The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-06 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Robson. A Sketch. By George Augustus Sala.
Rotten, Piccadilly.

A charmingly readable little violet-coloured six•
penny brochure, is this timely tribute to one, alas,
now dead and gone—Robson, of the Olympic ! It
ought, however, to have had its authorship more
accurately defined upon its title-page. The" Sketch"
of Robson as here given to us, is—in spite of what
the title-page asserts—not by Mr. Sala. Three gen-
tlemen are, by that random assertion, coolly rolled
into one, like (as Mrs. Malaprop would say) Cer-
berus. One of the three, if you will, is the famous
New York correspondent of the D aily Telegraph , that
capital, comical, vivacious, sparkling, delightful
ready-writer of reports, novels, newspaper articles,
anything you please—whom it was the fashion once
upon a time to sneer at as Dickens-and- water I G. A.
Sala, to wit, of " Twice Round the Clock," of the
" Seven Sons of Mammon," of " Gaslight and Day-
light," of the Temple Bar Magazine, of the staff of
_Household Words, and All the Year Bound, author
of " Quite, Alone," photographer of " The
Streets of the World," Reporter, Romancist,
Essayist, Correspondent 1 Yes, here, too, as
a Sketcher of poor Robson,
as a celebrant
of his genius, as a delineator of his peculiarities—Mr
Sala is—how shall we put it? Well,
be
is not the
least bit in the world like his last heroine in being
" Quite Alone !" lie is, here, on the contrary, as we
have said, but as One Out of Three. And—as it
happens—in spite of all his brilliant powers, as a
Sketcher of London People, and especially of
London Celebrities—Mr Sala is here simply as—
the last and the least of the three. His
colaborateurs in the production of this most
acceptable, because wonderfully well-timed memo-
rial of Robson, being—the anonymous biographer
of Robson (immediately after the latter's recent de-
mise) in the columns of our very able and
thoroughly and most consistently liberal contem-
porary the Daily News, and—in this, not only
making up the third, but fairly leading them off--
the publisher himself, Mr. Hotten, of Piccadilly. In
point of feet, therefore,whatever there is in this little
memorial sketch of Robson, that is perfectly fresh
and original, is Mr. Hotten's. The rest of it, being
simply so much reprint—here from the Daily
News—there from the American journal for which
Mr. Sala pencilled his limning of Robson while
Robson himself was yet living. What we are
especially thankful for, therefore, in the matter of
this livraison, is precisely this fresh fragmentary
morsel of information in regard to Thomas Brown-
bill, otherwise Frederick Robson, penned by Mr.
Hotten, of Piccadilly, and penned by him in the
manner following. Quoth Mr. Hotten (after a
graphic sketch of the locality referred to)—in a little
out-of-the-way back-slum hard by the Strand, in a
strange cluster of holes and corners, yclept Bedford-
bury, there in the year 1836, and while he was yet
no more than fifteen years of age—

One Thomas Robson Brownbill, a little boy from Mar-
gate, was apprenticed to Mr Smellie, the copperplate en-
graver and well-known printer of Mr George Cruikshank's
humorous plates.
_ _ _

Master Brownbill's friends had found him crazy after the
stage as other urchins sometimes are after a Oa life. Various
professions, less romantic but conceived to be more respect-
able, were mentioned to him, but, with the exception of the
graver's art, he would not listen to any one of them. This
ho thought he might like, so his mother resolved to try him.
The lad soon became an immense favourite with his master
and the workmen, and they familiarly nicknamed him
"Bill," "little Bill," a sort of jocose shortening of his sur-
name, Brownbill—for he was not known as Robson until
some years later, when he adopted a christian name as his
theatrical title, adding Frederick, which he cons:dered de..
cidedly stylish and quite out of the common ; a custom. not
very unusual I believe, with other ladies and gentlemen of
his profession. I met one of the workmen the day after his
'death, and told him of his old comrade's departure. " What,
little Bill gone t" he said. " Al! he was a merry lad, but
he had better by half 'a stuck to the bench."
" Little Bill" soon began to exhibit his theatrical tastes to
the workmen, and his powers of mimicry kept the estab-
lishment from morn until night in a continual state of good
humour. If a knife grinder or other travelling oddity en•
tered the court, Bill buttoned up his coat, cocked his hat, and
bawled in imitation until the tears ran down the men's faces
with laughter. The apprentice always dressed showily, and
usually had his hair artificially curled in ringlets. His hat
was an extra size with a twisted brim, and as he wore this
somewhat jauntily set upon a rather large-sized head, the
vulgar boys of the court used to called him the " little big
head."

