He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and
delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been
difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man,
and had a considerable knowledge of the byeways of Florentine history.
My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. Malaprop; and
a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de Parcieu (an Englishwoman
married to a Frenchman) was in appearance, _maniere d'etre_, and
deportment the veritable _beau ideal_ of Lydia Languish, and might
have made _a furore_ on any stage, if it had been possible to induce
her to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-naturedly
amenable. But when she was thus driven against her nature and habits
to speak out, all the excellence of her acting was gone. The meaning
of the words was taken out of them.
Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. And the phrase
is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally
different company--I the only remaining brick of the old edifice--and
to audiences not one of whom could have witnessed the performances of
those earlier days. Mrs. Richie, an American lady--who had, I think,
been known on a London stage under the name of "Mowatt"--was in those
latter days, now so far away in the dim past, our manageress. Mrs.
Proby, the wife, now I am sorry to say the widow, of the British
Consul, was on that occasion our Mrs.
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