Grimaldi Joseph

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi


Скачать книгу

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.

      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