady's friends.

There was, in truth, but little chance of rest for my father in those days, and there can be no doubt that his early death was mainly attributable to the perpetual work, worry, and excitement in which his life was passed. To be foremost in the race, to beat his compeers in the production of any novelty was his great object, and many a time had he to pay for his rashness and want of deliberation. On one occasion a rumor reached London that a great success had been achieved in Paris by the performance of a set of Hindoo dancers, called "Les Bayadères," who were supposed to be priestesses of a certain sect; and the London theatrical managers were at once on the qui vive to secure the new attraction. Three of them-Laporte, of the Italian Opera; Alfred Bunn, of Drury Lane; and my father - set out for Paris much about the same time; it was diligence-travelling or posting in those days, and the man with the loosest pursestrings went the fastest. My father had concluded his arrangement with the "Bayadères" before his brother managers arrived in Paris. Shortly afterwards, the Hindoo priestesses appeared at the Adelphi. They were utterly uninteresting, wholly unattractive. My father lost £2000 by the speculation; and in the family they were known as the "Buy-em-dears" ever after.

Novelty was imperative, no matter what shape it might take. I have already mentioned Bihin the giant and Harvey Leach the dwarf, but have said nothing of the "real water," which at one time was contained in an enormous tank under the flooring of the stage, and, like Mr. Crummles's pump and tub, had a drama written for it: "Die Hexen am Rhein " (The Witches of the Rhine), a mediæval, romantic play, in the course of which the hero plunged into the tank, and swam about in sight of the audience. Possibly in connection with the tank of real water, and certainly in search of novelty, my father seems to have offered an engagement to Grace Darling of the Longstone light-house, the heroine of the wreck of the For

farshire, as a letter from her, among his papers, thanks him for his proposals, which she is compelled to decline, as acceptance would be against the wishes of the Duke of Northumberland and the "ladies and gentlemen" who have subscribed to purchase her "a comfortable annuity."

Another proof of my father's readiness to seize on popular topics is to be found in his production of a version of "Ten Thousand a Year," a novel then creating considerable sensation, dramatized by its author, Samuel Warren, Q.C., from whom there is a very characteristic letter, mentioning that "notwithstanding his engagement in three most important cases at Westminster," he hopes to be in time for rehearsal.

99

But there is no doubt that the success which attended the little Adelphi Theatre in those days was the adaptability of its company for developing its "great speciality," melodrama, and more especially of the "Adelphi drama," which was compounded by Buckstone out of ingredients, some of which were original, but most derived from pieces of the Ambigu or the Porte St. Martin. Chief in interest and attraction among these were "Victorine and "The Wreck Ashore." "Victorine" was the first of those pieces in which a large portion of the action occurs during a dream, and which-modern playgoers will remember "Uncle Dick's Darling" as an example-have always been successful. But of all melodramas which I have seen, "The Wreck Ashore" bears away the palm. There was one scene, where two frightened sisters, played by my mother and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, in a lonely cottage on the marshes, see the latch of the door slowly lifted, where the absorbing interest was positively painful. "The Rake and his Pupil," * "Henriette

"The Rake and his Pupil was before my theatre-going time; but I had heard the name when a child, and it was brought to my mind many years afterwards in a very singular way. I was going to dine with Charles Mathews in the early spring of 1869, and was making my way from the Gloucester Road Station, where I had alighted, and which had not been long opened, across a new and unformed district, as a short cut to Pelham Crescent, where C. J. M. resided, when I saw a man pacing up and down before a small tavern. He was muttering aloud; and as I came upon him

the Forsaken," "Isabel; or, Woman's Life," were all of the same category, and written by the same author, whose most successful work of all, "The Green Bushes," was not produced until ten years later, and for quite a different group of actors.

In connection with this subject, it will be interesting to note the extraordinary difference between the prices realized by dramatic authors for their work in the present day and fifty years ago. I make the following extract from a letter of Buckstone's to my father: "As we have had no decided arrangement about 'The Rake,' and as whatever terms we can agree upon about that piece will influence my future doings, I wish to state a few matters for you to think about: £50 was mentioned by you for it, and afterwards an additional £10 for securing the acting copyright in the provinces for twelve months. I was allowed £60 for 'Henriette,' and really, with the prices. I can now command, I am working at a very low rate in letting you have three-act dramas at that sum. For a successful three-act play you ought, I think, to afford me £70, such sum securing to you the sole acting right forever in London, and to you alone for one year, or, say, to the 1st October following its production." And in another letter, in 1839 : "I will do your piece for the opening, and a new three-act drama for Mrs. Yates, company, and self, for my old terms for the pair, viz., two seventies. I really cannot say less. I now get £100 for a three-act

I distinctly heard him pronounce the name "Frederick Yates." I stopped, and asked him what name he had mentioned. He at once repeated "Frederick Yates;" then added, "the cleverest actor I ever saw, sir! By far the cleverest! You never saw him, sir; you're too young! But at the Adelphi Theatre, in 'The Rake and his Pupil,' to see him act, to hear him repeat 'The Baron Somebody with his hump, and the Baroness Somebody a frump,' it was magnificent!" A little further conversation proved that the poor fellow was a lunatic. He enlarged upon the subject of his wrongs, specially his having been incarcerated, and would not revert to the theatre. But it was a most wonderful thing that I, who alone of all living people would have had the slightest interest in Frederick Yates, should have been passing as he uttered the name. I told the story the next day to Dickens, who was very much struck by the coincidence, and used frequently to refer to it.

piece, when it only runs a few nights. I bring out a full three-act comedy at the Haymarket immediately on the close of Covent Garden, and am now cogitating a farce for Power and myself."

So we see that at his increased rates Buckstone received £70 for a three-act drama, and £10 for the provincial rights for twelve months. Now I have been furnished by a worthy friend of mine, a writer of melodrama. of the present day, whose name, for obvious reasons, I shall not mention, with a return of the fees which he has received for one piece alone, which at the time of writing are within £150 of a total of ten thousand pounds, and which are still rolling in at the rate of £100 a week! In this return, America, really unknown in earlier days as a money - producer for the English dramatist, figures for £800 more than London; the provinces, valued by Buckstone at a £10 note, yield nearly £3000; while Australia, at that time chiefly known as a receptacle for convicts, yields more than double the amount originally paid by my father for the whole acting copyright. Buckstone's mention of Power in his letter reminds me that I once accompanied my father when he went to call on Tyrone Power on some business matter, and that when in Liverpool, during our holidays, we went over the President, the American steamer, which was ultimately lost, with Power on board. I remember a line in a newspaper of the day: "America has lost her President, and England

her Power."

I do not suppose I could have been more than five years old, when it was determined to send me to a preparatory school at Highgate, which was strongly recommended by my godfather, Mr. Hodgson, whose nephews had been pupils there. It was kept by an English lady, married to a German merchant named Kieckhöfer, which, I need scarcely say, in boys' mouths at once became "Kickover "; and to her house I was taken one afternoon by my Aunt Eliza, in a hackney-coach, among the mouldy straw at the bottom of which and which even now I seem to smell-I cast myself down on our journey up Highgate Hill, and implored to be taken home. A state