THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
CHARLES MACKLIN
_A WILL AND NO WILL_,
OR _A Bone for the Lawyers_.
(1746)
_THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D_,
OR _The Plague of Envy_.
(1747)
_Introduction by_
JEAN B. KERN
PUBLICATION NUMBERS 127-128
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
1967
GENERAL EDITORS
George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
ADVISORY EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_
James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_
Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
Transcriber's Note: Footnote markers are missing for notes 9, 10, and
11 in the Notes to the Plays.
INTRODUCTION
The manuscript copies of these two plays by Charles Macklin, A WILL
AND NO WILL, OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS (1746) and THE NEW PLAY
CRITICIZ'D, OR THE PLAGUE OF ENVY (1747), are in the Larpent
Collection of the Huntington Library along with a third afterpiece
_The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir_ (1752)
already reproduced in facsimile as Number 116 of the Augustan Reprint
Society.[1] Since the introduction to _Covent Garden Theatre_ (ARS
116) already gives general biographical information on this
actor-playwright, Charles Macklin, as well as an indication of the
revived interest in his plays, this introduction will be limited to
the two afterpieces here reproduced.
A WILL AND NO WILL, OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS (Larpent 58) was first
produced in 1746 and revived many times up to March 29, 1756, unlike
_The Covent Garden Theatre_ which was given only one performance in
1752. The Larpent manuscript 58 copy of A WILL AND NO WILL bears the
handwritten application of James Lacy to the Lord Chamberlain for
permission to perform the farce for Mrs. Macklin's benefit. It was
first performed at the Drury Lane Theatre April 23, 1746, following
_Humours of the Army_.[2] Sometimes advertised with a different
subtitle as A WILL AND NO WILL, OR A NEW CASE FOR THE LAWYERS,[3] it
was revived March 22, 1748, for Macklin's own benefit and apparently
was more popular in the revival since it was repeated five more times
on March 29, 31 and April 11, 21, 22.[4] The last performance listed
in _The London Stage_, Part 4, II, 535, was for Macklin's daughter's
benefit on March 29, 1756.
Macklin's two-act farce, A WILL AND NO WILL, is based on Regnard's
five-act comedy _le Legetaire Universel_ (1707), which is itself a
composite of Italian comedy with echoes of Molière, moving from scene
to scene with little effort at logical consistency or structure but
treating each scene autonomously for its own comic value.[5] Macklin
condensed and tightened Regnard's five-act plot into a two-act
afterpiece; the role of the apothecary is greatly reduced into the
stock London-stage Frenchman, du Maigre, who can barely speak English;
the servant Lucy is more the English maid than the French _bonne_ of
the Regnard play who gave orders to her master; and the satire of
Macklin's afterpiece is directed not only at lawyers and physicians,
as in the Regnard play, but at Methodist itinerant preachers. Finally
Macklin's plot was both complicated and tightened by having the
lawyers summoned to draw up the marriage contract, also take down the
will of the supposed Skinflint, thus making the marriage a condition
of the will.
The rather long Prologue to A WILL AND NO WILL (11 pages of
manuscript) makes fun of the convention of the eighteenth century
prologues by the familiar dodge of having two actors chatting as
though they were in the Pit waiting for the actors in the main play to
dress for the afterpiece. The conversation of the Prologue is
enlivened by the appearance of an Irish lawyer come to see the play
about lawyers. His impossibly long name,
Laughlinbulhuderry-Mackshoughlinbulldowny, contains hints of Macklin's
own name, and this is also one of Macklin's wonderful Irishmen who
never acted except in school where he spoke the Prologue, he says, of
one of Terence's tragedies when the play was over. His
mispronunciations and inaccuracies put him at the head of the list of
stage Irishmen whom Macklin, an Irishman himself, could portray with
delight and authority.
Another feature of the long Prologue to this farce is Macklin's
reference to the failure of his own tragedy _Henry VII_ (1745), for
Snarlewit proclaims that he never had so much fun in his life as at
Macklin's "merry Tragedy." The ability to laugh at his own failure to
construct a tragedy hastily in time to capitalize on the invasion
attempt of 1745, together with his reference to his own name in his
caricature of the Irish lawyer undoubtedly help explain the success of
this farcical afterpiece.
Occasional marks of the Licenser on the manuscript, most notably
opposite Shark's lines about statesmen at the end of Act I, are all
underscored in the typescript of the play.
