A period in our dramatic annals has been passed over during the progress
of the civil wars, which indeed was one of silence, but not of repose in
the theatre. It lasted beyond the death of Charles the First, when the
fine arts seemed also to have suffered with the monarch. The theatre,
for the first time in any nation, was abolished by a public ordinance,
and the actors, and consequently all that family of genius who by their
labours or their tastes are connected with the drama, were reduced to
silence. The actors were forcibly dispersed, and became even some of the
most persecuted objects of the new government.
It may excite our curiosity to trace the hidden footsteps of this
numerous fraternity of genius. Hypocrisy and Fanaticism had, at length,
triumphed over Wit and Satire. A single blow could not, however,
annihilate those never-dying powers; nor is suppression always
extinction. Reduced to a state which did not allow of uniting in a body,
still their habits and their affections could not desert them: actors
would attempt to resume their functions, and the genius of the authors
and the tastes of the people would occasionally break out, though
scattered and concealed.
Mr. Gifford has noticed, in his introduction to Massinger, the noble
contrast between our actors at that time, with those of revolutionary
France, when, to use his own emphatic expression--"One wretched actor
only deserted his sovereign; while of the vast multitude fostered by the
nobility and the royal family of France, not one individual adhered to
their cause: all rushed madly forward to plunder and assassinate their
benefactors."
The contrast is striking, but the result must be traced to a different
principle; for the cases are not parallel as they appear. The French
actors did not occupy the same ground as ours. Here, the fanatics shut
up the theatre, and extirpated the art and the artists: there, the
fanatics enthusiastically converted the theatre into an instrument of
their own revolution, and the French actors therefore found an increased
national patronage. It was natural enough that actors would not desert a
flourishing profession. "The plunder and assassinations," indeed, were
quite peculiar to themselves as Frenchmen, not as actors.
The destruction of the theatre here was the result of an ancient quarrel
between the puritanic party and the whole _corps dramatique_. In this
little history of plays and players, like more important history, we
perceive how all human events form but a series of consequences, linked
together; and we must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an
event which occurred in that of Charles the First. It has been perhaps
peculiar to this land of contending opinions, and of happy and unhappy
liberty, that a gloomy sect was early formed, who drawing, as they
fancied, the principles of their conduct from the literal precepts of
the Gospel, formed those views of human nature which were more
practicable in a desert than a city, and which were rather suited to a
monastic order than to a polished people. These were our puritans, who
at first, perhaps from utter simplicity, among other extravagant
reforms, imagined that of the extinction of the theatre. Numerous works
from that time fatigued their own pens and their readers' heads, founded
on literal interpretations of the Scriptures, which were applied to our
drama, though written ere our drama existed: voluminous quotations from
the Fathers, who had only witnessed farcical interludes and licentious
pantomimes: they even quoted classical authority to prove that a
"stage-player" was considered infamous by the Romans; among whom,
however, Roscius, the admiration of Rome, received the princely
remuneration of a thousand denarii per diem; the tragedian, Æsopus,
bequeathed about £150,000 to his son;[148] remunerations which show the
high regard in which the great actors were held among the Roman people.
