Grimaldi Joseph

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi


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appearance. He is named in the bills of August 18, but appears soon after to have left Sadler's Wells, and on the 30th of the same month had a benefit at the Royalty Theatre, Well-street, near Goodman's-fields, as "Master Braham," when the celebrated tenor singer, Leoni, his master, announced that as the last time of his performing on the stage. Miss Shields, who appeared at Sadler's Wells in the same piece on Whitsun Monday, became towards the end of May, Mrs. Leffler. Two Frenchmen, named Duranie and Bois-Maison, as pantomimists, eclipsed all their predecessors on that stage. Boyce, a distinguished engraver, was the Harlequin, and by those who remember him, he is eulogised as the most finished actor of the motley hero, either in his own day, or since. On the benefit night of Joseph Dortor, Clown to the rope, and Richer, the rope dancer, Miss Richer made her first appearance on two slack wires, passing through a hoop, with a pyramid of glasses on her head; and Master Richer performed on the tight rope, with a skipping rope. Joseph Dortor, among other almost incredible feats, drank a glass of wine backwards from the stage-floor, beating a drum at the same time. Lawrence, the father of Joe's friend, Richard Lawrence, threw a summerset over twelve men's heads, and Paul Redigé, "The Little Devil," on October 1, threw a summerset over two men on horseback, the riders having each a lighted candle on his head. Dubois, as Clown to the Pantomime, had no superior in his time; and the troop of Voltigeurs were pre-eminent for their agility, skill, and daring.

      John was delighted when the prospect of realizing his ardent wishes opened upon him so suddenly; but his raptures were diminished by the discovery that an outfit was indispensable, and that it would cost upwards of fifty pounds: a sum which, it is scarcely necessary to say, his friends, in their reduced position, could not command. But the same kind-hearted gentleman removed this obstacle, and with a generosity and readiness which enhanced the value of the gift an hundredfold, advanced, without security or obligation, the whole sum required, merely saying, "Mind, John, when you come to be a captain you must pay it me back again."

      There is no difficulty in providing the necessaries for a voyage to any part of the world when you have provided the first and most important—money. In two days, John took his leave of his mother and brother, and with his outfit, or kit, was safely deposited on board the vessel in which a berth had been procured for him; but the boy, who was of a rash, hasty, and inconsiderate temper, finding, on going on board, that a delay of ten days would take place before the ship sailed, and that a king's ship, which lay near her, was just then preparing to drop down to Gravesend with the tide, actually swam from his own ship to the other, entered himself as a seaman or cabin-boy on board the latter in some feigned name—what it was his friends never heard—and so sailed immediately, leaving every article of his outfit, down to the commonest necessary of wearing apparel, on board the East-Indiaman, on the books of which he had been entered through the kindness of Mr. Wroughton. He disappeared in 1789, and he was not heard of, or from, or seen, for fourteen years afterwards.

      At this period of his life, Joseph was far from idle; he had to walk from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells every morning to attend rehearsals, which then began at ten o'clock; to be back at Drury Lane to dinner by two, or go without it; to be back again at Sadler's Wells in the evening, in time for the commencement of the performances at six o'clock; to go through uninterrupted labour from that time until eleven o'clock, or later; and then to walk home again, repeatedly after having changed his dress twenty times in the course of the night.

      Occasionally, when the performances at Sadler's Wells were prolonged so that the curtain fell very nearly at the same time as the concluding piece at Drury Lane began, he was so pressed for time as to be compelled to dart out of the former theatre at his utmost speed, and never to stop until he reached his dressing-room at the latter. That he could use his legs to pretty good advantage at this period of his life, two anecdotes will sufficiently show.

      On one occasion, when by unforeseen circumstances he was detained at Sadler's Wells beyond the usual time, he and Mr. Fairbrother (the father of the well-known theatrical printer), who, like himself, was engaged at both theatres, and had agreed to accompany him that evening, started hand-in-hand from Sadler's Wells theatre, and ran to the stage-door of Drury Lane in eight minutes by the stop watches which they carried. Grimaldi adds, that this was considered a great feat at the time; and we should think it was.

      Another night, during the time when the Drury Lane company were playing at the Italian Opera-house in the Haymarket, in consequence of the old theatre being pulled down and a new one built, Mr. Fairbrother and himself, again put to their utmost speed by lack of time, ran from Sadler's Wells to the Opera-house in fourteen minutes, meeting with no other interruption by the way than one which occurred at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they unfortunately ran against and overturned an infirm old lady, without having time enough to pick her up again. After Grimaldi's business at the Opera-house was over, (he had merely to walk in the procession in Cymon,) he ran back alone to Sadler's Wells in thirteen minutes, and arrived just in time to dress for Clown in the concluding pantomime.

      This circumstance would be scarcely worth mentioning, but that it shows the industry and perseverance of Grimaldi, and the ease with which, by the exercise of those qualities, a very young person may overcome all the disadvantages and temptations incidental to the most precarious walk of a precarious pursuit, and become a useful and respectable member of society. He earned many a guinea from Mr. Fairbrother by working at his trade, and availing himself of his instruction in his leisure hours; and when he could do nothing in that way, he would go to Newton-street, and assist his uncle and cousin, the carcase butchers, for nothing; such was his unconquerable antipathy to being idle. He does not inform us, whether it required a practical knowledge of trade, to display that skill and address with which, in his subsequent prosperity, he would diminish the joints of his customers as a baker, or increase the weight of their meat as a butcher, but we hope, for the credit of trade, that his morals in this respect were wholly imaginary.

      These were his moments