SUSANNA MARIA CIBBER.
"Mrs. Cibber dead!" said Garrick, "then tragedy has died with
her!"[91] When he uttered this, on the 31st of January 1766, he
little knew that a young girl, named Sarah Kemble, then in her
twelfth year, was a strolling actress, playing juvenile tragedy,
and light opera, was reciting or singing between the acts, and was
preparing herself for greatness.
Let us look back to the early time and the room over the
upholsterer's shop, in King Street, Covent Garden, where Tom Arne
and his sister, Susanna Maria, are engaged in musical exercises. Tom
ought to have been engrossing deeds, and that fair and graceful,
and pure-looking girl, to be thinking of anything but coming out in
Lampe's opera, "Amelia," the words by Carey. The old Roman Catholic
upholsterer had been sorely tried by the heterodox inclinations of
his children. They lived within sound of the musical echoes of the
theatres, and thereof came Dr. Arne, the composer, and his sister,
the great singer, the greater and ever youthful actress.
In 1732, Susanna Maria Arne appeared successfully in Lampe's serious
opera, "Amelia," which was "set in the Italian manner," and brought
out at what was called the "French Theatre," in the Haymarket. Miss
Arne was then about twenty years of age, with a symmetry of figure
and a sweetness of expression which she did not lose during the
four-and-thirty years she continued on the stage. In the Venus of her
early days, she was as beautiful as the Venus Populari, whose mother
was Dione, and her Psyche was as timid, touching, and inquiring, as
she who charmed the gods from the threshold of Olympus.
It is not pleasant to think that on a young creature so fair, bright,
pure, and accomplished,--an honest man's honest daughter, such a
sorry rascal as Ancient Pistol,--Theophilus Cibber, in fact, should
have boldly cast that one of his two squinting eyes, which he could
bring to bear with most effect upon a lady. When, as a newly-married
couple, they stood before Colley Cibber, they must have looked like
Beauty and the Beast!
Beauty soon overcame the elder Cibber's antipathy. Colley could
not withstand the new magic to which he was subjected; and when
it was first proposed that the brilliant vocalist should become a
regular actress, Colley, however much he may have shaken his head
at first, favoured the design, and gave all necessary instructions
to his winning, beautiful, and docile daughter-in-law. Can you
not see the pair in that first floor in Russell Street? Half the
morning, she has been repeating Zara, never wearied by Cibber's
frequent interruptions. Perseverance was ever one of her great
characteristics; and she carries herself, and sweeps by with her
train, and speaks meltingly or sternly, in grief or in anger, her
voice silvery and, with its modulation, under command,--a voice
in the very sound of which there were smiles or tears, sunshine
or storm;--all this she does, or exercises, at Colley's sole
suggestions, you suppose. Not a bit of it! Susanna Cibber has a
little will of her own; and she is quite right, for she has as much
intellect as will, and docile as she is when she sees the value of
Colley's teaching, she supports her own views when she is satisfied
that these are superior to the ideas of the elderly gentleman who,
standing in an attitude for imitation, to which she opposes one of
her own, lets the frown on his brow pass off into a smile, as he
protests, "fore-gad!" that the saucy thing could impart instruction
to himself.
On the 12th of January 1736, the great attempt was made, and Mrs.
Cibber came out as Zara, to the Lusignan of Milward, the Nerestan
of her husband, and the Selima of Mrs. Pritchard, who had not yet
reached the position which this young actress occupied at a bound,
but beyond which Mrs. Pritchard was destined yet to go.
