Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture [1 ed.] 9780984416370, 9780982131367

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Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture

Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture

Jeffrey Kahan

Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press

© 2010 by Rosemont Publishing and Printing Corp. All rights reserved. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the copyright owner, provided that a base fee of $10.00, plus eight cents per page, per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923. [978-0-9821313-6-7/10 $10.00 + 8¢ pp, pc.]

Associated University Presses 2010 Eastpark Boulevard Cranbury, NJ 08512

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kahan, Jeffrey, 1964– Bettymania and the birth of celebrity culture / Jeffrey Kahan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-9821313-6-7 (alk. paper) 1. Betty, William Hen. West (William Henry West), 1791–1874—Appreciation. 2. Betty, William Hen. West (William Henry West), 1791–1874—Influence. 3. Fame—History—19th century. 4. Popular culture—Great Britain—History—19th century 5. Theater—Great Britian—History—19th century. I. Title. PN2598.B63K35 2010 792.02'8092—dc22 2009053264 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To David Werner and his sense of Wonder

Contents

Acknowlegments

9

Introduction: Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture

13

1. Bettymanias in Ireland and Scotland and England

29

2. Betty Conquers London

55

3. Kemble’s Revenge

81

4. Desiring and Tiring of Master Betty

107

5. The Latter Years

129

Coda: Bettymania and Its Aftermath

150

Appendix: Betty’s London Performances

157

Notes

165

Works Cited

209

Index

223

7

Acknowledgments

BETTYMANIA WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE were it not for a convergence of wills. The same can be said for the writing of this book, which was made possible by the generosity of and the access to a variety of institutions. To begin with, I owe a debt of thanks to my academic home, the University of La Verne. In the fall of 2007, the university granted me funds which allowed me to build up an extensive collection of Betty prints, collectibles, and press clippings. Then, in the summer of the following year, La Verne’s Faculty Research Committee granted me a term sabbatical and travel funds to complete this book. Jobs are hard to come by in academia; good jobs even harder. I would like, therefore, to acknowledge the assistance of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Fred Yaffe, La Verne’s Provost, Alden Reimonenq, and the Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs, Al Clark. The Huntington Library awarded me with a short-term grant to study their Betty pamphlets and prints, as did the Ransom Center—my deep appreciation to their theater arts curator Helen Adair. Betty Falsey of the Houghton Library also deserves a special mention for readying a vast amount of materials for me to sift through during my short visit to Harvard in the summer of 2008. Cassandra Berman, Erin Blake, and the ever-resourceful Georgianna Ziegler of the Folger were kind enough to collect and to photograph an assortment of Betty paraphernalia for this study. I am equally indebted to Rowan Fitzpatrick, Senior Archives Assistant for the Shropshire County Council for providing me with the birth and death records on Betty’s sister, Marianne Euphemia. I am equally obliged to the pages of the British Library, the Houghton, the Huntington, the New York Public Library, the Ransom, the Theatre Museum Covent Garden, and the Victoria and Albert—who, as I imagine it, stumbled with flashlight in hand amidst closed stacks in search of that one, forgotten Betty press clipping, playbill, epistle, or pamphlet. Lastly, to colleagues who read and commented on sections or the entirety of this book—Rachel Alon, Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski, David Werner, Graham Bradshaw, Gene Melton, Glenda Krupa, and, above others, the director of Lehigh University Press, Professor Scott Paul Gordon—thank you all for believing that a study of Bettymania would prove valuable.

9

Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture

Introduction: Bettymania and the Birth of Celebrity Culture B right born Genius of the Age! E arly Wonder of the Stage! T hron’d by NATURE—thousands own; T hespian Sons, of high renown, Y ield to THEE the SCENIC CROWN.1

I N 1804, A KIND OF madness descended upon London. A thirteen-yearold boy actor, William Henry West Betty, arrived and in an instant seized the town. Londoners forgot their differences and united in their devotion to the child: “the peer abandoned his claret, the shopkeeper his ale, the man-milliner forgot his frills, and the ladies almost forgot their toilette— in a word all classes of society felt the impulse, and vied only with each other in the most obvious and effectual demonstrations of their admiration.”2 Even the iconoclastic poet Byron recorded that he saw Betty on several occasions, each time “at the hazard of my life.”3 Although it is possible that Byron was exaggerating, there were, undoubtedly, risks involved in seeing Betty. Across the United Kingdom, mobs tore at each other to get tickets; in Liverpool, one woman was trampled to death in the scrum outside the theater, prompting one memorialist to hope that London women would “avoid so disastrous a fate.”4 Crowds were so intent upon securing seats for Betty’s London premiere at Covent Garden on Saturday, December 1, 1804, that the theater, fearing riots and injury, placed a “strong detachment of guards” outside and a “select body of peace officers” within. 5 They proved ineffective. When the doors were fi nally opened, “there was a rush which,” if we can believe the most sanguinary of accounts, “ultimately, cost some persons their lives.”6 Private boxes were soon overrun with patrons. When the boxholders tried to get them ejected, the mob simply turned hostile. Crowds broke windows and doors were ripped from their moorings. The “pressure was so great, that in the course of the night several men were overcome with the heat, and lifted up into the boxes, whence they were carried out of the House.”7 Riots and mayhem marred Betty’s second performance at Drury Lane (December 13, 1804), where fans, unable to secure tickets, “broke most of the windows within their reach on the Vinegar-yard side of the Theatre; and by the impetuosity of their movement when the passages were thrown open, the balustrades on both sides of the staircase which leads to the boxes, were entirely demolished.”8 Within the theater, two gents, arguing 13

14

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

over a box seat, pulled out pistols and threatened to shoot each other. 9 Repeated performances only seemed to stoke interest. The Monthly Mirror reported that even a month after the boy’s London premiere “crowds still continue to press to the theatre on every night of his performance.”10 On February 11, 1805, two and a half months after Londoners fi rst rioted for Betty tickets, the Morning Chronicle reported that the “curiosity of the public seems to increase instead of abating”; on March 4, 1805, the Morning Chronicle stated that Betty’s acting was “more admired by the public the oftener it is seen”; on June 5, 1805, the Aberdeen Journal announced to its readers that, even after six months and just over sixty performances of Betty at Drury Lane or Covent Garden, his “attraction [in London] is unabated,” his fi nal performance of Hamlet for the season was “nearly as crowded as on the occasion of his entree.”11 Like the groupies who would a century and a half later mob Elvis or the Beatles, fans raved and regularly fainted when near “the divine Master Betty.”12 The Caledonian Mercury reported that on Betty’s first London appearance, the “screams of the females were very distressing, and several fainted away”; the Morning Chronicle reported that during a performance of Betty’s Romeo, “nearly thirty persons were pulled from the pit, in fainting fits.”13 One emboldened woman stood up in the theater and promptly stripped down to her underwear.14 Even older, sophisticated men were strangely overcome by emotion: when watching the boy perform, Drury Lane’s manager R. B. Sheridan shed sighs, tears, and sobs; a similarly affected William Pitt, the prime minister of England, wept openly and uncontrollably.15 Fans followed him wherever he went and even camped outside his house. Richard Cumberland, a distinguished playwright of the period, recalled that he was walking around London one day when he found himself outside Betty’s residence. A large crowd had gathered to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon. Cumberland observed that one man brought his trained bear and started an impromptu performance for ready change, but when Betty appeared at the window, the throng abandoned “the bear and the bear-leader in a solitude.”16 Betty’s renown was such that one London restaurateur changed the name of his establishment to “Betty’s Cook-shop,” and, inspired by the boy’s portrayal of Achmet, served a dish called “Ach-meat.” The owner expected as a result “a very considerable increase of customers” from “all the country.”17 When the Morning Chronicle reported that Betty was going that evening to the Haymarket Theatre to see Mary Goldsmith’s comedy She Lives, or The Generous Brother, the theater expected an “early overflow to take place, in consequence of our dramatic prodigy attending.”18 There was more than curiosity at work here. Fans felt a real connection to this young star. When Betty was struck with a bout of diarrhea, his devotees demanded and received daily bulletins on his recovery.19 Even royalty, whose very majesty depended upon theatrical displays of pomp and circumstance, was caught up in Bettymania. The king, queen,

INTRODUCTION

15

and princesses personally visited Drury Lane to have a private audience with Betty, wherein he was “much noticed and caressed.”20 The equally attentive Duke of Clarence and Lady Beaumont dined with Betty at their

Figure 1. Betty as Hamlet (Harry Ransom Library).

16

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

house in Stable Yard and later accompanied the boy to the Tower of London, where “he was received with the honours usually reserved for royal personages.”21 Not to be outdone, the prince of Wales invited Betty to the royal residence, Carleton House, whereupon arrival the prince “complimented him in the most flattering terms on his theatrical abilities,” and soon after presented the prodigy with a royal carriage and four.22 Betty was “ushered into the drawing-room of London, with all the pomp of a foreign Ambassador.”23 The Count d’Artois, the future king of France, hurried over to Lady Percival’s party to see the plump-faced boy shake his abundant blond curls and recite poetry in French.24 The prime minister adjourned debate in the House of Commons early so that he and his fellow cabinet ministers could gaze upon the teen wonder’s portrayal of Hamlet. Acclaimed poets and artists genuflected in similar hope and wonder. William Wordsworth prayed that Betty would “rescue the English theatre from the infamy that has fallen upon it.”25 The famed painters John Opie and James Northcote rendered the boy’s cherubic likeness in classical attitudes and remained grovelingly “sensible of the favour”; 26 miniatures and medallions of Betty were worn proudly throughout London. His bust was struck up in marble by sculptors; verses were poured upon him in the sickly sweet style of idolatrous adulation; even his pet dog, a bulldog— British nationalists rejoiced!—was the subject of a commerical etching.27 The boy profited mightily. He was paid ₤50, then ₤100 a night, and once as much as ₤1,200 for a single London performance.28 This in an era when John Philip Kemble was paid ₤12 a night, supporting actors at Drury Lane made do on less than ₤3 a performance, and Edmund Kean, then a star in the provinces, somehow survived on 6 shillings a week! (To adjust these numbers for our currency valuation, multiple the sum by seventy-seven: Kemble was making ₤924 a night; the average London performer made ₤231 a night; poor Edmund Kean made ₤3.85 night; Master Betty earned anywhere from ₤3,850 to ₤92,400 a performance.) 29 By July 30, 1808, the Ipswich Journal reported that Betty, in a mere four years, had earned more than David Garrick had in a lifetime. “Popular” does not begin to capture the fever Betty inspired. Embraced by royalty, caressed by dukes and duchesses, feted by poets, flattered by wits, panegyrized by painters and sculptors, wafted to morning rehearsals in coroneted carriages, attended by powdered lackeys, stuck up in printshop windows, coined into medallions, sliced into luncheon meats, assailed by admiring crowds, the collective phenomenon was so unfamiliar, unusual, and irrational that British society had to create a new word for it—Bettymania. We, however, have a modern word for this social frenzy—celebrity. Most scholars agree that the concept of celebrity was in place by the end of the eighteenth century, though celebrities themselves were not necessarily household names.30 Initially, celebrity was a minor achievement,

INTRODUCTION

17

a distinct second place to another mode of public acknowledgment— fame.31 Explaining the differences between the two forms of tribute, Hester Lynch Piozzi wrote that fame conveys “names of more importance to future ages, and regions far remote,” whereas the newer concept celebrity “is of a weaker degree in strength, and narrower in extent”; it “commands—and justly—the admiration of . . . [a] small circle.”32 Fame, though long lasting, was difficult to come by—a military victory, an act of bravery, the writing, painting, or sculpting of a masterpiece; celebrity, on the other hand, might be cheaply earned by, or even freely bestowed on, people from all walks of life: in the summer of 1703, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Latinist George Psalmanazar, claiming to be a cannibal prince from Formosa (present-day Taiwan), enjoyed much of the renown we now associate with celebrity; as discussed later in this study, actor David Garrick’s various self-promotions in the 1760s were early and important instances of celebrity making; the teenage poet and forger Thomas Chatterton died a virtual unknown in 1770, but, by the 1790s, was referred to as a “celebrity.”33 In the 1780s, the actress, writer, and royal concubine Mary Robinson was aware of, if not always thrilled with, her public persona. Her dresses were copied, her poetry recited, her face immortalized by Joshua Reynolds.34 But we are not yet in the era of the modern celebrity. Note that Piozzi relegated the social impact of celebrity to a “small circle.” So far as the aforementioned examples of eighteenth-century celebrity are concerned, she was doubtless correct. Curiosity concerning Psalmanazar was localized to London, and even then among only a small number of academics; the wider population of London—to say nothing of Britain as a whole—probably “didn’t care whether Psalmanazar was a Formosan or not.”35 Garrick was well-known in different parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, though, as Tom Mole asserts, elements of his “celebrity apparatus were not yet working in concert.”36 Awareness of Chatterton grew after his death, but his celebrity remained confi ned chiefly to a narrow, Romantic sphere. Mary Robinson’s celebrity was still narrower. Her book of poems sold scarcely six hundred copies, and those only by private subscription. Overall, early celebrity promotion seems trivial and amateurish, at least in comparison to Betty’s businesslike media machine, which sought public endorsements, paid critics for positive notices, issued daily health bulletins, leaked private correspondence for press release, repackaged the boy actor for regional markets, and profited directly from official or souvenir merchandise. Whether Betty was the fi rst, full-fledged modern celebrity must remain a matter of opinion. What is not open to dispute is the scale and complexity of Bettymania. It began with a remarkable agreement between governmental and corporate structures in Ireland. Master Betty made his professional debut at Theatre Royal Belfast in the aftermath of the brief-but-bloody Emmet Rebellion of 1803. Although Belfast was under

18

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

curfew, the lord mayor saw Betty as a safe and patriotic form of entertainment. Essentially, audiences were encouraged to see Betty as a “manifestation of loyalty” to the Crown.37 While Betty’s debut emphasized the patriotic and city-sanctioned nature of attending a Theatre Royal during martial law, the theater also issued an advertisement that stressed the novelty of the boy’s performance: “MR. ATKINS presents his respects to the Ladies and Gentlemen of Belfast and the Public, that, willing to bring forward every novelty in his power, he has, through the intercession of several ladies, prevailed on the friends of a young gentleman, only eleven years old, whose theatrical abilities have been the wonder and admiration of all who have heard him, to perform in public two or three of the characters he most excels in.”38 Just how successful was Betty? Even his lyrical fans admitted that no more than a few dozen spectators witnessed his Belfast debut.39 Indeed, Betty’s initial performance was greeted with little enthusiasm. A few dates in Belfast followed, though they were not successful enough to generate instant bookings elsewhere.40 Instead, Betty seems to have remained inactive and unrewarded until his performance dates in Dublin, beginning on November 28, 1803. Thereafter, the Irish took a strong interest in him, and all his remaining performance dates in that country were virtually sold out. How might we explain this abrupt awakening of interest in the celebrity? It is illuminating to note that his sudden success coincided with a new promotional campaign: in Belfast, the boy had been promoted as a patriotic “novelty” with “theatrical abilities”; in Dublin, however, he was marketed not as an oddity but as “The Infant Roscius”; by the time he arrived in Scotland and then England, he was billed as “The Young Roscius.” Roscius was the name of a Roman actor, but for the British, and particularly the Irish, the appellation was synonymous with a favored son, the aforementioned David Garrick. At the end of the 1743 London season, Garrick, who was of French and Irish descent, traveled to Dublin for the summer season at the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley. People of “rank and fashion were constant attendants at the theatre, and the public went in crowds whenever he performed.”41 The weather had been unseasonably hot that summer, so much so that audiences contracted heat fevers, which, in the mania over Garrick, became known as “Garrick Fever.” He was publicly feted with a poem which began with a play upon the high temperature of that Irish summer and the intense admiration audiences had for the actor: Roscius, Phœnix of the stage, Born to please a learned age!42

By dubbing Betty “The Young Roscius,” his handlers were not only suggesting that Betty was a Garrick-like talent, they were also hoping that his

INTRODUCTION

19

association with Garrick would create a Garrick-like draw. The Young Roscius was a name “born to please,” designed to attract both older audiences who remembered Garrick and younger audiences who craved something unfamiliar. Betty’s promoters may have had yet another reason to link their Young Roscius to Garrick. Tom Mole and others have recently charted the ways in which David Garrick used a variety of media “to promote and control his public image.”43 On stage, for example, Garrick often used his plays to discuss his personal life: in 1749, Garrick married a dancer, Eva Marie Veigel. After his honeymoon, he performed Much Ado About Nothing, and, on Benedict’s line: “Here you may see Benedict the married man!” the actor, fully understanding that his recent marriage had been the talk of the town, grimaced broadly.44 The audience, understanding the joke, erupted in laughter. Relatedly, Garrick placed ringers in the audience at the Stratford Jubilee to say ungenerous things about Shakespeare, thus allowing the actor-celebrity the scripted opportunity to defend the Bard. 45

Figure 2. Two adoring Muses fight over Garrick in Joshua Reynolds’s David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy (1761), size, including frame, 69.25” X 83” (Waddesdon Manor, National Trust Collection).

20

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

Garrick’s playful delivery suggests that he was both aware of and eager to participate in the creation of his social prominence through theatrical extravaganzas. Garrick was interested in promoting himself in portraiture as well. In Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of the actor, David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy (1761), a smiling Garrick is pulled by Muses, each of whom wrestles for his exclusive attentions.46 Garrick may have seen himself as an actor or author professionally torn between Comedy and Tragedy, but, in terms of his personal, everyday life, the portrait doesn’t reveal much. Likewise, William Hogarth’s painting David Garrick with His Wife Eva-Maria Veigel “La Violette” or “Violette” (1757) depicts the author-actor writing at his desk, his right hand in an actorly pose. He seems elsewhere, his mind clearly intent upon the play he is composing. His wife hovers attentively, playing both maid and Muse to her husband. Mrs. Garrick seems domestic and knowable, but Garrick, in that same portrait, is not someone to whom we can relate personally. His head is fi lled with plays and performance. He is not engaged with his wife or with us. In short, we have no signs of real intimacy in these depictions of the actor. Indeed, it was the lack of intimacy that accounts for the failing of one of these portraits as a promotional vehicle. While in Paris, George Colman the Elder noted that prints of David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy were being sold everywhere, but Garrick’s name was nowhere to be seen. Rather, the prints were entitled “L’homme entre le Vice et la Virtu.”47 While Betty’s management and his fans were evidently interested in something like Garrick’s painterly promotions, they proved to be far more masterful in nurturing a sense of intimacy.48 Compare, for example, the above-cited portraits of Garrick, which are designedly large scale, with Bettymania merchandise, which range in size from 1 to 3 1/2 inches. Designed to adorn the body, or, in the case of Betty mugs, to come in contact with the lips, each of these miniatures, bronze medallions, snuff boxes, and household coffee cups nicely objectified Betty’s petite and delicate figure. Further, the quality, motif, and color variety of these pocket-sized keepsakes allowed buyers to pick and to choose the object that fit best their standard of living and their routine of daily existence: Young Betty, emotionally familiarized.49 To understand how these trinkets aided in the creation and expression of affection, we may turn to The Journal of Eliza (1767), in which Laurence Sterne holds and talks to a miniature painting of his beloved Eliza Draper: “I verily think my Eliza I shall get this Picture set, so as to wear it, as I purpose—abt my neck—. . . it shall be nearer my heart—Thou art ever in its centre.”50 We may demur that Sterne knows his Eliza and, therefore, is quite naturally attached to the token because he feels it is a suitable, personalized substitute for his beloved; further, it is all too obvious that in actual fact the boy did not know the vast majority of his fans, who were willing, in extreme instances, to risk life and limb to see him.

INTRODUCTION

21

Figures 3 and 4: (top): Examples of Betty Collectibles, which range from 1” to 3” ½ in size (Folger Shakespeare Library; (below) detail of Betty Collectable, size 1 3/4" (Personal Collection).

22

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

Yet his fans, with their personally imbued Betty images and trinkets, persisted in the illusion of a relationship, sure that they knew him, and equally sure that he, accustomed to their devotion, knew them. 51 Bettymania relied upon more than borrowing a well-branded term like “Roscius,” or the marketing of tchotchkes and knickknacks: print media, both in pamphlets and newspapers, played a role as well, though, due to the haste of meeting market demand, “facts” were either dispensed with or simply invented.52 For example, the anonymous author of The Wonderful Theatrical Progress of W. Hen. West Betty, the Infant Roscius (1804) states that his pamphlet would at last correct by way of “authenticated documents” the various fictional memoirs foisted upon the public. The author begins by pointing out that the boy was born in England, not, as some biographers had affi rmed, in Ireland. Within one page, however, this same author adds to the confusion by stating that Mrs. Betty and her sisters enjoyed theatricals and, therefore, encouraged her son’s actorly interests.53 Extant documents suggest that Mrs. Betty had no sisters and hated the very thought of her son treading the boards.54 Believe it or not, there is even some debate concerning something as basic as the date of Betty’s fi rst performance. The anonymous author of Betty’s official memoir, Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, The English Roscius, offers two dates: the narrative states that Betty fi rst performed on the Belfast stage on August 16, 1803, but then cites the text of the original playbill which bears the date August 19. 55 Other unofficial biographers muddle the facts still more: George Davies Harley and the anonymous authors of Roscius in London and Authentic Sketch agree that Betty was fi rst “announced”— that is, advertised—to play Osman on August 16, 1803, but do not provide a date of the actual performance; John Doran cites Betty’s opening as taking place on August 11, 1803; in another work he modifies to an announcement of August 16, 1803, with no date of performance; Henry Barton Baker also opts for an announcement of August 16, with no date provided for an actual performance; Alexander Stephens states that Betty made his debut on August 1, 1803, while John Merritt plays it safe by stating that Betty fi rst performed sometime in the “middle of August.”56 And so it goes. Some biographers report that Betty started acting when he was five years old; others report that he became interested in theater in 1802, when he was eleven years old.57 In one version, Betty, after a lucrative run in Liverpool, is solicited by that playhouse to perform an additional fourteen nights for £1,500; in a later version, the proposal is made not by the Liverpool theater but by the Sheffield theater; in all but one version, Betty’s management declines the offer, but in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes, it is accepted, though the offer is now for ten, not fourteen, performances.58 In one biography, we learn that Betty works with an acting coach assiduously; in another we read that the boy has no acting coach at all; in one version, we are informed that Betty’s memory is so prodigious that he learns the entire part of Hamlet in three days; in another version,

INTRODUCTION

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the feat takes just three mornings; in another account, Betty memorizes his 1,569 lines, his 358 catch lines, his stage blocking, and his entrances and exits in just three hours.59 Aggrandizement and, relatedly, inaccuracy are perhaps to be expected by writers and reporters out to make a quick buck; nor should we expect otherwise, for, as Leigh Hunt reminds us, “puffi ng”—that is, paid advertisements masquerading as real reportage—was not in-and-of-itself unusual in this era: “Puffi ng and plenty of tickets were, however, the system of the day. It was an interchange of amenities over the dinner-table; a flattery of power on the one side, and puns on the other; and what the public took for a criticism on a play, was a draft upon the box-office, or reminiscences of last Thursday’s salmon and lobster-sauce.”60 In the case of Master Betty, however, both embellishment and error were so acute as to warrant comment and complaint. In a letter dated December 28, 1804, a resident of London, Mrs. Copley, wrote to her daughter: “When you read our papers you may imagine that attention to the young Roscius is the most important pursuit of the present time. It is the general impression that ‘Master Betty’ is a prodigy in his theatrical art, but that too much fuss is made about him; but neither the motives or powers for puffi ng have ceased.”61 Even pens-for-hire such as John Wilson Croker condemned the counterfeit reportage: “God forbid that I should expect from newspapers, nothing but plain sense and honest truth—I am not so unreasonable.”62 Aside from false newspaper reports, the theaters themselves had tricks to ensure full houses and raucous applause for the Young Roscius. Ringers were “distributed ( judiciously) in various parts of the House, to give Confi rmation to those Descriptions of his Talents, by loud re-iterated Plaudits.”63 Confi rming the extraordinary lengths to which Drury Lane and Covent Garden went to ensure Betty’s success, the Times, February 4, 1805, reported that “the house was more crowded than it has been, at least more persons paid for admittance than on any of his preceding performances.”64 Considering the circumstances, it is not surprising that some former Betty fans felt that they had been duped. Their one solace was that it sometimes seemed that everyone had been taken in. Wrote John Campbell, the former lord high chancellor of Great Britain: “It was during my critical reign that there appeared that phenomenon Master Betty, ‘the infant Roscius.’ I must confess that I was one of those who enthusiastically admired him, . . . but if I erred I need not be ashamed, for night after night, as often as he acted, there was Charles James Fox in the stage box, hanging on the boy’s lips and rapturously applauding him.”65 While artificially created and sustained, interest in Betty, whether positive or negative, remains a surprise, in that boy actors were not in fact a novelty to theatrical audiences. In the Renaissance, child actors, as Shakespeare famously recorded in Hamlet, were all the rage and actually threatened to put the traditional adult companies out of business. One

24

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

boy actor, Salathiel Pavy, was immortalized by Ben Jonson as “the stage’s jewel.”66 Child actors were common in the eighteenth century, as well. Most played small, inferior parts and had limited skills. The actress Mrs. Jordan spelled out the defects of child actors, whom she had regularly encountered in the theater: “they either hoot out their words, or mouthe them—they do not clear off their syllables; they hang, and drawl. . . . they do not choose to think while they speak.”67 There were notably gifted exceptions, one or two for every generation of playgoers. David Garrick had been involved in family theatricals as a child and, through selling wine to coffee houses in Covent Garden, had become acquainted with theater managers and actors. In their respective youths, the aforementioned Sarah Siddons and her brother John Philip Kemble performed minor parts professionally upon the stage. In 1799, another boy actor, Edmund Kean, was making a name for himself as a solo performer. The prodigy was requested to entertain King George III, who was astonished by the boy and declared him “a lad of great promise.”68 Though child actors were not atypical, it was extraordinary for a boy actor to be the lead in an adult company. Even with the addition of the title “Young Roscius,” the above-cited particulars are not ample enough to justify Bettymania. Clearly, there were other factors that catapulted Betty to celebrity. To begin with, Bettymania might never have taken place were it not for a Romantic preoccupation with childhood. Later chapters will detail Byron’s, Coleridge’s, Lamb’s, and Wordsworth’s often surprisingly hostile reactions to Bettymania; as a general premise, however, this study is in accord with Judith Plotz’s recent study Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood (2001), in which she argues that childhood was in this era “a non-threatening means of commitment to social hope without the need of a political and social transformation.”69 In a Britain threatened externally with Napoleonic invasion and tottered internally with Irish rebellion, to say nothing of governmental policies and market forces that eroded local allegiances and communal structures, the collaborative activity of endorsing a child actor offered much-needed unity to a beleaguered and fragmented society.70 In the words of the Hull Packet: “business seems to be forgot, war and Bonaparte not remembered—the Young Roscius engrossed and filled the attention of ALL.”71 A similar sentiment was expressed by Betty-biographer John Merritt: Master Betty “rouse[d] the attention of a whole country” and “made a considerable addition to the national stock of intellectual amusement”72 —note that Merritt sees Ireland, Scotland, and England, the three legs of Betty’s United Kingdom tour, as one “whole country” sharing in one “national” obsession. Betty’s seemingly boundless celebrity is registered, too, in small, regional newspapers. As we might expect, local papers covered Betty when he came to their town’s playhouse. More surprisingly, papers such as the Caledonian Mercury, the Aberdeen Journal, the Belfast News-Letter, the Liverpool Mercury, the Preston Chronicle, the Newcastle Courant, the Manchester

INTRODUCTION

25

Times and Gazette, the Hampshire Telegraph & Sussex Chronicle, and the Hull Packet continued to report on the Betty phenomenon as it made its way across the United Kingdom. It was not just that smaller papers reported on happenings in the major metropolitan centers. A Betty performance staged in faraway Cork or tiny Preston was now worth reporting in major centers like Belfast, Manchester, and London. As the above-cited newspaper coverage makes clear, Betty was a British phenomenon, but it was also carefully tailored to the unique cultures of Ireland, Scotland, and England. While critics have hitherto referred to Bettymania as if it were mammoth and monolithic, Betty’s multinational celebrity and elfi n physicality reflected both the realities of the Union and a desire to keep things small-scale, local, traditional, pint-sized. In an era of increasing centralization, we can understand that people in Cornwall or Nottingham, Glasgow or Belfast, or some hamlet in Wales, might cling, for example, to a local dialect or to a provincial accent. Bettymania conveniently allowed local cultures to participate in a nationalizing totem without losing their respective traditions and identities. Indeed, what local audiences loved about Betty differed from country to country and even city to city. Raised in Ireland, the prodigy performed to English loyalists in Belfast without a trace of an Irish accent; in Edinburgh, however, Betty stressed his solidarity with Scottish nationalism by donning the traditional and only recently decriminalized vestments of the tartan kilt, ghillie brogues, and sporran—all appropriate for his portrayal of the Scottish hero Douglas. Betty’s physical rendering of Scottish ethnicity was so powerful that the play’s ultranationalist author, John Home, proclaimed him the “genuine offspring and the son of Douglas.”73 One ticket buyer recalled that “the pride of noble [Scottish] birth breathed in every word” of Master Betty.74 As Betty and his entourage approached the English capital, Bettymania was yet again carefully reconfigured. Bookstalls were crammed with John Merritt’s recent Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, in which the boy’s journey from Belfast to Edinburgh and thence to London was described as a Napoleonic conquest of sorts. The victorious hero “had already passed through two parts of the empire with an uninterrupted career of success, and the third now only remained for his scene of action.”75 Bettymania depended upon a sophisticated understanding of marketing. However, not all manifestations of Bettymania emanated from Betty or his managers. Audiences were free to create their own Betty-inspired opinions and associations: Some saw Betty as the Wordsworthian archetype of innocence and youthful vigor. Others debated whether the boy’s genius was intrinsic and, therefore, inalienable, or acquired and, therefore, perishable. The actress Mrs. Jordan, always a Betty detractor, considered the “Young Roscius” to be no more than a docile child who had been trained to stand or to recite just so. In Jordan’s view, Betty was merely parroting the words “he had been taught to pronounce.”76

26

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

There are always one or two grumblers in every theatrical cast and more than a few in every packed and seemingly appreciative audience, but extant pamphlets and letters indicate that Bettymania included not just rabid supporters but also a mob of detractors, who, in print and caricature, attempted to end Bettymania with poisoned prejudice. Thomas Harral, a Betty supporter, complained that: there are beings in this metropolis, who, with a cowardly and assassin-like spirit, darkly attempt to murder his [Betty’s] growing fame. Under the mask of criticism, a notorious Evening Paper has just commenced a series of attacks against this unoffending boy, which, were it not for their palpable folly, and absurdity, are calculated to render the deepest injury.77

In short, Betty had enemies, the most famous of whom was Leigh Hunt. Beginning in the spring of 1805, Hunt “waged a relentless war against infant prodigies in general and Betty in particular.”78 Attempting to shame any who approved of Betty, Hunt asked his readers to imagine that some foreigner had entered a British theater for the fi rst time. He would expect an entertainment reflective of a rational and polished people. To his surprise, a “child steps forward, and an uproar of applause bursts from the audience”; the tourist in question assumes that the part calls for a child, but the boy actor is soon addressed as if he were a man. Our befuddled foreigner then “turns in some confusion to a neighbour for explanation, and discovers that the child is no other than a mighty warrior, a man of gigantic stature, and the terror of tyrants.” Taking out his notebook, the visitor writes the following: MEMORANDUM. The English are fond of plays, but they have no actors. The fi rst characters in their established dramas are represented by children, who in the dearth of more suitable performers, are most intemperately applauded.” 79

Hunt’s argument might not have mattered if Britain were at peace, but, in an era of on-again, off-again war with France, its standing in the world as a military and cultural power was under siege. Betty, Hunt argued, was a national embarrassment. The Times also relentlessly attacked the boy, prompting one reader, upset by such “ungenerous,” “cold-blooded,” and “malevolent” attacks, to write to the editor: “The sentiments which mark the conduct of your paper, warrant me in the persuasion that you will not refuse the insertion of some few observations, which the criticism in question demands.” In his view, such “cruel” reviews were designed “to damp the efforts of early genius, and to discourage and chill its future exertions.”80 No doubt, venomous reviews played a role in the eventual downfall of Bettymania, but, in the short-term, they also aided in publicizing the boy.

INTRODUCTION

27

Indeed, Bettymania continued to mushroom in unexpected and not always welcomed ways.81 Betty’s sexuality became a subject of curiosity. It began innocently enough. Early descriptions of Betty suggest his audiences saw him as a pretty doll. When he played Romeo, for example, the Times dwelled not on his vocals or his acting but upon his costume: panty hose, a tight-fitting jacket, a hat topped with a lofty plume of feathers.82 Later descriptions of Betty suggest an interest in his psychological and physiological makeup. A minor actress, Miss Davis, described Betty’s features as “delicate” and “feminine”; his long hair was “confi ned with a comb, which still more gave the idea of a female in male costume.”83 Sarah Siddons described Betty in hermaphroditic terms: “the baby with a woman’s name”; 84 Mrs. Mathews echoed the opinion, tagging him the “Betty-Boy.”85 Robert Burton opined that Betty’s Romeo was ludicrous because the boy’s “voice was almost in perfect unison with that of the actress” playing Juliet, so much so that, were an auditor to “shut his eyes, it might seem that the responses were made by the same person.”86 Betty’s look, voice, and behavior were so feminine that the critic W. P. Russel suggested in all seriousness that a team of physicians be assembled to determine whether Betty was in fact anatomically male.87 On a more satirical note, the Times dismissed Bettymania as little more than a peep show for perverts: “Master Betty’s success is very naturally the cause of much envy and heart-breaking among the Master Polly’s and Master Jenny’s of Bond Street and Cheapside, who in all their attempts to distinguish their pretty persons and effeminate airs, have only Mis-carried.”88 Satire is always rooted in fact. In the case of Bettymania, men and women who would cringe at being called aberrant, anomalous, atypical, or just plain kinky were unashamedly interested and oddly aroused by Master Betty. G. M. Woodward suggested that Betty’s shapely legs were erotic enough to make “Dancing Masters blush.”89 The theater manager John Jackson lingered over the child’s “attractive” and “petit” body; the Ipswich Journal was transfi xed by the boy’s “pleasing” mouth. 90 Alexander Stephens fi xated on Betty’s hair, which he described as “not only luxuriant, but of a most beautiful hue.” The same writer further suggested that Betty fl irtatiously encouraged his attention: “He [Betty] is not unconscious of this [the effect his hair has on the writer], and takes care to display his ringlets, on critical occasions with effect” by tossing, stroking, or coyly toying with them. 91 Considering that most consumers knew the boy through idealized media presentment, it is not entirely surprising that Betty was subject to infatuation mistaking itself as enticement. More alarmingly, that infatuation sometimes manifested itself in near-pagan worship. One artist, Ozias Humphrey, described Betty as an Apollo come to life, though, considering Betty’s diminutive size, Humphrey may have confused the muscular Apollo with his boy lover, the curly-haired Hyacinthus. 92 Still another

28

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

devoted fan wrote: “He [Betty] seem[s] in motion, look and accent, another Ganymede.”93 Ganymede, of course, was the paramour of Zeus. Invoking the Greek myths of the Pleiades and the Hyades, in which mere mortals are transformed into stars—an apt metaphor of celebrity making—the anonymous author of the Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius described Betty as a “heaven-born constellation.”94 The Marquess of Wellesley and Mrs. Inchbald, while shying from the pagan, agreed that there was something transcendent about Betty. In their respective opinions, Betty was “an angel from heaven, for nothing on earth was like him”; “his beauty and grace were like that of a seraph.”95 Mrs. Mathews (née Anne Jackson) related that one gentleman told her that he genuinely believed that Betty was “gifted by divine inspiration; and added that he expected to see the roof of the theatre open some night, and his [Betty’s] spirit ascend through it.”96 In sum, Bettymania allowed people, who might otherwise have little or nothing in common, to unite in the belief that Betty was worthy of their collective attention. We might add that, given the national and cultural multiplicity of his fan base, it is difficult to imagine under what conditions Betty could have fulfi lled such a miscellany of social trust. The broad demographics of Bettymania could not mask for long its social fault lines; Betty’s fans were bound to splinter. However, the sudden collapse of Betty’s popularity was not a sign of celebrity culture’s failure but of its appropriate function: one idol must be replaced with another and another and another and another. 97 A study of Bettymania may well offer us some insight into the emergence of celebrity culture and the means by which it continues to be fashioned and maintained.

1 Bettymanias in Ireland and Scotland and England It was astonishing to witness the eagerness and anxiety of the populace to see him, the chaise being surrounded by some hundreds of spectators, who seemed perfectly happy in the opportunity of viewing the theatrical prodigy. —James Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius1

WILLIAM H ENRY WEST BETTY WAS born on September 13, 1791, in Shrewsbury, a town located ten miles or so from the Welsh border. His father, William Henry Betty, from Lisburn, Ireland, possessed a small fortune. The actor’s mother was Mary Stanton, a well-educated daughter of a well-to-do family from Worcester. Despite what seemed at fi rst glance to be a perfectly respectable match, there were fi nancial problems. Mary’s estate at Hopton Wafers was carefully entailed so that her husband could not borrow against or sell it. Still, Betty Sr. found a way around the law and illicitly sold the property to pay off his debts.2 In the autumn of 1796, the family moved to a farm in Ballynahinch, south of Belfast in the county of Down. Soon after, Betty Sr. opened a linen factory. 3 The farm and factory were related: Linen is made from flax, which is easy to grow, and was, at the start of the eighteenth century, the most important textile in the world. We may infer the move to Ireland was not a whim. Betty Sr. planned to rebuild his fortune by growing flax and processing linen close to Belfast, a prime port city and industrial center. Betty Sr. was obviously ambitious. In terms of bets, however, this business plan was a bad one. For one, by the 1790s the demand for linen had dropped precipitously. Although it was not yet apparent that linen manufacturing was doomed as a domestic industry, commerce in Irish linen had peaked in the 1770s.4 Master Betty never discussed the family’s fi nancial problems, but, after one particularly lucrative theatrical engagement in which he earned ₤1,520, the boy peered upon his newborn sister—Marianne Euphemia, swaddled in diapers—and promised that he and he alone would provide for her: “Admist the vicissitudes of life, who can tell, my dear sister, what may be thy fate? If I can help it, it shall not be poverty! Therefore I insist that the fi fteen hundred pounds [earned from the performance] may be settled upon my sister, and put out to interest, for her benefit, till she comes of age.”5 Betty felt the weight 29

30

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

of fi nancial responsibility. Even at age eleven, he was the sole supporter of his family.

BETTY’S E ARLY I NTEREST IN THE THEATER Despite what was obviously a difficult relationship, Betty’s fi rst acting coach was his father: “One day, when she [Mrs. Betty] was absent, his father, reading ‘Cardinal Wolsey’s Lament upon his Fallen Greatness,’ happened to accompany it with some action.”6 The boy was fascinated and, on asking what was the meaning of the gestures, was “told they were what [was] usually styled acting.” 7 When the mother returned, her son repeated both speech and action perfectly. (This may seem unlikely, but Betty’s impressive memory is confi rmed in a variety of pamphlets. In The Wonderful Theatrical Progress of the Infant Roscius (1804), for example, we learn that “whatever was properly presented to his [Betty’s] mind, he could immediately lay hold of, and seemed to seize, by a sort of intuitive sagacity, the spirit of every sentence, and the prominent beauties of every remarkable passage.”) 8 Betty Sr. was also “one of the fi rst fencers in England” and taught the boy the art of swordplay. 9 While the skill would obviously benefit anyone wanting to become an actor, the pastime also tells us something of Betty Sr.’s ambitions. Fencing was, even in this period, an unusual hobby. Though soldiers, particularly officers, wore swords by their sides on formal occasions, the art of fencing itself, insofar as it related to military practicalities, had been all but outmoded.10 Swords were not cheap, and mastering the art of fencing took years of practice. Moreover, fencing has obvious associations with the aristocracy. Betty Sr. may have been a bad businessman, a spendthrift with expensive hobbies, but he was also a romantic dreamer, one who fancied himself a gentlemen, one fit to bear arms. As for Mary Betty, she seems to have loathed Ireland. She had good reason. The family had arrived in Ballynahinch in the fall of 1796; by 1798, the town was a war zone.

THE I RISH TROUBLES Irish resistance to English power had been going on since Henry II declared himself king of the island in 1171. In 1599, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, a man described by Lord Burghley as loving “nothing but war, slaughter and blood,” was sent by Queen Elizabeth to quell the Irish, but he was only partially successful.11 Although English rule was maintained, major rebellions erupted in 1641 and, still closer to Betty’s time, in 1798. The latter rebellion had been particularly violent. On

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August 22, 1798, 5,000 Irish, supported by 1,000 French soldiers, had defeated the English at the Battle of Castlebar. On October 12, another 3,000 French soldiers had attempted to land but, after a pitched battle, they were captured by the British fleet. Without French support, the rebels were rounded up. Atrocities were common. Captured Irish rebels were executed en masse at Carlow, Ballinamuck, and Killegland, and burned alive at New Ross and Enniscorthy.12 Many rebels, fearing execution, fought to the death. The Bettys, property owners in Ballynahinch, saw some of the worst fighting.13 Rebels occupied their town and soon took to “plundering and looting.” Ballynahinch was retaken by 1,500 Englishmen under Major General George Nugent—aide-de-camp (and brother-in-law) to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—who then unleashed cannon and mortars on the rebels. The cannonade was heard as far away as Belfast and left the town a “smoking ruin.” When the townsfolk returned, they found the bodies of 400 rebels in the deserted streets—many had been eaten by pigs.14 Once the rebellion was fully quelled, Mrs. Betty instituted a strict policy of keeping her boy away from the local Irish of Ballynahinch, a place where the English language was, in her view, “in its worst state of depravity.”15 She taught him well: When her son performed in London, audiences could fi nd no trace of a foreign accent in his pronunciation, though some critics did note that the boy had a habit of dropping his “h’s”; thus he would speak of “an ’otel” rather than “a hotel.”16 This consonant shift is yet another sign of Betty’s class roots. Dropped h’s were an affectation of the upper classes, a sign of “birth and breeding.”17 It was important to Mary that her boy had the voice of an English aristocrat. No doubt, her sword-wielding husband clung to the same aspiration.

BETTY VISITS THE THEATRE ROYAL BELFAST In July of 1802, the ten-year-old Betty was taken to Theatre Royal Belfast.18 His father had bought tickets to Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play, Pizarro, a lurid spectacle of Peruvian warriors, High Priests, Virgins of the Sun, and blood sacrifice. The boy was utterly enthralled by all he saw. Returning home from the theater, Betty took his bedsheets and converted them into scenery; bed hangings, flowers, and shrubs were employed in the same service; pieces of tin were cut into swords and daggers; berries and beads were used as makeup and costume jewelry.19 His parents thought that his interest in the theater was a childish fad, but, as the days went by, the boy’s passion increased. He declared that he “should certainly die, if he must not be a player.”20 Betty’s parents “were compelled to think seriously of the practicability of indulging him.”21 The child was given a copy of Pizarro, and he began to memorize his favorite parts. Soon after, Betty Sr. brought his son back to Belfast to

32

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

meet with Michael Atkins, manager of the Theatre Royal Belfast. (It is unclear whether the idea for the meeting was Betty Sr.’s or his son’s.) Master Betty launched into a speech from Pizarro, and Atkins, immediately taken with the boy, told Betty Sr.: “I never dared to indulge in the hope of seeing another Garrick. But I have seen an Infant Garrick in Master Betty.” William Hough, the theater’s prompter, was summoned; Betty repeated the set speech. An uncomfortable silence ensued. The child had recited lines written for Elvira, the female lead in the play. Hough suggested that Betty try the part of Rolla, the male lead in Pizarro. Betty did his best, and for the next few hours Hough coached and encouraged the boy. He then spoke with Betty Sr. and explained that, with some work, the boy might make a fortune on the stage. Father and son then left, the father’s head spinning with the enticement of riches. No more linen manufacturing, no more flax farms, no more Irish bogs. Within days of their meeting, Betty Sr. invited Hough to Ballynahinch for a few weeks to work with his son. Let us be clear about the meaning of “invited Hough”—Betty Sr. paid him. Hough did not to go to Ballynahinch for the fresh air. He went to work. Prior to Hough’s arrival, Master Betty had learned acting from his father. An hour or two with Atkins and Hough had proved that his skills were not up to professional snuff. Further, the boy had only studied one part, Elvira, but that role was gender inappropriate. Hough’s job, therefore, was to teach the boy the mannerisms of a professional actor and to select roles that would at once suit his gender and highlight his genius. By mid-summer, Betty and Hough had settled upon a repertoire: The boy was soon capable of “personifying, in the most fi nished style of excellence, the characters of Douglas, Osmond, Rolla, Oroonoko, &c.”22 Hough had accomplished much. We should also be unambiguous as to why Hough left his job at Theatre Royal Belfast to work with Betty: the theaters were closed due to yet another bloody episode of Irish rebellion.

THE E MMET R EBELLION On July 23, 1803, Robert Emmet, age twenty-five, led a group of men through the streets of Dublin. His followers, mostly working-class men, were armed with swords, pikes, and a few pistols.23 Mobs usually exude a confident lawlessness, but this bunch was disheartened. For one, they had expected hundreds, perhaps even thousands to join their cause, but few—perhaps only eighty men—had come, and they were poorly armed. (Emmet had a bomb-making factory and had hoped to set off explosive rockets throughout Dublin, but the fuses had been bungled.) Few in number and badly equipped, Emmet’s men were looking for blood. Their fi rst target was the British judge Lord Kilwarden, the man who had recently sentenced a fellow rebel, William Orr, to death. Hoping to elude Emmet

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33

and his men, Lord Kilwarden and his son-in-law, Rev. Richard Wolfe, donned disguises and sneaked into a carriage, but the rebels were alerted to their ploy and dragged them into the street. The two were beaten and shot. English dragoons soon closed in and fighting ensued. One of the British troops was run through with a long pike. Standing over the bodies of a judge, a clergyman, and a soldier, Emmet quickly declared himself the leader of the new Provisional Government of the Irish Republic. And then, just as quickly, Emmet and his followers lost nerve and fled.24 Nonetheless, the threat was far from over. Emmet and his faction were armed, dangerous, and capable of murder. Three people were already dead and, since the rebels had demonstrated that they had (limited) bomb-making skills, no one and no place was safe. Anyone or anything that was particularly English was a prime target—and that included the Theatres Royal. Even before Ireland officially joined the Union on January 1, 1801, English theater formed a vital cultural outpost, one in which English and Irish loyalists alike could feel connected to the English capital. All the major London stars played the Irish Theatres Royal: Garrick, Quin, later Kemble, Mathews, Siddons—and, while their respective supporting casts were often comprised of local talent, the overall theatrical experience was no doubt seen as thoroughly English. The Belfast, Smock Alley, and Crow Street theaters were, after all, “Theatres Royal,” in name, though obviously not necessarily in quality the same as the “Royal Theatre Drury Lane” or the “Royal Theatre Covent Garden.” The possibility that Emmet might attack a Theatre Royal was apparent to the authorities, who closed the playhouses in Belfast and Dublin. In addition, a 9:00 pm curfew was instituted in all the major cities across Ireland.25 It was a bad time to be an Englishman or boy living in Ireland. It was a worse time to be debuting at a Theatre Royal. And yet, this is exactly what Betty Sr., Hough, and Atkins planned. Why these three would risk a child in such a venture is unknown. Perhaps patriotism played a role— facing down Irish rebels by pretending that life, even during a violent uprising, went on as usual. Most likely, cash was also part of the argument. Betty Sr. was a profigate, Atkins was a businessman, and Hough worked for both of them: Betty might be just the draw needed to replenish their respective accounts. But fi rst Hough and Atkins had to convince the civil and military authorities to allow the boy to perform. Unfortunately, their petition is no longer extant, but we might begin by noting that riots in Irish theaters were common, even in relatively peaceful times. In 1789, Richard Daly, manager of Dublin’s Theatre Royal in Crow Street, pressed libel charges against John Magee, the newspaper editor of the Dublin Evening Post and a public adherent of Catholic emancipation. The court found for Daly and sentenced Magee to six months in prison. That night, Magee’s supporters stormed the theater with bludgeons, pistols, and swords, and

34

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

smashed the lights, plummeting the stage into darkness. Riots continued for week after week and month after month, forcing Daly’s resignation.26 The theater was thereafter run by Frederick Jones, who was steadfast in his support of English rule. In a petition to Parliament for compensation for the Crow Street uprising of 1789, Jones cited “his known loyalty, and the exhibition of entertainments the produce of which was destined and appropriated to increase the fund for carrying on the war against the enemies of Great Britain.”27 Jones was not referring to how his tax dollars had helped the British to fight the rebels, but instead to his personal funding of groups like the Orangemen, a paramilitary organization “sworn to exterminating catholics.”28 The above-cited history clarifies the difficulty Atkins and Hough faced in getting the aforementioned curfew lifted or amended for the boy’s Belfast debut: Ireland was a political tinderbox. But Frederick Jones’s patriotic petition to Parliament also suggests the broad strokes of how Hough and Atkins might have approached and placated the local authorities: Explain that the family had survived the plunderings, lootings, and killings at Ballynahinch; state that Master Betty spoke without the faintest trace of an Irish accent; offer to accommodate the security already in place by commencing the performance at 6:00 p.m., rather than 7:00 p.m. (Another clue that Betty was framed as a purely patriotic event: The playbill promised a rendition of “God Save the King!” after the second act and a rendition of “Rule Britannia” to close the entertainment.) 29 The authorities agreed to the request and pushed their curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., thus allowing patrons to return home without violating the law.30 Surprisingly, no additional security was promised, no guards stationed in or around the theater, which did little to assure patrons, who turned out in small number.

BETTY’S BELFAST DEBUT Betty made his professional debut at Theatre Royal Belfast on August 19, 1803.31 The boy’s fi rst role was Osman in Aaron Hill’s play Zara, an adaptation of Voltaire’s Zaïre. The play had been a staple since 1759, but for anyone seeing the play in Ireland after the events of Emmet’s uprising, Zara, a Middle Eastern play, may have had topical associations. As Joseph Lennon recently noted in his book Irish Orientalism, the Irish regularly used the Middle East and the Orient in both plays and print to discuss England’s religious, cultural, and economic subjugation of Ireland.32 The play Zara concerns Prince Osman, Sultan of Jerusalem, who loves the Muslim Zara, who, in turn, sympathizes with the plight of the enslaved Christians. She begs Prince Osman to free the Christians and further argues that Christian mercy is the key to peace between these two warring cultures:

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35

I honour, from my soul, the Christian laws, Those laws, which, softening nature by humanity, Melt nations into brotherhood;—no doubt Christians are happy; and, ’tis just to love them. 33

Osman refuses her plea. Moments later, Zara’s father confesses that he is a Christian, prompting Zara to swear that she too will convert to Christianity, even if this means sacrificing the love of Prince Osman, a devout Muslim. Osman then intercepts a letter which suggests that Zara is to leave the court clandestinely—she is, in fact, meeting a priest to complete her religious conversion. An enraged Osman confronts Zara and kills her. Learning of Zara’s devout motives, a repentant Osman, undergoing his own form of Christian penance, orders that the remaining Christians be freed: Osman. Take off his fetters, and observe my will: To him, and all his friends, give instant liberty: Pour a profusion of the richest gifts On these unhappy Christians; and, when heap’d With vary’d benefits, and charg’d, with riches, Give ’em safe conduct, to the nearest port.34

Given the tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, and the commonality of using Middle Eastern plays to discuss Anglo-Irish strife, it is likely that the audience saw some vague parallels between their own aspirations and those of the Christians and Muslims in the play. But when we say “the Irish,” who exactly do we mean? While it is possible that both Catholic and Protestant Irish came to the theater to see Betty, the included renditions of “God Save the King!” and “Rule Britannia” suggest that Protestant loyalists were the intended audience. If so, it is possible that this same audience might have found the play insulting, insofar as the loyalists in the play are Muslims and their victims are the oppressed Christians, or, in the instance of Ireland, the oppressed Irish Catholics. We must ask ourselves why Hough and Betty Sr. picked this play, and moreover, in what way would the addition of Betty change its reception. It is significant to note that when Betty took his act to England he was often ridiculed for playing tyrants. His tiny frame could not credibly project menace of any sort. However, playing Prince Osman in the context of the Emmet Rebellion of 1803, Betty’s immaturity was a crucial plus. Just as Restoration audiences had to adjust to a woman playing Desdemona or Ophelia, so too Georgian audiences had to reconsider Prince Osman’s words as spoken by a child. Betty’s youth allowed the English and their allies to see themselves not as aggressors but as regretful peacemakers. Perhaps the image of a tearful and penitent child also carried with it the tacit apology that England, like a child, needed . . . well, if not love, then understanding? Indeed, Osman’s mistake concerning his beloved Zara

36

BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

suggested that England herself was something of a child in dealing with Ireland. After all, the English had been trying to resolve their issues with the Irish since at least the twelfth century and were, in 1803, no closer to peace.

CONTINUED VIOLENCE While Irish and Englishmen, Catholics and Protestants might have seen themselves as dissimilar, the sight of a weeping child may have reminded them of their collective tragedy. Even so, Betty’s performance did little to change the realities of the Emmet Rebellion. On August 23, 1803, Emmet was arrested at the home of a Mrs. Palmer. A day later, Betty, still in Belfast, performed the title role in John Home’s play Douglas, without incident. The curfew did cause some problems, if not bloodshed, for Betty and his performers. On August 26, the length of the performed play, Pizzaro, in which Betty played Rolla, forced the cancellation of a farce which was to have followed.35 On September 19, Emmet was given his day in court and allowed to air his political beliefs. On September 20, he was sentenced to be hanged and then decapitated. Across Ireland violence flared. Two months later, it was unabated. As John Doran records: Dublin itself was in what would now be called a state of siege, and that it was unlawful to be out after a certain hour in the evening, . . . travellers were induced to trust themselves to mail and stagecoaches by the assurance that the vehicles were made proof against shot. There was no certainty the travellers would not be fi red at, but the comfort was that if the bullets did not go through the window and kill the travellers, they could not much injure the vehicle itself! 36

What did Betty Sr. and Hough do in the face of this unrest? Believe it or not, they booked Master Betty to play at Frederick Jones’s Theatre Royal in Dublin. As had been the case in Belfast, the curfew was moved to 11:00 p.m. so as to accommodate local interest in seeing the boy perform and in singing choruses of “Rule Britannia” and “God Save the King!”37 The performances were marred by violence. While the details are sketchy, we do know that even years later a traumatized Betty feared venturing out at night, because the “horrid scenes of which our Hero was a witness, during the unhappy rebellion in Ireland, appear to have impressed his mind with great timidity, as he never likes to walk out after dark, always quoting the melancholy events in Dublin as a reason.”38 But, so far as Betty Sr. and William Hough were concerned, the Dublin dates were a signal success. “He [Master Betty] played the whole nine nights of his engagement to the most brilliant audiences, and with a great increase of reputation to himself and of profit to the managers.”39

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37

The regular receipts tallied to about ₤10 a night but exceeded ₤100 each and every night Betty performed. Incredibly, receipts for his Hamlet surpassed ₤400.40

A RT OR P ROPAGANDA? Of course, Betty’s popularity in Belfast and Dublin was artificially inflated. He alone had special permission to perform, and all other theaters had to adhere to the accepted clampdown. The boy was, quite literally, the only ticket in town. Still, reviews suggest that Betty’s early performances were more than just jingoistic spectacles. The Dublin Evening Post stated that Betty “literally astonished the audience . . . so perfect and interesting an exhibition has not been witnessed for many years.” The Freeman’s Journal recorded that “the audience seemed sometimes as if lost in wonder . . . no difficulty can be felt in stating this youthful performer’s vast pretensions to the title . . . of the Infant Roscius.”41 As discussed in the introduction, Betty’s handlers regularly bribed writers for good reviews; the adoption of the Garrick-like moniker, “Infant Roscius,” or “Young Roscius,” must have helped somewhat. Still, we might be wary of dismissing all positive notices. Certainly a good write-up might get an audience in the theater, but political allegiance or a reference to a long-dead actor was not going to sustain a week’s worth of performances, much less a tour. At worst, we might say that Betty Sr. paid to ensure a good review, but that audiences were far from disappointed with what they saw. Irish Bettymania may have been assisted by martial law and a lack of competing entertainments, but the boy had ability. A small piece of evidence confi rms that Betty was a legitimate draw: Frederick Jones, the manager of Theatre Royal Dublin in Crow Street, offered to extend the boy’s contract for a full year. Since Jones knew that the curfew could not be enforced indefi nitely, we can only infer that Betty had talent enough to fi ll a theater in any circumstance. Surprisingly, Jones’s offer was rebuffed.42 Betty Sr. had already accepted a tender for his boy to perform in Cork. These dates began with a performance of Hamlet on New Year’s Eve 1803.43 As in Dublin, the Cork theater saw a tenfold increase in ticket sales. The local paper, the Cork Mercantile Chronicle, enthused: “we have never seen it [Osman] better performed nor ever acted by talents of such promise.”44 Dates soon followed in Waterford and Londonderry.45

FAMILY ISSUES John Jackson, the manager for both the Glasgow and Edinburgh theaters, distrusted the puffery of newspaper articles but was curious as to whether

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this “Young Roscius” had any real talent. When he arrived in Cork and saw the packed houses, he immediately booked Betty to perform in both Glasgow (May 21–June 13, 1804) and Edinburgh ( June 28–August 9).46 Nevertheless, Betty had first to finish his promised tour of nearby Waterford in the south, then return north for performances in Londonderry. The rationale for putting off Jackson was not merely the fulfi llment of a contractual obligation. Theater history is replete with examples of canceled tours due to physical or to mental exhaustion, poor ticket sales, or, in rarer cases, to one theater buying out the exclusive rights to an actor. Though Betty was hardly an established star, his management could have found a way out of the Waterford and Londonderry engagements. Why, then, was Jackson, with his promise of big paydays, rebuffed in favor of comparatively paltry sums in Ireland? The answer is found amid the playbills: In Waterford, where he played eight nights, Betty tried three new roles—the romantic Don Carlos from Thomas King’s Lover’s Quarrels, the comedic Captain Flash from Garrick’s Miss in Her Teens, and the morose and vengeful Zanga, in Edward Young’s The Revenge. The parts were dropped after the Londonderry dates, and their quiet mothballing suggests that Betty had failed in romance, in comedy, and, with Zanga, in villainy.47 It would be a number of years before Betty again attempted to enlarge his repertoire—after he and Hough parted ways. While more detail concerning Hough’s relationship with the boy and the possible reasons for their permanent rift will be dealt with in chapter 3, for now we might note that Hough’s tenure in the Betty household could not have been pleasant. Mrs. Betty did not want her son to tread the boards, an occupation which, while offering a life of glamour to its most successful, relegated most thespians to a wandering and impoverished existence.48 Taking the boy to see Atkins, not to mention Hough’s extended stay in her house, was in direct contradiction to her wishes. In the midst of the prodigy’s success, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Mr. Betty and Mrs. Betty’s relationship was strained. John Robison recalled his meeting with a tearful Mrs. Betty, in which she, despite her “very delicate and feeble state,” conveyed one thought plainly and steadfastly: “her most earnest wish that her son should be withdrawn from the theatre.”49 That did not stop her husband from using her as a convenient excuse. Before leaving for Scotland, the entire family stayed in Port Patrick for five weeks. Betty Sr. gave word that his wife was ill—she was, in fact, pregnant at the time—and that the family was attending to her. 50 There is little reason to believe him. Port Patrick is a tiny town. If Mrs. Betty really were ill, the family would have moved to nearby Londonderry, where she might have had access to proper medical care. Further, his wife’s pregnancy seems to have been the last thing on Betty Sr.’s mind. On August 25, 1804, Mary Betty gave birth to a girl, Marianne Euphemia Betty, in the city of Edinburgh. 51 Her husband was not present. With his son in

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tow, he had already left for Birmingham. Master Betty had performances to give and money to earn. If Mary’s medical condition was of little or no interest to her husband, why did the family stop in Port Patrick for five weeks? Betty was about to embark on a new phase of his career, the conquest of Scotland. The time in Port Patrick allowed Hough time to repackage the Young Roscius specifically for Scottish audiences.

