FROM THE DEATH OF ANNE OLDFIELD TO THAT OF WILKS.
Between the season of 1729-30, and that of 1733-34, great changes
took place. It is correct to say, that the stage "declined;" but if
we lose Mrs. Oldfield in the former period, we find some compensation
at the beginning of the latter, by first meeting, in Fielding and
Hippisley's booth, at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs, with one who
was destined to enthral the town,--modest Mrs. Pritchard, playing
Loveit, in a "Cure for Covetousness."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Porter reigned supreme; but the stage was deprived,
for more than a year, of the presence of her whom Mrs. Oldfield loved
to address as "mother," by an accident which dislocated her thigh.
Even after her recovery, the tragedy queen was forced to walk the
stage with a crutched stick, which, like a true artist, she turned to
account in her action.
Of actors of eminence, the greatest whom the stage lost was Wilks,
airy and graceful down to the last;--of him, who died in 1732, I
will speak more fully presently. Death also carried off quaint,
squeaking, little Norris, the excellent comic actor, popularly known
as "Jubilee Dicky." After Norris went Boheme, the pillar of the
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a dignified and accomplished tragedian, whose
Lear was full of antique grandeur and pathos;--it was, perhaps, the
only character in which the former young sailor's quarter-deck walk
was not discernible. Colley Cibber, too, must be reckoned among the
departed, since he retired from the stage, at the end of the season
1732-33, but occasionally returned to it. He was disheartened by the
break-up in the old partnership, and the manifest close of a period
of prosperity. Booth had sold half of his share in the patent to a
rich and silly amateur actor--Highmore. Wilks's widow, who inherited
her husband's share, was represented by attorney; Colley was uneasy
at having to encounter new partners, and he ultimately sold _his_
share to Highmore, for three thousand guineas.
While the stage failed in players, it was not upheld by the poets.
The gentlemen of the inns of court hissed Charles Johnson's "Medea,"
and did not even applaud the satirical allusion contained in it to
Pope. The town was weary of classical pieces. The "Eurydice" of
Mallet--who had been gate-keeper at the Edinburgh High School, and
had picked up learning enough to enable him to efficiently exercise
the office of tutor in the Duke of Montrose's family--fared no
better,[3] despite Mrs. Porter. The piece was as hard and as dry as
granite; but the author thought it had as much pathos as his ballad
of "William and Margaret."
In the prologue, tragedy was especially recommended to the patronage
of ladies, because therein the character of women is exalted; while
in the comedies of the day it was debased. But the epilogue, spoken
by Miss Robinson, in boy's clothes--"born for this dapper age--pert,
short, and clever"--showed that the poet did not much care for the
female character.
Jeffreys' "Merope" had no better success. His cousins of the Chandos
family may have laughed at the young collegian's bathos; but on
the second night there was not audience enough to make a laugh
comfortable; and the curtain did not rise.[4] Critics complained that
all tragic action on our stage turned on love; and Jeffreys contrived
to make three couple of nymphs and swains sigh or swear in this story
of mother and son! "Who could believe," says Voltaire, "that love
could have been introduced into such a story? But, since the times of
Charles II., love has taken possession of the English stage; and one
must acknowledge that no nation in the world has painted that passion
so badly." But Voltaire, you will remember, also said that Shakspeare
was "a savage!"
A Gloucestershire squire, named Tracy, tried his hand on "Periander,"
and failed, though he was guiltless of a false quantity; unlike
Addison's learned friend, Frowde, who tripped in his penultimates,
with the alacrity of Hughes!
It was not altogether because our ancestors were weary of classical
tragedies, that a short, fat, one-eyed, and well-to-do dissenter
and jeweller, of Moorgate Street, reaped such a triumph, with his
modern and domestic tragedy, "George Barnwell." _Mr._ Lillo had
previously written a ballad-opera, "Sylvia;" but now he aimed to show
the hideousness and consequence of vice. "George Barnwell" was first
acted at Drury Lane, at the beginning of the Midsummer holidays of
1731. Theophilus Cibber played the hero; Mrs. Butler, Milwood. The
audience looked for fun, and took the old ballad,--there was the
flutter of a thousand copies in the house, to compare it with the
play. Pope was present, and expressed an opinion that the language
was often too elevated for the personages;[5] and the hearers
thought only of the story as illustrated by Lillo, and every eye was
weeping. It was the first fairly honest attempt made to amend, from
the stage, the vices and weaknesses of mankind; and it certainly,
in some degree, succeeded. It enlisted the sympathies of honest
women. "The distresses of great personages," says a lady, in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, "have ceased to affect the town," and "none
but a prostitute could find fault with this tragedy." Fault, however,
was found; but the objection was answered in this way;--that "lowness
of action was disallowed in a tragedy, but not lowness of character:
the _circumstances_ here are all important." One critic holds the
story to be improbable; but contemporary journals furnish a parallel.
