sometimes remembered now as the author of A Simple Story
and as the editor of a collection of plays in nine volumes, The
Modern Theatre in twenty-five volumes, and a collection of Farces and After-Pieces in seven volumes, all of which were published in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It
must have been, too, her translations of Lovers' Vows that caused the head of the family at Mansfield Park such grief and displeasure.
Mr. Littlewood calls his short biography a " real-life novel," and ho has succeeded in drawing a charming picture of a most attractive woman. To discuss the book's faults first and have done with them. Unfortunately, he cannot resist the temptation of trying to be funny. His agreeable subject-matter and his pleasant method of presenting his facts to the reader make jocularity completely unnecessary, even if jocularity were ever successful. This sort of passage ocours repeatedly. He is describing how the newly-married Mrs. Inchbald began her career as a provincial actress on tour :-
" The new opening which both she and her husband were so eagerly seeking was, as it proved, to take them far away, to a land which is, in general, more famous for the people that come from it than for those that go to it—in a word, as has been already hinted, to bonnie Scotland."
This kind of writing gives the book a sad flavour of amateur- ishness; but fortunately, as the story proceeds, the jocularities decrease, and by the middle and end we are allowed to see the unaffected Mrs. Inehbald through an unaffected medium.
Mrs. Inchbald was a Roman Catholic, the daughter of a Suffolk farmer and one of a large family. About 1768 (Mr. Littlewood is not lavish with dates) she ran away to London to go on the stage. Mr. Littlewood gives us an excellent picture of the moral ertmosphere in which she found herself ; it was not unlike that of The Beggar's Opera. But though she arrived in London friendless, beautiful, adventurous and penniless; though most
of her life was spent as a moderately successful actress, now in the provinces, now in London ; though she was always poor from her habit of supporting indigent relations, she remained all her life as virtuous as she was lively, beautiful, quick-witted, popular and coquettish.
In her early days Mrs. Inchbald played Cordelia, and also Bellario in Philaster, besides walking on in The Beggar's Opera
• Elizabeth Inehbald and Her Circle. By 8. B.. Littlewood. London : Daniel O'Connor. 1103. od. net.] as one of Macheath's confederates—she was famous for her slim figure and often acted boys' parts. Lear was one of the first plays in which she appeared in the provinces, of course—and Mr. Littlewood shows very well what a tre. mendons advantage the system of travelling repertory stock
companies gave to young and ambitious actors and actresses. Her part was that of Cordelia. The " star " system seems to have been hardly known ; quite young players were given major parts; thus a year or two on the road gave a young player a wide experience of his profession. Mrs. Inchbald began her career just after Garrick's death; her own friends, Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, had not yet " arrived," and Sheridan had just written The School for Scandal. London was almost exclusively served by its two " patent " theatres, which blocked out all rivalry ; but these two London playhouses were appar- ently almost more than sufficient for the public, for Mr. Little- wood reminds us that a success at one was invariably held to excuse failure at the other. Though the elite of the audience no longer eat upon the stage, a large part of the action of plays took place upon the still extensive " apron " stage, so that the chief players stood with the audience in the stage boxes at their sides as well as in front, hence scenic effects were almost impossible, these effects being compensated for by the splendour and pageantry of the costume. Mr. Littlewood here interpolates an informing remark on the writing of plays. In view of the presence of the audience in these stage-boxes on the same level —in the same room, as it were—as the actors :-
" The frequent ' asides,' spoken, in fact as well as appearance, to the actual occupants of the stage-boxes, remained an enor- mously important, thoroughly justifiable, and in no way dis. concerting, device of comedy."
As for Mrs. Inchbald herself, she was not a very striking success on the stage, but remained " just a charming and useful actress of no particular distinction," but she must have been an amazingly attractive woman. " That woman Inchbald," said Harris, the manager of Covent Garden, who was one of the many whose illicit proposals she had repulsed, " has solemnly devoted herself to virtue and a garret." We read that she always resented a look that displeased her, though she was far from being strait-laced and was much beloved at the theatre, whore affected prudery of any sort would not be tolerated for a moment. The following anecdote which Mr. Littlewood quotes from her diary gives an amusing picture of contemporary morals :—
" ' To have fixed the degrees and shades,' she writes, of female virtue possessed at this time by the actresses of the Haymarket Theatre would have been employment for an able casuist ' One evening, about half an hour before the curtain was drawn up, some accident having happened in the dressing-room of one of the actresses, a woman of known intrigue, she ran in haste to the dressing-room of Mrs. Wells to finish the business of her toilet. Mrs. Wells, who was the mistress of the well-known Captain Topham, shocked at the intrusion of a reprobated woman, who had a worse character than herself, quitted her own room and ran to Miss Farren's, crying, What would Captain Topham say if I were to remain in such company ? ' No sooner had she entered the room, to which as an asylum she had fled, than Miss Farron flew out at the door, repeating, What would Lord Derby say if I should be seen in such company ? ' The little comedy was carried on, Mrs. Inchbald tells us, until refuge was found in the dressing- room of a lady who was at any rate supposed to be respectably married, but, Mrs. Inchbald believes, ' not very accurately.' " At one time Mrs. Inchbald fell very much in love with Kemble, her junior in stage experience though not in age. We form the impression that he was nothing like good enough for her—of a Rousseauesque elevation of character, but terribly pretentious and tiresome and without a grain of Mrs. Innhbald's humour. He writes to her, for instance, from Yorkshire, asking her to tell him, if possible, the secret of the success of Henderson as Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts :- "' What kind of hat does Mr. Henderson wear ? What kind of wig—of cravat—of ruffies—of. . clothes—of stockings, with or without embroidered clocks 1—square or round-toed shoes ? I shall be uneasy if I have not an idea of his dress, even to the shape of his buckles, and what rings he wears on his hands.' Kemble also begs ' that Mrs. Inchbald will explain' to him how Sir Giles can be said to flourish his sword ' and shortly after describe it as glued to his scabbard with wronged orphans' tears.' The truth seems to be that the merit of Handerson'a performance, which, in this ferociously emotional part, was a good deal better and more passionate than Kemble s, lay not in his cravat or in his buckles. but in his genius."
The reader will close the book with great gratitude to Mr. Littlewood and a sense of having made the acquaintance of a captivating woman.
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