Great Queen Street -- Former fashionable Houses there -- Lewis
and Miss Pope, the Comedians -- Martin Folkes -- Sir Godfrey
Kneller and his Vanity -- Dr. Radcliffe -- Lord Herbert of
Cherbury -- Nuisance of Whetstone Park -- The Three Dukes and
the Beadle -- Rogues and Vagabonds in the Time of Charles II --
Former Theatres in Vere Street and Portugal Street -- First
appearance of Actresses -- Infamous deception of one of them by
the Earl of Oxford -- Appearance of an avowed Impostor on the
Stage -- Anecdotes of the Wits and fine Ladies of the Time of
Charles, connected with the Theatre in this Quarter --
Kynaston, Betterton, Nokes, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Mountford, and
other Performers -- Rich -- Joe Miller -- Carey Street and Mrs.
Chapone -- Clare Market -- History, and Specimens, of Orator
Henley -- Duke Street and Little Wild Street -- Anecdotes of
Dr. Franklin's Residence in those Streets while a Journeyman
Printer.
Great Queen Street, in the time of the Stuarts, was one of the
grandest and most fashionable parts of the town. The famous Lord
Herbert of Cherbury died there. Lord Bristol had a house in it, Lord
Chancellor Finch, and the Conway and Paulet families. Some of the
houses towards the west retain pilasters and other ornaments, probably
indicating, as Pennant observes, the abodes in question. Little
thought the noble lords that a time would come, when a player should
occupy their rooms, and be able to entertain their descendants in
them; but in a house of this description, lately occupied by Messrs.
Allman the booksellers, died Lewis, the comedian, one of the most
delightful performers of his class, and famous to the last for his
invincible airiness and juvenility. Mr. Lewis displayed a combination
rarely to be found in acting, that of the fop and the real gentleman.
With a voice, a manner, and a person, all equally graceful and light,
and features at once whimsical and genteel, he played on the top of
his profession like a plume. He was the Mercutio of the age, in every
sense of the word mercurial. His airy, breathless voice, thrown to the
audience before he appeared, was the signal of his winged animal
spirits; and when he gave a glance of his eye, or touched his finger
at another's ribs, it was the very _punctum saliens_ of playfulness
and inuendo. We saw him take leave of the public, a man of
sixty-five, looking not more than half the age, in the character of
the Copper Captain; and heard him say, in a voice broken by emotion,
that "for the space of thirty years, he had not once incurred their
displeasure."
Next door but one to the Freemasons' Tavern (westward), for many years
lived another celebrated comic performer, Miss Pope, one of a very
different sort, and looking as heavy and insipid as her taste was
otherwise. She was an actress of the highest order for dry humour; one
of those who convey the most laughable things with a grave face.
Churchill, in the _Rosciad_, when she must have been very young,
mentions her as an actress of great vivacity, advancing in a "jig,"
and performing the parts of Cherry and Polly Honeycomb. There was
certainly nothing of the Cherry and Honeycomb about her when older;
but she was an admirable Mrs. Malaprop.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES IN GREAT QUEEN STREET.]
Queen Street continued to be a place of fashionable resort for a
considerable period after the Revolution. As we have been speaking of
the advancement of actors in social rank, we will take occasion of the
birth of Martin Folkes in this street, the celebrated scholar and
antiquary, to mention that he was one of the earliest persons among
the gentry to marry an actress. His wife was Lucretia Bradshaw. It may
be thought worth observing by the romantic, that the ladies who were
first selected to give this rise to the profession, had all something
peculiar in their Christian names. Lord Peterborough married Anastasia
Robinson, and the Duke of Bolton, Lavinia Fenton.
Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Radcliffe the physician, lived in this
street. We mention them together because they were neighbours, and
there is a pleasant anecdote of them in conjunction. The author of a
book lately published, describes their neighbourhood as being in Bow
Street; but Horace Walpole, the authority for the story, places it in
the street before us; adding, in a note, that Kneller "first lived in
Durham Yard (in the Strand), then twenty-one years in Covent Garden
(we suppose in Bow Street), and lastly in Great Queen Street,
Lincoln's Inn Fields." "Kneller," says Walpole, "was fond of flowers,
and had a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and
the physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his garden;
but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller
sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied peevishly,
'Tell him he may do anything with it but paint it.' 'And I,' answered
Sir Godfrey, 'can take anything from him but physic.'"[215]
Kneller, besides being an admired painter (and it is supposed from one
of his performances, the portrait of a Chinese, that he could have
been admired by posterity, if he chose), was a man of wit; but so
vain, that he is described as being the butt of all the wits of his
acquaintances. They played upon him undoubtedly, and at a great rate;
but it has been suggested by a shrewd observer, that while he
consented to have his vanity tickled at any price, he humoured the
joke himself, and was quite aware of what they were at. Nor is this
inconsistent with the vanity, which would always make large allowances
for the matter of fact. The extravagance it would limit where it
pleased; the truth remained; and Sir Godfrey, as Pope said, had a
large appetite. With this probability a new interest is thrown upon
the anecdotes related of his vanity, with the best of which the reader
is accordingly presented. Kneller was a German, born at Lubec, so that
his English is to be read with a foreign accent.
The younger Richardson tells us, that Gay read Sir Godfrey a copy of
verses, in which he had pushed his flattery so far, that he was all
the while in dread lest the knight should detect him. When Kneller had
heard this through, he said, in his foreign style and accent, "Ay, Mr.
Gay, all what you have said is very fine, and very true; but you have
forgot one thing, my good friend; by G--, I should have been a
general of an army; for when I was at Venice, there was a _girandole_,
and all the place of St. Mark was in a smoke of gunpowder, and I did
like the smell, Mr. Gay; should have been a great general, Mr. Gay!"
Perhaps it was this real or apparent obtuseness which induced Gay to
add "engineering" to his other talents, in the verses describing
Pope's welcome from Greece:--
"Kneller amid the triumph bears his part,
Who could (were mankind lost) a new create:
What can the extent of his vast soul confine?
A painter, critic, engineer, divine."
The following is related on the authority of Pope:--
"Old Jacob Tonson got a great many fine pictures, and two of
himself, from him, by this means. Sir Godfrey was very
covetous, but then he was very vain, and a great glutton; so he
played these passions against the others; besides telling him
that he was the greatest master that ever was, sending him,
every now and then, a haunch of venison, and dozens of
excellent claret. 'O, my G--, man,' said he once to Vander
Gucht, 'this old Jacob loves me; he is a very good man; you see
he loves me, he sends me good things; the venison was fat.' Old
Geekie, the surgeon, got several fine pictures of him too, and
an excellent one of himself; but then he had them cheaper, for
he gave nothing but praises; but then his praises were as fat
as Jacob's venison; neither could be too fat for Sir Godfrey."
Pope related the following to Spence:--
"As I was sitting by Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was
drawing a picture, he stopt, and said, 'I can't do as well as I
should do, unless you flatter me a little, Mr. Pope! You know I
love to be flattered.' I was for once willing," continues Pope,
"to try how far this vanity would carry him; and after
considering a picture which he had just finished, for a good
while very attentively, I said to him in French (for he had
been talking for some time before in that language), 'On lit
dans les Ecritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme
après son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un
autre à présent, qu'il le feroit après l'image que voilà.' Sir
Godfrey turned round, and said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison,
Monsieur Pope; par Dieu, je le crois aussi.'"
It must not be omitted that Kneller was a kind-hearted man. At
Whitton, where he had a seat, he was justice of the peace, and,
"Was so much more swayed," says Walpole, "by equity than law,
that his judgments, accompanied with humour, are said to have
occasioned those lines by Pope:--
"I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
Who sent the thief (that stole the cash) away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way."
"This alluded to his dismissing a soldier who had stolen a
joint of meat, and accused the butcher of having tempted him
by it. Whenever Sir Godfrey was applied to, to determine what
parish a poor man belonged to, he always inquired which parish
was the richer, and settled the poor man there; nor would he
ever sign a warrant to distrain the goods of a poor man who
could not pay a tax."[216]
Poor Radcliffe, after reigning as a physician so despotically, that
Arbuthnot, in his projected map of diseases, was for putting him up at
the corner of it disputing the empire of the world, became a less
happy man than Sir Godfrey, by reason of his falling in love in his
old age. He set up a coach, adorned with mythological paintings,--at
least, Steele says so; but soon had to put it in mourning for the
death of his flame, who was a Miss Tempest, one of the maids of
honour. Radcliffe was the Tory physician, and Steele, in the "Tatler,"
with a party spirit that was much oftener aggrieved than provoked in
that good-natured writer, was induced, by some circumstance or other,
perhaps Radcliffe's insolence, to make a ludicrous description of him,
"as the mourning Esculapius, the languishing, hopeless lover of the
divine Hebe." Steele accuses him of avarice. Others have said he was
generous. He was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and
made other magnificent bequests; which prove nothing either way. But
it is not favourable to a reputation for generosity, to own (as he
did), that he was fond of spunging, and to avoid the paying of bills.
