John Joseph Knight

“ The anonymous critic continues: ‘His person is well formed, manly, and elegant; a handsome countenance, and brilliant and sparkling eyes;’ and taxes him with an unpardonable roll from side to side, and says he ‘is always endeavouring to do what the situation does not require should be attempted, and what nature is shocked at when done.’ Lamb describes him as ‘the jolliest person’ of any Hamlet he has seen. ”

“ Viola, Constance, and Katharine were fine performances, and her Gertrude in ‘Hamlet’ was perfect. Of imagination in its highest sense she was deficient, but she had genuine humour and provocative mirth. Westland Marston declares that ‘in sympathetic emotion, as distinguished from stern and turbulent passion, no feminine artist of her time surpassed her; in suggestiveness of detail, no artist but one.’ Miss Helen Faucit writes: ‘She had in youth much beauty and fascination, and in riper age was handsome and intellectual. ”

“ Scott, who knew Kemble well, and sympathised with his literary tastes, declared him to be the only man who ever seduced him in his middle life into very deep potations. On the occasion of Kemble's farewell performance previous to quitting the Edinburgh stage, 23 March 1817, Scott adds: ‘He has made a great reformation in his habits, given up wine, which he used to swallow by pailfuls, and renewed his youth like the eagle.’ In his quarrels with his fellow-performers, male and female, he conducted himself generally with tact and feeling. ”

“ In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little with a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a twilight conception, its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back his intellect as some have the power to retard their pulsation.’ Dodd left at his death a collection of books, largely dramatic, which formed a nine days' sale at Sotheby's, and realised large prices. ”

“ Booth's Henry VIII, in which he succeeded Betterton, Davies greatly admired, as, he states, did Macklin and Quin. Theophilus Cibber says he had 'all the advantages that art or nature could bestow to make an admirable actor,' speaks in warm praise of his voice and perfect articulation, and dwells with enthusiasm upon his deportment, his dignity, and majesty. ”

“ In the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ October 1821, a writer, assumably Talfourd, says Emery ‘is one of the most real, hearty, and fervid of actors. He is half a Munden. ... He has the pathos but not the humour, the stoutness but not the strangeness, the heart but not the imagination of the greatest of living comedians. ”

“ Byron called him ‘the most supernatural of actors.’ Moore spoke of him as ‘a cultivated man, but a poor creature when he put pen to paper.’ Pitt called him the noblest actor he had seen, and Scott lamented his loss as that of ‘an excellent critic, an accomplished scholar, and one who graced our forlorn drama with what little it has left of good sense and gentlemanlike feeling.’ Lamb, who found it difficult to ‘disembarrass the idea of Hamlet from the person and voice of Mr. Kemble,’ defends and praises him in comedy, and even vindicates his Charles Surface. ”

“ Theophilus Cibber speaks of her with enthusiasm, so far as regards her moral qualities: ‘she was a beautiful woman, lovely in her countenance, delicate in her form, a pleasing actress, and a most admirable dancer; generally allowed, in the last-mentioned part of her profession, to have been superior to all who had been seen before her, and perhaps she has not been since excelled. ”

“ The 'Painter's Breakfast' is a clever work. Pallat, a painter, asks to breakfast some known patrons of art. He then, with the aid of Dactyl, a poet, and Friendly, a comedian, sells by auction as original works some copies of paintings executed by his acquaintance. The proceeds of the sale, after the deduction of the cost of the breakfast and the true value of the paintings, are to be devoted to a fund for the relief of lunatics. The intention is of course to ridicule would-be connoisseurs of art, who neglect modern work, and will hear only of the antique. ”

“ A strong desire on the part of Margaret Lucas to be maid of honour to the queen was, in spite of the opposition of her brothers and sisters, encouraged by her mother, and when the young girl, disappointed at the life of court, and discontented at being regarded, owing to her shyness and prudery, as a ‘natural fool,’ repented of her wish, her mother counselled her to stay. ”

“ Brooke had a fine presence and a noble voice, both of which he turned at first to good account. To the influence of these, rather than to the display of any eminent intellectual gifts, his success was attributable. His first appearance as Othello elicited, however, from men of judgment more favourable criticism than has often been passed upon any actor of secondary mark. When last he appeared in London, his tragic acting was little more than rant. ”

“ Mrs. Cowley prided herself on her originality and her indifference to stage triumphs. The boast was even put forward on her behalf that she never witnessed the first performance of one of her pieces. Her anxiety on their behalf, however, involved her in a newspaper warfare with Hannah More, whom she taxed with plagiarism, and in quarrels with the managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, to whom, in a preface to ‘Albina,’ subsequently suppressed, she imputed, most probably in error, some misuse of her manuscript. ”

“ While questioning the right of Lewis to the exclusive title of gentleman, Leigh Hunt considers that ‘vulgarity seems totally impossible to an actor of his manners.’ In characters such as Rover, full of frankness and vivacity, Lewis is conceded ‘an original excellence.’ He is said to be ‘the most complete fop on the stage,’ but is censured for extravagance of dress and for excessive indulgence in shaking of the head and respiration. ”

