University of Virginia Library

THE
STROLLING MANAGER.

As I was walking one morning with Buckthorne,
near one of the principal theatres, he directed my
attention to a groupe of those equivocal beings
that may often be seen hovering about the stage
doors of theatres. They were marvellously
ill favoured in their attire, their coats buttoned
up to their chins; yet they wore their hats smartly
on one side, and had a certain knowing, dirty-gentleman
like air, which is common to the subalterns
of the drama. Buckthorne knew them
well by early experience.

These, said he, are the ghosts of departed
kings and heroes; fellows who sway sceptres
and truncheons; command kingdoms and armies;

and after giving away realms and treasures over
night, have scarce a shilling to pay for a breakfast
in the morning. Yet they have the true
vagabond abhorrence of all useful and industrious
employment; and they have their pleasures too:
one of which is to longue in this way in the sunshine,
at the stage door, during rehearsals, and
make hackneyed theatrical jokes on all passers
by.

Nothing is more traditional and legitimate
than the stage. Old scenery, old clothes, old
sentiments, old ranting, and old jokes, are handed
down from generation to generation; and
will probably continue to be so, until time shall
be no more. Every hanger on of a theatre
becomes a wag by inheritance, and flourishes
about at tap rooms and six-penny clubs, with
the property jokes of the green room.

While amusing ourselves with reconnoitring
this groupe, we noticed one in particular who
appeared to be the oracle. He was a weather
beaten veteran, a little bronzed by time and
beer, who had, no doubt, grown gray in the

parts of robbers, cardinals, Roman senators, and
walking noblemen.

“There's something in the set of that hat, and
the turn of that physiognomy, that is extremely
familiar to me,” said Buckthorne. He looked
a little closer. “I cannot be mistaken,” added
he, “that must be my old brother of the truncheon,
Flimsey, the tragic hero of the strolling
company.”

It was he in fact. The poor fellow showed
evident signs that times went hard with him; he
was so finely and shabbily dressed. His coat
was somewhat threadbare, and of the Lord
Townly cut; single breasted, and scarcely capable
of meeting in front of his body; which, from
long intimacy, had acquired the symmetry and
robustness of a beer barrel. He wore a pair of
dingy white stockinet pantaloons, which had
much ado to reach his waistcoat; a great quantity
of dirty cravat; and a pair of old russet-coloured
tragedy boots.

When his companions had dispersed, Buckthorne
drew him aside and made himself known

to him. The tragic veteran could scarcely recognize
him, or believe that he was really his quondam
associate “little gentleman Jack.” Buckthorne
invited him to a neighbouring coffee house
to talk over old times; and in the course of a
little while we were put in possession of his history
in brief.

He had continued to act the heroes in the strolling
company for some time after Buckthorne
had left it, or rather had been driven from it so
abruptly. At length the manager died, and the
troop was thrown into confusion. Every one
aspired to the crown; every one was for taking
the lead; and the manager's widow, although a
tragedy queen, and a brimstone to boot, pronounced
it utterly impossible to keep any controul
over such a set of tempestuous rascallions.

Upon this hint I spoke, said Flimsey—I
stepped forward, and offered my services in the
most effectual way. They were accepted. In
a week's time I married the widow and succeeded
to the throne. “The funeral baked meats did
coldly furnish forth the marriage table,” as Hamlet

says. But the ghost of my predecessor never
haunted me; and I inherited crowns, sceptres,
bowls, daggers, and all the stage trappings and
trumpery, not omitting the widow, without the
least molestation.

I now led a flourishing life of it; for our company
was pretty strong and attractive, and as my
wife and I took the heavy parts of tragedy, it
was a great saving to the treasury. We carried
off the palm from all the rival shows at country
fairs; and I assure you we have even drawn full
houses, and been applauded by the critics at Bartlemy
fair itself, though we had Astley's troop,
the Irish giant, and “the death of Nelson” in
wax work to contend against.

I soon began to experience, however, the cares
of command. I discovered that there were cabals
breaking out in the company, headed by
the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly
peevish, fractious fellow, and always in ill
humour. I had a great mind to turn him off at
once, but I could not do without him, for there
was not a droller scoundrel on the stage. His

very shape was comic for he had but to turn his
back upon the audience and all the ladies were
ready to die with laughing. He felt his importance,
and took advantage of it. He would
keep the audience in a continual roar, and then
come behind the scenes and fret and fume and
play the very devil. I excused a great deal in
him, however, knowing that comic actors are a
little prone to this infirmity of temper.

