MEMOIRS OF TAR LTO N. RICHARD TARLTON, or TARLETON, was the earliest English comedian of great celebrity: he was born at Condover, in the county of Salop; but when, or at what period he commenced actor, is unknown. He was brought to London and introduced to court by a servant of Robert, earl of Leicester, who found him in a field, keeping his father's swine; where being highly pleased, says Fuller, with his happy unhappy answers, he took him under his patronage. In 1583 queen Elizabeth, at the suit of Sir Francis Walsingham, constituted twelve players, who were sworn her servants, allowing them wages and liveries as grooms of the chamber (a custom which lasted till Colley Cibber's time), one of whom was Tarlton. 66 66 Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, says, "Here I must needs remem"ber Tarleton, in his time gratious with the Queene his Soveraigne, and "in the People's generall applause." And Howes, the editor of Stow's Chronicle, says therein, "Among these twelve players were two rare men, viz. Thomas Wilson, for a quicke, delicate, refined, extemporall "wit; and Richard Tarleton, for a wondrous plentifull, pleasant, extemporall wit, was the wonder of his tyme. He was so beloved that men use his picture for their signes." Fuller asserts, that "when queen "Elizabeth was serious (I dare not say sullen) and out of good humour, " he could undumpish her at his pleasure. Her highest favourites would "in some cases go to Tarlton before they would go to the queen, and he was their usher to prepare their advantageous access unto her. In a word, he told the queen more of her faults than most of her chaplains, " and cured her melancholy better than all her physicians." 66 66 Im Sir Richard Baker, in his Theatrum Redivivum, speaking of Prynne, says, "let him try it when he will, and come upon the Stage himself, with "all the scurrility of the Wife of Bath, with all the ribaldry of Poggius, or Boccace, yet I dare affirm, he shall never give that contentment to "Beholders, as honest Tarlton did, though he said never a word." plying, that the very aspect of Tarlton delighted the spectators before he uttered a syllable; and in his Chronicle, Sir Richard, after giving due praise to Allen and Burbage, adds, "and to make their Comedies complete, "Richard Tarlton, who for the Part called the Clownes Part, never had "his match, never will have.' Dr. Cave, De Politica, Oxf. 1588, 4to. says, "Aristoteles suum "Theodoretum laudavit quendam peritum tragaediarum actorem, Cicero "suum Roscium, nos Angli Tarletonum in cujus voce & vultu omnes jo"cosi affectus, in cujus cerebroso capite lepida facetiæ habitant." Fuller says, "much of his merriment lay in his very looks and actions, according "to the epitaph written upon him: "Hic situs est cujus polerat vox, actio, vultus, "Ex Heraclito reddere Democritum. E "Indeed the self-same words spoken by another, would hardly move a merry man to smile, which uttered by him would force a sad soul to laughter." That he possessed the Vis Comica in a super-eminent degree, the following epigram assures us : "As Tarlton when his head was onely seene, "The Tire-house-doore, and Tapistrie betweene, σε They could not hold for scarse an houre after, "So (Sir) I set you, (as I promis'd) forth, "That all the world may wonder at your worth." PEACHAM'S Thalia's Banquet, Svo. 1620. An instance of his humour off the stage is recorded in "The Abortive of an Idle Houre." 4to. 1620. "Tarlton cut off all his skirts, because none should sit upon them." He for some time kept an ordinary in Paternoster-row, and then the sign of the Tabor, a tavern in Grace-church-street, where he was chosen scavenger, but was often complained of by the ward for neglect: he laid the blame on the raker, and he again on the horse, who being blooded and drenched the preceding day, could not be worked: then, says Tarlton, the horse must suffer; so he sent him to the Compter, and when the raker had done his work, sent him to pay the fees and redeem his horse. Another story is told of him, that having run up a large score at an ale-house, in Sandwich, he made his boy accuse him for a seminary priest. The officers came and seized him in his chamber on his knees, crossing himself; so they paid his reckoning, with the charges of his journey, and he got clear to London. When they brought him before the Recorder Fleetwood, he knew him, and not only discharged him, but entertained him very courteously. In a very rare old pamphlet, entitled Kind-Heartes Dreame, by Henry Chettle, 4to. no date, but published in Dec. 1592, he is thus described. "The next, by his sute of russet, his buttoned cap, his taber, his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body or resem"blance of Tarlton, who living, for his pleasant conceits was of all men liked, and dying, for mirth left not his like." 66 In 1611 a book was published in 4to. called Tarlton's Jeasts, wherein are specimens of the extempore wit, so pleasing to our ancestors, of which the following is one. As he was performing some part at the Bull at Bishopsgate-street, where the queen's players oftentimes played, a fellow in the gallery threw an apple at him, which hit him on the cheek; he immediately took up the apple, and advancing to the audience, addressed them in these lines: "Gentlemen, this fellow, with his face of mapple,* "Instead of a pippin hath thrown me an apple; "But as for an apple he hath cast a crab, "So instead of an honest woman God hath sent him a drab." i, e. rough and carbuncled. The people, says the relater, laughed heartily, for the fellow