Fifty years of London life. Memoirs of a man of the world

Front matter

Cornell University Library

Fmy years o, London me.[^moirsof_a

The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

Preface

This book is the product of a good memory, a collection of interesting letters from well-known persons, partly inherited, partly formed by myself, and a few diaries, kept in a vague and desultory fashion.

Whether it was or was not worth writing will soon be known: I thought it was, and I knew that no one could write it so well as myself. Neither, as it seems to me, is there any reason why its publication should be deferred until after my death. I have said in it nothing which I am ashamed of, and I do not think I have said anything absolutely harsh of any person, alive or dead.

It seems to me that it comes fittingly from me now, when I am giving up my London habitation and my London habits. When Dr. Johnson said that a man who was tired of London must be tired of life, because London contained all that made life agreeable, he uttered a sentence more epigrammatic than truthful. Thirty years' experience has taught me what London can and cannot give ; and there comes a time of life when fresh air, sunshine, early hours, and a minimum of convivial temptation are important elements as regards happiness and yiii PREFACE.

health. To "keep touch" of London is always necessary; to keep house in it after one has lost youth, and what youth brings, is, to my thinking, unadvisable.

Brighton in the winter and the Upper Thames in the summer are good enough for, at all events, one

Man of the Woeld.

Contents

CHAPTER L

Birth. — Father's Family. — Dr. Yates. — Uncles. — My Father ; At Charter-house; in the Commissariat; Amateur Acting; Meeting with the Elder Mathews ; his Imitations ; Personal Appearance ; his Portraits. — My Father as an Actor. — He goes into Partnership with Terry.— Sir Walter Scott's Letter of Advice. — My Mother : Her Family ; her Portrait ; Charles Dickens's Admiration and Regard for her. — My Christening: Letter from Theodore Hook ; My Godfathers ; Hook's Joke. — Our Place of Residence. — The Adelphi Theatre. — Adelphi Dramas. — Adaptations of Dickens's Books ; John Forster Thereon ; Charles Dickens on " Nickleby " at the Adelphi ; Dickens Proposes to Dramatize " Oliver Twist." — 0. Smith. — My Father's Correspondents : Dr. Maginn, Edmund Kean, Miss Jane Porter, Miss Mitford, Count d'Orsay, Misa Pardoe. — A Child's Recollections : The Elder Mathews, Theodore Hook, Lord A. Paget, the Giant, " The Gnome Fly," James and Horace Smith, Ainsworth, Bunn, Braham, Three Charming Actresses. — The Duke of Wellington. — O'Connell. — Listen. — Visitors at the Adelphi House . Page 1

CHAPTER n.

Chapter I. Paeentagb And Childhood

I WAS born on the 3d July, 1831, in a street called, I believe, Howard Place, off the Calton Hill, Edinburgh. The fact that my birth took place in Scotland, or indeed anywhere out of London, -where my parents habitually resided, was accidental. It was indeed due to the circumstance that my mother was accompanying my father, who was engaged on a professional tour, and that I arrived in this world some little time before I was expected.

My father and my mother belonged to the theatrical profession. The former, Frederick Henry Tatos, was born on the 4th February, 1797, the youngest son of Thomas Yates, a wholesale tobacco manufacturer, who lived in Russell Square, and had a warehouse in Thames Street. Of my father's three brothers, the eldest, Thomas, studied medicine successfully, was accounted very learned and prosperous, and lived for many years at 57 Regency Square, Brighton, esteemed as one of the wisest and most trustworthy of the numerous pihysicians who in the first half of the century aided in establishing the reputation of that growing watering-place. There are Brightonians yet alive who talk to me of my uncle Dr. Yates, remembering him with his white hair, snowy shirt-frill, Hessian boots or black gaiters, long black coat, and gold-headed cane ; a man of importance in the town, senior physician to the Sussex County Hospital, and principal medical attendant on Harriet Duchess of St. Albans, who visited

2 nVHY YEARS OF LONDON LIFE.

