Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi E-Book

Charles Dickens.

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

In 1837 Charles Dickens, then twenty-five years old, was asked to 'tidy up' Joseph Grimaldi's autobiography – he ended up re-writing most of it. Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), one of the greatest English clowns and pantomimes of all time, was born in London to an Italian ballet-master and a dancer in the theatre's corps-de-ballet. The death of Grimaldi's father when he was nine plunged the family into debt. He was introduced to the stage at the age of two and began performing at the Sadler's Wells theatre at the age of three. Grimaldi's fame as a pantomime clown was unequalled and he is credited as an innovator. He introduced the tradition of audience participation, of poking fun at spectators, and generally the modern concept of the clown as such. He died a poor and physically crippled man.

Leseprobe

CHARLES DICKENS

MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI

MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI

Contents

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AFTERWORD

Also Available from Pushkin Press

About the Publisher

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THEPATERNAL GRANDFATHER of Joseph Grimaldi was well known both to the French and Italian public as an eminent dancer, possessing a most extraordinary degree of strength and agility—qualities which, being brought into full play by the constant exercise of his frame in his professional duties, acquired for him the distinguishing appellation of ‘Iron Legs’. Thomas Dibdin, in his History of the Stage, relates several anecdotes of his prowess in these respects, many of which are current elsewhere, though the authority on which they rest would appear from his grandson’s testimony to be somewhat doubtful. The best known of these, however, is perfectly true. Jumping extremely high one night in some performance on the stage, possibly in a fit of enthusiasm occasioned by the august presence of the Turkish Ambassador, who, with his suite, occupied the stage-box, Grimaldi actually broke one of the chandeliers which hung above the stage doors; and one of the glass drops was struck with some violence against the eye or countenance of the Turkish Ambassador aforesaid. The dignity of this great personage being much affronted, a formal complaint was made to the Court of France, who gravely commanded ‘Iron Legs’ to apologise, which ‘Iron Legs’ did in due form, to the great amusement of himself, and the Court, and the public; and, in short, of everybody else but the exalted gentleman whose person had been grievously outraged. The mighty affair terminated in the appearance of a squib, which has been thus translated:

Hail, Iron Legs! immortal pair,

Agile, firm knit, and peerless,

That skim the earth, or vault in air,

Aspiring high and fearless.

Glory of Paris! outdoing compeers,

Brave pair! may nothing hurt ye;

Scatter at will our chandeliers,

And tweak the nose of Turkey.

And should a too presumptuous foe

But dare these shores to land on,

His well-kicked men shall quickly know

We’ve Iron Legs to stand on.

This circumstance occurred on the French stage.

The first Grimaldi who appeared in England was the father of the subject of these memoirs and the son of ‘Iron Legs’. Holding the appointment of dentist to Queen Charlotte, he came to England in that capacity in 1760; he was a native of Genoa, and long before his arrival in this country had attained considerable distinction in his profession. We have not many instances of the union of the two professions of dentist and dancing-master: but Grimaldi, possessing a taste for both pursuits and a much higher relish for the latter than the former, obtained leave to resign his situation about the Queen soon after his arrival in this country, and commenced giving lessons in dancing and fencing, occasionally giving his pupils a taste of his quality in his old capacity. In those days of minuets and cotillions private dancing was a much more laborious and serious affair than it is at present; and the younger branches of the nobility and gentry kept Mr Grimaldi in pretty constant occupation. In many scattered notices of our Grimaldi’s life it has been stated that the father lost his situation at court in consequence of the rudeness of his behaviour, and some disrespect which he had shown the King, an accusation which his son always took very much to heart, and which the continual patronage of the King and Queen bestowed upon him publicly, on all possible occasions, sufficiently proves to be unfounded.

His new career being highly successful, Mr Grimaldi was appointed ballet-master of old Drury Lane Theatre and Sadler’s Wells, with which he coupled the situation of primo buffo; in this double capacity he became a very great favourite with the public and Their Majesties, who were nearly every week accustomed to command some pantomime of which Grimaldi was the hero. He bore the reputation of being a very honest man, and a very charitable one, never turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of the distressed, but always willing, by every means in his power, to relieve the numerous reduced and wretched persons who applied to him for assistance. It may be added—and his son always mentioned it with just pride—that he was never known to be inebriated: a rather scarce virtue among players of later times, and one which men of far higher rank in their profession would do well to profit by.

Grimaldi’s father appears to have been a very singular and eccentric man. He purchased a small quantity of ground at Lambeth once, part of which was laid out as a garden; he entered into possession of it in the very depth of a most inclement winter, but he was so impatient to ascertain how this garden would look in full bloom, that, finding it quite impossible to wait till the coming of spring and summer gradually developed its beauties, he had it at once decorated with an immense quantity of artificial flowers, and the branches of all the trees bent beneath the weight of the most luxuriant foliage, and the most abundant crops of fruit, all, it is needless to say, artificial also.

A singular trait in Mr Grimaldi’s character was a vague and profound dread of the fourteenth day of the month. At its approach he was always nervous, disquieted, and anxious: directly it had passed he was another man again, and invariably exclaimed, in his broken English, “Ah! now I am safe for anoder month.” If this circumstance were unaccompanied by any singular coincidence it would be scarcely worth mentioning; but it is remarkable that he actually died on the fourteenth day of March (in fact, the sixteenth); and that he was born, christened, and married on the fourteenth of the month.

