GARRICK AND QUIN; GARRICK AND BARRY.
This new actor, Spranger Barry, who has come to London to wrestle,
as it were, with Garrick, is now in his twenty-seventh year, and
has been but two years, brief noviciate, on the Irish stage. He
had previously followed, with some reluctance, the vocation of his
father, that of silversmith; but, respectable and lucrative as it
was, the stage had more attraction for him, and thither he went in
pursuit of fame and fortune, nor missed the object he pursued so
steadily. His success in Ireland was great at a time when there
was a body of players there, which for ability has certainly never
been surpassed. Spranger was very well connected, and it was by the
counsel of his kinsman, Sir Edward Barry, that he turned his face
towards London, and resolved to try a fall there with David Garrick.
His first appearance was at Drury Lane, October 2, 1746,[48] in the
character of Othello; Iago, Macklin; Cassio, Mills; Roderigo, Yates;
Desdemona, Mrs. Ridout; Emilia, Mrs. Macklin. What aspirant entering
on a struggle of a similar nature now, would be gratified with such
notice as the press, in the _General Advertiser_, awarded to the new
actor, on this occasion? "Barry performed Othello before a numerous
and polite audience, and met _with as great applause as could be
expected_."
And the triumph _was_ as great as the player could have hoped for.
In some things, Barry profited by the suggestions and teaching of
Macklin; and the fact that for nearly eighty nights, about half of
which were given to Othello, Lord Townley, and Macbeth, Barry drew
crowded houses, will show that a new and dangerous rival had sprung
up in Garrick's path, at the moment he was contending with a skilled
and older rival at Covent Garden. In the earlier part of the season,
Garrick had played Hamlet, King Lear, Richard, Archer, Bayes, and
Chamont; Quin had played Richard, with no success; Cato, Bajazet, and
Sir John Brute. The two met together for the first time in the same
piece, on the 14th of November 1746, in the "Fair Penitent;" Horatio,
Quin; Lothario, Garrick; Altamont, Ryan; Calista, Mrs. Cibber.
This was the greatest theatrical event that had occurred for years;
and when the actor of the old school, and he of the new met on the
stage, in the second act, the audience who now first saw them,
as they had long wished to see them, face to face, absolutely
disconcerted them by a hurricane of greeting--a perfect storm of
gratulation, expressed in every way that applause can be given, but
in louder and longer peals than had ever been heard by actors of
that "generation." When it had passed, every word was breathlessly
listened to; every action marked. Some were won by the grand emphasis
and the moral dignity of Quin; others by the grace, spirit, and happy
wickedness of Garrick. Between them, it was difficult to award the
palm of supreme distinction to either--and Mrs. Cibber was, for once,
forgotten. They subsequently played together Falstaff and Hotspur;
and Hastings and Glo'ster, repeatedly, in "Jane Shore." Glo'ster
was one of Quin's "strut and whisker parts," and Garrick had such
advantage over him in Hastings, that "the scale was now completely
turned in Garrick's favour."
Was it from fear that Garrick declined to play Jaffier to Quin's
Pierre? It could not have arisen from fatigue, as alleged, for
Garrick wrote a capital farce, "Miss in her Teens," and played
Fribble in it, and then _created_ Ranger, in Dr. Hoadley's
"Suspicious Husband," in which Quin declined the part of Mr.
Strictland, and gave to Bridgwater the one opportunity which he
seized, of being considered an actor. In Ranger, Garrick surpassed
even what old playgoers could recollect of comic excellence. His
"Neck or nothing; up I go!" became a popular saying, and the
rendering it was a tradition on the stage, from his days to the days
of Elliston, the gentlemanly impudence, and the incomparable grace of
whose Ranger is still remembered by many among us.
The originality of style and expression in this comedy displeased
Quin. He was a conservative, and disliked innovation; contemptuously
called the piece a speaking pantomime--forgetful that the old
comedies were often much more farcical (which is what he meant) in
their incident, and when a name for it was being discussed, suggested
scornfully "The Hat and Ladder." Some of Hoadley's friends kindly
foretold failure, in order to afford consolation after a kind. Thence
the epigram of one of them:--
"Dear doctor, if your comic muse don't please,
Turn to your tragic and write recipes."
