THE PROGRESS OF JAMES QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BARTON BOOTH.
Quin made great advances in the public favour in the season of
1718-19, at Lincoln's Inn, where, however, as yet, he only shared
the leading business in tragedy and comedy with Ryan, and the
less distinguished Evans. Southwark Fair, a fashionable resort,
contributed to the company a new actor, Bohemia or Boheme, with
great comic power; and Susan Mountfort replaced for a few weeks
Mrs. Rogers, who had held for a time the tragic parts once acted by
Mrs. Barry and Bracegirdle, and who died about this time. Of Susan
Mountfort's touching end I will speak in a future page. Mrs. Rogers
had been on the stage since 1692, and numbered among her original
parts:--Imoinda, Oriana, Melinda, and Isabinda, in "Oroonoko,"
"Inconstant," "Recruiting Officer," and "Busy Body."
During this season a French company acted for some time in the
Fields, where the "Tartuffe" was also played against the "Nonjuror."
The only novelty worthy of notice was the "Sir Walter Raleigh" of
poor Dr. Sewell, in which Quin played the hero with indifferent
success. The author was more remarkable than his piece. He was
of good family, and a pupil of Boerhaave; but, unsuccessful as a
practitioner in London, he, curiously enough, gained fortune and
reputation in the smaller sphere of Hampstead, until, as a singular
biographical notice informs us, "three other physicians settled at
the same place, after which his gains became very inconsiderable."
He became a poor poet instead of a rich physician; "kept no house,
but was a boarder; was much esteemed, and so frequently invited to
the tables of gentlemen in the neighbourhood, that he had seldom
occasion to dine at home." Seven years after Quin failed to lift
him into dramatic notoriety, this Tory opponent of the Whig Bishop
of Salisbury, and one of the minor contributors (it is said) to the
_Spectator_ and _Tatler_, though he is not included in Bissett's
lives of the writers in the first-named periodical, died, "and was
supposed," says the anonymous biographer already quoted, "at that
time to be in very indigent circumstances, as he was interred in the
meanest manner, his coffin being little better than those allotted by
the parish to their poor who are buried from the workhouses, neither
did a single friend or relation attend him to the grave. No memorial
was placed over his remains; but they lie just under a holly-tree,
which formed part of a hedge-row, that was once the boundary of the
churchyard." Such was the end of the poet, through whom Lincoln's Inn
Fields hoped, in 1719, to recover its ancient prosperity.
Eventful incidents marked the Drury Lane season of 1719-20. It
commenced in the middle of September, between which time, and the
last week of the following January, things went on prosperously as
between players and public, but not so as between patentees and the
government. Within the period mentioned Miss Santlow had made Booth
happy--an union which helped to make Susan Mountfort mad,[108] and
Dennis's "Invader of His Country," and Southerne's "Spartan Dame,"
were produced. The former was the second of three adaptations[109]
from Shakspeare's "Coriolanus." Forty years before, in 1682, Nahum
Tate fancied there was something in the times like that depicted
in the days of Coriolanus. To make the parallel more striking, he
pulled Shakspeare's play to pieces, and out of the fragments built up
his own "Ingratitude of a Commonwealth." Nahum altered all for the
worse; and he wrote a new fifth act, which was still worse than the
mere verbal or semi-alterations. The impudence of the destroyer was
illustrated by his cool assurance in the prologue, that--
"He only ventures to make gold from ore,
And turn to money what lay dead before."
Tate was now followed by Dennis, who altered "Coriolanus" for
political reasons, brought it out at Drury Lane, in the cause of his
country and sovereign, and perhaps thought to frighten the Pretender
by it. The failure was complete; although Booth played the principal
male character, and Mrs. Porter Volumnia.
Southerne's "Spartan Dame" had been interdicted in the reign of
William and Mary, as it was supposed that the part of Celonis (Mrs.
Oldfield), wavering between her duty to her father, Leonidas, and
that owing to her husband, Cleombrotus (Booth), would have painfully
reminded some, and joyfully reminded other, of the spectators,
of the position of Mary, between her royal sire and her princely
consort. But it would have been as reasonable to prohibit "Othello"
or "King Lear," because of the presence in them of individuals so
related. Southerne's play has no local colour about it, but abounds
in anachronisms and incongruities, and it survived but during a brief
popularity. The author was now sixty years of age, Dennis seven years
his senior.[110] The older and unluckier, and less courteous poet,
gained nothing by his play to compensate for the annuity he had
purchased, but the term of which he had outlived. Southerne gained
£500 by his "author's nights" alone; for patronage and presence on
which occasions, the plausible poet personally solicited his friends.
For the copyright he received an additional £120.
About six weeks after Southerne's play was produced--that is, after
the performance of the "Maid's Tragedy," January 23, 1720, an order
from the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Chamberlain, suddenly closed the
theatre! The alleged cause was "_information_ of misbehaviour on the
part of the players." The real cause lay in Sir Richard Steele, the
principal man who held the patent!
Since we last parted with the knight, he had been ungenerously
trying, in pamphlets, to hunt to the scaffold the last Tory ministers
of Queen Anne; he had lost his second wife; he had been projecting
an union of Church and Kirk; he had invented a means of keeping
fish alive while being transported across sea; he had been living
extravagantly; but he had also offended his patron, the Duke of
Newcastle, and therewith, the King, whose servant the Duke was, and
the Government, of which the Duke was a member. Steele, in fact, had
vehemently and successfully opposed, by speech and pamphlet, Lord
Sunderland's Peerage Bill, which proposed to establish twenty-five
hereditary peers of Scotland to sit in the English House of Lords,
in place of the usual election of sixteen; and to create six new
English peerages, with the understanding that the Crown would never,
in future, make a new peer except on the extinction of an old family.
Steele denounced, in the _Plebeian_, the aristocratical tendency
of the bill, and to such purpose, that the theatre he governed was
closed, and his name struck out of the licence!