These are not the only odd characteristics of the man. He was a most morbidly sensitive and melancholy being, and entertained a horror of death almost indescribable. He was in the habit of wandering about churchyards and burying-places for hours together, and would speculate on the diseases of which the persons had died; figure their death-beds, and wonder how many of them had been buried alive in a fit or a trance; a possibility which he shuddered to think of, and which haunted him both through life and at its close. Such an effect had this fear upon his mind, that he left express directions in his will that, before his coffin should be fastened down, his head should be severed from his body, and the operation was actually performed in the presence of several persons. It is a curious circumstance that death, which always filled the older Grimaldi’s mind with the most gloomy and horrible reflections, and which in his unoccupied moments can hardly be said to have been ever absent from his thoughts, should have been chosen by him as the subject of one of his most popular scenes in the pantomimes of the time. Among many others of the same nature, he invented the well-known skeleton scene for the clown, which was very popular in those days, and is still occasionally represented. Whether it be true, that the hypochondriac is most prone to laugh at the things which most annoy and terrify him in private, as a man who believes in the appearance of spirits upon earth is always the foremost to express his unbelief; or whether these gloomy ideas haunted the unfortunate man’s mind so much, that even his merriment assumed a ghastly hue, and his comicality sought for grotesque objects in the grave and the charnel-house; the fact is equally remarkable.

This was the same man who, in the time of Lord George Gordon’s riots (in 1780), when people, for the purpose of protecting their houses from the fury of the mob, inscribed upon their doors the words ‘No Popery’—actually, with the view of keeping in the right with all parties, and preventing the possibility of offending any by his form of worship, wrote up No religion at all; which announcement appeared in large characters in front of his house, in Little Russell Street. The idea was perfectly successful; but whether from the humour of the description, or because the rioters did not happen to go down that particular street, we are unable to determine.

On 18th December 1779, the year in which Garrick died, Joseph Grimaldi, ‘Old Joe’, was born, in Stanhope Street, Clare-Market; a part of the town then, as now, much frequented by theatrical people, in consequence of its vicinity to the theatres. At the period of his birth, his eccentric father was over sixty years old, and twenty five months afterwards another son was born to him—Joseph’s only brother. The child did not remain very long in a state of helpless and unprofitable infancy, for at the age of one year and eleven months he was brought out by his father on the boards of Old Drury, where he made his first bow and his first tumble. The piece in which his precocious powers were displayed was the well-known pantomime of Robinson Crusoe, in which the father sustained the part of the Shipwrecked Mariner, and the son performed that of the Little Clown. The child’s success was complete; he was instantly placed on the establishment, accorded a magnificent weekly salary of fifteen shillings, and every succeeding year was brought forward in some new and prominent part. He became a favourite behind the curtain as well as before it, being henceforth distinguished in the green-room as ‘Clever little Joe’; and Joe he was called to the last day of his life.

In 1782, Grimaldi first appeared at Sadler’s Wells, in the arduous character of a monkey; and here he was fortunate enough to excite as much approbation as he had previously elicited in the part of clown at Drury Lane. He immediately became a member of the regular company at this theatre, as he had done at the other; and here he remained (one season only excepted) until the termination of his professional life, years afterwards. Now that he had made, or rather that his father had made for him, two engagements, by which he was bound to appear at two theatres on the same evening and at very nearly the same time, his labours began in earnest. They would have been arduous for a man, much more so for a child; and it will be obvious that if at any one portion of his life his gains were very great, the actual toil both of mind and body by which they were purchased was at least equally so.

We have already remarked that the father of Grimaldi was an eccentric man; he appears to have been peculiarly eccentric, and rather unpleasantly so, in the correction of his son. The child being bred up to play all kinds of fantastic tricks, was as much a clown, a monkey, or anything else that was droll and ridiculous, off the stage, as on it; and being incited thereto by the occupants of the green-room, used to skip and tumble, about as much for their diversion as that of the public. All this was carefully concealed from the father, who, whenever he did happen to observe any of the child’s pranks, always administered the same punishment—a sound thrashing; terminating in his being lifted up by the hair of the head and stuck in a corner, whence his father, with a severe countenance and awful voice, would tell him “to venture to move at his peril”. Venture to move, however, he did, for no sooner would the father disappear than all the cries and tears of the boy would disappear too; and with many of those winks and grins which afterwards became so popular, he would recommence his pantomime with greater vigour than ever; indeed, nothing could ever stop him but the cry of “Joe! Joe! Here’s your father!” upon which the boy would dart back into the old corner, and begin crying again as if he had never left off.

This became quite a regular amusement in course of time, and whether the father was coming or not, the caution used to be given for the mere pleasure of seeing Joe run back to his corner; this Joe very soon discovered, and often confounding the warning with the joke, received more severe beatings than before from him whom he very properly describes in his manuscript as his “severe but excellent parent”. On one of these occasions, when Joe was dressed for his favourite part of the Little Clown in Robinson Crusoe, with his face painted in exact imitation of his father’s, which appears to have been part of the fun of the scene, the old gentleman brought him into the green-room, and placing him in his usual solitary corner, gave him strict directions not to stir an inch on pain of being thrashed.

The Earl of Derby, who was at that time in the constant habit of frequenting the green-room, happened to walk in at the moment, and seeing a lonesome-looking little boy dressed and painted after a manner very inconsistent with his solitary air, good-naturedly called him towards him.

