From _Saturday, July 1_, to _Tuesday, July 4, 1710_.
Qui didicit, patriae quid debeat et quid amicis,
Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ...
Scribere[336] personae scit convenientia cuique.
HOR., Ars Poet. 312.
* * * * *
_Will's Coffee-house, July 3._
I have of late received many epistles, wherein the writers treat me as a
mercenary person, for some late hints concerning matters which they
think I should not have touched upon but for sordid considerations. It
is apparent, that my motive could not be of that kind; for when a man
declares himself openly on one side, that party will take no more notice
of him, because he is sure; and the set of men whom he declares against,
for the same reason are violent against him. Thus it is folly in a
plain-dealer to expect, that either his friends will reward him, or his
enemies forgive him. For which reason, I thought it was the shortest way
to impartiality, to put myself beyond further hopes or fears, by
declaring myself, at a time when the dispute is not about persons and
parties, but things and causes. To relieve myself from the vexation
which naturally attends such reflections, I came hither this evening to
give my thoughts quite a new turn, and converse with men of pleasure and
wit, rather than those of business and intrigue. I had hardly entered
the room, when I was accosted by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who desired my
favour in relation to the play which was to be acted for his benefit on
Thursday. He pleased me in saying it was "The Old Bachelor,"[337] in
which comedy there is a necessary circumstance observed by the author,
which most other poets either overlook or do not understand, that is to
say, the distinction of characters. It is very ordinary with writers to
indulge a certain modesty of believing all men as witty as themselves,
and making all the persons of the play speak the sentiments of the
author, without any manner of respect to the age, fortune, or quality of
him that is on the stage. Ladies talk like rakes, and footmen make
similes: but this writer knows men, which makes his plays reasonable
entertainments, while the scenes of most others are like the tunes
between the acts. They are perhaps agreeable sounds, but they have no
ideas affixed to them. Doggett thanked me for my visit to him in the
winter,[338] and, after his comical manner, spoke his request with so
arch a leer, that I promised the droll I would speak to all my
acquaintance to be at his play.
Whatever the world may think of the actors, whether it be that their
parts have an effect on their lives, or whatever it is, you see a
wonderful benevolence among them towards the interests and necessities
of each other. Doggett therefore would not let me go, without delivering
me a letter from poor old Downes the prompter,[339] wherein that
retainer to the theatre desires my advice and assistance in a matter of
concern to him. I have sent him my private opinion for his conduct; but
the stage and the State affairs being so much canvassed by parties and
factions, I shall for some time hereafter take leave of subjects which
relate to either of them, and employ my care in consideration of matters
which regard that part of mankind who live without interesting
themselves with the troubles or pleasures of either. However, for a mere
notion of the present posture of the stage, I shall give you the letter
at large as follows:
"HONOURED SIR, _July 1, 1710._
"Finding by divers of your late papers, that you are a friend to
the profession of which I was many years an unworthy member, I the
rather make bold to crave your advice, touching a proposal that has
been lately made me of coming into business, and the
sub-administration of stage affairs. I have, from my youth, been
bred up behind the curtain, and been a prompter from the time of
the Restoration.[340] I have seen many changes, as well of scenes
as of actors, and have known men within my remembrance arrive to
the highest dignities of the theatre, who made their entrance in
the quality of mutes, joint-stools, flowerpots, and tapestry
hangings. It cannot be unknown to the nobility and gentry, that a
gentleman of the Inns of Court, and a deep intriguer, had some time
since worked himself into the sole management and direction of the
theatre.[341] Nor is it less notorious, that his restless ambition,
and subtle machinations, did manifestly tend to the extirpation of
the good old British actors, and the introduction of foreign
pretenders; such as harlequins, French dancers, and Roman singers;
which, though they impoverished the proprietors, and imposed on the
audience, were for some time tolerated, by reason of his dexterous
insinuations, which prevailed upon a few deluded women, especially
the vizard masks, to believe that the stage was in danger. But his
schemes were soon exposed, and the great ones that supported him
withdrawing their favour, he made his exit, and remained for a
season in obscurity. During this retreat the Machiavelian was not
idle, but secretly fomented divisions, and wrought over to his
side some of the inferior actors, reserving a trap-door to himself,
to which only he had a key. This entrance secured, this cunning
person, to complete his company, bethought himself of calling in
the most eminent of strollers from all parts of the kingdom. I have
seen them all ranged together behind the scenes; but they are many
of them persons that never trod the stage before, and so very
awkward and ungainly, that it is impossible to believe the audience
will bear them. He was looking over his catalogue of plays, and
indeed picked up a good tolerable set of grave faces for
counsellors, to appear in the famous scene of 'Venice Preserved,'
when the danger is over; but they being but mere outsides, and the
actors having a great mind to play 'The Tempest,' there is not a
man of them, when he is to perform anything above dumb show, is
capable of acting with a good grace so much as the part of
Trinculo. However, the master persists in his design, and is
fitting up the old 'storm'; but I am afraid he will not be able to
procure able sailors or experienced officers for love or money.