Brighton frequently in those days, driving along the King's Road in state, or walking on the Steine with her coffee-colored pugs. He was the sternest -looking and the kindest-hearted of men, to me was always prodigal of good advice and half-sovereigns, and must have had a large practice, for he lived in good style ; and one of my childish recollections is hearing my aunt say that " she never bought black silk for aprons, for the doctor went to so many funerals, and always brought away his silk scarf and hat -band." The other brothers, "Walter and Charles, neither of whom I ever saw, were in the military service of the Honorable East India Company. The former lived to be a brigadier-general ; the latter, known in the army as "Kemindine" Yates, from his gallant defence of some pass of that name, died a major, oomiDaratively young.

My father, the youngest of the family — he had two sisters, to one of whom I shall have afterwards to refer — received his rudimentary education at a preparatory school at Winchmore Hill, where he met John Reeve, subsequently his actor-colleague, then a tiny boy. His second school was the Charter-house, where he had Dr. Raine, and later on Dr. Russell, known as "Paw" Russell from his enormous hands, for his head-masters, and Henry Havelook, the. future savior of India, for his contemporary and friend. lie always spoke pleasantly of his school-days. My friend, the late Mr. W. P. Hale, son of Archdeacon Hale, Master of the Charter-house, told me that when a school- boy he once addressed a letter to my father at the AdeljDhi Theatre, asking him, on the plea of his having formerly been a Carthusian, for some free admissions to the play. These came by the next post, enclosed in a half -sheet of paper, on which was written, " Floreat seternum Carthusiana domus. — F. H. Y."

On leaving school my father obtained an appointment in the Commissariat Department, and was sent out to the army then fighting under the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula. I have always understood that he was present at the battle of Waterloo, though of this I have no direct proof ; but he was certainly on duty with the army of occupation at Valenciennes, in November of the Wal-erloo year, for the late Dr. Quin and the late Lord William Pitt Lennox have frequently spoken to me of his being there with them, a most delightful comrade. It was there that he first gave evidence of the possession of any histrionic ability, and his adoption of the stage as a profession had its origin, doubtless, in the success which attended his amateur performances with his military friends.

His determination to make some practical use of his talents was arrived at in a somewhat curious way. Invited to a fancy-dress ball, he went as "Somno, the sleepwalker," a character then being played by Charles Mathews the elder, in which the great mimic introduced his celebrated imitations. To my father's surprise, Mathews appeared among the guests ; but nothing daunted, the young man sustained his impersonation, and, on being requested, gave his own imitations of the actors usually imitated by Mathews, winding up with one of Mathews himself. The great actor was so struck by the ability — and possibly by the impudence — of the amateur, that he requested to be introduced, and begged my father to call on him the next day. At this interview he inquired about his young friend's profession and prospects, and most strongly urged him to take to the stage.

"Commissary!" testily repeated the comedian, after my father had named his avocation, " commissary ! dromedary! Carrying about other people's provisions and getting none yourself! Feeding fat soldiers and dying of starvation! No, no; give it up, young man, and let your real talents find their proper channel." My father took the advice thus warmly urged upon him, and made his first appearance as a professional actor in the year 1817.

The conference was described by my father in one of his entertainments, and afforded scope for the introduction of a very effective and not illegitimate " gag." He told how Mathews complimented him on his performance, and especially on his imitations. "They were excellent, excellent — except one! You can't imitate me !" As my father repeated the words he raised his shoulder, twisted his mouth, and limped up and down the stage, the very double of Mathews. It was a wonderful piece of mimicry, and always brought down the house.