“Hollo! here, my boy, come here!” said the Earl.

Joe made a wonderful and astonishing face, but remained where he was. The Earl laughed heartily, and looked round for an explanation.

“He dare not move!” explained Miss Farren, to whom his lord-ship was then much attached, and whom he afterwards married. “His father will beat him if he does.”

“Indeed!” said his lordship. At which Joe, by way of confirmation, made another face more extraordinary than his former contortions.

“I think,” said his lordship, laughing again, “the boy is not quite so much afraid of his father as you suppose. Come here, sir!”

With this, he held up half a crown, and the child, perfectly well knowing the value of money, darted from his corner, seized it with pantomimic suddenness, and was darting back again, when the Earl caught him by the arm.

“Here, Joe!” said the Earl, “take off your wig and throw it in the fire, and here’s another half-crown for you.”

No sooner said than done. Off came the wig—into the fire it went; a roar of laughter arose; the child capered about with a half-crown in each hand; the Earl, alarmed for the consequences to the boy, busied himself to extricate the wig with the tongs and poker; and the father, in full dress for the Shipwrecked Mariner, rushed into the room at the same moment. It was lucky for ‘Little Joe’ that Lord Derby promptly and humanely interfered, or it is exceedingly probable that his father would have prevented any chance of his being buried alive at all events, by killing him outright.

As it was, the matter could not be compromised without the boy receiving a smart beating, which made him cry very bitterly; and the tears running down his face, which was painted ‘an inch thick’, came to the ‘complexion at last’, in parts, and made him look as much like a little clown as like a little human being, to neither of which characters he bore the most distant resemblance. He was ‘called’ almost immediately afterwards, and the father being in a violent rage, had not noticed the circumstance until the little object came on the stage, when a general roar of laughter directed his attention to his grotesque countenance. Becoming more violent than before, old Grimaldi fell upon his son at once, and beat him severely, and the child roared vociferously. This was all taken by the audience as a most capital joke; shouts of laughter and peals of applause shook the house; and the newspapers next morning declared that it was perfectly wonderful to see a mere child perform so naturally, and highly creditable to his father’s talents as a teacher!

This is no bad illustration of some of the miseries of a poor actor’s life. The jest on the lip and the tear in the eye, the merriment on the mouth and the aching of the heart, have called down the same shouts of laughter and peals of applause a hundred times. Characters in a state of starvation are almost invariably laughed at upon the stage; the audience have had their dinner.

The bitterest portion of the boy’s punishment was the being deprived of the five shillings, which the excellent parent put into his own pocket, possibly because he received the child’s salary also, and in order that everything might be, as Goldsmith’s Bearleader has it, “in a concatenation accordingly”. The Earl gave him half a crown every time he saw him afterwards, though, and the child had good cause for regret when his lord ship married Miss Farren and left the green-room.

At Sadler’s Wells Grimaldi became a favourite almost as speedily as at Drury Lane. King, the comedian who was principal proprietor of the former theatre and acting manager of the latter, took a great deal of notice of him, and occasionally gave the child a guinea to buy a rocking-horse or a cart, or some toy that struck his fancy. During the run of the first piece in which Grimaldi played at Sadler’s Wells, he produced his first serious effect, which, but for the good fortune which seems to have attended him in such cases, might have prevented his subsequent appearance on any stage. He played a monkey, and had to accompany the clown (his father) throughout the piece. In one of the scenes, the clown used to lead him on by a chain attached to his waist, and with this chain he would swing Joe round and round, at arm’s length, with the utmost velocity. One evening, when this feat was in the act of performance, the chain broke, and he was hurled a considerable distance into the pit, fortunately without sustaining the slightest injury; for he was flung by a miracle into the very arms of an old gentleman, who was sitting gazing at the stage with intense interest.

Among the many persons who in this early stage of Joe’s career behaved with great kindness were the famous rope-dancers, Mr and Mrs Redigé, then called Le Petit Diable and La Belle Espagnole, who often gave him a guinea to buy some childish luxury. His father invariably took the coin away and deposited it in a box, with his name written outside, which he would lock very carefully, and then, giving the boy the key, say, “Mind, Joe, ven I die, dat is your vortune.” Eventually he lost both the box and the fortune, as will hereafter appear.

As Grimaldi had now nearly four months vacant out of every twelve, the run of the Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane seldom exceeding a month and Sadler’s Wells not opening until Easter, he was sent for that period of the year to a boarding-school at Putney, kept by a Mr Ford, of whose kindness and goodness of heart to him on a later occasion of his life he spoke, when an old man, with the deepest gratitude. Grimaldi fell in here with many schoolfellows who afterwards became connected one way or another with dramatic pursuits, among whom was Mr Henry Harris, of Covent Garden Theatre. We do not find that any of these schoolfellows afterwards became pantomime actors; but recollecting the humour and vivacity of the boy, the wonder to us is that they were not all clowns when they grew up.

