Of the old actors who entered on the nineteenth century, King was the first to depart. He is remembered now, chiefly, as the original representative of Sir Peter Teazle, Lord Ogleby, Puff, and Dr. Cantwell. He began his London career at the age of eighteen, in 1748, on Drury Lane stage, as the Herald in "King Lear," and made such progress, that in the next year[88] Whitehead selected him to play Valerius in his "Roman Father." By 1756 he was an established favourite, and he remained on the London stage, with hard summer work during the holidays, till the 24th of May 1802, when he took his leave in Sir Peter, to the Lady Teazle of Mrs. Jordan. At the end of upwards of half a century he withdrew, to linger four years more, a man of straitened means--one whom fondness for "play" would not at first allow to grow rich; nor, after that was accomplished, to remain so. I have noticed a few of his principal original characters; of others, his Touchstone has not been equalled, nor his Ranger, save by Garrick and Elliston. He was a conscientious actor, and a prime favourite during the greater part of his career--but the once rapid, clear, arch, easy, versatile Tom King, remained on the stage somewhat too long. Suett was to "low," what King was to "genteel," comedy; and the stage lost Dicky in 1805, in which year he died. Dicky Suett was the successor, but not the equal of Parsons. For a comic actor he had a very tragical method of life--indicated by a bottle of rum and another of brandy being among the furniture of his breakfast table. From 1780 to 1805 he was a favourite low comedian; he killed his audiences with laughter, and then went home (the tavern intervening) to bed, where his sleep was merely a night of horror caused by hideous dreams, and mental and bodily agony. John Kemble appreciated him, in Weazle particularly, which he played to the tragedian's Penruddock, and by his impertinent and persevering inquiries, peering into Penruddock's face, used to work him up into a condition of irritability required by the part. He was tall, thin, and ungainly; addicted to grimace and interpolations; given to practical jokes on his brother actors on the stage; and original in everything, even to encountering death with a pun excited by a sign of its dread approach. Suett was one of those perversely conscientious actors, that when he had to represent a drunkard, he took care, as Tony Lumpkin says, to be in "a concatenation accordingly."