A series of writers might be collected of these anti-dramatists.[149]
The licentiousness of our comedies had too often indeed presented a fair
occasion for their attacks; and they at length succeeded in purifying
the stage: we owe them this good, but we owe little gratitude to that
blind zeal which was desirous of extinguishing the theatre, which wanted
the taste also to feel that the theatre was a popular school of
morality; that the stage is a supplement to the pulpit; where virtue,
according to Plato's sublime idea, moves our love and affections when
made visible to the eye. Of this class, among the earliest writers was
Stephen Gosson, who in 1579 published "The School of Abuse, or a
Pleasant Invective against Poets, Players, Jesters, and such like
Caterpillars." Yet this Gosson dedicated his work to Sir Philip Sidney,
a great lover of plays, and one who has vindicated their morality in his
"Defence of Poesy." The same puritanic spirit soon reached our
universities; for when a Dr. Gager had a play performed at Christchurch,
Dr. Reynolds, of Queen's College, terrified at the Satanic novelty,
published "The Ouerthrow of Stage-plays," 1593; a tedious invective,
foaming at the mouth of its text with quotations and authorities; for
that was the age when authority was stronger than opinion, and the
slightest could awe the readers. Reynolds takes great pains to prove
that a stage-play is infamous, by the opinions of antiquity; that a
theatre corrupts morals, by those of the Fathers; but the most
reasonable point of attack is "the sin of boys wearing the dress and
affecting the airs of women."[150] This was too long a flagrant evil in
the theatrical economy. To us there appears something so repulsive in
the exhibition of boys, or men, personating female characters, that one
cannot conceive how they could ever have been tolerated as a substitute
for the spontaneous grace, the melting voice, and the soothing looks of
a female. It was quite impossible to give the tenderness of a woman to
any perfection of feeling, in a personating male; and to this cause may
we not attribute that the female characters have never been made chief
personages among our elder poets, as they would assuredly have been, had
they not been conscious that the male actor could not have sufficiently
affected the audience? A poet who lived in Charles the Second's day, and
who has written a prologue to Othello, to introduce the _first actress_
on our stage, has humorously touched on this gross absurdity.
Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the Guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With brows so large, and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call _Desdemona_--enter _Giant_.
Yet at the time the absurd custom prevailed, Tom Nash, in his _Pierce
Pennilesse_, commends our stage for not having, as they had abroad,
women-actors, or "courtezans," as he calls them: and even so late as in
1650, when women were first introduced on our stage, endless are the
apologies for the _indecorum_ of this novel usage! Such are the
difficulties which occur even in forcing bad customs to return to
nature; and so long does it take to infuse into the multitude a little
common sense! It is even probable that this happy revolution originated
from mere necessity, rather than from choice; for the boys who had been
trained to act female characters before the Rebellion, during the
present suspension of the theatre, had grown too masculine to resume
their tender office at the Restoration; and, as the same poet observes,
Doubting we should never play agen,
We have played all our _women_ into _men_;
so that the introduction of women was the mere result of
necessity:--hence all these apologies for the most natural ornament of
the stage.[151]
This volume of Reynolds seems to have been the shadow and precursor of
one of the most substantial of literary monsters, in the tremendous
"Histriomastix, or Player's Scourge," of Prynne, in 1633. In that
volume, of more than a thousand closely-printed quarto pages, all that
was ever written against plays and players, perhaps, may be found: what
followed could only have been transcripts from a genius who could raise
at once the Mountain and the Mouse. Yet Collier, so late as in 1698,
renewed the attack still more vigorously, and with final success;
although he left room for Arthur Bedford a few years afterwards, in his
"Evil and Danger of Stage-plays:" in which extraordinary work he
produced "seven thousand instances, taken out of plays of the present
century;" and a catalogue of "fourteen hundred texts of scripture,
ridiculed by the Stage." This religious anti-dramatist must have been
more deeply read in the drama than even its most fervent lovers. His
piety pursued too deeply the study of such impious productions; and such
labours were probably not without more amusement than he ought to have
found in them.
This stage persecution, which began in the reign of Elizabeth, had been
necessarily resented by the theatrical people, and the fanatics were
really objects too tempting for the traders in wit and satire to pass
by. They had made themselves very marketable; and the puritans, changing
their character with the times, from Elizabeth to Charles the First,
were often the _Tartuffes_ of the stage.[152] But when they became the
government itself, in 1642, all the theatres were suppressed, because
"stage-plaies do not suit with seasons of humiliation; but fasting and
praying have been found very effectual." This was but a mild cant, and
the suppression, at first, was only to be temporary. But as they gained
strength, the hypocrite, who had at first only struck a gentle blow at
the theatre, with redoubled vengeance buried it in its own ruins.