However, when he lost 5,000_l._ in a speculation, he said "he had
nothing to do but to go up so many pair of stairs to make himself
whole again." He was undoubtedly a very clever physician, though he
made little use of books. Like many men who go upon their own grounds
in this way, he had an abrupt and clownish manner, which he probably
thought of use. According to Richardson, he one day said to Dr. Mead,
"Mead, I love you; now I will tell you a sure secret to make your
fortune. Use all mankind ill." It is worth observing, that Mead acted
on the reverse principle, and made double the fortune of his adviser.
Radcliffe is said have attended the lady of Judge Holt, in a bad
illness, with unusual assiduity, "out of pique to her husband;" a very
new kind of satire. He used to send huffing messages to Queen Anne,
telling her that he would not come, and that she only had the vapours;
and when King William consulted him on his swollen ankles and thin
body, Radcliffe said he "would not have his Majesty's two legs for
his three kingdoms;" a speech which it was not in the nature of
royalty to forgive. His death is said to have been hastened by his
refusal to attend on Queen Anne in her last illness; which so
exasperated the populace that he was afraid to leave his country house
at Carshalton, where he died. He lived in Bow Street when he first
came to London; and afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.
But the most remarkable inhabitant of Queen Street was Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, one of those extraordinary individuals who, with a touch of
madness on the irascible side, and subject to the greatest blindness
of self-love, possess a profound judgment on every other point. Such
persons are supposed to be victims of imagination; but they are rather
mechanical enthusiasts (though of a high order), and, for want of an
acquaintance with the imaginative, become at the mercy of the first
notion which takes their will by surprise. Lord Herbert, who in the
intellectual part was intended for a statist and a man of science, was
unfortunately one of the hottest of Welchmen in the physical. Becoming
a Knight of the Bath, he took himself for a knight-errant, and fancied
he was bound to fight everybody he met with, and to lie under trees in
the fields of Holland. He thought Revelation a doubtful matter, and so
he had recourse to the Deity for a revelation in his particular favour
to disprove it. We have related an anecdote of him at Northumberland
House, and shall have more to tell; but the account of his having
recourse to Heaven for the satisfaction of his doubts of its
interference, must not be omitted here. Perhaps it took place in this
very street. His Lordship was the first Deist in England that has left
an account of his opinions. Speaking of the work he wrote on this
subject, he says:--
"My book 'De Veritate prout distinguitur à Revelatione
verisimili, possibili, et à falso,' having been begun by me in
England, and formed there in all its principal parts, was about
this time finished; all the spare hours which I could get from
my visits and negotiations being employed to perfect this work;
which was no sooner done, but that I communicated it to Hugo
Grotius--that great scholar, who, having escaped his prison in
the Low Countries, came into France, and was much welcomed by
me and Monsieur Tieleners, also one of the greatest scholars of
his time; who, after they had perused it, and given it more
commendations than is fit for me to repeat, exhorted me
earnestly to print and publish it; howbeit, as the frame of my
whole work was so different from anything which had been
written heretofore, I found I must either renounce the
authority of all that I had written formerly, concerning the
method of finding out truth, and consequently insist upon my
own way, or hazard myself to a general censure concerning the
whole argument of my book; I must confess it did not a little
animate me, that the two great persons above-mentioned did so
highly value it; yet, as I knew it would meet with much
opposition, I did consider whether it was not better for me for
a while to suppress it.
"Being thus doubtful in my chamber one fair day in the summer,
my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining
clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book, 'De Veritate,' in
my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:--
"'Oh, thou eternal God, author of the light which now shines
upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech
thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater request than
a sinner ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether I
shall publish this book 'De Veritate;' if it be for thy glory,
I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall
suppress it.'
"I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle
noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth)
which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as
granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I
resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever it may
seem) I protest, before the eternal God, is true; neither am I
any way superstitiously deceived herein; since I did not only
hear the noise, but, in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being
without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence
it came."[217]
"How could a man," justly observes Walpole on this passage, "who
doubted of partial, believe individual revelation! What vanity to
think his book of such importance to the cause of truth, that it could
extort a declaration of the Divine will, when the interest of half
mankind could not!" Yet the same writer is full of admiration of him
in other respects. It is well observed by the editor of the
_Autobiography_ (in reply to the doubts thrown on his lordship's
veracity respecting his chivalrous propensities, the consequences of
which always fell short of duels), that much of the secret might be
owing "to his commanding aspect and acknowledged reputation; and a
little more to a certain perception of the Quixote in his character,
with which it might be deemed futile to contend. His surprising
defence of himself against the attack of Sir John Ayres, forcibly
exhibits his personal strength and mastery; and his spirited treatment
of the French Minister, Luynes, and the general esteem of his
contemporaries, sufficiently attest his quick feeling of national and
personal dignity, and general gallantry of bearing." There is no
doubt, in short, that Lord Herbert of Cherbury was a brave, an honest,
and an able man, though with some weaknesses, both of heat and vanity,
sufficient to console the most common-place.
With all this elegance of neighbourhood, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the
time of Charles II., had one eyesore of an enormous description, in a
place behind Holborn row, entitled Whetstone Park. It is now a decent
passage between Great and Little Turnstiles.
"It is scarcely necessary," says Mr. Malcolm, "to remind the
reader of a well-known fact, that all sublunary things are
subject to change:--he who passes through the Little Turnstile,
Holborn, at present, will observe on the left hand, near
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a narrow street, composed of small
buildings, on the corner of which is inscribed Whetstone Park.
The repose and quiet of the place seem to proclaim strong
pretensions to regular and moral life in the inhabitants; and
well would it have been for the happiness of many a family, had
the site always exhibited the same appearance. On the contrary,
Whetstone Park contributed to increase the dissoluteness of
manners which distinguished the period between 1660 and 1700.
Being a place of low entertainment, numerous disturbances
occurred there, and rendered it subject to the satire and
reprehension even of 'Poor Robin's Intelligencer,' a paper
almost infamous enough for the production of a keeper of this
theatre of vice. The publication alluded to says, in 1676,
'Notwithstanding the discourses that have been to the contrary,
the boarding-school is still continued here, where a set of
women may be readily untaught all the studies of modesty or
chastity; to which purpose they are provided with a two-handed
volume of impudence, loosely bound up in greasy vellum, which
is tied by the leg to a wicker chair (as you find authors
chained in a library), and is always ready to give you plain
instructions and directions in all matters relating to
immorality or irreligion.' * *
"Incomprehensible as it certainly is," continues our author,
"the brutal acts of a mob are sometimes the result of a just
sense of the ill consequences attending vice; and, although
almost every individual composing it is capable of performing
deeds which deserve punishment from the police, they cannot
collectively view long and deliberate offences against the laws
of propriety, without assuming the right of reforming them.
'The Loyal and Impartial Mercury' of Sept. 1, 1682, has this
paragraph:--'On Saturday last, about 500 apprentices, and such
like, being got together in Smithfield, went into Lincoln's Inn
Fields, where they drew up, and marching into Whetstone Park,
fell upon the lewd houses there, where, having broken open the
doors, they entered, and made great spoil of the goods; of
which the constables and watchmen having notice, and not
finding themselves strong enough to quell the tumult, procured
a party of the King's guards who dispersed them, and took
eleven, who were committed to New Prison; yet on Sunday night
they came again, and made worse havoc than before, breaking
down all the doors and windows, and cutting the featherbeds and
goods in pieces.' Another newspaper explains the origin of the
riot by saying, 'that a countryman who had been decoyed into
one of the houses alluded to, and robbed, lodged a formal and
public complaint against them to those he found willing to
listen to him in Smithfield, and thus raised the
ferment.'"[218]
In the "State Poems" is a doggrel set of verses on a tragical
circumstance occasioned by a frolic of three of Charles's natural sons
in this place. It is entitled "On the three Dukes killing the Beadle
on Sunday morning, Feb. the 26th, 1671." A great sensation was made by
this circumstance, which was naturally enough regarded as a signal
instance of the consequences of Charles's mode of life. Our Grub
Street writer selected his title well--the "Dukes," the "Beadle," and
the "Sunday." His first four lines might have been put into Martinus
Scriblerus, as a specimen of the Newgate style.