For fourteen consecutive nights, Susanna drowned houses in tears,
and stirred the very depths of men's hearts, even her husband's,
who was so affected that he claimed, and obtained, the doubling of
the salary first agreed on for his wife. Theophilus, of course,
did not keep the money; he spent it all, to his great, temporary,
satisfaction. His wife's next appearance was in comedy,--Indiana
("Conscious Lovers"), where the neat simplicity of her manners, and
the charm which she seemed to shed on even commonplace expressions,
formed a strong contrast to the more solemn but stilted dignity of
her tragedy queens, the glory of which faded before the perfection
of her Ophelia. For this character, her voice, musical qualities,
her figure, and her inexpressibly sweet features, all especially
suited her. Wilkinson states that no eloquence could paint her
distressed and distracted look, when she said: "Lord, we know what
we are, but know not what we may be!" Charming in all she undertook,
all her critics pronounced her unapproachable in Ophelia, and
through all the traditions of the stage, there is not one more
abiding than that which says that Mrs. Cibber was identified with
the distraught maiden. Her Juliet, Constance, Belvidera, exhibited
rare merits, while as Alicia, in the mad scene, "the expression of
her countenance, and the irresistible magic of her voice, thrilled
to the very soul of her whole audience," says Murphy. Wilkinson was
powerless when attempting to mimic the voice and expression of Mrs.
Cibber. The tone, manner, and method of Garrick, Quin, Mrs. Bellamy,
Mrs. Crawford (Barry), nay, even the very face of Mrs. Woffington,
he could reproduce with wonderful approach to exactness. But Mrs.
Cibber's excellence baffled him. He remembered her and it, but he
could not do more than remember. "It is all in my mind's eye," he
would say, with a sigh at his incapacity.
[Illustration: (Mrs. Cibber)]
In fine ladies and in sprightly comedy,--save in the playful
delivery of epilogues,--Mrs. Cibber comparatively failed. Among her
original characters were the Lady, in "Comus," Sigismunda, Arpasia,
in Johnson's "Irene," Zaphira, in "Barbarossa," and Coelia, in
Whitehead's comedy, the "School for Lovers." In these, as in all
she played, I collect from various sources, that Mrs. Cibber was
distinguished for unadorned simplicity, artless sensibility, harmony
of voice, now sweetly plaintive, now grandly powerful, and eyes that
in tender grief seemed to swim in tears; in rage, to flash with fire;
in despair, to become as dead. Her beauty did not so much consist in
regularity of feature as in variety and power of expression; with
this, she had symmetry of form: and this, indeed, is true beauty. She
preserved these gifts which age lightly touched, and to the last
it was impossible to look at her figure and not think her young, or
view her face and not consider her handsome.
Mrs. Cibber would, perhaps, have been one of the happiest women of
her day, had she not been cursed with a husband who was no more made
for her than Caliban for Miranda. Theophilus could not appreciate her
but as a gold winner, and he so abused the treasure, of which he was
every way unworthy, as to expose her to temptations by which that
unhanged villain hoped to profit; but by yielding to which she got
rid of her "most filthy bargain," lost nothing in the public esteem,
and acquired a protector and a home,--neither of which she ought to
have wanted. There she enjoyed all the becomingnesses of life, save
one; and she continued to act with better heart, but under physical
infirmities, which her physicians could not understand, nor her
applauding audiences believe in, till death struck her down in the
very midst of her labours.
She was not only of good heart to the last, but apparently as little
affected by age as by her domestic trials. She wore spectacles?
Yes! I confess that much. There she sits, somewhat past fifty, at
Garrick's house, spectacles on nose, reading her part of Coelia, in
the "School for Lovers." Now Coelia is but sixteen, and some one
suggests, only seeing those spectacles, that it would be better to
call her at least twenty-three. Mrs. Cibber looked up smilingly
through her "glasses," quietly dissented, and when the piece was
acted, she played the young and gentle Coelia with such effect,
that no one present thought of Mrs. Cibber being older than the part
represented her to be.
