"EXEUNT" AND "ENTER."
After Betterton, there was not, in the Duke's Company, a more
accomplished actor than Harris. He lived in gayer society than
Betterton, and cared more for the associates he found there. He had
some knowledge of art, danced gracefully, and had that dangerous gift
for a young man--a charming voice, with a love for displaying it. His
portrait was taken by Mr. Hailes;--"in his habit of Henry V., mighty
like a player;" and as Cardinal Wolsey; which latter portrait may now
be seen in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge.
[Illustration: (Joseph Harris.)]
Pepys assigns good grounds for his esteem for Harris. "I do find
him," says the diarist, "a very excellent person, such as in my whole
acquaintance I do not know another better qualified for converse,
whether in things of his own trade, or of other kind; a man of great
understanding and observation, and very agreeable in the manner
of his discourse, and civil, as far as is possible. I was mighty
pleased with his company," a company with which were united, now
Killigrew and the rakes, and anon, Cooper the artist, and "Cooper's
cosen Jacke," and "Mr. Butler, that wrote Hudibras," being, says
Mr. Pepys, "all eminent men in their way." Indeed, Harris was to be
found in company even more eminent than the above, and at the great
coffee-house in Covent Garden he listened to or talked with Dryden,
and held his own against the best wits of the town. The playwrights
were there too; but these were to be found in the coffee-houses,
generally, often wrapped up in their cloaks, and eagerly heeding all
that the critics had to say to each other respecting the last new
play.
Harris was aware that in one or two light characters he was
Betterton's equal. He was a restless actor, threatening, when
discontented, to secede from the Duke's to the King's Company, and
causing equal trouble to his manager Davenant, and to his monarch
Charles--the two officials most vexed in the settling of the little
kingdom of the stage.
There was a graceful, general actor of the troop to which Harris
belonged, who drew upon himself the special observation of the
Government at home and an English ambassador abroad. Scudamore was
the original Garcia of Congreve's "Mourning Bride;" he also played
amorous young knights, sparkling young gentlemen, scampish French
and English beaux, gay and good-looking kings, and roystering kings'
sons; such as Harry, Prince of Wales. Off the stage, he enacted
another part. When King James was in exile, Scudamore was engaged
as a Jacobite agent, and he carried many a despatch or message
between London and St. Germains. But our ambassador, the Earl of
Manchester, had his eye upon him. One of the Earl's despatches to the
English Government, written in 1700, concludes with the words:--"One
Scudamore, a player in Lincoln's Inn Fields, has been here, and was
with the late King, and often at St. Germains. He is now, I believe,
at London. Several such sort of fellows go and come very often; but
I cannot see how it is to be prevented, for without a positive oath
nothing can be done to them." The date of this despatch is August
1700, at which time the player ought to have been engaged in a less
perilous character, for an entry in Luttrell's Diary, 28th May 1700,
records that "Mr. Scudamore of the play-house is married to a young
lady of £4000 fortune, who fell in love with him."
Cave Underhill was another member of Davenant's Company. He was not a
man for a lady to fall in love with; but in 1668 Davenant pronounced
him the truest comedian of his troop. He was on the stage from 1661
to 1710, and during that time the town saw no such Gravedigger in
"Hamlet" as this tall, fat, broad-faced, flat-nosed, wide-mouthed,
thick-lipped, rough-voiced, awkwardly-active low comedian. So modest
was he also that he never understood his own popularity, and the
house was convulsed with his solemn Don Quixote and his stupid
Lolpoop in "The Squire of Alsatia" without Cave's being able to
account for it.[33]
In the stolid, the booby, the dully malicious, the bluntly vivacious,
the perverse humour, combining wit with ill-nature, Underhill was
the chief of the actors of the half century during which he kept the
stage. Cibber avers thus much, and adds that he had not seen Cave's
equal in Sir Sampson Legend in Congreve's "Love for Love." A year
before the old actor ceased to linger on the stage he had once made
light with laughter, a benefit was awarded him, viz., on the 3d of
June 1709.[34] The patronage of the public was previously bespoken
by Mr. Bickerstaffe, in the _Tatler_, whose father had known "honest
Cave Underhill" when he was a boy. The _Tatler_ praises the old
comedian for the natural style of his acting, in which he avoided all
exaggeration, and never added a word to his author's text, a vice
with the younger actors of the time.