The second afterpiece here reproduced, THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D, OR THE
PLAGUE OF ENVY (Larpent 64), is an amusing bit of dramatic criticism
of Benjamin Hoadly's _The Suspicious Husband_ which had opened at the
Covent Garden Theatre on February 12, 1747, and was given many times
including performances on March 21, 24 and April 28, 30 of the same
year.[6] Again the title page of the Macklin afterpiece bears the
handwritten request of James Lacy, dated March 17, 1747, for the Lord
Chamberlain's permission to perform the play for Macklin's benefit at
Drury Lane on March 24. Both performances, then, of Macklin's closely
related afterpiece, THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D, were given at Drury Lane
on nights when Hoadly's _The Suspicious Husband_ was also being
performed at the rival theatre, March 24 and April 30, 1747. It was
even possible for a spectator to see Hoadly's play at Covent Garden
and then catch Macklin's related farcical afterpiece at the Drury Lane
Theatre on the same night. Or if that required too difficult a change
of _locus_, it was still possible to see _The Suspicious Husband_ on
March 21 or April 28 and THE SUSPICIOUS HUSBAND CRITICIZ'D (as
Macklin's play is entitled in James T. Kirkman's _Memoirs of the Life
of Charles Macklin, Esq._, II, 443) a few days later on March 24 or
April 30; such was the immediacy of the appeal of Macklin's
afterpiece.
While Macklin was capitalizing on the popularity of a new play, he
also, in THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D, gave ironic portraits of rival
playwrights who damned a play out of envy (note the subtitle, THE
PLAGUE OF ENVY) for such trivial faults as the use of _suspicious_
instead of _jealous_ in the title, or for the lacing of Ranger's hat.
Macklin's satiric portraits of such envious scribblers who were ready
to attack any new author in Journals, Epigrams, and Pamphlets are
lively records of mid-eighteenth century subjective criticism. Canker,
the envious playwright in the afterpiece, calls Ranger "a Harlequin"
and Mr. Strickland, "Columbine's husband." Canker objects to the
escapes, scenes in the dark, and the rope ladder, though the young
lovers, Heartly and Harriet in Macklin's afterpiece, vow the ladder is
a device they themselves will use if Harriet is forced by her aunt to
marry Canker. Again an Irishman, Sir Patrick Bashfull, enlivens the
farce by his pretense of being a Frenchman, Fitzbashfull, "of Irish
distraction." Bashfull's literal criticism of Hoadly's play serves as
a good foil for the carping criticism of the envious playwrights:
Plagiary, Grubwit, and Canker; or the nonsense of the foolish critics:
Nibble and Trifle. The farce ends with Canker completely routed and
Heartly's suggestion that their hour's conversation would make a
_petit piece_ in itself if Lady Critick would only write it down.
The limited appeal of this kind of related, topical afterpiece
probably explains why it was performed only twice, following a
performance of _Hamlet_ on March 24, 1747, for Macklin's benefit, and
following _Julius Caesar_ on April 30, 1747, for the benefit of
Garrick who had appeared as Ranger in the original cast of Hoadly's
play. The separate Prologue to Macklin's afterpiece is addressed to
Mr. Macklin in Bow Street, Covent Garden, and attributed to Hely
Hutcheson, Provost of Trinity College by William Cooke's _Memoirs of
Charles Macklin, Comedian_ (1804), p. 152.
These two afterpieces, A WILL AND NO WILL (1746) and THE NEW PLAY
CRITICIZ'D (1747) along with _Covent Garden Theatre_ (1752), ARS 116,
bring up to date the publication of Charles Macklin's unpublished
work. It is to be hoped that a definitive critical edition of his
writing for the eighteenth-century stage will soon follow.
A word should be added about the editor's changes of these two plays
in the typescript. From the facsimile edition of Macklin's _Covent
Garden Theatre_ (ARS 116) it should already be evident that Macklin's
scribes in these three plays in the Larpent Collection were
inconsistent both in spelling and punctuation. The _Covent Garden
Theatre_ appeared in facsimile in response to requests for an
eighteenth-century facsimile for use in graduate seminars, because of
the clarity of its handwriting. The other two plays are here
reproduced in typescript since the condition of the manuscripts made
facsimile reproduction unfeasible. In the preparation of the
typescript for these remaining two plays, certain problems had of
necessity to be decided arbitrarily. Wherever it was possible, the
manuscript spelling has been preserved. Punctuation and capitals had
to be altered where sentences were run together or new sentences began
with small letters. The number of capital letters was reduced since
these followed no consistent pattern for emphasis and varied between
the scribes of the manuscripts. Nouns were left capitalized to
preserve the eighteenth-century flavor. Proper names have been
corrected to a recognizable form (Ranelagh for Renelagh, Zoilus for
Ziolus, for example); French phrases have been left in the manuscript
spelling for those characters who misuse French, such as Sir Patrick
Bashfull in THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D. The occasional confusions of
characters or speakers have been corrected, with separate notes
explaining each change. All marks of the Licenser are in italics; all
words or letters interpolated by the editor are in brackets; all stage
directions are in parentheses. Applications by the Theatre Manager,
James Lacy, for permission to perform the plays, appear in notes.