I had another trouble of a nearer and dearer nature
to struggle with; which was, the affection of
my wife. As ill luck would have it she took it into
her head to be very fond of me, and became intolerably
jealous. I could not keep a pretty
girl in the company, and hardly dared embrace an
ugly one, even when my part required it. I have
known her to reduce a fine lady to tatters, “to
very rags,” as Hamlet says, in an instant, and
destroy one of the very best dresses in the wardrobe;
merely because she saw me kiss her at
the side scenes;—though I give you my honour
it was done merely by way of rehearsal.

This was doubly annoying, because I have a

natural liking to pretty faces, and wish to have
them about me; and because they are indispensable
to the success of a company at a fair,
where one has to vie with so many rival theatres.
But when once a jealous wife gets a freak in her
head there's no use in talking of interest or any
thing else. Egad, sirs, I have more than once
trembled when during a fit of her tantrums, she
was playing high tragedy, and flourishing her tin
dagger on the stage, lest she should give way
to her humour, and stab some fancied rival in
good earnest.

I went on better, however, than could be expected,
considering the weakness of my flesh
and the violence of my rib. I had not a much
worse time of it than old Jupiter, whose spouse
was continually ferreting out some new intrigue
and making the heavens almost too hot to hold
him.

At length, as luck would have it, we were
performing at a country fair, when I understood
the theatre of a neighbouring town to be vacant.
I had always been desirous to be enrolled in a

settled company, and the height of my desire
was to get on a par with a brother-in-law, who
was manager of a regular theatre, and who had
looked down upon me. Here was an opportunity
not to be neglected. I concluded an agreement
with the proprietors, and in a few days
opened the theatre with great eclat.

Behold me now at the summit of my ambition,
“the high top-gallant of my joy,” as Thomas
says. No longer a chieftain of a wandering
tribe, but the monarch of a legitimate throne—
and entitled to call even the great potentates of
Covent Garden and Drury Lane cousin.

You no doubt think my happiness complete.
Alas, sir! I was one of the most uncomfortable
dogs living. No one knows, who has not tried,
the miseries of a manager; but above all, of a
country manager—no one can conceive the contentions
and quarrels within doors, the oppressions
and vexations from without.

I was pestered with the bloods and loungers
of a country town, who infested my green room,
and played the mischief among my actresses.

But there was no shaking them off. It
would have been ruin to affront them; for,
though troublesome friends, they would have
been dangerous enemies. Then there were the
village critics and village amateurs, who were
continually tormenting me with advice, and
getting into a passion if I would not take it:—
especially the village doctor and the village attorney;
who had both been to London occasionally,
and knew what acting should be.

I had also to manage as arrant a crew of scape
graces as were ever collected together within the
walls of a theatre. I had been obliged to combine
my original troop with some of the former
troop of the theatre, who were favourites with
the public. Here was a mixture that produced
perpetual ferment. They were all the time
either fighting or frolicking with each other, and
I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome.
If they quarrelled, every thing went
wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually
playing off some confounded prank upon
each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily

acquired among them the character of an easy
good-natured fellow, the worst character that a
manager can possess.

Their waggery at times drove me almost crazy;
for there is nothing so vexatious as the
hackneyed tricks and hoaxes and pleasantries of
a veteran band of theatrical vagabonds. I relished
them well enough, it is true, while I was
merely one of the company, but as manager I
found them detestable. They were incessantly
bringing some disgrace upon the theatre by their
tavern frolicks, and their pranks about the country
town. All my lectures upon the importance
of keeping up the dignity of the profession, and
the respectability of the company were in vain.
The villains could not sympathize with the delicate
feelings of a man in station. They even
trifled with the seriousness of stage business. I
have had the whole piece interrupted and a crowded
audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept
waiting, because the actors had hid away the
breeches of Rosalind; and have known Hamlet
stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a

dish clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the
baleful consequences of a managers' getting a
character for good nature.

I was intolerably annoyed, too, by the great
actors, who came down starring, as it is called,
from London. Of all baneful influences, keep
me from that of a London star. A first rate actress,
going the rounds of the country theatres,
is as bad as a blazing comet, whisking about the
heavens, and shaking fire, and plagues, and discords
from its tail.

