ENTER GARRICK.
Great was the confusion in, and small the prosperity of, the theatres
after the death of Wilks, and withdrawal of Cibber. Highmore, now
chief patentee, opened Drury; but Theophilus Cibber, with all the
principal Drury Lane performers, except Mrs. Clive (for Miss Raftor
was now the wife of Judge Clive's brother), Mrs. Horton, and Mrs.
Bridgewater,[18] opened the Haymarket against him, under the title
of "Comedians of His Majesty's Revels." Highmore had recourse to
the law to keep the seceders to their engagements, and Harper, a
deserter to the Haymarket, was prosecuted as a stroller; but the law
acquitted him, after solemn discussion. Highmore's chief actor was
Macklin, who first appeared as Captain Brazen, Cibber's old part in
the "Recruiting Officer," and he subsequently played Marplot, Clodio,
Teague, Brass, and similar characters, with success; but he was cast
aside when the companies became reconciled.
There was no other actor of note in the Drury Lane company, where
good actresses were not wanting. Mrs. Clive alone furnished perpetual
sunshine, and Mrs. Horton warmed the thin houses by the glow of her
beauty. No piece of permanent merit was produced, and, sad change in
the Drury Lane annals, the patentee was at a heavy weekly loss.
[Illustration: (Theophilus Cibber)]
On the first night that the seceders opened the Haymarket, 21st
September[19] 1733, with "Love for Love," Mrs. Pritchard played Nell,
in the after-piece ("Devil to Pay"). The _Daily Post_ had already
extolled the "dawning excellence" she had exhibited in a booth, and
prophesied that she would charm the age. She played light comic
parts throughout the season; but her powers as a tragedian do not
seem to have been suspected. Mrs. Pritchard thus entered on her long
and honourable career, a married woman, with a large family, and an
excellent character, which she never tarnished. Cibber's daughter,
Mrs. Charke, played a round of male parts during the same season,[20]
Roderigo, in "Othello," being one of them. In the March of
1734, the seceders closed the Haymarket, and joined the wreck of the
old company at Drury Lane, on which Mrs. Pritchard, like Macklin,
was laid aside for a time. But while those eminent players were
"under a cloud," there appeared Miss Arne, whose voice charmed all
hearers, whose beauty subdued Theophilus Cibber, but who was not yet
recognised as the tragic actress, between whom and Mrs. Pritchard
and Mrs. Yates, critics, and the town generally, were to go mad with
disputation.
Meantime, no new drama was produced at Covent Garden, which lived in
the public memory a month; but Quin shed a glory on the house, and
quite eclipsed the careful, but heavy and decaying actor, Mills, who
aspired to the parts which Booth's death had left unappropriated. In
Macbeth and Othello, Thersites, Cato, Apemantus, and Gonzales, in the
"Mourning Bride," he had at least no living rival. The contest for
superiority had commenced before Booth's death; but Mills was never a
match for Quin, and his name has not been preserved among us as that
of a great actor.
As it is otherwise with Quin, let us recapitulate some details of
his previous career, before we accompany him over that period which
he filled so creditably, till he was rudely shaken by the coming of
Garrick.
The father of James Quin was a barrister of a good Irish family, and
at one time resided in King Street, Covent Garden, where James was
born in 1693. Mrs. Quin happened to be the wife of two husbands.
The first, who had abandoned her, and who, after years of absence,
was supposed to be dead, re-appeared after Quin's birth, and carried
off the boy's mother as his own lawful wife.[21] Thereby, the boy
himself was deprived of his inheritance; the Quin property, which
was considerable, passed to the heir at law, and at the age of
twenty-one, the young man, intelligent but uneducated, his illusions
of being a _squireen_ in Ireland being all dissipated, and being
specially fitted for no vocation, went at once upon the stage. His
time of probation was first spent on the Dublin boards, in 1714,
where he played very small parts with such great propriety, that
in the following year, on the recommendation of Chetwood, the
prompter, he was received, still as a probationer, into the company
then acting at Drury Lane. Booth, Cibber, Mills, and Wilks were the
chief players at that theatre, and the young actor was at least
among noble professors. Among, but not of them, he remained for at
least two seasons, acting the walking gentlemen, and fulfilling
"general utility," without a chance of reaching a higher rank. One
night, however, in 1716, when the run of the revived "Tamerlane"
was threatened with interruption by the sudden illness of the
most ferocious of Bajazets, Quin was induced, most reluctantly on
the foolish fellow's side, to read the part. In doing this with
conscientiousness and judgment, he received such testimonies of
approval, that he made himself master of the words by the following
night, and when the curtain fell, found himself famous. The critics
in the pit, and the fine gentlemen who hung about the stage, united
in acknowledging his merits; the coffee-houses tossed his name about
pleasantly as a novelty, and Mr. Mills paid him the compliment of
speedily getting well.
