‘Hot Codlins’ (Charles Dibdin)
A little old woman her living she got
By selling codlins, hot, hot, hot;
And this little old woman, who codlins sold,
Tho’ her codlins were not, she felt herself cold;
So to keep herself warm, she thought it no sin
To fetch for herself a quartern of —
Ri tol iddy, iddy, iddy, iddy,
Ri tol, iddy, iddy, ri tol lay.
This little old woman set off in a trot,
To fetch her a quartern of hot! hot! hot!
She swallow’d one glass, and it was so nice,
She tipp’d off another in a trice;
The glass she fill’d till the bottle shrunk
And this little old woman, they say, got —
Ri tol iddy, iddy, iddy, iddy,
Ri tol, iddy, iddy, ri tol lay.
This little old woman, while muzzy she got,
Some boys stole her codlins hot! hot! hot!
Powder under her pan put, and in it round stones;
Says the little old woman, ‘These apples have bones!’
The powder the pan in her face did send,
Which sent the old woman on her latter —
Ri tol iddy, iddy, iddy, iddy,
Ri tol, iddy, iddy, ri tol lay.
The little old woman then up she got,
All in a fury, hot! hot! hot!
Says she, ‘Such boys, sure, never were known;
They never will let an old woman alone.’
Now here is a moral, round let it buz —
If you mean to sell codlins, never get —
Ri tol iddy, iddy, iddy, iddy,
Ri tol, iddy, iddy, ri tol lay.
251 King’s Bench prison: Although, by the time of his resignation from Sadler’s Wells, Charles Dibdin, junior, had gained a reputation as a theatrical hack, there were those who were willing to credit his talents with more respect. An August 1819 biographical sketch in the European Magazine, for example, placed him in a series of writers that included Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Madame de Staël.
251 ‘drink and dissipation’: Richard Wheeler’s Memoir from the Clerkenwell workhouse, Percival, vol. 4, f. 194.
252 a certain Mrs Price: Letter from Joseph Grimaldi to Mrs Price, 8 July 1820: ‘Madam, I have seen my son who is most prepared to settle the whole of your account. But if you will call on me on Friday morning with a receipt for £10 on account I will give it you leaving the balance a little longer. Yours, J. Grimaldi. Ps. Let the receipt be given in Mr. J.S. Grimaldi’s name.’ Daly ex-ill., vol. 4, p. 103.
252 ‘heavy and painful infirmities’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 252.
252 Grimaldi, Barfoot and Dibdin all decided: Though the sellers are not named, the bill of auction (Percival, vol. 4, f. 173) announces three lots: two of seven-fortieths (Dibdin and Barfoot’s share), and one of five (Grimaldi’s). See also Appendix C, ‘Share Holdings in Sadler’s Wells, 1799–1820’, in Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 167.
253 a commemorative portrait: Whitehead, Memoirs, p. 149, fn.
254 ‘vibrate with the effect’: Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. vii, (1871) p. 91.
254 ‘agony of mind … premature old age’: Dickens, Memoirs, pp. 255–6.
254–5 ‘Young Grimaldi’: The Times, 7 January 1820.
255 ‘infantilised the dashing and ambitious JS’: In 1816, for example, JS played a ‘pocket clown attendant on Harlequin’ in Harlequin and the Sylph of the Oak; or, The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Covent Garden).
255 ‘loss of agility in the parent’: BDA, vol. 6, p. 416.
255 ‘certain gross vulgarities’: The Times, 27 December 1821.
255 ‘Indecency upon the stage’: Unidentified clipping, Percival, vol. 4, f. 218.
255–6 caused outrage: European Magazine, January 1819, pp. 48–51.
256 killed by a falling beam: E. L. Blanchard, Life and Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 97.
257 ‘never used any phrase recognised by society’: Unidentified clipping, Islington Local History Centre.
257 ‘Good God, sir’: Unidentified clipping, Islington Local History Centre.
257 sledge rides: Arundell, Sadler’s Wells, p. 102.
257 ‘at a considerable sum’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 257.
258 Dicky Usher: Ashton, Social England, pp. 413–14.
258 ‘rather gorgeous than elegant’: The Times, 9 April 1822.
