ENGLISH COMEDY.--BEN JONSON.--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS
SCHOOL.--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.--COMEDY AFTER
THE RESTORATION.--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM;
THE REHEARSAL.--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.--COLLEY
CIBBER.--FOOTE.
In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out
of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier
period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's
Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say
feelers towards, comedy itself--that drama, the object of which was to
caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices
and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was
far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it
wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but
soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of
imagination.
Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father
of English comedy. "Bartholomew Fair," first performed at the Hope
Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the
most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy,
remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of
characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are
all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that
reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London
life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand
tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque
attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of
every description, and their victims no less varied in character,
the petty city officers, all come in for their share of satire. The
different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult
to say who is the principal character of the piece--and who ever was
the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of
Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow--for in those times even
so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all
probability but a young country booby--strikes us most. It is said to
have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II.
Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of
the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a _bel
esprit_ of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft,
who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward,
Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan,
named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft,
herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy's rival; and a gamester named
Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife's friend and companion. All these
meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a
sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome
disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled
Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but
meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves
as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at
everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his
companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in
this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the
Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the "heathen abominations" of the
fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other,
fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the
stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice
Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right
administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all
kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself
acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown;
and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps,
in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows
himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than betray his identity.
Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks
at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves
the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon
himself as a martyr for religion's sake, the other rather glorying in
suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They,
too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of
their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have
been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers
and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still
worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which
has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers
himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair,"
the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted,
to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown
upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when
revived after the Restoration.
"The Alchemist," by the same author, preceded "Bartholomew Fair," by
four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors
who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were
instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day.
"The Alchemist" belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its
plot is more simple and distinct than that of "Bartholomew Fair." It
involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the
metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the
plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged
to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town
house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest,
associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman
named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the
basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of
a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face
goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a
knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a
lawyer's clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister
dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals
are involved, show us the way in which the pretended conjurers and
alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their
base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of
one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master
of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the
alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of
their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into
a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the
house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of
the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant.
Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson's dramas.
"Epicœne, or the Silent Woman," which belongs to the year 1609, is
another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of
characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has
a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate
with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine
Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him
money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle
is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicœne,
but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities
are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot,
which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with
his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of
Ben Jonson's comedies, "Every Man in his Humour," was composed in
its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires
on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it
was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak
contemptuously. Kno'well, an old gentleman of respectability, is
highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to
writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of
his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of
the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a "plain
squire," named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant
named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his
wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier
line of life, a sentiment in which Downright heartily joins. Kitely's
jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most
comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young
Kno'well to Kitely's daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation
with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain
Bobadil, "a blustering coward," justice Clement, "an old merry
magistrate," his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town
gull.
These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so
during this and the following reign--in fact, the mass of those who
attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better
than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson's
contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton
and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston.
Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy,
because they belonged especially to the London society of the time,
but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of
great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special
interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a
plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these
were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious,
and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who
was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs,
who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London;
young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor
in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he
could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every
description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern,
and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy
citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise,
who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous
city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety
and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of
home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants
from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman
has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober but perhaps
more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and
often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic
virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles,
who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted,
or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite
idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the _beau ideal_
of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through
every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was
then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest,
virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not
previously displayed.
Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even
in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year
1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a
comedy entitled "Eastward Hoe." It is a very excellent and amusing
comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the
city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and
Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two
daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and
is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her
younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment
arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama
is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in
the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich
dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court
to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging
her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father.
The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the
east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of
this, from which the comedy derives its title of "Eastward Hoe," but
they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search,
which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character
in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of
his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and
this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash,
and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled transactions, which
lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue
of the usurer's wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the
two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions.
Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds
from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime
the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not
only gained his master's esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and
been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect
of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It
becomes Golding's duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow
apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding's
generosity.
There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a
very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a
coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are
but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two
circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it
a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained
reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I.
to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into
prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they
obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful
intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through
the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it
must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that,
at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy
Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is
not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel
Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon
the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some
one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the
extreme displeasure of the court.
The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one
of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled
by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of
"Cuckold's Haven." Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth
took from the comedy of "Eastward Hoe," the idea of his series of
plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices.