When Mr. Mills resumed Bajazet, young Quin sank down to the Dervise;
and though, subsequently, his cast of characters was improved, his
patience was so severely tried, that in the succeeding season he
passed over to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Modestly entering
there in the part of Benducar, in "Don Sebastian,"[22] he at once
established himself in the public favour, and before the close of the
season 1718-19, the chivalry of his Hotspur, the bluntness of his
Clytus, the fire of his Bajazet, the grandeur of his Macbeth, the
calm dignity of his Brutus, the unctuousness of his Falstaff,[23]
the duplicity of his Maskwell, and the coarse comedy of his Sir John
Brute, were circumstances of which the town talked quite as eagerly
as they did of the Quadruple Alliance, and the musket shot which had
slain the royal Swede in the trenches before Frederickshall.
It was Quin's success in Bajazet at Drury Lane that really cost
Bowen his life. I have noticed the subject before, but it will admit
of some further detail. Bowen had taunted Quin with being tame in
Bajazet, and Quin retorted by speaking disparagingly of Bowen in
Jacomo in the "Libertine," preferring Johnson in that part. Bowen
was the more deeply stung as he prided himself on his acting in
Jacomo, and the company agreed with the adverse critic. The quarrel,
commenced by envy, was aggravated by politics. Bowen boasted of his
honesty and consistency, a boast, the worthlessness of which was
speedily shown by Quin's remark, that Bowen had as often drunk the
Duke of Ormond's health as he had refused it. The disputants parted
angrily, only to meet more incensed. They met, on the invitation
of Bowen, and passed from one tavern to another, till they could
find a room which less suited Quin's purpose than that of his irate
companion--that of "fighting it out." Indeed, the younger player
seems to have been hardly aware of his elder's definite purpose; for
when they entered the room Bowen fastened the door, clapped his back
to it, drew his sword, and threatened to run Quin through the body
if he did not out with his rapier and defend himself. Remonstrance
from the latter was of no avail, and he drew simply to keep Bowen
off. But the latter impetuously pressed forward till he ultimately
fell mortally wounded. Before his death, however, which occurred
within three days, he justly and generously took the blame of the
whole transaction upon himself. This, with corroborative evidence,
secured the acquittal of Quin on his trial for manslaughter. So
died poor, foolish Bowen, at the age of fifty-two, leaving a
widow, for whom the public had not sufficient sympathy to render
her "benefit" profitable, and a son, known in the London streets as
"Ragged-and-Tough," and whose exploits, recorded in the _Old Bailey
Calendar_, sent him to the colonies to found in another hemisphere a
line of Bowens more honest and less angry than the latter scions of
the race in England.
This was a transition period, terminated by the coming of Garrick.
Quin passed over to Drury Lane, tempted by the annual £500 offered
by Fleetwood, a wealthy personage, who had purchased the chief share
in the patent. "No actor," said Rich, "is worth more than £300 a
year," and declining to retain Quin at the additional required
outlay, he brought forward a "citizen," named Stephens, to oppose
him. Stephens had caught the exact sound of Booth's cadences and much
of his manner. For a time audiences were delighted, but the magic of
mere imitation soon ceased to attract; and Quin decidedly led the
town in old characters, but with no opportunity yet offered him of
a "creation." Mrs. Clive enchanted her hearers at Drury Lane, while
Mrs. Horton took her beauty and happy assurance to Covent Garden.
A greater than either, Mrs. Pritchard, played mere walking ladies,
and made no step in advance till 1735, when she acted Lady Townley
at the Haymarket. Old Cibber longing again for a smell of the lamps,
and a sound of applause, played a few of his best parts during
this season, and Macklin slowly made progress according to rare
opportunity. Covent Garden chiefly depended on Ryan; but suddenly
lost his services when they could be least spared. He was returning
home, on the 15th of March 1735, when he was shot by a ruffian in
Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, who robbed him of his sword.