Alexander Brome, in his verses on Richard Brome's Comedies, discloses
the secret motive:--
---- 'Tis worth our note,
Bishops and _players_, both suffer'd in one vote:
And reason good, for _they_ had cause to fear them;
One did suppress their schisms, and t'other JEER THEM.
Bishops were guiltiest, for they swell'd with riches;
T'other had nought but verses, songs and speeches,
And by their ruin, the state did no more
But rob the spittle, and unrag the poor.
They poured forth the long-suppressed bitterness of their souls six
years afterwards, in their ordinance of 1648, for "the suppression of
all stage-plaies, and for the taking down all their boxes, stages, and
seats whatsoever, that so there might be no more plaies acted." "Those
proud parroting players" are described as "a sort of superbious
ruffians; and, because sometimes the asses are clothed in lions' skins,
the dolts imagine themselves somebody, and walke in as great state as
Cæsar." This ordinance against "boxes, stages, and seats," was, without
a metaphor, a war of extermination. They passed their ploughshare over
the land of the drama, and sowed it with their salt; and the spirit
which raged in the governing powers appeared in the deed of one of their
followers. When an actor had honourably surrendered himself in battle to
this spurious "saint," he exclaimed, "Cursed be he who doth the work of
the Lord negligently," and shot his prisoner because he was an actor!
We find some account of the dispersed actors in that curious morsel of
"Historica Histrionica," preserved in the twelfth volume of Dodsley's
Old Plays; full of the traditional history of the theatre, which the
writer appears to have gleaned from the reminiscences of the old
cavalier, his father.
The actors were "Malignants" to a man, if we except that "wretched
actor," as Mr. Gifford distinguishes him, who was, however, only such
for his politics: and he pleaded hard for his treason, that he really
was a presbyterian, although an actor. Of these men, who had lived in
the sunshine of a court, and amidst taste and criticism, many perished
in the field, from their affection for their royal master. Some sought
humble occupations; and not a few, who, by habits long indulged, and
their own turn of mind, had hands too delicate to put to work, attempted
often to entertain secret audiences, and were often dragged to prison.
These disturbed audiences were too unpleasant to afford much employment
to the actors. Francis Kirkman, the author and bookseller, tells us they
were often seized on by the soldiers, and stripped and fined at their
pleasure. A curious circumstance occurred in the economy of these
strolling theatricals: these seizures often deprived them of their
wardrobe; and among the stage directions of the time, may be found among
the exits and the entrances, these: _Enter the red coat--Exit hat and
cloak_, which were, no doubt, considered not as the least precious parts
of the whole living company: they were at length obliged to substitute
painted cloth for the splendid habits of the drama.
At this epoch a great comic genius, Robert Cox, invented a peculiar sort
of dramatic exhibition, suited to the necessities of the time, short
pieces which he mixed with other amusements, that these might disguise
the acting. It was under the pretence of rope-dancing that he filled the
Red Bull playhouse, which was a large one, with such a confluence that
as many went back for want of room as entered. The dramatic contrivance
consisted of a combination of the richest comic scenes into one piece,
from Shakspeare, Marston, Shirley, &c., concealed under some taking
title; and these pieces of plays were called "Humours" or "Drolleries."