When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them
in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand
the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the
drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was
suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the
Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater
freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I.
and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to
the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original
comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often
marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors
in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and
Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be
contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such
was the character of the comedy of "The Cheats," by a play-writer of
some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object
of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise
the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy--with whom were classed the
astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the
Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever--and the city
magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal.
The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the
Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman
Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy
of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was
satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by
authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue
announces this fact in the following words:--
_Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear,
For us--Scruple's a silenc'd minister.
Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say,
'Tis scandalous that any cheat but they._
Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good and
aristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned
from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire
produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward
Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard,
while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the
poet Dryden. Edward Howard's first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy
entitled "The Usurper," which came out in 1668, and was intended as
a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were "The Man of
Newmarket," and "Woman's Conquest." Colonel Henry Howard composed a
comedy entitled "United Kingdoms," which appears not to have been
printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going
public, even then rather a large one, owed "The English Mounsieur,"
and "All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple." Sir Robert Howard was the best
writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were
afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is "The
Committee," which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through
some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play
during the whole of the last century.
"The Committee" is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the
Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and
the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists,
whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations,
and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them.
The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and
sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and
still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both
are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are
very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters
are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in
the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had
been the servant of Careless's dear friend, a royalist officer killed
in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into
his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor
caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very
spiritless description. Here is an example. Teague has overheard the
two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant,
and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal,
he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and
thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a
wandering bookseller--a class of pedlars who were then common--and a
scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:--
_Bookseller._--New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and
Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe's Alarum
to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius
Britannicus--
_Teague._--How's that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are
dead three days!
_Book._--Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn
League and Covenant!
_Teag._--What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have?
_Book._--Yes; what then, sir?
_Teag._--Which is that Covenant?
_Book._--Why, this is the Covenant.
_Teag._--Well, I must take that Covenant.
_Book._--You take my commodities?
_Teag._--I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now.
_Book._--Stand off, sir, or I'll set you further!
_Teag._--Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my
master.
_Book._--Your master must pay me for't, then!
_Teag._--I must take it first, and my master will pay you
afterwards.
_Book._--You must pay me now.
_Teag._--Oh! that I will [_Knocks him down_]. Now you're paid, you
thief of the world. Here's Covenants enough to poison the whole
nation.
[_Exit._
_Book._--What a devil ails this fellow? [_Crying_]. He did not come
to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth
of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal's fingers. I may
light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him
with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country
bogs.
[_Exit._
In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated
at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book.
The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully
nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading
in the inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions
Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose
father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the
committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose
estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and
it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise
of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect
this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them
in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter
from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and
influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards
if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the
committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted
with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and
they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella's
estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power.
Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of
Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her
estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless,
and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this
takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem
not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella
to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet
they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make
their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly
to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr.
and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity,
and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests
itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds
and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before
this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed,
she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found
these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king,
and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly
keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by
him, and alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth
takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry
away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet
the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure
of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which
is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer
has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They
immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for
a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the
lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to
escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged
call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with
the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and
his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which
also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the
play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the
titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to
suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy.
The plot of "The Committee," it will be seen, is not a very capital
one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The
dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven.
When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play,
and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be
thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished
at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is
only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then
prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage
during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting
the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of
the latter half of the seventeenth century.
"The Committee" is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the
school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary
with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally
inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the
satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers,
duke of Buckingham, the son of the favourite of king James I., and
equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is
said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of "The Rehearsal"
as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation
towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague
caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author,
who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some
time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he
altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it
was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that
Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is
not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the
Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire,
Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he
afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed
upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of
his writings--possibly some personal pique may have had an influence
in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant,
and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of
ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama,
and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play,
taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself
is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very
happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon
Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes,
the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour.
The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit
in which this satire was written.
_We might well call this short mock-play of ours
A posie made of weeds instead of flowers;
Yet such have been presented to your noses,
And there are such, I fear, who thought 'em roses.
Would some of 'em were here, to see this night
What stuff it is in which they took delight.
Here, brisk, insipid rogues, for wit, let fall
Sometimes dull sense, but oft'ner none at all;
There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac'd train,
Shalt brave the gods, in king Cambyses vein.
For (changing rules, of late, as if men writ
In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit)
Our poets make us laugh at tragedy,
And with their comedies they make us cry._
A short account of this satire will, perhaps, be best understood, if I
explain that the antagonism of two contending kings of Granada having
been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is said to
have designed to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but associate
kings of Brentford, though others say that these two kings of Brentford
were intended for a sneer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York.