"Friend," said the generous actor, who was badly wounded in the face
and jaw-bone, "you have killed me; but I forgive you!" In about six
weeks, however, he was sufficiently recovered to appear again, after
a general sympathy had been shown him, from the Prince of Wales down
to the gallery visitors.
Drury Lane, too, lost, but altogether, an useful actor, Hallam. He
and Macklin had quarrelled about a theatrical wig, and impetuous
Macklin, raising his stick, thrust with it, in such blind fury, that
it penetrated through Hallam's eye to the brain, and the unfortunate
player died the next day. An Old Bailey jury let the rasher, but
grief-stricken man, lightly off under a verdict of "Manslaughter."
From being a Queen of Song, Mrs. Cibber, the second wife of
Theophilus, first took ground as an actress this season,[24] at Drury
Lane, in Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's "Zara." Mrs. Cibber
was the sister of Dr. Thomas Arne, the composer of "Artaxerxes," and
daughter of an upholsterer in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden.
Handel thought so well of her that he arranged one of his airs in
the "Messiah" expressly to suit her voice. Her ambition, however, was
to be a tragic actress, and Colley Cibber, who had sternly opposed
her marriage with his son, overcome by her winning ways, not only was
reconciled to her, but instructed her in her study for Zara, and some
part of her success was owing to so accomplished a teacher.
Milward played Lusignan, a part in acting which a young actor, named
Bond, overcome by his feelings, died on the stage, while blessing his
children.[25] This occurred at a private theatre, in Great Villiers
Street, where the tragedy was represented, by sanction of the author,
or, as Reed would have it, of the stealer of it from Voltaire. Bond
was not the only actor who died in harness this year. Obese Hulett,
rival of Quin, in Falstaff, proud of the strength of his lungs,
which he was for ever exercising to the terror of those who suddenly
experienced it, in making some extraordinary effort of this sort,
broke a blood-vessel, and straightway died, when only thirty-five
years of age; and he was buried at the expense of his stage-manager,
Giffard, who rented Lincoln's Inn Fields, for awhile, of Rich.
The success of Mrs. Cibber stirred Rich at Covent Garden, and when
she acted Hermione, the old but able Mrs. Porter played the part
against her, at the latter house, as she also did Zara.[26] Mrs.
Horton was opposed to her in the part of Jane Shore.[27] In high
comedy, Mrs. Cibber attempted Indiana, in the "Conscious Lovers,"
and forthwith Covent Garden put up the same piece. But the latter
house was inferior in its company; there was no one there to shed
sunshine like Mrs. Clive. Delane and Walker together were not equal
to Quin. Of novelty, Covent Garden produced nothing. Giffard's young
troop, on the other hand, in the east, and afterwards at Lincoln's
Inn Fields, produced much that was worthless, not excepting another
levy on Voltaire by Hill, in his "Alzira." Indeed, the new authors
of this period were more remarkable than their pieces. Mrs. Cooper,
now forgotten, was the widow of an auctioneer; and Stirling, author
of the "Parricide," is, perhaps, better remembered in Maryland,
where he was a "popular parson," than he is here. What is known
of him here, indeed, is not favourable. When he and Concanen came
together from Ireland, to live by their pens, as political writers,
they tossed up as to the "side" they should take. As it fell to
Concanen to support, and to Stirling to abuse the ministry, the
former was enabled to acquire an ample fortune as Attorney General of
Jamaica, his seventeen years' tenure of which, Matthew owed to the
appreciation of him by the Duke of Newcastle. But Matthew was a wit,
and a gentlemanlike fellow; whereas the Rev. Jack Stirling, whose
"Parricide" was hissed at Goodman's Fields,[28] was an unsuccessful
parson, who did very well for a transatlantic minister.
