THEATRICAL MISERIES;

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.

BY LACHRYMAL GLUM.

MR. CONDUCTOR,

I AM one of those who, shutting their eyes and ears to what are miscalled the comforts and enjoyments of this life, are doomed to exist only upon its delightful. miseries. Ejaculations! interjections! and aspirations! are the food by which my vitality is supported.

When

at Westminster School, my favourite book was Ovid's Tristibus, and the Anatomy of Melancholy. I was called by my class-fellows Don Dismallo; and whenever I was out in my repetition, I supplied the deficiency with the following line

"O miserere mei miseri, miserere meorum.”

Where I picked it up, I know not, but the 'burthen of it was misery, and it came as pat to me as "the cloudcapt towers" to honest Sylvester Daggerwood, of Dunstable memory. The horrors and sorrows, moans and groans of a sonnet to a tear, gave me a turn for poetry, and I have written no less than six Odes to Grief; five monodies; and twice the number of elegies. A funeral is my delight, a church-yard my solitary retreat, at fire my grand holiday, and at an execution, as Lady Townly says, "I expire!" In my cabinet of curiosities I have preserved in a phial, one of the tears shed by Charles Fox in the House of Commons on his separation with Burke; and a congealed sigh, which my dear friend Munchausen Curious, brought with him from Lapland. I seldom visit the theatre but when a Tragedy is acted, and doat to distraction on the quivering ah's and protracted oh's of the KemblesThey are performers after my own heart. I have lived weeks upon Mrs. Siddons' shriek in Isabella, and John Kemble's O! in Cardinal Wolsey. "O!!! Cromwell" is a treat almost beyond expression. The last time I saw him he was at least three minutes and a half before he came to an end of the fluctuation, and I would not part with a second of the time for the wealth of the

Indies. What an effect would he produce with my friend Thomson's line

Oh! Sophonisba! oh Sophonisba! oh! h! h! h! &c.

With proper management it might be made to last a quarter of an hour. I lament exceedingly the retirement of my favourite Bensley. There was a fine nasal horror, if I may be allowed the expression, in his speaking, which gave me inexpressible delight. O sir, there is nothing like toning in tragedy. What with mouthtoning, throat-toning, and nose-toning, never was there a trio so exquisitely dismal as that in which Kemble, Bensley and Mrs. Siddons were the performers. those delicious times are past. The terrible graces of German plays were indeed my chief' delight for some time, but they too are becoming comical.

But

My imagination being thus deprived of its proper food, I have lately begun to eat raw-pork, like Fuzeli, that I may enjoy the agreeable delight of frightfuľ dreams. This is now "the constant prologue to my sleep," unless I go to Monk Lewis's Wood Damon, when "I sup so full with horrors," that even Fuzeli's supper can be dispensed with. When shall we have raw-head and bloody-bones upon the stage?" To soothe the gloomy temper of my soul," I shall pick from my port-folio a few trifling theatrical distresses, the perusal of which, in the dearth of more solid misery, is some slight consolation to me: and I shall feel great pleasure, should they suggest any more uncomfortable recollections to the readers of your too-agreeable miscellany. LACHRYMAL GLUM.

Attending three country cousins to the Opera, who after staring at the figures painted upon the ceiling, &c. &c. constantly and audibly ask you, who such and such a person is with a star, at the same time, to prevent all possibility of your mistaking the object, directing their finger towards him.

A very thin house at Drury Lane.

Attending private theatricals, where the gentlemenperformers always press near the prompter's side, always hurry over passages in order to catch every word before it slips from the memory, one performer not giving the cue word, or giving it, not remembered by the other

who plays with him, standing like posts when they have nothing to say, and using their legs and arms as if they had been just bestowed upon them.

A fine overture playing, and a noisy audience.

To hear nineteen prologues out of twenty.

Going to the theatre on a very crowded night, waiting an hour in the pit passage half jammed to death, receiving a dreadful kick on the ankle, in making a desperate effort to stoop down to rub it, finding your hand in the coat pocket of the man who stands opposite to you, and gradually withdrawing it with indescribable horror, so as just to escape being taken up for a pickpocket.

Going to the theatre to see some distinguished play and performer, having places kept; owing to some of the party not being ready in time, entering your box just as the first act is over, and observing the last bustle of a number of persons who have just descended into your front seats, and are all smirking and smiling to think themselves so very fortunate..

Attending a school play.

Being annoyed by the venders of bills of the play, in going to the theatre, having a party of fine ladies to attend to.

