Elliston

Elliston, ROBERT WILLIAM, actor, was born in London, the son of a watchmaker, in 1774, and was educated at the expense of his uncle, who was master of Sidney College, Cambridge. In 1791 he ran away from home, and made his first appearance on the stage at Bath, where his Romeo in 1793 lifted him into public favour. In 1796 he appeared at the Haymarket and Covent Garden; and after 1803 he made London his headquarters, though still making occasional essays as a provincial manager. He was a member of the Drury Lane company in 1804-9 and 1812-15; in 1819 he became lessee and manager of the theatre, from which, in 1826, he retired a bankrupt. He afterwards played in the Surrey Theatre; but years of dissipation had shattered his health, and an apoplectic seizure brought on his death, 8th July 1831. Elliston was an actor of wonderful versatility, the first comedian and one of the first tragedians of his day, and in Leigh Hunt's estimation the 'best lover on the stage both in tragedy and comedy;' wonderful rock-cut temples. Of these there are 34 of a large size, Buddhist, Brahmanical, and Jain. Some are cave-temples proper—i.e. chambers cut out in the interior of the rock—but others are vast buildings hewn out of the solid granite of the hills, having an exterior as well as an interior architecture, and being, in fact, magnificent monoliths. In executing the latter, the process was first to sink a great quadrangular trench or pit, leaving the central mass standing, and then to hew and excavate this mass into a temple. The most beautiful of these objects is the Hindu temple, called the Kailás, dedicated to Siva. At its entrance the traveller passes into a large antechamber adorned by numerous rows of pillars. Thence he ascends a few steps into a great rectangular court, averaging 276 feet in length and 154 in width, in the centre of which stands the temple itself, a vast mass of rock richly hewn and carved. It is supported by four rows of pilasters, with colossal elephants and other animals beneath, and seems suspended in the air. The interior is about 103 feet long, 56 broad, and 17 high, but the entire exterior forms a pyramid 164 feet long, 109 wide, and 100 high, and is overlaid with sculpture. In the great court are numerous ponds, obelisks, colonnades, sphinxes, and on the walls thousands of mythological figures of all kinds, from 10 to 12 feet in height. The interior, and certainly some parts of the exterior, have been plastered over and painted. It is now generally believed that the caves date from the 7th century.