These two kings are the heroes of Bayes's play. The first act of
"The Rehearsal" consists of a discussion between Bayes, Johnson, and
Smith, on the general character of the play, in which Bayes exhibits
a large amount of vanity and self-confidence, said to have been a
characteristic of all these play-writers of the earlier period of the
Restoration, and he informs them that he has "made a prologue and an
epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for
the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue, (do you mark!) nay,
they may both serve, too, 'egad, for any other play as well as this."
Smith observes, "That's indeed artificial." Finally Bayes explains,
that as other authors, in their prologues, sought to flatter and
propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable opinion of
the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applause out of
them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpose, he had introduced
as speakers of his prologue, no less personages than Thunder and
Lightning. This prologue, disengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his
friends, runs as follows:--
_Enter_ THUNDER _and_ LIGHTNING.
_Thun._--I am the bold Thunder.
_Light._--The brisk Lightning I.
_Thun._--I am the bravest Hector of the sky.
_Light._--And I fair Helen, that made Hector die.
_Thun._--I strike men down.
_Light._--I fire the town.
_Thun_.--Let critics take heed how they grumble,
For then I begin for to rumble.
_Light_.--Let the ladies allow us their graces,
Or I'll blast all the paint on their faces,
And dry up their peter to soot.
_Thun_.--Let the critics look to't.
_Light_.--Let the ladies look to't.
_Thun_.--For the Thunder will do't.
_Light_.--For the Lightning will shoot.
_Thun_.--I'll give you dash for dash.
_Light_.--I'll give you flash for flash.
Gallants, I'll singe your feather.
_Thun_.--I'll Thunder you together.
_Both_.--Look to't, look to't; we'll do't, we'll do't;
look to't; we'll do't. [_Twice or thrice repeated._
Bayes calls this "but a slash of a prologue," in reply to which, Smith
observes, "Yes; 'tis short, indeed, but very terrible." It is a parody
on a scene in "The Slighted Maid," a play by Sir Robert Stapleton,
where Thunder and Lightning were introduced, and their conversation
begins in the same words. But the poet has another difficulty on which
he desires the opinion of his visitors. "I have made," he says, "one of
the most delicate, dainty similes in the whole world, 'egad, if I knew
how to apply it. 'Tis," he adds, "an allusion to love." This is the
simile--
_So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh
Snuff up, and smell it gathering in the sky;
Boar beckons sow to trot in chesnut groves,
And there consummate their unfinished loves:
Pensive in mud they wallow all alone,
And snore and gruntle to each others moan._
It is a rather coarse, but clever parody on a simile in Dryden's
"Conquest of Granada," part ii.:--
_So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh,
Look up, and see it gathering in the sky;
Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves,
Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinished loves;
Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone,
And coo, and hearken to each other's moan._
It is decided that the simile should be added to the prologue, for, as
Johnson remarks to Bayes, "Faith, 'tis extraordinary fine, and very
applicable to Thunder and Lightning, methinks, because it speaks of a
storm." In the second act we come to the opening of the play, the first
scene consisting of whispering, in ridicule of a scene in Davenant's
"Play-house to Let," where Drake senior says--
_Draw up your men,
And in low whispers give your orders out._
In fact, the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician of the two kings of
Brentford appear upon the scene alone, and discuss a plot to dethrone
the two kings of Brentford, which they communicate by whispers into
each other's ears, which are totally inaudible. In Scene ii., "Enter
the two kings, hand in hand," and Bayes remarks to his visitors,
"Oh! these are now the two kings of Brentford; take notice of their
style--'twas never yet upon the stage; but, if you like it, I could
make a shift, perhaps, to show you a whole play, writ all just so." The
kings begin, rather familiarly, because, as Bayes adds, "they are both
persons of the same quality:"--
_1st King._--Did you observe their whispers, brother king?
_2nd King._--I did, and heard, besides, a grave bird sing,
That they intend, sweetheart, to play us pranks.
_1st King._--If that design appears,
I'll lay them by the ears,
Until I make 'em crack.
_2nd King._--And so will I, i' fack!
_1st King._--You must begin, _mon foi_.
_2nd King._--Sweet sir, _pardonnez moi_.
