MEMOIRS
OF
JOSEPH GRIMALDI
EDITED
By "BOZ"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
Price 2s. each, boards.
The Greatest Plague of Life; or, The Adventuresof a Lady in Search of a Good Servant.Edited by the Brothers Mayhew. WithIllustrations by George Cruikshank.
Whom to Marry and How toGet Married; or,The Adventures of aLady in Search of aGood Husband. Editedby the BrothersMayhew,and Illustratedby GeorgeCruikshank.
Mornings at Bow Street. WithSteel Frontispieceand 21 Illustrationsby GeorgeCruikshank.
It is some years now, since we first conceived a strong venerationfor Clowns, and an intense anxiety to know what theydid with themselves out of pantomime time, and off the stage.As a child, we were accustomed to pester our relations andfriends with questions out of number concerning these gentry;—whethertheir appetite for sausages and such like wares wasalways the same, and if so, at whose expense they were maintained;whether they were ever taken up for pilfering otherpeople's goods, or were forgiven by everybody because it wasonly done in fun; how it was they got such beautiful complexions,and where they lived; and whether they were bornClowns, or gradually turned into Clowns as they grew up. Onthese and a thousand other points our curiosity was insatiable.Nor were our speculations confined to Clowns alone: they extendedto Harlequins, Pantaloons, and Columbines, all of whomwe believed to be real and veritable personages, existing in thesame forms and characters all the year round. How often havewe wished that the Pantaloon were our god-father! and howoften thought that to marry a Columbine would be to attain thehighest pitch of all human felicity!
The delights—the ten thousand million delights of a pantomime—comestreaming upon us now,—even of the pantomimewhich came lumbering down in Richardson's waggons at fair-timeto the dull little town in which we had the honour to bebrought up, and which a long row of small boys, with frills as[Pg vi]white as they could be washed, and hands as clean as they wouldcome, were taken to behold the glories of, in fair daylight.
We feel again all the pride of standing in a body on the platform,the observed of all observers in the crowd below, whilethe junior usher pays away twenty-four ninepences to a stoutgentleman under a Gothic arch, with a hoop of variegated lampsswinging over his head. Again we catch a glimpse (too brief,alas!) of the lady with a green parasol in her hand, on the outsidestage of the next show but one, who supports herself onone foot, on the back of a majestic horse, blotting-paper colouredand white; and once again our eyes open wide withwonder, and our hearts throb with emotion, as we deliver ourcard-board check into the very hands of the H