In the Christmas of 1782, Grimaldi appeared in his second character at Drury Lane, called Harlequin Junior, The Magic Cestus, in which he represented a demon, sent by some opposing magician to counteract the power of the Harlequin. In this, as in his preceding part, he was fortunate enough to meet with great applause; and from this period his reputation was made, although it naturally increased with his years, strength, and improvement. In Christmas 1783, he once more appeared at Drury Lane, in a pantomime called Hurly Burly. In this piece Grimaldi had to represent not only the old part of the monkey but that of a cat besides; and in sustaining the latter character he met with an accident, his speedy recovery from which would almost induce one to believe that he had so completely identified himself with the character as to have eight additional chances for his life. The dress he wore was so clumsily contrived that when it was sewn upon him he could not see before him; consequently, as he was running about the stage, he fell down a trap-door which had been left open to represent a well and tumbled down a distance of forty feet, thereby breaking his collarbone and inflicting several contusions upon his body. He was immediately conveyed home and placed under the care of a surgeon, but he did not recover soon enough to appear any more that season at Drury Lane, although at Easter he performed at Sadler’s Wells as usual.

In the summer of this year Joe used to be allowed as a mark of high and special favour to spend every alternate Sunday at the house of his mother’s father, “who,” says Grimaldi himself, “resided in Newton Street, Holborn, and was a carcase butcher, doing a prodigious business; besides which, he kept the Bloomsbury slaughter-house, and, at the time of his death, had done so for more than sixty years.” With this grandfather, Joe was a great favourite; and as he was very much indulged and petted when he went to see him, he used to look forward to every visit with great anxiety. His father, upon his part, was most anxious that Joe should support the credit of the family upon these occasions, and, after great deliberation, and much consultation with tailors, the ‘Little Clown’ was attired for one of these Sunday excursions in the following style. On his back he wore a green coat, embroidered with almost as many artificial flowers as his father had put in the garden at Lambeth; beneath this there shone a satin waistcoat of dazzling whiteness; and beneath that again were a pair of green cloth breeches, richly embroidered. His legs were fitted into white silk stockings, and his feet into shoes with brilliant paste buckles, of which he also wore another resplendent pair at his knees: he had a laced shirt, cravat, and ruffles; a cocked-hat upon his head; a small watch set with diamonds—theatrical, we suppose—in his fob; and a little cane in his hand, which he switched to and fro as our Clowns may do now.

Being thus thoroughly equipped for starting, Joe was taken in for his father’s inspection: the old gentleman was pleased to signify his entire approbation with his appearance, and, after kissing him in the moment of his gratification, demanded the key of the ‘fortune-box’. The key being got with some difficulty out of one of the pockets of the green smalls, the bottom of which might be somewhere near the buckles, the old gentleman took a guinea out of the box, and, putting it into the boy’s pocket, said, “Dere now, you are a gentleman, and something more—you have got a guinea in your pocket.” The box having been carefully locked, and the key returned to the owner of the ‘fortune’, off he started, receiving strict injunctions to be home by eight o’clock. The father would not allow anybody to attend him, on the ground that he was a gentleman, and consequently perfectly able to take care of himself; so away he went, to walk all the way from Little Russell Street, Drury Lane, to Newton Street, Holborn.

The child’s appearance in the street excited considerable curiosity, as the appearance of any other child, alone, in such a costume, might very probably have done; but he was a public character besides, and the astonishment was proportionate. “Hollo!” cried the boy, “here’s ‘Little Joe!’” “Get along,” said another, “it’s the monkey.” A third thought it was the “bear dressed for a dance”, and the fourth suggested “it might be the cat going out to a party”, while the more sedate passengers could not help laughing heartily, and saying how ridiculous it was to trust such a child in the streets alone. However, he walked on, with various singular grimaces, until he stopped to look at a female of miserable appearance, who was reclining on the pavement, and whose diseased and destitute aspect had already collected a crowd. The boy stopped, like others, and hearing her tale of distress, became so touched that he thrust his hand into his pocket, and having at last found the bottom of it, pulled out his guinea, which was the only coin he had, and slipped it into her hand; then away he walked again with a greater air than before.

The sight of the embroidered coat, and breeches, and the paste buckles, and the satin waistcoat and cocked-hat, had astonished the crowd not a little in the outset; but directly it was understood that the small owner of these articles had given the woman a guinea, a great number of people collected around him, and began shouting and staring by turns most earnestly. The boy, not at all abashed, headed the crowd, and walked on very deliberately, with a train a street or two long behind him, until he fortunately encountered a friend of his father’s, who no sooner saw the concourse that attended him than he took him in his arms and carried him, despite a few kicks and struggles, in all his brilliant attire, to his grandfather’s house, where he spent the day, very much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

When Joe got safely home at night his father referred to his watch, and finding that his son had returned home punctual to the appointed time, kissed him, extolled him for paying such strict attention to his instructions, examined his dress, discovered satisfactorily that no injury had been done to his clothes, and concluded by asking for the key of the ‘fortune-box’ and the guinea. The boy, at first, quite forgot the morning adventure; but, after rummaging his pockets for the guinea, and not finding it, he recollected what had occurred, and, falling upon the knees of the knee-smalls, confessed it all and implored forgiveness. The father was puzzled; he was always giving away money in charity himself, and he could scarcely reprimand the child for doing the same. He looked at him for some seconds with a perplexed countenance, and then, contenting himself with simply saying, “I’ll beat you,” sent him to bed.

Among the eccentricities of the old gentleman, one—certainly not his most amiable one—was that whatever he promised he performed; and that when, as in this case, he promised to thrash the boy, he would very coolly let the matter stand over for months, but never forget it in the end. This was ingenious, inasmuch as it doubled, or trebled, or quadrupled the punishment, giving the unhappy little victim all the additional pain of anticipating it for a long time, with the certainty of enduring it in the end. Four or five months after this occurrence, and when the child had not given his father any new cause of offence, old Grimaldi suddenly called him one day, and communicated the intelligence that he was going to beat him forthwith. Hereupon the boy began to cry most piteously, and faltered for the enquiry, “Oh! Father, what for?”—“Remember the guinea!” said the father. And he gave Joe a caning which he remembered to the last day of his life.