Bayes observes that he makes the two kings talk French in order
"to show their breeding." In the third act, Bayes introduces a new
character, prince Prettyman, a parody upon the character of Leonidas,
in Dryden's "Marriage-a-la-Mode." The prince falls asleep, and then
his beloved Cloris comes in, and is surprised, upon which Bayes
remarks, "Now, here she must make a simile." "Where's the necessity of
that, Mr. Bayes?" asks the critical Mr. Smith. "Oh," replies Bayes,
"because she's surprised. That's a general rule. You must ever make
a simile when you are surprised; 'tis a new way of writing." Now
we have another parody upon one of Dryden's similes. In the fourth
scene, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician appear again, discussing the
question whether their whispers had been heard or not, a discussion
which they conclude by seizing on the two thrones, and occupying them
with their drawn swords in their hands. Then they march out to raise
their forces, and a battle to music takes place, four soldiers on each
side, who are all killed. Next we have a scene between prince Prettyman
and his tailor, Tom Thimble, which involves a joke upon the princely
principle of non-payment. A scene or two follows in a similar tone,
without at all advancing the plot; although it appears that another
prince, Volscius, who, we are to suppose, supports the old dynasty of
Brentford, has made his escape to Piccadilly, while the army which he
is to lead has assembled, and is concealed, at Knightsbridge. This
incident produces a discussion between Mr. Bayes and his friends:--
_Smith._--But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that
you were saying e'en now, to keep an army thus concealed in
Knightsbridge?
_Bayes._--In Knightsbridge?--stay.
_Johnson._--No, not if inn-keepers be his friends.[100]
_Bayes._--His friends? Ay, sir, his intimate acquaintance; or else,
indeed, I grant it could not be.
_Smith._--Yes, faith, so it might be very easy.
_Bayes._--Nay, if I don't make all things easy, 'egad, I'll give
'em leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going
out of town; but you will see how prettily I have contrived
to stop him, presently.
[100] Knightsbridge, as the principal entrance to London from the west,
was full of inns.
Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair
_demoiselle_, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after
various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another
scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the
plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene
of the fourth act opens with a funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry
Howard's play of the "United Kingdoms." Pallas interferes, brings the
lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very
extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their
sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping
kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes,
all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c. In the middle
of all this state, "the two right kings of Brentford descend in the
clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before
them in green." "Now," says Bayes to his friends, "because the two
right kings descend from above, I make 'em sing to the tune and style
of our modern spirits." And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous
parody:--
_1st King._--Haste, brother king, we are sent from above.
_2nd King._--Let us move, let us move;
Move, to remove the fate
Of Brentford's long united state.
_1st King._--Tara, tan, tara!--full east and by south.
_2nd King._--We sail with thunder in our mouth.
In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays,
Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along,
Mounted upon warm Phœbus's rays,
Through the heavenly throng,
Hasting to those
Who will feast us at night with a pig's pettytoes.
_1st King._--And we'll fall with our plate
In an olio of hate
_2nd King._--But, now supper's done, the servitors try,
Like soldiers, to storm a whole half-moon pie.
_1st King._--They gather, they gather, hot custards in spoons:
But, alas! I must leave these half-moons,
And repair to my trusty dragoons.
_2nd King._--O stay! for you need not as yet go astray;
The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in our way,
And on their high ropes we will play;
Like maggots in filberts, we'll snug in our shell,
We'll frisk in our shell,
We'll firk in our shell,
And farewell.
_1st King._--But the ladies have all inclination to dance,
And the green frogs croak out a coranto of France.
All this is quite Aristophanic. It is interrupted by a discussion
between Bayes and his visitors on the music and the dance, and then the
two kings continue:--
_2nd King._--Now mortals, that hear
How we tilt and career,
With wonder, will fear
The event of such things as shall never appear.
_1st King._--Stay you to fulfil what the gods have decreed.
_2nd King._--Then call me to help you, if there shall be need.
_1st King._--So firmly resolved is a true Brentford king,
To save the distressed, and help to 'em bring,
That, ere a full pot of good ale you can swallow,
He's here with a whoop, and gone with a halloo.
The rather too inquisitive Smith wonders at all this, and complains
that, to him, the sense of this is "not very plain." "Plain!" exclaims
Bayes, "why, did you ever hear any people in the clouds speak plain?
They must be all for flight of fancy, at its full range, without the
least check or control upon it. When once you tie up sprites and people
in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all." The two kings of Brentford
now "light out of the clouds, and step into the throne," continuing the
same _dignified_ conversation:--
_1st King._--Come, now to serious council we'll advance.
