class="full"/>

SELECT BIOGRAPHY.

THE LATE MR. MUNDEN.

(With Recollections.)

Great actors have two lives, or rather they have double deaths. Their leave-taking of the public, their "retirement," as biographers call it, is one death; since a playgoer then considers an actor dead "to all intents and purposes"—a very non est. Public regrets are showered about your great actor, and by some he is forgotten with the last trump of his praise. He "retires:" that is, he looks out for a cottage in the country, far removed from his former sphere of action, (as plain John Fawcett did the other day,) or he diverges to a snug box in the suburbs of London, still lingering about the great stage, as did honest Joseph Munden about seven years since. People in the boxes or pit look out for his successor in the bills of the play—then say "we ne'er shall look upon his like again," (the greatest, though perhaps the most equivocal, tribute ever paid to genius,) but a few months reconcile them to the loss; they approve the successor, though they deplore the change, "and though the present they regret, they are grateful for the past." Then comes your actor's second farewell—his final exit—and "last of all comes death." A line or two in a newspaper tells you that Munden died on Monday last. One exclaims "I thought he had been dead these seven years;" but another, of more grateful and reflective temperament, throws down the "diurnal" to lament the death of the man as he had hitherto regretted the loss of the actor. His former regret too is resuscitated. A mere paragraph rounds the little life of your actor, his entrances and exits, and he who "appeared" on one stage in 1790, as Sir Francis Gripe and Jemmy Jumps, disappeared from that greater stage, or all the world, as Joseph Munden. We have often thought these farewells of actors must be with them dismal affairs, especially in old age. They must remind them of a last farewell, and we know

But, is this fitting for the obituary of a comic actor? Yes, we reply, and as both are but occasions of appeal to the passions, we may think the death of a tragedian less striking than the former, since all tragedies end with death, and death in itself is but a scene of tragedy. Is any lament of Shakspeare's heroes more touching than his apostrophe to the scull of Yorick, the King's jester, the mad fellow that poured a flagon of Rhenish on the clown's head: "a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?"

Munden was the son of a poulterer in Brooke's Market, Holborn, where he was born in the year 1758. His father died soon afterwards, leaving his widow with slender means, and Munden was thrust upon the world to seek his fortune at twelve years of age. He was placed in an apothecary's shop, but soon left it for an attorney's office. Perhaps, like Dr. Wolcot, he fancied the clinking of the pestle and mortar said "Kill 'em again! kill 'em again." From the attorney's office, he "fell off," as Hamlet's Ghost would say, to a law-stationer's shop, and became "a hackney writer:" the technicality needs not explanation: to hack at anything is neither the road to fame nor a good meal. He was apprenticed in Chancery Lane: his master died and was succeeded by an older man, of the square-toed fraternity, who taxed Munden with being a Macaroni more than a tradesman. Munden, in consequence, parted from his master, and once more returned to the office of a solicitor. They who remember Munden, a staid-dressing man in later years, may smile at his early observance of the glass of fashion.

About this time Munden appears to have first imbibed a taste for the stage, and with it an admiration of the genius of Garrick; indeed, he had seen more of Garrick's acting than had any of his contemporaries in 1820, Quick and Bannister excepted. What a fine president would Munden have been of the Garrick Club, the members of which probably know as much about Garrick as they care about Thespis. Acquaintance with an actor fed Munden's penchant for the stage, but did not fill his pocket. Both started for Liverpool, the actor upon an engagement, but Munden in hope of one; the latter engaged in the office of the Town Clerk, but only realized his hope in copying for the theatre, walking in processions, and bearing banners, at one shilling per night! At length he acted the first Carrier in Henry IV. He next joined a company at Rochdale, which he soon left, and returning to Liverpool, smothered his dramatic passion for two years, when he started for Chester, with a light heart, a bundle wardrobe, and a guinea. He entered Chester with his "last shilling," which he paid for admission to the theatre, little thinking of provision for the night. Yet Munden, in later life, was a prudent, parsimonious man. At the close of the performance he fell in with a person who had been a butcher's apprentice in Brooks's Market, and who remembering young Joseph's antic tricks, gave him good cheer, and money for his return to London. On the road, necessity overtook him, when meeting a Warwickshire militia-man, who was marching to the town at which he was billeted, Munden prevailed on the soldier to represent him as a comrade. The trick told: he was ordered to the general mess-room and received as one among the warriors; and his lively humour made him king of the company for the night. Next morning the regiment mustered, and Munden was told to follow and be enlisted; but, as he had obtained all he wished, a supper and a bed, he left his military friends to their glory, ⁷ and proceeded to London. Here he again returned to the law, but once more emerged from it, and joined a company at Leatherhead, as a representative of old men. But the theatre was burnt. Munden next played at Windsor with tolerable success, at half a guinea per week; and subsequently at Colnbrook and Andover. He returned to London, and thence went to Canterbury, in 1780, to play low comedy characters, where he first became what theatrical biographers term "a favourite." After other provincial engagements and a short trial of management at Sheffield, Munden appeared December 2, 1790, (a few nights after the first appearance of Incledon,) at Covent Garden Theatre as Sir Francis Gripe, in the Busy Body, and Jemmy Jumps in the Farmer; his success in which parts after the impressions made by Parsons and Edwin was little short of a miracle. His popularity now became settled. He was the original representative of Old Rapid, Caustic, Brummagem, Lazarillo, (Two Strings to your Bow,) Crack, Nipperkin, Sir Abel Handy, Sir Robert Bramble, Old Dornton, &. In 1797 and 1798, he played at the Haymarket, but his summer vacations were chiefly filled up by engagements at the provincial theatres. Munden remained at Covent Garden Theatre till 1813, when he joined the Drury Lane company. Here he remained until May 31, 1824, when he took his farewell of the stage, in the characters of Sir Robert Bramble, (Poor Gentleman, ⁸ ) and Old Dozy, (in Past Ten o'clock.) He read his farewell address, thus rendering it strikingly ineffective, since his spectacles became obscured with tears. The leave-taking had, however, a touch of real tragedy, which few could withstand. He now