Not merely as a character piece, but for construction of plot,
simplicity and grace of style, and comparative purity of speech and
action, the "Suspicious Husband" is the best comedy the eighteenth
century had, up to this time, produced. It has a good story clearly
and rapidly developed, and the persons of the drama are ladies and
gentlemen, and not the dully-vivacious ruffians and the unclean
hussies of the Aphra Behn, the Etherege, and Sedley period. The
writer was a "royal physician," and son to the famous bishop who,
for his opposition to civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, was treated
as if he were an infidel. The bishop did not go to witness his son's
play; but as all the Hoadleys had a theatrical turn, I feel sure he
and his family read it, with many a cheery laugh, in the old room at
Chelsea. George II. certainly did so at Windsor, and saw it, too, at
the Garden, and was so well pleased with his physician, the author,
that he gratefully sent him the handsome fee of £100.
Garrick came off so well in his contest with Quin, that he probably
had no fears of trying the fall to which he was challenged, with
Barry. For this struggle Spranger Barry passed over to Drury Lane, to
wrestle with David on his own ground. Drury may be called peculiarly
his, for, by purchasing a share in the patent, he now commenced that
career of management which lasted during his theatrical life, and the
brilliancy of which was spoken of in every part of the world where an
interest was felt in the intellectual enjoyments of the people.
The Drury Lane season of 1747-48 found Garrick joint-patentee with
Lacy; Garrick directing the stage without interference, and receiving
between six and seven hundred a year, as an actor, exclusive of
his profits as part-proprietor. Garrick's company included Barry,
Macklin, Delane, Havard, Mills, Yates, Barrington, Sparks, Lowe; and
Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Clive, and other
bright but lesser stars.
In this season the chief attractions were Macklin's Shylock, Barry's
Hamlet, Othello, and Pierre; and in less degree, his Bajazet, Henry
V., and Orestes. Garrick drew full houses by Archer and Abel Drugger,
Lear and Richard, Sir John Brute and Plume, Hamlet and Macbeth; but
the greatest attraction of all was when Garrick and Barry played
together, as Chamont and Castalio ("Orphan") Hastings and Dumont
("Jane Shore"), Lothario and Horatio ("Fair Penitent"), and Jaffier
and Pierre. Against such attractions as were here presented, with the
addition of Mrs. Woffington as Sir Harry Wildair, and Mrs. Clive, in
all that was light, airy, impertinent, and tuneful--Covent Garden
was more than usually weak. The latter, however, depended on the
"Beggar's Opera," on Ryan and Delane,[49] the younger Cibber, the
Giffards, and especially Mrs. Horton; Woodward was in Ireland. Quin
had withdrawn to Bath. Garrick's triumphs had soured him. He desired
to be asked back, but Rich would not humour him. The one wrote, "I
am at Bath; yours, James Quin:" and the other answered, "Stay there
and be d----d; yours, John Rich." The old actor returned, however, to
play Othello, without fee, on occasion of a "charity benefit." Drury
Lane alone produced a new piece, with new characters for Garrick and
Barry, namely, Moore's "Foundling," in which Garrick played Young
Belmont with great _éclat_; Barry, Sir Charles Raymond, with dignity
and tenderness, and Macklin, a knavish fop, Faddle, with wonderful
power.
Moore, like Gay, had originally served in a draper's shop, and like
Gay, wrote "Fables,"--"for the female sex." His "Foundling" bears
some resemblance to the "Conscious Lovers;" but there is more art in
the construction of the plot, and it is far purer than that piece
which was written to inaugurate an era of purity. In the part of
Faddle, he satirised a well-known individual, named Russell, who was
the delight of ladies of _ton_, because of his good looks, crowning
impudence, and his "imitations" of opera-singers. These qualities
made him a guest, for whom ladies contended; and some displeasure
arose, in aristocratic breasts, at Macklin's close mimicry of the
man,--who, after all, on being arrested for a debt of £40, was left
to pine, starve, and finally to die mad, in the Fleet prison. Such
was the fate of this once favourite of fashion.