Coe College
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] As indicated in the Introduction to _The Covent Garden Theatre, or
Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir_, Number 116, Augustan Reprint Society, the
author is indebted to the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino,
California, both for a Research Fellowship in the summer of 1963 and
for permission to reproduce the three Macklin plays in the Larpent
Collection (Larpent 58, 64 and 96) which had not previously been
printed.
[2] Arthur H. Scouten, _The London Stage_ (Carbondale, Ill., 1961),
Part 3, II, 1235.
[3] James T. Kirkman, _Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq._
(London, 1799), II, 443, lists this subtitle in an appendix of
Macklin's unprinted plays.
[4] George Winchester Stone, _The London Stage_ (Carbondale, Ill.,
1962), Part 4, 1, 38, 40, 41, 43, 47, 48.
[5] Cf. Alexandre Calame, _Regnard sa vie et son oeuvre_ (Paris,
1960), pp. 323-333.
[6] See _The London Stage_, Part 3, II, 1287-90, 1297, 1298, 1308,
1309 for the dates when Hoadly's _The Suspicious Husband_ and
Macklin's THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D were performed close together.
A WILL AND NO WILL:
OR
A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS[1]
PROLOGUE
DRAMATIS PERSONAE for the Prologue
RATTLE
SMART
DULLMAN
IRISHMAN
SNARLEWIT
(_The Curtain rises and discovers the Stage disposed in the Form of a
Pit and crowded with Actors who make a great Noise by Whistling and
Knocking for the Farce to begin_)
_Rattle._ Consume them, why don't they begin?
_Smart._ I suppose some of them that were in the Play are dressing for
the Farce.
_Rattle._ Psha! damn the Farce! They have had time enough to dress
since the Play has been over.
_Smart._ Dick Rattle, were you at the Boxing Match yesterday?
_Rattle._ No, my Dear, I was at the breakfasting at Ranelagh.--Curse
catch me, Jack[2], if that is not a fine Woman in the upper Box there,
ha!
_Smart._ So she is, by all that's charming,--but the poor Creature's
married; it's all over with her.
_Rattle._ Smart, do you go to Newmarket this meeting,--upon my Soul
that's a lovely Woman on the right hand. But what the Devil can this
Prologue be about, I can't imagine. It has puzzled the whole Town.
_Smart._ Depend upon it, Dick, it is as I said.
_Rattle._ What's that?
_Smart._ Why one of the Fransique's, the French Harlequin's Jokes; you
will find that one of the Players come upon the Stage presently, and
make a[n] Apologie that they are disappointed of the Prologue, upon
which Macklin, or some other Actor is to start up in the Pit, as one
of the Audience, and bawl out that rather than so much good Company
should be disappointed, he will speak a Prologue himself.
_Rattle._ No, no, no, Smart. That's not it. I thought of that and have
been looking carefully all over the Pit, and there is not an Actor in
it. Now I fancy it is to be done like the Wall or the Man in the Moon
in Pyramus and Thisbe; Macklin will come in dressed like the Pit and
say:
_Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the Pit
And a Prologue I'll speak if you think fit._
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Smart._ By Gad, Rattle, I fancy you have hit it. What do you think,
Mr. Dullman?
_Omnes._ Ay, let us have Mr. Dullman's Opinion of it.
_Dull._ Why really, Gentlemen, I have been thinking of it ever since I
first read it in the Papers--and I fancy--though to be sure, it was
very difficult to find out--but at last, I think I have hit upon it.
_Smart._ Well, well, my dear Dullman, communicate.
_Dull._ I suppose there is some Person here among us whose name is
Pit, and that he will get up presently and speak a Prologue.
_Omnes._ O, O, O, O, O, Shocking! Shocking! Well conjectured, Dullman.
_Rattle._ Harkee, Jack, [let's] bam the Irishman. Ask him if he knows
anything of it.
_Smart._ Don't you laugh then; he'll smoak us if you do; keep your
Countenance, and I'll engage I'll pitch-kettle him. Pray Sir, do you
know anything of this Prologue?
_Irish._ Who, me? Not upon my Honour. I know no more of it than he
that made it.
_Smart._ A Gentleman was saying just before the Play was over that you
were to be the Pit and to speak the Prologue; is there any truth in
it, Sir?
