262 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE OLD ACTORS. 



thus was completely ruined. The kindness of friends enabled the 

 widow and her son to bear up under their misfortunes, though with 

 much difficulty. Wilkinson, during the close of his life, published 

 memoirs of his own chequered career, from which, if it were proper 

 to treat our readers with twice-told tales, we might extract many 

 anecdotes, which would be interesting here; but shall confine our- 

 selves to the notice of such particulars as are little, if at all, known 

 unless to ourselves. 



Old Tate relates that, by the kind contirbutions of his mother's 

 friends, he was educated in a celebrated boarding-school, kept by a 

 Mr. Tempest at Wandsworth, in Surrey. This school was remarkable 

 for having educated the sons of many persons of a rank, which did not 

 in those days assume the exclusiveness of the present. There was a son 

 of the poet Churchill ; two sons of Dr. Kenrick, who afterwards became 

 remarkable in literature ; two sons of Worledge, a painter of some 

 note in his time ; one son of Sir George Rodney, who, at that time, 

 was only a poor lieutenant in the navy, though he lived to become 

 one of Britain's greatest heroes ; and LAST, as well as least, the writer 

 of these papers, who was educated in the same school, a few years 

 after Wilkinson left it. 



No opportunity offering to fix Wilkinson in any regular employ- 

 ment, the kindness of friends induced them to let him pass his idle 

 time in their houses and in the theatre, with which many of them 

 were connected. Having no other employment, he gradually passed 

 all his time in the theatre, before the curtain during the representa- 

 tion, and on the stage while rehearsals were going on. In this way 

 he acquired a settled determination to become an actor. Tragedy, 

 comedy, and farce were equally objects of his attention ; but more 

 especially mimicry, which Foote had made popular and fashionable, 

 and in which Wilkinson was said to have equalled him. 



He tells us that Garrick gave him an engagement for a year or 

 more ; he was delighted at this, and on his application for his weekly 

 salary, was thunderstruck when our Roscius told him, with a sneer, 

 to examine his articles before he asked for payment. He then first 

 found he had incautiously signed an engagement to perform one year 

 for a very small weekly salary, which was not to commence till after 

 he had made his first appearance, which the manager determined to 

 postpone long enough. There was no remedy ; but Wilkinson re- 

 solved to make the best of it, by living among his friends, and ob- 

 serving every thing he saw pass on the stage, intending, when it 

 might be practicable, to turn it to his own account. 



At last, a Dublin acquaintance, with true Irish hospitality, franked 

 him to the capital of Ireland, gave him apartments in his house, and 

 introduced him to the manager, who resolved to allow him a trial. 

 His friends made a large party, and public curiosity collected a large 

 audience. Wilkinson, who had not then performed any character, 

 whimsically, though luckily, as it proved, resolved to give a series of 

 imitations of the principal London performers. When the curtain 

 rose, and the debutant walked forward, after receiving the customary 

 encouragement, he began by an imitation of (one of the Lon- 

 don actors who was best known). Some of the audience, who saw 



