p. 26

120.

seasons, and never met again in their relative capacities. The company organized themselves under the management of the Charles Young and Spiller, and went to Augusta, Georgia, where they played to great business for six or eight weeks. Mr. Holman died soon after, of apoplexy, at Rochaway, Long Island, on the 24th of August, 1817, age 53, and Mr. Gilfert succeeded to the management of the Charleston and Savannah theatres.

Mr. James H. Caldwell went North from Charleston, leased the Alexandria theatre -- one of the earliest buit houses on this continent -- and entered into partnership with Entwisle who was them playing with a company at Pittsburgh. Mr. Entwisle joined Caldwell in Alexandia, in the fall of 1817. The company we may thus number -- those who came from Pittsburg and those whom Caldwell engaged on this side of the mountains:

James H. Caldwell and James Entwisle, lessees and managers; Joseph Hutton, (author,) Gray, (known since as old Gray,) Michael Monier, joseph Legg, --- Carr, a Mr. Thomas, (who played the old men;) Mesdames Entwisle, Durang, Legg, Monier, Thomas; Miss Trajetta, (known after as Mrs. Gray,) and a Capt. Hays. Philip Trajetta was the leader, a well known Italian musician, of ability and eccentric habits Miss Trajetta had taken this name. She possessed a very fine soprano voice, with the cultivation of which organ and her musical education generally, Trajetta had taken great pains. It was said that he used her with severity. We think that the accusation was not founded in truth. She was very young, and his strictness arose from a zeal to improve by systematic study her musical capabilities. Trajetta died lately in this city. He was a man of fine genius, but of blasted hopes; he felt this and shunned society.

Messrs. Caldwell & Entwisle's companies being this united, did not more than constitute one efficient corps. They acts through the winter of 1817-'18, in the District of Columbia. The season commenced at Alexandria, (a poor theatrical town,) and they played alternately at Washington City and the former place. The business at Washington was tolerably good. During this season the celebrated Incledon played a few nights in each town with the company. Operas of any consequence could not be preformed, but the operatic farces were tolerably well cast, viz: "The Turnpike Gate," "Waterman," &c. The orchestra was a mere soup meagre in force. But that was of little consequence, as the great English ballad singer gave most of this songs without any instrumental accompaniment. Sometimes the orchestra was used. Who, however, that had once heard, could ever forget the impression made by Incledon's mahnificent voice? Its mellow tones flowed like the reverberation of the pealing organ, filling every part of the house with its echoes. It was the majesty of sound in its simplest effort. He was an eccentric fellow, but of a jocund disposition, with many marine characteristics pleasingly interspersed, which often elicited, in his unaffected way, amusing anecdote. When initiated by the leader, or by the performer, upon any intrument in the orchestra, he would give vent to his humor, by wishing ere he died to have the pleasure of cutting the throats of some half-dozen French and Italian fiddlers.

He was a hale, stuanch lokking Enlglish country gentleman, with fine ruddy expression of features, which at once indicated the land of his birth. Although advanced in years, in fine weather he would always walk from Washington to Alecandria, while singing in the two cities. The Washington theatre then stood on the banks of the Tiber -- a muddy creek with a classical name -- which meanders its slothful way through the clayey fields of the metropolis until it mingles its ingnoble green mantled waters with the noble Potomac. The building was afterwards knowns as Carusi's ball room. We knew an Irish actor, by the name of O'Brien, in 1838, who fished half a day in the Tiber. He went home with the bilious fever, and died in a few days.

Mr Caldwell acted Hamlet during the season. The effort produced a most elaborate criticism of five columns in the Georgetown Mesenger, which was said at the time to have been written by the celebrated theatrical critic, Stephen Cullender Carpenter, the editor of the Mirror of Taste at Philadelphia. It took as long a time to read it as the acting of the play thus reviewed. Stephen had his prive, like the Italian bandits.