"Near Holborn lies a park of great renown,
The place, I do suppose, is not unknown:
For brevity's sake the name I shall not tell,
Because most genteel readers know it well."
The three Dukes pick a quarrel with one poor damsel, and "murder" was
cried.
"In came the watch, disturbed with sleep and ale,
By noises shrill, but they could not prevail
T' appease their Graces. Strait rose mortal jars,
Betwixt the night blackguard and silver stars;
Then fell the beadle by a ducal hand,
For daring to pronounce the saucy stand.
* * * * *
See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall,
This silly fellow's death puts off the ball,
And disappoints the Queen, poor little chuck;
I warrant t'would have danced it like a duck.
The fiddlers, voices, entries, all the sport,
And the gay show put off, where the brisk court
Anticipates, in rich subsidy coats,
All that is got by necessary votes.
Yet shall Whitehall, the innocent, the good,
See these men dance, all daubed with lace and blood."[219]
The "subsidy coats" allude to Charles's raising money for his
profligate expenditure under pretence of the public service. The last
couplet would have done credit to a better satire.
As we are upon the subject of a neighbourhood to which they apply, we
shall proceed to give a few more extracts from Mr. Malcolm, highly
characteristic of the lower orders of desperadoes in Charles's reign.
"The various deceivers," he tells us, "who preyed upon the
public at this time were exposed in a little filthy work called
the 'Canting Academy,' which went through more than one edition
(the second is dated 1674). I shall select from it enough to
show the variety of villany practised under their various
names. The _Ruffler_ was a wretch who assumed the character of
a maimed soldier, and begged from the claims of Naseby,
Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor. Those who were stationed
in the city of London were generally found in Lincoln's Inn
Fields and Covent Garden; and their prey was people of fashion,
whose coaches were attacked boldly; and if denied, their owners
were told, ''Tis a sad thing that an old crippled cavalier
should be suffered to beg for a maintenance, and a young
cavalier that had never heard the whistle of a bullet should
ride in his coach.'
"There were people called _Anglers_, from the nature of their
method of depredating, which was thus.--They had a rod or
stick, with an iron hook affixed: this they introduced through
a window, or any other aperture, where plunder might be
procured, and helped themselves at pleasure; the day was
occupied by them in the character of beggars, when they made
their observations for the angling of the night.
"_Wild Rogues_ were the offspring of thieves and beggars, who
received the rudiments of the art even before they left their
mothers' backs: "To go into churches and great crowds, and to
_nim_ golden buttons off men's cloaks; and being very little
are shown how to creep into cellar windows, or other small
entrances, and in the night to convey out thereat whatever they
can find to the thievish receivers, who wait without for that
purpose; and sometimes do open the door to let in such who have
designed to rob the house; if taken, the tenderness of their
age makes an apology or an excuse for their fault, and so are
let alone to be hanged at riper years.'
"_Palliards_ or _Clapperdogeons_, were those women who sat and
reclined in the streets, with their own borrowed or stolen
children hanging about them, crying through cold, pinching, or
real disease, who begged relief as widows, and, in the name of
their fatherless children, gaining by this artifice, 'a great
deal of money, whilst her comrogue lies begging in the fields,
with climes or artificial sores.' The way they commonly take to
make them is by sperewort or arsenic, which will draw blisters;
or they take unslacked lime and soap, mingled with the rust of
old iron: these being well tempered together, and spread thick
upon two pieces of leather, they apply to the leg, binding it
thereunto very hard, which in a very little time would fret the
skin so that the flesh would appear all raw, &c. &c.
"_Fraters_ were impostors who went through the country with
forged patents for briefs, and thus diverted charity from its
proper direction.
"_Abram men_ were fellows whose occupations seem to have been
forgotten. They are described in the 'Canting Academy' in these
words:--'Abram men are otherwise called Tom of Bedlams; they
are very strangely and antickly garbed, with several coloured
ribands or tape in their hats, it may be instead of a feather,
a fox tail hanging down, a long stick with ribands streaming,
and the like; yet for all their seeming madness they have wit
enough to steal as they go.'[220]
"The _Whip-Jacks_ have left us a specimen of their fraternity.
They were counterfeit mariners, whose conversations were
plentifully embellished with sea-terms, and falsehoods of their
danger in the exercise of their profession. Instead of securing
their arms and legs close to their bodies, and wrapping them in
bandages (as the modern _whip-jack_ is in the habit of doing,
to excite compassion for the loss of limbs and severe wounds),
the _ancients_ merely pretended they had lost their all by
shipwreck, and were reduced to beg their way to a sea-port, if
in the country; or to some remote one, if in London.
"_Mumpers._--The persons thus termed are described as being of
both sexes: they were not solicitors for food, but money and
cloathes. 'The male mumper, in the times of the late
usurpation, was clothed in an old torn cassock, begirt with a
girdle, with a black cap, and a white one peeping out
underneath.' With a formal and studied countenance he stole up
to a gentleman, and whispered him softly in the ear, that he
was a poor sequestered parson, with a wife and many children.
At other times, they would assume the habit of a decayed
gentleman, and beg as if they had been ruined by their
attachment to the royal cause. Sometimes the mumper appeared
with an apron before him, and a cap on his head, and begs in
the nature of a broken tradesman, who, having been a long time
sick, hath spent all his remaining stock, and so weak he cannot
work! The females of this class of miscreants generally
attacked the ladies, and in a manner suited to make an
impression on their finer feelings.
"_Domerars_ are such as counterfeit themselves dumb, and have a
notable art to roll their tongues up into the roof of their
mouth, that you would verily believe their tongues were cut
out; and, to make you have a stronger belief thereof, they will
gape and show you where it was done, clapping in a sharp stick,
and, touching the tongue, make it bleed--and then the ignorant
dispute it no further.'
"_Patricos_ are the strolling priests: every hedge is their
parish, and every wandering rogue their parishioner. The
service, he saith, is the marrying of couples, without the
Gospel, or Book of Common Prayer, the solemnity whereof is
thus: the parties to be married find out a dead horse, or any
other beast, and standing the one on the one side and the other
on the other, the patrico bids them to live together till death
them part; and, so shaking hands, the wedding is ended.'"[221]
[Illustration: OLD THEATRE IN PORTUGAL STREET.]
On the southern side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the back of Portugal
Row, is Portugal Street, formerly containing a theatre, as celebrated
as Covent Garden or Drury Lane is now. This was the Duke's Theatre, so
called from the Duke of York, afterwards James II., who, at the
Restoration, patronised one of the principal companies of players, as
his brother Charles did the other. The latter was the Drury Lane
company. Readers of theatrical history are generally led to conclude
that there was only one theatre in the Lincoln's Inn quarter; but this
is a mistake. There were at least two successive houses in two
different places, though usually confounded under the title of "the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields." The first was in Gibbon's
tennis-court, in Vere Street, Clare Market, where the actors who had
played at the Red Bull opened their performances in the year of the
Restoration, under the direction of Killigrew, and with the title of
King's Company. These in 1663 removed to Drury Lane. The Duke's, or
Sir William Davenant's company, removed in 1662 from Salisbury Court
(see Fleet Street) to a new theatre "in Portugal Row," says Malone,
"_near_ Lincoln's Inn Fields."[222] Malone is a correct inquirer: so
that he makes us doubt whether the name of Portugal Row did not
formerly belong to Portugal Street. The latter is certainly meant, or
he would describe it as _in_ and not _near_ the Fields. Davenant's
company performed here till 1671, when they quitted it to return to
the renovated theatre in Salisbury Court, under the management of his
son, Charles Davenant (the father being dead), and the famous
Betterton, who had been Sir William's first actor. The two companies
afterwards came together at Drury Lane, but again fell apart; and in
1695 the Duke's company (if its altered composition could still
warrant the name), with Betterton remaining at its head, and Congreve
for a partner, again opened "the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,"
which was rebuilt for the purpose, and is described as being in "the
Tennis-court." Was this the tennis-court theatre in Vere Street? or
were there two tennis-courts, one in Vere Street, and one in Lincoln's
Inn Fields? We confess ourselves, after a diligent examination, unable
to determine. At all events, the latest theatre of which we hear in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, was not in Vere Street. It stood in Portugal
Street, on the east end of the present burial ground, just at the back
of Surgeons' College, and was subsequently the china warehouse of
Messrs. Spode and Copeland.[223] This theatre, which was built of red
brick, and had a front facing the market, is the one generally meant
by the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It finally became celebrated
for the harlequinades of Rich; but, on his removal to Covent Garden,
was deserted, and, after a short re-opening by Gifford from Goodman's
Fields, finally ceased to be a theatre about the year 1737. Since that
period Covent Garden and Drury Lane playhouses have had this part of
the town to themselves.