The moment one of these “heavenly bodies,”
appeared on my horizon, I was sure to be in hot
water. My theatre was overrun by provincial dandies,
copper-washed counterfeits of Bond-street
loungers; who are always proud to be in the
train of an actress from town, and anxious to be
thought on exceeding good terms with her. It
was really a relief to me when some random
young nobleman would come in pursuit of the
bait, and awe all this small fry to a distance. I
have always felt myself more at ease with a nobleman
than with the dandy of a country town.

And then the injuries I suffered in my personal
dignity and my managerial authority from the
visits of these great London actors. Sir, I was
no longer master of myself or my throne. I was
hectored and lectured in my own green-room, and
made an absolute nincompoop on my own stage.
There is no tyrant so absolute and capricious as
a London star at a country theatre.

I dreaded the sight of all of them; and yet if
I did not engage them, I was sure of having the
public clamourous against me. They drew full
houses, and appeared to be making my fortune;
but they swallowed up all the profits by their insatiable
demands. They were absolute tape
worms to my little theatre; the more it took in,
the poorer it grew. They were sure to leave me
with an exhausted public, empty benches, and a
score or two of affronts to settle among the towns
folk, in consequence of misunderstandings about
the taking of places.

But the worst thing I had to undergo in my managerial
career was patronage. Oh, sir, of all
things deliver me from the patronage of the great

people of a country town. It was my ruin. You
must know that this town, though small, was
filled with feuds, and parties, and great folks;
being a busy little trading and manufacturing
town. The mischief was, that their greatness
was of a kind not to be settled by reference to the
court calender, or college of heraldry. It was
therefore the most quarrelsome kind of greatness
in existence. You smile, sir, but let me tell you
there are no feuds more furious than the frontier
feuds, which take place on these “debateable
lands” of gentility. The most violent dispute
that I ever knew in high life, was one that occurred
at a country town, on a question of precedence
between the ladies of a manufacturer of
pins, and a manufacturer of needles.

At the town where I was situated there were
perpetual altercations of the kind. The head
manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers
drawings with the head shopkeeper's, and both
were too rich, and had too many friends to be
treated lightly. The doctor's and lawyer's ladies
held their heads still higher; but they in

their turn were kept in check by the wife of a
country banker, who kept her own carriage;
while a masculine widow of cracked character,
and second hand fashion, who lived in a large
house, and was in some way related to nobility,
looked down upon them all. She had been exiled
from the great world, but here she ruled absolute.
To be sure her manners were not over
elegant, nor her fortune over large; but then,
sir, her blood—oh, her blood carried it all hollow;
there was no withstanding a woman with
such blood in her veins.

After all, she had frequent battles for precedence
at balls and assemblies, with some of the
sturdy dames of the neighbourhood, who stood
upon their wealth and their reputations; but
then she had two dashing daughters, who dressed
as fine as dragons, and had as high blood as their
mother, and seconded her in every thing. So
they carried their point with high heads, and
every body hated, abused, and stood in awe of
the Fantadlins.

Such was the state of the fashionable world in

this self-important little town. Unluckily I was
not as well acquainted with its politics as I should
have been. I had found myself a stranger and
in great perplexities during my first season; I
determined, therefore, to put myself under the
patronage of some powerful name, and thus to
take the field with the prejudices of the public in
my favour. I cast round my thoughts for the
purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs.
Fantadlin. No one seemed to me to have a more
absolute sway in the world of fashion. I had
always noticed that her party slammed the box
door the loudest at the theatre; had most beaux
attending on them; and talked and laughed loudest
during the performance; and then the Miss
Fantadlins wore always more feathers and flowers
than any other ladies; and used quizzing
glasses incessantly. The first evening of my
theatre's reopening, therefore, was announced in
flaring capitals on the play bills, “under the patronage
of the Honourable Mrs. Fantadlin.”