BETTY’S A PPEAL TO SCOTTISH NATIONALISM We have already noted that in Ireland Bettymania was associated with attempted Anglicization. Culturally speaking, the situation was more complicated in Scotland than in Ireland. Officially, Scotland had been part of the Union for a hundred years longer than had Ireland; unofficially, its direct political ties to England extended back to King James VI of Scotland, who, after the death of Elizabeth in 1603, was crowned James I of England and Scotland. During the English Civil War, the Kingdom of Scotland was abolished, and the country was politically annexed to the Commonwealth of England. In 1660, the kingdom was restored and placed under the reign of the Stuarts by King Charles II. The Stuarts ruled England and Scotland until the death of Queen Anne in 1714. However, in 1707 Scotland, following the English lead, officially recognized George I, of the House of Hanover, as Anne’s successor. Though George was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James VI of Scotland/James I of England, many Scots saw the German-born George as an unwanted interloper and endorsed Anne’s brother, James Francis Edward Stuart—sometimes referred to as King James VIII or “The Old Pretender.” The last meaningful assertion of Stuart power was in 1745, when Charles Edward Stuart, otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, son of James VIII, led an army of 6,000 (some say 8,000) soldiers against King George II’s English forces. Following the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden, George II imposed the “Dress Act” (effective on August 1, 1746), which banned the speaking or teaching of Gaelic, the playing of bagpipes, or the wearing of the kilt or of any tartan. On fi rst offense, the wearer of a kilt or any other traditional garment was sentenced to six months in prison; a second offense was punishable by transport “to any of his Majesty’s plantations beyond the seas—there to remain for the space of seven years.”52 Scots had also to take an oath in which they were required to swear never to bear weapons or to wear any portion of the Highland garb: I, ____ , do swear, and as I shall have to answer to God at the great Day of Judgment, I have not nor shall have in my possession, any gun, sword, pistol, or arm whatsoever; and never use any tartan, plaid, or any part of the

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Highland garb; and if I do so, may be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property—may I never see my wife and children, father, mother, and relations—may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred;—may all this come across me if I break my oath. 53

The law was abolished on July 1, 1782; nonetheless, the statute had been so effective that, upon its repeal, dye makers no longer knew how to make traditional tartan patterns, and many clans, fearful of English penalties, had destroyed all samples. In many cases, new designs were created from scratch. 54 We might wonder why traditionalist clans were so willing to adopt tartan patterns without historical legitimacy. As J. G. Mackay describes it in his study The Romantic Story of the Highland Garb and the Tartan, many Scots seethed with moral outrage over England’s military, economic, and political domination of their nation. While England sought to deal with unrest by proposing a variety of industrial modernizations, the inhabitants of Scotland countered with a revived interest in their heritage. The wearing of the kilt and of other traditional garments invoked a sense of a shared past, which, though relying in some instances on emotion and imagination more than on history and heirloom, provided a sense of cultural identity and stability. 55 Given these circumstances, it is small wonder that Betty “received the greatest bursts of applause . . . given by any audience”56 when, on May 21, 1804, the boy, playing the titular lead in Douglas, stepped onto the stage dressed in the time-honored kilt and sporran (Gaelic for purse), with a Scottish cutlass on his hip. 57 This was but one of his costumes. If contemporaneous artists’ renderings can be trusted, on occasion Betty also wore ghillie brogues, the laced shoes of the Highlander.58 It was not merely that Betty was in traditional dress. Other actors had already adopted Highland garb when playing Macbeth and other similarly Scottish parts. What was entirely new was the match of tradition and youth. 59 The kilted Betty ratified the belief that Scottish culture was not part of a desiccated and outmoded past; it was, rather, lively and dynamic. Watching a child play the adult Douglas, one writer felt Scottish history reversing itself—“the generations turned to dust stand before us;—we are transported” to the time and place of the play, when Scotland was a mighty and independent country.60 Betty’s lack of years corresponded to an old and new culture—old in its evocation of lost Highlander customs, new in the sense that many of the leitmotifs of Scottish tradition were now as youthful as the boyish figure on the stage. After Betty’s debut as Douglas, the rest of his fourteen nights were played to “overflowing houses, and received the same approbation in every character he attempted.”61 Betty played Hamlet (May 23), followed by Romeo (May 25); Frederick, the lead in Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lover’s

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Vows (May 26); Douglas (May 28); Octavian, the hero of George Colman the younger’s play The Mountaineers (May 30). In his second week, he played Rolla, from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play Pizarro ( June 1). A day later he played Hamlet, followed by Tancred, from James Thomson’s Tancred and Sigismunda ( June 4, repeated June 9). He then reprised Rolla ( June 6) and debuted his Richard III ( June 8, repeated June 11). He closed with his Osman ( June 13), the character he had fi rst performed in Belfast.62 Betty was winning large audiences in Ireland and Scotland, but a small hive of enemies attempted to sting him with poisoned pens.63 In Ireland, a satirical pamphlet took aim at Bettymania. Although “careless and unfi nished,” the leaflet condemned audiences for their tastelessness, managers for their avarice, and Betty himself for his lack of skill.64 While performing in Glasgow, yet another philippic was released.65 While the pamphlet in question is no longer extant, related attacks suggest that the main issue was Betty’s nationality: Scottish newspapers naively assumed that Betty was himself Irish, and that Irish audiences had embraced him because he was one of their own—Betty’s “supposed excellencies had been attributed to that national partiality, to that ardent imagination, and that propensity to exaggeration, for which the Irish have long been celebrated.”66 To the Scottish press, and to anyone who had not seen Betty in Glasgow, the (misread) circumstances were clear: Betty had been lauded because, so soon after a rebel defeat, the Irish needed something native to feel good about. Irish Bettymania had nothing to do with the boy’s acting and everything to do with a nation hungry for a hero. While dates in Glasgow had gone well, Betty’s camp could not afford the accumulated negative press to go unanswered. It countered decisively with the nineteenth-century equivalent of a celebrity endorsement.

A STAGED E NDORSEMENT : THE CLAPTRAP OF SCOTTISH BETTYMANIA On June 28, 1804, Betty, having just performed Douglas, took his bows on the Edinburgh stage. An old man waited for him in the wings. His name was John Home, and, some fi fty years earlier, he had penned Douglas. Voltaire described him as the patron saint of Edinburgh, and, while his career as a playwright was now long behind him, the eighty-one-yearold author commanded attention and respect. According to a variety of writers, on the day of Betty’s Edinburgh premiere, the manager of the theater, Mr. Jackson, ran into John Home. Jackson told him that a child was scheduled to play the lead in Douglas, which surprised Home, who neither knew of Master Betty nor of the planned performance. He agreed to see the play, on the condition that Jackson sit with him. For his part, Jackson spent much of the night ignoring Betty; by his own admission, the real treat was watching Home:

42

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I presume, no one ever received higher gratification than he [Home] did from the performance of the young Roscius that evening. I speak it from conviction: I read his looks; and saw the undisguised workings of his frame. —The play concluded with reiterated applause; which scarcely had ceased, when the author of Douglas, in the plentitude of rapturous enthusiasm, from the unexpected gratification he had received, stepped forward before the curtain, and bowed respectfully to the audience; retiring amidst the convulsed and tumultuous acclamations of the house.67

The effect upon every man and woman in the audience must have been powerful: the old man and the young boy—emblematically, Father Time drawing from a boyish Fountain of Youth. Wrote James Boaden: We may conceive the effect of such an appearance upon the audience, every man, woman, or child of which, knew the author’s person; considering, too, as we must, the honour of all Scotland engaged in the only tragedy of their own growth. . . . What could be added to their delight, but the realization of their hope, that the young actor might, himself, be nearly, or remotely, connected with the land of cakes—for whence, indeed, could sic a clever fellow come fra, but Scotland? 68

Home enjoyed the applause but then called for calm. Pointing to Betty, Home proclaimed: “This is the fi rst time I ever saw the part of Douglas played; that is, according to my ideas of the character, as at that time that I conceived it, and as I wrote it.”69 Home continued: “He is a wonderful being; his endowments great beyond conception; and I will pronounce him at present, or that at least he soon will be, one of the fi rst actors upon the British stage!”70 This is a memorable and effective story, but there are problems with its authenticity. For one, Home’s appearance and endorsement are virtually identical to a theatrical event that took place a decade earlier: In 1794, the Edinburgh native Henry Johnston, then scarcely eighteen, made his debut as Douglas and, dressed in full Highland regalia of kilt, breastplate, claymore, and bonnet, won “the universal approbation of his countrymen . . . the whole house rose, and such a reception was never witnessed within the walls of a provincial theatre before.” However, the highlight of the evening was at the curtain call when the aforementioned John Home stepped forward and “publicly pronounced Johnston the beau-ideal of his conception.”71 Maybe Home favored any young actor who kept his play alive? Another problem: According to the Morning Chronicle, Home told Jackson that Betty was the best Douglas he had ever seen, but did so privately.72 No staged declaration was made. This is supported by one of Betty’s anonymous biographers, who reported that Home took his bows at curtain call but made no remarks on Betty’s performance until “veiled from the sight of the spectators.” 73 If no one but Jackson was present, we

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Figure 5. Betty as Douglas in traditional Highland kilt, sporran, and Scottish cutlass (personal collection).

have no way of verifying the remarks. Indeed, the possibility that Jackson made up the whole speech would explain its similarity to the publicly confi rmed declaration Home had made a decade earlier. Jackson, hoping to shift the audience’s adoration from Johnson to Betty, simply appropriated Home’s words to his own ends. Another—albeit minor—issue: It’s unlikely that Jackson and Home just ran into each other. Home did not live in Edinburgh. The Morning Chronicle, October 6, 1804, reported that Home had traveled over 100 miles to see the boy perform on the Edinburgh stage. Doubtless, he had been invited by Jackson well in advance. Was Home’s endorsement of Betty a total fabrication? It is repeated with small variance in the Morning Chronicle, August 24, 1804; the

44

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Ipswich Journal, September 1, 1804; in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius (1804); and in various memoirs written by William Dunlap (1813), James Boaden (1831), and Lord William Pitt Lennox (1878).74 But this means little. Good stories are often repeated. In any case, two things are certain: (1) Whether Home actually mouthed identical or similar sentiments for Johnston and for Betty or did so privately or publicly, the story was not the singular endorsement Betty’s handlers—and his biographers—have made it out to be; and (2) Home’s approval, whether public or private, whether actual or imagined, aided in garnering still other important endorsements. Betty reprised Douglas two more times while in Edinburgh, June 30, under the patronage of the Duchess of Buccleugh, and July 21, under the patronage of the Edinburgh and Leith Troops.75 Rather than just an expression of Irish enthusiasm, the Edinburgh press now referred to Master Betty as the “Roscius of Scotland.” 76

BIRMINGHAM PAYDAYS AND L ONDON NEGOTIATIONS Just as Betty’s achievements in Dublin had piqued the interest of Mr. Jackson, so too the prodigy’s successes in Glasgow and Edinburgh intrigued William Macready, manager of the Birmingham Theatre.77 With good box office numbers in Scotland, Macready had all the information he needed.78 A contract was signed. Betty would play a fortnight in Birmingham for ₤10 a week—a high rate: In Liverpool, the lead actor Charles Mayne Young was making two pounds a week.79 But Betty Sr. had already set his sights on a larger prize: London. Soon after the boy’s triumph in Edinburgh, Betty Sr. traveled to Musselburgh, six miles east of the city, where he dined at the Mess of the Cavalry, commanded by the well-connected Robert Dundas, member of Parliament for Hastings in 1794, Rye in 1796, and Midlothian in 1801; Keeper of the Signet for Scotland; and the son of Lord Melville, war secretary under Pitt. Also in attendance was a Mr. Whidbey, who was a friend of Mr. Pearce, a member of the Admiralty and a friend of Mr. Thomas Harris, manager of Covent Garden.80 It is likely that Harris fi rst heard of Betty through Pearce. Harris, who had made his fortune in soap manufacturing, did not need to see Betty fi rsthand or even secondhand. Like Mr. Jackson in Edinburgh or Mr. Macready in Birmingham, Harris did the math. The boy was a money machine.81 Further, luck was on Harris’s side. His rival, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, manager of Drury Lane, had yet to make contact. On August 20, 1804, Harris commanded his manager-actor John Philip Kemble to “tell Barlow to write to Betty [Sr.] or Hough or both pressing the coming of the Boy but chiefly to deprecate his engaging himself any where else pending the completion of his engagement with

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us.”82 If Harris wanted Betty’s English debut to be at Covent Garden, he was, given the date of his letter, too late; Master Betty had already been performing in Birmingham for over a week. Macready must have been excited to get his fi rst look at the Young Roscius, but when he fi nally saw the child he dismayed. Betty looked worn out by performance and travel. The negative impression was doubtless exacerbated by the boy’s listless rehearsals, described by George Davies Harley as “whispering, careless, and scarcely intelligible” and bearing “no marks of promise.”83 The presentment of the curly-locked and diminutive Betty as a tragic hero was an absurdity. Worse yet, the child was often found crying in a corner. He probably missed his mother, who had been left behind in Edinburgh. His acting coach, William Hough, evidently embarrassed by the child’s lack of professionalism, threatened: “No blubbering, sir, if you please. I shall call your father. It’s no use appealing to your mother.”84 Macready demanded that Betty Sr. renegotiate the ₤10 weekly contract. He now stipulated that ₤50 of the nightly box-office cover all the house expenses.85 Anything cleared above and beyond that would be split evenly. That Macready required such terms suggests that he thought the boy would sell tickets amounting to no more than ₤51 or ₤52 a night— at that rate, Macready would have to payout about ₤1.5 to ₤1.7 a performance, or slightly under ₤10 a week. It was a hard bargain, but one Macready felt good about, since he made no secret that he thought the boy would play to “empty benches.”86 Still, Macready did his best to promote Betty, and his advertisement pealed with adulation: The Ladies and Gentlemen of Birmingham and its Vicinity are respectfully informed that the celebrated Y O U N G R O S C I U S, Who has performed with such astonishing Excellence, Attraction, and Applause, at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c., &c., is engaged here for EIGHT NIGHTS, the fi rst of which will be This present MONDAY, August the 13th, 1804 87

Betty opened in Birmingham with Douglas. He spent the morning rehearsing with the company, supervised by Hough. The supporting cast, anxious at first, was quickly mollified by the lad and his “winning, easy manner, . . . totally devoid of either bashfulness or boldness.”88 Further, the first night’s audience had come out in good numbers to see this novelty act. Macready counted the box office, which totaled ₤76.6s. Deducting ₤50 for expenses, and splitting the profit, Betty had already earned about ₤13. Two nights later, Betty played Rolla in Sheridan’s Pizzaro; the tickets tallied to ₤177. His Hamlet, August 16, brought in ₤95; his Richard, August 17, grossed ₤86. The numbers thereafter were stratospheric.

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His performance of Hamlet, August 20, brought in ₤222; his performance as Osman in Voltaire’s Zara, August 21, brought in ₤181; a second performance of his Douglas, August 22, raised ₤193; his Selim (in Brown’s play Barbarossa, August 24) took in ₤261; his Frederick in Lover’s Vows, August 25, brought in ₤244; another performance of Hamlet, August 28, tallied to ₤170; his Octavian (in Colman’s The Mountaineers), August 29, amounted to ₤234; and his final performance as Richard III, August 30, raked in an additional ₤266. In all, the ticket gross was ₤2,205; the house costs ₤600, leaving a profit of ₤1,605 to be split between Betty and the playhouse. In addition, Betty’s benefit as Romeo, August 23, earned him ₤142—minus a house cost of ₤40.89 Rather than earning ₤20 for two weeks of performances, an average of about ₤1.5s. a night, Betty’s thirteen nights, including benefit, earned him ₤904.50—a nightly average of ₤69.55.

DRURY L ANE BIDS FOR THE YOUNG ROSCIUS Among the audience in Birmingham was Justice Graham, member of the board at Drury Lane, who had been authorized by manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan to negotiate on his behalf. After seeing the boy, Graham offered Betty Sr. a standard contract. But Betty Sr. refused to sign. 90 The key sticking point seems to have been the benefit night. A benefit night was central for any actor. In theory, a playhouse put on a play for one of its stars and allowed him or her to keep the profit, which might amount to several hundred pounds. In practice, the fi nancial details of a benefit were negotiable. Oftentimes, the house turned over half of the profit, minus all expenses; sometimes, on far rarer occasions, an actor was given a benefit “free-and-clear,” in which the playhouse turned over the entire gate without deducting for its own costs. Graham offered Betty Sr. half a benefit—that is, half the house’s receipts after deductions for costs; Betty Sr. demanded a free-and-clear benefit. 91 Their negotiations were at an impasse. Sheridan was beside himself. On September 3, 1804, he wrote to William Chisholme: “I wish to Heaven you could have gone at fi rst instead of Mr. Graham. . . . He [Graham] never consulted me about the Terms—my vexation is beyond measure— this Loss will be the Perdition of the Season. . . . I hope if you found it necessary you did not stand for the charges of the Benefit. I am sure you would not.”92 Meanwhile word spread to Mr. Harris at Covent Garden that a Drury Lane board member had approached Betty’s management. In response, Harris dispatched two representatives to negotiate on his behalf: one was Edward Barlow. Barlow had been a captain of the First Dragoon Guards in Coventry, when, in 1802, he put down a riot. The merchants of the city were so grateful that they nominated him for election, which he won narrowly.93 By 1804, he was no longer a member of Parliament

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but had made sufficient connections to be named treasurer of Covent Garden Theatre. A stern authoritarian, he had his son Edward raise a wine glass at every evening meal and toast to “Mr. Harris, and success to Covent-garden Theatre.”94 Barlow’s military background would have appealed to the Bettys, who had recently experienced civil unrest in Ballynahinch, Belfast, and Dublin. His companion was William Blanchard. A bald, pink-faced man, Blanchard was a comedic actor who had cut his teeth in the provinces and was said to play a drunk fi ner than any man alive. 95 He could be relied upon to use his many friendships with actors and managers in the regional theaters to gain access to the boy. Harris gave his representatives explicit instructions: (1) fi rst to fi nd out if Betty had signed with Drury Lane and, if the boy was still unengaged, (2) to offer whatever terms necessary to secure him. When Barlow and Blanchard found out that Drury Lane had yet to sign the boy, they sat down with Betty Sr. to discuss terms. Blanchard offered him fi fty pounds a night, plus a free-and-clear benefit by which the boy might earn hundreds more. 96 Betty Sr. agreed, and contracts were signed. Harris was delighted and was sure that he’d make a handsome profit—better yet, he had beat out Drury Lane. Harris set to work advertising the boy. A notice appeared in the Times: “The Infant Roscius has secured a profitable engagement at Covent-garden; and, such is the report of his abilities, that ‘children of larger growth’; will shrink beneath the wonders of his dramatic grasp—while the critics shall, perchance, exclaim with the fat Knights,—‘This is no BOY’S play!’ ”97 But then Barlow’s friend, Mr. T. A. Ward, the manager of the Theatre Royal at Manchester, informed Harris by letter that he had it on good understanding that Betty had also signed with Drury Lane: “The intelligence I now send you is for your private knowledge. Upon my arrival here [presumably Manchester] last night, Mr. Bellamy, my partner, put a letter of Mr. Betty’s, father of the Young Roscius, into my hands,” the contents of which was “requesting me to relinquish part of my agreement [for Betty to act in his theater] in favor of Drury Lane.”98 Harris exploded with threats of legal action: I think it may be best to show the Father and Hough the enclos’d [letter from Ward] and to charge them plainly with an attempt to break his [the boy’s] engagement with us. . . . that the people of Cov. Gard. are determined not to permit such a flagrant breach of their Agreement—that recourse will infallibly be had not only to Law but to the public before whom we are determin’d to lay open every part of the transaction, that the inevitable consequence must be that the Boy will infallibly be hist off by friends of both Theatres and an indignant Public on the fi rst night of his appearance. I wou’d wish you, by such sort of language, to obtain from him [Betty Sr.] a letter to Drury Lane desiring to be off an engagement he may have inadvertently made with them, and acknowledge our prior Right to the Boy.99

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It seems Betty Sr. had been playing one theater against the other. Years later, a young Edmund Kean would attempt to initiate a bidding war between Drury Lane and the Olympic Theatre. He signed with the latter but continued to negotiate with the former. When the two theaters found out about Kean’s shenanigans, they put a stop to it by jointly refusing to employ him. In essence, despite having two jobs, Kean could collect no pay until one theater decided to release him. That sort of strategy would never do with Betty. When Kean eventually came to London, he was a relative unknown, and, when he fi nally did appear as a headliner at Drury Lane, the house was only half full. Betty, on the other hand, had already garnered critical acclaim; audiences were curious and interested in him. A full house, at least on opening night, was a given. Blackballing Betty was, therefore, out of the question. Still, a contractual dispute between Harris and Sheridan had the potential to turn nasty, especially since the volatile Harris was involved. In 1767, Harris had comanaged Covent Garden with David Garrick’s writing partner George Colman the Elder, but their relationship quickly unraveled. Their quarrel was over the casting of Imogen in a production of Cymbeline: Colman wanted the talented Mrs. Yates; Harris wanted his mistress, Mrs. Jane Lessingham.100 When Colman refused to cast Lessingham in the part, Harris flew into a rage. Colman barracked himself in the theater, but Harris and his supporters “broke it forcibly open.” 101 What followed is not recorded, but it is not difficult to imagine Harris pummeling Colman, who later described his attacker as a tyrannous “school-boy, who will have every thing his own way.”102 Legal proceedings were taken and many other pamphlets were produced on this dispute and on Harris’s management in general. Still, Harris found ways to wrestle control of Covent Garden away from Colman.103 In sum, Harris was implacable, irritable, and violent. As luck would have it, Harris had one friend that he valued above all others: his rival at Drury Lane, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Harris had bought many of Sheridan’s early plays, including The Rivals, St Patrick’s Day, and The Duenna. With the money Sheridan earned for these and other productions, in 1776 he bought out David Garrick’s shares at Drury Lane and installed himself as manager, a post which he retained until 1809. Even after he became Harris’s competitor, the two maintained a close working relationship; they mutually invested in and comanaged yet another venue, King’s Theatre, in 1778.104 If Betty Sr. was trying to play one off against the other, it was unlikely that he would succeed. Harris and Sheridan had been friends for decades, and if Harris told Sheridan he had acted properly, Sheridan had every reason to believe Harris, and, given Harris’s temper, every reason to placate him.105 All parties agreed to arbitration by Rev. Bates Dudley. Looking over the various contracts and hearing one side and then the other, Dudley concluded that “they [the Theatres Royal] each had an equal claim” upon

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the boy.106 He made the following proposal: Instead of Betty appearing at either Covent Garden or Drury Lane, perhaps the boy might alternate between the two houses? Each theater would pay Betty fi fty guineas a night for six nights, plus one night’s benefit free and clear of costs. If interest were sustained, the boy would be reengaged for more shows at each theater at a rate of one hundred pounds a night. Drury Lane forced an additional clause; it would be preferred over any other theater in any future negotiations: “If his son should perform twelve night at Covent Garden Theatre this Season, any proposals made by the proprietors of Drury-lane Theare, relative to his future Theatrical Engagements, shall be attended to in preference to all other, after such twelve nights are concluded.”107 Why Covent Garden’s Harris agreed to this codicil remains unknown, though it is likely he felt that additional performances were a nonissue. After an initial run of a boy playing men’s parts, audiences would certainly have their fi ll. So why haggle over where he played next? In Harris’s mind there was no “next.” What was more important was where the boy appeared fi rst.108 Even on the day of Betty’s London premiere—December 1, 1804— Sheridan, in a letter to his wife, noted that there remained “great bickerings and discussions between Convent-Garden and us about the double engagement [of Betty]—however we shall strictly maintain our Share. Harris wants to try to cajole me however He being luckily laid up as well as I, we don’t meet.” Sheridan even suspected that Harris was willing to wreck Betty’s long-term career, if that was what it would take to stop him from appearing profitably at rival Drury Lane: “It is strongly imagined that the Policy at C G is to make the most of the fi rst Spurt of Public curiosity but ultimately to run him down if they can fi nding that any future engagement is to be with us.” To that end, Harris actually refused to advertise Betty as “The Young Roscius,” which had been a key part of his success in Ireland and Scotland. As Sheridan recorded, Betty Sr. “remonstrated earnestly that [his son] might be advertised as he had been at Edinburg[h] and all over the Kingdom,” but Harris insisted that the boy be referred to only as “Master Betty.” 109 Sheridan, on the other hand, promised that if the boy appeared at Drury Lane, he’d be billed as “The Young Roscius.”

R ECALIBRATING E NGLISH BETTYMANIA In the midst of such squabbling, we might overlook the fact that both theaters were running a risk here. What if audiences in the provinces grew bored with the boy? Given Betty’s successes in Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Birmingham, that seemed unlikely, but that was, in fact, how it was beginning to look. Just a few weeks after his Birmingham dates,

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Betty played Sheffield. He opened on September 17, 1804, with Douglas, which did reasonably well, grossing ₤93. The next night, Betty performed his Selim to a mostly empty house—the receipts tallied to just ₤60. Bettymania, it seemed, was in need of yet another reinvention. In Ireland, Betty’s English accent was crucial to his success; in Scotland, Betty’s localized dress swayed much of his audience. Whereas in Ireland the boy’s popularity had tacitly suggested the inevitability of Anglo-Irish integration, in Scotland, the boy’s celebratory depiction of Scottish traditions acted as an important buffer to ongoing English attempts at cultural and economic assimilation.110 Betty’s celebrity had thus far earned him the titles of the “Roscius of Scotland” or the Garrick gimmick, “Young Roscius.” James Bisset’s Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, published just after Betty’s Birmingham performances, referred to him as the “celebrated IRISH ROSCIUS.”111 What was needed was a way to turn the Irish or Scottish Roscius into the “English Roscius.”112 Casting about for a publicity stunt to win English hearts and minds, Hough and Betty Sr. recalled that in Cork Master Betty had not been an instant success either. He had been engaged there for six nights on the expectation of modest returns. (The average gross of the Cork playhouse was a mere ₤10.)113 But the boy had been lucky. As John Doran relates, “There was a Cork tailor hanged for robbery; but, after he was cut down, a Cork actor, named Glover, succeeded, by friction and other means, in bringing him to life again! On the same night, and for many nights, the tailor, drunk and unhanged, would go to the theatre and publicly acknowledge the service of Mr. Glover in bringing him to life again!” Thereafter, crowds came in good number and the house grossed an average of ₤100 a night.114 Betty Sr. and Hough needed a story very much like that one and so invented it. According to the Caledonian Mercury, during a Sheffield performance of Betty’s Hamlet, a minor actor in the cast, a Mr. Henry, who played Horatio, stepped on an unlocked trapdoor and fell some twelve feet to the basement below. Worse yet, his arm was skewered on a large hook directly under the trap. “Medical assistance being on the spot, he was immediately bled, and carried home to his apartments.” And there the story ended. Betty was not even mentioned in the account, except to say that Mr. Henry had been performing opposite him.115 Hough and Betty Sr. recrafted the narrative to panegyrize the boy. Mr. Henry still fell through a trapdoor, but the Young Roscius was now the “fi rst to make his way beneath the stage, calling loudly for lights, exclaiming, in the utmost agony, while the full eye bore testimony to the feelings of his heart, ‘My God! my God! he is killed!’ ” Betty then helped carry him to the greenroom and, on the next day and for days following, visited Mr. Henry “at his lodgings; and his attention afterwards was unremitting.”116

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It is easy to see why this story would connect with so many English in general. From 1804 to 1805, France threatened England with a massive invasion of some two hundred thousand soldiers. There was talk of Napoleon having a variety of nightmare weapons: huge troop transports powered by windmills, a squadron of hot air balloons, a secret Channel tunnel. Contrastingly, the English response was underwhelming: the construction of a series of short, squat defensive fortifications to slow the French march.117 In short, English preparations suggested the inevitability of a French invasion and, as a consequence, the deaths of thousands of British soldiers. With the threat of blood and battle on the horizon, the report of this little boy nursing a severely wounded man aided in uniting English interests in the boy. Even years later, William C. Macready recalled that his fi rst impression of Bettymania was not linked to Irish loyalism nor to Scottish nationalism; rather, he remembered Bettymania as a Napoleonic rebuff: “Nothing was talked of but Bonaparte and invasion. Suddenly a wonderful boy, a miracle of beauty, grace, and genius, who had acted in Belfast and Edinburgh, became the theme of all discourse.”118 Attempts to recast Betty as an inoffensive opposite to Napoleonic aggression would only intensify once the boy actually arrived in London; for now we may attend to the plinth of that promotional campaign. Rather than French soldiers with arms, a British boy came only with tears, not to capture cities but to liberate hearts. Betty’s worry over Mr. Henry reads like bad theater, but its success can be measured in the sudden influx of ticket buyers: “The town was so crowded with company, that it was with great difficulty a bed could be procured either in public or private houses.”119 With the town overrun, shuttles were arranged to take spectators directly to the Sheffield Theatre—the carriages were labeled: “Theatrical Coach, to carry six insides [sic] to see the Young Roscius.”120 Box seats regularly three shillings were raised to four shillings, and the pit, which had cost two shillings, now cost half-a-crown.121 Receipts for his Selim (September 18) topped ₤129 and Betty’s Romeo (September 26) totaled ₤121. By the end of his run, the house was squeezing in yet more people. Tickets for his Tancred (October 5) amounted to ₤108; his Douglas (October 6) brought in ₤127. Of his fourteen performances in Sheffield, nine grossed over ₤100; of the remaining five performances, the average take was about ₤74.122 Bigger paydays awaited. In Liverpool, for example, Betty sold ₤3,680 in tickets, for which he was paid ₤1,520.123 Money, however, does not begin to capture the sudden enthusiasm. In Liverpool, crowds clamored for tickets: “in the morning, when the box office was opened, gentlemen frequently had their clothes torn to tatters; their hats and shoes carried away in the crowd, and themselves sometimes severely bruised and almost suffocated in the attempt.”124 At Chester, audiences were equally frantic “to behold this infantile genius.”125 In

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an effort to avoid “great danger, and some serious accident,” the theater issued the following statement: “No person to take places for more than one family. In order to secure the places taken, servants must attend at the back door of the theatre by a quarter past five o’clock at the farthest, for the doors opening at six o’clock and the performance beginning early at seven.”126 The Theatre Royal at Manchester, fearing unrest, closed the box office and only accepted ticket purchases (maximum eight per customer) by mail.127 Master Betty was now supremely confident that England, like Ireland and Scotland, would soon be his. A November 12 opening performance in Manchester included an epilogue, which addressed any lingering doubts concerning his genius: Say, am I wrong to aim at your applause? Yet, there are some, unheard, prejudge my cause, Who in my coat theatric holes are picking, And scorn the boyish hero, stage-struck chicken. Shall he debased a Shakspere’s glowing scenes, ‘A horse! A horse!’—a rocking-horse he means. His acting, trick, and start—a mere machine, Who utters words, not feeling what they mean! Am I a chicken? They shall fi nd me game, In the bold contest for theatric fame.128

If this was a challenge, there were few left to take up the gauntlet. Besides, the box office receipts confi rmed Betty’s popularity. Betty left Manchester richer by six hundred pounds.129 Another sign of Betty’s—or more properly, Betty Sr.’s—brass: a willingness to cancel agreed-upon performances. Macready, proprietor of the Birmingham Theatre, had booked Betty to appear on November 25 with his own troupe at the Leicester Theatre. On November 21, 1805, Macready wrote to Betty Sr., who was evidently hoping to drop the Leicester performances in favor of an early appearance at Drury Lane: I know not what the consequence would be to me after having given my word to the public ’twould be the destruction, the total Annihilation of my whole Season. Allow me to request the favor of a line to satisfy my tortur’d Mind. . . . Let me entreat that you will immediately write to Drury Lane & explain how you are situated. If ever you had promis’d surely the delay of a fortnight or three Weeks can be no injury to them compared with a disappointment not to be amended by time or Circumstances.130

Why Betty Sr. wanted to exercise an opt out is a matter of speculation. It is unlikely that Thomas Harris at Covent Garden would have allowed Betty to premiere at Drury Lane. It is possible that Betty Sr. was reneging on the Leicester dates for an entirely different reason. As we will see in

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the next chapter, his boy was on the verge of a complete physical breakdown. Betty Sr. may have tried to cancel the Leicester performances simply to give his son a much-needed rest. In any case, Betty Sr. changed his mind. On November 24, Master Betty performed a double-bill in Stockport (Lover’s Vows and Richard III), and then—the very next day—he and his entourage left for Leicester, where they were met by Macready’s Birmingham troupe for performances of Hamlet and Richard III.131 A physically fatigued Betty then traveled to London. His premiere at Covent Garden was just five days away. On the plus side, the money was pouring in. Tallying his Irish, Scottish, and English performances to date, Betty had already earned at least twelve thousand pounds.132

BETTYMANIA DESCENDS ON L ONDON Betty’s impending arrival generated a great deal of discussion. Was the boy really a genius? What would Betty’s arrival mean for Kemble and the other actors? Would Londoners embrace him or heckle him? On September 8, 1804, over three months before Betty’s arrival, the diarist Joseph Farington recorded the following: “Holman & another actor, have seen the Boy so much talked of for his Theatrical powers. Their report is that His powers are very extraordinary.”133 Less than a week later, on September 13, Farington recorded the comments of his friend, Daniel Lysons, the noted English antiquary and topographer: “He [Lysons] shd. not desire to see Him [Betty] more than twice, for a change of characters, as the disproportion of His stature to that of the men and women with whom He acts, cannot be got over, & all illusion is lost. It is a curiosity.”134 These decidedly dissimilar reports would be settled once London audiences saw Betty for themselves. Arriving in London, the boy was immediately the object of fascination. In their fi rst evening in town, father and son attended a performance at Covent Garden, where they were quickly spotted by fans, many of whom had already seen the boy perform in the regional theaters. Others likely recognized him from the inserted portraits and prose descriptions found in a variety of pamphlets published in and selling throughout London, among them: James Bisset’s Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius (1804); George Davies Harley’s An Authentic Biographical Sketch of the Life, Education, and Personal Character, of William Henry West Betty, the Celebrated Young Roscius (1804); Thomas Harral’s The Infant Roscius; Or, An Inquiry into the Requisites of an Actor (1804); John Jackson’s Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius (1804); Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, With Critical Remarks on the Theatrical Abilities of This Wonderful Phenomenon (1804); John Merritt’s Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, Known by the Name of the Young Roscius (1804); and W. P. Russel’s The Prose-Rosciad (1804).135

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Crowd attention was such that the Bettys were forced to dislodge in favor of a private box. Even in this privileged space, the boy was assailed. The playwright Frederick Reynolds recalled that as he sat in the theater watching his own play, The Blind Bargain, a gentleman and a boy entered his box. Reynolds observed the child, who occupied himself with the eating of an orange, just long enough to dismiss him as a dullard. A fruit woman then entered and quietly informed Reynolds that he had been observing none other than the celebrated Young Roscius. Reynolds, who had clearly not paid attention to the pamphleted images and descriptions of the boy wonder, then asked how she knew him. She replied that she had seen both the father’s and the celebrated son’s names on the guest list. Curiosity “inducted me to take another peep, when, at this moment, the door was burst open, and hundreds deserting their boxes, attempted to rush into ours.”136 Reynolds read the terror on the boy’s face and quickly led father and son out a side door. The crowd, expecting that Master Betty would exit the lobby, rushed in advance, but Reynolds led them backstage and so to safety. Was Betty Sr. taking his son to the theater so that he could get “a lay of the land”? Probably not. He would have had a chance to do so in rehearsal in the morning. No, the point seems to have been to attend the playhouse just long enough to be spotted. It was a publicity stunt, one that could not have endeared the boy to the company performing that night. It’s one thing to lose an audience; it’s another to lose an audience to a member of the audience! The actors must have been irritated, but Drury Lane and Covent Garden were already counting their money. As Sheridan wrote in a letter to his wife: “The whole talk of the Town [concerns] nothing but Young Roscius Young Roscius Young Roscius.”137

2 Betty Conquers London Everybody here is mad about this Boy Actor. . . . We go to town to-morrow to see him, and from what I have heard, I own I shall be disappointed if he is not a prodigy —the prominent British Whig politician Charles James Fox to Lord Holland.1

O N SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1804, the managers at Covent Garden knew what to expect. Bow-Street officers, aided by Foot Guards, were posted in and around the theater.2 When the doors opened a little after 4:00 p.m., “the rush to obtain seats was so tumultuous that the forces of law and order were routed, police and soldiers were swept off their feet, men fainted and women swooned, and there ensued a scene of indescribable confusion.”3 Some were injured, perhaps even killed, in the melee.4 Once inside, ticket buyers were shocked to fi nd that many people had already staked out their places. Some had bought tickets for the Friday evening performance and concealed themselves in the theater overnight.5 As a consequence, hundreds of people bought tickets to nonexistent seats and when told that “the house was full,” simply rammed themselves into the theater.6 When the boxes fi lled, people began jumping into the pit, while others, who could not fi nd room for a leap of this sort, fought for standing places. Seats, lobbies, and passages that did not even allow a glimpse of the auditorium were packed tightly, wedging their occupants into suffocating corners.7 With these squatters unable or unwilling to leave, the “police-officers now attempted to clear them; but they were beaten back by the tenants at will, who would take no warning to quit, and defied all ejectment.”8 It was worse, of course, for the common ticket buyer who was confi ned to the pit. The place was so packed and the ventilation so poor that some began to faint and had to be dragged up, seemingly lifeless, into the boxes; others were carried outside “mummy-style” over people’s heads. 9 Of the twenty or so women in attendance, “two or three of the boxes were employed almost the whole time in fanning the gentlemen who were beneath them in the pit.”10

L ONDON BETTYMANIA Why were Londoners so eager to see the boy? To begin with, George Taylor has recently argued that Bettymania was a useful, “regressive escape 55

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from the genuine anxiety” of Napoleon’s threatened invasion. He further writes: “I prefer to think of it [Bettymania] as a sign that people do indeed turn to the theatre in times of crisis, not necessarily to see their concerns enacted, debated or rehearsed, but to escape from anxiety.”11 The evidence for his position can be measured in newspaper inches. Betty premiered in London on December 1, 1804; Napoleon was crowned emperor of France on December 2, but London newspapers devoted more space to Betty than to Napoleon.12 One paper even commented on the skewed coverage: “Neither his Emperorship nor his Coronation engage a thousandth part of the attention which our theatrical phenomenon can so justly boast of.”13 And yet, Betty’s supposedly regressive/escapist performances often had topical associations. As we saw in chapter 1, Betty’s initial performances were aimed at loyalists, who happily sang “Britannia Rules” and “God Save the King!” between acts. In Glasgow and Edinburgh, Bettymania was recalibrated to Scottish nationalistic impulses; his performance of Douglas was carefully accented with traditional tartan, sporran, and ghillie brogues. In Sheffield, Betty’s amazing (and entirely fictional) concern for an injured cast member did not offer an escape from the worry of Napoleon; rather, Betty’s concern and care for Mr. Henry rehearsed in theatrical fashion the medical attention anticipated for thousands of soldiers who would be wounded in a showdown with the French emperor and his troops. London’s version of Bettymania also dealt with Napoleon and his army but in a more triumphal pitch. Betty’s managers had scheduled the boy to appear in John Brown’s Barbarossa. There were many reasons for its selection. David Garrick had played the hero of the play, Selim, at Drury Lane on December 17, 1754, to great acclaim; so the play fit one of Bettymania’s early marketing strengths—connecting the old Roscius to the Young Roscius.14 There were far more recent “Barabarossian” associations, as well. Just a year before, in 1803, Napoleon had been referred to as the “CORSICAN BARBAROSSA.”15 Further, the idea of a youngster defeating Napoleon was then current in theatrical circles. In John Scott Ripon’s play Buonaparte; or, The Free-Booter (1803), Napoleon is defeated by a foreshadowing of Betty, an officer played by a boy. The Duke of Wellington exclaims: “THE TERROR OF EUROPE HAS FALLEN BY A STRIPLING’S HAND, AND ENGLAND IS YET FREE.”16 London Bettymania did not offer a temporary escape from Napoleon; rather, it deflated Napoleon by turning him into someone who could be defeated by a boy. Consideration of Napoleon and the French Revolution became inconsequential, trivial, or, like the age of Betty himself, minor. With this motif in mind, Selim’s pluck in the face of Barbarossa’s fury was interpreted as a patriotic rejection of the French emperor: “the spectators . . . applied the lines [of the play] to Buonaparte,” thus occasioning “the most vehement applause.”17 Equating Betty’s inspirational acting to “the rule of justice,” he “seemed to possess all the power” necessary to “execut[e] the menace” of French tyranny.18

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DISSATISFACTION WITH E NGLAND’S RULERS While we often refer to an audience as if it were a singular entity, the audience gathered for this performance at Covent Garden had differing interests and expectations. London Bettymania may have been anti-French, but it was also pro-revolutionary. Lady Bessborough, who hobnobbed with the prince, Prime Minister William Pitt, and other men of power, described Bettymania as a juvenile expression of the frenzy that had all too recently shaken France. Though John Fairburn probably goes too far in suggesting an organized militancy to London Bettymania—he describes the audience as “besiegers”—still, the violence was real, and at least some of it was pointed at the ruling political elite.19 Lady Bessborough later recorded that the passage up to the Prince’s box was burst open, and the mob with difficulty kept out. We were lifted off our legs, and, in short, must have been crush’d but for the constables, who call’d some soldiers, and we were march’d in like prisoners. The confusion afterwards is something I never witness’d before, even men fainting without end in the Pit and oblig’d to be drawn up thro’ the boxes; it is like Madness, quite.20

Since George, the Prince of Wales, was not mentioned in Lady Bessborough’s narrative, nor in any of Betty’s many biographies, we can assume that he was not in the royal box that night. (He was, in fact, according to the Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804, in Lady Melbourne’s box.) But this was merely a matter of luck. The crowds which had forced their way into the royal box had no way of knowing whether the prince was there or not; nor had they cared for the safety or the sanctity of his royal person. As Claudius might say in Hamlet, “It had been so with us, had we been there.” True, no one in the royal box was killed, but the point remains: London Bettymania was not just a theatrical event; it was, at least within the confines of the theater, a December Saturnalia in which the habitually seated aristocrats took to their feet and, if necessary, to their heels.21 London Bettymania was in part hostility masking itself as holiday fun; but it also brought into focus the need for political change. In 1804, England’s King George III was sixty-six years old and diagnosed as insane.22 His eldest son, the future George IV, was forty-four years old, a dissolute wastrel who was legally married to one woman, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, illegally married to another, Maria Fitzherbert, and, notoriously, cheating on them both. His brother William, the Duke of Clarence, kept a married woman—an Irish actress no less!—Mrs. Jordan, as his mistress. Frederick, Duke of York, age forty-one, also had a mistress, Mrs. Clarke, who, in 1802 and beyond, was said to accept cash and sexual favors in return for influence with her royal lover. Another brother, Edward, Duke of Kent, had been the governor of Gibraltar, until his own soldiers mutinied against his

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authoritarian rule in 1802; thereafter he returned to London in disgrace. Yet another brother, Ernest, was rumored to be having a homosexual affair with his valet, Joseph Sellis, which culminated in Sellis’s attempted assassination of the duke on May 31, 1810. George III’s seventh son, Prince Adolphus, Duke of Sussex, had married Lady Augusta Murray in Rome on April 4, 1793; the marriage was annulled sixteen months later, which was scandalous in itself, though the fact that Adolphus continued to live with his ex-wife until 1801 was still worse. In 1797, King George’s daughter Charlotte married the paunchy Prince of Württemberg, who, at the height of Bettymania, was collaborating with Napoleon.23 Putting George III and his children aside, Britain’s chief political players included the Prime Minister, William Pitt, who first served that post in 1783 at age twenty-four; by 1804, he was only forty-five years old but addicted to drink and dying of liver disease. His political rival, the grossly overweight Charles James Fox, was a notorious lecher and gambler, who had a habit of vomiting in public. Given the political conditions of 1804–5, it is hardly surprising that British citizens were seeking a symbol of juvenescence. The Pall Mall Gazette summed up the political atmosphere of Bettymania thusly: “They [radical politicians] crowd around him” as if Britain were “in for another re-modelling of the Constitution.”24

THE YOUNG ROSCIUS VS. THE OLD K EMBLE CLAN As discussed in chapter 1, Theatres Royal served a vital cultural and even political function in the Georgian era. In many ways the hierarchy of the London theaters reflected an idealized British court. The reigning monarch of the London stage was John Philip Kemble, known for his decorous restraint.25 Unsurprisingly, he excelled at playing calm, self-possessed heroes and well-mannered princes. Wrote Leigh Hunt: “He [Kemble] never rises and sinks as in the enthusiasm of the moment; his ascension though grand is careful, and when he sinks it is with preparation and dignity.”26 Kemble played Hamlet “like a man in armour,” impervious to the world around him, triumphant “with a determined inveteracy of purpose.”27 Kemble’s power over London theater was enhanced still further by his extended family, who “by their numerous professional branches, their numerous professional intermarriages, and their numerous professional getting and saving ways,” virtually “monopolize[d] all the theatrical emoluments.”28 Kemble’s father and grandfather were actors, and so was his mother. However, by the time Betty arrived on the London scene, this theatrical family, like the royal family, was showing its age: John Philip Kemble was forty-seven years old but looked much older; his once-fluid motions were now hobbled by a “distressing lameness in his right knee.”29 His brother, Stephen Kemble, age forty-six, was a mediocre comic actor.

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Rather heavyset, he was referred to as the “big instead of great Kemble.”30 Nonetheless, he was the actor-manager at the Theatres Royal in Newcastle and Coventry and regularly booked his siblings as special guest stars. Kemble’s sister, Sarah Siddons, had been a mainstay of London theater since 1782 and relied upon a repertoire of emotionally powerful women such as Isabella (in Southerne’s Fatal Marriage) and Volumnia and Lady Macbeth (in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Macbeth, respectively). Her portrait was painted by Gainsborough and by Reynolds. She was a star of the fi rst magnitude, but, in 1804, she was forty-nine years old and was showing signs of the “vapid vacuity” that marked her fi nal years.31 Caricaturists dubbed her “Queen Rant.”32 A sister, Elizabeth Kemble, age forty-three, was also considered a fi ne actress. She made her debut at Drury Lane in 1783 but soon immigrated to America with her husband, where she became a star actress. A younger brother, Charles, age twentynine, also acted at Covent Garden, little beloved by the public. One critic described him as “a tall, awkward youth, with what is termed a hatchet face, a figure badly proportioned, and evidently weak in his limbs; his acting was even worse than his appearance.”33 Betty, then, was a fresh face and, just as importantly, a fresh name.

GARRICK VS. QUIN / BETTY VS. K EMBLE As we have seen, many rushed to Betty’s performances because they wanted to see the boy. Once there, many of these same people may have participated in the turbulence of the mob because it occasioned a convenient, though probably unrehearsed, excuse to storm the prince’s box. Others aimed their displeasure at Kemble and his grip over London theater. However, while Bettymania aptly summed up a yearning for political and/or artistic transformation, in some ways it was a decidedly nostalgic and thus conservative enterprise. As we noted earlier, Bettymania knowingly allied itself to Garrick Fever; at the same time Bettymania relied upon a Romantic adherence of innocence and ignorance. The result was often a kind of pretzel logic, twisted and half-baked. For example, we read that Betty’s and Garrick’s styles were so similar that “the compliment to Master Betty should have been—not the Young Roscius— but the YOUNG GARRICK”; in Ireland, he was sometimes referred to as the “Infant Garrick.”34 Yet, in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, we read that, since Garrick was long dead, and “Every one knows the school of Garrick is now no more,” the boy’s Garrick-like acting was not a result of direct copying.35 His fans were arguing that Betty had unknowingly or intuitively reinvented the acting technique of the older Roscius; yet, because he was both young and unschooled, Betty’s style, no matter how similar to Garrick’s, was “entirely his own” and “original.”36

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Whether Betty’s acting was derivative or original, many believed that he would fulfi ll Garrick’s promise of change: When Garrick began his career in the 1730s, actors moved and spoke in a dreary, formalized fashion. The era’s most established tragedian, James Quin, dragged out his replies with “such a slow rolling utterance, and with such a protracted pause that the story ran, that some one in the gallery called out to know why he did not give the gentleman an answer.”37 By 1741, Garrick had perfected a naturalistic approach, which, combined with his youthful vitality, “took the town by storm.”38 Rather than solemn elegance, Garrick’s body displayed a twitching vigor, which was also reflected in his sudden vocal stops, starts, and shifts of tone. It was not simply that Garrick’s physical and emotional turbulence was at loggerheads with his classical competition; it was also—and this is obviously a repeated motif of Bettymania—the age of the competition. In 1741, James Quin was forty-eight; another rival, Colley Cibber was seventy years old and still performing. Garrick was twenty-four years old and a bundle of energy. Watching Garrick as Hamlet and Quin as his Horatio, Richard Cumberland was amazed at the difference between the actors. Garrick—who was “young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature”—came “bounding on the stage,” whereas Quin was a “heavy-paced Horatio.”39 In the words of Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, Garrick’s style signaled a generational shift: “It seemed like another life, a young beside an old one, new creatures beside those of an older world.”40 Yet Garrick retired in 1776, no actor succeeding in his style; Kemble made his London debut in 1783, and, after twenty-one years of his sluggish acting, Garrick’s spirited performances were only a memory. Now Betty had come, and, with him, “the old excitement of the times of Garrick and Quin.”41 While the public wanted to see Kemble and Betty act together, their only face-off was limited to the rehearsal space. At a run-through for his upcoming performance of Douglas, Betty rushed upon his prostrate stage mother. Seeing this, Kemble stopped the actors and ordered the boy to reenter with a solemn, Quin-like step. The pint-sized Betty retorted that the scene did not call for propriety but for spontaneity: “Good God, Mr. Kemble, do you call this acting? Does not nature prompt you to rush, with all the velocity which fi lial love can inspire, to save your mother? I could have killed her ten times before you had crawled over the stage.”42 Likewise, when discussing the part of Rolla, Kemble counseled that Betty might reconsider playing the character because the part called for Rolla to carry a child with his arms outstretched, nothing for an adult, but a tremendous feat of strength for a child. Betty replied: “So it may . . . but where is the necessity [of carrying the child on stage]? I dare say Rolla would never have thought of it. I should think he only snatch’d the child, hugg’d it close to his bosom and ran away as fast as he could, or the Spanish Soldiers would certain take it from him.”43 Such remarks added

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to the view that, in Betty, Garrick had come again. As one critic put it: “The envy which we understand pervades the performers against the Young Roscius, reminds us of what was said by the veteran Quin, on his fi rst witnessing the performance of Garrick; turning round to some of his theatrical brethren he exclaimed—‘By G—d if this boy is right, we are all wrong, lads.’ ”44

BETTYMANIA AND CHRISTMAS PANTO Some may have come to Covent Garden for the acting; others may have come for the comedy—more particularly for the panto. The term may be foreign to many Americans, but the tradition thrives to this day in Britain, where boxers, pop singers, and boyish women often cross-dress, sing farcical songs, and engage in comic banter with the audience.45 Moreover, pantos of Betty’s era were often associated with child actors. The nineteenth-century child actor John Coleman reminisced that every Christmas season: “We youngsters were all called upon to assist in the Harlequinade: George Honey was a starved servant, Melrose a fat boy, Parselle a Highlander (as he was wont to appear outside a snuff shop), Joe Reynolds a policeman, and I—save the mark!—was the swell. We were all bonneted, and knocked about from pillar to post by the Clown.”46 Though Betty was not playing in a panto per se, having a child play the lead during panto season naturally added an element of panto-like farce to the proceedings.47 According to Robert Burton, the “exhibition of the Roscius during the Christmas holidays” saved “the manager the expence of getting up a pantomime for the overgrown children.”48 Burton was a Betty detractor; still, the possibility of dismissing Betty as a panto-esque farceur was always very real. In December 1804, the Morning Chronicle warned that Betty’s “appearance in Richard III, Othello, or Lear must be quite ludicrous, and to put him into them at present would be to profane these divine compositions,” and, later in the season, Joseph Farington acknowledged that “when He [Betty] fi rst appears on the stage in Richard or Hamlet &c., it excites laughter.”49 If Betty’s performances of Hamlet and Richard were “ludicrous,” his performance in Barbarossa had the potential to turn uproarious. As Bridget Orr points out, during Christmas season, London theaters commonly offered Middle Eastern plays as panto farce. 50 The aforementioned Robert Burton found the association too juicy to resist comment. He not only compared Betty to panto in general but also matched the boy’s London premiere in Barbarossa to the magic lanterns at the Lyceum, a reference to a recent production of John O’Keefe’s Middle Eastern panto Aladdin or The Magic Lanterns. 51 If London’s patent theaters were aware of a risible panto connotation in having a child perform the lead in a Middle Eastern play during the

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Christmas season—and it is difficult to believe they were unaware—they evidently saw nothing wrong with it. Betty, after all, was not hired as a great artist but as a valuable attraction. Debuting in December, Betty was quite naturally a part of Drury Lane’s and Covent Garden’s seasonal panto attractions. Indeed, in the wider scheme of things, Betty’s London debut was part of an ongoing reorganization and reinvigoration of London theater. Since the Licensing Act of 1737, only London’s two patent theaters, Drury Lane and Covent Garden, were allowed to perform plays; the rest had to make do with pantos, musicals, circus acts, performing pets, and melodramas. As the years passed, however, the patent theaters found themselves on the outside looking in. The money was now in the very entertainments considered too lowbrow for the Theatres Royal. However, since Christmas pantos at the patent theaters had been offered annually dating back to the days of David Garrick, Drury Lane and Covent Garden were free to exploit their seasonal popularity with almost no public complaint. 52 During the 1803 Christmas season, for example, Theatre Royal audiences at Drury Lane enjoyed Frederick Reynolds’s The Caravan; or The Driver and His Dog, which featured a Newfoundland canine named Carlo, who saves a drowning child. While a few audience members were upset that a Theatre Royal had stooped so low, Drury Lane had little choice. It had come to depend upon lucrative panto-plays to support its otherwise precarious finances. Robert Brinsley Sheridan, manager of Drury Lane, called the dog-actor the “author and preserver” of his theater.53 Betty, then, was just another act booked for fast cash during the Christmas panto season. It is hardly a coincidence that on the evening Betty debuted at Covent Garden, Drury Lane offered audiences a competing entertainment, the panto Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper. 54 The star of Cinderella was Miss De Camp, who had been performing professionally since the age of six and was “noted for her dancing and her acting in pantomime parts.”55 She was just shy of her thirty-fi rst birthday in December of 1804 but was described variously as “young,” “lively,” and “little”— all descriptives associated with Betty. 56 Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper proved to be nearly as popular as the Young Roscius and played to delighted audiences for fi fty-one nights.57 While we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, it is also worth remembering that even before Betty performed for London audiences, his opening and upcoming performances were framed by playbills which announced the play, the lead actor, the supporting cast, and the evening’s afterpiece. A full list of afterpieces for Betty’s London shows is, unfortunately, unavailable, but the extant information suggests that many selections deliberately spoofed precocious children. 58 For example, on December 5, 1804, Betty was scheduled at Covent Garden to play the serious role of Frederick, in Lover’s Vows. A later Betty performance (December 13) included the Thomas Dibdin afterpiece Of Age To-morrow,

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a farce concerning a teenager named Frederick. Adding to the association between Lover’s Vows and Of Age To-morrow was the fact that both plays were adaptations of the work of the same playwright: August von Kotzebue. Lover’s Vows was based on his Das Kind der Liebe; Of Age Tomorrow was based on his Der Wildfang. Another example of Betty framed as comic relief: Betty’s third performance at Drury Lane was matched with William Oxberry’s The Spoiled Child, a short piece which concerns a precocious brat. 59 The boy’s name in the farce is “Little Pickle,” thus prompting the anonymous author of Betty-satire The Young Rosciad (1805) to quip: “I’ve a wondrous rod in pickle / Your pretty little Bum to tickle.”60 The afterpiece for Betty’s eighth Drury Lane performance was Arthur Murphy’s The Apprentice, which features a boy obsessed with acting.61 The character’s favorite actorly lines come from Betty’s London debut piece, Barbarossa, and from Hamlet, which Betty had previously played in the provinces and was currently readying for London audiences.62 Having Betty debut in an Aladdin-esque role, during a panto season featuring the canine Carlo or the youthful De Camp, as well as the addition of a variety of farcical afterpieces which castigated gifted or theatrically ambitious children, added a youthful and popular element to the normally stolid patent theater offerings, but it did little to enhance Betty’s standing as a legitimate actor. As the Times later put it, “the Clown of Tragedy [Betty] was called in to give a new zest to the Clown of Pantomime.”63

BETTYMANIA AND ROMANTIC POETRY Serious and comedic, violent and frivolous, the audience gathered for Betty’s London premiere reflected the protean nature of Bettymania itself. While the Emperor Napoleon and English politics and panto may have been on the minds of some, still others were linking Betty to Romantic expressions of genius. One newspaper remarked that the “fi re of fancy which barely glimmers in the pages of a Thomson, Lewis, &c. burst into a blaze of splendour in the hands of Master Betty.”64 The playwright Frederick Reynolds less favorably compared Betty to the youthful Shakespeare forger, W. H. Ireland. England, he wrote, was systematically replacing men with boys: Ireland “for the genuine Shakspeare, and another boy [Betty] for a superior Garrick.”65 Each of these references requires some brief attention. Matthew Lewis was just seventeen when he wrote the Gothic sensation The Monk and might, thereby, be seen as a prodigy. The Marquis de Sade called Lewis’s novel “the necessary fruit of the revolutionary tremors felt by the whole of Europe.”66 W. H. Ireland was also seventeen years old when he “discovered” Shakespeare’s original papers, including a longlost play, The Tragedy of Vortigern. Ireland eventually confessed that he was the author of the papers, and, though the theatrical world blacklisted him

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for the fraud, the boy remained proud of his accomplishment, dubbing himself “Shakespeare Ireland.” Hailed by many as a genius, he then went on to write a variety of works that exhibited his own brand of negative capability: his novel The Abbess (1799) imitated Lewis’s The Monk; his collection Ballads in Imitation of the Ancient (1801) included verse written in the style of Spenser and Chatterton; his long poem The Angler (1804) was written in imitation of Izaak Walton. As for James Thomson, he was the poetic author of The Seasons (1730), a work which celebrated the bucolic and simple ways of the farmer. Thomson was thirty years old when he wrote The Seasons, comparatively ancient in terms of Betty’s youth, and the work itself proposes that urban entertainments such as professional theater alienated man from the natural rhymes of the earth. In the “Autumn” section of the poem, Thomson imagines London struck down for its iniquity: O man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long Shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage, Awaiting renovation?. . . . Thus a proud city, populous, and rich, Full of the works of peace, and high in joy, At theater or feast, or sunk in sleep, (As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is seized By some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurl’d, Sheer from the black foundation, stench-involved, Into a gulph of blue, sulphureous flame.67

Betty, who was raised in a farming community in Ireland, was not expected to incinerate London theater, but, as the aforementioned comparisons to other Romantic artists make clear, his arrival was seen by many as a revolutionary event. Whether for good or bad, most critics agreed that Betty was “destined to fix a new epocha, perhaps, to effect an important revolution, in one of the most important arts of civilized life.”68 Not only were audiences linking the boy to Romantics such as Lewis, Ireland, and Thomson, the Romantics themselves were discussing the boy. Among the audience on opening night was Sir George Beaumont, who had promised to write faithfully to William Wordsworth on the boy’s performance. In a series of letters to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth again and again raised doubts as to whether any boy was able to act adult parts properly: “From what you have seen, Sir George, do you think he [Betty] could manage a character of Shakespeare? Neither Selim nor Douglas requires much power; but even to perform them as he does, talents and genius I should think must be necessary.”69 In poems such as “Lucy Grey,” “We are seven,” and “There was a Boy” (all published in Lyrical Ballads, 1798), Wordsworth collectively argued that childhood is imbued with spiritual transcendence. But these

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same poems are also invested with the melancholy belief that the epiphanies of childhood are fleeting at best; indeed, much of his poetry is tinged with the melancholy distance of time; that was then, this now. Note that in each of the above-cited poems, a child is dead, leaving adults and even the natural world to mourn. In short, the child is father to the man, but the man must be aware of the loss of—in some sense, the death of—the child within. Thus, while curious, Wordsworth suspected that the boy was exactly the wrong vessel for his Romantic vision of loss.70 Linking Betty to the aforementioned star of the Drury Lane stage, the canine Carlo, Wordsworth wrote: “I had very little hope, I confess, thinking it very natural that a theatre which had brought a dog upon the stage as a principal performer would catch at a wonder [in this case, the child wonder, Master Betty] whatever shape it might put on.”71 Another poet whose work was invested with images of angelic and innocent children, William Blake, was irked by Bettymania: “The town is mad: young Roscius, like all prodigies, is the talk of everyone. I have not seen him, and perhaps never may. I have no curiosity to see him.”72 Blake’s reaction is surprising, since, unlike Wordsworth, he did not see a huge gulf between childhood and adulthood, as evinced in an August 23, 1799, letter to Rev. Trusler: “I am happy to fi nd a great majority of fellow-mortals who can elucidate my visions, and particularly they have been elucidated by children. . . . Neither youth nor childhood is folly or incapacity. Some children are fools, and so are some old men. But there is a vast majority on the side of imagination or spiritual sensation.”73 Likewise, in a October 2, 1800, letter to Thomas Butts, Blake included a poem which read: “I remain’d as a Child; / All I ever had known / Before me bright Shone!”74 Yet, while Blake allowed that both children and adults experienced near-identical imaginative and spiritual epiphanies, he did not think of acting as an inspired or sacred art: “I well know what is within compass of a boy of fourteen; and as to real acting, it is, like historical painting [i.e., mechanical, intellectual], no boy’s work.”75 In short, when it came to the Romantics, the house was probably divided. Some had come predisposed to crown the Young Roscius as a genius (Lewis or Thomson or, less flatteringly, Ireland); but many, we may gather from Wordsworth’s and Blake’s respective comments, remained skeptical.