Steele appealed to the public, in a pamphlet, the _Theatre_; and
showed, by counsel's opinion, how he had been wronged; he estimated
his loss at nearly £10,000, and finally sank into distress, with
mingled bitterness and wit. His old ducal patron had loudly
proclaimed he would ruin him. "This," said Steele, "from a man in his
circumstances, to one in mine, is as great as the humour of Malagene,
in the comedy, who valued himself for his activity in 'tripping up
cripples.'"
Dennis entered the lists against Sir Richard; but the worst the
censor could say against the knight was, that he had a dark
complexion, and wore a black peruke. Dennis also attacked actors
generally, as rogues and vagabonds in the eye of the law, and liable
to be whipped at the King's porter's lodge. Such was the testimony of
this coarse Cockney, the son of a saddler, and a fellow who, for his
ill-doings, had been expelled from Cambridge University.
Booth, Cibber, and Wilks were permitted to reopen Drury under a
licence, after an interval of a few days, and the season thus
recommencing on the 28th of January, with the "Careless Husband,"
Cibber playing Lord Foppington, ran on to August 23rd, when the house
closed, with "Bartholomew Fair!" The only novelty was Hughes's "Siege
of Damascus," with false quantities in its classical names, and much
heaviness of treatment of an apt story. It was Hughes's first play,
and he died unconscious of its success. He was then but forty-three
years of age. The old school-fellow of Isaac Watts had begun his
career by complimenting King William and eulogising Queen Anne.
He had published clever translations, composed very gentlemanlike
music, contributed to the _Spectator_, and obtained a place among
the wits. He wrote, in 1712, the words of the opera of "Calypso and
Telemachus," to prove how gracefully the English language might
be wedded to music. Two Lord Chancellors were among his patrons,
Cowper and Macclesfield, and that he held the Secretaryship to the
Commissioners of the Peace was a pleasant consequence thereof.
His "Siege of Damascus" has for moral, that it is wrong to extend
religious faith by means of the sword. The angry lover who left the
city he had saved, to assault it with the Arabians from whom he had
saved it, and to meet the lady of his love full of abhorrence for the
traitor, might have produced some emotion; but loving, loved, living,
and dying, they all talk, seldom act, and never touch. Nevertheless,
Booth, Wilks, Mills, and Mrs. Porter had attentive listeners, if not
ecstatic auditors, during a run of ten nights. The long tirades and
the ponderous similes gratified the same audiences who took delight
in Norris's Barnaby Brittle, Shepherd's Sir Tunbelly Clumsey, and
Mrs. Booth's Helena, in the "Rover." Nevertheless, Hughes acquired
no fame. When Swift received a copy of his works, he wrote to
Pope:--"I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name
as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet for me; and, I think, among
the mediocrists in prose as well as in verse." Pope sanctioned the
judgment; adding, that what Hughes wanted in genius, he made up as an
honest man. Hitherto, the great tragedy of this century was "Cato."
At Lincoln's Inn, Quin played the King to Ryan's Hamlet, and created
Henri Quatre in young Beckingham's second, last, and unsuccessful
essay, "Henry IV. of France." What was the course of the Merchant
Tailors' pupil, and son of the Fleet Street linen-draper, after this,
I am unable to say, further than that he died in obscurity some ten
years later. A comedy, by "Handsome Leigh," a moderately fair actor,
called "Kensington Gardens, or the Pretenders," showed some power of
drawing character, especially an effeminate footman, Bardach, played
by Bullock, but it did nothing for a theatre which was now partly
relying on subscriptions in aid. At the head of the subscribers was
the last Baron Brooke, whose more famous son, the first Earl of
Warwick, of the Fulke Greville line, used to subscribe his political
vote so singularly--first for ministers, then for the opposition, and
thirdly, not at all, in undeviating regularity.
This piece failing, came Theobald's adaptation of Shakspeare's
"Richard II.," very much for the worse, but so far to the profit of
the adapter that the Earl of Orrery conferred on him an unusually
liberal gift for the dedication, namely, a hundred pound note,
enclosed in a box of Egyptian pebble, which was worth a score of
pounds more. The original author was less munificently remunerated,
except in abiding glory.
Another attempt served the house as poorly namely, the re-appearance
of a Mrs. Vandervelt, not because she was a clever, but that she was
a very aged actress, eighty-five years old, who had not played since
King Charles's time, but who had spirits enough to act the Widow
Rich, in the "Half-pay Officers," a vamped-up farce, by Molloy, the
political writer, and strength enough to dance a sprightly jig after
it. As the hostess of a tavern in Tottenham Court Road, Peg Fryer, as
the old dame was called off the stage, kept a merry and prosperous
house.
Another adaptation was Griffin's comedy, "Whig and Tory," which had
nothing political in it but the name; and by which that excellent low
comedian, who ought to have been in the Church, and who would not be
a glazier, did not add to his fame.
The "Imperial Captives" was a more ambitious venture, by a new
author, Mottley. It was a tragedy, in which Quin played Genseric,
King of the Vandals, and in which there is much love and a little
murder, in the old thundering style, and all at cross-purposes.
Distress made a poet of Mottley. His father was a Jacobite colonel,
who followed James to France; his mother, a thorough-bred Whig, who
stayed under William in England. Occasionally, they settled their
political differences, and met. Mottley was one of those men who
depend on patrons. He had lost a post in the Excise Office, and had
not gained either of two which had been promised him, one in the Wine
Licence Office, by Lord Halifax, and one in the Exchequer to which
he had been appointed, but from which he was immediately ousted
by Sir Robert Walpole. An estate, in which he had a reversionary
interest, was sold by his widowed and extravagant mother to pay her
debts, and thus stripped of post and prospects, Mottley made an essay
as dramatic author, a career in which he was not destined to be
distinguished, although Queen Caroline patronised him during a part
of it--but so she did Stephen Duck! "Cato" was not superseded; but
Young was putting the finishing stroke to his "Revenge."
That tragedy, which has been acted more frequently and more recently
than "Cato," was first played in the Drury Lane season of 1720-21.