In the following year (1818) he made his dehut in London at Covent Garden, appearing as lago to the Othello of Charles Young, the Cassio of Charles Kemble, and the Desdemona of Miss O'Neil. He told my mother with great glee in after-years that one of the newspapers, criticising his first appearance, described him as " a small man of Jewish aspect, by no means pleasing." Whether the critic was right can be judged by the portrait prefixed to this volume. Besides a full-length water-color sketch by Deighton in my possession, there are three portraits of my father which I know. The original of the frontispiece is by Lonsdale, in the Garrick Club gallery ; anothei', by Ambrose, belongs to me; while the third is the property of my friend Mr. J. C. Parkinson, and was acquired by him in rather an odd way. It had originally belonged to " Paddy " Green, forming one of the theatrical collection on the walls of Evans's, and was included in the sale of that collection at Christie's. Mr. Parkinson had noted the picture in the catalogue, and, being one of my most intimate friends, desired to buy it. He accordingly attended the sale, bought three other lots, but before the "Frederick Yates " was put up he was called away by a telegram. When he returned, the portrait had been sold. A year or two afterwards another theatrical collection, that of Lacy, the dramatic publisher in the Strand, came to the hammer at Christie's. Again Mr. Parkinson was present; again he saw in the catalogue "Portrait of Fred. Yates," which eventually he bid for and bought. When he got it home, he found, from a label on the back, that it was the same portrait which he had previously missed, and which Lacy had secured during his temporary absence.

I may say here that from persons who knew him well and who had seen him often, Charles Dickens and many celebrated actors among them, I have heard the highest praise of my father's histrionic powers. Notably of his versatility: he played no part badly, and he could play more parts and more diverse parts than most of his comrades. He was tlie " stock " lago of Covent Garden while engaged there, and was reckoned to play it specially well ; he was a wonderful Jew, an excellent Frenchman, an impassioned lover, and excelled equally as a cool dandy or a reckless dare-devil. As a proof of this versatility, I note that his second appearance at Covent Garden was as Falstaff, on which occasion Macready played Hotspur for the first time. Dickens, writing to me after seeing Henry Irving, in his early days, as Rawdon Scudamore, in " Hunted Down," says : " He reminded me very much of your father." Dickens also thought Fechter very like my father in many respects. Of Dickens's general opinion of the acting of my father and my mother we shall see more farther on.

In 1825 he went into management on his own account, taking the Adelphi Theatre, with which his name was afterwards so largely identified, in conjunction with Daniel Terry, a clever actor, but who is now best known, if known at all, by his having been honored with the friendship of Sir Walter Scott. Although great success was achieved by the dramatization of popular novels, such as " The Flying Dutchman " and Fenimore Cooper's " Pilot," neither of the partners was a good business man, and the speculation ended in a large loss, Terry's share of which was paid by Scott, who was his surety. I find among my father's papers the following admirable letter from Sir "Walter. It has never before been published, and it proves, as Lockhart points out in the famous " Life," how very much easier it was for Scott to give excellent advice than to practise what he preached.

"3 Walter Street, 17th January [no year].

" My dear Terry, — I duly received your letter, but am a little alarmed at the subject. My good fellow, you will have hard swimming, though wind and tide be with you, considering the large sums which you have to pay up, and that any check which may occupy a great share of your funds may make that hopeful undertaking precarious.

"I doubt greatly whether the Paris undertaking can succeed. The French (sic) have shown a disinchnation to English actors ; and for the British, they are, generally speaking, persona who care little about their own country or language while they sojourn in a foreign country. There are about twenty-five or thirty theatres in Paris already, and I fear it would be a very rash speculation to erect or open another. I have no doubt you have taken better advice than mine ; but Jmving undertaken one good adventure, chiefly on credit, I think you should pause before being too sanguine in undertaking another.

" After all, if you do determine on this, I will send you an introduction to the secretary of our Ambassador ; but I would have you reflect eerioasly that there is no royal road to riches any more than to wisdom, and that ' Catch is a. good dog, but Holdfast a better.' Tour fine family ought to make you cautious. If you can clear the Adelphi, you will establish their future ; but a failure which might be brought about by an outlay of capital elsewhere would be an irremediable misfortune, anything short of absohite certainty of success (sic).

" I am sure you will not suppose that I would knowingly dissuade you from any beneficial plan for securing or hastening your advancement in life. But I must say, with General Tom Thumb, ' King Arthur, beware !' Many a thing good in itself becomes ruinous to ijidividuals who have not provided the funds necessary; and a London and Paris theatre sounds very like playing for a gammon, which may be the noblest, but is seldom the wisest game. Kind love to Mrs. Terry. I write in haste, so make allowance for errors of expression. Tours truly, Walter Scott."

