springing up, not only in London proper, but in all its suburbs, yet it
is only history repeating itself. From 1570 to 1629 no less than
seventeen playhouses had been built in London, and London then extended
only from the Tower to Westminster, and from Oxford Street to Blackman
Street in the Borough. The first London theatre was the Fortune,[#]
opened about the year 1600, a large round, brick building between
Whitecross Street and Golding--now Golden--Lane, which was burnt down on
December 9, 1621. The town was then full of actors, for besides those
playing at the various theatres, there were royal comedians. Many
noblemen kept companies of players, nay, the lawyers acted in the Inns
of Court, and there were actors of note among them. But the inevitable
reaction ensued. Amidst the storms of the Revolution the stage was
neglected. Even Shakespeare had to take a back-seat till Garrick
brought him into fashion again, though it is chiefly to the learned and
enthusiastic criticism and appreciation of German students of
Shakespeare that the revival of his plays on the stage is due. His
reputation was 'made in Germany,' and the Germans we have to thank for a
Shakespeare who is presentable to a modern audience, which the original
writer was not; his plays were only fit to be acted before the savages
who delighted in bull and bear baiting. This estimate of the
Shakespearian drama is not in accordance with the prevailing sentiment,
but we have a right to our opinions and the courage to express them.
However, this is only incidental to our theme, which deals more with
actors and acting than with the plays they took parts in.
[#] The Curtain is said to have been erected in 1570, on the site of the
present Curtain Road, but the date is doubtful, and it was more of an
inn than a playhouse.
There is a general opinion abroad that the realistic play is of quite
modern date, probably brought on the stage in 'L'Assommoir.' In a
publication of July, 1797, I find it stated that 'our managers some time
ago conceived it would be proper to introduce realities instead of
fictions. Hence we have seen real horses and real bulls on the stage,
gracing the triumphal entry of some hero. Hence, too, real water has
been supplied in such quantities that Harlequin's leap into the sea
would now really be no joke.... The introduction of water will, no
doubt, facilitate the introduction of real sea-fights, provided we can
get real admirals and seamen.' But the writer seems to have been
oblivious of the fact that, in the middle of the last century, already
the water of the New River had been carried under the flooring of
Sadler's Wells Theatre, the boards being removed, for the exhibition of
aquatic performances. And as to this century, long before the more
recent realistic plays, we have seen in the sixties a real cab with a
real horse brought on to the stage to give the heroine, who is about to
elope, the opportunity of uttering the pun: 'Now, four-wheeler, wo!'
(for weal or woe!). And a very good pun it is.
The formation of the English drama is chiefly due to the 'Children of
Paul,' or pupils of St. Paul's School, in those days nicknamed the
'Pigeons of St. Paul.' The dramatic celebrity of these juvenile
performers goes back as far as the year 1378. Originally they confined
themselves to 'moralities,' but in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, before
whom they acted on various occasions, they appeared in the regular drama
with considerable applause. They exhibited burlesque interludes and
farcical comedies. Their schoolroom, which stood behind the Convocation
House near St. Paul's, was their stage; but about the year 1580 the
citizens, bent on driving all players out of the city, caused it to be
removed. The plague had, as usual, caused great ravages in London, and
it was thought that the actors were great means of spreading it,
wherefore their performances were altogether prohibited. When the
'Children of Paul' performed out of their own premises, it was generally
the Blackfriars Theatre they resorted to. When they performed in the
school-house the admission was 2d. This charge was made to keep the
company select, and according to a passage in 'Jacke Drum's
Entertainment,' first printed in 1601, it _was_ select:
'SIR EDWARD: I saw the "Children of Paul's" last night, and troth, they
pleased me prettie, prettie well. The apes in time will do it
handsomely.
'PLANET: I like the audience that frequenteth there with much applause.
A man shall not be choked with the stench of garlick, nor be passed to
the barmy jacket of a beer brewer.'
The stage did not attain a dignified position till the time of
Shakespeare. He and his fellow-actors--Burbage, Heminge, Condell,
Taylor, Kemp, Sly--ennobled it, and since then the roll of English
actors who have gained distinction on the boards is very long, and our
limited space allows us to refer to but a few of them, and then only to
some characteristic traits.
Let us commence with a defence of Garrick's conduct towards Johnson.
