MR. SOTHERN.*

Ma. PEMBERTON, an intimate friend of Sothern's, has given us within the compass of some three hundred pages of large print, a very sympathetic and entertaining sketch of one of the most eccentric comedians of the century. For although Dundreary died with his creator—in spite of his son's very clever imitation—and is little more than a name to the young playgoer of to-day, he was the rage not only of London, but of England, for the first half of the sixties. Sothern, as he put it himself, boiled down all the fops he ever met into this famous part, and presented his audience with such a double- distilled decoction of well-bred inanity, with a trace of humour and shrewdness subtly imbedded in it, as never before or since has been seen on the English stage.

Edward Askew Sothern was not an American, as many people have been led to imagine from his long connection with the Transatlantic stage. He was the son of a wealthy Liver- pool merchant, who discouraged his son's histrionic aspirations, and destined him for the Church or the Bar. Sothern, ac- cording to his biographer, retained throughout his life a strong predilection for theological discussions, but taking orders was another matter. While staying with some friends in Jersey, be made his first public appearance on the boards in The Lady of Lyons, as Claude Melnotte ; and although his success was by no means remarkable, he resolved to make the plunge, and being hampered at the outset with the possession of some money, created the necessity for working for his living by squandering it without delay. He joined the stock company at St. Heliers, did a good deal of hard work, and gradually made his way, wit/ Weymouth and Wolverhampton, to Birmingham, where he was glad to accept an engagement at the modest wage of 30s. a week. In these early days he acted under the assumed name of Douglas Stuart, and is described by an American friend as "tall, willowy, and lithe, with a clear red-and-white English complexion." From Birmingham he made his way to the National Theatre, Boston, where he failed hopelessly as Dr. Pangloss, and, was dismissed for incapacity. However, he accepted another engagement in the same city, at a reduced salary, until Barnum retained him to act at his Museum, in New York. Here he gained self-possession—sensitive and nervous he remained to the end of the chapter—and experi- ence, and after a while became a regular member of Mr. Wallack's company, which he left to join that of Miss Keene, under whose management he first appeared in the part which made him famous. His life hitherto had been a hard and a chequered one, and the success which now befel him was chiefly welcome in that it enabled him to bring his expatriation to a close. He describes himself in a

• A Memoir of Inward Askew Sothern. By T. Edgar Pemberton. London : Bentley and Son.

very homesick letter as having, if not genius, at least indis- putable perseverance. He was all through his life a very hard worker; whatever he put his hand to, he carried through with feverish intensity, whether it was acting, bunting, or practical joking ; and in these days of apprenticeship he spared no pains to obtain a thorough mastery of every department of his profession. As we have seen, his original debut was in melo- drama, and to the very end of his career he cherished the illusion that he might have achieved distinction in serious parts. Thus, we read how, not long before his own end, he played as Othello at a benefit performance in New York. The Emilia acted her part well ; but Desdemona was played by a comic actress, who rattled off the speeches, "much to the disgust of poor Sothern, who, magnificently costumed, played Othello in dead earnest, to the disappointment of the audience, who had expected all sorts of antics from Florence [a favourite American comedian who played Iago for the nonce] and him- self. In this case," remarked one who was present, Sothern suffered from his reputation as an incorrigible farceur ; frequently, when he was quite serious in conversation, he would find people laughing at his remarks." The foregoing anecdote reminds us that Robson and Buckstone once played Iago and Othello. We have been informed that it was a most extraordinary performance. Sothern had moments of sincerity and genuine feeling, just as Robson had ; but they could only rise to them wh.en the context was grotesque and not tragic. Mr. Pemberton tells two very diverting anecdotes of Sothern's, relating to the ridiculous consequences of the omission of the property-man to load the weapons to be used on the stage. In one of these Sothern himself was the hero :—

" He was playing with one of the famous tragedians of the day in that lugubrious but then popular drama, entitled Pauline ; or, a Night of Terror, in which, it may be remembered, two men, resolved to fight to the death, confront each other in the last act over a table on which lie two pistols, the one loaded, the other empty and harmless. With their backs to the table the men select their weapons, then face each other, and shoot. Sothern was to take up the deadly instrument, and as he fired, the tragedian, with a splendid 'back-fall,' was to drop down, a corpse. Alas ! alas ! the pistols were equally innocent of anything that would cause a report, and Sothern in dismay saw the almost noiseless fall of the two triggers, followed by the tragedian still standing and staring at him in mute and helpless dismay. In a moment Sothern became inspired, again presented the pistol, clicked the offending trigger, and, with all the force of a good pair of lungs, roared 'BANG!' The effect was instantaneous. The tragedian fell as if he had been shot through every vital part of his body, and the curtain came down to deafening applause."