258 punching one of the Drury Lane managers: James Winston, Drury Lane Journal: Selections From James Winston’s Diaries, 1819–1827, ed. Alfred L. Nelson and Gilbert G. Cross (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1974), pp. 30, 46, 57.
258 the slightest anxiety: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 49.
259 evangelical about reform: George Rowell, The Old Vic Theatre: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 19; Moody, Illegitimate Theatre, p. 119; Dickens, Memoirs, pp. 267–8.
259 ‘a Bridewell, or a brothel’: William Hazlitt, ‘Minor Theatres – Strolling Players’, in Hazlitt on Theatre, ed. William Archer and Robert Lowe (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), pp. 155–64, p. 162.
259 ‘practical and dirty jokes’: Richard Wheeler’s Memoir from the Clerkenwell workhouse, Percival, vol. 4, p. 195; Cooke played the monster in R. B. Peake’s Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein (1823).
260 ‘strongest lungs and weakest judgement’: BDA, vol. 8, p. 335.
260 Clown’s Dish of All Sorts: The Coburg’s 1822 season was notable for featuring a comic burlesque called Life in Paris, one of the many ‘larking’ plays inspired by Pierce Egan’s picaresque novel Tom and Jerry; or, Life in London. Life in London was the fad of the year, with shows based on it playing at the Adelphi, Surrey, Astley’s and Sadler’s Wells. The Adelphi, Wells and Astley’s productions were all called Life in London. The Surrey’s was titled Tom and Jerry; or, Life in a Lark. See The Times,9 April 1822.
261 ‘which was the worst’: Whitehead, Memoirs, p. 156, fn.
261 ‘Bedlamite system of acting’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 23.
261 ‘a second Grimaldi’: Examiner, 7 October 1827.
262 the attention paid to Mont Blanc: Hunt, Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 183.
262 ‘I always take a shag’: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 16.
262 ‘theatrical barracks’: Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People and Its Places, 6 vols (London: Cassell, 1873), vol. 6, p. 371.
263 ‘without feeling a sincere regret’: Oxberry (eds), ‘Memoir of Joseph Grimaldi’, pp. 161–2.
263 drunk for ten consecutive days: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, pp. 56, 62.
263 Astley detested drunks: de Castro, Memoirs, p. 36.
263 ‘limelight’: ‘Lighting’. in Phyllis Hartnoll (ed.) The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 4th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). See also Mole, Byron’s Romantic Celebrity, p. 19.
264 ‘In nine cases out of ten’: Bunn, The Stage, p. 58.
264 ‘heartless indifference and contempt … unprincipled burlesque’: ‘The play was indifferent, but that was nothing. The acting was bad, but that was nothing. The audience was low, but that was nothing. It was the heartless indifference and contempt shown by the performers for their parts and by the audience for the players and the play, that disgusted us with all of them.’ William Hazlitt, ‘Minor Theatres – Strolling Players’, in Hazlitt on Theatre, ed. William Archer and Robert Lowe (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), pp. 155–64, pp. 162–3.
264 ‘token of a real and permanent change’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 256.
265 ‘Time seems to pass harmlessly by him’: The Times, 27 December 1822.
265 ‘The strength of Grimaldi’: Percival, vol. 4, f. 181.
265 ‘gathered up into huge knots’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 258.
265 ‘wept like a child’: Dickens, Memoirs, pp. 258–9.
Poor Robin
267 likened to a cat: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p
p. 26, 127.
267 ‘a divinity’: Percival, vol. 4, f. 245.
268 ‘Mr. G. seems much the worse for wear’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 261, fn. 2.
268 at a weekly salary of six pounds: Joe consistently acted as JS’s agent from this time until the boy’s death. A letter from Joe to Mr Arnold of the English Opera House, dated 18 May 1824, reveals how keen Grimaldi was to shop his son around: ‘My son Mr. J.S. Grimaldi at present being disengaged during the vacation of C G theatre, wishes should anything be in contemplation wherein his exertions can be brought into action to fill up that time – Exclusive of his pantomime requisites, he is an excellent swordsman and in every other respect you will find him worth attention. – I would offer myself in a slight degree but my health is so much impaired by the profession already that I am fearful of attempting too much, however, something might be done especially as Mr. J.P. Cooke is in your theatre, by the revival of Perouse, Don Juan etc. This however yr consideration and as speedy an answer as possible will greatly oblige, your humble servant, J. Grimaldi.’ Loose leaf inserted into George Cruikshank, Life of Grimaldi by Charles Dickens: Proofs of the Etchings by George Cruikshank (1838), Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard University.
