them, Hart, had been a captain in the civil wars; another, Mohun, a
major; and there was a third a quarter-master; all on the royal side.
Hart and Mohun were old actors, when Betterton was young; and they
lived to see him reckoned superior to either. The two were accustomed
to act together, Hart generally in the superior character, as Brutus
to the other's Cassius; and both, like Betterton, acted in comedy as
well as tragedy. They performed, for instance, Manly and Horner in
'The Country Wife,' and there appears to have been less distinction in
their styles of acting than is customary. If Hart shone in the
Dorimant of 'Sir Fopling Flutter,' Mohun was highly applauded in
Davenant's Valentine, in 'Wit without Money.' Mohun, however, appears
to have excelled in the more ferocious parts of tragedy, as Catiline;
and Hart in the mixture of gaity with boldness, as in Hotspur and
Alexander. His Alexander was particularly famous. Upon the whole, we
should conclude, Mohun's to have the more artificial acting of the
two, more like "the actor," in Partridge's sense of the word, but very
fine nevertheless, otherwise Rochester would hardly have admired him,
as he is said to have done; unless, indeed, it was out of spite to
some other actor; for he was much influenced by feelings of that kind.
Perhaps, however, it was out of some chance predilection, The Duke of
Buckingham is said to have preferred Ben Jonson to Shakspeare, for no
other reason than his having been introduced to him when a boy. The
best compliment ever known to have been paid to Hart, is an anecdote
recorded of Betterton. Betterton acted Alexander after Hart's time;
and "being at a loss," says Davies, "to recover a particular emphasis
of that performer, which gave a force to some interesting situation of
the part, he applied for information to the players who stood near
him. At last, one of the lowest of the company repeated the line
exactly in Hart's key. Betterton thanked him heartily, and put a piece
of money into his hand, as a reward for so acceptable a service."[253]
Hart had the reputation of being the first lover of Nell Gwyn, and one
of the hundreds of the Duchess of Cleveland.
Goodman was another of the favoured many. He was one of the Alexanders
of his time, but does not appear to have been a great actor. He was a
dashing impudent fellow, who boasted of his having taken "an airing"
on the road to recruit his purse. He was expelled from Cambridge for
cutting and defacing the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor
of the University, but not loyal enough to his father to please
Goodman. James II. pardoned the loyal highwayman, which Goodman (in
Cibber's hearing) said "was doing him so particular an honour, that no
man could wonder if his acknowledgement had carried him a little
further than ordinary into the interest of that prince. But as he had
lately been out of luck in backing his old master, he had now no way
to get home the life he was out, upon his account, but by being under
the same obligations to King William."[254] The meaning of this is
understood to be, that Goodman offered to assassinate William, in
consequence of his having had a pardon from James; but the plot not
succeeding, he turned king's evidence against James, in order to
secure a pardon from William. This "pretty fellow" was latterly so
easy in his circumstances, owing, it is supposed, to the delicate
Cleveland, that he used to say he would never act Alexander the Great,
but when he was certain that "his duchess" would be in the boxes to
see him.
The stage in that day was certainly not behind-hand with the court;
and as it had less conventional respectability in the eyes of the
world, its private character was never so low. But we must do justice
and not confound even the disreputable. Poor Nell Gwynn, in a quarrel
with one of the Marshalls, who reproached her with being the mistress
of Lord Buckhurst, said she was mistress but of one man at a time,
though she had been brought up in a bad house "to fill strong waters
to the gentlemen;" whereas her rebuker, though a clergyman's
daughter, was the mistress of three. This celebrated actress, who was
as excellent in certain giddy parts of comedy as she was inferior in
tragedy, was small of person, but very pretty, with a good-humoured
face, and eyes that winked when she laughed. She is the ancestress of
the ducal family of St. Albans, who are thought to have retained more
of the look and complexion of Charles II. than any other of his
descendants. Beauclerc, Johnson's friend, was like him; and the black
complexion is still in vigour. The King recommended her to his brother
with his last breath, begging him "not to let poor Nelly starve."
Burnet says she was introduced to the King by Buckingham, to supplant
the Duchess of Cleveland; but others tell us, he first noticed her in
consequence of a hat of the circumference of a coach-wheel, in which
Dryden made her deliver a prologue, as a set-off to an enormous hat of
Pistol's at the other house, and which convulsed the spectators with
laughter. If Nelly retained a habit of swearing, which was probably
taught her when a child (and it is clear enough from Pepys that she
did), the poets did not discourage her. One of her epilogues by Dryden
began in the following startling manner. It is entitled "An Epilogue
spoken by Mrs. Ellen, when she was to be carried off dead by the
Bearers."
"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?
I am to rise and speak the epilogue."
The poet makes her say of herself, in the course of the lines, that
she was "a harmless little devil," and that she was slatternly in her
dress. Lely painted her with a lamb under her arm. Mr. Pegge
discovered that Charles made her a lady of the chamber to his queen.
Pennant seems to think this was only a title; but it is plain from
Evelyn's Memoirs that she had apartments in Whitehall.[255] She died a
few years after the King, at her house in Pall Mall. Nell was much
libelled in her time, and among others by Sir George Etherege;[256]
very likely out of some personal pique or rejection, for such revenges
were quite compatible with the "loves" of that age.[257] But she was a
general favourite, nevertheless, owing to a natural good-heartedness
which no course of life could overcome. Burnet's character of her is
well known. "Guin," says he, "the indiscreetest and wildest creature
that ever was in a court, continued, to the end of that king's life,
in great favour and was maintained at a vast expense. The Duke of
Buckingham told me that when she was first brought to the King, she
asked only five hundred pounds a year; and the King refused it. But
when he told me this, about four years after, he said, she had got of
the King above sixty thousand pounds. She acted all persons in so
lively a manner, and was such a constant diversion to the King, that
even a new mistress could not drive her away. But after all he never
treated her with the decencies of a mistress."[258] Nell Gwynn is said
to have suggested to her royal lover the building of Chelsea Hospital,
and to have made him a present of the ground for it.