It is conjectured, that the first appearance of an actress on the
English stage, to the scandal of the Puritans, and with many apologies
for the "indecorum" of giving up the performances of female characters
by boys, took place in the theatre in Vere Street, on Saturday, Dec.
8, 1660. The part first performed was certainly that of Desdemona; a
very fit one to introduce the claims of the sex.[224]
Mr. Malone has given us the prologue written for this occasion by
Thomas Jordan; which, as it shows the "sensation" that was made, sets
us in a lively manner in the situation of the spectators, and gives a
curious account of some of the male actors of gentle womanhood, we
shall here repeat. It is entitled "A Prologue, to introduce the first
Woman that came to act on the Stage, in the Tragedy called the Moor of
Venice:"
"I came unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news; I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown, or page in petticoat:
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't,
If I should die, make affidavit on't.
Do you not twitter, gentlemen? I know
You will be censuring: do it fairly, though;
'Tis possible a virtuous woman may
Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;
Play on the stage--where all eyes are upon her:
Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?
In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em;
The difference lies only in the custom.
And let it be our custom, I advise;
I'm sure this custom's better than th' excise,
And may procure _us_ custom: hearts of flint
Will melt in passion, when a woman's in't.
But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chamber of the house--the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,
With '_damn me, your most humble servant, lady_;'
She knows these things as well as you, it may be;
Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts,--and your temptations too.
But to the point:--in this reforming age
We have intents to civilize the stage.
Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter giant.
We shall purge everything that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious, or obscene;
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play."[225]
The epilogue, "which consists of but twelve lines, is in the same
strain of apology."
"And how do you like her; Come, what is't ye drive at?
She's the same thing in public as in private,
As far from being what you call a whore,
As Desdemona injured by the Moor;
Then he that censures her in such a case,
Hath a soul blacker than Othello's face.
But, ladies, what think _you_? for if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this shall be
No other play, but her own tragedy.
She will submit to none but your commands,
And take commission only from your hands."[226]
From the nature of this epilogue, and the permission accorded by the
ladies, the women actors appear to have met with all the success they
could wish; yet a prologue to the second part of Davenant's "Siege of
Rhodes," acted in April, 1662, shows us that the matter was still
considered a delicate one upwards of a year afterwards.
"Hope little from our poet's withered wit,
From infant players scarce grown puppets yet;
Hope from our women less, whose bashful fear
Wondered to see me dare to enter here:
Each took her leave, and wished my danger past,
And though I came back safe and undisgraced,
Yet when they spy the wits here, then I doubt
No amazon can make them venture out,
Though I advised them not to fear you much,
For I presume not half of you are such."[227]
It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on
the stage.[228] One of the earliest female performers mentioned by him
was an actress whose name is not ascertained, but who attained an
unfortunate celebrity in the part of Roxana in the "Siege of Rhodes."
She was seduced by Aubery de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford of that
name, under the guise of a private marriage--a species of villany
which made a great figure in works of fiction up to a late period. The
story is "got up" in detail by Madame Dunois, in her "History of the
Court of Charles II.;"[229] but it is told with more brevity in
Grammont; and as the latter, though apocryphal enough, pretends to say
nothing on the subject in which he is not borne out by other writers,
his lively account may be laid before the reader.
"The Earl of Oxford," says one of his heroines, "fell in love
with a handsome, graceful actress, belonging to the Duke's
theatre, who performed to perfection, particularly the part of
Roxana in a very fashionable new play; insomuch that she ever
after retained that name. This creature being both very
virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonderfully
obstinate, proudly rejected the presents and addresses of the
Earl of Oxford. The resistance inflamed his passion; he had
recourse to invectives and even spells; but all in vain. This
disappointment had such an effect upon him, that he could
neither eat nor drink; this did not signify to him; but his
passion at length became so violent, that he could neither play
nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen; the
Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, you
know, a very handsome man: he is of the order of the Garter,
which greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from
his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really
possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him
speak, you are perfectly convinced to the contrary. This
passionate lover presented her with a promise of marriage, in
due form, signed with his own hand; she would not, however,
rely upon this; but the next day she thought there could be no
danger, when the Earl himself came to her lodgings attended by
a clergyman, and another man for a witness; the marriage was
accordingly solemnized with all due ceremonies, in the presence
of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on her
part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had
nothing to do but to appear at court according to her rank, and
to display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from
being the case. When examination was made concerning the
marriage, it was found to be a mere deception: it appeared that
the pretended priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the
witness his kettle-drummer. The parson and his companion never
appeared after the ceremony was over; and as for the other
witness, he endeavoured to persuade her that the Sultana Roxana
might have supposed, in some part or other of a play, that she
was really married. It was all to no purpose that the poor
creature claimed the protection of the laws of God and man;
both which were violated and abused, as well as herself, by
this infamous imposition: in vain did she throw herself at the
king's feet to demand justice; she had only to rise up again
without redress; and happy might she think herself to receive
an annuity of one thousand crowns, and to resume the name of
Roxana, instead of Countess of Oxford."[230]
This scoundrel Earl (whose alleged want of sense is extremely
probable, and was his best excuse, as well as the worst thing to say
for the lady), died full of years and honours, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey.
In 1664, Mr. Pepys witnessed a scene in the theatre in Portugal
Street, which shows the extremity to which the speculation of managers
and the curiosity of the British public can go. This was no other than
the appearance of an imposter, called the German Princess, in the part
of her own character, after having been tried for it at the Old
Bailey. She was tried for bigamy, and acquitted; but she had inveigled
a young citizen into marriage under pretence of being a German
Princess, the citizen pretending at the same time to be a nobleman.
The impudence of the thing was completed by the badness of her
performance. Granger, however, who appears to have read a vindication
of her, which she published, thinks she had great natural abilities.
The following is curious:--4th (Feb. 1666-7).
"Soon as dined," says Pepys, "my wife and I out to the Duke's
playhouse, and there saw Heraclius, an excellent play, to my
extraordinary content; and the more from the house being very
full, and great company; among others Mrs. Stuart,[231] very
fine, with her locks done up in puffes, as my wife calls them:
and several other great ladies had their hair so, though I do
not like it, but my wife do mightily; but it is only because
she sees it is the fashion. Here I saw my Lord Rochester[232]
and his lady, Mrs. Mallet, who hath after all this ado married
him; and, as I hear some say in the pit, it is a great act of
charity, for he hath no estate. But it was pleasant to see how
everybody rose up when my Lord John Butler, the Duke of
Ormond's son, came into the pit, towards the end of the play,
who was a servant to Mrs. Mallett, and now smiled upon her, and
she on him."[233]
One little thinks, now-a-days, in turning into Portugal Street, that
all the fashionable world, with the wits and poets, once thronged into
that poor-looking thoroughfare, with its bailiffs at one end, and its
butchers at the other. The difference, however, between beaux and
butchers was not so great at that time as it became afterwards; though
none arrogated the praise of high breeding more than the fine
gentlemen of Charles II. Next year Pepys speaks of a fray at this
house between Harry Killigrew and the Duke of Buckingham, in which the
latter beat him, and took away his sword. Another time, according to
his account, Rochester beat Tom Killigrew, at the Dutch Ambassador's,
and in the King's presence. Blows from people of rank do not appear to
have been resented as they would be now.
In the following passage we have an author's first night before us,
and that author the gallant Etherege, with dukes and wits about him in
the pit. He makes, however, a very different figure in our eyes from
what we commonly conceive of him, for he is unsuccessful and
complaining.
"My wife," says Pepys, "being gone before (6th Feb. 1667-8), I
to the Duke of York's playhouse, where a new play of
Etheridge's, called 'She would if she could;' and, though I was
there by two o'clock, there was one thousand people put back
that could not have room in the pit; and I at last, because my
wife was there, made shift to get into the 18_d._ box, and
there saw. But Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the
play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few
people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily
behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play
being done, I into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark
and raining; but could not find her, and so staid, going
between the two doors and through the pit, an hour and a half,
I think, after the play was done, the people staying there till
the rain was over, and to talk one with another. And among the
rest here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the
pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley,
and Etheridge the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily
find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour and
had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing,
nor could so much as sing a catch in it; and so was mightily
concerned; while all the rest did through the whole pit blame
the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something
very roguish and witty; but the design of the play and end
mighty insipid. At last I did find my wife."