OPENING NIGHT Betty awaits us in the wings, and the reader, like the audience at his London premiere, may be anxious for his entry. We are nearly there. With various factions jostling for place, and with a range of expectations in the air, the curtain rose to reveal Charles Kemble.76 The audience, expecting that Betty would deliver the prologue, groaned in rowdy frustration.77 Still Charles Kemble pressed on with his speech:

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A youth your favour courts, whose early prime Derides the tedious growth of ling’ring Time; Mature at once, when Nature urg’d he strove, Like Pallas starting from the brain of Jove.78

Pallas Athena, we recall, sprang from Jove’s head as a fully grown adult in armor. Of course, Betty was physically a child, but his abilities, the conceit suggested, sprang from a godlike mind. As the fi rst act began, many in the audience did not attempt to disguise their impatience. Still others in the pit fought for their very lives. Overcome by the jostling and the extreme heat some fainted; hundreds were in danger of suffocation: “Loud shrieks would occasionally rise . . . and hands were seen to be lifted up as if imploring aid and relief.” 79 J. Fitzgerald Molloy recorded a no less noisy, though not quite as hazardous, environment: the house was deafened by “cries and remonstrances, laughter and gossip.”80 In any case, the fi rst act proceeded in dumb show, owing to the terrific din of the spectators.81 Charles Kemble withdrew, and the play began. The story is fairly complex: Barbarossa has executed the king. As for those loyal to the old order, they are racked and impaled—shades of Robespierre’s Terror. Meanwhile, word comes that Prince Selim has been assassinated. To secure his crown still further, Barbarossa has been pressuring Selim’s mother Zaphira into marriage. Her reply, given the execution of Marie Antoinette and Napoleon’s threatened invasion, has a topical resonance: Zaph. No tyrant’s threat can awe the free born soul, That greatly dares to die.82

One of the assassins, Achmet—actually Prince Selim in disguise— comes to the court to give an account of the prince’s supposed death. The big moment: Betty’s fi rst entry. One of Betty’s many memorialists recollected that “when at length Barbarossa gave the order for Achmet to be brought before him, it was as though an enchanter’s wand had been suddenly waved over the clamorous concourse, turning it to stone; a deathlike silence fell upon it, not a movement, not a whisper was heard, the very breath was held in intensity of expectation.”83 Betty, on the other hand, was relaxed, or so we are led to believe by the solicitous theater critic of the Ipswich Journal, who marveled that on the night of Betty’s fi rst London performance: “he [Betty] sat on a bench in the Green-room, by the side of Mr. Knight, the comedian, where, instead of being employed, as other performers were, in reading his part, he amused himself in playing numberless boyish tricks with that gentleman.”84 The actress Sarah Booth recalled that Betty passed the time by

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playing marbles, “a game of which he seemed never to tire.”85 Told that his fi rst entrance was now only moments away, Betty quit his marbles and, fully costumed, stepped into view. The audience gazed upon him. Betty was tiny. He was 4’6”, perhaps 4’ 10” in height, and weighed just eighty-seven pounds; his hair was fair and curly, his eyes blue.86 Some “bursts of laughter were excited from the audience.” Why the laughter? It might have been simply his size, though dressed in a turban, a close and rather short jacket trimmed with sables, white linen pantaloons, and flat slippers, he probably resembled the panto-figure Aladdin, the featured character in John O’Keefe’s comic opera of the same name and, since 1788, a staple of London Christmas panto.87 Unperturbed by the sudden mirth, Betty bowed deeply then straightened himself and puffed with an “air of majesty”: 88 Hail, mighty Barbarossa! As the pledge Of Selim’s death, behold thy ring restor’d:— That pledge will speak the rest.89

Much of the audience sighed in relief. The boy was talented; all but the most intractable conceded that the Young Roscius had declaimed with “the intelligence of a veteran.”90 The play now rolled on with something approaching normalcy. The disguised Selim comforts his mother with word that her son lives: Take comfort, then; for know, thy son, o’erjoy’d To rescue thee, would bleed at e’ery vein!— Bid her, he said, yet hope that we are bless’d! 91

Othman, loyal to the old king, begs the boy to flee the perils of Barbarossa’s court, but Selim stands fi rm: What! leave my helpless mother here a prey To cruelty and lust—I’ll perish fi rst[!] 92

Meanwhile, Barbarossa, unable to cajole Zaphira into marriage, orders her execution. Betty, still in disguise as Achmet, tries to kill Barbarossa, but the tyrant is too much for the boy, and he is quickly disarmed. Barbarossa then orders that Achmet be racked, but the child remains obdurate. He will die on his feet—not as Achmet, but as the princely Selim: Thy impious threats are lost! I know, that death And torments are my doom.—Yet, ere I die, I’ll strike thy soul with horror.—Off, vile habit!—[Betty strips off his disguise. If thou dar’st.

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Now view me!—Hear me, tyrant!—while with voice More terrible than thunder, I proclaim, That he who aim’d the dagger at thy heart, Is Selim! 93

Barbarossa, hearing that fearful name, is staggered, and so too were the spectators. When Betty “reveal[ed] himself to Barbarossa, he enraptured the audience with a blaze of majesty. He appeared a sun, emerging from a cloud, from whose splendid presence the tyrant, like some guilty wretch, sought to withdraw, and hide himself in darkness.”94 The revelation thrills the delicate Zaphira, who fears for her son’s life; but Selim has no regard for his personal safety. His one desire is to comfort his mother: Zaph. Oh, Heav’n, my son! my son! Selim. Unhappy mother! [Runs to embrace her.95

Barbarossa orders them parted. The boy begs that the tyrant spare his mother: Behold a hapless prince, o’erwhelm’d with woes, [Kneels. Prostrate before thy feet!—Not for myself I plead—Yes, plunge the dagger in my breast! Tear, tear, me in piecemeal! But, O, spare Zaphira! 96

Not to be outdone, Zaphira pleads for her son. Barbarossa offers her a deal: Selim will be spared, if she agrees to marry him. She refuses, and, despite the grapple of the guards, both mother and son simultaneously break free to hug each other one last time: Selim. One last embrace! Farewell! Farewell for ever! [Guards struggle with them. Zaph. One moment yet!—Pity a mother’s pangs! Oh, Selim! Selim. O, my mother! 97

The executioner prepares his tools of torture. Selim is “o’erwhelm’d with chains. / The ministers of death stand round; and wait / Thy [Barbarossa’s] last command.”98 But before he can be executed, Othman leads a revolution, and the tyrant is killed. Selim is reunited with mother. To all this, the audience exploded into a roar of applause. After this performance, one reviewer, here recorded by theater historian John Doran, was sure that Bettymania was well justified: The oldest actor is not equal to him, he never loses sight of the scene. . . . His judgment seems to be extremely correct . . . Nature has endowed him

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with genius which we shall vainly attempt to fi nd in any of the actors of the present day . . . If he be not even now the fi rst, he is in the very fi rst line; and he will soon leave every other actor of the present day, at an immeasurable distance behind him. 99

Many of those critics who had entered the theater expecting to be “entertained with happily-caught attitudes,” and “melodious imitations” were shocked: “That we should witness a clear, correct, and comprehensive conception of the author; a chaste, powerful, and original delineation of the character, we certainly did not expect. Our astonishment and delight therefore, at actually fi nding this rare combination exhibited in the performance of this wonderful boy, may be readily conceived.”100

BETTY’S H EALTH Though by any reasonable standard Betty’s debut was a triumph, the Young Roscius felt that he had underperformed. According to one early biographer, Betty was apt to “become fatigued in the course of a long and arduous part.”101 It is not surprising, then, that constant touring and performing had taken its toll on his frail constitution. The boy seemed “to have sustained some injury from his strenuous exertions, during the last few months. The anxiety of managers, and the curiosity of the public, have visibly forced him to efforts beyond his strength.”102 One newspaper reported that “he [Betty] never more would be able to tread the boards.” 103 Lady Bessborough, mother to Byron’s amore Lady Caroline Lamb, wrote detailed letters to her husband, Lord Leveson Gower, about London politics and society, including her recent interest in the Young Roscius. Her impression was that the child was utterly exhausted: “Nothing is heard from morning till night but the praise of poor little Betty, who will be kill’d with it, for they make him act every night.”104 Less than a week later, she wrote again, lamenting, “I would give any thing to see you see him [Betty], but that is not likely, for they will kill him before you return.”105 Drury Lane’s manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan also registered his fears concerning Master Betty’s health: On December 2, 1804, Sheridan wrote to his wife that “if they [Hough and Betty Sr.] continue to work him so They will destroy him.”106 On December 18, after just nine London performances, Betty took to bed. Seizing the day, Betty Sr. and Hough began to issue health bulletins to the public every morning. The detail in these reports meets or exceeds the information found in present-day press releases concerning the deaths of movie stars, presidents, royals, or popes. On Thursday, December 20, for example, we read that Betty’s pulse was 120 and that his “bowels [were] violently affected,” and that his attending physicians, Pearson and Bain, cured the boy of the latter complaint with

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“the application of Bladders fi lled with hot water.”107 As Betty recovered, he was fed with rum and milk and something called “strengthening pills.”108 Newspapers reported on Betty’s convalescence in detail: that he got out of bed without assistance, or that he might soon be well enough to resume his contractual obligations.109 Agitated crowds soon gathered outside his house to pray for his quick recovery, prompting Hester Lynch Piozzi to remark satirically: “I suppose that if less than an angel had told his parents” that the boy was in no moral danger, it would do little to quiet “the anxiety of a metropolis for his safety, they would not have believed the prediction.”110 And yet Betty Sr. was already teasing the public with the possibility of his son’s return to the stage. On December 22, the press published the following leaked correspondence concerning Master Betty’s medical condition: Tuesday, 12 o’clock. To R. Wroughton, Esq. Sir, I am extremely concerned that it was not in my power to give you earlier Intelligence than the inclosed, addressed to you by Dr. Pearson, now conveys. I did not conceive yesterday that my son’s indisposition would have prevented his appearance this evening, or that my regard for the interest of the Theatre, and my respect for the Public who patronize him with such unparalleled generosity, would have caused me instantly to have apprised you of it. Ill as he is, he is even now desirous to play rather than be thought deficient in either of these respects; but I am confident that neither the Public nor the Proprietors would accept such a mark of his zeal at the risk stated by Dr. Pearson. I am Sir, your obedient servant, W. HENRY BETTY

Below Betty Sr.’s letter, people could read for themselves Dr. Pearson’s latest medical report: Tuesday half past, eleven. Sir, On being called in to Master Betty, yesterday, I did not consider his indisposition of such a nature as to justify my interference with his earnest desire not to disappoint the Public, by changing the performance advertised for this evening. But this morning, I am decidedly of opinion, that he cannot, without the greatest hazard, attempt to appear in the stage this evening. I am, sir, yours &. GEORGE PEARSON111

On December 28, 1804, Betty was moved, not to a nursing home, but to Bushy Park, Surrey, the seat of the Duke of Clarence.112 Meanwhile, the papers continued to keep an anxious public on edge. The Morning Chronicle,

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January 1, 1805, noted that the boy was in “recovery”; on January 24, 1805, it reported that the boy was “nearly recovered”; four days later, the same paper reported that “we have authority to say that, Master BETTY would have performed at Drury-lane Theatre on Saturday evening [ January 26], but that it was declined on the part of the Proprietors until the Physicians could certify that he might appear without injury to his health.”113 While such notices kept Betty’s name in the news, some were suggesting that the boy’s infi rmity maintained a fad that might have dissipated otherwise. Concerning her play Lover’s Vows, Mrs. Inchbald admitted that “This boy is one of the reasons for my selling my play,” but goes on to note that “had he not been ill, his novelty most likely would have been over by the time my play came out:—now, chance may send them both [back] on the stage in the same week; and, such is the rage of the multitude, that a new play even from Shakspeare could hardly contend against him.”114 Adding to the media attention, satirists pooh-poohed the idea that the boy was seriously ill. A “Christmas Distich, by the DruryLane Bell-Man” shows a lack of sympathy for Master Betty’s supposed ill health and some irritation with the daily medical reports: A little Boy was sick with wine, punch, And full-eating, And the public it was sick with a Little boy’s Bulletin.115

One document newly discovered at the Houghton Library, Harvard, further supports the notion that Betty’s illness was feigned. Signed and dated January 26, 1805—the same day Betty was supposedly too ill to perform at Drury Lane—it is a contract between Betty Sr. and Stephen Kemble, manager of the Newcastle and Coventry Theatres Royal. The agreement is for three performances before Easter at Coventry and twelve performances in August at Newcastle. The terms were generous. Betty and his handlers agreed to split all profits after the house deducted ₤20 for costs; in addition, Betty was given a free benefit in each playhouse.116 Clearly, Betty was not on death’s door; he was, rather, packing his bags for a spring tour. We should not think, however, that because Stephen Kemble hired Betty that he thought much of him as an actor. In fact, his discussion of Betty became a bit of a running joke. The manager told the comic performer John Liston that Betty had “stupendous abilities!” “Indeed!” replied Liston, “I did not know that you thought him so great an actor!” Stephen Kemble replied emphatically, “I look upon Master Betty to be a great— nay, Sir, I may say—the greatest tragic performer that ever appeared upon these, or any other, boards.” “I suppose,” remarked Mr. Liston, dryly, “you except [your brother and sister] Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble?” “Sir,” replied Stephen more earnestly, “I except nobody.” “Then,” said Mr.

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Liston, “you have changed your opinion, Sir, since you wrote to Mrs. Kemble upon the subject; your impression, then, of the boy was not so favourable.” The manager continued: “Sir, I maintain that Master Betty is the finest actor now living, and I question whether he is not the fi nest, Sir, that ever lived.” Then his mouth relaxed into a roguish smile—“for I’ve engaged him, Sir!”117

BETTY’S H AMLET : NEW ACCOLADES AND L INGERING P ROTESTS Manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan, anxious to protect Drury Lane’s investment, promised that Betty would not perform more than three times a week.118 The press approved: “It is almost needless to observe, that this most invaluable boy will not be suffered to undergo any extraordinary exertions in future, and that his health will be watched with all the care and anxiety worthy of so great a treasure.”119 When word came that Betty was to reappear at Covent Garden on January 28, 1805—he played Douglas—the crowds were heavy. The Morning Chronicle reported that “Notwithstanding the shortness of the notice, and the bad state of the weather, the avenues to this theatre were almost as much crowded as when he was to make his debut. When the doors were opened the rush into all parts of the house was prodigious, and many narrowly escaped having limbs broken. The pressure in the pit was so great as to produce several fainting fits.” Attempting to relieve public anxiety, the same newspaper assured its readers that Betty, although looking “a good deal thinner than before his indisposition,” was, nevertheless, fully recovered: “his colour is fresh, and his eyes sparkle.” 120 Although audiences were delighted by Betty’s return, the rowdiness of the crowds soon tapered off. On February 6, 1805, Aberdeen Journal reported that London tickets to Betty’s ongoing Covent Garden and Drury Lane performances were as scarce as ever, but that the madness of Bettymania had passed: “The house was as full as it could possibly be; but none of that confusion prevailed, which rendered a visit to it so dangerous during his former performances.” Betty decided that his career was in need of a jolt and therefore chose to perform the lead in Hamlet. The play seems to have been held back as an “ace in the hole,” and the fact that it was brought forward suggests that London Bettymania was on the wane after a mere sixty days (December 1, 1804–February 1, 1805). Lady Bessborough, ever with an ear for good gossip, overheard the boy state that he “was very much afraid of failing in Hamlet, saying it must make or mar him.”121 Betty need not have feared. The announcement of a March 14 performance of Hamlet at Theatre Royal Drury Lane reinvigorated interest not seen since his London debut. Wordsworth wrote again to Beaumont, demanding that he attend and give him word: “I wish much to have your further opinion of the young Roscius, above all

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of his Hamlet. It is certainly impossible that he should understand the character, that is, the composition of the character.”122 If Beaumont planned on seeing Betty’s Hamlet he had to act fast. Tickets were scarce. One diarist described the anticipation: “Tomorrow Roscius acts Hamlet . . . Mr. Pitt, the Pope, Mr. Fox, my Brother, all the great statesmen, ‘Lawyers, Peers and grave Divines,’ every man, woman and child, are up in arms to get places, and talk of nothing else.”123 William Pitt even made a successful motion to adjourn parliamentary debate so that he and other members could see the boy’s evening performance.124 The “whole train of Ministers, box after box along the row,” attended, as did the Prince of Wales.125 “In short, you would not suspect there were any great political discussions going on, or that Europe was in the state of warfare and bondage; it seems as if the whole people of England had but one interest, one occupation—to decide on the merits of Master Betty.”126 No doubt Pitt was partially responsible for the rush of ministers who now found it politically expedient to praise Master Betty. Still, we may wonder why Pitt felt it necessary to close parliamentary debate early? The reason was simple. Pitt and the other ministers needed the extra time. Anticipating a riot, the authorities limited the roads leading to the theater to foot traffic.127 After the play, ministers and ladies of fashion compared notes. According to the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, Charles James Fox, the powerful Whig minister, enthused, “This is fi ner than Garrick”; Lady Bessborough concurred: Betty was “undoubtedly the best Hamlet I ever saw.”128 Not everyone agreed. Charles Lamb was among the few who disliked Betty’s Hamlet. Lamb had publicly declared that reading Shakespeare was superior to seeing him performed. In the mind’s eye, an inspired reader might create ghosts or battle scenes that matched the imaginative brilliance of the text. No amount of gaslight and greasepaint could do the same. That was true for any production of Shakespeare, but Betty’s acting presented a further strain upon the limits of the theater. It was difficult enough to imagine a grown man like Kemble as Hamlet; to imagine a mere child as the melancholy Dane was impossible.129 The objection was common. John Merritt, arguably Betty’s greatest champion, admitted as much, but responded that the boy’s genius ultimately overpowered any complaint. Wrote Merritt: “He [Betty] treads the stage with such majesty and grace, exhibits so much dignity in his looks and attitudes, and such force in his language, that the illusion, in spite of every obstacle [i.e., his youth and size], is absolutely perfect.”130 Lamb was not willing to concede the point. He might have stayed home; instead, Lamb went to Drury Lane theater, but not to see Betty. Rather, he went to ignore him publicly. Lamb bought a ticket to Betty’s performance of Hamlet, made his way into the theater, and took his seat, but, remarkably, he brought a copy of the play with him. While the audience gazed in wonder upon

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the Young Roscius, Lamb spent the evening reading by lamplight. Not a few spectators took notice and many threatened him with violence: “The affectation of the fellow,” cried one; “Look at that gentleman reading, papa,” squealed another; “He ought to have his book knocked out of his hand,” proclaimed a third.131 If Lamb and, we may assume, others were unwilling to give Betty a chance, others had prejudged in Betty’s favor. Even those with limitedview seating stated how much they enjoyed watching (or not watching) the Young Roscius. The playwright Joanna Baillie wrote, “My Sister liked little Roscius in Hamlet very much, at least many parts of his acting she admired, tho’ she saw him from a high box to great disadvantage.”132

P ROBLEMS

WITH THE

CAST

Discussion of Betty’s interpretation of Hamlet can be found in chapter 4 of this study. For now we might note that Betty’s failure to gain the support of Lamb, Blake, Wordsworth, and other Romantics was matched by his failure to win over other actors. John Philip Kemble never appeared with Betty on stage; Sarah Siddons was asked to play Lady Randolph opposite Betty’s Douglas but refused.133 Even the talented but second-tier actress Mrs. Jordan withdrew her services.134 It wasn’t merely that Betty was upstaging significantly more experienced and, quite likely, infi nitely more talented rivals. Backstage, he had a habit of alienating his support cast. In Liverpool, Charles Mayne Young, who had been with the company since 1798, was humiliated in front of his acting troupe when the boy refused to go on stage to perform Richard III “unless Young would bend his back, that he [Betty] might have one jump at leap-frog.” After some demur at this whimsical request, Young, who was earning only ₤2 a week, got on his hands and knees while Betty, who was earning hundreds, sometimes over ₤1000 a night, “jump[ed] over his back, as practiced in the game of leap-frog. This is considered by many of the Sons of Thespis in the Metropolis as a most curious circumstance, and a prognostic that he will jump not over the back merely, but over the head of many a veteran.”135 Betty’s childish behavior—and wasn’t the child entitled to be childish?— did little to endear him to actors who took some pride in their profession. As we will explore in the next chapter, Kemble would soon exploit this discontent.

THE STATE OF BETTYMANIA AT SEASON’S CLOSE With all this discussion of Betty’s popularity, we should not lose sight of his monetary successes. During Betty’s fi rst season at Drury Lane,

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he brought in ₤17,210.11, a nightly average of ₤614.13.136 Combining his performances at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, Betty sold tickets amounting to ₤39,848; his nightly average for both playhouses was an astonishing ₤586.137 Even Edmund Kean, who would steal plaudits from Betty and Kemble, only averaged ₤484 in his fi rst London season.138 Betty was paid somewhere around ₤8,000 for his fi rst London season, or, remonetized for inflation, around ₤616,000.139 (Drury Lane and Covent Garden together cleared over ₤30,000, or roughly ₤2,310,000 in today’s money.)140 Combined with his pre-London successes, the boy had already pocketed, in present-day figures, just under ₤1.5 million.141 Off-season, all of London’s principal stars regularly toured the provinces, where they were paid more than their standard London salaries. Here too Betty’s earnings were unprecedented. Among the highlights: at Birmingham, he earned over ₤1,000 for thirteen performances; at Worcester, he earned ₤1000 for twelve performances; at Wolverhampton and Stourbridge, he received another ₤800; a week in Preston and a night in Lancaster realized ₤512; thirteen nights in Newcastleupon-Tyne, two nights at Sunderland, and single nights at Durham, North-Shields, and South–Shields gained him ₤1,188; two performances in Berwick, fourteen performances at Glasgow, and sixteen performances at Edinburgh brought in an additional ₤1,200.142 Nights in Chester, Manchester, Sheffield, and Leicester raised ₤1,100.143 In total, during this one summer tour alone Betty earned over ₤6,000, or, in today’s terms, another ₤462,000.144 One critic succinctly captured the moment: it might be truly said, that Betty “fi lled his pocket with money, the house with people, and the people with astonishment!”145 Aside from raking in money, Betty also used his fi rst summer tour to try out or to perfect new material. Despite his youth, Betty himself seems to have been the prime mover in selecting new parts to play. Satirists seized on the image of Betty running roughshod over established writers. W. P. Fores published an image entitled “The Young Roscius and Don John on the Theatrical Pegasus,” in which Betty and Kemble ride a winged horse.146 Kemble complains that he’s in danger of falling to his death: “Zounds how he [Betty] cuts and spurs away. If I don’t take great care, he will certainly have me off.—he has got me on the crupper already.” Betty good-naturedly replies: “Never fear Sir—we shall agree very well—but when two ride on a Horse, one must ride behind you know!”147 On the face of it, the satire seems to be directed at Kemble’s popularity, which was in free fall. The image of the winged horse is important in another sense. In Greek mythology, Pegasus is the winged horse of the Muse and, thus, a servant of the poets; now he was Master Betty’s pet horsey. The boy was taming more than London theater; he had also harnessed the trotting verse of playwrights. For example, William Godwin, the social philosopher who advocated atheism, anarchism, and personal

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freedom, asked Master Betty to star in his tragedy Faulkener. According to C. Kegan Paul, Betty dallied with Godwin over acceptance of the play: “He would and he would not play the part, he studied and left it off, sent for Godwin to read it to him, accepted it, then would not fi x a time to play it, and a defi nite arrangement for its production more than once fell through, to Godwin’s great annoyance, which in this case was certainly not unreasonable.”148 Certainly Betty would not be the fi rst actor to irritate a playwright. What is remarkable, however, is that Betty was now evaluating and, in some instances, slotting into his repertoire adult roles: Earl Osmond in Matthew Lewis’s Castle Spectre (debuted Liverpool, June 3, 1805); Orestes in Ambrose Philips’s The Distressed Mother (debuted Liverpool, June 10, 1805); and Gustavus Vasa, the titular role of Henry Brooke’s play (debuted Liverpool, June 14, 1805).149 In chapter 4 of this study, we will be looking at Betty’s skills as an actor. For now, we might simply note that none of these new roles relied upon his trademarks: preteen sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow. In Matthew Lewis’s Castle Spectre, Betty played Osmond, an “amorous tyrant, who makes love upon the rack and in dungeons”;150 in Philips’s The Distressed Mother, Betty played Orestes. This was a safer role, in which he revisited some of the action of Selim. Rather than save his mother from the tyrant’s wrath, he saves Andromache, the wife of Hector, from the clutches of Pyrrhus. Still, Betty’s Selim was not called upon to kill Barbarossa. In The Distressed Mother, however, Betty’s Orestes had to kill Pyrrhus—no small feat considering the latter was the son of Achilles.151 Gustavus Vasa had the dubious distinction of being the fi rst play banned by the Licensing Act of 1737. The play concerns the liberation of Sweden from Denmark by the brave and noble title character, played by Betty, though for anyone who had seen Betty’s popular Selim, particularly his attempts to calm and to comfort his mother, the following interchange of Gustavus’s sister, Gustava, with her stage mother must have seemed like bathos to Betty’s pathos: Gustava. Oh, mother, take me, take me from these men! They fright me with their looks! Mother. Alas, my child, I cannot take thee from them! Gustava. Oh, they will hurt me! Can’t you take me, mother! Mother. They can’t, they cannot hurt you, my Gustava. Fear not, my little one.152

Betty repeated his Gustavus Vasa at Manchester, where it was “well received”; in Glasgow it played to “crowded audiences”; The Distressed Mother also went into regular rotation and received good reviews in Glasgow, where “the house overflowed in every part.”153 While in Scotland, Betty also performed in two Scottish plays: Henry in Henry of Transtamare, and the lead in Macbeth. Although the latter seems like a poor

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choice for a tiny boy, both parts again confi rm that Betty established himself with an audience by playing upon cultural sympathies. Indeed, a long letter from a “Justus” informed London readers that in Edinburgh Betty, despite his youth and frail figure, could do no wrong: “Indeed his performance [as Macbeth] . . . cannot be surpassed on the British or any other boards.”154

R ELAUNCHING BETTYMANIA Betty remained in the news. Beginning in the spring of 1805, his managers relaunched one of their most successful marketing campaigns: linking Betty to Garrick. In Ireland, Hough and Betty Sr. had played upon Garrick Fever by referring to the boy as the “Young Roscius”; in London, Betty opened with one of Garrick’s chief parts: Selim.155 Attempting once more to reinforce the connection between the original Roscius and the Young Roscius, Betty’s handlers reached out to William Smith, an actor who had been a friend of Garrick’s and who had attended him on his deathbed. According to Smith, Garrick gave him a seal, engraved with his likeness, and told Smith to pass it on to the next great Shakespearean actor. Smith had not passed it on to Kemble, but when he saw Betty, he knew he had found his man—or boy. Accompanying the seal, Smith sent this fulsome screed: YOUNG GENTLEMAN, The fame of your talents has drawn an old fellow labourer in the theatric vineyard from his retirement, at a considerable distance, in a very advanced age; and he feels himself well rewarded for his trouble. May your success continue, and may you live to be an honour to the stage, and to your country! Let me recommend to you strict attention to the moral duties, and to the cultivation of your mind, by the Arts and Belles Lettres; without which, little improvement can be gained in your profession, much less in society. Accept from me a seal, a strong likeness of our great predecessor Garrick; when you are acquainted with his character, keep his virtues ever in your mind, and imitate his professional talents as far as possible. Cou’d’st thou, in this engraved pebble trace The living likeness of his plastic face, Whilst thy congenial spirit caught its fi re, His magic eye would thy whole soul inspire.

The letter was soon leaked to the press for public consumption.156 A friend of Betty Sr., Thomas Lister Parker, also contacted the portrait painter John Opie, who, at the time, was seen as the successor of Joshua Reynolds—Opie wrote a life of Reynolds, and, like Reynolds, John Opie’s name inspired instant credibility. He had, that very year, become

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a professor of painting at the Royal Academy and had already exhibited justly celebrated canvases of writers such as Samuel Johnson, Thomas Holcroft, and Mary Wollstonecraft, fellow painters such as Henry Fuseli, as well as actors, among them, the Shakespearean Charles Macklin. Better yet, Opie was one of the chief artists for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, a series of Shakespeare images produced between 1775 and 1805. Having Opie paint Betty would reinforce a connection between the boy’s face and the genius of Shakespeare. If Opie was aware of how he was being used, he voiced no objection. Parker paid Opie ₤100, ₤50 of which was disbursed in advance.157 When completed, the canvas hung on display beside the works of other English masters at the Royal Academy. Thinking only of money, Betty Sr. remonstrated “on the ground that it [the free exhibition of his son’s image] would injure the sale of the Print from it; the Artist [Opie] differed from that opinion, and added, that he was perfectly at liberty to exhibit it,” which he did. Mr. Betty wrote to the Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy, requesting their interference, but the committee declined to act on his behalf. Betty Sr. then wrote to Parker, demanding that he intercede; but Parker proved ineffective. In the end, Opie returned Parker’s ₤50 and continued to exhibit the picture.158 Another painting of Betty, this one rendered by James Northcote, was commissioned by Parker.159 Like Opie, Northcote was a member of the Royal Academy, and, like Opie, he had contributed to Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery. Northcote had a flare for painting children. His most famous image for Boydell was the “Young Princes murdered in the Tower” (1786), based on a passage in Richard III. Though Betty Sr. groused, on the whole he had little reason to complain about artistic renderings of his son or their protracted and unlicensed exhibition. Opie’s and Northcote’s canvases added venerable daubs to the Betty mystique. The Morning Chronicle, May 7, 1805, noted how “excited” the public was with both images,, which were soon copied and engraved by James Heath, at a cost of ₤800. According to James Boaden, Betty Sr. paid for the printing himself and, thus, would receive all profits from the sale of this official merchandise.160 Heath told his friends that the engravings would be the fi nest England had ever seen.161 By the summer of 1805, copies of these new Betty images were on sale throughout London.162

CONTRACT ISSUES Despite the boy’s vast earnings on his 1805 summer tour, there were some troubling signs concerning the contracts Betty Sr. signed for the coming London season. In a contract for Betty’s second season, signed February 11, 1805, Betty Sr. agreed to have his son perform thirty-six nights at Covent Garden, with a deductible of ₤315.163 The remaining

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profits would then be split evenly. Considering that the old contract had called for Betty to be paid ₤100 a night, charging him ₤315 was outrageous. In fact, the deductible was based on an out-and-out falsehood. Covent Garden’s expenses were around ₤200 per night.164 By charging ₤115 more than its actual expenses, Covent Garden was making a profit not just on ticket sales but by overcharging its lead performer. There were other small details in the Covent Garden contract that worked in the playhouse’s favor: we may recall that Harris and Sheridan had already agreed in 1804 that, in the event of a contract renewal, Betty was to appear at Drury Lane fi rst. Betty’s contract had been renewed, renewed, renewed, and then renewed again. Rather than performing twelve or even twenty-four times, Betty had performed over sixty times in his fi rst London season.165 To ensure that he would not be sharing Betty yet again, Harris now prohibited Betty from performing anywhere else in London or ten miles within its environs.166 Harris further stated that he expected Betty to begin his performances in September, not, as he had in 1804, in December. Harris may have sensed that he was fighting the clock—that with every passing day Betty grew older, less cuddly, less of a Young Roscius. In keeping with this thinking, the contract goes on to state that Betty was also to perform twelve nights in the last two weeks of October and that no benefits were to be assigned to the boy until he completed those dates. The three scheduled benefits were to be free and clear, but, considering how little Betty would make due to the high deductible of his regular performances, he had little chance of making up for the lost wages. Over thirty-six nights, ₤11,340 would be deducted for house costs, an overcharge of ₤4,140. Thus, Betty’s three benefits would have to gross ₤1,380 each just to make up for the overcharges on the deductible. If this looks like a bad deal, it would get still worse. The February 11, 1805, contract was voided in favor of a new agreement, signed on May 6, 1805.167 Master Betty was now limited to twenty-five shows and two benefits, the fi rst scheduled after his twelfth performance, the second after his twenty-fi fth appearance. Aside from having fewer shows, that doesn’t sound like a worse deal, until math is applied. In terms of deductibles, Betty would now pay Harris ₤7,875 for his twenty-five shows, an overcharge of ₤2,875. To make up for the playhouse’s bilking, Betty’s freeand-clear benefits would have to gross ₤2,875 over two shows (₤1,437.50 each), rather than ₤4,140 over three shows (₤1,380 each). Yet in Betty’s fi rst season, his two benefits at Covent Garden earned him ₤505 and ₤542 respectively—not even close to the ₤1,437.50 he needed to generate per benefit to make up for Covent Garden’s inflated costs.168 The renegotiated Covent Garden contract did contain some very minor details in Master Betty’s favor. Covent Garden voided the exclusivity terms, thus allowing Drury Lane the ability to sign the boy for up to twenty-five performances for the 1805–6 season. To accommodate the

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boy’s appearance at both theaters, Covent Garden also allowed some flexibility in scheduling. The theater now asked Betty to begin performing “as early as possible in December.” Lastly, Covent Garden agreed to a new clause, allowing the boy the right “to perform such characters as he may choose himself.” As Betty’s second season loomed, the boy had every right to feel uneasy. Covent Garden and, we may infer, Drury Lane were now charging him to appear in their theaters.169 On the other hand, Betty was still capable of earning astonishing amounts, his portraits were selling well, and he was offering a new stable of exciting, if surprisingly violent, characters. If many of those new parts seemed a stretch for an actor who remained youthful and petite, there was little reason to assume the Young Roscius would fail in any of them. After all, the boy had already succeeded in Hamlet. With good reviews already in for provincial performances of Gustavus Vasa, The Distressed Mother, and Macbeth, perhaps all still might be well.

3 Kemble’s Revenge There are intervals in fevers; there are lucid moments in madness; even folly cannot keep possession of the mind for ever. It is very natural to encourage rising genius, it is highly commendable to foster its fi rst shoots; we admire and caress a clever school-boy, but we should do very ill to turn his master out of his office and put him into it. —Richard Cumberland on Bettymania1

JOHN P HILIP K EMBLE , WHO HAD been the linchpin of London theater since his debut as Hamlet in 1783, considered the various manifestations of Bettymania—the riots; the outrageous ticket prices; the various prints, snuff boxes, paintings, coffee mugs, and pamphlets; girls fainting in the aisles; men reduced to tears—to be a personal affront. After twenty-one years of dominating the London stage, he had been unceremoniously tossed aside for an insouciant boy happy to recite Shakespeare but happier still to win a game of marbles. Humiliation followed humiliation. When Betty was still rehearsing his plays in the provinces, Covent Garden’s Thomas Harris, who normally worked out contracts for the actors, was either too busy or neglectful to attend to the business of signing the Young Roscius. Instead, Harris had the temerity to send Kemble, his theater manager and junior partner, out with Covent Garden paperwork to meet Betty: a forty-sevenyear-old errand boy sent to meet a boy actor. Still, Kemble was a gentleman and fulfilled his duties with a punctiliousness that suggests decorum rather than any real interest. In a letter to Betty Sr., Kemble explained Harris’s absence: “You will be much concerned to know that Mr. Harris has been, for some time, confined to his bed; and, indeed, it has not been the least of his pains, that his illness has prevented his gratifying himself, as he intended, by writing to you.”2 If Harris really was ill, it must have been severe indeed, since he was too sick even to put pen to paper. More likely, Harris pawned off the job of making the Bettys feel welcome on Kemble, who added in the same letter: “If there is anything I can possibly do for you and Master Betty’s accommodation against you come to town, pray command my services.” Signing off, Kemble wrote of “the pleasure of expressing the satisfaction I feel in knowing that I shall soon have the happiness of welcoming you and Master Betty to Covent-Garden Theatre; and give my leave to say how heartily I congratulate the stage on the ornament and support it is, by the judgment of all the world, to receive from Master Betty’s extraordinary talents and exertions.”3 81

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There is a sardonic edge to some of Kemble’s prose; he, the greatest actor of the English stage, lavishing praise upon this provincial neophyte. Note Kemble’s statement “judgment of all the world”: Of course, whether an audience likes an actor is a determining factor as to whether that actor will be gainfully employed, but it is not necessarily a measure of real talent or skill. Indeed, within a few years, Kemble would openly mock the discernment of his audience. During the O. P. Riots of 1809, Kemble told his friend James Boaden that an actor lived for his art, not for applause, and that anyone who mistook the difference was not a true artist: “he whose talent is prostituted for the amusement of a RABBLE, must, as a man either of sense or feeling, shrink in disgust from the meanness of his occupation.”4 Kemble wasn’t the only actor who felt this way. When Bettymania was dead and gone, the fickle audience would embrace Edmund Kean, but Kean himself confessed, “More than once I have played tricks with audiences—in coming to one of those passages from slow to quick, instead of words, I have [utter]ed an indistinct bow wow wow and always the usual applause.”5 Sarah Siddons was also contemptuous of her adoring fans. When she recited a passage particularly well, she expected a burst of applause and, when she didn’t get it, murmured spitefully: “Stupid people, stupid people!”6 John Kemble could not dispute that audiences loved the lad, but what did audiences know of acting? Contract in hand, Kemble met with Betty and was, no doubt, charming. But he had already begun to plot the boy’s downfall.

K EMBLE K NOWN FOR H IS DIRTY TRICKS Kemble was no stranger to controversy and no tenderfoot in ruining theatrical performances. Some ten years before, on April 2, 1796, London had been gripped in another theatrical mania over a supposedly lost play by William Shakespeare entitled Vortigern. Despite crowd interest, not every ticket buyer believed Vortigern to be by Shakespeare, nor did every actor on stage. Kemble, the star of the play, had his doubts and purposely colluded with sections of the audience, known as the “Malonites”—so named because they followed the Shakespeare editor Edmund Malone, who, like Kemble, doubted the authenticity of the play. Kemble and the Malonites actually planned a riot to take place during the fi fth act: Vortigern’s kingdom is in tatters. The rebels are closing in, and Vortigern, in despair, speaks of the god of Death: Oh, then thou dost ope wide thy bony jaws And with rude laughter and fantastic tricks, Thou clapst thy rattling fi ngers to thy sides. . . . 7

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On Kemble’s enunciation of “rattling fi ngers” some members of the audience began laughing “loud and long.” Then, as the play’s actual author, William-Henry Ireland, later reported with “the most sepulchral tone of voice possible” Kemble enunciated the line that destroyed Vortigern: “When this solemn mock’ry is ended.”8 This line set off a “discordant howl” which “echoed from the pit” and lasted ten minutes. When the audience fi nally calmed down, Kemble simply redelivered the very same line, with an “even more solemn grimace.”9 The play continued on to its conclusion but never recovered. The play’s supporters voiced their applause; Malone’s group voiced their disapproval. The result of their confl icting uproar was that “not one syllable more of the play was rendered intelligible.”10 Once the play was over, Drury Lane promptly announced that Vortigern would again be performed on Monday, April 4.11 This announcement set off a “violent contest” that lasted a further “quarter of an hour.”12 Finally, Kemble came forward to announce a Monday night performance of Sheridan’s School for Scandal. For his pains he was pelted with apple peelings. Whether manager Robert Brinsley Sheridan was a supporter of Vortigern or not, Kemble’s actions must have upset him. Aside from physical damage, there was the reputation of Theatre Royal Drury Lane to consider. The theater was now a laughingstock. Shakespeare had been disgraced, either through the staging of a forgery ascribed to him or in the poor reactions of his actors and his audience. On top of it all, Sheridan had lost a potential box office hit. Sheridan showed his displeasure at Kemble’s actions by issuing the following disclaimer: “he [Sheridan] . . . had nothing to do with the private piques and animosities of Mr. Kemble, or whether he approved of the manuscripts or not: that he regarded that gentleman merely as a servant of the theatre; and that it was consequently his duty to have exerted himself to the utmost for the benefit of his employers.”13 To this Kemble did not utter one word in reply.14 Kemble did not care. Ruining a play that he did not like was more important than serving his employer.15

P LANNING THE COUP In 1803, Kemble, disenchanted with Drury Lane, invested ₤23,000 (₤1,771,000 in present-day purchasing power) in a one-sixth share of Covent Garden. Kemble received a mere ₤12 per performance, on the understanding that he would act two or three times a week—so in total ₤36 a week, plus ₤200 a year for his management of the theater.16 Assuming Kemble fulfi lled his performance quotas, his weekly earnings came out to just under ₤40 a week. Betty was being paid ₤100 a night. Kemble was

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not one to let a slight go unavenged, but he had to be careful. Harming Betty harmed Covent Garden’s bottom line. Publicly, Kemble stated that having Betty in his theater made good fi nancial sense: “I certainly had a voice in engaging the boy for Covent Garden,” explained Kemble, “as I thought the novelty might bring grist to the mill wherein I have a share;—otherwise I should have strongly opposed any such innovation.”17 But Kemble’s seeming interest in maintaining Bettymania as a way of improving his bank balance does not tally with the facts. Kemble had nothing to lose by ruining Betty. The ₤23,000 Kemble had invested in the theater was not his own but had been borrowed from his banker Robert Heathcote.18 Of course, as one-sixth shareholder, the actor was entitled to a slice of the profits, but these did not go to Kemble; they went directly to his lender. Destroying Betty did not affect Kemble’s personal income one iota; it merely affected how quickly Heathcote was repaid. True, Kemble’s own appearances and, thus, his income, dwindled during the height of Bettymania, but that was utterly his own decision. Had he appeared even to empty houses, his pay would have neither increased nor decreased. Money did not motivate Kemble; a bruised ego did. In the words of Sir Walter Scott, “This temporary fit of dotage of John Bull [for Betty] was attended with feelings of dislike as well as neglect to his ancient servant Kemble.”19 The boy had, in a seeming instant, leaped over him and into the people’s fickle hearts. It would have been less mortifying had Kemble’s rival been a man of established genius. But to be eclipsed by the plaintive singsong of this pygmy king, to watch him perform plays in which, ludicrously, actors had to match swords (or actresses had to fall in love) with a child who only came up to their waists, to survey his once-reverent audiences cheering this Goldilocks lad, and to see Betty Sr. counting all that money night after night was too contemptible to be borne. Better to usurp this boy-king than to kiss the ground before the Young Roscius’s feet and be baited with the rabble’s curse.20 His sister, Sarah Siddons, felt the same way; she called Betty a “Puppet” and a “little person.”21 The anonymous author of The Life of John Philip Kemble suggested that Siddons’s refusal to act with Betty had more do with age than size. In 1804, Siddons was forty-nine years old—aged enough to be Betty’s grandmother. Thus, playing Betty’s inamorata in, say, Barbarossa, would be, in her view, “quite absurd.”22 Mrs. Jordan, a lesser star, also refused to act with Betty. Filling the void, Kemble assigned most of the female leads that season to Harriett Litchfield, a personable young woman with an upturned nose, who normally played smaller parts such as Lady Anne in Richard III or Emilia in Othello.23 It was no secret Kemble and other star players took issue with Betty. One contemporaneous newspaper spoofed a meeting between Kemble and two other now-marginalized actors: Kemble initiates a discussion on

Figure 6. “When beggars die, there are no comets seen; / The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” (Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 2.2.30–31). Master Betty snuffs out the eternal fame-flame that rests atop a pillar embossed with the names of the great actors of the day, including Kemble and Cooke (personal collection).

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Betty, followed by George Fredrick Cooke, who is followed by the Scottish actor Henry Johnston, who is followed by the useful and respectable actor Alexander Pope. Kemble describes Betty as “certainly clever” but does not think that the boy should attempt Hamlet. Cooke replies that Betty’s Hamlet is excellent, but that Richard III is beyond him. (Kemble’s favorite role was Hamlet; Cooke’s favorite role was Richard III, and the reader now understands that each actor is protecting his “turf.”) Johnston—who, as stated in chapter 1, was known as the “Scotch Roscius” and was famous for his portrayal of Douglas—counters that Betty’s Richard III is adequate, but that the boy’s Douglas is terrible. As for John Home saying that Betty is Douglas incarnate, well, “the venerable gentleman has forgot, no doubt, that he paid the very same compliment to me some years back; but he is now in his 87th year—that accounts for it.”24 Pope— who had appeared as Frederick in Inchbald’s Lover’s Vows—disagrees with Johnston: Betty’s performance in Douglas is fi ne, but it is “the height of folly” for him to attempt the role of Frederick; for “he has not one requisite for that arduous character.”25 One thing all four actors agree upon: the Young Roscius has to be stopped.

K EMBLE CAREFULLY SELECTS BETTY’S SUPPORTING CAST Despite this imagined dialogue, not everyone refused to act with Betty. The aforementioned George Frederick Cooke, for example, was acclaimed for his performances opposite Betty’s Douglas; the press complimented Cooke’s acting and expressed its “satisfaction” in seeing him “combine his talents, liberally, and without jealousy, to the rare exertions of this youthful rival.”26 Of course, many thespians had little choice but to act with the Young Roscius: “Actors and actresses of merit were obliged to appear on the stage with this minion, and even to affect the general taste for him, in order to avoid giving offence.”27 But Cooke was not just any actor. At age forty-eight Cooke was still a star in his own right. Prior to Betty’s signing, Cooke’s regular rotation included the title lead in Richard III, Shylock in Merchant of Venice, and Angelo in Measure for Measure. In these performances, John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons played supporting roles. He returned the favor by playing lesser roles in their starring vehicles: Iago to Kemble’s Othello and Siddons’s Desdemona; Pizarro to their Rolla and Elvira; Hubert to their King John and Constance. With the coming of Bettymania, Cooke’s repertoire was virtually wiped away, and the actor, despite the public applause, remained none-too-pleased. When meeting the American prodigy John Howard Payne, Cooke recorded that he found the American boy to be “a polite, sensible youth, the reverse of our young Roscius.”28 Given Cooke’s star power—one modern critic has gone so far as to describe him as a “matinee idol” with “young ladies swooning after

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him”29 —and his contempt for Betty, we might wonder why he did not withdraw his services as Kemble, Siddons, and Jordan had; further, we may wonder why Kemble did not simply block Cooke? Kemble was stage manager of Covent Garden. If he had really wanted to bar Cooke’s appearances with the Young Roscius, he could have. Then again, Kemble may have thought that Cooke’s acting with Betty was a convenient way to rid himself of both actors.30 Cooke was a leading player at Covent Garden, but he was also an aging, improvident drunk.31 On October 17, 1803, Cooke was given the lead in Sheridan’s Pizarro, but “spoilt his own chances by appearing before the audience drunk, and incapable of either speaking or acting.” 32 Toward the end of the fi rst act, he fell over backward, overpowered by drink. After a few more ineffectual attempts to speak his part, he made an effort to address the audience at the end of the fi rst act. He began pressing his hand upon his chest and muttering drunkenly that he was unwell: “Ladies and Gentlemen—my old complaint—my old complaint—.” This was irresistible, and the audience responded with laughter. Amid roars, shouts, and guffaws, Cooke left the stage.33 Three days later, at a performance of Merchant of Venice, Cooke was intoxicated yet again and jeered yet again. Two days later, he was supposed to perform his Richard III but was drunk and so canceled. On his next appearance, he was roundly booed, prompting Cooke to turn to one of his fellow performers and remark: “On Monday I was drunk, but appeared, and they didn’t like that; on Wednesday I was drunk, so I didn’t appear, and they don’t like that. What the devil would they have?”34 On October 22, 1804, just six weeks before Betty’s Covent Garden premiere, Cooke was sloshed yet again, this time performing the Ghost opposite Kemble’s Hamlet: “The Ghost was drunk and found so much difficulty in expressing his ‘mission’ and in keeping himself above ground that the Pit ‘rose at him’ indignantly, to which he [Cooke] replied with a motion of defiance whereupon a row ensued which for some time interrupted the progress of the Tragedy.”35 During Betty’s second London season, Cooke showed up intoxicated at the final dress rehearsals of Kelly’s opera, Adrian and Orrila, and was “hardly able to stand.” 36 Wet towels were wrapped around his head, and he was given some coffee. Cooke was then dressed and pushed on to the stage.37 The play was a great success, except for Cooke, who forgot nothing but “the whole plot of the piece.”38 Kemble complained to Thomas Harris about Cooke’s pickled performances: “Sir,—you are a proprietor—so am I. I borrowed a sum of money to come into this property. How am I to repay those who lent me that money, if you, from ill-placed lenity towards an individual, who is repeatedly from intoxication disappointing the public, choose to risk the dilapidation of the Theatre, and thereby cause my ruin?”39 Given these details, we can now see why Cooke acted with Betty—drink was more important than art—and we can appreciate why Kemble allowed Cooke to appear on

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Figure 7. Cooke as Richmond; he normally played Richard III, but Betty had taken the part as his own (personal collection).

stage with the boy: it was only a matter of time before Cooke’s bizarre behavior ruined a Betty performance. Rounding out Betty’s motley cast was a journeyman, Richard Suett, an extremely tall actor, described by Leigh Hunt as the “very personification of weak whimsicality”; another critic stated that this comic actor had “no wit”—hardly ringing endorsements.40 Further, Suett’s limited talent was debilitated by his acute night terrors, or pavor nocturnus. Wrote James Boaden: “Mr. Suett was a victim to nervous irritability. . . . he gave

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me a most curious and unaffected detail of the horrors that invaded him nightly, whenever sleep surprised him, and left his fancy ‘to sport at will her wild creations.’ I solemnly declare that no powers, of even German invention, have yet given a series of images so terrific, nor displayed so graphically, as was this record of miseries sustained by Suett.”41 Suett was also, like Cooke, a notorious drunk. Genest recorded that “a gentleman told me, that he called on Suett one morning at breakfast, and that he found him with a bottle of brandy, and a bottle of rum on the table.”42 He often appeared drunk on stage, indeed, Suett seems to have used drink “to qualify himself for his work on the stage.”43 With this dubious supporting cast, Betty’s acting could not help but suffer.

BETTY’S COMPETITION : A TRAINED SCHNAUZER AND A M IDGET Despite their obvious flaws, Cooke and Suett were, at least, professional actors. But Betty’s art was further enfeebled by another Kemble hiring, the circus performer Joseph Grimaldi, who soon appeared alongside Betty in Hamlet. To appreciate the evil genius of this signing, some background is necessary. In chapter 2, we noted that Betty’s premiere in Christmas allied him with a number of panto entertainments, which included Miss De Camp and a trained dog named Carlo.44 When not delighting in watching Betty, De Camp, or Carlo, working class and royals alike flocked to Spa Fields, where Richard Wroughton, a heavyset man with a weak mustache, had set up a tent. His draw: a company of dancing dogs. The star of the company was a schnauzer named Moustache. The dog performed in a play called The Deserter. The playwright Frederick Reynolds recalled Moustache’s entrance in act 5: “I see him now, in his little uniform, military boots, with smart musket and helmet, cheering and inspiring his fellow-soldiers, to follow him up scaling ladders, and storm the fort. The roars, barking, and confusion which resulted from this attack, may be better imagined, than described.”45 Wroughton frequently told Reynolds that he had cleared upward of seven thousand pounds “by these four legged Roscii.”46 Of course, Wroughton may not have meant to make any connection to Betty, but the reference to “Roscii” in the very year in which all of London was abuzz with talk of the “Young Roscius” suggests that the two were sharing a joke at Betty’s expense.47 Wroughton, before tumbling upon the idea of training dogs, had once been a respectable Shakespeare actor. As recent as December 1804, he had acted at Drury Lane, and seems to have served as a special liaison for the Betty family.48 When Betty was ill, his attending physician, Dr. Pearson, passed along all his medical reports to Wroughton, who then passed them along to the press.49 After leaving Drury Lane, Wroughton remained on good terms with Sheridan, and also with Harris of Covent

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Garden. The latter even came to Wroughton’s dog show, where the two good-humoredly traded management techniques. Harris asked, “Why do your performers act so much better than mine?” Wroughton replied, “Because mine know if they don’t indeed work like horses I give them no corn—whereas if your performers do, or do not, walk over the course, they have their prog [food] just the same.”50 The repartee here was humorous, but the issue of profit was not. Betty was a novelty act, not unlike Wroughton’s performing dogs, but he was far more difficult to control and far more costly to maintain. Betty’s detractors not only compared him to four-legged performers but also to at least one traditional panto character and to a variety of novelty acts. John Wilson Croker mordantly matched Betty to the pantofairy tale character Jack the Giant-Killer: Oh giant-killing Jack!!! And is this then the wond’rous bait For loud applause and houses great, The Roscius, this, whose radiance bright, Should dim the ineffectual light Of all the glow-worms of the stage[?] 51

Another Betty detractor, Richard Burton, listed Betty alongside other novelty acts such as the “invisible girl” and an “ass with two heads, a hog with two tails, or any other monster” to be found at a carnival. 52 Betty had his hecklers, and certainly Croker and Burton were among them. Yet even among Bettymaniacs, the face paint of the panto was evident. For an example we may turn to Countess Bessborough, who on Wednesday, December 5, 1804, went to Covent Garden to see Master Betty perform: at length, tired of hearing and of fi nding excuses for staying at home, I went tonight. It was Lovers’ Vows, and I cried my eyes out. The detail of all ye disadvantages a natural child must suffer would alone have affected me, but it is impossible to give you an Idea of what this creature is—his tenderness to his Mother, his perfect freedom from all affectation and whining, and his wonderful animation in the strong parts, are really fi ner than any thing I ever saw, and in any part when his extreme youth and childish form do not shock you, it is impossible to conceive greater perfection. . . . He came into the box afterwards and his fi ne blue eyes and light brown hair did not tend to set me against him. 53

After the play, she and others went to a panto production of Cinderella at Drury Lane, which included clowns and jumping horses: We saw the King, who looks well, I think, but dropp’d asleep twice during the farce. In going in we met little Betty and ask’d him up.