Upon the whole the dramatic taste during the greater part of Charles's
reign was false and artificial, particularly in tragedy. Etherege
produced one good comedy, the precursor of Wycherly and Congreve; but
Dryden, the reigning favourite, was not as great in dramatic as he was
in other writing; his heroic plays, and Lee's "Alexander," were
admired, not so much for the beauties mixed with their absurdity, as
for the improbable air they gave to a serious passion; and the
favourite plays of deceased authors were those of the most equivocal
writers of the time of James, not the pure and profound nature of
Shakspeare and his fellows. Otway flourished, but was not thought so
great as he is now; and even in Otway there is a hot bullying smack of
the tavern, very different from the voluptuousness in Shakspeare.
Towards the close of this reign comedy came to its height with
Wycherly, who, almost as profligate in point of dialogue as any of his
contemporaries, nevertheless hit the right vein of satire. Wycherly
lived at the other end of Russell Street, in Bow Street, where we
shall see him shortly.
We are now come to the time of Congreve, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and
others; Betterton remaining. Of these individually we have spoken
before; and therefore shall only observe that by the more serious
examples of James II. and King William, the manners of the day were
reforming, and those of the stage with them. We now find ourselves
among audiences more composed, and witness plays less coarse, though
with an abundance of double meaning and exuberantly witty. Coquetry
and fashion are now the reigning stage goddesses, as mere wantonness
was that of the age preceding.
Farquhar and Vanbrugh succeeded, together with Cibber, Wilkes, Booth,
and latterly Steele and Mrs. Oldfield. Vanbrugh does not belong to
Drury Lane, but Farquhar does, with the rest; and a lively place he
made of it. He is _Captain_ Farquhar, has a plume in his hat, and
prodigious animal spirits, with invention at will, and great good
nature. Captains abounded among the wits and adventurers of those days
down to Captains Macheath and Gibbet. Vanbrugh was a captain; Steele
at one time was Captain Steele; and Mrs. Oldfield's father, though the
son of a vinter, became Captain Oldfield, and genteelly ran out an
estate. This is still the age of genuine comedy, and the stage is
worthy of it. The tragedy was proportionably bad. Booth, indeed, was a
good tragic actor, but he suited the age in being declamatory. He was
the hero of Addison's Cato, once the favourite tragedy of the critics,
now of nobody.
Rowe was another artificial writer of tragedy, but not without a vein
of feeling. It seems to have been thought in those times, as we may
see by these authors, and by the tragedies of Banks and Lillo, that to
be natural, an author was to be prosaical; while, if he had any
pretensions to be poetical, it was his business to--
"---- wake the soul by tender strokes of _art_."
The gradual approach, also, of this period to our own times, which are
more critical in costume, and the pictures left to us of favourite
performers in Hamlet and Hermione, dressed in wigs and hoop
petticoats, render those outrages upon propriety still stranger to
one's imagination. They set tragedy in a mock-heroical light. Cato
wore a long peruke; Alexander the Great a wig and jack-boots; and it
was customary, down to Garrick's time, to dress Macbeth and other
tragic general-officers in a suit of brick-dust. "Booth enters," says
Pope:--
---- "Hark, the universal peal!
But has he spoken? Not a syllable.
What shook the stage and made the people stare?
Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."
The stare was not that of ridicule, but of admiration. All this makes
the comedy of that period shine out the more as the only truth extant.
Cherry, and Archer, and Sir Harry Wildair, and Sir John Brute, and my
Lady Betty Modish, were like the age, and like the performers.
To return to these. Wilks was the fine gentleman of that period. He
was a friend of Farquhar's, and came to London with him from Dublin.
Cibber, though he wrote a good comedy, would appear, by some accounts
of him, to have been little more on the stage than a mimic of past
actors. Steele, however, has a criticism on him and Wilks, in which he
speaks of them both as perfect actors in their kinds.
"Wilks," he tells us, "has a singular talent in representing
the graces of nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation
of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ either
of them in parts which had not their bents this way. This is
seen in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is
kept up in the character of Wildair, and in the nice and
delicate abuse of understanding in that of Sir Novelty. Cibber,
in another light, hits exquisitely the _flat_ civility of an
affected gentleman usher, and Wilks the easy frankness of a
gentleman.... To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully,
to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks may be
made to shine with the utmost beauty. To rally pleasantly, to
scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are
what Cibber would perform with no less excellence."[259]
This criticism produced a letter to Steele from two inferior actors of
that time, Bullock and Penkethman, who, rather than not be noticed at
all, were willing to be bantered. They knew it would be done
good-naturedly. Accordingly the "Tatler" says,
"For the information of posterity I shall comply with this
letter, and set these two great men in such a light as Sallust
has placed his Cato and Cæsar. Mr. William Bullock and Mr.
William Penkethman are of the same age, profession, and sex.
They both distinguish themselves in a very particular manner
under the discipline of the crab tree, with this only
difference, that Mr. Bullock has the more agreeable squall, and
Mr. Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours cold
chick with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in
asparagus. Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself
under a table; Bullock is no less active at jumping over a
stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great deal of money; but Mr.
Bullock is the taller man."[260]
Off the stage, and behind the scenes, Cibber performed the part of a
coxcomb of the first order. We shall not be properly acquainted with
Drury Lane at this period if we do not repeat his story of the wig.
This was a peruke of his, famous in the part of Sir Fopling Flutter.
It was so much admired, that Cibber used to have it brought upon the
stage in a sedan, and put it on publicly, to the great content of the
beholders. A set of curls so applauded was the next thing to a toast;
and accordingly Colonel, then Mr. Brett, whom the toasts admired,
could not rest till he had taken possession of it.
"The first view," says Colley, "that fires the head of a young
gentleman of this modish ambition, just broke loose from
business, is to cut a figure (as they call it) in a side box at
the play, from whence their next step is to the green-room
behind the scenes, sometimes their _non ultra_. Hither at last,
then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this
gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he
was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall
into his lap. And though, possibly, the charms of our
theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him
thither; yet, in my observation, the most visible cause of his
first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived for a
fair full-bottomed periwig, which I then wore in my first play
of the 'Fool in Fashion,' in the year 1695. For it is to be
noted that the _beaux_ of those days were of a quite different
cast to the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of
the peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their
highest emulation) the pert of a lapwing. Now, whatever
contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend,
who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very
well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a
man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to
him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly
be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the
grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have
laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig,
as your young fellows generally do for a lady of pleasure;
first, by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a
civil inquiry into the price of it. But on his observing me a
little surprised at the levity of his question about a fop's
periwig, he began to rally himself with so much wit and humour
upon the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with
an equal desire of granting anything in my power to oblige so
facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our
conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, ended
in an agreement to finish our bargain that night over a
bottle."[261]
Colonel Brett, being a man of "_bonnes fortunes_," married Savage's
mother!