When the latter was preparing his edition of 'Shakespeare,' Garrick
offered him the use of his choice library. But, entering the room, he
found Johnson, according to his usual habit, pulling the books off the
shelves, breaking their backs, more easily to read them, and throwing
them carelessly on the floor. Garrick naturally grew very angry, for
which he has been much abused, charged with 'having acted in abominably
bad taste ... without any true gentlemanly feeling ... that knowing his
friend's character ... Garrick ought to have been prepared for any
slight unfavourable consequences. He ought to have known that much
might be excused in so great a man,' etc. Now, this is most undeserved
censure on a man of greater parts than Johnson ever could boast of. The
only thing he ever wrote which will live is his Dictionary. As to his
greatness, if unabashed bounce and a dictatorial jaw constitute
greatness, he certainly, judging him by Bozzy's account, could lay claim
to such. Garrick's generosity induced him to offer a bear the use of
his books. Still, he had a right to expect that even a bear, who
professed to admire and practise literature, would know how to treat
books. But the bear remained a bear everywhere. He treated Mr.
Thrale's books no better. But Garrick was generous in other ways. He
was often visited at his villa, near Sunbury, by a gentleman with whom
he used to have long and violent arguments on various matters, the
visitor generally differing from, and contradicting, his host. One day
Garrick, at the gentleman's request, readily lent him L100. Their
discussions continued, but the visitor was no longer so violent in his
arguments, nor did he contradict Garrick as he had done formerly. On
one occasion, when Garrick had reintroduced an argument his friend had
always violently combated, but now mildly conceded, Garrick, who liked a
lively discussion, jumped up and exclaimed: 'Pay me my hundred pounds,
or contradict me!' Garrick's generous nature broke forth in that
exclamation, and he did not wish his friend to feel under an obligation.
That his character was gentle and chivalrous is proved by the fact that
his wife and he were considered the fondest pair ever known, though the
lady was a woman with plenty of spirit. Her letter of remonstrance
against Kean's Abel Drugger was brief: 'DEAR SIR,--You don't know how to
play Abel Drugger.' To which Kean courteously, yet wittily, replied:
'DEAR MADAM,--I know it.' She must have been very sprightly, too, for
when at the age of ninety-eight, and about two months before her death
(November, 1822), she visited Westminster Abbey, she asked the clergyman
who attended her if there would be room for her by the side of her
David--'not,' she said, 'that I think I am likely soon to require it,
for I am yet a mere girl!' She was a Viennese danseuse, Madame
Violette, when Garrick married her, and Horace Walpole reports that it
was whispered at the time that she had been sent over to England by no
less a person than the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, to be out of the
way of that somewhat jealous lady's husband. Apprehensive that he might
be ridiculed for marrying a dancer, Garrick got some friend to satirize
him publicly beforehand. But we have seen that the marriage turned out
a very happy one. Garrick had been the pupil of Johnson, when the
latter kept, or attempted to keep, a school near Lichfield, and he and
his two fellow-pupils (he never had more than two) used to peep through
the keyhole of his bedroom that they might turn into ridicule the
doctor's awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, who was by many years her
husband's senior, and elephantine in her figure, with swollen cheeks and
a red complexion, produced by paint and the liberal use of cordials. In
after-years Garrick used to exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of
mimicry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter. This may
seem ungenerous, but Johnson paid Garrick back in the same coin. Vexed
at Garrick's great success in his profession, he made it his business
always to express the greatest contempt for actors.
Quin, the contemporary of Garrick, and his rival, was employed by Prince
Frederick to instruct the Royal children in elocution, and when he was
informed of the graceful manner in which George III. had delivered his
first speech from the throne, he proudly said: 'Aye, it was I who taught
the boy to speak.' Quin could be witty. Disputing concerning the
execution of Charles I., and his opponent asking, 'But by what laws was
he put to death?' Quin replied: 'By all the laws he had left them.'
When playing at Bath, he was at an evening party, where the
transmigration of souls was being discussed. A lady, remarkable for the
whiteness of her neck and bust, asked him what animal he would wish to
be transformed into. Quin, looking sharply at a fly then travelling
over her white neck, with an arch glance at her, said: 'A fly!' On
another occasion to Lady Berkeley, a celebrated beauty, he said: 'Why,
your ladyship is looking as charming as the spring.' The season was
spring, but the day was raw and cold, and Quin, seeing he had paid the
lady but a poor compliment, corrected himself by adding: 'Or, rather, I
wish the spring would look a little more like your ladyship.'
