I knew, by sight, this rhyming, playgoing, comedy-writing, philandering baronet, in the years 1813 and 1814. I used to see him at the theatres, in the Park, or lounging in Bond Street. I was a boy at the time, and much addicted to rhyming and playgoing myself. He was first pointed out to my notice as a literary and dramatic celebrity, and as a London lion, by a lady who wrote occasional verses, and who had once written a tragedy, which, in the parlance of John Wilson the poet, had been “particularly d——d.” His fame was now on the decline, for Scott, Moore, Byron, and others were in the field; but a few years before, and from about 1790 to 1809, the Baronet had been considered a star of the first magnitude.
Dear me! How easy it was for a man to get into reputation as an author in those days, especially if he had a bit of a handle to his name, an entrée in Society, a fashionable friend or two, and money to carry on the war for a while! My authoress still called him “the celebrated Skeffington.” He had begun by acting in private theatricals, and by inditing
“Songs and sonnets and rustical madrigals. Made out of nothing and whistled on reeds.” |
But these things had been declared to be charming, musical, exquisite; and
the bard had worn laurels
| CHAP. XIII] | SKEFFINGTON’S PLAYS | 129 |
He left us to go behind the scenes and into the Green Room, where he had
an appointment of importance; and we went into Lady
Holland’s private box, graciously lent to me by her ladyship for that
evening. I expressed my astonishment at the apparition I had seen in the lobby.
“Oh!” said H., “old Skeff is much as he was fifteen years ago, except
that he stoops a little more, and wears a wig
| 130 | SIR LUMLEY SKEFFINGTON | [CHAP. XIII |
Next to the actors and actresses, he was making himself the most conspicuous person in the house. Before long he was up in our box, and making downright love to Miss ——, who had great difficulty in preventing herself from laughing in his face, as he was so outré, and she could not help thinking of the horse-hair wig. He then rattled on, like one who has lived la vie des coulisses, about this actress and that, and this Green-Room quarrel and that other, and how Mrs. —— became too soon jealous of Miss ——, and thwarted her in her parts, and how Sir T. stood by Mrs. ——, and how Lord —— took the part of Miss ——, and got the parties reconciled in the presence of the stage-manager and half a dozen of the proprietors. He seemed to know all the traditions of the Green Room, and all its tattle and bickerings for the last half-century. This was not unamusing, but it did not bear thinking of afterwards.
To be so old, and yet so trivial! To have lived so long in the world, and
to have one’s head stuffed full of nothing but this, and “tags” of
play-speeches and rhymes! To be so bent, shrunk, and withered, and yet never to think of
death! Was there no honest rector, no zealous curate, no thoughtful friend, to tell him
that he had an immortal soul, however little he might think of it, and to say to him,
“Go to your prayers, old man!” Yet the Baronet lived a
| CHAP. XIII] | SATIRIZED BY BYRON | 131 |
I met him one morning at old Andrews’ library in Bond Street; another day I met him walking towards one of the theatres with Liston the comedian, and the last time I saw him was about the time of Her Majesty’s marriage with Prince Albert. At this period he was bent almost double, but the horsehair wig was on his head and the rouge on his cheeks, and he was as frivolous as ever. The exoterics had been accustomed to call him a dandy. A great mistake! for his style and manners were reprobated by Brummell, Mildmay, and all the set, who pronounced old Skeff to be a quizzical guy. For the last forty years of his life he was quite unfashionable, and pretty well confined to the society of actors and actresses, and of a few young men of fashion, like my friend H., who had a mania for the stage and for private theatricals.
Old Skeff, who would dangle about fifty women at a
time, was not the man to marry, and in him the baronetcy became extinct. He was thought of
sufficient consequence to be satirized by Byron in
“English and Scotch
Reviewers,” by Tommy Moore in his
“Twopenny Post-bag,” and
by the Smiths in their “Rejected Addresses.” Though often in debt, he
had never known the pangs or the actual pressure of poverty, and the last twenty years of
his life he is said to have had a free income of from £600 to £800 a year. I have seen it
stated that he was the author of that rich piece of burlesque, “Bombastes
| 132 | SIR LUMLEY SKEFFINGTON | [CHAP. XIII |
I think I have hinted that my acquaintance, fat old Andrews the bookseller, circulating library keeper, and opera-box letter, of Bond Street, was a bon vivant. He was a dreadful gourmand.
On the day when he was dying, and would not believe it, he ordered some fresh cod for his dinner. A servant took the dish to his bedside; he eyed it, missed the savoury bits, exclaimed in an excited manner “Where’s the sounds?” dropped his head on the pillow, and so died.
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