CHAPTER V.

MASTER BETTY.

Early Passion for the Stage-His Début at Belfast-Creates a Great Sensation at Dublin-At Edinburgh and GlasgowOpens at Drury Lane-Extraordinary Scene-Mrs. Inchbald's Description of his Acting-Parroted-The Betty ManiaAnecdotes - Caricatures Enormous Receipts-A Fall-Ma

cready's Estimation of his Abilities-His Death.

ERHAPS the most extraordinary dramatic suc

PERHAPS

cess on record was that of the boy whose name heads the present chapter. Henry West Betty, Irish by descent, was born at Shrewsbury in 1791. His father, it would appear, was a man of some means; his mother had a taste for reading and recitation, and imparted it to her son, whose dramatic capabilities she probably discovered, and cultivated with an eye to business. As the story runs, his passion for the stage arose from his being taken to the Belfast Theatre when he was about eleven years old, to see Mrs. Siddons play Elvira

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in "Pizarro." His parents were ready enough to indulge his passion, and at once placed him under Houghton, the prompter of the theatre, for instruction. The boy was bright and intelligent, and proved an excellent pupil.

On the 11th of August, 1803, he made his début on the Belfast stage, as Osman in a translation of Voltaire's "Zaïre." He was highly successful, and afterwards appeared as Douglas, Rolla, Romeo, and Hamlet, at Cork, Waterford, Limerick, and Dublin. These were the days of the "United Irishmen," and the streets of Dublin were cleared by a certain hour at night; but the authorities extended the time in honour of "the Young Roscius," as the Milesians dubbed him, and notices were printed in the bills that people leaving the theatre, during his engagement, would not be stopped until after eleven o'clock. From Ireland he proceeded to Scotland, where he created a great furore. Jackson, the Edinburgh manager, published the following fulsome notice of his acting. "It is one of those singularities of Nature that neither history nor tradition can furnish, but which is now beheld by us; but can never be seen again till the AUTHOR of all things shall, when He thinks meet, condescend to endue another stripling in embryo with a similar incredible combination of stage endowments, for the gratification of contemporary admiration." Home, the author of "Douglas," then seventy years of age,

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sat at the wings to see him play young Norval. "This is the first time," he said, "I ever saw the part of Douglas played, that is, according to my idea of the character as at the time I conceived and wrote it." Whether he really believed that this boy played the part better than did Spranger Barry, and other great actors who had essayed it, or whether vanity coloured his judgment, it would be difficult to say. At Glasgow, a critic who dared to find fault with the idol's performance, raised such a storm about his head that he was obliged to leave the city.

Very soon the patentees of Drury Lane offered him an appearance at the National Theatre-the terms, half the receipts of his benefit. But he was advised to refuse anything under £50 a night. The advice was taken, and the negociations were suspended; upon which the Covent Garden manager stepped in and closed for the required

sum.

Pending his opening in London, which was arranged for the December of that year (1804), he visited other English towns, creating an everincreasing mania wherever he went. At Liverpool, crowds, eager to secure places for the night, would assemble round the box-office at an early hour in the morning, and when it was opened, the crush was so fierce that gentlemen were bruised and half suffocated, had their clothes torn to ribbons, their

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hats and even their shoes carried away. For his fourteen performances here he cleared, with benefit, £1,520.

But it was reserved for London to crown the madness. At one o'clock in the afternoon, on the first of December, 1804, a prodigious concourse filled Bow Street and the piazzas of Covent Garden Theatre; towards evening the numbers and the pressure became so alarming, that it was thought necessary to send for a guard of soldiers to clear the entrance and form passages and approaches; but for this precaution, a terrible catastrophe must have occurred. A few minutes after the doors were opened the house was crammed. Gentlemen, knowing every seat in the boxes was taken, yet forced their way through and sprang over into the pit, to steal a march upon the pittites, others, less scrupulous, took forcible possession of box-seats previously engaged, and could not be dislodged; every lobby and passage was jammed with people content to pay any price, if they could only peep at the stage through a hole or a crevice: fainting women, and even men, by scores had to be drawn out of the mass, and gentlemen wedged into suffocating corners were kept from swooning only by their wives constantly fanning them. Drury Lane, with a very weak bill, took over £300 from the overflow of its neighbour.

The play was "Barbarossa," an English version

of Voltaire's "Mérope." The first act, in which the star did not appear, was performed in dumb show, so great was the uproar. But when at length Barbarossa gave the order for Achmet to be brought before him, it was as though an enchanter's wand had been suddenly waved over the clamorous concourse, turning it to stone; a deathlike silence fell upon it, not a movement, not a whisper was heard, the very breath was held in intensity of expectation. As he stepped from the wing, attired in the closefitting dress of a slave, which made his small figure appear even smaller upon that great stage, the spell was lifted, and there burst forth a roar of applause almost terrible in its force. The boy, although remarkable for his modest and unassuming manners, had a marvellous self-possession, and was by no means flurried by this great reception.

Mrs. Inchbald, who was present, complained that "his preaching-like tones" fatigued her, but she acknowledged that in the latter acts he exhibited great fire, spirit and impassioned variety. "He is a clever little boy," she adds, "and had I never seen boys act before, I might have thought him exquisite." The green-room, however, caught the infection from the audience, and hailed him a prodigy, a transcendent genius, a second and greater Garrick! "Nature has endowed him with genius we shall vainly attempt to find in anyone of the actors of the present day," wrote one of his critics.