able actor, and was often entrusted with characters of real
importance, such as Dr. Caius, Feeble, Abel Drugger, Beau Clincher,
Humphrey Gubbin, and Jerry Blackacre.

But an actor who outdid even Pinkethman in impertinence of speech was
John Edwin, a comedian who enjoyed great popularity late in the last
century. A contemporary critic describes him "as one of those
extraordinary productions that would do immortal honour to the sock,
if his extravasations of whim could be kept within bounds, and if the
comicality of his vein could be restrained by good taste." Reynolds,
the dramatist, relates that on one occasion he was sitting in the
front row of the balcony-box at the Haymarket, during the performance
of O'Keeffe's farce of "The Son-in-Law," Parsons being the Cranky and
Edwin the Bowkitt of the night. In the scene of Cranky's refusal to
bestow his daughter upon Bowkitt, on the ground of his being such an
ugly fellow, Edwin coolly advanced to the foot-lights, and said:
"Ugly! Now I submit, to the decision of an enlightened British public,
which is the ugliest fellow of us three; I, old Cranky, or that
gentleman in the front row of the balcony-box?" Here he pointed to
Reynolds, who hastened to abandon his position. Parsons was
exceedingly angry at the interruption, but the audience appear to have
tolerated, and even enjoyed the gag. As Reynolds himself leniently
writes: "Many performers before and since the days of Edwin have
acquired the power, by private winks, irrelevant buffoonery and
dialogue, to make their fellow-players laugh, and thus confound the
audience and mar the scene; Edwin, disdaining this confined and
distracting system, established a sort of entre-nous-ship (if I may
venture to use the expression) with the audience, and made them his
confidants; and though wrong in his principle, yet so neatly and
skilfully did he execute it, that instead of injuring the business of
the stage, he frequently enriched it."

Edwin seems, indeed, to have been an actor of some genius,
notwithstanding his "extravasations of whim," and an habitual
intemperance, which probably hastened the close of his professional
career--for the man was a shameless sot. "I have often seen him,"
writes Boaden, "brought to the stage-door, senseless and motionless,
lying at the bottom of a coach." Yet, if he could but be made to
assume his stage-clothes, and pushed towards the lamps, he would rub
his eyes for a moment, and then consciousness a