On the 18th of April, of the latter year, Zanga was played by Mills,
while Booth took Alonzo, and Wilks, Carlos. The secondary parts were
thus played by the better actors. Mrs. Porter played Leonora, Mrs.
Horton, Isabella. This was a fine cast, and the piece was fairly
successful. A story in the _Guardian_, and two plays, by Marlowe and
Aphra Behn, are said to have furnished Young with his materials, in
handling which, one of his biographers has described him as "superior
even to Shakspeare!" The action does not flag, the situations are
dramatic, the interest is well sustained, and the language is
expressive and abounding in poetical beauty. The story of love,
jealousy, and murder is, however, a little marred by the puling lines
of the black Iago,--Zanga, at the close. Young obtained but £50 for
the copyright of this piece.
Young's "Revenge," if built upon other plays, has served the turn of
later authors. In Lord John Russell's "Don Carlos," the reason given
for the grovelling Cordoba's hatred of the Spanish prince, reminds
the reader of that of Zanga for Alonzo; not less in the fact itself,
the blow believed to be forgotten, but in the expression. Any one,
moreover, who remembers the avowal which Artabanus makes of his guilt
in the "Artaxerxes" of Metastasio, will be inclined to think that the
Italian had in his mind the similar speech of the Moor to his master.
Cibber's comedy, the "Refusal," skilfully built up from the "Femmes
Savantes" of Molière and the South Sea mania, ran, like the more
famous tragedy, but six nights, a riot attending each representation,
and finally ending in driving a good play by the author of the
"Nonjuror" from the stage. The other incidents of this season are
confined to the appearance of Cibber's son, Theophilus, who made his
first essay in the Duke of Clarence, in the second part of "Henry
IV.," as arranged by Betterton. It was a modest attempt on the part
of him whose Pistol was to serve, down to our day, as a tradition
to be followed. As this vagabond Theophilus appeared, there, on the
other hand, departed the very pearl of chambermaids, Mrs. Saunders,
who retired to become the friend and servant of Mrs. Oldfield. This
last lady played but rarely this year; but Mrs. Horton profited by
the opportunity, and Mrs. Porter, as a tragic actress, drew the town.
Lincoln's Inn was, at least, active in its corresponding season. The
progress of Quin is curiously marked. He played Glo'ster to the Lear
of Boheme; Hector, in "Troilus and Cressida," Ryan playing Troilus;
the Duke in "Measure for Measure;" Coriolanus; Aumerle, in "Richard
II.;" Aaron, in "Titus Andronicus;" Leonato to Ryan's Benedick, &c.
&c. Moreover, while in the "Merry Wives" he played Falstaff with
great effect to the Host of Bullock, in the first part of "Henry IV."
Bullock played the Knight, and Quin the King. The season, remarkable
for Shakspearian revivals, creditable to Rich, was also distinguished
for the failure of the original pieces produced. The "Chimæra" was a
satire by Odell, a Buckinghamshire squire, pensioned by Government.
It was aimed at the speculators in Change Alley, but it smote them
tenderly. The "Fair Captive" was an adaptation by Mrs. Haywood,
a lady who began by writing as loosely as Aphra Behn, concluded
by writing as decorously as Mrs. Chapone, and left charge to her
executors, in 1756, to give no aid to any biography of her that might
be attempted, on the ground that the least said was the soonest
mended.
This comedy[111] was only exceeded in dulness by the tragedy which
succeeded it, "Antiochus," by Mottley, who could not gain fortune
either as poet or placeman. In the play, Antiochus is in love with
his father's wife, Stratonice, who, on being surrendered to his son,
by her husband, Seleucus, is a little overjoyed, for she loves the
younger prince; but she is also much shocked, and escapes from her
embarrassment by suicide.
The next novelty was a tragedy in one act and with four characters,
"Fatal Extravagance," attributed to Miller,[112] the son of a
Scottish stone-cutter. Miller was a sort of exaggerated Richard
Savage; inferior to him as a poet, and in every respect a more
inexcusable vagabond. He had no redeeming traits of character, and
he destroyed health and fortune (both restored more than once), as
insanely as he did fame and the patience of his friends. In "Fatal
Extravagance," Belmour, played by Quin, kills a creditor who holds
his bond, of which he also robs the dead man, mixes a "cordial,"
administers it to his wife and three children (off the stage), drinks
and dies. The butchery[113] is soon got through, in one act. Miller
subsequently declared that the piece was a gift to him from Aaron
Hill. That busy and benevolent person had no money to give to a
beggar; so he sat down and wrote a tragedy for him. It was a piece of
clever extravagance.
It was far more amusing than Ambrose Philip's tragedy the "Briton,"
which was the sole novelty of the Drury Lane season 1721-22. The
tragedy lacked neither skill, poetical spirit, nor incident; indeed,
of love incidents there is something too much. But the amours of
Yvor (Wilks) and Gwendolin (Mrs. Booth), the infidelities of Queen
Cartismand (Mrs. Porter) to Vanoc (Booth), and the intervention of
the Romans in these British domestic matters, interested but for a
few nights, if then, an audience ill-read in their own primitive
history.
Lincoln's Inn Fields was scarcely more prolific in novelty; this,
with the exception of a poor drama, the "Hibernian Friend,"[114]
being confined to Sturmy's tragedy, "Love and Duty;" Lynceus, one
of the half hundred sons of Ægyptus, by Quin. The love is that of
Lynceus and his cousin, Hypermnestra; the duty, that of killing
her husband, on the bridal night, by command of her father. The
"Distressed Bride," which is the second name of this piece, wisely
disobeys her sire, who is ultimately slain; after which, the young
people, sole survivors of fifty couples married yesterday (the
bridegrooms, all brothers; and sisters, all the brides), are made
happy by the hope of long life unembittered by feuds with their
kinsfolk.