Readers of Lockhart will see how exactly Terry ^nd Scott were running on parallel lines. After Terry's retirement in 1828, my father was joined in management by his friend and tutor Charles Mathews, and the palmy days of the Adelphi commenced then and there.

Four years previously Frederick Tates had married Miss Elizabeth Brunton, a young actress holding a good position at Covent Garden, and coming from a well-known theatrical family. Her grandfather, John Brunton, and, after him, her father, also John Brunton, had for very many years had the management of what was known in theatrical parlance as " the Norfolk circuit " — a number of towns in the eastern counties, with Norwich for their principal centre ; her aunt, Miss Louisa Brunton, a handsome and clever actress, was married in ISOV to the seventh Earl of Craven ; and her uncle, Richard Brunton, was in the army, was present at Waterloo, and died colonel of the 13th Hussars, then Light Dragoons.

A miniature of my mother in her youth, painted by Stump of Cork Street, admirably reproduced in this volume, shows her as a lovely girl; but in my recollection of the last half — thirty years — of her life, her charm lay

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. ?

rather in tlie softness and sweetness of her expression than in regularity of feature. Her eyes were blue and rather hard, her complexion was dark; but her mouth, furnished with beautiful teeth, was singularly winning, her laugh infectious, and her voice one of the sweetest ever heard. In 1858, years after she had retired from the stage, Charles Dickens wrote to her in reference to her coming to one of his Readings: "Whenever you can come, your presence will give me a new interest in that evening. No one alive can have more delightful associations with the lightest sound of your voice than I have ; and to give you a minute's interest and pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable hours of happiness you gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify my heart." And again, after her death in 1860, Dickens wrote to me : " You know what a loving and faithful remembrance I always had of your mother as a part of my youth, no more capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. To the last, I never could hear her voice without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful part of my own youth, and the dream that we are all dreaming seems to darken." She was an excellent "all-round" actress, and raised the heroines of melodrama, or " domestic " drama, into a specialty, playing the characters with genuine pathos, wholly unaccompanied by exaggeration. In her private life she was one of the best of women, truly and unafEectedly pious, cheerful, and charitable ; a loving, forgiving, and long - suffering wife, a most self - sacrificing and devoted mother.

I do not know the date of my christening, but the record is in the registry of Brompton Church, and the ceremony was performed by the Rev. Thomas Speidell, rector of Crick in Northamptonshire, a friend of Charles Mathews and Theodore Hook. The latter, who was intimate with my father— I can perfectly recollect seeing him at our house — was present at some little festivity on the occasion, as I have in my possession the following note to my mother:

" Fnlham, Monday.

" Mt dear Mas. Yates, — Your invitation for the 20th is so very agreable {sic) to me that, unlike ymir Victorine,* I'll not ' sleep upon it,' but say. Yes, with all my heart, at once. I have a great fancy for making Christians, and have already twice this year assisted at similar ceremonies. That our excellent friend Speidell is to be officiating minister on the occasion makes the affair more agreable (sic). Believe me, with sincere regard to Monsieur Fr6d6rique pere, yours most sincerely,

"Theodore Hook."

My godfathers were the Honorable Edmund Byng, second son of the fifth Viscount Torrington — of whom I shall have much to say hereafter — and Frederick Hodgson, M.P. for Barnstaple, known as "Brown Stout," from his size and dark complexion, and the fact that he was the owner of a famous brewery at Bow, whence issued that "Hodgson's India Pale Ale" which, long before the days of Bass and Allsopp, had an enormous sale in the East, and realized a splendid fortune for its proprietor.! The names given to me at my baptism were accordingly Edmund Hodgson, which evoked a joke from Theodore Hook. "Fred, what are you going to call the boy?" he asked my father. " Edmund Hodgson, after his godfathers, Byng and Hodgson." " What, big Hodgson, Brown Stout, the brewer?" "Yes." "Humph !" said Hook, "then you'd much better call him Bingo Stingo!"

