University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

We come back to the starting place—A scene behind the
curtain.

—Shakspeare.

A HOPELESS task is before us. We have a long tale to
tell, and no chance, that we yet see, of introducing any duke,
marquis, earl, baron, or even knight, into our pages. True,
even princes have travelled through our republican land, and

other worthies, from dukes to M. P's. but we never fell in with
them. We had no dinners to give, nor palaces to show. And
in truth, we felt ashamed of our fellow-citizens, when we saw
them running after, courting, and cringing, to creatures, merely
because exalted by institutions whose injustice they, (as well as
every other well-informed man,) abhor. We fear, gentle reader,
that our story must depend upon its moral worth, and the
interest it may create, without any showing-off of the higher
orders of European society. We have not even a colonel or a
captain to help us; that is, one who is a hireling in a monarch's
service. As to an officer who only serves God and his country—pah!
we might as well talk of a police officer. We shall
speak of as many foreigners as natives, and represent them as
we find them; good and bad, like ourselves; but all untitled.
It is a curious fact, that the greatest and best foreigner that ever
visited America, abjured the title inherited from his ancestors:
keeping that, he had earned in defence of the rights of man.

It was in the evening of that same day, in October, 1811,
which we have chosen as the time of commencing this history,
and near upon the stroke of six, by the clock of St. Paul's
chapel, that two inferior actors in life's drama (and ours,) sat
earnestly conversing in the dressing-room appropriated to
George Frederick Cooke, up the stairs formerly described,
in the rear of the Park Theatre. These members of my dramatis
personæ were, the one, a tall, raw-boned, pale, native of
Massachusetts, who having been in London and Paris, and often
speaking of his perils by land and water, was called by the inmates
of the theatre, “the Yankee traveller”—by himself, Mr.
Cooke's valet de sham. The other, a short, square, red-faced,
Hibernian, who had found his way from Dublin to the new
world, in the capacity of a hair-dresser, was at this time a naturalized
citizen, and entertained no doubts but America would
soon, as it ought, be governed by the “ould country folk” from
Ireland.

We have slightly noticed these persons before, but they are
deserving of a more formal introduction to the reader of this
tragi-comic-historical-memoir: tragi-comic because natural;
for unmingled mirth or sorrow is not of this world.

The “Yankee traveller” had made a successful voyage to
the West Indies, and in the true spirit of enterprise, had followed
up his success, by investing all the proceeds of his sales
(of wooden ware,) in oranges; and shipping them, with himself
as supercargo, for London. The “venture” failed. Trustworthy
Davenport found himself, as he used to say, “tarnationly
swampt.” The oranges having proved more liable to the

wet-rot, than any wooden vessel is to the dry. The oranges
were damaged irrecoverably—utterly spoiled—and Trusty, as
we may call him for brevity, was left nearly pennyless in the
great money-craving world of London.

Nothing daunted, he found his way to the American consul,
where he fortunately met Thomas A. Cooper, the then American
Roscius. Cooper hearing him tell his story with all the real
straight-forwardness and apparent twistification of an unsophisticated
Yankee, was pleased; and induced him to engage as his
waiter. Trusty asserting that he would not call himself any
man's servant, except “at the bottom of a letter.”

The young tragedian was at this time negotiating with
Cooke, the older hero of the buskin, who, by rare management,
he sent out to America; and he attached the “Yankee traveller”
to George Frederick, as a safe-guard to the eccentric
histrion, and as an assistant in the plan of transporting him to a
new stage, for the exhibition of his rare talents.

There was one stipulation insisted upon by Trusty, before
closing his engagement with the manager, which caused some
delay. The “Yankee traveller” proposed that he should be
furnished with money in advance, and permitted to go to Paris,
before returning home. To this the manager objected.

“Advance money to a stranger! no, no, Jonathan.”

“If you can't trust me, you'd better not employ me. I don't
want much. I'll walk all the way, after crossing the channel.”

“What do you want to go there for?”

“To see Bonaparte.”

To this Cooper raised many objections, but Trusty vowed
and swan'd that he had not come so far for nothing; “and he
might as well see nothing, as not see the man all the world was
talking about.”

The whimsical character of Trusty so pleased the manager,
that after having examined, like a man of business, into the
traveller's former trading affairs, and found his story correct to
the letter, he struck the bargain, furnished him with money to
travel on foot to Paris, and back to London, with a little stock
“to trade on;” and, as Trusty was just now telling Dennis,
he “made more by a speculation in teeth and hair, than he had
lost by his rotten oranges.