_2nd King._--I do agree; but first, let's have a dance.
This confidence of the two kings of Brentford is suddenly disturbed
by the sound of war. Two heralds announce that the army, that of
Knightsbridge, had come to protect them, and that it had come _in
disguise_, an arrangement which puzzles the author's two visitors:--
_1st King._--What saucy groom molests our privacies?
_1st Herald._--The army's at the door, and, in disguise,
Desires a word with both your majesties.
_2nd Herald._--Having from Knightsbridge hither march'd by stealth.
_2nd King._--Bid 'em attend a while, and drink our health.
_Smith._--How, Mr. Bayes? The army in disguise!
_Bayes._--Ay, sir, for fear the usurpers might discover them, that
went out but just now.
War itself follows, and the commanders of the two armies, the general
and the lieutenant-general, appear upon the stage in another parody
upon the opening scenes of Dryden's "Siege of Rhodes:"--
_Enter, at several doors, the_ GENERAL _and_ LIEUTENANT-GENERAL,
_armed cap-à-pie, with each a lute in his hand, and his sword
drawn, and hung with a scarlet riband at the wrist_.
_Lieut.-Gen._--Villain, thou liest.
_Gen._--Arm, arm, Gonsalvo, arm. What! ho!
The lie no flesh can brook, I trow.
_Lieut.-Gen._--Advance from Acton with the musqueteers.
_Gen._--Draw down the Chelsea cuirassiers.
_Lieut.-Gen._--The band you boast of, Chelsea cuirassiers,
Shall in my Putney pikes now meet their peers.
_Gen._--Chiswickians, aged, and renowned in fight,
Join with the Hammersmith brigade.
_Lieut.-Gen._--You'll find my Mortlake boys will do them right,
Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid.
_Gen._--Let the left wing of Twick'n'am foot advance,
And line that eastern hedge.
_Lieut.-Gen._--The horse I raised in Petty France
Shall try their chance,
And scour the meadows, overgrown with sedge.
_Gen._--Stand: give the word.
_Lieut.-Gen._--Bright sword.
_Gen._--That may be thine,
But 'tis not mine.
_Lieut.-Gen._--Give fire, give fire, at once give fire,
And let those recreant troops perceive mine ire.
_Gen._--Pursue, pursue; they fly,
That first did give the lie! [_Exeunt._
Thus the battle is carried on in talk between two individuals. Bayes
alleges, as an excuse for introducing these trivial names of places,
that "the spectators know all these towns, and may easily conceive
them to be within the dominions of the two kings of Brentford."
The battle is finally stopped by an eclipse, and three personages,
representing the sun, moon, and earth, advance upon the stage, and
by dint of singing and manœuvring, one gets in a line between the
other two, and this, according to the strict rules of astronomy,
constituted the eclipse. The eclipse is followed by another battle
of a more desperate character, to which a stop is put in an equally
extraordinary manner, by the entrance of the furious hero Drawcansir,
who slays all the combatants on both sides. The marriage of prince
Prettyman was to form the subject of the fifth act, but while Bayes,
Johnson, and Smith withdraw temporarily, all the players, in disgust,
run away to their dinners, and thus ends "The Rehearsal" of Mr. Bayes's
play. The epilogue returns to the moral which the play was designed to
inculcate:--
_The play is at an end, but where's the plot?
That circumstance the poet Bayes forgot.
And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting age,
No place is freer from it than the stage._
Formerly people sought to write so that they might be understood, but
"this new way of wit" was altogether incomprehensible:--
_Wherefore, for ours, and for the kingdom's peace,
May this prodigious way of writing cease;
Let's have, at least once in our lives, a time
When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme.
We have this ten years felt its influence;
Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense._
English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the
word reform, during the period which followed the publication of "The
Rehearsal," and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell,
Congreve, and D'Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for
an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as
ever--it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit
and _repartee_. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great
picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with
all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. "Epsom Wells," one of
Shadwell's earlier comedies, and perhaps his best, will bear comparison
with Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair." The personages represented in it
are exactly those which then shone in such society--three "men of wit
and pleasure," one of the class of country squires whom the wits of
London loved to laugh at, and who is described as "a country justice,
a public spirited, politick, discontented fop, an immoderate hater of
London, and a lover of the country above measure, a hearty true English
coxcomb." Then we have "two cheating, sharking, cowardly bullies."