_Irish._ No indeed, Sir, _it is as false as the Gospel_. I do assure
you, Sir, I never spoke a Pit or Prologue in my Life--but once when I
was at School, you must know, Sir,--we acted one of Terence's
Tragedies there, so when the Play was over I spoke the Prologue to it.
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha! ha!
_Smart._ I remember your Face very well. Pray Sir, don't you belong to
the Law?
_Irish._ Yes, at your Service, Sir--and so did my Father and
Grandfather before me, and all my Posterity. I myself solicit Cause at
the old Bailey and Hick's Hall, so I am come to see this BONE FOR THE
LAWYERS, because they say it is a Pun upon us Gentlemen of the long
Robe.
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Rattle._ He is a poor ridiculous Fellow, Jack (_aside_); he is as
great a Teague as Barrington himself.
_Smart._ Hush! Hush! Pray Sir, may I crave your name?
_Irish._ Yes you may indeed and welcome, Sir. My name is
Laughlinbullruderrymackshoughlinbulldowny, at your Service. And if you
have any Friend who is indicted for Robbery or Murder at any time or
has any other Law Suits upon his Hands at the old Bailey or Hick's
Hall, I should be proud to serve you and to be concerned in the Cause
likewise.
_Smart._ Whenever I have a Friend in such Circumstances, you may
depend upon being retained.
_Irish._ Sir, I'll assure you no megrim. England understands the
Practice of those Courts better than myself. I know my Croaker upon
all the _In res_ and for an Evidence, the Devil a Man in Westminster
Hall can tell an Evidence what to say better than I that shits here;
or hark you, if you should happen to want a Witness upon Occasion, I
believe, Sir, I could serve you.
_Smart._ I am infinitely obliged to you. (_Bowing_)
_Irish._ Sir, I am your most obsequious. (_Bowing_)
_Rattle._ But pray Sir, what kind of Prologue do you think we shall
have tonight?
_Irish._ Why I believe it will be a kind of Prologue that will be
spoken by the Pit.
_Rattle._ Ay, that we suppose but in what Manner?
_Irish._ Why I am come here on purpose to know that, but I suppose it
will be in the manner of--a--a--by my Shoul I don't know how it will
be.
_Smart._ Upon my word, Sir, I think you give a very clear Account of
it.
_Rattle._ Jack, yonder's Snarlewit, the Poet and intimate Friend of
Macklin's; you are acquainted with him. Prithee call him; ten to one
but he can give us the History both of the Prologue and the Farce.
_Smart._ Hiss, Mr. Snarlewit, we have Room for you here, if you will
come and set by us; do you know Snarlewit, Dick?
_Rattle._ He is a devilish odd Fellow; he is one that never speaks
well of any Man behind his back nor ill of him to his Face and is a
most terrible Critick.
(SNARLEWIT _steps over the Benches and sits down between_ RATTLE _and_
SMART)
_Snarle._ Mr. Smart, your Servant. How do you do, Mr. Rattle? What,
you are come to hear the Pit speak the Prologue, I suppose. Ha!
Macklin's fine Conceit.
_Smart._ Ay, we are so; do you know anything of it?
_Snarle._ Psha! psha! a parcel of Stuff! a ridiculous Conceit of the
Blockhead's in imitation of a French writer who stole it from one of
the Greek Comic Poets.
_Smart._ But in what manner is it to be done? Is it in Prose or in
Verse, or upon the Stage, or really in the Pit?
_Snarle._ Lord, Sir, the Blockhead brings the Pit upon the Stage; and
the supposed Conversation there between the Play and the Farce is to
be the Prologue,--a French Conceit calculated merely to raise
Curiosity and fill the House, that's all.
_Smart._ Ay, and enough too, if it answers his purpose.
_Irish._ But pray, Sir, with humble Submission, if he brings the Pit
up on the Stage, how shall we be able to see the Farce unless we go up
into the Gallery?
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Rattle._ Very well observed, Sir.
_Snarle._ Why this Fellow's an Idiot.
_Smart._ No, no, he is only a Teague. But Mr. Snarlewit, do you think
this Prologue will be liked?
_Snarle._ Psha! psha! liked, impossible! So it is for his Wife's
Benefit and meant as a Puff to fill her House, why perhaps the Town
may be so indulgent as to let it pass--but it is damned Trash! I
advised the Fool against it. But he persisted. He said he was sure it
would be better liked than the modern dull way of Prologue Writing
which for many years has been only to give the Audience an Historical
Account of the Comic Stoick or the Tragic Buskin, or a dull detail of
the piece they were to see with the Age and Circumstances of the
Author, and how long he was writing his Play. Now, says Macklin, my
Prologue, Sir, if it has nothing else, it has Novelty on its side; and
as Bays says it will elevate and surprize and all that. And if they
don't laugh at it as a good Prologue, I am sure, says he, they will
laugh at me for its being a bad one--so that either way they will have
their Joke.
