New-York tribune., 1878-12-05
| MEMORIES OF JOHN GILBERT.
POINTS IN HIS BOSTON CAREER.

d.
ton of the honors which await Mr.. john Gilbert
in New-York with certain degree OF local pflue'
Perhaps it is not creditabe to that this half cen
tury observance was not projected here, and that
tbe excellent veteran is not to make MS
digpifed seml-centennial bow in one OF
onr own theatres. But, somehow the rest
of the country has a way of carrying OIL not lew
of our best and brightest men and women, though
vou will admit that the number of such who sun
abide with us is not small. But we are proud Oh
our exiles "a we please to consider thcm' thougn'
with their foreign honors, they may no longer DC
proud of Us. Everybody here who IL Judge o'
sucb matters was charmed with Mr.. William WIN
ters speech at tie dinner given to Ir Gilbert al tue
Iolos Club. speech which, we are happy
to find, put it beyond peradvenluie' anu 40
the noiaIios say a. parpc'aam "Iemordm. that MI
Winter j. also Of Boston birth and breedlng' Leu
II. he q sbarcr in your delight, and portion OF the
pleasouf occasion! Mr. Gilbert Is child Of the
Boston stage. Here lis dramatic genus was DIS
covered and developed. Never so many years ago
he was " Old Gilbert here Even IN his youth, he
was always Thought of and often spoken Of as ""
Gilbert; and 10 real lover OF the drama 'ot Ger
tain agc) ever goes through ITemoul-at' without
thinking of him.
NV own recollection Of Mr. Gilbert goes back
about forty years. ! saw him iirt, Think IN Ie"o
Mr.. Thomas Barry. the best OF managers ior '"c
puhlic and the worst for himself, was no longer Ie'
see Of the fremont Theatre, aud Dr. Jones, ACTOR
playwright and doctor, and clever IN all these pro-
fessous rcgucd IN ms stead The maghIHcert ou
compauy-the hest perhaps il She country, ccrtalhS
the hest that Boston ever saw or is likely Co see
was somewhat broken up, though seNefa' Oh t.'
bright partIcular stars in u yet remained. Mr.
..,.1..t FIRST ITT|a II
he copld, and Mr. Fredcrick>, then new here
and in America. had taken MS place. Bnt We sun
kept Gilbert. smith, Mus,ey, Andrews, williamson
fbr singer: aud the ladies' list comprised Mrs. An
dersop ,od Pclby'- daughtcr. Mrs. Gilbert thc beS
OF ljrs. NolapopJ, aud Mrs. William A. Smith
while it was he regular thing for Miss Fanny J"he
70 dance pas seat between the play and farce. OF
all these artrsts-most OF them tirst-rajc-Johu Tl-
bcrt holds the foremost place in the memory, or the
simple reason that he was the best of them all HIS
acting was of the kind which leaves an me
rgdItsblc impression; you cannot read over
the PLAYS in which he appeared without
thinking of him. Nobody ever saw him play
any part, young or old, tragic or cOu1c, badly.
have ransacl,d my recollection to try to recall ono
faIlure of his lust to relieve the brightness Of the
picture ; but cannot. He was alwayS lettcr-prr-
feet and never made mess OF the text, n some oi
our actors do. He was always made mp with abso-
lute correctness II he had bit Of defamation
as sometimes happened, he detained like a scholar
and a gentleman. lie was as painstaking in the
height of his reputation as II he haa stii h'H
place to WIN. There was a sort o! mellow serious
ness even IN his m.dy, as If aytHg though oil
dull Sort was too important to Dee trIiled with and
in bis Youthful imper-onltiOns there was toucd 81
the gravity OF advanced years. He was too largo
and respectable for mere faTrc-hc had nothing OF
the flppant and frisky ways OF a smart harlequin
You felt that to his mind acting WAS G.guicd and
serious business, though not necessarily duh one
Whatever could be- done with the part he did; aud
sometimes. as III Master UdiiU lin Sheridan
Knowlos's Huucbback' y the part owed great daal
to him. Nobody who ever saw his superb
acting IN that role with Mrs Anderson as Julia, can
ever forget it. The pit for there was real PIT IN
those DAYS. always waited impatieuty for the great
scene. and was always repaid for waiting. These
two fine artists actually put genius into Sheridan
Knowles dry lines.
All this was a great while ago, when John GIlbort
and the present writer III he wl kindly pardon the
were comparatively young men. There Is
an aroma of antiquity ~ speaking Of one
whose delineations of old men were line beyond any
thing which the American stage has ever seen, aud
which that stage will surely lack when-distant be
the day John Gilbert shall cease to tread II. do
not know that anything like the positive, irlscible
scoldiuq living generous and forgIying old man Of
tho English DRAMA is to be found, at least now, III
real life; but the character charming considered
IA a peace Of Idealism. think sometimes that the
stage has life of its own. and that 1t Is full OF
characters which are not precisely unnatural, but
poetic projections or notifications Of the real
ordinary phases Of human nature. We do not
meet any Sir Ieter Teazies IN Broadway nor in Fifth
Avenue parors, and yet who ever thought that
Gilbert i'm ,ir Peter was acting an impossible old
gentleman 1t is ike the fine. WITTY gentle
men and ladies in COngreyrs plays-wo never saw
such in society we may well wish that we could.
The charm Of Gilbcrt's old men is, that they be-
have precisely "a such old men would DO likely TO
behave under the circumstances of time, place
and action. The racy petuance, the acidu-
lous repartee. the dashes Of ccCentrclty the
strength OF character, Kissing and bubbling vehe-
mrntly in spite of physical weakness, the scoldng,
the sneering the wheodling the muscular simplicity
all these make parsonage which may not be the
less true because it is a dramatic tradition and has
ceased to be common in houses and highways, as
Romcos have, and Iiamlets for that matter. as we'll
Perhaps it is we who are not quite so natural "a we
should he. The old man which MIR. Gilbert gives us
must have had prototype once in English society
for il is not only the English stage
but in English novels. Fielding'S aud SnolIctts
for instance, az well as in English plays, were
considered merely as literary productions, Mr. Gil
bers presentations of such Sir Peters and Sir Rob-
ers are trumphs of perfect art, which the present
generation Of paygOers had better see as much Of
as possible lie isn't likely to have any successor
even III the minor details Of making up.
When the fremont Theatre lapsed into sheer
bankruptcy, and was turned into Temple, Mr. Gil
bert went away from ~. Years after, when it was
proposed to revive the legitimate drama for
the hundredth time in Boston. the capitalists who
thought that good theatre would help trade built
the house on Mashington-st. In an evil hour poor