University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

The result of intemperance, and a sick chamber.

—Ecclesiasticus.

—Shakspeare.

—Ecclesiasticus.

—Shakspeare.

—Ecclesiasticus.

—Shakspeare.

We will now return to George Frederick Cooke. Among
the many who have placed themselves aloft, as beacons on the
hill-top, to warn mankind of the evils that threaten them; or who
serve as buoys, to mark the hidden rocks and sands, where the
gallant argosei of life, (freighted with youth and health, and all
the ingredients of happiness, and onward borne, her bellying
sails filled with the gales of hope,) must sink if not avoided:
among these warnings, buoys, and beacons, few have been
more conspicuous than this highly-gifted man.

While Spiffard and Littlejohn pursued their walk from
Cato's, as we have seen, Cooke, under the care of one of the
younger revellers, who was either more prudent or more hardheaded
than his companions, returned to town in a hack coach,
which had been in attendance on the party. The young man,
who although but too conversant with scenes of dissipation, had
never been confined with such a companion, was occasionally

amused by his extravagance, shocked at his profane vulgarity,
and puzzled by his loud demands to be set down, and orders
to the coachman to stop.

It seemed as if every vile image or word which had been
presented to the eye or ear of the unhappy man during a long
life, (a life partly passed among the licentious and frequently
among the vilest of the vile) were called into existence and
action by the demon who possessed him. The young man
tired out by insolent repetitions, finally thought of governing
by force, or at least threats. He had fallen on the remedy.
For the tragic hero was never so far lost as to forget what was
due to self-preservation when danger appeared. He could
distinguish real from mock threatenings; and although he
braved, as in the recent duel, the one, he shrunk from the
other “upon instinct.”

Tedious the ride to the young man, ere they arrived at the
Tontine Coffee House: but arrive they did, and found Trustworthy
Davenport ready to receive the man he faithfully served,
and even deigned to call master. Cooke, who had been for
some time in a quiescent state, was roused by the stopping of
the carriage and the ceasing of the rumbling noise which
seemed to soothe him. He now vociferated his orders to the
coachman to drive on, as loudly as he before commanded him
to stop. His young companion gladly made his escape, resigning
his charge to Trusty, who, presenting himself at the
coach-door, solicited his patron to take his arm and alight.

“Coachman! Drive on! Stand out of the way and shut
the door, you thrice three times elongated yankee son of a puritan
praise-god-bare-bones! Coachman! Drive on!”

“This coachman says he can go no further, but I'll find a
carriage for you in a jiffy, or I'll be swampt. Where shall I
order your carrier to go?”

“To church, sirr! To church!”

“Jist git out of this coach, sir, and I'll see that you go,
where you ought to go—where you want to go—I mean—so,
sir, softly!”

The “yankee traveller” needed not to have changed his
phraseology, for his patron was incapable of making nice distinctions.
He made an effort to leave the carriage, but fell
headlong into the grasp of his long-limbed valet, who in less
than five minutes deposited him in the easy-chair by his bed
side.

Nature, abused, and struggling against the abuse, notwithstanding
uncommon physical powers, at length gave way. A

helpless, senseless mass, the admired of thousands, was deposited
in that bed where he could only awake to regrets for the
past, loathings of the present, and dread of the future.

Before morning, Davenport, who slumbered in the chair by
the bedside, was awakened by the groans of the tortured man.
He found him almost suffocated. By changing his position
he saved him from immediate death, and then hastened for one
of his physicians. The nearest of the many who gladly endeavoured
to prolong the life of this infatuated man, was doctor
McLean; and happily he was brought in time to afford
relief.

Such was the termination of the excesses at Cato's—or rather
of that series of excesses, which had been rising from
stage to stage, until the fabric which supported them broke
down. With some constitutions this termination is a hopeless
state of despair, madness and death. With Cooke it brought
on severe pains, difficulty of breathing, which if relieved by
blood-letting, left him a miserable penitent as long as weakness
and sickness continued—and no longer.

The symptoms which at this time marked his disease were
the same that ultimately in a more aggravated form, preceded
immediate dissolution. Two of the best physicians of the
city attended him; and although restored to comparative ease,
he was confined to his bed for several days.

During this state of pain and sober reflection, he was attended
by Spiffard with the assiduity of an affectionate son. Occasionally
he brought Mr. Littlejohn with him, at that gentleman's
request, and when the tragedian was sufficiently recovered
to converse, both his guests were delighted with his
stores of anecdote, sketches of character, and sallies of humour.

One day that Cooke and Spiffard were alone, the old man
expressed his desire to know by what train of extraordinary
circumstances his young yankee friend had become a member
—and a distinguished member of the profession to which he
had devoted his own extraordinary powers.

“You are the strangest young man that ever I met with—
young man?—young or old, you are unlike any thing that
ever fell in my way. You tell me that you are a yankee from
Vermont, yet you are a finished English actor, fit for Drury or
Covent Garden. You are a very young man, yet you attach
yourself to an old worn out fellow like me: you are a tea-sot
and a water-drinker, yet you delight in the company of a veteran—known—proclaimed—shameless
votary of the bottle!

