GARRICK, QUIN, MRS. PORTER.
He had selected the part of Richard III., for reasons which now
appear singular. "He had often declared," says Davies, "he would
never choose a character that was not suitable to his person; for,
said he, if I should come forth in a hero, or in any part which is
generally acted by a tall fellow, I shall not be offered a larger
salary than 40s. a week. In this," adds the biographer, "he glanced
at the follies of those managers who used to measure an actor's merit
by his size."
On that 19th of October 1741, there was no very great nor excitedly
expectant audience at Goodman's Fields. The bill of the day first
promises a concert of vocal and instrumental music, to begin exactly
at six o'clock; admission by tickets "at 3s., 2s., and 1s." Between
the two parts of the concert, it is further announced that the
historical play of the "Life and Death of Richard III.," with the
ballad-opera of "The Virgin Unmasked," would be "performed _gratis_
by Persons for their Diversion." The part of King Richard, "by a
gentleman who never appeared on any stage," is an announcement,
not true to the letter; but the select audience were not troubled
therewith. From the moment the new actor appeared they were
enthralled. They saw a Richard and not an actor of that personage. Of
the audience, he seemed unconscious, so thoroughly did he identify
himself with the character. He surrendered himself to all its
requirements, was ready for every phase of passion, every change of
humour, and was as wonderful in quiet sarcasm as he was terrific in
the hurricane of the battle-scenes. Above all, his audience were
delighted with his "nature." Since Betterton's death, actors had
fallen into a rhythmical, mechanical, sing-song cadence. The style
still lingers among conservative French tragedians. Garrick spoke
not as an orator, but as King Richard himself might have spoken in
like circumstances. The chuckling exultation of his "So much for
Buckingham!" was long a tradition on the stage. His "points," indeed,
occurred in rapid succession. We are told that the rage and rapidity
with which he delivered
"Cold friends to me! What do they in the North,
When they should serve their sovereign in the West?"
made a wonderful impression on the audience. Hogarth has shown us
how he _looked_, when starting from his dream; and critics tell us
that his cry of "Give me another horse!" was the cry of a gallant,
fearless man; but that it fell into one of distress as he said, "Bind
up my wounds," while the "Have mercy, Heaven," was moaned piteously,
on bended knee. The battle-scene and death excited the utmost
enthusiasm of an audience altogether unused to acting like this. The
true successor of Betterton had, at last, appeared. Betterton was
the great actor of the days of Charles II., James II., William, and
of Anne. Powell, Verbruggen,[34] Mills, Quin, were unequal to the
upholding of such a task as Betterton had left them. Booth was more
worthy of the inheritance; but after him came the true heir, David
Garrick, the first tragic actor who gave extraordinary lustre to the
Georgian Era.
And yet, for seven nights, the receipts averaged but about £30 a
night; and Garrick only slowly made his way at first. Then suddenly
the town was aroused. The western theatres were abandoned. "Mr.
Garrick," says Davies, "drew after him the inhabitants of the most
polite parts of the town. Goodman's Fields were full of the splendour
of St. James's and Grosvenor Square. The coaches of the nobility
filled up the space from Temple Bar to Whitechapel." Among these,
even bishops might have been found. Pope came up from Twickenham, and
without disparaging Betterton, as some old stagers were disposed to
do, only "feared the young man would be spoiled, for he would have no
competitor." Quin felt his laurels shaking on his brow, and declared
that if this young man was right, he and all the old actors must be
wrong. But Quin took courage. Dissent was a-foot, and he compared the
attraction of Garrick to the attraction of Whitfield. The sheep would
go astray. The throwster's shop-theatre was, in his eyes, a sort of
conventicle. It would all come right by-and-bye. The people, he said,
who go to chapel will soon come to church again.
