| Citation |
PC.767.061
30 Mar-6 Apr 1767:411, 412 (1/11)
Mr. Goddard, by publishing the following description of a
strolling company of players, taken from a London Chronicle
of August 1765, in your next paper, you'll oblige a great
number of your readers, as well as your friend, [signed] S.
Y.
To the Printer. A Description of a Strolling Company of
Players.
You must know, sir, that for the last twelvemonth I
attended a spouting club in the city, and was so much
applauded for some detached pieces in various characters,
that my vanity entirely got the better of my prudence, and
neither would serve me but an appearance on the stage. My
figure, to be sure, was rather against me; and my voice was
none of the most harmonious--but what of that? I comforted
myself with recollecting, that I was at least an inch taller
than Mr. Garrick, and spoke with infinitely less dissonance
than Mr. Sheridan. Upon the strength of these negative
recommendations I applied to Drury-lane house--and was
refused--to Covent-Garden, and met with a repulse--but
placing my disappointment to the account of some secret ill
offices done me by the principal performers, whom I supposed
to be extremely fearful of so formidable a rival, my
mortification no way altered my design; on the contrary, it
rather gave a sharper edge to my inclination; and I
immediately engaged with the manager of a strolling company
who happened to be in town, beating up for volunteers; and
set off for this place, not doubting but the reputation of
my performance would soon reach the metropolis, and procure
me my own terms at either of the Royal Theatres.
My father, at whose house I still lived, suspecting
something of my design, laid an embargo on all my things,
and I was obliged to set out with no greater stock either of
money or moveables that a couple of solitary guineas, a
half-worn suit of green clothes, and four shirts. Neither
the narrowness of my finances, nor the slenderness of my
wardrobe, however, gave me the least uneasiness; for, after
the example of Philpot in The Citizen, I considered it was
life, and continually feasted my fancy with the wonders
which I was speedily to perform, and the applause which I
was necessarily to receive from the whole Kingdom: Like the
sagacious glassman in the fable, I married the daughter of a
great Lord in idea, and little imagined, while I was thus
flattering myself with the prospect of futurity, that I was
kicking the only foundation of my welfare into the street;
and dashing that basis entirely to pieces, upon which I was
to build every probability of an honest reputation and a
real fortune. . . After a journey of two days we arrived at
this place, and joined the gentlemen and ladies of our
company, which consisted of two prentice boys of eighteen
and nineteen, who had run away from their masters; a broken
farrier, a Grubstreet author; two women of the town; a
milliner's girl from the neighbourhood of the Garden; the
manager's wife; a stage-keeper, who also officiated as actor
and barber; together with a child of seven years old, and a
journeyman shoemaker.
By this elegant community the first performances in the
English language were to be represented; and the very night
after our going down, Hamlet was to be performed (by
particular desire, to be sure) the principal character being
what was set apart for my first appearance. When I arise in
the morning, I called upon the manager, and desired him to
shew me the theatre, to which he readily consented, and
carried me to an old crazy barn, the stage part of which was
utterly unthatched, and even the audience end so very thinly
covered with straw, that the least shower must be
immediately felt by the whole company. Though I had heard
strange accounts of country play-houses, among my friends of
the truncheon in town, I always looked upon those accounts
to be exaggerated; and imagined that every thing must be
decent at least, though I could not expect a great deal of
magnificence. You may easily judge my surprise therefore at
seeing little more than mud walls with about twenty dirty
planks by way of seats; half a dozen doors elevated on a
parcel of joint stools by way of stage; three old blankets
hung up by way of scenes; and the remnant of four or five
antiquated counterpanes oeconomically tacked together by way
of a curtain, between the performers and the company.
My surprise was too visible not to be soon observed by
the penetrating eye of the manager; he took notice of it,
and with a gay unembarrassed air, said, that such incidents
were not uncommon in the profession; talked to me of Mr.
Garrick's playing in a barn at Ipswich; and declared he
should never forget the time that he saw honest New Shuter
do King Lear in a hay loft near High Wycomb, in
Buckinghamshire. I was about to make some reply, but my
attention was immediately called off by the beating of a
drum at the corner of a little lane just by, which the
manager informed me was the company's drum; and added, that
it was Mr. Compile the author's turn that day to exhibit as
Orator. As your readers, Sir, possibly may not understand
the word Orator, in the sense of an itinerant actor, you
must be told, that the morning of every play night, one of
the performers hangs a drum about his neck, and beats
through whatever town they happen to be in, occasionally
acquainting his auditors, that at such an hour that evening,
"The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, " or any
other hero, will be represented by a company of performers
from both the Theatres, and painting the chief circumstances
of the play with all his energy and eloquence. For this he
is allowed the sum of one shilling, and the office is in
general so much coveted on account of this reward, that to
prevent disputes, it is taken in rotation by all the actors
in the company.