Why is this? Come tell me what induced you to try the profession
you have chosen—how you obtained your knowledge
and skill in it, and how you have escaped the vices that hang
about it.”

Spiffard recounted his story, omitting some circumstances
with which we have made the reader acquainted, and dwelling
upon many theatrical adventures and characters with anecdotes
more interesting to an actor than to any other person. He
gave his reasons for embarking in an English ship for Quebec
rather than the direct route and better sailors to New-York.
He had no inducement to be in that city until late in the theatrical
season, as such suited the manager's arrangements, and
the desire to visit the British provinces whose history is so intimately
connected with that of his own country, caused him gladly
to seize the opportunity. Besides that, he wished to linger on
the shores of Lake Champlain, and visit the Green Mountain
spot where his father had flourished, decayed and died.

“I will not recount,” he said, “the events of a passage across
the Atlantic, though I might speak of clouds and winds, and
dolphins, and whales, and the hopes and fears in meeting another
storm-tossed bundle of planks and ropes on the ocean, and
all the other pretty occurrences, from the common-place book,
which occupy so many pages of modern prose namby pamby.
Three times the number of days were wasted on the voyage
that are sufficient to waft one of our passenger-packet-ships
from Liverpool to this port. We escaped the hazards of the
gulf, and in November were gladdened by the sight of the stupendous
banks of the St. Lawrence, that majestic stream pouring
the waters of so many inland seas into the fathomless ocean.
As we approached Quebec and I saw the towering battlements
of the upper town and castle, bristling with cannon, tier above
tier, overhanging the houses and shipping which lay dim and
dark in the shades of evening, while the sun yet played on the
glittering spires and waving colours floating over them, I felt
repaid for all the tedious hours I had passed on the weary
weary sea. As I gazed, the eventful struggles of the bravo
men who fought and fell on this once important spot, rushed
upon my mind with a pleasing soul-elevating melancholy.
Early the next morning I landed, and found my way to the
plains of Abraham. I sat on the stone which pillowed the head
of the dying conqueror. I stood on the spot where one master-spirit
decided the fate of the western world. I thought of Wolfe
and the glorious day of his triumph and death. That day
which broke the power of despotic France in the west, overthrew

at a blow her mighty plans of empire, and secured to the
sons of English republicans the immense region from the Atlantic
to the Pacific oceans,—from the north pole to the tableland
of Mexico—a region destined for the propagation of innumerable
free states, bound together by the same institutions,
the same languages, the same interests—and a religious freedom,
as dear as all—which rejects the dogmas of any usurping
hierarchy.”

As the young man spoke, his tone had become elevated, his
cheeks were flushed, his eyes sparkled, and Cooke, who had
raised himself in his bed, could scarcely believe that it was the
low comedian who talked of states and empires in terms so
lofty, and so little suited to his usual style. Spiffard observed
the veteran's surprise, and said, “I have ever been an enthusiastic
admirer of the institutions of my country, Mr. Cooke, and
feel the attachment of a grateful heart to your native land, from
which they are partly derived. I am proud that my forefathers
sprung from England, that I can claim part with Englishmen in
the glories of Shakspeare and Milton, Locke, Bacon, Newton,
Hampden, Sydney, Pym, and Vane, and hundreds more, whose
minds have enlighted the world, and continue, to this day, to
roll off the clouds with which tyranny and superstition would
envelope us. I am proud that my ancestors were among the
puritans of New-England, who abandoned their lovely country,
that they might be free to live as republicans, and worship their
Creator as their consciences dictated; and I am happy that my
grandfather served with Shirley at Louisburg, and bled with
Wolfe on the plains of Abraham, by the side of gallant Englishmen,
in opposition to those powers who then, and now, would
enslave the souls and bodies of mankind.”

“I see you are a thorough Yankee; and I suppose as you
travel this way from Quebec, you will treat me to a dissertation
on Saratoga and Bunker hill.”

“No. The sympathetic chord that made Englishmen and
Americans one, was severed before the seventeenth of June,
seventeen hundred and seventy-five; and you are an Englishman.”

Cooke looked up with his peculiar side-long glance, and
said, “Thank you, thank you! Do you know that I have been
thinking, while you were speaking, that if your head, by any
chance, had been raised twelve inches higher, it might have
been a head of eminence, and looked down on little men with
the frown, or the condescension, of a hero—a leader of senates
or armies—at least on the stage.”

This touched a string in our hero's composition, which totally
changed, not alone the current of his ideas, but the very nature
of them.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, (with that simplicity which rendered
him so remarkable, and so obnoxious to be played upon by
those of inferior intellect or acquirement.) “Yes, sir, I have
thought that my face might, with the aid of histrionic art, represent
a mimic hero, however unfit I may be to lead real senates
or armies. My features are as boldly marked as John Kembles;
my nose as prominent; my eye as capable of expressing
passion. I have as great power over my countenance. I have
studied the dramatic authors as assiduously, though not for so
long a time as he has. But because, according to certain arbitrary
rules, it is found that my face is too long for the height of my
person, it is concluded that I cannot rise to the pitch of tragic
dignity required for the stage, or give effect to the precepts or
pathos of the poet.”