The last two tragedies may be looked upon as a backsliding, after
"Cato," "Jane Shore," and the "Revenge;" and in tragedy there was
little improvement for several years. Meanwhile, Lincoln's Inn Fields
acquired Walker, from Drury Lane, and Tony Aston, an itinerant actor,
the first, perhaps, who travelled the country with an entertainment
in which he was the sole performer. On the other hand, the house
lost pretty Miss Stone, humorous Kit Bullock (Wilks's son-in-law),
and busy George Pack; the last, the original Marplot, Lissardo, and
many similar characters. Pack turned vintner in Charing Cross. Quin's
ability was nightly more appreciated.
There was more "study" for the Drury Lane actors in 1722-23. Mrs.
Centlivre's muse died calmly out with the comedy of the "Artifice."
In the good scenes there was an approach to sentimental comedy, more
fully reached, in November, by Steele, in his "Conscious Lovers," in
which Booth played Young Bevil, and Mrs. Oldfield, Indiana. There
was not an inferior performer in any of the other parts of this
comedy, which Fielding sneers at, by making Parson Adams declare that
there were things in it that would do very well in a sermon. Modern
critics have called this comedy dull, but decent; perhaps because
Steele affected to claim it as at least moral in its tendency. The
truth, however, is, that it is excessively indecent. There is nothing
worse in Aphra Behn than the remarks made by Cimberton, the "coxcomb
with reflection," on Lucinda. This fop, played by Griffin, is for
winning a beauty by the rules of metaphysics. There is more pathos
than humour in this comedy; the author of which had now recovered his
share in the patent, by favour of Sir Robert Walpole; and it is by
directing attention only to such scenes as those between Bevil and
Indiana, or between the former and his friend Myrtle (Wilks), that
critics have not correctly declared that the sentiments are those of
the most refined morality! For the very attempt to render them so,
even partially, Sir Richard has been sneered at, very recently, by a
writer who looks upon Steele as a fool for preferring to make Bevil
the portrait of what a man ought to be rather than what man really
was. The story of the piece is admirably manipulated and reformed
from the "Andria," of Terence, though Tom (Cibber) is but a sorry
Davus.
On one night of the performance of this play, a general officer was
observed in the boxes, weeping at the distresses of Indiana. The
circumstance was noted to Wilks, who, with kindly feeling ever ready,
remarked, "I am certain the officer will fight none the worse for
it!" Steele must have had more than ordinary power, if he could draw
tears from martial eyes in those days.
It is not to be supposed that Pope set the author, as a writer, below
Crowne; and yet, in the following lines, where the two are mentioned,
there is no very complimentary allusion to Sir Richard:--
"When simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventured on the town,
And with a borrow'd play outdid poor Crowne.
There he stopt short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little."
Crowne, at least, found something of an imitator in Ambrose Philips,
whose tragedy, "Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester" (Duke, Booth; Beaufort,
Cibber; Margaret, Mrs. Oldfield; Duchess of Gloucester, Mrs.
Porter), was produced in this season. It was the last and worst of
Philips' three dramatic essays. The insipid additions in the scene
of Beaufort's death are justly described by Genest as being in
Crowne's vapid and senseless fashion; and the public would not accept
this cold, declamatory, conversational play as a substitute for the
varied incidents which go to the making up of the second part of
Shakspeare's "Henry VI."
Even in Dr. Johnson's time, "it was only remembered by its title;" we
may, therefore, here take leave of the old secretary of the Hanover
Club, who found more fortune in place and pension in Ireland, than
he could derive from poetry and play writing in England. To the
latter country he returned in 1748, to "enjoy himself," in pursuit of
which end he died the following year. Addison once thought him well
enough provided for, by being made a Westminster justice. "Nay," said
Ambrose, like a virtuous man in comedy, "though poetry be a trade I
cannot live by, yet I scorn to owe subsistence to another which I
ought not to live by;" and he nobly gave up the justiceship--as soon
as he was otherwise provided for!
Philips was followed by an inferior author, but a greater man, Sir
Hildebrand Jacob, with a classical tragedy, "Fatal Constancy," in
which all the unities are preserved; but _that_ did not bring it the
nearer to "Cato."
Then followed, in the summer and less fashionable portion of the
season, Savage's tragedy, "Sir Thomas Overbury," in which the author
played, very indifferently, the hero. At this time, the hapless
young man was not widely known, except to those friends on whose
charity he lived while he abused it. Favoured by Wilks and patronised
by Theophilus Cibber, the ragged, rakish fellow, slunk at nights
into the theatre, and by day lounged where he could, composing his
tragedy on scraps of paper. In producing it, ever ready Aaron Hill
assisted him; and his profits, amounting to about £200, gave him
a temporary appearance of respectability. Savage is said to have
been deeply ashamed of having turned actor; but it seems to me that
he was only ashamed of having failed. He had neither voice, figure,
nor any other qualification for such a profession. The tragedy lived
but three days. There is something adroit in the conduct of the
plot, and evidence of correctness of conjecture as to the truth of
the relations between Overbury and Lady Somerset,--but there was no
vitality therewith; and the poet gained no lasting fame by the effort.
Mrs. Haywood followed Savage's example, in acting in her own comedy,
"A Wife to be Let;"[115] but as this and other original pieces or
adaptations passed away unheeded or disgraced, I may here conclude
my notice of this season, by recording the death of Mrs. Bicknell, a
woman, or rather an actress of merit, and the original representative
of Cherry in the "Beaux' Stratagem."
Against Drury, the house in the Fields long struggled in vain.
Audiences, of five or six pounds in value, discouraged the actors.
Egleton was not equal to Cibber; yet the "Baron," as he was called,
from having assumed the title, when squandering his little patrimony
in France, was next to Colley in fops. Quin, Ryan, and Boheme could
not attract like Booth, Wilks, and Cibber; and Hippisley and others,
acting "Julius Cæsar," as a comic piece, was not a happy idea.[116]
Not more so, was that of turning the story of "Cartouche," who had
recently been broken on the wheel, into a farce. The company lost
their best actress, too, in Mrs. Seymour, whom Boheme married and
took off the stage, to Ryan's great regret, as she acted admirably
up to him. A promising actor, too, was lost to the troop, in young
Reakstraw. In the summer vacation he was playing Darius, in a booth
in Moorfields,--no derogation in those days. In the scene in which he
is attacked by Bessus and Nabarzanes, one of the latter two thrust
his foil at the King so awkwardly, that it entered the eye, pierced
his brain, and laid the actor, after a scream, dead upon the boards!