These have been collected by Marsh, and reprinted by Kirkman, as put
together by Cox, for the use of theatrical booths at fairs.[153] The
argument prefixed to each piece serves as its plot; and drawn as most
are from some of our dramas, these "Drolleries" may still be read with
great amusement, and offer, seen altogether, an extraordinary specimen
of our national humour. The price this collection obtains among
book-collectors is excessive. In "The bouncing Knight, or the Robbers
robbed," we recognise our old friend Falstaff, and his celebrated
adventure: "The Equal Match" is made out of "Rule a Wife and have a
Wife;" and thus most. There are, however, some original pieces, by Cox
himself, which were the most popular favourites; being characters
created by himself, for himself, from ancient farces: such were _The
Humours of John Swabber, Simpleton the Smith_, &c. These remind us of
the extemporal comedy and the pantomimical characters of Italy, invented
by actors of genius. This Cox was the delight of the city, the country,
and the universities: assisted by the greatest actors of the time,
expelled from the theatre, it was he who still preserved alive, as it
were by stealth, the suppressed spirit of the drama. That he merited the
distinctive epithet of "the incomparable Robert Cox," as Kirkman calls
him, we can only judge by the memorial of our mimetic genius, which will
be best given in Kirkman's words. "As meanly as you may now think of
these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and, I may
say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable Robert
Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and
author of most of these farces. How have I heard him cried up for his
_John Swabber_, and _Simpleton the Smith_; in which he being to appear
with a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several
of the female spectators and auditors to long for it; and once that
well-known natural, _Jack Adams of Clerkenwell_, seeing him with bread
and butter on the stage, and knowing him, cried out, 'Cuz! Cuz! give me
some!' to the great pleasure of the audience. And so naturally did he
act the smith's part, that being at a fair in a country town, and that
farce being presented, the only master-smith of the town came to him,
saying, 'Well, although your father speaks so ill of you, yet when the
fair is done, if you will come and work with me, I will give you twelve
pence a week more than I give any other journeyman.' Thus was he taken
for a smith bred, that was, indeed, as much of any trade."
To this low state the gloomy and exasperated fanatics, who had so often
smarted under the satirical whips of the dramatists, had reduced the
drama itself; without, however, extinguishing the talents of the
players, or the finer ones of those who once derived their fame from
that noble arena of genius, the English stage. At the first suspension
of the theatre by the Long Parliament in 1642, they gave vent to their
feelings in an admirable satire. About this time "petitions" to the
parliament from various classes were put into vogue; multitudes were
presented to the House from all parts of the country, and from the city
of London; and some of these were extraordinary. The _porters_, said to
have been 15,000 in number, declaimed with great eloquence on the
bloodsucking malignants for insulting the privileges of parliament, and
threatened to come to extremities, and make good the saying "necessity
has no law;" there was one from the _beggars_, who declared, that by
means of the bishops and popish lords they knew not where to get bread;
and we are told of a third from the _tradesmen's wives_ in London,
headed by a brewer's wife: all these were encouraged by their party, and
were alike "most thankfully accepted."
The satirists soon turned this new political trick of "petitions" into
an instrument for their own purpose: we have "Petitions of the
Poets,"--of the House of Commons to the King,--Remonstrances to the
Porters' Petition, &c.: spirited political satires. One of these, the
"Players' Petition to the Parliament," after being so long silenced,
that they might play again, is replete with sarcastic allusions. It may
be found in that rare collection, entitled "Rump Songs," 1662, but with
the usual incorrectness of the press in that day. The following extract
I have corrected from a manuscript copy:--
Now while you reign, our low petition craves
That we, the king's true subjects and your slaves,
May in our comic mirth and tragic rage
Set up the theatre, and show the stage;
This shop of truth and fancy, where we vow
Not to act anything you disallow.
We will not dare at your strange votes to jeer,
Or personate King PYM[154] with his state-fleer;
Aspiring Catiline should be forgot,
Bloody Sejanus, or whoe'er could plot
Confusion 'gainst a state; the war betwixt
The Parliament and just Harry the Sixth
Shall have no thought or mention, 'cause their power
Not only placed, but lost him in the Tower;
Nor will we parallel, with least suspicion,
Your synod with the Spanish inquisition.
All these, and such like maxims as may mar
Your soaring plots, or show you what you are,
We shall omit, lest our inventions shake them:
Why should the men be wiser than you make them?
We think there should not such a difference be
'Twixt our profession and your quality:
You meet, plot, act, talk high with minds immense;
The like with us, but only we speak sense
Inferior unto yours; we can tell how
To depose kings, there we know more than you,
Although not more than what we would; then we
Likewise in our vast privilege agree;
But that yours is the larger; and controls
Not only lives and fortunes, but men's souls,
Declaring by an enigmatic sense
A privilege on each man's conscience,
As if the Trinity could not consent
To save a soul but by the parliament.