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Sheridan afterwards brought him. He was delighted with Cinderella— very shy, and a remarkably modest pretty manner, except when any thing that struck him particularly in the Pantomime put him into raptures. It is perfect nature as his acting is, but I cannot tell you how odd it seem’d, after having just seen this creature thunder out his reproaches to Baron Wildenheim [his father in Lover’s Vows] till my blood ran cold with agitation (for you have no idea of the dignity and animation he can assume), to see him so wrapp’d up in the farce. 54

Delighted with the panto, Betty “clapp’d his hands and jump’d at the horses.” He was then asked if he thought he could outperform these popular entertainers. Betty replied, “I think I could [do it and do it well] but I am afraid they would not let me.”55 Of course, Betty was not going to be allowed to act in any pantomime with horses. He was a valuable commodity. “They”—his father, Hough, Covent Garden, Drury Lane—were not going to endanger him by letting him ride a horse or do other, panto-like acts. But that did not stop others from continuing to see him as suited for panto performance. Betty’s fans saw nothing wrong in seeking out London’s most famous sideshow performer, the Polish dwarf Józef Boruwłaski, and asking his opinion of the nearly as dwarfish Young Roscius. 56 Boruwłaski had toured European and Turkish courts with the grand name “Count Boruw.” He was a friend of the aforementioned Wroughton, who, with his performing dogs, knew a good novelty act when he saw one. So, what did Wroughton and the count do together socially? They went to a Betty performance, of course. Getting tickets was not difficult: Wroughton was a well-known performer, and Boruwłaski was also a good friend of John Philip Kemble’s brother, Stephen. After a performance of Betty’s Douglas, they traded opinions: Wroughton.—Well, Count, I hope you have been pleased with the evening’s performance. Count Boruw.—Oh! sare! Beauty tragedy, Dooglas! Wroughton.—Yes; but I hope you liked the acting of it, also. Count Boruw.—Oh! Fine language! et affecting story, indid, indid! Wroughton.—But the performers, Count; I hope they pleased you. Count Boruw.—Very mooch, indid, Sare! What dat lady’s nam’—Dooglas’ moder? Wroughton.—Oh! you mean Mrs. Powel. Count Boruw.—Ah! Beauty woman, Mrs. Powel!

The count’s fascination with beautiful women was renowned. Once, in a conversation with the king of France, he described his wife Isalina as a “Fine woman! Sweet, beauty body! You have no idea, Majesty.”57 Wroughton, still awaiting the count’s opinion of Master Betty, dropped hints: “Extraordinary boy, Master Betty.” The count continued to compliment Mrs. Powell’s figure. Wroughton interjected once more:

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Wroughton.—Yes; but Master Betty? Count Boruw.—Sweet woman, your Mrs. Powel; fine creature! Wroughton.—Well, Count, but the young Norval? Count Boruw.—Has she hoosband? Wroughton.—No, Count, but— Count Boruw.—Ha! vidow! dat way! Grand woman! indid! indid! Wroughton.—But you do not tell us what you think of the boy! Count Boruw.—Great actress, Mrs. Powel; sweet beauty-body! Wroughton. But, my dear Count, we are all extremely anxious to learn your impression of the Young Roscius.

The count, thus pressed, could no longer evade the point and replied in broken English: When I was yong man in Paris, every body run away to see littel Rabbit, which they had teach to play upon drum. It was stanishing to see how Rabbit bit de drum with his littel drumstick! Oh! his master mak fortune soon! Indid, indid it was stanishing!—and every body was surprise to see so little creature mak so mooch noise! I was ’stanished too. Indid, indid, Sare, it was very clever, for—Rabbit. Mais—look now—I would rader see the drummer himself do dat! 58

Count Boruw’s comparison of Betty to a trained animal was not unique. As stated in the introduction, Richard Cumberland linked Betty with a trained bear that danced in the streets; in chapter 2, Wordsworth compared Betty to Carlo the canine wonder; and in this chapter, we noted that Wroughton discussed Betty in relation to his circus of dogs. But Betty was not the drumming rabbit or the performing dog or the dancing bear; he was more like the ass with two heads or the hog with two tails or Count Boruw, the womanizing midget: he was the Young Roscius, the wonder-kid, the Betty-boy. Wroughton thought the matter over. Betty might have been small, but he was too big a draw not to exploit. He hired George Renaud, a boy of thirteen, who “attracted much notice by the confident vulgarity of his look and manner,” and teamed him with the aforementioned Count Boruw. Wroughton billed Renaud and Borow as “The YOUNG COMIC ROSCIUS,” and “the Celebrated GERMAN DWARF”; the show was rounded out with a talking bird. 59 With this information in hand, we can understand that Kemble’s hiring of the clown Joeseph Grimaldi to play in Hamlet was designed to further associate the boy with popular (read: low) entertainment. Prior to his coming to Covent Garden, Grimaldi worked at Wroughton’s circus, but, with his dogs doing so well, the clown was less and less of a draw, so Wroughton, at some point in the 1804–5 season, cut his salary from ₤5 to ₤3 a week. Kemble, hearing that Grimaldi was unhappy, set up a meeting between Harris and the clown:

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Kemble inquired of Grimaldi whether he knew Mr. Harris, and receiving a reply in the negative, introduced him to that gentleman as Joe Grimaldi, whose father he had known well,60 who was a true chip of the old block, and the fi rst low comedian in the country. Mr. Harris said a great many fi ne things in reply to these commendations, and, rising, requested Grimaldi to follow him into an adjoining apartment. Joe did so, and in less than a quarter of an hour had signed articles for five seasons; the terms being, for the fi rst season, ₤6 per week; for the second and third, ₤7; and for the fourth and fi fth, ₤8.61

At a maximum, Grimaldi earned ₤8 a week; Betty, ₤50 to ₤l00 a night.62 As an investment, Grimaldi was cheap—perhaps not as cheap as Wroughton’s performing whelps but, compared to Betty, a bargain all the same. Kemble, who had labored tirelessly to make Covent Garden the home of Shakespeare and other high entertainments, was now actively engaged in bringing a clown to Covent Garden and planned to feature him opposite its newest Shakespearean, the fourteen-year-old Master Betty.63 Wroughton had his dogs, a dwarf, and a talking bird; Drury Lane had a Cinderella panto and Carlo the wonder dog; Covent Garden, no longer featuring John Philip Kemble and Sarah Siddons, had the Young Roscius and the clown Grimaldi.64 The upside, so far as Kemble was concerned, was clear. Short-term, Betty would continue to draw well, but, long-term, Kemble’s miscastings ensured that London audiences saw Betty as a novelty act, a panto-esque sideshow, a one-season wonder that audiences would, inevitably, put out of mind.

M AKING E NEMIES Not all of Betty’s problems with his cast were of Kemble’s making. On May 18, 1805, the Ipswich Journal reported that Betty had declined to participate in a recent March benefit for the Theatrical Fund, a charity created to aid old and indigent actors. According to the theater critic James Boaden, Betty Sr. received the following letter: We, undersigned, the master, trustees, and committee for managing the fund raised by that great master of his art, DAVID GARRICK, Esq., fi nding at this time our fi nances so low, have been obliged to pare down the income of our poor claimants by a severe and heavy poundage; and unless your son stands forth for us with his transcendant abilities for one night, we shall be poor indeed. We have chosen you, sir, our advocate to him for this liberal deed of benevolence, to be extended to his aged distressed brethren; which, joined to his present popularity, will consecrate his name to time’s end. With great respect, Mr. Secretary Maddocks. T. R. Drury Lane, March, 180565

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Betty’s management had borrowed Garrick’s moniker, but they had not expected to have to copy his good deeds. The managers of the Theatrical Fund were hoping otherwise: the old Roscius, Garrick, had been generous; why should not the Young Roscius? 66 Considering Master Betty had problems with his other actors—note his difficulties with Kemble, Cooke, Siddons, and Jordan—the idea of him giving or raising some money for indigent actors seems like a public relations no-brainer. However, Betty Sr. begged off. His boy was overscheduled as it was. Adding still more performances was impossible.67 Of course, we may excuse Betty here, were it not for the fact that his father regularly withdrew his boy from performing at any charitable performance. Six months earlier, William Macready had asked Betty to perform for the benefit of one of the actors in the Birmingham troupe. When word came that the boy would not, the local press erupted, prompting Betty’s father to write a letter to the press, in which he claimed that his son was willing and able to perform for “the remainder of the season,” but, when it came to benefits, “the dread of continued exertion proving injurious to his health, compelled me to decline all solicitation.”68 Betty Sr. was arguing that his son was too sickly to perform for anyone’s fi nancial benefit but his own. The theater world is a small one. The boy was making enemies as fast as he was making money.69 In May 1805 the Betty camp tripped itself up yet again, and yet again the issue was with a benefit. As stated, in the absence of Sarah Siddons, Harriett Litchfield agreed to play opposite Betty.70 She and Betty had maintained a positive onstage rapport. The Times went out of its way to praise her acting as Lady Randolph in Douglas as “much superior to what we expected from her, considering the particular bent of her powers. . . . The grief of the mother” was “most feelingly depicted; and her burst of maternal phrenzy, when she rushes upon the corpse of her son [played by Betty], . . . drew down repeated plaudits.” 71 Another paper noted that she was “forcible and impressive.” 72 Keeping Litchfield happy was paramount, but toward the end of the 1804–5 season Litchfield asked Betty to perform at a scheduled benefit in her honor. Speaking on behalf of his son, Betty Sr., as he had done in like circumstances, declined. Even if young Betty were rested enough to join in, the scheduled play, Othello, was hardly one in which he could excel.73 After all, what role could he play? Othello was too violent; Iago, too sinister; Cassio, too sexual; and Roderigo, too comical for the Young Roscius’s tastes and skills. The casting problem was significant, and it may well have been Kemble’s doing. After all, as stage manager, Kemble had fi nal say over all benefit selections. But we should not lose sight of the real issue: this was a benefit for Betty’s leading lady, who was depending on Betty’s celebrity to help fi ll the house and, as a consequence, her pocketbook. Yet Betty, or his father, turned her down. And, more

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insultingly, Litchfield, as Betty’s leading lady, would still be obligated to perform on his benefit nights. Litchfield contemplated leaving London altogether. We glimpse her angry mood in a letter from a Mr. Gore to the actor Robert William Elliston, written in the spring of 1805: “I have heard something of your little ‘Roscius.’ This step from the playground to the playhouse I cannot approve. I observe the lady who was to have performed with him is gone [or, rather, had given notice of intent to go] to Ireland—Mrs. Litchfield. Pray who is to take her place?—surely not Mrs. Siddons?” 74 But Litchfield was only contemplating leaving the company. She stayed, but only after she asked John Philip Kemble to replace Betty at her benefit on May 22, 1805.75 He happily agreed. With the exception of Betty, all the major players now came out in support of Litchfield’s Emilia. During the performance, the audience erupted in approval and then shouted: “No more Boy’s Play.”76 The theater critic James Boaden, who never liked Betty, recorded with satisfaction that “the charm is dispelled—the business [of child actors and, thus, of Bettymania] is settled.”77

HOUGH’S DEFECTION It was not just fans who were deserting Betty. By the end of the 1804–5 season, William Hough, Betty’s acting coach, was no longer in his employ. The break had been acrimonious. Hough even circulated a notice among his friends, promising a bombshell of sorts: HOUGH versus BETTY An appeal to the judgment and candour of an impartial British public. By William Hough, late dramatic tutor to the young Roscius. In which will be introduced a curious and truly original correspondence, previous and subsequent to Master Betty’s fi rst appearance on the stage; with notes, theatrical, analytical and explanatory.78

What was the nature of the scandal? Giles Playfair speculates that Hough had molested the boy.79 If so, Hough had no reason to make his actions public. Perhaps Hough threatened to expose Betty Sr. as a rapacious and callous father, who had carelessly endangered his own son’s life for ready cash? 80 This gossip, however, was far from new. When his son (supposedly) fell ill due to exhaustion, Betty Sr. wrote a letter to the newspapers, which contained the following remarks: “It cannot but be painful for a parent to feel himself under the necessity of making stipulations with the public, that he will not be a careless or negligent guardian of his son. In any other case such a necessity would imply suspicion of the father; in the present I am aware that it has been produced merely by a solicitude for the son.”81

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As for Betty Sr.’s debts, they were evidently appalling, but they too were well known, since the press had already reported that “the Lord Chancellor asserted his privilege, and became the legal guardian of the infant, allowing him to make a will, and his fi rst act was to settle on his mother ₤4,000.”82 In reply, Betty Sr. let out that he would “take care that the fortune and fruits of his [son’s] efforts shall not be destroyed nor impaired by any improper conduct or negligence of mine.”83 Hough might attack Betty Sr. as an inattentive father and husband. After all, Betty Sr. had pushed the boy into show business against the declared wishes of Mrs. Betty. Yet, this scandalous laundry had been publicly and satirically aired in the Monthly Mirror: The old boy, my father, is light in his purse. And I myself tired of being his nurse, The actors within have assured me I’m fit The part of a hero exactly to hit; So to prove that I’ve talent as well as another Good folks, I ran forward, in spite of my mother. . . . .84

The only outstanding issue, then, was not Betty Sr.’s greed but the true level of the Young Roscius’s talent. What if Master Betty’s former acting coach told the world that the Young Roscius was far from gifted, that he was, in fact, a bit dense, that all the inspired stage business had been the work, nay, the genius, of William Hough? 85 As Hough’s supporters—or, more likely, Betty’s detractors—versified: Shame on you, Boy—your words recal, Or Arrogance will prove your fall; Confess your obligations—own You stand in debt to H[ough]—alone! 86

One backstage visitor asked young Betty whether he missed his acting coach, to which the boy countered, “Oh, not in the least, he was of little service to me.” The interlocutor could not believe his ears: “Surely . . . he must have rendered you essential service, from his long experience in the profession[?]” Betty parried, “Oh, that’s nothing, no matter where and how I enter; when I am on, that’s full sufficient; I am sure to bring them down; I engross the whole attention of the audience.”87 Betty’s reaction is wholly in keeping with his character. In Edinburgh, the manager had wondered aloud whether this small boy was capable of projecting his voice through so great a theater, to which Betty replied confidently: “My dear Sir, I beg you will be under no apprehension on that score, for if my voice does not fi ll your house, my playing will.”88 We may also here recall his obnoxious demand that Charles Mayne Young play leapfrog with him.89 The image of the sweetly disposed savant, the

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miraculous boy who debuted at Covent Garden during the Christmas season, a star to rival that of Bethlehem, no longer jived with the reality of this cocky little ingrate.90

M ASTER WILSON AND OTHER I NFANT ROSCIAE Betty’s camp soon offered Hough hush money: 50 guineas a year for life. In exchange, Hough dropped all threats of negative press.91 But Betty’s camp could not resist getting in the last word. What was left of Betty’s media team (i.e., those Betty Sr. hired at respectable newspapers and magazines) stated that the Young Roscius was thriving without Hough— the latter was now dismissed as a mere “scene-shifter or property-man”; “Midas metamorphosed, might as well give lessons in music to Apollo, as Hough in theatricals to Master Betty.”92 Hough did not respond directly to these statements, but he was evidently furious. He had raised a boy from pauper to prince. If he could do it once, why not again? Within weeks, Hough was promoting a Scottish child, Master Wilson, who performed to rave reviews in Sheffield: “Young WILSON, has, at his very early years, such extraordinary capabilities as to promise to be second to no actor now on the stage.”93 One audience member wrote excitedly to the Monthly Mirror: “I think him superior to Betty: his action is more animated and lively; his person more sprightly and genteel, and his voice admits of greater compass, and greater intonation; he is more correct too in emphasis and accentuation.”94 Despite this letter to the editor, the Monthly Mirror’s theater critic dismissed Wilson, and by extension Hough himself, as “decidedly inferior, in theatrical merit, to Master Betty.”95 Not long after this review, Master Wilson parted from Mr. Hough and renounced the stage. Wilson’s short-lived career did little to prevent other parents from trying to break their son or daughter into showbiz. The Monthly Mirror (1805) reported on another child actor: Theatre Kidderminster.—A second Roscius has been engaged here for a few nights, and has received a degree of applause equal to that which accompanied the fi rst efforts of his renowned predecessor. He has already a variety of engagements on hand, where Master Betty has performed. He sustains the most opposite characters with equal ability, and has played Richard the Third, sung three comic songs, and played the fool in pantomime the same night! ! ! ! ! 96

Yet another Infant Roscius appeared, this time in the West Country, a Master Brown: “ROSCIUS THE SECOND, as he is absurdly called . . . has lately been exhibiting in the West of England. I had an opportunity of seeing this boy, whose name is Frederick Brown, at Exeter, where he

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was engaged for seven nights. . . . I think, he equalled Betty, and shewed astonishing cleverness and capacity.”97 According to Oxberry, Brown actually made his fi rst appearance with Master Betty in a performance of the Young Roscius’s Douglas. Given his juvenile appearance, Brown was “mistaken for Betty” and “so confused was our actor [Brown], that he forgot every line of the part.”98 Despite this inauspicious start, by the time Master Brown appeared in Liverpool, he had expanded his range to include many of Betty’s featured roles. He played Osmond and Frederick at Gosport; on his performing Douglas—a role strongly associated with Betty—the house sold out, and more than one hundred people were turned away. 99 Some critics thought that Master Brown was both physically and intellectually superior to Betty and lamented that Betty had arrived fi rst on the scene and had, thus, stolen golden plaudits from the more-deserving Master Brown: The principal attraction of the theatre here has been Master Frederick Brown, who has played Douglas, Achmet, Octavian, and Hamlet. From Master Betty’s success, it was natural to suppose a host of Roscii would arise. If Master Brown had appeared before Betty, the best judges will have it he must have carried away the palm. Betty’s person being more mature, Brown has some physical disadvantages, but then he is so far superior in other respects, that, upon the whole, he must be preferred. He is nearly two years younger than Betty. His person altogether is beautiful; his complexion is fair as day; he has the very eye of Garrick, brilliant and expressive, full both of fi re and of softness. His voice though in some parts not so sonorous, is clear, and much sweeter than Betty’s. His tones are varied and harmonious, according exactly with the passions to be expressed. His conception of the writer’s meaning is extremely accurate, and his emphasis, in every particular, perfectly correct. It is the misfortune of very many to prefer the more shining to the more solid. Such will at once prefer Mister Betty, but those who throw this prejudice aside, have no scruple in declaring that Master Brown is a more prodigious genius than has yet appeared—. His Douglas will sanction these remarks, and so will Achmet. Octavian is a part not so suitable for him, though even in that he was exceedingly interesting, especially in the scene with Floranthe, where rapture uttered vows and wept between. In Hamlet his fame must be established beyond the reach of rivalship.100

One London journal began to catalog all the Infant Rosciae. In addition to Betty, the inventory included: Miss Freron, “the Infant Billington,” only eight years of age and said to possess the “most surprising power of lungs”; Miss Lee Sugg, age seven, known as “the Infant Billington and Roscius”; Miss Saunders, “the Infant Columbine,” and her fourteen-yearold brother, Master Saunders, “the Infant Clown”; “the ORMSKIRE Roscius,” was thirteen years old; “Master MORI, the Young Orpheus,” was about eight years old; Master Byrne, age nine, was known as “the Infant Vestris”; Master Romney Robinson, a poet, was twelve years

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old.101 On June 17, 1805, a Master Wigley, a child only four-and-a-half years old, performed several bugle horn pieces at Drury Lane.102 A sixyear-old boy named Dawson billed himself as the “Comic Roscius” and appeared on the Exeter Stage on July 8, 1805.103 An eleven-year-old girl, Miss Quantrell, played Douglas “in an elegant style” at Stockport.104 The Midlands had its own female Roscius, a Miss Swindells, age eleven, who played Achmet—yet another of Betty’s principal roles—“with much pompous and ungrammatical gag.”105 The Monthly Mirror reported that “a twentieth infant Roscius has sprung up in the son of the Lewes Manager; he is a boy about nine years old, who . . . promises to rival his contemporary [Master Betty] in all his favourite parts.” 106 The Monthly Mirror cautioned that audiences should not “visit upon his [Betty’s] head the impotence and impudence of that swarm of children which his success has let loose upon every theatrical town in the kingdom. We are bound to ‘speak of him as he is,’ a youth of fourteen years of age, and, as such, he is an object of admiration and astonishment,” but the argument fell on deaf ears.107 With all these youthful wonders vying for attention, Betty was no longer a singularity. Worse yet, given the growing number of child actors on the stage—some of whom, like Masters Brown and Wilson, were accomplished, but most of whom were fairly or absolutely terrible—audiences, by dint of repeated exposure to less skillful performers, might have felt that they had been fooled by the boy who initiated the sudden rise of the child star. In short, other youngsters did not just vie for the attention of Betty’s audience; their own performances called into question the talents of the original which they had so carefully copied. The Monthly Mirror raised a still more alarming issue: “The young Rosciusses now starting in all parts of the kingdom are so much younger than Master Betty, that this favourite will probably soon appear upon the superannuated list.”108 At age fourteen, Master Betty was on the cusp of manhood and, thus, in real danger of no longer being seen as a prodigy at all. As the anonymous author of Critique on the First Performance of Young Roscius pointed out, in France boys were allowed to perform in juvenile companies until the age of fi fteen; thereafter, they were forced to “seek engagements elsewhere.” Likewise, The Young Rosciad (1805) notified Betty that he could not expect his audience to remain enamored with an old child prodigy: “Next season, you’ll be quite a Bore.”109 The Morning Chronicle, September 11, 1805, also giving notice that time was running out on Bettymania, declared that Master Betty was “right in making hay while the sun shines.”

K EMBLE’S SHABBY TREATMENT OF M ISS MUDIE For nearly a year Kemble had worked surreptitiously to damage Betty. He had withdrawn his own services as an actor, had cast a clown and

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two drunks to perform with him, and had selected a benefit in which he knew Betty would decline to perform. As Betty’s second season debut approached (December 16, 1805), Kemble understood that this new crop of youthful rosciae was his most effective weapon yet in attacking Master Betty. If Covent Garden was happy with one Young Roscius, why not hire another one? The idea probably came to him by way of William Macready, manager of the Birmingham Theatre, who, despite employing Betty for a lengthy engagement and paying him lavishly, was not among those who felt that the boy was a natural or a staggering genius. Quite the contrary, Macready considered Betty to be a novelty, one that might even be replaced by any number of other talented children. After Betty completed his Birmingham dates, Macready hired a seven-year-old girl, Miss Mudie, to play Douglas—one of Betty’s featured roles. Mudie had been following in Betty’s footsteps, literally. She debuted, as Betty had, in Ireland. Reviews were uniformly affi rmative, so upbeat that we may well suspect that her management, like Betty’s, had paid for the press. The following may serve as an example: Her performance of the character of Young Norval [read: Douglas] was such as to call forth the loudest bursts of acclamation, to excite the greatest astonishment, and to bid defiance to criticism, whether we consider her look, her emphasis, her gesture, her attitudes, or her accurate expression of the author’s meaning.—It may be conceived by those who were not present, or by strangers at a distance, that this unqualified praise has been elicited by a consideration of the young lady’s infancy; but the numerous audience who fi lled our theatre, among whom we observed many of the fi rst respectability, will fully coincide with us in our opinion concerning the merit of this theatrical phenomenon. Nor let the world be incredulous, but reflect that infidelity with respect to the merits of the Young Roscius was universally prevalent, and that the evidence of their senses alone, could convince the bulk of those who admire him now, that a child may be born—a genius.110

Thanks to a special invitation by Kemble, Miss Mudie made her way to London, where she was billed as the “Infant Roscia.” Report, perhaps satirical, had it that she was “engaged next season . . . TWO HUNDRED GUINEAS a night! The parents, it is said, having insisted on double the allowance made to Master Betty, because their little wonder is not half so old!”111 At fi rst glance, Kemble’s strategy seems flawed. If Kemble wanted to end the recent infatuation with child actors, why give support to another Lilliputian? Perhaps Kemble hoped to replace Betty with Mudie, an actress he seemed to have control over. If so, the strategy was risky. If Mudie succeeded, then Kemble and the other adult actors would be further relegated to secondary parts. Worse yet, if Mudie succeeded,

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might not Betty and Mudie partner in a variety of couples-plays, such as Romeo and Juliet? Even before her London debut, one rhyming critic was already looking forward to just such an event: But trust me, ’twill impede your course, And of much mischief be the source— Some little Miss, perhaps, may rise, And equally the Age surprise! Who knows, perhaps—some little Letty May share the spoil with Master Betty! Nay—I can vouch, I know of one, Whose sure success I build upon; Whose Lady Randolph, Juliet, too May make you look a little blue.112

But Kemble clearly felt that ruining Miss Mudie would also undermine Master Betty. At least that’s what Londoners were suggesting: The night of Miss Mudie’s premiere, Lady Harriet Cavendish wrote to Lady Georgiana Morpeth of her intention to “see the new prodigy, Miss Mudie,” though she was sure the event had little to do with launching Miss Mudie’s career and everything to do with terminating Master Betty’s popularity. In Lady Cavendish’s view, Miss Mudie’s appearance at Covent Garden “must be an invention of Kemble’s to throw ridicule on Roscius.”113 It is not entirely surprising, then, that Miss Mudie’s debut, on November 23, 1805—as the womanly Peggy in Garrick’s play The Country Girl—was seen as a referendum on Betty. But this was not an open debate or even a fair election. This was a theatrical waylay. Her fall was carefully orchestrated: Kemble selected William Murray to play Miss Mudie’s guardian in the play, which was fi ne, except that Murray must have been quite tall and Miss Mudie very short, for she only came up to his knees, and the latter “was obliged to stoop even to lay his hand on her head; to bend himself double to kiss her; and where she had to lay hold of his neckcloth to coax him, and pat his cheek, he was obliged to go almost on all-fours.” To exaggerate still further the disparities in height between Miss Mudie and her cast, Kemble had an adult actress, Miss Ann Brunton, enter with a plume of three upright ostrich feathers on her head, the whole constituting a figure nearly seven feet high.114 Later in the play, Miss Mudie’s pretended husband was thrown into an agony of despair at the idea that she was interested in another man. While audiences snickered, Peggy was introduced to her “cousin,” played by Kemble’s twenty-nine-year-old brother, Charles. The stage introduction included the following line: “Let me introduce you. . . . you should know, each other; you are very like, and THE SAME AGE.” The silliness was too great to be tolerated, and there was a burst of “hissing and horse-laughing.” The audience then called vehemently “Off! Off!”115

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Kemble knew exactly what he was doing in his casting and staging— described by Biographia Dramatica as “in the highest degree contemptible.”116 Nonetheless, attempting to cover his own involvement in this farce, John Philip Kemble came forward from the wings and begged the audience to let the little girl continue. “Gentlemen, the great applause with which Miss Mudie has been received at various provincial Theatres, encouraged in her friends a hope that her merit might be such as to pass

Figure 8.

Miss Mudie (personal collection).

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the tribunal of your judgment.” Here, his speech was met with violent hissing. “Be assured, however, Gentlemen, that the proprietors of this Theatre by no means wish to press any species of entertainment upon you which may not meet your most perfect approbation.” Loud applause. “If, therefore, you will permit Miss Mudie”—shouts of “No! No!”—“We hope, however, that as the play has proceeded so far, you will allow Miss Mudie to fi nish the character.” More shouts of “No! No!” ensued, prompting a happy Kemble to conclude: “Ladies and Gentlemen, let me entreat that you will allow Miss Mudie to fi nish her part. Perhaps, when you are informed, that, after this night, Miss Mudie will be withdrawn from the stage, you will be induced to comply.” This last appeal seemed to produce the desired effect; but the calm was temporary. Upon the next appearance of the child, the uproar broke out again, and she was, in the interests of fi nishing the play, forced offstage. Murray then came forward and delivered as follows: “Ladies and Gentlemen, if you will have the kindness to allow us to trespass upon your patience five minutes, Miss Searle, with your indulgence, will play Miss Mudie’s part from the commencement of the fi fth act.” Thinking the crowd placated, the actors resumed their performance, but when the child stepped out from the wings, the hoots and hollers continued to the fi nal curtain.117 Harris and Heathcote were probably none too happy to see Mudie’s career so quickly snuffed, but Kemble enjoyed every minute of it.118 Asked if he felt at all embarrassed that Mudie, a mere child, had been so badly treated, he replied gleefully: “Child! Why, Sir, when I was a very young actor in the York company, that little creature kept an inn at Tadcaster, and had a large family of children!” adding, as he turned aside to indulge in a pinch of snuff, “You may rely upon this fact, and repeat it upon my authority.”119 Kemble’s schadenfreude suggests that he fully understood the ramifications of Miss Mudie’s fall: after audience reaction to Litchfield’s benefit and Miss Mudie’s performance, it was now clear that there was nothing singular or special about Master Betty.120 The Morning Chronicle summed up the situation nicely: The “fate of Miss Mudie seems to . . . prognosticate a similar termination to the career of Master Betty.”121 David Erskine Baker, writing in Biographia Dramatica, agreed. This was a decisive victory for the “Anti-Roscianites.”122

BETTY’S SECOND SEASON Kemble had not yet attacked Betty directly; Kemble’s fans, however, were bold enough to predict the Young Roscius’s imminent demise: During Master Betty’s “absence from London [he was on a tour of the provinces] a party was formed against him. . . . Rumours of the intended opposition had reached the public ear.”123 On December 16, 1805, the boy walked on to the Drury Lane stage and, for the fi rst time in his life, was met

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with boos, catcalls, and hisses. More than twenty people were forcibly dragged from the pit, leaving a bewildered and shaken Betty to continue the play.124 The Monthly Mirror thought the entire affair a disgrace: This opposition, (whether it arose from individuals who think but meanly of Master Betty’s talents, or from a wish to put an end to the rage for child-acting) cannot, on any principle, be justified. To drive rudely from the stage, a youth, whom last season they welcomed with an enthusiasm beyond all precedent, and shouts of continued applause, which still ring in our ears, would certainly be unjust to his merits, and by no means consistent or honourable on the part of the public.125

Betty somehow managed to perform well, so well that one fan compared him to the naval hero Lord Nelson. Congratulating the boy on having beaten back the anti-Roscianites, he wrote, “You Trafalgarred them all.”126 But the victory had been Pyrrhic. Betty still had his followers, but, with all the negative press, their intensity had cooled markedly. One theatergoer in Manchester saw Betty just prior to his London return and commented: we have “now only to consider him as an established fi rst rate actor, who may be seen with an abundance of pleasure; though not, perhaps, with that astonishment his first appearance very naturally created.”127 Lady Bessborough, who had once enthusiastically called Betty the greatest Hamlet she had ever seen, attended his second season debut and recorded merely that the boy “is grown, his action is more manly and dignified, and on the whole Chaster, tho’ a little less passionate.”128 On December 25, 1805, the no-longer-quite-so-Young Roscius performed a former fan favorite, Selim in Barbarossa.129 Whereas in his fi rst season audiences had demanded silence when Betty was on stage so that they could study or simply absorb the boy’s genius, in the second season discussion over his skills or lack thereof became far more animated, so much so that it began to drown out the performance. A minor actor, Mr. Hargrave, who played Barbarossa, was so disgusted with this lack of civility that by the commencement of the fourth act he refused to go on. He walked out of the theater, essentially ending his career.130 Worse was to follow: On December 28, 1805, for a performance of Gustavus Vasa, Kemble applied the very same ruse that had demolished Miss Mudie. Kemble cast Betty opposite Bennett and Cresswell, two of the tallest and stoutest men in the company, and selected the tallest woman, Mrs. St. Leger, “a woman of enormous proportions,” as his mother.131 The boy who had charmed audiences was now judged, like the aforementioned midget Court Borow, by the length of the tape measure. Wrote John Genest, “Some little addition to Master Betty’s height was made by art [read: high heels or lifts], but his figure was still such as to disqualify him from playing with men and women without a manifest breach of propriety.”132 Master Betty only exceeded ₤500 once in his second London season, and his lowest earning was ₤227. On average, he brought in a respectable

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though not spectacular ₤341 a night, quite a drop from the ₤586-a-night average of the previous season.133 Worse, yet, because Betty Sr. had agreed to the unusually high deductible of ₤315—discussed in chapter 2—most nights Master Betty made no more than ₤13 a performance (₤341—₤315 = ₤26, which was then split between Betty and the playhouse).134 As for Harris’s contractual promise to allow Betty to perform twenty-five times, well, for reasons that are not in the extant record, Betty only performed twelve, perhaps thirteen times at Covent Garden; he performed twentyone or twenty-two times at Drury Lane.135 As for his all-important benefits, the only record we have of his earnings is for a performance of his Tancred, May 17, 1806, at Drury Lane. He earned a mere ₤301, less than the amounts raised at benefits for other London actors and actresses, including Mrs. Jordan, ₤309; Mr. Bannister, ₤345; Miss Duncan, ₤310; Mr. Brabam, ₤387; and far less than the June 9, 1806, earnings garnered by his supporting actor, the clown Joseph Grimaldi, ₤679.18s.136 Betty had hoped that his new dramatic offerings would sustain his box office appeal, but none of them received good reviews. Concerning the December 28, 1805, performance of Gustavus Vasa, the European Magazine, and London Review wrote: Master BETTY wants the power of voice to deliver with due effect the long declamatory speeches with which Gustavus harangues his soldiers in the cause of liberty. Indeed, the failure was so general, as to be felt by the most indulgent part of the audience; but many persons manifested their disapprobation by hisses. . . . On the whole, . . . his friends will consult his interest and his fame, by not venturing him again in this character for some time.137

The Times reported that Betty “struggled” in a play that was “tedious and unaffecting.”138 Nonetheless, people did not blame the play but Betty; as Mrs. Piozzi wrote, fairly or unfairly, all the bad press fell “personally upon him.”139 Given that Gustavus Vasa had been a hit in the provinces, the negative reviews in London must have been all the more shattering. Philips’s The Distressed Mother ( January 18, 1806) met with only modest success and almost no comment; as for Betty’s Macbeth ( January 2 and 4), the London press was ubiquitously harsh: Betty’s thane was “far from what we could wish was a proper representation of the character”; he “obviously fell short of the character”; the selection of the role was “injudicious.”140 With the money drying up, writers, no longer in Betty’s employ, took their revenge by issuing negative reviews not only on new offerings but also on other parts in Betty’s slim repertoire. Thus, Betty’s Hamlet, once so celebrated, was suddenly “infinitely beyond his years”; his Romeo, once lauded for its chaste beauty, was now “physically incompetent.”141 Betty’s team tried to save the season by offering more new material. Perhaps he might play Othello? The selection smacked of desperation. After all, Betty had just refused to act in this very play for Litchfield’s

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benefit. Still, some admitted to wanting to see so bold an experiment: “If Mr. Betty should succeed, surprised as we shall be, our surprise will not diminish our congratulation: if he fails, he will have the warning of a judgment unprejudiced, impartial, and sincere.”142 There was even talk of him playing Shylock, which prompted James Fisher to publish the following poem: Say can that face, whose youthful virtues beam, Distorted be, to Villany’s extreme? Thy Friends must own, to THEE and Nature true, ROSCIUS can’t be ‘the Jew that Shakespeare drew.’143

In the end, Betty wisely backed away from Othello and Shylock, but he did revive his Richard III (April 8, 1806).144 Unsurprisingly, Betty excelled in the courtship scene with Lady Anne—not so much a seduction as Petrarchan grovel. The anonymous author of Roscius in London commended Betty’s “unaffected meekness” in his dialogue with Lady Anne—but that brief exchange was in the fi rst act.145 For the remaining four acts of Richard III, Betty, physically and psychologically ill-suited to menace and massacre, stumbled badly. Small wonder that many opined that the part was “far beyond his grasp.”146 In the same season, he also revived the bloodthirsty Zanga (February 15, 1806) and performed the title role in Southerne’s adaptation of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (March 22, 1806)—the latter concerns a noble prince who leads a slave rebellion.147 Given the boy’s slight build and girlish good looks, it is not surprising that audiences had a hard time believing he could play any of these manly and bloody parts. Faith in Betty gave way to skepticism and then to apathy. On February 21, 1806, Betty was glimpsed by the novelist Jane Porter at a party hosted by Lady De Crespigny. Among the guests were a variety of second-tier performers such as John Dignum and Miss Duncan. No fanfare nor even much interest, just a passing reference: “young Betty was there.”148 Leigh Hunt summed up the 1805–6 season well: “last year he was the most astonishing boy, the infant phenomenon, the miracle of prematurity, the darling of nature!”; “now Master Betty is now scarcely any thing but Master Betty.”149 Remnants of Bettymania were seen on infrequent occasion. On May 10, 1806, the Times reported that Betty was earmarked to play Edgar, not in King Lear, but in a new drama by George Manners, Caledonian Feuds, scheduled for the fall of 1806 at Covent Garden. Betty never performed in the play. On September 13, 1806, Betty’s fi fteenth birthday, the Times reported that a Mr. H. T. Vane entered a five-year-old horse, which he renamed “Master Betty” into the Pontefract Races.150 The name of the racehorse was reported; that it was Betty’s birthday was not. Then again, Master Betty was no longer worth much interest or reportage. Betty, at age fi fteen, was old news.

4 Desiring and Tiring of Master Betty Thus, Betty, whose Norval so greatly strikes Home,1 Contrives, with his life, to get rid of his comb, That his hair, not his acting, may ravish beholders. ——Concerning Betty’s reliance on femininity2

DESPITE BEING OFTEN COMPARED TO Garrick, Betty’s dramatic idol was an actress. As discussed in chapter 1, Betty’s fi rst exposure to professional theater was in 1802, when his father took him to see Pizarro. Even then, Betty was not interested in the male lead role of Rolla, but was riveted by Sarah Siddons, who played the part of Elvira. Betty was not only attracted to a female role, he identified with the effeminate actions and emotions of Siddons’s part and portrayal. After the play, “Master Betty’s conversation dwelt with rapture on the character of Elvira, and the fascinations of the drama. He committed to memory the speeches of Elvira; employed himself in reciting them in imitation of Mrs. Siddons; every thing was neglected for his favourite object; and every thing that was not connected with it became tiresome and insipid”; 3 he “talked of nothing but Elvira; he spouted the speeches of Elvira, and his passion for the stage became every hour more vehement and uncontrollable.” 4 In his fi rst meeting with Hough, Betty recited the same part, prompting his future acting coach to suggest that Rolla or any male lead was “as a much fitter object of his study, than that of Elvira.”5 Throughout his career, his mannerisms remained, in the words of one Times correspondent, “rather feminine.”6 The actress Mrs. Jordan noted that Betty “endeavour[ed] to move you by a monotonous heavy cadence, such as even great actresses moan out.”7 James Bisset added that his tones were “Siddonian.”8 Long after Betty retired from the stage, the issue of Elvira and his Siddonian delivery bothered him. In his authorized memoir of 1846, Betty, now a married man with a son, failed to mention his infatuation with Siddons’s acting or his recital of Elvira’s lines. Rather, he stated that in his fi rst audition he reeled off a few lines of Osman, the role he eventually played for his Belfast debut. 9

BETTY’S SENSIBILITY VS. K EMBLE’S SUBLIMITY While this revisionist history is telling, to bring into full focus just how feminine Betty’s acting was, we might suitably contrast him with the 107

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übermasculine Kemble. According to Hazlitt, Kemble’s chief actorly strength was the “sublimity” he brought to each role.10 On the other hand, John Merritt discussed Betty’s “air of sensibility and softness”; a similar description was offered by Anna Seward, who had it on good authority that Betty was “all truth and unaffected sensibility.”11 Likewise, the Times recorded that the boy’s chief talent was his “sensibility.”12 To most ears—and by “most” we may exclude the present-day cadre of highly trained scholars sensitized to the language of the period— Kemble’s “sublimity” and Betty’s “sensibility” may seem like equally neuter comments. Nonetheless, in the Georgian period both were wellrehearsed, gender-laden terms. In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Edmund Burke argued

Figure 9.

The masculine and sublime Kemble (personal collection).

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that the sublime is masculine, powerful, rugged, solid.13 As for sensibility, in her novel Mary (1788), Mary Wollstonecraft aptly conveyed the importance Georgians placed on that emotion: “Sensibility is the most exquisite feeling of which the human soul is susceptible . . . It is this quickness, this delicacy of feeling, which enables us to relish the sublime touches of the poet, and the painter; it is this, which expands the soul, gives an enthusiastic greatness, mixed with tenderness, when we view the magnificent objects of nature. . . . Softened by tenderness; the soul is disposed to be virtuous.”14 Sensibility, as then understood, was not limited to a specific gender; however, given that it encompassed “delicacy of feeling,” “softness,” and “tenderness,” we can securely say that it was commonly associated with the feminine. Lastly, despite the praise heaped on Kemble’s sublime style, audiences since at least the time of Garrick preferred emotional or sentimental acting, particularly “the great Quality of Sensibilitity” which succeeds in “drawing Tears from us . . . which we sometimes express by the Word Tenderness.”15 It is not, therefore, surprising that Romantic audiences in general adored Betty because, with his feminine acting style and his ability to draw tears, he —to adopt Mary Wollstonecraft’s language—expanded tenderness, delicacy of feeling, and innate virtue. Betty’s ability to draw forth sensibility was on full display in his muchadmired Hamlet. Whereas Kemble’s Hamlet was all “stern necessity” in dealing with his Gertrude, Betty’s delicate prince did not wound his mother with “speaking daggers”; rather, it was she who, in marrying Claudius, had wounded him.16 His reply to his mother—“Seems, Madam, I know not seems”—was spoken with “the mingled emotions of indignation and tenderness.”17 Betty’s Hamlet still met a tragic end but did so content in the knowledge that his pitiable condition revived his mother’s maternal sensitivities. Thrilled with Betty’s recuperation of Gertrude, Lady Bessborough wrote that “the scene[s] with his Mother . . . were all as good as possible.”18 The boy’s dealings with Ophelia were equally original: whereas older actors had habitually stamped their feet, slammed doors and threatened their Ophelias “as if she had committed some great crime,” Betty, unable to intimidate his beloved, recited his lines with “delicacy and tenderness.”19 Without having ever suffered the whips and scorns of time, Betty instinctively understood Hamlet’s sensitive emotional center, and “played . . . our hero in the spirit in which it appears to have been written.”20 In expressing his “princely virtue and wounded sensibility” in “plaintive and pathetic voice,” Betty became the “personification of Hamlet.”21 Betty’s transformation of Hamlet was far from an isolated instance. Unable to play murderers or to convey the rant and rave necessary for revenge, Betty favored (or ordered the revision of) characters which highlighted gentleness.22 We have already looked at Betty’s Osman and how his physical and emotional frailty transformed that tyrant into a softer,

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more pitiable character.23 The same makeover is apparent in all of Betty’s successful characterizations: Selim, for example, was originally an assassin bent on revenge, but Master Betty turned him into a loving son whose “fi lial affection could not be more happily conceived or expressed.”24 Elizabeth Inchbald’s play, Lover’s Vows, originally opened with Frederick, a hardened soldier, returned from the wars. When fi nding his mother ill, he carries her into town. Learning that he is the bastard offspring of Baron Wildenhaim, Frederick attempts to rob him. Betty could never play this part as originally written. But with some simple pruning, Betty, spurred on by his love of his stage mother, pits his softening sensibility

Figure 10. The beginning of Betty’s dying fall in Douglas (personal collection).

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against his father’s hardened masculinity. He does so not by threatening or by shouting but by “appeal[ing] to his father’s feelings” and the “blush of shame.”25 By far the greatest display of Betty’s power was in his portrayal of Douglas. In Home’s play, the title hero is an uncouth swain longing to prove himself in combat. Rather than enact this traditional rite into manhood, Betty’s Douglas regressed into near infancy.26 Entering wounded, he fell to the floor like a tearful toddler learning to walk. His mother endeavored to comfort him. On Betty’s parting words, “Ah! Mother!” the boy made a convulsive spring to embrace her; but his strength failed him, and he sank at her feet and expired.27 Critics were stunned by his Douglas: “No piece of stage effect was ever more happily conceived or more admirably executed.”28 The local correspondent for Edinburgh’s Evening Courant, July 2, 1804, wrote: “We have seen Mr. Kemble and others in the part; and, with a clear perception of all the hazard we encounter, we hesitate not to deliver it as our opinion, that if any previous performer has equaled, not one has excelled, this astonishing child in delineation of life’s closing scene.” Robert Brinsley Sheridan, who had seen more than his fair share of staged tragedies, was so moved by Betty’s acting that he released “deep and audible sighs, and sometimes tears”; Prime Minister William Pitt, who had sent men to die in battle, was similarly overcome. 29

BETTY AND THE CHEVALIER D’EON : CROSS -DRESSING AND THE FRENCH R EVOLUTION Men may have wept openly, but the critic W. P. Russel sensed that there was something very wrong in such behavior. In his pamphlet The ProseRosciad (1804), he wrote that there was something “indecorous,” and “immoderate, and I might say indecent” about the way men looked at and reacted to Betty.30 His argument shifts about quite a bit—at one point Russel suggests that people go to the theater because they have more money than they know what to do with, and should, therefore, have their taxes increased to pay for the war effort—but on Betty he is clear: Betty was emotionally and physically attractive to men because “he” was a “she.” To prove his theory, Russel urged a verification of Betty’s sex: “I do not think it would be at all indecorous or improper for two or three medical practitioners of eminence to certify their cognizance of the sexual character of this personage; because the very extraordinary talents as a mimic displayed by this apparent boy, necessarily admits a suspicion that this ostensible precocity of genius is nothing less than the disguise of female artifice, combined with great talents.31” In the same pamphlet, however, he reverses course: “I take it for a fact that the Roscius is not strictly Roscia.” It would seem that Russel understood

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that biology alone would not explain Betty’s feminine charms. After weighing the difficulties of his own argument, an otherwise-baffled Russel rested on his original premise: Betty may well be “a second Chevalier D’Eon.”32 The Chevalier D’Eon was a resident of London with a scandalous past. Born on October 5, 1728, D’Eon was a French diplomat, spy, soldier, and Freemason who sometimes dressed as a man and sometimes as a woman. In July 1778, the Chevalier D’Eon found himself subject to an English court case. Bookies had been placing bets on his/her sex. A Mr. Hayes, a surgeon, had staked some ₤700 pounds that D’Eon was a woman. When he was told that he lost the wager, Hayes challenged his bookie in court. Hayes’s witnesses included a Monsieur Le Goux, another surgeon, who claimed that he had inspected the Chevalier and found “him” to be a woman. A Monsieur De Morande also attested that he had personally seen Madame D’Eon’s feminine bosom. On another occasion, fi nding D’Eon in bed, he asked “her” to have a peak at her genitals; again Monsieur De Morande was sure he had inspected a woman. The Chevalier, in Paris at the time of the trial, never appeared to answer questions in the case, nor did he/she send any documentation to dispute the accusations against him/her, but even the “defendant’s counsel did not attempt to contradict the plaintiff’s evidence [that D’Eon was a woman], by proving the masculine gender.” In the end, the jury found in favor of Mr. Hayes, who was awarded ₤740.33 Mary Wollstonecraft evidently believed that the question of gender in this case was now beyond dispute and even included “Madam D’Eon”—along with Sappho, Elosia, the empress of Russia, and Mrs. Macauley—as an example of intelligent womanhood.34 Upon D’Eon’s death in 1810, doctors examined him and discovered that his body was anatomically male, but in 1804–5, during the height of Bettymania, D’Eon was legally titled and socially regarded as a woman. 35 Like the Chevalier, Betty was thought to be hiding his/her real gender, but it is likely that Georgian readers would have also understood Russel’s classical allusion: An obvious alias, D’Eon’s name derived from Plato’s Ion, in which we meet a beautiful male actor who worships the bisexual Dionysus. (Dionysus + Ion = D’Eon.) In the dialogue, Plato’s Socrates says that he envies Ion’s ability to enthrall a crowd: Socrates. I often envy the profession of a rhapsode [actor], Ion; for you have always to wear fine clothes, and to look as beautiful as you can is a part of your art. . . . Well, Ion, and what are we to say of a man who at a sacrifice or festival, when he is dressed in holiday attire and has golden crowns upon his head, of which nobody has robbed him, appears weeping or panic-stricken in the presence of more than twenty thousand friendly faces . . . are you aware that you produce similar effects on most spectators? Ion. Only too well; for I look down upon them from the stage, and behold the various emotions of pity, wonder, sternness, stamped upon their countenances when I am speaking.

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In the same dialogue, Socrates compares Ion’s enthralled audience to the “Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind.”36 What is meant here by women not being in their “right mind” is further explained in Euripides’ The Bacchae, in which Dionysus leads a social revolution of song, dance, and sexual orgy. The play deals with Pentheus, an autocratic ruler who fi nds himself threatened by Dionysus, the son of Zeus, who has created an alternative and, thus, threatening power structure centered on an orgy of dance, food, wine, and blood. A passing cow herder glimpses Dionysus’s female devotees at play. When they espy him, they fly into a murderous rage and chase after him. The herder barely escapes. At fi rst, Pentheus believes Dionysus is a political nuisance and orders his arrest, but he later agrees to disguise himself in female garb so that he can observe Dionysus’s viragos at play. He is soon after recognized and is ripped apart by Agaue, his own mother. By invoking D’Eon, Russel was suggesting that Betty was a politically dangerous force, one capable of making “straight” men blubber like little girls or, still more ominously, leer after girlish boys or a boyish girls. What was needed was a renewal of morality. The playhouses should lead the way by producing plays that reflected “sobriety,” “conjugal fidelity,” and “celibate chastity.” 37 Yes, Russel sounds sexually puritanical and politically panic-stricken. In his follow-up work, Moral Curiosity: Or Chaste Ideas on Sexual Union (1805), he proposed the criminalization of all sex acts outside the bonds of marriage, which, if put into practice, would have resulted in the arrest of much of the royal family. Further, his alarm may well be in part explained by his own chaotic circumstances. The fine print of Moral Curiosity reads: “This work will always be sold by the Author, wherever his residence may happen to be: at present it is no. 23, Maiden-Lane, Covent Garden, 1805.” Lastly and perhaps most ironically, Betty’s performances, as we will see later in this chapter, fulfilled Russel’s hopes for a chaste theater, but Russel, repulsed by the audience’s physical and emotional responses to Betty, could not part the actor’s action from the audience’s reaction. With qualms aplenty, we still might not dismiss Russel as an out-andout crank. To begin with, there is the issue of men crying at Betty’s performances. It was far better to think that men at Betty’s plays teared up in aggressive, sexual frustration than out of any reconnection with the weak and womanly within. To understand Russel’s thinking here, we turn to Adam Smith, best known for his work on economic principles, who argued that the older we grow, the more hard-hearted we become. Smith noted that even the most harrowing sights, by dint of repetition, became ordinary: “One who has been witness to a dozen dissections, and as many amputations, sees, ever after, all operations of this kind with great indifference, and often with perfect insensibility.” This was especially true of

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men, who were lauded for their ability to ignore suffering: “The man who under the severest tortures, allows no weakness to escape him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we do not entirely enter into, commands our highest admiration. His fi rmness enables him to keep time with our indifference and insensibility.”38 If social practices eventually hardened and isolated the adult from the true child-self, it followed that the key to revamping society was to reawaken the child within. All well and good for the Romantics, but hardly a policy one would wish put in place with Napoleon threatening invasion. Betty’s ability to draw forth tears in men might undermine the war effort, because they would not be as battle hardened or insensible as the French. (This may also explain why Russel thinks that money spent on theater might be more socially beneficial if it were turned into wartime tax.) As for Russel’s main thesis, that Betty was a cross-dressed female, again, there may well be some sense in his seeming nonsense. One of today’s foremost critics, Marjorie Garber, claims that cross-dressing is both powerful and dangerous precisely because one kind of cross-dressing leads to still other forms of crossings. 39 If Betty really was a woman dressed as a man, might “her” behavior embolden others to dress or act in unusual, or perhaps even socially inappropriate, ways? Anecdotal evidence suggests that the answer was yes. William C. Macready reported that during the height of Bettymania, one of the “foremost ladies in the county [of Coventry] 40 heard that the boy was spending the night at Dunchurch and made haste to see him. The lady entreated the landlord to let her see the boy. The landlord suggested that there was but one way in which her wish could be gratified: “Mr. and Mrs. Betty and their son were just going to dinner, and if she chose to carry in one of the dishes she could see him, but there was no other way.’ The lady, very grateful in her acknowledgments, took the dish, and made one of the waiters at table.”41 A grown woman is obsessed with a child, which sparks a normally obsequious landlord to order a lady of means about as if she were a servant: Betty’s perceived transvestitism did not cause this lady to dress as a man, but her obsession with the boy did allow her to live, if only briefly, as a serving girl in a country inn. Another example is found in the writings of Anne Mathews, who recorded that, after the boy fi nished a performance, men sometimes visited his dressing room, but, rather than look at or talk to Betty, they spent their time happily kissing his stage garments.42 There may be some prudery involved in Mathews’s anecdote: unwilling to look at Betty directly, his fans expressed their interest in Betty’s beauty by fetishizing his sweated clothing. However, given Russel’s comparison to D’Eon, it is equally possible that at least some of Betty’s fans recognized—or that Russel assumed they recognized—that the boy’s genius had little to do with his anatomically ordinary body; rather it was his ability to move, like Pentheus, beyond the gender specific and

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socially appropriate. Given these details, we can now understand some of the excitement (and panic) Bettymania entailed. To desire the Chevalier Betty was to desire far more than (and perhaps not even) sex with a boy; it was to desire the transgressive freedom, and the related sexual and political license, of a Dionysus. Like D’Eon or Pentheus, both of whom don women’s attire to break free of stifling social regulation, men and women watching Betty felt liberated to traverse the boundaries of class and clothing.43

P EDOPHILIC TENDENCIES Some of Betty’s backstage visitors might have come to kiss his clothing reverently, still others may have popped in to assure themselves that Betty was in fact a boy, but it would be silly to think that all his callers were only interested in a scientific inspection of Betty’s genitals or in an intellectual discussion of the sociopolitical ramifications of transvestitism. Some had come for a lustful, indecent look at the boy, and we do not need the puritanical Russel to confi rm it. Mrs. Mathews noted that: “it was offensively amusing (if such a term may be allowed) to listen to the enthusiastic ecstacies of the noble visitors who came nightly to the greenroom to gaze upon . . . the Betty, who, had his person been feminine as his name, could not have had more fervent male adorers, some of whom were even impious in their enthusiasm.”44 Mathews’s narrative implies a kind of courtly audience—men lined up to kiss Betty’s hand or his discarded theatrical costume. However, one visitor, Stephen Lucius Gwynn, conjures quite a different scenario: Betty’s dressing room “was crowded as full as it could contain of all the Court of England, and happy were those who could get in at the time his father was rubbing down his naked body from the perspiration after the exertion in performing his part on the stage.”45 In light of Gwynn’s anecdote, we can easily suspect that some men came to gaze not only openly but perhaps even provocatively at the naked boy, who laid facedown on a table, while his father worked his flesh with buttery ointments. The voyeuristic elements are obvious—today, such displays would probably be seen as pornographic and, given the boy’s age, pedophilic.46 But we would be wrong to think of the Georgian era as more sexually permissive than our own. Byron was infamous in his lifetime for his supposed incest with his half-sister Augusta and his love affair with a fi fteen-year-old choirboy, John Edleston. William Beckford, author of the Romantic classic Vathek, carried on a pederastic relationship with Lord Courteney, which forced him to leave Britain, albeit not permanently. Isaac Bickerstaffe, Samuel Foote, Richard Cumberland, and George Colman the Younger—all important playwrights of the era—were ostracized for their respective homosexual behaviors. Alternative sexual behavior

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was not simply socially ruinous, it was also illegal. In 1810, eight frequenters of a “molly-house” (forerunner of the gay bar) were arrested for lewd behavior. Two men, caught in the act of coupling, were hanged. Another six, convicted of solicitation, were set in the stocks for public abuse. Between thirty thousand and fi fty thousand people pelted them with offal, rotten fruit, dead animals, and hard missiles.47 The era was hardly less restrictive with women. As Germaine Greer points out, social norms of the nineteenth century dictated that women also had to repress their sexuality. A woman caught masturbating would have been considered mentally ill, and it was socially impossible for a woman to make an open and frank evaluation of a man’s body.48 Even expressing pleasure when dancing with a man was considered immodest.49 Allowing all this to be true, we may wonder why men and women were able to express their desire for Betty so freely? A solution is glimpsed in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which Mary Wollstonecraft argued that “in the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male.”50 If brute force alone allowed men to dominate women, male children were in an anomalous position. As a junior in any household, a boy was physically and socially weaker than most women and had to submit or to demonstrate respect to adults of both genders. 51 Thus, men and women were free to stare at and to fantasize about Betty—W. P. Russel called it “an opportunity to gratify a malignant sort of curiosity”—because, lacking patriarchal power, Betty was not yet a man, and was, in fact, socially less than a full-grown woman. 52 Anticipating Hazlitt’s formulation concerning Shakespeare’s mind “He was nothing in himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become” Betty’s undeveloped and, thus, mutable sexuality, allowed his/ her audience to express its own unsettled, homosexual, heterosexual— even pedophilic—desires.53

THOMAS L ISTER PARKER AND H IS R ELATIONSHIP WITH M ASTER BETTY Pedophilic desire, in the safe contexts of the theater, is of course, difficult to measure. But Betty’s interactions with Thomas Lister Parker may shed some light on the matter. At the height of Bettymania, Parker was a twenty-five-year-old rich bachelor who lived with his mother.54 Parker was a socialite and a patron of many great painters of the period, including Turner, Romney, Opie, and Northcote; he attended Royal Academy dinners and counted the Prince Regent and the Duke of Clarence among his friends. 55 Parker fi rst saw Betty in Manchester and soon ingratiated himself with the family. He even set up a fund to manage Betty’s money and was

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named, with Betty’s father, as a joint trustee.56 Thereafter, Parker would fi nd ways to draw still closer to the prodigy. He informed Betty Sr. that he had personally commissioned James Northcote to paint the boy; 57 from another source, the Morning Chronicle, we learn that Parker also hired John Opie to execute yet another portrait of the Young Roscius.58 Parker was a patron of the arts, but the real payoff was that these portrait sessions afforded him precious opportunities to spend time with Betty. Parker dropped by both Northcote’s and Opie’s studios to supervise the paintings, both of which might be read for their sexual content. 59 In the Northcote portrait, Betty is dressed in neo-Elizabethan garb and stands close to a bust of Shakespeare—Shakespeare was reputed by most Georgian biographers to have had an inamorato, and Betty’s proximity suggests his physical attachment to an older male lover; in the Opie portrait, Betty is scantily dressed as a shepherd boy—a common motif in pastoral poetry featuring older men who ravish young and willing boys. When the portraits were completed, Parker threw a lavish party for their unveiling and invited as many important people as he could, including Sir George Beaumont, a British art patron of some importance—Beaumont played a crucial part in the creation of London’s National Gallery by making the fi rst bequest of paintings to that institution. With Betty standing next to the canvases of Opie and Northcote, the English elite could judge for themselves whether the original was more beautiful than the painterly impressions. There was no comparison. Parker preferred the paintings, which, at least, did not complain and whine about being alone with him. After the party, Beaumont told the painter Joseph Farington of “the great expense Mr. Parker has been at in following Young Betty, the Actor, from town to town to see Him perform, and in presents given etc.—and this has only produced Him a reception now of which He complains, the boy being sulky, & frequently unwilling to receive or be with Him.”60 Parker’s querulous discontent manifested still more in a hitherto unpublished letter, dated May 24, 1805, in which he writes to Betty’s mother. Parker begins by reporting about some theatrical costumes he has had cleaned for the boy. (The same costumes, perhaps, that awoke such desire in those lucky enough to go backstage for the aforementioned Betty rubdowns.) Despite his wealth and social standing, Parker’s tone is subservient: My Dear Madam, I send the silk lace as it has come to me from the cleaners, some of it being much improved & some I am sorry to say still much tarnish’d. I wish it may prove of any use in Master Betty’s dresses.

