346 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Newcastle, to witness what all spoke of with
wonder. There were one day applications for 2,557
places, while there were only 630 of that kind in
the house. Porters and servants had to bivouac
for a night in the streets, on mats and palliasses, in
order that they might get an early chance to the
box-office next day. The gallery doors had to
be guarded by detachments of military, and the
bayonets, it is alleged, did not remain unacquainted
with blood. One day a sailor climbed to a window
in front of the house, for a professional and more
expeditious mode of admission ; but he told afterwards
that he no sooner got into the port-hole
than he was knocked on the head, and tumbled
down the hatchway. Great quantities of hats,
wigs, and shoes, pocket-books, and watches, were
lost in the throng, and it was alleged that a deputation
of London thieves, hearing of the business,
came down to ply their trade.? *
So much were the audience moved and thrilled,
that many ladies fainted, particularly when Mrs
Siddons impersonated Isabella in the Fatal Mar-
. riage, and she had to portray the agony of a wife,
on finding, after a second marriage, that her first
and most loved husband, Biron, is alive ; and concerning
this a curious story is told. A young
Aberdeenshire heiress, Miss Gordon of Gicht, was
borne out of her box in hysterics, screaming the
last words she had caught from the great actress,
?Oh, my Biron ! my Biron ! ? There was something
of an omen in this. In the course of a short
time after she was married to a gentleman whom
she had neither seen nor heard of at the epoch of
Mrs. Siddons? performance, the Honourable John
Byron, and to her it proved a ? fatal marriage,? in
many respects, though she became the mother of
the great Lord Byron. A lady who was present
in the theatre on that night died so recently as
In 1786 there died in hkr apartments in Shakespeare
Square an actress who had come to fulfil an
engagement, Mrs. Baddeley, a lady famous in those
days for her theatrical abilities, her beauty, and the
miseries into which she plunged herself by her imprudence.
Her Ophelia and inany other characters
won the admiratipn of Ganick; but her greatest
performances were Fanny in the Clandestine Ma7-
riage, and Mrs. Beverley in the Gamester.
In I 788 a new patent was procured in the names
of the Duke of Hamilton and Henry Dundas,
afterwards Viscount Melville, with the consent of
Mr. Jackson, at the expense of whom it was taken
out.
1855.
. - _. ~-
? Sketch of the Theatre Royal,? privately printed.
Mr. Jackson, the patentee, having become
bankrupt, Mr. Stephen Kemble leased the theatre
for one year, and among those he engaged in 1792
were Mr. and Mrs. Lee Lewes, of whom Kay gives,
us a curious sketch, as ?Widow Brisk? and the
?Tight Lad ? in the Road to Ruin. They had previously
appeared in Edinburgh in 1787, and became
marked favourites. Towards the close of
their second season Kemble played for a few nights,
while Mrs. Lewes took the parts of Lady Macbeth
and Lady Randolph.
Mrs. Esten, an actress greatly admired, now
became lessee and patentee, while Stepheo Kemble,
disappointed in his efforts to obtain entirely the
Theatre Royal, procured leave to erect a? rival
house, which he called a circus, at the head of
Leith walk, the future site of many successive
theatres. Mrs. Esten succeeded in obtaining a.
decree of the Court of Session to restrain Kemble
from producing plays; but the circus was nevertheless
permanently detrimental to the old theatre,
as it furnished entertainments for many years too
closely akin to theatrical amusements.
The ?? Annual Register ? for I 794 records a riot,
of which this theatre was the scene, at the time
when the French Revolution was at its height.
The play being Charles the Fir.rt, it excited keenly
the controversial spirit of the audience, among
whom a batch of Irish medical students in the pit
made some of their sentiments too audible. Some
gentlemen whose ideas were more monarchical, rose
in the boxes, and insisted that the orchestra should
play God Save the King, and that all should hear it
standing and uncovered; but the young Irish
democrats sat still, with their hats on, and much
violence ensued.
Two nights afterwards a great noise was made all
over the house, and it became evident that much
hostility was being engendered. On the subsequent
Saturday the two sets of people having each found
adherents, met in the house for the express purpose
of having a 4?row,?? and came armed with heavy
sticks, for there was a wild feeling abroad then, and
it required an outlet.
When the democrats refused to pay obeisance to
the National Anthem and respond to the cry of
? Off hats,? they were at once attacked with vigourchiefly
by officers of the Argyleshire Fencibles-and
a desperate fray ensued ; heads were broken and
jaws smashed on both sides, and many were borne
out bleeding, and conveyed away in sedans ; and
conspicuous in the conflict on the Tory side
towered the figure of young Walter Scott, then a
newly-fledged advocate. He never after ceased
to feel a glow of pleasure at the recollection of this