Mrs. Oldfield made such an impression in her day, and has been noticed
by so many writers, that she must have a passage to herself. She was
the daughter of Captain Oldfield above-mentioned, and went to live
with her aunt, who kept the Mitre tavern in St. James's Market. Here,
we are told, Captain Farquhar, overhearing Miss Nancy read a play
behind the bar, was so struck "with the proper emphasis and agreeable
turn she gave to each character, that he swore the girl was cut out
for the stage." As she had always expressed an inclination for that
way of life, and a desire of trying her fortune in it, her mother, on
this encouragement, the next time she saw Captain Vanbrugh (afterwards
Sir John), who had a great respect for the family, acquainted him with
Captain Farquhar's opinion, on which he desired to know whether her
bent was most tragedy or comedy. Miss, being called in, informed him
that her principal inclination was to the latter, having at that time
gone through all Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies; and the play she
was reading when Captain Farquhar dined there having been 'The
Scornful Lady.' Captain Vanbrugh, shortly after, recommended her to
Mr. Christopher Rich, who took her into the house at the allowance of
fifteen shillings per week. However, her agreeable figure and
sweetness of voice soon gave her the preference, in the opinion of the
whole town, to all the young actresses of that time; and the Duke of
Bedford, in particular, being pleased to speak to Mr. Rich in her
favour, he instantly raised her to twenty shillings per week. After
which her fame and salary gradually increased, till at length they
both attained that height which her merit entitled her to.[262]
The new actress had a silver voice, a beautiful face and person, great
good-nature, sprightliness, and grace, and became the fine lady of the
stage in the most agreeable sense of the word. She also acted heroines
of the sentimental order, and had an original part in every play of
Steele. But she was particularly famous in the part of Lady Betty
Modish, in "_The Careless Husband_." The name explains the character.
Cibber tells us that he drew many of the strokes in it from her lively
manner.
"Had her birth," he says, "placed her in a higher rank of life,
she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she
only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a
little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often
seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank
might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the
least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very
morning, where I am now writing, at the Bath, November 11th,
1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition,
whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has
emboldened me to repeat them. After her success in this
character of higher life, all that nature had given her of the
actress seemed to have risen to its full perfection: but the
variety of her power could not be known till she was seen in a
variety of characters, which, as fast as they fell to her, she
equally excelled in. Authors had much more from her performance
than they had reason to hope for, from what they had written
for her; and none had less than another, but as their genius,
in the parts they allotted her, was more or less elevated.
"In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate;
her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but
her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new
character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was
still able to do more, if more could have been done for _her_.
She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of
either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising
dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first
setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in
it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own
capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their
seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs.
Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life
she never undertook any part she liked, without being
importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that
another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself,
she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be
known.
"Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was
not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was
tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that
had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost
nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked,
which she took care should be always reasonable, because she
hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her
extraordinary action in the '_Provoked Husband_,' the managers
made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement,
which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was
above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she
was conscious they would never think it their interest to give
her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness,
when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined
receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled
to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the
delight of her spectators."[263]
This charming actress (Mrs. Oldfield) is said to have been the Flavia
of "_The Tatler_" (No. 212). The catch-penny writer of her memoirs
equivocally speaks of it as her "_vera effigies_," and on his
authority the assertion has been repeated. But as a Flavia mentioned
in the same work (No. 239) turns out to be Miss Osborne, afterwards
the wife of Bishop Atterbury (upon whom he wrote the lines on a fan
there inserted, beginning
"Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ,")
and as the first Flavia is praised for her quality and the extreme
simplicity of her manners (which, according to Cibber, was not exactly
one of the charms of Mrs. Oldfield,) the supposition, we think, falls
to the ground. We need have less hesitation in admitting that Steele,
who knew her well, alludes to her in another paper under her favourite
title of Lady Betty Modish. Speaking of the effects of love upon a
generous temper, in refining the manners, he says, "There is Colonel
Ranter, who never spoke without an oath until he saw the Lady Betty
Modish, now never gives his man an order, but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do
it.' The drawers where he drinks live in perfect happiness. He asked
Will at the George the other day, how he did? Where he used to say,
'Damn it, it is so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must
confess, he is of another opinion; but, however, he will not
insist.'"[264] This Colonel Ranter is supposed by the commentators to
have been Brigadier-General Churchill, one of the Marlborough family,
who lived with Mrs. Oldfield after the death of Mr. Maynwaring. Steele
elsewhere speaks of a "General" (supposed to be the same) "weeping for
her, in the character of Indiana in his '_Conscious Lovers_;'" upon
which he said Mr. Wilks observed (for he had made all the fine
gentlemen tender) that the General "would fight ne'er the worse for
that."
Mrs. Oldfield's position in life was singular. With all her beauty and
attraction, and the license of stage manners, she is understood to
have attached herself but to two persons successively, and on the
footing of a wife. The first was Mr. Maynwaring, a celebrated Whig
writer, to whom one of the volumes of "The Spectator" is dedicated,
and by whom she had a son; and, after his death, she lived with
General Churchill, by whom she had a son also. "She left," says '_The
General Biography_,' "the bulk of her substance to her son Maynwaring,
from whose father she had received it; without neglecting, however,
her other son Churchill, and her own relations."
During the period of these two connections, Mrs. Oldfield appears to
have been received into the first circles, where she is described as
being a pattern of good behaviour; and yet the feeling of Mr.
