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XXVIII. A Supplement on Strollers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Elbridge Colby
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Extract

Professor Alwin Thaler's paper, “Strolling Players and Provincial Drama after Shakspere,” was of particular interest to me for the reason that his interpretations and conclusions were based so extensively upon the Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, a document which I have taken as the subject for repeated studies. Indeed, in attempting to illustrate the life of Holcroft, radical, novelist, and playwright, I had myself been led to collect a considerable amount of material relating to the strollers of the eighteenth century. In presenting the notes which follow my purpose is to offer an additional contribution to the subject, supplementing the material assembled by Professor Thaler, but taking pains not to duplicate his references.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1924 , pp. 642 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924

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References

1 P. M. L. A. xxxvii, 243–280.

2 “A Bibliography of Thomas Holcroft,” Notes & Queries, July 4, 1914-Mar. 25, 1915; “Thomas H. and the Gordon Riots,” Amer. Catholic Quarterly Rev., Oct. 1914; “Thomas H. —Radical,” The Mid-West Quarterly, Oct. 1917; “Thomas H.—Man of Letters,” South All. Quarterly, Jan. 1923; A Bibliography of Thomas H. (N. Y. Public Library), N. Y. 1922.—all by the present writer.

3 Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, chapters viii and ix.

4 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, v, 59.

5 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, iii, 17; iv, 178, ii. 138.

6 Ibid., iv, 180. Cf. European Magazine, September, 1792, xxii, 230, “Disertation of the Country Stage. A Letter to the Editor from a Strolling Player to rescue from misery several young people who are possessed with high notions of the happiness attending upon the profession.”

7 S. W. Rylery, The Itinerant, viii, 47. See George Crabbe, The Borough, Letter, XII, lines 183ff. : ‘Epilogue Spoken at Midnight by a Young Man’ in European Magazine, November, 1785, viii, 389.

8 Ibid., viii. 243. Cf. Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, ii, 153.

9 The Theatric Tourist, London, 1805. page 1.

10 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, v, 220.

11 Ibid., viii, 241.

12 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, ii. 157, 170.

13 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, ix, 94–5.

14 Crawford-Hodgson, North Country Diaries (118 Surt. Soc. Pub.) p. 294; M. H. Dodds, “The Northern Stage,” in Archaeologia Aeliana, 3rd ser. vol. si, p. 25.

15 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, iii, 131.

16 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, ii, 256 Note the man who uses gestures and inflections in twenty characters, because they go well in one, Ibid., Wandering Patentee, iv, 16.

17 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, ix, 84–5.

18 Ibid., v, 162.

19 For instances, see F. W. Hawkins, Life of Edmund Kean, edition of London, 1869, i, 49, 54–123.

20 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, ii, 170.

21 Dodds, “The Northern Stage,” loc. cit. p. 26; The Vicar of Wakefield, chapter xix; S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, iv, 144; George Crabbe, The Borough, Letter XII, line 22; ‘Epiloge at the End of the Season’, London Magazine, September, 1773, xlii, 458.

22 James Boaden, Memoir of Mrs. Inchbald, chapter iii, vol. i, p. 39ff.

23 M. H. Dodds, “The Northern Stage”, loc. cit. p. 30.

24 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iv, 74.

25 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, chapter xix; M. H. Dodds, “The Northern Stage,” loc. cit., pp. 26–7; British Museum, Add. MS. 33,488, f. 3; James Boaden, Memoir of Mrs. Inchbald, i, 50; The Glasgow Journal, 2 June 1774.

26 British Museum, Add. MS., 33,488, f. 5.

27 James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, i. 52. Tho at times on foot or by cart.

28 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, i, 190–6.

29 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, vi, 227. Also, ibid., vi, 173, 190.

30 Vicar of Wakefield, chapter xviii.

31 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iii, 60–1.

32 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, iii. 37.

33 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iv, 60.

34 T. Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons; E. A. Parry, Life of Charles Macklin; John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian.

35 James Boaden, Memoir of Mrs. Inchbald, i, 36, 50–51.

36 British Museum, Add. MS., 33,488, fol. 3, 4, 5.

37 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, vi, 339. Similar incidents appear in Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, i, 224; Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, i, 140; iii, 196;

38 Hazlitt, Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, i, 228–233.

39 Thomas Dibdin, Reminiscences (1827), i, 80–1.

40 P. M. L. A., xxxvii, 260–1.

41 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, iv, 144.

42 James T. Kirkman, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin (1799), ii, 35

43 E. A. Parry, Charles Macklin, p. 123; James T. Kirkman, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, ii, 46; R. J. Broadbent, Annals of the Liverpool Stage, p. 51.

44 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, ii, 230.

45 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, iii, 33.

46 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iii, 60.

47 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, vi, 368.

48 Ibid., vi, 359.

49 Ibid., v, 220.

50 Ibid., viii., 134.

51 Ibid., vi, 211.

52 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iii, 85.

53 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, ii, 159.

54 Ibid., ii, 222.

55 Ibid., ii, 37.

56 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iii, 23.

57 Tate Wilkinson Wandering Patentee, ii, 213 (in 1795).

58 Ibid., iv, 67.

59 Ibid., ii, 147.

60 Tate Wilkinson, Memories i, 228.

61 British Museum, Add. MS. 33,488, f. 22 et seq.

62 Macready, Reminiscences, pp. 28–9.

63 Tate Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, iii, 219–221.

64 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, ii, 241.

65 Ibid., i, 144.

66 George Crabbe, The Borough, Letter XII.

67 Thomas Holcroft, Hugh Trevor, iii, 103.

68 This sentiment is also touched upon in Alwyn (i, 143) : “The sublime and forcible lessons of morality with which our dramatic pieces abound, scarcely permit the inculcator to stand neuter.”

69 Thomas Holcroft, Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian, ii, 30.

70 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, iii, 9–12, 252. Holcroft remarks that that was “a good town” for the actors in which though “the parson preaches against the players every Sunday (as many parsons did during the season) … as he was not mightily beloved, why they are resolved not to mind what he says.” (Alwyn, i, 149)

71 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, vii, 332.

72 Ibid., ix, 162.

73 Ibid., ix, 107

74 Ibid., vi,217.

75 Ibid., vi, 198.

76 The Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter xviii.

77 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, vi, 436.

78 Ibid., vi. 364.

79 M. H. Dodds, “The Northern Stage,” loc. cit., p. 25.

80 S. W. Ryley, The Itinerant, v, 246, ix, 185.

81 M. H. Dodds, “The Northern Stage,” loc. cit., p. 24.

82 William Dunlap, Memoirs of George Frederick Cooke, i, 24.