“ There is not the least harmony in her voice, but when forced (which she never fails to do on every occasion) is loud and strong, but such an inarticulate gabble that you must be well acquainted with her part to understand her. She is ignorant and stubborn. . . . She has a husband, a precious fool, that she heartily despises. She talks lusciously, and has a slovenly good nature about her that renders her prodigiously vulgar' (Garrick Corresp. i. 470) . ”

“ Davies, who speaks of him as 'a lusty fat man,' praises the brutal and jolly ignorance of his Sir Harry Gubbins in the 'Tender Husband,' the absurd humour, awkward bashfulness, and good-natured obstinacy of his Sir Wilful Witwould in the 'Way of the World,' and declares his Jobson 'the Cobbler in the 'Devil to Pay, or the Wives Metamorphosed,' of Coffey an admirable second to Miss Clive's inimitable Nell. ”

“ To be half a Munden is the highest praise we can give to any other actor, short of a Kean or a Macready.’ Hazlitt says of his acting: ‘It is impossible to praise it sufficiently because there is never any opportunity of finding fault with it’ (Criticisms and Dramatic Essays, 87–8) , and Leigh Hunt says he does not know one of his rustic characters ‘in which he is not altogether excellent and almost perfect’ (Critical Essays, 106) . ”

“ Booth's character of the great actor, Smith, may be applied with justice to Mr. King: “By his impartial management of the stage and the affability of his temper he merited the respect and esteem of all within the theatre, the applause of those without, and the goodwill and love of all mankind”’ (Dram. Misc. iii. 372) . Dibdin likens King to Préville as regards his performance of valets, and adds: ‘King is a performer who has thrown novelty into old characters, consequence into new, and nature into all’ (Hist. of the Stage, v. 348) . ”

“ An excellent vocalist, with a deep bass voice and a serviceable falsetto, a fair actor, a clever mimic, smart in rejoinder, good-natured, easy-going, and thoroughly careless in money matters, he obtained remarkable social success, was popularly known as honest Charles Bannister, and was the hero of many anecdotes of questionable authority. ”

“ The performance in Dublin of Zanga won him the high commendation of Young, who said he had never seen the part so well done. When the London managers preferred him over the head of Mills to the character of Bajazet, Booth said, upon the displeasure of Mills being manifested, that Elrington would make nine such actors as Mills. Victor says, however, that Elrington owned that the Tamerlane of Booth overpowered him, and that having never felt the force of such an actor he was not aware that it was within the power of a mortal to soar so much above him and shrink him into nothing. ”

“ Of his acting, as of his life, he says that integrity is the guiding principle, and he credits King with the exercise of benevolence, good humour, and every other sacred virtue. Hazlitt describes his acting in later life as leaving ‘a taste on the palate sharp and sweet like a quince; with an old, hard, rough, withered face, like a John-apple, puckered up into a thousand wrinkles, with shrewd hints and tart replies;’ he was ‘the real amorous, wheedling, or hasty, choleric, peremptory old gentleman in Sir Peter Teazle and Sir Anthony Absolute ”

“ So well was the trust fulfilled that the girls were said to have lost in Wilks a second father. Among those whom Wilks benefited by a somewhat lavish generosity (to which it was due that, though in receipt of an income large for the time, he left his wife almost without provision) was Richard Savage. Dr. Johnson praised Wilks for his generosity in characteristic language. ‘To be humane, generous, and candid is a very high degree of merit in any case, but those qualities deserve still greater praise when they are found in that condition which makes almost every other man ... ”

“ Genest was unfavourably impressed with Cherry as an actor. On the other hand, Tate Wilkinson says that in certain characters 'he possesses great merit,' and adds that he 'has the peculiar excellence as a comedian that when he has to perform a character not so suited to his genius and abilities, yet still it is not Cherry, but the character so justly conceived, that you perceive the skill of the artist perhaps more when he is out of his walk than when in' (Wandering Patentee, iv. 15) . ”

“ After a time he was gratified by the present from Wilkinson of a chest containing all the appliances of an actor's wardrobe, with the compliment: ‘I have been long looking for some one who knew how to value them; you are the very man.’ While at Leeds his wife died, and Knight, left with a young family, married in 1807 Susan Smith, who had succeeded her sister, Sarah Bartley [q. v.] , as leading lady, and, though an actress of no great power, was a remarkable favourite. ”

“ Tate Wilkinson declared that 'if any man possessed the gift of pleasing more than another Mr. Foote was the man,' and Colman the younger says Foote always made him laugh. Testimony of the kind may be indefinitely extended. He was short, fat, and flabby in appearance, his face intelligent, and his eye bright. He was a gourmand, an egotist, and a thoroughly selfish man, with a few redeeming traits, which the contrast with his general character gave almost the appearance of virtues. A portrait of Foote by Sir Joshua Reynolds is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. ”

