“I remember when he was an apprentice,” relates Chetwood, “we play’d in several private plays; when we were preparing to act ’Sophonisba, or Hannibal’s Overthrow,’ after I had wrote out my part of Massiva I carried him the book of the play to study the part of King Masinissa.  I found him finishing a velvet cushion, and gave him the book:  but alas! before he could secrete it, his master (a hot, voluble Frenchman), came in upon us, and the book was thrust under the velvet of the cushion.  His master, as usual, rated him for not working, with a ‘Morbleu! why a you not vark, Tom?’ and stood over him so long that I saw, with some mortification, the book irrecoverably stitch’d up in the cushion never to be retriev’d till the cushion is worn to pieces.  Poor Tom cast many a desponding look upon me when he was finishing the fate of the play, while every stitch went to both our hearts.

“His master observing our looks, turn’d to me, and with words that broke their necks over each other for haste, abused both of us.  The most intelligible of his great number of words were Jack Pudenges, and the like expressions of contempt.  But our play was gone for ever.

“Another time,” continues the biographer, “we were so bold to attempt Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet,’ where our ’prentice Tom had the part of the Ghost, father to young Hamlet.  His armour was composed of pasteboard, neatly painted.  The Frenchman had intelligence of what we were about, and to our great surprise and mortification, made one of our audience.  The Ghost in its first appearance is dumb to Horatio.  While these scenes past, the Frenchman only muttered between his teeth, and we were in hopes his passion would subside; but when our Ghost began his first speech to Hamlet, ‘Mark me,’ he replied, ’Begar, me vil marke you presently!’ and, without saying any more, beat our poor Ghost off the stage through the street, while every stroke on the pasteboard armour grieved the auditors (because they did not pay for their seats), insomuch that three or four ran after the Ghost, and brought him back in triumph, with the avenging Frenchman at his heels, who would not be appeas’d till our Ghost promised him never to commit the offence of acting again.  A promise made, like many others, never to be kept.”

* * * * *

Elrington ultimately became a favourite player with Dublin audiences, and then contested with Booth in the latter’s own ground of London.  He never equalled the classic Barton, yet made a success in tragedy, and was once asked (1728-9) to join the forces of Drury Lane for a term of years.  He told the managers that he could not think of permanently leaving Ireland, where he was so well rewarded for his services, and added, “There is not a gentleman’s house there to which I am not a welcome visitor,” which shows that an actor can be a snob, like the worst of us.

When Elrington died, two years after the taking off of Oldfield, his epitaph was written in these flattering lines:—­