The citizens of London are represented by Bisket, "a comfit-maker, a
quiet, humble, civil cuckold, governed by his wife, whom he very much
fears and loves at the same time, and is very proud of," and Fribble,
"a haberdasher, a surly cuckold, very conceited, and proud of his
wife, but pretends to govern and keep her under," and their wives, the
first "an impertinent, imperious strumpet," and the other, "an humble,
submitting wife, who jilts her husband that way, a very ----." One
or two other characters of the same stamp, with "two young ladies of
wit, beauty, and fortune," who behave themselves not much better than
the others, and a full allowance of "parsons, hectors, constables,
watchmen, and fiddlers," complete the _dramatis personæ_ of "Epsom
Wells." With such materials anybody will understand the character of
the piece, which was brought out on the stage in 1672. "The Squire of
Alsatia," by the same author, brought upon the stage in the eventful
year 1688, is a vivid picture of one of the wildest phases of London
life in those still rather primitive times. Alsatia, as every reader of
Walter Scott knows, was a cant name for the White Friars, in London, a
locality which, at that time, was beyond the reach of the law and its
officers, a refuge for thieves and rogues, and especially for debtors,
where they could either resist with no great fear of being overcome,
or, when resistance was no longer possible, escape with ease. With such
a scene, and such people for characters, we are not surprised that the
printed edition of this play is prefaced by a vocabulary of the cant
words employed in it. The principal characters in the play are of the
same class with those which form the staple of all these old comedies.
First there is a country father or uncle, who is rich and severe upon
the vices of youth, or arbitrary, or avaricious. He is here represented
by sir William Belfond, "a gentleman of about £3000 per annum, who in
his youth had been a spark of the town; but married and retired into
the country, where he turned to the other extreme--rigid, morose, most
sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and forward." He must
have a London brother, or near relative, endowed with exactly contrary
qualities, here represented by sir Edward Belfond, sir William's
brother, "a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate,
lives single with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously, a man
of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind, well
read in good books, possessed with all gentlemanlike qualities." Sir
William Belfond has two sons. Belfond senior, the eldest, is "bred
after his father's rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and
severity, upon whom his father's estate is entailed, the confidence
of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and
become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate." The younger
Belfond, Sir William's second son, had been "adopted by Sir Edward,
and bred from his childhood by him, with all the tenderness and
familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be;" he was "instructed
in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentleman-like education;
somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship; but
an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman; a man of honour, and of
excellent disposition and temper." Then we have some of the leading
heroes of Alsatia, and first Cheatly, who is described as "a rascal,
who by reason of debts, dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there
inveigles young heirs in tail; and helps 'em to goods and money upon
great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he
undoes them; a lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the
cant about the town." Shamwell is "cousin to the Belfonds, an heir,
who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not
daring to stay out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound with Cheatly
for heirs, and lives upon them, a dissolute, debauch'd life." Another
of these characters is captain Hackum, "a block-headed bully of
Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant
in Flanders, run from his colours, retreating into Whitefryers for a
very small debt; where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain; marries
one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd." Nor is
Alsatia without a representative of the Puritanical part of society, in
Scrapeall, "a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise
fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with
Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money." A rather large
number of inferior characters fill up the canvas; and the females,
with two exceptions, belong to the same class. The plot of this play is
very simple. The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia,
but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of
a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger
son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding
arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest
son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in
great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force;
but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten,
and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger
Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and
is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral
in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is
a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is
now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter
half of the seventeenth century. "Bury Fair," by Shadwell, is another
comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but
full of life and movement. If "The Squire of Alsatia" was noisy, "The
Scowrers," another comedy by the same author, first brought on the
stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who,
in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets
at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different
periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles
I. they were the "roaring boys;" in the time of Shadwell, they were
called the "scowrers," because they scowered the streets at night, and
rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they
took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at
the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of
brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This
state of things is pictured in Shadwell's comedy. Sir William Rant,
Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose
fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way,
Whachum, "a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William," and "two
scoundrells," his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises
between the two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters
in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant's father, and sir Richard
Maggot, "a foolish Jacobite alderman" (it must be remembered that we
are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard's wife, lady Maggot,
like the citizen's wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally,
is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay
and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She
has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the
world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters
of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken
up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The
play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William
Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell
excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him
is Mountfort's comedy of "Greenwich Park," which is another striking
satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others,
the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues,
such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected,
in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells.