Sir, the whole community flew to arms! The
banker's wife felt her dignity grievously insulted

at not having the preference; her husband being
high bailiff, and the richest man in the place.
She immediately issued invitations for a large
party, for the night of the performance, and asked
many a lady to it whom she never had noticed
before. The fashionable world had long groaned
under the tyranny of the Fantadlins, and were
glad to make a common cause against this new
instance of assumption.—Presume to patronize
the theatre! insufferable! Those, too, who had
never before been noticed by the banker's lady,
were ready to enlist in any quarrel, for the honour
of her acquaintance. All minor feuds were therefore
forgotten. The doctor's lady and the lawyer's
lady met together; and the manufacturer's
lady and the shopkeeper's lady kissed each
other; and all, headed by the banker's lady, voted
the theatre a bore, and determined to encourage
nothing but the Indian Jugglers, and Mr.
Walker's Eidonianeon.

Alas for poor Pillgarlick! I little knew the
mischief that was brewing against me. My box
book remained blank. The evening arrived;

but no audience. The music struck up to a tolerable
pit and gallery, but no fashionables! I
peeped anxiously from behind the curtain, but
the time passed away; the play was retarded
until pit and gallery became furious; and I had
to raise the curtain, and play my greatest part in
tragedy to “a beggarly account of empty boxes.”

It is true the Fantadlins came late, as was
their custom, and entered like a tempest, with a
flutter of feathers and red shawls; but they were
evidently disconcerted at finding they had no
one to admire and envy them, and were enraged
at this glaring defection of their fashionable followers.
All the beau-monde were engaged at
the banker's lady's rout. They remained for
some time in solitary and uncomfortable state,
and though they had the theatre almost to themselves,
yet, for the first time, they talked in
whispers. They left the house at the end of the
first piece, and I never saw them afterwards.

Such was the rock on which I split. I never
got over the patronage of the Fantadlin family.
It became the vogue to abuse the theatre and

declare the performers shocking. An equestrian
troop opened a circus in the town about
the same time, and rose on my ruins. My house
was deserted; my actors grew discontented because
they were ill paid; my door became a
hammering place for every bailiff in the county;
and my wife became more and more shrewish
and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort.

The establishment now became a scene of
confusion and peculation. I was considered
a ruined man, and of course fair game for every
one to pluck at, as every one plunders a sinking
ship. Day after day some of the troop deserted,
and like deserting soldiers, carried off their arms
and accoutrements with them. In this manner
my wardrobe took legs and walked away; my
finery strolled all over the country; my swords
and daggers glittered in every barn; until at
last my tailor made “one fell swoop,” and carried
off three dress coats, half a dozen doublets,
and nineteen pair of flesh coloured pantaloons.

This was the “be all and the end all” of my
fortune. I no longer hesitated what to do.

Egad, thought I, since stealing is the order of the
day, I'll steal too. So I secretly gathered together
the jewels of my wardrobe; packed up a hero's
dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end
of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead
of night—“the bell then beating one,”—leaving
my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious
subjects, and my merciless foes the bumbailiffs.

Such, sir, was the “end of all my greatness.”
I was heartily cured of all passion for governing,
and returned once more into the ranks. I had
for some time the usual run of an actor's life. I
played in various country theatres, at fairs and
in barns; sometimes hard pushed; sometimes
flush, until on one occasion I came within an
ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of
the wonders of the age.

I was playing the part of Richard the Third
in a country barn, and absolutely “out-Heroding
Herod.” An agent of one of the great London
theatres was present: He was on the lookout
for something that might be got up as a

prodigy. The theatre it seems was in desperate
condition—nothing but a miracle could save it.
He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a
remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in
my gait, and having taken to drink a little
during my troubles, my voice was somewhat
cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run
into one. The thought struck the agent to bring
me out as a theatrical wonder; as the restorer
of natural and legitimate acting; as the only one
who could understand and act Shakspeare rightly.
He waited upon me the next morning, and
opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming
modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I
felt myself unworthy of such praise.

“ 'Sblood, man!” said he, “no praise at all.
You don't imagine that I think you all this. I
only want the public to think so. Nothing so
easy as gulling the public if you only set up a
prodigy. You need not try to act well, you must
only act furiously. No matter what you do, or
how you act, so that it be but odd and strange.
We will have all the pit packed, and the newspapers

hired. Whatever you do different from
famous actors, it shall be insisted that you are
right and they were wrong. If you rant, it shall
be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall be a
touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared
to fall into raptures, and shout and yell, at certain
points which you shall make. If you do
but escape pelting the first night, your fortune
and the fortune of the theatre is made.”