268 ‘severe and alarming illness’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 262.
268 ‘drunken freaks’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 262.
270 ‘Grimaldi: a Jeu D’esprit’: ‘Biography of the British Stage’, undated clipping, Islington Local History Centre.
271 ‘His name is not in the bills’: Unidentified clipping, Islington Local History Centre.
271 found drunk together: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 78.
271 ‘Hand Columbine about with nimble hand’: Though the poem cannot categorically be assigned to Grimaldi, given its close resemblance to the doggerel versifying that Joe increasingly came to produce in his retirement, there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.
‘Adieu to the Stage, and Advice to His Son’
Adieu to Mother Goose, adieu, adieu,
To spangles, tufted heads, and dancing limbs;
Adieu to pantomime, to all that drew
O’er Christmas shoulders a rich robe of whims.
Never shall old Bologna – old, alack!
Once he was young and diamonded all o’er –
Take this particular Joseph on his back,
And dance the matchless fling beloved of yore.
Ne’er shall I build the wondrous verdant man,
Tall, turnip-headed, carrot-fingered, lean –
Ne’er shall I on the very newest plan
Cabbage a body – old Joe Frankenstein
Nor make a fire, nor eke compose a coach
Of saucepans, trumpets, cheese, and such sweet fare
Sorrow hath ta’en my number – I encroach
No more upon the chariot, but the chair.
Gone is the stride, four steps across the stage
Gone is the light vault o’er a turnpike gate!
Sloth puts my legs into this tiresome cage,
And stops me for a toll – I find too late!
How Ware would quiver his mad bow about
His rosin’d tight ropes, when I flapped a dance!
How would I twitch the pantaloon’s good gout
And help his fall, and all his fears enhance!
How children shrieked to see me eat! How I
Stole the broad laugh from the aged sober folk!
Boys picked their plums out of my Christmas pie,
And people took my vices for a joke.
Be wise (that’s foolish), troublesome (be rich) –
And oh, J.G. to every fancy stoop!
Carry a ponderous pocket at thy breech
And roll thine eyes as thou wouldst roll a hoop.
Hand Columbine about with nimble hand,
Covet thy neighbour’s riches as thy own,
Dance on the water, swim upon the land,
Let thy legs prove themselves bone of my bone.
Cuff pantaloon, be sure – forget not this;
As thou beat’st him, thou’rt poor, J.G. or funny!
And wear a deal of paint upon thy phiz,
It doth boys good and draws in gallery money.
Lastly, be jolly, be alive, be light,
Twitch, flirt and caper, tumble, fall and throw;
Grow up right ugly in thy father’s sight,
And be an ‘absolute Joseph’ like old Joe.
272 ‘voice is thickening’: Unidentified clipping, Library of the Garrick Club.
272 ‘Without being equal to his father just yet’: The Times, 27 December 1823.
272 continued to pay Joe a half-salary: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 102; Daly ex-ill., vol. 4, p. 100. 272 ‘In my present state of health’: Letter from Joseph Grimaldi to Richard Hughes, 11 February 1824, Daly ex-ill., vol. 4, p. 100.
272 ‘rising every morning a poorer man’: Dickens, Memoirs, p.266.
273 ‘the “ne plus ultra” of pantomime’: Grimaldi Scrapbook, Harvard Theatre Collection, p. 13.
273 ‘Young Grimaldi is the best Clown’: The Times, 5 July 1824.
274 ‘every species of wild debauchery’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 266 (see also p. 262).
274 stabbed in the face: Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser, 25 November 1824.
274 King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands: The Sandwich Islands’ ruling couple were particularly impressed with JS’s swordsmanship when they saw him perform in Farley’s melodrama, The Spirit of the Moon. See The Times, 24 April 1824.
275 ‘Time and experience may do much’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 51.
275 cut his own throat: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 34.