The Haymarket was open in the spring and summer of 1736, under
Fielding, with his "Great Mogul's Company of Comedians." Fielding,
greatly improved by many failures, found the town in laughter;
and Lillo drowned it in tears. At "Pasquin," that hot, fierce,
hard-hitting, mirth-moving satire, London "screamed," night after
night, for nearly two months; and at the "Fatal Curiosity," that most
heart-rending of domestic dramas, the same London wept as if it had
the tenderest feelings in the world. In it Cibber's daughter, erratic
Mrs. Charke, condescended to play a female part; and Davies, the
bookseller and dramatic historian, the part of her son, young Wilmot.
By such means and appliances did the stage support itself through
this year, in which Mrs. Pritchard is seldom heard of, and Yates and
Woodward are only giving promise of the Sir Bashful Constant and
Mercutio, to come.
And now we reach 1736-7, with Quin especially eminent in Shakspeare's
characters, Mrs. Cibber, stirring the town as Statira, Monimia, or
Belvidera, and Mrs. Clive--who had quarrelled with her as to the
right to play Polly--beaming like sunshine through operatic farce
and rattling comedy, as gaily as if her brow had never known a
frown. The old colleague of Quin--Mills (the original representative
of characters so opposite as Zanga and Aimwell, Pylades and
Colonel Briton), died all but on the stage, which lost in him a
heavy "utility," whose will was better than his execution. A lady
"utility," too, withdrew after this season,--Mrs. Thurmond, the
original representative, also, of opposite characters, to wit--Myris,
in Young's "Busiris," and Lady Wronghead.
The same Drury to which these were lost, gained this season a new
author, in the person of Dodsley,--whose life is comprised in the
words,--footman, poet, bookseller, honest man. As yet, he is only at
the second step,--a poor poet; when he published books instead of
writing them, he became a wealthy, but remained, as ever, a worthy
fellow. It is due to this ex-lacquey to say, that in his satirical
piece, the "Toy Shop," and in his hearty little drama, the "King and
the Miller of Mansfield," both helped towards the stage by Pope,
Dodsley gave wholesome food to satisfy the public appetite; and
the man who had not long before stripped off a livery, showed more
respect for decency than any wit or gallant of them all.
He was the only successful author of the season at Drury. The Rev.
Mr. Miller broke a commandment, in his "Universal Passion,"--stolen
from Shakspeare and Molière; and classical Mr. Cooke manifested no
humour in converting Terence's "Eunuchus," into a satirical farce,
the "Eunuch, or the Derby Captain,"--levelled at those English
_emeriti_ whose regiments were disbanded after the peace of Utrecht,
and who sipped their Derbyshire ale at a famous tavern in Covent
Garden.
The chief incident before the curtain was a riot, caused by the
footmen who had been excluded from their gallery, on the night of
Macklin's benefit,--5th May 1737. But of this incident I shall speak
in another page. Of Mrs. Pritchard there is barely an appearance; her
great opportunity had not yet arrived.
At Covent Garden there was no new piece, but something better,--a
revival of Shakspeare's "King John," in which Delane played the King,
and Walker, Falconbridge,--a character for which he was personally
and intellectually fitted, and in which, as in Hotspur, he gained
more laurels than he ever acquired by his Macheath.
They who pursued novelty might find it with Giffard's company,
playing at the Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, however, the only
successful piece was "King Charles I.," a tragedy by Havard, a young
actor, already known by his "Scanderbeg," and who succeeded to the
place left vacant by Mills. Giffard played Charles, a character which
is rather exaggerated by the author, who acted Juxon. Chesterfield
said, in reference to this piece, that "the catastrophe was too
recent, too melancholy, and of too solemn a nature to be heard of
anywhere but in the pulpit." However this may be, the way in which
the tragedy was composed was anything but solemn. Desultory Havard
had been commissioned by Giffard to write the piece. It was done to
order, and under constraint; for the patron locked up the poet in a
garret, near Lincoln's Inn, during a certain number of hours, daily,
from which he was not suffered to emerge till he had repeated, from
behind the door, to Giffard, who was on the landing, a certain number
of newly-written lines,--till the whole was completed, when the poet
became free.
At the Haymarket, Fielding and satire reigned, but not supreme,--for
his pieces were as often hissed as applauded; but the political
allusions in "Tumble-down Dick, or Phaeton in the Suds," pleased,
and those in the "Historical Register for 1736," made the audience
laugh, and Sir Robert Walpole, satirised as Quidnunc,[29] winced.