On this occasion Underhill played his old part of the Gravedigger,
professedly because he was fit for no other. His judgment was not ill
founded, if Cibber's testimony be true that he was really worn and
disabled, and excited pity rather than laughter. The old man died a
pensioner of the theatre whose proprietors he had helped to enrich,
with the reputation of having, under the pseudonym of Elephant Smith,
composed a mock funeral sermon on Titus Oates; and with the further
repute of being an ultra-Tory, addicted in coffee-houses to drink the
Duke of York's health more heartily than that of his brother, the
King.
With rare exchange of actors, and exclusive right of representing
particular pieces, the two theatres continued in opposition to each
other until the two companies were formed into one in the year 1682.
Meanwhile, fire destroyed the old edifice of the King's Company, in
Drury Lane, in January 1672, and till Wren's new theatre was ready
for them in 1674, the unhoused troop played occasionally at Dorset
Gardens,[35] or at Lincoln's Inn Fields, as opportunity offered. On
the occasion of opening the new house, contemporary accounts state
that the prices of admission were raised: to the boxes, from 2s. 6d.
to 4s.; pit, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.; the first gallery, from 1s. to
1s. 6d.; and the upper gallery, from 6d. to 1s. Pepys, however, on
the 19th October 1667, paid 4s. for admittance to the upper boxes, if
his record be true.[36] Down to the year 1682, the King's Company
lost several old and able actors, and acquired only Powell, Griffin,
and Beeston. George Powell was the son of an obscure actor. His own
brilliancy was marred by his devotion to jollity, and this devotion
became the more profound as George saw himself surpassed by steadier
actors, one of whom, Wilks, in his disappointment, he challenged to
single combat, and, in the cool air of "next morning," was sorry
for his folly. Idleness made him defer learning his parts till the
last moment; his memory often failed him at the most important
crisis of the play; and the public displeasure fell heavily and
constantly on this clever but reckless actor. The _Tatler_ calls him
the "haughty George Powell," when referring to his appearance in
Falstaff for his benefit, in April 1712. "The haughty George Powell
hopes all the good-natured part of the town will favour him whom
they applauded in Alexander, Timon, Lear, and Orestes, with their
company this night, when he hazards all his heroic glory in the
humbler condition of honest Jack Falstaff." Valuable aid, like the
above, he obtained from the _Spectator_ also, with useful admonition
to boot, from which he did not care to profit; and he fell into such
degradation that his example was a wholesome terror to young actors
willing to follow it, but fearful of the consequences. During his
career, from 1687 to 1714, in which year he died, he originated
about forty new parts, and in some of them, such as Brisk, in the
"Double Dealer;" Aboan, in "Oroonoko;" the gallant, gay Lothario;
Lord Morelove, in the "Careless Husband;" and Portius, in "Cato,"
he has rarely been equalled. On the first night of the "Relapse," in
which he played Worthy, he was so fired by his libations, that Mrs.
Rogers, as Amanda, was frightened out of her wits by his tempestuous
love-making. Powell's literary contributions to the drama were such
as a man of his quality was likely to make,--chiefly plagiarisms
awkwardly appropriated.
Griffin was an inferior actor to Powell; but he was a wiser and
a better man. He belonged to that class of actors whom "society"
welcomed with alacrity. He was, moreover, of the class which had
served in the field as well as on the stage, and when "Captain
Griffin" died in Queen Anne's reign, the stage lost a respectable
actor, and society a clever and a worthy member.
The accessions to the Duke's Company were of more importance than
those to the company of the Theatre Royal. In 1672, the two poets,
Lee and Otway, tempted fortune on the stage: Lee, in one or two
parts, such as the Captain of the Watch, in Payne's "Fatal Jealousy,"
and Duncan, in "Macbeth;" Otway as the King, in Mrs. Behn's "Forced
Marriage." They both failed. Lee, one of the most beautiful of
readers, lost his voice through nervousness; Otway, audacious enough
at the coffee-houses, lost his confidence. There were eight other
actors of the period whose success was unquestionable and well
deserved. Little Bowman, who between this period and 1739, the year
of his death, never failed to appear when his name was in the bills.
