Memoirs Of Joseph Grimaldi

MEMOIRS

JOSEPH GEIMALDI

CHAPTER I.

His Grandfather and Father—His Birth and first appearance at Drury Lane
Theatrej and at Sadler's Wells—His Father's severity—Miss Farren—The
Earl of Derby and the Wig—The Fortune-box and Charity's reward—His
Father's pretended death, and the behaviour of himself and his brother
thereupon.

THE paternal grandfather of Joseph Ghrimaldi was well known,
both, to the French and Italian public, as an eminent dancer,
possessing a most extraordinary degree of strength and agility,
—qualities which, heing brought into full play by the constant
exercise of Ms frame in Ms professional duties, acquired for Mm
the distinguishing appellation of " Iron Legs." Dibdin, in Ms
History of the Stage, relates several anecdotes of Ms prowess in
these respects, many of wMch are current elsewhere, though
the authority on wMch they rest would appear from Ms grand-
son's testimony to be somewhat doubtful; the best known of
these, however, is perfectly true. Jumping extremely high one
night in some performance on the stage, possibly in a fit of en-
thusiasm occasioned by the august presence of the Turkish
Ambassador, who, with Ms suite, occupied the stage-box, he
actually broke one of the chandeliers wMoh in those times hungh great-