Parker goes on to state that he had personally inspected the most intimate folds of the garments, which are in some cases blotchy: “the old Paint I

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Figure 11. James Northcote’s painting of Betty before Shakespeare (Lee Standstead Collection).

am disappointed in, a few of [the] lace [has] lost a good deal, but what I have sav’d I have sent, whole & ragged.” From there, he goes on to reflect upon Betty’s stage performances: “I am very sorry you could not witness

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Figure 12. John Opie’s painting of Betty as Douglas in neoshepherd’s garb (National Portrait Gallery, London).

your son’s performance last night and be gratified by the Universal admiration he excited, indeed much as I ever admire him and particularly in that Part, I must acknowledge that he last night satisfied himself!” Parker then suggests that the boy needs to spend some time with him alone,

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perhaps at his country house: “I wish notwithstanding the multiplicity of his engagements that Country Air and exercise will so far counteract the fatigue as to enable him to screw it next season with redoubled effort, and less hazard to his health or voice.”61 Parker’s use of the word “screw” may here be a sly reference to Lady Macbeth’s “screw your courage to the sticking place.” Most scholars read “sticking place” as the notch of a crossbow, though for Parker and his contemporaries “screw” also had overt sexual connotation: “screw” as slang for “copulate” dates to at least 1725. Given its bawdy associations and Parker’s request to spend time alone with the boy, “screw” is a particularly poor word choice in a letter written to Betty’s mother. From here, Parker’s obsequiousness returns: “I hope to be very kindly remember’d to him and remain dear Mrs. Betty your very sincere and faithful humble Servant. William Parker Esq.”62 Parker never states in his letter which part Betty played that evening—it was probably Hamlet at Covent Garden63 —but, as is made clear, he is not really interested in the boy’s onstage art; rather, he is consumed with what he believes to be the boy’s continuing offstage deception: “I acknowledge that he has highly satisfied himself!” The line has an accusatory implication: that Betty pleases himself but not others. Indeed, read too far, the line implies a masturbatory pleasuring. This letter does not prove that Parker wanted to molest the boy. Behavior, even word choice, may not reveal intention, and Parker’s intention here remains a matter of conjecture. We would be wise to keep in mind Julie A. Carlson’s dispassionate observation that Betty’s fans suffered an “intensification of feeling that, more often than not, reactivate[d] less conscious modes of discrimination.”64 Perhaps Parker really did (quite innocently) want to spend time with Betty, not to explore the boy’s body, but because Betty’s proximity allowed Parker to explore perplexing emotions within himself. That being said, Parker’s letter does have a ring of disappointment: that Betty’s stage performances are more open, warm, friendly, even loving, than the cold and diffident responses Parker receives for his time, investment, and sincere adoration.65 Amazingly, at least from our own perspective, Parker’s chagrin was met with broad sympathy from friends and observers. Joseph Farington, who attended the portrait unveilings, observed Betty’s behavior around his patron and wrote in his diary: “from what I saw of the Boy . . . I thought Him [Betty] a Boy of much art. & that He made no agreeable impression on me.”66 To Farington, Betty was an actor, a fake, who used his formidable skills to play upon the weaknesses of rich men. Likewise, on March 8, 1805, the Morning Post accused Betty of using his sex appeal to manipulate his audience: The “whole town is in love with him, even if he can’t feel love.” From a Georgian perspective the boy was coquettish—another Becky Sharp.

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AUDIENCE DESIRE AND ITS E FFECT M ASTER BETTY’S P ERFORMANCES

ON

A more sympathetic Richard Brinsley Sheridan noted the boy’s beauty but also his difficulty in dealing with people: “He is the most lovely creature that ever was seen, and the most unlike any other human being that ever I saw. . . . He faces an audience so confidently [but] in a private room or at least with strangers his bashfulness and diffidence makes it distressing to you to notice him.”67 Betty could be painfully timid. The Countess of Bessborough wrote to Lord Granville Leveson Gower concerning a party at Lord and Lady Abercorn’s on the night of March 5, 1805. Betty attended and was the center of attention. His father ordered him to perform for the small audience, but Betty pleaded with the countess to reconsider: “You are so good natured: do beg me off, for I hate it.” To get the boy in the dramatic mood, Lady Hamilton, despite her “enormous size,” began to exert herself with some dramatic poses. Everyone laughed, including Betty, who was “very shy, but amus’d.” His father repeated his command that he perform for the party. Betty reluctantly complied: “I am going to make my stage after all, for they tease me so, it will be shorter to do it and get it over.” When he was done, Lady Hamilton kissed him. The boy turned beet red and replied, “I’m too old to be kissed, Ma’am.”68 On another occasion, Betty was at the house of a Mr. W. Nicholson and was enjoined to kiss the most sensible woman in the room. He chose a shy girl who sat in the corner of the room and had not said a word to him. He was then told to kiss the person he loved best. Betty surveyed the people around him and, distressingly, kissed his own hand. He was then told to kiss the three most beautiful women in the room; he said that that was “difficult to determine”; he then slipped out of the room and left the house to return no more.69 Betty had sometimes to be cautious of even his supporting cast. At Sheffield, for example, the actress Miss Norton was so smitten with Betty that, as he waited for his cue in the wings, she crept behind him and cut off a lock of his hair. When he turned in surprise, she kissed him and ran away.70 That the boy sought shelter in infantile activities is perfectly intelligible. Thomas Asline Ward recalled that at an afternoon party in Sheffield, Betty, then thirteen, left the company of the adults to play with Ward’s nephew, who was “not seven years old.” Together they “flew a paper kite, which had more charms for him than my brother’s garden, stoves, etc.” At dinner, he ignored both food and guests. After dinner, he went out again to fly the kite, before reluctantly returning to eat some dessert, which “he quickly demolished” so that he could again go out and play with his young companion. As the day wore on, Betty played with his dog, and then went through all the toys he could fi nd; he took “pleasure in examining the baby-house, ransacking the drawers, playing

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upon a childish instrument”—in short, anything that might pass the time without having to deal with adults. And yet, as the passage makes clear, Betty was still in the company of adults, who watched his every move. His host, Mr. Ward, thought, “It was wonderful to see this boy, who presented yesterday the subtle, cruel, ambitious Richard with such perfect correctness; to see him this day sink into perfect childhood. . . . Yet there appeared no artful deceit in his conduct; it seemed so natural that it could not be assumed, great as is his skill in personifying characters not his own.”71 Despite Ward’s cautious conclusion that Betty was not acting, his doubts were real. Phrases such as “there appeared,” “ it seemed so natural,” “great as is his skill in personifying characters not his own” indicate that there were moments when Ward thought that Betty was faking it, that the boy, in a social setting, was acting.72 Here was a boy capable of playing Richard III, a boy “too old to be kissed,” but happy to play with a six-year-old’s dollhouse. His preference for the company of a small boy was not only a conscious act, it was a performative act. Indeed, Betty rifl ing through a box of toys strikes us as a bit desperate, searching for something, anything that might put off the inevitable requests for him to perform his staged roles. Recall his words: “I am going to make my stage after all, for they tease me so, it will be shorter to do it and get it over”; Betty had retreated into another kind of show—pretending that he was a thoughtless six-year-old. On stage, at least, Betty could exert some control: unless the text specifically called on his costars to do so, Betty demanded that no one was allowed to touch him. This made for some awkward dramatic moments. By all accounts, he appeared “incom moded” with Ophelia; “he extended his arms from one of her shoulders to the other, but he never touched her.”73 Audiences were none too happy with this aspect of his acting. Lady Bessborough, for example, carped that Betty was too aloof: “the Scene with Ophelia I thought he fail’d very much in.”74 She similarly complained that his Romeo was “too cold, too tame a Lover; he talk’d to Juliet as he would to his Sister.”75 Regarding his performance in Barbarossa, the press reported that the boy was fi ne when interacting with his stage mother, but, in his fi rst encounter with his beloved girlfriend, Irene, a bewildered Betty was “cold and languid.”76 In the words of Mrs. Jordan: “The third act shewed the mere boy. Irene, young and beautiful, excited nothing consonant in him. He was a stranger to the passion of love, and time had not yet matured him into the expression of its language. All his tenderness was devoted to his mother. Nature could speak in him as a son, it seemed, though not as a lover.”77 When playing Tancred, the press also felt that the boy did well when expressing “any passion but love.”78 If the point of Betty’s chaste acting was to cool the interest that spectators had in his body, the strategy may have backfi red. Betty’s puritanical performances added a degree of safety for their inquisitive gazes. Since

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his own acting and play selection was so decidedly straight laced, how could staring at the featured performer be read as indecent or socially inappropriate? 79

BETTY GROWS UP At inexorable cross-purposes, Betty’s audiences wanted the childlike Betty to act more like an adult, while a resistant Betty retreated into childhood. However, by 1806, Betty had little choice but to face up to the physical fact that he was now a man. His voice had deepened; there were signs of beard stubble. The mystery of Betty’s gender vanished. But his lack of formal education still left Betty feminized. W. P. Russel, the same Russel who argued that Betty must be a woman, commented on the prodigy’s lack of learning. While many readers may wish to discount anything Russel writes as worthless, he was, nonetheless, correct in his assessment that were Betty matched against any boy at Eton or any other private school, he—or as Russel had fretted, she—would be “inferior to the least of his Competitors.”80 We may counter that, were the boys at Eton thrust upon the stage, they would be inferior to Betty. But Betty did not live on the stage; he merely worked there. Outside of other actor brats, such as William C. Macready, Betty had no friends of his own age.81 And when he did engage in casual conversation with adults, his lack of education—coupled with his aforementioned shyness—was now devastatingly apparent: Indeed the literary crudenesses of the young Betty are quite distressing; and nothing can be more decisive of the genus and the genius of his associates, evidently destitute as they must be of the courage or the capacity to instruct or enlighten him, than the continuation of those vulgarisms which so frequently disgrace his pronunciation. Whatever was his “edication”—and its character is clear enough, from the boy’s having, on the fi rst night of his Frederick, at Covent Garden, pronounced the word as it is here spelt—it is not to a child in his 13th year that these depravities are fairly imputable, but to the lunatics who waste his time in frivolous prostitution, and from whom he can suck in nothing but the incense of a baneful adulation.—A life of fi nery and fashion is utterly inconsistent with any thing like a liberal cultivation of his mind.82

The one-time prodigy was wholly unprepared for life and, not unlike the young women described in Hannah More’s The Accomplished Lady: Or Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799), was now perceived as culpable for his lack of learning: It is a singular injustice which is often exercised towards women, fi rst to give them a very defective education, . . . and then to censure them for not

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proving faultless. Is it not unreasonable and unjust, to express disappointment if our daughters should, in their subsequent lives, turn out precisely that very kind of character for which it would be evident to an unprejudiced bystander that the whole scope and tenor of their instruction had been systematically preparing them? 83

Of course, from our vantage point, if anyone was to blame for Betty’s lack of education, it was Betty Sr. As early as 1804, many openly questioned whether Betty Sr. had his son’s interests at heart or in hand. John Wilson Croker, the author of Familiar Epistles to Frederick E. Jones, Esq., on Present State of the Irish Stage, pointed out the folly and absurdity of “turning the stage into a nursery” and lamented that a promising child like Betty should be deprived of an education which might in time make him a useful man. In his view, the boy had been “converted”—perhaps a veiled response to Betty’s supposed cross-dressing—“into a source of theatrical revenue, and public ridicule.”84 Likewise, William, Prince of Gloucester, urged that Betty Sr. do something about the boy’s education, perhaps hire “a man of learning and character, who [might be] qualified to accomplish . . . a scheme of instruction, and who would devote his whole attention to the care of his pupil.”85 Still, Betty was given no tutor. Instead, his education was left entirely in the hands of William Hough, the “boy’s guardian or tutor [who] looked as stupid as is possible for a man to look.”86 The result, according to the disapproving Monthly Mirror, was that the teenager was kept “in a state of profound ignorance.”87 After Hough left the Betty inner circle, Betty Sr. did toy with the idea of merging theatrical training with some conventional tutoring for his son. As a preliminary to “his Greek studies,” Master Betty was taken to the dormitory of the boys’ school at Westminster, to see a comedy by Terence “acted in Latin by the Westminster boys.”88 While there, Betty was introduced to the venerable Archbishop of York, Markham, who counseled him that only a proper education would make him a great actor.89 The evening ended in disaster. According to the Ipswich Journal, the boy was “instantly recognized, and received with a torrent of applause.” What had begun as a prelude to admission to Westminster ended with crowds gathering round him: “He was led through the pit, and conducted behind the scenes, in order, we suppose, to be introduced to the several performers of the evening.”90 After this fiasco, all talk of Betty going to Westminster or any other normal school came to a halt. If Betty Sr.’s attempts to hire a tutor for his son seems halfhearted, he may have been sidetracked by confl icting advice given to him by writers, playwrights and actors. While the dispute was not set in terms of gender, it is nonetheless surprising that a variety of women championed keeping Betty in near-total ignorance. Whereas Prince William and the archbishop of York had urged Betty Sr. to educate his son, Anna Seward felt that, when it came to Betty, “the conjugation of verbs, and the toil

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of translation” was a waste of time. 91 Likewise, the actress Mrs. Jordan, while never a fan of the Young Roscius, scoffed at the idea of Betty kneedeep in etymology. Shakespeare himself was a semi-literate with small Latin and less Greek, and it was silly to suppose that “more learning is required for the delivery of a play, than its composition.”92 In her view, memorizing the text itself was all an actor need do: “The playhouse copy is quite sufficient for the actor. . . . The last shelter for pedantry should be the stage. An actor need not trouble himself with digging up Saxon roots, to justify what is obscure:—his object is to be understood without difficulty; and to speak his mother tongue sensibly and articulately.”93 It was only after Betty’s theatrical career was already in unalterable decline that Betty Sr. fi nally hired a proper tutor: Samuel Fleming. The family might have done better. Though described by one former employer, Charles Parr Burney, as “more than qualified,” there is no record of Fleming having obtained any degree from Oxbridge, Trinity College Dublin, or the Scottish universities. Probably Fleming was hired because he could be had at a bargain rate. He was, according to his landlord, often in arrears and had trouble holding onto a steady job. In 1827, the aforementioned Burney noticed that Fleming was “gradually subsiding into the character of a rather regular Beggar.” By October 1838, he was in the St. Pancras Workhouse, New Road; he was still there when he was last heard from on November 2, 1839. 94 Let us grant that Fleming was not the best tutor in London. Given the ignorance of his pupil, a man of Fleming’s skill would have been beyond adequate. But the arrangement was not of long duration. In 1807, Anna Seward wrote that “Old Betty [read: Betty Sr.] talks of placing his miraculous boy with a schoolmaster of eminence at Shrewsbury during three years, so soon as the present summer closes.”95 In 1808, the boy was reportedly being tutored by the Reverand Mr. Wollaston, formerly a master at Charterhouse School, but this employment lasted only a few months. 96

1806–7: BETTYMANIA FINALLY DIES Betty was never engaged for a third season at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. One report had it that Drury Lane was willing to reengage Betty, but only for ₤20 a week. His parents declined “with a view to the necessary completing of his classical studies.”97 This is patently false. Instead, Betty appeared in Bristol and Bath, where he still commanded the princely fee of 50 guineas a night.98 But the Bristol and Bath payouts do not tell the whole story. Hiring Betty no longer guaranteed meaningful (or any!) profits. A two-night stint in Berwick tallied to ₤70.99 Betty was paid ₤100 for two performances (one of Hamlet, the other of Rolla); the former performance was crowded, attendance for the second performance was “thin.”

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Combined, the playhouse lost ₤30.100 Given these numbers, it is logical to conclude that regional managers were less likely to book Betty. Aesthetically, things were still worse. When a now-older Betty, with his Siddonian delivery and “rather feminine” acting style, appeared at some playhouse, audiences fell about chuckling at his tragic acting. In Dover, for example, in late September 1806, the sixteen-year-old actor revived his seldom performed Macbeth. His initial London performance of the part had been hissed because he was too small and weak to play the manly thane. Now that he was taller, older, and heavier, his performance at Dover faired just as poorly: Wally Oulton recorded that laughter was “occasioned by Lady Macbeth’s interrogatory—‘Are you a Man?’—and particularly by the boy’s reply—‘Aye, and a bold one.’ ”101 Betty did his best to turn his career around. In the 1806–7 season, he appeared in Cheltenham and Gloucester, then Birmingham for seven nights, where he tried a new role: George Barnwell ( June 24, 1806; he repeated the role on October 6, 1806, in Liverpool). A few nights later, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he appeared as Oroonoko. He then pushed on to other regional playhouses: Durham, Sunderland, North and South Shields, York, Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, Hull, Lancaster, Stockport, Preston, Buxton, Sheffield, Plymouth, Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol. Some of these engagements were as short as a night or two, some longer.102 For example, Betty played Liverpool for fourteen nights. The long engagement afforded him the opportunity to try yet more new parts: Phocyas from Siege of Damascus and Zaphna from Mahomet, both Middle Eastern parts obviously designed to revive interest in the boy who had once captivated audiences with Selim.103 By January 17, 1808, he was in Bath. Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys recorded both her own indifference and the local cast’s open contempt: Master Betty acted for his last night at Bath, and though we had no very great desire to see him, thought it would be foolish to lose the opportunity. He . . . was just the thing we had expected; for tho’ he certainly acts well, yet his youth and manner could never make one suppose him the character he represents, and his voice now is quite horrid. The company at Bath did not seem the least sorry at his departure, and the actors, as one may suppose, were much rejoiced.104

A correspondent for the Monthly Mirror reported from Manchester that Betty “undeservedly, seems to have outlived the public favour. He performed here nine nights to respectable houses; yet, let his abilities be what they may, the public seem determined to be tired of him.”105 Much as Byron did a decade later, Betty had overexposed himself through performances, pamphlets, newspaper reports, and a seemingly endless variety of cheap knickknacks to the extent that “the commodity is become sickening.”106

Figure 13. Betty, age sixteen, as Octavian—no longer a fresh-faced child (personal collection).

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In March of 1808, Betty headlined at Stroud’s Theatre Royal, Gloucester, with Edmund Kean scheduled to play Laertes and Glenalvon to the Young Roscius’s Hamlet and Douglas. Convinced that his powers were superior to Betty’s, Kean fled into the woods only to return a week later limping, half-starved: “I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since I have been out. But I’ll go again to-morrow, and again and again, and as often as I see myself put in for such a character. I’ll play seconds to no man, save John Kemble.” 107 In any case, Betty was hardly the draw Kean had supposed, and when crowds did not come as expected, the company broke up.108 Betty played still smaller houses in northern England and southern Scotland: Drayton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Halifax, Chesterfield, Retford, Stamford, Boson, Rochdale, Carlisle, Dumfries, and Wrexham; turning south, he played in Oswestry, Warrington, Margate, Deal, Gosport, Arundel, Newbury, Guilford, Croyden, Canterbury, Henley, Rochester, and Dover. Theatres Royal Drury Lane and Covent Garden, with their ₤100 paydays, were now distant memories.109 The Ipswich Journal of April 23, 1808, reported that “we understand that it is the fi xed intention of Master Betty to take his fi nal leave of the stage, at the close of his short engagement at Bath.” The same paper reported that Betty was soon to enter Cambridge University.110 A playbill from Bath, dated March 26, 1808, contained the following: “The public are respectfully informed that Master Betty is engaged to perform a fortnight at this theatre, previous to his fi nally retiring from the stage.”111 The few faithful in attendance marked what they assumed was Betty’s last performance. One of his remaining fans wrote: “We are probably destined to see thee no more. But though absent, long shalt thou live in the recollection of those to whom taste and genius are dear.”112 On June 17, 1808, Farington recorded news of yet another “last” performance: “Mr. Bowles sd. the farce of Young Betty was nearly over. He is now at His last gleanings, being acting in a sort of Barn Theatre at Banbury.”113 On Monday, July 11, 1808, Master Betty took (what at the time certainly seemed to be) his “fi nal leave” of the stage. He was in Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of Shakespeare, but, rather than perform his Hamlet, Betty opted for Douglas.114 To signal that he had come, if not full circle, then, at least, to the end of the line, Mrs. Moore, who had played opposite him on his opening night in Belfast, was hired to play opposite him at his Stratford farewell.115 The Ipswich Journal, July 30, 1808, reported that Master Betty had now “retired from the stage.”116 On September 12, 1808, he became a student of Christ’s College, Cambridge, the alma mater of his old patron Thomas Lister Parker, and for the next three years tried to make up for his lack of education.117 Bettymania was dead, and few, not even Betty, seemed to be shedding any tears.

5 The Latter Years Accept my congratulations on Your return to the stage & every good wish for your Prosperity; about the latter end [of] May I shall have vacant time at [Birmingham] where your old friends & admirers would rejoice to see you, let me hear from you speedily. —William Macready, manager of the Birmingham Theatre, on word that Betty had decided on a theatrical comeback1

I N AUGUST 1808, A FEW weeks short of his seventeenth birthday, Betty retired. The gold dust settled; the costumes were packed away. He was not yet seventeen, rich, and, according to many, talentless. He might have realized that he was still young, that there was still time to re-create himself, that he no longer needed to please his father or his remaining fans, that his money afforded him opportunity, that he had been lucky; in short, that he did not need to be Master Betty. Mister Betty now decided on becoming a parson: “He now proceeds (Episcopo volente) from the sock and buskin to the gown and cassock; from the green-room to the vestry-room; from the stage, to the pulpit; and if he collect congregations as numerous as the audiences he drew, we hope he will, by his own example, be enabled to teach them to act better in real, than he did in mimic life.”2 In keeping with the propriety of his new calling, Betty refused to answer any questions concerning his (former) life in show business: “when theatrical matters were mentioned he preserved perfect silence, as though the subject was disagreeable to him.”3 Fair enough, but what else did Betty have to talk about? The Monthly Mirror called him “very dull.”4 Although defi ning exactly what “dull” means here is difficult to pin down—was he spiritless or superficial?—It does seem clear that Betty was not “cultured,” and a love of marbles was unlikely to get him very far. This may well explain why, despite his great wealth, Betty was almost refused admission to Christ’s College, Cambridge: “At Christ’s, a small community, he was within a few votes of being rejected. Of four-and-twenty men, ten were against his admission, and fourteen for it.”5 We may remember that many actors were considered little more than vagabonds. But for those with money, it was a different story. John Philip Kemble was socially mobile enough to correct the Prince of Wales on his “Frenchified” pronunciation of “oblige”; and, about ten years after Bettymania, Edmund Kean’s son, Charles, was a popular student at Eton, where he was captain of the rowing team.6 And surely Cambridge had its fair share of rich, dull kids. The real issue concerned social connections 129

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and the understood rules of etiquette and elegance. Betty, a newcomer, was rich, to be sure, but, aside from Thomas Lister Parker, Betty lacked social connections, was epicene emotionally and inept intellectually. If Betty’s authorized memoir was correct in describing him as “natural and easy, for he is liberal, warm-hearted, grateful for kindness, and gentle to injury,” then these qualities must have been often tested.7 He was not made to feel welcome at Christ’s College, that much is clear. Extant documents suggest he had but one friend, William Harness. Harness is an intriguing figure in his own right. Lame from an early accident, pale and scrawny, Harness had been the subject of casual bullying at school, until he was befriended by Byron: “The fi rst words he [Byron] ever spoke to me, as far as I can recollect them, were, ‘If any fellow bullies you, tell me; and I’ll thrash him if I can.’ ”8 Harness was ordained in 1812 and was said to read nothing and to care for nothing but Shakespeare and the Bible. 9 He would later publish a number of sermons, including The Wrath of Cain, A Boyle Lecture (1822) and edit an important edition of Shakespeare (published in 1825, eight vols.) and would go on to edit Massinger (1830) and Ford (1831). While these intellectual projects were still on the horizon, Harness, even as a student, was no fool. And yet when he championed his friend Betty, he was openly ridiculed. Samuel Parr—a well-respected headmaster and scholar whose library contained over ten thousand books—once overheard William Harness praise Betty as an actor and a gentleman. Parr’s reaction is telling: He launched into a violent tirade against Betty and Harness, which concluded disparagingly: “As for you, Mr. Harness, I look upon you, sir, as a young theatrical puppy.”10 No one in the room supported Harness, who then dropped the matter. While Parr had no way of knowing that he was addressing a man who would become one of the most respected scholars of his generation, the riposte suggests that Betty and all who befriended him were held in contempt. With Betty marooned at Cambridge, his father remained free to spend his son’s money as if it were his own. Betty Sr. bought a large estate in Shrewsbury—doubtless to make up for the lost Hopton Wafers, his wife’s property. The purchase price was ₤40,000, ₤34,000 came from his son’s earnings. The rest he borrowed.11 In the summers, the young man formerly known as the “Young Roscius” spent time at this estate, where he practiced archery.12 On June 3, 1811, Betty’s father died. Betty, now nineteen years old, left Cambridge and spent some time in Shropshire, where he joined the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry and trained as part of a brigade of mounted infantry—but, as he later confessed, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing: Colonel Hill gave me a sort of honorary step in his yeomanry regiment, and ‘a livery more guarded than my fellows’, that is, a real Hussar uniform,

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none of your stage imitations. I was his aide-de-camp, and reviewed the troops; but, lord! I should have been corpsed without a prompter. There was one of the Regulars always at my P. S. ear, to give me the word, for putting the forces through their manœuvres; when they had executed one movement, I used to ask, aside, ‘What’s to be done next, Serjeant Harrison?’ and if they achieved anything very effective, I’d encore it. ‘Wheel ’em again, my blessed Serjeant Harrison!’ Jove, it was royal sport!13

In 1812, Betty “came to Bath without any intention of playing,” but terms “beyond precedent” were offered to him.14 He wrote to his friend William Harness, informing him of his intention to return to the stage. We glimpse Betty’s mental state in this hitherto unpublished reply to his old friend: To William Harness, Esq. Bath [February] the 25 [1812] My Dear friend, I must admit the truly friendly interest you have from the commencement of our juvenile attachment express’d and felt for me demands every grateful acknowledgement on my part but I detest writing and therefore I shall in as few words as possible answer your questions. My Mother, Sister and myself are well; we shall leave Bath next week and shall be in Town about the 29nth of April with my Mother’s Warmest kindnest [sic] remembrance I remain in haste your affectionate friend, Henry Betty15

Betty and family were again on the road, playing the same theaters that had marked his early successes, looking over the same contracts his father had once negotiated.

THE TRIUMPHANT R ETURN For his comeback performance (February 15, 1812), Betty played the lead in Henry Jones’s The Earl of Essex, a surprise, since he might have played Hamlet, Douglas, or Selim. Perhaps the tour was as much a renewal as it was a revisit, but Betty was taking a risk. Even relying upon nostalgia, Betty could not expect to just turn up and be applauded, especially since he had changed so markedly. The childish voice had become graveled, the gloriously long hair had been shorn away, the blue eyes had lost their luster. He had gained weight. Mrs. Piozzi was surprised to fi nd that the formerly “sweet Creature” now looked like “a fat Aledrinking Country Squire.”16 Still, applauded or hissed, Betty was to be well compensated: ₤500 for four performances.17 To the surprise of many, Betty triumphed. Mrs. Piozzi recorded that “Resistless Roscius has overcome all his Difficulties, and Silenced if not

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softened the Tongue of Prejudice—he has acted Six Nights and fi lled the Streets with Crouds [sic] turned from the Playhouse Door.”18 The Bath Journal thought that Betty’s acting “was replete with all the fi re and energy of true genius.”19 Crowds were so good that the management reengaged him in April for a full three weeks.20 On his second run, the Bath Chronicle reported that Betty’s Selim was met with “the most cheering applause.”21 Mrs. Piozzi saw Betty several times at Bath and thought him a “Good Actor” and “greater than ever.”22 Bookings were easy to come by. He played Bristol, earning ₤800 for nine nights’ work. He then played in Gloucester, Worcester, Wolverhampton, Plymouth, Exeter, Litchfield, Chester, and in Southampton.23 The actor Walter Donaldson recalled seeing Betty about this time: “Mr. Henry West Betty—once the celebrated young Roscius—paid a starring visit to Southampton, and performed Charles in the play of ‘The Royal Oak,’ and displayed all the fi re of his youth in this well-written historical drama by Dimond. His other characters were the Earl of Warwick and Achmet in ‘Barbarossa’; and in each of which he elicited the most rapturous applause.” Donaldson also noted that the applause was well deserved, since “in the kingdom there is not a more discriminating audience than that of Southampton.”24 Betty was on top of the world yet again and must have been pleased to learn that his mother was telling everyone that her boy remained “unspoiled by Prosperity.”25 But that was his mother. William C. Macready thought him arrogant and insulting. While performing at Wolverhampton, Betty wrote to Macready Sr., who was still the manager of the Birmingham Theatre, informing him that he was in the area. Macready then sent his son, William C. Macready, to negotiate terms. Years before, Masters Betty and Macready had been virtually inseparable. While Betty waited for his cue to act, he would pass the time playing marbles or tops with his boyhood friend. At one performance, he was particularly engrossed and reluctantly told Macready, “Wait a minute, William; fi fth act is just on; I shall have to kill Richmond, and then we will fi nish that game.” The two had also shared in moments of great boyish mischief. At one dinner party, Betty, the young scamp, pulled the mattress cushion from one of the sofas and carefully placed a cover over the missing section, giving the impression that nothing was amiss. Soon after, an old fat gent in knee breeches and buckled shoes, conducted by an equally rotund older woman decked in crimson satin and a paradise feather, walked into the room. Predictably, they sat on the cushionless sofa and popped right through the frame, to the amusement of everyone present. Mr. Hough then tried to discipline the boy, but fi rst he had to catch him as he raced around the room; meanwhile William Macready scolded his own son, who, he assumed, was also in on the prank. 26

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The young Macready agreed to meet Betty in Wolverhampton. Dusty and tired from the road, Macready arrived early, and “waited with some impatience.” He passed the time by asking the locals what they thought of Betty and found, to his surprise, that any hint of Bettymania had long since dissipated: “He was to act Achmet that same evening, but there was no excitement in the town on that occasion.” Finally, Betty sent word that he was coming. Macready hastened out of the coffee room to meet him. Betty knew how to make an entrance. He drove his tandem through the open gates and exited the carriage with a regal stare. Macready noted that “his figure no longer retained its symmetrical proportions, having grown bulky and heavy, but his face was very handsome.”27 Macready introduced himself with all the heartiness of an old acquaintance, but Betty remained aloof: “He gave directions about his carriage and horses, and went to the room prepared for him; I, a coach passenger, and one of little note, retired to the coffee-room, where I ordered dinner, and sat chewing the cud of my slighted advances.” After some time, Betty called Macready up, who “proposed to study two characters in Betty’s plays.” In Dimond’s play The Royal Oak, Macready would play the part of William Wyndham, Betty acting King Charles; in Francklin’s tragedy the Earl of Warwick, Macready would play King Edward IV, Betty playing Warwick.28 Betty agreed to give Macready notice as soon as he was available. Feeling more comfortable, Macready then asked Betty for some actorly advice. He, Macready, had been studying the role of Frederick—a mainstay of Betty’s early repertoire. Would Frederick have, given his social and fi nancial shortfalls, carried a clean, white handkerchief? Betty put off the inquiry nonchalantly: “Oh, my boy! you think of such things as these, do you?”29 Macready’s question was a bit overearnest, but not absurd. Actors, in preparing for a role, ask all kinds of questions, some useful, some less so. Was the query anymore silly than Betty’s exchange with Kemble, in which the two discussed whether Rolla, in entering a scene, should walk or run? Betty’s response to Macready suggests that the boy who once corrected John Philip Kemble on acting had vanished long ago. 30 Yet, Betty could still act and act well, as Macready admitted in his reminiscences concerning his Birmingham performances with Betty: “It was the fi rst trial of strength with a player of celebrity, and in it I can bear testimony to the very clever acting of my opponent. In the scene where Warwick renders his sword to the king, he [Betty] displayed an energy and dignity that well entitled him to the fervent applause lavished on him.”31 After the Birmingham dates, Betty and Macready set out on separate provincial circuits. Macready’s tour did poorly: “At Glasgow, King Richard II was produced with great care, but succeeded only in obtaining the applause of scanty audiences.”32 Betty, on the other hand, was doing

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rather well: “The houses were overflowing, and rendered a good harvest to him and the treasury of the theatre.”33 Small wonder that Betty felt that he was ready for London. The Morning Post, October 31, 1812, announced that “Mr. Betty, the celebrated Young Roscius of a former day, is to appear on the boards of Covent Garden on Tuesday next.”34

THE CRITICS WEIGH I N On November 3, 1812, Betty returned to Covent Garden with a performance of Selim. The Morning Post reported that Betty was met with “thunders of applause”; in response, a gratified Betty “could hardly control his emotions.” After the performance, the audience again afforded Betty “the most complete and unequivocal approbation.”35 But the novelty soon worn thin. Henry Crabb Robinson attended a performance of Betty’s Douglas (November 14, 1812) and was unimpressed: “Saw Betty in the two last Acts of Douglas—his voice I heard and I never heard a worse—his face I saw indistinctly from the boxes and did not wish to hear more. He gave me no pleasure except in the management of his bad voice in scenes of tenderness and gentleness.”36 Robinson was not merely stating his dislike for the timbre of Betty’s voice, but also for his delivery. Macready recalled that “there was a peculiarity in his [Betty’s] level elocution that was not agreeable, a sort of sing-song and a catch in his voice that suggested to the listener the delivery of words learned by heart, not flowing from the impulse or necessity of the occasion. . . . I do not think he studied improvement in his art, and in consequence deteriorated by becoming used-up in the frequent repetition of the same parts.”37 On November 17, Betty tried the lead in Nathaniel Lee’s Alexander.38 Henry Crabb Robinson, a seeming glutton for punishment, attended the performance.39 He wrote: “Betty to me was quite disgusting. . . . A fat, fair, ranting, screaming fellow who might much better represent a Persian eunuch than a Macedonian conqueror. In nothing did he please me.” We may recall that in 1804–5 Betty had many enemies in the press, among the most powerful the Times, which in 1812 remained fi rmly hostile to the former Young Roscius. On the subject of the crowds that had so powerfully applauded Betty on his opening night, the paper retorted that they had applauded on the basis of reputation, rather than actual performance or appearance: “It remains for those who persist in thinking Mr. Betty equal to his fame, to discover how eminence may be, in his person, compatible with want of them all.”40 On Betty’s performance as Tancred (November 27, 1812), the Times declined any formal attempt at criticism: “There is no interest for readers to know how often he left his auditory to irresistible slumber.”41 Summing up Betty’s 1812 comeback, the paper did allow that the adult Betty had some theatrical skill but dismissed him as essentially insignificant: “Mr. Betty may be a useful

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or active or decent actor but with that praise he must be content.” 42 Sir Walter Scott agreed: Betty’s acting in 1812 was “respectable, but far from striking.”43 Useful, decent, respectable, in short, second-rate—hardly the reviews Betty wanted.

A FEW NEW BETTY FANS, BUT ONLY A FEW With a major newspaper like the Times against him, the chance that he would be rediscovered or re-embraced by the public, if not as a celebrity then at least as a topfl ight actor, was improbable but not impossible. Many who attended Betty’s 1812 performances were often pleasantly surprised. William Godwin saw Betty and “was pleased with him, though he does not think he will be a Garrick.” The foregoing was recorded by Henry Crabb Robinson on November 3, 1812. On December 19, Robinson recorded yet another conversation about Betty: “Godwin speaks more civilly than most people of Betty[;] he thinks he may be a better actor than Kemble, And [sic] that he is already an excellent declaimer.”44 An anonymous pamphleteer lauded Betty’s performances in a variety of roles: Playing the leads in Francklin’s The Tragedy of Warwick and William Dimond’s The Royal Oak, Betty was “eminently successful”; as Sir Edward Mortimer in Colman’s Iron Chest,45 the former Young Roscius “gave a fi ne idea of the man alive to the slightest breath of slander.”46 James Northcote, who had painted the Young Roscius in the 1804–5 season, was also won over by Betty’s recent performances. Exiting a London theater with his friend and fellow painter Henry Fuseli, the two agreed that Betty was now a fi rst-rate actor. Fuseli then asked why Betty had not been better received? “Because,” said Northcote: the world will never admire twice. The fi rst surprise was excited by his being a boy; and when that was over, nothing could bring them back again to the same point, not though he had turned out a second Roscius. They had taken a surfeit of their idol, and wanted something new. Nothing he could do could astonish them so much the second time, as the youthful prodigy had done the fi rst time; and therefore he must always appear as a foil to himself, and seem comparatively flat and insipid.47

Echoing this sentiment, William C. Macready wrote: Betty’s comeback “was a failure, but I am disposed to think his talents were not fairly appreciated”; “It seemed as if the public resented on the grown man the extravagance of the idolatry they had blindly lavished on the boy.”48 The playwright Frederick Reynolds, writing in 1826, was of only a moderately different opinion: “to Master Betty, as a boy and a bad actor, the whole town flocked; to Mister Betty, as a man and a good second-rate actor, scarcely an individual came.”49

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It wasn’t all bad. In March of 1815, Betty played Bath for nine nights, presenting his Othello on the thirtieth of that month. 50 On April 23, 1816, as part of a celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday, England’s greatest actors were assembled at Covent Garden to perform. Kemble was selected to play Cardinal Wolsey, the part so admired by Betty’s father; Betty was selected to play the most famous role in the Shakespeare canon: Hamlet. 51 But these successes did little to assuage his sense of failure or his dismal social standing among the players. The actor Joe Cowell described Betty as: a great, lubberly, overgrown, fat-voiced, good-tempered fellow, with very little talent, and just tolerated as a man by those who were ashamed to confess they were deceived in thinking him a divinity when a boy. I have seen many infant phenomena in the course of my theatrical career, and witnessed the “drillings and trainings;” and if the humane [Richard] Martin [founder of the SPCA] had known as much as I do, he would have included these little prodigies in his act “for the suppression of cruelty to animals.”52

With actors, Betty could be obnoxious or awkward; with former fans, however, Betty maintained a jovial grace. William Hazlitt once met Betty at a party, and, as the group broke up for the night and they were all putting on their overcoats, the critic confided to Betty that he still remembered the actor’s early triumphs. Posing in a tragical attitude, Betty exclaimed seriocomically, “Oh, memory! memory!”53 Betty’s good humor was not lost upon James Boaden, who, while repeatedly attacking the actor in print, observed that Betty “never lost the genuine modesty of his carriage, and that his temper at least was as steady as his diligence.”54 That is, unless he was drunk. On May 30, 1815, a desperately unhappy and completely inebriated Betty was in the company of the painter, teacher, and writer Benjamin Robert Haydon, who recorded the following in his diary: His situation is certainly the most melancholy & most singular in the world. . . . All his future life seems embittered, in spite of his noisy boisterousness to conceal it. He talked of his past blaze with a melancholy sigh, and drowned recollections as they crowded into his mind, and flushed his cheek, with a sort of gasp that allowed the wine to rush down his throat as he put the glass to his mouth to drink it. . . . as to sharing a sensation from a passage of Shakespeare, it was useless to attempt & hopeless to expect it. He avoided all discussion that would have exposed his intellect, and roared down every attempt at thinking with a noise that made us sigh. 55

Betty had reason to be upset. Just six weeks before his drunken bout, the Times had referred to Betty as the “Clown of Tragedy.”56 This negative

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press was too much for even former Bettymania-basher Leigh Hunt: “I was right about Master Betty, and I am sorry for it; though the town was in fault, not he.”57

M ARRIAGE AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE Betty continued to perform, though more sporadically. On June 6, 1815, he was back at Covent Garden, playing Alexander the Great. In May of 1818, he played at Bath for five nights. 58 Betty’s comparative inactivity was probably due to domestic considerations. By this time, Betty had married. History records only two salient details concerning his bride: her name—“Susanna Crow”—and that she came from “respectable parents, in Shropshire.”59 The last detail offers some clue concerning their romance. Betty had been stationed in Shropshire during his tenure with the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry. Though a feckless soldier, Betty, like other officers, must have cut an elegant figure in his regimental uniform; his wealth and celebrity must have added some charm. Despite his weight, he was still attractive to some women. While at Cambridge, he received an anonymous valentine from a secret admirer: If Taste, and elegance, and ease And Chaste bewitching smiles, If every wish, and power to please, Which the rapt soul beguiles, If mind, that longs to Realms above, Corrected and refi n’d, If all are dream of virtuous love, And all that’s good and kind, Who can deny that merit of praise To such perfections due? Who but must write (if time her lays) All these belong to you. To captivate and Charm is thine, By Fascination’s power With thee all joys I would resign. To pass one festive Hour, But faithful to that ardent flame, Which first inspired my Breast. My heart will still remain the same. Till in the Grave I rest, No vile, impure, unhallowed Love, E’en Hope can ne’er be mine, And yet I prize thee Worlds Above, My only Valentine.60

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On September 29, 1819, Miss Crow—had she written this poem?—gave birth to a son, Henry Thomas Betty.61 From a distance, Betty’s personal life looked fairly rosy: a comfortable home, a new wife, an infant son, plenty of money. But the actor remained an enigma. Why, many wondered, did he continue to perform, given that the press was so harsh and his audiences so small? As the Examiner noted, Betty’s comeback had been successful but, after two or three seasons, “Master BETTY at last fell back to the place to which he belonged”—obscurity.62 One by one, Betty’s fans began to regret their effusive support, and they were joined by others who, having never seen the boy act, still felt the need to voice a hostile opinion. Foremost among this group was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had been in Italy during Bettymania. As one of the chief voices of the Romantic movement, many would have expected him to have idolized Betty. Yet, upon his return to London, he got one day into a long tirade to explain what a ridiculous farce the whole [idea of Betty acting in adult roles] was, and how all the people abroad were shocked at the gullibility of the English nation, who on this and every other occasion were open to the artifices of all sorts of quacks, wondering how any persons with the smallest pretensions to common sense could for a moment suppose that a boy could act the characters of men without any of their knowledge, their experience, or their passions.63

A lack of respect, dwindling fans, it all took its toll. On July 27, 1821, after Covent Garden canceled his scheduled performance dates, the Shrewsbury Chronicle reported that Betty, “who was formerly so celebrated in the theatrical world,” had “attempted to destroy himself a day or two ago.” As for prognosis, the paper counseled its readers to prepare for the worst: “The wound to his throat, it is hoped, is not mortal.”64 No crowds gathered to pray for his recovery. Betty was, at the time of his attempted suicide, just twenty-nine years old. As Betty convalesced, yet another comeback was contemplated. Robert William Elliston, manager of Drury Lane, met with the actor a few times in 1821 to discuss his performing at that theater. But Betty seemed more intent on getting drunk: “Chedron’s Hotel was generally the spot of the ‘belle alliance’—suppers were more discussed than plays, and far more bottles opened than theatrical engagements; in fact, the original object was ultimately completely lost sight of by both parties, till they parted for the last time, on better terms of cordiality, perhaps, than might have been the result of any professional connection.”65 In June of 1822, Betty, age thirty, billing himself as the “English Roscius”—“Infant Roscius” and “Young Roscius” were now accurate only in a nostalgic sense—appeared at Windsor, as the Earl of Warwick in Thomas Francklin’s play of the same name. That same month he played

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Birmingham, though just for one night ( June 14), again in the part of the Earl of Warwick.66 In that same summer, he appeared in Cheltenham, Worcester, Walsall, and Bath.67

BETTY’S SALVATION : CHARITY WORK Charitable deeds halted Betty’s downward spiral. He began to raise money for the poor, particularly for children. In an effort to boost funds for a local public library, he performed on the Oswestry Stage “and played several of his popular characters.”68 On October 29 and 30, 1822, Betty was in nearby Wem, this time performing in aid of the national schools. Moreover, this was not a case of some charity looking for a star to aid the cause; Betty had apparently seen the need and had organized the benefit nights himself. In a letter dated November 18, 1822, a committee steward wrote to Betty: Dear Sir The Committee appointed for the distribution of the Funds arising from Amateur Plays on the 29 th and 30 th Octo[ber] beg to offer their warmest acknowledgements for your generous and humane exertions which have been so manifest during your stay in Wem; yet the gratitude they are bound to shew and are so much alive to, will be considered trifl ing when compared with the feelings of the Poor & Needy on whose behalf, you, the Sole promoter of their relief stepped forward and roused the benevolence of this Town and Neighborhood. The Committee are inducted to apprise you that one half the Proceeds has been conveyed over to the National Schools whereby a considerable debt is liquidated, the other half distributed to the deserving Poor, whose Prayers for your prosperity ought to be unceasing. The Consolation experienced by a mind capable, not only of projecting but of accomplishing for others good, is far more grateful than eulogy can bestow.— In concluding, The Committee hail with high satisfaction your return once more as an occasional Resident, and that as few vicissitudes to which man can be subject may accompany your journey through life is the ardent and most anxious wish Of Your Obliged and Humble Servant Edward Tucker, Steward Chairman of the Committee69

Betty, who, had been barred from performing in benefits for other actors, who had never attended a proper school, who, as an adult, had dropped out of Cambridge, would no doubt have taken some satisfaction in helping others to a good and traditional education.

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MORE SLINGS AND A RROWS Percy H. Fitzgerald, in his conversations with various members of The Garrick Club, recorded that the “young Roscius was the only actor who ever knew exactly when to quit the stage.” 70 The truth, however, is that Betty continued to perform until virtually no audience in England remained interested in seeing him. When asked whether he planned on touring indefi nitely, Betty replied “That wd. depend upon the public.” Farington, who recorded the conversation, noted that Betty would “continue so long as He shd. see the disposition of the public in His favour.” 71 In 1823, Betty made appearances in Dudley, Northampton, Newcastleunder-Lyme, Oswestry, and Wrexham. He gave his last public performance on September 8, 1824, a week before his thirty-third birthday, in the role of the Earl of Warwick. The local Hampshire Telegraph was surprisingly rough on poor Betty: Master Betty had been “a fi ne-looking and clever boy,” but Mister Betty is now but “a fat man, with no more of talent for the stage than may be acquired by any person of common abilities.”72 Nine years later, he is mentioned in James Smith’s Rejected Addresses: “Young Betty may now be seen walking about town—a portly personage aged about forty clad in a furred and frogged Surtout.” 73 We have seen that as early as 1812, Betty’s weight was an issue. As Betty aged, he grew still heavier. By the 1830s Betty was, in the words of one reporter, “quite capable, as regards size and good humour, of undertaking the part of Falstaff.”74 By 1836, Betty was renting a house in a fashionable part of London, Adelphi Buildings, a block of twenty-four unified terrace houses occupying the land between The Strand and the Thames. He may have chose the address for actorly reasons: David Garrick, the original Roscius, had lived there for the fi nal seven years of his life. One night, Betty walked over to Covent Garden. Since his fi rst performance there in 1804, Betty had always been welcomed. As usual, he passed through the back door with the other actors and signed his name on the guest list. But his fame had slipped, and he was informed that he no longer had standing. In a hitherto unpublished letter found in Harvard’s Houghton Library, we fi nd Betty writing a polite thank you to his boyhood friend, William C. Macready, for his reinstatement on the free list: November 7th 1836 1 Robert Street Adelphi I take leave to return you my best thanks for the hansam and very great pleasure you have conferred upon me by allowing my name to continue on the free list. I am Sir most respectfully and am Truly Obliged Henry Betty75

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Of course, Betty had plenty of money; he didn’t need the free ticket. He simply wanted to maintain his privilege as an actor. It was vanity, of course, but he had once been a star—was it too much for Covent Garden to respect and to honor him with this small kindness? Apparently it was, for on February 26, 1842, Betty, now in his early fifties, found that his name had again been removed from the list, this time at Drury Lane. Macready was now managing that theater.76 Betty wrote to him yet again: Dear Sir, By Mistake I have taken a most unwarrantable liberty with you! And hasten to explain the circumstance. I have for upwards of thirty years been upon the free list at Drury Lane, and I felt anxious upon my return to Town to re-visit the Theatre,—presuming upon your kindness in having continued my free admission at Covent Garden, when you were Manager of that Theatre, I as usual signed my name, but upon leaving the Theatre after witnessing your splendid performance of Sisyphus, the Gentleman at the Box Office informed me that my name no longer appears upon the free-list,—I have therefore only now to apologize to you, and deeply regret the error committed by Dear Sir, yours most respectfully, Henry Betty77

Macready put Betty back on the free list, but the former Young Roscius must have been chagrined.78

BETTY AND SON With his old hunger for applause unappeased, Betty spent much of his remaining years focused upon making his son, Henry Betty, a star. On October 10, 1835, at a small theater in Gravesend, the son of the Young Roscius made his debut in the part that had made his father the toast of London— Selim in Brown’s tragedy Barbarossa. The Preston Chronicle, November 21, 1835, reported that Henry was “about thirteen years of age”; Henry’s own memoir, penned in 1846, stated that he was fifteen years old when he first acted professionally; he was, in fact, sixteen.79 Misinformation about Henry Betty’s age was to be expected. Master Betty had been promoted the same way: He was twelve when the Irish reported he was eleven; thirteen when the Scottish reported him to be twelve; in 1807, one British paper reported that he was thirteen years old, when he was, in fact, sixteen.80 The Gravesend dates did not go well. The newspapers reported that Henry was taken ill while playing Romeo. His doctors recommended that he “abstain” from acting “for some time.”81 Master Betty, we recall, said he was sick after but a handful of London dates; the repetition of

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detail suggests that we may be dealing with a ploy for public sympathy or with a familial reliance on hypochondria as a coping mechanism.82 Soon after this performance, Henry returned to college, now intent upon taking Holy Orders.83 Officially, Henry Betty employed himself in Bible study; unofficially, if we are to extrapolate from his own letters, the boy did nothing. Two surviving letters, stored at the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, are biographically innocuous in their drift but are crammed with appalling misspellings (“cammunication” for “communication”) and weak punctuation.84 What Henry did at school remains unknown, but he certainly didn’t do much reading or writing. Mary Betty, age seventy-one, died on February 9, 1838; she was buried beside her husband and her daughter in Loppington Churchyard.85 Whether Mary Betty hated the fact that her son had become an actor, she, like her husband, had lived comfortably off his earnings, including the purchase of the aforementioned estate in Shrewsbury.86 Still, Mary Betty may have disapproved of her grandson’s plan to become an actor. With her death, that impediment was removed. On August 29, 1838, Henry reappeared as Selim—this time in Hereford, where he was received with general applause.87 The play’s prologue dwelled on the genius of the original Young Roscius: we solicit patronage to-night For one whose very name will give delight. Who can forget, though years have passed away, A name that charm’d the Drama’s prosp’rous day? ........................................ The son of such a sire may justly claim Respect and favour in his father’s name. . . . 88

The following night, Henry played another staple of his father’s—Douglas. Henry Betty soon added yet more parts from his progenitor’s famed repertoire: Osman, Alexander the Great, the Earl of Essex, Romeo, and Hamlet. A tour ensued. Many playbills for this and subsequent tours of Henry Betty announce: “Mr. Henry Betty, son of the celebrated English Roscius, for one night only!” The press began to refer to Henry Betty as “Master Betty, The Younger” and sometimes as “Mr. Betty, The Younger.”89 Word of Henry’s performances soon attracted the notice of Alfred Bunn, manager of Drury Lane, who tried to hire the teen. But Mister Betty, perhaps fearing that Henry was not yet ready, had his son decline the offer: November 7, 1838, Sun Hotel, Southampton. SIR, I am commissioned by my father to acknowledge your favour of the 5th inst.; and he desires me to say that he is of opinion, as I am going on so prosperously in the provinces, and have so many engagements in the

Figure 14. Henry Betty, following in his father’s theatrical footsteps (personal collection).

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country to fulfi l this winter, that it would not be advisable for me to accept any London engagement, however tempting, at the present moment. He takes leave to return you his best thanks for your very polite and handsome reference to his judgment ; and I have the honour to be, Sir, With my father’s most respectful Remembrances, Your obliged and very humble servant, HENRY [T.] BETTY90

A letter in the Houghton Library, Harvard, dated November 26, 1838, has Henry turning down Mr. Simpson, manager of the Birmingham Theatre, because he had more lucrative offers to perform in Nottingham and in Southampton. He signs off, ever the dutiful son, extending “my Father’s best respects.”91 Accompanied by his father, Henry played Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Shrewsbury, Nottingham, Liverpool, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Wolverhampton, Worcester, and Peterborough. 92 Some of these performances were punctuated by yet further affectionate remembrances of the original Young Roscius. One night, during a performance of Henry Betty as Selim, the audience, on hearing the line: “Oh! no! I see thy Sire in every line,” rose to its feet with enthusiastic applause not for Henry but for the once-Young Roscius, who politely waved from his box.93 At the theater in Halifax, Henry and his father were presented with a snuffbox which was inscribed with the following: After long weary years of life have run, I see anew the FATHER in the SON. 94

In 1843 at Theatre Royal Bath, Henry was presented with yet another poem in which he was enjoined to keep alive the Betty legacy: . . . add new luster to thy name and line; Win from thy sire immortal Garrick’s seal, And of the valued relic, worthy feel. . . . 95

On December 28, 1844, with his father still at his side, Henry Betty performed at Covent Garden. Many of those who saw Henry’s father perform in 1804 and 1805 were now long dead. Still, the News of the World reminded its readers that Henry Betty’s principal virtue was that he was “the son of the celebrated ‘Young Roscius,’ whose performances created so much sensation in the early part of the present century that the House of Commons adjourned one night on purpose to see him.”96 Henry Betty was not merely keeping his father’s name current; he was also building a reputation as a solid actor. On July 29, 1839, the Margate Theatre kicked off its season with a performance by Henry Betty.

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He returned to the Margate that summer to perform Hamlet, Richard, and Macbeth; and remained a “decided favorite” in return engagements through much of the 1840s. 97 A local Shrewsbury journal reported that in October 1839 Henry Betty performed the part of the Earl of Warwick to a local audience. The performance went well and the reporter, a Mr. Henry Pidgeon, offered “hearty congratulations” and predicted that Betty’s son would be “rewarded in days to come by a distinguished wreath of histrionic fame.”98 On October 31, 1842, Henry Betty appeared as Hamlet at the Theater Royal Manchester. The booking was for twelve nights, an indication that he was a respectable draw; in early 1843, he performed in Exeter, Sheffield, Bath, Maidstone, Weymouth, Glasgow, and Edinburgh; in 1844, he appeared at Exeter, Plymouth, Manchester, Ludlow, Swansea, Weymouth, and Ryde. 99 On April 22, 1845, Henry Betty was in Dublin, and opened with Hamlet, afterward playing Macbeth, Othello, Virginius, Rolla, Alexander the Great, and William Tell. Later that year (September 8, 1845), he performed Hamlet at the original Pavilion Theatre in London. On February 16, 1846, we fi nd him at the Queen’s Theatre for a short engagement.100 In 1847, he played King Lear and Richard III in a “successful engagement” at Liverpool.101 His best year, in terms of reviews, seems to have been 1848: “Mr. Henry Betty made his debut in Coventry . . . and was received with great enthusiasm”; at Ramsgate, he performed with “extraordinary success”; at Dover, he was a “brilliant success”; at Liverpool, York, and Hull, “his reception was highly flattering.”102 However, Henry’s career was entering its twilight. On June 30, 1851, he starred as Othello at the Manchester Theatre Royal. The Manchester Times and Gazette, July 2, 1851, was not impressed: Henry displayed only “very meagre requisites to the profession he has chosen.” In 1852, the “son of the once-celebrated Master Betty” played in a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at Drury Lane, but “in so small a part as to give little scope to judge of his dramatic powers.”103 In 1854, Henry Betty, age thirty-five, officially withdrew from the stage to care for his ailing father. While we can say that Henry was dutiful, there must have been some anger here. It would be one thing, of course, if his father were really very ill. A short withdrawal would, with the expectation of a father’s death, be understandable and appropriate. But Betty Sr. —who, after all, was rich enough to hire a hospital of nurses—was not exactly on his last leg. He would live for another twenty years. What was the nature of his illness? A Mr. Hughes wrote to Henry Betty on March 3, 1858, expressing his wish that he “lived near him [Master Betty] to try and shake him out of his low spirits. I would try to do so by going back to [his] old days”; he signs off, giving kind regard to Henry’s “poor father.”104 With Betty in apparently a manic-depressive state, Henry Betty found another role to play—longsuffering son. The change in daily routine must have been enormous. As one critic put it: “If the younger Betty had engineered his career better

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[i.e., had not been promoted as a knockoff of the Young Roscius] he might have obtained greater recognition.”105 Instead of touring the country and basking in the adulation of audiences each night, Henry Betty, still a young man, found himself living at home, tending to his father. Of course, home was a country mansion of some eminence. Moneyed and still relatively young, Henry Betty married, which must have relived the tedium of his daily ministrations to his father.