He was a noted bell-ringer, had sung songs to Charles II., and, when
"father of the stage," he exacted applause from the second George.
Cademan was another of the company. Like Betterton and Cartwright,
he had learnt the mystery of the book-trade before he appeared as a
player. He was driven from the latter vocation through an accident.
Engaged in a fencing-scene with Harris, in "The Man's the Master," he
was severely wounded by his adversary's foil, in the hand and eye,
and he lost power not only of action but of speech. For nearly forty
years the company assigned him a modest pension; and between the
benevolence of his brethren and the small profits of his publishing,
his life was rendered tolerable, if not altogether happy.
His comrade, Jevon, an ex-dancing master, was one of the hilarious
actors. He was the original Jobson in his own little comedy, "A Devil
of a Wife," which has been altered into the farce of "The Devil to
Pay." He took great liberties with authors and audience. He made
Settle half mad and the house ecstatic, when having, as Lycurgus,
Prince of China, to "_fall on his sword_," he placed it flat on the
stage, and falling over it, "_died_," according to the direction of
the acting copy.[37] He took as great liberties at the coffee-house.
"You are wiping your dirty boots with my clean napkin," said an
offended waiter to him. "Never mind, boy," was the reply; "I'm not
proud--it will do for me!" The dust of this jester lies in Hampstead
churchyard.
Longer known was Anthony Lee or Leigh, that industrious and mirthful
player, who, in the score of years he was before the public--from
1672 to 1692--originated above thrice that number of characters. His
masterpiece was Dryden's Spanish Friar, Dominique. How he _looked_
in that once famous part, may be seen by any one who can gain access
to Knowle, where his portrait, painted for the Earl of Dorset,
still hangs--and all but speaks. But we may see how Leigh looked
by another portrait, painted in words, by Cibber. "In the canting,
grave hypocrisy, of the Spanish Friar, Leigh stretched the veil of
piety so thinly over him, that in every look, word, and motion, you
saw a palpable, wicked slyness shine throughout it. Here he kept his
vivacity demurely confined, till the pretended duty of his function
demanded it: and then he exerted it with a choleric, sacerdotal
insolence. I have never yet seen any one that has filled them" (the
scenes of broad jests) "with half the truth and spirit of Leigh. I
do not doubt but the poet's knowledge of Leigh's genius helped him
to many a pleasant stroke of nature, which, without that knowledge,
never might have entered into his conception." Leigh had the art
of making pieces--dull to the reader, side-splitting mirth to an
audience. In such pieces he and Nokes kept up the ball between them;
but with the players perished also the plays.
[Illustration: (Anthony Leigh.)]
Less happy than Leigh was poor Matthew Medbourne, an actor of merit,
and a young man of some learning, whose brief career was cut short
by a too fervent zeal for his religion, which led him into
a participation in the "Popish Plot." The testimony of Titus Oates
caused his arrest, on the 26th of November 1678, and his death;--for
poor Medbourne died of the Newgate rigour in the following March.
He is memorable, as being the first who introduced Molière's
"Tartuffe" on the English stage, in a close translation, which was
acted in 1670, with remarkable success. Cibber's "Nonjuror" (1717),
and Bickerstaffe's "Hypocrite" (1768), were only adaptations--the
first of "Tartuffe," and the second of the "Nonjuror." Mr. Oxenford,
however, reproduced the original in a more perfect form than
Medbourne, in a translation in verse, which was brought out at the
Haymarket, in 1851, with a success most honestly earned by all, and
especially deserving on the part of Mr. Webster, who played the
principal character.
Sandford and Smith were two actors whose names constantly recur
together, but whose merits were not all of the same degree. The tall,
handsome, manly Smith, frequently played Banquo; when his ghost,
in the same tragedy, was represented by the short, spare, drolly
ill-featured, and undignified Sandford! The latter was famous for
his villains--from those of tragedy to ordinary stage ruffians in
broad belt and black wig--permanent type of those wicked people in
melodramas to this day. This idiosyncrasy amusingly puzzled Charles
II., who, in supposed allusion to Shaftesbury, declared that the
greatest villain of his time was fair-haired.