The ensuing is a specimen of the manners of one of the fine ladies:-
"5th (May, 1668), Creed and I to the Duke of York's playhouse;
and there, coming late, up to the balcony-box, where we find my
Lady Castlemaine (the King's mistress) and several great
ladies; and there we sat with them, and I saw the
'Impertinents' once more than yesterday! and I for that reason
like it, I find, the better too. By Sir Positive At-all I
understand is meant Sir Robert Howard. My lady pretty well
pleased with it; but here I sat close to her fine woman,
Wilson, who indeed is very handsome, but they say with child by
the King. I asked, and she told me this was the first time her
lady had seen it, I having a mind to say something to her. One
thing of familiarity I observed in my Lady Castlemaine; she
called to one of her women, another that sat by this, for a
little patch off of her face, and put it into her mouth and
wetted it, and so clapped it upon her own by the side of her
mouth; I suppose she feeling a pimple rising there."[234]
More manners of this gallant reign. Pepys says he went to see a woman
with a great bushy beard, "which pleased him mightily."
"Thence to the Duke's playhouse, and saw 'Macbeth.' The King
and Court there; and we sat just under them and my Lady
Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a
kind of a loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so
something. And my wife, by my troth, appeared, I think, as
pretty as any of them; I never thought so much before; and so
did Talbot and W. Hewer, as they said, I heard, to one another.
The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the
handsome woman near me; but it vexed me to see Moll Davies, in
the box over the King and my Lady Castlemaine, look down upon
the King and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once
to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davies, she looked
like fire; which troubled me."[235]
Modes of thinking. Mr. Pepys is of opinion that the "Tempest," which
he saw at this house, is an "innocent" play; "no great wit, but yet
good above ordinary plays." This appears to have been his general
opinion of Shakspeare. That year he says,
"After dinner to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw
'Sir Martin Mar-all,' which I have seen so often, and yet am
mightily pleased with it, and think it mighty witty, and the
fullest of proper matter for mirth that was ever writ; and I do
clearly see that they do improve in their acting of it. Here a
mighty company of citizens, 'prentices, and others; and it
makes me observe, that when I began first to be able to bestow
a play on myself, I do not remember that I saw so many by half
of the ordinary 'prentices and mean people in the pit, at 2_s._
6_d._ a piece, as now; I going for several years no higher than
the 12_d._ and then the 18_d._ places, though I strained hard
to go in them when I did: so much the vanity and prodigality of
the age is to be observed in this particular."[236]
What he calls the vanity of the age, was one of the best signs of its
advancement. Plays, at the time above mentioned, began as early as
they did before the civil wars; and when they were over, people rode
out in their coaches to take the air. Our author, when the King
visited the theatre, speaks of being there by one o'clock to get a
seat. Kynaston, a favourite actor at this house, used to be taken out
airing by the ladies, in the dress which he wore as a female. Cibber
mentions this particular among others in an entertaining account of
Kynaston, whom the ladies do not appear to have spoiled:--
"Though women," he says, "were not admitted to the stage till
the return of King Charles, yet it could not be so suddenly
supplied with them, but that there was still a necessity, for
some time, to put the handsomest young men into petticoats,
which Kynaston was then said to have worn with success;
particularly in the part of Evadne, in the 'Maid's Tragedy,'
which I have heard him speak of; and which calls to my mind a
ridiculous distress that arose from these sort of shifts, which
the stage was then put to. The King, coming a little before his
usual time to a tragedy, found the actors not ready to begin,
when his Majesty, not choosing to have as much patience as his
good subjects, sent to them to know the meaning of it; upon
which the master of the company came to the box, and rightly
judging that the best excuse for their default would be the
true one, fairly told his Majesty that the queen was not
_shaved_ yet: the King, whose good humour loved to laugh at a
jest as well as to make one, accepted the excuse, which served
to divert him till the male queen could be effeminated. In a
word, Kynaston, at that time, was so beautiful a youth, that
the ladies of quality prided themselves in taking him with them
in their coaches to Hyde Park in his theatrical habit, after
the play; which in those days they might have sufficient time
to do, because plays then were used to begin at four o'clock:
the hour that people of the same rank are now going to dinner.
Of this truth I had the curiosity to inquire, and had it
confirmed from his own mouth, in his advanced age: and, indeed,
to the last of him, his handsomeness was very little abated;
even at past sixty his teeth were sound, white and even, as one
would wish to see in a reigning toast of twenty. He had
something of a formal gravity in his mien, which was attributed
to the stately step he had been so early confined to, in a
female decency. But even that, in characters of superiority,
had its proper graces; it misbecame him not in the part of
Leon, in Fletcher's 'Rule a Wife,' &c., which he executed with
a determined manliness, and honest authority, well worth the
best actor's imitation. He had a piercing eye, and, in
characters of heroic life, a quick imperious vivacity in his
tone of voice, that painted the tyrant truly terrible. There
were two plays of Dryden in which he shone with uncommon
lustre; in 'Aurengzebe' he played Morat, and in 'Don
Sebastian,' Muley Moloch; in both these parts he had a fierce,
lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave the
spectator a kind of trembling admiration."[237]
Pepys does not speak much of Betterton, the chief performer at the
Portugal-street playhouse. The reason must be, either that Betterton
played chiefly in tragedy, or that his comic talent (which is
probable) was not equal to his tragic. He was the great actor of his
time, as Garrick was of the last century, and Mr. Kean lately. His
most admired character appears to have been that of Hamlet; though
Steele, in a paper to his memory in the '_Tatler_,' seems to have been
most impressed by his performance of Othello. If an actor's Othello is
really fine, perhaps it must be his best part, as in Mr. Kean's
instance, owing to the nature of the character. Hamlet speaks to the
reflecting part of us; Othello to the sensitive. We will not present
the reader with extracts from Cibber which contain little respecting
this actor that might not be said of others; only it may be observed,
that in the better parts of the performances of the old players we
have something perhaps handed down to us of the manner of these
ancient ornaments of the stage. The liveliest idea remaining of the
genius of Betterton is furnished by an anecdote of Booth, who, when he
first performed the Ghost to Betterton's Hamlet, is said to have been
so astonished at the other's look of surprise, that for some moments
he was unable to speak. Betterton died old and poor, rather, it should
seem, from misfortune than imprudence. The actors in those times,
though much admired, were not rewarded as they have been since; nor
received anything like the modern salaries. His death is said to have
been hastened by tampering with the gout, in order to perform on his
benefit night. His person was rather manly than graceful. He was a
good-natured man; and, like Molière, would perform when he was ill,
rather than hinder the profits of his brother actors.[238] At Caen
Wood, Hampstead, the seat of Lord Mansfield, there is a portrait of
him by Pope, who was an amateur in painting. They became acquainted
when the latter was young, and the actor old; and took such a liking
to one another, that Pope is supposed to have had a hand in a volume
of pieces from 'Chaucer,' purporting to have been modernised by
Betterton.
Another celebrated actor in Portugal Street during the reign of
Charles II. was Nokes, who appears, from Cibber's account of him to
have been something between Liston and Munden. By a line in one of
Dryden's Epistles, the town seem to have thought a comedy deficient in
which he did not make his appearance. The poet says to Southern on his
play of the '_Wives' Excuse_'--
"The hearers may for want of Nokes repine,
But rest secure, the readers will be thine."
Nokes was one of those actors who create a roar the moment they are
seen, and make people ache with laughter.
These were among the older performers in Portugal Street. When
Congreve took a share in the theatre, some others had joined it, and
become celebrated, two of whom, Mr. Mountford and Mrs. Bracegirdle, we
have already described. Another two, whose names remain familiar with
posterity, are Mrs. Mountford and Mrs. Barry. Mrs. Mountford was a
capital stage coquette; besides being able to act male coxcombs and
country dowdies. Mrs. Barry was a fine tragedian, both of the heroic
and tender cast. Dryden pronounced her the best actress he had seen.
It is said she was a mistress of Lord Rochester's when young; that it
was to her his love-letters were addressed; and that she owed her
celebrity to his instructions. She was not handsome, and her mouth was
a little awry, but her countenance was very expressive. This is the
actress, who, in the delirium of her last moments, is said to have
alluded in an extempore blank verse to a manoeuvre played by Queen
Anne's ministry some time before:--
"Ha! ha! and so they make us lords by dozens!"