"Besides all this, when he comes to cast the parts, there is so
great a confusion amongst them for want of proper actors, that for
my part I am wholly discouraged. The play with which they design to
open is, 'The Duke and No Duke';[342] and they are so put to it,
that the master himself is to act the conjurer, and they have no
one for the general but honest George Powell.[343]
"Now, sir, they being so much at a loss for the _dramatis personae_,
viz., the persons to enact, and the whole frame of the house being
designed to be altered, I desire your opinion, whether you think it
advisable for me to undertake to prompt them? For though I can
clash swords when they represent a battle, and have yet lungs
enough to huzza their victories, I question, if I should prompt
them right, whether they would act accordingly. I am
"Your Honour's most humble Servant,
"J. Downes.
"P.S. Sir, since I writ this, I am credibly informed, that they
design a new house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near the Popish
chapel,[344] to be ready by Michaelmas next; which indeed is but
repairing an old one that has already failed. You know the honest
man who kept the office is gone already."
[Footnote 335: The authorship of the greater part of this paper is
uncertain; see note on next page.]
[Footnote 336: "Reddere" (Horace).]
[Footnote 337: See No. 9.]
[Footnote 338: See Nos. 120, 122. In the continuation of the Tatler
which Swift and Harrison conducted (No. 28, March 24, 1710-11) there is
this passage: "The person produced as mine in the playhouse, last
winter, did in no wise appertain to me. It was such a one, however, as
agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the
purpose I intended it for: which was to continue the awe and reverence
due to the character I was vested with, and at the same time to let my
enemies see how much I was the delight and favourite of this town," &c.]
[Footnote 339: This letter, in ridicule of Harley's newly formed
Ministry, has been attributed to the joint authorship of Anthony Henley
(see No. 11) and Temple Stanyan. Harley is supposed to be the gentleman
referred to in the letter, and Downes, it has been suggested, is Thomas
Osborne, first Duke of Leeds. Steele expressly disavowed responsibility
for the letter from Downes the prompter. In No. 53 of the _Guardian_ he
wrote: "Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had
been author. All I had to do in it, was to strike out what related to a
gentlewoman about the Queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition,
and I did it out of regard to innocence." And in the Preface to the
_Tatler_, he said that this letter was by an unknown correspondent. A
writer in the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) mentions Old Downes among the
sufferers of figure under our author's satire. The same writer, or
another in the same paper, expresses himself in the following words:
"Steele broke his own maxim for trifles in which his country had no
manner of concern; and by entering into party disputes, violated the
most solemn repeated promises and that perfect neutrality he had engaged
to maintain. As a proof that I did not wrong him, he now openly takes
upon himself Downes' letter, by wishing the raillery (as he calls it)
were his own." In the "Essays Divine, Moral, and Political" (1714), p.
42, Swift is made to say, "I advised him [Steele] to the publishing that
letter from Downes the prompter, which was the beginning of his ruin,
though I here declare I did not write it." Forster ("Biographical
Essays," 3rd ed.) concludes that this fictitious letter was certainly by
Mainwaring himself. In the "Journal to Stella" (Oct. 22, 1710), Swift
wrote: "He [Steele] has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred
pounds a year, for writing a _Tatler_, some months ago, against Mr.
Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to
three hundred pounds." See also Swift's "The Importance of the
_Guardian_ considered."]
[Footnote 340: John Downes was prompter to "The Duke's Servants" until
1706. In 1708 he published his valuable "Roscius Anglicanus, or an
Historical Review of the Stage."]
[Footnote 341: Christopher Rich, who began life as an attorney. See Nos.
12, 99.]
[Footnote 342: A farce by Nahum Tate, 1685.]
[Footnote 343: See No. 3.]
[Footnote 344: The theatre built by Betterton and his friends in 1695,
in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields, was pulled down and rebuilt by
Christopher Rich in 1714. The Roman Catholic Church here referred to was
in Duke (now Sardinia) Street, on the west side of the square.]