With the season of 1748-49, came increase of opposition between the
two houses. At Drury Lane, Garrick and Barry played alternately
Hamlet and Macbeth--the Hamlet of Garrick drawing by far the
greater crowds. In the same pieces they played--Barry, Henry V.,
Garrick, the Chorus; Garrick, Horatio, Barry, Lothario; Garrick,
Othello, Barry, Iago;[50] and Mahomet by Barry to the Demetrius of
Garrick in Johnson's "Irene." Garrick also revived "A New Way to
Pay Old Debts," in which King, springing from a coffee house, acted
Allworth with great spirit and delicacy. It is strange that Garrick
failed to perceive the golden opportunity he might have had as Sir
Giles; he assigned the part to an inferior actor named Bridges, and
preferred playing Fribble in "Miss in Her Teens." Garrick's greatest
triumph this season was in playing Benedick to the Beatrice of Mrs.
Pritchard. The town had not had so exquisite a delight for many a
long day; and Garrick's happiness would have been supreme, but for
the fact that Barry and Mrs. Cibber produced as great a sensation,
though of another quality, in Romeo and Juliet. This last piece was
not repeated,[51] to the great annoyance of Barry; and Garrick, at
the close of the season married the pretty Violetti to the intense
disgust of Mrs. Woffington, who now joined Rich.
At Covent Garden Quin, Delane, Ryan, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Horton,
and Miss Bellamy, were the chief attractions. Quin played many parts
which Garrick would not attempt. Of those played by both actors, Quin
is said to have surpassed Garrick in Sir John Brute. But the most
exciting event of this season was the abduction of Miss Bellamy,
while playing Lady Fanciful to Quin's Brute. A gentleman named Metham
begged to be allowed to speak with her in the hall of the theatre,
and thence carried her off and bore her away, little loth, I think,
in his carriage. Quin explained the matter to the audience, who
enjoyed it as a good thing done and a pleasant thing to hear of.
While the houses were thus contending, Foote was filling the little
theatre in the Haymarket with an entertainment of his own; but
there were authors of a higher class offering more intellectual
pieces to the town. Fourteen years before, when Samuel Johnson was
keeping school near Lichfield, he wrote his tragedy "Irene," which,
in its rough state, he brought to London, when he and Garrick came
up together in search of fortune. With poet, as with actor, the
aspects of life had improved; but most with the latter. Johnson,
now about forty, had been long known for his _London_, and had at
this time put the finishing touches to his _Vanity of Human Wishes_.
Garrick produced his friend's tragedy, and Johnson was present on the
first night in gala dress, but not to be crowned, as Voltaire was,
when the lively old Frenchman attended the representation of _his_
"Irene." For nine nights, yielding the poet three benefits--Garrick,
Demetrius; Barry, Mahomet; and Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard as
Aspasia and Irene, exerted themselves--with indifferent success.
There is no local colour in this Turkish piece; the language and
sentiment are elevated, but they are never oriental in form or
spirit. The unities are strictly preserved, but not nature; and
therewith the piece was set aside, and Johnson never tried the drama
again.
In this season, too, kindly, over-speculating, fanciful Aaron Hill,
brought his efforts to a close, with "Merope;"--and creditably,
although he challenged comparison with Corneille, and in some
things was allowed to have stood it with advantage. The piece was
successful, but the author did not live to profit by it.[52] His
family were weeping for his death, while audiences were shedding
tears at the acting of Garrick, Dorilas; and Mrs. Pritchard, Merope.
Not only did this tragedy long hold the stage, but the subject of a
mother suffering because of a lost son, was so agreeable, it would
seem, that Browne, Whitehead, and Home, adopted it in "Barbarossa,"
"Creusa," and "Douglas."
Covent Garden, too, had its classical tragedy, in "Coriolanus,"
brought forward by Quin, after his friend Thomson's death. Quin
played the hero of Thomson's play; Ryan, Tullius; Delane, Galesus;
Mrs. Woffington, Veturia; and Miss Bellamy, Volumnia. This tragedy is
worth reading, if it be only to see how very civil and colloquial the
hot leader of the Volsci could be made by the Scottish poet in Kew
Lane. In Shakspeare's tragedy, we have the annals of a life put into
action. In Thomson's, as in Laharpe's "Coriolan," we have a single
incident diluted through five acts;--the secession from Rome, and its
consequences, forming the staple of a play which ends with a tag of
trotting rhymes, which are as natural, and not half so amusing, as if
the grave speaker of them had danced a hornpipe in his _cothurni_.