Maynwaring's friends against the connection was so strong, that she
herself, though she is understood to have had a sincere affection for
him, is said to have often remonstrated with him against it as
injurious to his interest. Marriage with an actress, though the
example had been set by a duke, appears in neither case to have been
thought of. The feeling of society seems to have been this:--"Here is
a woman bred up to the stage, and passing her life upon it. It is
therefore impossible she should marry a gentleman of family; and yet,
as her behaviour would otherwise deserve it, and the examples of
actresses are of no authority for any one but themselves, some license
may be allowed to a woman who diverts us so agreeably, who attracts
the society of the wits, and is so capital a dresser. We will treat
her profession with contempt, but herself with consideration." Upon
these curious grounds Mrs. Oldfield lived in every respect like a
woman of fashion, and as she became rich (which was, perhaps, not the
least of her recommendations), she was admitted into the best society,
and went to court. The pretence among her visitors during both her
connections probably was, that she was privately married; but she was
too sincere to warrant the deception. The Princess of Wales
(afterwards queen of George II.) asked her one day at a levee if her
marriage with General Churchill was true. "So it is said, may it
please your highness, but we have not owned it yet."--"It may appear
singular," says Mr. Chalmers, who tells us this story, "to quote the
late pious Sir James Stonhouse for anecdotes of Mrs. Oldfield; yet in
one of his letters we are informed, that she always went to the house
in the same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses
of great people; for she was much caressed on account of her
professional merit and her connection with Mr. Churchill, the Duke of
Marlborough's brother; that she used to go to the playhouse in a
chair, attended by two footmen; that she seldom spoke to any one of
the actors; and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own
clothes."[265] Mrs. Oldfield's generosity was much admired in giving
a pension to Savage, which he received regularly as long as she lived.
This is what has given posterity a liking for her. When she died she
lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and her funeral in Westminster
Abbey was attended by several noblemen, among others, as pall-bearers.
Mr. Chalmers has repeated, with other biographers, that, "at her own
desire," she was elegantly dressed in her coffin; on which account, it
is added, Pope introduced her in the character of Narcissa:
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead--
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."
But it does not appear that there is any authority for this speech,
except the poet's. A letter written to her first biographer by an
attendant during her last illness says, that "although she had no
priest," she "prayed without ceasing," which does not look like an
attention to dress; but the biographer adds, that "as the nicety of
dress was her delight when living, she was as nicely dressed after her
decease; being, by Mrs. Saunders' direction, thus laid in her coffin."
The nicety here mentioned was, to be sure, "mortal fine."--"She had
on," says the writer, "a very fine Brussels lace-head, a Holland shift
with tucker, and double ruffles of the same lace; a pair of new kid
gloves, and her body wrapt up in a winding sheet."[266] Yet we are of
Montaigne's opinion, and know not why death should be rendered more
melancholy than it is. When a tomb was opened in Greece, supposed to
be that of Aspasia, there was found in it a sprig of myrtle in gold.
The next batch of players, with Garrick at their head, are Quin,
Macklin, Barry, King, Woodward, Gentleman Smith, and others; with Mrs.
Clive, Pritchard, Cibber, and Woffington. Garrick's later
contemporaries are Parsons, Dodd, Quick, the Palmers, Miss Pope, Mrs.
Abingdon, and others, who bring us down to Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren,
&c., the commencers of our own time. Of Steele and the sentimental
comedy we need say no more. Goldsmith belongs to Covent Garden; Foote
to the Haymarket; and Cumberland, though an elegant writer, does not
call for any particular mention in an abstract like this.
When Garrick first appeared, a declamatory grandeur prevailed in
tragedy, which we conceive to have arisen in the time of Charles II.
It was probably handed down by Booth; and imitated, with the usual
deterioration, from Betterton, who, though a true genius and a
universal one, may not have been uncorrupted by the taste of the
times; not to mention that it is doubtful, till Garrick appeared,
whether the art of acting was not identified with something too much
of an art, and the delicacy of verses expected to partake more of
recitation and musical accompaniment than we now look for. Our
suspicion to this effect arises from the traditional habits of the
stage, one generation handing down the manner of another, and
Betterton himself having been educated in the school of those who were
bred up in the recollection of Burbage and Condell. Shakspeare
himself, from custom, or even from some subtlety of reason, might have
approved of something of this kind; though, on the other hand, in the
celebrated directions of Hamlet to the players, there appears to be a
secret dissatisfaction with the most applauded actors of that time, as
not being exactly what was desirable. If this notion is just, and the
great poet of nature was as much advanced beyond his time in this as
in other respects, he might indeed have hailed such an actor as
Garrick, however hyperbolically they have been sometimes put together.
The best performers whom Garrick found in possession of public
applause, though some of them are described as excelling in all the
varieties of passion (as Mrs. Cibber, for instance, notwithstanding
the different impression given of her in the following quotation),
appear to have been more or less of the old declamatory school. Quin
in particular, then at the head of the profession, was an avowed
declaimer, having the same notions of tragedy in the delivery which
his friend Thomson had in the composition. Posterity respects Quin as
the friend of Thomson, and laughs with him as an epicure and a wit.
Garrick and he ultimately became friends. Of the first reception of
the new style introduced by Garrick, its electrical effects upon some,
and the natural hesitation of others to give up their old favourites,
a lively picture has been left us by Cumberland.
Speaking of himself, who was then at Westminster school, he says,--
"I was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the
play, where, for the first time in my life, I was treated by
the sight of Garrick in the character of Lothario. Quin played
Horatio; Ryan, Altamont; Mrs. Cibber, Calista; and Mrs.
Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed
a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and
my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle
even now, as it were, before my eyes. Quin presented himself,
upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat,
embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig,
rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very
little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone,
accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the
senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with
an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the
plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key
high pitched, but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived,
Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the
improvisatore's; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that,
though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had
once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the
manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old,
legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is
sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without
variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a
different cast, had more nature, and, of course, more change of
tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion
the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when, after
long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then
young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature,
come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont
and heavy-paced Horatio--heavens, what a transition!--it seemed
as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of
a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at
once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined
to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too
long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously
devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This
heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his
audience from the slavery they were resigned to; and though, at
times, he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of newborn light
upon them, yet, in general they seemed to _love darkness better
than light_, and, in the dialogue of altercation between
Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greater _show of hands_
upon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the
new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me
right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not
err."[267]
It is needless to add that Garrick excelled in comedy as well as
tragedy, and in the lowest comedy too--in Abel Drugger as well as
Hamlet. He was first at Goodman's Fields; then appeared both at Covent
Garden and Drury Lane; but in a short time settled for life at Drury
Lane as actor, manager, and author. He was a sprightly dramatist, a
man of wit, and no doubt a generous man, though the endless matters of
business in which he was concerned, and the refusals of all kinds
which he must have been often forced into, got him, with many, a
character for the reverse. Johnson, who did not spare him, pronounced
him generous. Fine as his tragedy must have been, we suspect his
comedy must have been finer; because his own nature was one of greater
sprightliness than sentiment. We hear nothing serious of him
throughout his life; and his face, with a great deal of acuteness, has
nothing in it profound or romantic.