In Clare Street, Clare Market, there is a public-house called the Sun.
John Rich, the harlequin and lessee of the Duke's Theatre in Portugal
Street (long since taken down), returning from the theatre in a
hackney-coach, ordered to be driven to the Sun. On arriving there, he
jumped out of the coach, and through the window into the public-house.
The coachman thought his fare was a 'bilk'; but whilst he was still
looking up and down the street, Rich again jumped into the coach, and
told the driver to take him to another public-house. On reaching it,
Rich offered to pay the coachman, but the latter refused the money,
saying: 'No, none of your money, Mr. Devil; though you wear shoes, I can
see your hoofs'; and he drove off as quickly as possible. The theatre
called the Duke's Theatre, in Portugal Street, was rebuilt by
Christopher Rich, the father of the above-mentioned John, but he died
before the building was quite finished, and it was opened by John; and
it is in this theatre that the modern stage took its rise, and here the
earliest Shakespearian revivals took place. Quin was one of the
performers there; and there the 'Beggar's Opera' was first produced, and
acted on sixty-two nights in one season, causing the saying that it made
Gay rich and Rich gay. The opera was written under the auspices of the
Duchess of Queensberry, who agreed to indemnify Rich in all expenses if
the daring speculation should fail.
Rich, in 1731, built himself a new theatre--the Covent Garden
Theatre--on a site granted by the Duke of Bedford, at a ground-rent of
L100 per annum. When a new lease was granted, in 1792, the ground-rent
was raised to L940 per annum. When Thomas Killigrew was manager of the
theatre in Bear Yard, Clare Market, he was a great favourite with
Charles II. This King at times showed great indifference to the
business of the State, and refused to attend the Council. One day, when
he had been long expected, Lord Lauderdale went to his apartments, but
was refused admission. His lordship complained to Nell Gwynne, upon
which she wagered him L100 that the King would that evening attend the
Council. Then she sent for Killigrew, and asked him to dress as if for a
journey, and to enter the King's rooms without ceremony, with further
instructions what he was to do then. As soon as the King saw him, he
said:
'What, Killigrew! Where are you going? Did I not give orders that I
was not to be disturbed?'
'I don't mind your orders, and I am going as fast as I can.'
'Why, where are you going?'
'To hell,' replied the jester in a sepulchral tone.
'What are you going to do there?' asked the King, laughing.
'To fetch back Oliver Cromwell, to take some care of the national
affairs, for I am sure your Majesty takes none.'
And the King went to the Council.
Another famous comedian of that day was Joe Haines, who was an Oxford
M.A., but a scamp of the first order, who managed to cheat even the
rector of the Jesuit College in Paris out of L40 by a pretended note
from the Duke of Monmouth. Not long after, meeting with a simple-minded
clergyman, he told him that he was one of the patentees of Drury Lane,
and appointed him his chaplain, instructing him at the same time to go
to the theatre with a large bell, to ring it, and call out: 'Players,
come to prayers!' Which the clergyman did, till he found he had been
hoaxed. In the reign of James II., this Haines turned Roman Catholic,
and told Sunderland that the Virgin Mary had appeared, and said to him:
'Joe, arise!' To this Sunderland dryly replied that she should have
said 'Joseph,' if only out of respect for her husband.
The greatest actor at the time of Charles II. was undoubtedly Thomas
Betterton. He joined the company of Sir William Davenant in 1662.
