reappeared in London at the Haymarket, where he seems to have been stage-manager, as Don Felix in the ‘Wonder,’ and on 11 Sept. played Young Dornton in the ‘Road to Ruin’ to the Dornton of Phelps. He then went to Dublin, which place he had previously visited in or near 1826, and played Martin Heywood. In 1841 he was again at the Haymarket, then for the fifth time crossed to America, having suffered severe loss by the burning of the National Theatre. On 8 Oct. 1844, in Don Cæsar de Bazan, adapted by Gilbert à Beckett and Mark Lemon, he rose at the Princess's in London to the height of his popularity. In September 1845 he was back at the Park Theatre, New York. From this time he remained in America, acting in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and elsewhere, and spending much time at ‘the Hut,’ a prettily situated seat at Long Branch, where he exercised a liberal hospitality. In September 1852 he assumed control of Brougham's Lyceum on Broadway, which he renamed Wallack's Theatre, and in 1861 built the second Wallack's Theatre on Broadway at Thirteenth Street. He suffered severely from gout, and died on 25 Dec. 1864. He eloped with and married in 1817 a daughter of John Henry Johnstone [q. v.]; she predeceased him, dying in London in 1851.
Wallack belonged to the school of Kemble, whom, according to Talfourd, he imitated, copying much ‘of his dignity of movement and majesty of action.’ He had, however, little fervid enthusiasm or touching pathos. Joseph Jefferson praises his Alessandro, Massaroni, and Don Cæsar de Bazan. Thackeray when in New York on his last visit was much taken with his Shylock. The ‘Dramatic and Musical Review’ speaks of him as the ‘king of melodrama,’ and praises highly his Joseph Surface, Charles Surface, Captain Absolute, Tom Shuffleton, Wilford, Martin Heywood, and Alessandro Massaroni. Macready praises his Charalois, and he delighted Fanny Kemble in the ‘Rent Day.’ Oxberry declares that he was indifferent in tragedy, admirable in melodrama, and always pleasing and delightful in light comedy, in which, however, the spectator was always sensible of a hidden want.
Portraits of him in the Garrick Club, not forming part of the Mathews collection, show him a dark, handsome man. A portrait of him as Ford accompanies a memoir in the ‘Theatrical Times,’ vol. i.; one as Alessandro Massaroni, a second memoir in the ‘Dramatic Magazine;’ and a third as Charalois is given in Oxberry's ‘Dramatic Biography.’ Sketches of him in character by Millais are in existence in America, and are reproduced with other portraits in his son's ‘Memories of Fifty Years’ (1889).
His son, John Johnstone Wallack (1819–1888), known to the public as Lester Wallack, was born in New York on 31 Dec. 1819, and played with his father in Bath and elsewhere. His first appearance was as Angelo in ‘Tortesa the Usurer,’ by N. P. Willis. He was for some time at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and played Benedick to the Rosalind of Helen Faucit in Manchester. His first appearance in London was at the Haymarket, in a piece called ‘The Little Devil.’ On 27 Sept. 1847, as Sir Charles Coldstream in ‘Used up,’ he opened at the Broadway Theatre, New York. His career belongs to America, where he played a great number of parts, principally in light comedy, including Doricourt, Rover, Claude Melnotte, Wildrake, Bassanio, Captain Absolute, and Sir Benjamin Backbite. He married a sister of Sir John Everett Millais, and died near Stamford, Connecticut, on 6 Sept. 1888. A year later there was published posthumously in New York his ‘Memories of Fifty Years,’ which gives details of his American career.
[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Dramatic Mag.; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography; Theatrical Times; Era newspaper, 15 Jan. 1865; Dramatic and Musical Review, vol. viii.; Era Almanack, various years; Clark Russell's Representative Actors; Macready's Reminiscences; Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Thespian Mag.; New Monthly Mag. various years; Dibdin's Edinburgh Theatre; Forster and Lewis's Dramatic Essays; Gent. Mag. 1865, i. 387; Lester Wallack's Memories of Fifty Years; Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson.]
WALLENSIS, WALENSIS, or Galensis, JOHN (fl. 1215), canon lawyer, was of Welsh origin. He taught at Bologna, and wrote glosses, but no formal apparatus, on the ‘Compilatio Prima’ and ‘Compilatio Secunda.’ On the ‘Compilatio Tertia’ he made a formal apparatus, of which there are several manuscripts. The glosses fall between 1212 and 1216, for they were used by Tancred. Owing to a misreading, John has been styled of Volterra, and he has been further confounded with John Wallensis (fl. 1283) [q. v.], the Minorite.
[Schulte's Geschichte des canonischen Rechts, p. 189.]
WALLENSIS or WALEYS, JOHN (fl. 1283), Franciscan, is described as ‘of Worcester’ in a manuscript of his ‘Summa Collectionum’ at Peterhouse, No. 18, 1. He was B.D. of Oxford before he entered the order. He became D.D. and regent master of the Franciscan schools of Oxford before
