I dare say I should soon be reconciled to them.’
This was unsupportable. Neither the presence of greatness (darting its eyes) nor adverse criticism could crush this extraordinary young man from nowhere. The astounded Garrick decided to come to business, which would at least restore the proper relations between the two, the famous actor and the impudent nobody, and put the latter in his only possible place, that of a humble suppliant. ‘Why now,’ he cried, ‘really, Frodsham, you are a damned queer fellow—but for a fair and full trial of your genius my stage shall be open, and you shall act any part you please, and if you succeed we will then talk of terms.’ Which was, I think, a fair offer.
Then came the masterstroke. ‘O,’ said Frodsham, indifferently, ‘you are mistaken, my dear Mr. Garrick, if you think I came here to solicit an engagement. I am a Roscius at my own quarters. I came to London purposely to see a few plays, and looking on myself as a man not destitute of talents, I judged it a proper compliment to wait on a brother genius: I thought it indispensable to see you and have half an hour’s conversation with you. I neither want nor wish for an engagement; for I would not abandon the happiness I enjoy in Yorkshire for the first terms your great and grand city could afford.’ With that, he withdrew with a careless bow, leaving Garrick speechless.
It is to Garrick’s credit that he often told the story of this strange visit to members of his company. But as he probably thought that Frodsham was merely a lunatic, for he always referred to him as ‘the mad York actor,’ and so possibly did not realise that there was more than one side to the story, and that he was telling it against himself, we will not give him too much credit. Nor will I, for one, pass his epithet, for if Frodsham was not a mere conceited young fool, as our historian foolishly suggests he was, neither was he a plain madman. His point of view was not Garrick’s, but it was a very reasonable point of view. The remarks he made were certainly not without a good deal of sound sense; they were critical, honest, and not, I think lacking in courtesy. It is true that he had a very good opinion of himself, but then so had Garrick, and so, by your leave, have you and I. The difference between Frodsham and the dozens of other young actors who sought out Garrick lies in the fact that one made no attempt to disguise his opinions, whereas the others, in all probability, cringed and lied unblushingly for an hour or two. But Frodsham, you may urge, had no sense of proportion, no idea of relative values; he could not understand the difference between the applause of York and that of London; he could not see the gulf that stretched between the darling of a local fit-up and the captain of Drury Lane. The charge is true, but is it very damaging? Such a habit of mind has prevented many a man from getting on in the world, but it never kept any man from greatness. I maintain that, over and above all conceit, there was a certain simplicity in Frodsham that came very near to greatness, if it did not achieve it, and that, in its elemental frankness and disdain of worldly wisdom, was not without a touch of real poetry.
Now that our hero has had his great moment, and has lounged, as it were, into the wings, followed by our applause, I hesitate whether to bring him back again upon the stage. Encores are rarely satisfactory to the audience, and I fear an anti-climax. To speak of Frodsham’s visit to Rich after describing his encounter with Garrick is to talk of Quatre-Bras after Waterloo; and yet, seeing that our man is ready for us and may not be heard of again for many a year, I will venture it.
During his momentous holiday in London, Frodsham conceived it to be his duty, as a fellow-player and a gentleman, to pay a visit to Rich, of Covent Garden, just as he had done to Garrick. It was simply a point of good breeding, for having been told that Rich was a superficial person, more given to pantomime than good drama, he thought very little of him. So he called upon Rich and found him stroking his cats and teaching a young lady to act. After keeping him waiting some time, Rich condescended to look at his visitor, viewing him up and down through a very large reading-glass, took a pinch of snuff, and drawled: ‘Well, Mr. Frogsmire, I suppose you are come from York to be taught, and that I should give you an engagement. Did you ever act Richard, Mr. Frogsmire?’ On hearing Frodsham answer that he had acted the part, Rich went on: ‘Why then you shall hear me act’; and proceeded to recite a speech in a very absurd manner. When he had done, Frodsham told him very plainly that he had come from York to visit him, neither to be taught nor to hear him recite, but merely ‘for a little conversation and to visit his Elysian fields.’ This reply must have astonished Rich, but he was of different metal from Garrick, and it neither disturbed his indolent self-satisfaction nor roused his curiosity. With a large gesture, he said that unless Mr. Frogsmire would with humble attention listen to his Richard, he would not hear Mr. Frogsmire at all; and was proceeding to mouth—
’Twas an excuse to avoid me!
Alas, she keeps no bed!
when he was cut short by a curt ‘Good-morning’ from Frodsham, who stalked out of the room.
Thus ended his second polite call upon a fellow-player, after which, his short holiday being at end, he returned to York well content, with no great opinion of London and its favourite performers. There he remained, the idol of the York playgoers, until bad hours and the brandy-bottle put an end to his life at the early age of thirty-five, in October 1768. There is even a suggestion of heroic legend and strange destiny about his end, for on the very last night that he ever spoke on the stage, he announced to the audience that the next performance would include ‘What We must All Come to.’ As an actor, he is said to have been not without real genius, and to have suffered only from lack of proper training, and, later, his dissipated way of living. As a man, or rather, young man, he seems to me, at this distance, to have had some admirable qualities. There was, as I have remarked, a touch of poetry in his composition, and I can well believe that his Hamlet was worth seeing. But of all his parts, there is no doubt that by far the best was that which he played without limelight, make-up or properties during his ten days’ holiday in London. And I suggest that all spirited provincials, who are quick to recognise a kindred soul, should honour his memory.
ON A NEW KIND OF FICTION
THE literary year books and reference books do not make very cheerful reading these days, but there is a certain note in one of them that should not be allowed to remain in obscurity. It is contributed by the editor of an American journal, Ambition, who informs all writers and would-be writers that he and his paper are prepared to accept:
Stories, 4,000–4,500 (words), in which the hero advances in position and earnings through study of a trade or profession by means of a correspondence course. (Preferred occupations indicated by Editor on application.)
One can only hope that this passage has not met the eye of any reader of Ambition, one who has urged himself along the steep, narrow way, and found sustenance in such heartening tales, for he might become disillusioned, lag in his course (if only a correspondence course), and turn cynic or communist. Our editor, with true occidental ruthlessness, takes us behind the scenes with a vengeance; he strips each wretched player and spares us neither paint nor plaster-and-lath; had we any illusions on the matter, any roseate dreams of ‘advancing in position and earnings,’ which we have not, how rudely we should have been awakened. But one would have thought that the readers of Ambition, grimly practical fellows, every one of them essentially ‘a man of this world,’ were above the mere trifling of the story-teller, that they were ready, nay, eager, to face the stern facts, the naked issues of life, without calling in the writer of fiction to beguile and comfort them with his cunning old tricks. But no, even in this bleak and forbidding region, the story-teller is welcomed; the ancient craft is not allowed to perish even in these high altitudes. But while so much is conceded to frail human nature, the earnest young people who read Ambition cannot have their minds stuffed with any glittering nonsense, love stories, tales of piracy, and the like; if there is to be fiction, it must be of one kind only. The hero must not be some absurd swashbuckler, the prey of
