The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 4

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 4

In 1809, the destruction by fire of the two patent houses having

compelled the rival companies to coalesce and repair to the Lyceum,

principally for the purpose of providing employment for the humbler

members of the profession, Theodore Hook contributed the well-known

after-piece of "Killing no Murder." Apart from the intrinsic merit

of the piece itself, the admirable acting of Liston as Apollo

Belvi, and of Mathews as Buskin, for whom it was especially written

(though, by the way, it is but justice to add, on the authority of

Mrs. Mathews, that the latter character was but "a sketch, which Mr.

Mathews filled up _ad libitum_"),--there were circumstances attending

its representation which invested it with peculiar interest, and

enlisted all the sympathies of the audience in favour of the author.

It appears that on the MS. being submitted to the deputy-licenser,

Mr. Larpent, certain passages reflecting on the Methodist preachers

induced that gentleman, in the first instance, to place a veto on the

performance. A compromise, however, was effected, the objectionable

scene remodelled, and the play allowed to proceed. Whether it would

have been wiser, upon the whole, to have suffered it to go forth

with its imperfections on its head, and to have trusted to the good

taste of the public to demand the suppression of any incidental

improprieties, may be a question, the more so, as the licenser's

authority, extending only to the acted drama, could offer no

hindrance to its publication. Some half-dozen editions, containing

the passages omitted in the performance, were struck off and

circulated like wildfire, together with a preface, from which, as the

author has thus an opportunity of stating his own case, it may be as

well to present our readers with a few extracts:--

 

"I should have suffered my gratitude to the public to have been felt,

not told, had not some very singular circumstances compelled me to

explain part of my conduct, which, if I remained silent, might be

liable to misconstruction. On the evening previous to the performance

of 'Killing no Murder,' I was much surprised to hear that it could

not be produced, because Mr. Larpent, the reader of plays (as he is

termed), had refused to grant his license for it. The cause of the

refusal was, I heard, political. I revolted at the idea; and, as a

young man entering life, felt naturally anxious to clear my character

from the imputation of disloyalty. Then I heard it rumoured that the

ground of the refusal was its immorality. Here again I was wounded;

for though I confess I have no pretension to sanctity, yet I hope I

shall never prostitute my time in the production of that for which

even wit itself is no excuse.

 

"Thus situated, I set off in search of the gentleman who had

strangled my literary infant in its birth; and to find him I referred

to the 'Red-book,' where I discovered that John Larpent, Esq., was

_clerk_ at the Privy Seal Office, that John Larpent, Esq., was

_deputy_ to John Larpent, Esq., and that the _deputy's secretary_ was

John Larpent, Esq. This proved to me that a man could be in three

places at once; but on inquiry, I found he was even in a fourth and

a fifth, for it was by virtue of none of these offices he licensed

plays, and his place, _i.e._, his villa, was at Putney. Thither I

proceeded in a post-chaise, in chase of this ubiquitarian deputy,

and there I found him. After a seasonable delay to beget an awful

attention on my part, he appeared, and told me with a chilling look,

that the second act of my farce was a most 'indecent and shameful

attack on a very religious and harmless set of people' (he meant

the Methodists), 'and that my farce altogether was an infamous

persecution of the sectaries.' Out came the murder. The character of

a Methodist preacher, written for Liston's incomparable talents, with

the hope of turning into ridicule the ignorance and impudence of the

self-elected pastors, who infest every part of the kingdom, met with

the reprehension of the licenser.

 

* * * * *

 

"It was in vain I adduced Mother Cole in the 'Minor,' Mawworm in the

'Hypocrite,' Barebones in the 'London Hermit,' and half-a-dozen other

parts. The great licenser shook his head 'as if there was something

in it,' and told me that Lord Dartmouth had the piece; if he did

not object, it might yet be played; but if his lordship concurred

with him, not a line should be performed. I took my leave, fully

convinced how proper a person Mr. Larpent was to receive, in addition

to his other salaries, four hundred pounds per annum, besides

perquisites, for reading plays, the pure and simple performance of

which, by his creed, is the acme of sin and unrighteousness. His even

looking at them is contamination--but four hundred a-year--a sop for

Cerberus--what will it not make a man do?

 

* * * * *

 

"Now, in defence of the part of 'Apollo Belvi,' as originally

written, I consider it necessary to speak. It is a notorious fact

that the Methodists are not contented with following their own

fashions in religion, but they endeavor hourly to overturn the

Established Church by all means, open and covert; and I know, as a

positive fact, that it is considered the first duty of Methodist

parents to irritate their children against the regular clergy, before

the poor wretches are able to think or consider for themselves. Nay,

they are so ingenious in their efforts for this purpose, that they

inculcate the aversion by nick-naming whatever object the children

hate most after some characteristic of the Episcopal religion; and

I have known a whole swarm of sucking Methodists frightened to bed

by being told that the _bishop_ was coming--the impression resulting

from this alarm grows into an antipathy, and from having been, as

children, accustomed to consider a bishop as a bugbear, it became

no part of their study to discover why--the very mention of lawn

sleeves throws them into agonies ever after. Seeing, then, with what

zeal these sectaries attack us, and with what ardour they endeavour

to widen the breach between us by persecution and falsehood, I did

conceive that the lash of ridicule might be well applied to their

backs, particularly as I prefer this open mode of attack to the

assassin-like stab of the dagger, to which the cowardly Methodist

would, for our destruction, have no objection to resort.