A mercer's apprentice, who sleeps in his master's shop, admits a
Milwood, who at a later hour refuses to leave, unless he will cut off
satin enough, to make her a robe. Great distress! but, at a happy
moment, a virtuous porter arrives, who, on hearing the circumstances,
and perhaps having seen the tragedy, lays hold of the lady, who had
no more drapery about her than Lady Godiva, claps her into a sack,
carries her off, and shoots her into a cart full of grains, standing
unguarded. The naughty person is suffocated, if I remember rightly;
but the honour of the apprentice is saved!!
"George Barnwell" brought domestic tragedy into fashion, and Charles
Johnson closed his dramatic career with "Coelia, or the perjured
Lover," which was a warning to young ladies. Coelia has a _bad_ and
a _good_ lover,--warring principles! She prefers the former, with
ruin for a consequence. He lodges her in a bagnio, where she is
swept up by the watch, in the arrest of all the inmates, and taken
to Bridewell. Thence her very heavy father takes her home, while
the good lover kills the bad one in a duel; but the latter politely
requests that the avenger will consider Coelia as having been his
lawful wife. The lady, however, dies in her father's arms; the
curtain comes down with a "tag," and then on tripped the epilogue, to
ridicule all those present who were disposed to profit by the moral
of the drama!
Theophilus Cibber's "Lover" was a sort of pendant to the
"Nonjuror,"--Granger being in the habit of going regularly to church,
and daily breaking the ten commandments. The only enjoyment the
audience had,--who fought for or against the piece till blood flowed
abundantly,--was in the epilogue, in which Mrs. Theophilus Cibber
smartly satirised the failings of her lord! The audience relished it
amazingly.
These were the principal novelties of the period about which I am
treating; but I must add, that at the Haymarket, and at Goodman's
Fields, where Giffard had created in Ayliffe Street a commodious
theatre, far superior to the old throwster's shop, which had served
an early dramatic purpose, in Leman Street, sterling old plays,
with operettas and burlesques, were played at irregular seasons.
Fielding especially distinguished and sometimes disgraced himself. He
had not yet struck upon the vein which made him the first and most
philosophical of English novelists; but he rose from his squibs and
farces to the achievement of the "Miser," in itself an adaptation,
but done by a master hand, and with a double result of triumph,--to
the author, and to Griffin, the clergyman's son, who played Lovegold.
There were smaller attempts by smaller men, but these I omit, to
record the failure of Quin in Lear,--a character which it was
temerity to touch, so soon after Boheme had ceased to _be_ the King.
Mills made as great a mistake, when, at nearly sixty, he played for
the first time--Hamlet. The public cared more for the pantomimic
"Harlot's Progress," got up by Theophilus Cibber for Drury Lane,
where this piece, preceded by "George Barnwell," must have been as
edifying to both sexes as going to church,--a result in which Hogarth
had full share with Lillo.
I have noticed the actors departing and departed, and the appearance
in a booth of Mrs. Pritchard, a name yet to be famous and
respected--like Mrs. Betterton's. So during this period I find a
young player, Delane, at Goodman's Fields, who will advance to the
first rank; but also a greater than he, Macklin, quietly playing
any little part given him at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and securing his
firm standing ground by the ability with which he acquitted himself
at that house, when, in 1731, he was suddenly called upon to play
Brazencourt,[6] in Fielding's "Coffee House Politicians." He had only
four lines to speak; but those he spoke so well, that the true actor
was at once discerned. One may fancy the tone and manner in which the
rascal exclaimed:--"I was forced to turn her off for stealing four
of my shirts, two pair of stockings, and my Common Prayer Book."
With such small opportunity, Mr. Maclean, as he was then called, led
up to Shylock and Sir Pertinax Macsycophant!
Macklin was the last of the great actors who played at Lincoln's
Inn Fields; and he did not leave Covent Garden until _after_ the
appearance there of Braham, who was yet among us but yesterday. The
first-named house had never rivalled the success of Drury Lane, but
Rich had gained enough to enable him to build a new house, and the
last play acted in the Fields was Ravenscroft's "Anatomist," one of
the worst of a second-rate author of King Charles's days. This was on
December 5, 1732. Except for a few nights, irregularly, the old house
never opened again. It was the third theatre which had occupied the
site since 1662. In 1756 it was converted into a barrack. As late as
1848, it was Copeland's China Repository, when the old stage door and
passage, through which Quin had so often passed, still existed.