Meanwhile let us trace the new actor through his first and only
season in the far east. During that season, from the 19th of October
1741, to the 29th of May 1742, Garrick acted more comic than tragic
characters; of the latter he played Richard (eighteen times),
Chamont, Lothario, the Ghost in "Hamlet" (Giffard, the manager,
playing the Dane), Aboan, King Lear, and Pierre. In comedy, he played
Clodio ("Love Makes a Man"), Fondlewife, Costar Pearmain, Witwoud,
Bayes, Master Johnny ("School Boy"), Lord Foppington ("Careless
Husband"), Duretete, Captain Brazen, and two characters in farces, of
which he was the original representative; Jack Smatter in "Pamela,"
and Sharp in the "Lying Valet." This is, at least, a singular
selection.
[Illustration: (David Garrick)]
The most important of his comic essays in his first busy season, when
he frequently played in tragedy and farce, on the same night, without
affecting to be wearied, was in the part of Bayes. His wonderful
powers of mimicry, or imitation, were not known till then; and
in displaying them, his Bayes was a triumph, although other actors
excelled him in that part, as a whole.
His great scene was at the rehearsal of his play, when he corrected
the players, and instructing them how to act their parts, he gave
imitations of the peculiarities of several contemporary actors.
Garrick began with Delane, a comedian of merit, good presence, and
agreeable voice, but, we are told, a "declaimer." In taking him off,
Garrick retired to the upper part of the stage, and drawing his left
arm across his breast, rested his right elbow upon it, raising a
finger to his nose; he then came forward in a stately gait, nodding
his head as he advanced, and in the exact tone of Delane, spoke the
famous simile of the "Boar and the Sow." This imitation is said to
have injured Delane in the estimation of the town; but it was enjoyed
by no one more than by tall and handsome Hale of Covent Garden, where
his melodious voice was nightly used in the character of lover. But
when Hale recognised himself in the soft, plaintive accents of a
speech delivered without feeling, he was as disgusted as Giffard,
who was so nettled by Garrick's close mimicry of _his_ striking
peculiarities that he is said to have challenged the mimic, fought
with him, and wounded him in the sword-arm. Ryan, more wisely, let
Garrick excite what mirth he might from the imitation of the hoarse
and tremulous voice of the former; and Quin, always expecting to be
"taken off," was left untouched, salient as were his points, on
the ground, according to Murphy, of Quin's excellence in characters
suited to him.
From a salary of £1 a night, Garrick went up at once to half profits.
The patent theatres remained empty when he played at Goodman's
Fields, and accordingly the patentees, threatening an application to
the law in support of their privileges, shut up the house, made terms
with Giffard, and Garrick was brought over to Drury Lane, where his
salary was speedily fixed at £600 per annum, being one hundred more
than that of Quin, which hitherto had been the highest ever received
by any player.
His first appearance at Drury Lane was on May 11, 1742, when he
played gratuitously for the benefit of Harper's widow, taking what
was then considered the inferior part of Chamont, in the "Orphan,"
of which he made the principal character in the play. With Bayes, on
the 29th,[35] Lear and Richard, each part played once, he brought his
preliminary performances at Drury to a close. In June, 1742, after
playing triumphantly during the brief remainder of the spring season
at Drury Lane, Garrick, in company with Mrs. Woffington, crossed,
by invitation, to Dublin. During an unusually hot summer he drew
such thickly-packed audiences that a distemper became epidemic among
those who constantly visited the ill-ventilated theatre, which proved
fatal to many, and which received the distinction of being called the
Garrick fever. Of course, Garrick had not equally affected all the
judges. Neither Gray nor Walpole allowed him to be the transcendent
actor which the town generally held him to be, from the first night
of his appearance. "Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the town
are horn-mad after?" writes Gray to Chute; "There are a dozen dukes
of a night at Goodman's Fields, sometimes; and yet I am stiff in
the opposition." In May, 1742, Walpole writes in like strain to
Mann:--"All the run is now after Garrick, a wine-merchant, who is
turned player at Goodman's Fields. He plays all parts, and is a very
good mimic. His acting I have seen, and may say to you, who will not
tell it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it; but it is heresy
to say so. The Duke of Argyll says he is superior to Betterton." The
old Lord Cobham, who was then at Stowe nursing Jemmy Hammond, the
poet, who was then dying for love of the incomparable Miss Dashwood,
was of the same opinion with the Duke; but they could only contrast
Betterton in his decline with Garrick in his young and vigorous
manhood.