With this season, it is to be noted that the fortune of Lincoln's Inn
mended--thanks to the impertinence of Colley Cibber. To the latter,
a tragedy had been presented by a modest gentleman, of a good old
Staffordshire family, named Fenton. He was forty years of age at this
time. Cibber knew his antecedents, that his Jacobite principles had
been an obstacle to his ordination, for which he was well qualified,
and that although he had been secretary and tutor in the family of
Lord Orrery, Fenton had also earned his bread in the humble, but
honourable, capacity of usher in a boarding-school. Colley read the
tragedy, "Mariamne," and after keeping it unnecessarily long, he
returned it, with the advice that Fenton should stick to some honest
calling, and cease to woo the Muses. Elijah Fenton, however, had
friends who enabled him now to live independently of labour, and by
their counsel he took "Mariamne" to Rich, who immediately brought
it out, with Quin as Sohemus, Boheme as Herod, and Mrs. Seymour as
Mariamne--her one great creation.
Boheme, in Herod, played well up to the Mariamne of Mrs. Seymour;
but he could not approach Mondory in that character, in the
French play by Tristan. Mondory used to have his audience, on
this occasion, departing from him, depressed, silent, wrapt in
meditation. He surrendered himself entirely to the part, and died
of the consequences of his efforts. Herod was as truly the name of
the malady to which he succumbed, as _Orestes_ was of that which
killed Montfleury, as he was playing Oreste, in Racine's tragedy of
"Andromaque."
The old story of Herod and Mariamne is so simple and natural that
it appeals to every heart, in every age. Fenton perilled it by
additions; but the tragedy won a triumph, and the poet to whom Pope
paid about £250 for translating four books of the _Odyssey_ for him,
netted four times that sum by this drama. He became famous, and
critics did not note the false quantity which the Cambridge man gave
to the penultimate of Salome. Fenton was rendered supremely happy,
but his dramatic fame rests on this piece alone. He never wooed
Melpomene again, but lived calmly the brief seven years of life which
followed his success. Like Prior dying at Wimpole, the honoured guest
of Harley, Fenton died at Easthampstead, the equally esteemed guest
of Sir William Trumbull, son of King William's secretary of state.
In Pope's well-known epitaph, Fenton's character is beautifully
described in a few simple lines.
Aaron Hill was the exact opposite of quiet Fenton. His beech-nut oil
company having failed, he joined Sir Robert Montgomery in a project
for colonising South Carolina; and this too proving unproductive,
he turned to the stage, and brought out in the season of 1723-24,
at Drury Lane, his tragedy of "Henry V."--an "improvement" of
Shakspeare's historical play of the same name. Hill's additions
comprise a Harriet (Mrs. Thurmond), for whom he invented a breeches
part, and some melodramatic situations--especially between her and
Henry (Booth). Hill cut out all Shakspeare's comic characters; but he
was so anxious for the success of the piece, that he spent £200 of
his own on the scenery, of which he made a present to the managers;
and, after all, his play failed, despite the brilliant Katherine of
Mrs. Oldfield, and the Dauphin of Wilks.
More successful was the "Captives," by Gay. The ex-mercer was now a
poet, whom the "quality" petted; but he was not yet at the summit of
his fame. The "Captives" did not help to raise him. The story was
found unnatural, and the style stilted. A Persian captive (Booth)
is a Joseph, against whom the Median Queen, whom he has offended,
vows vengeance; in pursuit of which, love and murder are extensively
employed. Mrs. Oldfield had one good scene in it as Cydene, captive
wife of the Persian Joseph, for whom she entertains a warm regard,
of which he is worthy; yet these actors, well seconded, could only
drag the tragedy through seven representations, before it was
consigned to oblivion. But the company was strong enough to make
their old repertory, with Shakspeare in the van, attractive; and
they had nothing to regret, when the season closed, but the death of
Pinkethman, who for two and thirty years, and chiefly at Drury Lane,
had been the most irresistible laughter-compeller of that stage, on
which he had originated Beau Clincher, Old Mirabel, and a score of
similar merry characters.
The company had not to complain; yet the managers had found
it necessary to support their stock-pieces by a novelty--a
ballet-pantomime, "The Necromancer,"[117] by the younger Thurmond,
a dancing-master. Rich, at Lincoln's Inn, where "Edwin" could not
have drawn a shilling; where Belisarius (Boheme) begged an obolus in
vain; and Hurst's "Roman Maid" (Paulina, Mrs. Moffat), represented a
hermit as dwelling in a lone cave, near the Mount Aventine--a hermit
would be as likely to be found in a wood on Snow Hill--Rich, I say,
improved on Thurmond's idea, by producing on the 20th of December
1723, "The Necromancer, or the History of Dr. Faustus," and thereby
founded pantomime, as it has been established among us, at least
during the Christmas-tide, for now a hundred and forty years.
Rich, with his "Necromancer," conjured all the town within the ring
of his little theatre. The splendour of the scenes, the vastness
of the machinery, and the grace and ability of Rich himself, raised
harlequinade above Shakspeare, and all other poets; and Quin and
Ryan were accounted little of in comparison with the motley hero.
The pantomime stood prominently in the bills; during the nights of
its attraction the prices of admission were raised by one-fourth,
and the weekly receipts advanced from six hundred (if the house was
full every night, which had been a rare case in the Fields), to a
thousand pounds. The advanced price displeased the public, with whom
ultimately a compromise was made, and a portion returned to those who
chose to leave the house before the pantomime commenced.
