1782, he first appeared at Sadler's Wells, in the arduous character of a monkey; and here he was fortunate enough to excite as much approbation, as he had previously elicited in the part of clown at Drury Lane. He immediately became a member of the regular company at this theatre, as he had done at the other; and here he remained (one season only excepted) until the termination of his professional life, forty-nine years afterwards.
Now that he had made, or rather that his father had made for him, two engagements, by which he was bound to appear at two theatres on the same evening, and at very nearly the same time, his labours began in earnest. They would have been arduous for a man, much more so for a child; and it will be obvious, that if at any one portion of his life his gains were very great, the actual toil both of mind and body by which they were purchased was at least equally so. The stage-stricken young gentlemen who hang about Sadler's Wells, and Astley's, and the Surrey, and private theatres of all kinds, and who long to embrace the theatrical profession because it is "so easy," little dream of all the anxieties and hardships, and privations and sorrows, which make the sum of most actors' lives.
We have already remarked that the father of Grimaldi was an eccentric man; he appears to have been peculiarly eccentric, and rather unpleasantly so, in the correction of his son. The child being bred up to play all kinds of fantastic tricks, was as much a clown, a monkey, or anything else that was droll and ridiculous, off the stage, as on it; and being incited thereto by the occupants of the green-room, used to skip and tumble about as much for their diversion as that of the public. All this was carefully concealed from the father, who, whenever he did happen to observe any of the child's pranks, always administered the same punishment—a sound thrashing; terminating in his being lifted up by the hair of the head, and stuck in a corner, whence his father, with a severe countenance and awful voice, would tell him "to venture to move at his peril."
Venture to move, however, he did, for no sooner would the father disappear, than all the cries and tears of the boy would disappear too; and with many of those winks and grins which afterwards became so popular, he would recommence his pantomime with greater vigour than ever; indeed, nothing could ever stop him but the cry of "Joe! Joe! here's your father!" upon which the boy would dart back into the old corner, and begin crying again as if he had never left off.
This became quite a regular amusement in course of time, and whether the father was coming or not, the caution used to be given for the mere pleasure of seeing "Joe" run back to his corner; this "Joe" very soon discovered, and often confounding the warning with the joke, received more severe beatings than before, from him whom he very properly describes in his manuscript as his "severe but excellent parent." On one of these occasions, when he was dressed for his favourite part of the little clown in Robinson Crusoe, with his face painted in exact imitation of his father's, which appears to have been part of the fun of the scene, the old gentleman brought him into the green-room, and placing him in his usual solitary corner, gave him strict directions not to stir an inch, on pain of being thrashed, and left him.
The Earl of Derby, who was at that time in the constant habit of frequenting the green-room, happened to walk in at the moment, and seeing a lonesome-looking little boy dressed and painted after a manner very inconsistent with his solitary air, good-naturedly called him towards him.
"Hollo! here, my boy, come here!" said the Earl.
Joe made a wonderful and astonishing face, but remained where he was. The Earl laughed heartily, and looked round for an explanation.
"He dare not move!" explained Miss Farren, to whom his lordship was then much attached, and whom he afterwards married; "his father will beat him if he does."
"Indeed!" said his lordship. At which Joe, by way of confirmation, made another face more extraordinary than his former contortions.
"I think," said his lordship, laughing again, "the boy is not quite so much afraid of his father as you suppose. Come here, sir!"
With this, he held up half-a-crown, and the child, perfectly well knowing the value of money, darted from his corner, seized it with pantomimic suddenness, and was darting back again, when the Earl caught him by the arm.
"Here, Joe!" said the Earl, "take off your wig and throw it in the fire, and here's another half-crown for you."
No sooner said than done. Off came the wig—into the fire it went; a roar of laughter arose; the child capered about with a half-crown in each hand; the Earl, alarmed for the consequences to the boy, busied himself to extricate the wig with the tongs and poker; and the father, in full dress for the Shipwrecked Mariner, rushed into the room at the same moment. It was lucky for "Little Joe" that Lord Derby promptly and humanely interfered, or it is exceedingly probable that his father would have prevented any chance of his being buried alive at all events, by killing him outright.
As it was, the matter could not be compromised without his receiving a smart beating, which made him cry very bitterly; and the tears running down his face, which was painted "an inch thick," came to the "complexion at last," in parts, and made him look as much like a little clown as like a little human being, to neither of which characters he bore the most distant resemblance. He was "called" almost immediately afterwards, and the father being in a violent rage, had not noticed the circumstance until the little object came on the stage, when a general roar of laughter directed his attention to his grotesque countenance. Becoming more violent than before, he fell upon him at once, and beat him severely, and the child roared vociferously. This was all taken by the audience as a most capital joke; shouts of laughter and peals of applause shook the house; and the newspapers next morning declared, that it was perfectly wonderful to see a mere child perform so naturally, and highly creditable to his father's talents as a teacher!
This is no bad illustration of some of the miseries of a poor actor's life. The jest on the lip, and the tear in the eye, the merriment on the mouth, and the aching of the heart, have called down the same shouts of laughter and peals of applause a hundred times. Characters in a state of starvation are almost invariably laughed at upon the stage—the audience have had their dinner.
The bitterest portion of the boy's punishment was the being deprived of the five shillings, which the excellent parent put into his own pocket, possibly because he received the child's salary also, and in order that everything might be, as Goldsmith's Bear-leader has it, "in a concatenation accordingly," The Earl gave him half-a-crown every time he saw him afterwards though, and the child had good cause for regret when his lordship married Miss Farren,[5] and left the green-room.
[5] Miss Farren, previously to her marriage with the Earl of Derby, took her final leave of the stage, as Lady Teazle, in "The School for Scandal," April 8, 1797.
At Sadler's Wells he became a favourite almost as speedily as at Drury Lane. King, the comedian,[6] who was principal proprietor of the former theatre and acting manager of the latter, took a great deal of notice of him, and occasionally gave the child a guinea to buy a rocking-horse or a cart, or some toy that struck his fancy. During the run of the first piece in which he played at Sadler's Wells, he produced his first serious effect, which, but for the good fortune which seems to have attended him in such cases, might have prevented his subsequent appearance on any stage. He played a monkey, and had to accompany the clown (his father) throughout the piece. In one of the scenes, the clown used to lead him on by a chain attached to his waist, and with this chain he would swing him round and round, at arm's length, with the utmost velocity. One evening, when this feat was in the act of performance, the chain broke, and he was hurled a considerable distance into the pit, fortunately without sustaining the slightest injury; for he was flung by a miracle into the very arms of an old gentleman who was sitting gazing at the stage with intense interest.
[6] Tom King