iThei •^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES DOUGLAS JERROLD BY THE SAME AUTHOR DOUGLAS JERROLD AND "PUNCH" THOMAS HOOD : HIS LIFE AND TIMES GEORGE MEREDITH : AN ESSAY TOWARDS APPRECIATION OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A BOOK OF FAMOUS WITS THE AUTOLYCUS OF THE BOOKSTALLS HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN KENT HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN MIDDLESEX THE DANUBE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/douglasjerrolddr01jerr WNvvL*^ ^«Am(aL, Douglas Jerrold DRAMATIST AND WIT BY WALTER JERROLD PVITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO Printbd in Gbbat Britain bt Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, brunswick st., stamford st., 8.e. 1, and bungay, suffolk. ^ TO THE DESCENDANTS OP DOUGLAS JERROLD GRANDCHILDREN, J GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN '^ AND GREAT-GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN A (UPWARDS OF FIFTY IN NITMBER) THIS RECORD OF THEIR ANCESTOR'S LIFE AND V/ORK IS DEDICATED 186325 PREFACE It is now more than twenty years since the editor of St. Nicholas invited the last surviving daughter of Douglas Jerrold to contribvite a paper on her father's early life to that magazine ; this my aunt was unwilling to do, and asked that I should be permitted to write the article instead. Later she expressed the hope that I would some day undertake the work which I have here completed, and gave me to that end such materials as remained in her possession. A biography of Douglas Jerrold was written shortly after his death by his eldest son, William Blanchard Jerrold, but in the years that have elapsed since then nearly all the people who knew the dramatist, who had listened to his Avit, have passed awa}'^; some of these lived to write their reminiscences of the old time, others have in turn become the subjects of biography, and the belongings of others—including such letters, papers and books as are the raw material for the biographer—have been scattered by the rise and fall of the auctioneer's hammer. Thus it is that fresh material has become available for giving more completely the story of the life of Douglas Jerrold. Such fuller story should at least prove serviceable in correcting the errors concerning Jerrold which are to be found in most works of reference, as well as certain others which have been quoted again and again as facts but which research shows to be fictions. It may be said that where in this work statements and dates differ from those given in the established works of reference, in the earlier biography, or biographical articles, the present work has the authority of immediately contemporary documentary or printed evidence. Novelist and essayist, satirist and wit, journalist and dramatist, Douglas Jerrold exercised his pen in so many directions that in the regard of those who think that the cobbler should stick to his last his reputation may have suffered from the very multiplicity of ways in which his talents were manifested. He is said to have been im- patient of the fact that that which was not the best of his work was that which gave him the greatest popularity. ; viii PREFACE The writer of close upon seventy plays, he realised that there were among them many better than Black- Eyed Susan, which was the most widely known of his writings for the stage; and when he described the Chronicles of Clovernook as containing some of his best work, he knew that its vogue was not a tithe of a tithe of that of the Caudle Lectures. Then, too, the fact that he was a wit militated somewhat against full recognition of the strong purpose which informed most that he wrote, and he chafed against that knowledge. In this volume I have sought simply to tell the story of his life, to indi- cate something of the character of his varied work, and to show what manner of man he was in the regard of those who knew him. For generous assistance I offer grateful thanks : To Mr. Bertram Dobell for thoughtful help over many years to him I owe the only copy I know of the Anti-Punch booklet, herein first drawn attention to, a copy of the scarce twopenny pamphlet, Life of Douglas Jerrold, pub- lished in 1857, several of the rarer printed plays and other materials. To Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton for the gift of his copies of Jerrold's dramas—a prized collec- tion including some that appear to be unique. To Sir James Yoxall, M.P., for a precious specimen of the "Caudle" bottle (depicted opposite p. 4, vol. ii. To Mr. Thomas Catling, who entered the service of Lloyds in 1854, and in due course succeeded to the editorial chair, for friendly help. To the late Mr. T. F. Dillon -Croker for assist- ance in tracing the early plays. To Mr. E. Y. Lowne for a copy of his Elliston letter concerning the writing of Black- Eyed Susan—though that letter destroys a time-honoured story ! To Captain Christie-Crawford for additions to my portraits of Douglas Jerrold. To Mr. A. S. E. Ackermann for the photograph of West Lodge. To Mr. William Roberts for a copy of the rules and list of members of " Our Club " and other assistance. To Miss Hutchison Stirling for my grandfather's letters to her distinguished father; and to Miss F. Rathbone, Mr. A. M, Broadley, Mr. H. B. Wheatley and others for the loan of letters. Walter Jerrold. Hampton-on-Thames, May 1914. CONTENTS PAOB I Childhood and Youth. 