While the drama was thus yielding to the attractions of pantomime, a
new theatre invited the public. The little theatre in the Haymarket
opened its doors for the first time on the 12th of September[118]
1723, with the "French Fop," of which the author, Sandford, says,
that he wrote it in a few weeks, when he was but fifteen years of
age. That may account for its having straightway died; but it served
to introduce to the stage the utility actor, Milward. The theatre was
only open for a few nights.
Of the season 1724-5, at Drury Lane, there is little to be said, save
that the inimitable company worked well and profitably in sterling
old plays. Wilks returned to Sir Harry Wildair, and the public
laughed at Cibber's quivering tragedy tones, when playing Achoreus,
in his adaptation from Beaumont and Fletcher's "False One." In
"Cæsar in Egypt," Antony and Cleopatra were played by Wilks and Mrs.
Oldfield, who were never more happy than when making love on the
stage. This was the sole novelty of the season.
In the Fields there was more of it, but that most relied on was
Rich's "Harlequin Sorcerer," produced on the 21st of January 1725.
The "Bath Unmasked" was the only original comedy produced. It
described Bath as made up of very unprincipled people, with a good
lord to about a score of knaves and hussies. It was the first and not
lucky essay of miserable Gabriel Odingsell, who, nine years later,
in a fit of madness, hung himself in his house, Thatched Court,
Westminster.
Booth was more brilliant than he had ever yet been, in the Drury
Lane season of 1725-26. In Shakspeare he shone conspicuously, and
his Hotspur to the Prince of Wales of Giffard, from Dublin, charmed
as much by its chivalry as Cato did by its dignity. Mrs. Oldfield
enjoyed, and Mrs. Cibber, first wife of Theophilus, claimed the
favour of the town; and the elder Cibber surrendered one or two
old characters to a younger actor, Bridgewater. Amid a succession
of old dramas, one novelty only was offered, a translation of the
"Hecuba" of Euripides, with slight variations. The author was
Richard West, son-in-law of Bishop Burnet, and father of young West,
the early friend of Walpole and Gray. His play was acted on the
3d[119] of February 1726, at which time West was Lord Chancellor
of Ireland. On the first night a full audience would not listen to
the piece, and on the next two nights there was scarcely an audience
assembled to listen. Neither Booth as Polymnestor, nor Mrs. Porter
as Hecuba, could win the general ear. It did not succeed, wrote
the author, "because _it was not heard_. A rout of Vandals in the
galleries intimidated the young actresses, disturbed the audience,
and prevented all attention; and, I believe, if the verses had been
repeated in the original Greek, they would have been understood and
received in the same manner." The young actresses were Mrs. Brett
and Mrs. Cibber; the latter was not the famous lady of that name,
destined to the highest walks of tragedy. Lord Chancellor West died
in December of this year.
The above single play was, however, worth all the novelties produced
by Rich at Lincoln's Inn Fields. These were comedies of a farcical
kind. In one of them, the "Capricious Lovers," by Odingsell, there
was an original character, Mrs. Mincemode (Mrs. Bullock), who "grows
sick at the sight of a man, and refines upon the significancy of
phrases, till she resolves common observations into indecency." In
the "French Fortune-teller,"[120] the public failed to be regaled
with a piece stolen from Ravenscroft, who had stolen his from the
French. The third play was "Money the Mistress," which the audience
damned, in spite of the reputation of Southerne, who, with this
failure, closed a dramatic career which had commenced half a century
earlier. In its course he had written ten plays, the author of
which had this in common with Shakspeare--that he was born at
Stratford-on-Avon.
With this year, 1726-27, came the first symptom of a "break-up" in
the hitherto prosperous condition of Drury Lane. It occurred in the
first long and serious illness of Booth, which kept him from the
theatre, three long and weary months to the town. The season at Drury
Lane, however, and that at Lincoln's Inn Fields, had this alike, that
after Booth's welcome return, all London was excited by expectations
raised by comedies whose authors were "gentlemen," in whose success
the "quality," generally, were especially interested. At Drury it
was the "Rival Modes," by Moore Smythe; at Lincoln's Inn Fields,
the "Dissembled Wanton, or, my Son, get Money," by Leonard Welsted.
In the former piece there is a gay lover, Bellamine (Wilks), wooing
the grave Melissa (Mrs. Porter), while the serious Sagely (Mills)
pays suit to the sprightly widow Amoret (Mrs. Oldfield). An old
beau of King William's time, Earl of Late Airs (Cibber), brings his
son to town (Lord Toupet, a modern beau, by Theophilus Cibber), in
order that he may marry Melissa, with her father's consent. Amoret
contrives to upset this arrangement, and the other lovers are duly
united. The plot was good, the players unsurpassable, the two Cibbers
fooling it to the top of their bent, and old and new fashions were
pleasantly contrasted; but the action was languid, and the piece was
hissed.
The incident lacking here, abounded in Welsted's intriguing
comedy, the "Dissembled Wanton," a character finely acted by Mrs.
Younger[121]--whose marriage with Beaufort (Walker) being forbidden
by her father, Lord Severne (Quin), by whom she had been sent to
France, she reappears in her father's presence as Sir Harry Truelove,
whose real character is known only to Emilia (Mrs. Bullock), Lord
Severne's ward. Emilia's intimacy with Sir Harry causes the rupture
of her marriage with Colonel Severne, and some coarse scenes have to
be got through before all is explained; the respective lovers are
united, and Humphrey Staple (Hall) finds it useless to urge his son
Toby (W. Bullock) to get money by espousing the rich ward Emilia.
Although Welsted's comedy was lively, it was found to be ill-written.
He had had time enough to polish it, for ten years previous to its
production Steele had commended the plot, the moral, and the style;
he had even praised its decency. Like Moore Smyth's, it could not
win the town. The respective authors, who made so much ineffectual
noise in their own day, would be unknown to us in this, but for the
censure of Pope. In the _Dunciad_ they enjoy notoriety with Theobald,
or Cibber, Gildon, Dennis, Centlivre, and Aaron Hill. Moore was
an Oxford man, who assumed his maternal grandfather's name--being
his heir--and held one or two lucrative posts under Government.
