day. 'Read it, you mean,' said Garrick, who held impossible the mastery of such a character within the time accorded. When at rehearsal Palmer read the part, Garrick exclaimed: 'I said so! I knew he would not study it.' At night Palmer spoke it with more accuracy than was often observable when better opportunities had been afforded him. Garrick also engaged Mrs. Palmer, who had never been upon the stage, and who, having through her marriage with an actor, forfeited the wealth she expected to inherit, was glad to accept the twenty shillings a week which, together with friendship never forfeited, Garrick proffered. Mrs. Palmer's appearances on the stage appear to have been few, and are not easily traced. The initial J. was dropped in 1769-70 from the announcements of Palmer's name in the playbills. The omission gave rise to Foote's joke, that Jack Palmer had lost an I. Palmer was disabled for some months in consequence of an accident when acting Dionysius in the 'Grecian Daughter,' to the Euphrasia of Mrs. Barry. The spring in her dagger refused to work, and she inflicted on him in her simulated fury a serious wound. In 1772 Palmer relinquished his summer engagement at the Haymarket in order to succeed Thomas King (1730-1805) [q. v.] at Liverpool, where he became a great favourite, and established himself as a tragedian. One circumstance alone militated against his popularity. He was said to ill-treat his wife. Alarmed at this report, he sent for that long-suffering lady, who came, and hiding, it is said, the bruises on her face inflicted by her husband, who was both false and cruel, walked about Liverpool with him and re-established him in public estimation. Not until 1776 did he reappear at the Haymarket, which, however, from that time remained his ordinary place of summer resort. The retirement of Smith gave Palmer control all but undisputed over the highest comedy. Tribute to his special gifts is involved in his selection for Joseph Surface on the first performance of the 'School for Scandal,' 8 May 1777, a character in which he was by general consent unapproachable. Himself addicted to pleasure, for which he occasionally neglected his theatrical duties, he had a pharisaical way of appealing to the audience, which exactly suited the character, and invariably won him forgiveness. This it was, accompanied by his 'nice conduct' of the pocket-handkerchief, that secured him the name of Plausible Jack, and established the fact that he was the only man who could induce the public to believe that his wife brought him offspring every two months. She brought him, in fact, eight children. After a quarrel with Sheridan, Palmer, approaching the dramatist with a head bent forward, his hand on his heart, and his most plausible Joseph Surface manner, and saying, 'If you could see my heart, Mr. Sheridan,' received the reply, 'Why, Jack, you forget I wrote it.' On 30 Aug. of the same year, at the Haymarket, he further heightened his reputation by his performance of Almaviva.
In 1785 Palmer, yielding to his own ambition and the counsel of friends, began to build the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square. Deaf to remonstrances, he persisted in his task, though the only licenses, wholly ineffectual, which he could obtain were those of the governor of the Tower and the magistrates of the adjoining district. This building he opened, 20 June 1787, with a performance of 'As you like it,' in which he was Jaques to the Rosalind of Mrs. Belfille, and 'Miss in her Teens,' in which he was Flash to the Miss Biddy of Mrs. Gibbs. The contest for places was violent. Apprehensive of an interference on the part of the authorities, he gave the representation for the benefit of the London Hospital. At the close Palmer read an address by Murphy, and said that performances would be suspended for the present. On 3 July the theatre was reopened for the performance of pantomimes and irregular pieces. Though backed up by friends, some of them of influence and wealth, Palmer was never able to conquer the opposition of the managers of the patent houses. A pamphlet warfare began with 'A Review of the present Contest between the Managers of the Winter Theatres, the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square,' &c., 8vo, 1787. This, written in favour of Palmer, was answered anonymously by George Colman in 'A very plain State of the Case, or the Royalty Theatre versus the Theatres Royal,' &c., 8vo, 1787. In the same year appeared 'Royal and Royalty Theatres ' (by Isaac Jackman), 'Letter to the Author of the Burletta called "Hero and Leander,"' 'The Trial of John Palmer for opening the Royalty Theatre, tried in the Olympian Shades,' and 'The Trial of Mr. John Palmer, Comedian and Manager of the Royalty Theatre,' &c. In 1788 appeared 'The Eastern Theatre Erected,' an heroic 'comic poem,' the hero of which is called Palmerio, and 'Case of the Renters of the Royalty Theatre.' The polemic was continued after the death of Palmer, a list of the various pamphlets to which it gave rise being supplied in Mr. Robert Lowe's 'Bibliographical Account of Theatrical Literature.' Improvident and practically penniless through life, Palmer