Cibber's sketch of Mrs. Mountford, in the character of Melantha is the
masterpiece of his book, and presents a portrait sufficiently distinct
to be extracted.
"Melantha," says our lively critic (himself a coxcomb of the
first water), "is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered
in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete
system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into
the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion,
manners, soul and body, are in a continual hurry to do
something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I
doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of
Mrs. Mountford's action, yet the fantastic impression is still
so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something,
though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that
break from her are upon a gallant, never seen before, who
delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her
good graces, as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think,
she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve,
though never so slightly covered. No, sir, not a tittle of it;
modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman; she
is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a confusion; she
reads the letter, therefore, with a careless dropping lip, and
an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were
impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete
conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not
embarrass her attack, crack! she scrambles it at once into her
palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and
motion; down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if
she were sinking under the conscious load of her own
attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and
compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and
risings, like a swan upon waving water; and to complete her
impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she
will not give her lover leave to praise it: silent assenting
bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the
conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved
from, by her engagements to half-a-score visits, which she
swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a
twinkling."[239]
Three of Congreve's plays, '_Love for Love_,' the '_Mourning Bride_,'
and the '_Way of the World_,' came out at the theatre in Portugal
Street. In the first paper of the '_Tatler_,' Steele gives a criticism
on the performance of '_Love for Love_,' which contains one or two
curious points of information respecting the customs of play-goers in
the reign of Anne. The "article" begins like that of a modern
newspaper.
"On Thursday last was acted, for the benefit of Mr. Betterton,
the celebrated comedy called 'Love for Love.' Those excellent
players, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. Dogget, though
not at present concerned in the house, acted on that occasion.
There has not been known so great a concourse of persons of
distinction as at that time: the stage itself was covered with
gentlemen and ladies; and when the curtain was drawn, it
discovered even there a very splendid audience. This unusual
encouragement, which was given to a play for the advantage of
so great an actor, gives an undeniable instance that the true
relish for manly entertainments and rational pleasures is not
wholly lost. All the parts were acted to perfection: the actors
were careful of their carriage, and no one was guilty of the
affectation to insert witticism of his own; but a due respect
was had to the audience for encouraging this accomplished
player. It is not now doubted but plays will revive, and take
their usual course in the opinion of persons of wit and merit,
notwithstanding their late apostacy in favour of dress and
sound. The place is very much altered since Mr. Dryden
frequented it; where you used to see songs, epigrams, and
satires, in the hands of every man you met, you have now only a
pack of cards; and instead of the cavils about the turn of the
expression, the elegance of the style, and the like, the
learned now dispute only about the truth of the game."
The last proprietor of this theatre was Rich, the famous harlequin,
who, having a poor company, unable to compete with Drury Lane,
introduced that love of show and spectacle which has ever since been
willing to forego the regular drama, however reproached by the
critics. Pope has hitched him into the 'Dunciad,' (book iii.), as one
of the ministers of Dulness.
"Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
'Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."
He had the merit, however, of producing the 'Beggar's Opera,' which
was acted scores of nights together all over England, and finally
rendered its heroine a duchess, and is said to have made "Gay Rich,
and Rich Gay." Rich had no education. He was in the habit, when
conversing, of saying mister, instead of sir.
One of Rich's actors was Quin, of whom more by and by. Garrick was
never at this theatre. It closed a little before his time, and was
never reopened. The vulgar attributed its desertion to a supernumerary
devil, who made his appearance in the pantomine of '_Harlequin and Dr.
Faustus_,' and took his exit through the roof instead of the door;
which so frightened the manager that he had not the courage to open
the theatre again. The only memorial now remaining in Portugal Street
of theatres and play-goers, and all their lively generation, is a
table set up in the burial-ground to the memory of the famous Joe
Miller, author of so many posthumous good things. He was an actor in
Congreve's time, and has the reputation of having been an honest, as
well as a pleasant fellow. The jest-book, which passes for his
publication, was collected by a companion of his, who is thought to
have owed to him nothing but his name. It is but reasonable to
conclude, however, that many of the jests were of the comedian's
relating.
In Carey Street, when she was first married, lived Mrs. Chapone. She
afterwards resided in Arundel Street. When we have no greater names to
mention, we think it our duty to avail ourselves of those of any
intelligent and amiable persons who are really worth mention, though
they may not be of the first order. They will be welcome to the
inhabitants of the street, and perhaps serve to throw a grace over
neighbourhoods that want it. It is better to think of Mrs. Chapone in
going along Carey Street, than of bailiffs and lock-up houses--unless,
indeed the latter should make us zealous to reform the debtor and
creditor laws; and even then we might be glad of the refreshment. Mrs.
Chapone was one of the disciples of Richardson, and is well known for
her '_Letters on the Improvement of the Mind_.' Ten months after her
marriage she lost her husband, to whom she was greatly attached, and
then she left Carey Street; so that the pleasantest part of her life
was probably spent there.
Clare Market stands on a spot formerly called Clement's Inn Fields,
the property of the Earls of Clare, one of whom built the market about
the year 1657. He is said to have lived close by, in a style of
magnificence. The names of the family, Denzel, Holles, &c., are
retained in some of the neighbouring streets.
Clare Market became notorious in the time of Pope, for the
extravagance of Orator Henley, a clever, but irregular-minded man, who
overrated himself, and became, it may be said, mad with impudence.
Some describe his Oratory as being in the Market, others in Duke
Street, which is the street going out of the western side of Lincoln's
Inn Square through the archway. Another writer says it was the old
theatre of Sir William Davenant, in Gibbon's Tennis Court, of which we
have just spoken, and which is said to have been in Vere Street. Most
likely all these accounts are to be reconciled. A tenement is often
described as existing in a certain street, when the street presents
nothing but a passage to it; and we take Henley's Oratory to have been
the old theatre, with a passage to it from the market, from Vere
Street, and from Duke Street. Having settled this magnificent point,
we proceed with the no less magnificent orator.
He was a native of Melton Mowbray, in the county of Leicester, the son
of a clergyman, and after going to St. John's College, Cambridge,
returned to his native place, and became master of the school there.
"Feeling, or fancying," says the author of the 'Lounger's
Common-Place Book,' "that a genius like his ought not to be
buried in so obscure a situation, having been long convinced
that many gross errors and impostures prevailed in the various
institutions and establishments of mankind; being also
ambitious of restoring ancient eloquence, but as his enemies
asserted, to avoid the scandalous embarrassments of illicit
love, he repaired to the metropolis, and for a short time
performed clerical functions at St. John's Chapel, near Bedford
Row, with the prospect of succeeding to the lectureship of an
adjoining parish (Bloomsbury), which soon became vacant.
"Several candidates offering for this situation, a warm contest
ensued; probation sermons were preached; and Henley's
predominating vanity made him expect an easy victory.
"We may guess at his disappointment, when this disciple of
Demosthenes and Cicero was informed that the congregation had
no objection to his language or his doctrine, but that he threw
himself about too much in the pulpit, and that another person
was chosen.
"Losing his temper as well as his election, he rushed into a
room where the principal parishioners were assembled, and thus
addressed them, in all the vehemence of outrageous passion:--
"'Blockheads! are _you_ qualified to judge of the degree of
action necessary for a preacher of God's word? Were you able to
read, or had you sufficient sense, you sorry knaves, to
understand the renowned orator of antiquity, he would tell you,
almost the only requisite of a public speaker was action,
action, action.
"'But I despise and defy you; _provoco ad populum_; the public
shall decide between us.' He then hastily retired, and, to
vindicate his injured fame, published the probationary
discourse he had delivered.
"Thus disappointed in the regular routine of his profession, he
became a quack divine; for this character he was eminently
qualified, possessing a strong voice, fluent language, an
imposing magisterial air, and a countenance, which no violation
of propriety, reproach, or self-correction, was ever known to
embarrass or discompose.
"He immediately advertised that he should hold forth publicly,
two days in the week, and hired for this purpose, a large room
in or near Newport Market, which he called the Oratory; but
previous to the commencement of his 'academical discourses,' he
chose to consult Mr. Whiston, a learned clergyman of
considerable mathematical and astronomical research, but who
had rendered himself remarkable by eccentric simplicity of
heart, and the whimsical heterodoxy of his creed.