His father, the famous Arthur Moore, a wit, a politician, and a
statesman, who was long M.P. for Grimsby, had risen, by force of his
talents, to an eminent position from a humble station. Pope stooped
to call Moore Smyth the son of a footman, and, when the latter name
was assumed on his taking his maternal grandfather's estate, the
Whigs lampooned him as born at "the paternal seat of his family--the
taphouse of the prison-gate, at Monaghan."
Moore was on intimate terms with the Mapledurham ladies--the Blounts,
and with others of Pope's friends, as well as with Pope himself. Some
tags of the poet's lines he had introduced into his unlucky comedy,
and on this Pope supported a grossly-expressed and weakly-founded
charge of plagiarism. Welsted, who was of a good Leicestershire
family, and of fair abilities, had moved Pope's wrath by writing
satirical verses against him, and the feeling was embittered when
the two dramatists united in addressing _One Epistle_ to Pope, in
which they touched him more painfully than he cared to confess.
Neither Moore nor Welsted ever tempted fortune on the stage again.
"Coestus artemque repono," said the former, on the title-page of his
comedy, as if he was revenging himself on society. Welsted confined
himself, after some skirmishing with his critics, to his duties in
the Ordnance Office. His wives were women of some mark. The first was
the daughter of Purcell; the second the sister of Walker, the great
defender of Londonderry.
A better gentleman than either, Philip Frowde--scholar, wit, poet,
true man, friend of Addison, and a friend to all,--was praised by
the critics for his "Fall of Saguntum;" but the public voice did not
ratify the judgment, though Ryan, as Fabius, and Quin, as Eurydamas,
with Mrs. Berriman, as Candace,--an Amazonian queen, with nothing
very womanly about her,--exerted themselves to the utmost. One other
failure has to be recorded--"Philip of Macedon," by David Lewis, the
friend of Pope. With a dull tragedy, Pope's friend had no more chance
of misleading the public, than his foes, with weak comedies. The
greater poet's commendation so little influenced that public, that on
the first night, with Pope himself in the house, the audience was so
numerically small,--though Walker, Ryan, Quin, Mrs. Berriman, Mrs.
Younger, and others, were, in their "habits" as unlike Macedonians
as they could well be,--the managers deemed acting to such a house
not profitable, and dismissed it accordingly. The author's final
condemnation was only postponed for a night or two, when he sank,
never to rise again.[122]
[Illustration: (Lavinia Fenton.)]
With Booth's failing health, and the ill-success of novelties
produced at either house, there was a gloom over theatrical matters.
But at this very time a sun was rising from behind the cloud. In
one of the irregular series of performances, held at the little
theatre in the Haymarket, in 1726, there appeared a young lady, in
the part of Monimia, in the "Orphan," and subsequently as Cherry,
in the "Beaux' Stratagem." She was pretty, clever, and eighteen;
but she was not destined to become either the tragic or the comic
queen. Soon after, however, thanks to the judgment of Rich, who
gave her the opportunity, she was hailed as the queen of
English song. She was known as Lavinia Fenton, but she was the
daughter of a naval lieutenant, named Beswick. Her widowed mother
had married a coffee-house keeper in Charing Cross, whose name of
Fenton was assumed by his step-daughter. Before we shall hear of
her at Lincoln's Inn Fields, a lieutenant[123] will be offering her
everything he possessed except his name; but Lavinia, without being
as discreet, was even more successful than Pamela, and died a duchess.
Throughout the reign of George I., Barton Booth kept his position
as the first English tragedian,--undisturbed even by the power of
Quin. Associated with him, were comedians,--Wilks, Cibber, Mrs.
Oldfield, Porter, Horton, and others, who shed splendour on the
stage, at this period. The new dramatic poets of that reign were
few, and not more than one of those few can be called distinguished.
The name of Young alone survives in the memory, and that but for one
tragedy, the "Revenge." Of comedies, there is not one of the reign of
George I. that is even read for its merits. It is otherwise with the
comedies of an actress and dramatist who died in this reign,--Susanna
Centlivre; and yet a contemporary notice of her death simply states
that, as an actress, "having a greater inclination to wear the
breeches than the petticoat, she struck into the men's parts;" and
that the dramatist "had a small wen on her left eyelid, which gave
her a masculine air." Eventful to both houses was the season of
1727-28. It was the last season of Booth, at Drury Lane; and it was
the first of the "Beggars' Opera," at Lincoln's Inn Fields. After
thirty years' service, in the reigns of William, Anne, George I.,
and now in that of George II., in which Garrick was to excel him,
that admirable actor was compelled, by shattered health, to withdraw.
For many nights he played Henry VIII., and walked in the coronation
scene, which was tacked to various other plays, in honour of the
accession of George II., who, with the royal family, went, on the 7th
of November, to witness Booth enact the King. On the 9th of January,
Booth, after a severe struggle, played, for the sixth and last time,
Julio, in the "Double Falsehood;" a play which Theobald ascribed to
Shakspeare; Dr. Farmer, to Shirley; others, to Massinger; but which
was chiefly Theobald's own, founded on a manuscript copy which,
through Downes, the prompter, had descended to him from Betterton,
and which served Colman, who certainly derived his Octavian from
Julio.
The loss in Booth was, in some degree, supplied by the "profit"
arising from a month's run of a new comedy by Vanbrugh and
Cibber--the "Provoked Husband;" in which the Lord and Lady Townley
were played by these incomparable lovers--Wilks and Mrs. Oldfield.
Cibber acted Sir Francis Wronghead, and young Wetherell, Squire
Richard. Vanbrugh was at this time dead--in 1726, at his house in
Whitehall, of quinsey. The critics and enemies of Cibber were sadly
at fault on this occasion. Hating him for his "Nonjuror," they
hissed all the scenes of which they supposed him to be the author;
and applauded those which they were sure were by Vanbrugh. Cibber
published the imperfect play left by Sir John, and thereby showed
that his adversaries condemned and approved exactly in the wrong
places.