had a quean to his wife. Tarlton's wife (whose name was Kate) is said to have been unfaithful to him being with her in a storm, on his passage from Southampton, and every man compelled to throw all his baggage over-board, he offered to throw his wife over; but the other passengers prevented him. So great was his privilege with, and power over the audience, that he would enter between the acts, nay sometimes between the scenes, on the stage, and excite merriment by any species of buffoonry that occurred to him; as in this whimsical instance. "At the Bull at Bishopsgate was a play of Henry the Vth, [the per"formance which preceded Shakspeare's,] and because he was absent that "should take the blow, Tarlton himselfe, ever forward to please, tooke upon him to play the same judge, besides his own part of the clowne; "and Knel, then playing Henry the Fifth, hit Tarlton a sound box indeed, which made the people laugh the more, because it was he: but "anon the judge goes in, and immediately Tarlton, in his clownes cloaths, comes out, and asks the actors, What news? O, saith one, had'st thou "been here, thou shouldest have seen Prince Henry hit the judge a terrible "box on the eare. What, man, said Tarlton, strike a Judge! It is true, "i'faith, said the other. No other like, said Tarlton, and it could not but "be terrible to the Judge, when the report so terrifies me, that methinks "the blowe remains still on my cheeke, that it burns again. The people laught at this mightily, and to this day I have heard it commended for "rare; but no marvell, for he had many of these. But I would see our "clownes in these days doe the like. No, I warrant ye; and yet they "thinke well of themselves too." 66 After the play was finished, themes were given to him by some of the audience, which, to their great entertainment, he would descant upon; in his "jeasts" we find the following: "I remember I was once at a play in the country, where, as Tarlton's "use was, the play being done, every one so pleased threw up his theame; amongst all the rest one was read to this effect, word by word: 66 Tarlton, I am one of thy friends, and none of thy foes, To which he gave an extempore reply in some lines of loose verse, the point of which may be conceived from the latter part of this anecdote, in the same book: 66 "There was one Bankes in the time of Tarlton, who served the Earl "of Essex, and had a horse of strange qualities; and being at the Crosskeyes, in Gracious-streete, getting money with him, as he was mightily "resorted to, Tarlton then (with his fellowes) playing at the Bull by, came " into the Cross-keyes, amongst many people to see fashions: which Bankes "perceiving, to make the people laugh, saies, Signior, to his horse, go, fetch "me the veriest foole in the company. The jade comes immediately, and with "his mouth drawes Tarlton forth. Tarlton, with merry words, said nothing 66 66 66 "but God-a-mercy, horse. In the end Tarlton, seeing the people laugh so, was angry inwardly, and said, Sir, had I a power of your horse, as you have, I would do more than that. Whate'er it be, said Bankes, to please him, I will charge him to do it. Then, saies Tarlton, charge him "to bring me the veryest whoremaster in the company. He shall, saies Bankes. Signior, saies he, bring master Tarlton the veryest whoremaster in the company. The horse leads his master to him. Then God-a-mercy, horse, indeed, saies Tarlton. The people had much ado to keep peace: but "Bankes and Tarlton had like to have squared, and the horse by, to give "aime. But ever after it was a by word thorow London, God-a-mercy, "horse! and is to this day." 66 It is elsewhere related, that the flatness of his nose was occasioned by his interposing between some bears and dogs; which, he used to say, did not so much affect him, but that he could smell an honest man from a knave. Ben Jonson, in The Induction to his comedy of Bartholomew Fair, makes the stage-keeper speak thus of him: Ho! "I kept the stage in Master Tarlton's time, I thank my stars. "an' that man had liv'd to have play'd in Bartholomew Fair, you should "ha' seen him ha' come in, and ha' been cozened i' the cloth-quarter, so finely." 66 He was author of a dramatic piece, the scheme or plan only of which is now remaining, called, THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. Gabriel Harvey, in his Foure Letters, &c. 4to. 1592, stiles it a "famous play;" he also adds, "which most deadly, but most lively playe, I might have seene in "London; and was very gently invited thereunto at Oxford by Tarlton "himselfe.". After an eccentric and too free life, he died a penitent in 1588, and was buried in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, September the third of that year, as appears by the parish register. About this period were licensed, as we learn from the entries in the books of the Stationer's company, " A sorrowfull "newe sonnette, intitled Tarlton's Recantation upon this theame, gyven "him by a gent at the Bel Savage without Ludgate (nowe or els never), "being the last theme he songe;" and "Tarlton's repentance or his "farewell to his friends in his sicknes a little before his death, &c." In Wit's Bedlam, 8vo. 1617, is the following epitaph, The orthography and phraseology of these anecdotes will, no doubt, appear uncouth; and some of Tarlton's jokes, witticisms, and mummeries, flat and insipid to the modern reader and auditor: but it must be remembered that, when this celebrated Buffo flourished, Humour was but an embrio; which Shakspeare afterwards gave birth to, and Jonson reared to maturity. |