DICKENS PARODIES BETTY; M ELVILLE THINKS H E’S DEAD If William Henry West Betty managed his son’s career as a way of rehabilitating his own, Henry’s professional successes—and there were many in what was, admittedly, an uneven career—must have brought him at least intermittent joy. Unfortunately, much of the good Henry heaped upon the Betty name was undermined by Charles Dickens. The novelist frequented the Margate Theatre—not because he was a fan, but because he considered Henry Betty and his now-aged and rotund father to be comic fodder. In Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), Dickens presented to his readers the figure of Ninetta Crummles, the “Infant Phenomenon.” Ninetta trades on promoting herself as being only a child, when, in fact, she is closer to sixteen—both Master Betty and Henry Betty, we recall, lied about their respective ages. Ninetta Crummles’ growth has been stunted by her constant imbibing of gin—a reference, perhaps, to Master Betty’s height, his early health issues, or to his later drinking problem. In 1842, Dickens, writing to his friend John Forester, noted that many wondered whether his characters were drawn from real life. In the case of Ninetta Crummles, Dickens admitted openly that “We saw it [an instance of art copied from reality] last night, and oh! if you had been with us! Young [Henry] Betty, doing what the mind of man without my help never can conceive, with his legs like padded boot-trees wrapped upon faded yellow draws, was the hero.”106 Dickens was not done poking fun. In Great Expectations (1860–61), he created Mr. Wopsle, “the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian Renown.” In the book, Pip attends Mr. Wopsle’s performance of Hamlet, Master Betty’s signature piece, and is half-ashamed by the laughter it provoked: When he asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking disordered . . . a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the recorders . . . he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, “And don’t you do it,

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neither; you’re a deal worse than him!” And I grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr Wopsle on every one of these occasions.

While Dickens didn’t mention any actor or actors as his model, it’s likely that at least some of his readers identified Mr. Wopsle with one or both of the Bettys, both of whom, like Mr. Wopsle, delivered their lines with a dreary sing-song quality: it was “very slow, very dreary, very up-hill and down-hill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything.”107 If Master Betty was at all a reader, he would have also been mortified by Herman Melville’s 1854 story, “The Fiddler,” which discusses an American musical prodigy, Hautboy: “Did you ever hear of Master Betty?” “The great English prodigy, who long ago ousted the Siddons and the Kembles from Drury Lane, and made the whole town run mad with acclamation?” “The same,” said Standard, once more inaudibly drumming on the slab. . . . “What under heaven can Master Betty, the great genius and prodigy, and English boy twelve years old, have to do with the poor commonplace plodder, Hautboy, an American of forty?” “Oh, nothing in the least. I don’t imagine that they ever saw each other. Besides, Master Betty must be dead and buried long ere this.”108

Melville goes on to say that Hautboy is happier without all the adulation. It is unlikely that Master Betty, deep in clinical depression, felt the same.

M ASTER BETTY’S DYING DAYS In 1857, the former actor William Henry West Betty moved his family to 37 Ampthill Square, St. Pancras, London. In his last years, Betty’s reputation fell still further; former fans continued to issue apologies for having been taken in by Bettymania. As detailed in chapter 2 of this study, Samuel Rogers had overheard the powerful Whig politician Charles James Fox opine that Betty’s Hamlet was “fi ner than Garrick.” Writing some fi fty years after Bettymania, Rogers recanted: “Such criticism will now seem (and undoubtedly is) preposterous.”109 Memorialists of other great actors agreed. William Dunlap, who wrote a panegyric to George William Cooke, dismissed Betty as “destitute of the very soul of good acting.”110 With the passage of time, Bettymania became a cultural embarrassment: “one of the most preposterous episodes in English theatrical

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history”;111 “one of those extraordinary furores which occasionally seize upon the British public”;112 “a recollection that should call shame to the cheek of modern London”;113 “hyperbolical nonsense”;114 “extravagant imbecility”;115 “mental influenza.”116 Betty himself was dismissed as “one of the most melancholy and ridiculous figures in the whole history of the stage”;117 a freak”;118 more grotesque than the “educated pigs or trained monkeys” of the circus;119 an impudent and unruly child who should have been sent “supperless to bed.”120 The actor once known as the Young Roscius, died on August 24, 1874, age eighty-two, “almost unnoticed by the world who at one time had worshipped his genius, but to whom for half a century he had been absolutely dead.”121 Two weeks later, he was interred in an elaborate mausoleum in Highgate Cemetery. He was carried to his grave by a few personal friends: FUNERAL OF MR. BETTY. The remains of the late Mr. William Henry West Betty, better known as “The Young Roscius,” were interred in the Highgate Cemetery. The funeral cortège consisted of a hearse and four and one mourning coach, containing the son of the deceased, who was accompanied by Dr. Davis, the medical attendant.122

The editor and proprietor of the Era, Frederick Ledger, was present, but he was surprised “that so few members of the Theatrical Profession attended the funeral”; then again, even Betty’s family seemed intent on a small affair. The service was conducted with “utmost simplicity” and without a “lengthened eulogium.”123

THE CONTESTED WILL The once-Young Roscius, William Henry West Betty, bequeathed his son and daughter-in-law ₤56,000. In 1894, Henry Betty’s wife, Maria, died, and she too was interred in the family tomb. The marriage had not been wholly a happy one, for Henry Betty had kept a mistress, Ann Starkey. In 1897, Henry Betty died. In his will, Henry Betty left a provision for the upkeep of the family tomb, as well as ₤10,000 for the Royal General Theatrical Fund, under the stipulation that moneys drawn for indigent actors and actresses be known as having come from the “Betty Fund.” The latter provision had been in the offi ng for some time, since a newspaper clipping in the Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, dated June 26, 1895, notes that “Henry Betty, son of William Henry West Betty, the Infant Roscius, has promised, now and eventually, a princely donation of ₤10,000.”124 However, Ann Starkey challenged the will, won, and had the various legacies, including the upkeep of the tomb, voided in

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probate court. In the end, she claimed all of what was left of the family fortune, some ₤30,000.125 Master Betty’s London house was destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War. In 1965, the area was bulldozed to make way for three hideous towers. As for any of the Young Roscius’s belongings, upon his son’s death they were dispersed—among them, private papers that have since been lost.126 In 1953, Master Betty was the subject of a play by Constance Cox, The Nine Days Wonder, which ends with Betty’s comeback of 1812.127 In Cox’s play, Betty is laughed off the stage, his triumphant return conveniently effaced.

Coda: Bettymania and Its Aftermath Fashion her idol could follow no more, [She] damn’d the poor boy—whom she worshipp’d before. —The Monthly Mirror on the sudden desertion of Betty’s fans1

BETTYMANIA , ALL AGREED, HAD BEEN overdone. It was, after all, a mania. Yet, as the years passed, a handful of critics grew uneasy: How could it be that an entire generation of audiences in Ireland, Scotland, and England had been so wrong about Betty as an actor? Might it be that the young Betty, despite the media hoopla, was worth seeing, even if the adult Betty was not? Leigh Hunt, who had attacked Betty at the height of the mania, offered the beginnings of what was to become a convenient, face-saving solution. Betty was a great actor, for eighteen months or so, but his talent was, alas, tainted by early success: “Most men begin life with struggles, and have their vanity sufficiently knocked about the head and shoulders, to make their kinder fortunes the more welcome. Mr. Betty had his sugar fi rst, and his physic afterwards. He began life with a double childhood, with a new and extraordinary felicity added to the natural enjoyments of his age; and he lived to see it speedily come to nothing, and to be taken for an ordinary person.”2 After Betty died, one writer called him “a phenomenon of the right kind,” in his own way equal to the “superhuman precocity of Mozart”; another journalist argued that, had Master Betty not quitted the stage for Cambridge, “he would have been a much fi ner actor at fi fty than he had been at fi fteen”—apparently the writer did not know that Betty returned to the stage in 1812 and continued performing for another ten years.3 These various strands were united by the theater historian Cecil Ferard Armstrong: “Many who saw him [Betty] play [in 1812 and beyond], affi rmed again and again that the powers were there, but an irresistible lethargy prevented his exercising them on new material. After sifting all the evidence, it looks almost as though Master Betty was a real genius, whose powers were strangled at their birth by that most effective of all destroyers, premature success.”4 While the argument offers a certain convenience, it ignores the mark Betty and Bettymania left on both his era and subsequent generations of actors and audiences.

THE I NFLUENCE OF BETTY’S H AMLET To begin with, Betty’s 1804–5 performances of Hamlet merit our attention. Though often dismissive of Betty’s acting, William C. Macready 150

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followed Betty’s success by adding distinctively effeminate overtones to his own performances of the noble Dane. 5 Edwin Booth, the celebrated Hamlet of his generation, also confessed that he “endeavored to make prominent the femininity of Hamlet’s character and therein lies the secret of my success—I think. I doubt if ever a robust and masculine treatment of the character will be accepted so generally as the more womanly and refi ned interpretation.”6 Booth does not seem aware that prior to Betty, Kemble’s masculine and threatening Hamlet had occupied the stage for twenty years. Gerda Taranow has recently related Sarah Bernhardt’s Hamlet to the performance of female child actors.7 Given that many assumed that Betty was a woman in disguise, and that his amazing success paved the way for child actors of both sexes, it seems reasonable to assume that Bernhardt’s Hamlet owes at least an indirect debt to Betty. Betty’s effeminate Hamlet may have also legitimized theories which we might otherwise dismiss as “crackpot”—including Edward P. Vining’s 1881 theory that Hamlet was actually a woman masquerading as a man. Vining’s defi nition of Hamlet’s “feminine nature” is nearly identical to the qualities ascribed to Betty, details of which include a “small and delicate” body, “daintiness and sensitivity,” “faintness . . . as might trouble a woman,” and “youthful beauty.”8 Even later Freudian theories that Hamlet’s revenge was stunted by Oedipal considerations were likely legitimized, albeit indirectly, because of Betty’s Hamlet and his tender interplay with his mother.

BETTYMANIA AND BYROMANIA On the face of it, there is, or should be, no direct connection. Byron, while going time and again to see Betty, never complimented him publicly: Byron’s most enthusiastic endorsement on record is that he found Betty to be “tolerable in some characters, but by no means equal to the ridiculous praises showered upon him by John Bull.” 9 This was during the height of Bettymania. Byron was far less fl attering once Betty retired to Cambridge. Byron disparaged Betty in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809): “now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania’s o’er, / And full-grown actors are endured once more.”10 Hearing of Betty’s comeback of 1812, Byron wrote to Lord Holland, counseling him not to waste his time: “You may wish to hear of Mr. Betty, whose acting is I fear utterly inadequate to the London engagement into which the Managers of C[ovent] G[arden] have lately entered.—His figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, & as Diggory says, ‘I defy him to extort that d—d muffi n face of his into madness.’ . . . I venture to ‘prognosticate a prophesy’. . . . that he will not succeed.” In another letter, Byron repeated the report—report because there is no evidence of Byron having seen Betty in 1812—that Betty was as fat as “a hippopotamus, his

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BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

face like the Bull and mouth on the pannels of a heavy coach, his arms are fi ns fattened out of shape, his voice the gargling of an Alderman with the quinsey [tonsillitis].”11 Byron’s alleged dislike of Betty was so deeply seated and so widely acknowledged that any decent Byron imitation had to incorporate it. In 1812, James and Horace Smith attributed the following verse on Betty to Byron: . . . how like Young Betty doth he flee! Light as the moat that daunceth in the beam, He liveth only in man’s present e’e; His life a flash, his memory a dream, Oblivious down he drops in Lethe’s stream.12

Byron had nothing but “unqualified praise” for these poetic lines—which argued that Betty was a flash in the pan—and wished that he had written the verse himself.13 Still, it seems a bit much to believe that Byron had nothing but contempt for Betty yet braved the crowds at Drury Lane and Covent Garden on more than one occasion to see him perform. If Betty was so beneath his notice, why did Byron mock him in verse, even after Betty had already declared himself to be a student at Cambridge, and why did Byron collect and repeat anecdotes concerning Betty’s 1812 comeback? This study sides with Romantic scholar Paul Elledge’s speculation that Byron had “an unacknowledged or grudging and emulous respect, a mysterious and nagging fascination, an unwelcome but irresistible magnetism” for Betty.14 We can, at the very least, acknowledge that just as Bettymania reinvigorated interest in theater, so Byromania heralded a new excitement for poetry. Moreover, there are many similarities between the marketing campaigns of Bettymania and the later Byromania. For example, Byron’s publisher, John Murray, understood, as did Betty’s managers, the power of puffery: It is inconceivable how effectually the continued advertisement of a book long previous to publication operates upon people in the country, and upon the booksellers, who, having heard the book mentioned, and having received orders for it, subscribe voraciously; and, indeed, it occasions many people to order or buy the book immediately, who would otherwise have waited for the opinion of their Review, and, had this proved cold or unfavourable, would not have been purchasers.15

There are, too, marked similarities in the ways in which both celebrities were rendered on canvas. The aforementioned Paul Elledge has recently compared James Northcote’s portrait of Betty with Thomas Phillips’s painting of Byron: both Betty and Byron have high foreheads, “profuse light

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curls tumbling past ears onto the necks; large eyes, somewhat protuberant pupils, puffy lids under gracefully arched brows (Betty’s cosmetically enhanced), long, narrow noses, pouty, cupid-bow lips (more pronounced in later renderings of Byron), discreetly cleft chins, a soft, pudgy fleshiness in the oval faces predictive of corpulence.”16 Perhaps most importantly, Byromania, while not employing the trinkets of Bettymania, achieved a similar personalized link between artist and audience. Note, for example, the following 1818 review of Byron’s Childe Harold: Who is there that feels, for a moment, that the [poet’s] voice which reaches the inmost recesses of his heart is speaking to the careless multitudes around him? Or, if we do so remember, the words seem to pass by others like air, and to find their way to the hearts for whom they were intended,—kindred and sympathizing spirits, who discern and own that secret language, of which the privacy is not violated, though spoken in hearing of the uninitiated,—because it is not understood. There is an unobserved beauty that smiles on us alone; and the more beautiful to us, because we feel as if chosen out from a crowd of lovers.17

Georgian painterly conventions or, in the case of Murray, new marketing techniques may explain some of these similarities, but, overall, the point remains: Just as Betty fans could, in the privacy of their homes, stare incessantly at his or her trinket of the boy-actor, so too Byron fans could, in looking upon his portrait or in reading his poetry, imagine themselves in deep communion with the poet.

M ASTER BETTY AND THE YOUNG ROSCIAE THAT FOLLOWED As we saw in chapters 3 and 5, Betty inspired many imitators, including Master Brown, Master Wilson, Miss Mudie, and Betty’s own son, Henry. Yet other actors challenged for the title of “Young Roscius,” both during Betty’s life and thereafter. In 1809, a six-year-old child named Clara Fisher amazed audiences at Bath with her performances of Richard III and Douglas. She was considered “a sort of rival of the famous Master Betty.”18 When she grew up, however, “her talent fell to a very moderate standard.”19 John Howard Payne, the author of “Home Sweet Home” and a number of then-popular plays including Brutus, was, in his teens, a very successful actor. In 1809, he made his debut as Douglas at the Park Theatre, New York. He billed himself as the “American Roscius” and, like Betty, attracted clamorous audiences, one gentleman giving fi fty dollars for a single ticket at his benefit in Baltimore.20 In 1813, Payne traveled to England to try his luck, but he was no longer a boy, and played Drury Lane with “little applause, excepting from the American friends who mustered to support him.”21

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BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

In 1824, the Irish five-year-old boy Joseph Burke was making a name for himself as an actor. By 1830, he was performing at Park Theatre, New York. His roles included Betty mainstays Romeo, Hamlet, and Norval. He also led the orchestra in operatic overtures, played violin solos, and sang humorous songs.22 William Robert Grossmith, age seven years old, made his stage debut on July 7, 1824, at the Coburg Theatre, London, in the part of Richard III. He was billed as “The Infant Roscius.”23 A lesser light, Miss Ellis, “A Young lady, Eleven years of Age” appeared as Lady Anne, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on October 8, 1828.24 Jean Margaret Davenport, born in 1829, played Richard III when she was just eight years old and traveled around the Kent circuit of Canterbury, Rochester, Maidstone, and Sandwich. By age ten, she was also performing as Sir Peter Teazle and, a year later, was playing lead roles, such as Clari in John Howard Payne’s opera The Maid of Milan and Mrs. Haller in Thompson’s tragedy The Stranger. Later, she settled in the United States and, in the 1850s, played opposite Edwin Booth in La Dame aux Camelias.25 In 1830, Master Henry Herbert, age seven and a half, promoted himself as the “Infant Roscius” and was hailed as a theatrical genius by John Cole, a biographer of the actor Edmund Kean.26 In 1844, Fanny Ternan, age eight, was heralded as “undoubtedly the greatest prodigy of dramatic talent that has appeared since the days of Master Betty, and surpassing all that we have heard of that precocious boy in the extraordinary versatility of her talents.”27 The actor John Coleman recalled that when he was fourteen years old, he was bitten by the theatrical bug and, hearing of Betty’s close relationship with William C. Macready, thought his ticket to fame and fortune would be found in applying to the latter for a starring role at Drury Lane. Macready asked him to recite lines from Betty’s favorite role, Douglas. Coleman spouted Betty’s opening speech then, gaining confidence, proceeded to other Betty roles: Hamlet’s fi rst soliloquy and a speech of Zanga. Coleman wrote in his memoirs: “I suppose I must have amused him [Macready], for he came and patted my head, and told me I was too young. I mentioned Master Betty. He laughed, and said Betty was a phenomenon. (It was evident he did not think me one.)”28 On the tenth of December, 1849, E. A. Marshall, manager of the Broadway Theatre, introduced audiences to Kate and Ellen Bateman, whose ages, united, came not to ten years. Ellen played Shylock, Richard III, and Lady Macbeth; Kate performed Richmond, Portia, and Macbeth.29 Managed by P. T. Barnum (the circus impresario who had made his fortune exhibiting albinos, jugglers, magicians, midgets, and mermaids), the girls then appeared at St. James’s Theatre, London (August 23, 1851), where they performed to large and enthusiastic audiences.30 The Era pronounced them to be “the most astonishingly clever artistes that have been exhibited since the days of ‘Master Betty.’ ”31 Miss Lydia Howard, known as “The Baby Actress,” age five, performed in King John, As You

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Figure 15. The Batemen Sisters: Ellen as Richard III, Kate as Richmond (personal collection).

Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest at Princess’s Theatre.32 In Australia, audiences cooed over Miss Ann Maria Quinn, “who is to the colonial stage what Master Betty was to the English drama.”33 Many of these juvenile actors and actresses “clung pertinaciously on to childhood, till they were proved to be thirty, and were only driven away by a combined assault of baptismal registers.”34 Birth certificates and baptism records, however, were not the only enemies. The era of the child actor closed, at least in England, in 1889, when the House of Lords enacted the “Protection of Children’s Bill” relating to the employment of young children on the stage. Some complained that the bill merely protected the public from bad acting, while others claimed it robbed theatrically gifted children of a prodigious fortune.35 In America, no such law was enacted.

BETTY AND MODERN CELEBRITY CULTURE Bettymania may not exactly match our fixation with modern celebrity, though we might easily accept that it anticipated our cultural interests in a number of ways: Consider, for example, Hester Lynch Piozzi’s observation: “Young Roscius’s premature powers attract universal attention.”36 Mrs. Piozzi’s interest in Betty had more to do with what Betty might do than with what he had already done. Equally intrigued with youth, beauty, and

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BETTYMANIA AND THE BIRTH OF CELEBRITY CULTURE

untapped potential, millions of today’s viewers vote for their favorite contestant on American Idol and other talent shows not because they recognize a full-blown ability, but because they see someone seemingly ordinary (in this limited sense, like themselves) who, given the right opportunity, might develop into a star. Secondly and relatedly, people who generated and supported Bettymania basked in a shared sense of glamour; they were not only following the story, they were part of it. We may disagree about religion, politics, greenhouse gases, but we can all chew upon the latest celebrity de jour. Perhaps more importantly, we can do so without giving offense. We are hardly likely to come to fisticuffs discussing whether Paris Hilton’s latest hairdo is a fashion trendsetter or a faux pas. That might not seem like much, but in a world with so much division, any form of social cohesion or civility cannot be dismissed lightly.37 We may also draw parallels not only with Bettymania’s successes but also with its seemingly catastrophic failure. The disappointed David Lester Richardson, writing some thirty-five years after the rage of Bettymania, concluded that he had been conned by “Master Betty, the actor, who was only a surprising boy, and who became but an ordinary man.”38 The idealized child inevitably became the fallen adult. Early movie stars such as the Little Rascals, stars of 220 shorts and one feature fi lm; Shirley Temple, the top grossing star at the American box office during the height of the Great Depression; or, more recently, the TV tykes of The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and Family Ties have all had to adjust to a comparable loss of celebrity status. There is even a show devoted to the phenomenon of the former celebrity: VH1’s Where Are They Now? The episodes often feature interviews with fans who had fanatically amassed merchandise featuring their teen favorites but who now (apologetically and sometimes bitterly) reflect upon their naiveté. Whether supporters of Betty or of more modern celebrities regret their acts of collective allegiance and personal devotion, their recriminations in no way invalidate their idealizations. Even later acrimonious rejections of Betty or, for that matter, of any former celebrity, add to and support the notion of a shared social investment. The real issue is whether fans fully appreciate that modern celebrity and long-term loyalty cannot coexist. Robert Burton writing on Betty in 1805 understood that the celebrity phenomenon of Bettymania would be brief and must end badly: “The fact is, the mob of mankind must have something to idolize, and poor Young Betty like a child overlaid by the mother, will be caressed to death. Exalted by puffi ng to an unmerited elevation, and then depressed to an unmerited oblivion. Such is human nature.”39 Whether called human nature or social behavior, it, coupled with innovations in marketing, created celebrity culture, a force that in 1804–5 allowed a very divided kingdom to unite at last. Though Bettymania only lasted a season or two, modern celebrity culture, nourished by the evanescent thoughts and dreams of millions, has proven to be the center that continues to hold.

Appendix: Betty’s London Performances

THERE IS A SURPRISING AMOUNT of variance to the records of Betty’s London performances. Obviously, playbills are the most accurate historical evidence, but I have been unable to locate copies that confi rm all his London dates and parts. In such cases, I am reliant upon lists drawn up by Betty’s contemporaries and later scholars. The list below is built, fundamentally, upon Sandra K. Norton’s compilation, found in her PhD thesis “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor” (202-10). I have cited the major discrepancies in my footnotes.

FIRST SEASON: Date

Part

Play

Theater

December 1, 1804

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Covent Garden

December 3, 1804

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Covent Garden

December 4, 1804

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

December 5, 1804

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Covent Garden

December 6, 1804

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Covent Garden

December 8, 1804

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

December 10, 1804

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

December 13, 1804

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

December 15, 1804

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane

January 28, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

January 31, 1805

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Covent Garden

February 2, 1805

Octavian

Mountaineers

Covent Garden

157

158

APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

February 5, 1805

Octavian

Mountaineers

Covent Garden

February 7, 1805

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Covent Garden

February 9, 1805

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Covent Garden

February 11, 1805

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda

Covent Garden1

February 13, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

February 15, 1805

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane

February 19, 1805

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Drury Lane

February 20, 1805

Orestes

Distressed Mother

Covent Garden 2

February 21, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

February 22, 1805

Dorilas

Merope

Drury Lane3

February 23, 1805

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda

Drury Lane

February 26, 1805

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda

Drury Lane

February 27, 1805

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Drury Lane4

February 28, 1805

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Drury Lane

March 2, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

March 4, 1805

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Drury Lane

1 A Times advertisement, February 11, 1805, for this performance states that this will be Betty’s “last Appearance at this Theatre till after Easter.” 2 Cited with some qualms by Norton, who cites Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 8:1. But Genest cites this performace as February 22, 1806, not 1805. See note 1 which confirms that this is probably a ghost performance. 3 Norton lists the performance, though with some hesitation. It is cited in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 8:1, though at Covent Garden, not, as Norton asserts, at Drury Lane. Both Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12, and Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, fail to cite this performance. 4 Cited by Norton, but not cited in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12, nor in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486.

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APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

March 7, 1805

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Drury Lane5

March 9, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

March 11, 1805

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane

March 14, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane6

March 16, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

March 18, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

March 21, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

March 23, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

March 25, 1805

Romeo

Romeoand Juliet

Drury Lane7

March 28, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

March 30, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

April 1, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

April 2, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

April 4, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

April 6, 1805

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane8

April 8, 1805

Richard III

Richard III

Covent Garden9

April 15, 1805

Rolla

Pizarro

Drury Lane10

5 Not cited in Norton, nor in Genest, though it is cited in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12, and in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486. 6 Cited in Sandra K. Norton’s list and in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:648; not cited in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13, nor in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486. 7 Not in Sandra K. Norton, nor in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, but cited in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, and in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12. 8 Not cited in Sandra K. Norton, nor in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, but is cited in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, and in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12. 9 Not cited in Sandra K. Norton, nor in Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12, but it is cited by John Genest, who lists this performance as Betty’s last at Covent Garden for the season (Some Account of the English Stage, 8:3). 10 Cited by Sandra K. Norton but not cited in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 12, nor in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage.

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APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

April 16, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

April 18, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

April 19, 1805

Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane11

April 20, 1805

Osman

Zara

Covent Garden

April 22, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

April 23, 1805

Osman

Zara

Covent Garden12

April 25, 1805

Osman

Zara

Covent Garden

April 27, 1805

Osman

Zara

Covent Garden

April 29, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden

May 2, 1805

Richard III

Richard III

Drury Lane13

May 4, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

May 6, 1805

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda

Covent Garden

May 8, 1805

Richard III

Richard III

Covent Garden

May 10, 1805

Osman

Zara

Covent Garden

May 11, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

May 13, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden

May 15, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

May 17, 1805

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Covent Garden

May 18, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

May 20, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden

11 Not cited in Sandra K. Norton, Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13, but is cited by Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:707. 12 Genest cites a non-Betty performance of Henry VIII for this date (Some Account of the English Stage, 8:4). 13 Cited by Sandra K. Norton but not cited in James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13.

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APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

May 21, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

May 24, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden14

June 23, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden15

SECOND LONDON SEASON:16 Date

Part

Play

Theater

December 16, 1805

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

December 21, 1805

Frederick

Lover’s Vows

Drury Lane

December 25, 1805 Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Covent Garden17

December 27, 1805

Romeo and Juliet

Covent Garden

December 28, 1805 Gustavus

Gustavas Vasa

Covent Garden

December 31, 1805

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden

January 2, 1806

Macbeth

Macbeth

Drury Lane

January 4, 1806

Macbeth

Macbeth

Drury Lane

January 6, 1806

Osman

Zara

Drury Lane

January 8, 1806

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Covent Garden

Romeo

14 This according to the Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany, 67 (1805): 642. Not cited in Sandra K. Norton’s list, nor in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, nor in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486, nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13. The date may be wrong. See Thomas Lister Parker’s letter of May 24, 1805, which states that Betty played “last night”—presumably May 23rd, though the part itself remains unstated (Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467). Finally, on the topic of Betty’s Hamlet, there may be yet another performance to cite. The Aberdeen Journal, June 5, 1805, reported that Betty’s recent performance of Hamlet was his last appearance at Covent Garden for the season. May 24, 1805 seems a bit late for an article date June 5, 1805. 15 Performance recorded cited in Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:672; cited by Sandra K. Norton, though with some qualms. Not listed in Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486), nor in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13. 16 Aside from Norton, no one has hitherto bothered to compile Betty’s second London season in full. 17 Date from Munden, Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian, 125. Sandra K. Norton lists this performance as taking place on December 23, 1805 (“William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 207).

162

APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

January 11, 1806

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Drury Lane

January 14, 1806

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Drury Lane

January 16, 1806

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

January 18, 1806

Orestes

Distressed Mother

Drury Lane

January 24, 1806

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda

Covent Garden

January 28, 1806

Earl Osmond

Castle Spectre

Drury Lane

February 1, 1806

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

February 11, 1806

Hamlet

Hamlet

Drury Lane

February 15, 1806

Zanga

The Revenge

Drury Lane

February 18, 1806

Rolla

Pizarro

Covent Garden

February 22, 1806

Dorilas

Merope

Covent Garden

February 25, 1806

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Unknown18

March 1, 1806

Dorilas

Merope

Drury Lane

March 11, 1806

Romeo

Romeo and Juliet

Drury Lane

March 20, 1806

Hamlet

Hamlet

Covent Garden

March 22, 1806

Oroonoko

Oroonoko

Covent Garden

March 25, 1806

Macbeth

Macbeth

Drury Lane

March 29, 1806

Warwick

Earl of Warwick

Drury Lane

April 8, 1806

Richard III

Richard III

Covent Garden

April 15, 1806

Warwick

Earl of Warwick

Covent Garden

April 17, 1806

Douglas/Norval

Douglas

Drury Lane

18 Mentioned in a letter by Jane Porter to her sister Anna Maria Porter, February 22, 1806: “I am going tonight to the theatre—on Tuesday [February 25], I am going to see Betty in Douglas.” My thanks to Devaney Looser, who alerted me to this reference, found in Huntington Library MS Por 1584, Box 31. Not cited in any other source consulted.

163

APPENDIX: BETTY’S LONDON PERFORMANCES

April 19, 1806

Achmet/Selim

Barbarossa

Drury Lane

May 13, 1806

Warwick

Earl of Warwick

Drury Lane

May 17, 1806

Tancred

Tancred and Sigismunda AND Captain Flash Miss in Her Teens

Drury Lane19

19 This was, according to Boaden, a benefit performance, for which he earned £301.14s (Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 497).

Notes I NTRODUCTION 1. Press clipping in Playbills-Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 2. Theatrical Inquisitor, and Monthly Mirror (April 1818): 230. 3. Byron to Augusta Leigh, April 25, 1805, Byron’s Letters and Journals 1:67. Technically, Byron was already a poet, though not yet an icon. His fi rst book of verse, Fugitive Pieces, was printed in the autumn of 1806, but the collection contained poems written as early as 1802. 4. Playfair, Prodigy, 63. See also Paul Elledge, who has an account of the Liverpool riot in Lord Byron at Harrow School, 87. The anonymous Critique on the First Performance of Young Roscius reported that “the Pit presented a nouvelle appearance. There was scarcely a female in it” (13). The Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804, reported that there were “not about 20” women in the theater. On December 5, 1804, the Times reported that women, fearing another riot, also stayed away from Betty’s second London performance, in which he appeared as Douglas. 5. Annual Register, 46 (1806 for 1804): 437. 6. Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:298. There may be some authorial excess at play. The Times, December 3, 1804, reported no serious injuries. 7. Critique on the First Performance of Young Roscius, 13. 8. Ipswich Journal, December 22, 1804. 9. Press clipping in Playbills-Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard; Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, the English Roscius, 12. The duelists were promptly arrested by officers. 10. Monthly Mirror 19 (1805), 133. A variety of undated press clippings add to the sense of unabated attention: “The Young Roscius performed Douglas last night to as crowded an audience as any of the season”; “The Young Roscius performed Hamlet again on Saturday night, and, from the appearance of the house, public curiosity increases to behold this surprising boy” (both found in Clips—Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard). 11. Aberdeen Journal, June 5, 1805. The same paper reported that his recent performance of Hamlet ( June 3?) was his last appearance at Covent Garden for the season. For more on the problems of Betty’s performance dates, see appendix A. 12. Henry Barton Baker, Our Old Actors, 2:246. 13. Caledonian Mercury, December 6, 1804; Morning Chronicle, February 8, 1805. 14. The Caledonian Mercury, December 8, 1804, reported that the lady sat “literally en chemise. Her shawl, pelisse, bonnet, and shoes were left amidst ‘the wreck of baser matter.’ ” She was watching a performance of Betty in Douglas. 15. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 1:495. 16. Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 314. Betty lived in Southampton-Row, which adjoins the southeast corner of Russell Square. The Ipswich Journal, December 22, 1804, reported that the “front of his [Betty’s] lodgings . . . is constantly thronged.” 17. Times, December 4, 1804. Some traveled from great distances on foot to see Betty. The Penny magazine recorded the following conversation between two work-classmen, who meet on their way to Birmingham: “Oi say, sirree, where be’est thee gwain?” “Oi’m agwain to Brummajum.” “What be’est thee agwain there for?” “Oi’m agwain to see the Young Rocus” (reprinted in Timbs, English Eccentrics and Eccentricities, 365). The tone is obviously comic, but it does suggest broad interest in seeing Betty.

165

166

NOTES

18. Morning Chronicle, December 17, 1804. 19. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 10. Authorial attribution made by the New York Public Library online catalog. One of the medical bulletins is quoted in chapter 2. 20. The Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804, reported that the king and queen meet Betty immediately after his fi rst performance, but no other paper agrees. The Ipswich Journal, December 15, 1804, and other papers around the same day all report the king, queen, and princesses’ royal visit to Drury Lane for the purpose of meeting Betty. Betty performed at Drury Lane on December 13. See appendix A. That the king was entranced by Betty is disputed by John William Cole, who notes that George III, supposedly insane for much of the Regency, seems to have been the only one who was clearheaded about the boy: “Pooh, pooh,” he declared, “I don’t care for clever boys; I’ll wait till he’s a man” (Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, 1:124). 21. The evening meal took place on December 13, 1804, the same night he likely met the royal family. See Morning Chronicle, December 15, 1804. On Betty’s visit to the Tower, see Harry Graham, Splendid Failures, 144. The Duke of Clarence also lunched with him at Bellemy’s, a restaurant within the House of Commons. Thereafter, “Several members of Parliament came up and conversed with him.” See undated press clipping, NYC Library at Lincoln Center, MWEZ.N.C.11 745. According to the Derby Mercury, January 31, 1805, Betty visited the House of Commons on January 26, 1805, and spent fifteen minutes examining the throne and robing room, but the Derby makes no mention of the Duke of Clarence. Still, January 26, 1805, remains a likely date. The Duke of Clarence’s mistress, Mrs. Jordan, was not as receptive to Betty. On this point, see introduction and chapters 3 and 4. 22. Caledonian Mercury, December 8, 1804. The story was repeated in the Aberdeen Journal, December 12, 1804. See also Ward, Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 94. The prince applauded Betty’s Selim (Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804). In addition, His Royal Highness conspicuously attended Betty’s performance of Douglas “and was most warm in applauding the novel excellence in the entertainment of the evening” (Times, December 5, 1804). The review takes a full paragraph to note the prince’s attendance and delight. The prince’s open and continuous applause at this Betty performance was also noted by Caledonian Mercury, December 8, 1804. Before we leave the royals, one more piece of Betty-related information may be of use to scholars: Prince Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, commanded a performance of Betty’s Richard III at Sheffield (Roscius in London, 28). The exact date of the Sheffield command performance is not listed, though according to George Davies Harley, Betty played Richard III in Sheffield on September 19 and October 1, 1804. See his Authentic Biographical Sketch, 52. 23. Morning Chronicle, November 27, 1805. 24. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 12. Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:298. Doran states that Betty’s hair was auburn, but most pictures opt for a vivid blond. Robert Burton recorded that his hair was “light brown” (Young Roscius Dissected, 16). 25. William Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, in Letters of the Wordsworth Family from 1787 to 1855, 1:174. 26. T. L. Parker, unpublished letter to Betty Sr., dated November 13, 1804, found in Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 27. A print of Betty’s dog Pug can be found in T-Iconography, William-Henry Betty, Lincoln Center, NYPL. Stella Tillyard speculates that the rarity of the celebrity contributed to the public’s curiosity. See her “Celebrity in 18th-century London,” 22. Claire Brock notes that the era displayed a new and unusual “obsession with instantaneous, multi-media forms of representation.” See her Feminization of Fame, 2. 28. Betty made ₤1,200 for one Covent Garden benefit (Dunlap, Memoirs of the Life of George Cooke, 1:332). The amount is disputed. See chapter 2, footnote 168. 29. The monetary adjustment is based on the Inflation Calculator found on the Web site for the Bank of England. A single pound in 1803 would have been worth a little over ₤77 in 2008. 2009 annual inflation is, as of this writing, not available. 30. The modern sense of the word celebrity—OED 4, “a person of celebrity; a celebrated person; a public character”—was fi rst used in 1849, well after Bettymania. The

NOTES

167

OED can be notoriously inaccurate in terms of dates, still, it offers us a sense of the novelty of the word celebrity in the early nineteenth century. Ghislaine McDayter notes the struggle to create a “critical vocabulary needed to articulate not simply a new structure of poetic identity, the Byronic, but also a new cultural phenomenon, celebrity” (“Conjuring Byron: Byromania, Literary Commodification and the Birth of Celebrity,” 45). Andrew Elfenbein asserts that celebrity was “for Victorian writers a vivid and, to some, distasteful image of what fame meant in a capitalist literary system” (Byron and the Victorians, 47). 31. See Tyler Cowen, who writes: “short-term celebrity is based on commercial factors far more than is long-term fame” (What Price Fame?, 79). The same point is made in Turner, Understanding Celebrity, 4. The late characterization of what constitutes celebrity, as opposed to fame, probably contributes to its hazy ontological status. Leo Braudy notes that modern renown is accompanied by a general rise of individualism at the cost of a reverence for traditional social hierarchies, but he still envokes the anachronistic language of “fame” or the nearly oxymoronic “modern fame” (Frenzy of Renown, vii). To Claire Brock, fame and celebrity are synonymous, as in the following: “With the increasing demands of an audience to be entertained by contemporary celebrities, fameseekers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had to become skilled in a more instantaneous, spontaneous form of glory” (emphasis my own). Later in her study, she defi nes fame not as something that is enduring, but, like the now-standard defi nition of celebrity, as something that is “fickle” and “certain to fade” (Feminization of Fame, 10, 14). 32. Piozzi, British Synonymy, 134. 33. His cultural elevation, according to an anonymous letter in the Monthly Magazine, was due to the unstinting efforts of Alexander Catcott, vicar of the Temple Church, Bristol, “on whom Chatterton has reflected a celebrity which he would otherwise have sought in vain” (vol. 2. [ Jul–Dec.1796]: 614). Margaret Russett and Joseph A. Dane refer to Chatterton as “an avatar of modern celebrity” but also suggest that the debate as to who is the fi rst celebrity is “overblown.” See their article, “ ‘Everlastinge to Posterytie’: Chatterton’s Spirited Youth,” 141. On Betty and Chatterton, see chapter 1, footnote 2. 34. Byrne, Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson, 16, 165, 119. See also Claire Brock, who notes the early celebrity’s “apparent discomfort” with the media spotlight but disputes that she was publicity shy: “Far from shrinking from the glare of publicity, Mary Robinson embraced the exposure.” Feminization of Fame, 79, 82, 83. 35. Keevak, Pretended Asian: George Psalmanazer’s Eighteenth-Century Formosan Hoax, 36. Nonetheless, Keevak refers to Psalmanazar as a “celebrity” on pages 6, 28, and 36. 36. Mole, Byron’s Romantic Celebrity, 9. 37. Doran, In and about Drury Lane, 1:26; see also Doran’s Their Majesties’ Servants, in which he writes that audiences were told to go see Betty early and return home early, “if they would not be taken for traitors” (2:296). 38. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 2; text also reprinted in Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75): 29. 39. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, [4]. 40. Betty played Douglas, Rolla, and Romeo over the next three nights, according to Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper, May 31, 1846. 41. Murphy, Life of David Garrick, 1:38–39. 42. Ibid., 1:39, mistakenly printed “Paris” rather than “Phoenix”; corrected by Fitzgerald (Life of David Garrick, 1:125). Five years later, Garrick again traveled to Dublin for a season where he managed and directed at the Smock Alley Theatre in conjunction with Thomas Sheridan, the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 43. Mole, Byron’s Romantic Celebrity, 7. 44. Italicization follows Arthur Murphy, Life of David Garrick, 1:174. 45. Oya, Representing Shakespearean Tragedy: Garrick, the Kembles, and Kean, 50.

168

NOTES

46. Vanessa Cunningham argues that many of Garrick’s portraits promoted him not as an actor but as an author (Shakespeare and Garrick, 167–68). 47. Mole, Byron’s Romantic Celebrity, 9. 48. I have been unable to trace whether theses knickknacks were produced, commissioned, or licensed by Betty’s management, or whether commercial interests simply stepped in without seeking permission. That being said, Betty Sr. did pay for a variety of promotional prints, which he had sold throughout London. Further, he seems to have had an eye on the market, even complaining that one image of his son, on free display at the Royal Academy, “would injure the sale of the Print from it” (Morning Chronicle, April 20, 1805). See chapter 2. 49. There is something entirely modern about this aspect of Bettymania. All that seems missing are the t-shirts and roadside billboards. Moreover, this marketing of Betty does not easily fit our traditional notions of Romantic consumerism. Judith Pascoe has recently argued that Romantic collectors reflected that culture’s new awareness of the past as an idealized lost world, “partly salvageable through the recovery and preservation of old objects and documents” (Hummingbird Cabinet: A Rare and Curious History of Romantic Collectors, 4). However, her premise, while workable for palaeolatry collectibles (i.e., fi rst folios of Shakespeare), does not address the marketing of new items or the celebrity tie-ins so common during Bettymania. McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb assert that new promotional techniques were central to the development of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century consumerism, but, curiously, do not link them to Bettymania or celebrity culture (Birth of a Consumer Society, 142). Frances Bonner dates the full development of modern celebrity to ca.1910–20—“full” is defi ned as the ability of the celebrity to work as a pitchman for “new consumer ideals” (“Celebrity in the text,” 65). 50. Sterne, Journal to Eliza, 141. 51. Here too, the link to modern celebrity culture is apparent. Jessica Evans notes that “typical” celebrity images, particularly close-ups, allow the viewer the feeling of “peering into his [the celebrity’s] soul” (“Celebrity, media and history,” 13). Likewise, Joseph Roach has recently focused on images of the lone actor or model, which “circulate widely in the absence of their persons . . . but the very tension between their widespread visibility and their actual remoteness creates an unfi lled need in the heart of the public. One aspect of this need manifests itself as a craving to communicate with the privately embodied source of the aura” (“Public Intimacy: The Prior History of ‘It,’ ” 16). On the importance of Roach’s work, see Luckhurst and Moody, Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660–2000, 5. 52. John Merritt, who wrote perhaps the most popular of Betty biographies, labeled the various narratives of his rivals as “altogether fabulous, and all of them very erroneous” (Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 11). 53. Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 3–4. 54. Nonetheless, the idea that Mary Betty was an actress was oft repeated as late as 1806. See Stephens, Public Characters, 504. The Belfast News-Letter, August 19, 1874, mistakenly reported that Mrs. Betty was “fond of theatricals.” 55. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 2. 56. Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 14; Roscius in London, 6; Authentic Sketch, 9; John Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, II:296; Doran, In and About Drury Lane, 1:26; Henry Barton Baker English Actors, 2:185; Stephens, Public Characters of 1806, 508; Merritt, Life of Wm. West Henry Betty, 27. Still more problematically, Anthony Denning has recently cited one line from a review of Betty’s Belfast debut: “a wonderful genius in Theatric Oratory” (Belfast News-Letter, August 16, 1803). The date suggests that the performance was August 15 at the latest, but, as Giles Playfair points out, this was an advertisement, not a review. See Playfair, Prodigy, 26, and Denning, Theatre in the Cotswolds, 159. 57. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 5; Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 11. Joseph Farington had it on good authority that the boy began acting at age five (The Farington Diary, 2:288).

NOTES

169

58. For Liverpool: Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 8, Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 58, and Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 33. For Sheffield see, Bentley’s Miscellany, 42 (1857): 412. For acceptance of offer, see Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 28. 59. John Doran allowed Betty “three or four days” to learn the part (Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:300). According to George Davies Harley, Betty did his memorizing on an empty stomach, for the prodigy only studied his parts before breakfast, “and he seldom look[ed] at a book afterwards” (Authentic Biographical Sketch, 60); repeated in Salopian Shreds and Patches 4 (1880–81): 196. The Dictionary of National Biography believes Betty memorized Hamlet in just three hours (4:442). On a lack of acting coach, see Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 2. 60. As recorded by Leigh Hunt, Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, 402. 61. Amory, Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley, 266. 62. Croker, Familiar Epistles, xii. In the case of Bettymania, there was also some deliberate anti-puffi ng. Robert Burton, for example, stated that reports of full houses and universal applause were overdone: “in reality the audience was thin, and the approbation very little” (Young Roscius Dissected, 20). However, Burton was a Betty-detractor, and his version of events does not jive with the many repeated reports of riots and full houses. 63. W. P. Russel, Prose-Rosciad, 27. Russel was a known Betty-detractor, so it may well be that he was exaggerating here. 64. Times, February 4, 1805; emphasis my own. 65. John Campbell, Life of John, Lord Campbell, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, 1:111. 66. See Jonson’s poem “On Salathiel Pavy,” sometimes entitled “Epitaph on S.P, a Child of Q[ueen] El[izabeth’s] Chapel,” Epigrams, 120. 67. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:174. 68. MacQueen-Pope, Edmund Kean, 15. 69. Plotz, Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood, 39. 70. On social pressures facing the United Kingdom, see Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” in Essential Thompson, esp. 357–66. See Morris, who pointed out that the British “middle class” of this era found its collective identity not through any allegiance to government but in a network of voluntary associations, which gave coherence to an otherwise fragmented society (Class, Sect and Party, 167). 71. Hull Packet, December 11, 1804. 72. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 10. 73. Authentic Sketch, 11. 74. Wonderful Theatrical Progress of Betty, 48. 75. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 46; repeated in Rosicus in London, 16. 76. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:173. 77. Harral, Infant Roscius, 49–50. 78. Leigh Hunt, News, May 19, 1805. 79. Leigh Hunt, News, December 29, 1805 (date penciled), found in Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 80. “To the Editor of The Times,” Times, Friday, December 14, 1804, Press Clippings, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden. 81. The phenomenon was not limited to Betty. As Leo Braudy notes, both Napoleon and Byron “lived in a world in which the audience was beginning to expect some participation in creating the greatness of their idols as a mirror of their own. Once the message of fame was sent out by their very visible careers, it could return in an incredibly expanded form” (Frenzy of Renown, 407). 82. “Covent-Garden Theatre,” Times, February 8, 1805. 83. “Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’” in Griffith, Reminiscences and Records, 333. See also “Young Roscius, Theatre, Kelso, Berwick Company of Comedians,” Press Clippings, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden; a similar narrative is in the Era, February 27, 1853.

170

NOTES

84. French, Mrs Siddons: Tragic Actress, 218. 85. Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:256; see also “Old Playbills and Prints: Drury Lane and Covent Garden,” Times, December 13, 1951. 86. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 13. 87. Russel’s theory is discussed in chapter 4. 88. Times, December 5, 1804, as cited by Carlson, “Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 593–94. 89. Woodward, Bettyad, 13. 90. Jackson, Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius, 19–20; Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804. 91. Stephens, Public Characters of 1806, 503; reprinted in Georgian Era 4 (1834): 457. 92. As recorded in Hazlitt, Complete Works of William Hazlitt 11:196. The anecdote is repeated in Gwynn, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter, 253–54. Germaine Greer notes that Apollo is so thoroughly “associated with physical perfection that every idealized representation of the young male nude is likely to be given his name” (Beautiful Boy, 38). See also Stephen O. Murray’s recent study Homosexualities, 373. Relatedly, William Hazlitt described Betty as a Sylvan shepherd, “murmuring Æolian sounds with plaintive tenderness” (Complete Works of William Hazlitt 8:294). 93. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 130. 94. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 10. 95. For Wellesley, see Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School, 92, who cites an obituary in the Times, 1876. For Elizabeth Inchbald, see her “Remarks,” in Brown, Barbarossa, 5. 96. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:258n. 97. Stella Tillyard argues that the standard rise-and-fall-narrative of the modern celebrity is a recent development, dating to perhaps only the early twentieth century. See her “Celebrity in 18th-Century London,” 20–21, 27, and “ ‘Paths of Glory’: Fame and the Public in Eighteenth-Century London,” 61. However, given the suicide narrative of Chatterton and the brief but dramatic events of Bettymania, it seems safer to say that this element of modern celebrity culture was already in place by the Georgian era.

CHAPTER 1. BETTYMANIAS 1. Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 36–37. 2. Giles Playfair calls Betty Sr. a “squanderer, with a squanderer’s greed for money”; on selling of land, see Prodigy, 16–17. Sandra K. Norton disagrees, citing the property as proof of “solvency” (“William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 11). In support of Playfair’s opinion, we may turn to the Theatrical Times, which notes that Master Betty’s son Henry was the “rightful heir, through his mother, to the manor and lands of Hopton Wafers in the county of Salop, though deprived of this inheritance through some of those delightful peculiarities of the law, which render it ‘a mockery of justice, and a snare to the innocent’ ” (vol.1 [ June-December 1847]:194). These fi nancial details were not shared with the general public. One periodical compared Master Betty to the youthful genius Chatterton but suggested that, unlike Chatterton, Betty never had to worry over money: “In the lap of leisure, secure from the storms of indigence, he was never condemned to mourn over the pages of Shakespeare by the feeble gleanings of a midnight taper. He enjoyed all that affection and indulgence could procure—a mind exempted from pecuniary anxiety—a day unclouded by the frown of insolence.” See Saunterer: A Periodical Paper, 1:80. 3. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 17. The year and season of the move to Ireland are found in Manchester Times and Gazette, May 29, 1846. 4. Daly, Social and Economic History of Ireland Since 1800, 11–12.

NOTES

171

5. Roscius in London, 59n; also reported in the Caledonian Mercury, December 22, 1804. Betty’s Liverpool dates began on October 10 (Broadbent, Annals of the Liverpool Stage, 117), so she was about two months old when he made this speech. More details on Marianne Euphemia’s birth are found later in this chapter. 6. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 1. 7. Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:301. 8. Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 8–9. The theater historian Cecil Ferard Armstrong thought the remark important enough to reiterate: “His mind received impressions like a highly sensitive photographic plate, his voice recorded sounds and tones it heard with far more accuracy than the most perfect phonograph. . . . In fact, his was, at the time, the mimetic faculty developed to the highest point of perfection” (Century of Great Actors, 1750–1850, 317). 9. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 102n. 10. Swords remained important in cavalry charges but not in troop combat. 11. Trevor-Roper, Renaissance Essays, 143. 12. Furlong, Fr. John Murphy of Boolavogue: 1753–1798, 146. According to Richard Hayes, at the massacre of Ballinamuck, the French assisted in the slaughter of the Irish. See Last Invasion of Ireland, 151. 13. It is possible that the Bettys had already decamped. According to Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, at the commencement of the rebellion, the family rented their house at Lisburn to the officers of the twenty-second Light Dragoons (2). Where they went from Lisburn is not recorded. It is possible the money was used to rent a house at a safer location. Still, the Bettys would have worried over their Ballynahinch property and certainly would have seen the damage to the town upon their return. 14. See Pakenham, Year of Liberty: The Story of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1798, 230–31. Pakenham noted that in 1798 Irish women in Ballynahinch brought oatcakes to the rebel soldiers, while Irishmen leery of the rebels’ chances against the English “retired to the safety of the Slieve Croob and the mountains beyond” (227). He makes no mention of English loyalists, who must have been few in number. On the sound of cannonade, see The Town Book of the Corporation of Belfast, 1613–1816, xiii. 15. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 19. See also John Fairburn, who writes: “Mary Betty took charge of her son’s education because, she felt, she had to keep him away from the taint of the Irish accent: ‘she saw that her son could not possibly acquire it [proper English enunciation] by any other means’ ” (Life of the Celebrated Young Roscius, 4). 16. Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:300. 17. Atlantic Monthly 55 (1885): 24. See chapter 4, footnote 80, for Frederick Reynolds’s insult concerning Betty’s inability to pronounce the letter “h.” 18. Date according to the Belfast News-Letter, August 19, 1874. 19. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 2. 20. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 22. 21. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 23. The amount of family opposition is open to debate: According to Edmund Shorthouse, Betty’s relatives warned the young couple that “if they did not take care, their boy would become a play-actor!” (Present to Youths and Young Men, 111). No contemporaneous document supports the anecdote, which seems to be Shorthouse’s fabrication. While some accounts differ, most agree that his mother, noting her son’s interest in theater, taught him passages from English plays, among them Douglas, a mainstay in his later repertoire. But she taught him these speeches only to ensure that his accent remained purely English (Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 1). 22. Theatrical Inquisitor, and Monthly Mirror (April 1818): 227–28. The anonymous author states that Betty’s age here was eight, and that his mother aided in his theatrical tutorials—more errors of fact. 23. On the background of Emmet’s key followers: Thomas Keenan, Henry Howley, John McIntoch, John Hayes, Edward Kearney, Michael Kelly, and John Killeen were carpenters; James Byrne, John Begg, and Owen Kirwin were tailors; Maxwell Roche was a slater; Denis Lambert Redmond worked as a coal miner; John McCann was

172

NOTES

a shoemaker; Felix Rourke was a farm laborer; and Nicholas Tyrrell was a factory worker. 24. Emmet apologists argue that the leader had nothing to do with these assassinations; some go so far as to say that Emmet was not even present to witness the attacks. They note that at his trial Emmet apparently said to and of the British: “We will not imitate you in cruelty; we will put no man to death in cold blood.” See, for example, Geoghegan, Robert Emmet: A Life, 179. But it is difficult to believe that Emmet had considered rockets—much less pikes, swords, and pistols—to be nonlethal weapons. Besides, if Emmet and others were angry about the execution of William Orr, they could hardly blame Kilwarden for that. According to William Orr’s own dying declaration, he had been found guilty by jury, and the “judge, who condemned me, humanely shed tears in uttering my sentence.” See Mac Nevin, Lives and Trials of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, 491. 25. The normal time for curfew was 9:00 p.m., at which moment even those within doors were obliged to snuff out all lights. See Parliamentary History of England From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, 33:1354. 26. Molloy, Romance of the Irish Stage, 2:244–45. 27. Ibid., 2:254. Frederick Jones bought out Daly on very magnanimous terms: ₤800 a year for life and ₤400 a year for the lives of his children (Ibid., 2:251). The Crow Street Theatre became a Theatre Royal when Spranger Barry and Henry Woodward acquired the patent in 1759; the patent was renewed on June 25, 1798 (Fitzpatrick, Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account of the City, 251; Molloy, Romance of the Irish Stage, 2:252). 28. At least that was the charge. See Senior, Orangeism in Ireland and Britain 1795– 1836, 82. 29. Transcription of playbill found in Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, The English Roscius, 2. 30. Doran, In and About Drury Lane, 1:26. However, it may well be that the new curfew was 10:00 p.m: “Martial law was still in force, and the theatre had to be closed by nine o’clock; but to oblige the manager, ‘the drums had been ordered to beat an hour later than usual’ ” (Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:303). 31. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 2. On the possibility that the date is wrong, see introduction. 32. Lennon, Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History, 115. 33. Aaron Hill, Zara, Act 1, p. 25. 34. Ibid., Act 5, p. 83. 35. Betty closed his Belfast dates with Romeo on August 29, 1803. The dates of Betty’s Belfast performances are derived from Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 3. 36. Doran, In and About Drury Lane, 1:33. 37. The date of the performance is open to some debate. November 28, 1803, is cited in Thomas Harral, Infant Roscius, 14; Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 16 and in the anonymous Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 12. John Doran lists the date as November 29, 1803 (In and About Drury Lane, 1:32). 38. Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 84. 39. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 35. 40. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 3. 41. Excerpted reviews from Giles Playfair, Prodigy, 33. 42. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 36. 43. Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 13. 44. Excerpted reviews from Playfair, Prodigy, 33. 45. Norton, “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 20–22; Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 4. 46. On Jackson’s visit, see Sandra K. Norton, “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 21; Scottish dates confi rmed in Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 4.

NOTES

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47. See Norton, “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 22. 48. She was also upset when some began to say that she herself had been an actress: “Rumour had stated, that Mrs. Betty had been an actress in private and provincial theatres, and that, by the most persevering efforts, she had literally drilled her son into an Actor. This statement has been positively contradicted” (Harral, Infant Roscius, 12). 49. Robison, as cited in Playfair, Prodigy, 17. Playfair states that he consulted the letter in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The online catalog lists no such letter. I contacted librarian Elaine Lucas of the V and A for assistance, but she too was unsuccessful. Thomas Asline Ward reported that Robison was a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University from 1774 to 1805 and was willing to “provide handsomely for Betty” on the stipulation that the boy give up the stage in favor of the bar (Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 49). A Professor Robinson, according to the Ipswich Journal, October 20, 1804, petitioned the lord chancellor of England against Betty appearing at any of the major London theaters, and a Professor Robinson of Edinburgh is mentioned in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius as being willing to pay for Betty’s legal training (27). In any case, Betty, who had never been to a proper school, was incapable of rigorous academic study. For more on Betty’s lack of education, see chapters 4 and 5. Lastly, the talk almost certainly took place in Edinburgh not Belfast, but the narrative does clarify Mary Betty’s views on parading her son across the United Kingdom. 50. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 41; see also Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 14. 51. See Annual Register 46 (1806 for 1804): 446. Betty’s Birmingham dates commenced August 13,, 1804. 52. Mackay, Romantic Story of the Highland Garb and the Tartan, 172. 53. Cited in Mackay, Romantic Story of the Highland Garb and the Tartan, 177–78. 54. Ibid., 185. The need to invent patterns of the past also explains the popularity of James Macpherson’s poems, which he said were the lost works of a poet named Ossian, and John Pinkerton’s publication of supposedly lost Scottish ballads. Both, to varying extents, were imaginative projects that added words to the cultural void created by King George’s 1746 statute. 55. As Mackay writes, under the Stuarts, “each clan lived a separate community by itself, bound together by the ties of clanship whose rights they were bound to support” (Ibid., 169). 56. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 43. 57. The Morning Chronicle, January 29, 1805, noted that for his London performances of Douglas Betty sported “the garb of a Scottish warrior, with a spear in his hand, and his claigmore [read: claymore, or Scottish broadsword] by his side.” See also Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 17. 58. A second picture of Betty as Douglas is found in chapter 4. 59. Even without the nationalistic overtones of a production of Douglas in Scotland, Betty’s entrance could be startling. Recalled an actress in the Birmingham cast: “Master Betty made his fi rst appearance in Birmingham in the character of Young Norval [read: Douglas]. His looks upon his entrance fascinated and rivetted the attention of the audience. His youthful figure was graceful in the extreme, and the picturesque Highland costume displayed it to the utmost advantage” (“Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’ ” in Griffith, Reminiscences and Records, 332–33). 60. Tribute to the Genius of the Young Roscius, 17–18. 61. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 43. 62. On parts and dates, see Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 4; Jackson, Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius 31; Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 11. 63. Croker, Familiar Epistles to Frederick E. J—s, Esq. on Present State of the Irish Stage (1804). By 1806, it had gone through five editions. The “J—s” refers to Mr. Jones, the manager of the Dublin Theatre.

