ELLISTON, ROBERT WILLIAM, was born in Bloomsbury, Lon don, on the 7th of April 1774. Ilia father was a watchmaker, one of whose brothers was Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Young Elliston was placed at St. Paul's School, where he distinguished himself by recitations : but, when he was the fourth boy, he ran away from school, became for a few weeks a lottery-clerk at Bath, and in that town, in April 1791, appeared on the stage for the first time, per sonating a very humble character in ' Richard the Third.' He then obtained an engagement in the company of Tate Wilkinson at York : but, soon bocsming tired of playing petty parte, he obtained through his uncle a reconciliation with his family, and returned home. But the truant disposition was invincible. In the season of 1793 he played regularly at Bath, undertaking characters of all sorts : and in 1796 he married Miss Rundall, a teacher of dancing there. In June of that year ho made his first appearance on a London stage, playing at the Haymarket, iu the same evening, the part of Octavian, and that of Vapour in the farce of My Grandmother.' After occasional appear ances in that theatre, and a temporary engagement at Covent-Garden, he became in 1803, under Mr. Colman, principal actor and acting manager of the Haymarket. Next year he succeeded John Kemble at Drury-Lane; bnt, after the burning of the theatre, he quarrelled with Thomas Sheridan and left the company. lie now took on his own account the small house then occupied as the Circus, to which ho gave the name of the Surrey Theatre. There he and his company perform d some of Shakspere • plays and several operas, altering them so as to evade the licence of the patent theatres ; and in 1805 Ile pub !lobed his only literary effort, ' The Venetian Outlaw,' a drama, in three acts, adapted from the French.
On tho reopening of Drury-Lane Theatre, Elliston, again a leading actor In Its company, delivered Byron'e address and performed ' In 1819 he became the lessee of that theatre, at a rent of 10,200C; and he held this lease till his bankruptcy in 1820. From the date of that event he sunk into a subordinate position. After speculating in the Olympic Theatre, he became again manager of the Surrey; and there, till near the close of his life, he continued occa sionally to perform. He died of apoplexy on the 7th of July 1831.
Elliaton has been asserted, not without some show of reason, to have been the very best comedian of our time. Others surpassed him in particular excellences; but none united so many of the merits essential to eminent success in the highest walk of comic acting. So, likewise, he rose higher perhaps in tragedy than any other actor who was distinguished for excellence in comedy : ho was admirable in those tragic parts which do nut pass altogether out of the sphere of ordinary life. The weaknesses and eccentricities of his own character have furnished to Charles Lamb and others the themes for an infinite fund of good-humoured raillery. His predominant failing was inor dinate self-esteem. He was vain of himself as an actor, vainer of himself as a manager : and in both phases his vanity was continually breaking out In incidents which, while they were irraistibly diverting, exhibited a humorons whimsicality, and a fervid sincerity of self-de ceiving imagination, making him one of the most curious objects upon which a kindly obeerverof human oddities could exercise his scrutiny.