In November of the last-named year, Mrs. Pendarves (Delany) saw the
new actor in Richard III. "Garrick acted," she says, "with his usual
excellence; but I think I won't go to any more such deep tragedies,
they shock the mind too much, and the common objects of misery we
daily meet with are sufficient mortification." This lady, too,
records the great dissensions that raged among critics with respect
to his merits.
Before we accompany this great actor in his career of thirty years
and upwards, let us close the present chapter by looking back
over the path he has already passed, and which comes towards us,
singularly enough, from Versailles, and the cabinet of the Great King!
Yes! When Louis XIV., on the 22nd of October, 1685, signed the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he lost 800,000 Protestant
subjects, filled Spitalfields, Soho, St. Giles, and other parts of
England, with 50,000 able artizans, and gave David Garrick to the
English stage!
The grandfather of David was among the fugitives. That he moderately
prospered may be believed, since his son ultimately held a captain's
commission in the English army. Captain Garrick married a lady named
Clough, the daughter of a Lichfield vicar; and the most famous son of
this marriage, David, was born at Hereford, his father's recruiting
quarters, in February, 1716. In the same city was born Nell Gwyn,
if that, and not Margaret Simcott, be her proper name. Her great
grandson, Lord James Beauclerk, was not yet bishop of the place when
Garrick was born, but a much more dramatic personage, Philip Bisse,
_was_. This right reverend gentleman was the audacious individual
who, catching the Duchess of Plymouth in the dark, kissed her, and
then apologised, on the ground that he had mistaken her for a Maid
of Honour. The lively Duchess, who was then the widow of Charles
Fitz-Charles, natural son of Charles II., by Catherine Peg, married
the surpliced Corydon. Their life was a pleasant comedy; and under
this very dramatic episcopate was Roscius born.
His boyhood was passed at Lichfield, where he became more remarkable
for his mania for acting than for application to school studies.
At the age of eleven years, chief of a boyish company of players,
he acted Kite, in the "Recruiting Officer," in which one of his
sisters represented the Chambermaid, and to which Master Samuel
Johnson refused to supply an introductory address. From Lichfield
he made a trip to Lisbon, and therewith an attempt to fix himself
in a vocation. His failure was no source of regret to himself. His
uncle, a wine-merchant in the Portuguese capital, was not disposed to
initiate the volatile lad into the mysteries of his craft, and David
returned to Lichfield, with such increase of taste for the drama,
that "several of his father's acquaintances," says Davies, "who
knew the delight which he felt in the entertainment of the stage,
often treated him with a journey to London, that he might feast his
appetite at the playhouse." By this singular liberality, the ardent
youth was enabled to see old Mills and Wilks, the two Cibbers, Ryan
(of whose Richard, Garrick always spoke with admiration), and Quin.
Booth was then stricken with the illness which ultimately killed him,
and Garrick thus failed to study the greatest of actors between the
era of Betterton and the coming time of Garrick himself. Of actresses
the most important whom he saw, were Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Cibber, with
whom he was destined to rouse the passions of many an audience, and
Miss Raftor, who, as Mrs. Clive, was afterwards to rouse and play
with his own.
This ardent youth returned to Lichfield with more eager desire than
ever to achieve fame and fortune on the stage. To supply what had
been lacking in his education, he became the pupil of Samuel Johnson;
but master and scholar soon wearied of it, and they together left
Lichfield for London, Garrick with small means and great hopes,
Johnson with means as small, and his tragedy of "Irene."