 

"But my ridicule went to one point only. Mr. L. Hunt, in his

admirable Essays on Methodism, justly observes, that a strong

feature in the Methodists' character is a love of preaching. If it

be possible that these self-elected guardians and ministers have an

ascendency over the minds of their flocks, and have the power to

guide and direct them, it becomes surely the duty of every thinking

being to consider their qualifications for such a task.

 

"The wilful misleadings of the clever Methodists, from the small

proportion of talent that exists among them, are more harmless in

their tendency than the blasphemous doctrines of ignorance. The more

illiterate the preacher, the more infatuated the flock; and there

is less danger in the specious insinuation of a refined mind than

the open and violent __EXPRESSION__s of inspired tailors and illuminated

cobblers. It was to ridicule such monstrous incongruities, that,

without any claim to originality, I sketched the part of 'Belvi,'

in the following farce. I conceived, by blending the most flippant

and ridiculous of all callings, except a man-milliner's (I mean

a dancing-master's), with the grave and important character of a

preacher, I should, without touching indelicately on the subject,

have raised a laugh against the absurd union of spiritual and secular

avocations, which so decidedly marks the character of the Methodist.

Of the hypocrisy introduced into the character, I am only sorry

that the lightness of the farce prevented my displaying a greater

depth of deception. All I can say is, that, whatever was written

in 'Killing no Murder,' against the Methodists, was written from a

conviction of their fallacy, their deception, their meanness, and

their profaneness."

 

Another farce, "Exchange no Robbery," produced at a somewhat later

period, under the pseudonym of "Richard Jones," deserves honourable

mention. Terry, another intimate associate from that time forth, had

in Cranberry a character excellently adapted to his saturnine aspect

and dry humour; and Liston was not less happily provided for in

Lamotte.

 

Almost all these pieces were written before Hook was twenty years of

age. Had he gone on in this successful dramatic career, and devoted

to such productions the experience of manhood and that marvellous

improvisatore power which was to make him the _facile princeps_ of

the satirists and humourists of his time, there can be no doubt he

must have rivalled any farce-writer that ever wrote in any language.

 

It was in his twentieth year that Theodore Hook made his first

appearance as a novelist, under the pseudonym of Alfred Allendale.[4]

Lockhart characterizes the work as "a mere farce, though in a

narrative shape and as flimsy as any he had given to the stage.

As if the set object," he says, "had been to satirize the Minerva

Press School, everything, every individual turn in the fortunes of

his 'Musgrave' is brought about purely and entirely by accident."

The sentimental hero elopes with his mistress. A hundred miles down

the North road they stop for a quarter of an hour--order dinner,

and stroll into the garden. Behold, the dreaded rival happens to be

lodging here--he is lounging in the garden at this moment. The whole

plan is baulked. Some time afterwards they elope again--and reach

Gretna Green in safety.

 

"Cruel mothers, chattering friends, and flattering rivals all were

distanced--the game was run down, he was in at the death, and the

brush was his own. False delicacy at Gretna is exploded; a woman

when she goes into Lanchester's is known to want millinery (people

say something more), when she lounges at Gray's she is understood

to stand in need of trinkets, when she stops at Gattie's she wants

complexion, and when she goes to Gretna she wants a husband.

 

"That being the case, _not_ to talk of marriage is as absurdly

_outré_ as not to call for supper, and therefore Musgrave with a

sly look at his blushing bride, ordered a couple of roasted fowls

and a parson to be ready immediately; the waiter, perfect in his

part, stepped over to the chandler's shop, hired the divine, and at

half-past ten the hymeneal rites were to be solemnized."--Vol. i., p.

84.

 

The fowls are put to the fire--the blacksmith appears--the ceremony

has just reached the essential point, when a chaise dashes up to the

door--out spring the heroine's mother and the rival again. Farther

on, the hero comes late at night to an inn, and is put into a

double-bedded room, in which the rival happens to be deposited, fast

asleep. The rival gets up in the morning before the hero awakes, cuts

his thumb in shaving, walks out, sees a creditor, jumps on the top

of a passing stage-coach, and vanishes. The hero is supposed to have

murdered him--the towel is bloody--he must have contrived to bury the

body; he is tried, convicted, condemned;--he escapes--an accident

brings a constable to the cottage where he is sheltered--he is

recaptured--pinioned--mounts the drop; he is in the act of speaking his last speech, when up dashes another post-chaise containing the rival, who had happened to see the trial just the morning before in an old newspaper. And so on through three volumes.