“ Gibber is cleanly. He was proud of the moral influence of his works, loose as portions of them must seem in plot and language to a modern generation. Of his adaptations from Shakespeare, he had the grace, under the lash of contemporary criticism, to appear ashamed, and his 'Odes,' in the curious pamphlet, 'The Egotist, or Colley upon Cibber,' 1748, he gives up. His tragedies are poor, but scarcely below the level of the age. His two letters to Pope (1742 and 1744 respectively) are dull but not ill-natured, considering the provocation he experienced. In his 'Apology' he is seen at his best. ”

“ An admirable actress of chambermaids, she was also excellent in Mrs. Oakley, Lucy Lockit, Caroline in the ‘Prize,’ Mrs. Sullen, Bisarre, and other similar parts. She was good-looking, intelligent, and so industrious that she was said in her early life to have almost lived in Drury Lane Theatre. A writer in ‘Blackwood’ for 1832 speaks of her as ‘a delightful dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, whose motion was itself music ere her voice was heard,’ and speaks of her as possessing remarkable charm. ”

“ Less popular than Kean and even than Young, Macready was a favourite with the educated public and was a man of indisputable genius. 'He studied strenuously for his profession,' says Dr. Madden, 'and considered that to be a great actor it was advisable for him to become a good scholar, an accomplished gentleman, a well-ordered man, with a well-regulated mind, and finely cultivated taste (Life of Lady Blessington, iii. 478) . ”

“ Foote's satire is direct and scathing. Much of it is directed against individuals, not seldom with no conceivable vindication, since Foote singled out those, such as Garrick, to whom he was under deepest obligations. During his lifetime and for some years subsequently Foote was known as the English Aristophanes. Without being deserved, the phrase is less of a misnomer than such terms ordinarily are. As an actor Foote seems to have attracted attention only in his own pieces. ”

“ He, however, states that a character named Maiden, introduced in 'Tunbridge Walks,' the best-known comedy of Thomas Baker, was intended by the author for himself, and was designed for purpose of warning, to place his own failings in a ridiculous light. If this story, which is unsupported by any obtainable evidence, is true, Baker must have been sufficiently despicable in early life to justify the dislike of his first biographer. Maiden, first played by an actor inappropriately named Bullock, is one of the most effeminate beings ever put on the stage. ”

“ Pleasance into marriage is an incident in several plays, as “Ram Alley,” “Antiquary,” &c., but in none so well managed as in this play.’ Killigrew's other comic pieces are less flagrantly indecent, but also less amusing. In his serious pieces Killigrew is seen to no great advantage. Genest affirms that the ‘Pilgrim’ is a good tragedy, which, with judicious alterations, might have been made fit for representation. ”

“ Baddeley's exceptional beauty, her vanity, and reckless extravagance, made her the fashion. When it was known that admission would be refused her as an actress to a public entertainment, fifty gentlemen of highest station are said to have waited for her in the lobby, drawn their swords on the constables on her appearance, escorted her in triumph to the rooms, and obtained an apology from the directors of the entertainment, and a personally accorded welcome from the aristocratic patronesses. ”

“ A worthy, prudent, estimable man, he was honourable in all his dealings, not incapable of generosity, though scarcely prone to it, and his assault upon Miss De Camp is the one serious blot upon a life which was creditable to the stage. ”

“ On 1 May following she married Edward, twelfth earl of Derby, whose first wife had died on 14 March previous. In the many scandalous productions of her day, though much satire is expended on the origin of Miss Farren, no imputation is cast upon her fair fame. She had a short sentimental attachment to John Palmer and was admired and followed by Fox. Lord Derby treated her with much respect, introducing her to his female friends and obtaining her the patronage of the Duke of Richmond, at whose house in Whitehall she presided over a series of amateur performances. ”

“ Leigh Hunt declares Elliston 'the only genius that has approached that great man (Garrick) in universality of imitation,' and speaks of him (1807) as 'the second tragedian on the stage,' and the 'best lover on the stage both in tragedy and comedy,' Macready, sparing as he is of praise to rivals, in giving a striking account of Elliston's last performance at Drury Lane (Reminiscences, i. 307-8) , writes a high encomium of his versatility and power. The 'London Magazine and Theatrical Inquisitor,' iii. 515, says his comic genius was irresistible. ”

“ Foote said that Garrick wrote the prologue in the hope that Macklin would be as good as his word, and so deliver him from a formidable rival. When regrets were uttered in the green-room at the loss of so admirable an actor, Foote said, 'You need not fear; he will first break in business, and then break his word,' a prophecy fully accomplished. He opened accordingly in March 1764, under the Piazza in Covent Garden, a tavern and coffee-house, a feature in the conduct of which was a three-shilling ordinary at four o'clock, over the service of which he presided. ”