MERE HURLOTHRUMBO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1940, Page 9

MERE HURLOTHRUMBO

ENGLAND’S LITTLE SAMUEL. There was a stir in London in 1729. A queer fellow had come up to town, a Cheshire man who made himself a fool, for he thought he could write plays. 4 * He was Samuel Johnson. But he was not the great Samuel Johnson, he was England’s little Samuel. His play, a farrago of nonsense, was called “Hurlothrumbo.” Produced at the little theatre in the Haymarket; it had an epilogue by Byron, and was certainly one of the most remarkable plays ever - seen in the city. Friends of Samuel Johnson crowded the pit. applauding so loudly that people thought the play must be worth seeing; and for 30 nights the nobility rushed to see “Hurlothrumbo.” But it was not the play so much as the chief actor they enjoyed. For the author took a leading part, sometimes playing his fiddle, sometimes singing, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking on stilts. How the people laughed! He thought they thought he was a huge success, and all the time they were making fun of him. His imperturable conceit tickled the fancy of the town. “Mere Hurlothrumbo" meant nonsense. This little Samuel Johnson went back to make his living as a dancing master. But he was too eccentric to live with people round him, and he spent the last 30 years of his life in Cheshire's loveliest village, Gawsworth, not far from Macclesfield. There he was known as Maggoty Johnson, and there ho died in 1773. being buried, by his own desire, under a stone in a wood. His inscription can be read to this day: Here, undisturbed and hid from vulgar eyes, A wit, musician, poet, player, lies. A dancing master, too, in grace he shone, And all the arts of opera were his own. So, to the end, he thought himself a much finer fellow "than he ever was.