The family consisted at this time of the father, mother, Joe, his only brother John Baptist, three or four female servants, and a man of colour who acted as footman, and was dignified with the appellation of ‘Black Sam’. The father was extremely hospitable, and fond of company; he rarely dined alone, and on certain gala days, of which Christmas Eve was one, had a very large party, upon which occasions his really splendid service of plate, together with various costly articles of bijouterie, were laid out for the admiration of the guests. Upon one Christmas Eve, when the dining-parlour was decorated and prepared with all due gorgeousness and splendour, the two boys, accompanied by Black Sam, stole into it, and began to pass various encomiums on its beautiful appearance.

“Ah!” said Sam, in reply to some remark of the brothers, “and when old Massa die, all dese fine things vill be yours.”

Both the boys were much struck with this remark, and especially John, the younger, who, being extremely young, probably thought much less about death than his father, and accordingly exclaimed, without the least reserve or delicacy, that he should be exceedingly glad if all these fine things were his.

Nothing more was said upon the subject. Black Sam went to his work, the boys commenced a game of play, and nobody thought any more of the matter except the father himself, who, passing the door of the room at the moment the remarks were made, distinctly heard them. He pondered over the matter for some days, and at length, with the view of ascertaining the dispositions of his two sons, formed a singular resolution, still connected with the topic ever upwards in his mind, and determined to feign himself dead. He caused himself to be laid out in the drawing-room, covered with a sheet, and had the room darkened, the windows closed, and all the usual ceremonies which accompany death, performed. All this being done, and the servants duly instructed, the two boys were cautiously informed that their father had died suddenly, and were at once hurried into the room where he lay, in order that he might hear them give vent to their real feelings.

When Joe was brought into the dark room on so short a notice, his sensations were rather complicated, but they speedily resolved themselves into a firm persuasion that his father was not dead. A variety of causes led him to this conclusion, among which the most prominent were, his having very recently seen his father in the best health; and, besides several half-suppressed winks and blinks from Black Sam, his observing, by looking closely at the sheet, that his deceased parent still breathed. With very little hesitation the boy perceived what line of conduct he ought to adopt, and at once bursting into a roar of the most distracted grief, flung himself upon the floor and rolled about in a seeming transport of anguish.

John, not having seen so much of public life as his brother, was not so cunning, and perceiving in his father’s death nothing but a relief from flogging and books (for both of which he had a great dislike), and the immediate possession of all the plate in the dining-room, skipped about the room, indulging in various snatches of song, and, snapping his fingers, declared that he was glad to hear it.

“Oh! you cruel boy,” said Joe, in a passion of tears, “hadn’t you any love for your dear father? Oh! what would I give to see him alive again!”

“Oh! never mind,” replied the brother; “don’t be such a fool as to cry; we can have the cuckoo-clock all to ourselves now.”

This was more than the deceased could bear. He jumped from the bier, opened the shutters, threw off the sheet, and attacked his younger son most unmercifully; while Joe, not knowing what might be his own fate, ran and hid himself in the coal-cellar, where he was discovered fast asleep some four hours afterwards by Black Sam, who carried him to his father, who had been anxiously in search of him, and by whom he was received with every demonstration of affection, as the son who truly and sincerely loved him.

CHAPTER TWO

GRIMALDI’SFATHER expired of dropsy on the sixteenth of March 1788 at the age of seventy-eight and was interred in the burial-ground attached to Exmouth Street Chapel. He left a will by which he directed all his effects and jewels to be sold by public auction, and the proceeds to be added to his funded property, which exceeded fifteen thousand pounds; the whole of the gross amount, he directed, should be divided equally between the two brothers as they respectively attained their majority. Mr King, to whom allusion has already been made, was appointed co-executor with a Mr Joseph Hopwood, a lace manufacturer in Long Acre, at that time supposed to possess not only an excellent business but independent property to a considerable amount besides. Shortly after they entered upon their office, in consequence of Mr King declining to act, the whole of the estate fell to the management of Mr Hopwood, who, employing the whole of the brothers’ capital in his trade, became a bankrupt within a year, fled from England, and was never heard of afterwards. By this unfortunate and unforeseen event, the brothers lost the whole of their fortune, and were thrown upon their own resources and exertions for the means of subsistence.

It is very creditable to all parties, and while it speaks highly for the kind feeling of the friends of the widow, and her two sons, it bears high testimony to their conduct and behaviour that no sooner was the failure of the executor known than offers of assistance were heaped upon them from all quarters. Mr Ford, the Putney schoolmaster, offered at once to receive Joseph into his school and to adopt him as his own son; this offer was declined by his mother. Mr Sheridan, who was then proprietor of Drury Lane, raised the boy’s salary, unasked, to one pound per week, and permitted his mother, who was and had been from her infancy a dancer at that establishment, to accept a similar engagement at Sadler’s Wells. This was, in fact, equivalent to a double salary, both theatres being open together for a considerable period of the year.