275 Only eleven people came: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 50.
275 dangling from the street: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 69.
275 ‘I wish with all my heart we had let him alone’: Hunt, Autobiography, p. 183.
276 ‘one of the greatest nuisances in the metropolis’: Percival, vol. 4, f. 132.
276 ‘great man at Covent Garden’: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 67.
276 placed a note in the green room: Winston, Drury Lane Journal, p. 66.
277 ‘centre of a large town’: ‘When I first went to Sadler’s Wells,’ wrote Charles Dibdin, ‘there was scarcely a House near it, and when I left it in 1819 but a few. Now it is the centre of a large town; and when in the year 1826 I went to see my Brother, in Myddleton Square, which with a Church in the centre stands where the Boys used to play at cricket, I actually lost my way, on a spot where I had resided upwards of 20 years.’ Dibdin, Memoirs, pp. 39–41.
277–8 ‘Mr. T. Dibdin’s talent’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 52.
278 ‘witnessing the famed Joey’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 23.
278 ‘dragged from a sick bed’: Weekly Dramatic Register, 2 June 1827.
278 ‘At present I am in difficulties: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 266.
278 ‘without compelling the inhabitants’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 50.
279 ‘a pedestrian from Berkshire’: Percival, vol. 5, ff. 50, 52.
279 ‘fire balloon’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 50.
279 Drury Lane Theatrical Fund: He had been first elected to the Committee in 1808, following the resignation of Charles Kemble, and voted on again intermittently for the next twenty years.
279 ‘quite ashamed of looking at himself’: Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 206.
280 ‘like Piccadilly Circus’: Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, p. 145.
280 ‘a female of a certain class’: Unidentified clipping, Daly ex-ill., vol. 1, p. 15.
280–1 ‘On Friday evening … hope of recovery’: Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 218.
281 ‘Mr. Grimaldi, jun., is not dead’: Unidentified clipping, Daly ex-ill., vol. 1, p. 15.
282 reimburse the three thousand pounds: Delpini’s memorandum to the Prince (undated, though possibly 18 December 1798) reads: ‘For the performance of the Deserter (Loui
sa) ten nights at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket; Subscription tickets 1 guinea. Mr. Weltjie [Louis Weltje, proprietor of a St James’s cake shop, entered the Royal service as ‘steward and maître d’hôtel ’ to the Prince’s accounts and became one of his closest friends and advisers] requested to have five for his Royal Highness … £63. His Royal Highness honored me every night with his presence, with company. According to the rules of the Theatre it is customary for the Royal Family not to pay at the door – but at the end of the season the Treasurer makes out his account. But by the order of Mr. Weltjie this was not to be delivered, as he said he would settle it. Therefore, ten nights for his Royal Highness’s Box, at £3 pr. night … £30. The Masquerade of the Fair of Venice, at the Pantheon, which I made on purpose for his Royal Highness after seven weeks labor and study, was three hundred guineas out of pocket. Mr. Weltjie took the receipts of all the money, and promised to see everything made good to me by his Royal Highness. Ten tickets given to Mr. Weltjie for his Royal Highness for the above Masquerade, at two guineas each … £21. My last two Benefits, at Covent Garden Theatre, his Royal Highness had twelve tickets the first year, and six, the next … £4 10 0 [Total:] 118 10.’ A. Aspinall (ed.), The Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, 1770–1812, 8 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), vol. 4, p. 540. Delpini’s picket of Carlton House: when the Prince emerged, Delpini reportedly exclaimed, ‘Ah! Votre altesse! Mon Prince! If you no speak to my Lord Chamberlain, for pauvre Delpini, I must go to your papa’s bench.’ Ryan, Table Talk, vol. 1, p. 259.
282–3 ‘Pluck them asunder … and I care not’ing’: Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 233, fn. 1.
283 ‘Mr Grimaldi’s Last Appearance … attack’d him’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 81.
284 ‘burst into tears’: Oxberry (eds), ‘Memoir of Joseph Grimaldi’, p. 121. See also Percival, vol. 5, f. 82.
284 ‘roar of laughter’: Percival, vol. 5, f. 82.
284 white waistcoat and white gloves: Percival, vol. 5, f. 82.
The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi Page 41
