ABSTRACT
Cooke seems to have pretty often taken very extraordinary liberties with his audiences. Acting once [as Richard III] in Liverpool, he was hissed for being so far drunk as to render his declamation unintelligible. He turned savagely upon the people. ‘What! do you hiss me! - hiss George Frederick Cooke! you contemptible money-getters! You shall never again have the honour o f hissing me! Farewell! / banish you.' After a moment’s pause, he added, in his deepest tones, ‘ There is not a brick in your dirty town but what is cemented by the blood of a negro!'