The government had for some time contemplated a restriction of the
licence of the stage. Hitherto, the Lord Chamberlain could stop a
play in its career. It was now proposed to establish a licenser,
according to whose report the Chamberlain might prohibit the play
from entering on a career at all. The proposal arose out of an
officious act of Giffard's, who took the manuscript of a satirical
piece, called the "Golden Rump," to the minister, at which piece the
latter was so shocked, that the bill for gagging the stage was at
once proceeded with.
It was indecorously hurried through the Commons and tossed to the
Lords, at the close of the session of 1737. There it met the sturdy
opposition of Chesterfield. He looked upon the bill as an attempt,
through restraining the licence of the stage, to destroy the liberty
of the press; for what was seditious to act, it would be seditious to
print. And, if the printing of a play could be stopped, there would
soon be a gag on pamphlets and other works.
The very act of Giffard showed that the players were anxious not
to come in collision with government; and the existing laws could
be applied against them if they offended. But those laws were not
applied, or Mr. Fielding would have been punished for his "Pasquin,"
wherein the three great professions--religion, physic, and law--were
represented as inconsistent with common sense. Chesterfield thought
that the same law might have been put in force against Havard, for
his "King Charles I."
If ministers dreaded satire or censure all they had to do was so to
act as not to deserve it. If they deserved it, it would be as easy
to turn passages of old plays against them, as to make them, in new.
When the Roman actor, Diphilus, altered the words "Nostrâ miseriâ tu
es magnus!"--a phrase from an old play--the eyes of the audience were
turned on Pompeius Magnus, who was present; and the speaker was made
to repeat the phrase a hundred times. Augustus, indeed, subsequently
restored "order" in Rome; but God forbid that order should be
restored here, at such a price as was paid for it in Rome!
False accusations, too, could be lightly made. Molière complained
that "Tartuffe" was prohibited on the ground of its ridiculing
religion, which was done nightly on the Italian stage; whereas he
only satirised hypocrites. "It is true, Molière," said the Prince de
Conti, "Harlequin ridicules heaven and exposes religion; but you have
done much worse,--you have ridiculed the first minister of religion."
Against the power of prohibition being lodged in one single man,
Chesterfield protested, but in vain. One consequence, he said, would
be, that all vices prevalent at court would come to be represented as
virtues. He told the Lords that they had no right to put an excise
upon wit; and said, finely, "Wit, my Lords, is the property of those
who have it,--and too often the only property they have to depend on.
It is, indeed, but a precarious dependence. Thank God!" he said, "we,
my Lords, _have a dependence of another kind_!"
Such is the substance of his famous but unavailing remonstrance. The
bill, not to protect morality, but to spare the susceptibilities
of statesmen and place-men, passed; and the result was a "job." In
the ensuing spring, Chetwynd was appointed, under the Chamberlain,
licenser of plays, with a salary of £400 per annum; and to help
him in doing little, Odell was named a deputy-licenser, with
£200 yearly;--and therewith the job was consummated; and the
deputy-licenser began to break the law he was appointed to see
strictly observed. When the Act was passed, his most sacred majesty,
who commanded unsavoury pieces occasionally to be played before
him, prorogued the parliament, after lamenting the spirit of
insubordination and licentiousness which pervaded the community!
The government made use of its authority, by prohibiting plays, and
the public took their revenge, by hissing those that were licensed.
Among the prohibited, were Brooke's "Gustavus Vasa;" Thomson's
"Edward and Eleanora;" and Fielding's "Miss Lucy in Town;"[30]--the
first, as dangerous to public order; the second, as too freely
alluding to royal family dissensions; the third (after it had been
licensed) as satirising "some man of quality!" To these must be added
"Arminius," by Paterson, Thomson's deputy in his post of Surveyor
of the Leeward Islands. The deputy had copied out his principal's
"Edward and Eleanora;" and as "Arminius" was in the same hand, it
was forbidden, as being, probably, an equally objectionable piece by
the same author! The prohibition applied to it was profitable; for
he published his play by subscription, and gained £1000 by it,--not
for the reason that it was a good, but because it was a forbidden
drama.[31]
Audiences amused themselves by hissing the permitted plays,
sometimes with the additional luxury of personal feeling against the
author,--as in the case of the Rev. Mr. Miller's "Coffee House,"
"Art and Nature," and "Hospital for Fools." Thomson was fortunate
in saving his "Agamemnon" from the censors, for it is not unworthy
of ranking with the "Iphigenia" of Racine; and its merit saved it.