Garrick has the reputation of improving the stage costume: but it was
Macklin that did it. The late Mr. West, who was the first (in his
picture of the "Death of Wolfe") to omit the absurdity of putting a
piece of armour instead of a waistcoat upon a general officer, told
us, that he himself once asked Garrick why he did not reform the stage
in that particular. Garrick said the spectators would not allow it;
"they would throw a bottle at his head." Macklin, however, persevered,
and the thing was done. The other, with all his nature, seems to have
had a hankering after the old dresses. He had first triumphed in them,
and they suited his propensity to the airy and popular. Garrick had a
particular dislike to appearing in the Roman costume. Probably in this
there was a consciousness of his small person. There are many
engravings of him extant, in which his tragic characters are seen in
coats and toupees. His appearance as Hotspur, in a laced frock and
Ramillie wig, was objected to, not as being unsuitable to the time,
but as "too insignificant for the character."[268]
Of Barry, the most celebrated antagonist of Garrick, we shall speak at
Covent Garden. King, according to Churchill, by the force of natural
impudence as well as genius, excelled in "Brass;" and Churchill's
opinions are worth attending to, though he expresses them with
vehemence, and by wholesale. _Gentleman_ Smith explains his character
by his title. We should entertain a very high opinion of Mrs.
Pritchard, even had she left us nothing but the face in her portraits.
She seems to have been a really great genius, equally capable of the
highest and lowest parts. The fault objected to her was, that her
figure was not genteel; and we can imagine this well enough in an
actress who could pass from Lady Macbeth to Doll Common. She seems to
have thrown herself into the arms of sincerity and passion, not,
perhaps, the most refined, but as tragic and comic as need be. As
Churchill says,
"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
Clive was an admirable comic actress, of the wilful and fantastic
order, and a wit and virago in private life. She became the neighbour
and intimate of Horace Walpole, and always seems to us to have been
the _man_ of the two. Mrs. Woffington was an actress of all work, but
of greater talents than the phrase generally implies. Davies says she
was the handsomest woman that ever appeared on the stage, and that
Garrick was at one time in doubt whether he should not marry her. She
was famous for performing in male attire, and openly preferred the
conversation of men to women--the latter she said, talking of "nothing
but silks and scandal." She was the only woman admitted into one of
the beef-steak clubs, and is said to have been president of it. These
humours, perhaps, though Davies praises her for feminine manners, as
contrasted with her antagonist Mrs. Clive, frightened Garrick out of
his matrimony.
We now pass at once to Covent Garden Theatre, which lies close by.
Many old play-goers who are in the habit of associating the two
theatres in their fancy, like twins, will be surprised to hear that
the Covent Garden establishment is very young, compared with her
sister, being little more than a hundred years old. It was first built
by Rich, the harlequin, and opened in 1733 under the patent granted to
the Duke's company. The Covent Garden company may therefore be
considered as the representatives of the old companies of Davenant and
Betterton; while those at Drury Lane are the successors of Killigrew,
and more emphatically the King's actors. Indeed, they exclusively
designate themselves as "his Majesty's servants;" and, we believe,
claim some privileges on that account. Covent Garden theatre was
partly rebuilt in 1772, and wholly so in 1809, having undergone the
usual death by conflagration. The new edifice was a structure in
classical taste, by Mr. Smirke, the portico being a copy from the
Parthenon of Athens.[269]
Actors have seldom been confined to any one house; and those whom we
are about to mention performed at Drury Lane as well as Covent Garden;
but as they were rivals or opponents of Garrick, and may be supposed
to have made the greatest efforts when they acted on a different
stage, we shall speak of them apart under the present head. The first
of them is Barry, who at one time almost divided the favour e
town with Garrick, and in some characters is said to have excelled
him, especially in love parts. How far this was owing to superiority
of figure, and to a reputation for gallantry, it is impossible to say;
and never were judgments more discordant than those which have been
left us on the subject of Barry's merits. For instance, his character
is thus summed up by Davies:--
"Of all the tragic actors who have trod the English stage for
these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most
pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor had shown the public
a just idea of the hero or the lover; Barry gave dignity to the
one and passion to the other: in his person he was tall without
awkwardness; in his countenance, handsome without effeminacy;
in his uttering of passion, the language of nature alone was
communicated to the feelings of an audience."
Davies proceeds to tell us, that Barry could not perform such
characters as Richard and Macbeth, though he made a capital Alexander.
"He charmed the ladies by the soft melody of his love-complaints, and
the noble ardour of his courtship. There was no passion of the tender
kind so truly pathetic and forcible in any actor as in Barry, except
in Mrs. Cibber, who, indeed, excelled, in the expression of love,
grief, tenderness, and jealous rage, all I ever knew. Happy it was for
the frequenters of the theatre, when these two genuine children of
nature united their efforts to charm an attentive audience. Mrs.
Cibber, indeed, might be styled the daughter or sister of Mr. Garrick,
but could be only the mistress or wife of Barry."[270] Our author
afterwards calls him the "Mark Antony of the stage," whether his
amorous disposition was considered, or his love of expense. He
delighted in giving magnificent entertainments, and treated Mr.
Pelham, who once invited himself to sup with him, in a style so
princely, that the Minister rebuked him for it; which was not very
civil. An actor has surely as much right to do absurd things as a
statesman.
Now, as a contrast to this romantic portrait by Davies, take the
following from the severer but masterly hand of Churchill:--
"In person taller than the common size,
Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;
When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,
Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,
Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,
Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:
But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,
His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;
To swell the tempest needful aid denies,
And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.
What man, like Barry, with such pains, can err
In elocution, action, character?
What man could give, if Barry was not here,
Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?