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64. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 36. 65. According to John Merritt, the author came under immediate threat of his life and had to flee Glasgow (Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 44). This may suggest that the theater was willing to hire an enforcer to ensure good reviews, or it may indicate that those who had seen Betty objected violently to any criticism of him. If the latter, the comparison to Bettymania in Ireland is of interest. In Belfast and Dublin, Betty was allowed to perform because the authorities thought he might somehow lessen tensions and violence; in Glasgow, his performances had the opposite effect. 66. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 42. 67. Jackson, Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius, 41–42. 68. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:157–58. 69. Jackson, Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius, 42. 70. Ibid., 42; repeated with slight variance in Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 18–19. 71. Donaldson, Recollections of an Actor, 21. 72. Morning Chronicle, August 24, 1804. 73. See Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 13. 74. Morning Chronicle, August 24, 1804; Ipswich Journal, September 1,1804; Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 13–14; Dunlap, Memoirs of the Life of George Frederick Cooke 1:328–29; Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:157; Lennox, Fashion Then and Now 2:15. 75. Other Edinburgh performances included: Tancred ( July 5), Osman ( July 13), Hamlet ( July 17), Richard III ( July 19 and August 4), Frederick ( July 24), Hamlet ( July 26 and August 8), Selim (August 1 and 9), Rolla (August 6). See Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 4. 76. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, [4]. 77. William Macready was father of the actor William C. Macready. 78. Playfair, Prodigy, 47–48. 79. Norton, “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 32; Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 22. On Young’s salary see R.J. Broadbent, Annals of the Liverpool Stage, 117. 80. Thomas Harris was manager at least by title, since the day-to-day affairs of the theater were left to John Philip Kemble. 81. Betty’s last six performances in Edinburgh raised £ 844 in sales. See Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 30; Lennox, Fashion Then and Now, 2:16. 82. Harris’s letter to Kemble is found in Barlow, in Miscellaneous letters from 1790 to 1821, Victoria and Albert, 1966/A/137. 83. Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 20. 84. “Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’ ” in Griffith, Reminiscences and Records, 332. 85. On the ₤50 deductible, see Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 22. The fee for Betty’s benefit was ₤40. 86. Press Clippings, “Stead Collection,” New York Public Library. 87. Archer, William Charles Macready, 9. 88. Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:308. 89. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 7, states that Betty’s benefit was the ninth performance, August 24, 1804, in which he played Selim. If so, Betty earned ₤261. But Roscius in London states that Betty’s benefit was the eighth night, in which he performed Romeo. The take was ₤142 (17–18); George Davies Harley also states that Betty’s benefit was the eighth night (Authentic Biographical Sketch, 29). Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty is Betty’s official memoir, but the author may have simply taken the higher amount to further aggrandize his subject. On the house cost of £40 for the benefit, see Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 22. 90. According to Percy H. Fitzgerald, it was William Macready who advised Betty Sr. to turn down the contract (Romance of the English Stage, 2:311–12).

NOTES

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91. George Davies Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 33. 92. Letter from R. B. Sheridan to William Chisholme, September 3, 1804, in Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 2:220. 93. Barlow defeated Wilberforce Bird by just fi fteen votes (Grego, History of Parliamentary Elections, 311). 94. O’Keeffe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keeffe, 2:311. 95. Dictionary of National Biography, 5:195. 96. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 22. 97. Times, September, 28, 1804. 98. Ward’s letter to Harris is found in Barlow, in Miscellaneous letters from 1790 to 1821, Victoria and Albert, 1966/A/137. 99. Harris’s letter to Kemble is found in Barlow, in Miscellaneous letters from 1790 to 1821, Victoria and Albert, 1966/A/137. 100. Colman, T. Harris Dissected, 8–9; in Colman’s True State of the Differences, he cast a Miss Ward as Imogen (20). 101. Dictionary of National Biography, 25:25. 102. George Colman, T. Harris Dissected, 34. 103. See Robert William Lowe, Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature, 70. More surprisingly, Harris remained on fairly good terms with Mrs. Yates, from whom he purchased shares in London’s Opera House. See Price,“Thomas Harris and the Covent Garden Theater,” 113. 104. Jones and Bloom, (ed.), Evelina, 418, 38n. 105. Dane Farnsworth Smith and M. L. Lawhon go so far as to call Harris’s and Sheridan’s overlapping business a “managerial tyranny” and a “coalition.” There are a variety of plays which spoof Harris’s and Sheridan’s close working relationship. See Plays About the Theater in England, 1737–1800 or, The Self-Conscious Stage From Foote to Sheridan, 105–6. 106. Raymond, Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian, 359. 107. Contract found in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 108. On this clause, see chapter 2. 109. Letter from R. B. Sheridan to Mrs. Sheridan, December 1, 1804, in Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 2:233. 110. Wales is not mentioned, since it joined England under the Act of Union in 1536, though it too had and continues to have issues maintaining its own cultural traditions within the larger framework of the United Kingdom. 111. Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 24. The anonymous author of Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius refers to him as the “young Roscius of Belfast”([4]). Propagating the idea that Betty was an Irishman, John Doran writes that Betty “was born at Shrewsbury, in 1791,—a Shropshire boy, but of Irish descent” (Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:296). According to Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, Betty Sr. was originally from Lisburn, but the memoirs do not state whether he was of Irish descent. 112. Betty took the title “English Roscius” in his later career. See chapter 5. 113. Doran, In and About Drury Lane, 1:26. 114. Ibid., 1:36. 115. Caledonian Mercury, October 8, 1804; retold in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 26–27, which comments, “The conduct and feelings of Roscius on this occasion were such as to do him the highest honour” (26). 116. Roscius in London, 23n, and the Era, February 27, 1853. 117. Philip, Resisting Napoleon, 16 n. 17; Pocock, Terror Before Trafalgar: Nelson, Napoleon and the Secret War, 96, 127; for more on air balloons, see Rothenberg, Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, 123; see also Keith M. Wilson, Channel Tunnel Visions, 1850–1945, which includes a depiction of an imagined invasion (opposite p. 80).

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118. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 11. On the power of theater to help shape a national identity, especially in relation to anxieties concerning Napoleon, see O’Quinn, Staging Governance, 352. 119. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 47. 120. Roscius in London, 27. 121. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 7. 122. Betty’s management team expected that rich paydays were here to stay. During the Sheffield dates, the gentry of Buxton offered Betty 50 guineas to perform for one night, but the offer was rejected when Sheffield offered to extend his run at ₤100 a night. See Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 27, and Roscius in London, 25–26. 123. The playbill for this and other Liverpool performances can be found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14, Houghton Library, Harvard. On earnings, see Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 33 and Thomas Harral, Infant Roscius, 21. This may have included a benefit of £350, according to Sandra K. Norton (“William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 48), who cites Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 33. However, Wonderful Theatrical Progress does not list the amount of the benefit. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius puts the Liverpool earnings at ₤1,530 (28); Authentic Sketch also states that Betty earned ₤1,530 (28); Harley’s Authentic Biographical Sketch repeats that figure and Harley also provides a list of Betty’s 1804 Liverpool performances (58). 124. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 8. Betty played Liverpool October 10–31, 1804. 125. Chester Chronicle, no date, as cited by Edmonds, “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 120. Extant playbills include Lover’s Vows (November 6) and Richard III (November 7). 126. Chester Chronicle, November 2, 1804, as cited in Jill Edmonds, “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 119. 127. Fairburn, Life of the Celebrated Young Roscius, 15; Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 9. 128. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 7. According to Sandra K. Norton, Betty’s November 12 performance was Frederick in Lover’s Vows, but the matter of the epilogue suggests we are dealing with a Shakespeare play. See her “William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 52. The date of Lover’s Vows has been confi rmed, but the date of the epilogue may be wrong. Betty played Manchester from November 12–20, 1804 and played Frederick (November 12), Douglas (November 13), Richard III (November 14), Octavian (November 15–17), Hamlet (November 19), and Achmet (November 20); Richard Wright Procter, Manchester in Holiday Dress, 123. See also Edmonds, “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 120. 129. Hodgkinson and Pogson, The Early Manchester Theatre, 167. However, he may have earned far more. Jill Edmonds states that Betty earned £300 just from his Manchester benefit and that his overall take for the eight nights exceeded the £1,520 he had earned over fourteen nights at Liverpool. See her “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 120, 124. The amount for his Achmet is confi rmed in Richard Wright Procter, Manchester in Holiday Dress, 123. According to John Doran, Betty’s northern England dates were netting him about ₤500 a week (Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:297). 130. Letter found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition., no. 2:14, Houghton Library, Harvard. 131. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 9. 132. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 27. 133. Farington, Farington Diary, 2:285. 134. Ibid. 2:288. 135. Merritt’s recent Life of Wm. Henry West Betty (1804) was printed by James Wright in Liverpool on behalf of the London publishers Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. 136. Frederick Reynolds, The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 2:360.

NOTES

177

137. Letter from R. B. Sheridan to Mrs. Sheridan, December 1, 1804, in Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 2: 233.

CHAPTER 2. BETTY CONQUERS L ONDON 1. Doran, In and about Drury Lane, 1:47. 2. Annual Register 46 (1806 for 1804): 437. 3. Harry Graham, Splendid Failures, 136. However, some may have faked injury. Anne Mathews recalls how her husband, the celebrated comic actor Mr. Charles Mathews, tricked his way into the house: “At the time when Master Betty drew such immense houses, in 1804, my husband and I, eager to gain admittance on some particular night, and unable to obtain seats previously, agreed to take our chance at the entrance of the theatre with the public. We accordingly established ourselves there at an early hour. During the accumulation of the throng, Mr. Mathews gradually lost courage, and as it thickened so did his fears increase. We had been standing full two hours in this suffocating position, when the doors were suddenly opened. We should have been at the pay-place in one minute more; but my husband’s sufferings were at their acme; and, taking me by the wrist with a convulsive shudder as he felt the pressure of the now moving crowd, he shouted out, ‘Here’s a lady fainting!—here’s a lady dying!—for God’s sake let her out!’ And by this feint he gained an opening, through which he dragged me, to my great astonishment and chagrin.” See Anne Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, 3:347–48n. Since Mrs. Mathews states that this was occasioned “on some particular night” and refers to previous London performances by Betty, it is certain that she was not referring to Betty’s London premiere, but it does indicate that crowds commonly thronged to his performances. 4. Accounts vary widely. Times, December 3, 1804 has crowds gathering at 2:00 p.m. with some minor injuries. Percy H. Fitzgerald has people gathering as early as 10:00 a.m. with heavy jostling (Romance of the English Stage, 2:314); Harry Graham has them meeting at “early dawn,” people sustaining “serious injuries” and, as a consequence, the doors opening at 4:30 p.m. (Splendid Failures, 136); John Doran has people congregating at 10:00 a.m., several people killed (Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:297–8). Robert Chambers has people crowding at 1:00 p.m., with doors opening at 6:00 p.m., no stampede following, but a “frightful scene” within (Book of Days, 2:645). In short, these authors want Bettymania to be a mania. Gathering at 2:00 p.m. sound civilized; even 10:00 a.m. allows time to dress, breakfast, and attend to the duties of the day. But “early dawn” with riots, injuries, or death, now that’s a mania. 5. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 1:486. 6. Times, December 3, 1804. 7. Henry Barton Baker, History of the London Stage, 126. 8. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:170. 9. In his satirical poem The Bettyad, G. M. Woodward recorded this and other acts of pandemonium marring Betty’s London premiere: “Some mourn their broken stitches; / While Ladies, Beaux from depth of pit / To boxes raise in fainting fit, / By waistband of their breeches”( Bettyad, 11). Offering some little respite, the curtain was raised about a foot and, thus, allowed a current of air to blow over the pit. See the Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804, and Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:315. 10. Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804. On the number of women, see introduction, footnote 4. 11. Taylor, French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805, 152, 155. The argument is reiterated by Jill Edmonds, who writes, “Nine months later [after Betty’s fi rst London shows] Nelson’s victory and death at Trafalgar would turn the feverish escapism with which the boy wonder had been received to renewed optimism that the threat

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of invasion had subsided and that the war against Napoleon could be won” (“ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 130). Likewise, Julie A. Carlson suggests that Betty was “intimately linked to the political events of the day,” and that the boy himself was an inspiration to members of the House of Commons, but only in so far as he reanimated their dormant Romantic natures: “To have seen this youth [Betty] playing that youth [Hamlet] in a forum that could restore sober men to their own youth would have been to approach immortality from its golden side” or “dream screen” (“Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 598, 594). 12. On newspaper space devoted to Betty and Napoleon, see Paul Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School, 87. 13. Press clipping in Playbills-Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 14. Arthur Murphy tells us that Selim was “greatly acted by Garrick” (Life of David Garrick, I:268). Betty’s camp had still other reasons for selecting the play. Betty had already experienced great success in Middle Eastern plays. Recall, for example, that his Belfast debut had been in the role of Osman in Aaron Hill’s play Zara. 15. Atrocities of the Corsican Dæmon, 50. 16. Ripon, Buonparte; or, The Free-Booter, 33. 17. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:172. At this moment, Selim’s mother was also acknowledged for her stand against the tyrant. 18. Fairburn, Life of the Celebrated Young Roscius, 24. 19. Ibid., 22. The private boxes might here be equated to the French Revolution’s land redistribution. When the police arrived, the riotous squatters “by force retained them against the owners of the places,” and held them “by the strongest of all rights— Possession.” See Anderson, “First Appearance of ‘Master Betty,’ ” enclosed in a letter to Master Betty, July 4, 1845, W. H. W. Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, Hollis, 008217486. 20. Lady Bessborough, in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 1:495. Anne Mathews wrote that the Young Roscius “bore upon his baby brow the round and top of sovereignty” (Tea-Table Talk, 2:257). 21. The Prince of Wales did see many of Betty’s performances. See introduction, footnote 22 22. The diagnosis was faulty. The King suffered from porphyria, a neurological disorder. 23. All but one of these amazing anecdotes is culled from Parissien, George IV: Inspiration of the Regency, 28–33 and 180; on the Prince of Württemberg’s collaboration with Napoleon, see Black, George III: America’s Last King, 158. Things hardly improved once the Napoleonic wars were over. In 1816, King George’s daughter Mary married her cousin, the feeble-brained Duke of Gloucester, known commonly as “Silly Billy”; in 1818, another daughter, Elizabeth, married the malodorous German Frederick, prince of the petty state of Hesse-Homburg; in 1829, Princess Sophia was allegedly involved in an incestuous affair with her brother Ernest, who may or may not have impregnated her. Illness, madness, coarse behavior, and bad politics among the royals was not new, and, had the British not been subject to great domestic and international confl ict, these incidents might have passed with as little comment as surprise. But, as Tamara L. Hunt has recently argued, given the social upheavals at home and another war with France a near certainty, “the public had little patience for or tolerance of personal scandal, yet it seemed that this was one of the only things at which the children of George III excelled” (Tamara L. Hunt, Defining John Bull, 242). 24. See the Pall Mall Gazette (March 17, 1865), which also linked Bettymania to democracy and fashion: “The greatest actors in the drama of democracy were for the time quite out of fashion, and Master Betty ruled the hour.” In 1806–7, Betty was invoked by George Canning, Treasurer of the Navy, not to support political change but to decry it. Comparing Master Betty to Henry Petty, the boyish parliamentarian, who was only twenty-four

NOTES

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when Betty fi rst played Covent Garden, Canning rhymed: “Illustrious Roscius of the state, / New breeched, and harnessed for debate, / Thou wonder of the age!—/ Petty or Betty art thou bright? / By Granta sent to strut thy might.” Canning’s poem is found in La Belle Assemblée. Supplement to the 2nd vol. (1807):42, but written “a few months since” (i.e., circa late 1806); reprinted in Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75), 1:31. The poem sparked the following reply by Byron: “The House is crammed in every place full / To see the Boy, of action Graceful; / While Roscius lends his name to Betty / Tully must yield the palm to Petty” (Byron, “The Reply,” in Complete Poetical Works, I.p.196, lines 27–30). For further discussion of the poem, see Paul Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School, 89. Byron himself took his seat in the House of Lords at age twenty-three, but this was in 1811—long after Bettymania had faded. Lastly, on the subject of Betty and political appropriation, the Morning Chronicle ( January 25, 1835) called the thirty-three-year-old Lord Stanley “a clever boy—the Master Betty of the political stage.” 25. John Doran points out that George III preferred Drury Lane over Kemble’s Covent Garden but does not dispute that Kemble had more power than any other actor of the day (Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants,2:269). 26. Leigh Hunt, Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres, 15. 27. Hazlitt, Complete Works, 4:237. 28. Baker, John Philip Kemble, 276. 29. Ibid., 290. Kemble’s knee problem is also mentioned in the Monthly Mirror, New Series 4 (1808): 51. 30. Mathews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain: The Kembles, 68. 31. Kelly, Kemble Era, 190. 32. Parsons, Incomparable Siddons, 61. 33. Georgian Era, 4 (1834): 422. 34. Letter to the Editor, in the Morning Chronicle, December 13, 1804; elements reprinted in the Sporting Magazine 26 (Apr.-Sept. 1805): 100. On “Infant Garrick,” see Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:296. 35. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 18. Betty was born on September 13, 1791; Garrick died on January 20, 1779. 36. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 18. The language echoes a discussion of Betty’s originality, as found in the Aberdeen Journal, December 12, 1804. 37. Fitzgerald, Life of David Garrick, 1:204. 38. Burnim, David Garrick, Director, 57. 39. Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 47. 40. Fitzgerald, Life of David Garrick, 1:204. 41. Doran notes that Kemble and Cooke’s appearances opposite each other also evoked this comparison, but that their joint performances were overshadowed by enthusiasm for Betty (Their Majesties’ Servants 2:290). 42. The incident took place when Kemble, armed with the boy’s contract, saw him rehearse in Sheffield. See Ward, Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 91. 43. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:13. 44. The Sporting Magazine 25 (1805): 141. The comparison to Garrick was not exact by any means. Mrs. Inchbald complained of Betty’s “preaching-like” delivery (Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald 2:78). This sounds more like Quin than Garrick. On the other hand, see Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, in which the critic notes that Betty’s “rapid, natural, and easy” style, is similar to Garrick’s principles and utterly unlike Kemble’s: “He [Betty] has no artificial pauses, no affected modulation, no statuelike attitudes” (18). 45. Kemble would exploit these farcical and sexual associations during the boy’s second season. See chapters 3 and 4. 46. Coleman, Fifty Years of an Actor’s Life, 2:354. Coleman mentions Betty on 2:455, but it is unclear whether he actually saw him in performance.

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47. On panto season: Wordsworth recalled that he saw a panto in August at St. Bartholomew Fair. However, even ca.1800 audiences normally associated panto with the Christmas holiday season. See A. E. Wilson, Christmas Pantomime, 69–74, and O’Brien, Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 136. 48. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 20. 49. For Morning Chronicle, see Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.N.C.11745; Farington, Farington Diary, 2:285. 50. Orr, “Galland, Georgian Theatre, and the Creation of Popular Orientalism,” esp. 127–28. 51. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 17. 52. See O’Brien, Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 136. See also Jane Moody, who argues that Bettymania was itself an important precursor of what, within half a decade, would be the all-out, year-round capitulation of traditional theater (Illegitimate Theatre London, 1700–1840, 6–7, 72). 53. While Reynolds himself was accosted as a “swindler” and “rascal,” the playwright and playhouse laughed all the way to the bank. Wrote Reynolds: “I cleared three hundred, and fi fty pounds simply by a dog jumping into a small tank of water!” See entry for Reynolds, Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 2:351, and Dictionary of National Biography, 48:42. The Dictionary offers a variant spelling on Reynolds’ given name. A print of Carlo, in which the dog pulls a child out of the water, is entitled, “The Roscius of DruryLane-Theatre.” A copy of the print can be found in Romantic and Revolutionary Theatre, 1789–1860, 223. As we will see later in this chapter, Betty was directly compared to Carlo by none other than William Wordsworth. 54. Cinderella was offered as a double bill with School for Scandal. Although Sheridan’s comedy was one of the most popular plays of the era, the panto, as evidenced by the extraordinary number of performances, was the real draw. See Roscius in London, 45. Further, Betty had played to panto audiences in Birmingham, where he was engaged after a poor production of Cinderella was canceled. See Era, February 27, 1853. 55. Leader, Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century, 137. 56. On De Camp’s early career, see Monthly Mirror 19 (1805): 135; Murdoch, Stage, 194. 57. Michael Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, 2:189. Betty attended a performance of Cinderella. See chapter 3. 58. Afterpieces for Betty performances for his fi rst season at Drury Lane are cited in James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486; afterpieces for Covent Garden are not listed anywhere. There is no evidence that Betty performed in afterpieces during his fi rst London season, though he would, in his second season, perform in at least one: as Captain Flash in Miss in Her Teens May 17, 1806. See appendix A. As for the farces discussed, none were new—Of Age To-morrow debuted in February 1800 at Drury Lane; The Apprentice debuted at Drury Lane on January 2, 1756; The Spoiled Child was performed at Drury Lane on March 22, 1790—but their selection helped shaped audiences perceptions of the Theatres Royal and of Betty. On origination dates of these afterpieces, see in order: Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian, 2:52; Wilkinson, Memoirs of His Own Life, 100; Winter, Life and Art of Joseph Jefferson, 119. 59. The title page shows only Oxberry’s name, though various libraries list Dorothy Jordan, Richard Ford, Isaac Bickerstaff, Prince Hoare (the younger), George Daniel, and William Oxberry as joint authors. 60. Pangloss, Young Rosciad, 32. The tone of the pamphlet is playful, but there is no doubt the that author is parodying actual interest in the boy as a sexual object. See introduction and chapter 4. 61. Eighth performance, if we do not count the disputed record for his Dorilas, February 22, 1805. See appendix A. 62. Betty’s fi rst London performance of Hamlet was March 14, 1805, at Drury Lane. He had already performed the role in Dublin (date unverified but during his short run

NOTES

181

which commenced November 28, 1803) and in Cork on December 31, 1803, then in Glasgow on May 23, 1804, and June 2, 1804. See Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 13, 14; Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 38; Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 11; Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 3. Performances in Edinburgh ( July 26 and August 8, 1804); Birmingham (August 16, 20, and 28, 1804);, Sheffield (September 24 and October 3, 1804); Liverpool (October 11 and 30, 1804); and Manchester (November 19, 1804) followed. See Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 7; Authentic Sketch, 25–26; George Davies Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 23, 58. 63. Times, July 16, 1813. 64. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 413. 65. Reynolds, Playwright’s Adventures, 50. 66. de Sade, “Idée sur les romans,” 49. 67. Thomson, Seasons, 132. 68. Merritt, Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 10. 69. Letter to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, in Wordsworth, Letters of the Wordsworth Family from 1787 to 1855, 1:174–75. On the difficulty of Betty’s nonShakespearean roles: Thomas Harral called Barbarossa a “feeble and inflated tragedy” (Infant Roscius, 23). 70. Wordsworth’s incapacity to embrace Betty publicly may in part be explained by Judith Plotz, who notes that “Wordsworth did not attribute ideal serenity and innocence to his own childhood, neither was he much inclined to idealize any of the children within his ken. He was never an ostentatious child-lover” (51). This did not mean, however, that Wordsworth did not privately see Betty as a useful means of articulating his own poetic vision. As Judith Plotz points out, during the very months in which he corresponded with Beaumont, Wordsworth composed Book 7 of The Prelude, in which a theatrical child appears among the “dissolute . . . and . . . shameless . . . and falsely gay” (7:386–87); playing upon Betty’s Hamlet, Wordsworth suggested that the height of human dignity was “To be, to have been . . . a child / And nothing more” (1805, 7:403–4). See Judith Plotz, Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood, 72; see also 79. 71. Letter to Sir George Beaumont, December 25, 1804, in Wordswort, Letters of the Wordsworth Family from 1787 to 1855, 1:175. 72. William Blake to William Hayley, April 25, 1805, Blake, Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life, 182. 73. Blake, The Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life, 63. 74. Ibid., 84. 75. William Blake to William Hayley, April 25, 1805, Blake, Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life By William Blake, 182. 76. John Taylor, who wrote the prologue, states that John Philip Kemble was supposed to recite the poem, but that the actor begged off, citing some unspecified indisposition (Poems on Various Subjects, 1:81n). 77. Times, December 3, 1804. 78. Taylor, Poems on Various Subjects, 1:82. 79. “First Appearance of Master Betty in London,” New York Times, November 8, 1874. 80. Molloy, Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean, 1:62. 81. Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:315. Further, at one undetermined point, the play was stopped, and Charles Kemble came forward again and gesticulated for patience, but it was a “labour lost, as the persons nearest to the stage could not possibly have heard a line of it” (Times, December 3, 1804). 82. John Brown, Barbarossa, 2.i:21. 83. Henry Barton Baker, Our Old Actors, 2:244. Rather than silence, the correspondent for the Hull Packet, December 11, 1804, recorded that the audience burst into enthusiastic applause, “which shook the theatre to its foundation,” for a full five minutes, during which Betty remained “graceful and picturesque.” Richard D. Altick imagines that the

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“house sent up a tremendous shout. But Betty, unperturbed, proceeded to business, and the play continued, though interrupted from time to time by the ungovernable enthusiasm of the spectators” (“The Marvelous Child of the English Stage,” 81). One ticket buyer recalled the “continual buz[z] of anxiety prevailing throughout the house” (Harral, Infant Roscius, 23). 84. Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804. The anonymous author of Authentic Sketch noted how much Betty enjoyed playing with other children in “boyish frolic” (17). The actor William C. Macready fondly recalled that Betty was “a boy with boys, as full of spirits, fun, and mischief as any of his companions” (Macready’s Reminiscences, 12). John Merritt noted that Betty, though utterly mature onstage, was, offstage, even more immature than his years warranted: “It is a little remarkable, that though on the stage his deportment and address are so completely those of a man, yet in private life he is more than commonly childish. All his amusements and sports are infi ntine [sic], even beyond his years” (Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 59). 85. Crosland, Landmarks of a Literary Life 1820–1892, 48. 86. On descriptions of Betty, see Roscius in London, 48, and Harry Graham, Splendid Failures, 138. See also the Morning Chronicle, September 21, 1804, which describes him as being 4’6”. The Sporting Magazine 26 estimated that he was 4’6’’ (Apr.–Sept. 1805): 100. The Times, December 3, 1804, described him as “about five feet” in height but “appears much taller”; The Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804 thought him “rather taller than boys of 13 usually are”; in the “Friday Post” section, Betty’s height and weight were listed as “4 feet 10 ½ inches; his weight 6 stone 3 ½ lbs [87.5 lb. or 39.77 kg]”(Ipswich Journal, December 8, 1804). 87. On laughter, see Elizabeth Inchbald, “Remarks,” in John Brown, Barbarossa, 6. Aladdin also appears as a character in the Middle Eastern musical opera, Mahmoud (1796), by William Prince Hoare (the younger). A performance at Drury Lane on April 30, 1796 featured many performers who later acted with Betty, including Dignum, Caulfield, and Suett. See the European Magazine, and London Review 29 (1796): 347. For ways in which Mahmoud and other Eastern plays displaced English anxieties concerning French invasion, see Orr, “Galland, Georgian Theatre, and the Creation of Popular Orientalism,” 113–14, esp.114. 88. On Betty’s air of majesty, see Harry Graham, Splendid Failures, 138. 89. John Brown, Barbarossa, 2.i:22. 90. Anderson, “First Appearance of ‘Master Betty,’ ” enclosed in a letter to Master Betty, July 4, 1845, Hollis, 008217486. 91. Brown, Barbarossa, 3.i:34. 92. Ibid., 3.i:35. 93. Ibid., 4.i:44. 94. Roscius in London, 37. 95. Brown, Barbarossa, 4.i:44. 96. Ibid., 4.i:45. 97. Ibid., 4.i:46–47. 98. Ibid., 5.i:50. 99. Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants, II:298. 100. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 15. Written in reaction to Betty’s Douglas. 101. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 78. Betty’s medical condition may in part explain the selection of Selim. The part did not call upon him to enter until the second act, and then only briefly. It was, therefore, only in the third, fourth, and fi fth acts that Betty had to exert himself. The sheer paucity of the role protected Betty from overextending himself. 102. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 60. 103. Press clipping, labeled “Notices from the contemporary press, 1805,” Lincoln Center, NYPL, TMWEZ.N.C.788.

NOTES

183

104. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, I: 490. 105. Ibid., 1:495. 106. Letter from R. B. Sheridan to Mrs. Sheridan, December 2, 1804, in Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 2:233. 107. Norton, “William Henry West Betty: Romantic Child Actor,” 79. Norton cites Roscius in London, 60, but that page is merely an advertisement. I have searched all other Bettyrelated materials but have been unable to locate her source. This cure was apparently the result of some trial and error. The actor Charles Mathews recorded that he had been very ill and had also consulted Dr. Bain: “Dr. B—n has found out that he could have cured me, if I had remained in town. He expressly said he had no practice in similar cases but leeches; he would try them three times, and if they failed he candidly confessed he had nothing else to try; that it could not be connected with the constitution with so healthy a man; that all inward medicines and lotions were useless. Now he has discovered . . . that it is connected with the constitution, and has prescribed a pill, and a lotion for the tongue, and sends another message by [Master] Betty about powders, which he never mentioned—which will produce no effect upon me at all.” See Anne Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, 3:67. A press clipping at Houghton Library, Harvard states that a Mr. Marshall also served as Betty’s surgeon and apothecary. See Playbills-Stars—Male—Betty, W. H. Additional information on the public’s reaction to Betty’s illness, see Playfair, Prodigy, 116–17. 108. Playfair, Prodigy, 63. Strengthening pills aided in digestion. See Thomas John Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine, 121. 109. One gent, calling himself “P.Q.,” recalled that one bulletin read: “Master Betty is improving, having slept well” (Morning Chronicle, May 29, 1826). 110. Hester Lynch Piozzi to Rev. Robert Gray, February 21, 1805. Piozzi Letters, 4:59. 111. Caledonian Mercury, December 22, 1804. See also medical report found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States. Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. 112. Not to be outdone, Charles James Fox invited the boy to spend Easter with him at St. Anne’s-Hill. Fox was a fan of Edward Young’s tragedy, The Revenge, and discussed how Betty might revive the villainous role of Zanga (Ipswich Journal, February 23, 1805). Betty, we recall, tried the part out in Ireland. He would revive Zanga during his second London season. See chapter 3. 113. Morning Chronicle, January 28, 1805. 114. Letter from Mrs. Inchbald to Mrs. Philips, January 21, 1805, in Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, 2:78–79. Thomas Harral states that Betty played the role on the third of his Dublin dates (The Infant Roscius, 14; reiterated in Roscius in London, 8). Master Betty also played Frederick in Glasgow (May 26, 1804); Edinburgh ( July 24); Birmingham (August 27, 1804); Sheffield (October 2); Liverpool (October 11, 26, 31); Chester (November 6); Manchester (November 12); and Stockport (November 24, 1804). See Authentic Sketch, 26; George Davies Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 52, 58; Roscius in London, 11; Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 4, 7, 9; Richard Wright Procter, Manchester in Holiday Dress, 123; Jill Edmonds, “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804,” 120. In London, he had already played Frederick on December 5 and 6, 1804 and did not play it again until January 31, 1805. See the sometimes problematic list of Betty’s London performances in appendix A. 115. Times, December 31, 1804, relineated in Playfair, Prodigy, 118. Some reporters also had their doubts. In their view, the boy was just going through puberty. The Caledonian Mercury recorded “we trembled when he spoke; for, either from a momentary trepidation, or, perhaps, from the breaking of his voice, he was guilty of a palpable false emphasis” (December 6, 1804); Morning Chronicle recorded what it felt was a “little huskiness in his voice, which distressed him at first,” but that it “wore off as he proceeded” (December 17, 1804). The Morning Chronicle, January 1, 1806, stated that Betty’s voice was “naturally breaking at his time of life.” The Caledonian Mercury, October 21, 1805, notes that Betty’s voice “either from weakness, hoarseness, or over-straining, was faint, and sometimes inarticulate.”

184

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116. Contract found in Betty, W. H. W. Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 117. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, Ennobled Actresses, and Other Miscellanies, 2:262– 63; repeated in the Newcastle Courant, October 16, 1874. Stephen Kemble, despite seeing Betty as a good moneymaking venture, was a poor businessman and lost control of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Theatre. See K. E. Robinson, “Stephen Kemble’s Management of the Theater Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne,” 147. 118. Morning Chronicle, December 5, 1804. This, despite the fact that there was no need to think that Betty was unfit for his regular schedule. The Derby Mercury reported on January 31, 1805 that the boy was at last “quite restored from the effects of his late indisposition.” 119. See Clips—Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 120. Morning Chronicle, January 29, 1805. 121. Lady Bessborough, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:40. 122. Wordsworth then added, “I never saw Hamlet acted myself, nor do I know what kind of a play they make of it” (Letter to Sir George Beaumont, May 1, 1805, in Letters of the Wordsworth Family, 1:186). The date suggests that Wordsworth was referring to a later performance of Betty’s Hamlet, possibly to his upcoming Covent Garden performances in that role on May 13, May 20, June 3, and, possibly, June 23, 1805. On dates, see appendix A. Still his curiosity is apropos of the excitement marking Betty’s fi rst London performance of Hamlet. 123. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:38–39. 124. I have checked the record of parliamentary debate, without success; however it is asserted in the Morning Chronicle, May 30, 1861, and accepted by Barbara Hodgdon, in her recent article “Shakespearean stars: stagings of desire,” 52. 125. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:40. 126. Ibid., 1:486. 127. The authorities need not have bothered. Unlike earlier manifestations of Bettymania, the crowds, while heavy, were orderly: “the play commenced under the most happy circumstances which an actor could desire; a theatre fi lled with an audience full of expectation; but whose impatience, restrained by delicacy and good sense, never suffered itself to be betrayed into noise or violence detrimental to the performer”(Clips— Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard). Another sign that enthusiasm for Betty was quickly subsiding. 128. Rogers, Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, 88; Lady Bessborough in Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:40. 129. Lamb’s opinion would gain favor. The Daily News (February 29, 1864) referred to Betty as a “degrader of Shakespeare” and an “idol of the hour.” 130. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 74. 131. See Morning Chronicle, December 26, 1833. The anecdote is repeated in Charlotte Endymion Porter, Shakespeariana (1886): 3:390. Given the date of the original publication, the story may be apocryphal, but it does correspond to Judith Plotz’s assessment of the poet: Charles Lamb was “never a man who loved children in general”; he “maintained an astringent, briskly anti-sentimental view of children, once interrupting the noise of an obstreperous children’s party” (Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood, 88). 132. Letter from Joanna Baillie to Miss Berry, March 22, 1805, Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie, 1:175. 133. “Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’ ” in Griffith, Reminiscences and Records, 337. 134. Jordan and Kemble traded jokes about the boy, to the delight of other actors. See Fitzgerald, Romance of the English Stage, 2:319–20. 135. Times, November 18, 1804. Young must have taken some satisfaction when, in 1807, he became a leading man in London and Betty was all-but-forgotten. On Young’s salary see Broadbent, Annals of the Liverpool Stage, 117.

NOTES

185

136. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 486; Brander Mathews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States: The Kembles and Their Contemporaries, 302; Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 13. John Doran puts the number at ₤17,000 but for only twenty-three performances, an average of ₤734 a night (Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:299). 137. George Raymond states that Betty played exactly fi fty-seven times with a nightly average of ₤586 (Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian, 360). But records prove he acted somewhere around sixty-eight times—the possibility of inaccuracy is discussed in appendix A. If we assume Betty did perform sixty-eight times, not fi fty-seven times, and multiple it by ₤586, we get ₤39,848. 138. Raymond, The Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian, 360. 139. Aberdeen Journal, June 5, 1805. The report is repeated in Press clipping, labeled “Notices from the contemporary press, 1805,” Lincoln Center, NYPL, TMWEZ.N.C.788, and in the Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany 68(1806): 26. The author of Roscius in London (51) estimated Betty earned ₤12,000 or, in our money, ₤924,000, but it is unclear whether the author is dealing just with London earnings or is also including his early and very lucrative provincial tour. James Boaden states that Drury Lane paid Betty ₤2,782, plus ₤4,000 in benefits, for his fi rst London season (Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 487). If Covent Garden paid him roughly the same, his London dates would have netted him ₤12,000. However, the amounts for the benefits are in dispute. See footnote 168, below. 140. Belfast News-Letter, October 30, 1829. 141. On Betty’s pre-London earnings, see Chapter 1. 142. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 13. On Worcester, see the Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany 67 (1805): 642. Memoirs of W.H.W. Betty combines the Worcester dates with Wolverhampton and Stourbridge for a cumulative profit of ₤800. The Newcastle Courant (August 31, 1805) noted Betty’s “unabated attraction.” Betty’s benefit performance in Newcastle would gross ₤213.9s, the largest sum ever raised in that playhouse (Mackenzie, Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County, 594n). Excitement was such that when Betty arrived in Newcastle, the church bells were set a ringing (Morning Chronicle, August 24, 1805). In Sunderland, his appearance occasioned the “most crowded and fashionable audience ever assembled at that theatre” (Newcastle Courant, August 31, 1805). The less-excited Aberdeen Journal, October 16, 1805, recorded that Betty played Douglas in Edinburgh on October 13, 1805 to a “respectable audience.” 143. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 13; see also Manchester Times and Gazette, May 29, 1846. 144. Not all the performances were uniformly lucrative. A two-night stint at York brought in a mere ₤135; Lancaster, even with ticket prices doubled, grossed only ₤196 (Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 13; Times, August 20, 1805). On August 13, 1805, Betty played Douglas at the Lancaster Theatre; receipts totaled just ₤126. See Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75): 39. The drop-offs may have been due to the theaters’ limited seating arrangements. 145. Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 41. We may also gauge Betty’s summer tour by the amounts earned by other stars. In 1807, Mrs. Siddons planned a retirement tour and did not expect to make one-sixth of the amount Betty took in: “I can’t expect to be followed like the great genius Master Betty, you know; but I hope to put about 1000₤ into my pocket this summer” (Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons, 232). 146. Image by W. P. Fores, “The Young Roscius and Don John on the Theatrical Pegasus,” found in William Dunlap, The Life of George Frederick Cooke, Extra Illustrated Edition, II.2.opp. p.209. 147. The print bears the date December 10, 1804, suggesting that Betty’s stranglehold on London actors and playwrights was established almost the day he arrived. Of

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course, it is quite natural for playwrights to want the most popular actor to perform in their plays. Betty’s language in the cartoon obviously appropriates that of Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. 148. See Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, 2:162. The play was eventually performed, though not by Betty, on December 16, 1807. 149. See Broadbent, Annals of the Liverpool Stage, 119. Playbills for these plays can be found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. Also at Liverpool, on June 6, 1805, Betty played Zanga in The Revenge. This was announced as his fi rst appearance in the character, but he had played the part at Londonderry on April 23, 1804. See Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14, 354. Betty may have played Orestes earlier. See appendix A. 150. “Remarks,” in Lewis, The Castle Spectre: A Drama, I-II. 151. Plot summary provided by Addison and Steele, The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, 197. 152. Henry Brooke, Gustavus Vasa, 4:85–86. 153. On Gustavus Vasa, see the Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 278, 408; he also played Douglas, Romeo and Orestes (Richard Wright Procter, Manchester in Holiday Dress, 123). Betty’s performance in The Distressed Mother was deemed “fi rst-rate.” See Ipswich Journal, October 19, 1805. The Caledonian Mercury, October 21, 1805 was less favorable but still thought that Betty had a bright future as an actor. 154. Betty played Macbeth on October 25, 1805. For Justus, see The Monthly Mirror XX(1805): 412–16; esp. 416. References to Betty’s Macbeth and Henry of Transtamare are found in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13. More on Betty’s careful wooing of the Scots can be found in chapter 1; on English reactions to Betty’s Macbeth, see chapter 4. See also Ralston Inglis, The Dramatic Writers of Scotland, 145. 155. Details concerning Garrick Fever and Bettymania are discussed in the introduction and chapter 1. 156. See the Ipswich Journal, March 2, 1805; reprinted with minor variants in the New Wonderful Museum, and Extraordinary Magazine, 3 (1805): 1657–58, and in Alexander Stephens, Public Characters of 1806, 514n. In the European Magazine, and London Review 47(1805): 219–20, the word “stage” in the second sentence is printed as “state.” 157. Morning Chronicle, April 20, 1805. 158. Morning Chronicle, April 20, 1805. Betty Sr. made no similar complaint when a drawing of Betty, in the possession of the Prince of Wales, was turned over to James Godby, a noted stipple engraver, for mass production. For the announcement of that sale, see Morning Chronicle, December 27, 1804. 159. Gwynn, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter, 248. Parker’s unseemly interest in Betty is discussed in chapter 4. 160. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 487. 161. See the Morning Chronicle, May 7, 1805 which also praised a marble bust of Betty, executed by George Bullock, a young Liverpool sculptor and furniture designer. Examples of his work can be found at the Liverpool Museum. On the engraving of the portraits, see Playfair, Prodigy, 89n. 162. Copies of Opie’s and Northcote’s portraits, with further discussion, can be found in chapter 4. 163. We may ask ourselves how Covent Garden came up with ₤315? My guess is that Harris took the nightly average from the prior season, ₤586, and worked backward. How much would Betty have to be charged to leave the boy roughly ₤100 per performance? ₤586—₤315 = ₤271, split between Betty and Covent Garden = ₤135.50 each. Not all of Betty Sr.’s contracts were bad deals: His January 28, 1805, agreement with Thomas Ludford Bellamy, manager of the Manchester Theatre, called for eleven performances, between July 29 and August 16, 1805, with an even profit share, after a deduction of ₤30 for expenses. A twelfth performance, a benefit, was given to the boy free and clear.

NOTES

187

Contract found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14, Houghton Library, Harvard. 164. Romantic and Revolutionary Theatre, 1789–1860, 39. The same source informs us that Drury Lane’s expenses tallied to ₤160. Smaller playhouses were far cheaper to operate. The costs at Belfast playhouse amounted to just ₤12 (Doran, In and About Drury Lane, 1:26); Birmingham’s costs were about ₤50, though for Betty’s benefit, he was only charged ₤40 (Roscius in London, 17; Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 22). Harris evidently understood that more profit was to be made by raising, not lowering, the stated theater costs. 165. See appendix A. 166. On February 11, 1805, the same day a contract was signed for Betty’s second season, the Times mistakenly reported that Covent Garden was no longer interested in Betty’s services. 167. February 11, 1805; new Covent Garden contract, signed T. Harris, May 6, 1805, in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 168. However, as is so typical with Betty, the numbers can’t be trusted. According to the European Magazine, and London Review, Betty earned ₤1,200 for one benefit at Drury Lane (47 [1805]: 219). William Dunlop repeats the figure but places the benefit at Covent Garden (Memoirs of the Life of George Cooke, 1:332). James Boaden notes that Covent Garden had promised him ₤1,200, even if the house came up short (Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:200–201). Boaden further states that Betty earned ₤2,500 for two benefits (The Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:187). Elsewhere, James Boaden states that Drury Lane and Covent Garden gave Betty four benefits, each of which earned him more than ₤1000 (Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 487). 169. Given that Drury Lane and Covent Garden were working in concert with Betty, a radically different contract for one theater seems unlikely. The newspapers, unaware of the new contract details, continued to report that Master Betty would earn £100 a night. For example, the Ipswich Journal, December 21, 1805, reported that Drury Lane had booked Betty for twenty-five performances at 100 guineas a night. It is for this reason that any discussion of Betty’s actual London earnings in his second season, as reported by the press, cannot be trusted.

CHAPTER 3. K EMBLE’S R EVENGE 1. Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 314. In March of 1805, Betty performed in Hamlet but dexterously omitted all allusions to boy actors who were taking work and glory away from the adult actors of the era. See Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:187. 2. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 9. 3. Ibid. 4. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 540. The O. P. (Old Prices) Riots were touched off when Covent Garden tried to raise ticket prices. For sixty-seven nights, the theater devolved into political chaos, with governmental representatives reading the Riot Act and lawyers encouraging civil disobedience. The uprising ended when Kemble agreed to the old prices. In this regard, the socially diverse Bettymania riots of 1804–5 may have been a harbinger for the O. P. Riots of 1809. Consider Mark Baer’s analysis of the O. P. Riots, in which he argued that the traditional elite audiences of the Theatres Royal were polite, passive, and often given to “ritualized” responses. The new middle- and lower-class audiences were more vocal and exuberant, and were, moreover, otherwise limited in social venues to express their displeasure (Theatre and Disorder in Late Georgian London, 167–69). 5. Quoted in Alan S. Downer’s preface, Oxberry, Oxberry’s 1822 Edition of King Richard III, xvii.

188

NOTES

6. Kennard, Mrs. Siddons, 92. 7. W. H. Ireland, Vortigern, 5.2.59–61. 8. Ibid., 5.2.62. According to his Confessions, the line was “And when this solemn mockery is o’er” (157). But Ireland is misquoting his own play. Most scholars have followed the forger in this error. This version is derived from volume 3 of Shakespeare Imitations, Parodies and Forgeries, 1710–1820. The youthful William Henry Ireland was linked to Betty. See chapter 2. 9. Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants,2:273. 10. Ireland, Preface, Vortigern, 1832, VI. 11. True Briton, April 4, 1796, in Press Clippings, British Library, MS 30349, 66 recto. 12. Ibid. 13. Quoted in Ireland, Confessions, 159. The same speech is given with slight variation but the same significance in the preface to Vortigern, 1832, V. 14. Ireland, preface, Vortigern, 1832, V. 15. Further, this had not been the fi rst time Kemble had ruined a show. Just weeks before, he had exhibited a similar malice toward George Colman’s Iron Chest. He coughed and plodded the production into purposeful ruin. Colman blamed Kemble and moved the play to the Haymarket Theatre, where it became a stock piece. In Kemble’s defense, he was ill and was self-medicating with opium. For a more detailed account of Kemble’s destruction of Colman the Younger’s play, see Hershel Baker, John Philip Kemble, 197–201. 16. Farington, Farington Diary, 6:48. Worse yet, in leaving Drury Lane, he had actually taken a pay cut. See Doran, Their Majesties’ Servants,2:269. In short, Kemble’s fi nancial situation was grim. In addition to what he owed Heathcote, Kemble had recently borrowed some ₤2000 from the treasury. Herschel Clay Baker, who cites the figure, merely notes that Kemble drew the money but does not seem to realize that he had to pay it back. See John Philip Kemble, 277n. 17. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 112. 18. David Erskine Baker puts the number at ₤24,000 (Biographia Dramatica 1:60). 19. Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, 20: 219. 20. Kemble’s retreat did not stop others from comparing him to Betty. As John Campbell wrote: “John Kemble in ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Coriolanus’ no doubt was a better study for the judgment, but I confess he could never so powerfully touch in my breast the chords of terror and of pity [as could Betty]” (Life of John, Lord Campbell, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, 1:111). 21. Hester Lynch Piozzi to Hester Maria Thrale, March 6–7, 1805, in Piozzi Letters, 4:6 n. 3. 22. Life of John Philip Kemble, 30. James Boaden added that “Mrs. Siddons disdained at any time to compliment the young hero,” and that Betty’s popularity probably prompted Siddons to retire early (Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, 438). The Morning Chronicle, June 9, 1831, recalled that she exhibited a “cold reserve” toward him. 23. Litchfield had already acted with Betty in Birmingham, according to the Morning Chronicle, September 20, 1804. 24. John Home was born on September 22, 1722; he was, thus, eighty-one years old when Betty played Edinburgh on June 28, 1804. 25. Press clipping, no date, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden. 26. Times, December 5, 1804; the Morning Chronicle noted that Cooke played Glenalvon “in his best stile” ( January 29, 1805). 27. Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons, 227. 28. Memoirs of John Howard Payne, the American Roscius, 18. Don B. Wilmeth states that Cooke had a “gigantic ego” and reacted “negatively to the presence of the boy” (George Frederick Cooke: Machiavel of the Stage, 211). However, in his diaries Cooke often gave less weight to his performances than to whom he dined with or whether he was accompanied by a pretty girl: “Dined with Mrs. St. L. and several performers of Covent-Garden

NOTES

189

theatre. In the evening went to the theatre, accompanied by a lady, and acted Glenalvon. Douglas, by Master Betty. Douglas is the only play of Homes’s [sic] that keeps possession of the stage. After the play, returned with the same lady in a coach, to where we dined; drank coffee, played at cards, supped, and did not get to bed till after four in the morning” (Dunlap, Memoirs of the Life of George Frederick Cooke, 1:346). 29. Hare, “George Frederick Cooke: the Actor and the Man,” 125. 30. On ruining Betty and Cooke, James Boaden writes: “As to the young Roscius of 1804, Kemble knew exactly what was in him; and, perhaps, was not displeased to see the fool multitude deserting even Cooke himself for the youthful Betty” (Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, 347). 31. Hare, “George Frederick Cooke: the Actor and the Man,” 124. 32. Wyndam, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre, 1:299. 33. Dunlap, Memoirs of the Life of George Frederick Cooke, 1:306; Georgian Era, IV (1834): 399; see also Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 474. 34. Oxberry, Oxberry’s Anecdotes of the Stage, 22. No performance dates are cited. 35. Hare, George Frederick Cooke: The Actor and the Man, 151. 36. Wyndam, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre, 1:299. 37. Ibid., 1:300. 38. Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, 2:215. Kemble, on the other hand, was a vegetarian—he thought it settled his stomach for performance—and a teetotaler. See Farington, Farington Diary, 4:86 and 277. 39. Michael Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, II:214. 40. On Suett’s height, see “Memoir of Richard Suett,” in Oxberry, Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography, and Histrionic Anecdotes, 3:227; for the rest, see Russell, Representative Actors, 256. 41. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 490. 42. Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:653. 43. Dictionary of National Biography, 55:151. Suett only acted with Betty during the prodigy’s fi rst season. He died on July 6, 1805. The cause of death is not cited, though his memorialist states that “Mr. Suett’s ruin was low society.” He was found dead in a bar (“Memoir of Richard Suett,” in Oxberry, Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography, and Histrionic Anecdotes, 3:222). John Hebb states that Suett died on July 9, 1805. See John Hebb, “Vanishing London,” 165. 44. Well after the fall of Bettymania, the Morning Chronicle, May 29, 1826, ran a short paragraph entitled, “Master Betty and Carlo” in which the “shaggy Roscius” was compared to the Young Roscius. 45. Reynolds, The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 1:263. 46. Ibid., 1:264. 47. Writing on Betty’s engagement at Covent Garden, John Genest lamented that “Garrick was properly called Roscius, but when the name was given to a boy, it sunk into contempt—Roscii and Rosciæ sprang up like mushrooms” (Some Account of the English Stage, 7:643). 48. Wroughton continued to act, with growing infrequency, at Drury Lane until 1822 (Dictionary of National Biography, 63:169). 49. For Wroughton’s role, see the Caledonian Mercury, December 22, 1804. 50. Reynolds, Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 1:264. 51. Croker, Familiar Epistles, 37–38. 52. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 18,19. 53. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 1:491. I have silently italicized Lover’s Vows. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 1:491–92. 56. Boruwłaski was 3’3” tall (Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, 337). Accounts of Betty’s height vary between 4’6” and 4’10”. See chapter 2, footnote 86. 57. Timbs, Romance of London, 2:94.

190

NOTES

58. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:263–65. 59. On “the Celebrated GERMAN DWARF,” see Clips—Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard; on Renaud, see Monthly Mirror 19 (1805): 340. 60. Joseph’s father, named Giuseppe Grimaldi, was a clown and dance master fi rst employed at Drury Lane in the 1750s. He died in 1788, when Joseph was just nine years old. Kemble fi rst performed at Drury Lane in 1783, so it is likely that he knew Joseph’s father. 61. Dickens, Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, 205. 62. There are problems concerning Betty’s income, especially during his second London season. See chapter 2, footnotes 168 and 169. 63. Deirdre David argues that, in hiring Betty, Kemble was “pandering to the public’s lust for novelty” (Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life, 17). 64. John Doran adds Richard Suett to the list, but he was hardly a star (Their Majesties’ Servants, 2:299). 65. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:188. 66. Garrick had donated a house worth ₤500 to the fund. See Monthly Mirror, n.s. 4 ( July 1808): 102. 67. The story was covered by the Ipswich Journal, May 18, 1805. 68. Langford, Century of Birmingham Life: Or, A Chronicle of Local Events, from 1741– 1841, 2:259. 69. Probably in an effort to mollify the press, William Betty Sr. also donated ₤20 to a local Birmingham hospital on his son’s behalf. See Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. Betty Sr. learned that charity could generate good publicity. On July 19, 1806, the Newcastle Courant reported that Betty gave ₤10 to the Newcastle Infi rmary. 70. Mrs. Litchfield was fi rst announced as a replacement for Mrs. Siddons in the Morning Chronicle, September 20, 1804. 71. Times, December 5, 1804. 72. Morning Chronicle, January 29, 1805. 73. For more on Betty’s thespian strong suits, see next chapter. 74. George Raymond’s narrative supplies no dates for the letter, but it comes in discussion of the spring 1804–5 season. See his Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian, 110. 75. Date found in Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:185. 76. Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:259. 77. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 488. On dispelled dreams and Bettymania: One cartoonist comically depicted Young Betty in his Scottish kilts. In the foreground, a prostrate John Bull is raised to his feet by John Philip Kemble and his sister Sarah Siddons. Addressing the two adult actors, John Bull, as waking from a dream, says: “Ah, my good friend Mr. Kemble how do you do? Mrs. Siddons I am happy to see you—mercy on me what Enchantment have I been under!! Is that the Pigmy I was so much attach’d to? Why he appears now no bigger than a pinshead!!—and I declare I thought him as tall as the Monument!!!” (cartoon signed S.W. Fores, dated June 28, 1806, Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NY). 78. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:190. 79. Playfair, Prodigy, 22–23. 80. Mrs. Jordan stated that, in her view, “the avarice of young Betty’s father was doing every thing to destroy his son.” Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:187–88. 81. Munden, Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian, 117–18. 82. “Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’” in Griffith, Reminiscences and Records, 337. The anonymous author of Roscius in London states that the chancellor never intervened on Betty’s behalf. The same author suggests that the public may have been fooled by a rumor designed to damage Betty Sr.’s reputation (54n). The Ipswich Journal, December 22, 1804, noted that Betty Sr. had recently invested ₤6,000 of the boy’s earnings on an annualized

NOTES

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return of 3 percent. But the same paper also noted rumors concerning Betty’s fi nances were common: “This [Betty Sr.’s investment of ₤6,000] completely rebuts the illiberal insinuations which have been circulated on this subject.” John Campbell, the lord high chancellor, does not discuss taking over Betty’s fi nances, though he admits he was a Bettymaniac (Life of John, Lord Campbell, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, 1:111). 83. Munden, Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian, 118. 84. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805), 399. 85. Relatedly, Hough might have complained that he was underpaid. He was earning just 30 shillings a week! Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 86. Pangloss, Young Rosciad, 30. See also George Davies Harley who noted the boy’s “remarkably docile” disposition and Hough’s “directing genius”; Henry Barton Baker stated that Hough “taught him all, at least all his early and most successful parts” (Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 67, 13; Henry Barton Baker, English Actors, 2:189). Another critic dismissed Betty as little more than Hough’s mannequin: “As the prompter breaths the puppit speaks” (Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 6). The Morning Chronicle, June 14, 1830, reported that Master Betty “was unable to read and write,” and was thus “taught like a parrot.” A slightly different argument was presented in the Monthly Mirror, which argued that with or without Hough, Betty’s acting lacked any sort of intellectual force: “he [Betty] appeared merely to repeat by rote, certain exclamations, gestures, and attitudes,” but, lacking any real understanding of their meaning, they were “almost all unfortunately totally misapplied” (18[1804]: 133). The claim is repeated in Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 20). Inchbald added: “he totally mistook the passion of his best scene—still he gave a passion, though not the right one; and the audience were charmed” (Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, 2:78). 87. Playfair, Prodigy, 130. Whatever Hough threatened Betty Sr. with, it was serious and remained so. In later life Master Betty would try to paper over any knowledge of or dealings with Hough. According to his memoirs of 1846, Betty never had an acting coach, and Hough is not even mentioned in Betty’s narrative. In this revised history, Atkins had simply auditioned the boy and immediately employed him to act for Belfast’s audiences. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 2. 88. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 14. 89. On Betty’s remarks in Edinburgh, see chapter 1; on Betty’s leapfrogging of Young, see chapter 2. 90. [Burton], in Young Roscius Dissected, complained of Betty’s “impudence” and “vanity” (16). 91. According to the Era, February 27, 1853, Hough “retired on a pension into Wales.” 92. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 413. 93. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 94. Monthly Mirror 21 (1805): 416. This review was probably hired and salaried. Thomas Asline Ward met Wilson when Hough brought his newest protégé to Sheffield. Ward noted that Wilson was an intelligent boy of eleven but hampered with a speech impediment (Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 96). This may have been due to Wilson’s assiduous parroting. Hough “had a peculiar impediment in his speech—either his mouth had no roof, or his palate was defective. For him to utter a single word distinctly was impossible” (Era, February 27, 1853). 95. Monthly Mirror 22 (1806): 65. 96. Ibid., 19 (1805): 66. 97. Ibid., 19 (1805): 339. 98. Oxberry, Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography, Embellished With Plates, and Containing A Memoir of Solomon James Browne, 27:180. It is possible that Solomon Browne and Mr. Brown are not one and the same actors. The actor George Bartley, who was blond haired, blue-eyed, and only five foot, three inches in height, also “bore some resemblance to Master Betty” (“Memoir of George Bartley,” in Oxberry, Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes, 5:231).