Dennis O'Dogherty was as little like Trustworthy Davenport,
as Ireland is to Massachusetts; but he had succeeded
admirably in gaining for himself the snug and profitable occupation
of dressing the hair of the male actors, and manufacturing

wigs for both sexes, (Trusty supplying the raw material;)
besides furnishing soap, candles, and flour, for cleansing and
fitting for public inspection, those important personages who
represent the “reverend, grave, and potent signors,” before
whom Othello pleads his cause; the masters of the world, as
Rome's senators; or the four and twenty champions of the red
rose and the white, who decide the fate of kings on the bloody
fields of Tewksbury, and Bosworth; those heroes on whose
marchings and countermarchings, crowns and thrones and
empires halt or hang.

Such were the two worthies who now occupied Mr. Cooke's
dressing-room, and wondered that he did not make his appearance,
as he had to begin the play, in the character of Penruddock,
and the time of ringing up had almost arrived.

Spiffard, who played Weazle, occupied a dressing-room in
common with Tyler, over that tenanted by Cooke, had just
been down, ready drest for his part, to enquire if Mr. Cooke
had come, or been heard from. The answer was in the negative;
and Spiffard, after despatching a messenger for the manager,
retired to his room, leaving the Yankee and Hibernian to
resume their colloquy.

“I'm thinking,” said Dennis, “there's about to be a bother
to-night, Mr. Devilsport.”

“Davenport—my name's Davenport, Mr. Doghearty.”

“Sure, that's what I said: and I'm thinking there will be no
play to-night, if they can't play the play widout Mister Cooke
—for here lies his wig, and there hangs his coat. May be, they
can play the play widout Penruddock?”

“That would be sufficiently difficult in my opinion. Something
like enacting Richard the Third, without the Duke of
Gloster.”

“Why, what has the Duke of Gloster to do with it?”

“Mr. Doghearty, they are one and the same person. Richard
is Duke of Gloster before he is King Richard the Third.”

“You seem to understand these things, Mr. Devilsport?”

“Davenport, if you please. I have been but too much attached
to the Dramma.” Trustworthy had not studied Walker's
orthoepy.

“That's jist my case; but fait it's a bad practice, any how-But
suppose we send over the way for a little brandy; or as
we are alone, we will toss up which shall send t'other.”

“I never drink any thing stronger than switchel. I swan'd
it with a bible oath.”

“I thought you said you were fond of the dram?”

“Dram? O, the dramma! that's dramatic literature—plays
and acting—poets and histrions.”

“Sure I'm bother'd. I know nothing of history, only the
history of St. Patrick, and Bryan O'Neil.”

“You don't read much then?”

“It's not the fashion wid us. The priest reads for us, and
that saves a mighty deal of trouble; but I'm still bother'd”
said Dennis, “about your saying you loved the dram.”

“The dramma, Dennis, the dramma,—the art dramatic and
histrionic; histrion means player or actor. I have talent for
the stage, myself,—I could act, but somehow or another I don't
like to have such folks as I see in the gallery, or the pit sometimes,
and always in the upper boxes, put in power to hiss or
clap me, when I can't get at them to give them my hand in return,
if I think them saucy. But to please a friend, I can enact
a tragedy-part to the life. Did you ever hear me take off
Mr. Cooke? Just give me his wig, and I'll put on his coat,
and give you Penruddock to a T. I'll show you that I could
be his substitute.”

Dennis assisted the actor. “By the powers, but the wig is
the thing, after all!”

“The wig fits very well, but the coat is not long enough, especially
in the sleeves. Now for one of his grand croaks.”

While the yankee traveller was exerting himself, to the great
edification of Dennis, braying in discordant tones, which he
thought an imitation of Cooke, Spiffard again descended from
his dressing-room, to inquire for the veteran tragedian, and met
Cooper ascending from the green-room, on the same quest.

“Has he come?”

“I think I hear him;—yes, he is rehearsing. Let us go in
and see what state the old man is in.”

“Bad enough, by the sound of his voice,” said the manager.

They entered, much to the discomfiture of the traveller and
his hibernian admirer. Davenport stood towering, six feet two
inches, at his utmost height, with his enormous long arms outstretched,
his bony wrists, as well as fists, thrust several inches
beyond the cuffs of Penruddock's coat, which was ludicrously
projecting, its square skirts; not much below his hips the wig
but partly covering his stubborn bristly hair, gave as grotesque
an appearance to his sallow face, as the coat imparted to his
gigantic figure. The expression of the detected hero's countenance,
between surprise, shame, and archness, was so comically

equivocal, that it produced an effect on Spiffard more allied
to mirth, than any sensation he had felt for some days past.
The Manager's disappointment at not finding Cooke, and his
chagrin at the consequences which his imagination presented as
likely to occur from the absence of the veteran at this critical
moment, caused a burst of angry words on the traveller, whose
change from the heroic action, was a sheepish attempt to
crouch his long figure behind the short, square form, of the
Irishman.