Mallet was still more lucky with his "Mustapha;" and the audience
were too pleased to hiss a piece, the licensers of which were too
dull to perceive that Sultan Solyman and his vizier, Rustan, were
but stage portraits of George II. and Sir Robert Walpole. They
had no such tenderness for the "Parricide" of William Shirley,--a
gentleman who understood the laws of trade better than those of the
drama. A French company, at the Haymarket, were of course hissed
out of the country. There was no ill-will against them, personally.
It was sufficient that the Licensing Act authorised them to play,
and the public would not tolerate them, accordingly! If they bore
with Lillo's "Marina," it was, perhaps, because it was a re-cast of
"Pericles;" and if they applauded his licensed "Elmeric," the reason
may have been, that the old dissenting jeweller, who set so brave an
example in writing "moral" pieces, was then dead; and the "author's
nights" might be of advantage to his impoverished family.
But there were licensed dramas at which the public laughed too
heartily, to have cared to hiss, or which so entranced them that they
never thought of it. Thus, Dodsley's merry pieces, "Sir John Cockle,"
and the "Blind Beggar;" Carey and Lampe's hilarious burlesque-opera,
the "Dragon of Wantley," and its sequel, "Margery;" with "Orpheus
and Eurydice," one of Rich's burlesques and pantomimes--the comic
operatic scenes not preceding, but alternating with those of the
harlequinade--in which, by the way, the name of Grimaldi occurs as
pantaloon,--rode riotously triumphant through the seasons, which were
otherwise especially remarkable, by numerous revivals of Shakspeare's
plays, according to the original text; and not less so by that of
Milton's "Comus," in which graceful Mrs. Cibber played and sang the
Lady, and sunny Kitty Clive gladdened every heart, as Euphrosyne.
As far as new pieces are concerned, thus stood the stage till Garrick
came. In further continuing to clear it for his coming, I have to
record the death of Bowman, the best dressed old man at eighty-eight,
and the cheeriest that could be seen. My readers, I hope, remember
him, in the chapter on Betterton. Miller is also gone,--a favourite
actor, in his day, whose merit in Irish characters is set down in
his _not_ having a brogue, which, at that period, was unintelligible
to English ears. Miller played a wide range of characters; and he
married for the very singular reason that, being unable to read the
manuscript copy he had to get by heart, his wife might read it to,
and beat it _into_, him. Bullock, too, the original Boniface and
Gibby; and Harper, the original Jobson; and Ben. Griffin, quaint
in Simon Pure, comic and terrific in Lovegold; with Milward, the
original Lusignan; and Ben Jonson, always correct and natural,--have
now departed. With them has gone Mrs. Hallam, an actress of
repute,--the original Duchess of Malfy, in the revival of Webster's
tragedy of horrors. By her death, the boards of old Drury were
relieved from a load of fourteen stone weight!--almost as great as
that of Mademoiselle Georges.
Of those that were left, Quin was the great chief; but he received
a rude shock from Macklin, when the latter, after playing Roxana,
in a burlesque of the "Rival Queens," achieved his first triumph,
by taking Shylock from low comedy, and playing it as a serious
character.[32] The managers were as nervously afraid of a riot
as those of the Ambigu were, when Frederic Lemaître, making no
impression as the villain, Robert Macaire, during the first act of
"L'Auberge des Adrets," played it through the rest of the piece as a
comic part! In either case, the greatest success ensued, but that of
Macklin was most honestly earned; and he took rank forthwith as one
of the noble actors of his time.
Turning to other players, I find Mrs. Pritchard progressing from
Lady Macduff to Isabella,--from Lucy to Viola and Rosalind. Walker
meets a rival in the Macheath of mellifluous Beard. Woodward and
Yates are rising to fame. Young Mrs. Cibber disappears for awhile,
carrying with her the charms that strike the sight, and the merit
that wins the soul. There is a terrible scandal in the cause of
her disappearance. "Pistol," her worthless husband, has something
more than pushed her into temptation, that he may make money by the
offence to which he is the prompter. The public voice condemns him; a
jury awards him damages, which show their contempt for his "sense of
honour;" and the lady, running away from the house in which he had
shut her up, while he was absent, playing that congenial character,
Scrub--took for her better friend the man who had fallen in love with
her through her husband's contrivance.