King George III. has the reputation of having killed Mrs. Cibber,
indirectly. His Majesty commanded the "Provoked Wife," in which she
was to play Lady Brute. Ill health, for which physicians could not
account, had reduced her strength; but the Roman Catholic actress
was determined to perform the duty expected from her, to that most
Protestant King. But she never trod the stage again. The career which
had commenced in 1732, closed in January 1766;[92] and in the month
following all that was mortal of this once highly, but, perhaps,
fatally gifted lady, was entombed in the cloisters of Westminster
Abbey, not within the edifice, like Mrs. Oldfield, opposite
Congreve's monument, but in the cloisters, whither had preceded her
Aphra Behn, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and the father of the restored English
stage, "Mr. Betterton, gentleman." Rather more than seven years had
then elapsed since Theophilus Cibber had gone down, twelve fathoms
deep, to the bottom of the Irish sea; and about the same time, short
of a month or so, had gone by since Colley Cibber had been brought
hither to rest in the neighbourhood of defunct, but once real, kings
and queens.
The voice of Mrs. Cibber, the soul of Mrs. Pritchard, and the eye of
Garrick, formed a combination which in one actor would, according to
Walpole, render him superior to all actors the world had seen or
could see. Hitherto it has _not_ been seen.
Gentle as Mrs. Cibber was, she could master Garrick himself. "She
was the greatest female plague belonging to my house," he once said,
with the memory on him of the strong language of Kitty Clive, and
the rough thrusts of other heroines. These he could parry, but not
Susanna Cibber. "Whatever her object, a new part or a new dress, she
was always sure to carry her point by the acuteness of her invention,
and the steadiness of her perseverance."
Her misfortunes in life brought some affronts upon her. Thus, in
October 1760, she was at Bath, with Mr. Sloper, the "protector" of
whom I have spoken, and their daughter, "Miss Cibber." The whole
party went to the Rooms, where the young lady was led out to dance.
She was followed by another couple, of whom the lady protested
against Miss Cibber being allowed to dance there at all. There
would have been more modesty in this second young lady if she had
been silent. There ensued a fracas, of course. Mrs. Delaney, in a
letter to Mrs. Dewes, says that "Mr. Cibber" collared Mr. Collett,
abused him, and asked if he had caused this insult to be put _on
his daughter_? Mr. "Sloper" must be meant, for Theophilus was then
dead. The affront was the result of directions given by that very
virtuous personage, Beau Nash, then being wheeled about the room.
Some discourse was held with the shattered beau, but nothing came of
it; and pretty Miss Cibber never danced, or was asked to dance, at
Bath again. This brings us back to the mother, from whom I am pleased
to part with a pleasanter incident. Dr. Delaney once sat enraptured,
as he listened to her at Dublin, singing in the "Messiah;" and, as
she ceased, he could not help murmuring on behalf of the accomplished
singer, "Woman, thy sins be forgiven thee!" _Amen!_ And so passes
away "the fair Ophelia," in that character, at least, never to be
equalled.
From Scotland Yard, where she died, the way was not long to
Westminster Abbey Cloisters. With what rites she was committed to the
earth, I cannot say; but a paper on the doors of the Roman Catholic
Chapel, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, that day, requested you, "of your
charity," to "pray for the soul of Mrs. Susanna Maria Cibber!"
_Amen_ again! She was a woman more sinned against than sinning,
and so well respected, that Mr. and Mrs. Garrick visited her and
Mr. Sloper at the country house of the latter, at Woodhay; where
Ophelia taught her parrot snatches of old tragedy, and exhibited the
bird to her laughing friends. The highest salary this "Tragic Muse"
ever received was £600 for sixty nights; and this £10 per night was
often earned under such tremor and suffering, that Mrs. Cibber would
exclaim, with the applause ringing in her ears, "Oh! that my nerves
were made of cart-ropes!" But we must leave her, for an actor who
re-enters, and an actress who departs.
FOOTNOTES:
[91] Another version, and a better, of his saying is:--"Barry and I
still remain, but tragedy is dead on one side."
[92] Should be December 1765. Her name is in the bill for the last
time on 13th December 1765.
[Illustration: DAVID GARRICK]