1808-1816 . 1 II The Printing House — First Plays— Marriage. 1816-1824 .... 37 III Dramatist-of-all-Work. 1825-1828 . 70 " IV Black-Eyed-Susan." 1829-1830 . 103 V "Thomas a Becket" — "The Devil's Ducat." 1830-1831 135 VI " The Rent Day " and Early Comedy. 1831-1832 177 VII The State of the Drama — ''Nell Gwynne"—The Mulberry Club. 1882- 1884 201 VIII In Paris. 1885-1886 246 IX An Experiment—"Men of Character" — "The Handbook of Swindling." 1836-1839 274 X Boulogne — "The Prisoner of War" — "Bubbles of the Day." 1840-1843 . 316 XI Illness — Letters from Dickens — The First Shilling Magazine. 1848-1844 . 349 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS To face pagt Douglas Jerrold .... Frontispiece {From Oil unaigntd oil puintiag in the possession of the Author) A Christmas Piece 18 (Written by Sovglat Jerrold in ISli) Douglas Jerrold, 182 — 68 (From an unsigned oil painting) The Coburg Theatre in 1826 .... 82 (From an engrnring by Daniel Havrll) The Surrey Theatre in 1826 . .116 (From an engraving by Daniel Haccll) Douglas Jerrold, 183— 190 (From a print first published in ISSO, as "from a picture in the posscttion of Douglaf Jerrold ") Douglas Jerrold in Caricature . 236 Copied by Miss Daphne Jerrold after the following— 1. John Leech. 2 and 3. A JVoril with Punch. 4. Kenny Meadows, o. John Tenniel. G. Richard Doyle. 7. W. M. Thackei'ay. 8. Kennj' Meadows. 9. John Leech. A Letter of Douglas Jerrold's, 1839 . 296 FiRWOOD House, Herne Bay .... 350 (From a water-colour sketch by Mr. Hugh Thomson, R.I., in the possession of the Author) CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 1803-1816 Much as the theatre has been written about in these days, there is one aspect of theatrical hfe which seems, except in personal memoirs and as episodical in theatrical histories, to have escaped the attention of the student—it is that of the provincial theatres and the theatrical " circuits " of the eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries. Of the central establish- ments in London, the places in which stage plays were represented by companies that retained the title of royal servants long after princely salaries had been substituted for royal wages, much has been written, but of those strolling companies which periodically visited the various towns and villages on their particular " circuits," we have apparently no tentative chronicle—anything approaching a complete history would probably now be impossible. There are references to such com- panies in the lives of some of the players who won to wider fame, in letters and n^emoirs and in the periodicals of the time, but of connected history as yet it appears nothing. Such a history is too wide and too remotely connected VOL. I B 2 DOUGLAS JERROLD with my present subject to call for treatment here, for I have particularly to deal with but one strolling player, and with him only as intro- ductory to the story of his son. From the scattered scraps in lives and reminiscences of actors who passed from the position of " strollers " to that of " stars," the story of those old days may, perhaps, yet be pieced together. We see the actors moving from place to place with almost bewildering rapidity, but it is generally as a genial, friendly company, accepting the rough with the smooth in a delightfully philosophic fashion—professional nomads who by day were sometimes in diffi- culties as to where they could find lodgings, and by night were playing the parts of spectac- ular heroes and kings. Heroes many of them were, it would seem, in their daily lives, though the heroism was not of a kind to impress the onlookers. Rogues and vagabonds ^ in the eyes of the law, they were carrying the glamour of wonder and poetry into all sorts of unex- pected places in days before the schoolmaster was abroad. It is small wonder that the appearance of the players often moved adven- turous youth to throw in its lot with them, and ^ In illustration of this old status of the actor I have come across an amusing story of Charles Macklin.