Sothern's first appearance as Lord Dundreary, in The American Cousin, took place in 1858. There were but forty-seven lines assigned to him in the original version of the piece, and he

only consented to play it on the understanding that he should be allowed to write it up to any extent. The peculiar walk was the result of a little piece of pique against Miss Keene :—

" At rehearsal one cold day, Sothern, who was ever of a restless disposition, was endeavouring to keep himself warm by hopping about at the back of the stage, when Miss Keene sarcastically inquired if he was going to introduce that in Dundreary?' Among the bystanding actors and actresses this created a laugh, and Sothern, who at the time was out of temper with his part, replied in his gravest manner, Yes, Miss Keene ; that's my view of the character.' Having so fax committed himself, he felt bound to go on with it, and finding as the rehearsal progressed that the whole company, including the scene-shifters, were convulsed with laughter, he at night made capital out of a modified hop."

When the piece was produced at the Haymarket in 1861, Sothern was by no means confident as to the issue. Its success was not immediate, but it gradually worked its way into popular favour, as Charles Mathews prophesied it would, and in spite of the many other luminaries who were then in London,—Fechter, Phelps, the Boucicaults, Robson, and Kate Terry—Sothern outshone them all. Dundreary proved the chief attraction of the season, and his inimitable fooling drew crowded houses for four hundred consecutive nights. A good deal of space is devoted to an interesting account of the way in which Sothern created and elaborated his part. He was constantly altering, revising, and substituting, and at all times showed himself a stern critic of his own work. Many of the best of Dundreary's fatuities were founded on fact. "Every saying and every action of the apparently semi-idiotic creature was the result of careful observation and study : even the preposterous counting of the fingers was a tran- script from what had been seen." It is interesting, though not surprising, to learn that Sothern failed to impress the Parisians with the humour of his creation. "His

lordship was slightingly alluded to by critics as tin sort de snob," which proved how utterly they misunderstood the

character. Mr. Henry Irving was of the company, and though the venture was unsuccessful, Sothern—then in the flood-tide of prosperity—kept every one alive by his wild animal spirits. As an ingenious practical joker, or perpetrator of "sells," as he used to call them, Sothern was without an equal. It amounted to a positive mania with him, on which he was content to lavish a great deal of cash, partly in carrying out his tricks, partly in conscience-money, which took the form of handsome presents to his victims. Some of these freaks were unpardonably outrageous, but in the majority of cases there is a marked advance visible on the methods practised or described by Theodore Hook. Sometimes, too, his " sells " served a good purpose. Sothern bad no sympathy with the New Journalism, and the vulgar avidity of professional inter- viewers rendered them peculiarly vulnerable to his methods of imposture.

It is not fair to suppose that Sothern acquiesced in the popular verdict which labelled him a one-part actor. On the contrary, he was constantly looking out for new pieces, though his expectations were seldom fulfilled. Of all the numerous plays he experimented with, David Garrick was perhaps the only satisfactory one, and here the critics impugned the sincerity of his love-making, which made him very sore. In Byron's Fitzaltamont be thought he had discovered a second Dundreary, and set about boiling down all the old-school tragedians, as he bad previously boiled down all the fops. He tested the piece in Philadelphia, and with immediate suc- cess. At Birmingham it achieved a considerable succes d'estime, but at the Haymarket The Crushed Tragedian, as the new piece was called, proved a complete fiasco. In connection with this unlucky piece, the Count Joannes episode deserves a word of notice. An eccentric lawyer and ex-actor of that name put the cap on, and took legal proceedings against Sothern, on the ground that Sothern's make-up maligned him, and generally burlesqued his identity. Somebody asked Sothern how he would fight if Joannes challenged him, and his reply is given as follows :—

"I should prefer the date to be the first of April [this was actually his own birthday], and, although I haven't yet fully considered the question, I think the weapons should be cannon. Yes, on reflection, I am sure I shall insist on those new cannon that discharge one hundred and seventy shots a minute. Ho shall sit upon one of those engines and I upon another, and we will continue to discharge them until there shall be no remnant of either the Count or Sothern."

Spite of his mercilessness as a hoaxer, there can be no doubt that Sothern was personally a very attractive and kind- hearted man. In the hour of success he never forgot the

claims of his struggling colleagues. On one occasion he crossed the Atlantic in the middle of an American engage- ment to play in London for the benefit of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. He had the most generous admiration for his brother-comedians, and always found time to help a novice or answer a correspondent. Some of his advice to aspiring but unacted dramatists, reproduced by Mr. Pemberton, is excellent ; and the specimens of his own literary capacity given in this volume prove him to have wielded a very graceful and genial pen. According to his biographer, who is by no means afraid to criticise his hero, his great social successes never turned his head. But in combining society with the stage he essayed too much for a man of his highly strung nature. He would hunt all day, and rush back to town to act half the night. As Mr. Pemberton puts it, he was the comet, not of one, but of many seasons, and this constant burning of the candle at both ends brought him to his early grave. He never could live except at high-pressure, and when the break-

down came it was final and absolute. We have only to add that Mr. Pemberton's pleasantly written pages are embellished by several exceedingly good pictures and fac-similes. That on page 30 of Sothern as Dundreary will have historic value as a superlative caricature of the " swell " of the middle of this century.