Who else can speak so very, very fine,
That sense may kindly end with every line?
Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,
Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.
See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,
Puts the whole body into proper trim,--
From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,
Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.
When he appears most perfect, still we find
Something which jars upon and hurts the mind.
Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,
We see too plainly they are not his own:
No flame from nature ever yet he caught,
Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;
He raised his trophies on the base of art,
And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]
The probability, we fear, is that Barry was one of the old artificial
school, who made his way more by person than by genius. Davies, who
was a better gossip than critic, though he affected literature, was an
actor himself of the mouthing order, if we are to believe Churchill;
and his criticisms show him enough inclined to lean favourably to that
side.
We have spoken of Quin, who acted much at this house in opposition to
Garrick. It was here that he delivered the prologue to the memory of
his friend Thomson; and affected the audience by shedding real
tears.[272]
Macklin was celebrated in Shylock; and in some other sarcastic parts,
particularly that of Sir Archy, in his comedy of "Love-à-la-Mode." We
take him to have been one of those actors whose performances are
confined to the reflection of their own personal peculiarities. The
merits of Shuter, Edwin, Quick, and others who succeeded one another
as buffoons, were perhaps a good deal of this sort; but pleasant
humours are rare and acceptable. Macklin was a clever satirist in his
writing, and embroiled himself, not so cleverly, with a variety of his
acquaintances. He foolishly attempted to run down Garrick; and once,
in a sudden quarrel, poked out a man's eye with his stick and killed
him; for which he narrowly escaped hanging. However, he was sorry for
it; and he is spoken of, by the stage historians, as kind in his
private relations, and liberal of his purse. A curious specimen of his
latter moments we reserve for our mention of the house where he died.
Woodward seems to have been a caricature anticipation of Lewis, and
was a capital harlequin. But nobody in harlequins beat Rich, the
manager of this theatre. His pantomimes and spectacles produced a
re-action against Garrick, when nothing else could; and Covent Garden
ever since has been reckoned the superior house in that kind of
merit,--"the wit," as Mr. Ludlow Holt called it, "of goods and
chattels." However, a considerable degree of fancy and observation may
be developed in pantomime: it is the triumph of animal spirits at
Christmas, for the little children; and for the men there is
occasionally some excellent satire on the times, reminding one, in its
spirit, of what we read of the comic buffoonery of the ancients.
Grimaldi, in his broad and fugitive sketches, often showed himself a
shrewder observer than many a comic actor who can repeat only what is
set down for him. Covent Garden has, perhaps, been superior also in
music, at least since the existence of the two houses together: for
Purcell was before its time. Many of Arne's pieces came out here; and
the famous Beard, a singer as manly as his name, the delight both of
public and private life, was one of the managers.
Among the Covent Garden actors must not be forgotten Cooke, who came
out there in Richard III. For some time he was the greatest performer
of this and a few other characters. He was a new kind of Macklin, and
like him, excelled in Shylock and Sir Archy M'Sarcasm; a confined
actor, and a wayward man, but highly impressive in what he could do.
His artful villains have been found fault with for looking too artful
and villanous; but men of that stamp are apt to look so. The art of
hiding is a considerable one; but habit will betray it after all, and
stand foremost in the countenance. They who think otherwise are only
too dull to see it. Besides, Cooke had generally to represent
bold-faced, aspiring art; and to hug himself in its triumph. This he
did with such a gloating countenance, as if villany was pure luxury in
him, and with such a soft inward retreating of his voice--a wrapping
up of himself, as it were, in velvet--so different from his ordinary
rough way, that sometimes one could almost have wished to abuse him.
John Kemble, who, like the whole respectable family of that name,
contributed much to maintain the rising character of the profession,
may be considered the last popular actor of the declamatory school.
His sister was a far greater performer, a true theatrical genius,
especially for the stately and dominant; and had a great effect in
raising the character of the profession. The growth of liberal opinion
is nowhere more visible than in the different estimation in which
actors and actresses are now held, compared with what it was.
Individuals, it is true, always made their way into society by dint of
the interest they excited; but still they were upon sufferance.
Anybody could insult an actor, could even beat him, without its being
dreamt that he had a right to retaliate; and the most amiable and
lady-like actresses were thought unfit for wives, as we have seen in
the case of Mrs. Oldfield. Things are now upon a different footing.
Talent is allowed its just pretensions, whether coming from author or
performer, and actresses have taken such a step, in ascension, that
nobility almost seems to look out for a wife among them, as in a
school that will inevitably furnish it with some kind of grace and
intellect. The famous Lord Peterborough, who was the first nobleman
that married an actress, kept the union concealed as long as he
could, and only owned it just before his death. The Duke of Bolton,
who married Miss Fenton, the Polly of Gay's opera, had first had
several children by her as his mistress; so that this is hardly a case
in point; and the marriage of Beard, the singer, with a lady of the
Waldegrave family, though he was one of the most excellent of men, was
looked upon as such a degradation, that they have contrived to omit
the circumstance in the peerage-books to this day! Martin Folkes's
marriage with Mrs. Bradshaw probably made the world consider the case
a little more rationally, as he was a clever man; but Lord Derby's
marriage with Miss Farren, who was eminently the gentlewoman, as well
as of spotless character, seems to have been the first that rendered
such unions compatible with public opinion. Lord Craven's with Miss
Brunton followed, though at a considerable interval; and since that
time, the town are so far from being surprised at the marriages of
actresses with people of rank or fashion, that they seem to look for
them. Lord Thurlow, not long afterwards, married Miss Bolton; another
noble lord was lately the husband of an eminent singer; and several
other favourites of the town, Miss Tree, Miss O'Neill, &c., have
become the wives of men of fortune. We remember even a dancer, Miss
Searle (but she was of great elegance, and had an air of delicate
self-possession), who married into a family of rank.
The whole entertainment of a theatre has been rising in point of
accommodation and propriety for the last fifty years. The scenery is
better, the music better--we mean the orchestra--and last, not least,
the audiences are better. They are better behaved. Garrick put an end
to one great nuisance--the occupation, by the audience, of part of the
stage. Till his time, people often sat about a stage as at the sides
of a room, and the actor had to make his way among them, sometimes
with the chance of being insulted; and scuffles took place among
themselves. Dr. Johnson, at Lichfield, is said to have pushed a man
into the orchestra who had taken possession of his chair. The pit,
also, from about Garrick's time, seems to have left to the galleries
the vulgarity attributed to it by Pope. There still remains, says he--
---- "to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit,
A senseless, worthless, and unhonoured crowd,
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke."