At Sadler’s Wells, where Joseph appeared as usual in 1788, shortly after his father’s death, they were not so liberal, nor was the aspect of things so pleasing, his salary of fifteen shillings a week being very unceremoniously cut down to three. His mother was politely informed, upon her remonstrating, that if the alteration did not suit her he was at perfect liberty to transfer his valuable services to any other house. Small as the pittance was, they could not afford to refuse it; and at that salary Grimaldi remained at Sadler’s Wells for three years, occasionally superintending the property-room, sometimes assisting in the carpenter’s and sometimes in the painter’s, and, in fact, lending a hand wherever it was most needed.

When the defalcation of the executor took place, the family were compelled to give up their comfortable establishment and to seek for lodgings of an inferior description. Joe’s mother knowing a Mr and Mrs Bailey, who then resided in Great Wild Street and who let lodgings, applied to them, and there the Grimaldis lived, in three rooms on the first floor, for several years. His brother John could not be prevailed upon to accept any regular engagement, for he thought and dreamt of nothing but going to sea, and evinced the utmost detestation of the stage. Sometimes when boys were wanted in the play at Drury Lane, John was sent for, and attended, for which he received a shilling per night; but so great was his unwillingness and evident dissatisfaction on such occasions, that Mr Wroughton, the comedian, who by purchasing the property of Mr King, became about this period proprietor of Sadler’s Wells, stepped forward in the boy’s behalf and obtained for him a situation on board an East Indiaman which then lay in the river and was about to sail almost immediately. John was delighted when the prospect of realising his ardent wishes opened upon him so suddenly; but his raptures were diminished by the discovery that an outfit was indispensable, and that it would cost upwards of fifty pounds: a sum which, it is scarcely necessary to say, his friends, in their reduced position, could not command. But the same kind-hearted gentleman removed this obstacle, and with a generosity and readiness which enhanced the value of the gift a hundredfold, advanced, without security or obligation, the whole sum required, merely saying, “Mind, John, when you come to be a captain you must pay it me back again.”

There is no difficulty in providing the necessaries for a voyage to any part of the world when you have provided the first and most important—money. In two days John took his leave of his mother and brother, and with his outfit, or kit, was safely deposited on board the vessel in which a berth had been procured for him; but the boy, who was of a rash, hasty, and inconsiderate temper, finding that a delay of ten days would take place before the ship sailed, and that a king’s ship, which lay near her, was just then preparing to drop down to Gravesend with the tide, actually swam from his own ship to the other. He entered himself as a seaman or cabin-boy on board the latter in some feigned name—what it was, his friends never heard—and so sailed immediately, leaving every article of his outfit, down to the commonest necessary of wearing apparel, on board the East Indiaman. He disappeared in 1789, and he was not heard of, or from, or seen, for fourteen years afterwards.

At this period of his life, Joseph was far from idle; he had to walk from Drury Lane to Sadler’s Wells every morning to attend rehearsals, which then began at ten o’clock; to be back at Drury Lane to dinner by two, or go without it; to be back again at Sadler’s Wells in the evening, in time for the commencement of the performance at six o’clock; to go through uninterrupted labour from that time until eleven o’clock, or later; and then to walk home again, repeatedly after having changed his dress twenty times in the course of the night. Occasionally, when the performances at Sadler’s Wells were prolonged so that the curtain fell very nearly at the same time as the concluding piece at Drury Lane began, he was so pressed for time as to be compelled to dart out of the former theatre at his utmost speed, and never to stop until he reached his dressing-room at the latter. That he could use his legs to pretty good advantage at this period of his life, two anecdotes will sufficiently show.

On one occasion, when by unforeseen circumstances Joe was detained at Sadler’s Wells beyond the usual time, he and Mr Fairbrother (the father of the well-known theatrical printer), who, like himself, was engaged at both theatres, and had agreed to accompany him that evening, started hand-in-hand from Sadler’s Wells and ran to the stage door of Drury Lane in eight minutes by the stopwatches which they carried. Grimaldi adds that this was considered a great feat at the time: and we should think it was. Another night, when the Drury Lane company were playing at the Italian Opera House in the Haymarket in consequence of the old theatre being pulled down and a new one built, Mr Fairbrother and Grimaldi, again put to their utmost speed by lack of time, ran from Sadler’s Wells to the Opera House in fourteen minutes, meeting with no other interruption by the way than one which occurred at the corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where they unfortunately ran against and overturned an infirm old lady, without having time enough to pick her up again. After Grimaldi’s business at the Opera House was over (he had merely to walk in the procession in Cymon), he ran back alone to Sadler’s Wells in thirteen minutes, and arrived just in time to dress for Clown in the concluding pantomime.