There had been a long expressed desire for a new theatre; that is,
not merely a new edifice, but a new system. The proposal embraced
prospective delights for authors, such as they had hitherto never
dreamed of. In the published prospectus it was stated that actors
and authors should be excluded from the management, which was to be
entrusted to individuals, who, at least, knew as little about it,
namely, men of quality, taste, figure, and of a fortune varying from
ten to twelve hundred pounds. A committee was to be appointed, whose
duty it would be, among others, to provide for the efficient reading
of new plays, and for their being listened to with reverence and
attention. It was calculated that the annual profit of such a theatre
would amount to £3000 a year, and that out of it an annuity of £100
might be set aside for every author who had achieved a certain amount
of success. In the following year, the _Weekly Miscellany_ and the
_Grub Street Journal_ were very eager on the subject of theatrical
reform. The former complained that high comedy and dignified tragedy
had deserted the stage; remarked that plays were not intended for
tradesmen! and denounced pantomimes and harlequinades as infamous.
The Journal was rather practical than reflective. Old Exeter
Change was then to let, and the Journal proposed that it should be
converted into a theatre; adding a suggestion, which required above
a century and a quarter to be carried into realisation, namely, that
a college should be founded for decayed actors. This college was to
form the two wings of the theatre; which wings were to be inhabited
respectively by the _emeriti_ among actors, and destitute actresses,
whose new home was to be within sound of the old stirring echoes
of their joyous days. The direction of the establishment was to be
confided to a competent governor and officers selected from among the
decayed nobility and gentry; and the glory and profit resulting were
calculated at a very high figure indeed!
On one result the _Grub Street_ congratulated itself with unctuous
pride. If the stage were reformed, the universities and inns of
court would supply actors. _Gentlemen_, said the _Grub Street_, with
some arrogance, were reluctant to go among the scamps on the stage.
Then, as for actresses, _Grub_ rudely declared that every charity
school could supply a dozen wenches of more decent education and
character, of better health, brighter youth, more brilliant beauty,
and more exalted genius, than the common run of hussies then on the
stage; and a season's training, he added, would qualify them for
business. This was a hard hit at men, among whom there were many
well born; and at women, who, whatever they lacked, possessed the
happy gifts of health, youth, beauty, and genius; but _Grub Street's_
cynicism was probably founded on the fact, that he was not invited by
the men, nor smiled on by the women.
A reform before the curtain was, however, now as loudly called for
as behind it. One of the greatest grievances complained of this year
was the insolence of the footmen. Occupying their masters' places,
they lolled about with their hats on, talked aloud, were insolent on
rebuke from the audience, and when they withdrew, on their masters'
arrival, to their own gallery, they kept up a continual tumult
there, which rendered their presence intolerable. What with the fine
gentlemen on the stage, and their lacqueys, selected for their size,
personal good looks, or fine hair, in the gallery, the would-be
attentive audience in the pit were driven well nigh to desperation.
Much of this last grievance was amended when Covent Garden Theatre
was opened on the 7th of December 1732. The first piece acted was
Congreve's "Way of the World;" Fainall by Quin, Mirabel by Ryan, who,
with Walker, Hippisley, Milward, Chapman, and Neal, Mrs. Younger,
Mrs. Bullock, and Mrs. Buchanan, formed the principal members of
the company. Gay was not now alive to increase his own and Rich's
fortune in this elegant and well-appointed theatre; but Rich produced
Gay's operatic piece "Achilles," which represented the hero when
lying disguised as a girl. By the treatment of the subject, Gay did
not manifest the innocency to which he laid claim, nor show himself
either in wit a man, or in simplicity a child. Theobald's adaptation
of Webster's "Duchess of Malfy" (Bosola, by Quin; the Duchess, Mrs.
Hallam), brought no credit on "King Log." Generally, indeed, the
novelties were failures, or unimportant. The only incident worth
recording is the debut of Miss Norsa, as Polly. But before greeting
new comers, let us say a word or two of greater than they who have
gone--of Wilks dead, and, by and by, of Cibber withdrawn. The loss of
such actors seemed irreparable; but during this past season there had
been a lad among the audience at either house, who was to excel them
all. Meanwhile, he studied them deeply, and after times showed that
the study had not been profitless to this boy of sixteen, whose name
was David Garrick.
Quin's most brilliant days lay between this period and the ripening
into manhood of this ardent boy. Before we accompany him through that
time of triumph, let us look back at the career of Wilks.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "Eurydice" was played about thirteen times, and was thought
worthy of revival in 1759.
[4] This is the story told in the _Biographia Dramatica_, but Genest
says "Merope" was acted three times.
[5] Pope said "in a _few_ passages."
[6] Genest doubts this story, and gives very strong grounds for doing
so. Vol. iii. pp. 306-8.
[Illustration: PEG WOFFINGTON.]