I tore my clothes; soiled them with dirt;
begrimed my face and hands; and, crawling near one of the booths,
purloined an old hat, and left my new one in its place. It was an
honest theft, and I hope may not hereafter rise up in judgment against
me.
I now ventured to the scene of merrymaking, and, presenting myself
before the dramatic corps, offered myself as a volunteer. I felt
terribly agitated and abashed, for "never before stood I in such a
presence." I had addressed myself to the manager of the company. He was
a fat man, dressed in dirty white; with a red sash fringed with tinsel,
swathed round his body. His face was smeared with paint, and a majestic
plume towered from an old spangled black bonnet. He was the Jupiter
tonans of this Olympus, and was surrounded by the interior gods and
goddesses of his court. He sat on the end of a bench, by a table, with
one arm akimbo and the other extended to the handle of a tankard, which
he had slowly set down from his lips as he surveyed me from head to
foot. It was a moment of awful scrutiny, and I fancied the groups
around all watching us in silent suspense, and waiting for the imperial
nod.
He questioned me as to who I was; what were my qualifications; and what
terms I expected. I passed myself off for a discharged servant from a
gentleman's family; and as, happily, one does not require a special
recommendation to get admitted into bad company, the questions on that
head were easily satisfied. As to my accomplishments, I would spout a
little poetry, and knew several scenes of plays, which I had learnt at
school exhibitions. I could dance - , that was enough; no further
questions were asked me as to accomplishments; it was the very thing
they wanted; and, as I asked no wages, but merely meat and drink, and
safe conduct about the world, a bargain was struck in a moment.
Behold me, therefore transformed of a sudden from a gentleman student
to a dancing buffoon; for such, in fact, was the character in which I
made my debut. I was one of those who formed the groups in the dramas,
and were principally, employed on the stage in front of the booth, to
attract company. I was equipped as a satyr, in a dress of drab frize
that fitted to my shape; with a great laughing mask, ornamented with
huge ears and short horns. I was pleased with the disguise, because it
kept me from the danger of being discovered, whilst we were in that
part of the country; and, as I had merely to dance and make antics, the
character was favorable to a debutant, being almost on a par with Simon
Snug's part of the Lion, which required nothing but roaring.
I cannot tell you how happy I was at this sudden change in my
situation. I felt no degradation, for I had seen too little of society
to be thoughtful about the differences of rank; and a boy of sixteen is
seldom aristocratical. I had given up no friend; for there seemed to be
no one in the world that cared for me, now my poor mother was dead. I
had given up no pleasure; for my pleasure was to ramble about and
indulge the flow of a poetical imagination; and I now enjoyed it in
perfection. There is no life so truly poetical as that of a dancing
buffoon.
It may be said that all this argued grovelling inclinations. I do not
think so; not that I mean to vindicate myself in any great degree; I
know too well what a whimsical compound I am. But in this instance I
was seduced by no love of low company, nor disposition to indulge in
low vices. I have always despised the brutally vulgar; and I have
always had a disgust at vice, whether in high or low life. I was
governed merely by a sudden and thoughtless impulse. I had no idea of
resorting to this profession as a mode of life; or of attaching myself
to these people, as my future class of society. I thought merely of a
temporary gratification of my curiosity, and an indulgence of my
humors. I had already a strong relish for the peculiarities of
character and the varieties of situation, and I have always been fond
of the comedy of life, and desirous of seeing it through all its
shifting scenes.
In mingling, therefore, among mountebanks and buffoons I was protected
by the very vivacity of imagination which had led me among them. I
moved about enveloped, as it were, in a protecting delusion, which my
fancy spread around me. I assimilated to these people only as they
struck me poetically; their whimsical ways and a certain
picturesqueness in their mode of life entertained me; but I was neither
amused nor corrupted by their vices. In short, I mingled among them, as
Prince Hal did among his graceless associates, merely to gratify my
humor.
I did not investigate my motives in this manner, at the time, for I was
too careless and thoughtless to reason about the matter; but I do so
now, when I look back with trembling to think of the ordeal to which I
unthinkingly exposed myself, and the manner in which I passed through
it. Nothing, I am convinced, but the poetical temperament, that hurried
me into the scrape, brought me out of it without my becoming an arrant
vagabond.
Full of the enjoyment of the moment, giddy with the wildness of animal
spirits, so rapturous in a boy, I capered, I danced, I played a
thousand fantastic tricks about the stage, in the villages in which we
exhibited; and I was universally pronounced the most agreeable monster
that had ever been seen in those parts.