This would now be hardly a fair description of the galleries; and yet
modern audiences are not reckoned to be of quite so high a cast as
they used, in point of rank and wealth; so that this is another
evidence of the general improvement of manners. Boswell, in an
ebullition of vivacity, while sitting one night in the pit by his
friend Dr. Blair, gave an extempore imitation of a cow! The house
applauded, and he ventured upon some attempts of the same kind which
did not succeed. Blair advised him in future to "stick to the cow." No
gentleman now-a-days would think of a freak like this. There is one
thing, however, in which the pit have much to amend. Their destitution
of gallantry is extraordinary, especially for a body so ready to
accept the clap-traps of the stage, in praise of their "manly hearts,"
and their "guardianship of the fair." Nothing is more common than to
see women standing at the sides of the pit benches, while no one
thinks of offering them a seat. Room even is not made, though it often
might be. Nay, we have heard women rebuked for coming without securing
a seat, while the reprover complimented himself on his better wisdom,
and the hearers laughed. On the other hand, a considerate gentleman
one night, who went out to stretch his legs, told a lady in our
hearing that she might occupy his seat "till he returned!"
A friend of ours knew a lady who remembered Dr. Johnson in the pit
taking snuff out of his waistcoat pocket. He used to go into the
green-room to his friend Garrick, till he honestly confessed that the
actresses excited too much of his admiration. Garrick did not much
like to be seen by him when playing any buffoonery. It is said that
the actor once complained to his friend that he talked too loud in the
stage box, and interrupted his feelings: upon which the doctor said,
"Feelings! Punch has no feelings." It was Johnson's opinion (speaking
of a common cant of critics), that an actor who really "took himself"
for Richard III., deserved to be hanged; and it is easy enough to
agree with him; except that an actor who did so would be out of his
senses. Too great a sensibility seems almost as hurtful to acting as
too little. It would soon wear out the performer. There must be a
quickness of conception, sufficient to seize the truth of the
character, with a coolness of judgment to take all advantages; but as
the actor is to represent as well as conceive, and to be the character
in his own person, he could not with impunity give way to his emotions
in any degree equal to what the spectators suppose. At least, if he
did, he would fall into fits, or run his head against the wall. As to
the amount of talent requisite to make a great actor, we must not
enter upon a discussion which would lead us too far from our main
object; but we shall merely express our opinion, that there is a great
deal more of it among the community than they are aware.
Goldsmith was a frequenter of the theatre: Fielding and Smollett,
Sterne, but particularly Churchill. "His observatory," says Davies,
"was generally the first row of the pit, next the orchestra." His
"Rosciad," a criticism on the most known performers of the day, made a
great sensation among a body of persons who, as they are in the habit
of receiving applause to their faces, and in the most victorious
manner, may be allowed a greater stock of self-love than most
people--a circumstance which renders an unexacting member of their
profession doubly delightful. "The writer," says Davies, "very warmly,
as well as justly, celebrated the various and peculiar excellencies of
Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, and Clive; but no one has, except
Garrick, escaped his satirical lash." Poor Davies is glad to say this,
because of the well-known passage in which he himself is mentioned:--
"With him came mighty Davies! On my life
That Davies hath a very pretty wife."
We will make one more quotation from this poem, because it describes a
class of actors, who are now extinct, and who carried the artificial
school to its height:--
"Mossop, attached to military plan,
Still kept his eye fixed on his right-hand man.
Whilst the mouth measures words with seeming skill,
The right hand labours, and the left lies still;
For he resolved on scripture grounds to go,
What the right doth, the left hand shall not know.
With studied impropriety of speech,
He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach;
To epithets allots emphatic state,
Whilst principals, ungraced, like lackeys, wait;
In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And stands alone in indeclinables;
Conjunction, preposition, adverb join,
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line:
In monosyllables his thunders roll;
HE, SHE, IT, and WE, YE, THEY, fright the soul."
Mr. Barrymore (of whom we have no unpleasing recollection) had
something of this manner with him; but the extremity of the style is
now quite gone out.
The only capital performers we remember, that are now dead and gone,
with the exception of two or three already mentioned, were Mrs.
Jordan, a charming cordial actress, on the homely side of the
agreeable, with a delightful voice; and Suett, who was the very
personification of weak whimsicality, with a laugh like a peal of
giggles. Mathews gives him to the life.
We shall conclude this chapter with some delightful play-going
recollections of the best theatrical critic now living[273]--the best,
indeed, as far as we know, that this country ever saw. He is one who
does not respect criticism a jot too much, nor any of the feelings
connected with humanity, or the imitation of it, too little. We here
have him giving us an account of the impression made upon him by the
first sight of a play, and concluding with a good hint to those older
children, who, because they have cut their drums open, think nothing
remains in life to be pleased with. A child may like a theatre,
because he is not thoroughly acquainted with it; but if he become a
wise man, he will find reason to like it, because he is.
Life always flows with a certain freshness in these quarters; nor,
with all their drawbacks, have we more agreeable impressions from any
neighbourhood in London, than what we receive from the district
containing the great theatres. It is one of the most social and the
least sordid.
"At the north end of Cross Court," says Mr. Lamb, "there yet
stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though
reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a
printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader,
you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old
Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it
without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders,
recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see _my
first play_. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of
our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain
should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the
window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to
prognosticate the desired cessation. I seem to remember the
last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.
* * * * *
"In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable
manager who abolished them!--with one of these we went. I
remember the waiting at the door--not that which is left--but
between that and an inner door, in shelter. Oh, when shall I be
such an expectant again!--with the cry of nonpareils, an
indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as
I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the
theatrical fruiteresses was, '_chase_ some oranges, _chase_
some nonpareils, _chase_ a bill of the play:' chase _pro_
chuse. But when we got in and I beheld the green curtain that
veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be
disclosed--the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen
something like it in the plate prefixed to 'Troilus and
Cressida,' in Rowe's 'Shakspeare,'--the tent scene with
Diomede; and a sight of that plate can always bring back, in a
measure, the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time
full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit;
and the pilasters, reaching down, were adorned with a
glittering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it
seemed), resembling--a homely fancy--but I judged it to be
sugar-candy--yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its
homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy! The
orchestra lights at length arose, those 'fair Auroras!' Once
the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again; and,
incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort
of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time.