An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does
not appear to have belonged to it before--this was mimicry. Although
the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they
appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well
known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their
dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that
this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of "The Rehearsal,"
the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who
acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner
of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal
satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February,
1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of "The
Heiress," in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally
caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles's admiralty has left
in his diary the following entry:--"To the king's house, thinking to
have seen the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come
thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein
in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten
with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily
bruised, and forced to keep his bed." It is said that Dryden's comedy
of "Limberham," brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the
first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be
too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale.
Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was
their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each
other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest
ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in
conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age--the language put
in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern;
but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented
on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled
allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is
substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its
greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material
of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery,
which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character
of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men's
mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of
social life. The "Country Wife," one of Wycherley's comedies, which is
supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672,
is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two
principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of
love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues
with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a
silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be
a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent
her, lead to her fall. The "Parson's Wedding," by Thomas Killigrew,
first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be
said of Dryden's "Limberham, or the Kind Keeper," first performed in
1678, which, according to the author's own statement, was prohibited
on account of its freeness, but more probably because the character
of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the
unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the
story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a
rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes
the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London
life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging
in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his
father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become
friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at
length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices.
Otway's comedy of "Friendship in Fashion," performed the same year, was
not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft's
comedy of "The London Cuckolds," first brought out in 1682, which,
nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It
is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number
of different incidents, selected from the less moral tales of the old
story-tellers as they appear in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, among
which that of the ignorant and uneducated young wife, similar to the
plot of Wycherley's "Country Wife," is again introduced.
The corruption of morals had become so great, that when women took
up the pen, they exceeded in licentiousness even the other sex, as
was the case with Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn is understood to have been
born at Canterbury, but to have passed some part of her youth in the
colony of Surinam, of which her father was governor. She evidently
possessed a disposition for intrigue, and she was employed by the
English government, a few years after the Restoration, as a political
spy at Antwerp. She subsequently settled in London, and gained a living
by her pen, which was very prolific in novels, poems, and plays. It
would be difficult to point out in any other works such scenes of
open profligacy as those presented in Mrs. Behn's two comedies of
"Sir Patient Fancy" and "The City Heiress, or Sir Timothy Treat-all,"
which appeared in 1678 and 1681. Concealment of the slightest kind is
avoided, and even that which cannot be exposed to view, is tolerably
broadly described.
It appears that the performance of the "London Cuckolds" had been the
cause of some scandal, and there were, even among play-goers, some who
took offence at such outrages on the ordinary feelings of modesty.
The excess of the evil had begun to produce a reaction. Ravenscroft,
the author of that comedy, produced on the stage, in 1684, a comedy,
entitled "Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman," which was intended to be
a modest play, but it was unceremoniously "damned" by the audience.
The prologue to this new comedy intimates that the "London Cuckolds"
had pleased the town and diverted the court, but that some "squeamish
females" had taken offence at it, and that he had now written a "dull,
civill" play to make amends. They are addressed, therefore, in such
terms as these:--
_In you, chaste ladies, then we hope to-day,
This is the poet's recantation play.
Come often to 't, that he at length may see
'Tis more than a pretended modesty.
Stick by him now, for if he finds you falter,
He quickly will his way of writing alter;
And every play shall send you blushing home,
For, though you rail, yet then we're sure you'll come._
And it is further intimated,--
_A naughty play was never counted dull--
Nor modest comedy e'er pleased you much._
"I remember," says Colley Cibber in his "Apology," looking back to
these times, "I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently
afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been
assured they might do it without the risk of an insult to their
modesty; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience,
they took care at least to save appearances, and rarely came upon the
first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the
pit, the side boxes, and gallery), which custom, however, had so many
ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many
years." According to the _Spectator_, ladies began now to desert the
theatre when comedies were brought out, except those who "never miss
the first day of a new play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit
of their going with any countenance to the second."
In the midst of this abuse, there suddenly appeared a book which
created at the time a great sensation. The comedies of the latter half
of the seventeenth century were not only indecent, but they were filled
with profane language, and contained scenes in which religion itself
was treated with contempt. At that time there lived a divine of the
Church of England, celebrated for his Jacobitism--for I am now speaking
of the reign of king William--for his talents as a controversial
writer, and for his zeal in any cause which he undertook. This was
Jeremy Collier, the author of several books of some merit, which are
seldom read now, and who suffered for his zeal in the cause of king
James, and for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to king
William. In the year 1698 Collier published his "Short View of the
Immorality and Profaneness of the English stage," in which he boldly
attacked the licentiousness of the English comedy. Perhaps Collier's
zeal carried him a little too far; but he had offended the wits, and
especially the dramatic poets, on all sides, and he was exposed to
attacks from all quarters, in which Dryden himself took an active part.