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Smart._ Ay, ay, there I think he was right; for the Audience will
laugh, I make no doubt of it, but it will be at him.
_Omnes._ Right! Right!
_Snarle._ So I told him but he would persist.
_Smart._ But Mr. Snarlewit, how will he answer to the Critics his
making the Stage represent the Pit?
_Snarle._ Psha! psha! he is below Criticism; they will never trouble
themselves about that. Besides I think he may be defended very justly
in that, for if the Stage has a Right to represent Palaces and
Countries, nay, and Heaven and Hell, surely it may be allowed to
exhibit the Pit.
_Smart._ Do you know anything of the Farce?
_Snarle._ Yes, I have read it.
_Smart._ It is a very odd Title, a Bone for the Lawyers; who is the
Author, pray? Is it known?
_Snarle._ Why Macklin gives out that some Gentleman, a Friend of his,
has made him a Present of it, but I shrewdly suspect it to be his own.
_Rattle._ Whose! Macklin's?
_Snarle._ Ay!
_Rattle._ Why, can he write?
_Snarle._ Write? Ay, and damnably too, I assure you, ha! ha! He writ a
Tragedy this Winter, but so merry a Tragedy was never seen since the
first night of Tom Thumb the Great.
_Smart._ I was at it and a merry Tragedy it was and a merry Audience!
_Snarle._ I never laughed so heartily at a Play in my Life; if his
Farce has half so much Fun in it as his Tragedy had, I'll engage it
succeeds.
_Smart._ Come, come. There was some tolerable Things in his Tragedy.
_Snarle._ Psha! psha! Stuff! Stuff! damned Stuff! Pray Sir, what do
you think of Lady Catherine Gordon's Letter to her Father, Lord
Huntley, that begun honoured Papa, hoping you are in good Health as I
am at this present Writing. There was a Stile for Tragedy!
_Omnes._ Ha! ha! ha!
_Smart._ Well, I wish his Farce may succeed, however.
_Snarle._ O so do I upon my word, Sir.--I have a great Regard for
Macklin--but to be sure he is a very egregious Blockhead ever to think
of writing; that I believe everybody will allow.
_Omnes._ Ay, ay, there's nobody will dispute that with you, Mr.
Snarlewit.
_Snarle._ Notwithstanding he is such a Blockhead, I assure you, Mr.
Smart, I have an Esteem for him.
_Smart._ Do you know what Characters or Business he has in his Farce?
_Snarle._ I think his chief Character is an old Fellow, one Sir Isaac
Skinflint, who is eaten up with Diseases, and who promises everybody
Legacies, but dreads making a Will, for the Instant he does that he
thinks he shall die.
_Rattle._ That's a very common Character; my Uncle was just such a
superstitious Wretch.
_Snarle._ And the Business of the Farce is to induce this old Fellow
to disinherit all his Relations, except a Nephew who wants to be his
sole Heir, which according to the Rules of Farce, you may suppose it
to be brought about by a Footman who upon these Occasions always has
more Wit than his Master.
_Smart._ But when is the Prologue to begin?
_Snarle._ Why as soon as the Curtain is drawn up you will see the
Stage disposed in the Form of a Pit, and that you are to imagine the
Prologue, and when they let the Curtain down, why then you must
suppose it to be ended.
_Smart._ I wonder what the Audience will say when it is over.
_Snarle._ What? Why some will stare and wonder what the Actors have
been about, and will still be expecting the Prologue; others will
chuckle at their Disappointment, and cry--they knew how it would be;
and some will judiciously observe--what better could be expected from
a Prologue to be written and spoken by the Pit. But upon the whole, I
dare say, ninety nine in a hundred will conclude it to be a parcell of
low Stuff--and that its only Merit was the quaintness of the Conceit
[which] raised the People's Curiosity and helped to fill the House;
and so ends the Prologue--and now let us make a Noise for the Farce.
(_The Curtain is let down_)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
for
A WILL AND NO WILL:
OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS
SIR ISAAC SKINFLINT
LADY LOVEWEALTH
BELLAIR
HARRIET
DOCTOR LEATHERHEAD
LUCY
COUNCELLOUR CORMORANT
MR. LITTLEWIT
MONSIEUR DU MAIGRE
MR. DEATH
SHARK
SERVANT