CHAPTER XVI. A GROUP OF GENTLEMEN. THE players of the Garrick period and the years immediately succeeding it, followed in due time their great master. Of these, Samuel Reddish was a player of that great epoch, who, for some especial parts, stood in the foremost rank. We first hear of him in the season of 1761-2, strengthening Mossop's company in Smock Alley, Dublin, by his performance of Etan, in the "Orphan of China." Of his origin, no one knows more than what he published of himself in the Irish papers, that he was a gentleman of easy fortune." This description was turned against him by his old enemy, Macklin, on one occasion, when Reddish, in a part he was acting, threw away an elegantly bound book, which he was supposed to have been reading. Macklin's coinment was, that, however unnatural in the character he was representing, it was quite consistent in Mr. Reddish himself, who, "you know, has advertised himself as a gentleman of easy fortune." In September, 1767, Reddish first appeared in London, at Drury Lane, as Lord Townly, to Mrs. Abington's "My Lady." A few nights after, he played Posthumus to the Imogen of Mrs. Baddeley. It was in this last character that he took his melancholy leave of the stage at Covent Garden, shaken in mind and memory, -on the 3d of May, 1779; Mrs. Bulkley was then the Imogen. His career in London was but of twelve years, and it might have been longer and more brilliant but for that fast life which consumed him, and for one illustration of which, when he was rendered incapable of acting, he made humble apology on the succeeding evening. Within those dozen years, Sam Reddish played an infinite variety of characters, from tragedy to farce. Among those he originated were Darnley (" Hypocrite"), Young Fashion (“Trip to Scarborough"), and Philotas ("Grecian Daughter"). As an actor VOL. II.-10 his voice and figure were highly esteemed in Dublin, but the latter was not considered so striking, in London. I gather from his critics, that Reddish was easy and spirited; that he spoke well in mere declamatory parts, but for want of feeling and variety in the play of his features, failed in parts of passion. His most attractive character was Edgar, in "King Lear;" Posthumus stood next; he thought Romeo was one of his happiest impersonations, but the public preferred his Macduff and Shylock. As Alonzo ("Revenge"), he made a favorable impression; his Castalio, Lothario, and Orlando, were indifferent, and his Alexander bad. Reddish was, however, an impulsive actor, often feeling more than the immobility of his features would permit him to show; and he endeavored to make up for it by violence and impetuosity of action. He was once acting Castalio, when the part of his brother Polydore was played by Smith. In the last act of the "Orphan," Polydore gives his brother the lie, calls him "coward!" adds "villain" and at length so exasperates Castalio that the latter, drawing his sword, exclaims, "This to thy heart, then, though my mother bore thee !" and before Smith was well ready for the fight, Reddish thrust his sword into him and stretched him bleeding on the stage. The next words Castalio should have uttered were, "What have I done? My sword is in thy breast!" but the poor fellow could only exclaim, "My sword was in thy breast!" and the play came to an end. Smith, however, did not dic (as in the play) with a "How my head swims! 'tis very dark! good night!" He recovered of his wounds, and lived to die again. When Churchill said, "With transient gleam of grace Hart sweeps along," he was praising the lady whom Reddish married soon after he came to London, and who lost the "transient gleam" in ungracefully growing fat. His second wife was a woman of very different quality, a respectable, but impoverished, widow in Mary-le-bone, named Canning, whose first husband had, in 1767, published a translation of the first book of Cardinal Polignac's Anti-Lucretius. The widow Canning's son, George, subsequently became prime minister of England, "for giving birth to whom," says Genest," she was in due time rewarded with a handsome pension," which she enjoyed as Mrs. Hunn, down to 1827. Red dish, I suppose, met with her on the stage at Drury Lane, where the lady made her first public appearance (6th of November, 1773) in "Jane Shore," Reddish playing her husband; while Garrick acted Hastings, at the request of several ladies of rank who patronized Mrs. Canning. She repeated Jane Shore, and subsequently played Perdita to the Florizel of "gentle" Cautherley,-who was said to be a natural son, certainly a well-trained pupil, of Garrick. Her next part was Mrs. Beverley to Garrick's Beverley; her fourth Octavia (in "All for Love") to the Antony of Reddish, whose wife she became, or at least is said to have become, at an unlucky season. As early as the year 1773, Reddish exhibited one symptom of the malady which compelled him, ultimately, to retire, namely the want of memory, which indicates weakness of the brain. In March of that year, he played Alonzo, in Home's tragedy so called; he was the original representative of the part. Although Alonzo is the hero, he does not appear till the play is half over, and when the piece came to nearly that point on the particular night, Reddish