"In a letter to this gentleman he desired to be informed,
whether he should incur any legal penalties by officiating as a
separatist from the Church of England. Mr. Whiston did not
encourage Henley's project, and a correspondence took place,
which, ending in virulence and ill-language, produced, a few
years after, the following letter:--
"'To Mr. William Whiston,
'Take notice, that I give you warning not to enter my room in
Newport Market, at your peril.
'JOHN HENLEY.'"[240]
Henley succeeded in his speculation, by lecturing, in the most
important manner, on all sorts of subjects, from the origin of evil
down to a shoe. He also published a variety of pamphlets, and a
periodical farrago called the 'Hyp Doctor,' for which he is said to
have had pay from Sir Robert Walpole; and as his popularity rapidly
increased in consequence of his addressing himself to uneducated
understandings, he removed from his Oratory in Newport Market to the
more capacious room in Clare Market; for he seems to have had a
natural propensity to the society of butchers, and they were fond of
his trenchant style. He sometimes threatened his enemies with them.
Pope, in answering the assertions of those who charged him with
depriving people of their bread, asks whether Colley Cibber had not
"still his lord," and Henley his butchers.
"And has not Colley still his lord----
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore."
Pope had been attacked by him. The poet speaks of him again, several
times, in the 'Dunciad:'
"Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
O great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once and zany of the age!
O worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest where monkeys were the gods."
Book iii., v. 199.
Pope says he had a "gilt tub," and insinuates that he sometimes got
drunk. Among the sleeping worthies in the 'Dunciad,'
"---- Henley lay inspired beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seemed a priest in drink."
A contemporary journalist, who says that the fame of Henley induced
him to be present at one of the lectures in Newport Market, describes
him as entering like a harlequin by a door behind the pulpit, and "at
one large leap jumping into it, and falling to work." "His notions,"
he says, "the orator beat into the audience with hands, arms, legs,
and head, as if people's understandings were to be courted and knocked
down with blows." The price of admission was a shilling. The following
are samples of Henley's extraordinary advertisements:--
"At the Oratory in Newport Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour
after ten, the sermon will be on the Witch of Endor. At
half-an-hour after five, the theological lecture will be on the
conversion and original of the Scottish nation, and of the
Picts and Caledonians; St. Andrew's relics and panegyric, and
the character and mission of the Apostles.
"On Wednesday, at six, or near the matter, take your chance,
will be a medley oration on the history, merits, and praise of
confusion, and of confounders, in the road and out of the way.
"On Friday, will be that on Dr. Faustus and Fortunatus, and
conjuration; after each, the Chimes of the Times, No. 23 and
24. N.B. Whenever the prices of the seats are occasionally
raised in the week days, notice will be given of it in the
prints. An account of the performances of the Oratory from the
1st of August is published, with the Discourse on Nonsense; and
if any bishop, clergyman, or other subject of his Majesty, or
the subject of any foreign prince or state, can at my years,
and in my circumstances and opportunities, without the least
assistance or any patron in the world, parallel the study,
choice, variety, and discharge of the said performances of the
Oratory by his own or any others, I will engage forthwith to
quit the said Oratory.
"J. HENLEY."[241]
In the bill of fare issued for Sunday, September 28, 1729, the most
extraordinary theological speculations are followed by a list of the
fashions in dress.
"At the Oratory, the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near Clare
Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour after ten: 1. The postil
will be on the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. 2.
The sermon will be on the necessary power and attractive force
which religion gives the spirit of a man with God and good
spirits.
"II. At five: 1. The postil will be on this point: in what
language our Saviour will speak the last sentence on mankind.
2. The lecture will be on Jesus Christ's sitting at the right
hand of God; where that is; the honours and lustre of his
inauguration; the learning, criticism, and piety of that
glorious article.
"The Monday's orations will shortly be resumed. On Wednesday,
the oration will be on the skits of the fashions, or a live
gallery of family pictures in all ages; ruffs, muffs, puffs
manifold; shoes, wedding-shoes, two-shoes, slip-shoes, heels,
clocks, pantofles, buskins, pantaloons, garters,
shoulder-knots, periwigs, head-dresses, modesties, tuckers,
farthingales, corkins, minikins, slammakins, ruffles, round
robins, tollets, fans, patches; dame, forsooth, madam, my lady,
the wit and beauty of my grannum; Winnifred, Joan, Bridget,
compared with our Winny, Jenny, and Biddy; fine ladies, and
pretty gentlewomen; being a general view of the _beau monde_,
from before Noah's flood to the year 29. On Friday will be
something better than last Tuesday. After each, a bob at the
times."[242]
Henley must have lectured a long while; for one of his "bobs at the
times" was occasioned by the dismissal of Dr. Cobden, a chaplain to
George II. in the year 1748, for preaching from the following text:
"Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be
established in righteousness." The wicked, we believe, meant the
king's mistresses. Next Saturday, Henley's advertisement appeared
with an epigram on this text for a motto:--
"Away with the wicked before the king,
And away with the wicked behind him;
His throne it will bless
With righteousness,
And we shall know where to find him."
This must be what the reviewers call a "favourable specimen."
"Sometimes," says the 'Lounger's Common-Place Book,' "one of
his old Bloomsbury friends caught the speaker's eye; on these
occasions, he could not resist the temptation to gratify his
vanity and resentment; after a short pause he would address the
unfortunate interloper in words to the following effect: 'You
see, sir, all mankind are not exactly of your opinion; there
are, you perceive, a few sensible people in the world, who
consider me as not wholly unqualified for the office I have
undertaken.'
"His abashed and confounded adversaries, thus attacked in a
public company, a most awkward species of distress, were glad
to retire precipitately, and sometimes were pushed out of the
room by Henley's partizans."[243]
It is probable that Henley's partizans were sometimes necessary to
secure him from the results of his imprudence, though his boldness
appears to have been on a par with it. He once attracted an audience
of shoemakers by announcing that he could teach them a method of
making shoes with wonderful celerity. The secret consisted in cutting
off the tops of old boots. His motto to the advertisement (_omne majus
continet in se minus_, the greater includes the less) had a pleasantry
in it, which makes the disappointment of the poor shoemakers doubly
ludicrous.
Henley, on one occasion, was for several days in the custody of the
King's messenger, having incurred the displeasure of the House of
Lords. "Lord Chesterfield, at that time secretary of state," says the
'Lounger,' "amused himself and his associates in office by sporting
with the hopes and fears of our restorer of ancient eloquence; during
his examination before the privy council, he requested permission to
sit, on account of a real, or, as it was supposed, pretended
rheumatism. Occasioning considerable merriment by his eccentric
answers, and sometimes by the oddity of his questions, he was observed
to join heartily and loudly in the laugh he had himself created.
"The Earl having expostulated with him on the impropriety of
ridiculing the exertions of his native country, at the moment
rebellion raged in the heart of the kingdom, Henley replied, 'I
thought there was no harm, my Lord, in _cracking a joke on a
red-herring_:' alluding to the worthy primate of that name, who
proposed, and, I believe, had actually commenced, arming and
arraying the clergy.
"Many disrespectful and unwarrantable expressions he had
applied to persons high in office, being mentioned to him, he
answered, without embarrassment, 'My Lords, I must live.'
"'I see no kind of reason for that,' said Lord Chesterfield,
'but many against it.' The council were pleased, and laughed at
the retort; the prisoner, somewhat irritated, observed, 'That
is a good thing, but it has been said before.'
"A few days after, being reprimanded for his improper conduct,
and cautioned against repeating it, he was dismissed, as an
impudent, but entertaining fellow."[244]
To complete the history of this man, he struck medals for his tickets,
with a star rising to the meridian; over it the motto, _Ad summa_ (to
the height), and below, _Inveniam viam aut faciam_ (I will find a way
or make one). As might be expected, he found no way at last, but that
of falling into contempt. He appears to have been too imprudent to
make money by his vagaries; and his manners, probably in consequence,
became gross and ferocious. He died in 1756. His person makes a
principal figure in two humorous plates, attributed to Hogarth.
Duke Street and Little Wild Street have had an inhabitant, as
illustrious afterwards as he was then obscure, in the person of
Benjamin Franklin, who, when he was first in England, worked in the
printing office of Mr. Watts, in the latter street, and lodged in the
former. When he came to England afterwards, as the agent of
Massachusetts, he went into this office, "and going up," says his
biography, "to a particular press [now in America], thus addressed the
two workmen: 'Come, my friends, we will drink together: it is now
forty years since I worked like you at this press, as a journeyman
printer.'" The same publication gives an account of him during this
period, which, besides containing more than one curious local
particular, is highly worth the attention of those who confound
stimulus with vigour.