Warmed as I was with enthusiasm for the dignity of the
drama, I could not help being severely mortified at seeing
the professors reduced to such despicable circumstances, and
I almost wished myself, through shame, at home with my
father in the good city of London. However, as it was now
too late to think of retreating, I kept up my spirits as
well as I could, and went about five in the evening to dress
for my character: but alas! when I came to the house, I
found the manager in the greatest distress to furnish me
with a black coat. Rusty coats everybody had, but there was
not a black one of any sort in the company. At length the
gravedigger of the parish, who was a carpenter by trade, and
had built our stage, offered, provided we gave him security,
to lend us a suit of sables, which he made up on the death
of his wife, about seven years before, and which he assured
us were very little the worse for wearing. With a good deal
of difficulty we gave him the security, and I prepared to
dress with all the expedition imaginable; but just as I was
putting on the honest grave-digger's clothes, a fresh
difficulty started; this was no other than the clothes being
a yard too long, and near a couple too wide for me. The
owner of them was remarkable tall and corpulent; I was as
thin and dapper as a dancing-master. What was to be done?
The carpenter exclaimed against the minutest alteration; and
as I had no alternative, but either the absolute rejection,
or the use of them as they were, I even at last thought fit
to put them on, and looked for all the world like an
undertaker's 'prentice, in a long cloak at a funeral. The
curtain was now preparing to draw up, when a circumstance
happened that greatly disconcerted us; this was nothing less
than a boxing match between the Queen and the beautiful
Ophelia. There was but one white handkerchief it seems in
the company, and this her Majesty insisted upon having, as
she played the principal character: The gentle Ophelia
imagining she had an equal right to so essential an ornament
of tragic dignity, d--n'd the Queen for a brimstone, and
snatch'd it out of her hands. The Princess was a woman of
great spirit, and had that evening been recruited with a
double portion of gin; instead therefore of arguing as a
meaner person would have done, she gave the presumptuous
Ophelia such a stroke with her double fist under the left
eye, as in a moment spread a very disagreeable circle round
that delightful little orb (to use the language of the
celebrated Chevalier Taylor.) This Ophelia instantly
returned, and with so much advantage as to deprive Madam
Majesty of two of her fore teeth; and how the affair might
have terminated, there is no possibility of saying, had not
Mr. Compile, the Manager, and myself, exerted our utmost
endeavours to part them, and by the force of numberless
persuasions, and the prevailing rhetoric of a tankard of
two-penny, fortunately produced a cessation of hostilities.
This matter being adjusted, the play opened to a very
brilliant audience of almost fourteen shillings; and
notwithstanding the excessive caricature of my appearance, I
was allowed to have executed my character to a miracle; and
heard myself mentioned with the first performers in the
Kingdom. My applause, however, was but a slender prospect
of subsistence; the coach and the expenses down, had
entirely exhausted my two guineas; and, upon inquiring into
the profit of the night, I found that my share amounted to
two-pence halfpenny, and four pieces of candle. I have not
been in this situation about six weeks; have studied near
twenty thousand lines, and have scarcely got six shillings
for my labour. Every representation has been like the
first, a continued round of the most scandalous broils, and
the most ignorant absurdities; and every day has steeped us
deeper both in poverty and contempt. We are all over head
and ears in debt with the towns-people, and there is not a
mother's soul of us in possession of a second shirt. The
magistrates even talk of committing us as vagabonds; and the
meanest mechanic in the place is ashamed to keep us company.
For my own part, Sir, it is impossible to tell you what I
feel: The wretchedness of my circumstances, joined to the
consciousness of having brought that wretchedness on myself,
frequently drive me desperate. My father has justly
discarded me, and I am but too properly rejected by all the
rest of my friends. What will become of me, God only knows.
Yet if my sufferings may prove a means of preventing the
destruction of any other young fellow, and serve to remove
that unhappy propensity to a theatrical life, which prevails
among numbers who can appear so reputably in a much more
eligible station, I shall think of my lot with less regret,
and sign myself with some consolation, [signed] A Penitent
Prodigal.
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