In and About Drury Lane, and Other Papers, Vol. 2 (of 2): Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' MagazineDoran, Dr. (John)
History
In and About Drury Lane, and Other Papers, Vol. 2 (of 2): Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' Magazine
Doran, Dr. (John)
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Theater -- England -- London -- Anecdotes
There were other members of the club who took part in this celebrated
pantomime, and who were quite as effective as their fellows. Spectators
calculated in vain the number of government-office windows Mr. Bidwell,
the inimitable harlequin, must have leapt through, the government
tables he must have vaulted over, and the government chairs he must
have waltzed with for supposititious columbines, before he arrived
at the perfection which he then displayed. One could not but wonder
whether he went down to his office in Whitehall in his spangles
covered by a greatcoat, from which he suddenly emerged to stir the
often-manifested delight of the porter. Did he go to his desk by a hop,
step, and a jump? Did he ever awe a reproving ‘Head of Department’ by
shaking his ruler above him, as on the stage he shook his wand and
paralysed the clown? Then there was Arthur Smith, who slipped about in
Pantaloon as if he had never known boots, and heels to them, since he
was born. Nor let us pass over Joe Robins, that airy medical student,
who, we suppose, made the dissecting-room funny by his skeleton songs,
if he chaunted the scraps of minstrelsy as farcically as he sang ‘Hot
Codlins’ in the character of Clown. Horace Walpole said of some
amateur actors at whose playing he was present, that they played so
well it was a pity they had not sense enough not to play at all. He
would not have been epigrammatic in that style had he witnessed the
burlesquers and pantomimists of the Fielding Club. It was because
of their sense and intelligence that they were so efficient. In
their strength and buoyant spirits and exuberant health, they looked
immortal. Alas! some of them have passed from the stage-manager to the
sexton. One or two, having the alternative put before them, quitted
motley and pantomime for ever, and took permanently to their office
duties. Two or three went in an opposite direction; they stuck to the
stage, and more or less adorn it now, under their proper or under
stage-names. An odd fellow or so ‘got up a tree,’ as if that feat
belonged to the harlequinade of life; but it is believed that their
creditors saw less fun in the reality than in the pantomimic effect. In
short, to quote Hood’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham College’--
Alack! They’re gone a thousand ways!
And some are serving in ‘The Greys,’
And some have perish’d young!--
Jack Harris weds his second wife,
Hal Baylis drives the _wane_ of life,
And blithe Carew is hung!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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