The public of his period were so accustomed to see Sandford represent
the malignant heroes, that when they once saw him as an honest man,
who did not prove to be a crafty knave before the end of the fifth
act, they hissed the piece out of sheer vexation. Sandford rendered
villainy odious by his forcible representation of it. By a look, he
could win the attention of an audience "to whatever he judged worth
more than their ordinary notice;" and by attending to the punctuation
of a passage, he divested it of the jingle of rhyme, or the measured
monotony of blank verse.
So misshapen, harsh, fierce, yet craftily gentle and knavishly
persuasive could Sandford render himself, Cibber believes that
Shakspeare, conscious of other qualities in him, would have chosen
him to represent Richard, had poet and player been contemporaneous.
The generous Colley adds, that if there was anything good in his
own Richard, it was because he had modelled it after the fashion
in which he thought Sandford would have represented that monarch.
Sandford withdrew from the stage, after thirty-seven years' service,
commencing in 1661 and terminating in 1698.
The career of his more celebrated colleague, Smith, extended only
from 1663 to 1696, and that with the interruption of several years
when his strong Toryism made him unacceptable to the prejudiced
Whig audiences of the early part of the reign of William.[38] He
originally represented Sir Fopling Flutter (1676), and Pierre
(1682); Chamont (1680), in "The Orphan," and Scandal (1695), in "Love
for Love." In the following year he died in harness. The long part of
Cyaxares, in "Cyrus the Great," overtaxed his strength, and on the
fourth representation of that wearisome tragedy, Smith was taken ill,
and died.
King James, in the person of Smith, vindicated the nobility of his
profession. "Mr. Smith," says Cibber, with fine satire, "whose
character as a gentleman could have been no way impeached, had he
not degraded it by being a celebrated actor, had the misfortune, in
a dispute with a gentleman behind the scenes, to receive a blow from
him. The same night an account of this action was carried to the
King, to whom the gentleman was represented so grossly in the wrong,
that the next day his Majesty sent to forbid him the court upon it.
This indignity cast upon a gentleman only for maltreating a player,
was looked upon as the concern of every gentleman! and a party was
soon formed to assert and vindicate their honour, by humbling this
favoured actor, whose slight injury had been judged equal to so
severe a notice. Accordingly, the next time Smith acted, he was
received with a chorus of catcalls, that soon convinced him he should
not be suffered to proceed in his part; upon which, without the least
discomposure, he ordered the curtain to be dropped, and having a
competent fortune of his own, thought the conditions of adding to it,
by remaining on the stage, were too dear, and from that day entirely
quitted it." _Not_ "entirely," for he returned to it in 1695, after
a secession of eleven years, under the persuasion, it is believed,
of noble friends and ancient comrades. Dr. Burney states that the
audience made a political matter of it. If so, Whigs and Tories
had not long to contend, for the death of this refined player soon
supervened.
Of the two most eminent ladies who joined the Duke's Company
previous to the union of the two houses, Lady Slingsby (formerly
Mrs. Aldridge, next Mrs. Lee,) is of note for the social rank she
achieved; Mrs. Barry for a theatrical reputation which placed her on
a level with Betterton himself. Lady Slingsby withdrew from the stage
in 1685, after a brief course of ten or a dozen years. She died in
the spring of 1694, and was interred in old St. Pancras churchyard,
as "Dame Mary Slingsby, Widow." That is the sum of what is known of a
lady whom report connects with the Yorkshire baronets of Scriven. Of
her colleague, there is more to be said; but the "famous Mrs. Barry"
may claim a chapter to herself.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Anthony Aston, from whom this description is quoted, says that
it was not modesty that prevented his understanding why he was
admired, but sheer stupidity.
[34] He practically retired from the active work of his profession
about 1707.
[35] I can find no authority for this. The King's Company appear to
have played regularly at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Dorset Garden was the
new theatre of the Duke's Company.
[36] Pepys is no doubt accurate. The higher prices were charged
apparently from the opening of the old theatre in 1663.
[37] Genest conjectures, I think justly, that this must have happened
at a rehearsal. Downes says nothing about the house being ecstatic.
[38] Very doubtful. The cause of his retirement was no doubt the
quarrel afterwards mentioned. If he was off the stage for eleven
years, as Dr. Doran says, he must have retired in 1684, long before
William was king.
[Illustration: RIVER VIEW OF DUKE'S THEATRE.]