Collier showed himself fully capable of dealing with his opponents, and
the controversy had the effect of calling attention to the immoralities
of the stage, and certainly contributed much towards reforming them.
They were become much less frequent and less gross at the opening of
the eighteenth century.
Towards the end of the reign of king Charles II., the stage was more
largely employed as a political agent, and under his successor, James
II., the Puritans and the Whigs were constantly held up to scorn. After
the Revolution, the tables were turned, and the satire of the stage
was often aimed at Tories and Non-jurors. "The Non-juror," by Colley
Cibber, which appeared in 1717, at a very opportune moment, gained for
its author a pension and the office of poet-laureate. It was founded
upon the "Tartuffe" of Molière, for the English comedy writers borrowed
much from the foreign stage. A disguised priest, who passes under the
name of Dr. Wolf, and who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715,
has insinuated himself into the household of a gentleman of fortune, of
not very strong judgment, Sir John Woodvil, whom, under the title of a
Non-juror, he has not only induced to become an abettor of rebels, but
he has persuaded him to disinherit his son, and he labours to seduce
his wife and to deceive his daughter. His baseness is exposed only just
soon enough to defeat his designs. Such a production as this could
not fail to give great offence to all the Jacobite party, of whatever
shade, who were then rather numerous in London, and Cibber assures us
that his reward was a considerable amount of adverse criticism in every
quarter where the Tory influence reached. His comedies were inferior in
brilliance of dialogue to those of the previous age, but the plots were
well imagined and conducted, and they are generally good acting plays.
To Samuel Foote, born in 1722, we owe the last change in the form and
character of English comedy. A man of infinite wit and humour, and
possessed of extraordinary talent as a mimic, Foote made mimicry the
principal instrument of his success on the stage. His plays are above
all light and amusing; he reduced the old comedy of five acts to three
acts, and his plots were usually simple, the dialogue full of wit and
humour; but their peculiar characteristic was their open boldness of
personal satire. It is entirely a comedy of his own. He sought to
direct his wit against all the vices of society, but this he did by
holding up to ridicule and scorn the individuals who had in some way
or other made themselves notorious by the practice of them. All his
principal characters were real characters, who were more or less known
to the public, and who were so perfectly mimicked on the stage in
their dress, gait, and speech, that it was impossible to mistake them.
Thus, in "The Devil upon Two Sticks," which is a general satire on the
low condition to which the practice of medicine had then fallen, the
personages introduced in it all represented quacks well known about the
town. "The Maid of Bath" dragged upon the stage scandals which were
then the talk of Bath society. The nabob of the comedy which bears
that title, had also his model in real life. "The Bankrupt" may be
considered as a general satire on the baseness of the newspaper press
of that day, which was made the means of propagating private scandals
and libellous accusations in order to extort money, yet the characters
introduced are said to have been all portraits from the life; and the
same statement is made with regard to the comedy of "The Author."
It is evident that a drama of this inquisitorial character is a
dangerous thing, and that it could hardly be allowed to exist where the
rights of society are properly defined; and we are not surprised if
Foote provoked a host of bitter enemies. But in some cases the author
met with punishment of a heavier and more substantial description.
One of the individuals introduced into "The Maid of Bath," extorted
damages to the amount of £3,000. One of the persons who figured in
"The Author," obtained an order from the lord chamberlain for putting
a stop to the performance after it had had a short run; and the
consequences of "The Trip to Calais," were still more disastrous.
It is well known that the character of lady Kitty Crocodile in that
play was a broad caricature on the notorious duchess of Kingston.
Through the treachery of some of the people employed by Foote, the
duchess obtained information of the nature of this play before it was
ready for representation, and she had sufficient influence to obtain
the lord chamberlain's prohibition for bringing it on the stage. Nor
was this all, for as the play was printed, if not acted,--and it was
subsequently brought out in a modified form, with omission of the part
of lady Kitty Crocodile, though the characters of some of her agents
were still retained,--infamous charges were got up against Foote, in
retaliation, which caused him so much trouble and grief, that they are
said to have shortened his days.
The drama which Samuel Foote had invented did not outlive him; its
caricature was itself transferred to the caricature of the print-shop.