In 1749-50, symptoms were discernible of a break up in the Drury Lane
company. Mrs. Cibber, at odds with Garrick, withdrew; and Barry,
not allowed to play Romeo, was often indisposed to act in other
plays. So it was said: but he publicly protested against any feigned
indisposition. He repeated many of his old parts with Garrick, and
created Publius Horatius to Garrick's Horatius, in Whitehead's
"Roman Father." At Covent Garden, Delane exerted his dying efforts
fruitlessly against Barry; and Woffington opposed Woodward in Sir
Harry Wildair.
The above tragedy, by the son of a Cambridge baker, and one of Clare
Hall's most honoured Fellows, was not the only novelty produced at
Drury;--whither William Shirley brought from Portugal, where he had
written it in his leisure hours, his "Edward, the Black Prince."
Garrick played Edward; Barry, Ribemont; and Mrs. Ward, Marianne. It
will suffice, as a sample of Shirley's insight into the Prince's
character, to say, that he makes Edward, for love of Marianne, desert
to the French side! A more absurd violation of history was never
perpetrated by poet.[53] In the way of novelty, excepting pantomimic
trifles, Covent Garden offered no sign.
The latter house made no acquisitions such as Drury found in King and
in Palmer. Dyer, however, proved a useful actor, beginning his career
with Tom Errand, and bringing with him his wife, the daughter of
Mrs. Christopher Bullock, the daughter of Wilks. On the other hand,
the Garden lost Delane, whose first appearance at Goodman's Fields,
in 1730,[54] was temporarily menacing to the supremacy of Quin, as
Garrick's was permanently so, some years later. He was a graceful and
clever actor, but there was only one character of note of which he
was the original representative--Mahomet.
With this season also departed the actress whom Wilks and Booth
looked upon as the legitimate successor of Mrs. Oldfield, namely,
Mrs. Horton. Steele highly praised her for her acting Lady Brumpton
in his "Funeral." Long after youth was passed she retained a
luxuriant beauty, which was the envy of less richly endowed ladies.
She loved homage rendered to her charms, and was grateful for it,
however humble he who paid it. In her best days all young London
was sighing at her feet, and in the meridian of her sunny time she
invited adoration by the most exquisite coquetry. About this time
her powers began so to decay that Rich only estimated her worth at
£4 per week. Between Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Pritchard she suffered
shipwreck. Mrs. Horton was an artificial actress, the other two were
of an opposite quality; Mrs. Pritchard especially captivated the
public by her natural and intelligible style of speaking. Davies
says,--Mrs. Horton had a small annuity, and that Garrick and Lacy
added to it by giving her a "part of a benefit." She had, however,
other resources. When Lord Orford patronised Lord Luxborough,
eldest son of Knight, of South Sea Company notoriety, people could
not account for it, but Horace Walpole could. "Lord Luxborough," he
writes to Mann, "keeps Mrs. Horton the player; _we_ (Orford) keep
Miss Norsa, the player. Rich, the harlequin, is an intimate of all;
and to cement the harlequinity, somebody's brother (excuse me if I
am not perfect in such genealogy) is to marry the Jewess's sister."
In this wise did the stage in those days act upon politics. The Miss
Norsa, above-named, had been a singer, of some repute, and Orford,
then Lord Walpole, had taken her off the stage with the concurrence
of her parents, to whom he gave a bond by which he engaged to marry
her as soon as his wife should die! His wife, however, happily
outlived him. Horace Walpole, writing to Mann from Houghton, in 1743,
says:--"Lord Walpole has taken a dozen pictures to Stanno, a small
house, about four miles from hence, where he lives with my Lady
Walpole's vicegerent. You may imagine that her deputies are no fitter
than she is to come where there is a modest, unmarried girl." This
girl was Maria Walpole, daughter of Sir Robert, and subsequently the
wife of Colonel Churchill, one of Mrs. Oldfield's sons.