As if to compensate for the loss of Mrs. Cibber's honied tones, the
stage was wakened to a new delight, by the presence of Margaret
Woffington. This Irish actress made her first appearance at Covent
Garden, on the 6th of November, 1740, as Sylvia, in the "Recruiting
Officer;" and when, a few nights later, she played Sir Harry
Wildair,--the ecstatic town were ready to confess, that in the new
and youthful charmer they had at once recovered both Mrs. Oldfield
and Robert Wilks. And yet this enchantress, so graceful, so winning,
so natural, so refined, had commenced her public career as one of
the children who were suspended by a rope from the ancles of Madame
Violanti, when that wonder of her day exhibited her powers in Dublin
on the tight-rope.
Loth to leave entirely, Colley Cibber now and then, at £50 a night,
played a round of characters, always to crowded houses, but most
so when he enacted some of his old beaux and fops. His Richard did
not so well please; and one night, when playing this character, he
whispered to Victor that he would give £50 to be in his easy chair
again, by his fireside.
There was a Richard at hand who was likely to drive him there, and
keep all others from the stage. The season of 1741-42 opened at
Drury, on September 5, with "Love for Love," and the "Mock Doctor."
The additions to the company, of note, were Delane, Theophilus
Cibber, and Mrs. Woffington. Quin was absent starring in Ireland.
Covent Garden opened on October 8th with the "Provoked Wife." On the
19th of the latter month, while Drury was giving "As You Like It,"
and Covent Garden was acting the same piece, the little theatre in
Ayliffe Street, Goodman's Fields, announced the "Life and Death of
King Richard III.," "the part of King Richard by a gentleman who
never appeared on any stage."
At last! the hour and the man had come. Throughout this season no
new piece was produced at either of the patent theatres,[33] so
influenced were they by the consequences of this first appearance of
a nameless actor at Goodman's Fields. Of course, the new actor was
David Garrick.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Bridgewater, not Mrs. Bridgewater.
[19] Should be 26th September.
[20] It would be more accurate to say that she played several
"breeches" parts.
[21] Although Dr. Doran states this as if it were undoubtedly
accurate, it is not certain that it is so. It is only one of several
stories to account for Quin's requiring to earn a living on the stage.
[22] I can find no authority for this. He made his first appearance
as Hotspur on 7th January 1718. He played Benducar on 26th September
1718.
[23] He did not play Falstaff until 1720-21.
[24] Should be "next season." Ryan's accident and Hallam's death took
place in 1734-35; Mrs. Cibber's appearance in 1735-36.
[25] Bond was not an actor, but apparently a distressed author.
Davies expressly says that he was aged and infirm. It is scarcely
correct to say that he died on the stage. He fainted on the stage and
died the next morning.
[26] Mrs. Cibber did not play Hermione. "The Distressed Mother" was
played on 23d March 1736 for Theophilus Cibber's benefit, when Mrs.
Cibber played Andromache. The Zara which Mrs. Porter acted was quite
a different part from Aaron Hill's Zara, being the part in Congreve's
"Mourning Bride."
[27] I cannot trace that Mrs. Cibber ever played Jane Shore. Alicia
was her part.
[28] It was played five times.
[29] Should be Quidam.
[30] It is very questionable whether this farce was prohibited.
There is nothing in the bills to show that it was; and the _Biog.
Dram._, which says it was prohibited after having been played for
some nights, is probably wrong. Fielding published "A Letter" to the
Lord Chamberlain, on the subject of this farce; but the point of it
is, why was "Miss Lucy" licensed, when less objectionable matter was
condemned?
[31] Dr. Doran must refer to Brooke, who made £1000 by publishing
"Gustavus Vasa." Paterson, I think, was not likely to be equally
lucky.
[32] Macklin played Roxana on 17th May, 1738; Shylock on 14th
February, 1741.
[33] "Miss Lucy in Town" was produced at Drury Lane this season.
[Illustration: IPSWICH THEATRE.]