Paying at the theatre in a hurry, and being obliged to change a bad shilling.

[To be continued.]

PERFORMERS OF THE OLD SCHOOL. ·

Mr. GIFFARD; Mr. JEFFERSON; Mrs. WHITE; and Mrs. R. KEMBLE, the Mother of Mrs. SIDDONS.

By the old school we mean the school of Garrick, and his contemporaries, both in London and the country. The persons above-mentioned have lately quitted the stage of life, and it is part of our plan to watch the exits as well as the entrances of public performers.

Mr. William Giffard died at Cockerinouth in March last, aged 96. He was, as he himself believed, since the death of Macklin, the father of the English stage. He was the son of Mr. Giffard, proprietor of the theatre in

Goodman's-fields, who first introduced Garrick to a London public; and had himself the honour previously of exhibiting that phenomenon at Ipswich in a summer excursion to that place, with a company of his father's comedians. Mr. Giffard performed on the different London theatres for upwards of twenty years, and it is understood with considerable applause. He had quitted the stage upwards of forty years, and previous to his retiring to Cockermouth, (which he did about fourteen years ago) had resided at Southampton, and in the island of Guernsey. It is somewhat singular to relate at his time of life, that since he came into Cumberland, his almost only occupation and amusement was the reading of Latin, and he used to speak with a sort of fastidious contempt of what he called " mere English readers." His knowledge of Latin was but slender, but he could enjoy the beauties of the principal Roman authors, and used to dwell with great triumph on their superiority to the moderns in the arts of composition, and on the unspeakable obligation which the latter owed them.

Mr. Giffard abounded in the theatrical anecdotes of his day, and liked much to be questioned about them. He used to relate one which exhibited in a strong point of view one of those failings by which it is well known the lustre of Garrick's transcendant merits was somewhat obscured. He and that little great man were performing together in Hamlet, and Giffard had the part of the Player-king assigned him, which he acted to admiration, and with unceasing and rapturous applause from all parts of the house. On his retiring behind the scenes, he was greeted with the cordial congratulations of his fellow-performers, but one more sage than the rest observed, that though he could not but see his success with pleasure, yet, he feared, that that might prove one of the most unfortunate days of his life, and that David and he would never be seen on the same boards again. And, said Mr. Giffard," his fears were but too well founded, we never were."

His subsistence of late was a small annuity, his good fortunes having, from unknown causes, declined in the latter period of his life,

MR. JEFFERSON was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, and was a short time with an attorney, in that county. He came to London under the following circumstances:→→

His master had told him to prepare for a journey to London. This was the summit of his wishes; but, to his great mortification, the night only before he was to set out, he was told by his master, that he had altered his intention, and meant to perform the journey himself. This was a sad disappointment to the lad, whose mind was set on the expedition so much, that, a very few days after his master's departure, he resolved to take French leave of his friends, and follow him. A remarkably fine charger having been purchased in the neighbourhood for General Fawkes, young Jefferson offered to ride it to London, and obtained permission for that purpose, under the promise that he would take great care of the animal, and not ride it more than twenty miles a day. Thus mounted, without the consent or even knowledge of his friends, he bent his course towards the metropolis, where he arrived in safety in January 1747. One of his relations was the person who kept the Tilt Yard coffee-house, and while on a visit to him, on Tuesday the 7th of April, 1747, he had the misfortune to be blown up there, with the powder allotted for the soldiers who were to guard Lord Lovat to his execution the Thursday following. His life was miraculously preserved by the intervention of a falling beam, which halted immediately over his head. From this perilous situation he was fortunately very soon rescued, for had he remained in it many minutes, he must have been suffocated with the smoke. Several lives were lost, and many limbs shattered. A short time after this he was present at the performance of the Committee, when the beautiful Woffington, in Ruth, so captivated his heart, that he resolved from that period, to drop every other pursuit for the stage. His first appearance on the stage was at the Haymarket in the character of Horatio in the Fair Penitent. The entertainments were intended for the benefit of the well, known Charlotte Skinner; but the performance being prohibited, the amateur actors opened the house gratis, and at the end of the third act sent her 100 guineas, which they had collected from the audience. He married a Miss May, who became an actress, and played Anna Bullen at Drury Lane in 1758. Her death was very sudden. On the 18th July, 1766, at a morning rehearsal of a comic dance, at Plymouth, she burst into violent fit of laughter, which brought on a cough, and