Six-and-thirty years had Mrs. Horton been on the stage (1714-1750),
and in all that time she was the original representative of only one
character, Mariana, in the "Miser."
And now we come to the famous Romeo and Juliet season, that of
1750-51, in which Garrick and Barry were the rival Romeos, Miss
Bellamy and Mrs. Cibber the opposing Juliets. Barry, by passing to
Covent Garden, was enabled to play with Quin, in "Othello," the
"Orphan," "Jane Shore," "Henry V.," "Julius Cæsar," "Distressed
Mother," "Fair Penitent," "Tamerlane," and "King John." In these,
Barry's Faulconbridge was alone a failure, and Quin held his own
so well that his terms for the season were £1000, the largest sum
ever yet received by English actor; but his Richard was as little a
success as Barry's Faulconbridge. Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Miss
Bellamy appeared together in "Zara;" at the other house,[55] Barry,
Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Woffington, in the "Conscious Lovers." Mrs.
Cibber, as Indiana, made a great point by her delivery of such simple
words as these: "Sir, if you will pay the money to a servant, it will
do as well!" Barry and Mrs. Woffington in Lord and Lady Townley, and
Quin and Mrs. Woffington in "Macbeth," were among the attractions of
Covent Garden, added to which was Rich's Harlequin; but for that also
Garrick found a rival in Woodward, who played the motley hero as he
played everything, with care and effect.
But all these matters were as nothing when compared with the rival
Romeos and Juliets. They appeared on the same night, at their
respective houses, the 28th of September, 1750. At Covent Garden,
the public had Romeo, Barry; Mercutio, Macklin; Juliet, Mrs. Cibber.
At Drury, Romeo, Garrick; Mercutio, Woodward; Juliet, Miss Bellamy.
On the first night Barry spoke a poor prologue, in which it was
insinuated that the arrogance and selfishness of Garrick had driven
him and Mrs. Cibber from Covent Garden. Garrick, ready to repel
assault, answered in a lively, good-natured epilogue, delivered
saucily by Mrs. Clive.
It was considered a wonderful circumstance that this play ran
for _twelve_ nights successively; Garrick played it thirteen, to
show that he was not beaten from the field! At that period the
Londoners, who were constant playgoers, demanded a frequent change
of performance; and the few country folk then in town felt aggrieved
that one play should keep the stage during the whole fortnight they
were in London. Thence the well-known epigram:--
"'Well, what's to-night?' says angry Ned,
As up from bed he rouses;
'Romeo again!' he shakes his head:
'A plague on both your houses!'"
Contemporary journals, indeed, affirm that the audiences grew thin
towards the end of the fortnight, but this seems doubtful, as Barry's
twenty-third representation, in the course of the season, was given
expressly on account of the great number of persons who were unable
to obtain admission to his twenty-second performance.
There is no doubt that Mrs. Cibber had the handsomer, more
silver-tongued, and tender lover. She seemed to listen to him in a
sort of modest ecstasy; while Miss Bellamy, eager love in her eyes,
rapture in her heart, and amorous impatience in every expression,
was ready to fling herself into Romeo's arms. In Barry's Romeo,
the critics laud his harmony of feature, his melting eyes, and his
unequalled plaintiveness of voice. In the garden scenes of the second
and fourth acts, and in the first part of the scene in the tomb, were
Barry's most effective points. Garrick's great scenes were with the
Friar and the Apothecary. Miss Bellamy declared that in the scene
with the Friar alone was Garrick superior to Barry; Macklin swore
that Barry excelled his rival in every scene.
The Juliets, too, divided the public judgment. Some were taken by the
amorous rapture, the loveliness, and the natural style of Bellamy;
others were moved by the grander beauty, the force, and the tragic
expression of distress and despair which distinguished Mrs. Cibber.
Perhaps, after all, the truest idea of the two Romeos may be gathered
from the remark of a lady who did not pretend to be a critic, and
who was guided by her feelings. "Had I been Juliet," she said, "to
Garrick's Romeo,--so ardent and impassioned was he, I should have
expected that he would have _come up_ to me in the balcony; but
had I been Juliet to Barry's Romeo, so tender, so eloquent, and so
seductive was he, I should certainly have _gone down_ to him!"