Cibber enjoyed another triumph this season. Steele, abandoning the
responsibilities of management, to follow his pleasure, had submitted
to a deduction of £1, 13s. 4d. nightly, to each of his partners,
for performing his duties. Steele was at this time in Wales, dying,
though he survived till September 1729. His creditors, meanwhile,
claimed the "five marks" as their own, and the case went into the
Rolls Court, before Sir Joseph Jekyll. Cibber pleaded in person the
cause of himself and active partners, and so convincingly, that he
obtained a decree in their favour.
In presence of this new audience, the old actor confesses he felt
fear. He carried with him the heads of what he was about to urge;
but, says Colley, "when it came to the critical moment, the dread and
apprehension of what I had undertaken so disconcerted my courage,
that though I had been used to talk to above fifty thousand people
every winter, for upwards of thirty years together, an involuntary
and unexpected proof of confusion fell from my eyes; and as I found
myself quite out of my element, I seemed rather gasping for life,
than in a condition to cope with the eminent orators against me."
Cibber, however, recovered himself, and vanquished his adversaries,
though two of them were of the stuff that won for them, subsequently,
the dignity of Lord Chancellor.
The "Beggar's Opera" season at Lincoln's Inn Fields was the most
profitable ever known there. Swift's idea of a Newgate pastoral was
adopted by Gay, who, smarting under disappointment of preferment at
Court, and angry at the offer to make him gentleman-usher to the
youngest of the royal children, indulged his satirical humour against
ministers and placement, by writing a Newgate comedy, at which Swift
and Pope shook their heads, and old Congreve, for one of whose three
sinecures Gay would have given his ears, was sorely perplexed as to
whether it would bring triumph or calamity to its author. The songs
were added, but Cibber, as doubtful as Congreve, declined what Rich
eagerly accepted, and the success of which was first discerned by the
Duke of Argyle, from his box on the stage, who looked at the house,
and "saw it in the eyes of them."
Walker, who had been playing tragic parts, and very recently Macbeth,
was chosen for Macheath, on Quin declining the highwayman. Lavinia
Fenton was the Polly; Peachum, by Hippisley; and Spiller made a
distinctive character of Mat o' the Mint. Walker "knew no more of
music than barely singing in tune; but then his singing was supported
by his inimitable action, by his speaking to the eye and charming the
ear." It was at the close of a long run of the piece that Walker once
tripped in his words. "I wonder," said Rich, "that you should forget
the words of a part you have played so often!" "Do you think," asked
Walker, with happy equivocation, "that a man's memory is to last for
ever?"
Sixty-two nights in this season the "Beggar's Opera" drew crowded
houses.[124] Highwaymen grew fashionable, and ladies not only carried
fans adorned with subjects from the opera, but sang the lighter, and
hummed the coarser, songs. Sir Robert Walpole, who was present on
the first night, finding the eyes of the audience turned on him as
Lockit was singing his song touching courtiers and bribes, was the
first to blunt the point of the satire, by calling _encore_. Swift
says, "_two_ great ministers were in a box together, and all the
world staring at them." At this time it was said that the quarrel of
Peachum and Lockit was an imitation of that of Brutus and Cassius,
but the public discerned therein Walpole and his great adversary
Townshend.
"The Beggar's Opera" hath knocked down _Gulliver_, wrote Swift
to Gay. "I hope to see Pope's 'Dulness' (the first name of the
_Dunciad_) knock down the 'Beggar's Opera,' but not till it hath
fully done its job." But Gay had no "mission;" he only sought to
gratify himself and the town; to satirise, not to teach or to warn;
the "opera" made "Gay rich, and Rich gay;" the former sufficiently so
to make him forego earning a fee of twenty guineas by a dedication,
and the latter only so far sad, that at the end of the season,
Lavinia Fenton, after two benefits, was taken off the stage by the
Duke of Bolton. The latter had from his wedding-day hated his wife,
daughter and sole heiress of the Earl of Carberry; but his love
for Lavinia was so abounding, that on his wife's death, he made a
Duchess of "Polly;" but their three sons were not born at a time that
rendered either of them heir to the ducal coronet, which, in 1754,
passed to the Duke's brother. Gay's author's night realised a gain to
him of £700, and enabled him to dress in "silver and blue." While he
is blazing abroad, the once great master, Booth, is slowly dying out.
Let us tell his varied story as his life ebbs surely away.
[Illustration: Mr. Foote as the Doctor.]
FOOTNOTES:
[108] Very imaginative. Mrs. Mountfort lived with another lover, Mr.
Minshull, for a year before Booth's marriage.
[109] There are adaptations of "Coriolanus" by Tate, Dennis,
Sheridan, and Kemble.
[110] Dennis born 1657; Southerne 1660.
[111] Tragedy.
[112] Should be Mitchell.
[113] But the wife and children do not die; the poisoned cup having
been emptied, and refilled with a harmless potion.
[114] Should be "Hibernia Freed."
[115] "By reason of the indisposition of an actress."
[116] This is a most strange mistake. It is evidently caused by the
entry in Genest on 10th January 1723, which is:--"Julius Cæsar. Comic
characters--Hippisley, &c." This of course means that the characters
in the tragedy which were, according to theatrical usage, played by
comedians (the _Plebeians_, for instance), were played by Hippisley,
&c., not that all the characters were made comic.
[117] Thurmond's piece appears to have been called "Harlequin Doctor
Faustus."
[118] Genest says 12th of December 1723.
[119] Should be 2d.
[120] Should be "Female Fortune-teller."
[121] Emilia is the Dissembled Wanton.
[122] Acted four times.
[123] Cooke (_Memoirs of Macklin_) says "a young libertine of very
high rank."
[124] The Notes to the _Dunciad_ say "sixty-three days,
uninterrupted;" but this is probably an error.
[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH.]