At that time, and during all my early childhood, we lived at No. 411 Strand, forming part of the Adelphi Theatre premises, a house which, during its previous tenancy by Terry, had been visited by Sir Walter Scott, and which is described in one of his letters as " a curious dwelling, not larger than a squirrel's cage, which he (Terry) has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant space of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated combination of staircases and small passages." A small

* " Victorine ; or, I'll sleep on It," a drama by Buckstone, with my mother as the heroine, was played at the Adelphi with very great success.

f " For you never were in India,

That you know not Hodgson's Ale."

Vide "Jupiter and the Indian Ale" in the "Ballads of Bon Gaultier."

PAEEOTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 9

side-door, immediately inside the street-door, and at the foot of a long and steep flight of stairs, gave access to the public lobby of the theatre; and through that door I used to take furtive peeps at all I was permitted, until after I was seven years old, to see of the fairy world beyond. I remember well the bright paper on the walls and the brilliant gasaliers, which I had occasionally had the rare happiness to see alight; but I knew of nothing further. I thought this lobby was " the theatre " of which I heard such constant mention, and thoroughly believed that "the boxes," so frequently referred to, were actual chests, on which, or in which, people sat while the mysterious "performance" took place. My parents had no great liking for their calling, and I was not merely never allowed to visit the theatre, but was kept in as much ignorance, in regard to it and its surroundings, as was possible with my position.

This distaste for his profession on my father's part assuredly arose from no want of success, for under him and his coadjutors the "little Adelphi " had become one of the most popular places of amusement in London. It had its specialty as the home of melodrama, a class of entertainment which, having almost fallen into desuetude, seems now to have been successfully revived by Mr. G. R. Sims;* and it was a great "half-price" house — "half-price," now entirely obsolete, being the reduced admission-money taken after nine o'clock. It was very cramped and stuffy and inconvenient, but it had always enjoyed a very large share of public favor. In its early days the town had gone mad over "Tom and Jerry; or, Life in London," when produced there; in it Mathews had given his most celebrated "At Home" entertainments. Buckstone's dramas, " Victorine," " The Wreck Ashore," " Isabel," etc., with my mother as heroine, my father in some eccentric part, John Reeve f and the author himself as

* " Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears.

Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of years."

Bon GmiUier's Ballads. \ John Reeve was the principal "low comedian " of the theatre, a man of much humor and an enormous fayorite. So popular was he that his

1* the fun-makers, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam, O. Smith, Wilkinson, Lyon, Hemming, Cullenford, and many long-forgotten names.

Plays adapted from popular novels were favorite subjects for presentation at the Adelphi. Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii," with my father as Arbaces, and Mrs. Keeley — still happily alive, and in wonderful bodily and mental vigor at seventy-nine — as the blind girl Nydia. I have heard my mother speak of this impersonation of Mrs. Keeley's as singularly graceful and pathetic, and of her singing of a ballad, "The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose," as simply perfect. In later years the same actress achieved great notoriety as the hero of a drama made out of a very different kind of novel— Harrison Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," in which Mr. Paul Bedford first made any special mark by his performance of Blueskin.

The genius of Charles Dickens seems from the first to have been the prey of the dramatic " adapter," who cut and hacked, excised and even added, to suit the requirements of his clients. "Pickwick" was, I believe, put ujjon the stage, with John Reeve as Sam Weller ; but it could not have made any mark, and was probably only dramatized for the sake of presenting living semblance of characters which were then in every shop - window and on every drawing-room table ; but " Nickleby " and "Oliver Twist" were, at the Adelphi, exceptional successes. That they were so seems to have given great offence to that worthy but very prejudiced gentleman, Mr. John Forster. Dickens himself, as I will shortly show, was greatly pleased with the " Nickleby " play ; but Forster, Dickenso ipso Dickensior, treats the subject

frequent appearance on the stage, when considerably overcome with drink, was generally good-naturedly condoned by the audience. On one occasion, however, and when be happened to be playing a supposed scene oE intoxication, he was really so far gone that be could not keep his balance, and fell down. This was too much, and the spectators lustily hissed. John Reeve raised himself with difficulty, advanced to the footlights, and, in thick tones of virtuous indignation, asked, "What'3 the meaning of this? Don't all of you know that I'm a drunken individual?" The unconscious dovMe mitendre delighted hia hearers, and peace was restored.