For some years Grimaldi’s life went on quietly enough, possessing very little of anecdote or interest beyond his steady and certain rise in his profession and in the estimation of the public, which, although very important to him from the money he afterwards gained by it, and to the public from the amusement which his peculiar excellence yielded them for so many years, offers no material for our present purpose. This gradual progress in the good opinion of the town exercised a material influence on Grimaldi’s receipts; for, in 1794, his salary at Drury Lane was trebled, while his salary at Sadler’s Wells had risen from three shillings per week to four pounds. He lodged in Great Wild Street with his mother all this time: their landlord had died, and the widow’s daughter, from accompanying Mrs Grimaldi to Sadler’s Wells, had formed an acquaintance with, and married Mr Robert Fairbrother, of that establishment and Drury Lane, upon which Mrs Bailey, the widow, took Mr Fairbrother into partnership as a furrier, in which pursuit, by industry and perseverance, he became eminently successful. This circumstance would be scarcely worth mentioning, but that it shows the industry and perseverance of Grimaldi, and the ease with which, by the exercise of those qualities, a very young person may overcome all the disadvantages and temptations incidental to the most precarious walk of a precarious pursuit, and become a useful and respectable member of society. He earned many a guinea from Mr Fairbrother by working at his trade and availing himself of his instruction in his leisure hours; and when he could do nothing in that way he would go to Newton Street, and assist his uncle and cousin, the carcase butchers, for nothing; such was his unconquerable antipathy to being idle. He does not inform us whether it required a practical knowledge of trade to display that skill and address with which, in his subsequent prosperity, he would diminish the joints of his customers as a baker, or increase the weight of their meat as a butcher; but we hope, for the credit of trade, that his morals in this respect were wholly imaginary.

These were moments of occupation, but Grimaldi contrived to find moments of amusement besides, which were devoted to the breeding of pigeons and collecting of insects. This latter amusement he pursued with such success as to form a cabinet containing no fewer than four thousand specimens of butterflies, “collected,” he says, “at the expense of a great deal of time, a great deal of money, and a great deal of vast and actual labour”—for all of which, no doubt, the entomologist will deem him sufficiently rewarded. He appears in old age to have entertained a peculiar relish for the recollection of these pursuits, and calls to mind a part of Surrey where there was a very famous fly; one of these was called the Camberwell Beauty (which he adds was very ugly), and another the Dartford Blue, by which he seems to have set great store; and which were pursued and caught in the manner following, in June 1794, when they regularly make their first appearance for the season.

Being engaged nightly at Sadler’s Wells, Grimaldi was obliged to wait till he had finished his business upon the stage: then he returned home, had supper, and shortly after midnight started off to walk to Dartford, fifteen miles from town. Here he arrived about five o’clock in the morning, and calling upon a friend of the name of Brooks, who lived in the neighbourhood and who was already stirring, he rested, breakfasted, and sallied forth into the fields. His search was not very profitable, however, for after some hours he only succeeded in bagging, or bottling, one Dartford Blue, with which he returned to his friend perfectly satisfied. At one o’clock he bade Brooks goodbye, walked back to town, reached London by five, washed, took tea, and hurried to Sadler’s Wells. No time was to be lost—the fact of the appearance of the Dartford Blues having been thoroughly established—in securing more specimens; so on the same night, directly the pantomime was over and supper over, too, off he walked to Dartford again, and resumed his search again. Meeting with better sport, and capturing no fewer than four dozen Dartford Blues, he hurried back to the friend’s, set them—an important process, which consists in placing the insects in the position in which their natural beauty can be best displayed—started off with the Blues in his pocket for London once more, reached home by four o’clock in the afternoon, washed, took a hasty meal, and then went to the theatre for the evening’s performance.

As not half the necessary number of Blues had been taken, Grimaldi had decided upon another visit to Dartford that same night, and was consequently much pleased to find that, from some unforeseen circumstance, the pantomime was to be played first. By this means he was enabled to leave London at nine o’clock, to reach Dartford at one, to find a bed and supper ready, to meet a kind reception from his friend, and finally to turn into bed, a little tired with the two days’ exertions. The next day was Sunday, so that he could indulge himself without being obliged to return to town, and in the morning he caught more flies than he wanted; so the rest of the day was devoted to quiet sociality. He went to bed at ten o’clock, rose early next morning, walked comfortably to town, and at noon was perfect in his part at the rehearsal.

It is probable that by such means as these, united to temperance and sobriety, Grimaldi acquired many important bodily requisites for the perfection which he afterwards attained. But his love of entomology, or exercise, was not the only inducement in the case of the Dartford Blues; he had, he says, another strong motive, and this was, that he had promised a little collection of insects to “one of the most charming women of her age”—the lamented Mrs Jordan, at that time a member of the Drury Lane company.

Upon one occasion Joe had held under his arm, during a morning rehearsal, a box containing some specimens of flies: Mrs Jordan was much interested to know what could possibly be in the box that Grimaldi carried about with him with so much care and would not lose sight of for an instant, and in reply to her enquiry whether it contained anything pretty, he replied by exhibiting the flies. He does not say whether these particular flies which Mrs Jordan admired were Dartford Blues, or not; but he gives us to understand that his skill in preserving and arranging insects was really very great; that all this trouble and fatigue were undertaken in a spirit of respectful gallantry to the most winning person of her time; and that, having requested permission previously, he presented two frames of insects to Mrs Jordan on the first day of the new season, immediately after she had finished the rehearsal of Rosalind in As You Like It; that Mrs Jordan was delighted; that he was at least equally so; that she took the frames away in her carriage; and that she warmed his heart by telling him that his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence considered the flies equal, if not superior, to any of the kind he had ever seen.

Joe’s only other companion in these trips besides his Dartford friend, was Robert Gomery, or ‘friend Bob’, as he was called by his intimates, at that time an actor at Sadler’s Wells, and for many years afterwards a public favourite at the various minor theatres of the metropolis; who is now, or was lately, enjoying a handsome independence at Bath. With this friend Grimaldi had a little adventure, which it was his habit to relate with great glee. One day, he had been fly-hunting with Gomery from early morning until night, thinking of nothing but flies, until, at length, their thoughts naturally turning to something more substantial, they halted for refreshment.