“What are you about, you awkward booby?”

Trusty made no answer, but Dennis undertook his excuse,

“O, Mister Cooper, sir, don't be angry with Mister Devilsport,
he's only preparing himself to be Mister Cooke's prostitute.”

The ludicrous now prevailed. With another exclamation,
which was more than half smothered by a laugh, the Manager
abruptly turned from the place to go in search of the incorrigible
truant. We need not say that the travelling yankee soon
doffed his borrowed feathers. Cooper found Cooke at Hodgkinson's
public house, with an empty decanter before him, and
was received with, “Ah, Tom!—let's have another bottle.”

With great difficulty, the intended representative of Penruddock
was removed to the theatre, and prevailed upon to suffer
Dennis and Davenport to array him for the character which he
was utterly incompetent to perform. Cooper determined to
let him begin the play, as the time of commencement was already
past, and retired to his room to dress for the part, and
wait the determination of the audience.

The play had been long delayed, the gallery had long been
uproarious, and the pit had become noisy. All the time-out-of-mind
overtures had been played, and apologies offered, until
the house would hear no more. Cooke was conducted to the
scene of action, and mounted, by the aid of Trusty, Dennis,
and Concklin, the head-carpenter, upon a platform behind the
“cottage scene,” through the window of which he was first to
speak to Weazle.

“Is all ready behind?” asked Oliff, the unintelligible prompter.

“No, sir!” shouted Cooke. “What do you mean by placing
me here, with my back to the audience?”

“The audience are there, sir,” said Concklin.

“There, sir! Where, sir?”

“There, Mr. Cooke, in front.”

“In front, you yankee scoundrel, I know they are in front,
but the front is there, sir,” pointing to Theatre Alley. “Do
you pretend to tell me where the front is! Me! George Frederick
Cooke,—tell me, sir! that have fronted the audience of
the British metropolis, and the Majesty of Britain;—would you
tell me when and where to face an audience? Change the
scene, sir, put it here!” and he turned his back upon the proscenium.

“But, Mr. Cooke—”

“Don't speak to me, sir!”

“Mr. Cooke is right!” said Trustworthy Davenport.

“Ha! are you there, little goodfellow?”

“Mr. Cooke is right!” repeated Davenport.

“To be sure I am! Am I to be taught my O. P.'s and P.
S.'s by a block of a carpenter?”

“I'll change the scene, Mr. Concklin,” said Trusty;
“please, sir, to stand still, as the platform is unsteady—steady,
sir.” And suddenly seizing Cooke in his long arms, he lifted
him from his feet, and whirling him round with the velocity of
a teetotum, replaced him on the platform as he was before; at
the same time shaking the scene, Trusty cried, “There, sir,
now all is changed, the audience are where they ought to be.
Don't you hear them, sir?”

“To be sure I do. Very well, my good fellow,—I know
they were there. Prompter! all's ready.”

The curtain rose. The first scene passed off without any
disclosure of the grave Penruddock's most unsteady state, as
he spoke through a window, and was supported by his aids on
the platform; but as the play proceeded, Penruddock “stuck.”
Mr. Cooke's old complaint was pleaded, and the manager
being ready, was joyfully received by the audience as the substitute,
instead of Trustworthy Davenport.

In the course of this evening's entertainment at the theatre,
Spiffard, on going to the door of the dressing-room occupied
by his wife, and her mother, with intent to speak through the
key-hole to Mrs. Spiffard, (for such was the etiquette of the
house, and is, of course, the custom of all well-regulated theatres,)
as he approached the door, saw the female dresser
coming up stairs bearing something of most suspicious appearance.
The woman knocked at the door, and before she
could be answered, he asked “Who is that for?” “Mrs.
Spiffard, sir.”

This moment was decisive of his future peace. The first

impulse was to dash the hated object to the floor. The next
moment caused hesitation; and reason came to his aid. He
turned, sorrowing from the door, before the knock of the dresser
could be answered, and supporting himself by the ballusters,
he slowly gained his room, and sunk in a chair, hopeless
and tortured by images, to him, of the most distressing nature.
We will not attempt to depict the misery of this ill-fated young
man, who felt himself the doomed victim of that vice in another,
which of all vices, he most abhorred.

He had previously engaged himself for the next day to a
dining party at Cato's, and had agreed to be the companion of
Cooke to the spot appointed. He willingly fulfilled the engagement—it
took him from home. In the next chapter we
will accompany them.