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 this individual's character, was a vague and profound dread of the 14th 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 14th day of March; and that he was born, christened, and married on the 14th of the month.
There are other anecdotes of the same kind told of Henri Quatre, and others; this one is undoubtedly true, and it may be added to the list of coincidences or presentiments, or by whatever name the reader pleases to call them, as a veracious and well-authenticated instance.
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 whose remains occupied the graves he walked among, 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 his 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, 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.[2] 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.
[2] Henry Angelo, in his Reminiscences, gives a different version of this story. "The father of Grimaldi, for many years the favourite clown, was my dancing-master when I was a boy, and encouraged my harlequin and monkey tricks; he related the anecdote to me, himself, and I am therefore justified in repeating it. At the time of the riots, in June, 1780, he resided in a front room, on the second floor in Holborn, on the same side of the way near to Red Lion Square, when the mob passing by the house, and Grimaldi being a foreigner, they thought he must be a papist. On hearing he lived there, they all stopped, and there was a general shouting; a cry of 'No Popery!' was raised, and they were about to assail the house, when Grimaldi, who had been listening all the time, and knew their motives, put his head out of the window from the second floor, and making comical grimaces, called out, 'Genteelmen, in dis hose dere be no religion at all.' Laughing at their mistake, the mob proceeded on, first giving him three huzzas, though his house, unlike all the others, had not written on the door—'No Popery!'"
On the 18th of December, 1779, the year in which Garrick died, Joseph Grimaldi, "Old Joe," was born, in Stanhope-street,[3] 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 sixty-five years old, and twenty-five months afterwards another son was born to him—Joseph's only brother.
[3] Joe, from some erroneous information he had received, always stated he was born in Stanhope-street, Clare-market, December 18, 1779; he mentioned this in his farewell address at Sadler's Wells, and again subscribed that date at the end of his autobiographical notes. He was in error: a reference to the baptismal register of St. Clement's Danes, proved he was born on December 18, 1778, and that he was baptized as the son of Joseph and Rebecca, on the 28th of the same month and year. From this entry, it might be inferred that Joe was legitimate; but we are sorry to be compelled to record that he was not so. Rebecca was Mrs. Brooker, who had been from her infancy a dancer at Drury Lane, and subsequently, at Sadler's Wells, played old women, or anything to render herself generally useful. Mr. Hughes and others who well remember her, describe her as having been a short, stout, very dark woman. The same baptismal register from 1773 to 1788, has been carefully inspected, but no mention occurs of Joe's only brother, John Baptist, or of any other of the Grimaldi family.
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.[4] 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.
[4] Joe's first appearance was at Sadler's Wells, not at Drury Lane; the announcement bill for the opening on April 16, Easter Monday, 1781, of the former theatre, tells us of Dancing by Mr. Le Mercier, Mr. Languish, Master and Miss Grimaldi, and Mrs. Sutton. Here we see Joe, and his sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Williamson, thrust forward sufficiently early to earn their bread. Grimaldi, in his farewell address, on his last appearance at Sadler's Wells, pathetically alluded to this fact—"at a very early age, before that of three years, I was introduced to the public, by my father, at this theatre."
That Joe did not play the "Little Clown" in Sheridan's Pantomime of "Robinson Crusoe," is evident from the construction of the drama. On January 29, 1781, after the "Winter's Tale," Florizel, Mr. Brereton; Perdita, Mrs. Brereton, afterwards Mrs. J. P. Kemble; and Hermione, Miss Farren; was performed, for the first time, "Robinson Crusoe; or, Harlequin Friday." The bill of the night lets us know, that the principal characters were by Mr. Wright, Mr. Grimaldi, Mr. Delpini, Mr. Suett, Mr. Gaudry, and Miss Collett. This pantomime was performed thirty-eight times that season. Grimaldi played Friday, not the "Shipwrecked Mariner;" and the probability is, that young Joe made his first appearance on the boards of Old Drury, in the Pantomime of 1782, entitled "The Triumph of Mirth; or, Harlequin's Wedding," the principal characters in which were by Wright, Grimaldi, and Delpini. There were many minor persons of the drama.
In