Playbills and Playgoing
now took the lead; for at this moment stepped into the vehicle, for the first time, a passenger, whose name it will be unnecessary to mention, if we introduce him under the designation of the Playgoer. Not old in years, he is not young in memory, and still less so in observation. By hearsay, or by optical note, he will tell you the colour of the small-clothes in which Munden took his farewell of the stage, and describe the exact pattern of Woodward’s shoe-buckles. He hits off Keeley to the life, and gives you a very lively imitation of Stephens’s pathetic execution of “Auld Robin Gray.” Garrick he seems to have known from a boy, and he enlarges upon the grateful duty of subscribing to the fund now being raised for erecting a monument to Siddons, as though he had seen that incomparable actress (so every great authority proclaims her) make her first and last appearance. We ought to have been born earlier; we ought to have seen Mrs. Siddons. “You go to the theatre, I suppose, Mr. Cavil?” inquired the Playgoer of our old acquaintance beside him.
“No I don’t,” was the response of Mr. Cavil, “but I read the playbills. The playbill is the veluti in speculum for me. There I see human nature as in a mirror. There I read of envy, jealousy, and hatred—personal pique, private friendship—self-interest, sycophancy, adulation—in the varying forms of announcement, in the varying periods of omission—in the different sizes of type, in the significant conjunction of names—that may happen to compose the playbill. I see why this actor is to be run down now, and why the other is to be cried up then. I detect a reason for the implied insult, a motive for the palpable puff. Your playbill is a wonderfully accurate expositor of the mysteries of your human being. I don’t want to go into the theatre, while I can read what I find at the doors. The bill’s better than the play. If you want an example, look at that placard there (pointing as we passed to one that bore her Majesty’s name at the head of it), I should like to see a comedy coming up to that! There you read of a piece—
“‘Which, from its strongly affecting scenes, and powerfully harrowing situations, has nightly drawn tears of pity and commiseration from the sterner heart of man, from all who have one spark of the milk of human kindness, whilst woman’s softer nature has swollen with bitterest indignation at the unmerited suffering and patient endurance of the hapless foundling.’
“Such a bill as that is payable at sight. I can’t read it without tears. Its bold metaphorical originality is unequalled in our literature. We have heard of the ‘fountain of our daily bread,’ and of the ‘fire of patriotism flowing into other channels;’ but who ever before heard of a ‘spark of the milk of human kindness!’ Shakspeare never ventured to make the daring combination.”
“Mr. Cavil,” said the Playgoer, “I admire your literary acumen. As you have shown how the theatre furnishes amusement to those who never go into it, let me show in turn that, within, the field of amusement is not exclusively the stage. We need not travel just now ‘behind the scenes;’ there we may find ourselves another time; for the present we are satisfied with
I once witnessed a scene (say six or seven years ago) in the orchestra of Covent Garden, which for ludicrousness of effect, and the mysterious manner in which it arose, surpassed anything that ever came under my notice. A friend, considerably my senior, and a playgoer of the time of the Kembles, was one of my companions; the other was his wife, to accommodate whom, being shortsighted, we had established ourselves in the front row of the pit, on the prompter’s side. At the commencement of the overture, we found that the scroll-end of one of the large double basses intercepted the lady’s view of the stage, and a request was preferred by my friend to the performer (a most eccentric-looking genius, with only one eye, and that apparently turning on what mechanics call ’an universal centre’), to alter his position, but he very uncourteously refused to move; and still worse, on the rising of the curtain, he left the instrument secured in a perpendicular position, so as to completely obstruct our lady’s view. Thus he left it, in spite of all our remonstrances. I, with the desperate indignation of youth, was for cutting the string and letting it fall down, but was restrained by my elder and more wily friend, who whispered me ‘Never mind, I’ll serve him out.’
He then changed places with his lady, and all went on quietly till the fall of the curtain, when I suddenly missed him. He returned, however, in a few minutes, with a large piece of—yes, of candle; and he gave me a look which indicated that I was not to see anything. Yet I did see, that while the rest of the audience were looking round the house, he leant over, and, unobserved by any one else, applied the grease with dexterity and effect to the strings of the offending instrument. He then took his seat, apparently as unconcerned as any spectator in the pit.
In due time the bell rang for the music to the afterpiece, and we saw our musical adversary enter, release his instrument, and seat himself. He then tried the strings at his ear, and finding all right indulged himself with a pinch of snuff, and quietly awaited his time. The second bell rang-the leader gave the preliminary tap-tap, and off they went in the overture to Tancredi. After a few bars, it was our enemy’s turn to chime in: he sawed away with right good will, but, to his utter amazement, without producing the desired effect. He looked down inquisitively with his single optic, but without comprehending the mystery. Again he tried, and of course with the same result; another downward look, and the truth seemed to flash across him. His one eye glared most horribly; but not on us did his anger fall. In front of him, perched on a high stool, with a step half way up for his feet, sat a little wee homo, working most industriously at a violoncello, as big as himself, and in a sweet unconsciousness of the storm gathering in his rear. On this unoffending victim did he of the double bass vent his rage—for after the second brief look at his useless instrument he darted one piercing glance at the violoncello player, deliberately deposited his bow on the desk before him, and dealt the little man so sound a cuff on the head, that musician, stool, violoncello, and desk, went down ‘in one astounding ruin,’ damaging the shins and toes of immediate neighbours, literally putting their pipes out, and producing discord dire throughout the realm of harmony.
In vain did the leader rap his desk and try to keep his flock together. On looking round he found his first flute and fourth violin busily rubbing their legs; the second trombone gentleman dreadfully irate at having a favourite corn hurt by the stool falling on it; the small violoncello player awfully pugnacious; while the grand cause of all was looking on, with a diabolical smile on what passed for his face, and muttering sotto voce, ‘I’ll teach you to play me tricks again.’
We looked quietly on, and my friend gave it as his opinion, that it was a great pity that the gentlemen could not settle their quarrels in private, instead of bringing them before the public in such a disgraceful way. How it ended I know not, for the curtain rose before it could be adjusted, and the ‘harmonists’ retired; but we subsequently learnt, that our hero of the double bass was, from a boorish temper, much disliked in the orchestra, and that to his great annoyance tricks had been frequently played off upon him; hence his sudden and violent retaliation on his supposed tormentor.
Our friend the Playgoer having thus introduced us to one of the curiosities of music—a practiser of sweet sounds, who was anything but the harmonist he seemed—his story suggested the image of an equally contradictory humorist, whom we had recently encountered; and we therefore without ceremony presented