The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play
was 'Artaxerxes!'
"I had dabbled a little in the 'Universal History'-the ancient
part of it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being
admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in
the action going on, for I understood not its import; but I
heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All
feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens,
palaces, princes, passed before me--I knew not players. I was
in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their
devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was
awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something
more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream.
No such pleasure has ever since visited me but in dreams.
Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I remember, the
transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldames seemed
to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor
carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of
St. Denys.
"The next play to which I was taken, was the 'Lady of the
Manor,' of which, with the exception of some scenery, very
faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a
pantomime called 'Lun's Ghost'--a satiric touch, I apprehend,
upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my apprehension (too
sincere for satire) Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as
Lud--the father of a line of harlequins--transmitting his
dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I
saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly
vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead
rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.
"My third play followed in quick succession. It was 'The Way of
the World.' I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge;
for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady
Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. 'Robinson
Crusoe' followed, in which Crusoe, Man Friday, and the Parrot
were as good and authentic as in the story. The clownery and
pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my
head. I believe I no more laughed at them, than at the same age
I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque gothic
heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that
gape and grin, in stone, around the inside of the old round
church (my church) of the Templars.
"I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six
to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven
years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again
entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes' evening
had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same
feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ
from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does
from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first
period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated
nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all--
'Was nourished I could not tell how.'
I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a
rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the
emblem, the reverence was gone! The green curtain was no longer
a veil drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to
bring back past ages, to present a 'royal ghost,' but a certain
quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for
a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come
forward and pretend those parts. The lights--the orchestra
lights--came up, a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the
second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell, which
had been like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no
hand seen or guessed at, which ministered to its warning. The
actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in
them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many
centuries--of six short twelvemonths--had wrought in me.
Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening
was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some
unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the
genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter
upon the first appearance, to me, of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella.
Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present
attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, _upon a
new stock_, the most delightful of recreations."--ELIA, p. 221.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, OLD COVENT GARDEN.]
FOOTNOTES:
[247] P. 160.
[248] Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Hooker, &c. by Izaac
Walton, 1825, p. 22.
[249] Life of Donne, in Chalmers's "British Poets."
[250] For complete particulars of the history of James's daughter and
son-in-law, and their gallant adherents, see "Memoirs of Elizabeth
Stuart, Queen of Bohemia," by Miss Benger, and "Collins's Peerage," by
Sir Egerton Brydges, vol. v., p. 446. Miss Benger is as romantic as if
she had lived in the queen's time, but she is diligent and amusing.
The facts can easily be separated from her colouring.
[251] See Baker's Biographia Dramatica, vol. ii.
[252] See Baker, _passim_.
[253] Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii., chap. 24. Most of the above
particulars respecting Hart and Mohun have been gathered from that
work. There are scarcely any records of them elsewhere.
[254] Cibber's 'Apology,' _ut supra_, p. 226.
[255] "March 1st (1671). I thence walked with him through St. James's
Parke to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar
discourse between ... and Mrs. Nellie, as they called an impudent
comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the
wall, and ... standing on ye greene walke under it. I was heartily
sorry at this scene. Thence the King walked to the Duchess of
Cleveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation."--Evelyn's
'Memoirs,' _ut supra_, vol. ii., p. 339. It would be curious to know
how Mr. Evelyn conducted himself during this time, if he and the King
saw one another.
[256] Miscellaneous Works of the Duke of Buckingham and others. 1704,
vol. i., p. 34.
[257] The verses are attributed to Etherege; but, from a Scotch rhyme
in them of _trull_ and _will_, are perhaps not his.
[258] History of His own Times, Edin. 1753, vol. i., p. 387.
[259] Tatler, No. 182.
[260] Tatler, No. 188. See also No. 7.
[261] Apology, p. 303.
[262] Baker's Biographia Dramatica, Art. Farquhar, vol. i., p. 155.
Faithful Memoirs, &c., of Mrs. Anne Oldfield, by Egerton, p. 76.
[263] Apology, p. 250.
[264] Tatler, No. 10.
[265] Letters from the Rev. J. Orton and the Rev. Sir John Stonhouse,
quoted in the "General Biographical Dictionary," vol. xxiii. p. 326.
[266] Memoirs, p. 144.
[267] Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by himself, 4to. p. 59.
Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," vol. i. p. 136, gives us a different
idea of the preference awarded by the audience. To be sure, upon his
knowledge, he says only that Quin was defeated "in the opinion of the
best judges;" but he adds, from report, an anecdote that looks as if
the general feeling also was against him. "When Lothario," he says,
"gave Horatio the challenge, Quin, instead of accepting it
instantaneously, with the determined and unembarrassed brow of
superior bravery, made a long pause, and dragged out the words,
'I'll meet thee there!'
in such a manner as to make it appear absolutely ludicrous. He paused
so long before he spoke, that somebody, it was said, called out from
the gallery, 'Why don't you tell the gentleman whether you will meet
him or not?'"
[268] Davis's Miscellanies, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 126.
[269] Since this was written, Covent Garden has been converted into an
Italian Opera House, has been a second time burnt, and a third time
rebuilt; the architect being Mr. Barry, a son of Sir Charles Barry,
who designed and erected the New Houses of Parliament.
[270] Alluding to her performance of Cordelia, &c., with the one, and
of Juliet, Belvidera, &c., with the other.
[271] The Rosciad.
[272] "He (Thomson) left behind him the tragedy of 'Coriolanus,' which
was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir George Lyttleton, brought upon the
stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue,
which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in
such a manner as showed him 'to be,' on that occasion, 'no actor.' The
commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is
reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his
genius, from an arrest, by a very considerable present; and its
continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not always the
sequel of obligation." Life, by Dr. Johnson, in Chalmers's 'Poets,' p.
409.
[273] Alas! now dead. This passage was written before the departure of
our admirable friend.