DUST OF THE PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

DUST OF THE PAST

BEFORE THE FOOTLIGHTS

(By “

“Historicus.”)

“If this young fellow be right, then we have all been wrong.” Thus spoke the celebrated actor, Quinn, of David Garrick. Garrick had burst . like a comet into a perfect constellation of talent of the old school, and turned all ideas upside down. Stately, sonorous, declamation was the most remarkable side of the style of the old tragedians. Garrick captivated his audience by his versatility and rapid change of passion. “It seemed,” wrote a contemporary spirit, “as if a whole century had been stepped over in the passage of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms of a tasteless age to long superstitiously devoted to the illusion of imposing declamation.” His first appearance was made in 1740, as Harlequin at Goodman’s Fields, incognito, for the stage’ found no place in the smiles of his family. Then he appeared under the name of Lyddal at Ipswich. Success in the provinces determined his career, and towards the end of 1741 he was seen in his great part of Richard 111. He was soon lionized. “There are a dozen Dukes of a night at Goodman’s Fields,” wrote Walpole, and yet only a few years previously both Garrick and Dr. Johnson had left Lichfield for London, the one to commence the study of the law, and the other to try his tragedy of “Irene,” Johnson, as he afterwards said “with twopence halfpenny in his pocket” and “Garrick with three ha’pence in his.”

“On Tuesday, February 21, 1673, about nine in the evening was buried Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, tapissier, valet de chamber, and famous actor. There was a great crowd... The archbishop had given orders that Moliere should be interred without any ceremony, and had even forbidden' the clergy of the diocese to do any service for him.” Thus an eye witness describes the funeral of one of the greatest of French dramatists. There was not much in the ups and downs of an actor’s life that Moliere had not experienced. Born in Paris, his correct name, by the way, being Poquelin, he was designed for the business of tapestry-maker, but the call of the Stage was too strong. At twenty-one he fitted up a tennis court for dramatic performances. Here the first real touch of an actor’s life came along. He was arrested by a tradesman for candles supplied. He determined to tour the provinces, seeking fame and fortune as actor-author' in the romantic, if precarious, world of strolling players—a romantic life to read about; but a true apprenticeship. It was a world of lumbering carts, wardrobes, properties, inns, misadventure and precarious living, lasting for 15 years, and then Moliere came to Paris and entered upon a more assured life in the capital.

His comedies made him many enemies, but the position he won was unique. Within certain limits he became probably the greatest of all comic writers, lifting the humorous- element- above the flimsy plot, and the absurdities of' a day, to paint lively satires on contemporary manners, and eternal characters of humanity. On February 17, 1673 he died, .taken with convulsions, such is the irony of life, while acting in his last comedy “La Malade Imaginaire.”

On February 23, 1897, the newspapers of London helped to fill'their pages with the announcement of the death of a man not great in science, art of literature, nor indeed in any of the magnificent professions, but none the less celebrated as a master of his own craft. His name was Jean Francois Gravelot, the son of a French acrobat, popularly known as Blondin, the tight-rope walker. It is a little difficult now to appreciate the sensation that Blondin created in England, or, for that matter, throughout the world. We are led to believe that people of the Victorian period were a little more easily thrilled than our pre-sent-day blase public; but it is very probable that Blondin would have been as popular to-day as he was then. He was unrivalled. The Crystal Palace witnessed his first appearance in London, and, already famous, crowds rushed to see him. Older members of the public will perhaps, remember the tiny figure high up in the roof of the great glass house, playing dexterous pranks to the consternation of the vast 'audience beneath him. He worked with no net below him, and when he pretended to slip and clung head downwards a vast gasp broke from the shuddering multitude. But Blondin was soon back again bowing to the crowd.

At the age of nearly seventy-three he was still performing tight rope feats, hale, hearty and satisfied, probably thanking the lucky stars that had made him choose a profession that was not likely to be overcrowded. If there were a competition to determine which of all the inventions in the history of the world had been of the greatest benefit to mankind, the judgment would probably go to the inventor of type. The blessings of mankind for the new world that was opened by this Invention appear to go justly to John Gutenberg, who was bom at Mainz,, in Germany, about 1410. With whom the idea of printing began is unknown, but Gutenberg was the first man to produce a book printed with movable type, and it is in accord with the great innovation that the first book to be printed was the Bible. Little is known of Gutenberg’s early life. As might be expected he would appear to have been of an ingenious nature; setting up at Strasbourg a partnership in the business of making mirrors. having discovered a process of producing better ones than had ever been made before. This led the way to his great life work. In 1446 Gutenberg returned to Mainz full of a new printing scheme. Capital, that bugbear of all inventors, appears to have been his trouble also. A certain John Fust was shrewd enough to see something in the idea, and financed him. With the assistance of a skilful metal worker, who made a wonderful improvement on the wooden letter by suggesting a process by which they could make metal ones, the first book made its appearance. But the cost had been heavy, and, in the subsequent money troubles, Fust claimed, in lieu of the cash that Gutenberg could not repay, the whole of the printing business. Such is the usual reward of the inventor. He died on February 24, 1468. Nearly four hundred years later a statue was erected to his memory in Mainz. Long before that, however, his fame had spread across the world.