Pepys frequently went to see him. In those days the pay of actors was
not what it is now; Betterton, in spite of the position he held in
public estimation, never had more than L5 a week, including L1, by way
of pension, to his wife, who retired in 1694. In 1709 he took a
benefit, at which the money taken at the doors was L75, but he received
also more than L450 in complimentary guineas; and in the following year
he had another benefit, by which he netted about L1,000. Of course,
according to modern notions, these are but small receipts; but they are
better than what seems to have been the standard of theatrical payments
in 1511--judging from a bill of that year, without name of place where
the acting took place, but which states that it was performed on the
feast of St. Margaret (July 20). According to legend, the devil, in the
shape of a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret, but she speedily made her
escape, and was thus considered to possess great powers of assisting
women in childbirth. The bill runs thus:
'To musicians, for three nights, L0 5s. 6d.; for players in bread and
ale, L0 3s. 1d.; for decorations, dresses, and play-books, L1 0s. 0d.;
to John Hobbard, priest, and author of the piece, L0 2s. 8d.; for the
place in which the presentation was held, L0 1s. 0d.; for furniture, L0
1s. 4d.; for fish and bread, L0 0s. 4d.; for painting three phantoms and
devils, L0 0s. 6d.; and for four chickens for the hero, L0 0s. 4d.' We
see here the author received only 2s. 8d. for writing the play. Matters
have improved since then; Sheridan realized L3,000 by the sale of his
altered play of 'Pizarro.' In the early part of this century authors of
successful pieces received from the theatre from L250 to L500, and from
the purchaser of the copyright for publication from L100 to L400. Then
actors received L80 a week; favourite performers--stars, as we should
now call them--were paid L50 a night. Actors have at times found very
generous friends. When, in 1808, Covent Garden Theatre, then under the
management of John P. Kemble, was burnt down, the loss was immense, and
the insurances did not exceed L50,000. The then Duke of Northumberland
offered Kemble the sum of L10,000 as a loan on his simple bond. The
offer was accepted, and the bond given. On the day appointed for laying
the first stone, the bond was returned cancelled!
Italian opera-singers have made large fortunes in England. When Owen
McSwiney was lessee of the Haymarket, circa 1708, he engaged one
Nicolini, a Neapolitan, who really was a splendid actor and a
magnificent-looking man, with a voice which won universal admiration, at
a salary of eight hundred guineas for the season--at that time an
enormous sum. Nicolini left the stage in 1712, and returned to Italy,
where he built himself a fine villa, which, as a testimony of his
gratitude to the nation which enriched him, he called the English Folly.
In 1721 a company of French comedians occupied the Haymarket, to the
disgust of native actors. Aaron Hill, the dramatic author and
opera-manager, consequently had occasion to write to John Rich: 'I
suppose you know that the Duke of Montague and I have agreed that I am
to have that house half the week, and the "French vermin" the other
half.' International courtesies were at some discount at the time!
A few theatrical anecdotes may close these lucubrations. Actors
sometimes are strangely affected by their own parts. Betterton,
although his countenance was ruddy, when he performed Hamlet, through
the violent and sudden emotion of horror at the presence of his father's
spectre, instantly turned as white as his collar, whilst his whole body
was affected by a strong tremor. When Booth the first time attempted
the ghost, when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck
him with such horror that he became disconcerted to such a degree that
he could not speak his part. Of Mrs. Siddons, it was said that by the
force of fancy and reflection, she used to be so wrought up in preparing
to play Lady Constance in 'King John,' that, when she set out from her
own house to the theatre, she was already Constance herself.
Smith--better known as 'Gentleman Smith'--married a sister of Lord
Sandwich. For some time the union was kept concealed, but an apt
quotation of Charles Bannister elicited the truth:
'"Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague!"' said Bannister, when Foote
bantered Smith on the subject. The latter was not proof against the
sally, and acknowledged the marriage. 'Well,' said Bannister, 'I
rejoice that you have got a Sandwich from the family; but if ever you
get a dinner from them, I'll be hanged.' The prophecy proved true.
Michael Kelly was an English opera-singer, a musical composer, and at
one time Sheridan's manager at Drury Lane. He then went into the wine
trade, when Sheridan advised him to put over his door: 'Michael Kelly,
composer of wine, and importer of music.'
*VI.*
*OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS.*
When I was a little boy I drew most of my notions of life and mankind
from the picture-books for my use and instruction. I thought that Kings
and Queens wore their crowns and sceptres all day long, and took them to
bed with them, for I had thus seen them in the pictures in the books.
One engraving, I remember, I saw of a severe-looking gentleman, who had
thrown a gray doormat over his head, and sat behind a little desk
everlastingly writing away with an enormous quill pen. It was this
quill pen which specially riveted my attention. I was always given a
steel pen in my writing-lessons. Why not a quill? I asked my mother
who the man was, and was told he was a judge, and that what I took for a
door-mat was a wig which he wore to look dignified, and the great weight
of which was, moreover, intended to prevent his great legal learning
from evaporating through the pores of his skull, which was bald, but
compelled it to come out through his mouth only.