"After the completion," says the writer, "of twelve months at
Palmer's" (in Bartholomew Close), "Franklin removed to the
printing-office of Mr. Watts, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he
continued during the whole of his subsequent stay in the
British metropolis. He found a contiguous lodging with a widow
lady in Duke Street, opposite the Catholic chapel, for which
he paid at his old rate of three and sixpence weekly, and
received no new impressions in favour of Christians from his
occasional notices of the Romish superstitions in this family
and neighbourhood. His landlady was a clergyman's daughter,
who, marrying a Catholic, had abjured Protestantism, and became
acquainted with several distinguished families of that
persuasion. She and Franklin found mutual pleasure in each
other's society. He kept good hours, and she was too lame
generally to leave her room; frugality was the habit of both;
half an anchovy, a small slice of bread and butter each, with
half a pint of ale between them, furnished commonly their
supper. So well pleased was the widow with her inmate, that
when Franklin talked of removing to another house, where he
could obtain the same accommodation as with her for two
shillings per week, she became generous in his favour, and
abated her charge for his room to that sum. He never paid her
more during the rest of his stay with her, which was the whole
time he continued in London. In the attic, was a maiden
Catholic lady, by choice and habit a nun. She had been sent
early in life to the Continent to take the veil; but the
climate disagreeing with her health, she returned home; devoted
her small estate to charitable purposes, with the exception of
about 12_l._ a-year; practised confession daily; and lived
entirely on water gruel. Her presence was thought a blessing to
the house, and several of its tenants in succession had charged
her no rent. Her room contained a mattress, table, crucifix,
and stool, as its only furniture. She admitted the occasional
visits of Franklin and her landlady; was cheerful, he says, and
healthful: and while her superstition moved his compassion, he
felt confirmed in his frugality by her example, and exhibits it
in his journal as another proof of the possibility of
supporting life, health, and cheerfulness on very small means.
"During the first weeks of his engagement with Mr. Watts, he
worked as a pressman, drinking only water, while his companions
had their five pints of porter each, per day; and his strength
was superior to theirs. He ridiculed the verbal logic of strong
beer being necessary for strong work; contending that the
strength yielded by malt liquor could only be in proportion to
the quantity of flour or actual grain dissolved in the liquor,
and that a pennyworth of bread must have more of this than a
pot of porter. The Water-American, as he was called, had some
converts to his system; his example, in this case, being
clearly better than his philosophy.[245]
"Franklin was born to be a revolutionist, in many good senses
of the word. He now proposed and carried several alterations in
the so-called _chapel_-laws of the printing office; resisted
what he thought the impositions, while he conciliated the
respect of his fellow-workmen; and always had cash and credit
in the neighbourhood at command, to which the sottish part of
his brethren were occasionally, and sometimes largely indebted.
He thus depicts this part of his prosperous life:--'On my
entrance, I worked at first as a pressman, conceiving that I
had need of bodily exercise, to which I had been accustomed in
America, where the printers work alternately, as compositors
and at the press. I drank nothing but water. The other workmen,
to the number of about fifty, were great drinkers of beer. I
carried occasionally a large form of letters in each hand, up
and down stairs, while the rest employed both hands to carry
one. They were surprised to see by this and many other
examples, that the _American aquatic_, as they used to call me,
was stronger than those that drank porter. The beer-boy had
sufficient employment during the whole day in serving that
house alone. My fellow-pressman drank every day a pint of beer
before breakfast, a pint with bread and cheese for breakfast,
one between breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, one again
about six o'clock in the afternoon, and another after he had
finished his day's work. This custom appeared to me abominable;
but he had need, he said, of all this beer, in order to acquire
strength to work.
"'I endeavoured to convince him, that the bodily strength
furnished by the beer could only be in proportion to the solid
part of the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was
composed; that there was a larger portion of flour in a
penny-loaf, and that, consequently, if he ate this loaf, and
drank a pint of water, he would derive more strength from it
than from a pint of beer. This reasoning, however, did not
prevent him from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, and
paying every Saturday night a score of four or five shillings
a-week for this cursed beverage; an expense from which I was
wholly exempt. Thus do these poor devils continue all their
lives in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty.
"'My example prevailed with several of them to renounce their
abominable practice of bread and cheese with beer; and they
procured, like me, from a neighbouring house, a good basin of
warm gruel, in which was a small slice of butter, with toasted
bread and nutmeg. This was a much better breakfast, which did
not cost more than a pint of beer, namely, three halfpence, and
at the same time preserved the head clearer. Those who
continued to gorge themselves with beer, often lost their
credit with the publican, from neglecting to pay their score.
They had then recourse to me to become security for them,
_their light_, as they used to call it, _being out_. I attended
at the table every Saturday evening to take up the little sums
which I had made myself answerable for, and which sometimes
amounted to near thirty shillings a-week.
"'This circumstance, added to the reputation of my being a
tolerable good _gabber_, or, in other words, skilful in the art
of burlesque, kept up my importance in the chapel. I had,
besides, recommended myself to the esteem of my master by my
assiduous application to business, never observing Saint
Monday. My extraordinary quickness in composing always procured
me such work as was most urgent, and which is commonly best
paid; and thus my time passed away in a very pleasant
manner.'"[246]
[Illustration: THE PRINTING PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED.]
FOOTNOTES:
[215] Anecdotes of Painting, in his Works, 4to. vol. iii., p. 364.
[216] Walpole's Works, _ut supra_, vol iii., p. 364.
[217] Life of Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, in the Autobiography
p. 145. It is an honour to Grotius, who wrote a book, De Veritate, on
the other side of the question, that he encouraged so renowned an
antagonist to publish: though, perhaps, he saw less danger in it than
singularity. At all events, he could anticipate no harm from the
close.
[218] Malcolm's Customs and Manners of London, from the Roman Invasion
to the Year 1700, vol. i., p. 318.
[219] Poems on Affairs of State, from the Time of Oliver Cromwell to
the Abdication of King James the Second, vol. i., p. 147.
[220] It is still a phrase with the vulgar to say, a man "shams
Abram."
[221] Manners and Customs, vol. i., p. 322.
[222] Historical Account of the English Stage, p. 320.
[223] It has recently been pulled down to make room for the
enlargement of the museum of the College of Surgeons.
[224] See Malone, pp. 135, 136.
[225] Malone, p. 135.
[226] Ibid., p. 136.
[227] Malone, p. 136.
[228] Memoirs, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 167.
[229] Memoirs of the English Court in the Reign of Charles II., &c.,
by the Countess of Dunois, part ii., p. 71.
[230] Memoirs of Count Grammont, 8vo. 1811, vol. ii. p. 142.
[231] With whom Charles II. was in love--afterwards Duchess of
Richmond.
[232] The famous wit and debauchee.
[233] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 136.
[234] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 99.
[235] Id. p. 222.
[236] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 2.
[237] Cibber's Apology, chap. v., &c.
[238] See Tatler, No. 167.
[239] Cibber's Apology, 2d edit. p. 138.
[240] "Lounger's Common Place Book," vol. ii., p. 137.
[241] Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during
the Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 417.
[242] Malcolm, _et seq._, p. 421.
[243] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 139.
[244] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 141.
[245] "For," says the note, "while the mucilaginous qualities of
porter may form one criterion of the nourishment it yields, it does
not follow that mere nourishment is or ought to be the only
consideration in a labouring man's use of malt liquor, or any other
aliment. It is well known that flesh-meats yield chyle in greater
abundance than any production of the vegetable kingdom; but Franklin
would not have considered this any argument for living wholly upon
meat. The fact is, that the stimulating quality of all fermented
liquors (when moderately taken) is an essential part of the
refreshment, and therefore of the strength they yield.
'We curse not wine--the vile excess we blame.'"
[To this Franklin might have answered, that the want of stimulus is
generally produced by a previous abuse of it, and that the having
recourse to fermented liquors is likely to continue the abuse,
whatever may be said about moderation. The moderation is so difficult,
that it is better to abstain than to hazard it. It is true (not to
quote the words irreverently) "man does not live by bread alone," but
by sociality and good-humour; and that even a little excess
occasionally is not to be narrowly considered; but for the purposes of
labour we may surely gather from the recorded experience of those who
have laboured most, whether physically or mentally, first, that the
more temperate our _habits_, the more we can perform; and, secondly,
that an habitual abstinence from some kinds of refreshment is the only
way to secure them.]
[246] Life of Benjamin Franklin, 1826, p. 31.