The resources of David were speedily increased by the death of his
uncle, who bequeathed him a thousand pounds, with the interest of
which David paid the cost of instruction which he received from the
Rev. Mr. Colson. Other opportunities failing, he joined with his
brother Peter in the wine trade, in Durham Yard, where, said Foote,
in after years, and with his characteristic ill-nature, "David
lived, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself
a wine-merchant." Had the father of David been at home, instead
of on service at Gibraltar, the latter would probably have been a
Templar student; but Garrick hated the study of the law, and, out
of deference to his mother, the vicar's daughter, he refrained from
appearing on the stage; but when both parents had passed away, within
the same year, Garrick, who had studied each living actor of mark,
and even recorded his judgment of them, anonymously and honestly,
in the public papers, left the stock in trade at Durham Yard to his
senior partner and brother. In 1741, a diffident young gentlemen,
calling himself Lyddell,[36] made his first appearance on the stage;
at Ipswich. He selected the part of Aboan for two reasons: that it
was a secondary character, and that Aboan was a "black." The attempt
presented less difficulty, for the first reason; and failure need
not be followed by recognition, seeing that his features would be
half-concealed under "colour." The attempt, however, was fairly
successful, but not a triumph. David went earnestly into training.
He played every species of character, solemn tragedy heroes, high
and low comedy, and even that incarnation of the monkey in man, as
Alphonse Karr calls him, the bustling, glittering, active, and potent
Harlequin.
His career of a few months at Ipswich was as the preparatory canter
of the high-mettled racer over the course. All who witnessed it
augured well of the young actor; and Giffard, the manager, agreed
to bring him out in London in the autumn of the same year, 1741, at
that theatre, in Goodman's Fields, which had been made, twelve years
previously, out of a throwster's shop. It had been opened, without
competent licence, by Odell, the dramatist, and subsequently deputy
licenser of plays under the famous Act which Walpole introduced and
Chesterfield opposed. Odell was so conscientious, or so prudent, that
in consequence of a sermon preached against the theatre, in one of
the Aldgate churches, he sold his interest to Giffard, who enlarged
the house, and opened it in 1732. After a struggle of three seasons'
duration, the determined opposition of the Eastern puritans drove
him to Lincoln's Inn Fields. He returned, however, at the end of two
years; and maintained his position with varying fortunes, till at
length, in 1741, he brought Mr. Lyddell,[37] now Mr. Garrick, from
the banks of the Orwell to the neighbourhood of the old gate, where
the statues of Love and Charity still stood, and near which, crowds
soon awoke such echoes as had not been heard in the vicinity since
the godlike effigies were first erected.
In the season of 1742-43, Garrick acted about eighty nights,--Hamlet,
thirteen times; Richard and Bayes, eleven; Archer, nine; Lear,
six; Fondlewife and Hastings, four; Chamont, three; Plume, Clodio,
and Pierre, twice; Abel Drugger, once; Wildair, created by him
in Fielding's "Wedding Day," Lothario, Millamour,[38] and Sharp,
occasionally.[39] Of _these_, Wildair was a decided failure.
Quin played against him at Covent Garden, Richard, Chamont, Lear,
and Pierre, but in these he proved no competitor. He fell back on
his general repertory, and, among many other characters, played
Falstaff, Macbeth, Othello, and Brutus, none of which Garrick
assumed this year. Garrick's Fondlewife was opposed by that of
Hippisley at Covent Garden, and that of Cibber, the younger, at
Lincoln's Inn Fields. His Hamlet was encountered by that of Ryan,
at Covent Garden, to Quin's Ghost; and a counter-attraction to his
Lothario was set up in those of Ryan and of the silly amateur,
Highmore, the latter at Lincoln's Inn Fields. From all competition,
Garrick came out triumphant.
Of Lincoln's Inn Fields, this was the "positively final" season.
Giffard managed the house with judgment, but he lost there some of
the wealth which he had acquired at Goodman's Fields, and out of
which he purchased the ground on which he built Coventry Court,
locality of gloomy reputation, near the Haymarket. Dulwich College
was a wiser investment of money acquired in the theatre.
Covent Garden lost, this year, a great actress in Mrs. Porter, who
commenced her theatrical career as theatrical attendant to Mrs.