was missing; a riot ensued, and his part was read by one of the Aikens. Just before the curtain fell, the truant appeared, declaring that he had only just remembered that it was not an oratorio night. His comrades believed him, and for fear the public should be less credulous, he ran from the theatre to Bow Street Office, and there, in presence of Sir Sampson Wright, made oath to the same effect. The affidavit was published the next day, and he thereto adds, "that this unhappy mistake may not be misconstrued into a wilful neglect of his duty, he most humbly begs pardon of the public for the disappointment." The public forgave him, and received him kindly on his next appearance. His wife, who was a favorite in the provinces, was ultimately hissed from the stage of Old Drury. Gradually, his memory grew more disturbed, till it could no longer be at all relied on. During the season 1777-8, he was incapable of acting, and was supported by the fund. In the following season, he essayed Hamlet, but it was almost as painful as the Ophelia of poor, mad, Susan Mountfort. Later in the season, in May, 1779, the managers gave him a benefit, when "Cymbeline" was acted, and Reddish was announced for Posthumus. An hour or two before the play began, he called at a friend's house, vacant, . restless, and wandering. Some one congratulated him on being well enough to play. "Aye, sir! and I shall astonish you in the garden scene!" He thought he was to act Romeo. He could neither be persuaded nor convinced to the contrary, for a long time, and then only to fall into the old delusion. "Am I to play Posthumus? I'm sorry for it, but what must be, must be!" and then he walked to the theatre, his friend accompanying him, and pitying the poor fellow, who went on rehearsing Romeo, by the way. He was so impressed by his false idea, that his colleagues of the green room, who had vainly striven to keep him to Posthumus, saw him go to the wing, with the expectation on their part that he would look for Benvolio's cue, "Good morrow, cousin!" and would be prepared to answer, "Is the day so young?" With that expectation, they pushed him on the stage, -where the old situation wrought a temporary cure in him. To the welcoming applause he returned a bow of modest respect and by the time the Queen had uttered the words ""Twere good You leaned unto his sentence with what patience his eye had lighted up, and he answered with calm dignity "Please your highness, I will from hence to-day," and went through the scene with more than his usual ability. But he had no sooner passed the wing than the old delusion returned; he was all Romeo, waiting for and longing to begin the garden-scene with "Soft! what light from yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is tho sun!" And many were the fears that at his second going on, he would be disturbed. He stood dreamingly waiting at the side, but when Philotas had exclaimed. "Here comes the Briton! Let him be so entertained amongst vou as suits with gentlemen of your know ing, to strangers of his quality ;"-Reddish was Posthumus again, and to the remark of the Frenchman, "Sir,, we have known together in Orleans," he replied in the clear, level, tone which distinguished him,-"Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still." Thenceforward, his mind became healthy, and he played to the close with a burst of inspiration and talent, such as he had not shown, even in his best days. His mind, however, was healthy only for the night; fitful seasons there were in which he tried to act in the country; but he soon became diseased again, and, shut up in a mad-house, poor Reddish might be seen on visitors' days at St. Luke's, a sad and humiliating spectacle, herding among the lunatics in that once popular place of cruel exhibition. Two old feelings survived the otherwise complete wreck, his love of good living, and his dislike of inferior company. He drank greedily his draught of milk, out of a wooden bowl, but the "gentleman of easy fortune" complained bitterly of his forced association with the low people who thronged the gallery. Poor Reddish! he was moved to better air, improved diet, and less plebeian society, -in the Asylum at York. The outside world had been by him long forgotten, and he forgotten by the world, when he happily died there, not one hour too soon, in the last month of the year 1785. Little more than eight years later his step-son, George Canning, made his maiden-speech in the Commons, as Tory member for Newport, and failed; but like noble actors in another house, he gained ultimate success, by turning his experience to advantage. About the same time disappeared from the London stage, Ross, who, like Barton Booth, was a Westminster boy, and the son of a gentleman. Less fortunate than Booth, his father discarded him, for going on the stage. Ross, the actor, had for school-fel low Churchill, the poet; John Nicoll, then being master; and Booth had for condiscipulus the poet Rowe, under the famous mastership of Busby. Like Booth, Ross first tried his fortune on the Dublin stage in 1749, when he came to London to be of the school of Garrick, as Booth came, to be a follower of Betterton. Both men had pleasing and powerful voices and fine figures, bat |