Respectively, Barry acted Romeo twenty-three, Garrick nineteen times
this season,--a season of which there is nothing more to be said,
save that Garrick created the part of Gil Blas, in Moore's comedy of
that name, and that he produced Mallet's version of "Alfred"--playing
the king.
At this time, the poets were not inspired, or managers could dispense
with them, so attractive were the old actors in old pieces, with
new actors--Shuter, Palmer, and Miss Macklin--aiding them. Thus, in
the season 1751-52, Covent Garden, save in a burletta called the
"Oracle," relied on its stock-pieces; and Drury only produced Foote's
farce, "Taste," in which Worsdale, the painter, who kept, starved,
beat, and lived upon Laetitia Pilkington, played Lady Pentweazle,
with humorous effect;--and "Eugenia," a tragedy, by the Rev. Dr.
Francis, the father of Sir Philip, in which there was the coarseness
of sentiment, but none of the beauty of language or tenderness of
feeling of Otway. Yet it was approved by Chesterfield, who sneered
at the pit and gallery as "common people who must have objects that
strike the senses, and are only moved by the sufferings they see,
and even then must be dyed with the blood." But this is untrue,
although my lord said it, for Johnson's "Irene" failed because of the
strangling of the heroine in presence of the audience; and it was
only tolerated, during its brief run, after the killing was described
and not performed.
[Illustration: (Mr. Mossop)]
I have said that the managers relied on the actors and not on
the poets. In return, the actors exerted themselves to the very
utmost. Mrs. Cibber was as much stirred by Miss Bellamy as Barry by
Garrick, and the reverse. In "Jane Shore," for instance, Mrs.
Cibber, who played Alicia to the Jane of pretty and modest Miss
Macklin, seemed, on the 25th of October especially, to be inspired
"with something more than mortal." Though Alicia had always been
looked on as one of her very best characters, yet this night's
performance she never equalled, before nor since.
In this season, Barry acted Romeo twelve, Garrick only six times;
but the latter introduced a new opposition to his formidable rival,
in the persons of Mossop and Ross, both from Ireland. Mossop first
appeared in Richard, which he repeated seven times with great
applause. His Zanga was still more successful; indeed, he has never
been excelled in that character. Six times he played Horatio to
Garrick's Lothario, and charmed the town more frequently by his grand
Theseus to Mrs. Pritchard's Phædra. In Macbeth, Othello, Wolsey, and
Orestes, he also displayed great powers. Ross, a gentlemanlike actor,
made his _début_ in Young Bevil, by Garrick's advice, and acted Lord
Townley, Altamont, and Castalio,--the latter to Garrick's Chamont,
with great effect. Garrick, no doubt, would have reluctantly seen
himself eclipsed by either of those players; but because inferior
actors sought to flatter him by calling Mossop a ranter, and Ross a
sniveller, and epigrammatists declared indifference to both, it is
not conclusive that the flattery pleased or the sneer delighted him.
Garrick had his own peculiar triumphs. His Kitely, to Woodward's
Bobadil, Yates's Brainworm, Shuter's Master Stephen, Ross's Young
Knowell, and Palmer's Wellbred, gave new life to Ben Johnson's comedy
of character. Thenceforward was associated the name of Captain
Bobadil with that of the scholar from Merchant Tailors'--Harry
Woodward.
But this has brought us into a new half-century, Let us pause and
look back at the audiences of that which has gone by.
[Illustration: Mrs. Yates as Lady Macbeth.]
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Should be October 4.
[49] Delane was not at Covent Garden. He did not leave Drury Lane
till next season.
[50] Dr. Doran has reversed the cast of these two plays. Garrick
played Lothario and Iago; Barry, Horatio and Othello.
[51] This is a most extraordinary statement. It was acted nineteen
times.
[52] He lived for nearly a year. "Merope" was produced April 1749:
Hill died February 1750.
[53] It is a character named Arnold who joins the French for love
of Marianne. Dr. Doran has misread a somewhat obscure sentence in
Genest's description of the plot.
[54] 1731.
[55] Probably the "Mourning Bride"--(Zara by Mrs. Pritchard)--is
meant. "Zara" does not seem to have been played.
[Illustration: WOODWARD IN "EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR."]