NOTES.

“His name was Mr William Weare, He lived in Lyons Inn.”

After the murder Thurtell drove back to London and had a hearty supper at an eating-house. Judge Park, who tried him, is said to have exclaimed: “Commit a murder and eat six pork chops! Good God, what dreams the man must have had.” Catherine Hayes was also a well-known miscreant.

5th Feb. 1729.—“My best friend, Mr Francis Cherry, was a very handsome man, particularly when young. His hands were delicately white. He was a man of great parts, and one of the finest gentlemen in England. K. James II., seeing him on horseback in Windsor forest, when his majesty was hunting, asked who it was, and . . . said he never saw any one sit a horse better in his life.

“Mr Cherry was educated at the free school at Bray. . . . He was gentleman commoner at Edem-hall anno 1682. . . . The hall was then very full, particularly there were then a great many gentlemen commoners there.”

He recommends (p. 452) that frets should be added to the Double Bass, which would “give clearness to many rapid passages which at present only make a rumbling noise.”

“Walk in and see Our menagerie, For amateurs a feast, Where Dawes and Peacock Are our birds And . . . is our beast.”

I have forgotten the name of the beast, but he was an unpopular fellow of Jesus.

“Nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey, Enough my mead of fame If those who deign’d to observe me say I injured neither name.”

In the version quoted by Sydney Smith (Memoir and Letters, vol. ii., p. 457) the last line is “I tarnished neither name”; the punctuation is slightly different from the above, which is taken from the Dict. of Nat. Biog.

In 1803 he went to Rugby, the idea being that he should go to the Bar. In 1810 Macready made his first appearance on the stage, taking the part of Romeo with considerable success. Mrs Siddons, with whom he acted, encouraged him—telling him to “study, study, study, and do not marry till you are thirty.” During the four years he remained with his father he played seventy-four parts. He seems to have failed to agree with his father, and took an engagement at Bath in 1814. In 1816 he made his first appearance at Covent Garden. Kean was in the audience and applauded loudly. His Richard III. (in London 1819) took a firm hold of the public and established “a dangerous rivalry for Kean.” His temper seems to have been violent, for in 1836 he knocked down Bunn as “a damned scoundrel” and had to pay damages. In 1837 he was manager of Covent Garden Theatre. He was the original Claude Melnotte in 1838.

In 1850 he played at Windsor Castle under Charles Kean, who “sent him a courteous message and received a characteristically churlish reply.” He took the last of many farewell performances in 1851. His diary and reminiscences have been edited by Sir F. Pollock.