A NEW PLAYWRIGHT
Mary Russell Mitford’s love of the drama was awakened in childhood, and
at her school in Hans Place it was much developed. “After my return
home,” she writes, “came days of eager and solitary poring over the
mighty treasures of the printed drama, that finest form of poetry which
can never be lost. At school I had been made acquainted, like other
schoolgirls, with Racine. Little did Madame de Maintenon, proud queen
of the left hand, think when the gentle poet died of a courtly frown,
that she and St. Cyr would be best remembered by ‘Athalie!’”
As Mary grew up she longed to try her hand at tragedy—that ambition of
young writers—but it was not until in later years when spurred on by
the necessity of earning money for the support of her father and mother
that she conceived the idea of writing plays for the stage. She had
heard that occasionally large sums of money were gained by the authors
of successful dramas, and she was encouraged in her undertaking by the
recollection that when her poems were first published Coleridge had
prophesied that the author of “Blanche” would write a tragedy. “So,”
writes Mary, “I took heart of grace and resolved to try a play.”
Her first attempt, a comedy, was rejected by the manager of a theatre.
“Then, nothing daunted,” she writes, “I tried tragedy, and produced
five acts on the story of _Fiesco_. But just as—conscious of the
smallness of my means and the greatness of my object—I was about to
relinquish the pursuit in despair, I met with a critic so candid a
friend, so kind, that, aided by his encouragement, all difficulties
seemed to vanish. I speak,” she adds, “of the author of _Ion_—Mr.
Justice Talfourd—then a very young man ... _Foscari_ was the result of
this encouragement.”
But before _Foscari_ had appeared on the stage her play of _Julian_,
having been read and approved by Macready, was performed with that
celebrated actor as the principal character. It was, happily,
successful, and, greatly cheered by this result and also by receiving
no less than £200 from the manager of Covent Garden theatre, Mary
Mitford continued her dramatic work.
But she had to go through many trials connected with it, which often
affected her health. The main cause of these trials were the unhappy
dissensions between Macready and Charles Kemble, who both appear to
have had hasty tempers. Mary writes to Sir William Elford on her return
home from a hurried visit to London: “My soul sickens within me when
I think of the turmoil and tumult I have undergone and am [still]
to undergo.... I am tossed about between Kemble and Macready like a
cricket-ball—affronting both parties and suspected by both because I
will not come to a deadly rupture with either.”
But, happily, later on she had reason to think differently about these
great actors. She speaks of Macready as “a most ardent and devoted
friend”; and when, in the autumn of 1826, _Foscari_ was about to appear
on the stage, she says she feels “inclined to hate herself for her
mistrust of Charles Kemble.” “There are no words for his kindness,” she
declares, “from the beginning of this affair to the end.”
Miss Mitford, accompanied by her father, went up to London for the
first performance of _Foscari_ at Covent Garden theatre, which was
fixed for the 5th November. They lodged at No. 45 Frith Street, Soho
Square, whence Mary wrote to her mother an account of the great event.
Outside her letter were the words, “Good news.” The letter is dated
Saturday night, November 5th:—
“I cannot suffer this parcel to go to you, my dearest mother, without
writing a few lines to tell you of the complete success of my play.
It was received with rapturous applause [and] without the slightest
symptoms of disapprobation from beginning to end.... William Harness
and Mr. Talfourd are both quite satisfied with the whole affair, and my
other friends are half crazy....
“I quite long to hear how you, my own dearest darling, have borne the
suspense and anxiety consequent on this affair, which, triumphantly as
it has turned out, was certainly a very nervous business. They expect
the play to run three times a week till Christmas. It was so immense a
house that you might have walked over the heads in the pit; and great
numbers were turned away, in spite of the wretched weather. All the
actors were good.... Mr. Young gave out the tragedy amidst immense
applause.”
[Illustration: FRITH STREET, SOHO SQUARE]
Mary herself was not present at this wonderful scene. Writing in
later years she remarks: “I had not nerve enough to attend the first
representation of my tragedies. I sat still and trembling in some quiet
apartment near, and thither some friend flew to set my heart at ease.
Generally the messenger of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick
and ardent spirit lent him wings on such an occasion, and who had full
sympathy with my love for a large canvas, however indifferently filled.”
When thanking Sir William Elford for his congratulations upon the
success of _Foscari_, Miss Mitford says: “Hitherto the success has been
very brilliant. We can hardly expect it to last.... But great good has
been done if (which Heaven avert) the tragedy stop not to-night.”
The agreement between the theatre and Miss Mitford for _Foscari_, we
are told, was £100 on the third, the ninth, the fifteenth, and the
twentieth nights, while the copyright of the play (together with a
volume of Dramatic Sketches) was sold to Whittaker for £150.
Miss Mitford had some new and strange experiences connected with the
performance of her plays, and amongst these she has recorded her first
sight of a theatre by daylight.
“To one accustomed to the imposing aspect of a great theatre at night,”
she writes, “blazing with light and beauty, no contrast can be greater
than to enter the same theatre at noontide. Leaving daylight behind
you, and stumbling as best you may through dark passages and amidst the
inextricable labyrinth of scenery, [you are] too happy if you be not
projected into the orchestra or swallowed up by a trap-door....
“When the eye becomes accustomed to the darkness the contrasts are
sufficiently amusing. Solemn tragedians ... hatted and great-coated,
skipping about, chatting and joking like common mortals ... tragic
heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in the closest of
bonnets and thickest of shawls; untidy ballet girls (there was a
dance in _Foscari_) walking through their quadrille to the sound of a
solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord from amidst the
tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one hardly
knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly.
“Oh, that din! Voices from every part, above, below, around, and in
every key, bawling, shouting, screaming; heavy weights rolling here
and falling there, bells ringing, one could not tell why, and the
ubiquitous call-boy everywhere!...
“No end to the absurdities and discrepancies of a rehearsal! I
contributed my full share to the amount.... There is a gun in _Julian_,
and I, frightened by one when a child, ‘hate a gun like a hurt wild
duck’ ... and my first address to Mr. Macready was an earnest entreaty
that he would not suffer them to fire that gun at rehearsal. They did,
nevertheless, ... but the smiling bow of the great tragedian had spared
me the worst part of that sort of fright, the expectation....
“Troubled and anxious though they were,” she adds, “those were pleasant
days, guns and all, days of hope dashed with so much fear, and of fear
illumined with fitful rays of hope. And in those rehearsals ... where
nobody is ever found when he is wanted, and nobody ever seems to know a
syllable of his part ... the business must somehow have gone on, for at
night the scenes fall into the right places, the proper actors come at
the right times, speeches are spoken in due order, and to the no small
astonishment of the novice, who had given herself up for lost, the play
succeeds.”