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. U

with extorted patronage or hearty griimbling. " He (Diokens) has been able to sit through 'Nickleby,' and see a kbtd of merit in some of the actors. Mr. Yates had a sufficiently humorous meaning in his wildest extravagance, and Mr. O. Smith could put into his queer angular oddities enough of a hard dry pathos to conjure up sha& oirs at least of Mantalini and Newman Noggs ; and even Dickens, in the letter that amazed me by telling of his visit to the theatre, was able to praise the skilful management and dressing of the boys, the capital manner and speech of Fanny Squeers, the dramatic representation of her card-party in Squeers's parlor, the careful making-up of all the people, and the exceedingly good tableaux formed from Browne's sketches. . . . Mrs. Keeley's first appearance beside the fire, and all the rest of Smike, was excellent." This, pace Mr. Forster, is surely high praise from an author in Dickens's position ; but that he not merely was sulkily content, as Mr. Forster would have us believe, but was really heartily gratified by the manner in which the play was produced and acted, the following letter, written by him to my father, and now in my possession, will prove :

" 4S Doughty Street, Thursday Morning.

" My dear Sir, — I am very glad indeed that ' Nickleby ' is doing so well. You are right about the popularity of the work, for its sale has left even that of ' Pickwick ' far behind.

" My general objection to the adaptation of any unfinished work of mine simply is that, being badly done and worse acted, it tends to vulgarize the characters, to destroy or weaken in the minds of those who see them the impressions I have endeavored to create, and consequently to lessen the after-interest in their progress. No such objection can exist for a mommt where the thing is so admirably done in every respect as you have done it in this instance. I felt it an act of common justice, after seeing the piece, to withdraw all objection to its publication, and to say thus much to the parties interested in it without reserve. If you can spare us a private box for next Tuesday, I shall be much obliged to you. If it be on the stage, so much the better, as I shall be really glad of an opportunity to tell Mrs. Keeley and 0. Smith how much I appreciate their Smike and Newman Noggs. I put you out of the question altogether, for titat glorious Mantalini is beyond all praise. Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens."

If Mr. Forster was " amazed " by a letter from Dickens mentioning his visit to the Adelphi, how much more would he have been "amazed" had he seen the preceding letter of praise, in which a second visit is suggested? and to what pitch would his amazement have reached if he had known that I have a further letter from Dickens to my father, offering himself to dramatize "Oliver Twist " for the Adelphi? The letter runs thus :

" Supposing we arrange preliminaries to our mutual satisfaction, I propose to dramatize ' Oliver Twist ' for the first night of next season.

" I have never seen Mrs. Honnor, to the best of my recollection ; but, from the mere circumstance of her being a Mrs., I should say at once that she was ' a many sizes too large ' for Oliver Twist. If it be played by a female, it should be a very sharp girl of thirteen or fourteen, not more, or the character would be an absurdity. I don't see the possibility of any other house doing it before your next opening night. If they do, it must be done in a very extraordinary manner, as the story, unlike that of ' Pickwick,' is an involved and complicated one. I am quite satisfied that no one can have heard what I mean to do with the different characters in the end, inasmuch as, at present, I don't quite know myself ; so we are tolerably safe on that head. I am quite sure that your name as the Jew, and mine as the author, would knock any other attempts quite out of the field."

Surely the inference from this is, that Dickens was by no means displeased by his dramatic treatment at the Adelphi. Dickens had so very frequently spoken to me in enthusiastic terms of my father's acting as Mantalini, as Fagin, and as Quilp, and had so often praised the manner in which, under difficult circumstances, the various plays had been produced at the Adelphi, that I was highly amused on the publication of Mr. Forster's statement, and determined at my own time to take an opportunity of refuting it.