title of Little Drury Lane, the Olympic Pavilion, which in the following month was closed by order of the lord chamberlain. In December it was reopened as the Olympic. Elliston also managed for a season the Leicester theatre, and undertook other theatrical or quasi-theatrical speculations. When the new theatre in Drury Lane reopened 10 Oct. 1812, Elliston spoke Byron's prologue and acted Hamlet. After refusing the management of Drury Lane, which was offered him by the committee, he secured, in a competition with Kean, Dibdin, Arnold, and others, the lesseeship of the house. His management was spirited. He made at the outset an application to Mrs. Siddons, who refused to be drawn from her retirement, engaged, in addition to other actors, Kean, Pope, Holland, Dowton, Munden, Harley, Oxberry, Knight. Braham, Mrs. West, Mrs. Egerton, Mrs. Glover, Miss Kelly, Mrs. Edwin, and subsequently Madame Vestris, and applied for dramas to Sir Walter Scott, Maturin, and other authors of repute. Drury Lane opened under Elliston's management, 4 Oct. 1819, with 'Wild Oats,' in which he played Rover. Kean during the season appeared for the first time as Lear and Jaffier; versions of novels of Scott were produced, and Madame Vestris obtained a success in the revival of 'Don Giovanni' in London. After closing 8 July 1820, the theatre reopened 15 Aug. for a series of farewell performances of Kean before that actor's departure to America, and did not finally close until 16 Sept. The principal event of the following season was the production, 25 April 1821, in the face of much opposition, of Lord Byron's' Marino Faliero.' 'Towards the close of the season, which lasted through the summer, Kean reappeared. Young was engaged in 1832-3, and Macready, who appeared as Virginius, in 1823-4, Kean also played occasionally, but many causes combined to render his appearances casual and uncertain. To Elliston's engagement of Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts Drury Lane owed the reputation for scenery it long enjoyed. At the close of the season 1825-1826 Elliston, unable to meet the claims of the committee of Drury Lane, was compelled to resign the theatre, the management of which was for a time entrusted to his son, and on 10 Dec. 1826 he appeared as a bankrupt. Mrs. Elliston had died 1 April 1821 in her forty-sixth year, and been buried in Georges burial-ground, Bayswater. In January 1823 Elliston had an epileptic seizure. A second attack, the nature of which is not defined, left him, in August 1825, 'a helpless, decrepit, tottering old man' (Life by Raymond). On 11 May 1826 he appeared at Drury Lane as Falstaff in the 'First Part of King Henry IV.' He showed signs of exhaustion, and in the fifth act fell flat on stage. This was his last appearance at Drury Lane. After quitting this house Elliston became once more lessee of the Surrey, at which he appeared Whit-Monday 1827 as 'The Three Singles,' playing a triple character, in which he was in turns a collegian, a Frenchman, and a fool. Falstaff and other characters followed, the result being financially successful. The engagement of T. P. Cooke and the production in 1829 of Douglas Jerrold's 'Black-Eyed Susan' were features in his management of the Surrey. At this time he had recovered a portion of his old spirits, and was still 'the first comedian of his day. His health was, however, shattered. On 24 June 1831 he played Sheva in 'The Jew,' and struggled with difficulty through the character. This was his last performance. He had an apoplectic seizure 6 July 1831, and on the 8th, at 6.30 a.m., at Great Surrey Street. Blackfriars, he died. Elliston is buried in a vault in St. John's Church, Waterloo Road. A marble slab, with a Latin epitaph by his Son-in-law, Nicholas Torre, was placed in August 1833 on the south side of the church.
Few actors have occupied a more important place than Elliston, and few have exhibited more diversified talent or a more perplexing individuality. In the main he was an honest, well-meaning man, His weakness in the presence of temptation led him into terrible irregularities; his animal spirits and habits of intoxication combined made him the hero of the most preposterous adventures; and his assumption of dignity, and his marvellous system of puffing, cast upon one of the first of actors a reputation not far from that of a 'charlatan.' In his management of Drury Lane be acquired the respect of a portion at least of his contemporaries, the general estimate being that he sacrificed his own fortune, which he states in a note to the preface to 'The Flying Dutchman' to have been 30,000l., to the interests of the proprietors, by whom he was treated with ingratitude. It was in the management of minor and provincial theatres, into which he recklessly plunged, that he played the preposterous or diverting pranks which cling to his memory. Pages might be filled with the record of his pretensions and his absurdities. His merits as an actor cannot be challenged. The rhapsody 'To the Shade of Elliston,' beginning 'Joyousest of once embodied spirits,' and the praise of his various performances, are among the most familiar of Lamb's utterances concerning the stage. Leigh Hunt declares Elliston 'the only genius that has approached that great