“Bob,” said Grimaldi, “I am very hungry.”

“So am I,” said Bob.

“There is a public house,” said Grimaldi.

“It is just the very thing,” observed the other.

It was a very neat public house and would have answered the purpose admirably, but Grimaldi having no money, and very much doubting whether his friend had either, did not respond to the sentiment quite so cordially as he might have done.

“We had better go in,” said Bob. “It is getting late—you pay.”

“No, no! You.”

“I would in a minute,” said Joe’s friend, “but I have not got any money.”

Grimaldi thrust his hand into his right pocket with one of his queerest faces, then into his left, then into his coat pockets, then into his waistcoat, and finally took off his hat and looked into that; but there was no money anywhere. They still walked on towards the public house, meditating with rueful countenances, when Grimaldi, spying something lying at the foot of a tree, picked it up, and suddenly exclaimed, with a variety of winks and nods, “Here’s a sixpence.”

The hungry friend’s eyes brightened, but they quickly resumed their gloomy expression as he rejoined, “It’s a piece of tin!”

Grimaldi winked again, rubbed the sixpence or the piece of tin very hard, and declared, putting it between his teeth by way of test, that it was as good a sixpence as he would wish to see.

“I don’t think it,” said Bob, shaking his head.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Grimaldi, “we’ll go to the public house, and ask the landlord whether it’s a good one, or not. They always know.”

To this Bob assented, and they hurried on, disputing all the way whether it was really a sixpence or not; a discovery which could not be made at that time, when the currency was defaced and worn nearly plain, with the ease with which it could be made at present.

The publican, a fat jolly fellow, was standing at his door, talking to a friend, and the house looked so uncommonly comfortable, that Gomery whispered as they approached, that perhaps it might be best to have some bread and cheese first, and ask about the sixpence afterwards. Grimaldi nodded his entire assent, and they went in and ordered some bread and cheese and beer. Having taken the edge off their hunger, they tossed up a farthing which Grimaldi happened to find in the corner of some theretofore undiscovered pocket, to determine who should present the ‘sixpence’. The chance falling on himself, he walked up to the bar, and with a very lofty air, and laying the questionable metal down with a dignity quite his own, requested the landlord to take the bill out of that.

“Just right, sir,” said the landlord, looking at the strange face that his customer assumed, and not at the sixpence.

“It’s right, sir, is it?” asked Grimaldi, sternly.

“Quite,” answered the landlord. “Thank ye, gentlemen.” And with this he slipped the—whatever it was—into his pocket. Gomery looked at Grimaldi; and Grimaldi, with a look and air which baffled all description, walked out of the house, followed by his friend.

“I never knew anything so lucky,” Grimaldi said, as they walked home to supper. “It was quite a Providence—that sixpence.”

“A piece of tin, you mean,” said Gomery.

Which of the two it was, is uncertain, but Grimaldi often patronised the same house afterwards, and as he never heard anything more about the matter, he felt quite convinced that it was a real good sixpence.

In the early part of 1794, the Grimaldis quitted their lodgings in Great Wild Street, and took a six-roomed house in Penton Place, Pentonville, with a garden attached; a part of this they let off to a Mr and Mrs William Lewis, who then belonged to Sadler’s Wells; and in this manner they lived for three years, during the whole of which period Grimaldi’s salaries steadily rose in amount, and he began to consider himself quite independent. At Easter, Sadler’s Wells opened as usual, and making a great hit in a new part, his fame rapidly increased. At this time he found a new acquaintance, which exercised a material influence upon his comfort and happiness for many years. The intimacy commenced thus.

When there was a rehearsal at Sadler’s Wells, his mother, who was engaged there as well as himself, was in the habit of remaining at the theatre all day, taking her meals in her dressing-room and occupying herself with needlework. This she had done to avoid the long walk in the middle of the day from Sadler’s Wells to Great Wild Street, and back again almost directly. It became a habit; and when they had removed to Penton Place, and consequently were so much nearer the theatre that it was no longer necessary, it still continued. Mr Hughes, who had now become principal proprietor of the theatre, and who lived in the house attached to it, had several children, the eldest of whom was Miss Maria Hughes, a young lady of considerable accomplishments. She had always been much attached to Grimaldi’s mother, and embraced every opportunity of being in her society. Knowing the hours at which Mrs Brooker was in the dressing-room during the day, Miss Hughes was in the habit of taking her work and sitting with her from three or four o’clock until six, when, the other female performers beginning to arrive, she retired. Grimaldi was generally at the theatre between four and five, always taking tea with his mother at the last-named hour and sitting with her until the arrival of the ladies broke up the little party. In this way an intimacy arose between Miss Hughes and himself, which ultimately ripened into feelings of a warmer nature.

The day after he made his great hit in the new piece, he went as usual to tea in the dressing-room, where Mrs Lewis, their lodger, who was the wardrobe-keeper of the theatre, happening to be present, overwhelmed him with compliments on his great success. Miss Hughes was there too, but she said nothing for a long time, and Grimaldi, who would rather have heard her speak for a minute than Mrs Lewis for an hour, listened as patiently as he could to the encomiums which the good woman lavished upon him. At length she stopped, as the best talkers must now and then to take breath, and then Miss Hughes, looking up, said with some hesitation that she thought Mr Grimaldi had played the part uncommonly well; so well that she was certain there was no one who could have done it at all like him.