In March or April -- we now forget -- after a laborious season, the company moved to Baltimore, and joined their fortunes with Pepin and his circus corps, when the follwing members were added to the stage company: Mr. Andrew (Jackson) Allen and his wife, Mr. Richard Russell and Mrs. Russell, a young couple from England. Mr. Russell afterwards became Mr. Caldwell's stage manager at the south. &c.

Miss Tilden, then a novice, but highly talented, joined the company in the winter at Washington.

The circus stood in Old Town, in one of the cross streets leading to Fell's Point. It was a huge frame building, and in ruins. The business was checquered, good and bad. The manageria triumvirate then moved to the Olumpic at Philadelphia, in April, and open, as we have said, a spirited campaign on the 16th of the same month. This company was not successful in the end. It contained talent, but not enough in detail to compare with the Chesnut street corps in offering five act plays. The leading performers were efficient in name and ability. Mrs. Entwisle was a good actor, and Entwisle, as a comedian, was very clever, but confined in range. His forte ebing principally country boys, he was deficient in force, in variety, where all fell upen his exertions. Messrs. Caldwell and Entwisle did not move in harmoney, even before they joined Pepin in management. The stage copany was split into factions; the salaries were not regularly paid; an invidious line of demarcation was drawn between the stage perormers and the equestrians, or apparently so, both asserting and maintaining a consequence not strictly pertaining to their relative positions. Favoritism was rewarded at the expenseof worth, and intrique overcame talent and industry. The drama cannot be connected with equestrian exhibitaions with any hope of permanancy or pecuniary advantage. One must become subservient to the other. The powerful and influential will swallow up the lesser. Their very elements are as opposite as the antipodes. Hitherto, unions of the stage and the circus have been promoted by the proprietor of the circus; thus the stage department only becomes an adjunct to the ring performances. It is in the category of an expletive. A good play might be acted with a chance of success over a forty feet ring in the early part of an evening, ending with horsemanship. But these things are generally revered. Those pieces, entitled "horse dramas," which admit of the introduction of pageants, cavalry movements, &c., may very well be condined to an amphitheatre, where only two leading people (a lady and gentleman) of theatrical reputation and knowldge amy be found all-sufficient to caryy out a piece with bounsing puppets of real life, who can utter a a few sounds boisterously, possess fair personal appearance, fight desperate combat, and execute a great many things which a well-bred actor never thought of, or deemed necessary to learn in the proper routine of his profesion.

The Olympic management this season was largely indebted to the stage corps. Benefits were offered to the actors, before the dissolution of the partnership, but at such heavy charges that few deemed it prudent to venture the chances of benefitting their purses in an inverse ratio, making it beneficial to the manager instead of themselves, by securing the expenses of the night through the actor's friends and private exertion. In consequence of the heavy charges at this time, Mr. T. Garner, the vocalist, gave a concert at the Pavilion of the Vauxhall Gardens, corner of Broad and Walnut streets; leader of the orchetra, Mr. L'hulier. We feel it due to Mr. James H. Caldwell to state here, that the portion of the debts of the concern he assumed at the dissolution, he most honorably discharged afterwards, as he acquired funds. The other two associates, as far as we known, never paid one penny. We took Entwisle for our claim, believing that he had means and honor enough to liquidate it, but we are sorry to say that he had the former, but not the latter quality.

There were in the company, at this time Messrs. Caldwell, Entwisle, Phillips, of Philadelphia, who made his second appearance on any stage, April 18, as Malfort, Junr, in "The Soldier's Daughter;" Horton, Garner, Russell, Allen, Mons. GIraud, Mrs. Enwisle, Mrs. Russell, old Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Allen, Miss Allen, Miss Tilden, danseuse, and others.

In the equestrian company were: Pepin, Blackmore, Mayhe, Tatnell, Campbell, (clown,) Miss Whelan, and others.

There were brought out here, as new pieces, "Lodoiska," by J. P. Kemble; "Rob Roy," by Pococks, first time in America; and "The Lady of the Lake."

On June 6th, 1818, this management dissolved; or, at least, the theatrical department, under Caldwell & Entwisle, ceased at that date,