192

NOTES

99. Press clipping in Clips—Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 100. Monthly Mirror 20 (October 1805): 279. See also the Aberdeen Journal, January 1, 1806, which argued that Master Brown “equaled, and in several passages, excelled” Betty in the role of Frederick (Lover’s Vows). 101. Monthly Mirror 19 (1805): 340. Some of the prodigies worked together. Master Romney Robinson, for example, wrote verse for Miss Mudie, among others. 102. Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7: 653. 103. Press clipping in Clips—Personalities—Betty, W.H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 104. Ibid., 105. Monthly Mirror 19 (1805): 276. 106. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ NC. 788. 107. Monthly Mirror 21 (1806): 56. 108. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 215. 109. Critique on the First Performance of Young Roscius, 25; Pangloss, Young Rosciad, 28. 110. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 120. The Belfast News-Letter referred to her as an “extraordinary spectacle” which “surpassed the most sanguine anticipations that could ever be formed” (Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, New York Public Library, MWEZ. NC.11745). 111. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 118. The same article states that Mudie was to perform at Drury Lane, but Kemble was at Covent Garden. 112. Peter Pangloss, Young Rosciad, 30–31. A newspaper clipping of the era reported that Betty Sr. was arranging a marriage between his son and Miss Mudie, the nuptials to be put off until she was of age. While the story is probably satirical, it does suggest that London audiences saw these child actors as a natural tandem. See Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 113. Lady Harriet Cavendish, Hary-O, 132. The play also featured Mrs. Jordan. See Times advertisement for the play, November 22, 1805. Jordan had pointedly refused to act with Master Betty. 114. Brunton spent some time in America (Winter, Shadows of the Stage, 3:74). She was rated, at her death in 1808, as among the fi nest actresses ever to play in that country. 115. David Erskine Baker, Biographia Dramatica 1:LXII. 116. Idem. Years later, the Aberdeen Journal, April 26, 1854, would describe how the actors and audience had entered into an “organized conspiracy” to destroy the career of this little girl. 117. Baker, Biographia Dramatica, 1:LXIII–LXIV. As for Miss Mudie, she soon after appeared at the regional theater in Cheltenham but was “unattractive,” and her contract was canceled. She was replaced by George Renaud, the Comic Roscius, and then by Little Kitty Fisher (Era, March 13, 1853). Within weeks of her Covent Garden debut, she gave her farewell performance, in which she, mouthing the words of the poet John Taylor, promised never again to tread the stage: “Nor think, should I escape from critic rage, / And rise in favour on a prouder stage, / What e’er that favour, it could more endear / Than the kind praise that cheer’d my efforts here: / No!—the lov’d record will through life remain / ‘Within the book and volume of my brain’”( John Taylor, “Farewell Address, spoken by Miss Mudie in the Theatre at Windsor,” in his Poems on Various Subjects, 1:88). Taylor had a flare for these sorts of poems. In 1817, he wrote an ode celebrating Kemble’s retirement from the stage. See An Authentic Narrative of Kemble’s Retirement from the Stage, 35–37. 118. Harris was silent on Miss Mudie, but the Morning Chronicle (March 14, 1812) reported “some little coolness” between Kemble and his banker as a consequence of Kemble’s actions against Betty. 119. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:260. There is a story, probably apocryphal, concerning Sheridan’s view of Miss Mudie. When asked if he would consider hiring her, he replied, “one bubble at a time is enough; if you have two, they will knock against each other, and burst” (Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, June 7, 1871).

NOTES

193

120. Julie A. Carlson explains: “What holds a group like Bettymaniacs together is their object’s status as one-of-a-kind. Affi rming the genius of their idol reinforces the genius of the group, but when that idol is shown to be replicatable, the group itself is shown up as deluded, silly, capable of being duped” (“Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 594). 121. Morning Chronicle, December 17,1805. 122. David Erskine Baker, Biographia Dramatica, LXIV. 123. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 13–14. The memoir further stated that there was a plan underway to “exclude him [Betty] from appearing at the National Theatres. The injustice and malignity of this attempt cannot be too strongly stigmatized.” The rumor may have been recycled. According to the Ipswich Journal, October 20, 1804, Professor Robinson “entered a written caveat with the Chancellor” to have Betty barred from performing in London. Professor Robison or Robinson (accounts vary) appears in chapter 1 of this study. 124. Ipswich Journal, December 21, 1805; see also Times, December 17, 1805. 125. Monthly Mirror 21 (1806): 56. 126. Ibid., 401. The Nelson reference further connects with images of Betty defeating Napoleon. See chapter 2. The Battle of Trafalgar took place on October 21, 1805. 127. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 408. 128. Lady Bessborough, in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, II:147. 129. The date is given by Munden (Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian, 124). However, Sandra K. Norton’s lists this performance as taking place on December 23, 1805 (“William Henry West Betty, Romantic Child Actor,” 207). 130. A Mr. Chapman fi lled in for the last two acts and had to read the part. See Thomas Munden, Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian, 125. Hargrove’s indignation had been simmering a long time. On Betty’s December 1, 1804 debut, the Monthly Mirror 18 (1804) noted: “The other male performers received no indulgence from the audience. They were all either hissed, laughed at, or neglected. Mr. Hargrave, in [playing the part of] Barbarossa, was used most mercilessly. Their indignation of the tyrant was extended, we believe, to his representative” (422–423). 131. Baker, Our Old Actors, 2:249; Baker, English Actors, 2:192; see also Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 498. The same dirty trick was employed for Betty’s performance of Octavian (Covent Garden, February 2, 1805): “That young Betty was so young as to be on that account totally unfit for many of the parts he performed, is obvious; never was any exhibition more ridiculously absurd than his grappling with and overpowering the largest actor on the stage,—Corry in Octavian.” See London Review 2 (August–November, 1809):103. (I have italicized the title Octavian.) Corry or “Cory” also played in Betty’s London premiere (Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, 5 [1825]: 183). On St. Leger, Michael Kelly gives us a sense of her size and strength. In a play called Aggression!, she picked up the diminutive Harry Horrebow, a fi ve-year-old boy who played her son in the play, and “held him aloft in one hand, while she fought her assailant with a tomahawk” (Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, 2:199). Anthony Denning states that she was six feet tall (Theatre in the Cotswolds, 159). 132. Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:660. Whether John Philip Kemble was aware of it or not, he was not the fi rst to attack Betty for his pint-sized proportions. In 1804, John Wilson Croker of Dublin published Familiar Epistles. In it, he attacked Betty by calling him “Tom Thumb” (35). Ridiculing Betty’s audiences, Croker wrote: “The very walls are rocked and why? / The hero’s only four feet high!” (36). Stephen Kemble, who hired Betty to perform in Coventry and Newcastle, referred to his acting as a “Tom Thumb exhibition” (Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 56). 133. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 497. See also Boaden’s Life of Mrs, Jordan, 2:200. The amount ₤227 is disputed by a review in the Times (December 17, 1805), which put the receipts for Betty’s Gustavus Vasa at ₤220.

194

NOTES

134. Further details concerning his second season contract, including the high deductible, are found in chapter 2. 135. On Betty’s second season, see appendix A. 136. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 497; Dickens, Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, 224. 137. European Magazine, and London Review 49 (1806), 53. 138. Press clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 139. She added prophetically: “when full 20 Years are past and over, William Henry West Betty will have to complain instead of to rejoyce, when reflecting on his Treatment by a British Public” (Hester Lynch Piozzi to Hester Maria Thrale, January 17, 1806, in Piozzi, Piozzi Letters, 4:91). 140. On Orestes, Monthly Mirror 21 (1806) mentions the part as proof that Betty was a “wonderful boy”(56); for the rest, see Press clipping, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ. NC.11745. 141. Press clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 142. Press clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. Still, Betty did play Othello in 1815. See next chapter. 143. Fisher, cited in Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 43. 144. Betty has previously played Richard III at Glasgow on June 8 and 11, 1804; Edinburgh ( July 19 and August 4), Birmingham, August 17 and 30, 1804; Sheffield, September 19 and October 1, 1804; Liverpool, October 15, 1804, Stockport, November 24, 1804. See Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 23, 26, 32, 52, 58; Authentic Sketch, 25–26; Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 11; Roscius in London, 11, 17, 28; Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 14; Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 4, 7, 9. He also played the role in London on several occasions. See appendix A. 145. Roscius in London, 58. On his scene with Lady Anne, one audience member called it “as fi nished a specimen of acting as I have ever beheld, though I am old enough to remember the extraordinary talents of Garrick in the part” (Booker, cited in Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 78). 146. See Harley, Authentic Biographical Sketch, 24. See also Roscius in London, 58. Betty’s portrayal of Richard III did have its fans. The anonymous author of Authentic Sketch wrote that Betty’s Richard “delighted and astonished many audiences; and a higher opinion cannot be conveyed of his imitative powers” (33). The Morning Chronicle, May 3, 1805, while declaring that Betty was ill-suited to the role, was pleasantly surprised: “We looked for complete burlesque; but we witnessed well conceived, though ineffectual attempts to pourtray the subtlety, hypocrisy and violence of the crook-backed tyrant.” 147. Betty played Zanga at Drury Lane; Oroonoko at Covent Garden. Betty had already played Zanga during his fi rst tour of Ireland. See chapter 1. For more on Betty’s second season performances, see appendix A. 148. Jane Porter, letter to Anna Maria Porter, February 22, 1806, in Huntington MS Por 1584, Box 31. 149. Leigh Hunt, News, December 29, 1805, in Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 150. Times, September 13, 1806.

CHAPTER 4. M ASTER BETTY 1. “Home” refers to John Home, author of Douglas. 2. Monthly Mirror 20 (1805): 269. 3. Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 7. 4. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 22.

NOTES

195

5. Monthly Mirror 18 (1804): 407. 6. Playfair, Prodigy, 76. 7. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:174. 8. Bisset, Critical Essays on the Dramatic Excellences of the Young Roscius, 17. 9. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 2. See also chapter 3, footnote 87. 10. Hazlitt, Complete Works, 5:379. 11. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 90; Anna Seward to Sir Walter Scott, August 24, 1807, in Seward, Letters of Anna Seward, 6:363. 12. This was written in reference to Betty’s Douglas. See Times, December 5, 1804. 13. Burke, Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 157–58. The beautiful, on the other hand, is feminine, small, smooth, light and delicate, and weak, even sickly—all characteristics associated with Betty. For more on Burke’s ideas, see Laura L. Runge’s chapter, “Returning to the beautiful,” in her book Gender and Language in British Literary Criticism, 1660–1790, esp. 190–97. 14. Wollstonecraft and Shelly, Mary, 43. 15. The Actor, Or A Treatise on the Art of Playing, 106, 108. 16. James Boaden does not dispute the rancor of the scene but suggests that Kemble’s Hamlet takes no pleasure in shouting at his mother (Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 59). See also Lord William Pitt Lennox, who described Betty’s Hamlet as “a pious son fi lled with the just sense of a mother’s shame” (Plays, Players and Playhouses, I:107). 17. “William Henry West Betty, the Celebrated YOUNG ROSCIUS,” clipping found in Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 18. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Letters of Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:40. Lord William Pitt Lennox described Betty here as “fi nely impassioned, full of energy and feeling” (Plays, Players and Playhouses, 1:110). 19. Lamb cited in Furness, Hamlet: The New Variorum, III.i.103n; on Kemble’s Hamlet, see Oya, Representing Shakespearean Tragedy: Garrick, the Kembles, and Kean, 142; on Betty’s Hamlet, see Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 99. 20. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 99. James Boaden disagreed: Hamlet at the “outset of the play is so young as to talk of going back to school again at Wittemberg [sic], and yet at the grave of Ophelia is proved to have attained his thirtieth year”(Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, 438). 21. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 104, 90, 104. One journalist wrote that it was now clear that Shakespeare “was wrong in making his Hamlet thirty years of age.” Betty proved that what the part called for was “the opening bloom of youth.” See Clips— Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. Of course, to a large degree our present Hamlets follow Betty’s lead. A Hamlet ready to throttle his Ophelia remains unthinkable. For more on Betty’s influence upon generations of actors, see this study’s coda. 22. On Betty’s stage mothers, see Carlson, “Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 578 and 599, footnote 6. 23. See chapter 1. 24. Roscius in London, 34; see also Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 122. Thomas Harral noted Betty’s “fi lial emotions” and “Filial duty” (Infant Roscius, 25, 30). John Fairburn wrote that the “expression of fi lial duty is his [Betty’s] forte” (Life of the Celebrated Young Roscius, 34). 25. Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 30. 26. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 135–36. Here too we may trace the influence of Siddons, whose acting often relied upon the ability to “strike to the feelings of maternal affection, and produce a sympathy of tenderness not frequently to be felt from stage effect.” See Times, May 28, 1788, quoted in Robyn Asleson, “She was Tragedy Personified,” 55; Asleson also reprints a variety of images of Siddons playing with boy actors (54). Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 30. The Ipswich

196

NOTES

Journal, February 23, 1805, noted that Betty’s Frederick was acted with “tenderness and animation.” 27. Inchbald, Lover’s Vows, 5.ii.p.72. 28. Merritt, Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 136. 29. Lady Bessborough in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 1:495. 30. W. P. Russel, The Prose-Rosciad, 8, 6. Russel was a Betty-basher, but even Bettymaniacs worried that the boy’s behavior (whether onstage or offstage is not clear) was somehow ruining his innocence. After having seen Betty perform in Scotland, Lord Meadowbank (Alexander Maconochie) sent the boy a copy of Beattie’s Minstrel, a poem celebrating the Romantic aspects of youthful genius and the anticipation of future excellence. Accompanying the poem was Lord Meadowbank’s letter, which in part suggested that Betty’s conduct was in need of some self-regulation: “give me leave to add, that the strictest guard over your own conduct, and the most inviolable seclusion from the brutifying society of coarse or immoral characters is essential . . . to obtain or preserve the bodily vigour, the penetrating discernment, and the purity of taste, on the happiest combination of which your future eminence must depend” (Monthly Mirror 18 (1804): 118; the letter is reprinted in Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 19–21). It’s difficult to see how Betty’s behavior might have worried Lord Meadowbank. After all, the boy wasn’t drinking or gambling. It may well be that Betty’s beauty/femininity was the issue. Note Meadowbank’s advice that Betty improve his “bodily vigour.” 31. Russel, Prose-Rosciad, 5. 32. Ibid., 6. On taxes, see p.17. 33. Annual Register, 20 (1777, 5th ed. published in 1805): 189–91; Annual Register 24 (1781, 3rd ed. published in 1800): 28–29. 34. Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women, 155 n. 37. 35. For more on D’Eon, see Wahrman, Making of the Modern Self, 29–33. 36. Plato, Dialogues of Plato, 1:497, 503, 502. 37. W. P. Russel, The Prose-Rosciad, 10. 38. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 37, 38; originally published in 1759. 39. Garber, Vested Interests, 28. Further, Anne K. Mellor, another highly regarded academic, has recently argued that many Romantics were “ideological cross-dressers”—i.e., male writers exploiting feminine writing strategies, and female writers often borrowing from their masculine counterparts (Romanticism & Gender, 171). 40. Coventry was its own county until 1842 when it was merged with Warwickshire. 41. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 12. 42. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:258. 43. Julie A. Carlson, while not writing on Betty in this particular instance, disagrees with the general drift of this thesis. She argues that beauty—and here we may read: Betty—was an agent not of social change but of stability: “beauty safeguards it [the nation] by reconciling head and heart. Beauty restores alienated individuals and a warring body politic by grounding social cohesion in affect rather than rationality.” See her book In the Theatre of Romanticism: Coleridge, Nationalism, Women, 136. 44. Anne Mathews, Tea-Table Talk, 2:258. 45. Gwynn, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter, 252. Julie A. Carlson misattributes the rubdowns to Hough (“Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 593). 46. Without some background on the era’s gender norms, we might be too quick to agree with Giles Playfair’s remark that Bettymania was “basically, however disguisedly, a sexual phenomenon” (Prodigy, 76). 47. Curran, “Romanticism,” GLBT: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Theory (Online). 48. Greer, Beautiful Boy, 226, 228. 49. Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women, 97. This prompted Wollstonecraft to retort: “why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more

NOTES

197

exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why, to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of?—Let the libertine draw what inference he pleases” (98). 50. Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 75. 51. As Lord Chesterfield counseled, “Women, especially, are to be talked to below men, and above children” (quoted in Roe, Georgian Child, 38). See also Cunningham, Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500, who writes that children in the preVictorian (i.e., Georgian) era commonly deferred to adults of both sexes. He suggests, however, that before 1750 boys were classified as pseudo-women only until age six and thereafter joined the dominant world of maledom (70). His data is drawn upon a study of American family portraits, but we may suppose that English portraits reflect a similar cultural bias. 52. Russel, Prose-Rosciad, 7. See also Harry Hendrick, who further connects children to the disempowered status of women prior to the feminist movements (Children, childhood and English society, 1880–1990, 3–4). 53. On this idea, see Julie A. Carlson’s extremely useful article: “Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 592, 580; William Hazlitt’s famous phrase was part of a lecture delivered January 27, 1818. 54. Playfair, Prodigy, 87. 55. See Web site, “The Parkers of Browsholme.” 56. See undated newspaper report in Clips—Personalities—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. Lewis and Knight, managers of the Liverpool Theatre, were also assigned to help Betty manage his money. See Roscius in London, 59n. 57. T. L. Parker, unpublished letter to Betty Sr., dated November 13, 1804, found in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. See also William Gwynn, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter, 248. 58. Morning Chronicle, April 20, 1805. 59. Of course, the portraits might also be read in any number of other ways. The Northcote portrait, for example, bears some resemblance to Thomas Gainsborough’s Portrait of Garrick with the Bust of Shakespeare (1769). For ways in which Bettymania resembled Garrick Fever, see introduction and chapters 1 and 2. 60. April 16, 1806, in Farington, Farington Diary, 3:190. 61. There is no evidence that the boy complied. 62. Parker to Mrs. Betty, in loose collection of documents found in Betty, W. H. W. Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 63. See appendix A for more details. 64. Carlson, “Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism,” 582. 65. Even without knowledge of this letter, Giles Playfair compares Parker’s behavior to that of a “disappointed lover” (Prodigy, 88). 66. April 16, 1806, Farington, Farington Diary, 3:190. 67. The Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 2:232. 68. Lady Bessborough, in Gower, Letters to Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2: 35. 69. Ward, Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 51, 57. 70. Ibid., 52. 71. Ibid., 49–50. 72. Mrs. Mathews recalled how her famous actor husband used to practice his acting by playing marbles with boys: “It was most diverting to observe how completely the boys had ceased to regard him as anything but what he represented; no giggling, no suspicion, but a thorough confidence at last in the reality of his being a child, though of ‘larger growth’ than themselves. As he quitted them, he said he must go to his ‘Ma,’ and joined us; the boys looking after him and at us with curiosity, for a moment, but immediately resuming their play, seemingly without any further reflection upon the incident.” See Anne Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, 3:620.

198

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73. The Courier, December 3, 1804, and December 7, 1804. 74. Lady Bessborough, in Gower, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, 2:40. 75. Ibid., 2:13. John Wilson Croker complained that a typical Juliet next to Betty’s Romeo looked like “an overgrown girl and her doll” (Familiar Epistles, 37n). Likewise, the Morning Chronicle, February 8, 1805, deemed Betty’s Romeo to be “cold and monotonous.” The Newcastle Courant, August 31, 1805, wrote that Romeo was “not esteemed his best character.” However, George Davies Harley approved of Betty’s “chaste and spirited” Romeo (Authentic Biographical Sketch, 76). 76. Morning Chronicle, December 17, 1804. 77. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:176. The issue of Betty’s ability to play a heterosexual lover was not limited to his youth. During Betty’s 1812 comeback, he played Alexander the Great, one reviewer opined that in representing “the feelings of tenderness and love . . . Mr. Betty was not successful” (Supplement to the Sixth Volume, New Series of Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine [1812]: 337–46, in Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC. 11745). 78. See Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC. 11745. Another critic recommended that Betty “avoid . . . love sick [ie. romantic] characters.” See Clips— Personalities—Betty, W.H., Houghton Library, Harvard. The Morning Chronicle, February 25, 1805 thought that Betty, due to his “Boyish appearance,” lacked the “ardour or dignity” needed to play a king or a lover. 79. This opinion differs with that of Jim Davis, who has recently argued that the smutty aspect of seeing Betty was so pronounced that later generations prudishly shifted their fascination from male to female prodigies:“However convincing their skills in male impersonation, the young girls who represented Shakespeare’s boys drew a different sort of gaze, no longer implicated in the homosocial discourse in play around Master Betty” (“Freaks, Prodigies and Marvellous Mimicry: Child Actors of Shakespeare on the Nineteenth-century Stage,” 187). 80. Russel, The Prose-Rosciad, 23. Likewise, Sir Frederick Reynolds dismissed Master Betty as both physically and intellectually inferior to all other male actors. Rather than calling him sublime or manly, Reynolds mocked “the divine Master Betty” as a “HUMBUG” incapable of even pronouncing “the very word by which he lives” (Reynolds, Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 2:362–63). 81. George Davies Harley reports with a slight variance to the historical record that Betty had “an almost unconquerable bashfulness” but had a few friends his own age with whom he engaged in “boyish frolic”(Authentic Biographical Sketch, 36–37). 82. Monthly Mirror 19 (1805): 193. 83. More, Accomplished Lady, III. 84. Croker, Familiar Epistles, 39n. 85. Merritt, Memoirs of the Life of Wm. Henry West Betty, 50–52; Wonderful Theatrical Progress, 34. There might have been some polite criticism of Betty Sr. here, and not just for failing to attend to his son’s education. As Mrs. Anna Lætitia Aikin Barbauld pointed out in her essay “On Education”: “You engage for your child masters and tutors at large salaries; and you do well, for they are competent to instruct him: they will give him the means, at least of acquiring science and accomplishments: but in the business of education, properly so called, they can do little for you. Do you ask, then, what will educate your son? Your example will educate him; your conversation with your friends; the business he sees you transact; the likings and dislikings you express; these will educate him.” See Barbauld, Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld, 2:306. Barbauld’s essay was published posthumously in 1825, long after Bettymania, but the notion may have been common and contemporaneous ca. 1804. 86. Ward, Peeps into the Past: The Diaries of Thomas Asline Ward, 50. 87. Monthly Mirror, n.s. 4 (Dec. 1808): 367. 88. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:183. 89. Ibid., 2:184.

NOTES

199

90. Ipswich Journal, December 15, 1804. One journal, alarmed at the situation, urged Betty Sr. not to give up on educating the boy: “A great deal . . . remains to be studied by Master Betty, and we would advise his friends to look beyond the present hour, and fit him for a nobler reputation than that of rivalling a Westminster-school player.” As to his frequent lolling with royalty or playing with six-year-olds, the same journal retorted: “nor do we think the boy will greatly improve his knowledge” by “fi shing and kite-flying with little lords, or by playing with puppets and baby-theatres. The wax is as yet yielding to every impression; let them take care; the longer it remains in its present mould the less pliable it will become to their hand, and if not managed with care and nicety, may probably bear their injudicious and hasty stamp for ever” (“William Henry West Betty, ‘the Celebrated YOUNG ROSCIUS,’ ” 1654–1660; 1660, journal unknown, clipping found in Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745). 91. Anna Seward to Sir Walter Scott, August 24, 1807, in Letters of Anna Seward, 6:365. 92. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, 2:183. 93. Ibid. 94. Curran, “Biographies of Some Obscure Contributors to 19 th-Century Periodicals” (online). 95. Anna Seward to Sir Walter Scott, August 24, 1807, in Seward, Letters of Anna Seward, 6:364. 96. Dramatic and Musical Review VIII.ii (1848), 133. See also the Era, August 30, 1874. Two newspapers reported that a respectable clergyman had been hired at ₤300 a year to tutor the boy, but, given the amount that the Bettys had paid Hough (a mere 30 shillings a week) this seems unlikely. On tutor, see the Leeds Mercury, June 20, 1807 and the Ipswich Journal, June 20, 1807. On Hough’s salary, see chapter 3, footnote 85. 97. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745. 98. The Ipswich Journal, April 26, 1806, noted that Betty played Bath for the fi rst time on April 22, 1806. I have not been able to fi nd the exact date of his Bristol performance/s. 99. Newcastle Courant, July 19, 1806. 100. Ibid., July 5, 1806. 101. Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, 7:709. I have been unable to ascertain the exact date of this Dover performance, though Betty played Macbeth, at age sixteen, on September 25, 1806, in Liverpool. 102. For a five night stint at Preston, Betty grossed ₤770; a sign of his continued popularity. See the Times, August 20, 1805. The Ipswich Journal, November 29, 1806, reported that Betty was still earning between ₤300 and ₤500 a week, but, given the fact that the larger playhouses were increasingly unwilling to hire him, this seems unlikely beyond 1805. The Morning Chronicle, September 2, 1806, noted his stint in Lancaster, in which he played Rolla, Hamlet, Richard III, and Romeo. 103. Memoirs of Mr. W.H.W. Betty, 14. 104. Powys, Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys, 363. On Betty’s deepening voice: An infi rm Anna Seward saw Betty in Bath in August 1807 and declared his voice to be “spoiled” (Anna Seward to Sir Walter Scott, August 24, 1807, in Seward, Letters of Anna Seward, 6:365); a spectator who saw Betty at the Cheltenham Theatre in 1807 complained that “his voice, which was never sweet or silvery toned, is now exceedingly husky, and full of cracks, and monotonous to an intolerable degree” (Monthly Mirror Vol. 2 (1807): 370). The exact date of this performance is unrecorded, but on September 30, 1807, he played Selim at the “Racket Court,” in nearby Oxford. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ N.C. 788. 105. Monthly Mirror Vol. 2 (1807): 221. He did better in Gosport, where he performed for two weeks “with great applause; his exhibition of Young Norval, Achmet, Earl of Warwick, &c. so attracted public attention, as to produce more considerable houses than ever before witnessed at this place, every part overflowing at an early hour” (Monthly Mirror Vol. 2 [1807]: 449).

200

NOTES

106. [George Burges], Cato to Lord Byron on the Immortality of His Writings, 122. The follows is also appropriate to Betty: Byron’s “whole literary career is rapidly dwindling down to infantine imbecility”(122). 107. Baker, English Actors, II:136. Bryan Waller Procter records the same story with slightly different verbiage in Life of Edmund Kean, 1:87. 108. Bryan Waller Procter, Life of Edmund Kean, 1:89. 109. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 14. 110. Ipswich Journal, April 23, 1808. 111. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 14. 112. A Tribute to the Genius of the Young Roscius, 20. 113. Farington, The Farington Diary, 5:78. 114. Caledonian, July 18, 1808. 115. When Betty mounted a comeback in 1812, he again hired Mrs. Moore to play opposite him (Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC.11745). 116. Ipswich Journal, July 30, 1808. 117. Farington, Farington Diary, 5: 88–89.

CHAPTER 5. THE L ATTER YEARS 1. Letter from Macready to Master Betty, March 8, [1812]. Copy of letter found in Theatre Museum, Covent Garden; original found in Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States. Extra Illustrated Edition. no. 2:14. 2. Monthly Mirror, n.s. 4 (Dec. 1808):367. 3. Shorthouse, Present to Youths & Young Men, 117. 4. Monthly Mirror, n.s. 4 (Dec. 1808): 367. 5. Ibid. 6. Mathews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain: The Kembles, 75; Cole, Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, 1:144. 7. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 14. 8. Barham, Harness, and Hodder, Personal Reminiscences, 179. 9. Mitford, Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, 2:296. 10. Dyce, Reminiscences of Alexander Dyce, 164. 11. November 22, 1812. Farington, Farington Diary, 7:134. 12. He was still practicing archery as late as 1837. A typed catalog by Magg Bros., entitled “Master Betty: Collection of Engraved Portraits,” describes a portrait of Betty as Hamlet, and includes reference to a letter from Henry Betty: “dated June 23, 1837. [sic] requesting [Charles] Selby to join his father at the Sport of Archery to which Betty, Senior, devoted his time after reaching maturity” (item 47, [p. 6]). Harvard acquired the catalog on July 15, 1911. The original letter is not in Harvard’s otherwise extensive Betty collection. 13. Benson Earle Hill, Playing About, 1:86. 14. Penley, Bath Stage, 106. 15. Master Betty to William Harness, in Houghton Library, Harvard, uncataloged, temporary listing: Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, 2001–2002.54.3. 16. Hester Lynch Piozzi to Hester Maria Thrale, March 6–7, 1805, in Piozzi, Piozzi Letters 4:60, and to Lady Keith, February 18, 1812 (Ibid. 5:124). 17. Hester Lynch Piozzi to John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury, February 12, 1812, Ibid., 5: 122. Betty’s take is increased to ₤800 in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 14. 18. Lynch Piozzi to Lady Keith, February 29, 1812, in Piozzi, Piozzi Letters 5:129. 19. Bath Journal, February 17, 1812. On February 24, the same journal added that the loud and sustained applause was “the most flattering and unquestionable proofs of the high estimation in which they [his skills] are held by the public.”

NOTES

201

20. Piozzi, Piozzi Letters 5:131 n. 14. 21. Bath Chronicle, March 30, 1812. 22. Hester Lynch Piozzi to Rev. Thomas Sedgwick Whalley, April 8, 1815, in Piozzi, Piozzi Letters 5:351; see also 5:353 n. 12. 23. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 14–15. 24. Donaldson, Recollections of an Actor, 143. For Southampton, see extant playbills found in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. 25. Hester Lynch Piozzi to John Salusbury Piozzi Sausbury, April 12, 1815, in Piozzi, Piozzi Letters 5:357. 26. “Recollections of ‘Master Betty,’ ” date unknown, Press Clippings, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden. 27. The press agreed. On his recent performance of Achmet, the Statesman, November 4, 1812, noted that Betty was a decent enough actor but “too rotund”; likewise a newspaper in Plymouth reported that the once Young Roscius had “greatly grown, but his general appearance is by no means improved” (Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC. 11745). 28. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 43–53. 29. Ibid. 30. On the other hand, the Hull Packet, December 22, 1807, reported that Betty was contemplating writing his theatrical memoirs. He must have felt that he had something interesting to say about the profession. 31. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 53. Toby Alspice in his short pamphlet Ut Homo Est! also cited Betty’s successes as Sir Edward Mortimer in Iron Chest and the lead role in William Sherley’s Edward, The Black Prince (11). 32. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 53. I have silently italicized the title Richard II. 33. Ibid., 54. 34. Review from Playfair, Prodigy, 155. 35. Review from Ibid. Date of performance from Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 36. Henry Crabb Robinson, London Theatre 1811–1866, 48. Charles Mayne Young, who had acted with Betty at Liverpool during the height of Bettymania, played Old Norval (Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15). Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty cites a performance of Douglas on December 12, 1812 (15); Giles Playfair dates the performance to November 13 (Prodigy, 156); my date is set from Robinson’s diary. 37. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 44, 54; repeated in Baker, English Actors, 2:193. For more on Betty’s vocal delivery, see chapter 2, note 75. 38. Other Covent Garden performances and dates included: Osman (November 7); Essex (November 10, 1812); Tancred (November 26, 1812); Warwick (December 12, 1812); and Phocyas (December 22, 1812). Dates and parts cited in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 39. Date confi rmed in Ibid. 40. Date and review from Playfair, Prodigy, 155–56. 41. Date and review from Ibid., 156. 42. Times review reprinted in Chambers and Chambers, Chamber’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts, 650. 43. Scott, Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott 20:219. 44. Henry Crabb Robinson, London Theatre 1811–1866, 49. 45. Betty played Mortimer on September 23, 1812, in Southampton. See playbills found in Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. See also Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15.

202

NOTES

46. Alspice. Ut Homo Est!, 11. The pseudonym Toby Alspice was probably based upon the character Toby Allspice, in Thomas Morton’s play Way to Get Married, a comedy fi rst performed in 1796 but revived at Drury Lane on June 17, 1805. The height of London Bettymania was December 1804 to June 1805. On Betty in Franklin’s and Dimond’s respective plays, see also Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 47. Northcote quoted in William Hazlitt, Complete Works of William Hazlitt, 11:196. At year’s end, Fuseli told his friend Joseph Farington that he “had lately seen him [Betty] often in several characters, & decidedly gave Him a preference over J. P. Kemble, & all the other Tragedians, as having more nature & originality.—In this opinion [George] Dance [R. A.] entirely concurred, saying He wd. rather see Betty in a Character than a thousand Kembles.” See entry for November 22, 1812, in Farington, Farington Diary, 7:140. 48. Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, 44. 49. Reynolds, Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 2:365. Betty’s skills and popularity were sufficient for Covent Garden to reengage him in the spring to play Douglas (April 19, 1813); Rolla (April 24); and Richard III (on July 12). See Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 50. See playbill in Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ NC. 788; also Memoirs of Mr. W. H.W. Betty, 15. 51. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 52. Cowell, Thirty Years Passed Among Players, 23. 53. Leigh Hunt, Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, 405. Hazlitt was not always complimentary. When some compared Kean to Betty, Hazlitt replied that Betty was a fad, whereas Kean was actually talented: “Master Betty’s acting . . . drew crowds to see it as a mere singularity, because he was a boy. Mr. Kean was a grown man, and there was no rule or precedent established in the ordinary course of nature why some other man should not appear in tragedy as great as John Kemble” (Hazlitt, Complete Works of William Hazlitt, 8:294). The comparison between Betty and Kean was common. Farington recorded that the poet “John Taylor spoke of Kean the Actor & persisted in His opinion that Kean is an imposture as an actor, and that the approval of Him is a general false judgment.—Such, He sd. was the case with Master W. H. W. Betty when He fi rst appeared” (Farington Diary, March 3, 1816, 8:58). Taylor and Betty joined in the 1817 celebration of Kemble’s retirement from the stage—an event which must have occasioned some awkwardness, considering Kemble’s repeated attempts to destroy Betty. See Authentic Narrative of Kemble’s Retirement from the Stage, 35, 39, 47, 53. 54. Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, 488. Similarly, Leigh Hunt noted that Betty “is [now] understood to estimate his former popularity with singular modesty and good sense” (Leigh Hunt’s London Journal, 1:118). 55. Haydon, Diary, 1:449. A slightly different version is found in Haydon, Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-Talk, 2:297–98. 56. Times, July 16, 1813. 57. Leigh Hunt, Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, 405. 58. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 59. Her maiden name is found in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 17. A press clipping at the Houghton Library, Harvard, supplies her fi rst name. See Playbills—Stars—Male— Betty, W. H. 60. Poem found in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 61. For date of birth, see press clipping in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. 62. Examiner, August 1, 1819, echoing Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 157. 63. As recorded by Hazlitt, Complete Works of William Hazlitt, 8:294–95. 64. Reprinted in Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75): 47.

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65. Raymond, Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian, 359. 66. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 15. 67. Ibid. 68. Cathrall, History of Oswestry, 107. 69. Edward Tucker to Betty, in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 70. Fitzgerald, Garrick Club, 145. 71. November 22, 1812, in Farington, Farington Diary, 7:134. 72. Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, September 8, 1824. 73. James and Horace Smith, Rejected Addresses, 396. 74. Belfast News-Letter, August 15, 1837. 75. Letter from Betty to Macready, in Harvard Theater Collection, uncataloged; temporary listing: Betty, W. H. W. Miscellaneous, 2001–2002.54.3. 76. Macready was officially named manager of Covent Garden in 1837, a post which he held until 1839; he thereafter managed Drury Lane from 1841–43. 77. Hawkins, Life of Edmund Kean, Extra Illustrated Edition, vol. 1, opposite 80. 78. Macready wrote to Betty of his favorable decision on February 27, 1842. See Diaries of William Charles Macready, 2:159. 79. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 17. 80. “Young Roscius, Theatre, Kelso, Berwick Company of Comedians,” Press Clippings. Theatre Museum, Covent Garden. One newspaper reprinted a letter from a gentleman who had seen Betty in Edinburgh: “He [Betty] is said to be only thirteen years old; I rather suppose he is sixteen; but even at that age, his exhibition was assuredly the most astonishing exertion ever beheld, for such a mere youth” (Caledonian Mercury, June 30, 1804). The anonymous author of Roscius in London commented that Betty appears to be “older than the register of his birth reports him to be” (48). 81. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ.NC. 11745. 82. On the other hand, Henry Betty was known to have a “complaint in the chest”— whatever that means—so there may well have been a serious medical issue here. On Henry Betty’s health, see Odd Fellow, September 7, 1839. 83. Theatrical Times, 1 (1847): 194. 84. See letters dated November 6, 1835, in Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Extra Illustrated Edition, vol. 8: opposite 522, Houghton Library, Harvard; Henry Betty letter to unknown recipient, October 1, 1839, in Betty, W. H. W., Miscellaneous, Houghton Library, Harvard, bMS THR 467. 85. Betty’s sister, Marianne Euphemia, died July 13, 1814. Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75): 38, incorrectly lists her death as occurring on July 4, 1814. Born on August 25, 1804, she was nine years old upon her death. Rowan Fitzpatrick, senior archives assistant for the Shropshire County Council, kindly supplied me with a copy of her burial record. He looked though the parish records for relevant information concerning the cause of her death but found none. 86. In 1820, Master Betty bought a Shropshire house for her, cheerfully named the “Tally-ho Cottage” (Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 [1874–75]: 38). 87. Times, September 7, 1838. Date for performance found in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 17. He may have appeared still earlier at another theater. The Belfast News-Letter, August 24, 1838, reported that Henry was to appear in Cheltenham, playing the part of Selim. I have found no review of the performance, which is not listed in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty. 88. Prologue reprinted in Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 17. 89. See “Master Betty, the Younger,” Times, September 7, 1838, and “Mr. Betty, The Younger,” Salopian Shreds and Patches 2 (1876–77): 87. 90. Bunn, The Stage, 3:106. Bunn’s version refers to Henry T. Betty as Henry J. Betty. 91. Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14, in the Houghton Library, Harvard.

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92. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 18. 93. Letter from H. W. Betty to T. Roden, Esq., February 13, 1839, in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. 94. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 18. 95. Ibid., 20. 96. Ibid., 21. 97. Morley, Margate and Its Theaters, 55, 64. 98. The original review is quoted in Salopian Shreds and Patches 2 (1876–77): 87. 99. Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 19–21. 100. Ibid., 22. 101. Theatrical Times 1 (1847): 255, 272. 102. Dramatic and Musical Review VIII-New Series II (1848): 28, 45, 282. 103. Daily News, December 28, 1852. 104. Mr. Hughes to Henry Betty, March 3, 1858, in Betty, W. H. W. Miscellaneous, Hollis, 008217486, Houghton Library, Harvard. Master Betty may have been ill as early as 1851. In that same year, Henry Betty considered leasing the Margate Theatre but backed out, citing “professional causes” (Morley, Margate and Its Theatres, 69). On planned trip to America, canceled due to “family considerations,” see Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75), 31; Memoirs of Mr. W. H. W. Betty, 22. 105. Morley, Margate and Its Theatres, 69. 106. Dickens, Letters of Charles Dickens, 3:333. Laurence Hutton suggests that Jean Margaret Davenport was Dickens’ inspiration for Miss Crummles. See Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage, 230. Davenport is discussed, albeit briefly, in the next chapter. 107. Dickens, Great Expectations, 254–55. 108. Melville, Great Short Works of Herman Melville, 198–99 (emphasis my own). 109. Rogers, Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, 88 and 88n. 110. Dunlap, Memoirs of the Life of George Frederick Cooke, 1:328. 111. Herschel Clay Baker, John Philip Kemble, 277. 112. Henry Barton Baker, History of the London Stage, 125. 113. Marsh, Clubs of London, 2:111. 114. Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, 438. 115. Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain: The Kembles, 300. 116. Russel, The Prose-Rosciad, 19. 117. Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain: The Kembles, 300. 118. Report from Magg Bros., “Master Betty: Collection of Engraved Portraits,” [II]. 119. Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain: The Kembles, 299. 120. Harry Graham, Splendid Failures, 127. The collective negative verdict has rarely been reevaluated. Published studies of Bettymania over the last 205 years are easy enough to catalog: a seven-page and error-fi lled exposé was published in 1945; a lively but poorly documented popular press book followed in 1967; a ten-page note on Bettymania was published in 1974; one perspicacious scholarly article was published in 1996; one useful, seventeen-page paper was published in 2002; an engrossing fourteenpage article on child actors was published in 2006. See Altick’s “The Marvelous Child of the English Stage” (1945): 78–85; Playfair’s The Prodigy (1967); Slout and Rudisill, “The Enigma of The Master Betty Mania” (1974): 80–90; Carlson, “Forever Young: Master Betty and the Queer Stage of Youth in English Romanticism” (1996), 575–602; Edmonds, “ ‘Celebrated and Wonderful’: Master Betty on tour in Liverpool, Chester and Manchester in 1804.” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 98 (2002): 113–30; Jim Davis, “Freaks, Prodigies, and Marvellous Mimicry: Child Actors of Shakespeare on the Nineteenth-century Stage” (2006), 179–93; Betty is discussed in detail on pages 181–87.

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121. Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage, 226. A press clipping at the Houghton Library, Harvard, notes that Dr. Davis had attended to Betty’s “very severe illness” some five years before. The same paper mistakes Betty as eighty-three years old at the time of his death. See Playbills—Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 122. Salopian Shreds and Patches 1 (1874–75): 31–32. 123. Era, September 6, 1874. 124. “The Betty Bequest,” June 1895, in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, Extra Illustrated Edition, no. 2:14. See also Playfair, Prodigy, 177–78. 125. Playfair, Prodigy, 178. 126. See “Catalogue of the Furniture and Effects, Including Theatrical and Archery Relics, at the Betony” (1897), Harvard Theatre Collection. 127. “The Young Roscius: A Play About Master Betty,” Times, October 5, 1953; see also “Productions of the Way,” Times, November 2, 1953.

CODA 1. Monthly Mirror, n.s. 2 ( July 1807): 59. 2. Leigh Hunt, Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, 404. 3. See Playbills—Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard. 4. Armstrong, A Century of Great Actors, 326. 5. The effect was so effeminate Edward Forrest described the performance as “Macready in petticoats.” See Lisa Merrill, “ ‘Acting Like a Man’: National Identity, Homoerotics, and Shakespearean Criticism in the Nineteenth-Century American Press,” 89–90. See also John Coleman, who thought that Macready was more comically than femininely attired (Players and Playwrights I Have Known 1:31). 6. Shattuck, Hamlet of Edwin Booth, 64. 7. Taranow, Bernhardt Hamlet: Culture and Context, 88–91. 8. Vining, Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem, 47, 77–80. 9. Byron to Augusta Leigh, April 25, 1805, in Byron’s Letters and Journals, 1:67. 10. Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in Complete Poetical Works: 1:247, lines 564–65. 11. Byron to Lord Hollard, September 10, 1812, and Byron to Lady Melbourne, September 10, 1812, in Byron’s Letters and Journals, 2:192, 193. 12. See “Cui Bono?” by “Lord B.,” in James and Horace Smith, Rejected Addresses, 309. 13. Blessington, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington, 117–18. 14. Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School, 89. 15. See Constable, Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents: A Memorial, 1:348. See also Nicholas Mason, who points out that Byromania relied upon a combination of “direct advertisements with publicity stunts, newspaper puffs, and endorsements from the well-to-do” (“Building Brand Byron: Early-Nineteenth-Century Advertising and the Marketing of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” 426)—as did Bettymania. 16. Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School, 95. Christine Kenyon Jones suggests that “foundations of the ‘Romantic’ Byronic look” stemmed from portraits of Garrick (“Fantasy and Transfiguration: Byron and his Portraits,” 113). This may have been true when it came to costumed portraits of Byron—for example, Byron in Asiatic or Corsair dress— but this study agrees with Elledge in comparing Byron portraits to Betty portraits. 17. [ John Wilson], “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Fourth,” 90; emphasis my own.

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18. Penley, Bath Stage, 99. Malcolm Morley states that Clara Fisher was eleven years old in 1820, but, if Penley can be trusted, she was seventeen years old in 1820 (Morley, Margate and Its Theatres, 51). 19. Cole, Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, 1:124. 20. Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage, 229. On Payne’s stage name of “American Roscius,” note the title of Memoirs of John Howard Payne, the American Roscius. 21. Leslie, Autobiographical Recollections, 146. 22. Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage, 229; “Prodigies of the Stage,” Press Clippings, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden. The age is a matter of inference. Malcolm Morley states that Joseph Burke was eleven years old in 1830; if that information can be trusted, Burke was, thus, five years old in 1824 (Margate and Its Theatres, 54). 23. A memoir celebrating his genius was issued in 1825. Another memoir followed in 1827 and was reissued two years later, details which suggest that Grossmith’s popularity was real. His repertoire consisted of only two characters, Richard III and Shylock—both acted in the style of Edmund Kean. Nothing was heard of him past 1829. See Life of the Celebrated Infant Roscius, Master Grossmith of Reading, Berks, Only Seven and a Quarter Old; also Life and Theatrical Excursions of William Robert Grossmith. The Juvenile Actor, Not Yet Nine Years Old. 24. Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, NYPL, MWEZ NC. 788. 25. “Child Actors Come Into Their Own Again: The Heirs of Master Betty.” Times, March 28, 1957. 26. See Cole, Biographical Account of Master Herbert: The Infant Roscius! With A Brief Delineation of His Talents, and Critiques on His Performances (1830), 3; Cole had already penned The Talents of Edmund Kean Delineated (1817). 27. Glasgow Herald, January 19, 1844. 28. Coleman, Players and Playwrights I Have Known, 1:18. As an adult actor, however, Coleman had a long and fairly distinguished career of some fi fty years. 29. Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage, 238–241. 30. Ibid., 242. 31. Era, October 5, 1851. 32. Illustrated Times, March 13, 1869, in Press Clippings, Lincoln Center, MWEZ NC.D. 788. 33. Era, October 19, 1854. 34. Cole, Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, 1:125. 35. See Dowson, “The Cult of the Child,” 433–35. On child labor in and out of the British theater, see also Steedman, Strange Dislocations, 130–48 and Alan Richardson, “Romanticism and the End of Childhood,” 31–32. 36. Hester Lynch Piozzi to Rev. Robert Gray, February 21, 1805, in Piozzi, The Piozzi Letters, 4:59 (emphasis my own). Similarly, Lord Meadowbank praised Betty not for his acting but for his “inspirations of youthful genius, and “anticipations of future excellence” (Memoirs and Interesting Anecdotes of the Young Roscius, 19–20); the Scottish manager John Jackson claimed that “I do not rate him [Betty] from a supposition of what he is to be” yet argued that “every year must bring him nearer to the summit of perfection. He will soon grow older . . . [and] he must be the first dramatic character in the British empire” ( Jackson, Strictures Upon the Merits of Young Roscius, 20). Even the Prince of Wales, a Betty supporter, argued that “should his talents increase with his years, he may justly assume the proud title [Young Roscius] which the partiality of his friends has prematurely chosen for him” (Press clipping in Playbills-Stars—Male—Betty, W. H., Houghton Library, Harvard). 37. Cheryl Harris discusses the amorphous nature of recent fan culture, which brings together people from all sorts of social and economic strata. No matter their differences, however, fans are “motivated by self-invention, in which fandom provides an opportunity to live in and through a set of symbols that are expressive of one’s aspirations” (introduction, Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture and Identity, 6); see also Robert

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Walser, who notes that fandom is one way for a group to express “new models of identity, new articulations of community” (Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, 171). The same point is made in Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington’s introduction to Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, 2. On the pathology of fandom, see Bailey, Media Audiences and Identity: Self-Construction in the Fan Experience, 49. 38. David Lester Richardson, Literary Leaves; Or, Prose and Verse Chiefly Written in India, 1:42n. 39. [Burton], Young Roscius Dissected, 18.

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Index

Aristocracy: Count d’Artois, later Charles X, King of France, 16; Duke of Clarence (aka William Henry, later William IV), 15, 57, 70, 116, 166 n. 21; Duke of Gloucester (aka William Henry or Prince William), 124; King George III (aka George William Frederick), 14, 24, 57–8, 166 n. 20; Lady Beaumont (aka Rachel Beaumont), 15; Lady Hamilton (aka Emma Hamilton), 121; Prince of Wales (aka George Augustus Frederick, later George IV), 16, 57, 73, 116, 129. See also Bessborough, (Lady) Harriet; Byron, (Lord) George Gordon Atkins, Michael, 18, 32–34, 38 Baillie, Joanna, 74 Barlow, Edward, 44, 46–47 Bernhardt, Sarah, 151 Bessborough, Harriet, 57, 69, 72, 73, 90–91, 104, 109, 121, 122 Betty, Henry (son of William Henry West Betty), 138, 141–46, 148–49 Betty, William Henry West, aka Master Betty: acting style 59–60 (see also Betty, William Henry West, relationship with and/or comparisons to other adult actors); adulthood, 129–48; beauty and eroticism, 27–28, 63, 67, 95, 106–9, 115, 117, 120–23; birth, 29; collectibles, 20–22, 144; cross-dressing and femininity/ possible homosexuality, 27, 107–21, 123, 150–51; earnings, 16, 29, 45, 46, 48–9, 50, 51, 52, 53, 74, 75, 78–79, 104–5, 125–6, 128, 131; education (or lack of), 25, 123–5, 128, 129–30, 152;family: Henry (son), (see Betty, Henry); Marianne Euphemia (sister), 29, 38, 203 n. 85; Mary (mother), 29–31, 38–39, 131, 142; Susanna (wife), 137–38; William Henry (father), 29–33, 35–38, 44–54, 69–71, 77–78,

81, 84, 93–97, 105, 117, 124, 125, 130, 136, 145, 168 n. 48, 190 n. 69, 190–91 n. 82; as acting coach, 30, 32 (see also Hough, William); games (marbles, etc.), 66–67, 121–22; health, 14, 53, 69–71, 145, 147–48, 150; London Bettymania, contributing factors: political, 57–58; theatrical, 58–61; Christmas panto and/or novelty acts: 61–63, 67, 89–93 (see also Blake, William; Boruwlaski, Józef; Byron, George Gordon; Chatterton, Thomas; Coleridge, S. T.; Ireland, W. H.; Lamb, Charles; Lewis, Matthew; Thomson, James; Wordsworth, William); London premiere, 13; London riots, 13, 54, 55, 81; modern culture, 155–56; Napoleon Bonaparte (see Bonaparte, Napoleon); pagan worship of, 27–28; patriotism and/or rebellions (Britain), 24–25, 34–36; England, 25, 50–51, 55; Ireland, 17–18, 25, 30–36, 41, 50; Scotland, 25, 39–42, 44, 50, 76–77; —Performances (by city): Arundel, 128; Banbury, 128; Bath, 125, 126, 128, 131, 136, 137, 139; Belfast, 17–18, 22, 31–32, 34, 36, 41; Berwick, 75, 125; Birmingham, 44–45, 75, 126, 132, 139; Boson, 128; Bristol, 125, 126, 132; Buxton, 126; Canterbury, 128; Carlisle, 128; Cheltenham, 126, 139; Chester, 51, 75, 132; Chesterfield, 128; Cork, 37, 50; Coventry, 71; Croyden, 128; Deal, 128; Derby, 126; Doncaster, 126; Dover, 126, 128; Drayton, 128; Dublin, 18, 36, 37; Dudley, 140; Dumfries, 128; Durham, 75, 126; Gosport, 128; Guilford, 128; Glasgow, 37, 38, 41, 56, 75; Gloucester, 126, 128, 132; Edinburgh, 25, 37, 38, 41, 56, 75; Exeter, 132; Halifax, 128; Henley, 128; Hull, 126; Lancaster, 75, 126; Leeds, 126; Leicester, 52–53, 75, Litchfield, 132; Liverpool, 13, 22,

223

224

INDEX

51, 76, 126; London, 13–14, 55–72, 75, 104–5, 134, 138, 157–63; Londonderry, 37, 38; Manchester, 52, 75, 116, 126; Margate, 128; Newbury, 128; Newcastle-under-Lyme, 128, 140; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 75, 126; Nottingham, 126; Northampton, 140; North-Shields, 75, 126; Oswestry, 128, 139, 140; Plymouth, 126, 132; Pontefract, 126; Preston, 75, 126; Retford, 128; Rochdale, 128; Rochester, 128; Sheffield, 50, 51, 56, 75, 121, 126; South-Shields, 75, 126; Stamford, 128; Stockport, 53, 126; Stratford-upon-Avon, 128; Stourbridge, 75; Southampton, 132; Sunderland, 75, 126; Wakefield, 126; Walsall, 139; Warrington, 128; Waterford, 37, 38; Windsor, 138; Wolverhampton, 75, 132, 133; Worcester, 75, 132, 139; Wrexham, 128, 140; York, 126; —Performances (by part): Alexander, 134, 137; Captain Flash, 38; Don Carlos, 38; Douglas, 25, 32, 36, 40, 41–45, 46, 50, 51, 56, 60, 72, 74, 86, 91, 110, 111, 119, 128, 134; Edward Mortimer, 135; Elvira (audition), 32, 107; Essex 131; Frederick, 40, 46, 53, 62, 71, 110–11; George Barnwell, 126; Gustavus Vasa, 76, 80, 104, 105; Hamlet, 14–16, 22–23, 37, 40, 41, 45, 46, 50, 53, 61, 63, 72–74, 80, 86, 92, 98, 104, 105, 109, 120, 122, 125, 128, 136, 147, 150–51; Henry of Transtamare, 76; King Charles, 132, 133, 135; Macbeth, 76–77, 80, 105, 126; Octavian, 41, 46, 127; Orestes, 76, 80, 105; Oroonoko, 106, 126; Osman, 34–36, 37, 41, 46, 107, 109; Osmond, 76; Phocyas, 126; Richard III, 41, 45, 46, 53, 61, 74, 86, 106, 122, 132; Rolla, 36, 41, 45, 60, 107, 125; Romeo, 14, 27, 46, 51, 105, 122; Selim, 46, 50, 51, 56, 63, 64, 66–68, 76, 77, 104, 110–11, 122, 126, 131, 132, 134; Tancred, 41, 51, 105, 122, 134; Warwick, 132, 133, 135, 138, 139, 140; Zanga, 38, 106; Zaphna, 126. See also Appendix 157–63 —Pamphlet and press coverage (positive), 22–25, 37, 42–44, 47, 50–51, 53, 60; (negative), 26, 41, 75, 85–86, 90, 103–4; pet dogs, 16; and politicians, 16, 23; portraits, 15, 16, 53, 116–20, 152–53; public fascination, 14, 15, 21–22, 29, 53–54,

55, 72–73, 81, 142, 152–53; relationship with and/or comparisons to other adult actors, 16, 18, 32, 58–60, 104, 121, 132, 136 (see also Garrick, David; Jordan, Dorothea; Kean, Edmund; Kemble, John Philip; Siddons, Sarah); Relationship/comparison to other child actors: 98–99, 153–94 (Master Brown, 97, 153; Miss Mudie, 99–103, 153; Master Wilson, 97, 153); and royalty, 14–16, 57–58 (see also Aristocracy); Young Roscius (origin of moniker), 18–19; other monikers (Infant Garrick), 32, 59; (Young Garrick), 59; Infant Roscius, 18, 22, 30, 37, 47, 53, 138; Irish Roscius, 50; Roscius of Scotland, 50. See also Parker, Thomas Blake, William, 65, 74 Blanchard, William, 47 Boaden, James, 42, 44, 78, 82, 88, 93, 95, 136 Boruwlaski, Józef, 91–2 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 24, 25, 51, 56, 58, 63, 66, 114 Booth, Edwin, 151, 154 Boy actors: France, 99; Renaissance, 23–24; Burke, Edmund, 108–9 Burton, Robert, 27, 61, 156 Byron, George Gordon, 13, 24, 69, 115, 126, 130, 151–53 Camp De, Marie Therese (later Mrs. Charles Kemble), 62, 63, 89 Campbell, John, 23, 191 n. 82 Carlson, Julie A., 120 Celebrity (as social phenomenon): 16–17, 151–53, 155–56 Chatterton, Thomas, 17, 64 Chisholme, William, 46 Colman, George (the Elder), 48 Colman, George (the Younger), 115, 135 Coleman, John, 61, 154 Coleridge, S. T., 24, 138 Cooke, George Frederick, 85–89, 94, 147 Cox, Constance, 149 Cowell, Joe, 136 Cumberland, Richard, 14, 60, 81, 92, 115 Daly, Richard, 33 D’Eon, 112–15

INDEX

Dickens, Charles, 146–47 Donaldson, Walter, 132 Doran, John, 22, 36, 50, 68–69 Dudley, Bates, 48–49 Elledge, Paul, 152 Elliston, Robert William, 95, 138 Emmet, Robert (and rebellion of 1803), 17, 32–36 Farington, Joseph, 53, 61, 117, 120, 128, 140 Fox, Charles James, 23, 55, 58, 73, 147 Fuseli, Henry, 78, 135 Garber, Marjorie, 114 Garrick, David, 16–20, 24, 32, 33, 37, 38, 48, 50, 56, 59–63, 73, 77–78, 93–94, 98, 101, 107, 109, 135, 140, 144, 147 Genest, John, 89, 104 Godwin, William, 75–76, 135 Graham, Justice, 46 Greer, Germaine, 116 Grimaldi, Joseph, 89, 92–93, 105 Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 115 Harness, William, 130–31 Harris, Thomas, 44–49, 52, 79, 81, 87, 89–90, 92–93, 103, 105 Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 136 Hazlitt, William, 108, 116, 136 Home, John, 25, 36, 41–44, 86, 111 Hough, William, 32–39, 44, 45, 47, 50, 69, 77, 91, 95–97, 107, 124, 132 Hunt, Leigh, 23, 26, 58, 88, 106, 137, 150 Inchbald, Elizabeth, 28, 40–41, 71, 86, 110 Ireland, W. H., 63–65, 82–83 Jackson, John, 27, 37, 38, 41–44, 53 Johnston, Henry, 42, 44, 86 Jones, Frederick, 34, 36, 37 Jordan, Dorothea, 24, 25, 57, 74, 84, 87, 94, 105, 107, 122, 125 Kean, Edmund, 16, 24, 48, 75, 82, 128, 129, 154 Kemble, Charles, 58, 65–66, 101 Kemble, John Philip, 16, 24, 33, 44, 53, 58–60, 71, 73–75, 77, 81–89, 91–95, 99–103, 104, 107–9, 111, 128, 129, 133, 135, 136, 151

225

Kemble, Stephen, 58, 71, 91 Lamb, Charles, 24, 73–74 Lewis, Matthew, 63–65, 76 Litchfield, Harriett, 84, 94–99, 103, 105 Macready William (manager), 44–45, 52, 53, 94, 100, 129, 132 Macready William C. (actor), 51, 114, 123, 132–135, 140–41, 150–51, 154 Magee, John, 33 Mathews, Anne, 27, 28, 114, 115 Mathews, Charles, 33 Melville, Herman, 146–47 Merritt, John, 22, 24, 25, 53, 73, 108 Mole, Tom, 17, 19 Murray, John, 152, 153 Northcote, James, 16, 78, 116–20, 135, 152 Opie, John, 16, 77, 78, 116–20 Oulton, Wally, 126 Parker, Thomas Lister, 77, 78, 116–20, 128, 130 Piozzi, Hester Lynch, 17, 70, 105, 131–32, 155–56 Pitt, William, 14, 44, 57, 58, 73, 111 Playfair, Giles, 95 Plotz, Judith, 24 Psalmanazar, George, 17 Quin, James, 33, 60–61 Reynolds, Frederick, 54, 62, 63, 89, 135 Reynolds, Joshua, 17, 19, 20, 59, 77 Richardson, David Lester, 156 Robison, John, 38 Robinson, Henry Crabb, 134, 135 Robinson, Mary, 17 Rogers, Samuel, 73, 147 Russel, W. P., 27, 53, 111–6, 123 Scott, Walter, 84, 135 Seward, Anna, 108, 124 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 14, 31, 41, 44–46, 48–49, 54, 62, 69, 72, 79, 83, 87, 89, 91, 111, 121 Siddons, Sarah, 24, 27, 33, 59, 71, 74, 82, 84, 86, 87, 93–95, 107 Smith, Adam, 113 Sterne, Laurence, 20

226

INDEX

Vining, Edward P., 151

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 78, 109, 112, 116 Wordsworth, William, 16, 24, 64–65, 72, 74, 92 Wroughton, Richard, 70, 89, 93

Ward, T. A., 47, 121–22

Young, Charles Mayne, 44, 74, 96

Suett, Richard, 88–89 Thomson, James, 41, 63, 64, 65