Barry, and was one of the old players of King William's days. Among
the most marked of her original representations were Araminta, in the
"Confederacy;" Hermione, Lucia, in "Cato;" Alicia, in "Jane Shore;"
Lady Woodville, in the "Nonjuror;" Leonora, in the "Revenge;" and
Lady Grace, in the "Provoked Husband." Few details of her life are
known.
Genest combines the testimonies of Victor and Davies in describing
Mrs. Porter as the genuine successor of Mrs. Barry, to whom the
former had long played the "confidantes" in tragedy, and from
the great mistress learned her noble art. We are told that Mrs.
Porter was tall and well made, of a fair complexion, but far from
handsome; her voice, which was naturally tender, was by labour and
practice enlarged into sufficient force to fill the theatre, but
by that means a tremor was contracted to which nothing but custom
could have reconciled the audience. She elevated herself above all
personal defects by an exquisite judgment. In comedy, her acting
was somewhat cold and inefficient; but in those parts of tragedy
where the passions predominate, she seemed to be another person,
and to be inspired with that noble and enthusiastic ardour which
was capable of raising the coldest auditor to animation. She had a
dignity in her mien, and a spirited propriety in all characters of
rage; but when grief and tenderness possessed her, she subsided into
the most affecting softness. She acted the tragic parts of Hermione
and Belvidera with great applause. Booth, who was no admirer of Mrs.
Oldfield in tragedy, was in raptures with Mrs. Porter's Belvidera.
She excelled particularly in her agony, when forced from Jaffier, in
the second act, and in her madness.
After the dislocation of her limb, and in advanced age, she still
acted with vigour and success. In Queen Elizabeth ("Albion Queens"),
she turned the cane she used on account of her lameness, to great
advantage. After signing Mary's death warrant, she "struck the
stage," says Davies, "with such characteristic vehemence that the
audience reiterated applause."
On Valentine's night, 1743, the Prince and Princess of Wales
were present at her farewell benefit, when she played this Queen
Elizabeth, under august patronage. The fine old lady seems to
have fallen into some distress, for in 1758 she published, by
five shillings subscriptions, for her benefit, the comedy of "The
Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment," which had been given to her by
Pope's Lord Cornbury, the son, but not destined to be the heir, of
the last of the Hydes, who bore the title of Earls of Clarendon. He
was a dull writer, but so good a man, that Walpole says, in reference
to Pope's line--
"Disdain what Cornbury disdains"--
"it was a test of virtue to disdain what he disdained." After his
death, by falling from a horse in France, the decayed tragedy queen
published the play. The old and favoured servant of the public
modestly says, that her "powers of contributing to their amusement
are no more," but that she "always retains a grateful sense of the
indulgence she had received from those who have had the goodness to
accept her inclination and endeavours to please, as real merit."
Nothing could be more modest, but the truth is that this was written
_for_ Mrs. Porter by Horace Walpole. The subscription list was well
filled,--the Countess Cowper, whose letters figure in Mrs. Delany's
memoirs, taking fourscore copies.
Let us now return to the renewed struggles of the rival houses, made
fiercer by the rise of a new actor.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Verbruggen died before Betterton.
[35] Should be on the 26th.
[36] Davies and Murphy both give the name as "Lyddal."
[37] Lyddal.
[38] Should read:--"Millamour, created by him in Fielding's 'Wedding
Day,' Lothario, Wildair."
[39] This list is very inaccurate. It is obviously taken from Genest,
iv. 38, but Dr. Doran has mistaken the meaning of Genest's list,
which includes only those nights for which the bill is not given
in the text. The record should stand thus:--Hamlet, fifteen times;
Richard and Bayes, fourteen; Archer, eleven; Lear, seven; Fondlewife
and Hastings, five; Chamont, four; Plume, five; Clodio, four; Pierre,
three; Abel Drugger, four or five times, it cannot be decided
which. Then the Schoolboy must be added to the list of occasional
characters; and it should be noted that there are no bills for April
1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
[Illustration: A PIT ADMISSION CHECK.]