Note 224 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

John Palmer (1742-98), the original Joseph Surface, was known off the stage as Jack Plausible. Once, in patching up a quarrel with Sheridan, he said: “If you could see my heart, Mr. Sheridan,” and was answered, “Why, Jack, you forget I wrote it.” The Royalty Theatre, at which Smith hoped to be employed by him, was the ill-starred house in Well Street, in St. George’s in the East. The opposition of the great theatres caused its degeneration to a house for pantomimes and concerts. Palmer fell into debt and into Surrey Gaol. Nevertheless he appeared at Drury Lane as late as 1798. He is described by Charles Lamb as “a gentleman with a slight infusion of the footman,” for which reason “Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable.” Palmer died on the stage. His last uttered words, spoken in The Stranger, are said to have been: “There is another and a better world,” but this has been disputed: it is contended that the words really uttered by him as he fell were those in the fourth act: “I left them at a small town hard by.”