Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 3 of 3). Doran John

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СКАЧАТЬ an excellent teacher, very impatient with mediocrity, but very careful with the intelligent. Easily moved to anger, his pupils, and, indeed, many others stood in awe of him; but he was honourable, generous, and humane; convivial, frank, and not more free in his style than his contemporaries; but naturally irascible, and naturally forgiving. Eccentricity was second nature to him, and seems to have been so with other men of his blood. His nephew and godson, the Rev. Charles Macklin, held an incumbency in Ireland, which he lost because he would indulge in a particular sort of Church discipline. At the close of his sermon he used to administer the benediction, and the bagpipes. With the first he dismissed the congregation, and, taking up the second, he blew his people out with a lusty voluntary.

      When Macklin left the stage, his second wife, the widow of a Dublin hosier, and a worthy woman, looked their fortune in the face. It consisted of £60 in ready money, and an annuity of £10. Friends were ready, but the proud old actor was not made to be wounded in his pride; he was made, in a measure, to help himself. His two pieces, "Love à la Mode," and the "Man of the World," were published by subscription. With nearly £1600 realised thereby, an annuity was purchased of £200 for Macklin's life, and £75 for his wife, in case of her survival. And this annuity he enjoyed till the 11th of July 1797, when the descendant of the royal M'Laughlins died, after a theatrical life, not reckoning the strolling period, of sixty-four years.

      If Macklin was really of the old school, that school taught what was truth and nature. His acting was essentially manly, there was nothing of trick about it. His delivery was more level than modern speaking, but certainly more weighty, direct, and emphatic. His features were rigid, his eye cold and colourless; yet the earnestness of his manner, and sterling sense of his address, produced an effect in Shylock that has remained, with one exception, unrivalled.

      Boaden thought Cooke's Sir Pertinax noisy, compared with Macklin's. "He talked of booing, but it was evident he took a credit for suppleness that was not in him. Macklin could inveigle as well as subdue; and modulated his voice almost to his last year, with amazing skill."

      In his earlier days, Macklin was an acute inquirer into meaning; and always rendered his conceptions with force and beauty. In reading Milton's lines —

      "Of man's first disobedience and the fruit

      Of that for-bid-den tree – whose mortal taste

      Brought Death into the world, and all our woe,"

      the first word in capitals was uttered with an awful regret, the suitable forerunner, says Boaden, "to the great amiss" which follows.

      Macklin's chief objection to Garrick was directed against his reckless abundance of action and gesture; all trick, start, and ingenious attitude were to him subjects of scorn. He finely derided the Hamlets who were violently horrified and surprised, instead of solemnly awed, on first seeing the Ghost. "Recollect, sir," he would say, "Hamlet came there to see his father's spirit."

      Kirkman gives us a picture of Macklin, in his old age, which is illustrative of the man, and his antagonism to Quin. The scene is at the Rainbow Coffee House, King Street, Covent Garden, in 1787, where some one of the company had asked him if he had ever quarrelled with Quin. "Yes, sir," was the answer. "I was very low in the theatre as an actor, when the surly fellow was the despot of the place. But, sir, I had – had a lift, sir. Yes; I was to play the – the – the boy with the red breeches; – you know who I mean, sir; – he, whose mother is always going to law; – you know who I mean!" "Jerry Blackacre, I suppose, sir?" "Aye, sir, —Jerry. Well, sir, I began to be a little known to the public; and egad, I began to make them laugh. I was called the Wild Irishman, sir; and was thought to have some fun in me; and I made them laugh heartily at the boy, sir, – in Jerry.

      "When I came off the stage, the surly fellow, who played the scolding Captain in the play; Captain – Captain – you know who I mean!" "Manly, I believe, sir?" "Aye, sir, – the same Manly. Well, sir, the surly fellow began to scold me; told me I was at my tricks, and that there was no having a chaste scene for me. Everybody, nay, egad, the manager himself, was afraid of him. I was afraid of the fellow, too; but not much. Well, sir, I told him I did not mean to disturb him by my acting, but to show off a little myself. Well, sir, in the other scenes I did the same, and made the audience laugh incontinently; – and he scolded me again, sir. I made the same apology; but the surly fellow would not be appeased. Again, sir, however, I did the same; and when I returned to the green-room, he abused me like a pickpocket, and said I must leave off my d – d tricks. I told him I could not play otherwise. He said I could, and I should. Upon which, sir, egad, I said to him flatly, – 'you lie.' He was chewing an apple at this moment; and spitting the contents into his hand, he threw them in my face." "Indeed!" "It is a fact, sir! Well, sir, I went up to him directly (for I was a great boxing cull in those days), and pushed him down into a chair, and pummelled his face d – bly."

      "You did right, sir."

      "He strove to resist, but he was no match for me; and I made his face swell so with the blows, that he could hardly speak. When he attempted to go on with his part, sir, he mumbled so, that the audience began to hiss. Upon which, he went forward and told them, sir, that something unpleasant had happened, and that he was really very ill. But, sir, the moment I went to strike him, there were many noblemen in the green-room, full dressed, with their swords and large wigs (for the green-room was a sort of state-room then, sir). Well, they were all alarmed, and jumped upon the benches, waiting in silent amazement till the affair was over.

      "At the end of the play, sir, he told me I must give him satisfaction; and that when he changed his dress, he would wait for me at the Obelisk, in Covent Garden. I told him I would be with him; – but, sir, when he was gone, I recollected that I was to play in the pantomime (for I was a great pantomimic boy in those days). So, sir, I said to myself, 'd – the fellow; let him wait; I won't go to him till my business is all over; let him fume and fret, and be hanged!' Well, sir, Mr. Fleetwood, the manager, who was one of the best men in the world, – all kindness, all mildness, and graciousness and affability, – had heard of the affair; and as Quin was his great actor, and in favour with the town, he told me I had had revenge enough; and that I should not meet the surly fellow that night; but that he would make the matter up, somehow or other.

      "Well, sir, Mr. Fleetwood ordered me a good supper, and some wine, and made me sleep at his house all night, to prevent any meeting. Well, sir, in the morning he told me, that I must, for his sake, make a little apology to him for what I had done. And so, sir, I, to oblige Mr. Fleetwood (for I loved the man), did, sir, make some apology to him; and the matter dropped."

      Macklin's character has been described in exactly opposite colours, according to the bias of the friend or foe who affords the description. He is angel or fiend, rough or tender, monster, honest man or knave, – and so forth; but he was, of course, neither so bad as his foes nor so bright as his friends made him out to be. One thing is certain, that his judgment and his execution were excellent. In a very few tragic parts, he acted well; in comedy and farce, where villainy and humour were combined, he was admirable and original. Of characters which he played originally (and those were few), he rendered none celebrated, except Sir Archy, Sir Pertinax, and Murrough O'Doherty, in pieces of which he was the author. His other principal characters were Iago, Sir Francis Wronghead, Trappanti, Lovegold, Scrub, Peachum, Polonius, and some others in pieces now not familiar to us.

      That Macklin was a "hard actor" there is no doubt; Churchill, who allows him no excellence, says he was affected, constrained, "dealt in half-formed sounds," violated nature, and that his features, which seemed to disdain each other, —

      "At variance set, inflexible, and coarse,

      Ne'er know the workings of united force,

      Ne'er kindly soften to each other's aid,

      Nor show the mingled pow'rs of light and shade."

      But "Cits and СКАЧАТЬ