We make the people laugh at some strange show,
And as they laugh at us, they do at you;
Only i' the contrary we disagree,
For you can make them cry faster than we.
Your tragedies more real are express'd,
You murder men in earnest, we in jest:
There we come short; but if you follow thus,
Some wise men fear you will come short of us.
As humbly as we did begin, we pray,
Dear schoolmasters, you'll give us leave to play
Quickly before the king comes; for we would
Be glad to say you've done a little good
Since you have sat: your play is almost done
As well as ours--would it had ne'er begun.
But we shall find, ere the last act be spent,
_Enter the King, exeunt the Parliament._
And _Heigh then up we go!_ who by the frown
Of guilty members have been voted down,
Until a legal trial show us how
You used the king, and _Heigh then up go you!_
So pray your humble slaves with all their powers,
That when they have their due, you may have yours.
Such was the petition of the suppressed players in 1642; but, in 1653,
their secret exultation appears, although the stage was not yet restored
to them, in some verses prefixed to RICHARD BROME'S Plays, by ALEXANDER
BROME, which may close our little history. Alluding to the theatrical
people, he moralises on the fate of players:--
See the strange twirl of times; when such poor things
Outlive the dates of parliaments or kings!
This revolution makes exploded wit
Now see the fall of those that ruin'd it;
And the condemned stage hath now obtain'd
To see her executioners arraign'd.
There's nothing permanent: those high great men,
That rose from dust, to dust may fall again;
And fate so orders things, that the same hour
Sees the same man both in contempt and power;
For the multitude, in whom the power doth lie,
Do in one breath cry _Hail!_ and _Crucify!_
At this period, though deprived of a theatre, the taste for the drama
was, perhaps, the more lively among its lovers; for, besides the
performances already noticed, sometimes connived at, and sometimes
protected by bribery, in Oliver's time they stole into a practice of
privately acting at noblemen's houses, particularly at Holland-house, at
Kensington: and "Alexander Goff, _the woman-actor_, was the jackal, to
give notice of time and place to the lovers of the drama," according to
the writer of "Historica Histrionica." The players, urged by their
necessities, published several excellent manuscript plays, which they
had hoarded in their dramatic exchequers, as the sole property of their
respective companies. In one year appeared fifty of these new plays. Of
these dramas many have, no doubt, perished; for numerous titles are
recorded, but the plays are not known; yet some may still remain in
their manuscript state, in hands not capable of valuing them. All our
old plays were the property of the actors, who bought them for their own
companies. The immortal works of Shakspeare had not descended to us, had
Heminge and Condell felt no sympathy for the fame of their friend. They
had been scattered and lost, and, perhaps, had not been discriminated
among the numerous manuscript plays of that age. One more effort, during
this suspension of the drama, was made in 1655, to recal the public
attention to its productions. This was a very curious collection by John
Cotgrave, entitled "The English Treasury of Wit and Language, collected
out of the most, and best, of our English Dramatick Poems." It appears
by Cotgrave's preface, that "The Dramatick Poem," as he calls our
tragedies and comedies, "had been of late too much slighted." He tells
us how some, not wanting in wit themselves, but "through a stiff and
obstinate prejudice, have, in _this neglect_, lost the benefit of many
rich and useful observations; not duly considering, or believing, that
the _framers_ of them were the most fluent and redundant wits that this
age, or I think any other, ever knew." He enters further into this just
panegyric of our old dramatic writers, whose acquired knowledge in
ancient and modern languages, and whose luxuriant fancies, which they
derived from no other sources but their own native growth, are viewed to
great advantage in COTGRAVE'S commonplaces; and, perhaps, still more in
HAYWARD'S "British Muse," which collection was made under the
supervisal, and by the valuable aid, of OLDYS, an experienced caterer of
these relishing morsels.