“Did you ever try?”

“Yes.”

“What was the result; how did the audience receive you?”

“The fools laughed.”

“Well, well, never mind; punish them as you have done
ever since, by making them laugh whenever you show your tragic
phiz on the stage; leave strutting, roaring, and scowling to
me and black Jack.”

So saying, the old man laid his head on his pillow with a
good-humoured laugh, in which Spiffard could not but join,
though at his own expense.”

“I had got no further in the story of my homeward travel—”
Spiffard recommenced, and might probably have given a tolerably
correct picture of Canadian manners, customs, costumes,
rivalries, jealousies, and contrasts; and the conflicting interests
of a conquered province, where ignorance and superstition is
cherished as the precious reserved rights of the conquered; but
at this moment his rival traveller and actor, Trustworthy Davenport,
ushered Dr. Hosack into the apartment.

After the first salutations, the physician inquired if Cadwallader,
McLean, or Francis, his coadjutors in the task of
repairing the injuries nature had received, had visited the
patient, and then remarked that he looked better.

“I always feel better, Doctor, when this tea-sot, this water-drinker,
is with me; but I am puzzled to know what he can
find attractive in the bed-side conversation of an old worn-out
winebibber like me.”

“His admiration of your talents as an actor, is sufficient to
account for Mr. Spiffard preferring your company to that of
men of less experience and knowledge.”

“No, no, that's not it. He has seen Sarah, and Black Jack,
and all the rest of them. No, I will tell you what I suspect.
He is studying the effect of wine on the human constitution;
and when he sees me snug under the sod, he will give lectures
on temperance, making old Cooke the foundation on which to
establish his theory, and build his fortune. But I'll cheat the
water-drinker by out-living him. I'll play Shylock at ninety,
as Macklin did.”

“May you live to ninety, and I live to see it! But what says
the doctor to the question of wine or water?”

“Pooh, pooh, what signifies what he says. Look at his face,
and then turn to the mirror and look at your own pale visage.
There's a complexion where madeira—always meaning in
moderation—sparkles—”

“Let me see your tongue.”

“That's by way of stopping its motion. As much as to say,
`hold your tongue.' But a tongue is not a member to be looked
at, but listened to.”

“Yet to the physician, even its appearance can tell tales.
There, that will do. Mr. Spiffard, I must prohibit my patient
from further exertion, or even attention to the conversation of
his friends to-day. His tongue speaks of fever. Let me feel
your pulse, sir. That will do. Let me place my hand—so,
sir. Are your ankles swelled?”

The doctor proceeded with his examination. Cooke was
silent, but appeared less concerned than either Spiffard or Davenport;
for the last-mentioned of our actors stood anxiously
listening and looking on, evidently taking great interest in the
fate of the patient.

“The symptoms are decided. There is water in the abdomen.”

Cooke turned his head away, and cast a look from the corners
of his eyes on the physician, at the same time holding his
face close to the pillow, and repeated the word “water,” in a
tone of surprise.

“Yes, sir,” said the doctor, and was going on seriously to
prescribe certain remedies, when all gravity was set at defiance
by the patient exclaiming—“How should water find its way
there? No, no, doctor, never risk your reputation by telling
the world that you found water in the stomach of George Frederick
Cooke! What say you, you long-visaged, lank-sided

yankee philosopher? Did ever water approach these premises
since they were in your keeping?”

Davenport, thus addressed, and finding the eyes of the company
turned upon him, answered with a drawling tone, and
great deliberation—“If I might venture to propound an opinion
upon sich a deep and profound subject—”

“As my stomach! Both deep and profound, ha? I have
sometimes thought it had a double profundity. Well, Mr.
wise man of the east, go on—your opinion?”

“I have a notion, (without pretending to give an opinion;) I
have a notion that that critter man, is a compound of the elements
of arth, air, fire, and water; and that, for one thing,
makes him sich a contrarious animal; and for another thing, it
makes it necessary for his bodily health, that all these elements
should be replenished as fast as they evaporate, or are exhausted.
Now, if I may be permitted—”

“Go on—propound—thou learned Theban.”

“If a man denies admittance to water through the proper
and natural door, by which it brings health and strength, it will
find another inlet, and then it causes diseases and weakness:
and in Mr. Cooke's case, it being always refused entrance
above, it has taken advantage of the warm bath ordered for his
feet, and has crept up through his toes.”

“He has hit it, Doctor. The philosopher has found the
cause. The disease has outwitted the physician. Most learned
Doctor Davenport, see who knocks.”

“I prohibit any more company this day. Mr. Cooke is not
well enough to see any of his friends until to-morrow.” Spiffard
followed Trustworthy; and the doctor enjoining quiet for
his excited patient, soon after left him to the care of the faithful,
eccentric philosopher.