Alas for the uncertainties of parental authority! Although
the days were occupied over the graver, the nights were
almost as regularly spent on the two or three amateur stages
which were then to be met with in this neighbourhood, and
the costume we have just mentioned, and the ringlets, were
simply the effects of the mind's bent and the evening's re-
creation. The youth, however, never shirked work for
play ; and his master used to say that there was not a man
or boy in his shop who was so regular in the morning's at-
tendance as 2ittle Brownbill. At this time he lived with his
mother—his fa:,her had been dead wary years—in Henry-
street,Vauxhall, se that he had some distance to walk daily.
He was bound for a
mateur t
now skilful engraver and a.
even years, but only stopped fourwith
his master. An unfore.leen circumstance happening, the
heatrical found himself
at 19 out of his time, and his Cwn matter. Whether it was
a promise made to his mother, in* that he feared to rely en-
ye do not know, but
tirely on the stage for a livelihooxi,
,ruing his liberty he
certain it is that immediately upon obl2l in . the dramatic
did not go and enlist, without more ado,
ld a
In his, pprent
oorps of one of the London theatres.
ship days, he used to say he would do so directly an oppor-
tunity offered itself; but this was probably one pt those
little threats with which sanguine young people aro act to
thoughtlessly alarm their fidgetty elders. His master gm:a
up business in the old court, and removed to Scotland, and
the amateur theatrical, finding himself free, very wisely
conceived that a little business might be formed out of the
old customers that Mr Smellie had abandoned. Mr Robson
Brownbill now took a shop in Brydges-street, Covent-gar-
den, and here he carried on business Oa master engraver for
12 months. During the whole of this time he continued to
take part in amateur performances, and a favourite song,
both with himself and his audiences, was "Lord Lovel"—
generally sung in character. Finally, one isorning,hi s neigh-
bour in I3ry dges-street observed, by Piece of paper attached
to the shutters of Mrßrownbill's shop,that business had been
relinquished. The engraver had token home his tools to
keep as curiosities, and had accepted the offer of a country
manager. From that time to the present he has been before
a public—one at first small and provincial, but latterly
large and metropolitan—as Frederick Robson.
I have just said that ho kept his tools when he gave up
his business. He used to say to an old friend that he never
looked at or handled them without pleasant reminiscences
of those early apprentice days passed in the quaint little
Bedfordbury-equare days unalloyed by the
cares of
managerial life or mental dejection.
Of this strange, eccentric, Tragic-Comic actor—
this pre-eminent Grotesque--Robson,
of the
Olympic—there Appears, upon the cover of this
sixpenny brochure, the vera efilies in the shape of
a little woodcut presenting him to our view as
The Wandering Minstrel! In respect to the won-
drous representation of whibch (Hi
---apidated (not to
J
say squalid) character by Ro son, we remember our
selves hearing Douglas Jerrold remark one day,
with a pretended shudder
._." I could fancy his
playing it—on his Benetl h
Ig -t4.—With real ver-
nzin!" An anecdote entireit y
at Mr.
Hotten's service
—in the event a his reprinting this admirable
sketch of Robson. •
PanSie. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hotten.
In appearance—issued as " Pansie" is simulta•
ne;ously with the foregoing—it companion publica-
tion. But—when it comes to be looked into—ah,
how different! The nameless odour of death, it is
true, is upon each—what Edgar Poe, in his most
wonderful poem (" To Annie,") defines as the " roses
mary odour,"or " odour of pansies "—the death, in
e Robson," of the theme of the little book—the death,
in "Pansie," of the author of it ! Yes, here in "Pansie"
—not one of the " beautiful Puritan Pansies " in
Poe'a death-song just referred to, but in this
charming little sketch of the child Pansie—we have
the last little fragrant cillorescent morsel of Haw-
thorne ! A spray of Hawthorne, as it were, put-
freshly into leaf and flower and perfume just
*he goodly tree itself Was cut down so slide
before
-rernaturely. It was the beginning of a
denly and 1.. ..n world-flUnnlifi American Poet-
new story by ti._ •Tawthorne—a new story by
Romancist, Nathaniel le.- eivor Romance:, Of
him to be entitled "The Do, Scarlet Letter"
that new story the novelist of the .
-hapter, a
was destined only to write the opening e. der
chapter hero presented to the English reader tth
the name of the child heroine of it—Pansie! How
gracefully and graciously it is written, this last
outpouring from the fancy of Hawthorne, let the
subjoined fragment attest ;
" Pamie, darling," said Dr Dulliver cheerily, patting her
brown hair with his tremulous fingers, "thou has putsome
of thine own friskiness into poor old grandfather, this fine
mornia}; 1 Dot huuw, child, that he came near brealiing