I set off for London, therefore, full of new
hopes. I was to be the restorer of Shakspeare
and nature, and the legitimate drama; my very
swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice
the standard of elocution. Alas, sir! my usual
luck attended me. Before I arrived at the metropolis,
a rival wonder had appeared. A woman
who could dance the slack rope, and run up
a cord from the stage to the gallery with fire
works all round her. She was seized on by the
manager with avidity; she was the saving of the
great national theatre for the season. Nothing
was talked of but Madame Saqui's fire works
and flame-coloured pantaloons; and nature,

Shakspeare, the legitimate drama, and poor Pillgarlick
were completely left in the lurch.

However, as the manager was in honour bound
to provide for me he kept his word. It had been
a turn up of a die whether I should be Alexander
the Great or Alexander the coppersmith: the
latter carried it. I could not be put at the head
of the drama, so I was put at the tail. In other
words, I was enrolled among the number of what
are called useful men; who, let me tell you, are
the only comfortable actors on the stage. We
are safe from hisses and below the hope of applause.
We fear not the success of rivals, nor
dread the critic's pen. So long as we get the
words of our parts, and they are not often many,
it is all we care for. We have our own merriment,
our own friends, and our own admirers;
for every actor has his friends and admirers, from
the highest to the lowest. The first rate actor
dines with the noble amateur, and entertains a
fashionable table with scraps and songs and theatrical
slip-slop. The second rate actors have
their second rate friends and admirers, with whom

they likewise spout tragedy and talk slip-slop;
and so down even to us; who have our friends
and admirers among spruce clerks and aspiring
apprentices, who treat us to a dinner now and
then, and enjoy at tenth hand the same scraps,
and songs, and slip-slop, that have been served
up by our more fortunate brethren at the tables
of the great.

I now, for the first time in my theatrical life,
knew what true pleasure is. I have known
enough of notoriety to pity the poor devils who
are called favourites of the public. I would rather
be a kitten in the arms of a spoiled child,
to be one moment petted and pampered, and
the next moment thumped over the head with
the spoon. I smile, too, to see our leading actors,
fretting themselves with envy and jealousy about
a trumpery renown, questionable in its quality
and uncertain in its duration. I laugh, too,
though of course in my sleeve, at the bustle and
importance and trouble and perplexities of our
manager, who is harrassing himself to death in
the hopeless effort to please every body.

I have found among my fellow subalterns two
or three quondam managers, who, like myself,
have wielded the sceptres of country theatres;
and we have many a sly joke together at the expense
of the manager and the public. Sometimes,
too, we meet like deposed and exiled kings,
talk over the events of our respective reigns;
moralize over a tankard of ale, and laugh at the
humbug of the great and little world; which, I
take it, is the very essence of practical philosophy.

Thus end the anecdotes of Buckthorne and
his friends. A few mornings after our hearing
the history of the ex-manager, he bounced into
my room before I was out of bed.

“Give me joy! Give me joy!” said he, rubbing
his hands with the utmost glee, “my great
expectations are realized!”

I stared at him with a look of wonder and
inquiry.

“My booby cousin is dead!” cried he, “may he
rest in peace! He nearly broke his neck in a fall
from his horse in a fox chase. By good luck he
lived long enough to make his will. He has
made me his heir, partly out of an odd feeling of
retributive justice, and partly because, as he says,
none of his own family or friends knew how to
enjoy such an estate. I'm off to the country to
take possession. I've done with authorship—
That for the critics!” said he, snapping his fingers.
“Come down to Doubting Castle when I
get settled, and egad I'll give you a rouse.” So
saying he shook me heartily by the hand and
bounded off in high spirits.

A long time elapsed before I heard from him
again. Indeed, it was but a short time since
that I received a letter written in the happiest of
moods. He was getting the estate into fine order,
every thing went to his wishes, and what was
more, he was married to Sacharissa: who it
seems had always entertained an ardent though
secret attachment for him, which he fortunately
discovered just after coming to his estate.

“I find,” said he, “you are a little given to the sin
of authorship, which I renounce. If the anecdotes
I have given you of my story are of any interest,
you may make use of them; but come down to
Doubting Castle and see how we live, and I'll
give you my whole London life over a social
glass; and a rattling history it shall be about authors
and reviewers.”

If ever I visit Doubting Castle, and get the history
he promises, the public shall be sure to hear
of it.